Guild Wars 2

The trailer showed quite a few noticeable scenes of an Engi with rifle and flamethrower…

Given the response in the Engineer forum section after the last balance patch, there may be a chance of some buffs?

/hopeful >_<

Or just simply Engi enviromental weapons :c
…
but hey!

/hopeful

/hopeful for change

Seeing fancy Anet videos of weapons inevitably mean it will be nerfed, not buffed. Cause we cant have too cool stuff.

After all buffs FT received over the last 2 years, I feel like it doesn’t need buffs anymore, and that’s saying something considering that I camp it pretty much all the time in PvE. Yes, damage output is not ideal, but you can’t really compare it to neither melee weapons nor ranged weapons directly, considering its rather “hybrid” nature.

Making FT less clunky would have been nice though. Napalm ball getting stuck in the terrain, AA failing to hit enemies who are slightly above or below your primary target, that sort of thing.

I doubt they’ll give us a balance so soon after previous one…

But still
/hopefull

Nah it was probably just for the special effects. Same with the underwater bomb skill in the video.

Harpoon gun was also in the video.

Eastcorn.5901:

The trailer showed quite a few noticeable scenes of an Engi with rifle and flamethrower…

Given the response in the Engineer forum section after the last balance patch, there may be a chance of some buffs?

/hopeful >_<

WHERE are you seeing this???? I wanna see it.
Oh please please please ANET show Engi some love. You went to so much trouble to make your classes unique in this game, lets keep it up and make them viable as well.

I’m still upset about that Gear Shield nerf out of nowhere and the inexplicable buffing of Rocket Boots’ damage of all things.

Also, Rifle has needed a buff since HoT was released. If it’d been designed for HoT, Overcharged Shot would be unblockable or would be a backward evade. Jump Shot would evade. The autoattack would probably apply a buff or debuff to the enemy.

Compare with any HoT weapon including Hammer and tell me that’s not true.

Given the thematics of the new map, I doubt it. Just think of the release of Ember Bay. Most of the new enemies there were weak to ice, taking more damage when chilled.

If anything, the video most likely displayed the Engineer Flamethrower in the same fashion. New enemies in the map will be weak to fire and take more damage while burning is applied.

I get the feeling FT won’t see a buff the next patch, unless they just decide to spread out the current burning to ¼s burn ticks per hit, resulting in an extra ½s of burning when all 10 hits connect.

Otherwise, condition and flamethrower camping builds would thrive in the new map. Not that it matters as it’s open world PVE.

I’m actually hoping they don’t touch them. They are good like they are and there are other things that need changes more than these two weapons do.

Uh no, they’re really not. Please provide examples.

Eg. Rifle is worse than HoT weapons because it is high risk, low reward and provides no defensive cooldowns. Plus, its attacks are projectiles which are countered and reflected by practically everything these days.

Flamethrower is awkward to use and is plagued by retaliation problems in WvW.

It would be nice, but let’s face it – A.net has no idea what they are doing in terms of balance. They nerfed the scrapper, saying they were increasing DPS. Flamethrower is my one true love, but after thinking about it, I think it was just environmental weapons – same as we see in the Jormag fight.

Anet needs to actually think when they do balance patches

coro.3176:

Uh no, they’re really not. Please provide examples.

Eg. Rifle is worse than HoT weapons because it is high risk, low reward and provides no defensive cooldowns. Plus, its attacks are projectiles which are countered and reflected by practically everything these days.

Flamethrower is awkward to use and is plagued by retaliation problems in WvW.

Rifle is great for pve content … it is much more fun to use it than hammer and for normal pve content (perhaps for raid is not ok ) rifle + explosive, bombs and mortar is enough as damage. I use also it quite often in fractal and it is not that bad . For standard pve the dps loss is not so meaningless but it is more fun

coro.3176:

Uh no, they’re really not. Please provide examples.

Eg. Rifle is worse than HoT weapons because it is high risk, low reward and provides no defensive cooldowns. Plus, its attacks are projectiles which are countered and reflected by practically everything these days.

Flamethrower is awkward to use and is plagued by retaliation problems in WvW.

Rifle worse than something or Flamethrower with deficiencies in WvW does not mean they are not good as they are. I mean, if you just want to compare everything to the pinnacle of whatever, then you don’t really get why various weapons exist in the first place.

I come from a WvW and PvP perspective, where weapon balance matters.

In a pvp situation, Rifle offers high risk, but no reward.

High Risk:

• Overcharged Shot (Rifle 4) is a self-knockdown, but rarely connects. There are a ton of reflect and projectile nullification effects out there. If you happen to OC shot into one of them, you have put yourself at a huge disadvantage. Obviously, the solution is to wait until these effects are done, but that can be a long time (eg. Ele aura lasting 4-5 seconds, Engi reflect lasting 5 seconds, Zerker perma-stab in zerk mode). Worse, you can land a successful overcharged shot only to have it countered by an auto proc trait like the Warrior’s Last Stand. In WvW, I’ve come across a Druid in WvW, attacked them with Overcharged Shot, had the pet take the knockback instead (Shared Anguish). Then they hit me at range triggering Ancient Seeds (~5s+ immob) while I’m knocked down from my own attack!
• Net Shot is useless vs many classes. Daredevils just break out with a dodge. Warriors break out with any movement skill if they didn’t have stab already. It also suffers the projectile problems described above.
• Jump Shot – It’s a massive risk to use Jump Shot because you’re locking yourself into a 1-2s animation that is easily interrupted by cc and does not protect you from damage.

Low reward:

• Its damage is just okay – kind of bad compared to hammer and it’s power damage, so you have to watch out for weakness + protection as well as spec multiple stats (power/precision/critdmg) to get the most out of it compared to condi.

Fair enough, but what is also fair is to recognize that not every weapon is useful in every element of the game … or to recognize that there are times where they are really good, and others when they are not. Fundamentally, I think that’s why there are access to multiple weapons.

It would be nice if they were better in those situations but I don’t think we can automatically assume the intentions here.

Rifle used to be the #1 Engi PvP weapon. Pistol held its own too. These were good weapons. Why are they not used any more? Two words: power creep. They weren’t nerfed. HoT happened.

HoT introduced so many things that obsoleted vanilla weapons and builds as competitive options. They need to be competitive so that the game isn’t pure Pay to Win, for free to players as well as for some build diversity – something that the game used to have, but really doesn’t any more.

coro.3176:

I come from a WvW and PvP perspective, where weapon balance matters.

In a pvp situation, Rifle offers high risk, but no reward.

High Risk:

• Overcharged Shot (Rifle 4) is a self-knockdown, but rarely connects. There are a ton of reflect and projectile nullification effects out there. If you happen to OC shot into one of them, you have put yourself at a huge disadvantage. Obviously, the solution is to wait until these effects are done, but that can be a long time (eg. Ele aura lasting 4-5 seconds, Engi reflect lasting 5 seconds, Zerker perma-stab in zerk mode). Worse, you can land a successful overcharged shot only to have it countered by an auto proc trait like the Warrior’s Last Stand. In WvW, I’ve come across a Druid in WvW, attacked them with Overcharged Shot, had the pet take the knockback instead (Shared Anguish). Then they hit me at range triggering Ancient Seeds (~5s+ immob) while I’m knocked down from my own attack!
• Net Shot is useless vs many classes. Daredevils just break out with a dodge. Warriors break out with any movement skill if they didn’t have stab already. It also suffers the projectile problems described above.
• Jump Shot – It’s a massive risk to use Jump Shot because you’re locking yourself into a 1-2s animation that is easily interrupted by cc and does not protect you from damage.

Low reward:

• Its damage is just okay – kind of bad compared to hammer and it’s power damage, so you have to watch out for weakness + protection as well as spec multiple stats (power/precision/critdmg) to get the most out of it compared to condi.

its damage is trash when you compare it to everyone else’s long range power weapons , its nowhere close to DH/ranger Longbow or warrior rifle or thief pistols and none of those are high risk to use

I’d like to see napalm behave similar to a skill like the Revenants searing fissure and a change to how flame jet applies burning. Maybe even a slight attack speed increase.

But i think the flamethrower engineer only appeared in that trailer because they wanted contrast to the cold and icy theme.

coro.3176:

Rifle used to be the #1 Engi PvP weapon. Pistol held its own too. These were good weapons. Why are they not used any more? Two words: power creep. They weren’t nerfed. HoT happened.

HoT introduced so many things that obsoleted vanilla weapons and builds as competitive options. They need to be competitive so that the game isn’t pure Pay to Win, for free to players as well as for some build diversity – something that the game used to have, but really doesn’t any more.

That’s a nice vague, catch-all you’ve provided as a reason but you need to be more specific … You’re saying that HoT all of the sudden made Rifle and FT go from good to not good, but all those power creepy things we got from HoT are a great benefit to those weapons as well. In fact, one of the traits in Scrapper is a DIRECT boost to FT. I mean, how is Rifle as PVP obsolete with HoT? Is there some special way hammer replaced it? I don’t think so.

So … unless you have a specific example, just throwing out key words like power creep and Pay to Win doesn’t really cut it. Your explanation makes no sense.

I love FT and I can understand its AA just isn’t meant to be used on some places (Like PvP or WvW, two whole modes…). After all, FT is only one of your 3 utility skills, and it is a multi skill kit on top of everything.

On the contrary, Rifle is a whole 25% of ALL the alternatives you have for a weapon as an Engie. Since it is not the less viable, because pistol/shield, that 1/4 of the total becomes even more important. And it is incredibly underwhelming.

I’m ok with weapons not being optimal for everything. But first, there should be enough alternatives. Balance.

Rifle is not underwhelming because a planned and intelligent opportunity-cost design. It is bad because Anet has not made its job balancing it.

Obtena.7952:

Is there some special way hammer replaced it? I don’t think so.

So … unless you have a specific example, just throwing out key words like power creep and Pay to Win doesn’t really cut it. Your explanation makes no sense.

There are many, many things (Chrono Shield 5, Scrapper Bulwark Defense Field, Hammer 2, etc.), but I’ll limit it to a few examples here:

You and a Zerker Warrior meet each other in WvW. The warrior comes at you with bull’s charge. You attempt to knock back with Rifle 4, but Last Stand procs and the Warrior gets 10s of Stability. Warrior is not cc’d and you are because Rifle 4 is a self knockdown, so they probably hit you and stun, then combo you down to <25% health if not kill you on the spot.
… But maybe you dodge their charge and they follow up with Headbutt. Maybe you dodge that too. They still have 9s of stability. They Greatsword 3 to close the distance (you’re out of dodges). You use an escape skill (Rocket Boots, for example) and get 900 units away. They follow with Greatsword 5. You swap to Toolkit and block for 2 seconds. Their stability is almost up, so they swap weapons to get enough adren to use zerker mode. They get perma-stability while in zerk mode from Eternal Champion. They still have Balanced Stance available for more stability and auto-proc Endure Pain, maybe Endure pain on their skill bar as well.

What are you going to do against that with Rifle? You can never CC them because they have perma-stab and auto-proc stability from Last Stand if you do manage to land a cc. If you catch them with Rifle 2, (only a 2 second snare) they can just break out of it with any movement skill, but most likely they won’t even be affected because they have stability all the time. You just have to run away.

===

You encounter a Hammer Scrapper. You go to CC them with Rifle 4, but they pop defense field. The reflect knocks you down twice. You wait and play defensive for a full 5 seconds because almost all of your attacks are projectiles. Meanwhile, they use Hammer 5. You dodge. They use Hammer 3. You dodge 1-2 of the hits, but get hit by the last one because it lasts that long. Their Defense Field is done now, so you try and attack, but they reflect with Hammer 2, then Block with Hammer 4, and dodge. Also, they’re getting Stability when they evade attacks, so you’re trying to find a good opening to use Rifle 4 again. Eventually you do, you follow up with a combo, but they’ve popped Bulwark Gyro and have Protection Injection, so your attacks do little damage. Now they’ve got their dodges and Hammer 2 off cooldown, not to mention whatever kit they’re running (probably E-gun), and Defense field is almost off cooldown again to buy them another 5 full seconds of reflect.

I realize that is a massive wall of text, but you wanted examples. There they are. Rifle is sub-par and needs to be brought up to HoT standards

FT AA can be used in PvP meaningfully. When my opponent pops projectile hate and is running around, I can use it’s AA to tag them from a decent range. When my opponent uses a pillar to LOS me, I shoot right through it with FT. When engi does bulwark group protect projectile hate and several stand in it… FT AA whacks the lot of them on point. When I want to trigger my sig of air, the faster quicker hits of FT make it come off and ensure I’m getting my once per 3 seconds efficiently. It is by no means an entirely useless AA.

Ardid.7203:

I love FT and I can understand its AA just isn’t meant to be used on some places (Like PvP or WvW, two whole modes…). After all, FT is only one of your 3 utility skills, and it is a multi skill kit on top of everything.

On the contrary, Rifle is a whole 25% of ALL the alternatives you have for a weapon as an Engie. Since it is not the less viable, because pistol/shield, that 1/4 of the total becomes even more important. And it is incredibly underwhelming.

I’m ok with weapons not being optimal for everything. But first, there should be enough alternatives. Balance.

Rifle is not underwhelming because a planned and intelligent opportunity-cost design. It is bad because Anet has not made its job balancing it.

shion.2084:

FT AA can be used in PvP meaningfully.
When my opponent pops projectile hate and is running around, I can use it’s AA to tag them from a decent range.
When my opponent uses a pillar to LOS me, I shoot right through it with FT.
When engi does bulwark group protect projectile hate and several stand in it… FT AA whacks the lot of them on point.
When I want to trigger my sig of air, the faster quicker hits of FT make it come off and ensure I’m getting my once per 3 seconds efficiently. It is by no means an entirely useless AA.
When a theif is bouncing around like a jack in the box over my head FT will more likely catch them in their vulnerable frames.
And Hey, free burn on occasion.

Ardid.7203:

I love FT and I can understand its AA just isn’t meant to be used on some places (Like PvP or WvW, two whole modes…). After all, FT is only one of your 3 utility skills, and it is a multi skill kit on top of everything.

On the contrary, Rifle is a whole 25% of ALL the alternatives you have for a weapon as an Engie. Since it is not the less viable, because pistol/shield, that 1/4 of the total becomes even more important. And it is incredibly underwhelming.

I’m ok with weapons not being optimal for everything. But first, there should be enough alternatives. Balance.

Rifle is not underwhelming because a planned and intelligent opportunity-cost design. It is bad because Anet has not made its job balancing it.

coro.3176:

Obtena.7952:

Is there some special way hammer replaced it? I don’t think so.

So … unless you have a specific example, just throwing out key words like power creep and Pay to Win doesn’t really cut it. Your explanation makes no sense.

There are many, many things (Chrono Shield 5, Scrapper Bulwark Defense Field, Hammer 2, etc.), but I’ll limit it to a few examples here:

You and a Zerker Warrior meet each other in WvW. The warrior comes at you with bull’s charge. You attempt to knock back with Rifle 4, but Last Stand procs and the Warrior gets 10s of Stability. Warrior is not cc’d and you are because Rifle 4 is a self knockdown, so they probably hit you and stun, then combo you down to <25% health if not kill you on the spot.
… But maybe you dodge their charge and they follow up with Headbutt. Maybe you dodge that too. They still have 9s of stability. They Greatsword 3 to close the distance (you’re out of dodges). You use an escape skill (Rocket Boots, for example) and get 900 units away. They follow with Greatsword 5. You swap to Toolkit and block for 2 seconds. Their stability is almost up, so they swap weapons to get enough adren to use zerker mode. They get perma-stability while in zerk mode from Eternal Champion. They still have Balanced Stance available for more stability and auto-proc Endure Pain, maybe Endure pain on their skill bar as well.

What are you going to do against that with Rifle? You can never CC them because they have perma-stab and auto-proc stability from Last Stand if you do manage to land a cc. If you catch them with Rifle 2, (only a 2 second snare) they can just break out of it with any movement skill, but most likely they won’t even be affected because they have stability all the time. You just have to run away.

===

You encounter a Hammer Scrapper. You go to CC them with Rifle 4, but they pop defense field. The reflect knocks you down twice. You wait and play defensive for a full 5 seconds because almost all of your attacks are projectiles. Meanwhile, they use Hammer 5. You dodge. They use Hammer 3. You dodge 1-2 of the hits, but get hit by the last one because it lasts that long. Their Defense Field is done now, so you try and attack, but they reflect with Hammer 2, then Block with Hammer 4, and dodge. Also, they’re getting Stability when they evade attacks, so you’re trying to find a good opening to use Rifle 4 again. Eventually you do, you follow up with a combo, but they’ve popped Bulwark Gyro and have Protection Injection, so your attacks do little damage. Now they’ve got their dodges and Hammer 2 off cooldown, not to mention whatever kit they’re running (probably E-gun), and Defense field is almost off cooldown again to buy them another 5 full seconds of reflect.

I realize that is a massive wall of text, but you wanted examples. There they are. Rifle is sub-par and needs to be brought up to HoT standards

OH OK, I get it, you’re using other professions and carefully choreographed encounters to justify chasing the meta on your Engineer … Based on that, you definitely aren’t going to justify buffs for these two weapons. Those simply aren’t objective assessments. You can just as easily create a choreographed encounter when FT and Rifle are the best things ever.

Chasing meta, regardless of the reason, just isn’t a good one to ask for changes. Meta changes all the time, chasing it is a never-ending fools errand.

Expect nothing and receive less.

I’m not sure if you play Engineer, but those encounters are not “carefully choreographed”. Those are very common fight sequences vs those classes. Meet me in-game for a duel if you don’t believe me. I play Rifle Engineer a lot. It is my main, so I think I know what I’m talking about here. I’ll post video if need be.

My complaint here is that Rifle isn’t competitive in any game mode and hasn’t been since HoT. It’s not even close.

I’ve listed my reasons why I think Rifle is sub-par right now. If you disagree, maybe you could explain why.

Holesale.2640:

Expect nothing and receive less.

That’s true. They’ll probably nerf Jump Shot range or something next time just ’cause they can.

coro.3176:

I’m not sure if you play Engineer, but those encounters are not “carefully choreographed”. Those are very common fight sequences vs those classes. Meet me in-game for a duel if you don’t believe me. I play Rifle Engineer a lot. It is my main, so I think I know what I’m talking about here. I’ll post video if need be.

My complaint here is that Rifle isn’t competitive in any game mode and hasn’t been since HoT. It’s not even close.

I’ve listed my reasons why I think Rifle is sub-par right now. If you disagree, maybe you could explain why.

Those encounters are cherry picked by you to prove your point and that’s being insincere. If Anet sat there and examined all encounters like you did, they wouldn’t ever be able to balance anything. It’s not a comprehensive assessment and you know it. You list reasons it is subpar, I could list reasons its not. That gets no where. Weapons are not developed to be ‘on par’ with every other weapon. It’s doesn’t deserve a massive buff because ‘being on par’ isn’t a consideration for buffing weapons.

Please do list reasons why it’s not underpowered right now. Would you like me to go through every class and build and evaluate Rifle’s performance against them? I certainly could, but it would take pages and pages of text. I picked Zerker because I think that’s the most obvious example and Hammer because it’s a comparison against the Engi HoT weapon. Let me know if you’d like me to do another class. I’ll even post a vid.

But anyway.. it deserves a massive buff because it’s not as good as the other options. If weapon balance isn’t a consideration .. what is? Expansion profit?

I can only agree with coro. You’d have to be delusional to think engineer rifle is in a good spot right now.

coro.3176:

Please do list reasons why it’s not underpowered right now. Would you like me to go through every class and build and evaluate Rifle’s performance against them? I certainly could, but it would take pages and pages of text. I picked Zerker because I think that’s the most obvious example and Hammer because it’s a comparison against the Engi HoT weapon. Let me know if you’d like me to do another class. I’ll even post a vid.

But anyway.. it deserves a massive buff because it’s not as good as the other options. If weapon balance isn’t a consideration .. what is? Expansion profit?

Yeah, you could, but it wouldn’t matter because that’s not how weapons are balanced. /shrug. That’s the same reason your assessment of these weapons makes no sense. I mean, think about it this way … if balancing a weapon was based on how ‘on par’ it is with something else, why are there SO many weapons in this game that have different levels of performance?

I’m not saying it’s under or over powered … I’m saying that doesn’t really matter. It’s the wrong way of thinking. I think my question points at two options:

1. Anet is terrible at balancing according to relative powers of other weapons
2. Anet doesn’t balance weapons according to relative powers of other weapons

i encourage you to put some thought to this.

@title

nope.

Obtena.7952:

Yeah, you could, but it wouldn’t matter because that’s not how weapons are balanced.

Hey look guys, we’ve got a dev here—what was that? You’re not on the dev team? Oh, I guess you were just talking out of your kitten .

Obtena.7952:

if balancing a weapon was based on how ‘on par’ it is with something else, why are there SO many weapons in this game that have different levels of performance?

Incompetence. Perfectly good explanation right there. Or did you believe there was some grand scheme behind making some weapons utterly subpar, even relative to other weapons within the same profession?

Obtena.7952:

I think my question points at two options:

1. Anet is terrible at balancing according to relative powers of other weapons
2. Anet doesn’t balance weapons according to relative powers of other weapons

As I see it, yes, there are two options: ArenaNet are either incompetent or actively malicious, at least when it comes to balancing engineer. The engineer section of the last balance patch read like a cruel joke; meaningless buffs like more power damage to condition skills and damage increases to an escape skill (a skill which arguably would be more effective without dealing damage) coupled with nerfs to scrapper gyros (because “purity of purpose”).

Meanwhile, entire skill categories (like turrets and most gadgets) and weapons (like rifle and pistol/shield) are completely useless in every game mode, but do they receive any changes? Nope. I realize engineer isn’t the only profession suffering from this, but that is hardly an excuse.

Well, I’m not talking out of my rear … because you can see that’s not how they balance weapons just by looking at how we have dozens of unbalanced weapons ingame for over 4 years now. Like I said, there are two options and either option indicate this isn’t far from the truth.

Anyways, I don’t deal with arrogance and vitriol. If the only reasons you see that engi have ‘issues’ is because Anet are incompetent or simply trying to ruin parts of their own game, then you’re reasoning is the most incredible that anyone could provide … and I’m the one talking out of my kitten . OK well, have fun being miserable with the blinders on.

I don’t really see your point to be honest. OK, let’s assume you’re right, and ArenaNet is either terrible at balancing or they actually don’t try to balance stuff relative to each other and instead work off of god knows what metric.

Then what? Is that supposed to be an excuse? Is that supposed to make our complaints less valid? Either option is equally terrible, and it doesn’t provide a solution to anything. Should we just accept it because “that’s not how they balance weapons”?

I find your logic extremely unsound.

incompetent? nah
malicious? lol.

…undermanned? neglectful? yeahhhhhhhh.

insanemaniac.2456:

incompetent? nah
malicious? lol.

…undermanned? neglectful? yeahhhhhhhh.

Incompetence according to Merriam-Webster: “lack of the ability to do something well”

Whether it’s due to lack of skill or because they’re undermanned doesn’t really matter.

As to “malicious”, of course I don’t believe they’re actively trying to sabotage their own game, but it’s the only alternative to incompetence that I can think of (and those patch notes do make you wonder sometimes…).

except they do have the ability to do it well. what they dont have is the opportunity. that isnt incompetence.

Here we go again…

Merriam-Webster says about ability: “the power or skill to do something”

By definition, if they don’t have the opportunity, they don’t have the power, which means they don’t have the ability. Please stop.

Pakkazull.6894:

Here we go again…

Merriam-Webster says about ability: “the power or skill to do something”

By definition, if they don’t have the opportunity, they don’t have the power, which means they don’t have the ability. Please stop.

Sorry, but just to stick this academic point … you aren’t using the word correctly. Anet is not incompetent. You don’t know if Anet doesn’t have the power or skill to do something. That’s why you’re ‘assessment’ is not correct. He is right … Anet does many things quite competently, so what you are suggesting is that they just flick a switch and get incompetent all of the sudden and can’t do a good job? That’s not logical.

Now, you think i’m making excuses for them. You can label those reasons I provided however you like, but you’re assuming this weapon inbalance is problem … but it’s not. It hasn’t been a problem for 4 years in this game … and countless other in other games. This ‘weapon unbalance’ is not uncommon in these games. That’s not an accident or due to incompetence either. It’s what happens when devs offer choices to players with different purposes. Interpreting that as incompetence is ignorant.

Obtena.7952:

He is right … Anet does many things quite competently, so what you are suggesting is that they just flick a switch and get incompetent all of the sudden and can’t do a good job? That’s not logical.

They do many things quite competently, but none of them are related to balancing.

Obtena.7952:

Now, you think i’m making excuses for them.

Yeah, pretty much. You’re basically saying the balance is kitten by design.

Obtena.7952:

You can label those reasons I provided however you like, but you’re assuming this weapon inbalance is problem … but it’s not.

I disagree.

Obtena.7952:

It hasn’t been a problem for 4 years in this game … and countless other in other games.

I disagree.

Obtena.7952:

It’s what happens when devs offer choices to players with different purposes. Interpreting that as incompetence is ignorant.

A competent developer can provide choices that are different from each other whilst still being balanced in relation to each other. But I see you’re not going to budge, so I guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree.

Ok, Obtena. Your point of view is really interesting, but I can’t fully grasp it yet. Please explain to us which is the purpose of the Rifle being as it is right now. Where are we suposed to be using rifle? Since what matters is not the balance between weapons, what does matter then?

Rifle is a utility weapon. It’s great for supporting conditions and breaking bars .. and that’s OK on an engi, because kits are superb main weapons. It’s also the longest range option as an equippable weapon, which has purpose.

Pakkazull.6894:

A competent developer can provide choices that are different from each other whilst still being balanced in relation to each other.

The inbalances are a natural consequence of having differences in choice and the decision to not chase them as the meta shifts is a business decision because this isn’t philanthropy. Furthermore, there isn’t really a point as the ability to choose ensures players can play what they prefer as the meta shifts with gamestate changes. It’s just not worth the effort.

That’s not incompetence, that’s the reality of running an MMO. If you ever found an MMO that did this kind of balancing, it would be fun … for the whole year it would be open until it was shut down.

Obtena.7952:

Anet is not incompetent. You don’t know if Anet doesn’t have the power or skill to do something. That’s why you’re ‘assessment’ is not correct.

One final point. It’s true, you’re right, I don’t know if ArenaNet does or does not have the power or skills to do something. But neither do you. Your only “proof” to support your point of view is that the game has been unbalanced for four years, so it must be by design; but you do realize that that might just as well be proof of incompetence, right? By your own logic, your assessment is as baseless as mine.

Actually, I know because Anet isn’t a charity organization, hiring tons of devs to chase the meta and balance skills all the time without regard for cost and profits. Balance as you see it … costs money and it’s poorly spent money because there are choices that allow players to decide what weapons they want to use; NOT every weapon needs to be ‘on par’. Choice is your mechanism to ensure people don’t get stuck with bad performance. That’s just common sense. I know some people have a hard time nowadays with the concept of being given choices and make responsible decisions, but that’s why it’s there.

We’ve already talked about why it’s unlikely to be incompetence, but obviously you aren’t at all interested in following a logical discussion because you’re angry about something. So, GL and have fun.

Obtena.7952:

Rifle is a utility weapon. It’s great for supporting conditions and breaking bars

I’m sorry, “great” for conditions and breakbars?

Obtena.7952:

It’s also the longest range option as an equippable weapon, which has purpose.

Yeah, a “long range weapon” with a super weak auto-attack and more than half of its skills only usable below range 800.

Obtena.7952:

Actually, I know because Anet isn’t a charity organization, hiring tons of devs to chase the meta and balance skills all the time without regard for cost and profits. Balance as you see it … costs money and it’s poorly spent money

I see how it is. You call me out for making unsubstantiated claims and then you turn around and do the exact same thing, because you “know”.

Obtena.7952:

NOT every weapon needs to be ‘on par’.

Oh, they don’t have to be on par in every area, but they should at least excel in one. Engineer rifle is currently way below any other engineer weapon in any situation.

Obtena.7952:

I know some people have a hard time nowadays with the concept of being given choices and make responsible decisions, but that’s why it’s there.

Except it’s not a choice if one of the options is so far below par that it isn’t even considered. There’s a reason engineers have been running healing turret since the dawn of time; because all the other options are useless. Actually balancing stuff would make for more actual choices.

Obtena.7952:

We’ve already talked about why it’s unlikely to be incompetence

Well, more like you’ve talked about it and I’ve debunked your bovine feces, but you chose to ignore my arguments because they were too difficult to address I guess.