Guild Wars 2

Engineers have some bloat most definitely.

Firearms

• Hair trigger and rifled barrels could stand to be merged
• Sitting duck and knee shot should be merged
• Napalm specialist should probably be merged with fireforged trigger or Juggernaut

Explosives

• Acidic elixirs is a bad trait by design and should be removed. Thrown elixirs are thrown to buff and support, not for damage.
• Accelerant-packed turrets is only in this line on a thematic basis, move and merge with metal plating in inventions.
• Autodefence bomb dispencer needs to be changed to something more useful and fitting of a grandmaster (Important note, Grenadier is what a grandmaster shouldn’t be on the opposite end of the spectrum. A trait should make a kit better, not viable)
• Shrapnel could stand to be merged with Explosive powder, it probably won’t be at this point for balance reasons

Inventions

• Energized and Stabilized armor should be merged. On their own, neither trait is terribly desirable.
• Auto tool installation; this is a bad trait simply due to how the game functions and how turrets function in the game. Simply put, they are not saveable unless you pick them up. That’s fine, this trait is garbage though cause it has no use due to that point alone.
• Elixir infused bombs seems out of place here, Rifled Turret barrels should probably have Auto-tool installation merged with it.
• Powershoes needs to be an adapt tier trait again. Its an interesting ability that lets non swiftness build work but is prohibitively deep in the tree, limiting choices.

Alchemy

• Only real odd-ball here is Deadly Mixture. Elixir gun doesn’t need damage, its a support/condition kit. While flamethrower does. Get rid of this and give one the flamethrower traits 15% damage for the kit. Elixir gun needs to get its own trait (conditions last longer would probably make the most sense).

Tools

• Leg mods…why is this even here. Its inferior to speedy kits on a massive scale. Either change the trait to reduce movement impairment conditions, or get rid of it.

• Packaged stimulants is neat in theory, poor in practice, and outdone by the elixir gun entirely. Remove this trait. Better yet change it so it give gadgets some non-conditional condition removal or gives gadgets additional healing on use.

• Armor mods; this feels like it should have been in Inventions. Regardless it is bad because if an engineer wants to make use of retaliation they have Elixir B. Scrap it and give engineers a gadget grandmaster.

• Adrenal implant is outdone by invigorating speed and engineers interesting array of control options. It just isn’t worth a grandmaster slot in it’s current form. The placement is probably a balancing choice but this is a bad trait. Change it something more useful.

Overall: traits could use some trimming but the prime offenders are Inventions and Tools. Inventions is a rather underwhelming trait line overall. Tools is a good trait line with some really bad traits resting in it, namely the two grandmasters. Currently I’m fine with how traits are (as in it doesn’t bother me that much) and looking forward to improvements.

I think conjures need either time limits, or charges, but no both. They should have left the trait that made them break stuns :[ .

One weird idea would be to actually have conjures merged and have it just flat out replace your weapon skills. Use ‘conjure weapon’ and you have the lava axe, swap to air and now its a lighting hammer etc, and dropping it would just get you back to your weapon skills. The weapon you spawn would be double of the one respective to element you were attuned to. Or letting you replace your attuements with thier respective conjures would nice. That would make things like the staff more appealing because you could have ‘single target attunement’ to go to at the cost of not having that attuement’s weapon skills. I have no idea if either are viable from a balancing stand point, probably not.

NeXeD.3042:

If you can’t handle swapping attunements and all the buttons maybe you shouldn’t be playing an ele. Limiting yourself for ease of play is boring.

Considering that traits exist to encourage staying in a specific attuement I would be in favor of either having those traits changed, or having purist builds actually be viable. This would open up some fresh builds for them.

No hgh no problem: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQFAUlspyXnuSiF17ISIFF29JSxjRZfewWtFEC-TkAg0CvIsRZjzGjNSbs2MsA

Condi build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQJAqelspyXnuynF17IBoH5Fw8VkiHT5PKYrcB-ToAAzCpIaS1krJTTymsNNqYSA

People should run more control/ projectile hate/ boon removal if they hate hgh so much. Changing your game plan is part of adapting to the meta. If a lot of teams are running HGH, punish that choice and enjoy being fed easy wins. Have a dedicated HGH killer on your team if you must (yes that does work if you know what you’re doing).

I don’t really see the need for them. Pretty much any any skill that you should be taking notice of has a distinct look, and often a sound. Things that would have a cast bar worth noting like moa morph, are long enough that you should be dodging them at least. Other skills like churning earth and kill shot both scream “interrupt me!”

Having better audio/visual cues that are not excessive effect wise would be better. Mesmer shatters for example, all look the same until the illusions shatter and even then they look very similar save for distortion.

Learning animations is just part of skillful play. Both in pve and pvp. Most things that look important, or that seem like they could hurt, do.

Thieves need higher damage on sword 1, shortbow 1, and pistol 1. Stealth is balanced if its not constantly available on demand. Dagger/ pistol’s access to stealth is very good and sets up some pretty 1 sided fights or let someone hang around for long periods with little risk to them. If you reset the fight that’s ok, being able to constantly reset it when things aren’t in your favor is too much.

I still feel a lot of thief issues stem from initiative. From a historical standpoint it’s been the breaking point for quite a few skills. Just take unload. Unload sucks now, it shouldn’t, but it’s bad because when it was good you could just machine gun people to death at your leisure. Overall I think thieves are lacking in a few areas, but initiative makes it difficult to buff them without making something over the top. The profession needs a rework at this point.

Initiative needs to change. I don’t know to what, but thief weapon skills need cool-downs like other professions. Until they have them, strong skills will always be too strong. Since they can be used repetitively without any drawbacks (i.e. dodge 2 heartseekers player eats 3 more anyway/ old school pistol whip meta were not having invulnerability meant you probably lost the encounter.) and other skills will be too weak (and you can’t buff them cause then it causes problems). Giving them cool-downs would let them keep strong skills, open up the ability to have skills buffed, without making then open to the abuse that some skills have had in the past and some have today. Honestly things like black-powder> heart-seeker for stealth would not be nearly as annoying as it is if only was happening ever 15-20s rather than all the time.

We’ve had a whole year of the profession just being gimmick after gimmick. Backstab →heartseeker →cloak and dagger silliness → hasted pistolwhip → tactical strike → caltrops + deathblossom → mug burst → now flanking/larcenous strike & dagger pistol builds that stealth and reset the fight often. None of these would be an issue if the skills involved had cool downs.

I don’t agree with thieves being the best spike damage. That fits warriors way more (I mean that’s their thing, damage with a side of damage, right?). When I think of a thief I think of disruption and annoyance. Someone causing trouble all the time. Maybe I’ve just spent too much time in the inner city and rough neighborhoods.

While it is useless in chasing people past about 600 range, it is GREAT for kiting things and doing fantastic damage. It doesn’t bother me too much considering guardians still have teleports. I would rather have the orbs explode on hit for small aoe over projectile speed.

azuzephyr.7280:

If your entire team walked time and time again into moa without blocking or dodging once, then it isn’t the elite which needs attention

Yes, because casting from stealth, being stunned with no stun break off cool down, or getting hit with it after dodging something else such as focus fire isn’t a thing. Keeping track of people with all the field clutter a team of mesmers makes is super easy too. I’m not saying its over powered. But it is certainly viable and useful elite when used properly.

It not like people were walking into moa. Team fight occurs, they would wait and get into position were it was hard to keep track of, then moa and go for the kill. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t. It was however really funny cause I had never seen a team do it until recently.

azuzephyr.7280:

Varonth.5830:

azuzephyr.7280:

Actually Varonth what was complained about was starting from stealth, and I fully agree stealth openers should be outed with. Then people wouldn’t be coming here making reasons for bad form.

No what they actually complain about is, people going into stealth, pulling them via Into the Void, which is completely invisible to the enemy, and then Moa the guardian because he cannot dodge etc the Moa Morph (he might not even know that it is being cast as the mesmer is still invisible). You can also just pull/stun the guardian and moa morph him during this.
Guardians survive because of their skills. Moa disables all of them. Guardian fall like any other class (toughness does almost nothing to protect you) without their skills. Place an immobilize ontop of the moa. Win.

So like I said, get rid of SR opening and people have nothing to complain about. Tells are obvious, it goes back to skill – or lack of

I’ve had a few hilarious games were the other team was mostly mesmers and they cycle through moa to make sure someone is just always out of the fight. Its a strong elite and it always has been since it pretty much is a -1 to the other team when used properly. Time warp is really good for team-fights, but why bother with that when you make sure the other team can’t team-fight to begin with? I’m kinda surprised that when they buffed it they would nerf the evade it gave the player. Seemed more balanced that way, they can’t fight, but they get to slip away for 10s, and that’s a long time to be away from your team.

So why does anet listen to whiners? Well for one its the most vocal feedback, since people tend to complain about things they don’t like, rather than praise what they do. The other is just that a lot of players are not high-skilled at the game and that’s always gonna bias feedback. If you wanna do balancing you need to find out who your best players are and talk to them, because chances are they are going to have some strong, well founded input on balance. And sometimes, the whining is justified, things people really complain about are actually a problem that needs some addressing.

If the skill didn’t have its moderate cool down, maybe. Pull strength is based on how close someone is to the curtain, and it can even be used to fling someone away from you. Into the void has always been a utility pull. Its good, but it only really shines in team situations because mesmers don’t have the strongest skills to capitalize on it offensively. The skill is also doubles as an escape aid. The verdict- balanced. If you’re having issues from this skill consider this: if curtain is being dropped and a mesmer isn’t running, they are gonna pull you 99% of the time. Predicting actions is just as important as reacting to tells.

BlackhawkSOM.6401:

They better fix the other kitten thats wrong with the class b4 they start nerfing stuff. Pets are 50% of our damage and we have around 30% control over them.Also this better be a split between pve and pvp as pets are kitten in dungeons/wvw.

I think an issue was a miscommunication in beta. Originally most of the ranger’s damage came from the ranger, the pet was like an extra weapon. But pets were pretty fragile and had trouble hitting things. Now pets are too strong, but rangers don’t really do much damage themselves unless they run conditions. I don’t really feel the players wanted a strong pet offensively, just one that wasn’t always going to die in AoE and could reliably hit targets. If they reduced damage from pets, and buffed ranger damage I feel they would have many more viable builds. Axe, greatsword, and the longbow all took big hits.

I think my big issue with flanking strike is the crazy tracking on the skill. The old one was closer serpent’s strike on the ranger sword, the new one sticks to people like glue. Even if you dodge it, the thief is still in good positioning, which isn’t really called for considering infiltrators strike is on slot 2, and that sets up flanking strike → larcenous strike.

The skill is isn’t overpowered by itself, it is when all of its factors are taken into consideration: the evade, the damage, the boon removal, the very strong tracking, combined with no cool down thanks to initiative just make it over the top.

I can’t stress how much of an issue initiative is here, we’ve seen the same issue before on other skills, such as unload, shadow assault, and heartseeker. Anet needs to seriously consider changing initiative and how it works with thief weapon skills. Because unless they decide to give them cool downs this problem is going to never go away, it will just shift to another skill if and when it gets buffed. Strong skills need more prohibitive cost, otherwise they will used repetitively for max gain.

It doesn’t matter if it can be countered either, that doesn’t wholly make it balanced. You can spam aoe at your feat or do a number of other things, but that isn’t skillful high level play. Nor is it a fun, rewarding game-play experience.

They still do pretty well in pve, not really underpowered at all.

Zenguy.6421:

Hey, we might get a hot fix!
Or would that be a hot nerf?

Glue bomb will still be good, it just won’t be absolutely crazy on point.

Yah glue bomb is supposed to pulse cripples after its initial immobilize.

Benji.9203:

Conncept.7638:

Copenhagen.7015:

In pvp Engineer is one of the most common classes.

Because of a single skill – grenade kit.

This

15 char

Not counting the obvious surge of flavor of the month tourist to the class, I would still say they are low on the play scale. On the bright side you can generally see an even spread of the professions in pvp.

Canach (and by extension the golem) both need stronger cues. An audio one would be ideal, often I found myself not even looking at Canach. The golem one just seems odd cause the only information in the box is to lure it into a land mine. Canach shouting “Prepare yourself!” or NULL going “ARMOR MODE ENGAGED” would have been very nice.

My issue is that the fights both lack any real excitement or tension. I feel like this is a missed opportunity to really show who Canach is and really flush out the character some more. The fights also lack complexity. Having a fight in stages could have helped there. For example players could start engaging Canach as normal, then he stealths and you have to lure him into the mines to reveal him so you can go back to pounding on him, repeat. Each time you introduce more mines, and of more varied types. That would have been perfect considering the training hallway you set up leading to him.

I can’t find the Anet post they did kinda mention it when super adventure box came out and someone asked why it took so many bobbles to get something. What it comes down to is that people like ‘prestige’ skins to make them feel special. While you or quite a few people don’t care about needing to feel superior via appearance and just want to look cool, a lot of people do. People are strongly attached to needing to feel like a special snowflake, so making a few things hard to obtain helps out there. If you want a comparison consider legendary weapons and why they are such a crazy resource sink in to obtain vs. dungeon weapons.

I do think they miss out though on casual collector crowds with these boxes. Sometimes its fun just to try to get a whole theme set of something, but that’s impossible with current crate rates.

Anymras.5729:

The mortar has the same problem as the rest of the class – it tries to do everything and ends up with a lot of mediocre or situationally restricted bits.

Actually mortar’s biggest problem is the grenade kit is similar in function and stronger overall.

Mortar is a stationary deployable, in a game were you need to generally be moving or avoiding something.

1) Grenades have 3 grenades thrown as a base line of the kit. Power of each grenade reduced by 10%, grenadier changed to add +range and 20% damage (over all, so each grenade is getting 6.66%). Why? cause right now Grenade kit is the least splash-able of all the kits, you gotta have Grenadier for it to worthwhile.

2) Elixir X changed to just give you chaos armor for a time. Still random and unpredictable, but actually awesome and useful.

3) Mortar buffed to be viable in general. Needs more range and more damage. Grenade kit with grenadier is just better. Same range, more damage, and you can move with shorter cool downs.

Make story mode drop really solid loot and gold to make up for the fact it doesn’t grant tokens. You want cash and drops, you do story. You want tokens, do explorable.

Yamsandjams.3267:

So, if I’m reading in between the lines correctly, the underlying point of this is to bring dervishes into the game?

The funny thing is guardians actually play similar to dervishes in regards to being a front line class that uses magic to support themselves.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

No. Never. There is so much utility to having this be ground targeted. This is a high skill high reward kit. The devs will never make this happen because it’s a bad idea. Just practice. Also, how the hell does your hand hurt doing this? It’s pushing keys! God forbid you have to write an essay in your life time.

People have a terrible habit of excessively mashing keys, which in turn hurts them.

Copenhagen.7015:

Shar.3402:

be careful what you wish for
flat damage reduction on weakness would make classes with easy access to both weakness and protection insanely OP (hint: d/d elementalist)

I doubt a few seconds of damage reduction, which can be cleared easily since everyone runs condi clear, would be OP.

People have mentioned a few team situations where it wouldn’t be hard to keep weakness up on people. Elixir gun engineer would be really strong, just keep tranquilizer dart up on someone, watch as they do nothing to your team. Staff ele would also be really good support again.

Making it flat damage reduction, without making other changes elsewhere would just be foolish.

It may be low priority on the fix table because of its limited exportability but that doesn’t change the fact it should still be fixed.

Saying it should have been patched ages ago if it wasn’t intended doesn’t add anything to the argument, we still have bugs all the way from beta (we have less bugs than beta by quite a bit though). In a similar vein, lightning surge for elementalist had unlimited range for a few months, lol. Unless you’re coding for anet I wouldn’t assume something is an easy fix, sometimes even the simplest things get complicated.

Big no, this would pretty much ruin the class.

Endgame= more rewards? I don’t agree.

Am I the only person who does things for fun these days? That’s why we play games right? For fun? Cause if you’re not doing it for fun, you’ve made it work.

Zodian.6597:

haha oh thank god, I thought you were going to mention the bug where you can disable the inf return proc and just blink around the map.

Ha! “Thieves need more mobility”
That’s pretty messed up though, back cap and gank like a boss.

ensoriki.5789:

DiogoSilva.7089:

Having it only affect critical attacks would make weakness a very niche condition. Especially in pve.

In addition it’s keeping this condition in the land of Rng.
a 15% reduction or something along those lines in damage would be very potent in terms of damage mitigation for Staff ele, necro and mace/hammer warriors. Giving the warrior an indirect way of going around their lack of protection.

Flat reduction makes it too strong when paired with protection though, meaning either protection needs to be reduced or it has to be random.

Dagins.5163:

Krilce.7864:

You aren’t taking into consideration people you are fighting against, as they surely do not enjoy someone with spammable mini portal. Game should be enjoyable for both sides, not only one.

Cool tricks like this only add flavour to the game. I know, getting outplayed isn’t the most pleasant experience, but it’s a part of PvP.

It isn’t really outplayed when you’re losing due to bugged mechanics. It is not fair, nor is it balanced. It’s not like asking it to have 1200 max range is a big deal considering it is probably an oversight from people not using it in unconventional ways.

I would rather weakness be the flip of what it does currently; reduce the damage that critical hits do, rather than reducing the damage of non criticals. That change would mean it really hurts heavy burst builds, and promotes more balanced builds that have high base damage over large amounts of critical damage.

Necromancers need better access to weakness.

Exedore.6320:

I would say that lack of a middle of the road solution for power builds is the problem. Right now, all offensive power builds are forced into glass cannon stats. If they could drop some offensive stats from the berserker’s amulet (or even the vitality) and pick up 300-400 toughness (10-20% damage reduction depending on base armor), they would be in a much better spot.

I don’t entirely agree with this considering its more than possible to build solid power based builds with guardian, warrior, engineer, elementalist, and even necro without touching the berserker’s amulet. People just don’t make those or play them often because they; 1) in a team you don’t need the survivability if you’re just running in for the quick kill, 2) Focus fire means damage avoidance over raw armor mitigation, 3) People copy builds, and these builds are not common (even if they are effective).

I do think however the extremes in pvp (super high burst/overly defensive bunker) are a unified problem that edges out balanced builds in general because one pretty much necessitates the other.

It would be very nice if they changed/ added new events for Orr so smaller groups can do them and un-contest things.

Gerky.6948:

I agree with the OP 100%, I also think with the addition of mounts people will explore the world a lot more instead of just waypointing through, getting a much more scenic and adventurous journey through Tyria.

No they wont.

They will skip content, just like how they skip trash in dungeons. The developers left out mounts because it would be out of place and people would skip events. Respect their wishes. Be content with spiffy toys like the sonic tunneling tool or the riding broom.

On the flip side nearly every over the top burst build is due to berserker’s amulet existence. Changing it from its current set up to something like 798 precision,15% crit, 569 vitality, 284 power would make it more balanced against knight and soldiers.

Then you would have:

• berserker’s: crits often, crits hard, but hits low when not scoring crits

• Knight’s: crits moderately but not hard while still maintaining base damage.

• Soldiers: hits hard, soaks damage, but crits infrequently

This happens if you button mash, or you’re so close to your target your gun barrel points through them. In that case the game treats the target as being behind you. Spacing is extra important when using a rifle, but mastered it is a deadly weapon that will earn nothing but rage from your foes.

I have a simple but effective way of making Elixir X a good elite skill; make it give you 15s of chaos armor.

Scepter in general needs some help. It lost a lot of its combo power but didn’t really gain any good sustain in exchange. Most of the 1 attacks could use some help, shatterstone needs to either slow targets in its aoe before detonating, or deal damage then pop for a spike. Dust devil needs to be a whirl again. Dragon’s tooth could stand to be faster in exchange for damage.

I like how this gets 50 post but the feedback thread I made on turrets got squat: “https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/Turret-feedback/first#post2035401” clearly I need to be more inflammatory.

For those too lazy to click the link I’ll quote myself (warning, you may need to read):

Numot.3965:

As the title states, feedback on turrets.

Turrets don’t quite seem up to par with other utilities at the moment. This doesn’t mean that they are weak or useless, just they don’t feel as good as they could be due to a number of reasons:

• Turrets are static – As stationary placed objects turrets seem somewhat out of place in GW2 combat, were movement is very important in how encounters play out. This has its advantages in static defensive situations, but if you’re in an encounter when the combat is mobile (i.e., pve exploration, escorting, etc.) turrets fall behind. This by far is probably the biggest issue holding them back in my eyes.

• They feel awkward to manage at times – Having the ability to pick up your turret is great as it shortens cool down time and returns it’s stowed tool-belt skill. The draw back is you need to be by your turret to pick it up. While that’s fine, makes sense and works, it means you may be slowed down after encounters because you’re picking up your turrets. Especially if you set them out of the way. That’s not even getting into the effort of doing things like overcharging and then blowing them up like healing turret for maximum effectiveness.

• Semi prohibitive cool downs make them unattractive – I love rocket turret, but seldom use it because of how often I can make use of it and have it be useful. Turret cool downs, both on their tool belt skills and utility are the length they are because you can spend points in tools (to lower tool belt skills) and pick them up (shortening the utility skill itself). Even still some seem to fall behind, such as the thumper turret with shockwave. Now granted shockwave’s cool down reduction as of late it is a step in the right direction but it’s a great example of something having a cool down so high for whakitten does thakitten isn’t worth taking.

How can we improve turrets? I think turrets would be better if they were:

Short duration but potent – The turret you plop down doesn’t last long, maybe only 5s, using its skill, but then falling apart afterwards. Rifle turret fires a piercing volley of 5 shots, rocket turret fires 3 rockets (first 2 burn, last knocks down), so on so forth. The point is you use a turret like you use any other skill. This solves a number of issues at the same time. It makes them easier to manage for starters (helping new players), makes them more attractive for splashing into builds, as well as more suitable for mobile combat. Turrets only really feel like they pull their worth if they stick around for awhile (save healing turret), even then seem underwhelming at times.

edit: go go censor being weird.

garethh.3518:

Lordrosicky.5813:

Ranger might be slightly OP but its very minor if it even is OP. Doesnt deserve the QQ it gets imo.

QQ comes from pugs.
Pugs hate sitting in an unnending 1 or 2v1.

It could be entirely balanced in the upper tiers, but that just is kittenty gameplay in their eyes so the QQ comes bursting out.

Eles were far worse though.
I’m surprised ‘the unkillable dps QQ’ didn’t ease up after those nerfs.

When I play tournaments I hate bouncing bunkers of the point then kitting them around for awhile going “hey when you guys got the time, come to point X and kill this bunker for me”. It just isn’t fun, its boring, dull and pretty devoid of skill. The exact opposite of what the game should be.

Seras.5702:

Rifle has only 1 skill that attacks at range: auto-attack. Yet, for some reason there’s a trait to increase the rifle range. And people take it, which I don’t get. It’s not like you’re going to stand at max range & spam #1. At least with pistols, increased range actually works for a number of their skills.

The rifle is all about control. I’ve never used one because I can’t justify its stronger auto-attack vs pistols to having pretty much nothing else to deal dmg with at range. I don’t care if Anet decided engi rifles are short range, but at least be consistent.

Take that range trait and you get a 900 distance leap. That’s pretty amazing mobility right there. It also makes landing overcharge → jump shot easier if you’re not right next to them when you start.

The only way I can see the downed state damage being terrible is if you run a condition build. Or if you don’t realize the fact that if you’re downed away from something you can use 2 to pull it to you (like a weaker mob), then use 3 to blow it up.

Both of these skills are victims of balancing around initiative. Unload was really strong back in the day but also meant that P/P thieves just spammed unload till you died. Pistol whip was buffed, then nerfed when S/P pistol whip builds just stun-locked people to death.

In game name: Jacel
Main class: Engineer
Potential classes: Ranger/Warrior
Region: NA east coast

Practice times: evenings after 4pm during the week, anytime on the weekends
Experience: rank 40, some tourney (both paid and free)

Always experimenting with new builds and ideas.

I think the main issue of Raid on the Capricorn isn’t the fact a point is underwater, but the actual layout of the map. It’s small, so small that putting a bunker on mid and home will just win you the map cause even if you’re dislodged, it doesn’t take that much time to get back to the point and set up shop again.

I’m no dev, but I will say having the mid point be on the platform with the cannon, and putting a single boss monster in the water at ruins would make for more interesting play.

Epic.3950:

Daecollo.9578:

Final Thrust (Sword’s ‘3’) should be an interrupt, IMO.

umm. no hammer auto attack should interupt at the end of the chain but the chain should be 4 long.

Both would be terribly overpowered. Stop spouting nonsense.

Hammer is a pretty strong as a team fighter in pvp. The damage is good, the control is solid.

People need to stop thinking that glass cannon is the only way to build anything. It isn’t.

I manage to win down state fights with my engineer. It really isn’t that bad at all. It was bad in beta when skill 1 did next to nothing in damage, 3 did next to nothing in damage and dropped your hp by a considerable amount. Couldn’t rally off of anything in pve with it, didn’t do too much in pvp with it. Warrior is worse off as they need to either be lucky or trait for vengeance to be really useful.

As the title states, feedback on turrets.

Turrets don’t quite seem up to par with other utilities at the moment. This doesn’t mean that they are weak or useless, just they don’t feel as good as they could be due to a number of reasons:

• Turrets are static – As stationary placed objects turrets seem somewhat out of place in GW2 combat, were movement is very important in how encounters play out. This has its advantages in static defensive situations, but if you’re in an encounter when the combat is mobile (i.e., pve exploration, escorting, etc.) turrets fall behind. This by far is probably the biggest issue holding them back in my eyes.

• They feel awkward to manage at times – Having the ability to pick up your turret is great as it shortens cool down time and returns it’s stowed tool-belt skill. The draw back is you need to be by your turret to pick it up. While that’s fine, makes sense and works, it means you may be slowed down after encounters because you’re picking up your turrets. Especially if you set them out of the way. That’s not even getting into the effort of doing things like overcharging and then blowing them up like healing turret for maximum effectiveness.

• Semi prohibitive cool downs make them unattractive – I love rocket turret, but seldom use it because of how often I can make use of it and have it be useful. Turret cool downs, both on their tool belt skills and utility are the length they are because you can spend points in tools (to lower tool belt skills) and pick them up (shortening the utility skill itself). Even still some seem to fall behind, such as the thumper turret with shockwave. Now granted shockwave’s cool down reduction as of late it is a step in the right direction but it’s a great example of something having a cool down so high for what it does that it isn’t worth taking.

How can we improve turrets? I think turrets would be better if they were:

Short duration but potent – The turret you plop down doesn’t last long, maybe only 5s, using its skill, but then falling apart afterwards. Rifle turret fires a piercing volley of 5 shots, rocket turret fires 3 rockets (first 2 burn, last knocks down), so on so forth. The point is you use a turret like you use any other skill. This solves a number of issues at the same time. It makes them easier to manage for starters (helping new players), makes them more attractive for splashing into builds, as well as more suitable for mobile combat. Turrets only really feel like they pull their worth if they stick around for awhile (save healing turret), even then seem underwhelming at times.