Manuhell.2759

Turrets were designed to control and defend an area. There was nothing wrong with that they did aside from their passive gameplay, as far as their design goes. If they can't provide a prolonged threat, then there is no point to them - and indeed, right now they're incapable of abiding by their own design.They should make them more resilient and give them a charge system for their skills - and at 0 charges, you get the usual turret self-destruct skill.A turret that has been destroyed or self-destructed would start with 0 or 1 charges, as a penalty. A turret that has been picked up could already have some more charges stored up. Making them work like this would force an active gameplay, at least.Having them depend on the engineer's stats would be better, but if it can't technically work, there isn't much to do about it.

It's a skill whose only purpose is giving a self-barrier, with a partial damage sharing downside, on a spec that empowers barriers (impact savant increases them by 15%), in a class that relies on utilities (as it lacks a second weapon slot). Of course it gives a beefy amount - that's all that skill is good for. Put a lesser barrier, and the scrapper will just be taking other people's damage in group situations (and it already happens in modes like WvW).Even then, to avoid issues with PvP, they could just change it and made it give a lesser amount, but affecting allies as well, and removing the partial damage sharing. So that it would be less powerful when alone.

I did say we had gimmick builds, like the static discharge one. They just dealt with the lack of dps (and offensive skills in general) that resulted from a single weapon in different way - the drunk engineer made up for it via boons and at its core depended heavily on traits (and the particular build linked isn't even a core one, by the way). And then turrets...heh. They were explicitely designed as a tool to control and defend an area...and nerfed to the floor because they did just that. I wonder why they even designed them like that to start with, given that Conquest is all about defending and controlling small areas and it was sure to create issues. But that's in hindsight, after all.It's important to point out that they could work only because Conquest doesn't necessarily requires to kill enemies - keeping them out of the point or staying alive once the point is conquested is all that's needed (and someone else can do the kill for you, anyway). The rest of the game doesn't work like that, though. As i also mentioned, they probably changed how they balanced the class a bit with the elite specs. The hammer is much more varied in skills compared to our old main weapons (and that spec isn't focused on dps to start with, so it's free to use other kinds of utilities; it's about staying alive rather than killing the opponent).The Holosmith - this time focused on dps - had to put some limitations on the kit mechanic, by imposing a cooldown on kits once in Photon Forge, so that we can't freely swap between Forge and Kits. The heat/overheat mechanic also acts in a way to limit our skill use within the forge (how well it does it is still a subject of discussions, as there is a lot of complainings about the strength of the holosmith).But it didn't solve the issue with the core profession. It just left it behind the elite specs. You mention versatility and being tricky. We need skills to do so, and we start with less weapon skills than anyone else. And kits offer several skills. As i said above, they end up dictating the entire balance, but it's not limited to dps. If a kit is supposed to be effective by itself - whatever it does, be it damage, cc, defensive skills - and every kit is balanced like that, then having several of them means having all the damage, cc, defensive skills of the kits together, all with the free swap the kits come with. Of course it ends up overpowered. Other utilities can't compare with them unless they do something completely different (just think how bloated would have an utility to be if it was supposed to be comparable to whatever the elixir gun or flamethrower does). And even then, it's useful only if that "completely different" thing is useful in that particular situation. If they were to properly rework the profession mechanic - setting kits as F-skills - they would also be able to balance them properly over the fixed amount of kits. And the other utilities wouldn't have to compete with kits anymore - as they aren't available as utilities anymore. In doing so, the Photon Forge could take the place of one of the kit F-slots, and the same could apply to some reworked Function Gyro.But to do so would require an heavy rework of the class. So i doubt it would ever happen, especially given the low playerbase of the class.

The meta builds used kits because the balance of the whole class was dictated by their existence. The "worst case", as far as balancing goes, had the engineer using several kits. They couldn't afford making kits strong enough that one was fine to make a strong build...because nothing would stop an engineer from taking more of them. And the other utilities couldn't compete with kits, unless they did something situationally important that a kit couldn't do - like the invincibility provided by elixir S. Let alone having no-kit builds, as the main weapon couldn't deal enough dps alone - because, if that was possible, then a weapon plus kits would end up overpowered. As a matter of fact, we could only have gimmick builds to go no-kit, and they could do so because they supplied the engineer with additional sources of damage - the lightning bolts made via static discharge, made via toolbelts, and thus the skills were chosen mainly due to their toolbelt cooldown. It put the engineer in an absurd spot where even if the kits were optional, in practice, the balance of the class wholly depended on them. Despite not being the actual profession mechanic. Things did change a bit with the elite specs. Mostly because they couldn't sell them if they kept balancing like that, i guess. Even then, to give a proper dps role, they still had to give a different additional source of dps - the photon forge - and to restrict the use of kits while using it.

The profession mechanic of the engineer is the toolbelt, though, not kits. Kits are optional, and we lack weapon swap whether or not kits are equipped. Whereas the toolbelt is always there, as any other class mechanic does for their relative profession. We could surely discuss if the toolbelt ended up as a good tradeoff for the cost of a second weapon slot, and it is surely true that kits made balancing the engineer a mess - and they still do, as the sheer disparity of skills you can have between a no-kit build and a full-kit build is massive and hard to account for. Whatever the reason is, if they ever meant for kits to be our class mechanics, we would have got them as F-skills, as that is the only way to guarantee their presence in every build.A tradeoff is defined as giving up something in exchange for something else, after all. If that "something else" isn't there, the tradeoff just cannot work. Historical blabber ahead.Given the state of the engineer at launch, and it being the least revealed class, i wouldn't be surprised if it was also the last one being designed. It showed in its skills, at least. Kits were basically repurposed environmental weapons - they didn't even use the actual weapon stats or sigils during the first months. Elixirs mostly reused the same animations or directly recycled other classes' skills. Dunno about turrets, but i wouldn't be surprised if they were initially born as enemies' attacks and reused later for engineers. I guess gadgets were the only utility that actually required more additional work, at least for some (Throw Mine was probably recycled from something else). And even the elites were mostly about recycling past works. Supply crate was about throwing turrets and med packs together and Elixir X was just recycling other elites (Mortar wasn't there at launch, and neither the elite toolbelt slot). So i wonder if the lack of weapon swap was put on just to not have to develop further weapons (and thus weapon skills) and leave the class with just 3 weapon combinations (and thus less weapon skills to work on - 12 skills in total between all core engi weapons).This also makes elementalists and engineers as the only classes to have such a trade-off in the core class. Elementalists gain multiple themed skillsets in exchange (balanced in a different way compared to normal weapon sets) and engineers get the toolbelt (and it also comes with a balancing that's more fluid between the utility and the related toolbelt in my opinion, as sometimes there are strong skills with weak toolbelts, and viceversa).

There is no contradiction, since the first sentence was about super speed activation - delayed on the gyro, as the trait acts at the end of the well, so right on the middle of the stealth duration, and right after the cast with MI. Whereas the second sentence was about the cast time - 0.75s versus 1.25s, and indeed Sneak Gyro is better in that regard.And then you brought out the toolbelt - part of our class mechanic - and then say it's irrilevant to point that out (showing your lack of knowledge about this class - if you just sum up skills and toolbelts in a comparison to equate with other classes' skills, then we're missing the "power" of the weapon set we trade off for the toolbelt and part of the "power" given by the class mechanic , and thus it wouldn't be balanced at all).And you even had to contest how the skill is badly designed in putting a smoke field we can't even properly use well by calling my considerations "irrilevant" , heh.Guess it is indeed a waste of my time, as you don't even know what you're writing about. And since you ignore hard facts, it is indeed useless to keep discussing.

Sure, wasting a lot of the squad's skills before an engagement sounds like an excellent plan, and it isn't like the already applied stealth is ticking down in the meantime.So since technically even the bomb kit can do smoke fields (and more!) and even comes with a blast finisher, i guess that's even better than MI. We are oh-so-lucky. Guess i'll go to my squad and take the main healer role with my water fields - after all, if everyone blasts them, they would heal a lot. Maybe that will be even a new raid meta.Or probably not. Because it's just stupid. What's the point of wasting a lot of skills to do what some other class can do with a single skill, and in a more straightforward way? Let's be serious here. Fields may be a nice added bonus, but in this case is meaningless.The skill already applies the stealth stack caps. You don't even get the full duration from the additional stacks from the blast/leap finishers. And most blast/leap finishers damage enemies. If you're engaging or have enemies near, that damage will end up revealing the user of the skill. It goes completely against the purpose of doing so. Whereas if you was using it before an engagement, you're wasting precious skills you may have used during the fight (to help with healing, for example, if the situation permits so). The good finishers come in limited number. Having many fields in a build doesn't make you a splendid all-in-one healer/buffer/stealther/cleanser. You're still limited by the amount of finishers you can deal - and using them only for the finisher is, quite often, a waste.

The previous patch saw changes on the Sneak Gyro. People said it was too strong. It got nerfed. People still complain about it being strong. Now Mesmers get a skill that's better in almost every regard but 0.5s of cast time and 3s cooldown and with twice the targets (it doesn't matter what you may think about it, the math is there, it's a fact that it ends up being better). So either the Sneak Gyro is too weak for an elite (as i said before - but since the issue is with stealth itself, maybe a complete rework of the skill should be better) or it's MI that's too strong now (and yet i see no one else talking about it like people did with the Sneak Gyro). It's either one or the other.And before someone else comes out with "but it's traited", well, it still got similar amounts of total stealth and better usability even in the untraited version, and skills being traited never mattered when people complained about engineers skills before . Even in the last patch, people complained about barriers on scrappers even if we have Impact Savant making barriers stronger, so having barriers stronger than average should be perfectly warranted as the only spec with a trait to increase them (especially given that the skills does only that by itself and it comes with a damage share downside; it being badly designed for pvp is another issue entirely, as that is more about the design of the skill than the strength of the barrier itself...and it would be better served by a redesign, like making it give a small pulsing barrier to caster and allies instead, without the damage share). Even about the core engineers, elixirs are only good due to the traits involved...and yet i see no one saying that our elixirs should be good alone AND THEN have traits making them even better. But somehow MI doing that and ending up significantly better than our gyro is fine, funny how that works.So i'm just asking for some intellectual honesty here. Pick a way to judge balance and actually stick with it. And other classes actually having decent alternative on their elites shouldn't be considered an issue with their skills either. What about making our elites actually worthwhile so we get decent alternatives as well, eh. Supply Crate is good only for the toolbelt, since the actual turrets are terrible...

Because they run builds with Thermal Release Valve, i guess? (as i said, i don't really care about PvP, so dunno which builds they use there). If they do so, it also means they're carefully limiting their photon forge skill use and using dodges to avoid overheating, so it becomes a matter of checks and balances.That said, even the Berserker is getting a grandmaster trait to negate the toughness malus - as Eternal Champion is getting that 300 toughness bonus to negate the in-built malus. So it's not like there is much of a difference there. The smoke field does nothing by itself and is nothing but clunky in wvw (due to how fields work, as it's not like we can put a priority, unfortunately). You don't even get the full duration of the stealth finishers due to the stealth stack caps, anyway, and you're still wasting part of the stealth duration while you do so - besides risking a reveal as many finishers deal damage as well.The toolbelt is part of the class mechanic (and the engineer gives up a second weapon set for it as a trade-off, the only class along with elementalists to do so...and even then, elementalists get multiple sets of weapon skills in exchange for the second set) and it's also one of the most situational skills of the game, and in wvw it doesn't help much anyway (using it is guesswork to begin with, if you don't see anything you cannot know instantly if it's because there is nothing there or if they dodged or blocked, and even if it hits something it is limited to 5 targets, so the rest of the squad is still at large...and either way, due to reaction times, it may even be useless to reveal them to begin with).Traited Mass Invisibility will give Super Speed as well (3s to 10 targets) and gives it instantly, unlike the delayed activation on the gyro. The only thing that's better on the Sneak Gyro is the cast time, and even that is moot cause you're still have to stay near the scrapper for the whole next 5 seconds if you want the full stealth duration (and unlike MI, the radius is rather small). Mass Invisibility does everything with a single pulse, and at twice the targets.And if two skills have the same end result, but one does it faster, in a larger radius and with twice the targets, it's quite evident to see which is the better one.The untraited one is comparable, but still better due to the larger radius and instant application of the whole stealth duration. The traited version is far better.And yet people still complain about MI being worse, even where it isn't. That said, i wonder what they plan to do with the tradeoffs, given the engineer already has a significant tradeoff to begin with, unlike other classes. Removing the elite toolbelt works with holosmith because it's a sort of a weapon, albeit with particular mechanics, but the scrapper elite mechanic is already in a particular spot (and by that i mean it's utterly useless in PvE - a lack to enemies to finish and not much to ress either - and any mid-large scale battle - as the function gyro dies all the time there). Some people wrote about removing the elite toolbelt and change the function gyro, but i don't think it may be remotely comparable to the Photon Forge even then.Maybe it would be better to give something to the core engineer instead, given that the core spec is quite lacking these days. No idea how though, since we already have 5F-skills. Something that happens when clicking on weapon swap, maybe? Well, gotta wait and see what they do.

It's not "one scenario". That skill is literally called "MASS" invisibility and targets 10 people, it was made like that by design. Not every skill exists for the sake of Conquest, this game has other modes too.And as i said, even the baseline stealth effects are comparable, albeit applied in a different way (single pulse and large radius, versus multiple pulses and small radius). The only thing that made it really, really worse was that mirror effect when traited that inevitably caused reveals (it made no sense, and indeed, it got finally changed).That said, traited MI is just outright better now. It's meaningless to talk about it as "situationally better", they made that skill with that number of targets on purpose to begin with. It's like saying that Elixir C is situationally useless because you may have no conditions on your character. It's made for converting conditions, of course it will do nothing if you don't have anything on. Just like MI is made for mass invisibility purposes and can't stealth people that just aren't there.They could nerf it in WvW only, but it would really make no sense to do so, if not for a contrite way to make a skill that wasn't designed over Conquest to start with suitable in that mode as well. I can sort-of agree about the Moa (i would like a rework of Elixir X, actually - make it something that doesn't just recycles other classes' elites). Funny you mention Shadow Refuge though, for two reasons. One is that's a normal utility, but that's the least important thing. The other...is that Shadow Refuge has no target limit. A mobile shadow refuge would be insane...and that's why there is none.

For what i read about PvP - i don't really care about that mode - that scrapper would rather be alone in a side-node bunkering. That's what people usually complain about.That said, if the downed attacks after a couple seconds from the activation it's still dead - that reveal will cover all the rest of the stealth applications. If not, it gets a couple more seconds (assuming no one killed it while it was revealed). In that particular situation it may be better, even if slightly. It doesn't make it objectively better in general, though.

The pulsing increments aren't more useful at all, if you get revealed at the start you end up missing most of the additional pulsing stealths either way, and every pulse is only about 1.5s (so if you miss the initial pulses...you aren't getting much stealth either). They just force anyone else to stay near the scrapper for most of the duration of the stealth (whereas MI just gives it all together in a large radius). And bombing in the smoke fields doesn't work that well either, as you're already capping the stacks (so you don't even get the full 3s ) besides requiring to waste added skills (assuming it doesn't get ruined by some other field, that is; something that tends to happen often in WvW). And even then,Mass Invisibility still targets TWICE the players (funny how people who deem MI bad never point that out). So as i said above, it outputs the same amount of stealth even baseline...except it does it with a larger radius and it doesn't ask for people to stay near the mesmer for most of the time (1.25s at the cast compared to 0.75s for cast and 5s of stealth stacking near the scrapper with the gyro). Even the baseline skill works better than the gyro, so what are we talking about.

It doesn't change the fact that baseline MI is still worse and you won't see much double-traited MI anyway. Baseline MI still gets to be a 6s stealth at 60s cooldown at 10 targets, with a large radius, in a single pulse, and it got a reduction in the cast time. If you do the math, the untraited version outputs the same amount of stealth per second - 9s x 5->45s stealth with 45s cooldown for the gyro, 6s x 10->60s stealth with a 60s cooldown for MI. So you're wrong here as well, as it's not worse at all.And talking about baseline versions hardly matters. We got a trait to increase barriers too, impact savant, it's on scrapper. People still complain about our barriers. Guess you'll be happy to go and tell people they're wrong and our barriers are perfectly fine being higher than others because we have a trait about it. Or ask for elixir buffs, HGH doesn't matter after all, it's a trait. No, guess it doesn't work like that, huh.