Nov 29 engineer changes

[EvilZombie.6801]

1 hour ago, Infusion.7149 said:

Bleeding is mostly inconsequential for a power build so long as there is bleeding for Hematic Focus: each crit already provides 4s of bleeding through the minors Sharpshooter and Serrated steel. You're more inclined to get DPS from Explosive temper triggers on any build with grenades (ferocity) but the rifle mech runs Aim Assisted Rocket which has 3s ICD and triggers on missile hits.

Moreover, the current log has each rifle burst average 3K damage while rifle burst grenade is on average 4K damage. If rifle burst grenade also gets a damage increase from 0.4 to 0.6 that means potentially 6K damage on average for that part of the auto. Rifle burst grenade lacks an activation time as well.

Edit: also see the November log for power core engi where rifle burst (Gewehrsalve) is on average 3.3K and Rifle Burst Grenade (Gewehrsalven-Granate) is on average 4.5K.
https://gw2wingman.nevermindcreations.de/log/20221103-220200_MedGolem_kill

It also affect your projectile finshier and sigil and im playing hybrid so it does affect alot plus there is no buff to PVP they only buff pve

[SleepyBat.9034]

48 minutes ago, Alcatraznc.3869 said:

My main complain about rifle nerf is in PvP/WvW. The rifle wasnt even an OP weapon or anything, especially in WvW with all the projectile block/reflect. I dont necessarily agree with nerfing rifle in PvE but the change in coefficient wont really affect it too much, however this is a big nerf for PvP and WvW. 

 

But I suppose Anet would rather listen to the one player who still get dumped by a rifle Mechanist in WvW rather than look at the big picture 

They didn't nerf it.

[Zebulon.1850]

The patch note just says "Rifle Burst: This skill now fires one piercing projectile before the grenade instead of two."
And then lists the buffs to damage for PvE. I don't think they would combine the damage of the two projectiles as well as increase the damage on the other skills.

 

That makes me think in WvW and PvP, the damage from the first attack is getting cut in half.

On my marauder holo, rifle auto does 360+246 (606), down to 180+246 (426). That's really low for a power based weapon.
Pistol auto does 375 per hit on the same build.

Same stats on renegade short bow auto does 609 + bleeding damage.

 

If they are nerfing it instead of combining that damage, rifle is back to being the worst weapon for core, holo, scrapper again.

[Doggie.3184]

Need a toggle command to make pet stay in range of me. I'm not a fan of constantly spamming heel and attack over and over again so if they wanna do a weird nerf like this we need QoL for it. They're basically turning us into the pet, having to follow around our jade mech overlord as it auto paths to enemies in distance.

[Yellow Rainbow.6142]

Good thing after DE meta, I quit spending dollars in marketplace because I didn't like the way game was going.  3 classes I liked, Reaper, Dragonhunter, Mech and all 3 are junk now. Everything has to be catered toward raid players. Tired of this philosophy.

[Jaruselka.5943]

Seriously, who uses box of nails? I only use it by accident when I mess up my rotation. That long cast time for very little actual CC. They need to throw that in the dumpster along with utility goggles..

[Ten.2617]

My suggestions about some proposed changes:

 

[Alcatraznc.3869]

4 hours ago, SleepyBat.9034 said:

They didn't nerf it.

They did.

[Kodama.6453]

9 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said:

Box of Nails: The first pulse of this skill will now immobilize enemies affected by crowd control or a movement-impairing condition. Increased ammunition from 1 to 2.

Buff to a very underwhelming skill in a pretty good (PvP) kit. It's ok, but I feel like this dev time could have been spent in a better way.

Where are the fixes to the pistol auto cast time? Some adjustments for turrets (they need a complete rework, but I would take literally anything for them)? Some buffs for underwhelming gadgets?

9 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said:

Rifle Burst: This skill now fires one piercing projectile before the grenade instead of two. Increased piercing projectile power coefficient from 0.3 to 0.4 in PvE only. Grenade power coefficient increased from 0.4 to 0.6 in PvE only. Increased skill animation speed; total animation duration remains the same as previous version in PvE only.

Mostly unchanged in PvE, but the animation might look less weird now with it not firing as rapidly anymore.

Nerf in PvP, this seems to be the flamethrower treatment. Rifle auto was basically just good in low rank PvP, since it required people to adopt some slightly advanced strategies (LoS, mostly). Seems Anet doesn't like mechanics to require advanced strategies, since it makes new players who didn't adapt yet feel bad.

It's whatever for me. Sword and hammer is where it's at for engineer PvP anyway.

9 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said:

Scrapper

• Electro-whirl: Increased power coefficient from 0.68 to 0.75 in PvP only.
• Bypass Coating: Reduced cooldown from 35 seconds to 25 seconds in PvP only.
• Medic Gyro: Reduced cooldown from 30 seconds to 25 seconds in PvP only.

Love to see it, scrapper felt a bit bad in PvP recently so I am gladly taking any buffs I can get for it. Don't think the change to medic gyro will make me take it over elixir h, tho.

 

9 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said:

Holosmith

• Cauterize: This skill now removes additional conditions when used while above 100% heat.
• Particle Accelerator: This skill now gains bonus damage while above 50% heat and additional bonus damage while above 100% heat, in addition to its previous effects.
• Prismatic Singularity: This skill now gains bonus damage on the explosion portion of the attack when used above 100% heat, in addition to its previous effects. Increased explosion power coefficient from 0.5 to 1.2 in PvE only.
• Flash Spark: This skill now grants additional light aura duration when used above 100% heat.
• Blade Burst: This skill now deals bonus damage when used above 100% heat, in addition to its previous effects.
• Spectrum Shield: This skill now grants additional duration when used above 100% heat, in addition to its previous effects.
• Coolant Blast: This skill now grants additional duration to Cooling Vapor and Frost Aura when used above 100% heat, in addition to its previous effects.
• Laser Disk: This skill now gains additional damage when used above 100% heat, in addition to its previous effects.
• Hard Light Arena: This skill now grants allies the full duration of boons when used above 100% heat, in addition to its previous effects.
• Prime Light Beam: This skill now gains additional field strike damage and burning duration when used above 100% heat, in addition to its previous effects.
• Corona Burst: Increased power coefficient per hit from 1.2 to 1.5 in PvE only.
• Holographic Shockwave: Increased power coefficient from 0.96 to 1.8 in PvE only.
• Sun Edge (PvE only): Increased damage bonus while above 50% heat from 10% to 20%. Increased damage bonus while above 100% heat from 20% to 30%.   
• Sun Ripper (PvE only): Increased damage bonus while above 50% heat from 10% to 20%. Increased damage bonus while above 100% heat from 20% to 30%.   
• Gleam Saber (PvE only): Increased damage bonus while above 50% heat from 10% to 20%. Increased damage bonus while above 100% heat from 20% to 30%.   
• Refraction Cutter: Increased projectile power coefficient from 0.275 to 0.4 in PvE only.
• Solar Focusing Lens: Increased burning duration on enemies from 2 seconds to 3 seconds in PvE only.
• Photonic Blasting Module: Increased burning from 2 stacks for 2 seconds to 5 stacks for 4 seconds in PvE only.

Here comes the REALLY juicy stuff. Quite alot of buffs for power holosmith, rewarding good gameplay with ECSU. Hopefully this will make holosmith a great meta power dps build for strikes and raids again.

I enjoy power holosmith alot over the snooze fest which is power mechanist, really greatful to see stuff justifying taking it here.

9 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said:

Mechanist

• Mechanical Genius: Combat attribute bonuses to the mech are now reduced by 50% if the engineer is more than a range of 360 away from the mech for a certain amount of time.

Won't affect me when playing condi or ham, mostly. But this might feel really awkward with power mechanist.

360 is a really tiny range. I can see what they are going for here. If mechanist has way less requirements when it comes to your rotation, they want to apply the difficulty of playing it in another area (positioning).

But they might have to buff that leash range somewhat. With such a small range, it will probably be really annoying.

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

That mech proximity requirement is a real head-scratcher.  I know what they're trying to do, which is nerf rifle mech, but in reality it just makes the spec slightly more inconvenient.  Same thing goes with dual pistol condi mech.  Mace and Bomb Kit Variants will largely not notice a thing.

I am glad to see holosmith getting buffs to the ECSU build.  That thing is the definition of high risk, and it deserved to get its higher rewards.  

[Incurve Giidis.7829]

1 hour ago, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

That mech proximity requirement is a real head-scratcher.  I know what they're trying to do, which is nerf rifle mech, but in reality it just makes the spec slightly more inconvenient. 

it's like designed to spite the players, no other purpose

sad that pbm rifle died for this

[Geranor.5392]

2 hours ago, Kodama.6453 said:

Won't affect me when playing condi or ham, mostly. But this might feel really awkward with power mechanist.

360 is a really tiny range. I can see what they are going for here. If mechanist has way less requirements when it comes to your rotation, they want to apply the difficulty of playing it in another area (positioning).

But they might have to buff that leash range somewhat. With such a small range, it will probably be really annoying.

The problem here is not the range, is the wayfinding. The Mech standing 70%+ of the fight on the other end of the Boss, to manage the way for every field, ae attack, positioning issus... will be horrible gameplay.

 

For this change a better wayfinding for the mech or a button to limit the range of the mech is important for a nice playstyle and not a shitload of anger.

[Koensol.5860]

10 hours ago, Makuragee.3058 said:

Anet is killing the fun, not so long ago, you could fire rocket aswell as the mech at the same time, rocking the battle rifle from Halo! Thats was awesome!  Now only you shoot rocket and your rifle gonna be a lame 2 shots. Thats honestly pretty sad.

You also kill the explosive thing on ememy over 50% health, drop munition or something?

ps. The mortar skin is STILL the basic in game rifle... like come on its been placeholder since before HoT release. Dont merf the rifle auto, at least not like that, kill the number I dont care.

You know what's honestly pretty sad? People expecting to do all sorts of stuff at once while only spamming 1 non stop. This is an RPG game, not a shooter. Gotta have to work a bit more for your results. Maybe use some abilities instead of coping with 5 passive signets?

[Luthan.5236]

Box of nails thing could be interesting. Using the toolkit sometimes in WvW/PvP for additional defense from the shield. (At least when I started to switch to rifle from mace+shield with mechanist.)

Staying near the mech ... we'll see. The range really seems small. In PvP it might work. I used to stay mid-ranged there often. Having the mech walk in melee but switching from melee to mid-range with the rifle/toolkit. Only in WvW the mech of course is permanently ranged. Makes no sense to let him zerged down in melee. 😄

They say it will be a certain duration that you need to be away from the mech (probably an icon signaling it with a timer - in the boon icon bar) ... depends how much time there is.

Edited November 12, 2022 by Luthan.5236

[Ludark.5732]

2 hours ago, Incurve Giidis.7829 said:

it's like designed to spite the players, no other purpose

sad that pbm rifle died for this

Not really. Power rifle Mechanist really doesn't Bench that high right now at 34k. However the mech itself is fairly strong and currently has insane levels of uptime and as a result Mechanist real world performance is vastly better than many other classes.

 

By forcing Mechanist players to reposition their mech once in a while you lower that uptime. Thus decreasing real world performance, but not the benchmark. Basically putting mechanist closer to other specs in actual gameplay, without comprising their performance in optimal scenarios. 

 

Whether this is fun from a gameplay perspective is something else entirely. But personally I think a pet spec should come with some pet management included and this accomplishes that.

[Yellow Rainbow.6142]

1 hour ago, Koensol.5860 said:

You know what's honestly pretty sad? People expecting to do all sorts of stuff at once while only spamming 1 non stop. This is an RPG game, not a shooter. Gotta have to work a bit more for your results. Maybe use some abilities instead of coping with 5 passive signets?

They can make mechanics interesting where you have to do alot more than pressing 1 But, anet always take easy route and make playstyle clunky.

I guess, it requires real talent to make mechanics of game challenging instead of throwing bunch of aoe on ground and clunky playstyle just to make game harder. This is just cheap and unfun tactics.

[Yellow Rainbow.6142]

2 minutes ago, Ludark.5732 said:

Not really. Power rifle Mechanist really doesn't Bench that high right now at 34k. However the mech itself is fairly strong and currently has insane levels of uptime and as a result Mechanist real world performance is vastly better than many other classes.

 

By forcing Mechanist players to reposition their mech once in a while you lower that uptime. Thus decreasing real world performance, but not the benchmark. Basically putting mechanist closer to other specs in actual gameplay, without comprising their performance in optimal scenarios. 

 

Whether this is fun from a gameplay perspective is something else entirely. But personally I think a pet spec should come with some pet management included and this accomplishes that.

okay, then they can give us our +4k dps back. As of right now, any half decent player can beat mech real world dps by 3-4k.

[RazieL.5684]

Stupid, pointless and unneeded nerfs for mech... nerf after nerf after nerf, at this point just delete it already it's clear you have no idea how to balance it...

 

On the other hand i can remove the dust from my ele, they gave one more stack of burning to phenix flames, it's practically an entirely new ele!...

 

"i don't care what i do" - cal

[Geranor.5392]

1 hour ago, Ludark.5732 said:

Whether this is fun from a gameplay perspective is something else entirely. But personally I think a pet spec should come with some pet management included and this accomplishes that.

so we let druid heal 50% less and the buffs are 50% lesser if the pet istn in 360 range? And so on...

[freakcoco.4287]

2 hours ago, Geranor.5392 said:

so we let druid heal 50% less and the buffs are 50% lesser if the pet istn in 360 range? And so on...

Displaced anger not a good thing, but the furry on my blood,  I can’t take it anymore.

[Jimbru.6014]

What I've gotten out of the last few balance patches for Engineers is that someone on the balance team plays Holosmith.

[Geranor.5392]

1 hour ago, freakcoco.4287 said:

Displaced anger not a good thing, but the furry on my blood,  I can’t take it anymore.

 

it was an question on this comment:

 

Quote

Whether this is fun from a gameplay perspective is something else entirely. But personally I think a pet spec should come with some pet management included and this accomplishes that.

because pet mechanics are pet mechanics even its a druid, an untamed or an Mech?

[anbujackson.9564]

18 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said:

 

Holosmith

• Cauterize: This skill now removes additional conditions when used while above 100% heat.
• Particle Accelerator: This skill now gains bonus damage while above 50% heat and additional bonus damage while above 100% heat, in addition to its previous effects.
• Prismatic Singularity: This skill now gains bonus damage on the explosion portion of the attack when used above 100% heat, in addition to its previous effects. Increased explosion power coefficient from 0.5 to 1.2 in PvE only.
• Flash Spark: This skill now grants additional light aura duration when used above 100% heat.
• Blade Burst: This skill now deals bonus damage when used above 100% heat, in addition to its previous effects.
• Spectrum Shield: This skill now grants additional duration when used above 100% heat, in addition to its previous effects.
• Coolant Blast: This skill now grants additional duration to Cooling Vapor and Frost Aura when used above 100% heat, in addition to its previous effects.
• Laser Disk: This skill now gains additional damage when used above 100% heat, in addition to its previous effects.
• Hard Light Arena: This skill now grants allies the full duration of boons when used above 100% heat, in addition to its previous effects.
• Prime Light Beam: This skill now gains additional field strike damage and burning duration when used above 100% heat, in addition to its previous effects.
• Corona Burst: Increased power coefficient per hit from 1.2 to 1.5 in PvE only.
• Holographic Shockwave: Increased power coefficient from 0.96 to 1.8 in PvE only.
• Sun Edge (PvE only): Increased damage bonus while above 50% heat from 10% to 20%. Increased damage bonus while above 100% heat from 20% to 30%.   
• Sun Ripper (PvE only): Increased damage bonus while above 50% heat from 10% to 20%. Increased damage bonus while above 100% heat from 20% to 30%.   
• Gleam Saber (PvE only): Increased damage bonus while above 50% heat from 10% to 20%. Increased damage bonus while above 100% heat from 20% to 30%.   
• Refraction Cutter: Increased projectile power coefficient from 0.275 to 0.4 in PvE only.
• Solar Focusing Lens: Increased burning duration on enemies from 2 seconds to 3 seconds in PvE only.
• Photonic Blasting Module: Increased burning from 2 stacks for 2 seconds to 5 stacks for 4 seconds in PvE only.

 

Why exactly are they buffing condi holo again when mech exists? Solar Focusing Lens and PBM could have gotten some good power changes to make the rifle holo version better (which already lacks behind). Now the gap is so huge that you are totally grieving when you are not playing ESCU sword. I guess PBM is officially the condi trait now.

Oh well time to dust off my sword because on paper these numbers surely look impressive. Too bad sword weaver didnt get any balance budget out of it.

[Zzik.5873]

Anet want to make mech unplayable and clunky as kitten and the make rest of engi simple to the point of boringness, got you.

[Infusion.7149]

36 minutes ago, anbujackson.9564 said:

Why exactly are they buffing condi holo again when mech exists? Solar Focusing Lens and PBM could have gotten some good power changes to make the rifle holo version better (which already lacks behind). Now the gap is so huge that you are totally grieving when you are not playing ESCU sword. I guess PBM is officially the condi trait now.

Oh well time to dust off my sword because on paper these numbers surely look impressive. Too bad sword weaver didnt get any balance budget out of it.

In their updated / renewed design philosophy Arenanet stated they don't want bad choices, only wrong choices. In essence that means condi holo should be a possible outcome even if it is not the strongest way to play condi on engineer.

I do agree with you though, power holo should be the focus of the holo changes.

Ideally it would be power holo > power scrapper (primarily quickness scrapper), with power mech at bottom due to ease whereas condi mech> condi holo in real world scenarios and condi core engi for masochists (scrapper doesn't have a strong condi setup).