Why Did You Nerf Engi Shield Skills Across the Board?

[Enduronex.4865]

 

Quote

 

Engineer

Mechanist has continued to be a dominant force in PvP, and for this update we've taken a harder look at some of its defensive capabilities. Rectifier Signet in particular is an extremely potent source of healing, especially in combination with the grandmaster trait Mech Core: J-Drive, and it's something that needed to come down. We've also made another slight adjustment to Mech Frame: Channeling Conduits to further reduce the mechanist's alacrity uptime. Finally, we have an adjustment to the engineer's shield cooldowns. We've seen the strength of the shield previously with protection holosmith builds, and it's no surprise to see it again as a key piece for the mechanist. Shield skills are available a bit too often with the cooldown reduction of Over Shield, so we've bumped up the cooldowns of both Magnetic Shield and Static Shield.

• Rectifier Signet: Reduced pulse heal from 230 to 142 in PvP only.
• Mech Frame: Channeling Conduits: Increased internal cooldown from 3 seconds to 4 seconds in PvP only.
• Magnetic Shield: Increased cooldown from 25 seconds to 30 seconds in PvP only.
• Static Shield: Increased cooldown from 30 seconds to 40 seconds in PvP only.

 

 

Why did the balance team decide that, because Mechanist is performing too well for your liking, to increase baseline shield skills ACROSS THE BOARD?  Why not just.... remove the cooldown reduction from the Inventions line with the Overshield trait?  That would've addressed the issue and not affected any core engi, holosmith, or even mechanist builds that use a shield but that do not use inventions.  This is a horrid balance decision.  I would have even understood taking away the cooldown-less stun AoE from Static Shield (because that definitely becomes a problem when you have a field that repeatedly attempts to attack the shielding engineer player), and turned it into a 1-second-per-player timer but this?  This really isn't justified.

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Edited May 10, 2022 by memausz.7264

[xblankk.4207]

Engi is not Guardian, so it has to be nerfed, dude. Sorry.

[pukish.5784]

Mech got tiny nerf while willbender got zero nerf

[Enduronex.4865]

Just now, xKole.9175 said:

Engi is not Guardian, so it has to be nerfed, dude. Sorry.

That's a non-response not worthy of the forums.

 

 

Also, how so?  Holosmith is actually below average in the current meta.  Scrappers are not running around insta-killing people with flame thrower anymore.  Core condi engis.... exist but they aren't competitive in ranked, ATs, or even situationally.  I can't think of a situation where you'd want a core condi engi on your team unless you happen to REALLY like 24 second 2 stack burns from offhand pistol.

[xblankk.4207]

1 minute ago, memausz.7264 said:

That's a non-response not worthy of the forums.

 

 

Also, how so?  Holosmith is actually below average in the current meta.  Scrappers are not running around insta-killing people with flame thrower anymore.  Core condi engis.... exist but they aren't competitive in ranked, ATs, or even situationally.  I can't think of a situation where you'd want a core condi engi on your team unless you happen to REALLY like 24 second 2 stack burns from offhand pistol.

I'm just kidding, man.

 

I agree with you 10000%. 

Engi's weren't really significant in MATs, no one is complaining about them on the forums, and I personally feel like they were in a fine place, and lastly, the way they nerfed it just digs a deeper hole for Core. It's bonkers.

 

On the other hand, every team in the MAT had at LEAST one guardian, every game I'm in there's usually 1 or 2 per team as well, everyone complains about Guardian being over-tuned on the forums... and they didn't touch it or even mention it. Again, bonkers.

[Enduronex.4865]

Like wow, I would've even understood a nerf to Acid Bomb or maybe even Toss Elixir R.... but not this.

[Enduronex.4865]

1 minute ago, xKole.9175 said:

I'm just kidding, man.

 

I agree with you 10000%. 

Engi's weren't really significant in MATs, no one is complaining about them on the forums, and I personally feel like they were in a fine place, and lastly, the way they nerfed it just digs a deeper hole for Core. It's bonkers.

 

On the other hand, every team in the MAT had at LEAST one guardian, every game I'm in there's usually 1 or 2 per team as well, everyone complains about Guardian being over-tuned on the forums... and they didn't touch it or even mention it. Again, bonkers.

Guess it's offhand pistol for me then!  Maybe if I'm lucky they won't nerf that!

[Poelala.2830]

13 minutes ago, memausz.7264 said:

 

 

Why did the balance team decide that, because Mechanist is performing too well for your liking, to increase baseline shield skills ACROSS THE BOARD?  Why not just.... remove the cooldown reduction from the Inventions line with the Overshield trait?  That would've addressed the issue and not affected any core engi, holosmith, or even mechanist builds that use a shield but that do not use inventions.  This is a horrid balance decision.  I would have even understood taking away the cooldown-less stun AoE from Static Shield (because that definitely becomes a problem when you have a field that repeatedly attempts to attack the shielding engineer player), and turned it into a 1-second-per-player timer but this?  This really isn't justified.

•  

Engi shield has been the best defensive weapon forever. Healthy nerf.

[Ziegrif.5964]

I feel like the ranks I slum in have moved on from mechanist in lieu of Willbender, harby and Untamed I don't really get this nerf. It's like it was designed a few weeks ago and only shipped now to make sure the grave engi was digging was nice and deep. The message is clear though, stop playing bunkers.

Edited May 10, 2022 by Ziegrif.5964

[Enduronex.4865]

2 minutes ago, Ziegrif.5964 said:

I feel like the ranks I slum in have moved on from mechanist in lieu of Willbender, harby and Untamed I don't really get this nerf. It's like it was designed a few weeks ago and only shipped now to make sure the grave engi was digging was nice and deep. The message is clear though, stop playing bunkers.

Can they at least give Prime Light Beam it's 0.75 or 1.0 coefficient back, just like CMC promised 2 YEARS ago?

[BobbyT.7192]

6 minutes ago, Poelala.2830 said:

Engi shield has been the best defensive weapon forever. Healthy nerf.

Its engineer's only non-scapper defensive weapon,

[Enduronex.4865]

1 minute ago, BobbyT.7192 said:

Its engineer's only non-scapper defensive weapon,

Well... technically Tool Kit's Gear Shield exists but... that requires a full utility just to use it.  That's a high opportunity cost.

[Luthan.5236]

It sure is weird since now it basically forces you to use that trait (if you haven't used it before) - to make the shield at least somewhat useful (Otherwise tooo high cooldown.)

[Enduronex.4865]

17 minutes ago, Poelala.2830 said:

Engi shield has been the best defensive weapon forever. Healthy nerf.

Except you nerf it as needed.  Only mechanist was identified as needing a nerf.  You nerf as needed.

[Kuma.1503]

Bunkering with Pistol/Shield was one of the last semi-viable things core condi engi could do. Guess that was too much?

I'm not even upset about the Mech nerf because the build I used was Mace/Pistol with the condi mech traitline. I prefer being able to kill things vs being unkillable, but this core nerf really solidifies things for me. 

I made the right call jumping ship from Engineer. 

I love the class. Unfortunately ANet doesn't. 

[Saharo.5381]

Downright disgraceful nerf.

Anet says: "We've seen the strength of the shield previously with protection holosmith builds"

YET LEFT SHIELD UNTOUCHED FOR THE ENTIRETY OF PROT HOLO'S DOMINANCE. Talk about double standard. Why even bring up Prot Holo now? It's an nonissue and only serves to work against justifying the nerf.

Engi has kitten weapon selection already. Anet said f all Engineers because of ONE spec we think is overperforming 🙄 AND why nerf the CD? Why not the effect/duration? To make it easier for opponents to plan for or play around rather than simply "solve" the issue by not letting Engineers use it?

Because sustain Mech is running rampantly unchecked in tourneys. Totally.

 

Edited May 10, 2022 by Saharo Gravewind.5120

[Dreams.3128]

Ah yes the class that lost stability, proper sustain, decent traits because a spec that was overbuffed for years and this is how they repay Engi mains.

 

Years later and Anet is still preening over the Necro and Guard mains. 

 

At this point they better give us weapon swapping like the other classes because there's legit no point trying to keep us locked on one weapon set when most of our main and offhand weapons took hits somewhere in Anet's timeline.

Edited May 10, 2022 by Lilyanna.9361

[ArthurDent.9538]

I have always hated the keep increasing cd's on skills approach anet has been taking for for the past few years for everything. A 40 sec cd for a weapon skill on a class without weapon swap is a bad joke.

[ThrakathNar.4537]

It's amazing that they recognised That J-Drive (the trait that let you keep signet passives while on cooldown) and Overshield were both issues in the text surrounding the post, and yet completely proceeded to ignore them when actually making balance changes. This is the same, misguided, balance logic that resulted in Thief getting a 40 second cooldown on their heal skill instead of actually nerfing the thing that needed nerfing - the Shadow Arts cooldown reduction trait.

 

Out of all the changes:

- The nerf to the passive healing was a good change, and hopefully curbs the bunker build.

- The nerf to the alacrity trait just makes it harder for this trait to fulfill its intended purpose. Remove the ICD, but just make it not work with sanctuary rune. It's that easy.

- The nerf to Shield cooldowns is nonsensical and hurts every single engineer spec (except for Scrapper, because you'd probably run hammer instead). Overshield is a strong trait and could've done with a nerf, but this is not the way to fix it. Teamfight Holo builds were already outperformed by Willbender, Harbinger, and Untamed - this just makes the gap even larger.

Edited May 10, 2022 by ThrakathNar.4537

[coro.3176]

Ridiculous.

The most blatant admission that they are nerfing core to balance elite specs I've seen in a while. It's like they've dropped all pretense of having core be viable.

Maybe next year's balance patch? Maybe next decade? Maybe next game? Seriously, how many years has it been since *any* core engi build was good? 7? I don't think there has been one since before HoT. The elite specs added too much power. The devs know this because they just said as much in the balance notes, yet they continue to nerf core.

Edited May 10, 2022 by coro.3176

[Shaogin.2679]

At this point, core Engineer will never see the light of day. Still amusing that they do stuff like this but when they nerfed a core Guardian trait because of Firebrand, they made it so the trait was only nerfed when you equip the Firebrand traitline so as to not nerf core Guardian. Then they also decided core Guardian wasn't performing well enough and actually buffed it. Meanwhile, core Engineer has been getting worse and worse all in the name of nerfing the elite specs. It is just mind boggling really.

[Hotride.2187]

1 hour ago, xKole.9175 said:

Engi is not Guardian, so it has to be nerfed, dude. Sorry.

We are happy to see that more players are playing guardian. This makes our job with balancing it only vs necro easier.

But we are not happy with the rate at which players convert to guard. Therefore.......

[Stand The Wall.6987]

1 hour ago, ArthurDent.9538 said:

I have always hated the keep increasing cd's on skills approach anet has been taking for for the past few years for everything. A 40 sec cd for a weapon skill on a class without weapon swap is a bad joke.

its like they don't understand the basic logic of weak skill - low cd strong skill - high cd. it became apparent when they nerfed coefficients in the megapatch along with cds. who tf does that.

[Khalisto.5780]

standard anet nerfs, elite over performing, let's nerf core.

 

 

[Bazsi.2734]

They have a really weird, abstract way going about balancing their game. Can't really muster up the energy to be mad though, those years are gone. It's just funny at this point... 
I have no idea whats going on behind the scene, but I just can't belive the dev team is taking balancing this gamemode seriously. I mean seriously what is this patch? 😄

"Willbender overperforming, hurr-durr lefts nerf core engi!"