Guild Wars 2

I read something troubling in Profession Balance Goals for the Winter 2016 Update and it was this:

“Engineer” … " … With that said, we’re still monitoring the defensive nature of the scrapper and may look to implement a reduction in survivability." (emphasis mine)

I would simply like to voice my opposition to any such change. My rationale is simply that Heart of Thorns is not a forgiving expansion, and survivability is kind-of all we engineers have; take away our survivability, and playing an engineer in Heart of Thorns will be as miserable, dull, and grueling as playing, say, a Warrior.

In Heart of Thorns, often, the PvE gameplay is not fun, because a player trying to navigate, for example, Tangled Depths or Verdant Brink is frequently swarmed or knocked-back, or otherwise overwhelmed by either an insurmountable horde of enemies or enemies with overpowered abilities (I’m thinking, specifically, of all the mushroom creatures, but my remark is not applicable only to them). For engineers, “zerker meta” (or whatever the flavor-of-the-month is for “optimal” damage output) is not and never really has been (1) fun or (2) viable. Engineers have always had to be clever to get the most enjoyment out of the profession, and that’s as it should be; it’s sort-of part of the flavor of the class.

I appreciate a challenge, and Heart of Thorns certainly has provided that. My only complaint is that the challenges don’t really scale with the size of the party (or the relative strength of the player(s)) encountering them. If one is a solo player trying to reach that last point of interest in Tangled Depths, he or she may frequently tend to feel like ArenaNet is just giving him or her the middle finger. That shouldn’t be the case, in my opinion, because it’s just not a fun experience, which is what a game should be. This problem would be greatly exacerbated for players who choose the engineer profession if they had to contend with a “reduction in survivability.”

At a minimum, as a player who considers my engineer to be my “main,” I would expect a compelling explanation and argument in favor of any such change. So far, I have seen nothing to indicate any such change is warranted.

A good bunker engineer can tank 4 people in spvp and laugh at them. So can a good bunker ele.

Anet balances for sPvP, hence why both of their defensive abilities will be adjusted.

well a-net only cares about pvp and esperts, so it only balances with that in mind… suck it up, engi will get nerfed to oblivion once again…like usual. Why do people even still try to protest? Its useless anyways, esperts man… thats where its at. Cause somebody made a bunker build there and many others are running it means you mustnt have nice things anymore either, who needs survival in raids or wvw zergs where projectiles fly left and right…pfff nahh kitten it, nobody needs that. Also lets nerf the mortar 28% cause screw you guys (and no i will never let this nerf go)

We had it before… many times… just remember what they did to the turrets, this is gonna be the same subtle way they gonna “look” at the survivability, im calling it now.

Anet should start splitting pve and pvp balance again.

Yeah, this is the problem with “balancing” in all MMORPGs that have both PvP and PvE elements, which (as far as I can tell) is all of them. Abilities considered “overpowered” in PvP get nerfed, and PvE players invariably suffer. Just once I’d like to see a developer say, “If you don’t like how powerful this is in PvP, too bad; this is what we want, and if you don’t like it, you can just either play the OP class (if you can’t beat, ’em join ’em) in PvP or make them a kill priority (make it not fun for the OP class to play that class, because everyone gangs up on them).” Same song, another verse—a little bit louder and a little bit worse.

If you at any point played PvP post-HoT release, you would know that a nerf to Scrapper survivability is completely justified. This is a class with excellent melee dps, good blocks and reflects, multiple water fields and multiple blast finishers, long duration stealth on command, okay condition removal/boon uptime, and decent mobility all in basically the same build. It needs a nerf, just as many other elite specs do.

Concerning open world survivability I have been fine on my engineer. My gear is full glass condition damage with a max dps trait set up. If you are struggling, the class likely isn’t the problem. You just need to tweak your build or gear to a point where you are more comfortable playing in HoT areas. At the moment, a full glass engineer still has more basic sustain than thief. I’d recommend taking stealth and stun breakers with you in case you are in a situation where you need to disengage and wait for healing turret.

In any case, the nerf to survivability will likely encompass Scrapper’s boon uptime, condi removal, blocks, and stealth because these are what really gives the class an edge in the hands of a skilled player. The water fields and blast finishers will probably be intact and that’s really all you need for sustain in PvE. I’m in favor of the nerf.