[Rejected] [Engineer] Cannon Smash

[Azarael]

That may not be reliable to cite. As you can see, that patch fixed a number of issues with the Magus daemon, and it may have evened the odds.

[porkstar]

That may not be reliable to cite. As you can see, that patch fixed a number of issues with the Magus daemon, and it may have evened the odds.

Great to hear! I'm lvling a magus currently.

[Tesq]

(3) The reason for starting this thread was because someone mentioned that if Engineer cannot be brought more closely in line with Magus through range changes and mastery tree adjustment, Cannon Smash would be adjusted next. (I believe it was AZ in one of the change logs).

You do realize this was still when the devs were under the impression the range buffs to engineer/magus also affected the range of their morales?

And no. Engineer is not outperforming Magus. Engineer has less damage due to multiple-attribute dependancy(ballistic/WS) compared to Magus needing only int. Additionally, Magus usually has around 40% or less mitigation to get through. Engineer has much higher armor values to contend with when dealing with something other than light armor classes.

that's not true at all, engi have the same tactic of choppa slayer which boost 2 stats (so in engi case both bal and wep skill )so you have the same primary and wep skill value of them: on 2/3 of classes you have less than 50% reduction from armor, my dok pre patch had like a 50% armor, now most of physical dd ingore 45-50% of the armor, the armor that is reducing your damages is around 25% or less for medium armor and bellow

25% vs 40% due to capped resistences both with out armor/resistences debuff

vs choppa/we you're damages would be almost pure if it wasn't for guard.

[Karast]

(3) The reason for starting this thread was because someone mentioned that if Engineer cannot be brought more closely in line with Magus through range changes and mastery tree adjustment, Cannon Smash would be adjusted next. (I believe it was AZ in one of the change logs).

You do realize this was still when the devs were under the impression the range buffs to engineer/magus also affected the range of their morales?

And no. Engineer is not outperforming Magus. Engineer has less damage due to multiple-attribute dependancy(ballistic/WS) compared to Magus needing only int. Additionally, Magus usually has around 40% or less mitigation to get through. Engineer has much higher armor values to contend with when dealing with something other than light armor classes.

that's not true at all, engi have the same tactic of choppa slayer which boost 2 stats (so in engi case both bal and wep skill )so you have the same primary and wep skill value of them: on 2/3 of classes you have less than 50% reduction from armor, my dok pre patch had like a 50% armor, now most of physical dd ingore 45-50% of the armor, the armor that is reducing your damages is around 25% or less for medium armor and bellow

25% vs 40% due to capped resistences both with out armor/resistences debuff

vs choppa/we you're damages would be almost pure if it wasn't for guard.

To gain that WS you have to give up not only a tactic slot, but also renown, and tali slots. This means that your crit and BS are much much lower. Your defensive stats also take a heavy hit in a weaponskill setup. The benefit of said weaponskill is hardly noticeable because you'll face roughly the same mitigation against high armor targets. Tanks, doks, mara's. It just doesn't work, and it has been tested a lot. You simply can't get enough WS without gutting everything else, and WS is just not an effective stat to stack. Even at 600-700 WS the upper limit of what you can stack most tanks / doks / maras will still being in the 60-75% mitigation range. The turret armor debuff can drop the mara / dok lower but it has very low BS, so it gets dodged constantly. It is also cleanse-able via dok group cleanse.

If you ignore WS, you can't ignore it completely and you will always lose stats to WS.

The whole argument Engi is better ignores a lot of solid features of the Magus. Their crit tactic being in the ST tree, the usefulness of the self wounds buff in a premade situation as a spike counter, the better selection of M4's in bombing situations, the M1 snare, the crit damage tactic (this is fantastic but often overlooked, infernal blast can be a beast) the undefendable tactic for the ST tree.

They have got a lot of great stuff that many maguses use to cut people in half. They can target tanks and healers much more effectively than engi can with the right builds. They have a slightly better time in premade situations, but suffer a bit more in roaming, small scale.

There are a lot of engi's that would gradly trade tactics, abilities, morales, and damage types with magus in a heartbeat, just as many magus would say the same. They are fairly evenly balanced. The only standout issue imo is unshackable focus, but I personally feel that UF is just a horrible morale ability all around, and it needs to be removed from all the prdps, and then WS and armor pen needs another pass.

[dur3al]

(1) I've played engineer constantly since the changes. I've had M3 up before cool down many many times times with +8 regen gear. It's easily possible in a good fight. Dur3al, you seem to be good at maths so you know it is true.
(2) I haven't played rifle spec since months before the changes. I was grenade and now I'm tinker/grenade. I'm usually within 100ft of the fight because it's more fun for me. If you like, PM me for my tanky/brawling build that can do plenty of damage with very high defenses and it is designed for assist dps.
(3) The reason for starting this thread was because someone mentioned that if Engineer cannot be brought more closely in line with Magus through range changes and mastery tree adjustment, Cannon Smash would be adjusted next. (I believe it was AZ in one of the change logs). I love using Cannon Smash so I wanted to start this thread so that everyone has a chance to provide input in case it does get adjusted. Please refrain from speculating about my reasons for starting this thread.


I do however, appreciate your comments regarding my suggested changes. Thank you

@1: I am talking about the old and the new morale system.
In the old morale system (10 base + 8 gear = 18 morale/s -> M3 (1800) -> 100s). #math
In the new morale system you have to stand close to the enemy (10 + ((players in group - 1) * 5) * ((Clamp(enemiesInRangeCount - 18, 0, 54) / 54f)) to receive a boost in morale gain. Some would consider it bad positioning but I will just go with risk/reward.
Any good mdps will punish this behavior. No m3 for you other than in pug scs. You lose your morale when you die.
Pressuring the engi/magus is key lately.. I get that its hard in current full range meta though, but that's some other discussion entirely.

@ Dureal
1. The slow travel time can be as effective as insta cast because it allows you to hit several burst damage abilities at once...the same as you would with the slow traveling BoC.

2. Trivial blows is the most over-rated thing from live...I NEVER ran it and I think you remember how tanky my knight and chosen were. Initiative was much more reliable in keeping burst damage down...the one exception may have been Sorc/BW.

3. FM is probably the best morale 2 available for engi/magus now since Snipe and BOC are on 5 second cooldowns. With the proper rotation you can easily squeeze 2 off and blow someone up. Magus just gives you the option to use another 3 second cast instead but both classes have 2 second casts that you can swap in and out of your rotation, if you like.

1.
It grants people time to react, for example a zealot can wounds buff or a tank m4 can be dropped to deny the follow up burst by 75%. a target could even pot up if he sits >50% health to negate the effect of cannon smash completely. Another point is that morals are usually coordinated in group fights. Its harder to coordinate 2x cannon smash than a 1.8k instant melee morale. for example take 2 engis: both need to be within 100f range when using CS. Usually a moral dump decision has to be made fast. for example the AL saw a huge dmg spike of his group and their target dropped to >50%. he calls a dump for the instant kill. If a target goes low it will usually start to kite out of range -> engi's need to coordinate their range and follow up while the melees could just finish it of in a 1s call. If you are used to your max range it is quite hard to be their in time + the travel time will give the group a chance to react. While the engi moves into range and shoots his slow rocket, a moral (heal) or a pot can be dropped while against melees there is nothing you can do if their coordination is on point.

2.
Using the example with sovereign back on live:
Chosen base initiative (lvl40): 123 (28,5%);
Chosen initiative with defensive souv: 123+116 = 239 (14,6%);
Without cloak, weapon, shield, 3x jewel;
Chosen with defensive souv and ini 5 (120): 123+116+120= 359 (9,75%);
So by going all the way in ini with 34 rr points you only get -5% chance to be crit.

3.
Gunblast : 387 raw damage - 2s Cast - due to fly times it hits ~2GCD after snipe Hip Shot: 216 raw damage - instant hits in the same GCD as snipe Focused Fire (first tick) : 219 raw damage - instant - hits 1GCD after snipe 219+216= 435 vs. 387. That’s 12,4% more damage without a delay of almost 2gcd, followed by the other shots of FF every 0.5s Snipe -> Hipshot 1.5s GCD -> 3s Channel = 4,5s + gcd = snipe ready again how does gunblast fit into that?
Focused Fire is the best skill the engi has access to. So no matter if you use FM + Gunblast, the dmg won't be higher than if you use the common rotation. It doesn't matter if snipe takes 1.5 or 3s to cast because it its about the stuff which follows imo. Gunblast is crap.
So you are better off keeping FM defensive to be honest. 1 FoF and you are dead by competent players, or even m1 to deny a pull or rdps focus.

[Tankbeardz]

Ehhh...agree to disagree.

[porkstar]

@1: I am talking about the old and the new morale system.
In the old morale system (10 base + 8 gear = 18 morale/s -> M3 (1800) -> 100s). #math
In the new morale system you have to stand close to the enemy (10 + ((players in group - 1) * 5) * ((Clamp(enemiesInRangeCount - 18, 0, 54) / 54f)) to receive a boost in morale gain. Some would consider it bad positioning but I will just go with risk/reward.
Any good mdps will punish this behavior. No m3 for you other than in pug scs. You lose your morale when you die.
Pressuring the engi/magus is key lately.. I get that its hard in current full range meta though, but that's some other discussion entirely.

I won't that claim I have unfettered access to M3 every 60s whenever I step onto the field and I apologize if that seemed implicit in my statements. I do however, still think you're looking at this from the perspective that engineer has to play from >100ft. An engineer can roll with 4300+ armor, 400+ tou and all soft capped resists. That only requires correct gear config a knight in the group. (this is not taking into account enemy debuff) Engineer can have all that defense with 32% critical chance and 40% damage and range improvement and a self heal (the stats could be pushed higher with 100% top gear and rr60). According to your math, for an engineer to have M3 on cool down, it requires the engineer to be much <100ft from 10? players. With the build above (and of course some decent group support) it is very possible. <---that is a big trade-off in engineer DPS and I think you called it a one-trick pony (I assure you it's not). It may not be some elite meta style but it's very fun and can be very nasty opponent.

Anyway, considering the DPS sacrifice an engineer has to make to get M3 on cool down by playing such a brawler style, I agree that Cannon Smash really doesn't need a nerf and honestly I never did but I always wanted to keep an open mind and generate discussion.

[Valfaros]

I'm sorry I fail to understand why cannon smash really doesn't need a nerf. It's just easily said the strongest M3 by far. I agree engi is not the class which needed a nerv in the past but is atm in a quite good spot so why don't nerv something which clearly overperforms every M3 in game and it overperforms them by FAR. If engi get's weakend by this change (which I don't believe he already has a extremly strong moral skillset) too much then buff something which underperforms on him.
Just compare it to all the range DD's M3 skillset:

Magus
10s free ap casts: Äm yes thats about enough for 3 casts yep no thanks
1200 dmg and 9s stagger: What you have here is a 1200 finisher or a stagger to a target you don't want to attack. So basicaly you always get only one effect and the other one is irrelevant. Either you want to kill something and break the stagger again after it or you want to cc someone for 9s which will make the dmg irrelevant because someone will heal him back up in the 9s

BW
Hexes and Curses remove + small heal: Well sometimes can be usefull so not that bad I guess but is extreamly situational
1200 dmg and 9s stagger: same as magus

SW
10s +300 Aoe dmg per hit: Well a rather weak AoE moral.
1200 dmg and 6s stagger: -

SH
10s +300 AoE dmg per hit: -
Tripple pet dmg output for 15s: I actually never ever saw a SH use this so...

Sorc
Same useless M3 skillset the magus has.

Engi
2400 dmg 30s 1400 armor reduction: What I hear from this thread this thing even moves slow does that mean you can time a snipe to hit at the same time? If that is true, guys hello best thing ever if you can time things to hit together especially if you get a stackable armor reduction.
Yes it's worse to instantly finish someone of at 40% because he maybe gets a heal but with the armor reduction he will pretty much be compleatly exposed to any physical dmg. I don't understand this extremly high amount of dmg on it. No other range dd has a M3 which hits even close to it. Not even close....and then if that's not enough it adds an other 30s stackable armor reduction. Why on earth does it last for 30s I can't think of any moral effect which lasts that long.


So I really fail to see what justifys the M3 of engi and you can't say oh well he has this strong M3 because his M1 and M2 is bad because that's not the case. He has a really good defensive M1 and two good offensive M2 and one acceptible defensive group M2.

[Penril]

2 weeks have passed. Time to lock this.