Guild Wars 2

Xyonon.3987:

The V.8759:

Yup that too. MDF will become worth it when:

• increased radius
• heals allies for the ammount you should have healed (it would still work when at 100% health)
• trigger off Backpack regen

Also SD should indeed be buffed radius too, and IMO also better hp scaling (about 0,5 at least)

those are some great ideas, especially the backpack one!

It seems V was not checking my reply to his post about MDF in the other threat.
MDF currently does proc from backpack regen & all other passive heals.
It’s simply bugged to not show up in the combat log properly.

Welp, some tweaks to core engi I personally would love to try out:

- [medical dispersion field] should spreading healing even if we’re on 100% health, and doing so on a 480 range to match the Healing turret range.

- [Juggernaut] should apply its might-stacks every 0.5 seconds and have their base duration devided by 6. Less camping in FT would be welcome. The stability-ticks should remain as is, else it would be too powerful against frequently incomming cc’s.

- [Chemical rounds] should also make pistol shots piercing & make them count as explosion.

- [Iron blooded] should also decrease incoming condi-dmg or receive another defensive effect. It is currenty not worth a grandmaster slot

- switch [stimulant supplier] out for [elixir infused bombs]. EIB now procs on all explosions, but grenades only receive 1/3rd of the healing per grenade. Combined with my suggestion for chemical rounds, this could make pistol/shield into a decent weapon-set for support builds.

- increase the dmg-modifier on [shaped charge]. It is weaker then the minor trait & there are potential build options that apply vulnerability but don’t utilize explosions at all. F.e. Flamethrower + [Heavy Armor Exploit]. Also, please increase the vulnerability duration of HAE to 5 seconds, so it gets in line with [Steel-packed Powder]

- Allow [Adrenal Implant] to stack with vigor. Currently its inability to do so either ridicules the grandmaster or the minor trait in tools. If you have special reasons for not letting it stack with vigor, change the minor trait to directly grant endurance, instead of (usually pointless) vigor stacks.

- Allow [Gadgeteer] to also build charges when evading or blocking attacks. Or better, remove the charge-building mechanic all together & allow [gadgeteer] to grant us overcharged gadgets permanently as long as we run the trait.

That’s it for the core spec.
The scrapper traits & mainhand weapons looks awesome so far, but the class-mechanic & utilities feel like the opposite of a strudy frontline bruiser.

please apply the following changes to all gyros, including the one on the F-key:
- Make them immune to dmg & most condis
- Still allow them to be hard-cc’d / blinded / feared / crippled / chilled / weakened
- let their cd’s start when they spawn
- increase the sneak-gyros cd to 60 sec / keep the sneakgyro damageable (else it would be too powerfull
- give all gyros a 2nd utility skill to blow them up (some were apparently missing it in the stream)

This is a Beta-weekend.
I guess no one would be angry if some of my suggestions would be overpowered, since we’re merely testing them for 2-3 days. Just implement them for a short time so we have a chance to test these in practice & if they turn out to be game-breaking or promote a unwanted play-style for some reason, this stuff could still get rolled back again.

we have a saying in germany about this:
“Probieren geht über studieren.”
roughly translated:
“Trying out is better than studying”
… And german engineering is known for being some of the best in the world.

edit:
forgot one of my notes
- Change [streamlined kits] to only proc their old kit-refinement effects in combat. Out of combat it only should grant the swiftness. This would be a much appreciated QoL change.

edit 2:
- Devide the burning duration of FT AA by 10 & apply it to each tick of Flamejet. Please make use of the engines ability to calculate fractions of seconds of condi-ticks. The recent dmg-buff is very welcome, but this is already the hardest hitting AA we have in terms of power-scaling, but other AA’s are better because they apply vulnerability / weakness / bleed / cripple & do so in a frequent manner.
Having to cast a 2.57sec long skill (cast + aftercast) in order to receive nothing but 1-2 stacks of bleeding, 2 seconds of a single stack of burning & maybe 2-3 vulnerability stacks + swiftness from H.A.E. is simply not worth it.
Appart from splitting up the burning stacks, FT could either
a) directly apply vulnerability with each tick. You know, cooking a opponents armor definitively has some negative impact on its performance.
b) or have a 50% chance to blind targets. Wearing the Inventor’s Sunglasses negates the effect.
c) or have a 20% chance to fear targets for 1 second. I’d run from a flamethrower, just saying…
d) or have a 33% chance to rip boons. Doesn’t really makes sense to have regen tick on you while standing in a river of fire…

give the AA something special & worthwhile to cast it. We spend 2.57 seconds on it, so it would be kinda nice to see this time investment to pay off.

Yes, since t is now in line with every other leap in the game (that is not bugged).
So now you’ll actually be able to leap out of enemy frost fields with it

Ofc I miss the days of superspeed rocketboots, but I definitively see the advantages of these changes as well. Less stuff to mess with the expected outcome of your used cd’s…

to make the FT worthwhile, they simply should fix all the time gating.

I posted this idea ages ago, but here it is again:

- Shorten the might stacks from juggernaut to 1/6th of their length
- Let Juggernaut might stacks tick every 0.5 seconds
This allows us to swap into FT, build might & burst with the next attack. I don’t want to camp in FT too long, and if I decide to camp, I don’t want to get punished for switching out. (Just FYI if you miss one might tick currently, its downtime lingers around for the next full duration, so from 15-30sec, depending on your boon duration)
I guess the stability stack-duration & tick should remain the same, especially since they will interact with Mass Momentum in the future. Also getting half a second of stab every half a second would be way too OP against enemies that try to strip or break our stab to stunlock us.

Then please fix the burning. We tick dmg 10 times in a single cast, so split the burning duration at the end by 10 & apply these short burning stacks (0.2sec each) to every single dmg-tick. In total we’d still do the same dmg, but now apply it way more directly.
You already updated your engine to take fractions of a second into account when calculating the dmg from conditions, so this would be the perfect occasion to show it off.
And if we spec into burning duration, we could stack the burning up and maintain it faster & more directly. Yes, this would make clearing it consistently almost impossible, but keep in mind that even with condi-duration, it still wouldn’t be able to stack beyond 2-3 stacks during a cast & wear off faster than we could initiate the next one. So we’re not speaking about a OP amount of dmg-increase, but a very hefty dmg-appliance buff

Then there is the 10% dmg modifier on burning targets. It could be removed & put on top of Flamejet directly, or stay there so we feel the punishment of attacking NPC’s that are immune to burning. But for PvP or WvW there are hardly any scenarios where it would matter anymore.

From nightmare calculations we’ve seen that the AA – base dmg is already the most powerful AA we have. No need to fix that. The things that have always held it behind were the requirement to consistently camp the FT for its full effectiveness. If Juggernaut & the AA would shorten the needed time it takes to ramp them up, switching into FT could become way more worthwhile & spawn more engis who’re not just using it for the fancy look.

On that regard you also could 1up the dmg tick on Napalm, maybe by 100% (it is really miniscule, even on full zerker gear), allow smoke vent to spawn a blind-ticking smokefield, and update Air blast to a) clear all stacks of burning on allied targets and b) to apply 1 stack of burning for 2 sec on enemy targets.
Most of the above are just QoL, but Airblast b) will become kinda important since your burn on the target will usually tick out before you can cast airblast, destroying the synergy between them.

backpack regenerator’s combat log was always bugged, so it is not displayed properly.

it applies a hidden buff that lasts & refreshes itself every 10sec once a kit got equipped, so it actually keeps ticking when you swap out of a kit for the rest of this time.
Its heal does not get logged properly, so it’s invisible & only can be seen working by the green numbers ticking on your character.

the trait itself works, it’s just the logging part that is bugged.
also MDF is working as intended with it.

Adamantium.3682:

To my understanding MDF only works with your heal skill, not any healing you apply. That pretty much kicks it back to the curb if true.

It works with all heals, even backpack regenerator.
The problem is, you get healed for 0 when on full health, and the trait is only checking for what you have healed yourself. Hence you spread 0 of your ticking heals most of the time.

To make this trait worthwhile, they shouldn’t check for how much we did heal ourselves, but for how much we could have healed ourselves (after taking poison / monk runes / similar stuff into consideration). Then we would actually spread 20% of all our heals, and that is quite a lot.

There was a datamined change to the options menu, where you could set your AoE’s to always snap under the targets position.

And even tho it sounds kittened for the slow mortar projectiles (and other aoe’s in the game), it’s something interesting for nades at least.

People suspect this to be part of HoT, but as with all datamined stuff, don’t take it for granted.

From a WvW perpective, revealed works exactly as intended.
If there is no engi around, mesmers / thiefs can keep a whole zerg busy by consistently teleporting away & re-stealthing.
It is one task to fend off the enemy zerg, but a complete other to ensure that they don’t port back in the blink of an eye.

Now that I can reveal them, at least one part of the cancer is gone, but especially in thiefs’ case we speak about the class with the single highest mobility in the game.

I don’t see a reason why we should nerf revealed. it’s meant to be punishing towards stealth-abusers & it definitively eased the field in WvW. I still don’t consider it leveled, since it’s still the thief who has full control over how the fight ends. If he decides to be a idiot & attack me, even tho he’s revealed, I kill him. If he’s smart enough to SB#5 into safe distance to disengage, I’m the one who has to run after him while may or may not already goes for the next objectives.

As long as thiefs are able to consistently deny me full control over how the fight ends, I’m totally fine with denying them access to stealth.

If it weren’t for the fact that thiefs have access to frequent teleports & already more evades than all other classes, I could understand the complaint about reveal being too punishing, but as it is, it looks totally fine, if not even underpowered. I’d like more classes to gain access to reveal.

Also, about these skills being useless on warri or other stealth-less classes:
Lock on casts analyze on the target & analyze itself applies 10 stacks of vulnerability. Playing a s/d burst build, 10% more dmg on the target is nice to have, also it’s an insta-cast, procing s/d-projectiles.
And the aoe-reveal will mostly be useful for zerging, to rip stealth from the enmy after they veiled. I don’t see me roaming with this gyro. Welp, I will try it out, but I do suspect it to be more a toy than a proper tool outside of zerging.

dulfy says it’s increased by 20%, so in total it will be 32% (or just 1/3rd straight).

Great news, definitively.
It’s diminished by the fact that it only procs on our own heals, but as long as that includes our waterfield blasts, we’ll be fine I guess.

Edit:
Also, dat HT scaling.
Seems like A’net decided that they want to crank up group-healing on engi in general.
Get your settlers / cleric gear ready, folks. For those who love supporter roles, great times are coming for you.

Complicated question, since a class-mechanic usually is something very unique.

Also, A-net seems to like the way of adding transformations in case a class-mechanic is too rigid to mess around with, like warri adrenaline or ranger pets.
Then again, ranger has to use F5 for transforming & warri just F2. We already have a standart F5 skill & would be the first one to receive yet another button to press. You know, user-friendliness is a big consideration when designing UI stuff.

In case of the thief A-net decided to mess with a basic function. They now have a 3rd dodge. This is a function that does not require any additional user input to be used, since it just increases the ranger of options you already have with your current keymap.

Now the theme of the scraper is to be a tanky bruiser, able to take blows that would knock others off their feet, while also dishing out huge loads of CC. Additionally they come with with a general electric theme & buff superspeed for the group.

So I guess these are the 2 aspects we should look into. Survivability & CC. And the style of implementation should have something to do with electricity.

My idea would be this: Give us Charge

Charge basically is a blue energy-bar, placed above our endurance bar, similar to the [celestial avatar]-bar of ranger. It contains a numeric value of 100, so ranges from 0 – 100. You can build 1 point of Charge by hitting a target or getting hit. So hitting 3 targets gives you 3 at once. & standing in the middle of a enemy zerg will build it up very fast as well.
The Charge bar has 4 thresholds, which trigger effects that build up on each other.

At 25 Charge a internal shield generator gets activated, so incoming direct & condi-dmg gets reduced by 5%. Also we get 1 stack of stability for 10sec

At 50 Charge the shield generator receives more energy, reducing direct & condi dmg by s total of 10%. Also we get 2 stacks of stability for 10sec & swiftness for 20sec

At 75 Charge the dmg-reduction goes up to 15%. Also we get 3 stacks of stability for 10sec & swiftness for 20sec. Additionally we start to pulse 3s superspeed & 3s protection for the group every 3sec.

At 100 Charge the dmg reduction goes up to 20%, we again get 4 stacks of stability for 10sec & swiftness for 20sec. We still pulse 3s superspeed & 3s protection for the group every 3sec.
Finally, once we reach 100% we get a buff that lasts for 3 seconds. While we have it, a bright energy-animation is displayed around us. After the buff runs out we release a huge EMP that deals medium dmg & dazes the nearest 5 targets in a 1.2k range for 2 seconds. The animation looks like a huge sphere of lightning bolts expanding from us. After that our Charge goes back to 0 and is we can build it again.

I guess this class-mechanic would be great support for a frontliner, fit well with the scrappers theme & is implemented in a way that does not mess with any of our key-functions.

Who cares about rangers anyways…
The hypetrain came to halt when they revealed engi, so now I’m waiting either for release, the next BWE, and/or more detailed blogposts about guild-halls / raids.

Rage Cube.4573:

It would be great if this did get a change because of hammer 3 providing 3 leap finishers in a short time.

And the trait it would proc has a 10sec ICD…

Here, have your fuel system:

- Gyros are immune to any dmg.
- Gyros only can be cc’d
- Their cd’s start right when they’re summoned (so 15sec duration with a 30sec cd == 15sec downtime == 50% uptime)
- The gyros healthbar degrades automatically over time, working as visible “fuelbar”.
- Once it reaches zero or gets blown up, on-death effects will be triggered.

We can see their fuel status.
Enemies can see their fuel status.
CD’s & uptime can be adjusted freely for balance.

Something that just struck my mind:
We even miss a gyro.

While all other classes had traditionally access to 5 ability-types with 4 utility-skills each, we were the only class to have 4 ability-types with 5 utilities each.
Was it simply forgotten, or a deliberate decision to break with our overall design concept at this point?

From todays life-stream I’ve gathered some notes, containing feedback & concerns. I want to share them with you so you can add your thoughts as well. Please keep it civil & constructive.

First of, what did I like:
- Hammer #3 being a evade. I’m happy to see that scrapper profited from the communities’ concerns about revenants’ relentless assault. In general the hammer looks promising & in a solid spot.

- The traits turned out to be well balanced, & even tho some ICD’s spoil the fun here & there, they’re not too long & are necessary for balancing reasons. The overall synergy with our other traitlines is a welcomed bonus, allowing for multiple, very interesting build options.

- The fact that we now have a option for perma-stealth, without the negatives of it being exploitative, since the gyro itself will always give our general position away. Still it’s awesome for many situations.

And now my Concerns:
- Hammer skill #4 & #5 are on very high cd’s. Please consider reducing them a bit, since there is no trait for it & each kit we have to include for suplementing our cd’s reduces the amount of gyros we can pick. Keep in mind that traditionally low cd’s on our mainhand weapons are one half of compensating us for a missing weapon-swap.

- The gyros movement seems to be very wacky and not to be responsive to our movement at all. Especially the heal & elite gyro seem to have troubles catching up to us at all times, so please either reduce their reaction-time, or increase their AOE-range.

- The gyros’ HP are simply not sufficient. They can suffer from condis, can be crited & have no way of healing up. The most straight forward suggestion I can come up with is to make them invincible & understand that their limited uptime is all the counterplay / balancing they need. I can see that the elite gyro would be a exception of the rule, since it can be up 100% of the time, so keeping it damageable would be totally acceptable. Also bulwark could be balanced easily by reducing its uptime accordingly.
Please, if they keep being damageable, they will melt in WvW right instantly.
At least consider making them immune to crits & condis. That still would leave them useless for WvW frontlining but at least giving them niche-use in PvP. As it is, they will only be picked for their toolbelts or their on-death effects.

We know all traits’s names & general function. We have no idea what numbers they actually apply & where hidden icd’s are.
We know only 2 gyros & what they do. We still don’t know whether or not they get damaged / how their AI actually behaves.
We know only the 3 last hammer-skills, all of which we have no idea about their cd’s, nor the power-scaling on them. 2 skills, 1 of which is the AA. We don’t even know if it is a chain & what it will do.
And we also have no idea how our f-key gyros will behave exactly. Can they get damaged or interrupted?

So until all this is revealed (5h39min remaining), it would be wise to shut the kitten up & stop forecasting doomsday.

wait roughly 11 hours & we’ll know.

Awesome idea, and it would not even be the first skill of this kind in the game.
Tornado also auto-casts his stance, depending on which you’ve chosen, so the technology to implement this should be there.

Give it a little tweaking on the direct heal output from medblaster & this very well becomes a awesome solution.

Since the medblaster is hitting 5 times, Sprays could be:

#2: clears 1 dmg-condi & applies regen per tick / On activation: heal 500 + clears 2 dmg-condis & applies regen on self / 5sec cd

#3: applies fury & clears 1 debilitating condi per tick / On activation: heal 900 + applies fury & clears 2 debilitating condis on self / 10sec cd

#4: applies swiftness & clears 1 movement-impairing condi per tick / On activation: heal 900 + applies swiftness & clears 3 movement-impairing condis on self / 10sec cd

#5: applies resistance & clears 1 condi per tick / On activation: heal 1500 + applies resistance & clears 3 condis on self / 20sec cd

This would be a lot of condi-clear, but comes with only medium direct heal. I guess that would be in good balance to our other heal options.

We shall sing the song of our people.

I had a DOWN WITH THE TOILET SEATS-thread once.
Some Moderator deleted it ;_;

>You’ve lost track on what this was about.
You thinking condi-dmg got reduced, which it is not…

>You are putting words in my mouth. That’s actually very rude.
…Does he say & then posts the following:

>And it doesn’t change the fact that you were unaware of the difference in base damage.
In fact I was citing this as argument for your ridiculous claim of condis getting weaker. So it seems you were unaware of how the changes work instead of me. Irony…

>Pre patch no engie could deliver multiple STACKS of burning. You didn’t know that?
Never even mentioned any of the sorts. Besides, pre-patch burning was not a stacking condition at all. It puzzles me how you come to the conclusion that I would not know this. I mean, where is such a implication found? Do you hallucinate?

>Anyway, this discussion was in relation to engie nades and celestial amulet not condition damage as a whole.
Then better state that before claiming that condi dmg in general [since not specified otherwise] got scaled down. Just for your information: The current meta isn’t running cele either. It’s running marauder or soldier. And if it were available in PvP, it would run sinister or dire.

>Damage from nades were reduced because condition damage got scaled back and NONE OF THE CONDITIONS from nades ever got stacked.
Lol, bleeding did not stack pre-patch!? Burn also wasn’t even a condi applied by nades either.And the sources it got applied formerly from all got properly reworked. You’ve even posted the new formulas yourself, so go ahead and do the effort to compare them with the old formulas. Their base-dmg got reduced, yes. We all know that. But their scaling with condi-power got increased, causing way higher dmg output with x>=700 condi-power. Nades are still very much a hybrid weapon. An even stronger one than pre-patch. Guess why sinister engis are currently the single highest PvE-dps build in the game.
And also ask yourself why they weren’t before the patch. Funfact: you’ll find out on that way that our burn application is actually quite awesome, dismantling another initial complain from this thread.

You are even agreeing with us, without recognizing it, because you decided midway into the discussion that your arguments only apply to the outdated cele nade meta. Guess you should have informed us, cause now you just appear as rude newbie.

Chorazin.4107:

So overall they got a lot more powerful.

^^^^this^^^^

I like how this abc guy is agreeing on condis getting more powerful without recognizing it…

Welp, our unique group buff turns out to be superspeed.
Other classes can apply it rarely to themselves, but I guess we’ll be the masters of group-buffing with it.
Move on, scrap.

DevilLordLaser.8619:

Tyaen.5148:

First, yes I’m fine with the state of Engineer in PvE. When Anet forces me into that game mode, which is too often, I’ve never felt the class was lacking.

Second, I’m not an sPvP player, I primarily WvW. They are completely separate game modes (that is not an opinion, but a statement of fact). If you believe differently don’t reply. This Elite adds something that this class has lacked in WvW and sorely needs. Pending actually seeing it in action, iI am very excited.

Didn’t ask if you were fine with the state of Engineer in PvE. I asked if you were okay with PvE Engineer players not getting an elite spec. […]

Appart from that being a biased & too early call:
Yea, I don’t give a cat about fractals or dungeons, & when it comes to raids, we maybe become very happy to turn out this tanky.
Also I wouldn’t be surprised if the hammer turns out to have way better burst & power scaling than rifle, so you at least can get “something”.

It’s pretty simple:
We were never in the PvE meta but always did fine in all its aspects. actually were are in such a comfortable spot that playing engi is more fun for many than playing the classes that are actually in the meta.

So, our fellow PvE-only players are simply upset that it doesn’t look like this specialization will bring us to the top, while trying to argue the unpleasant fact away that we are indeed in a solid position in all PvE content-aspects.

What we were severely lacking in is the needed survivability to keep up with the heavy AoE/CC-spam that awaits you in Zerging. And this is actually a real issue, since our class is designed to become more & more effective the closer our target are. Best examples are Flamethrower & Bombkit.
So in WvW we were actually suffering from playstyle-breaking incapabilities, which are now addressed & fixed with this specialization. Even if gyros turn out to melt in AoE dmg & therefore are completely useless, we still get a decent load of survivability-focused traits & utility that is not dependend on the lifespan of gyros.
This specialization fixed something we were lacking: frontline survivability. And for a class that is designed to be more effective the closer the enemy is, this is great news.

So yea, PvE got kinda left out by this specialization, but then again, we already had a pretty solid spot there.
So quit the whining & enjoy your class becoming more complete. Maybe the next specialization will come with uber-DPS for you.

what do you want a ballista targeting at?
You, or this gyro?
Same for most other target skills without AoE.

Even if this thing follows me everywhere & gives away my general position, it’s devastating for mesmers or rangers attack pattern.

There seems to be a breach in the containment perimeter…

No idea, depends on what the other gyros do.
You already mave -1 slot for FT, so running HgH requires you to bring at least 1or 2 elixirs… not much space for gyros left then.
And depending on their Toolbelts, you maybe even want to run tools.

Kodama.6453:

Arantheal.7396:

Bindaeyen.9613:

Arantheal.7396:

Bindaeyen.9613:

Arantheal.7396:

Calcifire.1864:

as someone who doesn’t PvP or WvW, I’m underwhelmed as hell.

the big profession mechanic is utterly useless in PvE unless there is someone dying nearby, and the elite is purely a PvP ability considering how insanely situational stealth is in PvE for non-thieves.

consider that for the elite mechanic revenants get a new legend, necros get a new death shroud, mesmers get to save-scum, the ability to rez/finish someone at range is so situational outside of PvP that unless HoT adds a LOT of finishable enemies like the toxic alliance, it may as well not exist.

We have no idea on the hammer cd’s & power-scaling so you may want to wait before calling it useless.
Also, do you remember the toxic alliance? I wouldn’t be surprised if you meet a lot of mordrem in the future that need to be stomped

They’re talking about the stealth elite and the function gyro being near useless, not the entire spec. I’m not sure about the elite, but the gyro is certainly near pointless in PvE from what we understand of it. It makes almost zero difference in open world.

Not to mention that they MENTIONED Toxic Alliance in their post. Assuming there’ll be a bunch of mobs to finish off is wishful thinking at best considering they seem to have ran away from that mechanic in PvE. Was there even any in the beta yet? Maybe that mounted boss from the story…? I don’t recall running into a single one.

It’s a heavily PvP skewed mechanic change, moreso than any other class’ and that’s extremely disappointing.

Opinions.
I for example find it extremely satisfying.

No, not opinions. In half of the game it’s use is minimal.

>Half
>PvE
Welp, in the other 2/3rds it’s extremely awesome.

Extremely awesome. Well, it seems like the functional gyroscope is destroyable. If so and it is dying as fast as our turrets, it won’t be able to deliver just a single stomp. ^^

Jupp, that’s the last concern I have. If they tell me they’re indestructible, but interruptable I’m a happy engi.

Bindaeyen.9613:

Arantheal.7396:

Bindaeyen.9613:

Arantheal.7396:

Calcifire.1864:

as someone who doesn’t PvP or WvW, I’m underwhelmed as hell.

the big profession mechanic is utterly useless in PvE unless there is someone dying nearby, and the elite is purely a PvP ability considering how insanely situational stealth is in PvE for non-thieves.

consider that for the elite mechanic revenants get a new legend, necros get a new death shroud, mesmers get to save-scum, the ability to rez/finish someone at range is so situational outside of PvP that unless HoT adds a LOT of finishable enemies like the toxic alliance, it may as well not exist.

We have no idea on the hammer cd’s & power-scaling so you may want to wait before calling it useless.
Also, do you remember the toxic alliance? I wouldn’t be surprised if you meet a lot of mordrem in the future that need to be stomped

They’re talking about the stealth elite and the function gyro being near useless, not the entire spec. I’m not sure about the elite, but the gyro is certainly near pointless in PvE from what we understand of it. It makes almost zero difference in open world.

Not to mention that they MENTIONED Toxic Alliance in their post. Assuming there’ll be a bunch of mobs to finish off is wishful thinking at best considering they seem to have ran away from that mechanic in PvE. Was there even any in the beta yet? Maybe that mounted boss from the story…? I don’t recall running into a single one.

It’s a heavily PvP skewed mechanic change, moreso than any other class’ and that’s extremely disappointing.

Opinions.
I for example find it extremely satisfying.

No, not opinions. In half of the game it’s use is minimal.

>Half
>PvE
Welp, in the other 2/3rds it’s extremely awesome.

Bindaeyen.9613:

Arantheal.7396:

Calcifire.1864:

as someone who doesn’t PvP or WvW, I’m underwhelmed as hell.

the big profession mechanic is utterly useless in PvE unless there is someone dying nearby, and the elite is purely a PvP ability considering how insanely situational stealth is in PvE for non-thieves.

consider that for the elite mechanic revenants get a new legend, necros get a new death shroud, mesmers get to save-scum, the ability to rez/finish someone at range is so situational outside of PvP that unless HoT adds a LOT of finishable enemies like the toxic alliance, it may as well not exist.

We have no idea on the hammer cd’s & power-scaling so you may want to wait before calling it useless.
Also, do you remember the toxic alliance? I wouldn’t be surprised if you meet a lot of mordrem in the future that need to be stomped

They’re talking about the stealth elite and the function gyro being near useless, not the entire spec. I’m not sure about the elite, but the gyro is certainly near pointless in PvE from what we understand of it. It makes almost zero difference in open world.

Not to mention that they MENTIONED Toxic Alliance in their post. Assuming there’ll be a bunch of mobs to finish off is wishful thinking at best considering they seem to have ran away from that mechanic in PvE. Was there even any in the beta yet? Maybe that mounted boss from the story…? I don’t recall running into a single one.

It’s a heavily PvP skewed mechanic change, moreso than any other class’ and that’s extremely disappointing.

Opinions.
I for example find it extremely satisfying.

Adaptiv Armor also could potentially deliver a solution for the retal-problem. Really depends on retal being counted as condi dmg or not. In any case, it’s a nice bunker trait.

Calcifire.1864:

as someone who doesn’t PvP or WvW, I’m underwhelmed as hell.

the big profession mechanic is utterly useless in PvE unless there is someone dying nearby, and the elite is purely a PvP ability considering how insanely situational stealth is in PvE for non-thieves.

consider that for the elite mechanic revenants get a new legend, necros get a new death shroud, mesmers get to save-scum, the ability to rez/finish someone at range is so situational outside of PvP that unless HoT adds a LOT of finishable enemies like the toxic alliance, it may as well not exist.

We have no idea on the hammer cd’s & power-scaling so you may want to wait before calling it useless.
Also, do you remember the toxic alliance? I wouldn’t be surprised if you meet a lot of mordrem in the future that need to be stomped

Welp, pulsing stealth & so much superspeed sure as hell sounds awesome.
I can definitively see us finding a solid spot in zerging, if not even replacing mesmers. Really depends on how useful chronomancer will turn out. Commanders are definitively good advised to bring both.

Mass momentum has one hell of a awesome synergy with juggernaut. Depending on its placement in the trait tree it also comes with decent synergy towards stabilization core. Depending on the amount of might it keeps up, this could turn FT into one hell of a awesome kit for PvP.

What I love is the ability to rally / down people remotely, preventing us from getting cleaved down in the process.

No idea if we have enough access to stab tho. really depends on what they mean by “activated”, how long that cd is, how much stacks we get.

The theory looks okay, but if gyros have a passive phase, in which they can be killed, they will just turn out as lightning-field/superspeed spam at best.

How about people keep using the ones they prefer?
Your browser will surely display all of them.

Pimsley.3681:

Arantheal.7396:

no idea what these 4 builds might be, but how about you tweak them & try out other stat-combos than just cele.

It’s kinda hard to tweak a grandmaster trait that no longer exist. I loved how we could invest points in all 5 trait lines back then. But that goes for all classes not just engies.

My engies used 3 amulets pre-patch, not just celestial.

And isn’t there anything that sounds fun to play?
If the answer to that is really no, it might be time to reroll… or hope for the next balance patch, which should come 1 or 2 months after HoT releases.

abc.5790:

Arantheal.7396:

Vapour.7348:

OP, the answer is yes, they hear us BUT with deaf ears.

You see, unlike elementalists, engies are under-represented in all 3 game modes. So if a popular class complains about us, rest assured we will get man handled until we are a threat no more.

Then there are idiots on this subforum that start threads about how engies are doing fine just fine.

It’s mind numbing how inconsistent our traits and utilities are. One example is the flame thrower. WTF is that a condi utility or direct damage? It cant be both because Anet made sure that the celestial amulet is out of reach for us.

You know, stuff like that…..

June patch scaled back ALL condition damage so in order to be effective, your condi skills and traits needed stacks. Eles got burning stacks, guards have burning stacks. Engies? Nope. Nades became a power based utility and the conditions it applied did not receive stack bonuses.

Then they put incendiary powder out of reach as a grandmaster trait under firearms. Meanwhile eles get high burn stacks with low cooldowns, a free cleanse that also applies 3 stacks of burning AND elemental attunement baseline.

You know, cow manure like that….

coz before the patch, cele rifle engies OWNED elementalist.

Another build that OWNED elementalists pre patch were celestial shoutbow warriors….

Edit: Im referring to engies in spvp

WTF is this post oO

First of all, popularity doesn’t determine how fast/slow a class gets buffed/nerfed. Ranger & Thief are perfect examples for this.

2: Why do you feel the need to insult everybody? Can’t you contain your teen-angst somehow else? Besides, depending on your preferred play-style, the class very well may appear totally fine or utterly broken to you.

3: FT is neither. On condi builds you additionally pick it for its belt ability, beyond that it’s just cc + frequent blasts + savestomps.

4: With the June patch conditions got scalled UP dramatically. Have you even checked the numbers before/after? Also we have one of the single fastest burn application, covered by the single most accessible condis in any class, further covered by a metric cat-ton of cc. If you can’t see it, it doesn’t mean it’s not there. Especially when it comes to nades which only had a nerf on their #5 skill. All other nades are the same & even more dangerous now thx to bigger impact range, faster projectiles & the new shrapnel grandmaster. Actually nades of all our kits are extremely powerful when played as condi. And here’s why everybody is playing them as power now:

5: ICP did not get put out of reach, it actually sits atop a traitline that most builds currently run, especially condi builds. Why? because of the increased bleed-duration, bleeds on crits & 40% crit chance for free. The reason why we play them as power is that we don’t need precision anymore. Firearms comes with so much crit chance that we can happily run full-tank soldiers gear while still hitting like a truck.

6: If you really believe that pre-patch cele ele got owned by these builds, you’re not playing the same game as us. If all, they were stalling each other.

Please consider getting a few thousand hours playtime more, before ever attempting to call someone idiot again.

Lol I’m a friendly guy and you two go on ahead with your interesting argument but from my experience in-game, Vapour is a competent engie and plays like someone who knows what he’s talking about. I suggest you add him and team up like I did.

I’m also going to point out that pre-patch, celestial rifle 2 kit engineer could easily beat celestial d/d elementalist of similar skill level.

June patch scaled back all of the base condition damage. Not UP like you said. That is incorrect. What went up are the number of stacks that made conditions more powerful. But the base conditions were scaled back.

You sound like you play condi builds yet you seem unaware of the difference one stack of burning did pre patch relative to one stack of burning now

It doesn’t matter how often you two repeat it, the dmg from conditions got scaled up massively with condi dmg.

What seems to confuse both of you is how this change got introduced:
The formula for calculating condi dmg got completely overhauled, very much diminishing the returns from them if you don’t run condi power, or very low amounts of it (like cele, which has low amounts of all stats). So you are actually right up until this point.
What you forget is that condis start to tick harder & harder with rising condition power, until meeting the old condi-power scaling at roughly 700 condi dmg, where it starts to generate much more dmg per condi-power than the old condi-dmg formula did. And on top of that they also removed the stack-cap.

Source:
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/combat-changes-dotsanddashes/
“Essentially, conditions are too effective right now without investing points into the condition-damage stat. We will significantly lower the base damage on damaging conditions while increasing how much they scale with the condition-damage stat. This means at lower levels of condition damage you can expect to do less damage than you currently do, while at higher values you’ll do even more damage than you are currently able to. The formulas are still being adjusted, but to give you an idea, the break-even point before you start doing more damage is around 700 condition damage.”

So yes, condi nades are still hitting like a truck. the only reason why only few people run it in PvP at the moment is because there are only 2 sets of main-condi gear in PvP, both of which only come with 1 defensive stat. If we had access to dire, I doubt you’d see much soldier-nade builds around anymore.

Please read up on the changes before posting, instead of trusting in the sayings of some random guy who seems to play his class well. Chance are he still doesn’t know jackkitten about it. Also, thanks for your suggestion of teaming up with your pall, but i rather decline, tyvm.

no idea what these 4 builds might be, but how about you tweak them & try out other stat-combos than just cele.

Vapour.7348:

OP, the answer is yes, they hear us BUT with deaf ears.

You see, unlike elementalists, engies are under-represented in all 3 game modes. So if a popular class complains about us, rest assured we will get man handled until we are a threat no more.

Then there are idiots on this subforum that start threads about how engies are doing fine just fine.

It’s mind numbing how inconsistent our traits and utilities are. One example is the flame thrower. WTF is that a condi utility or direct damage? It cant be both because Anet made sure that the celestial amulet is out of reach for us.

You know, stuff like that…..

June patch scaled back ALL condition damage so in order to be effective, your condi skills and traits needed stacks. Eles got burning stacks, guards have burning stacks. Engies? Nope. Nades became a power based utility and the conditions it applied did not receive stack bonuses.

Then they put incendiary powder out of reach as a grandmaster trait under firearms. Meanwhile eles get high burn stacks with low cooldowns, a free cleanse that also applies 3 stacks of burning AND elemental attunement baseline.

You know, cow manure like that….

coz before the patch, cele rifle engies OWNED elementalist.

Another build that OWNED elementalists pre patch were celestial shoutbow warriors….

Edit: Im referring to engies in spvp

WTF is this post oO

First of all, popularity doesn’t determine how fast/slow a class gets buffed/nerfed. Ranger & Thief are perfect examples for this.

2: Why do you feel the need to insult everybody? Can’t you contain your teen-angst somehow else? Besides, depending on your preferred play-style, the class very well may appear totally fine or utterly broken to you.

3: FT is neither. On condi builds you additionally pick it for its belt ability, beyond that it’s just cc + frequent blasts + savestomps.

4: With the June patch conditions got scalled UP dramatically. Have you even checked the numbers before/after? Also we have one of the single fastest burn application, covered by the single most accessible condis in any class, further covered by a metric cat-ton of cc. If you can’t see it, it doesn’t mean it’s not there. Especially when it comes to nades which only had a nerf on their #5 skill. All other nades are the same & even more dangerous now thx to bigger impact range, faster projectiles & the new shrapnel grandmaster. Actually nades of all our kits are extremely powerful when played as condi. And here’s why everybody is playing them as power now:

5: ICP did not get put out of reach, it actually sits atop a traitline that most builds currently run, especially condi builds. Why? because of the increased bleed-duration, bleeds on crits & 40% crit chance for free. The reason why we play them as power is that we don’t need precision anymore. Firearms comes with so much crit chance that we can happily run full-tank soldiers gear while still hitting like a truck.

6: If you really believe that pre-patch cele ele got owned by these builds, you’re not playing the same game as us. If all, they were stalling each other.

Please consider getting a few thousand hours playtime more, before ever attempting to call someone idiot again.

paladinecho.3024:

I’m only grinding for gold at the moment to see how this all plays out. So far I’ve collected a good amount for the time. If they can’t deliver on talking to us or giving us things we ask for that are not really game breaking, then I’m out. I tire of a one sided conversation with ANET.

Don’t trip on your way out.

For the others, it seems they changed something about magnet. At least players are pulled diagonally down from a wall to me now, rather than moving on a strict horizontal plane to fall down on me eventually.
So far I could not test it appropriately in open field, so you could some please do that & confirm or debunk my observation? Also no idea if that fixes their every-so-often bugged pulls.
Ty.

Nemesis.6938:

By the way do i see right that there are TWO new hammer skins in the pics?

There are 2 different skins, but one of them is old… I believe it’s one of the WvW skins that you can buy for badges.

Actually the title only says this:

We’re still recruiting.
Send me a ingame letter if you’re interested in joining & playing on RoS.

Foefaller.1082:

Arantheal.7396:

Foefaller.1082:

I know the MMORPG article compared them to spirit weapons, but after thinking about how they were explained, the concept I get in my head is closer to mesmer clones.

Like, you use the Purge Gyro, it floats around for a while cleansing conditions, and it disappears. Perhaps one of the damage Gyros flys out to an area/target, does a few attacks, and then disappears. IMO the reason why Mesmer clones have worked fairly well, whereas turrets, spirit weapons, minions and pets have had a constant struggle of reiteration, is that clones are by their nature much more disposable than other forms of AI skills and mechanics, making it a lot easier to find that balance of sturdy enough to not be worthless, but not so sturdy that players develop an unhealthy reliance to them.

I’m hoping that Gyros have a One-and-done nature to their effects that does not rely on having to survive any more than 4-5 seconds in order for the skill to be worthwhile.

True, completely forgot about mesmer clones in my post.
So I guess this game has 2 examples of viable AI. Both which profit from short life-span & on-death effects. I wonder why…

Well, you did mention phantasms, which in my mind is part of “Mesmer Clones” but considering you obviously speak from WvW experience, I can see how that might be a very different (and undesirable) form of player AI in your view.

Unholy Pillager.3791:

That’s also why the healing turret actually works; you drop it, overcharge, then either explode or pick up.

Which honestly, has always been something that’s really bugged me, I wish Healing Turret had something that made keeping it up desirable, even if drop-> detonate is still the common tactic, but until they figure out a way to do it that doesn’t involving nerfing, I’m content with Healing Turret being used in the way it is now.

Back, when turrets got their AI fixed & everybody was playing around with them, I liked to keep them out as additional AoE-cap protection & for their vigor. In settlers gear is was very profitable to run turrets, but since they suffer from condis & crits themselves, there is no point in leaving them out.
If others destroy them you don’t get a blast-finisher, nor the cd-reduction. And since vigor does not stack with adrenal implant, arguments for their up-keeping are not only sitting on a very thin branch anymore, but are completely pointless now.

ScribeTheMad.7614:

Sounds like Mjolnir, and subsequently charged lodestones are going to get a nasty spike in price >.<

I crafted my juggernaut already & farm CoE on a daily basis…
My purse is smiling.

Adamantium.3682:

It’s not for me, but I’m glad a lot of Engis who like it can use it now.

I got an Aetherized Hammer months ago hoping Engis could use hammer someday. I’m eager to see new legendaries also but I would be surprised if any hammer is better than that!

I’d say scientific hammer, mecha-anchor & peacekeeper Hammer look better. Yes, getting the aetherized hammer is a huge prestige-bonus, but more because of its price than it’s animation.

Juggernaut…
Welp, I crafted it, and on my warri I could test how its effect looks with the scientific outfit. The effects on coats will surely look awesome, but no idea if the hammer-animations will be edited to leave quicksilver all over the place.

Foefaller.1082:

I know the MMORPG article compared them to spirit weapons, but after thinking about how they were explained, the concept I get in my head is closer to mesmer clones.

Like, you use the Purge Gyro, it floats around for a while cleansing conditions, and it disappears. Perhaps one of the damage Gyros flys out to an area/target, does a few attacks, and then disappears. IMO the reason why Mesmer clones have worked fairly well, whereas turrets, spirit weapons, minions and pets have had a constant struggle of reiteration, is that clones are by their nature much more disposable than other forms of AI skills and mechanics, making it a lot easier to find that balance of sturdy enough to not be worthless, but not so sturdy that players develop an unhealthy reliance to them.

I’m hoping that Gyros have a One-and-done nature to their effects that does not rely on having to survive any more than 4-5 seconds in order for the skill to be worthwhile.

True, completely forgot about mesmer clones in my post.
So I guess this game has 2 examples of viable AI. Both which profit from short life-span & on-death effects. I wonder why…

Kilbourne.6987:

The concern here is that ANet has been unable to make a balanced AI spec in the history of this game. I don’t know that they’re capable of it, or that it can be done in GW2.

I don’t know if you or others know that ArenaNet has been working with Dave Mark on the expansion. If you don’t know who he is, he literally wrote the book on MMO AI. He is helping them have better AI for Guild Wars 2.

Here is the video from GDC 2015 where they talk about AI in gaming and how they are working to make it better in Guild Wars 2.

Link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OiFdlYY-GFA

Yes, they are improving their AI.

And now please explain how this has anything to with preventing AI with a healthbar from getting blasted by a metric cat-ton of AoE. You know, the stuff you’re expected to meet in WvW (and maybe soon in PvE raids).

Do you understand why WoW had to introduce a 90% dmg reduction from AoE for Hunter pets & shaman totems?
Do you understand why builds focused around turret-upkeep are dead?

It doesn’t matter how awesome, viable or fun gyros will be. If they can be damaged, they are already useless. That is why you won’t find any spirit-rangers, minion-masters, spirit-weapon-guardians, turreteers or phantasm-mesmers in WvW zerging.

If it can take damage and is not controlled by WASD, it’s useless!

Drop’n’pop is the only valid way to use turrets, which are the only AI in the game that sees frequent use from their parent class. And that is so only because they can be used in a viable fashion that reduces their uptime to virtually zero.

So IF gyros come with a healthbar, A-net better gives us detonator-skills as toolbelt, which work as blast-finisher & overcharges which can be fired off instantly.
… They better flag them as turrets right away, so they also profit from accelerant-packed turrets.

It is very clear now that our new utility type will be partly AI based so they can “seek out & aid allies” as well as “[with superspeed] deliver their payload really fast”.
Also it was said that they will remain close to your character most of the time, so it indeed seems that they have a passive & active stage.

Please, for the love of god, make them invulnerable to dmg while being in their passive phase A-net, else you automatically disqualify this new utility-type to be used in WvW-zerging.

I have no idea what their effects are & I have no idea if they will even become a viable alternative to kits or elixirs, but if they can be destroyed while doing nothing but performing their passive effect, you gifted us with a stillborn utility-type long before you even had to balance their effects.

EdwinLi.1284:

from what was datamined […]

Source?