Guild Wars 2

This happens a lot in higher level PvP. A lot of times if there is a wipe in mid, teams will spawn camp the enemy team so they can’t get to the points without wasting most of their cooldowns. This is especially strong on Temple because while there are technically two exits to the base, they both come out in the same general area. I think it’s annoying, but I don’t think people should be attacked for doing this. Don’t hate the playa, hate the game. Don’t get wiped in mid and it’s not an issue.

Bringing five of the same class isn’t OP. Bringing five of the same OP build is OP. Would you ever complain about 5 thieves? No. Would you complain about five minion masters or turret engis? Hell yeah. Why? Cuz they’re passive and stacking passives is annoying as hell. As long as all builds are balanced, stacking multiple isn’t an issue. You still have to be skillful if you’re five thieves. You don’t have to be skillful as a turret engi, thus 5 turret engis are 5 players playing skillless builds.

You also have to realize that 5 turret engis IS beatable. When you take multiple of a build, you don’t just compound your strengths. You also compound your weaknesses. It’ll require a lot more of that weakness to take it out, but if you do take it, it’ll beat them. So how do you beat 5 turret engis? 1-2 power staff eles, guardian and 1-2 warriors. Stability, stability, stability. Bring everything you can that gives you stability. Power is king, not precision or crit damage. If the eles and guardian can bring reflects, that’ll help a butt load.

Vanchatron.2306:

- I actually heard a few people talking in PvP the other day saying that D/D sucked, but I wasn’t sure what the alternative was.

There’s a few:

1. D/P is all about spiking and staying in stealth.
2. S/D is all about dodging and jumping in and out.
3. S/P is all about exploding people in melee range.

The rest can be made to work, but they aren’t very good.

Vanchatron.2306:

- Regarding Steal, I almost always use it to engage the enemy, as my build has it apply poison, which I figured was best to put on them at the start seeing as it’s a DOT?

Steal and Infiltrator’s Signet are great because they are instant cast, not just because they are teleports. This allows you to do the majority of your casting of skills while AWAY from the dangerous melee range areas. For example, a D/P thief can begin casting heartseeker and JUST before it connects, teleport in and it will CONTINUE to cast heartseeker when you finish teleporting in.

Vanchatron.2306:

- What is a “meta” build? Sorry. Do you mean like cookie cutter? Really not bothered if it is, I’ll still use it, just wondered what meta meant :P

Meta simply means a lot of people use it. It’s generally very powerful, but it does NOT mean OP. Just very commonly used.

Also I wanted to mention that it’s not that thief CAN’T 1v1 everything, it’s that it requires an incredible amount of skill to beat most builds. They can mess up a LOT and still win, where as you basically have to play perfectly. Until you figure out what that means after playing the class a while, don’t try to go for a 1v1 unless it’s something and bursty as you (shatter mesmer, other thieves).

And again, feel free to PM me for help. I’ve dueled a lot of newbie thieves to help them get going before. Always willing to do it again.

A few things:

1. Your build doesn’t have any stun breakers. This means that if someone uses any disable on you, you have no way to get out. Take Shadow Step . It not only will save your kitten if you get spiked, but it’s actually two stun breakers in one! It even removes 3 conditions when you return.
2. Your build is WAY too yolo for someone just starting out. D/D isn’t even really used much in PvP simply because the other weapon sets are far better. This is the meta D/P thief and with some practice, will get you much farther.
3. Your tactics are probably all wrong. You aren’t a warrior. You’re a HUNTER. You wait for the enemies to already be worn down by your allies and you jump in and BOOM, dead. If you are going for 1v1s and a noobie, you’re going to be severely disappointed with thief.
4. Your mechanics are probably off. Are you using steal mid cast of skills to come out of no where and burst? Or are you just walking in?

If you want some help with the class, I can get you started in game. I’m no top tier thief, but I definitely know how to get a thief going in PvP.

Another note, the thing about this game is simply taking the right amulet will allow you to do lots of damage. You don’t need to be 8 billion points into power and crit lines to be strong. You can go deep into defensive lines and still be really damaging. Take a look at This Build . While that build is running berserker with fire and air, the traits are MUCH more defensive and thus, you can stay alive a lot more.

Narkodx.1472:

Eurantien.4632:

You press W until you get close. Then you press your condition skill. Then you press S and back up and then press Q to get behind a wall. Then they heal. Then you press E to get out from behind the wall. Press W to move forward again to get close. Then you press your condition skill. Then you repeat the steps to get behind the wall. Repeat. Pretty soon they will be dead.

You’re welcome.

Which button is condition skill on D/P zerker thief?

Don’t fight them. Wait for them to be stupid enough to leave the point and decap them. That, or simply go with a friend and murder him. If you take out rocket turret, rifle really isn’t that big of a deal, especially if you aren’t alone.

It doesn’t count as a loss, but it does give you dishonor and no credit for the match. It sucks.

MonMalthias.4763:

I think it’s important to note several things that people need to acknowledge before decrying Engineer as a zero-skill class:

• Spamming Grenades on point is definitely the most toxic mechanic of Engineers. But is this a problem of Grenades; or a problem of conquest, where most AOE skills eclipse the tiny size of points?

There’s a lot of builds that can do this too though. Mesmer off point pressure is arguably just as strong. Same with thief shortbow and a warrior dumping burning on an entire team. Because AI builds in the game are so silly strong and common, this needs to exist as a viable counter to those kinds of things.

MonMalthias.4763:

• Incendiary Powder is one of the strongest crit-procs in the game. It’s been nerfed 3 times: from 33% for 2 sec every 3 seconds, to 2 seconds every 5 seconds, to 4 seconds every 10 seconds and moving Napalm Specialist to Grandmaster. And yet without it, Engineer doesn’t have the pressure from the bleed stacking capability of Necro (since Pistol 1 nerf of PBE) nor the “burst” condition application of Condi Warrior or Condi Ranger with sharpening stone.

MonMalthias.4763:

• GK Spam has ludicrous condition diversity. Bleed, Poison, Blind, Chill. IP adds Burning, SPP adds Vulnerability. But consider the actual damage of GK’s condis without those traits: 3 stacks of Bleed (~300 DPS), Blind (no damage), Chill (no damage, but is a powerful snare), Poison (~140-200 DPS).
  • In no way is eating an entire Grenade Kit’s spell reel going to be dangerous. Except! if you then get an IP proc (~600-650 DPS). So is this a GK problem, or an IP problem?

Amen. I think a lot more of the actual condition damage needs to be sunk into the skills by default instead of traited for so they can be applied by an auto attack.

That’s the thing about a lot of builds in this game. It’s not the skills themselves. Engis who are making huge mistakes are able to win fights simply because their “big cool down” is easy to land. It requires little skill on the part of the enemy and high skill on the part of the defender. IP can proc off of pistol auto attacks, which are incredibly easy to land, and sometimes, are required to soak up simply because there’s more dangerous stuff coming in such as a magnet pull or nades.

If this game didn’t have most of the sigils that exist right now, I think we’d have a MUCH easier time balancing everything out. Imagine all the builds you think are OP without these sigils in it:

1. Battle
2. Energy
3. Fire
4. Air
5. Blood
6. Doom
7. Geomancy

If anything, I think these 7 deadly sigils should be looked at first rather than the builds themselves because these are really what create insane builds that are easy to play. I’d love to test every build in the game with this:

1. Battle – Grants 3 stacks of might for 10s (down from 20s)
2. Energy – Grants 2s of vigor.
3. Fire – Can’t crit anymore.
4. Air – Changed to give 10 stacks of vulnerability for 8s.
5. Doom – Reduced to 4s of poison.
6. Geomancy – Reduced to 3 stacks for 2s.

Just to see if it makes them more managable. Of course there would be some builds that are super strong (for example warriors since there would be less doom sigil going around). That said, I think the majority of builds would become a lot easier to balance and the true outliers would become more apparent.

Sigils right now seem to be so crazily build defining and to me, that should be just a minor boost.

Shaogin.2679:

How many people crying Engi OP here can post a screenshot of their “Champion Genius” title?

I have no idea when Engi became so op, but apparently something went horribly wrong and we are now gods. Nobody, not even Engineers, think IP nor any other trait like it is a good game mechanic. It’s just something we’ve been forced into taking, and would welcome a change (along with changes to other passive traits) with open arms. Hell, we would love for our other two elites to be viable so we aren’t forced into using Supply Crate all the time. Is supply Crate op, not in any way, but it’s all we’ve got.

Turret builds are a joke. I play turret Engi when I’m bored. It wrecks noobs. But soon as a player with any level of skill comes along I am in big trouble. Turret Engi is a hotjoin-level build that is played just for fun.

Outside of this, the real problem is certain runes/sigils/ammy’s ruining pvp. But this has literally nothing to do with the Engineer. This is a problem that exists across all professions.

TL:DR IP is not op but it is poor game mechanic along with many other passive traits in this game. If you are having issues with turret engi’s, that is a simple l2p issue, sorry. Sigils/Runes/Ammy’s are wrecking pvp balance, not the engineer’s fault.

Rusc.4978:

Chaith.8256:

If you can tell me what weaknesses Warriors and Elementalists have that are more exploitable than Engineers, then you will have a decent point.

(You can’t, because Elementalists and Warriors have an even more impermeable defense, with fewer exploitable weaknesses.)

JinDaVikk.7291:

I just love how everybody starts twisting words, making crap up, and jumping on the engi with no basis. Srsly people there are FAR FAR more worrying builds, professions, Un-counterable poop, and broken mechanics, bugs, No qol updates and the list goes on and on. Yet you harp on engis.

Your priorities are way off.

You’re both quite right that Engineer isn’t the only class with a balance issue, but that doesn’t mean the problems with Engineer should be ignored because there’s other stuff wrong.

Absolutely agree. I think far too many people brush off issues simply because they aren’t literally the most important one. We’re not working for Arena Net, we don’t have to prioritize! If something is a problem, discuss if it really is a problem, not just brush it off with a “other things are worse”.

Steb.2571:

vincecontix.1264:

Steb.2571:

Chaith.8256:

Steb.2571:

Sorry, I thought an AOE burn on heal was pretty strong, with additional burning and might duration, on top of running might sigil for might stacking.

Do you still play this game, you dinosaur?

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Superior_Rune_of_Balthazar

Ain’t no might duration.

Fair enough, I thought it gave might duration as well. Either way, your still getting an aoe burn for 4s+ every time you heal, that alone is strong as kitten, when your heal also blast finishes, aoe heals and clenses, and has the highest healing per second. Balth is still run by several engi’s, though strength is also an insanely strong option when you have 0s swap cooldown, and can get the swap buff instantly, every time it’s off CD.

The fact you think engi isn’t overpowered is hysterical though.

Op compared to what though? Engi comparing himslef to Celest might stacking Ele, might stacking hambow/axebow Wars, and Necros, might have a different pov than a thief comparing himself to an Engi.

Compered to the game in it’s entirety. It brings too much to the table, has a counter for everything, and has a solution for nearly any problem (both offensive and defensive) aside from condi transfer.

It’s good in nearly every situation, and has virtually no weaknesses (again, with the exception of condi transfer). It has everything, and sacrifices nothing, that’s literally a textbook definition of overpowered. There’s no trade-off or balance.

Well…Okay now slow down there tex. It’s not THAT bad. I think it’s too easy for how effective it is, but christ, it’s not a dhuumfire necro combined with a thief with the defenses of a warrior. You know that engis don’t get to take all of their skills and traits in one build, right?

Also, define the build you’re talking about. Are you talking about celestial triple kit? Nade/Bomb/S? Balthzar condi with P/S toolkit/nade? Turret engi? Engineers have a butt ton of builds to choose from. Wild crazy accusations about the class don’t do anything for the discussion. All it does is cause people to come back at the silly points you’re trying to claim like “It has everything”. It doesn’t. It has a lot, but not everything. Try getting a treb down with a condi engi.

Chaith.8256:

sinject.4607:

you know what else dies to a coodinated burst that fast?
everything else in the game

congrats on the great post man

No 2 professions is going to kill an Ele, Warrior, Guardian, a Thief with Shadowstep&Refuge, a Mesmer with blink/decoy, in 5 seconds. All these professions have multiple stunbreaks and o-kitten buttons that they can layer. Most professions can expend cooldowns and exit harm’s way, and will need to be hard swapped to LATER.

If it comes down to it, you can hit up to 3 stances. Up to 3 Cantrips. Stunbreak, Stunbreak/teleport, Shadow Refuge. You get the idea.

The point is, which you are being too kitten dense and trolly to observe, is that Engineer defensive CDs blow. They’re god awful. They don’t displace you, or drop you as a target / stop the pain train for more than 3 seconds. The only reactive ability that is capable of doing this is the Elixir S Stealth. The problem with this is that you get Steal/Doom on you as soon as you exit your Invuln, and the stealth is easily interrupted. In the first place, Elixir S is the only one that’s really capable of doing any of these things. What if you aren’t packing Elixir S and Toolkit? God forbid anything else be brought into PvP.

You’ve been chillin in the top tier for too long. You have to understand that 99.99% of players aren’t top 200 and they are not facing players who are this good at focusing. Who cares if engi is easy to focus down for the absolute top tier? It’s kittening off everyone who isn’t an absolute god at this game.

Is it possible to beat a condi engi 1v1? Course. I’ve done it with assassin nades for christ sake. Is it possible to get them down in team fights? Course. But the effectiveness of the build with little effort is ridiculous because the instant procs can proc off of auto attacks and yet the build gets to still be really defensive. They don’t even need pistol off hand anymore because of balthazar runes!

If you are being trained, your allies should be peeling for you and you should be looking for an LOS spot. You don’t need more than 3 seconds of invuln/block/stealth if you know where to go to and where to stand. If the enemy mes/thief combo is so not pressured that they can do this to you, it’s your team’s fault, not the build’s lack of defense. If this wasn’t necessary, this build would be taking OP to a whole new level.

@ the part about killing in 5 seconds, I’ll give you the Warrior and maybe the ele, but if we’re talking fighters here and not bunkers, then thief and mesmer are flying down after one good burst and medi guard isn’t taking much longer. As an engi, I can chain all my o-kitten buttons too, but that’s a huge waste and it’s a death sentence, just as it is with all of those other classes.

Also warrior defense is insanity. Can’t even compare it to anything else. Even if they don’t pop a cooldown, stuff hits them like it’s a poke.

Also, I don’t get why people are complaining so much about cele nades. It’s really not that bad. Condi nades is the one I have an issue with.

Mike.4830:

Thief is at a disadvantage in a 1v1, because in a few seconds he can be across the map +1ing then back to decap the second you leave…. They have relatively similar damage, sacrificing sustain for mobility

It’s not really just about thief vs engi, it’s about engi vs almost anything besides terrormancer and the fact that it’s so easy to play.

Mike.4830:

As far as turrets.. yea it should get nerfed into the ground, but lets be real thats only a solo q problem, so who cares..

Still a problem.

Mike.4830:

Saying that any build in this game is easy/hard is stupid… every single build in this game is easy to play….. just because your pressing more or less buttons doesnt mean its hard….. Cele ele, Hambo, Terrormancer, Cele engi, all the builds that make up the meta are generally easy to play with medium to low skill floors and very high skill caps(which is what makes them viable in high level play) there is a reason that turret engi isnt in tournaments… teh skill cap is so low…..

Hambow and condi engi are in a different league of easiness. Builds shouldn’t start so incredibly high in the skill floor department.

Mike.4830:

you all complain about a passive burn on a 10s Cd thats “undodgeable”
well—-
Steal- removes two boons, dazes 21s
DS fear-instant, 15s, 3k damage CC
Ele 2 in fire- u can dodge but you still get hit by the beginning or the end of the channel =5s burn every time , tbh eles have 10x more burn than cele engis, and while vs condi engi it might be similar, cele ele has way more sustain than condi engis, and can deal with condis (engis cant)

No one is saying that Incendiary powder is literally the worst most OP thing in the game. There are plenty of things that do lots of damage instantly, and they’re all OP. The topic is just talking about Engis. I could make you a pretty silly long list about stuff that’s as stupid as incendiary powder.

The thing that really bugs me about incendiary powder is that it can make an otherwise weak auto attack into a huge hit.

Steb.2571:

Chaith please, Let’s be real here, Engineer is obscenely broken, regardless of the class it’s fighting against, the only thing that even remotely counters it is a decent terrormancer. When I get bored I roll around on engi in yolo-queue and faceroll with little to no practice.

Let’s play the “How do we know its broken game” All logical reasons aside (because I could make an obscenely large list of reasons), you can simply enter a yoloqueue and see 3+ engi’s per team, and you have your answer.

Arachnid.4062:

Engineer spotted defending his broken class.

^

I’m with steb on this one. When an engineer can hit you with an auto attack that burns you as much as one of its harder to land skill shots (Blowtorch), you know something is wrong. After swapping around between cele, berserker, rabid, carrion, and assassin nades, I can definitely see anyone who players rabid as being carried a lot, especially if you run P/S. Not that they aren’t great players and not that there isn’t a fairly high skill ceiling, but the 1v1, 2v2 potential of that build is really strong while not really being that bad in a team fight either. You can make a few mistakes and survive. Not to mention the pressure you do just by auto attacking is insanity.

Whenever I fight a rabid, balthazar, p/s geomancy nades engi in a 1v1, I basically have to not get hit once and if I do, make a full retreat and come back to try again. My play needs to basically be perfect or I get condi loaded and die. If I get into melee range, I’m an idiot. They’ll swap kits and all of a sudden, I have 3 stacks of bleeding poison and possibly burning on me from nothing. It’s absolutely silly how much this can do with skill that are not hard to land.

Also, saying something dies to mes/thief combo quickly is kinda silly. Everything dies to that fast, even bunkers. That’s what they do. They spike.

As for turret engi, I still think it’s WAY too high of a skill floor. You can carry yourself to a pretty stupid level just by having those down, especially against berserker classes. There have been matches where I’ve run turrets, left the fight to get a popcicle and ate it in my right hand while fighting. It’s easy mode. There are teams that run literally 2 turret engis and then roamers. They take far and home and just rotate like crazy. It’s annoying because if you try to split off some berserker class to take out the one on a far point, the turrets are usually enough pressure to keep the spiking to a minimum so the engi doesn’t die.

I swap to turret/condi engi when I have given up on playing fair.

Mortar doesn’t need to be completely remade, it just needs skills that are worth the high risk of the skill.

There is like a .00001% chance they’ll do a complete overhaul of five skills. New animations? New Models? I think this would be a better version of it with out much work for the art department:

1. Launch Mortar Shot – Deals damage and is a Blast Finisher. Increase the cast time on this.
2. Launch Caltrops Mortar – Increase Radius to 360 (480 when traited with elite supplies). Recharge 12s.
3. Launch Elixir – Change to a water field. Increase radius to 360 (480 when traited with elite supplies). Lasts 7s. Recharge 20s.
4. Launch Ice Mortar – Increase radius to 360 (480 when traited with elite supplies) Recharge 20s.
5. Launch Concussion Shots – Fires 3 shots (five shots with elite supplies). These are all blast finishers. Recharge 60s.

The main issue right now is that mortar is basically a weaker grenades. The only thing that is kinda different is the skill 5 for mortar, which is only kind of ok if you’re lucky. I’ve seen that thing miss non-moving targets before!

With this iteration, you can fire off a water field to heal your allies from afar and even use ice mortar to give out a lot of Frost Armor! The best part is by far the auto attack, which would be an extremely slow auto attack. I’m thinking a full second before the shot is able to leave the mortar itself.

What’s also great is this is now good for hitting a LOT of enemies. Before this had the radius of grenades, which is pretty kitten weak.

What’s the counter play? Same as before. Blow the guy up or stand next to him. Only now if you ignore him, he’s going to blow you up and save his allies!

There are a lot of grammatical and spelling errors in this. Just some stuff I noticed:

1. This Page
   1. The Engineer profession is the mechanical profession in Guild Wars 2, we make use of Turrets, Kits, Gadgets and Elixirs to aid us in battles. This should be two sentences.
   2. The turrets allow for strong defense of a position like the capture points in PvP, they are also often used for their utility instead of their damage. This should, too.
   3. The Kits is what the profession is really all about, you will often see atleast one kit in builds and sometimes even three. Two sentences and “atleast” should be “at least”.
2. There’s a mistake in the description of the pros and cons of AED. It says it doesn’t remove conditions, but this was recently updated.

There’s a lot of stuff actually xD. Way too many to list them all.

I’ll just stick to some tricks you left out:

1. For Med Kit – For med kit, you can leave the packs on the ground if you know a fight will be coming to you, allowing for a huge heal and some condition removal to be waiting for you.
2. For Flamethrower – A negative is that flamethrower procs retaliation like crazy for almost no benefit.
3. Rocket Boots – “(-) Has a moderate long cooldown.” 25s and 20s when traited is long?
4. Supply Crate – “(-) Barely any use in PvE.” What? It’s a 6k heal, stun, and some stuff to take the AoE off of people for a couple seconds.
5. Traits When describing Reserve Mines and Evasive Powder Keg, it would be good to mention that they will reveal you if stealthed. This confused me for a while because I would seemingly be randomly revealed after using Elixir S to escape from enemies. The trick is to dodge, wait a second, THEN throw elixir S.
6. Regenerating Mist → Any Blast Finisher – Don’t forget that leap finishers work too! (Jump Shot)
7. Magnet Cancelling – Just another additional tactic I use with this is I’ll immediately follow up with net shot if they are far and overcharged shot if they are close. It’s also good to mention that this is a great way to test the waters of your enemies. If they dodge, they’re at least semi competent!
8. Acidic Elixirs – I think you give this too much credit. It really only works against melee targets. The radius for Acidic Elixirs is super tiny so you basically have to decide on using it for the boon strip only, the boons or getting into melee range of something to remove the boon. It’s also not even guaranteed that you’ll get the boon you want off like stability on warriors! I’m not saying its 100% bad, but these bits of information should be there so they know what they’re getting into.
9. For Stomping, There are a few more stomps you can utilize:
   1. Block Stomp – Cancel the stomp with F and hit your block (gear shield or Magnetic Shield). Restart the stomp. Works on guardians, rangers, engis, necros and warriors
   2. Turret Stomp – Stand in back of a turret that you either place, is from an ally or is from your crate. This will block the projectiles of engineers and warriors.
   3. Big Ol Bomb Stomp – Place the big ol bomb in front of the enemy. Dodge to the other side of the enemy. Begin the stomp and they will be blown right past you. Works on mesmers, thieves, eles (I think)…pretty much everything.
10. To help kill condition necros, play it! The more you known about how it works, the better you can predict what they will do. Necros use doom at very specific times:
    1. To open up a chain when they are already in DS.
    2. To save themselves after they are CCed by you in some way.
    3. After YOU dodge. (This is advanced players only).
    4. If you know they are going to do it at these moments, try dodging and you will very likely dodge it!
11. The last thing it teaches you to counter is Longbow Axe/Shield, but that’s really not common. Axe/Sword is way more deadly and way more common.

Air is much better than force. Air turns a weak auto attack into a monster of a hit. Your build is also very single target, so you don’t have to worry about the proc of air getting on the wrong guy unless you’re piecing a ton, which mainly happens in team fights. That said, in team fights you mostly would just be liching stuff or focusing on corrupts or, once again, focusing on one target.

I would also drop Accuracy Sigil. The way crits work in games is this:

1. Take a random number from 1-100.
2. If that random number is lower than your crit chance, you got a critical hit!

The thing is tho, lets say your crit chance without accuracy sigil is 50% and with it it is 57%. That means if the random number is 40, you would have gotten that crit even without accuracy sigil! This means that accuracy sigil only has a 7% chance of even helping you per hit! That’s horrifyingly bad. It’s better to just rely on the 50% crit chance you get from the trait than this sigil. It would even be better to take something like sigil of fire, blood, energy or leeching instead. Much more guaranteed damage or defense.

If you’re wondering what the chance of getting any use out of it out of multiple attempts, this is the formula:

1 – (93/100)^(number of times)

So for example, 10 hits would be:

1 – (93/100)^10 ~= .52 = 52%

This of course is the chance that it will help you once within 10 hits xD

Harbinger.8637:

Engi and Engi are probably the top in this area. Engi can also be pretty decent.

Atherakhia.4086:

Engi deserves a mention as well.

Kolly.9872:

1) Engis
2)Engis
3)Engis
4)Engis

Fixed.

Cynz.9437:

engi /thread
15 charrrr

Uriel.6310:

Why do I have to do more work than any class in this game when it comes to pvp and by the time im fighting off 2 opponents which are ALWAYS on me, I only have a slight chance to actually do something? Why is it that the necro class is so subpar at every game mode? With the recent patch I now not only have to worry about Warriors who are immune to every condition and fear, or thieves who one shot me, or elementalist and turret engis whom cleanse off my conditions as if they were just the common cold, but now rangers too who slaughter me before I can even get up in their face?

What is this? Where is the balance in this game? Am I missing something or is it just me? Why, why, why!!!

/rantover

No seriously though, why are necromancers getting this type of treatment from Arenanet?

There are three things it could be:

1. Build
   1. The two main meta builds are 0/6/4/0/4 (condi) and 6/2/0/0/6 (power). Check MetaBattle for some basic necro builds if you don’t have one.
2. Positioning
   1. The key to survival is knowing how to juke, kite position. Despite the freeness of fighting and the lack of a healer and tanks, there still is a frontline, middle line, backline to this game. Necromancer, is generally a backline fighter as they usually will be focused first. Stay back and widdle with long ranged stuff and push it when you see something on their team get low or something on your team is being focused besides you.
3. Tactics
   1. In things like 1v1s, learn what most enemies start out doing. Most thieves will put down a black powder before jumping in. More importantly, they do it at a certain range away. Some warriors open up with pin down. Rifle engis will go for overcharged show when they are in range do it. The more you can predict, the more you can survive.

It depends on who is on and what rank you are on the leaderboards. If you are really high ranked, you get faced against high ranking players. If they aren’t on, you have to wait longer because it only slowly will allow for worse players to face you eventually. There aren’t a lot of good players, but there are plenty of bad players. Thus, higher ranks take longer to queue. That’s how it seems to me anyways.

ArrDee.2573:

Hello frands! Vee Wee here, #1 Engi NA and world first rank 80!

Desyncs don’t just apply to Magnet! Anet plz explain this!

http://www.twitch.tv/livskis/c/5137072

Anet plz!

Wahoo! Bye frands!

Or this lovely scenario:

“Don’t worry they aren’t stomping me ye- WTF HOW’D HE STOMP ME FROM WAY OVER THERE!”

“Dude, he was right next to you the entire time.”

In WP’s video he showed off the combat log. Here is the link.

Few questions:

1. What is incoming/outgoing buff damage?
2. For mitigated damage, does this include the effects of protection or skills that artificial raise toughness for a short time? (think mercy runes while ressing)
3. Will condition damage be shown?
4. Does incoming/outgoing interrupts display what skill was interrupted? Does it display what skill did the interruption?
5. When you go down, you are invulnerable for a couple seconds. Is this included in mitigated damage?
6. Is there any functionality to total up the incoming/outgoing X that has occurred? It’d be really cool to see that during this match I have mitigated 340934030 damage and feel awesome or healed my allies for 02340923490 and feel like a God.
   1. If this isn’t a thing, it’d be really cool if one of those awesome programmers who get info from within the game could create a utility that could do this for us!

I think this needs a few things to make it balanced:

1. Only 4 stacks of torment
2. Animation that is vastly distinctive to Throw Axe. Even add in a shiny effect to make it obvious.
3. Increase the cast time.

This thing is super powerful with almost no animation. A small torment duration nerf is not the way to go. It’s okay that it is powerful. It’s not okay that it’s powerful and extremely difficult to counter purposefully.

Manuhell.2759:

The Gates Assassin.9827:

That’s what I was saying. Skills should be strong as a start, and mixed up and stronger when traited. Balancing from both ends means that you close the gap between the traited and untraited versions in their effective power.

It isn’t that simple.

Never said it was! These are tough changes to make and they might not be perfect right away. Hell, I’m sure some of the stuff I suggested has some flaws in it. But I think some people tend to just accept things the way they are because they think Anet is unwilling to improve their game. Nothing could be further from the truth. This next patch kinda proves it.

Regarding nades, I think they did that because if grenadier was baseline, it’d be pretty crazy what builds you can make with nades. Imagine running a 0/6/0/4/4 build with fully traited nades? Or just getting those 2 extra trait points for not having to take Grenadier? I think it’s kinda stupid that it’s balanced around it, but I’m pretty sure that’s the reasoning.

If we’re talking about reasonable effects, it really doesn’t matter how much you stack up. As long as it can be stopped in some way, there’s really no issue. The thing is that turrets right now are pretty hard to get down when fully traited and spread out on point, especially with other turrets putting up bubbles. That effect should be stoppable. Also, I think that turrets have kinda joined in the same situation as nades. Those traits are so strong that you can’t run turrets with out them. Maybe part of the solution should be to go for the traits as well/instead?

Manuhell.2759:

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Incendiary Powder is very strong and very hard to play against. As I said in my previous post, it’s not about skills being OP. SD isn’t OP. But it’s not fun to play against because it’s instant, nigh unavoidable damage without using extremely advanced tactics. It’s not about nerfing OP stuff, it’s about making the application of everything on the class fair.

But that’s because you are convinced that you must be able to counter it. That may not be necessarily true. How do you counter a trait that gives +X% damage on a weapon? You can’t, simple like that. This is just a condition version of such traits, just balanced a bit differently (targeting a single player but raising sustained damage by a sensible amount instead of spreading lesser amounts of damage versus multiple targets like +X% damage traits can do).
A clear visual indication can give the possibility of avoiding this particular attack, sure. But maybe they didn’t think of it as something you should be able to avoid. Like those +X% traits mentioned above.

+X% damage traits aren’t that much damage with smaller cooldowns. But Incendiary Powder is about 2.6k damage over 4 seconds on the low end, and this can be tied to an easy to hit auto attack! A small 700 damage hit will only go up to 770 with a +10% trait. A small 700 damage hit will go up to 600ish damage per second with burning. It’s a big difference. The +X% traits tend to scale with the big cooldowns.

nihasa.5067:

I almost stooped reading at “HT casting time should be 1 second”…

It sounded like you never did Tpvp or WvW roaming.

It’s almost like you have an argument against it. HT has a really big effect. It allows engis to play stupid and get away with it simply because it’s so hard to interrupt that without luck or anticipating it. Other classes have to actually cover their healing skill and can’t just spam it on recharge only to be stopped by the highest of ranking players. Necros fear people away or LOS. Mesmer go invuln. Is it too much to ask that Engis CC things and LOS as well?

I really think covering your heal skill is a big part of playing this game, but certain classes get to skirt that responsibility. Withdraw? Shelter? Healing Turret?

This all said, I think 3/4 would be a good cast time as well. I understand that we don’t have the super awesome invulns and massive amounts of stealth that other classes have to cover their heals. I think it’s a fair middle ground.

Chaith.8256:

Obviously, I would be all for a re-balance that keeps the playstyle alive, and at the same time makes the abilities dodge-able. But I think it’s just easier to leave it!

Easier, but not better. As I said, it’s not OP, but it just means that they can’t buff it into an actually viable build without making it OP because it has no telegraphs. Imagine if the build could function as well as the SF ele, but with greater cooldowns and all the traits available to engineers! Mix all of that with the burst being instant at close range? They can’t buff it because it would be OP to buff it. I would love another type of engi that isn’t just nades all day in high level tPvP.

dancingmonkey.4902:

Chaith.8256:

making them easily read is going to simply toss them in the trash.

To be honest. They are easy to read now. I mean the SD bolt doesn’t move any faster then grenades and is slower then any ranger or warrior arrow. They have a solid visual, with plenty of time to counter with a dodge, block, invuln, and what not, as it is in my opinion.

The only time it’s easy to read is if you pull back about 600 range+. If you are close in, you can be spiked pretty easily. The only way to really dodge at close range it is to anticipate a burst by teasing it out. While this can work, I don’t find this to be fun. It’s almost like luck. Who the hell knows if he is really going to spike then? That’s not interesting gameplay to me.

tigirius.9014:

You obviously don’t Main an Engi and NO most of those suggestions are bad. EG was nerfed with Kit Refinement we had a third option for condi removal at that time, there’s never been a replacement. So transmute until an alternative can be made is necessary. In case you hadn’t noticed condi engis actually need the trait that builds damage based on how many condis are on the enemy so it’s best to get as many as possible.

I happen to agree with you on the medkit, it’s severely underwhelming as is most of the lightning affects from the three essentials that actually work on the Fkeys and hit their target. another bug.

My proposed change doesn’t actually change the overall effect that much. Heals are on a 15-20s cooldown for engi, so it’d only be a slight nerf. You could even make the ICD 10s so that mid kit becomes a bit stronger!

dancingmonkey.4902:

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Notice Packaged Stimulants isn’t mentioned either?

Hmm, like how he covered it at 21:20 in the video, and explained the changes about it ?

That’s med kit! What are you talking about! Packaged Stimulants =/= Med Kit!

My change would be that when you throw the Med Kits, they would Heal, cleanse or grant fury/swiftness in an area. It’s so that the engineer isn’t limited to Elixir Gun and Healing Turret for support heals. Packaged Stimulants is trying to make Med Kit an “other” style heal instead of completely selfish. I think it needs AoE to be able to do that.

dancingmonkey.4902:

The Gates Assassin.9827:

dancingmonkey.4902:

As well elixir H is changing., They specifically stated that how each and every elixir functions, will change.

Elixir H isn’t changing. No matter how much you want it to, they did not mention Elixir H.

http://dulfy.net/2014/07/25/gw2-upcoming-changes-to-engineer-and-ranger/

Notice Packaged Stimulants isn’t mentioned either?

What The Gates Assassin wants-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6q3em9s5I4c

I want counterplay. I want every build to be skillful.

As I said. They stated very specifically in the video that the functionality of every elixir and how they worked as a whole, will be changing next Tuesday.

try learning something for yourself, instead of twisting Dulphy’s write up to support your mis information my friend. It will serve everyone well, including yourself.

I’ll see you patch day, when Elixir H has had absolutely nothing changed about it.

dancingmonkey.4902:

As well elixir H is changing., They specifically stated that how each and every elixir functions, will change.

Elixir H isn’t changing. No matter how much you want it to, they did not mention Elixir H.

http://dulfy.net/2014/07/25/gw2-upcoming-changes-to-engineer-and-ranger/

Notice Packaged Stimulants isn’t mentioned either?

What The Gates Assassin wants-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6q3em9s5I4c

I want counterplay. I want every build to be skillful.

dancingmonkey.4902:

Yur nub, play other classes, other classes are OP too.

Well of course! This is just nerfing Engineer. Any balancing of one class requires others to be balanced too. Unfortunately, I don’t feel like writing an entire giant manifesto about this game, especially about some classes that I barely know (Guardian, Ranger). I could tell you all the BS that goes on with Thief, Mesmer, Warrior or w/e else, but I’m in the engineer forums. And Engineer is my main class. Yeah, other classes have automatic removal of conditions, but if I was to write this for those classes I’d probably tie those to something as well. They have the potential to cause a skillless survival of a bad player by removing important conditions randomly.

Packaged stimulants and elixir H are both changing in the update next Tuesday.

Med Kit is changing slightly. Packaged Stimulants and Elixir H are not changing.

Manuhell.2759:

First, i have to disagree about the base balancing…

That’s what I was saying. Skills should be strong as a start, and mixed up and stronger when traited. Balancing from both ends means that you close the gap between the traited and untraited versions in their effective power.

Sure, a clear visual indication would be fair, but apart from that, i think it is perfectly fine as it is.

Incendiary Powder is very strong and very hard to play against. As I said in my previous post, it’s not about skills being OP. SD isn’t OP. But it’s not fun to play against because it’s instant, nigh unavoidable damage without using extremely advanced tactics. It’s not about nerfing OP stuff, it’s about making the application of everything on the class fair.

Silinsar.6298:

Nothing against your will to get rid of “toxic” skills and mechanics, but not at the cost of balance which will probably take years to recover.

This last patch was actually a pretty strong push in this direction. Air Blast got a cast time and tell. Warrior has a TON more counterplay. Thief got some counterplay nerfs. Overall, I think they’re slowly realizing they need to add counterplay to the game. I wouldn’t be so pessimistic about their ability to balance, regardless of how little they’ve done in the past.

Nano.3706:

Nano.3706:

Elixir H change? How?

Read…The post?

MonMalthias.4763:

• Engineer A.E.D: Silly risk reward skill that doesn’t reward you well. .75 cast isn’t why its not taken.
• Elixir H: Requires heavy trait support to be okay, pretty long cooldown for so little of an effect. Random boons, none are guaranteed.
• Bandage self: No access to immob removal and only 1 condition removed.

Not to mention Healing Turret blows all of these out of the water, even with a 1s cast time.

• Elementalist Arcane Brilliance: This is taken in staff builds.
• Glyph of Harmony: This is an awful skill. Horrible boons.

People take Ether Renewal. That’s a 3s-ish cast time. Why? Because the effect is really really strong.

• Warrior Mending: Because Healing Signet is beyond strong and Cleansing Ire does this better. Back then it wasn’t taken because warriors weren’t taken. Once they started to be, they had so much condi removal it become unnecessary, especially at that recharge and healing amount.
• Healing Surge: I expect some actually. It’s a fairly strong skill, it’s just that healing signet is meta and WAY easier to run in a tanky build.
• Defiant Stance: Its a heavy risk reward skill that could heal you for almost nothing if you play against smart players.

Having said that, HT isn’t “passive” or “difficult to kill”.

Clearly I’m not talking about Healing Turret when I refer to a turret build >_<. It’s a healing skill. I agree that it’s a very good skill, but it’s kinda stupid that you can’t reliable interrupt it without getting deep into the mind of the engineer you’re facing.

There’s quite some conflation going on here. For one, you presume a full Turret bunker build (Accelerant packed turrets, Fortified Turrets, Experimental Turrets) which is:

• Not meta in PVP unless you’re talking about hotjoin or low-level soloqueue
• In itself a 1v1 spec, which Anet refuses to balance around (PU, permastealth Thief) as they have little impact in the PVP gametypes due to extant shortcomings
• You presume that activation time of Turrets should be globally 1 second, which is balance-wise, inflexible. After all, Elixirs can get different activation times, as can Signets, or Survivals, or Glyphs, or any other class of utility – based on their strength vs cast time.

If they’re running some crap turret build that doesn’t have reflect, they’re easy to kill anyways. Their turrets die on activation and there’s basically no issue. The Fortified Turrets version is not just a 1v1 spec. It can actually do teamfights pretty well with their ability to launch 2-3 times in a fight, put up some major boons and a lot of reflects. Especially turret engis who dare to take a kit (blasphemy). Saying something is inflexible doesn’t mean it’s wrong. I see no reason to make any of the turrets less than 1s cast time besides MAYBE healing turret.

The only class that could potentially reach close point by the time Turret engineer gets there is Thief, burning Steal, Shadow steps, and most of their Ini on Shortbow skills. And Thief puts Turret Engi in the dumpster due to no stunbreaks and easy engagements without risk of being fired upon by Turrets.

A thief doesn’t NOT have a good matchup against a turret engi. Clusterbomb takes forever to kill turrets with those traits on, especially with reflects. Meanwhile, they do enough damage to pressure the thief to stay out of melee, especially when the engineer is using rifle to keep the thief away. Bad turret engis run 3 utility turrets. Good ones run a kit such as Tool Kit, Bomb Kit or Elixir Gun.

Hvaran.6327:

relfect nades OMG

runout of turrets OMG

transmute is just OK.

SD. Watch OUT! mass cc, blind. reflect OMG.

sadly up stuff – Y, itneresting ideas.

…What?

Manuhell.2759:

Regarding the first two points, you’re putting a lot of traits and sigils together and commenting that their effect together ends up being strong. Well, yeah, that’s the point of using them, i would say.
If they were to balance taking in account only the best case, we would end up having skills that are balanced when taking all the traits and utter crap when they aren’t traited (and grenades are a prime example of that, as they’re balanced over the traited kit…and the untraited one ends up being so bad that no one ever uses it).
It is like saying that warriors’ shouts should be balanced over their healing (due to traits) and condition removals (via runes). A total nonsense.

Except the effect of Shouts Healing isn’t OP in the slightest. It’s also not offensive and it’s on a class that doesn’t have a lot of burst healing. These are effects that are passively added to grenades, are random and can really load someone up.

The thing about traits is that you have to balance from both sides. The untraited versions should be strong on their own merit, yes, but traiting them shouldn’t make them crazy. You have to balance them from both ends. So yes, they should nerf all of those condition applying auto stuff because it’s extremely hard to play against it. The super easy to hit skills now hit super hard because of those traits.

It being strong is only part of the point. The main point is that these traits and skills have almost no counterplay. I moved it to Grenade Barrage and Big Ol Bomb because that makes them skill shots, rather than something that can be applied with an auto attack.

OP or Annoying Stuff

Certain Skills and combinations with engi really annoy me. I hate losing or having a difficult time killing engis that are just doing stupid stuff that are way easier to run than what I run. Not all of this is OP. Not all of this is even viable in high level PvP (at least to most). Instead, this is about counterplay and creating skillful builds with little cheese.

1. Turret Placement – Turrets themselves are extremely passive, easy to place, easy to overcharge and can sometimes be difficult to kill (especially if placed even moderately well). There is little risk of a turret placement being interrupted. This feels really backwards to me. Turrets are kind of like setting up a fort.
   1. Increase the placement time of turrets to 1s. Yes, this includes healing turret. Remember that for a 1/2s cast time, you are getting a knockback, a reflect, a passive boon, some damage and some overcharge ability. The heal removes 2 condis from EVERYONE in a huge radius, heals and is a blast finisher + water field. I think this warrants the ability to stop this from occuring. If the turrets are already down before you get there, you are being a risky (as you are putting all your cards on that location), yet possibly smart turret engi. If you are setting up once the person gets there, it should be risky as well. With Healing Turret going to 1s, engis would have to be smart about their healing skill usage. I think they have plenty of ways to do this (CC, Line of Sight, Blinds). Not to mention engis already have a lot of passive abilities to keep them alive (Protection Injection, Stabilized Armor etc). I realize 1s cast time on healing turret is a dangerous game to play for engis, but it might make them a bit more skillful.
2. Shrapnel + Incendiary Powder + Steel Packed Powder + Doom Sigil – This is just BS. If someone hits you with freeze grenade, it’s totally possible that you’ll get five conditions on you (Bleeding, Burning, Poison, Vulnerability and Chilled). That’s way too many conditions for every grenade to possibly cause. Its even annoying with just pistols, as now an auto attack can hit for way more conditions than they are suppose to. It may feel like the issue is grenades or pistols, but in reality these are the real culprits.
   1. Tie shrapnel to Grenade Barrage and Big Ol Bomb. Condi engis never use Grenade Barrage, so it’d be nice if there was a good reason to use it. Big Ol Bomb = 4 stacks of bleed, grenade barrage = short duration bleed per nade that hits (like 1-2s?)
   2. Tie Incendiary Powder to Grenade Barrage and Big Ol Bomb. 5s of burning with Big Ol Bomb, 1s of burning with Grenade Barrage (Maybe give it an ICD on GB so that you don’t get 8s of burning)
   3. I have no idea what to do with doom sigil.
   4. SPP is actually fine, it’s just kinda scary to see 5 conditions at once.
3. Transmute – I can’t tell you how many time I and other engis have been randomly saved from important conditions like fear, immobilized or w/e. I hate when this saves me. It feels like I cheated.
   1. Tie this to the healing skill so it transmutes one condition into a boon. Might make Elixir H a bit more worth taking!
4. Static Discharge – Is the build itself OP? No. But the fact that someone who I just CCed can possibly spike me for upwards of 7.5k is kinda stupid (Fire 1.5k, Air 1.5k, SD 1.5k, Surprise Shot 1.5k, Analyze SD 1.5k = 7.5k). I never play more carefully than when I face SD. I’m literally counting in my head from the last time they used surprise shot to PRAY that I dodge that instant thing. I have to keep a huge amount of distance just so there’s actually something to dodge. On his end, he hits a button because it was up.
   1. Surprise Shot and Analyze should get cast times. 1/4th is enough so you can’t hit me while CCed. This is especially needed when Analyze gets buffed to cause, what was it, 8s of revealed? Maybe some vulnerability and 1.0 for the damage? There should also be QOL on this skill to make it so instead of firing the static discharge towards you camera facing with targetless skills, to instead fire it straight ahead. I highly doubt any engis are no scoping with this xD. This does mean that certain abilities will still be instant and could technically hit me, but it would be more of a skill shot and it isn’t as strong as surprise shot.

Sadly UP Stuff

1. Packaged Stimulants – It’s way to hard to try and pick these up or throw these at your allies.
   1. Make this have the effects of med kit skills effect things in an AoE! Decrease the effects if necessary.
2. Elixir H – All other elixirs have had randomness essentially removed by providing guaranteed effects. Why is this still in the dark ages?
   1. Gives 5s of protection and 9s of swiftness. Randomly gives 1 stack of might, regeneration or retaliation.

I’ve always wondered this, but let’s say two condi necros go to the boss to try to kill it. One throws on 24 stacks of bleed for 10s first. The other puts on 1 stack of bleeding for 10s a second later. The boss dies to 25 stacks of bleeding. The last tick of damage was the bleeding. Who gets the points? The one who does more damage or the one who had his condi stack up last?

Drafigo.4690:

Josh Davis.6015:

If I remember the correctly from discussions with our server programmer, this is something we could add as a “nice to have” check in the matchmaking system, but I don’t think it could be something that would be 100% required to start a game. As you mentioned, making this a requirement for roster creation would add a considerable amount of time to the queue.

Not to mention every match has 10 players and there’s only 8 professions. 4v4, anetpls.

I think you may have just stumbled apron the answer! Add more classes! Sweet!

Chronomancer. DO EHT!

style.6173:

Menzies The Heretic.3415:

PvE balance

(The duration of the blind was increased btw, only the pulses have greater intervals)

If you think the thief got any type of buff, you are playing a different game.

Joking side, both the number of pulses and duration got nerfed.

Nope. Pulse is every 2 seconds (up from 1) and the duration is 2s (up from 1). It’s a PvE nerf so you can’t just stay in a corner and completely shut down all PvE enemies that aren’t dredge.

This is exactly why I don’t like this system of rewards. I got two ascended pieces of armor (soldiers and celestial). One from tPvP where we dominated a noob team kittene was from a Hot Join that I lost. That’s just stupid. I want rewards for what I do something amazing, not when I lose. Why are there no tracks that only give you progress when you win? Why none tied only to team arenas? What about beating teams with a total MMR above 500? This just doesn’t feel prestigious, so none of the rewards really matter to me in PvP. None of the rewards matter to me, so I just play PvP for fun and friends.

Xillllix.3485:

The Gates Assassin.9827:

GoodWithGravy.8019:

Lich/Wells abuses the same mechanic as Tornado and gets more extra dps out of it, but that isn’t peoples primary concern with Lich form.

Why?

Lich form doesn’t suck.

Um, no. That is the primary concern with Lich Form. Have you seen the numbers on Chill of Death, Fire and Air? It’s stupid. You get like 14k hits in PvP. Not to mention, yes, you do use it in the same way that tornado works. Put down the damaging wells and go Lich Form and they get super powered. 3k+ hits per tick. It’s insane.

@Everyone else, I think you need to know the difference between Strong in certain modes and crazy OP. Tornado is moving from crazy OP to Strong in certain modes. Yeah, you won’t use it in PvE anymore unless you need lots of AoE launches. But it still completely decaps points in PvP (now with daze leaps) and causes cause on points during WvW fights.

You don’t balance a class over “capture objectives”. Specially not an elite skill that does 10 times less damage than all the other class elite skills.

Like the Ele needs to be more support than it already is. We spend half the freaking time casting water fields.

Maybe in the future they can make it so the skills of tornado are a bit more usable so that it’s not just about running into stuff and knocking it around. Even still though, it’s a strong elite in some places. I mean, there’s a trait for necromancers that removes conditions from them when they kill a foe. Terrible for PvP, but it is what it is. A PvE trait. Moa Morph is a PvP Elite. The new Triumphant Distortion is a PvE/WvW elite. Turret are PvP utilities. Forceful Greatsword is a PvE trait. For something to be good, it doesn’t need to be good everywhere. It should …In a perfect game. But in the end, as long as it’s good somewhere, I think it’s fine. But having skills, trait and utilities that work in all game modes mean that all game modes need to have core things that all of them have. All modes don’t have stomping. All modes don’t have a good place for condition damage. All modes don’t use CC a lot. All modes don’t need heavy sustained damage. All modes don’t have zergs.

GoodWithGravy.8019:

Lich/Wells abuses the same mechanic as Tornado and gets more extra dps out of it, but that isn’t peoples primary concern with Lich form.

Why?

Lich form doesn’t suck.

Um, no. That is the primary concern with Lich Form. Have you seen the numbers on Chill of Death, Fire and Air? It’s stupid. You get like 14k hits in PvP. Not to mention, yes, you do use it in the same way that tornado works. Put down the damaging wells and go Lich Form and they get super powered. 3k+ hits per tick. It’s insane.

@Everyone else, I think you need to know the difference between Strong in certain modes and crazy OP. Tornado is moving from crazy OP to Strong in certain modes. Yeah, you won’t use it in PvE anymore unless you need lots of AoE launches. But it still completely decaps points in PvP (now with daze leaps) and causes cause on points during WvW fights.

Believe it or not, PvE is not the only game mode. This got a bit stronger as a skill in PvP and WvW. Bonus: no more exploitative stupidly large hits. I mean, it’s a static field that moves! That means if allies in WvW leap through it, they daze people! Tons of vuln will go out with this skill too. Overall, I like this change. Fair and interesting.

Branden Gee.2150:

At this time it is one model per profession, per gender, per team. I do like the idea of doing some sort of ‘profession archetype’, or a way to visually see if they are a power/toughness/condi/ect spec build. Though I’m not sure what that would look like without adding clutter to the screen.

So if I got this right, if one team has a male warrior and a female warrior, there will be two different models, but if there are two male warriors, there will be only one model that both utilize?

And does this mean that if there are two male warriors on separate teams, they will share the same model?

Overall, I love this change. There’s of course room to grow, but I still seriously can’t wait for September. Thanks for the response.

I think the optimal version of this feature would be this:

1. Each gender and profession has 5 distinct models.
2. When a class enters, it takes the first model out of the 5 available. Each subsequent copy of that class takes the next model. If there are 5 male warriors, there will be five distinct male warrior models.

This of course requires a TON of models (8 profs * 2 genders * 5 models), but if there is an elegant way to create variance or just use some existing models to fill in the gaps, it’d be great. The face really doesn’t matter too much. All that really matters is the armor shape and style. The same face could probably be used for every single class for all PvPers care. I never get a good look at a face until I do /sit with a team that’s already given up

I’d also like to echo the above, I don’t think you should be able to know what kind of amulet the enemy is running just by the armor they have on.

I third that. It’s pretty annoying to walk onto the bridge in the mists and suddenly be teleported to Lion’s Arch. Or start attacking a golem and poof back to the spawn point in the mists. I’d be rich if I could get a dollar for every time I get hit by pin down mid dodge. Like literally I’m half way through it, but it still connects. Meanwhile, everything is peachy in a dungeon.

For teams using multiple of the same class, will there be two different models so you can tell them apart more easily? I’d hate to fight two mesmers that all look exactly alike by default. Or have two guardians that look the same, one bunker one OMG WTF Burst. If not, I think it would be a really good idea for the future of this, possibly in a later feature pack.

oxtred.7658:

Haha, 7/10, would read again. A 30 discipline build? No thanks.

A PvEer changing their build!? BLASPHEMY!

Arching slice needs to do a certain amount of damage (coefficients) to make up for the roughly 15% damage lost. This means that the total damage every 7 seconds (the recharge of arching slice when you have 30 in Discipline) must be 2.6. So basically, 15% of the coefficents done every 7 seconds needs to be 2.6 to be equal to arching slice. This is assuming that the build is 30/10/0/0/30, not 30/25/0/0/3, so that you can use bursts more often.

This number is approximately 17.3. Assuming we’re using the most powerful skills to maximize the coefficients per second and hitting with everything, this is what would happen (no quickness). All of this is assuming you start with full adrenaline (which you probably won’t without the help of utilities come patch time)

Let’s say aftercast doesn’t exist at all:

1. Hundred Blades (4.4) Time used: 3.5 (3.5)
2. Rush (1.7) Time used: .75 (4.25)
3. Greatsword Swing: (.77) Time used: .5 (4.75)
4. Greatsword Swing: (.7) Time used: .5 (5.25)
5. Greatsword Swing: (.9) Time used: .5 (5.75)
6. Greatsword Swing: (.77) Time used: .5 (6.25)
7. Greatsword Swing: (.7) Time used: .5 (6.75)
8. Greatsword Swing: (.9) Time used: .5 (7.25)
9. Total: 10.84
10. Total additional damage due to Berserker’s Power: 12.466

It’s not even comparable. Even in the magical world of no aftercast.

This is arching slice:

1. Hundred Blades (4.18) Time used: 3.5 (3.5)
2. Rush (1.7) Time used: .75 (4.25)
3. Greatsword Swing: (.77) Time used: .5 (4.75)
4. Greatsword Swing: (.7) Time used: .5 (5.25)
5. Greatsword Swing: (.9) Time used: .5 (5.75)
6. Arching Slice: (2.6) Time used: .75 (6.5)
7. Greatsword Swing: (.77) Time used: .5 (7)
8. Total damage assuming berserker’s power up until Arching Slice: 13.24

It’s close, but it’s not a straight damage nerf. Is this harder to manage? Of course. You’ll have to bring adrenaline building stuff and really try to hit multiple targets at once. But in the end, PvE is stupidly easy and needs to be harder. Part of what makes it so easy is one of the classes is tough as hell, doesn’t use it’s lead mechanic and does a ton of damage.

The real damage nerf isn’t on greatsword. It’s in the fact that your adrenaline drains the moment you leave combat. That said, Arcing Slice only needs a single bar to hit like a truck. Thus, greatsword as a weapon has gotten strong.

These are the skill damage coefficients. It’s the only objective way to look at a skill.

Damage lost on Hundred Blades: 0.22

Damage lost on Whirlwind Attack: 0.035

Damage gained on Arching Slice: 1.3

Total damage lost: 0.255

Total damage gained: 1.3

Net Damage Gain: 1.045

I’m sorry, where’s the nerf here? Learn to use your burst skills, PvEers. It’s the whole kitten point of warrior.

Not to mention that the skill in ready up only required a single bar of adrenaline to get a full damage hit. That means if you get something below 50% HP AND you have even one bar of adrenaline, you can just spam arching slice. That’s every 7 seconds. A 2.6 coefficient skill every 7 seconds? Hell yes. For reference, Backstab is 2.4.

Juba.8406:

^^^

you know that is a very bad logic, just because we can roll as an Asura then to you its ok to telegraph the warrior even more ?!!

so what about those professions that got no telegraphs & near instant cast skills and can also roll as an Asura, wouldn’t that make them too OP ?

Yes, because warriors can do absolutely absurd damage while still being super tanky. A thief or mesmer can’t do that. They are just glassy and there’s very little they can do to stop that. Thus, to do comparable damage, they must do more advanced stuff and be at a higher risk.

ArrDee.2573:

Skyhammer!

It also takes time. I think there are some small changes that could be done though:

1. Make the Skyhammer dodgable.

And big changes

1. Make certain areas remove stealth to prevent constant instant death
2. Put this in its own arena so if you play on this map, it is because you WANT to play on this map. I stopped doing soloqueue because I’d queue up wanting to play shatter gs/staff mesmer and get this map where I’m not that great.

Split PvP/PvE/WvW skills!

1. This just isn’t necessary. Most skills can work in all three game modes. There’s no reason for splitting every single skill in the game to make every single one powerful. Instead, just split ones that are super strong. For example, they said that they are nerfing Black Powder for thieves in the next patch. I think that’s a great skill to split for PvP and PvE.

Passive Skills

That’s a lot of new stuff. I’d be in for it though.

AFK Check

Even more than just this, make it so if you leave your character in the mists or anywhere for more than 5 minutes without moving, it will set you to away. Then when you move again, it would set you to being online. I hate whispering people who are away but don’t set that stuff.

Balance Patches

Definitely should be monthly.

Anything not mentioned I agree with or have nothing to add.

mooty.4560:

I know this is a revolutionary idea.. but you could always consider giving some player credit for just being better than you or perhaps even, gasp, a good player?

Hard to do that when you absolutely unload on them and they only lose 1/3 of their health. Then they do one burst to you and you’re at like 1/4th of your health. Warriors are way too easy to play and they’re a bit too strong IMO. They can be handled, but you have to be playing very well and for a large majority of DPS builds, you will probably have to step off the point you’re defending in a 1v1 where as they usually don’t have to.

MonMalthias.4763:

The Gates Assassin.9827:

1. Juggernaut – You move 25% faster while using flamethrower. Gain might (15s) whenever you use a flamethrower skill.

• I like the concept behind this new Juggernaut in that it’s basically a better version (due to IMS) of Pyromancer’s Puissance.

• This is actually a really strong buff to the Juggernaut trait, as you are now no longer capped at 6 stacks before Boon Duration but instead limited only by cast time and Cooldown.

The main intent of the IMS is to reduce the need for Speedy kits, thus freeing up 2 trait points. I find that it’s hard to justify going too far into inventions and firearms for damage builds unless it’s:

1. PvE where defense doesn’t matter
2. A pure tank build, like turret engis, which go 30 into inventions all the time.

Those two extra points allow for spread like 6/4/0/4/0! Hell, if you truly make a flamethrower build, you could even do 4/6/0/4/0!

I also find that the main thing that a PvP Flamethrower user lacks is snare and IMS. The traits I suggested allows for these to be in house and pretty strong. My goal with those buffs is not just to make the firearms line better, but allow for flamethrower to be the only kit on an effective PvP player’s bar.

In reference to the might stacking thing, you’d only gain might stacks in combat and you’d have to be pretty mindlessly spamming your skills to attain so much might. This also doesn’t account for counter pressure applied to you, time spent dodging and time spent using other skills and weapons. Overall, I think the might stacks will work out to be around the same.