Now, let’s get the obvious part out of the way – gyrobots are basically Spirit Weapons but much more useful.
But that isn’t where the role creep ends. Compare Hammer to Guardian’s Greatsword.
- Guardian’s GS autoattack’s only utility is a 5 second stack of might (per target hit) on the third strike only. Engineer gets two stacks of Might (per target hit) for 8 seconds for its combo, plus a couple of overly long Vulnerability stacks to boot.
- Whirling Wrath vs. Electro Whirl is probably a case of apples vs. oranges, but the two skills are very much comparable whirl finishers that deal AoE damage. Chances are, Whirling Wrath wins out in the damage department (as it should given its lack of utility and higher cooldown), but the superior chain skill of the Engineer’s Hammer evens out this advantage. Plus, a projectile reflection on a 6 second cooldown? Are you insane?
- Does Leap of Faith sound good? Yes. How about giving the Engineer three of them consecutively on a much lower cooldown. If it weren’t for the blind, there would be no advantage to Leap of Faith whatsoever.
- I won’t compare the other two skills because their effects are different, but in my opinion, the Engineer Hammer skills are, in their totality, superior to the Guardian’s Greatsword with heavy role similarity.
How about traits?
Guardian’s are known for their solid bunkering – great healing, damage mitigation, condi removal, and access to stability. The Engineer is treading into all of that with the Scrapper.
- Adaptive Armor is quite possibly the most over-the-top and overpowered damage mitigation trait in the entire game, building up to 500 toughness with a hefty 20% condition damage mitigation thrown on top of that. Think of a similar Grandmaster trait on Guardian – Retributive Armor, which gives half of that amount of toughness on a less maintainable condition (blocking attacks). And while 13% toughness to ferocity conversion is good, it doesn’t compare to outright ignoring 20% of every damaging condition thrown on you in PvP.
- Perfectly Weighted, if you decide to take it over the utter lunacy that is Adaptive Armor, laughs at Guardian’s stability access. Couple it with Juggernaut and you are virtually immune to cc. And any cc that magically does manage to bypass the Scrapper’s shell is reduced by one of their minor traits.
- Rapid Regeneration, when coupled with the Inventions line, gives the Engineer competitive, if not better sustain than the Guardian.
So now we have a class that does virtually everything another class does, just as well, if not better…. but wait, there’s more!
Unlike the Guardian, the Engineer doesn’t suffer from poor mobility, low cc, and unreliable damage. In fact, the Engineer has always topped the charts on cc and this elite specialization brings their mobility through the roof while giving them even more damage through another means of reliable, potent might and vulnerability stacking.
I don’t even play much Guardian. I play everything, and I intend to main Revenant, but good lord, I feel sorry for the Guardians right about now. And everyone else too, for that matter, because you’ve just made an already-popular PvP class into the best bunker and bruiser in the game.