Guild Wars 2

shaiya.7649:

LOL ? tequatl is the best thing that happened to GW2 since release + fractals … , the only fail here is you been bad and not able to kill him .. in desolation he dies everytime he spawns without TS , and its hell of a fun , i kill him 3 to 4 times a day .. actually guildwars 2 community is going downhill with all thoose whiners …

In desolation you also have to wait there one hour before the actual fight, else you’ll find yourself in an overflow (with people that don’t even try to fight and higher chances to fail, since it scales up anyway).
The only thing bad here is the design of the encounter, that requires more than half the map’s amount of players in a corner of the map. Something that doesn’t happen unless you already know there will be many players doing it – thus we have a couple servers always full due to guests and an empty map in all the other ones.
And the fight itself isn’t even challenging, anyway. It is the usual zerging in zones where the waves can’t hit you for the most part, and still a zergfest in the battery phases (but at least control has some utility there).

I hope they learned the lesson and will make this have a low enough base scaling so not to have another tequatl.

Also, less rng and more token system, thanks. Effort is what should be rewarded, not luck (when you win, obviously).

I was referring to this video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0kDnswWyjY
since they were talking about a reposting. Not that it changes much.

We still have a guardian, warrior and an elementalist like before (and probably using the same setup as before, thus still reflecting damage on warriors’ part via riposte and providing active mitigation via aegis and protection from the guardian at least; can’t say about the elementalist about the other video, since it was from the warrior’s pov and i have no reason to analyze it for any skill used). Also, unless i missed it, traits and stats of the user aren’t displayed in this video, and at 5 a.m. i won’t spend time calculating his gear from the info i can extrapolate from the video.
Still, what i can see from the video is mostly irrilevant to the “tanky gear” argument – just water skills for healing purposes, regeneration and soothing mist as far as healing power – i can see an area block slotted here, though , and the use of magnetic aura with powerful area is mentioned in the chat – again, active mitigation, party wide. With 2 members of the party, i assume, unless they have different builds and it isn’t specified.
They also mention having a lot of protection in the chat, too. And that’s active as well.

And while the ele may not have used its healing skill at the abomination, it isn’t like it wasn’t being healed in other ways. Healing fields were being blasted, as well as water skills used – they’re all active.
And the ele at alphard surely used healing bolts – they are visible in the video – and they used the crates to protect themselves from the big shot. Again, could that do that indipendently of the gear.
And still the party downed quite a bit of times, despite that “passive mitigation” (sure, it could have been avoided if they just killed the alphard clones faster…). They had powerful tanky skills like battle standard to make for it, though. That doesn’t depend on gear at all, obviously.

The only thing i can’t comment on is the necro, basically, cause i won’t spend the night seeing every skill he uses. But the other four already make up for it.
With their active mitigation, not dependant on gear.

So, even for this video, i’ll still have to say there is no relevance with the issue on hand.

Having a melee main weapon would be nice, indeed. As now, any projectile reflection makes most of our main weapon skills useless.
A mace would make sense.

Also, using The Moot and Quip together would be quite fun.

Agony.3542:

People complain over Zerkers dealing so much damage they can just ignore all boss mechanics, making fights way to easy.
People complain over Active mitigation beeing too strong.
Whats the point? Showing what happens when you remove active ways of mitigation.
Showing that stacking defense will let you ignore boss mechanics aswell. Even bugged bosses are no problem for you.

Except the people in the video are still using active ways of mitigation (half the party can use riposte, for example, and it is indeed used in the video – it also reflects ranged attacks due to a trait, dealing a good amount of damage) and even the sustain is due to the class traits/utilities, thus it doesn’t depend on gear. Even a good deal of mitigation is due to utilities (protection/aegis).
And all those utilities and traits could have been taken while using zerk gear as well. While dealing more damage in the meantime.
Especially since it was said they avoided using some “powerful” defensive skills not better specified.
Basically, that video doesn’t prove anything.

Unless the point was that warriors and guardians are extremely good classes, but we could have just seen how many people search for them in the lfg tool if we just wanted to see that.

Imho, the problem is quite more simple: turrets don’t survive at all when placed for more than a couple seconds. Especially when against bosses, that is, when those heals would be more needed.
But that’s something in common between all turrets. Along with the bugs.
Before they try to balance the turrets, they should fix all the bugs – and there are over 20 of them. Then we can talk about balancing. Because trying to balance something that doesn’t even work as intended risks to bring unbalanced effects if bugs are fixed later.

Dub.1273:

Just throwing this in here again: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2VhmwLwvrM

Whoever argues against the “berserker meta”, is that what you want the game to become? Add some random dodges in and you are invicible, that would make you able to play content blind with one hand, easily. Is that what you want as new meta in gw2, instead of actually a bit of positioning, dodging and supporting?

As if that video even demostrate something. That sustain is due to the class, rather than the gear. Healing signet doesn’t even scale that well with healing power.
And any attack that should have been dodged has been blocked instead. Again, due to the defensive abilities of the classes (hi, Riposte), rather that due of the gear itself. Also dealing a good amount of damage by reflection that wouldn’t be usually done by a tanky gear user, thus speeding up the fight.

It was made up in this way just to make their point.
But the rest of the game, and the classes, don’t work like that.

They are build-defining grandmaster traits. I would say they do that work quite well.
And as far as engineers go, saying it doesn’t add much to passive/reactive play is terribly wrong – staying below 25% hp as much as possible isn’t exactly a breeze (and you’re an easy prey for a power build while doing that, anyway).

haviz.1340:

On the topic about heals being weak, take a look at this clip. Facetanking the hardest hitting boss in the game because of the heals that are “close to useless” and armour that reduces hits “veeeery slightly” is not my definition of a logical sentence.

3 warriors, 1 guardian and 1 ele. I could stop here. I mean, that is as meta as it could get, if it weren’t for the elementalist.
Or point out the thread about healing signet…because it is far too easy for warriors to have such a sustain, compared to the other classes. Even when not having healing power, as the signet itself has such an high base (and relatively low factor for healing power).
Or the threads about the dominance of heavy classes. Heh, while not as good as a zerk build, the warrior can still dish out some nice damage even while tanky. Unlike other classes.

Also, in the video we can still see people reflecting damage via blocks due to the trait. More than half the party can do that, as there are 3 warriors. On a relatively short cooldown. And that as well doesn’t depend on gear, yet it blocks a lot of attacks that would have been heavy even for a “tanky” build, speeding also up the fight with the damage reflected. And you block any of those ranged attacks for its duration, as the skill stops blocking after a melee hit – that won’t come until he ends that aoe.
Here’s the catch, though: you can do it only with a few bosses, and only few classes can do it. It wouldn’t have been feasible if it weren’t for the classes chosen, and for a certain degree, that exact boss.

Even then, this video is quite useless as far as the matter in question go.
This game has dodges and has all those “strong” defensive abilities, even if they weren’t used on the video.And a powerful boon like protection that greatly reduces damage – albeit, only some classes can reliably give it – but nothing so effective for increasing the damage of a tankier build, and even if there were, it would just exacerbate the issue.
You can make up for the lack of defense via stats because there are a lot of active ones. The same isn’t true for the lack of offense. Especially since control and support aren’t as effective as pure dps, also due to some game mechanics (defiant…meh).

I don’t agree. A.E.D. basically relies on your enemy being stupid enough to try to kill you when you’ve got such a flashy skill activated – cause unless you’re in the middle of a zerg, anybody can recognize it due to the animation. And stop attacking, cause that’s all an enemy needs to do to defeat us later on, unless we’re loaded with conditions (but in that case we’ll probably be mauled either way, since we’ll have still those on).

Versus good enemies, it becomes just a “kill me” button.

mahariel.4981:

I don’t think you understand. They didn’t dodge the entire run. Tanky players physically do not need to dodge.

Neither do people that walk out of lupicus’ aoes before they hit or that protect themselves from alphard’s electrical spheres by not being in their line of sight when they’re casted. Or people who use blocks, skills like endure pain and similar. Or even protection, for that regard.

But that has nothing to do with tanky gear anyway – heh, it has nothing to do with gear at all, apart maybe from protection, due to boon duration on certain gears.

Assuming i can even trust such a convenient tale.

NoTrigger.8396:

Manuhell.2759:

NoTrigger.8396:

Manifibel.8420:

Some of you guys talk like the zerg gear is going to be useless. Its not, they wont nerf it to the ground and make Controle and Support build the only viable options. You will still be able to do dungeons in zerg gear. Now with your brain too

Farming new gear? I dont mind. The money we make have to be used sometime. I like haveing a lot of sets to do different things.

sorry son, but you do realize that this post makes you look like you are stupid, right?

you HAVE TO use your brain when using berserker gear.
you HAVE TO dodge at the right moment.
you HAVE TO use blocks and other stuff at the right time.

tanky gear lets you turn off your brain.

get your facts straight.

Nothing of the things you listed depends on berserker’s gear, though.
Oh, sure, one good player can do those things. But he could do them with any other gear as well, they aren’t gear dependant at all. And the opposite is true, too. There are quite many bad berserker players that live lying on a floor.

it doesnt depend on berserker gear. but its strange how non berserker players have trouble to dodge at the right time.
maybe because they are tanky enough to ignore the dodge key and thats why they never learn to use that skill the way its meant to be?

and yes, bad berserker players die alot. thats right. and thats exactly what i was talking about. you have to use your brain if you want to play berserker.

and manifibel said its the opposite basically.

Because you are wrongly assuming that tanky players won’t dodge as well, as in, they are bad just because they aren’t using berserk gear.
Whereas not only they need to dodge as well, but as the fight is longer, they’ll have to do it many more times compared to a zerker party of equal ability.
The mitigation given by tanky stats can’t be compared with the reduced reliance on dodges, defensive skills and other things given by finishing the encounter in a third of the time. Having to do less of them also means there are less chances to screw up.
Whereas a tanky gear will make you survive maybe a couple hit more, or will be outright useless in some other cases, but will have a longer fight and quite many more occasions to screw up something.
Basically, berserkers are so fast at killing compared to other gear types that any risk they should have is comparatively better than the risks the other gears must endure in the longer fights.

NoTrigger.8396:

Manifibel.8420:

Some of you guys talk like the zerg gear is going to be useless. Its not, they wont nerf it to the ground and make Controle and Support build the only viable options. You will still be able to do dungeons in zerg gear. Now with your brain too

Farming new gear? I dont mind. The money we make have to be used sometime. I like haveing a lot of sets to do different things.

sorry son, but you do realize that this post makes you look like you are stupid, right?

you HAVE TO use your brain when using berserker gear.
you HAVE TO dodge at the right moment.
you HAVE TO use blocks and other stuff at the right time.

tanky gear lets you turn off your brain.

get your facts straight.

Nothing of the things you listed depends on berserker’s gear, though.
Oh, sure, one good player can do those things. But he could do them with any other gear as well, they aren’t gear dependant at all. And the opposite is true, too. There are quite many bad berserker players that live lying on a floor.

Imho, kits traits should be trimmed down. We’ve got far too many traits for a single category – more than ten of them, with the exact number depending on how you count traits that also affect other weapons/skills.
Whereas turrets and elixirs got 5 traits each, and 2 for gadgets (one of which only affects mines in this regard).
Having some kits like the grenade one that are outright useless when untraited doesn’t help either. Especially when we find ourselves with grandmaster traits affecting single utilities – something unique to the engineer, and rare even if we talked about weapon (as there is only another grandmaster trait affecting a single weapon, in the necromancer class). This means we must make heavy investments for every single kit, and that’s despite being already paying a dps cost on our main weapon, a lack of second weapon slot and the cost of slot itself (albeit, we pay the first two either way, just because we can use kits, even when we don’t actually use them).

Thus, some of the effects of the kits traits should be transferred back to the kits themselves, making them less reliant on traits. In doing so, some space would be freed in order to put gadgets traits and maybe some other trait for the toolbelt too, that despite being the main class mechanic, has got only 2 minor (adept and master) traits and an major adept one, and all on the same trait tree.

Nomin.5901:

This sounds great, as long as it Does not affect supply, that would make an already amazing elite, 100% god-mode.

Considering that the main problem of that elite is that turrets die far too quickly – making it near useless versus any pve boss, like for any other turret – i would rather see some change there too.

haviz.1340:

Manuhell.2759:

The problem is that not only they do more damage, but it is also more safe to wear zerk and kill quickly than to wear defensive items and slug it on. Because defensive items don’t defend much anyway – maybe you resist one or two more hits, but as you end up taking more time, you’ll probably end risk more – and stats like healing power have very small benefits.

It’s safer because of the protection guardians and, in lesser extent, mesmers give.

Defensive chars can make use of them as well, it doesn’t really matter related to what we’re talking about.
It is just that defensive stats have too little impact whereas zerk/assassin end having far too much, due to how those stats are used in calculations, even compared to rampagers.

Imho, Lopez nailed one of the worst points.
It is more convenient to use any other healing skill when you’re still high enough on hp – so that it can recharge during the combat – than to wait with this skill useable and find yourself with half hp and an healing skill on a long cooldown.

Fenrir.3609:

“Glass cannons who know how to move out of the way of damage and know how to stack effectively can do more damage than me when I’m wearing defensive gear and trying to facetank, it’s not fair!!!”.

The problem is that not only they do more damage, but it is also more safe to wear zerk and kill quickly than to wear defensive items and slug it on. Because defensive items don’t defend much anyway – maybe you resist one or two more hits, but as you end up taking more time, you’ll probably end risk more – and stats like healing power have very small benefits.

Also, zerkers have stats that are all multiplicative between them in the damage calculations. And that’s why it works so well – the effect ends being exponential.
Unlike the other gear types.

And you still miss the point – that aoe spam must be actually damaging to be powerful. Autoattacks aren’t powerful by definition, let alone multi-hit ones. And their attack is balanced taking in consideration you will hit multiple targets…and yet, doing so is exactly what retaliation makes counterproductive.
Again, getting more damage back than the one you dealt makes no sense at all.

Straegen.2938:

When an entire group is running retaliation either toughen the build up, don’t spam AoE (one attack, even two isn’t going to kill even a zerk build), run with better group healing or redesign the build. I hate to sound like a broken record player, but I don’t think the message is going through. This is dynamic combat… adjust.

Any group runs retaliation, as it is extremely spammable. And engineers don’t have any alternative for long range. Or even strong single target attacks, in that regard – apart from the #3 skill, the tool kit doesn’t do much. The only way engineers have to adjust is going to the character select screen and get another class. All due to a spammable boon.

And people wonder why the engineer is the least used class…

Manuhell.2759:

You say that it is fine to have underwhelming basic attack and no weapon swap because we have kits, and you still fail to consider that they are optional, thus balancing the whole class upon them is nonsensical and utter unbalanced if we decide to use the other categories of utilities – as we are supposed to, since they wouldn’t be optional otherwise.

Waaait wait wait … I never said they are optional. You weren’t talking to me tough. I think they are a must have in any build. But I feel like this is how the engi works and should work. Also does ANet (yes they said it like "strong kits for lack of weapon power). This is not even a tiny bit unbalanced. You can take them, so do it. Is it unbalanced to fight with a torch as a mesmer in pve? Is it unbalanced that I feel weak without taking a reflection wall as a guardian if i fight agains projectile spammers? No – but if you do so it’s simply natural selection that you gonna have a bad time.

In the end I think the conclusion is simply: YOU don’t like the engi design and should play a different class then.[/quote]

But they are optional, that’s the whole matter. They aren’t our main class mechanic – something it is always at our disposal – but the whole class is balanced as if they were one.
It is like saying that warriors should lose hp every second because by using healing signet they can gain more than the one they lose. Or that they should have less defense because they have endure pain. Or that their base stats should be lower because they can use banners to raise them. Does that make any sense? No, at all.
I could make this example for every other class, and it would be as nonsensical. And yet we are balanced that way: a fixed penalty for a category of utilities we may even not use.
Guardians may have wall of reflection, but it isn’t like they need it because they naturally attract projectiles because they may choose said skill. They can get it because they can, and just that.
It isn’t a matter of choosing a more proficent weapon or a useful utility to add what you can do. No, we must choose them to make up for a penalty we have either way.

Xyonon.3987:

If you say that you simply do not understand what it actually means…
It’s about how you can’t compare a class with another one just by one factor. You cannot compare two blinks with each other for example, nor can you compare mainweapons with other classes.
If you really want to compare two classes you have to compare all the + and – they got and every single skill in the situation they will be used and how the combination overall works. In other words – too complicated as you should give it a try.
Telling me that “you should not compare two classes” is a cheap excuse (wich it obviously isn’t) is actually nothing more than a cheap excuse for “I have no more arguments” itself.

Considering the walls of text i’m writing every single time this matter arises, i can’t exactly say i lack arguments.

Xyonon.3987:

Ignoring passive damage? Common mistake.

No, just stating a fact. Also, there is no passive dps. You can talk about conditions, or considering our support (still, even giving those might stacks costs us a lot of blast finishers, thus skills we could use in other ways). Still, it isn’t like we’re considered for our dps, and even if we can deal a good amount of vulnerability, we aren’t the only one able to do so (also, it basically requires us to spam the autoattack constantly).

Xyonon.3987:

So what? Besides I said “almost the best utility” since there is never a “best” due the fact of different situations. If their effects are even splittet just grants us more flexibility.

It also means it doesn’t actually give anything more than another class already gets with their normal utility. Also, if the so called flexibility is applied like our tossed elixir are – thus an extremely unpratical way of giving little random boons, as their radius and travel time make them terrible to use in practice – then it would be better having a single shout-like skill.

Xyonon.3987:

I’d rather like to have a skill that removes condition and one that removes boons isntead of two in one. And this is what the elixier gun does (e.x). One skill heals, another removes conditions, one can protect, another one is a blast finisher, then there is also a speed buff (even if rarely required in combat) aswell a stunbreaker with heal. That all for ONE UTILITY SLOT!

Oh, sure, in theory it is nice and all. In practice no one stays in the healing area – as it becomes a target for enemy aoes, especially during bosses – thus when that healing should be required. And being a light field, it often gets in the way of the other field (especially water ones).
Fumigate indeed is good for healing condition from allies. Assuming they’re all together and still/moving slowly, cause you have to hit them with that small cone.
Elixir F is nice indeed. When it works. As well as Acid Bomb, especially for escape purposes.
And i admit that since they’ve put healing mist as a stunbreaker, it became quite nice support wise (cause as damage go, it doesn’t do much even considering acid bomb).
But it is quite simplicistic saying they deal all those effects in a single utility, as they have purposely put them with unpratical ways of application.
And even considering all of that, this weapon is the exception, not the rule.
Bombs and grenades are always the same 5 skills, they just deal a different condition and damage. The variety you speak of isn’t there, and being hybrid weapons you can’t even use them at their fullest – you’ll have to give up either direct damage or condition one. And yet they’re the one commonly used, since we haven’t got many other ways to do damage (as despite all the talks about support and control, pve boils down to that, especially due to defiant stacks as far as control go).
The tool kit doesn’t do much as well, especially for a melee single target weapon (and i would add, the pull doesn’t even work two-thirds of the time). It should be used with turrets, but you can’t heal something that gets oneshotted.
And while the flamethrower is effectively used, it is mostly for the push and fire field(as the autoattack is laughable). But other classes can do the same things, and even better (sure, napalm may be the fire field with the longest duration…but it is extremely small).

But in the end, we are still giving up a weapon slot and having reduced damage on main weapons due to them. And weapons skills usually have major effects compared to kits (or lower cooldowns for similar skills – see: smoke vent and any other blind-dealing skill).
And, i would like to repeat that we have those penalities even while we don’t use them.

Straegen.2938:

Manuhell.2759:

Except not any multi-hit skill is an heavy hitter. Especially when we have multi-hit autoattacks as well.
Again, why should the flamethrower autoattack hurt its user more than the enemies?
Or grenades too, to a certain extent.

Not every skill, weapon and build is meant to be used in every situation. This isn’t press 1-2-3-4-5 combat. Some weapon sets are almost worthless in large scale fighting while others need to be adapted. Just because meteor shower or the like is ready to go on a players bar does not mean they should fire it off without consideration.

The idea that any build with any weapon set using any skill should work in every situation is exactly counter to the original design of GW2. Removing/reducing these abilities moves GW2 from thoughtful combat to spam anything to win. GW2 is already deep into the spam to win territory.

Retaliation is designed as an offensive counter to the VERY high DPS of AoE. People gripe about D/D thieves dishing it out and probably never consider that an ele hitting 5 targets has about 3x that DPS and it is sustained not burst.

That would be fine if there weren’t multi-hit autoattacks, that don’t have high dps by definition. Like the aforemented flamethrower’s autoattack, that does laughable damage versus single targets as it is supposed to be used versus multiple ones.

Stand The Wall.6987:

If you see guardians spamming their hammer auto, dont use aoe.
If when you tab target (you could click too) and you see multiple enemies with retal up, or stability, dont use aoe or cc. Wow logic yay!
If you have well of corruption and null field, you can take that retal right off!
If you are just dieing to use your aoe, then dont use it on their train! Cuz when guardians spam hammer AA, they get retal!

So i should avoid to use my only long range weapon – grenades – and my close range ones – flamethrower and bombs – because their autoattack can indirectly kill me. Wow logic yay, indeed.

“Don’t compare to other classes.” Usual excuse for when one has no arguments. Classes must be balanced with each other, of course we must compare them.

Also, we don’t deal “superior damage”. We can deal some good damage, sure, but as any other class.
Best utility? Debatable. Most of our utilities have their effects splitted between the main skill and the toolbelt. Turrets are useless when used as turrets – we basically use them just as blast finishers, even the healing one, as they are too fragile to be actually used. Gadgets have long cooldowns for the minor effects they provide – i would say rocket boots is the only decent one, and it required a rework or the skill to get there.
In the ends, it all boils down to kits – that aren’t comparable to main weapons anyway, but we get away with that just because we can heavily trait them to be decent enough (spending a lot of points on single utility skills).

You say that it is fine to have underwhelming basic attack and no weapon swap because we have kits, and you still fail to consider that they are optional, thus balancing the whole class upon them is nonsensical and utter unbalanced if we decide to use the other categories of utilities – as we are supposed to, since they wouldn’t be optional otherwise.

Unlike the illusions you mention – that mesmers have on their main weapon as well, thus always on their disposal.

Mabuse.2879:

Manuhell.2759:

I wouldn’t say it is the same thing. The other classes get a second weapon by default (apart from elementalists, who get attunements due to their primary class mechanic).
That isn’t true for kits, as we must spend utility slots for them, being optional …

But you get a toolbelt skill in return, and nearly all of them are good.

Saying that nearly all of them are good is debatable, especially seeing as we get the main skill nerfed if a toolbelt is considered good (see: elixir r). And many of them aren’t that good if we consider that often our utilities have their effects splitted between the main skill and the toolbelt (see: elixirs – with the exception of elixir r – that any other class can use as shouts without even the hassle of having to aim a small circle to moving allies)
Anyway, i don’t think it is correct saying that we get a toolbelt “in return”.
That’s our class mechanic. We have it in any case – even when we don’t use kits.
Whereas kits are optional, and we pay for them even when we don’t use them.
If anything, the balancing should have been done considering the main class mechanic – the toolbelt, as it is always at our disposal.
But even if we wanted to consider the lack of the second weapon as a balancing for the toolbelt, it doesn’t make much sense. Let’s see whoever else has that drawback. Elementalists. No second weapon slot, but they get 3 other sets of weapon skills as a sort of weapon swap.
We don’t have additional weapon skills for free and instead get 4 more utility-like skills – whose selection is locked down by our utilities. One could think it is a fair drawback?
Compare with guardians, that have basically three signets at their disposal. Mesmers have some nice skills too, albeit with a resource shared between them. Rangers have a pet (of questionable utility, ehr). All of them have still got their second weapon.
Actually, no other class has to give up something for their class mechanic – even considering elementalists, who have basically 4 themed weapon sets instead of two weapon sets.
So why should we be the exception?

Except not any multi-hit skill is an heavy hitter. Especially when we have multi-hit autoattacks as well.
Again, why should the flamethrower autoattack hurt its user more than the enemies?
Or grenades too, to a certain extent.

The problem is that there isn’t an equal distribution of players in the different timezones, let alone per server.
As far as it goes, off-time players are far more important for the success of a match than the other players.
I would say the problem ultimately lies in how the points are awarded, and different systems should be considered.
Still, those are things that should have been considered during the design phase, not a year after the game is out.

He’s talking about a zerg: that retaliation will never wear off.
Also, it isn’t like you can target all the players of a zerg before attacking them.
For being so spammable, it is too strong indeed. Especially when talking about skills dealing multiple hits (like flamethrower’s autoattack, who hurts the user more than the enemies).

I wouldn’t say it is the same thing. The other classes get a second weapon by default (apart from elementalists, who get attunements due to their primary class mechanic).
That isn’t true for kits, as we must spend utility slots for them, being optional (even if the penalities for having them are forced upon the class).
I would say there isn’t an example we can give about it. We’re unique in that way of balancing.
A way that doesn’t even make sense, imho, but well…

Xyonon.3987:

Manuhell.2759:

Unfortunately the class is balanced upon the use of kits, even if they are theoretically optional (and yes, our main weapons are weak by design). So…yep, just use kits.

Just the aa sux. All other skills are normally pretty useful.

Well, that’s what devs said in the only class balance philosophies post they have ever done – more than a year ago, but still the only one.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/updates/Game-Update-Notes-December-14-2012/999247

And considering that almost anyone relies on kits rather than the main weapon, i may assume it is still true.

If anyone but (some) thieves find stealth’s implementation in this game is terrible, maybe it isn’t a matter of “learning to play”.

And maybe the opposite is also true – those thieves don’t want stealth nerfed because they wouldn’t be able to play without it.

Still, imho, all those issues with thieves’ balancing stem from the initiative system itself. As balancing skills that are free (to a certain degree) of being spammed, as well as always selectable, isn’t easy at all. Especially when we aren’t considered a limited mode like PvP, that plays with its own rules. But i’m OT about that, anyway.

Unfortunately the class is balanced upon the use of kits, even if they are theoretically optional (and yes, our main weapons are weak by design). So…yep, just use kits.

We have very limited benefits while still paying the full cost of the weapon, compared to the other classes.
If it wasn’t for the infusion slot, i could have avoided making them entirely.
And regarding legendaries – whose main point was the aesthetical factor – we are still missing out them most of the time – as in, everytime we use kits. And we are supposed to use kits a lot, since we’ve been balanced under that assumption…

I agree with the first post, at least so that we could make some more use of that condition damage we must take along with the traits.
Even if a rework of that autoattack should include something about retaliation, too.

Phineas Poe.3018:

You then have to take into consideration traits that bolster damage and effectiveness of each weapon. The grenade kit self-stacks 25 vulnerability easily, while the bomb kit can be used to stack 12-15 might for your entire group. Between Explosive Powder, Target The Maimed, and Modified Ammo, you’re also looking at a potential 39% damage increase to your attacks.

Until you realize that the other classes have similar buffs with traits and can get might as well (and even without wasting multiple blast finishers – thus skills you’re using – to do so).
If your point is that we’re fine because we can be on par with the others by stacking a lot of might and traits, i would say there is some problem in the balance.

And regarding bomb autoattack, or kits in that regard, they’re all quite different from normal weapons. Bombs and grenades have all the other weapon attacks as a condition+ some damage (and apart for a few exception, quite a little one, and even the high ones aren’t exactly bursty). Because putting high damage or strong peculiar effects on freely swappable kits would have been terrible for balance (especially with multiple kits) so the only way it could be balanced decently is by putting the bulk of the damage on the autoattacks to make it a good sustained damage.

Regarding the issue with ascended, the matter is quite simple: others have been powered up in pve/wvsw due to ascended weapon damage while we’re still dealing the same damage with the weapons we’re supposed to use most of the time according to their balancing and the penalties we have anyway even if we didn’t want to use them.

Phineas Poe.3018:

No, we didn’t. But I don’t think we need it any more than conjured weapons do.

Albeit, elementalists aren’t balanced taking in account they’ll use those, unlike us with kits.

And i seem to remember a dev post where it was explicitely said about kits getting an increase when ascended weapons would have been implemented. Now, if only i could find that exact post…

Most people don’t do the fight because they see no chance to begin with with such an harsh scaling, since no one would reasonably go there unless he already knew there were people doing Tequatl.
And when it is known there are people doing it, situations like Desolation arise.
Thus having almost all servers that don’t even try doing it, some servers completely full and guilds who resort at overflows.

Except you shouldn’t need such workarounds to begin with.
If the event was supposed to take place in a private instance – that’s basically what Tequatl killing guilds do when going on empty overflows and making members go there – it should have just implemented at so.
The major problem is the scaling – the base is far too high, so people have no reason to even try in most servers. They should fix it starting with that.

I wonder how it is always the thieves’ enemies fault if they aren’t able to hit something they can’t see (and even when they can see them, there are still evades, shadowsteps and blinds…).

teg.1340:

johnnymiller.5968:

We all knew the thief was there but had no answer – one or two hits & you were down then the thief vanished before anyone could try & counter.

Thats the most common mistake. Thieves are not gone when they vanish. You can counter him even if he is stealthed. Just think about what he will likely be doing next. I won’t give you more concrete advices. Go figure it out by yourself. Its not that hard.

In the end, it boils down to “do something and hope it works”.
You can’t properly counter something you can’t see, despite all the thieves saying so – because you don’t necessarily think as the player using the thief do.
Basically, you are not him, and that’s enough to make that “think about what he will likely be doing next” useless without any visual cue .
That’s also why we don’t have instant healing skills and skills with relevant effects are usually quite telegraphed – you are supposed to see them, to counter them.
Trying blind guesses isn’t about competition: it is mere luck.

The issue you mention – ,the way to calculate your ‘effective power’ is to run your power through a series of crit chance/dmg modifications followed by overall damage modifications – is also the same reason why zerkers are so strong at higher levels – that is, multiplicative stats on gear.

Aberrant.6749:

That way no one could ever successfully backstab again? Hooray “balance”?

So that’s a problem now? Cause when any other class can’t hit them cause of them being constantly hidden, thieves cry about the others lacking skills.
At least they are still hidden, that’s the advantage. If they can’t catch an opponent that can’t even see them…heh, then they must learn to play.
And if the enemies escape to avoid being backstabbed…thieves have still won the fight, right? I mean, that’s the excuse used everytime about thieves escaping.

Imho, either they strongly reduce availability of stealth – so that it is still a powerful effect, but the uptime is greatly reduced – or they introduce some sort of drawback like reduced movement speed while in stealth like many other games do (and move Fleet Shadow to a master or grandmaster slot, but giving it the equivalent of normal movement speed).

Should have longer (horizontal) range as described above, be more resistant and do more damage. As it is now, it is basically a lackluster destructible weapon you can use while being fixed on a place. As such, if this weapon is weaker than the normal ones, it is useless. And it is so.

Also, imho, they could make it so it also attacks automatically when unmanned (using the autoattack skill, but doing reduced damage compared to when it is manned).

Bombsaway.7198:

Kits are a GREAT Strength not weakness of engineers.
Kits are like having multiple utilities versus having too few weapons (our kits do much more than a standard weapon).
Kits provide great build diversity on top of the builds you can make without them.

Oh, really nice.
Except for the part where we lack a second weapon slot and our main weapon dps is reduced due to the possibility of using kits – getting fixed penalties for optional utilities unlike any other class, and having to spend utility slots on top of that.

Bombsaway.7198:

Engineer cosmetics are some of the best. I get that you don’t like the look of being a nerdy hobosack toting half crazy-half brilliant engineer, but that is the theme they are going for. I like the visuals. It would be a waste of time for them to focus on skins for just one class. so a cosmetic fix needs to be aware that art for each class is inefficient.

It would just be better if they allowed you to hide certain pieces (back, etc).
I don’t really want engineers NOT to look unique and different because of their gadgets. But that is just one opinion.

In short, I disagree with your post but respect the time you took and opinions you have.

Considering that most of the endgame is about cosmetics, having an hobosack that can’t be disabled and a weapon that replaces your main ones can be quite annoying (especially since backpacks and weapons are often the only things introduced in living stories, if not meta-achievement rewards as far as back go).
Not to talk about legendaries – covered by kits almost all the time.

Well, an asuran laser that would hit in a large aoe both enemies and fellows alike with something like a 15 min recharge, maybe available after getting the castle in the eternal battlegrounds, doesn’t sound so bad.

Imho, traits like diamond skin and automated response are fine as long as they’re clearly displayed, even as an icon in the hud.
Sure, their effects are peculiar; but they’re grandmaster traits, thus build-defining ones – and i find that they’re doing that work quite well.

In regard to Piken, i may add that having to fight a lost battle for 4 weeks (all those vizunah/sfr matchups) makes many players lose any will to even try fighting.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Tequatl is Elite content. Don’t expect to just show up to the event and expecting a bunch of people waiting for you. You need to organize raids, have good communications with the other people on the map, and that requires leaders. Pugs could technically kill Teq, but you need each and every person there to know exactly what to do, and when to do it.

But first and foremost, you need people to be there.
And it doesn’t happen spontaneously, because no one would go there expecting to find, let’s say 70 people, unless they’ve a reason to think so – like, being a server known for having such numbers of people. Thus having a majority of servers that don’t fail the event – they don’t even try to start with – and some servers that are known to do it constantly overflowed (because people who have no chance on their servers will try going there).

Also, we have no such “elite” content you speak of, and neither raids. We have open world events, where people can freely join without any requisites, no external program is required and no one can exclude or kick other people.
Having to use overflows to make it akin to a raid means only it was designed so badly that fails in being an open world event and must be approached in ways that weren’t contemplated.

Either you find full servers or ghost towns.
Not surprising, it needs far too many people to be able to succeed, and people won’t spend their time in an assured failure in deserted maps hoping for other people to come.
It was designed as a raid in a game where there are no raids.
As an open world event, it is a total failure.

Imho, hobosacks are extremely limiting the cosmetic endgame of engineers and should be outright optional, especially considering that a major number of living story rewards is a back piece. You should be able to recognize the kit used by seeing what weapon they are using – as for any other class.
Also, they don’t even make sense.
After all, we don’t see warriors going around with a greatsword and a giant scabbard on their back so that you can see they have a greatsword. And neither people using a staff have trees or whatever on their back. So why should that apply with kits?
They should just be recognizable. Elixir gun, flamethrower and tool kit are already recognizable enough. Bombs are already displayed if i’m not wrong, but could include a bag on the other hand. Grenades could be changed in a grenade launcher – also fixing the good old “how can my hands throw things further than a rifle” logical issue. Dunno about med kit, probably some kind of handbag in the main hand and a syringe in the other.
After making those changes, another step would be making legendaries properly work with them – auras and so on.