Guild Wars 2

Penguin.5197:

Grackleflint.4956:

So we lose 2 stun breakers: Rocket Boots and Elixir R, and gain 2 stun breakers: Rumble (a turret tool belt skill of all things) and Super Speed. The latter is interesting because we have two ways to gain Super Speed: Kit Refinement gives SS on equipping the Tool Kit, and the tool belt skill for Slick Shoes is Super Speed. Did we just gain 3 stun breakers? It will be interesting to see.

All that said, I don’t think this was the right way to spread out our stun breakers.

Nah we would still have two stun breakers since kits go on cooldown when we get stunned.

Also, I laughed when I saw the notes for always prepared.

Don’t they just get put on a global—something like a second? Or is it 4…dang, can’t remember.

Aristio.2784:

Won’t believe it until the official notes are out. Been here long enough to never believe “leaked notes.”

If true however, I’m disappointed that Elixir Gun’s toolbelt skill isn’t a Stun Breaker. Since Kit Engineers don’t have any.

Ya, was disappointed to see no stun break for kit Engi as well…I usually run 3 kit.

Foefaller.1082:

Penguin.5197:

I play p/s frequently but that nerf/change to static shield is a let down considering shield already has a high cd to begin with. I’ll probably move over to p/p instead

Actually, if this is true, Static shield will be buffed.

Think about it, Static shield will no longer cancels when you block a melee attack. That will mean you can block and stun several melee opponents and still be able to throw the shield at the end for daze and damage, rather that almost always throwing the shield as soon as you can before someone hits you in melee and ends the skill.

Yeah I didn’t think about the no longer canceling part till after I wrote it and went out for a bit. I’m used to using it before chugging an elixir h but a two second block will work too.

If this is true they will kitten up our stun breakers. When i read that blog post i thought we would get more of them not the same ammount put on less useful skills.
Rocket boots was a great escape, all it needed was the removal of self-cc. What will we use it for? Who will use elixir r now? I hope these ain’t true.

On the bright side we might see some power builds emerge.

Tobey.4836:

Whats Rumble ? Is that the new rocket boots tool belt ? If yes, then i would really consider using rocket boot. Stun break + stability + a leap would be so nice.

Edit: Elixir R no longer a stunbreak ? Thats pretty kittenty.

Yeah I’m kinda wondering about that too, what do we use now for stunbreakers if they’re all changed to no longer break stuns? Or are they making a fundamental change to how many times in a row stuns can occur?

I’m curious about this little part.

I wonder, then, if this is referring to using your main 6 heal, going underwater, and using F1 on the medkit?

This doesn’t seem like a bug to me & would be pretty disappointed if they somehow changed it.

Shanks R Us.2489:

I’m curious about this little part.

Show Spoiler

hide spoiler

“Fix a bug that allowed Engineers to execute back to back heals by using the underwater transition.”

I wonder, then, if this is referring to using your main 6 heal, going underwater, and using F1 on the medkit?

This doesn’t seem like a bug to me & would be pretty disappointed if they somehow changed it.

This alone makes me question the validity of these “notes.”

Looks like a bunch of gadgets got their cooldowns lowered, which is awesome.

timidobserver.7925:

I hope our changes don’t revolve around turrets yet again. I say screw turrets. Until they revamp how turrets function entirely, they’ll be useless. Spend time adjusting stuff that can actually be salvaged.

. _. you’ve got to be kidding. Turrets are excellent right now, Accelerant Healing+Net builds are crazy,

After a quick cursory glance, I kinda like most of the changes, except this one;
Elixir R: This skill is no longer a stun breaker.

If the leaked changes are true, I’m feeling rather optimistic. My build will be an absolute nightmare for Guardians and Elementalist. And demoting Coated Bullets to Master, may free my trait points.

I see changes to skills and traits that nobody uses, and the only way to entice people to take those traits and skills is to take away the usefulness of the skills and traits we do use. Interesting way to improve “build diversity”. Meanwhile it seems other professions are getting all kinds of new fun things to play with. Eh, I’m not too optimistic, but maybe some theorycrafters can prove me wrong.

On a personal note, the only skill or trait that I use in my WvW build which has changed is Static Shield, and I’m not sure if it’s a buff or a nerf. Well I guess that means the build is already pretty good.

Yeah definite shame about elixir r if this is all true, though mostly nice improvements. I might have considered switching to rocket boots, but it’s no longer a stun breaker too… guess it back to elixir s for easy stomps.

Stabilized Armor change looks awesome. -20% damage while knocked down or stunned. Add Protection Injection on top of that, you’re looking at -53% damage when stunned or knocked down. That’s gonna be HUGE for big WvW fighting.

Also I’m kinda worried about this torment thing. Another condition to cleanse, and it could really impact my zerg-breaker build.

Everything is decent except for the ELIXIR R change. That skill is pretty bad now if it’s true. Full endurance with a 45 second cooldown… that’s it?

Ya this elixir R change doesn’t make much sense. The recharge on it is already too long.

Hammerguard.9834:

Everything is decent except for the ELIXIR R change. That skill is pretty bad now if it’s true. Full endurance with a 45 second cooldown… that’s it?

There’s also that little part about it resurrecting you.

If these are in anyway true, it can be summed in one word: Meh.

Looking at the changes, FT does get a nice boost as it doesn’t need 30 points into Firearms to work and can use a 0/25/0/20/25 build, and assuming that burning/bleeding is already covered, and no endurance used, they would get a total of 40% extra damage to flame jet.

Stabilized Armor looks pretty decent if you pair it with protection injection. The shield change is a good buff.

Tools line is still bad, Inventions is still bad, Scope is worthless to anyone that is using FT/Bombs (Rifle even unless you run away just to auto attack). Removing the stun break from elixir R makes it not worth taking (I’m pretty sure it had to get a stun break on it for people to take it), 3 kits don’t have stun breakers. Autobomb defense is still kinda bad with a 30s CD, but that could be me.

I probably am a negative nancy here, but really doesn’t seem like we’re getting anything new in terms of toys. Just stuff shuffled around while others are seeing some buffs (aside from rangers, but I pretty sure remember some dev posting about possible pet dps nerfs for survivability changes).

Oh, i almost forgot, Elite Supplies, is it actually going to work now?

Maybe I’m just ungrateful, but a lot of those changes in the pastebin I’m not looking forward to.

Tool kit: It’s a 1% damage buff. Um… yay?

Rumble: Despite running a dedicated turret build for forever, I still won’t use the thumper turret for some very good reasons. One, it has crap damage. Two, it has crap range. Three, it is really slow. Four, if someone is running turrets then the cripple is useless due to all of the immobilize and glue puddles lying around. So all in all, I get a turret that never hits, when it does it doesn’t do any damage and doesn’t contribute meaningfully in any way to any fight. The fact that the toolbelt is a stun breaker doesn’t mean a darn thing. It would be much better to just run elixir S, because then you can stability/stealth stomp an protect yourself.

Elixir X: I also never use this skill because it just isn’t worth anything. It transforms the engineer into one of two elites that never get any use on the classes they are actually built for. Making it recharge quicker just means it does nothing more often.

Fire Ice Mortar: A recharge reduction on one skill still will not warrant the use of this skill. The mortar launcher itself sucks due to all the bugs with every trait not working to boost it, alongside of the fact that it roots the user and makes them completely helpless during its usage. The attacks are incredibly slow, and the mortar is a giant target for anyone who sees one, and its skills are arguably worse than what an engineer has on-hand at any one moment. The recharge reduction means nothing because you’ll only get one shot.

Elixir R: One of the big reasons why it is that I liked to use this skill was because it was a stun breaker. I guess I can understand the nerf, since there isn’t any other revival skills that also stun break, let alone refill endurance, but I will still miss it.

Weakness Change: Originally, the fumble effect would reduce damage done by half, coming to a 25% overall damage reduction for non-crit builds. Now, if the opponent had no increase in crit damage and a 40% chance to crit, this would result in a 12.5% reduction in damage overall. Now, weakness only has a 25% chance to occur, so it ends up always being a 12.5% reduction anyway now. This is a buff to anything with high precision and crit damage, however this is a very big nerf to anything that didn’t have this (AKA pretty much every monster in PVE). And to this end, they cut the duration, too, making it overall worse than the 12.5% cut they put in. I wonder how that conversation went:

Employee A: “Hey, you know how weakness doesn’t work on crits? Well, lets make it work on crits, but now it only works half the time!”
Employee B: “…don’t most people build for a 50% crit chance anyway? Doesn’t that mean that there’s basically no change to how good weakness is?”
Employee A: “Well no, because sometimes there’s a guy with really high crits, and we gotta tone those down. We should cut the duration, too, since it’s now overpowered”.
Employee B: “But wouldn’t that duration cut mean it’s less than half as effective?”
Employee A: “They can still stack it up if you get a bunch of people to use blast finishers in a poison field. In fact, lets nerf that, too.”
Employee B: “I don’t see how this is supposed to help out the players…”
Employee A: “Then you’re just simple minded”. Employee A then goes to play his Guardian main.

Seriously. The changes to weakness didn’t buff it against anything that isn’t a dedicated zerker. It lasts for a shorter amount of time and occurs half as often in that shorter amount of time.

Sitting Duck: The biggest problem with this change is that I can no longer stack vulnerability with my turrets anymore. The internal cooldown kills that benefit, but at least I’ll get a cripple that’s half as long as the immobilization chain I lay down in the first place. This might be useful for the glue puddles, but it is an outright nerf to turret builds.

There are some really cool additions, though. Coated Bullets to master tier is going to open up a whole lot of flexibility in my PVE WvW Builds. Stabilized Armor when combined with Protection Fueled Injection is going to make it so I don’t need stunbreakers anymore, and Acidic Elixirs can add some nice boon removal, which is something we needed. Although I’ll miss the defensive functionality of Rocket Boots, now that it is a good chase and escape skill on a short cooldown I can see great use for it in WvW.

But every time these updates come out, I look at half of them and wonder what the point is.

Shanks R Us.2489:

Hammerguard.9834:

Everything is decent except for the ELIXIR R change. That skill is pretty bad now if it’s true. Full endurance with a 45 second cooldown… that’s it?

There’s also that little part about it resurrecting you.

That’s a separate skill that just happens to be bundled with ELIXIR R but ELIXIR R itself is no longer good if the change is true.

Rocket Boots: I only ever used it for the toolbelt skill because it was a nice long burn to add on blowtorch. I liked that it was an escape skill but it was useless since you got knocked down from the blast. With the blast now pushing you forward, it becomes a closer rather than an escape which is nice since we have been missing one of those. I think I would have preferred the rocket boots to knockdown the enemy and push you back so that you have some time to run away. I guess I will have to keep using acid bomb.

Modified Ammunition: This trait does sound tempting because I mainly use my P/P to fight with an elixir gun for support, but I already take cooldown reduction, extra range, and coated bullets. I would only swap out the extra range for this one and I could only see this worth using in PVE where a mob would have every condition applied. In WvW, the extra range helps a lot to deal damage before they can close in.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Stabilized Armor when combined with Protection Fueled Injection is going to make it so I don’t need stunbreakers anymore

I thought a bit more about this, and with food, protection inject and SA would grant 73% damage reduction while stunned.

If the leaked notes are true, then it means for me as a HGH Engineer that I lose the 2nd stun breaker in the 2nd patch. Elixir R was very important in team fights. Since I have not pushbacks my team utility is decreased.

I also do not understand this:

Rocket Boots: Now shoots you forward and doesn’t CC you. Cooldown reduced to 20 seconds. No longer a stun breaker.

So this is something like Bull’s charge?

great now i need to choose between speedy kits or scope both have alot of use hmm

I’m happy rifle is not getting “changed”. I use it a lot. My prefered weapon even though I try to use more kits I still switch to the rifle. I like it for the immobilize and knockback and also because of the jump shot. Therefore I like that leaked patch notes.

Also WvW I did not like the Supply Crate that much – often got AOEd down too fast. Hoping the trait fix for Elite will increase the range more than the usual 1500 max range…(other wise I’ll just stay with grenades). Also I used Elixir X a bit in WvW even though it is random. With CD reduced and traits… nice I like it. Would make it possible to almost tune it so you can use it… stay out of transformation after a full use and then only about a bit more than 60 sec CD left.

New Grandmaster Trait… per unique condition type or per stack? Imagine 2 conditions with 25 stacks lol… and then per stack(PvE it’s not unsuauall that high stack size at some huge champions).

Stun Breaker Super Speed seems interesting – cause I like that skill because of the additional speed.

Also I love the Battering Ram CD reduce… they are gonna be more people complaining about CC wanting a “Diminishing returns on CD” when I’m using me Rifle 4, Big Ol Bomg, Battering Ram AND Mine… lol.

Overall this is an improvement, but very focussed on PvP. About the only love for PvE is the 10pt lower cost to fully spec the EG and FT (which will still require 40pts).

Turret traits are still a mess.

All other classes are getting trait buffs as well and two of the favoured classes (mesmer and thief) are getting a new condition that specifically penalises mobile classes (e.g. Engs).

Overall, it’s a good first tidy up but only really relevant to PvP. It doesn’t look like it will make much difference to our lowly status in dungeons and elsewhere in PvE.

Our class been really buffed if we can belive this “leaks”, but the question is how they buffed/nerfed other classes?
FT – buff
+1 bunker skill in inventions
some reduce for charges
rocket boots (changed it’s purpose in interesting one)
jump shot
med kit trait (i don’t use it but +25% is good for those who uses)

I’m just dissapointed that we have the worse downed state among other classes…maybe some trait makes it better? Correct me if i’m not right, cuase itried a few…and didn’t see some improvment.
and will see how conditions will grow too…i think practice will show

Lupanic.6502:

I also do not understand this:

Rocket Boots: Now shoots you forward and doesn’t CC you. Cooldown reduced to 20 seconds. No longer a stun breaker.

So this is something like Bull’s charge?

yes u’re absolutely right, to jump on your opponent or on the zerg wvw it’s interesting stuff

Aristio.2784:

If true however, I’m disappointed that Elixir Gun’s toolbelt skill isn’t a Stun Breaker. Since Kit Engineers don’t have any.

I agree that Elixir Gun’s toolbelt skill, healing mist, is rather weak. Out of all the engineer kits it would be the most logical choice for a stun break, since EG is anycase a very low damage support oriented kit. In my opinion healing mist could either remove one condition or become a stunbreak in addition to providing the regeneration. Additional condition removal would be welcome since currently engineers are forced to take either cleaning formula 409 + multiple elixirs, healing turret or elixir C to remove multiple conditions. Furnigate can remove up to 5 conditions from allies in a cone, but it doesn’t remove any conditions from the engineer.

Some of the stun break changes made to professions were very logical e.g. “Protect Me”, which I suggested at the ranger forums is going to be made into a stun break makes a lot of sense. Instead of removing stun break from many skills I would wanted to see them be made more frequent. Now engineer is left is pretty awful set of stun breaks and the patch is going to hurt build diversity as you won’t be able to take so many kits. I play mostly in WvWvW and there consecutive hard CC chains are very common: lots of stun, knockdown, knock back. A lot of professions, including the engineer, really don’t have viable access to stability. Once you used your only stun break, you are pretty much dead meat as the cooldown of stunbreak skills are very long. This also applies to small scale fights e.g. I often roam with a fellow engineer. Our combined CC can take down most opponents with ease since there is almost no way out of several CC skills in a row. Basically if you manage to land down your CCs you win the fight.

Elixir R no longer being stun break, makes that skill simple too weak without any adjustments.

Elixir S was already nerfed, making it more or less useless for WvWvW.

I know that in WvWvW many engineers are still using Elixir S, but I have never seen an enemy engineer who hasn’t been downed and killed right after using it. So basically it is just a prolonged death wish. Everytime I see an enemy engineer, even in big zerg fight, using elixir S I feel a bit of pity towards him. I count to 3, use CC, gg.

Understandably thief sword #2 was nerfed so that it is no longer a stun break. One skill had simply too many good stuff built into it for low initiative cost: shadow step, condition removal and a stun break. My thief is gonna feel a bit sad seeing cluster bomb lose its 1200 range, still cluster bomb is one of the best skills in the game.

The new condition, torment, seems to be really aimed at hurting mobile enemiesand giving to mesmers and thieves who are already both extremely strong as WvWvW roamer professions are going to make them very deadly indeed. The elite duo thief teams seen in top EU tiers are already pretty much guaranteed death against most solo roamers. You can survive the burst of one thief and if that thief is bad or gets too overconfident and doesn’t reset the fight you can even win it, but winning two good thieves alone has already been close to impossible and now to give thieves more power to prevent enemy from getting away… (please don’t tell me that you can win two bad thieves who just spam heartseeker, I was talking about good thieves)

Weakness will be more effective against high critical chance builds, but less efficient against anything else. I am not sure if the developers understood that they are nerfing weakness for pve, which sounds really strange. Most pve creatures won’t be critting, thus the new weakness will provide just 12.5% dps reduction compared to 25% what it used to be.

Overall all the trait changes and the fixes to jump shot sound wonderful. I hope that finally jump shot animation would be normal speed (and not slow hover in the air) with the rifled barrels trait. Sadly it seems they still haven’t fixed blunderbuss. Even with the trait it does maximum damage at 100 range, which is less than melee range and extremely difficult to land that in a zerg fight full of area condition removal and swiftness. I think blunderbuss should do maximum damage at 300 range and 450 range if traited.

I hope Arenanet will continue to revamp some of the underpowered traits e.g. I am still looking at adrenal implant which is a really bad joke for a 30 point trait, considering rangers get 100% same effect with mere 5 trait points.

Hammerguard.9834:

Shanks R Us.2489:

Hammerguard.9834:

Everything is decent except for the ELIXIR R change. That skill is pretty bad now if it’s true. Full endurance with a 45 second cooldown… that’s it?

There’s also that little part about it resurrecting you.

That’s a separate skill that just happens to be bundled with ELIXIR R but ELIXIR R itself is no longer good if the change is true.

I agree some of these skills only had the stun breaker as their idealic design bonus., take that away and really there’s no reason to have them.

I agree about the Adrenal Implant that is a bad joke waiting to happen LOL. 30 points really? Surely they could put something else there.

Hammerguard.9834:

Shanks R Us.2489:

Hammerguard.9834:

Everything is decent except for the ELIXIR R change. That skill is pretty bad now if it’s true. Full endurance with a 45 second cooldown… that’s it?

There’s also that little part about it resurrecting you.

That’s a separate skill that just happens to be bundled with ELIXIR R but ELIXIR R itself is no longer good if the change is true.

Also, the ressing effect is counterable in many different ways – knockback when the engineer is going to die, launch when he’s downed or simply dps him enough when he’s downed to give another one time enough to stomp. Or in the case of pets/minions, you may even be able to stomp directly.

And we shouldn’t have bad utilities just because we’ve got toolbelt skills too. They’re our profession mechanic. A sort of additional utilities, not something that must be added to our utilities to be on par of others. It would be like nerfing warriors’ weapon skills because they have a burst skill related to the weapon.

hmmm…

So my Flamethrower Engineer can now spec:

Adept: Fireforged Trigger
Master: Juggernaut
Grandmaster: Napalm Specialist

So I can swap Napalm Specialist in for Precise Sights. Looks nice, but I wonder how the math adds up…

Manuhell.2759:

Hammerguard.9834:

Shanks R Us.2489:

Hammerguard.9834:

Everything is decent except for the ELIXIR R change. That skill is pretty bad now if it’s true. Full endurance with a 45 second cooldown… that’s it?

There’s also that little part about it resurrecting you.

That’s a separate skill that just happens to be bundled with ELIXIR R but ELIXIR R itself is no longer good if the change is true.

Also, the ressing effect is counterable in many different ways – knockback when the engineer is going to die, launch when he’s downed or simply dps him enough when he’s downed to give another one time enough to stomp. Or in the case of pets/minions, you may even be able to stomp directly.

And we shouldn’t have bad utilities just because we’ve got toolbelt skills too. They’re our profession mechanic. A sort of additional utilities, not something that must be added to our utilities to be on par of others. It would be like nerfing warriors’ weapon skills because they have a burst skill related to the weapon.

I do not understand why they pick our strongest skills and nerf them one by one. They buff only complete unused stuff. I understand that they want to make more builds playable, but I do not understand why this must happen by nerfing all used stuff to the ground.

Dunno, guess it is a problem in their concept of balancing . Still, those leaked patch notes could easily be fake, so let’s wait and see.

Terrahero.9358:

Torment, they have got to be kidding.
And Thieves and Mesmers are two of the professions to get this. Seriously!? Every patch Thieves get a new mechanic or something? And dealing with these professions in particular involves a lot of moving. And its already a tough matchup. So this is just going to be so much fun…

I think they gave it to them as consolation, as this condition will hurt them the most. They rely most on movement and dodging to stay alive, having this condition on them will destroy them.

Kilger.5490:

Terrahero.9358:

Torment, they have got to be kidding.
And Thieves and Mesmers are two of the professions to get this. Seriously!? Every patch Thieves get a new mechanic or something? And dealing with these professions in particular involves a lot of moving. And its already a tough matchup. So this is just going to be so much fun…

I think they gave it to them as consolation, as this condition will hurt them the most. They rely most on movement and dodging to stay alive, having this condition on them will destroy them.

Two professions that actually have a solid amount of condition removal, aswell as blinks (which im willing to bet WONT be affected by Torment).

Its not like we, as Engineer, stand still in a fight. We simply cant, my whole fighting revolves around kiting and constantly moving. This will shut me down just as hard if not harder because i lack an instant-gap opener/closer that Mesmers and Thieves have plenty of.
And im sure Rangers, Guardians, Warriors and Ele’s would like a word with you aswell.

I dont know about thief but most mesmers compromise condition removal for more dps or cloning ability.

I’m just imagining how much pain I am going to cause theives on my necro

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Rumble: Despite running a dedicated turret build for forever, I still won’t use the thumper turret for some very good reasons. One, it has crap damage. Two, it has crap range. Three, it is really slow. Four, if someone is running turrets then the cripple is useless due to all of the immobilize and glue puddles lying around. So all in all, I get a turret that never hits, when it does it doesn’t do any damage and doesn’t contribute meaningfully in any way to any fight. The fact that the toolbelt is a stun breaker doesn’t mean a darn thing. It would be much better to just run elixir S, because then you can stability/stealth stomp an protect yourself.

Elixir X: I also never use this skill because it just isn’t worth anything. It transforms the engineer into one of two elites that never get any use on the classes they are actually built for. Making it recharge quicker just means it does nothing more often.

A big emerging role for Engineers in sPvP is decapping a node… that is, taking nodes from other players without having to defeat them by keeping them off the point. The changes to Thumper Turret and Elixir X gives a lot more potential to these builds, and actually puts a little stunbreaker now into Turret Builds, which is one of the few things it was needing if you ran with high health and Melandru runes. If these leaked changes are true, it’s going to significantly buff the potential for several of our power builds in sPvP.

For some players who rely on support/control/bunker builds, these changes look to have some potential.

Lupanic.6502:

Manuhell.2759:

Hammerguard.9834:

Shanks R Us.2489:

Hammerguard.9834:

Everything is decent except for the ELIXIR R change. That skill is pretty bad now if it’s true. Full endurance with a 45 second cooldown… that’s it?

There’s also that little part about it resurrecting you.

That’s a separate skill that just happens to be bundled with ELIXIR R but ELIXIR R itself is no longer good if the change is true.

Also, the ressing effect is counterable in many different ways – knockback when the engineer is going to die, launch when he’s downed or simply dps him enough when he’s downed to give another one time enough to stomp. Or in the case of pets/minions, you may even be able to stomp directly.

And we shouldn’t have bad utilities just because we’ve got toolbelt skills too. They’re our profession mechanic. A sort of additional utilities, not something that must be added to our utilities to be on par of others. It would be like nerfing warriors’ weapon skills because they have a burst skill related to the weapon.

I do not understand why they pick our strongest skills and nerf them one by one. They buff only complete unused stuff. I understand that they want to make more builds playable, but I do not understand why this must happen by nerfing all used stuff to the ground.

lol, a bit over dramatic there. There are a lot of really great buffs in this upcoming patch, and not to just useless stuff. Acidic coating looks promising, Stabilizes Armor change is epic, Shield block not cancelling on hit is awesome, super short CDs on battering ram, stun breaker added to super speed TB for slick shoes is sweet. Plenty more too…the changes to the Firearms line and Flamethrower traits look sexy, etc.

Elixir R was probably the strongest stun breaker in the game. A stun breaker that also 100% refills your endurance AND has condition cleansing AND can self or team mate rez.

Most profession’s ally res utility is a signet, with a kittenty passive and a LONG CD with no other special effects.

If these are true… can’t wait to mess around with gadgets

I’m pretty happy overall.

Gadgets and turrets have had their cooldowns reduced, the Flamethrower had its trait dependency lowered, and Tools traits have been improved.

I still REALLY would like to see some turret trait improvements. If no buffing of the HP/armor on the turrets, at least some merging of some fairly weak but expensive turret traits.

Maybe add some turret specialist trait that allows a further reduced CD on turrets when picked up to reward good placement and allow the turret Engi to maintain some bit of feeling that they can move around the map. (though honestly I think this should just be default and not apply to healing turret) or go the other way, normalize all turrets when picked up to have the same CD healing turret does when picked up which is 15s and does not make you feel stuck at all.

I just cannot understand long CDs like 35s still when picked up. It doesn’t even make sense, where did it go? I thought I picked it up? Now its somehow missing for 35s?

Velron.3729:

Elixir R was probably the strongest stun breaker in the game. A stun breaker that also 100% refills your endurance AND has condition cleansing AND can self or team mate rez.

Most profession’s ally res utility is a signet, with a kittenty passive and a LONG CD with no other special effects.

You’re talking about 2 skills. Cause they are an utility and a toolbelt skill. So them together must be better than a single skill or our toolbelt is meaningless.
Elixir R itself is on par with others. Some cure conditions, some give vigor, our recharges endurance.
Using toss elixir R as a condition cleanser is feasible, but you’re basically wasting it if you’re not doing it for a subsequent ress chance.
And other classes’ res skills are simply different from engi’s one. Signets must be balanced due to passive effects and other skills may even target more than an ally – sure, we may do that too, but they must be really near due to the small radius.
And as i said before, there are quite a bunch of counters anyway.

Velron.3729:

lol, a bit over dramatic there. There are a lot of really great buffs in this upcoming patch, and not to just useless stuff. Acidic coating looks promising, Stabilizes Armor change is epic, Shield block not cancelling on hit is awesome, super short CDs on battering ram, stun breaker added to super speed TB for slick shoes is sweet. Plenty more too…the changes to the Firearms line and Flamethrower traits look sexy, etc.

Elixir R was probably the strongest stun breaker in the game. A stun breaker that also 100% refills your endurance AND has condition cleansing AND can self or team mate rez.

Most profession’s ally res utility is a signet, with a kittenty passive and a LONG CD with no other special effects.

You’re right about the buffs, but understand that Elixir R nerf would sure feel a bit odd.
(Assuming the leaked notes apply to the update) With Elixir S, then Elixir R – which were our best defensive utilities – nerfed, choosing a stunbreaker will be really hard:

• Elixir S is situational since it often just delays your death and enables your opponents in PvP to cap/decap a point. Unlike Eles we can’t heal ourselves while being invulnerable. It works, but its downside (basically dazing yourself and not even being able to use instant-casts) is very noticeable.
• Elixir R is no longer a option. The utility skill definately lacks something now. Nothing but endurance refill on 45sec cooldown? Very disappointing, especially when compared to Sigil of Agility. If the TB skill is the problem, they could have adjusted that one via CD increase, “res heal” decrease or duration decrease, for example. Would not make people happy either I guess, but it would be more reasonable in my opinion.
• Rocket boots is no longer a option (though it might be if it stays instant cast and despite not breaking stun can be used while stunned which would be too good to be true)
• Thumper Turret will hardly fit every build playstyle-wise and lacks a defense mechanic besides it’s stunbreak. Also, if placed, you’ll have to destroy the turret to break a stun. Doesn’t sound very tempting to me.
• Utility Goggles also misses a defensive function beside stunbreak and requires a power SD / spike build to fulfill its potential.
• Slick Shoes might be my #1 choice in the future. Although the utiity skill’s CC is a bit unreliable, Super Speed usually gets you out of the danger if there’s no immobilisation.

Not saying that these skills are bad in general, but in my opinion we need a stunbreaker that is defensive and not situational / build dependent and preferable gets you out of danger while being immobilised as well as while being stunned (most other classes have such skills and necro will kind of get one with Well of Power). Elixir S and R used to do this job. Rocket boots with self CC removed would have been my next hope but it is probably gone.

Im p/s HGH condi (not might stacking), so not really sure what this does to me.

Tho the news on mesmer and thieves getting that new condi sounds bat crazy. And on first glance, Confusion stacking plus this new Torment sounds like the most OP thing ever.

kitten …

As a side note, if super speed breaks stuns and kit refinement for tool kit gives super speed we just got a stun breaker for a kit all be it a cituational one

Rodrigo.1486:

As a side note, if super speed breaks stuns and kit refinement for tool kit gives super speed we just got a stun breaker for a kit all be it a cituational one

I was thinking about that myself, especially for the SD builds.

You know, I’m not real happy about the removal of the stun breaker from Elixir R. Skills become less desirable for general use when only the toolbelt or slot part of the skill is useful. We see this happen with so many other engineer skills: Goggles only for Analyze, Rifle turret only for the extra shot, Rocket Boots only for the rocket kick. Most people will chose a different skill that provides more VERSATILITY, more EFFICIENCY (like why kits will always beat gadgets). Elixir R has good utility for both the slot and toolbelt as-is. Post-patch, Elixir R will only be worth to take for the toolbelt. If engineer was a bit heavy on elixir stun breakers, they should remove it from U since they had recently added it to U. U still has good utility in both toolbelt and slot effects without the stun breaker.

Re. Dakittenation. I love it! Good one.