GW2: Engineers always get the short end of the stick

[cashew]

I haven't been keeping up with GW2, since I'm having far more fun in Another Eden (working on getting my first level 80 team fully leveled and need to go collect some more swords). However, I took a look at some of the feedback on the new Engie elite spec, Mechanist, and...

...WHAT DO YOU MEAN THE TOOLBELT HAS BEEN DISABLED?!

Holy shit, no. The toolbelt is the engineer's core mechanic. Engies don't get weapon swap because of Toolbelt. Engies are kit-dependent because of Toolbelt. Even Holosmith didn't deactivate the toolbelt, merely replacing the skills temporarily with Photon Forge skills (and denying the F5 elite toolbelt skill, which isn't quite as bad, since the F5 on base engineer wasn't the greatest — although missing one more blast finisher sucked; F5 wasn't there in OG GW2 anyway).

This almost feels like the devs were too lazy to design toolbelt skills for the Mechanist and so decided to erase the toolbelt. WTF. If that's the case, then at the very least give the Mechanist weapon swap for the tradeoff.

And back to the actual mechanic of the Mechanist...is it really that hard to just let the engineer ride the damn Bot instead of making it a pet AI? Why not allow the Mechanist to summon a Jade Bot by riding it and then replace the weapon skills with the Bot skills instead? And the Bot can serve as a second HP bar, which, once depleted, ejects the Mechanist, who has to either summon a second Bot (after cooldown) or use their weapon skills and kits.

This mechanic is literally already built into the game. We ride Asura golems temporarily in story missions all the time. Why not make it a permanent feature for the Mechanist? It would be so easy to implement. And you can keep the signets as passive buffs for the Bot while the toolbelt skills can further buff the Bot with active boons. Hell, I'll even give up the F5 skill for Bot Summon and Bot Eject (provided it has an added stun effect). Like...holy shit, is this not an obvious solution? What the fuck is Anet doing?

Hell, if the Jade Bot is too OP, you can even disable utility (6-10) when riding the Bot and force the Mechanist to rely on their toolbelt for utility and figure out when to eject from the Bot to be able to access their 6-10 skills.

I cannot believe how terrible the devs fucked up on something so simple. I am once again reminded of why I quit GW2. The devs literally don't know what they're doing when it came to the Engineer.

Comments

[tanithryudo]

This what I felt like when they nerfed Ranger's soulbeast spec by disabling pet swapping in combat. That was when I also ditched the soulbeast spec and went back to playing core ranger build.

Also why I don't have much drive to level most of the specs for the new expac. Not even for the free EQs.

My engi is going to stick with the Holosmith spec. At least it hasn't been relegated back to core build.

[cashew]

Actually, I've been meaning to ask, is Druid not functional to the point that playing core Ranger is preferable?

It sounds like Holosmith continues to be the way to go on engineers. Scrapper has been nerfed to oblivion, and Holosmith is better with Sword/Shield than the guns (which absolutely infuriates me about the whole thing, because what did I make a Quip for, then? — Not that it matters anymore, since I'm not playing, but it's the principle of the thing!)...

...and every functioning spec is still Grenade-Bomb-Elixir Gun-Med Kit. The only reason Holosmith isn't broken is because in practice, all it did was add 5 new weapon skills to core Engie rotation. That's it.

Ffffff. It's like the devs aren't even listening.

I'm glad I moved onto a new game; otherwise this expansion would've made me rage quit.

[tanithryudo]

Druid is functional...for group play. It's basically a dedicated healer: the special mechanic is all heals, the utilities are either group buffs (and balanced for group) or group heals. Valid for raids, strike missions, fractals...or even meta pugs (given your individual damage doesn't matter too much, and useful in those few instances where either the boss does big damage once in a while or for those parts where you have trouble keeping an NPC alive). But not so much for solo play where I'm looking more for damage and versatility.

Also, pre-PoF, I did use druid for staff 3, which was a fast cooldown movement skill, to get around the map quickly. But with the intro of mounts, that's unnecessary now.

Scrapper felt like a PvP geared spec to begin with anyway. That plus I never liked melee builds to begin with.

Holosmith also looked cool. Given this game is half fashion wars now, that's not a small thing.

[cashew]

Back when I was playing, Druid felt pretty good (albeit I'm moving over from Engie, so everything felt more powerful by comparison). Did they nerf the boons so that you can't keep your pet alive by yourself anymore? Did PoF pets not offer a boost in damage? Or are PoF pets tuned for Soulbeasts only?

Scrapper profession F5 literally doesn't work in PvE. Can't get any more obviously PvP focused than that. Too bad I couldn't stand the mount stuff to try out Holosmith to form an opinion one way or another.

Speaking of fashion wars, at least they finally fixed the new armors to have toe coverings for Asura models. But it doesn't excuse them for not going back and fixing all the old models and the exposed toes. Also, the inability to wear "girl" version of the armors for Asura/Charr models continue to be B.S. Effing fail.

[tanithryudo]

The issue with soulbeast isn't as much with keeping the pet alive... though that is part of it, what with pet deaths become way more punishing when you can't swap. It's also because the reason I slot my pets as they are is for their skills.

I think the bigger change in general gameplay now is how more pervasive breakbars are, even (especially) in solo/story instances, where you have to rely on only yourself to break the whole bar. Or there are some mobs/objects/mechanics where you need to break a bar before you can do damage.

You might think, oh well, there's longbow 4 everyone complains about. But honestly, even if I add greatsword 5 to it, together they usually only take up 1/3 or so of a mini-boss's break bar, and have a relatively long cooldown when you're in the middle of a boss fight. So a major breakbar portion actually comes from the pet, especially with the introduction of CC-specialized pets starting in PoF like the gazelle.

But gazelle has the downside of being a fairly low-damage pet. Which means I want to keep another pet around for non-boss fights. But then I don't always get a chance (either because I didn't anticipate it, or there wasn't enough time, or just forgot) to swap to the right pet before a boss fight. So then I get locked out of the CC pet against bosses, and so forth. This has happened too many times for me since the soulbeast mechanic change, and the inconvenience is no longer worth me running the spec.

[cashew]

The issue with soulbeast isn't as much with keeping the pet alive...

I meant couldn't you switch over as a Druid (thus get pet swap) and then let your pet do the damage (much as core ranger, but with perma-heal). It's not like Druid gets locked out of Ranger's core abilities, so anything the Ranger offers, Druid can do, on top of having better healing.

I recall when playing Druid I would let the dino tank and deal breakbar damage to the boss while I stood in the back and just kept it alive with Staff 1 and Heal as One. That got me through basically everything in HoT.

[tanithryudo]

Druids aren't locked out of core skills, but it does require you to use the druid traitline which is not all that useful either compared some of the core traitlines.

Also for damage, I don't actually depend on the pet to do most of it. It's not very efficient, especially with mobile foes and melee range pets.

[cashew]

Well, yeah, if you run melee pets...but I recall the Bristleback dealt respectable range damage and CC. Did it get a nerf? When I was playing Druid, standing behind the Bristleback with Staff 1 and healing traits usually meant not having to do much while the pet takes down the mob. Granted, I couldn't do champs (only Mez was ever able to take down a champ by herself), but vets were pretty brainless.

(Just checked Wiki, what happened to the soft-cc on Bristlebacks F2 skill? I used to be able to drain breakbars with one load of Bristleback F2.)

Ugh, looks like all the Ranger specs have been nerfed. What's wrong with this game?

[tanithryudo]

I don't actually recall bristleback ever having any cc... You sure you're not thinking of something else? Electric wyvern maybe?

Secondly, it's more of a Condi/tanky pet than a direct damage pet. Its power & precision are on the low side of pet stats. I don't generally play a lot of condi oriented builds, so eh.

[cashew]

I recalled Bristleback had repeated cripple application. It was one of the reasons stealth gyro was so useful in HoT. Like I said, when I was playing Druid, one F2 on Bristleback was all I needed to break the bars.

...But it's been 5 years, so maybe I'm misremembering.

Anyway, it sounds like the pets have been over nerfed and the Ranger e-specs are all crap. I swear the medium armors all get f-ed every update. I don't know why Anet keeps them around when they so obviously don't want to bother balancing them. Like, at all.

[tanithryudo]

Eh, for medium armor, daredevil from HoT and holosmith from PoF are still good, at least...We can't all be anet's favor child *coughmezmercough*