Guild Wars 2

It’s here again. I really hope they don’t bash/nerf engineers or I might have to leave these forums for a few weeks.

EDIT: Going on now.

http://sv.twitch.tv/guildwars2guru

Interesting things so far:

-Change how retaliation works in WvW and PvP. Didn’t catch it all, someone can reply to help me here.
-Thief steal boons with sword/dagger (devs mentioned it countering HgH and eles)
-Ranger pets get all around buffs, and pet skills get improved activation time. Lets hope our turrets get similar treatment.

Ele nerfs:
-Mistform: No utility skills while mistform
-Ride the lightning: RtL 40 sec cooldown if the attack misses, 20 normal.
-Reduced procs on signet of water?
-Internal cooldowns on regen?

Engineer:
To help diversify engineer builds, they have been looking at the hgh builds because of the intense condition pressure.
They are planning interesting changes to healing turret, incendiary powder and elixir S.

Healing turret
-initial heal reduced quite a bit
-overcharge and passive heals improved
-overcharge recharge reduced to maybe 20 sec
-overcharge causes water field
-overcharge reduces conditions (their words, not mine)

Concern discussed: People might start focusing down turrets. Questions about whether it is strong enough to take the damage. They’ll see about whether they need to change hit points

-Incendiary powder: Talk about 100% uptime burning. In an effort to diversify builds the burns will proc 4 sec burns every 10 sec. 100% on crit.

-Elixir S cannot use utilities when active. No news on whether we can switch kits.

Q: Is there any news about buffing bombs?
A: grenades are too powerful. They might need to be brought down. Might buff bombs in PvP but not in PvE. Bombs are powerful in PvE.

Q:Havent grenades been nerfed in the past? Isn’t it too much?
A: We want to bring things up instead of down.

Q:What about new builds? Bombs and grenades dominate.
A:Want to create turret builds, but that is not possible now. Gadgets… just not that great…

Guardian:
-Talk about playing with projectile blockers, due to being too strong against all ranged classes like engineers.

quick and sloppy. Will be rewritten. Some of the skill names are wrong, if so blame the devs, I just typed.

I’m just typing some things from what I hear. If I miss or get anything wrong, please correct me.

Clarifications: Grenades will not be nerfed. They were mentioned off hand. No changes are planned for grenade kit so far.

But more importantly have they said anything about engies yet?

Edit:
Healing turret: instant heal nerf. Passive/overcharge more stronger. Overcharge drops waterfield now, reduced cd on it. Apply healings in an area.

Incendiary powder: burns for 4 secs every ten secs. Chance up to 100%

Elixir s: No longer able to use utility skills in it.

“we want engineers to have more viable builds”
*starts nerfing random skills *

Not yet. They’re talking about eles. Eles are getting a few nerfs though.

Summary:

“Engis need some nerfs because they’re way OP.”

John Sharp re Healing Turret: It’ll be great in pve because nothing is attacking that turret.

Really, John? Bosses and mobs run RIGHT at turrets and destroy them in seconds. PLAY. YOUR. GAME.

Grenade nerf (again)
Elixir S nerf
Healing turret buff (who cares?)

So sick of this kitten.

EVERYONE CHILL THE kitten OUT!

Don’t start with the hyperbole again, please.

We have no idea outside, of what they’ve already said they’ll change, what’s going to happen.

Ostricheggs.3742:

EVERYONE CHILL THE kitten OUT!

Don’t start with the hyperbole again, please.

We have no idea outside, of what they’ve already said they’ll change, what’s going to happen.

They’re just my initial impressions but so far nothing really good from what they have said.

Penguin.5197:

Ostricheggs.3742:

EVERYONE CHILL THE kitten OUT!

Don’t start with the hyperbole again, please.

We have no idea outside, of what they’ve already said they’ll change, what’s going to happen.

They’re just my initial impressions but so far nothing really good from what they have said.

The healing turret change is going to open up a LOT of builds for engis in tourneys. The lack of condi cleanses forces us 20 up alchemy, 15 up tools (with R) or 15 up inventions (with healing turret).

It’s a good change.

I don’t mean to sound hostile, I just know that people naturally react like idorts when faced with nerfs.

Ostricheggs.3742:

Penguin.5197:

Ostricheggs.3742:

EVERYONE CHILL THE kitten OUT!

Don’t start with the hyperbole again, please.

We have no idea outside, of what they’ve already said they’ll change, what’s going to happen.

They’re just my initial impressions but so far nothing really good from what they have said.

The healing turret change is going to open up a LOT of builds for engis in tourneys. The lack of condi cleanses forces us 20 up alchemy, 15 up tools (with R) or 15 up inventions (with healing turret).

It’s a good change.

I don’t mean to sound hostile, I just know that people naturally react like idorts when faced with nerfs.

Do you think the overcharge will really make a difference? They mentioned it changing to 20 sec, but I don’t know how effective that’ll be.

Not being sarcastic. Genuinely curious.

The main problem I have is that they are dismissive of hard questions, and a lot of their answers show a lack of knowledge about how their game actually plays.

Jericho.4521:

Ostrich is right, but still I can’t help but fear for the worst in terms of nades. The potential nerfs are sounding pretty scary there, knowing their track record.

On the other hand, it’d be nice to see bomb kit being more viable in PvP.

Yeah it is sounding bad but we’ll see. Hopefully we get some more buffs they forgot to mention. Though combo field makes healing turret interesting.

My only concern with Incendiary powder is it’s use with the FT because it was basically a necessary trait. If they are nerfing that they should make the FT burn oportunities.

EDIT: Now that i’ve stopped to think about it i guess this change will be kinda good. Even if FT misses a lot we can still get that 4s burn if we crit once and give it 2 more seconds with air blast. I can see a good future for FT builds.

Ostricheggs.3742:

Penguin.5197:

Ostricheggs.3742:

EVERYONE CHILL THE kitten OUT!

Don’t start with the hyperbole again, please.

We have no idea outside, of what they’ve already said they’ll change, what’s going to happen.

They’re just my initial impressions but so far nothing really good from what they have said.

The healing turret change is going to open up a LOT of builds for engis in tourneys. The lack of condi cleanses forces us 20 up alchemy, 15 up tools (with R) or 15 up inventions (with healing turret).

It’s a good change.

I don’t mean to sound hostile, I just know that people naturally react like idorts when faced with nerfs.

Health
On Level 80:

Thumper Turret: 11950
Flame Turret: 8960
Rifle Turret: 7470
Net Turret: 7470
Rocket Turret: 7470
Healing Turret: 5980

This turret is always better when detonated for the AE heal, or picked up for the reduced cooldown for a reason. Jon Sharp saying that now the other team has something to focus on and counter is the overstatement of the year. They just need to keep using cleave and AE abilities and there’s their counter.

Until Turret longevity is addressed, this is a nothing buff that is going to go nowhere.

What I found funny was that the dev pretty much said “we want to create new builds for the engineer such as turrets, but turrets suck so…yea”.

Grackleflint.4956:

Ostricheggs.3742:

Penguin.5197:

Ostricheggs.3742:

EVERYONE CHILL THE kitten OUT!

Don’t start with the hyperbole again, please.

We have no idea outside, of what they’ve already said they’ll change, what’s going to happen.

They’re just my initial impressions but so far nothing really good from what they have said.

The healing turret change is going to open up a LOT of builds for engis in tourneys. The lack of condi cleanses forces us 20 up alchemy, 15 up tools (with R) or 15 up inventions (with healing turret).

It’s a good change.

I don’t mean to sound hostile, I just know that people naturally react like idorts when faced with nerfs.

Health
On Level 80:

Thumper Turret: 11950
Flame Turret: 8960
Rifle Turret: 7470
Net Turret: 7470
Rocket Turret: 7470
Healing Turret: 5980

This turret is always better when detonated for the AE heal, or picked up for the reduced cooldown for a reason. Jon Sharp saying that now the other team has something to focus on and counter is the overstatement of the year. They just need to keep using cleave and AE abilities and there’s their counter.

Until Turret longevity is addressed, this is a nothing buff that is going to go nowhere.

I think the change to healing turret was to help it out in PvP. Not in PvE or WvW. As you’ve said, healing turret doesn’t really hold up to anything due to how excessive aoe is in dungeons and WvW. I personally only used it for the double heal through blast finishing it’s water field.

This means that this change was only done with PvP in mind. I can see that healing turret will bring a lot of support for an organized team if it has a stable water field, it’s just a shame that this change also makes it less useful in the other aspects of the game.

Lets hope they make few of these changes in the future.

Ostricheggs.3742:

The healing turret change is going to open up a LOT of builds for engis in tourneys. The lack of condi cleanses forces us 20 up alchemy, 15 up tools (with R) or 15 up inventions (with healing turret).

It’s a good change.

I don’t mean to sound hostile, I just know that people naturally react like idorts when faced with nerfs.

Healing turret changes sound confusing. The overcharge condition cleanse isn’t viable for pvp because the effect is delayed until the next regen pulse, not because of the cooldown. Also, what’s the point of the overcharge providing a water field if the pulses already do so? These changes sound like a net nerf if they don’t change the mechanics, but a net buff if they do. The changes also take what is basically our best burst heal and make it… something different. That’s certainly something to be wary about, even if it’s not necessarily alarming.

We’ll see…

After more than a decade of MMOs, one experience has always been a constant: people react badly to nerfs. This is even more true after people have devoted time and money to gear up for a build, and all that effort is rendered pointless. Why would things be different now? The only thing different about this game is instead of treating nerfs as a last resort, A-Net uses it as a primary balancing tool and seems oblivious to the negativity it causes.

Even worse sometimes A-Nets nerfs are reaaaalllyyy poorly though out…

Silentsins.3726:

Ostricheggs.3742:

The healing turret change is going to open up a LOT of builds for engis in tourneys. The lack of condi cleanses forces us 20 up alchemy, 15 up tools (with R) or 15 up inventions (with healing turret).

It’s a good change.

I don’t mean to sound hostile, I just know that people naturally react like idorts when faced with nerfs.

Healing turret changes sound confusing. The overcharge condition cleanse isn’t viable for pvp because the effect is delayed until the next regen pulse, not because of the cooldown. Also, what’s the point of the overcharge providing a water field if the pulses already do so? These changes sound like a net nerf if they don’t change the mechanics, but a net buff if they do. The changes also take what is basically our best burst heal and make it… something different. That’s certainly something to be wary about, even if it’s not necessarily alarming.

We’ll see…

---

After more than a decade of MMOs, one experience has always been a constant: people react badly to nerfs. This is even more true after people have devoted time and money to gear up for a build, and all that effort is rendered pointless. Why would things be different now? The only thing different about this game is instead of treating nerfs as a last resort, A-Net uses it as a primary balancing tool and seems oblivious to the negativity it causes.

Even worse sometimes A-Nets nerfs are reaaaalllyyy poorly though out…

But it was extremely difficult to justify the healing turret to begin with outside of a very very few select builds that seriously suffered from condi clear.

The overcharge acts instantly if you lay it and use it instantly.

I dunno, we’ll see. All in all I’m happy they’re changing it because it was one of the biggest impedements to build diversity on engis and it makes it so we’re not forced to grab elixirs anymore. It just depends on if it opens up good enough opportunities to justify the nerfs to our strongest builds (which were too strong IMO)

Is that SotG up to replay anywhere yet, and what time was the engineer discussion?

http://www.twitch.tv/guildwars2guru/b/396007412

00:42:10

Penguin.5197:

Incendiary powder: burns for 4 secs every ten secs.

What. The. Eff.

Toning down some top abilities for engineers would be ok, if the useless abilities were brought up into the interesting range, but that’s incredibly rare (toolkit 3 & HGH basically), while the nerfs are so over the top like total deletion, and they happen every patch.

Killer Rhino.6794:

http://www.twitch.tv/guildwars2guru/b/396007412

00:42:10

Thanks!

Phineas Poe.3018:

Penguin.5197:

Incendiary powder: burns for 4 secs every ten secs.

What. The. Eff.

They were calling it Incendiary explosives but I think thats what they meant.

Also now that boon hate is coming into effect (warriors getting more damage against targets with buffs and thieves stealing the boons) I am curious into how much that is going to affect our builds since bunker,flamethrower, hgh builds rely heavily on it.

Penguin.5197:

Also now that boon hate is coming into effect (warriors getting more damage against targets with buffs and thieves stealing the boons) I am curious into how much that is going to affect our builds since bunker,flamethrower, hgh builds rely heavily on it.

Glass cannon warriors will be able to 1 shot Engi’s ele’s Guardians etc since boon hate was placed on the Discipline which focus around Critical damage instead of a defensive trait. Currently i can push killshot to 19.6k max, now add 15% more damage from avg 5 boons you see on this classes, imagine eviscerate on anyone running lysssa’s runes

Interesting, boon hate, boon steals, might have a slight advantage not having any of these boons.

Penguin.5197:

Also now that boon hate is coming into effect (warriors getting more damage against targets with buffs and thieves stealing the boons) I am curious into how much that is going to affect our builds since bunker,flamethrower, hgh builds rely heavily on it.

It’s a HARD counter to HGH.

The only thing making Engineers viable at the moment is having huge might stacks. Now that Thieves will be able to use Mug to steal that might stack, a class that’s already stronger than us will be able to take away the one thing making us viable and use it to help them kill us.

They need to nerf HGH. It’s just a crutch that’s hiding the real problems.

Penguin.5197:

Phineas Poe.3018:

Penguin.5197:

Incendiary powder: burns for 4 secs every ten secs.

What. The. Eff.

They were calling it Incendiary explosives but I think thats what they meant.

That seriously hurts the Flamethrower for no good reason.

I really hope they plan on changing the way Flame Jet burns/does damage with this change.

Ostricheggs.3742:

The overcharge acts instantly if you lay it and use it instantly.

I know. You have to double tap the skill in order to cancel it with itself… which also occasionally puts it on the cancel cooldown (5 seconds) while giving you the full effect. Since that’s firmly in the grey area of possible exploit, I’m purposely leaving it out in a discussion of the pros and cons of the skill. If they change the mechanics though, that is all moot…

Heck, now that I think about it, a full condi clear every 20 seconds with water field, regen, initial heal + overcharge+ blast finisher on the same cooldown as the detonate sounds insanely OP.

It occurs to me that despite getting some solid info on the changes, we’re not really informed yet…

Not being able to use utilities while under the effect of Elixir S more than likely means we won’t be able to swap to med kit for a small heal while invuln anymore, which is a huge survivability nerf.

And survivability with the right build was one of the few good things we had left…

Elixir S nerf = No more Tank Kat (RIP!)

Incendiary Powder = This helps with build variety, how exactly?

Healing Turret = More like TF2 dispenser? I actually welcome this change, if it’s done properly.

Overall, it does sound like we’re getting hit with the nerfbat again.

Robert Hrouda appeased the crowd of Rangers. We need someone to appease the angry crowd of Enginerfed.

Kain Francois.4328:

Elixir S nerf = No more Tank Kat (RIP!)

This hits any build that uses a kit, since we used to be able to go invulnerable and get a key ability off for our survival.

Incendiary Powder = This helps with build variety, how exactly?

It doesn’t. This is a straight nerf. Builds that don’t use a crit amulet still won’t have the crit to support this trait and still won’t take it. End of story.

Healing Turret = More like TF2 dispenser? I actually welcome this change, if it’s done properly.

*Triple its health.
*Reduce Turrets incoming damage from AoE by 90%.
*Reduce incoming direct damage by 30% baseline.
(Throw us a freakin’ bone here.)

Something needs to be done to increase its longevity. If Jon wants to make teams actively counter it, then I think the AoE dmg reduction needs to happen because right now teams can nuke the healing turret in a passive (brainless/accidental) way. There are absolutely no resources that need to be devoted to nuking down a turret that is anywhere near the action. It’s just a side effect of battle.

Overall, it does sound like we’re getting hit with the nerfbat again.

I’m more concerned with the collateral nerfs: gutting sigil of battle and sigil of energy, buffing warriors (3 unblockable attacks, greatly reduced immobilize), boon hate. There is nothing to compensate for the things that are going to punish our most effective builds. I won’t even be able to rely on Protection any more.

What was up with that talk about prybar as a counter for something? I don’t use toolkit in my wvw support build (except underwater).

Kain Francois.4328:

Elixir S nerf = No more Tank Kat (RIP!)

the elixir s thing wont kill tank cat. the fact that people will be able to stun us out of shield blocks will tho, since we dont have reliable sources of stability.

also the changes to retal and confusion will probably make it harder to play as well, since that was the build’s primary damage source vs glass cannon thieves, warrior, etc.

Chaba.5410:

What was up with that talk about prybar as a counter for something? I don’t use toolkit in my wvw support build (except underwater).

Grouch was talking about how we are strictly a ranged class and Guardians can shut down our damage completely by popping their defensive bubble, to which Jon Sharp flippantly replied “Yeah, so.” Then Karl said something about going into it and using melee.

So apparently Guardians should fear our Wrench #1 dps!

Kain Francois.4328:

Incendiary Powder = This helps with build variety, how exactly?

This change seems to stem from a WvW/PvP balance perspective. Mostly WvW as condition damage can get crazy there. It’s a shame they keep pushing PvE (and PvP) around because of things that need addressing in WvW. Especially right after they tell us that they plan to balance these separately.

I know PvE is considered the “easy” content (I personally don’t find fractals easy, but then again I haven’t had a lot of time to play recently) but it’s kind of bad that every time someone breaks WvW with their engineers, we get a damage reduction across the board.

aKIRA.7123:

Kain Francois.4328:

Elixir S nerf = No more Tank Kat (RIP!)

the elixir s thing wont kill tank cat. the fact that people will be able to stun us out of shield blocks will tho, since we dont have reliable sources of stability.

also the changes to retal and confusion will probably make it harder to play as well, since that was the build’s primary damage source vs glass cannon thieves, warrior, etc.

This. More and more collateral nerfs. These needs just as much attention if not more than the direct nerfs, because they cripple more builds than do the direct nerfs.

Grackleflint.4956:

Chaba.5410:

What was up with that talk about prybar as a counter for something? I don’t use toolkit in my wvw support build (except underwater).

Grouch was talking about how we are strictly a ranged class and Guardians can shut down our damage completely by popping their defensive bubble, to which Jon Sharp flippantly replied “Yeah, so.” Then Karl said something about going into it and using melee.

So apparently Guardians should fear our Wrench #1 dps!

He said we should use Tool Kit.

So basically they expect every Engineer to give up a utility slot and bring tool kit because they can’t be bothered to design the game with any intelligence.

Mif.3471:

So basically they expect every Engineer to give up a utility slot and bring tool kit because they can’t be bothered to design the game with any intelligence.

I agree with your sentiment, but I disagree with how you said this…

Still made me laugh though

Battle is so strong because we can swap our kits whenever we want?

What about the fact that we have no secondary and need to give up a utility slot for tht weapon swap.

When are we gonna stop getting penalties for having Kits as an OPTION?

(also just judging by the tone and lack of enthusiasim when they got to the Engie topic, not to mention calling Elixir S Elixir U, I have a feeling the devs spend more time fighting against Engies then fighting with them. They don’t seem to know how to balance or improve the profession at all.)

Mif.3471:

He said we should use Tool Kit.

So basically they expect every Engineer to give up a utility slot and bring tool kit because they can’t be bothered to design the game with any intelligence.

Well they did give us a tool kit to fix the problems ourselves..those lazy devs >.>

But anyways, to bypass guardian bubbles and ele’s earth shield skill thing you could also try flamethrower. Flamethrower is a unique weapon, flame jet is not a projectile so it can bypass those defenses but it doesn’t count as a melee weapon either for skills like riposte

CriSPeH.8512:

Battle is so strong because we can swap our kits whenever we want?

What about the fact that we have no secondary and need to give up a utility slot for tht weapon swap.

When are we gonna stop getting penalties for having Kits as an OPTION?

(also just judging by the tone and lack of enthusiasim when they got to the Engie topic, not to mention calling Elixir S Elixir U, I have a feeling the devs spend more time fighting against Engies then fighting with them. They don’t seem to know how to balance or improve the profession at all.)

As far as the first part goes, having the opportunity to swap in and out of kits at ease while rotating in between important cooldowns on weapon sets/kits while still getting the added benefit of on swap sigils is what warrants the nerf IMO. Sorry to my fellow engis, but right now battle is just too kitten strong.

It’s different than having 2 weapon sets because being forced into a select set of weapons might not be smart in a particular situation and therefore won’t see the same efficacy as having battle on a kit. It’s like a necro swapping out of staff into s/d despite having marks up. We can switch to p/p and back to nades for the might at any given moment.

As far as the second part goes, that’s the exact exaggeration I was talking about earlier. Just chill people, let the patch come and THEN let the tears flow. Until then, who knows what’s gonna happen. Nothing is set in stone. They were just talking about quickness and elixir U like 3 minutes before they made the slip of the tongue confusing S and U. Come on.

And yes, the boon hate thing is worrying. BUT considering that thieves will be forced to take a sword mainhand, it’s likely to not have a huge effect. It’s also a chained skill, so it’ll be relatively easy to dodge. The limits to DPS put on s/d is why you never see it anywhere. Warriors getting 3% more damage per boon is almost laughable too.

Really the worst things that have already been confirmed are the incendiary ammo nerfs and elixir S nerfs. That’s gonna hurt, but if nothing else is drastically changed (I.E. HGH itself or battle or nade kit) you’ll still see plenty of HGH condi engis around for a while

^ I prefer to get my crying and whining out now ty.

Then I can more easily move on after getting hit in the nuts with the Nerf Bat.

IMO we have already received enough counterbalances to being able to switch in & out of kits. I don’t see why we need anymore.
Or do all On-Swap Sigils need to be nerfed for Engineers? Sucks if you were running a build where the Battle was your only source of Might Stacking.

Maybe they should stop nerfing things based off of a single aspect of it.

(I did just yesterday spend the 3.5g to get that stupid Sigil of Battle so I am still annoyed)

Ostricheggs.3742:

CriSPeH.8512:

Battle is so strong because we can swap our kits whenever we want?

What about the fact that we have no secondary and need to give up a utility slot for tht weapon swap.

When are we gonna stop getting penalties for having Kits as an OPTION?

(also just judging by the tone and lack of enthusiasim when they got to the Engie topic, not to mention calling Elixir S Elixir U, I have a feeling the devs spend more time fighting against Engies then fighting with them. They don’t seem to know how to balance or improve the profession at all.)

As far as the first part goes, having the opportunity to swap in and out of kits at ease while rotating in between important cooldowns on weapon sets/kits while still getting the added benefit of on swap sigils is what warrants the nerf IMO. Sorry to my fellow engis, but right now battle is just too kitten strong.

It’s different than having 2 weapon sets because being forced into a select set of weapons might not be smart in a particular situation and therefore won’t see the same efficacy as having battle on a kit. It’s like a necro swapping out of staff into s/d despite having marks up. We can switch to p/p and back to nades for the might at any given moment.

As far as the second part goes, that’s the exact exaggeration I was talking about earlier. Just chill people, let the patch come and THEN let the tears flow. Until then, who knows what’s gonna happen. Nothing is set in stone.

Same goes for Elementalists and their attunement switch. Yet they still keep their 3 utility slots. Agreed the difference between attunements does not make you as versatile as kits.

I think a few people might overlook that Engineer having no weapon swap, our abysmally tiny weapon selection (p/p, p/sh, rifle that is it), and also no ability to choose different / better sigils and stat setup on our other weapon swap are all very strong counters to the few upsides like swapping for battle procs.

Engineer can’t hchoose appropriate sigils for the toolkit versus the rifle, we don’t have that capability.

So make turrets usefull if you want us to use them. Make moving turrets with legs, make us able to shield our turrets or take damage for us. Give us something to work with on turrets except changing its base stats or skills a bit. a turret doesnt move or anything, everyone can walk away, ignore, see, kill or outhink an object that doesnt move. idm using turrets. But your being glued to a position with them and thus making them unreliable..

Oh, some nonsensical nerfs, as always.
Every month a surprise, how delightful.

If they nerf Sigil of battle just go Sigil of Strength. Reason #34134625 to run Grenades.

Funny that they nerf Incendiary powder again.

Not sure how I feel about new heal turret till i see it. Looks like its moving toward more support then selfish heal.

Another big effect for us is that in WvW confusion will do half damage now, in line with Spvp.