Guild Wars 2

RaynStargaze.6510:

Just because i know how something works (and in retrospect i really didnt know it to full extent especially the elixir gun part) doesnt mean that everyone else does —> result a lot of crap written on forum on kit refinement as i said – hence this thread

DEEEEERRRRRp

And no doubt the same people that failed to read the threads that have already explained how it works, will fail to read this one, so deeerrrrppp yourself.

Zen Later.6475:

Absolutely agree with the op.

Something to reflect on the scoreboard for the pvp part of a pvp gametype (who’d a thunk it). It doesn’t even have to be a huge score tick either…which it seems would help to allay the fears of some here who think pvp kills in a pvp game type should not reflect on the score and final outcome of the game.

We already have a system where solo players/small groups can impact the scoreboard by ganking yaks. So why not a small score for you know…pvp.

The ‘v’ stands for versus, versus != killing, taking objectives is PvP, it is players competitng against players (of course if your team fails to bother to defend objectives or dollys, then makes it easy, but nevertheless still PvP).

But anyway back to the OP, yes it might be nice to add some point contribution for kills, kills contribute points in sPvP why not WvW.

RaynStargaze.6510:

I`ve recently read and heard a lot of crap about the kit refinement nerf and how it supposedly works most of it was BS

Then perhaps read things more carefully, which kits it affected, that jumping proced the GCD, etc was all posted in threads within two hours of the patch.

Gab Superstar.4059:

Sylosi.6503:

Gab Superstar.4059:

Just fine for me? I was in a guild of 100 people, mainly european, playing on NA servers since release, and no one ever complained about lag. Including people from Poland / Czech Republic / Scandinavia / Germany / UK.

But it’s quite apparent you speak from no experience at all, so I am not sure why I even bother discussing this with you.

Many people have noticeable performance drops when they try and play accross continents, it has been stated in these threads many times before, I have several Auusie friends that have to play at 300-400ms & higher packet loss, they play at a permanant disadvantage. Same goes for some guys from NA who play on EU, some can manage it, but have more occasiosn when lag is an issue, others simply don’t even bother as the performance is too bad.

Are we talking about having the servers in Europe? I guess I must have missed that part. Your aussie friends would still be playing on NA servers, no?

But then again I don’t have to speak for everyone. The fact that everyone played on American servers in GW1 is proof enough.

My Aussie friends play on NA, we were in the same EVE corporation. The fact they play on NA is irrelevant, you claim (in direct opposition to how the internet actually works) there is no performance difference regardless of where people live / connection, etc, they play with a permanent performance disadvantage, the fact they choose to do that is up to them (though some avoid WvW, given the issues it already has (culling / zerg lag), with their added performance burden it is just unplayable for some of them).

I and many others bought a game on the basis it was sold as having localized servers in the EU.

I’ve already played a game where they switched the servers to NA, LOTRO, there was a noticable performance dip, to the point half our guild left the game.

As for GW1, different games have different technical requirements, for instance the EVE servers are in London (other than for the Chinese), but data is only polled on a 1 second interval so is much less demanding on latency.

Quite why you find it so hard to grasp that many games set up localised servers precisely becasue there are performance issues playing in a different continent is a mystery…

Gab Superstar.4059:

Just fine for me? I was in a guild of 100 people, mainly european, playing on NA servers since release, and no one ever complained about lag. Including people from Poland / Czech Republic / Scandinavia / Germany / UK.

But it’s quite apparent you speak from no experience at all, so I am not sure why I even bother discussing this with you.

Clearly from more experience than yourself who came out with the argument “I don’t lag, therefore there is no lag problem” and demonstrates a total lack of understanding both of basic logic and of the technology.

Many people have noticeable performacne drops when they try and play accross continents, it has been stated in these threads many times before, I have several Auusie friends that have to play at 300-400ms & higher packet loss, they play at a permanant disadvantage. Same goes for some guys from NA who play on EU, some can manage it, but have more occasiosn when lag is an issue, others simply don’t even bother as the performance is too bad for them.

So in future try not to speak for everyone, because you don’t. As already stated in one of these threads, they are seperated for performance reasons, and you throwing your toys out of the pram won’t change that reality. (newsflash – companies don’t go to the added expense of setting up localized servers simply for fun)

Gab Superstar.4059:

Lag is not an issue. I have an account on both EU and NA, and I don’t notice any difference at all in combat.

So because you have no issue or don’t notice the issues, that magically makes it fine for everyone, newsflash it isn’t fine for everyone.

The reasons being:

- not everyone has the same quality of internet connection.
- not everyone lives in a geographically favourable location (e.g – you have less performance issues in regard to a connection to NA from say the UK than you do further east in Europe where you have to go through more hubs.
- Some people just aren’t very observant, if you watch some of the streams where NA players play on EU (sPvP) it is fairly apparent that the NA players get lag issues far, far more and they get issues where their skills are just off, which makes a differnence, at least to the more observant / less bad.

It is like when some people come out with rubbish like Aussies play on NA servers fine, many of them don’t, they play at 300-400ms latency, higher % packet loss, etc, they simply suffer through it and play at a disadvantage, because they have no choice.

But anyway, it has already been stated by a dev in one of these threads that they are seperated for technical / perfomance reasons.

katniss.6735:

RTL nerf forces us to use PVT gear to roam.

Which is a non-issue, unless you are so bad you can’t compensate for a small nerf to a class that is still OP.

katniss.6735:

No more orb fun. No consumables, No siege in puzzles fun.

Orbs did indeed add an interesting element, at the same time the bonuses they gave were terrible and just unbalanced the match further.

As for cinsumbles, they were extremely OP, get over it.

katniss.6735:

If you pay to transfer to the full queue maps you will probably enjoy the game.

Not really, the system is hopelessly flawed and that all it really amounts to is who has best the coverage, but then that should of been obivous from the start, three faction design suffers from the same issues as two faction when it comes to population balance, just to a slightly lesser degree. And yes then there is the culling…

katniss.6735:

There’s a small portion of players that like roaming with 5-10 guildies and picking off unorganized, talentless players in the mid-tiers. That is the only real enjoyment you can get now.

These people are known as ‘bads’, good players look for other good players to play against.

guza.6170:

They are rude to you because u interupt them.

Not really, they are rude because they are immature kittens, it is as simple as that.

All they need to do is explain they are dueling, ask they guy to try another server and if they were actually even marginally mature then maybe explain to the new guy, he should join by selecting a server from the list and not to join servers with very few people on as they are probably duelling.

gimmethegepgun.1284:

Sylosi.6503:

Derk.3189:

can you list the monthly please

- complete 25 events
- kill 25 veterans
- craft 10 items (of masterwork quality or higher)
- complete 2 dailies

That’s only for the first level of them (second for the dailies), there’s more than that required.
But yeah, those are the categories.

I realised that after I posted it and saw the replies above, I am a little slow at 2.30 am.

OP is right, no dungeons/fractals (and for those who don’t like WvW none of that either).

First monthly that does a decent job of letting you “play your way”, the only thing I would say is, they should make it like the dailies and give you the choice to pick 4 from 7 or so options each month, so it will always be “play your way”.

It was OP, it needed to be fixed.

DDog.4350:

2. When u get high rating yourself it doesn’t really matter, your whole team will play well, so will theirs. Their only advantage is the fact that they can choose proffessions for their team.

You left out the rather huge advantage of voice communication.

Syktek.7912:

You assume we’ll recieve armor.

Yes I assume there will be armour, I also assume there will be higher rarities of infusions as they were very careful not to rule that out.

Syktek.7912:

At that, say a guardian does et a 7.6 increase in damage. What does that mean to those people that he wasn’t able to kill in the first place? They too have a 7.6% increase in their stat of choice. or even if lacking, a lot of warriors are terrible and that 7.6% really won’t help them regardless.

The first bit doesn’t make sense, if the person the guardian is up against only has exotics they won’t have a 7.6% increase in a different stat. And the second bit is a total non-argument, whether someone is terrible or not is irrelvant to the fact ascended items give an advantage in WvW.

Syktek.7912:

Tack on this. Legendaries with ascended stats will be on the market still. Someone stated that there will be ascended weapons alongside these. Possible, probably, likely, etc. So that means, regardless, people will be able to have ascended weapons with or without legendaries.

Which will be useless, as most of the people who don’t have ascended gear are those that don’t enjoy dungeons, which means in most cases they will not have the gold to buy a pricey legendary.

Syktek.7912:

And yes, ascended items are hard to obtain, I know this. But at the moment. EVERYONE. can get them as long as they donate a tad bit of their time a day to complete dailies. Dailies are now very easy. So in time, everyone can and will have them. Just like those necklaces (I don’t have one yet, because I’m addicted to those GF boosts)

The rate at which people aquire ascended gear through dailies is pathetic and that is on the basis of doing them every day, many people can’t do them everyday and outside of weekends have little time to play so even if they get an hour on a couple of weekday evenings, the last thing they wish to do is a tedious daily, this is the game that was sold on “play it your way” and that there would be no gear treadmill, that you would be able to get on actually playing the game, rather than grinding to prepare for playing, yet we get the opposite…

Syktek.7912:

…no boost to WvW performance as a 3-5% boost to performance in some stats is null.

Only if you are terrible at maths.

Try telling a football team (by football I mean real football, or soccer if you don’t speak proper like what I do) that their goal will be 12 inches wider than that of the opposition’s and that it doesn’t matter because it is only 5%.

Incidentally where is this 3-5% from as in one of these threads their is a guy stating his warrior’s DPS increases by 7.6% when he switches from exotics to 4 ascended trinkets, now work out what will happen when the other 10 slots are eventually open for ascended gear…

Because lion’s arch chat / that lfg site are constantly filled with “need 4m zerker engies”, the ulimate OP / cheese composition in tPvP is double engy bunker (for the non-stop sustain), plus another engy to bring IoL, timewarp and portal, and in WvW 60% of zergs are made up of plate wearing engies waving their greatswords around and the ultimate small group / roamer class are those special stealth engies that can escape a bad situation 90% of the time.

Culling issues and the effect that has on the combat aside, the problem with stealth in WvW (thieves mainly, though it applies a bit to mesmers) is that the balance of risk vs reward is completely off.

Saying that, it is not just a matter of stealth as the mobility/escapes many Ele builds have also create a lack of risk vs reward.

Salacious.7358:

ascended is meant for fractals, for pve it gives you 1-3% increase. for pvp it would be the same. calm down

Well there is a guy in another thread who states the 4 bits he has now give him a 7.6% increase in DPS over exotic, when you add in the other 10 slots and that weapons will apparently have 4 stats not three, it is a signifcant advantage.

Heijincks.9267:

How do you know you’re getting killed by people with ascended gear and not because you’re just bad?

I see logic is not your strength, firstly I’m not getting killed, I’m barely settting foot in WvW as all I’ve been doing in GW2 lately is the daily. Secondly whether someone wins some because they are more skilled or loses others because they are less skilled, is irrelevant to the issue, ascneded gear will give an ever larger advantage as it is added to more slots, gear / stat differences make for crappy PvP.

Sovta.4719:

Sylosi.6503:

Sovta.4719:

Jordo.5913:

PvP in this game is supposed to be “I beat my enemy because of skill”. W

When was this? It was always zergfest.

If you only ever follow the zerg, others roam solo / small group and shockingly enough encounter other solo / small groups, others do G v G (with equal numbers), ascended gear will increasingly make a diference as they add it to more slots.

For solo roamers i don’t think ascended or any gear is problem, thiefs and mesmer invisibility amd elementalist who CAN’T be killed 1v1 if player is good (at least he will run away) are much bigger issues for me.

Yes the escapability of certain classes is a problem, however is it a seperate issue and doesn’t alter the fact ascended gear will have an ever increasing effect.

Sovta.4719:

Jordo.5913:

PvP in this game is supposed to be “I beat my enemy because of skill”. W

When was this? It was always zergfest.

If you only ever follow the zerg, others roam solo / small group and shockingly enough encounter other solo / small groups, others do G v G (with equal numbers), ascended gear will increasingly make a difference as they add it to more slots.

HannaDeFreitas.4236:

It isn’t any less faulty. GW is a completely different type of game.
GW2 needs to be played with its own mentality, you can’t have a game that offers a new playstyle and play it with an old one.
Try new things sometimes.

The slight flaws being it isn’t new, it is WoW 2.0 and they spent years promoting the game on the basis there would be no gear treadmill, that progression would be cosmetic, because they wanted players to enjoy playing the actual game, rather than endlessly preparing to play the game.

Another thing they endlessly sold the game on was “play the way you want”, what they actually delivered is the opposite, though this is apparently difficult to comprehend for some.

Kimbald.2697:

I sincerely believe they nerfed kit refinement because of 100nades.

Why? In sPvP which is where is is mainly used, it is not the highest burst, is not the hardest burst to avoid / counter and is not the easiest burst to deliver.

And as inept as the balancing & bug fixing has been, it would not be difficult to just target 100nades if that was the intent.

Kardiamond.6952:

Why do I think we got nerfed more then we got buffed last patch?

1- Kit Refinement

We now have a Global cooldown of 10 sec, in addition to the individual timer from each kit. From last report, jump/swapping doesn’t seems to work, as it proc de global timer even if it doesn’t cast the KR.

So now any build that used the KR proc will be deedly hurt (Multikit cond, multikit control, 100nade, 3 kit build, support build). Switching to toolkit prior to grenade could remove you a grenade barrage for a box of nail that could be useless in that situation. You can’t have double Condition removal from FT and EG. You can’t stack conditions anymore with grenade/toolkit ect.

Reasonning #1 -> Kit Refinement was OP

It wasn’t. In high level PvP, and high level roamers, kit refinement was far from being an issue. Engineer are still rated below average for there overall effectness in the current META.

Our most popular sPvP build (HGH cond and 100nade) weren’t based around the KR timer. 100nade is the build using KR that is the least affected by the nerf. They still have the combo. They just can’t pull anymore to do it.

HGH isn’t using KR, is simpler to play then 100nade, and top engineer consider it our top build.

4-kit build, nerfed really bad by this, was really average in the cure meta. You could bring some interresting build, but the lack of CC breaker was hard. No where did you find anyone complaining about that.

2- Flamethrower

Even with the buff, Flamethrower isn’t a descent sPvP weapon. It is not viable.

When you use this kit, you only use it to pop cooldown, and get out. You can’t be centered around it, since good player will ether kite you, or melee you. Melee can be a pain because it’s really hard to keep your #1 channeling on a dinamyc enemy. You shouldn’t be able to finish your channel on a good player. You have to dodge, they have to dodge, they pass tru you, making your attack misses.

FT in sPvP was mainly used for control, even with the damage buff, others options are still better. It’s a PvE weapon.

So the buff really isn’t helping us in sPvP. The #2 detonate change is pretty cool tho!

Also, in WvW, Flamethrower was a lot better before. Why? Because it was used with omn pie. It was the only way to use it -> Life stealing the hell out of everyone. Now it got disable (a good thing). But Flametrower damage boost doesn’t help if you are death from retaliation/confusion.

*3- Elixir Gun *

Minimal change, but a good one. Sadly, most EG build were in multikit build. When I had EG, I used KR to have the double effect. Now we have one effect, a bit stronger, but not worth the lose of the FT/EG KR combo.

*4 – Toolkit *

Really good change on prybar, tho confusion is kinda weak in sPvP. Also counter balanced by the fact that we got our KR nerfed.

I don’t think I have the absolute truth, but I think people saying KR nerf isn’t that big of a deal, or was OP already, don’t understand the sPvP meta. You can’t take too many nerf like that with an already below average class. 10 seconds is a lot in a fight with top players!

^that, have +1

lordbachus.6091:

I dont understand you guys, you all make the obvious buff feel like a nerf because of a single trait that was changed, sadly thats not only the case with engineers, but all over the classforums.

Because that single trait affects many builds (anyone that uses 2+ kits and uses kR obviously), it also effects one of the few viable high end tPvP builds, it also nerfed the alternative to elixir formula for decent condi removal, it is also on a trait that many considered the way engineers should be designed – i.e that it went with the theme of versatitliy / jack of all trades, rather than many of the traits that go toward specilization and lastly because in game play terms the way they have done it, an additional 10 sec global cooldown to take account of is just bad in gameplay / QoL terms and reduces engi versatility.

So it was in effect a big nerf for many people, and a series of small buffs, many of which are on kits that will still be unviable in parts of the game (not helped by the food changes, though food was OP) doesn’t make up for that.

damny.9342:

Sylosi.6503:

I’m sorry, but the only “noobs” are those who are so bad they don’t realize how this affects every multi kit build. In PvP I have no choice much of the time when I have to use a kit, for instance if I get immobilized and am about to get bursted, then I need to combat that, so if I have toolkit I swap to tool kit and use the gear shield, or if I have FT I swap to FT and use teh knockback or blind, etc.

Or you just hit the weapon swap key and use the block on your shield. Ohh, you mean you wanted to block on demand without a shield and no other drawbacks?

What are you on about? There is no block on demand, there is a cooldown (20 secs) on gearshield, just like most other skills in the game.

The kit refinement change (when they implement it correctly) affects every single multi kit build (if you use KR), unless you are a “noob” as the guy I quoted so nicely put it, that stands there spamming the same kit and takes longer than 10 secs to switch between kits.

damny.9342:

I mean, I agree that it’d be nice if they didn’t nerf multi kit builds like this. But it doesn’t hurt the main cheesy build (100nades still works, just have to be careful when to switch). EG builds with Kit Refinement get the benefit from the buff to Super Elixir twice, and they now have a blast finisher on EG #4. The toolkit buff on Pry Bar isn’t bad either, great for tankcats. Everything in this update was a buff except the Kit Refinement change, and that only affects builds that tried to burst all their procs at the same time (they all already had 10s to 20s internal cooldowns before).

Wrong, it affects all mutli kit builds, if I am in PvP I often have zero choice when I have to switch to toolkit for gearshiled, FT for knockback, etc, before (and currently still with some kits have they implemnetated is properly) I could then switch to grenade kit to set of GB to attack back or to EG /FT to clear a condition, this won’t work when they implement it properly.

And no you can’t jump when switching kits anymore to avoid triggering the kit refinment effect, as that now sets off the 10sec GCD.

As someone much better than me put it on their stream “the buffs are all completely offset by the kit refinement change”…

Whoever is in charge of balancing in this game is clueless.

damny.9342:

IMHO it’s not a huge nerf. It mainly affects builds that try to get all their procs at the same time. One condition removal less isn’t a big deal either between switching to EG, casting Super Elixir, comboing off of it, and using other skills such as exploding our healing turret (remove all conditions). If you’re not trying to proc everything at the same time, it’s mostly more annoying now but not less powerful. Yes, that’s not a good thing, but also not really cause for despair.

Wrong, it affects every single build with multiple kits (at least when they get round to properly implementing it. If you PvP much of the time you have no choice when to switch to kits because you need them for defensive purposes (gear shield, FT knockback/blind, smoke bomb, etc).

In PvP 10 secs is a very long time, people regularly switch between multiple kits in that time, the change is beyond moronic, it is as simple as that.

The only redeeming feature is they appear to have Frank Spencer as their lead programmer so as per usual they have failed to implement it properly. (no you will probably not have a clue who this or the reference unless you are British and probably of a certain age)

Rozbuska.5263:

Its not as bad as it looks. This change affect only 4 kits not all. Imo now you just must choose first kit swap more wisely instead mindlesly slide on kit buttons. Its simply again increase engi learning curve witch is good because I dont want see every 2 button noob play engi:-)

I’m sorry, but the only “noobs” are those who are so bad they don’t realize how this affects every multi kit build. In PvP I have no choice much of the time when I have to use a kit, for instance if I get immobilized and am about to get bursted, then I need to combat that, so if I have toolkit I swap to tool kit and use the gear shield, or if I have FT I swap to FT and use teh knockback or blind, etc.

If you are playnig a multi kit engi build and not constantly swapping kits, you are doing it wrong.

Eviator.9746:

Independent of that, it was easy to anticipate a nerf to 100-nades, which is really what people are mad about, don’t kid yourselves. Would any nerf not produce the outrage we are seeing on the forums? I contend YES!

People would anticipate a nerf to 100nades, because engys seem to get a lot of nerfs, on an actual logical basis though the nerf is without merit, because it is not the strongest burst in the game, nor the easiest to apply, nor the hardest to avoid and the build (indeed class) possesses less disengage than thieves / eles / mesmers, nor is it the only build affected, any multi kit build is (when played by anyone who isn’t terrible and actually switches kits more than once every 10 secs).

In gameplay terms it is simply terrible, if you are playing 2 /3 kits you are already having to keep in mind the various cooldowns for kit refinement, having an extra global cooldown is just dire gameplay / QoL, if they wanted to stop poeple keeping up a perma light field with the elixir gun then should of just increased the cooldown on that.

The skills on kit refinement already get wasted at times, because you need the kits for other reasons – e.g – you need the block on the gear shield, you need the knockback on the FT, you need the poision/chill on grenades.

The nerf is absolutely ridiculous, they simply do not have a clue, but then as this is yet another change that is bugged, that is apparent to anyone, hint Anet – public test server.

CriSPeH.8512:

The only “100nade” rotation that this affects is the switch to TK and immediatly pull than barrage+barrage.

You can still do every other CC barrage+barrage rotation.
If you jump while switching to TK it wont use KR so that is a technique you can use, which can also be helpful because ppl are less likely to notice you pulling them if you are jumping around.

Currently you can still run 100 nade becasue Anet have bodged it up (or they’ve bodged the patch notes), currently only Elixir Gun and Flamethrower proc the global cooldown.

They’ve also made another change, which is the jump method no longer works, as it still procs the global cooldown.

Dirame.8521:

Sylosi.6503:

The kit refinement thing is beyond moronic, 100nades will now work like this, switch to toolkit, pull with magnet, switch to nades – oh 10 sec cooldown, no grenade barrage…

Didn’t they state they didn’t want to break builds? One word ‘clueless’.

You are overreacting. 10 seconds isn’t a long time and I should know, I have a whole build built around a 10 second cooldown.

Apparently you don’t know, so I’ll give you an example, it is fairly common to set up the burst in 100nades by swtiching to toolkit, using the magnet skill to pull your target, then move into your target and use grenade barrage & switch to grenade kit to set off the grenade barrage from that, that takes a lot less than 10 secs, except now with the 10 sc global cooldown on kit refinement, your grenade barrage will not fire, half of your burst is gone.

Nor is jsut 100nade effected, it is a nerf to all multiple kit builds, unless of course you switch to a kit and stay in for 10 secs before switching to the next, in whcih case you are doing it wrong.

It has also made a class, that is already on the ‘clinuky’ side even more clunky.

Adamantium.3682:

I sense someone was angry that they’re point and click noob cannon 100nade build is dead. Except it’s not really dead as others have pointed out. You simply have to jump now. Jumping is unacceptable? Right… it’s better when you don’t have to think and can kill anyone with 1 click. I wish they would have gotten rid of it completely, it’s a terrible build. People that think “it’s the only good build for Engi” need to expand their horizons.

I don’t play 100nade, I don’t find it a particulary fun build to play, but I recognize it is one of the builds that is effective in sPvP and many engys do play. Nor it is the only build effected.

And yes jumping up and down every time you wish to swap kit to get around a moronic design decison is unacceptable (it makes for crappy gameplay and engy does not need more APM), and as you have difficulty reading I’ll repeat it again, you can’t jump when immoblized, see if you can work out how the global cooldown now changes things in that situation, I’m sure you can manage it if you try hard or perhaps you can find someone with a clue to explain it to you.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Sylosi.6503:

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Sylosi.6503:

The kit refinement thing is beyond moronic, 100nades will now work like this, switch to toolkit, pull with magnet, switch to nades – oh 10 sec cooldwon, no grenade barrage…

Didn’t they state they didn’t want to break builds? One word ‘clueless’.

That’s kind of an ignorant and mean comment. If you jump in the air and switch your kit, it doesn’t activate kit refinement. Thus, jump to activate toolkit and then do the rest of the spike.

It’s an accurate comment, and no jumping up and down everytime I want to use a kit to get around their poor design decision is not the answer.

Ummm, no it’s not an accurate comment? The jumping thing is a nice way to make it more skillful. It’s a bit OP that someone with a macro can have like 4 kit’s skills go off at once. Not to mention that all of these kit refinement skills are instant cast.

Macros are against the terms and conditions, they are irrelvant, if they balance on that then thieves would need a total rewrite, jumping up and down every time I want to use a kit without triggering kit refinement is just lame (and probably unintended) and lowers the quality of life (gameplay wise), furthermore if you are immoblized you can’t jump.

How about you stop making excuses, it was a dumb decision (and is not only 100nades that will be effected), if you can’t cope with me stating that, tough, perhaps you should avoid public forums where people will have differing opinions.

And this is not the only dumb thing in this patch, they’ve nerfed the wrong ele builds, it is pitiful.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Sylosi.6503:

The kit refinement thing is beyond moronic, 100nades will now work like this, switch to toolkit, pull with magnet, switch to nades – oh 10 sec cooldwon, no grenade barrage…

Didn’t they state they didn’t want to break builds? One word ‘clueless’.

That’s kind of an ignorant and mean comment. If you jump in the air and switch your kit, it doesn’t activate kit refinement. Thus, jump to activate toolkit and then do the rest of the spike.

It’s an accurate comment, and no jumping up and down every time I want to use a kit to get around their poor design decision is not the answer.

The kit refinement thing is beyond moronic, 100nades will now work like this, switch to toolkit, pull with magnet, switch to nades – oh 10 sec cooldown, no grenade barrage…

Didn’t they state they didn’t want to break builds? One word ‘clueless’.

Acension.9270:

Heya, people in my guild have said that Engis are very weak and UP (under powered) some say opposite.

Please could you explain about Engis a Bit, i’m slightly confused about them :S

Engy is on the underpowered side, but very weak is overstating it.

The first problem in a lot of the game is the engy does not bring anything unique nor is top tier at anything, take sPvP for example – engy is not the best point holder / bunker (used to be better got lots of nerfs elixir R, smoke bomb, juggernaut trait, etc), not the best roamer (cannot disengage fast enough, has easier to avoid burst), nor does it bring anything unique like necro or mesmer.

Then the way engy / traits are deigned the alleged versatility fails to make up for it, for example take grenades, the theory for the versatile class is you slot grenade kit, you have AOE just like that, wow how versatile!.

The reality is unless you go 30 pts deep to get the grenadier trait, grenades are useless and not worth the slot, with only two grenades you will miss a lot, and do much less damage than a thief just using clusterbomb.

This is the underlying problem with engys, the thing that is meant to compensate – versatility, doesn’t really work with the way trait system is set up or the way kits compete with everything else for the utility slots.

Really the engy needs an extra utlity slot (and more kit wide traits like kit refinement), because starting from the position of lower base damage + only one weapon equipped, it is impossible to totally compensate with the same three utlity slots as every other class.

Of course there is one area where engy is OP – fun.

SilverWF.4789:

“Hard to learn, hard to master.”
Elems are harder to play properly, it very hard to master too.

Other than very simple Engy builds, Ele is easier:

- A lot of Ele is just getting down set rotations / sequences.
- Much of the aiming is easier, e.g when you play d/d it is largely a matter of the skill being centered on your position, which requires less aim / timing than skills that use a manually aimed reticle.
- Ele has far less range swapping, if you play d/d for example you are pretty much short range all the time, other than when you need to create some distance for a breather / heal up. Where as a lot of engy builds require a lot of switching in and out of melee range, nor is switching range just limited to you rmovement, but you will often be having to quickly switch between using a skill at long range like a grendade, then a magnet pull, then a couple of “melee” skills, then maybe a knockback so you at mid range , etc. This is a lot more demanding, especially when you have a lot of skills that need to be aimed / timed (grenades, bombs, flamethrower, etc).
- Ele has less “clunky” skills that are difficult to use.
- A lot of Ele builds allow for more mistakes than an engy (talking sPvP/WvW), because you have more panic buttons, more mobility and more healing, which results in more sustain.

SilverWF.4789:

1vs1? And? It’s absolutely pointless at WvW.
Most of classes have a specs to beat anyone in 1vs1 fight but this specs will be absolutely useless at WvW.

Also, who cares about 1vs1 or PvE? This is very bad way to balanse classes.

WvW is absolutely pointless full stop (in terms of the score) as that is decided by which server has the best coverage, so it really is down to what you find fun, if you find running your 40 man group into some other 40 man group, seeig which one of you can get your cheese tactics off to first to bury your opponents in a culling knghtmare (veil, portal, etc), then that is fine, but it is still just as pointless as 1v1 or small group, just for many, less fun.

google.3709:

Rifle, med kit, tool kit, elixir gun and kit refinament

you get a strong heal on a 20cd ( 14 if traited ), 5 sources of small heals with short CD, 3 condition removal, blocks, lots of CC, and AoE, a push, a pull, leap ;D!

not including the effects from runes/sigils you choose or any other traits :P!! everything on under 20sec CD lol

btw: have you heard of speedy kits? :P we have perma swiffness (33%) which is better than 25% perma most classes have.. mobility, check ;D

keep it coming :P

Erm yes I have heard of speedy kits, it is indeed better than the 25% most classes get, but then on the other hand most classes have way better gap closers / openers than engys to compensate (and do not self-cc either), which at times, such as getting away / chasing down in WvW are much more useful and when they upped those classes signets to 25% from 10% they indirectly nerfed engy.

And yes your build does fufil my list (sort of), however it doesn’t address the second part that this level of all roundness / versatility should be available on multiple builds, that essentially a jack-of-all-trades class shoudl have no problem in fitting in being jack-f-all trades on any weapon, a large selection of utilites, etc, which it isn’t, which is why many of the builds 100nades, HGH builds (Hiba’s build), Teldo’s node defender build, etc are not actually jack-of-all-trades, because people are always having to choose between upping the low base damage / lack of versatiltiy from having only one weapon equipped and everything else from condi removal to CC.

It also shows the problems of engy and the lack of choice, for example say you want decent condi removal, you have two choices kit-refinement and then being forced into elixir gun / flamethrower + medikit or to go 20 pts into alchemy and be forced to use elixirs.

Now compare this to a thief, where you can get decent condi removal by going 10 pts into shadow arts for the trait that removes a condi every 3 secs in stealth and grab the heal that removes burning, poision and bleeds.

The difference is the thief option can fit into nearly any build and other than 10pts and a heal slot you aren’t forced in any direction, where as the engy options are forcing you to use certain kits/skills in your very valuable utility slots, utility slots that are far more integral to an engy build than they are for other classes.

The whole way the the trait system is setup (largely for specilization) and the way engy has to trade off utility slots, just does not work to produce a versatile, jack-of-all-trades class, which in regard to the slots is why Eles do it better and why other classes like mesmer can still fufil my list (with certain builds) and still do more damage, have more survability and have utility slots left over to bring key unique utlilty that an engy does not even possess, not that an engy would have the free utlity slots to spare even if they did have portal, illusion of life, etc.

Also in your orignial post, you seem to be saying pistol is not a good weapon, how is a class that only has two weapon choices, one of which is apparently bad, versatile?

Alkron.1345:

I think I did pretty good, just saying. Damage is also 2000+ basic attack. Seriously not trying to prove you wrong or pick a fight, just saying it’s possible. BTW, I’m talkin PvE here, not PvP.

Antidote != decent condition removal, that is why I specified ‘decent’, I see a lot of builds with just antidote has the condi removal, that is not my idea of jack of all trades, and wihtout the ‘decent condi removal’ my mesmer can fill the list I gave.

google.3709:

we have so many options its silly, we have flexibility that comes with a toll..

Engy has options when you are deciding what to build, however the issue is that once you are actually locked into and playing that build, you are no more versatile than builds for many other classes and yet you are still paying the tax of low base damage / no weapon swap.

If engi actually lived up to the alleged design premise, in a single build it would be able to have:

- break stuns
- have decent condi removal
- CC
- shield / invulnerability
- heals
- some AOE / some CC
- swiftness (for a class with no gap closers, other than the useless jump shot) some mobility is important.

and to have mulitiple builds capable of this, in exchange for the lower base damage / no weapon swap, yet the reality is most engi builds are a million miles away, some have virtually no condi removal (100nades), many have nearly zero utlity (my engi is very jealous of my mesmer), even things like invulnerability are feeble compared to many other classes, look at the cooldown for elxir S, then compare than to 2 secs every 8 seconds on a mesmer…

Yet guess what, there is a class that does have all I described, an ele, that is what a class that is actually versatile, that is a jack-of-all-trades, engy simply does not fufil that, yet still pays a tax in regard to damage / no weapon swap.

NinjaEd.3946:

I feel like the majority of this thread is bashing on the developers for not fixing everything at once. If you hate it so much then don’t play, if you want them to fix it sooner support them through gem store and post suggestions on how to fix it instead of just demanding some fix you may/may not like. Ideas work together, slandering doesnt work at all.

It shouldn’t need fixing, it should not of been there in a the first place, it is bad design, if you can’t cope with people pointing that out, then perhaps you should avoid threads that might upset you.

If you are going to promote a game on “play your own way”, then it should not be unexpected that people are unhappy that they can’t do that due to poor game design.

Calerxes.1364:

All the things you are doing on your Loremaster are now spread among all the classes in GW2 and a few of them like cleanse wounds etc… can be sorted by the players by taking salves into a dungeons and other things you are doing should not require you to do them like heal and rez. In GW2 all players have the responsibility to remove conditions, mitigate damage (by movement), heal themselves, control mobs, remove control effects, rez players. Players have to be aware of the players around them and not expect the Loremaster/healer/tank to be on the ball all the time.

Responsibility is with everyone and not just the tank/healer/support class in the group and I did go on to mention more sophisticated trinity games, I’m not bashing trinity MMO’s other than maybe WoW, so you can include LotRO in that. The point is that playing GW2 efficiently and successfully takes skill and understanding of the classes and thinking in terms of individual roles and is thus not a “simplistic” system as the bodies strewn all over Tyria waiting to be rezzed would not exist. But its not perfect and is a new concept so will take time to iron out the wrinkles, think back to earlier MMO’s and their boss mechanics were all Tank ‘n’ Spank on the whole, it took time to start adding in some complexity. Lets have something different like GW2’s system and it may encourage other dev’s to take a risk and design their own “non trinity” system.

I agree the game is new so it may have more complexity added to it, but as for the rest, you are talking about two seperate issues, responsibilty and depth/complexity, the game is simply not as complex for all the reasons I mentioned before, that my loremaster’s duties are spread out to various classes/builds in GW2 just means when I play as an individual my GW2 classes are less complex, require less awareness, less multitasking, less decision making, less priortizating than my loremaster, chlorodom, etc in other games.

But to an extent that is understandable, GW2 is a game that has a more action type style, so requires more movement (though not all games are as static as WoW, and PvP is not static in any game, unless you like to die a lot), and generally more twitch.

As for responsibilty I am not even sure I agree with that, a player is more responsible for themselves, but on the other hand if you are used to playing a healer/tank/key support (in games that have those) it is a step down in responsibility. Also overall the game is currently much more forgiving, so in other ways promotes less responsibiity – e.g, in a raid a DPS can still cause a wipe, or will be assigned as interrupter or will simply not output enough DPS because the margins for success in many other games for things like enrage timers are far more severe.

But anyway just to clarify, I don’t want GW2 to go the whole trinty route, it is nice they are doing something a bit different (though not that differnet action type MMOs often lack real healers and/or tanks), just doesn’t stop me sometimes missing a bit more complexity/multitasking or the total change of playstyle that healer provides.

Ravenmoon.5318:

Tell me how this is right and how it makes sense

How would it make sense that if you are limping along crippled that you can suddenly leap just as far or run just as fast, as you could when not crippled?

Calerxes.1364:

This combat system is about thinking on your feet not spamming a rotation you’ve worked out or read about on interwebz, while expecting the other players to keep you up, hold aggro or nuke, where’s the depth in that? The case for this combat system being shallow is a spurious one with many players complaining (this thread) that they are finding it difficult and wishing they could go back to the cut and dried Holy Trinity. Shallow this system isn’t players are still trying to pigeon hole themselves into roles and not building balanced toons that have a talent in one area but can do the other two disciplines well, and also players need to stop obsessing about DPS and learn about support and control.

I am afraid the case for the combat in GW2 being more deep is the only spurious argument, it seems to be entirely based on comparisons to the most simple of DPS classes in other MMOs, the fact is many healers, tanks and support / CC classes required far more awareness, decision making and mulitasking than the simplistic stuff you get in GW2.

For example when I used to play LOTRO I played Loremaster a support class, on raids I had to do all this:

- Keep stun immunity up on tank (sometimes off-tank / tank healer)
- Cleanse wounds, diseases, silence etc
- Keep up several debuffs
- Drain power from boss and feed power to key players – healers/tanks/captains
- Provide CC, often needding to perma CC one mob (sometimes 2)
- Off heal
- Provide a res if healers/captain were out
- Do some DPS, particulalry against adds as Loremasters had very high burst AOE.
- Peel (cc/debuff/get my pet oo them) a rogue mob off someone who got aggro that shouldn’t of, or help them out if it was intended (this may come as a shock but other games have dungeons / raids where certain mobs delibrately go after someone other than a tank/off-tank)
- All whilst maangaing a pet.

The same goes for PvP, when I played Rift, my favourite class/spec to play in PvP was chlorodom a sort of CC/debuffing/support/semi-healer, again it required far more multitasking / awareness / decison making than anything in GW2 is simpistic in comparision, I’d have to:

- Drain enemy healers of mana.
- Heal people using multiple skills and shockingly have to make numerous decisions to prioritise not just in the sense that there were more than 5 people, but that healers > support > top dps ->the rest and also assessing who was in danger of goign down who would be alright. (this can not be overemphasised enough in PvP, the amount of decision making you have to make as a healer, whilst trying to stay alive, LOS/CC your oppnents / keep your team in LOS, is on a completely different level to playing a DPS class or anything in GW2)
- CC / debuff, again having to actually prioritise.
- Try and actually kill people, which shockingly enough actually required skills in the correct order and the correct selection of skills depending on the build of your opponent.
- Use my othe rsupport skills like Reflective Presence which reflected caster skills.
– All this whilst being constantly focused by the opponents in a way you very rarely are in gw2.

Then of course there was actually resource management, both yours and in PvP taking note of your opponents, resource managmetn in gw2 is nearly non-existent, as are things like situational skills.

There is also knowledge, for instance everyone in GW2 has the same few buffs (different skills, but all give the same result with the same symbol for protection, retail, etc) in other games there are numerous buffs / debuffs individual to builds classes with different effects, that all have their own symbol.

I was playing my thief as p/d in WvW the other day, I have never played more a simplistic build in PvP in any MMO I have ever played, GW2 is not complex, far from it, it lacks depth.

But anyway, in regard to the OP, complexity aside, the thing I miss about healer is the total change of playstyle you get, that variety of playstyle is lacking in GW2.

Oh yes in regard to playstyle variety, the way they have designed / capped conditions is awful and just reduces build diversity.

Ravenmoon.5318:

Cripple/Chill should not be OSHICRAP button in pvp.

In some MMOs yes (other than a CC type class), but in a game like GW2 no, classes have far too many gap closers / ranged CC / pulls, plus the ability to switch to a ranged weapon.

HannaDeFreitas.4236:

Paulytnz.7619:

It’s silly really out of the 4 lvl 80’s and 1 lvl 50-ish (Engi, Ele, Guardian, Ranger, Warrior) I find the Engi the most versatile and fun to use. I really have no idea why they are the least played if it is indeed true. Personally I would have thought necro would have been, after all who dosn’t like guns right!? O.O

From discussions in game I found most people who don’t play Engi either doesn’t like the ranged-only limit, doesn’t like kits or doesn’t like the playstyle of steampunkish gunner as they prefer more classic fantasy archetypes.

I believe Engi would have been liked a lot more as an Alchemist instead.
More emphasis on alchemical potions etc and less on guns.

Engineers don’t have a ranged only limit, on most builds you spend a lot of time swtiching between melee and range (at least in sPvP / WvW), bombs are in melee range, a number of skills require you to be right in your opponents face outright or to get the max effect (blunderbuss, jump shot for the double damage, poision darts if you want all of them to hit, blowtorch, acid bomb, etc) and tool kit is a melee kit.

The real reason Engineer is the least played class, is nothing new, it happens in many MMORPGs with many different classes, it has the unpopular combination of being one of the more difficult classes to play and is somewhat underpowered.

Sand Beagle.9867:

The game wasnt made with esports in mind, so its not fair to berate them for not pushing for esports now.

If the game was made for esports the following would not exist:
animation/size discrepancies between races (asura)
one single boring to watch (and to play) game type
hotjoins
qualifying points
class identity crisis (ele’s doing the job of warriors)
homogenized class roles
etc

Then perhaps they shouldn’t of stated things like “Absolutely. We consider it to be one of the primary goals of Guild Wars 2 competitive PvP to make it into an eSport” (Jon Peters) when promoting the game pre-release, it is not surprising or unfair that Anet are getting berated.

Medazolam.3058:

Is the condition cap something that is common in other games?

In other games I’ve played they have often had caps, however they were normally individual caps rather than a global cap on the target, in the rare instances it was a global cap on the target it was things like % damage debuffs, stuff like DOTs or HOTs were per player.

kRiza krimos.1637:

Even if you could chain stealth for an hour, you are not threat while stealthed and doing nothing. Also, isnt thief supposed to be slipery class that is able to get out of hairy situations easier than any other class?
Yes you can get 1 second longer stealth, or 10 seconds stealth but your out of it if you attacks no matter how long you can be stealthed. So in combat 1 hour of stealth means nothing. You also cant go right back in stealth if you attack, another thing making chain stealth usless in combat.
Every1 is buzzing about thief OP stealth, why doesnt nobody mention VERY limited acsess to any kind of boons thief has, and even those he can put up are harshly conditioned and on huge cooldowns…

The permastealth does not mean nothing, because it makes finding a thief in a large keep / garrision absolutely ridiculous and allows them to rez dead mesmers, perhaps Anet intend for their game to include such “fun” gameplay as staring at a dead mesmer until they decide to respawn in case a thief rezzes them, or perhaps the permastealth is just yet another exploit that has failed to of been fixed.

As for the ‘doing nothing’, not at all when I stealth on my thief (depending on the build) I am having conditions cleared, healing up, repositioning to put the other player at a disavantage or escaping (much too easily) or resetting the fight, because I know the poor sod I have targetted has just burnt their 30 sec cooldown and won’t have them up again in 10 secs.

Every1 “is buzzing” about thief OP stealth, becasue it is well very OP (at least in WvW), so I’m not sure why that is a surprise…

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Seriously, this comes up quite often about how the Thief is broken due to Stealth and immense spikes of damage but there’s a lot of help out there describing how to take care of this. You can ask Reddit and they’ll provide, and there possibly can be people on this forum who know how if you ask on the “Players helping Players” subforum. You may have to be patient for an answer and sift through the chaff but you can find help.

In WvW I handle someone trying to kill me out of Stealth by trying to avoid the damage as much as I can and looking for somewhere . . . anywhere . . . I can get away. It’s really only a major problem if you’re running alone. You shouldn’t be alone in WvW. Unless you’re a stealthy backstabbing Badge-grubbing lil thief asura.

It comes up because it is ridiculously OP and breaks a fundamental principle of PvP – risk vs reward, there is far too little risk (at least in WvW) with the way thief class / stealth works.

I know how to handle theives, I have a lvl 80 thief, it is also how I know how OP they are in WvW and that AOE is not a counter (note a group of people AOEing against 1 thief does not consitute a balanced counter), though Ele gives it a run for its money, fo rthe same reason lack of risk vs reward, just a different mechanic, – supreme mobility, can make a bad decision / get outplayed and still get away most of the time without being punished for it.