Guild Wars 2

Yeah I agree, what balance team?

If there was a fulltime one, we’d see faster and more consistent balance patches. We get them 2-3 times a year and even then they contain quite few changes for how rarely they happen, so um… nope. It’s probably a thing a few developers do every so often when they have spare time.

I can see the patch notes already…

Engineer

Since Plague was recently changed to Plaguelands on the Necromancer, we wanted to update the underwater skills provided by Elixir X.

• Elixir X: Plague duration reduced from 20s to 15s to be consistent with other transformation durations.

Martym.6971:

Vagrant.7206:

TexZero.7910:

Engineer has problems but turrets aren’t it.

The real problem engineer has is the fact that kits are better in every situation because they are the generalist tool for the generalist class.

This.

We’re still severely hamstrung by kits. Our core weapons are underwhelming without assistance from kits (protip to ANet: Reverse the trend, and buff the hell out of our core weapons and reduce kit effectiveness). This limits our builds massively (practically requiring kits), making them significantly more complicated and less fun.

Last time I checked p/p kit engi is one of the highest dps specs in the game if played properly.

Don’t mistake benchmark tests for reality. Watch those benchmark tests and tell me you can reproduce them in a real gameplay scenario.

The other thing I would point out is to not miss the forest for the trees. Most other classes have options with build design on the high end (particularly warriors), while we’re mostly limited to 2 builds in high-end PvE and 1 build in PvP.

Well if benchmark isn’t reality, then this applies to all classes. And Engineer would still be one of the top dps.

That’s not what i think he means though.

Take class A with 5% more dps than class B in static large target benchmark.

Class A depends on a 20 skill rotation with situational combos, narrow persistent aoes with long cooldowns and few stunbreaks/blocks and little mobility

Class B depends on a autoattack chain with a heavy hit every now and then and got higher mobility and more blocks/stunbreaks than class A.

Against a target that moves around, spawns aoes you need to get in/out off and with large attacks that can be blocked it is very much possible for class B to realistically and reliably be ahead of class B because there is only so much you are loosing out if you miss an auto attack, while the target might just waltz out of a key aoe of A.

The more complex and situational the bigger the difference between benchmark and actual result as a rule.

draxynnic.3719:

Kenshi Maru.5489:

Either way the change to turret basically means they are indeed switching the toolbelts somehow. The explanation they gave for the change was hard to believe. Most people don’t use turrets and those that do most likely value Overcharging them over the toolbelt. I mean, if you can’t overcharge now then there isn’t much point to keeping them anyway in most cases.

Not true. Surprise Shot was popular on power DPS builds because it basically converted a free utility slot into otherwise free DPS (Surprise Shot has no activation time, you just press it on recharge and damage happens… particularly if you have the Static Discharge trait). People would take the rifle turret purely for Surprise Shot and never drop the turret itself because even if they dropped the turret, overcharged it, and detonated it before Surprise Shot recharged, it was still a DPS drop over what their character would be otherwise doing.

Now, you can drop the turret, and then forget about it until it gets destroyed or it’s time to relocate.

The explanation does make sense. However, the fact that they’re did it now, in what might be the second-last balance patch before the expansion, is… suggestive. It might be that it’s part of the reason but not the whole reason.

You are right about it, yet i can’t help but feel Rifle Turret was the only one who got benefited from these changes, for example, Thumpher turret had a great overcharge skill, the only issue is that it was (and still is) locked behind a long ass cd recharge, these changes i bet just made Thumper Turret even less desired of what it was already.

The other one that i could think off that got benefited from this is the Rocket Turret, yet, i haven’t seen any sign of replacing the Rifle turret as a dps slot at all.

Sins.4782:

What balance team?

this where did the op get the idea that there was a balance team

Pleeeeaaaase. Blast gyro is amazing. I’ve learned to love the broken AI on it when I watched the gyro wait for a revenant’s shield 5 to go away before CC’ing him.

Just don’t use the blast gyro near its hard-counter… stairs.

Dawdler.8521:

santenal.1054:

The blast gyro on the other hand could have been pretty fun to use but they ruined it for me that it only can be activated when you have a target, the throwing of the tag announcing to your enemy that you are sending a slow moving gyro on its way which may or may not detonate when they meet eachother (really dumb ai) even if you try to summon it and detonate it manually in melee range it takes like 1-1.5 seconds which is long.

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat it’s working fiiiiiine…

cough https://youtu.be/Dm8aJNptJ10 cough

Blast Gyro would be perfectly fine for me if not this kittening random targetting and the delay before it starts moving.

And shredder gyro is basically a turret, to be honest. Or what turrets should become.

“Gyro, go get that angry enemy warrior!”
“Whaaaaat? Which guy?…”
“Take superspeed! You’ll catch up to him quickly!”
“You mean that Tiger! Sure thing, boss! Oh, look at that flower…”

santenal.1054:

The blast gyro on the other hand could have been pretty fun to use but they ruined it for me that it only can be activated when you have a target, the throwing of the tag announcing to your enemy that you are sending a slow moving gyro on its way which may or may not detonate when they meet eachother (really dumb ai) even if you try to summon it and detonate it manually in melee range it takes like 1-1.5 seconds which is long.

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat it’s working fiiiiiine…

cough https://youtu.be/Dm8aJNptJ10 cough

Shredder Gyro has the same summoning animation as Personal Battering Ram but even slower lol.
But I dont care much about shredder gyro. The blast gyro on the other hand could have been pretty fun to use but they ruined it for me that it only can be activated when you have a target, the throwing of the tag announcing to your enemy that you are sending a slow moving gyro on its way which may or may not detonate when they meet eachother (really dumb ai) even if you try to summon it and detonate it manually in melee range it takes like 1-1.5 seconds which is long.

Gayle.1807:

It would be nice if the Engineers were improved. They aren’t very effective, and their game-play is a bit dull. The only time I had a use for mine was the engi-farm in Lake Doric. That was short-lived, not surprising, but at least I had a use for mine.

For long range, turrets were the only useful weapon, but they are short-lived. Rifle doesn’t do much. Grenades, etc and such only work for relatively stationary targets – they take too long to recharge, like the Ele scepter skill #2, Dragon’s Tooth. Only useful if you can anticipate where the target is moving. Very limited application.

Even the elite skills are: mortars (same issues as grenades). Elixir…funny but not overly useful. More turrets. Charzooka….only if knockback is “good idea” – fairly limited considering its an elite.

What I liked about the engi-farm? I had an application for my engineer. Well, in engineer parlance…back to the drawing board.

The most complaints I’ve heard is the engie doesn’t feel much like s power house or a awesome character that gunswings rifle or dw. I have tried one myself and to be honest it was unimpressive. I’ve also never seen snow engine using the hammer.

It would be nice if the Engineers were improved. They aren’t very effective, and their game-play is a bit dull. The only time I had a use for mine was the engi-farm in Lake Doric. That was short-lived, not surprising, but at least I had a use for mine.

For long range, turrets were the only useful weapon, but they are short-lived. Rifle doesn’t do much. Grenades, etc and such only work for relatively stationary targets – they take too long to recharge, like the Ele scepter skill #2, Dragon’s Tooth. Only useful if you can anticipate where the target is moving. Very limited application.

Even the elite skills are: mortars (same issues as grenades). Elixir…funny but not overly useful. More turrets. Charzooka….only if knockback is “good idea” – fairly limited considering its an elite.

What I liked about the engi-farm? I had an application for my engineer. Well, in engineer parlance…back to the drawing board.

The Engineer community is likely suffering the “stockholm syndrome”.

Looks like we get used to troll updates , and when we ask for buffs we tend to say “to don’t make it OP”.

Rifle has no use atm in any scenario,it’s outdated like if we are in the “celestial meta”,but this days are well gone now.

How much time has past since the celestial meta?Does anyone remember it?
We can’t even play static discharge for hoow defenseless we are atm with that weapon,and also cause static discharge has not enough damage anymore to deal with other classes defenses/counters.

It’s offensive towards Engineer players leave a CORE WEAPON unchanged when in such a bad shape after all that time.

I don’t know of any class that have it’s CORE WEAPON in a such bad spot.

What’s even worse,is that following the leaked info about the next expansion,thief can get a rifle…..
Man….

We need a buff,we deserve a buff for taht weapon,and while asking it i can’t AFFORD anymore to add “to don’t make it OP” in the same sentence.

Engineer rifle URGE a buff , a meaning one , nothing else to add in that sentence.

Twigifire.8379:

Rifle needs quality of life changes not a complete overhaul. It’s a very fun risk vs reward playstyle at the moment with a little too much risk involved.

There’s a lot of risk you can’t mitigate with smart play. Specifically, if you hit someone with Overcharged Shot, and they have an on-cc trait equipped, you usually lose the fight or have to disengage.

Last Stand procs – Warrior hits you with cc burst chain instead. You die.
Shared Anguish procs – Ranger hits you with staff or bow to trigger Ancient Seeds while you’re knocked back from your own attack. You would normally clear immob with OC shot, but you can’t because it’s on cooldown. You die.
etc. etc. (although, those 2 traits are the worst offenders)

See also OC shot into unexpected reflect, Jump Shot over traps or guard lines, Net shot just being completely ignored by Warriors & Thieves.

This post is directed to other introverts.

<disclaimer>
First I’d’ also like to clear up a few things about introverts (from my perspective) for those extroverts reading this. I am not shy, misanthropic and I don’t live in my parents basement (I AM a parent, and I don’t have a basement). As an introvert (again from my perspective) I don’t enjoy socializing for the sake of socializing. It doesn’t do anything for me, I find it burdensome. There’s nothing wrong with being social and I am glad the majority are, but it’s not my thing. I enjoy spending time with small groups of people in a task oriented setting, and in that setting I do enjoy socializing as a byproduct. I’m aware that I tend to sound patronizing in the way I write, it’s a typical introverted trait when addressing people we don’t know. It’s not intended. And lastly, before you remind me of the word multiuser in MMO let me clarify that multiuser is not synonymous with socializing.
</disclaimer>

How do you other introverts play GW2? Do you play solo, pugs, guild runs, play with one or two other specific people?

I mostly play solo. I look for meta’s and world bosses, I like the dynamics of fighting with a crowd. I really enjoy playing with one or two people I know IRL, but they are not as into the game as I am so it’s very infrequent. I’m not hardcore, but I do play almost every evening.

I’m in two guilds, but other than giving a “howdy” in the guild chat when I get on and the occasional forum post, I’m really not involved. Voice chat in guilds seem to be 90% social and 10% task. Nothing wrong with that of course, that’s how most people are, but again not my thing.

Too bad there’s not a “looking for another introverted player” feature.

Anyway, leave your comments on how you play as an introvert.

(Let’s not make this an “introvert vs extrovert”, “come out of your shell” or “it’s a multiuser game” thread.)

-DedTreeJig

Duke Nukem.6783:

esports? the gw2 competative combat is literally the worst fighting in an mmo i have ever seen, AND I PLAYED RUNESCAPE, the time to kill is so high its ridiculous and every match becomes about who can cap the points first because GOOD LUCK getting anybody off of them long enough to cap the point before the inevitable 60 second slap fest/rollfest/healfest that is the combat

esports in gw2? give up anet

Sad how this .gif was made nearly three years ago and little has changed:

because engineer is the unwanted stepchild and anet for some weird reason wants to discourage players playing it even further which shows f.e. in the removal of predator effects for grenades/projectiles.

Vagrant.7206:

• Most gyros have single-target functions, or their functions serve extremely limited roles. This cripples their usefulness in PvE (besides sneak gyro in limited situations)

Bulwark has its uses – keeping people alive is keeping people alive, and the reflect shield can also be useful. Blast gyro… eh, Air Blast will usually do the job. Purge Gyro… I’ve rarely felt the need to bring heavy condi removal in PvE. Shredder Gyro is just terribly designed full stop.

Sneak Gyro has the issue that… well, does Detection Pulse actually do anything at all in PvE? Maybe against skelk, I guess, but most HoT enemies with stealth work by the Nuhoch mastery mechanic instead.

False!!

What’s hurting the game is them constantly catering to players who want to put in no effort to improve themselves and be rewarded for it, for the past 4 years.

They are moving in the right direction now, where they are challenging players to improve themselves and really “level up” in various ways.

The current JPs are in fact brimming with more imagination and planning than a lot of the older ones.

So I’ve played Scrap Rifle Field Test and kinda wondered why our #1 isn’t like in that scrap rifle. Tbh I had more fun playing with that than our normal rifle and dmg was actually what I would expect from it as well.

Wouldn’t mind some changes to our rifle – a mix between scrap rifle’s and our skills

The Scrapper traitline is all but mandatory for pvp/wvw – even for non-hammer builds. If you don’t take it, you’re at a huge disadvantage losing access to function gyro. It is by far the worst elite spec mechanic – useless in pve, but good at what it does in competitive game modes.

It also comes with some decent defensive traits and gives you access to sneak + purge gyros.

leviathan.2148:

I’ve yet to meet someone who even picks Scrapper traitline for the traits alone and not for the hammer.

My build would like a second opinion of this :P

Scrapper’s mechanic in pve is useful at getting prestige points when you are doing Tarnished Traitor under octovine. All other players get [F] Revive, while you can be at range and stomp as soon as he goes down.

And that’s pretty much it. If it teleported the ally to you, it would be a lot more useful.

leviathan.2148:

draxynnic.3719:

If they’d made downed state more common in PvE, it’d probably be a lot more popular.

I’d agree if teammate targeting wasn’t so wonky. Currently you can res them faster by yourself than send f-gyro to do it.

Or you can do both and rez them at double speed.

leviathan.2148:

I agree that the elite specs shouldn’t be upgrades. But Scrapper in pve isn’t even a sidegrade. It’s closer to downgrade.

The issue with the scrapper isn’t that it relies on gyros or hammers to be effective. The hammer is actually an incredibly strong weapon with tons of utility, and the function gyro is a very good mechanic as people always inevitably go down in raids (and the ability to res someone without sacrificing DPS is criminally underrated). The only real problem with the scrapper is that it has no outward party buffs that would make it a remotely competitive support choice in PvE content. As a support role it’s incredibly effective, but it has no edge or advantage over other professions when it comes to elevating party DPS.

The three primary support roles in PvE currently are mesmers dumping alacrity, PS warrior distributing might, and rangers providing healing. And while an engineer could essentially fill the role of a support character providing healing for their team, we don’t have Frost Spirit, Fire Spirit, or Gift of the Land. We don’t have banners or access to alacrity either.

As a sum of its parts, the scrapper just doesn’t contribute as much as a support role as much as other professions do—and that’s why it failed to garner any attention in PvE while being the meta spec in PvP and WvW where the specialization obviously flexes its muscles. It’s a very well designed elite specialization tree, and it has utility in both raids and high end fractals, but it’s just not the best choice—and therefore not a choice at all.

draxynnic.3719:

I’d say that scrapper is useful for PvE. Hammer is still a decent weapon, and some of the gyros certainly have their uses. They’re just not useful in raids where generally the most important thing for most squad members is eking out the most DPS.

Broadly speaking, elite specialisations were billed as being sidegrades, rather than straight-out upgrades. Statistically speaking, if this was true, roughly half of the optimised builds for any game mode should be core. The fact that this obviously isn’t true shows that the current elite specs are mostly still overtuned.

In the case of the engineer, scrapper is certainly a more defensive-oriented elite specialisation, and the engineer does have a decent set of damage-oriented traits, so I don’t think it’s necessarily a problem if the highest DPS is coming out of a core build, as long as that DPS is competitive with what other professions are bringing (with or without elite specialisations).

IMO Scrapper was originally supposed to be defense oriented tank. In pve it’s lackluster in this role. So you won’t take Scrapper to tank. For condi you won’t take Scrapper, for power you won’t take Scrapper, for healing you won’t take engi in general. Sure, it can be used elsewhere but you can play anything else in pve that’s not instanced group content with anything. Hell, you can unequip traits and utility skills and still be able to do well in open world because it’s stupidly easy.

I’ve yet to meet someone who even picks Scrapper traitline for the traits alone and not for the hammer. I’d love it if Scrapper was another good tank alternative. Or support one even.

I agree that the elite specs shouldn’t be upgrades. But Scrapper in pve isn’t even a sidegrade. It’s closer to downgrade.

leviathan.2148:

It’s been 5 years and engi is still stuck with kits and p/p, nothing really changed. I don’t know about you, I want change. And as a mostly pve player, it’s the most noticeable for engi IMO.

Yeah, I pretty much stopped playing my engineer because it’s just boring after 4 years, and he was my main for PvP for a long time.

Core professions should be upgraded when elite specializations are released, too. Give us main-hand mace, an elite gadget, etc. Elite specs shouldn’t be the only new things every 2 years.

insanemaniac.2456:

again, you arent getting what im saying. ill try again: im not comparing core spec vs elite spec. im saying that regardless of whether a certain trait line is core or elite, it will be useful in some circumstances and useless in others. and it should be like that.

since you seem to only want to discuss elite specs and dont accept a core spec as an example of a thing being useless under a condition, heres another one – druid. its pretty much the same condition as ps warrior, but the difference is you wont use the elite spec under the condition instead of a core spec – when you already have a druid in a group, you dont want another one and the 2nd ranger player is asked to respec to condi ranger because its a dps boost.

it happens all over. its just usually not with elite specs because theyre so op. and of course its always better if there is some use than no use, like using 1 ps warrior or 1 druid at a time. and i would say that that in fact should be a design goal, even though it means only 1-2 players get to fill that role in any given group its still creating a role to fill that makes people feel useful.

and i will say it for the 3rd time in this argument(?) that i feel like anet has moved too slow on elite specs and balance and has left us hanging. “i dont know about you” isnt something you need to be saying here, i very clearly agree. i dont really know why youre so combative.

Your druid example isn’t very good one. Druid’s spec is useful in all modes. Sure, it’s not good for every occasion and in some cases it’s worse than the core spec but it’s still good for each mode. Scrapper isn’t. That’s my whole point. I want an elite spec to be useful for each mode. I don’t want an elite spec to be good for every occasion, that would just be silly.

I agree with your claim that Anet has probably moved too slow on elite specs and balance. But suggesting that Anet should get faster with pumping out of the elite specs seems much less realistic to me than making the elite spec usable for each mode.

If I seem combative, I’m sorry. I’m just passionate about this topic (maybe too much).

Kenshi Maru.5489:

draxynnic.3719:

leviathan.2148:

Core trait line doesn’t change elite spec mechanics (Besides Scrapper for pve ha ha…)

Technically speaking, function gyro does have a use in PvE. It’s just not a very useful one…

If they’d made downed state more common in PvE, it’d probably be a lot more popular.

Ugh, no. If you could res yourself with it, sure. But most of the times it’s easier to just kill something close to them so they Rally or res personally. Unless in this game we had more ENEMIES on the downed state, but then again you can DPS your way out of this anyhow.

Which is why I said “technically speaking” and “it’s just not a very useful one”. There are situations in PvE where I’ve used the function gyro – typically in boss fights where there isn’t a convenient easy kill for them to rally off, but throwing the gyro out means a) I can get back to DPSing faster, and b) I’m not putting myself at risk to help them.

Is it comparable to what the other elite specs have? Heck no. But completely, absolutely, you-will-never-use-this-even-if-you-look-for-opportunities-to-do-so? No.

Regarding your other comments:

I haven’t taken an engineer into a raid, but from what I’ve seen, heard, and read, the effect of those complicated rotations is generally a matter of eking out those last few percentage points of damage. Both the condition and power builds have a clear dominant kit (grenades and bombs respectively) – the other kits have a handful of skills that will increase your DPS by a bit if you include them in the rotation, but there’s one kit that’s doing the proverbial heavy lifting.

The fact that the difference provided by the additional kits is relatively small suggests that the two skills provided by non-kit utilities could be buffed to compete. We saw, in the recent patch, a move to make turrets more useful – this could make Flame Turret a competitive addition to condition builds in the foreseeable future (as Rifle Turret is for power) with some suitable buffs, while other turrets could work their way into power builds (again, with suitable buffs). A lot of the gadgets could also have potential for power builds, particularly if they’re split so they don’t become too strong in PvP.

Regarding your observation about each kit trying to do everything: I don’t think this was actually a design goal so much as the devs putting into each kit what they felt made sense without thinking about what overall purpose it would have. There was a lot of that in the weapons available on release, but most of them have since been rebalanced. The recent adjustments to the flamethrower, like them or not, do seem to have been intended to push it more fully into the condition role, which in the bigger picture is probably a step in the right direction. The problem is that it’s hard to see how they can implement the same sense of focus to grenade, bomb, and mortar, since in those cases most of the distinction between the 2-5 skills is simply which condition they apply.

I guess what they could do is:

1) Change Fire Bomb into a power fire field (similar to Lava Font), and give Concussion Bomb a higher damage and replace Confusion with debilitating conditions such as Weakness and Cripple.

2) Make Poison Gas Bomb more Power-oriented, like Poison Bomb from the Itzel/Coztic Shadowleapers.

3) Grenade kit can probably be left as a hybrid, but decreasing the power coefficient on the shrapnel and poison grenades might help to pull them out of the power build rotation and cement grenades as a condition set.

4) Elixir gun can go either way. Since flamethrower and grenades are already good for conditions, though, I’d probably push it towards power to make it a suitable ranged kit for power builds. Increase the power damage on Tranquiliser Dart and remove the bleeding. Fumigate could also have its power damage increased and the poison decreased (the poison duration is short enough that in gameplay it’s not much different to direct damage anyway – you could make it so that each tick only applies a minute duration of poison and the final tick applies two seconds similar to flamethrower applying Burning, and compensate for the reduced poison damage with increased power damage).

5) Toolkit… hrrrmn. Could also go either way thematically. If bombs go power, however, it might be most suitable to have the toolkit go condi. Can we find a way to justify applying a damaging condition by smacking someone with a wrench? If it’s already applying Cripple, we could probably justify Torment… (“After what I just did you your leg, I DARE you to try walking on it now!”)

draxynnic.3719:

leviathan.2148:

Core trait line doesn’t change elite spec mechanics (Besides Scrapper for pve ha ha…)

Technically speaking, function gyro does have a use in PvE. It’s just not a very useful one…

If they’d made downed state more common in PvE, it’d probably be a lot more popular.

Ugh, no. If you could res yourself with it, sure. But most of the times it’s easier to just kill something close to them so they Rally or res personally. Unless in this game we had more ENEMIES on the downed state, but then again you can DPS your way out of this anyhow.

Kits just need to be updated, gadgets buffed and turrets reworked. You don’t need to do all of this, but sure doing some would help.

The problem with kit’s btw is that there is always a clear DPS choice among all the 5 skills it gives and all the rest sucks. They designed it so you’d only use one kit, so they tried to make it so each kit could fit any kind of play style and do everything on it’s own. Almost every kit that is part of our meta builds have an auto, a burn, a CC and a poison basically. If you play condi you’ll always get the all the burns, then all the poisons an by that time you’ll have refreshed the cooldowns of your other burns.

It’s just that all our good damage skills are scattered on multiple kits.
And the saddest part and what makes it a problem is that we need them all, in that order to compete with the DPS of other condis out there that do much less work for it.

It would be okay if we could choose not to use 2, 3 or 4 kits and then still do decent DPS, but we cant. Heck, I’d be happy if I even needed to know what skills (3), (4),(5) in some of my kits did, because I never get to use them and I don’t even have time to, because there is no way anything there would be better than adding up my burn stacks.

The class was meant to be the one with “always the perfect tool for the right situation” but we just have so many tools that are always wrong.

They need to remove the generic aspect of kits and empower them on different ways. Then make the same with gadgets.

If you play ranged you might need a certain gadget and a certain kit and maybe 1 turret or 1 elixir, if you play close-quarters or condi you then need a different kit with a completely different gadget and one elixir or turret that better suits you.

We should be able to BUILD to the situation instead of equiping everything and rolling our face over the keyboard.

I just bought the game, and made my character an Engineer thinking that I’d enjoy using the turret skills, but so far have not found them useful. I’m almost level 40, and it feels like the only way to use turrets is to place them and detonate them when the overcharge is done. I feel pretty squishy, but at the same time also feel pretty weak, both in PvE and PvP.

Are turrets just not viable now? What should I do to either give myself better sustain/healing or higher DPS?

I had two level 80 characters on an old account about a year and a half ago, but abandon that one as I hated the account name and it was a f2p account, so I didn’t really lose anything, so I don’t think it’s too much to do with game knowledge or not being used to playing GW2.

Turrets have never been viable in PvE and only for a short period in PvP.
The only turret that is universally useful is the healing turret and it is either immediately picked back up for shorter cooldown/condition cleanse or detonated for the water field combo.
Try kits, grenades and bombs are the best dps, elixir gun has tons of utility/damage/heal.