RisenHowl.2419

I'm all for it

i've been using signets with the trait with surprising success, both on a carrion setup and sages. It's a lot of passive sustain and the elite signet gives a pretty fat group heal to help recover on point

druid was already strong before the patch. it's just not widely played because no one wants to put them in stab parties, which means players never learn how to use it to the fullest.

It's quite an uproar for 'now I have to aim when I press 2 buttons'

I'm loving the scrapper doom and gloom, like having to move the mouse cursor before pressing a button is going to kill the class. You only run 2 gyros and spend most of the time in wvw holding down the AA, the fumigate nerf is more painful lol

it would, anything that's unblockable and strips boons would given the current meta imo It'll probably take 1-2 months for people to get comfortable with the setup, builds, gear, w/e yeah. The big issue is that it detonates immediately now and knocks down people caught in a bomb, it was already strong before but that change breaks it. I'm going to laugh when anet nerfs absorption sigils in two months instead and screws over a dozen other setups

I'll be your huckleberry

The next patch is changing the knockback to a knockdown. If the mine removes stability, they get knocked down. If they're casting something it also triggers an interrupt, which steals another 3 boons.

You're right, the way it's worded suggests it'll stay 2 boons in wvw. Still 5 strips though with absorption and if they're going through with the mantra nerf everyone's just going to run CC+strip setups, 1 strip doesn't make that much of a difference. changing it to a knockdown and allowing it to detonate immediately are the bigger changes because it makes the skill braindead easy to use to best effect. I'll update the OP to reflect 2 strips. It only removes 1 per target but can hit 25 targets, depending on how random the spread of mines is for that particular use you can reliably hit 10+ targets. On it's own that just ~okay, but with every scrapper in each party doing it that's a lot of free strips to deter a melee push with no real downside and very little counterplay. revs using banish enchantment have to select specific targets in the middle of a moving enemy group for best effect, then hope no one moves out of the line while it's channeling. It also costs them all their energy every time they enter mallyx, engies have to push 2 buttons and can spend all the extra time healing, dpsing, etc. It's low effort and high impact on a class that spends the rest of its time holding down the AA.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Throw_Mine The way this works is any engineer can toss a mine out from 900 range. The mine is unblockable while it's in the air and it's unblockable when it explodes. Currently it only explodes when a new target walks over it or the player who used it detonates it, knocking players backwards. With the buffs, it explodes as soon as it's placed provided there is at least 1 target at that location. Instead of knocking players backwards, it'll knock them down. Knocking targets back can push them out of a coordinated bomb, knocking them down forces the players to stay in the bomb and explode. Here's where things get interesting: -the mine strips 2 boons per target before it applies the knockdown. this means it'll CC them immediately often triggering an interrupt if one of the boons removed is stability. -absorption sigils have a 3s cooldown per target. any players that are interrupted have 3 more boons stripped. -every 30s engineers can toss this out to strip between 15-30 boons -the gadgeteer trait in tools reduces the cooldown to 24s and places a second mine at your feet for free. -this allows throw mine to strip between 20 and 50 boons every 24s -the toolbelt skill, mine field, places 5 mines around you in melee. Each one can hit 5 targets, each hit removes 1 boon, each target can only be stripped once. Another 10-25 strips on a 14s cooldown -the toolbelt skill can be detonated immediately after activating while the mines are still in the air, allowing you to condense the strips from it in a tight radius around the caster -alacrity (which is now easy to access in wvw) brings these cooldowns to 20s and 11s respectively -total potential per minute strips for this skill while traited, with alacrity is 3(20-50)+5(10-25)=110-275. for each engineer. -that makes it one of the best in slot utilities for every party in wvw -it's available on a class that's already mandatory for wvw (scrapper) which can be ran as either a top notch dps or healer. Scrappers are mandatory because they bring easy access to stealth and superspeed. -almost every group in wvw runs a scrapper in each party. all they need to do is press 1 button, throw mine, at the start of a fight. With 10 scrappers in a full squad that's 100-250 boons stripped in one go in addition to the strips from necro, spb, mesmer, and revenant. If they push you in melee afterwards without popping the mines, that's another 100-250. -add in brutality on revenants and the nerf to mantra of liberation. Good luck fighting when you can't use any skills. How this affects the meta: -melee engages are going to go extinct. gadgeteer places a second mine at your feet, so if your group is standing still and you get pushed it will strip+CC any players that try to push into you. If your group is kiting backwards, the enemy group now has to run through 2 fields of mines to get to you. Even if they do get to you, your scrappers still have mine field on an 11s cooldown. 10 scrappers in a squad means anyone pushing you in melee will eat up to 250 strips. -this doesn't favor small groups with coordinated bombs, this strongly favors whichever group runs more throw mine. the more players you have using it, the better the effect gets. -this pushes the meta out of melee entirely and forces groups to run 900-1200 range spike damage from hammer revs, staff eles, dps guardians, and scourges. The only effect of this buff with the mantra of liberation nerf is to force a pirate ship meta. -the mines are invisible when placed. the only counterplay to them is to clear the mines with a body. that might be a rev using hammer 3, it might be minions, or it might be a player on a mount running over the mines. These are all bad options when you can't see the mines in the first place and all options become less viable the longer a fight drags on. At a bare minimum this skill shouldn't be unblockable. I'm not sure which dev thought this would be wise or which players misled them into thinking it's a good change, but the reasons behind this change should be examined. No one wants to play a pvp game mode where they can't even use their skills. For all the other players out there, i hope this helps you to enjoy using this setup for a month before they realize how asinine it is, the more people abusing it the faster it goes away.

Natural progression, gotta let people spread their wings man

No, they won't. It'll just revert the meta back to full pirate ship. Why run 2 guards when you can just avoid ever getting in melee and run throw mine on your scrappers in case anyone tries?

So melee isn't allowed in wvw anymore, good kitten. Do not implement these two changes to wvw. Do w/e with pve, that's great. But removing stun breaks and stability from wvw while increasing how effective throw mine is at stopping a melee push is... monumentally stupid.

What's the goal here with the changes to mantra of liberation and throw mine? There's already stability and stun break problems in wvw, who was the genius that thought it would be a good idea to make them worse and not add stability or aoe stun breaks elsewhere in the only gamemode where it's important?

use a skill to make the siege disabler unblockable

All 3 dodges are still being interrupted by ground CC even when you have stability. How many times does this need reported?

Member flesh rats... :<

Tried this out for a bit this morning with okay results, definitely felt the missing elite stun break and resistance the most. Healing output and stab/boon rotation felt good but if your stab gets stripped and you get CC'd you and your party are done. Healing output comes in at 20-30% lower than minstrel scrapper, bit better than fb does there. Also gave it a go with advance and trooper runes, gets far more cleansing out without too much healing loss. Still only ~60-70% of what a scrapper cleanses

staff ele is still in a very good place

Oh, hello

Anyone have predictions on how the patch will affect viable builds?

sigil of misery hasn't worked for literally years, they've just ignored it despite all the bug reports

I'm all for it, open comps up

who's ready for the balance patch to make things interesting?

DD and specter are fine for zerging, DE and core are really bad since they're limited in what offensive aoes they have access too. It's pretty much shortbow + stolen whirling axe from a warrior for core thief. DE gets collateral damage, but if you miss your mark due to evade/block/invuln/lag/etc then you're left with just the shortbow.