Recovery Matrix should not have an ICD, no healing trait should for the sake of AMR. It should just not proc on Cleansing Burst or they should make Cleansing Burst automatically activate when the turret is placed.
Decisive Renown shoud be activated when reviving with function gyro and the cooldown should be removed. Might stacking does not fit very well and may as well be removed. Maybe replace the Might with passive additional revive speed (Seriously need some revive speed on this profesion). Or it could cut a few seconds from function gyros cooldown on successful revives.
Am I wrong to think that alchemical tincture and cleansing synergy should work together and heal 2 condis when using them together with Elixir H? I tested it and it only healed 1.
That is very odd, did you test with a friend next to you? Cleansing Synergy cleanse in an AoE. Also, did you make sure both conditions did could be removed by Cleansing Synergy? It can only remove some damaging conditions.
Impact Savant will be fixed by launch to affect dazes as well.
opps, typo, meant to say “now” instead of “not”.
Two misstakes in your calculations:
- Cleansing Burst activated Recovery Matrix durring the beta, so Healing Turret proc 2×5 sec of protection. I do not know if it will continue doing that after release, seems a bit too good to be true.
- MG creates an AoE Daze, not Stun. Both are now affected by Impact Savant for +25% durration.
edit: Typo
(edited by Are.1326)
Is the added survivability on Gyros by method of mechanic or numbers? Also, how snappy are the gyros. If I run forward for swiftness, will stealth gyro manage to follow or do I have to toggle walk again?
This is a suggestion that I made all the way back in 2012, lol.
http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/46766-elixir-x-remake-idea/
Something like this is pretty much what it needs.
RNG is horrible for Competetive play. I’ve seen entire tournaments getting decided on Elixir X becoming Rampage or Tornado. That feels horrible for the winner, the loser and the viewers.
I don’t understand how ANet can think this game will succeed as an E-sport when it’s so heavily based on RNG. Just look at League of legends, since they started to get big they have eliminated RNG by removing evade as a stat and made crit average out based on crit chance instead of beeing pure RNG (if your crit rate is not matching your crit chance, the game will compensate you with crits/non-crits).
Guild Wars 2 is still flooded with RNG, from crit chance to on-proc traits, but Elixir X is truly the worst offender I’ve ever seen in any “competetive” game.
Elixir X (and Elixir U to some degree) are also completly ruining class identity. Whenever I use Elixir X or Toss Elixir U I don’t feel like an Engineer, I feel like I’m playing a modded in class from some fans who could not design their own spell effects or gameplay elements.
13 – Engi Laru
#15chars
Quite honestly, the Function Gyro was pretty inspired considering some of the limitations they have.
I just wished they’d done something interesting with it.
Like, in addition to being summonable on downed foes, we could also summon it on CC’d foes as well. From there, it would have different, stronger abilities based on traits, type of CC, etc.
Having an Function interaction with players would get in the way quite often. It’s already messy with how we pick up turrets.
I think enhancing the existing F functions are fine (revive, stomp, loot, interact with NPCs, channel, pick up bundles, press a button or flip a lever, etc), but they can’t all share the same cooldown. Personally I think they should make the gyro spawn on you and fly to the target, reactivating it while the gyro is alive commands it to your new target, activating it while your gyro is dead summons a new one. No more cooldown.
Personally, I don’t like the idea of a Spec that changes our core skills and traits. Not to forget the mess you end up with when redesigning the traits, juggernaut would not work if you removed the kit side of flamethrower.
Since new Elite specs come with new skills, why not just use them instead. Changing kits would be such a huge change from the core engineer you might as well do it on another proffesion. If it is done just to make the new mechanic look good in comparison, then nobody would pick the elite spec in the first place.
Instead of swapping out every skill on your weapons, just have it change the Auto Attack. No need to change kits and traits or create 17 new weapon skills in addition to the new weapon.
I have also toyed with the idea of getting a form, but I think our class already has a glut of mechanics that swap out our skills. It would be nice to get something shiny that does not do this.
That is the problem, isn’kitten
- A new form/kit-like mechanic adds to many skills to a class that is already flooded by skills. Not to forget that there are no buttons to map it to.
- A passive mechanic would be to good of a buff or to bad to care for, and the forum have voiced their hate for passive gameplay quite often.
- Replacing our current class mechanic (toolbelt) won’t work since many existing utility skills are dependant on their toolbelt (like med-kit, turrets, etc).
- Changing every toolbelt skill would be to much work, especially if we expect that from every new elite spec.
- Adding a resource (like Heat of Fuel) would still require a method of spending it and we still lack any spare keys to active it with. We can’t expect the players to slot utilities for that since the mechanic must be able to stand on it’s own feet without depending on a specific weapon/utility skills.
Also don’t suggest adding an F6 key, we already have way to many keys to take care of. Having a mouse with 6+ buttons should not be a requirement to play engineer.
When I heard that elite specs would change the class mechanic I expected them to hit this design wall at some point, but not at the first batch of elite specs. It kinda breaks any hope for a decent Elite spec in the future.
What surprise me the most is that they went for the Ai with health bar type minion, many games have done minions well but they don’t delve completly into the undependant AI-based minion type.
Lets us look at some examples:
Team Fortress 2 – Engineer’s Turret:
- Imobile (No problems with path finding or walking away)
- Can be picked up and moved freely (Solves the lack of mobility)
- Extreamly simple minded (Makes it predictable by both the engineer and the enemy)
- Strongest attack in the game (Makes up for the lack of intelligence)
- Requires player attention once a while for refuel and repair.
- No hard cooldown limit, instead requires the player to focus on getting it back up (like a channel, except it can be paused).
However, half of the classes in TF2 have methodes to deal with the turrets power, such as:
- Invulnerability.
- Curved attacks that lets you attack from out of sight.
- Longer range, leting them hit the turret from outside it’s sensor range.
- Zappers, the Spy-class have access to a special weapon just to deal with turrets.
- Players can change class at any time durring the game, letting them counter the well placed and long lived turrets.
A lot of the points above don’t fit well with GuildWars 2, so the stationary powerfull permanent turrets don’t work well. But I think there is a lot to learn here.
League of Legends – Azir’s sand soldier
- Short life time, even shorter cooldown that starts right away
- Invulnerable and untargetable
- Imobie
- Can be moved with a medium-long cooldown ability
- No AI, they attack when the player attacks, extending his range and damage.
- Short range
- Scales with player stats
In this case, the minion mechanic is designed around a frontline concept. Your character will use them to zone enemies back and the counterplay is to get around them and get to the player in the back to take him out or attacking from range. Since the minions are limited to only act when the Azir acts, you never feel like you got defeated by an AI, and the player playing Azir have to be active durring the whole fight.
However, this mechanic depend heavily on the slow movement and short range of the game, if players moved as quickly as you do in Guild Wars 2 and had as long range as you can have they would easily counter this character. However, there is still alot to learn here.
For the last example, lets look at something that moves, and have a healthbar.
League of Legends – Annie’s bear Tibbers
- High health, needs tons of focus dmg to take down.
- Deals pulsing dmg passivly in a small AoE.
- AI goes for the enemy you attack.
- AI movement can be overrided by reactivating the ability.
- Cooldown starts on cast.
- The main functionality of the skill is on cast (AoE stund and DMG, much like suply crate)
There are a few important points here, especially the last one. Since the main function is on cast, even if your minion gets bursted down, the skill have done it’s job. It is also important for a movement based AI to let the player override the AI in case it walks off like an idiot. The minion main dmg after summon is a passive short range AoE, this solves the problem of depending on the AI attacking when it should. And since the cooldown starts on cast you don’t feel punished for keeping it alive.
Conclusion
I think the follwoing points should be used when redesigning Minions in Guild Wars 2:
- Cooldown starts on cast. (This is VERY important, if you are punished for keeping your minion alive then playing with minions will feel extreamly unforgiving and lack fun.)
- Main function on cast. (If your minions can die, having them destroyed right away should not completly devalue the skill, they are still victim to normal skill counters like interupts)
- AI override. (If your Minion is dependant on AI, let us override it when it goes wrong)
- Don’t Stack AI (Your Minions should not depend on AI for both movement and attacks, pick one)
- Having Invulnerable minions is possible (There are already Banners and Ventari-Tablets in game, and they work worderfully, just make sure that the minion effect requires input from the player, or is not in heavy need of counterplay, aka support abilities).
Works with some other kits as well, also makes the model visible in first person. I belive the kits that have this bug are Grenade kit, Flamethrower and Elixir Gun.
This could work if the following changes would be made:
- Gyro Cooldown starts when summoned
- Explode Gyro abilities are replaced with ground target abilities that sends the gyro to target location.
- All Gyros do AoE support functions
- Gyros are untargetable/unkillable
This way, the gyros won’t have a problem with their AI sending them off to war, since you control where they move (like ventari tablet, just instant cast). Since the gyros only fill support roles, they don’t need the strong counterplay of getting destroyed that they currently have. Blast gyro and shredder gyros functionality would have to get a sligh change. Blast gyro for instant could move around and give explosive dmg buffs to allies, shredder could fill a movement speed support role.
The way I see it, it is a problem with the traits, almost all the traits are only affecting Hammer/Gyro/Juggernaut/other traits in the scrapper trait line. Notable expections are Recovery Matrix and Adaptive Armor.
So gyros are designed for hammer, and traits are designed for Hammer or Gyros. So if you don’t take hammer you are left with nothing.
Honestly, even then the minor trait would be a bit wasted. You’d have to pick up a bunch of stuns intentionally just for that 25% duration increase, where some of our main strengths are blowouts (launches), knockbacks, and immobilizes.
Ooh ya, I agree without a doubt, just wanted people to be clear about what stuns we have access to if they are going to use that as an argument for change.
To add: Our daze output is even more limited on the base engineer and that is used for Expert Examination:
- Throw Shield (with Static Shield)
- Launch Personal Battering Ram (Personal Battering Ram toolbelt)
- Technobabble (If you play Asura)
- Uppercut (with Rampage)
The only Daze we get with Scrapper is Leap Finisher combo on Hammer #3 / Rifle #5 Exploding Gyros and Spare Capacitor (Shredder Gyro Toolbelt).
The trait seems very good right away with it’s lack of ICD, but it affect to few abilities, thus making it a Hammer/Gyro only trait.
It’s faster than guardian hammer auto attack so I think you should be happy with its speed considering hammer attacks are suppose to be slower. As well as the might upkeep on it as well with the auto attacks, i’d say its in a good place.
Hammer attacks are not “suppose” to by anything specific, no weapons are, Reveant, for example, uses Hammers as a Range weapon.
Instead of compearing it to a different class with a different theme and skill set, we should compear it to other Basic Attacks in the same proffesion. In this case, tool kit already fills a role of slow heavy attacks.
Also, 2 of the other 4 hammer abilities are reactive short durration counters (Hammer #2 and #4), you want to be able to use them reactivly but that is not possible if you get locked into a slow basic attack. Basic attacks should be able to fill the room between abilities, but you can’t time them if the Hammer have suchs a slow aftercast.
This does not matter anymore however, since Huang have already said that he will look into the unintended long aftercast on Hammer.
They really weren’t thinking when they gave engi a trait for +25% stun duration when engi only has access to 2 stuns, hammer 5 and Supply Crate.
You forget Static Shield (Shield #5), Static Shock (A.E.D. toolbelt skill), Electrified Net (Net Turret overcharge) and Throw Boulder (Rampage #4).
I’m not sure how many of this are actually affected by the trait, considering how Expert Examination don’t trigger on Electrified Net . And it is definitely not a good selection of stuns. You can’t take Shield #5 at the same time as Hammer #5, and you can’t take Supply Crate with Elixir X, at best you get 4, and that is if you run Net Turret and A.E.D.
Welp, the synergy with HT & runes of the defender is real. Love that 21sec protection.^^
No seriously, this trait needs a 10sec icd, else we’re actually sitting on perma-protection.
I tried it with runes of the defender, didn’t trigger on the 6th rune.
What if, we add some Funcionality to Function Gyro. Function Gyro uses different ability when you press F on different Target:
- When used on downed ally…
- When used on downed enemy…
- When used on living ally…
- When used on living enemy…
This would be problematic, having a function when targeting other players would get in the way quite often. Just trying to interact with an NPC but ending up with a shield on them, or attempting to pick up a turret but you shielded the enemy you had targeted. It is already difficult to target allies for ressing without hitting enemies/NPCs who are standing on top of them.
There is a reason why ANet have not added any abilities that targets allies.
Does anyone here agree with making rocket charge, the 3 on the hammer, have 3 separate leaps like an auto attack chain but after expending the 3 leaps it goes on a cooldown.
This really would be great in terms of quality of life, with emphasis on life. But I think it need to start leaping in the right direction every time as well. Works great on imobile enemies, but as soon as they start moving, the skill attempts to predicts the landing spot and misses by miles.
- Why hammer auto-attack doesn’t have any particle effets like rest of the melee auto-attacks in Guild Wars 2 ?
Cause its engi.. we always get the worst of the worst visuals. Look at the kits, our legendary effects, even at the REVAMPED kits and so on.. should make it obvios.
Not to forget how many of the new Elite specs gets fancy GUI effects when they use their mechanic while we get a trait-boon.
A lot of the traits feel designed for very specific builds or abilities:
- Impact Savant durration affect to few abilities, seems made for Hammer #5 only.
- Mass Momentum don’t do much without Juggernaut, since the stab from Perfectly Weighted is so short and Stabilization Core is tied to a very specific ability on 30 sec recharge.
- Shocking Speed does nothing unless you run Hammer or Final Salvo and is not worth it without anything Rapid Regeneration.
- Final Salvos Lightning field don’t do much unles syou run Shocking Speed and Rapid Regeneration
- Expert Examination only trigger on a few base Engineer CC abilities. Seems made for Hammer or Final Salvo and nothing else.
It would be nice to see traits that affect base engineer stuff.
Title does not say it all, and never should. Do you want the Juggernaut trait effect to work on ALL kits? That would be madness.
Do you want the Fire Shield from Streamlined kits to be given to all the kits on kit swap instead of the other abilities that breaks stealth or puts you in combat?
Do you want to invent a new Aura and forgot to say what it is?
You say “shininess”… OOOH you mean the Juggernaut Legendary weapon effect. Ya get in line, The Predator and Quip have lost almost all their effects, even when they have the weapon out.
- Expert Examination don’t trigget on Net Turret.
- Detection Pulse does not reveal NPCs in veredant brink
- Gyros have a tendancy to attack enemies when they don’t have attack abilities.
- Function Gyro sometimes lives on after resing someone, making it wander around aimlesly.
- Hammer #3 leap don’t trigger on fields you jump out of (tested with Streamlined Kit Mortar field followed by Hammer #3 out of it).
Function Gyro does not have priority over talking to NPCs. This is a big problem with having our class mechanic on the F key >.<
You are mistaken, the other gyros tend to do this too.
Surprise Shot has no cast time, and with its lower cooldown you can dish out the same amount of DPS.
You can also combine the rifle turret for an extra interrupt / blast finisher (which also triggers a static discharge, meaning rifle turret gives you two of them).
By far the instant cast time, you can cast it while channeling other spells. It is very significant.
Generally this is true, but the build we talk about don’t go explosives so the interupt won’t be there. With Expert Examination triggering of Launch Personal Battering Ram I think its benefits outweight Suprice Shot in this specific build. You get a launch on short cooldown in the utility slot and a daze + weakness + 5x vulnerability + cripple + superiour dmg on the toolbelt. With the CC found on Hammer ( #5 followed by #3) you get all the time you need to chain up both the launch and the daze.
Also, the shorter cooldown on Suprice Shot does not outweight the extra dmg on Launch Personal Batterig Ram. Tested them side by side on the same enemy. LPBR critted for 3819 while Suprice shot critted for 2497.
(edited by Are.1326)
Here is my SD roaming build for reference> http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vdAQFASnUUBtdhlcB2UBEqilKjietr77WcZCgwb8DigGA-T1RBABXp8DPdAYq+DP7PAwFA4hHAgZKBJFQELjA-w
I must be missing something… Why are you running mass momentum without any stability? I’d replace Rifle turret with Personal battering Ram and take Expert Examination, the 2 sec extra CD on the toolbelt is worth the daze, cripple, vuln and weakness. It also deals more dmg than suprice shot, not to forget that Rilfe turret does les than Personal Battering Ram if you don’t have Inventions or Explosives.
I would also replace Shocking Speed with Recovery Matrix since RM triggers on Healing turret overcharge (10 sec protection on a 15 sec heal is madnes and I love it).
Since you now have 2 gadgets on your bar, you might want to consider Gadgeteer over Adrenal Implant since you already get Vigor from toolbelt skills.
It still worked for runes after the spec patch, havn’t tested it since.
Hammer #5 needs to not be interupted if you turn away from it’s location.
It is a very small range gap, you need to be above the normal res range but closer than 750 units. The downed ally also have to be safe so your function gyro don’t die instantly, but also in truble so that there are any reason to use it. You need to click them to use it so they can’t be covered in other players, npcs or enemies.
I don’t think that kinda of situation exists, but if you ever find it, make sure you scream it out in all caps because nobody will notice that you just saved them with your amazing class mechanic.
ya, just toggle on walk and then explore. It’s like exploring with my grandma.
Hammer AA is a bit on the slow side, tool kit already fills this role. #2 and #4 feels like the activate a bit slot (unresponsive), might just be the lag. Wosh #3 was a skill cycle so we don’t jump off ledges all the time.
Detection Pulse does not reveal NPCs in veredant brink
NetTurret does not trigger Expert Examination.
As previously mentioned, not being able to exit is used to balance the skill. That said, Self-Regulating defenses should definitely have an exit.
So maybe the exit could have a consequence? Like losing a chunk or all of your endurance. Would work for both the trait and the skill.
Self Self-Regulating defenses is definitely the main reason why I want a breakout method.
While I’d be happy with some consequence for breaking out, I’m not entierly convinced that a breakout method would break the skills balance. That said, it is one of the more commonly used skills besides kits and I’d much prefeared it if ANet had a look at other abilities like Elixir R (I really do miss that stundbreaker), Personal Battering Ram or Turrets.
Going back onto OPs initial suggestion, that is something necromancers have been asking for since the dawn of time and would be nice to see across all proffesions.
The functionality of medpacks worked fine pre spec patch but their effects was lackluster. Now their functionality is unintuitive but their effect is quite good.
OPs suggestion is far from bad, but while it might be effective, it is kinda simple and boring. If I wanted to play simple and boring I would play Warrior. Engineers are about doing their job in a complicated way and takeing advantage of that.
The idea of Medpacks have been done really well in many other games. Making a base or storage of medpacks that allies can go to if they need them is very interesting and sets engineers apart from other classes. It’s currently one big problem for that play style: Medpacks should last longer than 12 sec. There is no reason to create a semi-permanent gameobject in the world if it’s just going to disappear shortly after.
Instead of the 12 sec durration, I’d like to see 5 min like traps and turrets, but a cap of 10 medpacks out at any given time (includes Bunker Down packs or Med Pack Drop). Going over the cap removes the oldest medpack. This way, we tap into the engineer aspect of preparation and creation that is also seen with turrets.
Don’t forget the legendary effects on SD or Aim-assisted Rockets. It was removed with the Rifle Range patch.
If you find this happening often enough, you should not be using Elixir S.
I don’t run Elixir S in any casual builds because of this, the change would incentivise me to do it.
In more compentetive PvP builds however, I run it almost out of necessity. The stealth from Elixir S and the Invuln from the drink is just really good for stomping or surviving. However, I often acidently press Elixir S after using Rifle #4 and that tends to completly ruin the combo.
Sure you can say “learn to play” or “engi is not for you” as tradition on this forum board. I’m just stating a suggestion that would make me happy for taking Elixir S as it is a pretty big requirement for surviving in this burst heavy PvP meta, and I had no intention of offending anyone with it.
It would be nice if they the added weapon swap key while in Elixir S to break out of it. Sometimes I just want to break stund to get back into action quickly.
Thank you Huang, every bit of dev commentary here goes a long way to keep up moral. It is much appreciated .
we are getting them when theyre done >.>
do you exect them to push a new build every day? thats annoying to us and a waste of resources for them. especially the “wvw is shutting down for a sec in 10 mins” message.
There are no way all the bug fixes from last patch was done between this patch and the one before that. We have had tons of patches since last balance patch, but it seems like they keept the bug fixes back so they could add them instead of actual balance changes to the balance update.
I’ve seen this been posted here before, and it have one problem: Your med blast only hits allies, not yourself, so you would not be able to benefit from the skills effect. Ofcourse, they could change it to effect yourself as well, I just like to point it out. Also, if they do, the blasts channel should be shorter.
Other than that, personally I like the idea of Medpacks, it feelt like an unique method of healing/support that have it’s own downsides and upsides. It’s just that the execution is les than optimal. Ground targeting only gets in the way since you run as fast as they move through the air. Different cast times on the medpacks makes them inconsistent and, when combined with ground targeting, have a tendancy to make you run past the medpacks landing spot before they land. There is also the problem with target count, making them very selfish.
Can we please get bug fixes when they are done and not have to wait for a balance patch? The last balance patch gave us 90% bug fixes while other classes got actual balance changes. And then many of the “bug fixes” didn’t even work.
The engineer is now so flooded by bugs that if we only get bug fixes durring balance patches, we will never see proper balance changes.
I did a test on this after the spec patch, recorded both samples in 60 fps and analyzed them frame by frame. They do in fact not stack.
I made a thread about this shortly after, suggesting alternatives to stacking if having 100% endurance regen is considered to strong.
Alternatives can be giving an additional boon or effect when giving yourself or allies vigor, or have a new passive effect while you have vigor.
For example, Adrenal Implant can also read: Granting vigor also removes Weakness.
Or: Successfully evading while under the effect of vigor consume the vigor and creates a AoE dmg effect. (only active while in combat and not stealthed).
Well i hope they re-set the banks atleast…but then again why would they whipe the beta chars only? You can do that yourself without any issues. Seems weird to me :\
Corrupted data. I don’t have the original source of that info, it was just said on reddit, so I don’t know if it was corrupted character data or account data. I’m sure they want you to be able to continue leveling your masteries, so if they could save that data, they would.
given that they deleted the past beta chars its most likely a given they re-set the banks too
This might not be the case, they said you would be able to continue leveling your masteries, but that was before the wipe. It might just have been the characters that was wiped, or it might have been the whole cloned account.
I agree with Kodama, Chaiths idea is great from a visual standpoint, but it does not have that much play around it (and it is not easy to add play to something without input keys).
Kodamas suggestion at least adds a gameplay where we want to move into different combo fields for different effects, it also add a secondary function to existing combo fields, letting us think differently about core engineer abilities or allies combo fields.
Another idea I’ve posted somewhere around here is that the visual gyro that floats around us while F-gyro is on cooldown casts our toolbelt skills for us. Not like an AI that decides when to cast them, but instead having it’s own skill queue and when we activate a toolbelt skill it goes into the gyros skill queue instead of our own. Effectivly letting us cast toolbelt skills while we dodge/leap/smash/channel/res/stomp etc. Also, if the engineer is hit by CC, the gyro is interupted, meaning that enemies can interupt two abilities at the same time.
Pros:
- Visual non-targetable gyro is what everyone wants.
- New interesting rotations available.
- Complex mechanic in style of Engineers
- It is directly related to our toolbelt.
Cons:
- Very difficult to program a seperate skill queue.
- Many toolbelt abilities would need special treatment (like Rocket kick) to fit the gyro.
I don’t think this trait is worthy of it’s grandmaster slot, should probably be moved down to master to replace the heal on blast one. At least that have the potential be a cornerstone of a dedicated healer build. As it stands, both MDF and Bunker down fills very similar roles, and I think bunker down does it better.
Woah bruh, I like Soothing Detonation. Could use a slight buff but giving allies might and healing them is amazing :<
Well, by moving MDF down, there is an open spot in grandmaster for soothing detonation. Would just need a buff so it does something (kinda like med blast).
I don’t think this trait is worthy of it’s grandmaster slot, should probably be moved down to master to replace the heal on blast one. At least that have the potential be a cornerstone of a dedicated healer build. As it stands, both MDF and Bunker down fills very similar roles, and I think bunker down does it better.