Guild Wars 2

Are there more changes on the way for traits still?

You know what would be a good candidate for ammo? Minion skills. We can summon more than 1 of them each time then. Maybe to balance it out we can have a time limit on them like in “Rise”. The follow up skills can become baseline if necessary as well.

Forgot to add Flesh Golem should probably not be included in this. It’s powerful enough for crowd control as is.

Here is what I use for open world PvE. It offers plenty of condi removal (not that that matters much in open world but still…) along with permanent 25 might, a LOT of healing, very good power damage, a LOT of boons and high boon uptime plus 5 seconds of quickness once every 10 seconds if played right.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vdQQFAUlUUhatY7Ww6KQ7FL3FF9qH75OYDWABgYB9D5AA-TxRGABjrDYe1fA4BAkwFAA99HGS5nUKBBA-e

For dungeons/fractals the rifle can be switched out for hammer. For hammer swap the “Skilled Marksman” trait in Firearms specialization with “No Scope” trait. Also swap the “Recovery Matrix” trait in Scrapper elite specialization with “Perfectly Weighted”. Elixir B can also be swapped out for a gyro or another kit if hammer is being used.

I don’t really care whethere there is easy mode raids are not. I predicted before even HoT was released that the armor would be a HUGE point of contention between raiders and non-raiders. This is simply due to the fact that before the expansion the only exclusive rewards for each type of content were different skins with the same functionalities.

As a couple examples:
1) Glorious armor in PvP was just a skin with exact same stats as other exotic gear found in dungeons, crafted, in WvW or as drops anywhere in game and it also functioned exactly the same too without stat swappability.

2)Ascended gear boxes were available not only through fractals where they were first introduced but eventually expanded to world bosses, WvW and PvP reward tracks too along with being able to craft the armor and weapons as well. While rings are still most easily obtained through fractals they are no longer the exclusive source. The only exclusive rewards from fractals are now the weapon “skins”.

Now non-raiders wouldn’t really care if the exclusive reward for raids were only exclusive skins (except maybe Ohoni). But when the armor has an exclusive functionality then that should be available to all players and not just raiders.

Also note that raiding requires specific builds with specific runes and as such the stat swappability feature will never be used within raids. It will only be used by raiders to exploit non-raiders with other content in the game which are not currently dominated by the raiders.(selling dungeon runs, fractals etc). I’m not about to let that happen. And before you ask, yes, legendary armor makes soloing a lot of content possible; just need a little imagination and the runes not being able to be swapped won’t even be an issue.

And,in conclusion, that is why i support legendary armor outside of raids or at least the on-demand stat swappability feature to be available outside of raids in the open world PvE.

Now nobody in this thread is saying they aren’t willing to work for it. But what I am saying is that a lot of people are not willing to “raid” for it. According to the “against easy mode raids” posters here apparently raids are the only content that requires work to clear and that is simply not true.

Possibly the most pathetic elite spec of em all. Doesn’t even feel elite anything. Worst function mechanic in PvE, and PvE is what they should be basing their balances around instead of trying to validate their fail e-sport PvP. Hell Anet, if you couldn’t think of a profession mechanic how about just giving us an extra utility slot??? Even without a corresponding toolbelt skill it would have been a better mechanic than the crap gyro. And pretty much all the minor traits of the spec are useless. Since we can stack might to 25 without reviving people the master minor trait is done for. And like 1 stun and a few 1s dazes from gyros doesnt justify the grandmaster minor trait in the least. SO pretty much missing half our trait line here. And let’s not forget the Rune Of The Scrapper damage reduction bonus which should have been available to the scrapper trait line from the get go. Instead we get crap minor traits that are near useless in all modes except maybe PvP.

I have a few ideas which might make some of the currently less appealing gyros more useful in all combat modes. Some might be a bit crazy or op but still lets face it they do need improvement . The improvements I suggest are the kind that don’t change functionality and only tweak numbers. This should be possible to implement before the expansion is released. Here they are:

Function Gyro – I know people are saying that the profession mechanic’s use is limited but there are a few ways this can be improved without introducing new functionalities or animations. First reduce the cooldown of the mechanic to 0. That’s right 0 seconds. Second give this thing full on invulnerability buff for 10 seconds i.e its entire duration. Third remove the ability for scrapper to revive or finish off enemies without the gyro. This ensures that we are the only class to have a proper ranged finisher and it gives us a 0 cooldown ranged revival too. I know this has no counterplay in pvp but lets face it this thing already has a longer cast time than if players finished/revived. So it shouldnt have any counterplay.

Bulwark Gyro – Give this thing like 20-25k health. May seem a bit much but gyros have a time limit after all so that can be shortened a little bit for balance, like say, 10 seconds instead of 15 seconds.

Shredder Gyro – Unlike the other gyros this one doesn’t follow you around. It exists mostly as a whirl finisher that lasts for 12 seconds. Problem is whirl finishers aren’t all that great right now except for the cleansing and blinding bolts. Best way to make it more useful is to improve its damage from like 27 per second to like 150 per second. That would add an area denial functionality as well as the whirl finishers. The counterplay is obviously destroying the gyro from out of its range.

Blast gyro tag – Now this skill as it is fails all across the board. It fails as a utility skill because it moves extremely slowly. It fails as a damage skill because of the low damage. And the toolbelt skill is nothing compared to some others that engineer already has. And worst of all it can’t hit critically. Its probably too late for the toolbelt skill right now, however the gyro itself can be improved quite easily to have an “unique” functionality in all combat modes. Increase the damage of this skill to 20000 damage. Yes, 20000 damage for insta down on a lot of player builds and trash mobs. This gives the blast gyro an unique functionality that NO OTHER SKILL has. In exchange make this skill have an activation time of 3 seconds as opposed to what it has now (0.5 seconds). And increase the cooldown to 45 seconds. After the expansion releases maybe you can also add a tell to the skill animation so it can be easily identified. Another form of counterplay simply includes not being where the gyro was targeted when it hits. It does move slowly after all and it is ground targeted as opposed to having an attack target. Finally it can also be destroyed from range before it hits. For a skill with so many counterplays it is only fair that the damage be compensated to 20000 when it does hit.

Sneak Gyro – Improve the stealth duration from 4 seconds per pulse to 6 seconds per pulse. Makes it more viable to use and puts it somewhat on par with thieves’ Shadow Refuge. Albeit you having to wait 30 seconds for the gyro to go away first.

Now some of these ideas might seem to be overpowering the engineer/scrapper but lets face it the developer’s job first is to make their work appealing to the playerbase THEN balance it out after the player feedback. Right now as it is the scrapper isn’t appealing in anyway as an alternative to the specializations we already have. In fact it seems like we are being nerfed a lot if we take gyros as any utility skill in PvE without much to gain for it. So please post your feedback on these simple ideas that can be implemented without changing the skills in major ways.

I think I still prefer rifles over hammers simply because they’re ranged instead of melee. Already have Flamethrower for melee type attacks and it synergizes well with Mass Momentum. As for gyros they’re gonna be crap compared to what we have no matter how much you try to address them. The very simple issue is that they’re controlled by the AI instead of you directly. Not to mention gyros have a short time limit AND a health bar when they should have either one OR the other. Would prefer time limit to remain and removal of health bar completely. Give them invulnerable buff or something till you can address this after launch.

I must say, however, the traits are well done to have some synergy with other engineer skills that we currently already use. Would like a slightly longer might duration on Mass Momentum and slightly more boon duration from taking this elite spec at all.(much like how taking Tools improves recharge on toolbelt)

I’d add that the gyros should be able to function underwater since right now none of the new elite spec’s skills can function underwater.

Anyone notice that NONE of the new scrapper skills are available underwater? What would we do if we had to play the underwater fractal or exploring underwater stuff? Pretty much being a scrapper is useless while in water.

My issue with raids is the precursor rewards being gated behind this content exclusively(don’t much care about the skins and minis or whatever). When Fractals were were first released so was Ascended equipment. But no one NEEDED to do fractals in order to gain the ascended gear.

Gating the best tier of armor behind one type of content is kind of stupid(no type of content is designed for every type of player there is). I’d also say the same thing here if, for example, the only way to gain legendary weapons were to keep completing dungeons over and over again.

Let the raid guilds keep their weapon skins and miniatures as prestige rewards. Maybe they can even gain some gold as reward for completing raids once a week. However do NOT gate the best tier of armor behind solely this content(if a precursor does drop here I don’t mind if it also dropped elsewhere but it shouldn’t be exclusive to this content).