Guild Wars 2

Barpat.3516:

I like the idea, but…

I like it more, if instead of “Engineer Points” you have a crafting profession like “Engineer mechanic”.

The “Engineer mechanic” can design new turrets by combining materials, weapons, armors…

With an interface similar to other crafting professions.

And maybe… It would be “more real” if this turrets need materials to place them. Or maybe you can have a stock of constructed turrets. If you pick up the turret before it explodes you don’t lose the stock, but if it gets destroyed you can recover just some materials you used to made it.

I think the idea is understandable. Sorry for my english.

If it took up actual resources, it’d put an unfair economic tax on engineers, which would more than likely turn people off of the idea of playing one.

How about something silly and simple? Each trait line as it is now gives three stats? The two normal ones, and then one related to your tools, kits, and turrets?

Example:

Explosives gives: +10 Power, +1% Condition Duration, and +1% Explosive Radius
Firearms: +10 Precision, +10 Condition Damage, +1% Turret Damage
Inventions: +10 Toughness, +10 Compassion, +1% Turret Health
Alchemy: +10 Vitality, +1% Boon Duration, +2% Elixir Radius (and a new trait to give Elixirs you drink an AoE effect centered on you that gives your allies the effect of the Elixir as well.)
Tools: +1% Toolbelt Recharge, +1% Critical Damage, +1% Gadget and Toolbelt Damage

You ask why no Kit booster? Well, Kits are going to be benefiting from stats and sigils, so, in a way, you can customize them by virtue of what gear you’ve got.

You’re just jealous of my green short shorts.

That’s the thing. There are several Robins, each with their own unique and different way of growing up. Everyone who plays Engineer will have to pick their own path. Some will choose to stick with it, though even darkest times, like Tim Drake. Some will work with what they got and keep doing more and more great things, like Dick Grayson. Some will fall out of grace and antagonize the other Engineers, like Jason Todd. Some might quit and come back later, like Batgirl.

And still others might be a belligerent jerk, but still work to make the state of Engineer better… Like Damian!

In short, we ARE Robin. But that’s okay, because we’re free to choose our own futures. And if things get too messed up, we’ll just have Superboy (Warriors) go punch reality for us and see what happens. Experimentation! Excelsior!

LegoTechnic.5910:

I can’t respect Tim Drake as the only reason he survived his murder was because Superboy Prime punched reality. It seriously doesn’t matter what they do with Drake, or even if they rebooted the universe, but I simply can’t get past that.

That reality punch covered up more plot holes than that though.

I kinda liked the idea from “Under the Red Hood” where Ras used the Lazarus pits to resurrect Jason because he felt guilty for being involved in getting Jason killed.

Am I the only one here who thinks Robin is kind of awesome?

I mean… Grayson is trained by Batman, becomes a Teen Titan, becomes Nightwing, joins JLA… Has no issue getting just about any woman.

Jason Todd? Survives being beaten with a crowbar (TANKCAT will respect this), and winds up a gun-toting vigilante.

Tim Drake: Rises from a tragic beginning to become Red Robin (Yum!), and manages to foil a convoluted plot from the League of Assassins, earning him the respect of Ras Al Ghul (no small feat). Then helps make Batman Incorporated.

So yeah… Robin doesn’t seem so bad right now. Robin’s always been sort of a transitory phase. Something with great potential, trained by the best, eventually becoming something great. Maybe being Robin is just what Engineer needs right now: to learn, grow, and realize it’s full potential. All that will take is time and patience.

A Small Note: I don’t have the PvP experience some others have, since it’s not my preferred mode of play. It’s growing on me though. I hope someone who is better can come and help me test to provide me with some additional data in that realm.

Initial Testing: Attacking the Heavy Golems in the Mists is very promising. Two of each of my three offensive toolbelt skills (a total of 6 attacks) is more than enough to get the kill. The impressive parts are Throw Wrench (hitting for 1500-2000 twice) and Rocket Kick (Hitting for 1000-1500, with another 1600 or so in burn damage). Surprise Shot is pretty whimpy though, and I’m contemplating switching it with the Battering Ram for a hard-hitting cripple on a longer cooldown (25 sec). It’d also grant a decently useful utility skill, instead of leaving Rifle Turret there, bored… Warming the utility bench.

The kit attacks hit strong as well, tossing out vulnerability before bringing about one heck of a wallop on the auto-attack chain. Prybar hits like a truck and might not even be needed for the confusion. Box of Nails just makes getting away that much harder, especially since it’s also cast when you equip the kit.

The theoretical fight goes a little something like: Enemy sees you, and cackles madly at the thought of easy Engineer stabbin’s. Thy get the drop on you, starting with their stun or immobilize. ZAPPLANT laughs and GTFOs with Rocket Boots. As the enemy is coming to chase ZAPPLANT down, you fire Static Shot to get a blind in, then switch to your Tool Kit. Bam! Instant caltrops, saving you a step. Smack them with the prybar to keep the confusion going. They’re either full stopped now just trying to get rid of confusion, or foolishly killing themselves. Either way, you Rocket Kick them to get the burn going. Throw your Wrench for good measure, then play a little defense while you line the wrench up for the return trip. If they aren’t dead by now, your auto-attack should do the trick. Also, at anywhere during any of this, you could pop your Surprise Shot, so don’t be shy.

What do you think? Worthy successor to TANKCAT, or destined to be torn apart like a toy filled with catnip?

In case you haven’t figured it out, this is a variant of the TANKCAT build using everyone’s favorite flavor: REAL lightning! The idea is to expand upon the premise of TANKCAT with a more offensive, bursty, build.

ZAPPLANT uses:

Heal: Med Kit – Fastest recharging heal on your toolbelt, along with a fun, versatil healing skill. Of note, Kit Refinement makes this attack cause a PBAoE damage effect when you swap into your kit once per 10 seconds. The Rune of Lyssa will also grant you a buff every 10 seconds. Synergy!

Utility 1: Rifle Turret – Because the toolbelt skill is a super-fast recharging, instant speed, lightning -zapping ranged attack. This should never be deployed.

Utility 2: Toolkit! – How else do you get a prybar? The skills in here are incredible and make for a very well-rounded set. Kit Refinement makes you drop extra Boxs of Nails while you’re at it. Your toolbelt is a boomerang wrench that hits like a TANKCAT driving a bus. It’ll also cripple things for you.

Utility 3: Rocket Boots – Your stun breaker. Pop this whn someone tries to stunburst you, then magnet them in for your own counter-burst! Also, Rocket Kick comes in handy for a goodly application of damage, with the lightning and the burning, and the already being in melee!

Elite: Supply Drop – We have other Elite Skills?

Weapons: Pistol and Shield – The Shield OH brings too much versatility and defensive capability to leave at home. With the build’s emphasis on offensive output, having a source of defensive skills is a good thing.

Sigils: Superior Accuracy and Air – 5% More crit chance, extending to our prybar is fantastic for taking advantage of that full 30 points in Tools. Air grants us a powerful burst damage tool in the form of a lightning strike proc.

Runes: 5 Lyssa, 1 Eagle – This gives us more of that needed Precision to boost our crit chance. It also lets us hot-swap to our healing kit for a quick boon, and extends our conditions just a teensy bit longer.

Gear: Knight’s – Power, Precision, Vitality are key. If you got to mix it up for a more balanced style, add healing, crit damage, and toughness to round out the stats. You’ll still want to try and get as much precision as you can though for frequent crits.

Traits: 0-20-0-20-30

Firearms – Major 3 and 6. When you use your pistol, you’ll have faster recharge for your important Static Shot. And half your crits will give you a 6 second swiftness buff (after boon duration)! You’ll be keeping up with anyon and everyone.

Alchemy – 1 and 9. Swiftness from your crits will now also grant you vigor of a matching duration, so you’ll never be out of dodges to use. This is important, as ZAPPLANT isn’t as durable, and operates more like a ninja than the bigger, beefier TANKCAT. 9 (Backpack Regenerator) can be switched out based on preference, with 6 (Protection Injection – for surviving stunburst), 5 (Blood Injection – for condition damage on your confusions), and 4 (Self-Regulating Defenses – since you don’t have Elixir S) being good choices.

Tools – 2, 4, and 8. Your toolbelt skills shoot lightning… So Spam those suckers. They’ll hit for a small sum on top of the damage you deal with the toolbelt skill, but will also seek out and strike other nearby targets. Since you have two kits, take advantage of your often melee range by having Kit Refinement. Both cause PBAoE effects that add up to damage and debilitating effects. Faster recharge and cripple on your tool kit helps too.

In the beginning, there was TANKCAT. At first, TANKCAT was happy to prybar everyone’s face. It was the highest form of affection TANKCAT could bestow upon the masses. But then people started staying away from TANKCAT, and TANKCAT got lonely. So TANKCAT got a plant, because plants couldn’t run away with them being rooted in clay pots and all.

TANKCAT came to love that plant so much, TANKCAT shared that most wonderful expression of love: a prybar to the face… Or in this case, the cellulose. A flash of incredible power infused the plant with TANKCAT’s message of love and prybars. That plant then picked up a prybar of it’s own, freed itself from it’s clay prison, and set about to sprad the word of love and joy… And prybars.

Thus, ZAPPLANT was born!

…wut?

Well, if you want to play with precision, there are five traits that you can take for ridiculous cirt-based fun. (Not necessarily the most effective, but fun.)

Explosives 10 – Incendiary Powder (33%: 2 Second Burn)
Firearms 5 – Sharpshooter (30%: 3 Second Bleed)
Firearms 10 – Precise Sights (50%: 3 Second Vulnerability)
Firearms10 – Infused Precision (50%: 5 Seconds Swiftness) This should be in Alchemy
Alchemy 10 – Invigorating Speed (5 Seconds Vigor When Gaining Swiftness)

So yeah… Ever wanted to have 3 Conditions and 2 Buffs proc on every shot? Before Sigils? Add Sigil of Strength and Sigil of Earth for 1 more of each if you run P/P.

Crit ALL the things!

Adding a few more things I’ve come to love since Wintersday.

I love Flamethrowers. Once I got the hang of aiming the blasted thing, I started burning crews like a champ.

I love that the first minor trait in the Precision/Malice Firearms line is a 33% chance to inflict bleeding with every attack. The synergy tastes like happiness.

I love Mines and Rocket Boots. Being able to knock off two quick combo finishers within 2 seconds of each other, then suddenly not be where the hate is now focused, is awesome.

I love Healing Turret. How is it that a big, clunky, pepper grinder-looking device is such an accessible, easy to use, and downright versatile heal? ANet, please make more things like this for our Engineers! <3

I love Booby Trap. While I hate being downed (on any character, not just Engies), the Booby Trap is incredibly fun, just to see a mob of toy soldiers go flying off like popcorn.

I love Plushie Griffons. I don’t care if they aren’t an Engineer thing, but they’re just so adorable and fluffy!

Wasdclick

Per minute…
2 Poison
3 Freeze
6 Flash
12 Shrap
36 Reg

Before (Grenades PvE)
18.00 Reg
0.00 Flash
0.00 Poison
1.50 Freeze
6.60 Shrap
26.10 Total

Before (Grenades PvP)
16.20 Reg
0.00 Flash
0.00 Poison
1.35 Freeze
5.40 Shrap
21.95 Total

After with 5% damage buffn from MH Sigil
12.47 Reg
6.93 Shrap
0.63 Flash
1.58 Freeze
0.42 Poison
22.03 Total

Since people are looking into my logic here. Remember that I am talking about damage over an infinite period of time.

What you’re looking at are the effective damage Coefficients for each individual grenade attack over 1 minute. This doesn’t account for condition damage, or base damage.

You’ll see that now, with the 5% Damage sigil working for the Grenade kit, that the damage is minimally better over time than it was After the 10-15-15% PvP nerf. So yeah… That 5% sigil does a lot of work when we’re talking about an extended battle. The burst damage is still hurt, but the overall DPS is quite salvageable.

Robique.8279:

Wasdclick.1764:

That’s the thing… The nerf didn’t actually have a drastic effect on the maximum output of grenades over time. Within 1-3%. The big thing now is just getting the most out of your Sigils to bring you back up to the top. That 5% damage sigil? It actually evens out 15% of the 30% nerf.

Oh, so just because there are 3 grenades per attack, a 5% damage sigil increases the overall dmg output by 15%.
Do you realize how dumb that sounds?
By that logic, the grenades were nerfed by 90%!

-Facepalm-

Now when did I say that that was my reasoning?

No, the 30% debuff was to ONE of your 5 skills. If you’re using all of your grenade types, as you should be, the 5% damage buff applies to all of them, where the 30% reduction only applies to one of them.

Without the 20% faster recharge trait, you’ll throw 36 regular grenades per minute, and 24 of the rest. I took rotations into mind when calculating total damage over time. Post patch total damage, including inherent conditions, was less than 30% less total damage. With the 5% Damage sigil, Post-Patch grenades went to 15% less total damage over time. With Cirt Might in a proper build, you could reach similar numbers to what was had before.

The 30% damage debuff was only insurmountable if you… Spammed Grenade 1. And if you were doing that, then you deserve the debuff, as the spammable “auto” attack (calm down, I am aware you can’t auto Grenade 1. I refer to your 1 key attack.) isn’t meant to be the only thing you do.

I encourage them for making it so Grenadiers can’t get away with spamming 1.

Don’t need crit entirely for a good Grenade build. But you do need Pistol/Pistol or Pistol/Shield so you can get two active sigils.

For low Crit, I’d suggest 5% damage and your favorite Swap sigil (Might is real good if you remember to swap it every 9 seconds for a maintainable 6 stacks of might.)

Make sure to take the 15% chance of bleed on explosion trait, the 10% more damage one (the cooldown doesn’t seem to work right now apparently.) and Grenadier.

I’d suggest some crit if you can spare the stats though. A combination of crit and power tends to work out to overall stronger damage over time.

Even with a full Power tree thugh, you still have 40 points, which is enough to fill the Precision tree too, though it won’t leave you much for defensive skills.

Swizzle.7982:

DreamOfACure.4382:

Except if you knew anything about Engies, you’d realize that for the general population of engineers – Grenade Kit is still the best choice. Even after the 30% nerf..

I never said anything to the contrary. I agree, even this gimped version of grenades is still our best kit, that’s pretty pathetic, if you call that quality balance.. well.. okiedoki.

What I meant was that Anet’s fix for the Mortar could be nerfing the grenade kit even more, to the point where the mortar appears ‘useful’, as that would be on par with their usual ingenious methods of ‘fixing’ the engineer.

That’s the thing… The nerf didn’t actually have a drastic effect on the maximum output of grenades over time. Within 1-3%. The big thing now is just getting the most out of your Sigils to bring you back up to the top. That 5% damage sigil? It actually evens out 15% of the 30% nerf.

Now the only thing is that you can’t bring Rifle with your Grenades and expect to deal quite the same damage. All kits are likely to be balanced around having access to 2 sigils at a time instead of just 1.

(I’m thinking of suggesting ANet make it so only the MH sigil applies to the kits, so that Rifle users aren’t missing out. Which would come with a logical 15% increase in Grenade 1 damage to compensate.)

And to be On-Topic: Yes, please buff Mortar. It needs a reworking. Make it a true turret, that fires on it’s own, that way at least it’s supplemental damage instead of nerfing yourself with your Elite.

CriSPeH.8512:

Zero Angel.9715:

Yes, both sigils take effect if you are dual wielding. So if you have one that casts lit on crit and one that casts freeze on crit then you will hit enemies with both lit and frost every once in awhile when you crit.

From my testing it seems that the sigils do not stack, so theres no use having 2 sigils of ice on your pistols for example.

Isn’t it diminished or shared or something though.
So if one is 60% chance and the other is 30% than its actually only 30% of the left over 40%.

Or something like that!?
I really have no idea and get confused everytime I try to figure it out.

ICD is shared on them… So You could only proc the Sigil 1 time before it goes on cooldown. Sigil of Ice, whether you have 1 or 2, will still only give you a maximum uptime of 3 seconds of chill per 10 seconds.

+5% Damage and +5% Crit sigils don not stack with themselves, but do stack with each other.

+10 Stat sigils don’t stack with themselves.

+10% Duration Sigils do stack fully though. Go figure.

Yup, works as you think it does.

Derk.3189:

The necromancer’s longest bleed is Blood is Power facepalm.

Apologies. Longest WEAPON bleed. Happy?

Well… Someone posed the question: Is 10% Condition Duration worth 100 of your primary stat?

The answer is harder than it seems. We’ll look at two very different skills to see when and if it is worth it.

The only time more duration is worth ANYTHING for a Bleed, is if it creates 1 more second of bleeding. Otherwise it won’t tick again.

First, the worst bleed in the game. Engineer Pistol 1. (Provides 1 Stack of 2 seconds.)

Needs 50% Bleed duration to hit the next tick. 2 Bleed Dutration sigils and 2 Afflicted, and 2 Krait runes will grant that 50%. This makes our bleed 3 seconds long.

Bleed damage, by the by, is:
2.5 + (0.5 * Level) + (0.05 * Condition Damage) per stack

So at level 80, you just got yourself……. 42.5+(0.05*Malice) damage over the normal shot. This is why people scoff at Pistol 1’s bleed and just build for Power/Crit. But that extra 42.5 damage is about equal to 42 more Power. Is it worth 2 sigils and 4 runes? No. Because you can get a good couple hundred there.

Now let’s look at Necromancer’s longest weapon bleed: Enfeebling blood. (2 Stacks, 10 Seconds each)

With even 10% Condition duration, we get that needed extra tick. With the same setup as the engineer above? We get 10 more total seconds of bleed out of the two stacks. So we just got (425+.5*Malice) more Enfeebling Blood damage from that setup. Now that’s pretty good. On an attack with a par-for-the-course 1 coefficient for power, you just gave yourself about 425+(.5*Malice) equivalent Power. That’s about 85 Power on each sigil, and 63.75 power per single Rune.

Unless you have more than 0 Malice… Which is likely true if you’r focusing on bleeding.

Worth it yet? Still, depends. Are we PvP, WvW, or PvE? Does the target have cleansing? Will the fight last long enough for the 5 extra seconds to mean something? It’s hard to say.

For a sustained fight, I’d say it’s worth it. For regular 1v1 mob-smashing, probably not. Basically, the longer the fight goes, the more valuable condition duration is. It’s not quantifiable due to all the variables involved. But can it be good? Certainly.

It’s kind of funny though… The most popular weapons for most classes seem to be:

Warrior: Greatsword and Rifle
Guardian: Greatsword and Staff
Ranger: Greatsword and Shortbow
Thief: Shortbow and Dagger/Dagger
Engineer: Rifle
Necromancer: Staff and I dunno, but it’d be Something/Something
Mesmer: Staff and Greatsword
Elementalist: Staff or Dagger/Dagger

So few combos seem to dual-wield despite the lack of a second sigil. The base effects on the 2h weapons are a bit higher to make up for the lack of an off-hand weapon. Would a second sigil and other mathematical compensation be welcome? Of course. Necessary? Only for Engineer (because kits are going to be balanced around having access to two weapons.)

Yeah… It’s kind of a bum deal that the bleed on Pistol 1 got slammed as hard as it did after BW3. Condition damage used to be the way to go for P/P, but times change.

Dual pistols, despite how it looks, isn’t that great for dealing condition damage. Their strength lies in the 3 and 5 skills being able to mess with enemies through non-damaging conditions… With some help from confuse. It’s the blind and the immobilize that make the set good.

So power and crit are going stronger there.

If you want condition damage, I’d suggest grenades due to the ease of bleed stacking there.

I’d still like to get my hands on the formulae though.

Even if healing power is irrelephant, plugging the calculations into my other calculations will help me weigh survivability in expected situations.

I’m working on comparing stat layouts for a build here… And what seems to make or break one of the stat setups is the amount of healing power that it has.

So I just need to get an idea of how much healing power will have an effect on the build.

If anyone has the formulae for the following skills, or at least a healing power coefficient, that’d be wonderful:

Bandage Self (Toolbelt Skill)
Drop Bandages (Med Kit Skill)
Elixir H
Healing Turret
Cleansing Burst (Healing Turret Overcharge)

I’d honestly love it if our toolbelt did something different.

But what I’d want it to do is give us 4 toolbelt skills that we select in addition to our normal utility skills. In other words… Unlink them.

I don’t feel like an engineer should have to carry a boomerang wrench just because s/he brought a tool kit, when s/he would rather have super speed boots.

If I bring a flamethrower, I don’t want to bring incendiary ammo. I’d much rather bring Bat Shark Repellent. Because you never know when an exploding shark is going to bite your leg while you’re in a helicopter, and I like to be prepared.

What’s stopping an engineer from grabbing something different? You want versatility? Why not have the only profession that can freely customize the skills in their toolbelt?

This is just going to be a little thing to help lighten the mood of the Engineer forums.

Post what you love about the class. What makes you happy, what you enjoy most. The good things.

This isn’t a place to drop backhanded insults or complaints about the class. Just love.

I love that we’re the only profession that gets to hit people with crowbars… And that we’re GOOD at it!

The intent is that drinking gives two, while throwing gives 1.

The new change is small, but people have been getting to consistent 20-25 stacks of might when optimizing themselves for Might duration. This is a big, and awesome thing for us, giving a good offensive boost.

Subtle change, big difference. I like it a lot. Thanks ANet!

It’s cool, I haven’t used it much yet. Ducky has been too tempting to play with, but my usual Pistol/Shield combo doesn’t have an inherent Immobilize so I’m like “grr.”

I do enjoy rifle though, so I don’t think switching is going to antagonize me much

HGH didn’t quite double, in my humblest opinion, since the throw is still just 1 stack. So it’s more like 1.5 time. But that’s nitpicking…

Sitting Duck is an incredible buff, and far more than “double” effectiveness. I think people should be really looking at this one with Rifle. You can Net Shot once per 8 seconds. Traited. Toss in the duckie, and now every 8 seconds we’re giving the target 5 vulnerability. More if we have condition duration improvements. For a team player, that’s downright incredible.

I agree for the most part with the Grenade nerf, since the low coefficients stack up to really high levels when multiple grenades hit. On top of great condition stacking. But AoE’s just shouldn’t be the single target DPS solution. ANet has said as such as well, and we’ll be seeing other AoE based nerfing on other classes at a close point in the future. We just get it first because our kits are being drastically revamped to allow for weapon stats and sigils, so it’s easier for them to work in the necessary changes.

kitten did I just read?

Anyway… Engineers, it’s not the end of the world. That comes in 5 days.

We’re the smart profession. We change, we adapt, we’ll build a better tomorrow with our own hands, even given insufficient resources. It’s what we do.

For now, I’m going to enjoy my silly levels of control, because I know for a fact we still got that in spades. We don’t even have much in the way of stuns and dazes, and we’re still annoying things to death.

For everyone raging… Breathe, adapt, conquer. We shouldn’t look at a nerf as a painful thing that makes us impossible to play. We should look it as a challenge. Ranger isn’t for me because I can’t manage pets. If you can’t look at Engineer and say “Challenge Accepted,” then maybe Engineer isn’t for you. And there’s no shame in that.

@Dispari: And they buffed the damage of 2 and 4 in PvP back to pre-november levels, so they got buffed by 15% each.

Now we need to wait for the stat-incorporation to hit us. Yes, there will be a baseline nerf to compensate, but high-end gear will likely still have a world of impact on the final damage level.

@Travail: No, we couldn’t stack 25 might easily… Or at all. But with the new HGH, we can get 7-8 stacks fairly consistently between Elixir H and B and toolbelts, leaving us open to take S as our stun break. With the sigil keeping us at 6 more stacks… 13 Stacks of might isn’t something I’d sneeze at. If a high damage engie has 2000 Power (Since we don’t get weapon damage) that might stacking will account for a 22.75% increase in damage dealt. (2000+13*35)/2000

I’ll do my math again to see if we manage to make up for Grenade’s debuffing.
And I get a damage from coefficient rating of 24.46 (NOT accounting for HGH. This is only the maxed out crit-might and 5% damage from Force. HGH is something that could have been done before pre-patch, just not quite as well). That’s only 6% less damage than they were pre-patch. Also, the total loss of damage is likely far less when we consider condition damage that’s supplementing this. Shrapnel Grenade and the new shrapnel trait buff will add up to a lot of bleed over that one minute, which gets buffed further by our Might stacks.

The question is… Does the new explosion bleed trait have an ICD? If it doesn’t then we might be looking at something awesome. Each throw of 3 grenades with grenadier would proc at least 1 bleed about 40% of the time.

Find me math on the whole “Might = 1% more damage” thing. But that’s a different topic for another day.

I can see a hybrid elixir-grenadier spec using HGH and crit-might to achieve some very impressive numbers.

I do agree that it sucks to be a 1-handed weapon… But that’s more than just Engineer’s problem when it comes to Sigil customization. It just feels worse because Engineers are just now adapting to Sigil usage.

They have to be cautious with this new change. If at an optimal level, we can get grenades to be as effective as they were before, then we have, in fact, made up for the Sigil upgrade. So if we just put all our possible points into damage, and all we get is damage… Then mission accomplished. If we put points/resources into other things, we shouldn’t expect to do as much as we did before.

In my opinion, I think 30% was a bit much as well. 20% would have been much better. But ANet seems to err on the side of caution when bringing in something big.

People have been complaining that Warriors, mesmers, Elementalists, and Guardians are getting buffs. They aren’t rising in power level though. Their getting more viable options because they are starting to be “refined” form the rough release state.

Engineers, Rangers, and Necromancers are still being dug from the earth, that is to say ANet is still working around the rough edges, trying not to hurt the game state, while trying to get us to that same point of becoming a refineable product.

It might be a little while longer than other classes, but we’ll get there. Have patience, have faith, and know that better days are on the way.

Kind of seems like the optimal thing to do anyway if you’re going for AoE damage, right? Procs won’t trigger on each target, so static bonuses become the needed thing.

Grenades were strong beforehand. Real strong. Now we just have to invest a little more to keep them strong. And are you really going to complain about 5% Damage and Crit sigils on your weapons? It’s boring but arguably the most effective way to go about it on weapons anyhow.

Also, Crit-Might (Sigil of Strength) will work wonderfully with crit-proccing anyway. So there’s a load of might you can add to each grenade for even more damagey goodness.

Well, I did some number-crunching of my own. We are seeing how the kit interacts with sigils now, yes? I found something kinda interesting.

Per minute…
2 Poison
3 Freeze
6 Flash
12 Shrap
36 Reg

Before (Grenades PvE)

18.00 Reg
0.00 Flash
0.00 Poison
1.50 Freeze
6.60 Shrap

26.10 Total

Before (Grenades PvP)

16.20 Reg
0.00 Flash
0.00 Poison
1.35 Freeze
5.40 Shrap

21.95 Total

After with 5% damage buff
12.47 Reg
6.93 Shrap
0.63 Flash
1.58 Freeze
0.42 Poison

22.03 Total

15.6% Less damage coefficient against the pre-patch PvE stats.
Minimally more than pre-patch PvP stats though.

That 5% makes a good difference, making up for 15% of the nerf. Suffice to say, with another sigil, perhaps 5% crit, on a second weapon, we might be seeing significant comparison.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

You only need 12 achievements to get the title. You can pick from any of the 14 new achievements in the special event category and the two monthly achievements. We did this so that if there’s a particular type of content that you’re just really not interested in, you can probably skip that one thing and still get the title.

Thank you for that. I love the snowball fight, but the Stopper ’chievement is proving to be very, very tedious.

I think the Engie Snowman could us a buff, but aside from that, I’m enjoying it.

At least the thing makes for a quick spot of cover while I’m carrying a present.

Yeah, there’sa thread for it right now.

All the trees, all the buildings, and some stuff won’t die to normal attacks. Drop some AoEs to finish off the rest.

I think they have a youtube video guide now.

gwydion.5783:

I made the mistake of clicking on this event just to see what was happening, unlike the dungeon in the Halloween event, I am trapped and don’t know how to get back to the Grove. Is there way out of the place?

Go to the Mists, then use the portal to Lion’s Arch maybe?

The profession I find most overpowering is the Supporter. Friggin’ Ice Patches dude.

Also, teams re-balance after every match. Some are going to be blowouts, but I’ve had some good fights. It’s a bit luck-based, but it’s still fun once you get past that initial “I have no idea what I’m doing” phase.

Protips maybe?

- Don’t stomp… Never going to happen, so don’t bother.
- The present always spawns within a reasonable distance of the two regen buff packs in the center. Hide there, and pop out when the package spawns.
- If you have a speed buff (Scout 5), pop it just before you pick up the package. Swiftness will persist, even when all your skills go away.
- Attack from unusual angles, and make thorough use of cover, especially against enemy snipers.
- Don’t be afraid to release the sniper shot early. It does a bucket ton of damage even at half-charge.
- Weapon swap will let your Heavy move at full speed, but you’ll have to draw your weapon again when you want to fight.
- Rolling balls sucks, run away if it’s coming after you, or you will get flattened.

Shadowlancer.7102:

I’m confused, I was here at “The Grove” Golem appeared but no lore of any kind and when the group got inside and cleared the toy dungeon, no lore either.

Was there a point to this?

A quick way to get some fun stuff… A chance to cause mayhem inside a giant airship… Making sure Tixx’s airship can go on to the next town Lore-wise.

It’s not super-lore heavy or anything, but it’s a fun, quick, event chain.

dulfy.1493:

Added a youtube video showing all the gemstore weapon animation

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGHVGJTFrMo

-Gasp!- I helped you by showing off the shield!

Ermahgerd! Ahm ern Yerteerb!

Did it in 25 minutes easy. Pretty short.

You usually have to strike the downing blow. Doesn’t work if they drop it due to tripping or what not.

My tip, be a scout, and hide near the path to the enemy base (just before the main big section).

When the gift carrier comes, click them to lock on. Snipe, volley, ???, profit.

Yah, main thing to watch out for it Veteran Skritt Gear Carriers. And Toxx is a bit beefy in melee. But otherwise it’s pretty easy. No pressure.

Make sure to smash all the pieces of the mini-towns.

Halcyon.7352:

1&2: The Utility belt exists for a reason. We do get an effective nine utility skills at any given time. The utility abilities for kits are nothing to scoff at, and quite often, are a large part of why I choose to even use a kit, which is how it should be. I might also add, we still have no cooldown on swapping kits, unlike attunement swapping. I don’t even need to mention kit modifying traits, do I? (Perma swiftness & regen, as well as free spells off cooldown are pretty nice, I dunno)

We get seven utility skills… At best. 7,8,9, and the F1-F4. The problem here is that quite frankly, toolbelt skills aren’t up to snuff. There’s some great ones, but there’s also some really bad ones. The worst part is that you don’t get to effectively pick them. You’re forced to used a certain F1-F4 based on what healing or utility skill you picked up.

I think having a special “kit slot” that occupies the weapon swap area would be a great first step towards making the engineer better. That would make a kit compulsory, but without cutting into our potential for selected utility skills. Since it’d be off on the side, we wouldn’t get it’s toolbelt skill. But, we could still put a kit in the utility spot, to get access to multiple kits, or to use the toolbelt skill.

Halcyon.7352:

3: Probably your strongest point. It is annoying having so much unreliability, however one could say it’s part of the charm and the intended feel of the class. There is a way to achieve this without letting luck completely decide whether you succeed or not however, and I do think abilities that do have this element of chance do need to be reworked so that the outcomes are more similar and any can be used in any situation.

If random, then we need some sort of compensation for it. We get 5 seconds of quickness compared to 4 from the classes the buffs come from, and on the same cooldown. That’s pretty nice. But what about Elixir B? Alone it’s great, but for the group toss, you get Fury or Retaliation for ten seconds, or 10 seconds of Swiftness, which is much less impressive… Or one stack of Might for 30 seconds. Which sucks. Compare to “For Great Justice”which grants 3 stacks of might for 25, as well as Fury for 8. Tossing Elixir S is just going to get you laughed at. And tossing Elixir U can’t be counted on either, as anything other than a combo field at least… And if it is intended to just toss down a combo field, then 60 seconds on recharge isn’t worth it.

Halcyon.7352:

4: I’ve… never noticed issues? I mean, I play on an older PC. When half the people during world events aren’t still loading constantly or culling out, I’ve never had much an issue tossing elixirs into groups of people at all, even through the lag. I wouldn’t mind a slight radius increase, or a trait to do such, however. (I’m looking at you Acidic Elixirs)

Not everyone can lead their shots with prescient skill. The point the OP was trying to make was that we’re still dealing with a 180 radius as opposed to shouts which get 600. How hard would it be for an engineer to make a gaseous elixir release device that can spread the joy over a wide area? Answer, not very, since we have an elixir gun that does that with “Fumigate.” (Yes, i know it’s a cone, but it wouldn’t be hard to imagine an area dispersal system using the same engineering principles. Or heck… Think of the device in the new Spider Man movie.)

Halcyon.7352:

I haven’t looked too thoroughly at how support guardians apply their own boons, but it would seem to me that if they’re hanging back, they’re only buffing ranged party members, or melee members if they’re up front. The Medium range playstyle of the engineer is perfect for optimum Elixir tossing coverage.

No, they hang in mid-range. Staff doesn’t work out to long range, so they keep to mid, where Empower can hit everyone, along with their shouts, and their ridiculously wide 1 attack.

Halcyon.7352:

I honestly feel like there’s much else that needs to be discussed and fixed prior: a whole slew of still useless traits, a flat and blind 30% damage reduction (after a 15% reduction) to our only decent damage kit, weapon stats still not applying to kits, just to list a few.

The traits I won’t argue much with. I think there’s more “niche” than “useless” but opinions differ on definitions there it seems.

Grenades took only 30% damage reduction on the 1 key. The 15% debuff fr PvP from before was removed, thankfully.

Weapon stats are coming soon. Jon has said such, but they emphasized Sigils first because they thought it would be more useful for build diversity. Stats will probably come in next big update.

All in all, I am happy with what we got. I still believe it has a place in the game. But the creeping buff we’re getting is overshadowed by the big nerf to one thing.

Yeah… I’ve done it a few times, but been jipped on all of the achievement.

I got the Gift Giver one pretty easy once I figured out how to be a ninja… But the Stopper is proving to be most vexing. Especially with games that don’t go so well.

This puzzle was fantastic fun!

I got it on my third run though (only because on the first, I got hit by a Windows Update pop-up. Microsoft, you’ve screwed me over for the last time!)

But yeah, it was much easier for me than the Clock Tower. The lack of disorienting motion on screen made it a lot easier for me to keep focus. That said, I had only 500ish health at the end and was getting hit for 104 per tick.

The pressure was there, the jumps were daunting (especially the candy canes on the side of the towers) and the visuals were A-MAZ-AHHHH!

Next time, I hope for a non-timed puzzle, but one where you really have to think your moves through. Maybe a jumping puzzle that literally is a puzzle?

Step 1: Take 1 part Flamethrower crit build.
Step 2: Add in Sigil of Crit-might.
Step 3: Add in elixirs H, B, and S with HGH.

Step 4: Why can’t I hold all this might?

Terrahero.9358:

Look at the posts above you. Its explained pretty clearly but ill sum it up.

Engineer = versatile, ergo it needs a hybrid tax in the form of less damage and not doing anything as good as anyone else.

Then;

Elementalist = KING of versatility. none more versatile then an Ele = No hybrid tax. Can specialize to do certain things as good, and gets baseline diversity without needing kits in the form of Atunements.

/arenanet logic

What kind of joke is this?

Okay, so let’s compare the downsides of Attunements and Kits.

Kits: Take up utility slots. Currently not taking weapon stats into consideration, but that will be changed sooner than later (As according to Jonny Dev).

Attunements: Take up an F1-F4 slot each.

So essentially, we both lose skill slots, just in different spots… I’m cool with that. I wish the toolbelt skills were a little better in some spots, but overall they can be rather useful. Once we get weapon stats, our kits will be that much more awesome.

AND… An engineer loses a bit of DPS for deciding to stick to non-kit skills. You can still be versatile with Gadgets and Elixirs. An Elementalist loses a huge chunk of their versatility by not using all 4 elements.

No, we shouldn’t be hybrid taxed… But I don’t think our baseline damage should be as much as that of something going pure damage kaplow either. Simple fact is, we can use most all of our skills in more than just one way. That’s why we get a damage tax. If we do as much damage as everyone else, while dictating the pace of a fight, disrupting the enemy’s plans, and loading on special effects… There might be some imbalance.

Versatility is about more than just putting kits on your skill bar.

It’s about seeing a situation, and adapting to it. Going to a dungeon with some friends? Bring out the Elixir Gun. Need to protect some points in sPvP? Pistol/Shield, mine, elixir S, and a Rocket Turret sitting behind you will make for some great coverage.

I’d like to be a pure DPSer at some point, maybe… But honestly, we have so many special effects coming off all our skill that we don’t need to be all about damage.

It’s like being a */Devices Blaster in CoH, or a Controller… Or a Shaman in WoW. An Engineer in Team Fortress 2… We have a set-up time, and we don’t have the sheer kill power of other classes. But we make up for it by having intelligent solutions for every challenge. A little more effort, a little more time, but for a job done to perfection.

Here’s what the Engineer has going for it.

- Brilliant control capabilities. Rifle, HM and OH Pistol, and Shield have great controlling skills. Grenade Kit has a darn near spammable AoE blind. We have mines that let us cause AoE knockback with little effort. A cone knockback from Flamethrower, and an PBAoE blind that are both on great cooldown times, and can be made even more usable. Turrets that divide attention, and grant us even more abilities though overcharges and even combos. Slowing effects and immobilizes out the wazoo. A crit effect that causes blind. Reliable access to Confusion, with possibly even easier access than an average Mesmer can muster up. And plenty of burst movement potential from a variety of sources. Engineers dictate the flow of a fight like none other.

- Crazy good support skills. Elixirs and the Elixir Gun… You see an Engineer packing these, and you know that you’re in good hands. Few professions can come close to and Engineer when it comes to support.

- Versatility. Sure, you can’t do everything well all at once. But you don’t need to specialize for everything the game has to offer. Adapting to the situation and having the right tool for the job is what an engineer is all about. You may never be the best DPSer, or the best Tank… But you’ll get the job done, and you’ll do it with style.

I think everyone’s overreacting just a bit. Yeah, the nerf on skill 1 is sad, but it’s not going to do as much as people think.

1 is your bread and butter, but 2’s shrapnel grenade is ready to go every 4-5 tosses. And now 3, the flash grenade, with a mere 8-10 second cooldown, has damage on it. Add in the fact that 5: poison grenade is now viciously powerful… Well, I’d say there’s a lot of fun to still be had.

Also, aren’t most Grenade builds using crit/pow or crit/condi? If you’re using Pistol/Pistol or Pistol/Shield, you get two sigils. Earth and Fragility for condition, or Accuracy and Force for sheer damage. Or Accuracy and Strength to get yourself some awesome might stacking in addition to all your Vulnerable stacking.

Try it before you kitten on it.