Rosiep.9128

I'd see turrets work a bit like spirit weapons or like scourge shades, instead of being placed down on the ground they would be ground targetable and sort of fly down with propellers or float down with balloons. I'm about to go to bed but: - Rocket turret would bombard the area around it with rockets before firing rockets at targets for its duration. - Rifle turret would come down firing a rapid volley of bullets at your main target before continuing to fire but with less rapidity. - Net turret would come down and drop a stunning net around it, before firing nets at targets. - Flame turret would come down and spin a smoke field around it before spinning to set enemies on fire around it. - Thumper turret would come down and project an anti-projectile bubble and thump noise makers on its casing to pulse defensive boons like a dredge disaggregator. - Healing turret would be the only one you place without ground targeting and would do as it does now and burst heals and cleanses. All turrets would be able to explode on command but would only last a limited amount of time. Turrets (except healing turret which is a heal skill) would have charges based on the number of turrets filling utility slots and all would share these charges/cooldown. This would let you place multiple of the same turret so you don't find yourself dropping one that doesn't fit the situation you're in while at the same time avoiding a situation where people would just carry one turret to use multiple times. The less you commit to turreteer, the less turrets you can drop sort of thing.

Most of the sets are fine, but I will agree that the medium ancient set has an issue where they're evidently trying to make lit look like a body suit but somehow managed to overlook that the patterns on the leggings and chest don't align with each other and make it look wonky.

If you'd ever played the class you'd know that the robot is good at tanking random trash that you're not attacking but it's not going to hold aggro vs a champion or elite unless it's somehow doing more damage than everyone else attacking it, at which point you should be worried about your own damage.

Scrapper needs to be looked at all over again. The problem with buffing scrapper in its current state is that it has a major niche in WvW zerging in the form of its bulwark gyro, stability bubble, cleanse gyro, mobile smoke field, function gyros and hammer 5. This is coming from an engineer main who loves scrappers core identity, any buffs to scrapper in its current state would make it even more dominant in WvW zerging and to an extent roaming due to the condi roaming builds. Therefore I think it's a better idea to rework scrapper (again) than to try and balance buffs and nerfs in its current state where it either becomes all powerful or ridiculously weak like it is now.

I find that a lot of the pug commanders I run into tend to give up because they just can't get the numbers to join them. A night or so ago I joined a commander squad and the squad was fairly large. At first it was fine, we just ran around doing camps and towers, poking keeps, but then suddenly the enemy team just knew where we were at all times. It wasn't a scout, it was actually one single spy account that was in the zerg and following us between BLs. Sufficed to say, after half an hour of getting quite literally farmed by a giant blob who always knew where we were going, the zerg quickly lost steam as people became demoralised and logged off. This isn't as much of a problem for a voice comm but it can still happen to them. Between this, being held to high standards by people who expect an easy ride, the frustration of trying to bring pugs against heavily organised and micromanaged boon blobs and not to mention losing half your zerg responding to an emergency waypoint or switching BLs because there's zerg vs zerg open field fights happening on the same BL it's no wonder the pugmanders have given up. Solutions: - Make WvW level 80 and therefore more inconvenient for spies. - Make Obsidian Sanctum the go to place for GVG action with rewards tailored to zerg vs zerg action. - ??? It's generally hard to solve boonblobs as they're fun for people who enjoy them and shouldn't be completely invalidated so I don't know how to solve the problem that pugmanders face when they can't just cloud a boon blob with superior numbers.

Each faction has a main keep on EB and home borderlands and a 'close by tower' on enemy borderlands. Perhaps they could make it so that the lord is more powerful there when outnumbered and siege is more powerful as well. The main garrison/tower could also send out squads of NPCs who move out to attack nearby camps, keeps and towers. At the very least this would put some pressure on enemies and not only give home defence roamers something to do but also generally make it less of a horrid experience to be outnumbered. I'd also make the NPC commanders a bit more powerful as well as right now when outnumbered you probably have barely any people online in the first place and the commanders go down in seconds.

Back in the classic times of WvW I used to run a build where I could throw my turrets up onto tower and keep walls and have them fire on siege weapons that people had placed out of reach of AoE's. Then, if I was feeling especially mischevious, I'd put down my mortar elite and fire mortar shots at the siege as well. Turrets were also brilliant with the hi-explosive trait that would make them knockback when destroyed as I'd throw them up and blow them up to knock people off walls, it was great fun. When those traits were removed in the talent system rework, I didn't realise just how far turrets would be torn up over the coming months. Right now they're essentially immobile, slow firing, low health pieces of junk that are highly susceptible to condition damage and it's really sad to see. I really hope they give them a rework to be used for more than just automated mob farmers.

It is in World vs World: In PVE enemies don't run from you, in PVP if someone runs from you they forsake the point so they have to weigh up their options. In World vs World roaming at least, it doesn't matter if you cap the guard post or camp, people will run from you using movement abilities and while you may be capable of catching up with them, in most situations your mech won't be unless you use shift signet. This results in a rather underpowered version of a core engineer fighting someone while a mech lumbers across the field. In PVE the mech can't be bursted down unless you're fighting a champion and it aggros it, in PVP you're wasting time you could be using to kill the engineer. However in WvW zerg combat there's so much damage flying around that it's very easy for the mech to end up being taken out by aoes, and as it can't dodge it's very susceptible to cc spikes and ends up being picked off quite quickly. There's just not enough shift signets to keep your mech from either being outpaced, cc'd or dying in WvW. I personally disagree with the concept that certain specs shouldn't be viable in certain game modes, all specs should be viable in all game modes. Thieves and Rangers have the same issues as engineers in WvW, but at least engineers have viable specs for both roaming and zerging. I think that mechanist could benefit from the mech being more resistant to aoe in wvw and maybe dodging when the engineer dodges if it's close enough by? It could also go down another path entirely and make mechanists interactions with the mech when it's not summoned more beneficial akin to the orbital strikes from sky circus, as well as returning toolbelt when the mech is recharging/de-summoned so that at the very least it's only a marginally weaker core engi when it doesn't have the mech.

I'd have it be a bit like a living bomb ability, sets the target alight and a number of targets who are too close to the target when it bursts are also hit with smaller flame bursts that don't spread the effect. This would definitely make the ability feel like it's packing a bit more of a punch, and it would also be pretty good at putting some pressure on blobs to improve staff ele's WvW niche.

I actually agree with this to be honest, I find myself using toolkit in a lot of builds as the mixture of condi and power damage combined with the shield and magnet are extremely useful. It's not a far stretch for a kit that outlines the engineers core identity to be baseline. I also agree on turrets. I saw the sad decline of turrets from their inability to gain boons/be healed by anything but toolkit/move being balanced out by their immunity to conditions and potential to be strategically placed to avoid taking too much damage/be blown up. They were eventually nerfed with the ability to throw them up onto ledges being removed and once they became susceptible to conditions that was all they wrote. We were left with turrets that could not move, gain boons or be placed strategically that are easily destroyed just by laying a few conditions into them. Then they did indeed nerf static discharge and make toolbelt rocket a ground targeted ability just to put the final nail in the coffin and kill their last build niche outside of experimental turrets + healing and thumper turrets. I hope they're buffed again/reworked one day seen as there's even a whole elite skill dedicated to them that's been made nigh obsolete, but for now it seems that turrets are Arena Nets demonology warlock.

PvE is far more forgiving to the mech than WvW and PvP are. I've been trying to run a support mechanist build with various variants in zergs recently and while the barrier it provides is ok, the greatest downfall really is the ai of the spec. Most of my mechs deaths have been because the zerg would stop moving and its follow would overshoot by miles into the enemy ranged spike, or we'd go up some stairs and the mech would decide to take a different flight of stairs. Shift signet is compulsory as it makes it so that as long as you're on the commander, you'll receive stability and boons that will transfer to the mech and help keep it alive. It generates perma alac that's always good and the F2 is very good as an aoe stun break that can get people who are caught in cc spikes out of trouble. However in the end the mechs pathing, habit of overshooting the team or randomly aggroing onto people and susceptibility to CC is its downfall. In most fights it will go down extremely quickly the moment it does one of these things, and it will do one of these things. As said previously in anything small scale, it's absolutely useless because people easily kite away from the mech and confuse it, or they simply load it up with some cripples and chills and it proceeds to do nothing for the entire fight or get its ranged attacks reflected back at it due to the sheer amount of projectile reflect people can carry nowadays.

They don't just want to nerf scrapper, they want to nerf medkit and elixir gun as well which will make -all- engineer support builds far less viable. It's ridiculous that because a spec has an ok niche in one aspect of one game mode, some people feel the spec should be made completely unviable in the last game mode it's viable in and the class in general should be nerfed at the same time.

I agree, ever since launch Elixir X has been rubbish, and even its elite toolbelt skill is subpar and just a limited, AoE copy of Mesmers' now upgraded signet. I hate having to always pray for rampage which allows me to do big damage regardless of whether the target is ccable or not unlike tornado that just does average aoe damage and really makes me swap out of it as soon as I spam out the different pulses. For the toolbelt skill perhaps it could throw an unstable Elixir X that applies various random conditions to enemies in a pool, and for the skill itself some form of vat of elixir that constantly gives boons to allies near you. At the very least it would not be as much of a pot luck that takes various effects from other specs.

The irony is that people don't actually seem to understand just how much losing toolbelt is a shot to the Achilles Heel for Engineers. They also don't understand that these signets are loaded and powerful because they're meant to help make up for the loss of toolbelt. I've taken it into consideration and a lot of these great things mechanists are doing are usually a result of having to micromanage the mech to stand where you want it to and quite a bit of kit juggling. When it comes down to it, they're seeing a pet spec that's working and people don't like to be outperformed by a pet even when its power is only unlocked through agency and micromanagement of the mechanist. So no, why say that when they can just show their working for how they just don't like the mech?

This is my scrapper build, I've tried to reflect my wonky gear here as much as possible as I rarely have the patience to farm up more than one set. http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PeQAIlZwsYHMRWKO+X9NVA-zxQYhogVD6rMaKBatAkfA-e I've always been a fan of static discharge, and this feels like the perfect chance to use it with ram and rifle turret. Rifle turret is there because it gives an extra explosion + the stunbreak surprise shot for the burst and a constant source of vulnerability. It's really up to user discretion whether you go for the kinetic accelerators or gadgeteer, gadgeteer of course making battering ram and explosion that benefits from your explosives trait line. Kinetic accelerator can be pretty brutal with this build though as you'll be using your ram and rifle toolbelt skills quite regularly. As for elixir U, you can swap that out for either blast gyro or rocket boots as you please, with rocket boots being good because it gives you another targeted attack to trigger discharge as well as blast finishers for your water fields and an extra source of super speed with gadgeteer while at the same time you can detonate your rifle turret in blast gyro for an extra boost of might. I took healing turret as my heal simply because it's another blast finisher and its toolbelt skill is on a lower cooldown. I quite like this style of play in open world, it really plays into the scrapper idea of keeping up momentum and knocking people around. Battering ram really is a hidden gem!

I think the seeing a lot of mechs around isn't just to do with the class performing well/being accessible, it's also because in most of the expansions promotional material it depicts the mechanist class so of course people would be drawn towards the most unique/promoted spec of the expansion. I'm also seeing a lot of posts that aren't just borne of not liking mechanist, but a seething hatred towards all builds that involve summoning AI or pets in general. Mechanist does indeed have some of the stress taken away from it by the mech, but you've also got to account for the fact that the AI has many drawbacks, especially when you're trying to position the mech for support. It's unfair to say something should perform badly because the pet makes it more passive as plenty of games have pet specs. However, I can agree that maybe there could be some changes like maybe having the best performing dps builds requiring you to not just have the mech out at all times but instead recalling it and letting it recharge at times, giving back toolbelt while the mech is desummoned (crash down would replace the elite toolbelt skill), having current signet actives become toolbelt skills and making signets give the mech extra activatable abilities rather than passive rings of conditions and shadow steps. As for support mech I can't really relate to the problems, as long as it gives different boons and less burst healing than scrapper it doesn't really need deep nerfs because the healing is still tied to the agency of the engineer doing things.

I've rarely found my mech easily tanking things other than not taking much damage from aoe focused bosses, more often than not due to the nature of mobs in GW2 coming at you from all angles you'll have more enemies on you and you have to really micro manage your mech to keep it protecting you. It's the Golemancer fantasy that is definitely awesome for Asura and that's always been about having a cool golem to protect you. In terms of soloing, I found my minion master necro is pretty good at soloing things, so is my elementalist who summons a bunch of elementals and, back when turrets weren't a -complete- joke they were pretty hardy too. There will always be the trade off with these pet/minion specs, they're great at solo play but they'll remain hampered by their own AI which is especially difficult in PVP and WvW as you can jump down a cliff and your pet/mech will path all the way around it. In the end the problem isn't mechanist really, it's a spec in a good place. In the end the real problem is things like catalyst being nerfed into the ground and virtuosos main kit being full of projectiles. However I can understand the heartache in the pet spec problem and I think that the mechanist could take some more skill to execute perfectly but also synergize better the core engineer.

I'd love to see this, I miss MOX. I know that the Jade Mech can't receive Asura golem skins because their racials summon golems as well but definitely skins like MOX and such should be made available so that there can be more race/nostalgia specific class fantasy to mechanist!

I've been playing with the spec a bit and from what I've seen it seems that traits akin to the sky circus passive could be the way to go for the spec to help with AI issues in WvW/PVP situations at least. There's not much that can be done about AI pathing sadly but the sky circus passive makes it so that when you deactivate your mech it bombards the area with missiles every so often until you drop mech again. Maybe more passives to trait into like that could be useful, and to really complete it make the toolbelt reappear when mech is not active but your signets become purely passive and their actives become toolbelt skills when they're not there. No doubt there would have to be more tweaking to make it so that players aren't encouraged to have their mech stowed away all the time but I think focusing more on the take off/crashdown element will be much better than trying to make the mech super strong to compensate for the AI element of it. Other than that in PVE at least I've been having a grand old time with it!

I don't roleplay in this game but I'd love to get into it coming from WoW. I've also noticed that a lot of great RP spots like the secret Asura facility and such are inaccessible when not doing the personal story. It would help a lot as having more 'out of the way' places to RP helps with the problems that RPers seem to face in GW2 with all zones being constantly busy thanks to megaservers. It would be nice to just flag for RP or something and for the game to prefer to phase you into maps with other RPers in.