Guild Wars 2

A-net has been nerfing Base engi since HoT came out to try and balance what was a broken spec, Scrapper. What doesn’t make sense to me is why u would nerf all engineer builds when you could just nerf the scrapper trait line and solve the problem at the root. With the August 8th patch A-net has decided to tear the base engineer traits apart in attempts to balance what has not even been released yet. Holosmith.
The Tools line was suffering from poor options at its Grandmaster tier, so we’ve reworked Kinetic Battery and Gadgeteer to smooth out their gameplay patterns.
is that what u did anet? Is it rly?
Turret Detonate Skills: Fixed a bug that caused these skills to count as toolbelt skills for the purposes of traits.
Big? THEY WERE TOOLBELT SKILLS FOR THE LAST 5 YEARS!!
Mortar Kit: Fixed a bug that caused the effects for these skills to play incorrectly on WvW walls and doors.
aka they not longer actually land ontop the wall
Alchemical Tinctures: This trait no longer grants boon duration; it now grants up to 240 Concentration at level 80.
which is 4% less boon duration
Explosive Powder: This trait has been removed from the game. It has been replaced by Shaped Charge
which was 10% dmg increase for explosives and included the trait that gave turrets knockback
Siege Rounds: This trait has been removed. It has been replaced with Orbital Command.
which takes away my double orbital strike for blast finishing for a useless skill that wil NEVER HIT ANYONE!
Kinetic Battery: This trait has been reworked. It now generates kinetic charges whenever a toolbelt skill is used. At 5 charges, gain quickness and superspeed for 5 seconds. Charges can only be generated while in combat but do not expire until 5 stacks is reached or the trait is unequipped.
What was once the main defense for mostly all base engi builds… gone

A-Net needs to stop nerfing everyones builds, and focus on the ones that are actually a problem. (Scrapper for the last two years)

Arantheal.7396:

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.

In PvP, yea SD was usless, but in WvW until the 8th it was still completely viable. Now with all of the trait changes I would say as an SD engi main, that they have torn the build limb from limb. Kinetic Battery nerf was devastating, APT was an incredible defense against melee classes(no more), orbital strike command has gone from a useful double blast finisher with some mean dmg if placed right, to a auto proc beam that will never land on someone, a minor nerf to the boon duration in alchemy, and lastly changing turret destruction from toolbelt to utility slot and calling it a “bug”. So yea, they have not only ruined SD engi, but nerfed a component of almost every base engi build in the game.

Supply crate also received a ninja nerf with the removal of Explosive Powder/Accelerant-Packed Turrets removal.

Why was accelerant packed turrets which was paired with Explosive powder been removed for “Explosions cause vulnerability”? Are u kidding me!?!?! I understand that they added Shaped charge to fill in the explosive powder dmg, but what about accelerant packed turrets? It was an incredible tool for kiting and ccing melee characters and setting up bursts. It is also a primary part of the survivability for builds like Static Discharge. It seems like A-nets main goal with the august balance patch (in terms of engineer) was to destroy SD, or at least the survivability of base engi. This along with the change to kinetic battery has basically ruined half of the sustain that base engineer had. Thx A-Net.

Chaith.8256:

Balance means sacrifice

That makes no sense. Why would engi have to sacrafice 1 of their toolbelts for holo form?

Epoch.5396:

Nightlock.4379:

Lalainnia.3598:

Loboling.5293:

Still running core engie for wvw and pvp using the new gadgeteer. It has really helped the build. So I think this is an issue of not adapting. The new trait is obviously for other specs, like perma quickness scrapper. I’m really happy with the trait changes.

Now it’s time to fix some of our useless traits. (invention line anyone?)

No one is taking tools on a quickness scrapper let alone shooting off 5 tool belt skills just for 5-7 seconds of quickness. Also not sure why you would call inventions useless which makes me think you may just be trolling.

100% agree, no one is going to take tools and try to make a quickness scrapper, especially 1 that takes 5 toolbelts to aply very little quickness. I also agree that Inventions is 1 of the best lines engi has.

I disagree. All i stated was it works with a spec where this individual claims its 100% useless. If u cant see that is true, OK.
I tell you what lets just view the community perspective instead and look at A meta battle quickness build and the variant.

https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Scrapper_-_Quickness_Scrapper

Its stated here as a suggested variant and so people clearly disagree with you. Now I didn’t say you should use this set up but stated that it is used for synergy with a spec. If you can 100% disagree with this statement then I am impressed by your stubbornness

If you swap inventions for tools you get perma swiftness, another (auto) stunbreak and the new quickness synergy with HGH as you will be spamming kit skills for cleansing and buffs. With concentration and might stacking you have quickness proccing an awful lot.
The loss of mecha legs is insignificant because you cleanse, group healing insignificant AMR is a big loss and bunker down is meh.

Try stuff instead of writing it off on a whim.

Thx, but ive actually tried every trait line/vombo rngi has in my 2500hours of engi wvw/pvp experience. While it may be worth it to take tools in an HGH nuild, kinetic battery provides no synergy, and is way better off using adrenal impact.

Why does the Holosmith form replace the F5 ability from your elite? Half the usefulness in Engi elites is in the G5. Anet plz make Holo form F6.

Lalainnia.3598:

Loboling.5293:

Still running core engie for wvw and pvp using the new gadgeteer. It has really helped the build. So I think this is an issue of not adapting. The new trait is obviously for other specs, like perma quickness scrapper. I’m really happy with the trait changes.

Now it’s time to fix some of our useless traits. (invention line anyone?)

No one is taking tools on a quickness scrapper let alone shooting off 5 tool belt skills just for 5-7 seconds of quickness. Also not sure why you would call inventions useless which makes me think you may just be trolling.

100% agree, no one is going to take tools and try to make a quickness scrapper, especially 1 that takes 5 toolbelts to aply very little quickness. I also agree that Inventions is 1 of the best lines engi has.

Don’t get me wrong tho, Rifle is my favorite weapon on engi and easily my most used.

Rising Blade.9206:

Sobin.5947:

Im trying to relearn the game after not playing for a long time. Is rifle in a good spot for engie in wvw? Everything i see makes it seem like the sky is falling and rifle sucks

yes, the rifle is in a good spot next to hammer. Pistols in other hand, barely see anyone play it.

Rifle is hardly in a good spot. Its one of the lowest dmg range power weapons in the game, it completely falls short of hammer in every way if u are running scrapper, and is only worth using if u are doing a base power build. Pistol on the other hand is completely viable vs hammer, because its a condi weapon. The only condi weapon engis have. So if u see a condi engi, I 100% guarantee they are using pistol.

Epoch.5396:

Its great for a HGH quickness scrapper with + boon. Your saying Kinetic Battery sucks but it only sucks for your spec.

Its still usless for HGH scrapper. its 5 secounds of quickness after 5 toolbelt skills, thats just terrible. Plus its in a line that u should not be taking for HGH Scrapper. Inventions will give u way more sustain at the cost of minimal dmg loss. Its a terrible skill compared to the old Kinetic Batery. The old Kinetic Battery game you a reason to run Tools when u did an HGH build (it gave u and extra Throw Elixer S) But now there is almost nothing beneficial about running tools for Scrapper or HGH

Since HoT release, A-nets solution to fixing scrapper has been to nerf base. Base engineer used to be a powerful and rewarding build to players able to utilize everything that the engineer has to offer. Recently, one of the best engineer grandmaster traits “Kinetic Battery” was changed from allowing the engineer access to a second use of the toolbelt skill of their choice after a successful dodge, to gaining quickness after using toolbelts 5 times. This has caused what once was a incredible trait to become one of near complete uselessness. Please A-net, change it back!! I have been playing Static discharge base engineer for close to 4 years not, but the last two it seems like it has gotten nothing but micro nerfs. Examples include a minor nerf to overall rifle dmg, changes in various traits, and one specific change that most people completely overlooked as a “quality of life” change. I am of course talking about turrets. Since launch it has been that the key to destroy your turret was your toolbelt skill, recently A-net changed it to be the same key as you used to place it. Doesn’t seem like a big deal, right? Wrong. It has further decreased the viableness of static discharge, as you can no longer use the destruct button to create another static discharge. All I’ve seen since the launching of HoT is micro nerfs to base engi instead of tackling the problem of engineers balance head on. AKA SCRAPPER!! Please A-net, for the love of god, stop destroying base engineer and start taking into consideration those who have no interest in running scrapper. (Sidenote, I did enjoy Holosmith, and I believe its a step back in the right direction for engineers!)

-Belkins

What A-Net needs to do is combine the lower pop servers so that they can compete in higher tiers making WvW more competitive and more enjoyable because its not fun to run around a WvW map and not find anyone.

Skarr Scorchtail, for a char, and The Little Engi That Could

http://imgur.com/kIIB2tY

Tiberious Of Elona
Sorrows Furnace

Who do you think the best commander on your server is, place names and servers below.