Upcoming Balance Patch - Engineer

[cgMatt.5162]

I hate the Soothing Detonation change because I liked blasting **any ** field for heals as a support.

[Dawdler.8521]

Best patch ever engie almost got the eqvivalent of the mesmer fall damage bug lol.

 

4s knockback cd on the sheild ie you basicly perma-knockback people.

[HnRkLnXqZ.1870]

System Shocker (clarification): 724 Barrier for every target, no internal cooldown. Really nice.

 

> @"Dawdler.8521" said:

> Best patch ever engie almost got the eqvivalent of the mesmer fall damage bug lol.

>

> 4s knockback cd on the sheild ie you basicly perma-knockback people.

 

Something went horribly wrong. It looks like the duration was accidently used for the cooldown timer. In this broken state, you can almost stack up infinite protection by just spamming shield skills. Hopefully they hotfix it soon.

[Kodama.6453]

> @"HnRkLnXqZ.1870" said:

> System Shocker (clarification): 724 Barrier for every target, no internal cooldown. Really nice.

 

 

Indeed, System Shocker and Soothing Detonations turned out better than people expected I think.

 

724 barrier for every cced target without any cooldown is **fantastic**. And unlike in the past, where much cc related stuff of the scrapper was tied to stuns or dazes, this applies to every hard cc! Locking foes down with cc gives you tons of survivability here.

 

And some people were worried that Soothing Detonations might end up with terrible healing power scaling to compensate for the fact that you can use the healing way more frequently and much easier.

But it still heals for the same amount, both in base numbers and healing power scaling!

 

They just have to fix the shield.

Worst bug is the cooldown when using the follow up skill of shield 4, of course.

But they should also center the bubble they made bigger for visual tell properly on our model.

And shield 5 also shows the indication ring which serves no purpose on that skill as far as I am aware.

 

 

[Dediggefedde.4961]

Since the ring showed up on both shield-4 and -5 I though it is the area allies will get protection by overshield.

System shocker has great synergy with the flashbang trait, hammer and shredder-gyro. All are can be used power-based scrapper builds, so it is even a usable option. In WvW zergs the barrier is still too low and has trouble competing with superspeed-5%-buff and larger radius of shredder. But probably very nice in PvP. ^^

 

Broken shield is spamming protection and barrier with that trait, though. ^^

 

I'm a bit sad they went away from combo based traits back to class mechanic based traits with speed of synergy and soothing detonations.

Combo fields and finishers are an amazing mechanic, but aside from smoke blasts very underpowered...

Perhaps they take a look at combo effects in the future and try to prevent trait based hazards when finishers become more abundand or effetive.

 

What would also be nice would be to have anything meaningful for 1-3 on a healscrapper. ^^

That's not necessarily a pistol-problem, but more of a weapon limitation problem...

Can we get double-shields, please?

[Kodama.6453]

> @"Dediggefedde.4961" said:

> Since the ring showed up on both shield-4 and -5 I though it is the area allies will get protection by overshield.

> System shocker has great synergy with the flashbang trait, hammer and shredder-gyro. All are can be used power-based scrapper builds, so it is even a usable option. In WvW zergs the barrier is still too low and has trouble competing with superspeed-5%-buff and larger radius of shredder. But probably very nice in PvP. ^^

>

> Broken shield is spamming protection and barrier with that trait, though. ^^

>

> I'm a bit sad they went away from combo based traits back to class mechanic based traits with speed of synergy and soothing detonations.

> Combo fields and finishers are an amazing mechanic, but aside from smoke blasts very underpowered...

> Perhaps they take a look at combo effects in the future and try to prevent trait based hazards when finishers become more abundand or effetive.

>

> What would also be nice would be to have anything meaningful for 1-3 on a healscrapper. ^^

> That's not necessarily a pistol-problem, but more of a weapon limitation problem...

> Can we get double-shields, please?

 

Nope, the ring on shield 5 is not the indicator for the protection.

If you look closely, then right after activating the skill you will see the blue ring indicating the protection for allies. Which also has a bigger radius than the white ring you are seeing on skill 5.

 

The white ring has a radius of 240, just like the flip skill for shield 4.

The protection from the trait has a radius of 360.

 

And the white ring also stays even if you don't equip the shield trait.

All these points show that this is not an intended indicator. They simply copied the indicator meant for shield 4 on the shield 5 skill as well.

The white ring on shield 5 should get removed.

 

I agree that it would be great to get a power mainhand option on core so we can use it on scrapper together with the shield.

But shield shouldn't become a mainhand weapon, I think all offhand weapons (torch, shield, focus, warhorn) should stay restricted to the offhand.

Possible candidates for a new mainhand weapon for engineer would therefore be axe, mace, or dagger.

 

About the combo finisher traits: I also like to play with combos and they can be really fun. But Soothing Detonation was really underwhelming... too much setup for not enough reward. At least with the new version, you can get these small heals more frequently and on demand, without having to use 2 cooldowns for it (exception is Blast Gyro, since that skills blasts itself triggering the trait).

[juno.1840]

The shield-4 skill is definitely broken. Spammable blast + knock back + protection with 4s c/d.

[Dawdler.8521]

> @"juno.1840" said:

> The shield-4 skill is definitely broken. Spammable blast + knock back + protection with 4s c/d.

Well if it's not hotfixed within the next 2h (normal Anet patch time is in around 30m), then I will assume **it's working as intended**.

 

Was quite pleasantly surprised to see it was still working this morning. They havent acknowledged it on the bug forum either (only the rev bug).

[Dediggefedde.4961]

> @"Dawdler.8521" said:

> Well if it's not hotfixed within the next 2h (normal Anet patch time is in around 30m), then I will assume **it's working as intended**.

 

Then I want to try out if I can get up to necro-boonstrip with sigil of absorption and throw-mine in zerging. ^^

Yesterdays wvw guild-raid was feeling a lot like pinball on both sites, though...

[Jaruselka.5943]

> @"juno.1840" said:

> The shield-4 skill is definitely broken. Spammable blast + knock back + protection with 4s c/d.

 

Its sad that the best thing to happen to core engi in years just happens to be a bug. :(

[HnRkLnXqZ.1870]

I just don't get why they refuse to fix it. If an area-crowd-control spamming class is not considered a threat anymore, what is? We had smaller bugs in the past that led to forced shutdowns of the entire servers within a few minutes after the first report. I mean, the reports mostly came from Engineer players, who noticed something went wrong. We care about our class, no matter how broken it is and what others think about it.

 

The conclusion of this behavior will be a lower motivation to report class-bugs, maybe even bugs in general, in the future. This may lead to a drop in quality in the long term.

[Spartacus.3192]

Its been fixed now. see updated patch notes

[Noah Salazar.5430]

hmh overall it went well, i like new 7s with 5s+4s superspeed, it's eazier to use in wvw/pvp thx that compare to combo finisher (if you used pover firethrower with alchemy pots build with only healing gyro)

also Schoting Detonation is nice too, it's like free adional heal skill if you spam 5 tool skills at once

[Mil.3562]

> @"Noah Salazar.5430" said:

> hmh overall it went well, i like new 7s with 5s+4s superspeed, it's eazier to use in wvw/pvp thx that compare to combo finisher (if you used pover firethrower with alchemy pots build with only healing gyro)

> also Schoting Detonation is nice too, it's like free adional heal skill if you spam 5 tool skills at once

 

Shhh... NEVER say things went well in your profession unless your intention is to get it nerfed in the next patch. SHHH..

[HnRkLnXqZ.1870]

Found another bug and another feature.

 

The Bug

I already expected they would pull some smart move with the Med Kit. They did, but messed it up. Equipping the kit does not count as a heal skill - obviously. But Bandage Self counts as both healing skill and its own toolbelt. So it applies Self Superspeed + Group Superspeed. However, Self Superspeed is atm not 7 seconds, but 12 seconds! I think they have accidentally added the two duration (7+5 = 12).

 

The Feature

Medic Gyro has a nice Synergy with Gyroscopic Acceleration and Speed of Synergy. When activating the Medic Gyro, this results in an amazing 10 seconds group Superspeed. If you run a full Gyro build, you can probably maintain permanent Superspeed for the group. Sadly this is Superspeed, which does not serve a real purpose. I only use this stuff when I run NPC escorts/WvW Golems to speed them up.

[Dediggefedde.4961]

I'm not sure when they fixed it, but Gadgeteer's Throw-Mine was fixed.

When they changed Throw-Mine to remove 3 boons, the Gadgeteer-Version was still only removing 1 boon. Now both Gadgeteer-Mines remove 3 boons from 5 targets each.

It's pretty funny when playing power-scrapper with flashbang and absorption-sigil. ^^

In a small 1vs5 fight (I was alone ^^) that lasted 15 seconds I stripped 70 boons before/while dying.

[Samug.6512]

Instead of putting a toolbelt-related trait into Tools, where all toolbelt-related traits are, they put it in Inventions, making it even more all-over-the-place trait line. This trait would have made so much more sense in Tools, with SD and Kinetic Battery.

I want to do power damage, I take explosives.

I want to do condi, I take firearms.

I want boons, I take alchemy.

I want to make the most out of toolbelt, I need to take... Tools and Inventions?

Obviously this is just a generalization but I hope y'all get my point.

[Kodama.6453]

> @"Samug.6512" said:

> Instead of putting a toolbelt-related trait into Tools, where all toolbelt-related traits are, they put it in Inventions, making it even more all-over-the-place trait line. This trait would have made so much more sense in Tools, with SD and Kinetic Battery.

> I want to do power damage, I take explosives.

> I want to do condi, I take firearms.

> I want boons, I take alchemy.

> I want to make the most out of toolbelt, I need to take... Tools and Inventions?

> Obviously this is just a generalization but I hope y'all get my point.

 

Your generalization has one weakness, tho.

While the trait is improving the toolbelt skill, it is also providing healing.

 

Healing traits are already spread between inventions and alchemy, simply because health ensurance is located in alchemy. With putting soothing detonations in tools, we would spread group healing between 3 trait lines now and you would have to tell yourself:

"I want to heal my team members, I take inventions, alchemy, and tools?!"

 

Point is: the trait is not that one dimensional. The trait provides group healing, which makes alot of sense in inventions, since this is a trait line that improves your ability to heal your group through other traits like energy amplifier and medical dispersion field. Also it gives you other ways to support your team, like applying protection around you or cleansing conditions. Tools on the other hand gives you almost nothing for a dedicated healer build besides the toolbelt skill cd reduction.

 

From a gameplay point of view, soothing detonations makes way more sense in inventions for me.