Guild Wars 2

tigirius.9014:

scorekeeper.6524:

WEXXES.2378:

Bigpapasmurf.5623:

If not, just make the engi invuln when shrunk instead of evading (for the duration of it only)

It always made them invulnerable.

Check the wiki

“Drink Elixir S to shrink yourself, recover from stun, and evade attacks. "

We are not invulnerable in Elixir S.

Further We USED to be and they removed it because some complained about it. smh like we don’t have enough negatives against us as it is.

Neither of you are correct.

http://imgur.com/a/A74E5

Taken literally a few minutes before I wrote this post.

The tooltip was never right, and they never “removed” the invulnerability, they removed the ability to use some skills during it a long, long time ago.

And if you want to quote some more wikis, you can quote the invulnerability page which lists the skill there:

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Invulnerability

Good day, forum-goers.

Bigpapasmurf.5623:

If not, just make the engi invuln when shrunk instead of evading (for the duration of it only)

It always made them invulnerable.

It doesn’t cancel stomping/rezzing/many actions but it cancels skills that are casting…

This is especially bad with the self regulating defenses trait when you are about to heal/condi clear but the trait goes off and now you’re dead…

Liston.9708:

Must have been on an outnumbered map for 2 1/2 minutes to gain outnumbered buff bonus….

Doesn’t stop the AFK.

Lucky Charmz.5089:

Kain Francois.4328:

Why would you even want to play GW2 using nothing but a single weapon set ever for over 1,000 hours? I’ll never understand players who hate kits.

Why would you even want to play GW2 using nothing but a single set of utility skills for over 1,000 hours? Abandoning 12+ other utility skills? I’ll never understand players who exclusively use kits.

I’m not saying I refuse to use kits. I’m saying I’d rather not use exclusively kits. I think it defeats the purpose of choice in Gw2.

The purpose of choice in GW2? Depends on how you look at it.

If they made it so weapon skills and no kits were better than kits, you’d arrive at the same problem because now you are abandoning 4 utility skills that open up to be 20+ skills. The amount doesn’t matter so much, it’s the idea that the result would be the same.

Why don’t they make the other things only just as strong, not stronger? Not possible because we do have “the purpose of choice” in GW2. See, since we can freely mix and match certain things, things that are very unique compared to one another, we will inevitably come to a set of skills that are simply stronger than another set: in this case, Kits.

This is basically true for most classes in this game. It’s called the Meta.

Now, I’m not saying you are forced to play the best thing, nor is it the only thing you are allowed to play, but people do like improving themselves and doing the best they can because MMOs are, indeed, of competitive nature even in cooperative settings. If they weren’t, no one would care (but obviously, we do).

Exciton.8942:

I don’t think you want to reset participation.

Just grey out pip gain for a couple of minutes after map swapping.

Reset participation will have another negative effect. e.g. Players call for help on a particular map but others won’t want to respond because they lose their participation.

Achieving T3 participation is very easy but it requires you to actually do something.

Greying out pip gain will not work and actually causes the issue you describe since they are now guaranteed to not get anything whereas a reset can be restored. A map hopper who intends to help will most surely get their reward (unless they swap as the tick goes off) but someone who intends to AFK or “beat the timer” will not.

Another way greying out pips can be beaten is by AFKing until the timer is out, since 5 minutes is not an issue and you keep your participation, if at least a little. This basically solves no problems.

Another issue that someone mentioned above is that the game doesn’t reward winning but just participation. Honestly, most of the game is like that anyway. You tag things and zerg them down: that’s 90% of PvE and WvW right there. There’s not much you can do about that because the game was like that in the beginning.

Remember those engineer backpack skins you guys took out?

Let’s add them back in using the WvW reward track’s LEGACY ARMOR SKINS box.

Here’s the ones you guys took out:

1) Bomb Kit/Tool Kit

2) Grenade Kit

3) Flamethrower

4) Elixir Gun

5) Med Kit

Thanks? I mean, there are med kits in WvW too…

keramatzmode.1906:

engineer is by far, has the best utility and options not available by any class in the game.

Engineer has the most active skill in the game, more buttons to press and all of them have their strength. Swapping kits have no cooldown. Engie also technically have 15 seconds reflect if you trait it properly with turrets and gyro heal. They have a low cooldown invulnerability elixir (with toolbelt STEALTH!). Traited shield and toolbelt gives you a lot of blocking. Stealth detection, and mortar kit, an elite that have no cooldown which opens you up with more option for aoe disables.

This often met with their weakness in unreliable dps and condi damage (compared to other condi classes). You may not be able to kill things as fast but fighting anything is always a fair game with engineer. Engineer have so much control but you had to decide whether you want to build yourself for solo (which is less recommended but doable with rifles which you can check on metabattle), but with a group, you are a force multiplyer with strong pulls, launches and control.

That said, engie suffers quite much on pve, but they do have the strongest bar breaker. Tossing elixir X can drop bars to half in most dungeon bosses.

Technically, Elementalists have the most potential skills to press in the game if they went 4 conjured weapons (but who really does that?) by having 4 elements x 5 skills then another 4 conjured weapons with 5 skills for basically 40 buttons to push at anytime. Most of those skills have quite some impact too but many of the engineer ones are just damage.

Secondly, guardians can get 12s reflect with only 1 skill in a traitline that makes it easy to swap for it (consecrations) whereas for engineer you have to give up bunker down for it which just isn’t worth it. Guardians also have a ton of blocking and an invulnerable state in addition to group stability.

Lastly, engineers do not have the strongest bar breaker. Mesmers do, with their Signet of Humility. Even though they kind of do the same thing it’s not as strong as the signet.

nihasa.5067:

Engineer is not that popular in zerg build so don’t expect new builds. You will have to improvise and see how you can adapt or create builds based on your play-style. I have tested metabattle’s builds for wvw and both do seem to provide a good starting point. I don’t think you can go wrong with frontline scrapper and is not that expensive to try.

Basically this.

There just really isn’t any strong benefits to Engineer right now. They have very little “group” power that other classes can simply do better and more.

-Stability? Ours can get reflected, is a small AoE, short duration with 3 stacks and has a cast time. Guardians have 5 stacks, lasts longer, big AoE, is a stunbreak, and instantly casts. Even Mesmers have better group stability and have the ability to double any given.

On the flipside, our same stability skill gives us a ton of boons but not very useful for groups.

-Boons? We barely give any except regeneration maybe. Guardians / Mesmers give a whole bunch.

We can give ourselves a ton of boons, however.

-Water fields? Elementalists can not only heal very well but also grant those boons we were talking about in addition to a lot of auras.

-Condition Clears? Guardians, Mesmers, Eles, a lot of classes have pretty decent group condition clears.

Engineer has an amazing one, but it’s not that much better.

-CC? If you bring the amazing amount of CCs that engineer has you basically lose out on any other benefit of above. Also, your survivalability drops pretty heavily.

-Heals? Not viable enough.

-Damage? All classes can do damage.

-Boon Rip? Practically none, save for throw mine which isn’t a great thing to have on your bar.

-Edit: Stealth? Mmm… engineers do get access to some really nice stealth options but mesmers / druids can do it and provide a lot more.

Here’s the real benefits of engineer that other classes don’t really have easy access to:

-Finishers: we have tons, probably the most in the game. If we could securely blast a water field we’d have the highest burst healing in the game, period. On a long CD, unfortunately.

-Combo Fields: we can potentially have access to almost every single field type in the game, save for Dark fields (we have Water, Light, Fire, Ice, Poison, Smoke, Lightning, and Ethereal). Ironically, Rangers have access to the exact same fields but it’s not viable to really use them.

-We can have both a ton of combo fields and finishers at the same time.

Since we only really need 1 combo field (water) and most people can supply at least 1 blast finisher the need for anything else is really just not there.

Luckily, engineers aren’t completely useless and are pretty great for roaming / small group play.

Honestly, nothing… at least for the outnumbered buff itself.

There’s a bunch of posts/drama going around in reddit, discord, and in-game that has to do with the outnumbered buff: namely, the pips it gives and how it is currently encouraging players to do some shady stuff like map hopping at the last moment, tricking others into moving, etc.

Yes, the incentive to go to these outnumbered maps are very high. A 5 pip tick is practically double the amount for most players right now, perhaps even more.

The goal of the outnumbered buff is, quite simply, getting players to go to these maps rather than ignore them so people will help somewhat.

The issue right now, at it’s core, seems to be that its not doing it’s job very well: it does bring people into those maps but they are mostly AFKing, waiting for the tick. They bring the participation in from other maps.

However, on the flipside, making the outnumbered buff not appealing enough to map hop and AFK pip shower is the same as making the outnumbered buff not appealing enough to even look for, period.

The buff should stay as is (thus, do nothing about the outnumbered), but knowing the real core issue the solution is pretty clear:

1) Changing maps or leaving WvW resets your participation.

This shouldn’t be an issue for most people who actually play WvW: you know how fast you can get T6 participation? Pretty quickly, even in small groups, and even quicker in larger zergs.

What this does is grant minor annoyance to those who need to map change, log out, or change characters while making map hopping practically impossible while still keeping the outnumbered buff very appealing.

As a result of this change, in order to make use of the outnumbered buff you basically need to stay somewhat loyal to a map. That is, you need to spend time actually doing things: the map becoming outnumbered should give you an incentive to stay rather than switch maps.

2) Another issue we are having is AFK: not for the outnumbered buff but AFKers in general.

Lowering the AFK timer is, IMO, not a very good solution: some people just need a quick break and it seems like the AFK timer is about 5 minutes. Even still, people have ways of just bypassing the timer by not actually being AFK but rather simply sitting it out for the ticks / WvW reward tracks.

I think the best solution in this case is to give both players what they want: a way to AFK it out and get what you are “owed”, while getting the AFKers out of the maps that could really use the people.

A few days ago, Obsidian Sanctum used to allow this to happen but ArenaNet has since “fixed” it. I think they should change it back and let people know that if you want to use up your ticks for the day just go there, maybe even throw in an extra pip (just 1). In regards to the first suggestion, make switching to Obsidian Sanctum immune to the participation reset, but leaving it will still reset it. Go AFK there where no one gets hurt by it. It’s only really worth it if you are seriously going to AFK all of your participation out as “map hopping” to it and out will set your participation back to 0.

On the topic of WvW suggestions: a leaderboard for most kills, most sentry kills, most yak slapping, etc, would be pretty cool to show, updated every 5 minutes in the WvW tab. No rewards for it (would encourage some abuse) but would be really fun to have.

TL;DR: reset participation on map change/leave except when ONLY entering obsidian sanctum to push all the AFKers to AFK there.

Devilman.1532:

I know they have people assigned to different areas friend but perhaps a reassignment of people assets to more important things. Then again the gemstore is the cashcow… silly me.

That’s not how it works. You don’t re-assign artists to do programming.

As for the programming: bug fixing is not as simple as finding out why it happens. In the long run its better to just keep making new content and figure out bugs whenever they can, for none of the bugs we usually get are game breaking.

Honestly, the only thing a community can blame the devs on poorly utilizing resources on is when most of the community is clearly outraged all at once at something they added or changed: we’re talking thousands, not dozens.

Xaylin.1860:

WEXXES.2378:

Med Kit

For Med Kit I’d still want something more like https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/Med-Kit/first#post6142479.

Some comments on other suggestions:

WEXXES.2378:

Bomb Kit

Concussion Bomb
-Now a blast finisher
-CD increased to 20s from 18s

I’d rather see the Confusion being removed and Concussion Bomb Daze enemies for 1-2s. Yeah, boohoo, condi Engi nerf. But we still need a better distinction between Grenades and Bombs and I hate that Bomb Kit is more about AA for Power while just rotating through 2-4 for Condi. I’m also not a big fan of Shrapnel because it clearly favours Grenades but oh well…

Additionally, I’d reduce the Burning on #2 and instead make it pulse more frequently to increase the physical damage and Vulnerability application.

WEXXES.2378:

Explosions
-Evasive Powder Keg CD reduced to 5s
-Aim Assisted Rocket is now a blast finisher
-Thermobaric Detonation CD reduced to 5s

A blast finisher on AAR is nice but you won’t be able to control it. Additionally, the bigger issue I got with Explosives when it comes to blast finishers is that EPK forces you to sacrifice a dodge plus TD competing with Siege Rounds which also provides a blast finisher.

I’d rather see EPK being removed/reworked and do something completely different. Maybe strip Boons or whatever.

WEXXES.2378:

Inventions
-Soothing Detonation reworked.
-Now creates water field blast finishers when blasting non-water fields.
-Blasting a water field increases your outgoing healing by 10% for 10s.

Besides adding the outgoing healing you didn’t really change much?

WEXXES.2378:

-Medical Dispersion Field
-Now also creates a water field that follows you for 2s when starting a heal skill. Has a CD of 10s.
-Radius of 360

This just turns all heals into pseudo Healing Turrets. I’d rather see the value of the shared healing increased to a more reasonable amount.

Since we’re at it… Bunker Down should lose those bandages. It’s just weird. Maybe add a very short amount of Protection (1s) if within the blast radius?

WEXXES.2378:

Alchemy
-Stimulant Supplier reworked.
-Re-introduce Acidic Elixirs
-Elixirs become unblockable, removes boons when they land, and have larger radius.
-Boons removed: 2
-Radius increase from 180 to 360.

Yet another Elixir trait? Why?

WEXXES.2378:

Scrapper
-Expert Examination
-No longer applies vulnerability. Converts Protection boons into vulnerability from enemies instead.

This sounds very cool!

>Besides adding the outgoing healing you didn’t really change much?

It’s a huge change. It means you can blast any field and it have the same effect as blasting water on top of blasting the field type it is. This is a huge problem in PvE that basically prevents engineer from reaching it’s healing potential.

>This just turns all heals into pseudo Healing Turrets. I’d rather see the value of the shared healing increased to a more reasonable amount.

The lack of water field(s) is a huge reason why people don’t take other healing skills in group content. The amount it already heals is actually in a good spot since it is affected by your outgoing healing %.

>Yet another Elixir trait? Why?

The alchemy line is basically about the use of elixirs. Because of the trait it replaces, it makes people choose between HGH and Acidic Elixirs.

As for the rest: fair enough. Thanks for responding!

FinalJustice.5824:

I have to admit, there’s some pretty interesting stuff here I especially love all the Gadgeteer changes and REALLY love bringing back Acidic Elixers. I personally one day hope that we’ll get Sitting Duck back, but that might just be a forgone dream.

A few changes that I would make are:

- Reduce the cd of Automated Medical Response to 75 seconds.
- Make Magnetic Inversion (flip skill for Shield Skill 4) inflict Cripple to all opponents hit for 2 seconds.
- Make Throw Shield (flip skill for Shield Skill 5) grant Aegis for 6 seconds to you when it returns.

Thanks!

Sitting Duck brings back good memories.

Some thoughts:

-Reducing the CD of Automated Medical Response should actually be even lower than 75 seconds, down to 60, or proc at higher % values (50%+).

-Magnetic Inversion and Throw Shield (Static Shield) are perfect where they are: they don’t need changes at all. This is because Magnetic Inversion already has so much functionality in it and Static Shield is incredibly strong as it’s one of the few skills in the game that can stop evasive attacks (Blurred Frenzy) and can rip off a lot of stability on some people.

Been playing for about 4 years now. 50%+ of my time has been on engineer alone. I play PvE, PvP, and WvW quite equally.

Just some thoughts and ideas that might intrigue some of you here.

Med Kit
“The bandages aren’t viable to use”.

The bandages, from the beginning of 2012, were never really used for other players. They were used for the one holding the kit: yourself, basically. The ability to throw them wasn’t meant for you to throw the bandages to others but to rather throw them on yourself for immediate consumption (especially when you were immobilized, crippled, or chilled). They still work like that today, and may explain why the bandages heal for so little and are just generally bad to use except when using on yourself.

Are they still clunky to use? Yea.
Are they worth using? Kinda. If you keep in mind that the bandages are basically used for yourself, they aren’t as bad as you think considering one the bandages now grants resistance.

They can be used to give benefits to other players but only in niche situations. It’s possible, but it’s a rather uncommon situation, and definitely not during combat.

I personally used Med Kit, and have done so for the longest time. I think the kit is actually in a good spot in terms of purpose but suffers from lack of hindsight to make better design decisions for the skills involved.

The following changes and ideas that follow are, in my opinion, much needed.

LIST OF CHANGES

Med Kit
The largest issue and QoL feature I think Med Kit needs is the amount of time you spend in it over a fight needs to be reduced when trying to help yourself. Med Blaster is in a great spot, but I think it could be a tiny bit better.

Just in case, healing values are done wiki style:
[Base Number] (Healing Power Coefficient)
Ex: 505 (0.25)
Which, with 1500 healing power, would heal for 880 with no other buffs.

-Med Blaster now scales off of the boons you have.
This makes way more sense since the engineer is great at creating boons for self, and the med kit provides many.

-All bandage duration increased to 24s from 12s.

-Throw Bandage healing is increased to 1111 (0.55), a 20% increase overall.
-CD increased to 10s from 5s
-Regeneration increase to 10s from 6s (17% decrease overall)

-Throw Stimulant cast time reduced to 0.5s from 0.75s
-Also grants Quickness for 2 seconds.
This addition allows you to boost your med blaster healing for a very short time when you need to by buffing yourself, or to quickly put out some DPS instead.

-Throw Accelerant cast time reduced to 0.5s from 0.75s
-CD increased to 20s from 15s
-Now removes all movement impairing effects (immobilize, Chill, Cripple)
-Swiftness duration increased to 15s from 10s (12% increase overall)

Elixir H
-Now always grants Protection(3.5s), Regeneration(8s), and Swiftness(15s).
-CD reduced to 20s from 25s.

Toss Elixir H (toolbelt)
-Now always grants Resistance (2.5s) to all affected allies
-CD increased to 30s from 25s

Flamethrower

Flame Blast
-Now ground targeted. Removed Detonate Flame Blast. Blast Finisher occurs where you target.

Smoke Vent
-Creates a smoke field around you that lasts for 1 second, blinding nearby foes once for 5s.
-CD increased to 25s from 20s

Bomb Kit

Concussion Bomb
-Now a blast finisher
-CD increased to 20s from 18s

A.E.D.

Static Shock (toolbelt)
-Now hits up to 5 enemies in a 180 radius.

Throw Mine

Minefield
-Now unblockable

Traits

Explosions
-Evasive Powder Keg CD reduced to 5s
-Aim Assisted Rocket is now a blast finisher
-Thermobaric Detonation CD reduced to 5s

Inventions
-Soothing Detonation reworked.
-Now creates water field blast finishers when blasting non-water fields.
-Blasting a water field increases your outgoing healing by 10% for 10s.

-Medical Dispersion Field
-Now also creates a water field that follows you for 2s when starting a heal skill. Has a CD of 10s.
-Radius of 360

Alchemy
-Stimulant Supplier reworked.
-Re-introduce Acidic Elixirs
-Elixirs become unblockable, removes boons when they land, and have larger radius.
-Boons removed: 2
-Radius increase from 180 to 360.

Tools
-Reactive Lenses
-Now only activates when disabled

-Adrenal Implant reworked
-Using a toolbelt skill grants 20 endurance.

-Gadgeteer bonuses
-Rocketboots now also breaks stuns in addition to it’s range increase
-Slick Shoes oil duration increased to 5s in addition to radius increase
-Personal Battering Ram now hits up to 3 targets and removes stability (after hit).
-A.E.D. also removes conditions regardless of taking fatal damage at the end.

Scrapper
-Expert Examination
-No longer applies vulnerability. Converts Protection boons into vulnerability from enemies instead.

-Adaptive Armor reworked
-No ICD
-Grants 20 toughness per stack, up to 20 stacks. Lasts 5s each.

I usually come up with some ideas for fun when I’m urging to play something that isn’t in GW2 yet. I enjoy playing scrapper and I can’t wait to see what we get for the next specialization!

That being said, I came up with my own idea, made it a little pretty, and decided to show you all and see what you guys think.

The Medic
“Need a hand? I got what you need right here!”

As new dangers arise, so do our abilities to aid the wounded. After the victory against Mordremoth the pact discovered new technologies, magic, and medicine that would help prevent the loss of lives in the battles to come. The movement into Elona would only further push the pact into training and outfitting combat medics with greater mobility to serve all those in need across the world.

Re-modifications to magic-based weaponry (mostly with the help of the Asura) opened the doors for quick, portable healing tools that are capable of treating specific wounds when needed. This allowed the pact to mass recruit medics who were not proficient in magic to fulfill the same roles with excellent efficiency to prepare for the next fight against the dragons.

Like the engineer, the medic is a complicated class but with a heavy emphasis on a supportive role. The unique skill types require quick decision making and situational awareness to use effectively.

Elite Profession Mechanic
Scrappers introduced a great tool when concerning downed allies and enemies, allowing them to keep their hands free or to secure a kill. Medics took this concept and created a defibrillation dart that incapacitates downed enemies from doing further harm or assists allies into rallying back into the fight.

And of course, they always keep one for themselves, retaining the same effect for when they go down themselves.

Scepters
The medic utilizes a modified scepter that connects the core to Asura technology, allowing it to channel energy into specific waves of magical light. The technology is rather new so the range is quite limited and it requires heavy concentration to operate it.

Scepters used by Engineers are low damage but hit quite often. They are susceptible to CC due to their long channel times. As a supportive tool, it excels in burst healing and powerful but short protection.

Stations
The original signets were meant as magical batteries to allow non-magic users to use magic. Engineers have re-purposed signets into larger, but still portable stations. When not in use, they provide small benefits to those around the medic. The medic is capable of deploying these stations for the medic and allies to use. Using remote-golem technology, the medic is able to reconfigure the stations to alter their effects.

The station is a combination of signets and turrets. I know a lot of people don’t like the idea of AI skills but these are much easier to deal with.

Stations cannot be destroyed by enemies and they require interaction to be of any use.

You lose the passive effect when stations are deployed.

Stations can be dismantled by the medic at any time using the respective toolbelt skill.

Stations have limited charges. Each person gains a debuff when using a specific station, disallowing them from using that specific type of station until it wears off (thus, you cannot spam interact to gain massive healing from multiple medic stations) however the cooldown of interaction is always less than the cooldown of the station, allowing multiple medics to still be of use in certain content.

Stations have modules which share charges and interaction cooldowns with the other module of the same station.

Rather than making one super long post, I made them into images. Click below!

Weapon Skills, Healing Skill, and some Utilities
More Utilities
Elite
Traits

Note: Relocator is supposed to have 10 charges to allow a teleport+stealth combo.

Note2: Care Package trait resistance is supposed to be 1 second, not 3.

Another note is that repeat skills are not shown. All stations have the ability to revert back to their original purpose, all stations have the ability to dismantle (replacing their toolbelt skill as turrets do).

Thoughts? Questions?

Originally, I planned to explain the choices behind each skill and trait but it would go well past the message length of 5,000, more or less 20,000, and big walls of text are scary so I left it out. If you are wondering, feel free to ask.

Thanks for reading! I did this as an exercise and for fun.

I think everyone around here and in game pretty much agrees thief is very lackluster right now. It’s not so much as the class experiencing heavy nerfs but so much of the class not being brought up to par with the others.

Overhauling the class is not an option. Never will be. It won’t happen guys.

I think the devs have already decided on some thief changes. Maybe, maybe not. I’ll list what I came up with here anyway:

Traits
Trickery
-Make the following traits baseline:
Preparedness: Increases maximum initiative by 3
Lead Attacks: Steal recharges faster 15%.

Shadow Arts
-Make the following traits baseline:
Meld with Shadows: Stealth skills last longer

These I know for sure must be made so as a start. The rest are open for discussion.

Trickery
-Replace Preparedness with Pocket Swap:
Steal 1 boon and send 1 condition to your foe on critical strike. 15s CD.
(Kind of like Transmute, but requires some offensive]

-Change Lead Attacks:
Steal cool down is reduced by 1 second every second you have max initiative. Increase damage dealt by 1% per initiative you have.

Shadow Arts
-Replace Meld with Shadows with Major Master Trait Hidden Thief as a minor trait.
-Add a new Major Master trait called Hidden Stalker:
Apply revealed(3s) to nearby enemies every 3 seconds while stealthed. Does not break their stealth. Deal 5% more damage to revealed enemies. 240 radius.
-Change Last Refuge: Create a blinding smoke field when your health reaches a certain threshold (33%). 300 radius. Lasts 4 seconds, pulses a blind (2s) every second. Smoke Field.

Acrobatics
-Buff Swindler’s Equilibrium:
Reduce ICD to 1/2 of a second.
-Change Fleet Shadow:
Gain superspeed (3s) when gaining stealth.

I ran some tests with that D/D condi spam thing. It does only work against noobs, and it doesn’t fair well in anything with more than a 1v1. As soon as you land, which is pretty easy to see and time, you are vulnerable and cannot do anything.

The biggest issues with that and pretty much all thief kitten is thusly: Some things cannot be evaded, the most common being:

Barriers from guardians, which they have plenty of now.
Fear walls from Necromancers.
Tether pulls from guardians (again).

And when that happens, you better have a shadowstep your bar or gg. The other shadowsteps either don’t stun break and/or bring you closer to the enemy.

I suggested something like this years ago.

Thinking back on it, while it would definitely add tons more atmosphere to the game…. content wise, it would do nothing. This is something that would be added in the way action cam was added.

Coming soon to a BLT near you!

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/3rp654/a_6th_symbol_has_been_spotted_among_the_5_races_a/

old stuff

PopeUrban.2578:

Well, in terms of the “limit trolling” implementations anet seems to be fond of… what about granting aoe allied stealth and superspeed? Same theme, but without the jarring transition of an instant allied teleport that people could use to drop you on top of red circles etc.?

The mark version is kind of a more janky mesmer portal, and shadowstepping directly to the thief may not be idea in a party with a mix of range and melee right? The stealth/superspeed version is easier to use, not to mention opens some build options for thieves and allows them to more easily drop or enhance one of the thief’s prime support skills, shadow refuge.

So YOU would teleport to foe and steal (possibly my modified “support steals”) and could trait steal however, and your group would be able to quickly and easily follow up?

This would allow you to do up the warhorn skills a bit ahead of the group, more fulfilling the theme you have in mind for the liberator perhaps?

Also, warning shots sounds like a fun skill thematically, with a potentially awesome animation (blowing a warhorn and firing in to the air) but how about in stead of a reveal, it grants allies vigor and inflicts vuln/confuse on enemies? Granting allies AoE cripple power and a single target reveal feels pretty weak. Considering how situational reveal is it seems like a better idea to attach it to a 4 or 5 skill, and getting people to run pistol/warhorn just for a reveal and cripple doesn’t seem all that enticing.

Pistol mainhand is a condi weapon, so P/Wh3 being a condi skill makes sense, and pistol 2 is a kinda wonky skill. It’s going to be a heard sell to get someone to take non-stealth pistol so that 3 skill really needs to sell it. P/Wh would be a support/condi damage set just looking at the abilities so how about making the 3 do just that?

Spammable vuln/vigor/confuse, that’s pretty powerful support on par with SB2’s spam blast finishers and decent damage to compete with P/D’s stealth chain without overshadowing it.

The elite I’m torn on. On the one hand I see what you’re going for, repositioning everyone in an aoe to a specific spot for support application. I feel that it needs… something given the chaotic nature of GW2s combat and the potentially devastating nature of high mob and player damage. Perhaps add a stun at the thief’s location when he casts it? In this manner you’d have the cast, if follower up quickly by the group, tha was easier for the group to warp to point and then get combat positioning in the 2-3 seconds the stun was active to prevent them from getting annoyingly wiped out by cleaves or aoes. It has great synergy with warhorn, venomshare, and SR though, and I think that unlike the proposed mark version of the F1 has a useful and uique effect that separates it from mesmer portal enough that it feels unique.

Very good points, making changes!

I think the confusion would be great for P/W 3. There’s already vulnerability on pistol 2.

The difference between group stealth + superspeed and shadowstep is that you won’t kitten yourself using it. It’s a choice to use it as well, so it would be entirely your fault if it gets you caught in something worse. Superspeed + Stealth can be hard countered with reveal or simply attacking and you usually lose your stealth during fights almost immediately.

One way I thought of using ambush is you have your shadowmark placed where people are fighting, then when you are repositioning or catching up to someone escaping you can hit that ambush and have allies follow. The reason why its a shadowstep and not a teleport is to prevent it from being an absolute portal so have every single liberator portaling into WvW keeps and stuff which would be unbalanced.

The way you worded it sounds like Ambush instantly shadowsteps nearby allies. It doesn’t. They need to hit the F key on it to do it, so its their choice. Hope that clears up some misunderstanding.

I think a stun is overdoing it for the elite. Maybe a pulsing blind in the AoE can accomplish mostly the same thing.

The elite was definitely designed as a re-position, but mostly for escaping. This and shadowmark is based off the idea you can use functions when you are CCed, like portal. So while this is active, you can activate it no matter what state you are in that doesn’t involve being dead or downed and be teleported to the center where the liberator most likely is. The elite, however, still feels lacking, and it’s weird for a shout. I might just change it completely.

PopeUrban.2578:

WEXXES.2378:

The enemy shadow steps to you thing can kinda be done already with Scorpion Wire though, even if its very unreliable.

True, but “shadowstep to enemy” can also be done with a lot of abilities that aren’t steal. What makes steal special is that it’s an extra button, and that there are a lot of traits that can imbue it with extra effects.

Think about it from the perpective of an on demand instant pull that ca also be traited to daze, poison, ive you some init, etc. etc. as well as whatever aoe effects your elite spec line may add to it and it starts to make sense. This is essential as changing steal, as we’ve seen with other elite specs, means that “on steal” traits become “on using your f1 ability” and traits like improvisation become “using your f2 ability” etc.

It makes even more sense if it also generates a form of stolen item that’s different from the basic ones, so in stead of primarily offensive steals, you get a more group-centric buff. For example, stealing from a warrior gives you an axe whirl, but liberator-pulling a warrior might give you a “banner of might” steal that plants a might pulsing banner that can’t be picked up, or in stead of stealing the group support healing seed from a ranger you get a camoflauge kit that aoe camoflauges (the ranger version of stealth that breaks on movement) etc.

Shadowstepping an enemy, especially on an ability that is available to any liberator build, is an iffy subject and a bit off-theme. I think of the liberator as a freedom-fighter / smuggler, not an assassin that isolates a person and then shanks them to death. If anything, shadowstepping an enemy would be reserved for a different specialization. The way I had everything designed is to infiltrate and then move your team in for an ambush, with warhorn/shouts focused on denying the enemy to react as hard.

If I ever do another spec idea I’d definitely use that as the next thing, but to me its just not fitting for liberators. I don’t know. \o/

MakubeC.3026:

I like it.
The concept of a Thief that nullifies foes’ boon gain is certainly appealing. Like PopeUrban mentioned, it would be more thematic for a thief to bring support by debilitating the enemy more than empowering friends, and I do really like some of your ideas, specially the revealed (part of the plan) kind of thing. However keep in mind that revealed is the anti-thief mechanic, so we cannot be powerful while on stealth and also powerful while revealed.

As for ambush, sadly the teleport thing doesn’t sound too fun and sadly, too many traits are based on steal, so I would suggest: leave steal as it is, and then:

Ambush (30 secs CD): Teleport to target. Your target teleports to your original position.

Hope you like it.
I also made an imaginary Elite for Thief, its really fun to dream.

Thanks!

I thought thief was severely lacking in buffing allies to begin with.

To be strong in stealth and on reveal means you have to take 2 non-DPS related trait lines, which lowers your DPS for sure. The traits in the Liberator line for damage is meant to help out.

The idea was that a thief would spot out enemies, then brings his team in while the thief causes disorder and prevents the enemy from reacting. The enemy shadow steps to you thing can kinda be done already with Scorpion Wire though, even if its very unreliable.

PopeUrban.2578:

I think, for ally teleports, an opportunity mechanic would be more appropriate, similar to the way mesmer portals work.

Very early in development those portals were automatic, you walked in to them and got instantly teleported. It was changed to an activated ability to keep the functionality without forcing allies to do something that they might want to put off a few seconds (or totally ignore)

If it were, say “for x seconds your ally’s next jump/hit f/etc. shadowsteps them to your position” it might have a better feel to it?"

Another option would be to treat it kind of like ele conjures, spawn them some sort of interactable that would give them the boons and shadowstep when activated maybe?

Like, the basic idea I get (provide allies an on demand shadowstep) but the implementation is a little tricky to keep it from being highly disruptive for pve, or even accidentally disruptive when its well intentioned given the pace of GW2 combat.

What if you flipped it? Ambush would in stead shadowstep the target to you and then process whatever buffs. Thematically it’s the same idea, helping the party jump on an enemy, but it’s less disruptive. As an instant pull it’s also pretty unique and powerful support, as most pulls have some sort of dodgable projectile or effect.

That could be a great way to go around it. For example with the elite, you drop a huge “portal” that can only be activated once per character to shadow step to the middle of it, provided you have a path because its still a shadow step.

I know they were automatic at one point, it was hilarious when you had 2 mesmer portals on top of each other and people got stuck in them and it lagged the hell out of servers lol.

Ambush can be disruptive, but there’s a non-disruptive version of it that replaces your stolen item function (or maybe give thieves a 3rd button?) with a shadow step that only brings you to the target.

With thief though, control is heavily important. I’ll think of something :V

Slaymeding.9584:

Dude,this looks professional.
Loving the military element and could be balanced by marking the allies you will shadowstep to the area.

Thanks! Thinking of something. Might do another class with a non-thematic weapon as well, this is fun, lol.

PopeUrban.2578:

Ally shadowsteps are probably a thing we won’t ever see unless they only work on group members. Its sad, but they could be used very easily to grief people in open world content.

As for the rest of the idea, I like the basic concept, but the skills themselves seem pretty anti-thief. Traditionally, thief support is more about debilitating enemies than buffing allies, so I’d imagine a thief warhorn to be far more themed around demoralizing enemies than buffing allies. Stuff like “your ally’s next attack applies weakness.” or “Enemies around you are dazed” or “remove x boons” or “targeted enemy taunts other enemies for x seconds” style skills seem more in line with what I’d image thief warhorn would do.

Good points, changing some stuff!

As for the ally teleports, maybe, but there are a lot of things that can grief others as well. Also, in this spec, theres only 2 ways to do it (ambush and elite) and they aren’t readily available all the time.

Just a random, bad idea I had trying to tie together a strange combo of this weapon and this class.

The Liberator
These rogues would often appear deep in the enemy’s ranks and bases without a warning, causing havoc and raising hell. And while that was bad enough, the main force would arrive utterly annihilating everything in their path. These ambush tactics were necessary to free slaves and prisoners with minimal casualties, causing mass mayhem and securing a path for allies. Known for their strong group support, the Liberator is a powerful tactician on the battlefield.

Off Hand: Warhorn
Uses: Shouts
Features: Team Mobility, Group Support, Boon Denial, Revealed Benefits

Shadow Mark replaces the Steal skill as their F1 and Ambush replaces the F2 class mechanic, removing the ability to gain environmental weapons. Shadow Mark (The F1 Skill) leaves a shadow mark behind while shadow stepping to the target, which lasts for 50 seconds, active or not. It stays hidden when it is not active. The shadow mark can be destroyed. Placing another shadow mark removes the current one.

Amubsh (The F2 Skill) activates the shadow mark, allowing allies to shadow step (not teleport, still requires pathing) to your location for 3 seconds. Improvisation allows you to active this a second time before going on cool down, essentially allowing 6 seconds of allied shadow steps before it goes on cool down.

Distracting Cull(Sword Warhorn 3): Taunt(1/2s) your target, preparing to block the next attack. Upon successful block, you strike your target with your sword. (4 IN)

Shadow Rush (Dagger Warhorn 3): Rush forward(450), granting yourself and 4 nearby allies superspeed (1s) while striking enemies on the way. 5 nearby allies’ next attack applies blindness (2s). (4 IN)

Warning Shots (Pistol Warhorn 3): Fire your pistol into the air several times while alerting allies to your target enemy, applying confusion x 2 (4s). Nearby allies gain vigor (4s). (4 IN)

Snuff Out (Warhorn 4): Send out a (300 range) gust of smoke, destroying a hostile field effect while blinding 5 enemies in a cone. (6 IN)

Liberator’s Cal (Warhorn 5): 5 Nearby(600 radius) 5 enemies cannot have boons applied to them by others while pulsing superspeed(1s) to 5 allies. Drains 1 initiative per second as long as this skill is held down.

“Fall Back!” (Shout, Heal): Remove movement impeding conditions from nearby allies while healing allies and granting superspeed (2s) to allies. 600 radius.

“You’re Dead!” (Shout, Utility): Applies a unique debuff on target enemy for 4 seconds, causing all boons received to be converted to 2 stacks of vulnerability. 600 range.

“Try Harder!” (Shout, Utility): Apply retaliation to nearby allies and removes protection, stability, and aegis from target enemy while removing debilitating conditions from allies. 600 radius.

“Until Next Time!” (Shout, Utility): Grants stealth (2s) to 4 allies within a 1,200 radius. Breaks stuns on affected targets.

“Dodge This!” (Shout, Utility): You and your allies next attack is unblockable. Target enemy loses 50 endurance. Unblockable.

“Let’s Get Em!” (Shout, Elite): Grants superspeed to 10 allies within 1,200 for 5 seconds. Affected allies gain 100% resistance to movement impeding effects.

(Default Traits)
Minor: (Ambusher) You can wield warhorns and your steal is replaced with Shadow Mark and Ambush.
Minor: (Part of the Plan) Gaining revealed grants 1 stack of stability (4s) and 3 stacks of might (12s).
Minor: (Element of Surprise) Remove 1 boon from 5 nearby (240 radius) enemies when you are revealed.

(Selective Traits)
Adept: (Kill Secured) Gain quickness (4s), stability (4s), and Stealth (4s) when striking a foe under 10% health. kitten ICD.
Adept: (Spotting Beacon) Gaining reveal applies reveal to nearby enemies. Reveal duration is reduced by 33%.
Adept: (Blitzkrieg) Shadow Mark’s recharge time resets upon killing a foe. 25s ICD. Ambush applies 10 stacks of might(5s) to those that activate the shadow mark.

Major: (Raid Siren) Warhorn skills converts 1 boon to a condition on enemies on use.
Major: (Liberation) Ambush breaks stuns in a 360 radius around your shadow mark for 5 nearby allies. Removes movement-impeding conditions on allies that activate the shadow mark.
Major: (Cheap Shot) Deal 10% more damage to blinded enemies.

Grandmaster: (Turn the Tables) Recharge Ambush when under a control effect. 10s ICD.
Grandmaster: (Forwarding) Shouts grant quickness (2s) and Initiative (3) on cast.
Grandmaster: (Double Tap) Stealth Attacks do not apply reveal when striking a target under 25% health (still removes stealth). 30s ICD.

Note: You can enter your own shadow mark, but it will move you nowhere, lol.

Note: Thinking of doing Mesmer or Engineer next.

Update: Changed stuff, thanks for some suggestions. Elite changed.

Bump, because I just tested it in game and it still doesn’t work.

A bit late, not sure if this was posted already

Med Gyro did not proc on heal traits from inventions such as cleansing synergy and heal resonator. There’s a good chance it doesn’t proc on rune effects either.

I’m just throwing this out there.

I’m trying not to completely overhaul a system but use what exists to make something feel better than having to make entirely new systems, code, graphics, whatever.

So the new scrapper mechanic would go like this:

Function Gyro: You now have access to a function gyro. You can use it to finish an enemy, revive an ally, or command it to follow yourself, and enemy, or ally until it’s fuel runs out.

The summon function is the same. 750 range, press the “F” button, it appears at the target. It will either automatically revive or finish a nearby target if one appears (which is what it is doing now anyway). So when this is used on a downed ally or enemy, it will naturally attempt to do its task immediately because it is summoned on top of one and the closest thing at that point is said target.

But when you have nothing targeted and are not anywhere near an object where an “F” function appears, the F function will appear to summon a function gyro that will follow you around.

When you have a target that is within 750 range and is an enemy or ally you also gain the ability to summon the function gyro. If the selected target is further than 750 range then no prompt appears at all. When summoning a gyro this way, the gyro is summoned at YOUR position and then proceeds to follow said target.

Function Gyro gains a new perk: When it is destroyed, it stuns nearby enemies for 1 second (1.25 due to the impact savant trait) in a 180 radius around it, up to 3 enemies.

Function Gyro lasts for 15 seconds (unchanged).

Now what does this new function gyro do? Seems like nothing new? The applications are quite huge:

By sending out a function gyro to an enemy, you can cause it to body block projectiles.

By having a function gyro by your side, getting cleaved or AoE’d will cause the function gyro to die, thereby stunning nearby attackers.

By having a function gyro by an ally or your side when you are downed, the function gyro will attempt to revive immediately if its still alive.

By having a function gyro follow an enemy and that enemy gets downed, the function gyro will act to finish it.

Add a new function to the trait Stabilization Core in addition to what already exists:

Activating a function gyro breaks stuns.

With this trait, you now have a stun break on a 30s CD and gain 2 stacks of stability and is a bit useful in both PvP and PvE, especially when traited with final salvo.

When the boss gets to that enrage part, he gains a break bar. I’m pretty sure breaking it does something.

lagrangewei.8516:

WEXXES.2378, it a little more complicated then just incompatibility. it seem the dev are suggesting party are failing because the server keeping the data are crashing, making it more of a runtime failure which may or may not be related to logic at all.

Welp that’s why I said it was a huge guess. \o/

Maybe its both. Who knows…

I just did raids, and for sure they felt to weak to teach.

In fact, I believe their numbers should be the SAME as the boss. The seekers should do the same damage as the ones on the boss, the AoE teleport same damage and frequency, and the stacking should basically wipe the raid if they don’t do it. Because at that point, you can NOT ignore it.

The part that makes it easy is that you do one mechanic one at a time. The boss combines all 3, and I think that would be challenging enough for the first time anyway.

And in the future, please consider not hard gating damage to favor only one side of damage and being basically immune to the other. The benefit should usually be that power does more damage, but can’t be done when the boss is dodging / block / invul / invis alot, but the condi damage keeps ticking during those phases to even it out. To just basically have 999999 toughness and low HP is kinda meh. Or at least tone it down so that power can still kill it but it would have been faster with condi. Hard gating like that is not fun and keeps party composition limited to run certain setups.

I’m not a programming expert, but I’m going to take a huge guess on what’s causing the problems:

When you guys enabled squads, it causes all existing parties (including the ones in PvP ones) to no longer be parties when the game tried to make them compatible for squads. In effect, it could no longer be squads either since you need a tag to make one (and to hit the button). Some parts that point to all this are:

1) The party doesn’t exist/not compatible with current content, so you can’t “leave” something that doesn’t exist.

2) You can’t join on a party that doesn’t “exist” (just tag ‘not compatible’ with that word)

3) Since it can’t be a squad, it’s not a squad either.

4) Squads are working fine for raids aside from the UI disappearing at one point. This may have been due to someone leaving after the first wipe and the squads were disabled at the time.

5) You can’t party chat in a party that doesn’t exist. You can’t use squad chat either because you aren’t in a squad, and your party can’t be converted to a squad

6) Either the parties don’t exist, or they no longer because compatible as parties and as such anything party related didn’t match up and caused all party features to be missing or not working.

7) Leaving an instance is a group feature tied to parties/squads/instances. Again with the non-existent thing.

8) I’ve had the problem of being stuck in PvP matches in other games due to a party error. I think the way they described the problem was that the server part handling party requests wasn’t working so you couldn’t leave because it had to boot you from the party before it booted you from the room. And if you can’t leave something that doesn’t exist, you were just stuck indefinitely. Could be a different problem now, but I don’t know.

I’m pretty sure you guys have thought of these things but I don’t see any other reason that causes all of the same problems from one issue.

My condolences to the hard working people at ArenaNet to salvage this beta weekend.

Small Note on Raids: I was lucky enough to finally try it. Super. kittening. FUN.

Stephen ClarkeWillson.1802:

Okay, there are still some crashes. We are going to turn it back off at 11:25 pacific time (or so). We encourage you to get a raid team together and get in and have some fun.

We have gathered more data from this experiment but it’s getting late. I don’t know (honestly) if we will try again tomorrow or not.

Thank you for your patience.

Where does it crash?

If its raid only from the last boss and only affects the raid group, I’d honestly just leave it like that. Because then at least we can experience most of it…

Swapping med kit no longer procs heal effects. GG.

Swap to Elixir S. Use toolbelt. Swap back. Easy 5 or 6s of AoE stealth.

GreyShark.4293:

Could this possibly be related to the tonics bugfix : “Fixed a bug that would allow leaving a tonic transform to trigger the effects of traits and runes that worked from heal use.” ?

That is probably why. The other rune effects work on tonic related stuff still in the working runes section (just confirmed today 9/30/2015) but the ones in the not working section don’t.

I already posted a list of working/not working runes from the patch, which has been merged since.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Rune-Sigil-bugs-after-Sept-29-patch-merged/first#post5547178

This is generally the case with all spell effects in terms of VISUALS.

Have you checked if the actual area that adsorbs projectiles is smaller as well?

Are you talking about this?

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mechanized_Deployment

Because it does do something, which reduces toolbelt recharge by 15%. This stacks with other recharge CD’s like HGH. Also, not everyone runs the GM toolbelt recharge which only recharges 1 toolbelt skill every 40 seconds.

Unlike other class mechanics, our toolbelts change with the skills we pick and are close to being their own weapon/utility skill.

I already tested all of these on engineer, thief, and guardian in HoTM and some in PvE.

This is not a bug, do some more research on the situation:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Balance-Bug-Engineer-Medkits-Healing/first#post5545430

Edit: today’s patch seems like they should have fixed them. Test them please!

Made a new post since there are so many that are broken right now:

These (superior) runes who have a “on heal, do X” effect (usually a 6th tier effect) are no longer working:

Water
Balthazar
Centaur
Defender
Adventurer
Air (4th Tier effect)
Dwayna
Grenth
Flock

These (superior runes) ARE working for “on heal, do X” effect:
Lyssa (4th Tier)
Vampirism (4th Tier)
Altruism (4th and 6th Tier)
Scavenging (4th Tier)

Edit (9/30/2015): Tested with tonics/instruments, this bug is most likely from the fix that prevented such items from proccing heal effects. All of the non-working rune effects in the list above do not work with tonics as intended, but all of the working rune effects still do.

For making a TRULY WORTHLESS GM trait into a suitable GM (Medical Dispersion Field).

20% no CD on high healing power builds is basically elixir infused bombs. A little less, but doesn’t require spamming a single skill so it’s fair IMO.

Now… about that gadgeteer GM…

WEXXES.2378:

Small note, but the 100% projectile finisher for mortar is working properly.

In your guy’s minds its not, but it is in fact working as a projectile finisher.

How do projectile finisher’s work? Anything the projectile touches when under a combo effect, gets affected. This does not include the explosion. Most projectiles that are a finisher are not AoE effects, so you really only notice it with the mortar kit.

Does it feel bad? Yea. Is it broken and not working properly? No.

Bump, because tested.

Thief steal and necromancer death shroud still work while in mist form. Using either does not break it.

You shouldn’t be able to do anything but move in that form.

Agemnon.4608:

Manu.6078:

Khisanth.2948:

It would just make some fights longer but what benefit does this have on the game?

More challenging content. Less professions left outside of the meta. More diversity of builds. More easy to ballance.
25 stacks represent too much % from damage output.

The problem with longer fights is it narrows the room for error since stuff will die slower, giving bosses more chances to use more abilities while players get worn down more from cooldowns needing to be popped.

I say keep might but make legitimately more challenging content rather than gating certain abilities away or cheap mechanics.

Have constant boon removal from bosses. Would make things a lot more interesting.

Final Salvo definitely needs to reduce the CD of Gyros for a start.

Just a side note but Rocket Boots cures cripple, chill, and immobilize so that’s kind of normal.

Are.1326:

On your suggestions, I feel like the Gyros cooldown should start the moment they are summoned, so you are rewarded more for keeping them alive and not just blowing them up. Managing to keep them alive for their entire lifespan should leave you with little downtime.

That could work, but from what I recall a long time ago a summon skill used to work like that but was the result of bugs and thus “fixed”.

And even if it did, the healing would still be bad.