Vagrant.7206

I don't think anyone has forgotten.You will also run into the few notable engie mains who will do anything and everything possible to make sure nerf suggestions for engi remain buried or are swiftly discredited.Some of the issues with Holo stem from the Alchemy tree. A good place to start is there, for example.They could nerf Invigorating Speed. Make it a 10s CD with a 3s Vigor duration. How about they dont touch the core engineer tree. If they want to nerf holo then nerf holo. Otherwise, leave core traits alone.Some core engi traits should be changed -- but as part of a larger approach to balance. Anti-corrosion plating, for example, is beyond busted with how it interplays with condition damage. But I think condition damage systems need to be re-evaluated. Additionally, core engi lines of firearms and explosives need to have a place in PvP. I'd change those as well, because Inventions/Alch/Tools are the only core lines really seeing use in PvP. They're designed with outmoded means of play in mind, and Holo was simply a bandaid over the core class, which is in a pretty bad state.

While somebody already addressed most of your complaints, this one is kind of funny because no holo worth their salt in PvP will take CC: Zephyr over CC: Eclipse, because stability is superior to superspeed.

I have to ask... why do these threads always devolve into extreme ends of an argument? Can't things get minor shaves?

What you shouldn't forget, though, is that on the other side might be a guy who has actually spent time learning his class, playing lots of PvP/WvW and is by all means a better player than the Scrapper, and still can't win. If I was, like, a Weaver or Mesmer main, and came across this unkillable wall that - by all means - can be played by a 3-legged kitten monkey with 500ms ping and a blindfold on, I'd be pretty annoyed as well. Dunno if that's just me, but easier-to-play classes should be weaker. And if the scrapper is a better player?

WvW is a special kind of hell. People believe they are the best at something, but in truth they're usually in a gank squad and can't duel for crap. If you can survive that, well clearly you're OP. I took on 3 people on a duelist holosmith build in WvW once, came out on top because they didn't know how to play their classes well, and I pulled them in such a way to only face them one at a time.

I might suggest including links to metabattle, snowcrows, and gods of pvp.

If you were on the side making portal plays, it was great. You felt super smart and badass to show up and quickly decap/cap a point while wrecking some noobs. If you weren't on the side making portal plays, it was really awful, because there is no counterplay to portal. You couldn't close entrances/exits, nor could you take the portal. For classes with less mobility, the only counterplay is literally sitting on the entrance and hoping that the enemy mesmer shows up by themselves. It allowed mesmers to functionally occupy two nodes at once. As somebody pointed out, this meant that balancing mesmer was a nightmare because you had to consider all of their abilities in the context of how powerful portal was, in much the same way that necro was defined by Epidemic in PvE.

If you can find something that packs a stunbreak (toolbelt) and condi cleanse (E-gun 5 + 4) in the same package on a relatively low cooldown, you can use that, but good luck finding both. You'll generally get one or the other.

After the recent changes, I thought about trying a few new builds. Toyed around with some ideas. The ol' drunk scrapper is functional again, still troll-ey, with new and improved sneak gyro: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vdAQFAUncTBlXhVXB2XBEqilJjS8ZKgAgeuz7A/74WumD-jJROABAs/AMlBQ/CAI/DAAA I think I got a crit on jump shot of 12k with that build. Granted, I wasn't playing seriously with it, but it was super troll. Stealth gyro makes it very easy to hide and reposition. I had good success with this tank build, but I wouldn't rate it higher than prot holo: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vdAQFASncoCFpitbBuoCkfhlKjievr78WcZCgyDM6quOC-jJxWAB4WGwxHAQzXAAA2fAA The downside was that it was weaker at cleansing and dueling than prot holo, but could stay with targets better and could CC more frequently, making it easier to finish foes. What do you guys have?

On the other, you have the frequent complaints that mirage is an untouchable, unkillable, ez-mode, brain dead, god-spec, rife with too much evade, invuln, stealth, detarget, mobility, etc. (See any mesmer complaint thread as well as many posts here.) I think targeted changes should be applied to both offense and defense: Offense:Minimize direct damage on axe, torch, scepter, and staff so condi builds really only output condi.Shave condi application so condi damage is ramped rather than burst. Possibly add an ICD on Ambush attacks, but in exchange leave Mirage Cloak alone, except as stated below. Ideally, cut back the excessive cleanse and resistance in the game to compensate, which might even enable additional viable condi specs.Maybe this is out there and has issues, but: Rework clones so they don't pile conditions via auto-attacks, but instead apply a couple stacks to opponents who kill them (to punish them for falling for the fake and encourage developing the most important skill for fighting mesmers: identifying the real mesmer--which isn't as difficult as people think.) Outside of shatters and ambushes, clones do almost no damage and truly exist to facilitate the mesmer's deceptive play style. So no more complaining about clone spam. Defense: With the reductions to offense, defensive abilities are more justified to enable that ramped condi application and allow "mirages to excel in longer combat engagements" per Anet's goal. Still, many complain about, and many mirage mains agree, that dodging while CC'd should go. It's not unreasonable for mirages to be forced to spend a stun break here like others. Generally, I think condi mirage should retain most of its defensive trickery in keeping with its theme. It should duel by craftily outplaying opponents, wearing them down with DOT (particularly the self-inflicted kind from torment and confusion for thematic reasons), and fill less of a burst DPS role. Kind of like a tankier but less damaging thief that hides among what opponents see rather than what they don't. Would that satisfy (most) everyone? I could go for this. Allows for reasonable counterplay while not absolutely destroying the e-spec.

https://imgur.com/5zqEf1g Whooo Nelly. Yeah, that's not humanly possible.

Screenshot is giving an error. Load to imgur?

My thoughts on Spirit Watch:Too vertical. Classes with teleports have a severe advantage.Orb mechanic is extremely un-fun. Picking it up means you move 50% slower and can't use any of your normal skills for a long period of time. It's boring but necessary when playing this map. This map will never be a successful in ranked with the Orb in place.Points are too far apart. They are located on the outer edges of the map which means the majority of your time spent in the match is running along the outskirts. As such, the mid node isn't as important as there are other ways to access the side nodes. The mid node feels small and unimportant. It might be interesting to have a walled elevator that activates only for the team that holds the mid point, although that might lead to a snowball effect.

Just my engineer. Rest are storage characters or brought out only for raids. I can play other classes (guard, ranger, war, thief, necro), but I don't play them with any regularity. Why? My engi can do most everything, I'm most familiar and comfortable with it, and it doesn't bore me like most other classes do.

Ugh, that's the stuff of nightmares. How about a holosmith permanent corona blast animation? Just spinning and spinning....

Certain classes benefit way more from Spirit Watch than other classes -- Thieves and mesmers in particular. Classes without any teleports (warriors, engineers) are at a much more severe disadvantage.

This bug's been around since PoF launched. Unfortunately, I don't see it getting fixed because there are similar visual glitches with many other classes that have been around since launch.

Likely an oversight. They've had the same issues balancing Elixir X underwater too -- we still have the plague form underwater, even though Plague form no longer exists for necro or Elixir X above water.

Honestly, my biggest complaint about deadeye is how apparent the stealth culling problem is. Even if they're standing right in front of me, I only see them by the time I have half health. Then they're back to stealth again. I have to guess most of the time where they are, because for the 60 frames they're on my screen, I don't have enough time to even reach them. The stealth culling is really, really, REALLY bad, especially if you are having ping issues.

Ditch the group stunbreak for a projectile reflection/destruction spell like it used to.

Yeah, throw elixir S and throw elixir r would be the two that might suffer from PBAoE. However, I think its appropriate given that there's no other way around the clunkiness of ground targeting and all the problems affiliated with slow-moving projectiles.

Again, more confirmation that the "throw" elixir skills should be a PBAoE instead.

The old version was more useful, period, and this is functionally a nerf, making Elixir U more niche. While the extra quickness is nice, the projectile reflect/destruction was way more valuable amd the potential combo fields were nice additions for clever engineers (blasting light for cleanse, blasting/leaping shadow for stealth). The AoE stunbreak is exceedingly niche, so the throw skill will almost exclusively be used for quickness uptime.

Naming it "mechanic" would cause so much confusion in balance discussions, lol.

I really don't want to use grenade kit even more than I already do... the carpal tunnel... lol I hear ya. would this mean even more AA spamming in pve? For condi builds, it absolutely would. Shrapnel is already quite powerful for condi builds, so it's the recommended autoattack for condi engi. The change you recommended would reinforce that.