Guild Wars 2

Terrahero.9358:

Grenade 1 with random low level green rifle 216 damage
Grenade 1 with Predator 232 damage

It seems kits do know the difference between Ascended and non-Ascended. Anything that isnt Ascended prompts the kits their default stats, which is set at Exotic level. Anything that is Ascended/Legendary prompts a higher stat.

Is this accounting for stat bonuses which may increase Power?

I ask because I’ve seen a conflicting report in another thread, saying that Kits haven’t been updated, based on Attack Power display in the Hero Panel.

So i just tested it.
I set my quip to zerker and put an exotic zerker in my off hand and it looked like this.
with quip = 2585 (taking into account my gear ofc)
in nades = 2548
deductions = 37
now i remove quip, keep the zeker exotic in my off hand, no changes to my gear then equip a zerker exotic pistol in my main hand.
with the exotic pistol = 2556
in nades = 2544
deductions = 12
nades (quip) – nades (zerk exotic) = 4
4 equals the increase in power from having an ascended weapon equiped over an exotic. (this is applied while in kit)
This implies that kit base strength has not been increased.
furthermore as shown above there is a base str differential of 25 over an exotic weapon and a 33 (deducting the plus 4) point differential while in kit.

i do not know what the stats were before (kit versis exotic) so if anyone can post it here it would be much appreciated.

Anymras.5729:

Terrahero.9358:

Grenade 1 with random low level green rifle 216 damage
Grenade 1 with Predator 232 damage

It seems kits do know the difference between Ascended and non-Ascended. Anything that isnt Ascended prompts the kits their default stats, which is set at Exotic level. Anything that is Ascended/Legendary prompts a higher stat.

Is this accounting for stat bonuses which may increase Power?

I ask because I’ve seen a conflicting report in another thread, saying that Kits haven’t been updated, based on Attack Power display in the Hero Panel.

This is an excellent point i completely forgot to take this into consideration.

I redid the comparison.

1) A white lv16 Rifle with 15power.
2) Predator with a stat combo that has NO power.

1# Grenade 1 = 210damage
2# Grenade 1 = 209damage

It seems that the white lv16 Rifle with 15power makes my kits hit harder then my lv80 Legendary rifle with no power.

This is the tooltip information, i havent actually used grenades extensively to test if the tooltips might be incorrect in this regard.

Yeah, thought the difference seemed a trifle minute.

As tooltips haven’t had too much trouble with basic attack power calculations, I’m…actually not sure of the likelihood of it being wrong. If you want to test it, of course, Lion’s Arch has dummies.

the way i see it ANET has 3 options when it comes to kits. All of them have a downside.

This is also assuming ascended weapons will get a damage buff (i think they will, old legendary had increased damage)

Option 1: Kits get buffed automatically when new weapons get released, removing the need for us to get new weapons & giving Engineers an overall free buff (my favored choice lol)

Option 2: Kits stay the same, Nerfing Engineer’s top end because other classes will have an edge in weapon damage. (my least favored)

Option 3: Kits are now based on weapon damage, forcing power/crit builds to use rifle (yes weapon damage is better then 2x sigil)

Overall Its a hard choice for them to make, Im predicting that kits will stay the same as they are now and get fixed in a later patch when ascended weapons are the norm.

Just my 2c

Oh and by the way atm its been confirmed that kits have a base damage not effected by your weapons

This was not a promising patch for Engineers. Not only have none of the rather serious bugs been fixed. Not only is there no Giver’s ascended weapon (prec/vit/cond. duration), but my kits will most likely not scale with having an ascended weapon either.

So, whats the point for me to even bother with this? Dont get me wrong, its kinda liberating in a way knowing that i dont have to partake in this geargrind. Untill you realize this means my performance is just going to fall behind.

They’ll never change anything so don’t get your hopes up. On the bright side, we won’t need to grind stupid ascended weapons. On the down side, everyone else will slowly get more powerful and we’ll stay the same. That’ll be a while though. My mesmer alone needs like 5 or 6 weapons. :/

Terrahero.9358:

This was not a promising patch for Engineers. Not only have none of the rather serious bugs been fixed. Not only is there no Giver’s ascended weapon (prec/vit/cond. duration), but my kits will most likely not scale with having an ascended weapon either.

So, whats the point for me to even bother with this? Dont get me wrong, its kinda liberating in a way knowing that i dont have to partake in this geargrind. Untill you realize this means my performance is just going to fall behind.

The good news is that if you are a condition user the impact will actually be felt much less since you are not relying on the direct damage from a weapon or a kit in favor of a pure stat calculation that is not affected by armor value. Obviously ascended does have slightly higher stat values but those individual stats have a much less defined impact than weapon or kit strength does in a power build. So I would say for a condi based pvp engi there is really very little to worry about in terms of being grossly out performed, but need someone who is good with the math to confirm this “gut feeling”.

Well you are still loosing out on condition damage stats. Pistols dont scale terribly well for direct damage sure.

It also kinda makes this whole “big update” kinda moot for a lot of people. I’d be working on getting pistols that dont have the stats i want or need. And that dont actually scale the damage on my kits, outside of stats.

A lot of time and effort for the smallest possible upgrade. Why bother? Kinda dull.

Terrahero.9358:

Well you are still loosing out on condition damage stats. Pistols dont scale terribly well for direct damage sure.

It also kinda makes this whole “big update” kinda moot for a lot of people. I’d be working on getting pistols that dont have the stats i want or need. And that dont actually scale the damage on my kits, outside of stats.

A lot of time and effort for the smallest possible upgrade. Why bother? Kinda dull.

Condition damage builds in general were “nerfed” this patch due to direct damage becoming significantly stronger. That may have been needed for WvW balancing or it may have been an oversight, not sure.

Weapon strength of kits obviously was increased to 1017 which is +5% up from the old value 969. This is according to the + 5% weapon strength from exotics to ascended.

So we received a free “ascended-buff” for our kits which I consider ok as the weapon strength is still below pistol´s.

Funny thing: this is the same in the mist´s spvp-lobby.

These are good results for engis, except the spvp-part (assuming Anet continues balancing based on spvp).

digitalruse.9085:

From latest patch notes:

“Fixed an unintended damage increase that caused engineer kits, elementalist conjures, and warrior banners to deal more damage than intended.”

Awesome.

oh a Nerf, haven’t seen one of these in a while.

Holesale.2640:

digitalruse.9085:

From latest patch notes:

“Fixed an unintended damage increase that caused engineer kits, elementalist conjures, and warrior banners to deal more damage than intended.”

Awesome.

oh a Nerf, haven’t seen one of these in a while.

Not really a nerf if it is a fix for something that isn’t supposed to be. That being said, I assume it’s in relation to this patch and not the kit strength we have all come to know for the last however many months.

Actually before ascended weapons came out, ArenaNet stated that after their release, engineer kit damage would get increased to ascended levels. And it did when the patch released, but for some reason they just dropped it back down to exotic. What the hell? This means NO ENGINEER WHO USES KITS is allowed to gain ascended weapon damage.

Terrahero.9358:

Well you are still loosing out on condition damage stats. Pistols dont scale terribly well for direct damage sure.

It also kinda makes this whole “big update” kinda moot for a lot of people. I’d be working on getting pistols that dont have the stats i want or need. And that dont actually scale the damage on my kits, outside of stats.

A lot of time and effort for the smallest possible upgrade. Why bother? Kinda dull.

If someone uses 1h weapons the difference between exotic and ascended is 8 condition damage (at least according to gw2builder, I don’t have a legendary and couldn’t find another source listing the difference). So yeah, I guess that is the point I was trying to make, is it is relatively good news in my opinion to not have to worry about grinding out these weapons for certain wvw related specs. How far behind the curve engi becomes in power specs really remains to be seen in regards to how Anet eventually handles adjusting kit strength.

Tulki.1458:

Actually before ascended weapons came out, ArenaNet stated that after their release, engineer kit damage would get increased to ascended levels. And it did when the patch released, but for some reason they just dropped it back down to exotic. What the hell? This means NO ENGINEER WHO USES KITS is allowed to gain ascended weapon damage.

Not saying they didn’t say this, but perhaps you could point to the source and give a bit more supporting information like actual numbers to verify the changes and troubleshoot what is going on. What I mean is are you certain that the kit strength scaling was actually correct before this most recent fix and it has not simply been brought back down to where it should be. I don’t want to come across as skeptical but without more actual information it is hard to tell what is going on.

ShadowPuppet.3746:

Tulki.1458:

Actually before ascended weapons came out, ArenaNet stated that after their release, engineer kit damage would get increased to ascended levels. And it did when the patch released, but for some reason they just dropped it back down to exotic. What the hell? This means NO ENGINEER WHO USES KITS is allowed to gain ascended weapon damage.

Not saying they didn’t say this, but perhaps you could point to the source and give a bit more supporting information like actual numbers to verify the changes and troubleshoot what is going on. What I mean is are you certain that the kit strength scaling was actually correct before this most recent fix and it has not simply been brought back down to where it should be. I don’t want to come across as skeptical but without more actual information it is hard to tell what is going on.

Fair enough, I suppose.

The only proof we really have is that at the time that they said “weapon kits will remain at exotic strength until ascended weapons come out”, we can assume the kits had exotic stats.

Now, before the patch dropped I took a screenshot of my character wearing a grenade kit in a level 80 zone with no buffs because I had a feeling they were going to forget to buff kits to compete with ascended weapons. The shot is attached. In it you can see the grenade kit’s weapon power by subtracting my power from the “total attack” stat. It is 969.

After the patch dropped, I checked under exactly the same circumstances again, and the grenade kit’s weapon power was increased by 5%, which is exactly the same difference between exotic weapon power and ascended weapon power. After the hotfix, the weapon power is back down to where it was in that screenshot (i.e. exotic).

I hope they do something here. I run a Rifle/SD build mostly where I’m not sitting in a Kit for long but I love this class for all it’s Kits and build options. If they don’t increase Kits or have them scale with equipped weapons then that puts us in a bad spot. If your ‘second weapon’ is a kit that can’t scale up that means we realistically have only one weapon set option. C’mon Anet…

I go back to my prediction, it will get a hotfix before too long.

Im willing to bet the original 5% buff was an oversight as kits used the current BiS as a measure for there damage. This will more than likely be updated as Ascended weapons become the norm.

Just think at one point our kits were based off rare damage. For now its a minor nerf.

Honestly the only thing im upset about with this patch is as far as i can tell the new weapons have no particle effects