Jump to content
  • Sign Up

Stay away from penalty traits..


LaFurion.3167

Recommended Posts

I think they should've gone with -300 Condition Damage, or something, instead of -300 Vitality. I wouldn't mind -300 Vit if this was necromancer or warrior but on engi/scrapper it's a bit much to lose, especially now that their other defenses are down so significantly. They can't even produce the DPS required to make a build relying on Impact Savant to be viable anywhere.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The -300 Vit could had worked IF, and this is a huge "IF", the Scrapper shifted that work load to the combined Barrier and Damage reduction. This is the same basic concept of the 55 Monk from GW1, where you scale down both your HP and the incoming damage. The % of your HP per hit is fairly close in scale, but the numbers of the Regen effect are more capable of outhealing those small damage scales.

But theres a problem.....The entire Stat system and how Barrier uses it. Back in early Core, the base value for most healing skills were tuned to roughly 35%-40% of the class's baseline HP but weak Healing Pwr scaling. This made it counter productive to take healing power unless the Trait line basically forced you to. When HOT released, Druid's base line healing for CA was strong enough that you didn't need to invest into healing power to get decent heals out of it. Seeing this as a problem, Anet systematically changed every healing skill to need roughly 300 Healing Pwr to be on-par pre-nerf, by lowering the base line, and changing the coefficient based on that assumption. This was a way to "encourage" investment into Healing Pwr.

Except... it didn't work. Their approach to increasing difficulty involved up-scaling Mob damage and HP to counter Glass Cannon builds. But the problem with this is in the math. Vit/Tou/Heal skill scale poorly in comparison to any of the damage stats; so any a serious investment into a tanky build will outright loose a battle of attrition against all but the most basic Mob fights. And since much of the skill math is focused around 1v1 Dueling, fights against groups of mobs quickly exhaust your active defenses. Because of the above, the Meta started to double down on Damage output, only affording the minimal amount of defense stats absolutely necessary to avoid being 1 shot. Its still universally safer to put down a mob as fast as possible. The only difference now is that it takes more then a single opening burst to accomplish this, ergo you have to devote even more of your traits and skills into damage without leaving yourself too vulnerable to mistakes or blind side hits.

So how does this affect barrier and scrapper? In order to make this work on paper, Scrapper would compound so fast on Healing Pwr, that they could Bunker entirely on their HP/Barrier pool without investing in Vit or Tou. Its a different arrangement then we've seen before.... but its still fundamentally broken for a single stat investment. In its current incarnation, it only sort of works in PvP (which is presumably the target balance), but is functionally underwhelming everywhere else due to the the thresholds its tuned for. Druid had this exact same problem after they nerfed CA's base line healing, that even taking the alternate trait that boosts Healing by +50% barely gets 5.3k HP between its 2 strongest healing skills. More over, the Support pet in Soulbeast has an AOE heal that not only has just over 4k HP base line, but scales 3 times better (overall) with Healing Power.

So the 3 following mistakes is what makes this not work overall.

  • Barrier is generated Offensively, based on damage. Ultimately this is what the intent was to reduce the scaling capacity of Bunker builds.
  • Making it based on damage, and removing synergy with Healing Power, while simultaneously lowering the Scrappers overall damage, creates a Stat allocation conflict.
  • Dividing the Damage and Defensive traits when the core of its defenses are now tied to offensive power.

It might sound good on paper... but when you actually start trying to build out based on this, the traits start to fight against each other's goals, rather then providing neatly defined build paths.

If I were to redesign it with a Barrier Focus, I would make the baseline mechanic Barrier Generation "per action" in nature (on strike, on hit, on skill use, etc) to create the assumption that they always have some amount of Barrier. And then build the GM Traits to use Barrier as a Resource (as a damage buff, damage reduction, or Shared barrier), the Master Trait to define a personal effect modifier (boon handling, CC handling, and condition handling), and the Adept a choice between Enhancing all Gyros, Enhancing all Field Combos, or Enhancing Barrier generation.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Another problem (which is where I initially thought you were going) is that Vitality determines your maximum amount of Barrier, so reducing Vitality also leads to reduced maximum Barrier. Now, you could argue that a scrapper is unlikely to reach its maximum barrier without outside assistance anyway, but it's another case of the penalty hurting the very thing that the elite specialisation is being forced into doing.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@draxynnic.3719 said:Another problem (which is where I initially thought you were going) is that Vitality determines your maximum amount of Barrier, so reducing Vitality also leads to reduced maximum Barrier. Now, you could argue that a scrapper is unlikely to reach its maximum barrier without outside assistance anyway, but it's another case of the penalty hurting the very thing that the elite specialisation is being forced into doing.

Except you gain barrier by actively playing and dealing dmg. Mostly while also taking dmg. So it pretty much doesn't matter.

  • Confused 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

@bluberblasen.9684 said:

@LaFurion.3167 said:I sincerely hope that arena net stays away from unavoidable minor traits that nerf your class. It's not fun.

for pve - agreefor pvp and wvw - disagree

Yup, I'd say it's perfectly justifiable in pvp/wvw and a good way to balance elite specs. And in pve who cares. Might as well leave it so people get used to it, but I don't really care.

  • Confused 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Aeolus.3615 said:

@Crab Fear.1624 said:penalty traits?

those are called trade-offs.

more to come.

Most players don’t want trade offs they want to be carried in whatever they pick...If a class isn’t broken won’t have a meta build, as will be automatically putted aside.

True, which doesn't mean those people are correct. I think that's what you mean here too, but at this point, I'm not really sure :D

  • Confused 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Sobx.1758 said:

@draxynnic.3719 said:Another problem (which is where I initially thought you were going) is that Vitality determines your maximum amount of Barrier, so reducing Vitality also leads to reduced maximum Barrier. Now, you could argue that a scrapper is unlikely to reach its maximum barrier without outside assistance
anyway,
but it's another case of the penalty hurting the very thing that the elite specialisation is being forced into doing.

Except you gain barrier by actively playing and dealing dmg. Mostly while also taking dmg. So it pretty much doesn't matter.

Except you don't deal enough damage with scrapper to make it worth it. The scrapper spec originally was designed as a lock down spec, which gave you time to deal damage. That was all removed. If you want to deal damage now, you go holosmith.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@"Chichimec.9364" said:Hmm, this is from the update notes - "These changes aim to refocus the scrapper as a tank-like character that utilizes personal barrier applications to stay in a fight." My scrapper was already a tank-like character. So refocusing the class on "personal barrier applications" was a deliberate nerf because it was too tanky? Ugh!

First they have this disclaimer for the 'çouldn't be more obvious ' ridiculous nerf :" These changes aim to refocus the scrapper as a tank-like character that utilizes personal barrier applications to stay in a fight. "

Then they swing the huge bat :" Impact Savant: ...... reduces vitality by 300. "

This is like saying " I love you guys! ", then pulls out a machine gun and pew, pew, pew, pew, pew.....

Very bad acting.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Mil.3562 said:

@"Chichimec.9364" said:Hmm, this is from the update notes - "These changes aim to refocus the scrapper as a tank-like character that utilizes personal barrier applications to stay in a fight." My scrapper was already a tank-like character. So refocusing the class on "personal barrier applications" was a deliberate nerf because it was too tanky? Ugh!

First they have this disclaimer for the 'çouldn't be more obvious ' ridiculous nerf :" These changes aim to refocus the scrapper as a tank-like character that utilizes personal barrier applications to stay in a fight. "

Then they swing the huge bat :" Impact Savant: ...... reduces vitality by 300. "

This is like saying " I love you guys! ", then pulls out a machine gun and pew, pew, pew, pew, pew.....

Very bad acting.

Nope, he's still literally supposed to utilize the barrier to stay in fight.

  • Confused 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think another problem for scrappers that this causes is that you get pigeon holed into playing hammer.

There are no MH power weapons for engineer, so if you don't want to gimp yourself, you can take rifle or hammer.

It's pretty dang lame, but this has been a problem with core engineer for a while now...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Sobx.1758 said:

@Mil.3562 said:

@"Chichimec.9364" said:Hmm, this is from the update notes - "These changes aim to refocus the scrapper as a tank-like character that utilizes personal barrier applications to stay in a fight." My scrapper was already a tank-like character. So refocusing the class on "personal barrier applications" was a deliberate nerf because it was too tanky? Ugh!

First they have this disclaimer for the 'çouldn't be more obvious ' ridiculous nerf :" These changes aim to refocus the scrapper as a tank-like character that utilizes personal barrier applications to stay in a fight. "

Then they swing the huge bat :" Impact Savant: ...... reduces vitality by 300. "

This is like saying " I love you guys! ", then pulls out a machine gun and pew, pew, pew, pew, pew.....

Very bad acting.

Nope, he's still literally supposed to utilize the barrier to stay in fight.

Patch has been out awhile now and there's still no good scrapper builds that utilize the "do damage for barrier" mechanic for fighting. That's because it isn't truly viable given what other core engineer traits and utilities can be paired with it so engineer players are using holosmith.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@"Sobx.1758" said:Yeah, beacuse "dealing dmg" is totally equivalent with topping dps/burst charts :+1:

No, it's because of Impact Savant. Less damage == less barrier. Hence, no good scrapper builds that rely on that concept currently.

"A percentage of the strike damage you deal is converted into barrier."

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Chaba.5410 said:

@"Sobx.1758" said:Yeah, beacuse "dealing dmg" is totally equivalent with topping dps/burst charts :+1:

No, it's because of Impact Savant. Less damage == less barrier. Hence, no good scrapper builds that rely on that concept currently.

"A percentage of the strike damage you deal is converted into barrier."

I know what it does, not sure why you're quoting that to me all of the sudden. And it's supposed to support the proactive playstyle in order to grant the sustain, hence the vit nerf. Also being able to dish out top dps while getting a free shield for doing so would be straight up broken.

  • Confused 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Sobx.1758 said:

@Sobx.1758 said:Yeah, beacuse "dealing dmg" is totally equivalent with topping dps/burst charts :+1:

No, it's because of Impact Savant. Less damage == less barrier. Hence, no good scrapper builds that rely on that concept currently.

"A percentage of the strike damage you deal is converted into barrier."

I know what it does, not sure why you're quoting that to me all of the sudden. And it's supposed to support the proactive playstyle in order to grant the sustain, hence the vit nerf. Also being able to dish out top dps while getting a free shield for doing so would be straight up broken.

Yes, something it is supposed to support but doesn't "given what other core engineer traits and utilities can be paired with it". You keep getting hung up on the top dps idea for some unknown reason when the issue is being able to dish out enough dps to get enough barrier. Hence, no good scrapper builds that rely on that concept currently.

I like that there's a drunk scrapper build being used in PvP (not a top tier build though - you'll find that for holosmith) since it is so similar to what I and many others used during scrapper's beta weekend - some things never change. It doesn't take any scrapper barrier traits except for the required Impact Savant. Again, not a build that relies on the concept of utilizing barrier to "stay in a fight". It relies on all utility of elixirs with elixir S as the real damage mitigation skill.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Chaba.5410 said:

@Sobx.1758 said:Yeah, beacuse "dealing dmg" is totally equivalent with topping dps/burst charts :+1:

No, it's because of Impact Savant. Less damage == less barrier. Hence, no good scrapper builds that rely on that concept currently.

"A percentage of the strike damage you deal is converted into barrier."

I know what it does, not sure why you're quoting that to me all of the sudden. And it's supposed to support the proactive playstyle in order to grant the sustain, hence the vit nerf. Also being able to dish out top dps while getting a free shield for doing so would be straight up broken.

Yes, something it is supposed to support but doesn't "given what other core engineer traits and utilities can be paired with it". You keep getting hung up on the top dps idea for some unknown reason when the issue is being able to dish out enough dps to get enough barrier. Hence, no good scrapper builds that rely on that concept currently.

I'm "getting hung up on the top dps idea"? You're the one that complains that "if you want to deal dmg, you pick holo1!111", so no, I'm not "getting hung up" on it, I'm just explaining to you why your justification is wrong. It also seems you just want to deal top dps while being close to unkillable because of the barrier that would obviously come along with it. It doesn't compete with holo dps, because it's not supposed to.Your whole argument revolves around "not enough dmg" and then you tell me I'm hung up on it? If I'm not supposed to keep addressing it, then stop writing about it. :D

  • Confused 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Sobx.1758 said:

@Sobx.1758 said:Yeah, beacuse "dealing dmg" is totally equivalent with topping dps/burst charts :+1:

No, it's because of Impact Savant. Less damage == less barrier. Hence, no good scrapper builds that rely on that concept currently.

"A percentage of the strike damage you deal is converted into barrier."

I know what it does, not sure why you're quoting that to me all of the sudden. And it's supposed to support the proactive playstyle in order to grant the sustain, hence the vit nerf. Also being able to dish out top dps while getting a free shield for doing so would be straight up broken.

Yes, something it is supposed to support but doesn't "given what other core engineer traits and utilities can be paired with it". You keep getting hung up on the top dps idea for some unknown reason when the issue is being able to dish out enough dps to get enough barrier. Hence, no good scrapper builds that rely on that concept currently.

I'm "getting hung up on the top dps idea"? You're the one that complains that "if you want to deal dmg, you pick holo1!111", so no, I'm not "getting hung up" on it, I'm just explaining to you why your justification is wrong. It also seems you just want to deal top dps while being close to unkillable because of the barrier that would obviously come along with it. It doesn't compete with holo dps, because it's not supposed to.Your whole argument revolves around "not enough dmg" and then you tell me I'm hung up on it? If I'm not supposed to keep addressing it, then stop writing about it. :D

I was responding to your main idea: "he's still literally supposed to utilize the barrier to stay in fight." That's wrong. There's no point fighting, "stay in the fight", bruiser builds being used.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Chaba.5410 said:

@Sobx.1758 said:Yeah, beacuse "dealing dmg" is totally equivalent with topping dps/burst charts :+1:

No, it's because of Impact Savant. Less damage == less barrier. Hence, no good scrapper builds that rely on that concept currently.

"A percentage of the strike damage you deal is converted into barrier."

I know what it does, not sure why you're quoting that to me all of the sudden. And it's supposed to support the proactive playstyle in order to grant the sustain, hence the vit nerf. Also being able to dish out top dps while getting a free shield for doing so would be straight up broken.

Yes, something it is supposed to support but doesn't "given what other core engineer traits and utilities can be paired with it". You keep getting hung up on the top dps idea for some unknown reason when the issue is being able to dish out enough dps to get enough barrier. Hence, no good scrapper builds that rely on that concept currently.

I'm "getting hung up on the top dps idea"? You're the one that complains that "if you want to deal dmg, you pick holo1!111", so no, I'm not "getting hung up" on it, I'm just explaining to you why your justification is wrong. It also seems you just want to deal top dps while being close to unkillable because of the barrier that would obviously come along with it. It doesn't compete with holo dps, because it's not supposed to.Your whole argument revolves around "not enough dmg" and then you tell me I'm hung up on it? If I'm not supposed to keep addressing it, then stop writing about it. :D

I was responding to your main idea: "he's still literally supposed to utilize the barrier to stay in fight." That's wrong. There's no point fighting, "stay in the fight", bruiser builds being used.

Nope, it's not wrong -that is perfectly accurate what he's supposed to do. Also -not trying to be snarky- I don't understand what exactly you did with your last sentence here.

  • Confused 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

@"Sobx.1758" said:

Here you go. Watch this post-patch video and try to find where dmg-for-barrier is being used to stay in a fight.

I like how he does a 5k jump shot on a player and gets 700 barrier which wasn't even needed. The most barrier he got in that video was 5k from hitting multiple clones with blunderbuss and it didn't really matter anyway because the opponent was retreating.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Sobx.1758 said:

@Sobx.1758 said:Yeah, beacuse "dealing dmg" is totally equivalent with topping dps/burst charts :+1:

No, it's because of Impact Savant. Less damage == less barrier. Hence, no good scrapper builds that rely on that concept currently.

"A percentage of the strike damage you deal is converted into barrier."

I know what it does, not sure why you're quoting that to me all of the sudden. And it's supposed to support the proactive playstyle in order to grant the sustain, hence the vit nerf. Also being able to dish out top dps while getting a free shield for doing so would be straight up broken.

Yes, something it is supposed to support but doesn't "given what other core engineer traits and utilities can be paired with it". You keep getting hung up on the top dps idea for some unknown reason when the issue is being able to dish out enough dps to get enough barrier. Hence, no good scrapper builds that rely on that concept currently.

I'm "getting hung up on the top dps idea"? You're the one that complains that "if you want to deal dmg, you pick holo1!111", so no, I'm not "getting hung up" on it, I'm just explaining to you why your justification is wrong. It also seems you just want to deal top dps while being close to unkillable because of the barrier that would obviously come along with it. It doesn't compete with holo dps, because it's not supposed to.Your whole argument revolves around "not enough dmg" and then you tell me I'm hung up on it? If I'm not supposed to keep addressing it, then stop writing about it. :D

I was responding to your main idea: "he's still literally supposed to utilize the barrier to stay in fight." That's wrong. There's no point fighting, "stay in the fight", bruiser builds being used.

I don't understand what exactly you did with your last sentence here.

Point fighting. Old scrapper bruiser builds were point fighters in PvP. They didn't do top dps. They were literally designed to "stay in the fight" on the node. Now engis are doing higher dmg/greater risk +1ing and roaming builds but the top build for that is on holosmith.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Chaba.5410 said:

@"Sobx.1758" said:

Here you go. Watch this post-patch video and try to find where dmg-for-barrier is being used to stay in a fight.

I don't see a reason to watch a random 11 minute video, so... nah, I'm fine.

I like how he does a 5k jump shot on a player and gets 700 barrier which wasn't even needed. The most barrier he got in that video was 5k from hitting multiple clones with blunderbuss and it didn't really matter anyway because the opponent was retreating.

I'm not sure how "getting a barrier when he didn't need it that time!" is relevant to anything said in this thread. Actually, I'm pretty sure it's not. Getting 5k barrier for hitting a skill is bad now? :lol: And again, just because the opponent was retreating it doesn't magically make the overall barrier gain irrelevant. If I charge malice on DE and the opponent will run away before I can unload on him, the malice system is suddenly worthless? What exactly is your argument here?

Also stop responding multiple times to the same post again.

  • Confused 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Here you go. Watch this post-patch video and try to find where dmg-for-barrier is being used to stay in a fight.

I don't see a reason to watch a random 11 minute video, so... nah, I'm fine.

I like how he does a 5k jump shot on a player and gets 700 barrier which wasn't even needed. The most barrier he got in that video was 5k from hitting multiple clones with blunderbuss and it didn't really matter anyway because the opponent was retreating.

I'm not sure how "getting a barrier when he didn't need it that time!" is relevant to anything said in this thread. Actually, I'm pretty sure it's not. Getting 5k barrier for hitting a skill is bad now? :lol: And again, just because the opponent was retreating it doesn't magically make the overall barrier gain irrelevant. If I charge malice on DE and the opponent will run away before I can unload on him, the malice system is suddenly worthless? What exactly is your argument here?

Also stop responding multiple times to the same post again.

If you're not willing to watch that video, then you have no facts. Just because something was designed to be used a certain way doesn't mean it's being used that way.

I'd much rather have a discussion about how players are actually using scrapper in relation to the latest version of the Impact Savant trait rather than a theory about what they're supposed to be doing. Your claim that someone "still literally supposed to utilize the barrier to stay in fight" is just theory. What can be seen from looking at online resources such as recommended builds and examining gameplay footage is that either the build isn't scrapper or the scrapper mechanic of dmg-for-barrier is completely incidental or outright ignored in the build. No one is thinking "gee I need some barrier to stay in this fight so I better do some dmg here".

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...