Guild Wars 2

PaladinVII.1647:

Phineas Poe.3018:

Spartacus.3192:

Paulytnz.7619:

I think we have to face it, with Colin gone (Engi main player if I recall), most of the enthusiasm/knowledge or focus for this class has probably gone too. But then again I could be TOTALLY wrong and am hoping so!

Engi main here and I dunno about this update yet, still haven’t logged in and assessed all the changes. But I’m gonna miss my Elixir Gun Skill 5+4 Retaliation combo. Gone for what, a measly 1 cond removal? Sure it’s meant to aid in “supporting allies” but really just 1 cond? Come on it should be at LEAST 2-3!

yes this change to light field made me very sad.

No way, man. Is this a joke? The combination of Super Elixir->Acid Bomb now clears three conditions on a 16 second CD with HGH. Do you not realize how immensely powerful this is?

This was a buff. If you need more retaliation, just run Elixir B or Rocket Charge your Super Elixir.

This! Super Elixir and Acid Bomb is now an amazing one-man combo! Light fields are now useful! Well, they were useful before – our enemies could drop a light field and blast it and watch a flamethrowing engineer take 6,000+ damage from each autoattack…

It only further solidifies the Elixir Gun as a valuable PvP utility. I don’t think it’ll ever leave our bar.

Spartacus.3192:

Paulytnz.7619:

I think we have to face it, with Colin gone (Engi main player if I recall), most of the enthusiasm/knowledge or focus for this class has probably gone too. But then again I could be TOTALLY wrong and am hoping so!

Engi main here and I dunno about this update yet, still haven’t logged in and assessed all the changes. But I’m gonna miss my Elixir Gun Skill 5+4 Retaliation combo. Gone for what, a measly 1 cond removal? Sure it’s meant to aid in “supporting allies” but really just 1 cond? Come on it should be at LEAST 2-3!

yes this change to light field made me very sad.

No way, man. Is this a joke? The combination of Super Elixir→Acid Bomb now clears three conditions on a 16 second CD with HGH. Do you not realize how immensely powerful this is?

This was a buff. If you need more retaliation, just run Elixir B or Rocket Charge your Super Elixir.

PaladinVII.1647:

I agree, that could be a possibility. I would not reply to most of the posts on this forum either.

But I would expect to see at least one post of “Thanks for bringing this to our attention, I’ll look into this bug” during such a long period of time. Since there is none and Mike responded as he did to my question…

Personally, I would like it if they would preview these changes beforehand. They were doing a nice thing where the significant changes seemed to only go to sPvP (where it is free to restat characters) first, then were unsplit if it worked.

I’d also like to see more AMA’s and that skill balance thread they started in the general forum that I unfortunately missed. Stuff like that is great.

This isn’t the bug-fix forum. Such threads don’t belong here in the first place.

But I would like it if ArenaNet communicated more, too. I would like it if most developers were more open to players across most games I play, but it’s just not very common and a lot of it depends on the attitudes and maturity of the player base as well as the philosophy of the design team.

Tynan Sylvester, the creator of Rimworld, for example, regularly reads, responds to, and even publishes his own content on Reddit. GGG is also incredibly active, and most Paradox studios make a point to be communicative to their fans. I think ArenaNet as a company culture doesn’t value those kinds of interactions the same way—but as I said before, there’s plenty of reasons why if you just look around at what is actually written in here.

They’re very much not alone in that mindset among design teams, and there are very few online games I play where developers make a point to be super active considering they’re often busy doing other things. It’s simply just not their role at ArenaNet, which is pretty much in effect what Mike was trying to convey to you. You read it as saying that they don’t read this folder when in reality it’s just not a part of their job description.

PaladinVII.1647:

I’d like to see more of that if A.net is considering future drastic changes such as what happened with flamethrower 2. That gives the community time to digest the changes and provide feedback – if they will listen.

I pulled this apart from the rest of your post because I think it’s important to establish that ArenaNet does listen to us, and many of the changes made through the pipeline are based on community suggestion.

We asked for an elite specialization that lessens our dependency on kits and gives us a bona fide weapon—and they delivered one to us. We asked for a simpler PvE rotation and they buffed power engi to where it now does 30K DPS. We asked for a unique aura and they overhauled Pinpoint Distribution. We asked for more build variety in PvP and they buffed Blowtorch and Flame Blast, ostensibly for the core condi engi build.

Do they do everything we ask for? No. Of course not. And given what kind of ridiculous ideas are floated around in this folder I don’t think they should, either. But Irenio in the AMA directly responded to a number of questions regarding kit use, and he came out and said that gadgets are a priority for him.

Instead of complaining about their lack of communication, maybe you could make a point to help him, and give him something to read that’s actually worth responding to: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Official-Skill-Balance-Thread-22-February-Update/page/2#post6505559

PaladinVII.1647:

Phineas Poe.3018:

PaladinVII.1647:

This shows and proves the disconnect between the developers and the community in regards to the Engineer.

Just because they don’t reply that doesn’t mean they’re not reading.

See (2) and (2a). It has been over a year and a half. There is still a sticky of beta weekend 3 on the top of this forum. It is my belief that this is evidence that this forum is dead. I would be delighted to be proved wrong.

Nothing in “2” or “2a” dispute the actuality of my statement. Just because they don’t reply that doesn’t mean they’re not reading. And really, what is there to respond to around here? Look up and down the top page of this forum. It’s full of people crying that their open world FT build is nerfed or that kits should be turned into a full-blown profession mechanic with cooldowns.

If I was Irenio I wouldn’t waste my time replying to such drivel either. Most people commenting here have such a poor understanding of this profession it shakes my head that ArenaNet devs are actually forced to subject themselves to it.

PaladinVII.1647:

This shows and proves the disconnect between the developers and the community in regards to the Engineer.

Just because they don’t reply that doesn’t mean they’re not reading.

Obtena.7952:

Phineas Poe.3018:

Obtena.7952:

Phineas Poe.3018:

Obtena.7952:

You aren’t going to find spammable AOE direct damage builds in MMO’s for a reason.

Have you not equipped the Bomb Kit?

Yes and? You’re comparing bomb to FT gameplay? I think that’s a hard sell don’t you? Maybe if the bombs actually targeted players, you would be on to something, but that’s not how they work.

You said “you aren’t going to find spammable AOE direct damage builds” and that’s precisely what power engi is.

I wouldn’t classify that in the same league as FT … you can lay bombs all you want, but if people don’t step on them … that’s a massive distinction from making FT a power weapon that can target players. So I’m pretty sure that’s why it’s not as easy as people think to make FT a power weapon. The balancing considerations are completely different between them.

I mean, you want to just argue pedantic here … OK, bomb is spammable, it’s AOE and it’s mostly direct damage, but that wasn’t the context of my original post in the first place so … ?

What context was missed? It was literally the only point you made:

Obtena.7952:

It would not have been easy at all to make FT viable for power builds … any experienced veteran of MMO’s knows how fast spammable AOE direct damage builds get nerfed. FT was never going to favour power builds for this very reason.

You said the FT was never going to be viable because “spammable AOE direct damage builds get nerfed.”

Power engi is literally a “spammable AOE direct damage build.” Bomb Kit has the largest range/radius of any auto-attack in the game, and it’s arguably the strongest. And guess what? Power engi got buffed: they buffed Shaped Charge, Glass Cannon, and Static Discharge.

Buran.3796:

Phineas Poe.3018:

Now that Byzantium boxes will always give ascended shards, I anticipate walking out of next season with at least two full ascended armor sets, earned exclusively through PvP—probably crafting the chest and legs normally. It’s really quite nice what they’ve done, while simultaneously making daily crafting actually valuable again.

Most of PvP will not craft, and most of PvErs will not play PvP. Queues will last longer. Yeah, is really nice. I’ll play for fun as long as last, but I earn 3 gold coins each 10 minutes I gather iron or wood in PvE, so crafting in PvP makes no sense to me.

The idea isn’t to get “most PvErs” into PvP, as most PvErs don’t even do raids or fractals in the first place.

The idea is to make PvP rewarding enough that it’s worth doing. It doesn’t have to be the most profitable thing to do in the game (and most certainly isn’t) but having PvP give raw gold and ascended ascended armor is critical to breathing new life into the game mode.

The other idea is that while you can make 10 gold an hour mining iron, it’s not particularly fun. I don’t find spamming Silverwastes or FOTM 40 to be particularly fun either, but I do enjoy PvP and have played it plenty over the years to see the situation for what it is.

As I said before, I nearly completed a legendary through one season of PvP. I don’t expect to have to grind content I don’t want to for gold moving forward, and that is a major paradigm shift for this game. There are thousands of PvX players just like myself that enjoy all aspects of the game but have goals that require gold to fulfill. The new seasonal rewards manage to scratch both itches.

Jourdelune.7456:

Asking spvp players to grind CRAFTING crap thing, is not going to help us at all.

At least the CRAFTING stuff should be buyable (30g +, i dont care about cost but grinding craft game is so boring and nineties — UO – EQ grind bad stuff that GW should oppose since it’s core is based on that).

First, PvP players don’t care about ascended gear. The whole thing was a carrot-on-a-stick for PvE players to get into PvP.

Second, most of the ascended materials are buyable. The only thing that’s account bound is the final product: the grandmaster marks. You can feasibly just purchase everything through the gold made in Byzantium boxes.

Third and most importantly, It’s still far cheaper to craft an ascended set through the grandmaster marks than it is to make a set normally, and you’re still going to get hundreds of gold PvPing over the course of season six to pay for all of it.

I am 90% done with Astralaria, essentially just saving up for Mystic Coins, and I literally bought everything I didn’t have already stored in my bank through the gold I made in PvP last season.

Now that Byzantium boxes will always give ascended shards, I anticipate walking out of next season with at least two full ascended armor sets, earned exclusively through PvP—probably crafting the chest and legs normally. It’s really quite nice what they’ve done, while simultaneously making daily crafting actually valuable again.

Obtena.7952:

Phineas Poe.3018:

Obtena.7952:

You aren’t going to find spammable AOE direct damage builds in MMO’s for a reason.

Have you not equipped the Bomb Kit?

Yes and? You’re comparing bomb to FT gameplay? I think that’s a hard sell don’t you? Maybe if the bombs actually targeted players, you would be on to something, but that’s not how they work.

You said “you aren’t going to find spammable AOE direct damage builds” and that’s precisely what power engi is.

Obtena.7952:

You aren’t going to find spammable AOE direct damage builds in MMO’s for a reason.

Have you not equipped the Bomb Kit?

Rickster.8752:

BigKev.1927:

Jekkt.6045:

Phineas Poe.3018:

Jekkt.6045:

gw2 is everything else than remarkably well balanced.

What did you feel was so egregiously overpowered last season?

the whole game is in a state of overpoweredness and spam. core specs are basically useless, half of or even more of all skills / weapons are useless and should in no way be buffed with cooldown reductions. gw2 pvp used to be all about dodging high impact skills/combos or baiting dodges so you can land yours. this aspect of the game is close to nonexistent these days. balance looks different. just because it is playable doesn’t mean it’s well balanced.

You nailed a very important concept here. The dodge mechanic of this game is so unique and is really what made it special for pvp. They keeping giving more and more block/evades to the point where dodges are becoming less and less relevant

Yup, it used to be clever use of dodges was key. Now you simply have to chain all your dodges/blocks/evades as much as possible because all skills are spammable with short cds and hit so hard.

Too many dodges, blocks and evades which are just spammed to avoid the massive damage skills on low cd with hugely powerful passive traits behind them.

I mean if you guys don’t like HoT PvP that’s absolutely understandable. I agree with a lot of what you guys are saying. But the crux of my post was that the balance between professions in season five was remarkably solid, and very little changes were expected by most players who saw all classes played at a high level. Braindead or not, balance in season five was among the best I’ve seen since this game launched.

The symbol damage buff concerns me, but beyond that I expect season six to be very similar.

Everyone always plays instagib builds after balance patches.

We’ve been asking for a unique aura for years. While it’s nice to finally have one, it’s a bit sad it took them this long to give one to us.

steelheart.7386:

I guess they are just fine with 40-50% of the classes being Warriors and Guardians in ranked matches.

They nerfed Adrenal Health and Purification.

What more do you think needed to be done? Asking seriously here.

steelheart.7386:

This was one of the worst patches ever with zero real nerfs to anything and a bunch of nonsense buffs. I mean really. They must have a tiny staff working on this game. 10% nerf to warrior healing and 16% nerf to the heal trap for Guardians. WTF is wrong with these people?

A 16% reduction to a healing skill is one of the biggest single-patch nerfs to a healing skill I’ve ever seen. That’s literally a Rapid Regeneration-level nerf.

Kodama.6453:

Oh, we used to be pretty valued for our ability to shred break bars with slick shoes for Gorseval (since you bring him up). Remember what happened? They nerfed slick shoes. Hard. Problem is that engineer gets nerfed at every single topic he is good at. Removing the daze from Gyros was just another example. They were marketing Scrapper as a CC based elite spec, then nerfed our ability to CC with every patch so we are not really that good at it anymore.

And nerfs can be reverted into buffs? I’m not really sure where you’re going with this.

We’re talking about changes to the engineer that can be made down the road, and not how things are currently today. Engineer in its current state is relegated to a DPS role in most PvE content. The OP was insinuating the solution was for us to grin and bear it, pushing kits more heavily as a core mechanic of the engineer. I offered an alternative, explaining that there’s more to the engineer than just DPS (and kits) and that there’s historical precedent for content to require and for engineers to fill that role.

Kodama.6453:

We are pretty good at removing conditions from allies thanks to Fumigate. But our ability to clean conditions from ourselves is actually not that great. I think elementalist is actually better at this job, so still no reason to pick an engineer. And elementalist is cleansing himself too, not just allies.

Elementalists are indeed good at removing conditions from allies, but they take a lot of traits and utilities to do so—at great sacrifice of their damage. The Elixir Gun by comparison is an objectively strong skill while also giving us Acid Bomb; to take a term from the ARPG genre, it’s a “one point wonder.” The opportunity cost is substantially lower, and in areas of the game where condition cleanse is more important, it’s not outside the realm of possibility that the engineer would be more increasingly valuable to a raid by dropping out one of their offensive kits for a defensive one (or the Purge Gyro).

The point is that the engineer has multiple hats beyond the DPS role, and entrenching the engineer in kits does nothing to push the profession in other areas or diversify its play style—the core objectives of new specializations in the first place (which is something I said in the beginning of this thread).

Jekkt.6045:

Phineas Poe.3018:

Jekkt.6045:

gw2 is everything else than remarkably well balanced.

What did you feel was so egregiously overpowered last season?

the whole game is in a state of overpoweredness and spam.

So nothing, then.

Okay.

Good talk.

Jekkt.6045:

gw2 is everything else than remarkably well balanced.

What did you feel was so egregiously overpowered last season?

Kodama.6453:

Why didn’t they add a small tick of burning on every damage tick of the flamethrower like many people suggested instead of just increasing the burn on the end of the channel by 2 seconds?

Because it forces you to make a choice between riding out the full channel and applying 4 seconds of burning or swapping to something else mid-channel and getting nothing.

This buff serves to keep the FT in check in PvP/WvW while also forcing a bit of intelligent usage on the user in PvE.

With blasting light fields no longer granting retaliation (Flame Jet’s primary weakness), I don’t know if you realize how gigantic a buff this is to the FT in PvP. It may not be enough to make it viable in S6, but this is a MASSIVE step in the right direction.

Can we also be honest for a moment here? Flame Jet is one of the worst auto-attacks in the game. Calling it a power attack is a travesty.

coro.3176:

These changes don’t help with all the projectile hate in the game which, IMO is the main thing keeping non-hammer-scrapper engi out of pvp & wvw. All your attacks, grenades, elixir throws, etc. are still reflected, blocked, and nullified.

The main thing keeping non-scrapper builds out of PvP is the rate in which we apply conditions versus the rate in which they are removed. Having Flame Blast on a 6 second cooldown now applying 3 stacks of burning is precisely what we needed. In fact, it may be the one change that keeps Berserker in check next season, having a strong burning applier at nearly the rate they cleanse.

They hit the things they had to. Purification was slightly nerfed, Adrenal Health was nerfed, Signet of the Wild was fixed, and both engi and rev saw some buffs. Last season was remarkably well balanced. We just needed more checks against DH and Berserker, and with condi engi being buffed we may now have one.

Besides, most of today’s balance is related to PvE changes, not PvP.

Really? I love this change.

The only power attack on the FT was Flame Blast. Now the kit has a bit more “purity of purpose.”

I am incredibly optimistic seeing some buffs to core engineer.

With Blowtorch being buffed and Flame Blast now applying three stacks of burning, this will substantially help condi engineer a lot and make it a more competitive choice.

Static Discharge and Shaped Charge buffs are also quite a big surprise, though I’d be remiss to think that Tools engi will ever be as strong as it was pre-HoT.

I’m looking forward to messing around with core engi tonight when I get home from work. What do you guys think?

Kodama.6453:

While this is true… how? Scrapper was designed as a supportive tanky alternative for engineer. So you create content which is in need of a tank…. problem here: there are classes which fulfill the tank role much better than scrapper is ever able to. So no one would take a scrapper for this job if they can get someone who is more efficient at it.

Scrapper isn’t just a tank, though it is obviously tankier than most of the new specializations. It was primarily billed as a crowd control specialization: “a bruising style of lockdown and negation melee to the engineer.”

While gyro dazes are no longer a thing, Thunderclap is still among the longest lightning fields in the game, and it’s well within the realm of reason to suggest that scrapper could potentially fill a role in future content if crowd control was a bit more important.

Heck, we already have existing examples of both raid bosses and entire fractal/dungeon instances requiring more-than-usual amounts of CC. Gorseval, Mai Trin, and the entirety of the Twilight Arbor Aetherpath are great examples of what such content might look like.

It’s also not news to anyone that engineer is the strongest condition cleanser in the game. Between Purge Gyro and Fumigate, nothing compares. If they made a boss fight where conditions were far more threatening, we could also find ourselves rotating away from FT/BK/GK for every fight.

Ultimately, you guys need to look at things not from the perspective of kits being the be-all-end-all but from the perspective of what kind of content demands alternatives.

bearshaman.3421:

When I look at the builds listed as meta, it’s typically 4 kits and healing turret, and not just in raids, and not just for condi. There may be some variation on this, but kits figure prominently every time.

The reason is simple: absent of any need for the utility that gadgets, gyros, and elixirs provide, we maximize our damage output. Three kits offer the most damage of any alternative, power or condi. And until there’s some type of utility beyond our damage that we bring to groups (e.g., Slick Shoes for break bars) there’s no reason to believe this will ever not be the case.

The truth is that GW2 PvE is mindnumbingly easy in 2017. Guardians don’t even take consecrations anymore for the majority of PvE content because everything melts so fast that projectile walls are no longer needed. And because warriors and revenants generate so much might passively, there’s no need for S/D elementalists or might-stacking engineer builds. And while raids themselves are mechanically challenging, build complexity (and subsequently variety) has never been more straight-forward and one-dimensional. You bring druids for GOTL/heals, mesmers for alacrity, and others for their unique buffs and boons. Everyone is put into their own little cubby and very little changes from wing one to wing four to challenge that safe space.

This is why jack-of-all-trade classes like elementalist and engineer, once valued in PvE for their ability to wear multiple hats in a dungeon or fractal group, are now strictly evaluated by their contributions on a damage meter in raids.

This has absolutely nothing to do with the strength of kits but everything to do with the content itself. Engineer in PvP and WvW has tons of utility beyond DPS. And while some of its supportive/CC elements relate to kits with magnet pulls in the Tool Kit and the supportive elements of the Elixir Gun, gyros, elixirs, and even gadgets are regularly rotated into and out of the meta build after every balance patch.

The answer to this problem isn’t moar kits but to press ArenaNet to design content where scrapper-like builds actually fulfill some degree of purpose in cooperative content.

Supreme.3164:

What should never occur is the creation of hardcounters, they kill all the fun and make the outcome of each fights very predictable.

Why is predictability a bad thing? Expected outcomes makes the game far easier to balance, and also makes the game mode far easier to learn and get into. If every build could reasonably 1v1 every other build, there would also be very little role identity between the classes and everyone would end up feeling the same outside of their obvious differences in aesthetic.

It’s important to have hardcounters. Every competitive game has them.

Supreme.3164:

Guardian:
- Make the pull blockable and reduce change to 600
- Add cast time to Test of Faith
- Wings of Resolve base healing reduced to 2.1k

That’s all really…no carebear balance, just rightful nerf/buff cycle

Do you think Purification healing for over 10K with a Mender amulet is balanced?

Nightshade.2570:

In any case, profession leaderboards would of been awesome!

Profession leaderboards can still be a possibility, even without profession locking. Just track the MMR players have when winning games on their engineer, for example, and only have that number change when they win/lose their next game on it.

Could still be manipulated to some degree, but I’d rather they have it than not.

I guarantee you that the usual suspects will be up to their usual shenanigans. If you can’t swap after the countdown, you’re just going to see people swap classes at the final seconds of match prep, before the other team has the opportunity to react.

It has to be all or nothing.

Loboling.5293:

The other big reason is shown in my picture. Class stacking is too big of a problem without people being able to swap class. Team composition matters. And not allowing players input towards that removes their ability to define their successes. You either win or lose based on matchmaking, or you swap class and counter your enemy team. (which sometimes goes south when people play non-meta builds, which again adds to the complexity of build and class swapping)

I read posts like these and I just shake my head.

Until profession locking is a thing, class-stacking will persist. There’s literally zero purpose behind designing a matchmaking algorithm that prevents class-stacking when players can just stack teams on the other side of the loading screen. This is also not taking into consideration how such a system could be gamed or manipulated (e.g., pro league players all queue on the same profession to avoid one another, and then swap on the other side to their main).

You guys are also complaining about the lack of build variety, but you also fail to recognize that with class-swapping being a thing, there’s very little incentive for ArenaNet to change anything with that. Why balance every profession to 1v1 everyone when the system allows you to just swap to an alternate profession—and when pro league players claim that multi-classing is desired in platinum? Season six might be a bit of a kitten show to start with regard to class balance, but it will at least hold ArenaNet’s feet to the fire and pressure them to improve build variety. Simple fact is: we’ll never have one without the other.

Until we have profession locking, we’ll always have class stacking as a factor. And until we get rid of class stacking, we won’t ever have a better PvP scene.

I am just fed up with this PvP community thinking they know better than ArenaNet when time after time it continues to shoot itself in the foot. Season five was an effing travesty and the implication that this community knows how to police itself or knows what’s best for this game is an effing joke.

So many people that write in this forum have zero foresight, and care only for the short term, or what only benefits them.

Exedore.6320:

Funny thing is, GW2 used to have a solo queue and a team queue (parties of 1-5) option.

Solo queue was popular early, but dropped off after a couple months. Solo queue was based mostly on luck in getting the least number of clueless players, was full of “solo queue heroes” who tried to 1v1 everything and ignored capture nodes, and general toxicity and blaming everyone else.

Team queue allowed for coordinated strategy and tactics, which added way more depth to the game. Larger queue size was far from guaranteed victory (contrary to claims of solo queue backers).

GW2 doesn’t have the population for split queues. Why repeat the same process again?

Solo queue didn’t die because of a lack of player population necessarily. It died because team queue was more profitable, gave more rank progress, and had a better map rotation. Solo queue was pretty much just what unranked is today.

wwDefuser.2056:

Well… i just look at that options u create and … face palm.

5. is not possible , cause (2-5) team queue… you cant create teams out of duo-queues only and you definitely cant do it out of 4 !

A mix of 4. and 6. would be the best imo. SoloQ (1player) and a seperate teamQ (1-5). That system already existed within the last 2 years.
Regarding the low player numbers it’s probably better to have a soloQ only and a teamQ in form of automated tournaments once or twice a week.

I imagine 2-5 meant groups of 2, 3, and 5.

Results of the poll are unsurprising. Solo queue and team queue (either dynamic or 5s-only) is really the ideal. I imagine most voted for other options simply out of the belief there isn’t the population to support split queue.

zealex.9410:

Phineas Poe.3018:

Crinn.7864:

Exedore.6320:

If professions were locked, winning or losing would be largely based on luck with getting a better team comp. Get 3 support or 5 DPS? Oh well, bend over and take it! That makes rating less accurate, not more accurate.

This

My main is a necromancer. Necromancers require certain comps to work.

What you’re complaining about isn’t a matchmaking issue but a balance one. I think most would agree that with the game’s direction pushing solo/duo queue it’s in the best interest of everyone to run builds that are self-sufficient. While not exactly “meta” classes, druid and engineer were very favorable solo professions for this reason last season.

If you want to play a build that’s reliant on support players being on your team, it may be also a good idea to just duo with an elementalist.

At the end of the day, forcing class-locking gives a much stronger signal to ArenaNet the strength of each profession and better identifies which situations they consistently struggle/succeed in. And if everyone suddenly stops queuing with their necromancers, that also will easily signal to ANet just how serious the problem is.

Thing is its a team based mode and not a solo experience which will happen if that change goes through. In every game there are classes/builds that work really well with other classes and the sinergy outweights the performance of each class if it was self sufficient, that creates further depth and also stresses the gamemore and anet far less. Since you live it to the players to make a comp for the specific team they are up against and the map. Im still in favour of that over having anet trying t find me a good comp any day of the week

Team-based or not, you can’t intentionally run a build that depends on a designated composition and think you’re going to be successful in a solo-queue environment. Duo with an elementalist or change your build.

And just to reiterate a statement made in the poll: “The Guild Wars 2 PvP team is exploring the idea of locking profession during queue for Arenas. Locking profession would allow player profession to be accounted for to increase matchmaking accuracy, but may increase matchmaking times.”

The truth is that very few players are equally skilled at multiple professions. The system is far better off trying to find a player equal to your skill level (e.g., platinum) than having a platinum player swap to an alternate class that is gold-tier at best with it. And with players locked to a profession they can more easily account for and prevent class-stacking.

Crinn.7864:

Exedore.6320:

If professions were locked, winning or losing would be largely based on luck with getting a better team comp. Get 3 support or 5 DPS? Oh well, bend over and take it! That makes rating less accurate, not more accurate.

This

My main is a necromancer. Necromancers require certain comps to work.

What you’re complaining about isn’t a matchmaking issue but a balance one. I think most would agree that with the game’s direction pushing solo/duo queue it’s in the best interest of everyone to run builds that are self-sufficient. While not exactly “meta” classes, druid and engineer were very favorable solo professions for this reason last season.

If you want to play a build that’s reliant on support players being on your team, it may be also a good idea to just duo with an elementalist.

At the end of the day, forcing class-locking gives a much stronger signal to ArenaNet the strength of each profession and better identifies which situations they consistently struggle/succeed in. And if everyone suddenly stops queuing with their necromancers, that also will easily signal to ANet just how serious the problem is.

Exedore.6320:

Emdrix.6124:

Idk why most people voted no, if classes were locked it would be possible to see the best players of each respective class and the matchmaking would have been more accrurate.

I don’t know why so many people voted “yes”.

If professions were locked, winning or losing would be largely based on luck with getting a better team comp. Get 3 support or 5 DPS? Oh well, bend over and take it! That makes rating less accurate, not more accurate.

To counter the luck element, more players would play strong 1v1 builds which can survive in team fights like warrior and dragonhunter. Playing something which has clear weaknesses like support ele (can’t win if DPS is weak) or thief (not good against lost of DHs) is too much of a liability.

And this truth is hilarious considering most people voting “yes” probably thought this change would reduce class stacking.

It could, to a degree, reduce class stacking just on the simple assumption that profession-specific MMR and leaderboards would create more incentive to play the classes you actually enjoy versus what’s actually best. I think claiming a top 10 title for a given profession also carries with it far more prestige than having a top 250 title—but maybe that’s just me.

And even if it wouldn’t eliminate it entirely, if leaderboards were profession-specific rather than a general top 250, there’d be substantially less incentive to cheese and would actually make flavor-of-the-month classes much harder to obtain titles with.

In games like Diablo III with its class-specific Solo Greater Rift leaderboards, it’s quite evident.

I voted yes as I desperately want a profession-specific leaderboard, and because I want profession-based MMR again.

I will admit I am no where near as strong on other classes as I am on engineer, but I also want to play other professions in a ranked environment and try to improve.

lLobo.7960:

Sorry, but kits are much more than just another utility skill.
They are a core mechanic for engi just as much as the toolbelt, or as ranger pets, or warrior burst skills, or ele attunements.

There is a pretty obvious difference between engi kits and everything else you mention here in that toolbelt skills, pets, burst skills, and attunements aren’t optional. They’re ingrained, core aspects of their given profession that you cannot remove—hence their title as a “core” class mechanic.

And unlike all of what I’ve mentioned, kits aren’t an ingrained, core aspect of the profession. They’re certainly powerful utilities, and just like warrior banners and guardian consecrations, they get an inordinate amount of attention compared to other options, but that doesn’t make them a core mechanic—and there’s nothing stopping ArenaNet from releasing kits on another profession in the next expansion, or putting banners in engineer.

lLobo.7960:

Classes are not limited to one, and only one, mechanic. Thieves have steal and initiative, revs have legend swap and energy… Some class mechanics are spetial skills (f1-5) some are not…

You’re right that classes often have more than one “core” mechanic, and that sometimes relates to a managed resource like adrenaline/rage, astral power, energy, and initiative. Illusions, in fact, could arguably be both a core mechanic and a skill resource.

Engineer does, in fact, have more than one “core” profession mechanic, but it’s not kits; it’s the toolbelt and the function gyro. And this is what you’re not understanding.

The purpose of elite specializations is to add new, different things to the profession—or enhance existing core mechanics (e.g., rage or continuum split). So yes, rangers got new pets, warriors got new burst skills, and engineers got new toolbelt skills and the function gyro.

It’s also true that engineers don’t have a weapon swap, and it’s true that’s arguably because of kits, but that doesn’t mean that kits are a core profession mechanic, and it doesn’t mean that they can’t add a specialization down the road that locks us out of kits while granting us weapon swap.

master.1607:

Engineer
Necromancer – Win

Uh, what? Necromancer pretty much hardcounters engineer by design. Engi gets decimated by any class that boon strips or regularly reapplies conditions. Not only does necromancer do both of these, but necro also contains us in team fights through saturated CC (primarily chill and fear).

Core engi (condi) is supposed to counter warriors, and rifle engi is supposed to counter bunkers. But because both builds are literally garbage tier we’re stuck with the Scrapper, which is ideally supposed to counter ranged classes. But with dragonhunter having such a stupid amount of sustain (Purification is a 10K+ heal with Mender) we have a hard time killing them at times without good Light Aura management or risking running Marauder. And druid can just run Signet of the Wild, so those fights can get muddled. Truth is, a lot of the time DHs can just stand in their traps and symbols and walk away from their computer. LB DH has a harder time vs engi, but losing out on Magnet pulls and the Grenade Kit forcing us to melee trap/symbol builds makes the whole “engi counters DH” argument just feel like a meme in 2017.

I personally think engi is in a state where it really doesn’t hard counter anyone definitively (e.g., rather 1v1 guard with druid or war), even though we’re still hardcountered by necromancers.

Kurenai.6258:

Phineas Poe.3018:

When Guild Wars 2 launched in 2012, they didn’t even really have any real back items. They were just invisible “straps.” You can still buy them in WvW, if you don’t know what I’m talking about.

is it still available to buy it from WvW?

Probably. The point is that when GW2 launched back items weren’t a cosmetic feature, or even that common. It’s what made engineers visually distinct, and it was why a lot of people would transmute their Christmas back item (which was account bound) to look like the engi backpack in 2012, before the wardrobe came out.

TwiceDead.1963:

Phineas Poe.3018:

The reason you’re having trouble is because that build is designed with the assumption you’ll be playing with a team that provides direct healing support and boons/buffs to optimize your performance.

The raid build isn’t designed for solo content, or even 5-man content. Even if you weren’t dying, it’s just not really the ideal setup for open world content or even dungeons (where power is generally preferred, anyway).

I strongly disagree.
You can make up a lot of the faults the raid build has by simply playing well and still utilize a great amount of it’s potential.

It has literally zero stun breakers. It’s just not designed for solo content.

More importantly, condi is absolutely not worth running if mobs die in five seconds. Running around in Lake Doric with that build is just hilarious. Just wear full Berserker and tag everything with bombs for literally identical if not superior damage.

This thread makes my head hurt.

Specializations add new utility sets, not add onto existing sets. Warriors didn’t get new shouts, elementalists didn’t get new glyphs, and engineers didn’t get new kits.

The purpose of adding future elite specializations is to expand the class into new directions, and give us a new playstyle the profession didn’t have before. Not to be rude but there are already multiple suggestion threads and this conversation is seriously pointless and misunderstands the actual purpose elite specializations.

And +1 to just go play ele if you want cooldowns on kits, or want kits in our toolbelt. Seriously, wtf?

Kurenai.6258:

A simple question, why on earth would you choose your profession as engi and complaining about the main characteristic of that?

When Guild Wars 2 launched in 2012, they didn’t even really have any real back items. They were just invisible “straps.” You can still buy them in WvW, if you don’t know what I’m talking about. It wasn’t until Fractals and the Living Story began literally months after the game’s launch that they started to actually release cosmetic back items and the problem quickly revealed itself.

So the implication that I “chose” engineer on the basis that I’d be cut out of a lot of those cosmetic rewards is not particularly accurate, because there weren’t any good back items in the game at launch—and I don’t think even ArenaNet properly thought out or recognized the bind they put us in, which is why they ended up just gutting them.

Many of us requested that the kits only showed up when we hid our back item, thereby still giving us some semblance of choice … but I imagine just removing them was the easier option for ArenaNet.

Alec B.8905:

To look at future engi weapons (not utilities) we must break down what we already have.

4 total weapons:
-hammer
-rifle
-pistol
-shield

Each of these weapons fall into a combat range zone:
Hammer is mele
rifle is mid range to mele
pistol is midrange
shield is mele

What engi is currently missing is two things, a long ranged weapon or another mele off hand. The reason for a mele offhand is because engi already has a mid-ranged offhand and there are no other offhands that could act as a long range weapon. The reason for a long-ranged weapon is due to the fact that engi has no long ranged viability.

Possible weapons:
-longbow
-shortbow
-staff/scepter(dealing with energized lighting thing????)
-mace
-dagger/axe(doesn really fit the engi “style”)

What we now have are weapons that fit the play style that engi does not yet have and that is, an offhand for shield/pistol offhand and an actual long ranged weapon.

People who say that rifle is long-range just no…plz no. rifle 2, 3, 5, and even 4 are skills that must be used near the player to gain full effectiveness of the skill ONLY the auto attack is long-ranged.

Engineer has Mortar Kit, Elixir Gun, and Grenade Kit for ranged purposes. I’d rather they not give us another ranged weapon, especially when there’s very little incentive to have one.

I’d much rather have a 1H power weapon that complements the shield—ideally a mace.

I like that the roof is gone and that they basically removed the jumping puzzles, as they were somewhat asymmetrical before. I just think the way they went about it was a bit “meh.”

I just wish they kept the model for the clocktower the same and had the roof destroyed. Also by having a staircase leading to mid, it’s just way too easy to move from home to mid and mid to far—essentially making this map incredibly easy to snowball on.

Matchmaker inaccuracy.

I’d rather wait 10 minutes in queue between games if it resulted in stronger team parity. If you queued at any time outside of reset after the first two weeks of the season, you’d have people literally in silver on your team when you were in platinum.

Dragonhunter has counters. It dies very easily to conditions, which is why it’s not as popular in WvW.

The problem is that many of the builds that would easily counter dragonhunter like condi engineer are simply unimpressive these days.

Something else I was thinking about, which I think would be a really easy fix for core engi, is changing Utility Goggles so that it’s no longer a blind immunity but that it makes our attacks unblockable similar to Signet of Might. That change alone would open up so many opportunities for us, and maybe make Tools a viable trait line in PvP again.

About a month ago I wrote this thread. While it’s difficult to disentangle numerous 500+ word forum posts into easily digestible soundbites, the conclusions I reached then and now can be whittled down into a few salient points:

1. We hard-counter no meta builds in particular despite still being hard-countered by conditions and boon strip
2. We do not provide team-wide sustain to the level of a druid or tempest in team fights
3. We cannot replicate the damage output of a warrior, guardian, or necromancer in team fights

This, in my view, has resulted in us being left in a no-man’s-land of sorts in the meta, not really contributing much to a team, fulfilling instead a mash-up of pseudo-roles that could be better covered by more specialized professions. Our responsibilities this season were quite wide and multi-faceted, but we never were really given the tools to excel at any of them—except to pester side points and force 1v2s.

Are there people that still found success in light of these facts? Absolutely. I saw plenty of engineer mains like Lycar and Marvin in my games finding plenty of success with the profession. And while I’ll be ending the season out of the top 250, I still finished the season in platinum, mostly solo-queuing, having not really played the game much for the entirety of 2016 and being admittedly incredibly rusty both on my mechanics and my rotations. I’m OK with what I’ve achieved this season, and I’m happy that many of you reading this thread did just as well as I did or better.

I am not here to insinuate that the scrapper specialization is awful; in fact, I think the scrapper is about where it should be. The problem, rather, is everything else about us.

If the engineer is to be relegated to side-points for season six, I’m fine with that. But the pistol and rifle should be buffed with “purity of purpose” in mind.

Decap engineer absolutely must be a thing again, and core engineer should be a lot stronger than it currently is because buffing it would resolve almost all of the above issues:

• Condition engineer serves as an incredibly effective 1v1 build, and hard-counters numerous duelists that dominated this season—including both berserker and dragonhunter. Condition engineer would actually be the one build/profession that could actually keep dragonhunter in check for season six.

• Rifle engineer also serves as an incredibly effective 1v1 build, servicing a decap role. If only the rifle was buffed so that the damage output of Hip Shot, Blunderbuss, and Jump Shot was threatening enough to warrant the trade-off in survivability with the hammer.

Overall, what I’m hoping to drive at in this post is that the scrapper is likely, ideally, where it should be. Its mediocrity this season is largely at fault for other professions being slightly overtuned, and not an issue native to the specialization trait line, the hammer, or gyros specifically. By boosting build diversity with core engineer builds (or even just being given incentive to take pistols or rifle with scrapper) I think a lot of the “meh” feeling many of us had this season will be largely resolved.

My concern, however, is that the scrapper trait line will remain the primary focus of engineer balance moving forward, and with another new specialization coming within a year or two, a lot of these preexisting problems may never be resolved.

Impact.2780:

One day pretty much undid and entire week of carefully picking the time of day to queue, and queue dodging numerous bads. I’m pretty much trading my rating for the 20g reward chests before the season end, but it’s irritating nonetheless.

Not to be that guy, but if your position on the leaderboard was that precarious, maybe you didn’t belong on it in the first place.

I went from 1790 and fell to 1715 today, but what difference does it make? All it takes is 4-5 straight wins to go from #250 to #100. I’ve spent the entire season floating up and down, in and out of the leaderboard.

I wouldn’t get so wrapped up in it, especially when so many people in the top 250 don’t really belong there in the first place and just decay their accounts or play the bare minimum matches. There has been so little gamesmanship this season it has rendered the whole process pretty meaningless. It wouldn’t be the worst thing to accept you made the best of all the things going on this season and the next will be a lot more competitive.

I think it’s also pretty common knowledge at this point in the season the matchmaking will be at its most volatile.

The reason you’re having trouble is because that build is designed with the assumption you’ll be playing with a team that provides direct healing support and boons/buffs to optimize your performance.

The raid build isn’t designed for solo content, or even 5-man content. Even if you weren’t dying, it’s just not really the ideal setup for open world content or even dungeons (where power is generally preferred, anyway).