Guild Wars 2

SlippyCheeze.5483:

Duzze.4068:

So… why aren’t these advance little guys ruling the world? I mean jeezus they are so advance I would not be surprise that their pyramid was actually as spaceship…

So, here is something to consider: the asura decided the outcome of the charr siege on ebonhawke, by allowing humans to ship supplies through the gates, but refusing to allow the charr to ship soldiers through.

If they are already deciding the shape of wars between other races — and it wouldn’t be much of a stretch to say, partly responsible for shaping the peace between them — are you sure they /don’t/ already rule the world?

Ebonhawke was going to fall regardless and the asura gate might have been built when the treaty began. After all, Divinity’s Reach sent Ebonhawke no aid, and they were almost out of rock for their continuously bombed wall.

Also, charr invented rifles and tanks, not asura. Asura just know how to transform magic.

Hirosama Nadasaki.6792:

Wow, I started this thread last year some months after Heart of Thorns, I insisted on it, I gave up, I stopped playing until now, I see the new expansion leaks, I go into the forums and this thread is STILL HERE AND STILL UNRESOLVED.

ARENA NET START ACTING LIKE A PROPER COMPANY ALREADY BEFORE YOU LOSE YOUR CUSTOMERS AND GO BANKRUPT.

That or before you get a lawsuit for false advertisement.

Well, we have that in common at least. As an engineer main I basically had everything visually nerfed.

• All my flamethrower skills were visually nerfed
• All my grenade kit skills were visually nerfed
• All my bomb kit skills were visually nerfed
• My Orbital Strike skill was visually nerfed. In its initial form it was smaller and less wide than an asura.
• All the auras I can apply were visually nerfed.

And at the same time they made stupid legendaries FLASHIER.

I’ve not played the game properly since HoT came out. A few weeks ago I decided to try out the new Living Story content. I liked it, it was nice. But all the time I was nagged at by the fact that every single skill I once used had been visually nerfed.

And the fact that Colin Johanson promised that we would receive an OPTIONAL button to have our skill visuals back, and it would come in Spring of 2016.

Of course when he left the company, all work on it was immediately dropped. And so was every chance of me getting into the game properly again and buying the next expansion. I just can’t. It’s a completely asinine thing that an MMO dev would take away combat visuals without even an OPTION, without even a command line code to bring them back. Didn’t Neverwinter nerf visuals because they messed with weaker machines? All I know is that the only other MMO to ever have done it added a code to bring. Them. Back.

I don’t know what to say that hasn’t been said before. The devs won’t listen. They were clearly at odds with Colin Johanson on the topic. Because Colin’s promise of an alternative button to bring our visuals back was after Gaile Gray on this thread claimed they wouldn’t be back. But he left the company, so they likely immediately allocated whoever was working on this simple button to the gem store and buy-our-expansion staff.

I’m really out of words still. It’s shocking me. It’s one of multiple strange behaviours I’ve seen from this company after Heart of Thorns came out. It was next to calling the Super Adventure Box “literally throwing away dev time. Literally.” and one dev coming to reddit and explaining that they won’t work on chestpieces and leggings anymore for Living World because “they are more work to fit to different body types, like wider arms and legs, than outfits”. You don’t even need real modeling experience to know that is a fallacy and lie. There are free, community made tools for Skyrim that let you do changes like this in ten seconds stat, for absolutely ludicrous morphs, like hips wider than your stomach and other massively strange changes.

But yeah. The expansion might shape up to something neat. It looks like it will be better than Heart of Thorns. But the last time I gave this company 100 bucks they rewarded me by visually nerfing every single skill I frequently use on my class.

Great job.

Shamelessly bumping this because we still need what Colin once promised: An option to have our visuals back to as they were. I sure ain’t buying the next expansion unless that’s done.

Carighan.6758:

Sold Out.7625:

And this is even more impressive. Things actually looked cool once. And all they’d have to do would be the OPTIONAL setting that Colin promised us over a year ago. Before he left Anet.

I mean, I readily agree this is only good if you’re solo, but instead of actually fixing the underlying issue, they went with “just remove all the skill effects ~entirely”.

Correct solution:

• A set of new graphics fidelity optioins.
• Spell detail for: Me, Party, Squad, Others, Enemies.
• Possible values: Full, Simplified, Off
• Additional option to auto-scale, with a slider how many players need to be in combat around you to go from Full to Simplified even for those options where you selected Full. Example: I can set Me to Full, but the slider for auto-scale to 30. In a big zerg fight, even my spell detail is simplified.

That, was one of the best suggestions I’ve ever read on the forums. But I understand that it would be a lot of effort for ArenaNet. Which is why I just want the very simple “high fidelity combat FX” button, with a mouseover notice that stronger visuals may impact combat visibility. Literally all I’d need, even if your ideas are great.

Absolutely do. Heck, it might be silly to them, but as a veteran from way back in GW1, and as someone who’s been in GW2 since very shortly after launch, I won’t buy the next expansion until they return the visuals they removed. They took away cool things and aren’t even giving us an OPTIONAL button to just keep what we used to have.

What kind of game dev thinks it’s okay to remove visually appealing content without an option to keep it?

HiddenNick.7206:

Wow, that was amazing! I didn’t realize how bad it is now.

And this is even more impressive. Things actually looked cool once. And all they’d have to do would be the OPTIONAL setting that Colin promised us over a year ago. Before he left Anet.

This means there was a fix being workedo n when Colin was still at Anet, but when he left, they dropped the entire project in favor of everyone having nerfed ugly visuals.

Yep, you’ve got that right, DreamyAbaddon. The Aura nerf in particular actually hurt PvP, which makes these changes even more ludicrous.

Luckily, we /totally/ don’t have visual clutter nowadays, right?

I stopped having fun with this game the day they nerfed all my engineer combat visuals for their #esports. We’d have had them back if Colin hadn’t left the company, but they did. I’m still furious about that.

The attachment is always small, sadly. At least in the preview. BUT I’M TEMPTED TO ATTACH A GIANT COLIN HEAD AS A PICTURE just to make that more obvious.

Remember when Colin promised our FX would come back? I still do. Too bad he left the company towards Amazon Game Studios.

I’m still largely inactive in GW2 until our skills can look good again.

This thread deserves to be bumped again. Heck, a GM suggested I should so anet know we want beautiful combat FX back, especially now that Effect LoD is improved and lets everyone see beautiful visuals or muted visuals on other player skills as much as they want.

And Jan, you weren’t asking for the stars. That’s exactly how Effect LoD works nowadays, for Ele Fireballs at least.

Added a Screenshot of how Colin promised us to get our FX restored back in early 2016. There was supposed to be first word on our FX getting restored in Spring of the same year. Of course this never happened.

“That would be asking for too much.”

They’d be back if Colin was still at the company, which is just the saddest part of it.

Yeah, Zivi, they changed Effect LoD to work that way! Like if you’re a Staff ele now? If you throw a fireball, it’s HUGE for you, but everyone else’s is still a pebble without any visual noise! So we have a great solution in place, but it’s just not being worked on.

Also, fun fact, Colin wanted to have even better detail options back in Spring 2016. Proof:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/471azb/elementalist_can_we_have_our_old_fireball_and/d0ani87/

So as a very first, this is partially a mirror of a fairly recent Subreddit thread that garnered some attention.

There’s an expansion on the horizon, everyone. And that expansion will no doubt advertise once again how beautiful some skills look on the new Elite Specs. Last time we received an expansion however, several skills were made less pretty! Since, they fixed Effect LoD, meaning there is no reason to keep Orbital Strike, Auras and some other abilities ugly.

And if there’s one thing that’s clear, it’s that people want Auras to look the way they used to before the just-after-HoT-released bugs / patches / hotfixes, because it was better for PvP.

The other is that people want a few Skill Visuals back, particularly Orbital Strike (hilarious video btw, love it for years now).

A GM actually told me to post this request for seeing these abilities be beautiful again on the Forums. Why? Anet want to see that people are interested in seeing beautiful combat skills again, at least on THEIR end. Effect LoD can take care of the rest! Colin actually promised that we’d get them back before sadly leaving the company.

So why not just leave a post that makes it clear to Anet you want combat looking better? Hell, their Aura visual nerf actually hurt PvP and there’s no reason to keep Orbital Strike ugly since they improved Effect LoD.

So, can we get a yay or two? And if nay, can you explain why? Effect LoD has long since been improved, and Anet did return how Fireball looked. With that awesome revert, why not get more awesome skill visuals brought back to the way they looked just before Heart of Thorns?

Edit: Added a screenshot of how skills were supposed to look beautiful again long ago. But that change was forgotten as he left the company. Let us not forget so Anet will always be reminded.

Hirosama Nadasaki.6792:

Just pointing out my discomfort at the lack of visual change reversals in the march 8 update. I really hope they uphold Colin’s words.

I’m a small hint worried that it will be forgotten with Colin’s leave but I think we’ll be fine.

The promise was that the news of it will show up on the april update, so it might not even be introduced on april yet.

Bring back the Orbital Strikes! The Grenade Shrapnel! Wooooo!

Adamantium.3682:

I don’t like it.

However if this is what we have to suffer for the greater good of being able to see enemies on combat I am completely okay with it.

But we don’t. Sensible changes are a thing too.

I just wanted to point it out. Yes, we asked for a bit more visibility in combat, but there’s two main offenders:

• The new Orbital Strike is literally impossible to see in advance, and does not even slightly represent combat aoe. The aiming laser is smaller than a dwarf, and the actual laser has less radius than a single grenade explosion, and Grenades already got reduced effect wise.

• The Flame Blast Detonation on the Flamethrower is just gone. No more visual for it at -all-. No tell, no nothing. Just the sound.

There is such a thing as overdoing it too. I understand the point behind the reduction,but be reasonable.

Will the “Snap Ground Target” option receive a proper toggle key instead of a hold-down-to-toggle? That would be 20 times more convenient and less painful to the hand.

We know that the upcoming Camera changes will give us an option called Snap Ground Target to Enemy. This makes every single attack you cast automatically aim for your current target.

Devs and players alike know that you cannot lead your target at range with this option turned on, when casting skills with travel times.

That’s why they added a button you can hold down to temporarily disable this option. But this would mean having to press something like: Toggle button, mouse aiming at feet, moving, AND the skill key at the same time.

Solution: A toggle instead of holding the key down! It’s got a whole lot more QoL, a whole lot more comfort, and is a lot better for hand health. With literally no downside!

Wouldn’t that be awesome? Yes it would. It’s kitten awesome for the camera mode switches, so why not have it for us poor Ground Target skill users?

Ardid.7203:

It’s more realistic to ask them to solve the “flamethrower harvesting” bug first.

I dare asy the Skill Queue bug is higher priority.

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

Action camera mode will get you slaughtered in WvW and Pvp… only benefits one game mode and even that is situational and that is solo open world pve… just sayin… There is a reason most other mmos do not use it.

Nonsense. It will make for a really useful toggle because it also brings advantages, like always running in the direction you’re pressing while not using skills, which will improve kite speeds during downtimes.

Not only that, but having snap ground targets will help any kind of melee-centric (as is all aoe in spvp) AoE-bombing. Spontaniously being able to turn off ground target snaps and toggling the camera modes instantly makes it, it’s just an extra on top you can learn.

Well, I’m not so sure mobility is meant to be a balancing grounds there in that manner, but rather being mobile and accurate at the same time.

That said, if datamines are true, well, we might get “snap ground target to currently selected target”, which will fix a lot of mobility issues anyway. And one can still do free-aimed shot without a target that way.

You know, after years of actually pressing #1 in combat to throw grenades and finger-twisting like mad if I wanted to strafe left during that, I decided to change things up.

Bound my Mouse 7 key to do #1. What’s my Mouse #7 key? It works basically almost exactly like left click (I didn’t want to install any custom software or rebind my left click every time I start up gw2).

And it was the best convenience change I ever did for myself. CLicking to do autos with grenade kit / mortar kit is an insane, insaaaane help in quality of life and Carpal Tunnel avoidance, and I suggest any and all to find a similar setup for engies in particular.

(Personally using the following Mouse, but any with an alternative thing to click with your index finger should do. I suddenly don’t even mind that I can’t hold #1 down anymore. That little key southwest of the mousewheel on that picture is it.

http://cdn.slashgear.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/sharkoonfireglider-sg.jpg)

Dahkeus.8243:

One request for Rocket Charge:

When you adjust this, please only make it better at hitting the target it leaps to, but keep the zig zag mechanics. One of the biggest reason the zig zag charge is good is because it synergizes so well with Slick Shoes. If this is changed to a straight forward leap 3 times, then it will lose this synergy.

Entirely disagree. There’s no synergy to falling off cliffs and being slower at everything. You can use slick shoes whenever.

insanemaniac.2456:

prior to 6/23 energy was actually one of our best sigils, even in pve. in terms of practical usage, it easily beat out something dumb like force, because the no-icd dodge bomb made up for doing “5% less” damage. in addition, it stacks with vigor nicely and it offers a source of damage mitigation for a lot of builds that are especially lacking in it when blinds are essentially a nonfactor.

post 6/23 with the addition of a 10sec icd to dodge bombs, its not as great… but the builds that it was good with are more or less unchanged with respect to energy adding much needed mitigation. its still a go-to.

Actually, if you spec into Tools (which sadly is the main line that one would use to replace Scrapper) Energy has some of tis old value returned; Tools has a trait that gives us 10% more damage on full endurance. So a kit swap after a dodge keeps that trait up and going. I know, a bit offtopic. As for a reply to OP, it’s a bit late and I’ve got a cold, but I’ll write something up in reply if wanted.

Okay, I jest, but I don’t know many good pvp videos. One review I have seen shows some excellent hammer pvp gameplay though, using otherwise the typical choices (no Gyros).

Enjoy this one! As far as WvW goes? Even Wolfineer can’t see any way for the Hammer to be good for that content, while it’s great for reflect and point control in sPvP. The lack of usable traits make Scrapper a complete rarity in PvE.

PopeUrban.2578:

I’m confused about havoc master though, does it mark targets as you dodge with a special debuff, of is it an effect centered on you so that it basically doesn’t work with ranged weapons?

That’s exactly it. Daredevil is meant to be a melee-range spec (though thieves rarely attack from more than 360 range, really!) and this is supposed to reflect that functionality. It’s about the same as the Engineer trait that gives +10% crit chance within a 240 threshold at all times.

So in other words, no marking, no special shenanigans, just a straight up melee damage buff.

(Also, why don’t the engineers get 360 threshold, all that missed QoL!)

Arantheal.7396:

Sold Out.7625:

Arantheal.7396:

Rocknull.2986:

-snip-

-snip-

Well, I wouldn’t say nades are bad design. They are actually rather well designed.

Here you can read my detailed answer to this.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/Hammer-damage/page/2#post5573705

Your ‘answer’ lost me when you recommended turning kits into lesser attunements that need a utility slot.

Arantheal.7396:

Rocknull.2986:

+1: simple , doable, little move, huge change , do it!

still doesn’t removes the bad design of nades.

Well, I wouldn’t say nades are bad design. They are actually rather well designed.

The problem is that Anet refuses to give any autotargeted skill the same damage potential as these ground targeted babies – for good reason.

Another part of the problem is that they didn’t want Mortar to have comparable damage to grenades, because it has more range.

And the last but definitely not least part of the problem is that we don’t have a weapon swap that would allow us to skip having at least one kit. Because once we blow our damaging weapon skills, we are stuck with either our intentionally weak autoattacks, or luckily nowadays with the alternative of a mortar kit instead of supply crate.

Bump to keep this thread alive. Don’t put Scrapper bugs here if you can avoid it, but Base Engineer bugs are still welcomed.

While I lack any new findings, I’m gonna bump this thread back up to the top (almost on Page 2!) and try to summarize some points people have made here for easier fixing.

• The Leap finisher on Hammer #3 only works if you hit your attack inside the field, not jump through it. This makes it impossible to say, combo Flamethrower #4 with it as the actual fire field is tiny.

• Blast Gyro blows up prematurely near enemies, despite having been meant to kill a ranged target instead.

• “my wasd directional movement is infrequently disabled after using rocket charge and i have to use some kind of forced movement (rocket boots, eg 4, launched, etc) to regain motor control. i dont know what causes this and cant intentionally repro it but its happened a good 5-10 times over the course of prolly 12-18 hours.” – insanemaniac, underscore

• Shreddery Gyro’s Healing / Cleansing bolts from Water / Light fields do not work.

• Function Gyro self destructs when Elementalists use Vapor form.

• Not a single Scrapper skill works Underwater.

This should just summarize some of the points that weren’t yet in the lists. I’d be more than thankful if someone made a decisive combination-list of bugs so we have an easier overview. I have not been able to test any of these points as the Beta is over, and I personally did not spend too much time on Scrapper.

Arantheal.7396:

Helcor.9527:

Kits are a strength and add to the overall feeling of an engineer. And those long cooldowns on weapon swap, no thanks.

you know that 10 & 5sec weapon-swap cd’s are the standard for most classes, right?

’tis pretty long compared to our bypassable one second.

Heck, I’d totally take a weapon swap on engineer with double the standard cooldown to make up for our toolbelt and kits.

I would honestly suggest you amp up your reviewing a bit. Enjoyed reading it, but there is a looooot of space for improvements, to be quite honest with ya – it’s due to you not really going into negatives, being very short on positives, sometimes just stating the obvious, and a lack of comparison with other, existing specialization lines – Engineer in particular already got all new traits to play with before the Elite Specializations, more than most classes.

• You point out positives just fine! I enjoy that! That said, you are keeping all your points very very short, and oftenstick to the things that we already know.

• For positives, don’t be shy about pointing out some of the negatives too! Heck, check what your peers in the actual Scrapper Beta Feedback threads are giving.

• Some points I’m not so sure if you tested them out in detail before you wrote this: Sneak Gyro honestly is a less than helpful change for WvW. The thing is slooow. It’s always visible. Its hardcap is a max stealthed number of five people. Similar story for hammer, it is actually not very good at keeping up with zergs or chasing people as the #3 chain is less than someone running with swiftness.

• I liked that you listed Rune and Sigil synergies, but the list is a bit explanation-less, and I personally don’t see how these are much more helpful than the runes and sigils Base Engineer already uses. Plus, there’s at least one you forgot: Energy. A regular extra dodge together with the hammer’s tankiness would allow some great sustain.

I don’t see how that would help. Honestly, the fact that they are on the player is already the one reason the toolbelt skills find uses. It being on the AI would not help.

From what I gather, it’s a theme with Elite Specialization weapons to intentionally be undertuned on their very introduction so they can be brought up later, rather than the other way ’round.

Guess it’s the safer option.

For now it would be hugely important to fix the huuuuuuge downtime between autoattack chain parts, the capabilities of #3 hitting anything, and some minor number tunings. Heck, I’d be willing to accept a few more seconds of cooldown on #2 for that.

If the Deadly Mixture trait came back, I could actually imagine flamethrower being a major damage contender; it could even give the Auto some use!

… Thirding this?

But yeah, our function gyro really does need some love but this would be a great QoL to go with any upcoming buffs.

Jugglemonkey.8741:

I found static discharge works nicely with scrapper, taking scrapper explosives and tools with elixer s, rifle turret, toolkit and mortar. Works with both soldier and marauder amulet, depending on how safe you want to be.

At the very least, I had fun with it ^^

I really hope they’ll get the Statid Discharge Skill-queue-ing bug fixed soon enough. They acknowledged it exists back during some Revenant changes months ago, but this one seems to be really hard to fix!

Glad you could make it work though. For now, my finger pains stop me from trying SD builds.

Xyonon.3987:

Adamantium.3682:

Xyonon.3987:

Afaik Stabilization Core didn’t work … ?

Stabilization Core only affects Function Gyro when you try to revive/stomp. It has no effect on the other Gyros.

Oh … I read the tooltip wrong then. But how lame is that!? I mean I’d consider to take it if it would work with all gyros, but like this? No thank you… This trait therefore needs improvement.

But that would give us a reason to use normal Gyros. : p

Weapon swap would be the actual nail in the coffin to the absolute and unbeatable necessity of kits in every build including Scrapper.

Considering our class mechanic is actually just the Toolbelt? It makes sense. But realistically I can see why Anet don’t want to balance that.

We sadly, and quite simply, are the one class that can, you know, bring more, no-cooldown weapons to the table. Not even attunements can forgo the cooldown (except for Fresh Air Ele, but exceptions just prove the rule).

Maukuh.8514:

Hammer needs a working gap closer! Only one stun on “5” is not enough for a meele weapon… especially in pvp.

Well, for spvp it’s highly workable, particularly with that synergy between #5 and #3’s dazes.

For WvW however, Hammer 3 is too much lacking in mobility to make it work for that mode. Heck, even Wolfineer pointed out that he can’t find any way to make this one work.

OneHitWonder.5741:

pls anet do sonething about it. it really cripples the gameplay aswell as the skill floor

Intended change though – anet removed all influence from swiftness, superspeed, cripple and chill from movement skills.

“I main an the class I’m complaining about, trust me, I’m legit.”

Mhm. Erryone says that.

Mhm! I was reconsidering it for a while, and thought ‘yeah, that doesn’t add up perfectly’. That said, toolbelt stunbreaks are a thing we saw about already, and the mobile waterfield -could- work for it. Thinking thinking…

We’ll see what Anet will do. Right now I don’t feel like taking Gyros anywhere, after all.

Are.1326:

ANort.1425:

They really weren’t thinking when they gave engi a trait for +25% stun duration when engi only has access to 2 stuns, hammer 5 and Supply Crate.

You forget Static Shield (Shield #5), Static Shock (A.E.D. toolbelt skill), Electrified Net (Net Turret overcharge) and Throw Boulder (Rampage #4).

I’m not sure how many of this are actually affected by the trait, considering how Expert Examination don’t trigger on Electrified Net . And it is definitely not a good selection of stuns. You can’t take Shield #5 at the same time as Hammer #5, and you can’t take Supply Crate with Elixir X, at best you get 4, and that is if you run Net Turret and A.E.D.

Honestly, even then the minor trait would be a bit wasted. You’d have to pick up a bunch of stuns intentionally just for that 25% duration increase, where some of our main strengths are blowouts (launches), knockbacks, and immobilizes.

Well, I now require the Monster Hunter animations for Wyvern, with one leg hurt, pulling itself along the countryside, going “Ow, ow, ow…”

Seriously though, I understand the Asura sentiment, but they have to be in line with warrior hammers, and those never were any bigger either. Pretend they were golemancy-improved and powered up.

Oooh, what if the medic gyro got the fabled Scrapper Stunbreak? That could be fairly cool and help even the score.

I dunno, a small hammer could do some horrid things to people’s knees. :P