Guild Wars 2

Can we have some properly working Gyros please before the patch goes live?

Like just change for now at least:
Bulwark Gyro.
Bulwark takes to much dmg in pvp.
It seems to take dmg as if the engineer doesnt have stats or so.
It takes way more dmg than it should.
It needs to be able to absorb right/more.
Stunbreak on its toolbelt wouldnt hurt.

And if possible as well:
All Gyro.
Make them keep up with our movement.
How to make them keep up with us?
Make their abilities activate/pulse/explode from the center of the engineer, rather than the gyro. That way it isnt a problem if they cant keep up with us/fly a bit behind us, because they will project their abilities around us.

Shorter casttime on Gyro selfdestruct please.
To keep the selfdestruct around us too, the gyro can teleport/shoot towards us and self destruct around us when the selfdestruct is activated.

Gyros in general being able to take more dmg would be very welcome too.

Would be great to enjoy some properly working gyros.

What do you think of these suggestions?

Heyhey

There are fundamental issues with the gyros, resulting in those issues:

Bulky (Bulwark Gyro) shares the same fate as Blasty and Shreddy with their offensive capabilities. They all together lack of stat inheriting. They have their own stats, so also toughness for Bulky, wich makes him get more damage than intended. Blasty and Shreddy on the other hand have too low power and crit chance aswell crit damage to be reliable dps tools. Also Shreddies damaging whirl finishers do not inherit condition duration wich makes it even worse :/. So much about the first BIG issue.

The second issue is the gyros cast time for their abilities. Lets take Medy as an example: He follows you and then has to “poke” you with it’s healing body, to activate it’s skill around itself. Rather I suggest to just remove the poke animation, making it’s activation instant. That way it just has to stick close enough to you to automaticy get the biggest heal out of the skill. Right now it heals 4 times if you completly stay still (wich also doesn’t really add up if it is 14s alive and has 3s cd, it shoul hit you 5 times in that time, but hey – cast time). If you are moving a lot in combat, it may even only heal you 2 times. Same issues go for Purgy. Bulky doesn’t share the same fate because it’s instant, or a so called “aura”.

The third and probably biggest issue is the movement. This is what everyone complains about. They get behind, can’t effective heal, stealth or purge you and they struggle with cliffs even tough they could fly …. They also go to allies, wich takes time again and makes them even less effective. There are two relativly simple solutions for these problems:

• I have to disagree that the aoe should becentered around the target (you OR an ally) ASLONG as they are melee ofc! It would be a great idea tough, to give Purgy and Medy the ability to shoot a beam (YES BEAM, NO PROJECTILES AND YES, NO CASTTIME!) that will purge or heal the target and the allies around it. It’d be the same as now, just that it wouldn’t matter too much if they get behind a bit. This range should be between 300 and 600. Sneaky on the other hand should not work like this, since this makes it a bit too strong imo. It’s also not how the “machine works”. :P

• So we have to talk about cliffs and movement. There would be a pretty simple solution to this, somone here in the forums once suggested (if you read this, say it and take credit for the original idea ;3). The “leash”-system. If a gyro gets behind more than X range, it will not be able to go any further away. It will be pulled directly towards your location if you move further away. You can pull gyros over cliffs, they even FLY WITH YOUR GLIDER now. They wouldn’t be useless in places like the harpy fractal either. It’d be a bit like mini pets when they literally “fly toward you”.

Lemme hear what you think.

Greetings!
- Ziggy

@Xyonon

Lack of stat inhereting. Bulwark gyro.
The thing is. A1500 attack can happen, but it gets reduced by the engineer stats to 1000.
Than split into 500 (bulwark reduces the dmg by half), than the bulwark needs to take only 500 dmg as well. Currently it seems to take higher dmg, because it only takes half of the 1500 attack. Correct?

So if that cant be done, thanit just needs way more health to make up for it.

Gyro casttimes.
Good point about the movement issues caused by gyro casttimes.
Their abilities either need to be instant to not cause those issues, or the casttimes dont need to hinder their movement.

The beam.
I suggested that Gyros would be making their abilities, aoe, heals, cleanses etc. happen around the engineer/target, instead of the Gyros, so that it wouldnt matter if the gyro is a bit behind.

This is kinda the same as shooting their abilities through a team to the engineer/target right?
You use the word beam.
I didnt use the word beam but said want to make it happen around the engineer/target .Just different wording. Or not?

Regarding the cliffs and movements.
I forgot to include that in this post.
Good point.
Yeah a leash system would be cool. If its possible to pull a gyro from a lower lvl up to a higher lvl like cliff. I read someone suggestion an instant teleport as well.
One of the two. Whatever works to avoid pathing problems with stairs, cliffs and such.
In skyhammer pvp map, you can jump to higher lvls from those energy jump circles.
Would leash work for that too?

Rangers can do swap pet and it makes their pet appear next to them. Even if the previous one was on a ground on a lower lvl. Maybe the leash or teleport could work like that.
The F button (or different button) could make this happen. Like if no other F action targeted and ready (finishing/reviving target or picking something up), than it will use this leash/teleport.

Gyros in my opinion still have a high amount of potential in team fights since I hope they take one away from the AoE damage cap. They however suffer from the following:
Not offering useful enough abilities (Purge and Shredder),
Inability to keep up with a running Scrapper,
2 or so second pauses while casting skills,
Suffers from pathing issues,

So let’s visit these issues one by one.
The worst offenders of not offering enough to be useful are Purge and Shredder Gyro. Purge Gyro potentially removes 10 conditions over 15 seconds which on paper is very strong however it does not offer you any direct advantages such as when compared to choosing an Elixir instead. Most Engineers rely on either avoiding condition bombs, condition fights or Elixirs to deal with this issue because these options offer the Engineer much greater advantages than simple flat condition clears.

If Purge Gyro were to convert conditions into boons instead we would have a different mechanic than what Elixirs offer and would at least give this Gyro an alternative play style to Elixirs but both would actually give you something back in return. Edit Elixir C offers 10 condition clears with it’s toolbelt skill on a 25s cooldown and to convert all conditions into boons on it’s active skill both of which when traited for are on 20s and 32s cooldowns respectively while still offering stacks of might 10 stacks to you and yours from the toolbelt skill and 2 stacks from the skill (also +1 condition clear per Elixir used). Purge Gyro is trying to compete for a utility slot with an already extremely strong condition cleansing ability for the Engineer and right now it can not even hold a candle to it.

On skill use it could also offer about 2 seconds of resistance to 5 targets to actually be of any use to the Engineer when it is initially activated. This also provides additional value that is not otherwise available to the Engineer from other legacy skills.

Alternatively this Gyro could instead operate similarly to Bulwark Gyro by giving out a buff that pulses out might to 5 targets whenever a condition is applied to the Scrapper edit and gives 2 seconds of resistance to 5 allies on skill activation.

Ultimately in order to perform well in any PvP scenario this Gyro needs to be a stun breaker, as condition bombs against Engineers often come after interrupts and CCs. edit The stun breaker would also help to differentiate this skill from Elixir C which is currently functionally The Undisputed King of Condition Removal for the Engineer and company.

Shredder Gyro’s potential is not being realized as a result two important things:
Engineers currently do not have the ability to keep opponents on top of this skill for a meaningful period of time (and if they could Shredder would just get auto attacked to death),
Whirl finishers are not strong enough in the brief time window this skill will be impacting for.

To resolve these issues I believe that this gyro could use a few tweaks. Similarly to Bulwark Gyro, Shredder Gyro should apply an AoE buff that increases condition durations by 20% (above cap) as well as causes whirl finishers to bounce once within a 240 radius of the Shredder Gyro.

Shredder Gyro’s toolbelt skill also should be a Stun instead. This would essentially root the player in place and allow for a potential set-up with the actual Shredder Gyro itself.

The inability to keep up with the running Scrapper, 2 or so seconds pausing while casting skills and pathing issues all lump together to make things difficult. With a Gyro such as Stealth Gyro flagging behind gives you the advantage of being able to distract your opponents while you are else where but with other Gyro choices you tend to want them to stay on top of you as best as they can.

To help resolve some of these issues I had previously proposed that a trait be implemented that periodically gives out boons such as swiftness, regeneration, fury and might specifically to all Gyros that are active. This would allow them to perform better DPS (Bulwark Gyro and Shredder Gyro) and to better keep up with the Engineer.

Currently while it is true that the Engineer can buff these gyros with boons, in an actual fight an Engineer’s skills are used much differently and ultimately the Engineer play-style does not afford it the ability to transform into a Guardian for the purpose of making it’s Gyros useful in actual combat.

Should this trait be implemented a complimentary change would also be to modify the GM trait Final Salvo such that when these Gyros are destroyed they also pulse the current boons on a 3 second cap (that can be boosted by boon duration) to five allies within Final Salvo’s radius.

The 2 seconds or so of pausing while casting a skill could be mitigated by increasing the cast radius for Gyros but I believe it is an intended balancing mechanic. Pathing issues could be resolved by just letting them fly over obstacles since they are aerial devices and could in theory just operate by always taking the shortest path but players should be aware that this method also prevents the Scrapper from using mental games against opponents who mindlessly follow the path of Gyros (since it always takes you to it’s leader).

All of these changes could allow the Scrapper to actively perform a better team oriented role than it currently does at this moment.

Bro- awesome idea!!! You have 100% truth that purgy is not viable. Only 1 change-converting condi to boons will make big diffrence.

Like a turrets, give for gyro traits that they can spam boons is too interesting idea. This will make themmore friendly.

And shreddy, ah increase condi duration for 5 allies with shredd gyro? 20% overcap?! Let’s make it!! I will be honestly have ready my utility slot for shreddy. This is unique buff like warrior banners or idk revenant ferocity buff. Anet read this and start thinking about this because we don’t have anything like other classes=increase stat points without might affect.

We also have to adress their toolbelt skills. Purgy and Shreddy both need a better TB skill and I suggest that Sneakies TB skill works on PvE Mobs aswell (Maguuma).

Better movement is the major change that needs to happen.

Xyonon.3987:

Heyhey

There are fundamental issues with the gyros, resulting in those issues:

---

Bulky (Bulwark Gyro) shares the same fate as Blasty and Shreddy with their offensive capabilities. They all together lack of stat inheriting. They have their own stats, so also toughness for Bulky, wich makes him get more damage than intended. Blasty and Shreddy on the other hand have too low power and crit chance aswell crit damage to be reliable dps tools. Also Shreddies damaging whirl finishers do not inherit condition duration wich makes it even worse :/. So much about the first BIG issue.

---

The second issue is the gyros cast time for their abilities. Lets take Medy as an example: He follows you and then has to “poke” you with it’s healing body, to activate it’s skill around itself. Rather I suggest to just remove the poke animation, making it’s activation instant. That way it just has to stick close enough to you to automaticy get the biggest heal out of the skill. Right now it heals 4 times if you completly stay still (wich also doesn’t really add up if it is 14s alive and has 3s cd, it shoul hit you 5 times in that time, but hey – cast time). If you are moving a lot in combat, it may even only heal you 2 times. Same issues go for Purgy. Bulky doesn’t share the same fate because it’s instant, or a so called “aura”.

---

The third and probably biggest issue is the movement. This is what everyone complains about. They get behind, can’t effective heal, stealth or purge you and they struggle with cliffs even tough they could fly …. They also go to allies, wich takes time again and makes them even less effective. There are two relativly simple solutions for these problems:

• I have to disagree that the aoe should becentered around the target (you OR an ally) ASLONG as they are melee ofc! It would be a great idea tough, to give Purgy and Medy the ability to shoot a beam (YES BEAM, NO PROJECTILES AND YES, NO CASTTIME!) that will purge or heal the target and the allies around it. It’d be the same as now, just that it wouldn’t matter too much if they get behind a bit. This range should be between 300 and 600. Sneaky on the other hand should not work like this, since this makes it a bit too strong imo. It’s also not how the “machine works”. :P

• So we have to talk about cliffs and movement. There would be a pretty simple solution to this, somone here in the forums once suggested (if you read this, say it and take credit for the original idea ;3). The “leash”-system. If a gyro gets behind more than X range, it will not be able to go any further away. It will be pulled directly towards your location if you move further away. You can pull gyros over cliffs, they even FLY WITH YOUR GLIDER now. They wouldn’t be useless in places like the harpy fractal either. It’d be a bit like mini pets when they literally “fly toward you”.

---

Lemme hear what you think.

Greetings!
- Ziggy

i like your ideas
i think a 30% damage reduction on the bullwark gyro would be a neat possible fix too
problem is there’s tons of aoe so odds are while bulwark is absorbing damage from you it is taking damage as well

Oh yeah, movement issues should be fixed asap.

To be honest if gyros would pulse boons after activation (something like facets), I’d actually consider using them. Seriously. That could bring tons of group support if done right.

You know what would be really cool too? If Gyros had some effect on death, maybe even a trait besides final salvo. Let’s say Purgy: It “absorbs” all the conditions and when it dies, he spreads them to the enemies next to him. Hm… maybe this would be too much “on death” stuff again wich I’m not so happy with. Maybe they should give this ability to the toolbelt of purgy! Poison field + 1 condition (aoe) transfered!

How about the movement “fix” would be adding the same effect around the player? Let’s say purgy effect would stay around the gyro but also the same effect with much smaller aoe would be around player after gyro summon?