Guild Wars 2

INTRODUCTION
First of all I know there is a thread on the sPvP forums that is discussing this problem however people are confused by the term “decap” and the thread has become pointless. In order to prevent confusion I’ll give a general definition of what is currently meant with decap engineer.

DEFENITION: An engineer running with infused bombs and automated response combined with rifle and two more cc utility’s. This engineer will be pushing the enemy home point throughout the entire match.

Most Common Trait lines:
10/0/30/30/0
0/0/30/30/10
Adept and Master traits can be different but it always has 30 in alchemy and inventions.

It should be clear that the Nodefighter and Static Discharge builds are not part of the problem.

I hope everyone has a clear image of what is meant with a decap engineer now.

THE PROBLEM
Mechanical Problem: In general engineers require a decent mechanical skill level in order to perform well (that is not a problem). However, this build allows bad players to be incredibly effective because of a combination of mechanical elements that are easy to execute for an incredible high reward. The combined mechanical elements that cause this problem:

• Access to allot of regeneration with minor traits and healing turret
• Access to allot of protection with projection injection and protective shield
• Access to Condition Immunity with automated response
• Access to a second layer of regeneration with backpack regenerator
• Access to manual health regulation with infused bombs.

What this combination of elements does is that neither a power class or a condition class can kill this build reliably in a 1v1. If you want to kill this effectively without your home point being contested to long then your require both a condition build and a power build to bring it down. This brings us to the next aspect of the problem.

Strategical/Tactical Problem: When a team implements a decap engineer in their composition they decide to play for three points. Playing for three points is generally speaking a more risky way to play then when you would otherwise play for two points. A decap engineer removes a big part of the risk that is playing for three points by being practically unkillable by one player. This means that either you will have to send one person to assist your home point defender every ~30seconds (Death 15sec – run back to your point 15sec). Or you’ll have to decap their point consistently in order to prevent them from gaining points while the engineer is on your point holding it neutral. However doing either of these two moves means that if there is a 4v4 team fight going on you’ll leave your team in a disadvantage for about ~20-30 sec’s (run home point – kill engineer – run back) (run enemy home point – decap – run back). In that time the enemy team has one more player to damage/heal/rez/stomp then your team does, as you may understand that is a huge disadvantage.

SOLUTION
All problems with this build come from not being able to kill it reliably with one person. The reason for this is that it has PERMA condition immunity under 25% HP. Because of this I would like to propose one of the following changes to Automated Response:

• Change it to ~Xseconds every ~Xseconds with a clear tooltip that shows the engineer has condition immunity.
• Change it to ~X% condition damage decreased below Xhealth
• Change it to ~X% condition duration decreased below Xhealth
• Remove the trait entirely

DISCLAIMER
My main profession is Engineer, I’ve played decap engineer 20ish games both with premade and in soloq. For someone that has played engineer for over 2000 games this is an incredibly easy build whit a very boring role that makes me feel dumb and abusive. I hope people understand that this is a build based on a broken trait that should be changed as soon as possible. I also hope Arenanent understands that builds like this cannont be allowed to excist in order for fun and competitive play to be viable.

That protection you speak of is mostly theoretical. Two traits give it: 3s on critical hit (20s cooldown) and 3s when disabled (5s cooldown). Unless you’re constantly disabled, you won’t have that protection. And i doubt you’re getting disabled on purpose.
Also, the build you speak of seems to have no condition cleanses outside of the healing turret’s one. You could be condition-bursted before falling below the 25% threshold.
And imho, the problem isn’t with automated response – rather, it is the condition meta itself. Using it constantly makes you getting direct-damage bursted very easily – you’re playing with a quarter of the normal hp after all.
Especially since the build you mention has no blocks at all, and just a single area blind with bombs. But obviously, if all the people are running with conditions, this just won’t happen.

I agree with your post and solution on the whole.

However, I would like to point out that none of the top teams play with a Decap Engie. Also, a Burst Thief/Ele can burst down a Decap Engie quiet fast and pretty reliably as long as they stay slightly at range.

I think a slight rework of AR to give a bit more active removal and less uptime of immunity would be the solution.

Edit: And yea… Manuhell is correct re Protection uptime. I personally don’t run Protection at all and take Vigor instead.

The whole point of the trait is making you immune to conditions while making you extremely vulnerable to direct damage due to the low hp threshold..
Any rework will either make it useless – as no one would stay below 25% on purpose if there aren’t relevant advantages to it – or would change its entire scope, if the threshold is changed.

Manuhell.2759:

The whole point of the trait is making you immune to conditions while making you extremely vulnerable to direct damage due to the low hp threshold..
Any rework will either make it useless – as no one would stay below 25% on purpose if there aren’t relevant advantages to it – or would change its entire scope, if the threshold is changed.

Again, i agree with the premise for AR.

The best way to deal with it is to rotate a team properly so you don’t have Condition users with the Decap Engie. Unfortunately, team rotation as counterplay is something beyond any team not playing in a tournament. Also, it means that the opposition has to spend time repositioning their players to counter wherever the Decapper goes.

I feel my above point is why you don’t see Decap Engies in high-end play but they carry teams in general Team Q.

By reworking AR slightly to not have 100% uptime/full immunity, you allow for a more skilled condition users to at least stand a chance and force the Decapper to not just brainless stand on point spamming Bombs (i.e: they would have to retreat/Stealth/LoS until AR reactivates). I do stress that I am not asking for AR nerf but a slightly rework (i.e something like: Activate on ~30%, immunity for 8 seconds with 10 second recharge)

Edit: One thing you can’t complain about Decap Engies though… BUILD DIVERSITY. Literally there are at least 10 different decapper builds…

Since when we are in condition meta?
Condition meta is over ages ago, the only leftover is just a couple of Necromancers playing conditions, which are instantly destroyed by the over-abundance of warriors.

The problem is that this specific build can be completely selfish and designed only around self-survivability while still being extremely useful to the team because of the decap/cc potential.

Insane survivability, over-abundance of knockbacks and conquest gamemode. One of those things has to be fixed.

chungiee.8764:

Edit: One thing you can’t complain about Decap Engies though… BUILD DIVERSITY. Literally there are at least 10 different decapper builds…

• This aspect of decap Engineer is absolutely true. There are tons of variations, from JinDaVikk’s variation that uses Med Kit, to Steamhawke’s version that bypasses Healing Bombs and instead uses Thumper Turret. There are so many CC skills in the Engineer kitten nal and both active and passive healing ticks that nerfing “Decap engi” in general could well mean nerfing several traits and utilities, not to mention Overcharged Shot, which seems to be the main tool for debunkering.[/quote]

Back on topic

To be honest the Condition Immunity traits and skills like Berserker’s stance, Diamond Skin and Automated Response could all do with some looking at. In the zero-sum arms race between condition application and cleansing, what is not needed is to throw one’s arms up into the air and introduce hard counters. They’re extraordinarily hard to balance and intransparent to play around (Except Berserker’s Stance)

• That being said, Automated Response can be countered by running a Carrion Amulet, for example. Or what seems to be increasingly popular is teams running a Thief to roam between Backpoint and Mid – an Engineer running Automated Response will likely still lose to a Thief (depends on build, but usually decap Engis don’t have enough DPS to counterpressure a Thief)

With Automated Response in particular, the main thing is to eliminate the Automated component and promote active play, whilst being a strong Condition management tool. With that in mind, there are a few ways Automated Response can be reworked into:

• Cleanse 1 Condition every time you use a Toolbelt Skill. At 25% health, you instead cleanse 2 conditions every time you use a Toolbelt Skill (No ICD)
  • This has the effect of Synergising with Inertial Converter and basically enables a full Condition clear at 25% HP – but you must cast your Toolbelts. Active play is required.
  • No internal Cooldown should be placed on this trait as it is Grandmaster in Alchemy, supplanting HGH.
  • Elixir Builds now have the choice of even more Condition clear in conjunction with CF409, or they could simply take Fast Acting Elixirs and Potent Elixirs and sacrifice damage.

• Every time you would suffer a Condition while under 25% health, the closest foe within 900 range suffers it also. (Cooldown: 60 seconds)
  • This removes the Immunity at 25% HP and now has the potential to allow builds running Elixir C to make a comeback play.
  • Unfortunately, this makes Automated Response extremely niche. It makes AR super strong with 1 particular Utility and its intransparent (unless you also had a visual cue or special buff in the Boon bar)

Combining the 2 ideas into a horrible Frankenstein:

• Upon using a Toolbelt Skill, your next attack transfers 1 condition to target foe. At 25% Health, instead transfer 2 conditions
  • This turns the Condi Necro vs Engineer matchup on its head and Engineers running this iteration of AR might just have a better chance.
  • You’ll definitely want utilities like Rifle Turret with this version of AR. SD Engineer with AR? Why not.
  • Increasing the skill cap of this trait could be done by requiring that the attack hits (Condi transfer dodged) ; or by introducing and tuning an ICD (preferably from 10-15 seconds, no more)

The key thing here is that every single change aims to take away the complete immunity at 25% HP. Condition classes (in particular those running Rabid) now have a way of playing with and around AR, and decap Engi is now weaker for it.

chungiee.8764:

By reworking AR slightly to not have 100% uptime/full immunity, you allow for a more skilled condition users to at least stand a chance and force the Decapper to not just brainless stand on point spamming Bombs (i.e: they would have to retreat/Stealth/LoS until AR reactivates). I do stress that I am not asking for AR nerf but a slightly rework (i.e something like: Activate on ~30%, immunity for 8 seconds with 10 second recharge)

In theory, the suggestion would be nice. In practice, it would make the trait mostly useless.
Trading a weakness to direct damage bursts for a timed immunity that can be counterplayed by the opponent makes the exchange worthless. Engineers are already strict on utility slots, since they’ve got to use them for weapons too. Any disable before the recharge interval means certain death unless you’ve got a stun breaker. And that’s on top of a condition cleanse you’ll probably have to slot either way (to not die to the conditions inflicted before AR kicks in). You’ve got a single slot left, and unless you’re using pistol/shield or a tool kit (thus not the bombs) you have no blocks at all, only dodges (and vigor from traits got nerfed, too). If you do so you won’t have the control skills to decap, by the way.
If you have to spend all your defenses during those seconds of recharge, you won’t have anything after that. If you’re against a full condi build, that could still be fine (except for the stun breakers and condition cleanses eventually on recharge for at least 3 or 4 of those intervals). If you aren’t, you’re dead.
Basically, you would end up investing a lot of trait point and getting defensive gears…to be very weak to direct damage, having low offense and using two slots out of three just to avoid being bursted by conditions during the recharge – meaning that either you heal via bombs or you get an additional control skill, since the rifle alone can’t do much.
Heavy investment while still having high risks versus both direct and condition damage. Why even bother taking it?

Manuhell.2759:

snip

In my mind, my suggestion would work similar to Berserker Stance. Both you and your opposition would know when it is about to run out and you can position yourself appropriately (i.e: get off the point and LOS as it is about to run out). If anything, my suggestion is OP because it would allow you to drop below the threshold, heal up and still have immunity for the next X seconds.

Regardless, I feel the best way to rework AR is promoting active play (which I think most agree with) and that means forcing the Engineer to reposition/using defensive skills at appropriate times.

This leaves the higher skilled Decappers (those who disengage/ LoS and reengage) viable while toning down the “brainless” 10/0/30/30/0 stand on point spamming Bombs + CC + Dodges.

@RaZaC.1963

In your stream is the only GW2 video a game vs a decap engi and you kill him multiple time solo in very short time. Do not get the point with this should be overpowered if you are able to kill a decap engi as a condition engi

it’s easy to fix this problem without hurting engies build diversity:
Make the cap points larger, that’s a thing that we’re asking from the start of the game, small cap points incentive AoE spam and these troll decap builds…

I still dont get all the complaints about AR, it is powerful and could probably be changed, but how many 100% condi specced people are on one team in a spvp match. And how can a power thief/war or a ele/dps guard be utterly unable to kill an engy, is protection every time they get cc’d or 120hp/sec from backpack regen so strong they will never die?

The amount of knockbacks seem like the bigger problem and a lot of that probably has to do with flame kit having one every 15s, that cd go up, plus accelerant packed turrets is another kb every 20s. But youre specced for control and regen so your damage is mediocre and your survivability vs burst damage is also mediocre, plus you have 1 stun break every 40s and no stability. If an engy wants to spec that way why shouldnt he be good at fighting around points.

Sizer.5632:

I still dont get all the complaints about AR, it is powerful and could probably be changed, but how many 100% condi specced people are on one team in a spvp match. And how can a power thief/war or a ele/dps guard be utterly unable to kill an engy, is protection every time they get cc’d or 120hp/sec from backpack regen so strong they will never die?

The amount of knockbacks seem like the bigger problem and a lot of that probably has to do with flame kit having one every 15s, that cd go up, plus accelerant packed turrets is another kb every 20s. But youre specced for control and regen so your damage is mediocre and your survivability vs burst damage is also mediocre, plus you have 1 stun break every 40s and no stability. If an engy wants to spec that way why shouldnt he be good at fighting around points.

How can survivability vs burst damage be bad when you have insane armor and sustain?

Also, keep in mind that a CCed enemy is an enemy who is not attacking.

Of course, if the engineer is standing still eating all the damage he won’t survive only thanks to protection and passive regen.

In real life situations, the engineer is dodging (and a lot thanks to vigor), he’s using bombs applying blindness, cripple and immobilization, he’s kiting, he’s knocking you back and down, all of this added to high armor, high sustain and condition immunity on low HP, which means that the engineer can just disengage when he’s on low health since you have no way to immob/snare him, heal and then come back on the node keeping it neutral.

RaZaC.1963:

INTRODUCTION
Adept and Master traits can be different but it always has 30 in alchemy and inventions.

One thing we have to be careful with here is that putting 30 in both the toughness and vitality lines of any profession can maximize that profession’s bunkering potential.

And I’m not sure if there’s a way to say a decap engineer is different from a bunker engineer. My usual 0/0/30/30/10 bunker build from WvW can work also as a decap engi and the only common thing I use is Flamethrower.

As someone on the other thread mentioned, nerfing some aspect of these bunker builds could also affect all builds. For example, bomb kit isn’t used only by bunker engineers. It can be found on zerker builds.

sorrow.2364:

Sizer.5632:

I still dont get all the complaints about AR, it is powerful and could probably be changed, but how many 100% condi specced people are on one team in a spvp match. And how can a power thief/war or a ele/dps guard be utterly unable to kill an engy, is protection every time they get cc’d or 120hp/sec from backpack regen so strong they will never die?

The amount of knockbacks seem like the bigger problem and a lot of that probably has to do with flame kit having one every 15s, that cd go up, plus accelerant packed turrets is another kb every 20s. But youre specced for control and regen so your damage is mediocre and your survivability vs burst damage is also mediocre, plus you have 1 stun break every 40s and no stability. If an engy wants to spec that way why shouldnt he be good at fighting around points.

How can survivability vs burst damage be bad when you have insane armor and sustain?

Also, keep in mind that a CCed enemy is an enemy who is not attacking.

Of course, if the engineer is standing still eating all the damage he won’t survive only thanks to protection and passive regen.

In real life situations, the engineer is dodging (and a lot thanks to vigor), he’s using bombs applying blindness, cripple and immobilization, he’s kiting, he’s knocking you back and down, all of this added to high armor, high sustain and condition immunity on low HP, which means that the engineer can just disengage when he’s on low health since you have no way to immob/snare him, heal and then come back on the node keeping it neutral.

Yes I get all that but the point of burst damage is to kill him before he can cc you and take advantage of all of his regen. If the fight is over in <5 seconds then backpack regen/vigor/AR/ect. arent going to do him very much. If he survives that then it might be very difficult to kill him, but isnt it also difficult to kill a bunker war/guard/ect. with just one person

Adanion.4615:

it’s easy to fix this problem without hurting engies build diversity:
Make the cap points larger, that’s a thing that we’re asking from the start of the game, small cap points incentive AoE spam and these troll decap builds…

This is probably one of the best suggestions.

sorrow.2364:

How can survivability vs burst damage be bad when you have insane armor and sustain?

Also, keep in mind that a CCed enemy is an enemy who is not attacking.

Of course, if the engineer is standing still eating all the damage he won’t survive only thanks to protection and passive regen.

In real life situations, the engineer is dodging (and a lot thanks to vigor), he’s using bombs applying blindness, cripple and immobilization, he’s kiting, he’s knocking you back and down, all of this added to high armor, high sustain and condition immunity on low HP, which means that the engineer can just disengage when he’s on low health since you have no way to immob/snare him, heal and then come back on the node keeping it neutral.

Except that vigor access got nerfed, that the bomb skills you’re talking about have both a 25s cooldown with the build you’re mentioning (can’t have good sustain without 30 points in Inventions, can’t have AR without 30 points in Alchemy, thus not enough points to get Short Fuse) and getting other control skills apart from the rifle requires the engineer to not get either a condition cleanse beside the turret or a stun breaker – there are simply not enough slots.
Thus all this “knocking down” either is limited to a launch/self-knockback every 15s and a launch every 30s (and easily dodgeable, since it is clearly telegraphed). You can add a 15s knockback or a 25s launch and give up a condition removal or a stunbreaker, sure. It is more risky, obviously – AR protects under the threshold, but you can still be condi-bursted while above it (and we can’t rely on passive removals…transmute is quite useless in that regard).
While it could have power shoes, such a build has no access to swiftness or any skill to escape whatsoever (jump shot is too slow for that purpose, and it isn’t even traited for range).
Also, either it works nicely with AR, has high sustain or has high armor – can’t do all of them together. You would need both healing power, toughness and vitality. And there is no gear with a similar stat composition.

Lupanic.6502:

@RaZaC.1963

In your stream is the only GW2 video a game vs a decap engi and you kill him multiple time solo in very short time. Do not get the point with this should be overpowered if you are able to kill a decap engi as a condition engi

There are instances where I kill necro’s that doesn’t mean necro’s are weak, the player just played the build/class badly. Same goes for decap engies

Sizer.5632:

Yes I get all that but the point of burst damage is to kill him before he can cc you and take advantage of all of his regen. If the fight is over in <5 seconds then backpack regen/vigor/AR/ect. arent going to do him very much. If he survives that then it might be very difficult to kill him, but isnt it also difficult to kill a bunker war/guard/ect. with just one person

It is.
I don’t know what you’re talking about, but the purpose of bunkers is to survive and they are quite good at that.

You can’t just jump in and one shot an engineer with 17k+ HP and almost 3000 armor. That’s pure fantasy.

Manuhell.2759:

Except that vigor access got nerfed, that the bomb skills you’re talking about have both a 25s cooldown with the build you’re mentioning (can’t have good sustain without 30 points in Inventions, can’t have AR without 30 points in Alchemy, thus not enough points to get Short Fuse) and getting other control skills apart from the rifle requires the engineer to not get either a condition cleanse beside the turret or a stun breaker – there are simply not enough slots.
Thus all this “knocking down” either is limited to a launch/self-knockback every 15s and a launch every 30s (and easily dodgeable, since it is clearly telegraphed). You can add a 15s knockback or a 25s launch and give up a condition removal or a stunbreaker, sure. It is more risky, obviously – AR protects under the threshold, but you can still be condi-bursted while above it (and we can’t rely on passive removals…transmute is quite useless in that regard).
While it could have power shoes, such a build has no access to swiftness or any skill to escape whatsoever (jump shot is too slow for that purpose, and it isn’t even traited for range).
Also, either it works nicely with AR, has high sustain or has high armor – can’t do all of them together. You would need both healing power, toughness and vitality. And there is no gear with a similar stat composition.

Vigor access got nerfed, but it is still over 50% uptime.

Other then that, I don’t know what all this post is about. It has no point whatsoever and leads to no conclusion at all.

Manu’s Frankenstein of an idea has a lot of merit. Having a way to throw back condis is much more satisfying, and frankly adds another dimension to the engineer’s kitten nal. Although, come to think of it, it’s mostly a clutch offensive trait now if it’s put that way, as compared to the defensive idea of automated response.

Advent Leader.1083:

Manu’s Frankenstein of an idea has a lot of merit. Having a way to throw back condis is much more satisfying, and frankly adds another dimension to the engineer’s kitten nal. Although, come to think of it, it’s mostly a clutch offensive trait now if it’s put that way, as compared to the defensive idea of automated response.

It isn’t mine – it was posted by MonMalthias.
But i agree, even if i would rather prefer the first one. That would also help solve one other issue with engineer traits…that is, the lack of toolbelt traits. For being the profession mechanic, there are quite few of them (2 minor, one major adept, and all in the last trait tree).

Edit: thinking about it, there could be balancing issues when using both it and cleansing formula 409 with elixirs, though.

Manuhell.2759:

Edit: thinking about it, there could be balancing issues when using both it and cleansing formula 409 with elixirs, though.

Maybe, maybe not because I personally still wouldn’t take elixirs over kits even if they gave me extra condi cleanse from 409 in addition to this proposed toolbelt trait. But maybe I’m missing something.

Prioritizing CF409 before condi pass should work as a solution.

o.O every time the same post/thread
wth r u thinking???
decap engy its the same of a bunker guardian or an HamBow war or a evasive thief or a fearchain necro
and no 1 say they r OP but only engy who got much CC and regen (engy dont got stability or skill who remove condition fast)

Normal regeneration is ~350hp/s
Backpack regeneration is ~150hp/s
Bomb healing is ~350hp/per bomb
Super Elixir is ~340hp/s
Condition Immunity from 25% = ~4000HP`

There is no way your going to die in a 1v1 vs anything quickly and you’ll be able to decap or fully cap the point depending on the enemy class. Yes when you get two classes sure it will die quickly enough but the point is you cant spare two people to kill one with teamfights going on.

List of CC’s:
Rifle: Overcharged Shot
Rifle: Net Shot
Bombkit: Big ol’ Bomb
Flametrower: Air Blast
Healing Turret if traited with Accelerant-Packed Turrets

There is no way your going to hold a node unless you build something specifically for having loads of blocks and stability (Warrior / Guardian) and even then you’ll get decapped eventually.

Most close node holders are condition damage based:
Rangers
Engineers
Warrior (lbow – ax/sword)

The point is that a close node holder cant kill it reliably, changing condition immunity which is brainless in the first place like other immunity’s would be a step in the right direction for the engineer as a class and the game as whole.

I agree that AP is a not a good trait. But it is not the fault of the engi that the node holder are condition based or to weak to kill him.

In normal games the warrior is running to far point because he is not killable in the first 30sec and he is able to kill everything in 1on1.

if you are playing against a decap engi you could replace your nodeholder with a (direct)damagedealer or go for stability builds as a warrior

Lupanic.6502:

I agree that AP is a not a good trait. But it is not the fault of the engi that the node holder are condition based or to weak to kill him.

In normal games the warrior is running to far point because he is not killable in the first 30sec and he is able to kill everything in 1on1.

if you are playing against a decap engi you could replace your nodeholder with a (direct)damagedealer or go for stability builds as a warrior

Having to change the setup or your team because the enemy is running something broken should not be the solution. Besides eventhough condi warriors kill stuff they don’t actually are able to decap the node effectively (they will have to take the whole fight on a capped node usually).

Neither is the fault of the engineer if the enemies don’t use power classes, though. In a balanced meta, there wouldn’t be problems at all.

Manuhell.2759:

Neither is the fault of the engineer if the enemies don’t use power classes, though. In a balanced meta, there wouldn’t be problems at all.

What part are you failing to understand about the fact that decap engineers are bunkers?
They have 3000 armors, decent protection uptime and a lot of sustain, along with high amount of CCs.

A single power based profession can’t kill kitten. Two power profession will eventually kill the decap engineer, but not fast enough to don’t let the engineer’s team win any other fight because of numerical advantage. Same applies to a power profession and a condition profession.

Even if you manage to kill the engineer, it is a matter of 15s that he will be right back on the node keeping it white, meanwhile the teammate who helped you is locked on the close point if you want to get any points out of it.

So either you fight the engineer 1vs1, which will eventually lead even to a fullcap on the long run from the engineer or you fight him 2vs1 which leads to failure to any other teamfight and the inability to kill since he’s keeping 2 dps occupied, assuming you’re holding close point with a warrior (otherwise you aren’t even able to hold it white) and the roamer (assuming thief).

I can’t see how people can argue that decap engi is fine, it is clear as sun that it is plain broken.

Another way to deal with a decap engg is just to ignore it. If they want to take your home point on rot on the node, let them. Now you can play for the other two points and fight the enemies 5v4. The decap engg then has to choose whether to abandon their node or leave their team at a disadvantage. If they leave their node, it can be backcapped. These “bad players” you speak of will likely just sit around and not contribute much to their team since they’ll only be thinking of pressuring the enemy home node, then perhaps blame the rest of the team if they lose.

Additionally, both teams could employ the same strategy with this sort of engg, so it would have somewhat of an equalizing effect.

So even though this build can be a strong asset, it will largely depend on the rest of your team. If your team can’t maintain control of the other two nodes effectively, then being a decap engg won’t allow you to win anything.

sorrow.2364:

What part are you failing to understand about the fact that decap engineers are bunkers?
They have 3000 armors, decent protection uptime and a lot of sustain, along with high amount of CCs.

A single power based profession can’t kill kitten. Two power profession will eventually kill the decap engineer, but not fast enough to don’t let the engineer’s team win any other fight because of numerical advantage. Same applies to a power profession and a condition profession.

Even if you manage to kill the engineer, it is a matter of 15s that he will be right back on the node keeping it white, meanwhile the teammate who helped you is locked on the close point if you want to get any points out of it.

So either you fight the engineer 1vs1, which will eventually lead even to a fullcap on the long run from the engineer or you fight him 2vs1 which leads to failure to any other teamfight and the inability to kill since he’s keeping 2 dps occupied, assuming you’re holding close point with a warrior (otherwise you aren’t even able to hold it white) and the roamer (assuming thief).

I can’t see how people can argue that decap engi is fine, it is clear as sun that it is plain broken.

First, the “decent protection uptime” is there only if they’re costantly disabled. Otherwise it is 3s + boon duration every 20s.
Also, the build you talk of is using cleric gear and 60 points on defensive stats. I would say it is supposed to have sustain and bunker, given those stats – it would be useless if he wasn’t able to do so. But it is still prone to burst damage (no blocks, 2 blinds) and control skills – it has no stability at all and a single stun breaker on 40s cooldown. Especially if it counts on actively using AR, thus staying under 25% hp (and with only the vitality given by the trait tree, it isn’t much high). And their damage is pitiful.
Sure, they can have a lot of control if they choose to, like in this build (obviously they don’t get them for free…either they get those or they get defensive skills, they’re all in different kits on purpose). But guess what, having “a lot of control” is exactly one of the strong points of the engineer as described in the balance philosophies (along with using boons to stay alive, by the way).
Basically, you’re complaining about what the class is supposed to do by design, about what a bunker is supposed to do by design.

Manuhell.2759:

First, the “decent protection uptime” is there only if they’re costantly disabled. Otherwise it is 3s + boon duration every 20s.
Also, the build you talk of is using cleric gear and 60 points on defensive stats. I would say it is supposed to have sustain and bunker, given those stats – it would be useless if he wasn’t able to do so. But it is still prone to burst damage (no blocks, 2 blinds) and control skills – it has no stability at all and a single stun breaker on 40s cooldown. Especially if it counts on actively using AR, thus staying under 25% hp (and with only the vitality given by the trait tree, it isn’t much high). And their damage is pitiful.
Sure, they can have a lot of control if they choose to, like in this build (obviously they don’t get them for free…either they get those or they get defensive skills, they’re all in different kits on purpose). But guess what, having “a lot of control” is exactly one of the strong points of the engineer as described in the balance philosophies (along with using boons to stay alive, by the way).
Basically, you’re complaining about what the class is supposed to do by design, about what a bunker is supposed to do by design.

No, I’m complaining about a stupid build whose only purpose is to decap a node.
It doesn’t matter that he deals no damage, any bunker deals no damage. The point is that while any other bunker, take for instance a bunker guardian, can only survive and perhaps support allies, a decap engineer can also take a decap on a node, being extremely useful offensively without killing enemies.

Take a bunker guardian and send it to a bunkered far. Unless their far defender is utterly bad, he will just waste time and eventually die. Not only enemy still get the points because a bunker guardian can’t properly decap a node, but they also get the kill points.

Now, take a decap engi and send it to a bunkered far. He will decap the node and if no one comes to help the node defender, he eventually get even a full cap.
No matter what you do, the decap engi has won. Even if help comes and you manage to kill the engineer, you have lost points because you had the close point decapped and you are probably losing the other teamfights because 2 people are needed to kill the engineer.

For the last time: a profession with 3000 armor is not prone to burst damage.
Also, a profession who gets protection on CC and eventually also 20% less damage while stunned or knocked down is still not prone to control skills.

I really don’t know how to make you understand that. Perhaps, you should play some PvP sometimes.

RaZaC.1963:

Lupanic.6502:

I agree that AP is a not a good trait. But it is not the fault of the engi that the node holder are condition based or to weak to kill him.

In normal games the warrior is running to far point because he is not killable in the first 30sec and he is able to kill everything in 1on1.

if you are playing against a decap engi you could replace your nodeholder with a (direct)damagedealer or go for stability builds as a warrior

Having to change the setup or your team because the enemy is running something broken should not be the solution. Besides eventhough condi warriors kill stuff they don’t actually are able to decap the node effectively (they will have to take the whole fight on a capped node usually).

I guess we can talk until the world ends. They have to change AP to something not broken. To create a decap build should be ok.

sorrow.2364:

Manuhell.2759:

First, the “decent protection uptime” is there only if they’re costantly disabled. Otherwise it is 3s + boon duration every 20s.
Also, the build you talk of is using cleric gear and 60 points on defensive stats. I would say it is supposed to have sustain and bunker, given those stats – it would be useless if he wasn’t able to do so. But it is still prone to burst damage (no blocks, 2 blinds) and control skills – it has no stability at all and a single stun breaker on 40s cooldown. Especially if it counts on actively using AR, thus staying under 25% hp (and with only the vitality given by the trait tree, it isn’t much high). And their damage is pitiful.
Sure, they can have a lot of control if they choose to, like in this build (obviously they don’t get them for free…either they get those or they get defensive skills, they’re all in different kits on purpose). But guess what, having “a lot of control” is exactly one of the strong points of the engineer as described in the balance philosophies (along with using boons to stay alive, by the way).
Basically, you’re complaining about what the class is supposed to do by design, about what a bunker is supposed to do by design.

No, I’m complaining about a stupid build whose only purpose is to decap a node.
It doesn’t matter that he deals no damage, any bunker deals no damage. The point is that while any other bunker, take for instance a bunker guardian, can only survive and perhaps support allies, a decap engineer can also take a decap on a node, being extremely useful without the need to even kill the enemies.

Take a bunker guardian and send it to a bunkered far. Unless their far defender is utterly bad, he will just waste time and eventually die. Not only enemy still get the points because a bunker guardian can’t properly decap a node, but they also get the kill points.

Now, take a decap engi and send it to a bunkered far. He will decap the node and if no one comes to help the node defender, he eventually get even a full cap.
No matter what you do, the decap engi has won. Even if help comes and you manage to kill the engineer, you have lost points because you had the close point decapped and you are probably losing the other teamfights because 2 people are needed to kill the engineer.

For the last time: a profession with 3000 armor is not prone to burst damage.
Also, a profession who gets protection on CC and eventually also 20% less damage while stunned or knocked down is still not prone to control skills.

I really don’t know how to make you understand that. Perhaps, you should play some PvP sometimes.

So why is your team fighting the decap engg instead of 5v4ing the rest of the enemy team? You seem to operate under the assumption that you must have the close node in order to win, which isn’t true. It doesn’t matter if the decap engg holds that node if their team doesn’t hold the other two nodes. If the engg leaves the node to help them out, then you can just back cap it. It’s not like the decap engg can be on all the nodes at once.

Secondary objective can also come into play. On legacy of the foefire for instance, the one person that would normally fight the decap engg can go attack the lord. So either the decap engg leaves their node to defend the lord, at which point it can be backcapped, or someone else from the team has to go defend the lord, meaning the rest of the team is disadvantaged on the other two nodes. Otherwise, the person can go in and kill the lord for free.

Yamsandjams.3267:

So why is your team fighting the decap engg instead of 5v4ing the rest of the enemy team? You seem to operate under the assumption that you must have the close node in order to win, which isn’t true. It doesn’t matter if the decap engg holds that node if their team doesn’t hold the other two nodes. If the engg leaves the node to help them out, then you can just back cap it. It’s not like the decap engg can be on all the nodes at once.

Secondary objective can also come into play. On legacy of the foefire for instance, the one person that would normally fight the decap engg can go attack the lord. So either the decap engg leaves their node to defend the lord, at which point it can be backcapped, or someone else from the team has to go defend the lord, meaning the rest of the team is disadvantaged on the other two nodes. Otherwise, the person can go in and kill the lord for free.

So are you suggesting the final counter to everything? The almighty “just don’t engage” tactic?

As I’m under the assumption that I must hold the close node, which is kinda natural since fighting far+mid is in most cases a bad choince due to distance, you are under the assumption that once you leave the close point to the engi and the rest of the team is doing nothing.

If the engineer is forcing you to play mid+far, he’s winning because getting on far takes much more time than getting on close, thus it is waaay harder to hold.

Yamsandjams,

Stop making sense!

I’ve found that my “balanced build” engi with rabid amulet and specced into power and crit damage can do well in keeping a decap/bunker off a point as well. The reason is that I have pretty much the same CC and since the decap engi does no damage even with my comparably low defense, we’re just pretty much trading CC to get the other off the node. So it just becomes a matter of who the better players is.

But I have the advantage of having a far more flexible build where I can roam to other points and can actually kill things. No, I’m not suggesting that this should be the counter but it’s something to consider.

I still say that nodes should be bigger so that this issue goes away.

sorrow.2364:

If the engineer is forcing you to play mid+far, he’s winning because getting on far takes much more time than getting on close, thus it is waaay harder to hold.

The time it takes to get to far only seems like an issue if your team is having trouble holding mid and far with a numbers advantage, assuming the decap engi stays on your home.

You can habe at least one Direct damage dealer in you Team to kill him. 2 h sword warrior, shatter Mesmer. Hgh engi, ele or dagger thief should be able to kill him alone. It is possible

Decap engine is incredibly strong, but doesn’t bring much else to the table other than that far node de-cap.

I think that the OP’s suggestions are actually quite good, and would trim down decap engie approrpiately.

HOWEVER…

I don’t trust ANet developers to make sane changes anymore. I don’t believe the developers play any classes outside of warrior and thief. If they do, I’d argue they actually don’t understand the mechanics adequately.

As such, I’d suggest they just leave engineers alone as-is.

BTW, I don’t play engie.

Chaba.5410:

The time it takes to get to far only seems like an issue if your team is having trouble holding mid and far with a numbers advantage, assuming the decap engi stays on your home.

Only a stupid player will just sit on close point. Fact is that if as soon as he push close, you are forced to play mid+far and you are in disadvantage.

That obviously assuming that you’ve already won the mid and far fights without the engi coming to help.

If AR ever changes, I wanna see something that still screws with condition users, just to make sure no meta in any gamemode can ever win with pure condi builds. An always active -25% condition duration would be great

sorrow.2364:

Chaba.5410:

The time it takes to get to far only seems like an issue if your team is having trouble holding mid and far with a numbers advantage, assuming the decap engi stays on your home.

Only a stupid player will just sit on close point. Fact is that if as soon as he push close, you are forced to play mid+far and you are in disadvantage.

That obviously assuming that you’ve already won the mid and far fights without the engi coming to help.

Exactly. If he moves off your close point to help his team because your team is winning mid and far (should be winning if you outnumber them, then you have higher point gain from two nodes), according to what you are saying, you are no longer at a disadvantage.

The decap engi is made for very specific purpose, like its name implies. It has very low damage. The decap engi build would not make any sense in pve or WvWvW and I doubt it will be that overpowered in top tournament play as well. So I really hope Arenanet doesn’t (once again) nerf engineers in all game modes, just based on such very niche type of build. Similarly the planned nerf for net turret doesn’t make any sense whatsoever outside spvp/tpvp. Since when was the net turret overpowered in WvWvW or pve?! The turret usually gets destroyed less than a second and hits the wrong target.

The healing numbers Razac mentioned were calculated with about 1750 in healing power, which is quite a lot indeed. A bunker guardian with similar amount of healing power and the right build would heal more and have better access for condition cleansing and stability + very good access to protection. Of course the guardian won’t be as efficient in decapping though due not having that many knocking skills, but killing the guardian quickly in 1 vs 1 would also be difficult.

I fully agree that the Automated Response trait needs to be reworked. And same for all traits which offer completely immunity to conditions (this includes ele’s diamond skill). I do not like Malthias’ idea of AR reflecting back the conditions as this could make it potentially overpowered for those who play condition spammer engis. Engi needs now more variety and not more condition spammers. I think AR should be reworked as followed:

“When your health reaches 25% all conditions are cleansed. Cooldown 25 seconds”

Now this would be a complete condition cleanse which cannot be interrupted, fitting the name of the trait and spirit of the trait trait tree. And it would not be completely overpowered. I am not 100% sure if 25 s is the right cooldown, but of course it needs a rather long CD. Condition removal is currently probably the biggest weakness of engineer. Condi necro is a hard counter towards non-AR condi engis (assuming even remotely similar level of skill, I would say necro would win).

Deniara Devious.3948:

TSimilarly the planned nerf for net turret doesn’t make any sense whatsoever outside spvp/tpvp. Since when was the net turret overpowered in WvWvW or pve?! The turret usually gets destroyed less than a second and hits the wrong target.

The main reason their nerfing net turret is due to supply crate. When you drop the crate on someone, the turret will generally shoot them right away, so they have to endure a 2 second stun and then a 3 second immobilize. So they decided to reduce the immobilize to 2 seconds so the combo wasn’t as potent.

I believe it’s also partially due to the immobilization stacking stuff that has been going around, with people enduring 20+ seconds of immobilize at times.

So it’s not really net turret that their trying to nerf, it’s supply crate that they’re meaning to nerf by using net turret as a proxy.

Some good suggestions so far on how to balance AR.

However people are assuming that someone that plays a decap engineers does not understand rotations. When you have a decap engineer you send it to whatever node is being hold by one enemy player.

Also you are assuming that when a decap engineer takes far, the enemy team won’t defend their own home node. Of course they will defend it because they are playing for three nodes not two (and they have their home node capped while middle is most likely contested)
Imagine this: You ditch your closepoint because the enemey has a decap engineer and you try to take far. The enemy team will respond by defending far with the same amount of players you send there. This will most likely result in some form of 3v3 or 4v4 on their capped home node. In the mean while you are leaving mid open for a decap engineer to come and decap.

And again people are reasoning it normal that you have to play for two points because the enemy has something on their team that is not reliably killable in a 1v1, has more self sustain then any other class/build (yes, guardians do not have condition immunity), and its able to (de)cap a node in that 1v1.

AR is a trait that can be made in something that would involve skill&timing that makes it viable for different builds and relieves some of the problems that engineers have with conditions. There is great potential to make it in something viable and not broken.

AR should give us the possiblity to remove contions with F1-F4 toolbelt skills. This would open the door for turret and gadget builds. Nades/bombs does benefit as well but the toolbelt skills have long cooldown so this would not be overpowered but fair.

Lupanic.6502:

AR should give us the possiblity to remove contions with F1-F4 toolbelt skills. This would open the door for turret and gadget builds. Nades/bombs does benefit as well but the toolbelt skills have long cooldown so this would not be overpowered but fair.

Good point, that would indeed greatly increase build variety within the class.

Deniara Devious.3948:

The decap engi is made for very specific purpose, like its name implies. It has very low damage. The decap engi build would not make any sense in pve or WvWvW and I doubt it will be that overpowered in top tournament play as well. So I really hope Arenanet doesn’t (once again) nerf engineers in all game modes, just based on such very niche type of build. Similarly the planned nerf for net turret doesn’t make any sense whatsoever outside spvp/tpvp. Since when was the net turret overpowered in WvWvW or pve?! The turret usually gets destroyed less than a second and hits the wrong target.

• Net Turret is being nerfed due to its presence in Supply Crate and its role in Immobilise stacking. That’s the reason Grouch gave, but I, and I’d like to think most of the Engineer community agree that it’s the wrong idea. If the Immobilise duration of Net turret in Supply Crate must be nerfed, the Net Turret in Supply crate should be forked from the Utility Supply Crate instead of doing a blanket nerf.

• This is all off topic though, as I have yet to see a decap Engineer run Net Turret.

Deniara Devious.3948:

The healing numbers Razac mentioned were calculated with about 1750 in healing power, which is quite a lot indeed. A bunker guardian with similar amount of healing power and the right build would heal more and have better access for condition cleansing and stability + very good access to protection. Of course the guardian won’t be as efficient in decapping though due not having that many knocking skills, but killing the guardian quickly in 1 vs 1 would also be difficult.

• The keystone skills of any Bunker build are 2 things: Overwhelming survivability (through Regeneration/Healing/Boons/Endurance Regeneration/Blocks) coupled with enough CC to keep a point Neutral or capping slowly when Knocks are landed.

• One way I could foresee Arenanet nerfing decap Engineer is by nerfing Overcharged Shot. A 300 range Launch with zero cast time is quite powerful considering other skills of similar power like Guardian Banish. Of course it would be entirely off base and indirectly nerf other builds but that is one way I could see Arenanet nerfing decap Engineer.

Deniara Devious.3948:

I fully agree that the Automated Response trait needs to be reworked. And same for all traits which offer completely immunity to conditions (this includes ele’s diamond skill). I do not like Malthias’ idea of AR reflecting back the conditions as this could make it potentially overpowered for those who play condition spammer engis. Engi needs now more variety and not more condition spammers. I think AR should be reworked as followed:

“When your health reaches 25% all conditions are cleansed. Cooldown 25 seconds”

Now this would be a complete condition cleanse which cannot be interrupted, fitting the name of the trait and spirit of the trait trait tree. And it would not be completely overpowered. I am not 100% sure if 25 s is the right cooldown, but of course it needs a rather long CD. Condition removal is currently probably the biggest weakness of engineer. Condi necro is a hard counter towards non-AR condi engis (assuming even remotely similar level of skill, I would say necro would win).

Not sure how AR “reflecting back the conditions” to the originator would make Engineer a more powerful Condition spammer. Reflection implies a defensive use. If you’re talking about this implementation:

• Every time you would suffer a Condition while under 25% health, the closest foe within 900 range suffers it also. (Cooldown: 60 seconds)
  • This removes the Immunity at 25% HP and now has the potential to allow builds running Elixir C to make a comeback play.
  • Unfortunately, this makes Automated Response extremely niche. It makes AR super strong with 1 particular Utility and its intransparent (unless you also had a visual cue or special buff in the Boon bar)

It was one that I had talked down because whilst it removed the immunity, it would make the trait excessively niche.

RaZaC.1963:

Lupanic.6502:

AR should give us the possiblity to remove contions with F1-F4 toolbelt skills. This would open the door for turret and gadget builds. Nades/bombs does benefit as well but the toolbelt skills have long cooldown so this would not be overpowered but fair.

Good point, that would indeed greatly increase build variety within the class.

The more I think about it, the more I think Transmute should be reworked from:

• Incoming Conditions have a 100% chance to be converted to Boons (Cooldown 15 seconds)
  To:
• Every time you use a Toolbelt Skill, convert 1 Condition to a Boon (No cooldown, or 10 seconds maximum)

At 15 points in Alchemy, it is perfectly placed to not restrict build variety, requires active play, and is build agnostic; meaning that it could open up new Engineer builds that previously did not have sufficient Condition clear. It would give Engineers more control over which Condition is removed whilst making Engineer more legible to play against because there’s no hidden Trait that randomly cleanses something in the middle of a duel.

The problem still remains as to what to do with Automated Response, however. Personally, I’m favouring the “Transfer a condition to a foe on next attack after using Toolbelt Skill”, but in combination with Transmute, it could be too much condition clear and turn Engineers into the next Cleansing Ire / Healing Signet Warrior – a counter to conditions in all but name. Certainly it would make the Condition Necromancer vs Engineer matchup a lot more lopsided towards the Engineer.

What are everyone’s thoughts?