Guild Wars 2

Hmm…at 11%, it sounds like this won’t really change anything after all. For a bit there, I thought I’d actually have a reason to cast the AA.

Yea, the TwitchCon event was awesome. I was really surprised at just how much content and news we got. Thanks for putting in all the effort and hours to keep the player base in the know!

Awesome! I’m so stoked for the guild halls in HoT!

Technically, my main is still a thief, but I’m strongly considering going engi as main once HoT lands.

This isn’t because of any balance issues specifically, but rather because I think the DareDevil specialization is way too far off from matching the look and feel of any decent martial arts staff wielding combat and I don’t think it really brings anything unique to the profession. Scrapper, on the other hand, is much more appealing, even if the gyros are very underwhelming.

As an added bonus, these ‘rich trees’ should spew their leaves all over the ground and “make it rain!” so that we can know exactly which trees are ballers and which ones aren’t.

Quickfoot Katana.8642:

It was cringey, but they always manage to manage to deliver it as cringe…

The fact that they act exactly like a PHIW would react if they were given the wheel of the company, just goes to show the whole company is turning into them.

Yea…that whole ‘us vs them’ mentality may make the world easier to understand, but you’re not really seeing what’s going on when you oversimplify things like that.

Yup, the question you generally want to ask yourself before you buy an outfit is: “Do I like the look of this set in it’s entirety (or at least without the helm) with only dye color changes or do I only like parts of this set?”

Chaith.8256:

Dahkeus.8243:

Chaith,

I like the ideas, even if I think some of the numbers may need to be adjusted a bit. However, I would be very, very, very, very surprised if we see any changes as drastic as that this close to HoT’s launch (especially considering how much work still is being done on the Druid, who is being designed by the same guy for scrapper). I expect a few cooldown and damage number adjustments is the most we’ll see before launch, regardless of player feedback. =/

That all depends on what’s priority. How much work is left to be done on Druid? How long a development cycle would it take to change Function Gyro?

These things are uncertain, there’s only harm in remaining silent.

I think it’s going to be a really sad day when I’m playing Celestial Scrapper Rifle and nobody can tell I’m not an Engineer

Yea, I’ll agree with that. Having a few gyros flying around your head would go a long way in making the scrapper look and feel unique over a regular engineer. I really hope I’m wrong and I really hope that we see some changes along what you’ve proposed.

Haven’t replied here in a while, but I have had very positive impressions with this map since all the previous changes and right now, I think it’s good to go. My experience so far has been counter to Crinn in that I’ve had a LOT of really close games.

I’d be interested to see how this map pans out as we see more very high level tournament games played in it, but from an average player’s perspective, I think it’s a great addition and fills a very much needed role in diversifying GW2’s PvP.

Chaith.8256:

Ricky Rouse.1583:

Chaith.8256:

Ricky Rouse.1583:

Chaith.8256:

Ricky Rouse.1583:

Phineas Poe.3018:

because you can already use the bomb kit or grenade kit for damage, the hammer should be designed and taken for something else.

See, I don’t get this.

If this is the case, WHY do Warriors get the burst skills that they’re getting? It’s a straight up improvement. They also get a trait in their line that increases ferocity based on precision (Which is ridiculous synergy).

So they get this straight up improvement and DPS increase for just taking the trait line, and we get…

A stomp. And stability for said stomp.

I love it. I love how we’re getting boned and the only thing everyone can say is “Well golly gee willikers, you Engineers already HAVE explosives! Why are you complaining??”

Just depends on whether you value defensive traits and utility over damage.

How boned you feel largely depends on your game mode of choice.

A stomp is not a defensive trait. In fact, looking at Scrapper’s traits again, it feels like Irenio thought that “Superspeed” was a good way to make up for all Gyros being useless. The one Gyro you bothered to slot dies? Get superspeed. Leap finisher? Get superspeed. Heal, because you have superspeed. Superspeed superspeed superspeed. What? You wanted to have some fun? Nah. Here. Have superspeed. Go ahead and run around like a moron a little faster, engies. It will allow you to position yourself better for when you use your grenade kits again.

“A stomp is not a defensive trait”. Well, indeed you are correct, there’s no pulling the wool over your eyes for sure, but that’s a very odd thing to say when we’re comparing entire Elite Specs to see who’s getting ‘boned’.

The value from Scrapper in the PvP/WvW game modes where it’s most tailored to, comes largely from the extremely good sustain, stability, and tanky traits, and extremely high utility Hammer.

I wasn’t talking about the Function Gyro as a sustain/tank trait, I was referring to the Master1 and Grandmaster1 & 3 traits.

That’s why I say it’s a matter of opinion, I assume you’re primarily a PvE player, not that there’s anything wrong with that OFC.

I have 700 games in SPvP which isn’t much compared to some people, but over half those games are on my Engineer.

If you ask me the last thing we need is another bunker build. Furthermore, another “bunker” build that is just like the one we have now but with a hammer because no one gives a rats kitten , in PvE, PvP, or WvW, about more AI, and beyond that, passive, kittenty AI that isn’t even fun enough to bother building around. I’ve said it before, i’ll say it again: 50% less damage is boring. It does not actively change the way I play the game. 2 Cleanses every 3 seconds is boring. It does not actively change the way I play. Neither does a ranged stomp, neither does a mediocre heal, neither does some stealth (of which I can already get with a smoke field and some blasts, THAT stealth also won’t tell everyone where I am with a kitten gyro) and neither does an AI ridden version of Throw Mine. The only Gyro that looks even remotely useful is the whirl gyro, and that relies heavily on RNG.

I don’t know why anyone is defending or advocating the Scrapper. Even if Gyros were strong, it would still be passive gameplay, we don’t need more passive gameplay. We need something to actually change or introduce a new playstyle, you know, like every other class got? Even a third dodge is more of an impact than OH BOY, STOMPS! I cannot WAIT to use that in SPvP and SPvP only since it will get instantly destroyed by AoE in WvW and useless in PvE!

You’re incredibly angry sounding and not really appreciating some potential uses for Scrapper.

Don’t dismiss Hammer, it’s probably the most well done new weapon that ArenaNet has created since launch.

Using Hammer’s defense and utility along with Scrapper’s defensive traits as a backbone, it’ll allow for new offensive options to be taken in PvP and WvW that can now afford to bring entirely different utilities than before. And they will do some hefty damage.

Don’t focus on the Gyros, which I agree are as just as extremely short sighted as Turrets have proven to be.

Definitely agreed with this. I think a lot of people are upset over how much mileage they expect to get from Gyro, but don’t really see how much potential change the hammer and defensive traits can change the way we plan engineer.

I think one of the biggest and most noteable changes that this has from the perspective of changing an engi’s role is the potential for a Scrapper as a viable frontline player in WvW. Considering how engis have had so much trouble fitting in WvW outside of roaming, I think this could be pretty huge.

However, on the PvE front, I really think that there’s too many question marks in the air with what raiding will be like to really evaluate how much of an impact Scrapper has on engis. If raiding is done right, the function gyro could be huge and a Scrapper could be a strong front-line player with lots of support. If raiding doesn’t change the berserker meta…well, at least we’re not druids, lol!

So, I’ve been thinking about the recent GW2 trailers recently and I’ve come to realize that I believe ANet is doing things with their trailers that other games could learn from. In this post, I’m just talking specifically about the recent trailers we’ve seen from HoT since the earlier trailers were often either not as well done or straight up ridiculous (looking at you, live-action release trailer).

I think what really makes these trailers stand out is that they use a unique combination of non-game engine visuals along with game engine visuals that allow them to present a visually impressive and unique look while also incorporating footage that uses the game engine so that there’s not a big discrepancy between what you see in the trailer and what you see in the game itself.

Additionally, when they use non-game footage, they continue a distinct art style that has a very unique feel to the game, so that the trailer can be congruent with the game, even when it’s not showing off something that’s entirely from the game itself.

Considering how many games out there that make trailers that are either visually beautiful, but don’t look anything like the visuals in game or are so tied to showing off gameplay that they fail to create an engaging visual experience, I think ArenaNet has struck a really good balance that other developers can learn from.

I honestly would enjoy seeing the FT AA becoming stronger than the ‘nade AA so that it’s worthwhile to camp FT for a bit in a PvE DPS rotation when other big abilities are on CD. It’s a great animation and it’s a shame that there’s so little incentive to ever use it right now, even though I don’t want to ever see it as something that’s so strong that it just encourage 100% AA camping.

Chaith,

I like the ideas, even if I think some of the numbers may need to be adjusted a bit. However, I would be very, very, very, very surprised if we see any changes as drastic as that this close to HoT’s launch (especially considering how much work still is being done on the Druid, who is being designed by the same guy for scrapper). I expect a few cooldown and damage number adjustments is the most we’ll see before launch, regardless of player feedback. =/

Very cool…but I think rangers will get used to seeing Bronze in events, lol.

Hmm, I would discourage starting Twilight, but if you decide on going ahead, I would suggest getting a friend or loved one to watch it with you. Bring plenty of food and some Tylenol since some parts are so bad that you may just get a headache from sitting through them.

Ricky Rouse.1583:

draxynnic.3719:

That’s right, it got shifted to the mortar (don’t really enjoy the grenade style, so I don’t play it that often). Which only enhances my point, though: grenades have high DPS because they don’t offer much else.

And that wouldn’t be a problem if it wasn’t so dull. That is a problem with ALL explosives too:

Grenade kit is:

Throw grenades. Throw red grenades. Throw white grenades. Throw blue grenades. Throw green grenades.

Bomb kit is:

Drop bomb. Drop bomb spaghetti. Drop purple bomb. Drop grey bomb. Drop gooey bomb.

Mortar kit is:

Launch shell. Launch green shell. Launch blue shell. Launch white shell. Launch HELPFUL blue shell.

None of these skills have any kitten variety. Even the OLD mortar had more skill variety than the mortar kit we have.

To a certain extent, you’re on point with grenade kit (although smart use of the grenade kit has you use blind, chill, and poison strategically), but the combo fields on bomb and mortar make these skills very diverse, even if they are otherwise mechanically homogeneous.

RunicAura.9860:

Dahkeus.8243:

Ardid.7203:

RunicAura.9860:

My main issue is how underwhelming the new mechanic funtion gyro is compared to the other classes. I mean most of them inwas like wow thats cool. But funtion gyro just a rez and stomp device i dont even see how that connects with the scrappers theme.

This. 1000 times this.

It’s amazing how many people are so short-sighted on this. I assume that you’re both purely PvP-focused since this is borderline OP in PvP as it’s described now, but even in PvE, we have raids coming out and if they’re anything near what they should be, a rez mechanic that doesn’t take up a skill slot will be invaluable.

But, if you really feel underwhelmed, feel free to roll a thief and just get an extra dodge or something.

I find little to no use for this in pve which is the main area i play also as i stated it does not seem to match the scrapper them if you feel it is great good for you we all are entitled to our opinions
And as for pvp it seems made more for it.

Ok, you’re still not getting it…

It’s not about whether you have a use for it now. It’s about whether you’ll have a use for it in HoT.

If you stay out of high level fractals and raids, then that’s about the only way you won’t be using it. Just because the current easy content that everyone knows like the back of their hand doesn’t result in many people needing revives doesn’t mean that will be the case in HoT.

And if you don’t see how little robots that allow an engineer to multi-task fit into the theme of the Scrapper…well, not sure what to say for ya.

Ardid.7203:

The questions:

1- What is exactly representation? What is the reason to need 100%?
2- If the game allows you to join 5 guilds, why it seems to encourage you to stay in only one?
3- Will this change with Guild Halls and the new HoT Guild mechanics?
4- How would you deal with a situation like this?

Lots of replies, but I figured I’d chime in as a co-leader of a similar 100% rep guild.

Why do we ask 100% rep? This is basically to keep up a friendly community for the people that log in. We run a lot of similar events to what the OP mentioned and we’re able to do this because everyone is always on and repping.

If people didn’t always rep, we would have 2 choices:
1) Increase our guild size so that we had enough people on at once. In this case, it dilutes the community and results in a group where people don’t know each other very well except for a few small niches.

2) Run less events/have bad attendance to events.

100% rep can seem like a frustrating requirement from an individual perspective, but when you understand the effect of multi-repping on the guild as a whole, you can see hinders the potential of each guild.

Some guilds are ok with multi-repping and some aren’t. There’s no wrong or right, but I think understanding the impacts of repping is important for finding out what environment is best for you.

Ardid.7203:

RunicAura.9860:

My main issue is how underwhelming the new mechanic funtion gyro is compared to the other classes. I mean most of them inwas like wow thats cool. But funtion gyro just a rez and stomp device i dont even see how that connects with the scrappers theme.

This. 1000 times this.

It’s amazing how many people are so short-sighted on this. I assume that you’re both purely PvP-focused since this is borderline OP in PvP as it’s described now, but even in PvE, we have raids coming out and if they’re anything near what they should be, a rez mechanic that doesn’t take up a skill slot will be invaluable.

But, if you really feel underwhelmed, feel free to roll a thief and just get an extra dodge or something.

Nike.2631:

Irenio CalmonHuang.2048:

Hey all,

Hey Irenio ,
I’m sure you see the endless concern about gyros getting caught in the cross-fire/cleave and getting ripped back into the scrap we tinkered them together from. Which gave me an idea…

Would you consider as a basic rule for the gyro skill type “If the gyro is destroyed before its fuel runs out you collect the scrap to reuse, reducing the cooldown of this skill.”?

If we get full use out of them, we get the full cooldown. But if their adorable lives are cut short, we scrappers bang em’ back together and turn them loose once more!

Also, I’d like to +1 this idea. Not sure how realistic it is to expect this before HoT release since it may be more work to change this functionality, rather than just re-tuning the numbers, but I think this would be a great change to the usefulness of these skills in the long run.

Here’s a proposal for balancing hammer AA damage – Instead of increasing AA damage at the expense of lowering other hammer skill damage, lower AA damage and remove the vuln/might on hit.

The vuln/might don’t really contribute much to PvP since you don’t really AA there and the vuln/might is generally redundant in good PvE groups anyways.

Darkness.9732:

I’ m kinda scared about having news on Druid.
You know I’ am a ranger since day 1…I can’ t survive to another hearth attack for my beloved ranger.
Cross fingers

As someone that was a ranger on day 1….and then rerolled less than a year later, I have to say that you should keep your expectations low and at least remember that in a worst-case scenario, you can just keep playing the same ranger builds you run today. If that’s good enough for you now, well…hopefully that’s some comfort at least. =P

Arguing a necro build for vuln doesn’t really make sense, at least in terms of raids. Vuln is a very prolific condition, particularly for many of the new elite specs, and I don’t forsee any group having trouble keeping up 25 stacks in a 10 person group.

Hopefully there will still be a good fit for Reapers in groups, but I’m not convinced they’ll be needed for a specific role. However, with a 10 person group, you probably won’t need everyone running a specific build for a specific role anyways. Once you have your might/dps buffs, portal, stealth, reflects, and blinds covered, you can probably fill up your other raid spots with any class that brings respectable damage.

Ok, so the thief is a profession in a video game and the construction of ‘thieves’ as a population is a pretty false one since so many people play a variety of professions.

But even if everything was that black and white, as others have said, engis have been strong against thieves for a looooooong time.

@ JuiceboxHero: If you’re trying to utilize academia for personal attacks, you’re really only demonstrating your ineptitude at really understanding the type of material you’re citing. Terms like the Dunning-Kruger effect describe behaviors, not identities.

Irenio…

First of all, thank you for taking the time to read and respond to our feedback. Seriously, this kinda stuff really makes a difference to everyone here.

That being said, I’m worried about your hammer changes. A boost to the AA is nice, but the damage of non-AA skills is more important since you rarely AA in PvP and DPS in PvE is based on kit swapping to use the highest damage attacks. If the AA goes from bad to mediocre and the other skills go from good to mediocre, then the PvE build will just skip all hammer attacks for good attacks on something like Rifle.

Also, just to reiterate what others have said, the biggest issue with gyros (specifically the heal gyro) is still the cooldown, but thank you for boosting the heal as well.

P.s. Another thank you for all your hard work on this. I know redesigning these specs must be a hell of a task, but it really does continue to make GW2 the best MMO out there and it’s really appreciated.

T raw.4658:

Dahkeus.8243:

I get it…it’s funny because D/D is so imbalanced…

but childish trolling like this really impacts the credibility of MetaBattle…

If anet won’t do their job then the players will force their hands.

It’s that simple.

ArenaNet designs a video game. They aren’t responsible for people being mature human beings online.

I get it…it’s funny because D/D is so imbalanced…

but childish trolling like this really impacts the credibility of MetaBattle…

/sigh

Anyone have the dead horse gif?

Jski.6180:

It should be good for pve and soso for spvp for holding points but in wvw beyond random 1v1 it will have no use. If there was a way to move it beyond the function skill then it would be that much more usefully.

It’ll be ‘good enough’ the same way that camping flamethrower is good enough to clear just about anything in the game, but it’s far from a good option when you compare it to the other choices we have and how much more effective they are.

Kahrgan.7401:

BlackBeard.2873:

You guys do know that hammer gives 1 stack of might PER TARGET HIT with the auto. The auto is already potentially too strong with might-stacking runes in a brawler build, and will easily keep you topped up at 25 might in teamfights.

I wouldn’t be concerned that it is too weak…

In pve… Might stacks mean nothing if you are in a good group, you will already have full might. You cant balance an auto attack on might stacks.

In pvp, if you are auto attacking THAT much you are doing something wrong. I would be just fine if they removed the might stacks and increased the base dmg of hammer 1

Lots of people talking in circles, but this pretty much sums up the problem with the hammer AA. It’s balanced around the might and vuln it produces, but it’s a redundant buff for organized PvE and meaningless in PvP where you’ll rarely get through a full chain of an AA anyways.

iKeostuKen.2738:

Mortar and gyro toolbelt should be enough ^^. Toss down a elixir 5 for a cleansing whirl.

Don’t just look at the damage aspects, but the support aspects as well.

Regen isn’t worth it. If you really want to bring healing support, you’ll get just as much, if not more from Elixir Gun as well as all of the additional utility that it brings (blast, condi cleanse, stun break, poison).

Blast heals >>>> Regen from whirls

And on top of all that, you don’t have to worry about your AI bot getting cleaved.

iKeostuKen.2738:

Drop a water field, drop a gyro, stand ontop of the gyro and profit

If it was a direct heal, like a leap or blast, that would be amazing, but considering that you’ll only get a stacking regen boon and won’t find a water field that will last nearly as long as the 12 second whirl, I wouldn’t count on much ‘profit’. =P

Yea, this thing is going to be next to useless in PvP. Even if it doesn’t get cleaved a few seconds after being cast, people aren’t going to just stand next to it.

Even if this thing has enough HP to survive cleave, there are much better utility skills to bring for PvP than this.

NikeEU.7690:

A first revenant is far better than a second ele in a world without ice bow. The more interesting question is whether or not a ranger will end up being better than the first ele from a total team DPS standpoint without ice bow.

I’m honestly skeptical about Ranger unless Druid brings something unique since I don’t think Frost Spirit will be able to survive as well in raids as it does in dungeon speed runs.

I have a feeling there won’t be that many safe places for it to sit without being out of range in any real challenging content.

In PvE meta builds? Probably, but that’s pretty much because of the stiff nature of PvE meta builds. However, with raid fights being longer, maybe condi will end up being a much better choice and zerk will fall off the meta completely, in which case everyone goes P/P.

For PvP? I could honestly see both hammer and rifle being almost equally viable for power builds. If a bunker build comes out for engi, then hammer will probably be ahead, but the rifle is too good to just become obsolete.

I think we have a lot of people here that only know PvE through the lens of GW2 and haven’t really done difficult raids before. =P

1. Warrior(Berserker) – Waiting to zerk…

2. Guardian(DragonHunter) – Doesn’t quite impress.

3. Revenant(Herald) – Boons, boons, booooooons!

4. Ranger(Druid) – Well…we’ll see…

5. Thief(DareDevil) – Could’ve been awesome. =/

6. Engineer(Scrapper) – Poor useless gyros

7. Necromancer(Reaper) – Necro actually good?

8. Elementalist(Tempest) – Hmm, well, ok…

9. Mesmer(Chronomancer) – Set the bar

Holy wall of text Batman. Even those bullet points don’t make your post readable. However, you’re still coming from a perspective where you’re judging this from the perspective of current content. Yea, a revive utility is useless in PvE right now, but if you think you’re psychic enough to tell exactly what it will be like in a post-HoT world and can make balance judgments based on that, then that’s your prerogative I guess.

I’m just glad you don’t work for ANet, lol.

Haralin.1473:

Morfedel.4165:

Haralin.1473:

What i dont understand is, the mesmer gets his new F skill without skilling it with a trait, the thief get 3 doges without the need to skill it with a trait, the necro gets the new f skill also for free. We must skill it and lose one Trait for it and in my opinion a very good one 25% Stunduration -25% stunduration on me.

What are you talking about? What does “skilling it” supposed to mean?

We need to select a trait to get the gyro function, mesmer and other classes dont need this to get there new elite class ability, Mesmer gets a new Fx Skill, Thief get more dodges and Necro a new Fx skill without wasting a traitslot for it.

The function should be in the first minor trait.

I think you’re confused. We do get the function gyro trait from a minor trait. However, there is an additional optional trait to get stability that you may be thinking of.

Source: http://dulfy.net/2015/09/18/gw2-scapper-engineer-elite-specialization-livestream-notes/#Traits

miriforst.1290:

Dahkeus.8243:

miriforst.1290:

Dahkeus.8243:

People think that PvE will continue to be just like speed run, EZ-mode dungeons and they expect Function Gyro to be another clone of “Search and Rescue”, so they’re discounting it right off the bat.

But I expect people will be glad to have it when raids come out…

And in PvP, I fear it may be something so OP that it gets nerfed. I mean, being able to instantly stability stomp, regardless of any CC or distance from an enemy may not leave enough room for counterplay. Course, this may just make stealth rezzes that much more important.

I think people expect that if the new content is so hard that it becomes useful, its in an environment where it will be useless/heavily neutered. Situations like “I cant revive you but my gyro can!” require the gyro to actually handle whatever hazards making you unable to do it yourself. Of course there is a trait that gives you both stability when you start your revival, but then give that trait the 30 sec cooldown instead of the gyro.

I really don’t buy that though. It’s not supposed to be a guaranteed, perfect rez, regardless of how much bad AoE your ally died in and it doesn’t need to be in order to be a clutch ability. If it was, it would pretty much just be a warbanner on a 30 second cooldown without the cost of your elite skill slot.

It will double your rez speed, allowing you to rez before bad stuff lands or at least allow you to rez if there’s bad stuff between you and the ally, but not directly on top of the ally.

The thing is, 30 seconds cooldown is still a bit much for such a niche mechanic no?

Think of our mechanic distributed over the course of the fight, while others might have a more even distribution of special mechanics which remains useful in a manner of different roles (like continuum shift allowing both defensive and offensive play in other ways than F pressing), ours is only available in very special situations. Then it needs to compensate for not being available during the rest of the fight. Another thing is that as far as we know (they haven’t actually demonstrated it, probably because its not even implemented properly) you can not choose when to activate it? That means that we will waste a lot of gyros when we do not need it and then have them under cooldown in situations where they do matter.

I like the idea of the mechanic, but it needs to be very strong or at least polished.

And its not close enough to a “free” warbanner to be that afraid of improving it. And the slot it occupies is our specialization mechanic + another minor trait (outside of the first minor). Its more of a free single target elixir R toss on a shorter cooldown but which does not clear conditions, nor serve as a field, got shorter range and is destructible as well as crowd controllable, meaning it can’t be used in skirmishes where pressure is going out reliably. Or it can be used in pvp and wvw to hopefully land a stomp against enemies who got a down state vulnerable against stability (if you add another trait), if the enemy is not in an area where splash damage or an ally is nearby, meaning out of the actual combat. It will be fun to gatestomp eles in wvw ill grant you that though.

So i think we can still improve it in ways without having it end up a free warbanner. Making it not port but originate at the engineer, decrease cooldown and increase range would be a start. It would even synergize with our super speed.

You think 30 seconds is too much? There’s only 1 other revive mechanic in the game with a cooldown of less than 100 seconds (“Search and Rescue”) and that’s still over twice the cooldown after you take the shout cd reduction trait. And even after that, you still have to wait on your pet to get to the target before any rez happens.

So, no, I don’t think a revive that appears instantly at your target with no cast time and no travel time and takes up no skill slot has a cooldown that’s too high when it’s over half of any other similar mechanic in the game.

The comparison to Elixir R also doesn’t hold up that well considering that you’re comparing a slot skill for something an engineer would never want to bring into PvE with a cooldown over 3 times that of Function Bot to something we’ll get for free and with no cast time. If Elixir R suddenly becomes meta and is worth taking over one of the 3 kits necessary for engineer DPS or any of our other utility skills, then I’ll be fine with you making the comparison, lol.

Does this mean that it’s fine and doesn’t need any boost? No, but the factors involved in that decision simply aren’t known to us.
– If the hp of the bot is too low, then it doesn’t matter if it has a short cooldown.
– What is the average fight length for the new raid encounters? (although I seriously doubt raid boss fights will last <30 seconds and if they do, the balance problem probably isn’t the scrapper, lol)
– Are there any bugs?
– Does it go back to reviving if it gets CCed?

However, outside of those factors, we’re looking at becoming probably the strongest reviver in the game without needing a single skill or trait devoted to the task right when we’re about to get the most difficult PvE content that ANet has released.

The range is the only restriction that seems to potentially be an issue, but 750 doesn’t sound terrible.

miriforst.1290:

Dahkeus.8243:

People think that PvE will continue to be just like speed run, EZ-mode dungeons and they expect Function Gyro to be another clone of “Search and Rescue”, so they’re discounting it right off the bat.

But I expect people will be glad to have it when raids come out…

And in PvP, I fear it may be something so OP that it gets nerfed. I mean, being able to instantly stability stomp, regardless of any CC or distance from an enemy may not leave enough room for counterplay. Course, this may just make stealth rezzes that much more important.

I think people expect that if the new content is so hard that it becomes useful, its in an environment where it will be useless/heavily neutered. Situations like “I cant revive you but my gyro can!” require the gyro to actually handle whatever hazards making you unable to do it yourself. Of course there is a trait that gives you both stability when you start your revival, but then give that trait the 30 sec cooldown instead of the gyro.

I really don’t buy that though. It’s not supposed to be a guaranteed, perfect rez, regardless of how much bad AoE your ally died in and it doesn’t need to be in order to be a clutch ability. If it was, it would pretty much just be a warbanner on a 30 second cooldown without the cost of your elite skill slot.

It will double your rez speed, allowing you to rez before bad stuff lands or at least allow you to rez if there’s bad stuff between you and the ally, but not directly on top of the ally.

Kodama.6453:

Dahkeus.8243:

And in PvP, I fear it may be something so OP that it gets nerfed. I mean, being able to instantly stability stomp, regardless of any CC or distance from an enemy may not leave enough room for counterplay. Course, this may just make stealth rezzes that much more important.

Just if it has enough HP to survive the attacks of an power specced downed enemy. Maybe it is so easily destroyed, that it will never be able to deliver a single stomp?

No one knows so far, so we have to test it in the BWE. But I don’t think it will be hard enough to kill it.

Yup, total valid point. That may be the best way for them to balance it if it becomes to strong or too weak.

Taking some inspiration from this post: that said Scrapper had better lightning animations than eles, lol.

“Look at the druid from the trailer…because the staff animation in that screenshot is 10x more impressive then what an ele could ever dream of doing. He can barely do a wave of the staff…but the druid? He’s kitteng Gandalf and Sauron in 1 character.”

People think that PvE will continue to be just like speed run, EZ-mode dungeons and they expect Function Gyro to be another clone of “Search and Rescue”, so they’re discounting it right off the bat.

But I expect people will be glad to have it when raids come out…

And in PvP, I fear it may be something so OP that it gets nerfed. I mean, being able to instantly stability stomp, regardless of any CC or distance from an enemy may not leave enough room for counterplay. Course, this may just make stealth rezzes that much more important.

Jerus.4350:

Dahkeus.8243:

I think if the dps stayed low, a blast finisher could be viable. It’s a radical concept since we’ve never seen a blast finisher auto outside of Lightning Hammer, but it could definitely make things interesting.

Here’s why I think it would be balanced:
In PvP/WvW, you’ll rarely be able to spam the AA enough to get the blast finisher.

In PvE, it would be a tradeoff between utility (blast on AA) or DPS (kit swapping for max dps). Even though you could conceivably grant 2 stacks of 20 sec might every 2.5ish seconds (each attack on AA is 1/2 sec, but idk aftercast times), you still probably wouldn’t stack might like a phalanx strength war.

Even if you had 100% fire field up time on every 3rd AA swing, you wouldn’t cap your group on might.

However, it’s possible that if they did keep a lower damage AA on hammer and add a blast, it may still just be better to stick to kit swapping and just bring a phalanx strength war, which kinda kills the point of having blast AAs…

First a blast of a fire field is 3 stacks of might, not 2.

But, yes you’re right. It wouldn’t be OP because it’d be locked behind a ~2.5s ramp up. To get much power out of it you’d need someone else providing fields for you as most of ours would break the chain and we could get at most a single blast with the hammer in, something we can already do many ways especially with Flame Blast on a 6s recharge.

Like you say though to get 25 stacks of might you’d need 9 blasts (2 stacks going to waste), which with a 2.5s ramp up would mean it’d take 22.5s. You’d need strength runes to pull off maxing stacks… and not ever deal with pesky guardian light fields

Doh, corrected typo.

I wanted to pose a question for the community here:
What if they put a blast finisher on the hammer autoattack for Scrapper? Do you think this would be balanced?

Here are some numbers to assist, for those who haven’t been following all the details on scrapper hammer yet:
– Each attack of the AA chain has a 1/2 sec cast (not sure on aftercast) and there are 3 attacks total. This would give a blast about every 2.5 seconds with AA alone.
– The hammer AA damage looks to be slightly below the grenade AA damage, so a meta build would never use the hammer AA as it is, even with the might and vuln (since this is ideally provided from other more efficient sources anyways)

Personally, I think it would be more interesting than another might/vuln stacking AA. I think it could be balanced since AA chains are rarely completed in PvP and even with 100% fire field up time, it likely wouldn’t beat out a phalanx strength warrior in might stacking for the party.

However, thematically it ties in with the Scrapper style and we’ve already seen the daredevil with a whirl finisher on AA, so I don’t think the idea is that radical.

I think if the dps stayed low, a blast finisher could be viable. It’s a radical concept since we’ve never seen a blast finisher auto outside of Lightning Hammer, but it could definitely make things interesting.

Here’s why I think it would be balanced:
In PvP/WvW, you’ll rarely be able to spam the AA enough to get the blast finisher.

In PvE, it would be a tradeoff between utility (blast on AA) or DPS (kit swapping for max dps). Even though you could conceivably grant 3 stacks of 20 sec might every 2.5ish seconds (each attack on AA is 1/2 sec, but idk aftercast times), you still probably wouldn’t stack might like a phalanx strength war.

Even if you had 100% fire field up time on every 3rd AA swing, you wouldn’t cap your group on might.

However, it’s possible that if they did keep a lower damage AA on hammer and add a blast, it may still just be better to stick to kit swapping and just bring a phalanx strength war, which kinda kills the point of having blast AAs…

lorddarkflare.9186:

Dahkeus.8243:

Rizo.9534:

ot gives you might, and it’s tanking weapon with AOE damage, so it’s fine.
You can always switch kits for aditional damage.

Or you want another 1 1 1 1 1 1 class like Dagger necro?

Responding here from a PvE perspective:

The might and vuln doesn’t really matter for any serious PvE group since the entire group will likely be capped on this anyways. It’s really just a nice boost for pug and solo content.

Agreed that we don’t want an autoattack spam class. However, both meta builds for engi consist of the most complex skill rotation in the game, by far. It would be nice to see a more tame rotation that at least doesn’t lock down all our utility skills. This would allow us to be flexible with our utilities to match the content at hand without killing our DPS. Guardians and mesmers are a good example of a class that can be versatile with utilities without losing DPS.

I love the high skill cap of PvE engi, but the nature of all the kit swapping can be prohibiting in a lot of realistic encounters.

Unless kits are nerfed, our rotations will always be crazy.

The best you can hope for is maybe one less kit to switch to.

That’s all I’d really want to see, honestly. I like that kit swapping is part of min/maxing dps. I just don’t like that kits take up all 3 slots. If we only needed 2 instead of 3 kits from our utility spots, I’d be happy with that, as long as that last spot wasn’t just replaced by another utility skill that was used for normal DPS.

Small benefit to tornado is that you can swap out and quickly use Overcharged Shot before the stab runs out to prevent the self knockback.

Rizo.9534:

ot gives you might, and it’s tanking weapon with AOE damage, so it’s fine.
You can always switch kits for aditional damage.

Or you want another 1 1 1 1 1 1 class like Dagger necro?

Responding here from a PvE perspective:

The might and vuln doesn’t really matter for any serious PvE group since the entire group will likely be capped on this anyways. It’s really just a nice boost for pug and solo content.

Agreed that we don’t want an autoattack spam class. However, both meta builds for engi consist of the most complex skill rotation in the game, by far. It would be nice to see a more tame rotation that at least doesn’t lock down all our utility skills. This would allow us to be flexible with our utilities to match the content at hand without killing our DPS. Guardians and mesmers are a good example of a class that can be versatile with utilities without losing DPS.

I love the high skill cap of PvE engi, but the nature of all the kit swapping can be prohibiting in a lot of realistic encounters.