Guild Wars 2

From todays life-stream I’ve gathered some notes, containing feedback & concerns. I want to share them with you so you can add your thoughts as well. Please keep it civil & constructive.

First of, what did I like:
- Hammer #3 being a evade. I’m happy to see that scrapper profited from the communities’ concerns about revenants’ relentless assault. In general the hammer looks promising & in a solid spot.

- The traits turned out to be well balanced, & even tho some ICD’s spoil the fun here & there, they’re not too long & are necessary for balancing reasons. The overall synergy with our other traitlines is a welcomed bonus, allowing for multiple, very interesting build options.

- The fact that we now have a option for perma-stealth, without the negatives of it being exploitative, since the gyro itself will always give our general position away. Still it’s awesome for many situations.

And now my Concerns:
- Hammer skill #4 & #5 are on very high cd’s. Please consider reducing them a bit, since there is no trait for it & each kit we have to include for suplementing our cd’s reduces the amount of gyros we can pick. Keep in mind that traditionally low cd’s on our mainhand weapons are one half of compensating us for a missing weapon-swap.

- The gyros movement seems to be very wacky and not to be responsive to our movement at all. Especially the heal & elite gyro seem to have troubles catching up to us at all times, so please either reduce their reaction-time, or increase their AOE-range.

- The gyros’ HP are simply not sufficient. They can suffer from condis, can be crited & have no way of healing up. The most straight forward suggestion I can come up with is to make them invincible & understand that their limited uptime is all the counterplay / balancing they need. I can see that the elite gyro would be a exception of the rule, since it can be up 100% of the time, so keeping it damageable would be totally acceptable. Also bulwark could be balanced easily by reducing its uptime accordingly.
Please, if they keep being damageable, they will melt in WvW right instantly.
At least consider making them immune to crits & condis. That still would leave them useless for WvW frontlining but at least giving them niche-use in PvP. As it is, they will only be picked for their toolbelts or their on-death effects.

For the Functioning Gyro I have a summary of my thoughts here

Hammer looks sweet, might even play with it even when I am mostly a mid-range player.

Some gyros feels like filler skills. All of them are ruined by their cooldown (starts when they die).

• Medic Gyro is higher risk than Healing Turret combo and heals les over longer time, also have no regen or condi removal, and works worst with the invention line.
• Bulwark Gyro might be usefull, but only if it have a decent health pool.
• Blast Gyro is Personal Battering Ram 2.0 and seems to just be stricktly worst than some other utilities.
• Shredder Gyro is not even a gyro, it just stands still and spins, it looks good at what it does, but it’s no gyro.
• Purge Gyro can be good, but again, cooldown after death ruins this.
• Sneak Gyro looks pretty good, but I expect PvE NPCs to agroo on it like chieftan did, so it won’t have that much use in PvE (at least not like a gyro).

The toolbelts are all somewhere on the Ok to Meh scale. Nothing here that works with Static Discharge (would have been nice). Detection Pulse however looks amazing for PvP/WvW (20 sec cooldown is mad!). I wish the toolbelt skills had some traits dedicated to them.

Some traits looks good, but nothing that makes me pick the traitline alone.

Last point: Where are the explosive tags?

Hammer: The auto-attack chain needs to AT LEAST end in an explosion to synergize with the Explosives traitline. There need to be some alternatives to grenade kit in PvE until that datamined change about targetting is implemented. It’s not a problem in dungeons, but once we get to raids…I foresee grenades being weaker in practice until the community has the content on farm. Other than that, numbers tweaking once we get our hands on it. Everything on this weapon is fantastic.

Gyros: I need to experience these for myself. They don’t feel distinct or interesting outside of certain situations. Which is fine, but they just feel like more tools for the Engineer.

Traits: There need to be a few traits changed. The second minor should give out a boon based on the active Gyro on top of its current function. Stabilizing Core should pulse stability when any Gyro is active. And reduce the CD of the stability on evasion for Hammer.

I wasn’t expecting much from drones. Was hoping hammer might break with tradition and be a viable damage alternative to explosive kits, but it appears to be another niche/utility set.

Its like they just say “lets come up with a theme for scrapper, ok combo fields”. Everything they showcase is like combo field this combo field that but actual gameplay wise they are gonna suck in pvp. No one is going to stay in the fields obviously.

I think the traitline is good enough that it will be mandatoey for pvp, just because stability, the function gyro, and the super speed are quite strong.

The weakness trait looks interesting but I’m concerned about it since base engi has very few stuns and dazed to proc it. That’s a long duration weakness, and a ton of scrapper gyro crap he stuns, but I don’t see it being worth it just to proc the trait. I would honestly change it so the trait procs on interrupt, so you could still use it with rifle and and non daze/Stun CC.

The hammer looks really quick and fluid for a hammer and I’m interest in seeing how it works out, although I feel like the thunderclap needs to be shorter duration field on a lower cooldown to provide better CC over time. It may need a damage buff as well,

Some things like adaptive armor, weakness spam or super speed healing and stabilization core make me think that a firearms/alchemy/scrapper celestial build could come back, since the main issue with celestial engi right now is that the sustain is weak, but adaptive armor and one of the two master traits I mentioned seem like they could remedy this effectively on paper.

I think the hammer is amazing. Block, evade, reflect, stun, crazy leap all on one weapon!? We also know that at least the damage isn’t terrible, the third auto hits for over 3k with Marauder amulet. Anyways it doesn’t seem like a pure DPS weapon.

I understand that not everyone is going to like the Scrapper no matter what they do with it, but that’s objectively a really good weapon. I can’t think of any other profession that can do what the hammer can do without filling up their entire skill bar.

My first thoughts are the following:

- I don’t like the gyros. It’s not only that I find them underwhelming (lot’s of people have commented on their more technical problems), I find them too disjointed from an overall design perspective. It’s like they just added another separate thing on the profession which doesn’t synergize at all with what we had already. The engineer indeed has a theme of creating various devices. Therefore, if I were to add more “robot like” or “automatons” in the profession I would study what we have i.e. turrets and see how I would expand on the toolset by making a coherent whole (for example have somehow the traits in inventions affect the “new” stuff or rework those traits). Now it feels like the thought train was like this “what does engi have in this area? turrets. ok we failed them and nobody uses them anymore, let’s add another robot like thing in case that works”. I would have expected some progress similar to how necros got their new reaper shroud which benefits from existing traits for the normal shroud. Unfortunately at this late in the development process I find this impossible to correct and I feel sad about it.
- The hammer looks ok if you like melee (I personally find the rocket jump animation horrible, but that’s personal taste), but I feel it’s only useful in power based builds. So we are still left with only the very weak pistol for condition builds as a main hand weapon.
- From a first glance, the traits look ok in the sense that they seem to be offering more defense, which is useful for both power and condition based builds.
- Last but not least, again on a personal note, I dislike “scrapper” as a word. I strongly believe there could have been much more imagination in this department.

Overall score: 5.5/10

Thoughts on scrapper. Amazing for PVP, utter trash for PVE. That’d be fine if I could use the hammer without taking a bunch of useless traits.

They really need to do something for PvE. Ok, ok, they optimize for PvP, sure..But so many features outside of the hammer feel almost designed specifically for PvP with no thought to whether it even makes much sense in PvE. Half of function gyro’s ‘functions’, stomping, doesn’t exist. The other half, rezzing, will only be seriously useful in conditions where AI with health are notoriously easily killed. That extends to all other gyros, but this one is particularly egregious since its supposed to be our big mechanics change. The second minor is beyond terrible for PvE. The Elite Gyro is particularly stupid as an elite, despite their feigned insistence that it has uses outside of niche gameplay(even if it does act as a temporary ‘tank’ it’s only useful for either sneaking past a very short area, or getting a few free hits in: not at all worth trading in either Supply Crate or Mortar Kit in the vast majority of situations).

Really disappointed and hope they change it to have more synergy in PvE.

If you can switch targets mid leap effect on the 3x leap hammer skill i think it can be a super mobile in combat class with this and its super speed up time. It may end up having the best in combat movement in the game. I think the gyros become pAoE with spiking / rez presser. I just wish the blast gyro would not kill it self and simply rush the target and blast every 3 sec.

Just terrible. The best thing you can hope to get out of this spec is Juggernaut synergy.

Everything else, from the hammer’s kitten poor damage, to it relying on AI, to the Gyros having little to no health, or the fact that they thought 800 health per second would be able to compete with HT (Not surprising actually, they thought the Healing Kit rework was good lmao) or even the fact that they think a 4s stealth pulsing gyro is a “big ticket elite ability!” is all a joke. It won’t work in PvE, it won’t work in PvP.

Also easily my favorite part was when Irenio said “Don’t worry, you can still use grenades” when talking about how you don’t have to slot 5 gyros for abilities (in reality he should be more worried that people will slot a single gyro at all)

Yes. Thank god. THANK GOD. I was worried for a moment there that I would NOT be able to use the same kit i’ve been using for 3 years because everything else sucks. Bravo anet.

Guess we can go sit over with elementalists for “classes that got gyped on a decent elite spec”

^It’s not 800 hp/sec, its 800 hp/3sec.

good fun eh?

I find it hilarious how i struggle to find a way to utilize even a single one of the gyros without thinking “Hey or i could just use X kit, gadget or elixir instead” (okay, not turret. I’m not THAT mad) while it seems like every class is complaining how we are better at their job.

Thieves: Better at stealth! (understandable)
Guardians: Better guardian (including spirit weps)
Mesmer: Better IDefender!
Ranger: Better petclass! (including spirits), Better “GS”!
Elementalist: Better lightning! (yes im serious).

Heck sometimes people even forget that engineer was the original “super speed profession”.

I’m surprised i haven’t seen “Better Minion Master” yet.

I do not dare to think of the nerfs that will follow if we actually are as good as people claim that we are.

And the engineers utility slot are indeed important and they need to be good, they are what defines us, more so than some passive movement signet or what have you.

But i am putting this out yet again, excellent job with the hammer! Now i might not feel like i absolutely need toolkit, or heck i might use toolkit for even more blocks!

But the gyros feels like a failed and sad attempt at going “oh im so sorry we removed turrets from realistic play in all gamemodes, but heres our second pass to try to make them work. And its your specialization!”

Something that just struck my mind:
We even miss a gyro.

While all other classes had traditionally access to 5 ability-types with 4 utility-skills each, we were the only class to have 4 ability-types with 5 utilities each.
Was it simply forgotten, or a deliberate decision to break with our overall design concept at this point?

I’m pretty dissapointed from the shown stuff for the scrapper.

Hammer
Looked good, even if the dmg seems to need similar threatment like Reaper’s GS imo.

Super speed is nothing special, imo the “Scrapper-Super-Speed” should get something on top, like purge/decrease duration from cripple/chill while active.

Traits
Some traits like Adaptive Armor, Perfectly Weighted, Mass Momentum or Rapid Regeneration sound amazing.
But e.g. Final Salvo seems not that good for a GM.
Minor Traits are completely underwhelming and boring.

Gyros
The Gyros are the biggest dissapointment for me.
When I read about “fuel” in the blogpost I thought ANet has finally learned from the complainments about minions over the last three years.
I imagined they invented a way to make minions viable in WvW, bigger Events, but obviously they didn’t. They are just spirit weapons.
- vulnerable -> useless in WvW, PvE-Events and for bigger PvP-fights
- huge cds
- slow

The only useful parts of the Gyros seem to be some of the toolbelt-skills.

Function Gyro
Thought it should replace our F-Button, but with a ridiculous high cd of 30s the already tiny niche will be even smaller. Can’t even see the new mechanic anymore. irony
Deploying it in front of you, charging to it’s destination, trying to do his job and then disappearing/being destroyed, making place for the next F-Gyro.
That’s how it should be – one active at the same time, no cd.

Lets transfer this to other Specialisations:
- Reaper: Use one skill and Reapershroud goes on 30s cd.
- Warrior: Use one primal burst and Berserk goes on 30s cd.
- Thief: Dodge one time and the third dodge is unavailable for 30s.

Heal Gyro
- weak heal
- way too small radius
- slow gyro -> easy to step out of the tiny radius
- huge cd
-> Healing Turret remains superior

Bulwark Gyro:
- few hits and it’s dead
Phantasmal Defender from Mesmer does dmg, has lower cd and can be improved with various traits like less cd, AoE-Regeneration…

Purge Gyro
- may be good, but I think I would still use HT and EG
- cd too long

Shredder Gyro
- could be good
- cd way too long

Blast Gyro
Big red orb charges you, please stand still and dont dodge.. nothing more than a gimmick.

Stealth Gyro
The current Stealth-Gyro is worse than Shadow Refuge imo:
Make 3 steps, wait for the Gyro, make 3 steps..
- it doesn’t keep up with the Engineer, like seen in the PoI. There wasn’t even swiftness on the character, so “selfish” swiftness like from Streamlined Kits renders this Gyro even worse
- it doesn’t stack stealth like Shadow Refuge, you have to stay in it. Would be ok, if the Gyro stays on your position.
- it pulls aggro -> useless for PvE
- it’s cc-able and can’t dodge -> knockback, pull, fear etc and stealth is gone for sure, while the thief can try to dodge in his SR to avoid beeing kicked out
- it’s killable, SR isn’t

As a regulary Utility it would be ok I guess, but not as Elite.

Overall I don’t see why they took that long, to reveal the Scrapper. The new, super exiting, imba mechanic of the Function Gyro wasn’t even showed.
Theres basically nothing new, but they still rather did PoIs about Mordrem Guard or Guild Objectives in WvW rather then pushing the Specialisations out earlier, maybe unpolished, but to give them more BWEs. Scrapper really needs them, as far as I saw its current state.
The other non-specialisations-PoI could have easily been shown later, since they affect all players and therefore I suppose they will get more attention after HoT release than the underwhelming Scrapper and maybe Druid.

I fear we got the short end of the stick again, if I see what fixes the Reaper still gets after 2 BWEs..

As I see it, we are kind of king of the blast finishers. I have builds that have 5, 6, or 7 blast finisher. Is anyone else a little disappointed that we have the only hammer weapon set with no blast finisher?

I was waiting for a new specialization that would capture my interest before spending 80 tomes to make a new toon. This is the first one that I could see being super fun to play!

Great work Anet!

I thought it was really neat. I think having multiple engineers in a zerg is going to be a large boon.