Guild Wars 2

So I’ve played Scrap Rifle Field Test and kinda wondered why our #1 isn’t like in that scrap rifle. Tbh I had more fun playing with that than our normal rifle and dmg was actually what I would expect from it as well.

Wouldn’t mind some changes to our rifle – a mix between scrap rifle’s and our skills

Killyox.3950:

So I’ve played Scrap Rifle Field Test and kinda wondered why our #1 isn’t like in that scrap rifle. Tbh I had more fun playing with that than our normal rifle and dmg was actually what I would expect from it as well.

Wouldn’t mind some changes to our rifle – a mix between scrap rifle’s and our skills

Most rifle users have had this gripe for a long time. Our rifle is probably one of the weakest ranged weapons out there (although ranger short bow users might disagree). With the addition of projectile hate with HoT, it’s been relegated to uselessness in most modes, because its focus was on controlling the battlefield, which it could no longer do effectively.

Rifle and shield are two (out of our 3) core weapons that need serious overhauling to bring them back to where they should be. Pistol is still in good shape in PvE, but suffers from projectile hate in PvP.

Vagrant.7206:

Most rifle users have had this gripe for a long time. Our rifle is probably one of the weakest ranged weapons out there (although ranger short bow users might disagree).

Anyone who thinks ranger shortbow is weak is sorely mistaken, and needs to learn to use the weapon.

That said, yea engineer rifle needs a complete overhaul.

I have spent a lot of gold trying every possible combination to get engi rifle to be as fun as it used to be. You can get a mediocre build at best, but it’s not competitive. Engi gets so few weapons and hardly any classes get rifle. I don’t understand why this weapon has not been improved.

Rifle needs quality of life changes not a complete overhaul. It’s a very fun risk vs reward playstyle at the moment with a little too much risk involved.

A buff to what rifle already does is verry welcome but a complete overhaul is not something I am waiting for (currently the most fun engi weapon). Buffing rifle ( + many other power) builds can be done by making grenade kit (and bomb kit) usable (in player vs player scenario) without having to take the explosives traitline ( “Grenadier” is way too essential). Many potential power builds also got ruined by making flamethrower a near full condi kit (resulting in that you basicaly have to take the firearms traitline (like every good condition build has to) if you want to play with flamethrower). I hate it when kits/traitline combos become essential why can’t more kits be like toolkit and the old flamethrower? their skills work nearly just as efficient/are usable with or without certain traitlines and they are hybrid kits.

Rifle does needs, IMO, better traits and sinergies, i did publish a rifle build, that it took me to plat last season, but, the Elixirs where actually the stars on this build, and the access to ranged power damage was the only thing that made rifle a good choice over hammer.

I don’t even pick firearms, i don’t even bother to trait the rifle for his cd reduction, because tbh, the 10% more faster time casting is bs, you cant notice any change at all, if it really exists.

The rifle has good skills, give the rifle Traits that make worth to take the rifle, that’s the reason elixirs work perfectly in pvp escenarios, not worth it with raw stats, but take the alchemy trait and now those elixirs are worth it the slot.

We need something similar for the rifle.

Twigifire.8379:

Rifle needs quality of life changes not a complete overhaul. It’s a very fun risk vs reward playstyle at the moment with a little too much risk involved.

There’s a lot of risk you can’t mitigate with smart play. Specifically, if you hit someone with Overcharged Shot, and they have an on-cc trait equipped, you usually lose the fight or have to disengage.

Last Stand procs – Warrior hits you with cc burst chain instead. You die.
Shared Anguish procs – Ranger hits you with staff or bow to trigger Ancient Seeds while you’re knocked back from your own attack. You would normally clear immob with OC shot, but you can’t because it’s on cooldown. You die.
etc. etc. (although, those 2 traits are the worst offenders)

See also OC shot into unexpected reflect, Jump Shot over traps or guard lines, Net shot just being completely ignored by Warriors & Thieves.

coro.3176:

Twigifire.8379:

Rifle needs quality of life changes not a complete overhaul. It’s a very fun risk vs reward playstyle at the moment with a little too much risk involved.

There’s a lot of risk you can’t mitigate with smart play. Specifically, if you hit someone with Overcharged Shot, and they have an on-cc trait equipped, you usually lose the fight or have to disengage.

Last Stand procs – Warrior hits you with cc burst chain instead. You die.
Shared Anguish procs – Ranger hits you with staff or bow to trigger Ancient Seeds while you’re knocked back from your own attack. You would normally clear immob with OC shot, but you can’t because it’s on cooldown. You die.
etc. etc. (although, those 2 traits are the worst offenders)

See also OC shot into unexpected reflect, Jump Shot over traps or guard lines, Net shot just being completely ignored by Warriors & Thieves.

Yep. Many of the “control” skills rifle offers are simply underwhelming and dotted with huge weaknesses that most other weapons don’t have to deal with. Combine that with woeful damage and the whole weapon needs a total overhaul to bring it back in line with its original usefulness.

• Imagine for a second if charged shot acted like berserker’s headbutt, and had piercing rounds (and no knockback). Obviously that’s a bit OP, but closer to its original usefulness. At the very least, charged shot should not be blockable.
• Or put a pulsing immobilize/cripple on net shot (IE 2s first pulse, 1s every following pulse). Then it might be more dangerous to thieves.
• Or blunderbuss had even greater damage (get rid of the bleeds ANet) and a short cripple.
• Or jump shot had an evade built into the flying animation, bringing it inline with revenant sword 3/thief staff 5.
• Don’t want to buff the rifle damage? Ok, put in a cripple to the base attack. Now it’s clearly a power/control weapon.

The Engineer community is likely suffering the “stockholm syndrome”.

Looks like we get used to troll updates , and when we ask for buffs we tend to say “to don’t make it OP”.

Rifle has no use atm in any scenario,it’s outdated like if we are in the “celestial meta”,but this days are well gone now.

How much time has past since the celestial meta?Does anyone remember it?
We can’t even play static discharge for hoow defenseless we are atm with that weapon,and also cause static discharge has not enough damage anymore to deal with other classes defenses/counters.

It’s offensive towards Engineer players leave a CORE WEAPON unchanged when in such a bad shape after all that time.

I don’t know of any class that have it’s CORE WEAPON in a such bad spot.

What’s even worse,is that following the leaked info about the next expansion,thief can get a rifle…..
Man….

We need a buff,we deserve a buff for taht weapon,and while asking it i can’t AFFORD anymore to add “to don’t make it OP” in the same sentence.

Engineer rifle URGE a buff , a meaning one , nothing else to add in that sentence.

Nirvana.8659:

The Engineer community is likely suffering the “stockholm syndrome”.

Looks like we get used to troll updates , and when we ask for buffs we tend to say “to don’t make it OP”.

Honestly, that’s not Stockholm Syndrome. It’s wisdom from experience.

Every time ANet has nerfed engineer, they didn’t do it gently. We ask for “balanced” fixes because we don’t want to experience ANet overcompensating their balance yet again.

Take for example… Turrets. Went from being potent area defenders to mostly trash. Instead of just reducing their overall damage or survivability slightly, they nerfed the hell out of both, then threw in extra AoEs and condis into the mix.

Or what they did to gyro stun — they completely removed their daze ability in addition to reducing the number of leaps we do with rocket charge, which reduced our stuns even further. They could have just reduced the daze time or reduced rocket charge’s leaps, but they went ahead with both, and didn’t bother adjusting our traits to compensate.

It’s offensive towards Engineer players leave a CORE WEAPON unchanged when in such a bad shape after all that time.

I don’t know of any class that have it’s CORE WEAPON in a such bad spot.

Let’s be honest. Warrior has always been ArenaNet’s golden child, even since GW1. They have done their best to make sure warrior has everything it needs, other classes be kitten ed. And since engineer’s the last thought in their minds, they almost never do anything about us.

@Vagrant

I’m pure rage when we go to touch “balance” argoument and i think about engineer rifle.

THE ONLY viable power build for engineer in competitive scenario is Hammer + Elixir gun……
Elixir gun into a power build…do we understand this?The only viable thing coupled with our hammer is the elixir gun from 2 years, and not even ffor his damage,but for his utility,so basically we have no second weapon when using hammer.

I don’t know about you guys,but even with this build i skitten to struggle against every other class,cause i get outdpsed by every one,and i’m not anymore that God-mode tank.

And considering we are not a warrior,with 200 weapon to choice,our only alternative to hammer is rifle (if you are like me and avoid condis because they are stupidly overpowered in competitive scenario).

Almost every class has 2 weapon for power choice,but we basically don’t have it.
Tell me,honestly,am I over reacting?
Or are you able to use Rifle in competitive scenario,and “compete” with other classes without get roflstomped?

I perfectly know how they can be out of touch when it come to balance things,i also spoke about the removal of daze from gyro , leaving untouched Impact servant trait in other topics.
In my past post,i called it “a work half done”

It reminds me of when a mom says the son “clean your room” , and the child is lazy and hide evrything under the bed.
An easy fix,just to give the visual impact of a clean room,but in the end the chaos is still there.
The balance we were victims of,was pretty much the same.

This is why i say that we can’t ask for a buff and add “to don’t make it OP”.
Just start buffing it,do it,overbuff if you want,but let me take this rifle again.
Then nerf balance do the things you are told to do by your mom,but start buffing the rifle.
Cause i repeat,we URGE a buff for our ONLY power and core weapon , after 2 kitten years.
2 kitten year, 2 kitten years…..do we get it?
I repeat:
TWO KITTEN YEARS anet.

coro.3176:

Twigifire.8379:

Rifle needs quality of life changes not a complete overhaul. It’s a very fun risk vs reward playstyle at the moment with a little too much risk involved.

There’s a lot of risk you can’t mitigate with smart play. Specifically, if you hit someone with Overcharged Shot, and they have an on-cc trait equipped, you usually lose the fight or have to disengage.

Last Stand procs – Warrior hits you with cc burst chain instead. You die.
Shared Anguish procs – Ranger hits you with staff or bow to trigger Ancient Seeds while you’re knocked back from your own attack. You would normally clear immob with OC shot, but you can’t because it’s on cooldown. You die.
etc. etc. (although, those 2 traits are the worst offenders)

See also OC shot into unexpected reflect, Jump Shot over traps or guard lines, Net shot just being completely ignored by Warriors & Thieves.

That’s what I meant by ‘a little too much risk’ but there’s still plenty of out-play with the passive stunbreaks. If you’re vsing a warrior test the waters with a different CC first instead of blindly OSing. They’ll most likely have a stunbreak ready for it anyways even if they don’t have the passive. You should be trying to self-stunbreak your own OS as often as reasonably possible as well to maixmise your safety and follow up burst. The easiest way around the stunbreaks is to land a pull first, to either proc their passives or get them to use their stunbreaks so you’ll be able to hit the OS afterwards. Most of the things you mention have plenty of counter play, i.e. not jump shotting over theirs traps since you’ll see the placement animation.

The issues with rifle at the moment is the amount of projectile hate, and the amount of stability/stunbreaks people have. Passive CC’s shouldn’t be too much of an issue and can easily be forced out.

9 peoples reply to this topic.
Peoples are fine with rifle i suppose.
It must be me nad this 8 peoples more unable to play it,that’s the only my conclusion.
And this is sad , would be nice have the community of this class partecipate to bring this topic to the eyes of someone in the Anet.
May be reddit works better for it anyway.

Nirvana.8659:

9 peoples reply to this topic.
Peoples are fine with rifle i suppose.
It must be me nad this 8 peoples more unable to play it,that’s the only my conclusion.
And this is sad , would be nice have the community of this class partecipate to bring this topic to the eyes of someone in the Anet.
May be reddit works better for it anyway.

I totally still play rifle, just see my signature, playing it or not it doesnt change that rifle needs more love.

Specificly, get into the levels that HoT power creep brought.

HoT brought power creep, projectile hate, and better options. Rifle just doesn’t measure up any more. (goes for a lot of pre-HoT things actually..)

I quit using it after a year of it being severely outclassed.

Nirvana.8659:

9 peoples reply to this topic.
Peoples are fine with rifle i suppose.
It must be me nad this 8 peoples more unable to play it,that’s the only my conclusion.
And this is sad , would be nice have the community of this class partecipate to bring this topic to the eyes of someone in the Anet.
May be reddit works better for it anyway.

oy

9 people reply and you think anet gonna be all up in here promising changes??

thats not how this works

pretty sure the community at large is disappointed in rifles current state, but we said this 2 years ago, 1.5 years ago, 1 year ago, 6 months ago, 3 months ago, and nothings changed.

you get 900 people saying change it and maybe anet will look into it more urgently.

Nirvana.8659:

9 peoples reply to this topic.
Peoples are fine with rifle i suppose.
It must be me nad this 8 peoples more unable to play it,that’s the only my conclusion.
And this is sad , would be nice have the community of this class partecipate to bring this topic to the eyes of someone in the Anet.
May be reddit works better for it anyway.

Honestly… just take an eyeball at the different players you encounter on a regular basis (at max level).

You’ll see primarily necros, warriors, and guardians. Those are the classes that ANet has been kindest to.

Engineer was never a popular class. Even at launch, I never saw that many (maybe 5-10%). But with the almost constant battering over the last few years, I see maybe one other engineer in 20 fractal runs (and that’s being generous). The population of engineer mains is tiny.

Then extrapolate how many people care enough to post on the forums, and you’ve got about the 8 people you see here.

This video has been particularly relevant to me lately, and it’s over 4 years old:

oy
9 people reply and you think anet gonna be all up in here promising changes??
thats not how this works
pretty sure the community at large is disappointed in rifles current state, but we said this 2 years ago, 1.5 years ago, 1 year ago, 6 months ago, 3 months ago, and nothings changed.
you get 900 people saying change it and maybe anet will look into it more urgently.

That aint happening, and you know it. Most people who mained engineer have moved on. I’m just a too kitten stubborn fan of the franchise to leave. But honestly, I feel more and more depressed every time I see an update and I’m willing to move on when I see something to hold my attention for longer.

Notice how many people complained when they took away the engi farm in Lake Doric. Notice how none of those people posted on this forum. Because engi isn’t their main.

I have already stated before that rifle needs a change with its auto since its more like a shotgun it should act like one with auto attacks.
Range from 600-900 lower damage
300-600 medium
0-300 max damage
Also giving it a small aoe cone that hits up to 5 targets for aoe while adding vuln or something (can be adjusted in firearms for bleed effects or other things through traits)
Blunderbuss should be changed to some kind of explosive shot ability maybe another leap or a multibutton skill, like a high damage double barrel shotgun style skill for burst with a daze.
eh whatever

Frightlight.3796:

I have already stated before that rifle needs a change with its auto since its more like a shotgun it should act like one with auto attacks.
Range from 600-900 lower damage
300-600 medium
0-300 max damage
Also giving it a small aoe cone that hits up to 5 targets for aoe while adding vuln or something (can be adjusted in firearms for bleed effects or other things through traits)
Blunderbuss should be changed to some kind of explosive shot ability maybe another leap or a multibutton skill, like a high damage double barrel shotgun style skill for burst with a daze.
eh whatever

I agree, rifle should act as a cleaving mechanics like a shotgun, treat it as blunderbuss but with adjusted damage appropriately.

And change blunderbuss into Nitro Slug, it deals chill condition to 5 enemy within 400 aoe of target

with my sentence about the 9 peoples commenting,I meant to say “only 9 peoples commented”,so may be open a thread on reddit will work better,for visibility and for ammount of reply.

In any case,i feel is depressing to see our only power weapon for core engineer be in that state , after 2 years,untouched .

I mean,they touched the core weapon of every single class,every single class,to make some adjustment.
And of course….we are invisible untill we make a post of 1000 peoples commenting,or some youtuber with big visibily speaks of it,or someone is able to open a thread on reddit and gain enough reply.

This is painfully stupid,the balance should be spontaneus,especially in that case.

Also because , from what i see , there is no more “big” youtubers playing engi , no offense to any streamer , but i’m old school 4 years old (well since right after the beta) engineer main , and i lost track of all the major streamer that used to play this class,especially after HoT .

Nirvana.8659:

with my sentence about the 9 peoples commenting,I meant to say “only 9 peoples commented”,so may be open a thread on reddit will work better,for visibility and for ammount of reply.

In any case,i feel is depressing to see our only power weapon for core engineer be in that state , after 2 years,untouched .

I mean,they touched the core weapon of every single class,every single class,to make some adjustment.
And of course….we are invisible untill we make a post of 1000 peoples commenting,or some youtuber with big visibily speaks of it,or someone is able to open a thread on reddit and gain enough reply.

This is painfully stupid,the balance should be spontaneus,especially in that case.

Also because , from what i see , there is no more “big” youtubers playing engi , no offense to any streamer , but i’m old school 4 years old (well since right after the beta) engineer main , and i lost track of all the major streamer that used to play this class,especially after HoT .

Part of the problem is their forum mentality. Since they never post in the class subforums (or even seem to bother to read them), these threads never get viewed. If you try to post in the forums they do actually read about engineer woes, your thread gets moved here to the graveyard. It’s almost like a trolling joke of theirs.

Post on reddit, and you might have a chance to get seen, but even that’s relatively slim. You’ll barely get traction, and most people will use the same tired complaints about engineer — that we’re already top DPS tier, why are we complaining? Or that scrapper is “OP” or some other complaint from people that don’t play engineer to any great extent.

The class is suffering greatly, but most other players can’t see the forest for the trees.

Also, I’d point out WoodenPotatoes video about how screwed up engineer traits are for the power bomber. You know what ArenaNet took from that whole video? That flipover skills should be detonate, instead of the toolbar skill. That’s all they did, and that wasn’t even a major complaint of his either — he pointed out how negligible the DPS of the turret was in the first place.

Pre HOT i wouldn’t have guessed rifle would be deemed nonviable for a long time. Non meta? Possibly. But nonviable? At the time i thought it had decent burst with range utility. It was the king of single target “cc” with a 2 sec immobilize and a short recharging launch. Of course projectile hate used to be an engineer counter in general but the rewards used to pay off.

But now it isn’t odd that we tend to avoid it. The defense of it relies on crowd controlling a target, thus why its more of a duelist weapon than the multitarget pistols. But even against a single target how do we fare against other duelist professions?

Take for example the daredevil, a prime example (in pvp not so much of a duelist but in wvw it certainly is). Not saying things are good, bad, balanced or whatever but consider this spec.

If we land our skill2 despite slow traveling time against a target with 3 dodges, the thief might just dodge straight out of it. And if we hit our overcharged shot and it has no autotraits it can reliably stunbreak and block the follow up burst AND CC us back on a similar cooldown with bandits defense. And if its using staff part of its autoattacks reflect meaning we have yet another thing to consider.

We can also consider the scrapper with its high evade uptime, low reliance on CC combos other than to keep targets in range, blocks, reflects and frequent (though not deep) access to stability should it chose to.

Or the berserker which can actually benefit from us stunning it or just shrug it off (not as much of a problem after the stab trait nerf on berserker).

Dragonhunter? Block, blinds, pulls, aoes, autostunbreaks.

Its a war of stab, stunbreaks and cremoval vs CC and this conflict has escalated with HOT.

And i’m not even sure what they should do with it, other than give it fair treatment in cases like the evade added to vault in beta but not to jumpshot (which also has a long cooldown and cannot be used multiple times).

Nirvana.8659:

Also because , from what i see , there is no more “big” youtubers playing engi , no offense to any streamer , but i’m old school 4 years old (well since right after the beta) engineer main , and i lost track of all the major streamer that used to play this class,especially after HoT .

There actually is a big name youtuber who plays Engineer… problem is he kinda doesn’t really give GW2 any sort of coverage anymore… Jesse Cox…

miriforst.1290:

And i’m not even sure what they should do with it, other than give it fair treatment in cases like the evade added to vault in beta but not to jumpshot (which also has a long cooldown and cannot be used multiple times).

Honestly, the biggest thing would be giving it more counterplay to the counters (fun!) or changing the fundamental mechanics of how it works.

Biggest problems the rifle faces right now are projectile hate, CC breaking, and generally poor damage:

• For hip fire, the best suggestion I’ve heard is actually changing the attack to work more like a shotgun so that it can’t be reflected. I’m also in favor of adding a cripple here (like 1/4 to 1/2 a sec depending on distance), and scaling damage by proximity. This change would also give the rifle some AOE capability too.
• For net shot, it needs to have a pulsing immobilize to be effective. Otherwise, it can be easily condi cleansed or dodged out of.
• Blunderbuss should likely be changed to an explosive shot that launches or cripples people. It could be unblockable as well.
• Charged shot needs to be unblockable, period. It’s kind of absurd otherwise. The self-knockback should be changed to an evasive roll like it is for warrior.
• Jump shot should have an evade, lower cooldown, and higher damage. As it stands, it is not useful for getting around, getting away, or dealing damage.

I think these changes would bring Rifle back in line with its original design philosophy, and at the very least make it viable in PvP, and much more useful in PvE.

Vagrant.7206:

Nirvana.8659:

with my sentence about the 9 peoples commenting,I meant to say “only 9 peoples commented”,so may be open a thread on reddit will work better,for visibility and for ammount of reply.

In any case,i feel is depressing to see our only power weapon for core engineer be in that state , after 2 years,untouched .

I mean,they touched the core weapon of every single class,every single class,to make some adjustment.
And of course….we are invisible untill we make a post of 1000 peoples commenting,or some youtuber with big visibily speaks of it,or someone is able to open a thread on reddit and gain enough reply.

This is painfully stupid,the balance should be spontaneus,especially in that case.

Also because , from what i see , there is no more “big” youtubers playing engi , no offense to any streamer , but i’m old school 4 years old (well since right after the beta) engineer main , and i lost track of all the major streamer that used to play this class,especially after HoT .

Part of the problem is their forum mentality. Since they never post in the class subforums (or even seem to bother to read them), these threads never get viewed. If you try to post in the forums they do actually read about engineer woes, your thread gets moved here to the graveyard. It’s almost like a trolling joke of theirs.

Post on reddit, and you might have a chance to get seen, but even that’s relatively slim. You’ll barely get traction, and most people will use the same tired complaints about engineer — that we’re already top DPS tier, why are we complaining? Or that scrapper is “OP” or some other complaint from people that don’t play engineer to any great extent.

The class is suffering greatly, but most other players can’t see the forest for the trees.

Also, I’d point out WoodenPotatoes video about how screwed up engineer traits are for the power bomber. You know what ArenaNet took from that whole video? That flipover skills should be detonate, instead of the toolbar skill. That’s all they did, and that wasn’t even a major complaint of his either — he pointed out how negligible the DPS of the turret was in the first place.

they don’t post here cuz a million people, like you, would jump down their throats and draw them into unproductive heart wrenching discussions about how it’s the end of the world that they aren’t the savior you’re looking for.

if they instead leave us to our own devices and we manage to produce skills and balance theses that arent merely 50 post echo chamber threads about how rifle sucks, they do actually read that stuff and probably take inspiration from it. I can personally attest to them doing so.

the problem is, most of the balance and suggestion threads here and in other profession subs are trash in some form or other, often to the point that you really shouldn’t want a dev wasting time on them.

also, you wanna talk forest? dont forget about the expac coming up. at this point, we need to see holosmith and how it affects our standing before we can give any reasonable feedback. it’s there, the plans for it are becoming more and more concrete, and we’re still in the dark cuz anet refuses to show us unfinished products. this is prolly the last or 2nd to last balance round before things change drastically. and anet moves glacially.

…I can’t believe you would make a forest/trees comment and link wp while saying they took 1 thing from it and not mention holosmith lol

insanemaniac.2456:

they don’t post here cuz a million people, like you, would jump down their throats and draw them into unproductive heart wrenching discussions about how it’s the end of the world that they aren’t the savior you’re looking for.

Cheers!

also, you wanna talk forest? dont forget about the expac coming up. at this point, we need to see holosmith and how it affects our standing before we can give any reasonable feedback. it’s there, the plans for it are becoming more and more concrete, and we’re still in the dark cuz anet refuses to show us unfinished products. this is prolly the last or 2nd to last balance round before things change drastically. and anet moves glacially.

So… you’re telling me rifle will somehow be magically fixed with the next expansion? Despite the fact that it’s been woefully underpowered for years now and many people have (rightfully) pointed this out? It doesn’t take a genius to recognize that an expac won’t necessarily fix old content.

…I can’t believe you would make a forest/trees comment and link wp while saying they took 1 thing from it and not mention holosmith lol

• Holosmith is leaked information. We don’t even know if that’s the final specialization, and there’s no point on speculating about it because they’ve been so tight-lipped.
• Do you actually expect holosmith work to fix rifle issues? Or our core trait issues? Last I checked, elite specializations have their own weapon and trait lines unaffiliated with core trait lines.
• You’re also implying that power creep is a good thing with this comment. I don’t know if that was your intention.

For the rifle I have some very straight forward fixes. Hip shot would be fine if the skills of the rifle gave support to long ranged combat. Net isn’t terrible but extremely limited on use, would move this to skill 4 to be more in line with what the skill is used for. 2 should be an unblockable long range shot with a charge time and higher damage output than hip shot should also cause stun think of it as a sniper shot. 3 should be changed to 1200 range with increased damage and bleed the closer the target is also this should be a cone AOE hitting up to five targets. 5 should be an AOE blind with possible evade backwards. This change would fit an engineer in both gameplay and style.

Vagrant.7206:

insanemaniac.2456:

they don’t post here cuz a million people, like you, would jump down their throats and draw them into unproductive heart wrenching discussions about how it’s the end of the world that they aren’t the savior you’re looking for.

Cheers!

also, you wanna talk forest? dont forget about the expac coming up. at this point, we need to see holosmith and how it affects our standing before we can give any reasonable feedback. it’s there, the plans for it are becoming more and more concrete, and we’re still in the dark cuz anet refuses to show us unfinished products. this is prolly the last or 2nd to last balance round before things change drastically. and anet moves glacially.

So… you’re telling me rifle will somehow be magically fixed with the next expansion? Despite the fact that it’s been woefully underpowered for years now and many people have (rightfully) pointed this out? It doesn’t take a genius to recognize that an expac won’t necessarily fix old content.

…I can’t believe you would make a forest/trees comment and link wp while saying they took 1 thing from it and not mention holosmith lol

• Holosmith is leaked information. We don’t even know if that’s the final specialization, and there’s no point on speculating about it because they’ve been so tight-lipped.
• Do you actually expect holosmith work to fix rifle issues? Or our core trait issues? Last I checked, elite specializations have their own weapon and trait lines unaffiliated with core trait lines.
• You’re also implying that power creep is a good thing with this comment. I don’t know if that was your intention.

no, it isnt ad hominem, its literally what happens. the last time a dev was around here, he asked for feedback, got more than im sure he needed because random people crawl out of the woodwork when a red post appears, couldnt really act on it because his managers told him “just do a feedback thread kitten” or something without allowing him enough time or resources for 1 class let alone the 3 he had to work on, and for the next year this forum and his thread became “whered he go” “why didnt this ever come to fruition” “engi needs more work”. the thing about anet is that they seem to have so much that they want to do that they dont have resources to also constantly overhaul small parts of the game over and over and over to satisfy endless complaints. there may not be a dev employed by them who actually has a grip on the intricacies of balancing all (or even 2) classes in a profoundly inspirational way. so they do look for feedback, but it really actually does get drowned out in kitten like “put 1 sec of burning on flamethrower 1”, “double the damage on blunderbuss”, “make turrets great again /cry”, “gyros without daze are trash give it back”, etc etc. being angry about it and toeing the line of flaming doesnt make people (devs are people too) want to read your stuff, and quite frankly you are that here, and you are that in other threads where you get all up in arms about engi being forgotten. thats not ad hominem.

i aint sayin kitten about rifle being fixed or not, itll probably remain the same as it ever was – adequate for core/pve, useless for pvp because everything else is better. and thats not because anet hates it, its because they can choose to either spend time on rifle or spend time on holosmith. tough choice i know, but someone is forcing it, be it the managers, the investors, the players, or the devs.

turrets on the other hand. turrets literally could not function without the toolbelt. now they can. why would anet bother to change such entrenched functionality if they planned to leave engi with the toolbelt forever. and there is an expansion coming soon.

those 4 sentences are all you need to say to yourself to draw a conclusion that holosmith might ditch the toolbelt. these 4 sentences are facts that have come out of anet themselves.

as we have seen, they do not bother changing things that are “viable” (but maybe not “good”) when they dont literally have to change it to keep it functioning for future plans. see rifle, explosives, grenades, elixirs H R C and toss U, and anything else that is outdated by elite specs (especially in settings where the things were once meta, such as grenades and 3-4 kit engi in pvp) or anything else across the entire game that functions passably but gets complained about for not being good enough.

secondly, there literally is an expansion coming on the next release cycle after living world episode 6. it may happen on a bit more extended timeline than the normal release cadence. but it is happening.

you dont need leaked info here. knowing the likely name of the spec and its likely weapon and trait icons based on screenshots from an nda’d client is interesting but tangential.

as for the power creep comment, no i do not support power creep. if you feel the need to flip through my extensive post history, youll find that since HoT i have bemoaned the new reality that practically excludes non-elite specs and i did not complain about the multiple rounds of hard nerfs that scrapper has received, contrary to the threads those posts are in. and for now, i recommend waiting for the expac (or preview) to see where holosmith will stand, because current balancing is quite obviously being done with that in mind and will undoubtedly still leave core specs in the dust despite our sorrow and anger. things change. adapt. its the nature of games like this.

insanemaniac.2456:

no, it isnt ad hominem, its literally what happens. the last time a dev was around here, he asked for feedback, got more than im sure he needed because random people crawl out of the woodwork when a red post appears, couldnt really act on it because his managers told him “just do a feedback thread kitten” or something without allowing him enough time or resources for 1 class

Two things:

• You implied I would jump down his throat in an unproductive manner. That doesn’t address anything that I said, nor is it productive (irony!). That kind of meets the criteria for ad hominem (or at the very least poisoning the well).
• That thread you’re referring to was this one. This thread was posted over 2 and a half years ago now, and was just telling us how scrapper was going to play out once HoT released. The problem is not that thread… the problem is that was probably the last time we ever saw a dev on these forums. Two and a half years. They have had a presence on other profession subforums every few months or so. The thread wasn’t even unstuck until I specifically requested it a few months ago.

the thing about anet is that they seem to have so much that they want to do that they dont have resources to also constantly overhaul small parts of the game over and over and over to satisfy endless complaints.

Lessee…

I remember a certain post by Gaile Gray about our issues...

“We’ve been making some gradual changes to pistol and rifle, hoping to bring them a bit more in line with hammer. As for Jump Shot, it’s difficult to land both the first and second attacks consistently unless you’re cleaving a downed player. To address this, we’ve moved some of the initial damage to the end of the attack, making it easier to spike. The total damage done by the skill will be the same.”

That was back in December. The balance team promptly did virtually nothing to lead to what they actually promised. If they don’t have the time, they shouldn’t bring it up, or at the very least indicate it’s not really a concern.

there may not be a dev employed by them who actually has a grip on the intricacies of balancing all (or even 2) classes in a profoundly inspirational way. so they do look for feedback, but it really actually does get drowned out in kitten like “put 1 sec of burning on flamethrower 1”, “double the damage on blunderbuss”, “make turrets great again /cry”, “gyros without daze are trash give it back”, etc etc.

I can’t speak to their financial status (I know next to nothing about it), but perhaps that’s what hiring people is for. Maybe a math guy with some creativity. Or using community liaisons like WP or some of the Twitch streamers who have their fingers on the pulse of the game. Just throwing ideas out there.

But they don’t seem to make any sort of approach to the matter. The time between the last balance patch and this one was about 6 months, probably the longest time between balance patches, and it’s been gradually getting worse. Whatever they’re doing, they’re really not paying attention.

being angry about it and toeing the line of flaming doesnt make people (devs are people too) want to read your stuff, and quite frankly you are that here, and you are that in other threads where you get all up in arms about engi being forgotten. thats not ad hominem.

Not fulfilling promises makes people disappointed. Huh. Who would have thought.

Or consistently nerfing the class I main while making constant tweaks and improvements to others, while ignoring ours. Might make a person irritated. Nah.

But don’t worry! Me expressing frustration is clearly the reason they hurt us! It’s my fault! I should repent of my ways!

/s

i aint sayin kitten about rifle being fixed or not, itll probably remain the same as it ever was – adequate for core/pve, useless for pvp because everything else is better. and thats not because anet hates it, its because they can choose to either spend time on rifle or spend time on holosmith. tough choice i know, but someone is forcing it, be it the managers, the investors, the players, or the devs.

You do realize there was a significant period of time where rifle was the PvP meta for engineers, right?

I don’t think they hate us. I think they don’t care. The only way to make them care is to keep our voices loud and consistent, and use our wallets appropriately. Hyperbole is just one of the tools to get them to pay attention.

turrets on the other hand. turrets literally could not function without the toolbelt. now they can. why would anet bother to change such entrenched functionality if they planned to leave engi with the toolbelt forever. and there is an expansion coming soon.

I don’t disagree on this point. Turrets functionality needed tweaking to make them better. But adding perfume to garbage doesn’t make it not smell like garbage.

as we have seen, they do not bother changing things that are “viable” (but maybe not “good”) when they dont literally have to change it to keep it functioning for future plans. see rifle, explosives, grenades, elixirs H R C and toss U, and anything else that is outdated by elite specs (especially in settings where the things were once meta, such as grenades and 3-4 kit engi in pvp) or anything else across the entire game that functions passably but gets complained about for not being good enough.

Except you’re demonstrably wrong on that. Warrior weapons are a great example. Just recently they brought up the axe’s viability, even though it wasn’t that bad compared to rifle.

no, i am not poisoning the well by pointing out the essence of what is wrong with how these forums have factually interacted (or attempted to interact) with the devs as a likely reason they do not post here, and yes, you are part of the problem when you post threads like your recently disappeared one. it is not irrelevant. it is not preemptive, it is reactive. i am not ridiculing or discrediting you.

if anything i am calling you out for being rude in a way that anet will not, cuz they will delete your rudeness and they will not respond to it. get off your angry horse and have a civil, profound discussion and a year or 2 later you might be able to look back and say “this patch note was quite obviously spawned of the discussion i had so long ago”. and if you cant handle that kind of a turnaround time, i suggest finding another gaming company to hound that is more in line with the flexibility you desire, because after nearly 5 years around here i can tell you with confidence that that isnt anet.

as for warrior axe, all i have to say is 2 things.

1. after these patch notes, this weapon didnt see any significant lasting uptick in its usage. people tried it out for a day or 5 but ultimately the changes amounted to nothing because its dps and utility are still swirling in the gutter, and thats what this is, swirling. something else is probably holding anet back from actually making significant changes that would bring this weapon up because number tweaks just wont do it.
2. am i talking about engi rifle or warrior axe?

do you play warrior? idk you. so for reference, in pve power warrior is such meh dps these days that raids will kick you and all axe does is dps and those changes didnt bring it up in a useful way in the presence of normal group buffs, quite similar to the state of scrapper in pve actually. in pvp, axe does only damage in a setting where you could instead be doing cc too or also have the option to use strong gap closers/disengages. but yeah its fine for open world. just like scrapper.

now, you might have almost had a case if you brought up necro axe, where the buffs and similarly timed condi nerfs were significant enough to put power necro into pretty wide use in pvp, but still did jack all in pve. but i seem to recall a vague feeling of surprise and elation by the community at large that there was a new build to play.

insanemaniac.2456:

no, i am not poisoning the well by pointing out the essence of what is wrong with how these forums have factually interacted (or attempted to interact) with the devs as a likely reason they do not post here, and yes, you are part of the problem when you post threads like your recently disappeared one. it is not irrelevant. it is not preemptive, it is reactive. i am not ridiculing or discrediting you.

if anything i am calling you out for being rude in a way that anet will not, cuz they will delete your rudeness and they will not respond to it. get off your angry horse and have a civil, profound discussion and a year or 2 later you might be able to look back and say “this patch note was quite obviously spawned of the discussion i had so long ago”. and if you cant handle that kind of a turnaround time, i suggest finding another gaming company to hound that is more in line with the flexibility you desire, because after nearly 5 years around here i can tell you with confidence that that isnt anet.

• I’ve played Guild Wars since a few months after Prophecies released. I’ve seen just how fast they can respond to something if it is a priority to them — it can take them days, or even hours to respond if something is a big priority. I know GW2 is a larger endeavor, so I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt that it takes longer. But it doesn’t take 2 years longer if they care.
• You realize they haven’t engaged in polite engineer conversations either? Sometimes kissing a person’s butt isn’t what it takes for them to notice you. I’m all in favor of having a polite, civil discussion — if they bothered to even show up.
• I wasn’t aware ArenaNet had a merger with Valve. Please tell me more about ArenaNet time. /s

as for warrior axe, all i have to say is 2 things.

1. after these patch notes, this weapon didnt see any significant lasting uptick in its usage. people tried it out for a day or 5 but ultimately the changes amounted to nothing because its dps and utility are still swirling in the gutter, and thats what this is, swirling. something else is probably holding anet back from actually making significant changes that would bring this weapon up because number tweaks just wont do it.

I know that warrior in PvE is still condi heavy, as that’s the general meta consensus, so the changes to axe aren’t meaningful in PvE (yet).

But I have noticed a significant uptick in axe warriors in PvP. It dropped a bit after people tried it out, but I still see it regularly now.

1. am i talking about engi rifle or warrior axe?

You said they don’t make improvements to existing core weapons. I pointed out how wrong you are. I didn’t even bother to mention the improvements they made to thief shortbow!

My point still stands. They do make regular improvements to core weapons for other classes. Rifle has languished for 2 years, and at best we get some weird, irrelevant buffs to skills that aren’t the source of the problem.

At the rate they fix/balance stuff, they’re very very lucky there aren’t any other comparable games out there. If there were, I would have left long ago.

It’s sad that we talk about balance changes and class updates in terms of years rather than weeks or months.

At this point,i can see them buffing rifle and shield together right before announce the new elite specs,exaclty like they did with kit revamp before announcing HoT stuff.
I say that because,again,that 2 weapons are totally useless.

The point here,it’s just too strange for me have to wait literally years to see a buff to core weapons .

Oh a bump warning….I’mnot worried,you need it.

Nirvana.8659:

At this point,i can see them buffing rifle and shield together right before announce the new elite specs,exaclty like they did with kit revamp before announcing HoT stuff.
I say that because,again,that 2 weapons are totally useless.

The point here,it’s just too strange for me have to wait literally years to see a buff to core weapons .

Oh a bump warning….I’mnot worried,you need it.

At this point, I’m not sure I can expect that. After over 2 years of this, they go and make improvements to warrior rifle without even making a nod to ours.

Well,we must be honest with criticism,they left us with 2 useless weapon for 2 years,that’s right,and no one can remotely defend anet on this , and no one can say anything to the enraging peoples inside the engineer community.
But the last patch didn’t change anything for anyone in the end.
Don’t let your eyes go blind after you see rifle+warrior in the patch notes,cause they did nothing extreme on it,as on the all other classes in the patch notes.

Ivantreil.3092:

the access to ranged power damage was the only thing that made rifle a good choice over hammer.

Exactly why I chose rifle over hammer. Sadly, I need to get close, almost hammer-range close to use 3-5 effectively..
Which leave us with 1 & 2 as true ranged option.

This is just my thought—At this point, it looks like they want to keep rifle ‘short-ranged’ for engineer, whatever the cause. The traitline for firearms says it out loud. They even make the new legendary rifle more pleasing to see on engin(using jump-shot with the predator is cringy for some people).

That being said, it’s fine as long as it’s not outclassed horribly as it is now.

Riddle.2714:

Ivantreil.3092:

the access to ranged power damage was the only thing that made rifle a good choice over hammer.

Exactly why I chose rifle over hammer. Sadly, I need to get close, almost hammer-range close to use 3-5 effectively..
Which leave us with 1 & 2 as true ranged option.

This is just my thought—At this point, it looks like they want to keep rifle ‘short-ranged’ for engineer, whatever the cause. The traitline for firearms says it out loud. They even make the new legendary rifle more pleasing to see on engin(using jump-shot with the predator is cringy for some people).

That being said, it’s fine as long as it’s not outclassed horribly as it is now.

And not by nerfs, by powercreep, damage wise Hammer and Rifle are on the same page, however, when we talk about evades, cc, mobility, or team utility, rifle falls behind.

Thats why i have been only trying to do builds that focus on the rifle aa, dealing as much damage as possible, i not even bother to trait firearms for the rifle , most of the time, that trait only helps rifle 3, 4 and 5, when the other traits offer A LOT more for buffing your utilities, your survivability, cd reduction etc.

Rifle doesn’t need a complete overhaul, but at least the following should happen:

net shot, rifle #2, reduce CD from 10 s to 8 s
blunderbuss, rifle #3, also a blast finisher (suits the skill), maybe also unblockable
overcharged shot, rifle #4, remove self-knockdown
jump shot, rifle #5, add evade frames and make the animation a bit faster (to allow it
effectively be used as movement skill vs swiftness)

This would still make rifle high risk vs hammer, which offers more utility and defense. Unlike most players, I think rifle auto attack is fine. It is just the other skills are too risky / unreliable or don’t have enough.

They could add 1 stack of stability for 1 second at jump shot. Doing that, with a little of boon duration, you would be able to shoot overcharged shot without self-knockdown, improving the sinergy of the rifle habilities. This could be part of the trait “Skilled marksman”.

Killyox.3950:

So I’ve played Scrap Rifle Field Test and kinda wondered why our #1 isn’t like in that scrap rifle. Tbh I had more fun playing with that than our normal rifle and dmg was actually what I would expect from it as well.

Wouldn’t mind some changes to our rifle – a mix between scrap rifle’s and our skills

I’d like that and additionally I’d like us to have a stronger shot we don’t need a net there are like TONS of CC already we don’t need more CC so they could replace the net shot with something better.

Twigifire.8379:

Rifle needs quality of life changes not a complete overhaul. It’s a very fun risk vs reward playstyle at the moment with a little too much risk involved.

TOO MUCH RISK 0 REWARD

anyone who has played engi for a long time knows that rifle needs some SERIOUS love and as one of the few classes that even gets to use rifle, its a total waste.

Overcharged Shot – hits ‘Last Stand’ (or similar). oops. dead.
Overcharged Shot – hits reflect. oops. dead.
Net Shot – only a 2s immob, but it’s broken immediately by a dodge or movement skill anyway.
Hip Shot – meh damage compared to revs dropping 5k autoattacks
Jump Shot into the fray – hits a pile of CC and damage. oops. dead.
Jump Shot away from the fray – gets a DH spear in the back and pulled. oops. dead.

Blunderbuss is okay I guess, but it’s still wasting half the damage on condi when it should be power.