Guild Wars 2

I’m pretty excited about what we’ve seen of the Scrapper so far (especially the hammer!) but I’ve noticed that there’s a fairly prevalent opinion that the Gyros seem to effectively be turrets (with all the downsides in terms of being easily destroyed by incidental damage) that trade their overcharge for mobility and shorter durations and that they don’t really feel that different from our existing utilities.

I basically agree with the sentiment but I also feel that the stuff they actually do is pretty much spot on in terms of the abilities they should have (particularly the toolbelt skills) so I’ve spent some time over the weekend brainstorming to come up with a way to make them feel a bit more unique. I think this can be done with one of the features that was mentioned but wasn’t really expanded on much – the fuel system.

As a disclaimer I am fully aware that even if ArenaNet agree that changing the way the gyros work is a good idea there isn’t really going to be enough time for HoT launch (and certainly not enough before the next Beta Weekend) to implement any major changes to the mechanics but I feel it’s important to give design feedback in any event.

Revisiting Fuel
One of the things I saw talked about when the Scrapper was announced was mention of a fuel system which would be used to limit the amount of time the gyros could be used. I’m not sure if the original idea was a more expansive system but in the current preview it seems to refer to the timer for the gyros (which is quite generous with the duration in many cases) and doesn’t really significantly limit them.

I (and quite a few other players by the look of things based on posts here) originally thought that fuel system meant that we were getting something like the Revenant’s energy system. After some consideration, I think that’s the place to start as I think that having a more fleshed out Fuel system that would power both the function gyro and the utility gyros is exactly what the Scrapper needs to give it the uniquely different playstyle that the elite specialisations have been designed to add to their base class.

Fuel Resource Mechanics
I was sort of thinking that Fuel could be something like a combination of Revenant Energy and Necromancer Lifeforce and would have a limited number of units (10 for simplicity’s sake) that would only recharge (probably at a rate of 1 unit/sec) when there weren’t any gyros actively being used. The utility gyros would drain the fuel at a set rate per gyro similar to how Revenant upkeep skills like Impossible Odds currently work. They wouldn’t have any cooldowns but because of the fuel drain rates you would be hard pressed to have more than one gyro active at a time.

It would be similar to the Revenant energy system in that it regenerates on its own but different in that there’s no balancing regen/degen, just constant drain and recharge when not in use. It’s similar to Necromancer lifeforce in that it is drained to power abilities but different in that it doesn’t regenerate through skills/damage (without traits, see below for that).

I’d envisage a bar above the F1-5 toolbelt skills very similar to the lifeforce bar that Necros have (preferably with a numeric value on it to show you the current level of fuel you have) and ideally I’d like an icon that shows you the recharge of the function gyro so that you can tell when it’s available.

Gyros
So, we now have a limited resource to power our shiny new utility skills. How do we best rebalance them to work with it and address their shortcomings at the same time?

I envisage that with a limited resource system the gyros need to be changed so that they are significantly shorter duration but more powerful. Also, because they’re not going to be usable all the time or for long durations they can be changed so that most of them don’t take damage any more (but are still susceptible to control effects to give some counter play).

Please note that I would be suggesting removing the ability to manually detonate the drones with these changes as they’ve effectively been changed to an on/off skill (like Shiro’s Impossible Odds) rather than the semi-signet functionality of ‘channel passive effect and then use the active effect’ that Glint’s utility skills all have since we already have toolbelt skills to provide similar functionality. Most of the actual abilities the gyros have are perfectly suited for their intended use, they just need numbers tweaks.

Another nice thing about this proposal is that you could have any slotted gyros hovering around your character when they’re not being actively used like they did in the initial Heart of Thorns trailer which both looks great and allows your opponents in PvP to be able to tell what gyros you’re using.

Anyway, my suggested fuel drain values and minor changes to the gyros are below. If an gyro would need 2 units of fuel to continue the next pulse of its ability and there is only 1 unit left then the gyro should deactivate itself and count as out of fuel.

Note that some of the numbers on fuel drain/skill activation times might look a bit weird (like a pulse every 2 seconds for something which would only last 5 seconds with max fuel) because I’m trying to balance them against potential changes to traits (see the traits section below for more details).

Medic Gyro
Fuel drain: 2 fuel units/second (5 seconds at full fuel).
Immune to damaging effects and conditions but can be affected by knockbacks/blowouts/soft CC so it can be knocked away or slowed to provide some counterplay.
No initial healing (to prevent abuse from pulsing the heal), moderate AoE pulse healing every 2 seconds. Maybe use the personal heal value the gyro currently has as the base per pulse with 0.5 healing power scaling? Intended to provide reasonable sustained AoE healing at the cost of not getting a personal heal.

Bulwark Gyro
Fuel drain: 3 fuel units/second (3 seconds at full fuel)
Susceptible to all damaging and control effects.
Basically the same as now, shares 50% of damage on allies within range. Given it only lasts a few seconds due to fuel (intended to be used as a clutch 50% damage reduction) it should have its health increased to compensate for the shorter

Blast Gyro
Fuel drain: 3 fuel units/second (3 seconds at full fuel)
Immune to damaging effects and conditions but can be affected by knockbacks/blowouts/soft CC so it can be knocked away or slowed to provide some counterplay.
Given it’ll only last a few seconds due to fuel it won’t have much time to get to the target so CC should be very effective on it. This has been done because it has it has an unblockable knockback which I would personally like to see extended to 600 range.

Shredder Gyro
Fuel drain: 2 fuel units/second (5 seconds at full fuel)
Immune to damaging effects and conditions but can be affected by knockbacks/blowouts/soft CC so it can be knocked away or slowed to provide some counterplay.
Basically the same functionality as now except I’d change the combo interval for the Whirl to 1 second instead.

Purge Gyro
Fuel drain: 2 fuel units/second (5 seconds at full fuel)
Immune to damaging effects and conditions but can be affected by knockbacks/blowouts/soft CC so it can be knocked away or slowed to provide some counterplay.
Purge one condition from an ally (and any allies within very short radius, maybe 130 to match up to melee range?) every second instead of 2 every 3 seconds.

Sneak Gyro
Fuel drain: 1 fuel unit/second (10 seconds at full fuel)
Immune to damaging effects and conditions but can be affected by knockbacks/blowouts/soft CC so it can be knocked away and slowed to provide some counterplay.
Pulse 2 seconds of stealth to allies within range every 2 seconds so you end up with the same sort of stealth duration as Shadow Refuge if you can stay in range of it the whole time. Unlike the other gyros I would like to see the Sneak Gyro set so it doesn’t trigger aggro on enemy NPCs to allow it to be used as an alternative to Shadow Refuge/Veil.

Function Gyro
The elite specialisations offer alternative playstyles and the main Scrapper mechanic is Function Gyro. I like the idea of function gyro, so how do I get it to fit in given I’m basically suggesting changing the special mechanic to limited Fuel instead? Simple: make it work off the Fuel system just like the other gyros.

I was thinking that the internal cooldown on the function gyro could be reduced to maybe 15 seconds and it would use 5 units of fuel instantly when activated (which works out to effectively 20 seconds if you factor in the fuel recharge). Combined with the graphic for the function gyro recharge I suggested earlier it will give players better control over the use of the function gyro and will prevent them from being able to use it if they’ve been draining their fuel supply without paying attention.

Given that the function gyro spawns directly on the enemy player and can have stability thanks to traits I believe that it should retain the ability to be damaged much like the Bulwark Gyro.

Toolbelt skills
The toolbelt skills are already in a pretty great spot and the only changes I’d suggest would be to add a Stun Break ability to either the Bulwark, Blast or Sneak Gyro (with my preference for the Sneak Gyro) and to tweak the numbers on the Sneak Gyro toolbelt.

The speculation is that there may be encounters in HoT that require stealth removal but if the Sneak Gyro toolbelt functionality isn’t split between PvE and WvW/sPvP I feel that it really needs to have the Revealed length reduced (probably to 5 seconds to be in line with the Revenant skill Gaze of Darkness) and the cooldown increased to 25 or 30 seconds base (to factor in that the Tools specialisation reduces the recharge of toolbelt skills).

Traits
Given that I’m suggesting adding a resource system and removing the ability to detonate (and destroy, in most cases) the gyros, some changes need to be made to Final Salvo. The reason I have some weird values on the fuel durations above is because I would like to change Final Salvo to the following:

Final Salvo
Weapon attacks restore fuel. Gyros grant superspeed and create a lightning field when they run out of fuel or are destroyed (10 second internal cooldown).
Fuel restored per weapon hit: 1 unit
Superspeed (2s)
Pulses: 3
Radius: 240
Combo Field: Lightning

The important point to note here is that weapon attacks restore fuel, not kits. I decided that adding the fuel recovery onto weapon kit attacks was best as a trait since if you’re picking scrapper for the other traits/hammer and aren’t intending to use the gyros then you don’t need to have your attacks restoring fuel as you’ll always have enough to use the function gyro when it’s off cooldown.

The reason I’m suggesting this functionality is it gives a reason to actually use your weapons (particularly the hammer) instead of just spamming the grenade kit skill #1 as a filler. Hammer/Pistol autoattack cast times are half a second each and the Rifle is 3/4 of a second so the fuel gain won’t be too ridiculous given you’ll generally only be able to extend the duration of a gyro by 2-3 seconds if you do nothing but sit there and autoattack while they’re out. The internal cooldown for the fields has been added to prevent abuse of activating the drones and letting them run out of fuel every 2 seconds.

Other than that specific trait I think the traits that affect Gyros are fine and don’t need any work.

tl;dr
Add a fuel resource that’s a hybrid of energy and lifeforce to power gyros. Make gyro abilities shorter but more powerful. Make most gyros immune to damage but not CC. Make a trait you can use to restore said fuel resource on hit.

Pretty much all of the numbers here are placeholders so I’m mainly interested in everyone’s feedback on the actual design of the ideas and whether this sort of thing could a) actually work b) is worthwhile to spend dev time on it and c) whether this will actually differentiate gyros enough.

But the fuel doesnt matter because they will die too fast too stay out past the duration of the fuel..:( I am pretty sure anet wouldnt make them immune to damage either..

I mentioned several times that the tradeoff for making them only available for extremely limited amounts of time is that most of them (except the Bulwark and Function Gyros) would be immune to damage (or they’ll be worthless in WvW as everyone has noted) but still susceptible to CC to allow some counterplay, particularly in sPvP.

I realise the post is somewhat hard to read even with the formatting but that’s a limitation with the messageboard specifically and I can’t do much about it.

What happens to fuel when you don’t use a gyro?

Adamantium.3682:

What happens to fuel when you don’t use a gyro?

The salient question to all the fuel-ralated suggestions.

A fuel system works for a different implementation of the class, not the one we currently have.

Here, have your fuel system:

- Gyros are immune to any dmg.
- Gyros only can be cc’d
- Their cd’s start right when they’re summoned (so 15sec duration with a 30sec cd == 15sec downtime == 50% uptime)
- The gyros healthbar degrades automatically over time, working as visible “fuelbar”.
- Once it reaches zero or gets blown up, on-death effects will be triggered.

We can see their fuel status.
Enemies can see their fuel status.
CD’s & uptime can be adjusted freely for balance.

Adamantium.3682:

What happens to fuel when you don’t use a gyro?

It accumulates until it’s full and then stays at full until you use it? Necromancer lifeforce doesn’t do anything until you use Shroud, this would be the same thing.

Mercurius.7314:

Adamantium.3682:

What happens to fuel when you don’t use a gyro?

It accumulates until it’s full and then stays at full until you use it? Necromancer lifeforce doesn’t do anything until you use Shroud, this would be the same thing.

Sorry, I may not have been clear. What happens when you don’t slot a gyro?

Adamantium.3682:

Mercurius.7314:

Adamantium.3682:

What happens to fuel when you don’t use a gyro?

It accumulates until it’s full and then stays at full until you use it? Necromancer lifeforce doesn’t do anything until you use Shroud, this would be the same thing.

Sorry, I may not have been clear. What happens when you don’t slot a gyro?

Ah, I was suggesting making the Function Gyro (the F prompt replacement thing that can stomp/res at range) cost 5 fuel to activate. The nomenclature is confusing because they seem to be collectively referred to as function gyros but the F prompt replacement is also called function gyro.

Players who didn’t slot gyros will always have enough fuel to use the Function Gyro (because I suggested a 15 second cooldown which is enough time for the 5 fuel to refill) but players who are actively using other gyro skills would have to decide whether they want to use the function gyro or spent fuel on their other gyros.

Mercurius.7314:

Adamantium.3682:

Mercurius.7314:

Adamantium.3682:

What happens to fuel when you don’t use a gyro?

It accumulates until it’s full and then stays at full until you use it? Necromancer lifeforce doesn’t do anything until you use Shroud, this would be the same thing.

Sorry, I may not have been clear. What happens when you don’t slot a gyro?

Ah, I was suggesting making the Function Gyro (the F prompt replacement thing that can stomp/res at range) cost 5 fuel to activate. The nomenclature is confusing because they seem to be collectively referred to as function gyros but the F prompt replacement is also called function gyro.

Players who didn’t slot gyros will always have enough fuel to use the Function Gyro (because I suggested a 15 second cooldown which is enough time for the 5 fuel to refill) but players who are actively using other gyro skills would have to decide whether they want to use the function gyro or spent fuel on their other gyros.

Seems like you’re at a disadvantage the more of the elite spec you use, right? I mean no gyros = good function gyro you will always have fuel for. The more gyros you use, the less use you actually get from them because they’re sharing the same amount of fuel.

Adamantium.3682:

Mercurius.7314:

Adamantium.3682:

Mercurius.7314:

Adamantium.3682:

What happens to fuel when you don’t use a gyro?

It accumulates until it’s full and then stays at full until you use it? Necromancer lifeforce doesn’t do anything until you use Shroud, this would be the same thing.

Sorry, I may not have been clear. What happens when you don’t slot a gyro?

Ah, I was suggesting making the Function Gyro (the F prompt replacement thing that can stomp/res at range) cost 5 fuel to activate. The nomenclature is confusing because they seem to be collectively referred to as function gyros but the F prompt replacement is also called function gyro.

Players who didn’t slot gyros will always have enough fuel to use the Function Gyro (because I suggested a 15 second cooldown which is enough time for the 5 fuel to refill) but players who are actively using other gyro skills would have to decide whether they want to use the function gyro or spent fuel on their other gyros.

Seems like you’re at a disadvantage the more of the elite spec you use, right? I mean no gyros = good function gyro you will always have fuel for. The more gyros you use, the less use you actually get from them because they’re sharing the same amount of fuel.

Perhaps, but Glint (and to a lesser extent the upkeep skills in the other legends) already acts like that. The more upkeep skills you choose to use at once, the slower your energy regenerates (or even degenerates if you use too much) and then you’re left with the possibility of not having enough energy to use weapon skills which might prevent you from dying or allow you to down someone else. Even if you’re not using Glint, if you use Facet of Nature and your other upkeep skills constantly you’re going to run out of energy quicker than your legend swap cooldown is up and will end up as a sitting duck.

It’s more about choices than anything. Sure, someone not using any gyros will be able to use the Function Gyro whenever they want but by the same token they have (theoretically, anyway) chosen to give up the use of another utility gyro which could have been very powerful situationally. That’s obviously not the case at the moment but that was kind of the point of the suggestion.

But with Glint that’s how the profession works, everything the Revenant does is based on its balance of energy. It can’t just choose to make all of its skills except one not use energy or anything.

With this idea we don’t have to use the fuel at all, but if we do the gyros get worse the more we have equipped.

I like the idea of a fuel type mechanic, and I think you have some strong foundations for an idea. I don’t think it fits at all with Scrapper though, maybe it would be a good idea for the next one. Make the next elite spec actually give the Engineer a fuel bar that changes how their toolbelt works or something, something that is valid no matter what other skills the Engi uses.

Perhaps it is shoehorning a bit but compare it to what we have now as our class defining game changing ability: a ranged stomp/res drone on a 30 second cooldown that has low health and can be killed. They made a big deal about the fuel use aspect of gyros in two of the previews for Scrapper and then it’s not factored into the function gyro at all.

I know from reading several posts in this forum (made today, even) that I’m not the only one who was expecting that gyros would require some form of resource management (given the previews) and would have somewhat powerful abilities that were also only very short duration but also on relatively short cooldowns. I wouldn’t have minded so much if turret-like abilities were given to another class (although I bet they’d have minded) and we got something different to what we have already as opposed to what amounts to flying turrets.

Unfortunately in this case, Engineers already have a really varied set of utility skills so without changing the way the extra skills fundamentally work (and tying the function gyro into whatever system gets used because that decision was already made for us) all we’ll end up with is reskin of another type of skill we already have which leaves us in the same boat.

Really all I was doing was trying to come up with an alternative way to fit in with the flavour of both the elite spec and the utilities we’ve been given. Given that we’re Scrappers who work with scavenged supplies, we’re using drones (which also have limited fuel/energy in real life) and the devs already mentioned using fuel to limit the amount of time they can be active I really do think something like a fuel system, building static charges or something similar that the skills run off will make them unique enough to consider using. In their current state, I don’t think any of the gyros other than maybe the Sneak Gyro will really see much

Also, I may not have explained it properly but I was suggesting that I’d make all of the gyro utilities to work like Impossible Odds where they have a small upfront cost to start them (probably a uniform 1 fuel unit for all drones), can be toggled off at any time and then go onto a short cooldown (I think IO is sub 5s). Alternatively you can literally have them be the inverse of the Glint utilities and act like signets where they’re passive and then you upkeep the active abilities (or even just have short, powerful effects on logner cooldowns but then they’re literally just signets with toolbelts) but I was hoping to have something a bit more interactive.