(edited by ukuni.8745)
About Rifle buffs
Engineer
We’ve been making some gradual changes to pistol and rifle, hoping to bring them a bit more in line with hammer. As for Jump Shot, it’s difficult to land both the first and second attacks consistently unless you’re cleaving a downed player. To address this, we’ve moved some of the initial damage to the end of the attack, making it easier to spike. The total damage done by the skill will be the same.
Blunderbuss: The damage of this ability has been increased by 10% at all range thresholds in PvP only.
Jump Shot: The damage of the initial jump has been reduced by 56%. The damage of the landing has been increased by 28%
YEY SOME CARE FOR RIFLE ENGI! but still not enough, i hope that they will put more changes in when they finally release the full information on the balance. The hope is rifle engi will get even more buffs!
I’d say switch skill slots for Blunderbuss and Net Shot and lower Blunderbuss’ recharge to 8 seconds. Also make Overcharge shot unblockable or ignore reflect with a backward roll/jump instead of knocking yourself back. A hero of Tyria and still being knocked down by your own skill. The little evade could be extra.
I’d say switch skill slots for Blunderbuss and Net Shot and lower Blunderbuss’ recharge to 8 seconds. Also make Overcharge shot unblockable or ignore reflect with a backward roll/jump instead of knocking yourself back. A hero of Tyria and still being knocked down by your own skill. The little evade could be extra.
Net shot imob needs to last a little longer and overcharge shot def needs an evade/unblockable. AA needs to be a little faster because the cast time has the bullet come out at the very end instead of beginning like the warrior or ranger arrows, or thief pistols.
YEY SOME CARE FOR RIFLE ENGI!
Care? What care?
It’s yet another nerf for the glory of purity of purpose.
I dont know about anyone else, but landing the attack at the end of a rifle jump is kitten near impossible in a real combat situation, either sPvP or WvW. The few times I use the rifle (the very very very few times) its similar to how a Warrior use the greatsword swirl. The point blank attack is the damage dealer, the landing is pure luck and mostly for evasion. Ever seen a Warrior pop whirlwind attack for the explicit purpose of hitting that target at 450 range? Yeah. Right.
This is just a plain nerf. The boost in damage is irrelevant.
I don’t see the point of these changes. More damage outside the AA is not what the rifle needs to compete with the Hammer. Utility that you CAN use, and the ability of actually HIT the target is what is lacking…
“Only problem with the Engineer is
that it makes every other class in the game boring to play.”
Hawks
that it makes every other class in the game boring to play.”
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i personally land jump shot all the time and im in Australia with that perma 200+ ping.
also with an unblockable on overcharged shot and evade would be amazing, just think hey thats a nice reflect wall it would be a shame if someone knocked you out of it.
Good thing that the Blunderbuss change is PvP only. Oh boy that would have really broken PvE and WvW. Great splitting!
also with an unblockable on overcharged shot and evade would be amazing, just think hey thats a nice reflect wall it would be a shame if someone knocked you out of it.
Unblockable Overcharged Shot would be too good. It needs some counterplay. it’s an instant knockdown. People need to expect that their defenses will work. If I pop Gear Shield (RIP. 2s nerf..), I want it to block things. I get sad about the direction the game is going when I’m running from a zerg and I’m close to safety and use the only defense skill I have on my build… aaaaand then a DH just uses spear of justice right through it – too fast to dodge, unblockable and perfect cc. Same thing with Basilisk Venom.
Those things aren’t fair at all. If they made Overcharged Shot unblockable, it’d just be more of the same power creep. As much as I want it to be, it shouldn’t be unblockable and neither should basi venom and spear. There needs to be counterplay.
>As for Jump Shot, it’s difficult to land both the first and second attacks consistently unless you’re cleaving a downed player.
>Jump Shot: The damage of the initial jump has been reduced by 56%. The damage of the landing has been increased by 28%
I’ve played rifle engi for the better part of 3 years and honestly I don’t hit much of anything with the second hit unless it’s cced or downed. I kinda feel like this is a nerf when I’m fighting say, thieves or warriors that can stun break and cleanse immob so easily..
This is just a plain nerf. The boost in damage is irrelevant.
What boost? They literally just moved damage from one part of the skill to the other.
elite specs ruined pvp.
(edited by Renny.6571)
also with an unblockable on overcharged shot and evade would be amazing, just think hey thats a nice reflect wall it would be a shame if someone knocked you out of it.
Unblockable Overcharged Shot would be too good. It needs some counterplay. it’s an instant knockdown. People need to expect that their defenses will work. If I pop Gear Shield (RIP. 2s nerf..), I want it to block things. I get sad about the direction the game is going when I’m running from a zerg and I’m close to safety and use the only defense skill I have on my build… aaaaand then a DH just uses spear of justice right through it – too fast to dodge, unblockable and perfect cc. Same thing with Basilisk Venom.
Those things aren’t fair at all. If they made Overcharged Shot unblockable, it’d just be more of the same power creep. As much as I want it to be, it shouldn’t be unblockable and neither should basi venom and spear. There needs to be counterplay.
Hmm…you have a point. Since it does remove movement impairing effects and if you’re good at positioning you can put yourself in a better advantage whether you land it or not and also the easy access to stability provided by traits and utilities. If it wasn’t a knock back but possibly a dodge roll with like 1/2 of a second evasion, it could bring back Rifle. A little more defensive tools for using rifle would be nice since you have to jump in to get some juicy damage off.
With only 2 classes that can use Rifle and only 1 class (Warrior) can actually use it effectively…in some situations more than effectively. Maybe increase the velocity of AA or give Blunderbuss vulnerability instead of bleeding, closer they use the more stacks etc.
Yeah, that’s what I’d do. Baseline Skilled Marksman attack speed. Then change the self-knockback to a backward evade/dodge.
It really really sucks to Overcharged Shot a Druid, have the CC canceled by Shared Anguish, then have the druid turn around and shoot you triggering Ancient Seeds because you’re cc’d from your own attack.
It also really sucks to Overcharged Shot a Zerker, have the CC canceled by Last Stand, then have the Zerker charge/rush/murder you while you’re knocked back from your own attack.
It also really sucks to Overcharged Shot a DragonHunter, have the CC canceled by Hunter’s Determination, then have the DH drop all the traps on you while you’re knocked back from your own attack.
It also really sucks to Overcharged Shot a …
see where I’m going with this ANET?
idk are they trying to develop a core engi assassin kind of role or something
the buffs are kinda ok but it feels like QoL and not something significant enough to make me wanna change anything up
JQ: Rikkity
head here to discuss wvw without fear of infractions
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These changes are useless and will do nothing to increase the viability of rifle in PvP. Overcharged Shot still CC:s yourself (and is prone to getting reflected) and Jump Shot can still be interrupted mid-air; until those two see some changes rifle will remain far below hammer.
Nah, flat unblockable OS would be bad.
But they could add a “within the next 6sec all your attacks are unblockable” to some underused utility, like eg. utility googles .
JumpShot will still be only used to cleave downed and reposition . It goes off to slow and you can easily be CCed , but not sure if an evade would be too good ?
Perhaps add some additional effects to rifle if you trait for Skilled Marksman, that way ppl would also go for other traitlines .
Rifle would be ok if there were an alternate source for defense, but they just nerfed that….
(Toolkit shield)
Problem is, any defense they give to engi skills is also given to builds with Hammer, so they get all the defense from Hammer (which is a lot compared to rifle) and they also get the defense from utilities.
Then they nerf the utilities to try and balance Hammer builds, and pistol/rifle builds suffer even more. Eg. Healing Turret cast time increase, Gear Shield block duration decrease.
I see two ways of fixing this: Nerf HoT power creep hard. This would be really unpopular, but HoT skills/weapons/traits just do too many things too well compared to vanilla. The elite specs are strict upgrades to base classes. They swore up and down that this wouldn’t be the case before they launched HoT, but .. here we are. Alternatively, buff Rifle/Pistol to have similar defensive capabilities, like evades on Jump Shot and Overcharged Shot.
(edited by coro.3176)
Good thing that the Blunderbuss change is PvP only. Oh boy that would have really broken PvE and WvW. Great splitting!
10 % dmg increase for small range skill!?!
You must be kidding. Rifle engineers are rare as hen’s teeth in WvWvW.
This entire “balance” patch is a BAD joke when it comes to rifle. People choose hammer over rifle, because of the utility it gives. You can reflect and black and do good damage at same time with hammer. Hammer has 1200 range AoE stun, blast finisher, lighting field etc.
If Arenanet would have wanted to buff rifle, they would have been adding functionality to rifle:
- make blunderbuss (rifle #3) a blast finisher
- add evade frame to jump shot (rifle #5) and make the animation tiny bit faster to make it a viable movement skill (now immobilize in air really ruins it)
I would leave overcharged shot (rifle #4) as it is. High risk and high reward. And yes, I would shave off hammer a bit, it has too many goodies going on at same time.
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I had enjoyed the melee/mid-ranged style of the rifle before I quit back when ascended gear was about to make its way into the game. The mid-ranged appeal was so that melee couldn’t hit you as much while you could hit them. Avoiding melee attacks while still being able to attack as a close ranged player was the appeal.
When I rejoined sometime after HoT released, hammers took all of that appeal and then some. They can block melee attacks while attacking and reflect ranged attacks with their weapon. It can be used to avoid crowd control and protect allies when they need it the most. It is a really fun weapon to play with in any role of play style.
The rifle for the engineer has no place anymore. It isn’t that the hammer is too powerful, although it is rather powerful. The issue is that the job of the rifle is the same as that of the hammer and flamethrower. If one is more powerful than the others then the others are not worth using. It is time to come up with a new concept for the rifle. Let the flamethrower be what the rifle is trying to be, a mid-ranged weapon. Make the rifle into something that the engineer doesn’t already have.
I’ll come up with something off the top of my head. How about a long ranged rifle that automatically changes the behavior of its spells into that of a cleaving shotgun while their target enters melee range? For example, Overcharged Shot could knock back targets in a line while their target is at a long range, but while their target is in melee it could fire Overcharged Shot in a short ranged cone in front of the engineer. I can’t recall any other weapon that behaves like this in the game yet. I don’t believe that it would overlap with any other weapons that the engineer already has. The versatility of the weapons range would allow for it to exist in WvW, even if it lacked defensive cooldowns and group support. This would also remove the need of the Blunderbuss ability and allow for the GW2 team to come up with a new ability that could help make the weapon do whatever they feel that it needs to do.
(edited by Quench.7091)
Something I find very amusing about Engi rifle is that the trait is called “Skilled Marksman” but none of the weapon skills are about aim/precision/technique. Same with the bonus (10% faster speed is spray and pray, not skill).
Why not instead make the trait do this: “Rifle/Harpoon Gun attacks against immobolized opponents are unblockable.” Maybe then the engineer will be skilled enough the be a marksman by exploiting weak points. Utility synergies include Net Turret, Glue Bomb, and the Elixir Gun Streamlined Kits ability (durations could be buffed though on glue bomb cause it’s waaaaay too short to use a lot of skills against).
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