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Upcoming Engineer Balance Changes


Vagrant.7206

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@Naxos.2503 said:As a main condi holo, this balance patch will be particularly bitter to swallow. I cant for the life of me understand why they'd prevent us from using Toolbelt, when it's essentially our way to bridge cooldowns on a class that cannot switch to another weapon, and has very ineffective kits. Change Grenade kit to a normal projectile skill instead of a ground target skill if you're going to ruin rotations like that... What are holos supposed to use for 20 seconds during overheat once all their weapon skills hit cooldown ?

it was a PVP / mostly WVW nerf.was not needed in PVEin WvW Holo are the best class - so maybe make this WvW only

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@Naxos.2503 said:

@Naxos.2503 said:As a main condi holo, this balance patch will be particularly bitter to swallow. I cant for the life of me understand why they'd prevent us from using Toolbelt, when it's essentially our way to bridge cooldowns on a class that cannot switch to another weapon, and has very ineffective kits. Change Grenade kit to a normal projectile skill instead of a ground target skill if you're going to ruin rotations like that... What are holos supposed to use for 20 seconds during overheat once all their weapon skills hit cooldown ?

Guess it's time to devolve to the core version? Yikes

Perish the thought. It would be a sad outcome, Holo has a few rather good Burn skills that supplement core condi really well. I'd hate to leave behind a spec I grew to love, but I will if it comes to that, as I'm sure many others will.Look at the bright side, at least you're not a condi scrapper...

Ugh I've been trying to let this sink in and just realize more and more its absolute gutted the condi scrapper roamer. The only redeeming thing would be if impact savant is on condi dmg as well... But I think we all know its not. When they say "strike" they mean power damage.

Which means the condi scrapper is deleted.

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I hate how these balance patch notes always drop while I'm in the middle of fibro fog. It's hard to have sound judgement when you can't remember where you are for half the time. So far, I really don't like these changes. I'll highlight a few of them.

Overload: Overloading now disables all toolbelt skills for its duration.

This poorly written change right here has killed power holosmith. Out of curiosity, I decided to see how long it took once blowing up before you could activate forge again. It is 16 seconds. That's how long it takes. No grenade barrage. No Toss Elixir S. No Surprise Shot. No Blade Burst. No Prismatic Singularity. All of the extra damage and defenses of the toolbelt skills gone for 16 seconds.

At 31k DPS, the power holosmith was struggling for relevance. This was even worse for sword builds. Enhanced Capacity Storage Unit doesn't help this, because instead of taking 16 seconds to cool down it takes 24. The rate of cooldown doesn't scale with the bar, so you'll be locked out of photon forge for a long amount of time waiting for it to cool down.

Blowtorch: This skill now applies 4 stacks of burning that scales dynamically between 3 and 6 seconds based on distance from the target. This skill now scales damage dynamically based on distance rather than using distance thresholds.

I like thresholds. They're clinical. Easy to see, easy to understand. More importantly, they're forgiving. But Dynamic Scaling? In order to do maximum damage, you'll have to be at 0 range. I'm not sure why Anet decided to lightly nerf so many skills by making them dynamic.

Scrapper—Function Gyro: While scrapper specialization is equipped, this skill now occupies the F5 slot. Recharge has been increased to 30 seconds. This skill trait is now ground targeted at a range of 600 and creates a lightning field at the target point with a radius of 180. Within this radius, it spawns up to 6 function gyros targeting up to 3 enemies and/or 3 allies. Enemies are finished while allies are revived. This skill's recharge is increased by 50% for each function gyro spawned beyond the first.

This is a nerf disguised as a buff. For anyone referencing this in the future, currently Function Gyro is a 900 range skill with a 10 second recharge that rezzes whatever you target. The ability to rez or finish multiple people at once is rarely going to come into play. First, the range is incredibly small, so the chances that multiple people will be downed in one spot is pretty low. Second, this change isn't significantly stronger, because either rezzing one player in that area or downing one enemy will have nearly the same affect as doing both simultaneously. Your friend stands up, finishes the bad guy, and you both walk away. The lightning field is just fluff; there's no use that the downed have for a lightning field.

Overall, we lose the elite toolbelt skill for a shorter range, longer cooldown rez skill with a whole lot of fluff.

Impact Savant: This trait no longer increases damage while you have barrier. Instead it converts 15% of all outgoing strike damage into barrier and reduces vitality by 300.

A little bit of math: to compensate for the 3000 lost health, you'll have to do 3000/0.15 = 20,000 damage in a fight. That's to break even. This isn't much of an issue for a PVE scrapper, but in PVP and WvW this is more health than what most enemies have. This is also assuming that you win the fight, because you'll have to live long enough to do that amount of damage.

It's a nerf. This is a convoluted and complicated nerf. Worst part is, scrapper's can't opt out of this trait, because it is a minor trait. Due to the wording, I'm not sure if it generates barrier from nowhere, or if it steals 15% of your damage away to gain barrier.

Gyroscopic Acceleration: This new trait causes wells to give superspeed when they end and increases well radius. Additionally, it causes your function gyro skill to give superspeed in an area when cast.

This is replacing Shocking Speed, which has been split into two traits. Half of it is in the minor, and the other half is here. The added functionality is that the gyro gives superspeed, which is completely useless. A downed ally does not benefit from superspeed. The irony of all this is that Gyroscopic Acceleration + Speed of Synergy is worse than taking Shocking Speed + Decisive Renown.

So... another nerf.

System Shocker: This new trait causes your function gyro to inflict daze in an area for 0.5 seconds when cast. Improves effectiveness of all lightning field finishers by 50%.

Why. Seriously, why. The only good thing that comes from a lightning field is the daze on leap. Everything else they do is pretty meaningless. The short daze will not help to rez or finish people, nor does it make the gyro a legitimate offensive skill. A little side note: all of these "increase stun by X" abilities are useless in PVE. Break Bar damage doesn't scale dynamically with the effectiveness of your crowd control. It is a static but hidden attribute of the skill. So, if this trait increases the daze from 1 to 1.5 seconds, it will still only do 100 Break Bar damage.

Mass Momentum: This trait has been moved to the adept tier. It no longer grants power based on toughness. Instead it causes your function gyro to grant stability in an area when cast in addition to causing stability to pulse might.

They nerfed this skill, too. They removed the damage bonus. Again, stability is of no use to the downed. This trait will be taken by default, because all of the other traits in the adept tier are so bad.

I see what anet is trying to do here. They're trying to give the function gyro dual functionality by letting it do something additional (super speed, daze, stability). This sounds good in theory, but in practice it means that the gyro is just terrible at multiple things instead of one thing, and you'll end up blowing your cooldown on stability when you need a rez shortly after. I'm not blowing my heal skill on a 0.5 second daze or a few seconds of super speed. It's an utter waste.

Damage Dampener: This new trait causes 20% of all damage dealt to you to be dealt after a 2-second delay from the initial strike. In PvE only, the damage delay is increased to 33%.

Anet has invented a trait who's sole function is to be annoying. This provides NO STATISTICAL ADVANTAGE! YOU'RE STILL TAKING THE SAME AMOUNT OF DAMAGE! I'm assuming that this trait exists for people who are bad at barrier, so they can slather some on their bodies and negate 20% of the big hit they just ate. So, instead of using barrier preemptively, you can use barriers reactively at 20% effectiveness.

This trait is utterly terrible.

Object in Motion: This new trait increases outgoing damage by 5% if you have swiftness, superspeed, or stability. Each boon increases the bonus damage by 5%, up to a maximum of 15% if you have all three.

Maintaining all 3 is impossible. Superspeed isn't a boon, so it only lasts for short bursts. You'll get a single swing of the auto attack before this wears off. Stability is a bit easier, but because it stacks in intensity, you'll only get minor buffs for a very short amount of time. Ironically, holosmith scrapper is also pretty bad at giving itself swiftness. This is here to replace perfectly weighted, which gave a 10% boost overall to all hammer skills. Instead, we get an inconsistent 5% buff that occasionally raises to 10% if the planets align. It's... pretty bad overall, but nonetheless will be taken because the other traits in this line are 100% useless, and 50% useless.

Adaptive Armor: This trait no longer gives barrier when struck. Instead, it increases the barrier received by 15%, in addition to reducing condition damage by 20% while you have a barrier.

So they merged Impact Savant and Adaptive Armor into Adaptive Armor, but no more damage bonus or autonomous defenses. Overall, a pretty big nerf.

Kinetic Stabilizers: This trait is no longer triggered by Function Gyro. Instead it increases the duration of stuns and daze effects by 25%. It also grants stability and superspeed when disabling a foe.

The stun and daze duration is useless, because it is only for a small fraction of a second, and it does no additional damage to break bars. If the duration of a stun increase is less time than it takes to launch an attack, then effectively it made 0 contribution to the fight. I mean, really, what fight has been decided by a quarter of a second of daze? Is there any evidence of this happening anywhere? Likewise, the superspeed and stability are pretty useless, because you're already in range to disable an enemy and they can't counter-cc you because they're disabled.

Applied Force: In addition to its previous effects, this trait now also grants +200 power while you have quickness. It now grants quickness when at or above 10 stacks of might rather than only when above 10 stacks. Fixed various bugs that could cause inconsistent trigger behavior.

This trait was buffed, but not to the degree that the damage was nerfed from this class. Instead of having a 10% damage bonus from perfectly weighted, 100 additional power from Mass Momentum, and an inconsistent 5% from Impact Savant, we now have an inconsistent 200 power bonus and an inconsistent 5-15% power modifier, which will sit at 5% for the majority of its use. Getting stability on evasion for Perfectly Weighted was actually pretty good, because it meant rocket charge couldn't be as easily interrupted, and it provided extra defense for when you need it. But now, that utility is also lost.

I'm sorry, but why is Anet gutting this profession? All of these traits are bad, and one of them is so bad it makes me actively avoid the class just to not have it. DPS scrapper was a joke before, and after this patch it is no longer funny. The only optimum build to play after this is the condi holosmith, which has a hair-pulling level of difficulty to play. I can't even get half of the DPS of that build.

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@Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

Overload: Overloading now disables all toolbelt skills for its duration.

This poorly written change right here has killed power holosmith. Out of curiosity, I decided to see how long it took once blowing up before you could activate forge again. It is 16 seconds. That's how long it takes. No grenade barrage. No Toss Elixir S. No Surprise Shot. No Blade Burst. No Prismatic Singularity. All of the extra damage and defenses of the toolbelt skills gone for 16 seconds.

Not only that, but during Samarog CC phase and Matthias sacrifice... we cannot help CC at all if we've overheated LOL

If were taking too much damage, we can't use our F1 at all.

We can't use Superspeed,Toss Elixir U, Toss Elixir S, Toss Elixir R to run/hide/res from mobs once we've overheated.

We can't use our Prismatic Singularity pull if we've overheated and lots of adds/mobs are attacking us LOL

We can't use anything. It killed the spec as a whole.

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Why is ArenaNet doing this? It's like they don't even talk to the players about the classes we're playing.

I was one of the few stubbornly clinging to Scrapper in pve. They've just gutted it even further.

The disguised nerf to function gyro. I loved being able to res people in fractals etc every 10s. It gave me a role. Now it's too long of a cd.

Also what is this mandatory -300 vitality? I would understand if it was optional in a trait but making it mandatory is too much. This was always one of my favourite elite specs as to me it truly encompassed that engineer feeling. But you've just gone and made a terrible elite spec worse.

Rapid regen was fine in pve. The ticks are so low it's laughable. This is just a pvp nerf leaking out into the pve part of the game... Just keep them separate.

The few times I did wvw detection pulse was really good. What is this trend of removing people's skills? The chrono just lost their f5 and now us with our detection pulse that is one of the only few reveals in the game.

I've invested so much into my engi this past year and it breaks my heart to see what they're doing to it.

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I've got the sinking feeling Engineer's gonna get thrown out of the airlock when doing raids and high tier fractals, just due to how big of a DPS shortage they'll experience, ontop of the already impractical skill executions. As someone who wish Engineer was a more played class, this is heartwrenching.

And you STILL haven't buffed Turrets for Tybalt's sake !

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@Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

Object in MotionMaintaining all 3 is impossible. Superspeed isn't a boon, so it only lasts for short bursts. You'll get a single swing of the auto attack before this wears off. Stability is a bit easier, but because it stacks in intensity, you'll only get minor buffs for a very short amount of time. Ironically, holosmith scrapper is also pretty bad at giving itself swiftness. This is here to replace perfectly weighted, which gave a 10% boost overall to all hammer skills. Instead, we get an inconsistent 5% buff that occasionally raises to 10% if the planets align. It's... pretty bad overall, but nonetheless will be taken because the other traits in this line are 100% useless, and 50% useless.

Kinetic Stabilizers:The stun and daze duration is useless, because it is only for a small fraction of a second, and it does no additional damage to break bars. If the duration of a stun increase is less time than it takes to launch an attack, then effectively it made 0 contribution to the fight. I mean, really, what fight has been decided by a quarter of a second of daze? Is there any evidence of this happening anywhere? Likewise, the superspeed and stability are pretty useless, because you're already in range to disable an enemy and they can't counter-cc you because they're disabled.

Playing at Plat 2- Plat 3 with only Scrapper showed me that the other 4~ other scrapper mains (Excluding those FoTM MetaBattle Prot-Scrappers) all ran Kinetic Stabilizers in PvP/WvW due to the massive Stability stacking it provided. If you're running Throw Mines with Tools (Gadgeteer for double mines) thats already a potential 10 stability, 3 seconds of superspeed (Due to SS not stacking) on a 12 second cooldown. Running AED for the toolbelt and Elixir X was also a boon due to to 0 second ICD the trait had. The bonus 10% damage was also a bonus for having a stability up-time, but I don't see it coming to the next patch due to Anet's philosophy with Scrapper.

As for this next iteration, seeing OiM is a light in this horrific patch. With the new Minor that grants Superspeed on ANY leap and blast finisher would keep you at max speed during combat whilst providing the extra 5% damage. Getting swiftness can be obtained by running Med-kit for the 5 (An extremely underrated skill), Purity of Purpose with the Condi-cleanse that core-engi provides and through streamlined kits. As stated before, the amount of Stability up-time that possible allows the 15% damage to be consistent enough to provide pressure or kill-power when traited.

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The negative 300 Vitality is a show stopper for me. Its such an arbitrary change and a real turnoff for the spec.

Its a shame because I love this spec because of the bruiser aspect coupled with the versatility of the kits and tool belt. What I'm not clear on is if the tool belt is going away by just being a scrapper or does it go away with the usage of a skill? If someone could enlighten me on that I would appreciate it.

Overall just very upsetting balance changes.

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For zerg fights there were two buffs hidden within all those nerfs.

  1. was it a big problem to actually put the function gyro down on allies/enemies with too many players around. A keybind "next downed ally" would have fixed it, but ground targeting also works. Would be great, if the function-gyros would be single-target wells as well. For stomping that would be too OP, though.So, compared to the old function gyro, this was a great buff. loosing all F5 skills is not worth it, though. Now invisibility is becoming much stronger. Indirect buff to sneak gyro.
  2. All blast finishers grant AoE-superspeed independent of the field. Since medipack-5, EG-4 and Shield-4 are blasts, this is pretty neat. hammer-3 is now single-target superspeed, though. However, also independent, so for roaming it's also a buff. We usually run shield+overshield, so for us it's not tragic. ^^

The heal and cleanse output seems to be mostly unaffected. Rapid regeneration was something like 600hps at superspeed, 200hps at speed (on single target), so it's only a small nerv regarding heal output. with field independence, Superspeed output is more reliable and thus uptime probably higher.

I only fear for the sustain. using applied force and cleric with 3k less HP and without rapid-regen will probably be a Problem.The 20% 2s delay might help counter-heal bombs, though.

So, if the actual traits will not be unexpectedly off, I expect healscrapper's position in zergs being rather encouraged. The required skill will increase, though, because of the decreased defense/sustain.I guess a common choice will be "Gyroscopic Acceleration", "Damage Dampener" and "Applied Force". Public builds will probably use full minstrel.

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@Dediggefedde.4961 said:The heal and cleanse output seems to be mostly unaffected. Rapid regeneration was something like 600hps at superspeed, 200hps at speed (on single target), so it's only a small nerv regarding heal output. with field independence, Superspeed output is more reliable and thus uptime probably higher.What do you mean small nerf lol? Rapid regen trait is deleted.

Damage dampener does nothing except delay some damage by 2s and then applies it anyway, its quite literally the most ridiculous trait in the history of GW2.

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Regarding Scrapper:I generally like that Scrapper is more streamlined regarding superspeed now. The only thing left to do is to make superspeed stack in duration up to 3 times so that running around with superspeed 24/7 becomes part of the class feeling instead of still having to time everything around it.The other changes to Scrapper are very questionable as they almost delete the Scrapper traitline from WvW:It's impossible to control superspeed output in Zerg for stacked running and on the healbuild the sustain the scrapper line used to give is entirely gone and even lowered through the loss of vitality. Might just run tools over scrapper now to gain access to the elite turret F5 and stuff.

The changes to the function gyro are not enough as long as the function gyro is still shitty targetable npc that is killed off easily. The benefits from the traits are not enough to make this really a defining and worthwhile class mechanic. The effects from the traits would need to target 10 players and the recharge would also need to be lower.

Granted with the built-in defense scrapper gains from Impact Savant in PvE it means that Scrapper will never be buffed to reach competitive damage values to run off Holo's spot as the go-to DPS spec for Raids and Fractals. At the same time, it does not have the tools to make Impact Savant worthwhile in WvW. Scrapper is basically getting reduced to a snowballing PvP-Bruiser spec that is easier to kill the better you are at dodging its damage and vice versa. Not convinced.

I think Anet succeeded in making scrapper feel like a more distinct spec but they completely failed at giving the spec a place in the metagames of WvW and PvE.

Regarding Holo:As already mentioned, the change to the toolbelts being locked by Overheating is completely stupid. In PvP/WvW you're as good as dead if you overheat anyway so I'm not complaining too much here but in PvE it just reduces build options when running the blasting module instead of being an actual tradeoff. As a result the Sword+Tools raid dps build is dead of course although I think there was also a non-overheating variant with the 150% heat trait.Laser's Edge scaling with heat and multiplicatively sounds somewhat interesting and might put Holo DPS back up there depending on what the actual numbers are. Can't really tell if that's a good or bad thing yet.Overall the changes make the other two grandmaster traits more competitive in PvE but the way this is achieved just feels crippling.In my opinion Holo was in a good spot in PvP after the Stability nerfs for Corona Burst and I can't see how it could have been considered problematic anywhere else. If anything was problematic, then the underperforming alternatives on the engineer side, core and scrapper.

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@Vagrant.7206 said:

  • Hip shot nerf is beyond comprehension. It was the only skill on rifle that tracked targets, and almost all other classes get skills that track. Now, people will be able to strafe left and right and avoid rifle even more.

This bug fix is fine. What "almost all other classes" have
auto attack
fast moving projectiles that track? Also it pierces and is the highest damage Rifle auto attack out of the 3 Rifle users. Your outrage at this is beyond comprehension.

  1. It wasn't a bug.
  2. It was an autoattack. None of our 2-5 skills had tracking.
  3. It has significantly less range and doesn't travel as fast as longbow arrows. The damage isn't out of this world -- it's plinking damage.

Yes, it was an autoattack, which is why I specifically mentioned auto attack in my reply. Are you aware that almost zero (if not actually zero) other professions have 1-5 projectile skills that track?

It certainly says it was a bug in the patch notes, and I'm far more inclined to believe the game developers over a typical player in that regard. You can have the bug back as soon as they give the same bug to Warriors and Deadeyes, okay?
  1. Actually, they do. The difference is in how they track. I was bored so I messed around with some golems in the PvP lobby. Longbow arrows fly farther and faster than rifle projectiles do, and they can be way off-target and still count as a hit. Rifle projectiles don't get that luxury, but it seemed like engineer rifle had less forgiveness compared to warrior rifle. I didn't bother with deadeye rifle, so I leave that decision to you.Actually no, they don't. Engi rifle only has 1 skill that can compare to the 1 thru 5 skills of Warrior and DE Rifle and that's the auto attack (I believe Overcharged Shot projectile speed is
    much
    faster) - which makes the
    engi
    the one that has a far more forgiving skill because, before the upcoming patch, it tracks. Ranger longbow arrows fire faster. Warrior and DH do not. Further? Yes, but nobody was disputing that. Contrary to your claim, rifle shots are actually
    more
    reliable in terms of hitting strafing targets than Warrior and DH longbow.
  2. Yes, but they also called the net shot firing backwards a bug.
    . I'm not sure I trust their track record on "bugs"Sure, net shot release notes have been contradictory. But it is not comparable to Hip Shot, as no other rifle attacks worked like that, and they have no previous notes regarding this. I am discussing Hip Shot, not Net Shot
  3. So your method of balance is "If I can't have it, nobody can?" Strange policy, but you do you.What is your reasoning that one auto attack should have this, while the other two cannot? I guarantee it's not anything better than my request for uniform mechanics.
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@Turk.5460 said:

  • Hip shot nerf is beyond comprehension. It was the only skill on rifle that tracked targets, and almost all other classes get skills that track. Now, people will be able to strafe left and right and avoid rifle even more.

This bug fix is fine. What "almost all other classes" have
auto attack
fast moving projectiles that track? Also it pierces and is the highest damage Rifle auto attack out of the 3 Rifle users. Your outrage at this is beyond comprehension.

  1. It wasn't a bug.
  2. It was an autoattack. None of our 2-5 skills had tracking.
  3. It has significantly less range and doesn't travel as fast as longbow arrows. The damage isn't out of this world -- it's plinking damage.

Yes, it was an autoattack, which is why I specifically mentioned auto attack in my reply. Are you aware that almost zero (if not actually zero) other professions have 1-5 projectile skills that track?

It certainly says it was a bug in the patch notes, and I'm far more inclined to believe the game developers over a typical player in that regard. You can have the bug back as soon as they give the same bug to Warriors and Deadeyes, okay?
  1. Actually, they do. The difference is in how they track. I was bored so I messed around with some golems in the PvP lobby. Longbow arrows fly farther and faster than rifle projectiles do, and they can be way off-target and still count as a hit. Rifle projectiles don't get that luxury, but it seemed like engineer rifle had less forgiveness compared to warrior rifle. I didn't bother with deadeye rifle, so I leave that decision to you.Actually no, they don't. Engi rifle only has 1 skill that can compare to the 1 thru 5 skills of Warrior and DE Rifle and that's the auto attack (I believe Overcharged Shot projectile speed is
    much
    faster) - which makes the
    engi
    the one that has a far more forgiving skill because, before the upcoming patch, it tracks. Ranger longbow arrows fire faster. Warrior and DH do not. Further? Yes, but nobody was disputing that. Contrary to your claim, rifle shots are actually
    more
    reliable in terms of hitting strafing targets than Warrior and DH longbow.
  2. Yes, but they also called the net shot firing backwards a bug.
    . I'm not sure I trust their track record on "bugs"Sure, net shot release notes have been contradictory. But it is not comparable to Hip Shot, as no other rifle attacks worked like that, and they have no previous notes regarding this. I am discussing Hip Shot, not Net Shot
  3. So your method of balance is "If I can't have it, nobody can?" Strange policy, but you do you.What is your reasoning that one auto attack should have this, while the other two cannot? I guarantee it's not anything better than my request for uniform mechanics.

Congratulations, you've won an internet! I'm not sure what you're arguing with me about, or why it's such a big deal to you. So I'm just going to leave this here.

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@Naxos.2503 said:

@Naxos.2503 said:As a main condi holo, this balance patch will be particularly bitter to swallow. I cant for the life of me understand why they'd prevent us from using Toolbelt, when it's essentially our way to bridge cooldowns on a class that cannot switch to another weapon, and has very ineffective kits. Change Grenade kit to a normal projectile skill instead of a ground target skill if you're going to ruin rotations like that... What are holos supposed to use for 20 seconds during overheat once all their weapon skills hit cooldown ?

Guess it's time to devolve to the core version? Yikes

Perish the thought. It would be a sad outcome, Holo has a few rather good Burn skills that supplement core condi really well. I'd hate to leave behind a spec I grew to love, but I will if it comes to that, as I'm sure many others will.

What condi Holo Build are you running that makes you overheat 100% of the time?

I would think you'd want to avoid overheating at ALL TIMES unless you were trying to go all in for a win....?

Personally, the changes are interesting. I can't speak to how bad or good they are until I test it. I have learned to manage my heat when using Holo now so the overheat change doesn't bother me (and I use ECSU trait as well). The Scrapper change makes me think there will be only one major way of playing bunker Scrapper if they do not allow condi damage to tick up the Barrier count.

I'm taking the wait and see approach.

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@Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:I hate how these balance patch notes always drop while I'm in the middle of fibro fog. It's hard to have sound judgement when you can't remember where you are for half the time. So far, I really don't like these changes. I'll highlight a few of them.

Overload: Overloading now disables all toolbelt skills for its duration.

This poorly written change right here has killed power holosmith. Out of curiosity, I decided to see how long it took once blowing up before you could activate forge again. It is 16 seconds. That's how long it takes. No grenade barrage. No Toss Elixir S. No Surprise Shot. No Blade Burst. No Prismatic Singularity. All of the extra damage and defenses of the toolbelt skills gone for 16 seconds.

In PvE, I can understand that but in PvP, that change shouldn't be a problem. Regardless of whether this change was there or not, the last thing you want to do is overload because Shockwave is on such a short cooldown that it is beneficial for you NOT to overload.

Scrapper—Function Gyro: While scrapper specialization is equipped, this skill now occupies the F5 slot. Recharge has been increased to 30 seconds. This skill trait is now ground targeted at a range of 600 and creates a lightning field at the target point with a radius of 180. Within this radius, it spawns up to 6 function gyros targeting up to 3 enemies and/or 3 allies. Enemies are finished while allies are revived. This skill's recharge is increased by 50% for each function gyro spawned beyond the first.

This is a nerf disguised as a buff. For anyone referencing this in the future, currently Function Gyro is a
900
range skill with a
10 second recharge
that rezzes
whatever you target.
The ability to rez or finish multiple people at once is rarely going to come into play. First, the range is incredibly small, so the chances that multiple people will be downed in one spot is pretty low. Second, this change isn't significantly stronger, because either rezzing one player in that area or downing one enemy will have nearly the same affect as doing both simultaneously. Your friend stands up, finishes the bad guy, and you both walk away. The lightning field is just fluff; there's no use that the downed have for a lightning field.

The lightning field when combined with leap skills cause daze. At the right time, at the right moment in a PvP match YES, a .25s daze can make a difference. Trust me, you should see some of the clutch moments I have had the pleasure of recording, it is incredible how close some moments are.

Damage Dampener: This new trait causes 20% of all damage dealt to you to be dealt after a 2-second delay from the initial strike. In PvE only, the damage delay is increased to 33%.

Anet has invented a trait who's sole function is to be annoying. This provides NO STATISTICAL ADVANTAGE! YOU'RE STILL TAKING THE SAME AMOUNT OF DAMAGE! I'm assuming that this trait exists for people who are bad at barrier, so they can slather some on their bodies and negate 20% of the big hit they just ate. So, instead of using barrier preemptively, you can use barriers reactively at 20% effectiveness.This trait is utterly terrible.

This may actually prove to be the strongest trait especially against burst classes. Especially if backstab D/P thieves come back. Being able to react and heal or even block damage because it takes a 2 second delay to ALL hit you?... come on man. Why are you hating on everything?

Maintaining all 3 is impossible. Superspeed isn't a boon, so it only lasts for short bursts. You'll get a single swing of the auto attack before this wears off. Stability is a bit easier, but because it stacks in intensity, you'll only get minor buffs for a very short amount of time. Ironically, holosmith scrapper is also pretty bad at giving itself swiftness. This is here to replace perfectly weighted, which gave a 10% boost overall to all hammer skills. Instead, we get an inconsistent 5% buff that occasionally raises to 10% if the planets align. It's... pretty bad overall, but nonetheless will be taken because the other traits in this line are 100% useless, and 50% useless.

Why do you seem to be intentionally difficult? Sure you can maintain all 3 if you really wanted to. Combine all the leap finishers/blast finishers and you technically have near infinite superspeed then just take 1 trait in tools with a kit and you definitely have infinite swiftness and take one trait in Firearms and you got near infinite stab. GG

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@Dirame.8521 said:

@Naxos.2503 said:As a main condi holo, this balance patch will be particularly bitter to swallow. I cant for the life of me understand why they'd prevent us from using Toolbelt, when it's essentially our way to bridge cooldowns on a class that cannot switch to another weapon, and has very ineffective kits. Change Grenade kit to a normal projectile skill instead of a ground target skill if you're going to ruin rotations like that... What are holos supposed to use for 20 seconds during overheat once all their weapon skills hit cooldown ?

Guess it's time to devolve to the core version? Yikes

Perish the thought. It would be a sad outcome, Holo has a few rather good Burn skills that supplement core condi really well. I'd hate to leave behind a spec I grew to love, but I will if it comes to that, as I'm sure many others will.

What condi Holo Build are you running that makes you overheat 100% of the time?

I would think you'd want to avoid overheating at ALL TIMES unless you were trying to go all in for a win....?

Personally, the changes are interesting. I can't speak to how bad or good they are until I test it. I have learned to manage my heat when using Holo now so the overheat change doesn't bother me (and I use ECSU trait as well). The Scrapper change makes me think there will be only one major way of playing bunker Scrapper if they do not allow condi damage to tick up the Barrier count.

I'm taking the wait and see approach.

Meta condi builds run solar focusing lens and photonic blasting module.

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@Vagrant.7206 said:

@Naxos.2503 said:As a main condi holo, this balance patch will be particularly bitter to swallow. I cant for the life of me understand why they'd prevent us from using Toolbelt, when it's essentially our way to bridge cooldowns on a class that cannot switch to another weapon, and has very ineffective kits. Change Grenade kit to a normal projectile skill instead of a ground target skill if you're going to ruin rotations like that... What are holos supposed to use for 20 seconds during overheat once all their weapon skills hit cooldown ?

Guess it's time to devolve to the core version? Yikes

Perish the thought. It would be a sad outcome, Holo has a few rather good Burn skills that supplement core condi really well. I'd hate to leave behind a spec I grew to love, but I will if it comes to that, as I'm sure many others will.

What condi Holo Build are you running that makes you overheat 100% of the time?

I would think you'd want to avoid overheating at ALL TIMES unless you were trying to go all in for a win....?

Personally, the changes are interesting. I can't speak to how bad or good they are until I test it. I have learned to manage my heat when using Holo now so the overheat change doesn't bother me (and I use ECSU trait as well). The Scrapper change makes me think there will be only one major way of playing bunker Scrapper if they do not allow condi damage to tick up the Barrier count.

I'm taking the wait and see approach.

Meta condi builds run
and
.

For PvE or PvP? Also I guess you could use your toolbelt skills BEFORE overloading then? In that case you may discover a bug that resets all your toobelt skills after the overload clears hehehehehe.

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Scrapper balancing turns out better than expected. It will be painful to lose some of the old features which made this class so much fun and reliable, but there are a lot of chances to improve and rise even higher. I am still very happy for the fact that we get informed BEFORE the actual patch happens, highly appreciated.

The new way how F5 is going to work is a first step towards a real trade-off-system. If you want to use an Elite Specialization, you will lose your elite toolbelt slot. On the other hand we finally get control over the Function Gyro. I was using Detection Pulse frequently, it pretty much ruined going into stealth for our enemies. Only the DE with Shadow Meld was able to stealth anyway. Stealth is a powerful game-mechanic. If an enemy goes into stealth, it should empower him and make him a threat to us. We still have enough other options to reveal, compared to other professions. This is another part of the trade-off-system. We want to reveal players, so we have to "sacrifice" a real skill for it. As a conclusion, we may get a few more competitive builds which utilize the gadgets, which is much appreciated.

The traits look awesome, Rapid Regeneration will be missed though. Damage Dampener will make a lot of people rage in fury. It does look useless on the first view, but it will defuse a lot of extreme burst-skills. It boosts the way barrier works and allows us to neutralize more of the incoming damage. Really looking forward to this one.

More when the patch is live.

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