Guild Wars 2

I main engie, FYI.

Right now we’re looking at a class with only one viable build at high level play. That is the scrapper most of you love and hate. The scrapper is in a good place right now, with damage output being about right, and tankiness about right (the projectile hate is a little high, but minor tweaking could fix it). A high skill scrapper can do very well, and a low skill scrapper is a liability.

With a very high level of skill, condi pistol is possible, but the amount of skill required does not correlate with a return of power or utility. It has to be played like a D/P thief, but not nearly as effective. Many builds will outright counter it with minimal effort involved (I’m looking at you necros), in which case, you might as well /cower. The going is slow for a meta that’s extremely fast-paced and spammy.

Rifle is a joke. The projectile hate is real, and the DPS on the rifle is just sad for a two handed weapon. Supplementing with kits rarely works, as the kits you would use for power (grenades, possibly bombs) are also subject to the same issues as the rifle. Turrets are useless, as listed below.

And shield? Been a joke in PvP for a very long time. Just forget it.

That’s ignoring all the other issues — utility skills that aren’t certain gyros or kits are completely underwhelming. Gadgets by and large don’t work and their utility is sad. The turrets have all been left behind with the massive amount of AoE and projectile hate. All the elixirs can be reflected when thrown (seriously, wtf?) and are relatively underwhelming given the importance of those utility slots.

And only a few of the traits are ever worth taking. Almost every build I’ve seen in the last few months has the alchemy line – Mid, mid, up. There’s very little variation, which means the traits need reworking as well.

I’d also like to point out with the turrets specifically, they are something the engineer class was sold on:

Just about every class has only 1 viable build at high level play. Core Engineer does need work, but so does every other core profession in this game. Also, for dealing with Necros 1v1 as P/P Engi, wait for them to leave shroud (unless you are sure they have no Life Force) and condi bomb them then use Elixir S. Necromancers generally don’t bring any condi cleanse, it’s all condi transfers. If they have no target to transfer to, and no life force, their only option is to die. P/P Engi is actually pretty easy to play, it’s just horrible for team fights.

When you can’t run in ever expanding circles and sustain for ever (with an ele) they will probably give you another specialization Until then keep chasing your tail

Shaogin.2679:

Just about every class has only 1 viable build at high level play.

Not true. Reaper has power boonstrip / condispam, Berserker has power burst / condi burst, Druid can run power GS which I’m seeing more and more in upper levels / Staff bunker, DH has symbolic / meditrap, Chrono has condiphantasma / powerphantasma, DD has D/P / Staff.

Only Engi, Ele, and Rev are in so-so fits right now, with Revenant on the rough side.

p/p engi could replace the role of thf as a +1 but without the mobility it can’t really compete as a decapper, which makes it an inferior choice. given that some people have been complaining that thf doesn’t really have competition in terms of mobility, maybe anet can look into making p/p engi a thf’s decapper competition?

Warrior, Guardian, and Necro have the most diversity, Rangers and Thieves are limited to only a couple of builds, and Mesmer, Elementalist, Engineer, and Revenant are limited to one viable build.

Thus why I said just about all, seeing as only 3 of 9 professions have any real diversity in viable build choices.

But the majority of complaints in OP’s post is about core Engineer, which is a universal problem across all core professions, not just the Engineer.

I miss Engi Rifle in pvp…

Net Shot – is a pretty short snare to begin with, so landing it isn’t exactly game-changing. I mean, compare with Ancient Seeds on Druid. That’s a trait. This is a weapon skill. Besides that, it will often hit reflect or other projectile hate, and if you do land it, your opponent probably has stability or long-lasting resistance.

Overcharged Shot – used to be the reason to pick Rifle, but now it is near-unusable because you have to wait SO long to find a window to use it, plus you’re self-cc-ing, and if your opponent has reflect or stab, or an auto-proc-on-cc trait, you’ve just screwed yourself over and will probably lose the fight or have to disengage.

Jump Shot – Is really hard to land. It’s a long animation that leaves you vulnerable to damage and cc and gives your opponents plenty of time to react. At least hammer’s Rocket Charge provides evades so you can dive into the fray without immediately dying to damage or a knockdown. Rifle is a weapon that also needs to get in close to deal damage, so it needs the defense to match.

net shot – speed up the projectile a bit
blunderbuss – fine as is
overcharged shot – self cc is weird but changing it would mean changing the skill completely. maybe add an aoe effect?
jump shot – add evade frames, no aftercast, instacast, maybe add a blinding effect to the first attack and a daze to the second.

Stand The Wall.6987:

net shot – speed up the projectile a bit
blunderbuss – fine as is
overcharged shot – self cc is weird but changing it would mean changing the skill completely. maybe add an aoe effect?
jump shot – add evade frames, no aftercast, instacast, maybe add a blinding effect to the first attack and a daze to the second.

Net shot – they already did this. You can hit people with it now, but the problem is, most of the time you shouldn’t, as they have Block, Stability, Reflect, Projectile shield, or evade.

Yeah. I think with Overcharged Shot, a backward evade instead of self-knockback would suffice, as long as the animation is smooth. But it’s also countered by the ubiquitous block/stab/reflect/projectilehate, or auto-proc-on-cc traits.

Jump Shot 100% needs evades + less vulnerable cast animation to be competitive.

The Most of it can be applied to any class in HoT with few exceptions. In HoT the majority of diversity was banished. For example: You know exactly how a warrior will defend himself since there is no other defending strategy for him.

If you look at the diversity of the engineer pre HoT you would never know what was coming. it could be condy, power rifle static discharge, turret, elixir rifle or 100 nades.
That is the very essence of an MMORPG because the player himself decides how he will play. The developers failed to preserve the very heart of an MMORPG (and never had it in PvE).
Their work is to balance the builds of the different classes so nobody gets overpowered. They need to make every skill useful and not just a placeholder.

And they tried. but that’s all they do.
The Devs don’t know the problems of the different classes and of course don’t know the problem of the different builds.
(But that’s normal since you need people that actually play these classes and know the different problems of these build to fix them properly. That requires a whole team)

Example: (to stay with the engineer after HoT)
Rifle: No defense and also no ability to fight in close combat.
The fix of the developers:
DMG up for plunder buss (long cooldown long animation and little effect) and transfer all the damage from jump shot to the landing part (as if there was a problem with the dmg before…).
That should be a buff but is actually a nerf.
The landing damage will most likely canceled midair since there is no dodge in this jump.
Pre HoT I was using jump shot to get away from an enemy that comes too close and give him an extra punch while fleeing. Now that part is also gone.
Plunder-buss has bleeding but should have weakness, blinding, or cripple instead (or all of that… Rifle is a pure power weapon. Why the bleeding?).
Additionally: The knockback also knocks you down. It was balanced pre HoT since there was no abilities to counter that so easily. But now with the projectile hate, common Stability and all sorts of passive effects… this ability is more a self-stun which consumes the stunbreak ability you need to defend yourself.

The old skills for pre HoT times cannot keep up with all the new abilities and effects of the new HoT builds.
Example: It was rare to attack and block/dodge in the same time with one skill. Mesmer, Warrior, Thiefs had it, but it was a single skill with cool down or handicaps. All attacks of the scrapper are like this. The Blocking and attacking was so intense that the Devs nerfed the toolkit. That on the other hand nerfed all the other core builds which have even less protection now.

edit____

Some people think that you need to traid some effect for an other to keep it balanced.
that goes not for all the old skills. every old skill need additional effects with less cooldown to be useful… Or else they will not be used. If that happens than the devs failed to balance it.

Agree with this post.

Shaogin.2679:

Warrior, Guardian, and Necro have the most diversity, Rangers and Thieves are limited to only a couple of builds, and Mesmer, Elementalist, Engineer, and Revenant are limited to one viable build.

Thus why I said just about all, seeing as only 3 of 9 professions have any real diversity in viable build choices.

But the majority of complaints in OP’s post is about core Engineer, which is a universal problem across all core professions, not just the Engineer.

Yeah, but the problem is compounded by the fact that engineers only have a few weapons to pick from — we have the fewest weapons available of any class. With 3 out of 4 weapons kitten… we really lack build diversity. With the addition of the projectile hate, many of our core skills became utterly impractical. There simply isn’t any counterplay for the engineer to deal with the problems.

Vagrant.7206:

The scrapper is in a good place right now

I respectfully disagree.

Scrapper is easily the most balanced “bruiser” build there is currently, not able to usually spike down targets quickly, but certainly tanky enough to outlive most 1v1s and even select 1v2s—so scrapper is probably where it should be, ideally.

The problem is that given the circumstances and roles afforded to other professions in this meta, outside of the function gyro, the scrapper brings very little to the table. We don’t offer as much raw healing as druid or elementalist do, nor do we offer as much damage as warrior, dragon hunter, or necromancer do. We don’t offer the utility that mesmer or thief have, either.

Engineer, similar to revenant, is just in this position where it feels cumbersome to play. We have to put so much effort into achieving the same results that could be better replicated on a different profession.

And while I think the function gyro is a huge tide-turner in fights, especially when paired with the Blast Gyro and Sneak Gyro to secure resses, there’s no denying that the scrapper outside of chugging Elixir X isn’t really a profession that can put the pressure on the other team as well as other classes can.

So to make matters worse, not only is the engineer currently pigeonholed into a singular build with slight variations at most tiers, but the build itself just isn’t all that desirable to others and, to be honest, isn’t very fun to play. 1v1s feel like they drag on forever, even when we’re advantaged.

I can’t believe I’m saying this but I really do miss the days when we ran grenades.

Phineas Poe.3018:

Vagrant.7206:

The scrapper is in a good place right now

So to make matters worse, not only is the engineer currently pigeonholed into a singular build with slight variations at most tiers, but the build itself just isn’t all that desirable to others and, to be honest, isn’t very fun to play. 1v1s feel like they drag on forever, even when we’re advantaged.

I can’t believe I’m saying this but I really do miss the days when we ran grenades.

The biggest drawback is that our “catch up” skill doesn’t do much to catch us up. Enemies can by and large run away when they want to and we can’t do much about it.

Missing old days with nades too.… scrapper is boring to play. I don’t need watch enemy animation, only my HP and bath in final salvo to regenerate hp.… really? I will better delete scrapper, because devs touch traits in inventions. Why? Why nerf core traits. I bet you, if scrappet not using inventions, only core builds, that invention traitline nobody care.

And last nail in the coffin was removed daze from gyros.… only one think what makes scrapper a little bit ok to play because what to say.… purity of prupouse..