My god, what is WITH these anti kit people? That is how the class is designed, EVERY class got a gimmick they depend on! Why do you even complain if you purposely limit yourself?
Because it is an extremely stupid design.
If engineers are supposed to be always using some kit, make kits the main mechanic. That is, by the way, how the other classes’ “gimmicks” are forced upon.
If it isn’t the main mechanic, then it is something optional. And giving fixed penalties for something optional doesn’t make sense, despite what some people may think.
The main class mechanic is the toolbelt, and even that doesn’t justify having a single weapon slot – guardians have got three signets as main class mechanic and they still have a second weapon. A single mini-utility doesn’t warrant five less weapon skills.
Kits are optional, and should be treated as such for balance purposes. Otherwise they should have been the main class mechanic – that one thing every player of the class always has at his disposal, no matter what.
If they’ve made such a blatant error in designing the class, well, they can always correct it. As long as people stop defending such a broken design.
It would make sense. Engineers already have fixed penalties due to kits, yet as now they’re optional (in theory; in practice almost anyone uses some kit because we lack offense otherwise, outside of a few gimmicks) and with the added cost of an utility slot.
A proper kit slot would justify the fixed penalties and add a way to use swap sigils even when all the utilities are used for other purposes. Sure, there is no toolbelt skill this way, but it would be a small price to pay.
Personally, i don’t think there would be a balance problem. Beside not being able to properly trait such a number of kits, it should be considered that the class is all sustained damage, and even having an higher amount of skills isn’t necessarily better if you can cycle between a better subset of those in that amount of time.
Please provide link to kitless build that is popular to play and effective.
If all you’re going to do is talk about hypothetical builds that may choose to not run kits/elixirs then your argument is pointless and meaningless. One should not have to consider hypothetical situations that don’t exist and if they did, are not effective or even enjoyable.
Start off your argument with fact, not dreamy hypothetical rhetoric that vaguely kinda outlines what your trying to prove, but doesn’t really do a good job of doing so.
Maybe there is a enjoyable and effective warrior build that only use axe/shield and has no secondary weapon swap at all. Perhaps we should consider a ele build that never uses one of it attunements or a necro that has a dagger in one hand and a axe on the other main hand and no secondary weapons..maybe there is builds out like that that we need to think about also.
See where I’m going with this?..hypothetical situations means nothing. Next lets discuss rangers who don’t want a pet.
The fact that you consider kitless builds as merely hypothetical just further reinforces the point that kitless engineers, at least, should have a second weapon.
Cause as you said yourself, they aren’t considered effective at all for the most part. Unless they use some sort of gimmick – sd builds – they lack offensive power. And they lack it because most of the time is spent autoattacking with pistol or rifle, due of the lack of weapon skills. Pistol/Shield is even more lackluster in that regard, obviously.
Also, the examples you made are merely nonsensical. The classes you listed don’t have to give up anything to get the things you mentioned. Any warrior have a second weapon set to use, any elementalist has four attunements by default, any necro can use a primary and secondary weapon by default.
Without giving up anything – the elementalist is the only exception, albeit having 4 sets of weapon skills (albeit specialized and differently balanced) in exchange for not having a second weapon set. But even then, it isn’t a choice – it is his main class mechanic.
Whereas engineers not only have a single weapon set by default – making them also the class with less skills unless they use kits – but their main weapon is also weakened by design, and on top of that, if they want to use a kit, they must give up an utility slot.
No other class has fixed penalties due to optional utilities. You don’t see warriors having lower stats than anyone else just because they can use banners to raise them, for example.
So where is the logic in engineers having those penalties?
There is no logic, that’s the problem.
P.S. and imho, it wouldn’t be an issue even if the class had a second main weapon, indipendently of kits. The class is all about sustained damage anyway, and the main weapons aren’t exactly noted for their damage. A power build is already using the rifle, but one would rather use the bomb autoattack than some weapon skill, if the point is dealing direct damage. There wouldn’t be much gain in that case even if he had the possibility of using a pistol/pistol or pistol/shield – it would lack the stats to do damage with conditions.
And a condition build is likely to already use pistols, thus it wouldn’t gain in damage with a rifle.
A celestial build could have some advantage in that regard, being able to use all the weapons properly.
For the most part, though, the second weapon would be useful for the skills effects, rather for their damage.
But even if there were issues, in the end, the solution should be to properly balance kits, and not to eliminate the main weapon from the equation.
(edited by Manuhell.2759)
Our kits arguably are far better than the typical weapon and they are very synergistic with skills/traits. For example, the bomb kit is an amazing kit in the melee range with very high damage (if power build) and very strong conditions. Grenades. . . well. . . enough said if you spec that line they are better than a typical weapon.
I have to disagree. First of all, more than synergy, we should talk about an extreme dependance on traits; some are so much dependant on those that they’re directly balanced over the traited version (grenades are the most blatant example). It is also common for effects related to single kits to be fragmented over many different traits, often ending up with multiple traits giving each a single effect to a kit (compared to the multiple effects given to weapons that other classes usually get)
Also, what people often forget is that we’re balanced over sustained damage. What that means is that we mostly lack bursts and we’re supposed to damage over time. For tha purpose, our kits are mostly hybrid weapons . The bomb kit is a perfect example of this. The “very high damage (if power build)” you reference isn’t anything other than the autoattack, and aside from the toolbelt, the only sensible source of direct damage of the whole kit. The other skills are conditions-based.
And almost any kit follow this pattern (sometimes reversed: elixir gun’s autoattack is mostly about bleeding, but the other damaging attacks are power based).
What this basically means is that kits have nice effects because we aren’t supposed to use them at their full potential, as they were made hybrid on purpose. There is no specialized power-based weapon or condition-based weapon, unlike other classes’ weapons.
I would also add that the variety of effects given to kit skills is purposely reduced, and for good reasons. Having many control skills, blocks, evades, burst damage, mobility skills or healing skills in kits would cause serious balance problems , due of the possibility of having a full kit build (and thus being able to spam and cycle between them). Due to that, the variety of the skills on kit is limited – for example, bombs and grenades are literally about some damage+a condition, all dealt in the same manner. This isn’t necessarily bad, but makes them very predictable. And many of the skill types mentioned above, when they are present, are purposefully limited in number to avoid balance problems.
“Real” weapons haven’t got such limitations (by virtue of their fixed number of two weapon sets) and thus can offer more variety.
Beside that, unlike “real” weapons, engineer skills are more limited even in their “complexity”, often having a single effect (be it dealing a condition, knocking back or something around that).
So, in the end, i can’t agree with you when you say that they’re better than normal weapons. They aren’t supposed to be better than those, and it would be a serious balance concern if they were so.
A tradeoff would imply you always get something in return for the lack of a second weapon and a weakened main one.
The problem is that this doesn’t happen – the penalties are fixed, but kits are optional.
It is a design flaw, and one that makes non-kit engineers the weakest class of the game by design. It can’t be otherwise – the utilities and traits aren’t supposed to be stronger than the other classes’ ones, and it is the same for the class mechanic (especially since toolbelts are already balanced with the respective utilities).
And even in the example you mention, i can’t see where it would be imbalanced. One is a power weapon, the other is mostly a condition one, and almost half of the trait points are spent in a defensive tree to take hgh anyway. So any specialization hampers the offensive capabilities of one of them. Also, the weapons are already weakened by design.
If you’re saying that two weapons that are weakened by design would be overpowered with 25 might (let alone that you basically have to spam all the utilities to get those), then any other class is even more overpowered – engineers aren’t the only ones able to stack might effectively, and any good group can get 25 might anyway, but the other classes’ weapons aren’t weakened by design like the engineer’s ones.
rocket does about as much damage as kill shot in an aoe, it needs to be telegraphed and easily dodgeable
Either you’re wrong or the wiki needs an update.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Kill_Shot
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Rocket
The damage of kill shot is noticeably higher at level one, and more than double of the rocket at the third level. And the rocket is more dodgeable, anyway. Assuming it doesn’t destroy itself by colliding with the eventual ceiling.
Or maybe they never designed and balanced this class properly, seeing as it was one of the last ones they did.
And having fixed penalties due to optional utilities – something we know for certain due to the december 2012 balance philosophies – should be proof enough of that.
And having kits balanced upon grandmaster trait should be further proof – no other utility or weapon is treated like that. And it isn’t like engineers’ traits and utilities are stronger by design compared to other classes.
So all that’s left is a class with average traits and utilities, but with a single weapon that’s weaker than the other classes’ ones by design.
And people see the engineer as an high skill floor class? No wonder about that: it is weaker by design, thus people need to be better players to overcome the handicap.
Truth be told, i still can’t understand why engineers haven’t got that second weapon. The toolbelt doesn’t warrant such a penalty – other classes get three signets with no penalty (guardian) and a single mini-utility cannot replace 5 weapon skills outright; also, utilities and toolbelt are balanced together, so even strong toolbelts are balanced via weak utilities (see: elixir R).
Kits neither, as they are optional; and it makes no sense at all to give a fixed penalty for an optional thing.
And it isn’t like traits and utilities are more potent than other classes by design – quite the opposite, as some kits are directly balanced over the traited versions (making the base ones outright useless).
In the end, that leaves us balanced in terms of traits and utilities…and with a single weaker main weapon by design. And there is no way that can be balanced.
But that can be seen even in the balance philosophy livestream. There is an huge discrepancy between how they are perceived and the official design. Especially since engineers are supposed to provide versatility through utility skills…and instead are pidgeoned into using kits most of the time to make up for the lack of weapon skills.
It is no surprise that the class is considered to have an higher skill floor than the others…it ended up being weaker by design, so it is up to players to make up for it.
(edited by Manuhell.2759)
Engineers should have a weapon swap by default, not just OOC. Saying they don’t deserve one due to kit is nonsense. No other class is penalized due of their optional utilities. It is like saying that warriors should have lower base stats because they have banners, or that they should lose hp every second because they can outregen it with HS.
It isn’t like there is something that warrants having a penalty to begin with, anyway. Toolbelt? Guardians have three signets and they still have two weapons; also, utilities are balanced taking in account the toolbelt skill they’re paired with (see: elixir R; a skill made almost useless due to a good toolbelt). The main weapons? Weak by design due to kits. Non-kit utilities? Nothing out of the ordinary, and nothing that can replace a weapon. Kits? Still not as good as a real main weapon, and some are even balanced upon their traited versions (see: grenades; no other class is balanced like that…else weapons like the warrior greatsword should have a pitiful attack, since you get might with its master trait). Traits? Average, since any good trait get whined upon and nerfed down.
People pretend for engineer to have a lower baseline to begin with and at the same time, have the same balance of the others for weapons, utilities and traits. Basically, they want it to be weaker by design.
No wonder that it is the least used class both here and in china.
(edited by Manuhell.2759)
Imho, apart from an eventual better scaling in some cases (something that would require a careful examination of the skills involved beforehand, anyway) they should change its role in a sort of “support power” and make defensive active skills scale with it on a certain extent.
Nice to see how they make comparisons to other classes when they think something must be nerfed, but no one ever addresses that engineers have a lower baseline to start with.
Give engineers a second weapon and then we can talk about comparisons. Until then, stop with the whine. Cause engineers have to do damage somehow, and if they can’t do it with the weapon skills, they’ll have to have other sources.
The main problem with turrets is that they’re better in doing anything other than being turrets.
People use them as blast finishers – putting them down just to destroy them a second later – or for their toolbelt.
But not for their supposed use as turrets. Because they’re usually terrible in doing that.
Let’s start by saying i don’t like having to follow a schedule just to know what boss i can do. But if we really have to do it…why isn’t it visible ingame?
Put a page in the hero window called events or something like that, and put the schedule there. Give the possibility to tag events, so that we’re reminded when they’re about to start (or they could appear in the top right, along with a timer).
And make them spawn more, anyway – not just a single boss at a time. Especially the “extra hard world bosses”.
Seeing the Sigil changes has got me to thinking, are Ele and Engineer being punished due to their class mechanics? Every other class will have access to FOUR sigil slots. While 2 classes are forced to use only 2.
Uhm I play an Engineer and an Ele and it’s completly fair in my opinion, cause every class got only 2 sigil that can be triggered/ are active.
That isn’t exactly true. More sigils means more separate cooldowns, thus you can process those sigils, swap and have other sigils ready to process. Also, it permits more versatility.
And there are also stacking sigils – that directly contradict your “every class got only 2 sigils active” statement, as their effect are still present when you swap weapon, thus giving a stat boost and two sigils. Something that engineers and elementalists cannot do.
This patch didn’t increase neither the health or the defense of turrets.
Regeneration was given before as well, by the healing turret.
The only thing added are buffs, and they require a grandmaster trait.
Aside from that, they’ve just fixed bugs and nerfed turrets.
So, what are you whining about exactly?
And it should have implemented when ascended weapons came, anyway.
Oh wait, it was…and they removed it with an hotfix.
Heh, we’ve come to the point that we must dance if they treat us like any other, normal class. What a farce…
Engineer isnt any better.
80% skill fact updates
5% useless GM traits no one uses
5% turret bugfixes, but no one uses turrets and still wont
10% balance updates, that are all nerfs based on a stupidly gimmicky gamemodeIf i could go back to prepatch i would. This, along with the mess that is runes and sigils isnt worth acountbound WXP or that wardrobe.
You forgot the part about nerfing skills that didn’t work properly by claiming the tooltip was wrong (even if it was there since before the launch of the game) like they did with Electrified Net. And with the Net Turret itself too in that regard, seeing as they claimed the tooltip was wrong in october and now they’re bringing it to the fire rate that was stated there…while reducing the immobilization it gave.
Also, the whole celestial nerf is a smack on the face for the class, too.
They should rebalance celestial items completely. They were balanced with magic find as a stat, and it got removed without any stat compensation on the items. Then they were barely viable because even if normal hits were weak, there were some good damaging crits now and then.
Now there are only weak hits. Those couple points they added to the items don’t help at all in the offensive compartment.
And that was evident just looking at the damage formula, but no, better nerf celestial to oblivion now and eventually do something later, assuming they’ll even do something.
The noob QQ is the reason why it was nerfed. Timing condition bursts is too hard a concept for many people. Better spam skills at random.
And “a great change” would have seeing it changed to something that would still have been useful. Like, removing conditions on toolbelt use.
This is just a redux of the kit refinement situation – a trait made so useless that almost no one bothers with it.
Electrified Net: Removed an incorrect skill fact for rate of fire increase.
Net Turret: Reduced the cooldown on this turret’s basic attack from 13 seconds to 10 seconds. Decreased the immobilize duration from 3 seconds to 2 seconds on the basic attack.
Confirmed, and fire rate is accurate. Give some, lose some.
Just a note about this: On october, they “Updated the rate-of-fire skill fact to indicate the correct rate of fire.” Whereas, like any other turret, it was slower.
Now they’re putting it back at 10s as it was supposed to be…and lowering the immobilize. Making it seem some sort of rebalancing.
We aren’t giving some, losing some: we’ve just lost.
And it isn’t even the only case when they’ve done something like that – changing skill facts to nerf something instead of fixing them, while making it seem a bug fix. Electrified Net is another example: it had that description since back august 2012, as you can see from the revision history on the GW2 wiki.
Seriously if anyone thought turrets were suddenly going to be a magical second player at your side, you will be sorrily mistaken.
Its just now that they are working as intended: which is very good!
And yet spirits and such got their hp increased back then. So, have other classes got “magical second players”, perhaps? Or maybe we’re just treated differently for some obscure reason?
Here’s the problem:
- Crit damage is too easy to stack, appearing too plentiful on items.
- Crit damage is wrongly itemized, items with low item-budget sometimes field very high amounts of +critdamage.
And you, like the developers, are failing to see the problem.
Crit damage itself was never a problem, and neither the reason why direct damage skyrocketed in pve.
The formula is – since it is a multiplication based on three stats that can all be found on the same item set. Whereas the other stats are at most paired in their respective formula (condition damage & duration) or alone.
And neither how it was itemized, since its effect depended from the other two stats being present as well.
By having low amount of power and precision and high crit damage, celestial permitted to have a sort-of nice dps, alternating low damage with some spikes here and then. Now there is only the low damage.
This problem is rectified by:
- Crit Damage percentage -> Ferocity rating. This alleviates the second issue.
- An overall nerf to attainable crit damage bonus. This alleviates the first issue.
And since they weren’t issues to begin with, it only exacerbates the problem i’ve described above.
What about this is difficult to understand?
The issue isn’t with some arcane Zerker vs Condition PvP issue, or Zerker PvE Dungeon running. The issue is simple: Crit damage is very oddly itemized, rounds weird, and is too easy to stack. That’s all the change tries to fix, after all. It doesn’t even try to fix the dungeon issue, but then, it was never meant to, either.
See above – it was never the source of the issue: the damage formula is the problem.
They should just have fixed the formula – putting a sort of diminishing returns, for example. All they did was just to make other sets even less useful.
If they wanted so much to change it – even if, as i explained above, there wasn’t any sensible reason to do so – they should have rebalanced at least the celestial set, since its offense was based upon that crit damage. Instead, they preferred a lazy solution that doesn’t actually solve anything.
Wow, patch is not even out yet and already we have a QQ thread prepped just so you can get on here and complain as efficiently as possible.
ArenaNet feels crit damage needed this nerf, and needed to be retooled in anticipation of future updates. A lot of people agree, or at least consider Berserker stats to be problematic for being the only viable/worthwhile “meta” build previously.
Because they haven’t even understood what is the problem, thus the solution can’t be anything else than a failure.
And the problem is in the formula itself, with those stats all multiplied together for an exponential effect.
Whose results are insanely high when the stats involved are high – berserker – and terrible when the stats involved are low – afterpatch celestials.
And since when celestials gave such an advantage? Yet they’re getting heavily mauled by the change…
The crit dmg is down sure, its down on any gear that had it. The celestrial is the only set that is getting a buff on pure stats. So I am not sure I would consider it a nerf on them myself. The toon I run celestrial on doesn’t run them for the crit dmg… it was nice don’t get me wrong. I just think with the stat bump its not likely going to effect me much.
Except that the “stat bump” is going to be a “stat decrease” overall. Those items are losing a lot of crit damage with the change, while getting a minimal amount of points spread out. Let’s take the ascended amulet. 54 stats to all, plus 7% critical damage.
6% of 54 is little more than 3 points, thus it will likely have 57 points to everything.
A point of critical damage is 15 ferocity, thus it will have a little less than 4% critical damage.
And this was one of the items with the higher amount of stats, second only to the two handed weapons. Others are getting 2 or single point increases, while seeing their crit damage almost halved.
On a set that wasn’t notable for his damage before, and will be noticeably worse after the change.
That’s only true if you look at damage (power/precision/crit). Add in defensive stats and condition damage, and it actually gets a buff.
Except that the nerf in damage ends up being noticeable, whereas those few stats gained will be unnoticeable. The 6% of a small quantity is an even smaller quantity, after all.
And since when celestials gave such an advantage? Yet they’re getting heavily mauled by the change…
Haha, i’ll bet you think you sound clever…
Except have a utility skill that gives access to 5 more skills without a recharge on the utility, is better than just 1 skill as opposed to 5.
If I was a necro and I could use a sort of “kit” for burning damage I sure as hell would.
If you were a necro and had kits, your weapon dps would be nerfed by design (and even when you weren’t using said kits). And probably wouldn’t have a second weapon, too. Also, your kits would be balanced upon being fully traited with their grandmaster traits and be subpar as a baseline (see: grenades). At least, that’s how it works for engineers. I’m not sure why someone else would want such a similar treatment, but if you want to trade, heh, go on.
Anyway, while the utility itself hasn’t got a recharge, the single kit skills have, obviously. So it is quite useless to nitpick about that.
Also, consider that those 5 skills are already balanced taking in accord their number – and thus having reduced effects compared to either weapons or utilities.
Kits are all about sustained damage, by the way – that’s why many of them rely on conditions, rather than burst damage, as they would be terrible to balance otherwise. Thus saying that 5 utilities are better than 1 is just a simplicistic assumption.
One that doesn’t take account of opportunity costs, by the way – there aren’t many utility slots, after all, and there are things a kit can’t do.
IP isn’t the only method of gaining the burning condition on an engineer. The same way a necro has to stack bleeds with his sceptre, an engineer should have to pick up his flamethrower kit.
Except it isn’t the “same way”, since one is a weapon and the other is an utility skill.
I’ll repeat that again: want to make comparisons about engineers and other classes?
Start giving the same baseline and we can talk about it. Until then, those comparisons are useless.
If you want to compare engineers to the other classes, start giving the engineer the same baseline of the other classes – a second weapon slot and a non-dps nerfed main weapon. Then we can talk about it.
Heh, I was referring to the most reliable builds in tPvP right now:
P/S Bomb/Nade
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQJAqelIq6ZHxSfF17IyoCdmoH5nlpffeIXsFEC-ToAAzCpI0SplTLjWStsaNWYKC
P/P Nade/Toolkit
Bombs and grenades, for their AoE nature, could be seen as area control (akin to turrets – and turrets are described as area control in the class description). That’s mainly due of the small radius of many points, though. And as it was already mentioned before, that’s something basically exclusive to pvp only, due of its particular mechanics.
But sure, i was probably oversimplifying the matter.
The best builds have little to no control. Your move?
Asking for a link for those builds before replying further – and be aware that by control-oriented i’m not talking only about proper control skills; immbolizes and suchs are on the table, too.
Still, from a logical standpoint, my point is still true: if the mode doesn’t require you anything else than making an opponent stay out of a point, whoever does it better by design has an advantage.
Engineers are good only in PvP and only for a simple reason: they are the control-oriented class of the game. And PvP as now needs only that, you don’t even need to kill the enemies to win.
That will change with the introduction of deathmatch PvP, anyway.
And don’t let me started on the best-case and kit-oriented balancing – practices that are completely incoherent compared to how the other classes are balanced.
Except it isn’t a little disadvantage, and it isn’t compensated at all by the class mechanics.
I’m not an expert on the elementalist class, so i’ll talk about the engineer.
And a class like the engineer, by default, has less skills than any other class. As kits are optional and should be treated like so when balancing the class on the whole. Also, toolbelt skills are already balanced with the utility they’re paired up…often making for limited effects in both of them. The only case were there was a good effect on the toolbelt – toss elixir R – they nerfed the utility to the floor.
And what about other classes, like guardians, who’ve got 3 signets as their mechanic and yet have a second weapon and related sigils?
There is simply a bias in how the classes are balanced, that’s the problem.
But that should be clear enough, seeing they didn’t even care to make a single reply about the whole issue.
Just to make it worse, i would add that we will basically have no toolbelts in such a case – as they would just destroy the turrets – and that we’ll have to rely on the autoattack most of the time due of having a single weapon (thus having often all the weapon skills beside the autoattack in cooldown).
And that’s what happens when you forcefully balance a class toward an optional utility type like they did with kits: all the rest gets broken.
Yeah that would be the only issue, tough with that being said i have never encountered an Engineer that doesn’t use at least 1 kit. I mean aren’t the kits the reason they do rather low damage because they are balanced around having the Kits, just like Ele have low damage and insane cool downs because they are balanced around having the 4 attunements.
But that’s because we’re basically forced to use kits even if they are theoretically optional, seeing as we’ve been forcefully balanced toward them. Making us terrible if we don’t use them.
An engineer without kits is the class with the least skills in the game,due to no second weapon, basically. And you end up using the autoattack most of the time.
Rather than Kit Refinement added as class mechanic, it gets left in as a trait with the reduced cool down and adjusted effects and another similar trait is added that affects turrets? Of course this trait wouldn’t work on Supply Crate but for example -
Flame Turret – When placed creates an AoE damage that inflicts Burning on targets within 240radius
Net Turret – When placed creates an AoE Immobilize for 1second on targets within 240radius
Of course these effects would have a 10 second shared cool down
It wouldn’t solve the sigil issue, though. And it would be basically an offensive version of the new turret trait.
The problems are in the baseline. And the engineer baseline is terrible, due of the lack of the second weapon. The toolbelt can’t replace a second weapon, after all, and neither it should. Especially when other classes get 3 signets as their mechanic – guardians – for free.
And turrets, too, are terrible.
my wife plays a ranger. She didn’t skilled for pets. Sometimes she goes afk and her panther protects her even against 2 opponents very easy. try this with your engi.
If you take all the traits for the turrets place all turrets around you and go afk in a respawn area you are dead if you come back.
Any class aside from the engineer has their weapons/utilities balanced upon their baselines and that get better with traits. We are the only ones balanced upon traited versions (and thus having terrible base ones).
Still, as you can see, people just accept it as if it was the most natural thing in the world…
Anyone else got any ideas how this could be fixed? They could make “Kit Refinement” Part of the class (Engineer) reduce the cool down to 10 seconds. This would mean having to make a new trait but i think it could work.
The skills would need to be adjusted both in duration and power as the cool down would be reduced from 20 seconds to 10 seconds.
The 15 point traits for Ele would be more powerful as Ele would have to spend trait points for them but if they did make Kit Refinement changes and made it part of the class and buffing up the ele 15point traits then i think it would make up for the reduced sigil number.
It wouldn’t help. As the name implies, it would work only with kits…leaving the non-kit builds with the same problems as before. And those are the ones that actually need help the most.
And my idea is always the same: just let us have that second weapon slot. There was never a reason for engineers to lack one, anyway, and unless we get it, non-kit builds will always be penalized compared to other classes.
Regarding elementalists, instead, seeing as having those 4 weapon sets is their class mechanic, they could implement some sort of way of slotting two additional sigils and make them alternate when alignements are swapped (and make it so that pressing the swap key out of combat makes them swap the sigils). And then they could implement some trait that would give them access to all those sigils at the same time.
(edited by Manuhell.2759)
Again, what does any of that have to do with only having access to one sigil set versus other professions having access to two????
Because i was mainly replying to you about where i did take that part about our fixed penalty than about the sigils.
Why we have one sigil set and not two is something the devs should say, not me. As many other things about the class, i may just guess they didn’t even think about it.
Why are you soooooo strongly against build diversity?? Why do you support forcing players to have a kit in their build??
What exactly makes you think i support it? I thought i was explicit enough in saying the opposite. I don’t like the current situation at all.
I was merely stating the current situation, if it wasn’t clear enough. And the current situation is basically that: forcing us to have kits.
Again you are not understanding the difference between designing around kits and balancing around kits. How does a balancing philosophy have anything to do with design?
How else would you call having weaker weapons by default due to the existence of kits, if not “design around kits”? They’ve made something fixed – the main weapon – weaker due to something optional – kits.
A balancing would rather make the main weapon weaker when a kit is slotted, and only then – not just give a fixed penalty.
Accept it or not, but that’s how it is. Saying we’re designed around kits is correct. Else we wouldn’t have a fixed penalty.
It can change? Sure, but for now, that’s how it is.
Does that means that by not using kits we are weaker? Yes, and it is obvious why – because we still have the fixed disadvantage, without the advantage it was designed with.
Does it means that i like it? No, at all.
There are ways to allow us access to a second sigil set similar to other professions. You can claim there is no way all you like, but I assure, it is quit possible.
They can create a new system to be able to put two sets, obviously.
But the main reason why we don’t have two sets to start with is due of the lack of a second weapon. They just removed the possibility for engineers to have two sets, and never thought about having to give it back in other ways.
As well as the reason why a full gadget/elixir/turret build will be always subpar (SD is a special case already detailed above).
Having a single weapon is too big an handicap, sigils or not sigils. Those utilities aren’t necessarily stronger than other classes’ ones, and the main weapon is still nerfed by design, so that leaves us with a weaker-by-design main weapon and utilities comparable with other classes.
Sure, the second weapon argument is slightly off-topic, but if we are talking about build diversity it can’t be avoided; sigils aren’t the only thing hampering us in that regard.
And as above: does that mean that i like the current situation? No, it is horrible and shoehorns us toward kits.
But unless they change their minds about the question, that’s how it is, and we can’t do anything about that aside from writing in these threads.
(edited by Manuhell.2759)
Why isn’t there much argument? I am going to assume it is because you do not have the slightest idea why it is that way. ON RELEASE, SIGILS WERE NEVER EFFECTED BY KITS . …………IT IS NOT PART OF THE DESIGN, THE ENGINEER COMMUNITY SIMPLY DEMANDED FOR MONTH’S TO HAVE SIGILS WORK AS THEY DO NOW. IT WAS NEVER EVER PART OF ANETS DESIGN. INSTEAD IT WAS VERY LITERALLY A DIRECT FULFILLMENT OF A VERY SPECIFIC COMMUNITY REQUEST.
So do us both a favor, and stop telling me why or how things function, when you, yourself do not have the slightest idea of the “FACTS” of the situation.
And the class balance philosophy was written in the same update of the sigil change you’re talking about. There is no mention of sigils in it, by the way. It talks about a generic “cost in damage of their main hand weapons” due to kits.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/updates/Game-Update-Notes-December-14-2012/999247
Thus, i would say that the one that hasn’t got the slightest idea of the facts is you.
We have a fixed penality due to kits, thus we are designed around them, like it or not.
Personally i don’t like it, but this is how it is. Unless it will be changed.
That is not true at all. you are factually in accurate. You have yet to offer an actual fact. Actually all of your fact thus far on this matter were either subjective opinion, or very literally factually inaccurate. As I see it, with static discharge, AED, PBR, Mine, and Utility goggles, I feel one can out damage almost any kit build on a single target. So they do not have a specific advantage with single target damage. A player can make a CC that has just as many CC skill without kits as with, so kits do not offer a specific CC advantage. Elixirs offer AoE stability, AoE invisibility, the ability to max stacks of might, great condition removal, and other various utility.
The only unarguable disadvantage they have is being hosed on weapon swap kits.
See the class balance philosophy for yourself: i just stated what is written there. By design, we’re supposed to be using kits and have low damaging main weapons.
It is merely logical that if we aren’t using kits, we are giving up the advantage, but not the disadvantage. Or do you think to know better than the devs about how they have designed the class?
P.S. Static Discharge depends on toolbelt cooldowns, not on the utilities themselves; if they ever put a kit with a low cooldown toolbelt, it will be used with SD, because the utility itself doesn’t matter.
Then why do you keep attacking me for my personal opinion, while you keep claiming your personal opinion is fact ???
Because i’m stating facts, as far as this argument goes. I’m quoting the class balance philosophies written by the devs themselves – there is no more official source than those, basically. If those aren’t facts, i don’t know what else could be.
Albeit, as i’ll detail below, there could be a misunderstanding in process.
Again, we are not “balanced” like that at all. They very literally only added sigils to kit swap based on community outrage and hundreds of post and threads, just like this one.
As for whether a lack of a weapon swap is a handicap or not is irrelevant. What is relevant is the fact that they gave us our request when we asked for sigils to effect kits. Now we are making similar request in an attempt to try to solve the obvious disadvantage have having access to less sigils in any given build. Your view of whether no weapon swap is a disadvantage or advantage has nothing to do with it.
It would seem you’re misunderstanding what i was argumenting for, though. I was objecting to your argument of “they haven’t designed the profession around kits”. I wasn’t talking about sigil swaps.
And the lack of weapon swap is exactly what brings us to have just 2 sigils and no way of using on-swap sigils when we aren’t using kits, so i would say it is quite related to the problem in question (especially since the new rules on stacking ones will bring us to have a single sigil beside that one, unlike other classes that will be able to use three other sigils beside the stacking one).
I should also add that when they “gave us our request” about sigils and kits they also nerfed them all (albeit the patch notes aren’t detailed enough to say what and how much was nerfed). Something that they aren’t doing with two handed weapons, that are instead getting a second sigil for free.
(edited by Manuhell.2759)
Just because they adjusted weapons with kits in mind, does not mean they designed the entire professions around kits, which is what he is suggesting and thus I feel he is wrong. As well, what I should have said was “I feel he is wrong”, because it is my opinion that he is wrong. We are all making interpretations.
You sure do like to make assumptions though. Your not offering any facts what so ever to support that they are designed around kits as he suggested, they were designed with kits in mind, there is a difference. All you are showing with your information is that weapons were designed with kits in mind. Again, there is a difference.
Putting a fixed penality on the assumption that you will use a kit to make up for it means designing the class around kits, there isn’t much to argue about that.
If we don’t use kits, we are underpowered. By design. Because we get the full disadvantage, without the advantage.
Those are facts. That doesn’t mean i like the current situation, but rather, that it is just how it is, at least for now.
Either way, your missing the point. Of all the issues here, you are choosing to pick a fight over whose defining of it is more accurate. The fact is, your very strongly displaying support to fully exclude full turret or gadget builds.
Sometimes it truly baffles me when folks such as yourself argue in favor of situations that limit build options or in this particular case, impose strict punishments for builds options.
You can argue it or color it how ever you wish, but in no way is it reasonable to punish a professions for building towards a full heal/utility set such as a full turret build, a full elixir build, or a full gadget build.
And i agree with this. As i said above, i was merely stating the current situation, that is highly unfavourable for anything that doesn’t include kits.
But we’re balanced like that, and unless they change their mind, we’ll continue to be balanced like that. And buffing a couple turrets or gadgets won’t be enough – the lack of a second weapon isn’t that small of an handicap, after all. Especially if the dps of the remaining one is nerfed by design.
(edited by Manuhell.2759)
Indeed it doesn’t hurt anybody….because they made it useless, especially for a grandmaster trait. There were many suggestions about how to change it, and yet they preferred to kitrefinement it.
It will end like that – forgotten by everyone.
The engineer’s one is the worst mainly for two issues. One is due of a simple timing problem.
If you’re downed, usually the enemy is already near you. Thus you’ll have to use the #2 skill immediatly to stop a stomp. By pulling the enemy to you, he’s certain to stomp you before the 3rd skill can charge.
Other downed skills usually either drive the enemy away (fear) or to stop him for a short time by other means, thus giving time to charge the third skill.
The other problem is in being a targeted pull, thus either stealth or stability is enough to deny it. Whereas other skills (like ele’s mist form), by working on the user, bypass said restrictions.
Pro Tip: Crit Damage (aka Ferocity) can now be a primary stat if that opens up some suggestions.
Jon
Indeed, but crit damage/ferocity is still something that heavily depends by both power and precision for its effectiveness. It isn’t exactly something i can see as a primary stat, seeing how the attack formula goes.
Unless we’re talking about a ferocity/power/precision set…but i doubt it would be much useful, seeing it would be a rehash of assassin and berserker.
There is a Reddit post (see engineer forum) that indicates from ANET that this is getting fixed. ANET didn’t need to respond to the question, but did and said wait a couple of weeks.
That’s about kit scaling when you have ascended/legendary weapons, though. Not about sigils.
Your wrong. Originally kits didn’t count as weapons swaps. Engineers were designed around the tool belt, with kits in mind. There is a huge difference. As well, now that they are making a push to try to solidify turret builds, and beef up gadgets, the concerns mentioned in this thread are very legitimate.
He’s not wrong, actually. The engineer’s class balance philosophy explicitely states that the low damage of engineers’ main weapons is due to kits.
Thus, saying we are designed around them and we won’t deal enough damage without them is fundamentally right.
(edited by Manuhell.2759)
I agree, removing them completely as mob drops makes no sense. It would be fine making them rarer, but not removing them completely. Or else, just give other functions to dyes, maybe in crafting recipes (food coloring for ascended cooking, for example).
It’s not. Guilds like TTS will happen no matter what, no matter the game, if enough people decide to play a game according to a particular philosophy and mindset. GW2 simply gives them the tools to make that growth easier.
Except that, as the name implies, it was born after the Tequatl revamp. And only due of how that boss is structured, i would add – there wouldn’t have been any need for such a guild otherwise.
And creating what are essentially private instances via overflows is something that was never intended to be done by players – they would have added an appropriate system otherwise. They are basically just forcing to fight those bosses as they are supposed to be fought: with random people, that may or may not be experienced or prepared enough.
I would go for some wacky combination. For an ascended amulet, it could be something like:
85 power
85 condition damage
21 toughness
21 vitality
4% profession attribute
(albeit, while having profession attribute as a stat in gear could open new possibilities, it is something that i would limit to few slots – like trinkets)
Imho, the mortar should have two major improvements:
One regarding the range – it should be far more high (something like 1700/2000 when traited, or even 1850/2100) and less dependant on line of sight – the projectile comes from above, after all.
And one regarding its useability – putting the mortar should have something like 2 or 3 seconds cast time, and if an engineer is using it, the elite skills changes in a sort of pickup option (with a time of something like 4 seconds, interruptable if the engineer gets damage) that gives back the skill fully charged.
Basically, it gives enemies a way to destroy the mortar (putting it in full cooldown) with a good-executed action, while still allowing mobility to the engineer (that can pickup the mortar to move away if he isn’t currently fighting or if he wants to escape because enemies are coming, assuming they’ve been spotted far enough).
Except that, for other classes, having those weapon slots you mention isn’t an option. They always have them.
And engineers are balanced upon something – using kit – that is completely optional.
Even having multiple penalties due to it – lack of a second weapon and nerfed dps for the main weapon – by design.The fact that you had to make an absurd example about kits and sigils is just further proof of the absurdity of engineers’ design and balancing.
Something optional shouldn’t dictate the balance of an entire class. It is simple logic.
And when the opposite happens, the class’ balance is screwed.
You said it yourself – you won’t deal enough damage without kits. And why does that happens? Because you find yourself with a single weapon, thus using the weak autoattacks most of the time. And why is there a single weapon? Because of kits.Unless they change their mind about the second weapon slot for engineers, non-kit builds will always be a waste.
And before someone comes out with “static discharge”…that trait depends on the toolbelt cooldowns, rather than the utilities themselves. And it is more of a gimmick, anyway.I just made this
what do you think?
That regarding non-kit builds it would still be better than the current situation, but wouldn’t change much overall, and surely those would still be inferior compared to other classes.
Any other class has got 2 weapons, their utilities and their class mechanic. We’ve got a single weapon, our utilities and our class mechanic, that is, the toolbelt.
(and then there are elementalists, who work in a different way…)
The toolbelt itself doesn’t warrant the lack of a weapon slot; they’ve balanced utilities and toolbelts together, so to get a strong toolbelt, we also get a weak utility (see: elixir R). Even if we were to consider the sheer number of toolbelt skills…it is just one more than the guardian’s main mechanic – they’ve got three signets, basically. And a mini-utility isn’t as good kitten weapon skills, imho.
Also, there would still be the issue about having 2 sigils instead of 4 (and if the stacking sigil doesn’t need to be equipped on both sets to work, it would be quite an heavy disadvantage).