Vagrant.7206

Flat out incorrect. Holo and scrapper have both had time in the light over the past 2 years, now they’re a joke. Power classes aren’t in a good place. I disagree. Prot holo is doing just dandy right now. The problem is that certain classes are overperforming too substantially right now.

Well, this is a good sign. There are other outliers that aren't FB, necro, and condi rev, but those three were just absurd. Weaver seems to be on the tanky/high damage side right now, for example. It's just not as easy to play as necro was.

Lich, life force generation, and downstate damage all need to be nerfed on necro. In PvP they are absurdly tanky while still being able to dish out as much damage as everybody else. It's simply not fun.

"Bright Flashlight" dazes for 5 seconds. :tongue:

TBH, I'd rather have another utility slot on my engineer. Mortar kit is the only one I can use in the elite slot.

Celestial core Engi is much better now. But I'm not mistaken, it's still trailing behind Scrapper and Prot Holo. The gap is much smaller though! I do not think your Celestial core engi build is even remotely close to viable, the montage vs. heavily staggered horrendous players is not really validating the build much. A viable celestial build is going to bring a lot more power damage, I can't see a cele build without Grenades at the moment. Yeah, I was watching them as well, was my general assessment most of the other players weren't playing smart. A single stunbreak will get you murdered by a lot of different specs, particularly the meta ones right now. But the enemy players were often sitting still on bombs, using off-meta builds.

Sounds about right. I always felt scrapper was too sluggish for my tastes, and this confirms it.

Which makes them unreliable in PvP.

pretty sure this thing just straight up isn't working. was smacking a golem the other day and nothing happened. was using holo so maybe its just with that spec? idk man. You have to be >450 range to see it. I tried using it with a modified drunk scrapper build (rifle), and it was just wildly inaccurate.

That may actually be the problem. A lot of other meta builds got hit in unique ways. Mirage lost a dodge, holo lost stability.

Firebrand is still spammy as all get out.

Everybody hits like a wet sponge now. Except maybe weavers. Prot holo is still good, confirmed. Core engi... is still not good. It's in better shape than it was, but that's not saying much. Gave condi engi and core power engi a try, and they did ok-ish. Haven't the heart to try scrapper yet. I'm bad at scrapper theorycrafting Aim-assisted rocket fires dummy rockets that are very likely to miss. No tracking on them whatsoever. Not a good trait in PvP. The new explosives line looks pretty good. Need more work on Firearms. Not sure which Crystal Configuration to use on Holo now. I like explosive entrance (and the perks that buff it) AED is BALLING now Firebrand and mirage are still quite spammy

Go ahead and use Rocket Turret's overcharge or Launch Personal Battering Ram at a moving target. The projectiles on these things are so slow that you can run at roughly the same speed as them, making them substantially easier to avoid than a melee CC. If you use them max range sure, but it's a lot harder to avoid if you use it mid range. Backbreaker pretty much requires you stand inside of your enemy to hit them. Not saying Backbreaker is absurdly hard to land, I'm just saying that ANY range even on a slow moving projectile is easier to land than a skill with no capability of range. Even using Launch Personal Battering Ram at 130 range is going to be easier to land than Backbreaker because they're more likely to get caught by the slightly extended range if they try moving off. You can literally just walk away from some 130 range CC.Launch personal battering ram is a 1 second daze. Even assuming you use it in melee range, it won't do you that much good, lol. And it (and rocket turret) will likely miss at midrange too. You have to use them point blank for a decent chance of hitting. Rocket would like a word with you.

Go ahead and use Rocket Turret's overcharge or Launch Personal Battering Ram at a moving target. The projectiles on these things are so slow that you can run at roughly the same speed as them, making them substantially easier to avoid than a melee CC.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Explosive_Rockets -- Really high, long arc. Unpredictable flight path if enemy is more than 300 range away.https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Big_Ol%27_Bomb -- Three second countdown timer, very visible and easy to avoidhttps://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Static_Shock -- 180 range, single target stun for 2s with a cast time of 3/4 of a second and a very visible tell.https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Launch_Personal_Battering_Ram -- Slow moving projectile with no tracking and a 1s dazehttps://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Personal_Battering_Ram -- 130 range, single target launch, 1/4s activation time, probably the most likely of this bunch to land. But they're extremely close range -- point blank. The damage nerf on all of these is basically rendering them more unusable than they were before (because you know, you saw these ALL the time in PvP. /s)

My conclusions are as follows: Engineers will have choice of: 1.) Tanky side node Holosmith that has to avoid cluster f**ks for lack of stability, but holds side nodes fine.2.) Scrapper that can support & cleave teamfights, side-node decently, most importantly not get locked down and die horribly, with the exception of boon rip.3.) Core Engineer that plays at range and uses positioning to not get locked down and die horribly. I suspect holo will also be able to play mid-range and use positioning to do ok with the new explosives line and CC:Storm. Might actually be a midrange king if combined with explosive entrance.

Not that I disagree with your main post, but this part I do disagree with. I never pre-heat in PvE, and I almost always out-DPS the holos that do. Why? Because preheat is only a slight boost to your DPS if you can maintain a proper rotation. But that tiny boost is insignificant on long fights. Since I know the rotations by heart, that tiny DPS boost doesn't really matter, because I'm not aiming for benchmark levels of DPS. Engineer doesn't have weapon swap, bub. Your point might be valid if it did. Since PF effectively locks out kits, it's the closest thing holos have to a weapon swap. You don't hear of other classes getting their core mechanics locked out for a weapon swap, do you?

Generally agree with your assessments. There's a few other things I think they went too far on: It's like they don't want condi engineer to exist. All of these traits already have pretty restrictive requirements, and now they're just objectively making them worse. Still objectively worse than most other elite skills we could pick that include a CC. Supply Crate is not unblockable, has a 1 second cast time, and the turrets themselves are weak. Elixir X and Prime Light Beam will remain the better choices. This one grinds my gears a bit -- I know why they did it (a blanket nerf on all CCs), but Big Ol' Bomb was pretty much garbage in PvP anyway. If you were running bomb kit, you generally weren't relying on this to do damage but force a dodge. This one also grinds my gears. Rocket turret is possibly the worst utility skill you could pick in PvP, and they're making it worse without any consideration. While most of the weapons in-game did need a damage reduction, did engi pistol really need it? The autoattack is already laughably bad, and the burning didn't need to take another nerf without serious nerfs to other people's cleansing.

Sarcasm? Has to be. I almost choked when I read that.

The self-righteousness is strong with this one... Sheesh. Here's a tip: None of us are actually responsible for game balance.

Yeah.. I see the argument for it, but I would have preferred if Holo didn't have stab and was more of a high risk glass cannon rather than a 1vX bruiser wrecking-ball it actually tends to play like. That is: Holo's response to being in a bad situation should be to attempt escape (Rocket Boots, Acid Bomb, Holo Leap, Jump Shot, Elixir S), or go down swinging and try and take some of them with you.Compare engineer's escape tools with a lot of other classes. It just doesn't stack up -- no evade frames, no z-axis teleports, no defenses built into them. We are meant to stay in the fight, and are only really able to escape from classes that are slower than us (IE Necro). Nearly every other class has no trouble keeping up with us. Holo has to stay in the fight to win it, and stability is kind of critical to that unless we can keep our distance and plug enemies. Classes that can chase us down with ease: Warrior, Revenant, Thief, Ranger, MesmerClasses that can chase us down with some difficulty: Guardian, EleClasses that struggle to chase us down: Necro

Basically random proc (after the first use) is something I think we all want less of in this game, yes? Weapon swap isn't a random proc.

Here we all are in panic mode. Looking at our numbers, pointing our fingers. But, some of us seem to be missing the main point of this patch. Rolling back the power creep and changing the expectations. Okay, so if the above quote is somewhat true (as possible), then this will be only a temporary state of game. There is no public test server, and the devs don't have the time to measure the results of every change themselves. So, when the changes go live, all of the players will try builds, play games, and be in normal scenarios where the devs can collect data, and players can give real feedback over the patch versus the speculation. If something is weak, they say the may be able to fix it quick, and if something is strong, again the same concept applies. Maybe they will change some things before the patch, but if they don't, then don't panic. There is hope for faster balancing. https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/97036/cool-yer-jets

I don't enjoy playing mesmer.

Not a restoration of faith. Rather, suggesting that criticism should be more muted than it is right now, because it's genuinely hard to foresee what the changes will do. what are the forums for then lolDiscussion, of course. But the freaking out seems premature.