Guild Wars 2

I play an engineer as my main and absolutely love the profession, however there is a slight issue I see with the Grenade Kit that I feel could be easily changed to make the kit more user friendly to non-experts. The suggestion is very simple; just change the basic Grenade ability into a targeted auto-attack. I find the largest barrier to entry for the grenade kit is the need to manually aim every single attack, something that makes it hard for new grenaders to adjust as they cannot kite and attack at the same time without difficulty.

Grenades are a very useful tool and a highly desirable kit to use, however this one issue makes it hard for those of us who are not adapt at fast-casting to use them, and this means that they fall into a secondary tactic that we are only comfortable using when we have a “tank” in the party to distract our foes. Simply altering the one-slot would make the kit much more accessible, and bring it more in line with the Necromancer’s Staff (one auto-attack and four ground-targeted skills), something with an overall similar play-style yet is a lot easier to pick up and learn to use properly.

Please don’t do this suggestion. Reasons:
1. You can kite, move, even run through an enemy mob or run away and spam grenades at your enemy, because they are ground targetable. Yes, it requires skill.
2. This allows you to attack non-targetable locations e.g. enemy castle walls

I however agree that engineer would need some beginner friendly choices. I have been playing all 8 professions and I think it is general opinion that engineer is among the weakest professions and by far the most difficult profession to master well.

Ideas how to make engineer more accessible:
- slightly increase the damage of the auto attack for all kits and weapons. Currently they do less damage compared to other professions. The lack of easy sustainable damage is a huge hindrance.
- make the weapon animations / projectiles faster. Currently grenades travel really slowly. Enemy sees the red circles and even in pve it is difficult to hit moving targets from long distance as you need to guess where the enemy is moving and calculate the slow travel time of the grenades. Elixir gun attack #2, Elixir F travels so slow, it misses 90% of the time. It also seems bugged (not bouncing as the skill descriptions says).

After a minor damage buff to all kit and engineer weapon #1 attacks, engineers would see some more popularity, but still would not be over the top nor overpowered.

Funny how you imply my lack of skill, but you’re the one asking for a direct damage buff. I’ve never had any problem with DPS personally. Further if you’re attacking walls in WvW with a profession skill instead of a proper siege weapon you’re not doing your server any favors.

Arkham Creed.7358:

Funny how you imply my lack of skill, but you’re the one asking for a direct damage buff. I’ve never had any problem with DPS personally.
Further if you’re attacking walls in WvW with a profession skill instead of a proper siege weapon you’re not doing your server any favors.

I am playing all the 8 professions. It is clear that engineer auto attack are subpar compared to others. Thus a minor buff to kit, engineer rifle and pistol attack #1 would be logical. Engineer is the rarest profession for a reason. But the big balance update was today. Not much changes to any profession or skill balance, which of course was hugely disappointing. I liked the elixir gun #5 buff and flamethrower fixes.

I don’t understand why attacking enemy, who are defending the walls without a siege is not doing my server any favor. I kill enemies like that or prevent them effectively defending their walls. Of course I have been building siege (I always carry each siege type blueprint with me). But building siege requires supply from others and I usually run without any team. Sometimes the supply is low and our side is outmanned heavily. Capping supply camps is of the 1st priority. But I am not a commander. I cannot capture enemy controlled supply camp alone if they have a duo thief or mesmer + thief team roaming nearby.

If you want changes to grenade kit #1, please suggest it as an option (turn on from menu to make it auto-targeting).

Mind if I ask what build you’re using? Because it seems to me that the bulk of engineer damage comes from conditions. that is why literally everything they do causes them. Yeah if you’re trying to make the damage from the attacks themselves bigger you’ll have a tough time, but if you build for condition damage I’ve found the engineer’s DPS to be huge. They’re just not a burst profession; that’s the thief. The engineer is a sustained damage profession.

He didn’t ask to replace all Grenade Kit skills, just the first one. So you still could attack locations, walls, whatever. And you could still display your skill by throwing skills 2-5 at your enemy while running away.

Every other mainhand weapon in the game, as far as i’m aware of, has an auto-fire capable first skill, the grenade kit should have one as well.

Chevayo.8295:

He didn’t ask to replace all Grenade Kit skills, just the first one. So you still could attack locations, walls, whatever. And you could still display your skill by throwing skills 2-5 at your enemy while running away.

Every other mainhand weapon in the game, as far as i’m aware of, has an auto-fire capable first skill, the grenade kit should have one as well.

Only engineer kits don’t. Every other weapon for every other profession as an auto attack. However the grenade kit and bomb kit do not. I can understand bomb kit because it always places the bomb at your feet, but grenades are a ranged attack. It just feels odd that it wouldn’t have an auto attack like everything else. But then, while I don’t agree that the profession is weak by any means, it seems that the engineer has been neglected in a few ways.