Guild Wars 2

I don’t see a lot of engineer discussion here and I was somewhat surprised it hadn’t come up yet. Now, I’m a bit of a casual player and from what I read on the forums engineers are in a super-good place and a top-tier profession in PvP. I guess I’ll have to take people’s word for it, but there’s still one thing that somewhat bothers me.

I think that, apart from the grenade kit and the bomb kit, engineer weapon kits perform really inadequately in terms of damage. Flamethrower and Elixir Gun especially have really lackluster damage rates. Sure, I understand their use can be valuable in other ways, such as CC and support, but all in all it just doesn’t seem much of a viable damage mode at all.

And in my opinion, the entire engineer profession does mediocre damage at best for the amount of effort and button dancing involved compared to some other professions.

So personally, my suggestion would be to up the damage of some of the kits (and perhaps pistols and rifles too, I don’t know) by some % that I’m not mathy enough to calculate but maybe someone else can.

Your opinions?

Flamethrower is good for proccing sigil effects, knockback, blinding and can do pretty good dmg with flameblast. With elixir gun you can keep enemy in perma weakness, remove like 5 condis from allies in a cone, has a blast finisher and a great heal skill (+ long AoE regen from toolbelt skill). It is a defensive weapon. I think they are fine.

Also, Flamethrower’s toolbelt skill is really good. Flamethrower 5 can also be used for blindness stomps. Elixer gun is more for bunker specs. Its toolbelt skill is not only a regen source, but it is also a stun break.

Yep. I think you misunderstood and/or trying to prove a point that I wasn’t disputing: sure, FT and EG have okay to pretty good (depending on how you choose to represent it) CC and support. Everything cool so far.

My main point is that they just don’t really do any damage worth mentioning (which in a way you proved by simply listing all the OTHER things they can do). Other weapons in the hands of other classes do “stuff” too, but still manage to be good damaging weapons. So why not these kits?

Leviathan:

I remember being right there with you when I first played an engineer. I have no idea if engineer is new to you or if you have played since launch etc. Not that it matters.

My point is that for me, the moment my damage got pretty darn good was when I started quickly using 2-4 kits and weapons in each and every fight.

1. I agree in part, each kit does mediocre damage if you stay in that kit too long.

2. But, I disagree in part, when you start to add up all the different conditions you do, it is a lot of damage

In short, my e-gun is “meh” if I just use it by itself. But if I land the weakness on the auto attack and poison, which will also trigger burning, swap to pistol for confusion, add more confusion and burning with bombs or bleeding and chills with grenades (depends on range), etc. etc. The total damage is quite high.

Even in a power build, what makes meh damage good damage is the extra condition damage you do. So even in a power build (which I run with heals), I swap frequently between the rifle and bomb, e-gun and it is those smaller ticks of conditions that make the difference from meh damage to pretty solid damage. . . in my humble opinion at least.

As for the amount of effort, well when you have 20+ buttons you have lots of effort. On the other hand, I always feel like I had a trick in the bag for an encounter. Of course, being old and slow fingered too often the trick stays in the bag. But it was there!!!!

Even if you play engineer like piano, you’ll do less damage than any dedicated zerker warr/thief/guard.
You have NO single target damage (or what can be called damage), and the most effective combos are widely unusable due to bugs or flawed mechanics.

You know, engi is the only class that can destroy the sPvP heavy dummy in a single burst – but it requires setup that is nearly impossible to pull off in actual combat.

Engi is something that sounds cool, but looks ugly, feels chunky, works buggy and, almost like with thieves, ANET does not even know what they should be doing with them.

Should the engineer do as much damage as a zerker war/thief/guard?
If so how? Damage or sheer number of conditions?

Not having much single target damage (assuming physical versus condition) is precisely because we have so much AE and so many conditions.

E-gun does quite a bit of damage. . . with conditions. We have solid single target damage. . . with conditions. But I would hardly say it is a single target beast in physical.

Isn’t that what defines balance. . . .tradeoffs?

Engineer and elementalist is both a high APM profession by virtue of having access to what amount to 3-4 full skill bars. They don’t have to be played that way, but ANet apparently balanced for corner cases.

Honestly if the professions could have all their equipped skills visible at all times, the UI would not be that different from your typical multi-bar MMORPG UI.

Bombsaway:

Conditions are only a partial answer to this thing. It’s great that we have access to many conditions, though even you mention that you have to use bombs and grenades to do it. Besides, as soon as you’re not the only one focused on conditions the actual damage that you’re doing drops dramatically.

You make a good case for the EG, but make no mention of the flamethrower. Swapping kits all the time is awesome, but makes the juggernaut trait useless. Furthermore, it makes slotting other utility skills difficult. What if I want a power build without having to use grenades but with EG or FT and two gadgets*? Nope, sorry, if you want to be doing any decent damage, you’re pretty much stuck with having to have at least 2 kits “because omg you’re so precious at condition stacking.” I’m not saying FT or EG needs to do as much damage as a zerk warrior (lol), but a slight increase in base damage might be nice.

It’s frustrating, like Ichishi says, you can button dance all you like and be really good at it, but chances are you’ll do a lot less damage than any random other profession who just needs to press 1 2 3 4 5.

I seem to be not getting much support on this though so maybe I’m wrong or maybe engineers are so used to being at the bottom everyone’s grown comfortable there.

*Not saying this is likely, gadgets aren’t in a good place at this moment. It’s just an example.

Yes, OP is right. Remember that the earliest descriptions for engineer was to be masters at cc and great at conditions. And all the utility from having access to kits meant sacrificing some damage. To me, that was all fine. Yet with that said, the gear creep from ascended means that kit damage FALLS BEHIND.

Leviathan.9850:

I think that, apart from the grenade kit and the bomb kit, engineer weapon kits perform really inadequately in terms of damage.

Since they’re utility skills, kits have to be seen as much more specialized than “just a weapon”.

I think as far as their total viability and flexibility goes, the following kits are ~there:

• Bomb. Lots of AE fields, all attacks are PBAE. Very specialized in what it does, but very good at what it does.
• Elixir Gun. Support via condition cleansing, healing, fields, debuffs. It’s the perfect example of a pure-support weapon among classes.

Kits which are a bit too weak:

• Flamethrower. Too slow to attack, not thematic enough. I get that it can’t be a pure condition weapon, then make it set the ground on fire which deals light damage for a few seconds. This just needs something to more get into it’s role of area denial skill.
• Tool Kit. Still not sure what to make of this. Sure, the melee kit, but it seems to lack a dedicated role. I would bill this as a defensive kit in which case most skills work out but need slight rebalancing. Might fix itself if turrets are ever buffed.
• Med Kit. The idea is decent, and ofc I get that we don’t want pure healer classes. I think what is needed is to buff the duration of the dropped kits to infinite, give it an area restriction (if I move 2000 away or so they disappear), and make them stronger. In turn, throwing a new one from the same slot removes the old one.
• Mortar. Needs buffs towards it’s role as a backend support weapon. Ideas below.

Kits which I think are a bit too strong:

• Grenade Kit. It’s too generic. It’s supposed to be a little-aim area saturation tool, but it’s too accurate with the third grenade and too good at both 1500 range and at melee. Really, it’s only downside is that it gives you RSI. Not a good argument. Ideas see below.

Mortar Kit
This I would re-work as the premier area saturation tool which can be used by a party member. Scatter radius of the 1-4 skills would roughly double the radius of the current 5 skill. In this area, the shells impact randomly with their current effect AE size or slightly smaller.

1. Fire a barrage of shells into a wide area, causing damage.
2. Fire a barrage of caltrops containers into a wide area. The caltrops stay on the ground for a short while, causing bleeding and crippling anyone who walks into them.
3. Fire a barrage of elixir bombs into a wide area, causing regeneration to anyone affected.
4. Fire a barrage of shells that freeze into a wide area. Each shell causes a field that chills enemies walking into it.
5. Fire a continuous barrage (~7 seconds channel time) into a very wide area (twice the other ones). 25 shells are fired in total, each causing knockback and some damage in a small area around the point of impact.

Grenade Kit
Throws single grenades. The grenades are somewhat inaccurate (target area around current mortar 1-4 AE area), and keep their current individual area of effect.
Grenades are also buffed. In effect the power of the kit would be similar, but it would be highly inaccurate. In return, make it have an autoattack, it keeps hitting the same area until you leave range or designate a new one.

In group pve conditions are extremely weak.
Apart from hobosacks and general bugs the main problem that I have with engineer – no matter how much I specialize on something, no matter how good I play it, there is always someone doing it better with far less effort.
I was zerk engi once, I just couldn’t stand it – I did no damage that could be counted as “contributing”.
I switched to support. It is much harder, and I liked it at start. But then came realization that ele can keep just about as much stacks of might as me with almost zero investment and inside its regular rotation. Guardian with minimal investment heals for more, more often and by just doing his usual thing – making even my 5 blast finishers on a 3/4 second water field (the healing turret toolbelt skill, that took me quite some time to get right) look nothing more than just flashy.
I can’t imagine taking FT or EG for anything but bunkering – and even at that point I’d rather avoid flamethrower. I’d even go as far as to say that EG is decent – but its use is either extremely situational or contradicts the obvious gameplay.

I think the only kit that lacks serious damage is the flamethrower. Sure it works on multi kit builds if you just wanna spam 2 and its tool belt skill whenever they’re off cooldown but if u wanna play it as a. Real flamethrower build with juggernaut and the like be prepared to have your dps drop considerably

FT adn EG#2 makes me wish the game had a proper aim mode.

EG#2 in particular begs for me to momentarily aim away from a mob to hose down a compatriot (unless said compatriot is in melee with said mob), and then go back to darting the mob.

EG #2 is Elixir F. Do you mean EG #3 Fumigate?

You know what is wrong with Elixir F? It will not bounce back and grant swiftness if the target distance is greater than half the stated range.

Yeah, sorry. Meant fumigate. Don’t know how i got that wrong.

This may be a tangent, but still:

I jump between Neverwinter and GW2. And coming to GW2 after a Neverwinter session makes the control scheme of GW2 feel overly cumbersome.

For instance i play a control wizard there, and one of the skills shoots a row of lighting strikes out in the direction i am aiming.

What i often end up doing is noticing a group of weaker mobs coming in from the side, spin round temporarily to aim in their general direction, tap said skill to fry them, then spin back to continue attacking the big bad.

The reason i can do this in Neverwinter, but can’t really do so (at least not as effortlessly) in GW2 is the targeting. In Neverwinter the targeting is more like a shooter, in that the camera is always following the mouse and target selection is done by hovering a crosshair over a mob when activating a skill.

As the targeting is never hard locked to a single mob, i can much quicker jump between targets in the heat of battle.

I know there is a option in GW2 that makes the game drop my target if it was selected by me using a skill rather than clocking or “next target”. But if i use the last two options it still remains, and for it to work the target has to be almost 90 degrees off from the screen center.

Hell, GW2 allows me to fire skills even with no target selected. While Neverwinter insist that a target is within range on most projectile based attacks. But still Neverwinter seems to work better in the heat of battle, while GW2 quickly becomes either cumbersome or overwhelming.

Yea…
I use the flamethrower a lot and it is extremely awkward being able to use FT #1 without a target (I use the camera to aim) and then needing a target for FT #2.

digiowl.9620:

The reason i can do this in Neverwinter, but can’t really do so (at least not as effortlessly) in GW2 is the targeting. In Neverwinter the targeting is more like a shooter, in that the camera is always following the mouse and target selection is done by hovering a crosshair over a mob when activating a skill.

You can actually do that in GW2. Just keep down the RMB. Skills like FT #1 or EG #3 follow the camera, even if a target is selected, assuming you don’t let go of the camera controls.

@Leviathan I disagree but read and re-read your comment.

E-Gun can do quite decent damage with a power build. Even with a power build it does some condition damage. It is the net of the two that is fine.
Grenades and bombs are just fine as power weapons or condition weapons.

Flamethrower has all sorts of problems that really have nothing to do with it being too focused on condition or power. It is just poorly built.

Elixir based builds work just fine in power or condition as might provides both.

Rifle is fine damage (power). Tool kit lets you pull and smash (fine damage). Grenades do fine damage at long range.

If you are condition oriented, you still get good damage (which is why we don’t get as many bleed stacks for example). If you are power oriented, you will still have quite a bit of condition damage.

PvE results may vary. I simply avoid as much of that mode as possible.

Not sure what the concern is, really. I run 4 engineer builds and one is definitely power based.

Indeed, in large groups with multiple people throwing out conditions, there can be some drop in damage. On the other hand, in small groups where you are the source of condition it is higher. Conditions come and go and get cleaned so it isn’t as dramatic as it might look.

Carighan.6758:

digiowl.9620:

The reason i can do this in Neverwinter, but can’t really do so (at least not as effortlessly) in GW2 is the targeting. In Neverwinter the targeting is more like a shooter, in that the camera is always following the mouse and target selection is done by hovering a crosshair over a mob when activating a skill.

You can actually do that in GW2. Just keep down the RMB. Skills like FT #1 or EG #3 follow the camera, even if a target is selected, assuming you don’t let go of the camera controls.

I swear that when i do so, i get a whole lot of “miss” messages, as if the FX is going one way, and the attacks another.

Do you by chance have your camera very high, pointing downwards? Because you can point it into the ground this way.

Elixir gun will never be a high damage option given the skills it has on it, but it’s not supposed to be. That said, it’s not totally toothless, as it’s auto attack is superior to the pistol in both bleeding and direct damage (against a single target, at least), and acid bomb hits hard (although it’ll probably only work well against mobs). It can stack a decent amount of poison too, and the on-demand weakness can be quite handy.

As for the flamethrower, I’ve always found it better as a utility weapon than anything, but it’s maximum damage potential is against enemy clusters. Using it to deal damage in a 1v1 is likely sub-optimal, but I think that’s ok for the other stuff it brings. If it still had it’s backdraft ability it’d probably be seen a lot more frequently.

Bomb kit and grenade kit will always be the higher damage kits, and they’re in a pretty good spot right now I think.

I never really had problems with the aim system when using FT#1 and EG#3 for some reason. Maybe it’s all in the wrist? ;D

I must have set a bit of a higher bar than some people, like Bombsaway (fine person though he or she is, undoubtedly); I’m not satisfied with “fine” damage when I can only see other professions rip through enemies. And as far as I know there is no real power build at the moment unless you want to use a Static Discharge build (which doesn’t really use kits).

For instance (this is a PvE example, but it certainly doesn’t limit itself to there.):

One time during the Tower of Nightmares story, I was fighting 2 Nightmare Court Sylvari and two Naga Krait. I switched between FT, EG and rifle like a pro, even if I do say so myself, stacking conditions, popping cooldowns, and all those hip things young people do these days. It took me quite a while but I had them whittled down to just one Krait after a several minute fight.

Warrior comes in. Kills Krait in a few seconds. Keeps running. Gee, thanks, Mr. Warrior for saving me.

So, I don’t know… Seems like a bit of a disparity there?

Again, not saying kits-that-are-not-grenades-or-bombs have to be able to do the same damage as a zerk warrior, but the difference shouldn’t be this big.

Heh, i wonder how many times i have had that “a wild GS warrior appears” happen to me. It does indeed make one wonder.

Leviathan.9850:

I’m not satisfied with “fine” damage when I can only see other professions rip through
enemies.

I agree. This is why I read and read and test every day in the mists…

Leviathan.9850:

PvE example
One time I was fighting 2 Nightmare Court Sylvari and 2 Krait. I switched between FT, EG and rifle like a pro, even if I do say so myself, stacking conditions, popping cooldowns, and all those hip things young people do these days. It took me quite a while but I had them whittled down to just one Krait after a several minute fight.

Warrior comes in. Kills Krait in a few seconds. Keeps running.

So, I don’t know… Seems like a bit of a disparity there?
Again, not saying kits-that-are-not-grenades-or-bombs have to be able to do the same damage as a zerk warrior, but the difference shouldn’t be this big.

Same for me, but usually I think “well… maybe a better engi player would match that freakin warr… or at least something close to that”.

Well to be fair, neither the FT nor the EG are really that good a kit if it’s about killing PvE mobs.
Bombs would be the more group-centric option for that (providing good combo fields, especially for stacking might), Grenade Kit in all other cases. Hits 15 targets per volley + lots of support conditions + fairly self-reliant.

And gives you RSI. :P

rogerwilko.6895:

Same for me, but usually I think “well… maybe a better engi player would match that freakin warr… or at least something close to that”.

It’s an entirely distinct possibility that I’m simply a bad engineer player haha

Firstly, Engineers on the whole are fine.

… But, since we’re on the topic:
Engi autos are typically pretty poor relative to what’s on offer, but FT auto is undoubtedly kitten-tier.

Not only are the damage and range terrible, but retaliation will absolutely shred you.
At five hits per second, against 3 retaliating targets you’re taking an absolute minimum of 4500 damage a second from the retaliation boon alone.

Flamethrower needs a looking at for these reasons.
The balance on the kit as a whole is close, but with the terrible auto it’s just not close enough.

Until the kit sees changes, it’s fun to mess about with in the predictable safety of PvE, burning living trees and roasting small forest folk.

P.S. typing the number five, space, then “hits” triggers the forum censor. I know what it “spells”, but perhaps the filter is a little over zealous in this case?

Build diversity away from condition specs would be nice. (when I say condi specs I mean nades bombs)
FT auto attack is crap. Sigils proc over cd’s so EG 3 fills the role better.
Not enough traits to justify FT auto attack.
Toolkit is defensive no offensive pressure at all (pry bar is nice but thats all it has)
EG is OP in terms of support no need to add pressure. (maybe change the physical damage trait for it to something else?)

JinDaVikk.7291:

Not enough traits to justify FT auto attack.

Indeed, that is a big part of why the flamethrower is subpar. There is sharpshooter, which is alright on flamethrower. Then precise sights, which is horrible on everything with its short base duration and mediocre on nades. Aaaaaand thats about it.

One way to help the flamethrower would be to give it more traits for it to take advantage of. Personally I would love to see something to help some sustainability more, like the vampiric trait from necros.

Regarding that vampiric necro trait… I don’t think anyone is using it except the bots in Orr… They never got it to work, never found a good way to balance it.

I would not pin my hopes on fixing some useless Eng traits with solutions found in the Necro professions. Ever.

rogerwilko.6895:

Regarding that vampiric necro trait… I don’t think anyone is using it except the bots in Orr… They never got it to work, never found a good way to balance it.

I would not pin my hopes on fixing some useless Eng traits with solutions found in the Necro professions. Ever.

I use it all the time with the flamethrower consumable its awesome :P

You learned that from Mal, didn’t you?

Penguin.5197:

rogerwilko.6895:

Regarding that vampiric necro trait… I don’t think anyone is using it except the bots in Orr… They never got it to work, never found a good way to balance it.

I would not pin my hopes on fixing some useless Eng traits with solutions found in the Necro professions. Ever.

I use it all the time with the flamethrower consumable its awesome :P

Even after the ICD it outperforms a complete necromancer set with the possible exception of vampiric master and a full zoo. And the less is said about how it works before, the better.

Chaba.5410:

You learned that from Mal, didn’t you?

Like heck! Back when always prepared still dropped a ft for allies, I was telling you guys that ft+barbed precision+dark armor+ vampiric precision was awesome you guys just didnt believe me!

Oh, ur channeling flamethrower? Heres +400 armor, life regen and a whole lot of extra bleeds on top of your normal damage

Engineers on the other hand don’t have enouh traits to take advantage of multi hit skills.

Ichishi.9613:

Engi is something that sounds cool, but looks ugly, feels chunky, works buggy and, almost like with thieves, ANET does not even know what they should be doing with them.

Waitwaitwaitwait…engi, which was my main from the start ankitten ow using it as my main again, it is in no way ugly,chunky, or buggy. Anet doesn’t know what to do with them? There are sooo many builds that have come up from patches, I have 4 uniquely different builds that ran off of carrion gear with at least 2 variations to each on , and thats just one gear set, my bank it stuffed with the different sets for my other builds. learn the class before speaking about it please.

ibbyuoi.1976:

Ichishi.9613:

Engi is something that sounds cool, but looks ugly, feels chunky, works buggy and, almost like with thieves, ANET does not even know what they should be doing with them.

Waitwaitwaitwait…engi, which was my main from the start ankitten ow using it as my main again, it is in no way ugly,chunky, or buggy. Anet doesn’t know what to do with them? There are sooo many builds that have come up from patches, I have 4 uniquely different builds that ran off of carrion gear with at least 2 variations to each on , and thats just one gear set, my bank it stuffed with the different sets for my other builds. learn the class before speaking about it please.

I love my eng. I spend more time on it than my other classes combigned. I agree it doesn’t feel clunky, but turrets are indeed buggy as all kitten though (there is a compiled list of all the turret bugs in the bug section of these forums).

Hobosacks are ugly and cover up back pieces and make legendary weapons less desirable on an eng (this is obviously very subjective, but many people agree including people at a-net – https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/Hobo-Sacks-A-Terrible-Fashion-Statement/).

Kits should also scale with the weapons the eng is using, but hopefully that’s something they’re working on and I can live with it for now. <- offtopic :P

Flamethrower autoattack is pretty much pointless, which severely nerfs the kit.

Wouldn’t mind seeing Tool Kit’s auto attack reworked to be like Warrior’s Axe auto. At the moment the auto is too slow to be worth anything. Triple bashing with a wrench for fun, yeah, one can dream.

For me there is one issue with kits in general and one issue with FT in particular:

General issue: Kits have Power like a single ‘Rare’ weapon afaik. The damage output did not improve when Ascended weapons were made available so the gap only became bigger.

FT issue: Can be summed up in one word – Retaliation.

Wondrouswall.7169:

Wouldn’t mind seeing Tool Kit’s auto attack reworked to be like Warrior’s Axe auto. At the moment the auto is too slow to be worth anything. Triple bashing with a wrench for fun, yeah, one can dream.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Fixer_Upper

That is pretty much the weapon in hand when the tool kit is equipped.