Balance patch preview - engi only

[Kontrolle.3514]

@Ghos.1326 said:

@"Kontrolle.3514" said:Why the cooldown nerfs on hammer and rifle?I mean damage is ok but increasing the cooldown of those skills will make power scrapper totally unviable anymore.Holo already got murdered for pvp why overnerfing rifle now? Other Classes do not get that treatment

This patch is destroying 90% of my roaming and zerg builds for all my classes.

Everything else is getting nerfed too. Not just Engineer.Scrapper won't be "unviable", it might actually be a bit better after the patch now that things that could still destroy it through its defenses will be nerfed to the point where it won't anymore.Rifle 3 pumping out a crazy 5k+ every 8s was, in my opinion, not very good for balancing. Everything everywhere did way too much damage. After this patch, that won't be the case.

jes damage wise, but the cooldown increases are mostly for engineer and ele, which is bad because DPS Gyro Scrapper has no weaponswap and usually no kits and kits are awful anyway for power builds. Sustain will also go down because of the lower barrier generation

[Ghos.1326]

@Kontrolle.3514 said:

@Ghos.1326 said:

@Kontrolle.3514 said:Why the cooldown nerfs on hammer and rifle?I mean damage is ok but increasing the cooldown of those skills will make power scrapper totally unviable anymore.Holo already got murdered for pvp why overnerfing rifle now? Other Classes do not get that treatment

This patch is destroying 90% of my roaming and zerg builds for all my classes.

Everything else is getting nerfed too. Not just Engineer.Scrapper won't be "unviable", it might actually be a bit better after the patch now that things that could still destroy it through its defenses will be nerfed to the point where it won't anymore.Rifle 3 pumping out a crazy 5k+ every 8s was, in my opinion, not very good for balancing. Everything everywhere did way too much damage. After this patch, that won't be the case.

jes damage wise, but the cooldown increases are mostly for engineer and ele, which is bad because DPS Gyro Scrapper has no weaponswap and usually no kits and kits are awful anyway for power builds. Sustain will also go down because of the lower barrier generation

Hammer autos are not getting nerfed too hard. It will still do pretty decent damage.Sustain going down for it won't be a bad thing necessarily either. We don't want it to be overpowered and then hit with a heavy second nerf.I still say, stick it out, and lets try it once it hits.

[Vagrant.7206]

@jaif.3518 said:I didn't see any damage nerfs to rifle turret or flame turret damage. If everybody's damage and healing goes down, and these stay the same, isn't that basically a buff?

Everything about these two is remaining the same, but that really isn't serving as a buff for the turrets. Have you seen how weak rifle turret is by itself? In PvE, it barely threatens normal mobs. It's not a threat to a player, and it will continue to not be a threat.

Flame turret might be threatening by itself if the ability to cleanse condis was also getting a nerf. But most classes are not getting serious nerfs to cleansing capabilities.

@insanemaniac.2456 said:

@Stand The Wall.6987 said:engi now has zero stab. I guess holos can always meme with the holo ranged trait lel.

So? All the cc skills get their power damage taken away. Getting chain cc'ed will no longer be a death sentence from those skills alone, and any particular uncleansed cc really only ensures the next hit. The cc skills are all so good and overused because they all do at least as much damage as an autoattack

and they also lock you into getting hit more

and that is the issue being addressed. This will create a choice between lockdown and damage, a choice that HoT, and PoF even more so, took away with their power and utility creep.

In a duel, yes, chain CC's are no longer a death sentence. But in teamfights, they still will be.

@"Tapps.1479" said:A few people said holo will be bad but I'm thinking prot holo might be our best spec. I know the stab loss is rough but cc is losing damage so chain cc wont be quite as deadly especially 1v1. We'll have to wait and see though. Personally I'm hoping core engi will be good in pvp, I miss having a range class.

Holo isn't dead yet. There are new synergies to explore with the changes to explosives. Even though the stability is gone, we have interaction with the explosives line through CC:Storm. Holo may end up being a midrange king for this reason.

The problem is that Holo is going to get ping-ponged in melee-range teamfights without stability. We won't be nearly as useful in a teamfight, but we should be able to pick out stragglers.

@Ovalkvadratcylinder.9365 said:Quick question.. Maybe it's a language barrier or I'm just overthinking this but: Overheat: Instead of disabling all toolbelt skills until all heat is lost, this skill now adds 15 seconds to the recharge of toolbelt skills other than Photon Forge. Photon Forge remains disabled until all heat is lost.

Does it prevent use of toolbelt skill when overheating for 15 seconds or does it allow use of toolbeltskills when overheating but, adds a 15sec cd?

edit: I guess it has to be that they allow use of toolbelt skills right? preventing use for 15sec wouldnt make any difference from preventing until all heat is lost.. right? I bet im overthinking this

Unfortunately the way it's written is not clear. My guess is that every skill not already on cooldown when you overheat will get 15s of cooldown, and those that are on cooldown will see 15s of cooldown added.

@Ghos.1326 said:

@"Kontrolle.3514" said:Why the cooldown nerfs on hammer and rifle?I mean damage is ok but increasing the cooldown of those skills will make power scrapper totally unviable anymore.Holo already got murdered for pvp why overnerfing rifle now? Other Classes do not get that treatment

This patch is destroying 90% of my roaming and zerg builds for all my classes.

Everything else is getting nerfed too. Not just Engineer.Scrapper won't be "unviable", it might actually be a bit better after the patch now that things that could still destroy it through its defenses will be nerfed to the point where it won't anymore.Rifle 3 pumping out a crazy 5k+ every 8s was, in my opinion, not very good for balancing. Everything everywhere did way too much damage. After this patch, that won't be the case.

Oh, scrapper is objectively worse. The damage decrease means a barrier decrease, and the cooldown increase means less ability to stick to targets, which was always scrapper's problem.

@Zexanima.7851 said:Like, I understand the changes and what they are going for and am not complaining but some of these are legit funny (in a haha kinda way, not sarcastic kind of way)

• Static Shock (AED Toolbelt): Reduced power coefficient from 1.0 to 0.01
• Rocket Turret: Reduced overcharge power coefficient from 2.75 to 0.01

Just random stuff like that. xD

All CC's got that treatment. It highlights how many CC's engineer has.

The thing that made me guffaw was the power damage nerf to pistol, as though that was doing too much damage. lol

[Kodama.6453]

@Vagrant.7206 said:All CC's got that treatment. It highlights how many CC's engineer has.

The thing is, is this kind of treatment really appropriate? Take Big Ol' Bomb, for example. Yes, this skill is an AoE hard CC and dealt huge damage. But it had other trade offs for this. The skill is delayed and heavily telegraphed. If all it does is giving you an AoE knockback now, then it seems the power budget just doesn't make this skill worth to take anymore. We have other knockbacks which are almost instant, what does Big Ol' Bomb offer compared to those?

[Zexanima.7851]

@Kodama.6453 said:

@Vagrant.7206 said:All CC's got that treatment. It highlights how many CC's engineer has.

The thing is, is this kind of treatment really appropriate? Take Big Ol' Bomb, for example. Yes, this skill is an AoE hard CC and dealt huge damage. But it had other trade offs for this. The skill is delayed and heavily telegraphed. If all it does is giving you an AoE knockback now, then it seems the power budget just doesn't make this skill worth to take anymore. We have other knockbacks which are almost instant, what does Big Ol' Bomb offer compared to those?

I agree. In this particular case they should have changed the CC on it to be much faster to compensate the damage loss at least

[Vagrant.7206]

@Kodama.6453 said:

@Vagrant.7206 said:All CC's got that treatment. It highlights how many CC's engineer has.

The thing is, is this kind of treatment really appropriate? Take Big Ol' Bomb, for example. Yes, this skill is an AoE hard CC and dealt huge damage. But it had other trade offs for this. The skill is delayed and heavily telegraphed. If all it does is giving you an AoE knockback now, then it seems the power budget just doesn't make this skill worth to take anymore. We have other knockbacks which are almost instant, what does Big Ol' Bomb offer compared to those?

Nothing, which is why I'm desperately hoping that the balance team will actually take the time to examine engineer's underperforming skills and come up with something better. Our core class has been ignored for a very long time, has aged poorly, and it really shows. We're going to need more explosives-traitline reworks for firearms (and explosives again. Why is the shorter fuse not made baseline? Why is grenadier not baseline? Why can you run faster than a mortar shot?). Turrets need to be examined, as do gadget skills, and some of the kits. Elixirs are one of the few sets of skills that have been ok for a long time.

Big Ol' Bomb and Rocket Turret overcharge are symptoms of a much larger problem with balance for engineer.

[ParadoX.3124]

@Hynax.9536 said:

@ParadoX.3124 said:-Explosive Temper (NEW): Explosions grant +20 stacking Ferocity for 10 seconds when they hit (10 stacks max)-Big Boomer(REWORK): Increases strike damage by 10% against foes with a lower health percent than the engineer. Additionally causes hitting with Explosion skills to heal the engineer over 3 seconds, 202 health per second. (This effect does not stack.)

These may place engi into one of the best DPS on raid / Fractals, it seems good. We might consider putting bomb kit for explosion on fire and smoke bomb to grant more Ferocity. We would gain a big CC skill which is not locked with Sword + ECSU. Since we have no stab anymore from corona burst, riffle won't be an option anymore for hard CC.

Considering that Explosive Temper will take the place of the old Big Boomer on DPS builds, we aren't exaclty getting 200 ferocity, just ~+50 since a full berserk character has ~3k power and the old Big Boomer gave 5% of your power as vit and ferocity (yeah we lost sustain to get a bit of damage). The sustain itself got a whole new trait (Blast Shield) that seems quite good for its job but gives 0 damage increase.

The new Big Boomer is the real jewel here as we are finally getting a decent GM Trait for power builds in Explosives, tho i dunno if the health regen compensates the sustain we lost from the old Big Boomer.

And yet... Crystal Configuration:Eclipse, i will miss u :'(

Well, we gain 10% damage boost which is approx 3K dps + more ferocity if 10 stacks .Sustain will be better with heat loss + new trait on explosion. We'll indeed have less HP but it will be covered by the new corona burst Trait with barrier. So overall good buff

[coro.3176]

It is weird how they're nerfing some already awful traits to be even worse. Like, at some point you might as well not even have a trait. Did anyone think about how much these traits were actually contributing in a fight before they went at them with the nerf stick?

Eg. in the Firearms line:

Sharpshooter: Reduced bleeding duration from 3 seconds to 1 second

So for reference, Sharpshooter is: 33% chance on crit, cause bleeding for 3s.

So if you crit, and if you get the sharpshooter proc (*~18-20% chance of this happening on a deadshot amulet) and* it's not cleansed, you're currently going to get a whopping 433 damage after factoring in expertise / condi duration extensions. If we multiply by the proc chance, that's about 86.7 damage per hit. That's .. really not good.

Cutting this to 1/3 of its current value is perplexing. It's barely doing anything now. After the patch, it'll be doing less than 1/3 of this. 28 dph? Twenty. Eight.

I'm more perplexed than anything. The fact that it's getting nerfed means someone looked at it and thought 87 dph was too much. What even?

[Vagrant.7206]

@coro.3176 said:It is weird how they're nerfing some already awful traits to be even worse. Like, at some point you might as well not even have a trait. Did anyone think about how much these traits were actually contributing in a fight before they went at them with the nerf stick?

Eg. in the Firearms line:

Sharpshooter: Reduced bleeding duration from 3 seconds to 1 second

So for reference, Sharpshooter is: 33% chance on crit, cause bleeding for 3s.

So

if you crit

, and

if you get the sharpshooter proc

(*

~18-20% chance of this happening on a deadshot amulet)

and* it's not cleansed, you're currently going to get a whopping 433 damage after factoring in expertise / condi duration extensions. If we multiply by the proc chance, that's about 86.7 damage per hit. That's .. really not good.

Cutting this to 1/3 of its current value is perplexing. It's barely doing anything

now

. After the patch, it'll be doing less than 1/3 of this. 28 dph? Twenty. Eight.

I'm more perplexed than anything. The fact that it's getting nerfed means someone looked at it and thought 87 dph was too much. What even?

I genuinely believe they just looked at all traits and skills that do condi, and across the board nerfed them, whether it was necessary or not.

[Stand The Wall.6987]

@coro.3176 said:It is weird how they're nerfing some already awful traits to be even worse.

its for this reason i'm very skeptical. even tho I feel overall its a step in the right direction with across the board damage nerfs I don't have any faith left in anet.

[Chaith.8256]

Scrapper looking fine.. Blanket nerfs, no real punishment.

Scrapper will be one of the best revive utilities going, in a less bursty meta that really favors a Scrapper.

[Dawdler.8521]

@Stand The Wall.6987 said:

@"coro.3176" said:It is weird how they're nerfing some already awful traits to be even worse.

its for this reason i'm very skeptical. even tho I feel overall its a step in the right direction with across the board damage nerfs I don't have any faith left in anet.Still, much of this depend on the strenght of other classes. We dont know yet what "strong" is until after the patch.

But yeah the condi changes for engie is actually a heavy nerf to a very narrow scope of specs thats not meta anywhere. They even slap incendiary powder on the nerf train, its basicly going to be useless after the patch because it makes no sense. They say they want to stop bursting so blowtorch gets half the stacks at twice the duration... ok... fine... then incendiary gets a third the burn duration boost and half the duration of its burn. Wait what?! You'll probably want to run modified ammo instead. Even with a pathetic amount of condis compared to other condi classes, that damage is prolly needed to weigh up the duration and stack loss even if its just 10% in total.

And I can assure you guards will still find a way to stack 5-10K burn ticks and Anet wont care.

[insanemaniac.2456]

@Vagrant.7206 said:

@insanemaniac.2456 said:

@Stand The Wall.6987 said:engi now has zero stab. I guess holos can always meme with the holo ranged trait lel.

So? All the cc skills get their power damage taken away. Getting chain cc'ed will no longer be a death sentence from those skills alone, and any particular uncleansed cc really only ensures the next hit. The cc skills are all so good and overused because they all do at least as much damage as an autoattack

and they also lock you into getting hit more

and that is the issue being addressed. This will create a choice between lockdown and damage, a choice that HoT, and PoF even more so, took away with their power and utility creep.

In a duel, yes, chain CC's are no longer a death sentence. But in teamfights, they still will be.

Trying to think of when engi has been an in-the-fray teamfighter. I mean photon forge is aoe and big plays; but it's targeted at dps not bruiser. And hammer didn't lose its stab and it's supposed to be bruiser, so there's one. Why should dps have stability? Why should dps have stability when bruisers and tanks need it to get their skills off and do anything because they are supposed to eat attacks and ccs, while dps should be an opportunist instead of facetanking to do big damage?

[crimsonvapor.1937]

@coro.3176 said:It is weird how they're nerfing some already awful traits to be even worse. Like, at some point you might as well not even have a trait. Did anyone think about how much these traits were actually contributing in a fight before they went at them with the nerf stick?

Eg. in the Firearms line:

Sharpshooter: Reduced bleeding duration from 3 seconds to 1 second

So for reference, Sharpshooter is: 33% chance on crit, cause bleeding for 3s.

So

if you crit

, and

if you get the sharpshooter proc

(*

~18-20% chance of this happening on a deadshot amulet)

and* it's not cleansed, you're currently going to get a whopping 433 damage after factoring in expertise / condi duration extensions. If we multiply by the proc chance, that's about 86.7 damage per hit. That's .. really not good.

Cutting this to 1/3 of its current value is perplexing. It's barely doing anything

now

. After the patch, it'll be doing less than 1/3 of this. 28 dph? Twenty. Eight.

I'm more perplexed than anything. The fact that it's getting nerfed means someone looked at it and thought 87 dph was too much. What even?

Can someone let me know if I'm reading this right.

Currently:

Necro

• Barbed Precision: 33% chance on crit to cause 2.5s of bleeding; Bleed duration increased by 20%

Engineer

• Sharpshooter: 33% chance on crit to cause 3s of bleeding
• Serrated Steel: Bleed duration increased by 33%

After balance:

Necro

• Barbed Precision: 33% chance on crit to cause 1s of bleeding; Bleed duration increased by 20%

Engineer

• Sharpshooter: 33% chance on crit to cause 1s of bleeding
• Serrated Steel: Bleed duration increased by 15%

Almost seems like 1 Necro trait does more than 2 Engi traits. Maybe we can just get a new minor trait and combine these two.

[Ghos.1326]

@Chaith.8256 said:Scrapper looking fine.. Blanket nerfs, no real punishment.

Scrapper will be one of the best revive utilities going, in a less bursty meta that really favors a Scrapper.

Yep. I'm calling it too. Less damage across all professions means Scrapper will be doing more of what it's supposed to be doing: being tanky/a duelist (bruiser to be exact).Scrapper's nerfs are not too bad at all, which is what I tried to explain earlier. The CD increases are a nerf too yes, but considering that, overall, damage period is nerfed, it means that barrier you gain from attacks will definitely matter much more.I'm excited to try out a new idea using the new Explosives trait line, and finally get away from Alchemy, even if it's just for testing purposes.

[Vagrant.7206]

@insanemaniac.2456 said:

@Vagrant.7206 said:

@insanemaniac.2456 said:

@Stand The Wall.6987 said:engi now has zero stab. I guess holos can always meme with the holo ranged trait lel.

So? All the cc skills get their power damage taken away. Getting chain cc'ed will no longer be a death sentence from those skills alone, and any particular uncleansed cc really only ensures the next hit. The cc skills are all so good and overused because they all do at least as much damage as an autoattack

and they also lock you into getting hit more

and that is the issue being addressed. This will create a choice between lockdown and damage, a choice that HoT, and PoF even more so, took away with their power and utility creep.

In a duel, yes, chain CC's are no longer a death sentence. But in teamfights, they still will be.

Trying to think of when engi has been an in-the-fray teamfighter. I mean photon forge is aoe and big plays; but it's targeted at dps not bruiser. And hammer didn't lose its stab and it's supposed to be bruiser, so there's one. Why should dps have stability? Why should dps have stability when bruisers and tanks need it to get their skills off and do anything because they are supposed to eat attacks and ccs, while dps should be an opportunist instead of facetanking to do big damage?

I haven't read the warrior nerfs yet, but I'm betting they didn't get most of their stability removed. Holosmith is an in-the-fray sort of spec, considering it's melee range and has no teleports or other form of instant escape strategy.

[Chaith.8256]

@Ghos.1326 said:Yep. I'm calling it too. Less damage across all professions means Scrapper will be doing more of what it's supposed to be doing: being tanky/a duelist (bruiser to be exact).Scrapper's nerfs are not too bad at all, which is what I tried to explain earlier. The CD increases are a nerf too yes, but considering that, overall, damage period is nerfed, it means that barrier you gain from attacks will definitely matter much more.I'm excited to try out a new idea using the new Explosives trait line, and finally get away from Alchemy, even if it's just for testing purposes.

Yeah, in a sustained damage meta, Scrapper will be much better off. A slower meta drags people onto points where Scrapper's damage will be hitting. This is way more important for Scrapper's performance, because as we know Scrapper has no way to apply its damage to people who aren't motivated to sit on an objective. It's an incredibly frustrating part of Scrapper design.

[zoopop.5630]

R.I.P Condi Holo/Core Engi

However the possiblity of a New Rifle holo build is upon us and Scrapper looking hella sexy now :)

[Chaith.8256]

@zoopop.5630 said:R.I.P Condi Holo/Core Engi

However the possiblity of a New Rifle holo build is upon us and Scrapper looking hella sexy now :)

Why RIP core Engi and Condi Holo? They got nerfed at the same rate as everyone else.

[crimsonvapor.1937]

@Chaith.8256 said:

@Ghos.1326 said:Yep. I'm calling it too. Less damage across all professions means Scrapper will be doing more of what it's supposed to be doing: being tanky/a duelist (bruiser to be exact).Scrapper's nerfs are not too bad at all, which is what I tried to explain earlier. The CD increases are a nerf too yes, but considering that, overall, damage period is nerfed, it means that barrier you gain from attacks will definitely matter much more.I'm excited to try out a new idea using the new Explosives trait line, and finally get away from Alchemy, even if it's just for testing purposes.

Yeah, in a sustained damage meta, Scrapper will be much better off. A slower meta drags people onto points where Scrapper's damage will be hitting. This is way more important for Scrapper's performance, because as we know Scrapper has no way to apply its damage to people who aren't motivated to sit on an objective. It's an incredibly frustrating part of Scrapper design.

I think you make very valid points, but how do you think Scrapper will perform in games with large capture points or in WvW?

[Chaith.8256]

@crimsonvapor.1937 said:I think you make very valid points, but how do you think Scrapper will perform in games with large capture points or in WvW?

It's a little more complicated than the size of the point, the Scrapper excels at downed state management - even if you're on graveyard, if your teammates are needing a fast revive and or you're able to cleave downed bodies, it's pretty useful!! If it's an extended elaborate dance around the Graveyard with no downs on either side, your presence there was pretty much wasted other than giving stability to someone who actually matters at that moment.

In WvW, I can't really say, maybe a Heal Scrapper will still thrive there? I'm not a WvWr

[bambi.6214]

@Chaith.8256 said:

@zoopop.5630 said:R.I.P Condi Holo/Core Engi

However the possiblity of a New Rifle holo build is upon us and Scrapper looking hella sexy now :)

Why RIP core Engi and Condi Holo? They got nerfed at the same rate as everyone else.

Yes, exactly. But condi engi is underperforming to begin with. They'r nerfing a bad build.

@Chaith.8256 said:In WvW, I can't really say, maybe a Heal Scrapper will still thrive there? I'm not a WvWrHeal scrapper will be much more important than it is now, I'd say they are making all support specs (scrapper, tempest, fb) equally powerful.

[Ovalkvadratcylinder.9365]

@crimsonvapor.1937 said:

@Chaith.8256 said:

@Ghos.1326 said:Yep. I'm calling it too. Less damage across all professions means Scrapper will be doing more of what it's supposed to be doing: being tanky/a duelist (bruiser to be exact).Scrapper's nerfs are not too bad at all, which is what I tried to explain earlier. The CD increases are a nerf too yes, but considering that, overall, damage period is nerfed, it means that barrier you gain from attacks will definitely matter much more.I'm excited to try out a new idea using the new Explosives trait line, and finally get away from Alchemy, even if it's just for testing purposes.

Yeah, in a sustained damage meta, Scrapper will be much better off. A slower meta drags people onto points where Scrapper's damage will be hitting. This is way more important for Scrapper's performance, because as we know Scrapper has no way to apply its damage to people who aren't motivated to sit on an objective. It's an incredibly frustrating part of Scrapper design.

I think you make very valid points, but how do you think Scrapper will perform in games with large capture points or in WvW?

support scrapper is gonna be strong in wvw for sure. especially since they never touched the cleanses and people might go for more condi

[insanemaniac.2456]

@Chaith.8256 said:In WvW, I can't really say, maybe a Heal Scrapper will still thrive there? I'm not a WvWrCc nerfs might be enough to relatively bring it up while roaming, just not with hammer (as usual)

[Dawdler.8521]

@Samug.6512 said:

@Chaith.8256 said:

@"zoopop.5630" said:R.I.P Condi Holo/Core Engi

However the possiblity of a New Rifle holo build is upon us and Scrapper looking hella sexy now :)

Why RIP core Engi and Condi Holo? They got nerfed at the same rate as everyone else.

Yes, exactly. But condi engi is underperforming to begin with. They'r nerfing a bad build.Problem is still how the playing field change as a whole with other classes, how they build. Even just the

impression

of strength is noticable after nerfs. Look at how many holos roam in WvW today. Not many. I cant even recall the last time I met a good one. Yet they are still considered to be the strongest engies.

Running with condi varies so much. I can meet a spellbreaker that stands no chance against me even with half the condi dmg, but I can also meet a spellbreaker that I literally stand no chance of ever beating on condi. Soulbeasts that die in one blowtorch because they have zero condi cleanse and soulbeasts that are completely immortal. Etc and so on with everything in between.

As long as the other classes nerfs bring down the "good" players to a level where I can still beat them with my own nerfs, it doesnt matter so much if the "bad" players are somewhat more matched.