Guild Wars 2

I have been playing around with various builds in pvp, I’m finding it very worrying.

Engineers are very good at a lot of things individually, but we get put into one build we literally can’t do anything else.

I was in a bunker build and found my damage was so poor that killing anything was almost impossible. It wasn’t so much will I win more how long until they kill me.

While doing a more high damage build I found that killing things was now possible, but if I was even looked at I was taking down in 2-3 seconds.

If you try to balance out the 2 its laughable. You get neither and suck at both.

Is it just me that is finding this? are we too reliant on other classes to do the jobs we should be able to?

I know in tpvp games the Eng is very strong, as being left on our own is very few and far between. but in spvp we are just literal cannon fodder. This is making it very difficult to even get some kind of “Practice” in when I know we are too weak.

I don’t wanna hear the “Oh but there’s this one build that you can do 25k burst if the planets align and the other player falls asleep” We should be able to at least use all our skills.

These are the biggest issues I have found.

Toolkit- the risk/reward of wrench toss is terrbile poor damage for a very slow moving target. as we are too squishy for it to stand up in melee.

Bomb kit- Needs to do massive damage, if it’s avoidable it should punish. I have seen multiple players just stand in it and almost ignore the damage.

Elixir X- such a long cast, really weak as we can be burned down quickly in it…. not even a stun breaker?! seriously would be best as a stun breaker.

Flamethrower- too easy to dodge… without a dodge. Stand close enough to us “miss miss miss miss” stand slightly to the side “miss miss miss miss” see the animation “200, evade, miss miss” and the damage is poor to say the least. The chance of burn should be higher.

The biggest issue I have found though is once again Downed skills.

1. terrible damage, and chill spams? it won’t save us
2. Pull towards us for free stomp? don’t mind if I do.
3. I’m not sure about this one…… I’ll let you know when I get it off CD.

I appreciate that this sounds like a rant, but I do love my engineer. I just feel that we are the jack of all trades that needs to be opened up a little more.

How can we be a versatile class when we have to go down set traits to use 1 kit?
How can we compete when other classes can do the same traited role as us… just stronger?

Would appreciate some feed back. If possible try and avoid the standard, re-roll or L2P comments they aren’t helpful. I am invested in playing my Eng. Just would like it to be a more rounded class.

Well there’s your problem, your playing sPvP/tPvP…both game modes are trash and not a reliable gauge of player or class ability. All you need to do to win matches is have strong CC and nigh unkillability. When the match says “Defend your points, Seize theirs” that’s literally all that matters. The game mode doesn’t care if you couldn’t kill an ambient mosquito with a critical hit, so long as you can CC enemies out of points and survive the nastiest of DPS long enough for your friends to get to you, You Win.

The problem isn’t the Engineer. The problem is the game mode is “Sofa King We Tar Did” (say it fast).

Obscure One.4357:

The problem isn’t the Engineer. The problem is the game mode is “Sofa King We Tar Did” (say it fast).

^^I approve of this.

I see your point. but would be nice especially after SOTG mentioned more variety in pvp.

Jack of all trades, masters of none.
And that’s also the problem itself.

The OP makes some good points. That said, scour this sub forum. You’ll find some effective builds and odds are one of them will satisfy you. It just takes more work than the average profession.

Also, brace yourselves.

I don’t agree. I have been running full glass cannon Engi in tournies lately and you can survive better than most other glass cannons without stealth while having burst that competes with the best.

You can run condition builds that are very tanky and put out a lot of condition damage. Teldo’s is a good example.

Engi is great right now. Any stronger and we’d end up in Necros shoes likely.

FreekPalmer.2839:

Engineers are very good at a lot of things individually, but we get put into one build we literally can’t do anything else.

If you try to balance out the 2 its laughable. You get neither and suck at both.

Is it just me that is finding this? are we too reliant on other classes to do the jobs we should be able to?

I have to say yes and no to this. I find that in most cases it is true that Engineers are extremely proficient at doing any one spec, but I also think they provide amazing hybrid build play styles that is best visible in PvE. At least from my experiences it has been difficult to produce hybrids as PvP pigeon holes everyone into specific build archetypes, which only instigates your problem regarding over specializing.

FreekPalmer.2839:

These are the biggest issues I have found.

Toolkit- the risk/reward of wrench toss is terrbile poor damage for a very slow moving target. as we are too squishy for it to stand up in melee.

Bomb kit- Needs to do massive damage, if it’s avoidable it should punish. I have seen multiple players just stand in it and almost ignore the damage.

Elixir X- such a long cast, really weak as we can be burned down quickly in it…. not even a stun breaker?! seriously would be best as a stun breaker.

Flamethrower- too easy to dodge… without a dodge. Stand close enough to us “miss miss miss miss” stand slightly to the side “miss miss miss miss” see the animation “200, evade, miss miss” and the damage is poor to say the least. The chance of burn should be higher.

I’m not quite sure what you are trying to say here really. It seems as if you intend to stay in kits/E-x for extended periods of time as a means of replacing your primary weapon, which may or may not be where some of this frustration is coming from. I completely understand what you mean in the case of FT’s auto-attack, but as a whole I try not to think of kits as being another weapon as I do a second bar of Utility skills. My approach to kits largely mirrors this by utilizing the fastest skill swapping setup of any profession for that 1 skill that can alter the battle in my favor.

FreekPalmer.2839:

The biggest issue I have found though is once again Downed skills.

1. terrible damage, and chill spams? it won’t save us
2. Pull towards us for free stomp? don’t mind if I do.
3. I’m not sure about this one…… I’ll let you know when I get it off CD.

This very topic has been given one thread too many and is felt at large by a vast majority of the Engineer populace. Part of this is due to the insane amount of RNG tied into skills and traits that could use some remodeling. Whether or not we will see this come to pass is another story.

FreekPalmer.2839:

I appreciate that this sounds like a rant, but I do love my engineer. I just feel that we are the jack of all trades that needs to be opened up a little more.

How can we be a versatile class when we have to go down set traits to use 1 kit?
How can we compete when other classes can do the same traited role as us… just stronger?

What makes you feel that you have to invest into the kits? Aside from reducing their cool downs there isn’t much to gain for most of them. I can see how Grenades are the exception, but the Explosives line naturally improves their overall effectiveness by investing in them anyhow; a win/win situation in my book there at least. In most cases you won’t gain much more than a 4 second cd reduction from investing in them, which leaves it up to the player to decide if that’s worth it or not.

In regards to competing with other classes, I think this goes back to what I said about the Engineer’s versatility and how you apply it to combat more than anything. In my mind at least, I see other classes as being stuck into their particular setups while we are not, completely anyway. A “Conditioneer” can be more versatile than any other condition setup that I know of because of kits. Various “TANKCAT” builds can survive impossible odds and seize the moment because of its CC effects. “SD” will melt the face off of nearly any player because of the ability to adapt instantly and burst when appropriate. Sure other classes might do this a little bit differently, but I think efficiency is debatable and largely player based.

Personal i find engineers the most versatile class when it comes to making builds, 1 utility (mostly kits) can completely switch how you play a build entirely.

A few tips that I could give you would be:

• For condi builds use P/shield ( you lose too much and don’t really get too much in return with pistol offhand)

• if you wanna go really tacky and deal some dmg, go with Shaman Amulet and Rabbid Jewl, you should be able to kill things

• Don’t auto attack with Tool/Bomb Kit, it’s generally not a good idea, and personally I forbid you or anyone from using auto attack with flame thrower!

• Ignore traits for specific kits, the only one really work it right now is prob recharge on FT/EG and nades/bombs skills, but then again. It isn’t necessary considering most skills have short cool down. 15% dmg on FT/EG i wouldn’t really recommend it at all

• and down skills is akward but can be useful, don’t think about it as something that’s gonna save you life but just think of it as another CC, normally I use it to pull “targets” who are low and trying to get away from the fight, or enemy players trying to ress their teammates

Med kit is not bout team support, it’s more got tactical selfish plays and I love it!

strong heal on short cool-down, and then 3k* free heals. which can be stacked up to 9k if you’re waiting somewhere, and the easy access to free fury/swiftt makes it an amazing

Healing turret: Great Team Support heal
Med kit: AMAZING selfish tactical heal
Elixir X: meh meh for RNG lovers

HGH wants to say Hi, but the message length must be at least 15, so it can’t.

Thanks for all the constructive feedback.
Lots of great points made.
I tend to agree that engineers can be great but again it’s seems that due to that little bit of undertuning and RNG we are suffering.

There are some nice builds out there but as I mentioned they do very specific jobs very well.

Maybe just haven’t found the right role build yet.

Once again nice feedback, shows that engineers have a good attitude.
Maybe we’ll get that little bit of love soon

Jack of all trades —> celestial gear. Give it a chance, u won’t regret it.

I know the feeling a I love a bunker engi build. I was once told it took no “skill” by a phantasm Mesmer (best and most OP dueling spec in game)… I think the cool thing about engis is just how many blast finishers we have. It borders on ridiculous. One build can have 5 or 6 blast finishers I think…. Compare that with well anyone.

To OP: not sure why you’d chose sPvP over tPvP (not knocking it, just don’t understand the draw to something non-competitive other than to test a build). But anyway, when making a build you kind of have to chose a role. You can’t have it all; no profession can (maybe necro right now?). Do you want to be a bunker, dps, cc or sustained dmg? But if you want to just roll around in sPvP by yourself you could always go HGH condi nades and use your mad range as your “deffense”, going in for the kill when they get about half health. There are several builds for rolling around by yourself and I’m sure you’ve gotten some good advice so far. Send me a pm if you have any engi questions that haven’t gotten answered and I’ll try to help!

Sound like to me you having some serious issues with balancing out your builds , you always want to add some form of razzle dazzle in any build you going . Whats the purpose of being a lump on a log if you can’t defend yourself at all…tried that when i was new to this game on warrior and i literally didnt know how to melee but i sat on a point forever and ran in circles swinging wildy..found that i was merely a sitting target and as time progressed i dropped the healing power and rotated in some more dmg. I became less regenerative but in term dished out the hurt to some degree and sent attackers running or even downed a few.

I won 8/9 games today in tpvp running this build and yeah we played a lot of real 5 man teams that were decent.

http://tinyurl.com/kk2jq5k

If you take that build it has a good mix of everything needed to be an effective player. It has perma swiftness for roaming, grenades and bombs for massive aoe in teamfights, and decent survivability though toughness + blocks + knockbacks + kiting/snares.

It even has a rez field for reviving yourself or your teammates, knockbacks and dazes to prevent stuns, and plenty of aoe for cleaves on corpses. I could enter spvp and get max points every game. The options are there if you choose to run them and learn to run them well. Plus there are other variations and builds out there.

go double pistol granade condi build. It’s actually the best build with high dmg and high survi.