Guild Wars 2

ionfone.5803:

Amazing stuff

Nice posts, these are some really good observations and ideas!

Following up on the potent elixirs idea:

Potent Elixirs

Increases elixir duration (20%) and effectivess. (30 seconds recharge)

• Elixir H now grants all three boons.
• Elixir U also grants stability for 2 seconds.
• Elixir S also removes immobilize, chill & cripple.
• Elixir R also grants vigor for 10 seconds.
• Elixir C heals you for 250 for every condition converted.
• Elixir B grants an additional 5 stacks of might.
• Elixir X grants 6 random boons and inflicts 3 random conditions on yourself for a short duration.

Oh and I’d love to see this added to the Elite supplies trait:

• Elixir X now grants rampage if activated above 50% endurance and tornado when below 50%.

But these are all long term plans I guess.

I’ve always thought that the potent elixirs trait should change the functionality of the elixir utility slot skills so that the effect is applied in an AoE to team mates (in addition to the cooldown reduction). So you drink the elixir and then smash the bottle of the ground with some of the elixir still in the bottle.

Though from a thematic perspective I’d be inclined to alter the name to something like “prescription chemist” instead. Maybe I’m reaching too far, I dunno.

Keen.9253:

NevirSayDie.6235:

Keen.9253:

NevirSayDie.6235:

Keen.9253:

but if you take a closer look, there is no engineer a top tier pvp tournament.

Chaith, Steamhawk, Got Might, Google, and Ostricheggs disagree.

I was talking about top tier pvpplayers, not guys doing videos…

Moreover what about builds variety ? As all engineer, thoses guys are just using the 2 or 3 builds available for engi, nothing more.

SD berserker ? check
HGH grenadier ? check
Tank miner ? check

other builds are subpar, but sure moving IP to master tier will change everything, yes…

ho wait, no !

Well, you could have just checked the leaderboards. For example, chaith is currently fifth on the team leaderboards. Got might is first on the solo leaderboards. To my knowledge, no engineers in the top 100 team/solo use HGH regularly. One of those players uses SD. None of them use a tanky build.

I’m not saying the proposed changes are amazing, I just felt I needed to provide some clarification. If you feel the changes are bad, explain why. A blanket statement like “there are no engineers in top-tier tournaments,” even if it were true, is usually unhelpful.

So I cannot be here just ranting ?

Everything about engi have been said for long already.

Engi cannot swap weapons because it was supposed to use kits instead. Unfortunately it seems Anet have considered this as an good excuse to design his weapons as a subpar of any other prof weapons, with the lowest dmg and efficiency. It will be nice if kits were OK, but no, only nade and bombs are decent, and TK as utilitaries, and only at the cost of a strong build spec.

You just end with a little bunch of decent builds, greatly relying on gear and runes, etc…

No other prof have to rely as many as engi on gear and runes to buile a decent spec.

Because of this, the traits choices is vital, and moving random traits just put more mess in this. Choosing a traits when you are a warrior, or anything else, is like saying :

“will I pick a little more dmg here, or adding an effect here ? "

Engi choosing traits are more like : " Should I cut my rigth arm or my legs ? "

We need more reliable kits, more reliable weapons, with a decent base dmg or utilities pool to pick in, not a bunch of situational skills who force us to build our role on gear and runes only.

Ho, and fix bug too.

your statement about a warrior making a build is so true (Choosing a traits when you are a warrior, or anything else, is like saying : "will I pick a little more dmg here, or adding an effect here ? ") i had a warrior buddy in ts and he actually had choices for his builds… he was asking me on my opinion for what to choose and they were all great. It came down to his preference on what to choose. we don’t have that preference. What anet is doing is nerfing our only options. Do they think that since everything is bad it opens up build diversity? Our vigor allows us to actually do dps it’s our only form of survive ability when specced to do dmg. Engineers don’t have the handicaps like the other classes when it comes to getting caught in combos/cc/staying on point. We have to dodge to avoid that.

Update:

So they are now increasing the range of blunderbuss from 400 to 500 and 700 when traited.

Personal Thoughts: It doesn’t really do anything for the weapon. The damage at max range is still pretty small and the condition damage is even worse. It is quite frankly a bad skill unless used in the close range. The rifle will still be a subpar weapon. Reason being is it doesn’t seem like it knows what it wants to do, lacks defensive mobility, and is a very offensive weapon. It would be an AMAZING weapon if we had weapon switching, but…well…you know. The only thing that is decent on it is the immobilize shot, but sadly this is not only glitchy but also easily replaced by the pistol #5 or kits. We’ve got a self knockback that knocks back target. The jumpshot is alright, but its cast/travel time makes it undersiable.

This weapon would be great if it had a good set of skills suited for physical damage combat. Sadly if engineers trait for physical damage combat, we are very very squishy and go down very very fast. So most of the time it isn’t worth it, especially when most kits are condi damage and so much better.

hackks.3687:

I understand the move of IP to Master tier, but as it has been pointed out the Master tier in Explosives has a glut of the better traits in the line. So with that being said, how about giving us something at the adept level that shares synergy with IP as well as some new utility or damage sources?

Right, I think this pretty much hits the nail on the head.

The other problem is that grenades are pretty much mandatory for certain roles, and grenadier is absolutely mandatory for grenades. So we can’t possibly take two master traits, because there is absolutely no way to go without the grandmaster trait (without changing roles from, say, teamfight dps to bunker).

That’s a pretty huge change. Not sure how to solve the issue—messing with grenades would be very risky kitten much is built around them. I’m not sure if anything should be changed, it’s just a reason that the master traits are more exclusive than normal.

The Lost Witch.7601:

ionfone.5803:

Amazing stuff

Nice posts, these are some really good observations and ideas!

Following up on the potent elixirs idea:

Potent Elixirs

Increases elixir duration (20%) and effectivess. (30 seconds recharge)

• Elixir H now grants all three boons.
• Elixir U also grants stability for 2 seconds.
• Elixir S also removes immobilize, chill & cripple.
• Elixir R also grants vigor for 10 seconds.
• Elixir C heals you for 250 for every condition converted.
• Elixir B grants an additional 5 stacks of might.
• Elixir X grants 6 random boons and inflicts 3 random conditions on yourself for a short duration.

Oh and I’d love to see this added to the Elite supplies trait:

• Elixir X now grants rampage if activated above 50% endurance and tornado when below 50%.

But these are all long term plans I guess.

Thanks for your comments on my wall of text, I really appreciate it! It’s nice to know someone read it. If you feel it deserves it, be sure to +1 my suggestions so devs have a better chance of reviewing it.

Yeah, most of these are going to take longer than just the December 10th update, but I’ve seen dev cycles capable of modifying some of the smaller suggestions within a single month (Dev, QA, refinement and deployment).

Balancing the engineer is difficult because of the class design. The fact that an engineer can have as few as 1 weapon set, and potentially as many as 4 makes balancing the class a very tricky balancing act.

It seems like the design intent for the kits and weapons was to make them pretty mediocre out of the box, but allow you to spec them into something decent. What this has led to is traits like Grenadier or Juggernaut, which are nearly mandatory to make the kits function at any kind of reasonable level.

I think the overall tilt needs to be to make the traits somewhat more broadly applicable, but allow them to be more build defining than they are today.

A few examples of this just starting with the explosives line:

Grenadier – This trait is ridiculously overpowered that the kit is virtually never used without it. It is essentially “Do 50% more damage and have 25% more range” which would be completely absurd if it was on a weapon specific trait for any other class. A less grenade specific iteration would be something like “Explosives Master – Grenades and bombs cast, fly, and detonate 20% faster.” This would allow you to ramp up the damage on the stock grenade kit to make it a viable utility skill without 30 points in the tree, and allow bomb and grenade damage and quality of life to increase when fully invested.

Shrapnel – This is an extremely powerful trait for grenade engineers for long sustained damage fights, or massive AoE fighting at range. It is largely awful for bombs and mines, and useless for everything else. If this trait was tweaked to be “I want to do condition damage” by balancing the proc chance for bombs vs. grenades, it would be a good pickup for either kit in a condition build.

Forceful Explosives – Increased bomb radius used to be nearly mandatory to make bombs work. With the increased radius in the last patch, this is more of a nice to have, but it makes a very huge difference against moving targets. Again, this is totally useless for anything other than bombs today. If this trait also provided the increased range on the grenades, you wouldn’t have so much of the grenade kit’s power tied up in a single trait, and you’d also force grenadiers to choose between increased range, utility (cooldown reduction), or damage.

Explosive Power – This is currently really strong for the Bomb Auto Attack, and Shrapnel Grenade. It is pretty weak for the rest of both kits due to the way the damage is spread out across them. Grenade Auto is incredibly weak (presumably because the aforementioned “Do 50% more damage” trait), which makes it a lackluster choice for grenades. I don’t think the trait itself is all that bad, but the skills that can take advantage of it, are limited. This could easily be made into “I want to do direct damage with explosive kits” as a general trait, but the power of the grenade kit would probably need to be spread out across the abilities more evenly.

The other problem with balancing the class is that in order to compete with kits, utility skills need to be pretty strong. What ends up happening is that you’ve got several strong traits for elixirs for example, that make elixirs so good that you’re pretty much going to pick up 3-4 elixirs in your skill choices.

You’ll see the same basic effect on engineers weapons as well. They have a reasonable level of utility packed into them, but they are pretty weak choices for damage dealing. The pistol doesn’t do enough direct damage for the Modified Ammunition to carry it, and it doesn’t have enough condition damage to be competitive without 15-20 stacks of might propping it up.

Other people have brought up the incredibly large required investment for using a flamethrower effectively already in this thread, so I won’t go over it again, but it is pretty similar in nature. The same goes for turrets, which have also been discussed.

The comment earlier in the thread about Incendiary Powder being a build neutral trait is pretty much why it was taken in tons of builds. Most of the traits are so specific, or so niche oriented that they only work for a few setups. The few traits that were universally beneficial to builds were taken in almost all of them. (Incendiary Powder, Precise Sights/Infused Precision, Invigorating Speed, Speedy Kits)

I can elaborate more on the general ideas that would probably help to clarify, but It’ll have to wait for tomorrow.

TLDR: Weapons, Kits, and Utility skills are generally speaking too weak out of the box to be really useful, and the trait investment required for them is too specific to allow any real build diversity.

Thanatos.2431:

JonPeters.5630:

Yes, as we start running out of easy changes we can start addressing those that are more difficult . . .
Jon

How about fixing Ascended and Legendary weapons so they impact kit damage? This would be a pretty big impact. You have added some nice power creep to all over professions and left Engi’s behind.

I´m still getting angry thinking about that, the biggest addition to the game within the whole current year and they exclude almost a whole class from it without giving even a short statement how to solve that. Moreover when we already in 2012(!!!) said here in the forums that it would be a problem.

What´s so hard in giving +5% base damage to kits whenever ascended weapons are equipped? The engine already takes the additional weapon-stats in account, can´t be so hard to code something like that.

About Empowering Adrenaline:

I like the concept, acting when your character is in danger, after a dodge.
But after a dodge the character cannot be in real danger because you can dodge also to cancel a skill, dodge to place a bomb, panic random dodge (but it’s the adrenaline player!!!).

I think that a threshold on health better suits the concept, anyway I think the % damage is low and the mechanism of the threshold is getting boring, every class has one, and the engi has a lot of them. It needs to find something new and interesting.

Now, besides the elixir build, the engi doesn’t have a reliable condition remover and necros matchup is badly handled by engis. Why don’t work on this? Conditions are everywhere and are real danger for everyone, everytime.

The Empowering Adrenaline increases % damage for each condition on you, only if having 2 or more conditions.

Pros:

• It can help the trade-off of power builds vs condition bursters;
• cleanse conditions spamming is more controlled by skilled players;
• new stuff, like it was the boon hater skill for warrior;

Cons:

• it doesn’t work with threshold health, but the real danger for engis are conditions, so the main concept remains;
• can be not a neutral trait, because more power build based, but it was also the flat % damage before.

About Exploit Weakness:

This adept trait can be compared with Sitting duck from the Firearms tree.
Sitting duck got a nice rework giving two conditions, but mainly rifle stuff.
Explosives are supposed to help any weapon set and any kit, then Exploit Weakness seems to be a cc trait, if Sitting duck, adept trait, got two conditions maybe also Exploit Weakness can.

Exploit Weakness: double threshold, at 50% and 25%, shared internal cd, conditions mutual exclusive:
#at 50%: cripple;
#at 25%: immobilyze.

• it’s in the context, if you’re weak, I cc you better:
• for both power and condition build;
• it avoids to the burst build both the conditions;
• durable fights are better rewarded.

To my mid the best way to improve some of our traits is to give them a Party-wide effect. Examples :

• Explosive Powder : Improves damage from explosions (10%) and give 3sec of partywide fury on crit (Cooldown 10sec)
• Enhance Performance : Gain 3stacks of 15sec might on Heal (Cooldown 10sec) one of these migth stacks will be partywide.
• Power Shoes : Movement speed +25% grant partywide 3sec protection on Heal (Cooldownd 15sec)
• Elite Supplies : Supply Crate has extra supplies; Elixir X lasts longer; and Mortar skills have increased range, reduced recharge, and bonus damage. All Boons will be granted for 5sec to the party on Elite use.
• Deadly Mixture : grant 3 stacks of 10sec might on crit (cooldown 10sec) with a flamethrower or elixir gun you . 1 stack of might will be granted to the party.
• Potent Elixirs : Increases elixir durations (20%). Every elixir grant a 5sec aegis to the party.
• Packaged Stimulants : Med Kit skills are more effective and benefits all elixir traits.
• Power Wrench : The Throw Wrench and Smack skills cripple foes, grant 2sec Retaliation on allies and heal turrets twice as fast. Reduces recharge on tool kit skills.
• Leg Mods : Cripple, chill, and immobilize durations are reduced (33%). Foes in the area are Chilled for 0.5 sec every time one of these alterations affects you.

Additionnally I would love to see a Boon-oriented Kit refinement with a Kit specific cooldown. Example for Kit refinement :

• Med Kit : grant 3sec party regeneration cooldown 30sec
• Grenade Kit : grant 1stack of 10sec party might cooldown 20sec
• Bomb Kit : grand 4sec Aegis to party cooldown 20sec
• Tool Kit : grant 3sec protection to party coodown 20sec
• Elixir Gun : clean one condition to party cooldown 50sec
• Flamethrower : You and your allies inflict 1sec burning on the next attack cooldown 40sec

How are they still so clueless. It’s clear that the devs can’t play Engineer properly and are still shafting it for their ‘esportz’ balance.

As others have mentioned these are nerfs disguised as ‘tweaks’ or whatever. All Engineers have is their utility, which is ineffective in PvE and ‘jack of all’ in PvP. These changes don’t add anything significant, inventions is still a trash line and there are still worthless traits. Really, exploit weakness and empowering adrenaline are awful
Nerfing survivability and one of the core damage traits is a really, really bad idea. Bombs and Grenades are the only kits worth using for any prolonged period, FT and EG are switch ins at best.

It seems like Engi is the new ranger.

About Packaged Stimulents:

Med Kit is a selfish kit, when you drop, you drop for you and I see Packaged Stimulents like a try to make this kit more supportive for the team.

The main problem is the targetable feature, it slows the casting, so less reactive, the throw is slow, it helps only one teammate, it doesn’t bring anything different from the untraited medkit.

Engi is the jack of trades, if so, let me compare with another class: mesmer.
I see medkit like our mantra version: 3 charges of Power Return, 1 charge of Power Cleanse, 1 free charge.

Mantra of Resolve cleanses 2 conditions per charge, so mesmer can remove 4 conditions (6 if traited), but it works aoe, cleaning 20 conditions until 30.
Mantra of Recovery can also cleanse 2 conditions (with the 10th Dec patch), single target, if traited with Mender’s Purity, adept trait of Inspiration.
Mesmer is an heavy condition remover with 8(12) cleanse on himself and 16(24) on teammates .

Try to make Packaged Stimulents a real help for team, making the engi an aoe healer instead of a conditioner cleanser like the mesmer:

1. bring back Drop Antidote to cure 2 conditions, Power Cleanse docet;
2. get rid of the targetable feature, is hard to use also with fast casting;
3. make aoe effects for every medkit’s drop (Drop Bandages, Drop Antidote, Drop Stimulant) if traited.

Packaged Stimulents is a master trait and giving aoe effects to every drops can bring a lot more options to support the team instead of the classic healing turret.
Yes, you don’t have any water field, but the healing from bandages is good, also without improving the effectiveness, then medkit suits well with altruism runes.

I think that the aoe effects can really open a build in this direction.

Wow. Just wow.

“Oh most engineers take this trait. This limits build variety. Let’s make it harder to get”

How do you arrive at this instead of :

“Oh most engineers take this trait. Maybe the other traits are just really bad compared to it – we should balance things”

This is hopeless.

For the 10-15 posters “claiming” that “most” engineers always use this trait, I would love to see a link to the facts your using to make your statements. Because I do not beleive you guys making this claim know what your talking about, but that is just me.

So many builds easily have 100% burning uptime that no one I know bothers with this trait. Of coarse that in itself seems to be a reasoning not to move it. I think it is a good trait for P/S builds that do not use other forms of burning. But most builds I know use either bombs, FT, rocket boots, blow torch, or any combination of two of these to keep burning up all the time.

Here are answers from JonPeters on main thread about balance :

ENGINEER
Increased the range of Blunderbuss from 400 to 500. (700 when traited)
Power Shoes is going to function outside of combat.

I really hope that this is not just all you have kept from our 250 posts of whining.

That cannot be true, that cannot even exist.

A lot of good ideas from the community being thrown around here.

But, as to the propsed changes by ANet, I am baffled. I really fail to see how this promotes diversity amongst the builds of the engineer. If anything, it appears to me to promote the couple popular meta builds even further.

Instead of focusing on making those builds weaker (and thus making other builds look enticing), try encouraging build diversity by making the other builds more enticing directly.

How about a GM trait that takes a gadget off cooldown when you use another gadget (15 second internal cooldown.)

This means that every gadget is essentially two gadgets and i think it would promote gadget builds. Use battering ram rocket boots comes off cooldown, 15 seconds later use throw mine ram comes off cooldown and so on and so on.

Actually, that Power Shoes change is huge. 25% Movement Speed bonus all the time will be a huge change to how I construct my build in WvW. Instead of running 30/0/10/20/10 I’ll be able to go a full 20 into Inventions, increasing my survivability even further.

Won’t help much on the PvE side of things, though I’ve already burned the gold buying 7 Runes of the Traveler in anticipation for this nerf regardless.

As for Blunderbuss: meh. I don’t really use the Rifle anymore outside of Jumping Puzzles. Magnetic Inversion is just too good of a Blast finisher, and Leap finishers are selfish heals when used in Water fields. Overcharged Shot is a nice snare remover, but I already run Rocket Boots.

I’m sure if you even sat down and calculated the damage of Blunderbuss versus staying in the Bomb Kit and auto-attacking, it’d either cancel out or go in favor of bombs.

Phineas Poe.3018:

Won’t help much on the PvE side of things, though I’ve already burned the gold buying 7 Runes of the Traveler in anticipation for this nerf regardless.

Okay, this lost me. I just got to ask. What was said, mentioned, or released, that gave you even the slightest inclination that there would be even the slightest nerf to swiftness or movement speed to engineers in any way, shape, or form??

Personally the only change I am concerned about is the IP change. Since these proposed changes were posted I have been trying out p/p builds that do not use IP, which I am sure most of you know, causes our damage to drop a ton. Mostly because of the incredibly short bleed duration on Pistol #1. Eventually I ended up going back to IP with 20-30 points in the Explosives line just because IP is too important to my P/P damage.
I could certainly live with this trait gaining an ICD but moving it to Master Tier is just going to pigeon hole me into a higher investment on the explosives line and probably end up using grenades, which I seriously dislike.
If Pistol #1 had a longer bleed duration, like 4 seconds, I could certainly see the reasoning behind this trait being moved to the master tier. Like many have stated before though, the adept tier has no worthy options to take outside of IP for a P/P build. Basically meaning we would have to take a non-beneficial trait just to get to IP.

Just my 2-copper

Phineas Poe.3018:

Actually, that Power Shoes change is huge. 25% Movement Speed bonus all the time will be a huge change to how I construct my build in WvW. Instead of running 30/0/10/20/10 I’ll be able to go a full 20 into Inventions, increasing my survivability even further.

Won’t help much on the PvE side of things, though I’ve already burned the gold buying 7 Runes of the Traveler in anticipation for this nerf regardless.

As for Blunderbuss: meh. I don’t really use the Rifle anymore outside of Jumping Puzzles. Magnetic Inversion is just too good of a Blast finisher, and Leap finishers are selfish heals when used in Water fields. Overcharged Shot is a nice snare remover, but I already run Rocket Boots.

I’m sure if you even sat down and calculated the damage of Blunderbuss versus staying in the Bomb Kit and auto-attacking, it’d either cancel out or go in favor of bombs.

You are still losing a trait for Infused Precision though, no? Probably replacing Stabilized Armor/Cloaking Device/Whatever.

The only way I would even consider Power Shoes is if the Infused Precision trait was changed to a vigor proc, otherwise I’m spending 10 points on a useless trait that just so happens to work with Invigorating Speed.

Besides, Speedy Kits is still strictly better than Power Shoes, no? I mean unless the player has an aversion to kit swapping mid battle

arnt you suppose to kit swap anyway for the the situation. like use 1 kits for helping heal remove conditions(elixer) then when you need to do damage to use a damage based kit or your main weapon??

JonPeters.5630:

Ok I had some time to talk through some of the engineer discussion. Overall Engineer is in a difficult place because they have a ton of good adept traits, not a lot of good master traits, and again a good # of grandmasters so you end up spreading points fairly diversly to get all the good adept traits but lose out on a lot of power by failing to get as many grandmaster traits. Here is what I see a lot of talk about:

Incendiary Powder
Moving this was just something that was a long time coming. It was simply forcing almost every engineer into 10 points in Explosives which was really hurting build diversity. We have tried to counter this by improving other triats that might now be reachable by dropping those 10 points. For example Modified Ammunition, Elixir Infuxed Bombs, and Armor Mods. Now all three of these lines, some more than others, have a strong reason to invest 30 points to match the strong grandmasters already in the other lines.Grenadier, Autodefense Bomb Dispenser, HGH, and Automated Response.

People aren’t using IP to the exclusion of other traits because the other traits aren’t good enough. The uses for the GM traits are very specific, and even though they may be appropriately balanced, they tend to force you to go all in on a specific thing.

It is very hard to make a good build using Elixir Infused bombs and grenadier because both of those traits push you to sit in one kit to the exclusion of everything else.

HGH is similar in that it probably isn’t worth the investment unless you have multiple elixirs, which prevents you from taking advantage of a ton of other skills and traits.

The change to Modified Ammunition is a big help, but I suspect that it is really only going to make grenade builds even more dominant thanks to the plethora of conditions you can produce with p/p nades (blind, bleeding, poison, chill, confusion, cripple, immobilize, vulnerability, burning, and the poison field provides access to weakness as well).

Alright Jon, I’ve been playing engineer since launch, done some dirty things like have the highest hp/s in the game with double super elixirs (back when it was swapped between healing per second and impact heal), and experimented with a ton of builds since then. I feel that I can have some healthy input on all this, given the prime opportunity you’ve presented. I’ll try to keep it compact (I didn’t do the best job at this), as I’m sure you’re busy:

The issue with kits: They’re better than our “real” weapons generally. Pistol tries to be an AoE weapon, but it’s pre-launch functionality of stacking bleeds on multiple enemies for each one impacted when traited for piercing was redacted. Rifle tries to be a burst/control weapon, but it doesn’t have overly solid sustained DPS on its own. The problem this creates is that our “real” weapons are treated as supplementary to kits – grenade and bomb, primarily. Almost every successful build I’ve ran runs one or the other, due to their high damage, crowd control (freeze grenade and smoke bomb are great for everything), and access to either a huge explosion or huge burst (BoB and barrage, respectively). Why am I talking about this? Because other kits pale in comparison, and it creates a very low build diversity. They have their uses, don’t get me wrong – elixir gun has 3 good skills (4, 5, toolbelt), but given that’s only half of its kitten nal, and one of those good skills isn’t the auto attack, it’s often relegated to “I make da heals and break da stuns”. Flamethrower’s 2 is amazing, the change you made to it made me use it in my DPS build for quite some time. All the FT’s other skills are somewhat lackluster, bar a very long burn – bomb kit makes better fire fields more copiously, and the 3’s niche reflect sees rare usage in PvE, and knockback occasionally in sPvP. Lastly, we have Toolkit – probably the most used kit that isn’t bomb/grenade. My only gripe about this is the first two skills – the auto attack, it’s /incredibly/ bad. The third hit has a huge windup for not much bonus damage, it can only hit one target (just like prybar, this needs to be fixed). Box of Nails honestly just needs a much larger radius and a lower cast time, it shouldn’t be making someone crippled and bleeding forever like Caltrops, but if I’m taking 1 second to make a petite cripple field, I’d rather just have it be on a longer cooldown and use a better kit (bomb).

As I was saying, kits outshine our mainhand generally, and this forces most users to use one or two kits, already narrowing their utility options! I’ve never found a successful all-elixirs or all-gadgets build, mostly because your damage output is so subpar from the main weapon that it’s difficult to pull off. I suggest making the traits for pistol / rifle more appealing, such as coated bullets makes the bleed apply to each foe struck, for each foe struck. This was nerfed from pre-launch to actual launch, and I have to ask why? If you see an engineer banging away at you with his pistol at a good range, and you’re clumped up, I feel that he should be rewarded for his timing – given how coated bullets only affects 2 skills (technically it affects the 3, but it requires the random targeting to hit something on the way to another target), it would really open up some crowd control build options. With Rifle, you’ve presented a mixed bag – you want it to be a shotgun-esque weapon based on the 3 and 5, but the 1 is very poor sustain. 2 and 4 are amazing control, and honestly I don’t think they need to be tweaked much – the 4 is a long knockback with justified drawback on a low cooldown, it nets me plenty of kills due to how it can easily be followed up with a net shot or grenade barrage. My suggestion for rifle users is to make the 1 do more damage the closer you are to your target, in exchange making it slightly weaker at longer ranges. It would reinforce the shotgun mentality, and also give engineers a reason to stick closer with rifle – but not too close! I’m thinking 600 range would be the max ‘effective’ distance when traited, possibly 500 without a range-increasing trait.

(Continued in next post)

(Continued from last post)

Traits: I have a lot to say about this as well, but this post is already long-winded. Incendiary Ammo was already nerfed once, and I do agree with others that nerfing it again is the wrong decision – instead, the other traits need to be made more appealing. Offensive traits like 5% more damage without full endurance and crippling weaker enemies aren’t overly appealing. I would suggest turning Empowering Adrenaline into a trait that gives stacks of might or fury on dodge, or even better, more might (we’re talking 5-7 stacks that last 20 seconds) on a successful evade. It would reward clever timing, but you’d have to limit it at a 1s internal cooldown to avoid jumping to 25 stacks under something like whirlwind attack. For Exploit Weakness, to coincide with the ‘Make mainhand weapons better’ schema from earlier, perhaps recharge your normal weapons’ cooldowns upon making an enemy hit 25% health, kitten cooldown? I’m really just trying to push for other things being viable than facerolling with grenades / bombs, waiting for an enemy to mess up, then blowing your burst on them and hoping it downed them, as that is how most PvP encounters go when you’re not bunkering.

A few last notes: To bring gadgets and whatnot up to snuff, you need to start merging some traits. You know how warrior has traits such as Greatsword CDR + Might on crit, and Necromancer has Warhorn durations + CDR? I feel that all cooldown traits should be similar to this (albeit not as strong of a buff as Warhorn, given that only affects 2 skills, so going from a 2s daze to 3s is a huge increase, but.. that’s not the point of this topic). Make Rifle/Pistol/Harpoon CDR be merged with range increase! Not only does this ease up specialization, but it gives you more design room for new trait ideas. Make Gadget CDR merge with either a new effect altogether, or static discharge – they’re in the same tier, and it’d give you design room, but I don’t feel those two are similar in all honesty. We have a trait like this for Toolkit already (albeit it’s a bit weird, CDR + cripple, but it isn’t bad – possibly give toolkit more damage as well?), and I’d like to see more interesting trait ideas brought up after several mergers. Explosion CDR + Damage (or, alternately, grenade CDR + damage, and bomb range + CDR, if you feel the two best damage kits being buffed by one trait would be too far… although you still need grenadier, but anyway). And change up the bad skills I mentioned on kits, if Fumigate cleansed yourself, it’d be far better – Flamethrower should do, say, X% more damage per tick for each previous successful hit in the attack chain to reward sticking on a target, and Elixir Gun’s auto.. well honestly I’m fine with it in a condition build, as it’s better than pistol, but I’m done rambling!

If you read this, I sincerely appreciate your time, and hopefully a few of these suggestions will at least impact the direction engineer takes in the future. I look forward to seeing more build options become genuinely viable!

I agree with almost every thing Kamahl said.

You did lose me when you were implying there is no successful all elixir builds. Because there are some very successful all elixir builds, particularly in WvW. As far as all gadget builds, I completely agree. They can work in sPvP, but are not what I consider successful.

As for your coments about MH pistol and particularly in relation to traits such as coated bullets. Well I have been down right angry about that change since launch. If they found away to open up its benefit to more pistol skills and have it worked like it did in beta, it could go back to being a solid grandmaster trait

Fair point Jon. Nerfs and Buffs equal out to make balance. On a base level that makes sense.

Might I ask you to pay particularly close attention to Kamahl’s post above. particularly his points about pistol main hand and the coated bullets trait, as well as his comment on the EG skill fumigate.

JonPeters.5630:

Keelin.5781:

Wow. Just wow.

“Oh most engineers take this trait. This limits build variety. Let’s make it harder to get”

How do you arrive at this instead of :

“Oh most engineers take this trait. Maybe the other traits are just really bad compared to it – we should balance things”

This is hopeless.

If all we do is take the worst traits and buff them, then every patch everything gets stronger and eventually the game is broken. The word balance literally means reaching an equilibrium which is in between two end points. This means that in order to reach it things must assuredly go up and down.

I would say this is not what you are accomplishing

I mean its clear that you guys are doing this “zero-sum” sort of balancing, but what you doing here doesn’t make sense.

If you buff a trait to compete with an already awesome trait, the player has to pick between the 2 traits and the strength of the overall engineer should be around equal assuming you can make those traits about even. It’s not like if you buff the trait they also add the power of that new trait; no they have to pick, its either or.

IP is probably the best trait in the adept tier. The other traits in adept are pretty insignificant. The master tier in explosives has strong traits.

Moving IP to master tier means I must pick inferior traits. I don’t see any sort of compensation to balance this change. This is not “zero-sum”, clearly this is negative; a nerf.

JonPeters.5630:

Keelin.5781:

Wow. Just wow.

“Oh most engineers take this trait. This limits build variety. Let’s make it harder to get”

How do you arrive at this instead of :

“Oh most engineers take this trait. Maybe the other traits are just really bad compared to it – we should balance things”

This is hopeless.

If all we do is take the worst traits and buff them, then every patch everything gets stronger and eventually the game is broken. The word balance literally means reaching an equilibrium which is in between two end points. This means that in order to reach it things must assuredly go up and down.

A valid point. Class balance should, however, be taken first on interclass level. Balancing each class internally (and separately) should always be secondary to that.

coglin.1867:

Okay, this lost me. I just got to ask. What was said, mentioned, or released, that gave you even the slightest inclination that there would be even the slightest nerf to swiftness or movement speed to engineers in any way, shape, or form??

Slow your roll. I never suggested anything about Swiftness accessibility being nerfed. But with the proposed change to Modified Ammunition, 30 Firearms gives you little room to sink points elsewhere. Especially if you’re running the Bomb Kit and taking 25+ points into Explosives.

What results is Bomb Kit users going either 25/30/0/15/0 (to take the new Transmute) or 30/30/0/10/0. I value Vigor a lot more than out of combat Swiftness, so Runes of the Traveler will be my way of getting around quickly in the open world. I’ve already tossed 6 of them onto my Celestial gear (which I usually run with doing open world content) and the 7th on my rebreather for when I’m underwater.

My Flamethrower build will probably go a similar route, something along the lines of 20/30/0/20/0. I don’t yet know how I’ll fit Infused Precision in with Fireforged Trigger, Juggernaut, and Modified Ammo, but the fact of the matter is that Speedy Kits is just not all that useful anymore outside of WvW if this change goes live (and I think it will). Such a statement might sound negative, but I do like the idea of taking my Engineer down lines I otherwise wouldn’t. It encourages diversity, and breathes new life into the game. Fact of the matter is that Speedy Kits + Invigorating Speed is a crutch we’ve relied on, similar to Kit Refinement. They’re taking the crutches away and people are upset. I get that.

But I think you all need to stop pigeonholing trait changes and look at things on the whole. 20/30/0/20/0 might be the most powerful FT build we’ve ever had the chance of using—and we still have Incendiary Powder. If you can see the forest for the trees, you’ll see that on the whole we’re getting some pretty significant boosts that speak clearly to the health of the class in the foreseeable future.

Or maybe it’s just me.

mmm i think that gadgets can’t give only mobility, we need that gadgets have some extra benefits…. taking into account that elixir will be something like “mending condition and upgrade itself” gadgets can be something like powerful attacks, defensive bonus (like giving protection for a certain time after using that). or something like giving quickness or recharging faster abilities after using a gadget, or removing condition etc.

And about HGH… i think that it must be reworked making it more powerful, something like “when under the effect of elixir, delivering a critical hit give one stack of might”

About turrets: difficult area here, what are the objective of turrets and why an engineer want to use them? at the moment they are a sort of extra damge… so incresa damage and recharge of it so that can works like phantasm or minion…
not damage? need to change all things

pheroth.5306:

You are still losing a trait for Infused Precision though, no? Probably replacing Stabilized Armor/Cloaking Device/Whatever.

I don’t take Infused Precision or Invigorating Speed in WvW. That’s purely a PvE thing for me in dungeons.

I think you’re significantly more survivable taking Protective Shield and Protection Injection, especially since there’s so much AoE Vigor out there in WvW. What kills me most when roaming/zerging is getting knocked down and crushed, not running out of Endurance.

In PvE, knockdowns are a lot more uncommon though (and Warhorn Warriors), which is why Vigor is so much more crucial.

JonPeters.5630:

Keelin.5781:

Wow. Just wow.

“Oh most engineers take this trait. This limits build variety. Let’s make it harder to get”

How do you arrive at this instead of :

“Oh most engineers take this trait. Maybe the other traits are just really bad compared to it – we should balance things”

This is hopeless.

If all we do is take the worst traits and buff them, then every patch everything gets stronger and eventually the game is broken. The word balance literally means reaching an equilibrium which is in between two end points. This means that in order to reach it things must assuredly go up and down.

Jon Peters, you’re a good man for weathering through questions like this.

Phineas Poe.3018:

I think you all need to stop pigeonholing trait changes and look at things on the whole. 20/30/0/20/0 might be the most powerful FT build we’ve ever had the chance of using—and we still have Incendiary Powder.

The problem with IP though, is that when you use it to supplement damage, it becomes near useless anytime others using abilities that burn. Of coarse that is an issue with conditions and not the trait by design, but it can oviously negate the benfits of the trait just the same.

Phineas Poe.3018:

Slow your roll. I never suggested anything about Swiftness accessibility being nerfed.

Don’t get mad at me. You mention power shoes, 25% speed boost, the specifically state

I’ve already burned the gold buying 7 Runes of the Traveler in anticipation for this nerf regardless.

How else is that supposed to be taken?

pheroth.5306:

JonPeters.5630:

Keelin.5781:

Wow. Just wow.

“Oh most engineers take this trait. This limits build variety. Let’s make it harder to get”

How do you arrive at this instead of :

“Oh most engineers take this trait. Maybe the other traits are just really bad compared to it – we should balance things”

This is hopeless.

If all we do is take the worst traits and buff them, then every patch everything gets stronger and eventually the game is broken. The word balance literally means reaching an equilibrium which is in between two end points. This means that in order to reach it things must assuredly go up and down.

I would say this is not what you are accomplishing

I mean its clear that you guys are doing this “zero-sum” sort of balancing, but what you doing here doesn’t make sense.

If you buff a trait to compete with an already awesome trait, the player has to pick between the 2 traits and the strength of the overall engineer should be around equal assuming you can make those traits about even. It’s not like if you buff the trait they also add the power of that new trait; no they have to pick, its either or.

IP is probably the best trait in the adept tier. The other traits in adept are pretty insignificant. The master tier in explosives has strong traits.

Moving IP to master tier means I must pick inferior traits. This is not “zero-sum”, clearly this is negative; a nerf.

Agreed 100% you are taking the best adept trait in the explosives line where there aren’t any other great traits and moving it up to master tier where there are great traits, and justifying it by moving down accelerant packed turrets which is useless as turrets are basically in a really bad place right now. And as ostricheggs has already said you are only hurting fringe builds by doing this such as hybrid users who have limited access to burning. Bomb builds will just grab forceful explosives and IP in the master trait and lose nothing for it, further making people want to run it. So please do tell how this helps build diversity which was your reasoning for moving it in the first place?

coglin.1867:

Phineas Poe.3018:

I think you all need to stop pigeonholing trait changes and look at things on the whole. 20/30/0/20/0 might be the most powerful FT build we’ve ever had the chance of using—and we still have Incendiary Powder.

The problem with IP though, is that when you use it to supplement damage, it becomes near useless anytime others using abilities that burn. Of coarse that is an issue with conditions and not the trait by design, but it can oviously negate the benfits of the trait just the same.

Well you take it because you don’t have other abilities that burn. Flamethrower Engineers have a lot of options in front of them, but very few of them are ideal for PvE.

Blowtorch is a fantastic skill in sPvP. I generally prefer running dual pistols over the shield in the Mists. But in PvE, Blast finishers are too useful.

Rocket Kick is another good, lengthy burn. Rocket Boots are a great skill in and of itself (themselves?) but it’s not sustainable. Even with Incendiary Ammo and Rocket Kick, you need a ton of points in Tools to make Rocket Kick viable. That’s why I rewrote my guide to the FT/EG combo utilizing 25 points in Tools. Without that, Rocket Kick is not nearly as attractive.

Look at Incendiary Powder though. You may say that it moving up the tree is a nerf, but I think a lot of FT users are failing to understand that “making” you take another 10 points into Explosives gives you 100 additional Power and 10% additional Condition Duration. There’s absolutely nothing stopping you from taking it either. Juggernaut is a Master tier trait. Deadly Mixture is a Master tier trait. You have the points to take it, so who exactly is hurting from this?

• Grenade Kit Engis seem pretty much obsessed with Shrapnel at this point. I’ve already had that discussion with them, and I was laughed out of the thread when I tried to argue that IP is superior. Now it gets “nerfed” and everyone complains? Makes no sense to me. Where were these people back then?

• Bomb Kit Engis take Forceful Explosives. Even after the buff, it’s still the ideal trait to take. You still have room for IP as your Master trait, and then you choose (the nerve!) between Short Fuse and Explosive Powder. But the funny thing is that this choice is almost always obvious.

• Here’s why: As a bomber you don’t even need Short Fuse in PvE because taking the time to drop anything other than your auto-attack or Fire Bomb is actually a DPS loss outside of stacking Vulnerability. And you don’t really need Explosive Powder in sPvP/WvW because Engis don’t even take the Bomb Kit for Power builds. They take it for Fire/Smoke/Concussion Bomb.

So if FT users have room to take it, and if GK/BK Engis have the wiggle room of 30 Explosives to take it, then what is everyone crying about? You don’t need Speedy Kits to get permanent Vigor, and you don’t even need it any more (a la Power Shoes) to get around quickly on the map.

JonPeters.5630:

If all we do is take the worst traits and buff them, then every patch everything gets stronger and eventually the game is broken. The word balance literally means reaching an equilibrium which is in between two end points. This means that in order to reach it things must assuredly go up and down.

Fair enough, and I think you see a common theme among most of the thoughtful posters in this thread: We understand IP needs to be nerfed, but the reason why IP is so ubiquitous in almost every build is the extremely poor scaling/damage of the autoattack traits on almost all of our weapons and kits (save bombs and grenades). Indeed bomb and grenade builds are one of the few builds that can entirely forego IP, which is ironic because that trait rests in the explosive line!

We get that IP has become a balance problem and may need to be moved, but if the stated purpose is to “increase build diversity” that is not what this move will accomplish in the absence of properly scaling the autoattack skills previously mentioned. Now, we also understand that re-doing autoattack skills is a huge balance change that may require testing beyond what your resources allow for this patch, so instead of instituting a change that will globally kill a lot of builds why not just put us on notice for a bit and do it in a release that addresses those issues?

zaragoz.6351:

Agreed 100% you are taking the best adept trait in the explosives line where there aren’t any other great traits and moving it up to master tier where there are great traits,

Really? Shapnel isn’t a great trait for the explosive line?

Forceful explosives that increases bomb range isn’t great?

I mean we have at least 2 great traits there that IP competes with.

Now to be fair, when you take out Accelerant-Packed Turrets and toss IP in, it will certainly be competing with 3 other good traits. But to state we have no other good traits in the adept tier in that line now is just inaccurate.

Phineas Poe.3018:

Well you take it because you don’t have other abilities that burn.

Hey, no need to explain. I completely understand where your coming from. It is as I said, more if an issue indicative of the overall problem with conditions stacking/duration issue and not the trait itself. That was the point I was getting at. Which in all fairness, was a bit off the topic

Phineas Poe.3018:

So if FT users have room to take it, and if GK/BK Engis have the wiggle room of 30 Explosives to take it, then what is everyone crying about? You don’t need Speedy Kits to get permanent Vigor, and you don’t even need it any more (a la Power Shoes) to get around quickly on the map.

And perhaps the craziest part about all of this is that with 20 points in Explosives, Firearms, and Alchemy, you still have room to take Modified Ammunition that can give up to a 24% damage increase to your Flamethrower (or Elixir Gun). There are 12 conditions out there. +2% each. It’s about to get cray-cray.

And you still have room for Infused Precision and Invigorating Speed, still giving you permanent Vigor.

So I ask again: what is the issue here? We are about to get a gigantic boost in damage, which is the one thing the Flamethrower has always needed.

Yes I just quoted myself.

JonPeters.5630:

For condition engineers we have left Shrapnel intact here as the alternative. For power engineers we have left Empowering Adrenaline intact here as the alternative. No need to argue that these traits are worse than IP, we know that, this is why IP was moved. The real question is why are these not Adept tier worthy, which we think they are…

Shrapnel is only useful for grenade and bomb engineers and those in the know with those builds are going to take shrapnel over IP as it stands now, other condition builds are out in the cold. If you were to expand the definition of explosive to pistol auto-attack and FT 1 then maybe we would be cooking with gas! Empowering adrenaline is such a minor boost especially in light of the recent vigor nerf that I’m not sure it is anything other than a last resort talent, it certainly doesn’t compare to Shrapnel for explosive users.

Edit: I just wanted you to know that I am really excited that you are responding in this thread Jon, and I think all of us are thrilled you are engaging in this dialogue and everyone is doing there best to contribute positively and be respectful!

Ostricheggs.3742:

Voramoz.6790:

Stop trying to fight the vigor NERF. It’s happening. 100% swiftness is a lot already 100% vigor is in need of a NERF.

Yes it is. But it’s in need of a nerf across the board and not just targeted at engineers who are one of the least in need of such a nerf and its a nerf that hits home pretty hard given the fact that our survivability has taken a hit every single patch outside of the last one.

There are a large number of good examples to give for classes that have viable builds with far more dodges than engis can get.

AGAIN, invigorating speed is TOO STRONG. But you’re ignoring the blatant offenders (rangers, acrobatics thieves, energy sigils)

The vigor changes should be across the boards. And yet guardians and mesmers still have those 5point traits for permavigor. 10 sec ICD for the 5 point traits??

Aren’t they making tweaks all the professions endurance regeneration traits?

I know they were for certain to the ranger one, making it 25% endurance regeneration instead of 25%

JonPeters.5630:

zaragoz.6351:

pheroth.5306:

JonPeters.5630:

Keelin.5781:

Wow. Just wow.

“Oh most engineers take this trait. This limits build variety. Let’s make it harder to get”

How do you arrive at this instead of :

“Oh most engineers take this trait. Maybe the other traits are just really bad compared to it – we should balance things”

This is hopeless.

If all we do is take the worst traits and buff them, then every patch everything gets stronger and eventually the game is broken. The word balance literally means reaching an equilibrium which is in between two end points. This means that in order to reach it things must assuredly go up and down.

I would say this is not what you are accomplishing

I mean its clear that you guys are doing this “zero-sum” sort of balancing, but what you doing here doesn’t make sense.

If you buff a trait to compete with an already awesome trait, the player has to pick between the 2 traits and the strength of the overall engineer should be around equal assuming you can make those traits about even. It’s not like if you buff the trait they also add the power of that new trait; no they have to pick, its either or.

IP is probably the best trait in the adept tier. The other traits in adept are pretty insignificant. The master tier in explosives has strong traits.

Moving IP to master tier means I must pick inferior traits. This is not “zero-sum”, clearly this is negative; a nerf.

Agreed 100% you are taking the best adept trait in the explosives line where there aren’t any other great traits and moving it up to master tier where there are great traits, and justifying it by moving down accelerant packed turrets which is useless as turrets are basically in a really bad place right now. And as ostricheggs has already said you are only hurting fringe builds by doing this such as hybrid users who have limited access to burning. Bomb builds will just grab forceful explosives and IP in the master trait and lose nothing for it, further making people want to run it. So please do tell how this helps build diversity which was your reasoning for moving it in the first place?

For condition engineers we have left Shrapnel intact here as the alternative. For power engineers we have left Empowering Adrenaline intact here as the alternative. No need to argue that these traits are worse than IP, we know that, this is why IP was moved. The real question is why are these not Adept tier worthy, which we think they are…

Well kitten I guess you got me there >:/
Although shrapnel is much better than empowering adrenaline as it stands due to the need to actually lose endurance to receive a very minor damage boost.

However I would also like to say are you not ultimately creating the same problem in the master tier that you currently have in the adept tier. As it currently stands I also don’t think any of the master traits beats out IP…. I don’t have the math on it, but at least from what I’ve seen it would be the trait of choice I chose at least for WvW and Spvp so aren’t you guys just doing the same thing on a different level?

JonPeters.5630:

zaragoz.6351:

pheroth.5306:

JonPeters.5630:

Keelin.5781:

Wow. Just wow.

“Oh most engineers take this trait. This limits build variety. Let’s make it harder to get”

How do you arrive at this instead of :

“Oh most engineers take this trait. Maybe the other traits are just really bad compared to it – we should balance things”

This is hopeless.

If all we do is take the worst traits and buff them, then every patch everything gets stronger and eventually the game is broken. The word balance literally means reaching an equilibrium which is in between two end points. This means that in order to reach it things must assuredly go up and down.

I would say this is not what you are accomplishing

I mean its clear that you guys are doing this “zero-sum” sort of balancing, but what you doing here doesn’t make sense.

If you buff a trait to compete with an already awesome trait, the player has to pick between the 2 traits and the strength of the overall engineer should be around equal assuming you can make those traits about even. It’s not like if you buff the trait they also add the power of that new trait; no they have to pick, its either or.

IP is probably the best trait in the adept tier. The other traits in adept are pretty insignificant. The master tier in explosives has strong traits.

Moving IP to master tier means I must pick inferior traits. This is not “zero-sum”, clearly this is negative; a nerf.

Agreed 100% you are taking the best adept trait in the explosives line where there aren’t any other great traits and moving it up to master tier where there are great traits, and justifying it by moving down accelerant packed turrets which is useless as turrets are basically in a really bad place right now. And as ostricheggs has already said you are only hurting fringe builds by doing this such as hybrid users who have limited access to burning. Bomb builds will just grab forceful explosives and IP in the master trait and lose nothing for it, further making people want to run it. So please do tell how this helps build diversity which was your reasoning for moving it in the first place?

For condition engineers we have left Shrapnel intact here as the alternative. For power engineers we have left Empowering Adrenaline intact here as the alternative. No need to argue that these traits are worse than IP, we know that, this is why IP was moved. The real question is why are these not Adept tier worthy, which we think they are…

Ok well about those adept tier traits… I would say that when I pick my traits they change aspects of my character in impactful ways (especially ones that you can clearly see when you play). For example if I get Speedy Kits, I’m always running a lot faster, if I get Protection Injection I can clearly see I’m not being demolished by that Stun Warrior, Invigorating Speed, I regen my endurance twice as fast. These are adept traits.

Empowering Adrenaline – 5% damage, its arguable if thats a significant damage increase. You probably wouldn’t feel the impact in battle, in fact some may not even notice this at all. Now add to the fact that my endurance needs to be not full. So if I using this trait I’m basically saying: “Let’s dodge so I can increase my damage by an amount that I’ll barely even notice”

Exploit Weakness – You could say this has a more impactful effect compared to the previous trait but honestly I find this useless because you can usually use other engineer skills most of the time to accomplish that same thing.

Hey Jon, I was wondering – do you guys at Anet feel that giving things such as turrets, ranger pets and similar things 85% to dodge AoE makes them too overpowered? That is what “that other game” does and currently turrets are absolutely 100% useless in WvW and PvE, due to the fact they just can’t stay up. What are your thoughts on that?

JonPeters.5630:

zaragoz.6351:

pheroth.5306:

JonPeters.5630:

Keelin.5781:

Wow. Just wow.

“Oh most engineers take this trait. This limits build variety. Let’s make it harder to get”

How do you arrive at this instead of :

“Oh most engineers take this trait. Maybe the other traits are just really bad compared to it – we should balance things”

This is hopeless.

If all we do is take the worst traits and buff them, then every patch everything gets stronger and eventually the game is broken. The word balance literally means reaching an equilibrium which is in between two end points. This means that in order to reach it things must assuredly go up and down.

I would say this is not what you are accomplishing

I mean its clear that you guys are doing this “zero-sum” sort of balancing, but what you doing here doesn’t make sense.

If you buff a trait to compete with an already awesome trait, the player has to pick between the 2 traits and the strength of the overall engineer should be around equal assuming you can make those traits about even. It’s not like if you buff the trait they also add the power of that new trait; no they have to pick, its either or.

IP is probably the best trait in the adept tier. The other traits in adept are pretty insignificant. The master tier in explosives has strong traits.

Moving IP to master tier means I must pick inferior traits. This is not “zero-sum”, clearly this is negative; a nerf.

Agreed 100% you are taking the best adept trait in the explosives line where there aren’t any other great traits and moving it up to master tier where there are great traits, and justifying it by moving down accelerant packed turrets which is useless as turrets are basically in a really bad place right now. And as ostricheggs has already said you are only hurting fringe builds by doing this such as hybrid users who have limited access to burning. Bomb builds will just grab forceful explosives and IP in the master trait and lose nothing for it, further making people want to run it. So please do tell how this helps build diversity which was your reasoning for moving it in the first place?

For condition engineers we have left Shrapnel intact here as the alternative. For power engineers we have left Empowering Adrenaline intact here as the alternative. No need to argue that these traits are worse than IP, we know that, this is why IP was moved. The real question is why are these not Adept tier worthy, which we think they are…

- Shrapnel is not an alternative, this trait have the only purpose to add dmg for grenade and bombs kits. Then you are removing a condition for FT, EG, TK kits builds, and eventually end to contradict yourself by reducing viability of already subpar builds.

- Empowering Adrenalide is not a decent trait, because power engineer have no other decent choice to play with grenades and bomb kits, since they have the higher dmg ratio. Then, this traits stay still subpar to Shrapnel or Forcefull explosive, which end up to provide higher dps with thoses same kits, even without any condition dmg bonus.

This answers your question. There no alternative in adept tier traits because you have no alternative to choose kits when you want a decent dmg dealer.

If you wants to create another alternative, you will have to make weapons and other kits viable. Thus will provide other builds, then other requierment influings on traits choices.
This is not the case actually, so to reach your goal of balance, the faster way is to improve thoses weapons and kits.

Have you already considered this, and why have you not retained this option ?

PS : improving blunderbuss is not a rifle improvment, since blunderbuss himself is subpar in dmg and usefullness, it will stay the same regardless his range. Its the whole base dmg of pistol and rifle you should improve, strating with their first auto-attack ability.

JonPeters.5630:

For condition engineers we have left Shrapnel intact here as the alternative. For power engineers we have left Empowering Adrenaline intact here as the alternative. No need to argue that these traits are worse than IP, we know that, this is why IP was moved. The real question is why are these not Adept tier worthy, which we think they are…

Shrapnel works only with explosives, though; and it is rather more useful with grenades, rather than bombs, imho.
Empowering Adrenaline suffers from the requirement, imho. It sounds like you’re supposed to waste adrenaline on purpose to maintain that buff. Other classes have similar traits as a grandmaster minor, so it isn’t like they’ve a choice about that. But if i have to choose, i would rather get something less “strict” as far as requirements go (like IP).
I would rather see it better if it was like thieves’ power of inertia (might on dodge, basically). So that the bonus persists for a bit even after the dodge, thus you’re not “punished” for not having to dodge for a while.
Could be called “self-winding might generator”, or something like that (it refers to self-winding watches, that are recharged with the motion of the arm of the owner).