Guild Wars 2

Can we please just buff the autoattack chain in PvE only by 30%?

It’s such a weak autoattack chain in PvE on a weapon that would otherwise be viable there.

Most of the unused weapons in PvE in this game suffer because of abysmal autoattack DPS.

hammer already has a quite hard hitting AA chain.

but taking it means taking scrapper, which means to NOT take either firearms, tools or explosives, which are the lines where the best dmg-modifiers can be found.

I’d advise to not ask for a hammer buff, but for better dps traits in the scrapper line, if you want to make it pve viable, but then again: Holosmith will likely answer all the dps questions we ever had.

Arantheal.7396:

hammer already has a quite hard hitting AA chain.

but taking it means taking scrapper, which means to NOT take either firearms, tools or explosives, which are the lines where the best dmg-modifiers can be found.

I’d advise to not ask for a hammer buff, but for better dps traits in the scrapper line, if you want to make it pve viable, but then again: Holosmith will likely answer all the dps questions we ever had.

It doesn’t hit hard enough to overcome bomb kit’s autoattack, that’s how bad it is.

For a melee weapon with limited aoe, it should be the hardest hitting autoattack the scrapper should have.

And holosmith takes away hammer because anet are brilliant and like to tie down weapons to specs for some reason.

>It doesn’t hit hard enough to overcome bomb kit’s autoattack, that’s how bad it is.
>how bad

bombkit is one of the hardest hitting AA’s in the game…
and its trade-off is its delay (which you can pick a trait against, for the cost of dps loss)

So hammer is the hardest hitting AA that hits without delay on engi…
I don’t see a balance issue here.

Also, what exactly prevents your from taking bombkit with your hammer, so you have a extremely hard hitting AA for stationary targets, and hammers’ – still quite hard hitting – AA for mobile targets that would otherwise outrun bombkit?

And since you apparently seem to care so much about dps in PvE, what exactly is the point in having a hard hitting AA anyways, while you – as engi – are supposed to rotate your kits and hardest hitting cd’s to max out your dps. Ideally, you shouldn’t even rely on your AA for more than 1 or 2 gap-closes between cd’s.

Arantheal.7396:

>It doesn’t hit hard enough to overcome bomb kit’s autoattack, that’s how bad it is.
>how bad

bombkit is one of the hardest hitting AA’s in the game…
and its trade-off is its delay (which you can pick a trait against, for the cost of dps loss)

So hammer is the hardest hitting AA that hits without delay on engi…
I don’t see a balance issue here.

Also, what exactly prevents your from taking bombkit with your hammer, so you have a extremely hard hitting AA for stationary targets, and hammers’ – still quite hard hitting – AA for mobile targets that would otherwise outrun bombkit?

And since you apparently seem to care so much about dps in PvE, what exactly is the point in having a hard hitting AA anyways, while you – as engi – are supposed to rotate your kits and hardest hitting cd’s to max out your dps. Ideally, you shouldn’t even rely on your AA for more than 1 or 2 gap-closes between cd’s.

This only applies to condi builds. Power DPS builds don’t have that many cd’s to rotate to maintain DPS.

AA’s correlate to sustained DPS. Most of the top tier power specs, like thief and guardian, have strong autoattack DPS.

Bomb kit has a delay that is of little note in PvE since most mobs won’t move out of range in 1 second delay, and bomb kit has a much larger aoe radius affecting mobs. Hammer auto hits 3 targets and is a conal attack.

Hammer is NEVER used in PvE DPS, I don’t understand why it’s so difficult for you to understand why.

>This only applies to condi builds.
take nades bombkit and throw mine, and you have enough cd’s (and their precasts) to rotate through.

>Bomb kit has a delay that is of little note in PvE since most mobs won’t move out of range in 1 second delay
Vale guardian is laughing his ass off right now.

>I don’t understand why it’s so difficult for you to understand why.
Because you don’t understand that hammer itself is fine, but the scrapper line isn’t.

Zenith.7301:

It doesn’t hit hard enough to overcome bomb kit’s autoattack, that’s how bad it is.

For a melee weapon with limited aoe, it should be the hardest hitting autoattack the scrapper should have.

And holosmith takes away hammer because anet are brilliant and like to tie down weapons to specs for some reason.

Hammer skills and auto will out DPS Bomb AA + Thunderclap in situations where you don’t have maximum might.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Zenith.7301:

It doesn’t hit hard enough to overcome bomb kit’s autoattack, that’s how bad it is.

For a melee weapon with limited aoe, it should be the hardest hitting autoattack the scrapper should have.

And holosmith takes away hammer because anet are brilliant and like to tie down weapons to specs for some reason.

Hammer skills and auto will out DPS Bomb AA + Thunderclap in situations where you don’t have maximum might.

Yeah, but those situations in PvE are nil anyways.

I see no reason why to keep hammer an irrelevant weapon in instanced PvE when they can split balance its autoattack and it will fix any issues the hammer has.

Those situations are really common. Overworld wandering, solo running, poorly formed zergs, and sub-optimal dungeon + fractal teams, and also PVP + WvW. The only time the hammer auto is irrelevant is if you’re on a team with a PS or cPS warrior.

It makes sense that a self-buffing weapon isn’t going to be as useful if another teammate takes care of the buffs for you. It doesn’t mean the weapon is useless, it just means that it isn’t appropriate to use everywhere. Likewise, the hammer does quite a bit more than just auto attack.

My biggest complaint with the hammer is that Rocket Charge is an inconsistent dodge. Whether an enemy will hit you during the nebulous evade frames or not is a dice roll. The ability to control exactly when that evade happens will make the weapon a lot better for maintaining DPS uptime.

Zenith.7301:

Can we please just buff the autoattack chain in PvE only by 30%?

It’s such a weak autoattack chain in PvE on a weapon that would otherwise be viable there.

Most of the unused weapons in PvE in this game suffer because of abysmal autoattack DPS.

That’s absolutely true for PVE I’ve noticed it as a power/condi build that the #1 three skill lineup does terrible damage.

Zenith.7301:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Zenith.7301:

It doesn’t hit hard enough to overcome bomb kit’s autoattack, that’s how bad it is.

For a melee weapon with limited aoe, it should be the hardest hitting autoattack the scrapper should have.

And holosmith takes away hammer because anet are brilliant and like to tie down weapons to specs for some reason.

Hammer skills and auto will out DPS Bomb AA + Thunderclap in situations where you don’t have maximum might.

Yeah, but those situations in PvE are nil anyways.

I see no reason why to keep hammer an irrelevant weapon in instanced PvE when they can split balance its autoattack and it will fix any issues the hammer has.

It’s so bad in fact that I’ve returned to using dual pistols power/condi builds.

Yeah, doing fractals and open world a hammer engineer takes significantly longer to kill mobs, especially those veteran elementals in Siren’s Landing compared to my staff thief or power reaper.

The damage on hammer is absolutely atrocious in PvE.

What’s worse, is that scrapper has very limited access to fury and no innate crit chance increase if you want swiftness from kits to get around maps, because you’d have to drop tools and lose any decent uptime on swiftness to get the increased crit from firearms.

Hammer may work on bruiser marauder builds in pvp but I just cannot justify it in fractals or PvE over actually good power weapons or my engineer condi builds.

It’s a real shame.

>especially those veteran elementals in Siren’s Landing
they melt in less than 10sec…

>What’s worse, is that scrapper has very limited access to fury
40% fury uptime in combat

>and no innate crit chance increase
+20% crit chance from firearms (high caliber + hematic focus)

>if you want swiftness from kits to get around maps
tools?

>because you’d have to drop tools and lose any decent uptime on swiftness to get the increased crit from firearms.
so… what exactly prevents you from taking both?

>Hammer may work on bruiser marauder builds in pvp
I prefer knight for pvp tank builds, but that’s just me, I guess.

>but I just cannot justify it in fractals
me neither, but not because of the hammer, but because scrapper has no stat boost besides might-stacking (which is what warriors are for), nor any dmg-modifiers (besides for hammer itself), so I can’t justify to drop firearms, tools or explosives for scrapper, if I’m looking for max-dps.

>or PvE
Anything goes for map completion / world events, and this is what I’m running when I’m in the mood for some face-rolling:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vdAQFASnUUBlYh9dBupC0ehlOjietL70e86CgpCM4KuGC-TxBBABA8AAqZ/h80BcmSwAuAAYp8rS1fAA-e

It has crits, it has swiftness, and it melts everything below elites in mere seconds…
Dunno what you’re complaining about.

I just use rocket charge and rocket boots to hop around the map. Don’t need swiftness. With the firearms line I get 20% additional crit chance, as well as a source of self fury, putting me at a respectable 90% crit chance.

Likewise, if it takes forever to kill vets, then you aren’t doing it right. After Thunderclasp, Rocket Charge, Electro Whirl, Big Ole Bomb, and Grenade Barrage, even veteran enemies should be dead. While using hammer in the overworld, I still rarely use the auto attack, because enemies melt before I run out of DPS skills.

Arantheal.7396:

>especially those veteran elementals in Siren’s Landing
they melt in less than 10sec…

>What’s worse, is that scrapper has very limited access to fury
40% fury uptime in combat

>and no innate crit chance increase
+20% crit chance from firearms (high caliber + hematic focus)

>if you want swiftness from kits to get around maps
tools?

>because you’d have to drop tools and lose any decent uptime on swiftness to get the increased crit from firearms.
so… what exactly prevents you from taking both?

>Hammer may work on bruiser marauder builds in pvp
I prefer knight for pvp tank builds, but that’s just me, I guess.

>but I just cannot justify it in fractals
me neither, but not because of the hammer, but because scrapper has no stat boost besides might-stacking (which is what warriors are for), nor any dmg-modifiers (besides for hammer itself), so I can’t justify to drop firearms, tools or explosives for scrapper, if I’m looking for max-dps.

>or PvE
Anything goes for map completion / world events, and this is what I’m running when I’m in the mood for some face-rolling:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vdAQFASnUUBlYh9dBupC0ehlOjietL70e86CgpCM4KuGC-TxBBABA8AAqZ/h80BcmSwAuAAYp8rS1fAA-e

It has crits, it has swiftness, and it melts everything below elites in mere seconds…
Dunno what you’re complaining about.

You lost the dmg modifiers from explosives. In exchange for gaining crit from firearms from a couple of traits but most if the firearms traitline being condi based and of little relevance to a zerker scrapper.

You also ignored the part where I said you either sacrifice tools or firearms, because if you’re taking both you’re losing the damage modifiers from explosives, doing even less damage.

You also lost me when listing a 24 sec cd skill as if thunderclasp was something you used while farming veterans, as well as rocket charge.

And then tell me about 40% fury uptime as if that was any good. My warrior, revenant, and thief have fury uptimes far above that.

Sorry zenith, but your argument is besides the point.
Already told you that scrapper has no place in fractals / raids, and was never meant to.

You were complaining about the vets in siren’s landing, and I showed you a build that I frequently use to melt them. Also, spare-capacitor is on a 17ish sec cd, so I use it and thunderclap one after another to stunlock / chain-daze exactly these vets every 12 sec when rocket charge is off cd. More survivability than I possibly could ask for.

also, firearms comes with traits almost purely for dps.
the minors keep up bleed and therefore crit-chance, novice and adept give even more crit-chance (20%-40%), and the master trait combined with nades + vulnerability (from shredder + lightning field) + burn from rocket kick give you a decent 4%-10% dmg modifier.

Compared to explosives, sure, these traits give more raw dmg, but only on the long run, and given that your crit-chance is buffed by other classes in your group. But we were talking about solo map completion / daily farms, where I melt these vets so fast because I run between 76-96% crit chance on my own, so everything on this build hits reliably like a truck. No group members needed.

Just because other classes might be faster to melt vets solo (1 or 2 seconds, lol), I don’t have less fun on scrapper in overworld PvE. And as long as I can solo most champs in this game, I’m more than satisfied with scrapper.

I’m sorry but I don’t get where you think you have the authority to say what game mode an elite spec was not made for….

True, which is why i take it directly from a-net lips:
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/meet-the-scrapper-engineers-elite-specialization/

On general:
>The noble engineer has always been a jack-of-all-trades; however, this profession has tended to avoid the brawl. Scrappers are in their element in the thick of the fighting, surviving by anticipation and sheer fortitude. That survivability comes from several places, including traits, new toolbelt skills, utilities and their new weapon…

On the traits:
>We’ve mentioned what a few traits will do through this reveal, but to give you a little more information, the specialization traits were built to emphasize three overarching goals: sustainable survivability, concentrated lockdown, and mobile stability.

Yea, definitively sounds like a dps spec, lol.
If anything, it was designed as tank for PvE, but always had a greater emphasis on PvP and WvW as bruiser / frontliner.

Our intended dps elite-spec is Holosmith.
Scrapper was never meant to fill that role.

The scrapper is fine for non-optimized groups. Function Gyro is a life saver, bulwark gyro is an excellent reflect and defensive utility, thunderclap and rocket charge put out a lot of CC, Sneak Gyro is excellent for skips and underground facility, and all the DPS traits are useful when you can’t rely on teammates for buffs. Scrapper also brings vanilla engi’s vast toolkit.

I don’t raid myself, but the only fractal that I wouldn’t bring a scrapper to is cm100. Not because they can’t complete it, but because the way the fractal is designed there is always a better class to carry the group. But aside from that, there are countless times when I am on my guard/ele/chrono meta build all the while wishing I was on my scrapper for that particular run.

The PVP nature of the scrapper specialization is pretty obvious. The way all of the traits are built are meant to capitalize on having a mix of offensive and defensive stats while also emphasizing combat mobility. Take Mass Momentum for an example. The power it gives is meant to offset the DPS loss from defensive stats, and static power buffs are better when you have less power to start with. The might on stability combos well with Perfectly Weighted, and once you have built up enough might Applied Force kicks in and lets you finish the enemy really fast. All of the other traits are about bursts of superspeed and maintaining defense with personal regeneration. Of course, in PVE combat mobility is useless, self might isn’t good with group might stackers, and self quickness isn’t good if you have a support chrono on the team, so the traits themselves are lackluster. But without those things the traits are excellent.

If you’re obsessed with always bringing the best theoretical group comp to a fight, then of course Scrapper isn’t going to be your thing. It will be Chrono, Zerker, Druid, DH, Tempest in that order, always. 4 out of the 9 classes are always going to be excluded from top tier content, simply because teams only allow 5 spots. That isn’t going to change anytime soon.

Zenith.7301:

It’s so bad in fact that I’ve returned to using dual pistols power/condi builds.

Same here. I tried the Scrapper on open world pve and it felt underwhelming. I’m probably a bad player but I found myself dying more than ever while dual pistol really rocks.

Maybe the hammer has a place in big scheme of things, maybe in other roles and scenarios than PvE, but honestly I wouldn’t mind a little more effectiveness (even in the form of dps traits).

Arantheal.7396:

True, which is why i take it directly from a-net lips:
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/meet-the-scrapper-engineers-elite-specialization/

On general:
>The noble engineer has always been a jack-of-all-trades; however, this profession has tended to avoid the brawl. Scrappers are in their element in the thick of the fighting, surviving by anticipation and sheer fortitude. That survivability comes from several places, including traits, new toolbelt skills, utilities and their new weapon…

On the traits:
>We’ve mentioned what a few traits will do through this reveal, but to give you a little more information, the specialization traits were built to emphasize three overarching goals: sustainable survivability, concentrated lockdown, and mobile stability.

Yea, definitively sounds like a dps spec, lol.
If anything, it was designed as tank for PvE, but always had a greater emphasis on PvP and WvW as bruiser / frontliner.

Our intended dps elite-spec is Holosmith.
Scrapper was never meant to fill that role.

And necromancer was supposed to be an attrition class and a warrior’s weakness was supposed to be conditions. Thieves were supposed to be weak to roots and CC. All from those manifestos you like to quote.

Now which one of those is true? None.

Fact is, power engineer has been utter garbage for the entirety of the engineer’s existence in PvE.

Why shouldn’t scrapper, the melee spec, offer a change in that?

Truly, offer one single reason for why the following change couldn’t be made:

“Hammer autoattack, #2, and #3 damage increased by 25% in PvE instances only. Hammer 5 cd reduced by 10 seconds in PvE instances only.”

It would hurt virtually no one and only serve to increase build variety.

There will always be optimal class combos, but the deltas in performance need not to be as obscenely large as it is now.

Most power builds for most classes in PvE are TRASH, and I am for one sick of having the majority of the classes be pigeonholed into condi builds because Anet can’t bother to bring the numbers up pn power weapons split for PvE only.

Zenith.7301:

I’m sorry but I don’t get where you think you have the authority to say what game mode an elite spec was not made for….

Actually, that’s not what is being said … you can use whatever wherever you want .. PROVIDED you don’t care about your performance.

In the case you care about performance, then it’s perfectly reasonable for someone to say that within reason, a range of builds that MAY include an elite spec are optimal solutions to a given game mode. That’s simply how the game has worked, since day 1.

Anyone who studies the game enough has the authority to make these assessments; in fact, people do it as part of their game playing hobby, resulting in meta builds.

Personally, I don’t find hammer as bad as people like to make it out to be, but it will NEVER be meta for PVE because of how easy it is to find optimized solutions by swapping kits. Camping a single weapon is just not an option for the highest levels of performance on this class; these ‘swaps’ are part of the class concept.

Zenith.7301:

Arantheal.7396:

- snip -

And necromancer was supposed to be an attrition class and a warrior’s weakness was supposed to be conditions. Thieves were supposed to be weak to roots and CC. All from those manifestos you like to quote.

Now which one of those is true? None.

Fact is, power engineer has been utter garbage for the entirety of the engineer’s existence in PvE.

Why shouldn’t scrapper, the melee spec, offer a change in that?

Truly, offer one single reason for why the following change couldn’t be made:

“Hammer autoattack, #2, and #3 damage increased by 25% in PvE instances only. Hammer 5 cd reduced by 10 seconds in PvE instances only.”

It would hurt virtually no one and only serve to increase build variety.

There will always be optimal class combos, but the deltas in performance need not to be as obscenely large as it is now.

Most power builds for most classes in PvE are TRASH, and I am for one sick of having the majority of the classes be pigeonholed into condi builds because Anet can’t bother to bring the numbers up pn power weapons split for PvE only.

1.) What I quoted is no class manifesto, what I quoted was the introduction for the elite-spec. Name me one elite-spec that totally lost its identity over the course of the past 2 years. Just one.

2.) Upping the dmg just for convenience sake is a slippery slope that leads to even more ppl demanding dmg buffs for various reasons, including raids, simply because: “lol, there is no one crying in PvE, gib me numbers, the boss must fall”, when in reality increased dmg leads to nothing but more and more content becoming redundant and boring.
Raids are that engaging for people participating in them, because they have to train themselves rigorously to reach their peak performance with their classes. If suddenly everyone receives PvE dmg buffs, their work is nill, and raids will loose their appeal, simply because fractals reward more shinies and are easier to farm within a shorter span of time.
Remember the times when everyone was running dungeons, even tho fractals existed?
Wanna return to a similar state of the game?
Then go ahead and cry wolf about “underwhelming dps” when in reality it fills its intended role just fine.