Guild Wars 2

My goal is to suggest simple changes (easy to understand and easy to implement) to make engineers more viable in large scale combat without affecting PvP balance (as a Top 100 YoloQ engineer player, I wish debunk got slightly nerfed and build diversity increased, but I agree with ANet it’s decent overall). This post is not about WvW roaming (although I enjoy it very much) as it is a very different topic which is somewhat closer to PvP balance.

Engineer is an interesting place for WvW balance today. With bombs as the primary kit, we can easily run in the melee train, but it’s missing some key things to be competitive with guardians and warriors. We aren’t bad at all but our only strong differentiators are our water fields and healing with bombs, while the differentiators for guardians and warriors are harder to live without.

Here are the simplest changes that I believe would be enough on their own to make multiple melee builds very competitive:

1. Bomb Kit Autoattack: Reduce explosion delay from 1s to 0.75s (only delay!)
2. Regenerating Mist: Water field duration: 1s->2s (time for others to blast)
3. Toolkit Thwack: Should hit 3 targets like rest of chain(!) and +25% damage
4. Toss Elixir B: Radius 180->300 + Stability 4s->5s + Remove Might/Swiftness
5. Mine Field: Cast time: 1s->1/2s, Fix Radius (240 traited), +60 Proximity
6. (Bug?) Healing Turret: Fix Cleansing Burst to scale with Healing Power
7. (Bug?) +Evasive Powder Keg: Radius: 120/180 -> 180/240 (match other bombs)

Explanations in the next post but most of it should hopefully be self-explanatory. Slightly more involved changes to game mechanics are in the post after that.

EDIT: For bombs the back-to-back time would remain at 0.89s so this would not change DPS at all. It only makes it easier to hit moving targets. See explanation in posts below.

FWIW: WXP R250 Engineer, WXP R200 Warrior, WXP R75 Guardian, WXP R50 Necromancer with ~60K kills in both large-scale and small-scale. Top 100 YoloQ EU. That does not make my opinion worth more (or less) than anyone else’s.

TL;DR: These are simple changes (literally only changing a few numbers) that would make a huge difference in large-scale WvW. Please let me know what you think!

Analysis

• 1st change is small but key. Bombs are dropped every 0.89s but take 1s to explode in a 240 radius while players move 270/s (in combat with swiftness). So Elixir Bombs won’t heal you if you’re running. And it’s hard to damage moving enemies as you need to be 30 units ahead if you are both moving – while a regular melee can be 130 units behind! It’s okay against disorganised zergs but against guilds you won’t hit as many enemies as a melee despite the 240 radius.

• This is not a problem in PvP because of fighting on point. As a compromise not to hurt PvP balance and the timing of Big Ol Bomb + Bomb 2/4/5 combinations, I suggest that only the auto-attack is reduced from a 1s to 0.75s. Again my goal is minimal changes that don’t hurt balance in other game modes.

• 2nd change will not significantly affect PvX balance (any good engineer can dual-blast in 1s) but will make a huge difference in WvW as 2s water fields can be called on TeamSpeak and blasted by others.

• 3rd change is amazing because it opens up a whole new build! Combined with Power Wrench this gives us a melee auto-attack chain that cripples on every hit. It’s good soft-CC and allows for melee engineers that don’t use Bomb Kit!

• 4th change is intended to remain inferior to Stand Your Ground as it’s not instant, it’s not a stunbreaker, and it’s still limited to a 300 radius with a clunky toss mechanism. But at least it’s a reliable source of AoE stability. Also making it only give Fury or Retaliation (excessive random effects).

• 5th change turns an utility that’s strong on paper into one that’s useful in practice. Mine Field removes up to 25 boons (5×5 AoE) but the cast time and limited radius with the wide dispersal makes it weak (just check your combat log to see how few targets you’re hitting). It’s bugged with the tooltip saying 240 when traited but testing it to only be 180.

Longer Term Changes (Minimal)

The following changes are more involved (changing game mechanisms and balance slightly) but they’re still as simple and minimal as I could make them. It’s not required to make the engineer viable but would open up a lot more build diversity in WvW without changing balance much.

The most complex but important changes are the reduction in retaliation to Grenade Kit and Flamethrower. I should point out that they already only reduce shields (e.g. on fractal lava boss or guardian focus 5) by 1 tick despite being multiple attacks each taking retaliation, so there is strong evidence that it makes sense and it’s technically possible (even if the code couldn’t be reused).

• Ascended Weapons increasing kit damage
  • Large Scale WvW builds are all power-based and this hurts us by ~5%

• Elixir Gun (small buff in PvP but probably still won’t be used much)
  • Healing Mist: Cooldown 40s -> 30s
  • Elixir F: Only bounces to enemies (no swiftness on allies)
  • Fumigate: Remove 1 condition on self at end. Replace vuln by 1s cripple.

• Grenade Kit (Retaliation!)
  • Very strong despite slow projectiles but retaliation is a really big problem
  • Only 1 of the 2-3 grenades should suffer from retaliation at all (random)
  • Flash Grenade: 5s->3s Blind but 2x damage (still less than base attack)

• Flamethrower (Retaliation!)
  • Autoattack should suffer from retaliation on 1st and 10th ticks (1/5th)
  • Autoattack burn duration on final tick: 1s -> 2s (good change for PvP?)
  • Autoattack could maybe hit 5 targets instead of 3 (see guardian staff)

• Jump Shot
  • Range: 700 -> 900 (gives a decent gap closer without rocket boots)
  • Alternatively find a way to significantly increase effective speed
  • Maybe add an evade at end because it prevents dodging (PvP balance?)

• Glue Shot
  • Significantly increase projectile speed (it’s effectively melee range)

Increasing Trait Diversity in WvW

• Autodefense Bomb Dispenser
  • Cooldown: 30s -> 25s (same as smoke bomb)
  • Also trigger on immobilise(!)

• Exploit Weakness
  • 1s immobilise (instead of 5s cripple)

• Acidic Coating
  • Inflict AoE blindness in a 130 radius around you
  • 120 would not be enough due to 130 melee range

• Tools Traits (significant awesome impact on PvP/PvE)
  • Adrenal Implant: Move to Adept.
  • Kit Refinement: Move to Grandmaster. Make it awesome.
  • Not WvW-specific but could be amazing and great for build diversity

Again please let me know what you think!

1. Bomb Kit really isn’t our primary kit. I’m not sure anything really is “must have” for an engineer.
a. I would think a larger radius for the base bomb is in order. Decreasing delay increases DPS and the bomb is quite powerful as it is.
b. I definitely agree that the bomb doesn’t work well “on the run” because of that slight movement unit issue.

2. Regenerating Mist should be slightly longer. Even the slightest lag and you can’t pull off even one blast from the shield on it. 2 seconds makes sense. They could even tweak the total heal to occur over that time.

3. You can’t have Thwack hit 3 targets and keep its healing of turrets (assuming they fix turrets). I always thought it should apply a bit of vulnerability (I mean who better knows the weakspots of armor with a wrench?)

4. Evasive powder keg should get a radius increase.

5. Turrets scaling with HP would be quite OP I think. Engineers have quite a number of healing options as it is. If anything, I would add a second to the water field. It works great up until there is any lag whatsoever. A second would help a lot with multiple blasts.

6. I would say that Glue should create stability for the engineer and his team. Makes more sense that you are “glued” in place. Both the bomb and the pistol have longer timers so it would be reasonable. Beats the elixir idea IMHO.

7. It is time for ascended weapon stats for kits. Previously, the weapons were very rare and essentially that would have made an engineer without investing in weapons as powerful as only a handful of players who had them. Now it is pretty standard to see ascended weapons. I could see them splitting the difference and then in another 3 months adding the balance. That too would be fair.

8. E-Gun’s Healing Mist could move to 30 seconds but that may be too much. We have all sorts of traits to help us when immob or under conditions. Getting stunned is a bit of the engineer’s key weakness.
a. I might argue that reducing the time of Super Elixir would be better.
b. For Elixir F, I agree that bouncing to allies is annoying but it ensures more bounces often. I would move it from swiftness to adding a might for a short time.

9. Retaliation is sort of the cost of having grenades that can hit up to 15 targets, but there should be a way to mitigate it. It does make the FT hard to play though.
a. Maybe a trait that would reduce retaliation for all kits? It would have to be a sacrifice.

Thanks a lot for taking the time to post your ideas

Bombsaway.7198:

1. Bomb Kit really isn’t our primary kit. I’m not sure anything really is “must have” for an engineer.

I really wish this was the case for large-scale (15++ players on each side) and many of my other changes intend to make it true. But in my opinion, the problem is Bomb Kit is the ONLY kit with a high damage multi-target auto-attack. The auto-attacks for rifle/pistol/elixir gun are practically single-target, and the auto-attacks from flamethrower and grenades suffer too much from retaliation.

While a good engineer will switch between multiple kits (and weapon) a lot, the sad reality is that you still want a strong auto-attack or you won’t be doing anything half the time, and bomb kit is the only one to provide that (or grenade kit if you’re not afraid of retaliation).

I would think a larger radius for the base bomb is in order. Decreasing delay increases DPS and the bomb is quite powerful as it is.

I think you’re confusing cast time (back-to-back) and explosion delay. The former would stay at 0.89s so the DPS wouldn’t change. The way it works is you drop a new bomb every 0.89s but it only explodes after 1s so there’s actually 0.11s where you can see two of your bombs on the floor.

Reducing the explosion delay is a simpler change than increasing the radius which is already massive and that would significantly affect PvP balance which I don’t want to do (and ANet/PvP players don’t want to do).

3. You can’t have Thwack hit 3 targets and keep its healing of turrets (assuming they fix turrets).

The wrench auto-attack chain has 3 skills. All 3 of them repair turrets but skills 1/2 cleave while skill 3 doesn’t. I’m suggesting changing that which shouldn’t have any impact on turret repair. Or am I missing something?

5. Turrets scaling with HP would be quite OP I think.

You’re right, it would probably be OP and affect PvP balance. But the tooltip claims it scales with Healing Power so that at least has to be corrected. An interesting change would be to remove the HP scaling on the base skill then add it to the (AoE) cleansing burst…

6. I would say that Glue should create stability for the engineer and his team. Makes more sense that you are “glued” in place. Both the bomb and the pistol have longer timers so it would be reasonable. Beats the elixir idea IMHO.

Hmm I really like that idea! I’m afraid it would be a bit overpowered though because glue bomb is already very strong and while pistol offhand could use a buff, it’s still only a weapon skill. You could make it very short but then it might be useless in large-scale.

The best way to make your idea work might be to add a trait for it and that’s a bigger change. My idea isn’t quite as cool but Toss Elixir B is weak right now so it’s a worthwhile improvement anyway to boost build diversity.

8. E-Gun’s Healing Mist could move to 30 seconds but that may be too much.

You might be right. EG is still a weak kit in the PvP/PvE meta (you lose a lot compared to going say GK/BK/TK) so I don’t think it’d be too big a deal to buff it. But I completely understand your concern.

a. I might argue that reducing the time of Super Elixir would be better.

“Field pollution” is a serious problem in WvW guild raids. You DON’T want a light field on your restacks instead of a water field and this is already the longest light field in the game. Might be a good change but it wouldn’t help that much in large-scale.

For Elixir F, I agree that bouncing to allies is annoying but it ensures more bounces often. I would move it from swiftness to adding a might for a short time.

I’m suggesting making it work like Static Shot which I don’t think has any problem?

Elixir F acts a bit strangely BTW; it will never bounce back to the same target it bounced right before. In a 1v1 it will hit the enemy, bounce to you, then stop. And in large-scale with equal allies and enemies, you’re wasting half the damage and cripple.

9. Retaliation is sort of the cost of having grenades that can hit up to 15 targets

But there isn’t really any benefit to hitting up to 15 targets except tagging more loot. The overall DPS of grenades is lower than bombs (of course it’s ranged but you get the idea). The problem is the damage multiplier and every skill in the game that does a lot of small attacks suffers from this (e.g. Guardian Whirling Wrath) but engineer is by far the most hurt by it.

It’s already balanced for shields (e.g. Guardian Focus 5) only losing a charge for every skill use rather than every attack. You could implement the same for retaliation overall but it goes beyond the scope of this thread, and to be honest I think that’s probably overkill. I like your idea of a trait but I always prefer a simpler solution

Being able to chill up to 15 people is a plus… but not worth taking 15x/30x retal damage (you can easily have two sets of nades in the air) especially considering how much cleansing goes on in large scale fights. Retal itself needs a rework for WvW imo. It’s fine in sPvP or small group fights, but when it gets aoe blasted in a large group it’s too strong.

jump shot doesnt need a buff, its in a good spot as is.

just make regenerating mist 3 secs like the turret’s field. too much?

i dont think auto bomb dispenser is good enough for grandmaster, i think it oughta move down or get replaced. even with cd buffs.

Learning a few things about game mechanics which is nice especially about the delay. Agree your change makes sense. . . if I understand correctly. I still contend that lag really seems to impact our bombs though.

I do overall like the changes and thought put into them. My key is that changes that really require thinking about the game mechanic probably shouldn’t be fixed per class as a workaround. Make sense?

Retaliation probably needs a redesign in general versus an engineer work around. If an engineer workaround, it seems like it should be a trait vs trying to mess with the skills (but I don’t code so maybe that would be easy). A trait isn’t really a workaround and would still have intrinsic value/balance with any game mechanic change to retaliation.

I play a lot of Egun in large scale. It works well for runners and tails. No one minds a good fumigate either and it has the secondary heal which has saved my bacon many times. Lots of fun to area retail the arrow cart too. But yes, how fields work or stack on top of each other is a pain in the hindside. But that really isn’t a unique engie issue.

I don’t see healing mist as the core problem of the E-gun (though admittedly it is our stun breaker which is another issue altogether and a fair balance I would say). The support side scales very well in large scale. The damage. . . not so much. I routinely swap to it to cleanse.

If I could have an E gun change it would be that acid bomb leaps you TOWARD the enemy vs away. That could lead to better combos.

I would increase the water field times of healing mist and cleansing mist but reduce their corresponding heal rates (so it is as much regen just over 1 second per skill more time). That would allow greater group coordination without drastically increasing the overall ungrouped/uncoordinated healing potential.

Agree on the lack of need for swiftness for allies. Just focusing on the cripple works BUT 8 seconds for 4 bounces of cripple may be too many. That would be my biggest concern with the change. Low cooldown and all. That is why the mix of impacting allies and enemies works because rarely is it such a large number crippled given the cooldown. Thus, I still contend that changing the buff it provides allies is better. On the other hand, the fact it isn’t bouncing is annoying!!!!!

Uttar.2341:

snip

1. Bomb Kit Autoattack: Reduce explosion delay from 1s to 0.75s (only delay!)

• This change would be un-necessary and lowers the reaction time to Engineer bombs, which are already hard to read, being the same colour and placed at the Engineer’s feet – that are then hidden because the Engineer is likely to then run forward.
• A better change would be to keep the delay, retexture the bombs to have individual colours, and make bombs be placed 75-100 units in front of the Engineer. This eliminates the self kiting problem and simultaneously makes Elixir Infused Bombs actually useful. Also introduces counterplay to an otherwise hard to read weapon kit.

Uttar.2341:

1. Regenerating Mist: Water field duration: 1s->2s (time for others to blast)

• A well needed change. No objections here. 1 second is far too short and requires Big ’Ol Bomb and/or animation-less Blast finishers like Shield 4-4.

Uttar.2341:

1. Toolkit Thwack: Should hit 3 targets like rest of chain(!) and +25% damage

• Do you mean for the chain to be dealing +25% damage on top of what it does now? Or do you mean for Thwack to deal 25% damage on top of what is already a double damage final chain?
• Cleaving on the final hit should absolutely be implemented though.

Uttar.2341:

1. Toss Elixir B: Radius 180->300 + Stability 4s->5s + Remove Might/Swiftness

• I think the RNG is fine as it is now. Stability at 4 seconds is plenty to secure a stomp; especially given that it is AOE.
• The only change I would advocate is for the projectile speed to be faster. It flies too slowly for a clutch Stability application when thrown in support, and the slow animation adds un-necessary aftercast to a Stability application that could otherwise be clutch when thrown fast enough.

Uttar.2341:

1. Mine Field: Cast time: 1s->1/2s, Fix Radius (240 traited), +60 Proximity

• No objections here. Although to be honest, Mine Field should simply be more closely spaced, with overlapping AOE in a smaller area, eliminating random spread. That alone would not necessitate a radius increase.

Uttar.2341:

1. (Bug?) Healing Turret: Fix Cleansing Burst to scale with Healing Power

• I think it’s just a tooltip bug. Cleansing Burst already works with Healing Power.

Uttar.2341:

1. (Bug?) +Evasive Powder Keg: Radius: 120/180 -> 180/240 (match other bombs)

• I’d rather Evasive Powder Keg to instead drop a Flash Grenade and deal no damage. EPK has killed me due to breaking Stealth. That said, it is a useful application of extra DPS when you’re #yoloswag and you need that extra 2-3k to down someone with your dodges.
• I think the base radius should be 180 without being able to increase due to Forceful Explosives. 240 is a little excessive given the high Power scaling – not even Reckless Dodge has that much damage on that wide a radius.

Overall I like the intention behind the changes and balance overall should not be overly affected. I just feel that Bomb detonation delay should not be touched; they are difficult to read as is. Making them be placed forward of the Engineer will already solve the self-kiting problem without introducing problems with cast/aftercast interactions altering DPS output.

Uttar.2341:

Longer Term Changes (Minimal)

snip

• Ascended Weapons increasing kit damage
  • Large Scale WvW builds are all power-based and this hurts us by ~5%

• A well needed QoL change. Might make huge scaling kits like Bomb Kit a little OP though. 1.25 coefficient on the autoattack is no joke.

Uttar.2341:

• Elixir Gun (small buff in PvP but probably still won’t be used much)

• Not sure where this is coming from, but EG is standard in PVP triple kit due to Stunbreak + Inertial Converter + Mobility that Pistol Shield lacks. The only other replacement for EG at the moment is Rocket Boots.
  [quote=3649585;Uttar.2341:]
  • Healing Mist: Cooldown 40s -> 30s[/quote]
• As much as I appreciate a 30 second stunbreak, 30 sec CD with 30 in tools makes Healing Mist an unprecedented 23.1 second stunbreak. Even the shortest possible stunbreak CD in-game across all professions is 25 seconds at the moment; and this is excluding the Inertial Converter reset.
• At most I’d make it remove 1 condition. Even this might be too strong, as Healing Mist is a 240 radius AOE.

Uttar.2341:

• Elixir F: Only bounces to enemies (no swiftness on allies)

• Why remove the utility of this skill? Yes, it only bounces once between allies and enemies; but you forget Invigorating Speed. I love crippling my enemies to get Vigour in return.
• All I would change is the bouncing behaviour to force 4 bounces regardless of whether the target was bounced to or not.

Uttar.2341:

• Fumigate: Remove 1 condition on self at end. Replace vuln by 1s cripple.

• Why duplicate Cripple from Elixir F?
• Vulnerability covers the Poison, which is important for down state control. It’s also useful for increasing group DPS, which as a zerger, I would think that you would appreciate.

Uttar.2341:

• Grenade Kit (Retaliation!)
  • Very strong despite slow projectiles but retaliation is a really big problem
  • Only 1 of the 2-3 grenades should suffer from retaliation at all (random)
  • Flash Grenade: 5s->3s Blind but 2x damage (still less than base attack)

• Fix Retaliation instead of changing grenades. Problem solved.
• Flash Grenade is a clutch Blind in melee, channelled range skill spoiler at long range. I don’t feel the need to raise Grenade Kit’s already generous coefficients by adding them to Flash Grenade.
• What would be better would be for Grenade Kit to instead throw 3 grenades untraited and at +25% damage from what they are now; then for Grenadier to increase range and damage to current values. Normalises untraited Grenade Kit whilst making Grenadier still powerful for direct damage grenade builds.

Uttar.2341:

• Flamethrower (Retaliation!)
  • Autoattack should suffer from retaliation on 1st and 10th ticks (1/5th)
  • Autoattack burn duration on final tick: 1s -> 2s (good change for PvP?)
  • Autoattack could maybe hit 5 targets instead of 3 (see guardian staff)

• Fix Retaliation, problem solved. Why alter Retaliation’s effect against multitude of multi-pulse skills when you can attack the problem at its source?
• In all honesty the autoattack should have individual pulse damage doubled and number of pulses _halved.
• Eliminate FT 1 autotracking and give it the same skillshot capability as Drake’s Breath to eliminate the targeting bugs
• Burn should apply on third tick
• 5 target cleave instead of 3 target cleave is fine. Normalises with Guard Staff 1

Uttar.2341:

• Jump Shot
  • Range: 700 -> 900 (gives a decent gap closer without rocket boots)
  • Alternatively find a way to significantly increase effective speed
  • Maybe add an evade at end because it prevents dodging (PvP balance?)

• 900 range makes Jump Shot coupled with Rifled Barrels utterly ridiculous.
• Animation canceling with 900 range Jump Shot with Rifled Barrels turns Jump Shot into Rocket Boots. Congratulations, you’ve just become Sanic.
• Simply speed up animation time.
• Evade at end takes risk out of using the skill. It’s already the single highest coefficient skill in the Engineer’s skillset, and you want to make it stronger? Questionable. 0.9 + 1.8 coefficient is no joke.
• Dodge prevention can be fixed by animation canceling. Also, if you find that you have to dodge at the end of Jump Shot, you probably shouldn’t have Jump Shotted there in the first place.
• If you can’t or won’t animation cancel, I’d be fine with an aftercast reduction. What is it now? 0.5 seconds?

Uttar.2341:

• Glue Shot
  • Significantly increase projectile speed (it’s effectively melee range)

• AOE Immobilise is no joke especially when comboed with Blowtorch, which is melee anyway.
• Casting animation could be sped up, but projectile speed should remain the same.

snip

Uttar.2341:

Increasing Trait Diversity in WvW

• Autodefense Bomb Dispenser
  • Cooldown: 30s -> 25s (same as smoke bomb)
  • Also trigger on immobilise(!)

• Autodefense Bomb Dispense pales in comparison to Grenadier right now.
• It’s not so much the cooldown as it is that the Smoke Bomb itself has been nerfed from 4 pulses of 1 second Blind (shuts down Melee completely) to 3 pulses every 2 seconds (fairer, but also makes ABD bad)
• Buffing to trigger on Immobilise is nice.
• Any buff is going to require a fundamental change to its functionality; so how about:
  • Autodefense Bomb Dispenser: Drop a Smoke Bomb when you are disabled or Immobilised. (Cooldown: 30 seconds). When you use a Toolbelt skill, drop a Bomb 100 units in front of you.
• Makes ABD do for Bombs what Grenadier does for Grenades
• DPS DPS DPS YOLOSWAG

Uttar.2341:

• Exploit Weakness
  • 1s immobilise (instead of 5s cripple)

• The OP is strong in this one. Sitting Duck with this will ensure that the cries for Engineer nerfs will be swift.
• Honestly Exploit Weakness should just become an Executioner type trait. i.e.:
  • Exploit Weakness: Cripple foes for 5 under 50% HP for 5 seconds (Cooldown 15 seconds). Deal 10% extra damage to Crippled foes

Uttar.2341:

• Acidic Coating
  • Inflict AoE blindness in a 130 radius around you
  • 120 would not be enough due to 130 melee range

• Acidic Coating is too RNG to be a reliable Blind tanking trait. Instead:
  • Acidic Coating: When you use a Toolbelt Skill, inflict Blind for 3 seconds on foes within 180 radius. (Cooldown: 10 seconds)
• Now you can Blind while you toolbelt.
• Makes Hammer Warriors significantly less threatening with their Earthshaking ways and their Backbreaking swings.
• Also gives Engi with Rifle Turret i.e. in SD builds a chance against heavy melee.

Uttar.2341:

• Tools Traits (significant awesome impact on PvP/PvE)
  • Adrenal Implant: Move to Adept.

• Whoa there, buddy. 50% more Evade Frames is no joke, especially now that you can only get 50% Vigour uptime through Speedy Kits/Invigorating Speed.
• Double Sigil March 18. Now you can Energy while you Battle, or whatever else comes up to be the next OP combination.
• Adept Tools already saturated with “Meta” traits such as Speedy Kits and Static Discharge. When Turrets are debugged, you will also find Deployable Turrets in there.
• At most I would support a movement to Master.
• There is already way too much spam in this game; dodge spam, AOE spam, condispam. Whilst I enjoy highly processed meats every now and again, there is a point when a little becomes too much.
• We do not need to be as evasive as Rangers. I suppose this is where the sentiment is coming from, but we really do not need it.

Uttar.2341:

• Kit Refinement: Move to Grandmaster. Make it awesome.
• Not WvW-specific but could be amazing and great for build diversity

• Already ideas in the Engineer forum WRT: Kit Refinement.
• Master tier at best considering that GK drops a Mine, FT has Fire Shield instead of Cleansing Flame, and the GCD
• GCD could be kept if it was lower, i.e. 10-15 seconds to prevent comboing. Then allow greater player control by having KR proc only on the activation of the 1 skill.
• Alternatively, have KR proc on unequip. As an example. Equipping Grenade Kit causes the “unequip” to be replaced by “Mine”. Pressing the Grenade Kit hotkey again procs KR and unequips the Kit.
  • Would allow player control of procs by preventing procs from happening if player instead presses “Drop Bundle” or cycles to another kit.
• Overall KR is a mess right now.
  • Procs for Grenade Kit should instead be 1 Flash Grenade
  • Flamethrower should get Cleansing Flame back instead of useless Fire Shield
  • Increased player control lets players actually use the procs to their advantage rather than at random. The mechanics of KR will have to be changed.
  • Changes should not introduce negative synergy with Speedy Kits and Enhance Performance and any other Kit related trait. Multikit already hit hard by KR nerf; yet single kits like Grenade Kit with Throw Mine and Elixir S in the 100mines/nades build still exist.

Thanks for the feedback everyone!

On retaliation, I agree that it’s better to change the mechanic than individual skills. I posted my suggestions in the WvW retaliation thread and Allie said he’ll pass it on to the team so hopefully something will come out of it one day: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/retaliation-and-wvw/page/2#post3666236

insanemaniac.2456:

jump shot doesnt need a buff, its in a good spot as is.

I agree I probably went too far but reducing the animation a bit wouldn’t be too much. Or if that’s impossible, then increase range from 700 to 800 (traited 900).

Bombsaway.7198:

If I could have an E gun change it would be that acid bomb leaps you TOWARD the enemy vs away. That could lead to better combos.

Hmm, interesting. I’m extremely used to it leaping backwards and it might make rifle+EG+RB too mobile. It’d also be clearly overpowered if other aspects of EG were also buffed. But it’s worth thinking about!

MonMalthias.4763:

A better change would be to keep the delay, retexture the bombs to have individual colours, and make bombs be placed 75-100 units in front of the Engineer.

I agree that placing bombs 75 units in front would fix all the problems. My suggestion was to only reduce explosion delay for auto-attack so it doesn’t change how easy/hard it is to tell other bombs though. But your idea has a lot of merit if ANet wants to make a bigger change that affects PvP as well.

Do you mean for the chain to be dealing +25% damage on top of what it does now? Or do you mean for Thwack to deal 25% damage on top of what is already a double damage final chain?

The latter so +10-15% DPS. I’ve never seen anyone use TK autoattack seriously so I’m skeptical just adding cleave on Thwack would be enough to make it worthwhile. Most chains have a reason to want to finish the chain which TK lacks (bigger damage but same/lower DPS?)

Toss Elixir B: I think the RNG is fine as it is now. Stability at 4 seconds is plenty to secure a stomp; especially given that it is AOE. The only change I would advocate is for the projectile speed to be faster.

Makes a lot of sense for small-scale but in large-scale you use your stability before you push into the enemy. And so you want to always hit 5 allies and ideally you want to hit your party members so the raidleader can optimise the parties around who gives and who receives stability – both are impossible with engineer. Again I don’t want to make it as strong as Stand Your Ground but it’s problematic right now.

I think it’s just a tooltip bug. Cleansing Burst already works with Healing Power.

No, the tooltip says it scales, but it actually doesn’t: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Engineer-Cleansing-Burst-with-Healing-Power/first#post3468970

I’d rather Evasive Powder Keg to instead drop a Flash Grenade and deal no damage.

180 radius blind-on-dodge would be very strong in large-scale! I’m also scared of the impact on bunker/decap builds that are already prevalent in the (EU) PvP meta.

It’s true that 240 dodge bombs isn’t weak either, but the guardian’s Selfless Daring always has a 240 radius and in a different way it’s a much stronger dodge trait when geared for full healing power like some guardians are (up to 1500+ HP/dodge): http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Selfless_Daring

Not sure where this is coming from, but EG is standard in PVP triple kit due to Stunbreak + Inertial Converter + Mobility that Pistol Shield lacks. The only other replacement for EG at the moment is Rocket Boots.

Interesting, the NA meta must be different from the EU meta then? EU tPvP meta is GK+BK+TK for triple-kit condi (new Teldo build with various alternatives for TK) and BK+FT+TK for bunker/decap builds. I’ve seen EG but it’s quite rare.

As much as I appreciate a 30 second stunbreak, 30 sec CD with 30 in tools makes Healing Mist an unprecedented 23.1 second stunbreak. […] At most I’d make it remove 1 condition. Even this might be too strong, as Healing Mist is a 240 radius AOE.

Traited Shake It Off on warrior is a 20s CD stunbreaker that also removes one condition in a 600 radius – not comparable because it’s a whole utility not just a toolbelt but you get the point. I like the idea of removing 1 condition AoE as an alternative to a shorter CD.

Elixir F: but you forget Invigorating Speed. I love crippling my enemies to get Vigour in return.

Woah, I’m a bit embarassed I never thought about that, especially after the Speedy Kits nerf! Hmm, not sure then. You could make it prioritise new enemies maybe?

Why duplicate Cripple from Elixir F? Vulnerability covers the Poison, which is important for down state control. It’s also useful for increasing group DPS

It’s a constant application so you can’t just remove it once like Elixir F. Vulnerability isn’t very good in large-scale except as a cover. One problem is the two biggest sources of condition removal convert it to protection (warrior warhorn and guardian pure of voice). Still just adding the self-cleanse at the end might be enough.

Autodefense Bomb Dispenser: Drop a Smoke Bomb when you are disabled or Immobilised. (Cooldown: 30 seconds). When you use a Toolbelt skill, drop a Bomb 100 units in front of you.

Interesting – it might help diversify power builds and help PvE DPS as well. It goes against the intention of my post (minimal changes that mostly affect WvW balance) but it could work.

Honestly Exploit Weakness should just become an Executioner type trait.

Agreed, good suggestion (maybe 10% is too strong for adept though).

Acidic Coating is too RNG to be a reliable Blind tanking trait

Hmm, seems a bit strong. I think my change is reasonable given that it remains a minor trait, but everything involving blind is hard to balance (easy to make either useless or overpowered).

Whoa there, buddy. 50% more Evade Frames is no joke, especially now that you can only get 50% Vigour uptime through Speedy Kits/Invigorating Speed.

You’re right, 50% is too much. If it became adept it’d have to be 25-40%.

When Turrets are debugged, you will also find Deployable Turrets in there.

Doubt it. It’s too slow and it makes Healing Turret a nightmare to use as a heal. Also in large-scale, Speedy Kits is useless (enough AoE swiftness) so adept isn’t too satured. But I see your point in general and I agree.

What about this:

1. Move Leg Mods from Master to Adept (Warrior’s Dogged March is an adept trait that does the same with extra regeneration!)
2. Move Adrenal Implants from Grandmaster to Master (probably no nerf needed).
3. Move Kit Refinement from Adept to Grandmaster and make it awesome.

I’m not going to derail this thread into a discussion about KR but obviously I want cooler effects and per-kit CDs back!

I almost feel sorry for you, guys. So much work and thought put in here, but it seems all wasted for me.

The main point beeing: I don´t see why that changes should promote taking an engineer in a group instead of a second Guardian, a Warrior or another Ele in the raid.

The healing from bombs is so much less what a Guardian can heal with much lesser trait-investment, while a Guard also offers a ton of easy and precious boons to the group, groundcontrol, . . .

Engi waterfields are nice to have, but also not needed with a few Eles.

Even with heavy traiting for bunker in the end an Engi will still be more a liability to a melée-group than a gain compared to Guard or Warrior.

In reality all wvw-Engis can expect is incoming nerfs due to decap-Engis and critdamage-changes (how I hate that balancing based on that odd pointholding-gamemode).

The main problem of the engineer is cast times. It is hard to cast things reactively. Cast times make engineer’s rotations so slow. If they only changed things so engineer can use more skills in same time span the class would be much improved. It would be much better if we could throw elixirs while shooting or something like classes like warrior or guardian who can use shouts or stances while hitting faces, i.e. it’s detrimental to the class that it has to stop DPSing to throw a flask to gain 5 secs of regen or to fire a high arc rocket which provides same DPS as your autoattack (sure the rocket deals large hit of damage, but due to cast time, total DPS improvement is negligle).

hydeaut.1758:

I almost feel sorry for you, guys. So much work and thought put in here, but it seems all wasted for me.

I used to do game modding and I like to keep that part of my brain busy

The main point beeing: I don´t see why that changes should promote taking an engineer in a group instead of a second Guardian, a Warrior or another Ele in the raid.

Engineer will always be a more diverse jack-of-all trades with good damage and support, but not as much as a more specialised class in any specific way. A small number of engineers could nicely complement a warrior/guardian melee train.

The healing from bombs is so much less what a Guardian can heal with much lesser trait-investment

Guardians can heal 450HP/s without sigil of stamina spam and while doing decent damage at the same time? I’ve mostly been raiding with guardian in the last 3 weeks and that’s news to me

Engi waterfields are nice to have, but also not needed with a few Eles.

An extra 480 radius waterfield is always welcome. The main problem right now is that our only water field is also our only heal. Regenerating Mist becoming a 2s field in a 480 radius would make us extremely valuable.

In reality all wvw-Engis can expect is incoming nerfs due to decap-Engis and critdamage-changes (how I hate that balancing based on that odd pointholding-gamemode).

In the future we’ll have new PvP gamemodes that will likely encourage very different builds. In that new meta our weaknesses will likely become more obvious and I’m optimistic we’ll eventually get some nice changes – but it might take time to get there.

For the sake of discussion, here are two possible engineer builds after some of my changes. More builds would be opened up with retaliation improvements and/or the longer-term changes and there are plenty of fun variations possible besides what I’m describing obviously!

1) Cleric Bomb Engineer

• 10/0/30/30/0, full cleric, runes of the monk, 1.5K+ healing power
• With stacks: 2200 power, 22K HP, 3K armor, -53% when Stunned
• Healing: 450HP/s AoE + 5.7K AoE with 3.3K Self-Heal + 200HP/s Self

• Pistol/Shield with various foods (e.g. lemongrass, healing power, etc…)
• Pistol/Pistol for Glue Shot + Glue Bomb with +40% condition duration
• 2 of 4+ other utilities:
  • Rocket Boots (mobility and especially immobilisation removal)
  • Tool Kit (pull into the melee train especially for GvGs + invulnerability)
  • Elixir Gun (combination of mobility, stunbreaker, condition removal, etc.)
  • Throw Mine (boon removal and disrupting their restacks)

2) Toolkit Offensive Engineer

• Rifle/Toolkit/Flamethrower/Rocket Boots
• ?/?/?/20/20 (anything with Power Wrench + Deadly Mixture)
• Mix of knight/zerker/valkyrie/PVT with offensive runes (or Melandru)
• Use tookit magnet combined with rifle immobilise to pull into the train
• Use toolkit auto-attack for perma-cripple(!!!) and burst with FT 2+Rifle 5

Uttar.2341:

Analysis

• 1st change is small but key. Bombs are dropped every 0.89s but take 1s to explode in a 240 radius while players move 270/s (in combat with swiftness). So Elixir Bombs won’t heal you if you’re running. And it’s hard to damage moving enemies as you need to be 30 units ahead if you are both moving – while a regular melee can be 130 units behind! It’s okay against disorganised zergs but against guilds you won’t hit as many enemies as a melee despite the 240 radius.

• This is not a problem in PvP because of fighting on point. As a compromise not to hurt PvP balance and the timing of Big Ol Bomb + Bomb 2/4/5 combinations, I suggest that only the auto-attack is reduced from a 1s to 0.75s. Again my goal is minimal changes that don’t hurt balance in other game modes.

• 2nd change will not significantly affect PvX balance (any good engineer can dual-blast in 1s) but will make a huge difference in WvW as 2s water fields can be called on TeamSpeak and blasted by others.

• 3rd change is amazing because it opens up a whole new build! Combined with Power Wrench this gives us a melee auto-attack chain that cripples on every hit. It’s good soft-CC and allows for melee engineers that don’t use Bomb Kit!

• 4th change is intended to remain inferior to Stand Your Ground as it’s not instant, it’s not a stunbreaker, and it’s still limited to a 300 radius with a clunky toss mechanism. But at least it’s a reliable source of AoE stability. Also making it only give Fury or Retaliation (excessive random effects).

• 5th change turns an utility that’s strong on paper into one that’s useful in practice. Mine Field removes up to 25 boons (5×5 AoE) but the cast time and limited radius with the wide dispersal makes it weak (just check your combat log to see how few targets you’re hitting). It’s bugged with the tooltip saying 240 when traited but testing it to only be 180.

Each mine from Mine Field removes at most one boon. If it hits more than one person, only one will have a boon removed. So it removes at most 5 boons. One per mine. You can test this yourself by having 2 or 3 guardian friends around you cast Save Yourselves. You drop a bomb to remove Aegis and then use throw mine. Ask them to remember how many boons they have before and after. You’ll notice at most 5 boons have been removed.

Mostly, I agree with your changes, except for Twack damage increased by 25%. It would be OK to cleave, but the 25% increased damage is not necessary.

I’ve posted Throw Mine and Healing Turret problems in two threads here and here. I still think they should also fix the cooldowns on these skills. For Mines, the cooldown should be from the time the Mine was placed and not when detonated. For Turrets, I post a problem and a solution in the thread I posted.

I agree with most of the suggested changes, except for:
- decreasing the delay of bombs (bomb kit is already very good)
- adding 25% damage to twack (this would increase its damage multiplier to 2.19x, which is a bit too strong, for comparison backstab is 2.4x and eviscerate is 2-3x)

I would also very hesitant to buff healing turret. It is a already the most popular of engineer healing skills. Here are some ideas how to make the other healing skills more viable:
1. Remove swiftness from Elixir H (random chance between protection and regeneration) and remove vigor from toss Elixir H (protection or regeneration to allies, increase radius to 180). This would make elixir H viable in non-elixir builds and offer a bit more reliable group support as too much randomness is bad.
2. Make medkit #4, drop antidote, remove one condition upon activation and another condition when you walk over it. Immobilize is common in WvWvW and can easily last 5+ seconds with the food buffs, making it a death sentence.

I did not like the proposed to change to elixir gun #3, furnigate. I think we could keep furnigate as it is, but reduce its team condition cleansing in favor of it removing one condition from the user upon activation. Realistically it rarely ever removes more than one condition from allies as the cone is so short and narrow. I am happy that furnigate would remove just one condition from each ally, if it would remove one condition from the engineer when activate. To wait 2.25 seconds to have one condition cleansed from yourself is just too weak and risky (most people run shout guardians and warriors in WvWvW, which are able to remove conditions with instant-cast shouts in addition to plenty other condition cleansing and they remove the conditions from their allies and e.g. shake it off has 600 radius and can be traited to heal ).

I agree with hydeaut.1758 analysis. Engineers are strong in decapping and contesting nodes, but to “balance” this game based on a game mode, which is actively played by 1% of player base, is insulting to the rest (99%) and bad game design. Engineers have never been popular in WvWvW nor strong there.

This suggested changes would be a step towards the right direction, but I don’t think they would still make engineers part of the WvWvW meta. If we think about the following roles in WvWvW, here is my analysis:

Pro guild zergs
Top professions and builds are:
hammer warrior, staff guardian, staff elementalist and staff necromancer (warriors and guardians being the most popular)

Each pro guild group needs 1-2 mesmers for veiling, portaling, time stop etc. The medium armor professions are optional. Some groups use thieves and rangers to harass the flanks and snipe enemy soft armors, but there is really no sweet spot for the engineer. Hammer warrior is simply too strong and needs nerfing to make this meta even remotely fair. Earthshaker is 2 second, 240 radius AoE stun with under 10 s cooldown, which is just ridiculously overpowered in group fights. In every group fight I can hear the commanders and players telling “hammer stun”, “water fields on commander” on TeamSpeak. Engineer can do the same effect using supply crate with 180 s cooldown and 1200 range (the turrets get destroyed <1 second, so the only actual effect is the AoE stun and few bandages). And this requires an elite skill slot, not just using a weapon burst skill. Elementalist static field has 40 s cooldown and it is unblockable and gives lightning field (for area swiftness using blast finishers).

Siege
Grenade spam is quite effective on players on the walls, but staff + well necromancers and staff elementalists are much more effective at destroying enemy siege weapons from the walls. Any smart enemy will place them far enough from the wall so that the grenades cannot hit them. Elementalist can fight without much risk on the walls. If it gets pulled down it can always vapor form/mist form and return back into the safety. Healing signet warrior is superior at using siege weapons under enemy fire.

Solo roaming
TOP3: Thief, warrior, mesmer (thief being most common)

All the top3 solo roaming professions have better ways to reset a fight (= most important ability for a solo roamer). Warrior has superior land speed with greatsword (+ sword/warhorn). Thief and mesmer have shadowstepping/teleports and stealth. A good thief should always be able to reset a fight, thus very little risk of dying even when caught outmanned.

Small scale

Any profession works here. Engineer fits here well. But WvWvW is not about fair fights and thus a fair 5 vs 5 is extremely unlikely. Most likely it is going to be a 1-2 vs 5 or more. Thus the solo roaming classes rule. Thief’s shadow refuge is more powerful for small scale than anything engineer can offer.