Guild Wars 2

Cloud.7613:

._. ; …

Well to be honest the signet one was across the board, which is rather kind of insulting for rangers/thiefs. But all in all, at least it was something positive, along with the rest of the stuff.

The 25% was a QoL improvement. I don’t see why a Necromancer can’t call upon magic to move quicker… It’s friggin’ magic. I don’t consider it insulting. It’s more like “thank bullocks that I don’t have to carry around a warhorn for a meaningful speed buff.”

NaturalPortman.9562:

junglewolf.3957:

in case you did not notice, warriors also got
“Increased the velocity of arrows fired from Longbow skills by 30%.”

I don’t consider this a buff for ranger at all seeing as theres buffs across the table.

Thief shortbow didn’t get a sped buff, so it’s not across all tables.

And even so, it is a buff for Rangers.

Though, I also don’t see many warriors using their longbows, so it’s not like they got buffed so much as just have a different option from Rifle for “reliable ranged attack.”

This is a momentous buff for Rangers. Don’t cheapen it by being sad that another profession got something similar. I mean, we’re all right with all the passive speed buffs being 25%. Why not this?

Since we’re going to be waiting on the Wintersday stuff until an undetermined point in time… Think we can get a preview of the Patch Notes, seeing as how they’re likely to drastically affect our characters? Puh-leeese? With sugar and a cherry on top?

—Puppy Dog Eyes—

Yes, sometime today. Eventually.

Basically, when the game is ready for it. The schedule said 10 AM pst, but there’s been a bit of a delay.

Maybe in sPvP, but I think it’s possible outside of sPvP since gear scales differently, and trinkets, and such…

I don’t mind the difficulty usually.

But the Clock Tower was impossible for me to complete. The constant spinning made me motion sick, and I could never get more than a couple of tries at a time.

If it’s rapid-fire jumping like Spekk’s I’ll be fine. I might even do it like a bawss with only a few tries. But if heavy camera motion (or motion tricks like Clock Tower) gets tossed in, I’ll have to quit doing event JPs.

As it is, it looks like that won’t be an issue. Thankfully.

Also: Clock Tower’s platform didn’t move. Because if they did, even the most mundane jump would be impossible due to relativity. Those platforms appeared to be moving very fast, and if you jump, you’d go in a straight line while the platform would curve away from your jumping path.

Simple answer… 10% is hardly noticeable. I think they bumped it for Quality of Life reasons.

Sef.6918:

so what exactly is HGH?

“Human Growth Hormone”

It’s a Grandmaster trait that makes all elixirs grant a stack of might for a short period of time.

I found Ether Renewal to be completely amazing as far as condition removal goes. It’s up every 15 seconds, I can pop Armor of Earth or any of my other protective measures to make sure that the channel completes, and it does the highest healing out of all the 6 key skills from what I’ve seen.

As for not working in WvW, of course not. It’s a very single-target dedicated build, which is why it’s a PvP build and not WvW build. I can build it this way because it is PvP, where the build is independent of your character in all other modes.

I do like the Cleansing Fire idea though, since it’d give me another way to get regen and vigor. I just don’t need to cleanse conditions that much in PvP matches.

I estimate the problem should be fixed on 12/14.

I think it has something to do with how long the attack takes to connect at maximum range, making the programming think that you just shot at air instead of at a target. So when you do hit, the programming has already deactivated auto-attack.

When you see the thread list… look for the ones with Red bubbles next to them. That shows that there’s a mod or dev post. Find the red posts in the ranger threads, and you can learn all the juicy not-so-insider information.

I’ll get the link, hold on.

I just got to figure out where I put my Tardis.

In the meantime, hooray for pet improvements. And Jonny-Dev knows and seems to acknowledge that pets are a big issue, so that gives even more hope.

HOPE!

Totally off topic… I want to see a Guild Wars 2 fanvid with four elementalists doing the whole Captain Planet thing… Then see a Ranger jump in and yell “HEART!” Probably only to be met with awkward silence and shame.

Poor Ma’ti.

So, I’m not much of a PvPer, to be honest. Just every once in a while, I have an odd desire to get attacked by real people who want to teabag my corpse. So I was wondering what I could do to minimize teabagging, and maybe be useful for a team. That was when I discovered Scepter/Focus wasn’t too terribly horrible. Maybe I’m doing it wrong, but the combo was doing well for me. To the point where I was scoring an average of 8 kills 0 deaths at the end of a match, with several point captures on the way.

Build Link:
http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mVbMM9Mz0mbmvMmbmvo9MxGGcaRcszm8khG70z7070c7kuB70z7kIN70z7kG270z7owZ8ofZ

(If that doesn’t work… Earth Traits 30, Major 3, 8, and 10. Water Traits 20, Major 3 and 9. Arcana Traits 20, Major 1 and 5. Dual Sigils of Agony, and 3 sets of 2 runes to increase bleed duration. Carrion gear.)

The idea was to just bled things to death while staying tanky. Stay in Earth, pew pew, and if things got bad, GTFO.

The worst trouble I got was from a necromancer, but it was just a long fight, and I never felt really in danger unless I was outnumbered. I distracted really well while my teammates did their thing too, since everyone’s all for ganking the mage.

I could survive at 560 health left for over 15 seconds, and still had a power down state that made me a bugger and a half to kill.

So thoughts? Doing it wrong? Interesting take on bunkering? Holy bucket of kitten balls, someone used SCEPTER?!??!

So we have two sides to the argument.

1) Ranger is the pet class. Therefore, pets should be a thing.

2) Ranger pets have so many issues that they should just be dropped so Rangers can pew-pew at full strength without worrying about a second health bar.

How about a compromise? The pet mechanic as it is goes away. Instead, we get a customizable F1-F4 that we fill out by going to visit juveniles like we do now.

Go out and fine a Fern Hound, and you get an F1 skill that’s just like the F2 that it has right now. When you click it, the effect happens on top of you, and you summon a Fern hound to fight for 15-20 seconds before it goes on a 40ish second cooldown. During that time, it uses the skills that it would normally have as a fire-and-forget missile.

Enforce a 1 pet active at a time limit, but let the pets override each other, so you can use your skills on demand, but still only have one pet, allowing your damage to be easier to normalize.

Group 1 is happy because they get pets. In fact, they’d have 4 pets on land and 4 pets underwater! It’s like a whole friggin’ zoo!

Group 2 is happy because the pets go away after a short time, so it’s easy to sneak around, they get better control of when and where their skills go off, losing the pet is less harmful, and when you don’t want your pet around… It’s not there, but it’s ready for you to call it on-demand!

Things that the pet does that you don’t want it to:

- Gives bouncing attacks an extra target. In PvP, one on one fights, this is deadly. Shortbow thieves LOVE to hit you twice with their arrows. Staff mesmers, Axe rangers, and such all will get extra hits, and that’s not so great.
-Boss fight shenanigans. Certain boss fights just ruin pets. Others, like a big jellyfish, will ruin a party’s day because of the pet.
-Aggro
-Pathing
-Possible enemy rezzes off of pet kills (not sure if this is a thing right now. I know it is for Necros)

There can be a lot of frustration with the pet. Sometimes, it will be bad for more than just the pet. Also, if your pet is constantly dead (which you’d think would be “Just doing no good” instead of “more harm than good”) then you’re doing less damage than any other profession could be doing due to the balancing. Which means it being unavailable hurts your performance.

There are professions that get away with not even caring about their F1-F4. Like warrior, mesmer, and thief. Sure, you can do better, but you’re not flooring your output like you would be if you were a Ranger with a dead pet.

I can argue points for both sides here. I don’t want to lose the pet, because the pet is what makes the Ranger the Ranger.

But right now, the pet is so bugged and unreliable that it’s not that effective. It’s doing more harm than good, so in the end… We really feel like we are already playing gimped warriors.

We won’t get new utility skills.

And with the Warhorn, we got quite a nice fury buff. Might get something in traits as they get reworked though.

Fingers crossed?

Silly idea… Because of Charzooka…

1: Fire Rocket – Generic damage, AoE, with some extra condition maybe.
2: Blowout – Self-Centered AoE knockback.
3: Rocket Jump – Kinda like rocket boots or rifle’s retreating shot just fly back out of thing’s way, giving us some movement, and a finisher dodge.
4: Bandage – Fires a rocket that shoots band-aids everywhere. Because rocket launcher.

I think if you do all you can to max it out, you can get perma-regen from the water field healing skill. But regen on it’s own isn’t enough to save you form most situations.

Not sure if it has an effect on the F. Hound regen howl.

I love Mines… They slow down the setup before a fight in PvE, but you bring the enemy right into them and set them back a few precious seconds. It’s not universally awesome like some skills are.

Also I love rocket boots, others disagree. They get me out of melee and fire patches quickly.

The thing that I like about using gadgets is that I don’t have to spend a bunch of traits on them to make them great. Just one trait, and I can focus on other things. Elixirs demand you take a full line of traits dedicated to them, and then because of the investment, you want to fill your skill bar with elixirs. Gadgets just don’t require much investment, and for a tight build, it’s golden.

Roll.6329:

Rangers need WAY more love than this.

I’m pretty sure there’s more.

Last big update (as disappointed as everyone says they were) was still a lot of changes. Upping projectile speed and signet speed would only be three of the bulletpoints on the list of changes. So there’s definitely more in store. And they’ve been talking about shout changes, signet changes, and pet changes… So I’m going to have a little hop and think that there’s more.

Though honestly, these fixes are going to be a substantial help to bow users, even if seemingly subtle.

Engineers have a 10x Channel on the flamethrower’s 1 key.

Sunspots.9861:

One word…Boomerang.

We practically have one with our MH Axe.

I just need an axe that looks like a boomerang. Then I can be annoying and spam-quote Sokka.

Oxstar.7643:

Look at the rest of his stats. He clearly stacks crit. That means you apply a lot of bleeds to foes thanks to the fast attack rate and the burn damage is still there, not to mention that flame wall works as a combo field for finishers.

That said keep doing with you’ve been doing so far and get everything that improves it til you wanna try something else.

In my defense, a build wasn’t posted when I input that message, so I didn’t know s/he was going to stack crit/condition traits.

Flamethrower works well with Knight’s (Power, Precision, Vit) thanks to the rapid attack speed, and the potential for a lot of crit-proccing.

If you don’t wanna crit-focus, Soldier’s (Power, Vitality, Tough) will make you pretty tanky.

Intersperse some heal power.

Don’t worry about condition damage, Flamethrower doesn’t really care that much about the conditions it deals out I’ve noticed.

There are several reasons to want to play a Ranger aside from the pet. A warrior can’t trap. They can’t summon spirits to buff allies.

I don’t agree with the premise of being able to just get rid of the pet for an increase in damage. There are others who have suggested more flavorful things like “Spirit pets” and such that give Rangers a way of not mucking about with a pet’s AI, while still remaining competitive, and still having a distinct class feature.

And ultimately, that’s what we’re talking about. We’re not saying we need our weapon to do as much damage as a warrior’s, while also having our pet. We’re talking about alternatives to pets that will allow us to play with a few more options, while maintaining the sort of damage and utility we are supposed to be getting from pets.

Loki.4871:

That doesn’t change my point: the ranger in guildwars II is not an archer class.

Rangers rely on a keen eye, a steady hand, and the power of nature itself. Unparalleled archers, rangers are capable of bringing down foes from a distance with their bows. With traps, nature spirits, and a stable of loyal pets at their command, rangers can adapt to any situation.

I can see where many people might think you’re wrong…

Yes, it’s not an archery only class… But archery is kind of a decently big thing. Only other class that uses a Longbow is Warrior, and the only other Shortbow user is the Thief. So as one of three archery capable classes, to want to play one as a Ranger is a reasonable request.

It’s not like it’s impossible for ANet to do this. Yeah, they wouldn’t be implementing this right away or anything… but bigger changes have happened.

Like the change to Hunters that took them from mana to energy. It took a lot of redesigning to do that, literally ripping out a core component of the class.

I don’t even think that this would be that hard of a change comparatively.
+ The static buff to Ranger stats is no harder to implement than a new signet or trait.
+ The two skills, as pulsing de/buffs, would be similar to Guardian’s passive Aegis every 40 seconds skill.
+ F2 would be F2…
+ For the pet, it’d just be a graphic effect centered on the player, so the spirit couldn’t be targeted, or even count as a pet.

I’m sure there’d be complications, but I don’t think it’d be that huge of a change. And I’m not even asking for this, I just thought it could be a cool idea. Maybe if people like it, ANet might think about bringing it in on an expansion or something. Weirder things have happened.

People seemed to have dumped Shortbow for the time being as it has similar projectile issues. And the recent hit to it’s DPS from the QZ nerf have left a few people rather bitter. Honestly, it’s still good, just notably slower than before.

As for Axe… Well, people don’t seem to give it any love. It’s a good weapon, too. Just… AoE focused so it doesn’t get as much attention from the PvPers, I’d reckon. And PvPers tend to be the most vocal over the forums.

(That’s not a crack at PvPers. Being vocal can be a good thing, or a bad thing. Just depends on if you’re polite while you do it.)

There’s a big problem with bows right now that a strafing target can dodge their attacks easily at 750+ range. Just walking, not dodging.

So people might be getting close because they fear their attacks just whiffing because the projectile speed is too slow.

It’s supposed to be changing on 12/14 when the new patch hits, so we’ll see if people stop face-bowing you.

I had a random little idea that I think would be really nice for Rangers, while giving everybody something in regards to their pets.

A decent chunk of people are really frustrated with pathing issues, a lack of teaming support, fragility, and a host of other things.

What if, as an alternative to animal pets, we could also go and find Spirit pets? Think something like Navi from Legend of Zelda (but silent). A small spirit that doesn’t participate in combat like an animal pet, but instead is sort of like a mobile buff machine.

Pets have 4 skills as it is now. Auto attack, special skill 1 & 2, and the F2 skill. Make the auto-attack a special buff that either gives stats, or static increases to the Ranger, designed to bring their base capabilities up to par with other classes (to compensate for the lack of damage dealt to enemies by the pet). The 2 special skills could be pulsing buffs or debuffs on timers, the more powerful de/buffs on the Ranger/single target only, or “weaker” de/buffs that affect a whole group. The F2 would be something similar, but controlled by the player, as a “burst” support skill. It could be straight-up damaging, like a fire spirit shooting a fireball, or supporty like a river spirit pulsing an AoE heal/condition removal.

Your two pets could even be one or the other. Start with a wind spirit for a burst damage opening to a fight, then hit your swap pet button to activate your dog and keep the aggro’d enemy away from you with cripples and knockdowns.

Just my random unwanted thought for the day.

Well, you get people in a few camps when it comes to rangers.

1) The naturalists: They don’t want to see guns because they see the ranger as something in tune with nature. Rifles seem out of that view because of the heavy reliance on manufactured components.

2) The hunters: These people see the Ranger as a predator, a master hunter that can stalk, trap, and defeat any prey. Rifles are the most advanced hunting weapon available, and hunters like the idea of a precise, easy to use weapon that can operate at a much longer range. (Granted, in GW2, Bows and Rifles have comparable ranges.)

3) The traditionalists: They see the ranger as a bow-user, simply because that’s the stereotype. Rifles just aren’t what they’re used to seeing on something labeled as a Ranger, because they expect a certain brand of graceful bow-slinging and sword dual-wielding action.

4) The “range”-ers: Bad pun as it may be, there are some that think that the Ranger is the master of ranged combat. Sit in the back, shoot all day long in safety, ???, profit. Most would want Rifles because it’s a ranged weapon, and they should be able to use the ranged weapon being the master of ranged combat.

But what’s right? Well, it’s hard to say. I personally would like to see rifles. But I’d like to see weapon proliferation in general. In another thread, someone said Ranger staff would be awesome. And I think that’d be infinitely cooler than a rifle. But in order to know what’s right, we have to look at it from one perspective: What’s right for the Lore?

Rangers rely on a keen eye, a steady hand, and the power of nature itself. Unparalleled archers, rangers are capable of bringing down foes from a distance with their bows. With traps, nature spirits, and a stable of loyal pets at their command, rangers can adapt to any situation.

Power of nature would suggest the Naturalists have something going for them. And they are described as archers, as opposed to ranged combatants. But they’re also adaptable, so shouldn’t they also be able to adapt to the changing technology of the world?

All we can do is wait and see how the class develops. I’ll be hoping for some great things, and new weapons for all classes. (I especially want land-spears. Because spears and polearms are awesome.) But for now, I’m more than happy with what we’ve got, and what we will be getting. ANet is fixing what we do have, and I’d rather we fix what we have before we get too far into asking for things we don’t have.

Sleepy.2647:

So, then remove all the skills in the game that root players/mobs in place since everything has to be done while moving?
You don’t know what you are saying

Easiest fix for pets…buff their run speed (done with the new 25% signet) and make their hits a granted hit no matter how far they move after the pet started the animation.

No, I’m saying make PETS attack while moving, so they aren’t rooting every swing of the claws.

When a player has an attack that roots them, it’s got a cooldown, and they can easily pop a cripple or immobilize first. That’s called a “combo.” It’s something easy to do, that maximizes your effectiveness, without being invasive, and without being obligatory.

When you have to constantly apply cripple and immobilize to make your core class mechanic work… That’s called a “problem.” Because suddenly, you have to choose between ignoring your core mechanic that’s always on… Or limiting your choices until you can support that core mechanic. So you’re either limited down to a very slim selection of abilities, or you’re not living up to your full potential.

Think of it this way… Does a Mesmer have to take only clone and phantasm skills in order to maximize their potential because of shatters? No. They can use shatter as a versatile tool, or as their main way of obliterating their enemies.

Does an Engineer have to use kits? Nope. There’s plenty who just use their pistols or rifle and do a darn fine job of things.

Does a Necromancer have to maximize their uptime on Death Shroud to do “standard” levels of damage? Not at all. Many use it as an emergency button.

A Ranger has to use cripples and immobilizes in order to get up to par with other classes, because a quarter of their damage and utility potential is an AI controlled pet that can’t do jack-diddly-squat without it.

Faster speed won’t help much either. A pet will move the minimum distance required to attack, meaning they are at the furthest range from the target. They move slightly away, and the pet whiffs. The pet moves up to that same ill-fated range, and whiffs again because the person keeps moving.

Auto-hit won’t work either. Because it’s a dodge-based defensive game, players need to be rewarded for dodging properly and attacking from the right angles. Tactical movement is a thing that should be respected. Auto-hitting on the start of the animation would’t let players dodge the attack in any way, and would marginalize GW2’s unique combat structure.

(Also, walking out of a pet’s attack radius is not “tactical movement.” It’s cheeseing the AI. If you dodge out, that’s great. If the attack has a huge wind up and you can walk out in time, fine. But one shouldn’t simply walk out of autoattacks.)

Well, it wouldn’t be able to work both ways.

Pet gained might (1s). Yay! Player gains might (1s) too!

Oh! The player just got Might (1s), better give the pet Might (1s) too…

Then the infinite loop divides by zero!

It’d be nice if the pet buffed us instead of the other way around, but I like the way it is right now too. It’s a good trait regardless.

Sleepy.2647:

They then would allow mesmer clones and other summons to do the same, and why not…mobs also should do the same.

The core feature is players being able to do it, and plenty of skills root you in place.

Yes, Mesmer clones should. Summons should too. And yes, even enemy mobs should. Heck, the Centaurs have been pretty good about chasing after me and attacking on the run.

But especially Mesmer clones and Ranger pets. The game’s combat is built around what the player can do. To give a class a core feature that can’t do all the things a player can means that there’s going to be problems. Ones that hurt the experience of playing the class. And when you take that to a PvP area, that class, and a class that is operating at full player skill efficiency, are going to be imbalanced. The limited feature of our less fortunate class means that it has to become unbalanced to be competitive. That gives us two solutions…

1) Buff the bejeebus out of pets or Rangers, making them cause enough damage that in a straight DPS test, they WILL out-class all other professions.

2) Eliminate as many limiting parts of the pet as possible. Rooting on attack is a limiting feature, as it means a Ranger must immobilize the target in order to have a chance of using their full potential. Not every weapon on the Ranger can do that reliably. Attacking on the move would remove that limit, and allow the Ranger to work towards their full potential, without limiting them to options that make their pet work properly.

Where is the statement saying that pets aren’t supposed to be able to hit moving targets?

A ranger is normalized and balanced around pet DPS contributing to his own DPS. Even more so with Beastmaster Rangers, who make their pet better at expense to themselves.

So if you can slice off X% of a Ranger’s damage just by holding down a movement key, then something is wrong. Especially when players and enemy mobs don’t need to stop to take a swing at your face.

Pets are anything but OP right now. Making it able to attack on the move isn’t anything bad. Sure, a pet can be faster than most players with a trait for 30% extra move speed, but if that needs to sink down to 10 to 20%, or even be eliminated, in order to allow our pets to attack on the move, then so be it.

Attacking on the move is a core feature of GW2. Being rooted on an attack is a BIG DEAL. Like, crazy big. To have a core component of your class rooting on each and every attack is a tremendous issue, one that needs to be fixed.

Sleepy.2647:

Fomby.4295:

Mmm, I don’t agree that it would be overpowering. As long as the mob is standing still, my Ranger can kill it in the same amount of time as my Warrior and Ele.

Pets run faster than players, making it hit while moving would be incredibly OP. By the time a player reaches you they would be already at 50% hp or even dead since you could just run away while the pet does the job for you.

Oh, you mean players would have to respect the fact that there’s a pet attacking them?

I dunno, that sounds like a good thing.

Granted, I don’t think pets would deal that much damage on most melee player’s approach, given the leap and charge skills most melee players use in PvP situations.

Think.9740:

slingblade.1437:

I’d rather just see Rangers be made the class that’s best with a bow, which is only logical. Until GW2 adds LotR Elves as a class, Rangers should be second to none when it comes to bows.

You refer to LotR but wasn’t Aragorn the Ranger?

Yeah, but it was Orlando Bloom who took down 86 Orcs and an elephant thingy using only three arrows and a comically misshapen carrot.

-On topic!-

I’d like to see a Rifle set for Rangers. Maybe a shorter range, but with a lot of cones for a shotgun feel. Or some other AoE blasting sort of deal.

1. Buckshot, 600 Range cone, pretty much just damage.
2. Aim Low, 600 Range cone, damage and cripple.
3. Double Barrel, 600 Range cone, high damage, high recharge.
4. Bayonet Charge, 600 Range, Leap Finisher, single target.
5. Beanbag, 900 Range, low damage, knockdown or daze.

Muddy Terrain is a Survival skill, so it isn’t affected by Trap traits.

It’s a good skill though, and a good way to go if you’re not looking at Traps for your utility support, but still want a tool to help you kite. It’s a little longer recharge, but it goes full immobilize. It also lasts a while, so if you can keep the mobs in there, you can have a lot of effective uptime.

Daemon.4295:

Wasdclick.1764:

I’m surprised they didn’t show the stealth-fix that they applied to Opening Strikes (essentially, it’s working as intended now instead of only at melee range) that makes bow-users happy.

My guess would be that Anet is reluctant to disclose small fixes as the Ranger community is likely to moan and squeal if they don’t see a big effort from the devs. If you see nothing at all, then you can reasonably keep hoping in a single big push of fixes in one of the upcoming patches.

I wish they would. I see where you’re coming from, but without any communication, the Ranger community is feeling neglected, and moaning about that.

If they told us it happened, and communicated a little more about what’s going to change (for all classes), I think the communities would be less prone to dickery. Yeah, there’d be people saying “They aren’t prioritizing MY stuff… RAAARGGGHGH!” But people with more than a few brain cells would have that hope of better days ahead, while at the same time being ready for when the next patch happens.

Imagine, if about a month ago, Engineers saw this:

“For the upcoming Lost Shores event, which features the potential for underwater combat, we’re working on improving underwater functionality of all classes, including Engineer. There’s a few cooldowns we’d like to fix, and we want to improve turrets, mines, and anything else that is deployed. And since a lot of players will be in these fights all at once, we want to add combos to underwater combat.

On the bad side, we’re taking a look at grenades, specifically in sPVP. They work fantastically in other game modes, but in sPVP, the smaller health pools of players and objective-based combat is making grenade users just a bit stronger than we had intended. We’re investigating splitting the damage values into two values, one for sPVP, and one unchanged value for the rest of the game modes. We also thing they travel a bit slowly to be of use in non-objective fights, so we’re buffing their projectile speed so you can use them in skirmish situations more reliably."

People would be more aware, and I think less likely to throw fits. As it is, patch notes are just kind of like saying “we did this, this, and this, deal with it.” A small message like that would help players understand why things are changing, and they could adapt before the change hits, or at least know things are going to change.

I dunno… Tangent rant over.

Can we get a mod to change the title of the thread to “Not really massive exploit nerf?”

I could see the double traps being useful for beating up on tougher PvE mobs with a higher initial burst to help out… But really, there’s no nerf here, aside from exploiting an odd bug through the trait system.

I didn’t even know this was a thing until it was patched.

I’m surprised they didn’t show the stealth-fix that they applied to Opening Strikes (essentially, it’s working as intended now instead of only at melee range) that makes bow-users happy.

Or that all birds have been buffed with a second set of wings, turning my hawk into the legendary DOUBLEHAWK.

…Whaddaya mean that’s not a buff?

tigirius.9014:

It’s things like that that the OP is talking about. Why put these choices in there if they are mostly useless.

It’s like the 5% damage with daggers thing. Really? when will anyone ever choose that one.

To be fair, your definition of useless is a bit skewed.

Dealing 5% more direct damage with daggers is a good thing. It really is a useful trait. A static, constant bouns means one less thing you’re worrying about.

The problem is that there are traits that are just clearly leagues ahead of others. You go full 30 in Explosives, and you feel obligated to pick up Grenadier. Poor Autodefense Bomb Dispenser never gets picked… And it’s an AMAZING pvp trait. We were just talking about using Rocket Boots and Elixir S to escape stun-based burst combos. Well, Auto F-U can mess up their follow up attack pretty well. But Grenadier is “so much better” and universally applicable.

There are also skills that just pain don’t work, like our Deployable Turrets, apparently. Some things just need a fix, others need a buff to catch up.

They aren’t useless, they’ve just got to get a little love.

Ricky Rouse.1583:

Someone please tell me why you would ever get Rocket Boots over Elixir S.

And dont say “Distance.” If they enemy has a ranged weapon and half a brain they can get free hits on you while you are on your butt, stunned, when the whole point of a stun breaker is getting away so they CANT GET FREE HITS ON YOU.

I would gladly trade 1/2 the range of the self-knockback of the boots in exchange for not being stunned.

Let’s compare…

Rocket Boots vs Elixir S

Cooldown: 30 vs 60 (24 vs 48 traited)11

Vast advantage goes to Rocket Boots here.

Traits: Speedy vs HGH, 409, Potent, Fast-Acting, Acidic

As far as power in a vaccum goes, Elixir S has way more options. However, Rocket Boots is superior on builds that are tight on trait slots, where Elixir S’ options only make it superior when you have trait slots to burn, and likely makes you want to use more than one Elixir to justify the expenditure.

Downside: Knocked down for a second vs Unable to attack for 3 seconds.

The rocket boots get you back to attacking much sooner. I know you can swap to a kit to resume attack actions when under the effect of Elixir S, but I don’t believe that is by intent, and still harms Rifle and Pistol users. Advantage only goes to Elixir S if you’re kit swapping, possibly taking advantage of an unintended feature/bug, and may be subject to change.

Toolbelt: A 5-second burn and punt on a 20 second cooldown vs 4 seconds of Stealth or Stability at Random

Quite frankly, neither are too great. The boot to the head has some niche uses in a condition build for a quick smack before retreating. The tossed elixir however, is too unreliable to be relied on for anything. A 50% chance of getting the effect you want is pretty bad. And the stealth doesn’t provide a covering blind, so you’re still likely to get tagged by channeled attacks and attacks started before stealthing. Advantage: neither, really, but boots are at least stable.

Side Effects: Blast finisher, decent melee radius damage vs Nothing

Blast finishers are fun, 10/10 would bang. Advantage Rocket Boots, winning by default as Elixir S only has side effects if you trait it.

Vs Melee: Get the bloody kittens out of dodge vs Walk Away at normal speed

Rocket Boots are winning here. Sure, opponents may have a leaping attack to chase you with, but if they used that to get to you for their burst combo, it isn’t off cooldown yet. Beats trying to outrun someone who is able to move the same exact speed as you.

Vs Ranged: Silly tricks vs Not get shot for 3 seconds.

Elixir S is easier to use here for sure. But there’s some fun to be had with Rocket Boots. There’s a function you can assign to your keyboard called “invert direction” or something like that. Basically instantly makes you flip a U-Turn and turn your back to whatever direction you were heading. Getting behind an opponent with a ranged weapon usually provide enough chaos that they have to let up fire for a precious second, possibly wasting a channel if it ticks and you’re not in the range of attack. And with good environmental awareness, you can dive behind cover, or onto a lower level of a battlefield. It’s not better, but it’s far from being useless like some might assert.

Overall

Rocket Boots have a shorter cooldown, and require less expenditure of resources to use, for trait-tight builds… It’s great. They also have a more versatile array of uses, for the creatively-minded engineer. (And dear goodness me, Engineers are creative by nature, so too should their players.) This is also the one to go to for anti-melee protection, getting you out of melee range with gusto.

Elixir S is great when you intend to trait into Elixirs, and doubly so if you don’t mind using a tactic that may be called a bug changed sometime down the road. You don’t have to think about its uses as much as you would Rocket Boots, and optimal use is a little more accessible play-wise. This is the better route for anti-ranged protection, as it provides longer protection that’s easier to achieve.

So yeah… Reasons for both. Enjoy.

Anecdotal evidence isn’t something to disregard simply because it’s not backed up by a stack of numbers high enough to make Einstein say “no thank you.”

People’s play style, their preferences, how they view a given situation… All of them have a heavy impact on how things work for them. I’ve done Grenadier. I honestly can’t get it to work impressively better than some of my other builds. A set isn’t as good as the napkin math in an idealized vaccum tells us it is. It’s as good as the player who is pressing the buttons from behind a monitor. What works for me, might not work for you, vice versa.

My definition of viable boils down to one thing: is it doing it’s job without making me slam my face into my keyboard in frustration? If so, then yes, it is at least viable. Maybe my build doesn’t trivialize content like you seem to assert that Grenades do. Maybe that means that the problem doesn’t lie within Engineer, so much as it does with one skill perhaps being a bit much…

Casia.4281:

Choices. Engineer..

What?

1 right choice.

5 eh. if you say so choices.
and 10 oh, god what are you doing choices.

So…

A user earlier posted a great niche build called Tankcat, that the user found to be hilariously capable of doing great things in their chosen area of play. They reported great success using the build, and encouraged others to try it out.

I’ve been having great success running my Pistol/Shield tanky condition build.

I have a friend who dominates with a flamethrower, minefields, rocket boots, and a maniacally loud laughter that haunts my every waking moment.

But I guess… Despite our success… We are doing it all wrong.

Lemme guess, we need to spec Grenades to be useful?

If you can give me some real reason that other builds aren’t viable, then by all means. And saying “This build is better” isn’t a good reason. Maybe Grenadier does have better damage by a noticable margin. Doesn’t mean that my pyromaniac friend should be burying his face in a tear-soaked pillow.

With the meta how it is… I’d say Engies are one of the more balanced classes out there. Yeah, there’s problems, but Engies look on the brightside and say “Well, we still have a lot of fun and useful tools.” Heck, we have quite a few viable builds available to us, one of which seems to heavily rely on smacking things with a friggin’ wrench! Sure, Grenadier is the big flavor of the month right now, but there’s Flamethrowers running about, Elixir gunners running some of the most effective support in the game, Bombermen, Condition pistoleros… We’ve got a lot of great options. Sure, there’s some stinkers, but if ArenaNet said “Hey, we’re only going to work on bug fixes for Engie while we fix some more pressing troubles in other classes.” I’d give them the thumbs up, set up my dispenser, my turrets, and play some good ol’ acoustic guitar.

Heck, what about poor Shrapnel, right there next to acidic elixirs? That poor guy needs some love. But in the meantime, I’ll take Incendiary Powder or Exploit Weakness, maybe even Forceful explosives.

The point is, when I look at the Engineer, I am guaranteeing myself one thing: choices. Glorious, stupendous, choices.

Now excuse me while I strap on some rocket boots. I’m gonna go kite me some Champions.

Tulisin.6945:

Wasdclick.1764:

- Stab (Sword/Empty 3) now applies a 2 second immobilize. That skill needed some flavor, even if nobody is going to just use just a single one handed weapon.

- Caltrops can no longer roots players.

Stab doesn’t need to be better specifically for the reason you noted. These X/nothing weapon combos don’t need to be viable. If we were to get a new offhand weapon that only had #4/5 skills and inherited the empty-offhand skills instead of having a dual skill then there’d be a reason for it. Every change comes at a cost in implementation and testing, there’s no reason to devote developer hours to something like this as-is.

And Caltrops doesn’t root players as-is, it has a 1-second channel but you’re entirely free to move for the duration.

The rest of the suggestions seem alright, especially making more skills available underwater. Buffing C&D with blind might be a little strong.

It’s been a while since I’ve played my thief, so I’m just going off what I remember. I’m glad Caltrops is move-castable. For some reason, when I cast it “back in the day”, it would stop me dead in my tracks. Might have been bugged or something.

The sound needs to change though.

And the Stab was a bit of a joke, but every once in a while, I like to do unusual things, like bring a knife to a gunfight, eat applesauce with a fork, and wield just one weapon when I could hold two. If changes to those /Empty skills never happened, I wouldn’t care.

And my reasoning for blind on Cloak and Dagger is because it’s great as is for melee targets, but it does nothing against ranged, because you dodge parallel to your target’s line of fire. If they could program a shadowstep that was out of the ranged attack path instead of just shadowstepping in front of the bullet, then that would be fantastic. I just figured a small duration blind would solve the problem easier, since the melee guy has to walk back up to you anyway, and the ranged guy would pop it immediately with an attack since you don’t go that far away.

I don’t want a greatsword. I want staves.

Not for spells though. Pick up that broomstick and start swinging it around like Jackie Chan.

Defensive PBAoE melee set please!

I’m going to theorize that the problem with the mentioned range argument is based on the animations and the hitbox of the projectile.

The difference is slightly shorter, about a character width.

Say all the projectiles do go precisely 900 units forward, as intended. The discrepancy in range might be because the projectile on Vital Shot starts further back than the projectile from Head Shot. This would likely be due to animations determining the origin point of the attack.

This would also explain why Shortbow has a slightly further range, as the origin point of the attack is from the front of the bow, rather than from inside the weapon. Also, many pistol shots have animations for “cross body” shots where due to movement, the origin point is close to the left shoulder. With shortbow, even while moving, the point will always be from an outstretched left arm, giving about a character width worth of range advantage.

Total theory though, don’t take this as fact.

Sorry for Double-posting, but the character limit killed my post.

Traits
-Mug (Deadly Arts III) has had it’s damage normalized to that of a weapon slot 1 attack (Sword 1 “Slice” comes to mind). This is a bit of a nerf, but it’s a Major Adept trait and shouldn’t be as powerful as it is right now. But honestly, it’s still pretty good.

-Furious Retaliation (Critical Strikes I) has been renamed Finish The Job. Getting a bonus for your opponent being weak has nothing to do with you retaliating against them.

-Hidden Thief (Shadow Arts VIII) has been combined with Long Reach (Trickery VI) and renamed Don’t Get Caught (Trickery VI). To replace the empty trait slot, a new Trait, “Sudden but Inevitable” has been added as the new Shadow Arts VIII.

-Sudden But Inevitable (Shadow Arts VIII) now applies a 1-second Daze to the target of an attack that breaks stealth, with a 20-second internal cooldown.

- Assassin’s Retreat (Acrobatics IV) has been changed to grant Swiftness for 4-seconds after using an attack that breaks stealth, giving the trait use in hit-and-run tactics.

- Quick Recovery (Acrobatics IX) now gives back 1 initiative per 5 seconds, giving a more steady rate of initiative regain.

- Ricochet (Trickery X) has had it’s chance to bounce improved to 100%, and cannot bounce to more than a single additional target (if it could do that at all). However, Black Powder cannot bounce.

These are all just my opinions, but I’d hope these changes would help with build diversity. If I had to pick one, I’d say the Venom change. Poisons are a staple of the backstabber lifestyle It’d be nice to have an option for them other than “Venomous Aura team support.”

The underwater changes would be nice too. I’m sure there’s a reason why Smoke Screen, Blinding Powder, and Dagger Storm can’t be used underwater. Probably having something to do with previous versions of them from the Beta Weekends, but it’d be nice to have a few more options.