Guild Wars 2

Elementalist – FGS/ice bow, probably the best DPS in the game with staff, lots of build options to change per dungeon.

Ranger – Great party buffs with Spotter and Frost Spirit, great DPS with sword/warhorn, high skill floor when first using sword and managing pet HP.

Guardian – Reflects, stability, condi cleanse, amazing DPS, aegis, high protection uptime. Guards just make anything easy.

Warrior – Decently high DPS, outstanding offensive party buffs, great self-sustainabilty in most situations. All good groups should have at least 1 warrior, but the more you have the more you’re limiting DPS and buffing potential.

Necromancer – Great single target DPS, poor AoE DPS. Meh group utility, can do a few things, but overshadowed by other classes that can do those things very well or invest a lot less in doing them well. Almost in a great place, almost..

Mesmer – Reflects, portal, time warp, amazing DPS if phans are untouched, reflects, some other group utility, reflects. I mostly want them for reflects, that’s about it. Very good still, always useful when played well.

Engineer – High DPS, lots of utility, 2nd best party stealth, stacks. Thing that makes Engi a desirable class, though, is how much vulnerability they can stack. That’s the main draw that sets them apart from other classes, as well as being flexible.

Thief – Best group stealth, amazing for skipping most content, amazing trash control, amazing FGS/ice bow damage. A good thief will make your life easy, very easy. Eles love them when they’re traited to do more damage with their conjures, too.

The first thing you want to do to be effective is to pick up an S-grade kit like Bomb Kit or Grenade Kit. If you really want to go for conditions, those two together are great for condition damage.

The trait Shrapnel will stack a lot of bleeds, mix that with crit chance and some points in Firearms and you’ll stack about 20 bleeds on average in medium-long fights. Mix this with Bomb Kit’s fields, adding even more conditions to the mix.

Use Thumper Turret to blast water fields to heal your team for even more, although this isn’t recommended as it’s very wasy to have your fields be overlapped by your team’s fields. (especially guardians, light fields for days)

Use Elixir gun to add a bit of healing for your party, as well as a fantastic condition cleanse on skill 3.

If you’re specced for healing power, always use healing turret. It’s a must to make the use of that stat.

Also, to answer your question about survivability, you’re not meant to really take hits. Use blinds and knockbacks to mitigate damage. Raw DPS is usually the answer to surviving since it ends fights quicker, dodging is the best tool for living through fights and it isn’t tied to any stat or build.

I’m only referring to TPVP here, not hotjoin. Can’t leave in TPVP.

Also, matches may be short but in GW1 for example the matches could be near instant. But if you know you won’t win, you can still save time.

If you PVP all day long, and have at least 4 matches that would take 5+ minutes to lose, where it’s obvious you can’t beat the enemy comp, then if you resign each time you’ll save 20 minutes right there.

I’ve said this for a long time.

Reduce dungeon mob HP.

Give them all roles and self-sustaining abilities that are countered by different player skills.

Let them react to taking large amounts of damage/AoE damage.

Give some mobs soft counters to different forms of damage. Endure Pain for example only mitigates direct damage and not condition damage.

Why don’t we have this still? If we get a 4v5 we should be able to just forfeit and save us a lot of time if there isn’t a chance of winning.

EDIT: This isn’t about hotjoin, it’s about TPVP. In TPVP you can’t leave matches and are forced to stay in the match till it ends.

Hattoni.8597:

Not to create new thread, let me ask you something – if we are talking about, let’s say – dueling – we mean very skilled players, but how many that skilled players are there? Is it like 50/50 or it’s more like 1% of all players are masters of their class? How often I’ll meet top players? In my opinion it doesn’t matter which class you pick in any game – if you play against unskilled, casual player you will always win.

You’ll start off fighting newer players, but the more you win and the better you do, the sooner you’ll see experienced players. Start by doing Hotjoin, aka the server browser style PvP.

This is a very unorganized, zerg-style pvp filled with mindless killing. Use it to learn the maps, and the maps only. tPvP arenas like solo or team will boast much better players, and you’ll see what you’re really supposed to be fighting. Never take Hotjoin seriously. Ever. It’s just frustrating if you’re trying to win.

WvW plays a lot differently than sPvP, it’s more burst damage and mobility oriented regardless of your class. sPvP focuses much more on small scale organized roles with a set objective.

You’ll run into great players in both, players in WvW only focus on killing potential where as sPvP is more about controlling the other person in some way. (kills, making them waste time, etc)

Hattoni.8597:

Whoa, guys – your replies make me feel excited about elementalist. Seems that ele is my dreamed class – hard to master, highest dmg potential, useful in pvp, not that bad healing abilities.. On the other hand isn’t burst guardian better in pvp than burst ele?

No, each burst build offers something unique. Burst Ele is riskier than a burst guardian, but burst guardian is very balanced overall and better for 1v1s that a burst ele would have more trouble or getting jumped by a single person.

Burst guardians are easily overwhelmed due to needing to have well-placed blinds and aegis and lack escapes, where as eles have an almost thief/mesmer-like ability to pick and choose fights with good judgement/CD use unless using a staff or /focus.

Elementalist is in an amazing spot right now, so if you’ve ever wanted one then you’ll have a great time now where every single weapon set is used.

Hattoni.8597:

Are elementalists really higest damage class? Is it that squishy that I’ll have hard time surviving in pvp? How pvp works, is mass pvp really teamplay or just anyone duels others?

Elementalist is certainly in the top 3 of DPS. It’s the squishiest class for sure, but in PvP it will depend on your build.

Dagger/Dagger’s traditional build will have you tanky with a lot of survivability based off of boons. The newer version using a Celestial stat set is all around good in every aspect.

Scepter/Dagger is a squishy set, you have to favor hit and run tactics with pure spike damage to win. You’re very squishy but have a lot of tools to prevent DPS and ward off other squishy classes with your damage. The better you are, the more ‘defense’ you have through keeping squishy classes off you through pecking.

Staff has a few builds, my favorite being the absolute pure DPS nuker 6/6/00/2. It’s certainly not the best for actually trying to win, but the damage it puts out and the challenge it brings is great. Staff is considered the highest skill-cap weapon for PvP and is purely for team fights. Theres quite a few varients you can use for it, ranging from squishy to tanky. But if you choose full squish, you’re the squishiest class/build possible in the game.

On mass PvP; if you’re talking WvW then yes there are extremely organized zergs. They move as if one person, use all skills from the classes that make them up as if one person, and dodge damage as if one person. But they’ll have to be a great team to do it, and you’ll obviously need a VOIP.

If you’re talking sPvP, yes it’s very very organized and you can’t win without your team. Everything is in favor of team tactics in sPvP. There are duel rooms, however if that is more your thing. The game is built most around team-play, but offers many 1v1 scenarios that dueling will help with, so it’s not a waste to spend time there.

Genlog.4983:

I find ranger the best dps class even beter then ele

a good dps pet like a lynx and get a short ore long bow and you can kill very fast

and if you have a brown bear he can tank for you to he have a very high hp pool

The Ranger’s ranged weapons are very low damage, and Bear tanking is very looked down upon in the team play world later on. Try using a sword/warhorn if you want more DPS. Of course, play how you like in the end.

Elementalist is the undisputed highest DPS class to my knowledge, using a staff with absolute pure DPS traits like 6/2/2/2/2. My Ele doesn’t have full ascended yet, or a good rune set, but will melt mobs in dungeons as if they were open world regular mobs. This of course takes a tiny bit of know-how.

Another weapon set that doesn’t do as much damage is dagger/focus, that alone has a lot of utility while still bringing almost 8k auto-attacks from just lightning whip.

Engineer – Amazing DPS in both PvE and PvP. Anyone who says otherwise hasn’t been keeping up with the class at all. Great group utility, great for carrying PUGs, 2nd best at group stealth, best debuffer/self buffer, and awesome for pulling mobs/bosses with 1500 range nades.

Ranger – Also does great damage in PvE, has a horrible stigma because it’s very very hard to be a strong Ranger. Sword/warhorn + greatsword has very competitive DPS, and brings massive party buffs through Call of the Wild, Spotter and Frost Spirit. Anyone who argues with that also probably isn’t keeping up with things.

Necromancer – Offers very little in the ways of party support for things like speed clears, but for casual PvE they have good single target damage and decent control for when PUGs screw up.

Guardian – Nothing at all wrong with this class, it’s very strong in every gameplay format. Extremely high DPS, survivability and party buffing. Blind spam and Aegis make you a staple to a cookie cutter DPS team.

Warrior – No longer considered the highest DPS class (yay) brings outstanding offensive buffs, good damage and very nice self survivability. All groups should have at least 1 warrior, but the more you bring the lower your group DPS potential.

Elementalist – Squishy, yes. But that’s never stopped a good ele from meleeing with the best. Highest DPS in the game, outstanding group utility through conjured weapons and different fiels, and now a current must-have class for the basic speed run.

Thief – The best stealther in the game, great for rezzing people with stealth and blind spamming trash mobs to clear the way. Does great single target and good AoE cleave. When specced for +10% more damage when holding a bundle, you’re probably going to be the highest DPS in the game when holding things like Ice Bow and Fiery Greatsword that the Elementalist drops.

Mesmer – Great DPS, amazing reflects and great survivability. Relies on Phantasms staying up, making it a difficult class to get consistent high DPS on. Group utility is outstanding, through portals, time warp and reflects.

There you have it, all of the classes do have weaknesses but in PvE and most PvP they’re all very viable.

Necromancer and Ranger still have a huge stigma, and Engineer is getting rid of theirs slowly. Necromancer is currently the only one I would say is below all of the others, but it’s more of a game design issue than a class issue.

Azure.8670:

im happy with how the engi is now, I just feel we need either some melee options via mace/hammer/sword possibly or give us a chainsaw kit

They mentioned they wanted to give Engineer a Hammer at some point, although no idea when they could do it. Melee weapons would be amazing for me, dipping in and out of melee range without needing Bomb Kit would be so much fun.

I’ve been anticipating word on that for a long time now, still waiting.

Phineas Poe.3018:

Rhomulos.2089:

We can stack ridiculous amounts of Vuln, consistant party might, off-healing, tons of condi removal if it’s needed, party stealth only beat out by thieves and more.

We’re a jack of all trades. We bring a lot to parties, but none of it is unique, and with a comp of 5 classes that specialize in roles, an engineer’s contributions are relatively diminished.

I think most of us are OK with this. I am OK with this. But the engineer still has way too many wasteful utilities, and has way too many traits that serve absolutely no purpose and are never used, even after several passes by ArenaNet.

Gadgets and turrets still need a lot of work. And if they’re going to make it to where they retain their niche role, then they need to be more obvious to us that engineers are meant to focus around kits, and to give us more competitive builds to focus on kits other than the grenade kit and bomb kit.

I’m okay with it, too. All classes have wasteful abilities though, we’re all essentially in the same boat. Some classes just haven’t been brought up to speed in areas of the game.

We’re not missing out on too much, though. A lot don’t know what we can do still, but we generate enough DPS/utility/etc to be the shining star in anything that isn’t a world record-level run in PvE. And we’re still hard to deal with in PvP, boasting a lot of staying power and unique builds choices that are very effective.

We do need a lot of stuff buffed. Lately the jack-of-all trades in my PvE runs relies mostly on my 3rd utility being swapped rather than my entire build. We just have to hope that Anet doesn’t buff/shave what we already use often and open up new paths to a similar effective role with different utility to bring.

lunyboy.8672:

IP is fine, it acts just like a signet would on any other profession that has signets. The only reason it’s brought up in active vs. passive play discussions is people forgetting that we are the only profession that doesn’t have signets.

Do we have passive traits? Yes. Does every profession? Oh yes. Why do most engineers run IP? Because it’s one of our better traits, and not taking it means less over all damage.

Does that mean we need no more buffs? Heck no, we just need smart buffs to a few skills, utilities, and traits so that we can actually diversify our builds. I, for one, would like to be able to build for power or conditions without needing to go into the explosives trait line for fear of much lower DPS.

Much agreed, I love my non-explosive line builds. They’re few and effective but Explosives is the only one that can really stand on it’s own right now for DPS. Firearms is very limited since Modified Ammunition only gives a boring % damage increase, a trait that requires you to go into the explosives line to make it useful (Bunker Down) and +burn duration we don’t need. Was hoping Firearms would be my favorite trait line by now with trait changes but still isn’t there yet by a long shot.

tigirius.9014:

Rhomulos.2089:

tigirius.9014:

Let’s go down the list shall we?

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3: The shortcomings are that this class is outperformed in DPS by every other class out there in PVE, because A: it’s so focused on one of the problematic dps systems of the game, Condition damage no matter which build you choose in order to be effective in PVE you have to use some form of Condi and B: it’s missing essential traits used by every other class. If you can’t be honest about it don’t comment on it. Anyone can go to any calculator or wiki catalog a list of the types of traits each class has and see which ones are missing even by the other classes in the same category.

4: It’s got great potential but it’s still not equal. Both Guardian and Ele have way better healing skills can heal without even using skills and their condition removal is on timers shorter than our manual skills are. There’s an imbalance when you have to wait 5 seconds longer to remove conditions manually while other classes not only don’t have to do anything to remove theirs but their are multiple behind the scenes timers taking theirs off their characters.

5: You’ve never played any other class than if you truly believe that. Try warrior rifle for five minutes you don’t even have to level and you’ll see the difference.

6: Again you’ve never played any other class because A: the size of the AOE aren’t the same size as other classes, it’s obvious to any objective observer and B: we actually have to use a trait to make them these AOE zones close but not equal to the size that other class AOEs are without their size increasing traits.

I can’t take these seriously if you think that what Engineer has in these categories is their limit. Grenades have 1500 range, there isn’t any content in the game that requires larger AoE than the Engineer has access too and I can guarantee that the Engineer brings immense damage when factoring in all sources of it’s damage. More damage than half of the classes, no where near the bottom.

Guardians have to use a lesser spec in order to heal their party, Elementalists have to leave their high DPS attunements for 10s+ if not running Fresh Air just to get mediocre heals off. Engineer, using a meta DPS build can burst heal 2500+3900 (4200 with shield) to their party using all of their blasts. Or 2500+1300 if keeping Throw Mine or Acid Bomb on CD. All without hindering their DPS by much at all, and giving up a blasts in a fire field. If you’re arguing these from a PvP perspective, Engineer was never meant to be a pure healer and never was intended to be but still provides great party healing through combo fields.

Ranger’s trap AoE is a horrible example, it’s not spammable and only offers AoE condi. Necromancers have horrible options for AoE as it’s all mediocre damage on their staff. Both have terrible AoE in PvE. You have to be trolling to suggest either of these as classes that bring a lot of cleave/strong AoE. That’s one of the reasons why they’re largely considered bad in the first place.

tigirius.9014:

Let’s go down the list shall we?

1. Turrets are weak, they die just as quickly from a single shot as they did on the first day this game launched.
2. The new traits that actually offer us direct access to boonss (that we’ve been missing btw like Stability) to improve the Gadgets are fixed to a single line, diversity here was apparently not the goal. Boones should not be a XIII only trait.
3. There are still traits missing from this class that it’s sister scout classes enjoy that are there to improve damage output that the Engineer needs in PVE. Without them we definitely DO bring less damage to the table comparitively especially when you factor in removing conditions altogether from some of these builds.
4. There are healing traits that are completely missing from this class that all other classes enjoy without a hitch, interval condition removal choices, choices for AOE healing (mostly automatic) that are nowhere to be found but we’re supposed to believe this class is equal (nod nod).
5. The AOE fields that other classes enjoy are twice as large as those we use, we actually have to use Forceful Explosions trait to make ours the same size as their normal size, now keep in mind Engineers do not have access to a two handed sword so Bombs and Mines are supposed to be our Greatswords and when they don’t have the same range there’s a problem.
6. Speaking of range, ever get frustrated because you only found out about an event when you’re within 30 feet of it only to get there and not get a single shot in? Warriors haven’t had that trouble since the beginning. Even with the traits to improve range on the Engi we still have range problems even with the EG.

1. Turrets are only now being shown for what they actually are, with bug fixes and more turret traits. They’re weak, and difficult to balance. They always have been in every MMO out there. They’re supposed to be a defining point for the class, but in the current working of things they simply don’t fit except inside of casual/mid-tier pvp where they work very well against average players.

2. I agree with this one, but this is obviously a new experimental trait and I have no real comment on it. I’ll rarely use it unless I just feel like screwing around in pvp. Guardian also saw a lot of experimental traits, Anet didn’t know for sure what the community would do with them. They just wanted to put their foot in the door, i suppose.

3. While some of the trait lines may feel a tad choppy, Engineer certainly has no short-coming of DPS. They bring ridiculous burst and will carry a pug’s DPS easily. Classes like thief have to use 2 different weapon sets with very specific traits to have the DPS they do, which when not using an FGS with their 10% dmg with bundle trait is around ours or usually even lower depending on the dungeon. Our damage is consistent as we never have to choose between cleave or single target.

4. Engineer has great healing potential and condition removal, we don’t even need traits to attain the best part of the healing/condi removal. Elixir gun and Healing turret + our readily available blast finishers offers a very noticeable difference in party survivability in Berserker gear. Guardians, for example have to trait just to even get that while Engineer can bring it and maintain great DPS since Elixir Gun scales well with power on top of it.

5. Our range is certainly never an issue, I almost never use Forceful Explosions except when I can exploit the range through walls. AoE is our specialty, we can attack from any range as well. I enjoy melee ranging for most of my fights, and if I feel the need to step back at all I just swap to grenades. If i’m only using bomb kit, then I just melee like everyone else with the same draw-backs as them. Bombs share the same distance as other classes, Engineer just doesn’t have the same type of i-frames and survivability as other melee-oriented classes but at least have perma vigor if needed. A fair trade.

6. Engineer is one of the best taggers for anything. We have instant chain AoE, FT, grenades and bomb kit. It’s not staff-guard, but it’s certainly on par with any other class if not better.

I feel as though you’re trolling, I’ve played every class except Ranger, Necro and sort of Mesmer in every game format excluding a little WvW for some classes. I’ve read extensively on the capability of classes I don’t know at all, so I had an idea of what they are capable of. I also know the traits and run-of-the-mill ‘meta’ builds for these classes.

Yes, Engineer is my main class. It’s the one I like the design of the most. Things need to be fixed, but we certainly do not lack in diversity. Every class is unique and gets access to some great stuff, Engineer does too. We don’t need class-defining traits from other classes to be relevant.

Penguin.5197:

Even if a lot of our skills and traits are viable that does not mean nothing else deserves a buff. Imo the devs goal should be to try and get all skills as viable as possible and really some of our skills are still a little far from there.
The constant nerfing of ip has caused flame jet to become unviable and this has yet to be looked at other than the awkwardly tacked on 10% damage to burning enemies. Mortar is still subpar unless you like to imagine it as a throw an ice field every 120 seconds elite.
I don’t think anyone is asking for buffs to supply crate or prybar or ip. Is it so bad to get mortar buffed? Would that really cause a power creep? Most likely not :P

Btw anyone remember when ip was adept and had no icd? Ahhh good times, it actually made flame jet viable and fun.

I don’t mean that all of our skills should be left as is, but nothing should replace the roles of what we have now. Grenades/bombs role is pretty great right now for PvE, a occasionally faceroll depending on build in pvp. But what I don’t want is a buff to some mediocre kit that will outclass the grenade/bombkit in more ways that it brings new weakness’ to the table.

Flamethrower for example, it’s essentially built to be sustained DPS. Sustained DPS is best in PvE, and buffing it is dangerous as we have our sustained DPS down already. I think it should deffinitely be buffed a lot in some areas but in a way where it’s on-par with a kit like Grenades but makes up elsewhere for it’s range and lack of condi availability, or vs Bomb kit which it shares similar utility with but also synergy.

If we only buffed it’s DPS, it would either still be short of what bomb kit could do, or just above. You’re giving up Bomb’s blast finisher and smoke field so the damage would have to be significant. We already do a truck load of damage, more than a warrior of equal skill/buffs can put out in more than a few instances.

Anet has also already stated they wanted Engineer to be very low on the totem poll of DPS. I’m not entirely against this, but we’re certainly well above what they said they wanted us to be. FT would have to do more DPS than our highest DPS kit to be stronger than it. The only way I could see that being balanced is through traits that make the damage ramp up over time by using the Auto Attack. Except, in PvP that wouldn’t work and in PvE it’s not very practical since we lose out on a lot of party DPS and if in a coordinated party the real DPSers will already be doing 80% of the damage.

I do want FT to be a main kit, I just don’t see how they could do it at the moment without making it silly strong in one game type or another to where it will just need to be shaved down till the game is changed enough to rework it.

That goes for a few other skills as well, we kind of have every build covered and a lot of skills being buffed to be on par would be redundant and won’t guarantee that they’re actually used.

Incind Powder could use some tweaking, I’m not a huge fan of strong passive play. As it is now though, it’s strong enough where a condi spec should deff take it but it’s not impossible to deal with. The issue with it is more just a general issue with condi vs condi clease availability.

Buffing flamethrower is dangerous. The iconic attack of the flamethrower, the auto attack, is very consistant and would need some serious creativity to balance effectively without making it stupidly easy to play for pvp/pve. I agree we need more DPS on the FT kit, but as it is now it’s probably my favorite kit just because I can certainly work it into builds and it’s a lot of fun and useful already.

I’d suggest a damage ramp up based on landing the auto-attack’s final tick. All I can really think of, that way it’s like Warrior’s axe auto attack at least, but gets strong after each final flame jet tick.

It’s very difficult to balance a lot of the single kits we have, most of the problems can stem from the auto-attack it self and how effective it is. Flamethrower in particular has an iconic auto attack skill, but buffing it to be as strong as we want it would be devastating to balance as Engi was never made to stay in a single kit.

I agree on the notion of getting more toys to play with, that’s what makes Engineer great. I want a lot more stuff to play with, but what I don’t want is stuff to make what we already do even easier/stronger.

As for more party buffs, engineers already have a lot of presence in group content. In pvp they generate silly amounts of AoE conditions, or one of the spvp bunker builds revolving around blast finishers. In dungeons the engineer brings near OP condition removal and an AoE heal from healing turret that makes a nice difference in speed runs. Blast finishers are also tied to a few of our main DPS skills so we also keep the might up.

Med kit is more solo oriented, but even that can be for team-play. You can stack up med kits up to 3 stacks out at a time, this works in pvp when you’re forced to anticipate a fight on a point while using a build suited for med kit. But at the end of the day, just use healing turret if you want to help your team. Med kit for anyone but yourself has very niche uses that requires coordination.

Engineer is in a great spot right now, some people may argue too good of a spot.

In PvE, many out there still think Engineer brings much less DPS than most other classes, and is in the same boat as Necro and Ranger. Many don’t know about what engineers can do, or Ranger for that matter.

We can stack ridiculous amounts of Vuln, consistant party might, off-healing, tons of condi removal if it’s needed, party stealth only beat out by thieves and more.

In PvP, we may not be in perfect meta comps but we’re more than capable of counter potential in the future class changes. If other classes get new strengths we may be able to counter them. The engineer class itself doesn’t need to be stronger to fit into the meta comp, it just needs to be strong against meta comp classes to be useful.

As for the rest of PvP, we’re strong in just about every aspect. We have a huge variety of builds that can work from the most casual of pvp to Team Arenas with no trouble at all. We’ve recently acquired some build variety surrounding turrets, annoyingly easy to use but it’s not the best thing to bring against a strong team.

In WvW we’re great roamers, havok squad and fill many different roles. We don’t need to be in the zerg itself to be useful for the match.

We’re great right now, but we still need bug fixes, shaving and number adjustments. Just don’t give us any more skill buffs than we already have. Power creep is a slippery slope, and bringing a class that is in a good spot into that is a bad way to appease the whiners who can’t get past the engineer’s limitations or pick a new class.

I’m happy with my main class, I can go on about small changes and fixes I would like to see but overall if it meant risking large imbalance I’d keep engineer as it is now.

Engineer I think the class should be about challenging you to think fast, come prepared for what you’re doing and do everything you can. Every class can do that, but engineers should be punished the most if they don’t, given the amount of options they have and how much they can do at one time.

Strength Ability do just about everything and provide great support on the fly, with strange ways of bending the rules and avoiding certain rune/sigil/dungeon or environmental mechanics through manipulating certain skill’s functions. Ability to be effective at any range all at once.

Weakness Low amount of instant ‘oh-crap’ buttons, meaning anticipation and planning are the only way to survive, leaving no room for mistakes that every other class has. Also, not excelling any role in paticular, never being highest damage/healing/stealth OR having to do x3 as much work to be some-what on par with other classes in that same way while still boasting ability to help allies do more dps and/or heal them. There is also a lot of skills that can be difficult to land under certain circumstances that other classes can simply press the button for a similar effect, meaning the engineer has to account for that as well and may complicate a lot of things. (like having to stare at the boss in a ranged fight while kiting mobs, so you can hit with grenades while your party can watch the kited mobs on them since they don’t actually aim their ranged weapons) That’s not a bad thing by the way, it hinders the engi in the right way.

My main class is in a great spot, I’d say. All I can really ask for is more build variety, but that’s another topic entirely, as well as aesthetic stuff.

EDIT – added way more than the 300 words you wanted lol

Elixir B’s toss as a stun break would indeed be a bit much, I’d prefer to get rid of the cast time of it instead. I personally like having to anticipate CC rather than just break out of it.

On the flip side, a semi-unrelated change that could be interesting is that it stun-breaks your affected allies much like the guardian’s traited Virtue of Courage.

I’ll keep that it mind, full selfish DPS builds are always fun I suppose. Especially in my case, where I’m almost forced to run with a staff guardian who refuses to get with the times despite blatant evidence of inefficiency.

Lets say I’m in a coordinated group, though. Should I be looking to sacrifice a bit to make way for the conjure bursts? Or just worry about my own DPS even then and let the natural vuln/might stacks just do their thing from my basic rotations?

insanemaniac.2456:

if youre considering sitting duck vs rifle mod, rifle mod is better

its not a significant amount of vuln compared to steel packed powder + precise sights because someone went and forced anet to put an icd on it. you get 2 more stacks and 1 less autoattack damage every 10 secs, its not even 100% uptime on those 2 stacks against champs++, not to mention the immune-to-immobilize crap anet is throwing at us. rifle 3/5 are at least must use skills in a proper dps chain.

personally i like rifled barrels or cds over vuln on crit, but the vuln might be better dps than the cds in a party. havent done hard calculations.

I appreciate the perspective, I’m usually only worried about my overall party DPS when I’m worried at all about my build. I’ll stick with my vuln on crit for the moment.

As for rifle dmg+ I’ll be taking this over sitting duck after some thinking, having to manage +5 vuln on kitten CD with low up-time doesn’t seem worth it compared to a whole 10% dmg boost on blunderbuss and jump shot.

Thanks again

The link only has traits, my gear/skills aren’t really relevant.

I play full zerker, I believe condi stats in place of power aren’t worth it and just lower DPS.

My goal as an engineer in group play is to stack vuln for my party if I’m the only one who can keep it capped and contributing the most to it. I don’t bomb 1 often, so my group can do more damage. Bomb 1 only does a bit more than grenade 1 from my knowledge so that’s a good place to sacrifice personal DPS for group DPS as it stacks much more vuln.

Where it’s fuzzy is that short fuse can offer shrapnel nade and fire bomb on a lower CD so easier vuln stacking/fire field + DPS skill. Rifle mods seems like the best choice but again with Sitting Duck there and sacrificing more personal DPS for group DPS with less vuln build up for classes that front load their DPS.

Rifle CDs seem sort of pointless, but I still don’t know the numbers for sure.

This is what I’ve got so far, very standard: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fdAQBYk3CaUrB0jQa/cAMUA <—- Traits only

With my standard 6/6/00/2, my goal is an overall DPS increase for myself or my party. Idc if I sacrifice a little personal DPS if it makes my party’s overall DPS go up.

Explosives trait line – Short fuse vs Explosive Powder

Firearms trait line – Sitting Duck vs Hair Trigger vs Rifle Mod

Modified Ammunition seems to be the best general pick, but Bunker Down is interesting as well and I’ve seen it crit for night numbers. It seems situational, but at the same time I haven’t played around with it. Any info for this one would be nice too but not entirely concerned with it.

If anyone knows what’s better and has tested it, it would help lazy people like myself out a lot with choosing between them. In general play I don’t believe the small increases would make that big of a difference but I am curious either way.

Tyvm ahead of time, I appreciate it.

A good way to look at the skill is that it’s easy to use for a team setting, and difficult to use solo. It does a lot for the engineer already. Knocking back, interrupting, removing movement-based conditions.

If an engi wants to get full use out of the skill, he does have to invest more, but not as much if it’s a KB his party can follow up on. Strong skill, you know what will happen if you press it ahead of time so you can prepare accordingly.

Me, I use it to dodge things sometimes so I’m okay with how it is

Justin ODell.9517:

Simplest answer I can give is that it just isn’t as high a priority as other things we have been working on.

Why do you feel custom arenas do not work for those that want to duel?

Dueling adds a lot of atmomsphere to PvE world, and allows players to test their WvW specs.

It’s always great fun to sit around watching people duel right outside of a town, you can’t get the same feel in a duel room. Duel rooms are relaxing, but they’re also very limited and can be easily trolled.

In PvE, ‘duel spots’ develop, WvW rivals can easily go head to head with their specific gear, and many folks can be easily nudged in the direction of PvP by trying duels on their already built PvE character.

I’ve just seen a lot of good come from dueling, the less people sit around on a ledge in the main hub occasionally chatting the better. Dueling will build it’s own community, and that’s what it’s all about; community. It would do wonders for me, anyone who says it’s ‘pointless’, ‘waste of time’ or ‘will create balance issues’ is looking at it all wrong. All I have to say is, the resources/time invested in implementing it would be worth it.

As to if this is a higher priority than other things, I think so. PvE to me isn’t as dynamic in the player interaction aspect, you’re sort of limited in how much you interact with everyone. Costume brawls are nice and all, but this adds a whole other level of interaction. It doesn’t make the base of PvE any better, but it certainly adds new possibilities for everyone leveling up. Random duels can sometimes turn into friendships/rivalries, I’ve seen it happen before. GW2 lacks in player interaction from my understanding, people seem to avoid it when they can.

TL;DR
With the trait changes to let us reset them anywhere, and the lack of basic player interaction in the leveling process, dueling would be fantastic to have in the open world. People will flock together to see duels happening, people will stop and maybe chat/join in if they see two friends dueling. It’s great a great community tool.

Zanshin.5379:

Rhomulos.2089:

Considering how well guardians are doing in all aspects of the game, they didn’t want to build on what is already doing great. They specifically stated they wanted to test new waters with more interesting guardian traits, these traits are not to directly supplement the current meta builds, but give alternative routes in different game types.

The condition guardian will add a lot more flavor to the mix of classes we see in WvW and SPvP, while we’ll see alternate bunker specs as well using massive amounts of HP from the Vitality trait. This opens up more build possibilities, making certain lines more attractive if some players enjoyed some of the higher tier minors already, but couldn’t justify going deep enough for them in their build’s goal.

I’m okay with these changes as guardians are extremely strong right now, some would argue OP (in pve atleast) but I would argue that’s more of a content issue than a class issue. Also keep in mind that not all changes need to move a class towards being world-record speed run viable, as that play style is more of a make-shift end game we’ve come up with due to lack of end game content.

You have to realize that we’re sacrifing a lot of stuff for a condition that doesn’t stack and can just be cleansed easily. That means guardians in PvP will not play burning builds.

Also, bosses are almost immune to conditions. That means guardians in PvE will not play burning builds.

So, where is this burning build going to be used exactly?

Burning alone isn’t going to cut it, yes. But it is a great pressure tool. Mesmers and thieves can’t just ignore burning that’s being applied to them. Condi guards will without a doubt be using geomancy sigils and perplexity runes to cover their damage. I never said it would be awesome, but it will be far from terrible when played by the right people. Perplexity will be available in spvp now as I had suspected, so that will be viable for many would-be condi builds there as well.

As for pve, it’s obvious we wont be seeing many of these traits in pve but those are a given at this point. I’m simply stating that having access to the strongest burn in the game -has- to be able to make an impact. No glass cannon with low vit/no cleanse can ignore it. It will be much more dangerous to those as a regular burst guardian if played correctly.

The builds will be limited in variability and viability, but they will still shine in their own way. That’s all the traits need to accomplish, as guards already accomplish what they need to in every game play format.

Considering how well guardians are doing in all aspects of the game, they didn’t want to build on what is already doing great. They specifically stated they wanted to test new waters with more interesting guardian traits, these traits are not to directly supplement the current meta builds, but give alternative routes in different game types.

The condition guardian will add a lot more flavor to the mix of classes we see in WvW and SPvP, while we’ll see alternate bunker specs as well using massive amounts of HP from the Vitality trait. This opens up more build possibilities, making certain lines more attractive if some players enjoyed some of the higher tier minors already, but couldn’t justify going deep enough for them in their build’s goal.

I’m okay with these changes as guardians are extremely strong right now, some would argue OP (in pve atleast) but I would argue that’s more of a content issue than a class issue. Also keep in mind that not all changes need to move a class towards being world-record speed run viable, as that play style is more of a make-shift end game we’ve come up with due to lack of end game content.

Xaylin.1860:

Xyonon.3987:

Terrible traits, especially for PvE. They poorly tried to make turrets more attractive, but they failed. They have to be able to crit, or at least be much much stronger.
Sry ANet, you failed. At least give engi some minor buffs, like the fake previews.

I really can’t agree with that. Both, Bunker Down and Synpatic Overload are traits which can increase the overall damage of the Flamethrower which is needed to make it competitive. Fortified Turrets might end up granting the Engineer a higher reflect uptime than Mesmers. Furthermore, it is something Engineers can’t do right now so its actually pretty interesting. Experimental Turrets is very appealing for supplying boons. You might even be able to place them out of the range of monsters in many scenarios because they got a 600 radius.

How is this terrible in PvE? And please don’t tell me ‘speedruns’…

I can already see us setting up turrets out of range of pulls for the boon buff, it’s perfect for stacking. Perhaps we’ll be joining warriors with their banners soon. It’ll be different at least.

As for the reflects, you have to take into consideration how much you give up for 4s of reflect that is easily covered by other classes, for longer and only 1 utility slot. To get a useful amount of reflects (with good RNG) we have to blow our heal turret, rifle turret (low cd) and then use our potion, while being specced into a non-DPS line that offers no other benefits. If no other class is around that can do it, and you REALLY need reflects for the next encounter, I can see it.

They’re turret buffs though, I’ll take them. More tricks up the engineer’s sleeve. We have a lot of those and keep getting more, not many know of them. I honestly don’t think I can really complain complain, but I’m more excited about the bug fixes than the traits for turrets. But maybe that’s just because I’m more of a pvper.

You’re right that the flamethrower needs a good pve buff (either in support or DPS) to be competitive, but I think with these traits it won’t be enough still. Air blast would be ideal for proccing SO, but actually using FT auto with it seems like a waste. Also, BD has potential to be good if the damage is decent, but again it’s better suited for our other high DPS melee kit.

I feel FT needs it’s GM trait, finally. I was hoping it would come this patch, but meh. I’ve been wanting to use it for awhile in the way I would of liked, as it has the potential. Even if they just made Juggernaut give AoE might over time I’d be happy. Maybe give it the ability to apply 4 vuln on #5 as well.

Xaylin.1860:

ArrDee.2573:

Phineas Poe.3018:

ellesee.8297:

synaptic overload won’t work with bomb kit because the bomb kit has no knockbacks

Don’t forget about Big Ol’ Bomb.

big ole bomb is a blowout, not a knockback.

And that’s why I think the trait doesn’t belong in Explosives. It would work nicely with Flamethrower but you will lack Knockbacks when using the Bomb Kit. Of course, this would be different if they changed the mechanic to ‘Quickness on hard CC’.

To expand on this, I’ll list all of our available knockbacks from the tooltip. It’s possible there might be hidden ones due to bugs/incorrect tooltips but none come to mind.

Overcharged Shot (Rifle)
Magnetic Inversion (Shield)
Accelerant-Packed Turrets (Explosives adept tarit)
Air Blast (Flamethrower, and my favorite)
Edit: Throw Mine as well, missed that one

From that list, you can see a SINGLE explosive triggers the trait, it’s also one that doesn’t see use often. How is this in Explosives? Was there an error on the livestream or does it also count on launchs? Either way, this is a single target oriented burst skill or a punish for those stomping with no stability/blocks/blinds. While our Bunker Down trait is area denial that has perfect synergy with bomb kit.

Accelerant-Packed Turrets will be fun for this on my SD build.. but the 20s ICD makes this very very situational. To the point where I feel I’ll have to not KB people just so I can save it in case I need to rez a teammate.

Phineas Poe.3018:

I think you’re nuts. 6/6 Runes of Altruism with Med Kit + Rifle Turret (with Experimental Turrets) = permanent group fury.

You’re also looking at things as they are, today, March 22. There’s going to be a significant paradigm shift once the feature release hits. It’s not that 30/30/0/0/10 will stop being the meta for PvE. That’s definitely not changing, and I don’t expect much if any revisions at all given what we currently know about upcoming changes.

But we’re now going to be able to swap trait lines out of combat on command, so these traits that seem situational will actually be beneficial to rounding out the engineer. For example:

Rhomulos.2089:

Both turret GMs
Reflects for a full investment into the turret line? No thanks for PvP from what I can assume. I can’t judge it right now, but if it’s reflects on tiny damage/effect increases to our current turrets then that’ll be very lackluster.

Having a ton of projectile reflects is a massive contribution in several select dungeons and fractals. Reflects are the number one reason mesmers are a part of the meta, and now we’ve been buffed to the point where we are capable of maintaining over 30 seconds of reflects. In most mob engagements, that will cover the entirety of the fight.

It may not be useful in every dungeon path in the game, but you can very easily now swap out 30 points of Explosives with 30 points of Inventions or Alchemy as necessary. They’re redefining how the entire game is played, and the engineer is perhaps the number one class in the game at taking full advantage of this new system.

I can’t effing wait.

While I understand where you’re coming from, I personally rarely, if ever, need perma group fury. I run Altruism already, that coupled fire staff eles and the many warriors I run into, I usually see a substantial amount of fury in my better encounters.

As for reflects, everyone seems to have this covered next to engineer. We have an RNG reflect that I use after everyone elses reflects are down, and I don’t want to sacrifice 2-3 slots unless it’s honestly the only thing I need on an encounter.

You’re right that it’s situational. I acknowledge that we can change builds whenever, but I personally don’t like the idea of constant build swapping just for set encounters unless I’m going for a world record speed clear or something. (on an engi lol)

After thinking about it overnight, the turret boon dispenser will probably be fun for awhile especially with 2 engineers. I still can’t think of an instance where I would need most of it, but it’ll be fun no less. I just hope after this I’ll take turrets for more than just blast finishers (looking at you, Thumper). Of course they put the protection boon on the turret that can put off 3 blasts in 1s.

Nirvana.8659:

Rhomulos.2089:

(TL;DR at bottom)

(TL;DR) Uncrittable blind spamming Eles, interrupt spamming Mesmers and annoying dire condi-burst Guardians. Then there’s Engi runs around in circles, spewing out mines yelling ‘HAHA COME AND GET ME’, while being as annoying as ever.

You forgot to mention thieves…..even more buff that comes FROM USING STEALTH….so more stealth spam ;D …now with -50% dmg while in stealth OR +200 power some seconds after stealth(basically after a backstab) .

Sorry, I guess that SHADOWSTEPPED from my mind! pundog.jpeg.

Edited to include thieves.

Penguin.5197:

I think you guys are missing out on the multiplicative potential here for experimental turrets and bunker down. I mean imagine a 5 engie turret party. Possible instant 15 stack of might, plus perma protection..or fury..or anything else they want for ALL OF THEM! And for bunker down sure one at a time might not look like much, but with a party of engies you can turn any place into a mine zone

The problem is that a balanced comp can provide that and more without giving up tons of trait points. Bunker down will be good for fighting on point or kiting people, but anything that’s not forcing a DPS specced engineer to move out of his spot a lot will most likely stay where it is, safe from the engineer’s mines.

A party of engineers with this trait on would be very bad as the only way to make it hurt is if the party could even stay alive in a single zone to make use of it.

Bunker down’s purpose in pvp will undoubtedly be CP bombing, as you’ll more than likely force bunkers to constantly run into the mines due to kiting attempts. This is a cool alternative, but niche. In the current meta, I’d rather just decap the point with a more versatile build than pressure the bunker to mess up using a more glassy mine spec.

(TL;DR at bottom)

Without judging the effectiveness of the traits as we haven’t played with them, and speaking from a purely subjective point of view as I’m certainly not #1 engi NA (yet), I’m quite sad with the traits we’ve received (and in the past.. RIP KR and whatever Modified Ammunition could of been). I also think they are all around lackluster for those that want a different build type to run while still being optimal for their group.

Personally, I LOVE Engineers. It’s probably my favorite class in any MMO I’ve ever played. But, I play it purely because it has fun mechanics and I actually dislike explosive-based aesthetics in games. You can probably guess that I love the SD play-style now and then, but I’ve been using bombs/grenades for a very very long long time now with a -few- trait changes that actually made our most optimal DPS choices even more boring. (I’m looking at you, Mr. Modified Ammunition)

New Explosives GM
Good for decapping/bursting PvP, this’ll be fun to play with for sure as it holds a lot of potential. For PvE? I can’t think of a single instance where my standard burst wouldn’t be much better than anything this could offer me

New Firearms GM
Finally an active Firearms trait, and it’s a minefield. Ugh lol. Has decent potential in PvP imo. Assuming they are the same damage as our other mini-mines then we would need to spec 20 into Explosives on top of the 30 in Firearms to make these things a little dangerous. All in all, it could be semi-useful for making things rough for bunkers but I’d rather take the 30 in Explosives and put the rest of my points elsewhere. CPs are about to get cluttered with even more particle effects from our explosions.

In PvE, for stacking on bosses you’re looking at a random spread of mines that’ll sit there if they happen to not spawn on the boss. Trash mobs will most likely walk all over them when not stacked up and the AoE capability will be all but lost. Lets see how their exact function turns out though, as there may be something we can take advantage of that we don’t know about yet.

-Overall this trait was the most dissapointing, Firearms should be more about benefiting our single-target DPS/control imo. I would of much rather saw a Quickness buff unrelated to KBs in here, preferably just for rifle auto or whatever.

Both turret GMs
Reflects for a full investment into the turret line? No thanks for PvP from what I can assume. I can’t judge it right now, but if it’s reflects on tiny damage/effect increases to our current turrets then that’ll be very lackluster.. but it’ll look cool at least I guess. Applying aoe boons is a cool idea for turrets, but 30 into Alchemy is a rough exchange for such a minimal boost. On CPs, I’d rather something more controlled keeping me up than boons that are up roughly 1/3 of the time.

This won’t work well in PvE, as the boons won’t be able to make up for the significant DPS loss and the reflects are more than covered by other more popular professions. I don’t have much to say here, I don’t think turrets will be useful in the current dungeon scene yet either. They’ll be fun to take on joke runs, and open world. That’s all though.

New Tools GM
Welp, it’s something for gadgets atleast. This opens up more SD possibilities, but for PvP the only one I really saw becoming that useful is PBR (fury) and Ugoggles (might) as the other boons are easy enough for us to come by through other investments. Throw mine could be useful-ish, but i’d rather just take the passive Aegis that we already have as a GM in this line if i wanted that. Overall the only one that I think I’d say is a decent active trait that offers some choice. for the builds it looks to be apart of.

For PvE I wouldn’t take this at all, MAYBE Ugoggles in some situations where I don’t feel like stacking might through blasts because I don’t feel like dealing with Light Field’s kitten.

(TL;DR) Uncrittable blind spamming Eles, interrupt spamming Mesmers, annoying dire condi-burst Guardians and Thieves making everyone bunkers in stealth and then proceeding to use their new stealth buffs. Then there’s Engi runs around in circles, spewing out mines yelling ‘HAHA COME AND GET ME’, while being as annoying as ever.

ESO, people down it for being a ‘clone’ when it’s honestly not a clone at all. It has interesting class building and the pvp look great. But that’s about it. Sub fee + cash shop, I wouldn’t be all too worried.

Wildstar, basically a traditional MMO with aiming, as different as you want to make it. The combat is decent, the skill choices are lacking and will make you long for the depth of gw2, and even more so for gw1. For people tired of the trinity but trying to pick it up again, they’ll be met with the same boring mechanics here, almost identical to older MMOs. It’ll drag the vanilla MMO goer to it, that’s about it.

EQN, a sandbox MMO that is also F2P. Not much known about it other than it’s made purely for fun and will certainly have much to offer for casuals. There’s no worry about this game, it’s probably going to be great IMO and harmless as it will at best just share customers. I know I will be a shared customer.

With no NDA on these games I can say that you have nothing to worry about. This game has more than enough to stand on it’s own. Wildstar isn’t a ‘better GW2’, ESO isn’t some money grabbing ‘WoW clone’ and EQN will be another good F2P with more relaxing elements to it for everyone to enjoy.

None will be bad, but none will be for everyone.

The game doesn’t need the trinity. (TL;DR at bottom)
It wasn’t designed to have it, and that is very apparent in top level gameplay. Groups don’t need healers or tanks, just DPS. It’s been proven true since release. Smooth dungeon runs require a different type of coordination, all of it focusing on positioning mobs and stacking might/blinds/reflects. If someone screws up, it’s a huge DPS loss somehow. Which is all that matters. A coordinated group that has a fight down doesn’t need anyone specced for anything other than Berserker armor, Cleric guardians/engineers/elementalists can maybe get a pug through a dungeon but no one needs them in real coordinated runs. Healing in this game is considered a crutch.

We don’t need the trinity, it’s not that type of game. Everyone is self-sufficient, and in most cases you can duo/solo a lot of the dungeons without ‘exploiting’ fights you also wouldn’t with a group.

I like tanks and healers and all that, but I like being able to be exactly what I want whenever I want as long as it’s beneficial even more. If the rest of my party dies, it’s not game over unless they want me to reset unless the boss/trash mobs are low HP. It’s nice having the tools to solo group content if you have the knowledge/skills/gear for it.

That’s what the trinity takes away, it forces you to rely on others because it’s just a number crunch. In here, when something says ‘5 man content’ it actually varies based on the skill of the players you have.

In conclusion (TL;DR)
I don’t want a trinity because it heavily limits my freedom by forcing me to wait for others when I could easily duo the first half of the dungeon with a skilled friend. It’s not exactly poor dungeon design, as people who haven’t played as long can’t do it simply because of experience/skill and not gear/inflated HP/unavoidable damage that usually comes with the trinity.

P.S.
To anyone that thinks that everyone -needs- a guardian/tank/healer for the content in this game, we don’t. It’s just your group make-ups causing issues, which is fine. Everyone plays differently, but there is a ton of us that don’t need anything of that sort.

Tried the holy trinity again recently in a different MMO, it was nice but I missed being able to be useful outside of my designated role even faster than I originally missed the trinity.

It’s nice having set roles and what not, that’s what we miss here. Once they fix the zerker meta and get the new ‘trinity’ working that was intended at launch, we’ll have much more fun than with just sitting in corners in dungeons spamming FGS rush and DPS skills.

I miss older dungeon formats more than the trinity, I view that as more of the issue as it really limits everything you actually need to do to win.

Hello! o/

I’m seeing a lot of decent turret-related suggestions on here. I thought I’d throw mine into the mix too. Keep in mind I’m not considering exact math, dps and attack rates into consideration here, so the numbers may seem a little under/over powered to some of you. (You can also pretend instead of a debuff on targets that it’s a buff on yourself if it seems like it’d improve functionality)

My idea is based on keeping the engi active while fighting, so turrets have to be managed and not just laid down and forgotten. This creates a true use for our auto-attacks by giving them a secondary function, and offers an entirely new play style to explore.

Pistol/Rifle auto-attack applies a stack on anyone hit by it, this stack will increase all damage taken from turrets, and will have a 4s duration per stack. Each stack could also add a different effect based on the turret. This isn’t an AoE-heavy type of trait, AoE needs to be toned down drastically, so this would be fitting into a future template of the game for sure, whether it be pve or pvp. (hopefully at least pvp)

Rifle Turret – add 250 dmg + 1 vuln per stack
Flame Turret – add 1.5s burning + 50 dmg per stack
Thumper Turret – add 150 dmg + .2s immob per stack
Healing Turret – add .5s poison per stack, if the overcharge/regen pulse goes off with an enemy with stacks on them is in the area, it could also heal allies in range for an extra 100hp per stack
Rocket Turret – 200 dmg + 40 AoE radius per stack
Net Turret – add .7s Torment + .2s cripple per stack

Walking into a turret nest should be devestating, this will make anything blow up if they advance on your position. It also ensures that engis can’t just safely plant down a bunch of turrets right in the middle of a fight since it requires them to build up their damage through auto-attacks.

While this isn’t a perfect fix by any means, but it covers the damage. Any coordinated group can wipe this, or a 1,500 ranged player that can dodge magnet. Turret’s defenses are terrible, we all know that. Simple band-aids like 50% reduced cleave damage, or having the turret regen additional HP after meeting a certain requirement would help fix this issue for a time till the numbers of the game change.

Feedback is appreciated, just thought I’d try a new idea. Apologies if something like this was suggested somewhere already.

I’d like to see customizable legendaries on top of kits resembling the legendary.

First off, backpacks that look slightly like the molten jetpack would match nicely with the predator. More tubes with fiery plasma, though. Anyway..

Personally, I prefered the Predator when it had purple bolts. We’re going to have the ability to choose stats on our legendaries in the future, what about a customizable color/effect option for different aspects of the legendary?

You can change the season resembling Kudzu, the electricity color of Bolt, the angle of sky from Sunrise, the blue to red ratio of Twilight. Just give players 2-3 options to click that’ll change the model of their weapon how they’d like others and themselves to see it. Blue flamed incinerator? How bout a Juggernaut that uses it’s own color scheme to cover you instead of your armor’s dye color.

This will let us stand out even more from others with the same Legendary, which is becoming more and more common.

BillFreist.1527:

Some pretty interesting ideas here. I was actually spit-balling some ideas on how to address this today. This has always been something that has bothered me, too.

For example:

• Have kits respect the existing back item flag. If you have a back item and you want to show it, hide the kit. If you don’t have a back item or choose to hide it, always show the kit. Obviously this makes it a little harder than usual to tell what kit you are using, so:
  • A nameplate icon similar to Elemental Attunements would be a good addition (I may add this regardless if we can get the art )
  • Move the kit somewhere else on your body. I know, crazy right? For example, who doesn’t like a sweet fanny-pack?

Hopefully this finally gets resolved soon, and I’ll do what I can to see that happen. Keep in mind, as Colin mentioned before, that there are some pretty beefy projects going on that are consuming our engineering time. But that doesn’t exactly mean we can’t sneak stuff in here and there .

-Bill

I sure hope you can work in a specific hobo sack model for Predator users

I’ve had plenty of ideas for kit specific, or a universal Predator hobo sack that replaces them all. Would be awesome to finally see Predator themed kits so I can enjoy pew pew and little orange plasma-filled tubes all day long no matter how I trait!

And I’m thinking of using it on my warrior instead of my engi.

Is rifle any good on warriors for anything? I mainly use LB when I pvp, and I haven’t bothered looking into to rifle yet. Does it actually have a use in pve?

I don’t usually range anything if it can be melee’d, for more dps. And the bow seems more useful for pvp in general. I know I could go full sniper-mode in WvW but I don’t know how effective that is, and it doesn’t seem as effective as using a LB for the blast and fire field + CC.

I haven’t found much to make me want to keep it on my war, and I’m hoping there’s a effective play style that i’ve overlooked.

Kind of like the opening of Southsun when the Karka attacked Lion’s Arch, make an event labeled like this coming fireworks show, and then have a freak accident or something that has monsters rampaging around town, the players will have to quickly respond and work together with everyone around them.

When the karka attacked Lion’s Arch, even though it was beyond laggy, and my friends were complaining about that, I was just sitting there thinking that was the coolest thing I’ve seen in an event in any MMO. Turning a known safe-haven into a dangerous area really made things feel dynamic, and if you can replicate that in the future at random times then people would love you for it no doubt.

Being surprised like that really makes the players think twice about future updates, and people would speculate every one of them. That hype always feels nice to have.

— TL;DR at bottom —

Notice how many zones go untouched and many events are hardly ever done? Notice how Cursed shore, for example, has a focus on about 4 different events that people center all of their time around, and no where else?

I personally hate this, I feel like in order to keep my leveling at a good pace I have to stick to the farmed events that we all know are going to give the best xp/hour. I wished we could still do events around the world and feel like we’re still getting good rewards, or that we’ll find some cool loot that you wouldn’t get anywhere else.

What if events were somewhat like how kill exp worked? If a mob is less farmed, you get bonus exp for it. What if an event is less farmed, not done at all even, and you get higher rewards for it, and less rewards for overly farmed ones? Higher/lower drop chance from event mobs, more money/exp from the event participation reward, etc. This will have players going all over the place for events, exploring zones they enjoyed or doing events that they actually liked, because the rewards will be much closer to what they’d want to be earning.

Events now just aren’t as rewarding as they could be, so a reward for exploration would be nice. People who farm mindlessly will have to put in a bit more effort of course, but end-game farming shouldn’t be all about being a drone and spamming AoE/auto loot. That’s not fun or rewarding at all, we can all attest to that.

TL;DR – Make farmed events less rewarding based on how often they’re done, make untouched events more rewarding based on the fact no one ever does them. Scaling money, xp and loot chance based on their frequency.