Guild Wars 2

Well, the range nerf was totally unjustified. I was always elixir gun with rifled barrels. Now that the trait is gone, elixir gun range is clearly lower and this took away one play style (playing range with rifle + EG, using both rifle #2 and EG #2 and EG #4 and rifle #4 to keep range) —> less diversity

Engineer is also only the only profession which lacks 1200 range underwater. Previously the traited elixir gun or harpoon gun could hit 1200 and grenades could hit 1500. Mokittenoesn’t work underwater. This was probably a developer oversight.

Dawdler.8521:

Yeah he make good arguments.

The only problem is that you dont want to split up the sPvP community too much. 2-4 man team is a real grayzone and I have no idea how we could solve that. Lets face it, sometimes you just want to fight with a friend.

The best compromise I suppose is to simply add solo queue (1 player only) and slap together current unranked and ranked 1-5 man queue into one giant ranked queue. Unranked has always been pointless anyway, we got custom servers for that. Truly competetive teams should get their own queue and rankings (5 man only).

This ^^

Celestial amulet is fine, for most professions it is sub optimal amulet. Celestial d/d elementalist is not fine, because elementalist can at same time have incredible sustain, good mobility and stack tons of might to compensate the lack of offensive stats. D/D ele also has access to a lot of burning, which stacks. I feel that the meta d/d ele build is a bunker build. It should still keep most of it’s sustain, but it’s ability stack burn and might should be reduced. Even if celestial would be removed, d/d elementalist would still be overpowered.

Really if celestial would be the main problem, then I think we would see much more players using it, but right now the marauders amulet seems much more common!

I really do not want celestial amulet to be gone since it is the only balanced stats choice. The game should offer hybrid stats as well and they should remain valid, but not overpowered. Nobody in their right mind if claiming that celestial engineer is overpowered right now.

Arenanet should also carefully rethink the balance between burns and bleeds. I feel that the bleeds do a bit too little base damage, while burning is strong even if you have no points invested in condition damage. Engineers can also do a lot of burning, but since bleeding has so low base damage, this pretty much killed hybrid engineer builds (together with changes to incendiary powder) and made condition engineer into a one trick pony (stack burns and hope you won’t die while your skills are on cd). Previously the grenade kit and the bomb kit were both good choices for power, celestial (hybrid) and condition. Now I feel that grenade kit, bomb kit and the mortar kit all work the best with power based stats (e.g. marauder, soldier etc).

azizul.8469:

A-Net need to release the way they calculate the wvw participation level…..

It would be unwise for them to reveal the actual formula, as this information could be used to game the system. But they could safely tell us what factors affect it (e.g. number of players present each hour, number of players logged to WvWvW each day)

Saiyan.1704:

Why do that when there is, arguably, only one class who makes burning seem op? People say nerf burning then complain about the Ele and not so much about engi, guard and rangers.

Because celestial d/d elementalist can have great sustain, good mobility, good dps, okay team support and lots of burning in one build:

http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Elementalist_-_Dagger/Dagger

p/p + ft condi engineer can be dish out even more burns, but after using all the skills, he has much less sustain, less mobility and awful condition cleansing:

http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Engineer_-_Rabid_Flamethrower

That is why you see a lot of d/d eles in spvp, but very few condition engineers.

Mortar projectile velocity needs to be increased. Trying to hit any solo moving target is same as lottery. Swiftness + running is nearly as fast as mortar projectile.

Perhaps the Siege Rounds GM trait could also increase the mortar velocity by 50%.

I think the 1500 → 900 range was intentional, but in my opinion went too far, especially when rifled barrels trait was eliminated (they reinstated it for the rifle, but it still doesn’t work for elixir gun, harpoon gun or the pistol, even though devs said it would become baseline).

Now engineer is the only profession, which has NO weapon underwater which can reach 1200 range. Elixir gun has max 900 range, harpoon gun auto attack is the slowest in the game and has 1000 range. :-(

I am afraid the old borderlands will be gone and with it a LOT of hard core players. The new borderland maps looks like EotM 2.0.

illenos.5134:

There are no roamers left. Maybe you should ask for the top gank squads in NA and EU.

Yup. The days of high quality roaming died already long time ago, roughly when the borderland bloodlust and lake/ruin changes were implemented.

Nowadays there is only ganking squads. Usually running some condition cancer builds or the latest Feature of the Month build, like PU shatter mesmer.

Krakatoa.1843:

Please stop QQ’ing about double Cele Ele…. The Abjured has always played with 2 Cele Eles….why are you qq’ing now ? why you did not said anything for the past WTS ?

There is nothing to fix about the Cele Ele, but burning has to be fixed !

Celestial d/d elementalist was brokenly good already before Jun 23 patch and a lot of players complained about it. I simply fail to understand WHY Arenanet buffed it even further.

The problem is the NOT the celestial amulet, but the high sustain, good dps, good mobility, ability to stack might and team support – all in one build! D/D ele simply has too much goodies and too little weaknesses. If you give the same celestial amulet to most other professions, the result is not going to be that super.

Mesmer is still broken in spvp and WvWvW roaming for multiple reasons:

Mantra of distraction + confounding suggestions allows to do 1200 range stun every 5 seconds. The trait is brokenly overpowered. Mesmer has a lot of access to daze and this trait now turns every daze into 1.25 s stun.

Prismatic Understanding + The pledge traits allow mesmer to have very high stealth uptime. Mesmer can do damage from stealth without getting revealed using illusions, reset a fight or set up a burst.

Blink is 30 s (24 s traited) 1200 range teleport + stunbreak, which can be used both offensively and defensively and giving mobility.

Distortion gives invulnerability and unlike most other invulnerabilities it allows mesmer to use her skills at same time.

I do not mind mesmers having a lot of defenses, powerful burst and good in combat mobility, but having several of them in one build is certainly too much, leaving very little for counter play.

I could go on.

Before the patch a celestial engineer could kill a bunker guardian, but it took 2-5 minutes if the bunker guardian was really good. In other words reinforcements had enough time to come to help the guardian.

After the Jun 23 patch celestial engineer is significantly weaker for multiple reasons: incendiary powder moved to firearms tree, lack of condition duration, weaker dmg from bleeds, broken trait synergy, general power creep, grenade kit nerfs etc. Previously grenade kit was good for both condition, hybrid/celestial and power. Now it is optimal only for the latter.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

engineer:
Forceful Explosives (Bombs and mines have a larger explosion radius.)
Rifled Barrels (Improves rifle, pistol, harpoon gun, and elixir gun range)
Coated Bullets (Pistol shots pierce)
+1 Grenade on grenade skills

so …
what do we get?
the number of traits that were made baseline for each profession:

4.0 engineer

I am sure most engineers would be happy if this would be the case, BUT:
Currently “Rifled Barrels” only affects rifle range. It used to also affect elixir gun, harpoon gun and pistol, but no more. In fact there is NO way currently to increase the range for the 3 mentioned weapons/kits. And the reduced range hurts my game play a lot as I was always speccing that trait before.
Coated bullets didn’t happen and isn’t available anymore.
Forceful explosions is probably bugged. It shows 240 radius in tooltip, but the actual radius for bombs is 180 range. Has been like that since Jun 23
Grenade kit got a big nerf: 1500 -> 900 range. Poison grenade used to make a poison field, but does that no longer. Grenades used to be good for hybrid damage and celestial, but are now more power oriented, due general changes to conditions, condition duration from explosives line is gone, incendiary powder moved to different trait line, vulnerability lasting shorter time etc. So big part of damage and range is gone.

Reality:
engineers got 0.5 traits made into baseline. Less than any other profession!

I agree that mesmers got too much in the Jun 23 patch, the biggest offenders being massive boost to PU, confounding suggestions from 50% chance of stun to 100% <— a GM trait made adept and buffed at same time (= insanity!)

DiscoJacen.1590:

For example one of our biggest problem is the population: too much on top tiers with giant queues and too little in lower tiers

I play on Desolation, EU rank 2, EU tier 1. We haven’t had any giant queues for many months. In fact during prime time there is often no queues to any map, or queue to one of the four maps, while 3 other maps have outnumbered “buff” flashing.

I cannot speak for other top servers, but I would imagine that their queues aren’t that huge either. Waiting for 2 minutes in a queue isn’t a problem for most players.

The biggest problem by far is that game is dying slowly. So many players left GW2. Arenanet has misplaced their developer and community resources:

1. Instead of developing Living Story 1 & 2, Arenanet should have regularly been making normal pve maps. Southsun Cove was an attempt, but just one map area filled with annoying karkas and don’t get me even started with Dry Top (I hate it), Silverwastes is the only new working map area, which is full of players. They should have been creating more of the same: forest areas, snow-topped mountains, hidden caves, more jumping puzzles, more dungeons. Regular new high quality pve content keeps the pve players happy.

2. The biggest reason why WvWvW is bleeding players, are these two:
- lack of rewards and incentives to play
- deliberate destruction of WvWvW communities

The latter was caused by removal of the WvWvW sub forums and creation of mega servers. Now the WvWvW community efforts need external web sites. There is no way inside the game to reach a large number of the players of your home world.

Defending is not rewarding in WvWvW. The rewards are in general much lower compared to pve, EotM or even spvp. Most players go where the rewards are highest, thus WvWvW bleeds players. Why haven’t the devs copied the reward tracks from spvp to WvWvW? Why there are so little WvWvW specific skins and the armor aren’t even salvageable? Why most of the WvWvW achievements are still not being fixed and remain at unrealistic level (1 million dolyak kills for Yakslapper) ?

3. WvWvW is the end game for many players, not a bridge between pve and spvp. Arenanet never saw WvWvW as the home of the serious hard core players, but kept believing in the esports nature of spvp. There is still no separate skill or profession balance for WvWvW. We still have the overpowered -40/+40 % condition duration foods etc. Stealth is broken in WvWvW. The devs never comment the threads on these topics or do something about it.

1. requires a lot of work
2. and #3 requires relatively few developer resources.

Random Weird Guy.3528:

This is the third time (as far as I know) that we’ve had double engineer daily and haven’t had a single double daily for any other class. Please fix this.

Yes. This should be fixed.

Still I didn’t see much any engineers today at the lobby. In fact I was the only engineer in my winning daily (yet another 500-0 win on courtyard, no I I didn’t vote for that map and I always solo queue. I think 500-0 or 0-500 shouldn’t exist on a well-designed game). The number of engineers has clearly dropped since Jun 23 patch.

I think it depends on the player. Those players who main character’s profession got massive buffs in recent Jun 23 are probably very happy, while some others, e.g. engineers, are probably grumpy as the patch deleted so many trait options and builds completely. Those warriors, who don’t use greatsword nor rampage, probably feel a bit kitten as well, even though warrior nerfs were small. It is just that everything else got buffed so much.

Now the meta certainly is different and there can be bursts which shot characters down as fast as CounterStrike. And you can repeat the burst soon again if you fail. Several mesmer builds (mantra shatter and PU) and D/D elementalist are the main offenders and don’t have enough counter-play.

On the positive side: thieves no longer hard counter mesmers. Necromancer, which used to be the underdog, now has several viable builds. Ranger hasn’t yet found itself in meta, but I feel it has very strong 1 vs 1 builds and can have lots of sustain to hold points.

Those who don’t enjoy the relatively huge imbalance between professions and burst + bunker meta, probably left the game and will be checking back again in Autumn 2015 (when possible HoT comes out?). But it is not all about the meta. I simply fail to understand why the leaderboards have been frozen for months (what is the advantage of this?!?). Pvp needs better match up making, solo queue back and working leaderboards.

I think the developers should now be releasing more frequent balance updates (once per week) to adjust the most overpowered traits, sigils, runes etc and buff some underused ones. Mesmer’s ability to stun frequently (confounding suggestions) and disengage (stealth + teleports) and set up massive burst from stealth needs to be toned down. D/D ele’s ability to stack might and burn and spam blind needs to be toned down.

Thank you!

FrizzFreston.5290:

What they could do is to kick everyone out of their homeserver and then let everyone re-pick their server again. With a notice well ahead of time so communities can plan their server ahead of time.

Isn’t that best idea ever?

Nope. Because this would irritate a lot of customers. And it would lead to even worst stacking. People would bet that server XXX is gonna be popular and flood to it. Even they would have player limits then many would be left out, including those who used to play on that server —→ extremely aggravated customers.

I agree with the op with almost everything. Every profession and build should have counter play. Engineer has 2 major weaknesses:
- relatively weak condition removal (still true)
- relatively weak to hard CC due limited access to stability and not that many valid stun breaks

I am fine with BOTH of these weaknesses staying as I also don’t want engineer to become overpowered like elementalist and mesmer. The biggest problem is the lack of trait line synergy after Jun 23 changes.

Engineer lacks a specific role. Yes, engi can be built to be a bunker, but guardian and elementalist do that better. Thief and mesmer are far superior roamers with lots of combat mobility, burst and ability to disengage. Ele, guardian and warrior offer better group support. Necromancer can counter condition builds and has superb boon stripping. Ranger is superior at long range with long bow and has better sustain, heals, condi removal and evasion needed to contest points. Perhaps for all these reasons engineer was never meta in WvWvW and I feel it is no longer meta in spvp either. You can play engineer in spvp and win (my win rate is still about 50%), but selecting another profession allows it to be done easier.

Almost everybody agrees that medkit is now extremely cumbersome and annoying to use with the ground targeting. I really hope the old “drop the vial/bandages” behavior is brought back in or at least remove the overly long activation times as now one needs to spend more than half of the match up time just using the medkit in combat (and doing zero damage at same time). Otherwise the overwhelming majority of engineers are locked to healing turret, which is still one of the best heals in the game. Toolkit and/or elixir S also feel more or less mandatory, limiting build diversity.

Majority of the gadgets, except for slick shoes, see relatively little use as the gadgets are so situational and don’t offer versatile utility nor much dps. Gagdeteer is a weak GM trait: 20% conditional cd reduction and gaining very slightly improved version of gadget, while most engineers don’t take any gadgets or max 1 gadget.

Shaped charge is not just boring, but also very weak master level trait, giving mere 5% conditional damage buff and zero utility. I would replace the trait, but it must stay at least make it increase the vulnerability duration by 50% as well.

Siege rounds is an okay trait, but feels weak for GM trait. It is tied to one elite kit and yet without this kit, mortar is really not worth taking. Mortar feels like a weak version of elementalist staff, which offers more utility (e.g. ranged area stun with static field) and much improved radius, and also better burst damage. Ele staff requires no traits to function at full power.

Thermobaric Detonation sounded nice on paper, but works really bad in real life as dodges are needed to avoid enemy bursts. It needs a total rework. Shrapnel used to be adept trait, now it is GM trait, which is really only useful if you use the grenade kit and have lots of enemies to hit them all the time.

Some minor traits are really lackluster: e.g. energy amplifier, which is GM minor and offers a conditional +250 buff to healing power (most useless stat). Heal resonator has too small radius to make it actually useful support trait for allies. Soothing detonation heals so little that would anybody ever take it? Medical Dispersion Field doesn’t work in real life either, small radius & return.

Turrets were not just nerfed, they were pretty much deleted from the game, already before the patch. Turrets were never popular in dungeon runs or WvWvW. Now turrets are horrible in every game mode. The low health of turrets also makes the turret related traits worthless, besides exploding turrets.

Grenade kit has been subject to numerous nerfs since it was first nerfed in 2012. I think Arenanet went a bit overboard with the nerfs. Now it has only 900 range (no trait to increase the range), zero utility (no fields, no finishers) and relatively low damage multipliers on the slow recharging skills e.g. freeze grenade. I would have retained some utility in the grenade kit.

Rifle range was finally corrected yesterday and it is major change, but elixir gun still suffers from limited range of 900 (vs 1200).

Bomb kit is simply not viable outside soloing camps in WvWvW and pve. The bomb radius shows 240 radius in animation, but the real radius is still smaller (bug or intended behavior, no reply from devs?).

I think this discussion might need to be moved to engineer specific forums. I made there my list of suggested changes to engineer traits and skills (mostly tweaking some numbers or bringing back existing, but removed, behavior). My list also includes some nerfs:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/Suggested-Engineer-trait-skill-changes/

I updated my original post to reflect the balance changes done yesterday.

Samuel Loretan.8601:

The intent is that since you can’t join or transfer to a “Full” server, their populations are going to diminish over time, until eventually they reach “Very High” again. At this point, all “Full” servers are going to be balanced. This won’t be right away, though, since we’re not kicking anyone out of their servers.

Good reply. This is how I also interpreted the changes. These won’t however do much to help the lowest tier servers.

Most WvWvW players want a “full” experience. Meaning that their server has reasonable amount of people on at any hour. Currently only the top EU servers can offer this and it is impossible to transfer to them. The current change benefits “Very High” status servers the most. I predict that several guilds and WvWvW players will move from the “full” servers to them, but now people need to think their server transfers more carefully, maybe it is not possible to return.

The only real way to solve the problem of diminishing WvWvW population is to increase the rewards and make the WvWvW feel more fair, balanced and fun. Merging low population servers might be needed in EU, but merging servers isn’t a long term solution if the player base is bleeding.

My suggestions to make WvWvW a better experience:
1. Increase rewards to same level as other game modes (I do not count EotM as WvWvW) e.g. each WvWvW chest should have 1 guaranteed rare, it still takes more time to earn one WvWvW chest than attend a world event in pve
2. Introduce (copy & paste) the reward tracks from spvp to WvWvW
3. Allow more varied gear, including ascended materials, back piece bought with laurels + gold + badges of honor e.g. ascended backpiece 30 laurels + 5000 badges + 50 g.
4. Make WvWvW gear salvegeable
5. Keep WvWvW unique, do NOT make it a watered down copy of pve or spvp. In other diminish both spvp and pve alike elements from WvWvW, less random pve mobs like the forest animals and less contesting the circle like conquest based spvp.
6. Have a separate WvWvW balance team. WvWvW skill balance and meta is different from pve or spvp e.g. stealth is more powerful in WvWvW than spvp and WvWvW has large group fights, still dominated by the GWEN and pirate ship metas.
7. Change the scoring system so that it leads to more even match ups. Encourage the #2 and #3 attack the currently leading server. e.g. if you take an objective from the server, which is leading the match up (determined real-time), you will get double rewards + bonus server points from capturing objectives from that server.
8. WvWvW achievements need to be put down to realistic level, not 1 million dolyak kills, but more like 5000. Introduce multiple level achievements and titles, like spvp has.
9. Quality of life changes, like addition of WvWvW blueprints to wallet

I am sure that after these changes, the numbers of happy WvWvW players will increase dramatically. Then Arenanet can think about moneytizing it.

At the moment these 8 EU servers are classified as full:
Seafarer’s Rest (current rank 1)
Desolation (rank 2)
Piken Square (rank 3)
Kodash [DE] (rank 4)
Gandara (rank 5)
Far Shiverpeaks (rank 6)
Jade Sea [FR] (rank 7)
Riverside [DE] (rank 10)

But there is still room at the Vizunah Square [FR]!

The new server population status correlates very well with the WvWvW rank, so good work by Arenanet!

I know many players will disagree me saying that besides SFR and Deso (EU rank 1 & 2) no other servers should be “full”. The new changes might encourage some guilds and players to move to silver league, which I see good for the health of this game.

Now if we could have better rewards in WvWvW and similar reward track like spvp has!

Engineer has 50% chance of getting tornado from Elixir X, instead of rampage. I would argue that tornado is much weaker than rampage, see yourself:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Tornado

Supreme.3164:

2) ICD on cleansing water = NO, this is the ele main trait, without which the profession is basically unplayable, an ICD would kill the profession as it’s the only source of reliable condi cleanse that ele possess

I suggested 5 icd, which could theoretically trigger 12 times in 1 minute. I would hardly call this much of a limitation.

Elementalist has a lot of other condition clears:
- cleansing wave trait (removes a condition when attuning to water)
- cleansing fire skill (removes 3 conditions + 3 stacks of AoE burn)
- burning fire trait (triggers cleansing fire automatically with 3+ conditions)
- cleansing water dagger skill (removes a condition)
- healing rain staff skill (cures conditions on a huge AoE every 3 seconds, 3 pulses)
- signet water skill (removes 1 condition per 10 s)

Maybe I forgot some? Anyways elementalist has one of the best condition removals in the game. Engineer has much worse condition removal, but that is an intended weakness of the engineer profession (besides being weak towards hard CC). Each profession should have at least 2 weaknesses to offer enough counter play. Now elementalists and mesmers break this rule. They can do multiple roles, without much weaknesses, making them overpowered in both spvp and WvWvW.

Elementalist has other viable builds besides d/d. Staff elementalist maybe requires more skill and more careful positioning in spvp, but I would surely argue that staff elementalist is viable. Metabattle ranks staff elementalist as a great build for spvp
http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Elementalist_-_Celestial_Staff

In WvWvW staff elementalist has been meta since 2012 ( http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Elementalist_-_Staff_Backline ). One could argue also that d/f is viable. Elementalist has one weak weapon and that is scepter.

Celestial amulet is fine. In fact it is suboptimal for most professions. Celestial rifle engineer and celestial shoutbow warrior have fallen out of the meta, leaving just 2 professions which use celestial amulet: d/d elementalist and celestial necromancer. Most others use marauder amulet. There was never a celestial meta for other game modes: pve has always favored berserker and WvWvW has favored PVT in zergs and condition (e.g. carrion/sinister etc) or berseker in roaming. Based on these statistics, it should be berserker/marauder which needs to be toned down or skills/sigils/traits benefiting from using these stat combinations.

They should however nerf D/D elementalist’s:
- ability to stack might (blasting fire fields, Pyromancer’s Puissance, might stacking runes like rune of strength)
- ability stack burn (OP’s suggestions to adjust drake’s breath and ring of fire make sense)
- soothing ice is too strong indeed
- too high uptime to protection (but nerfing from 5 s to 2 s from earth attunement swap is too harsh, maybe 5 s to 3.5 s as Elemental Contingency, Elemental Shielding and Armor of Earth also grant protection)
- Blinding Ashes trait allows blind spam from a passive trait, increase icd to 8 s
- Diamond skin and Stone Heart are badly designed traits (though rarely used in this meta)
- cleansing water needs 5 icd
- signet of restoration base heal per casting should be reduced 10%

CTFT.2740:

Exept none of the meta builds use any of them. It’s GS for all of them. Might on crit is just so powerfull.

Forceful greatsword is way too powerful as a master trait. It is stronger than most GM traits in this game. The 20% cooldown reduction + might on critical should have been enough, the +10% flat dmg bonus is simply too much.

Nowadays I rarely ever see enemy warriors without a greatsword in any game mode, except WvWvW zergs where some might still run hammer/sw+wh combo, but hammer+gs combo is also very common there. Death to diversity.

DHawk.2687:

don’t say all that out load, soon the PU mesmers will come and flame you to death :O

I don’t care about that. I just want the class diversity back. Having almost all fights against just 1 profession and 2-3 different builds makes the game less fun for me.

I know thieves were a hard counter against power mesmers and other berserker classes for a long time. And D/P+SB thief is still strong. I have been for a long time (since 2012) telling how the stealth in this game is implemented badly and it should be limited to max 8 s duration and then 4 s revealed if the player still tries to stay stealthed. But something is wrong when big part of this P/D condi perplexity and D/P perma stealth thieves rerolled into a mesmer. Right mesmer is the cheese mode (together with elementalist + guardian, but that is another story).

I can just attest that mesmers are utterly broken when it comes to WvWvW roaming.

Already 2 weeks ago I noticed that in fights of 5-10 enemy players mesmers made up half of the enemy force. I read my combat log a lot. Today I haven’t had any other enemy profession damage me, except mesmers + enemy siege golems. The ability to reset fights, chain stuns, do big burst from stealth, mobility with blink + traveler runes is good. Mesmers are right now more broken than thief ever was. When one profession comes as dominant as mesmers are right now, it takes away the diversity from the game.

How to fix this:

Mesmers has access to way too much stuns at moment: mantra of distraction + confounding suggestions (which should have 15 icd or have the stun part removed, it is way too powerful master trait). Signet of domination is over 4 second stun with this trait at 1200 range. Luckily very few mesmers use that signet.

Chaotic Interruption has way too much goodies packed into one trait: giving 2 second immobilize, 5 stacks of might, random boon and random condition. The immobilize part should be removed.

Blinding dissipation has no icd and great synergy with ineptitude, allowing blind spam at ease.

Harmonius mantras gives a stacking dmg bonus, which should be removed.

Mesmers have access to too long lasting stealth with Prismatic Understanding and ability to damage from stealth via their clones and phantasms, while NOT getting revealed. The +100% stealth increase from PU trait should be removed and reverted to +1 second.

Mesmers have access to much combat mobility: blink has mere 25 s traited CD and it is a stunbreak as well. Staff #2 has 10 icd random teleport. Not to mention portal, which can change the tide of an entire battle and probably the most powerful utility skill in the game. Yet I do not suggest nerfing portal.

Mesmer has tons of boon stripping, but I am really fine with that, because it fits the profession.

Paolo.1467:

The topic is about PvP maps where placing Pistol 5, TK 2, Bomb 5, Mortar 3, GK 4 ecc in a straegic position will allow you to keep distance easily
In wvw ofc is different but still engi have more skill to cripple moviment speed than mesmer so i think that in the long distance engi has good chance to disengage if decide to do it in time (not when is at 20% HP)

I don’t think pistol/pistol or bomb kit are viable at the top level spvp play at the moment. All the good spvp teams have way too much condition cleanse to make a condition engi viable. It might work on low levels of spvp though.

Right now mesmers are utterly broken in WvWvW roaming. Every single fight I have had today in WvWvW has been against enemy mesmers. I read my combat log extensively and I haven’t seen dmg from any other enemy profession besides mesmers + golems. If some profession starts to represent majority of the player base, the developers should instantly do something about it. There is so much broken about mesmers: mantras (recharging in the background), mantra of distraction + confounding suggestions (needs 15 icd or remove stun), Prismatic understanding (the 100% stealth increase should be removed), chaotic interruption (remove immobilize from it) etc. Right now mesmer simply has way too much burst, long range dps, stuns, utility like boon removal, area stealth, portal, combat mobility, stealth + teleports = escapes, making it a very low risk, very high reward profession. Even the thief was never this bad in terms of low risk, high reward.

The most hilarious fight was: I was roaming alone, outnumbered “buff” on home map. 2 enemy mesmers come to burst me. Roughly 15k dmg in 1 second (against my armor which is 2850 + I have protection injection which triggered), 5 different conditions, including 17 stacks of confusion. 17 stacks of long lasting confusion is a death sentence at low health. Perplexity runes should be simply removed from this game, they promote bad play for any profession.

Super:
Elementalist (D/D really didn’t need any buffs, now it is god mode with plenty of amazing trait synergy to choose from, can do any role)
Mesmer (another profession which got buffed too much, crazy amount stuns, blind, immobilize, set up burst from stealth, very short cooldown on escapes like blink, very long stealth, can do multiple roles as well)

Mid:
Guardian (almost at super tier, good sustain + burst + burns)
Warrior (without rampage + hammer/gs might be at bottom tier in the current meta)
Necromancer (power + celestial)
Thief (D/P is still strong)

Bottom:
Ranger (even though ranger got stronger, the current meta just doesn’t favor having them in a team, ranger is very strong in 1 vs 1 though)
Engineer (trait synergy is gone, baseline things missing, bugged, many traits very weak compared to any other profession)

Paolo.1467:

- Remember that mesmer has a good in combat mobilty but will never catch an engi that want to disengage, just criple them and run, if they wont reach you with the 1st blink you just need to keep distance and interrupt the line of sight

How?

Most roaming mesmers use traveler runes, meaning they have 25% movement speed
+ blink. Traited blink is 1200 range teleport with mere 25 s cooldown (in my honest opinion that cooldown is too short, considering that skill is also a stun break).

You will have trouble out running a mesmer even with rocket boots. And the traited torch skills remove conditions (including cripple).

With perma swiftness + rocketboots + rifle #5 jump to max distance (with rifled barrels trait) it took me previously about 1 minute to out run such mesmer, while throwing grenades backwards (freeze grenade is good but lasts too short time). Now when the rifled barrels trait is gone and swiftness (33% speed boost) is often exchanged for mecha legs (25% speed boost), the mesmer might as well catch the engineer.

I had recently a situation when my warrior was on low health. I tried to outrun a mesmer in WvWvW. My warrior had sword/warhorn + signet of rage + dogged march + warrior’s sprint, meaning that is very close to the maximum mobility warrior build. After 1-2 minutes of running in straight line away from the mesmer, the mesmer was finally able to GS auto attack me down. GG.

Excellent posts by the OP. Well worth reading. I wish Arenanet developers would see this.

Excellent and constructive post. I agree on everything, except I do NOT see WvWvW as a bridge between pve and spvp. WvWvW is the true end game of GW2. I know much more players who only enjoy WvWvW and are not interested in spvp or much any pve.

I hope the Arenanet staff reads this thread.

He probably wants to play outside the prime hours. While FSP is a full power house at prime time, their coverage is still weaker compared to servers like SFR or Deso. Every gold/silver server blobs, but Desolation is probably the least blobby of all top servers, because our PuGs just want to go their own way, skirmish etc. Desolation does a lot of small scale player vs door + few enemies outside the prime time. So there is always something going on.

Actually I don’t recommend him to move to so called good roaming servers, because he will sooner or later find that enemy servers he will be facing have much less similar roamers and only few gank teams to duel with. I really don’t see the point of rolling a Feature of the Month build and then teaming up with equally minded buddies to gank poor enemy “roamers”, who are equipped with a zerg build. FotM build used to be perplexity thief, now it is PU or mantra of distraction of mesmer. GS/hammer warriors, meditation guardians, d/d elementalists are also very popular. Playing such build with your buddies displays no skill of whatsoever, even if you manage to win 1 vs 2 or 2 vs 4, especially when most enemies are PuGs, who just happen to be there. From my point of view the roamers main task is to flip as many objectives are possible (camps, towers, keeps) and deny supply from enemy. And #StompForDeso (Desolation gets a lot of points from stomps).

If I see enemy ganking squad on “my” map, I will most likely turn on my tag and come to kill them with larger numbers or summon help otherwise. 5 PuGs vs 3 enemy gankers. Fair game.

Yes for this idea with the following adjustments:

The resign button should be available only if the winning team has already scored at least 300 points and has 150+ point lead. If three or more players vote “resign”, the match ends immediately as a loss. Without these adjustments the resign feature could be abused to farm rank points + reward track.

I didn’t rage about the golems, because I no longer expect anything from Arenanet when it comes to WvWvW. The things, which have should have been addressed (like population imbalance, outnumbered “buff”, overpowered siege like AC, profession imbalance, lack of rewards) have never truly been top priority for the developers. I and many others have posted reasonable/good solutions, yet the developer efforts are poured into secondary things like creating a pve map called EoTM and a new BL map, which looks like improved EotM, with lots of small scale pve events and longer distances to travel, less open fields, more chokepoints and (guaranteed) more imbalanced match ups. It weirdly seems the developers “listen” to these forums. They ignore everything they don’t want to read and cherry pick the most braindead ideas from here.

I was commanding today on Deso BL and every player on map chat was upset
about the golem changes. The general consensus is that the vast majority of players really hates the golem event and this resulted less players than normal, especially on the opposition. I didn’t use a single golem blueprint, but instead took control of the map using traditional siege, like flame rams.

I wouldn’t be surprised if we will in future get more similar “fun” events. Oh, I wish I could just tweak some numbers related to WvWvW myself e.g. adjust the siege range & dmg, remove some broken things, change the formula for scoring (to make matches more evenly scored) and improve the drop rate of rewards and add reward paths from spvp to WvWvW as well. Sighs…

I would be happy if medkit would be fixed by doing these three:
1. Medkit #1, medblast, heals at least 240+8*per boon per second on all allies at least 600 radius and the engineer himself (currently it heals less and doesn’t heal the engi at all, making it worse than attacking and using superior sigil of water)
2. Revert all medkit throw skills into drop vial, like they were before
3. Medkit drop vial skills should have an activation time of maximum 0.75 s. Currently too the medkit skills have weirdly long delays before they activate and it takes too much time of out of combat to use them. Enemy can also interrupt them easily.

In order for medkit to be viable, it should offer larger overall hit point heal than the healing turret + few blasts. Healing turret will still be favored by most, because it instantly also removes few conditions, blasts into water field give an area heal and it is faster to use. All these changes should be relatively easy to implement.

Reasoning:
Medkit #1 must be stronger than virtue of resolve with Absolute Resolution trait to be viable. I feel that medkit #1 can have a much more limited range 600 vs 1200 given by absolute resolution. Virtue of resolve heal is purely passive requiring no interaction and allowing guardian to use other skills, attack etc. at same time, while using medkit #1 requires engineer just to do that and nothing else. Absolute resolution can also be used remove 3 conditions from nearby allies.

displacedTitan.6897:

On a side note, is anyone NOT running TK + Elixer S????

I am still running with rifle + medkit + grenades / bomb kit + elixir gun + rocket boots. And yes, it sucks. Focus fire kills that build easily easily. Medkit can still heal a lot, but the throw skills + bandage self are simply too slow to activate reliably in the current meta. Enemies like to run multiple mesmers, mantra of distraction + Confounding Suggestions = lots of stuns. Ranger with wolf pet + point blank shot. hammer/gs warriors. And of course thieves. The amount of hard CC (stun, push back etc) + immobilize is hilarious. To make it even "better, medkit #1 which doesn’t self heal at all.

Desolation’s server status is often full, but believe me or not, we have lately often had absolutely no queues at prime to any of the 4 maps. There might sometimes be a bugged queue UI window, which shows 1-2 man queue to one map, but at the same time we got the outnumbered “buff” on us on that map. Server status “very high/high/full” has very little to do with it’s WvWvW population. I think the server status should be removed as it has no meaning for anything after the introduction of megaservers.

Desolation has lost of a lot of WvWvW players and gained a few. Our remaining core is small. We are very often outnumbered (“buff” is on). We score higher than almost any other server besides SFR, because we have a good coverage and players who care about points. In other words, SFR scores the highest, because they have even better coverage and much more players who enjoy fighting the gates. If you hate Points per Tick type of play, then the TOP3 EU servers are not for you.

I am glad all the other top servers got so many bandwagoners. More enemies to fight and maybe more evenly matched scored match ups. This evening I am sure many desolators got 100+ loot bags from the fights at Deso border (yes, we had the outnumbered “buff” on us). Big thanks to our enemies!

dancingmonkey.4902:

I think your getting a little greedy when it comes to request about grenades. Your showing a bit too much personal bias in how you request changes aspects such as shrapnel, to clearly cater to grenades. As well as asking for longer range on grenades, and so on.

Personally, I think bombs need more. With exception of the combo fields, bombs need a clear damage superiority to grenades, to support the risk versus reward of the range capabilities of each kit.

Actually if you read my suggestion, shrapnel would be weaker for grenades!

The grenade kit auto attack is 1/2 s, but the real attack speed is about 1 s. In 3 seconds that would mean 3 × 3 = 9 grenades. Assuming just one target and 15% trigger chance, it would trigger roughly 0.15 × 9 = 1.35 times per 3 seconds.

In my suggestion the trait can trigger maximum 1 times per 3 seconds, due the 3 second cooldown. Thus the current shrapnel is 35 % better than I suggested, plus it has 12 s bleed, not 10 s bleed. Against multiple targets the current shrapnel can be even 5 times better as the 3 s icd would limit it to 1 target.

Bomb kit would still have the following advantage over the grenades:
240 radius vs 180 (traited grenades)
25 % stronger auto attack (1.25 dmg multiplier vs 3×.033 )
fire field (for might stacking)
smoke field (for stealth)
unblockable immobilize
pulsing attacks
blast finisher
400 range launch
less vulnerable against retaliation

Grenade kit advantages:
much better range
better synergy with steel-packed powder and similar feats
potential to hit more targets (3×3) and “eat” more retaliation dmg from it

Thus the bomb kit is better in almost every single aspect, except range. I know the range is a big thing. The current meta is full of excessive burst, cleave, AoE and chained stuns and other hard CC. I don’t think it makes bomb kit viable in spvp or WvWvW even if the elixir infused bombs ( bomb healing trait ) would be back. You simply cannot sit on the point and eat all that dmg. I will later make posts to other profession forums how some of the his excessive dps/burst/CC should be toned down (mantra mesmers, elementalists, rampage warriors, burning guardians all need to be toned down).

I may sound greedy, but what I am asking would require to invest both an adept trait and major trait to get the 1500 range on grenades back. After all my suggestions the grenade kit would still be weaker than it was after the June 23 patch. Grenade kit used to have poison field, which was unblockable and very useful in real life situations. The bleeds now do weaker damage and incendiary powder is no longer on the explosions tree. The 30% condition duration was removed the explosions tree, which also means less vulnerability stacking, shorter bleeds etc. Thus the realistic dmg output of the grenades has been weakened.

At the same time the realistic dmg output of many other professions has been significantly increased.

As we all know engineer got hit hard by the recent patch. While many other professions got 3 traits condensed into one, GM traits moved to lower in the tree and things made into baseline, engineer got a lot of promises, but the recent patch delivered little. Celestial rifle is mediocre. Engineer cannot compete as bunker with guardian nor elementalist. Mesmer, thief, elementalist and warrior all got better burst and dps. Medkit was butchered in the patch and I am trying to suggest reasonable (yet easy to implement changes) to make it viable.

I have spend a lot of time reading the comments on these forums and over 2500 hours playing as engineer. Here are my suggested list of changes to the engineer. The list includes minor nerfs, but more buffs:

Made into baseline:
rifled barrels (increase range for elixir gun/harpoon gun skills, maybe also pistol, rifle was done on Jun 28 patch)
240 radius bomb kit skills (or merged with short fuse trait)

Skill changes:
orbital strike, increase base damage by 50% (this skill has a big tell it is coming and does relatively low damage for so long activation skill)
napalm (flame thrower #4) reduce burning per pulse to 2 s per pulse
blowtorch (pistol #4) reduce the burning duration to 4 s
medkit throw skills all revert back to drop vial (like before)
medkit skill #3: reduce activation time to 1/2 s, no aftercast
medkit skill #4: reduce activation time to 1/2 s, no aftercast
medkit #1, med blaster, will heal 250+8*boon per second
on the engineer himself + up to 5 allies 600 radius burst, scaling with healing power
0.05*healing power+0.005 per boon (basically weak ~280 area heal/s and engi
is not doing damage or anything else while using this)
medkit works underwater again
elixir gun #2 (elixir F) and #5 super elixir count as elixirs, would also offer
much better synergy with inversion enzyme + alchemical tinctures traits

Trait changes:

Some of the engineer traits are currently very weak and boring e.g. shaped charge, which offers mere 5% conditional damage increase and it is major trait. Some traits are too situational e.g. shrapnel is useless without grenades + being able to have multiple grenades hit repeatedly. The trait synergy is gone. Incendiary Powder is clearly weaker now. Thermobaric Detonation sounds good on paper, but with 5 s icd on Evasive Powder Keg and vigor nerf, it is very weak GM trait and why to waste precious dodges on such?

Evasive Powder Keg – icd removed (would make thermobaric detonation more useful)
Shaped Charge renamed into Amazing grenadier: increase grenade range back to 1500, 20%
reduced cooldown on grenade kit skills
Shrapnel: explosions have 33% chance to 10 s bleed + 2 s cripple, 3 s icd
Thermobaric Detonation: in addition double damage from Evasive Powder Keg
Pinpoint precision: critical hits cause 3 s blind, 10 icd
Chemical rounds: condition duration increase 30% (previously 50%), 20% reduction of cd of pistol skills
Heal resonator, increase range to 360 (still much smaller than the shout radius)
Autodefense bomb dispenser renamed into autodefense protector: 4 s protection when hit by a critical hit, 10 s icd (current meta has several hard hitting unblockable hits or burst from stealth)
Automated medical response: reduce icd to 60 s, activates only if health is 25% and healing skill is already in cooldown,, making it actually useful
Energy amplifier —> http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Enhance_Performance
(3 stacks of 15 s might, when using healing skill #6, 10 icd, allowing to stack might with medkit stowing)
Medical Dispersion Field --> http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Elixir-Infused_Bombs
( Bomb explosions heal allies 145 + 0.15* healing power, alternative to bunker down, elixir infused bombs were a well-loved and balanced trait, which was deleted for no reason)
Takedown round: reduce icd to 5 s
Streamlined kits: reduce swiftness to 10 s, reduce internal cooldown to 10 s
Gadgeteer: remove the need for static charges, always improves gadgets, 20% reduced cd

Most of my suggested changes are simply tweaking some numbers or reverting back to old behavior which was already in the game, so they shouldn’t be too difficult to implement.

Please discuss!

Celestial rifle engineer is significantly weaker after the patch in WvWvW roaming. Cele engi lacks dmg due incendiary powder moved to firearms tree (which you cannot equip unless you sacrifice survivability). Grenade kit got nerfed (it is difficult to hit the the siege and archers standing on the walls).

I have been now playing much less on my engineer. Generally WvWvW solo roaming became harder for all professions, except maybe the mesmer. The damage is all over the place, so much stuns and immobilize.

Aeolus.3615:

AOE classes and player numbers are even more important than before, before a small organized group could defeat a much larger disorganized one, now only matters number being in aoe damage or in players, more than anything

This seems to hold true most of the time. Now even a slight disadvantage in numbers e.g. having 25 % less than your enemies will usually lead to a loss e.g. 32 vs 40 puts the first in a serious disadvantage. There is so much hard and soft cc, AoE etc. that larger numbers can win most fights with numbers.

The stability changes are over exaggerated.

GWEN certainly did NOT turn into NEER in EU top tiers. Guardians, Elementalists and necromancers got even stronger in the recent patch. Necromancer needed the buffs, but I simply fail to understand why already super powerful builds like staff or d/d elementalist or meditation or shout guardian needed to be buffed more. Many commanders, including me, continue to play as warrior (guardian commanders are probably the most frequent).

LB pewpew rangers were already common before the patch. Engineers were the least played profession and I have heard many who played engi main switch to other professions now. I am mostly playing warrior (commander) after the patch. Engineer suffered a lot in the recent trait changes (and tons of bugs). You can read more about this in the engineer specific forums. Somebody suggested to play a flamethrower engineer. Retaliation still hits FT too hard and some top enemy zergs have more or less permanent retaliation on them, so…

The recent trait changes buffed mesmer to overpowered level, thus making it making it #1 profession for small scale roaming and fights. I can imagine that many thieves changed to play mesmer, because everybody and their uncle is searching for the next easy mode (low risk and high reward). Recently I was leading roughly 8 of us vs 10 enemies and roughly half of the enemy players were mesmers. The number of clones was hilarious, but I feel the mesmer has too many escapes and too much stealth comparing to what amount of burst they can set from stealth. Mesmers can spam stuns too much using mantra of distraction and confounding suggestions trait.

Medicarejunkie.6032:

I vote for increasing only the AA to 1200.

Why? Why to force engineer into a mid range fighter? (let’s be realistic the only long range option, mortar, will not hit any mobile target due it’s very slow projectile speed)

I have played over 2000 hours with rifled barrels trait. That trait didn’t just increase the range of the auto attack of rifle and elixir gun, but also many other rifle/EG and pistol skills.

Now I often find key skills, like overcharged shot, being out of range. I have learned to position myself just at the utmost outer range of the skill. 100 range increase doesn’t sound much, but it is now causing constant misses due out of range. Rifle #2, net shot, has a relatively slow projectile, which is not reliable to hit past 1000+ range, so what is the problem of giving it back it’s 1200 range?

snarfrificus.4230:

pick sfr if you want to win through full ppt
pick fsp if you want to choose the perfect boy in class that has no true growth potential
pick deso if you want to do a lot of hard work, cause there is not much left of that community
…

Hehe. Desolation often really feels like the “hardmode” in WvWvW. Being very often outnumbered and not getting the players to stick close enough to the blue tag (open commander) makes it tiring. Many famous commanders have rage quitted or left to other servers, but at the same time many of the old core who has been on server for ages is still there and new players keep coming in. If you cannot handle the constant pressure, I cannot recommend Desolation for you.

I am one of those who guys who plays for the points, aka “ppt hero”. But if I have roughly equal numbers or larger numbers I push and attack. I think both the “we just want good open field fights” and “maximize points for tick, defend hard, stall & drain supplies if you cannot, flip all the camps” should co-exist.

Solo queue should come back.

I would happy even if there would be just 2 spvp conquest game modes:
- solo
- premade team

Both could be ranked to avoid splitting the small spvp community even further. Thus there would no longer be unranked (you can always test your builds against the NPC or using custom servers).

And it should not include any of the broken/badly designed maps, namely: Skyhammer, Courtyard and Spirit Watch (these 3 maps don’t appear in ranked anyways). The game should never force players to play those maps. I have had 500-0 win and 125-500 loss in Courtyard and almost similar blow out scores in the above 3 maps. I prefer more even scored games e.g. 450-500 win or loss, not a total faceroll win or loss.

Currently celestial works really well only for one profession: elementalist. D/D elementalist can stack might at ease to compensate the relative loss power. At the same time elementalist can have lots of sustain (almost permanent regeneration, very strong passive heal from the signet, high uptime of protection), boons, very good condition cleanse, good mobility, good condition and direct damage. I would argue that cele D/D is overpowered because of the profession design, not because of the amulet.

Necromancer can also now benefit from the celestial amulet thanks to signets of suffering trait.

Celestial warrior builds, namely the shoutbow, are out of fashion.

Engineers got hit really hard with this patch and are now a bottom tier profession. The trait synergy is no longer there, the amount of bugs remaining is astounding and half of the traits are lack luster. Most engineers seem to go condition (carrion amulet) or soldier.

I do not know any meta builds which use the celestial amulet for thief, mesmer, ranger or guardian. I don’t have access to statistics, but I have a hunch that marauder is now the most popular amulet, then berserker amulet, then carrion, then maybe celestial. Outside spvp celestial has never been really popular. WvWvW zergs favors soldier. Pve favors berserker.

Almost every single player uses the popular sigils (air/fire/doom/geomancy/intelligence/energy) and runes (strength/hoelbrak/vampirism/pack/pirate/krait etc). I would say the over used sigils + runes are clearly a bigger problem now.

We shouldn’t think this problem just as “your profession is better than mine”, but as a whole.

Currently burn damage is completely out of control. It provides too fast armor ignoring burst. The condition cleansing simply isn’t enough. Burn does too much dmg even using berserker/marauder amulet, which offers no condition damage. If a character hasn’t invested any points to condition damage stat, the burn should do considerably less dmg than it does now.

At the same time bleed damage feels a bit too weak.

Abundant stealth in combat in this game is still problematic. I recommend limiting stealth to max 8 sec. Player animation will turn semitransparent, if player still remains stealthed despite the “warning”, it will result 4 s revealed. More professions should have some stealth revealing skills e.g. warrior’s “fear me” / “on my mark” could give 2-4 s reveal.

The most commonly used sigils: fire/air/doom/geomancy/energy/intelligence need to be toned down
The most abused runes: strength/Hoelbrak/Pirate/Balthazar/Krait also need some readjusting.
I am also using them, so I am asking the developers to nerf my favorite sigils etc.

When it comes to professions here is my list:

super tier:
mesmer (too many stuns and other CC with very low cooldown, ability to set up massive burst from stealth, too long stealth, just too many escapes compared
to the burst potential it has, meaning it is low risk + high reward, mantras and PU +
Confounding Suggestions trait need toning down)
elementalist (cele D/D was already super tier before the patch and now it got buffed even more and D/F +staff is very strong as well. Ele has always been meta in WvWvW and pve. Ele’s ability to stack might, cleanse condition and stack burn should be nerfed)
guardian (ability stack burn needs to be turned down, “Feel my wrath” is ridicilously overpowered in WvWvW, giving permanent quickness to entire guardian
dominated zerg, other professions, which fit the same role e.g. warrior and engi, should have their sustain upgraded to same level as guardian)

mid tier:
necromancer (necromancer needs some of its hardest hitting abilities, like Lich form, toned down, but also get a bit long term sustain or perhaps an utility skill/elite which gives them a movement skill)
warrior (shout warrior sustain was nerfed a tiny bit too much, so it should be adjusted back to closer to the same levels as it was before the patch. Rampage is currently too strong, greatsword + forceful greatsword trait and berserker’s power
too powerful, burst skills recharge too quickly, allowing to spam burst skills without thinking, too low cd on hard CC skills)
thief (panic strike + executioner too strong, abundant stealth + shadowsteps + high burst in one builds counters all other berserker builds, besides mesmer, limiting meta,
pistol/pistol still too weak)

low tier:
ranger (signet of stone needs adjusting down, but please give ranger other defensive ability, not necessarily immunities, the ability to spam two rapid fires almost in a row needs to be toned down, pets should have a “spirit” mode, when they are totally deactivated, taking no dmg, but also doing nothing, this would be highly needed for AoE heavy envinroments, like contesting mid point with 3vs3, WvWvW zerg fights and pve dungeons),
engineer (previously super tier profession suffers from some very underpowered or even broken traits and lack of trait synergy, make rifled barrels trait baseline like planned, grenade kit was nerfed too hard, medkit skills should be “drop vial” like before and not thrown, engineer’s ability to stack burn with IP trait + pistol/pistol + flamethrower needs to be toned down, toolkit shield too good)

I have had similar experience, even though nowhere as long losing streaks. Winning on an engineer has been more difficult after the patch. Besides the grenade barrage bug engineer lacks the fast burst many other professions have. Unranked spvp at the moment is “burst, dodge or die”.

With over 2500 hours on my engi I had developed a play style to control the range, 1200 traited elixir gun and rifle, using EG#2/4 and rifle #2/4/5, perma switfness and rocketboots also to control the range. In other words trying to avoid fighting most opponents under 1200 range most of the time and trying to anticipate attacks (because I had no block skills in my build). Now with rifled barrels trait is gone and the improved range didn’t make the baseline and grenade kit nerf to 900, this play style is gone. Mortar projectiles are so slow that they will reliably hit only immobile/AFK targets at 1200+ range.

I know I should just “adapt” and either go P/P condition spam and use healing turret and toolkit like every other engineer. I have been stubbornly using medkit, which was butchered. Activating medkit no longer triggers “on heal” effects in spvp (which had great synergy with Altruism/Lyssa runes etc). The medkit ground targeting and the weird delays (F1 sometimes not even activating) are really killing me. And before yesterday’s patch, medkit condition cleanses (besides #5) cleaned just one condition, not the stack.

Other game modes:
Engi is still good in pve. If you rotate between bombkit/grenades and rifle you can pump out a lot of DPS. But every class got so much buffs that pve feels even easier than before.

In WvWvW engineer was the least played profession and never part of meta. Now I don’t even run into enemy engineer roamers anymore. Everybody and their uncle is playing mesmer.

It happened already before the patch. It is easy to repeat this bug. Just go to WvWvW and try to damage the gates with grenades. If you throw the nades at the gate, they often do no damage, but if you throw the grenades on the ground just in front of the gate, they do damage correctly.