Guild Wars 2

Staff ele

• Very effective team player. Strong snares, CC and ranged AoE can absolutely win team fights. Bad roamer/1v1 choice, but it can still hold its own if played properly (and if your opponent doesn’t have stability up). Strongest at range; melee fights are risky because staff eles have to stay within their own AoEs which can get them killed quickly by other melee classes.
• Hands-down team-fight winner; typically dead meat when out in the open or alone (“back-line wizard” spec)
• Only getting stronger after Dec 10th.

D/D ele

• Surprisingly resilient in combat due to healing potential combined with defensive utilities (Armor of Earth; Arcane Shield). High combat mobility; good balance between damage and CC. Viable roamer; a good combat buddy choice. With stability, it becomes tough to deal with a D/D ele because the player effectively becomes a walking PBAoE with snares thrown into the mix, making quick passes at enemies when he/she can while avoiding damage. Strong in melee; no real ranged options.
• Viable solo roamer; viable option for team-fights (the “balanced” spec)
• Probably getting weaker after Dec 10th.

S/D ele

• Effectively a ranged back-stab. Half of your damage rotation can occur in under 1 second. Extremely strong roamer. Truth be told, it needs a nerf (rotation needs to be stretched out; too compressed as it is). Very strong at ranged and in melee.
• Strong roamer; strong in team-fights if played properly (the “faceroll” spec)
• Not really changing after Dec 10th.

x/F ele

• Scepter is stupid strong, so it works with /F. Very tanky and extremely strong at range. Slightly weaker in melee because a lot of /F utility is meant to keep foes at range, but scepter burst plus invulnerability makes up for it. This merely results in a slightly longer fight.
• Run D/F and just never die because of PBAoE snares and [Burning Speed] for movement; cripples D/ damage output, though.
• Generally irrelevant in pvp except as an eccentric choice for point bunker (the “If you killed me, I did something wrong” spec)
• Not really changing after Dec 10th.

As it stands, I really don’t think that anything is going to change for the ele in pvp outside of maybe more people picking up staff. S/D and Staff are on par with how they can contribute to fights except that while S/D is super-burst nonsense that can just insta-KO a single player from nowhere, Staff can KO or force into retreat multiple people at once when played right, but it takes positioning, timing, a wind-up period and teammates present to distract the enemy. D/D, being the balanced spec with strong burst in[Fire Grab] and [Churning Earth], will probably be hurt by the vigor and water changes since it typically takes a bit of time to work most opponents into the ground when running D/D.

OP is saying that ele scepter is slow.

CETheLucid.3964:

Bringing less than two in any kind of WvW/PvP situation is silly.

At that, we’re talking about GoEP. If you’re only bringing one, you would pick the present GoEP over Armor of Earth, MF, or SoA?

But alright. I suppose that is a valid criticism. So, are you saying it’s fine the way that it is now?

I think any other stunbreak + GoEP with autobreak would make it pretty awesome. Just the fact that it would work as an autofire stunbreak would mess most people up.

It’d be a unique function for this particular glyph.

I think that he’s saying that being unable to trigger one’s own stun-break is a little unwieldy. Countering a stun feels more organic when you are able to break-stun yourself so you can have a better feel of what you are doing and what you are going/should do directly after the stun-break.

That said, it could be an interesting idea to have a skill that sort of gives you a free instant-stun break on a long-recharge or something. I mean, there are several traits like that already (warrior and ranger have ones respectively if I recall correctly).

However, I’m personally in the camp of stun-breaks being something that one triggers one’s self.

Glyph of Elemental Power

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Cast-time: 0
• Recharge: 40 seconds
• Recharge your elemental attunements and unleash a wave of energy at your location that damages nearby foes. The next time you swap attunements, you morph the ground around you according to that attunement.
• Wave damage: 185
• Radius: 240
• Combo Finisher: Blast
• Breaks stun.
  • Swap to Fire attunement: Create a [Ring of Fire] at your location.
  • Swap to Water attunement: Create a [Geyser] at your location.
  • Swap to Air attunement: Create a [Lightning Storm] at your location.
  • Swap to Earth attunement: Create [Unsteady Ground] at your location.

Kaleban.9834:

Jski.6180:

You need to give up some things power or crit dmg to a high def ability like vigor.
Now if your just going on about losing your ability to roll for not evading dmg but to just simply use your evasion skill then your wasting a lot of dmg protection as is.

So what do these professions “give up?”

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Vigorous_Precision
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Invigorating_Speed
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Critical_Infusion

Both Guardians and Mesmers are going to have these traits almost guaranteed, and many Engys also take Speedy Kits, which means for two Adept traits in two good lines, an Engy gets Vigor and Swiftness with no cooldown.

But I guess it makes sense that the most squishy profession with the least inherent survivability should not only have to try twice as hard to do anything, they should also have to pay twice as much or more for access to what other professions have as a baseline.

Engineers have to pay 20 trait points to get reliable perma vigor. With the upcoming update, it’s going to be 30 for perma-vigor with some careful kit swapping or just deal with a 50% up-time. I will agree with Mesmer and Guardian, though. Like I’ve already said, perma vigor should really cost 20 trait points.

I think that it’s fair. Perma vigor is very strong. It deserves to cost 20 trait points regardless of the profession. My only complaint is how the Arcana 15 minor trait is pretty awful. If they could re-work that into a better trait, then maybe people wouldn’t be so upset about something like making perma vigor cost 20 trait points.

Imagi.4561:

Swagg.9236:

[Swirling Winds] is already a very strong skill. As for having it grant swiftness, that’s not necessarily something out of the question, but making a 400-radius lightning field (that would allow for a blast finisher combo for swiftness) sounds really scary given its dazing leap property and the 6-second duration.

The other suggestion that I thought of for that skill would be to maybe have it pulse swiftness on allies each second (maybe 3 seconds). This would add up greatly over 6 seconds, but it wouldn’t really be ideal as a swiftness skill on the move since players would probably cross through it before getting even 3 ticks of the swiftness buff.

The last suggestion for that idea would be to have the skill grant bulk swiftness to allies upon creation (10 – 15 seconds or so) and leave it at that.

However, even after all that, I’m still not sure that [Swirling Winds] needs anything tacked onto it outside of what it does now. It’s a unique and very powerful skill for the focus-inclined Elementalist.

I enjoy Swirling Winds as it is because I think it fills a helpful niche, but I would love to see it grant swiftness, even if it’s only outside of combat.

One of the reasons that offhand dagger is preferred over focus is that it provides better mobility in addition to better damage, but I’ve never quite grasped that design. Shouldn’t a utility-based offhand weapon include mobility as part of that package?

Focus Elementalist has always been slow because they’re supposed to be able to take it with the condition clears, invulnerability, CC and projectile mitigation. The only truly weak attunements in focus are fire and water. As much as I enjoy mobility, I’m not sure that giving it to every weapon set is a good idea. Focus Elementalist is already a very turtly set-up to begin with. Adding swiftness onto [Swirling Winds] just because it’s slow feels a little “tacked-on.”

Furthermore, there are always the ele swiftness traits (gain swiftness and fury on aura application and when attuning to air). I know that the latter is getting a nerf by the looks of the patch notes (moved to master in arcana), but I used to run d/f a lot and never had swiftness issues because I could just chain attunement swaps and auras. It’s a selfish build, but focus Ele is pretty selfish in design. It’s a sort of tank in many respects.

Strang.8170:

Do you know what would feel truly elite skill?

4th utility slot.

I’m still waiting on this.

Rieselle.5079:

I want an elite nuke. I’ve wanted an elite nuke since day 1. I’ve always been disappointed at not having one. Tornado should be changed to a glyph of storms style ground targeted nuke. You get the additional effects depending on your attunement when casting.

Fire: larger radius.
Air: blind
water: chills
Earth: projectile defense

That actually sounds pretty neato. I want to summon a tornado. Something about that sounds even cooler than being a tornado. All the [Meteor Shower] / [Tornado] staff eles would be upset, though.

TORNADO

• Recharge reduced from 180 to 0 seconds.
• No longer has a duration limit.
• Stability removed.
• Instead of transforming into a Tornado, the player instead simply gains three Tornado skills (the one’s currently in place) in place of their weapon skills. Now, activating those respective skills transforms the player into a tornado for the period of their channeled duration.
• While under the effects of Tornado, players gain a buff named Tornado and trail smoke similar to the Omnomberry Ghost food “trailing mist” effect with more of a solid grey tint. Honestly, the buff icon alone would probably be enough. The goal of the icon (and optional visual effect) would be to give enemy players warning that “Oh, this Elementalist is about to BECOME A TORNADO,” since the channeled Tornado skills themselves have no actual cast-time and therefore can be activated instantly.
• The Elite itself would still retain its 1-second cast-time (swapping to the Tornado skills will still take 1 second).

Electified Tornado

• Cast-time: 4½ seconds (channel)
• Recharge: 150 seconds
• Shape-shift into a tornado that strikes nearby foes with lightning bolts.
  • Tornado damage: 122
  • Tornado launch: 600
  • Lightning damage: 450
  • Duration: 4 seconds
  • Stability: 4 seconds
  • Radius: 240
  • Combo Finisher: Whirl

Dust Tornado

• Cast-time: 4½ seconds (channel)
• Recharge: 150 seconds
• Conjure dust, forming a blinding smoke field at your location. Shape-shift into a tornado that expels blinding dust devils.
  • Tornado damage: 122
  • Tornado launch: 600
  • Dust devil damage: 327
  • Blind: 5 seconds
  • Duration: 4 seconds
  • Stability: 4 seconds
  • Radius: 240
  • Combo Finisher: Whirl
    • [Black Powder] smoke field.

Debris Tornado

• Cast-time: 4½ seconds (channel)
• Recharge: 150 seconds
• Rip debris from the ground, launching foes away from your location. Shape-shift into a tornado that cripples and weakens your enemies with debris.
  • Tornado damage: 122
  • Tornado launch: 600
  • Debris damage: 163
  • Weakness: 2 seconds
  • Cripple: 2 seconds
  • Duration: 4 seconds
  • Stability: 4 seconds
  • Radius: 240
  • Combo Finisher: Whirl

The Primary.6371:

Swagg.9236 your Obsidian Flesh, Freezing Gust and Cleansing Fire proposed changes aren’t great ideas. Obsidian Flesh already has a wonderful affect that works very well and synergizes with both sceptre and dagger.

Point taken. I was actually thinking about these off-handedly and thought that a 2 1/4 second cast-time for Cleansing Fire was too much. I thought that a 1 1/2 second cast-time would better serve it.

I changed Freezing Gust to an independent AoE. This gives the focus ele some breathing room against foes attempting to close in on him/her, and could function as a good opener to a fight or a powerful time-out skill (despite its cast-time) in case things got hairy. I gave it such a long cast-time, because I was thinking more in the line of [Glyph of Storms] or some of the very powerful Staff AoEs that typically have some delay or a long-cast time (or maybe both, yeesh). It’s for the sake of balance.

You can refer to the post above for my continued thoughts on [Obsidian Flesh].

The Primary.6371:

You also failed to even touch on swirling winds, you could have said something like “make it an air field to proc swiftness off from it” or introduce an idea for a secondary mechanic in play once cast.

[Swirling Winds] is already a very strong skill. As for having it grant swiftness, that’s not necessarily something out of the question, but making a 400-radius lightning field (that would allow for a blast finisher combo for swiftness) sounds really scary given its dazing leap property and the 6-second duration.

The other suggestion that I thought of for that skill would be to maybe have it pulse swiftness on allies each second (maybe 3 seconds). This would add up greatly over 6 seconds, but it wouldn’t really be ideal as a swiftness skill on the move since players would probably cross through it before getting even 3 ticks of the swiftness buff.

The last suggestion for that idea would be to have the skill grant bulk swiftness to allies upon creation (10 – 15 seconds or so) and leave it at that.

However, even after all that, I’m still not sure that [Swirling Winds] needs anything tacked onto it outside of what it does now. It’s a unique and very powerful skill for the focus-inclined Elementalist.

Gallrvaghn.4921:

I’m not sure this was already suggested but if they are going to add new skills, what I would like to see is some AOE healing skill. I know some weapon sets have an over abundance of AOE party-wide healing skills but I just noticed that ele has zero team-oriented healing skill and I would like to slot for one when I’m using Scepter/Focus which have like little to no AOE healing skill.

Elementalist focus water doesn’t really have any room for support outside of CC as it stands. It would require an entire remodel of one or both of the skills to really give it something like a water field. In general, s/f ele is a support build with some spike capabilities. However, the support that comes from s/f isn’t “Heal allies at target area,” but rather, “Interrupt target foe” or “Mitigate this incoming damage.” It’s a different flavor of support and I wouldn’t really vote in favor of giving ele focus any more than that. Staff is already king of ele support and I think that that set-up has a good thing going for it.

Imagi.4561:

I dislike the functionality change for Obsidian Flesh, but I’ve already discussed my reasoning for that in whatever the other thread was where this was brought up.

To be clear, I don’t think your concept is bad. I just prefer the invulnerability.

I understand, and I do recall that other conversation that we had. To be honest, I’m starting to feel a little less zealous about my [Obsidian Flesh] suggestion. I mean, sure it would give the focus ele more AoE threats and damage, but I guess that five seconds of invulnerability is so ingrained into focus ele combat that it might not be the best idea to change it outright. I still think that “Click button; receive 5 seconds of god-mode” is THE CHEESIEST, laziest design for a skill, but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t incredibly useful.

ImProVocateur.5189:

The charge up was taken away to mask how much the damage to Churning Earth has been nerfed. It was very high damage at first as a reward for actually managing to stand still that long and still hit the enemy. Actually, it was more to punish the enemy for not stopping the cast than to reward the Ele. It would be so nice to get the original version of Churning Earth. Anyone thinking it through would realize that Churning Earth needs to

Part 1 – during channeling
Cripple(1s) – instant inflict, plus 1 stack every 1/2 second inside the radius

Part 2 – cast complete
Knockdown(3s)
Bleeding(6s)x3
direct damage equal to base dps * cast duration

I’d actually be pretty for this: re-introducing the charge-up gimmick in [Churning Earth]. I’m not totally sure that it needs a such a buff that you’ve described to its would-be final stage, but it’d be cool to get something new for it. It’s pretty powerful as it stands.

As for why that mechanic was taken from [Churning Earth] in the first place, I still think it might be because it made the skill too unpredictable. Although, that’s just speculation, such a mechanic does give the Elementalist a lot of wiggle room with a single attack. I’m not saying that that’s a bad thing either, I’m just trying to make sense of why they would remove such an interesting mechanic. Truth be told, I’d like to see it more often in game outside of siege weapons. It thought that maybe even [Shockwave] (Staff earth 5) could be a good candidate for it:

Shockwave

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Cast-time: 4 seconds
• Recharge: 30 seconds
• Create a shockwave at target location that damages and cripples foes. Continue to channel, charging an aftershock to release at same location that damages foes based on how long you channel it.
• Shockwave damage: 203
• Cripple: 3 seconds
• Aftershock 0 – 1 second channel: Damage: 256; Bleeding (1): 5 seconds; Immobilize 1 second
• Aftershock 1 – 2 second channel: Damage: 314; Bleeding (3): 5 seconds; Immobilize: 2 seconds
• Aftershock 2 – 3 second channel: Damage: 408; Bleeding (6): 5 seconds; Immobilize: 3 seconds
• Aftershock full channel: Damage: 618; Bleeding (6): 5 seconds; Immobilize: 3 seconds; Knock-down: 2 seconds
• Radius: 240
• Range: 1200
  • Movement interrupts channeling.
  • The aftershock channel takes a ¾ second to cast, the remainder of the channel is devoted to charging the aftershock. The Ranger skill [Swoop] is an example of this type of channel bar (part of it is a thin channel bar that is the initial running start while the rest of the bar is much wider and dedicated to the big leap).

Is that overpowered? Probably, but it’s more to serve as an example of what the mechanic could do. Also, I wish staff had more reliable damage options outside of the relatively slow/delayed-effect #1 and #2 skill slots and [Meteor Shower], so maybe that’s my bias.

STAFF

Burning Retreat

• Damage increased from 37 to 85.

Ice Spike

• Cast-time reduced from 1 to ½ second.
• Now inflicts 2 seconds of immobilize if it strikes a chilled foe.

Lightning Surge

• Cast-time reduced from 1½ seconds to 1¼ seconds.

Gust

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Cast-time: 1 second
• Recharge: 30 seconds
• Channel a gust of wind that strikes foes twice. The first gust rips up to 2 boons from foes that it hits. The second gust knocks back foes.
• Damage (2x): 256
• Knock-back: 400
• Range: 600
  • [Healing Breeze] cone
  • Hits up to 5 targets.

Windborne Speed

• Now also grants Super Speed for 2 seconds.

Static Field

• Now also removes up to 1 boon from foes that it hits.

Eruption

• Cast-time reduced from 1¼ seconds to 1 second.
• Reduced delay between cast-time completion and effect from 3 to 2 seconds.

Magnetic Aura

• Recharge reduced from 30 to 25 seconds.
• Duration reduced from 5 to 4 seconds.
• Now steals up to 1 boon from foes that strike you (this effect can only trigger once every 5 seconds per attacker).

Shockwave

• Cast-time reduced from ¾ to ½ second.
• Recharge reduced from 30 to 25 seconds.
• Now inflicts 3 stacks of bleed for 8 seconds instead of 1 stack for 20 seconds.

UTILITIES

Glyph of Renewal

• Cast-time reduced from 3¼ to 2½ seconds.
• Recharge reduced from 165 to 150 seconds.

Glyph of Storms

• Recharge reduced from 60 to 50 seconds.
• Damage increased from 129 to 179.

Glyph of Elemental Power

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Cast-time: 0
• Recharge: 40 seconds
• Recharge your elemental attunements and unleash a wave of energy at your location that damages nearby foes. The next time you swap attunements, you morph the ground around you according to that attunement.
• Wave damage: 336
• Radius: 240
• Combo Finisher: Blast
• Breaks stun.
  • Swap to Fire attunement: Create a [Ring of Fire] at your location.
  • Swap to Water attunement: Create a [Geyser] at your location.
  • Swap to Air attunement: Create a [Lightning Storm] at your location.
  • Swap to Earth attunement: Create [Unsteady Ground] at your location.

Leonschiggen.1860:

The conquest game mode we have is good enough. This mode should be the official tournament game mode.

Any other game modes you guys come up with, I’d suggest clumping them all up into 1 thing like Tomb of Primeval Kings from GW1. To advance to Hall of Heroes (whatever mode this may be) you will have to win the previous game modes against other teams. The winning team of HoH should then be broadcasted to the global chat + whatever rewards.

The conquest mode makes for a very “turtly,” static meta. Conquest is OK, but what would really light it up would be to introduce more control points. Having only 3 control points in a 5v5 situation on such small maps is really the issue. It’s very easy to lock down two out of three points if you can win a mid-fight, and that often spells the end of the game. If there was more space between players and more active objectives going on simultaneously, the battlefield would feel a lot more alive with options and paths to victory could multiply outside of “Kill that warrior/guardian sitting on mid and watch out for the rest of the opposing team when they come piling in.”

Introducing new game modes and maps would have a positive, alleviating effect on any sort of metagame currently going on. That was truly the flavor that made GW1 so enjoyable from a pvp stand-point. There were so many options, and each option dictated different behaviors and objectives. Furthermore, and most importantly, they were all separate to some extent. You didn’t have to run a gauntlet before you could do JQ or AB, you could just zip to them and queue.

The Hall of Heroes idea sounds neat. That could be a gauntlet of several game-modes strung together as a tpvp option.

Jade Quarry redeux

• Capture shrines and escort NPCs from a captured shrine to your home base to score points.
• Possible thought of introducing consumable items or environmental hazards at various places across the map that allow players to set up traps for enemies and apply powerful, unique boons to assist their escorts since it would be difficult to truly protect an escort NPC from heavy fire like one could in GW1.
• The map design could be a copy-paste.
• 10 v 10

Fort Aspenwood redeux

• Simultaneous Attack/Defend style game-mode.
• Effectively just the old FA except it goes in both directions now.
• Map design could be a mirrored copy-paste with a large, open no-man’s land in the middle of the two opposing gated walls.
• Game-mode could maybe be linear domination in which one team has to capture all control points to win. Both teams start out with two main points owned and a middle zone that is uncontested. Once capturing the middle zone, the team victorious at the mid-fight could then move to capture the next furthest point owned by the opposing team. This could help eliminate the issue of healing/protecting target NPCs as was the norm in the GW1 version.
• 10 v 10

Alliance Battles redeux

• Just copy the new zone in the WvW borderland maps and remove siege.
• Could also just be a copy-paste of old maps.
• 20 v 20

Because why not.

Throw Torch

• Skill removed and replaced with skill chain: Swipe —> Sizzle --> Sear

Swipe

• Cast-time: ½ second
• Swipe at your foe with your torch. If you strike a scalded foe, you also blind that foe.
• Damage: 202
• Blind: 3 seconds
• Range: 130
  • This skill cleaves.

Sizzle

• Cast-time: ½ second
• Swipe at your foe with your torch again.
• Damage: 202
• Range: 130
  • This skill cleaves.

Sear

• Cast-time: 1 second
• Burn your foe with your torch.
• Damage: 168
• Burning: 1 second
• Range: 130
  • This skill cleaves.

Bonfire

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Cast-time: ½ second
• Recharge: 20 seconds
• Throw your torch at target location, creating a bonfire that scalds foes on creation and burns them over time. Your bonfire also cures cripple, chill, immobilize and up to one other condition on creation.
• Damage (5x): 256
• Scalded: 5 seconds
• Burning (5): 1 second
• Radius: 180
• Duration: 5 seconds
• Range: 900
  • Scalded is a unique condition that deals no damage on its own. It can be removed by condition clears.
  • Only the first pulse of [Bonfire] cures conditions and inflicts the Scalded debuff.

Updated the original posts. Also added two more posts below the actual suggestions that are commentaries on the posts above. I’ve yet to do the third commentary on the third post, but I’ll get to it eventually.

reserved for future posts

Shield Stance

• Recharge lowered from 30 to 25 seconds.
• Duration lowered from 3 to 2 seconds.
• Now chains into another skill: [Shield Slam].

Shield Slam

• Recharge: 5 seconds
• Cast-time: ¾ second
• Slam the ground with your shield and blind adjacent foes with the resulting dust cloud.
• Damage: 481
• Blind: 2 seconds
• Radius: 180
• Combo Finisher: Blast

Balanced Stance

• Now has a duration of 8 seconds.
• Stability granted is now 1 stack.
  • Now chains into another skill: [Auspicious Charge].

Auspicious Charge

• Cast-time: ½ second
• Recharge: 10 seconds
• Gain stability and dash at your foe.
• Damage: 202
• Stability (5): 3 seconds
• Range: 300
  • [Shield Bash]

Dolyak Signet

• Recharge lowered from 60 to 30 seconds.
• Stability granted is now 1 stack.

Whirlwind Banner

• Stability granted is now 5 stacks.

“Stand your Ground!”

• Stability granted is now 2 stacks.

Hallowed Ground

• Stability granted is now 5 stacks.

Power Break

• Stability granted is now 5 stacks.

Stomp

• Stability granted is now 5 stacks.

Well of Power

• Stability granted is now 5 stacks.

Rumble

• Stability granted is now 5 stacks.

Rampage As One

• Stability granted is now 3 stacks.

Dagger Storm

• Stability granted is now 3 stacks.

Transforming into a form that provides stability now grants 3 stacks of Stability.

Stability now stacks in intensity. One stack of stability prevents 1 instance of being disabled. Stability can stack up to a maximum of 10 times.

Arcane Shield

• Recharge lowered from 75 to 50 seconds.
• Duration lowered from 5 to 2 seconds.
• Maximum number of blocked attacks before shield explodes lowered from 5 to 3.
• Explosion damage increased from 365 to 403.
• Explosion generated from exhausting blocks now launches adjacent enemies (180 effective radius; 200 range launch distance).

Mist Form

• Recharge reduced from 75 to 45 seconds.
• Duration reduced from 3 to 2 seconds.
• Invulnerability reduced from 3 to 2 seconds.
• Now also cures immobilize, crippled and chill upon activation.
  • Now chains into another skill upon use: [Cold Front].

Cold Front

• Cast-time: ¼ second
• Recharge: 5 seconds
• Dash in a target direction, chilling foes that you strike along the way.
• Damage: 111
• Chill: 2 seconds
• Evasion: ¾ seconds
• Range: 450
  • [Whirlwind Attack]

Armor of Earth

• Recharged reduced from 90 to 50 seconds.
• Stability (5 stacks) reduced from 6 to 4 seconds.
• Protection reduced from 6 to 4 seconds.
• Duration reduced from 6 to 4 seconds.

Obsidian Flesh

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Recharge reduced from 50 to 40 seconds.
• Cast-time increased from 0 to 2¼ seconds.
• Rip stones from the ground around you, damaging and crippling nearby foes while enveloping yourself in stony armor. This spell’s strength is determined by how long you channeled it.
• Damage (4x): 672
• Cripple (4): 1 second
• Armor duration: 15 seconds
• 0 – 1 second channel: +50 toughness (15 seconds); -25% incoming condition duration (2 seconds)
• 1 – 2 second channel: +100 toughness (15 seconds); -25% incoming condition duration (3 seconds)
• Full channel: +200 toughness (15 seconds); -25% incoming condition duration (6 seconds); Protection (3 seconds)
• Radius: 180
  • Now chains into another skill: [Obsidian Flame].
  • Caster only gains bonuses upon releasing this spell’s channel; bonuses do not accumulate during the channel.

Obsidian Flame

• Rend your obsidian flesh, damaging and bleeding nearby foes while creating a ring of obsidian in the ground. After 2 seconds, your ring flares up, damaging foes within it with power derived from the strength of your Obsidian Flesh armor.
• Cast-time: 1 second
• Rend damage: 229
• Bleeding (5): 5 seconds
• Rend radius: 240
• Ring (stage 1): Damage: 256; Burning: 1 second
• Ring (stage 2): Damage: 408; Burning: 2 seconds; Blind: 2 seconds
• Ring (stage 3): Damage: 571; Burning: 3 seconds; Blind: 5 seconds; Launch (100 range)
• Ring radius: 240
  • Using this skill preemptively removes a user’s Obsidian Flesh toughness bonus. This skill becomes unavailable when a user’s Obsidian Flesh bonus fades.

Mimic

• Recharge lowered from 25 to 20 seconds.
• Duration reduced from 4½ to 2½ seconds.
• Now grants 2 seconds of protection upon activation.

Gear Shield

• Channel time reduced from 3 to 1½ seconds.
• Block duration reduced from 3 to 2 seconds.
  • Now chains into another skill: [Gear Smack].

Gear Smack

• Cast-time: ½ second
• Daze your foe with a smack from your gear shield.
• Damage: 134
• Daze: 1 second
• Range: 130
  • Using this skill preemptively ends the Gear Shield block channel.

Elixir S

• Recharged reduced from 60 to 45 seconds.
• Duration reduced from 3 to 2 seconds.
  • Now chains into another skill: [Shoelace Tangle].

Shoelace Tangle

• Recharge: 5 seconds
• Cast-time: 1 second
• Tangle up your foe’s feet with wire, knocking your target down.
• Knockdown: 2 seconds
• Range: 100

First post commentary
http://www.mediafire.com/download/twir76xeuur19un/Engineer_discussion_-_Turret_trait_lines.mp3
Songs used (in order):

• Akaneiro Ga Moeru Toki – GunGrave 2 OST
• I’m a Man – Smoove
• Magic Touch – Funk Off

Second post commentary
http://www.mediafire.com/download/b78l5147vq45xi6/Engineer_discussion_-_Turret_overcharges.mp3
Songs used (in order):

• Mood Indigo – Duke Ellington
• Hack Beat – Kevin MacLeod
• Neighborhood 2 – The Sims OST

Third post commentary
http://www.mediafire.com/download/79799j2dx5yarm9/Engineer_discussion_-_Turret_skills.mp3
Songs used (in order):

• Yellow Soul Force – Moutain Mocha Kilimanjaro
• Dunes – Chriss Onac
• Twilight Park Waltz – The Pillows
• Karate – Galactic

TURRET AND OVERCHARGE SKILL SUGGESTIONS
Rifle Turret

• Duration added: 180 seconds.
• Picking up this turret reduces its recharge to 5 seconds.

Automatic Fire (Rifle Turret overcharge)

• Rate of Fire increase increased from 50% to 100% (Overcharged attack rate increased from once every 1 second to once every ½ second).
• Overcharged duration reduced from 10 seconds to 4 seconds.
• Recharge reduced from 30 to 20 seconds.

Rocket Turret

• Duration added: 25 seconds.
• Damage reduced from 794 to 618.
• Burning inflicted reduced from 3 to 2 seconds.
• Recharge reduced from 50 to 40 seconds.
• Picking up this turret reduces its recharge to 15 seconds.

Explosive Rockets (Rocket Turret overcharge)

• Overcharge duration reduced from 7 to 4 seconds.

Net Turret

• Duration added: 25 seconds.
• Rate of fire increased from once every 10 seconds to once every 8 seconds.
• Immobilize duration reduced from 3 to 2 seconds.
• Picking up this turret reduces its recharge to 15 seconds.

Electrified Net (Net Turret overcharge)

• Overcharged Rate of Fire increase removed (now only fires 1 Electrified Net).
• Overcharged duration reduced from 10 seconds to 4 seconds.

Thumper Turret

• Duration added: 25 seconds.
• Recharge reduced from 50 to 40 seconds.
• Picking up this turret reduces its recharge to 10 seconds.

Flame Turret

• Duration added: 180 seconds.
• Recharge reduced from 25 to 20 seconds.
• Picking up this turret reduces its recharge to 5 seconds.

TURRET OVERCHARGE ACTIVATION

• Utility skill turret overcharges can now be activated outside of combat (no longer require a target).

TURRET DURATIONS

• Turrets now each have individual durations. These durations dictate a respective turret’s maximum lifespan once placed on the battlefield. After a turret’s duration is up, it explodes automatically.
• The Engineer will have certain skills that reset a turret’s respective duration when they “strike” a turret. These skills include:
  • [Tool Kit]’s auto-attack skill: [Smack]
  • Rifle’s [Jump Shot]
  • Off-hand shield’s [Magnetic Inversion] and [Throw Shield] skills
  • Off-hand pistol’s [Glue Shot]
  • [Healing Turret]’s overcharge skill: [Cleansing Burst]
  • [Elixir B]’s tool-belt skill: [Toss Elixir B]

PICKING UP A TURRET

• Manually picking up a turret now greatly reduces that turret’s recharge. The recharge reduction varies by turret.
• Picking up a turret now takes 1 second.

TURRET OVERCHARGES (OPTION 1)

• A utility skill turret’s overcharge now interrupts its respective turret’s current skill queue upon activation (it triggers immediately the second that you press the button).
• All utility skill turret overcharges now begin with a 1-second long mini-version (180 radius) of the Elementalist’s [Churning Earth] animation (only the rumbling earth animation; sans the explosion at the end) that occurs at the turret’s immediate location. Either this animation would be its own skill (an overcharge would queue two skills: the harmless charge-up animation, then followed by the actual overcharge skill), or all utility skill turret overcharges would have to be reworked to simply begin with the charge-up animation. During this charge-up animation, the turret is invulnerable to damage.

TURRET OVERCHARGES (OPTION 2)

• Utility skill turrets are now triple skill chains. Skill 1: [place the turret]; Skill 2: [Engage Overcharge]; Skill 3: [Overcharge].
• [Engage Overcharge] would function akin to the Ranger profession skill [Return to Me]. It breaks a turret’s target and performs the harmless charge-up animation. It also displays the same mini [Churning Earth] animation as described above. After using [Engage Overcharge], the turret remains inactive until the Engineer activates the [Overcharge]. In this case, the [Overcharge] is then directed at the Engineer’s current target if applicable (if no target is selected, the turret attacks the nearest target; if the attack doesn’t require a target, it simply activates as it normally would).
• A turret’s respective [Engage Overcharge] would inherit the recharge of that turret’s [Overcharge] skill.
• After using [Engage Overcharge], an Engineer has 5 seconds to use a turret’s [Overcharge] ability before it flips back to [Engage Overcharge] ([Engage Overcharge] begins recharging immediately after its use).
• Activating [Engage Overcharge] grants a turret 1 second of invulnerability.

HEALING TURRET
would remain unaffected by the changes listed above (it’s fine the way it is now).

EXPLOSIVES TRAIT-LINE
Forceful Explosives

• Now also affects the size of turret explosions including the Accelerant-Packed Turrets trait.
  • Also now increases the radius of [Mine Field] mines. Come on, ANet.

Accelerant-Packed Turrets

• Explosion radius increased from 120 to 180.

INVENTIONS TRAIT-LINE

Auto-tool Installation merged with Metal Plating to make new trait: Smart Metal

• Adept (Major)
• Reduces damage dealt to turrets. Turrets now heal over time.
• Damage reduction: 33%
• Healing percent: 5% of total hp
• Healing interval: every 5 seconds

Protective Shield trait removed and replaced with new trait: Sonic Overcharge

• Adept (Major)
• Activating a turret’s overcharge dazes and confuses foes adjacent to that turret.
• Daze: 1 second
• Confusion (3): 5 seconds
• Radius: 180

Elite Supplies trait removed. Rifled Turret Barrels moved to Master tier with added functionality and new name: Improved Schematics

• Master (Major)
• Turrets deal more damage, have increased range and recharge faster.
• Damage increase: 15%
• Range increase: 33%
• Recharge reduced: 20%

New trait: Elixir-Packed Turrets

• Master (Major)
• Turrets explode when killed. When your turrets explode, they cure 1 condition on allies in the area and create a healing field.
• Condition cure radius: 360
• Healing per pulse: 325
• Pulse: 1 second
• Healing field duration: 3 seconds
• Healing field radius: 240
• Combo Field: Light

New trait: Magnetic Overcharge

• Grandmaster (Major)
• Activating a turret’s overcharge now creates a magnetic shield around that turret that reflects projectiles.
• Shield duration: 3 seconds

TOOLS TRAIT-LINE
Deployable Turrets

• Turret skills use ground-targeting and arrive in supply crates that damage adjacent foes on impact.
• Damage: 408
• Radius: 180
  • Turrets now arrive on the battlefield akin to the [Supply Crate] skill instead of being a thrown projectile.

Imagi.4561:

You might consider it boring, but I love it. Every skill doesn’t have to be dynamic or “define battlefield space,” and I use it in my rotation to give me breathing room, if need be—like in cases where I’m outnumbered—or save it for emergencies.

As a side note, if I want to “shape the battlefield,” I use staff. I enjoy the self-sufficiency of D/F. To me it’s designed with the intention of being a tankier set that doesn’t have the burst capacity or mobility of D/D or S/D, but it has more staying power. I’m fine with it staying that way.

All I’m saying is that having a self-target panic button on an enormous cool-down in a place where one typically encounters damage rotation skills seems like a wasted slot, no matter how good the panic button might be. It’s fundamentally goofed. Also, you’re saying that running S/D with +450 toughness for 15 seconds with a PBAoE bomb in reserve that baits dodges and/or forces opponents to break off close attacks wouldn’t be tanky?

Imagi.4561:

Swagg.9236:

-snippity-

I think you have some interesting ideas, but to be honest I’d rather have Obsidian Flesh the way it is now. I think it’s a wonderful and invaluable skill; I just wish the cooldown weren’t quite so long.

But it’s so booooring.

It’s a PANIC button shoved into a skill set that is supposed to be composed of rotational skills. It makes no sense and it does very little—if nothing at all—for defining battle field space. No zoning capabilities; no damage whatsoever; not even any movement. You can use it to revive a downed ally, but outside of that situation, it’s rather poorly used within a rotation. Furthermore, reviving someone is something that doesn’t typically happen at the beginning of combat. What this means is that Obsidian Skin is just going to sit there until somebody goes down or you decide to blow it as part of a rotation (which wouldn’t add any damage or CC to said rotation). In the end, [Obsidian Skin] falls flat when it comes to battle presence (and I know that it’s going to be hard to convince people that 5 seconds of invulnerability can fall flat), and its bland, shallow nature is evidence of maybe someone/a team giving up when designing skills towards the approaching betas and release.

Ele focus’ real issue is its lack of battlefield presence. All skills outside of [Flame Wall] and [Swirling Winds] are single-target or self-target. Ele focus needs more ability to shape a battlefield.

Reposting some ideas.

FOCUS
Flamewall

• Now chains into another skill: [Heat Wave]

Heat Wave

• Cast-time: 0
• Recharge: 20 seconds
• Your Flamewall riles up and damages and knocks back foes attempting to cross it.
• Damage: 256
• Knock-back: 100
• Duration: 1 second

Fire Shield

• Recharge reduced from 40 to 30 seconds.
• Now counts as a Blast Finisher.
• Now creates a [Lava Font] at your location if you combo this skill with a Fire Field.

Freezing Gust

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Cast-time: 2¼ seconds
• Recharge: 25 seconds
• Channel a freezing gust over target location that chills foes. The final gust of wind immobilizes foes if they are already chilled.
• Damage (4x): 336
• Chill (4): 1 second
• Immobilize: 2 seconds
• Radius: 240
• Range: 900
  • Movement interrupts channeling.

Gale

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Cast-time: 1½ seconds
• Recharge: 40 seconds
• Channel a cone of wind in front of you that blinds and cripples foes before knocking them down.
• Damage (4x): 336
• Blind (4): 1 second
• Cripple (4): 1 second
• Knock-down: 2 seconds
• Range: 600
  • This skill hits up to 3 targets.
  • The final damage tick is the tick that inflicts knock-down.
  • [Healing Breeze] cone

Obsidian Flesh

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Recharge reduced from 50 to 40 seconds.
• Cast-time increased from 0 to 2¼ seconds.
• Rip stones from the ground around you, damaging and crippling nearby foes while enveloping yourself in stony armor. This spell’s strength is determined by how long you channeled it.
• Damage (4x): 672
• Cripple (4): 1 second
• Armor duration: 15 seconds
• 0 – 1 second channel: +50 toughness (15 seconds); -25% incoming condition duration (2 seconds)
• 1 – 2 second channel: +100 toughness (15 seconds); -25% incoming condition duration (3 seconds)
• Full channel: +200 toughness (15 seconds); -25% incoming condition duration (6 seconds); Protection (3 seconds)
• Radius: 180
  • Now chains into another skill: [Obsidian Flame].
  • Caster only gains bonuses upon releasing this spell’s channel; bonuses do not accumulate during the channel.

Obsidian Flame

• Rend your obsidian flesh, damaging and bleeding nearby foes while creating a ring of obsidian in the ground. After 2 seconds, your ring flares up, damaging foes within it with power derived from the strength of your Obsidian Flesh armor.
• Cast-time: 1 second
• Rend damage: 229
• Bleeding (5): 5 seconds
• Radius: 240
• Ring (stage 1): Damage: 256; Burning: 1 second
• Ring (stage 2): Damage: 408; Burning: 2 seconds; Blind 2 seconds
• Ring (stage 3): Damage: 571; Burning: 3 seconds; Blind: 5 seconds; Launch (100 range)
• Ring radius: 240
  • Using this skill preemptively removes a user’s Obsidian Flesh toughness bonus. This skill becomes unavailable when a user’s Obsidian Flesh bonus fades.

I Bud.7593:

I can understand you’re thoughts on culling invulnerability, but honestly Ele only has 2 sources excluding Fortify on Earth Shield, namely with Mist Form and Obsidian Flesh, and Mist Form locks out all skills, I’m not against extra chain skills or more interesting mechanics, I’d welcome such changes, but with Obsidian Flesh at least, I think the skill has great synergy as it involves correct timing, has a long cooldown and an obvious animation, It’s one of those skills that’s incredible when utilized in the right moment in the right way, but can be useless if used incorrectly or you are out-played during it’s duration. Also I do like the extra conditional effects you’re using, it does add another layer to skills, I use a similar concept in some of my traits in my Ele redesign

I guess I’m just attached to my Obsidian Flesh anyway, It’s like my super Mist Form haha, can’t imagine a focus without it

Invulnerability skills and blocks are pretty selfish and don’t have any team-fight capabilities; they’re just there to soak up layers of battle activity. Two seconds is honestly quite enough for most of these skills since the typical player will try to rapidly taper off an attack chain when suddenly confronted by BLOCK-BLOCK or INVULNERABLE-INVULNERABLE. If we combine this combat nature with skill chains to give players something meaningful to do or contemplate while briefly invulnerable, we can safely lower invulnerability times while also promoting more team-oriented skill use.

More specifically in the case of Elementalist focus, most of its skills are single-target or self-target. It’s a very selfish skill set that doesn’t really do much for players outside of a ranged knock-down on a long cool-down and [Swirling Winds]. I wanted to suggest changes that could make Elementalist focus more of a team-player than what it is now and that involved replacing “Haha, I’m invincible for 5 seconds” with “Let me turn this immediate area into very dangerous dodge-bait.” It’s more damage, it’s AoE, it’s CC (with the cripple if you’re casting it on the spot) and it adds more depth to a team-oriented combat situation than simply having a single player with mediocre burst damage be immune to everything for 5 seconds.

Also, I read your thread about Elementalist reworking. Looks pretty interesting. While I won’t agree with everything, I do like how you seem to enjoy putting skill chains onto almost everything. It’s pretty wacky, but in a good way. Skill chains really are good things.

Thanks for the thoughts, I Bud. Well, like I said, the original force behind these suggestions was “You know what is really silly? Invulnerability, blocking and stability.”

That’s not to say that they’re unnecessary or completely out of the question in GW2, but they could stand some culling. That’s also why my [Mist Form] suggestion moves 1 of the 3 original seconds of invulnerability into a 1-second active ability that the player can trigger. Truth be told, if you wanted to, you could wait right until the end of [Mist Form] and trigger [Cold Front] to earn another 3/4 seconds of evasion. This effectively lengthens the invulnerability timeframe back to 2 3/4 seconds as well as provides the Elementalist some breathing room from enemies.

What happened with Obsidian Skin was just me longing for more charge-up mechanics. [Churning Earth] used to have an effect based on how long you channeled it. I honestly have no idea why they took that out. Maybe because it made the skill unpredictable for opponents, but I’m not really sure. In any case, I think that the charge-up mechanic should be implemented far more often that it is seen in-game. It also shows up in my [Cleansing Fire] and [Freezing Gust] skills with their final tick procs. Players could stand to be rewarded for using channeled skills outside of “Hurray, you finished holding down the button!” Since mana is no longer a balance mechanic in GW2, the closest thing to it would currently be channeled or charge-up skills since skill activation time are now the only real limiting factors to DPS outside of enemy CC when unleashing an opening burst.

These ideas have been sitting around for a while so I figured that I would post some. A lot of them came from general ideas revolving around culling the amount of invulnerability, blocking and stability in GW2, but there were a lot of Elementalist-related ideas that came out of it; so here they are:

FOCUS
Flamewall

• Damage increased from 30 to 85.
• Now cripples (3 seconds) foes.
• Now grants might (2 stacks; 10 seconds) to allies.
  • The might works similarly to how swiftness is awarded to players crossing the Mesmer’s [Temporal Curtain]. If a player already has might, he/she won’t be granted might from the [Flamewall].

Fire Shield

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Cast-time: ½ second
• Recharge: 35 seconds
• Whirl in place, striking adjacent foes and gaining a Fire Shield. If you combo this skill within a fire field, you gain aegis and create a [Lava Font] at your location.
• Damage (2x): 185
• Fire Shield duration: 5 seconds
• Aegis: 3 seconds
• Combo Finisher: Whirl
• Range: 130
  • [Cyclone Axe]

Freezing Gust

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Cast-time: 1½ seconds
• Recharge: 25 seconds
• Create a freezing gust that whirls over target location for 3 seconds, chilling foes. The final gust of wind also immobilizes foes.
• Damage (3x): 255
• Chill (3): 1 second
• Immobilize: 2 seconds
• Duration: 3 seconds
• Pulse: 1 second
• Radius: 240
• Range: 900

Comet

• Now uses ground-targeting.

Swirling Winds

• Now cripples (5 seconds) foes upon activation (400 radius).
• Now grants swiftness (8 seconds) to caster and allies upon activation (400 radius).
• Affects up to 5 foes and allies respectively.

Gale

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Cast-time: 1½ seconds
• Recharge: 40 seconds
• Channel a cone of wind in front of you that blinds and cripples foes before knocking them down.
• Damage (4x): 350
• Blind (4): 1 second
• Cripple (4): 1 second
• Knock-down: 2 seconds
• Range: 600
  • This skill hits up to 3 targets.
  • The final damage tick is the tick that inflicts knock-down.
  • [Healing Breeze] cone

UTILITIES
Arcane Shield

• Recharge lowered from 75 to 50 seconds.
• Duration lowered from 5 to 2 seconds.
• Explosion generated from exhausting blocks now dazes adjacent enemies (180 radius; 2-second daze).

Mist Form

• Recharge reduced from 75 to 60 seconds.
• Duration reduced from 3 to 2 seconds.
• Invulnerability reduced from 3 to 2 seconds.
• Now also cures immobilize, crippled and chill upon activation.
  • Now chains into another skill upon use: [Cold Front].

Cold Front

• Cast-time: ¼ second
• Recharge: 5 seconds
• Dash in a target direction, chilling foes that you strike along the way.
• Damage: 111
• Chill: 2 seconds
• Evasion: ¾ seconds
• Range: 450
  • [Whirlwind Attack]

Armor of Earth

• Recharged reduced from 90 to 50 seconds.
• Stability (5 stacks) reduced from 6 to 4 seconds.
• Protection reduced from 6 to 4 seconds.
• Duration reduced from 6 to 4 seconds.

Lightning Flash

• Recharge reduced from 40 to 30 seconds.

Cleansing Fire

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Recharge reduced from 40 to 30 seconds.
• Cast-time increased from 0 to 1½ seconds.
• Channel a cleansing fire that pulses around you three times, damaging and burning nearby foes while cleansing 1 condition from yourself and nearby allies with each pulse. The final pulse knocks back nearby enemies.
• Damage (3x): 387
• Burning (3): 1 second
• Knock back: 180
• Radius: 240

coglin.1867:

Turrets are so undesirable to most, that I am open to any discussion on improvements to them. But since your brought this thread back up, I have some thoughts on the spread of condition removal and stun breakers in the various utility sets. I feel it is relevant as a suggestion to list.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/Spreading-out-the-benefits/first#post3009096

Hey, Coglin, I read your post and I completely agree with your thoughts on how it’d be nice to show a little more love (additional condition removal, damage mitigation, skill synergy, etc) to Engineer utility lines outside of Elixirs and—to a lesser extent—kits (since honestly kits are in a pretty good place right now for the most part).

When it comes to gadgets, truth be told, I think that one of the best ways to go about this would be to make gadgets sort of like Engineer signets (hear me out). Gadgets have really interesting and often game-changing active abilities which often promotes use on cool-down or snap-decision-use when an opening calls for it. To this effect, adding interesting passive effects while gadgets are off of their cool-downs would be a nice way to even out their issues derived principally from a lack of traits (and such a change might even compliment future gadget traits should they ever be added).

Things such as:
Utility Goggles

• Added a passive effect when unused: Using a gadget skill or a tool-belt skill heals for a small amount and removes 1 condition. If you removed a condition, this skill enters a 10-second cool-down.
• Healing: 325
• Utility Goggles’ passive ability counts itself when its active ability is triggered.

Throw Mine

• Added a passive effect when unused: When you use a gadget or a tool-belt skill, you drop a bomb at your location that explodes, blinding and bleeding nearby foes (15-second cool-down).
  • Damage: 251
  • Blind: 5 seconds
  • Bleed (3): 5 seconds
  • Radius: 180
  • Combo Finisher: Blast

Could add more depth to gadget-centric combat and could even spawn Gadget-only Engineers that synergize their profession mechanic with their utilities to invent new play-styles and rotations.

As for turrets, I think the solution to making them “better” lies in first updating how they behave in combat (we’ve had a lot of interesting suggestions for that), but also then looking at implementing more active-trigger traits for turrets. Turrets need traits like “Drop turrets from above when you deploy them, dazing nearby foes,” or “When you activate a turret’s overcharge, that turret forms a force field around itself that reflects projectiles.” To be better, turrets just need more skills and need to move easier around the battlefield (that sort of stuff is noted in Erebos’ suggestions above about increasing turret pick-up time to 1.5 seconds, but then reducing their recharge completely).

coglin.1867:

Honestly, I simply want a MH weapon that is not condition/control based. Condition weapons suck so bad at times. I hate going into an event, dungeon, or WvW and hitting and object, then having it remind me how bad conditions functioning is with regards to objects.

Well, the skill set is pretty control-ly given that the idea sprang out of a discussion between guildmate and I discussing regarding the electric floor room towards the end of the new TA path and how you can get launched from safety pads depending on your charge. However, I still thought that there should be enough straight damage left to give it enough heft if someone just wanted to beat mobs up with it, so there is quite a bit of raw damage—just with the option of control depending on the player’s choice of rotation.

You know, I get depressed when I think about this stuff given the remote chance of it ever really happening.

Ferum Flamebender.5910:

I’m still a big fan of hammer on the engineer. It seems a better choice to me since you need a hammer to tinker niche little gadgets, dinkydoodles and turrets ^^. Plus I’d really like another two handed weapon.

Yeah, I’m honestly still rooting for hammer. From what I’ve seen, it looks like the best bet for a new Engineer weapon and it could really be great since it would give Engineers a reliable main-hand cleave weapon and maybe some more chase options. I just had a conversation with a guildmate that turned into a theoretical Engineer weapon, and I felt like posting it here.

Ferum Flamebender.5910:

… the tinkering in guild wars 2 is *no where near, and will never be near the literally endless amout of builds and tinkering in gw1.

Yup. Dual-classing was the key. I mean, there was a lot you could do within one class’ own skill set, but dual-classing was when things got wild, crazy and creative. That said, dual-classing just isn’t going to work for GW2. Furthermore, since all but 5 of our skills are decided for us (and 2 of those 5 skill slots are dedicated to “ultimate” and healing respectively), we simply aren’t going to see build diversity in GW2 like we saw in GW1.

Therefore, it comes down to traits as the key to true build diversity in GW2. However since 90% of them are garbage or completely outclassed by the commonly-used ones, build diversity falls again on the three utility slots (which I’ve already said aren’t really enough). Moreover, most commonly-used traits are very straight-forward abilities that don’t synergize with anything outside of lowering a set of cool-downs or spamming attacks. It’s rather unfortunate.

The only thing ANet could probably do at this point to open up build diversity would be to allow the Elite Skill slot to house utility skills in addition to the elite skill options (and I’m not down-playing that at all, that would be amazing and a huge boost to build diversity in all GW2 game formats).

In the end, we’re just going to have to face that we’ll never sit atop a ledge in Jade Quarry with our Ranger/Assassin and cast Scorpion Wire on an approaching Necro/Assassin, walk two steps back, teleport to him and knock him down, cast Expunge Enchantments (because expertise synergized with the touch-attack mana cost) and use Melandru’s Shot (because he’s knocked down), thus ruining his attempt to bomb the nearby shrine while we whittle him down with interrupts and auto-attacks.

google.3709:

sword on engi seems like a meh idea… but, i really really like ur idea!!

Actually, it might work better as a mace since the form of the mace better fits the shape of the Van de Graaf generator which is more flavor-friendly to the skill set. I guess it really doesn’t matter since damage types don’t exist in this game (what a shame).

Because why not.

Note:

• Positive Charge and Electric Charge are new, unique conditions. They can be cleansed and they stack in duration. They deal no damage on their own.

Yamsandjams.3267:

Swagg.9236:

Yamsandjams.3267:

Durzlla.6295:

Imaybe if it crippled or shreded a boon, or applied a condi or something…

They do strip a boon, or at least they should be doing that.

I use it in WvW sometimes, but just for the freebie toolbelt mine field before swapping back to my regular utility. It can be a pretty good tool for dealing with backstab thieves and the like though.

If you’re using it for boon removal, something like null field will always be better for group combat, and I find I’m often better using other things. I think it would maybe have a bit more use in sPvP, but it’s a similar case with turrets.

I was hoping they would add a stealth-counter to the mine and mine field, similar to what the ranger is getting with their shout. That would give it a very unique property and would make it much more worthwhile to keep it around. It maybe wouldn’t make it quite as popular as rocket boots, but I very rarely ever see someone using the mine skill.

The mine field tool-belt skill is actually one of my favorite things about this skill. If you can get 4/5 or 5/5 of the mines to hit, it’s comparable to a Jump Shot in spvp. It’s great for baiting melee classes. My only wish was for an effect aside from just raw damage—that, and maybe a cast-time buff from 1 to 3/4 second or something of that nature. The full 1 second cast-time really does making bursting rather difficult.

Irregardless, the whole package is absolutely amazing zone control.

I think the main problem is perhaps not the mines so much (though I still do think they could use a boost *cough*STEALTH REVEAL ANET*cough*), but it’s more to do with what you have to choose not to slot in order to get them. If your game is zone control, would you rather pick mines or bomb/grenade kit? I suppose one could take bombs, grenades, and mines, but then you’re leaving yourself without a stunbreak or other sorts of escape/healing/condi removal stuff.

The main thing I’ve seen the mine used for is a glorified blast finisher on an 18 second cooldown.

I was running Rifle/Healing Turret/Throw Mine/Elixir Gun/Bomb Kit when trying out [Throw Mine]. I also had cool-down traits for everything, so [Throw Mine] effectively became part of a normal rotation with a 14 1/2 second cool-down. Zoning and baiting enemies was crazy.

Yamsandjams.3267:

Durzlla.6295:

Imaybe if it crippled or shreded a boon, or applied a condi or something…

They do strip a boon, or at least they should be doing that.

I use it in WvW sometimes, but just for the freebie toolbelt mine field before swapping back to my regular utility. It can be a pretty good tool for dealing with backstab thieves and the like though.

If you’re using it for boon removal, something like null field will always be better for group combat, and I find I’m often better using other things. I think it would maybe have a bit more use in sPvP, but it’s a similar case with turrets.

I was hoping they would add a stealth-counter to the mine and mine field, similar to what the ranger is getting with their shout. That would give it a very unique property and would make it much more worthwhile to keep it around. It maybe wouldn’t make it quite as popular as rocket boots, but I very rarely ever see someone using the mine skill.

The mine field tool-belt skill is actually one of my favorite things about this skill. If you can get 4/5 or 5/5 of the mines to hit, it’s comparable to a Jump Shot in spvp. It’s great for baiting melee classes. My only wish was for an effect aside from just raw damage—that, and maybe a cast-time buff from 1 to 3/4 second or something of that nature. The full 1 second cast-time really does making bursting rather difficult.

Irregardless, the whole package is absolutely amazing zone control.

Cancelling the animation is actually a really good escape or repositioning tactic. Given even just a little bit of elevation, you can get a lot of distance out of an Acid Bomb leap. I like to use it when leaping off of cliffs or hills because by cancelling the animation, I can get a huge arc that takes me a great distance farther than what the normal leap provides.

This skill.

Anyone use this? Because this skill is pretty good. I’m speaking strictly from a PvP stand-point since it’s pretty underwhelming in PvE and WvW. I can’t remember if this is getting buffed or not in the upcoming patch. Seriously, if they buff the [Mine Field] mine radius, it’d be like another [Grenade Barrage]. I’m pretty stoked.

Also, stripping stability never gets old. Shame this probably won’t get buffed to remove 2 boons per mine. The skill still feels a little light.

Signets are a good example of ideal skills in GW2. Signets effectively broadcast a signet-users’s actions even before a signet-user can affect a signet’s active ability. A player uses a signet; an opponent sees that signet broadcasted above that player’s head; that opponent can make a counterplay if he/she reacts well and/or quickly enough. Moreover, most signets don’t have projectiles or red-circles attached to their active effects. Yet, as I’ve said before, that sort of issue is downplayed by the fact that all activated signet abilities with offensive effects are broadcasted by the giant signet image appearing above a player’s head when in use. In this manner, even if a signet is instant-activation, an opponent still knows what exactly just happened instead of being left in the dark about why he/she is suddenly blind or covered in conditions. This also goes for suddenly seeing an enemy gain several boons or heal.

What all this means is that Signets are perhaps the best examples for ideal offensive skills in this game thus far given that their effects are broadcasted over top of the player that uses them, and they have a simple, clean visual impact on an enemy.

A lot of skills could benefit from this sort of paradigm. Broadcasting is the first step to redeeming the unfair nature of instant-cast offensive abilities with long range and no projectiles or red-circles as well as cast-time oriented spells of the same nature that use visually unimpressive casting animations and instantly impact a target without a projectile upon cast completion.

A lot of this visually stimulating cacophony is in the wrong place. This isn’t an enormous problem in PvE because most PvE enemies attack slowly, are large and often have obvious animations, but the picture below really does speak volumes about how messy a fight can look with people just auto-attacking or going through a lazy rotation. However, in PvP situations, this sort of stuff really muddles one’s ability to tell what is happening.

This is what I’m talking about when I say that a powerful skill can have short cast-times with rather mute animation cues so long as there is some sort of delayed effect cued by some sort of impressive visual effect near the person using that skill. As it stands, having skills activated immediately after cast-time completion just isn’t really good enough given the fast or instant-activation speed of many “good” skills combined with their lack of obvious cues. Cues shouldn’t be limited to just “Hoho, I’m waving my arm,” because that’s the cue for every spell. There’s no real way to differentiate among several spells that use the same, very plain animation.

Cues for powerful abilities should be “Hoho, I’m waving my arm, but there’s also this crazy symbol that appears near my body followed by a spell that shoots out toward your location or activates directly on top of you.” This sort of design allows not only for immediate counter-play (blocks, dodging, etc.) but also post-action counter-play (“OK, I know that opponent hit me with [skill], so that means it’s on cool-down. Now what should I do/what will my opponent do next?”).

Erebos.6741:

Hello Swagg,

Nice thread btw and thanks for the feedback!
To clarify a few things: saving HP is the drawback to removing Turret pickup Cooldowns.

The drawback is needed because Turrets (as all skills) need weakness/counters to excuse their potency, otherwise players could just pickup and redeploy their Turrets with full health to exploit the lack of Cooldowns.

Even with saved HP there is further counter-strategy where players could pick up their turrets upon impending damage, only to redeploy them immediately after.
Despite rewarding skillful play there is no counter to this maneuver, which creates imbalance (important in PvP), so I thought to include a long activation time to discard the possibility in order to maintain fair play.

This also promotes (or rather doesn’t demote) Tool Kit Turret repair utilities and the Autotool Installation trait, which could persist in effect to stowed Turrets as an additional suggestion.
I also like the suggestion to merge Autotool Installation with Metal Plating suggested in another thread by MonMalthias, even though I personally still wouldn’t take the combined trait as being a strict SPvPer ;P

TL;DR: The motive behind these proposed changes is to allow greater Turret activity by affording them better mobility to comply with exploration requirements, etc.
And confine counter-strategy to maintain balance in PvP.

This is an alternative to other increased Turret mobility suggestions previously mentioned throughout the forums.

Well, first off thanks for the input. I really appreciate the conversations that pop up in this thread. Yeah, after thinking about it more, “saving hp” would probably be the most balanced manner of implementing a turret pick-up paradigm that operated without cool-downs. I wonder if they could do it (not sure any deployed item or pet really saves previous existences or not in this game or if they all just assume new instances of themselves; I’m leaning toward the latter).

I also agree that new traits would probably be the closer on a new turret pick-up paradigm. It wouldn’t be enough to just introduce something like that without really supporting such a play-style with a proper trait-base. I mean, sure, making a change like the one you suggested would really change turret play (and, in my opinion, for the better), but what turrets really need beyond better mobility are traits to capitalize on their varied skill chains. Merging current ones and introducing, new active trigger traits would be a great step forward to making turrets truly viable outside of gimmicky 1v1 settings.

Hey, I apparently made this just for you about five months ago. But seriously, this thread is ridiculous. The only thing that the Engineer needs is a hammer. Well, there’s more, but I have a thread about that elsewhere.

Erebos.6741:

TURRET AND OVERCHARGE SKILL SUGGESTIONS
General

• Picking up turrets no longer invokes a Recharge/Cooldown.
• Turret pickup activation time increased to 1.5 seconds.
• Turret HP saved upon pickup. Redeploying turrets resumes saved HP amount. HP resets to full after 5 minutes of non-activation time from the utility bar.
• Destroyed turrets still incur a recharge time.

Rocket Turret

• Burning damage component removed. This skill now applies 5 stacks of Torment for 3 seconds.

Explosive Rockets (Rocket Turret overcharge)

• Animation changed to incorporate faster projectile travel time.
  OR
• Explosive Rockets now deal AoE Knockdown.

Flame Turret

• Burning duration increased from 2 seconds to 3.

Those are some interesting idea. Direct [Flame Turret] buff could make sense, I guess. However, swapping burning for torment on the [Rocket Turret] makes me think. Sounds like it could lend itself to a condi-burst really well ala necro via use of a pistol main-hand and the Incendiary Powder trait.

Buuuut, your suggestion on picking up turrets is really neat. Seriously, that’s a cool idea. I’m not fully convinced that hp should be saved exactly given that if you rescued a wounded turret and placed it back down as help, it might just end up exploding right as it entered combat. I dunno, it sounds balanced, though. Maybe a trait could be something like “Heal your turret when you pick it up (maybe something like 2500hp or so).” That way, you’d have to spend an awful lot of time picking up your turret just to heal it that way, but it would also get a breath of fresh air when you set it back down into an active fight.

I’m not sure why you had to make this thread, but you sound awfully angry. You ought to take a long sit in a place with a cool crossbreeze.

SPELLS WITHOUT PROJECTILES, WITHOUT RED CIRCLES, BUT THAT STILL DIRECTLY TARGET ENEMY PLAYERS
Alright, this is pretty nonsense too. Once more, this issue comes out of how most spell-casting animations are horribly bland, shared across multiple spells and difficult to discern in the first place. Again, I turn to the Engineer [Bomb Kit] for a solution. The cast-times aren’t really the issue with these sorts of skills, it’s the fact that their effects are tied directly to the end of their cast-times. [Dragon’s Tooth] is a fine example of what could be a good model for skills like the ones described in the above heading. The flaw of [Dragon’s Tooth] is that it is ground-targeted. However, if it followed a player, it would be very strong.

There are quite a few single-target, long-range, projectile-less skills without red circles in this game that could benefit from adopting a [Dragon’s Tooth] style skill completion paradigm. For instance, we have the Necromancer skill [Spinal Shivers]. It has a long cast-time, but even that can get lost in combat. Instead, what if the cast-time was lowered drastically, but instead of having a direct effect once the cast-time was completed, a blue mist would hover above the target before crashing down maybe 3/4 of a second later, thus applying the skill’s effects. This is the sort of paradigm that I think would really transform GW2 combat into a multi-layered, reaction-driven and thoroughly engaging experience. There are loads of skills that would be candidates for changes like these. And the best part is how—if done properly—such changes wouldn’t really affect the way burst rotations work now. Honestly, if there were multiple stacks of your attacks floating and ready to strike a targeted opponent, that opens your door to a myriad of other options by which you could amplify those attacks or steer yourself in the combat to come.

SOLVING THE IPT PROBLEM WITHOUT RUINING SPELLS
Engineer bombs. This is the model for how IPTs could contribute fairly to combat without being nerfed into the ground classic ANet style. Engineer bombs, instead of simply blowing up once the cast-time is complete, have a lag time between their appearance on the battlefield and when they actually have an effect. However, the Engineer does not have to hold down a channel button for 2 seconds just so a single bomb can explode. To this effect, the Engineer can chain bomb attacks with clever placement, movement or by just spamming them (mostly in PvE) while not being horrifically overpowered because of the detonation lag time that keeps Bomb Kit DPS in check and also provides an enemy some time to dodge or reposition in case he/she doesn’t want to take the impact.

Why isn’t this how IPTs work?

Let’s take Incendiary Powder or Dhuumfire for example. These are traits that grant a player an RNG chance to inflict heavy burning damage on a single opponent. There is no warning (not even the person using these traits will truly know when it will trigger) since these traits trigger in conjunction with a skill impacting another player; therefore, there is literally no counter-play available when fighting against these abilities. If you’re fighting a player with these traits. You are going to get burned as part of it. No one can truly avoid this.

However, instead, let’s imagine that if a player using one of these traits suddenly triggered one at random, a flagrant cue animation independent from that player would reel up for a brief moment before then finally inflicting the desired, traited effect. In this case, we are now not only giving the player’s target some counter-play room, but we aren’t necessarily disturbing the flow of the attacking player’s burst rotation. Since IPT traits and sigils that behave similarly to Incendiary Powder or Dhuumfire slip so seamlessly into a burst rotation, it wouldn’t necessarily hurt those rotations to delay them (as are Engineer bombs to a certain degree), by giving them their own animation cues independent, but still attached to the player that triggered them. The effects would still trigger as part of a burst-rotation, they would just trigger independent of direct skill effects.

In the case of Dhuumfire, a Necromancer could trigger the trait, but instead of immediately lighting an opponent on fire, some sort of ridiculous, edgy, reaper-esque animation could reel up behind the player and perform its own animation to tell the opponent that “Hey, I’m going to light you on fire now!” The opponent on the receiving end could then decide, “Well, should I dodge now or should I save my dodge for later because Dhuumfire triggered pretty early on in that guy’s rotation?” Suddenly, there’s a little more thinking going on.

This sort of solution could apply to all sorts of other skills and passive triggers as well: Static Discharge bolts, Elementalist scepter 2-3 skills when attuned to Lightning, Fire and Air sigils, and the list could go on.

You have to admit that this aspect of this game is a little bogus. This thread’s suggestion is in the interest of shifting the time-frame during which burst combat operates and giving players an answer to what are effectively unfair mechanics without entirely negating those mechanics or the damage that they represent.

THE PROBLEM WITH INSTANT-ACTIVATION, PASSIVE TRIGGERS (IPTs)
One of the things that GW2 developers said regarding the feel for the game’s combat was on how it was supposed to hinge on players reading other players’ skill animations (cues) and counter-playing accordingly. Not only are there only a few unique cues per race (most are often visually unimpressive—especially spell-caster cues—and cloaked in layers of impressive visual effects leftover from a typical engagement), but there also exist passive triggers and skills with no activation time or cue. Given the nature of such skills and triggers, the meta-game has naturally gravitated toward piling on as many of these effects (often randomly since most passive triggers are RNG-based) onto a burst rotation as possible without compromising a build’s focus (indeed, most passive triggers often complement and enhance a build’s focus). This speeds up combat tremendously and often results in victories derived from pressing the most buttons the fastest in hopes of setting off your passive triggers because a player can’t really counter-play against something that activates instantly and as part of another action.

Another point that I’d like to make is how despite the wide variety of target-seeking, long-range skills in this game, there really aren’t too many skills that possess a 1-second or longer cast-time. Guild Wars 1 was a very decision-oriented game in which play hinged on interrupting or playing around another player’s skills. This worked because players could see what their opponents were doing in real time and could quickly determine whether or not they could take that damage/effect, whether they should skirt out of the way, whether they should break off an attack or whether to interrupt it if they had the ability to do so. One of the ways that we see this more balanced aspect of GW1 is in how almost EVERY SINGLE regular-range spell in that game has a cast-time of 1 second or longer. The only spells that ever really come down below that cast-time threshold are spells that have PBAoE effects, supportive/healing spells such as Monk spells, spells that are specifically designed to be interruption skills or the occasional Elite Skill. This was a system that worked because even if you couldn’t stop an enemy player’s action (and even if that action happened very quickly), you could still rapidly come to terms with what was happening to you and/or your teammates. In GW2, it’s much more difficult to do this due to the issues I discussed in the first paragraph, thus rendering a once successful system quite broken.

Now would be the time for someone to cite how GW2 is an “action-oriented game” with “dynamic combat” that would be restrained by such things as a 1-second cast-time threshold for most long-range, projectile-less skills. Honestly, that might end up being the case. Given the movement capabilities granted to most professions that specialize in melee-range combat, forcing all spell-casters to have long, cringing cast-times for everything would probably end up being really bad for the health of class balance. However, there is a solution.

I’m not sure about signets for the Engineer, but gadgets could maybe become signet-like if they were to be given passive effects when not on a cool-down. Instead of traditional passive effects such as “you move 25% faster,” gadget passives could feature active triggers or movement modifiers such as “move a greater distance when you dodge,” “gain a reflective shield for 1 second when you dodge” or “trigger an explosion at your location when you use a tool-belt skill (10 second cool-down; counts as a blast finisher).”

That said, I don’t think that your skill suggestions are bad at all. The tool-belt skills are especially interesting (very utilitarian). Although, the steam bubble one might be a little overpowered with a 10 second duration and all of those powerful conditions (still cool, though).