Guild Wars 2

1 and 2. I can complete the achievement in the festival area, but I find it really quick and easy to do outside the area.

Not sure if anyone else has posted this yet but you can clear this in just one or two minutes if you have access to Ember Bay from Living World Season 3 Episode 2.

If you go to skritt anchorage there are a number of red “grouchy” skritt and some rock platforms right next to the waypoint. If you position yourself so that you are not on the same platform as the skritt they will not aggro, letting you pelt a stationary target with as many balls as you wish.

@Anet GD/PM: you thought about sticking a “target skritt” in the premium lounges when Wintersday is running? Since those places are designed as a one-stop shop for player convenience that seems like a pretty good way to monetize by making more attractive an existing item.

An engineer here: santenal is right to draw attention to the random nature of the Elixir X elite skill. Tornado and Rampage are sufficiently different effects that you cannot rely on the elixir to be more than a source of close range CC spam – you have to react to what the potion gives you and make the most of each effect’s unique opportunities each time the elixir is used. That is the drawback that comes with the advantage of faster cooldown, 2 stacks of might and a condition cleared.

And yes, santenal is also right to point out that skills which only do one thing have to be quite attractive in order to compete with 5-skill kits that can cover many bases at once. In the case of Elixir X it has to compete with the mortar kit which (in PvE at least) is a very useful source of ranged damage, ice/blind, combo fields and condition clear. This is why it needs a decent cooldown, varied effects and a single thing (CC) that it does very well – else everyone would just stick with mortar/stealth gyro.

@Ivantreil I would respectfully disagree. A scrapper engineer has more ways to grant superspeed than any other class, and many of those effects are group buffs. In addition to their core game abilities which grant superspeed (Streamlined Kits trait from the Tools line and the toolbelt for the now-nerfed Slick Shoes) a scrapper has access to the following:

- 3 seconds for group when reviving allies (cooldown 10 secs).
- 3 seconds for group after using a leap/blast finisher in a lightning field via Shocking Speed trait (cooldown 10 seconds).
- 3 seconds for group via Bypass Coating toolbelt of the Blast Gyro (base cooldown 30 seconds).
and most significantly:
- 2 seconds for group whenever a gyro is destroyed (no cooldown).

So as you can see because a scrapper with the right traits can trigger little bursts of superspeed very often they have quite a lot to gain from being able to stack superspeed.

Most particularly, consider that if an engineer using the above abilities and Rapid Regeneration could stack 7+ seconds of superspeed, and then turtle up behind some of the engineer’s chainable block skills (e.g. hammer 4, Gear Shield, Elixir S and traited Elixir S) for that amount of time, they could recover 3000+ damage on top of other sources of health regen.

Or consider that a team of two or more superspeed scrappers working together could provide continuous superspeed for an entire group and enjoy 400+ health regen per second from the trait.

As much as one might argue that it is not worth specialising in superspeed as a scrapper one must contend both that it is possible and that being able to stack superspeed would make the option more attractive, particularly in multi-scrapper groups.

Aloha GW2 forum! New poster here, had a quick ponder about whether there’s an elegant fix for at least some of the problems with the engineer that the playerbase allege that could be attractive to our lovely game masters. This was the best I could come up with so feel free to question, critique or throw things ::)

Turrets

Increase base health, nerf base toughness if necessary.
Turrets gain stacks of “Dug In” over time up to a given maximum. These grant
+X% outgoing damage, +X% outgoing condition duration, -X% incoming damage and -X% incoming condition duration.
For example: 1 stack every 10 seconds maximum 5 stacks. X=10
Turrets from Supply Crate spawn with max stacks.

Inventions

Remove Overshield, Expermental Turrets and Advanced Turrets. Replace with:
Adept: Turrets gain stacks of “Dug In” faster and create shields¹ when built.
Major: Turrets grant bonuses to each other and to summoned allies², for example:

1. Healing: Recover health over time
2. Flame: Chance to inflict burning on hit
3. Rocket: +Y% damage, +Y% condition damage
   &c.

Grandmaster: Increase condition damage for nearby allies³ when wielding a shield.
Inflict torment when blocking or reflecting an attack (ICD 3 seconds).
¹ as per Advanced Turrets
² http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Summon
³ as per traits like Assassin’s Presence or Empower Allies

Ideal Results

Untraited turrets become viable once enough time passes and they become “Dug In”.
Pistol and Shield + Inventions becomes a viable option for condition builds that want to be more durable and supportive without giving up too much DPS.
Turrets + Inventions becomes viable as a support build for allies who make use of summons.
A set of unique buffs just for summons will make certain underloved skills and runes/sigils slightly more attractive.
Fielding Pistol and Shield, Turrets and Inventions will give an engineer that is attractive to certain raid compositions via unique group buffs.
Turret balance could be refined in PvP by tweaking in that mode only how many stacks of “Dug In” a turret can gain and how quickly.
Balance in this area can be generally be refined from this starting point over time.