Ray, what have you done?

[ShadowAlly.1087]

While many might not fully agree with me I think "you done did ** up" - SLJ. You see the scrapper was a fine build with two paths that could create a balanced and playable character. The power side and the condi side both had their pluses and minuses. While not always being the strongest on the playing field. The support side allowed for just that a support class that worked very well with others. I must say the last patch is a little more than underwhelming. While I can understand your approach to keeping the game fresh taking a meat cleaver approach was really not the best for this class. While I am sure many would agree with me when I say you have almost fully killed off the Roaming style of this class. With the removal of the Medipacks, removing conditions we have been afflicted with becomes near impossible. The Purge Gyro just is not up to the job that the medipacks were able to do. I think that the barrier change in someways was a good thing it, but in saying that now hurts those who use the class as a medic. The Bullwalk Gyro does not address the problems that the patch has created.Let say we move away from the Gyro's and back to the Boon style of play, there are issues that lie in that as well. Stronger than the Gyros but at the same time does not really work as a support for other teammates as the class once did before the patch without pushing 10x the buttons and praying to God you don't miss one. Which is a turn off for new players and those who might not be able to type 40 words a minute.Then we need to look at the HUGE drop in the health pool. Come on guys really? With the Necro's doing their rings of death like they are going out of style and the Thieves doing the POP Surprise you're dead crap and last but not to be outdone the Mezzies doing which one are we. The engineer has lost a lot of its magic and playability. Was this patch really the wisest of choices? You have buffed the Necro so much it is almost game-breaking.Then to point out the big shocker that SNIFF does not find people underwater while you are hunting them underwater. Because you can't get on your mount to do so, they don't swim very well. This almost allows some classes to hide without being detectable. With the removal of the engineer classes ability to detect those who sniff are not able to find. That really does hurt the overall game.New players to the WvW might be turned off by the higher K/D ratio the new patch has created for this class. Don't get me wrong I fully understand the idea behind these patches and keeping things fresh. But it is not fresh when a class is ruined while beefing up two classes that are already hard to compete against. Frustration leads to a drop in players in the game which I am sure you are well aware of and at the same time you have ignored the 3k rule. It is far cheaper to keep a customer than it is to find a new one. I certainly hope that you take on board the voices of the players who are saying bring back what we had then do micro-adjustments. You could have adjusted the detection cool down or even the radius instead of removing the detection ability completely. You should have left 1 or the other when it came to the Health pool and the Barriers. You really do have a limited time to react to the voices of players before it hurts the game.Well, this is my two cents.

[Iozeph.5617]

@ShadowAlly.1087 said:

Not much to worry about here. Anybody who was in it to play engineer for engineer's sake is either bitterly toughing it out or they've quit. Most of them quit long ago. The bandwagoners who came for scrapper will either quit or go holo or some other easier and more rewarding profession. And the bandwagoners who came to only play holo will go back to playing something easier and more rewarding that isn't an Engineer. See the pattern? And either way we were never that well represented by players stats to begin with.

Play it or don't. Anet certainly doesn't care if anyone does.

[Baltzenger.2467]

I'm pretty sure most engineer players that have traveled this road for many years share your sentiment. I certainly do.

What they did to scrapper is not just a nerf, it feels like punishment. It's not just lowering some values, is making choosing the spec "feel bad".
The irony is that if the problem was bulwark gyro (people complaining about "barrier scrapper"), there was so many ways of fixing it without gutting the spec that people was actually playing, it even was a proper meta wvw build!
The balance team could've just reverted the skill back to its gyro era. They could've made it so instead of giving you barrier and redirecting damage from allies that approach you (very "feel bad" mechanic btw, because of how little control you have over what happens next) it could've given barrier to allies, there, right there, you fix the complains about it gaining too much personal barrier (it could've been good even if it didn't give personal barrier at all!) and it would've made a more "feel good" mechanic, because of doing something meaningful that you can easily recognize (do you think players notice how much damage they are not receiving due to "watchful eye"?).

The function Gyro skill is just bad, clunky and ineffective. When you manage to summon a gyro (I have yet to see more than one) by logic it tends to happen under a lot of pressure, the gyro doesn't do anything then. Either a win more effect or a too little too late effect. It could have just by default spawned gyros that "searched" for downed players, but not even that.

Impact Savant is, btw, probably the worst trait currently in the game, and there are many lackluster traits out there, but none to this level.
On top of this, we're again with an identity crisis. If you want a tanky spec you don't make it run glassy stats to deal a ton of damage (you want a high damage tanky character?!), if you want it to be tanky you have to give an incentive to people to run tanky stats, there was one with the healer spec, if you want a bruiser one, well a tradeoff could've been reducing the burst potential, making players want to build for longer fights, not asking them to keep a high and consistent dps in order to survive. At that point, you don't want to survive, you just want to kill your enemies, and you run holosmith.

[Iozeph.5617]

@Baltzenger.2467 said:Impact Savant is, btw, probably the worst trait currently in the game, and there are many lackluster traits out there, but none to this level.

On top of this, we're again with an identity crisis. If you want a tanky spec you don't make it run glassy stats to deal a ton of damage (you want a high damage tanky character?!), if you want it to be tanky you have to give an incentive to people to run tanky stats, there was one with the healer spec, if you want a bruiser one, well a tradeoff could've been reducing the burst potential, making players want to build for longer fights, not asking them to keep a high and consistent dps in order to survive. At that point, you don't want to survive, you just want to kill your enemies, and you run holosmith.

This was the part I loved(tongue firmly planted in cheek as I type this). It has to be a PvE only spec now because you'd have to be utterly brain damaged to engage in melee with a Scrapper playing this trait and allow them to hit you. Just kite them til the barrier is gone then burst them. How in hell are they expected to keep that barrier running when they have to hit their target to do it -presumably with that wonky, stupid, stupid hammer as well. I've read here people talking about how awesome running mortar kit was going to be with such a setup- Hello? It isn't as though projectile hate suddenly packed up and left town.

Whatever drugs they're passing around at ANet I want some, because drugs is the only explanation outside of sheer ego and arrogance that could explain how anybody there believed these changes were worthy of going live. Seriously, they need to just give us a big pair of mecha-inspired clown shoes that use eight-bit gaming sound effects and have done.

[Dawdler.8521]

@"Baltzenger.2467" said:

The balance team could've just reverted the skill back to its gyro era. They could've made it so instead of giving you barrier and redirecting damage from allies that approach you (very "feel bad" mechanic btw, because of how little control you have over what happens next) it could've given barrier to allies, there, right there, you fix the complains about it gaining too much personal barrier (it could've been good even if it didn't give personal barrier at all!) and it would've made a more "feel good" mechanic, because of doing something meaningful that you can easily recognize (do you think players notice how much damage they are not receiving due to "watchful eye"?).

Bulwark was nerfed in addition to the gutting so they kind of did that.

[bbop.9706]

I loved my scrapper. Now my engineer is benched.

What worries me the most is that it feels like whoever is in charge of these changes has no clue about the game, let alone the profession. And that someone else approved the changes! Crazy.

Anet's re-shuffle seems to have been terminal indeed for this game and it makes me sad and angry.

Sad that a game with so much potential fails to ever fulfil it, and angry that i have invested so much time, effort and money in it only for a handful of clueless individuals to ruin the only game i choose or have time play.

Why?

I thought the idea was 'we want people to have fun'.

It really feels like nobody but die hards are happy in any game mode right now.

[Zenguy.6421]

Don't forget the nerf to elite skills as well: no more toolbelt skill = no more on-demand blast finisher w/damage or heals

[Sugar Min.5834]

Despite so many players' negative responses to this patch, ANet has nothing to comment and continue to stay in stealth mode. Sigh.

Did some senior game developers got own by Support Scrappers in WvW recently? :D This patch is like a punishment dished out to remove Support Scrapper from WvW. Well, Congrats ANet, this you did well.

[Dawdler.8521]

@Mil.3562 said:Did some senior game developers got own by Support Scrappers in WvW recently? :D This patch is like a punishment dished out to remove Support Scrapper from WvW. Well, Congrats ANet, this you did well.Why do I imagine hearing a scream from an office, Anet employees rushing to see what happened only to find someone curled up in a ball in a corner quietly whispering purity of purpose, purity of purpose, purity of purpose and then when they ask wtf happened teary eyes look up at them... why wont the burning ever stooooooop!!!

[Sugar Min.5834]

Gosh. I wonder who is that someone. Poor soul.

[ILoveMonotony.1479]

I actually couldn't care less. I never considered Scrapper nor Holosmith an Engineer. In my opinion both Elites completely ruined the core class and forced a melee playstyle that it wasn't supposed to have. All I really want is a viable (yes, viable is good enough, doesn't need to be competitive) PvP Kit Engineer build.

[Euthymias.7984]

While I understand the toolbelt nerf for overheating, that effect should not apply when Photonic Blasting Module is taken since the whole point is to Overheat in the first place. That would save the PvE use while still giving it some niche in the face of this change to PvP. How could Anet let this fall through like this?Did they not understand how the PvE build worked?

And the Scrapper changes are just straight up strange to me.Why did they go out of their way to rework the spec a second time when it just needed an adjustment to its barrier output on Bulwark Gyro? It could have continued to have a few odd niches in its power/condi builds while still having some tankiness/support options without being "unkillable on node" with just a minor tweak instead of hammering in a bunch of nonsensical changes.

@Elmo Benchwarmer.3025 said:I actually couldn't care less. I never considered Scrapper nor Holosmith an Engineer. In my opinion both Elites completely ruined the core class and forced a melee playstyle that it wasn't supposed to have. All I really want is a viable (yes, viable is good enough, doesn't need to be competitive) PvP Kit Engineer build.

Isnt the point of Elite Specs to change the way a profession played/feel? I thought that Holosmith was one of the better ones in that regard since its so distinct from the way Core engineer played (Scrapper too, to a lesser extent).

[ILoveMonotony.1479]

@"Euthymias.7984" said:While I understand the toolbelt nerf for overheating, that effect should not apply when Photonic Blasting Module is taken since the whole point is to Overheat in the first place. That would save the PvE use while still giving it some niche in the face of this change to PvP. How could Anet let this fall through like this?Did they not understand how the PvE build worked?

And the Scrapper changes are just straight up strange to me.Why did they go out of their way to rework the spec a second time when it just needed an adjustment to its barrier output on Bulwark Gyro? It could have continued to have a few odd niches in its power/condi builds while still having some tankiness/support options without being "unkillable on node" with just a minor tweak instead of hammering in a bunch of nonsensical changes.

@Elmo Benchwarmer.3025 said:I actually couldn't care less. I never considered Scrapper nor Holosmith an Engineer. In my opinion both Elites completely ruined the core class and forced a melee playstyle that it wasn't supposed to have. All I really want is a viable (yes, viable is good enough, doesn't need to be competitive) PvP Kit Engineer build.

Isnt the point of Elite Specs to change the way a profession played/feel? I thought that Holosmith was one of the better ones in that regard since its so distinct from the way Core engineer played (Scrapper too, to a lesser extent).

That is the ideal scenario and through most of HoT I could still play condition core Engineer in PvP for fun.

However in preparation of PoF and shortly after release essential traits (removal of the old Kinetic Battery) and abilities ( Incendiary Ammo nerf) were changed in a way that let core condition Engineer crippled. This happened simultaneously with an unprecedented level of power creep. An uphill battle turned into a fight lost by default. After a short while I grew loath of being the punching bag and I stopped playing PvP. That blatant neglect of a playstyle I cherished made me quit playing a format I enjoyed since the very first beta event.

[coro.3176]

I tried condi scrapper last night. You are really really really handicapping yourself to play it. -300 stats is a big deal. You get basically no barrier thanks to terrible power coefficients on the weapons + skills and it's not worth it for access to gyros alone. None of the other traits help in a condi build.

[Warrior Xsr.1672]

So you wanna play Scapper?........ Impact Savant! ...You now lose up to 4,000 of your health pool. (I did) Oh and half your barrier is gone! Wth Anet????????? Unfortunately... This is falling upon deaf ears. Engineer can be sacrificed in Gw2 in their eyes. But they sure love every other profession! Removed our detection pulse, and give thief a portal with stealth?? It blatantly obvious, your lack of interest in keeping the Engineer in the game. Just put us out of our misery and delete the thing! (DONT!) Your words---> "These changes aim to refocus the scrapper as a tank-like character that utilizes personal barrier applications to stay in a fight. " It does not work as you intended! We are way worse off than we were prior. Like from a Tank to a Jeep. I have exclusively played my Engineer for 5 straight years. (you have the power to look it up Anet. So look up my personal gameplay if questioned) 6 years in Gw1 and coming up on 7 years in Gw2. Between me and my family. 3 other accounts. Have purchased all the content since Prophecies. That's alot of time and $$. More than most of the employees (still working ) have in these games. So I not whining like a new player. I am your bread and butter. and one of the majority reason you have a job doing what you do at Anet. I have 14,617 hours in GW as a whole. And I didn't sit in Kamadan or Lions Arch. Dancing and chatting with people. It's all gameplay. So if you don't respect that? You have a bigger problem than making horrible balance choices for my Engineer. I want an explanation on why you think these changes are necessary or warranted. I don't just pay for pixels. I pay for communication and explanations too. What I really want to see is, revert back these horrible horrible changes. And yes, if it seems like I took this personally? I do! It's my game! my character! And I feel wronged! As many others do! Fix this!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[BarnacleBoy.6918]

Yeah anet needs to step up and say something. Cause right now, its a slap in the face followed by ghosting us. Literally gutted a class, and won’t even comment on it. Really unfortunate.

[Baltzenger.2467]

They will probably wait and see what happens.
And that's the thing, I know there was a recent influx of scrapper players, so the decrease might be noticeable, but some people will still play it, why? because we have been playing it despite it being a pretty bad spec in the past, and engineer players being engineer players, will try some gimmicky type of build that does one thing right, but can't really compete on the level of the rest of the classes, and try to enjoy it.

[AphoticEssance.7592]

I pray that Anet takes the time to reconsider some of their decisions with the Scrapper in this patch. Speaking from a WvW perspective, these nerfs are way over the top.

The worst nerfs are the removal of the F skill and the Vitality hit. I don’t like the trait changes but perhaps I can learn to live with them (kind of have to).

I think most of us can admit that Scrapper was a bit too tanky. But I also think the sum of all these nerfs are way over the top. Changing a couple traits and adding a cooldown here and there would of went a long way to making the Scrapper less tanky.

Unsure how the rest of the community feels about this overhaul. To me, these changes have the appearance of a group of people coming up with nerfs but could not decide on a couple, so they just went with them all.

If you are out there Anet, please at the very least reconsider the vitality nerf and the removal of the F skill.

[Zzik.5873]

Me the worst offender is the removal of rapid regen and the change to barrier on hit to barrier on strike. Lost of mass reveal is kind of sad too

[AphoticEssance.7592]

@Makuragee.3058 said:Me the worst offender is the removal of rapid regen and the change to barrier on hit to barrier on strike. Lost of mass reveal is kind of sad too

Yes. Those are two huge nerfs. But I was expecting a nerf to Adaptive armor and Rapid Regen at some point. Not deleted of course... but it happened.

To me, those make sense (don't agree with full deletion but it happened). Its just the other stuff that got nerfed that has me scratching my head.

[Dawdler.8521]

@"Makuragee.3058" said:Me the worst offender is the removal of rapid regen and the change to barrier on hit to barrier on strike. Lost of mass reveal is kind of sad tooIndeed.

People keep saying its the -300 vitality and reveal that is the "worst". Its really not. Builds that was previously made for sustain still reach 20K+ hp and marauders reach what, 17-18K? Thats fine in hp department. The loss of reveal is a massive nerf but its still situational and not something you used every fight. That we got something worthless in return is the offender there - if the new gyro skill had actually been good on its own it would have been ok. The gyro I could have left to "well maybe its improved in the future".

No, by far the worst is rapid regen and adaptive armor. The loss of those has destroyed survivability. Its impossible to sustain other sustains and they are all intact. I was also expecting a nerf (as happened to bulwark) but we're talking percentage numbers, not table flips.

This patch is ridiculous.

[Tazdingo.8249]

They changed Impact Savant for ' making the scrapper a durable combatant as long as they can keep dishing out damage'.
They removed elite utility tool belt skill for 'improving the Function Gyro to be more of a core mechanic and unifying some of the disparate themes present in the trait line'.But now we only have scrapper with low damage, mediocre sustain,brain-dead Function Gyro and no elite tool belt skill.There is no reason to play Scrapper in spvp anymore. I'm just sad.

[Prinzsecond.4863]

I fully share the General opinion here,

• agreed Scrapper was a bit too strong before
• just nerving a few skills would have done the Job far better (i.e. 30% reduction in adaptive armor, rapid regen, bulwark gyro)
• Picking the scrapper traitline currently feels kind of "wrong"

I do not really understand why they made a complete rework of the traitline just 4 months after they did the last complete rework on the whole scrapper. Especially the first grandmaster trait is now just a Piece of junk with 15% barrier increase and 20% condition damage reduction while barrier. If they buff it to at least 25-30% barrier increase it would probably be an Option regarding the loss of the other sustain traits....

Now check out Impact savant -> Hit a ambient mob with it for a guaranteed 50%-Barrier on power scrapper, play condition scrapper and do not get anything out of it while still having -300vit..... I don't think that is intended?

[Ghos.1326]

@"Baltzenger.2467" said:I'm pretty sure most engineer players that have traveled this road for many years share your sentiment. I certainly do.

What they did to scrapper is not just a nerf, it feels like punishment. It's not just lowering some values, is making choosing the spec "feel bad".

The irony is that if the problem was bulwark gyro (people complaining about "barrier scrapper"), there was so many ways of fixing it without gutting the spec that people was actually playing, it even was a proper meta wvw build!

The balance team could've just reverted the skill back to its gyro era. They could've made it so instead of giving you barrier and redirecting damage from allies that approach you (very "feel bad" mechanic btw, because of how little control you have over what happens next) it could've given barrier to allies, there, right there, you fix the complains about it gaining too much personal barrier (it could've been good even if it didn't give personal barrier at all!) and it would've made a more "feel good" mechanic, because of doing something meaningful that you can easily recognize (do you think players notice how much damage they are not receiving due to "watchful eye"?).

The function Gyro skill is just bad, clunky and ineffective. When you manage to summon a gyro (I have yet to see more than one) by logic it tends to happen under a lot of pressure, the gyro doesn't do anything then. Either a win more effect or a too little too late effect. It could have just by default spawned gyros that "searched" for downed players, but not even that.

Impact Savant is, btw, probably the worst trait currently in the game, and there are many lackluster traits out there, but none to this level.

On top of this, we're again with an identity crisis. If you want a tanky spec you don't make it run glassy stats to deal a ton of damage (you want a high damage tanky character?!), if you want it to be tanky you have to give an incentive to people to run tanky stats, there was one with the healer spec, if you want a bruiser one, well a tradeoff could've been reducing the burst potential, making players want to build for longer fights, not asking them to keep a high and consistent dps in order to survive. At that point, you don't want to survive, you just want to kill your enemies, and you run holosmith.

While there are point I agree with, lets see what the next set of nerfs will be to the other professions in the near future. It seems they are hitting everything, bits at a time, which is a good thing to do. The power creep was too much. Those who were not hit with nerfs will possibly see them soon, so it's a bitter pill to swallow right now, but after other things are fine tuned, it might actually be decent. Lets not lose total hope for now, lets just wait and see what's next and make better judgements based on what is to come.

[Zzik.5873]

Yeah in another 6 months... if we re lucky... firebrand and scourge have been toxic in wvw since PoF... mirage... well fuck mirage in pvp.... What a suprise no huge shack up there since what a years or 2... but scrapper oooooh cant let this be leggit at best, oir golden child cant 1 shot/burst the scrapper well remove every substain and also remove 4k HP that should do it. As engi weve learn a leason domt you there resist anet golden childs...