Guild Wars 2

Arantheal.7396:

Bindaeyen.9613:

Arantheal.7396:

Calcifire.1864:

as someone who doesn’t PvP or WvW, I’m underwhelmed as hell.

the big profession mechanic is utterly useless in PvE unless there is someone dying nearby, and the elite is purely a PvP ability considering how insanely situational stealth is in PvE for non-thieves.

consider that for the elite mechanic revenants get a new legend, necros get a new death shroud, mesmers get to save-scum, the ability to rez/finish someone at range is so situational outside of PvP that unless HoT adds a LOT of finishable enemies like the toxic alliance, it may as well not exist.

We have no idea on the hammer cd’s & power-scaling so you may want to wait before calling it useless.
Also, do you remember the toxic alliance? I wouldn’t be surprised if you meet a lot of mordrem in the future that need to be stomped

They’re talking about the stealth elite and the function gyro being near useless, not the entire spec. I’m not sure about the elite, but the gyro is certainly near pointless in PvE from what we understand of it. It makes almost zero difference in open world.

Not to mention that they MENTIONED Toxic Alliance in their post. Assuming there’ll be a bunch of mobs to finish off is wishful thinking at best considering they seem to have ran away from that mechanic in PvE. Was there even any in the beta yet? Maybe that mounted boss from the story…? I don’t recall running into a single one.

It’s a heavily PvP skewed mechanic change, moreso than any other class’ and that’s extremely disappointing.

Opinions.
I for example find it extremely satisfying.

Well yeah, don’t you PvP often? On paper, Gyros are sounding quite useful in PvP and WvW. Neither of the Gyros, nor the base use of the Gyro itself, seem considerable in PvE. Especially the new Elite. I can see ranged revive being really nice for saving pubs in dungeons, but that’s about it.

The Hammer skills do sound really cool though.

And I’m going to wait until they show it off until I even consider any of these traits remotely good. There’s no doubt in my mind that Shocking Speed and Expert Examination and Perfectly Weighted have an ICD attached. Rapid Regeneration SOUNDS really cool but “rapidly” doesn’t tell me anything until I see the base and coefficients. Considering all the other healing traits we have, I am already giving up hope for it. Same with Adaptive Armor. Condition damage will probably be reduced by 25% and that’s me being generous.
I’d probably roll with SS/EE/PW traits.

As a side note, I find it really hilarious. Elite Specs are a way of adding to the areas that a class lacks in. Warriors get conditions, Guardians get range, necros can close distances better by slowing opponents.

Engineers… get better PvP skills.

Jerus.4350:

Nilix.2170:

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

Nilix.2170:

ekkue.3754:

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

Much better than Forge imo.
Forge just did not sound right, ‘forgeR’ maybe, but not Forge.
It’s like calling the engineer spec ‘Stove’.

That’s exactly what I thought. Forge as an English word sounds very ‘off’ for a profession’s name, it would be ’ a Forge’ or ‘Forger’. I’m not going crazy for grammar, just as a native speaker it sounds very strange to me.

Threadly reminder that a FORGER is someone who falsifies documents and paperwork and not someone who uses a forge.

And a Forge is a furnace. So neither of those names is really fitting for a profession.

And a tempest is a storm, yet it exists. And is one of the better profession names as well.

Yup, actually scrapper is a bit more odd. Look at what we have, Firearms, Explosions, Alchemy, Inventions, and Tools. These aren’t descriptors for people, they are areas of study. Forge would have made sense in the idea that’s sort of like inventions but a bit more oomph and less techy. I don’t think it would have fit the little drones though.

The Elite Specializations are more along the lines of titles rather than field of knowledge. But yeah, Forge really only made sense when we didn’t know anything other than the fact that they had hammers. With the electric theme, the title doesn’t suit it at all.

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

Nilix.2170:

ekkue.3754:

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

Much better than Forge imo.
Forge just did not sound right, ‘forgeR’ maybe, but not Forge.
It’s like calling the engineer spec ‘Stove’.

That’s exactly what I thought. Forge as an English word sounds very ‘off’ for a profession’s name, it would be ’ a Forge’ or ‘Forger’. I’m not going crazy for grammar, just as a native speaker it sounds very strange to me.

Threadly reminder that a FORGER is someone who falsifies documents and paperwork and not someone who uses a forge.

And a Forge is a furnace. So neither of those names is really fitting for a profession.

And a tempest is a storm, yet it exists. And is one of the better profession names as well.

ekkue.3754:

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

Much better than Forge imo.
Forge just did not sound right, ‘forgeR’ maybe, but not Forge.
It’s like calling the engineer spec ‘Stove’.

That’s exactly what I thought. Forge as an English word sounds very ‘off’ for a profession’s name, it would be ’ a Forge’ or ‘Forger’. I’m not going crazy for grammar, just as a native speaker it sounds very strange to me.

Threadly reminder that a FORGER is someone who falsifies documents and paperwork and not someone who uses a forge.

Kodama.6453:

Leaving some information here.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/3l1ldo/spoiler_engineer_elite_spec_some_details/

Seems like we are not going to get called forge.

This makes me sad.

Triangulator.2867:

Mcrocha.3891:

Forge is such a stupid name, it is an inanimate object. The only way it makes sense is if the engineer is the “forge” for the drones, which is still dumb.

Completely agree. I’m hoping the internet at large is experiencing the notorious ‘rouge effect’ concerning the spelling of this specialization. Forge is a great foundation. Forger is just so much more appealing, in all regards. Don’t duck it up a-net. We know your history.

Hell no. Forge is one of the best Elite Spec titles next to Tempest and Reaper. Also, the moniker that you’re looking for is “Blacksmith” but that sounds a lot more like a crafting profession than a Elite Spec. A forger, however, isn’t even someone who uses a forge.
Forger
?fôrj?r/
noun
a person who produces fraudulent copies or imitations

So unless it’s an Elite Spec based around being a cheap imitation of other things, then sure. We’ve spent a lot of time being seen as a sit-in for other professions. If the Elite Spec follows suit, maybe Forger wouldn’t be such a bad name after all.

It’s either you’re a forced beta tester now, or a forced beta tester at release.

Cameirus.8407:

I came back and my character is not my character anymore.

I kept playing the game without being able to make my character look as distinct as other professions.

But I think it would be cool if they turned them into skins.

Yamsandjams.3267:

• That’s the whole point of turrets though.
• If they wanted turrets to be mobile they wouldn’t have made them how they are.
• Of course, that’s part of what prevents them from being useful outside of anything but PvP at the moment (and not really even in there anymore), but that’s a separate, broader issue.
• Healing “turret” is not a turret by any means.
• Think about the other turrets. Would I pop rocket turret, overcharge it, then pop or pick it back up?
• In most cases, you’ll want to set rocket turret up so it can shoot at stuff. That is, you want to use it like an actual turret.

This right here encapsulates the entire joke about turrets. But don’t consider it a separate broader issue, because it really isn’t. It is, in fact, the issue.

Turrets are ‘meant’ to be used a specific way and yet they aren’t. Why? Because it isn’t helpful in that way. They go against how many people play the game. The only turret that IS well used is the one that isn’t used as a turret. It provides the bulk of its usefulness within a moment’s use and has a decent enough cooldown to be destroyed or picked up on the spot and is a lot less useful left standing than it is when it’s not out.

Fixing the Healing Turret to work much like the other turrets would be a travesty. Because it would simply make it either much more broken, much more of a liability to leave out, or just… flat out worse.

Consider this rework:

Healing Turret 35s CD
On use: Self Heal 1520 +(HealPowerScalingVar) Health & Cleanse one condition
Pulse: AoE Heal 400 + 3s Regen every 3s

→ Overcharge: Cleansing Burst 9s CD
Next Pulse AoE Heal 3520 +(HealPowerScalingVar) Health & Cleanse one condition & Water Field

There are significant differences here.
1) A higher base CD change. the current Cooldown is 20. Picking up the turret makes it 15. 15s is the same CD of the overcharge. Because of this issue, there’s no incentive to leave the turret out because leaving it out causes you to lose the initial heal.

2) On use Heal is lowered, Overcharge heal is raised. If you remember this is the same thing they did the first time they changed the Healing Turret. This was a step in the right direction since it made the secondary heal better for groups. Here we do it even more so that the Overcharge has a clear superiority to the on use.

3)Pulse has a flat heal attached. I really like how the bandages work in giving both a flat heal + regen and I felt like that would be good to mimic because it would make the regular pulses feel more useful even without HealPow

4) Overcharge CD is lowered. This is the important and most dangerous part. Being able to heal for 3.5k in AoE range is strong. This is the point where “Maybe I can leave this out/Maybe I should destroy his turret” really happens. Because now there’s a clear benefit (more healing, more often, for everyone) to having it out, a clear downside to detonating it or having it destroyed (35 seconds without a heal but at least with a detonation on water field, I can get a blast heal), and a decent give/take to picking it up (27s CD instead of 35s).

Now, this sort of change does one of the three things to players. In fact, it’ll probably happen in this order
a) It becomes more of a liability and people still don’t leave it out because they want to have their full heal more often.
b) It becomes seen as a flat out nerf due to the increased base CD and general delay on the large portion of the heal.
c) It becomes much more ridiculous as players who stick with it find useful ways to keep their turret away from damage and, in turn, provide better and more constant heals to their team. This will eventually catch on to every other Engineer and they’ll be using it in this fashion. Once it dominates PvP use, if it even falls out of PvP use, every other profession will come crying to nerf it down.

And I’ll just sit here laughing as people want the most fragile turret get nerfed.

Well, a lot of things have changed and turrets have only gotten a single nerf. I WILL admit that the nerf is pretty ridiculous in the face of current overachieving condi meta, so I feel you on this one. (Even World Bosses had their life totals doubled to balance it back out a little, come on ArenaNet) But as far as Engineer skills go, it’s really all about the tools you get and how you abuse them past their limits.

Anyone on this board can spout crap about why X SKILL IS MEANT TO BE USED FOR Y PURPOSE but the truth is that no one actually knows how to use Engineer, not even ArenaNet, and we’re all just making it up as we go along. Even the really good players. There’s just a lot of really good utility that you can put together to be useful but you have to be really competent at what you’re using it for.

In any case, don’t think that all these changes can come up and you can just play the way you did before. Especially not with turrets being able to melt just as fast as anything else to condi as it currently works.

Phineas Poe.3018:

they shouldn’t be viable either. Maybe in PvE, but never in PvP.

I have a serious issue with this thought though. Rangers have good use for pets. Mesmers use Illusions to great effect and dominate with them. It’s not the AI that’s a problem. It’s everything about how Engineers + Full turret play functions.

• one weapon set if you’re going “Full Turret” and not taking kits
• Can’t use Toolbelt skills without removing your turret from the field so you’re limited to only…
• Five weapon skills and some overcharges when they come off CD.
• Turrets are also immobile and so you stay within their range to make them effective.

All this put together makes you immobile and passive not as a player but by build design. As protective as it is, it’s also very debilitating when you have your turrets wiped and placed on CD. The immobility is also very inconvenient in PvE since you’re almost always traveling distances. There’s all these problems with it and they have a history of getting all these assorted buffs that don’t address that issue. So when they’re finally seen as “good”, it’s suddenly no longer worthy of being so BECAUSE of tangentially related issues (all the bullets above = passive gameplay + being = low skill floor = unworthy of being viable) and then we just throw it in the trash again.

Turrets need a rework. It’ll probably make people sad about how they believed turrets would have worked when they first bought the game but that’s just the state of things.

Phineas Poe.3018:

It is, actually, given how ArenaNet handled both spirit rangers and turret engineers when they dominated in PvP.

That’s ArenaNet’s opinion. And ArenaNet is often wrong in what they think is fine. Which is why they change things in the first place.

Vermillion.4061:

The new patch destroyed build diversity.

What?

Healing Infused Bombs
When I heard that attribute points weren’t going to be locked to my trait lines, I thought I could make a HIB build that was a lot more effective at damage and still maintain the heeals. But alas, you need blast finishers for that kind of thing now. Bunker Down is a decent replacement for myself, but HIB was good for groups that weren’t so good at Fractals

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Hello fellow golden children engineers! I want to find out how everyone is doing with the new changes. Either answer my questions directly or just write about what you feel is important for the devs to know.

Questions:

1. Ignoring the bug on grenadier making it godly, how have grenades felt with the 900 range? Does mortar kit make up for it?
   Grenades are okay, I didn’t really use it at max range much unless I had to. Mortar kit… I only ever pull it out to gun downed people from far range in WvW. Players have to be immobile or not paying attention for me to get it to work. I haven’t been able to tactically use the fields yet.
2. What elite have you been taking? If you had to rate them from best to worst, how would you do it and why?
   PvP – Supply Crate usually, Elixir X for a really silly build.
   WvW – Mortar for zerg, Supply Crate for roaming
   PvE – Supply Crate or Mortar. Mortar is really just for Silverwastes.

1. Are you using Flamethrower, EGun or Bomb kit more at all?
   Flamethrower is getting a lot of use because burning is kittened.
   Elixir Gun is also getting a lot of use now that it works with HGH.
   Bomb Kit is probably my most used kit on a normal basis

1. Engineers currently have a LOT of builds to work with. Which is your favorite so far? Please don’t include any builds that utilize bugs.
   My builds are really all just pieces. Things I like to combine so far has been Incendiary Ammo -> Throw Napalm -> Blowtorch, Bunker Down + Rifle -> Pulling enemies in with Magnet Pull, A.E.D + AMR, I’m going to see if I can make a turret build function well.

1. Have you tried the new med kit? My experience has been it being a bit clunky.
   A little but I’m not a fan of the ground targeting.

1. Are you using any heals besides Healing Turret now?
   A.E.D. sometimes

1. I’ve heard from some people that the gadgeteer trait is a bit lackluster. Do you agree and if so, what do you think would make it better?
   Haven’t tried it.

choovanski.5462:

I can 100-0 people with one grenade barrage and mortar was nerfed?

That’s the punch line.

Now just do this to Engineer turrets.

Bog.5893:

I don’t know why people are complaining about Mortar Kit vs Grenade Kit in PvE. Grenade kit has more hits and procs more vuln so it’s always the better option

This is why people are complaining

Recluce.3709:

how about if you don’t agree or don’t like it, then just DONT HIT “post reply”.

Half the reason to show up onto the forums is to discuss something that we don’t agree with. But respect is definitely in order.

That said, I am seriously 100% not joking about:

Nilix.2170:

Recluce.3709:

The hardest JP chest you can only get to after battling Jormag and the Shatterers illegitimate twin dragon babies that spawns only on odd days of the week when the moon is waning.

I would like to request that this become a dynamic event.

I mean, kitten . Imagine something like that just happening in a zone and ArenaNet doesn’t even mention it beforehand.

Whenever I want to kill a Husk in the Silverwastes, I press Incendiary, Throw Napalm, Blowtorch. Then I just move to something else because 5k burn ticks do the job pretty quickly.

Warpinator.9860:

Palindrome.8904:

Uh, people explain things in SW in map chat because many people don’t know how to properly do the fights. I personally feel that large PvE fights should be near impossible if people ignore the intended mechanics. Presenting such fights in a way that lets a handful of clueless people tank the event is just poor design.

SW been there for a long time, people know what to do.

You have no idea how much the failure rate at Indigo increased because of the beta key event.

Recluce.3709:

The hardest JP chest you can only get to after battling Jormag and the Shatterers illegitimate twin dragon babies that spawns only on odd days of the week when the moon is waning.

I would like to request that this become a dynamic event.

Streamlined Kits is the new Speedy Kits. Double the cooldown but also double on the length of Swiftness it gives. It just happens to also give you the Kit Refinement effects with it.

Casia.4281:

Gern.2978:

Casia.4281:

1. no. its too strong at that.
.

How do people keep believing this? How did they ever believe it? Before the nerf it had THE SAME BASE DAMAGE AS GRENADE #1 but it also is only a single attack, so it procks a single crit strike and thus applies far fewer conditions than greanade #1, so it did less damage than grenade #1 even before the nerf. Add to the fact that its as slow as the old grenade kit, but a much more obvious and easily dodgable/sidestepable attack and you can see that it was most definately not overpowered.

no it didn’t.

It currently has either a .8 or .75 coeff, with a .8 a/s.
Giving it either a 1, or .93 effective coeff.

Grenades have a .33 × 3 on a 1 a/s speed.
a .99 effective coeff.

everyone seems to be ignoring it was 20% FASTER attack then grenades with an either 1.05 or 1.1 coeff. (if the 28% was correct) giving it an effective 1.3 coeff, or 1.37 coeff.

Bombkit 1 is 1.25coeff, at .84a/s. giving an effective 1.48.

it was closer to BOMBS then it was grenades.

no one has produced a single shred of math to prove otherwise.
Maybe the “-28%” was even wrong.
what was the coeff EXACTLY?
do you even know? Do any of you complaining know what it was?

I took a screenshot before and after the change.
The values on the tooltip (which of course may or may not be wrong because magic) shows 705 before and 564 after. 564 is actually the edited value because Mortar Shot was bugged. While ArenaNet said that they fixed a bug that didn’t make it work with Shrapnel, there was also the 10% damage trait that it didn’t function with either. Untraiting from the explosives line gives me a value of 513 (90% of 564).
513/705 = 0.7276
So it’s somewhat safe to assume that the 28% nerf is real. However, Mortar Shot now functions with the rest of explosions. Going into the explosives line gives you a +10% buff which evens the nerf out to being exactly 80% of its former power, which is most likely what they were aiming for.

History repeating itself. Every single time it’s the same thing.

Once again, I don’t think any of us know what anything is meant to do with the skill in question and we can only ever theorize the purpose based on what is given to us, what they change, and what we use it for.

Reminder that Rocket Boots used to blast us backwards (and knock us on the floor for half a second) until it was realized that the only people using it hotbinded the “turn backwards” key to something simple so that they can turn a negative into a positive and push themselves forward with it.

robertul.3679:

I guess it’s time to nerf the heal on turret by 28%

Please don’t joke about this. The wound is still open and it won’t heal if you nerf it.

tl;dr Balancing Engineer is hard

The condensing of skills into single traits is something we’ve seen across the entire board. Incendiary Powder, Heavy Armor Exploit, etc. Elixir Gun lost two of the traits that affected it and got itself compounded into HGH. Also a new E-Gun trait that rewards active support by providing boons.

HGH supporting Elixir Gun shouldn’t kill ‘true’ Elixir based builds because the viability of EG is completely separate from what makes other Elixirs useful. Nothing that Elixir Gun does comes close to touching the reliable offensive boons from Elixir B (not even Inversion Enzyme), Quickness from Elixir U (which has been buffed), and the shelter that Elixir S provides from focus fire. All it’s doing is benefiting from the same trait. This allows Elixir Gun users to build into HGH and HGH users to the use of EG. From here, the only identity bleeding is “HGH” itself. It goes from being a build-defining trait (Juggernaut) to one with more flexible utility (Shrapnel). I just did a dungeon last night running Bomb/EG/Elixir B/Mortar running HGH and it was pretty good. If HGH didn’t buff EG and Mortar, I probably would have went with a different trait line or maybe take Iron Blooded (As a side note, that is the REAL invalidation to complain about. I don’t see anyone having a reason to run Iron Blooded with most boons come from Elixirs and competing with HGH for GM Alchemy use. Maybe a turret build w/ Experimental Turrets but we can talk about that in some other thread.)

I understand that it feels like you’re forced to use a kit because of their utility and usefulness but looking at build variety as “kit vs non-kit” just degrades the experience that each kit, and the profession as a whole, gives you. E-Gun and Bomb are two very different ways of playing. You’ll have your players who go EG/Bomb/X, Bomb/X/X, EG/X/X, and the build itself allows for very different things. They are entire weapon sets that give meaning to how you play. “Everyone’s taking a kit” doesn’t really sound like a problem they’d worry about since they handicapped the class into not having a swap from the jump. Playing without a kit puts you at a skill count disadvantage against every other profession. It isn’t easy making that viable without turning the builds that run only one or two kits absolutely bonkers. Taking a kit levels the playing field. What IS worrisome is when the problem becomes “Everyone’s taking Grenade Kit”. This is a thing to be worried about because it says that players don’t feel useful without this one specific skill.

Not rolling with a kit locks you out of many useful weapon sigils but that’s because of the restrictions of the class itself. There was even a time when weapon swap sigils (as well as the weapon’s attributes) didn’t work on kits either; locking out all Engis from those options. Even then, people were still preferred to use at least 1 kit to none.

The other alternatives are worse. Nerfing a kit does not promote the use of non-kit builds, it promotes the use of other kits, or worse, other professions. Buffing non-kit utilities will just make 1-kit, 2-kit builds even better because they have no problems running both. ArenaNet could probably make a trait that you could only use when you don’t have a kit at all. Something like: Unhindered: ________ happens when there are no kit skills on your toolbar But this has all sorts of issues that I can already predict.

• This is a precedent. Bonuses based on skills you aren’t using rather than the ones you are isn’t something they’ve done before. As such, it’ll probably be bugged to hell.
• If it’s a strong enough trait to compensate for not using a kit, then they’ll be promoting a low skill floor with more reward than probably deserved. You’ll hear the QQers in PvP forum saying things like “A build strong enough to not need more than one weapon is a faceroll build.”
• If they don’t make the trait strong enough, then it’ll simply go unused. Nothing will change except that we’d now have a trait option that’s virtually pointless.

I have no problem with HGH supporting EG (and Mortar’s 5). Elixir Gun is in a good place where all the traits it has available are excellent and yet aren’t “necessary” to use if you run it.

Xyonon.3987:

You could even have used the birthday blaster…(

No. They can’t use the Birthday Blaster because the Birthday Blaster is a recolor of the Scarlet’s Kiss rifle and that would confuse people. They’d think you’re wielding a rifle but you’re actually in Mortar.

It would also cheapen the really cool look of Scarlet’s Kiss.

It’s not pointless as there are still times when you won’t have vigor up, however it is quite wasteful. Since it doesn’t stack, total potential is kitten but I don’t know if it’s intended or not.

Urdhgag.2450:

Utility skill 2:
Grenade kit is your main damage dealing tool. Why? Because this build relies heavily on crits and 3 grenades with 46% chance for crit means 138% chance for creat every half a second.

Pointless number cruncher guy coming through.
46% crit chance for each grenade = 54% chance that grenade does not crit.
The chance that all three grenades fail to crit would be
(54^3) / (100^3) = 157,464 / 1,000,000 = 0.157/1
So you actually have an 84.3% chance to get at least one crit.

Carry on OP. I also enjoyed Bomb Healing builds.

This is what happens in real life when you wreck a city that is a historical landmark in and of itself.
It’s poetic. But I do love how it looks now.

At all. It still has the Cooldown from pre-patch and the minor trait in the Tools line does not lower it either.

nearlight.3064:

Forge sounds like something that would wield a hammer, maybe like some sort of blacksmith type of character, but I have no idea how they’d really flesh that out in combat.

…

If you thought burning was stupid now…

Goldenrevolver.4371:

nobody in pvp should get hit by that combo…

Won’t keep me from trying.

Goldenrevolver.4371:

yes weakness cripples power build but im asking myself why he was playing a power build. with his skill level he could wreck everybody with condi. boring but effective. and i know that condi necro is the main counter for condi engi but i think chaithh could have done it

Chaithh tried condi engi AND power engi. It just wasn’t doing it. Condi engi actually died faster. The other necro was really good.

Goldenrevolver.4371:

so karl was playing necro the whole streams. he played a hybrid necro to get a bit of life force regeneration. i was really surprised how well he did in the duels against top tier roaming streamers. he pressured successfully to hit sos and then followed with fear. stopped doing condi damage when shin used resistance and switched to axe and so on. he saw many matchups today and won against all of them atleast once….except engi because engi…

but with all of this he didnt have master of corruption because even he realized thats its more of a burden than a gain. maybe we’ll see some changes

pls as a reminder dont use this topic dont flame or offend/insult. its not the intention of this topic

For what it’s worth, Chaithh is a really good engi and he did well against everyone except for a really good necro. To the point where he said there’s probably no way to outdamage a good condi necro as Engi since constant weakness cripples Zerker build and condi control cripples Cele and Carrion.

Coated Bullets is SUPPOSED to be baseline. So if it isn’t that’s probably a bug.

We got tired of throwing grenades too far, so we made our Mortar Kit better. That way we can be lazy and not have to be baseball pitchers anymore. On the upside, our fastball has improved after two years of practice.

The original Kit Refinement wasn’t allowed by the Lionguard because a couple of engineers were mixing very potent drugs together and using it for enhancement. But they would overdose on it for the bursts of adrenaline and it wasn’t healthy for themselves or those around them. So in the end, it started getting regulated. Drugs are bad, okay?

Corresponding Notes about the Chart

• The fourth column is based on having six points in Tools trait line; resulting in a 30% “Increased Recharge Rate”. Note that Recharge Rate works very differently from Cooldown Reduction traits. Surprise Shot, for instance, would normally be reduced to 7s rather than 7.75s if it was simply 30% CDR. However, Recharge Rate follows a different formula and scales differently. I didn’t really double check this, but it’s reported it to be: CD / (1 + (TCR / 100)) where CD is the skill cooldown, and TCR is the toolbelt cooldown reduction. The values provided in this bar are simply the results that are shown on the tooltip.

• Elixir Gun’s Healing Mist is the only skill that received a 12.5% (1/8th) rather than a 16-20% cooldown reduction. Stunbreaks too strong.

• Rumble is the only non-racial toolbelt skill to NOT receive a cooldown reduction at all. I believe that this was simply an oversight and someone forgot to write it into the thread post for the June 23rd changes. In the case that it WAS intentional, its Tool Spec value refers to a 15% reduction of the original kitten cooldown. That being the case, it will be the only Toolbelt skill whose cooldown has been increased. Stunbreaks too strong ;_;

• Cooldowns shown on tooltips are rounded to the nearest quarter of a second. However, I lack the information of whether the cooldown in question is getting rounded up, down, or if the rounding even actually happens and the tooltip is only providing the estimate. Because of this, there is at most ±0.25 second margin of error for any value shown in the Tools Spec column.

tl;dr: I number crunched some stuff and found ‘possible’ buffs. This thread is for anyone who goes max points in Tools, likes excessive information, or just really likes charts. Warning: May contain math formulas. Dear New Players, Math is not needed to play Engineer effectively or enjoy Engineer. This is really just how I choose to spend my free time. Seriously.

Woke up this morning and realized it wasn’t Tuesday. But I was feeling very mathematical. And I remembered that it’s been a while since I made a very unnecessary chart on impulse so I opened up Excel and got to work on some things. Yes, these are the kinds of people who you share your profession with. Many of us are hype for Tuesday changes so I decided I’d put some effort into calculating some things. Since I’m a big fan of the new Kinetic Charge, I figured that I’d start with the Toolbelt changes.

Recently, I’ve been playing with a full 6 points in Tools. That gets you the 30% Increased Recharge Rate on your toolbelt. With the new changes, all of the toolbelt skills receive ~16% (1/6) CDR baseline (rounded down to the nearest second) and the additional 15% was put into a minor trait for the Tools Specialization.

Now, if you went with reflex math, that would seem to add up to 31% but it’s actually different. For example, if a Toolbelt skill was 100s, reducing it by 31% will leave you with 69s (CD * (1 – (CDR/100)) = New CD) However, what’s actually happening is that we’re reducing the full cooldown (100) by 16% and then reducing the remainder (84) by 15% (CD * (1-0.16) * (1 – (CDR/100)) = New CD) Using the same 100s example, your new CD would be 71.kitten

for those of us who went full points in Tools, this appears to be a slight (2.4%) CDR nerf. Seemingly negligible since you’d need to be using Elixir R to actually get anything close to a significant CD increase. But there’s one thing that I remembered back from the last time I made a pointlessly detailed chart. “Increased Recharge Rate” is somehow super different from “Cooldown Reduction”. So different that what would have otherwise been a small nerf for all players who put Max points in Tools is actually becoming a small buff.

Mind you, this buff is running under the assumption that the trait we’re getting NOW is actually Cooldown Reduction and not Increased Recharge Rate like before. If that assumption is somehow wrong, then I’ve wasted a perfectly good afternoon on inaccuracies but that’s okay because this is how I spend my free time.

Anyway, onto the chart itself:
Skill Name, Skill Type, and Toolbelt Skill are self explanatory.
CD is the current natural cooldown of the toolbelt skill with no reduction.
30% Rec Rate represents the cooldown after putting maximum points in Tools.
New CD is the natural cooldown we’ll have after the June 23rd changes are made live.
Tools Spec is the cooldown after being reduced 15% by the minor trait “Mechanized Deployment” in the Tools Specialization line.
Diff is the resulting difference between 30% Rec Rate and Tool Spec column. Lowered cooldown times are represented in black, raised cooldown times represented in red.

Oh, wonderful. 40s is more than good enough for a reactionary trait that breaks stuns/negates blind and throws fury on top.

I can hardly comprehend what an Elite Gadget would act like.

Reactive Lenses: When blinded or disabled you activate utility goggles.

There’s zero doubt in my mind that this has an ICD. I would just like to know what it is. I’m expecting something in the range 40 – 50 seconds.

I think I’d be worried about countering Reveal with Resistance and continuous returning into Stealth while attacking.

MattyP.6954:

I don’t know if it should be or will be nerfed, It’s a grandmaster trait, so it should be strong, and it’s highly situational. As for ElixerR, doubling that is going to have limited impact if the res fields don’t stack—that’s a pretty easy fix.

Secondly, after the 20 second cooldown, it’s going to be pretty hard to have a dodge left to trigger the ability again (even with ElixerR). Also, it only counts on successful dodge, not just a dodge in combat. So if you mistime a dodge or accidentally dodge a blinded attack (I think that “Missed” overrules “Evaded”), then you just burned your chance.

It’ll be strong, but it will be difficult enough to pull off as to not be completely OP

Definitely true. I did pick up on the need to successfully evade, I just hope that’s all it takes for it to not be seen as the most ridiculous thing ever. I just don’t really find it to be too situational nor hard to pull off. If you’re in a fight, and people are attacking you, you’re going to want to dodge. And if you’re good at dodging, it’ll trigger. It’s not the kind of thing you can open a fight with, but that’s really not much of a hindrance. Dance with your opponent a bit, dodge, get your trigger. And now you can use your free heal when you need it. If you don’t need to heal, you can use your free damage skill when you need it. It’s something that you actively take advantage of at your own pace for doing something you want to do. It at least SOUNDS a lot less wasteful then Streamlined Kits is when it comes to producing on-demand effects when you need it.

but we’ll have to wait and see until it shows up in game.

Arioso.8519:

Nilix.2170:

Super save people with double Elixir R or just the fact that you have an extra one without 100s Cooldown.

Wait a minute there…

If you time this right,

Can’t you have a toss elixir R every 20 seconds?

Screw quad lasers, that’s about a 50% uptime of resurrection fields!

And what’s Elixir R’s main utility skill?
Free dodges! So you can proc the skill pretty much whenever you want.

Elixer R will be insanely good with this trait.

Yes. That’s my thing. Of course, I guess the “downside” is that you’d have to use a slot for Elixir R. But we’re looking at two extra dodges, 1 condition cleanse, light field that doubles as a revive field that you have effectively reduced the cooldown by 80 seconds as long as you are a skillful dodger.
But the full list of usefulness is really amazing. Every 20 seconds, you can just double up.
Double Analyze: 20 stacks of Vulnerability immediately. Keep a thief from going stealth for 12 seconds, made even longer if you use the Lock-On trait.
Healing Mist: Extra Stunbreak
Super Speed: 10s of Super Speed or Extra Stunbreak
Double Toss Wrench, Double Orbital Strike, Double Surprise Shot, Double Net Attack, DOUBLE RUMBLE to synergize with Inventions Soothing Detonation for more heal + Stability + Stunbreak, Double Toss Elixir S, Double Toss Elixir B, Double Toss Elixir X, Double Incendiary Ammo, the synergy with Static Discharge, the extra vigor uptime.

Doesn’t Supple Crate’s Toolbelt skill drop bandages? Man, I’m telling you. I’m excited for this trait. It’s probably going to get nerfed. But I am EXCITED for this trait.

Dodge => Free toolbelt skill is honestly… I mean… yeah Quad Orbital Strike is amazing but. Let’s be real with Kinetic Charge right now.
I get to test out what running Moa Morph on a Chronomancer is like.
Two heals with Med Kit.
Ten Seconds of Super Speed.
Super save people with double Elixir R or just the fact that you have an extra one without 100s Cooldown.
It’s honestly one of my favorite new traits.

Smitten.3076:

Some of us truly have no idea why not getting a character slot/gems is an issue.

How should I put this?

If you maxed out your character slots to 8 and use all those slots, then you can’t just get another one.

Now, go on a character and type /age. That is the cost of deleting that character. Time. Effort. + however much gold was spent on armor, bag slots, etc. For some, that’s okay. Maybe you didn’t like those classes and just made them as bag mules. For others, that’s very very not okay. And for the ones who that’s very very not okay, that’s probably because they put a lot of time and effort into all of those characters. And you’re telling them that they can’t try out the new content unless they pay
a) the time shown in /age + the gold spent on that character
or
b) $25 extra (which happens to be 2.5x the regular cost of an extra character slot, a price they wouldn’t have to pay if they didn’t already max out their slots)

It’s the kind of thing that is negligible for those who don’t put a lot of time into multiple classes, but punishes the ones who put a lot of time into what can be considered EVERYTHING that’s available to them. And that’s very backwards. Everything about how this is set up benefits the people who play and experiment the least and puts veterans in a bad position.

- New Player: Get original game + get expansion + freedom to choose whatever you want without sacrificing anything else

- Current with one main and some characters you don’t care about: Get expansion. Delete a character or buy an additional slot ($10) if you want to make a revenant.

- Current with maxed slots with multiple characters you actively use: Get expansion. Delete a character or buy higher level product ($25) if you want to make a revenant.

The more you care about what you have, the higher the price gets.

PistolWhip.2697:

Let us not also forget, the Devs themselves have said Engineer was the hardest and has always been the hardest to work with in terms of balance and changes. I don’t know why, but if I took a guess I’d say it is due to their niche and weird mechanics compared to other skill bars.

I find it to be the exact opposite. They aren’t just balancing usefulness, but identity. As Engineers, we are stepping on the identity lines of every profession at the same time. Every other profession is more like a “niche” compared to the Engineer in terms of design. Even now, if you ask people “What is the _ profession supposed to do?”, Engineer is the hardest to answer. If you asked me that, I’d tell you “anything”. The ‘identity’ of a profession is relative to its perceived role. But the best thing about Engineer, or at least how I play with them, is how they just fill in blanks. We’re the RAMIREZ of GW2 Professions. Access to just about every condition, boon, and field type in the game but we’re not allowed to shine brightest in anything outside of the sheer number of blast finishers it can create for them. A jack of all trades profession in a game where EVERY profession is supposed to be able to fulfill multiple roles. However, while the other professions have much clearer roles that they can follow and do well in, in some other roles they don’t shine as much. But an Engineer can compensate for an entire additional role just by adding a single kit into their skill bar.

And that’s where the delicate line of balance comes in. You don’t want an Engineer to outshine a class in its most prominent role. Many people play Thief to do massive damage in subtlety. But if Engineers somehow were the class doing this more effectively, those players will just switch to Engineer instead and the Thief is stripped of its identity as the covert assassin profession.
At the same time, you also don’t want the Engineer to be subpar in that role either. Because if you did, it’s as if it’s not meant to be effective in that role at all and Engineers would focus more towards other roles. and the “Jack of All Trades” moniker wouldn’t mean anything.

I’m very interested in my Sylvari racial elites now. I’m hoping for something like
Take Root – Throw Seed Bomb (damage + bleed or torment) || Detonate Seed Turrets: (only if turrets are deployed, damage + poison or confusion)

I don’t know man. Some of these changes make me sad too (R.I.P. SSRB, PowerWrench|StaticDischarge both at Adept). But at the same time, I’m way too excited for the rest. Many people are looking at our changes and are calling us ANet’s golden child.

At what point in the history of this game have we ever felt this way? When they buffed turrets and told us we weren’t playing the class the way they wanted us to? Nah man. I’m gonna bathe in this.

skowcia.8257:

Manuhell.2759:

Engineers got substantially revamped. The class got many new traits, but it also lost many other traits.

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..

Engineer had a long presentation because they had to showcase the finalized changes. Remember that Engineer was the one profession to have their specialization traits discussed from a powerpoint presentation rather than in-game and had about six to seven traits listed as TBA. And some that were listed and weren’t even properly explained. They told us that Juggernaut was getting changed back into old Juggernaut but instead they merged both the old and the new together.

Irenio CalmonHuang.2048:

I was looking through Streamlined Kits and the effective loss of swiftness uptime there was an unintended consequence of Kit Refinement being packed together with Speedy Kits. I’ve gone ahead and changed the swiftness from Streamlined Kits to a 20s duration.

I was literally on my way to this forum to talk about this and here you are putting a smile on my face. I love you.