Guild Wars 2

Developer Questionnaire: pvp focused edition

1) It’s a commonly held belief that Kits are balanced the way they are (weaker than the vast majority of weapon sets) due to the fact that we can have access to four at once. When Engineers put kits in utility slots they give up crucial abilities such as breaking stuns and clearing conditions+. Without the ability to equip a second weapon, kits are essential to our damage so it’s logical to assume we need at least one in every build++.

Keelin.5781:

It’s also worth mentioning that a decent number of kits actually require you to trait for them , for them to be effective imo. In that sense i don’t think we’re as versatile as the devs make us out to be. Keep in mind that this versatility is why they made our actual weapons worse than real weapons (this was said by a dev in ye olde times).

Q: Have you or would you ever consider giving significant buffs to kits to bring them up to the power level of regular weapons in exchange for only allowing us to choose 1 or 2 kits as our primary and/or secondary weapon?

• +I am aware that Elixir Gun provides both a stun break and a condition cleanse, but this is one kit out of 5 weapon kits.
• ++I am also aware of kit-less builds having some success but these builds are very narrowly focused and abuse the stat stacking, food, and buffs available in PVE and WvW modes only.

2) Turrets have many problems and bugs that are preventing them from seeing use. These problems also cause unintended uses such as Rifle Turret being taken only for its toolbelt ability in Static Discharge builds and Healing Turret being overcharged and then immediately detonated or picked up rather than left in play. Bad AI, overcharge bugs, low armor/health, low damage, low rate of fire, susceptibility to area damage, coupled with long cooldowns make them currently a poor choice for most modes and styles of play.

Q: Are there any plans to make turrets either more sturdy and therefore a more persistent and reliable source of damage or more powerful to compensate for their frailty and long cooldowns—or will you continue to strive for a balanced approach to turret design?

Q: Are there plans to fix Turret bugs in the near future (within the next month)? If not, why are these bugs such a low priority given that turrets represent 27% of our available slot skills?

3) The June 25th update included trait updates, but Turret related traits were completely ignored.

Q: Are there plans to consolidate, improve, or move Turret related traits, and would you consider a trait to lower all turret cooldowns?

4) It is popular opinion that while a change was needed to Elixir R the changes made were too drastic. Both removing the stun break and adding a cast time seem very harsh in combination.

Q: Would you consider removing the cast time, or adding the stun break back, but into the tool belt skill? Why or why not?

cont…

5) Gadgets seem to be in a better place right now with Personal Battering Ram, Slick Shoes and Rocket Boots seeing use. Utility Goggles and Throw Mine however are not seeing much use. Utility Goggles’ buffs work at cross purposes since Fury is an active ability and stun breaking is reactive, and Throw Mine/Mine Field suffer from a very small trigger radius.

Q: Are there any plans to bring Utility Goggles and Throw Mine up to par with the rest of our gadgets?

6) Mortar suffers from many issues: shorter range than grenades, extremely fragile, doesn’t benefit from turret related traits even though it’s a capital “T” turret skill, the camera is restrictive, and it has no point blank range or defense. Currently there is absolutely nothing the mortar can do that can’t be done better by one of our slot or weapon skills.

Q: Are there any plans to improve the Mortar to make it desirable? If not, why not?

7) Elixirs are relatively weak without a heavy investment in the Alchemy trait line. Elixirs S and R have been severely weakened, Elixirs C & B are currently being hated out of pvp due to boon hate/stealing and Corrupt Boon, Elixir U is still bugged when thrown/has an overly long cool down and Elixir H still suffers from RNG. Actually, I would say that given their effects they all suffer from overly long cooldowns without Fast Acting Elixirs. This is worthy of a topic all its own due to the deficiencies of each elixir as a standalone utility skill so I’ll cut to the chase.

Q: Are there any plans to adjust elixirs so that they are a desirable/viable option without a 10-20 point investment in Alchemy?

8) I know that Signets are not intended for Engineers, but please consider this—the passive buffs they provide are not boons. This means every profession except the engineer can gain passive buffs that are immune to boon hate and boon stealing effects. Currently the Engineer is the only profession that suffers from this deficiency. Which leads me to ask:

Q: Are there any plans to add passive buffs to any of our slot skills? If not, why not?

9) Trait bloat and sprawl are suffered by all professions to a certain degree. Bloat is when there are too many desirable traits competing for a build’s attention, and sprawl is when you have to invest in to many trait lines to reach essential traits thus diluting your build.

Q: Are there any plans for another trait review to clean things up some more? If not, why not?

10) How are you doing?

Q: How are you? You look great today.

This thread should be up voted! Good questions.

Great topic man I hope someone from dev team will read this.

Would like to see these answered.

Wont hold my breath though…

very good, the two most important points are turrets and mortar for me. all the turret skills are pretty much ignored when it comes to choosing skills. theres really just not use for them the way they are right now. since there are traits for turrets based on detonating them, why is the CD on them so high? and come on now… mortar is an elite…. elites are supposed to do a lot better than that…

I would love to see some answer to these but I’m pretty sure we won’t get any.

On the topic of question #1:
It’s also worth mentioning that a decent number of kits actually require you to trait for them , for them to be effective imo.
In that sense i don’t think we’re as versatile as the devs make us out to be.

Keep in mind that this versatility is why they made our actual weapons worse than real weapons (this was said by a dev in ye olde times).

Keelin.5781:

I would love to see some answer to these but I’m pretty sure we won’t get any.

On the topic of question #1:
It’s also worth mentioning that a decent number of kits actually require you to trait for them , for them to be effective imo.
In that sense i don’t think we’re as versatile as the devs make us out to be.

Got to quote this. Bombs without the larger explosion radius can’t do much, for example. Grenades are basically balanced toward the player having Grenadier, and are kinda weak otherwise. Flamethrower’s damage is a bit on the weak side without having might – and juggernaut does exactly that, giving might. I would say tool kit, elixir gun and med kit are the exception, since they’re good even without their traits.
Imho, the problem here is that they balanced them whole on the assumption of people using all the specific traits, by nerfing the bare kit. Thus making them lackluster unless you specifically build for them.

Keelin.5781:

Keep in mind that this versatility is why they made our actual weapons worse than real weapons (this was said by a dev in ye olde times).

Our main weapons have their dps nerfed due of kits, too (see december update patch notes regarding the design of the classes)

Thanks for the positive responses. I put a lot of thought into how I would present each question. Even if we don’t get a developer response, I am confident that someone at Arenanet will read this as long as it’s on the front page for a day or two.

I’m going to add Keelin’s comment to question 1.

Bringing this to the top for one last day. To those who read and replied, thanks for the support.

I am relatively new to the Engineer, but this thread is articulate and well reasoned. I also look forward to seeing dev commentary.

Does Flamethrower have a purpose outside tagging mobs?

Kain Francois.4328:

Does Flamethrower have a purpose outside tagging mobs?

Bad troll. Bad. Go back to WoW.

FT is good, clean fun. It does mad DPS to multiple targets, just not the best of the highest to single targets. It’s a support weapon, not a direct burst weapon. It’s made for taking on groups of low health mobs, while handling untargeted adds on bosses. Tagging mobs indeed. As if tagging meant anything in this game. You get your own rights to loot off mobs, and you can’t steal rights off of others. Bad Troll.

Kain Francois.4328:

Does Flamethrower have a purpose outside tagging mobs?

I thought it was for spy checks…

digitalruse.9085:

Kain Francois.4328:

Does Flamethrower have a purpose outside tagging mobs?

I thought it was for spy checks…

LOL! Well played.

Please don’t derail this into an FT fanboy thread. There are plenty of those.

I’m curious about why the bomb cast times in water are faster than on land. Which one is balanced?

Downed state is a very important aspect of the overall combat system, and in this state many classes are at a disadvantage, Engineer included. As possibly the worst idea imaginable, Engineers can provide the enemy a more convenient means of getting in close to stomp them with Grappling Wire. This can oftentimes even occur accidentally if the player happens to press the #2 skill as they go down, nullifying the Immobilize/cripple a few kits and Rifle have on that skill slot.

Q: When can we expect the Engineer Downed State skills to be changed? Are you planning to change them at all? Do you like Engineer’s facing a certain death when downed?

Q: With the exception of mines which has a trait in the explosives tree, gadgets only have one trait that affect them. Will there be any more traits related to gadgets?

I guess the most we can do is hope for a reply…. =\

Does this look like a Q & A?! , Your best bet is to expect nothing.

I expect them to read it at the very least. Believe me, I don’t expect a single developer response.

Utility goggles are actually really good, but I wouldn’t mind a passive effect at all! It’d be kind of cool if all the gadgets had passive effects, but I do appreciate the work done on the toolbelt skills for those gadgets. On the downside, Cleansing formula 409 trait doesn’t seem to be working too hot lately, at least in PVP. Been getting owned by heartseeker, torment and necro wells. Life bar disappears before I can remove the conditions, and some seem to stay.

Drakkon.4782:

Kain Francois.4328:

Does Flamethrower have a purpose outside tagging mobs?

Bad troll. Bad. Go back to WoW.

FT is good, clean fun. It does mad DPS to multiple targets,

What do bombs and grenades do?

love it, would like answers as well

Underwater my second skill slot is slick shoes. If I use it, it gets a cooldown, obviously.
When I go on land, my second slot is my grenade kit.
Last time i used my slick shoes just before going on land… I had a 40 second cooldown on MY GRENADE KIT!

I have other questions, and I do think the OP nailed it pretty good with his sum up.
So just throwing this little one out here: a cooldown on a kit, because of underwater sill usage? Seriously?

Kimbald.2697:

Underwater my second skill slot is slick shoes. If I use it, it gets a cooldown, obviously.
When I go on land, my second slot is my grenade kit.
Last time i used my slick shoes just before going on land… I had a 40 second cooldown on MY GRENADE KIT!

I have other questions, and I do think the OP nailed it pretty good with his sum up.
So just throwing this little one out here: a cooldown on a kit, because of underwater sill usage? Seriously?

Takes time to dry them off of course!

…but seriously it’s a stupid indiscriminate mechanic, that was just as unbalanced for giving us multiple heals when transferring from water to land as it is in locking out our kits when we transfer from water to land. Problem is ANet in their infinite wisdom decided only to fix the healing bug since they’d rather just cater to Jon Peters and his 5 Signet Warrior. Since it takes a lot of time to make a bad build playable, there’s no time to discriminate kits from other skills in a water/land transfer. Sorry fellow Engineers, I guess we shoulda rolled Warriors?