Will Firearms get reworked soon?

I really enjoyed the rework for explosives we got recently, I would like to see firearms get the same treatment.

It just feels lacking for quite some time already. Also really... boring, if you know what I mean. The effects are mostly unexciting and some also feel just like doubling up on the same thing, like high caliber and no scope.

Also it is kinda funny that the icon for firearms shows 2 rifles crossed, yet the trait line doesn't have a single trait that is enhancing the rifle specifically.We have traits for our shields and pistols, having something for rifle would be nice. Since firearms is a trait line about damage over time (conditions) and crit, I could imagine something like this:

Lead BulletsCritical strikes of rifle skills will inflict an unique debuff on the enemy. That debuff ticks damage every second on the enemy, scaling with power.Might potentially also grant bonus ferocity, for example if this trait is replacing no scope.

I think Firearms is in a good spot as it is.

Since, it has flexibility making it useful for both Power and Condi builds. Power builds have High Caliber, No Scope and Modified Ammunition. Condi builds have Chemical Rounds, Thermal Vision and Incendiary Powder.

At best, maybe Sanguine Array and Juggernaut could be changed into something more supportive to go alongside Pinpoint Distribution's aura. But otherwise the spec is in a good spot in terms of what it can offer.

Meanwhile... Inventions is there being kind of weird with no real focus other seemingly being a collection of bad traits with a few okay support ones. While Tools is one tricking around spamming Static Charge (Typically with Rifle Turret and Personal Battering Ram toolbelt skills due to their low CD's)... When your entire specialization is basically just an Adept trait, something's probably wrong.

Both of these should see reworks before Firearms, which while maybe not the most exciting is functional and versatile, unlike Inventions and Tools (Also, to a lesser extent, Alchemy, though at least Alchemy gets used in 2 types of builds. There's the personal buff version with HGH and there's the WvW mega-cleanse version using Purity of Purpose alongside Scrapper's mass cleansing from finishers)

Firearms was "reworked" the last balance round, when they nerfed the condition and boon durations by ~50%.

Pretty good tl;dr in the post below.

@"Taril.8619" said:I think Firearms is in a good spot as it is.

Since, it has flexibility making it useful for both Power and Condi builds. Power builds have High Caliber, No Scope and Modified Ammunition. Condi builds have Chemical Rounds, Thermal Vision and Incendiary Powder.

At best, maybe Sanguine Array and Juggernaut could be changed into something more supportive to go alongside Pinpoint Distribution's aura. But otherwise the spec is in a good spot in terms of what it can offer.

Meanwhile... Inventions is there being kind of weird with no real focus other seemingly being a collection of bad traits with a few okay support ones. While Tools is one tricking around spamming Static Charge (Typically with Rifle Turret and Personal Battering Ram toolbelt skills due to their low CD's)... When your entire specialization is basically just an Adept trait, something's probably wrong.

Both of these should see reworks before Firearms, which while maybe not the most exciting is functional and versatile, unlike Inventions and Tools (Also, to a lesser extent, Alchemy, though at least Alchemy gets used in 2 types of builds. There's the personal buff version with HGH and there's the WvW mega-cleanse version using Purity of Purpose alongside Scrapper's mass cleansing from finishers)

A few very good points I have to agree with, but essentially Firearms is designed as Condi trait line... but not really. It lacks focus and compares very poorly with similar traitlines from other professions. Let's take a look at minor Grandmaster [PvP/WvW versions] - Serrant Steel - increase bleeding duration by 15%. Now if we compare it with, say Bloodlust from Warrior (another grandmaster minor) or Barbed Precision from Necro (just adept minor), you can see both of those are essentially like Sharpshooter (minor adept) and Serrated Steel merged together, meaning other professions simply get one more free trait.

Next let's take a look at Grandmaster traits. So I decided to try and build-craft a power holosmith with Firearms. I picked my traits to focus into critical damage and to increase my critical strike chance (I really like the adept and master trait choices, could be potentially powerful on hammer scrapper or holosmith coz of meele range), and then I need to choose a Grandmaster trait. The choice I have is:-buff my burning and inflict burning occasionally, which is worthless for power builds (but is probably what I would go for given the scenario),-buff my damage based on my condi output, some weird and boring celestial trait. On power builds I could keep 2 condis on targets at max (tiny bleeding from crits and vulnerability), so 4% more damage, so I go with pistol, but pistol does no damage, but then I have no condis (confused screaming)-forced to use flamethrower, that has a boring but powerful toolbelt skill, other than that offers no power and no condi damage, basically a "delayed stability" skill with some minor CC and blast finisher (last one being probably the most useful thing on this kit).

Now let's talk about condition aspect. Back in a day, condi builds used to be tanky specs that relied on low application of conditions that bled out the opponents over time. Today we have specs like condition revanent that applies 15-20 stacks of torment within seconds or ranger doing the same with bleeding, or burn guardian. Condition builds transformed from low application of conditions to condi spike.Unfortunately condi engi is still in the "slowly bleed your opponent out" stage.http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PegAoqWyB-zVJYkRT/QkoA0fICUTTKe2A-wAs you can see, we can stack up burning from blow torch to 30 (!) seconds, easily (could go even more but I wanted to go with potentially realistic condi build). This is A LOT. The problem is, it goes on 15 second cooldown. No matter how well we can cover it, how much bleeding, poison, vulnerability we can spam, it will last max 9-10 seconds, as everybody runs at least medicore or heavy condition cleansing (sigil of cleansing for example). To be effective, you need to be able to spam powerful conditions, but Firearms not only does not offer that, it buffs condi duration, which has no effect as stuff gets cleansed within seconds.If Blowtorch had, say, 8 second cooldown, maybe we could start talking about condi engi, the forever-bugged skill hits the target 50% of the times anyway (

Edit:As for the other points you mentioned - I agree other trait lines could use a rework to present a specific focus. Inventions could use a few changes to make it a full-blown support trait line, and Tools a tool-belt specific one. Tools in particular is a weird mix of general traits that could nicely fit into other lines, like Excessive Energy, or Lock On, both of which could fit into Firearms, Takedown Round into Explosives (as it's an explosion). We could, for example, swap Juggernaut for Takedown Round (with a few tweaks obviously), so crit-related traits are in Firearms, and Kit-related in Tools. Tools could be re-shuffled, so bottom line buffs kits, middle line toolbelt skills, and upper line... something (gadgets, turrets...). Engineer has so much potential and so many ancient, underpowered skills and traits untouched for 3,4,5 years. It's very sad ANet clearly doesn't want Engineer fixed, but recent Explosives rework gives my some hope.

My biggest issues with Firearms:

• 2/3 of traits basically cater the same Condition builds
• Minors are very weak compared with similar traitlines on other classes
• GM traits are aweful when not running a PvE FT build
• Besiders FT we don't have any Utilities that significantly benefit from the traitline

The theme of Firearms isn't too bad. It Conditions (mainly Bleeds) with some crit/Fury stuff just as on other classes. But the spread of skills are too one dimensional and most effects are too weak or meaningless to be appealing. It doesn't help that it has to compete with Explosions and Tools for damage.

I agree with a few of the OP's thoughts. Others I don't agree with.Firearms is centered around 2 aspects, critical hits/chance and conditions. While most of the traits reflect this focus, there are a few that don't, and some that do, but should be moved around to better suit the needs of the trait line. I'll give some examples.High Caliber and No Scope are great traits for wanting more crit chance to deal more critical damage. These traits should stay.Sharpshooter is a good passive trait, but Hematic Focus is a waste of a passive trait IMO. The effects of Hematic Focus (more crit chance on bleed) would be the new Sharpshooter, and Serrated Steel's effect (more bleed duration) would be combined with old SharpShooter's effect (chance to cause bleeding on crit). This would leave an empty spot where old Serrated Steel was.The new trait that would replace it, would be Incendiary Powder. It would cause your critical hits to apply 1 stack of burning for 2-3 seconds, with an 8s ICD. The reasoning for this is 2 reasons: it coincided with critical chance, as it only procs on crit. This, inadvertently, would also help FT cause more pressure with burning whether running condi OR power, which would also boost the usefulness of traits like Modified Ammunition and Juggernaut.Only other thing I would change, is to increase the duration of bleeds caused by what would be the new Serrated Steel by 1 second (up from 1s to 2s, possibly even 3s).

Rifle needs love.

@Taril.8619 said:I think Firearms is in a good spot as it is.

Since, it has flexibility making it useful for both Power and Condi builds. Power builds have High Caliber, No Scope and Modified Ammunition. Condi builds have Chemical Rounds, Thermal Vision and Incendiary Powder.

At best, maybe Sanguine Array and Juggernaut could be changed into something more supportive to go alongside Pinpoint Distribution's aura. But otherwise the spec is in a good spot in terms of what it can offer.

Meanwhile... Inventions is there being kind of weird with no real focus other seemingly being a collection of bad traits with a few okay support ones. While Tools is one tricking around spamming Static Charge (Typically with Rifle Turret and Personal Battering Ram toolbelt skills due to their low CD's)... When your entire specialization is basically just an Adept trait, something's probably wrong.

Both of these should see reworks before Firearms, which while maybe not the most exciting is functional and versatile, unlike Inventions and Tools (Also, to a lesser extent, Alchemy, though at least Alchemy gets used in 2 types of builds. There's the personal buff version with HGH and there's the WvW mega-cleanse version using Purity of Purpose alongside Scrapper's mass cleansing from finishers)

You know what, looking into it, yeah, inventions needs a rework badly, too.Weirdest thing in that whole trait line: the minor grandmaster trait grants additional healing power if you have regeneration...

But not only is there no regeneration source from the other minor traits anymore, but the entire trait line doesn't provide any source of regeneration?Absolutely no synergy with the rest of the trait line.

And it is true that the entire trait line feels random. There are no leading thematics for the seperated lines,

@"Kodama.6453" said:

Also it is kinda funny that the icon for firearms shows 2 rifles crossed, yet the trait line doesn't have a single trait that is enhancing the rifle specifically.

Before the 2015 traitline rework, firearms used to have traits specifically for rifles like Hair Trigger and Go for the Eyes .

@Kodama.6453 said:

@Taril.8619 said:

I don't think inventions needs a rework. It needs a few adjustments on traits.I also think it is actually good that the trait line doesn't already offer regeneration. This means, that you want to look for synergy with your skills or other traitlines. It's about regeneration, which flies around like sweet buns anyways.

@Kodama.6453 said:

@"Taril.8619" said:I think

Firearms

is in a good spot as it is.

Since, it has flexibility making it useful for both Power and Condi builds. Power builds have

High Caliber

,

No Scope

and

Modified Ammunition

. Condi builds have

Chemical Rounds

,

Thermal Vision

and

Incendiary Powder

.

At best, maybe

Sanguine Array

and

Juggernaut

could be changed into something more supportive to go alongside

Pinpoint Distribution

's aura. But otherwise the spec is in a good spot in terms of what it can offer.

Meanwhile...

Inventions

is there being kind of weird with no real focus other seemingly being a collection of bad traits with a few okay support ones. While

Tools

is one tricking around spamming

Static Charge

(Typically with Rifle Turret and Personal Battering Ram toolbelt skills due to their low CD's)... When your entire specialization is basically just an Adept trait, something's probably wrong.

Both of these should see reworks before

Firearms

, which while maybe not the most exciting is functional and versatile, unlike

Inventions

and

Tools

(Also, to a lesser extent,

Alchemy

, though at least

Alchemy

gets used in 2 types of builds. There's the personal buff version with

HGH

and there's the WvW mega-cleanse version using

Purity of Purpose

alongside Scrapper's mass cleansing from finishers)

Agreed, Inventions is so darn silly. I'm irl laughing thinking about how stupid it currently is. "lets bump up healing power while regeneration is active, great idea!" "lets take away everything that gave regen before, and not put it anywhere else in the trait line! great idea!" LEL

@Cal Cohen.2358 @Irenio CalmonHuang.2048 @Butterfly Kingdom.8349 I hope you guys are reading those threads (the one about turrets too...) coz engi still needs a lot of work.

got a better idea - I know you guys can't openly communicate about any changes for some reason, but blink twice if you are at least aware of how useless firearms and turrets are

There are a lot of things in engineer that have basically just gone ignored for a huge amount of time.Besides incoherence within the inventions trait line, there's also:

• Turrets are a completely dead skill category that needs to be completely replaced. They were effectively removed through balance changes and trait reworks before HoT, and then were never touched again. The balance team seems to be content with pretending they don't exist.
• Engineer has support options but is suspiciously not allowed to have the same level of boon output as anyone else. Elixirs, healing kit, alchemy and inventions all have antiquated designs. Meanwhile, renegades can deal damage while pumping out massive amounts of boons. Druids can heal while providing tons of might. Firebrands are utterly insane at support. Engineers are allowed to heal or provide might (but not both) while dealing zero damage. Slotting inventions and alchemy should make you an excellent support class, but it doesn't even come close.

@Tulki.1458 said:

• Engineer has support options but is suspiciously not allowed to have the same level of boon output as anyone else. Elixirs, healing kit, alchemy and inventions all have antiquated designs. Meanwhile, renegades can deal damage while pumping out massive amounts of boons. Druids can heal while providing tons of might. Firebrands are utterly insane at support. Engineers are allowed to heal or provide might (but not both) while dealing zero damage. Slotting inventions and alchemy should make you an excellent support class, but it doesn't even come close.

My favourite comparison:

Engineer with FULL Diviners for 100% boon uptime and HGH for 20% extra (Base) duration and 20% less CD:

• Elixir B: 75% uptime on Fury, 3 Might, Retaliation and Swiftness for SELF ONLY.
• Elixir U: 45% uptime on Quickness and Vigor for SELF ONLY.

Herald with full Zerker 0 Concentration:

• Facet of Light: 100% uptime on Regeneration for 5 players (10 with GM Trait)
• Facet of Darkness: 100% uptime on Fury for 5 players (10 with GM Trait)
• Facet of Elements: 100% uptime on Swiftness for 5 players (10 with GM Trait)
• Facet of Strength: 100% uptime on Might for 5 players (10 with GM Trait)
• Facet of Chaos: 100% uptime on Protection for 5 players (10 with GM Trait)
• Shared Empowerment: 100% uptime on 25 Might stacks for 5 players (10 with GM Trait)

All the while, having actual utility skills they can use that do things (While Elixirs only provide self boons as their singular effect)

My two cents :

Anet should completely rework Critical/Condi hybrid Traitlines.

As with Corruption rework and Deadly Arts rework, we can see that critical hit/ condi traitlines yield more consistent results when not trying to shoehorn critical or condi into the traitline when it heavily focuses on the other.

As such, I want traitlines like Engineer Firearms, Warrior Arms and Mesmer Duelists to be reworked to focus on one of two aspects but not both.

@"Yasai.3549" said:My two cents :

Anet should completely rework Critical/Condi hybrid Traitlines.

As with Corruption rework and Deadly Arts rework, we can see that critical hit/ condi traitlines yield more consistent results when not trying to shoehorn critical or condi into the traitline when it heavily focuses on the other.

As such, I want traitlines like Engineer Firearms, Warrior Arms and Mesmer Duelists to be reworked to focus on one of two aspects but not both.

I'm confused. You mention Deadly Arts... But Critical Strikes is Thiefs crit trait line. Meanwhile, DA is a hybrid Power/Condi traitline.

Also, I'd argue that Firearms and Dueling are their respective classes best designed specializations. As they are useful for multiple builds, with traits that have good impact with little to no "Dud tiers" where it feels like you're picking something random because you may as well.

I'd prefer we get more specializations designed this way and less one-trick specializations that are useful for one build and one build only (Especially Engineer, due to the way their hyper focused specializations are set up, there's little to no synergy between them. Like the only synergy that exists is Firearms and Explosives because FA gives crit and Explosives gives Ferocity and power damage, there's also some minor synergy between Alchemy and Inventions but Alchemy is heavily focused on running Elixirs)

At best, things like Firearms and Dueling should get reworked lesser traits, because things like Sharpshooter and Sharper Images are only really useful for Condi builds and not Power builds (Sharpshooter has some minor interaction with Hematic Focus, but between Blunderbuss and Shrapnel Grenade that should keep enough bleeding uptime for the trait) - I.e. Making it more like Skirmishing, where Sharpened Edges and Hidden Barbs are trait choices and so the lesser traits are all universal boosts.

@Taril.8619 said:

@Tulki.1458 said:

• Engineer has support options but is suspiciously not allowed to have the same level of boon output as anyone else. Elixirs, healing kit, alchemy and inventions all have antiquated designs. Meanwhile, renegades can deal damage while pumping out massive amounts of boons. Druids can heal while providing tons of might. Firebrands are utterly insane at support. Engineers are allowed to heal or provide might (but not both) while dealing zero damage. Slotting inventions and alchemy should make you an excellent support class, but it doesn't even come close.

• Elixir B:
  75% uptime on Fury, 3 Might, Retaliation and Swiftness for
  SELF ONLY.
• Elixir U:
  45% uptime on Quickness and Vigor for
  SELF ONLY.

• Facet of Light:
  100% uptime on Regeneration for 5 players (10 with GM Trait)
• Facet of Darkness:
  100% uptime on Fury for 5 players (10 with GM Trait)
• Facet of Elements:
  100% uptime on Swiftness for 5 players (10 with GM Trait)
• Facet of Strength:
  100% uptime on Might for 5 players (10 with GM Trait)
• Facet of Chaos:
  100% uptime on Protection for 5 players (10 with GM Trait)
• Shared Empowerment:
  100% uptime on 25 Might stacks for 5 players (10 with GM Trait)

That's... really not a fair comparison.

First, the herald obviously can't maintain all of those 100% of the time. At best, if they're willing to do little else but autoattack, they can maintain 5 pips worth.

Second... 100% uptime on 25 Might stacks through Shared Empowerment? With no boon duration, it's around 9 stacks in optimal circumstances (8 base, but Herald has some concentration built in so it's always going to be a little higher than base). More typically, it's about 3, since facets only tick every three seconds. Facet of Strength, meanwhile, will maintain about 4 stacks without extra boon duration. You might be able to get to 25 if you add extra boon duration and/or add more traits and skills into the rotation, but it isn't coming from Facet of Might and Shared Empowerment at base boon duration alone.

Third... you are underselling Engineer there. At the most obvious, you're not taking into account throwing the elixirs you've already counted. Going a bit deeper... the support engineer builds, which do exist in WvW and high-end PvE, usually use kits and gyros rather than elixirs. Elixirs obviously aren't what you use for party buffing... and depending on your build, self-buffing (especially Might) will usually come from traits, with elixirs being more a matter of covering the gaps rather than being the primary source.

Looks at the latest "balance" patch notes

No.

@"Jaruselka.5943" said:Looks at the latest "balance" patch notes

No.

Well, they said that these are not all notes.Maybe there will be at least some slight changes added later.

If not... well...at least inventions got some attention by reworking soothing detonation?

@Kodama.6453 said:

@"Jaruselka.5943" said:

Looks at the latest "balance" patch notes

No.

Yeah, like maybe they'll do something like make the Might from Sanguine Array last 5 seconds instead of 4.

And buff Juggernaut to give 2 Might stacks per interval.

@Kodama.6453 said:If not... well...at least inventions got some attention by reworking soothing detonation?

Yeah, though it's wierd now, since it's gonna proc from Toolbelt skills... Which thematically fits into Tools better...

I suppose they're being consistent in keeping Inventions a complete hodge podge of random effects...

@"Taril.8619" said:Yeah, like maybe they'll do something like make the Might from Sanguine Array last 5 seconds instead of 4.

Yeah, shouldn't expect too much. Well, there is always the next time.

Yeah, though it's wierd now, since it's gonna proc from Toolbelt skills... Which thematically fits into Tools better...

I suppose they're being consistent in keeping Inventions a complete hodge podge of random effects...

To be fair, the name of the trait line is inventions, so thematically every technological advancement can get put in there. They can simply call this trait "surgeon tools", call modern surgeon tools a new invention in Tyria and be done with it.

And if we are honest, then it wasn't better before. It is called "soothing detonations", which thematically sounds like it should be in explosives instead.Also I don't agree with your premise.... you are implying that every trait affecting the toolbelt skills should be put in tools, which shouldn't be how this works.

That's like saying every trait affecting the pets of the ranger should be put in beast mastery for thematical reasons or that every trait affecting shatters should be in illusions.Which is also not true for these classes.In general, I welcome the change to soothing detonations to heal on toolbelt skills, I think it will be way more useful that way.

@Kodama.6453 said:That's like saying every trait affecting the pets of the ranger should be put in beast mastery for thematical reasons

Well... They literally are.

All the traits that affect just pets are in Beast Mastery.

There are traits that affect BOTH the Ranger and the Pet in other traitlines, but there are none that affect ONLY the pet in a specialization other than Beast Mastery.

@Kodama.6453 said:that every trait affecting shatters should be in illusions.

Mesmer's specializations offer enough variance to have crossover.

While "Illusions" would be the primary place to find illusion buffing traits (Not necessarily Shatter traits)

Other specializations have themes that could also include them too. "Domination", "Dueling" and "Chaos" could also thematically contain illusion and shatter traits.

@Kodama.6453 said:In general, I welcome the change to soothing detonations to heal on toolbelt skills, I think it will be way more useful that way.

No doubt it'll be more useful, provided the numbers aren't trash. It's just it'll feel kind of odd not being in the specialization that is focused around improving and adding effects to toolbelt skill usage.

But then again, this is Engie, 99% of the class feels kind of odd because ANet forgot about them...

@"Taril.8619" said:

Your main argument are thematics here.

I already explained, the trait line is called "inventions". This means that themtically every technological advancement (aka invention) can get put in that trait line.And an invention doesn't need to be a mechanical device like turrets. Surgeon tools, anticorrosion plating, experimental turrets.... these all can be considered inventions when it comes to their theme.

What really seems more odd is stuff like bunker down... it uses mines and bandages, both don't really seem like new inventions and the name just implies a combat strategy (to "bunker down").Healing toolbelt skills don't really seem odd as inventions in my book.

To be fair - blast finishers from engineers often do involve something detonating, while toolbelt skills usually don't. So the name does seem to fit better with the old version.

On the Inventions versus Tools thing - healing traits are pretty much concentrated in Inventions and Alchemy, so I think the logic is to keep those party support traits concentrated in two core traitlines. It's then up to the player whether to add Tools for shorter recharges, a support-oriented elite spec such as Scrapper, dropping Alchemy to take both, or maybe going a bit offensive rather than purely support-oriented.

Yeah, the name doesn't fit. But what's bad about spreading around some Toolbelt traits? It's the class mechanic after all.

@"Kodama.6453" said:What really seems more odd is stuff like bunker down... it uses mines and bandages, both don't really seem like new inventions and the name just implies a combat strategy (to "bunker down").

I dislike most "drop and collect" mechanics in GW2 (being it Mirrors or Orbs von Ventari). The old Bunker Down (or Elixir Infused Bombs) was way cooler but competed with Medical Dispersion Field. That's probably the reason they removed it in the end.