Scrapper Patch Notes (3-26-19)

Engineer

• Gyros: Fixed some tooltip display issues.
• Blast Gyro: Fixed a bug that prevented Shocking Speed from granting superspeed on the final tick of Blast Gyro.
• Bulwark Gyro: Fixed a bug that allowed this skill to redirect damage from inanimate objects. Reduced the barrier granted by this skill by 33% in PvP.
• Sneak Gyro: Reduced the stealth granted by this skill from 3 seconds per pulse to 1.5 seconds per pulse in PvP and WvW.

Hey would you look at that? Reasonable shaves.

Also LOL at the damage from inanimate objects. Poor WvW'ers.

@Vagrant.7206 said:

Engineer

• Gyros: Fixed some tooltip display issues.
• Blast Gyro: Fixed a bug that prevented Shocking Speed from granting superspeed on the final tick of Blast Gyro.
• Bulwark Gyro: Fixed a bug that allowed this skill to redirect damage from inanimate objects. Reduced the barrier granted by this skill by 33% in PvP.
• Sneak Gyro: Reduced the stealth granted by this skill from 3 seconds per pulse to 1.5 seconds per pulse in PvP and WvW.

I know it was annoying as heck. Glad its fixed now

Also that stealth nerf in pvp/wvw is good. It was crazy high uptime before.

And the barrier nerf in pvp is good. All in all decent nerfs for scrapper.....not too hard.

Bulwark Gyro will still be bad in zergs vs zergs (and will keep being so until they remove the damage redirection; could have made it just pulse barriers at both the scrapper and allies, with lower barrier values than now, of course)Sneak Gyro is now barely better than Toss Elixir S, and without the invincibility skill included (instead it keeps having the most situational skill ever, an area reveal).Reasonable, eh. Oh, please, it's not even worth being called an elite skill. Should have scrapped it and made another skill anew, if they have to make it that weak.

@Manuhell.2759 said:Bulwark Gyro will still be bad in zergs vs zergs (and will keep being so until they remove the damage redirection; could have made it just pulse barriers at both the scrapper and allies, with lower barrier values than now, of course)And yet one of the best WvW commanders on BG is tagging as a scrapper with Bulwark gyro. So i am afraid i disagree.

Sneak Gyro is now barely better than Toss Elixir S, and without the invincibility skill included (instead it keeps having the most situational skill ever, an area reveal).Reasonable, eh. Oh, please, it's not even worth being called an elite skill. Should have scrapped it and made another skill anew, if they have to make it that weak.Sorry but 3sec per pulse for 6 pulses for a total of 18 sec stealth with the cooldown starting as soon as you popped gyro was ridiculous. By the time your stealth ran out you only needed to wait 27 sec to use its again. 9 sec of stealth is much more reasonable.

@Spartacus.3192 said:And yet one of the best WvW commanders on BG is tagging as a scrapper with Bulwark gyro. So i am afraid i disagree.

You're free to disagree. A skill that harms you (and eventually kills you) if allies you don't have any control of get hit it's still conceptually wrong. Especially since the old Bulwark didn't even work like that.

Sorry but 3sec per pulse for 6 pulses for a total of 18 sec stealth with the cooldown starting as soon as you popped gyro was ridiculous. By the time your stealth ran out you only needed to wait 27 sec to use its again. 9 sec of stealth is much more reasonable.

Not for an elite skill that already comes with a weak toolbelt. The stealth length is the only thing that elite skill offered (even that smoke field is useless, due to the cap of stealth stacks), and it still required the allies to stay near the scrapper for the initial duration.I'll repeat it again. It's barely better than Toss Elixir S now - a toolbelt (that can even have its cooldown reduced and duration slightly raised). And that comes with an invincibility skill, instead of an extremely situational reveal. Our elite skill is barely better than a toolbelt (actually, i guess they get around the same uptime now when Toss Elixir S is traited). But somehow it should make sense.

They should just have replaced the skill to start with.

@Spartacus.3192 said:And yet one of the best WvW commanders on BG is tagging as a scrapper with Bulwark gyro. So i am afraid i disagree.

Its good if you're careful with it, or if you run pistol/shield, but someone running hammer and is careless can get melted by activating it. Still, it's perfectly fine in smaller fights or if you just need superspeed on demand, like if you're herding golems, and the toolbelt ability remains one of the best for the profession.

Stealth duration nerf totally legit.

I loved scrapper before the gyro rework, and I'm loving it even more now.

For competitive the changes are OK. I am glad they did not copy/paste that stuff for PvE. Maybe the recent events had a positive side after all. From my understanding communication is way better, we get informed about stuff like the unidentified-gear-change, which will have a massive impact to everyone, BEFORE they patch it. Same was about the previous balance patch. The nerfs are addressed to the game-types, where they cause the most problems and not changed everywhere.

I really appreciate how it changed and I am looking forward to the next patches. With a little luck, we may even get some justice for Core next time.

@Manuhell.2759 said:

@Spartacus.3192 said:And yet one of the best WvW commanders on BG is tagging as a scrapper with Bulwark gyro. So i am afraid i disagree.

Sorry but 3sec per pulse for 6 pulses for a total of 18 sec stealth with the cooldown starting as soon as you popped gyro was ridiculous. By the time your stealth ran out you only needed to wait 27 sec to use its again. 9 sec of stealth is much more reasonable.

toss elixir s is boosted. its just way better than mesmers mass invis. and stealth gyro is still op, combo field makes it possbile for other subgroups to stack stealth, cd is rly low, cast time is rly low, and there is no penalty for leaving gyro field before it runs out

@"Safandula.8723" said:toss elixir s is boosted. its just way better than mesmers mass invis. and stealth gyro is still op, combo field makes it possbile for other subgroups to stack stealth, cd is rly low, cast time is rly low, and there is no penalty for leaving gyro field before it runs outMass Invisibility targets 10 people, though. And while the cooldown is a bit high, it can be reduced (and the duration slightly improved). And while the cast time is higher, the stealth is applied in a single pulse. Comparisons with other classes should always account for the different balancing of engineer utilities, though (as the lack of the second weapon must be made up via utilities and toolbelts). And the toolbelt of Sneak Gyro isn't especially impressive - it's probably the most situational skill in the game, if anything.And the smoke field is nothing impressive, and also unreliable in WvW (due to how finishers work). That subgroup stealth stacking may work if you do it before the battle, but surely not while already engaging (combo finishers work on the oldest field, and after engaging there won't be a lack of those) and it also means you spend part of the now already reduced duration to do so (could as well get a single thief for the squad, drop a single shadow refuge and avoid wasting all the finishers - that has no target limit anyway; or just use mesmers with Mass Invisibility, as the time you're wasting stealthing other subgroups already offsets the cast time and duration).

I'll repeat it again. The only thing Sneak Gyro offered as an elite was a long stealth to a small amount of people. If they wanted to change that, they should just have deleted the skill and give scrappers something else.Right now a traited Toss Elixir S has roughly the same uptime of stealth, with lower cast time and given in a single pulse. A traited toolbelt is outright better than an elite skill. And even if we were considering the untraited version, it still comes with an invincibility skill - something far more valuable than an extremely situational area reveal.There is nothing to debate about it, i've already presented all the data: Sneak Gyro is too weak to be considered an elite skill, and even utility skills can be comparable or outright better. Those are facts, there is no way to disagree about it.

Stealth being problematic in competitive modes is a different matter altogether. But making an elite skill functionally weak due to that makes no sense, it only means they shouldn't have designed an elite skill as an "long duration area stealth and nothing else" to begin with. It's the same reason why we ended up with a series of skill "designed to defend and protect an area" just to have them neutered at what they were supposed to do. Terrible ideas at design phase.So i'll just repeat it another time: toss this Sneak Gyro in the garbage bin it belongs and give some different elite. One that's an actual elite skill and won't see people in the PvP section complain, if possible.

I'll second the notions that Bulwark and Sneak needed more than number shaves. Sneak should never have been a long duration aoe stealth with no tell. Likewise, Bulwark is only balanced in small groups. It kills you if you if there are actually 5 allies nearby to soak up damage from. Their reworks of these two gyros fail at the design level and can't be truly fixed with number adjustments alone.

All good necessary changes. Scrapper is still going to be a go to WvW class boys, so relax.

It'll be fine. Sneak Gyro stealth was a bit too long for too little work. As long as finishers aren't bugged, you should be able to make up the lost 9s with 3 blasts or leaps - looking forward to testing this today.

I'm also going to enjoy not dying to Bulwark Gyro picking up random catapult damage.

@coro.3176 said:It'll be fine. Sneak Gyro stealth was a bit too long for too little work. As long as finishers aren't bugged, you should be able to make up the lost 9s with 3 blasts or leaps - looking forward to testing this today.

As it was stated earlier: you might be able to do the blast's in a group setting to start with, but once combat starts the fields will quickly be overwritten, etc and it becomes entirely reliable. Even stacking in a group, all it takes is 1 dingus using another field and it's nerfed. It is effectively just Toss Elixir S, with a situational smoke field, and a VERY situational pulse detection. IF they want to make it a worthwhile elite, they need to do something to make it better. Pulse detection as is is pretty laughable for anything beyond tiny group play. In large groups, it only hits 5, can be evaded and blocked, with only a 1200 range. Within that range, even if you reveal 1-5 people, you're already in attack range.

Again, since it's been stated a lot but maybe not read? In WvW/pvp, the nerfed version of sneak gyro makes it effectively marginally better than a toolbelt skill with it's own very situational and nearly useless toolbelt in WvW. It's been a problem with engi since the start: they introduce a new mechanic that forces people to counterplay, people QQ, they then nerf it to the point it's only marginally useful (anyone remember turret tossing? bomb heals?). At this point, they should just scrap Sneak Gyro and make a new Gyro that is actually worth an elite slot. Sneak gyro as is now would fit well for a utility slot instead of Elixir S.

Sneak gyro is now an alternative toss elixir S. LMAO. So much for an elite skill.

@Handin.4032 said:

@coro.3176 said:It'll be fine. Sneak Gyro stealth was a bit too long for too little work. As long as finishers aren't bugged, you should be able to make up the lost 9s with 3 blasts or leaps - looking forward to testing this today.

• Well, you still get 9s of stealth even with no blasts. That's more than enough to do a coordinated stealth burst with a group. If you want to blast for more, just make sure you have the gyro up before whatever dingus in your squad throws down their shitty guardian symbol. The oldest field takes priority, not the newest.
• It's still better than elixir S? Shorter cooldown, repeats 5x so you can hit someone and still get re-stealthed. The smoke field is for extending that stealth, which is something you probably don't want to do once you're actually IN combat.

I mean, I haven't tried it since the nerf, but on paper it still looks very playable.

@coro.3176 said:

• Well, you still get 9s of stealth even with no blasts. That's more than enough to do a coordinated stealth burst with a group. If you want to blast for more, just make sure you have the gyro up before whatever dingus in your squad throws down their kitten guardian symbol. The oldest field takes priority, not the newest.

You still hit the stack cap, so you end up overwriting some of the stacks. I've tested a bit and i haven't been able to bring it over 17 seconds, and that required 4 blast finishers. Of course, in an actual combat i wouldn't waste 4 blast finishers and an elite skill per party to do that, i would just use a different elite (as a matter of fact, that's what i do). And if i required all that setup i may as well ask a thief to drop a Shadow Refuge, since that has no target limit and would cover everyone (and gives more stealth than the gyro, even considering the time you have to spend in the refuge).

• It's still better than elixir S? Shorter cooldown, repeats 5x so you can hit someone and still get re-stealthed. The smoke field is for extending that stealth, which is something you probably don't want to do once you're actually IN combat.Toss Elixir S has the same cooldown or significantly lower when traited (plus a little increase in the duration). That's how it ends up having roughly the same uptime (it differs by 1s or so). And the invulnerability skill in addition, that's surely more useful than that 5-targets reveal.And sure, technically speaking you could hit someone and get restealthed...but given you have to wait for the 3s of reveal to go off, it would give you like 2 stacks, so 3 seconds of stealth. Hardly useful. Not that a scrapper would do much with a single hit to start with.I wouldn't say it's better than Elixir S, the traited toolbelt is already comparable; given the invulnerability skill it comes with, even the untraited version may still be better. And that we are even considering a comparison between an elite skill and an utility says enough about the lack of power of the elite skill.I'm still of the idea that they should just toss it away and create something different entirely.

I mean, from my perspective for roaming, it's still better in a lot of situations.

• It's a longer stealth - 9(up to 17?) seconds vs 5 ( or 6 traited). When juking groups of opponents a few seconds of longer stealth can be the difference between losing them and not when they're frantically spinning their cameras around waiting for me to pop up so they can jump me.
• It's a repeating stealth - so if I use it in a fight, it'll reapply to me and my allies (although not after the reveal window, as you say, but this was true pre-nerf as well). The repeating aspect can be helpful when allies are around and don't realize that you're about to stealth them. They might not get it on the first pulse, but they have a chance to notice by the last pulse. You can do something like: stealth yourself, run to a downed ally, start ressing them with function gyro and your own res while the repeating stealth hits all of you.
• Importantly, it takes up an elite slot! This is a feature, not a bug. Engineer's utility skills are better than our elite skills. In fact, if I had the option to run another utility skill instead of an elite, I'd take it for sure. You can run sneak gyro AND elixir S if you want, but if you just want the one stealth skill, that frees up a utility slot for something else, like a kit, gyro, or other elixir.

@coro.3176 said:I mean, from my perspective for roaming, it's still better in a lot of situations.

• It's a longer stealth - 9(up to 17?) seconds vs 5 ( or 6 traited). When juking groups of opponents a few seconds of longer stealth can be the difference between losing them and not when they're frantically spinning their cameras around waiting for me to pop up so they can jump me.That's true that for roaming you can get away a bit easier. Although, in the end, 9 seconds won't get you much better anyways, and I doubt you have 4 blast finishers to get to 17 ;) But yes, the stealth is longer.
• Importantly, it takes up an elite slot! This is a feature, not a bug. Engineer's utility skills are better than our elite skills. In fact, if I had the option to run another utility skill instead of an elite, I'd take it for sure. You can run sneak gyro AND elixir S if you want, but if you just want the one stealth skill, that frees up a utility slot for something else, like a kit, gyro, or other elixir.

I mean, isn't this kind of a problem? You're point is exactly my point. The sneak gyro operates effectively as just a good utility slot. Compared to many of the other professions/specializations (heck, even Prime light!) the sneak gyro when nerfed is quite underwhelming as an elite. At best, it's a 17 second stealth IF you're able to perfectly get off 4 blast finishers (which you likely don't have if it's just you, and in a group that is only likely when engaging). The toolbelt on it is basically useless in any group situation. Yes, it's a 'reveal', but it can also be blocked and evaded and has a small radius, and still only targets 5 people. I only use it for stripping off Aegis basically.

My point previous isn't that sneak gyro is useless, it's that it becomes very situational and is ultimately no where near as strong as many of the elites that are damage based. Compare Sneak Gyro to Prime for instance! Or compare it even to Supply Crate which has an absolutely amazing toolbelt skill. With the non-nerfed sneak gyro, it gave a good flexibly used alternative elite for a scrapper than just using supply crate. In any group WvW situation though, Sneak Gyro will at best be situationally better than supply crate. Heck, the Elixir X toss does the same thing, in practice, as the pulse.... As you said, it would be more worth it if they allowed us to take an additional utility skill instead. If they made improvements to Pulse so that it was actually useful, then it would be more worth it.

You think it's done?

Wait the next pvp season and the cries on the forum and you will see:Bulwark Gyro reduced barrier by 50%Medic Gyro healing reduced by 33%Sneak Gyro reduced to 1 second and only 3 pulses.Reconstruction Field: no longer grants protection but regeneration.

And other many things that will gut scrapper again into oblivion.Just wait and see.

I like the Change in the stealth gyro. You can still squeeze out more than 10s of stealth from it, which is enough to barely escape tricky situations. So in the end it Needs a bit more brain and reaction to get the full use out of it.

@coro.3176 said:

• It's a longer stealth - 9(up to 17?) seconds vs 5 ( or 6 traited). When juking groups of opponents a few seconds of longer stealth can be the difference between losing them and not when they're frantically spinning their cameras around waiting for me to pop up so they can jump me.

Yeah, but you still have to use up several blast finishers per party, on top of an elite skill. The skills you wasted to lengthen that stealth could as well have been used for fighting, they don't come for free. Or you could just have used another elite skill to start with.

• It's a repeating stealth - so if I use it in a fight, it'll reapply to me and my allies (although not after the reveal window, as you say, but this was true pre-nerf as well). The repeating aspect can be helpful when allies are around and don't realize that you're about to stealth them. They might not get it on the first pulse, but they have a chance to notice by the last pulse. You can do something like: stealth yourself, run to a downed ally, start ressing them with function gyro and your own res while the repeating stealth hits all of you.

The stealth duration given by the pulses was longer, though. If you end up there in the last pulses, you aren't gonna get much use from it (we're talking about few seconds, basically). Regarding the stealth+rez+function gyro, sure, i did try to do that in wvw back when i still used it. But since the mounts can instakill downed opponents and they don't need a target to do so, it doesn't always work that well.

• Importantly, it takes up an elite slot! This is a feature, not a bug. Engineer's utility skills are better than our elite skills. In fact, if I had the option to run another utility skill instead of an elite, I'd take it for sure. You can run sneak gyro AND elixir S if you want, but if you just want the one stealth skill, that frees up a utility slot for something else, like a kit, gyro, or other elixir.

I don't know if i have to laugh or cry at this statement.Of course utility skills are better than our elite skills - if they gut them like they did with the Sneak Gyro, it can't be otherwise.It's not a feature - you're just saying that our elites are terrible at being ones and you and the others feel like that is perfectly fine. Or even think it has to be like that, seeing the reaction to the patch - people applauding that an elite is now as good as an utility skill at best. If that's how people here react, no wonder they keep doing that.

An elite skill is not per-se intended to be "better" than a Utility skill. When GW2 was released, the elite skill was appraised as a "life saving" strong skill that can be used in pinch situations. Meanwhile all classes have a mixture of stronger or weaker skills, all with an "appropriate" cooldown. But for me, the sneak gyro is now exactly that: a way out of pinch situations. And it fits the engineer-comboing theme nicely as you can enhance the stealth by almost any weapon combination (except offhand pistol).

On top of it an elite skill's strength depends also on the available Utility skills. As engineer already has elixir s toolbelt stealth, it brings more variability to build Options/possibilities, but this was already mentioned above.

Still works for me. Here was some roaming last night:

@"Prinzsecond.4863" said:An elite skill is not per-se intended to be "better" than a Utility skill. When GW2 was released, the elite skill was appraised as a "life saving" strong skill that can be used in pinch situations. Meanwhile all classes have a mixture of stronger or weaker skills, all with an "appropriate" cooldown. But for me, the sneak gyro is now exactly that: a way out of pinch situations. And it fits the engineer-comboing theme nicely as you can enhance the stealth by almost any weapon combination (except offhand pistol).

Then i guess the Elixir S is even more elite, since it comes with two ways out of pinch situations in a single slot, an invulnerability and a stealth. Without any additional cooldown used on the engineer's part (those combo finishers don't come for free). And can even have a lower cooldown on the invisibility, with roughly the same uptime.And most of those weapon skills also inflict damage, so you risk to blow out your stealth in doing so. The shield doesn't, but...using magnetic inversion for that is kinda wasteful, in my opinion.

But most elites aren't even about giving ways out of pinch situations, anyway. Rather, they're just outright stronger than what an utility would usually do, either in amount of effects, application, uptime or a mixture of them. And Sneak Gyro is nothing special by now (even more so if we consider the combined effects of the skill and toolbelt).

On top of it an elite skill's strength depends also on the available Utility skills. As engineer already has elixir s toolbelt stealth, it brings more variability to build Options/possibilities, but this was already mentioned above.

No, it's just that our core elite skills happen to be underwhelming, for several reasons.Supply Crate itself is terrible, cause the turrets are useless. Essentially it's just a long cooldown area stun. I wouldn't bother with it if it wasn't for the toolbelt.Elixir X is a relic of its time (a skill used just to recycle other elites cause the engineer was like the last class they worked on). Being a random transformation out of two is terrible in itself, but at least the toolbelt is nice.Mortar is just mediocre, other kits are outright better. It could use a rework to put charges on some of the skills and adjust them, maybe. The toolbelt can be useful, though.Sneak Gyro was good for the single thing it did - a long stealth for small parties - but is now utterly mediocre, and the toolbelt is still bad as before.Is it still usable? Sure, sometimes it can help even if it stealths for far less time. But is it a good elite? No, it doesn't even qualify as one for what it does.

@Manuhell.2759 said:

@"Prinzsecond.4863" said:An elite skill is not per-se intended to be "better" than a Utility skill. When GW2 was released, the elite skill was appraised as a "life saving" strong skill that can be used in pinch situations. Meanwhile all classes have a mixture of stronger or weaker skills, all with an "appropriate" cooldown. But for me, the sneak gyro is now exactly that: a way out of pinch situations. And it fits the engineer-comboing theme nicely as you can enhance the stealth by almost any weapon combination (except offhand pistol).

On top of it an elite skill's strength depends also on the available Utility skills. As engineer already has elixir s toolbelt stealth, it brings more variability to build Options/possibilities, but this was already mentioned above.

Jeez, I don't know what your measurement of 'useless' is for core Engi elites, but Mortar and Elixir X I would not call useless. Mortar and Elixir X beat the hell out of all the Ele elites, for example, and definitely play a big part in PvP fights.