Guild Wars 2

actually Rifle as a whole needs a rework

seriously i went to wvw and i did not land this skill even once even on enemies who were unaware of my precense as they fought someone else

this skill is broken and unlandable on any enemy that doesnt stand still

needs its base speed doubled or something and remove the unnecesary rifle and harpoon gun skills speed trait , also give harpoon gun’s auto projectile speed its the same

the simple fix would be to give it a 1-2s wind up and instead shoot an instant immobilize the darn thing has a 2s duration to begin with , even if you stack condi duration this skill will barely pose a threat and if you did you’d give up damage making your rifle useless asides as a cc support weapon

overcharge shot shouldnt knock us back or it should have a wider aoe cone radius

Get closer and use it, or combo it with overcharge shot. It’s not meant for opening at range. You can always do something like jump shot —> overcharge shot —> net shot, or pull instead of jump shot.

when someone gets a high change in momentum as youre casting net shot, it does silly things like fly off the screen at a million miles an hour. their distance from you doesnt matter in these cases, and in fact, the closer they are the worse this appears to be. these are also precisely the moments when someone else is ccing your target, and succeeding at doing so, and precisely the moments when you want someone immobilized in order to chain your ccs, and it is frequently impossible to do so (for better or worse tbh).

there is a “git gud” aspect… but the targeting and projectile speed suck too.

insanemaniac.2456:

when someone gets a high change in momentum as youre casting net shot, it does silly things like fly off the screen at a million miles an hour. their distance from you doesnt matter in these cases, and in fact, the closer they are the worse this appears to be. these are also precisely the moments when someone else is ccing your target, and succeeding at doing so, and precisely the moments when you want someone immobilized in order to chain your ccs, and it is frequently impossible to do so (for better or worse tbh).

there is a “git gud” aspect… but the targeting and projectile speed suck too.

Yeah fair point. It has quite a bit of randomness when someone casts a movement spell at the same time. The change I think would be more of a quality of life adjustment (sort of like fixing magnet pull but not AS gamechanging as that). Either way I’m not too fussed. But the ways I said above are normally just the best times to use it where it’ll have the highest probability of landing

Wahoo!

All not homing projectiles work like this: they fly to where the target would be once the projectile lands, if the target moves into the same direction for the time the projectile is in mid air. In short: it would always hit if the enemy doesn’t change it’s path.

It’s a great feature of counterplay, called stutter step and is also used in pve to evade attacks like the auto attack of the molten fractal endboss.

Wahoo!

What is this “Net Shot”? Is that on the weapon we all used to use before the ANet released the clearly OP Hammer?

Seriously, Hammer is so much better than our other weapon options they should just be deleted (I say this as a proud owner of The Predator).

displacedTitan.6897:

What is this “Net Shot”? Is that on the weapon we all used to use before the ANet released the clearly OP Hammer?

Seriously, Hammer is so much better than our other weapon options they should just be deleted (I say this as a proud owner of The Predator).

they are both good weapons if used for the right occasion , the hammer is superior for dueling/pvp but the rifle allows for good damage from a distance and is good for stuff like wvw ,but you are correct

rifle is pretty good except that for some reason overcharge despite being a cone skill can be reflected , not sure if it was a bug and net shot Very rarely lands , and jump shot on a damage focused build is simply suicide , as well as the fact all of the rifle skills are close range skills , #3 the main burst skill requires you to hug your target for optimal damage, jumpshot is a ground targetted leap so damage will be done where you land wich makes it all the more easy to avoid, overcharge is kinda stupid and all the more insulting that warriors got this skill with an evade instead of self knockback

simply put our ranged power weapon demands an extremely risky playstyle for little to no reward compared to the other ranged professions

Xyonon.3987:

Wahoo!

All not homing projectiles work like this: they fly to where the target would be once the projectile lands, if the target moves into the same direction for the time the projectile is in mid air. In short: it would always hit if the enemy doesn’t change it’s path.

It’s a great feature of counterplay, called stutter step and is also used in pve to evade attacks like the auto attack of the molten fractal endboss.

Wahoo!

seems more like a "projectile is too slow " issue for me since as i mentioned i even shot it at distracted enemies some ran forward as i chased them and the darn thing still dint land on them sometimes even flew over their head, wich kinda makes sense with what you mention , wich also makes this method seem outdated and stupid if it cant predict and land on enemies barely moving even if they go a single direction

Twigifire.8379:

Get closer and use it, or combo it with overcharge shot. It’s not meant for opening at range. You can always do something like jump shot —> overcharge shot --> net shot, or pull instead of jump shot.

this would be good if OC shot dint knock us too , wasting a stunbreak or stab for a 2s immobilise is a waste

I have couple thousand hours as rifle engineer. Net shot is fine. It maybe needs a slightly increase in projectile speed, but at least it has counter play (strafing) like many here already commented. It is a skill shot, which are becoming rarity in this game.

Blunderbuss (rifle #3) needs to be a blast finisher, because it would both fit the skill and some utility to rifle kit. I would also be happy if jump shot (rifle #5) animation would be quickened, because then it could be used as a gap closer and spend less time in the air, which is very risky vs skilled opponents. Currently on an even ground running with swiftness vs jump shot leads to almost identical travel speed. Jump shot offers minor advantage only when there is elevation upwards (going uphill or going up stairs is slightly faster with jump shot). Biggest advantage of jump shot is probably in jumping puzzles.

However the biggest balancing problem is that hammer is so much better weapon in spvp. It has very good dps, tons of utility, block, evade, AoE stun, lightning field, triple lead finisher, might stacking. Even with my suggested changes I think the vast majority would choose hammer over rifle or pistol/x.

I’m glad we have at least one projectile left in the game that you can strafe and avoid without dodging. GW2 was great when you could strafe Ranger longbow arrows, just like you could in GW1.

Rezzet.3614:

Twigifire.8379:

Get closer and use it, or combo it with overcharge shot. It’s not meant for opening at range. You can always do something like jump shot —> overcharge shot --> net shot, or pull instead of jump shot.

this would be good if OC shot dint knock us too , wasting a stunbreak or stab for a 2s immobilise is a waste

The self-cc is waaaaaaaay shorter than that inflicted on your target though. The run-of-the-mill rifle combo is OS —> Filler (AA or blunderbuss) —> Net shot —> blunderbuss/jump shot.

Agreed. Rifle as a whole needs a buff. It is unplayable and it only succeeds at giving your opposing team a guaranteed kill everytime they encounter you.

On the other hand, Condi Pistols are just perfect (:

infinitenoah.8296:

On the other hand, Condi Pistols are just perfect (:

On the other hand indeed – only the offhand pistol is good … and mh pistol 3 but you won’t go p/p just for that.

If you would like to have a defensive variant even as condi pistol / shield seems somehow worse than a (yes I’m gonna say it) condi hammer. You got double as many blocks with twice the duration with an aoe stun aswell, even on less cd, you’ve got 5 times as many reflections (altough 2 instead of 3s duration) and you’ve got a triple finisher wich is basicly a 4500 heal.

So you would rather NOT take pistol shield as condi. You take pistol pistol because of the offhand :/ The mainhand is too weak too.

Xyonon.3987:

infinitenoah.8296:

On the other hand, Condi Pistols are just perfect (:

On the other hand indeed – only the offhand pistol is good … and mh pistol 3 but you won’t go p/p just for that.

If you would like to have a defensive variant even as condi pistol / shield seems somehow worse than a (yes I’m gonna say it) condi hammer. You got double as many blocks with twice the duration with an aoe stun aswell, even on less cd, you’ve got 5 times as many reflections (altough 2 instead of 3s duration) and you’ve got a triple finisher wich is basicly a 4500 heal.

So you would rather NOT take pistol shield as condi. You take pistol pistol because of the offhand :/ The mainhand is too weak too.

pistols need a rework as well , There is No justification for pistol #2 to fire in a circular cone missing even stationary targets and before anyone even suggests to get close ITS A PISTOL , pistol needs its condi duration doubled on all skills except for Blowtorch as well as a 30-50% increase in auto base damage , just the base damage not the actual damage scaling this would make it possible to still pressure enemies with heavy condi clear, by pressure i mean actually damage them instead of having them sit on capture points at 100% hp even in 2 v 1 scenarios

shield needs a 30% cd reduction to be viable in this current meta

my biggest gripe with engineer is that all our skills are ranged yet meant to be used on Melee range

the only non melee skills are the auto attacks both on rifle and pistol

Rezzet.3614:

my biggest gripe with engineer is that all our skills are ranged yet meant to be used on Melee range

the only non melee skills are the auto attacks both on rifle and pistol

This is the single biggest problem with Rifle, Pistol and Shield. Its also why Hammer is better in every way possible. ANet gave Engineers mid range weapons which was fine when they were our only option, now that we have a real melee weapon there is no reason to even try some midrange type playstyle.

Honestly I have no idea what they were thinking when they designed hammer or the other elite specs, its pretty clear the same devs who designed the core classes and balanced them with drawbacks were none of the people involved with the trait overhaul or the new elite specs. The new stuff just doesn’t have any weaknesses and makes no tradeoffs whatsoever, same is true of all the classes.

displacedTitan.6897:

This is the single biggest problem with Rifle, Pistol and Shield. Its also why Hammer is better in every way possible. ANet gave Engineers mid range weapons which was fine when they were our only option, now that we have a real melee weapon there is no reason to even try some midrange type playstyle.

there will always be a place in any competitive game mode for playstyles that focus on controlling an opponents distance and using it to gain advantage in a fight.

unfortunately, that playstyle for engi just isnt keeping up with power creep at the moment. but there is still space for it.

Exactly. It was fine, back when there was less stability, reflect, block, invuln, etc. etc. running around. Now, it’s too much risk to deal the same damage and is much less likely to apply its control effects.

Deniara is correct about Jump Shot. It needs to be faster or have some evade frames.

I mean, why risk self-cc with Overcharged Shot when there’s a >50% chance it’ll be blocked or reflected. Why use Jump Shot and risk being killed/cc’d when you could just use Hammer and deal the same damage at the same range while blocking or reflecting or evading?

coro.3176:

Exactly. It was fine, back when there was less stability, reflect, block, invuln, etc. etc. running around. Now, it’s too much risk to deal the same damage and is much less likely to apply its control effects.

Deniara is correct about Jump Shot. It needs to be faster or have some evade frames.

I mean, why risk self-cc with Overcharged Shot when there’s a >50% chance it’ll be blocked or reflected. Why use Jump Shot and risk being killed/cc’d when you could just use Hammer and deal the same damage at the same range while blocking or reflecting or evading?

50% faster speed for rifle #5 (jump shot) is better than evade frames as it would allow that skill to be used as a gap closer, especially when moving a bit uphill. The animation must be made fast enough for the rifle user to travel faster than merely running with swiftness on. It would also keep rifle as high risk/high reward weapon, getting immobilized while at air is still not fun.

Hammer is still brokenly good. The minor shave to hammer #3 was a joke balance attempt. I guess it is the pet weapon of some Arenanet developer and that is the reason why they refuse to nerf it properly to the level of other weapons. It has very good DPS, utility, defense etc. all in one package. Now the might stacking got better so I guess their “balance” idea was that it would better compete with pistol/pistol and make sure nobody would use rifle anymore as hammer has slightly better DPS and now also offers reliable might stacking.

The recent balance changes will probably not shake the meta much for engineer. I predict most engineers will continue to be scrappers, use hammer, healing turret, elixir gun, elixir x/sneak gyro, other gyros like bulwark gyros will also be popular. Elixir based builds (B, C, R) will also be more popular and I guess toolkit might see some use.

The minor buffs to some gadgets were a really bad joke from Arenanet. Do they really think that a mere 33% buff to rocket kick damage will make most engineers pick rocket boots over a kit!? I have gazillion times suggested reasonable changes to gadgets to make them viable. Rocket kick should as a gap closer (600 leap) or alternative increase it’s CD and make it into a stun break. Gadgets need more utility, not mere some % of damage to make them more viable.

instead of changing anything how about simply fixing the hitbox and the way the projectile itself works, and while your at it fix blunderbuss hitbox too