Guild Wars 2

Vagrant.7206:

Why? What’s the reasoning?

• https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Mesmer-Balance-changes-20-6 – Mesmers feeling left out
• https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/Does-the-balance-team-care-about-engineer/6610424 – Engineers feeling left out

Also, can we point out this juicy tidbit from the patch notes?

Mark Katzbach

In this update, we have taken a look at a few underperforming weapons for the warrior: rifle and torch. […] The rifle lacks in sustained pressure because three of its abilities focused on utility.

People have been complaining about engineer rifle for over 2 years (We only have 3 core weapons), but it’s warrior rifle that needs updating.

Completely agree as someone who plays multiple classes the engineer rifle has been under performing for years now.

Secondly, the melee being a new thing on the engineer needs major look at traits to either provide a huge toughness boost or a healing boost one would think that since it is a relatively new build to have a 2 hander on the engineer class you would work more on it rather than ignore it entirely.

Actually Obtena they do balance patches all the time they need to give Engineers the love they require to become a well balanced class. Here we are 5 years later and that still hasn’t happened even with balance patches and with an expansion. That means something is not right over there in the offices.

Not sure how nerfs are Quality Of Life improvements.

Invention and alchemy traits was nerfed on CDs so don’t expect any changes.

Hammer is OK and viable more for nerf then buffs.

Agreed with turrets – return f1-5 detonator. This is weird. In 30% turret dont overcharge and in another 20% doesnt make water combo…. We don’t use your turrets Anet untill you rework them to current skill levels of other/our utilities (dmg/rates of fire/survivability) reduce deplyment duration like gyros and increase their skills.

EG- glob shot really need some buff

Sneak gyro: better stay in current state. 40sec CD is now for me barely viable to pick instead of elixir x.

I suggest to look on trait in Tools trait line – Gadgeteer. Overcharge gadget should mean increase his effectivness not only lazy cd reduction (for example: rocket boots: increase distance traveled/stunbreaker , slick shoes: prenerf state xD , googles: reveal stealthed in x radius, battering ram: ignore stability, A.E.D- invuln 2sec after healed) – boom!! viable gadgets for a price of kittens to you in tools traits which mean more core engi friendly.

But they will not care about traits. They will hold scrapper in meta with hammer to not be OP and if you can see every nerf/buff in pvp is around meta scrapper. Create new meta build with rifle and you will see nerfs to rifle. (Thats joke, rifle can’t be worse then now)

It’s 3:08am and I have nothing better to do, so here goes…

Micro disclaimer – These are my opinions, feel free to disagree. BUT, pls no hate. One can hope if we (as the engi community) make enough of these someone, somewhere might actually make some changes that are useful. lol I just read that back, ded class ;_;

Traits:
Inventions:

Automated medical response:
1) Reduce cool down to 90 seconds.
2) Allow the medic gyro to proc. the removed cooldown while the gyro is still active. (Unless the gyro is destroyed and on cd then the trait is effectively useless) The point of gyros is to have them active. – for those that maybe unfamiliar with engi.

Alchemy:

Health Insurance :
1) As med kit is almost non existent, change the effect of the skill to increase outgoing healing by 15% creating more choice in this line for support roles.

Self Regulating Defenses:
1) Reduce cooldown to 60 seconds.

Skills:

Weapons:
Hammer:
Electro-whirl:
1) Reduce cooldown to 5 seconds.

Shock Shield:
1) Reduce cool down to 18 seconds.

Thunder Clap:
1) Increase cool down to 25 seconds.
2) Reduce pulses to 5.
3) Decrease interval between pulses to 0.75 seconds.

Healing Skills
Healing Turret:
1) Revert the blast back to the toolbelt, with manual overcharge as the flip skill. (old healing turret).

Utilities:
Elixir Gun:
Tranquilizer Dart:
1) Increase range to 1000.

Glob Shot:
1) Reduce cool down to 5 seconds.
2) Fix trajectory issues with the glob. (E.g) when you fire this at someone that has dodged the projectile flies up at random angles into the air.
3) Increase projectile velocity to match that of Tranq. Dart.
4) Decrease range to 600.

Fumigate:
1) Reduce cool down to 10 seconds.
2) Increase range to 500.

Elite Skills:
Sneak Gyro:
1) Increase movement speed of the gyro by 25%.
2) Increase cooldown to 50 seconds.
3) Decrease stealth interval to 2 seconds.
4) Increase radius to 400.

Depending on reactions/suggestions I may make another post, these are the changes that came to mind while writing this.

God speed bois!

Finally i got to 80 and unlocked 3/4 of the traits. The damage gyros are laughable and the only one i feel has a use is the elite stealth gyro. Hammer does decent damage but with all the cc of the mobs and them appearing in packs plus me wearing medium armor – it feels so wrong. Its like a warrior wearing a paper pyjama. The turrets dont even scratch mobs, i mean look at the damage they do. I switched to pistol pistol condi again and doing a bit better. But even AoE with granades it looks like i am doing nothing, while a random class runs in and wooosh 2-3 hit kills the mob.

What the magic i have to do to make scrapper work?

LaFurion.3167:

Second is the rifle. Rifle is absolute dog trash, without a DOUBT the worst weapon in the game out of any class.

HA, i think you are forgetting we have a shield my friend, are you sure rifle is the worst?

This thread is basically a mix of two dominant problems that ice heard often and sewn often on engi forums.

First is a huge lack of viable kit for power engi in spvp and wvw. Someone mentioned before that as a power scrapper using hammer, only viable kit is elixir gun, which isn’t even supposed to be a power kit. Bomb kit is a joke/not viable at all when compared go other options, even in spvp where enemy has to fight on point.

Second is the rifle. Rifle is absolute dog trash, without a DOUBT the worst weapon in the game out of any class. It needs a serious overhaul. So does shield, but that doesn’t relate to the power engi problem so ill leave it alone. Again, someone mentioned that thief may get rifle next expax which is a further insult to engi players, especially if engi rifle is untouched until or even after then.

The lack of viable/fluid power weapon/kit is really sad to see. Yes condo engi piano is “strong”, but engi should have more viable power toolkits/weapon. Rifle MUST be fixed ASAP if you don’t want to see every scrapper being a bunker type bruiser.

Ty

fashion.6712:

Its red and the Charr looks very berserkerish…its so fire themed also…

Except that warrior’s colour is yellow, not red. Spellbreaker is warrior’s spec, because the leaker said so, because the colours match, and because it makes absolutely no sense for warrior to get a holosmith spec, which is a strictly technological theme. Finally, the iconic engineer used for the class promo shots is a charr, while the warrior is a black norn.

The pinkish orange hue is engineer’s colour.

Still seems to be a misunderstanding of the concept of buying gold.
You cant buy gold directly with RL money.
You can only buy gems and then exchange them for gold.
The gold that is being exchanged is already in the game, and buying it doesnt add to the total amount already there.
Also I can see no correlation at all in someone having lots of gold = being dedicated to the game .
Some players keep their gold , others spend it as fast as they get it.
Both can be equally dedicated to the game .
Likewise theres no correlation between players who have a dozen legendary weapons and players who have none.
Some players like crafting and others dont.

Rev bunker is the only build right now I’m having real issues with aside from thief. The build is way too easy to pull-off.

Blocks, evade, blocks, dodges, infuse light, evade, blocks, etc. All the while healing. Once they get you low on CD’s they start spamming Energy Expulsion. The node is just not contestable.

I’ve played vs these bunker revs plenty of times and my only answer is a very niche build as a Necro. Not even wells can make a dent in this build since they don’t just rely on blocks. They have access to plenty of stuff.

I’d like to see à poll for which class is your main, thanks to the one who’ll make it.

So, is a pessimistic view over repeated patterns agains pure wishfull thinking. Guess which one of those is most often realistic.

I’ve lost count on how many times I’ve seen Obtena being called out for projecting and deflecting.

OP is right though, engineer needs more lurv. Obtena is wrong.

Here is the video of the January update for the engineers. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6q3em9s5I4c&feature=player_embedded

Well probably what most of us are expecting when the update does come out.

The Trading Post has always left a bad taste in my mouth in terms of simulating a player run economy. Just like with any Auction House implementation, it destroys a crucial part of the concept of supply and demand, in that global supply becomes the only kind of supply. In reality, this is obviously not the case, and if it were, the world would come crashing down faster than a North Korean rocket.

Enter The Merchant; a player run subsidiary of the Black Lion Trading Post, the Merchant allows players to set up player run shops anywhere in Tyria, bringing a supply of goods to weary travellers and armies that need them. The Merchant is able to set up a shop, that persists as a static NPC, from which players can purchase goods. Naturally, some cut of that profit goes toward maintaining the Merchant’s trading license.

The Merchant’s skills would revolve around improving their shop, for example, being able to stock more or rarer item types, reducing the Black Lion trading license fee, or increasing their inventory space. At high level, the Merchant would gain access to crafting bonuses, and might even be able to sign their crafted insignias, armour or weapons with a “created by” tag.

Naturally, this will tread on some toes: ANet sell increased inventory space for example, and with improved crafting bonuses the Merchant would be a must-have class for all players. Player shops would also increase server load, and persisting across the merge cycles of mega servers would be difficult.

Panda.1967:

Elementalist – water attunement, water spec, tempest elite spec

Ranger – traps, spirits, shouts, some pets, nature magic spec, druid elite spec

Engineer – turrets, med kit, elixer gun, alchemy inventions and tools specs

Revenant – staff, legendary centaur

Guardian – staff, mace + focus/shield, honor spec

Necromancer – blood spec

Warrior – banners and shouts, tactics and dicipline specs, warhorn

Mesmer – inspiration spec

Thief – shadow refuge…

If she wants a “traditional healer” she’ll want to play elementalist(water/tempest), ranger(druid), revenant (centaur), engineer, or guardian. Other classes can provide party wide healing, and can be quite efficient at it, but they do so mostly through passive healing. Whereas these classes have more active options to healing.

This is by far the most complete and correct answer.

Having said that some builds will be easier to heal with and some will be focussed more on other things:

Elementalist is more ao f a pure heal spec while playing water It will heal for a lot, damage is low sustain depends on the choice of armor. More a stand off healer.
At present it’s the #2 choice for healers in game, with the auramancer (bunker) spec being meta (first choice) in WvW

Ranger is a slightly less capable healer compared to water elementalist, but will heal decent, it is more bursty then elementalist and positioning will be more important.
Added benefit is the option to give good buffs to damage. more a stand off healer
Druids are seen as the first choice of healer in game for PvE.

Guardians is more of a melee spec healer if used in this fashion
Mace/focus and virtue of resolve healing on symbols will allow guardian to be at the front of fights,. while supporting it alles, healing is limited and the focus is in a very small radius

Shout heal warrior will be oriented to fight, and clean conditions, while heling small amounts Not a full healer , and not haeling as much as the guardian.

Revenant is a very solid healer for a heavy class. It will bring good healing over time. and can be a good healer at medium range. A solid backup for druid and elementalist.

Necromancer is a light class and can tranfuse health from enemies to alies.
Being devoted to lifesteal, it will likley feel different compared to healers. It mostly depends on 1 burst and is powerfull with good self-sustain, not having to drop a lot of damage to allow for healing.

Engineer can have healing with the medkit, or healing turrets, being basic heals. it will do it’s job, but to me doesn’t feel like a healer

Mesmer has acces to a AoE healing field, regeneratoon on clones and more things, it also doesn’t feel like ahealer but can do the job

Thief is more likely the least likely to be healer, but will do the job.

Now having gone over all professions I do need to say:

• In nearly all content healing is less important as most players should be able to self sustain, through dodges and self heals. People using more supportive builds can often reduce the need for healers (people carrying aoe healing fields, or giving a lot of regen)
• The use of healers is mostly for high level content only.
• In all case focussing on healing can lead to low DPS and difficult tagging.
• most heals require an above average knowledeg of encounters. as often enemy dps comes in peaks. having little of no heals available will significantly lower the use of the healer.
• healers function is to keep all (DPS) players above 90% in PvE content as they often run runes and traits for more dmg above 90% health. You need to be able to see this.
• In case of necromancers some builds will do better dmg at low amounts of health… this will make healers counter productive.

They did not adjusted “minors” numbers only,they also increased the cooldwon of some skill,they removed a leap finisher and left it bugged cause sometimes it makes 2 leap combo,sometimes 1 leap combo , and… the jewel,the piece of cake , the art of…remove the main source of dazes from the main scrapper mechanic(gyros) without even care of adjust to compensate the trait to? it related: impact servant.

We got general damage reduction , specifically on our main damage skills related to hammer , we got minor tweaks to our healing , we were privated of a function that was supposed to heavily define our class with the removal of CCs from gyros,and we NEVER saw anything,a single thing in that 2 years to make up form that negations/nerfs.

Look at the scrapper role in spvp….Just a stall dummie.
Look at the scrapper role in wvw, the nothingness…The first competent player you meet is a death sentence.
I mean,it’s fine if you roam killing newbys that just joined the game and you have fun that way.

I still read of peoples say " anet is not fixing things cause they have plans" , well guys , if to see that plans I have to wait 2 years , that big plans are pathetic from the start.
That is not like they don’t care of engineer , this is lack of manpower probably , and for sure mixed with a big dose of incompetence.
Yeah , I’m going too far by saying this probably,but how can I remotely think to don’t say that when we play a class that is basically just the shadow of a tank and nothing else from 2 years and that uses the same identical build on the vast majority of the players?

Every scrapper video on YouTube,every scrapper i meet in competitive scenarios , every one is running hammer+ elixir B ,elixir gun , bulwark gyro,stealth gyro.
There is no other build from 2 years.Do you understand that?
Man you are running from 2 years a melee power build coupled with the same 4 utility from 2 years , and the only kit compatible with that power oriented build is an Elixir gun ….Not for the damage but for the utility.

If you guys still have the will and the patience to justify that balance behaviour , I admire you.

To the peoples saying before HoT it was the same in regard of stagnant meta and particularly in reference to the engineer slow development,I must agree we have always suffered from slow development as class compared to all the others,but i never saw our class trapped in the same build for 2 years without having the chance to change a single utility and suddenly lose half of the potential we have….Oh…tankiness potential,cause aside from that we are left with Condi cancer.

But no….May be it’s me who cannot immagine the supersecret Anet plans about engineer’s future updates , that are supposed to fix every half done work on our class since the alpha stage of that game…That is why we are in that situation…Sure.

I didn’t want to offend anyone that have different ideas from me,so don’t take anything i said as a personal attack…Better clarify that point.

Some have pointed out the disproportionate gain/loss is fundamentally because we lack the population to properly stratify players into distinct leagues.

In order to not inflate the population above a certain rating, they have adjusted the ratio of gain to loss to be so harsh to maintain the percentage of players they want in each league.

The resulting see-saw of ratings, matched with people way out of your tier, one-sided stomps… it’s because there’s probably like only 500 “srs” people playing for a leaderboard of 250.

A friend of mine has gone from 250+ in core and first few seasons, to 200+ and now 110+ on the NA LB, but he tells me it’s not because he’s got significantly better (he’s always been pretty good), but because a lot of people have evaporated off the top.

Matchmaking cannot create balanced matches. It does not happen (i am sitting in games where team is zerging animal, chasing 1 guy somewhere off point etc. while we losing everything, 3 golds vs legends – yeeeeeee balanced matches guizeeee). Alone due to lack of population. So basing rank gains/losses on personal mmr vs avg enemy team MMR is simply stupid, unfair, doesn’t make sense, you name it.

Either make sure that matches are always balanced or fix the rank gain/loss system.

Why should one even queue when you need to win 2-3 games just to make up for 1 loss (it gets worse the more games you play)? This has been going on for 3 seasons now, this is one of the reasons why people quit pvp or exploit the system by tradewinning, queueing at 5am etc.
Rank gain/loss should be based on team mmr vs enemy team mmr because the base (balanced matches) for the current rank gain/loss system simply does NOT exist.

That is what he is saying

you have 9k backstabs. Steal is fine.

True that.

I guess I can have still fun being a bunker butt. I know Anet has been slowly removing passivity, but the amounts of it still in the game is still annoying.

Balance and build diversity are equally important for a game like GW2, otherwise why even bother with builds; might as well be like Overwatch where you select your class and are stuck with your pre-defined kit.

Every class should have one ‘offense’ role, and one ‘defense/support’ role, at least. Now that I look at the patch notes, I think it is kind of happening.

Revenant as a DPS is good, so Anet buffed their support/bunker options.
Reaper is good as a condition/boonrip DPS, so Anet buffed their bruiser ability.

Neither change will make the latter playstyles as viable as the former, but it looks like things are trending in the right direction.

But it is when we see notes with nothing for the engineer, or when we see things like “might stacks on phantasms” for mesmer (seriously wtf…), that I question if the Devs understand where they are going. I guess patience is required, but it’s hard to be patient when your primary builds haven’t changed in well over a year.

Vagrant.7206:

My complaint was more evidence of the apathy. I’m not sure why people aren’t perceiving that.

Because it’s easier to attack a person’s character than disprove the actual evidence presented.

I don’t entirely agree that it has always been stagnant before HoT, though the class did have a plethora of glaring issues (some of which still exist today, like the RNG on Elixir X).

In PvE before HoT it wasn’t as bad, in the sense we went from non-viability for a LONG time to pure grenades → 3kit rifle with the first of the piano rotations → 3-kit power OR 3-kit condi (both were pretty good right before HoT dropped).

PvP we went from non-viability → 100nades → P/S condi → cele rifle → soldier rifle. Far more unique states than since HoT dropped. That was since 2012, so over a period of ~3 years, but most of the above happened in the latter portion of the timeline. The great part was that P/S condi was still definitely decent in PvP, even though soldier rifle was better.

Once HoT dropped, in PvE we have had pure condi and in PvP we have been bunker hammer and nothing else (a period of ~2 years now).

Stagnation has always been a problem in GW2, but for the Engineer class we have been in the longest period of time where our main builds have had little variation, unless we include when GW2 first launched but I find it hard to complain about that part of GW2’s existence because most players didn’t know how what to optimize for any class, really.

Engi turrets were a completely different beast. The problem there was that turrets could not be critically struck or hit by conditions. Overall access to strong AoE skills and sustain was lower, so as an engineer you could pick the tankiest amulet (back then Anet’s PvP philosophy did not prohibit amulets such as Cleric’s, Soldier’s or Sentinel’s) and rely on Rifle CC to lock up enemies. Offensive output and defensive sustain was lower amongst all classes, which didn’t help. The problem was less to do with boon application, though general tankiness was a problem in the sense that those super defensive amulets existed.

Turret engineer wasn’t king, however. It was fairly easily countered by coordination. A turret engineer on one point meant that he could not easily move to another (since turret cooldowns were much higher at the time), making the old “just hold two points” strategy very effective. A turret engineer on one point meant it was 5v4 on the others. If they had 2 turret engineers, you could steam-roll the one that had fewer supporting allies; turret engineer could only hold his own 1v3 against particularly unskilled opponents. Turret engineer also only had the ability to condi-cleanse through healing turret.

Source: me. I played PvP a lot around that time and dominated against turret engineers by not playing to their advantage.

But, I will say that the fact turret engineer COULD exist in that state for as long as it did was stupidity. It was NOT fun to fight against, and that level of area denial shouldn’t be in the game. Not as bad as the Bunker Meta, at least.

Tomiyou.3790:

Engineer is very much wanted in endgame cause +150 condition damage buff.

I disagree, but say you’re right for a moment- what does it say about a class and its capabilities if all it is good for is a +150 buff?

Vagrant.7206:

OriOri.8724:

Still though, the longer they put off a true balance patch, teh more work it will be since they will have more elite specs to balance. It needs to happen before the second expax drops in my opinion.

Honestly, if they did minor balance patches every week or two, they could take much longer to make the big overhaul balance patches.

No, no, that would imply that some level of thought and competence went into planning out the balance for this game.

kitten it.

I really hate the way Anet has balanced the classes. It’s not okay to be pigeon-holed into ONE build.

I really hope the next set of elite specs don’t add more of the same crap.

We don’t even know that they understand what’s wrong with the class.

Hey all,

I’m getting tired of running the standard gyro hammer build in PvP (seriously…it’s been two years and this is still where we are at? It’s quite pathetic).

I feel like whenever I spec enough damage, I lose out on too much survivability. And because condition application and CC is so high, it makes it insanely hard to survive against other popular builds.

Any thoughts?