Seems nice, but i don’t think people are seeing the whole picture.
In doing so we’re also making grenades’ property of being a multi-hit skill even more detrimental. Since they still have an extreme vulnerability to retaliation, while losing advantages they once had.
But even then, let’s just say we change it so that any explosion processes it, while keeping it at the strength it has now when using it with grenades.
It will actually ends up far stronger than the original trait, even if it would end up doing nearly the same durations and number of stacks.
Because of opportunity costs.
Right now, people have to spam that autoattack to process the trait. With the change made above, you just need some explosion every 5 seconds. And you are free to use anything else in the meantime.
Sure, it has to be said that it didn’t get much from its change from adept to grandmaster. Even then, it could end too much powerful by changing it this way.
Especially since it is already easily the better grandmaster trait in that tree, as long as you use grenades; and making it as efficent with other explosives than grenades would just make it just the generally better choice.
Especially if pistol 1 really ends up processing explosive traits in the autoattack. And we end up with what basically would be an even-more-superior sigil of geomancy on shorter cooldown.
At least people can now feel like a turret. They die as fast, too.
Well, not that anyone bothered being shortsighted right then, when they asked to nerf them to oblivion so that they could have easy wins, instead of wanting some redesign to give them active play.
Guess this grenade bug could be some kind of karmic retribution.
Still, unlike turrets, it will be fixed. And very few people approve of this unintended behaviour, anyway. Again, unlike turrets.
Yep, something is amiss. I tried with tequatl. Before i was able to hit all three spots with forceful explosives, now i can’t hit more than two. Range doesn’t seem to be exactly the same as before, maybe it is a bit lower.
Yep, that’s a bug indeed. Piercing grenades could even pass as some sort of new feature, albeit nonsensical. But launching several more grenades can’t be explained as anything else than a bug.
Not that i’m particularly surprised. The patch brought a ton of bugs upon engineers. But it was to be expected, seeing all the changes they’ve made to the class.
Regarding the “piercing” grenades with grenadier, i wonder if that could be related to the increased velocity and some kind of issue with collision detection, like some hardcoded value related to their normal velocity put into some formula.
The toolbelt ability is part of the class mechanic, though. Unless you take in account other class mechanics as well, it shouldn’t count for a comparison.
About the skill itself…well, guess it being random makes for most of its balancing. Other classes know what they’re getting, so they’ll use their transformations when it’s most appropriate.
But when we use it, we won’t necessarily get the transformation most suited to the current situation. If it happens, that’s nice. If it doesn’t…we’ll have to work something out.
And that’s the game-wise explanation.
The other explanation is that the engineer was likely made in an hurry (it was even the last profession presented) and they just recycled as many assets and code as possible. Thus making an elite that literally consisted of some other elite chosen at random (and thus reusing their already-done functions, even if with a couple of different parameters). Well, we can say the same for the other elites as well, anyway. Supply Crate just recycled other turret skills (most evident in the fact that to change supply crate’s net turret they had to nerf the normal net turret as well), and the old mortar, while having some additional skills, shared the WvW mortar model (at least, i can’t remember any visual difference between them; not that i used it much, since it was quite bad…).
The best ranged option shouldn’t also be our best damage option; this is precisely the trap we have been suffering from for the past three years as engineers. And before they nerfed it, the only auto-attack that was stronger than Mortar Shot was the Bomb Kit.
The “best ranged option” uses up an elite slot, and yet won’t even actually hit enemies at high ranges most of the times, cause people can just easily walk out of the area.
Basically, it ends up being reliable only on medium/low ranges.
And in those ranges we already have grenades. That end up being the best ranged option for both conditions and power. Exactly like they did in the past, since they suffered from the same avoidability at high ranges that mortar suffers, anyway. Albeit, with grenadier, they now are pretty fast at their reduced range.
Grenades are still king. The difference is that before we didn’t even have other choices. Now we just have a meaningless one.
Mortar Kit should be the same. It uses up an elite skill slot, it should be worth of that slot.
And it does. Just not in the form of damage.
What you really should be asking yourself is what the Mortar Kit offers compared to other elites.
It offers some fields. And not even the good ones, except for the water one. And that’s also probably the only one that can see some uses…since any enemy smart enough will rather go out from the other fields – it isn’t like they’re large, and both the mortar autoattack and the orbital laser are rather easy to see and avoid, mostly due of their slowness. They can have some use only at point-blank range, and only as long as you shoot the field and some attacks asap – that is, before the enemy moves away.
Even then, for those fields to have some decent duration, we have to trait them.
And here comes the issue. Why would we ever bother getting Siege Rounds if we can get Shrapnel and use grenades instead?
See, the choice doesn’t come in a vacuum – we can’t just compare the mortar with other elites. Especially if we consider we’ll use one of the autoattacks of the kits for a good amount of time. It also depends on what traits we’re going to get.
Either we empower grenades or we empower mortar fields and get an additional blast finisher.
And seeing as the mokittenoesn’t offer anything else of value beside some of those fields…without the trait, you can as well avoid to get it entirely.
Especially if the other choice makes your good autoattack – a skill used for relevant amounts of time – even better, with abundant applications of bleeding and even some cripple.
Obviously, if we talk about pve, there is no reason to even bother choosing…we’ll just get traited grenades. All that matters is killing those enemies, and since grenades or bombs already offer better autoattacks and damaging conditions on their kits, there is no reason to bother with those fields at all.
Right now we have an elite kit that it is easily outmatched by a normal one.
Like it or not, that’s an issue. No one ever thought that Signet of Rage being better than the other signets or that Feel My Wrath being so strong with that cooldown were anything strange. Cause they are elite skills.
Mortar Kit should be the same. It uses up an elite skill slot, it should be worth of that slot.
Right now, it isn’t. People would rather use autoattacks with a kit that even compete with it for trait slots (Shrapnel/Siege Rounds) than using the mortar autoattack.
That’s how blatantly bad it is.
It is a dynamo…make it recharge with movement, maybe? Every X units moved you get a charge?
And that 30% more than grenades was fine.
Cause grenades already have the better chance of processing traits and sigils as their advantage, especially when coupled with traits like Shrapnel that made them quite the better condi weapon (bleeding, vulnerability – that now even increases condi damage – and even cripple as a cover condition…all done via the autoattack, and without even considering anything else other than the explosives line).
And even if we considered power damage, between the damage of the other skills and the better amount of vulnerability it can deal, they’re still probably equal if not better.
And traits like Shrapnel and Siege Rounds directly compete for the same slot, anyway. So either you power up the mortar, or you get a trait that’s infinitely more useful with grenades.
People will just use grenades and free up the elite slot for something else. Like they did since this game launched, anyway.
And whereas other classes get elite skills like "Feel My Wrath – area quickness and fury at 30s cooldown – we get some elite kit that is introduced by nerfing an utility one, gets nerfed itself and still ends up worse than said utility one. I have to wonder if it wasn’t a deliberate move to nerf our offensive capabilities at higher ranges…
none of this really works.
“its an elite it should be stronger” doesn’t make any sense. As an elite its balanced vs taking the elite slot. you lose an elite, but gain a utility slot. and the f5 skill.
This in no way justifies it being the supreme dps skill. 30% more dps then grenades would have made it THE only viable pve skill. possibly even wvw.
Seeing what they did with “Feel My Wrath”, yeah, i’m quite sure they do are balanced over taking the elite slot.
That aside, grenades have other advantages – mostly due to their superior proc abilities.
The second aspect of what you are arguing does not justify again, that massive power coeff. and instead simply points out, grenades and mortar are too similar. one ought to be more cond focused, and one power… or some other option.
And grenades are indeed more cond focused if we bring Shrapnel into consideration, especially seeing as grenades can also massively process vulnerability…that now works with conditions, too – and thus, even with those same bleeds that Shrapnel processes.
Mortar already drops a poison field, a water field, an ice field, and a light field.. with orbital strike being a blast combo.
and it procs the same field twice with seige rounds.
Yeah, those skills do exactly that. And nothing else. If you want to damage the enemy, there is the autoattack and a couple ticks of poison. Sure, you can combo the fields with the autoattack, assuming you properly hit them with the projectile itself. But one second of chill won’t keep your enemy far for much time, and neither those 2s of poison will help much. The only good field there is the water one, and obviously it is the one with the longest cooldown.
The only relevant effects are given by blast finishers. And the weapon provides one of those, two when traited.
Basically, now we can sum the whole weapon with two blast finishers on a field of our choice and nice particle effects in the meantime, and that’s all.
M1 has no business being the highest dps AA with the rest of the combo fields and orbital strike.
Yep, that place is already occupied by grenades. That just applies that conditions directly, without even bothering for enemies to stay in the field. And without huge tells on its toolbelt, since we just shoot those grenades in the face.
M1 itself is 100% projectile… with all 4 OTHER skills dropping fields.. add throw naplam or napalm to that for firefields.
Or just leave the mortar alone and use grenades with their superior vulnerability and bleeding capabilities. A condition build would rather choose Shrapnel than Siege Rounds, either way.
I might have even nerfed it more. While pushing it towards its “combo” role more.
it is missing fire and smoke, two of the better fields. probably no accident bomb has both.
People will just forget the mortar and return using grenades and bombs – they do more damage and have “better” fields, as you said yourself.
all these posts. no math.
terrible.untraited:
grenade 1.
.33 coeff. 1 attack/s. 3 grenades. 1017 ascended weapon kit str ave
1007 effective dps.rifle 1.
.65 coeff. .85 a/s 1150 ascended weapon str ave.
879 effective dps.Bomb 1.
1.250 coeff. .84 a/s 1017 ascended weapon kit str ave.
1515 effective dps.current post patch mortar 1.
either .75 or .8 coeff. (testing not fully fleshed out yet..) .8 a/s(sure about this.) 1017 ascended weapon kit str ave.
953 effective dps if .75.
1017 effective dps if .8If its .8, its still more dps then grenades. if not, just below. higher then rifle 1 still.
And then of course add traits in there. 10% explosions, vul stacking, etc.I am not sure what the coeff was previously. “28%” suggests it was either 1.05 or 1.1.
Giving an effective dps of either 1335, or 1398. both are pretty ridiculous for a ranged aoe. And would have been 30% more then grenades..
Even assuming these calculations are right it would have been completely fine for it to be stronger than grenades’ autoattack, since we use an elite slot for it and they even compete for the same trait slots (Shrapnel is mostly suited for grenades, whereas Siege Rounds works only with mortar).
Seeing as grenades process those same explosion traits, but better (due of the 3 grenades vs single mortar shot) we can just ditch the mortar and use the grenade kit all the time.
Good work.
People say that the engineer was buffed. I still have to understand where they see those buffs.
Sure, toolbelts have got some decreases in their cooldowns…but that’s due of the profession stat partly made baseline (and some skills weren’t even decreased enough to actually match, even with the added tools trait, mostly those with stun breaks).
Kits have seen most of their traits gutted and not made baseline. Rifle and pistols’ range was removed as well, along with pistols’ recharge trait, even if now there is a 50% conditions increase (but it partly offsets the missing 30% condition increase that line gave). Sure, grenades have their 3rd grenade baseline, but the kit was always balanced around that third grenade. And they nerfed their range, the poison grenade skill (again) and the Shrapnel trait was made grandmaster by adding a pitiful 15% chance of 2s cripple. Also, no 20% recharge trait anymore (was bundled with the bomb one).Flamethrower users can get stability via juggernaut, but just staying in that kit is detrimental in itself (because outside of flame blast the rest is terrible for offensive purposes, even if napalm’s burning can stack now – but no one will ever stay in that tiny line, anyway; and both it and flame jet still suffer from extreme retaliation damage).
Elixir gun deals less damage due to the lack of deadly mixture, but if one gets HGH that can be offset by the might stacks on some elixir skills, and its recharge trait was made baseline. It gets some additional support (mostly to allies) with the “cleansing-to-convert” trait on EG whose name i can’t remember right now.
Bombs can be traited for lesser bomb delay, and that’s it (that effect took the place of the grenade recharge one).
Tool kit was unchanged.
Turrets were gutted even before the patch came. Now they have even less range (making even the rocket one easily outrangeable), can’t regen their health, can’t be placed at a distance, but there is still the experimental turret trait around (and now useless, since the only way to use turrets is to destroy them yourself, despite whatever the profession page may say about them).
Gadgets lost both the 20% adept recharge trait and the boons given by the grandmaster gadgeteer to get…a grandmaster that to give a 25% recharge requires to be struck 5 times, per single gadget. The little effects added in aren’t enough even to make it as useful as the old adept one, let alone a grandmaster. It can get used right now only because it is bugged and sees the overcharged and normal ones as different skill.
Elixirs lost their recharge trait, but got cleansing formula 404 and the duration one as a minor alchemy trait. No one used acidic elixirs anyway, so its loss won’t be mourned. They’re kinda the same as before. Nothing added when untraited, same when traited.
Sure, they’ve put new traits.
Some of those were nerfed even before they got ingame (kinetic charge’s 40s cooldown, despite the 20s one it had in the livestream; gadgeteer’s 25% recharge was supposed to be a 50% recharge; Thermobaric Detonation’s internal cooldown, albeit this may be a bug, since the trait doesn’t list it). Others had cooldowns that weren’t even known before (medical dispersion field’s 5s cooldown, and that alone makes it useless). Some are modifications of traits that the class already had before (bunker down takes the old one, puts a med kit along and gives it a 2s cooldown versus the 1s old one; would say it is comparable to how it was before, especially seeing as EI Bombs don’t exist anymore).
Some traits got buffed, sure. Mecha legs combines power shoes and leg mod while still retaining a master trait, after all.
And indeed the class got an elite toolbelt slot. That’s nice, and it helps making up for the lack of the second weapon engineers have by default. Indeed a buff, but i think it was needed to make the baseline more equal – a stronger class mechanic in exchange for half of base weapon skills.
The engineer has got new good traits and new bad traits. It got good traits removed, and bad traits removed. Even some kits changed, and their traits with them. Some lines had mildly useless traits or overly specific ones, and more general traits have been put in instead.
The class has changed, that’s sure. But that’s all there is to it, imho.
(edited by Manuhell.2759)
Hitting harder than a normal kit autoattack is exactly what i should expect from an elite kit autoattack. Especially if that autoattack is the only proper offensive skill of the kit, outside of the toolbelt at least.
I wonder why they even bothered to put that kit if they just wanted to ditch any offensive capabilities we had at long range.
Siege Rounds > Shrapnel for sure. 40% longer fileds on mortat its massive
I wouldn’t be so sure. That bleeding is also getting further empowered by vulnerability, after all.
And it gets some nice added bonuses if we also go for the firearms line, with a juicy 33% bleeding duration increase and a 10% increased crit chance on bleeding foes as minor traits.
Anyway, this will be useful mostly in hybrid and condition builds. A power build wouldn’t get much use by Shrapnel.
We will use both together ofc:-)
Well, we can, but we would have to give up either Shrapnel or Siege Rounds (probably the latter). Guess focusing on one of them will work better.
Either that or a “keep pressed to autoattack” would be good QoL improvements.
Imho, developers don’t have a clear idea about what they want turrets to be used for.
The profession page describes them as “immobile devices that help defend and control an area”, and it is even said that the engineer “can take control of an area by placing turrets”.
The healing turret even had a long cooldown for its overcharge, and most of the healing was given by the placement itself. It was changed into its current form because they wanted people to keep it out instead of picking it up or destroying it (it doesn’t need to be said that it backfired tremendously).
They still had a ton of bugs, especially with their faulty hitbox, so they ended up being even more fragile than intended until such bugs were fixed.
And even additional traits were added – one of those, experimental turrets – also one of the few traits for turrets we still have available – gives boons as long as those turrets are deployed.
Despite what Arantheal may say, anet’s message about turrets is rather contradictory. Even after their massive survivability nerf (mostly due of pvp people’s whinings than any factual overpowerness, and completely useless in making them more active) and the specialization overhaul they’re still maintaining a trait like Experimental Turrets, as well as the damage reduction they’ve put into Advanced Turrets – and both of them only make sense if those turrets are supposed to stay out.
It may be that the nerf to their survivability was intended as a bandaid for the whining crowds while they work on some design that permits turrets to have both an active gameplay and still maintain their design of defending and controlling an area.
Still, until the developers clearly talk about how turrets are supposed to be used and any future plan about them, we cannot be certain about their intended use.
I wonder if they’ll ever sell a “collection of antique hobosacks” as a decoration for guild halls.
I mean, they are of historical importance, after all.
What’s an even stronger indicator is that Engies don’t even deny the bias hahahha
Or maybe they’re just fed up with the bias versus engineers that people in this subforum have.
People here are whining even about the toolbelt cooldown reductions. Guess what, the toolbelt cooldown reduction was the profession stat for engineers.
Everyone is getting part of it as baseline, but when that happens to engineers, suddenly it becomes some huge buff and they are the most loved class of ANet (funny, seeing what happened to turrets just some time ago).
And the dev considered the loss of uptime “an unintended consequence of Kit Refinement being packed together with Speedy Kits”, anyway. It seems like they just didn’t think about that, so he’s fixing it.
(edited by Manuhell.2759)
For the $50 price tag of HoT everyone gets an account with both core content and expansion content included. Players with existing accounts are allowed, but not required, to forgo the newly purchased account, if they so choose, in order to link to the existing account.
Thus veteran players either lose out on the new purchased account or on the existing one, while buying the same (new) product for the same price of another new player, during the same timeframe, from the same place.
Clearly the veteran player should get the exact same things, that is an expansion (that will be likely used on the existing account, but he could still choose to use it on the new one if he wants to do so) and the new core game code.
And unlike now, it would be fair.
Thats the point. The amount of work put in engi compared to ranger, war, necro or even guard. We dont need a genius here to see AN favors engi. Even the stream alone took 45min jsut for engi..
Because of the amount of work? Well, it isn’t like they have spent much time on it before.
You’re talking about a class that had a whole category of skills – kits – fundamentally recycled from enviromental weapons. And some elixirs that just chose effects from other classes’ skills at random. I wonder if giving it few base weapons is also due to time constraints.
Not exactly surprising, anyway, since it was the last profession they presented. The class was likely made in a hurry.
Since now they’ve got more time available, they’re probably spending some more time on it.
Compare the amount of buffs to engi vs any other class, espesially necro.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/Who-won-the-balance-changes/page/4#post5169167
Lets also not forget whos the winner. Its unbelievable what they doing, someone must be really terrible at playing engi howered i cant say who.
Engineers got substantially revamped. The class got many new traits, but it also lost many other traits.
Many changes doesn’t necessarily equal many buffs, especially when we still don’t know the technicalities of many traits (like their exact effect or cooldowns).
And neither the interaction with the rest of the game. Since everything else changed as well.
If you were referring to the many slides of toolbelt skills…well, every class got half of their class mechanic attribute as baseline. For the engineer class that attribute was a reduction of their toolbelt cooldowns, so it only makes sense that they reduced their base cooldowns.
And steamlined kit is a master trait composed by putting two old adept traits together, anyway – two trait that haven’t even got a shred of synergy, since one is highly situational and the other is essentially used as soon as available. Having the same uptime as before is perfectly reasonable.
The core game would be having a character. You need the core game. This is why it’s included.
Example (posted in another thread):
Microsoft: We have a new XBox for $200.
User: I’ve never had an XBox! Would I have to buy the original XBox first though?
Microsoft: Not at all. This new XBox is based on the original, so all the features of the original are included in this new version.
User2: I already have an XBox. Do I really have to buy the new one? Can’t I just buy.. parts of it?
Microsoft: …
That example makes no sense.
A more correct one would be:
Nintendo: We have a 64DD for $200. The Nintendo 64 is also included.
User: That’s quite a good offer, i never played with the Nintendo 64 before.
User2: I have it, it is quite a nice console. By the way, i’ll buy the 64DD too. 200$ is a good price for it, and having a spare Nintendo 64 is nice too.
Nintendo: Owning two Nintendo 64? That’s preposterous. Either you throw away the Nintendo 64 you already own or we won’t give the Nintendo 64 that is included with the 64DD.
User2: …
Imho, it doesn’t matter whenever i got my old account.
The point is – we’re buying a product that, while related to the old one, is a new product.
And be it old or new players, we’re buying it at the same exact time, place and price.
Yet we’re getting different things. New players get the game and the expansion, old players get just the expansion.
Old players aren’t getting neither the same product or the same value from the purchase, and that’s wrong. Both should be equal, and currently, they aren’t.
I’m “Entitled” to what new players get. 2 games for the price of 1.
You are free to create a new base account with HoT in it and use your current account as storage.
So, forfeiting whatever i’ve done with that account to start anew again?
Obviously that’s extremely stupid.
They aren’t asking new players to forfeit whatever they’ve done in some other game during the last years, so i can’t see why i should have to do that instead.
Also, this is a new product – Heart of Thorns. Not the old core game.
It’s new, we’re paying the same price, at the same place, during the same timeframe.
We should thus receive the same product – an expansion, and a core game.
Being an existing player shouldn’t forfeit either existing progress or a core game code – that would make for an inferior deal, not an equal one. And an equal one is all what we’re asking for.
If they don’t want people to have core game codes…well, that’s nothing i should be concerned upon. If it is an issue, that’s just their problem…they brought it to themselves, since they’re the ones that decided to sell the expansion bundled with the core game.
Why Has Arena Net Not Addressed Our Issues
in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns
Posted by: Manuhell.2759
If they didn’t get the game at 10$ during a sale there is absolutely no reason for them to get it now. Especially since the core game was advertised as needed to play the expansion before they came out with this permanent “core* and expansion bundle” as the only way to get the expansion, so whoever was interested in the expansion has probably bought the game already.
*but not if you’re an already existing player.
I think a more accurate comparison is that one monkey got a bunch of grapes earlier, then got kittened off when the second monkey got a grape along with his cucumber.
Which would make the first monkey a kitten more than anything.
Again – wrong comparison.
A correct one would be:
Some time ago, a monkey got a bunch of grapes.
After some time they are given the same task with the promise of a cucumber and some grapes, and they both return a stone.
A monkey gets a bunch of grapes and a cucumber, but the other monkey is denied the grapes because of the ones he got some time before.
The second monkey is then angry , cause he would just want to have the grapes he worked for.
(the second monkey then starves and die; but that’s another story, and quite a sad one, so let’s skip it)
-cut-
Again with the wrong comparison – there is no depreciation involved. There is a new product – HoT. And everyone is buying it during the same timeframe, at the same price, from the same place.
But some are getting a game and an expansion, and some are getting just the expansion. The latters should get the game as well. And that’s all.
(edited by Manuhell.2759)
Yeah this is a discount, exclusive sale for NEW PLAYERS
And that’s wrong.
Both old and new players are buying the same product, at the same price, during the same timeframe.
Both should receive the same thing – core game and expansion.
You can receive the core game if you wish for that core game to be attached to the expansion, JUST LIKE the new person who is doing the EXACT SAME THING.
That would just make me a sort of new player.
As above, both old and new players are buying the same product, at the same price, during the same timeframe.
Both should receive the same thing.
Since this isn’t happening, old players have every right to complain.
-cut-
-cut
-cut-
Your comparisons make no sense.
This isn’t some discount/bargain sale like the ones they did so far.
While the product bought was the same, since it was bought during different timeframes, it was perfectly reasonable to have discounts.
But now both veterans and new players are buying the exact same product – that is, Heart of Thorns – at the same time, from the same place, at the same price.
And both should receive the same thing – a copy of the base game, and the expansion.
Yet this isn’t happening – veterans aren’t getting their free, new copy of the base game.
If the company doesn’t want people to have spare core game keys…well, that’s just their fault, as they should have chosen other ways to handle the situation. Like a different offer for already existing players, with either a reduced price or something else to make up for that core game key.
But unless or until they do so, “veteran” players have every right to complain about this situation.
Could we have a way to keep the button pressed to continue autoattacking instead of having to click the button repeatedly (both for mortar and grenades)?
My fingers and hands would gladly thank you for such an improvement.
Imho, being “veterans” hasn’t got much to do with the current situation.
Some players get the core game and the expansion and some get just the expansion, yet both are buying it at the same place, time and price.
That’s my issue – either existing players get a core game code as well when they buy the expansion, or they get something else to make up for it.
Eh, dunno. At least one of them has a release date. That’s something.
I asgree. I don’t see what the big deal is. The base game is completely free. So now you’ll have two games for the price of one!
That’s only if you do a new account.
An already existing one will have just the expansion. Even if they both bought HoT at the same exact time and price.
It would have made sense if already existing accounts got a code for the core game as well when they bought the expansion, but it doesn’t work like that.
We got quite some changes. One that i didn’t see mentioned in these threads was the removal of most of our recharge reduction traits, though. Only rifle, shield, bomb and tool kit traits survived the change. Gadgets can be reduced via gadgeteer, but it works in a different way.
In general, i see a major reduction of kit traits – every kit now is affected directly only by a single trait.
And flamethrower continues to be extremely weak versus retaliation. Especially since staying on it relies on the autoattack even more due of the lack of recharge traits (and the short duration of stability will require to do so, if one intends to use juggernaut for that boon).
Nothing is perfect (like I don’t understand why Slick Shoes even get a buff reducing cool down) but it’s a huge steps in the right direction.
Slick Shoes itself got no such buff, though.
Its toolbelt skill indeed got a reduction, but that’s just due of the last line bonuses removal (and since in the engineer’s case said bonus was a toolbelt cooldown reduction, they just shaved toolbelt cooldowns all across the board).
That’s no different from what they did with every profession (and if one wants the full reduction, he still will have to get the tools line).
Considering the lack of damaging conditions (there is just poison) and the above comments of it lacking good direct damage as well, it would seems that our medium-long and long range offensive capabilities could end up quite lacking after the patch. Still, gotta test it out to see.
I still can’t understand what’s the point of putting them together. One is a bunch of highly situational abilities, the other is a general purpose buff, and both have the same trigger. There is no point on getting both of these abilities, as they conflict one with the other.
And yet they made exactly that, putting them on an higher tier nonetheless.
It doesn’t make any sense to me.
Well, actually, it doesn’t seems like they’re even following their own design decisions anymore. I mean…take the engineer itself and its profession page. “They can take control of an area by placing turrets” and turrets are later described as “immobile devices that help defend and control an area” in the profession page.
They can’t even stay alive for more than a few seconds now, let alone defend and control areas.
If they want to put signets, they’ll just find some way to put them in, despite whatever they said in the past, be it right theme-wise or not.
It is mentioned ingame as well, by the way – there are some npcs talking about the new chapel being built off-site like that, and plans to transport it via air to place it on-site.
(sure, doing something like that is very costly, but it isn’t surprising; Ellen Kiel has already proven herself quite inept at her work; that is, assuming she hasn’t got some bribe to do things this way; oh, if only we had some good guy like Evon in the council instead…)
Imho, those drones will be used via toolbelt skills and engineers will get ranger-alike shouts, as in, orders given to the drones (like rangers do with pets).
(and before someone comes out saying that someone else already got shouts – what they said in a blog post is that one elite specialization will get traps and at least one will get shouts, so given the wording, we’re likely to see them on another elite spec)
(edited by Manuhell.2759)
This won’t end well.
The difference is confusion forces the player to make a choice. Keep attacking and take lots of damage or run away and try to escape / wait out the duration / cleanse. Confusion STACKS making it extremely punishing when used correctly. To counter retaliation simply stop attacking your target and you will not take any damage, you don’t need to waste a skill to cleanse it either. Retaliation also doesn’t stack and can be boon ripped. Pretty easy to see why it’s totally fine as it is.
Confusion isn’t nearly as spammable as retaliation is, though (also, while confusion is per skill, retaliation is per single hit, and there is quite a difference between those).
You’re basically saying that people should never use multi-hit attacks, cause that’s how easily spammable retaliation is. Especially when groups of people are involved – since many of those applications are aoe-based.
It’s especially absurd if we consider that many multihit skills – like flamethrower’s flame jet – are balanced over being able to hit multiple targets…and yet can never do that, since encountering more enemies also increases the chances one of them will be able to put retaliation on the whole group.
I should also add that multi-hit skills already got a large hit when devs decided to put internal cooldowns on on-crit procs (since multi-hit skills worked pretty well with those). So, assuming they won’t change retaliation to be based on a percentage of the damage, or made far less spammable, what about putting an internal cooldown on that too? Like, a person can receive only one hit per second per every single retaliation-target. It won’t change almost anything in normal situations, and it won’t completely shut down multi-hit skills as it does now, while still dealing some damage back (and we avoid the absurdity of multi-hit skills dealing more damage to the user than to the enemy).
Guess it is too soon to talk about whatever will be meta. We don’t even know our own traits (and it was said that they’ve made even more changes after the core specialization presentation).
Also, many classes still lack their elite specializations. Seeing as the grenade kit can be completely countered by projectile reflects (and neutralized by projectile blocks) any addition of those is a nail upon such a build’s reliability (especially since it also means we’ll be getting more damage back, and we’re already lacking in condition cleansing, so we would really hurt ourselves in such a scenario).
Also, assuming it didn’t change, the cripple they added upon shrapnel (and that made it a grandmaster trait) is losing most of its usefulness – and since grenades are supposedly getting reduced to 900 range, an enemy could just use some movement skill and get to us anyway. It would be quite disappointing.
Either way, things are going to change for everyone. Guess we’ve got to wait until there is some certainty on whatever classes will get.
As things stand now, anything other than zerker is a suboptimal way of dealing with almost any situation, the only exceptions being enemies that were designed to either exclude or highly dampen the efficiency of some stats. Good players have basically no reason to use different gears, and a ton of stat combinations just sit there unused. That’s a waste.
Imho, defensive stats should be less passive and more tied to active mechanics/skills. So that they don’t act as a “safety net”, but rather empower defensive playstyles for whoever is interested in those. Same for support (imho, healing power should be reworked into some sort of “support power”, so that we can have more uses of said statistic; as now you can only stack healing, but it ends up being useless cause the game is balanced over having no proper healers, thus nothing will ever need such high amounts of healings; and that’s fine, but it cheapens the value of the stat).
Likewise, encounters should tailor other playstyles as well. Whereas an highly offensive party could try beating a boss in a direct confrontation, a defensive party may have other opportunities to showcase their inclination (like, pass in the middle of an horde of enemies and take the item X, very effective versus said boss). It wouldn’t be easier, but rather, just a different approach.
Unlike now, different types of gear would just provide with different ways to accomplish the same goal – beating a dungeon, event, or whatever. They would all be efficient, in their own way, in the hands of good players.
They could make some cookbooks.
Something like “100 ways to eat a quaggan”, “Sylvari salads”, “For a tender Tengu”.
Anything that isn’t a minion or similar is fine with me.
(by the way, we can still have shouts; the wording they used was quite clear in that regard – one gets traps, and at least one gets shouts)
We can still have shouts, though.
One specialization will have access to traps, while at least one profession’s elite specialization will be a full set of six shouts.
Traps are given to one only, but it isn’t necessarily the same for shouts – at least one will get it.
And seeing as they used a different wording on purpose, i think that there will be a second class getting them.
Uhm…what about a projectile reflect on Shield Bash, akin to how flamethrower’s air blast works? You would bash the projectile and deflect it back, basically. And it would require good timing, so you can’t just spam it.
I don’t think it would be too strong, more like an alternative use of the skill (well, unless an enemy shoots some slow projectile at melee range and you hit both it and the opponent).
(edited by Manuhell.2759)