Guild Wars 2

Powerbruce.6710:

yes but it’s a trait based on %, and you can use a over 50 greandes in the time you throw a single mine. same problem but with ratio 1:3 for bombs

Umm, no, just no. the ratio is 15 :11 for grenades to bombs. bomb 1, 2,, and 3 all have one explosion. Smoke bomb and Glue bomb both have their initial explosion plus three pulses. Each pulse has the opportunity to crit.

Keen.9253:

Buffing pistol and rifle will not be buffing already strong nade/bombs builds. Theses builds are strong because they are using grenades/bombs, and then when you are using it, your are not using your gun. kits are like are weapons swap.

Something is weird in your logic, I disagree strongly. Your not making a lot of sense to sit here and say buffing MH pistol would not be a buff to bomb build.

“Barkeep, I will have what he is drinking please.”

How would having a ranged weapon like main hand pistol improved, not buff my bomb build? Pistol is my ranged weapon, bomb is my melee. You will have a tough time justifying an argument against fixing up the MH Pistol. Especially when you take the illogical approach of stating that it will not positively effect builds.

So umm, Jon. You still haven’t told us what the core of the engineer is.

Can you also tell me how I am supposed to defend myself? All the other classes have their mechanics, thieves have stealth, mesmers clones, necromancers death shroud and rangers their pets. Warriors have a crazy health pool, with banners and guardians crazy defense from boons and healing. I don’t really know what eles have, neither do I know what defense mechanic engineers have. The tool belt? Now with the vigor nerf, we’re even more forced to either take elixir s, elixir r, shield or TK. Don’t you think we need a buff when we need to abuse HGH to get similar attack damage to other classes, except we have to give up a lot of our defense.

You talk about balance, but so far the engineer has only received nerfs. The IP nerf is not understandable for me at all. Were we overpowered because of this? It seems like you know nothing about the engineer at all. Have you even played with an engineer?

Overall I feel that the engineer is underpowered. I feel like I am outclassed by every profession out there. I feel like I have to work three times as hard for half the reward.

But don’t worry, the engineer players will still own. You can nerf us all you want. We have done it so far, even after all the nerfs, and we will keep doing it. On the more positive side, I guess we engineers can see we finally got our hammer. Too bad it’s a nerfhammer.

@people saying the vigor isn’t a nerf
Learn basic maths. At this moment, we can get vigor with a 100% chance on demand when swapping. With the crit trait, you need to crit. To get it, with 100% chance as before, you need 100% crit chance and you need to be attacking an enemy. We also only have 50% chance to get it on crit. Which means the chance to get vigor = chance of attacking * chance of crit * 0.50

So if your chance to crit = 10% you need to calculate 0.5*0,1 = 0.05 = 5%
You then have to multiply that with the probability of you attacking, since you aren’t always attacking, which means at best you have a 5% chance to get vigor with 10% crit chance. With 100% crit chance, you, at best have a 50% chance to get vigor. Most of us probably have between 4% and 50%, so you have even less chance than that.

That is a pretty big post to cry about a buff to swiftness and to complain that it hurts your feelings that crit chance gives you unlimited access to vigor.

Cool so the build i just spent days if not weeks trying to get a grip on/farm all the equipment needed is getting a big nerf with no compensation….awsome.
So HGH p/p is pretty much going to be sub par at best after this…

You cant balance ONE CLASS like it exists by itself, you have to take into account other classes filling the same role that an engineer could potentially fill.
What exactly do we bring to the table that another class CANT do better than us hmm?
Because i cant think of anything really.
You said you cant buff our other options so that balance is maintained BUT when our overall power is lower compared to most classes then yes you very well CAN buff up our underused abilities to competent levels.

cdimgcc.1638:

The IP nerf is not understandable for me at all.

Just going to re-quote myself.

Phineas Poe.3018:

Look at Incendiary Powder though. You may say that it moving up the tree is a nerf, but I think a lot of FT users are failing to understand that “making” you take another 10 points into Explosives gives you 100 additional Power and 10% additional Condition Duration. There’s absolutely nothing stopping you from taking it either. Juggernaut is a Master tier trait. Deadly Mixture is a Master tier trait. You have the points to take it, so who exactly is hurting from this?

• Grenade Kit Engis seem pretty much obsessed with Shrapnel at this point. I’ve already had that discussion with them, and I was laughed out of the thread when I tried to argue that IP is superior. Now it gets “nerfed” and everyone complains? Makes no sense to me. Where were these people back then?

• Bomb Kit Engis take Forceful Explosives. Even after the buff, it’s still the ideal trait to take. You still have room for IP as your Master trait, and then you choose (the nerve!) between Short Fuse and Explosive Powder. But the funny thing is that this choice is almost always obvious.

• Here’s why: As a bomber you don’t even need Short Fuse in PvE because taking the time to drop anything other than your auto-attack or Fire Bomb is actually a DPS loss outside of stacking Vulnerability. And you don’t really need Explosive Powder in sPvP/WvW because Engis don’t even take the Bomb Kit for Power builds. They take it for Fire/Smoke/Concussion Bomb.

So if FT users have room to take it, and if GK/BK Engis have the wiggle room of 30 Explosives to take it, then what is everyone crying about? You don’t need Speedy Kits to get permanent Vigor, and you don’t even need it any more (a la Power Shoes) to get around quickly on the map.

About Energized Armor and Blood Injection. Increased conversion from 5% to 7%.
To be honest, I am really curious about what make you guys decide to add extra 2%. I really still don’t see any point in investing in this kind of trait at all. In addition, this kind of change to me is like a filler only to make the list look better/longer.

Explosives IX – Accelerant packed turrets: I suggest redesign the trait to something else.
Even when playing with turret build, I would not go for this trait. This is one of the most questioned trait in my mind. With turret skills’s extremely LONG cool down. I would want my turret to stay alive as much as possible. Although the trait has nice knock back effect, still, doesn’t make sense with the super long cool down of turret skills.

Turrets: * of course, turrets needs the most adjustments.
The cost about the skills are far more than the benefits it can bring.
1. Super long cool down (maybe not rifle turret), brings down utility’s effeciency
2. Super squishy
3. Super weak raw damage

Tken.1986:

About Energized Armor and Blood Injection. Increased conversion from 5% to 7%.

To be honest, I am really curious about what make you guys decide to add extra 2%. I really still don’t see any point in investing in this kind of trait at all. In addition, this kind of change to me is like a filler only to make the list look better/longer.

Agreed. I would like to know what they think of traits like these. It’s not a bad idea, not boring like a flat damage increase or something.

I would prefer it be something like 10-15%, but where it’s an actual tradeoff and not just a bonus. 15% of vitality is converted to condition damage. That would provide some meaningful build decisions IMO. Especially because you’re converting out of the vitality you get by default in the Alchemy line. What if someone wants condition damage from that line instead? This would be a meaningful choice, taking away from what the line gives you by default. Currently like you say it’s not very meaningful.

coglin.1867:

Powerbruce.6710:

yes but it’s a trait based on %, and you can use a over 50 greandes in the time you throw a single mine. same problem but with ratio 1:3 for bombs

Umm, no, just no. the ratio is 15 :11 for grenades to bombs. bomb 1, 2,, and 3 all have one explosion. Smoke bomb and Glue bomb both have their initial explosion plus three pulses. Each pulse has the opportunity to crit.

.

Smoke Bomb and Glue Bomb do no damage read the tooltip!

Haralin.1473:

coglin.1867:

Powerbruce.6710:

yes but it’s a trait based on %, and you can use a over 50 greandes in the time you throw a single mine. same problem but with ratio 1:3 for bombs

Umm, no, just no. the ratio is 15 :11 for grenades to bombs. bomb 1, 2,, and 3 all have one explosion. Smoke bomb and Glue bomb both have their initial explosion plus three pulses. Each pulse has the opportunity to crit.

.

Smoke Bomb and Glue Bomb do no damage read the tooltip!

They still pulse, and as such those pulses apply relevant conditions. Conditions like bleeds from Shrapnel, or vulnerability from Steel Packed Powder.

I believe the pulses can also “crit” even though they’re not doing damage, applying relevant conditions from those types of traits as well which is what he was referring to.

Adamantium.3682:

Haralin.1473:

coglin.1867:

Powerbruce.6710:

yes but it’s a trait based on %, and you can use a over 50 greandes in the time you throw a single mine. same problem but with ratio 1:3 for bombs

Umm, no, just no. the ratio is 15 :11 for grenades to bombs. bomb 1, 2,, and 3 all have one explosion. Smoke bomb and Glue bomb both have their initial explosion plus three pulses. Each pulse has the opportunity to crit.

.

Smoke Bomb and Glue Bomb do no damage read the tooltip!

They still pulse, and as such those pulses apply relevant conditions. Conditions like bleeds from Shrapnel, or vulnerability from Steel Packed Powder.

I believe the pulses can also “crit” even though they’re not doing damage, applying relevant conditions from those types of traits as well which is what he was referring to.

Actually you are both partly wrong. Smoke Bomb (3 pulses) and Fire Bomb (4 pulses) (can) trigger Shrapnel and Steel Packed Powder on every pulse. Glue Bomb also used to, but it has been changed in a previous patch, so only the first pulse that roots triggers.

The ratio is still much in favor of grenades, as the pulsing bombs have a cooldown. To get the real ratio you need to break it down to explosions / time. In order to simplify calculations let’s use the least common multiple of all cooldowns for the fight duration (120 seconds) and one attack/second.

Bomber (with cooldown reduction) can use 15 Fire Bombs, 6 Smoke Bombs and 99 Bombs for a total of 177 explosions. This equals 1.475 explosions/second.

Grenadeer (without toolbelt reduction) can use 4 barrages and 116 grenades of any kind for a total of 380 explosions. This equals 3.167 explosions/second.

So the ratio between grenades and bombs is 2.147 : 1 or to put it another way, Shrapnel and Steel Packed Powder are more than twice as effective for grenades as they are for bombs.

Thanks for the correction. I had thought I remembered something like that, but the wiki didn’t confirm my suspicion. Nades obviously better at procing pretty much anything, but those couple bomb skills can also be handy.

coglin.1867:

Something is weird in your logic, I disagree strongly. Your not making a lot of sense to sit here and say buffing MH pistol would not be a buff to bomb build.

“Barkeep, I will have what he is drinking please.”

How would having a ranged weapon like main hand pistol improved, not buff my bomb build? Pistol is my ranged weapon, bomb is my melee. You will have a tough time justifying an argument against fixing up the MH Pistol. Especially when you take the illogical approach of stating that it will not positively effect builds.

For such a build, it would be a minor buff. A little bit of bonus damage until you get in melee range.
And for builds that already use ranged weapon, there would be basically no change.

But the matter is that, unless our main weapons are self-sufficent, we will always be “forced” to use kits to make up for them.
I understand if they are reluctant to buff #2 and #3 skills due of people being able to rotate between the various skills of the main weapons and kits.
But the autoattacks are for the most part mutually exclusive (basically, excluded the “melee kit” case from above); i can’t use more than one at the same time, and if i’ve already got grenades or such, i just won’t use the MH one.
Whereas for a kitless build, the autoattack would be the one used most of the time.

What about moving IP into master of the firearms tree (since it is an on crit proc)? It would make it harder to obtain without causing the clusterkitten what do I take now in the explosives master slot (as well as adding more love to firearms).

Aberrant.6749:

What about moving IP into master of the firearms tree (since it is an on crit proc)? It would make it harder to obtain without causing the clusterkitten what do I take now in the explosives master slot (as well as adding more love to firearms).

I’d like that, could actually go 30 in firearms that way and it would synergize well with napalm specialist. Not sure if the negative impact on some builds wouldn’t be too much.

That and swapping reserve mines around with empowering adrenaline, do it :p

-I really dislike reserve mines, the way they reveal me when I’m stealthed, a minor trait shouldn’t punish you :<

Maskaganda.2043:

Aberrant.6749:

What about moving IP into master of the firearms tree (since it is an on crit proc)? It would make it harder to obtain without causing the clusterkitten what do I take now in the explosives master slot (as well as adding more love to firearms).

I’d like that, could actually go 30 in firearms that way and it would synergize well with napalm specialist. Not sure if the negative impact on some builds wouldn’t be too much.

That and swapping reserve mines around with empowering adrenaline, do it :p

-I really dislike reserve mines, the way they reveal me when I’m stealthed, a minor trait shouldn’t punish you :<

My thief agrees 100% Traits are supposed to help you… not hurt you. Since it’s a minor trait you have no choice if you even want it or not >.<

Evasive Powder Keg is even worse! At least the mines come out only at low health, and with 15 points in the trait line. The dang bomb is at just 5 points and every time you dodge! Sometimes it’s nice, but when I’m trying to stealth it’s very very annoying.

coglin.1867:

Powerbruce.6710:

yes but it’s a trait based on %, and you can use a over 50 greandes in the time you throw a single mine. same problem but with ratio 1:3 for bombs

Umm, no, just no. the ratio is 15 :11 for grenades to bombs. bomb 1, 2,, and 3 all have one explosion. Smoke bomb and Glue bomb both have their initial explosion plus three pulses. Each pulse has the opportunity to crit.

Keen.9253:

Buffing pistol and rifle will not be buffing already strong nade/bombs builds. Theses builds are strong because they are using grenades/bombs, and then when you are using it, your are not using your gun. kits are like are weapons swap.

Something is weird in your logic, I disagree strongly. Your not making a lot of sense to sit here and say buffing MH pistol would not be a buff to bomb build.

“Barkeep, I will have what he is drinking please.”

How would having a ranged weapon like main hand pistol improved, not buff my bomb build? Pistol is my ranged weapon, bomb is my melee. You will have a tough time justifying an argument against fixing up the MH Pistol. Especially when you take the illogical approach of stating that it will not positively effect builds.

You should take a rest
Seems your are missing the point, maybe read again my post.

Mork vom Ork.2598:

Adamantium.3682:

Haralin.1473:

coglin.1867:

Powerbruce.6710:

yes but it’s a trait based on %, and you can use a over 50 greandes in the time you throw a single mine. same problem but with ratio 1:3 for bombs

Umm, no, just no. the ratio is 15 :11 for grenades to bombs. bomb 1, 2,, and 3 all have one explosion. Smoke bomb and Glue bomb both have their initial explosion plus three pulses. Each pulse has the opportunity to crit.

.

Smoke Bomb and Glue Bomb do no damage read the tooltip!

They still pulse, and as such those pulses apply relevant conditions. Conditions like bleeds from Shrapnel, or vulnerability from Steel Packed Powder.

I believe the pulses can also “crit” even though they’re not doing damage, applying relevant conditions from those types of traits as well which is what he was referring to.

Actually you are both partly wrong. Smoke Bomb (3 pulses) and Fire Bomb (4 pulses) (can) trigger Shrapnel and Steel Packed Powder on every pulse. Glue Bomb also used to, but it has been changed in a previous patch, so only the first pulse that roots triggers.

The ratio is still much in favor of grenades, as the pulsing bombs have a cooldown. To get the real ratio you need to break it down to explosions / time. In order to simplify calculations let’s use the least common multiple of all cooldowns for the fight duration (120 seconds) and one attack/second.

Bomber (with cooldown reduction) can use 15 Fire Bombs, 6 Smoke Bombs and 99 Bombs for a total of 177 explosions. This equals 1.475 explosions/second.

Grenadeer (without toolbelt reduction) can use 4 barrages and 116 grenades of any kind for a total of 380 explosions. This equals 3.167 explosions/second.

So the ratio between grenades and bombs is 2.147 : 1 or to put it another way, Shrapnel and Steel Packed Powder are more than twice as effective for grenades as they are for bombs.

ty! i understand the error of not considering pulse only after have written the post, and turned off pc, and was 2 a.m. so …. XD ty for doing the math, infact the problem of bombs is in the cooldown of the ability with pulse.

afterall my objective iwas to point out that bombs are less powerful when we talk about trait that functions without cooldown and every hit.

Any changes to the rifle in near future xD? I think it miss something, but maby it’s only me:

4# Overcharged Shot
Damage: ….
5x Vulnerability: 7 s
Retaliation 5s
Evade: ¾ s (like short bow 3# Quick Shot ranger skill) Self knockback is a pain ;/
Range: 400

5# Jump Shot
Leap damage: …
Landing damage: …
Foe launch distance: 450 (landing effect)
Radius: 120
Combo Finisher: Leap
Range: 700

someone less lazy then myself should make a non biased summary of the concerns needs and expectations expressed here :p

— kits dont scale with power, implying no usefullness for acended weapons, passively penalizing engi

— weapons lacks of base damage(rifle) or conditions duration(pistols)
— kits FT, EG & TK lacks of base dmg or have limited usefullness

Thoses 2 points are limits builds diversity by implying only grenades/bombs have enough base dmg.

— turrets lack of resilience and dmg, or have not appropirate CD regarding their mobility/thoughness

— numerous of bugs like remains and adds to the sligth builds choices : elite mortar, XII inventions trait, etc….

— numerous skills have no clear purpose or utility, like elite elixir, remote mines, etc…
maybe still the problem here that Engineer core role have never been clearly defined

All thoses points are adding or implying weakness and restricted choice for engineer builds, greatly limiting his traits choices.

I think all our suggestions revolves around thoses points in a way or another, but maybe I’m missing something here, feel free to copy & edit.

Keen.9253:

Seems your are missing the point, maybe read again my post.

What is there to miss? You are arguing against players suggestions of buffing MH pistol to its previous state. Did you use it during its previous state? Why are you so against positive changes? I do not agree with your assessment at all. In bomb build without grenades, pistols are often the ranged weapon. I do not see how it would not be good to fix the damage of your ranged weapon in this case simply because you feel the bombs are strong.

coglin.1867:

Keen.9253:

Seems your are missing the point, maybe read again my post.

What is there to miss? You are arguing against players suggestions of buffing MH pistol to its previous state. Did you use it during its previous state? Why are you so against positive changes? I do not agree with your assessment at all. In bomb build without grenades, pistols are often the ranged weapon. I do not see how it would not be good to fix the damage of your ranged weapon in this case simply because you feel the bombs are strong.

Like I said, you totally miss the point here.

Here is what Maskaganda wrote :

"
both are bad options in my opinion.
plainly buffing autoattacks and increasing the power of skills overall is a bad move when the general consensus is that some toning down is necessary.
besides, by giving just a flat increase like this you’d be buffing already strong builds like bomb/nades along with it.
like I said before, I think a solution would be to buff or remake coated bullets. make it work better over all pistol skills, add another effect.. something.

"

Like I said, I disagree with him, because I think trying to buff pistol and rifle through traits is not a viable options. They should be flat buffed through their auto-attack first.

I was trying to demonstrate to Maskaganda than if you buff pistols/rifles, this will not, or just give a minor improvment, to grenades/bombs builds, and provide the decent awaiting good improvment for all others builds.

Maskaganda here though it will be better to not flat increases pistols/rifle, but to do it through traits, because nades/bombs are already strong enough.

I disagree with this. Maybe was I not clear enough, but apologies, English is not my main language.

EDIT : Yes, I have played with pistols during its previous state at release, and its seems we share the same oponion, I wants them back too. But not through an obscure traits manipulation to compensate their damage, but through a plain flat buff. like you.

Keen.9253:

— kits dont scale with power, implying no usefullness for acended weapons, passively penalizing engi

— weapons lacks of base damage(rifle) or conditions duration(pistols)
— kits FT, EG & TK lacks of base dmg or have limited usefullness

Thoses 2 points are limits builds diversity by implying only grenades/bombs have enough base dmg.

— turrets lack of resilience and dmg, or have not appropirate CD regarding their mobility/thoughness

— numerous of bugs like remains and adds to the sligth builds choices : elite mortar, XII inventions trait, etc….

— numerous skills have no clear purpose or utility, like elite elixir, remote mines, etc…
maybe still the problem here that Engineer core role have never been clearly defined

All thoses points are adding or implying weakness and restricted choice for engineer builds, greatly limiting his traits choices.

I think all our suggestions revolves around thoses points in a way or another, but maybe I’m missing something here, feel free to copy & edit.

Yes it’s a good summary that i think we can leave as last post here to make it more visible for Jon…. adding that:

- bombs are less powerful than grenades for the 1:2 hit per attack that can start effects of traits

“Maskaganda here though it will be better to not flat increases pistols/rifle, but to do it through traits, because nades/bombs are already strong enough.”

I stand by it, the devs have stated they want to avoid a power creep and I’m pretty sure I read somewhere they want to tone down autoattack play.

so a flat damage increase would go against both of that and not only benefit weaker builds, but buff already strong builds, however slight that buff would be.

apart from traits, adding a skill chain (think necro scepter but with something else instead of poison) would work as well.

no point dwelling on it tho, this is my view on it, I understand yours :p

I’m just afraid to see JonPeters delay change to engi far away, when we are already awaiting for long enough.

I really hope he will spare time for this patch preview to discuss with us and explain their opinions on our awaited changes.

It seems to me that Elems, Rangers, Thief and Necros have the highest priority for them. And I can only agree with the actual state of Elems, ands the final touch on Rangers, but I’m sure Engi deserve the same attention.

Keen.9253:

— kits dont scale with power

Yes they do?

Phineas Poe.3018:

Keen.9253:

— kits dont scale with power

Yes they do?

As they are today, kits dmg are not influenced by your equiped weapons or stat, but have a flat dmg by your lvl.

Only conditions dmg is affected, but they are close to non-existent due to last patch.

If you try to equip different weapons, or even no weapons at all, you will note that your kits damage is flat and not affected by your changes.

This imply that ascended weapons bring nothing to engineer, as legendary weapons. You will just gain a little bit of passive stats, but no more dmg.

Keen.9253:

As they are today, kits dmg are not influenced by your equiped weapons or stat, but have a flat dmg by your lvl.

This is not true.

Kits have their own Weapon Strength, which is why Ascended weapons aren’t an important factor for us. Unless you truly value +4 Power upgrading your pistol that much.

They absolutely scale by the rest of the stats of the weapon you wield and the armor you wear. Kits absolutely scale by Power. Why else would Juggernaut stack Might?

I carry with me multiple sets of armor: Celestial, Berserker, Rabid, and Soldier, depending on the build I’m running and whether I’m in WvW or PvE. The output of my kits absolutely change depending on what gear I’m wearing.

As for the “only scaling by condition damage,” I think you’re confusing kits for turrets.

Tken.1986:

About Energized Armor and Blood Injection. Increased conversion from 5% to 7%.
To be honest, I am really curious about what make you guys decide to add extra 2%. I really still don’t see any point in investing in this kind of trait at all. In addition, this kind of change to me is like a filler only to make the list look better/longer.

Explosives IX – Accelerant packed turrets: I suggest redesign the trait to something else.
Even when playing with turret build, I would not go for this trait. This is one of the most questioned trait in my mind. With turret skills’s extremely LONG cool down. I would want my turret to stay alive as much as possible. Although the trait has nice knock back effect, still, doesn’t make sense with the super long cool down of turret skills.

Turrets: * of course, turrets needs the most adjustments.
The cost about the skills are far more than the benefits it can bring.
1. Super long cool down (maybe not rifle turret), brings down utility’s effeciency
2. Super squishy
3. Super weak raw damage

Let turrets crit (and proc on crit traits and/or sigils) and i would run a turret build.

JonPeters.5630:

If all we do is take the worst traits and buff them, then every patch everything gets stronger and eventually the game is broken. The word balance literally means reaching an equilibrium which is in between two end points. This means that in order to reach it things must assuredly go up and down.

Yes and i would agree with this if it were not for the fact that the alternative Options are weak.
If things must move up and down to achieve balance then you must improve the other Options when you move IP.

I’ve made a little graphic to show where i believe the disconnect here occurs.
It shows what i believe to be the current State of Things and what i believe would happen if you were to improve the alternative Options before touching IP.

And if i haven’t made it exceedingly clear: This is simply my view of the Situation.

Keen.9253:

As they are today, kits dmg are not influenced by your equiped weapons or stat, but have a flat dmg by your lvl.

Your are incorrect. Weapons stats and sigils all fully effect all kits.

Hello, so here are my 2 cents about the update :
Generally speaking, these are good ideas.

1)- Firearms XI – Modified Ammunition. This trait now works regardless of equipped weapon.
I don’t think it will make it used much often since power builds are not that used for engineers. What would it boost ? Grenades ? They don’t deal high damage per impact (it’s more multiple small damages). Bombs ? Only #1 deal power damage.
FT/EG : not much used to DPS.
Sooo nothing else remaining. The idea is good but it won’t change much.

2) On recognising the firearm is lackluster. Would be better to improve traits, move them a bit or merge. For instance, merge range and recharge on rifle (IV and VI).
The other problem is that for a rifle spec, there are so many good things there but you can’t have everything so some of the traits should be moved to other places.

3)Tools VI – Speedy Kits. Increased Swiftness duration to 10s. This effect can now only trigger once every 10 seconds.
Now that’s a very good change. Not only does it make it better for perma swiftness but it is also a small nerf to OP perma vigor. Because yeah, even playing an engineer, one must admit that it was OP. I find the perma vigor on crit (through Swiftness on crit and vigor if swiftness) OK but not that one. Very nice then. Plus it makes it even better with boon duration.

For the rest, totally agree and good changes.
Only one thing : please give us grenade autoattack in PVE !

You suggested merging rifle traits for cool down and range. These traits also effect the pistols. Was this simply an oversight, or are you suggesting that the rifle benefits get merged and the pistol skills do not?

Here are my observations:

1) MH pistol #1 should have it’s bleed duration increased from 2 seconds to 4 seconds to bring it more into balance with auto attack damage that other classes with comparable ranged weapons have. . For comparison:

engineer pistol: 118 base damage, 2 second bleed, .90 sec per activation;
thief pistol: 134 base damage, 4 second bleed, .82 sec per activation;
warrior rifle: 155 base damage, 6 second bleed, .92 sec per activation).

2) Turrets need better durability and better targeting speed, an increase to Accellerant Packed Turrets explosion radius from 120 to 180 would also be nice. As it is, it’s very difficult to land the knockback on destroying the turret even against things that are meleeing the turret.

3) If you’re saying that you don’t want perma access to vigor, and hence took it away from engineers, you should also take it away from other classes like Guardians and Mesmers.

4) Engineers lack the defensive mechanics that all other classes (except Elementalists) have. Thief = plentiful stealth, evades, teleports, Warrior = health/armor/signet healing, Guardian = insane healing, Necro = death shroud, pet “shields”, Ranger = healing, pet “shields”, and evades, Mesmer = stealth, decoys. Engis lack all of that.

5) Nerf Warrior Signet Healing. It is inappropriate that as a burst dps SD Rifle Engi that I cannot outdps the warrior passive healing, it basically means if I stick around to fight a warrior with a healing signet equipped I’m 100% guaranteed to die, because I cannot hurt them, and they can dps me down without any risk.

6) Either redesign Rifle to be a long distance weapon (currently skills #3, 4, and 5 are all basically melee ranged attacks), or add a Sniper Kit (as many others have suggested in prior posts). Grenades are a good long range weapon, but 1 on 1 against skilled players in PvP/WvW are worthless at range (except for assaulting a stationary object, and good players aren’t stationary). Basically I’d like an option to do power dps at range as an Engineer, and have a weapon and utilities that synergize with that. I currently use a SD Rifle build, but it doesn’t have the burst, sustained or utility options that other classes ranged power builds have.

7) Decrease the activation time on Toss Elixir S, 0.5 seconds is too long for a skill that’s supposed to help you escape from dangerous situations. It should be more like the Thief Blinding Powder, either instant cast, or 0.25 seconds.

Thank you Jon for reading all of our comments and considering them. I appreciate your commitment to community outreach.

Soul

Phineas Poe.3018:

Keen.9253:

As they are today, kits dmg are not influenced by your equiped weapons or stat, but have a flat dmg by your lvl.

This is not true.

Kits have their own Weapon Strength, which is why Ascended weapons aren’t an important factor for us. Unless you truly value +4 Power upgrading your pistol that much.

They absolutely scale by the rest of the stats of the weapon you wield and the armor you wear. Kits absolutely scale by Power. Why else would Juggernaut stack Might?

I carry with me multiple sets of armor: Celestial, Berserker, Rabid, and Soldier, depending on the build I’m running and whether I’m in WvW or PvE. The output of my kits absolutely change depending on what gear I’m wearing.

As for the “only scaling by condition damage,” I think you’re confusing kits for turrets.

Yes, it was a missexplaination from myself, it was inaccurate. I wanted to spoke about weapons strengh value of course. So ascended and legendary weapons do not transfert their weapons strengh to kits, resulting them being near useless for engi. That why a lot of engi ask for a kit rework.

Keen.9253:

Phineas Poe.3018:

Keen.9253:

As they are today, kits dmg are not influenced by your equiped weapons or stat, but have a flat dmg by your lvl.

This is not true.

Kits have their own Weapon Strength, which is why Ascended weapons aren’t an important factor for us. Unless you truly value +4 Power upgrading your pistol that much.

They absolutely scale by the rest of the stats of the weapon you wield and the armor you wear. Kits absolutely scale by Power. Why else would Juggernaut stack Might?

I carry with me multiple sets of armor: Celestial, Berserker, Rabid, and Soldier, depending on the build I’m running and whether I’m in WvW or PvE. The output of my kits absolutely change depending on what gear I’m wearing.

As for the “only scaling by condition damage,” I think you’re confusing kits for turrets.

Yes, it was a missexplaination from myself, it was inaccurate. I wanted to spoke about weapons strengh value of course. So ascended and legendary weapons do not transfert their weapons strengh to kits, resulting them being near useless for engi. That why a lot of engi ask for a kit rework.

Completely ridiculous oversight, although I HIGHLY doubt it was an oversight to begin considering the buff then nerf that occurred. It’s like Elementalists only get their weapon strength applied to one of their elements.

I have a hard time believing that making the kits properly scale to your weapon being that difficult.

Oh yes. I doubt anyone disagrees that the lack of the “weapons damage” effecting kits, is a problem. I would love to hear Jon’s take on this subject.

The statement on perma vigor really confuses me. I’ve been hesitant to say anything because my mesmer is probably tied with my engy for being my favorite class in the game. Currently to have access to perma vigor, engineers are forced to spend 20 trait points. After the patch, the only remote way to have near perma vigor will still be via 20 trait points. Even then, it will require you to crit to proc swiftness and vigor with only a 50% chance per crit. Compare that to the Mesmer who gets a 100% chance to proc vigor on a crit in a minor adept trait that costs only 5 points in a line that is always specced into (ps, my mesmer sits at 60% crit chance on nearly all my builds). I’m not sure in the year that I’ve been playing my mesmer that I’ve ever traited out of that line. It’s basically automatic free perma vigor. This is on a class that already has multiple ways to stealth, has stun breaks on nearly every popular utility, and has blocks/evades on multiple weaponsets. Now I understand that mesmers need access to vigor in order to produce clones, but I also think the majority of an engineer’s survival comes from the fact that we can currently evade quite often. I think the changes will reduce suvivability for my engineer or force me into speccing traits that I normally wouldn’t. I guess this is the “build diversity” they want. I still don’t agree with the philosophy that if you nerf something enough, it will force people to try something different. All it does is make people angry and stop playing altogether.

And then if you still want ooc speed you’ll need to spend another 10 points (power shoes or speedy kits)

Nevermind power shoes is in inventions

JonPeters.5630:

For condition engineers we have left Shrapnel intact here as the alternative. For power engineers we have left Empowering Adrenaline intact here as the alternative. No need to argue that these traits are worse than IP, we know that, this is why IP was moved. The real question is why are these not Adept tier worthy, which we think they are…

I think the question is, Why have you made Kit refinement not even worthy of adept tier?

Engineers have no weapon swap, we have to add a kit to effectively have one. This gives us 1 less utility slot then all other classes. Kit refinement was supposed to make up for that but Anet has nerfed it so bad, and pushed everyone one into less creative builds. I’m sorry but the skills that you have changed kit refinement to, are not worth of utility slots, not even close.

In my opinion, kit refinement should be built into the class and not a trait. Since we lose a utility slot to effectively get weapon swap.

I’m running under a few assumptions:

1. While I appreciate the responsiveness of the Devs in this thread and the quality of discussion by a few big name engineers these changes are baked into the cake. IP nerf is going to happen but commensurate changes in #1 skills and kit scaling will not because there is not time for adequate testing.

2. Assuming we are only going to get a few minor changes at this point we need to accept this as the new meta.

3. Right now I am having a hard time seeing a build other than a grenade (bombs) or berserker SD rifle that is viable in PvE and/or WvW. I appreciate Poe’s points regarding FT, but I just do not think that even with the indirect buffs FT will be a viable primary damage kit do to the very poor damage and scaling of FT#1. Pistol builds are going to be very problematic from both an offensive and defensive standpoint now because it will require much larger investment in explosives to be viable, really hurting its utility.

Am I missing a new build that is going to rise according to this meta?

Also why don’t we have access to a melee weapon? All other classes have many more weapons to choose from, they can equip 2 of them and have weapon swap also. The problem with the engineer is to be on par with other classes, we have to give up utility slots. You guys say you want build diversity, yet we only get 2 main weapons to choose from. If you don’t use any kits, you basically have half the skills most other class have with less than half the weapon choices.

How would the “2% additional damage per condition” work for stackable conditions like bleed?

If someone has 25 bleed stacks, is that 50% additional damage or just a flat 2% increase?

amiable.4823:

Am I missing a new build that is going to rise according to this meta?

ofc. Healing bombs build. U mentioned bombs, but healing one differs alot in stats from dps one.

Voradors.5381:

How would the “2% additional damage per condition” work for stackable conditions like bleed?

If someone has 25 bleed stacks, is that 50% additional damage or just a flat 2% increase?

1 or 25 stacks of condition is 1 condi. It was before like that with boons aswell. Don’t make fake dreams (but if it wil be bugged for 1 day i don’t mind ; )

Engineers can bunker/heal just as well as guardians currently. Maybe not without permavigor. In fact even in teamfights i can decap a guardian because engis have decent boonstripping while they dont, which combine with many long disables.

Id be raging pretty hard right now as an engi except the last patch was extremy generous to us. Well see how bad the vigor nerf is since currently its our only defense aside from mediocre healing (mesmer thief stealth, guardian block heal, rangers permaregen, warrior heal and stability, necro ds) some traits got buffed but….well see.

pheroth.5306:

Keen.9253:

Phineas Poe.3018:

Keen.9253:

As they are today, kits dmg are not influenced by your equiped weapons or stat, but have a flat dmg by your lvl.

This is not true.

Kits have their own Weapon Strength, which is why Ascended weapons aren’t an important factor for us. Unless you truly value +4 Power upgrading your pistol that much.

They absolutely scale by the rest of the stats of the weapon you wield and the armor you wear. Kits absolutely scale by Power. Why else would Juggernaut stack Might?

I carry with me multiple sets of armor: Celestial, Berserker, Rabid, and Soldier, depending on the build I’m running and whether I’m in WvW or PvE. The output of my kits absolutely change depending on what gear I’m wearing.

As for the “only scaling by condition damage,” I think you’re confusing kits for turrets.

Yes, it was a missexplaination from myself, it was inaccurate. I wanted to spoke about weapons strengh value of course. So ascended and legendary weapons do not transfert their weapons strengh to kits, resulting them being near useless for engi. That why a lot of engi ask for a kit rework.

Completely ridiculous oversight, although I HIGHLY doubt it was an oversight to begin considering the buff then nerf that occurred. It’s like Elementalists only get their weapon strength applied to one of their elements.

I have a hard time believing that making the kits properly scale to your weapon being that difficult.

The worst part about this is the ridiculous spin they put on it. The are either incompetent or just straight up lied.

From the January 28 2013 patch notes

“Bundles from player skills (engineer kits, elementalist conjured weapons, warrior banners) now have base damage that is consistent with the highest rarity weapons available at the level of the player.”

So when ascended weapons were released, the game did just that; it adjusted conjured weapons, banners, and kits all to ascended level damage. The following day ANET patched it, saying, “Fixed an unintended damage increase that caused engineer kits, elementalist conjures, and warrior banners to deal more damage than intended.”

I have a meteorlogicus on my Ele. My build effectively gets nerfed because of an oversight. I also have an ascended pistol+shield on my engineer, and I’m still not happy.

Its hard to get upset with endurance regen changes when they are limiting all of the other professions access to vigor similarly, as well they are limiting the passive endurance regenerations for them as we. For example the Ranger adept minor trait, “natural vigor” is changing from a passive 50% endurance regeneration to a passive 25% endurance regeneration. For the most part it is pretty clear they are making changes of this nature across the board. Which is why I keep laughing at all of the knee jerk reaction post that complain about it as if it is the end of the world. They are so ignorant to the fact of what is occurring, they post as if Anet is singling us out.

Regarding the tool kit lack of offense, what if we had a second skill on the gear shield of purely offensive nature?
They should just modify the model a bit and add a cannon in the middle. Then we can have it shoot a small/mid range cannonball for a sort of burst damage…in exchange for a prolonged cooldown on the gear shield skill (akin to the guardian’s orb of light, basically).
And the nice thing is that, well, the gun shield really exists – i didn’t invent it on the fly. It didn’t work that well, ok, but we’re engineers…we could make it work better, somehow.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:English_-_Gun_Shield_-_Walters_511414.jpg