mootshell.8530

There just doesn’t seem to be a good niche for shortbow. Mace/shield is far less clunky as a support weapon and gives better boons, shortbow’s current design does nothing for helping Scrapper keep up quickness, and the chain reaction mechanic, while cool in theory, I find to be a bit confusing and hard to pull off in practice. Honestly? It would fill a better role as a ranged condi weapon. Engineer’s condition builds have been lacking for years, and having the choice between pistol/pistol and shortbow might be a step towards revitalising them. It just seems like the whole kit needs a rethink.

I think by now it’s safe to say that applying quickness with combo finishers on Scrapper feels pretty clunky. Also, since Hammer has been shared around to other elite specs, it feels like Scrapper has had some of its identity watered down. I had a simple idea that could give Scrapper some of that identity back while addressing the issue of how quickness application feels. New Scrapper spec mechanic - Juggernaut Charge. When you dodge, rocket charge forward, knocking back enemies you dodge through and giving you superspeed. As for quickness, make Kinetic Accelerators cause Juggernaut Charge to give quickness and superspeed to nearby allies. You could even replace Impact Savant with System Shocker and rework System Shocker to be some completely new trait - this would give heal Scrappers the same barrier generation as boon dps Scrappers, because dodging would CC and give barrier in turn. Why do I think this is a good idea? Well having an engi elite spec that explicitly cares about dodging makes the underutilised Tools traitline far more appealing, which could in theory lead to some interesting buildcrafting. Secondly, the design of Juggernaut Charge encourages a melee play style for maximum knockbacks that maintains the bruiser feel of Scrapper, while helping to further differentiate it from core Engineer. Finally, tying quickness to dodging gives Scrapper more freedom for utility slots and replaces ‘use gyro off cooldown for quickness’ with ‘dodge off cooldown for quickness’, which is arguably more interesting (as demonstrated by Mirage). Thoughts? TL;DR - I think Scrapper could be really fun as Engineer’s take on a hybrid between spellbreaker and vindicator.

I actually agree with this for the most part, it expands Function Gyro to be more fleshed out. Leave the gyro utility skills as they are with the mobile well effects, it'd let you use function gyro f1 to blast your gyro utility skill combo fields.

Reaper isn't 1:1 comparable with Scrapper - changing all the shroud skills has a much bigger impact than just swapping out your F5 for a new skill. Because it's 5 skills, it's more akin to an extra weapon. Meanwhile, Scrapper gets a (quite good) ranged revive, some power-damage-to-barrier conversion that got nerfed into irrelevance in PvE, and that's it. Instead, the majority of its identity comes from its utility skills, which makes it an outlier among elite specs.

Let me define what I mean by 'spec mechanic'. Elite specs, in theory, are supposed to transform the playstyle of a profession. Look at every popular elite spec - the things that defines them usually interact with the core profession mechanic in ways that change how the profession plays. Function Gyro behaves more like a single additional utility skill, and as you mentioned, it's not one every build would want. Another way to look at it is that scrapper lacks mechanical identity because the gyro utility skills are the only thing separating it from core engineer. You could run zero gyro utility skills, and it would play like core engineer with a different F5. It's the elite spec that is most similar to its core profession, separated only by a single skill, and this gives the devs very little to work with. This is why we get changes such as the Don't get me wrong, I adore Function Gyro - my all time favourite build is PvE Heal Scrapper because of it, and I'm well aware of how amazing it is in PvP. However, it carries too much weight when defining what Scrapper is, and ideally, there should be something with more mechanical depth working in tandem with it.

Some 2c from a Scrapper main. I saw someone mention this in another thread a while back. I can't find the exact post anymore, but whoever said it, credit to you. It was pointed out that Scrapper is the only elite spec without an elite spec mechanic. Every other elite spec in the game transforms or builds upon the profession mechanic, whereas with Scrapper, it's simply core power engineer with new utility skills - the gyros. You could argue Function Gyro counts as a spec mechanic, but if that constitutes Scrapper... it's a single skill that doesn't meaningfully transform the profession mechanic or playstyle. Compare this to other elite specs, for example - Holosmith with its F5 kit and heat management minigame; Necro elite specs changing your shroud skills; Daredevil, Mirage and Vindicator giving you flashy things to use your dodge for. All of these have more mechanical depth than what amounts to a ranged revive skill and Impact Savant's dps-to-barrier conversion. With Hammer being given to other builds, Scrapper can no longer rely on how fluid the weapon feels to play to make itself stand out in comparison to other engi builds, and the cracks are starting to show. I'm starting to feel the spec is due for a rework, and judging by the last balance patch, I think the devs agree. The elite spec fantasy of a minion-controlling bruiser engineer is very solid, it's just waiting for a great implementation. The spirit of Scrapper has always felt like you're supposed to be rewarded for being aggressive, but not too aggressive, and if the spec gets reworked, I'd want that to stay the same. Personally, I'd want to see two main playstyles from Scrapper - a ranged Scrapper that commands gyros to move around like Ventari's Tablet, a melee Scrapper with gyros orbiting them like we already have, and either let you pick which one with traits or have a way to swap between the playstyles on the fly. Or, possibly more interestingly, perhaps even go in a completely different direction - have Scrapper be the engineer spec that doubles down on toolbelt buildcraft, allowing you to pick which toolbelt skills to equip out of the entire pool of core engineer and scrapper toolbelt skills. What are your thoughts? Happy SotO everyone!

I've seen a ton of people asking for this ever since EoD launch. The jade mech really doesn't fit with every engineer's aesthetic, so letting mechanists go around the world and unlock new mechs like a Ranger tames pets would be incredible. As an example, here are a bunch of mechs that already exist in-game that could work as purely aesthetic alternatives to the jade mech: Asura Golems. You know 'em, you love 'em. Fighting alongside a golem pet is an iconic fantasy many Asura players have wanted for a long time. Watchknights. Krytan clockwork tech needs more love. Mechanical Devourers. A bit of a deep dive for Charr mechanists, but if you go to the Silverwastes, you can find an event that lets you control one. Clockhearts. At the end of the Twilight Arbor Aetherblade path, you fight a cyborg Oakheart augmented by Scarlet, and it could make for a unique option for Sylvari mechanists. Steam Hulks. They're a fun creation of Scarlet Briar that fits a lot of the core engineer aesthetics. Dredge Suits. Come on, do it for the Moletariat - put the means of destruction into the hands of the people. I understand it'd be a lot of work to add, but I'm sorely hoping something like this gets added in the near future, especially with the SotO Wizards' Vault adding a heavier emphasis on in-game achievement rewards. Can you think of any other good options for mechs?

Currently, the change to how Kinetic Accelerators works, with only granting quickness on blast or leap finishers, feels a bit clunky and somewhat limiting for build options. I had an idea: Have all finishers with the Kinetic Accelerators provide quickness, but make different kinds of finishers provide different durations of quickness. For example, projectile finishers would provide the least quickness, while blast finishers would provide the most. Revert the change to Function Gyro, removing the blast finisher since it feels forced and nowhere else in the game do you have a skill which produces a field and immediately uses a finisher in the same skill - it's unintuitive. Thoughts?

I'd really like a Charr Tank Siege Turtle Skin. Something like the TT6-B Devourer, with its two cannons, would be perfect for the Siege Turtle's mechanics.

Aside from the change in Scrapper's playstyle (which is a little divisive), there are a few key issues in competitive game modes with simply making gyro wells ground targeted: Blast Gyro is going to be impossible to hit with. Nobody in their right mind is just going to stand in the telegraphed well as it charges up and let themselves be stunned by it. Shredder Gyro is going to be far less effective than if the Scrapper was up in an enemy's face with Shredder Gyro following them because the enemy can just move out of range of Shredder Gyro. Defensive Gyros won't give their full value to teammates because players can't be expected to stand still inside a well, especially if an enemy drops some kind of damaging effect on top. If the change isn't going to be reverted, then at the very least, give players the ability to reposition the Gyro wells while they're still active with an instant-cast flip-skill that functions like Ventari's Tablet on Revenant. This would make them far more useable and fit with the class fantasy of having a fleet of mobile gyrocopters at your disposal. If you want to take this effect even further, have the defensive gyros (Medic Gyro, Bulwark Gyro, and Purge Gyro) permanently deployed and pulse their effects every 3s. Gyroscopic Acceleration would then cause defensive gyros to pulse superspeed every 3s, and offensive gyros would still give superspeed on cast as usual. For example, Medic Gyro would heal a small amount every 3s (allowing a greater amount of healing to be put on Reconstruction Field), Bulwark Gyro would pulse barrier every 3s, and Purge Gyro would cleanse a condition every 3s.

Well I guess I got what I wanted in the next patch! I might be one of the few Scrapper mains who's excited for ground-targeted Gyro wells with big gyrocopters

Having tiny gyros that I can hardly see ruins the class fantasy of Scrapper commanding a fleet of gyrocopters. How can I feel like I have a bunch of hand-crafted flying minions at my disposal when I have to strain my eyes to see them? My suggestion for improving the feel is to return the gyros to their old pre-rework size and have them orbit around the edge of the well area similar to Catalyst hammer projectiles. Thoughts?

Some of you may remember the old Scrapper Gyros - admittedly janky, but they properly conveyed the feeling of having a fleet of tiny gyrocopters at your disposal. The change to being wells centered on the player is a definitive step up in terms of usability and quality of life. However, while I wouldn't go back to the minion-like functionality and poor pathing of the old Scrapper Gyros, I feel as though some of Scrapper's class fantasy was lost with the change. But I think there's a new happy medium between old Scrapper Gyros and the new ones - the reworked Revenant's 'Ventari's Tablet'. The new Ventari's Tablet feels fantastic to move around. It's fast, it's responsive, and most importantly, it feels like you're actively controlling an object you've summoned - like I would imagine Scrapper Gyros to feel like. Here's the small change I'm proposing: Gyro Wells are now ground-targeted. While deployed, Gyro Wells can be repositioned on a 0.25s cooldown similar to Ventari's Tablet. Gyro Wells keep their existing durations. After their durations expire, they are destroyed as usual and go on cooldown. Their duration is subtracted from their cooldowns so that it still takes the same amount of time between uses. This change may require a little bit of adjustment to the durations and strength of the gyros' effects to improve the feel of them, but I won't be the one to suggest specifics there. If you want an idea what this change would feel like, I urge you to load up a Revenant with Centaur Stance right now.

The recent changes to Tempest have provided a good direction going forward, with the addition of Alacrity to Tempest's toolkit. However, there are still some key problems with the quality of life of support tempest, the focus of DPS tempest, and support core elementalist : Elemental Bastion is the main source of healing for a healer Tempest. Having Alacrity in the Grandmaster trait slot in the form of Lucid Singularity forces Tempest to choose between healing and Alacrity, when support builds in other professions can have both. Support Elementalist as a whole lacks good ways to revive downed allies. The 90-second cooldown on Glyph of Renewal is too long for practical use, with similar revival skills in other professions having cooldowns of between 30 and 50 seconds. The distinction between power DPS tempest and condi DPS tempest is a little unclear (This is more a personal opinion - it's difficult to tell at a glance which skills and traits are better for power damage and which are better for condition damage, and it requires a lot of experimentation with gear and builds to figure out). I'd like to propose some potential changes to address these issues, and I'll explain my thinking in each instance. ISSUE #1: Heal Alac Tempest trait selections compete with each other One way to fix this is to add Alacrity to one of the Master Tempest traits. There are pros and cons to each one: Solution 1: Tempestuous Aria additionally makes Shouts grant Alacrity Pros: With 100% boon duration and a good base Alacrity duration on the trait, it would be reasonable to balance around running 3 shouts and Sand Squall (Earth Warhorn 4) to maintain 100% Alacrity uptime. This could allow Alacrity to fit into many Tempest builds in a straightforward way, while leaving 2 slots open for reactional-use utility skills. Cons: Tempestuous Aria is the trait taken by DPS Tempests, purely because it grants might and there is no other Master Tempest trait that would increase DPS output. This means the only way to differentiate your build between Alac DPS Tempest and Pure DPS Tempest would be by taking a different offhand weapon over Warhorn. In order to compensate, there would need to be a damage buff/rework of offhand Core Elementalist weapons. Solution 2: Harmonious Conduit additionally grants self-Alacrity when you start an Overload Pros: With 100% boon duration and high enough base Alacrity duration on the trait, it may theoretically possible to use Heat Sync (Fire Warhorn 4) and Sand Squall (Earth Warhorn 4) to maintain 100% Alacrity uptime. In order to keep the gameplay fun, the Alacrity would have to last long enough after the overload is complete to allow the player to use weapon and utility skills without feeling pressured to immediately swap attunements and use another overload. Harmonious Conduit is a slightly underused trait at the moment, so it would shake up existing builds. Additionally, putting it on this trait provides a clear choice between extra damage/stability & alacrity/extra healing. An alternative would be to make Harmonious Conduit provide 5-target stability, swiftness and alacrity around the Tempest when an Overload starts. This could be much more straightforward and less stressful to use. Note: If this option is the chosen solution, Tempestuous Aria may need to be buffed to be an obvious DPS increase to make it clearer that Harmonious Conduit is the boon support choice. Perhaps add an effect to Tempestuous Aria saying, "Your power and condition damage are increased by 5% for 5 seconds after using a Shout skill. This trait stacks duration." Cons: If Harmonious Conduit only affects yourself, it may not be intuitive to new Tempest players that you're supposed to go Overload Fire -> Heat Sync (Fire Warhorn 4) -> Sand Squall (Earth Warhorn 4) to provide group alacrity. However, it may also come as an 'Ah-ha! moment' and carve out a unique playstyle for boon support Tempest, so this might not a big issue since the GW2 community is very open and vocal about helping new players. There would also have to be a big difference between PvE and PvP for this trait to prevent alacrity from running rampant in PvP. Solution 3: Invigorating Torrents additionally provides a small amount of Alacrity whenever you grant an Aura Pros: Auramancer Tempest enabled by the Powerful Aura trait in the Water traitline is one of the most fun, engaging and unique playstyles in the game - finding creative ways to chain together Auras is a very enjoyable challenge. Definitively associating granting Auras with providing boon support would be an excellent way to bring a currently niche playstyle to the forefront. Cons: Balancing this for PvP would be an absolute nightmare - it may even require reducing the alacrity duration granted by this trait down to 0.5s in PvP. Additionally, builds requiring both the Tempest and the Water traitlines for boon support would require some future balancing to make Alac DPS Tempest an attractive option, likely by strengthening the DPS options in the Water traitline's Adept and Master choices. As a support Tempest player, adding alacrity to Auras is my preferred way to give Tempest access to Alacrity because I enjoy the Auramancy playstyle. ISSUE #2: Support Elementalist's Glyph of Renewal does not compete with other professions' revival options Here's my proposed solution: Glyph of Renewal revives up to 3 targets regardless of which attunement you're in. Reduce the cooldown to 40 seconds. However, make the cooldown increase by 50% (20 seconds) for each target revived beyond the first. Renewal of Earth (Glyph of Renewal while in Earth Attunement) now grants barrier to revived targets, since all attunements now revive 3 targets. This means Glyph of Renewal can be used every 40 seconds to revive a single target with some benefit, but if your squad is seriously in danger of wiping, you can use it as a safety net on an 80-second cooldown to revive 3 targets. This makes it far more useable, while still being rather middle-of-the-pack in comparison to other professions' options - higher cooldown than Scrapper's Function Gyro and Necromancer's traited Well of Blood, but more effective at reviving than Guardian's Signet of Mercy (which has the advantage over Glyph of Renewal of buffing concentration). ISSUE #3: The distinction between Power DPS Tempest and Condi DPS Tempest is not very clear This proposed solution is supposed to address two issues. First of all, if you move the alacrity from Lucid Singularity to one of the trait choices in the Master tier, then what does Lucid Singularity do? Second of all, trait choices in the same tier of an elite spec should ideally provide a clear question. I think this question for the Tempest grandmaster traits should be, "Power DPS, Condi DPS or Healer?" I acknowledge that the changes I'm about to propose are big reworks, but I believe the focus it would bring to Tempest and the new playstyles it would open up would be worth the effort. Grandmaster traits should feel impactful, and traits transforming skills is a very impactful Solution Part 1: Transcendent Tempest rework "Your Overloads become ranged. Deal increased power damage after completing an overload." Overload Fire becomes Overcharge Fire, a 600 range narrow fire beam attack/mobile fire field that emits straight ahead from the Tempest. It deals primarily power damage, a small amount of burning, and pulses might to the Tempest and anyone standing in the fire field. Overload Water becomes Overcharge Water, a 600 range narrow ice beam attack/mobile ice field that emits straight ahead from the Tempest. It deals power damage and inflicts chill on enemies standing in the ice field. Overload Air becomes Overcharge Air, a 600 range narrow lightning beam attack/mobile lightning field that emits straight ahead from the Tempest. It deals power damage and inflicts vulnerability on enemies standing in the lightning field. Overload Earth becomes Overcharge Earth, a 600 range series of projectile attacks fired straight ahead from the Tempest, where the Tempest coats their fists in rock and unleashes a series of punches that fire rock projectiles. It deals power damage, and the final projectile inflicts knockdown. What I'm proposing is to make Power DPS Tempest distinct from Condi DPS Tempest by making Power DPS Tempest Overloads beams and projectiles that fire at mid-range. This is intended to improve gameplay feel and increase build diversity. The damage bonus after completing an overload will then be split out between Transcendent Tempest and Lucid Singularity to make choice between power and condition damage clearer. Solution Part 2: Lucid Singularity rework "Time to attain Singularity is reduced. Deal increased condition damage after completing an overload." Split the old Transcendent Tempest trait into the reworked Transcendent Tempest and this trait to make choice between power and condition damage clearer. Additionally, make the trait with Singularity in the name affect how long it takes to attain Singularity. To go along with this, it may be a good idea to skew the damage coefficients on Overload Fire and Overload Earth a little towards burning and bleeding respectively in order to make vanilla Tempest slightly more condition focused and enable condition Tempest builds to work better.