Guild Wars 2

Y u mad its vydia.6324:

Detonate Mine Field: This skill is no longer a blast finisher.

Nerfed hard, many were relying on that to buff their allies or heal. Very unfortunate. I’ll see how it plays out, but sincerely, it was the only thing that I was enjoying about playing Engineer -> doing all I could to reap maximum benefits from Combo Fields.

It’s over, Engineer is finished.

Finished? Ahhh I get you… finished like a combo finisher, because this one was removed. Nice.

Anyway, I saw this nerf coming from a mile away.

Why? Because history repeats itself.

You kids might not remember this, but the ‘mines’ used to be the ‘mine kit’, which gave you 5 blast finisher mines in the form of a kit. Well, that was being used in sPvP and WvW for cheesefest stealth, retaliation, might and whatever. It was abuse.

And, this is abuse too. 5 blast finishers in a short duration, is just abuse. The only difference between the kit days, and today, is that the kit days were more efficient at it.

Now, you had no control of where the mines spawned, and it was on a larger cooldown, but fundamentally, the flaw of ‘5 instant blast finishers’ remained.

Don’t be surprised guys, its just Arenanet going through some Deja Vu.

@Psaakyrn

They noted they were working on it in BWE1.

I guess either we didn’t complain enough.

I say… more complaining.

All this has been reported since BWE1.

Arenanet have acknowledged all these issues in the past.

I’m guessing that they: changed their mines but did not bother to tell us, are too incompetent to fix it or we might get a fix in a few years.

I’m betting that they will come out with a huge red post which tries to describe all you mention as “a feature”, much like the famous TOR fanboys of the past, where bugs and broken content was labelled ‘a feature’. But, we shall see.

coglin.1496:

Zidijan.4826:

coglin, I would like to know exactly what 4-5 viable builds you’re speaking of. I almost haven’t seen a single engineer in dungeons, and most people just write them off as a class. If you know there’s more viability to the engineer than most people think, please do share, and include videos that might prove they’re just as effective as a warrior running his index finger from 1 to 9 repeatedly

Full elixir builds are very viable. Full turrets are very viable. Full control/gadget builds are viable. Kit builds are very viable. P/P and P/S pure condition damage builds are very viable. Pure crit/pow/crit% rifle builds are very viable.

How many am I up to so far?

I am not claiming the class doesn’t feel under powered. I am simply stating that we have many build that are extremely viable. Just because you personally do not see them, does not mean they aren’t used well.

I Just ran sorrow embrace back to back twice without even being downed once on my engineer. They are a more then capable profession.

“Full turret builds”

lol

“Full control/gadget build”

Wut… the control from ‘gadgets’ comes from 60s cooldown, 45s cooldown and of course, the now nerfed mines which cause a knockback on an 18s cooldown.

All of this anyone can get on a significantly shorter cooldown.

Overcharged shot= 15s cooldown=same launch as PBR

The likes of: Tremor, Backbreaker, Bulls charge, Bane Signet, Tripwire, Gale, Earthquake… you see where I’m going with this. Every single OTHER knockdown has a shorter cooldown than slick shoes. And just because it can affect multiple targets, does not justify the cooldown. Quite a few of the ones I listed are AoE knockdowns as well.

Good ol’e rifle butt from warriors or even our own flamethrowers push does a better job at pushing back.

Anyways, the point is: going full gadgets gives you limited CC options. You aren’t that good at control. Going with the rifle gives you at most, 4 pieces of CC, provided you go for no stun breaker. And 5, but with different mechanics, if you go for the pistol shield.

But in the end, its not really viable. A naked rifle build, that is not specced heavily for burst, like the rifle burst build, or a pistol shield build, that isn’t build around elixirs and conditions, somewhat fail. The damage is simply too low, and your ‘CC’ isn’t that high.

@Psaakyrn
Are you honestly saying that some insignificant AoE regeneration is better than not having a self heal?

Regeneration is very weak for heals, even if you go maximum healing power.

Trying to think…

Theres the grenade build. But that’s more PvE orientated.
The pistol shield elixir build.
The rifle toolbelt burst build. But that’s more PvP orientated.

And uhh…

uhhhh….

Unless of course you mean something like ‘changing one utility= a new build’, then sure. But as for BUILDS, there aren’t too many.

Tidauron.5304:

I can confirm the coated bullets trait causing extra hits. When a mob is just out not range of the pistol you I’ll get an explosion then a penetrated shot immediately after. I causes double effects. Sigils and weapon stats don’t affect when kit is equipped.

It has been this way since BWE1 I believe.

Its intended I believe.

Then again… things being in BWE1 doesn’t necessarily make them intended…

*cough*auto attack bug*cough*

Agreed.

The way I see it, grenade kit+ grenadier is actually good, not from the sense that ‘it does good damage’, but from a balance perspective.

Remember, it takes 30 trait points, and a grandmaster trait. Its not like any build can have it.

Heaven forbid that a build that invests heavily does well.

However, in comparison other builds don’t do as well, so, the solution is to buff other builds.

Buff flamethrower, buff tool kit, buff turrets, buff elixir X, buff mortar, buff pistols. Do it all!

What the real fun bit is, using it with stability, then you don’t get knocked back at all.

But sadly, engineers don’t have reliable stability so, it might be more of a group orientated trick.

Maybe get your guardian friend to give AoE stability.

bromi.7809:

Love the direction of OP thoughts but have to agree also about 40s being too long. Should forget about ‘keep alive’, it really almost won’t happen in spvp. I say forget 40s and make it 30s as if you take it up.

Ok, how about this.

15s overcharge, same value heal as now.
30s natural cooldown
Thus, 25% reduction=22.5s when used mobile

It can be just a matter of adjusting numbers.

But what I aim to achieve is so that:

Leaving it on>Picking it up>Destroying/Getting it destroyed

As opposed to how it is now:

Picking it up> Destroying/getting it destroyed>Leaving it on

Don’t forget Elixir R Thrown

85s cooldown- possible to be traited down
Revives in pulses, so not instant, but also acts as a light field and removes conditions. Nice stuff.

I’m not sure, it was certainly challenging. I had to toggle two switches, that were hard to access. I had to avoid certain types of platform. There was a champion mob, and the proper path was not obvious.

There was also a big splendid chest, and a minor chest as well.

All the markings of a jumping puzzle. Except the achievement?

I’m not sure if this is a bug or intended. Anyone know?

Its a 40s cooldown if you are bad.

Its a 30s cooldown if you are mobile.

Its a 20s cooldown if used as intended.

Its not a nerf, its changing design, I never said anything about heal numbers or anything along those lines.

And remember, regen is a boon that is not exlcusive to engineer. So no… you can’t just make regeneration different.

And no, you can’t reduce cooldown of cleansing burst as it would be OP and it would never replicate a self heal.

I tried that yesterday too. Failed.

Need a fix before I’m going to risk wasting my time doing story again.

Thagyr.4136:

Precision is the stat that increases your critical strike rate. I think the only way to ‘miss’ in this game is having your attack evaded/blocked/blinded/reflected, or just plain not aimed right in the case of target AOE effects (such as grenades).

Both Power and Condition builds can utilize Precision. For power is gives bigger crits, for condition damage it can proc a variety effects on crit if you are traited like that.

To add to that: The base crit damage is 50% so a crit= 150% of your normal damage.

This makes the stat “crit damage” important for getting big crits. Its often not enough to simply get crits, big crits matter too.

This might seem somewhat contentious, changing something that is fine from a balance perspective, and not everyone might agree.

But I believe that the healing turret is currently not working as intended by design.

Currently the healing turret works like this:
Heals you when you spawn it, and gives you the option to overcharge it upon its first application of regeneration after overcharging, removing conditions.
When deployed, the F1 skill is changed to ‘detonate healing turret’, giving you a blast finisher and some damage.
When not deployed, the F1 skill is changed to ‘Regenerating mist’, a combo field that gives regeneration.

The trouble with this set up is, that the only way to get a self heal, is to place the turret down. Any healing gained from regeneration and the overcharge are completely insignificant to the self burst heal. Which leads to a problem with how it is best deployed:

Right now, the longer you keep the turret deployed, the worse it is for you. This is counter intuitive on many levels. As a turret, it ought to be most useful, when out, but right now, the turret is most efficient when cooling down, as it means that you have access to a self heal every 15 or 20s, depending on use. And so, the person who manages to stay within the limited range, who manages to keep his turret alive is not rewarded, but rather punished for doing so, and the person who simple puts it down and up like clockwork, gets the most reward. This ought to be fixed.

I propose changing how you gain the self heal.
I suggest changing it so that the healing turret works like this:
Base cooldown- 40s
When Picked up- 30s
Overcharge- 20s
Regenerating Mist- 60s

And it would be changed, so that the overcharge, provides the self heal, as long as you are within an appropriate radius, 480* radius could work as it does now, or slightly longer.

A further change, would be changing it so that whenever the turret is spawned, it overcharges automatically and instantly, providing the self heal and putting it on a 20s cooldown.
The overcharge when used with the turret spawned, would happen instantly after a short cast time, rather than when first giving regeneration.

This does something very important: It means that if you keep it up and alive, then you get a self heal every 20s and regeneration. If you put it down and up, then you get a self heal every 30s, as even if the overcharge recharges its cooldown, you need to put it down to access it. And if it gets destroyed, or blown up, then it gives you a 40s cooldown. This segregation of effect correlates to skill I believe, with the most skill giving the most reward. Keeping a turret alive, and staying within its radius would give the most reward, as it should.

Now, since the overcharge is changing, I would also change the regenerating mist somewhat. I would make it remove 3 conditions, to give the same functionality as the old overcharge, it is the same cooldown as well, but can be traited to be lower so removing all conditions may be too much.

Opinions on this change? Flaws? Suggestions?

I see it like this:

Power- Bombs, Grenades, Tool kit, Rifle
Conditions- Pistol, Elixir Gun
Mix of the two- Flamethrower
Doesn’t even matter- Turrets

Turrets don’t notice your stats, turrets are always the same so, any build will have a turret be equally useful.

I believe it is an unintended consequence of changing how S works.

Before, S used to be 4s, but just made you totally useless while evading.

Now, its 3s and you can use utilities/heal, which was the exact same way that mist form worked for an elementalist.

I’m guessing they wanted S to allow you to heal up and maybe use another elixir for a speed boost but they would realistically have no way to stop you from using utilities while using S, unless they went back to the original design.

@Haralin

Its not as much ignore, but more incapable.

I’ve tested it, and I’ve found that environmental weapons found around the world such as: Bone, branch, boulder and so on… share the same gameplay mechanics as kits, the same flaws that everyone is describing and everything.

So, to me, its an issue of arenanet making kits into one thing, and wanting them to be another thing. Kits are bundles, but everyone wants them to be weapons, and Arenanet have no clue how to fix them without somehow making them equipped onto the character screen.

Why not make grenade 1 range of 600 naturally, and 750 with grenadier but player targeted.

I did it solo as an engineer very easily.

Guess it depends on class.

Big ole bomb itself is bugged.

And regenerating mist is a VERY short duration field so you are likely just missing out.

It works as a finisher for me.

My current build is in- pic related.

I don’t have many finishers and I’ll be honest, but, I do enjoy the leap from the rifle, either from the poison field of the grenades, the light field of elixir R or some allies light field.

Supply crate is also a blast finisher, but I doubt anyone would ever use it FOR the blast finisher, I’d think they use it, and the blast finisher is a neat little bonus.

I do see logic of extending condition damage to inanimate objects, simply from a balancing perspective.

I mean… the human tutorial boss really stands out, it teaches you nothing about bleed stacking and conditions because it can’t take any. What a shame.

The kits, are not weapons, they are utility bundles that are unlocked at the earliest of level 5.

The first you can unlock is grenade kit, as it is a tier 1, that costs 1 point. Bomb kit needs 3 points, and is tier 2, so that needs at most level 13, but if you unlock skill points, in the world it should be sooner.

So, is it pretty much the consensus that its not worth anyones time to do the personal story, as the likelihood of bugging out is so high, that you will get more progression/exp by doing… anything else?
Seems like it.

Fool me once Anet, shame on you.
Fool me twice, shame on me.

We’ll this is indeed the second time. Maybe I’ll finish the story some other time in some months, if at all.

I agree.

The way it used to work was like this:

Explosives– power and condition duration
Firearms– precision and crit damage
Inventions – toughness and healing power
Alchemy – vitality and boon duration
Tools – Toolbelt recharge rate and condition damage

This was in BWE1 I believe, they changed it in BWE2 to what we currently have now. I never fully agreed with the change frankly. But honestly, there is no way to get it right. With the old system of it, the firearms traitline benefited power builds- therefore the rifle more. With the current one, it benefits the pistol more.

This is because crits have a pretty equal effect on crit and condition builds, quite helpful. Crit damage builds need the chance, and condition builds need the procs, but the trouble is, the rifle has no need for condition damage at all.

Keelin.5781:

I’m not sure where i read this but someone proposed having different effects depending on such things as your health.
It was something like:
If you have above 50% health elixir H would give you protection.
If you have below 50% health it would give you regeneration in addition to protection.
And if you have below 25% stamina it would give you vigor (possibly in addition to the above).

I think having conditional effects on both the elixirs and their thrown skills would be a nice way to solve things as it would still require you to ‘react’ to the situation you’re in.

That was Teldo alright.

Great suggestion that was.

coglin.1496:

Lyuben.2613:

Vuh.1328:

I’d personally would like some extra base damage and not bleed, to make a hybrid damage/power with pistol+shield somewhat viable :p

They already buffed it massively during the betas.

You seem to be confusing the term buff with the term nerf. It was nerfed in the betas not buffed.

Bargaw.4832:

Well, condition engineer rely more on having perma burning rather than bleed, with flamethrower toolbelt skill it’s really easy to keep long duration burn on target (and engi got easy access to all 3 damaging conditions).

I think its the condition damage that needs help now.

Your making assumption now, with intention to pigeon hole a class, This is not a wise stance to take. We have a lot more conditions then just burn. Bleeds stack with intensity, thus can be much faster damage the burns. [/quote]

No, I’m not.

During the early betas, the direct damage portion was tickle worthy.

Nowadays, its not exactly that bad. It got significantly buffed during one stage. I believe it was when it was a 4s bleed, but no longer AoE.

Sadly I believe you will have to deal with it, as the visual effect isn’t there just to please/displease you, it serves a vital purpose in PvP and WvW, it is a visual tell, that your opponent has a certain buff that effects them greatly.

riku.2091:

Lyuben.2613:

riku.2091:

Lyuben.2613:

I can tell you are low level, because exactly what you described as “you are alliance/horde” happens at around level 20+ and gets worse, and worse.

…What? That never happens in this game.

Of course it does.

After you join an order it becomes generic “you there, commander/magister/title, help me, the leader defeat this boss”

Its very obvious. Trahearne is your generic Thrall/Varian Wrynn and you are the generic mary sue who does no wrong and helps everyone.

It… it gets pretty painful.

Well…I really don’t have a problem with that, personally. I don’t know why so many other people do. I find it still to be fun. Geez, reading these forums at a glance makes it look like everyone hates this game.

You are not allowed to criticize a game, or it is hate?

No offense, but that is a pretty warped perspective. You are allowed to both criticize and like something, the two are not incompatible.

The story is sadly, pretty generic and bad as it moves along. Doesn’t mean its a bad game, just a bad story.

Moophious.1735:

Lyuben.2613:

Why is it so hard to solve?

Just make it so that if you, the main character reaches the end point, it skips forward a story step, just skip it.

Stop trying to fix something you obviously have no clue how to fix and give a reasonable workaround.

What a class act. You sound like a 10 year old who didn’t get his candybar. Learn some respect kid.

Respect is earned.

You don’t get it automatically because you do.

riku.2091:

Lyuben.2613:

I can tell you are low level, because exactly what you described as “you are alliance/horde” happens at around level 20+ and gets worse, and worse.

…What? That never happens in this game.

Of course it does.

After you join an order it becomes generic “you there, commander/magister/title, help me, the leader defeat this boss”

Its very obvious. Trahearne is your generic Thrall/Varian Wrynn and you are the generic mary sue who does no wrong and helps everyone.

It… it gets pretty painful.

Vizen.2049:

How about you read the second page as well, I hate it when people only mention half a discussion omitting certain information is never good.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/I-play-a-necro-but-I-traid-a-warrior-for-one-play-session/page/2

That changes nothing…

The first comment is talking about the general balance of the necro.

His second comment is regarding changing a specific point with the necro.

Changing death shroud to show boons and conditions is not going to fix most issues.

Venom.6189:

Did he just say what I think he said? Did he really just tell the necro community that “the necro is fine, l2p” and this is from a developer! WTF, kitten unprofessional ..

Jon Peters said so during the betas that the necro was hardest in his opinion.

Guess he still thinks it.

Venom.6189:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/I-play-a-necro-but-I-traid-a-warrior-for-one-play-session/first

.. scroll down a bit

What a shame.

I had hopes of making a necro alt.

Not anymore.

What comments did he make? Link?

I can tell you are low level, because exactly what you described as “you are alliance/horde” happens at around level 20+ and gets worse, and worse.

Vuh.1328:

I’d personally would like some extra base damage and not bleed, to make a hybrid damage/power with pistol+shield somewhat viable :p

They already buffed it massively during the betas.

I think its the condition damage that needs help now.

On my thief, I died 6 times to doc howler.

Terrible.

Basically, my trouble is that with 50 people in a power and direct damage build, you have 50 useful people in your event since their damage is consistent.

If you have 49 power and direct damage builds, and 1 conditions build, you have 50 useful people.

If you have 50 conditions builds, you have 1 useful person and 49 useless people.

Well, this is an exaggeration obviously, but the point is, there is no diminishing returns on power builds, but serious ones on conditions.

The cap on bosses is reached very quickly, 25 bleeds is possible to reach on a single character and on two its very easy to do so. With burning and poison, you often see ridiculous durations as people stack them so high.

Confusion is the only one that doesn’t get stacked easily since its burst and not many people have it but… the point remains.

How do you not feel useless as a conditions build in a big boss fight?

And furthermore, vs structures which don’t take condition damage, you take around about 5 times longer than a normal power build. Is this intended? What does it achieve? Is it meant to be fun?

Peter.8659:

I guess I’m the only person in the universe who likes the engineer’s rifle. It’s a lot more fun and interesting than the warriors rifle, who all five (six) skills just do damage for the most part.

Oh I agree too, its just that its a tad clunky.

Why is it so hard to solve?

Just make it so that if you, the main character reaches the end point, it skips forward a story step, just skip it.

Stop trying to fix something you obviously have no clue how to fix and give a reasonable workaround.

Picture related, its my trying to do the quest.

You’re lucky your only problem is mob difficulty, and not completely bugging out.

You listed 1. twice.

Quest name is: Forging the Pact
Stage: Escort the researchers to the southern exit with Trahearne

I’m a level 66 engineer.

I have no issues killing anything, it just takes a bit because zombies are pretty tough.

But that’s not important… whats important is that the guys just stand there, they don’t follow me or do anything. They followed me for around about 2 seconds, and then just kitten off… at least they had the courtesy to tease me a bit, last time I did this, they never even moved.

Screw this, I’m not playing the personal story again, I’m not risking wasting my time only to find out that I get nothing for it.

I did make sure things are dead.

I’ve wasted my time twice now to see this bug.

You know what, I’m not going to try again.

I’m going to just kitten off from the personal story. Im not wasting my time again, only to find out at the end that I can’t progress.

It is a bug, it isn’t my fault, it is the faulty and shoddy coding of arenanet.

Yours is not a solution, yours is absolving anet of responsibility.

I’ve done this twice now, I try to do this really long and annoying section of the personal story and the first time, the stupid followers just sit on theirkitten and don’t do anything. What do you want me to do arenanet? Waste more of my time by resetting it and finding out it is bugged?

The personal story isn’t hard, it isn’t spectacular, but it is long at parts, and to face long tedious times killing people, only to see I can’t progress with nothing to show for it, is spitting in my face.

Sort your crap out.

Wrath.8539:

Lyuben.2613:

I have two that I use.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/en/?fcAQJAqelspSXHvShF1LJRIF43wgUkX9KSxjp8nCsF;ToAAzCpoay0koJbTumkNNqYSA
-Pistol build that focuses on spreading conditions with crits and in general, buffing yourself with solid condition removal with elixirs.

And
http://gw2skills.net/editor/en/?fcAQFAUl0p6dX7STF17IxoHkmzbG0j8qX/+pAbB;ToAg0CnoqxUjoGbNuak1MoYSA

Burst to the max.

Meant for getting big crits, and critting often.

Plus, it gives you a very powerful rotation that does insane damage:
Rocketkick>Analyze>Surprise bullet
This all happens in the space of one second, as the only one with a cast time is rocket kick. All do damage, and spawn a lightning discharge, which does good damage and has a chance to bounce back onto your guy.

Alternatively, you can swap rocket boots for tool kit, as its toolbelt is better for the burst as it is ranged, unlike rocket kit, but that is preference.

The second build sound pretty sweet! I tend to lean towards more of a survivable build though, but maybe I should change it up!

Be warned: Your health and armour will be that of a wet tissue.

Tigger.8035:

Lyuben.2613:

@Tigger

What led you to think I wasn’t?

And even if I was a level 1, and you were level 80, with full exotic and legendary weapons, it would never make your assertion that the advantage of the range of grenades is negligible or non existent.

It is negligible in this argument until you’re unkillable in dungeons.

You keep spouting out nonsense that just because something is in melee range it isn’t good and gets you killed. Even if that same thing has the utility to manage, and has done just that for the person who plays it.

Your precise argument doesn’t have a point

If it was impossible to die with 1500 range no one would ever think about running melee at all

That’s not the point at all. Unless you haven’t noticed, boss melee attacks are stronger than ranged attacks, and when you are a ranged character, you aren’t immune to damage, but you are in a much better place than someone who stays in melee.

And guess what, melee characters do have a harder time in dungeons, its true. Most builds have a ranged weapon with them, not because of varieties sake, but because some bosses have very deadly, one shot or persistent ground effects that makes melee suicide.

Range does have a significant advantage over melee, and often the reason melee is viable is because it does higher damage, but the way bombs work is, they don’t do higher damage, their damage is very similar to grenades, and with grenadier, grenades win out every time.