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Vagrant.7206

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Sneak Gyro isn't just the Gyro. It's also a smoke field, comes with the Detection Pulse Skill, and if traited it gives superspeed. I know that MI and Sneak Gyro are similar, but there's enough differences between the two to warrant mention. Besides, both are still good skills.

Personally I'm surprised that they increased the damage of shredder gyro. I was using it in extra damage in PVE for awhile now, and with this new change it is better than Laser Disk.

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@mortrialus.3062 said:

And Berserk is an Adrenaline Skill and requires three full bars of adrenaline to use and utilities to maintain. It's just just something they always have access to. Holosmith overheating isn't a concern for anyone who has played holosmith for more than a couple of minutes. It's probably been literal months since any holosmith has overheated that wasn't running Photonic Blasting Module.

Because they run builds with Thermal Release Valve, i guess? (as i said, i don't really care about PvP, so dunno which builds they use there). If they do so, it also means they're carefully limiting their photon forge skill use and using dodges to avoid overheating, so it becomes a matter of checks and balances.That said, even the Berserker is getting a grandmaster trait to negate the toughness malus - as Eternal Champion is getting that 300 toughness bonus to negate the in-built malus. So it's not like there is much of a difference there.

@Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:Sneak Gyro isn't just the Gyro. It's also a smoke field, comes with the Detection Pulse Skill, and if traited it gives superspeed. I know that MI and Sneak Gyro are similar, but there's enough differences between the two to warrant mention. Besides, both are still good skills.

The smoke field does nothing by itself and is nothing but clunky in wvw (due to how fields work, as it's not like we can put a priority, unfortunately). You don't even get the full duration of the stealth finishers due to the stealth stack caps, anyway, and you're still wasting part of the stealth duration while you do so - besides risking a reveal as many finishers deal damage as well.The toolbelt is part of the class mechanic (and the engineer gives up a second weapon set for it as a trade-off, the only class along with elementalists to do so...and even then, elementalists get multiple sets of weapon skills in exchange for the second set) and it's also one of the most situational skills of the game, and in wvw it doesn't help much anyway (using it is guesswork to begin with, if you don't see anything you cannot know instantly if it's because there is nothing there or if they dodged or blocked, and even if it hits something it is limited to 5 targets, so the rest of the squad is still at large...and either way, due to reaction times, it may even be useless to reveal them to begin with).Traited Mass Invisibility will give Super Speed as well (3s to 10 targets) and gives it instantly, unlike the delayed activation on the gyro.

The only thing that's better on the Sneak Gyro is the cast time, and even that is moot cause you're still have to stay near the scrapper for the whole next 5 seconds if you want the full stealth duration (and unlike MI, the radius is rather small). Mass Invisibility does everything with a single pulse, and at twice the targets.And if two skills have the same end result, but one does it faster, in a larger radius and with twice the targets, it's quite evident to see which is the better one.The untraited one is comparable, but still better due to the larger radius and instant application of the whole stealth duration. The traited version is far better.And yet people still complain about MI being worse, even where it isn't.

That said, i wonder what they plan to do with the tradeoffs, given the engineer already has a significant tradeoff to begin with, unlike other classes. Removing the elite toolbelt works with holosmith because it's a sort of a weapon, albeit with particular mechanics, but the scrapper elite mechanic is already in a particular spot (and by that i mean it's utterly useless in PvE - a lack to enemies to finish and not much to ress either - and any mid-large scale battle - as the function gyro dies all the time there). Some people wrote about removing the elite toolbelt and change the function gyro, but i don't think it may be remotely comparable to the Photon Forge even then.Maybe it would be better to give something to the core engineer instead, given that the core spec is quite lacking these days. No idea how though, since we already have 5F-skills. Something that happens when clicking on weapon swap, maybe? Well, gotta wait and see what they do.

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@Yannir.4132 said:Not sure what the point of the d*** measuring competition in this thread is.The patch brings Mass Invisibility and Sneak Gyro to a comparable level. Which one is slightly better or worse makes no difference in practice.Not to mention if we are talking about WvW any argument is redundant. Mesmers are inferior by default even with a good elite, chronos wont be allowed to have it because the well is too good for zerg cc and mirages wont be allowed in the zerg to begin with plus they prolly still pick jaunt instead.

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@Dawdler.8521 said:

@"Yannir.4132" said:Not sure what the point of the d*** measuring competition in this thread is.The patch brings Mass Invisibility and Sneak Gyro to a comparable level. Which one is slightly better or worse makes no difference in practice.Not to mention if we are talking about WvW any argument is redundant. Mesmers are inferior by default even with a good elite, chronos wont be allowed to have it because the well is too good for zerg cc and mirages wont be allowed in the zerg to begin with plus they prolly still pick jaunt instead.

The previous patch saw changes on the Sneak Gyro. People said it was too strong. It got nerfed. People still complain about it being strong. Now Mesmers get a skill that's better in almost every regard but 0.5s of cast time and 3s cooldown and with twice the targets (it doesn't matter what you may think about it, the math is there, it's a fact that it ends up being better). So either the Sneak Gyro is too weak for an elite (as i said before - but since the issue is with stealth itself, maybe a complete rework of the skill should be better) or it's MI that's too strong now (and yet i see no one else talking about it like people did with the Sneak Gyro). It's either one or the other.And before someone else comes out with "but it's traited", well, it still got similar amounts of total stealth and better usability even in the untraited version, and skills being traited never mattered when people complained about engineers skills before . Even in the last patch, people complained about barriers on scrappers even if we have Impact Savant making barriers stronger, so having barriers stronger than average should be perfectly warranted as the only spec with a trait to increase them (especially given that the skills does only that by itself and it comes with a damage share downside; it being badly designed for pvp is another issue entirely, as that is more about the design of the skill than the strength of the barrier itself...and it would be better served by a redesign, like making it give a small pulsing barrier to caster and allies instead, without the damage share). Even about the core engineers, elixirs are only good due to the traits involved...and yet i see no one saying that our elixirs should be good alone AND THEN have traits making them even better. But somehow MI doing that and ending up significantly better than our gyro is fine, funny how that works.So i'm just asking for some intellectual honesty here. Pick a way to judge balance and actually stick with it.

And other classes actually having decent alternative on their elites shouldn't be considered an issue with their skills either. What about making our elites actually worthwhile so we get decent alternatives as well, eh. Supply Crate is good only for the toolbelt, since the actual turrets are terrible...

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@Yannir.4132 said:Technically you can stealth up to 30 people with Sneak Gyro if you coordinate Blasting the field. So the whole 10-target argument is kinda weak.

Sure, wasting a lot of the squad's skills before an engagement sounds like an excellent plan, and it isn't like the already applied stealth is ticking down in the meantime.So since technically even the bomb kit can do smoke fields (and more!) and even comes with a blast finisher, i guess that's even better than MI. We are oh-so-lucky. Guess i'll go to my squad and take the main healer role with my water fields - after all, if everyone blasts them, they would heal a lot. Maybe that will be even a new raid meta.Or probably not. Because it's just stupid. What's the point of wasting a lot of skills to do what some other class can do with a single skill, and in a more straightforward way? Let's be serious here. Fields may be a nice added bonus, but in this case is meaningless.The skill already applies the stealth stack caps. You don't even get the full duration from the additional stacks from the blast/leap finishers. And most blast/leap finishers damage enemies. If you're engaging or have enemies near, that damage will end up revealing the user of the skill. It goes completely against the purpose of doing so. Whereas if you was using it before an engagement, you're wasting precious skills you may have used during the fight (to help with healing, for example, if the situation permits so). The good finishers come in limited number. Having many fields in a build doesn't make you a splendid all-in-one healer/buffer/stealther/cleanser. You're still limited by the amount of finishers you can deal - and using them only for the finisher is, quite often, a waste.

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@Manuhell.2759 said:

@Yannir.4132 said:Technically you can stealth up to 30 people with Sneak Gyro if you coordinate Blasting the field. So the whole 10-target argument is kinda weak.

Sure, wasting a lot of the squad's skills before an engagement sounds like an excellent plan, and it isn't like the already applied stealth is ticking down in the meantime.So since technically even the bomb kit can do smoke fields (and more!) and even comes with a blast finisher, i guess that's even better than MI. We are oh-so-lucky. Guess i'll go to my squad and take the main healer role with my water fields - after all, if everyone blasts them, they would heal a lot. Maybe that will be even a new raid meta.Or probably not. Because it's just stupid. What's the point of wasting a lot of skills to do what some other class can do with a single skill, and in a more straightforward way? Let's be serious here. Fields may be a nice added bonus, but in this case is meaningless.The skill already applies the stealth stack caps. You don't even get the full duration from the additional stacks from the blast/leap finishers. And most blast/leap finishers damage enemies. If you're engaging or have enemies near, that damage will end up revealing the user of the skill. It goes completely against the purpose of doing so. Whereas if you was using it before an engagement, you're wasting precious skills you may have used during the fight (to help with healing, for example, if the situation permits so). The good finishers come in limited number. Having many fields in a build doesn't make you a splendid all-in-one healer/buffer/stealther/cleanser. You're still limited by the amount of finishers you can deal - and using them only for the finisher is, quite often, a waste.

And just because MI is now as good as SG, mesmers are going to replace scrappers? What's the point of this argument exactly?

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@Yannir.4132 said:And just because MI is now as good as SG, mesmers are going to replace scrappers? What's the point of this argument exactly?The point is that after nerfing by half Sneak Gyro, they came out with a skill that deals the same amount of stealth at double the targets and with greater ease of use (thus a total amount comparable to the pre-nerf) and i don't see all those people that complained here to say how this skill should be nerfed ASAP. Thus either they were wrong before by complaining, they're wrong now by not doing so, or this skill will soon be heavily nerfed just how Sneak Gyro has been.Well, there is an alternative there too - they could say that traits don't count. But given that people complained about Bulwark too despite scrappers having a trait to increase barriers, it would be hypocritical for them to do so. Especially as it would be they should ask for a lot of engineer skills being heavily buffed, as things like elixirs or gadgets end up good only when investing traits. Guess they have to pick their poison, huh.

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@Manuhell.2759 said:

@"Blood Red Arachnid.2493" said:Sneak Gyro isn't just the Gyro. It's also a smoke field, comes with the Detection Pulse Skill, and if traited it gives superspeed. I know that MI and Sneak Gyro are similar, but there's enough differences between the two to warrant mention. Besides, both are still good skills.

The smoke field does nothing by itself and is nothing but clunky in wvw (due to how fields work, as it's not like we can put a priority, unfortunately). You don't even get the full duration of the stealth finishers due to the stealth stack caps, anyway, and you're still wasting part of the stealth duration while you do so - besides risking a reveal as many finishers deal damage as well.The toolbelt is part of the class mechanic (and the engineer gives up a second weapon set for it as a trade-off, the only class along with elementalists to do so...and even then, elementalists get multiple sets of weapon skills in exchange for the second set) and it's also one of the most situational skills of the game, and in wvw it doesn't help much anyway (using it is guesswork to begin with, if you don't see anything you cannot know instantly if it's because there is nothing there or if they dodged or blocked, and even if it hits something it is limited to 5 targets, so the rest of the squad is still at large...and either way, due to reaction times, it may even be useless to reveal them to begin with).Traited Mass Invisibility will give Super Speed as well (3s to 10 targets) and gives it instantly, unlike the delayed activation on the gyro.

The only thing that's better on the Sneak Gyro is the cast time, and even that is moot cause you're still have to stay near the scrapper for the whole next 5 seconds if you want the full stealth duration (and unlike MI, the radius is rather small). Mass Invisibility does everything with a single pulse, and at twice the targets.And if two skills have the same end result, but one does it faster, in a larger radius and with twice the targets, it's quite evident to see which is the better one.The untraited one is comparable, but still better due to the larger radius and instant application of the whole stealth duration. The traited version is far better.And yet people still complain about MI being worse, even where it isn't.

That said, i wonder what they plan to do with the tradeoffs, given the engineer already has a significant tradeoff to begin with, unlike other classes. Removing the elite toolbelt works with holosmith because it's a sort of a weapon, albeit with particular mechanics, but the scrapper elite mechanic is already in a particular spot (and by that i mean it's utterly useless in PvE - a lack to enemies to finish and not much to ress either - and any mid-large scale battle - as the function gyro dies all the time there). Some people wrote about removing the elite toolbelt and change the function gyro, but i don't think it may be remotely comparable to the Photon Forge even then.Maybe it would be better to give something to the core engineer instead, given that the core spec is quite lacking these days. No idea how though, since we already have 5F-skills. Something that happens when clicking on weapon swap, maybe? Well, gotta wait and see what they do.

Look, here's how facts work. If you want to contest something, you have to invoke the law of non-contradiction. That is, you have to bring forth a fact that necessarily cannot exist with the assertion you wish to disagree with. That... is not what you've done here. Let me show you.

The smoke field does nothing by itself

Irrelevant. This does not contradict what I have said.

and is nothing but clunky in wvw (due to how fields work, as it's not like we can put a priority, unfortunately)

This is an opinion.

You don't even get the full duration of the stealth finishers due to the stealth stack caps

Irrelevant. This does not contradict what I have said.

you're still wasting part of the stealth duration while you do so

Irrelevant. This does not contradict what I have said.

besides risking a reveal as many finishers deal damage as well.

Then don't be incompetent with the finishers.

The sum of this paragraph is pure feelings. "I don't like how smoke fields feel, so I don't feel like it should count." Moving on to the next one.

The toolbelt is part of the class mechanic (and the engineer gives up a second weapon set for it as a trade-off, the only class along with elementalists to do so...and even then, elementalists get multiple sets of weapon skills in exchange for the second set)

It's called the fallacy of irrelevance. You're pulling random, unrelated things in to a discussion to try and bolster your feelings on the matter. You might as well complain that engineers are ugly looking, because it has an equal amount of impact to what I said as what you've said here.

and it's also one of the most situational skills of the game

Irrelevant. This does not contradict what I've said.

and in wvw it doesn't help much anyway (using it is guesswork to begin with, if you don't see anything you cannot know instantly if it's because there is nothing there or if they dodged or blocked, and even if it hits something it is limited to 5 targets, so the rest of the squad is still at large...and either way, due to reaction times, it may even be useless to reveal them to begin with).

This is predicated wholly on being incompetent.

Traited Mass Invisibility will give Super Speed as well (3s to 10 targets) and gives it instantly, unlike the delayed activation on the gyro.

The only thing that's better on the Sneak Gyro is the cast time

See, this is an example of a proper contradiction. You say that activation time sucks, then immediately say that activation time is an advantage. These cannot be true at the same time.

I'll abbreviate it here, because I don't want to spend all day. The short of it is this: you have nothing. You're irate over your own envy, and are hoping that if you nitpick enough you'll actually build to a coherent point. But, that's not how facts work. Your feelings are strictly a you issue. You aren't convincing anyone here. You're just wasting our time. The best advice I can give you is this: don't be led around by your feelings. Temper your emotions, and let logic dictate your actions.

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@Elmo Benchwarmer.3025 said:I'm patiently waiting for the day when ArenaNet figures out that Holosmith has no tradeoffs. :#

Until then, I'm glad the studio finally acknowledged that something is amiss. Hopefully the team keeps it up.

I can see the argument for not enough trade-off, but it has 2 obvious trade offs:

  • Overheating is a purely negative drawback that Core doesn't have to worry about when they're going about their business. This is like the Berserker losing 300 toughness.
  • Holosmith loses the Toolbelt half of their Elite skills.

???

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@"Blood Red Arachnid.2493" said:cut

There is no contradiction, since the first sentence was about super speed activation - delayed on the gyro, as the trait acts at the end of the well, so right on the middle of the stealth duration, and right after the cast with MI. Whereas the second sentence was about the cast time - 0.75s versus 1.25s, and indeed Sneak Gyro is better in that regard.And then you brought out the toolbelt - part of our class mechanic - and then say it's irrilevant to point that out (showing your lack of knowledge about this class - if you just sum up skills and toolbelts in a comparison to equate with other classes' skills, then we're missing the "power" of the weapon set we trade off for the toolbelt and part of the "power" given by the class mechanic , and thus it wouldn't be balanced at all).And you even had to contest how the skill is badly designed in putting a smoke field we can't even properly use well by calling my considerations "irrilevant" , heh.Guess it is indeed a waste of my time, as you don't even know what you're writing about. And since you ignore hard facts, it is indeed useless to keep discussing.

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@Yannir.4132 said:

@Yannir.4132 said:Technically you can stealth up to 30 people with Sneak Gyro if you coordinate Blasting the field. So the whole 10-target argument is kinda weak.

You could do that with core engi.

Sure. That's kinda irrelevant though if we're just comparing MI and SG.

Not really. If you're saying the smoke field is what makes it powerful... then core could always do that.

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@Chaith.8256 said:

@Elmo Benchwarmer.3025 said:I'm patiently waiting for the day when ArenaNet figures out that Holosmith has no tradeoffs. :#

Until then, I'm glad the studio finally acknowledged that something is amiss. Hopefully the team keeps it up.

I can see the argument for not enough trade-off, but it has 2 obvious trade offs:
  • Overheating is a purely negative drawback that Core doesn't have to worry about when they're going about their business. This is like the Berserker losing 300 toughness.
  • Holosmith loses the Toolbelt half of their Elite skills.

???

Also you are also locked out of using other kits for 6 sec when using it, so you trade the access to kit skills and flexibility that you have with core when you choose Holosmith.

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@Don Vega Van Kain.9842 said:Engi have the lowest base main weapons in the game due to kits.

It's been a logical decision Before HOT (and elite spec.) , now, it's a disadvantage. They have to rework kits after the gyro and after, we can talk about nerfing anything in the profession.

I disagree with your second point. Engineer has been at a disadvantage since launch because of kits and the lack of a weapon swap. It's only when holosmith was introduced that we got a solution to this.

Kits definitely need a rework. They should have been a profession mechanic from the start. I say remove two toolbelt skills, F1 and F5 (then shift the slots around if needed) and make them kit slots. Then give scrapper an F5 ability/kit. This way both scrapper and holosmith gain meaningful tradeoffs.

Core also lacks two utility types since they have 5 skills instead of 4 per family. To normalize engineer they should remove underperforming skills like flame turret and elixir C, then add toss mine to it's own family (Traps). Next add a 5th uitility type. Glyphs for example could have a different effect based on the equipped kit/weapon.

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Then what do you want to compare it to? The people here making comparisons are doing so for the purpose of competitive modes. It's relevant there, particularly in PvP where there's limited slots on a team. It's also relevant as was mentioned when it comes to group utility.

I agree. Stealth is dumb. All stealth is dumb.

What does a Ranger, a long-distance archer class, need with a stealth shot on longbow, or stealth that comes from shifting in and out of Celestial form?

What does a Mesmer need stealth for? When they're about summoning illusions or phantasms - and have more abilities to be lost as a target in combat without stealth via summonings? Why are Mesmers capable of inflicting any significant damage in combat when it's all fake? But never mind that. That's an argument for another day.

What does a thief need stealth for? For the sake of lore, if they're pickpockets that's a matter of slight of hand. If they're second-storey burglars they rely on cover of night, and the nimbleness of a tumbler to not be detected as they get in and out of a home. If they're riflemen they'd have to shoot from behind a blind, or employ camouflage by way of a ghillie suit. Neither of which would allow them to blend in once combat's been initiated and an opponent knows where they are.

Why should anyone capable of laying a trap skill have access to stealth? One could argue that laying a trap more skillfully would hide or obscure the location of the trap from an enemy- not the location of the person setting the snare.

But the people making this game want stealth, no matter how broken that is, and so stealth, in all its many forms, whether that's the pseudo magic of Rangers, Mesmers, and Thieves or that of the Engineer, which is based in technology, have a place here.

Sneak Gyro, apart from the weak implementation of elixir S and trying to blast smoke bomb is the only significant, usable -because it isn't ground targeted or activated instantly as the result of using an attack skill- source of Stealth for the profession. It's also locked behind an elite profession, Scrapper. Until such time as stealth is completely removed from the game Sneak Gyro should be every bit as capable as the abilities of other professions -those also not sold as solely stealth professions- employing stealth.

There was nothing wrong with the new implementation of sneak Gyro before it was nerfed. It required coordination on the part of other players, not to mention a lack of latency, to be used for masking groups. Even if it was seen by players of other professions as overdone, why should that have mattered?

And if it was seen by the devs, 'They Who In Their Infinite Wisdom Never Test,' to be overdone then we should all mark the date down for posterity because otherwise they couldn't give a toss what happens to this profession nor what passes in this forum.

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@Zex Anthon.8673 said:

@Don Vega Van Kain.9842 said:Engi have the lowest base main weapons in the game due to kits.

It's been a logical decision Before HOT (and elite spec.) , now, it's a disadvantage. They have to rework kits after the gyro and after, we can talk about nerfing anything in the profession.

I disagree with your second point. Engineer has been at a disadvantage since launch because of kits and the lack of a weapon swap. It's only when holosmith was introduced that we got a solution to this.

Kits definitely need a rework. They should have been a profession mechanic from the start. I say remove two toolbelt skills, F1 and F5 (then shift the slots around if needed) and make them kit slots. Then give scrapper an F5 ability/kit. This way both scrapper and holosmith gain meaningful tradeoffs.

Core also lacks two utility types since they have 5 skills instead of 4 per family. To normalize engineer they should remove underperforming skills like flame turret and elixir C, then add toss mine to it's own family (Traps). Next add a 5th uitility type. Glyphs for example could have a different effect based on the equipped kit/weapon.

To be particularly nitpicky, engineers have been on top of the meta a few times in the past. The engis didn't get a lot of buffs early on because Grouch was in charge of balancing them, and he was really good at playing the engineer. Ostricheggs was infamous with them, too. In particular, there were two core builds that became OP after awhile: the Drunk Engi, and the Turret Engi. Drunk Engi was so good that Anet introduced boon hate to deal with them. The turret engi could reliably 1v1 every other class on a point, because the CC and damage they could output was insane. Both of these were core builds.

Kit swapping isn't as cut and dry as advantage or disadvantage. The engineer gives up its weapon swap, sure, but its kit swapping effectively is a no-cooldown weapon swap, from which the engineer can choose 3 different kits to swap to at any time.

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@mortrialus.3062 said:

Fatal Frenzy: This trait no longer gives boons. Instead, while in berserk mode, this trait reduces toughness by 300

Throw this on one of the Holosmith Minors, too.

While I'm not against it in general, you need to consider that Holosmiths already get a penalty when it comes to using Kits.

That berserker minor trait also gives bonuses, though. Funny how he wanted holos to get only the toughness reduction and not all the other stats. Here is the full description.

Fatal Frenzy: This trait no longer gives boons. Instead, while in berserk mode, this trait reduces toughness by 300, increases power by 300, and increases condition damage by 300.

uZEju2r.png

You already have a trait that provides better levels of damage with Photon Forge interaction.

Berserker is going to get a 20% damage mod in berserk, friend.

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