Guild Wars 2

Gyros in my opinion still have a high amount of potential in team fights since I hope they take one away from the AoE damage cap. They however suffer from the following:
Not offering useful enough abilities (Purge and Shredder),
Inability to keep up with a running Scrapper,
2 or so second pauses while casting skills,
Suffers from pathing issues,

So let’s visit these issues one by one.
The worst offenders of not offering enough to be useful are Purge and Shredder Gyro. Purge Gyro potentially removes 10 conditions over 15 seconds which on paper is very strong however it does not offer you any direct advantages such as when compared to choosing an Elixir instead. Most Engineers rely on either avoiding condition bombs, condition fights or Elixirs to deal with this issue because these options offer the Engineer much greater advantages than simple flat condition clears.

If Purge Gyro were to convert conditions into boons instead we would have a different mechanic than what Elixirs offer and would at least give this Gyro an alternative play style to Elixirs but both would actually give you something back in return. Edit Elixir C offers 10 condition clears with it’s toolbelt skill on a 25s cooldown and to convert all conditions into boons on it’s active skill both of which when traited for are on 20s and 32s cooldowns respectively while still offering stacks of might 10 stacks to you and yours from the toolbelt skill and 2 stacks from the skill (also +1 condition clear per Elixir used). Purge Gyro is trying to compete for a utility slot with an already extremely strong condition cleansing ability for the Engineer and right now it can not even hold a candle to it.

On skill use it could also offer about 2 seconds of resistance to 5 targets to actually be of any use to the Engineer when it is initially activated. This also provides additional value that is not otherwise available to the Engineer from other legacy skills.

Alternatively this Gyro could instead operate similarly to Bulwark Gyro by giving out a buff that pulses out might to 5 targets whenever a condition is applied to the Scrapper edit and gives 2 seconds of resistance to 5 allies on skill activation.

Ultimately in order to perform well in any PvP scenario this Gyro needs to be a stun breaker, as condition bombs against Engineers often come after interrupts and CCs. edit The stun breaker would also help to differentiate this skill from Elixir C which is currently functionally The Undisputed King of Condition Removal for the Engineer and company.

Shredder Gyro’s potential is not being realized as a result two important things:
Engineers currently do not have the ability to keep opponents on top of this skill for a meaningful period of time (and if they could Shredder would just get auto attacked to death),
Whirl finishers are not strong enough in the brief time window this skill will be impacting for.

To resolve these issues I believe that this gyro could use a few tweaks. Similarly to Bulwark Gyro, Shredder Gyro should apply an AoE buff that increases condition durations by 20% (above cap) as well as causes whirl finishers to bounce once within a 240 radius of the Shredder Gyro.

Shredder Gyro’s toolbelt skill also should be a Stun instead. This would essentially root the player in place and allow for a potential set-up with the actual Shredder Gyro itself.

The inability to keep up with the running Scrapper, 2 or so seconds pausing while casting skills and pathing issues all lump together to make things difficult. With a Gyro such as Stealth Gyro flagging behind gives you the advantage of being able to distract your opponents while you are else where but with other Gyro choices you tend to want them to stay on top of you as best as they can.

To help resolve some of these issues I had previously proposed that a trait be implemented that periodically gives out boons such as swiftness, regeneration, fury and might specifically to all Gyros that are active. This would allow them to perform better DPS (Bulwark Gyro and Shredder Gyro) and to better keep up with the Engineer.

Currently while it is true that the Engineer can buff these gyros with boons, in an actual fight an Engineer’s skills are used much differently and ultimately the Engineer play-style does not afford it the ability to transform into a Guardian for the purpose of making it’s Gyros useful in actual combat.

Should this trait be implemented a complimentary change would also be to modify the GM trait Final Salvo such that when these Gyros are destroyed they also pulse the current boons on a 3 second cap (that can be boosted by boon duration) to five allies within Final Salvo’s radius.

The 2 seconds or so of pausing while casting a skill could be mitigated by increasing the cast radius for Gyros but I believe it is an intended balancing mechanic. Pathing issues could be resolved by just letting them fly over obstacles since they are aerial devices and could in theory just operate by always taking the shortest path but players should be aware that this method also prevents the Scrapper from using mental games against opponents who mindlessly follow the path of Gyros (since it always takes you to it’s leader).

All of these changes could allow the Scrapper to actively perform a better team oriented role than it currently does at this moment.

Whether the skill is an evade or not the reality is that the Scrapper’s Hammer is both it’s offensive and defensive tools. Hammer 2, 3 and 4 are all designed to be skills that punish the opponent and you are not going to be able to pressure your opponent with auto-attack alone unless they sit still and let you pound their face into mush.

At the same time all three of these skills on Hammer can be countered by players who are paying attention. Besides Hammer Scrapper does not have tools like historical front-line classes that allow them to completely mitigate all damage to them while being able to do damage at the same time.

Keeping these things in mind it is therefore essential that these skills do note-worthy damage when they hit, this is where your pressure is going to come from. Neutering the best thing about the Scrapper because a few people can not either find the skill cancel button vs Hammer 2, time an interrupt skill for Hammer 3, or use unblockables vs Hammer 4 is not an intelligent approach to take.

A 20% increased cool-down on Hammer 3 results in less damage, less pressure and less capability to kill even when the Scrapper uses his or her skills at the best possible times. Something should be done to return the lost DPS, regardless of how ‘insignificant’ the average player might think it would be, as the stated issues were not with regards to the overall damage but with the ability to sustain (against the more inexperienced players unwilling to use the appropriate counter tools at the right time).

If I take anything from this video I would tend to take that it looks like Scrapper needs a mobility buff. Given that the Scrapper in this video was within striking distance of that Ranger for about what felt like 10 seconds in the 3 minutes of that fight. Kind of looks like the Scrapper needs the ability to tank otherwise that fight would have been more one-sided than it looked…. and it looked one-sided.

This must be a troll.

I like this idea a lot from the OP. It (Take Down Round) places a status on the target that procs after a 3s timer that does decent damage in a 240 radius around the target, hitting 5 targets. If the detonation hits more than one target it does double damage OR inflicts 10 stacks of vulnerability for 4s on each struck target.

Ditch the target has to be above 50% hp bit.

Krysard.1364:

LilBiM.3581:

Nerfs to Hammer 3 results in lower DPS from Hammer. As a result I would also like to see an increase in DPS by 20% on Hammer 3 so that we can have reduced survivability but still maintain what moderate DPS we have right now on the best thing for Scrapper.

Hammer still has crazy sustain compared to other weapons, so I dont feel like a DPS boost is necessary.

Thing is that it would not be a DPS boost. We are effectively losing 20% up-time on Rocket Charge and therefore I feel it would be in our interest to at least get the damage portion of that back by buffing the damage accordingly. If this is done then we can lose some of the sustain that we ‘have too much of at the moment’ without suffering from a stacking damage lost over time.

I disagree with literally almost everything the OP has posted here. The Health Insurance change would be interesting and help Med Kit’s case but besides that nothing proposed boosts the capability of the Engineer in a fashion that does not also do significant harm to build diversity or the current builds that are most effective.

Glass Cannon, Excessive Energy and Shaped Charge need to also boost condition damage.

Nerfs to Hammer 3 results in lower DPS from Hammer. As a result I would also like to see an increase in DPS by 20% on Hammer 3 so that we can have reduced survivability but still maintain what moderate DPS we have right now on the best thing for Scrapper.

Medic Gyro, Blast Gyro* and Stealth Gyro really are the best of the lot for a Scrapper. Blast Gyro however suffers from the complete inability to do noteworthy damage but does allow the Scrapper to set things up. The other Gyros just tend to fill the skill slots for the pop up menu (just like the majority of Gadgets and all Turrets).

Take-down round is an undesirable trait for the fact that 50% of the time it will be of no use to you at all. Unless the buff to this makes it do incredulous mind blowing damage I still don’t see it being taken at all. Either change it to do % of maximum health damage or something actually useful that doesn’t have 50% down-time in the only scenario where it is useful (in combat).

Tool kit buff, not sure it needs it to be honest. Off hand Shield instead needs more love (since it’s trait for 20% cd reduction is in a weird line) and main hand pistol is weak sauce when paired together with it. How the shield trait works right now is… not optimal to say the least. Protection while the engineer is actually blocking or reflecting attacks only has an advantage against unblockables (in the blocking case) and is pointless if you are actively reflecting something.

Med Kit is a joke that’s especially hilarious given how much time was spent on a live stream to demonstrate the new and exciting functionality. Modified Ammunition does not have a place. MDF is a GM trait that does not benefit the Engineer at all and why take it if it is at least +20% weaker than Warrior Shout heals, etc etc.

I’m sure there is a list of Engineer traits, skills and weapons that get a mouse-over and never get clicked on unless by mistake. Also Engineer has one underwater weapon where the skills on it are woefully under-performing to say the least and to compound the issue of underwater combat with an Engineer 3/4s of your utility and elite skills are completely unusable as well.

Engineer in it’s current state does not need nerfs without consideration for compensation to what currently makes it playable but instead needs attention to the wealth of bugs and volume of undesirable traits (place holder traits such as Take Down Round, Iron Blooded [which is a GM that provides weaker bonuses than warrior Master trait that does % dmg to boon carriers]) that the class currently trundles along with on it’s back.

I agree with the proposed changes as stated by the OP.

It is important to remember that this is an Elite skill that does have the disadvantage of still indicating your general location and direction of travel since it will follow you. You are more susceptible to AoE damage (since they know the general area where you are) than standard stealth (since they have to guess where you are).

The stealth gyro will require some mechanic that allows the Engineer to make plays using it. The previous advantages were perhaps tuned too high but is it really very different from the stealth capabilities of torch chronomancer/mesmer (condi) or SA thief in WvW. You don’t tend to see these builds in PvP since they do not contribute well to holding caps (and therefore winning PvP matches). Other game modes (WvW) will be impacted by these changes, making it essential that this skill does allow Scrappers the opportunity to make plays.

Let’s be honest here and look at what is going on as a whole. If Scrapper survivability is to be reduced then the Engineer itself will have no place in PvP and WvW, existing in PvE only as a condi/power burst build.

In my opinion there are too many things on the Engineer right now that are NOT VIABLE and any change to reduce the capability of Scrappers could prove to be fatal for many Engineer players. The reality is that the Engineer does not offer much support to teams at all so to reduce the effectiveness of this class at something that it does well if played well would be poorly thought out.

The first thing that needs to happen for the Engineer is that skills such as Gadgets and Turrets need to be revisited and improved. With the exception of Slick Shoes even the almighty Supply Crate Drop has fallen out of favor.

Gadgets themselves need either much lower natural cool-downs or buffs to functionality to make them more competitive/useful in actual combat scenarios. Gadgets themselves don’t add a lot of damage to an Engineer’s build and therefore should be good at allowing them to have more control over the fight instead.

Turrets in their current state can be completely annihilated within moments of spawning and as a result they need to be re-looked to perhaps perform a bit stronger forms of active area control (i.e. longer immobs, more reliable blinds, weakness application when they are destroyed, perhaps some chill as well) and sustained low forms of damage. The area control ability of turrets need to be effective enough that the lack of high turret DPS allows the Engineer to have some effective advantages from this play style. Turrets also need to have the functionality that allows you to place them at ground targeted locations returned. Explosive packed turrets should perhaps be considered to be reworked to become Fuel Powered Turrets where the shorter a turret is up for the more damage a detonated turret (prematurely or otherwise) will do and this should be their biggest source of DPS (perhaps also applying 2 stacks of burning on nearby foes per turret detonated).

Weapon sets are an issue with the Engineer as well too. The shield is non-existent any more due to its absurdly long cool-downs that offer only little value in comparison to simply running the Hammer instead. Condition builds for Engineers now feel as though they have to use P/P instead of P/Shield since without the burn application on pistol 4 the only things in a PvP/WvW scenario you can actually kill are trash mobs and inexperienced players. Running off-hand shield makes main hand pistol perform abysmally since it does absolutely nothing to supplement its complete lack of condition pressure onto opponents.

The one bleed stack from pistol AA, couple of poison ticks and 2 confusions stacks from pistol main hand couldn’t trouble fly in PvP/WvW. Poison Dart Volley needs to not fly all over the place like the Engineer is firing a minigun and Static Shot whilst it mitigates damage via a well timed blind needs to inflict more confusion stacks so that a shield with substantially lower cool-downs can have a ghost of a chance at making back on a skills bar. The Over Shield trait could double the effectiveness of shield skills, allowing double blast finishers on shield 4, and longer stun and daze durations. Shield’s use will however still require some tender love to main hand pistol.

Off-hand Pistol on the other hand has a skill called Glue Shot that seems to do a lot and as a result has a long cool-down but in actuality it doesn’t do much at all. 1s of Immob is clutch pro-MLG-plays level of skill usefulness that only ever shines if you currently fighting a warrior. Thirty seconds of cool-down on a skill that does no damage and applies a cripple that realistically lasts for 0.2 of a second since your target walks out the field and its effect instantly disappears is tragic. I will give it credit you will notice the immob but that is about it for this skill. What Pistol 5 needs is a base of 2 seconds on both conditions it applies and a cool-down reduction to 20 seconds instead of 30s.

Off-hand Pistol four. I love to hate this skills. As I play a Charr Engineer this skills becomes incredibly hard to land against anything shorter than me, or slightly (and I really mean slightly) lower than in physical elevation. The hit cone for this skill must be about as wide two Guardian longbow auto-attacks stacked besides each other with about the same vertically as well. I don’t quite know if your actually Character height effects whether this skill lands or not but it sure feels that way. The worst part is that you can be at point blank range and still miss this skill, miraculously, if your target so much as moves an inch left or right. The hit-box for this skill should be a cone with the point (or top) farthest away from the player (max attack range) and a broader base closer to the pistol, so that I can be reward to bringing my ranged toon up-close and using this skill against an opponent.

Med Kit. Space Ghost himself is tossing and turning in his inter-galactic grave at the completely abysmal performance of the AA of this skill especially since it requires the Engineer to stop contributing to the team in every other way to use it. It also doesn’t give the Engineer itself any benefits what so ever. Instead it should steal boons of opponents in its effect and give them to the Engineer at a rate that isn’t kitten both ways. The heal per boon should also be from the boons on the Engineer not the target since Engineers don’t give many outgoing boons to begin with. Also the returns on time invested on the use of this skill is currently weak sauce, for example if a Necro drops a mark or a well on five allies it will do note-worthy damage per tick, even if you use this skill on five allies it will have lackluster overall performance therefore it needs to give out low duration protection as well.

Base Engineer Traits such as Medical Dispersion Field (this gives me nothing back in return so why would I even?), Excessive Energy (what am I going to use this against other than a melee class with no mobility?), Adrenal Impact (not stacking with Vigor), Health Insurance (15% of 505 is… not enough to be worth anyone’s time. This skill should make protection given out by the Engineer also effect condition damage as well), Condition cleanse on elixir use (Alchemical Tinctures) having no effect on Elixir Gun 4 when you take the trait Inversion Enzyme, etc, etc. The list of issues are out there.

In summary lots of things (bugs, weak traits, etc) need to be first addressed so that the Base Engineer is again viable. The nerfing of Scrapper survivability is perhaps the least intelligent way to go about making Base Engineer viable again since it will undoubtedly have the opposite effect, making Engineer weaker with no alternative options for it to stand on.

Here’s my feedback. The ANet proposal is numbered and the related feedback follows it and is labeled as such.

1. Objectives upgrades will no longer be automatic based on time. They will upgrade based on dolyaks that reach them. Smaller groups can now prevent an objective from upgrading by preventing dolyaks from reaching that objective.

Feedback: There also needs to be a switch that allows players to upgrade the objective to the next stage after x dolyaks have entered it. Remember that this change is intended to encourage more player involvement in the state of objectives across WvW. If it still upgrades automatically then at the lower tiers WvW players will still have to endure the situation where all of their objectives AUTOMATICALLY upgrade without any involvement or genuine effort on the part of their opponents. The net end result is that those servers who have the latest runners profit the most because they hold objectives longer (because it takes the opponents longer to flip them back) without investing any effort to make it so they can receive these benefits.

2. Supply cost for all catapults are being reduced by ten supply. The layout of the Desert Borderlands map has increased the number of catapults required to take some objectives. We agree with your feedback that also increasing the cost of catapults pushed the balance too far towards defense so we are tuning that more towards offense.

Feedback: Good changes that help the smaller groups but unfortunately also will increase how quickly larger groups can take objectives. Perhaps catapult siege caps could be used to prevent power creep from larger groups armed with catapults.

3. Points per kill will be turned on and kept on. This is to more directly recognize the contribution that fighting other players adds to the success of the world.

Feedback: Necessary. The PPT era is more or less on it’s way out in the NA time zone for NA servers. That’s not to say that PPT groups do not exist, they certainly do. When towers and keeps are taken, it is most likely in order to force fights. The players who are interested in fights (roamers, zerg busters, etc, etc) can now contribute to their server’s score at the end of the week, just like the groups who are interested in capping every objective on the maps.

Why stop there? Implement Weekly personal kill rewards and Guild PPK rewards for xp / items boosters and transmutation charges and guild commendations / rares / exotic gear respectively. As a result PPK groups get rewards, are encouraged to always come out and the server benefits for having more consistent player populations.

Drop special tokens for player kills that grant access to WvW only ascended back pieces, weapon and armor recipes that use items that can be attained from PvP related WvW activities. They should have different skins related to the mists and give the same range of stats currently available in the game. This would enable WvW fighters to get better gear while doing what the like to do and encourage them to keep coming out.

My last point doesn’t mean that every single type of loot now has to be added to the Player/Mob Kill Drop Table. Add a few based logically on what we can do now and then add Reward Tracks that give you access to the newer content and supplements what we already have.

4. The number of players who can rally off a single kill has been reduced from five to one. Players will also no longer be able to revive defeated players while in combat. You still will be able to revive downed players while in combat. Both of these changes are designed to help fights resolve and to give smaller, more skilled groups a better chance against larger groups.

Feedback: This is essential. A lot of smaller groups lose because ten to fifteen people who were just in combat with them tardy back and constantly resurrect downed foes until eventually they overwhelm with sheer numbers and turn the battle. They also lose in fights where you down 10 opponents and the smaller group loses two. Smaller groups in theory can not out DPS larger groups and so the smaller tends to lose the ensuing DPS race for the rally. As a result it is currently a challenge to begin to win these fights as the opponent knows that they can just keep throwing and piling bodies on top of a smaller group and they will eventually win by attrition alone.

What is also essential will be to make sure that ground indicators for skills such as Revenant CoR (Hammer #2), Guardian Longbow #5 (the greatest offenders at the moment), Necromancer wells, Elementalist Meteor showers and all other AoE skills all exhibit and communicate clear and consistent visual indicators. Reducing visual noise is certainly important in 15vs15 and larger fights however consistent indications must be given to players as to what is happening. Perhaps overlay opponent AoE skills with shaded circles AS WELL AS tinting their skills a color that enables color blind players to also acknowledge that the skill hovering above them definitely isn’t one that was casted by an ally.

Results: Overall I feel like these steps are in fact steps in the right direction. Do not sit too long on these ideas however and don’t be afraid to speak to players via the front page of your website. Similarly to how you are advertising PvP and PvE (HoT) content be willing to also advertise WvW as well when the changes are being implemented.

I did not end up in WvW because this game was crystal clear about the game mode. In fact I pressed buttons by mistake and I decided to try it out. I loved it and while at the moment I am forced to play PvE in order to get anything of substance to use in WvW I still feel like the game mode doesn’t have ANY visibility to the average player in GW2.

I would actually prefer that the Gyro not be attached to my hip since it clearly gives away my position to the enemy team. If the enemy bombs the Gyro that is slightly lagging behind it means that no real pressure is on the Engineer. Consider that if you change it to be attached to you then opponents can simply no skill attack you and cleave out your Gyros as a side effect of simply trying to kill you alone. This would mean that Gyros are in a more negative state than they are at present if the changes recommend by the op were made.

Instead I think that the Stabilization Core minor trait could be modified, lowering the stability duration to around 4s and instead randomly pulsing the following boons for brief durations: Swiftness, Protection, Fury and Regen to all active Gyros. This would allow Gyros such as Blast Gyro to have a chance to critically hit, add more survivability to Gyros in general and possibly allow Engineers to trait in a manner that would allow their Gyros to keep up with them.

Since the changes to player minions I believe that the Protection boon would not be necessary in that rotation. Simply Regen, Swiftness and Fury would be sufficient for this new trait.

If these changes are made I would also like to see Final Salvo be changed as well so that when you detonate a Gyro you also get any boons that were on it pulsed out on a maximum of 3s duration. This would encourage the use of more Gyros and create the possibility of playing a more aggressive Gyro heavy build for Engineers.

As for Purge Gyro, it does not currently perform very well in my opinion. I would like to see that Gyro also remove one boon from nearby enemies whenever it pulses it’s AoE cleanse. This in my opinion would make this Gyro an option to take since it can now actually allow you to mitigate damage to your character properly. Most good condition bombs come in significant spikes higher than 2 conditions and the best condition players know how to hide their most damaging conditions behind the weaker conditions. This skill needs to bring something interesting and unique to the Engineer that would make it more applicable than praying and hoping it removes that 11 stack of burn hidden under 5 or 6 other conditions before its third condition cleanse attempt.

Sneak Gyro is really strong at the moment. In an actual fight you will be changing direction a lot and at the moment it does well enough to keep up with us. Outside of combat simply blast a lightning field on your Gyro to help it keep up with you should you feel that it lags too far behind.

Over the last few weeks I have been playing a lot of Scrapper in both PvE and WvW. As a result the following issues have really been standing out for me.

Rocket Charge
The Problems: The final animation root duration and the root bug.

Expansion of the problems: The root effect does not appear to perform as intended during higher ping encounters and can result in players needing to type either emote commands in chat or use another mobility skill in order to escape. Occasionally after using Rocket Charge I have found myself unable to move from my final landing position to another with only the keyboard movement keys. As a result I am forced to use another mobility skill such as Elixir Gun #4 to regain normal control of my character. This issue of excessive root times / being stuck in position at the end of this skill seems to happen mainly in larger scale fights in both PvE and WvW.

Recommendation: Since this skill is already interrupt-able at some points by skilled opponents the root (and only the root) at the end of it’s animation should be replaced with another effect, perhaps a sliding gradual arrival with dust particle effects. This functionally should remove excessively long roots as well as players being stuck in position. As a result of this change the need to use additional mobility skills or emotes to escape should not be necessary while not functionally increasing the DPS of Scrappers.

Bypass coating
Whilst I was at first warm to the idea that this skill is now a stun breaker I now feel like it would be better off as something else. Instead it could instead push out AoE Resistance Boon for three seconds. In my eyes the original Bypass Coating skill is focused on providing group support rather than solely for the Engineer himself.

The Resistance Boon allows for Bypass coating to do exactly what it says… provide your group with extra mobility and also now provides some counter play against immobilization bombs such as from Venom Share groups, Ranger Entangles, etc. A change to Resistance would allow the Scrapper to better distinguish the role of this skill from that of the Super Speed tool-belt skill.

Chemical Field
This tool-belt skill in my opinion better suits the Scrapper as a stun breaker. As this class is intended to be a melee bruiser, having this as a stun breaker then allows you escape enemy stun and follow up with a skill such as Rocket Charge, Jump Shot or Magnetic Shield to apply Weakness on your opponents, impairing their incoming burst damage.

Purge Gyro
This Gyro should, in addition to what it already does, strip one boon from your opponent who is in the radius of it’s cleansing effect when it triggers. If it successfully does so then it should remove another condition from that ally. The current generation of this skill seems to not offer much value as most good condition builds tend to try to hide the high damage conditions beneath stacks of other less necessary conditions.

The ability to strip boons from an opponent over time can give incentive to keep this Gyro alive and give more value to the Scrapper as rolling counter-play/momentum changing (of the fight) skill. The Scrapper is encouraged to stay on top of their opponent and fight it out in order to receive more condition clears while slowly stripping the beneficial boons from the opponent.

I do think that the utility Blast Gyro at the moment appears to under perform in comparison to other similar utilities. If we compare it to the gadget Throw Mine we see that while the launch vs knockback values benefit Blast Gyro, as well as the overall damage and range being higher as well as the ability to trait for Final Salvo’s benefits for Blast Gyro there are significant benefits from Throw Mine.

Throw Mine can not be destroyed en route. It potentially removes up to five boons. It is also a blast finisher. It will deliver it’s full pay-load if you detonate it. It has a 18s cool-down un-traited for Gadgeteer and a monsterous 13s cool-down when traited. When traited the Throw Mine skill also provides more damage radius, making it easier to hit your targets.

Since Blast Gyro by nature of it’s design has a very low hp pool in order to allow enemies the ability to kill it en route it and consideration is taken for the above listed benefits it does require a lower cool-down to be competitive. There is more unstoppable utility from Throw Mine (Boon Strips, Knock Back, Blast Finisher) on a 13s cool-down than Blast Gyro could ever dream of providing.

In fact it gets worst if you consider both of them whilst they are traited. You do about half of the damage if you take Throw Mine but you get to use it twice (potentially 10 boon strips, two blast finishers and 2 knock backs as well) in the same time it would take to use Blast Gyro and assuming your target for Blast Gyro is within melee range so that the travel time to the target is about 1sec.

If Blast Gyro is destroyed by your opponent and it is traited for Final Salvo there is the potential for you to have a lightning field in a completely useless place if it was destroyed by ranged attacks. As a result you could have done no damage (or two ~220 dmg procs) and received no benefits from Blast Gyro in the worst case scenario. In the worst case scenario for Throw Mine you could use the Blast Finisher with healing turret or simply as zoning / area control but you will have another one up in 13s to try again in comparison to the +25s of Blast Gyro (because remember Gyro cool-downs start after the Gyro is destroyed, also I am not advocating for the switch back to Gyro cool-downs starting at cast as I believe that after destruction is superior in purpose and flexibility).

With all of that said there are significant down sides to taking Blast Gyro over Throw Mine. You are taking it for the stun breaker + AoE super speed as the DPS will be unreliable at best in any competitive game scenario, especially in WvW. You are also taking Blast Gyro for the mental comfort of being able to control a single line (direct path to target that your opponent can’t take), which is probably just going to be just that (all in your head). Most classes will likely auto attack through this skill unless you set it down and move far enough off to the side that it doesn’t get accidentally focused down. While the range of 1500 is notable, Rangers could auto attack this to death before it reaches it’s target at that distance or Rapid Fire it to death if it crosses line of sight between you and the Ranger but it did provide the advantage of discouraging focus on you for a second or two (maybe).

In the best case scenario Blast Gyro hits and does significantly more damage and more effects (further launch) than Throw Mine. This is the ideal scenario for the Scrapper.

As a result it is my opinion that the real problem is that Blast Gyro suffers from one main problem; it’s inability to deliver it’s pay-load effectively (when we sum up all of it’s issues). In total it suffers from being both easy to kill, very slow, easy to accidentally kill (a player not actually trying to stop it by focusing it but still doing so without any effort) and the stall at it’s spawn to allow for possible player buffing. To compound matters further the engineer does not have a reliable way to give this gyro swiftness either, being forced to get swiftness for it from blasting a Lightning Field (two skills), Throw Elixir B (random chance you will not get swiftness) or do something wonky like take traited Net Turret (we have to trait for one Turret and take a turret…). Each of these means that you have to at maximum use two other skills or trait in a wonky manner to enable this Blast Gyro to be most likely effective.

To resolve these issues I propose that the Function Gyro trait can be merged with Decisive Renown and that the minor minor trait should now provide boons such as regeneration, swiftness, protection and fury for y seconds every x seconds to active gyros. The Final Salvo trait should now not just give the Lightning Field on detonation but also AoE distribute all of the boons on the destroyed Gyro to allies for a duration of two or three seconds. With these changes it is my belief that additional relief can be brought to the issue of Gyro mobility & survivability as well as bolstering the concept of Gyros being the tool of choice for Scrappers (with the additional complimentary side effect of calming the masses that Scrapper has no PvE minor traits).

It should also provide these boons to the merged Function Gyro so that this trait will still benefit a scrapper who is not running any Gyros as their utilities / heal / elite. It also means that Function Gyro can now potentially take a little more of a beating from zerker opponents when stomping and is a little more resilient against boon strips. It still shouldn’t out survive group bombs on top of it so that there is some counter play.

The skill Blast Gyro in my opinion currently suffers from too many weak attributes (too slow + too low HP + stall at spawn to allow for potential buffing by the player + easy to accidentally kill). Other Gyros also suffer from some of these issues as well and it is my belief that these recommended changes could help to alleviate many of these issues.

Edit: P.S. As a side note and completely unrelated to the Gyro issues above. Can we please get a little buff on our ONLY underwater weapon? The auto does -kitten for damage and sometimes I feel like I should just strangle myself with the cable from Retreating Grapple instead of using it on an opponent. I know this part isn’t very constructive but that’s how I feel underwater as an Engineer currently… my main weapon is just there for maybe an escape or two and the stats it gives. When you guys find the time, show the aging Harpoon Gun a little love, ty

I really think the changes so far will do a lot to encourage players to consider using gyros. The quality of life changes for Hammer are outstanding and very welcome as well.

I will disagree with many people who may not see the value of having a stun breaker on Bypass Coating. I think that players may eventually see the value in this change once this Elite Specialization goes live. At the same time I hope that the unmentioned systemic changes will benefit Blast Gyro so that it survives better to deliver it’s payload or at least be more likely to force the enemy to use a dodge roll or block rather than ignore it and continue their rotation.

Great stuff so far! All very much appreciated!

I want to continue my conversation about a few other things as well as Gyros, with specific attention to the Medic Gyro and the Blast Gyro.

Medic Gyro
I love this Gyro’s immediate heal and tool-belt skill in it’s current format. It provides excellent heals when combined with Medical Dispersion Field and for the first time ever I think that trait is, when married with Medic Gyro, a viable trait to use.
The ticks however require you to play poorly to receive any benefit from the remaining heals. If you are in an organized group it encourages players to lag behind because that’s where the Gyro will be to give out heals. Skills such as this should not be too gimmicky since other classes don’t have to play hopscotch or back-flip through any hoops to gain the benefits of their healing skills. Whilst this skill has very high potential pay-out if it lasts it’s full duration it can be prematurely stopped by destroying that Gyro and in my opinion that is enough of a risk vs payoff for Scrappers to take in this cleave heavy, 3-5 target hit dominated world of Tyria.
As a result I believe that the heal range should be buffed to 400 – 600 and the pauses removed. In my experience I only ever get the base heal in group play areas such as WvW and maybe a few other players with worst latency than me (who lag behind) will ever see the extra heals that are pushed out.

Blast Gyro (Tag?)
I like the concept, in fact I like it all together. Does it hit five people total? Also I feel that it needs a bit more hp. It doesn’t get very far after you spawn it even if you pop the utility skill. Alternatively give this skill an increased chance to crit so that if it lands the pay off is very worth it. Also I believe that if it is prematurely destroyed it should still detonate with it’s full pay-load where it is destroyed (I am not sure if it currently does this).

The tool belt skill for this is great, but often not enough. Unfortunately three seconds of Super Speed is not enough time to flank or attempt to outplay a group unless you are already almost directly on top of the group. At this stage it is practically impossible to pull a flank or go around successfully since the distance between you and the enemy’s front-line is so small that they can easily turn and cut your group in half. I am not saying that there should be no risks at all to something like this but I feel like a buff to 4 seconds would make this more of a risk your group would be willing to take than it is currently.

The Non Gyro Stuff
Impact Savant Minor
I am unsure if it also stacks versus other CCs such as Daze, Knock-down, Sink and Float. Since it is so specific of minor trait I feel like it needs to be stronger in effect or cover more CC effects since at the moment it doesn’t feel like much help against PvP stun then burst combinations.

Rocket Charge
It’s lock-down / pause after the third hit is extremely dangerous to the Scrapper. Once players recognize how long this day is this skill will become a detriment to the Scrapper and is especially dangerous when landing in a bomb spot.

Shocking Speed
Consider adding a 3 second AoE 240 range cripple to this trait to improve the effect. Considering the very few number of lightning fields available to a Scrapper this addition would allow this trait to generally be more useful especially in group play. It would also allow the Scrapper a bit more control in dictating the range of combat.

I had a wonderful time playing the Scrapper during this beta weekend. I wish there was another so that I could spend more time getting to know this high potential and fun elite spec!

The Hammer
Summary: This weapon does average overall damage over time. I hesitate to say weak or poor damage because of the advantages that are afforded to us Scrappers from our trait lines. It is my belief that this is fine due to the utility provided by this weapon’s skill set and the associated traits. I do not believe it needs a buff.

Hammer Skills
The Details
AA: Honestly this skill chain sees very little use in actual combat. Buffing this skill to the detriment of other skills could serve to reduce the overall potential for this weapon to be good. At the same time however when your other skills are off cool-down this will be your pressure.

Electro-whirl: Good damage over-all. Performs great.

Rocket Charge: This skill requires great positioning by the engineer, standing at about 300 range and at about 15 – 20deg diagonal from the target to land all three hits. Failing to execute this properly can lead you to miss at least one blow or worst yet place you in unwanted positions. It is impossible to use this skill with confidence on ledges, cliffs or even walls in keeps or towers and even bridges. As a result the combination of skill 5 + Rocket Charge is not something you can call on every time from your front-line engineers when you need it. Also this skill unfortunately doesn’t give any mobility to the engineer as you arrive at your destination just as quickly as you would have with just swiftness.

Shock Shield: Feels fine. Good Damage. Gets the job done.

Thunderclap: Gets the job done in many situations. The initial and second pulses should in my opinion have the highest damage bursts for this skill. Most people with a brain will have walked out of this by the third pulse as it isn’t at all hard to do. Alternatively if you can keep someone standing in this as a Scrapper then I feel the over all damage pulses should scale higher as this skill pulses to an end.

The Traits
Summary: Without talking about the minor traits I feel that they do a great job of making the Engineer tanky especially for WvW. Lots of synergy opportunities with the Explosives, Firearms, Inventions and Alchemy Trait lines. The minors however don’t feel like they add any flavor to the Scrapper, in-fact unfortunately I feel as though if they were removed this elite specialization would feel exactly the same with no minors at all.

Choice Traits
Shocking Speed: Good. Gets the job done.

Stabilization Core: At the moment you take this for the stability on yourself in weird situations because your Gyro will not stomp a warrior before he has vengeanced, if it stomps at all.

Recovery Matrix: Great trait. Don’t leave home without it. Trust me, in WvW zergs you will need it.
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Rapid Regeneration: Due to Engineer’s moderate health pool this trait is what makes the Scrapper WvW frontline material. Great trait.

Expert Examination: Good trait that can make you feel even more tanky when used effectively. Great choice over passive regen and damage mitigation through skill that still allows you to play aggressively.

Mass Momentum: Great trait synergy in this trait line and one other place outside.
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Adaptive Armor: Great trait. Makes you more resilient against show stopping condition bombs, a necessity for Engineers that hope to be at the front lines especially in WvW.

Final Salvo: Very clutch and specific. Possibly the beginning of any counter attack by a Scrapper who is being pummeled by it’s opponents. When a Gyro dies (before you do) the daze plus lightning field allows you to retaliate with hammer no. 3 however it does not feel like you have the damage to effectively retaliate well against an opponent. Perhaps this trait should also buff all damage while in a lightning field by 10% as well, otherwise the only really good option is to run away.

Perfectly Weighted: I will start by saying that this is an ok trait. Dump the +10% damage from Hammers and roll it all back as base into the weapon, +10% damage traits are not interesting at all. Instead grant either fury + stability on a successful evade OR a passive +20% critical chance for x duration + stability OR +150 ferocity for x duration + Stability. This way Scrappers can feel like they aren’t running a kitten weapon and at the same time if they take this trait they are saying that they are going to brawl with skill and want to receive benefits for doing so.

The Minor Traits
Summary: The rolling momentum feel that is intended is there however you have to be losing or winning to turn over any benefits. Unfortunately the benefits you receive, except super speed, could be gained from anywhere else but it does offer you the advantage of instantly gaining these advantages to make a turn around. These minors leave you with a mixed feeling as well as a feeling that they could be so much more. You are not taking this trait line for the minors, that much is for sure.

Function Gyro: Sometimes the gyro has better things to do than stomp out your opponent. In some cases it will just be DPS’d down before it could dream of doing it’s job by just that downed opponent alone unless they aren’t running a power oriented spec. It’s sole value seems to be in rezzing allies, which is good but overall this trait does not seem to particularly valuable for a Scrapper.

Decisive Renown: Great trait but because no other traits give you anything immediately useful it to a Scrapper this rolling momentum trait gives you nothing unless you were already going to win in the first place. When you combine this with the Function Gyro you are effectively sitting on two traits that for the most part are completely silent until something note-worthy happens.

Impact Savant: Outgoing stun durations are negligible in any effect. Incoming stun durations are also quite negligible. If you are going to be locked out, these do not prevent that or feel like they make you resilient against them. You still get chain dazed and you still can not cast skills. Unimpressive and don’t feel like they have any impact in real combat at all.

Recommended Solution
Rework the minor traits. The Gyros should be the focus and have a noticeable role. See this reference for ongoing discussions as to one idea as to this could be done: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/Chaith-s-Idea-for-Robust-Scrapper-Identity/first#post5559135

The Gyros
Summary: Too slow, become immobile to cast skills, effective radius are often way too small to be usable and in order to detonate them successfully you have to wait until they manage to catch up with you before their detonation skills are usable. In order for Final Salvo to be useful the health pools have to be acutely balanced. In their current format they don’t stand a chance at being effective in a 1vX scenario making them effective tools only in dueling if you trait for them with Final Salvo. All tool belt skills for each of the Gyros are extremely useful making these the true reason to want to take any Gyros in your heal, utilities or elites.

Following up on the OP idea I would like to add my own spin / suggestions for the rework of the minor traits.

Function Gyro – As described by OP – Gain Access to a maximum of three (3) non-combative function gyros which encircle the player. These gyros do nothing whilst in-active and as a result have no hit-boxes until activated. My Variant – Press F6 to instantly activate all in-active gyros, reducing incoming dmg by 10% for each function gyro that is struck OR reducing pierce / cleave totals by -1 for each gyro struck. Skill up-time is five (5) seconds. A gyro respawns every thirty (30) seconds.

N.B. The reducing pierce / cleave totals variation allows a struck function gyro to effectively take two hits for the team / scrapper. If three 3 function gyros are activated then these Gyros tank for 6 targets making the scrapper immune to damage from 5 target skills. Also these effects only last for as long as each Function Gyro is not destroyed and or the duration up-time is still active. As a result it is probably best to make this a stacking effect unique to the Scrapper.

The total number of inactive Gyros a scrapper has can be indicated by a status effect / buff icon in grey with a gyro symbol and a count beside it. Active Gyros can have another similar Symbol but green and also be accompanied by a number count.

Decisive Renown – Gain access to the ability to finish foes / revive allies. Send an inactive gyro to finish a foe or revive an ally. If you successfully revive an ally or finish a foe, gain the current pay-out for this minor trait.

Chemical Romance – When you use Function Gyro (F6 key), break stun and for count times a Gyro (function Gyro and all other Gyros) is struck by your opponent(s) in one second for the duration of the F6 ability you apply the following conditions:
1 strike – 1 stack of bleeding for 6 seconds
2 strikes – 3s of cripple
3 strikes – 5s of weakness
4 strikes – 7s of poison
5 strikes – 3s of chill
6 strikes – 8s of vulnerability
7 strikes – 5s of two stacks of confusion
8 strikes – 5s of two stacks of burning
9 strikes – 5s of two stacks of torment
10 strikes – 2s of immobilize

Reset count every 1s such that the application of conditions is restarted from 1 strike for the next 1s period until the end of the F6’s duration.

While F6 is still active the Scrapper can press F6 again to Daze(1s) nearby opponents b times. Where b is equal to the number of active Function Gyros at the time. Destroy all active Function Gyros.

As a result of these changes buff hammer no. 5’s stun duration to 1.25s base-line.

Feedback is welcome

Yes in the end I think it is wise to wait and see if it really does under perform or not. There are a lot of ways to fix it if it does. You shouldn’t be spending all of your time auto-attacking anyways to be honest.

I do have my concerns about Hammer #1 being ‘too weak’ as is seen in the PoI and Jebro’s Marauder build. The concern is that being a melee brawling medium armor class that is known to be shutdown by CC and condition spam it is extremely important that the class has the right tools to be effective in this new role.

In my opinion it is important to recognize that Engineers do not have access to a weapon swapping ability. With this in mind we should understand that when Engineers complain about a melee ability not being able to deliver enough damage on their only hand weapon (I will refer to the main hand weapon as that from here on since that is what it essentially is) that it should be treated seriously.

The results of not being able to trade effectively in melee will be the need to take utilities such as grenade kit and bomb kit to be effective. It is my opinion that a melee medium armor class should not be limited to having to take these utilities to be effective since all Engineers know that untraited Grenade Kits are not nearly as good and Bomb Kit, well I like Bomb Kit to be honest so hey #BombKitBias.

But as you can see just by being forced to take Grenade Kit you now have to go down the explosives tree and as a result your build has been prematurely limited. If you don’t trait for Grenade Kit and take it then you are simply gimping yourself in both your only hand weapon and a utility to try to compensate for a lack of consistent DPS. It is important to understand that you inability to pressure or trade well in melee with this weapon means you will have to avoid melee whilst your big damage skills are on cool-down or be dominated… whilst you are using a melee weapon!

This issue would not be an issue if we had access to weapon swap but that’s not what we are asking for. You should never make an only hand weapon under the assumption that you have enough utility to make a human player kill itself fighting you, people are smart, people will disengage, reset or kite until the situation is more to their favor.

To resolve this issue I think several steps can be taken. Increase Hammer’s auto attack rate from 1/2s to 1/4s for the first two and 1/2 on the final attack. You are a Medium Armor class, potentially fighting in Melee with Heavy Armor classes that wield the same hammer and as a result you have to have some measure of trading potential. You will simply be beaten into submission if you have to trade at the same range. You are wearing less armor and your nights and days are spent swinging that thing around for a living. Make Scrapper’s auto attack look ruthless and different from all the classes, blur the back of the hammer or refract (as though part of it was under-water) the weapon as you swing it and have on hit effects like scraps of armor being chunked off with each hit in order to give the impression that you aren’t swinging around a piece of paper. Exaggerate the character movements but don’t put too much grunting, no one wants to feel like they are watching a Tennis match or a porn flick.

The other option is to make Hammer auto scale more effectively than other Hammer weapons with might and specifically with might stacks. To me this is the less interesting effect but they would allow you more freedom to go with an Elixir, all Gyro, etc build because you know that with your only hand weapon that when push comes to shove you can duke it out with the best of them.

In my opinion as well the 10% extra DMG on Hammer from the GM trait could be changed to something more interesting like skills that you reflect do +10% more dmg, your next attack after an evade does +10% damage and stunned / dazed opponents take +10% dmg. This allows you to baseline roll that +10% dmg back to the weapon itself and reward players for playing well instead of reading a guide and picking the right traits.

The Utilities
Bulwark Gyro
The Problem: In high scale fights (such as in WvW) this Gyro will likely struggle to perform.

The Proposed Solution: If this Gyro is destroyed within the first interval of it’s execution it should provide an AoE non-interrupting invulnerability / evade for 1s to five targets. This will allow it to see more play in WvW and a multitude of other scenarios where immense bombs may occur.

The Traits
Recovery Matrix
The Problem: AoE / piling on top of Engineers hurts a lot.

The Proposed Solution: On using a heal skill this should provide you with 1s of Evade and then grant you Protection. This allows you to mitigate damage more effectively and tactically avoid being piled on top of with every plausible immob / daze / stun every class could muster.

Whilst Evade is not a mechanic that Engineers would typically use or have access to, you are after all a Scrapper and we all know you’ve had to use a bit more than a little grease and smooth talking to get those needed parts in your ‘junk’ heap.

Final Salvo
The Problem: Gyros generally do not provide many damaging options over all.

The Proposed Solution: Keep all current effects as well as release a static discharge on each pulse for ~270 dmg that bounces between up to three targets for three bounces. This static discharge should not reveal the Engineer and would provide an extra dis-incentive to opponents just mindlessly cleaving gyros to pieces because everyone will otherwise no-skill cleave for days till victory #RIPEnglish. If you perform a leap or blast finisher on this lightning field this effect is triggered and can only be triggered once per field. Engineers who decide to carry a lot of Gyros now have the option to decide whether they want to allow them to be destroyed for a damage spike or detonate them for the daze and smaller damage but to more overall targets.

Overall these Gyros in my opinion have a lot of potential in group play, more on their potential will undoubtedly be seen during the beta weekends. Thank you all for considering my suggestions. Feedback is welcome

I would assume that it would only activate this trait on the tool belt heal for the med kit.

Engineer Questions:
1. Some traits for the engineer such as deployable turrets (allowing you to ground target turret positions), -33% dmg reduction for turrets and +% dmg and range on turrets are in different trait lines at the moment. Will this and similarly dispersed but related traits be all consolidated into one trait line?

2. Can some of the ways that the engineer is being made more viable, specifically to front line roles, in WvW be discussed?

3. Engineers are very good at controlling an area and manipulating the flow of battles, will we see an engineer elite skill that could be influential in WvW group fights with this kind of focus?