Nerfing Magnet

[N A T E.3108]

• Magnet: This skill now properly plays its visual effect during the full channel. This skill cannot be retargeted. This skill now applies bonus defiance damage to targets with defiance bars.

This is the upcoming change to Magnet in Toolkit. This skill requires a 1 1/4 channel to activate the pull. The skill can only be used once every 25s. The skill has a very obvious animation and sound. Retargeting has been the only thing that made this skill even remotely viable, and yet rarely used in high level play- definitely not on the abusive skill list when you compare it to all the other pulls & CC in game that are far more oppressive. What gives. You are making this skill literally useless. What idiot isn't going to avoid this every. single. time. Good job nerfing Engi to the ground yet again.

Retargeting has been an option for this skill from the beginning of the game for those that wanted to put in the work to learn it. Here we are so many years later making it literally useless.

Scew you Anet and your braindead balance decisions. Go nerf something that actually needs nerfing.

ALIEN

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

5 minutes ago, N A T E.3108 said:

• Magnet: This skill now properly plays its visual effect during the full channel. This skill cannot be retargeted. This skill now applies bonus defiance damage to targets with defiance bars.

This is the upcoming change to Magnet in Toolkit. This skill requires a 1 1/4 channel to activate the pull. The skill can only be used once every 25s. The skill has a very obvious animation and sound. Retargeting has been the only thing that made this skill even remotely viable, and yet rarely used in high level play- definitely not on the abusive skill list when you compare it to all the other pulls & CC in game that are far more oppressive. What gives. You are making this skill literally useless. What idiot isn't going to avoid this every. single. time. Good job nerfing Engi to the ground yet again.

Retargeting has been an option for this skill from the beginning of the game for those that wanted to put in the work to learn it. Here we are so many years later making it literally useless.

Scew you Anet and your braindead balance decisions. Go nerf something that actually needs nerfing.

ALIEN

I think they're watching us in arena Alien 💀

He's right though.  I'm evading that every time if it isn't last second retargeted or otherwise obfuscated. Should have at least reduced the cooldown or activation time if you're gonna make people commit to the channel. 

Also please note how insufferable dealing with telegraphed skills are when you need them to set up burst vs people that know what to dodge.

Edited May 25 by Azure The Heartless.3261

[N A T E.3108]

2 minutes ago, Azure The Heartless.3261 said:

I think they're watching us in arena Alien 💀

He's right though.  I'm evading that every time if it isn't last second retargeted or otherwise obfuscated. Should have at least reduced the cooldown or activation time if you're gonna make people commit to the channel. 

As one of the few people that actually uses Toolkit and retargets magnet, I think my fears have finally come true- I finally manhandled some poor balance dev too hard and now he's qqing because he got pulled without an obvious animation. Magnet, at the very least, needs to be brought in line with the other pulls in game in terms of cast time and cd. 

[N A T E.3108]

It's not like engi (outside of holo) can even begin to compete in this meta right now anyway. I don't get why the hard nerf.

Edited May 26 by N A T E.3108

[arazoth.7290]

24 minutes ago, Azure The Heartless.3261 said:

I think they're watching us in arena Alien 💀

He's right though.  I'm evading that every time if it isn't last second retargeted or otherwise obfuscated. Should have at least reduced the cooldown or activation time if you're gonna make people commit to the channel. 

Also please note how insufferable dealing with telegraphed skills are when you need them to set up burst vs people that know what to dodge.

They actually do. I have seen some time ago somebody from arena net appear in pvp lobby. He had a huge arena net employe badge, can't be faked, he went invisible the moment I mentioned it in public 😂

[WhoWantsAHug.3186]

As of right now the preview doesn't state that you can't wind it up without a target, just that you can't retarget it from a different target. It will require playtesting 

 

The same change but for MOA specifically states that you can't use the skill without a target. Theres ambiguity ATM

[RidleyDay.3056]

Did anet hire someone new? Hasn't this been in the game forever without being an issue? Like, I've never seen magnet discussed a single time by anyone. Ever.

Why are we suddenly "fixing" things that weren't an issue? Because it's unintended behavior from someone's 12 year old code? Study vidya game design history for a minute and look at how unintended behavior affected games like Melee and Street Fighter 2; quirks like animation canceling and wavedashing were unintentional and had the unexpected effect of being fun and skillful tech. There's no reason to remove things that are unintentional side effects if they're fun. If you're a dev and said side effects go against your "initial vision" but players enjoy them, either embrace it or work on a game that no one else will ever play. GW2 is not your game.

Selfish assholes.

[MilkyTea.9042]

kittening magnets, how do they work?

[Saiyan.1704]

On 5/25/2024 at 12:41 PM, N A T E.3108 said:

I finally manhandled some poor balance dev too hard and now he's qqing because he got pulled without an obvious animation.

This probably actually happened Lol.

On 5/25/2024 at 1:07 PM, WhoWantsAHug.3186 said:

It will require playtesting 

 

In other words, 2 full seasons worth of PvP 😄

[N A T E.3108]

On 5/25/2024 at 2:07 PM, WhoWantsAHug.3186 said:

As of right now the preview doesn't state that you can't wind it up without a target, just that you can't retarget it from a different target. It will require playtesting 

 

The same change but for MOA specifically states that you can't use the skill without a target. Theres ambiguity ATM

The retargeting ability, or the ability to start cast without a target and select target before the channel completes, is only possible with “Allow Skill Retargeting” selected in options… so I’d say the disabling of the regathering ability will for sure destroy the skill as I’ve described. 

[Terrorhuz.4695]

God forbid I get to dodge a skill whose intended counter is to dodge. We might want to remove the visul effect from the mesmer focus pull too, or dh spear of justice, why the kitten should a setup have any kind of telegraph

Edited May 26 by Terrorhuz.4695
JUST FOR THE RECORD: I'm all for lowering the cast time and channel time, but the retargeting was idiotic and you all know this.

[aymnad.9023]

1 hour ago, Terrorhuz.4695 said:

God forbid I get to dodge a skill whose intended counter is to dodge. We might want to remove the visul effect from the mesmer focus pull too, or dh spear of justice, why the kitten should a setup have any kind of telegraph

I do not understand your message. Most setup have an animation and people like to see what is coming. On dh even if you missed the original attack you have the effect + animation telling the pull can come.

I am in favor of clarity so increasing the effect like the tether to know you are going to get hit by an unblockable effect would already be good. A spell I am still waiting to see is spinal shivers.

Edited May 26 by aymnad.9023

[Silinsar.6298]

Tbh, I can understand the idea behind the change, but it's always weird to have these things be addressed in a few of dozens of cases, where telegraphs are lacking. There are many skills that are (/ should be highly) telegraphed that can be re-targeted in the last moment to be unexpected for the new target, and there's stealth and ports too messing with the telegraphing of skills by design. Re-targeting is a feature of the combat system since forever as well afaik, why is it an issue now? It would be better to display a more visible indication on the engi currently casting magnet imo.

Edited May 26 by Silinsar.6298

[Shagie.7612]

everyone's looking way too deep into it

it's a wvw pinsniping change just like the moa change

[AlPower.2476]

That's why I quit PvP, every engineer iteration was literally nerf random things without any f** sens... But they random and non-smart engineer bias have followed me to WvW (Letzz nerfff lock on, It doesn't matter that thief there is toxic and broken asf, lockon is a problem in wvw durr, lets nerff holo also, it doesnt matter that warrior has actually the same damage, but is ranged, has 25k+ hp, lots of stunbreaks and a strong self heal, holo op cuz mele dmg is so high urr)

But hey, we got an 1 hour lore update xD And wait, 'cause they are big nerfing holo in PvE too xD. But the low effort virtuoso is there surpassing benchmarks without problem, being used by all, but the low population holo is too strong :c lets nerf it.

[shion.2084]

On 5/25/2024 at 1:32 PM, N A T E.3108 said:

• Magnet: This skill now properly plays its visual effect during the full channel. This skill cannot be retargeted. This skill now applies bonus defiance damage to targets with defiance bars.

This is the upcoming change to Magnet in Toolkit. This skill requires a 1 1/4 channel to activate the pull. The skill can only be used once every 25s. The skill has a very obvious animation and sound. Retargeting has been the only thing that made this skill even remotely viable, and yet rarely used in high level play- definitely not on the abusive skill list when you compare it to all the other pulls & CC in game that are far more oppressive. What gives. You are making this skill literally useless. What idiot isn't going to avoid this every. single. time. Good job nerfing Engi to the ground yet again.

Retargeting has been an option for this skill from the beginning of the game for those that wanted to put in the work to learn it. Here we are so many years later making it literally useless.

Scew you Anet and your braindead balance decisions. Go nerf something that actually needs nerfing.

ALIEN

Wow,  I was expecting something really fundamental for having screwed the only really competitive build holo.   I don't see a thing that's of any significant use to my build, and they're hosing yours on top of it.  This is really unbelievable, they just removed a fundamental counter to toxicness and replaced it with...nothing.

[Zyreva.1078]

Counterplay is all nice and dandy, but some people (and anet) seem to forget that defense also needs some counterplay and hiding animations by retargeting is imo fair and a healthy way of enabeling skill expression, because it requires a deliberate player action (as opposed to mindless skill spam). And it's not like there isn't any other counterplay than dodging (eg preventive use of stab or a quick stun break).

[TexZero.7910]

17 hours ago, Shagie.7612 said:

everyone's looking way too deep into it

it's a wvw pinsniping change just like the moa change

Sadly this.

One commander got bullied to hard and cried about it as opposed to getting good.

[yoghurt.3462]

one day holo will do less damage than condi core engi but I'll still be playing it out of spite

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

1 hour ago, yoghurt.3462 said:

one day holo will do less damage than condi core engi but I'll still be playing it out of spite

yes

My brother

Spite fuel

[Endo.1652]

On 5/25/2024 at 7:42 PM, RidleyDay.3056 said:

Did anet hire someone new? Hasn't this been in the game forever without being an issue? Like, I've never seen magnet discussed a single time by anyone. Ever.

Why are we suddenly "fixing" things that weren't an issue? Because it's unintended behavior from someone's 12 year old code? Study vidya game design history for a minute and look at how unintended behavior affected games like Melee and Street Fighter 2; quirks like animation canceling and wavedashing were unintentional and had the unexpected effect of being fun and skillful tech. There's no reason to remove things that are unintentional side effects if they're fun. If you're a dev and said side effects go against your "initial vision" but players enjoy them, either embrace it or work on a game that no one else will ever play. GW2 is not your game.

Selfish assholes.

They did the same exact thing wih a few thief skills over time which really just dumbed down the class.  An example was removing the detargeting and using your camera angle to cut the distance of heartseeker intentionally.

They do this with mesmer too. Some examples were "Fixing" shield 4 jump, removing the need in stowing greatsword autos for better dps, and just recently dumbed down moa.

Edited May 27 by Endorphin.9147

[WhoWantsAHug.3186]

On 5/26/2024 at 5:20 PM, aymnad.9023 said:

I do not understand your message. Most setup have an animation and people like to see what is coming. On dh even if you missed the original attack you have the effect + animation telling the pull can come.

I am in favor of clarity so increasing the effect like the tether to know you are going to get hit by an unblockable effect would already be good. A spell I am still waiting to see is spinal shivers.

I think he was being sarcastic. Like he thinks being able to hide the animation of Magnet pull with retarget is toxic design. I agree, even though it's mad fun to do 

[magickthief.6492]

On 5/25/2024 at 11:32 AM, N A T E.3108 said:

• Magnet: This skill now properly plays its visual effect during the full channel. This skill cannot be retargeted. This skill now applies bonus defiance damage to targets with defiance bars.

This is the upcoming change to Magnet in Toolkit. This skill requires a 1 1/4 channel to activate the pull. The skill can only be used once every 25s. The skill has a very obvious animation and sound. Retargeting has been the only thing that made this skill even remotely viable, and yet rarely used in high level play- definitely not on the abusive skill list when you compare it to all the other pulls & CC in game that are far more oppressive. What gives. You are making this skill literally useless. What idiot isn't going to avoid this every. single. time. Good job nerfing Engi to the ground yet again.

Retargeting has been an option for this skill from the beginning of the game for those that wanted to put in the work to learn it. Here we are so many years later making it literally useless.

Scew you Anet and your braindead balance decisions. Go nerf something that actually needs nerfing.

ALIEN

it is not obvious at all, lmao. Anet PLEASE delete engi, it was a mistake. Bring back ritualist instead. NERF ENGI INTO OBLIBVION

[Cyninja.2954]

On 5/27/2024 at 1:42 AM, Shagie.7612 said:

everyone's looking way too deep into it

it's a wvw pinsniping change just like the moa change

THANK YOU. I was about to give up hope.

Yes, this and Moa are changes to reduce annoyance of sniping enemy commanders.

[N A T E.3108]

Yes, a low animation skill (which is does still have an animation mind you- the engi holds a magnet in front of it and with standard models it’s a big red magnet too) is poorly designed, but my argument is simple: (1) the skill is nearly useless when used without retargeting; (2) no oppressive builds in the meta utilize Toolkit; (3) core engi, scrapper, and mech are underperforming classes already in competitive play, and holo just received several major nerfs in this last balance, so this is an uncalled for nerf at this point; (4) IF this nerf must go through, we need some sort of cast time and CD reduction to make it viable.

Everyone knows that Toolkit as a whole has been in the underperforming camp for many many years. WITH retargeting, Magnet has not created ANY oppressive builds, therefore it is the definition of an uncalled for nerf. We need something in return.

For those of you who will inevitably (and incorrectly) argue  "eNgI iZ oP" and justify all potential nerfs accordingly, my answer is as follows: Engis who use Toolkit are not, thus the nerf is still unwarranted.

ALIEN

Edited May 29 by N A T E.3108