Guild Wars 2

Zenith.7301:

Arantheal.7396:

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And necromancer was supposed to be an attrition class and a warrior’s weakness was supposed to be conditions. Thieves were supposed to be weak to roots and CC. All from those manifestos you like to quote.

Now which one of those is true? None.

Fact is, power engineer has been utter garbage for the entirety of the engineer’s existence in PvE.

Why shouldn’t scrapper, the melee spec, offer a change in that?

Truly, offer one single reason for why the following change couldn’t be made:

“Hammer autoattack, #2, and #3 damage increased by 25% in PvE instances only. Hammer 5 cd reduced by 10 seconds in PvE instances only.”

It would hurt virtually no one and only serve to increase build variety.

There will always be optimal class combos, but the deltas in performance need not to be as obscenely large as it is now.

Most power builds for most classes in PvE are TRASH, and I am for one sick of having the majority of the classes be pigeonholed into condi builds because Anet can’t bother to bring the numbers up pn power weapons split for PvE only.

1.) What I quoted is no class manifesto, what I quoted was the introduction for the elite-spec. Name me one elite-spec that totally lost its identity over the course of the past 2 years. Just one.

2.) Upping the dmg just for convenience sake is a slippery slope that leads to even more ppl demanding dmg buffs for various reasons, including raids, simply because: “lol, there is no one crying in PvE, gib me numbers, the boss must fall”, when in reality increased dmg leads to nothing but more and more content becoming redundant and boring.
Raids are that engaging for people participating in them, because they have to train themselves rigorously to reach their peak performance with their classes. If suddenly everyone receives PvE dmg buffs, their work is nill, and raids will loose their appeal, simply because fractals reward more shinies and are easier to farm within a shorter span of time.
Remember the times when everyone was running dungeons, even tho fractals existed?
Wanna return to a similar state of the game?
Then go ahead and cry wolf about “underwhelming dps” when in reality it fills its intended role just fine.

ppl want to dps with scrapper…
then ppl want to tank with holosmith…

does not compute
(._o)

Samug.6512:

Arantheal.7396:

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I’m fairly sure old chests won’t drop the new currency, otherwise they wouldn’t give us new chests.
Old chests = only proofs of heroic
New chests = proofs of heroic or new currency to choose.

I was a bit mistaken, old chests will still drop the old proof of heroics, but new chests will have a new currency for pof hero challenges, and old chests itself won’t drop anymore in wvw, hence you need to farm them now, if you want to unlock HoT hero challenges.

Here’s what the dev said:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Will-vendors-be-updated-for-PoF/first#post6743282

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Will-vendors-be-updated-for-PoF/first#post6743429

play buttloads of wvw.
you get hero chests there that reward a currency for which you can unlock HoT hero challenges.
After PoF hits, these chests will be changed to reward another currency for PoF hero challenges, and already collected chests will drop the new currency rather than the old, locking HoT hero challenges to be only unlocked by actually playing them. And they are anti-fun :/

true dat, even if holosmith doesn’t end up as THE top dps spec, I wish for it to land in the upper 5 ranks.

And since that should be covered then, what will be our elite heal spec?

True, which is why i take it directly from a-net lips:
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/meet-the-scrapper-engineers-elite-specialization/

On general:
>The noble engineer has always been a jack-of-all-trades; however, this profession has tended to avoid the brawl. Scrappers are in their element in the thick of the fighting, surviving by anticipation and sheer fortitude. That survivability comes from several places, including traits, new toolbelt skills, utilities and their new weapon…

On the traits:
>We’ve mentioned what a few traits will do through this reveal, but to give you a little more information, the specialization traits were built to emphasize three overarching goals: sustainable survivability, concentrated lockdown, and mobile stability.

Yea, definitively sounds like a dps spec, lol.
If anything, it was designed as tank for PvE, but always had a greater emphasis on PvP and WvW as bruiser / frontliner.

Our intended dps elite-spec is Holosmith.
Scrapper was never meant to fill that role.

Sorry zenith, but your argument is besides the point.
Already told you that scrapper has no place in fractals / raids, and was never meant to.

You were complaining about the vets in siren’s landing, and I showed you a build that I frequently use to melt them. Also, spare-capacitor is on a 17ish sec cd, so I use it and thunderclap one after another to stunlock / chain-daze exactly these vets every 12 sec when rocket charge is off cd. More survivability than I possibly could ask for.

also, firearms comes with traits almost purely for dps.
the minors keep up bleed and therefore crit-chance, novice and adept give even more crit-chance (20%-40%), and the master trait combined with nades + vulnerability (from shredder + lightning field) + burn from rocket kick give you a decent 4%-10% dmg modifier.

Compared to explosives, sure, these traits give more raw dmg, but only on the long run, and given that your crit-chance is buffed by other classes in your group. But we were talking about solo map completion / daily farms, where I melt these vets so fast because I run between 76-96% crit chance on my own, so everything on this build hits reliably like a truck. No group members needed.

Just because other classes might be faster to melt vets solo (1 or 2 seconds, lol), I don’t have less fun on scrapper in overworld PvE. And as long as I can solo most champs in this game, I’m more than satisfied with scrapper.

>especially those veteran elementals in Siren’s Landing
they melt in less than 10sec…

>What’s worse, is that scrapper has very limited access to fury
40% fury uptime in combat

>and no innate crit chance increase
+20% crit chance from firearms (high caliber + hematic focus)

>if you want swiftness from kits to get around maps
tools?

>because you’d have to drop tools and lose any decent uptime on swiftness to get the increased crit from firearms.
so… what exactly prevents you from taking both?

>Hammer may work on bruiser marauder builds in pvp
I prefer knight for pvp tank builds, but that’s just me, I guess.

>but I just cannot justify it in fractals
me neither, but not because of the hammer, but because scrapper has no stat boost besides might-stacking (which is what warriors are for), nor any dmg-modifiers (besides for hammer itself), so I can’t justify to drop firearms, tools or explosives for scrapper, if I’m looking for max-dps.

>or PvE
Anything goes for map completion / world events, and this is what I’m running when I’m in the mood for some face-rolling:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vdAQFASnUUBlYh9dBupC0ehlOjietL70e86CgpCM4KuGC-TxBBABA8AAqZ/h80BcmSwAuAAYp8rS1fAA-e

It has crits, it has swiftness, and it melts everything below elites in mere seconds…
Dunno what you’re complaining about.

>This only applies to condi builds.
take nades bombkit and throw mine, and you have enough cd’s (and their precasts) to rotate through.

>Bomb kit has a delay that is of little note in PvE since most mobs won’t move out of range in 1 second delay
Vale guardian is laughing his ass off right now.

>I don’t understand why it’s so difficult for you to understand why.
Because you don’t understand that hammer itself is fine, but the scrapper line isn’t.

>It doesn’t hit hard enough to overcome bomb kit’s autoattack, that’s how bad it is.
>how bad

bombkit is one of the hardest hitting AA’s in the game…
and its trade-off is its delay (which you can pick a trait against, for the cost of dps loss)

So hammer is the hardest hitting AA that hits without delay on engi…
I don’t see a balance issue here.

Also, what exactly prevents your from taking bombkit with your hammer, so you have a extremely hard hitting AA for stationary targets, and hammers’ – still quite hard hitting – AA for mobile targets that would otherwise outrun bombkit?

And since you apparently seem to care so much about dps in PvE, what exactly is the point in having a hard hitting AA anyways, while you – as engi – are supposed to rotate your kits and hardest hitting cd’s to max out your dps. Ideally, you shouldn’t even rely on your AA for more than 1 or 2 gap-closes between cd’s.

hammer already has a quite hard hitting AA chain.

but taking it means taking scrapper, which means to NOT take either firearms, tools or explosives, which are the lines where the best dmg-modifiers can be found.

I’d advise to not ask for a hammer buff, but for better dps traits in the scrapper line, if you want to make it pve viable, but then again: Holosmith will likely answer all the dps questions we ever had.

I like this idea Ardid.
I’m not sure about them getting breakbars AND invulnerability, tho.
breakbars prevent cc’s from applying their effects, and I’d certainly prefer turrets being able to be blinded, slowed and chilled, but are able to receive boons in turn.

if they get a breakbar, it should be rather small, but with high regeneration, making sure that two dazes are enough to disable a turret, but blind / immob / cripple and chill can’t just wiggle it down, because these condis tend to stack for quite some high durations, if you don’t leave the fields pulsing them. Counterplay should be there, but it should involve more than just “let me put a smokefield here and laugh manically while your dmg stays on cd”.

or might in reactive lenses, which likely triggers applied force right after your automatic stunbreak procs and your opponents sits there with his stuns on cd…
or PBR counting as explosion and applying burn, giving s/d hybrid builds a good alternative to rifle turret…
or a second mine to break breakbars in PvE with…
or AED’s lighting aura for 3 seconds to stun your opponent right when he’s bursting you into downstate…

yea, such a pointless trait…

The only thing really underwhelming is slickshoe’s cripple, since it gets cleared too easily in wvw and pvp, and has no use outside of it.
But really, that is my only complain about this trait.

I don’t see the problem with this behavior, I mean, you want to deny an area with them…

And if you leave an area in a controlled manner, they should be on cd so you can replace them at the place you’re going to…

as far as I know (didn’t try since 2 years) their dmg won’t destealth you, nor trigger retaliation on you, so I don’t see a downside with them firing at targets.

also, they fire at the last target in range that got dmg, meaning that a rifle turret will focus the longer fire intervals of rocket and fire turret on the target that the rifle turret has fired last upon…

so yea, rifle turrets picks the first target that gets in his range, and then makes sure that all turrets in the area pick the same target and focus on it.

funfact: their A.I. is gone.
they will always fire at your target, if it is in range.
this is why they got so imbalanced in the first place, and got nerfed into oblivion.

now they are squishy as kitten and have long cd’s, which makes the long-lasting aspect of them nothing but a joke.

if you want to keep their identity as they are now, you have exactly 2 options to balance them:

1. limit their uptime (because it’s short already) and drastically increase their usefulness: more dmg, more utility, more anything OR
2. tone down their dmg slightly, but make them invulnerable, and allow their overcharges to go off more than once.

Everything else ends up in a complete overhaul

lorddarkflare.9186:

FairyNuff.3452:

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this.
+1

while their long uptime and focus fire (coupled with their condi & crit-immunity) made them extremely OP, and outright frustrating to play against in pvp conquest mode, their comparable low dps made them obsolete in pve content, and their immobility, coupled with high cd’s made them obsolete in wvw.

they really exceeded in one thing only, and that was heavy area denial, which was only important in spvp. Outside of it, they never had a real purpose so far (welp, maybe for afk mob-farming or event-tagging, but anything goes for open world map, so nobody cares)

and now, with them being squishy as kitten, their last semi-viable purpose is gone as well. Now we only pick them for their toolbelts, or their overcharges. Beyond that, they have no purpose in any build.

so, how can we fix this?
Either keeping them fringe-content, so some niche-builds can exploit them (low cd toolbelt on rifle turret for s/d builds f.e.), or we throw their concept out of the window entirely and replace them with something worthwhile.

Alternatively, rework them from the ground up.
either give them awesome group utility (like the bubble / boon pulsing trait, which was actually heading in the right direction, but still didn’t address the core-issues with turrets) OR up their dmg drastically (scaling with our stats would already be a good start) OR limit their uptime, make them invulnerable entirely, and reduce their cd’s, so they see a more mobile and situational play instead of permanent “I sit here – kitten off” gameplay.

Roaming is always a bit of an issue with hammer scrapper, since you can’t really stay on top of your enemy. So you either need extra mobility (tools+rocketboots), or some ranged options (nades+explosions).

I’d try some setup like this:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vdEQFASlcThSuYfXw+KQ+FLTGl4zUABw4HUBnF9fn37NA-T1BBQBnUJYf0BAgLAgGV+1uHAQmU/hf7PQKgRnpB-w

tanky af, but carries a decent punch and can stay on top of your enemies.
also, your decision if you rather have faster reloading toolkit skills, or the auto-stunbreak and blind immunity + fury + might from reactive lenses. comes with a 40sec cd, tho

Dunno how long you’ve been playing this game, but we had this state of turrets already.
They weren’t viable enough to be played in high rank pvp, but extremely punishing against lower skill-ranks, resulting in months on months of salt in the forums, which has lead a-net to nerf them into oblivion.

In open world pve / wvw, their long cd’s coupled with their immobility made them obsolete, in dungeons their (compared to other builds options we have) low dps made them obsolete as well.

Turrets never had a satisfactory state of balancing, simply because they have a single checkmark, that – if filled – makes any build on any class in this game impossible to balance: A.I.

Either it is OP, nor complete trash. We’ve never seen anything A.I.-related in between.

A.I.

it will just kitten you up, regardless how you design it.

they should closely orbit us, as the function gyro does in its idle animation.
shredder, stealth and blast should be throwable directly like mines, although with a greater range (since rotors’n’stuff)

Everything that involves autonomous aiming / movement will always be broken.

Remember what happened to turrets:
- they were trash at launch since random aim.
- then a-net changed them always focus fire our targets
- suddenly they were OP and the forums full of salt
- then they got nerfed into oblivion by making them squishy a.f. and removed key-traits that weren’t even part of the issue

And a-net “learned” from this, and gave us squishy trash right from the get go, that moves in random, uncontrollable patterns and can’t keep up with us, so we often don’t even profit from our own utilities.

Even if you increase their survivability, half of the time you will be out of range when they pulse their effects, and since they can’t dodge, nor actively avoid red circles, they will eat all the aoe-dmg and condis that are flying around, which forces you to either make them invulnerable completely, or so tough that you could make them invulnerable anyways.
Sure, you could change them to always avoid red circles, reducing the dmg they eat, but this would make them move even more frantically, decreasing the chance to get their effects while they’re up, even more, and the more complex AI gets in this game, the more likely it is to fail due to pathing errors.

No more A.I.!

how about turrets trigger their overcharge as soon as they can, and tk1 reduces their cd by 10% for every swing on them?

new trait – replaces orbital command:
dense powder
- 10% cd reduction on cannon kit
- Cannon Ball, Bombardement, and Lance shot can’t be reflected or destroyed anymore. (Block still works)

In their current state any nerf to them would just be another nail in the coffin.

I may be mistaken on this, but the general consent around here seems to be to get rid of them entirely in exchange for something new, like “aoe-pylons” (think wow shaman totems)

On the other hand, healing turret is one of the best healing skills in the game, and a cornerstone to most engi builds, and s/d builds certainly would miss the low cooldown of rifle turrets’ tb.

Beyond that, extreme squishiness, and high cd’s make most of them a completely wasted slot. thumper turrets only merit f.e. is its stunbreak on the tb, but when compared to other stunbreaks of engi (elixir S / utility-goggles / elixier-gun), it is almost always a waste to pick it.

But i think there is a way to make turrets viable without making them OP.

1. their dmg really needs to scale with our stats.
2. decrease their maximum uptime to 10 seconds.
3. decrease their individual cd’s drastically (15sec should be max, exception being heal-turret for obvious reasons)
4. flame-turret should fire more frequently or apply 2 stacks of burn
5. picking them up should halve their cd
6. turrets should profit from boons

then they could keep being squishy, so enemies get rewarded for focusing them down, and we can replace them far more often. Ofc turreteer builds would still feel like sitting ducks in a pile of junk, but with these changes they actually could pack a decent punch, while still allowing reasonable counterplay from enemies.

unless you keep your monitor off as well, our changing color (and – in case you reach the last 20% – chaotic holographic “glitches” around our character) are more than enough of a tell.

I agree with Adamantium, that this is a non-issue.

mortar rework:
cannon kit (shoulder mounted cannon, think of Horrik)

1. Cannon Ball /1.5k range AA / high velocity & linear projectile / 0.75s cast time / medium dmg / explodes on impact with a 130 range aoe / explosion / 100% projectile finisher
2. Lance Shot / 1.5k range / high velocity & linear projectile / 0.75s pre-cast / high dmg / pierces 5 targets / 1sec daze / 6sec cd
3. Canister shot / 900, 600, 300 range / 90° front cone AoE / inflicts 2,3,4 stacks of bleed / launches targets / small, medium, high dmg / 5 targets / 12 sec cd / 0.75s pre-cast / explosion
4. active heat sink / 240 range AoE fire-field / ticks medium dmg / ticks 1 stack of burning for 2 seconds / ticks 5 times / applies frost-aura to allies for 3 seconds / 18 sec cd
5. Bombardement / 1.5k range / fires 6 projectiles in a high, slow moving arc / 180 range AoE on impact / very high dmg per projectile / daze for 1 sec / 25 sec cd / explosion

Toolbelt:
Stays as is

new trait – replaces orbital command:
dense powder
- 10% cd reduction on cannon kit
- Cannon Ball and Bombardement are now a 20% chance blast finisher

it’s not counter-intuitive, it’s just inconvenient.
f1 is the vanilla swap-key for necro, and they have multiple traits interacting direclty with pressing it.
f1-f4 are vanilla bind for us, so its logically, but inconveniently placed on f5.

but we can rebind skills…
just as I have the elite-tb on mouse 4, I will have this swap key conveniently placed next to my thumb as well…

Key-rebinds – they really improve your life as engineer.

CrAzY.3275:

Wait so tools has 1 less trait then the other classes mechanic traitlines?

no.
Even tho it got nerfed recently (well, made more reliable and useful in my personal opinion), kinetic battery is our 2nd class mechanic trait. And in its current state, it has awesome synergy with scrapper. No idea how well it’ll interact with holosmith.

Do you want to discuss engineer or necro?
because it really sounds like the latter, and therefore as the wrong subforum for this topic…

Yupp, these were the nerfs of that update.
but tbf, orbital strike wasn’t already landing on a foe reliably, it was always way too easy to sidestep it, especially in wvw. Have you ever seen a roamer being dumb enough to get hit twice by it? I mean, sure I have, but that was more a lack of skill on their side, not something I could pull off against a reasonable good player.
but now it only has a 10 sec cd, outside of the actual mortar tb, so you can keep an enemy more effectively on their toes, bait their dodges and blast your fields way more often, especially if you stay close and comfy in melee range. Bonus: I can take this rng blastfinisher and are not even forced to slot mortar itself for it.

>Kinetic Battery nerf was devastating
never really liked that trait, tbh. way too unreliable, but I understand that this is just my personal opinion. Still, in exchange we got the gadgeteer & lock on changes, which especially s/d builds will profit from. PBR both has nice dmg, low cd on the tb skill, and uses the ammo system on a 4sec cd, and especially because of the latter, it kinda serves as successor to the defense from the old APT trait.

Additionally, photon forges’ tb skill particle accelerator only has 8sec cd, that has slightly less dmg than surprise shot, but pierces 5 targets and cripples. Even better, it comes on top of the photon wall that will reflect projectiles above 50% heat while also getting bigger and always moves with you.

so slot rifle, photon wall, PBR and rifle turret, and you can spam s/d bolts on top of fairly hard hitting skills that also apply cripple and – in case of PBR – additionally daze.
S/D probably will have a comeback sooner than you think

As I said, yes this update came with some nerfs, but in general, I’d say the pros way outweight the cons, at least in my opinion. I mean is -5% boon duration really a game-changer? What did we get in turn: EPK has no internal cd anymore. Big boomer, and blasting zone both giving awesome stats, and minesweeper is a surprisingly decent trait, especially in wvw.
Gadgeteer is freakking amazing as well, and outside of s/d builds, if you pick gadgeteer, reactive lenses now profit from it as well.

I had a hiatus for 2 years, and I have to say, the current state of the engineer is the best I’ve seen it in since 3 years, arguably even since the death of 100 nades…

“Strike at foes in front of you and launch a blade of light at your target. Launch extra blades based on your heat level. Each blade inflicts conditions.”

Maybe because it’s meant to be a hybrid / condition skill?

>on what should be a high risk burst skill
What makes you assume it’s high risk?
only has 0.5 sec cast time, and hits quite often, so you can strip aegis spam & blind with it, and in case you run firearms, the bleed grants you 10% more crit chance for any other skill following it…
And given all the other dps skills on forge, I think it works as a decent setup for actual burst rotas coming after it.
Sure, a wasted half second for PvE dps-rotas, but for PvP / Roaming I think it’s fine as it is.

And when it comes to dps in general, the holosmith is certainly not lacking in that department.^^

Liewec.2896:

its a null issue anyway since they ruined turrets by removing their overcharge

but the overcharges are still there oO
in fact, they buffed turrets slightly with this.

if you place a turret, it goes immediately into overcharge, guaranteeing that their first frame is the overcharged effect. no more can you kitten yourself by double-tapping faster than the game could recognize it, resulting in the turret not triggering it’s overcharge, so you’d have to correct your mistake after the first attack frame is over.
now you tap the turret once, get a guaranteed overcharge, and can decide yourself when exactly you want to blow it up.
One bit of hectic piano play less.

Additionally, they moved the blow-up command from the toolbelt to the actual skill, allowing you to place a turret, without blocking your toolbelt. This is a great quality of life improvement.
The only builds suffering from this are those who took static discharge, since they can’t spam 2 bolts from a single turret pick anymore. Sure, this is a nerf to s/d directly, but it also means that the trait no longer needs to be balanced around double its potential, opening it up for a slight buff that all toolbelt skills could profit from.

Ofc turret-heavy builds are nowhere near viable currently (nor are s/d builds) but I think that the design team is heading in the right direction with this change of turret mechanics. And who knows, s/d-builds might profit from this on the long run as well.

Jepp, and it wouldn’t be a onesided decision either.
For a zerg I’d definitively rather have inventions, since these conditions get reapplied in no time, but for solo roaming / spvp I’d need to decide if I rather go defensive (inventions) or offensive (tools)
And if I’d take both traitlines, I’d definitively have some nice movement, but it would lock me out of the live-saving alchemy-traits, since w/o scrapper OR firearms OR explosives, my chances to actually do dmg and down my opponent as roamer / spvp’er would be reduced next to zero. and what use has a tank on the point that is nothing else but a mobile dps-sponge…

decisions, decisions…

So yea, these changes definitively would have a positive impact on build-diversity, without making us OP.
A-net, pls fix.

Rezzet.3614:

as much as I want a shot gun i disagree

we need a proper and effective ranged weapon

as far as shotguns go our flamethrower needs +175 range
and smoke vent should be a smoke field like flame turret’s or be like warrior’s torch 5 except instead of burning its pulsing blinds

Err…
wat?
Ft is a condi / cc kit now (nerf to #2 / buff to #3), and the auto is not a “shotgun” it’s a suicide button in zergs (retal), and pointless everywhere else, due to its abysmal power scaling.

We were discussing balancing options for projectile hate, in other words, gaining options to deliver dps trough reflects. And the answer is non-projectile skills, such as – f.e. – necro staff easily has access to.

Do you think you’d pressure a zerg with the ft auto if it had 175 more range, or even remotely impress a Spvp player / roamer with spaming it!?

Ideas for fixing FT are definitively welcome, but please open another thread for this thread-unrelated topic.

well, since flame-thrower got converted to a cc / condi weapon, you might as well "miss"use it as boonstick to buff up before you jump in, or switch into if you need stab, so I’d go with this build:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vdAQFASlUUhatYJXwPLQ7FL3FF9tH7zeYNFQZGYDGhBAA-TJR5wAEeAAHvAAAKDMa/BA

Since you want to run all kits, and nades become pointless on range without the explosives-line, I gave you toolkit instead for the block, crowbar, and pull.
While knight stats may seem a bit too tanky, scrapper converts a decent load of toughness into power, so all you really miss out on is crit dmg, but with the current setup, you will not only have a decent fury uptime (like you already had) but 20% crit chance on top, especially since hammer will force you to hug your foes, bringing you up to ~87% crit chance, so the netto dps should stay roughly the same.
Optionally, switch mortar for elixier X. The moa is really useful, and the elxier itself either helps to decap, or kills your outright (which is likely to happen anyways, if you enemy runs a condi-heavy setup… just saying). If you get the tornado: switch out of it as soon as you can. It really isn’t worth it to camp in it after having pressed 1 & 4 once in it.

Also, automated medical response has an abysmal high cd, so you will find automated bomb dispenser far more useful.

If you don’t like hammer, and are looking for something closer to your original build, try this:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vdAQFAUlUUhSuYJWwPLQ7FLpF03TDQDGnTaKTYU7YtB-TJxHABAcBAsvMAz7Po8DAAA

you are now the annoying sir dodge’a’lot, so dodge a lot^^
And yea, all of the above: toolkit is a better pick than flamethrower, but you are now a bit more squishy, while also having better access to doges and cripple. Playing this effectively really needs some serious piano-skills, tho…

I really recommend my first suggestion.

We should have a proper shotgun.

1. narrow aoe frontcone AA / less dmg than blunderbus, but still scaling up the closer the target is, 900 range , and max a 45° angle
2. some hard hitting, piercing, long range projectile / min 1.2k range, preferably 1.5k
3. should be a front cone daze for 1 sec on a 90° angle and decent dmg, around half the range of the AA, with reasonable precast to give a tell to enemies
4. can stay as is
5. can stay as well (optionally, how about we move 100% of the dmg into the landing? then it also could serve as a getaway without revealing ourselves from stealth if we currently get attacked in melee)

and the traits wouldn’t even need to be touched…
(I still miss you, synaptic overload)

welp, the superspeed on toolkit IS useful.
the others tho…

How about we call the trait “speedy kits” again, with the following effect:

- get superspeed when switching into a kit for 3 seconds
- get swiftness when switching into a kit for 20 seconds
- optionally: remove all movement impairing conditions when switching into a kit
- cd 20 seconds

this way the trait would be infinitely more versatile, since superspeed is a nice bonus to have for every build I can think of, and doesn’t conflict with you trying to stealth or get ooc (kittening hate it when I switch into nades or elixiergun for swiftness while or before I stealth, since the red circle / slime gives away my position – in case of the later even my movement direction – and if it goes off, it puts me in combat & reveals me).

the traits were separate, yes.

And yea, +1

Aaaand, I’m taken.^^
YAY!

tl;dr: Basically looking for some laid back ppl to run fractals / raids and some spvp with. TS would be greatly appreciated. Returning player / engi main / german here

Wall of text:
Hi, Toxo here.
I’m a german player who left the game 2 years ago, shortly after HoT hit. I have 4k hours on engineer and besides – very – occasionally playing warrior / guardian / necro / revenant / elementalist, I usually clear all content with my engi.
I actually did enjoy the expansion back then, but had rl-related reasons for putting gw2 down. Still, now I’m back, and I played the heck out of the new maps, including those of ls3, got comfortable with the current state of engineer, and now look for a guild to dive a bit more serious into the PvE content again. Especially the fractal reworks and new raids interest me a lot.
Besides that I also greatly enjoy Spvp and WvW, but I wouldn’t mind being the only person in your guild to feel that way, and especially when it comes to wvw I’m still out of the loop. Currently I’m sitting on RoF, but wouldn’t mind transfering, tho

Since I have to work in rl, I usually will only be around at the evening hours (gmt+1 or 2 / depends on summertime or not), so I’m looking for some peeps that are either mostly active around this time as well, or a large guild that is active around the clock to do daily fractals and the likes together.

I learn fast, and when it comes to the new fractal / raid mechanics, I don’t mind watching guids, or following the lead of a experienced mentor.

German or english language would be appreciated, as well as a TS.
If you want to adopt me, send me a letter ingame

hf,
- Toxo

Turrets should be reworked into being invulnerable, defensive / aoe-dmg-only pylons with limited range, drastically reduced cd, but limited uptime (~20sec max), that actually SCALE with our stats. Their overcharges could be scrapped as well
f.e.:

1. rifle turret gets reworked into a flashbang-beacon that applies aoe-vulnerability and some dmg in a limited range / toolbelt stays as is, but has now a plasma-blaster-animation (similar but less impressive as H.O.P.E. projectiles)
2. thumper only applies cripple / knockback gets merged with the toolbelt
3. net turret becomes a gas-dispenser that applies poison and torment per second, creates a poison field that lasts 3 seconds / toolbelt now is a flame turrets old smokefield that applies blind
4. flameturret becomes a heat radiator that applies dmg, 1 stack of burning per second and provides a 3 second fire-field
5. healing turret activation-heal is doubled, turret waterfield now lasts 3 seconds, removes 1 condi every second
6. supply-crate stays as is

traits for ticking boons / bubbles can stay

Gyros should be invulnerable too, orbit players always (as the function gyro does), explosive gyro becomes a projectile himself, shredder moves with us (could simply whirl around us, so we become a scrap tornado, lol). Sneakgyro can stay that way. Obviously It would give away our position, but it still would be awesome team utility. Alternatively, call it rush gyro and let it aoe buff superspeed, for maximum salt.

all turrets / gyros get destroyed when the engi goes into downstate

And from here on out:
NO. MORE. AI!

I’m out of the loop for most classes, since I just came back to the game a month ago after a 2 year hiatus (feeling up-to-date on engi / warri so far), so I want to ask you about your thoughts on these questions:

1.) IF – note the big “IF” at the beginning – elite-specializations in general would be changed to allow every class to have access to their new weapons, regardless if the accompanying elite-traitlines would be picked or not, would there be classes where it breaks their balancing completely / or makes their new weapons useless outside of their traitlines?

2.) Given that such a change would be implemented, and therefore sword and hammer become readily available to be picked, would you favor or disfavor engineer getting a weapon-swap mechanic?
Do you think this would be a beneficial / reasonable change for our class?

3.) IF such a change would be implemented, what are your thoughts on the prospect of new elite-specializations not being forced to add new weapons, but could focus on existing weapons instead and add to – or change their playstyle?
Would this make elite-specs more interesting, by maybe improving already existing class-mechanics / strengths, or do you rather want to see new roles being added to a class with every elite-spec release?

I’d love to read detailed answers to all 3 points from you.
Maybe the devs will see your answers, too

1. what toolbox said
2. elementalists, as base-class, also don’t have weaponswap. And with their atunements and our kits, we are the only two classes that have consistent access to more than two “weapon”-skill sets in combat.
I think the game design is consistent in this regard, especially since the design idea of engineer always revolved around kits.

Still, the ongoing balancing of our skills have made non-kit builds viable nowadays, so kits shouldn’t be seen as our central class-mechanic anymore. More so with the addition of elite-specializations.

Maybe, at some point in the future, a-net will revisit the class-design-idea of the engineer, and recognize that we have evolved past it. Outside of future elite-specializations, I’d love to see mace being added to our vanilla class,alongside the ability to weaponwap, giving us melee cc and tank capabilities, so power-focused builds could profit from running mace, too.
So far we only have pistol shield as alternative to rifle, and both of these sets are so different that you can’t even run them effectively stat-wise – well outside of celestial / other hybrid stats, ofc.

So for mace, I’d like to see it to be sound-themed, like dredge weapons, f.e.:
AA1:
medium dmg / 130 range / 3 targets / n sec bleed
AA2:
medium dmg /130 range / 3 targets / n sec bleed
AA3:
heavy dmg / double cast time / interrupt / 130 range / 3 targets / n sec confusion

Skill 2:
Blastwave
6s cd / heavy dmg / conic front-AoE / 480 range / n sec weakness / n sec cripple

Skill 3:
Soundshell
15s cd / 2,5s channel / 5 ticks / 480 range AoE / n sec stability to allies / n sec regeneration to allies

Inventions – delete medical dispersion field (it’s a pointless trait anyways)
New trait – Supersonic Amplifier (inventions grandmaster 3):
- Mace skills cd reduction 10%
- Mace AA 3 is now a blast-finisher [Alternative : Soundshell now provides might & fury for n seconds]

Just check guardian…
We won’t be the first target for a nerf^^

>Not sure that sounds right.
Because I was being stupid…
Tested it again on the golems.
Bomb AA has indeed higher dps than the sword AA, so leaving sword out to favor rifle seemed intuitive. Until I noticed Skill 3 on sword…

Much to learn…

>why would people pick “Medium” over “Very High”
Because some people really hate que’s and enjoy group / solo-roaming more than blobbing…
Your favorite way of playing wvw is not automatically everyones favorite way of playing wvw…

>I already stated that there will be existing servers far exceeding the full threshold
And guess what happens when my changes would be introduced:
As soon as everybody gets unhooked initially, those coming too late to the party will be locked out from rejoining their server, due to it being full already, causing them to tickle down into other servers. In some case even taking their guilds with them, resulting in even more free slots…

>Is it alright to punish these servers for things that are mostly not their fault as it is designs failure in the first place?
They do not own these servers. Being on them is a privilege, not a right. And if them being there is the result of a design failure – as you said yourself – correcting this issue would automatically mean that some will loose their erroneously granted privilege of being there and need to adjust to the new situation.
It’s the same principle of nerfing a class: Even tho it will kitten off some of the players playing it, it is necessary regardless to keep the balance of the game. Still, a nerf or population cutdown does not mean destroying / deleting a community, it merely means to hurt them.
And these wounds can and will heal, resulting an improved gameplay-experience for everyone who comes after them, and – after a period of adjustment – even improving the overall gameplay experience including for those who can’t enter their original servers anymore but had time to settle down elsewhere.

About your reply to my second post:
you collude 2 very different things.
One is a change of gameplay-mechanics that apply to everyone involved equally.
What you suggest are different transfer-prices for different people on a individual basis, so active discrimination of singled out individuals. Even worse, gems are bought for real money, and tempering with prices for services in a individual basis is just the start of a slippery slope down to place that you yourself wouldn’t want to end up in as well…

I was enjoying it with dual pistols as well.
Photon forge really is all the melee we’ll ever need.
Sword /shield has even lower dmg than rifle (if you take bombkit AA into consideration) and you should have 100% crit rate in a decent group anyways…
so yea, condi stays double pistol for me, and powerbuilds will be rifle.
So screw Bolt, I build H.O.P.E. to accompany my predator^^

one thing tho, sword is more mobile than rifle, and good defense.
Might be interesting for a pvp tank build.
But then again, why not scrapper instead?^^

Cerby.1069:

Would be like erecting a dome over smc (if hundreds of players) and slowing the player speeds when they cross into it.

This would be a bad idea.
Logically there would be a need to place this “dome” where-ever fights break out that are too much for the server on full speed, not just SM, which would result in them being able to occur even in between objectives everywhere on the map, which would in turn result in everyone trying to escape such a dome immediatly, especially if there is no objective to hold.
So people outside could snipe & down the slow tickle of players who run out, while commanders would have to deal with a sudden loss of control over their zerg, since everyone is leaving it.
Terribad idea…

Either slow down the whole map, or decrease the overall player-cap. Local “time-domes” would certainly cause more frustration than they solve.

SkyShroud.2865:

from there personalise transfer system.

Do you realize that this can be called “discriminate based on individual player-habits” as well?
Do you seriously advocate for such a practice!?

According to the wiki, the goal is to have 4 seconds of burning for a 2,57 seconds cast.
How about this:
Damage (5x): 890
Burning (5×1s): 655 Damage
Attacks per Second: 2
Range: 425

only let it tick 5 times (for double the power dmg per tick), each time applying 1 second of burning per tick. Also would greatly improve our issues with retaliation.

Obviously this would mean that you tick for 2 stacks per second on average (untraited), but even with a 100% duration bonus, you’d reach 4 stacks with this auto for 2 ticks per auto at max, before it falls off rapidly again.
So on a wanderers pvp build with balthazar runes, you’d end up with 344,5 burning dmg per stack per second, so if we simulate the whole buffed attack:
this means a stack tick of 1+2+3+4+4 (channel ends)+3+2+1
so we get 344,5+689+1033,5+1378+1378 (channel ends) + 1033,5 +689+344,5 == 6890 dmg
now we divide it by 2, since we calculated with 0,5-seconds steps
and therefore reach 3445 burning-dmg spread over 4 seconds, for the price of a 2,5 sec channel AA on a fully burning-focused pvp condi-build. Add to that the 890 power dmg, and you get a total off 4335 dmg per AA against enemies with 2,6k armor.

In comparison, on the same build, the current auto would apply a single stack of burning for 8 seconds, giving us 2757 burning dmg spread over 8 seconds, and a total dmg of 3647…

Big buff (~18%), but lets face it, this auto was garbage since its inception.
And I don’t think these numbers would be too OP…

btw, besides the wiki, this was the build I simulated it on:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vdAQJAqalUUhatYfXw+KQ7FLsF1YOOG1G4HWiBgYHNFPBA-TJxHQBN8EAMh9H6WZAA8AAAA

A simply solution would be to slow down server time (which happens actually, but far too late)
Eve online does it as well, if massive fights break out.

It would mean fighting in slow-motion, but since the servers then have more time to compute all player-actions, it would be way more responsive.

>Why would people pick a emptier server if higher server are open?
Because they are obviously not open.
The pop cap wouldn’t be an issue anymore, since all players contributing to it are actively playing on it, so further players would just mean higher Que’s, which are frustrating as well.
This in turn means that all servers will have a chance to reach the population cap eventually, IF the size of the general player-pool allows for it.

>How can we have equal populations if we don’t have enough to go to 24 servers?
We won’t, because equality of population isn’t the goal, it’s equality of recruitment chances. And that goal is reached, allowing for ongoing competition between the servers.

>How will that even impact the already full server that has a lot of players already driven to do wvw via the reward patch?
Most likely it won’t, which is the preferred outcome for the people on these servers. Still, as soon as a guild moves for whatever reason (drama, fresh start, whatever), their slots will be left open for the taking. Take your chances when that occurs.
Also, this is why we had tiers originally: to pair servers on a somewhat equal footing. And with these chances, they will develop more closely population-wise over time.