Think we'll get a rifle/FT buff Nov 21?
I have a recommendation for you. It’s not going to help you with the angry, but it’s really good advice for MMO’s in general.
I’m not angry, I’m bitter.
If you don’t like some of the choices you have, don’t use them. Play the choices you like, then you don’t have to worry or care about all the completely imcompetent game devs ruining everything for you, and then you will be happy …
Please don’t presume to tell me how to play.
I see you’re not going to address my arguments and instead offer condescending “advice”. Have a good day.
Having choices fixes bitter too … you don’t have to play the options you don’t like, you play the ones you do. That should make you feel good. Every class has choices people don’t like. They don’t play them, they are happy people.
Anyways, it’s clear Rifle and FT aren’t choices for you, they are for other people. No reason to be angry about that.
Having choices fixes bitter too … you don’t have to play the options you don’t like, you play the ones you do. That should make you feel good. Every class has choices people don’t like. They don’t play them, they are happy people.
Anyways, it’s clear Rifle and FT aren’t choices for you, they are for other people. No reason to be angry about that.
“Having a choice” by definition means that any of the presented options are viable. Evidently, right now engineer rifles are subpar in most if not all circumstances, thus making them a non-viable option for players seeking the maximum efficiency, and thus making it an illusion of choice instead of being an actual choice – from this perspective. Now, granted, not everyone may play with the maximum efficiency in mind, but the only other metric, “fun” is highly subjective and ought to be a secondary consideration during game balance (which isn’t to say it shouldn’t be considered, but it should not be the primary factor).
On a grander scale, with regards to your argument that giving people choice is a cheap way to enact procedural balance … I don’t quite agree. This approach works well if all weapons/classes in question have a specific, (more or less) narrow role that they fill. Whether their role is currently desired or not is then up to the players to decide. But making a class/weapon be mediocre at every imaginable role relegates it to the “only play this if you don’t mind being ineffective” role. The best approach I’ve seen to date is a kind of rock/paper/scissors system of counters. So tell me, please, within this context, where does an engineer rifle (and while we’re at it, the flamethrower) fit in? In which situations do they excel over other options that are available?
(On a more on-topic note:) … No, I do not think we’ll be seeing any (significant) balance adjustments with today’s patch, unfortunately. I think the trailer showed those weapons because they fit the narrative more than anything else.
Sword Of Justice – Gunnar’s Hold
Having choices fixes bitter too … you don’t have to play the options you don’t like, you play the ones you do. That should make you feel good. Every class has choices people don’t like. They don’t play them, they are happy people.
Anyways, it’s clear Rifle and FT aren’t choices for you, they are for other people. No reason to be angry about that.
“Having a choice” by definition means that any of the presented options are viable. Evidently, right now engineer rifles are subpar in most if not all circumstances, thus making them a non-viable option for players seeking the maximum efficiency, …
I stopped there because players seeking maximum efficiency aren’t looking for many sources of weaponry … they are seeking the one that gives maximum efficiency. That’s a paradox. Minmaxers don’t care about having every single weapon available to them as a maximum efficiency choice.
Choice as a mitigation still works here, cheap or not, because whether people want to admit it or not, Rifle and FT have specific roles. I’ve already outlined why I think that’s true on rifle. For FT, I think it’s a great main weapon in compliment with rifle. Without being mocked by dissenters, I will simply post one variation of a build I use for PVE.
Frankly, I find it very useful running around with a might stack, permanent and frequently procing stability, a plethora of other boons and damage reductions and mitigations while combining condition and direct damage and large bar breaking capability … but I’ve been told that’s just how fools that don’t care about effectiveness play so take that for what it’s worth to you.
Edit: sorry, this last one is my latest. I find there are many useful variations to play with this build. Thank goodness for all these non-viable choices we have.
(edited by Obtena.7952)
I use some close builds, and yes, I always use Rifle and FT, because I love them, and get more fun from them than from any other kit and weapon (I also stays in FT most of the time). However, I must point that, at least for me, it only works in Open World and some Dungeons. Whenever I try to use Rifle in PvP I get smashed. Whenever I try to use FT in WvW I kill myself.
So… in PvE, you can use almost anything, and it will work. The hard part is facing another players. There is where choices must be meaningful and balanced. And there is where I CANT use my favorite weapon, because it is NOT properly balanced.
In the words of a wise tribal chief: “Your words scratch a lot and scratch well, but they scratch where it doesn’t itch”.
that it makes every other class in the game boring to play.”
Hawks
That’s fair and true … and as we know in this game, not every weapon is appropriate for every game element. I would like to use rifle in PVP too and feel like everyone else but I think there are some dissenters here that are being really sensational about how FT and Rifle have NO place in the game.
The problem is that Anet made a bit of a lazy play not separating PVE and PVP elements sufficiently, so we suffer because of the shared skills. So while I think that it would be nice for FT/Rifle to be more useful in PVP elements, it can’t because the shared skills dictates that the actual balance between weapons on a given class has to be determined by effectiveness over the elements of the game, not between the weapons themselves.
The practical impact is that we have weapons that don’t fit certain elements well, perhaps at the expense of being very good in others. I think that’s what we have with Rifle and FT. Maybe if we had a dozen weapons, that would be less of a problem because Anet could make 4 of those weapons good for each element AND have different roles for each weapon within those elements too, but that’s a dream I think. It’s a shame, but it’s what it is.
(edited by Obtena.7952)
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.
…Did you really just say Guild Wars 2 is P2W? I am not even sure if I should take you seriously.
It should be balanced for PvP and WvW though, not PvE.
Look. GW2 PvE (aside from raids) is not a challenge. It’s easy. You can use any weapon. They could nerf a weapon by 50% and it’d still be fine in PvE. The real balance issues come up when you face other real players and their weapons are just better than yours.
Rifle has bad damage, bad scaling, ineffective cc, and no defence. It was designed as a mixed-range weapon, but its tools don’t support that any more. You can’t rely on Overcharged Shot or Net Shot to land and successfully cc the enemy (stability, auto-proc cc traits, reflect). You can’t rely on Jump Shot to close distance or escape (hits traps, takes damage during travel, gets cc’d during travel).
It needs a serious buff, if only because non-HoT players need a power weapon too. It must be really demoralizing for a F2P player to make a fun power rifle build only to come up against HoT builds in PvP or WvW and get completely destroyed by bad players that are carried by their weapon.
For a lot of classes, it is P2W. Go try playing any base class and fighting an elite spec. Unless you are very very good and the other player is very bad, it’ll be an uphill battle.
(edited by coro.3176)
“buy to play” is a slightly different concept from “pay to win”.
it sucks for f2p players who think they stand a chance against paying players, but in general “pay to win” as a concept is something a bit more slimy than “buy the game once”.
head here to discuss wvw without fear of infractions
So your argument is that PVE isn’t challenging so … who cares about balance in PVE? I don’t see the relation between what is challenging and what ‘deserves’ the balance points for stuff in the game. IMO, the balance point is where the majority of the players spend their time, not what is challenging. So you see, that’s why you need weapons that are balanced for ALL aspects of the game, not just the ones you think matter.
And to correct you, PVE has been increasing in challenge since Southsun. So if you’re argument is only challenging things need balance, I got some bad news for you …
You see, you won’t face other real players in PVE where their weapons are better than yours because you already know your not going to choose the weapons you know are bad. That’s a really insincere statement. It’s not like Rifle and FT are the only weapons available to you in PVP. If you’re just going to talk nonsense and make it sound like you have NO good weapons to bring to PVP/WvW, so Rifle/FT need buffs, I see little reason to continue this discussion.
“buy to play” is a slightly different concept from “pay to win”.
it sucks for f2p players who think they stand a chance against paying players, but in general “pay to win” as a concept is something a bit more slimy than “buy the game once”.
Fair point. P2W was probably a poor way of phrasing it; was just responding to Lilyanna.
@Obtena, my argument is that balance doesn’t matter in PvE because it’s not a competition.
In PvE, no one is going to say “hey. Please use Hammer instead of Rifle because you’re not doing enough damage to this mordrem”. No one cares what anyone else is using. It’s cooperative and easy. You’re only hurting yourself by playing an inferior weapon in PvE.
In PvP or WvW though, it is a competition. It ought to be a level playing field and aim for as close to balanced classes/builds/weapons as possible. That’s not to say that one build can’t counter another, but they should try to ensure that all weapons are playable.
They could add some simple things that would go a long way to fixing Rifle such as:
- improved power scaling
- backward evade instead of self-knockdown on Overcharged Shot
- evade during Jump Shot travel
Yes, i understand your argument. It’s essentially saying that it doesn’t matter if PVE is trivialized at the expense of PVP and WvW, which is ridiculous. PVE is competitive, it’s just not against players, it’s against the game itself. There are weapons in every class for ALL aspects of the game … so their isn’t any logical reason to take the less suited PVP weapons and balance them to further bolster the currently suitable pvp/wvw weapons.
I get that PVP/WvW is a competition. That’s why you should use weapons that you can compete with in those areas of the game, which there are. If Rifle/FT aren’t good there, then use the weapons that are good. Again, don’t make it sound like Engi is hard done by because they have some weapons not well suited to PVP/WvW … every class has weapons like that, and I don’t think that’s an accident either. That logic you got going doesn’t make much sense.
I mean, you can argue that more competitive PVP environments need balance, which I agree with. You haven’t provided any compelling reason to push every single weapon choice towards being useful in that competitive environment. You even elude that even without this compelling reason, it should also be done at the expense of PVE balance. That’s so egregious.
I see there is little ground to gain here. You want more weapons for PVP, even though you have plenty, even at the expense of the PVE experience. I’m just glad Anet has more sense than this.
(edited by Obtena.7952)
“at the expense of the PVE experience”
Wait.. how does fixing rifle for PvP hurt PvE? It doesn’t.
The fact that other classes also have weapons that aren’t viable in PvP/WvW is also a problem. I just care about Engineer & Rifle because I play it, but other classes also have balance problems. Those should be fixed too.
Look at the last balance patch, for example. They added another boon convert to Necro axe. They’ve been trying (and failing) to make Necro axe competitive for a while. It’s not some conscious decision to ignore certain weapons in PvP. They’re trying to fix weapon balance. They’re just slow and bad at it (sorry Devs, I know you’re trying). It takes literal years for some changes.
The rifle suffers an identity crisis imo, before HoT this wasnt very noticed, but after the power creep it showed his flaws, A rifle that is used as a shotgun?, intended for damage use or for utility use?, the rifle is trying to achieve a little of everything and fails to exceed in each part of this… heh, it nails the engi thematic, but in the wrong way
In PvE, no one is going to say “hey. Please use Hammer instead of Rifle because you’re not doing enough damage to this mordrem”. No one cares what anyone else is using. It’s cooperative and easy. You’re only hurting yourself by playing an inferior weapon in PvE.
Funny you mention that. There are multiple kinds of PvE out there, and a few of them do care what weapon you bring. So not only do things have to be balanced for PvP and WvW, but also for Open World PvE and for High Fractals+Raids (to simplify those distinctions). Especially with High Fractals and Raids, they’re built around expectations of performing near optimally, which means the choice between using Hammer or Rifle could indeed cause drastic changes, and not just to yourself.
Additionally, I think Obtena’s placement of Engi Rifle is fair. Compared to Engi’s other weapons (there aren’t many), Rifle is the premier ranged cc weapon which also happens to have some decent physical damage. Kits aren’t weapons, but if you want to include them, then you aren’t taking Mortar or Grenade kit for their utility, you aren’t taking Bombs or Toolkitfor their range, and you aren’t taking Elixir Gun or (often) Flamethrower for its Power damage. Similarly with Flamethrower, now that I’ve mentioned it, you take FT for specific things, but not for others. Compared to other kits and weapons, FT will do certain things that no other kit or weapon will. Even Necro’s Axe fits nicely with MM builds, which also tend to play well while trying to solo things. But, that doesn’t mean Necro Axe needs to be a top choice in Raids or that MMs have to be competitive in WvW zerging.
I mean, if we truly wanted everything to be equal for everyone then we should be looking into giving thieves a healing role because they certainly don’t have the tools for it. I personally don’t think that’s a philosophy worth following, and no philosophy affects anyone’s ability.
Especially with High Fractals and Raids, they’re built around expectations of performing near optimally, which means the choice between using Hammer or Rifle could indeed cause drastic changes, and not just to yourself.
It’s true, performance does matter in raids and (borderline) in high fractals, and the point is rifle does not perform well enough to be relevant in either for anyone who wants to be even close to optimal, nor is it competitive in PvP or WvW.
Additionally, I think Obtena’s placement of Engi Rifle is fair. Compared to Engi’s other weapons (there aren’t many), Rifle is the premier ranged cc weapon which also happens to have some decent physical damage.
It has literally 2 CC skills, one of which has a range of 600 and also knocks the user down. Considering engineer needs to be at medium to close range anyway (to effectively deal damage), I’d rather take a hammer if CC were my primary concern (hell, the hammer stun even has twice the range of the rifle knockback!)
Kits aren’t weapons, but if you want to include them, then you aren’t taking Mortar or Grenade kit for their utility
I’m not 100% sure what you’re saying exactly, but the only reason to take mortar kit is utility (certainly no one is going to take it for its damage, unless you count Orbital Strike). Also, grenades provide excellent utility in the form of blinds, chills and poison.
and you aren’t taking Elixir Gun or (often) Flamethrower for its Power damage.
Except both of those are standard for power builds due to Flame Blast and Acid Bomb… (edit: at least they used to be, seems it might no longer be the case)
Similarly with Flamethrower, now that I’ve mentioned it, you take FT for specific things, but not for others. Compared to other kits and weapons, FT will do certain things that no other kit or weapon will.
No one is arguing that every weapon should be identical, or that each weapon should excel in every field; it’s just that some weapons excel in nothing currently.
I mean, if we truly wanted everything to be equal for everyone then we should be looking into giving thieves a healing role because they certainly don’t have the tools for it.
You seem to have trouble distinguishing between two things:
1) a weapon is genuinely mediocre and gets outperformed in every situation by other things
2) a weapon is kitten in some (maybe many) cases, but has some specific applications where it excels
(edited by Pakkazull.6894)
I’m not 100% sure what you’re saying exactly
Weapons are different from kits. You can still slot whichever kits you want regardless of weapon. When compared to other weapons that engineer has, Rifle fills many niches the other weapons can’t. The rest of the post is built on that inference.
and you aren’t taking Elixir Gun or (often) Flamethrower for its Power damage.
Except both of those are standard for power builds due to Flame Blast and Acid Bomb…
Those kit’s designs are not built around those skills even if they have those uses.
My entire point is that Rifle isn’t useless despite the rhetoric. It certainly isn’t me that’s having confusion.
My entire point is that Rifle isn’t useless despite the rhetoric. It certainly isn’t me that’s having confusion.
I must say, you did an exceedingly bad job defending that point considering you managed to ignore my entire argument on the limited use of our “premier ranged CC” weapon.
Here, I’ll elaborate. Let’s disregard the fact that rifle deals subpar damage and instead look at its (according to you) strength: crowd control.
Additionally, I think Obtena’s placement of Engi Rifle is fair. Compared to Engi’s other weapons (there aren’t many), Rifle is the premier ranged cc weapon which also happens to have some decent physical damage.
Rifle has two CC skills: a 1,200 range immobilize and a 600 range knockback.
From a PvP perspective, both of these skills can be reflected, which in the case of Overcharged Shot potentially means you get knockbacked twice (and believe me, it’s not hard considering the abundance of projectile reflection going on since HoT).
Compare this to hammer which not only has twice the range on its Thunderclap skill, it’s also an AoE stun, not to mention that it can’t be reflected and doesn’t CC the user. Additionally, it’s a lightning field that can be used by the scrapper and/or allies to provide even more CC in the form of daze. Literally the only upside of rifle is that it has shorter cooldowns on the CC skills, and this comes at the cost of aforementioned downsides.
Now, let’s look at it from a PvE perspective (as in, raids or fractals), which means break bars. First off, the break bar damage provided by rifle is higher than hammer: 432 vs 300, but the thing is; it’s barely needed. Engineer already has excellent hard and soft CC no matter which competitive build it uses, through stuff like Explosive Powder, Air Blast, Big Ol’ Bomb and various blinds and chills. Break bars are usually not an issue anyway, and no group would willingly sacrifice DPS for a miniscule increase in breaking power.
Do you see how it’s hard to make a case for rifle as the “premier” CC weapon? The fact that it is ranged barely factors in, because one of the CC skills is on a 600 range, and engineer needs to be close to deal damage anyway.
(edited by Pakkazull.6894)
Two things to address:
1. (For the p2w/b2p aspect) You do not -need- HoT for PVP. You don’t. Honestly, go tell a pro or someone that is good in PVP that they could not beat you without their elite specs. They would proceed to laugh in your face, take off their elite spec, and then kick you to Foefire and back. Yes, there is a power creep, but it doesn’t matter to those who are generally naturals in PVP.
2. (For the rifle bit) I think people are grossly simplifying engineers, which I strike as odd..Do people realize that engineers are not a solo-weapon class, but a multi-weapon one? Of course, rifle is not meant to do a ton of damage. This class is KNOWN for their strings of long (and sometimes complicated) rotations. Hammer doesn’t do a lot either, its just that their utility is a bit better. Of course, Anet wants to promote the scrapper more so than the old engie. But people seem to be hyperfocusing on their main weapon, when in reality their damage comes from multiple kits. Rifle knockdown is an issue? They give themselves a butt ton of stability to by pass the stability completely. Oh the damage of rifle is too low? They can stack vulnerability through explosives where the damage now matters in a matter of seconds. But hammer can stack might!!! Do you even read the traits? The traits honestly put in more work than the actual main weapon itself to be honest. So people that are grossly simplifying this class, stop it. Rifle is just a good, you just want more to it. You want it to be uberly broken so you can laugh in people’s face. Don’t lie. After seeing many marauder rifles take down power hammer players, I can say rifle has just as much of a place. It’s the fact that their popularity as sunk immensely since the new specs came out. That’s all.
PS. A lot of the aspects of the scrapper got nerfed, so actually the regular engineer is starting to push ahead a bit. Sorry boiz, the original is starting to creep back in. And no scrapper is not good in PVE either, stop saying that. You sound ridiculous.
You do not -need- HoT for PVP. You don’t. Honestly, go tell a pro or someone that is good in PVP that they could not beat you without their elite specs. They would proceed to laugh in your face, take off their elite spec, and then kick you to Foefire and back.
Really, that’s your argument? “The people who are best at PvP in the game could beat you without an elite spec, so it must be fine”? By that logic, raids should be like 5x harder because some guilds can low-man certain bosses.
Yes, there is a power creep, but it doesn’t matter to those who are generally naturals in PVP.
So… it doesn’t matter for the top 10%? Well guess we can just ignore the issue then. All is clearly well.
Rifle knockdown is an issue? They give themselves a butt ton of stability to by pass the stability completely.
Please enlighten me, because I can think of only two sources: Toss Elixir B and the Juggernaut trait coupled with a Flamethrower. Yeah, that’s a “butt ton” alright, one skill and a niche trait.
Oh, I see, you meant the stability spam from Perfectly Weighted and Final Salvo in the Scrapper trait line, those traits that kitten out stability every time you dodge and every time you summon a gyro? You mean that very power creep that according to you “doesn’t matter”? So basically your “solution” to rifle knockback is only possible if you’ve got HoT. But power creep isn’t an issue. K.
Oh the damage of rifle is too low? They can stack vulnerability through explosives where the damage now matters in a matter of seconds.
You can just as easily stack vulnerability with another weapon, and it’ll do more damage than a rifle with stacked vulnerability, so what’s your point? For that matter, hammer has a way easier time stacking vulnerability because three in five skills apply it, whereas rifle only has one skill that applies vulnerability. Also it matters even less in raids, because vulnerability will be maxed out constantly anyway.
After seeing many marauder rifles take down power hammer players, I can say rifle has just as much of a place.
Lol, you’re like that senator in the US who said global warming was false because there was snow outside.
It’s the fact that their popularity as sunk immensely since the new specs came out. That’s all.
Gee, I wonder why.
(edited by Pakkazull.6894)
Sure, a good Rifle player may beat a bad Hammer player from time to time, but the fact remains that Hammer is just an all-round better choice.
- Using Hammer over Rifle doesn’t mean the Engineer can’t use the same kits for damage
- Hammer deals more damage than rifle
- Hammer is not prone to reflect and projectile problems
- Hammer defends while attacking (Evades, Block, Reflect). Rifle has no defense even though it must also be in close range to do damage.
Rifle’s self-cc is really frustrating too. Eg. I shoot Druid with no stability with Overcharged Shot. Shared Anguish triggers. Druid is not cc’d. I’m knocked back. Druid shoots me with longbow or staff auto, procs Ancient Seeds because I’m cc’d from my own attack. I’m now immob’d for 5s+ and I can’t even clear it with Overcharged Shot because it’s on cooldown.
“at the expense of the PVE experience”
Wait.. how does fixing rifle for PvP hurt PvE? It doesn’t.
Well, I wouldn’t be so presumptuous because I can think of LOTS of changes that would hurt the rifle for PVE. That’s just a kittensure answer to dismiss my concerns about your statements and position.
You’re views on weapon balance do not reflect how the game works or is conceived, so it’s hard for anyone to look at what you’re proposing and support it. If you can’t comprehend and embrace that there are weapons that have purpose for each aspects of the game, then I don’t see much value in anything you would propose. It’s not inclusive.
If you don’t like how a weapon works in a certain game element, don’t use it. There are others you can choose from. I have still to see any place where someone explains what the motivation behind buffing these weapons in WVW/PVP would be. I mean, you’re going to ask Anet to allocate resources for this and this is ultimately a business decision for them to take on the work … and the best reason so for is “MOAR WEPONS PLZ” Well, GL with that.
(edited by Obtena.7952)
Can we at least agree that we are unhappy with the state of our rifle?
Rifle needs to be tweaked for real.
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.
@Obtena
Maybe just play HoT and then come back to this thread to discuss it further.
HoT is a massive injection of powercreep. As critical as players are on the dev’s for ‘not knowing their own game enough to balance it’, I think HoT proves otherwise. Across the board, in 100% of the content, HoT classes and specializations where stronger than their free to play counter parts. This indicates dev’s are very aware of power level of the elements that make up a class, and also just how strong of an influence marketing/management has on game development. People will buy the new shiny because its stronger (mobile game market is absolutely swimming in pay-to-win right now), they may be mad about it being pay to win, but players will still buy it. HoT powercreep = more sales
IMO it seems that engie weapons were intentionally weak or underwhelming as the devs were factoring for kits in a player’s loadout. In the post-HoT powercreep landscape this design concept (like many others from the vanilla era) are no longer inline with the state of the game.
The hammer offers too much compared to the other weapon sets for engie (evades, blocks, damage, self might stacking, hard cc, both a field and finisher) and has strong trait support (more free dmg, easy access to stability). In theory, maybe the dev’s were thinking that a weapon this baller would take some of the pressure off of running kits on the utility bar. And they were somewhat right. Unfortunately for engie the utilities status is an absolute mess (turets+gadgets are complete garbage), access to our best elixirs come from elsewhere (alchemy line), and so it leaves only better version of turrets gyros, and back cherrypicking from elixirs and kits again.
I’d love to see rifle be relevant again, but I realize that significant changes both to engie itself and the state of the game would be required before that could be realized.
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.
@Obtena
Maybe just play HoT and then come back to this thread to discuss it further.
HoT is a massive injection of powercreep. As critical as players are on the dev’s for ‘not knowing their own game enough to balance it’, I think HoT proves otherwise. Across the board, in 100% of the content, HoT classes and specializations where stronger than their free to play counter parts. This indicates dev’s are very aware of power level of the elements that make up a class, and also just how strong of an influence marketing/management has on game development. People will buy the new shiny because its stronger (mobile game market is absolutely swimming in pay-to-win right now), they may be mad about it being pay to win, but players will still buy it. HoT powercreep = more sales
I don’t need to play it to know that the meta changed when HoT was introduced. Again, I already talked about this … devs don’t chase meta just to keep people happy. It’s a fool’s errand. You choose the weapons that are appropriate for the given game element you want to play. If that’s not rifle/FT in PVP/WvW … well, don’t use them.
(edited by Obtena.7952)
It’s like this:
Rifle / Pistol / Shield were designed (for launch 2012) to be 75% good weapons to be used with kits.
Hammer was designed (for HoT 2015) to be a 100% good weapon. (so that it could be used with gyros? dunno)
We’d just like Rifle (and other non-HoT stuff) to be brought from 75% to 100%.
Alternatively, if they’d like to nerf the HoT power creep across the board, so that everything goes back to 75%, that’s fine too.
I stopped at where you imagine how these weapons are conceptualized to justify why you think is wrong with them. “75% good with kits” … that doesn’t even make sense. I can’t see any way to have a valid discussion with that, other than an equally vague retort: “100% good for things it’s designed to do”.
(edited by Obtena.7952)
as in, a rifle build without multiple kits is seriously lacking in oomph, to the point where its a deficient build. that’s not true of hammer.
that’s something I would like to see change too. one way or another. my predator feels neglected these days and I’d like to have reason to use it more, although I’m more in favor of HoT nerfs than core buffs.
head here to discuss wvw without fear of infractions
So what is wrong with that though? Why would anyone think it’s not reasonable to supplement rifle with an additional weapon to achieve a very efficient build? Why is that something that needs to be fixed? That happens all the time with other classes and weapons. It’s actually NORMAL.
Why would anyone think it’s not reasonable to supplement rifle with an additional weapon to achieve a very efficient build?
Let me guess you only play PvE, in PvP rifle + kits was efficient pre-HoT, with HoT however it got left behind and totally outclasses by the powercreep, by the increased stab, increased stun breaks, increased reflects, by new weapons / traitlines on classes putting out more damage whilst still provding CC, defense, etc, which is why engi uses hammer in PvP, (and WvW for that matter).
Rifle got left behind, so it either needs adjustment or a lot of other stuff needs to be nerfed.
So what is wrong with that though? Why would anyone think it’s not reasonable to supplement rifle with an additional weapon to achieve a very efficient build? .
Because you don’t need to do that for Hammer.
So if you take any Rifle build and swap in Hammer, you get a better build.
That’s what’s wrong.
So if I swap my rifle for a hammer in my build, it’s better, just because Hammer is better than Rifle? I can assure you it wouldn’t be better for me to do that. I lose quite a bit of things that the Hammer doesn’t give me and on the other hand, the hammer adds nothing to the build. What you have said makes no sense.
I mean, just because you don’t need to enhance a Hammer build doesn’t mean Rifle builds enhanced with kits is something that is ‘wrong’ that requires a buff. That’s just player preference; there is no right or wrong there. Like I said, Rifle as a ranged utility weapon complimented by kits isn’t a problem that needs to be fixed.
(edited by Obtena.7952)
You mean more like, Rifle is a ranged utility kit complementing weapon kits that do the main job of doing damage, yes? Because that’s how lackluster it is. And it doesn’t even give you more utility than a hammer, as has been outlined by Pakkazull a few posts further up. The only thing a rifle has going for it is range, nominally, and three out of five rifle weapon skills require you to be up close and personal to be useful, thus negating the argument of range. At which point, as many people have already said, the rifle is completely outclassed by the hammer – objectively, by any sane objective metric (which have been provided already – more CC on hammer, more utility, more damage, same role essentially).
Sword Of Justice – Gunnar’s Hold
(edited by Olterin Fire.5960)
It fits the build, that’s my point. You can’t just dumbly replace hammer with rifle and get better builds. That’s nonsense. Hammer builds outclassed by rifle builds … that’s not a compelling reason to change how rifles work. I can go to any class and find superior builds for weapons that outclass others. That’s normal, that’s not a thing that needs fixing because it’s about purpose, not rank.
(edited by Obtena.7952)
Rifle has Net Shot on a 10s cd and Overcharged Shot on a 15s cd for 10 applications of CC per minute. Net Shot i an immobilize, and therefore ignores Stability (worth noting). Hammer has Thunderclap on a 24s cd and can Rocket Charge on every Thunderclap for a best case 7.5 CCs per minute. Shield has Magnetic Shield on a 25s cd and Static Shield on a 30s cd for a best case 6.4 CCs per minute.
Rifle also has the benefit of being a core engineer weapon, which will become more important as more elite specs are released. None of this means the rifle is perfect, but it’s certainly not as bad as the rhetoric makes it appear to be.
So if I swap my rifle for a hammer in my build, it’s better, just because Hammer is better than Rifle? I can assure you it wouldn’t be better for me to do that. I lose quite a bit of things that the Hammer doesn’t give me and on the other hand, the hammer adds nothing to the build. What you have said makes no sense.
Sounds good. Link build plz.
It fits the build, that’s my point. You
can’tcan just dumbly replace hammer with rifle and get better builds. That’snonsenseHoT in a nutshell.
Fixed a couple of typos you had there.
Hammer builds outclassed by rifle builds … that’s not a compelling reason to change how rifles work.
You’ve got this backwards (not a surprise, you haven’t played the expac yet).
I can go to any class and find superior builds for weapons that outclass others. That’s normal, that’s not a thing that needs fixing because it’s about purpose, not rank.
A few pages of you trolling a mostly dead forum and this is honestly the best strawman you could muster? yawn
So if I swap my rifle for a hammer in my build, it’s better, just because Hammer is better than Rifle? I can assure you it wouldn’t be better for me to do that. I lose quite a bit of things that the Hammer doesn’t give me and on the other hand, the hammer adds nothing to the build. What you have said makes no sense.
Sounds good. Link build plz.
I already did.