Marellune Malthias – 80 Elementalist
Devil’s Dominion [DD] – Yak’s Bend
1.25s cast time, but your point still remains the same Mon. It’s amazing how few people know how to dodge Magnet.
There’s actually a bit of windup and aftercast such that the total casting time before the pull executes is closer to 1.5 seconds than the listed 1.25. Desync on a successful pull has sometimes resulted on the pulled victim arriving even later than that, which leads to misses on queued Pry Bars or Jump Shots. It’s not 1.25 seconds, is what I’m getting at.
Yeah, Gear Shield achieving block parity with Warrior /Shield was when TK became quite strong. The only thing keeping TK from being absolutely OP are the desync issues with Magnet pull that throw people in the air or pull only half distance, and the fact that the Throw Wrench is not very useful untraited.
Traited Gear Shield may actually be too strong, and I believe that the block duration should go back down to 2 seconds if Magnet Pull’s desync issues are ever fixed. More offense for less defense.
Regarding the issues brought up in the original post, I don’t see how Stealth plays are any more OP when executed by the Engineer as opposed to the Thief or Mesmer or any other class with reliable Stealth. In fact, Engineer traits have little interaction with Stealth at all except On Immobilise (Cloaking Device), so Engineers must burn other utilities or cooldowns in order to achieve Stealth – no weapon skills provide Stealth by themselves except as Combo Finishers.
Stealth as a mechanic in general needs looking at, but Stealthed Magnet is hardly a gamebreaking issue considering the bugs. Heck, players get hit by unstealthed Magnet all the time despite it being a 1.5 second cast with clear telegraphing from the Engineer and also centred upon the victim. Temporal Curtain → Into the Void or Path of Scars or Binding Blade → Pull are all stronger pulls, with easier setup and faster casting, albeit with shorter range. I would argue that the skill is balanced as it is in the context of Pulls.
I wrote several constructive posts, for example:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/The-Root-Problem-or-How-to-Balance-PvP/first#post3633033It never gets any dev response
. Well, if you can get them to notice it, it would be great; however, at this point I wouldn’t get my hope high.
ANet engineering team is great. Developing a stable backend that can serve real time combat like GW2 is not a small feat. Nevertheless, the management and internal politics kill this game. Balance is a much more important issue for PvP than PvE, but they put the balance team inside the PvE team, and Tyler can only “talk” to the balance team. It’s pretty sad.
Hey Sunshine. I iterated upon and reposted your original thread in the Balance forum regarding Balance, Iteration and unfixed mistakes . Hopefully enough community attention to be drawn to get Arenanet to realign their priorities and make fortnightly balance a thing.
Since January 2011 Dota has had over 22 patches in 3 years.
League of Legends for the first couple of years since release had biweekly patches.Those games have over a hundred characters each with at least 4 skills and numerous items to balance around with. The reason they didn’t crash and burn is in good part due to a quick iteration of balance patches based in good part on player feedback.
Why not copy the example of success?
Absolutely. Frequent balance iteration has been demonstrated to have achieved a more balanced result faster. Frequent balance changes also make the meta more dynamic, which prevents stagnation – something that Arenanet has failed to take into account when executing their longer term balance strategy. Mistakes made also have greater leeway for reversion, as the next release is only a fortnight away, such that periods of abuse can only last so long, and player frustrations cannot fester.
Skyhammer (and Skyhammer farming, which utterly poisoned Rank as a currency of player participation), Temporal Curtain Swiftness bug, Healing Signet, Ranger Spirit of Nature, and many many other issues have been left unaddressed and abused for months on end – an unacceptable outcome in any industry, let alone a digital one.
Great posts! Thanks MonMalthias!
I am not the first. As I have said in a previous post, Sunshine.5014 was the first to coalesce these views.
ArenaNet is just a clusterbag of groupthinkers. Telling a round-table of groupthinkers that “HEY, you’re compromising yourselves by just being all ‘Huggy, feely, no problems, guys,’” is not going to get them to stop. As that Glass Door review mentions, ANet needs leadership; they need someone to tell them what to do because they’re not going to do it themselves and they’re too stuck in their own ways to deviate from their current path. No one there has any initiative or backbone because there’s no need for it given the way that their work groups seem to be structured.
At the risk of derailing the thread, Arenanet does seem to have some issues with their management and upper management, but I have deleted those posts due to being off colour.
I do feel that the Balance team has its hands tied, however. Coupling Bug fixes and Balance changes to Feature patches is not a concept any rational balance team would entertain unless there were conflicts with other teams requiring that set changes be released with set content to resolve the issue.
Also with the number of consultants on team and with moving their QA to an external third party, I would think that groupthink would hardly be the source of their issues. The issue remains that there are priorities set by Arenanet, and Balance and bugfixing is not high up.
I pretty much agree with the OP.
Well said.
We’ve been in the game for 1.5 years and there are still persistent bugs and issues that are simply ignored, yet the pump out this living story content so quickly that it’s hard to even keep up with it.
It gets really old really quickly.
Absolutely. Living Story is a revolutionary concept that should absolutely be pursued given the sky high development costs of producing a AAA MMO – however, Arenanet has taken this concept and run with it to the exclusion of fixing their game.
Honestly half the issues associated with the game at present – Defiance, Utilities and Traits being half-baked, build diversity and bugs – these are all emblematic of a forced early launch. Arenanet and their publisher NCSoft may claim that they had to launch because they ran out of money, but I do believe that the Mists of Pandaria release paid no small part in forcing their decision. This could all have been remedied had there been a focused effort towards finishing their game for the next 6 months post launch instead of working on Living Story.
Excellent Thread !
You describe pretty well how balance should be done.
Now let’s hope this thread can get things to move in the right direction.
Actually, this is an iteration of Sunshine.5014’s post The Root Problem, or how to balance PVP with a broader based perspective that enfolds WvW and PvE as well. I claim no credit to the original idea, but since the thread last month by Sunshine received no attention by developers, this is essentially an updated repost.
I hope I have galvanised some people with this thread, and more attention is called to this matter.
Excellent posts!! hope anet read it, new game are coming so with no fix a lot of active player could go somewhere else……
Absolutely. With Wildstar, ESO and other MMOs just around the corner, Arenanet’s window of opportunity to retain their veterans and attract new players to stay is gradually closing. Thankfully, with the end of the PvE Living Story Season with the fall of Lion’s Arch, and the finish of the WvW season, now is the time for Arenanet to buckle down and refocus on finishing their game.
@OP: great post.
The problem definitely arises from the balance methodology that ANET employs. It simply does not work. Here is their approach:
1. ANET wants to increase build diversity and so they buff or nerf a trait
2. ANET ends up overbuffing or overnerfing based on their original intentionNow here is where it gets interesting. Most people would say the next step should be to modify what they previously changed. Instead the ANET approach is:
3. Modify a ton of other skills to try to compensate for what they over or under nerfed.Just not a good balance methodology.
Actually, the balance methodology can be described more accurately as thus:
That is how it is supposed to happen, at least in theory.
What happens in actuality is:
While I think your thread is very insightful and sparks good discussion, you might want to think twice about posting glassdoor reviews here. I’m not sure it’s the proper place. You might encourage people to go gain insight from those sites themselves, but what you’re doing here is kind of like walking up to A-net’s studio and drawing mustaches on pictures of management. It just seems off color to me, and at the very least might be cause for an unnecessary forum ban or post deletion.
I’d hate to see this thread get derailed or censored due to content like this.
I agree with Pawstruck while this topic is excellent I feel that your glass door posts starts to change course away from profession balance and more to the general development of Guild Wars 2.
Pursuant to your concerns I have deleted the Glass Door posts. I do hope that there is enough momentum built at this point that the exclusion of them from the discussion will still be sufficient to prove my point that the priorities at Arenanet need to change.
Hard counter to stealth, not a hard counter to the class, in the same way that diamond skin/that engi trait is a hard counter to conditions and not to necros/engis in general. This speccing to defeat a single type of build (and lose to everything else) should not exist in a game that claims to have skill as a major factor.
Good thieves can play without constantly being in stealth and still have a number of flat-out advantages over elementalists (not from experience with mine, I’m a terrible thief even though I avoid stealth like the plague, or possibly because I avoid stealth like the plague. I have played against good thieves, they are not the stealth/spam noobs that the more common ones are, and I don’t accidentally kill them with meteor shower).
Ok.. Again sorry for not being clearer about the diamond skin comment earlier. The key difference is if you go 30 or 25 in fire you can still produce a very strong (and IMO the best) s/f ele build available. I know karsaib and phanta run 30 arcana, but honestly when you’re that glassy it’s basically kill or be killed. And fire traits can do a ton of things to help you kill. From watching phanta play I can see how effective he can make it for other things like might stacking, but personally I prefer the deeps up front.
This is crucially different from diamond skin, as 30 earth won’t make you capable of anything much (no sustain, no dps).
Furthermore I would say you might be confusing ‘hard counters’ with counter play. We’re not talking about giving eles heat signature recognition here.
But it’s essentially the same thought process as diamond skin. Take something eles are especially weak to, and give them something that completely annihilates that but is useless against everything else. In the case of diamond skin it’s dire necros, in the case of the original suggestion it’s stealthspammers.
I definitely think that stealth needs more counters, but I don’t think it should be through traits, and especially not grandmaster ones. I could be okay with the revamped suggestion making it through flamewall, but I still think we would be better off making stealth a boon and making that skill and others across classes boon rips.
I’d necro it if there’s interest in developing the idea further, but Stealth based Thieves would beg to differ and would rather that their class remain in the state it is, which is only fair enough considering their nerfs. That said, Thief matchups should be normalised more such that their efficacy should be better against tanky DPS whilst not crushing squishy DPS as it is right now.
While I think your thread is very insightful and sparks good discussion, you might want to think twice about posting glassdoor reviews here. I’m not sure it’s the proper place. You might encourage people to go gain insight from those sites themselves, but what you’re doing here is kind of like walking up to A-net’s studio and drawing mustaches on pictures of management. It just seems off color to me, and at the very least might be cause for an unnecessary forum ban or post deletion.
I’d hate to see this thread get derailed or censored due to content like this.
My original intent of posting the Glass Door reviews was in hopes of demonstrating the point that it is the project management of GW2 and not its developers holding the success of the game back. That said, I recognise that it could be misinterpreted in that fashion. If derailment occurs, then I will edit my posts accordingly. But I do feel that it is important to the discussion to demonstrate why things are happening as they are, and the reviews are an important insight into the matter.
Are you even real? From what universe did you phase from into ours?
Amazing, you completely destroyed my argument.
Actually, Healing Turret is not the “meta” heal for Decap Engineer, in case you weren’t aware of JinDaVikk’s Decap Engineer build . The reasoning is that due to wanting to exploit Automated Response’s 25% HP threshold, burst healing on the level of Healing Turret is actually suboptimal, as opponents could simply wait until the heal was burned, then condi burst without fear of AR kicking back in. In the mean time, Necro Scepter 1 or any other poison application could be used to reduce the window of reaction that Engineer has once the threshold is passed.
Healing Turret is strong, yes. In some variations that use Accelerant Packed Turrets, it is even stronger. However those variations of the AR Decap engineer build have unique weaknesses to the typical condi-bunker backpoint holders and especially to Thieves that makes it suboptimal.
Nerf Automated Response, and decap Engineer’s matchups against the typical backpoint holder as well as Thieves will become immediately bad – for the Engineer. Looking to nerf Healing Turret when it is the inferior heal for this build (and somehow segueing into Healing Signet discussion) is the wrong direction and has knock-on effects of nerfing many other ancillary Engineer builds.
Simply remove AR’s condition immunity to be replaced by a mechanic that requires cooldowns like On Toolbelt Use to clear conditions, and you immediately kill off decap Engineer whilst bringing up Engineer’s condition cleanse in general.
Knockbacks like Overcharged Shot could do with some looking at, but not before AR is nerfed. Doing so risks the viability of Power Engineer, a setup that is already suboptimal.
Excellent post. I hope you will not be banned for speaking the truth.
If they ban me, there are two outcomes:
I would hope that – for the present and future of the company – that its errors are corrected. The video game industry is extremely consolidated as it is. To have the talent scatter to the four winds from neglect would be most egregious.
Excellent posts, makes a clear point and outlines the problems with the devs very well, especially how balance changes in general seem to lag behind.
There’s some work to be done, and personally, I’d gladly go without the fortnightly content (in fact, I hardly do it now anyway) if it meant more balance changes.
“Aetherblade/Dhuumfire” patch. The patch that introduced Scarlet’s name and the destruction of PvP balance and fun. Thanks for the name. Let’s rally behind this, and tell ANet not to make another Aetherblade/Dhuumfire patch.
I wholeheartly agree and I would also like to mention that I hope we go with an ELO system later. We have no metrics for our rating on the current Glicko-2 system thus not allowing us to thoroughly analzye our rating and its determinants and possibly take something new and helpful out of it. An ELO system allows for more freedom in rating too. (And thank you for linking my post
)
Great post. Agree 599% with what you said. I only wish ArenaNet would do something about it.
Hello. I’m not posting that often too.
I post because i think you post deserves visibility.
It’s full of truth and well thought.Great Post.
Best Regards
Moktahr
Thanks. Despite prevailing forum attitudes that GW2 is going to hell in a handbasket, the general trend of changes has been positive – bar several major mis-steps. It is correcting their errors and changing their management stance that must occur if the game is to prosper.
Good post. I’d like to chime in only to say that in addition to the glacial pace and iteration failures, the balance adjustments that do happen also seem to be highly myopic – focusing far too intently on one specific use of one specific skill/trait in one specific game mode, for example.
They seem to frequently ignore both big picture concerns (like my thread on #1 skills), and how their changes impact other sections/modes when they shouldn’t or fail to impact them when they should, which contributes to the feeling that there are major, large imbalances in the game that simply go without any attention whatsoever for unforgivably large stretches of time.
Meanwhile, a very lackluster presence on the boards leaves players with nothing to assuage their frustration, which has continued to fester with no end in sight.
Actually, Arenanet has shown considerably greater forum presence in the wake of community uproar since the Dhuumfire/Aetherblade patch. The mistakes committed demonstrated that any major change; no matter how rigourously tested internally, could have devastating consequences on balance once released.
A cursory glance through the Dev Tracker demonstrates that developers are engaging with the community, and on a minute-to-minute basis across all areas of the game. What happens as a result remains to be seen.
Collaborative Development and a willingness to engage has been demonstrated by the developers. Unfortunately, it seems that some of the topic results have been stymied by poor prioritisation, so their execution is lacking, if not for lack of trying.
Great post, Mon! I agree.
If anet even wants to save face, I’d be happy just forgoing the admission stuff. Just reverse the trends.
What should honestly happen is a “stockholder meeting” with the player base.
It is interesting to go through the Game Updates wiki category of GW2wiki to see the overall trends and changes to the game. Overall the game is more bug fixed than at launch and more skills and utilities are usable. It is just that their direction is lacking.
As for a stockholder’s meeting, CDI already has elements of this. I would hope that this time around, the execution is better.
As a clarification to the OP
Just a followup to my OP to further clarify my reasoning and thought process behind my topic.
One point must be made clear: The community should not focus its ire and negativity upon the developers, but upon the management, because this is where the mistakes are being made
Reading through the employee reviews at Glass Door Reviews should also be instructive as to what currently ails Arenanet’s project management and these concerns should – and must – be made more public if change is to be instituted.
To wit:
(Edit: deleted Glass Door review due to risk of derailing the thread)
We know, as a community from playing this game, that Arenanet is capable – more than capable – of producing quality gameplay within a quality product. Yet without a head, even the greatest teams working on a project will become a conflicting mass of priorities and problems.
This is what we are seeing right now.
This is what the community as a whole should push to correct, if the game is to grow and prosper into the future. To have it wither on the vine, poorly tended, would be the greatest tragedy that could befall one of the strongest MMOs yet released.
(edited by MonMalthias.4763)
Low vitality should = higher damage.
This sadly isn’t the case.
low vitality is not the problem
(just look at Guardian for reference)
our problem is SUSTAIN, which is a different thing.It sure is PART of the problem. Lets keep in mind a guardian still has 5-7k+ more
HP than an ele AND wears heavy armor.
Uh…what? Guardian shares the lowest HP bracket with Elementalist at 10805 at Level 80 before traits, runes or stats from armour and/or trinkets.
Elementalist sustain did exist – it’s just that it’s been nerfed both directly with changes to condition cleanse and indirectly with bug fixes like Mistform interrupting Ether Renewal.
At this point, consideration should be paid to the weapon skills that can heal on Elementalist like Cleansing Wave, Cone of Cold, Geyser, Water Trident, Healing Rain. Removal of Regeneration on Attunement from Soothing Wave is also an issue that removes significant amounts of HPS given the low base vitality.
What can be done:
What can and should be done is simple. I’ve stated the same at the beginning. Change the attitude that pervades Arenanet’s current project management.
Balance and build diversity:
Overall, build diversity in GW2 has been severely curtailed by the fact that entire lines of Utility skills and Traits have been underwhelming – yet balance has focused almost exclusively on the rare few “meta” builds and skills. This often comes to the detriment of multiple skills and Utilities. Arenanet’s insistence on “letting the meta settle” has resulted in patches coming every few months that iterate on balance – yet the changes within reflect an increasing disconnect of balance intention and balance result.
Community Frustration and perception
The lack of iteration has bred community frustration and resentment towards Arenanet who feel that the pace of development is glacial. Features like PVP Leagues, new game modes and even basic features that have been promised for nigh on a year are only just now coming “over the horizon”.
In terms of balance, builds relying upon a confluence of traits and procs that emphasise great reward with little risk dominate the field – Healing Signet/Cleansing Ire Hambow Warrior, Decap (CC bunker) engineer, Spirit Ranger, Minion Master Necromancer – these are all builds that put the burden of skill upon the defender – overwhelmingly so – that “off-meta” or inferior builds with higher risk-reward ratios have to struggle to survive and yet contribute less to the outcome. The state of the game has teetered upon the brink since the introduction of the Dhuumfire/Aetherblade feature patch and despite a multitude of changes since, the same builds are still dominating and team compositions are looking increasingly similar – Bunker Guardian, Soldier’s Hambow Warrior +/- another Warrior, Thief, Spirit Ranger, (option of) Decap or Condition Bomb/Nade Engineer or Necromancer.
This is not to say that such builds should not exist, but balance should be in such a way that more builds than those listed above can have a place in a team composition without those builds shutting out others to the point of exclusion.
For PVE, the so-called “Damage, Support, Control” alternative trinity so trumpeted as the innovation over the “Tank, Healer, DPS” trinity has dissipated in favour of “DPS, DPS, DPS”.
Defiance has stripped the Control archetype of its teeth, whilst providing no reward for controlling Boss mobs.
Slow, extremely hard hitting attacks have negated the need for Support – there is little need to support allies with healing if taking a hit means almost certain death. DPS with just enough Support through Boons has become the one true god and PvE encounters have devolved into a “stack mobs, cleave to death” DPS race over thoughtful, deliberate challenges that tax a group’s ability to co-ordinate and problem solve.
Finally, there also exists the issue of balancing errors, and bugs affecting balance being unaddressed for significant periods. A few examples:
This is a topic that I’ve been debating with myself whether to open or not for the longest time. I feel that it’s important to bring this up because it strikes at the heart of one of the flaws of GW2’s product life cycle – project management. But for those that will TL;DR, the basic argument is this:
Balance is about iteration, and Arenanet is not iterating fast enough
Fundamental profession, PvP, PvE and WvW bugs and problems remain unaddressed in lieu of fortnightly content updates
I will touch on a few key points:
I was finally pushed to make this topic when I saw Cameron Dunn’s GDC lecture discussing Guild Wars 2’s server infrastructure – and what is possible using Guild Wars 2’s Duo system to iterate on the game. Click the quick-link to the “Iterate” bookmark or skip to 35:47 timestamp if you don’t want to spare the 45 minutes to learn about Arenanet’s amazing infrastructure and their metrics that they like to talk about. This thread is also instructive and discusses why more frequent iteration is essential for balance
I want to bring this up because the game is now well over a year past its launch. Despite teething problems, GW2’s launch was one of the smoothest I have ever played through and it is a great game at heart. The trouble is, well over a year past its launch, some of its teething problems are still writ large. Despite fortnightly Living Story releases to support the game, fundamental profession issues and bugs remain unfixed; while community response to Feature patches that include sweeping Balance Changes has not been actioned for months – often until the next Feature patch.
This is a bad trend and it needs to stop.
Arenanet has coded this groundbreaking infrastructure and it is being squandered on providing temporary content instead of fixing and polishing and iterating on their game. This kind of project management has lead to dozens of threads of negativity and more than a few veteran players quitting the game. In some cases, whole teams. Team Paradigm (recently started playing again), Absolute Legends (disbanded), Made in Meta, to name just a few.
Preamble over. Onto persistent problems and QoL issues that remain unaddressed.
On the various forums one can find dozens of threads, often pertaining to – and addressing and re-addressing – the same issues, over and over. This is a problem, because it leads to a community perception of paralysis, which causes:
As an example, here are a few outstanding issues on PvP:
Leaderboards and/or leagues. Leaderboards were released somewhat buggy, whilst promises for Ladders and Leagues stretch back a few years
Well, if you did want to add it to a trait, it could go to the 15 point fire magic trait. This already has an “on attunement” affect to it already, so it would just be a direct buff. I’m not sure if people really try to use the damage on attunement swap that much anyways… I guess maybe in a s/x spike build it could work well, but I’m not an ele expert by any means.
That would be so OP though ><
Or perhaps it could be added to persisting flames so that the blast finishers also reveal enemies in addition to the other stuff.
I don’t think it’s worth dedicating a whole trait to this sort of revealing mechanism. Instead, I think it would be better to give it to something that could benefit from it.
Otherwise just add it to a weapon or utility, like cleansing fire or flamewall.
Adding revealed to persisting flames is a cool idea I hadn’t thought of. The only problem is raising the skill cap on s/x glass, but frankly if all classes were ‘buffed’ in this manner ppl would be a lot more content by it.
Revealed on flamewall is also a good suggestion, as focus fire attune is in severe need of a buff. If any weapon should be designed to deal with thieves it should be this one too.
To be honest I think Elementalist needs more play around Boon hate and Stealth in general, but triggering on Fire Attunement is probably not the way to go. I like the suggestions others have raised throughout the thread like reveal on Blast Finishers with Persisting Flames, but in general Stealth counters should also be incorporated into Boon Hate if they are to ever have more broad base applicability.
As it stands, only 3 classes (Engineer, Mesmer, Thief) have the ability to reliably stealth and to restrict Stealth hate to Stealth only without broader application will leave it ignored.
That being said, the Elementalist vs Thief matchup being so unfavourable does not entirely revolve around Stealth. The main reason is and remains the ability of Thief to exert enough threat to force Elementalist to blow 60+ second cooldowns to save themselves – whilst the Thief has the option to dis- and re-engage within that time frame. In some cases, multiple times. (Sword Pistol) This means that the Elementalist will always be at a cooldown disadvantage, if not a health disadvantage (assuming Elementalist played perfectly).
Thief didn’t get to shut out other roamers because of Stealth, or because of its mobility, or its damage – it got to do so because it can operate within the utility cooldowns of the roamers it shut down. Reveal or Boon Hate will address only part of the issue, but the matchup will always remain unfavourable unless Utility skill cooldowns for Elementalist and/or Mesmer are looked at, and Thief becomes less time-starved, such that more of its damage can be done outside of Stealth and Evade frames to make the fight more about the Weapon skills than the Utilities.
I like the idea of colour coding otherwise ambiguous skills like Necromancer Marks or Engineer bombs. I think that the whole Vigour and dodge spam issue could have been sidestepped if only everything was easier to read in the first place. As it stands, people are forced to dodge randomly because it’s hard to tell whether it’s a Reaper’s Mark or a Mark of Blood, or a Concussion Bomb as opposed to a regular Bomb (the most egregious, and that’s coming from a Bomb kit Engi).
GW2 is and remains one of the most fun to play, yet the most impenetrable to watch games I’ve experienced. Teamfights are a cavalcade of coruscating Particle effects and match-turning plays are often lost in the maelstrom. Making Signets, Marks, Bombs, and other otherwise hard to read skills easier to read is good first step towards making the game more accessible and fun to play, as well as fun to watch.
This is definitely a Quality of Life issue deserving of attention if Arenanet can ever hope to recapture the #Esports feel of a high-level GW1 PVP match. Whilst I applaud the efforts of Arenanet’s graphic designers and artists in coming up with the particle effects, more can be done and indeed, more should be done to mature GW2 as a game and as a spectacle.
Well, in my opinion reliable chill is limited to necros and eles. I’ve yet to hear you address this other than flat out disagreeing and offering no arguments either way apart from a wiki link. Yes, it’s a very impressive list of ranger pet skills, but unless you get assaulted by an arctic zoo, it’s not going to be a real problem.
And may I repeat myself once again and state that weapon swapping in general is a huge deal and that 4 weapon sets instead of 2 is an even larger one? Is this also to be completely ignored in this discussion or is it simply that anything that messes with Attunement is OP and must be removed/nerfed? Because if that is the argument here, I might as well stop now.
Actually, Elementalist was designed around operating with 20 weapon skills, whilst other classes like Warrior, Thief, Ranger, Necromancer, Guardian, Mesmer are designed around operating with 10. Engineer is a special case having the option to slot more or less depending on the build.
This post will be necessarily vague as it touches on design intent over mechanical concepts like cooldowns and cast times, but suffice it to say that having 20 weapon skills as Elementalist does not make one more powerful than having 10 weapon skills. Elementalist design is centred around finding cross-attunement combos of skills – each with utility that would seemingly be undertuned, but when comboed together result in powerful effects.
The fact of the matter is that Elementalist doesn’t have 4 weapon sets, because each individual set of skills is designed to be used in concert with one another. Staying in 1 set is actually considered to be suboptimal, in fact, whereas Warrior or Ranger for example, it is actually favourable to stay, or at least not punishing, as autoattacks for 10-skill classes are generally stronger as a result.
Having Chill affect Attunement swap is essentially like having Chill affect the weapon swaps of classes with 2 weapon sets on top of having Chill affect the Weapon skills themselves. Would Warrior ever go without Fast Hands if Chill affected weapon swap? Implications for other classes are similar. One can also make an argument for cross-set combos – yet these are unimpeded by Chill, whilst Elementalists are so impaired.
The fact remains that whilst 2 weapon set classes can opt to stay within that weapon set, Elementalists cannot; when their very design forces them to swap constantly just to remain competitive.
That Elementalists can potentially gain the most benefits out of their swaps is a factor, certainly. But to turn that around into the crux of an argument that revolves around Elementalists having more skills available avoids the issue that other classes are not similarly affected.
One could just as easily argue the other way and argue for Chill affecting the Weapon swaps for Thief, Warrior, Necromancer, Ranger, Mesmer and Guardian as well. After all, turnabout is fair play.
I don’t see how #1 is comparable.
I mean, really. How would you balance them? Their target balance depends massively on traits, utility skills, elites, heal abilities, class mechanic and 2-5 skills. They’re not at all comparable.
I think in this context it would be appropriate to consider the autoattacks on all classes and for a balance pass to occur for all of them to truly define their role in applicable builds and setups. Off the top of my head, these are the “problematic” autoattacks for each class:
Elementalist
Engineer
The point is to give each profession’s autoattacks a balance pass to give them a defined role and make them useful in that role. I’m also certain that professions like Mesmer would appreciate changes to Scepter 1, for example, or Necromancers changes to Staff 1, or a multitude of other autoattacks for other professions. For Rangers on Shortbow, I’d imagine the problem is the other way around.
Autoattacks are playing a small, but significant role in limiting build diversity as a result. A strong build starts from the basics and autoattack balance does play a role in defining and restricting playstyle – I gave Dagger mainhand for Elementalist as an example. Consideration to sustained damage output plays a significant role in any build, and ignoring it has flow on effects for balance that Arenanet should take into account.
Just get rid off this.
We ALL complain about the fact that beeing the squichiest class, we have to spec defensively and that then we can’t deal reasonable damage. With THIS stupid side of view, how do you want the ele to be able to balance offense and defense ? It’s impossible cause with this you split defense and offense.It is pretty much that way as it is. All this would do is actually give you a stat boost depending on the attunement you are in.
Already you go Air for Damage, it beats Fire damage already and you go Water for heals and and such so a boost here to healing power would be you know kind of obvious. You go Earth depending on your weapon set for defense, i mean after all you take 5 points in Earth you get more toughness anyway.
I think this is how they wanted the class to actually be. They just havent done enough to make it so you can decide what you want to build around, bar damage in which case you would go Fresh Air trait and go Air.
SO this change would pretty much make it so that the attunements actually have a reason and give you a bonus for what ever you would like to use. Why is it that only Earth should give you a buff and even then cost you 5trait points? It is clear they have a specific role in mind for each attunement, they just sorta gave up mid-design.
Surely “we” is totally wrong. You are assuming that EVERY ele thinks the same as you. This simply is wrong. With this change you wouldn’t need to spec into anything to get the benefit. You would get the added stats as part of the class mechanic.
Actually, I tend to cleave to the views of MattMatt in that the current trait design of Elementalist is flawed, with a too-rigid split of Offense and Defense that leaves Build diversity out in the cold.
If you recall Elementalist before the nerfs, most “discovered” builds at the time were all essentially variations on the one build – 10+ in Air, 30+ in Arcana, with the remaining 10-30 points put into Water and/or Earth for defense.
You will note that at all points, 30 in Arcana was considered to be optimal. Even when Fresh Air was introduced, 30 points was considered the best as any less would be sacrificing other Attunements. Conditions were becoming more of an issue now that Engineers and Necromancers were both going condition builds, so Ether Renewal found a way into builds especially since the channel time was reduced.
Water and Arcana were nerfed repeatedly throughout this time, with the final nail in the coffin coming in December 2013. Elementalist was now essentially Thief without Stealth, relying almost entirely on Fresh Air burst and still being shut down by Thieves as well as condition classes.
Now that Elementalists lacked reliable cleanses 10 points deep in Water and heck, the newest source, Burning Fire required 20 points in Fire and a useless Adept slot – matchups were extremely unfavourable, especially given that Fresh Air was now mandatory for enough DPS to kill Warriors.
The whole issue has been the fact that Elementalists lack Condition defense outside of Water (and no, Diamond Skin is not condition defense).
As for Toughness, PvE and WvW Elementalists can slot enough to survive burst damage and indeed, their build diversity is larger there. But in PVP, Valkyrie’s amulet can no longer provide enough DPS to kill Warriors nor the Vitality to survive Conditions whilst at the same time, Thieves still train down Elementalists.
If Elementalist is to have build variety – and I do mean true build variety outside of going 20+ in Water, 20+ in Arcana and calling it a day, then the current design of condition defense in Water, attunement procs in Arcana, Direct Damage in Air, Defense in Earth, Burning in Fire – must be abandoned for continued diversification of these functions throughout all trait trees.
Anything less is still going to make Elementalists put 40+ points in Water and Arcana because otherwise the resulting builds are too glassy to survive.
Celestial Armour and not Trinkets is what you should be aiming for.
Celestial Trinkets have inferior Critical Damage increases compared to Berserker, Valkyries and Cavalier’s trinkets, which makes their inclusion in a direct-damage focused build problematic. Armour on the other hand has superior or equal amounts of Critical Damage in all slots and is therefore superior – especially in the Shoulders, Gloves and Boots. If you’re after a little bit of everything, the best place to start replacing is there. Obviously the gains are higher when you go after the Chest, Helm and Legs, but you may want to use your “main stat” combination in those for the larger bonuses.
For Trinkets, it is almost never worth using Celestial for either Direct damage or Condition damage, as the gains are inferior in both. Trinkets are where your customisation can make the most impact and as such you should focus your efforts there.
In PVP, Celestial Amulet and Jewel is trash for all professions, including both Engineer and Elementalist – the two professions touted to be the “best to take Celestial with” due to their hybrid damage nature and requirements for most stats. Unfortunately, Celestial in PVP is massively underbudgeted considering the gains other Amulets and Jewels give, and Condition and Critical Damage there is also inferior, which puts the nail in the coffin.
One way to make Turrets more mobile without giving them free movement would be to replace the Detonate command with a “Recall” command that then chains into Detonate.
I haven’t read the rest of your post yet, but I had to stop here and say ZOMG SPIRIT RIT!
I’ve said many times in the past that the more we can make a turret Engineer to function like a spirit Ritualist, the better!
Having Draw Spirit on a chain skill after Overcharge or on the Toolbelt before chaining into Detonate would be all that Turret Engineer needs to be viable after all the bugs are addressed. At that point, the only weakness of the build would be to Conditions – for which there is Automated Medical Response and Healing Turret.
That said, care needs to be taken, as I have mentioned before, to not turn Turret Engineer into the next MM Necro or Spirit Ranger – both of which rely largely on AI as a shield and the source of their DPS. Turret control should be made as responsive as possible and Turrets should be strong area denial tools, but Engineer Weapon skills should retain the bulk of the damage output in such builds – with Turrets providing the Control and the Support.
An alternative mechanic that has less potential to abuse On Toolbelt Use triggers would instead be to put the Recall function on a Chain skill after the Overcharge skill. Overcharge already implies that the Engineer wishes to keep the Turret on until the Overcharged period is complete – letting the Engineer save the Overcharged Turret with Recall is also an option here, offers more granular balance, and prevents abuse of On Toolbelt use trigger spam.
One way to make Turrets more mobile without giving them free movement would be to replace the Detonate command with a “Recall” command that then chains into Detonate.
Recall would cause the Turret to start flying back to the Engineer’s position, stopping and becoming rooted again once within 130 range of the Engineer.
Recall would also have a cooldown consummate to the relative power of area control conferred by that Turret. Recall for Rifle Turret would have a cooldown of 10-15 seconds as it is mostly single target DPS. On the other hand, Net Turret’s Recall could have a cooldown of 20-30 seconds to reflect its CC power.
Recall should interrupt the skill queue of Turrets for instant response. The lessons of Ranger pets should be applied here to avoid the same mistakes.
This has several effects:
Traits would have to be reworked to support the Recall mechanic.
Overall, Turrets need to:
Engineer’s best range is 130 – 600 or so, that sweet spot where all your skillshots are almost guaranteed to hit and where you have enough time to react to gap closers or hard hitting attacks. If you’re playing Bomb Kit, that range decreases to 130-240, but you get better DPS as a result.
Besides range control there is also the need for more active defenses until you get your traits online. Best trait as many people have said is Speedy Kits from 10 Tools. I wouldn’t recommend using Grenade Kit seriously until you hit 60 and get Grenadier – untraited grenades are trash unless you’re playing Condition builds and even then you’re missing 50% of your application from the lack of traited Grenade Kit.
Engineer also uses many conditions for Control – Cripple, Immobilise, Weakness, Blind – use these skills to your advantage to let yourself take on more mobs than should be possible through facetanking alone.
Remember that you are not Warrior, one of the easiest classes to play in the game. Taking hits means more pressure to use your heals – and whilst Engineer has one of the highest healing available in the game – having to use it in PVE means that you’ve usually bitten off more than you can chew.
Your basic autoattacks – unlike Warrior – are also considered to be weak. Without chain skills, featuring low coefficients and low base damage, Pistol and Rifle are not suited to spamming 1 if you want to live – chaining and comboing skills gets you so much further that it is a requirement for both your damage output and your survivability.
As others have mentioned in the thread, getting Pistol Shield for general utility and then unlocking a Kit is highly recommended. I recommend Bomb Kit to start off with – the combos are obvious. Flamethrower is “meh” at low levels, unacceptably weak at higher levels – outside of FT2, the rest of the kit is normally relegated to general utility.
For a lower APM requirement, consider using Elixirs + 1 kit. I’ll let you figure out which ones are the most useful, but keep in mind that Elixirs are at their best when traited. They are still useful at base, but improve markedly with points in Alchemy.
Lastly, learn how to animation cancel. Rifle 5, Elixir Gun 4, Rocket Boots are movement skills that benefit markedly from increased precision of movement (or in the case of Rifle 5, speed and distance) when animation canceled. Channeled skills within kits also continue channeling when you press the kit’s utility hotkey again – use this to find cross-kit or kit→ weapon skill combos that would not be otherwise possible.
Engineer is a class with a high skill ceiling that only becomes more efficient with experimentation and experience. Reaching for that ceiling is a journey that will make you better as a player.
I would also suggest picking up more professions as you go along as well. Appreciating the individual nuances and strengths and weaknesses of each class design is no less important than fully mastering a single profession.
Elementalist:
Cleansing Water: This trait no longer has an internal cooldown while in PvP.
Meteor Shower: Updated the skill fact to display the increased endurance regeneration while the player has the Zephyr’s Focus trait. Added a red ring to indicate area of effect for enemy players. Added a white ring for allied players.
@ MonMallthias. I’ve seen you post and you seem reasonable but your facts are indeed wrong.
S/d cantrip was meta. D/d was good in WvW that’s it.
The problem was other classes where bad.
Would the d/d cantrip bunker be op against:
Current hambow wars?
S/d or s/p thieves?
Dhuumfire necro’s’?Those meta builds above weren’t around when ele was supposedly op. 10/30/0/0/30 thieves could have ran that build back then but it wasn’t nearly as good now. The others I mentioned weren’t viable at all back then warrior wasn’t even close to viable period. Necro’s had no dhuumfire
Not beating a dead horse but you get my point. The old cantrip ele wouldn’t even be viable in today’s meta and would possibly get a consideration if it had the old bugged 1500 range RTL.
Also cantrip =/= d/d ele.
Does decoy = pu Mesmer? Almost ever Mesmer runs decoy and blink.
It’s utilities and everyone can take them ele is no different. Every class has terrible utilities and bis ones.
I was under the impression that the reduction of damage reduction of Frost Aura from (I think it was 15%?) to the current 10% was aimed at D/D due to stacking with Protection, along with an increase of ICD to Shocking Aura. (Double Fury from Shocking Aura notwithstanding). In addition, Signet of Restoration had much better synergy with D/D pre-nerf than Scepter due to faster and better autoattacks (although the Rock Barrier/Hurl was quite strong with it as well).
That said, I didn’t play much Ele back then so I will concede that S/D Ele was meta back in the days when Elementalist was strong.
SOR did have better synergy with D/D but the problem well was really a bug fix you would get 3x procs of SOR from evasive arcana when they nerfed confusion and fixed the bug that caused you to bet hit with 3x strikes of confusion damage with SOR they also fixed the extra heals. That is what made SOR really good it is still my favorite heal but that is why it was much stronger back then.
For the Frost aura IIRC there was no 15% damage reduction on frost aura ever. It was just the chill but when they put a 1s icd on the chill they added the 10% damage reduction to it.
I honestly I would prefer the old no damage reduction but the chill with no ICD.
Oh, right. It’s been a while. I know the Signet of Restoration triple proc was definitely a bug and after the fix I think that was when D/D went into its decline.
8 profession 5 roles a old /d ele with no nerfs just bug fixes wouldn’t be that bad off in todays meta and wouldn’t be seen as gimping your team if you had to slot one as a replacement class. In essence it would be viable.
I still don’t think it would be one of the number 1 choices for ideal group comp but it wouldn’t be a terrible choice either like now.
Some of the builds present now weren’t possible back then or where terrible then for other classes.
The devs wanted to bring the other classes up. The players wanted Ele nerfed They went with nerf Ele. You can look it up on the Old SOTG on gw2curse on twitch it was the 3rd SOTG that it came up from Top sPvPers and the 4th SOTG they annouced the nerfs.
I spend alot of time reading on this game and they said before they buffed warrior and people complained that they where terrible that they have to be cautious. The warrior almost shipped according to Chap somewhat similar to what it is now. They don’t want to give Necro healing in DS because they said it use to be like that and it was unkillable which is why they haven’t given necro healing in DS.
So much this. I think the community gives the devs less credit than they are due, because some of their predictions regarding their changes have been remarkably prescient despite community attitudes. Then again, some of their changes have also been poorly thought out.
I think the key take away from the patch changes of late is that they have been coming too slowly. Changes that should be bug fixes are being coupled to feature patches, like Ranger nature spirit regen; as are number tweaks like the 8% Healing Signet nerf. The developers have shown that they are can be right, it’s just fixing their mistakes takes so long.
@ MonMallthias. I’ve seen you post and you seem reasonable but your facts are indeed wrong.
S/d cantrip was meta. D/d was good in WvW that’s it.
The problem was other classes where bad.
Would the d/d cantrip bunker be op against:
Current hambow wars?
S/d or s/p thieves?
Dhuumfire necro’s’?Those meta builds above weren’t around when ele was supposedly op. 10/30/0/0/30 thieves could have ran that build back then but it wasn’t nearly as good now. The others I mentioned weren’t viable at all back then warrior wasn’t even close to viable period. Necro’s had no dhuumfire
Not beating a dead horse but you get my point. The old cantrip ele wouldn’t even be viable in today’s meta and would possibly get a consideration if it had the old bugged 1500 range RTL.
Also cantrip =/= d/d ele.
Does decoy = pu Mesmer? Almost ever Mesmer runs decoy and blink.
It’s utilities and everyone can take them ele is no different. Every class has terrible utilities and bis ones.
I was under the impression that the reduction of damage reduction of Frost Aura from (I think it was 15%?) to the current 10% was aimed at D/D due to stacking with Protection, along with an increase of ICD to Shocking Aura. (Double Fury from Shocking Aura notwithstanding). In addition, Signet of Restoration had much better synergy with D/D pre-nerf than Scepter due to faster and better autoattacks (although the Rock Barrier/Hurl was quite strong with it as well).
That said, I didn’t play much Ele back then so I will concede that S/D Ele was meta back in the days when Elementalist was strong.
If you’re talking triple cantrip D/D with 0 10 0 30 30, the build is already impossible as Cleansing Wave was moved into Master to compete with Soothing Disruption and Soothing Wave’s mechanics were changed to proc only on critical hit instead of on attuning to water. Even with Cleansing Water, these changes alone puts most of the condition cleanse into Cantrips rather than on attuning to Water – which makes triple cantrip ironically even more essential.
If you’re talking reverting all the nerfs to Water Magic and just bugfixes, sure. D/D might even come back as a proper bruiser; even though Stunbreak was removed from Cleansing Fire and Lightning Flash.
In this instance, I could well imagine the following matchups to be as follows:
The problem isn’t chill, it’s how absurdly long attument cooldowns are.
It used to be 16 seconds baseline, ANet brought it down to 13 seconds but I believe it should be more along the lines of 6-7 seconds in order for Ele core mechanic to start feeling USEFUL instead of a frustrating hindrance.
I aggree on this one as well. Their skill have already their cooldown and their auto attacks are not that great, so why do they need such long cooldowns on attunement switches?
Meh, I feel that 13 seconds is fine as a baseline attunement CD. Any less devalues Arcana as a trait line, and any more makes Arcana way too essential. (see: Elementalists pre-buff to Arcana reduction).
The problem remains that Autoattacks outside of Air and (sometimes) Fire are garbage, and Chill affecting Attunement swaps. Fix those and you’ve already addressed half of the niggling class issues with elementalist right now.
Taking the long view, one should also expect more condition removal outside of Water magic with each attunement doing it their own way, along with changes to Signets and Glyphs to make them actually useful utilities in their own right. But removing Chill’s influence on Elementalist’s Attunement swaps would be a good first step. With 20 weapon skills available at any time, most of which are on 30+ second cooldowns, Chill already affects Elementalist more strongly than other classes.
66% Cooldown increase is no joke when your most essential skills like Updraft or Earthquake for /Dagger; Blinding Surge, Gust, Burning Retreat and Unsteady Ground for Staff; and Obsidian Flesh and Magnetic Wave for /Focus could have their cooldowns increased markedly.
Chill in this context is already punishing enough; to have it lock Elementalist out of, say, Water for Healing or Air for Blinds/Interrupts for an extra 1.5-3 seconds is more significant than players that might not be familiar with Elementalist give credit to.
Reserve Mines is definitely the worse Minor trait, being not only higher up in tier, but also having the snowball potential of killing you with Confusion at 25% HP. I still appreciate the extra damage of EPK (I do believe that it is the highest damage on-dodge proc in game), but there is nothing redeeming about Reserve Mines.
Just nerf Automated Response and they are really easy to deal with, just have a condi necro/engi/warrior/spirit ranger to destroy them.
Only broken thing with decap engi is automated response tbh
It’s funny how many times this has been repeated by various people throughout the thread and yet now the conversation is shifting to elements like Overcharged Shot, Supply Crate, Net Shot, Elixir Infused Bombs and so on.
AR Engineer will fall to Spirit Ranger, Warrior (!!!), Thief (!!!), Condi Necro, and so, so many more builds as long as the condition immunity is taken away to be replaced by an active component that requires cooldowns, or whatever else that promotes a skill floor. The change will ensure that time-to-live of Decap engineer will be significantly decreased, whilst not affecting ancillary builds.
What’s actually bad about the new changes to On-Swap sigils is not only that one profession can utilize them far better, it’s the fact that every other sigil will be completely obsolete.
This, pretty much. Unless On-Swap sigils are massively nerfed (and I do mean on the order of, say, making them Major or Minor tier at that point), I could easily foresee combinations like Battle/Doom and Energy/Leeching, or for condi builds, Geomancy/Hydromancy and Doom/Energy. Fire or Air/Intelligence could also herald some 100-0 spikers as well.
Either the current suite of on-swap sigils are entirely revamped, or else I’m foreseeing some ridiculously OP combinations; and Warrior will be a maelstrom of all of them.
This was one of my ancillary concerns going into the proposed changes for Elementalist in March. With D/D arguably being one of the stronger weapon sets and with excellent synergy already inherent within both the weapon set and Traits, why buff it further whilst /Focus and Staff languishes?
What Arenanet needs to realise is that the Triple Cantrip D/D Bunker DPS Ele is only 1 step away from becoming OP again, especially if the proposed changes go through, and that change is any alteration to Cleansing Water ICD. At a stroke, D/D will come back in force overnight; especially now that the PVP/PVE split of Signet of Restoration was reverted. At that point, only a reduction of RTL CD and debugging against Blocks and Aegis is all that is required for D/D to return.
This is a dangerous path that Arenanet is treading. The only consolation is that Conditions still tick through Mistform, and that Ether Renewal is now interrupted whilst Mistforming.
I am puzzled as to why Arenanet insists upon keeping Staff autoattacks as slow as they are, and 2 out of 4 attunements for Focus as weak as they are, and why Signets are so niche and weak that they have no strong place in the current meta; or indeed, why Arenanet does not simply alter Aura functionality as our primary defensive mechanic over Cantrips.
Their internal testing has vindicated them in the past though. 5 second ICD to Cleansing Water was derided widely by other people at the time as insufficient to kill triple cantrip D/D ele – yet Arenanet said their internal testing demonstrated otherwise. Time will tell if the path they tread is correct; but there are many, many pitfalls along the way.
Relax Mbelch, it’s just a knee-jerk post. Some just don’t read the thread in its entirety, governed by sense over reason.
I will have to say though that once Ele condition removal is reverted to its glory days that this buff (if it does indeed come) may well come back to haunt Elementalist in the form of complaints against it.
You can’t please everyone.
Big explosions guaranteed.
What i find especially annoying is that there was no problem at all in pve, yet they had to nerf it there as well.
Same for the old flamethrower/juggernaut.
That’s the consequence of “ideally no splits for PVP and PVE” stance that Arenanet has taken. The knife cuts both ways but really, the trait should have been properly tested and balanced in the first place; something that sadly has not happened for many trait effects.
You may commence your cries for a PTR and/or bi-weekly balance updates…now.
Would sweep the issue under the rug if there was simply a way for Arenanet to monetize Kit backpacks with Gem Store skins.
Advantages:
Disadvantages:
I dunno, isn’t that the point of counterplay though? Instant skills take the risk out of casting in the first place. Don’t get me wrong; they have their place; but with effects as powerful as Magnetic Bomb and Glue Trail I think opponents absolutely should get the chance to interrupt us.
Lol, typical Engi-thread:
Engi A: “skill x is now useless”
turns into
Engi B: “but this part of the skill is still somewhat strong, would deserve further nerfing”
Part of the reason why KR was nerfed in the first place was because the proc was instant cast. If you’d read a 100nades thread back then it basically boiled down to:
You can bet the same will happen if people die to the “instant” AOE pull or the “instant” glue trail that they never saw coming
Wow thanks a ton guys!
No problem.
/15char
That’s part of the point though. The only power tanky class we’ve ever seen work is warrior and that’s because they are grossly overpowered. We’ve never seen any other class run this because they’ve never had the proper amulet to run it.
It’s simple, introduce proper tanky amulet -> nerf warriors. Ele and Mesmer used valks during the power meta (a long time ago) and let me tell you the game did not feel tanky. Just because there is an actual tanky amulet that works doesn’t mean the game is tanky, that is just a fault of too many dodges/immunities/warriors, not the amulets.
And because ele and mesmer were allowed to run valks because of the lack of condis, we actually survived against thieves, which is exactly what we need rather than just instadieing to the thief that just turns his gaze our way. And we have to run berserkers on ele/mes because otherwise we don’t do enough damage to kill warriors.
I do not think it will make things worse unless warriors are left untouched.
snip of own post
Your post makes it sound like we don’t agree but… I think we agree on everything.
Amulet + nerf to warrior = good addition.
I have several issues with this though.
Increasing Trait Diversity in WvW
- Autodefense Bomb Dispenser
- Cooldown: 30s -> 25s (same as smoke bomb)
- Also trigger on immobilise(!)
- Exploit Weakness
- 1s immobilise (instead of 5s cripple)
- Acidic Coating
- Inflict AoE blindness in a 130 radius around you
- 120 would not be enough due to 130 melee range
- Tools Traits (significant awesome impact on PvP/PvE)
- Adrenal Implant: Move to Adept.
- Kit Refinement: Move to Grandmaster. Make it awesome.
- Not WvW-specific but could be amazing and great for build diversity
Longer Term Changes (Minimal)
snip
- Ascended Weapons increasing kit damage
- Large Scale WvW builds are all power-based and this hurts us by ~5%
- Elixir Gun (small buff in PvP but probably still won’t be used much)
- Elixir F: Only bounces to enemies (no swiftness on allies)
- Fumigate: Remove 1 condition on self at end. Replace vuln by 1s cripple.
- Grenade Kit (Retaliation!)
- Very strong despite slow projectiles but retaliation is a really big problem
- Only 1 of the 2-3 grenades should suffer from retaliation at all (random)
- Flash Grenade: 5s->3s Blind but 2x damage (still less than base attack)
- Flamethrower (Retaliation!)
- Autoattack should suffer from retaliation on 1st and 10th ticks (1/5th)
- Autoattack burn duration on final tick: 1s -> 2s (good change for PvP?)
- Autoattack could maybe hit 5 targets instead of 3 (see guardian staff)
- Jump Shot
- Range: 700 -> 900 (gives a decent gap closer without rocket boots)
- Alternatively find a way to significantly increase effective speed
- Maybe add an evade at end because it prevents dodging (PvP balance?)
- Glue Shot
- Significantly increase projectile speed (it’s effectively melee range)
snip
snip
- Bomb Kit Autoattack: Reduce explosion delay from 1s to 0.75s (only delay!)
- Regenerating Mist: Water field duration: 1s->2s (time for others to blast)
- Toolkit Thwack: Should hit 3 targets like rest of chain(!) and +25% damage
- Toss Elixir B: Radius 180->300 + Stability 4s->5s + Remove Might/Swiftness
- Mine Field: Cast time: 1s->1/2s, Fix Radius (240 traited), +60 Proximity
- (Bug?) Healing Turret: Fix Cleansing Burst to scale with Healing Power
- (Bug?) +Evasive Powder Keg: Radius: 120/180 -> 180/240 (match other bombs)
Overall I like the intention behind the changes and balance overall should not be overly affected. I just feel that Bomb detonation delay should not be touched; they are difficult to read as is. Making them be placed forward of the Engineer will already solve the self-kiting problem without introducing problems with cast/aftercast interactions altering DPS output.
Hello Engineers
I’m really wanting to use Healing Turret in WvW. I love the access to the water field. But as a personal heal for myself. I’m finding it very lacking for healing myself. I usually drop it, and then overcharge it, then detonate it. But when moving with the commander this heal feels very clunky.
I’ve thought about trying to stack regen on my Engineer so I wouldn’t rely on the actual heal as much. With backpack regenerator and mango pie I have decent regen, but not enough to keep me up most of the times.
Any advice you guys can give me on the turret?
Actually you know what here’s a video by Teldo on the matter. It will answer all your questions, and more.
Then the bottom line is that they shouldn’t have designed it that way, I think. It’s extremely cumbersome to manage when running multiple kits. I know firsthand how powerful the glue trail and magnetic bomb can be, but I still can’t justify taking the trait when I have such limited control over its activation.
The thing is, the trait is still quite formidable especially when you use it in EG and BK. Glue trail just sets up bomb kit like crazy and the fact that immob duration now stacks makes the combo even more formidable now. What needs to be improved is the other Kit refinement skills. Of course you could make a burning/might-stacking build with the FT but, a Condi cleanse and a 3 sec AoE burn beat that hands down and don’t get me started again on how bad the grenade kit refinement is.
snip of own post
The only reason I’d disagree with your idea is that, with your idea, KR can’t be used as an instant skill. Right now, because of the way kits function you’re able to use kit refinement whilst using other skills but, if we attach activation of KR to the activation of skills we’re at the mercy of stuns and interrupts.
I dunno, isn’t that the point of counterplay though? Instant skills take the risk out of casting in the first place. Don’t get me wrong; they have their place; but with effects as powerful as Magnetic Bomb and Glue Trail I think opponents absolutely should get the chance to interrupt us.
Besides, no 1 skill in Engineer kits exceeds 0.75 seconds in cast time (excluding aftercast); with the slowest being Drop Bandage (ridiculous aftercast) and Tranquilizer dart (minor aftercast, long cast). If opponents interrupt that, more power to them.
A lot of good suggestions for D/D and Traits. So I’ll focus mainly on Staff.
Fire Attunement:
- Fireball – projectile speed should be increased since it travels so slow and easy to dodge.
- Lava Font – The delay on its initial damage should be removed. An increase in either duration (up to 5 sec) or radius (to 180 and 240 w/ blasting staff).
- Flame Burst – Up the base damage of burning to 1700-1800.
- Burning Retreat – Be able to control its direction just like you would a normal dodge. It would add more to our survivability.
- Meteor Shower – Increase the number of meteors to 28 up from 24. In turn that ups the damage a bit.
Water Attunement:
- Water Blast – Up the base damage to 150 and the base heal to 400 maybe but dont have much of an idea for this one.
- Ice Spike – Reduce the delay to 1.5 sec. There is about a 2.5 sec delay from the spike forming and dropping on target. Add Combo Finisher: Blast to it(nice to have another one besides Eruption).
- Geyser – Increase duration to 3 sec up from 2. Decrease cast time to 1/2 sec down from 3/4.
- Frozen Ground and Healing Rain- I think these are good the way they are.
Lightning Attunement:
- Chain Lightning – Increase the speed of the projectile(Lighning should not travel so slow). Reduce cast time to 1/2 sec down 3/4 sec. Maybe increase the maximum number of targets to 5 up from 3.
- Lightning Surge – Increase the radius to 180(240 with Blasting Staff) up from 120(180).
- Gust – Make it more conal because this seldom hits it’s target.
- Windborne Speed – It is good they way it is maybe increase the swiftness granted to 15 sec up from 13.
- Static Field – This one is good the way it is.
Earth Attunement:
- Stoning – It is fine in it’s current state.
- Eruption – Add 2 to 3 sec of cripple from when it starts to from on the ground.
- Magnetic Aura – Increase duration to 6 sec up from 5.
- Unsteady Ground – Like Ring of Warding give it a radius 120(180 with Blasting Staff) and Combo Field: Smoke. Adds a new dynamic to Eles
- Shock Wave – Also good in it’s current state.
There’s a lot of good suggestions about changes or buffs to healing, utility and elite skills. I may look at Trident skills next but water combat is a rare occasion.
These changes are great for staff. A few things:
That’s part of the point though. The only power tanky class we’ve ever seen work is warrior and that’s because they are grossly overpowered. We’ve never seen any other class run this because they’ve never had the proper amulet to run it.
It’s simple, introduce proper tanky amulet -> nerf warriors. Ele and Mesmer used valks during the power meta (a long time ago) and let me tell you the game did not feel tanky. Just because there is an actual tanky amulet that works doesn’t mean the game is tanky, that is just a fault of too many dodges/immunities/warriors, not the amulets.
And because ele and mesmer were allowed to run valks because of the lack of condis, we actually survived against thieves, which is exactly what we need rather than just instadieing to the thief that just turns his gaze our way. And we have to run berserkers on ele/mes because otherwise we don’t do enough damage to kill warriors.
I do not think it will make things worse unless warriors are left untouched.
Hmm, I don’t know about this one. I think Warrior wouldn’t have actually received half the buffs it did if it weren’t for the fact that Knights amulet (Pow/Prec/Tough) didn’t exist at the time; which relegated Warriors to using Soldier’s or Berserkers – both of which were too extreme on the one end of tankyness vs damage output.
With Warriors as they are now, however, with so much HPS from Healing Signet and overwhelming condition removal, the addition of Knights amulet could well spell disaster. Warriors already put 30 into Discipline for Burst Mastery – the sustained direct damage mitigation from Toughness on Knights amulet coupled with strong regeneration may well further entrench Warrior as the King of the Mountain. Hambow’s damage output would only increase; with 569 Precision behind it granting 31% crit chance before Traits and Sigils.
I think that the addition of Knights; whilst a worthy aspiration, needs to be considered very carefully right now. I for one, would love it on Engineer and Elementalist. But giving Warriors Knights – and with March 18, double Sigil procs every 5 seconds – may well begin the 5 Warrior meta.
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