Guild Wars 2

This same topic keeps repeating itself. And basically, all you’re saying is, Arenanet was right with their Season 1 and season 2 matchmaking systems and they should not listen to any more complaints after they change it back.

Ithilwen.1529:

Sailing through the seasons doesn’t give you any moral or logical high ground.

The matches are set deliberately uneven. So, neither winning nor losing reflect skill in my opinion.

I’m sorry you feel this way Ithilwen but winning/losing DOES reflect skill. It reflects the skill that your team has in working together despite never playing together.

zinkz.7045:

The same thing that stops me watching LOL, DOTA, CS, etc, I don’t find video games as a “competitive” thing very interesting to watch, they are low skilled compared to say sport and they lack flair or creativity because they are constrained by the very restrictive limits of a video game.

Oh and it doesn’t help that most of the players seem to have the mental age of about 14 (and I’m being unfair to many 14 year olds), and think part of being “competitive” is throwing insults non-stop which just gets tedious.

This is why I loved the old skyhammer, because if you didn’t have knockbacks, you had to get creative about how you would get rid of your enemy if you couldn’t beat them and it turned a boring 1-tone match into a barrel of laughs and mistakes.

The bunker Ele definitely doesn’t guarantee a win. It helps increase your chances of winning if you have a good one but doens’t guarantee it. Beaten several teams with double bunker Eles by (not-so-simply) outrotating them and splitting them up.

If the team is average, 1 good player making the right choice at the right time could change everything. If your teammates are poor then your choices just won’t matter.

I watched the match where Zoose was playing and I believe he almost died and almost lost the cap but the person that came to help him made up for it.

Prince Vingador.8067:

Dirame.8521:

Shield.

We ask for active defense a lot and if we get shield, there’s a good chance we might get that active defense.

Shield really?
Thats as bad as a necro shooting unicorns.
Im almost sure we will get or torch(almost sure of this one ) or a sword.
I also think that will be a condi weapon since we have just 1 atm .

Lightsbane.9012:

i’m going to disagree, every time arenanet gives the class some sort of defense, it’s at the cost of something else not denied to another class.
i’d like to see the necromancer version of scrapper, minus the hammer and techy bits. what i mean is something that excels in 1v1 scenarios, and can do well in group encounters. that means blocks (shield, which i’m too cynical to believe we will get) or speed/leaps/burst (via sword)

Maybe if you saw what abilities I’d suggest for the shield?

Insidious Defense – The next 3 attacks against you, heal you instead.

Tainted Shield – Block attacks for the next 3 seconds. Attacks blocked cause an explosion of poison and weakness every second if you are attacked.

Or

Defile Defences – The next attack against you is reflected back at the attacker.

Dark Pact – Block attacks against you for 3s. Your enemies are healed for all damage dealt to you while you were blocking. When the blocking ends, they take double the amount of damage they were healed for. Undogdeable/Unblockable.

Or

Malaise – Block attacks for 3s. For every attack you block, the attacker loses 10% of their endurance and you gain 5% deathshroud and 5% health. – For when they introduce more ways to directly play with people’s endurance.

Blood Pact – Convert 3 conditions into life force. If you are bleeding, convert 6.

mrauls.6519:

How is being in the top 50 going to attract casuals?

That’s the point, it’s not supposed to. It’s supposed to keep the top ranked players playing and feeling competitive.
That said though, I think this would work better if it was applied to Team queue as well. Like a seperate master’s division for team queued players.

Shield.

We ask for active defense a lot and if we get shield, there’s a good chance we might get that active defense.

Ithilwen.1529:

I’m running a healer ele. In many matches it doesn’t do a lot of good. At the launch of one recent game I ran for mid… then I checked my minimap. 3 of my teammates had run for Svanir, who hadn’t arrived yet. That’s when I heard the tolling of the bell. Less than 30 seconds into the match.

Here’s another tip: In matches where your team is rotating poorly, you’re going have to become the guy who can 2v1. Any class you think can 2v1, play that class like crazy. And try to guage what your team needs because sometimes, you don’t need to play Healer Ele. Sometimes what your team needs is someone who can down targets and also stomp those targets: Engie, Guardian, Warrior can do that. Win or Lose though, as long as you’re giving your team a better chance at winning, then you have done your part. And try not to get frustrated because that’s when you start playing badly.

Ithilwen.1529:

I’m nearly out of energy and ready to log for the day. Here’s my results since I started this thread yesterday. That’s 33 losses and 5 wins.. or approximately 15.2% wins. The vast majority of those by ROFLSTOMP.

I’ve done my part.. I’ve worked as hard or harder than most. This matchmaking is not right.

I’m not a pro player and I do play more casually than you. It only took me 158 matches to get to Legendary.

And here are the rules that I go by when it comes to playing ranked PvP:
- Pick a class that can turn the tide at certain key moments (Healer eles, Rez teleports from Blood magic necro or Rangers, Moa from mesmers or engies, boon removal by necros etc)
- or Pick a class that can counter the other classes (Necros counter warriors, Warriors can stun lock eles, Mesmers can kill warriors, Thieves can out rotate mesmers and pressure necros etc)
- or Pick a class that can force people to spend too much time fighting them (Healer Ele, Bunker Druid, Bunker engie, Bunker mesmer etc)
- Or be unreasonably good at rotating at the right time. (Be an unreasonably good thief or mesmer).

As a player, you have to be able to do at least two of the above in any given match. I personally used a combination of “turning the tide at key moments” and “use a counter class” to win most of my matches. So if you want to win more, do the above.
DISCLAIMER: You also have to KNOW how each class can turn the tide, or else it’s like giving a 2 year old a gun.

BeepBoopBop.5403:

Fay.2357:

BeepBoopBop.5403:

Cynz.9437:

Mallyx?

/15 charrs with apples

Mallyx has no stunbreaks and 0 synergy with any power build. Not to mention that you have to take Corruption.

God forbid you have to sacrifice something to get something else.

The ironic thing is, it still doesn’t have clears.

And I nor will any revenant sacrifice viability just to get condition clears. The whole point why we want condition clears is to BE more viable without humping an Ele’s leg. Mallyx, Ventari, and Jalis don’t put as in a more viable state.

Amazing that I have to spell that out to your dense kitten .

His point still stands.

And if you want to survive against conditions a bit better as a power Rev, play Salvation-Invocation-Herald - With this you would have cleanse on dodge, cleanse on legend swap in addition to the other stuff you already have on your weapons and Facet of Light. On your sigils you can go for the Sigil of purity for a chance to remove a condition when you hit or Salvation-Retribution-Herald - This gives you cleanse on dodge, 50% damage reduction on condis and direct damage when you drop below 50% health and more passive CC than you can shake a stick at. Sigil of Purity also useful here.

I’m still going to say that the matchmaking is great when it’s set to MMR because you get tough matches ALOT MORE OFTEN than you not. This is the only season where that isn’t the case.

Revenants have a good condi clear set-up if you’re willing to sacrifice damage for it.

strong and brave.5718:

That’s because Anet decided that it would be smart to make condi cleanse completely random unless a condi is specified. If I recall correctly they said it made the game ’’flow’’ better.

So now I can enjoy blowing all my cleanses trying to hit that bleed, just like how I blow all my savings in slot machines.

The condi cleanse isn’t random. It’s the last condi applied that is cleansed first. So if you see your opponent applying tons of bleed even if it’s at 6 stacks, just cleanse it before he covers it with crap condis.

If the condi cleanse was random it would be easier to down Diamond skin eles.

Archon.6480:

I think people just find the game mode annoying. Teams stack minion masters and it becomes an AI slug fest. Long and boring.

Pff, those 5 minion mancers would have to be extremely kitten and the team they are fighting would have to be mediocre for them to pose a real threat. Sure they’d be annoying but, those guys are annoying in every game mode. I’d actually say they are more annoying in Conquest than in Stronghold. A good group of players can out-manuever them, making them look like fools for playing minions. A group of Trap rangers would pose a bigger threat.

If there was a Stronghold Tournament at the same level as Pro League, people would care about it more.

Haleydawn.3764:

“Toss spectral scythes at foes in front of you, applying chill to them and pulling them to you. " Yep, definitely a projectile.

Bah humbug. If you’re going to make a skill that grabs the ground a projectile, at least make it look like a projectile.

WHY??

WHHHYYY?

I’m sorry. Let me just regain composure. Why?

Swirling winds, the Ele focus #4 skill, blocks Grasping darkness the Reaper GS #5 skill. It’s not even a projectile guys! C’mon!!!!!!

Trevor Boyer.6524:

With all due respect ^^
Big fat nope on that one
Here is why:

• Any team who is playing competitively should be more worried about climbing the ladder to get in to the ESL and less worried about pip progressions. Twisting the guild team league towards pip progression is terrible idea. Not to mention how many players “and I mean the majority” is absolutely put off by the current pip system already.
• Getting non-pro players dedicated enough to log in every day or even a few times a week and actually stay on long enough with the team to get something done in a ladder, is not as easy as it sounds. So making a revision that causes the league to become even more complex concerning drafting/maintaining/scheduling teams is just a bad idea man.
• The player base is screaming out for more casual modes, not more complex ones. People want to be able to log in for an hour or two a day and play casual modes where they aren’t punished for not being involved in a highly dedicated team. GW2 absolutely needs to find a way to build a wall between casual environment and super involved always on TS3 environment. Not everyone has the time or even wants to be involved in that stuff every time they log in, simply to “keep up”.

~ I do however like the idea of far greater rewards for participating in the current guild league ladder but aside from that, I personally feel the guild league works perfectly as intended. Even the MMR algorithm is correct when it comes to 5v5.

- Your first complaint sounds like you didn’t read/comprehend what I typed correctly. There is no pip progression, there is just a Tier and a Leaderboard for each tier and the determiner for moving to the next tier is being within the progression threshold

- People will do it. People enjoy doing this stuff especially when they are encouraged to with Gold and gem rewards.

- Solo Q wouldn’t be removed with this change. I never once stated this would replace any other mode apart from Guild Challenger League which doesn’t foster much competition.

bump mapping

One thing I think is entirely neglected in GW2 is the feeling of progression of a team as a whole. Sure we have the guild challenger league but who takes that seriously really? And does anyone feel accomplished with that at all? Does any team out there feel like the Guild Challenger League scratches that PvP progression and pride itch? If yes then cool but if no, I’d like to get your opinion on what I suggest below.

So what if, instead of the Guild Challenger League, Anet added a new system called the Team League. Where we have all the tiers that we have now (Amber to Legendary) and teams have to progress through each tier like us solo players do now but the difference is, instead of progressing with pips, you have to be ranked at the top of the tier’s Leaderboard. So each Tier would have it’s own Leaderboard, Amber being the first one. Amber’s rules would be, by the end of every week if you’re in the top 500, your team will progress into Emerald and for Emerald at the end of every 2 weeks, your team needs to be part of the top 400 in order to move on to Sapphire and so on and so forth. The break down would look like this;

Amber – Top 500 move up every week
Emerald – Top 400 move up every 2 weeks
Sapphire – Top 300 move up every 2.5 weeks
Ruby – Top 200 move up every 3 weeks
Diamond – Top 100 move up every 3.5 weeks
Legendary – Top 10 teams go to Pro League. Others start from Sapphire next season.

Ranking high at the end of each Tier’s run time will give the teams, 100 gems and 50 gold which doubles per tier (for the Top 10 teams). Others get finishers, Slama Llamas and a precursor.

The idea is NOT to have Amber only run for one week or for Emerald to only run for 2 weeks but rather to have people constantly progressing through the tiers each week, allowing them to catch up if they missed out on moving to the next tier by being number 501 or number 401 on the leaderboard. This also means there’s a steady stream of players constantly progressing through the League season and a good amount of competition to be had.

One problem this suggestion eliminates is the situation where a player enters a new tier and find they don’t have anyone else in that tier with them because they progressed too fast, giving them extremely lengthy queues. Instead, this system will essentially give them people to fight each time they move up a tier.

That said, I know that this suggestion is assuming there’s a good enough population in GW2 to handle this sort of system. Well, I don’t have that information so I don’t know but what I do believe is, this sort of system will allow teams who participate to feel more accomplished. At least more accomplished than I think the Guild Challenger League is currently in my opinion.

Just my two cents. Feel free to share yours

Playing against 1 ele is easy, playing against two is the hard part. A good team can do both. So losing to two eles just depends on how good your team is vs theirs.

Not broken really. Only broken if you don’t know how to fight it. Easiest way to beat them, get a dragon hunter, drop some traps, laugh as they can’t dodge out of Dragon’s Maw.

I can probably do it with Condi (Bombs and Elixir Gun, I hate grenades). Just need to go there first…. I haven’t explored HoT much.

EDIT: Pff, can’t do it. That thing is crazy difficult. You can’t block the poddles? The closest I came was half health I think but yea, kudos.

Engie
Guard
Necro
——-
On a good day;
Mesmer
Warrior

The build that I’ve seen work 9 out of 10 times is the staff perma evade build. It’s broken in it’s own way. It may not be as quick as D/P but in a 1v1 it’s harder to deal with. Guaranteed to beat my necro more often than not.

JTGuevara.9018:

xeonage.1253:

Stronghold is a ele healing game. In same level, 2 ele heal the bomber,1 ppls break the treb. 100% win the match. They should change the player cannot heal the NPC. Because None can sure you have a ele in your team in solo queue.

THIS is precisely why I stopped playing it. Stronghold with no ele = LOSS. Period. End of discussion. Stronghold needs massive changes. I just stick with conquest.

Overstatement of the year. Stronghold without GOOD PLAYERS is a loss. Even of you have an Ele, there is no guarantee that the Ele will be able to keep the NPCs alive if the enemy has a good defence.
The real problem is Stronghold requires more coordination than conquest therefore, new players will be bad at it. I personally like stronghold but not soloq stronghold. Teamq is most fun.

Chrono.6928:

Just have seen a lot of primordial legends and s2 legends in sapphire recently. I guess skill doesn’t matter if there’s a premade 50/50 w/l ratio.

Some people don’t play often and since they’ve gotten to Legendary before, they don’t feel the need to rush?

Team Queue.

The reason why people don’t play in teams as much and why fewer teams are coming into the EU scene is because there’s no way to actually test your skill and coordination vs good teams outside of ESL and Pro league tournaments. There is no guarantee that you’ll meet other teams if you queue as a team.

Jake.5279:

Makes pvp and power builds a joke, you are all just realizing how bad it is now that merc ammy is gone, welcome to being a thief the last 2 seasons.

Lol you guys keep mentioning Merc amulet like it has any effect on Conditions. Carrion has a better effect on condi damage than Merc amulet and even THAT is extremely miniscule. Mercernary’s amulet leaving the game HAS NOTHING and I mean ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with the power of condi. I was beating mesmers with my condi necro even whilst they had the merc ammy so I don’t know where you’re getting this whole “Condi is more effective now with merc ammy gone”. It’s not like power characters don’t have Paladin’s ammy.

If anything should be happening right now, it should be that Necros and Mesmers are easier to take down because they can’t hide behind Merc ammy anymore. (PS: I never used merc anyway.)

Silhouette.5631:

Congratulations Anet, the game is at the point that people will laugh at you, insult you, and call you a noob because you are not running an Xpac build. Playing a guardian instead of a dragonhunter now makes me an underpowered scrub. 2 people on my team shared that sentiment. Thats 50% of my team.

Back in my day only condi necros were that toxic

This game is supposed to pride itself on being built in a way that it encourages people treating each other kindly and not in a way that promotes aggression towards one another. Having builds that are clearly under powered is something that is cause for arguement

That being said

Please give us another balance patch

With Love,
The dude who’s been running the same build for over a year yet somehow seems to be getting worse.

P.S. I uninstalled LoL because of its toxic community. Haven’t played it in two years. We’re no wheres close to that yet but dear god is the game moving in that direction.(As far as the people I see in PvP. PvE is still great…unless you’re the tag doing DS meta)

Step 1: Create a new chat tab called Silence.
Step 2: Turn everything off in said chat tab.
Step 3: Smile as you won’t be able to hear what anyone says unless you want to.

R O C.6574:

Played 6 matches -

-win
-loss
-loss
-win
-loss (kittening DC’d before match -DC’d 2nd time while trying to log in- got back in when we were down 200 points – still got 8min dishonor for “deserting”)
-win

At least i ended with a pip this time. I’m thinking of only playing 1 match a day and seeing how that goes…

I feel your pain. I was in the win-loss cycle for almost 2hrs straight but then me and my friend got mad and started playing with rage and fire in our eyes. Taking no prisoners. Wouldn’t say that’s why we won 3 matches in a row, we could’ve lost but we played better and prayed our team could pick up the rest.

Jeez, its the same complaint every year and the only reason you are complaining is because you got wrecked in one match where Condi damage was most prevalent. Reality is, it’s actually not that bad when you spec to support your teammates as well as . That’s why Eles are pretty good and Engies are good also. Even Necros can be specced to help with the Condi spam…but you know, its easier to just complaint about it.

Flumek.9043:

Dirame.8521:

Reh.5986:

Life blast is so slow. Base necro is still horrible. Stacking it up against an elite spec makes it look even worse.

Power Necro may suck intensely damage-wise. But it has incredible survivability for what its worth. That said, my base necro still kicks all the butt when it comes to Condi. I haven’t seen a reaper build that outright wins 1v1 against me. I admit that Reaper has better downed pressure, aoe and stab availability but I’ve guaranteed more downs as a base necro than Reaper. And guess which one definitely beats Mesmers more often than not?

Ceimash,
The topic is power necro and power creep.
A once deadly auto even in barbarian amulet can now be facetanked while in most offensive set possible. This is under ideal scenarios even, we 1v1 stood still and facetanked, no teamfight perma interupts or focus straight up countering projectiles for 50% immunity uptime….did i forgot to mention it can also facetank a full lich?

If you win against the current fotm 1v1 or other mainly condi reapers more often, just because the extra curses line gives you an extra passive transfer, that doesnt really make lifeblast any better does it?

Survivability is also pretty bad imo, but lets keep it on topic.

Its just the regular weekly demo of power creep, where you once could kill the top dawgs with a B-tier (top 15-20 ranked build) while now the top 9 meta ones are phzsicallz impossible to kill even with max glass canon.

About the survivability thing, I have to just say I made a build that uses Knight’s amulet and it can be hard to kill because of how fast it generates DS.

The 1v1 thing is NOT just because of Curses.The passive transfer doesn’t always proc on the right target. I win against other condi necros because I have a longer fear than they do. And I beat mesmers because I figured out a way to punish them for being too aggressive and I also figured out why they did so much damage. That combined with base necro’s no-cast-time fear, makes for a Necro with good chain combos.

Ayrilana.1396:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

I’m not assuming anything – if anything, you are.

That line comes directly from the game, in the same source we have this other statement:

“In olden times, when the Dragons stirred, it fell to the Seers to set aside a reservoir of magic for the upcoming drought.”

Relinking source: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/A_Study_in_Gold

You say that the seers didn’t need the influence of divine magic, but the truth is that nothing makes that claim. We know that any divine magic they used wasn’t from the Six Gods, but they’re not the only gods that exist in Tyria – or at least, that’s what other races will say. Zintl, Ameyali, Koda, the Great Dwarf, Mellaggan just to name the more prominently known ones – and that doesn’t count things like the Spirit of the Wilds (note: norn consider the Spirit of the Wilds to be on par to the Spirits of Action aka Six Gods, and we know of many other nature spirits such as Urgoz, Zhu Hanuku, and others who were capable of controlling entire landscapes or return from the dead).

Nothing really says the seers didn’t use divine magic to make the Bloodstone. However, this new lore from HoT indicates that they indeed did.

They created the bloodstone before the six gods appeared. No other gods were mentioned either.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Bloodstone

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/The_Ruined_City_of_Arah_(explorable)#Seer

Nothing mentions that divine magic was used. Your argument is like me saying that aliens founded the United States. Nothing says that they didn’t after all…

Dude, he clearly stated that the Forgotten themselves said they can’t use the bloodstone without Divine magic and all of this is said in-game. How can you argue against that?

And to add to his point, was it not the 6 gods who brought magic back into Tyria after the Dragons went to sleep? And was it not the 6 that split it into how many or so pieces? So does it not stand to reason that they changed how the Bloodstone can be activated?

Reh.5986:

Life blast is so slow. Base necro is still horrible. Stacking it up against an elite spec makes it look even worse.

Power Necro may suck intensely damage-wise. But it has incredible survivability for what its worth. That said, my base necro still kicks all the butt when it comes to Condi. I haven’t seen a reaper build that outright wins 1v1 against me. I admit that Reaper has better downed pressure, aoe and stab availability but I’ve guaranteed more downs as a base necro than Reaper. And guess which one definitely beats Mesmers more often than not?

June 23rd wasn’t when things started to go south. June 23rd was pretty good. The problem is, players always complain too late. As an engineer, I complained early on about some trait lines being atrocious but no one listens to a lone voice in the room. Good news was that enough people complained about Guardian and got some things fixed/changed for it, same with Elementalists. But no one really had foresight when it came to engis.

As I suggested in the other trait thread:

“You could keep the current system and have it such that a character can pick any 9 traits from any of the 1 – 3 trait lines they select. For instance a person could run only Death magic in the case of necros or he could run just Soul Reaping by selecting all 9 traits from that specialization. Or a person could do what they are doing now and go with all 3 and select one from each. Sounds more interesting to me than going back to the overly complicated and not so eye-candy trait system.
Also, if you think some traits are that bad, you could suggest traits you think would be better suited for those slots.”

It would be like a shot in the arm to build diversity. But even if we had the above suggestion, some traits will still be really bad and will never be taken.

HeadCrowned.6834:

Hello all,

I have been PvP’ing for quite a long time now, but with some long breaks due to pure boredom. After a big update/patch I start playing again, and after some time I lose my interest in the game again. I know that this is mostly because of the lack of differentiation in PvP. In a lot of topics on these forums that I respond in, I try to convince people that a larger set of different viable builds for every profession is a key factor to make PvP more attractive and competitive.

In its current state, every profession has pretty much only 1 viable role in the higher tiers of PvP. For example:
- Revenant: Power damage
- Elementalist: Support
- Druid: Support
- Mesmer: Condi damage
- Etc.

One of the reasons behind this, is the fact that you got to fully invest in 3 traitlines. With other words, for 1 trait that you need in a traitline, you have to pick 2 other traits in that traitline that you might not even want. If this is the case, you really have to make sure that every trait is pretty much evenly useful. Unfortunately this is not the case. The HoT Elite specs are almost always stronger than the normal traitlines, and every profession still has a lot of useless traits (even Grandmaster traits). Therefore it is a bad thing that if you only want an Adept or a Master trait from 1 traitline, you also have to pick a Grandmaster trait from that traitline, while an Adept trait from a different traitline might be even more useful. I play Ranger/Druid these days, and I can think of many examples for this, so I guess that could be for every other profession the case as well. The old trait system allowed you to actually do this, while the current trait system does not.

Therefore, I think that this trait system does even less stimulate build diversion than the old trait system. When I see an Ele, I do not want to know for sure that it is a bunker on beforehand. When I see a Revenant, I do not want to know for sure that it is a power rev on beforehand. This game really needs more build diversity, and not a very tight Meta with just a few viable proffesions and specs. Adjusting the trait system would be a first step to reach this. I would enjoy watching an ESL-match between 2 totally different teams a lot more than 2 basically the same teams.

Just to be clear: altering the trait system would in my opinion be a good first step, not a solution to every problem. What do you guys think?

Or….you could keep the current system and have it such that a character can pick any 9 traits from any of the 1 – 3 trait lines they select. For instance a person could run only Death magic in the case of necros or he could run just Soul Reaping by selecting all 9 traits from that specialization. Or a person could do what they are doing now and go with all 3 and select one from each. Sounds more interesting to me than going back to the overly complicated and not so eye-candy trait system.

Also, if you think some traits are that bad, you could suggest traits you think would be better suited for those slots.

Krysard.1364:

Dirame.8521:

I don’t know what you’re talking about Death Claw. For me, Necro is one of the only classes I can play in this meta (the others being Condi Engie and Condi Guardian).

Well, hes talking about metacomp based pvp, while you are obviously talking about a more casual approach to pvp

I doubt he’s talking about metacomp but I don’t know him so… /shrug

I don’t know what you’re talking about Death Claw. For me, Necro is one of the only classes I can play in this meta (the others being Condi Engie and Condi Guardian).

Manuhell.2759:

Changes that sit well with all game modes?
You mean, like they nerfed turrets to the floor and removed most of their traits? Or how gadgets are essentially useless right now?
Engineers in PvE are just about kits (as elixirs aren’t that good in a group setting, and buffing is better done by other people instead). Why do you think it ended up like that?
Let’s speak frankly, all they ever bothered to do was changing things so that they wouldn’t bother anyone in PvP, without any care for their performance in the other modes.
Why do you think there is such a lack of diversity right now? Core professions have seen any skill or trait deemed problematic being squashed into the floor, and left in the dust, for years. Instead of having proper reworks done. Of course, if you kill skills and traits one after the other, you end up with few nice things and a ton of mediocre choices. No wonder that elite specs end up being comparatively strong…they’re fresh, not yet broken choices in a sea of mediocrity. You can just get whatever good was left from the old things, some new things and you’re done.

The reason why Elite specs are comparatively strong is because, in some cases, the plug they holes that the base profession has (Mesmer, Necro, Ranger). And in cases where it doesn’t and just adds more of the same (Engie, Warrior, Ele), you see they either get what I would call a stacking benefit (incredible healing in the cases of Engie and Ele) or they continue to do badly against kiting (Warrior).

Manuhell.2759:

Oh, and i’ll add it as well – without splitting the skills, there can’t be proper balance. The modes are just too different for that to work. The rest of the game isn’t about defending a small circle, and shouldn’t be balanced like that.

I don’t believe they balance the game like that but they do take into account how certain changes will affect other game modes and take the route that won’t rock the boat too much.

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

Its because AEGIS counts both as a boon and a block while the signet must hit something to transfer the conditions.

Frankly though I wouldn’t worry about it, guardian is in a horrible place where PvP is concerned & is extremely easy to predict and counter once you know the class.

This is something that spans the whole game, not just fights against Guardians.

As of right now, the Aegis from Guardians is blocking condi transfers from SoS when it’s supposed to convert boons and transfer conditions.

I’m going to guess that the transfer happens first and the conversion happens second. I guess it would be a good QoL to have the conversion happen first and the transfer happen second.

Manimarco Devil.1790:

Dirame.8521:

If my class was as fun as playing Necros right now, I would be more inclined to agree. But when a class has 2 potentially viable builds and even they are not entirely great then you have a problem.

1. fun is subjective
2. There are classes worse than engi and that have even less viable builds (2 is plenty in gw2). You only argue for engi changes.
3. The entire feedback is usually flawed because the benchmark for being “good” is measured against the most broken specs at the time and does not take into account other play modes.
4. If this thread gets anywhere its only going to be because a “pro” player is complaining about engi. It already should have been moved to engi forums

Like I said noone cares about balance, only their own class.

You talk like you know me. Have you read my post history? Have you seen me play in-game? I have EVERY SINGLE PROFESSION. And I’ve argued for changes for almost all of them. Just go look at my highest rated comments, you’ll see I’ve argued for changes to Necro (both buffs and nerfs. For instance I argued for a nerf to Corrupt Boon during the time it converted ALL boons on a target to conditions), I’ve argued for changes to Engie (both buffs and nerfs. For example I argued for a nerf to Automated Response when it was still crazy), I’ve argued for changes to Guardian and so on and so forth. The only class of which I can only talk about fighting against rather than playing, is Ele and even then I still give suggestions for that class.

So please, before you go on talking like you know me or Chaith, actually do your research and see if we actually are one-sided.

Nighthawk.4687:

yeah when you only run conditions, you’re not gonna pressure down a druid with tons of condi clear, they are balanced. Heavy cc destroys them. Pet damage needs a little toned down but not in this meta. If we had more zerker builds that were actually viable pet damage would need toned down. Also the warrior in this twitch stream isn’t even good, if you can’t kill a druid with no weapon you are bad at the game. I take down other druids all the time, it’s really not that hard.

You can beat Druids with Condi. I know because most of what I play is condi.

Manimarco Devil.1790:

Noone cares about balance, they just want thier class to be the best.

If my class was as fun as playing Necros right now, I would be more inclined to agree. But when a class has 2 potentially viable builds and even they are not entirely great then you have a problem.

Cynz.9437:

Oh noes, engi is not top 5 because you said it? What about thieves and wars being trash for 2 seasons straight, where were you? Ohhhh rrright like every top player you skyped with devs and the result was horrendous meta for 2 seasons straight.

My point stands, any buff to core is buff to elite (heck, you even ask for gyro buff). Unless elites get nerfed any buffs would just lead to more powercreep. And engis are by far are not WORST class our there.
What does your experience and research matter? Every single player is biased. You ask to buff elite spec of you main class. Mindblown.

I know i am salty and i have every right to do so. I am sick and tired of having only counter to engis FOR YEARS (which is still the case): bring necro (which was bad pick and walking rallybot), zerg them or just avoid fighting them all together.

I’m pretty sure if Chaith was a Warrior player or Thief player, he’d give suggestions on how to fix them but as he is an Engie main, it’s hard to figure out the problem with the Warrior.
Warrior is one place where I’d disagree with Chaith. A Warrior can be in the meta, it’s just a matter of who is willing to make a team to support the power that I personally feel that it can bring.

Also Elites aren’t superior in all cases. The only cases where elites are unequivocally superior are Mesmer, Guardian and Thief. The rest is just if and or but.

Chaith.8256:

Agreed on all, it’s true, in conjunction with buffs to Pistols/Rifle, changes to Explosives and Firearms are necessary to allow another play style to be considered outside of triple defensive trait lines. I’ve done extensive testing, taking a huge mechanical handicap such as dropping hammer for Pistols/Rifle, you can’t overcome that huge handicap with Explosives/Firearms lacking Pistol/Rifle synergy.

Due to space in my post, I couldn’t really get into it.
Apart from Explosives, Firearms is in the same boat. Lacking impactful traits to synergize with using… Firearms.

Glad you found nothing to disagree with. I put a lot of thought into that post.

And I agree with you about Firearms. My main issue with the Firearms line is High Caliber, No Scope and Modified Ammunition. I rarely, if ever, take those traits. Doesn’t matter if I’m using Hammer, Rifle or Pistol, those traits do little to nothing for me. Chemical Rounds, Pinpoint Distribution, Incendiary powder, Skilled Marksman and Heavy armour exploit, are the traits I spend more time with. I don’t mind if those traits get changed (all except Incendiary Powder, I need that, please don’t change it!) The other slots could be blank and it wouldn’t make a difference.

And here is my suggestion for fixing the Firearms line as well; let’s do what we’ve done for all the other classes, have each trait synergize with the next trait on the same level.
So the first line: Chemical Rounds – Pinpoint Distribution – Incendiary Powder would be the line built for Pistol/Conditions

Second Line: Heavy Armour Exploit – Skilled Marksman – Modified Ammunition but in order for the line to synergize. Skilled Marksman has to do more. Here’s a suggestion for there to be more synergy;

Skilled Marksman – Reduce Rifle/Harpoon damage by 10%. Rifle skills now apply additional conditions, attack faster and have lower cooldowns. Hip Shot applies Bleed, Net Shot applies 5 stacks of Vulnerability, Blunderbuss applies blind, Overcharged shot Applies 10 stacks of Vulnerability and Jump Shot no longer applies vuln but now applies Cripple and Bleeds.

Calculating each unique condition from the above trait using Modified ammunition (immob, vuln, bleed, blind and cripple) without counting the damage added by vuln, you pretty much get your 10% damage back, barring any condi removal from your target. I think it would be the perfect solution to making Rifle and Modified Ammunition an interesting choice. It doesn’t fix the problem with Rifle, which I’ll get to in a bit, but it definitely makes the rifle a great power weapon and potentially a good condi weapon because of the diversity of cover conditions.

Third Line: High Caliber – No Scope – Juggernaut

Juggernaut can remain the same, I don’t have any qualms with it but the other traits need to change because they do nothing for the viability of the engie. And they definitely don’t synergize with ANYTHING in this line, talk less of any other trait on the engie. So here’s how I think it should change;

Replace High Caliber with
Bullet Penetration (move this to master tier and bring No Scope to adept): Your flamethrower and projectile attacks become unblockable for 5s after they are first resisted (30s cooldown) (Reasoning: This is me trying to get to the core of the Rifle’s viability problem. In the meta now there is so much projectile reflect, deflect and blocks that it’s extremely difficult for the Engie to play anything other than Hammer. Creating a trait that targets that meta, gives the Engie a fighting chance.)

Replace No Scope with
Steady Marksman: Whilst you have stability, your attacks have 15% critical chance. (Reasoning: It synergizes well with the GM trait, Juggernaut and consequently, quite a few other builds on the engie. Also gives the engie more gearing options)

Whilst I dont disagree with your changes Chaith, I would say that they dont attack the real issue that is plaguing the engie. The real problem with the Engie is build diversity. It’s one thing for the Engie to have a build that works but if that’s the only build, people will get bored after a month and I don’t see your post addressing that issue.

Here are my solutions that I think could back yours up a bit;

Step 1: Fix the boring Explosives line

I stated this when they released the new trait system. The explosives line does very little for the engie. There’s only one build it works well for and that’s grenades. Other weapons CANNOT (and let me stress the CANNOT once more) take advantage of that line like the grenade can.
A few months later, no one is using the Explosives line, why? Because it does NOTHING interesting.

Here are my suggestions; Time for some mergers and acquisitions.

ADEPT TIER
Minor remains the same, Grenadier remains the same.
Merge Explosive Descent and Glass Cannon. – Do this in order to make Explosive descent feel like less of a useless trait in almost all game modes.

New Trait: Thermite powder
Explosions apply twice the vulnerability. You explode when downed, knocking targets back – This trait is an enabler to another trait that I concocted in the Grandmaster Tier.

MASTER TIER:
Modify Minor trait Steel-Packed Powder to include Thermobaric Detonation – Thermobaric Detonation on it’s own, is not a good trait that does anything for the engineer. It’s currently not even used for style points either. Moving it to being a minor trait in the Master tier just feels right.

Merge Aim-assisted rocket with Shaped charge, gives us space for another new trait.

Sticky Grenade Hitting targets in Melee range places a sticky charge on them that explodes after 1s. The explosion applies 5 stacks of vuln dazes them and is unblockable. ICD (10s). – I suggest this mainly to have something that rewards us for how we play on different ranges. This trait would also synergize with Grenadier and Thermite Powder.

Modify Short Fuse; Bombs Explode faster and have a faster cooldown. Big Ol’ Bomb now applies 10 stacks of vulnerability.

GRANDMASTER TIER Are you ready?

Minor trait Explosive Powder remains the same.

Siege Rounds remains the same.

Replace Shrapnel with Forceful Explosives: Blast Finishers knockdown and apply 3 stacks of bleed, 3 stacks of vuln and cripples foes in the area of it’s activation. Blast Finishers also strip 2 boons on 30s cooldown. (Reasoning: With the rise of the Warrior and even the Necro, I’ve come to find that one of the things lacking in the engineer’s kit is boon stripping. Giving them the potential to strip boons can be crucial for them to stay in the meta without getting schooled.)

Move Thermobaric Detonation to Minor trait master tier, merged with Steel-Packed Powder as said earlier. This gives us space for a new trait.

Concussive Blast;
Hitting a foe that has vuln above the threshold [15 stacks] with an explosive applies 5 stacks of Bleeding, 5 stacks of confusion, weakness for 5s. [ICD 10s] Foes that block your explosives when they have 15 stacks of vuln are dazed for 1s. (Reasoning: I felt that there was no incentive to use skills like the Bomb Kit and some other obscure utilities and traits. Since this trait synergizes with my suggested trait in the Master Tier, sticky grenade, it allows for almost any build to use this trait as long as it can reach 15 stacks of vuln).

I think the suggestions above would do wonders for the Engie’s build viability. If you imagine them on the trait table right now, you can see how synergistic the traits are with current traits and utilies. For example; Flamethrower gets a knockdown with Forceful explosives. I’m not sure about meta viability but making changes like this to any class, puts it into the meta. Especially if those changes allow for a cool combination.

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