Guild Wars 2

From what I understand, we had a dev realignment. The devs who set most of these expectations, are no longer in charge of those changes.

It seems they shift dev teams around occasionally. To me, it seems that each time they do this, expectations change. The issue is, the player base are the ones left out in the cold when this happens.

Mnemesis.8257:

Here is the problem with Coated Bullets, it broke WvW when Explosive Shot initially caused bleeds to every enemy struck in the radius due to zerg balls.

No it didn’t. Nor did it get complained about by any players on the forums. It changed between BWE2 and BWE3 before release, with no explanation as to why at the time. The community didn’t argue it at the time, because so many changes occurred that this was under the radar. It wasn’t until after release that it was discussed, and the devs in charge at the time, displayed no interest in discussing it at the time, and the change had already occurred.

draxynnic.3719:

From memory, there was a point at which they were talking about making Coated Bullets baseline, as well as making Fragmentation Shot and Jump Shot count as explosions for the purpose of traits.

That was discussed well before the June 23 patch. By a dev that was, to my understanding, shifted out of being in charge of this when they adjusted what teams various devs were on.

Kodama.6453:

Dragonhunters as an example is questionable at best in my opinion. Personally I hate the new warrior mechanic. I dislike the revanents.

That doesn’t negate the fact that it will actually have an effect. If you don’t like them, that’s ok. But they will always have an effect. Even if you are fighting alone in PvE. Scrappers function gyro needs down stated players around you.
[/quote]

I would much much prefer no change, when I absolutely love how our professional mechanic functions, then rink getting stuck with one I greatly dislike anytime I wasn’t to use a hammer.

Kodama.6453:

Just wanted to take it with a joke.

But back to topic: Scrapper was meant as lock down. To achieve that, we need to get the leap finisher daze aoe and we should raise the duration of daze/stun per gyro. Maybe there will be a way to get an extra class mechanic added with another gyro, that will get noticed in fight and will daze too, if destroyed.

Maybe something like what I suggested in another thread:
After using x toolbelt skills, you will summon 3 protective gyros. 1 of them is absorbing 1k damage, another one will absorb 1 condition and the last one will absorb 1 cc. They can’t be attacked themselves, they are attached to the scrapper. After absorbing, the gyros will explode, dealing x damage in an area around the scrapper.

Another suggestion
Function gyro gets reduced cd and can be attached to living allies. If you do so, the gyro willgive this ally an buff, granting him aegis after getting hit for a set amount of hits.

None of those suggest to me that they represent this concept that the scrapper is designed to be a “lock down” elite spec.

Perhaps it is best to keep it simple. Something like adding a lock down effect to gyros. Something as simple as having them knock back foes when destroyed, similar to turrets?

Kodama.6453:

Maybe it still can be tied to the f button, just also usable for allies which aren’t downstate. I’m just making suggestions.

How?
Your the one with the complaint here. One that I do not agree with I might add. So detail an alternative, and how it would work. Unless you have an agreeable alternative, making a random complaint is essentially unconstructive.

Kodama.6453:

I don’t have a problem about the fact that there wasn’t something added to the toolbelt. Thieves didn’t get something added (except the 50 endurance per steal), that’s really not the problem. But the new class mechanic of scrappers won’t be noticed 90% of the time in game at least. It is the most niche one of all.

You do not have a problem? The perhaps you should edit your original post, as you specifically make a complaint and decree that you are sad.

As to claiming it will not get noticed, that is pure speculation, based on your biased opinion. There are threads in other professions sub forums complaining that they feel some gyros are OP. So clearly more then just me, disagree with your assumption. And lets be honest here, assumption is all it is.

Kodama.6453:

All new class mechanics are noticeable the whole duration of a fight. Reapers can use their reapers shroud, druids their celestial form. Dragonhunters can always use their changed virtues. And yes, daredevil always can use their new dodge mechanic.

Dragonhunters as an example is questionable at best in my opinion. Personally I hate the new warrior mechanic. I dislike the revanents.

What is your comparative complaint about mesmer’s?

Kodama.6453:

Scrapper doesn’t have that. The whole new class mechanic is tied to a specific scenario: there has to be a player in down state (ally or enemy). If you don’t think this is a problem, that’s your right, but if I think it is, I can say it in here.

Yup, it is my right, and yup, you can say it here. I gathered that was all fairly self evident. As well, I can argue with you here when I disagree. Which is also self evident. So I am not entirely certain what you felt the benefit was of pointing all that out.

Kodama.6453:

dancingmonkey.4902:

I am absolutely thankful that my professional mechanic does not change when using Scrapper. In my opinion, we have the best mechanic in the game, by miles. I would hate to be punished by losing that, when I play as a scrapper.

Who is saying we are losing toolbelt? We don’t, there is too much tied to it. We should get something ADDED to it.

Look what happened to ranger -> druid.
They still have their pet mechanic, but now got the celestial form as an extra. THAT’s an impactful mechanic change, Irenio, not something no one will ever notice like the function gyro….

And?

That new mechanic, in no way incentivizes me to desire to play the druid over scrapper.

Kodama.6453:

New class mechanic:
After using x toolbelt skills, you will summon 3 protective gyros. 1 of them is absorbing 1k damage, another one will absorb 1 condition and the last one will absorb 1 cc. They can’t be attacked themselves, they are attached to the scrapper. After absorbing, the gyros will explode, dealing x damage in an area around the scrapper..

That isn’t a new mechanic. That is the same mechanic giving you a bonus summons for using it.

Kodama.6453:

Another suggestion
Function gyro gets reduced cd and can be attached to living allies. If you do so, the gyro willgive this ally an buff, granting him aegis after getting hit for a set amount of hits.

How would you go about attaching it to an ally? Where is the function for that, F6?

Seems to me, that in complaining that they did not change how our tool belt works, that you are trying to create a problem out of an issue that does not exist.

Kodama.6453:

After seeing the new druid elite spec, it is clear what Irenio is thinking. Druid is his baby, so scrapper just have to team up with a druid to heal his gyros and keep them alive. XD

Really sad seeing all this. Scrapper needs the most work of all….

Are you trying to open dialog for a discussion or simply trying to disingenuously claim to tell us what a specific dev is thinking?

If you have a problem with it, PM Irenio directly and lay off the dishonest projection of your words into his mouth. Lets discuss the engineer and not the druid or bad attempts at mind reading, this is a engineer subforums, not a ranger subforums or fortune telling subforums.

I am absolutely thankful that my professional mechanic does not change when using Scrapper. In my opinion, we have the best mechanic in the game, by miles. I would hate to be punished by losing that, when I play as a scrapper.

Sviel.7493:

WvW is not GvG. It should not be thought of as simply a mass PvP server. That is one aspect, but as the focus should be PPT, there is no harm buffing guards that are only interacted with when taking PPT objectives. It’s not like I’m advocating for hiring an army of NPCs to fight your enemies.

No one said anything about GvG. Those are your words, not mine.

And yes, there is every reason even if your PPT focused, that it should be entirely based on player efforts, not PvE mob efforts.

Sviel.7493:

I think it’s fair to assume that catapults were intended to be used chiefly at range, which slows them down considerably. Thus, I contend that they are doing damage faster than intended. If you disagree, that’s fine.

When a locations is properly defended, they almost have to be used at range. If they are within players attack range, they will be destroyed quickly.

Sviel.7493:

Perhaps there’s a misunderstanding? My point is that right now it is more attractive to take objectives instead of spending time defending objectives. I say this because I advocate a change with the intent of discouraging karma training.

I agree with your intent here. I simply do not feel your suggestion in this specific area helped promote defending.

Sviel.7493:

I’m not referring to the supply drops in citadel. Rather, I’m talking about someone porting into EotM, grabbing supply from a structure or generator, then porting into WvW with said supply. That sort of crossover is problematic, not the supply drops that are earned. At least, those aren’t problematic in this way.

Yup, I misunderstood completely on this point. My apologies.

I agree that you should not be capable to bring supply back directly from EotM. WvW, in my opinion, should be a closed system as far as supply is concerned.

Sviel.7493:

The squad caps won’t punish anyone, they will just benefit a certain amount of people and no more. The idea is to avoid making a blob strategy the only strategy. If you want to run more people, nothing’s stopping you. Additionally, I’m not married to the number 30. Is there another that you might suggest?

Yes, it will very literally punish a guild for having more members on a map then the cap you want.

In my case, I am in a large and active WvW guild that is allied with other guilds. When my guild has 47 players on one map, there is no reason to lock some out of the squad. Nor do I feel if we have 25 on and are allied guild has 25 on, that we cannot squad up

Sviel.7493:

You’ll have to ask Anet about that. I was told that they now calculate server size by the number of people that regularly play WvW. I don’t know their specific algorithm.

I can agree that knowing how they define it would help any discussion immensely. I only asked because it read to me as if you were implying something to suggest you had a definition in mind

Sviel.7493:

At any rate, the idea is that servers with big PvE populations aren’t marked as full when they can’t field nearly as many people as non-full servers that are more WvW focused. I think it was a good call on their part.

I do not think they are. I think there are a fair amount of players that are primary PvE that occasionally play WvW, and they skew the numbers at times.

Sviel.7493:

It sounds like your WvW experience is mostly running in a sizeable guild group. Ask anyone who runs alone or in small groups and you’ll find that there are many abuse cases that tend to center on condi builds. I’m not saying that condi builds are the new OP, just that there are too many abuse cases to ignore.

You are incorrect in your assumptions. I do run large forces at times. Those times are probably around 25% of the time. We tend to break into 5, 10, sometimes 15 man groups to split up and hit targets all over the map at the same time.

You tell me to ask any one who runs alone some questions. I could care less about anyone who runes alone. This game mode is in no way balanced around them. I roam alone or in a 5 man group occasionally myself. In no way does my experience suggest that condi builds are problematic. My experience suggest to me that very specific professions have some weapon skill, utility skill, elite skill, trait combinations that are over tuned. And sure, they abuse that over tunes aspect of the combination. That doesn’t define conditions as a problem in any way. That defines those specific combinations of skills, utilities, and traits, when used together in one build, as a problem.

Better

Than

Druid

Sviel.7493:

The reason we see power builds favored over condi is because the former leads to fights that are engaging throughout as dodging any attack is useful. The latter relies on making the opponent run out of condi clears, at which point they have little choice but to die. Thus, with condi, the fight is even more blatantly decided by who’s specced what at the outset instead of the decisions that get made in the fight.

It would be a poor idea to promote condi right now. It needs a re-pass so that it doesn’t lead to such binary fights before it can really be spotlighted.

You made some false implications here. You can dodge skills that apply conditions, just as easily as you can dodge skills that apply direct damage. Similarly, you can block as many skills that apply conditions as you can those that do direct damage.

Sviel.7493:

Classes with chiefly melee weapons like guard and war would be considered frontline. Or we could say that heavy armor classes are frontline. Basically, the people that have to dodge/wade through CC to be effective are frontline.

You mean like warrior, with multiple 1200 range attack weapons? Or Guardians who have access to long bow coming to them, 1200 range staff attacks, 1200 range signets, and 1200 range teleports?

Sviel.7493:

Obviously, it would be dumb to give such a skill to a thief or mesmer.

How so?
I do not necessarily disagree, but you state it with implications. That suggest to me that you are expressing your subjective opinions as if they are objective facts. Perhaps you should be a little more open minded about professions, and not pigeon hole them so strictly.

I frontline regularly on engineer, mesmer, and ranger, both as a map pin and pin for a large WvW guild. I think players would be best served to step away from so called “meta” builds and think outside the box a little more, personally.

Jaha.2840:

Mathematical truth isn’t required to prove the point.

No, but it certainly is the best way. It says a lot that folks are making a specific effort to avoid providing mathematical evidence though. It suggest to me that folks are making claims based on a lack of facts, therefore making their claims with no knowledge of whether or not they are remotely true, or feel this evidence counters the claims.

Jaha.2840:

Although, you are right that it applies to specific professions: Thief and Mesmer. All you have to do is be a somewhat experienced player and then run a power build 1v1 against a condition built mesmer or thief who knows what they’re doing and you’ll understand immediately. Stealth is balanced when used with power builds, but heavily imbalanced when used with condition builds because of the insane survivability from combining stealth, Dire, and survivability traits/skills (Example: Prismatic Understanding, Hide in Shadows, Chaos Armor, Blinding Dissipation).

I disagree when it comes to thieves, they are not very problematic for me at all. Mesmers, on the other hand, I feel need adjustment to specific traits or skills.

Jaha.2840:

Dire is still very overpowered, but perhaps it’s best to first focus on balancing thief and mesmer condition based skills, and leave other professions out, because stealth is balanced with power builds and shouldn’t have to be altered.

There is that claim about dire again. The one that specifically avoids adding evidence to support it.

-So if dire is so OP, why isn’t everyone using it?
-Why is it not used in all circumstances or situations?
-Why has no one offered any damage comparisons that support that?
-Why has no one disproven the damage comparisons already posted that are evidence against the claim your making?

Sviel.7493:

-Guards have not been updated to deal with new levels of player equipment and higher damage levels. They are, at best, a joke.
——-Guards should have higher Vitality as it is useful against both power and condi.
——-Guards should have some anti-stealth measures so that thieves/mesmers don’t make them look so dumb.
——-Guards should do some condi damage so that bunker builds don’t counter the whole camp/tower/keep.
——-Guards should grow stronger as the structure is upgraded.

No thinks. This idea that we need to buff PvE mobs is absurd to me. We do not need more PvE in WvW thank you.

Sviel.7493:

-Catapults are best used at point-blank range.
——-This results in them taking down walls much faster than intended.
——-LoS changes mean it is difficult to defend against them when against a wall.
——-The way AoE maps onto wall tops also provides questionable cover.

There is no evidence of what is or was intended, that is an assumption you have made.

Catapults next to the target also makes catas much easier to destroy. All LoS changes did was effect ACs, which are not the only defense. As well, they have specifically stated all the LoS changes are not complete. With that in mind, it seems it may be wise to have a catapult discussion once the changes are complete, and not before.

Sviel.7493:

-Wall siege is non-repairable.
——-Taking it down to a sliver of hp in preparation for a later attack leaves the defenders with no ability to respond.
——-Since the prompt for it is ‘Use’ rather than ‘Repair’ like walls, allow players to obtain a siege repair hammer from supply stations that they can use to repair siege.

No siege is repairable, not just wall siege. Though I do support the idea of being able to invest supply into repairing it.

Sviel.7493:

-Chaperoning Dolyaks is as unrewarding as raising children IRL.
——-On EB, the occasional BEAR attack nets 40 wexp, but on Borderlands there is literally no way to get wexp from walking yaks.
——-To incentivize this critical part of WvW, successfully escorting a yak should give wexp for every location that it reaches (in case the final destination is hostile).
——-A new WvW spec should allow for boosting Dolyak speed when near and perhaps their defense/toughness.

Yeah, I agree that there should be bonuses supporting escorting, as well as more rewarding benefits to the time investment.

Sviel.7493:

-Defending structures is not as useful as rampaging.
——-The only incentive to defend is to retain upgrades, which then make it easier to defend. The wexp equates roughly to four player kills and seems to trigger only randomly.
——-In the time it takes to defend a good siege, a group could go take a bunch of stuff instead. This should be an attractive option in very few situations, not most of them. It is part of the reason that EotM is a karma train.
——-Upgraded structures should have a higher PPT value and should reward wexp proportional to what hostiles would gain upon taking it. Defending a keep should be incentivized more than defending a camp.

You are incorrect on some things here in my opinion. Defending is not purely incentivized by retaining upgrades, that only adds value to defending. Keeping a location for the next PPT tick is very incentivizing.

I agree that upgraded structures should receive more PPT. Though your third point here seems to counter your complain in your first point.

Your second point here though, strikes me as problematic though. That is literally what karma training is. I do not support suggestions that specifically promote a karma train situation.

Sviel.7493:

-When rampaging, there is a high incentive to cannibalize the weakest server.
——-Taking a Fortified tower gives no more points than taking a paper tower, so the optimal strategy is to just run over the least populous server again and again.
——-Upgraded structures should give bonus points on capture proportional to the bonus PPT they were granting their owners. Thus, while upgraded structures means your enemy gets more points on taking them, you still get more points out of them first so long as they don’t flip immediately after upgrading.
——-Upgraded structures should also reward more wexp on flip. It may not be a poor idea to reduce the base wexp amount to limit the effectiveness of kicking the underdog.

I do not agree with your second point. In my experience, players prefer to try to take upgraded keeps to prevent the upgrade benefits.

Sviel.7493:

-Scouting structures should be incentivized.
——-It leads to more fights and less uncontested (boring) caps.
——-To avoid encouraging AFKers, increase the rewards for such scouting activities as repairing walls (and siege, when that is possible) and for building wall siege.
——-Add a WvW spec that buffs workers speed and supply capacity when an ally with a Supervisor’s Banner (available at supply stations) is nearby. To compensate, slow the base pace of upgrades a bit. With the banner and no spec, it should be a little faster than before. Fully specced, it should take half as long as before. This should reward wexp/exp as it replaces time that could be spent rampaging.
——-Add a WvW spec that shows a ping on the wall or gate being attacked within a certain distance.
——-Add a WvW spec that increases the power of a camp’s guards when the player is in range.
——-Add a WvW spec that reveals stealthed enemies when out of combat and within the walls of a keep or tower. A team should not have to spend tens of supply and silver to have a chance at successfully sweeping a structure for a mesmer.

Yeah, scouting need benefits. How do you propose that is measured? Simply suggesting what you feel things need is not particularly helpful without good suggestions on how it should be applied.

I disagree with buffing guards when a player is around as a WvW spec. If you want something defended, players need to do it. This cry for NPC dependence belongs in PvE.

Sviel.7493:

-Golem rushes negate substantial player time and effort.
——-Golems should function as a high investment, high return siege unit, but currently they are slowly stockpiled and then flung at an objective in such numbers that there is hardly a counter.
——-Players should not be able to Waypoint while piloting a golem. Mesmer portals should be able to transfer a maximum of 1-2 golems, as they are way larger than people. This should leave their effectiveness intact while removing some workarounds to their drawbacks.

Blaming a negation of player time and effort on golems specifically, makes no sense. That same blame can be laid on any attacking using any siege.

Golems are high investment, high reward already.

I wouldn’t mind removing the ability to WP golems, but only under the condition that golems can move at the speed of any player and receive all player movement buffs.

Sviel.7493:

-Edge of the Mist supply can foil a carefully executed supply starvation strategy.
——-EotM supply and WvW supply should be two different entities. This is not aimed at the supply drops, but the actual supply one gets when going to the EotM map.

Why? It gives EotM value. If you do not want your supply from EotM to go to another team, then stop it yourself. You have a reoccurring theme here of wanting the game changed to suit things that make you work. Do the work to stop things from happening instead of wanting them handed to you or removed.

Sviel.7493:

-Excess WvW levels have no function
——-Allow them to be redeemed for badges or siege or some other WvW related thing.

Sure, why not. They need some use, I am just not sure if this is the best use to add.

Sviel.7493:

-The Commander system is underutilized.
——-Add a WvW spec that gives allies minor stat increases when near a Commander. This should not stack and should require ~10+ squad members to activate.
——-Add a spec that gives the Commander increased stats for each member in their squad. These guys are the heroes among heroes, after all. They should stand out on the battlefield.
——-Cap the number of squad members. 30 is likely a good number.
——-Add special elite skills that the Commander can use to buff squad members to incentivize following a tag and make it obvious that there are benefits.
——-Allow a Commander tag to be obtained with WvW badges or excess levels.
——-If a Commander takes an objective, announce their name and guild when announcing the capture.
——-Increase the reward on event completion if the Commander and squad member are in the same guild.

No thank you to a stat buff around commanders. I am a regular commander and dislike this idea immensely. Again your asking for artificial benefits for doing what already works.

Big NO on your squad caps. Why do you want to punish me or anyone else because we have over 30 guildies on at once?

-Roaming should be incentivized as it is a distinct flavor of WvW, but give it better ties to the overall goal structure.
——-Add mob spawns or gathering nodes that drop items that can be given to a keep or tower to boost its supply slightly or give it a boost to its sentry ability, defenses, etc. If a player is killed while carrying one of these, it drops and is available for the killer to cart off.

Roaming does not need to be incentivized. If you want incentives as a roamer, win fights and take the loot bags. The other aspects you should be doing, such as scouting and escorting dolyaks, flipping camps, and so on, would receive benefits from already mentioned aspects.

A resounding NO to your idea of adding mob spawns. Again your trying to destroy WvW with bad PvE ideas. Go play PvE if you want to fight spawning AI mobs.

Sviel.7493:

-Normalize server populations.
——-Divorce WvW servers from literal servers so that there’s no need to have the same number.
——-Calculating how full a server is based on regular WvW players is a good first step, but with the expansion (and effective WvW renewal) allow discounted or free transfers from a full server to a sparsely populated server.
——-Have different population caps for different groups of WvW servers. Some can have a max of ~20 people for a map, others a max of ~50 and so on. That way players can choose just how large-scale they want their experience to be and do not have to contend with fighting huge blobs if their server cannot field the same. If there is more demand for servers of a certain size (ie: massive queue times across the board) then adjustments can be made.

Define “regular WvW players”? This is a casual game by design. A player shouldn’t be required to play as often as you personally demand, for them to be counted as a regular WvW player.

Sviel.7493:

-Consider how balance changes affect WvW.
——-In PvP/PvE, stealth and condi are far less effective than in WvW. A serious impediment to getting new blood on the field (in a non-literal way) is the droves of cheese-build roamers picking off those that don’t yet know their way around. It’s one thing to suddenly have to fight an enemy, it’s another to suddenly get wrecked by an enemy whose build wins 1v1 in an overwhelming number of non-mirror situations. If it’s banned in PvP, it should probably not be in mass PvP either.

You have some inaccurate statements here. Conditions are less valuable in WvW then anywhere else. Group cleanses make certain of that. The only time that is not true is in 1v1, 1v2, 2v2. Once full groups are involved, your conditions lose value fast.

It is absurd to try to balance around 1v1 in a massive PvP game aspect. I agree some very specific combinations of specific professions utilities, weapons skills, and traits could use individual adjustments.

This assessment that you need more stats for direct damage then condition builds do is false. I have plenty of builds that do as much damage in soldiers gear that most condition builds do in dire gear.

The problem is very specific trait combinations + specific weapons skills + specific utilities on specific professions. So let’s not degenerate the conversation to making blanket statements about damage types as a whole, with no actual mathematical truth to thier damage output.

I do not feel sorry for thieves, no.

I cannot count the times they have jumped me from behind and gotten to escape one I began to win the fight, and they saw thier death to be imminent if they did not run away. Yet they continued to reset fight after fight until I finally kill them. It was like trying to accomplish any task with a pesky fly landing on your ear over and over again. More so with mesmers now. I look forward to having one more tool at my disposal to prevent their stealthy escapes.

part of my lack of sympathy comes from occasionally running a thief myself. I run an unorthodox build that doesn’t depend on stealth completely, and works well for me. So no, I have no apathy for players who completely use stealth as a crutch. The ones that worry me are the good thieves I run across who may put the new thief ES to good use to kick my butt until I adjust to playing against it.

Straegen.2938:

All balance in a game is subjective but the current system is clearly lopsided and stagnant. The best guilds/players cannot even fight each other. We don’t even know who the best guilds and players are.

You say stagnant, yet in NA a few recent shifts occured, after post upon post, and thread upon thread, complaining about staleness. Once some shifts occured, all I saw was post upon post, and thread upon thread crying about uneven mathups.

The problem is, this proposed idea will do nothing to prevent staleness. Strong group that work and win will stick together to continue doing so. Due to that, I do not buy any argument suggesting this will prevent staleness.

Hitsuke.5304:

Only a WvW player truly knows how broken and unbalanced this game is.

Only a WvW player would run in a group of 40 to 60 and go on to complain about balance.

Mega Skeleton.8259:

What do you have against the idea?

The fact that is punishes players in small guild or no guilds. I am against supporting ideas that punish others in such a manner, simply to make someone else’s quality of life a little easier for them.

Lord Kuru.3685:

dancingmonkey.4902:

KillEveryoneElse.3940:

(yes the ones who just hacked into eb keep), thanks.

or do we need to buy a cash shop item to get hackers banned now ? (genuine support question).

Cash shop item? No

Using common sense to take screen shots or recorded footage, as well as properly reporting them, so that there is evidence of your accusation ? Yes

LOL. You thing people would be complaining about hackers all the time if Anet actually acted on reports (yes, reports complete with screenshots, video capture)? Fact is that enforcement is practically nonexistent, hence the cash shop “request.”

Having personally seen a dev come on my server and catch a hacker, on three seperated occasions, shortly after reporting them, I am not so jaded. I have also simply PMed, the dev who has posted on this topic multiple times, and have them take action, leads me to believe posters often do little more then post unspecified complaints.

As well, I have, on these very forums, seena video of me, accusing me of hacking, because some newer player assumed an engineer using slick shoes+rocket boots in PvP was a hacking teleport. I happened to be recording that match myself and posted it in that same thread, to educate the accusing poster of how the skills worked at the time.

So I feel it is reasonable to request actual evidence, and not accept unsupported accusation.

Jana.6831:

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

Jana.6831:

-snip-

I’m glad you’re not a dev.

I am too, but you guys obviously failed to understand my point.

I believe others get your point. I know what I don’t get, is how you assume your subjective opinion is fact, in your argument. For example, I find thief to be one of, if not the easiest profession to play. Yet you post with the assumption that everyone agrees with you as to which professions have specific skill floors or ceilings. Of coarse, your not the only one in this thread working under that same inaccurate assumption.

Sky Dragon.2847:

so for pvp its a fair fight stat wise even if ur lvl 20 v a lvl 80? same class

Yes. You chose an amulet as your only gear. The pool of amulets with stats are the same ones offered to your team mates and opponents. As well, you chose your runes and sigils from the same selection everyone is offered.

KillEveryoneElse.3940:

(yes the ones who just hacked into eb keep), thanks.

or do we need to buy a cash shop item to get hackers banned now ? (genuine support question).

Cash shop item? No

Using common sense to take screen shots or recorded footage, as well as properly reporting them, so that there is evidence of your accusation ? Yes

PvP unlocks everything to you when you enter the lobby area. I was refering specifically to EotM and WvW proper.

The difference is night and day.

your damage is normalized.

Your toughness is normalized.

you have all your traits.

You have all of your skills.

You have access to better gear combos.

Hyper editing, that only shows when someone is CC and takes a big hit, or is bad enough to stand still for your heavy hits makes for a boring video in my opinion. I think you should show each individual battle play out fully, or I have no interest in watching it.

Straegen.2938:

Liston.9708:

Except that leaves out pugs who are not part of wvw guilds or guilds at all…..

I didn’t want to get into the full concept but in this case unaligned players and guilds would be considered mercenaries. They would be assigned to fights that best need them for balance. Medium and Large sized guilds would basically form the framework of the matchup and then based on typical play times “mercenaries” would fill in to create better battles.

The entire system is built to create more balanced fights with better coverage that continually rotate. Since rankings would be Guild and player based, guilds/players would have a scoreboard; something sorely lacking in GW2. I think the competition would be a magnificent boost to WvW.

This sounds like it will tear player from a community of players and friends they know, by punishing them for not being in a large WvW guild. What is worse, is that is does this to suit nothing more than your subjective perception of balance.

Phineas Poe.3018:

Manuhell.2759:

And that essentially means that elite specializations on the engineer are meaningless by design, since the main weapon can’t be good (again, by design) and the utilities can’t compete with kits either way.

That’s a bit hyperbolic, don’t you think?

Both the rifle and pistol/pistol are incredibly good and slot well into both condition and power builds in PvE and PvP. Pretty much every build we have uses weapon skills off cooldown for maximum DPS or utility, so the idea that weapons are useless because they’re incapable of being ran standalone is ridiculous.

No more hyperbolic then claiming:

Phineas Poe.3018:

And yet mandatory utility skill categories are prevalent across all classes.

Nothing in this game is “mandatory”.

Particularly given the popularity of 100% elixir builds. If your claiming kits as “mandatory” why is an all elixir build so popular in PvP?

It is just my opinion, but I get the impression that the elite specialization is designed or intended by the devs, to have a heavy, if not exclusive dependency on gyros.

mulzi.8273:

I think its a bit silly that to counter this, you cannot move nor use skills.

I think it is a bit silly that you think that is how you counter it. It simply punishes you more for those actions. You counter it by cleansing it, or blocking and dodging skills that apply it.

Sqweegel.9145:

stop QQing. Iam on Yak and we getting kick by the teaming up from other T1 because all you FA and SOS was crying like babies. We get our butts kicks only because of teaming not because of good players from there servers. Scared they are because we still can give both alot of saltyness so yeah we Yak are butts kickers not butts kissers, so keep crying if cant play the game without blob i feel sorry for all your crappyness.

No one is teaming up against YB. If you the server loses, that is on them.

Orochimaru.4730:

Deleted the top 4 ranked servers and force players on those to choose from the remainder.

Doesn’t strike me as particularly rational, to break up the largest server communities, in order to serve the smaller ones. Seems to me that logic would dictate the display ement of the least amount of players, by doing away with the smallest servers.

Of coarse I am not in favor of that either. It seems to be very short sighted, in my opinion, to mess with the server community immediately before an expansion that will naturally increase the population of each and every server, with both returning and new players.

I know if I were Anet, there is no way I would consider unlocking servers, when an expansion is about to release. All those people comming back to the game that are already on the locked servers are going to flood them. With that in mind, it would be irrational to me to let more players on them now.

Junkpile.7439:

Twinny.9304:

I think your problem is your EoTM’s groups. I know we have been told EoTM’s don’t count, but i think the EoTM’s guys log in WvW for reset see if it’s easy mode week, (triggering your WvW population activity at a crazy lvl), get wiped a few times and think kitten it back to EoTM’s farm upscales and leave u guys the rest of the MU with bad numbers.

Why EotM players would get wiped in WvW? WvW players quality is all time low because all good old WvW players play EotM nowadays. Sometimes these “WvW” players who still play boring WvW come EotM, but they can’t even cap keep against smaller force.

I see no evidence of that. Do you have a link to a metric that supports that? As far as I can tell, this is just a random unfounded claim, that isn’t grounded in any actual facts. Sure, their may be some folks from your server that were known to be solid WvW players have been playing in EotM, but that, in no way, suggest this occurs on the other 50+ servers.

Chuck Zitto.2367:

I dont have a problem with the short duration stealths. Don’t even mind fighting a thief or mesmer not running mass invis or shadow refuge. Problem is they are all running these 2 broken skills. Shadow refuge got a nerf atleast and they have to stay in the circle for a short time to get the full 15 second stealth on a 1 min cd. So every minute they practically have a get out of jail free card. I can be halfway across any map in 15 seconds. Same with mass invis.

As for condi have to agree its just stupid silly when I play my pu mes. You cant move or u take tons of torment dmg. You cant use any skill or you take tons of confusion dmg oh and by the way i have op burning and a few other condis on you all the time while im stealthed lol. I think this is more of a problem with mesmer though. Its really the only class that gets access to huge amounts of the hands down best condis. The other classes dont get that. Guard for example can put out a bunch of burning but not confusion torment bleed and poison in good amounts all on short cd skills. Necro seemed to me like it would get a good amount of torment. The condi fits the necro theme especially reaper of dont run away from me. Yet it has little to no access to torment yet mes can dish out 5 stacks every 8 seconds.

Shadow refuge is the least broken stealth skill. You see the circle, and you easily have time to step into it and use any number of skills to knock them out of it. Or drop heavy damage on it.

I feel the problem is all the traits that give benefits of condition removal and other benefits that occur during stealth, that you cannot counter, because you cannot see or target your enemy.

I dunno what the experience on your server is, but on mine, the only condition aspect that is predominant, is roaming. In group play, conditions are so easily cleansed, with the multiple AoE cleanses, they are extremely neutered.

lorddarkflare.9186:

Function Gyro is great. Just not for PvE.

Sneak Gyro is okay, but is too harsh a counter against thieves (I think a 1 – 2 second reveal would be more fair) and unwanted. Also, we are not thieves, we do not care about stealth nearly that much to waste our Elite on it.

This seems hypocritical to me, as the ability of thieves and mesmers to endlessly chain, or spam stealth at will, strikes me as unfair to the other 6 professions who have reasonably limited stealth, or no stealth at all.

I am seeing post upon post in the other subforums about how they are taking the feedback from a BWE and using it to significantly change aspects of the ES’s. To call it a waste strikes me as disconnected bias.

The only thing confirmed about BWE was 3 invite only betas. As we had at release. Which then included some additional open betas. So trying to imply we will only have one test for feedback strikes me as crying wolf in that reguard. Sure, I would have preferred they announced them all at once, in the first week, but that doesn’t justify irrationally declaring the testing we will have as “a waste”.

displayname.8315:

Ansau.7326:

About the system win-up lose-down, in reality it is worse, because you’d end up having very unfair matchups. It happened when they made more freely the glicko, and quickly there were tons of people asking to a more locked system, since what was happening was not fun, one week you were stomped by a server and in the next you stomped another week.

That may have been true when it was possible for servers to be wildly imbalanced. That is not the case anymore stop living in the past.

Except that there has been overwhelming feedback crying about stale matches. Demanding they loosen the restrictions so that servers would shift.

Now we have the server shift, that you are in the minority to be against. Stop living in the past. The majority of the feedback demanded a match up shift.

I do not understand the confusion around this trait, to be honest. It very specifically states the conditions in which it applies as consumed or tossed. Seems extremely clear to me that elixirs fired from a kit are not intended to be covered, by how it is defined. Sure, I think it should effect them. Yet it is clear they do not desire that at this time.

Steelo.4597:

- condi damge is over top
- stealth on mesmer is ridiculous atm
- perplexity still needs to go

made this rabid pu plex mesmer – steamrolled everyone in roaming on first day pressing random buttons and having forgot to pick traits… yeah. lots of roamers do the right thing and just run away when they see my torch… gg. the kitten balance right now is really amazing.

This is a prime example of an unreasonable blanket complaint. Conditions are fine as a whole. The issue in this case is with mesmers ability to stack them to high, too fast with certain combinations of food, runes, sigils, weapon set, and traits. It has nothing to do with conditions themselves, so to make that blanket complaint, serves to offer no real constructive talking point.

The second issue is the ability to stealth, do damage by stealthing, and cleanse by stealthing. A lesser problem can be targeting and body blocking by clones.

When you put all of those together, sure it is strong 1v1. You lose me though, as the point you cry about balance in WvW. Put this same string of builds your complaining about in a larger group and they are weak against another large group. WvW has been advertised since before release as specifically intended not to be balanced.

Personally I feel stealth needs a duration nerf, and other defensive aspects of professions with stealth access, should be increased. Or perhaps the ability to chain stealth so easily. The next step, as I see it, might be to increase some of the ICD on traits that allow specific conditions to stack too high too fast.

funghetto.1584:

i bet you are one that use berserk set up and rune of hoelbrak

easy to speak if you are playing in a zerg

That doesn’t make sense. In large battles, zerkers melt like ice in a hot pan.

Not to mention, I specified running a front line build, as well I am often pinned up commanding. So how you would presume I would rune a build of that nature is beyond me.

funghetto.1584:

im a kitten roamer

oh right – i should do “meta” dire-rabid perplexity runes! yeah! ahahahah

I guess, if you want to, run whatever you like.

funghetto.1584:

maybe dancingmonkey.4902 should consider getting out of playing zerg style?
and learn some playing? instead of getting stability from guardians you have around?

I have my own stability as well, I use it often. For the most part, I have found my blocks and dodges to be infinitely more beneficial than stabs.

funghetto.1584:

then if you think you are good as engi – maybe you use rifle? pierce 1200 range wow!

What difference does that make?

funghetto.1584:

have u ever used pistol shield? or ever used elixir gun?

Almost always. I favor EG as my stun breaker+ heal, for AoE condition to boon conversion, super elixirs AoE heal/cleanse, and Acid bombs AoE damage, as well as the might stacks from those that stack it traited now.

I almost exclusively use P/S, since you ask.

funghetto.1584:

try using them now – but roaming – or in little parties – not with your guild around keeping you alive

I do roam, in little parties, in the times I am not running with my guild, following my guild, leading my guild, or map pinned.

Why would I not want my guild around? That doesn’t make any sense, it is why I joined the guild, and play in WvW.

funghetto.1584:

the only way for engineer to handle conditions spawn – is… use elixirs!
other stuff like sigil of cleansing is simple not enough -
tons of classes have spawn of 2+ conditions in so little cds -

Condition “spawn”?

I disagree that it is the only way to handle conditions. It is the way to handle the most conditions, the fastest.

funghetto.1584:

we MUST put up alchemy line to handle “some” of them or play offensively (maybe is this you want anet?)

Your actually not accurate here. No one “must” do anything, This line simply allows for more condition removal then not having the line does.

Now this line makes and extremely large difference when running elixirs though.

funghetto.1584:

Cleansing Synergy 10s icd on healing – yes – nice – if you can use a healing turret! in some matches (and speaking of wvw where balance is far far away) cant even use heal once

There may be matches where YOU personally cannot use the turret, but there are no times I cannot. I run a front line engineer in T1 WvW and I never have a problem with this. I support your over all ideology of this post. I cannot support hyper extreme hyperbole of this nature though.

funghetto.1584:

rework it as some traits that most of classes have : 10s icd – remove 1 condition

(Shakes head in disgust) So you support passive play?

funghetto.1584:

bunker down: icd 2s – healing and regen – well put up icd to 5? 10? put that thing works as remove 1 condition

That will not help much. Unless you are 1v1, a context we should never discuss balance around, it is way to easy for anyone to move across and steal its benefits. In my opinion, the way the trait works, and your proposed change, makes it potentially useless as a self cleanse.

funghetto.1584:

med kit? get away the throw stimulant! we want it as the old med kit – in front of our engineer

Perhaps you should stop dishonestly claiming “We” as if you speak for the community, you do not. I know I absolutely disagree with you on this. I hate the ground targeting of the new med kit, but I sure as heck do not want the old one back.

funghetto.1584:

Autodefense Bomb Dispenser smoke field! and break stun!

Yeah, it makes no sense to have this traited smoke bomb not create a field.

Making is a stun breaker is too much and is just promoting passive play. Are you really such a proponent od passive cleanses and stun breaks?

Tarkan.5609:

Does anybody else want this AA to be a normal Auto Attack rather than an AoE?

Anyone with me on this one?

No, absolutely not.

Apolo.5942:

How could they possibly know?.

364 is listed as the base damage for the chain. We know neither the power multiplier nor what the dev was wearing on stream.

The number is a concern, but its a storm in a teapot until we know more.

There is no way he was wearing anything but rabid.

TheBeesKnees.8391:

I found a Staff ele, it was a regular 1v1 but with a twist, I used my nose to press the skills on my keyboard, that’s right my nose. For the majority of the fight I did nothing but press 2 and 3, I think I pressed 4 once on scepter/torch and I won the fight; without even going below 50% health, I didn’t dodge once, I didn’t use my heal, nor any utilities and I still won.

I play a kit less engineer with only one hand and have never, ever, once, lost a fight to a thief or mesmer, stealth or not. Not one loss.

WeedyZeGreedy.8635:

Although i think engineer is really cool in the way that it differs from other classes it’s been seriously bugging me since the very start that you have to sacrifice one or more utility slots to get to use additional weapon kits.

I feel that this is limiting the freedom of choice as you are bound to use your utility slots for weapon versatility. Therefore i thought of a possible solution to resolve this. If engineer were to have a change tab on the weapon swap button like the utility skills have when out of combat, you could then open a menu where you chose a kit of your own choice as your secondary weapon set (beautifully illustrated with the help of paint in the attachment).

As the kits are already separated into the 2 sub categories, weapon kits (flamethrower, elixir gun, wrench and mortar) and device kits (grenade, bomb and healing), I think the best workaround for people who would want to use more kits is it were only the weapon kits that were usable with the weapon swap, thus leaving the device kits to continually be utility slot skills.

The swap from weapon to kit or the other way around would initiate the 10 sec cooldown known from other classes with 2 weapon sets. The toolbelt skills for the weapon kits could then instead be activated on swapping to the kits. Though some toolbelt skills might need to be nerfed in order to compensate for being usable every 20 seconds if you swap whenever possible.

Think that’s all and a fairly good solution to give engineers more freedom to pick utility skills without compromising the use of several kits, so i would like to hear from you any possible suggestions, improvements or feedback for why this is a good or terrible idea.

-Sincerely WeedyZeGreedy

No thank you. I prefer not to ruin the profession, just because the kit functionally is “seriously bugging you”. The precise functionality you dislike, is what brought me to the profession.

This is a bad idea. I am not in favor of having 3 actions from one skill thay allows a player to cast other skills in between the actions of a single cast of the original skill.

lorddarkflare.9186:

Cele Necros are doing quite well for themselves without breaking the meta.

The Celestial Elementalist is an Elementalist problem and should be balanced as such.

Yeah, that is what is so problematic, so many poster/players have so little understanding of the issue. As you said, it elementalist problem. More specifically, an ele trait combination problem. Too many people tend to bandwagon the complaint train, while simultaneously having no actual idea what the problem actually is.

As to the title question, I absolutely would like a good value with celestial.

As I see it, we are kind of king of the blast finishers. I have builds that have 5, 6, or 7 blast finisher. Is anyone else a little disappointed that we have the only hammer weapon set with no blast finisher?

ThFH.6048:

dancingmonkey.4902:

Basaltface.2786:

BuddhaKeks.4857:

I don’t mind it (especially since I will mostly see the translated version ingame) but I think it’s a bit odd that they chose a term that is already used in lore. See Scrapper.

“applied as a label for any warband which is consistently insubordinate, unreliable, or troublesome. These warbands are low within charr society and are commonly given little respect.”

Yea.. thanks i guess >_>

That is a unrelated definition. It refers strictly to charr and their ranks in a greater warband, in a greater army, it isn’t really relevant to the ES of its namesake.

I do not agree ANet says that taking an Elite makes you change your class form Engineer to Scrapper and says you are a Scrapper when having the line equiped.

Since I like to do some roleplaying my Charr a proud Centurion of the High Legions does not like the Idea of being compared to the most trashies of warbands the High Legions have walking around.

Talking about Forge this would indeed only work when if the hammer attacks would be themed around Fire.

So? That is your perception, and your comparison you are personally drawing. The Norn, Humans, Asura, and Sylvara are not concerned with a term that means something with a negative connotation to the over grown alley cats.

There are plenty of names that have both negative and positive connotations, depending on the context they are used.

GrandHaven.1052:

Shifu.4321:

Depends on the number and frequency of condis removed.

Still extremely inactive gameplay… No likey.

I have to agree. Though I may try anything that gets me more conditions cleanses. I may end up with a 1 turret, 1 gyro, 2 kit, 1 gadget build, if that gryo is any good at dealing with conditions that is.

Aretak.3826:

dancingmonkey.4902:

Aretak.3826:

AI reliance is a horrible mechanic and avoided like the plague.

I am not sure what game your playing, but when turrets were stronger, everyone and there mother was playing them in PvP. So your historically wrong to claim AI utilities are avoided so deliberately.

Turret Engi was a horrible build for bad players that only worked in pub stomps. Like the Pet Zoo meta a while back it was for maximum laziness, and left the actual player vulnerable to anyone with a brain. It saw no competitive use and the main reason it was nerfed was, like the Pet Zoo meta before it, it was annoying and promoted an awful play style.

So?

Again, no one claimed it to be a good or bad build or what kind of play style you subjectively claim it was. I am unsure why your choosing to focus on the irrelevant. The fact remains, that AI build or not, players flocked to it like flies to cow pies.

Hatter.8159:

dancingmonkey.4902:

Hatter.8159:

dancingmonkey.4902:

Aretak.3826:

AI reliance is a horrible mechanic and avoided like the plague.

I am not sure what game your playing, but when turrets were stronger, everyone and there mother was playing them in PvP. So your historically wrong to claim AI utilities are avoided so deliberately.

Actually I think it’s safer to ask what game -you’re- playing lol. Turret Engi was weak, and the only people that were getting wiped by them were hotjoin facetanking Rambo’s. No offense.

Who said turrets were not currently weak?

Are you suggesting that they were not flocked to at one point, by many? Historically, that fact counters the idea that players avoid AI utility skills.

Perhaps you missed the point of why it was mentioned. No one cares who was or was not getting whipped by them, the fact remains they were used, and extremely regularly.

You asked what game he was playing, I asked which you were. It was a very seldom occurrence that I ran in to turret engineers outside of hotjoin. Because the AI is/was weak, easily countered, and ultimately useless against anyone that has played more than 20 games.

Yeah I asked that in referace to him claiming players avoided AI, when it is a fact that when turrets were stronger, that players flocked to that AI build. Again whether it was good or not, it was flocked to.

I am no fan of the Gyro idea myself, at least not at this point. I will likely avoid it unless they actually will not take damage. That doesn’t excuse the dishonest statement implying that all “players avoid AI like the plague”.

Of course Gyro’s aren’t going to be stationary, so you can’t just barrage them down or +1 the OpFor on the other two points. But AI is still a system that is weak. It’s hard to say exactly if Gyro’s will be useless until we see some skill facts, but if they are the Engineer equivalent of Guardian Spirit weapons are you going to honestly say this is a strong addition to the class? For sPvp. [/quote]