Guild Wars 2

With the cele-ele and medi-guard in mind (as well as various previous builds including evade ranger, GS/Axe-Shield warrior, dhuumfire necro, condition engineer and my own explosives-engineer) I think that profession balance may be quantified by two things: utility per action and set-up.

Utility per Action: This is the usefulness that each key stroke can bring to the player, whether it be for mitigating damage(healing or invulnerability) or dealing it. If put into terms of “resources” or cool-down times this could also be seen as utility over time. However this would also differ between each match-up: for example the (passive) utility of having high toughness when compared against condition and power focused builds.

Set-Up: This is the preparation needed to mitigate damage or deal it. Rev-up time would be just as appropriate.

My guess: The act of build crafting is one of improving certain aspects of the UPA (oopa?) of a profession while minimizing the set-up or down times. For example, the GS/Axe-Shield warrior which was so popular around launch had high offensive utility in control and damage but could have high set-up times in reducing the opponents defensive utilities (stunbreaks-dodges-invulnerabilities-relocation) If the corresponding defenses of the opponent were not available (and sometimes even if they were) the warrior could manage large spikes of damage by “simply pressing buttons” despite the possible set-up that the warrior may or may not be thinking of.

On the other hand, the beast mastery evade ranger had a sizable amount of “spike” defensive utility in the form of weapon skill evades, regular dodges and vigor while having a moderate amount of passive offensive utility in the form of the pet.

Condition focused builds had constant pressure that were able to “sneak” past the high spikes of defensive utility offered by evade rangers despite the existence of emphatic bond. Chill, weakness and cripple offered substantial utility in decreasing the offensive and defensive capabilities of any opponent once weakness began to affect critical strikes.

…

Too much utility for too little action and too much utility for too little set-up are the culprits (YOOUUU ARE THE TRUUUE CULPRIT!) of inbalance. This builds on the idea that game balance is “Who morally deserves to win?” and “How do you quantify deserving?”

High action builds and high set-up builds (builds that can be respected by others) need to be nurtured despite flying the face of build crafting to achieve “perfect imbalance” as the basis for any competitive community is exclusivity (I’m shinier than you) and the will to improve.

tl:dr
If the will to improve cannot be nurtured, all people will play for is the feeling of being shinier.

eureeka.5368:

There is no balance because they had to turn the dps way up to make the new changes feel more optimized. Gaining specialization huggers that will now defend the new system. Once they turn it down and fix the bugs, you will see all we are left with is less choices.

As with any change made to the game (or to anything for that matter), there are people that support it and people that do not support the changes.
In there being less build diversity in the game the game becomes easier to balance but in there being more build diversity it better allows the players to “express” themselves as build is often the means or a large factor in which the players affect the game world. This is what i mean when I say that build and profession are becoming similar to “identity.” There is a tendency to remain comfortable in your chosen “identity” or “category.”

In defense of lowered build diversity, “identity” in the first place is something that is superficial. Of the ~3.5 million that originally bought this game (https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/guild-wars-2-the-first-year/)
how unique can your build or “identity” actually be?

I would argue for a different notion of “identity” one that isn’t as categorical as the build or profession that you chose to play but in the “conversation” that happens between players whenever there is any interaction. This “conversation” is most notable in a 1v1 duel but exists in all forms of the game. It is difficult as to how to concretely describe what this “conversation” is but it is the reason that people can skillshot or guess what their opponent will do, all the while the opponent will juke about and move in funny squiggly patterns to avoid attacks.

Exedore.6320:

Balancing for All Skill Levels
This isn’t as hard as it seems. At high skill levels, it’s aspects of the build/profession that are just too strong. This assumes a player is at or near the skill cap for that build.

At medium and low skill levels it’s often that pulling something off doesn’t require much effort or thought; the barrier to entry is too low. This usually manifests as very passive abilities which give a huge benefit (medi guard healing) or a simple to use combo (ranger longbow 4 into 2) which has high potential damage.

Improving as a Player vs. Balancing
There are two things here. First, is game design with procs, usually unavoidable ones, and inconsistent or unpredictable mechanics. Sigil procs from weapons and many from traits are effectively unavoidable and are a large contribution to burst damage or total damage. You can’t outplay them. You also have inconsistent mechanics (boon strip / condi clear being random) and unpredictable ones (defensive CC procs or CC being ignored and not knowing it will happen).

Second, a lot of conquest and even stronghold relies on team coordination and playing the map. Even though a team may be better individually, the team with the better coordination and map awareness wins. This isn’t obvious to many players and is heavily overlooked, especially with the rampant “solo queue” mentality.

I don’t believe that balancing for all skill levels is as simple as you say. The reason for this being that the question ultimately becomes “Who morally deserves to succeed?” and “How would you quantify deserving?”

Would it be the power ranger that used pbs into rapid fire but had his entangle random dodged even though he was in stealth? Or would it be the medi-guard that only landed one intervention into whirling wrath but trusted their instincts and knowing the ranger hunter’s shot stealth duration “random dodged” the entangle? (I actually really, really despise both of these builds after having played them both before and after they were made “viable.”) Not minding who actually wins, but who deserves to win? This is what I think balancing for all skill levels means.

As for the effects based on the “randy numbar gen gen” they probably are too strong for what they are, but a small dash of RNG on top of combat usually makes it more interesting provided it isn’t game changing.

tl:dr
- Reducing build diversity may not necessarily be a bad thing
- It is not easy to balance for all skill levels when you think of it as “Who deserves to win?”

edit* tl:dr

Let me preface this by saying that balance is very, VERY SUBJECTIVE.

I’m only hoping to develop the balance dialogue beyond that “class x is OP because of mai totarri objectiveness. I am bestest player and still ’sploded.”

Profession and build becoming similar to “identity.”
The absolute biggest problem with profession balance to date is by and far the lack of willingness to learn and experience new things. There is nothing wrong with playing one profession, people have a tendency towards familiar things. There IS something wrong with calling something “overpowered” without properly understanding it. In the first place what is it overpowered compared to?
Whether it be in this game or otherwise, it will almost always be worth learning to walk in another person’s shoes “for more than one meta-build.”

Utilitarianism balancing versus balancing for “high-end” play.
Yush. Big word.
This is the balancing of the game in an attempt to create the biggest lump sum of happiness for the community versus balancing the game as the strongest/fastest/smartest see it.
While there is the need for the game to remain in a state of “perfect imbalance” in order to nurture the people that keep believing in this game’s potential for competition there is the inherent belief that everyone that plays should be able to enjoy themselves doing whatever they enjoy doing. Building on this there should be profession builds that should be accessible to everyone including the mobility impaired. Builds such as the current berserker longbow ranger and the previously adrenaline refunding, healing signet + stances warrior are a necessary for this game to remain inclusive.
As many a sylvari NPC will say “All things have a right to grow.”
Even so, there needs to be SOME sort of moral dessert yum (deserving) behind any type of game play balance.

Improving the player versus improving the profession.
Often, people have an inherent belief that the person that works the hardest, that expends their utmost effort should earn what is equal to their just desserts. This is hardly the case, whether in the game’s economy or elsewhere. Nevertheless it is an attitude in game balance that is the most likely to yield an environment where respect for others can develop. Whether it be Dodging/interrupting/otherwise countering an opponents key cooldowns/attacks or understanding your opponents builds better than they understand it themselves, or animation canceling into a five hit combo or counting all of your opponents cooldowns these should be expected of people that wish to play to their best. There need to be options that are high skill-cap if the game wishes to grow. For example animation canceling lightning whip was something that would’ve excluded many less endowed players but was something worth leaving in to allow elementalist players the chance to grow. (This could’ve been balanced around.)

tl:dr
- Walk a mile in something other than someone else’s “meta-build” before judging
- There is a need to remain an inclusive game while balancing.
- Let there be high skill-cap builds! Raise the performance that is expected of players, NOT of builds.

My biases:
Main:

• No static discharge, berserker explosive combo engineer since 2012 beta weekend 2 (It threw ONE GRENADE PER THROW back in the day folks.)
• Late 2013 Champion Hunter with a berserker longbow build + spirit ranger in 2014 when i got annoyed
• I can name every skill I’ve ever gotten rekt by on seeing it (just about every one)
• I like counting your dodges + stunbreak(s) (I hardly survive long enough in a fight for this nowadays)
• I played/won/lost many SC1 Lost Temple ladder duels before succumbing to the joys of Cat vs Mouse

edit* grammar

I think the biggest thing that needs to be taken into account when brainstorming is avoiding overlap of themes. Taking what has been said above into account, a ritualist themed soldier profession with heavy boon control that plays like a dervish comes to mind. It could sacrifice some boons for specific effects as its class mechanic much like the old dervish did with enchantments. For example sacrificing fury for chill on target without having the “panic/reactive button” that guardian virtues currently have.

The ritualist theme could be incorporated into its utilities though spirits might be more difficult to manage since engineer turrets and ranger spirits already fill that niche to an extent. Ashes as droppable bundles could make a comeback as well. Since elementalist weapons and engineer kits already fill the bundle niche for the most part, maybe ashes could have very limited range, become stronger the longer they are held or have different additional effects based on boons/conditions?

As for its aesthetic a medieval oriental warrior comes to mind as this would reasonably also allow the usage of bows and staves. Staves being used as Bo come to mind here as well as gunpowder based projectiles. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hwacha comes to mind as a theme for a bow skill.

That’s a really small thumbnail but it looks like the aetherized pistol.

The aoe limit would prevent it from being especially useful in zergplay, where engineers already suffer. Furthermore, how is this any different than say, the necromancer staff? There have been blobs which have utilized mass necromancer marks to destroy opposing zergs lets not even get started with 10 necromancers using well timed epidemics and reapers marks.

Also, as to the often misinformed generic “rangers too UP huehuehue” lets completely forget about trap rangers, BM bunker rangers in the previous meta, spirit rangers and 20k quickening zephyr + rapid fires from power rangers in wvw stats. I would however moderately agree in a pve sense as frost spirit and spotter don’t contribute to a dungeon group as much as the raw damage offered by FGS/lightning hammer eles and zerk warriors To put some context on this, I main power ranger and power engineer in pvp in the current meta which requires extreme attention to positioning in the case of the ranger and general knowledge of all other professions play styles, skills and cool downs as a power engineer.

Essentially the only build that even looks at throw mine is the double grenade barrage kit refinement knock-off. In saying that the mine kit could be rebalanced to meet the needs of the current game, I also meant that the boon-stripping and knock-back do not need to be universal.

I’m not thinking about the mine kit per se exactly as it was back last September but something with a similar play-style that can be balanced to how the game is today. What was originally considered overpowered was the blast finishers on the tool belt skill, the mine kit in itself was immensely tedious to use or rather, was not used much at all but has the potential do be much more than throw mine is today.

Last September, when the game had first launched, there was a rush of people throughout all of Tyria and the open world felt as if it were truly alive, with people interacting with all manner of events, exploring all corners of the open world (or grabbing POIs and running onwards to the next point for map completion.) The current open world however is much more empty, with the occasional new player, people playing with alt. characters and legendary item makers or people that sell the gift of mastery. (Yes I know it’s account bound, but a group of people that trust each other could still make large amounts of money with this.) Simply, the current open world is near “dead” compared to September of last year. A possible solution to this could be to increase the monetary rewards of completing a map say, 3 gold. (Which is understandable given the time investment of completing certain maps. I’m looking at you Lornar’s Pass.)

Increased monetary gain for open world explorers could encourage a portion of the population to explore the world on alt characters giving the further benefit of allowing newer players to experience the open world as it was last year as well as the possibility of increasing gem sales for character slots.

Possible issues with this would be of spreading the population thin where there are already relatively lower numbers compared to last September.

While guild missions and living story do attempt to move people back to the open world, as can be seen from The Secret of Southsun it is often not this simple, and retaining people in the open world is often more difficult than getting them there in the first place.

TL;dr
-Increase rewards for fully exploring a map, for example 1-3 gold per map depending on map level/whether it is a town/etc.
-This could potentially boost gem sales as well as allow new players to experience a truly, living, lively world and possibly increase player retention.

Recently there has been mention of revamping some of our less used utilities. As per the topic, how would you guys feel about bringing back the mine kit? I’ve only very, very rarely seen this utility in use, and even then only as a variant of the old kit refinement double grenade barrage build.

As some of the old timers on this forum probably remember this was a kit whose 1-5 skills were all deploy mine, it eventually saw changes where the mines would automatically detonate where an enemy steps on them rather than needing to be manually detonated. There was a further trait that allowed each mine to remove a boon and have a short distance knock back. Reintroducing this kit would allow for boon counter play on the part of engineers, without needing to rely on elixirs or sigil of nullification.

The past incarnation of the mine kit would be clearly imbalanced in terms of the current game, namely the five blast finishers on the mine kit, this could potentially be removed or given a 20% chance as per projectile skills. The knock back and boon removal could also be taken from the kit and given as separate grandmaster traits allowing two different styles of play with the same kit. For example the grandmaster trait “Claymore” could add a knock-back and a modest 5% damage boost to the mine kit while keeping the 900 throw range. Another grandmaster trait “Sapper” could increase the range to 1100 and grant a 50% chance to remove boons. These traits may sound powerful, but it might be worth remembering the tiny area of effect that mines had, and the unforgiving nature of having to consistently aim these at moving targets trying to run you over.

Past changes have caused the engineer to have to re-evaluate its role including the 30% damage nerf to the grenade auto attack which eventually lead to a shift from power focused engineers to condition focused engineers. This paired with the popularized “100 nades” build removed from the grenade kit the consistent need to land skill shots. Condition grenades, as with all condition builds at the moment have a “fire and forget” play style. Bringing back the mine kit could help enable the power and skill-shot engineer that was popularized last September to make a comeback.

TL;dr
-Bring back the mine kit, this would let the power- skill shot engineer make a comeback.
- A possible way to implement this would be to remove the blast finisher, boon removal and knock back from the mine kit and give them back as traits in the explosive line.
ie.
—“Claymore” could add a knock-back and a modest 5% damage boost to the mine kit while keeping the 900 throw range.
— “Sapper” could increase the range to 1100 and grant a 50% chance to remove boons.

It is understandably frustrating that the engineer is weak in the current meta-game of warriors and necromancers where each fulfills any role that a power or condition engineer could achieve but better (and arguably easier… When was the last time you’ve heard a stun warrior say he was counting your cool-downs? When was the last time you’ve seen a necromancer saving his condition burst for after your condition removal?) . However, we have received attention – perhaps too much attention in the form of unwanted and often misguided changes, most recently in kit refinement. (Removed/Nerfed due to a Photoshopped screenshot.)

We are hardly the class that has been left behind by the game, but we are certainly the class that is least understood by the developers as detailed by the upcoming October changes where power engineers are purely static discharge – rifle turret when there are more efficient and well rounded builds. Reducing to the lowest common denominator and balancing around our old meta-builds will only decrease future build variety and stagnate the view that the profession is sub-par until new weapons, traits and utility skills are introduced- one could hope that this comes soon.

Maybe not stun-locked, but it is very possible to disable someone for a while with the rifle alone. In effect rifle is our high risk high reward and our “set-up” weapon with a few tricks that can be used to help us land damage more often namely counting opponent cool-downs and knowing their build and how they play. The net shot in particular as you mentioned has low projectile speed and as a result is usually dodged if fired alone but this also comes with the effect of burning one of the opponents 2 dodges per 10 seconds or acting as a setup/wasting a blocking skill or “obstructed”.

A baseline guess for most professions is 2 dodges per 10 seconds with a stun-break. The rest of the counting comes from knowledge of the opposing profession.

I would have to agree that a four kit power build is still short of par especially in tournament play, but discounting the engineer rifle as not being able to disable someone for a solid amount of time is nothing short of denying the weapon itself. With that said, the rifle requires much much more effort to play effectively than pressing buttons.

Pistols are by far the engineers safer weapon choice, you can put more of your attention towards dodging, counting an opponents cooldowns and for a few people, counting the cooldown on kit refinement. The few considerations that have to be made are merely when to poison(counter heal or as a starter attrition damage/making other conditions harder to cleanse) and when to blind/confuse (high damage attacks or their set up attacks). Being condition damage also has the plus side of giving the engineer a bit of a spammy play style where you can just fire and forget where once the conditions are on an opponent you can essentially let them win the fight for you as they are easy to apply while kiting.

The rifle on the other hand requires that the player constantly be paying attention to an opponents cooldowns and dodges as well as their dodging habits and distance. Spamming with the rifle can only be so effective (usually not at all). It is in effect our high risk high reward weapon and thrives on the ability to chain rifle skills with kit skills and vice versa. (too many to mention here) It also has large amounts of situational usefulness or “utility” where rocket jump can allow for a slight gap opener/closer/damage dealer as well as the interrupt/knockback/anti-movement impairment on overcharged shot and the immobilize that doubles as an anti-gap closer (non-blink). Alas the rifle is mainly a single target weapon though changes to rocket jump may have been made to change this.

tl;dr
The built in denial mechanisms of the pistol make it great for kiting and attrition as well as group situations whereas the rifle shines as a dueling weapon as well as a travelers best friend.

This has been brought up since beta with the suggestion that downed skills 2 and 3 for the engineer be switched. This has yet to happen, but at least we’re in a better shape than necromancers are for down state at the moment (really low downed health). While the engineer downstate is admittedly inconsistent it really is not that bad provided we get lucky with bleeds.

Which do you run for pve/pvp/wvw and why?

This is not a thread asking you to link your builds per se but at the same time, why have you chosen to run one over the other in different situations. I would think that the 30% damage nerf to grenades some months ago has caused the engineer to become more skewed towards a condition based profession (insert snide versatility comment). There’s nothing wrong with being condition skewed at least in the current state of the game (necromancer). At the same time this brings up the discussion of rifle vs pistol + shield vs pistol + pistol. Generally the rifle has always been our control/power set with the pistol sets being more condition focused. Having only seen ~5 other rifle engineers (and at the same time power) in about a week of game play I’m really forced to wonder what exactly happened to all the rifle engineers?

Admittedly I run a rifle + power grenade build for almost every situation with medkit, grenade kit, elixir r (another thread, another time elixir s) and one utility that varies between situations.

This more than likely boils down to how “safe” the pistol/condition builds are in comparison with rifle/power as the animations are all relatively minimal and hard to differentiate from each other whilst the rifle sees a lot of situational use. For example when you run up to a point with a rifle engineer defending it, you wonder if the engineer will lead with overcharged shot/net shot to keep you off the point, or save it as an interrupt. (Possibly knocking them self down in the process.)

tl;dr

What style of engineer (power/conditions) do you run for pve/pvp/wvw and why?

I would also like to add that the superior rune of the mad king doesn’t work with the engineer elite “supply crate” as well as “elixir X” but works (oddly) with mortar.

Don’t friendly medkits have a light blue circle underneath? Also rather than visibility the hitbox size for medkits is rather small, to the point where if I’m beside a teammate trying to drop medkits on them to heal them it misses 50% of the time.

Superior sigil of water doesn’t heal for that much at the moment… Are you trying to support with elixirs, elixir gun, bombs/heal? Also, whether you use rifle or double pistol might play a part in what sigils you could use. For pure support I think the best options would be superior sigil of life (Extra healing power per kill) or superior sigil of frailty(30% chance of vulnerability on critical).

What is your favorite thing about this profession so far? For myself it would have to be a combination of Superior Rune of the Centaur (Area swiftness on heal) and the med-kit. This essentially replaces the dependence on speedy kits for perma-swiftness as well as helping nearby teammates. Also, net turret.

My one gripe with this profession as of now is being unable to launch myself 100 feet in the air with rocket boots while in the water.