Guild Wars 2

I did a mock specialization grid that incorporates my suggestions:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1DQV1ohFOqlhOZ4cxM2nTQTU_M1zS41xA86sf5gHSofY/edit?pli=1#gid=0

On a traited Cele shout warrior in PvP this thing clocks in at 8773 healing per 16s, and benefits from Rune of the Soldier. That’s 548 group HPS alone, vs. Healing Signet’s selfish 394.

Plus, you cranked the normal 600 shout radius to 1200. On the other hand, it can’t have a cast time because other shouts are instant. I see it’s kept in line with other shouts when it serves your preferences. :P

This needs to be beaten to a pulp by the nerf bat. It’s too easy, and puts up 6.9 times as many green numbers up as Healing Signet in a 5v5, and has other utility too. Try to aim for some diversity, seeing as Shouts are the most competitive in one game mode already.

Taking into account that Rune of the Soldier and Vigorous Shouts & Lung Capacity are gonna be taken, I think the numbers should be closer to:

“Victory Is Mine!” | Activation Time: 1/2s | Recharge Time: 25s
“Heal yourself. Gain adrenaline for each condition on nearby foes.”
Heal: 4,200 (1.50)
Adrenaline: 1
Number of Targets: 5
Range: 600

With 638 Healing and the proper traits, it’s still a godly upgrade from Healing Signet to Shout Warriors. Healing Signet passive is getting nerfed btw. You will have the same self survivability as current Healing Signet, and gain a huge amount of support from thin air, where there was none present before. I bet if Anet used this idea they wouldn’t even make it as good as my suggestion, yours is just a herald of the apocalypse haha. All good though, I have a feeling they won’t change Healing Surge as much as some may hope, anyways.

People don’t realize how huge a buff it is to be in the shouts category and benefit from all those traits..

Luku.6542:

I mainly play pvp so is related to this more so than pve. I understand the need for the “nerf” to the turret engineer, but this has now completely messed up the healing turret which for me was the main form of healing.

The turret now often dies before you have a chance to gain anything from it and in most cases dies before it can be detonated, which makes this “nerf” even worse. Why does healing turret have to be part of this nerf? its not OP, not part of a problem? but now it is very hard to use and makes the survivability very bad.

drop the turret on any form of aoe and it dies pretty much as you lay it down and usually before you even have the chance to detonate for the water field heal. These are often the times you need to heal the most and you don’t have time to run 200 mtrs over to the other side of the map to avoid the aoe just so you can drop the turret and get a successful heal.

large and multiple aoe fields with massive condition damage just make this worse, especially when fighting over a capture point

i’m hoping they will fix this, but any suggestions what direction i should go in the mean time? as i’ve now gone from being able to survive a bit of a fight, to dying very quickly….

thx

Well, actually Healing Turret is OP. Try using Med kit, A.E.D, Elixir H, and examine how your sustain changes. Lol.

Maybe a little health boost could be in order, if it’s dying within .5 seconds.

Try dodging away and using it immediately after, should help.

The frontline engine builds, like 2/0/4/4/4 with soldier’s gear, using bombs and slick shoes, I feel I could out heal with basic regeneration. Haha. Does that make them Slick Shoe bots instead of banner bots?

I can’t wait for engineers Elite specialization. I don’t blob v blob, but it would seem a lot less silly to me doing that with a hammer.

Deniara Devious.3948:

Some of the trait suggestions by Chaith are cool and I hope the developers take a look at them.

I seriously disagree with the grenade kit changes though. I play mostly WvWvW and there maps and meta is completely different from the small clumped spvp maps, which are all about capping and holding nodes.

Increasing the projectile speed + radius just promotes less skillful “spam everything” type of play, making it more difficult for enemies to avoid them.

The range reduction from 1500 to 900 has massive negative implications for WvWvW.
The current meta is the pirate ship, meaning lots of staff elementalist, necromancers and guardians. Ele staff #1 can already hit further away than grenade kit. I know it’s listed range is mere 1200, but I have tested with a guild mate and under some circumstances it can reliably hit further than the fully traited grenades. Ranger LB with eagle eyes trait hits around 1950 range at even ground and even further away from uphill position.

If engineer needs to get in 900 range to use grenades against enemy pirate ship he is utter toast. Several enemy necros, elementalists and rangers will focus fire him. In small scale it is difficult to hit solo enemy players who are mobile from over 900 range with the grenade kit as the grenades travel so slowly. Yet the engineer needs a long range attack, which works with hybrid builds (celestial, power or condi builds). This has multiple uses from clearing enemy siege (staff eles and necros do this much better though), pressuring enemies who attack your tower/keep, pressuring enemy zerg from far etc.

Retaliation has already been serious risk of using grenade kit against enemy zerg as single use of grenade barrage can lead to over 7k retaliation damage back. Since retaliation is very common in WvWvW (simple guardian hammer #1 auto chain + hammer #2 spam), we have no need to further punish grenade kit users in WvWvW. Engis have never been meta in WvWvW.

I urge the developers to retain the range of the grenade kit, even if means the use of an additional trait. Those who don’t need this extra range, don’t need to take the trait. Problem solved.

I think that enabling other avenues for Engineers to rise from garbo-tier in competitive WvW is in order! Engineer is not really a backline profession just because of Nades.

It’s my vision that Engineer could front line with either Flamethrower & retaliation defense, as per my suggestion, or bombs. Toss in some un-limited target abilities such as the Glue fields in my suggestions, and that’s a pretty good start. I’m not a WvW expert, but squishy nade builds seem incompatible with the goals of WvW.

Camping Mortar seems like it could be a potentially very strong WvW option, depending on the balance. Maybe it could single-handedly enable back-lining to make sense.

Manuhell.2759:

I can’t agree with that optimistic view on grenades.
Sure, now the third grenade is baseline. But as far as balancing goes, we were already balanced upon the traited kit – so it isn’t like we’re getting a buff, they just normalized the situation.
Add to that the poison grenade nerf and the range one, and it doesn’t end up that well.
I understand that they needed to find a way to make mortar more important, but still, that’s harsh.
Sure, the new grenadier trait, by making radius bigger and their travel time faster, may improve our accuracy on mid-range (cause that’s all there is, now). And the improved shrapnel can raise damage and keep enemies far. Also, we still have the good old vulnerability.
But on the other hand, we risk being exactly in the same situation as before – either you fully trait it, or it isn’t worth to take at all.
Guess we’ll have to wait for further informations (especially about the mortar).

Trait-less Nades were undeniably buffed. 85% of the grenades that I land are <900. I’ll take that increased radius and velocity. Post patch, I’ll probably still use Nades in PvP on a Cele build, even if the Meta doesn’t include Explosives. At least I’d seriously consider it. Nades with Firearms instead of Explosives would be no joke, assuming there was a reason to not take both Explosives and Firearms.

RabbitUp.8294:

Chaith.8256:

• Bunker Down has been reworked and added to Inventions as a Grandmaster. Procs ‘Drop Bandage’ on crit, with a 2s ICD. Seeing as these bandages heal for 1000 base and scale at 50% of healing power each, that would enable the Engineer to drop enough deuces to heal an army with a Celestial or support build that could crit enough!

Where did you get these numbers from?

The way the trait was presented in the stream, it’s supposed to retain its original functionality and deploy mines, too, but maybe it wasn’t clear or I misunderstood.

This is my interpretation based on what they said.

Literally a copy of bunker down, but with the exception of instead, dropping a bandage. We already know what bandages do.

They could modify anything, and this trait looks borderline OP for small engagements, so we’ll see.

Just talking about the baseline 3rd nade. Going from 2 to 3 grenades is in fact a 50% change.

Yes, everyone likes Inventions so far. Alchemy and tools have many brand new traits yet to be revealed, so that might be even better than inventions!

robertul.3679:

Movement speed stacking didn’t work because it’s hard capped at 33%. So you can’t really go over that maximum but certain things like super speed help you a lot especially since they counter cripple and chill. Also not really relevant but superspeed affects movement skills much more than swiftness. It’s pretty crazy actually.
If somehow robo-legs would be like superspeed that would be an extremely huge buff so I doubt it will occur.

I firmly believe Robo Legs will provide a real speed increase over the 33% cap. With a name and delivery such as that, it has to be. LOL. It could be a 2% increase though, who knows.

Nilix.2170:

Chaith.8256:

robertul.3679:

Since having speedy kits will require 6 into tools(because of stupid design reasons) the only real choice for mobility would be the new power shoes in firearms, especially with incendiary/napalm stuff there too.
Except power wrench, static discharge and speedy kits the tools line is pretty horrible.
Why go into tools when the new inventions has fancy sustain stuff that probably benefit more than 50% vigor uptime and slightly higher speed.
Alchemy is probably still a valid choice because it offers backpack regenerator and protection injection.

Med Kit provides out of combat Swiftness, and the Swiftness and Vuln on Crit trait in Firearms can stack up pretty well, especially with the right runes.

All is not lost, it just might result in a slight meta change.

There are ways, but for WvW and open world PvE I suspect that Tools will pretty much be a must-have. Traveller Runes are always a possibility.

Sure, it’s a shock to Engineers, but there is life without Speedy Kits.

I’m looking forward to using BOTH honestly. I don’t know how many people remember the old “Superior Runes of Speed”. They were supposed to give you +7% bonus movement speed in swiftness. ie Swiftness at 40% bonus speed rather than 33%. They never worked for some reason or another though and I had a full set of them really early in the game back when 1 gold was about 400 gems each but it was a waste. Here’s to hoping it’ll be functional this time around!

Hah, yes, Robo Legs promises that larger-than-swiftness walking swag, should be interesting to see in action.

robertul.3679:

Since having speedy kits will require 6 into tools(because of stupid design reasons) the only real choice for mobility would be the new power shoes in firearms, especially with incendiary/napalm stuff there too.
Except power wrench, static discharge and speedy kits the tools line is pretty horrible.
Why go into tools when the new inventions has fancy sustain stuff that probably benefit more than 50% vigor uptime and slightly higher speed.
Alchemy is probably still a valid choice because it offers backpack regenerator and protection injection.

Med Kit provides out of combat Swiftness, and the Swiftness and Vuln on Crit trait in Firearms can stack up pretty well, especially with the right runes.

All is not lost, it just might result in a slight meta change.

There are ways, but for WvW and open world PvE I suspect that Tools will pretty much be a must-have. Traveller Runes are always a possibility.

Sure, it’s a shock to Engineers, but there is life without Speedy Kits.

insanemaniac.2456:

Chaith.8256:

insanemaniac.2456:

a few things i thought about while thinking about your thinking:

• esports rocket — dont make up another stupid proc like panic strike and chill of death ok. theyre lame, because you cant dodge them,

It’s the ability from Rocket Turret, slow and arcing, not 0 travel time and completely unavoidable.

as an example, how does a player know when to use a reflect if a jump shot + esports rocket is inc, but slightly offset so 1 dodge isnt enough? how do you decide? do you cast the reflect and take the jump? do you dodge out of the jump and take the rocket?

free damage with no cast time is dumb, even if its delayed. just give us better damage/utility on something with a cast time instead. at least then its always clear what one needs to do to counterplay.

Specify that it can’t fire inside of 600 range, and I think that would fix the problem if it insta-flattening someone.

insanemaniac.2456:

a few things i thought about while thinking about your thinking:

• esports rocket — dont make up another stupid proc like panic strike and chill of death ok. theyre lame, because you cant dodge them,

It’s the ability from Rocket Turret, slow and arcing, not 0 travel time and completely unavoidable.

insanemaniac.2456:

• tools gm suggestion. idk man, static shock has a 3/4s cast time for a 1s single target stun. something has to change about that. but the idea is interesting.

In my pipe dream, it’s applied directly to the target, on hit, if it’s within 600 range, when you’re poppin’ A.E.D or Utility Goggles. No cast time.

The actual ability Static Shock is trash, I agree. It’s aftercast and cast time equal that of the stun.

Nilix.2170:

OLD JUGGERNAUT RETURNS. Welcome back, Engi stability.

I’m expecting, or rather “hoping” for, a rework of “Kit Refinement” again. Abilities on a Global Cooldown and Sustained Swiftness don’t like to work together.

I’m interested in Inventions and how effective it’ll be in terms of passive sustaining while applying streams of blasts. I want to work on a base of:

Rifle – [Med Kit|Heal Turret] – Bomb Kit
Explosives: Short Fuse
Inventions: Heal Skill Blasts/Blasts Heal

Yes @ Kit Refinement.

The fun was sucked dry, in the remake of it.

Remove the ability to activate out of combat, and individual global CDs per kit, please.

Drath.4750:

I would love to see more gadget synergy. The way I would go is make gadgeteer stay grandmaster and do 20% cooldown reduction, give a few seconds of resistance, and give another boon based on gadget (same as current gadgeteer boons). Then add a master trait that does something like blast finishers reduce the cooldown on your gadgets by 5%.

Another idea would be to make static discharge apply to gadgets and toolbelt skills.

A.E.D. could also use some serious work. Even when used perfectly, assuming you take fatal damage every 40 seconds and have all 4 conditions cleansed, you still get more healing and condi removal by just overcharging healing turret on cooldown. Then the fact that if you mistime the A.E.D. you are screwed. It’s horrible in any sustain situation since it’s a liability to use early and has such a long cooldown. I think the reward for timing it right should be bigger, such as giving stacks of stability, fury, and might if you take fatal damage, or maybe refreshing all toolbelt skills. This way burst builds can use it when they get pinned down and turn a fight, but sustain builds would still want the turret and hopefully support/bunker builds will want the med kit.

Yep! A.E.D, it’s very poor sustain. I think trying to make it compete in the sustain department with Healing Turret is a losing battle.

My hope for Gadgets are that they find a place in bursty, man mode, daring builds. Unfortunately, the Boons from Gadgeteer don’t fit in, or synergize with that at all.

If A.E.D was tweaked so that the effect lasted longer, and would ‘defy death’ until the effect expired, I feel that’d be a unique advantage. That way, the glassy Engineer would have a few invaluable seconds of (virtual) endure pain to get things done, under focus-fire, before retreating. If the Engineer was exceptionally dangerous when A.E.D was active, that’d give it a spot in my casual build.

Adding resistance to Gadgets on use could be a way to achieve that goal as well. Refreshing Toolbelt abilities is a great idea, too, but that already happens around the same time you use A.E.D from Initial Converter. A.E.D would still be laughable, and Thieves/Mesmers would still take you to school.

I hope in the xPac people will give Berserker Engi some respect! Haha.

My answers to the TO BE DECIDED, and other suggestions!

Explosives Adept: Rocket Belt Thingy.

• Esports Rocket: (Name pending.) Fire an Explosive Rocket after a foe when striking them below the health threshhold and greater than 600 range. Health Threshold: 50%. ((Player, Veteran or stronger.)) 20s ICD. This ability would function similarly to Rocket Turret’s overcharge ability, except dependent on the user’s stats. It’s the Esports Rocket! This trait should provide a well telegraphed stand-alone choice for a non-grenade user.

Explosives Adept: TBD.

• Lethal After-effect: Bombs inflict one second of poison per pulse. Conditions inflicted by Bombs have their duration increased by 33%. This trait will create a way for condition Engineers to recover from the loss of Condition Duration now detached from explosives, and actually replace Grenades as a the main damage kit. Competes with Grenadier.

Firearms Adept: New Pistol Trait, Condition Focus.

• Potent Coagulants: Reduced recharge on Pistol skills by 20%. Foes entering Glue attacks are inflicted with Slow (4s). Foes may only be affected once. This trait will strengthen Pistol offhand’s Glue Shot utility, as well as promote synergy between Glue Bomb, Glue Trail, and Condition builds, especially in larger fights.

Firearms Adept: Crit Chance <600.

• This trait is relatively forgettable. This would be much better served as a Flamethrower trait, which has extremely little backing so far. Fireforged Trigger: Gain might on a critical hit with Flamethrower for 2 seconds. Reduced recharge on Flamethrower skills by 20%. This would further create synergy between Flamethrower and Might stacking builds.

Inventions Master: TBD.

• Cloaking Device: You become invisible when immobilized. 25s ICD. Deliver a Static Shock to nearby foes when exiting stealth, stunning them and dealing damage. 180 Radius. Similar to the A.E.D Toolbelt ability. This would provide a necessary stand-alone, selfish, defensive trait, that has less build requirements to function.

Alchemy Minor: TBD.

• Fortified Catalyst: Take 1% less damage for every boon present. Duration of boons you apply increased by 15%. Reclaim some Boon Duration that was severed from the traitline previously.

Alchemy Adept: Elixir Gun Trait, TBD.

• Powerful Disinfectants: Reduced recharge on Elixir Gun skills by 20%. Removing a condition with Elixir Gun will grant one second of protection and restore 15 Endurance to nearby allies. (240 Radius). Elixir Gun functions extremely well in solo encounters, but is often too vulnerable to properly use the support abilities as intended.

Alchemy Master: Med Kit, TBD.

• Med Kit is in the midst of a rework, and the abilities are still undetermined. I’ll wait until the ability is revealed to suggest a trait improving the Med Kit.

Alchemy Master: Self Regulating Defenses.

• This trait is really underpowered in PvP, it wasn’t a popular Adept, and now it is a Master. Instead, Intravenous Drip: Reduce the casting time of drinking and tossing Elixirs by a 1/2 second. This will greatly increase the finesse in which Elixir builds operate.

Alchemy Grandmaster: Automated Response.

• This trait somehow missed the pruning. It’s a trait that’s either cheese, or useless, just anti-fun for everyone. I suggest that it be totally replaced, but remain as stand-alone grandmaster for non-elixir users. Acidic Coating: When you gain vigor, gain a stack of Acidic Coating, causing the next attack against you to blind nearby foes in a 180 radius. Acidic Coating lasts for 10 seconds, and stacks up to 3 times. Can only activate once per second.

Alchemy Grandmaster: TBD.

• Disintigrating Weaponry: Reduced cast time of the Flamethrower and Elixir Gun cone attacks by 50%. Retaliation damage taken is reduced by 66% while Flamethrower or Elixir Gun is equipped. This has high synergy with the Firearms Adept I proposed that grants 2 seconds of Might per crit.

Tools Master: TBD.

• Gadgeteer. Reduced recharge of Gadgets by 20%. After a gadget is used, gain Utility Goggles for 3 Seconds.

Tools Grandmaster: Gadget Trait.

• Electromagnetic Matrix. A.E.D now lasts 8 seconds. Your attacks cause Static Shock to foes while you are under the effect of a Gadget if they are within 600 range. Each foe may only be affected by Electromagnetic Matrix every two seconds. Static Shock stuns for 1 second and does damage (A.E.D Toolbelt ability.) This turns A.E.D, Slick Shoes, and especially Utility Goggles into windows in which to put out serious pressure. Synergizes with the proposed Master Gadget trait, by allowing all other Gadgets to activate this trait for 3 seconds.

Tools Grandmaster: TBD.

• Fancypants Name. Successfully landing a Toolbelt ability that targets enemies will remove one condition. Competes with Cleaning Formula 409.

Alchemy:

• There’s nothing new to talk about. So far it’s a copy of live, except a few things are switched around, one most notably is that Cleaning Formula 409 has migrated away from Alchemy and into Tools, to nerf the Inventions/Alchemy synergy. There are 4 TBD traits

Tools:

• Tools is in desperate need to be nuked and remade. It needs it very badly! I’m hoping for a robust focus on 2 things: Gadgets, and useful utilities for power Engineers.

• Enduring Damage, the previous minor where you had 10% damage when endurance was full, that was removed, and now the previous traitline stat of ‘Toolbelt Recharge’ has taken its place. This is a small buff

• Static Discharge, now competes with Power Wrench. This is a nerf specifically to Static Discharge Engineers who take both. That makes little sense, unless the TBD Grandmaster is good enough to make a power Engi forget about Power Wrench.

• Cleansing Formula 409 is now a Tools Grandmaster trait, and the reason would simply be to nerf the synergy between Inventions minor traits and Cleaning Formula 409.

The TO BE DECIDED:

TBD’s

• Explosives Adept: ‘Explosive Rocket Belt Thingy: Projectile on hit. 33% chance, 10s ICD.’
• Explosives Adept: TBD
• Explosives Grandmaster: Improved Mortar abilities, or adding a blast to the 1 ability.
• Firearms Adept: ’New Pistol Trait – Condition Focus
• Inventions Master: TBD
• Alchemy Minor: TBD
• Alchemy Adept: Elixir Gun TBD
• Alchemy Major: Med Kit TBD
• Alchemy Grandmaster: TBD
• Tools Master: TBD
• Tools Grandmaster: Gadgets TBD
• Tools Grandmaster: TBD

Firearms:

• The Minors in Firearms stayed exactly the same.

• As for the first adept, a TBD Pistol trait that is sure to appeal to condition Engineers, and it’s likely to be more than a simple 20% recharge reduction, and if so, be a small help to condition builds opting in to Firearms.

• The second adept trait is a combination of Precise Sights and Infused Precision, allowing the Engineer to inflict Vulnerability and gain Swiftness every 5 seconds, on crit. If the Engineer can’t afford to invest in Speedy Kits, which may be a reality, this could be the best Adept here.

• The third adept is a critical chance increase to enemies within 600 range. If Speedy Kits can be taken, and you’re not using Pistols, this becomes the best in slot.

• Rifle gets a Master trait that Increases the crit chance, and reduces the recharge by 20%. Lots of crit chance modifiers!

• Another strong Master trait, ROBO LEGS spotted, having the old Leg Mods functionality of reducing the duration of Immob/Chill/Cripple by 33%, and a new functionality, swiftness will have a greater effect. Depending on how much greater an effect swiftness will have, it could be one of those traits that just feels wrong to not have.

• Juggernaut was moved from a Master trait into a Grandmaster, but instead of gaining might every 3 seconds, the Flamethrower wielder will receive one stack of stability. It’s currently unclear how much stability can be obtained, but it’s a significant buff to currently non-meta Flamethrower builds. This would add a ton of utility.

• Incendiary Powder has been combined with Napalm Specialist, as a Firearms grandmaster. Incendiary Powder as well as a 33% increase to burning duration is a monster of a trait. If burning stacks in intensity, it’s unclear what will happen, but likely this trait could end up as a must have for Condition builds especially.

Inventions

• Inventions first Minor now allows for condition removal in a radius when a healing skill is used (swapping to Med Kit will potentially take advantage of a low ICD on this.) It’s certainly a buff when compared with the current trait occupying that space.

• The second Minor synergizes with all condition removal abilities, adding regeneration in a radius when removing conditions.

• The third Minor further adds synergy by providing a healing stat increase while under the effects of regeneration. These minors will really depend on the attached ICDs, but extremely likely will this be on a level higher than than the previous 2 weak minors and Automated Medical Response that currently reside.

• Adept Traits have further increased in power over the current ones: Reinforced Shield has come down from Master to Adept, and will grant protection in a Radius when shield skills are triggered. This will help the Engineer’s support capabilites, how much depends on the duration of this protection.

• Non-shield users can also opt for the second Adept trait, which grants the ability to create a blast finisher when using a heal skill. Depending on the ICD of this ability, Med Kit could gain ground on other heals, due to its ability to proc ‘on heal’ effects with a quick swap.

• Autodefense Bomb Dispenser was brought down from an Explosives Grandmaster down to the third Inventions Adept trait. For those without Shields, or combo fields to blast, this trait is okay as a stand-alone. It will provide an Engineer with a Jump Shot leap or blast finisher to make a stealth combo getaway in combat.

• Experimental Turrets being put into Inventions as a Master, from Alchemy Grandmaster has buffed the accessibility for turret builds to get this.

• HEAL-SPLOSION, a new Master trait was introduced, allowing all blast finishers to heal in a radius. This could potentially provide extremely broken synergy with an Engineer that has grabbed all the Blast Finishers he could get from Explosives and Inventions.

• Fortified Turrets now has Metal Plating functionality combined. The turret trait bloat has been surgically removed, but don’t forget that Auto-Tool Installation was deleted, a trait that was used in cancer inducing Turret builds.

• Bunker Down has been reworked and added to Inventions as a Grandmaster. Procs ‘Drop Bandage’ on crit, with a 2s ICD. Seeing as these bandages heal for 1000 base and scale at 50% of healing power each, that would enable the Engineer to drop enough deuces to heal an army with a Celestial or support build that could crit enough!

• The last Inventions Grandmaster heals in a radius for a percentage of incoming healing. This works best with either lots of selfish sustain, or allies pumping heals into you. It’s appearing to be much more beneficial for large scale fights.

A lot of people in the community have been wondering what was in store for Engineers’s meta PvP builds after the newly announced specializations come in, and the answer to that is: Who knows yet!

It’s of course guaranteed that the top PvP builds will completely depend on tons of tweaking & brand new traits to come. But it’s still great and constructive to provide feedback and discussion on what’s been revealed. I’ll cover the overviews, what’s gotten buffed, nerfed, and then finally suggestions for all the TBD’s that remain. This will be a hell of a long read.

So, let’s start with the general Engineer changes.

Profession Changes:

• Forceful Explosives baseline.
• Accellerant-Packed Turrets baseline. Turrets will only knock back on detonation, not death.
• Rifled Barrels baseline.
• Coated Bullets baseline.
• Med Kit will see a re-work.
• Elites will get a corresponding f5 Toolbelt ability
• Mortar becomes a kit, and a re-work.
• Supply Crate will become a detonatable Turret, ie, reworked.
• Toss Elixir X, a new f5 ability that will transform any enemies affected briefly into a Moa.
• Grenadier’s ‘throw an extra nade’ functionality is now baseline.
• Grenade kit’s range will be nerfed to 900.
• Pistol 1 and Rifle 5 become explosions, benefitting from all explosion related traits.

The following current functionalities have been deleted, and likely won’t be reworked, moved, or re-introduced. If these really underutilized traits that very few people took were things that you absolutely needed for your build/playstyle to work, and new traits don’t provide it, then you might as well speak up!

• Acidic Elixirs.
• Empowering Adrenaline.
• Exploit Weakness.
• Reserve Mines.
• Enhanced Performance.
• Short Fuse.
• Synaptic Overload.
• Fireforged Trigger.
• Sitting Duck.
• Rifle Mod
• Go For The Eyes.
• Bunker Down.
• (All Inventions Minor Traits, including Automated Medical Response)
• Protective Shield.
• Stabilized Armor.
• Energized Armor.
• Cloaking Device.
• Power Shoes.
• Elite Supplies.
• Auto-Tool Installation.
• Rifled Turret Barrels.
• Energy Conversion Matrix.
• Acidic Coating.
• Blood Injection.
• Potent Elixirs.
• Enduring Damage.
• Deployable Turrets.
• Scope.
• Armor Mods.

So now I’ll talk about each specialization. I’ll explain the new synergies that just might be the new hotness in PvP.

Explosives:

• It’s pretty clear to see that Explosives has definitely seen some love, and some much needed setbacks to slow its roll. First on the list, the current Master trait, Explosive Powder: +10% Explosion damage has now essentially replaced Reserve Mines in the grand scheme of things. That’s really nice because Reserve Mines yanking me out of stealth has happened far too many times for me to shed even a single tear for its passing.

• Recall that Pistol #1 (and Rifle #5) was put in the ‘Explosion’ category, and that it naturally pierces now. Now Shrapnel, the newly moved Explosives Grandmaster will have a chance to apply a bleed & cripple, every time an explosion happens. Pistol #1 will bleed and create an explosion on every target that it pierces, allowing for many rolls for a Shrapnel proc.

• Despite Grenade Kit range being nerfed to 900, traiting for Grenadier as an adept trait will increase the velocity and radius of nades. To me, this is more than justified for reducing the range of Grenades, I expect this to increase Engineer’s overall pressure when used.

• Short Fuse will now reduces the arming time of Bombs. This will have synergy with Evasive Powder Keg, Auto-Defense Bomb Dispenser, Big Ol’ Bomb and so on. Bombs currently need this pick-me-up to compete with Grenades for the main damage Kit, or even Tool Kit for the Utility Kit spot in PvP. With the upcoming increase in blast finishers available to the Engineer, I feel Bomb Kit will surely be in a better spot due to its powerful fields.

• The increased amount of blast finishers I previously mentioned come from the two other Explosives Grandmaster traits. Either take the NEW Grandmaster that makes Evasive Powder Keg perform a blast, and gain far greater ability to blast stealth or water when pressured, or take the other NEW Grandmaster that grants a blast finisher on Mortar #1 to blast combos out of combat as well as in, such as stealth, might, and so on.

• Incendiary Powder is gone from Explosives. This is a high significant and highly justified nerf to explosives. With the uncoupling of Incendiary Powder, and now baseline traits like Forceful Explosives, and Grenadier’s 50% damage increase, Explosives is not required and is noticeably more well balanced than the tyranny it currently holds over Engi builds.

naphack.9346:

FirehawkDAR.9021:

naphack.9346:

Ithilwen.1529:

@Faux
That’s pure sophism and bravado. This thread has made it clear that the players not wanting turret nerf are the players who are turret engis.

So the only ones, who don’t complain are the ones, who actually played the build themselves?
You know what? That sounds totally like…
like…
like…

like every other whine thread about thieves, power rangers, etc.

Now this is what I call pretentious hipster bullcrap.

Shall I tell you who are the ones who don’t complain about turret engies? There are two groups, one of them being those who don’t read the forums. They aren’t all aware of the discussions where metalheads are trying to defend their clearly overpowered build, therefore not giving you the time of day by releasing all the pent up resentment toward you and everybody who trolls the PvP scene by rolling this abomination that shouldn’t have been allowed to exist.
The other group simply doesn’t care as they mostly play PvE and as such, aren’t really affected. So please at least try to sound convincing before resorting to logical fallacies.

Nobody here defends the current state of turrets. The people just don’t want this “solution”, which leaves no room to fine tune, while either making turrets entirely unplayable or not changing anything at all.
If it makes turrets unplayable, any further change needs to consider the changes already made and if it leaves things as they are, again any further change needs to consider the conditon and crit side of things.
There is no way, such a wildly thrown in change will incidentally land just on spot.
The current problem is, that turreteer is too tanky for the damage, he can dish out or deals too much damage for how tanky he is, whichever way you prefer it. The solution is to make turrets take conditions and crits? Seriously? How about changing, what is actually broken?
Turrets need a complete rebalance, not a blanket nerf. Especially because they are hardly ever used in PvE.

Now, if we introduced a new stat scaling to turrets, lowering their base stats, giving them precision and ferocity and making their attributes scale with the engineer attribute spread, we’d be in a better place.

NOT because turrets would magically be in a place, where they are totally balanced, that’s just ridiculous… But we’d be in a spot, where turrets could be tweaked individually. Without throwing a wrench into the usability of some already underused turret skills(hi net turret), without having to worry about making turrets even WORSE for PvE purposes.
With turrets scaling from attributes, tweaks could be made on individual basis both on base stats AND on scaling to find that sweet spot for each individual turret skill, where turrets are both viable for tanky builds, for dps builds AND for PvE without being obnoxious at any point.

The goal shouldn’t be to just take down the turret builds, the goal should be to bring turrets to a spot, where they are easier to balance.
With a blanket nerf, we are still stuck, where we are, balance wise. We still have the same tools to balance turrets, turrets still deal damage independent from the engineer’s stat spread, the rocket turret of a 27k health engi will still slap you for 4k damage, but we will gain no additional tools to tweak turrets to a point, where they are both fun to play and fun to play against.

The technology for turrets to scale and crit, despite being constructs or ‘gadgets’ (not the Engi Utility type) hasn’t been created yet. Technical limitation!

I have advocated many times for Turrets to scale with user stats and stop being so arbitrarily strong, as a damage focused Turreteer would actually engage enemies by having to play the CC mini-game and position in order to be effective. It’d be much better than nerfing all Turret survivability.

Until that is possible, I think it’s best that Turrets played by Sentinel stat full bunkers disappear from the list of meta builds, and go back to their roots as a crutch for players with no keybinds or knowledge of the game to have a better starting battle strength.

If the possibility opens for Turrets to be a part of a build that is either: damage or utility oriented, or simply not based on full selfish tank-mode & godly A.I auto-attack pressure, then hey, lets please revert and bring the new healthy, skill-scaling, strategy back into the meta.

Until then, pls die in obscurity, auto-attacking Sentinel stat builds. One step at a time guys.

ronpierce.2760:

Chaith.8256:

ronpierce.2760:

Seriously though, accelerant packed turrets made baseline is a complete joke.

Detonate only, won’t detonate on death. Noob!

Supply crate will be able to be detonated, and the heal got its knockback baseline, when it didn’t need buffed. C’mon now, Mr. Five Gauge. You know as well as I do that this is a buff because you will be able to fully control it, MORE than you could before. Oh and you get an f5 now lol.

Who’s gonna take Supply crate

ronpierce.2760:

Seriously though, accelerant packed turrets made baseline is a complete joke.

Detonate only, won’t detonate on death. Noob!

Supreme.3164:

SobeSoul.6910:

I don’t think any of the above ideas or responses to Celestial amulet really takes into account the fact with 3 traitlines maxed, Celestial will synergize even more with builds.

How? You lose base stats from everything, really cele users will become the real definition of “jack of all trades and master or none”, you won’t be holding point indefinitely and neither bursting people down with might stacking ( boon duration is gone)….you will fill a role until help come

He’s right.

Celestial is advantageous to people who can get 3 things: Both Power & Condition damage attacks, and layered healing effects.

With people being able to master more roles, IE, technically everyone can get a Power, Condition, and Healing specialization, there are definitely going to be many builds that can make use of celestial better.

38-40 stats off isn’t anything special. Celestial nerf isn’t the end of the world.

Taushullu.6180:

BrunoBRS.5178:

maybe a good time to bring back jewel slots? instead of adding even more stats to the amulet, let us slot in a jewel like we used to.

Eolirin.1830:

I’m going to second the need for a return to jewels to offset the loss of the ability to round out the amulet stats. Having the extra stats built into the amulets themselves like what happens with ascended gear would seriously bloat the amulet list, and being able to pick a set of +300 stats to add to the base amulet would give us all the build flexibility we need.

Another vote for jewels. Please give us some room for customization.

I doubt jewels will make a come back, but it’s sorely needed for an elegant way to appear, in regards to getting the necessary stats in your build, without leaving yourself at 11k HP.

That’s just an example. So many amulets \ stat distributions are just unusable and somehow need wider appeal.

Josh Davis.6015:

The amulets will be rebalanced to compensate for the loss of stats originally gained from trait lines.

This is probably as good of a place as any to mention that we’ll also be using this opportunity to rebalance PvP’s celestial amulet to be slightly less effective. We’re probably looking at a 10%~ decrease in overall stats, but this number can change as we draw closer to releasing the core specialization changes.

While this constructive topic of Amulet stats is going on, something that’s been bugging me for a long time is the fact that Valkyrie and Berserker Amulets have simply a straight up advantage vs. the others, without spreading the stats widely as Celestial does.

However, as they may be outliers, I much prefer the way Berserker and Valkyrie Amulet are more well rounded! I would like to see that become a feature.

Normal Amulets:

• 932 primary attribute, 650 x2 for secondary attributes.

Irregular Amulets (Besides Celestial):

• Valkyrie & Berserker: 932 primary attribute, 650 secondary attribute, 451 tertiary attribute, 331 quaternary attribute. This provides 114 bonus stats, and the added benefit of better rounded stats, while still maintaining maximum power synergy.

• Rampager: 932 primary attribute, 650 secondary attribute, 331 x2 for tertiary attributes. This is a unique amulet, with a meagre 12 bonus stats.

These tiny imbalances aren’t at all game breaking. But is it really a surprise that the only optimal (competitive) Amulets have been Berserker and Celestial for quite some time now?

Suggestion: While I wish that Amulets would disappear and stat customization could be freely manipulated, if Amulets are really here to stay, this is what I suggest: bringing all amulets up to Berserker/Valkyrie amulet level, and rounding them out to cut down on harsh stat defecits brought on by removing traitline stats.

The logic is, if the main stat is offensive, the last minor attribute is defensive, and vice versa. With an exception or two.

These are just some examples to even the somewhat rigged amulet playing field and introduce some diversity. Italics indicate a decrease in stats, and bold font indicates an increase in stats.

Barbarian Amulet: 932 Vitality. 650 Power. 451 Precision. 331 Ferocity.

Cavalier Amulet: 932 Toughness. 650 Power. 451 Ferocity. 331 Precision.

Cleric Amulet: 932 Healing. 650 Toughness. 451 Power. 331 Precision.

Knight Amulet: 932 Toughness. 650 Power. 451 Precision. 331 Ferocity.

Magi Amulet: 932 Healing Power. 650 Vitality. 451 Precision. 331 Power.

Rampager Amulet: 932 Precision. 650 Condition Damage. 451 Power. 331 Vitality.

Sentinel Amulet: 932 Vitality. 650 Power. 451 Toughness. 331 Precision.

Settler Amulet: 932 Toughness. 650 Condition Damage. 451 Healing Power. 331 Vitality.

Soldier Amulet: 932 Power. 650 Vitality. 451 Toughness. 331 Precision.

I specifically left out Assassin, Berserker, Carrion, Rabid, from the above list of Amulets. Since they’re so well focused, that is a strength and it wouldn’t be necessary to spread the stat allocation further.

As design currently stands, 6 of the Amulet choices are completely obsolete, (Assassin, Barbarian, Cavalier, Knight, Magi, Rampager) and of the remaining, 9, Sentinel, Soldier, Valkyrie, Settler, and Cleric, are currently second fiddle, arguably made obsolete when compared to: Berserker, Celestial, Carrion, and Rabid. That’s in part just a result of what builds are currently good right now, so, its not really worth faulting the amulet. However, the first 6 Amulets I just mentioned need something.

With these Amulets I’ve adjusted up, opposite of those are amulets doing quite well due to the inherent synergy of stats. Here’s how I would slightly handicap them:

Assassin Amulet: 932 Precision. 650 Power. 331 Ferocity. 331 Vitality. (Still buffed.)

Berserker: 932 Power. 650 Precision. 331 Ferocity. 331 Vitality. (Slightly nerfed)

Carrion: 932 Condition Damage. 650 Power. 650 Vitality. (Same as live)

Rabid: 932 Condition Damage. 650 Precision. 650 Toughness. (Same as live)

So yeah! Those are some examples of paths I would make to get amulets back in balance.

creepmatic.9435:

How will this change impact Guardian’s 2.1.6.1.4 or 0.1.6.1.6 meditation builds? Currently Guardian uses besides 6 in Valor 2 key traits, 1 in Honor for Vigorous Precision and one in Radiance for Justice is Blind.

Will you merge the Vigor trait in Radiance like Mesmer has it in they’re Dueling line or in Virtues maybe?

I’m willing to bet anything that the entire paradigm on what makes a good Guardian build will completely change, no sense lamenting the 1pt in the 4th line when the 1pt minor that’s being closed off will simply be a drop extracted from an ocean of possibilities.

Yes, you will me limited to 3 out of 4 current traitlines, losing either Justice Is Blind or Vigorous Precision.

Will the #6 through #10 utilities be renamed/altered to fit into a narrow definition of utility types? IE: What Ranger Elite will be a Trap/Shout?

Manuhell.2759:

Well, we just have different opinions.
Imho, for the good of the game, any build should be relatively strong in the hand of a skilled player, and bad in the hands of no skilled ones.
Day 1 entry builds shouldn’t exist to begin with, and if something works like that, it just means there is some design flaw that permits to do so. And thus it should be fixed.
I think that having skills designed to be useless over a certain skill level is an extremely stupid concept: it just reduces your options as you get better, instead of broadening them.
Sure, you can’t avoid meta builds – something will always end up being better in accordance to its current metagame – but that should happen based on the situation, and as that happens, by having skills of equal strength, people can go against the meta and eventually change it. Unlike what happens now, where the meta changes only via dev intervention to make skills more or less strong.
Sure. i do realize that what i hope for isn’t easy to accomplish. But i don’t even see them striving in that direction to start with.

Yes, ArenaNet has not shown interested in striving towards that ideal. There aren’t going to be more resources allocated to overhauls before the xPac, Turrets are a problem right now. Also, we’re not sure what the expansion will bring yet for skills and balance, I hope they do shift their balance philosophy to put effort into making all utility types purposeful. I actually don’t disagree with anything you’ve said, it’s just missing the practical component of what can be done while focusing on conserving resources for the looming expansion pack.

serenke.4806:

I think it would be easier to just remove turrets altogether. I don’t get why instead of making certain skills useful, the balance is always: let’s make what is really good so bad that nobody uses it.

That being said, at least nobody will use turrets anymore so when you spot a turret engi it’ll be like seeing a spirit ranger, AH bunker guard, etc. a relic of a bygone age.

Still, it’s kind of sad to add to the already substantial amount of useless skills in game.

Don’t be sad, as if game content is being taken away from you. Be satisfied in that A.I has more of a place than most garbage-tier utility types. (Edit: Like Engineer Gadgets, Ele Glyphs, Ranger Shouts, Thief Traps.)

Spirit Rangers, Spirit Weapons, Minionmancers, Turrets,

These are all inherently useful for beginner players to artificially raise their battle strength, past what their mechanical skill corresponds with. Nobody that’s passionate about this game, and subsequently posting on these forums will (likely) fall into to category of people that these Turrets are designed to be used by. All games have cheese strategies that rocket you past the complete noobs when mastered.

So many people are disillusioned into thinking that A.I should have the potential to be optimal (meta), and if it isn’t, then it’s simply nerfed into uselessness. Yes, it may become useless for you, those who should have long mastered other strategies. It’s never a thankful reaction when one takes the bike out for a spin and finds out that Dad took the training wheels off while they slept.

In my opinion, for the good of the community, Turrets should join the background as a novelty/starter build and far away from the meta comp list. Currently, Turrets are strong enough to be meta, whereas Spirts, Sprit Weapons, Minionmancers, these are where they should be. Turrets represent a blatant error in balance philosophy where a day 1 entry build yields such comparatively strong results.

Combined hours of testing in this thread have yielded no Air Sigil hits under 5 seconds apart.

Maybe if we do it for 10,000 hours with a stopwatch, it can be also proven to the people that took Economics and know better.

Manuhell.2759:

You’re basically saying it will work only versus people that have no idea of what they’re doing, independently of how good the user may be.

No. You won’t find thief that can dispatch a Turret Engi in a 1v1 with moderate effort/time spent, even after this patch hits. No matter the gap between the players, Turrets will definitely do extremely well against players much better than you.

And anything is better than working versus anybody, independently of how good the user may be.

Heart of Thorns is coming. Turrets are completely cancerous NOW, and I think anyone that PvPs should seriously appreciate ArenaNet acting on the statistics of how Turret Engineers are vastly over-performing. I am grateful.

How could tactical depth and requirement think possibly be reduced by even deleting Turret builds off the face of the earth?

There has never been a build that requires less tactical depth and thinking than Turret Engineer does. Any player that abandons it for a more complex strategy will increase the average tactical thought that goes on in an average conquest match.

You know it needs to be gutted in teamfights when you can sit 2 Turret Engineers in a teamfight and overcome near any team in that endeavour.

http://www.twitch.tv/guildwars2/b/647594592

Watch the last NA monthly, start at 18:20. Turret Engies literally faceroll around the point in teamfights, with dodge rolling and occasionally auto-attacking. Do you know how freaking close a vastly superior team came to getting 2-0’d by a clown car full of turrets?

Don’t forget under what circumstancess a straight up NERF is warranted.

The combat effectiveness of this starter build in question will fortunately be brought back in line with the user’s ability to apply mechanical skill & game knowledge.

I think that in a 1v1, Turret Engineers (even whose Turrets can be much more easily killed) it will be extremely potent.

Everyone’s under the assumption that Turret Engineer will completely disappear from PvP. The thing is, Turret Engineer will still be a formidable 1v1 build, way stronger than the mechanical input of the owner should deserve.

If a player has mastered the use of keybinds instead of clicking, and generally has mastered conquest rotations, a starter A.I. build such as this should not be optimal! The build isn’t for those players. It’s for new players who need an alternative to getting their faces wrecked. Post-patch, the Turret build will still completely devastate low MMR brackets, I have no doubt. It will still dominate the uninitiated, have better than average 1v1 matchups, but fall off much quicker in teamfights.

Just like Spirit Weapons users, and Minionmancers.

It’s perfect!

PS. I would be in favor of a solution with more effort being expended (allowing Turrets to scale instead of doing arbitrarily high damage.) However, ArenaNet has the technical limitation of ‘gadgets’, to deal with, and this change was stated by them to be impossible. Turrets cannot be made to scale.

naphack.9346:

Chaith.8256:

Where did you get the idea that turrets could get boons like Fury and Retaliation?

You need to rethink your entire post.

It comes as a logical consequence of taking what was said literal and following up, applying current game logic to the proposal.
The stated goal is to bring turrets more inline with the rest of the game. They even drew comparisons to other minions and pets. However, if you apply current minion logic to turrets, then the only way to really bring them inline with current mechanics is to have them affected by boons. Anything else is not “bringing them inline”, it’s just nerfing turrets for the sake of nerfing them, while sugarcoating it by drawing comparisons to other elements of the game, while leaving out large parts of the picture.
It’s literally doing things by half. If turrets become fully fledged minions, then have them be affected by both conditions and boons, have the community complain and revert it 3 days later in a hotfix.
If they don’t, then let them be turrets. Thing is, boons are for large parts also part of the balancing scheme for conditions. You can negate some condition damage by applying regeneration, you can negate vulnerability by applying protection and you can negate weakness by applying all those damage boosting boons.
You can’t just put in an isolated part of something, which was balanced around the idea of working as a whole and call it “bringing x back in line with the rest of the game.”

First, I drew a picture of what “bringing them in line with the rest of the game” would truly mean, when logically applied to the way, the game currently works,
Then, I proposed a change, which would be inline with most of the current game logic(excepts for crits on inanimate objects) and balance out the turrets by making them more versatile, in this way buffing them for dungeon play.

You speak as if anything between minions and old (live) turrets would fall into unacceptable territory. Why? So what if they aren’t adapted to be entirely as minions are? If Turrets aren’t required to stay congruent to a rigid standard of ‘minions’, they can be flexible enough to be balanced better.

I personally think that the Anet proposed changes will be quite positive. I would come over to your side if you could provide an argument as to why Arenanet’s proposal would be harmful to the game. From my stance, this turret nerf is a complete godsend, that will greatly improve the playability of this game.

Where did you get the idea that turrets could get boons like Fury and Retaliation?

You need to rethink your entire post.

Jelzouki.4128:

Chaith.8256:

SobeSoul.6910:

Chaith.8256:

SobeSoul.6910:

Phantaram.1265:

I tested in about 5 minutes of my free time. Less than than most of you probably took typing the things you typed.

86.5% crit chance channeling Air #1 on scepter (elementalist)

1st 1 minute trial with fire sigil (5 second cooldown)
procced 11 times

2nd 1 minute trial with fire sigil
Procced 11 times

1st 1 minute trial with air sigil (listed 3 second cooldown)
procced 11 times

2nd 1 minute trial with air sigil
procced 11 times

Oh no. I’ve provided proof when the burden was not mine. Did I commit some kind of treasonous act?

No. But that isn’t scientific. Do you understand probability and statistics?

Air procs aren’t 100% every 3s. It’s 50/50 if it procs or not. Therefore 3s is the optimal time it actually procs, but that’s not realistic.

“Do you understand probability and statistics?”

Lol, this comes across as pretty unnecessary a comment when you consder how fast the rate of fire on the Scepter Air 1 ability with crit rate mentioned, a difference in the rate of procs would be immediately apparent if the cooldown on Air Sigil was indeed 3 seconds.

Your teammate obviously shows a lack of understanding of it. If he did, you and him, would understand 1 minute of testing doesn’t provide data that would even be acknowledged on an academic level. Learn what sample sizes are, and what is too small to take seriously.

You and your teammate might be top tier players. But neither of you are top tier mathematicians if you defend that as “testing”.

You could actually set up an equation. Figure out what he average time for different crit chances for the sigil to proc. And then you would need 1,200+ bits of data (more would be better) to see if the sigil ICD is in line with the tooltip for it. I’ve been in an upper level Economics class that involved Statistics. There’s no grey area between good statistics and bad field “testing”.

And have phanta show screens shots of his testing.

We’re trying to figure out if something is fishy here, not publish a paper.

Arc Lightning hits 2.8 times every second. Not once a second. To see no difference in proc rates between Air and Fire in two separate tests, maybe the people who have tested this are on to something?

I have not tested it myself.

Edit: I have Air and Fire sigil on right now, and I’m smacking an indestuctible dummy, and to the naked eye it appears that Air and Fire procs are matching each other at a 1:1 ratio.

I’ve now been doing this for quite a while and despite the RNG of crits, they’ve been exactly as spaced out as each other. I’ve never seen Air Sigil procs ‘lap’ or increase in procs per minute over the fire sigil.

Disbelieve if you prefer, I don’t give one expletive deleted if normal people methods don’t convince you, Sheldon.

" not trying to publish a paper" lol wut I’m laughing irl
He’s trying to explain basic math to you and you arguably make the most dumb comment of all. R.I P. Indeed

Even if you’re hitting more than once every second that is still a flawed method of testing it. You realize you need to take your critical hit chance into consideration? Lololol I laughed at “Sheldon” you’re only making yourself look dumber by making snarky comments at the guy who makes more sense than the person you were defending (phanta) excuse my grammar im typing from my phone

There is a huge and apparent difference between a sigil that procs every 3 seconds, and one that procs every 5 seconds when you hit 2.8 times every second with an 80%+ crit rate.

I tested this for around 8 minutes with air and fire sigils proccing, and the crit chance RNG did indeed shift the procs around by a second, but both of them are activating every 4.8-5.2 seconds.

Everyone so far in this thread that’s tried it has reached the same conclusion, and everyone who hasn’t tested it has been simply crapping on the means.

Nyx.7342:

SobeSoul.6910:

Nyx.7342:

Why did part of this thread become discussing burden of proof and people qqing over sigils, which most of the time dont really matter….

Turk.5460:

“We took 5 minutes to survey people outside the Wal-Marts in Redtown and Necksville, Alabama – asking if they like Obama. 11 out of 11 from each store said they hated that foreign-born muslim socialist. 11 out of 11 is 100% Therefore 100% of people everywhere ever dislike Obama!”

There’s a difference between this stupid example you gave and phantarams test. Sure phanty coulda given a larger sample size but his proof does show that there may be something wrong with air sigil. Air sigil itself is buggy, just ask tarcis about arcing slice :P

i would like to know what the chances are that for 2 tests 1 minute each of channeling air 1 on scepter air sigil with a three second icd procced just as much as fire sigil with a five second icd. Also what are the chances that in 4 tests the sigil procced the same amount each time.

The game unlike real life is not random and its method of critting is probably pretty consistent. I don’t think you need a huge sample size for a sigil that proccs 50% of the time in order to see whether something may be wrong.

It wouldn’t be uncommon for four things to have the same outputs over a small sample size.

Its not that small of a sample size
In total phantaram hit 168 times and crit about 145 times.

fire sigil can only proc 12 times a minute because of 5s icd. With 2.8 hits a second thats about 33.6 hits that fire sigil can proc (12 seconds of possibility in a minute). with 86.5% crit chance 29.064 hits are crits, and with 50% chance of proccing fire sigil there should be 14.532 hits that fire sigil procs. But ofc its restricted to 12 and since phanty only did it for a minute it makes sense that he only got 11 procs.

Air sigil with a 3s icd can proc 20 times a min. with 2.8 hits a second thats 56 hits, with a 86.5% crit chance there are 48.44 crits. 50% so 24.22 times that air sigil should proc. But its restricted to 20 since the icd.

Not saying his sample is 100% right, but shouldnt he have gotten more than 11 procs with air sigil? he had 145 crits that could have procced it and with an icd of only 3s supposedly he could have procced it at max 20 times. seems somethings a little fishy and it seems unlikely that he would have gotten the same procs for both sigils with the amount of crits he had.

Scientific method or riot, Kappa.

SobeSoul.6910:

Chaith.8256:

SobeSoul.6910:

Phantaram.1265:

I tested in about 5 minutes of my free time. Less than than most of you probably took typing the things you typed.

86.5% crit chance channeling Air #1 on scepter (elementalist)

1st 1 minute trial with fire sigil (5 second cooldown)
procced 11 times

2nd 1 minute trial with fire sigil
Procced 11 times

1st 1 minute trial with air sigil (listed 3 second cooldown)
procced 11 times

2nd 1 minute trial with air sigil
procced 11 times

Oh no. I’ve provided proof when the burden was not mine. Did I commit some kind of treasonous act?

No. But that isn’t scientific. Do you understand probability and statistics?

Air procs aren’t 100% every 3s. It’s 50/50 if it procs or not. Therefore 3s is the optimal time it actually procs, but that’s not realistic.

“Do you understand probability and statistics?”

Lol, this comes across as pretty unnecessary a comment when you consder how fast the rate of fire on the Scepter Air 1 ability with crit rate mentioned, a difference in the rate of procs would be immediately apparent if the cooldown on Air Sigil was indeed 3 seconds.

Your teammate obviously shows a lack of understanding of it. If he did, you and him, would understand 1 minute of testing doesn’t provide data that would even be acknowledged on an academic level. Learn what sample sizes are, and what is too small to take seriously.

You and your teammate might be top tier players. But neither of you are top tier mathematicians if you defend that as “testing”.

You could actually set up an equation. Figure out what he average time for different crit chances for the sigil to proc. And then you would need 1,200+ bits of data (more would be better) to see if the sigil ICD is in line with the tooltip for it. I’ve been in an upper level Economics class that involved Statistics. There’s no grey area between good statistics and bad field “testing”.

And have phanta show screens shots of his testing.

We’re trying to figure out if something is fishy here, not publish a paper.

Arc Lightning hits 2.8 times every second. Not once a second. To see no difference in proc rates between Air and Fire in two separate tests, maybe the people who have tested this are on to something?

I have not tested it myself.

Edit: I have Air and Fire sigil on right now, and I’m smacking an indestuctible dummy, and to the naked eye it appears that Air and Fire procs are matching each other at a 1:1 ratio.

I’ve now been doing this for quite a while and despite the RNG of crits, they’ve been exactly as spaced out as each other. I’ve never seen Air Sigil procs ‘lap’ or increase in procs per minute over the fire sigil.

Disbelieve if you prefer, I don’t give one expletive deleted if normal people methods don’t convince you, Sheldon.

What if Improvisation took 5-8 seconds off of the most common utility type equipped, when steal was used? That would keep it pretty in line with a master trait that typically reduces a utility type’s cooldown by 20%.

Ross Biddle.2367:

Chaith.8256:

Siva Mira.3546:

Before it was Pistol’s AA hits like wet noddle and Riffle wasn’t a thing. But it is all in the past now. So what is the excuse of this OP trait?

I think it should either:
1- Redesign it like they did with Dhuumfire.
2- The laziest way, Limit IP to Pistol only like how Glacial Heart works.
3- The boriest way, nerf the Trait and improve Pistol’s AA.

Well something you should consider is that a Rifle user’s IP does at most half as much damage over time as a Pistol user’s IP.

Chill of Death, Air, Fire, Incendiary Powder, Glacial Heart, Halting Strike, as much as many wish they weren’t, they’re all intended game mechanics.

Whoa whoa whoa, what’s wrong with Halting Strike? Requires narrowly timed skill to land, is limited to the number of interrupt skills the mesmer has, and is easily countered by stability (among other things). If there are tears being shed out there because of halting strike they’re purely tears of being outplayed.

Not sure why it was lumped in there with all those passives.

Please tell me more about how that Chaos Storm daze was timed or you planned on the illusions staggering the daze to interrupt subsequent casts. :o

Siva Mira.3546:

Before it was Pistol’s AA hits like wet noddle and Riffle wasn’t a thing. But it is all in the past now. So what is the excuse of this OP trait?

I think it should either:
1- Redesign it like they did with Dhuumfire.
2- The laziest way, Limit IP to Pistol only like how Glacial Heart works.
3- The boriest way, nerf the Trait and improve Pistol’s AA.

Well something you should consider is that a Rifle user’s IP does at most half as much damage over time as a Pistol user’s IP.

Chill of Death, Air, Fire, Incendiary Powder, Glacial Heart, Halting Strike, as much as many wish they weren’t, they’re all intended game mechanics.

silentnight warrior.2714:

Phantaram.4816:

Warrior:
Call to Arms – Vigor Duration reduced to 6 seconds base
Charge – Cooldown increased to 20 seconds base
Reason: This ability currently cures cripple, immobilize, chill + converts 1 more condition to a boon and removes 1 more condition on a 12s cooldown in a 1200 aoe, just absolutely crazy powerful.

Warrior Warhorn dont need nerfs. Warrior have little acess to vigor and that acess is not viable in any trait line. Also warhorn is not a ofensive weapon so its better to be good at something and for all of those things to happen warhorn needs to be traited in a pure defensive trait line.

If you think warhorn does too much then what you think about thief steal?

It’s not really about looking at individual skills

Phanta’s thinking is more so about looking at the landscape of 4v4 / 5v5 teamfights in PvP, where condition removal is so pervasive with Guardian’s double Virtue of Resolve, Shouts/Warhorns, and/or Cleansing Water with an occasional Healing Turret is nullifying condi reliant builds completely.

ronpierce.2760:

Lol. If they balanced your way, they’d honestly look better just removing the skills from the game. Turrets are already useless in every other mode in the game (literally), conquest is the only place they had a chance. If they even remotely do what you said they’d be gone.

Indeed, Turrets have completely failed as a utility-type. They do absolutely nothing but take away from game’s overall good experience.

They’re completly unusable in the entirety of PvE and WvW, and for the small window of usability in PvP, it is an extreme detriment to the sanity and enjoyment of all parties.

Not fun to play with, not fun to play against.

I would support Turrets auto-attack features being nerfed into competitive obsoletion so that they would only be a novelty/starter build, and join the other A.I sub-type builds. It would honestly be a huge sigh of relief to every single PvP player – both those who feel compelled to use it in order to be their most competitive, and those who have to constantly deal with them.

Any build can be part of the meta in pick-up matches, why should we suffer high auto-attacking A.I to remain in the spotlight?

I just don’t want to see them ever. They do nothing but detract from the game, and the primary method of counterplay is to completely disengage from fighting them. It’s almost a hilarious definition of un-engaging gameplay.

ArrDee.2573:

kitten this threadz is hilarioso! All the bm and unfrandliness on the NA scene!

Wahoo! Bye frands!

Yeah, you’re right. I deleted my shot at Teefteefteefteefteef

1.) Turrets.
2.) Turrets.
3.) Turrets.
4.) Turrets.
5.) Turrets.
6.) D/D Ele.

Dojo.1867:

Josh Davis.6015:

Thanks for writing up your concerns so succinctly.

This test season is intended to test an algorithm that’s tailored towards ranking players higher for better W/L ratios, in addition to using points gained from playing (meaning games played does not become valueless). The algorithm we’re using this time around is completely different than what was previously tested, and they both have different purposes. We’re already having internal discussions on how we can adjust this season’s algorithm to better suit the goals we stated on Thursday – rewarding players who play well, not just play. These discussions will continue into the next week, and now we have an entire weekend’s worth of data that we can look at and extrapolate on.

An important thing to keep in mind is that these events are tests, and the only thing we’re testing right now is the formula behind ranking. We’re gathering a lot of useful data that we can use to help us make better decisions. These “test seasons” not a final product by stretch of the imagination.

What was wrong about the old leader boards?

People weren’t incentivized to do their best, so many just yolo’d and laughed at leaderboards, citing them as inaccurate because lots of good players were lower than they should be.

Oh, and relatively new players could get extremely high on the leaderboards and stay there for a while. Volatility, and fake decay are the 2nd and 3rd problems.

If we went back, added real rewards, capped how much rank you can swing from a single win/loss, added real decay for not meeting the minimum weekly game threshold, I dare say we’d usher in a new era of competitiveness.

I sincerely hope we turn back to more promising prospective models/algorithms as quickly as possible.

The current matchmaking handicaps are turning me into a toxic, cynical kitten when I solo queue.

For the sake of mine and my team’s sanity please stop using brand new players as a handicap to counter the presence of high MMR players. My blood pressure is reaching all time highs.

kirito.4138:

Too many numbers. Brain explode.

Can you draw picture?

Basically, if a player starts the season with high MMR, and had similar W/L records to the low MMR people topping the leaderboards, the high MMR players would have virtually no points, and the low MMR players would (and are) completely rolling in the points.

The thing is, high MMR players no longer have any ability to carry when solo queuing. In the old SoloQ leaderboards, I had a 70% winrate, but if I were to try the same for the new leaderboards as a solo high MMR player, I bring SO many matchmaking handicaps to my team just for being there, my win rate would be around 55%, just like the OP here, due to the handicapped matchmaking.

So the matchmaking balances the odds quite well, but yet still expects the high MMR player to win everytime, effectively awarding this high MMR an absolute pittance of points.

I could farm ranked all day as a solo high MMR player, but at the end of the day I’d probably barely have any points.

If I farmed ranked all day as a low MMR player, I would have a metric sheet ton of points.

That means that as a high MMR player, the only viable strategy to make progress on the leaderboards is to team queue and avoid the handicaps. Enjoy 8 minute queues, and only being able to keep a full group focused for a few hrs a day, say goodbye to all your point generation.

Flyphish.6398:

The original solo queue leaderboard was flawed but much, much better than the current iteration. At least I could track my relative progress and games did start to get more reliable once in the top 500 or so.

Now I have nothing to track my “progress”. It is not feasible for me to play 30+ matches a day. Even getting in the top 1000 to use a third-party site is a bit of a grind.

I like seeing daily W/L. I like knowing whether I am improving or not. I like seeing familiar faces on my team. I had all those things with the old leaderboard.

PvPers in all games like having a meaningful gauge of relative standing. That is non-existent now. I am not trying to be in the top tier, I just want relative progression. That is gone now. Further, the new combined queue and grind-based leaderboard incentivizes bad behavior.

Everyone is now checking the party status of the opposition, complaining about their teammates, and just in general people are not enjoying the game as much as before. Combine all these factors with daily profession achievements and you have the perfect recipe for a disgruntled, disengaged community.

The first step is fixing the leaderboard, so players of all abilities still have something to track.

The second step is separating queues so people can again take accountability for their play and not blame it on facing a premade. Concurrently, solo players will be guaranteed to face other solos, teams can take pride in beating other teams.

The third step is to remove profession dailies. This leads to strange team compositions and people playing professions they should practice with before jumping in ranked. The system as it stands incentivizes people just playing ranked with alts to get the dailies. How else is one to keep up with the new leaderboard?

Engaging the community.

That’s a massive take-away.

The developers were trying for exactly that when they introduced the ‘play more to advance faster’ approach. They felt that it would stimulate everyone to increase the volume of games played.

However, it only succeeded at completely disengaging all mid-high tier players from leaderboard progression, as well as every low tier player who can’t solo q into ranked for over 8 hours a day.

Low MMR players who solo queue ranked for 8+ hrs a day are the only ones who are engaged in mastering the current leaderboard progression system. Clearly the data is showing that.

When the top 3 guys on the leaderboards are literally rated 50-100% higher than the top 10-20 guys, and there is not a high MMR player in the top 100, you know there are some problems with who’s being rewarded.

Reikou.7068:

Chaith.8256:

The devs see resetting MMR as a disruptive and bad experience for the PvP population because people would be complaining about getting bad matchups until the MMR was re-issued properly.

What they don’t take into account is the huge imbalance that MMR has on leaderboard point generation.

I guess at the end of the day this is one of the big reasons why we’re not seeing an MMR-based leaderboard…

Still, what a complete joke.

Actually, MMR greatly affecting point farming rate I think it’s a big reason why points based leaderboards aren’t functional in any way, and MMR based leaderboards (or anything but the darn points based style) is better.

Arenanet has a design goal for the leaderboards. That is so that a player who increases games played will progress the leaderboards faster. This design goal must be abandoned. It’s the anti-thesis of what a leaderboard should be. Players should never be limited in the games they can play during a season, but if the focus is on grinding more than dominance, as it is by a huge margin, right now, leaderboards are not going to be engaging for anyone except for the 2 people poopsockin’ per region.