Guild Wars 2

Rednik.3809:

So you want to say what current situation where turrets are immune to half of game mechanics is ok?

In the current situation it only makes sense for them to be so. To make the changes you propose they would have to be rebalanced completely (and even then, i doubt we’ll see them affected by CC as long as they’re static…and being turrets, i doubt that ever will change).

Shiyo.3578:

Yeah that’s what they should be used for, purely utility/buffs!

So a weaker form of banners, being destructible and giving strippable boons. On a class that, unlike warriors, has a single main weapon (and weaker by design, i should add).
Can’t you see what is wrong with this?
What should they buff, the rifle/pistol autoattack? That’s what the engineer ends up using most of the time, in a turret build. Because there is nothing else to use as far as weapons go. That’s why engineers have to rely on offensive utilities for the most part – be it kits or turrets. Something must supply that damage that the main weapon lacks.
And the main weapon can’t be made stronger, anyway – else a kit build would have both a strong main weapon and all the kits’ skills.
Your suggestion would just make turrets redundant and completely useless, being an inferior version of banners.
Albeit, that’s what you are likely aiming for, anyway.

Rednik.3809:

Make turrets vulnerable to CC and conditions. Bam, problem fixed.

If you aim to make them useless, it would indeed fix them.
They already have relatively low hp, especially the ranged ones. Conditions would melt them in seconds.
And they are static. The owners themselves cannot move them,and neither they follow the owner like a normal minion/pet/whatever. So why do you expect other people to be able to move them via CC? People would fear or knock them out of sight and the engineers wouldn’t be able to move them back unless he picked them up, putting them on cooldown, effectively making them unusable.

They should make those items directly buyable from some npc.
The achievements related lost any purpose they had when people started selling ways to get them without actually doing the related content (by the way, the same applies for dungeons weapons/armors/achievements and legendary weapons as well).

As i said already in another thread, it seems like they prefer to not add anything than to put SAB back. Quite annoying.

…and still no SAB. Even if they have nothing else to put in, they still won’t put SAB back…

Lucentfir.7430:

You’re underrating Toolkit the rest of the toolkit abilities. Pry bar will easily hit for 3-4k in the right builds, and it applies 5 stacks of Confusion, so in conjunction with Magnet pull you can easily hit them.

Pry bar is nice and scales well with power, but it still starts as 1.5x damage of a bomb autoattack. As many others hybrid skills we’ve got, we won’t be able to effectively use both the aspects it provides. A power build will see it as some burst damage (since the confusion damage will be negligible), a condition one will mainly use it for the confusion, celestials will do average with both.
Still, i doubt people take tool kit mainly for the pry bar. Elixir gun’s acid bomb would be better in that case, coming with a stun break on the toolbar as well.
(sure, we can take all those three kits i mentioned, but we also have no slots left if we do so…it is all a matter of tradeoffs, in the end)

Lucentfir.7430:

Magnet is actually a lot more reliable than things like Scorpion Wire, and Spectral Grasp, if you want to compare pull skills, it can also be stowed to make people blow dodges .

Dunno about the reliability. It seems to be that it harshly decreased after some patch, and i wouldn’t be surprised if it now has the same exact code of the other skills you mentioned. And while you can make others waste dodges by stowing the kit, i’m not ever sure that such a thing may be considered an intended behaviour – after all, the long cast time is supposed to be a disadvantage. Thus i doubt that it was balanced upon such a gameplay possibility.

Lucentfir.7430:

The only AoE in Toolkit is Box o Nails for AoE bleeds and cripple so mostly true. Gear Shield is a 3s Block on a 20s CD and you don’t have to worry too much about swapping at the right time since kit swaps have a very low CD.

Indeed, but you won’t take such a kit if the skills it provides aren’t worth enough, let alone traiting specifically for said kit.
Nerf gear shield, and the only worthwhile skill it remains in the kit is magnet. And only because we’ve got no other choices if we want a simple,single pull.

I would also like to add that balancing everything over fully traited kits is nonsensical at best. Traits are there to make utilities/weapon good. Not to make them average, or even viable (like the grenade kit, that was made absolutely useless in its base form).

Elmo Benchwarmer.3025:

I’d actually love to have a cast time and clear animation on Overcharged Shot. Something like Pin Down or more recently Point Blank Shot. Make your target waste dodges by stowing the weapon/swapping to a kit. Similar like Magnet. Something that rewards good micro.

Until they successfully reflect it and you find yourself self-knocked back and then launched. Heh, just even dodging would give a good advantage to the opponent, due to the self knockback alone. Would end up being far too risky to use.

That skill is balanced over having a self-knockback and being instant. Both of them. You can’t simply change just one of those without seeing the balance go downhill.

Regarding Gear Shield, i don’t even see the issue. Sure, it is strong. I would say that’s the best skill in the kit.
And what’s wrong with that? We aren’t supposed to have only skills weaker than other classes’ one, some must be stronger too if we want to have some balance, and i find gear shield perfectly fits in that category. Tool Kit has neither the aoe capabilities of a bomb kit, nor its offensive capabilities. In exchange it offers some control – given by magnet (that is also a terribly overrated skill, imho, just due of not having some proper comparison, it being the only single target pull in the game) and defensive capabilities, with that shield. I can only see it as a fair tradeoff.

I wonder. It seems to me that the skill-less people are the one who are whining constantly about it, instead.

Anyway, you can’t expect devs to make them useless just for the sake of some players who expect to rush into a point and sweep everything – the game isn’t balanced upon such brainless players.
And neither it would make sense for turrets to not do damage – seeing as the engineer can only use a single weapon, thus being naturally limited to use just his 5 weapon skills and overcharges when a full turret build is on place. But even if they didn’t do damage, they would have to do other effects to be worthwhile (and people would whine anyway due to “passive buffs” or whatever would do, similar to how people already complain about experimental turrets). And as long as they also have CC effects, lessening passive damage and shortening the cooldowns of overcharges to compensate for it is a no-no. It would just make for some massive CC spam. And neither putting a lot of power on long overcharges – it would just end up in massive burst damage.
There would be issues anyway, basically. Imho, what we have now is a good enough equilibrium between active damage and cc capabilities.
Sure, there is some degree of passive play, but that doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t be viable (at least versus not experienced players – that, according to the comments on this forum, seems to be a relevant number anyway).
Asking for it to be nerfed to the ground may also be counterproductive, anyway. If you want to use the argument that such a build should be useless due to the low amount of active skills (the “they just need to sit there” that i’ve read so many times) then the opposite should be true too – builds with triple kits one or elementalists should be legitimately OP due of the number of active skills alone.
Is this what you’re asking for? Fine with me, but don’t whine later.

I wonder if engineers will see a comeback of the original Juggernaut trait (it gave stability, 200 toughness and halved movement speed while using flamethrower back then).

At least using the flamethrower would have some meaning…

I assume they’ll overhaul some skills to make them give resistance instead of clearing conditions, as far as old skills go.

ozzy.8059:

solution give it the dhuumfire treatment ip will only activate when you use toolbelt skills, this adds skilful play causing the engie to choose when best to apply it.

sounds fair right?

Actually, i don’t think so. Assuming you mean something like “after using the toolbelt your next attack inflict burning”, many toolbelts are far too situational to be used effectively for such a purpose. It would end up having to choose whether to waste the original purpose of the skill in exchange for a burning, or to not care and having the burning whenever you would have used the skill anyway (thus with no difference as far a “skillful play” would go).
Basically, that’s similar to what they did with kit refinement – putting situational skills on kit swap. Almost no one uses that trait anymore. Guess it didn’t work well, heh.

If you meant something like static discharge, thus having some kind of projectile shot out when a toolbelt skill is used, well…just try using static discharge with anything that doesn’t target a single enemy.
You would be fighting the camera half of the time, instead of the enemy…

Imho, the only thing IP needs is a proper tell. Maybe some flame icon above the engineer (in PvP/WvsW) and put IP as a sort of buff, so that there is an icon on his bar.

Guess they don’t find it marketable enough for gem shop purchases. It seems they would rather prefer putting out something like the festival of the ram with almost no content associated and a lot of gem store products than putting something people can actually play. Else they would have already put it in weeks ago, even without anything new.

mbh.8301:

It’s hilarious that everyone who says ltp about turret engis can also only fathom being played by idiots. You can use things like teamwork or minimaps in order to make decisions about using your overcharges. You can also just keep a rocket turret somewhere in order to let your ally have a much easier time doing 1v1s. Being down 1 turret makes you weaker, but the point was also that you would greatly help two places on the map.

Unless you use something like teamspeak and an ally is actively telling you the situation, you aren’t supposed to know exactly what’s going on if you aren’t there- the game doesn’t give you those informations, turrets have no camera attached.
And a clear idea of the situation is necessary when the overcharges are involved, else you will end up wasting them (especially the ones with a low range).
And that’s perfectly fine – the utilities aren’t completely wasted, they just end up working in a suboptimal way.

mbh.8301:

To be honest, I wonder if having a trait for reduced cooldown on picked up turrets would be enough to make people happy. I don’t think the turret engi should be punished for wanting to move around, and I also don’t know what I would even choose as a leash range.

Doubt that’s a good idea – due to healing turret. That would likely end up too strong.
There are already a ton of traits related to turrets, anyway, and multiple grandmaster ones too. I don’t think that we need even more turret traits.

Kuzuryu.7359:

Yes the engi is forced to stay put if he wants to be effective at what he’s built for. That’s why I am saying it is better for the turrets to despawn and trigger a moderate cooldown when the engi moves out of leash range.
If he decided to move and set up shops somewhere else, he should be penalized with moderate amount of cooldown for his utilities. And if he choose to jump into a fight without his utility skills off cooldown, that’s his problem.

And why exactly should he be penalized further for doing so? He’s already penalized – the active skills won’t work as well if you haven’t got a clear idea of what’s going on. And whatever you are going, you won’t have your turrets to help you. Since you’ve purposefully left them behind. If the engineer wanted to pick up them manually, he could have done so (sure, spending some time in doing so, assuming he can afford to do it…and if he couldn’t and really needed them, well, better luck next time).

Kuzuryu.7359:

I would love to start every fight with basilisk venom ready, but that’s not gonna happen. We all have to compromise a bit. If an engi decides not to guard a point anymore and decide to switch to a different cap point or dies, the turrets despawn and have to wait for them to come off cooldown. The cooldown can be adjusted so that it won’t be too punishing, but just enough to limited the deploybility of the turrets

That’s not a compromise, that’s changing completely how they work. Your basilisk venom doesn’t go on cooldown by itself – that is what you propose to do with turrets.
Leaving the turrets and going somewhere else is a choice, and they already pay for it with lesser efficiency (where they left the turrets) and having their utilities already in use (wherever they are). If they wanted to relocate, they could just have detonated or picked the turrets to start with. Those are all choices they can take, and they already have consequences.
You would just limit such a build further. And without any good reason to do so.

Can’t seem to be able to add it to the previous post. Gotta make a new one for this reply.

Kuzuryu.7359:

- as Mbh and I suggest, make turrets unavailable when engi moves out of range, either by despawning, or inactivate them. This would encourge them to play as the build is intended and discourage them from zerging or roaming.

I explained above why it makes no sense – having them still there already makes the engineer weaker, and the turrets less efficient in their purpose of protecting the area (as the engineer can’t use overcharges properly if he doesn’t know what’s going on).

- tune down the targeting system of the turret, implement an internal cool down for switching and reacquiring target. So player can counter turrets without destroying them by breaking LOS or going into stealth.

Way too easy to abuse – one could just move on and off LOS and kill them without retaliation.

- add diminishing return to the CC turrets like net and thumper (You see this system in wow)

Their hard CC is either active and with moderate cooldowns – done by overcharges, toolbelt detonation if traited- or reactionary (on destruction if traited).
Also, i can’t see why such a restriction should be limited to engineer turrets, anyway.
And seeing that turrets already don’t see any use in high-level pvp, i can’t even see why they should be toned down to start with, anyway. Especially with nerfs that aren’t even coherent with the rest of the game (changing the targeting system only for them? Putting CC diminishing returns only on turrets?).

Akikaze.1307:

For its area denial effectiveness, there is a rather limited approach to fighting the class. Killing the Turret is also situational on your builds. When you direct your attention to try taking out the Rocket Turret from range first, it’s the right approach but also an approach that costs time. That’s where effectiveness comes in, an Engineer could leave their turrets on point and run off chasing the white rabbit, you come to decap and have to spend 4seconds killing and 4seconds decapping. That is 8 seconds compared to any other situation already decapped 4seconds into the cap. Total 8points gained by Engi by doing nothing.

If the engineer is somewhere else he isn’t there doing “nothing”. And he’s doing that “something else” in a weakened state, being without turrets – as they’re still at the point he willingly left them to, and can’t even use their overcharge ability well (as he can’t follow what is going on there, as he isn’t there).
Wherever he is, he is weaker without his turrets. If he was there, you would likely have had to destroy said turret either way. Someone has to deal with it either way.
I can’t see any issue with that.

If the turrets didn’t activate while the Engineer was outside its proximity, then its passive effectiveness is countered. Minions follow Necromancers around, Pets follow Rangers around, Clones/Phantasm stop/vanish if Mesmer overrides/loses target/too far away, there’s a trend.

Yes, and the trend is that none of those is forced to stand still on a point. According to your suggestion, if the engineer is somewhere else not only he’s limited by not having his utilities available, but they aren’t doing anything even where he left them, and on top of being useless for the time being, they’ll go on cooldown at the leisure of any attacker (probably as soon as the engineer is coming back). Thus raising the time such turrets aren’t either available or working. Where do you see the balance in something like that?

Akikaze.1307:

What troubles me deeply is that how easy they’re to play. I’ve mentioned this before in another thread. I have a friend who made a Engi, without prior knowledge of what the skills does at all, simply copying the build online. He has only previously played Thief so not even familiar with Bunker playstyles. Yet he has managed to solo secure a node vsing multiple enemies. Considering it was his day1 on the class and against pugs, both players are bad, yet my friend on his Engi won on multiple encounters.

Who needs to L2P in that situation? The ones who are semi familiar with the class went unprepared against the Engi or the Engi who have yet to learn the class. If the answer is both, then it should had been an even matchup, not one sided.

Anedoctal evidence, uh.
First of all, according to your post, he still had previous pvp experience – even if with other classes – and a proper build – as he searched for it. That’s already more effort that most random people can muster.
If profession ranking was still working back then, he may have been against some completely inexperienced people. If they just tried to rush him without paying any attention to the turrets, i wouldn’t be surprised that he was able to deal with them. Knowing when to use CC requires timing and observational skills, and that isn’t something limited to engineers – previous pvp experience already helped in that regard. Having a single weapon makes it a bit simplier, even if limitative, as he hasn’t got to remember the cooldowns of a second set (not having it to start with).
Thus i would say he was still more experienced than his opponents, and probably also more smart than them. The match probably wasn’t even to start with – but not for the reasons you assume to.

That’s just cause people can’t admit they’re bad and should really learn to play instead of coming here to whine on the forums hoping that devs will nerf their opponents (until they lose to someone else and come back again whining about something else). Heh, there are even people who are unable to defeat a single turret – or at least claim as such – and we should balance the game toward such low standards?
If there is a problem, is in the mentality of people. Not the turrets.

For example, if you have low defenses, you just don’t simply rush toward an engineer and multiple turrets. First you deal with the rocket turret – from a distance if possible- and then you rush (using stability once you are near enough to smash up the engineer). That’s a good approach.
Instead most people – especially the ones that come here to whine – just rush blindly toward the point. And that is exactly what the engineer wants you to do and challenging him exactly as he planned to – a strategical defeat, even before starting the battle. If you dance upon his hands, of course you’ll lose easily.
Something that good players won’t do, and thus the reason why such a build is useless in high-level play.

Thus…yeah, we can sum it up as a “L2P”. Cause that’s all that is.

People just don’t won’t to admit they are terrible players, thus whine upon whatever defeats them.
Turrets are just an easy scapegoat to whine upon. They get defeated by some stupid AI and instead of using their brain to defeat said AI (like, thinking about their range and avoiding to get mauled by all of them at the same time by rushing in the middle of a point defended by a point holder build) they just log in these forums and whine, hoping devs will deal with them so that they can play, lose against something else and come back to whine upon it.
An endless cycle that has nothing to do with the game, and that can’t be solved by devs.

No, thanks. If anything, we should separate pve and pvp even more and give pve some proper balancing.

Considering the endgame is all about aesthetics, hobosacks shouldn’t exist to begin with – they can completely ruin a good character design, especially considering that engineers are even too focused upon kits (and thus forced to have hobosacks upon them).
I hope that hobosacks will be annihilated out of existance and that us engineers will have the same aesthetical endgame that any other class has.

Calcanius.5048:

We already donated to restoring to repair LA, There was a queens pavalion event to raise money for the repairs several months ago (may 20, 2014 event) unless my memory fails me.
Just the contracters who are lazy and slow

…or Ellen Kiel embezzled all the funds that should have been used to rebuild the city. That scoundrel.

#teamEvon

As every other Tuesday, i’ll be waiting for a preview about the return of the SAB.
As every other Tuesday, i’ll be left disappointed.

:-(

Harper.4173:

Good zerk players can beat anything in seconds.
Bad zerk players get wiped.
Bad players in general don’t even wear zerk’s.

Why is it wrong that highly skilled players perform well in the game? How is that a problem?

The problem is that “highly skilled players” shouldn’t be restricted to use a single stat composition to be effective. What’s the point of having a lot of stats and stat combinations if people aren’t really supposed to use them once they’re good enough?

Harper.4173:

There are no roles for condi or healers because:

1)Conditions in this game are broken because of the condition cap – not because of zerker.

And here i agree – conditions are quite broken, and until they find a way to fix them, there isn’t much to do about that…

Harper.4173:

2)This game was designed around the idea of not having a healer so then how do you expect people would want a healer in their party when the game is designed in a way that you do not need one.

…but here i cannot agree. If healing power is supposed to be useless by design, what’s the point of it existing in the first place? What’s the point of it being on equal terms with other stats on gear and such, if it is supposed to be less effective than other stats?
What’s the point of having gears with it if they’re supposed to be intrinsecally inferior, just by having said stat instead of something more useful?
It is like they created such stats and their combinations just as padding content, seeing as there is no real need to use them.

Harper.4173:

You are trying to create an artificial need for what you like to play.
You’re basically saying :

“Change the game in such a way that my way of playing becomes required and all parties must want and have me because they will need to have me given the game changes”.

More like, change the game so that there is some reason to use half of those stats, else there is no point of even having them in the first place, unlike berserker’s ones.
And if there is no point of having them, they shouldn’t have put them in the game to start with.
They could have shipped the game with just power, precision, ferocity and condition damage and made some armors that have better defense or that give health points, but with less attack stats to compensate for it. And done. We’ve successfully scrapped out a ton of useless stats and stat combinations and the remaining stats are all of equal importance (ok, condition still has that cap issue, but oh, can’t do much about that).
Unlike now, where half of the primary stats is designed to be quite useless.

A melee main weapon would be indeed appreciated.
If it was a mace, i would go for the legendary asap. Having The Moot and Quip together in hand would make for a fabolous combination.

That, or a rocket hammer.

insanemaniac.2456:

Manuhell.2759:

I just don’t see it (being cancellable) as an intrinsic advantage of Magnet. I mean…all the skills i mentioned above are cancellable as well, at least in their first “stage”. As i were comparing them, if they’re equal in that aspect, there is just no need to mention it.

yeah uh theres almost no opportunity cost associated with cancelling, unlike everyone else who has to get stuck on another weapon in order to cancel and cant retry until 10 secs later instead of 3

edit: or if youre super technical you can heal or dodge cancel by overwriting the skill queue priority and interrupting yourself but thats a pretty bad idea

I was thinking about the dodge cancel, but indeed you’re right – stowing a kit does cancel as well. Maybe that’s something that should be fixed, indeed.

Shockwave.1230:

Magnet cancel is definitely better than cancelling any other those other skills at any point in time. I can appreciate the effort in defending the skill though.
;)

As above. If cancel by stowing gives such an advantage, then they should fix that, not the skill. Especially if said skill isn’t inherently very strong, as the comparisons show.
Sure, in pvp it may even end up being more useful than the alternatives, i can agree with that, seeing as 1vs1 are more common than in other modes. But that’s just due of how pvp works, not the strength of the skill.
Thus, as i said above:

Manuhell.2759:

Imho, if the kit is perceived as strong, it is just due to the game mode rather than for the weapon itself. If they still think of it as strong in this particular game mode, then any nerf should be restricted to said game mode.

And i’ve got to repeat and repeat that, especially when i see people proposing to put Power Wrench as a grandmaster trait – a change that i doubt would just be restricted to pvp.
Beside making no sense – it is on par with any other single weapon master trait, and giving it the grenadier treatment would just make balancing the kit even worse.

I just don’t see it (being cancellable) as an intrinsic advantage of Magnet. I mean…all the skills i mentioned above are cancellable as well, at least in their first “stage”. As i were comparing them, if they’re equal in that aspect, there is just no need to mention it.

insanemaniac.2456:

yeah, magnet isnt on par… because its way better than anything else comparable. unblockable, cancellable, strong cd.

Yeah, that’s basically all it does, to a single target, with a 25s cooldown.
Comparatively, we have:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Binding_Blade
(damages multiple opponents+combo whirl+optional 5-target unblockable pull) 30s cd
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Path_of_Scars
(damages up to three opponent, projectile combo finisher, pulls up to 3 opponent on return) 15s cd
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Temporal_Curtain
(combo field, swiftness to allies/cripple to enemies, optional up-to-5-opponents pull) 25s cd

They all do something else beside pulling and they do it at multiple targets. Even with lower cast times, for some of them.

The only thing Magnet has got over some of them is it being unblockable and having an higher range. I wouldn’t say those alone make it “way better” than the comparable skills.
There may be situations where it works better than the alternatives? Of course, if you’re against a single opponent and you just want to pull them, it is the perfect tool to do that.
Is the skill stronger than the other similar weapon skills? Not, at all.

xDudisx.5914:

Yah, becuase a mere -20% cooldown in 1 kit skill should be grandmaster. C’mon, be relaistic.

There is also a 10% damage bonus, and the tool kit is more effective on turrets.
Even then, as it is now, it is perfectly in line with every other single weapon enhancing master trait. And as you said, not worth of a grandmaster slot.
Unless they make the trait stronger..and then they end up balancing the whole kit over the traited version and making the base one useless. Like they did with grenadier before.

Anyway, i don’t even think that the kit should deserve a nerf. The gear shield is basically the only strong point when compared to any other weapon.
If we were to compare skills like Pry Bar or Magnet to other similar weapon skill equivalents, they aren’t even on par – mostly because their counterparts usually target multiple enemies and/or have lower cooldowns, while retaining similar effects.

Imho, if the kit is perceived as strong, it is just due to the game mode rather than for the weapon itself. If they still think of it as strong in this particular game mode, then any nerf should be restricted to said game mode.

Cenzuo.6328:

Vee Wee makes a good suggestion here, swapping traits instead of directly nerfing skills might encourage trying out new builds.

It would be quite bad, imho.
As the trait is now, the effects are comparable to any other similar “reduce recharge of a single weapon + do something fancy” trait. To give it a grandmaster slot they should improve its effects, else it wouldn’t be worth the slot.
But having a single utility/kit trait at grandmaster slot has already proven to be a terrible balancing choice (see Grenadier – being a focused grandmaster trait they had to make it really good…and ended up balancing all the kit upon that trait, making the base one useless).
It would likely end up as grenadier. So…don’t do that, please.

Imho, AED’s major problem lies in its opportunity costs.
Other healing skills would be used when you’re still relatively healthly, thus having some time to recharge before you’re actually dying. But AED requires you to be near death if you want a successful healing, making you lose out on many other uses of the healing skill.
The long cooldown also doesn’t help, i would add.
Having a relatively low cooldown for the low heal version could help solving the opportunity cost issue.

Albeit, i can’t agree with the skyrocketing of healing turret cooldown proposed above. And neither i think it would solve anything. As it works now, letting the healing turret down is more risk than reward. The healing skill is too important to risk being unable to use it when the needs arise – and them being quite brittle, especially in PvE situations, doesn’t help at all.
Imho, there are some things that would help in solving this issue.
First, making the cooldown dependant on the last healing skill used, be it the deployment or an overcharge – so that you aren’t able to overcharge, destroy it and deploy it again.
Second, give some warm-up time at the turret, making the overcharge weaker at the start and stronger after a certain amount of time passes, thus giving some advantage on keeping it down (and making it a better instrument for prolonged battles).
Third, properly balance its health and defense outside of pvp. If AoEs – especially from bosses – can destroy it too easily, of course no one will keep it down.

Tao.5096:

So, are we either talking about zerg of Engineers vs zerg of all classes?
How hard it would be for others, such as warriors, rangers, mesmers etc to focus single target?

And why should they even bother? they aren’t even as effected by retaliation.
Heh, it is far more easy for them to just avoid taking engineers.

Tao.5096:

Can’t Necromancer strip Guardian from boons? Especially those most annoying a.k.a. Stability and Protection Boons?

Indeed, if only retaliation was as uncommon at those. Unfortunately, it is far more spammable. And in a couple seconds it will be up again.
Basically, stripping ends up being useless, especially since you’ll never have such frequency of doing that compared to how much retaliation can be spammed.

Tao.5096:

But hey, what’s the point of making a tactic in zerg vs zerg, when spamming skills in random areas should be as much effective.

Yep. Why bother fighting, when you can just spam retaliation and make the enemy kill itself. It is indeed effective.

Tao.5096:

It’s surprising you know. That here we have just a few people who play Engineer and complain about Retaliation, and somehow the rest is just fine, because somehow they contribute, survive and have fun.

Unless, OP’s team doesn’t use Retaliation or enemy team doesn’t have Engineers

I’m thinking more about the second suggestion. Outside of PvP engineers aren’t popular at all. And i’m not particularly surprised about that. Weapons get nullified by common boons, and people find that normal and right just because it isn’t something that bothers them.

PaxTheGreatOne.9472:

No problem for me. As long as the community understands this ISN’T a porblem of retaliation, but the 2 referred to skills of the engineer, which should be reconsidered and/or improved.

And it wouldn’t solve anything. It would just skip over the issue.
The problem isn’t upon those weapons. Rather, it is upon how retaliation works versus skills that do multiple weak hits – being AoE just exacerbates the problem.
If HoT will introduce new weapons or classes with weapons that work like that, we’ll be discussing the issue all over again.
Unless they choose to never have multi-weak-hit skills again…effectively limiting their design choices due to such a boon.

Tao.5096:

Oooh, yes. True Story.

Let’s summarize OP’s PoV and what does he want to do.
1. OP is blaming Retaliation for Engineer’s damage comeback due to mechanic of Grenade Kit and Flamethrower Kit.
How those Kits work is being explained in this thread by Tim for example.
2. OP request to change the way Retaliation work by enforcing a percentage portion(5% or 10%) of spiked damage to be returned to caster.
Power Build User:
2000 damage hit and 5% damage going to return back
2000 – 5% = 100
100 Damage is going to be returned
Condition Build User:
120 damage hit and 5% damage going to return back
120 – 5% = 6
6 Damage is going to be returned
Summary:

• Percentage damage scaling for Retaliation is crap

It just means other methods should be chosen instead. For example reflecting also a percentage of the inflicted condition damage, assuming it is technically doable.
It would still make more sense than the current situation, where retaliation alone can inflict more damage than the hits that processed it.

Tao.5096:

What does OP doesn’t want to consider?

• OP doesn’t want to consider rework of Grenade and Flamethrower Kits.
  Because those Kits are extremely useful and work greatly as long as Retaliation isn’t involved. :v

More like because retaliation doesn’t make sense when multi-hit/low-damage attacks are involved, and almost any offensive skill of those kits is of such type (even Napalm got recently changed into one of those). They should change completely the design of those weapons and associated traits, and that would just be a band-aid – unless they plan on never having such type of skills again (quite a waste, especially since we may see new weapons in the future, as hinted by HoT)

Tao.5096:

What does OP keep comparing whole this kitten to?
To Greatsword Warrior and Staff Guardian.
OP doesn’t want to understand that those two weapons are slow, and Engineer or any Fast type weapon deal at least 2 times more attacks than those two.
Pluses of Fast Type weapons

• 2 times higher chance for sigil proc
• 2 times higher chance for crit proc
• higher mobility
• lower chance for enemy to evade attacks

Unlike retaliation, most of those crit or sigil proc have cooldowns. And traits that haven’t got them are already balanced over such lack of cooldowns. Those pluses are already mostly nullified by those balancing countermeasures (heh, food didn’t have cooldowns back then – they added them later for that purpose).
Imho, the mobility is more due of them being a cone-attack weapon and a ranged aoe one than due of their multi-hit capabilities.
And while it is true that it is more difficult to evade such attacks, it is also more difficult to deal the whole of them – it gives times for people to move out (in the case of flame jet or long-range grenades).

Tao.5096:

Minuses of Fast Type Weapons

• punished for mindless spam on Retaliation

More than “mindless spam”, you should talk about “doing anything”. As i said above, almost all the offensive skills in those kit are multi-hit ones. So, what should i do, avoid using those kits when someone uses retaliation? That is, everytime, seeing as it is so common.
It isn’t like other autoattacks or putting retaliation require so much thought, anyway…

Tao.5096:

What OP does fail in too?
OP claims that Boon removal is crap, and killing main source of Retaliation spam a.k.a Guardian isn’t a priority.

And i agree. Since putting retaliation is far too easy in comparison, especially in group situations…that is, when those kits are supposed to be used. Assuming you even have boon removals to start with (not that it changes anything, since it can just be easily applied again after that).

Also, how do you kill the “main source of Retaliation spam” if you can’t attack due of retaliation being on? Quite a bit of circular logic there.
If you’re using such kits, you’re likely to have heavily traited them – grenades are unusable otherwise, and even the flamethrower wouldn’t make much sense as something to rely on if untraited.
It means that outside those, you’re quite weak (and main weapons are supposed to be weak by design due to kits anyway, so that doesn’t help).
So, as i said above, that single boon is enough to disable those kits and build based upon them. And people here think that such a thing is fine…

Tao.5096:

Okay,
let’s summarize it.

CAUTION!
It is lethal to use Grenade Kit and Flamethrower Kit on enemies with Retaliation.
Please choose different utility skills.
ArenaNet hold no responsibility for your wipe due to Retaliation.

And you (and others in this thread) can’t even see what is wrong with such a common boon disabling entire builds (since you’ve got to spec quite heavily to make those kits even decent).
Especially since those kits are balanced to be used versus multiple enemies…and that just increases the chances people will have retaliation up.

It makes no sense, and yet people just choose to ignore it.

PaxTheGreatOne.9472:

Maybe you are right, but as the OP feels the problem of to many triggers causes him to much health loss to be comparable to other proffesions, the fact remains the amount of triggers should be adressed as this is seemingly the problem. The fact that those amounts of triggers are also rewarded by applying multiple applications of conditions or maybe even boons due to the sole fact there are huge amount of triggers is the other side of the medal. If you modify one the other will suffer.

That’s already neutered by internal cooldowns, though, some of whose got added after the launch (the food ones and maybe even some sigil ones, albeit i’m not sure about the latter).
Aside from a couple traits, all those sources that can trigger have got them.
The ones without cooldowns are almost all balanced upon the lack of it (that is, with low chances of activation – shrapnel – or multiple requirements – sharpshooter, having a chance on a critical hit).

PaxTheGreatOne.9472:

Nothing in this world is for free… I could say well just remove retal all together, and you would alleviate the problem for engineers… But doing so would create problems for guardians (= big part of proffesion mechanic), rangers, necro’s, mesmers, warrios and engineers.
The engineer would benefit and get hurt, I doubt many would care, BUT it would also remove your own counter vs grenade engineers, please take some time to think it through.

Grenade Kit is an extreme case in regard of the game. Frankly speaking, it is even too weak as it is now. Something that is easily recognizable when it isn’t traited accordingly.

Cause said kit is balanced over a multitude of effects piled upon, unlike anything else in the game. Devs gave it a grandmaster major trait that focused completely and only upon it – and that alone is a recipe for disaster, as it alone must make it really strong to warrant the slot – and then added a grandmaster minor that synergized with it accordingly, some other traits in the same or relevant trees and the possibility of adding sigils and food.
When the game makes you focus so much on a single weapon, of course it ends up being good, maybe even disproportionaly good compared to the base one.

Thus, as i said before, they ended up having to balance it after the final result – making the base kit completely worthless in the meantime – and yet people still whine about the traited one (mostly due to a pvp mode that is based upon players standing still on an area, thus the perfect target for an area denial weapon such as grenades).

Whatever change they do, they’ll end up having to rebalance classes either way.
Albeit, this grenade kit discussion is a bit OT.

Comparing retaliation with aegis or blind doesn’t make much sense. Aegis isn’t nearly as common as retaliation as far as application goes, and thus it can be properly stripped if needed (that is, assuming you don’t plan to just remove it with an hit).
Doing that with retaliation would be useless, assuming you are even able to do that to start with and you are lucky enough to strip that exact one. Especially since, as i said before, those multi-hit skills are supposed to be used versus multiple people and balanced toward that purpose…but that also increases the chance that there will be someone – or multiple people – that will put retaliation on the whole group.

Sure, blind is quite more common than aegis, but being a condition on the user it is also far more easily removable. Condition removals are much more common that boon removals, after all. And as aegis, it can be removed with a single hit (whereas with retaliation, you either strip it – useless move, as explained above – or you must wait until its expiration, assuming it will ever come and, depending on the class, having your efficiency drastically reduced in the meantime (grenades are all multi-hit skills, as well as two out of three offensive skills of the flamethrower; basically, your use of those kits is denied by that single boon, and you will likely have to use either the weak-by-design main weapon).
Again, no other boon has such an effect over opponents. If it is supposed to shut down weapons by itself, either make it much rare or make it stack in intensity and change the skills so that they give multiple stacks of retaliation and you lose a stack per every hit.

P.S. changing how some skill works isn’t a solution – it just sidesteps over the issue, as the only way there is as now would be making them deal less hits.

Imho, either they should tone down retaliation’s availability or tone down its effect. It can be spammed far too easily at multiple targets, and no other easily spammable boon has so great an effect. Especially since multi-hit skills are also usually AoE ones, thus suffering even more from it. Autoattacks take it even worse: they can’t do high damage – being autoattacks – but still get all the damage from retaliation.
So, while in theory they should slowly wear out groups of enemies…all that happens is that the user kills himself instead, or either avoid to attack entirely. Sure, in theory you can strip it. But in practice, putting it back is far too easy, especially in groups – and weapons like grenades and flamethrowers are balanced upon having their AoE capabilities, so you find yourself in an interesting conundrum of seeing a weapon made practically unusable in the exact occurence it should be supposed to work with.
And i don’t think that makes much sense.

nihasa.5067:

To sum up WvW + FT + Retal

I hit you, you hit back almost as hard as I do. Just from retal

http://i.imgur.com/Wd9lhMN.jpg

Oh, but at least that can be canceled.
Wait until you put down a Napalm, enemies spam retaliation and go over it (and they’ll probably won’t even be burned due to condition reductions). 10 seconds of FUN.

So you’re basically asking to delete turrets from the game, seeing as they would be useless in every game mode. Apart from the healing one, but no one uses it as a turret anyway.
Want to do it? Fine. As long as you make 4 kits engineers absurdely overpowered (all those active skills must be rewarded, after all) and remove every passive trait, skill and signet-like effect from the other classes as well.
Some classes will be reduced to crap, but heh…it’s their fault.

Ostricheggs.3742:

It’s a joke that a turret engi can hold a point against multiple zerkers classes in uncoordinated games. I hate to break it to you, but in a large chunk of games you’ll have at least one team not on TS. It gets even worse when you get paired with randoms.

My issue with turret engis isn’t WHAT the do but HOW they do it. It is demoralizing watching a player sit there and auto attack, never dodge and often times win a fight where his turrets are setup or be a MAJOR factor in that fight. It’s bad for the playerbase because it’s like a virus. The bads that get rekt by turrets will switch to turrets and realize that it’s way too OP for how easy it is and keep playing it.

Of course turrets are good at holding points. They are designed upon it, and it is all they’re balanced for (and the reason why they’re mostly useless in other modes). That, and a ton of traits that are spent upon them (even too many, imho, and i think adding those grandmasters’ ones wasn’t a good idea balance wise).
They’re specialized tools that are good in doing a single thing, and that is holding points. Pile up many traits, and they end up being great at that.
As far as game mechanics and balance go, there is nothing wrong about it.
If something were to change, then they should be made less specialized – thus less strong at holding points, but able to do other things as well – and some traits should be removed, so that you can’t pile up all those effects. But that’s all.

Also, you can’t balance skills over the incompetence of bad players. No one would whine about endure pain blocking a burst, but if people rush blindly on points where there are turrets, then it is suddenly a problem?
No, if they do that, they deserve to be butchered. And learn from it.

Ostricheggs.3742:

The issue is skill vs reward. AI has repeatedly proven itself to remove the required input on part of the user. There should be major sacrifices in efficacy when you choose something that is easy to play. If I’m forced to hit 4x as many buttons twice as fast to play a spec, why is a spec that hardly requires a pulse to play anywhere near effective as what turret engis are?

Because turrets would be useless otherwise, and everyone would switch to 4-kit engineers – that by all accounts, according to your point of view, should be the strongest spec in the game. Those, or elementalists’ conjurers. And warriors would end up being, like, bottom tiers. Unlike now.

And it isn’t like turrets aren’t already less efficient than other specs – as we already said before, they aren’t used in actual tourneys.
I would also add that if we must talk about rewarding skill…then we should redesign all the classes, not just turrets. But i admit i would laugh quite a bit, if that happens. Cause there would be a lot of tears from some popular classes.

Except for the part where almost all those proc and on-crit effects have cooldowns, you know.
There are two traits that haven’t got ICD. And they are purposefully weak for that same reason.

And i still haven’t seen any reason why this autoattack should have these drawbacks in the exact situation where is should be used and for what it is balanced for: fighting multiple people. There is nothing smart on shutting down a weapon by using one of the most common boons in the game, one that is so spammable that you can easily have it permanently on uptime even in small groups (that is, the exact case of use flame jet should be used on). Why can people “drool over their retaliation skills like monkeys” without any care about when they should be used, then?
Swapping weapons is not a solution, is a workaround for an absurd situation.

Carighan.6758:

Rozbuska.5263:

Retaliation needs nerf for all multihitting skills not only flame jet. Just make it 1 hit per second per target and it will be fine for both sides.

Retaliation – much like Confusion – probably just needs to be changed to base it’s damage off the CD of a skill triggering it and the number of hits it can deal. For AAs, damage would be minimal. Use an Elite which only strikes once, you take 5000 damage non-crit. And so on.

I would like to agree, but seeing the way they changed Napalm, this would wreck flamethrower users even more. Heh, with enough condition reduction, since the base burning is only 1s, people could just pass over it repeatedly to heavily harm the engineer. And that’s with the current retaliation damage.

Imho, retaliation should return a part of the damage inflicted, consuming a stack for every hit returned. That way, low damage skills wouldn’t risk harming the user more than the enemy, as it currently happens. And people wanting to use high damage skills would be incentivized to remove those stacks of retaliation by means of lesser attacks before going for a burst.
And considering how common retaliation is, this level of power would make far more sense.

Why do people insist comparing other skills with an autoattack?
Since when autoattacks are so punishing? You say that using Flame Jet constantly in a zerg fight is wrong? Then the skill itself is flawed – its damage is balanced over the assumption you will hit multiple people, yet having those people together usually prevents you from using it.
And no, flamethrower doesn’t work fine otherwise, despite what you say. People just switch upon the kit to use the other skills and then use some other kit, like the bomb one, whose autoattack isn’t as punishing. And that’s despite having a trait – Juggernaut – that relies on engineer staying upon the flamethrower kit.

Anyway, any benefit high numbers of attacks had was mostly nullified when they nerfed on-crit foods by giving them an ICD. The only traits that actually benefit from such a weapon are the ones with no ICD, and they’re obviously balanced upon it (thus on the weak side, to prevent issues arising).

About the shield part, those classes who can put aegis on usually have means to put retaliation as well. Oh, sure, you could do a single hit and cancel hit. But you’re more likely to harm yourselves than anything else.

Anyway, just wait for napalm changes. I can already see people with some resistance to conditions or elementalists with diamond skin purposefully staying on it to harm the engineer (while taking negligible damage in return and no burning at all; it has a base duration of 1s per pulse, so anything that reduces it enough will nullify it).

If good players are already able to counter it rather easily, where is the issue? I could understand if such a build was effective in tourneys as well, but it is easily crushed at competitive levels.
Asking for the game to be balanced over the needs of low skill level players is rather nonsensical. You could ask for nerfs for everything by following that pretense.

ipan.4356:

I’ll grant the flamethrower and elixir gun (even though they look similar).

I’ll even grant that typically in PvP, people don’t really have time to look at things like this, and that in a zerg you can’t see details like this anyway due to the explosion of particle effects everywhere.

But, what about grenades and bombs?

I think the problem is that it’s difficult to justify making an exception for Engineers, when every other weapon in the game is visible for a reason.

Can I hide my main hand sword? Then why should Engi’s be able to hide kits?

Bombs aren’t really an issue. You see them when they’re placed, anyway. Anyway, they should just make whatever is in the engineer’s hand visually distinctive enough. Dunno, make a proper grenade thrower, for example. Give engineers a large sack of bombs in one hand with a symbol printed upon. Just not involve backpack or armor pieces.

You say that it’s difficult to justify making an exception for Engineers, when every other weapon in the game is visible for a reason. Fine, but that has nothing to do with backpacks. And i could reply the same: any other class can have a proper aesthetical endgame, so why should engineers be the only exception? Why should the other classes not have huge backpacks that completely ruin their looks?

…albeit, having legendary weapons effects properly working with kits wouldn’t be that bad…

Anyway, the whole “backpack as visual cue” makes no sense. Any other class just has the weapons on their hands. So should engineers.
You don’t need an huge sheath on the back of a warrior to tell that they’re using a greatsword. You don’t need an huge backpack on the back of an engi to tell thtat they’re using a flamethrower.

style.6173:

You missed my comment in the OP. I don’t think engis should have to spend a grandmaster trait on turrets. I think the boons should come automatically while at the same time the damage is removed.

Well, right now, they do spend it, as the boons are an additional part.
And changing them like you say would make them useless, as they would end up being a poor man’s banners – no offensive functions, but while being destructible, not movable and giving strippable buffs. Could as well use a banner warrior then. At least you can use more banners and weapons that way.

style.6173:

Also, a lot of turret builds still use one kit.

And said kit will be mostly untraited, as most of the points are spent upon turrets. Using a kit also means you’ll have at most two offensive turrets out, apart from the occasional supply crate. It probably ends up being better than the 3 turrets solution just because of how terrible the main weapons are, anyway. Even if you waste a bit of efficency, trait wise.

The meaningful skills are already activated by the players – they’re called overcharges. For the rest of the time, turrets just offer some sustained damage.
How do you change how that works, considering that engineer design is mostly against burst damage? You can’t just pack all that sustained damage into a single skill and call it done. One could just ready multiple turrets and burst down an enemy by using all the skills together. Or use a kit and do the same with the remaining turrets.
Having low-to-medium cooldowns, in the order of 10~15 seconds, may lessen the problem explained above. But it wouldn’t change much from how it is now. Basically, even changing how they work, they would still end up having to do sustained damage.

I would also add that leaving turrets on a point is exactly the point of them being turrets. If the engineer moves to another point, the only thing will be able to do there is to use its weapon skills (not even the toolbelt ones, as you would have to destroy the turrets to properly use the turret toolbelt skills). It wouldn’t make sense for them not to work during that time, as the engineer is effectively weakened when he’s far from them.

Considering how conditions work, i don’t think changing berserker stance that way is a good idea. Whatever reduction is it, if the condition ends up being under one second, it is nullified anyway. For any condition with less than 4 seconds in duration, a 75% reduction is the same as being immune. And that’s without considering any condition reduction.
It would be likely to end up quite more powerful than it is now, due to the longer duration and reduced cooldown.

style.6173:

That said, the AI is too strong. Turrets do need a major damage nerf. They should become more about supporting the engi build and not BE the entire engi build. There is a difference.

But such an engi build is all about turrets. How else it could be, when you spend two grandmaster traits and several other traits upon them? Specialization must pay off, else it would be a waste of points.
Also, unlike other classes, engineers have got a single weapon. And since we’re talking about a full turret build, there is no kit involved here.
It is a bit hard to advocate for active play when a class must spend most of its time by autoattacking to begin with.

FenrirSlakt.3692:

robertul.3679:

It’s very easy to please both crowds. Although the total of 10 people in the whole game who actually like them aren’t really a crowd by any means.
Backpiece turned to be shown=> overwrites the hobosack.
Backpiece disabled=> hobosack.
Easy. Done. Anet doesn’t care.

Best solution.

Uh, not exactly. One’s design may depend upon not having either an hobosack or a backpack.
It would be better to have a separate setting for them. Else you end up being forced to show a backpack to cover an hobosack.
Not showing anything at all should be a choice as well, imho.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Regarding nades, I think they did that because if grenadier was baseline, it’d be pretty crazy what builds you can make with nades. Imagine running a 0/6/0/4/4 build with fully traited nades? Or just getting those 2 extra trait points for not having to take Grenadier? I think it’s kinda stupid that it’s balanced around it, but I’m pretty sure that’s the reasoning.

I’m not talking about having it as a baseline, that would be crazy. Imho, it would be better if they scrapped it at the design phase.
Grandmaster traits must be good to be warranted such a slot. Making a grandmaster trait focused on a single utility must have even greater effects to make up for the specialization.
And that’s exactly the reason why they shouldn’t have made them so – either they end up being too weak for a grandmaster slot, or they are so good that the whole weapon ends up having to be balanced upon them. As it happened for grenades.
Imho, traits focused on a single weapon/utility should be at most master traits. So they can have good effects, but not that much strong. And grandmaster slots can be left to categories of skills, so that you can spread the bonuses (thus avoiding to pack a lot of bonuses on a single utility/weapon).

If we’re talking about reasonable effects, it really doesn’t matter how much you stack up. As long as it can be stopped in some way, there’s really no issue. The thing is that turrets right now are pretty hard to get down when fully traited and spread out on point, especially with other turrets putting up bubbles. That effect should be stoppable. Also, I think that turrets have kinda joined in the same situation as nades. Those traits are so strong that you can’t run turrets with out them. Maybe part of the solution should be to go for the traits as well/instead?

Turrets are definitely bloated with traits, and end up having a situation similar to the one described above. The traits, taken alone, are kinda balanced. The effects are nicely spread between the skills.

That is, taking them alone. When you have multiple grandmaster traits and several other ones together, the balancing ends up going haywire, as the effects pile up.
This isn’t inherently wrong – the trait system is supposed to work like that. Turrets, by themselves, aren’t strong. They end up being obnoxious when you can pile a lot of traits about them. It is a sort of category-wide overspecialization, and you end up having to rely upon them completely.
But even here, the problem isn’t in the balancing, imho. Rather, the issue is in the design: there shouldn’t have been that many traits to get to begin with.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

+X% damage traits aren’t that much damage with smaller cooldowns. But Incendiary Powder is about 2.6k damage over 4 seconds on the low end, and this can be tied to an easy to hit auto attack! A small 700 damage hit will only go up to 770 with a +10% trait. A small 700 damage hit will go up to 600ish damage per second with burning. It’s a big difference. The +X% traits tend to scale with the big cooldowns.

+X% damage traits haven’t got cooldowns, though, and they work with any amount of opponents. IP works versus a single opponent and has an internal cooldown, so we should consider that in the calculations as well. You shouldn’t consider the effects of a single attack, thus, but rather the multiple contributions over time. While it is true that over its duration it raises dps more than a +X% trait would do in the same timespan, it has also no effect until the internal cooldown is depleted. And while you can raise its effects by increasing condition damage and duration, the same is true for +X% traits too, by raising stats related to direct damage.
Also, while you do apply it with a single attack, conditions by themselves are a form of sustained damage, as their damage is applied over time. That’s no different from a +X% trait, as that damage is spread over time as well – in every attack you do, as a fact. The difference is in the scope: IP is applied to a single target and for a limited timeframe, whereas a +X% effect is always active.