Our downed skills are rubbish:
- #2 is an unreliable single target interrupt that draws enemies closer.
- If we survive long enough to use #3 it does hit reasonably hard, but at the cost of potentially drawing more agro.
We can only interrupt 1 enemy in the time it takes to stomp us. We can’t lose agro. We can’t avoid AoE. We can’t move to safety. Our downed skills are pathetic for anything more than 1v1 and even there other classes will beat us in a downed v downed match.
When downed, other classes can do one or more of the following in the time it takes to stomp them:
- Reliably interrupt at least one enemy
- Interrupt/avoid stomps from multiple enemies
- Lose/escape agro
- Avoid AoE
- Move to safety
- Heal
And, they will beat us if we are downed as well.
Yes, our downed skills are abysmal.
1. Skills are too limited and the ones we do have are boring.
Sounds like you haven’t tried mastering an Engineer!
I’m huge on PvP, felt like it was lacking in some areas.
What’s changed since the beginning to improve GW2? I noticed its ranked pretty high on a particular MMO site still, i’m wondering if it’s worth giving it another looksies.
From all reports, PvP has improved significantly in the following areas: much better balance; more classes, more builds and more play styles viable; at least 1 new map; and even a new condition.
(Disclaimer: I’m a PvE and WvW’er myself. If WvW is anything to go by, small scale combat has definitely got better. The rest are things I’ve heard from others.)
p.s. You’d be better off asking this on the SPvP forum.
Hang on to it. You may end up going back to that class again later.
SO many people have thought of decent ideas like this or better ideas…but Anet aren’t interested in raising the cap or changing the way condi’s work…they’re too busy adding a whole new condition
….
Wait, What?!
That’s because improvements are targeted at PvP where the condition cap isn’t a problem.
The cap is really only a problem with PvE and WvW bosses.
Now that ANet have finally got Necros up to speed in PvP, maybe they’ll turn their attention to class balance and build diversity in PvE and WvW. . . . Here’s hoping!
What’s missing? What are the biggest problems? – two slightly different questions.
What’s missing:
- PvE balance
- Character development integrated into the end-game
(aside from skills and trait points, all that development during leveling – story, crafting, etc. – becomes irrelevant once in the end-game) - Legendaries that reflect in-game achievement
Biggest problems:
- PvE balance
- Legendaries aren’t (they’re grind/RNG/TP trading)
- Dominance of gold farming in the end game
Getting a precursor as a reward for getting say a good number of achievement is a great idea.
After all, a high number of achievement points may be the best, possibly the only, indication of extensive participation on GW2.
And … something will also need to be done for the dedicated WvW’ers who may have put in just as much effort (and whose work has given us all those world buffs for PvE), but have been rewarded with far less achievement points. They’ll need some equivalent reward.
So what would be a reasonable threshold for getting a precursor? I’d suggest 5K.
Yes there are some people out there with more, but look at the hours they’ve put in. Some people have spent over 2000 hours on this game. That’s more than a full time job for a year! GW2 is just a game. Expecting a Legendary to take the equivalent of a year’s full time work would be nuts. Those people should have got their precursor a long time ago.
The dedicated but not fanatical players seem to have around 4-5k achievement points nearly a year into the game (a few have more). That’s a lot of work over an extended time, and a year of that seems about right for a precursor.
It’s been a week now . . . What effect has the latest patch had on PvE balance?
ANet has been working all year to balance classes and open up new builds. The latest patch was possibly the most wide reaching of these changes, affecting all classes and a large proportion of builds. Anet’s changes have significantly improved balance and (to a lesser extent) diversity in PvP. But PvP is the least attended area of the game. So, what about the most populous area of the game by far, PvE?
What is the state of class balance in PvE?
Sounds like the solution for WvW is for Anet to make some skins that can be bought only with Badges of Honor.
Of course, then people will be in one of five groups:
- those that love them and WvW = happy
- those that love them and don’t WvW = potential complainer
- those that loathe them and WvW = potential complainer
- those that loathe them and don’t WvW = won’t care
- those that aren’t worried about appearances = don’t care
But at least some people will be happy.
So the Applied Development Lab is my Asura’s home instance!
I thought it was just part of the Personal Story that I left behind long ago. Why would I want to spend any time there?
The Applied Development Lab needs some serious work if it’s going to be somewhere worth visiting, let alone become somewhere an adventuring Asura would call home.
All this overlooks the fact that WvW already has its own armor rewards system.
GW2 has an internal trinity: it’s damage (dps), support and control. Plus, it has features (e.g. combos) to encourage interactions across the trinity.
What messes this up is that GW2’s rewards are heavily dps based. Only organised groups really benefit from control and support (aside from PvP roaming) and while the WXP system has helped a bit, dps is still far and away the leader for rewards in WvW. This leads to an emphasis on dps builds and a heirarchy rather than a trinity.
WvW changes the traditional trinity of tank/dps/healer to a heirarchy of dps berserkers (the most common), tanks (to survive the berserkers) and hybrids (a bit of everything). Pug zergs are typically berserkers with a few (mroe experienced) tanks. PvP roaming groups are typically hybrids. Organised groups tend to tanks/hybrids.
It would be nice to think this will mature over time. But, as long as berserker zergs are the easiest and fastest way to WvW rewards, this isn’t likely to change much.
rifle engineer, grenade 1 damage 1700~2000+
mortar 1 damage just 11xx ,slowly speed,and 2 second cd.i have grenade,why i need take the mortar?
. . . and the Grenade Kit itself only has 1s CD compared with Mortar’s 120s CD.
Looking forward to the day ANet do a side-by side comparison of our Kits and Elites, and base their on the results of that.
all condition, except Torment that is.
Has that been logged as an SPvP bug?
The rumor is that Anet will not be releasing any more stat-based vertical progression items, but instead return to the fully skill-based 100% horizontal progression game GW2 was marketed as for years. So it looks like the ascended trinkets items will be will be Anet’s stop point in the failed experiment of trying to please the WoW teenagers. And I’ve also heard that there is a massive number of beautiful new armor and weapon skins being designed by Anet, with a myriad of paths to attain them (laurels, dungeons, gem store, karma, crafting ect…). Of course your laurels will not be wasted, because they will be one of the methods of attaining the beautiful new skins and multiple sets of exotic gear so you can use many different builds for your character.
;-)
Excellent.
Sure hope the crafting option is real – crafting needs resuscitation.
The OP has a point: many of our kits are illogical both in real world and game terms.
We get so focussed on finding ways to use each kits game-specific characteristics, we forget they are so arbitrary they don’t make any coherent sense. Instead, we justifying the kits based on the clever ways we’ve found to use them, and then say that the way we use them makes them logical. That’s back to front.
Even in game terms the logic of our kits is weak at best. How many times have you seen some version of the following on this forum?
- “FT is not about burning; it’s a power/cc kit” (But it features burning animations!)
- “EG is good at spreading conditions, but it doesn’t do much damage” (It spreads them, but they don’t do much! So, what’s the point!)
- “Yeah, but Grenades do more damage and have better range” (What’s the logic across our range of kits?)
Lets face it, many of our kits and their skills don’t make sense in either RL or game terms. We just find ways to use them and then pretend that they’re logical.
A grandmaster trait that affects only one condition and only by increasing duration = not much use.
Perma-burning is great in concept, but fails in practice. In PvP/WvW long duration conditions get wiped, so the extra duration is wasted. In PvE major mobs never run out of burning, so the extra duration is wasted. . . . the extra duration is wasted.
Now if the trait caused an extra condition (e.g. burning cripples target; burning weakens target; burning stacks vulnerability; etc.) then it would be helpful.
Related question: Is anyone still going 30 into Firearms?
once you drink the elixir, it only converts conditions already on you, it doesn’t convert conditions applied up to 5 seconds after.
Correct. Elixir C clears existing conditions (by converting them to boons). It doesn’t stop new conditions being applied.
(edit: spelling)
(edited by Zenguy.6421)
I’ve been playing Engi since the launch. I just thought I’d take sometime to thank you guys for all the hardwork you guys have put to improving us. I know you get a lot of hate posts from us, but I definitely think you guys are headed in the right direction with this.
+1
Useful for PvE world bosses, but only on our main weapon, not kits.
(Still not as good as Grenadier, which is effectively a 50% increase to grenade dps)
Can see the following becoming common with world bosses:
- While waiting for world boss to spawn Eng sets Firearms 30 to Modified Ammo
- When boss spawns, Eng walks to middle of crowd and presses 1 for autoattack
- Player goes afk
- Boss dies: player returns, raids chest and resets Firearms 30 trait to whatever it was before the event.
This is a good patch for the Eng. Really appreciate the work they’ve done on gadgets and traits (now only require 40pts to fully spec the FT).
Sure hope the Healing Mist Stun break is intended. If so, then combined with the changes to the Firearms trait line (Ft/Eg no longer tie up 50/40 pts) it makes 4 kit builds are viable again.
Of course ‘viable’ is a relative term. The impact of the patch on other classes will determine whether this will help our poor standing in PvE, or make more eng builds vaible in zerg v zerg WvW.
p.s. Thanks for dropping in this comment, Istarien – so true:
Also, realize that we all have our own lens through which we view the profession. PvE/WvW engis and sPvP engis value different class characteristics. On balance, when sPvP has a “great” patch, it’s not unusual for WvW and/or PvE to be disappointed.
Dosn’t matter for me. I’ve been transitioning into Rift and this patch, specifically the elixer R nerf and the lack of significant nerfs to war, are the final straw.
If i want ANet’s opinion i’ll ask the gem buyers.
Is that a typo, or are you implying that warrior needs to be nerfed??
As an engineer warrior should be free kills.
Have a snack, little troll.
You must be thinking PvP.
The comment made perfect sense for PvE which has a lot more players.
My post are from a PvE and WvW perspective. Sorry if that doesn’t suit the passionate but small minority of players that PvP.
Watching players in PvE and WvW, it’s clear that Thieves and non-grenade Engs move around the most.
Why don’t the other classes move as much? My guess is it’s because: a) Guardians and Wariors have so much block/aegis to avoid damage without moving, b) Ranger’s, Mesmers and Necros have ‘pets’ that draw agro off them, and c) a lot of Ele’s stay out of combat and use range attacks.
And, yes d/d Eles will be affected by Torment.
1. Shrapnel (Explosives adept trait) generates twice the stacks that Sharpshooter does due to its longer duration (1/2x the chance with 4x the duration = double the stacks). Sharpshooter will stack faster, but Shrapnel will stack higher depending on how often the condition is getting cleared.
2. What’s your crit chance? If it’s low, you may not be generating enough crits to stack much bleeding. e.g. If you only have 20% crit chance then, even with Sharpshooter’s 30% chance on crit, only 1 in every 15 of your attacks will generate a bleed stack.
Things to try:
- Shrapnel (Explosives adept trait)
- Increasing your Precision for a higher crit rate
- Fury for more crits
- Condition duration runes (e.g. Lyssa, Mad King) and food (rare veggie pizza) to make your stacks last longer. e.g. +50% duration = +50% stacks (less condition clearing)
(edited by Zenguy.6421)
It would be nice to have friend groups because it can become very confusing who the people are and why you added them. Shouldn’t be too complicated.
^This
we have some of the best builds out there.
PvP: Yes
WvW battles: No
PvE: No
If Torment is a mind condition, then Thematically it belongs to Necros (terror) and Mesmers.
But blindly following thematics is sure fire way to screw up balance in a game like Gw2.
‘Torment’ is just a label. Anet are introducing a new condition that punishes movement. This could be anything: terror that takes extra effort to overcome (Necro); swarms of insects that bite anything that moves (Range); hooks that dig in when you move (Eng); etc.
Who will be impacted the most?
- Classes that rely on movement for both inflicting and avoiding damage: i.e. Thieves and (non-grenade) Engs.
Who will be impacted the least?
- Classes with the least reliance on movement to both inflict and avoid damage: i.e. Guardians, Warriors, Eles, Necros.
Who needs it the most?
- Necros – they could use the help. But it won’t help them in PvE where they’re clearly the worst class.
Who needs it the least?
- Mesmers – they’re already a top class in all areas of the game.
Who’s getting it?
- Mesmers, Necros and Thieves.
Other impacts?
- Condition clearing reduced by dilution across more condition types
So Torments is a buff to Necros and Mesmers. Thieves get both its advantages and disadvantages. While worst impacted may be (non-grenade) Engs. Necros need the love – only time will tell if that will be enough to displace condition Engs (but you can bet no one will want both Necro and Eng in a dungeon run).
Sadly, Torment is looking like yet another buff to what is already a top class in the game, while also pushing more Engs from (the necessarily active) ‘mid-range’ builds into grenade builds and further undermining our desirability for dungeon groups.
In the Dragon Bash murder investigation Inspector Kiel recognized me from Southsun.
It was a very minor and unexpected detail, but (perhaps because it was such an unexpected reference to my history on Tyria) it shifted my experience of the game from “engaged tourist” to “hey, I’m part of this world” in a way that the bigger personal and living story content hasn’t been able to achieve.
Good one, Anet. :-)
[edit]p.s. On reflection, I should have posted this in the general Guild Wars 2 Discussion forum as it would be a waste if these sorts of references only occur during Living Story events. Far better for them to occur during any content, Living Story or not.[/edit]
(edited by Zenguy.6421)
I hope they’re BS, because they’re kitten for class balance (c.f. Guardian’s 100% buffs with Engs buffs/nerfs and vulnerability to Torment).
Just comparing the changes between my two L80 classes: Guardian and Engineer
- Guardian (in top 3 in every area of the game): all buffs!
- Eng (strong in PvP if played by a master, weak otherwise): a mix of buffs and nerfs, plus Torment is going to hurt Engs bad.
If this is a joke, it’s well done.
If it’s true, then ANet scores a 100% fail on class balance.
Just read through the Guardian changes – they’re all buffs!
If this is a joke, it’s well done.
If it’s true, then ANet scores a 100% fail on class balance.
It’s great that Anet are leaking this sort of thing ahead of the patch, as it gives us time to start thinking about the implications.
Now if they’ll just start listening to how we respond to them . . .
Overall this is an improvement, but very focussed on PvP. About the only love for PvE is the 10pt lower cost to fully spec the EG and FT (which will still require 40pts).
Turret traits are still a mess.
All other classes are getting trait buffs as well and two of the favoured classes (mesmer and thief) are getting a new condition that specifically penalises mobile classes (e.g. Engs).
Overall, it’s a good first tidy up but only really relevant to PvP. It doesn’t look like it will make much difference to our lowly status in dungeons and elsewhere in PvE.
The forum search is broken, which is why you couldn’t find threads on Kit Refinement.
We used to have a decent KR trait.
Over two patches Anet implemented first an incomplete global cooldown (Feb 26 patch – the GCD was deliberate; the incomplete implementation was widely thought to be a bug) then replaced the original trait with the one we have now (March 26). Throughout this process there was strong opposition on these forums to the changes, and in particular to the GCD. ANet did not heed these protests and the GCD is a core feature of the KR trait we have now.
Here’s the
old KR trait
some threads from the last four months that feature KR (this is incomplete but gives you more info than you’re likely to need) – in no particular order:
Kit Refinement restricts swapping
Kit Refinement effects post patch
So Kit refinement dead
Kit refinement nerf tested + explained
Kit refinement skill….revised and tested
They broke Kit Refinement :-(
Your 3 favourite traits?
Med Kit Refinement = BOOM!?
4 kit build advice
Your Kit Refinement build?
RIP Kit Refinement
and finishing off with some light relief:
KR was just holding me back!
I believe that you can respec outside of trainers by buying the cheapest training manuals.
Doesn’t work. The manuals are a on-off to unlock the trait tier. Once that’s done you cant redo it on a character.
As for only 10pts for perma-swiftness: That’s not a problem for ’nade/bomb builds where 30pts in one trait line gets you most of what you need. But other builds require more points just to fully spec the kit/etc (e.g. FT 50pts, Turrets 50pts, EG 40pts) making those extra points even more valuable.
Suggestion for an interim solution posted: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Slim-down-the-Eng-kit-backpack-skins/first#post2246007
Suggestion for an interim solution posted: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Slim-down-the-Eng-kit-backpack-skins/first#post2246007
Suggestion: Put the the Eng kit backpacks on a strict diet and don’t stop till they can fit into those attractive backpiece skins that are given out as major event rewards and sold through the gem store.
Engineers spend most of their time in kits with backpacks that look like hobo sacks. The skins for these kits are so large they swamp other backpiece skins. This makes back skins (like the holo wings reward from Dragon Bash) next to worthless for Engs as 90+% of the time it just looks like their hobo sack is leaking.
The problem is the size of the Eng Kit backpacks. Rather than enlarging cosmetic backpieces to cover the Eng kits (which will look odd on other classes) or coding some complex solution specifically for Eng kits, how about simply cutting down the size of the backpacks so they’ll work with cosmetic backpiece skins. Just reducing the thickness of the kit backpacks would let things like the holo wings reward from Dragon Bash work for Engs.
This may not be a full solution, but it would help free Engs from being the hobos of Tyria fashion.
Another good write-up, Swagg.
Interesting PvE build, Tigrius.
You have several on-crit traits condition traits, but that build calculator is showing only 4% base crit chance and 150 cond damage. What gear are you using?
As it’s PvE with explosives, you might do better with a Power based build something like 30/?/?/?/20:
- 30 in Explosives for Forceful Explosives, Explosive Powder and Short Fuse (~30% increase in direct damage from your explosives, and that’s before taking into account the extra Power). The extra condition duration will offset your drop in condition damage from the other changes.
- 20 in Tools gets you another 10% reduction on your toolbelt skills and Speedy Gadgets for 20% faster recharge on those mines you love.
- For dodges go 10pts into Alchemy for Invigorating Speed (and 10% boon duration), or up to 30 in Tools for Adrenal Implant.
- After that there’s 10pts left over to spend as you feel like.
- Gear would be Power based with Precision to get your crit chance up.
This should give you a lot more mines and bombs (all with greater radius and damage) and all the manoeuvrability you want. It would also be a lot more viable in group events.
(edited by Zenguy.6421)
1. theme over playability (you see it again and again in the game)
2. balanced for SPVP.
2 is what is causing all the PVE grief, as mechanics that work both for balance and theme in SPVP just result in increased pressure when used in PVE. This in essence making them worthless for PVE use.
This is why the working PVE builds are the most straight forward SPVP builds, the ones built around hitting something until it stops twitching. Try anything fancy and you’re just gimping yourself.
^This.
Demand shot up this morning. Almost 30k buy offers came out of nowhere. Looks like people are finally starting to figure it out. Good thing I already bought 3k ^^
Darn it, knew I should have negotiated a commission with the Black Lion Trading Company before posting this.
Magnetic Shield doesn’t work if you move, which makes it useless if you’re always moving.
The new food for condition Engs: Koi Cake (only while Dragon Bash lasts).
Koi Cake is a 20min version of Rare Veggie Pizza (+40% cond duration, +70 cond damage, +10% exp) and it’s a fraction of the cost.
RVPizza is 3-4s on the TP. Koi Cake is 50-55c on the TP or 5 Zhaitaffy from the Dragon Bash Merchant by the Mystic Forge in Lion’s Arch.
You have to refresh it more often (every 20min rather than every 30) but at the price it’s very hard to beat.
@locoman, Your Asura is even uglier than mine – very well done.
The character builder is designed to create beautiful avatars, but it can still produce ugly ducklings – at least with Asura anyway. (Charrs are easy because they’re meant to look agro.)
Personally I take it as a sign of maturity when a player doesn’t need a beautiful avatar to play the game.
PvE leveling goes much faster if you skip random mobs and instead focus on events, hearts and completing maps (find all areas and locations, do all hearts).
Why is there a 20% cap on condition duration from rune sets?
Condition duration is great in WvW roaming (and presumably PvP) as most people have limited ability to clear conditions. We tend to lay on more condtions than people can clear so the extra duration works. Even if they run the longer duration DoT can still drop them (it’s great to see a thief escape only to be downed a few seconds later from the conditions they couldn’t clear). Extra duration can be especially good with poison as it the 33% reduced healing can work the same as if you’d done 33% more damage.
Condition duration is not much use in zerg v zerg as there is so much condition removal the conditions don’t last long enough to benefit from it. The same applies to PvE where condition duration is a waste of time in large events.It can be helpful for dungeon bosses if you’re the only one stacking conditions.
I tend to miss bags as I never stay still. Too often a bag drops while I’m dodging and I don’t get back to pick it up.
I’ve missed a lot of WvW drops that way. It’s even worse when it’s a rare-chest that drops – they need to fix that.