[Time to balance aura duration by power level?]

1 minute ago, Downstate.4697 said:

I don’t think you want a meta where ranged damage is even stronger. 

The only range in this meta is cata, because half of it's attacks aren't actual projectiles, untamed because it has unblockable and good melee, scrapper which gets around mag aura through ground targeted grenades with splash damage, and some mes builds that use lasers instead of projectiles or have unblockable. Range builds with actual projectiles shouldn't be shut down this hard. Counter play is okay, ridiculous uptime on total negation is not.

[Time to balance aura duration by power level?]

The Big Four

Fire Aura: No one is really complaining about this. Probably the weakest aura, it does add some damage and might, but requires getting hit and doesn't negate damage.

Frost Aura: Inflicts chill and reduced damage by 10%. Stronger than fire aura, but not problematic.

Shocking Aura: Stuns foes attacking within 240 range for 1 sec. 2 second icd per attacker. Shuts down melee attackers. Very strong for stopping damage and setting up counter pressure.

Magnetic Aura: Reflects projectiles for it's duration. Shut downs projectile builds. Clearly very strong.

So, should Magnetic Aura and Shocking Aura have the same cd as Fire Aura and Frost Aura? I'd suggest reducing Shocking Aura and Mag Aura duration to 3 seconds, keeping frost aura at 4 seconds, and either keeping fire aura at 4 seconds or even increasing it to 5. These skills have dramatically different power levels. They should be balanced accordingly. Anet is aware of this as shown by the change of duration for Mag and Shocking aura on Catalyst on Elemental Epitome. It's time for it to be game wide.

Also, I'm aware Chaos Aura and Dark Aura and Light Aura exist. They simply are less common, and I don't think any are as powerful as Magnetic or Shocking Aura, and they are less frequent than fire or frost aura for most classes. If you think they need their duration adjusted let me know.

[ele has too much projectile denial]

Just now, Zuko.7132 said:

Lower magnetic aura and shocking aura duration to three seconds from 4. Lower elemental epitome magnetic aura and shocking aura from 3 to 2. Problem solved.

Also a lot of dps needs nerfs. There's a reason aura's are the best defense. They fully stop damage. Damage in general is too high on some builds to support through in other ways.

[ele has too much projectile denial]

Lower magnetic aura and shocking aura duration to three seconds from 4. Lower elemental epitome magnetic aura and shocking aura from 3 to 2. Problem solved.

[Arc Divider is the soul of Berserker]

2 hours ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

Bingo.

Ya, it should have the same cast time as arcing slice imo.

[Arc Divider Rework]

Lower the cast time to one second. Keep the three hits. Lower the damage appropriately.

[Arc Divider is the soul of Berserker]

1 hour ago, Grand Marshal.4098 said:

Who cares if the damage on current arc is split in 3 strikes?

Is the problem the skills mechanic or anet's incompetence and constant nerfing of power berserker?

I like my 3 spins and I want more mutli-hit attacks on warrior.

They are literally guaranteeing some damage goes through.

The more I think about it, the more convinced I am that spin to win would fix a ton of warrior's problems.

[Arc Divider is the soul of Berserker]

1 hour ago, Grand Marshal.4098 said:

Who cares if the damage on current arc is split in 3 strikes?

Is the problem the skills mechanic or anet's incompetence and constant nerfing of power berserker?

I like my 3 spins and I want more mutli-hit attacks on warrior.

They are literally guaranteeing some damage goes through.

I do agree that one of warrior's biggest weakness is single hit attacks. I would much prefer that we kept the three hits and lowered the cast time.

[Warrior Hybrid Weapons]

8 minutes ago, CalmTheStorm.2364 said:

I'd love a daze on arcing arrow, too, although I doubt they would got that route since they already added a daze to smoldering arrow in PvE. Maybe they'd make it a competitive -only thing.

But mostly it just needs to not take a day and a half to reach the target...after a 3/4s cast time.

I mean they could just give us the smoldering arrow daze. that would be fine.

[Warrior Hybrid Weapons]

52 minutes ago, CalmTheStorm.2364 said:

These are excellent ideas, Zuko.

A few thoughts/alternatives:

Final Thrust:  ok as it is, but could benefit from a slightly longer range (240). Would be neat to have it refreshed if you immob someone with Flurry. This would make it work more similarly to Ranger's Maul/Hilt bash interaction.

 

Mace:

combine counterblow and pommel bash. Block for 1.5s; if you block, gain access to pommel bash. Give PB a short dash (like rangers hilt bash) and stun for 1s.

I like ground pound and the leap on tremor. Excellent ideas.

Crushing blow might be redundant with ground pound. Could swap this for a "throw mace" that dazes and applies confusion. That would allow OH mace to provide both mobility as well as a ranged attack, which is unique among our OH weapons.

 

LB:

Arcing arrow needs to be sped up significantly. I'd love for it to apply some cover condis like weakness, vuln, and cripple.

 

I completely agree with swapping crushing blow for throw mace.

Arcing Arrow definitely needs something. I said daze, because you’re not hitting anything from range with the current speed so I was thinking cast on yourself to get someone off you. In which case, I like cripple, weakness, and a half sec daze. I wouldn’t say no to a faster animation though.

Also I love the refresh on final thrust. That would make it a much better execute, since you could get it on demand.

[Warrior Hybrid Weapons]

With the buffs to sword and the change to blood reaction to increase both condition damage and ferocity, it seems that anet is aiming to make hybrid war or at least hybrid zerker a thing. However, there's a big problem. The weapons just aren't good enough. Here are the weapons I consider to be hybrid: sword mainhand and offhand, mace main hand (for zerker), and longbow. I would like to suggest some changes for these weapons as well as for mace offhand to become hybrid. This is coming from a pvp perspective.

Sword

1. The auto chain: Keep 1 the same and 2 the same. Change the final to apply 2 stacks of bleed and increase cripple to 2 seconds. 6 seconds for all damaging condis.
2. Savage Leap: Add two stacks of bleeding and two stacks of torment for 8 seconds. Make it an evade. Increase cd to 10 seconds.
3. Final Thrust: Rename Flaming Thrust. Make it do full damage and three stacks of burn for 4 seconds regardless of health. Have it inflict a 1 second daze below 50% health. Increase the range to 240, it's a thrust duh.
4. Impale: Have it immobilize for 4 seconds. Not a pulsing immob. Just one stack at the start to set up rip.
5. Riposte: Make it a channeled block for 2 seconds that gives you a flip over skill for 4 seconds if you block.

Mace

1. The auto chain: Have the first two strikes inflict torment. Reduce the final strike cast to half a second, reduce the weakness to three seconds and add two stacks of torment. 6 second for the torment.
2. Counterblow: Make it a channeled block for 1 second that gives you a flipover skill for 4 seconds. Change the flip over skill to Ground Pound using the Tremor animation. Ground pound should use a 1.5 coefficient have a 240 radius and inflict 3 seconds of weakness and 4 stacks of torment for 6 seconds.
3. Pommel Bash: Add a little leap to it, otherwise fine.
4. Crushing Blow: Add 3 stacks of bleeding. Double to 6 if the foe is disabled.
5. Tremor: Steal the Earthshaker animation. 600 range leap with a 240 radius. Add a blast finisher. Reduce knockdown duration to 2 seconds.
6. Skull Crack: Have it inflict 2, 4, 6 stacks of torment for 8 seconds.

Longbow

1. The auto: Add Burning by default. Lower cast time to 1/2 second.
2. Fan of fire: Tighten the spread.
3. Arcing arrow: Add one stack of burning and a half second daze.
4. Smoldering Arrow: Lower Count Recharge to 15 seconds.
5. Pin Down: Increase coefficient to 1.5.

 

[CD Reductions]

With the new patch, please add cd reduction for torch and shield. Both lost their trait reduction. Torch could get the 20% reduction np. If you're worried about shield being too strong, you shouldn't be. War has been left behind.

[Counterblow and Riposte]

Can we please finally make these channeled blocks with flip over skills? Make it 1 second for counterblow and 2 for riposte. While we're at it, can counterblow actually deal some real damage?

If not, can counterblow at least function like riposte and keep working until melee range?

[Blaze Breaker needs 2 charges in PvE]

6 hours ago, ZeftheWicked.3076 said:

This one really baffles me.  A skill that is hamstrung in PvE yet buffed in competitive.
Why not just make it same across all modes with 2 charges?

Torch needs cd reduction baseline now too with the new heat the soul.

[Warrior Balance Changes]

7 minutes ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

You know there won't be. Too much AoE fury access already on the utility bar that can be used.

Ya, you're probably right, but my pvp war is sad.

[Warrior Balance Changes]

3 hours ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

Probably just quickness.

I really really hope there's fury.

[Warrior Balance Changes]

Does anyone know what boons heat the soul is going to give?

[Guys big PvP ubdate!]

Can't wait for all the lord push attempts this patch note will inspire.

[Grenade Auto Attack.]

10 minutes ago, Stalima.5490 said:

You may not realise this but it is not the grenades carrying the scrapper, I had basically been doing the exact same nonesense well over a year before the grenade version appeared, the only difference is that I would use literally every single weapon except the grenades because it was funny when people die to an engineer who isn't using grenades making whatever that thing is overpowered immediately and unconditionally.

I mean you can do it with prybar, but if you miss the prybar, you're not a threat for a while.

[Grenade Auto Attack.]

20 hours ago, Kuma.1503 said:

  

Cutting this post down because legnth. 

I agree with you that grenades deal disproportionately high damage. Both compared to other auto attacks, and compared to the rest of Engi's kit. 

My only problem is when people who point this out while ignoring the sleuth of nerfs that forced Engi into an over-reliance on grenades.  Or attempt to oversell how good they actually are. They're strong, but as far as auto attacks go, calling them brainless is... strange considereing other auto attacks auto aim while these take some amount of skill/effort to land in hectic combat. (You didn't say this. Just pointing it out because it comes up a lot when nades are brought up)

I'm also painfully aware of Anet's trend of nerfing something that props a class up without any form of compensation. 

Like they did when they neutered rifle, and gave core power engi nothing. It was finally playable for all of 2 months, but community whine got it nerfed back into the dirt. 

For that reason I'd like them to rework the things that got broke/overnerfed first before touching nades. 

If you noticed, I called for scrapper buffs and nade nerfs in my opening post. Core engi could certainly use some buffs too. I'm aware that nades are carrying scrapper. That's not healthy.

[Grenade Auto Attack.]

On 5/29/2023 at 3:42 AM, wasss.1208 said:

I played out this scenario several times against a heavy golem. Over the several attempts, my highest hit on an individual grenade, was 1140, the highest damage of a full auto, after the Sneak Gyro, Blast Gyro, Barrage, Shrapnel was 1111+1126+1140=3377
I did use the build from Hardstuck, (explo tools scrapper) and needed several tries, to get each 3 'nades to crit, because this build is only running with 52,61% (+fury) crit chance.

I also tested a few possibilities: If the Scrapper slots in Elixir B for example, it'll have enough might to reach 1350-1380 'nade autos, making that 4k hit possible. And Elixir B can be precasted in stealth, while running up to the enemy. But that means, that the Scrapper gave up an utility, to make its opening burst stronger, and will be lacking during an another point in the fight.

So: you were either hit by more skills, than what you say here, the scrapper had outside help, or it was running an off-meta build.
 

This is the solution to most of grenades problems. Rework autos, so they act like actual autos, so you can't just throw them behind you, or aoe spam the capture point... Honestly, just rework 'nade kit at this point, make it a proper condi or power kit, and not this inbetween, that gets broken every time might generation gets out of hand.

Ya, just looked it up. Heavy Golem has 2597 armor.

[Can we give pets more health in pvp?]

Player's have been powercrept. Pet health has not kept up.

[Best Sidenode or Bust.]

The current and historical state of war in pvp. Can we fix this? What's needed?

I think a big issue is mobility and staying on the target. A start would be Warrior's Sprint granting 33% movespeed and swiftness being twice as effective. That's a lot of bloat for one trait though, so ideally fast hands would be baseline and the new minor would be gain swift on weaponswap for 2.5 secs, swiftness is twice as effective. Rush could also use an animation change to be like phantom onslaught.

If arcing slice had a 240 radius, that would also be huge.

[Make Stowing Ambush Not Put It on Full Cooldown.]

See title. Dumb for pvp.

[Grenade Auto Attack.]

6 hours ago, wasss.1208 said:

I played out this scenario several times against a heavy golem. Over the several attempts, my highest hit on an individual grenade, was 1140, the highest damage of a full auto, after the Sneak Gyro, Blast Gyro, Barrage, Shrapnel was 1111+1126+1140=3377
I did use the build from Hardstuck, (explo tools scrapper) and needed several tries, to get each 3 'nades to crit, because this build is only running with 52,61% (+fury) crit chance.

I also tested a few possibilities: If the Scrapper slots in Elixir B for example, it'll have enough might to reach 1350-1380 'nade autos, making that 4k hit possible. And Elixir B can be precasted in stealth, while running up to the enemy. But that means, that the Scrapper gave up an utility, to make its opening burst stronger, and will be lacking during an another point in the fight.

So: you were either hit by more skills, than what you say here, the scrapper had outside help, or it was running an off-meta build.
 

This is the solution to most of grenades problems. Rework autos, so they act like actual autos, so you can't just throw them behind you, or aoe spam the capture point... Honestly, just rework 'nade kit at this point, make it a proper condi or power kit, and not this inbetween, that gets broken every time might generation gets out of hand.

They were likely running object in motion or takedown round or both.