ThrakathNar.4537

If the enemy Scrapper (or Mech) is playing Rifle, Corrosive Poison Cloud is a must play skill for any necro build. Put that thing down, and they can't touch you at all for several seconds (it also works fine if they're playing grenades or mortar kit). Also, engineer builds at the minute are all incredibly weak to condis. Either core condi necro or harbinger will melt through them, because they can't outcleanse what you can do.

Honestly I think just removing the stealth and massively reducing the stability would be enough to allow other specs like druid and tempest to be comparatively viable, but ANet didn't make those changes with the patch, they made a sweeping change that impacts all gamemodes that probably won't reduce the effectiveness of the build in the gamemode it was intended to be nerfed in.

While Scrapper undoubtedly deserves a nerf, this is not the way to do it. The Current Problem in Game: Scrapper dominates as a secondary support in WvW, providing strong access to stealth, superspeed, stability, cleanse, and on-demand healing. The Proposed Solution of this Patch: Make Scrapper Gyros ground targeted and not follow the player. The Most Likely Outcome: Scrapper is still meta and best in slot in WvW, because it still brings all of the aforementioned things. The only change is that Scrapper becomes less fun in Open World, Fractals, and Dungeons, where the appeal of the spec is zooming around and smashing stuff in melee. Now, if you actually want to use the wells for their intended effect, you waste the superspeed you get from the initial pulse (since none of the gyros finish in under three seconds).

There's a lot to say about this patch, but starting with: The Good Mechanised Deployment buff is actually pretty huge for S/D builds in PvP, Holo struggles a lot with cleanse generally, and this might actually make Tools Holo good again. Shield nerfs getting reverted is good, that was a dumb change. PLB getting damage back is good, although I don't think the reasoning was quite there (IMO the philosophy should be "When the skill has a huge telegraph, it's allowed to do CC and damage") Utility googles buff is good, but they're still probably worse than elixir U (unless Gadgeteer isn't broken, maybe) Coolant blast buff is good, but it's still not as good as elixir H (just remove the self burning from Cauterise completely, please). Impact Savant buff is good, actually makes it a net zero trait for supports instead of net negative. The Bad Gyros....... Yeah. Personally, I think Defence field being ground targeted can work, but it really kills the feel of Scrapper's motion to have the gyros be static. People on the forums have been comparing them to Chrono and Necro wells, but neither is really a fair comparison. Chrono wells are all limited to 3 seconds, Scrapper wells are all 5 or 6 seconds so it's much harder to actually land the entire thing. Necro wells are a similar duration, but are generally stronger than Scrapper wells - look at Well of Power compared to Purge Gyro. Purge Gyro literally just cleanses condis and gives a light field, Well of Power converts condis, stunbreaks, gives might, and is a combo field. Granted it's harder to get the full value, but it is so many worlds stronger. Comparing Well of Suffering to Shredder Gyro (using PvP or PvE coefficients), the former does more damage, is unblockable, gives vuln and is a combo field, the latter just has a finisher. Scrapper wells would need a massive buff if they are to remain competitive. Takedown Round, these sort of "more damage when you're missing endurance traits" are generally pretty bad design, since it encourages blowing dodge rolls that you should be saving. Was Throw Mine still overpowered after removing the knockback? I know that boon rip got nerfed across the board in this patch (which isn't a good thing), but I think this skill got hit far harder than most, since the boonrip aspect of the toolbelt got deleted entirely. Does anyone actually still play Medical Dispersion Field? Everyone I know took Anti-Corrosion Plating. This trait has been nerfed so much now it's ridiculous that it actually still exists in WvW. The Ugly Kinetic Battery buff is ok... the trait is still garbage. You need to blow 5 of your skills for a couple of seconds of superspeed and quickness? Hard pass, would rather take gadgeteer or improved endurance on pretty much any build. Why buff grenades? It's already the best performing power damage in PvP. Why not buff/rework Toolkit, or Bomb kit (rework not buff, because the numbers here are already pretty crazy), or Turrets? This decision just reeks of a lack of imagination, or knowledge of Engi's available skills. Kinetic Accelerators change is weird for PvP: when it came out Scrapper was pretty weak, but this change made Scrapper sort of playable. Now, removing quickness from it makes a below average build be more below average. Just sort of sad, really. And that's the patch. Some good stuff and potential for new builds, but far too much misguided and unimaginative balancing made. Hopefully this stuff can get changed before it makes it to live.

At present, the meta build for Power Mechanist takes: - a 1200 range instant cast teleport with a low cooldown that also gives you bonus movement speed when off cooldown - a decent bit of self-quickness uptime from your GM trait (useful for when boon supports are slacking/dead) - 230 healing for every second of the fight that your heal skill is off cooldown (this is significantly stronger than Heat Therapy on Holo) - a bit of group might Conversely, the meta build for holosmith (sword) gets: - Boon rip (only on some fights, and only actually useful on even fewer) - Less self-quickness than Mechanist (from sword 3) - Less healing from Heat Therapy and effective healing from the barrier of Corona burst than Mech has - Less group might than mechanist (blunderbuss is more spammable than corona burst, since there's no lockout mechanic) The non-DPS tools that DPS Mechanist brings are, quite simply, stronger or usable in more situations than on Holosmith. When you combine this with the fact that holo loses DPS uptime at range while mech doesn't (a fact which matters on all bosses, but especially on the EoD strike CMs), Mech is pretty much flatly better.

The thing is though - most supports have significantly more nerfed coefficients in WvW than they do in PvE. Ele staff water autoattack has a 0.25 coefficient in PvE, but a 0.15 coefficient in WvW. Rev staff auto has a 0.3 healing coefficient in PvE, and a 0.15 coefficient in WvW (2 examples, but I could list so many more if you want). Bringing any PvE spec down to the same numbers as its WvW spec will make it significantly weaker than the competitors. Even if Scrapper is still the strongest in WvW, nerfing the PvE numbers to that level puts it at the bottom of the pile. There is only one trait in the entire Scrapper traitline that brings any sort of group support, and that is the one that gives quickness. Everything else is personal survivability or DPS, purely selfish stuff. Out of the toolbelt skills, both Chemical Field and Spare Capacitor exist only for DPS builds, and Bypass Coating is something you need to press off c/d just to maintain quickness (you can't save it for the actual group stunbreak). Defence Field is the only gyro toolbelt I'd argue is actually good support-wise (since you don't take heal gyro on full support builds). If Scrapper is on-par with Firebrand healing in PvE, then that means it has below average healing. Firebrand's power comes from the utility value it brings, with more access to Stability and Aegis than any other class just baked in. Compare this with the healing output of Druid and Tempest. Pre June 2022, Druid healing was so good that you could still fill a dedicated healing role, even when you didn't take the trait that gave you a 50% modifier to all healing when in CA. Lingering Lights was such an incredibly strong trait, but you didn't even need to take it, your base healing was that good. Similarly, new Tempest takes Lucent Singularity for the alacrity instead of Elemental Bastion, despite the latter giving a massive heal every time you apply an aura (of which you have a tonne). Healing from water attunement is just that strong that you can give a massive source of healing and still be a valid healer. I don't even want to touch on the healing you can get from Salvation+Ventari Rev. Was Support Scrapper bad before this patch? No. Was it outperformed massively by its counterparts? Absolutely Yes. Hence why this PvE nerf was unjustified.

Except heal Scrapper didn't get nerfed in WvW - it got nerfed in PvE: a place where the build was by no means overperforming, just seeing a bit of use. Personally, I don't think Scrapper should be a support (the traitline really isn't built for it, especially Impact Savant), but ANet disagrees with that, in their own words: "Scrappers are support-oriented engineers with access to gyros and a plethora of other cleansing abilities. You can aid multiple allies in large-scale battles with massive area-of-effect skills, healing and providing superspeed and other necessary boons. They are also adept at crowd control. " (Taken from the in-game text that appears when you mouse over the Scrapper specialisation) This means that ANet wants Scrapper to be a support, and this patch is a nerf to that intentional role in PvE. Personally - I think they forgot about Scrapper completely when making this change, but the game devs not knowing about the stuff that's in the game isn't an excuse for bad balance decisions, it's a reason.

Don't get me wrong - the Support Mechanist nerfs were entirely well needed, but nerfing core is not the way to fix that. As it stands, a nerf to the core coefficients is a nerf to Support Scrapper (which also uses medkit and elixir gun), and that was actually already underperforming in PvE. This change just makes Support Scrapper even worse, which is a bad change for a patch that was supposed to make more underpowered builds viable. In terms of what to do to fix it - either make it so that these changes only take effect in PvE with the Mechanist traitline equipped, or nerf another aspect of the mechanist support (Reducing the improved regeneration healing from Exigency Protocols for example). Overall, while this patch is a step in the right direction, I can't help but feel as if some of the changes are... restrained. This patch is undeniably a buff to the DPS of builds like power Berserker, power Holo, power Reaper, etc: but it's not much of a buff. For most of these builds, the damage buff looks to be just enough to cancel out the damage nerf that every class got when banners and unique modifiers were removed. There also seem to be very few trait changes addressing systemic issues with how supports work (i.e. Tempest having to choose between massive healing and alac whereas other classes not making the choice), but that might be beyond the scope of this patch.

The question is though - does that mean that pistol autoattack isn't bugged? The skill description says that the skill should have a cast time of 0.5s, but it actually has a cast time closer to 0.8s (which should display as 3/4s in the game). Given that pistol has had an incorrect skill fact for years whereas rifle's skill fact was only incorrect for a matter of weeks, I guess it's fair to assume that they either don't read the engineer bug threads, or they know and just don't care.

I mean, the exact quote from you I was arguing against was the phrase "updated a whole traitline of core". To me (and in the dictionary) the word update means "to make something more modern or suitable for use now by changing its design", it does not mean to change something tangentially related that has synergies with that thing. If it means something different to you then that's fine, but it's not what I was disagreeing with. My point being - if this is what a full traitline rework looks like, and if the firearms traitline is now "fixed" in the eyes of ANet, it's not. Firearms is not in nearly as bad a place as Tools, but it still has major issues. Pinpoint Distribution, before and after this patch, is one of the most boring, lazy, and passive traits in the game. The gameplay that Juggernaut encourages is unhealthy, but outside the specific scenario of flamethrower camping builds, it's pretty useless. As a whole, the traitline mostly comes down to passive damage modifiers, which are fine, but also makes for a very boring and glass cannon playstyle. Contrast this with explosives, where not only do you have some options for survivability in a DPS traitline, but most of the traits have a visual impact on the world instead of just making your numbers 10% bigger. You can feel the increased projectile speed of Grenadier, feel and see the impact of EE, see the aim-assisted rocket, it just feels a lot more interesting to play.

I mean, I wouldn't call 4 changes on firearms "almost a whole traitline of core", especially when 2 of those changes come down to changing range thresholds, 1 of them is a crit increase that (almost) every profession got, and 1 is a rework into a dumb "passively pulse 5 might" thing. The inventions change is weird and clunky (and may end up being a nerf in all gamemodes), and they really should just remove the minimum range on the explosives trait instead of just lowering it. Also, as well as tools and gadgets, could they not consider reworking turrets?

It's a shame, because if the DPS of the ability is less than bomb kit auto (which may or may not be true depending on cast time) then it won't get to be used in PvE. It's good that nothing significant on core got nerfed (although depending on if the reworked Medical Dispersion Field works at full health or not, that might be a significant nerf in all gamemodes), but that does feel like a bit of a low bar. For an update "focused on adding or improving skills, traits, or weapons in each profession, in a way that introduces new builds to try," it's a shame that they only did stuff regarding one of those aspects. Turrets (net turret specifically) are some of the worst utilities in the game, and Tools is also in a dire need of a rework. I keep hoping that this is just a fraction of the actual changes, even if that's never going to be the case. But yeah, definitely shouldn't complain too much - engineer avoided the short end of the stick this time. Although it is painful to see Mechanist getting buffs where Holo and Scrapper don't, despite it being the best performing spec (for PvE at least, and PvP to a lesser extent).

That's not true, though. Looking at Teapot's vod of the last MAT (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1f-Gy_UaFWY), there is a pinned comment listing the frequency of classes and expansions. "Class frequencies in the 23 matchups Teapot spectated: Necromancer: 71 Guardian: 66 Thief: 39 Elementalist: 22 Revenant: 17 Ranger: 5 Engineer: 4 Mesmer: 4 Warrior: 2! (Both won their games btw) And by expac: EoD: 172 Core: 28 HoT: 27 PoF: 3" While Teapot doesn't have VODs going back to 2018 1 year after PoF launch), Jebro does (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzjcbkCLehI), and while I can't be bothered to do as thorough an analysis as the commenter on the TPot vod, you can clearly see that mesmer and warrior have higher representation (there are 3 mesmers and 1 warrior in the finals). So no, those are not the only 4 classes that all or even most comps have revolved around for the last 4 years.

2022-05-10: Shield cooldowns nerfed on core because of Mechanist. 2022-02-28: Flamethrower damage (power coefficient on skill 1 and burning on skill 4) nerfed on core because of Scrapper. 2022-03-29 and 2021-06-08: Purity of Purpose nerfed on core because of Scrapper. 2022-03-29: Medical Dispersion Field healing nerfed on core because of Scrapper. 2020-12-01: Grenade coefficients nerfed on core because of Holosmith. 2021-08-17: Over Shield duration nerfed on core because of Holosmith. These are just the ones that come off the top of my head for one specific class - there are a lot more instances of this happening, most of which aren't for engineer exclusively. This is a really common scenario, although an extremely misguided one.

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.