Guild Wars 2

The new traits are as follows:
Explosives: Synaptic Overload – gain 3 seconds of quickness when you hit a foe with a knockback skill
Firearm: Bunker Down – Create a proximity mine at your location when you critically hit with an attack. Mines have a 10s duration, 2s cooldown (mines do not remove boons)
Inventions: Fortified Turrets – your turrets are surrounded by a reflective shield when created. 4s duration, ends if the turret is picked up or destroyed.
Alchemy: Experimental Turrets – Turrets apply boons based in a 600 raidus around them every 10 seconds. Thumper turrets: 3 seconds of protection. Net turret: 10s of swiftness. Rifle turret – 5s of fury. Healing turret – 3s of vigor. Rocket turret – 3s of retaliation; Flame turret – 3 stack of might for 10s.
Tools – Gadgeteer – gadgets grant additional boons upon use. Boon vary based on the gadget being used – AED – 3s of retaliation, Personal Battering Ram – 5s of fury; Rocket Boots – 4s of Vigor; Slick Shoes – 8s of regeneration; Throw mine – 6s of aegis; Utility Goggles 5 stacks of might for 8 seconds.

After 1800 hours on engineer and two legendaries as well as two full sets of ascended armor, I feel I’ve explored this class quite well in my time on GW2. You name a build, I’ve played it. I’ve played many that most of you probably haven’t even heard of or tried, but every one is a learning experience.

This patch is not the end-all for us. In fact, it’s quite decent. Let’s examine two possibilities, off of the top of my head, that can incorporate these traits into very powerful (pun intended) builds.

The first will be the glass cannon roamer – Seeing as the new GM trait in Explosives has no ICD, 30 30 0 0 10 will still be very powerful, but with the two new traits in place of the old. Quickness on knockback, right? We’re engineers. We have TONS of knockback. But how do we get ready access to it? Well, ANet handed that to us – Firearms XIII. You crit, you drop a mine (a “throw mine”, which won’t take a boon but WILL be unblockable and a knockback) – critting is easy. Anybody melee on you? The job is done for you. Drop bombs, rifle 1, whatever you like – crits on crits with a good glassy power build. They run into one, knocked back, rifle 2 —> 3s quickness massacre. Your traits would be III, V, and XIII with healing turret/rifle turret/PBR/your choice. I suggest taking static discharge and seeing what forms of movement will be available to us via rune sets come this feature patch.

The second is more of a defensive/dueling engineer. × 30 x x 30, both GM traits XIII. You crit, you drop a mine, and with the new Tools GM trait you get 6s of aegis through the mine. On a 2s CD, essentially, nobody even has to hit the mine. You just get aegis every 2s after you crit.

Hope this’ll keep you guys strong, I see a lot of negative feedback and I think it to be wise to place oneself outside of the box. These traits have a lot of promise.

Cheers.

EDIT: In before “It’s supposed to be 6 6 0 0 2” etc

I thought Synaptic Overload was supposed to have a 20 second ICD, actually.

I’ve got a few I can add to this later when I get home from work there are quite a few new builds

How do we know that the mine dropped from Bunker Down WILL have a knockback? Reserve Mines and Mine Field doesn’t have a knockback. Those are mines.

Unless I missed something, all I heard from the Ready Up was that Engineers drop a mine where they stand whenever they critically hit with 10s duration, 2s cooldown, and no boon strip.

A knockback on a 2 second cooldown seems way too powerful (and easier to grief in PvE with) as it would make the utility Throw Mine almost redundant.

Hate to rain on your parade but Anymras is right, Synaptic Overload has an ICD of 20 sec. Secondly the mine from Bunker Down would be like one of [Mine Field] and not [Throw Mine]. Similar to equipping [Grenate Kit] when you use Kit Refinement.

Never did the words “Throw Mine” or “knockback” leave Karls lips when they talked about this trait. Even Roy hints that it only does AoE damage. Therefor Gadgeteer will not work with Bunker Down.

Still the traits offer awesome possibilities.
I play flamethrower builds, so i have a knockback every 15 secs. I can rain my flamey cone of death and everything else with quickness withouth sacrificing a slot. And the Bunker down trait ist awesome with bombs (additional bomb every 2 secs anyone? its like the grenade GM trait for bombs Combined with the lovely jumpshot-scattershot combo, maybe followed by crowbar or even using the magnet- so many nice ideas! Love those two.
The other three im not sure about. Shields could be awesome in PVE when they fix towerbugs. But in WvW i just cant see it, AOE is the real problem there. Experimental turrets is fancy and funny for full turret builds and people really will want to bring them down then, could be fun for defending spots or a backline. I dont think the gadgeteer is worth a GM trait thoug, i just cant see myself playing a full gadget build and the boon durations are kind of a joke.

That aside, with the fixed hitboxes Mortar and Flame Tower are worth considering when defending a tower now. Im looking forward to it

For real I don’t think the Bunker Down trait will be that useful on it’s own with bomb kit, but more with multiple hit skills like flame thrower #1 or poison dart volley, and then swapping to bomb kit once you have a one or two of the Bunker Down trait’s mines on the field. I think it’ll be nasty with assasin’s armor and stacked Sigil of Perception…not so much with the new Sigil of Intelligence unless you switch to bomb kit for the proc and then time your bombs while the enemy is dealing with your crowd control. There will be nasty, player skill-based spike damage setups with this, so our top players will probably get that trait nerfed soon lol. Better enjoy this while we can.

I’m already considering nasty bunker down setups with tool kit right now. I think the OP may be a little off with the application of some of the new traits, but the fact that OP is even thinking this way could mean our build variety is going to go up. Hopefully we’ll see a lot more well-rounded builds and not just situational ones.

Also I don’t think the new shielded turrets will protect us from siege since our shield and our reflects (elixir U, FT#3) don’t, though that would be a welcome natural advantage and make engineer class essential defense for your zerg and havocs in WvW. If there was ever something to invest my WvW points into, it’d be something like that.

Some of these skills are alright. I’ve seen other classes where I’ve thought “what were they thinking?” and “OMG WTH WERE THEY THINKING!!!” but all in all the engi doesn’t seem too extreme.

Synaptic Overload: I’m just glad they finally have an option that isn’t grenadier or Autodefense bomb dispenser. This trait might see use, but even in the master tier the explosives line has fierce competition (Incendiary Powder, Enhance Performance, Explosive Powder), so this might go by the wayside for one of those. Still, nearly every engy build has some form of knockback, and so they can get quickness precisely when it would be best if they wanted to.

Bunker Down: I like this one. I’ve always found napalm specialist to be meh, and modified ammunition as a generic damage increase. If the mines do a lot of damage, then I can have fun with this while stacking or kiting.

Fortified Turrets: This trait is meh. This seems like one of those highly-situational “I spec this just for a lot of projectile protection temporarily” kind of things. Turrets are weakest to AoE and cleave, so in a PVP perspective this does little. Against bouncing projectiles, however, this can be quite useful. Otherwise, I’ll just use shield / elixir U for projectile protection.

Experimental Turrets: The alchemy line again suffers from immense competition. Next to HGH and AR alone, it is hard to justify using this trait. Still, I can see some use as ambient protection stacking or additional team vigor/fury, and it is true that engineers are only so-so with team buffs. But… going 30 points for this seems like too much of a hassle.

Gageteer: this is the least appealing trait IMO. I usually have a single gadget or two on builds, but nothing to really justify this trait. I can get 4 seconds of vigor from boots… or I can just take adrenal implant and get more than that overall. I can get aegis when using a mine… or I can take armor mods and get aegis passively but more frequently. Retaliation on AED isn’t appealing, since you get long duration retaliation from Elixir B and hidden flask anyway. Slick shoes gives regen, but healing turret gives near permanent regen anyway. Utility goggles and battering ram have some use, but the explosives trait would be better for battering ram, and utility goggles getting might is dwarfed by HGH in general use.

Pretty sure Gadgeteer will only apply to the actual “Throw Mine” utility skill, not Reserve Mines, Bunker Down, or the Kit Refinement mine from Grenade Kit. I’d imagine it could get really ridiculous really quickly otherwise.

That said, I’m looking forward to using Bunker Down. I’ve always missed the old Mine Kit back from Beta. Hopefully this trait will bring it back, along with some added Engineer hilarity of spewing out mines for no apparent reason.

i’d wager synaptic overload is one of the worst traits out of all the traits they introduced. taking it effectively crosses off grenades as a viable option and the whole point of quickness is to get a lot of burst off. our burst potential is really limited without grenades. that leaves bombs and no explosive kits. are you really going to go 30 into explosives and not take an explosive kit? poor planning i think. and there are better traits out there for bombs. short fuse and enhance performance come to mind. hell i’d rather take autodefense bomb dispenser.

bunker down would be ok, if situational, for a non explosives SD build (0/30/0/10/30) in pvp or wvw. can’t see it working anywhere else but honestly a non explosives SD build is mediocre at best. modified ammo should always be better in pve.

fortified turrets is a joke.

experimental turrets is meh. the healing turret vigor is good but that’s about it. the question is are you willing to spend 30 points to get 3 seconds of vigor on your heal? it forces you to take turrets which are awful and it competes with amazing traits like backpack regen and automated response. supply crate you say? are you going to spend 30 points to boost a skill with a 180 sec cd? i wouldn’t. and why is a turret skill in the alchemy tree anyway? what do turrets have to do with alchemy?

gadgeteer isn’t going to make gadgets good. and it requires 30 points into tools lol nobody runs 30 into tools except sd builds and decap engis. neither of those builds will get this trait.

Well, I guess that goes to show you that you shouldn’t just rely on Dulfy, nobody’s perfect Wish I’d known about the ICD, and I could have sworn I remember reading somebody saying Throw Mine was what you got out of the new Firearms XIII – oh well. It’ll still work quite well, with accelerant-packed turrets, rifle 4, and PBR, there’s a ton of knockbacks to be had that all fit in quite well with a SD build.

Poliswag.8240:

The new traits are as follows:
Explosives: Synaptic Overload – gain 3 seconds of quickness when you hit a foe with a knockback skill
Firearm: Bunker Down – Create a proximity mine at your location when you critically hit with an attack. Mines have a 10s duration, 2s cooldown (mines do not remove boons)
Inventions: Fortified Turrets – your turrets are surrounded by a reflective shield when created. 4s duration, ends if the turret is picked up or destroyed.
Alchemy: Experimental Turrets – Turrets apply boons based in a 600 raidus around them every 10 seconds. Thumper turrets: 3 seconds of protection. Net turret: 10s of swiftness. Rifle turret – 5s of fury. Healing turret – 3s of vigor. Rocket turret – 3s of retaliation; Flame turret – 3 stack of might for 10s.
Tools – Gadgeteer – gadgets grant additional boons upon use. Boon vary based on the gadget being used – AED – 3s of retaliation, Personal Battering Ram – 5s of fury; Rocket Boots – 4s of Vigor; Slick Shoes – 8s of regeneration; Throw mine – 6s of aegis; Utility Goggles 5 stacks of might for 8 seconds.

After 1800 hours on engineer and two legendaries as well as two full sets of ascended armor, I feel I’ve explored this class quite well in my time on GW2. You name a build, I’ve played it. I’ve played many that most of you probably haven’t even heard of or tried, but every one is a learning experience.

This patch is not the end-all for us. In fact, it’s quite decent. Let’s examine two possibilities, off of the top of my head, that can incorporate these traits into very powerful (pun intended) builds.

The first will be the glass cannon roamer – Seeing as the new GM trait in Explosives has no ICD, 30 30 0 0 10 will still be very powerful, but with the two new traits in place of the old. Quickness on knockback, right? We’re engineers. We have TONS of knockback. But how do we get ready access to it? Well, ANet handed that to us – Firearms XIII. You crit, you drop a mine (a “throw mine”, which won’t take a boon but WILL be unblockable and a knockback) – critting is easy. Anybody melee on you? The job is done for you. Drop bombs, rifle 1, whatever you like – crits on crits with a good glassy power build. They run into one, knocked back, rifle 2 —> 3s quickness massacre. Your traits would be III, V, and XIII with healing turret/rifle turret/PBR/your choice. I suggest taking static discharge and seeing what forms of movement will be available to us via rune sets come this feature patch.

The second is more of a defensive/dueling engineer. × 30 x x 30, both GM traits XIII. You crit, you drop a mine, and with the new Tools GM trait you get 6s of aegis through the mine. On a 2s CD, essentially, nobody even has to hit the mine. You just get aegis every 2s after you crit.

Hope this’ll keep you guys strong, I see a lot of negative feedback and I think it to be wise to place oneself outside of the box. These traits have a lot of promise.

Cheers.

EDIT: In before “It’s supposed to be 6 6 0 0 2” etc

I don’t mean to bring you down, but a couple notes.

• 1) Synaptic Overload has a 20s ICD
• 2) ‘Bunker Down’ dropped Mines have no Knockback or Boon Rip. They’re just damage-only ‘Mine Field’ type mines, not throw mine. Therefore, they’re not proccing ‘Synaptic Overload’ ever, let alone every 2s. Or 20s. o_o
• 3) ‘Bunker Down’ dropped mines will not ever give Aegis from ‘Gadgeteer’ or even count as Gadgets. So if you only bring Throw Mine, and are taking Gadgeteer, you might as well take Armor Mods to get Aegis slightly more often.

So, pretty much every synergy that you are hyped about, doesn’t actually exist. I’m sorry! I wish it functioned more similar to how you describe it, too. The traits are very underwhelming.

Chaith.8256:

Poliswag.8240:

The new traits are as follows:
Explosives: Synaptic Overload – gain 3 seconds of quickness when you hit a foe with a knockback skill
Firearm: Bunker Down – Create a proximity mine at your location when you critically hit with an attack. Mines have a 10s duration, 2s cooldown (mines do not remove boons)
Inventions: Fortified Turrets – your turrets are surrounded by a reflective shield when created. 4s duration, ends if the turret is picked up or destroyed.
Alchemy: Experimental Turrets – Turrets apply boons based in a 600 raidus around them every 10 seconds. Thumper turrets: 3 seconds of protection. Net turret: 10s of swiftness. Rifle turret – 5s of fury. Healing turret – 3s of vigor. Rocket turret – 3s of retaliation; Flame turret – 3 stack of might for 10s.
Tools – Gadgeteer – gadgets grant additional boons upon use. Boon vary based on the gadget being used – AED – 3s of retaliation, Personal Battering Ram – 5s of fury; Rocket Boots – 4s of Vigor; Slick Shoes – 8s of regeneration; Throw mine – 6s of aegis; Utility Goggles 5 stacks of might for 8 seconds.

After 1800 hours on engineer and two legendaries as well as two full sets of ascended armor, I feel I’ve explored this class quite well in my time on GW2. You name a build, I’ve played it. I’ve played many that most of you probably haven’t even heard of or tried, but every one is a learning experience.

This patch is not the end-all for us. In fact, it’s quite decent. Let’s examine two possibilities, off of the top of my head, that can incorporate these traits into very powerful (pun intended) builds.

The first will be the glass cannon roamer – Seeing as the new GM trait in Explosives has no ICD, 30 30 0 0 10 will still be very powerful, but with the two new traits in place of the old. Quickness on knockback, right? We’re engineers. We have TONS of knockback. But how do we get ready access to it? Well, ANet handed that to us – Firearms XIII. You crit, you drop a mine (a “throw mine”, which won’t take a boon but WILL be unblockable and a knockback) – critting is easy. Anybody melee on you? The job is done for you. Drop bombs, rifle 1, whatever you like – crits on crits with a good glassy power build. They run into one, knocked back, rifle 2 —> 3s quickness massacre. Your traits would be III, V, and XIII with healing turret/rifle turret/PBR/your choice. I suggest taking static discharge and seeing what forms of movement will be available to us via rune sets come this feature patch.

The second is more of a defensive/dueling engineer. × 30 x x 30, both GM traits XIII. You crit, you drop a mine, and with the new Tools GM trait you get 6s of aegis through the mine. On a 2s CD, essentially, nobody even has to hit the mine. You just get aegis every 2s after you crit.

Hope this’ll keep you guys strong, I see a lot of negative feedback and I think it to be wise to place oneself outside of the box. These traits have a lot of promise.

Cheers.

EDIT: In before “It’s supposed to be 6 6 0 0 2” etc

I don’t mean to bring you down, but a couple notes.

• 1) Synaptic Overload has a 20s ICD
• 2) ‘Bunker Down’ dropped Mines have no Knockback or Boon Rip. They’re just damage-only ‘Mine Field’ type mines, not throw mine. Therefore, they’re not proccing ‘Synaptic Overload’ ever, let alone every 2s. Or 20s. o_o
• 3) ‘Bunker Down’ dropped mines will not ever give Aegis from ‘Gadgeteer’ or even count as Gadgets. So if you only bring Throw Mine, and are taking Gadgeteer, you might as well take Armor Mods to get Aegis slightly more often.

So, pretty much every synergy that you are hyped about, doesn’t actually exist. I’m sorry! I wish it functioned more similar to how you describe it, too. The traits are very underwhelming.

Yeah, that’s been pointed out – don’t remember what I was reading last night but at least dulfy’s post didn’t mention anything about an ICD, which I thought may’ve been too good to be true as well. Oh well, it’ll still be very useful.

Poliswag.8240:

Chaith.8256:

Poliswag.8240:

The new traits are as follows:
Explosives: Synaptic Overload – gain 3 seconds of quickness when you hit a foe with a knockback skill
Firearm: Bunker Down – Create a proximity mine at your location when you critically hit with an attack. Mines have a 10s duration, 2s cooldown (mines do not remove boons)
Inventions: Fortified Turrets – your turrets are surrounded by a reflective shield when created. 4s duration, ends if the turret is picked up or destroyed.
Alchemy: Experimental Turrets – Turrets apply boons based in a 600 raidus around them every 10 seconds. Thumper turrets: 3 seconds of protection. Net turret: 10s of swiftness. Rifle turret – 5s of fury. Healing turret – 3s of vigor. Rocket turret – 3s of retaliation; Flame turret – 3 stack of might for 10s.
Tools – Gadgeteer – gadgets grant additional boons upon use. Boon vary based on the gadget being used – AED – 3s of retaliation, Personal Battering Ram – 5s of fury; Rocket Boots – 4s of Vigor; Slick Shoes – 8s of regeneration; Throw mine – 6s of aegis; Utility Goggles 5 stacks of might for 8 seconds.

After 1800 hours on engineer and two legendaries as well as two full sets of ascended armor, I feel I’ve explored this class quite well in my time on GW2. You name a build, I’ve played it. I’ve played many that most of you probably haven’t even heard of or tried, but every one is a learning experience.

This patch is not the end-all for us. In fact, it’s quite decent. Let’s examine two possibilities, off of the top of my head, that can incorporate these traits into very powerful (pun intended) builds.

The first will be the glass cannon roamer – Seeing as the new GM trait in Explosives has no ICD, 30 30 0 0 10 will still be very powerful, but with the two new traits in place of the old. Quickness on knockback, right? We’re engineers. We have TONS of knockback. But how do we get ready access to it? Well, ANet handed that to us – Firearms XIII. You crit, you drop a mine (a “throw mine”, which won’t take a boon but WILL be unblockable and a knockback) – critting is easy. Anybody melee on you? The job is done for you. Drop bombs, rifle 1, whatever you like – crits on crits with a good glassy power build. They run into one, knocked back, rifle 2 —> 3s quickness massacre. Your traits would be III, V, and XIII with healing turret/rifle turret/PBR/your choice. I suggest taking static discharge and seeing what forms of movement will be available to us via rune sets come this feature patch.

The second is more of a defensive/dueling engineer. × 30 x x 30, both GM traits XIII. You crit, you drop a mine, and with the new Tools GM trait you get 6s of aegis through the mine. On a 2s CD, essentially, nobody even has to hit the mine. You just get aegis every 2s after you crit.

Hope this’ll keep you guys strong, I see a lot of negative feedback and I think it to be wise to place oneself outside of the box. These traits have a lot of promise.

Cheers.

EDIT: In before “It’s supposed to be 6 6 0 0 2” etc

I don’t mean to bring you down, but a couple notes.

• 1) Synaptic Overload has a 20s ICD
• 2) ‘Bunker Down’ dropped Mines have no Knockback or Boon Rip. They’re just damage-only ‘Mine Field’ type mines, not throw mine. Therefore, they’re not proccing ‘Synaptic Overload’ ever, let alone every 2s. Or 20s. o_o
• 3) ‘Bunker Down’ dropped mines will not ever give Aegis from ‘Gadgeteer’ or even count as Gadgets. So if you only bring Throw Mine, and are taking Gadgeteer, you might as well take Armor Mods to get Aegis slightly more often.

So, pretty much every synergy that you are hyped about, doesn’t actually exist. I’m sorry! I wish it functioned more similar to how you describe it, too. The traits are very underwhelming.

Yeah, that’s been pointed out – don’t remember what I was reading last night but at least dulfy’s post didn’t mention anything about an ICD, which I thought may’ve been too good to be true as well. Oh well, it’ll still be very useful.

To be honest, I think Synaptic Overload should not have an ICD. For any other profession, that would be nuts, but you have to look at in context of the Engineer profession.

I kind of doubt it’s usefulness compared to how amazing the Explosives traits are, generally.

Quickness is .. pretty lacking for Engineer. The only thing I would want quickness for is tossing Grenades faster, but Synaptic Overload directly competes with Grenadier.

Honestly, I have no freaking clue why we have a Quickness Grandmaster, as well as a Quickness utility? (Elixir U) There is not a god darn thing that synergizes super well with Quickness except Engineer 1spam. Quickness was nerfed all around due to the insane things that Warriors/Thieves/Rangers could do with quickness, and the overwhelming Time Warp meta, but even then it was meh for Engineers.

I’d be interested to see what comes out of synaptic overload, but I can’t really think of something that would be remarkably different or useful. I guess most of my rifle experience is with SD builds though.

It could maybe actually be more useful on a bomb/mine focused build though, especially since some bomb and mine traits are in that line already.

I kind of feel like it’s actually just a pseudo-turret buff since it might be able to proc off accelerant-packed turrets… although I don’t think APT procs things like the perplexity interrupt. If it doesn’t proc off APT, then I just don’t know what to say.

Bunker down just sounds bad to me… it’s like the kit refinement thing for the grenade kit all over again. If it was like the normal mines then it would be a really strong (even too strong) counter to thieves and possibly warriors, but taking 30 firearms for something like that… I dunno.

Thing about bombs is i don’t think quickness makes them blow up any faster. It just makes you place them faster so that when they do start to blow up, you have more of them going pop for a little while.

Also, 3 seconds of quickness seems painfully short unless you make sure to always knock your foe into something (a issue i have with using big ol’ bomb as well, as it throws my enemy out of the blast radius of my other bombs).

I think most of these new traits sound like they could have value.

Fortified turrets’ bubble will need to be big enough to protect players, though, for it to be useful.
My primary concern is the Gadgeteer trait…even with a 4-gadget build, this sounds really lackluster for a grandmaster trait. As others have mentioned, the PBR and goggle boons are the only ones that sound potentially useful. No one will use rocket boots just for vigor, as we have better sources. The same is true for aegis and throw mine. Regen on slick shoes is functional, but doesn’t seem very powerful. And a 3s retatiation on AED (32-40sec cd) seems weak too.

Since many have pointed out a vulnerability to conditions with a gadget build, I think this trait should be tweaked to convert a condition to the specified boon. For example, slick shoes should convert bleeding to regen. Something like the following could really make a gadget build viable:

Gadgeteer – gadgets convert specific conditions into boons
Throw mine: weakness —> aegis.
Rocket boots: vulnerability —> vigor
Utility goggles: poison —> might
AED: confusion —> retaliation
PBR: cripple —> fury
Slick shoes: bleeding —> regeneration

An advantage of this method is that weak gadgets can be brought up in power by converting a particularly nasty condition into a boon. Gadgets that are already powerful (like Rocket boots) can convert a weaker condition.

When I use knockback with rifle, bomb or flame thrower I’m usually either diffusing someone’s offense, or I’m doing a long setup to kill them. If I want that spike damage kill setup, I usually corral someone into a wall or a corner. I think that’s where Synaptic Overload will shine. Imagine FT knockback, synaptic overload into slick shoes and bomb auto. Mix that with bunker down possibly and I think we’ll have something nasty for anyone that faces us without knowing their surroundings.

Synaptic Overload might even make toolkit #1 chains a decent control option. I’ve never found a real use for quickness within the flame thrower kit, but I can see this being really good for stacking conditions with pistol/shield, or rifle auto if you hit with Throw Mine, Big Ol’ Bomb or Turret knockback trait. I’ve been so used to making runes and sigils enhance my setups that it feels strange and new to have traits that will do something like that on command. I feel like this will be a good trait, especially with condition duration and boon duration tweaks via armor and trinkets. Anyway, the theory crafting stage is usually the most fun, but thanks for giving me ideas mates.