Guild Wars 2

Hi,
(Note: this is only about PVE and maybe WvW)
Seems to me that Warriors, Guardians and Mesmers get pretty popular in groups and dungeons. I’m asking you Engineers, what’s current state of group play for you guys.
Do you get kicked out of the group a lot? Or do people welcome Engineers into groups now?

Thanks.

Depends how kittened ppl are and how well they understand our class. Warrior see 40k damage by 100b and think he is king of damage because one BIIIIG number. Engineer can do the same with more skills but in same time. With right build, mightstack and vulnerability (witch you always have in zerk runs) you can unload in one rotation 90k damage in 6-7s. No delay between rotations.

I never had someone complaining while doing Fractals 30-40.
A few times they ask me if im using granades. If not they would kick me.

Community is still very ignorant about engineers. A few days ago some guy asked in wvw TeamSpeak about how to play engineer. Instandly 5 ppl answered: don’t play engineer.

Sadly simpletons define the meta game.

Most top hard core EU WvWvW guilds do not accept medium armor professions. They might sometimes use thieves as scouts, providing blast finishers and doing stealth stomp, placing traps etc. But rangers and engineers are not wanted in WvWvW.

Reroll, run solo or become a commander yourself. ;-)

Deniara Devious.3948:

Most top hard core EU WvWvW guilds do not accept medium armor professions. They might sometimes use thieves as scouts, providing blast finishers and doing stealth stomp, placing traps etc. But rangers and engineers are not wanted in WvWvW.

Reroll, run solo or become a commander yourself. ;-)

Riot runs 5-10man small groups creating havoc and re-capping, they specificly want engineers as they have great group synergy, thieves are also wanted though less since the meta change.

anyone who writes off any profession in GW2 i generally ignore as they normally turn out to be ignorant on how the class they bash work and are just on a bandwagon

Deniara Devious.3948:

Most top hard core EU WvWvW guilds do not accept medium armor professions. They might sometimes use thieves as scouts, providing blast finishers and doing stealth stomp, placing traps etc. But rangers and engineers are not wanted in WvWvW.

Reroll, run solo or become a commander yourself. ;-)

This makes no sence for me. Engineers are made for wvw imo.

[quote=2467814;Forestnator.6298:
This makes no sence for me. Engineers are made for wvw imo.
[/quote]

Engi is great in WvWvW small groups + roaming, but there are far easier choices for that as well e.g. thief, mesmer, ranger or elementalist.

In huge zerg fights engineer is not wanted, because:
1) it offers nothing the other professions couldn’t do better
2) its damage using the same gear is weaker than any other profession unless engineer has might stacks (and pro zergs can have full stacks of might on most of the players, thus engi damage is still weaker)
3) many engineer CC skills have single target e.g. compare with warrior’s hammer
4) retaliation is still a very powerful counter against engineer good damage options

Trust me. I am trying to change the meta to be more engineer friendly and I know 2 other good engineer commanders who play on my server, but it is not easy. Everybody pretty much admits that the melee train zerg base line is: guardians + warriors, elementalists, necros and mesmers. Guess what professions got most buffed in latest update? ;-)

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/july-23-content-release-notes/

Engineer would really need love for WvWvW.

Deniara Devious.3948:

Most top hard core EU WvWvW guilds do not accept medium armor professions. They might sometimes use thieves as scouts, providing blast finishers and doing stealth stomp, placing traps etc. But rangers and engineers are not wanted in WvWvW.

Reroll, run solo or become a commander yourself. ;-)

It’s the same on the American servers. The serious WvWvW guilds want heavy armor and light armor only.

As far as PvE goes, I normally don’t have any problems. When I do have problems, they involve some ignorant child in CoF. My solution is to join CoF groups that say, all are welcome, or just run another dungeon.

Engineers in PvE have one of the highest dps of any class (provided you use Nades). The problem is that Warrs outshine everyone in the dps department and Guards are better at support. Nonetheless it dosn’t matter much unless you’re doing hardcore farming runs.

Engis are great in roaming and small man fights in WvW, however they are bleh in large zerg fights since the meta has devolved into giant hammer train zergs where Engis don’t really have much of a place.

Rozbuska.5263:

Depends how kittened ppl are and how well they understand our class. Warrior see 40k damage by 100b and think he is king of damage because one BIIIIG number. Engineer can do the same with more skills but in same time. With right build, mightstack and vulnerability (witch you always have in zerk runs) you can unload in one rotation 90k damage in 6-7s. No delay between rotations.

I have been kicked from many a group because of engi hate before, and I haven’t done any damage calculations, but what rotation/gear can get you 90k damage?

I’ve got people lefting the party before even starting Aetherblade Retreat cause they thought it wasn’t possible to get the 15 minute achievement with an engineer. Guess it kinda says enough.

And i had already got that, anyway; with a sturdier party…cause the important part in that fight was having sustained dps and not people agonizing on the floor every 10 seconds.

I’d say we’re in a good place right now in PvE.

Elixir Gun + Healing Turret is probably the best condi removal spec in the game, and gives you room to still take a damage kit along with a utility—and your options are pretty good.

You could take the Flamethrower with Napalm, which is tied with Hallowed Ground as the longest duration Fire field with a significantly lower cooldown. You could take the Grenade Kit as one of the few options in the game with 1500 range. You could roll with the Bomb Kit, which has one of the strongest auto-attacks in the game and, unlike the Warrior Axe, is an AoE and not a cleave. It can also be traited to heal your allies.

The problem is, most of these advantages are not obvious at low levels. The Flamethrower doesn’t get good until level 50, because you need Juggernaut and Deadly Mixture. The Grenade Kit doesn’t get good until level 60, because you need Grenadier. The Bomb Kit is good while leveling, but its strength doesn’t become wholly apparent until you have +damage traits like Explosive Powder, Target The Maimed, and Enduring Damage. For all the players complaining about the Engineer’s DPS, I especially recommend trying 20/25/0/0/25 and getting back to me.

Many players dislike Engineers because they don’t understand what we can do. Hell, a lot of Engineers themselves don’t understand what we can do. They don’t properly wield the Grenade Kit and see its massive pressure potential. They don’t properly wield the FT/EG and single-handedly sustain their entire group.

But really, the average player doesn’t know about Toss Elixir U or Toss Elixir R. The average player doesn’t know what Runes of Altruism are, or that we can give 5+ seconds of Fury every 15 to our group by just switching to the Med Kit. They roll an Engineer, play it to level 10, try out a few kits, think they suck, and then go back to their Warrior or Guardian that are only so difficult as long as it takes you to fill up your bar with shouts and signets.

If someone kicks you because of the class you play then they’re misinformed. I’ve beaten every dungeon path in the game with completely random group compositions. I just take the first 4 people in my guild to respond to my invitations. And if I can do that, I don’t see why nobody else could either.

^spoken by a 80 guardian/warrior.

I have i little more faith in the engi class now. nice post.

Deniara Devious.3948:

Everybody pretty much admits that the melee train zerg base line is: guardians + warriors, elementalists, necros and mesmers. Guess what professions got most buffed in latest update? ;-)

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/july-23-content-release-notes/

Engineer would really need love for WvWvW.
[/quote]

Necros got seriously nerfed, but the others are better.

Manuhell.2759:

I’ve got people lefting the party before even starting Aetherblade Retreat cause they thought it wasn’t possible to get the 15 minute achievement with an engineer. Guess it kinda says enough.

And i had already got that, anyway; with a sturdier party…cause the important part in that fight was having sustained dps and not people agonizing on the floor every 10 seconds.

They can wistle in my tube hole with that minds)))

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vm_-juBlSY4
In AR i had no problems at all)) made that achivement 3 times)) not more cause wasn’t focusing on that))

Linc.6834:

Rozbuska.5263:

Depends how kittened ppl are and how well they understand our class. Warrior see 40k damage by 100b and think he is king of damage because one BIIIIG number. Engineer can do the same with more skills but in same time. With right build, mightstack and vulnerability (witch you always have in zerk runs) you can unload in one rotation 90k damage in 6-7s. No delay between rotations.

I have been kicked from many a group because of engi hate before, and I haven’t done any damage calculations, but what rotation/gear can get you 90k damage?

With pretty much standard SD build, full zerg gear with ruby orbs, +100 power crit damage food, right enemy potion, sigil of night (and 25 stacks from sigil of bloodlast), 25 stacks of might 25 stacks of vulnerability and war banners. Combo is: SD toolbelts, blunderbuss, jumpshot, prybar and continue with toolkit autoattack till cooldowns. Thwack hits for around 11k:-)

Manuhell.2759:

I’ve got people lefting the party before even starting Aetherblade Retreat cause they thought it wasn’t possible to get the 15 minute achievement with an engineer. Guess it kinda says enough.

And i had already got that, anyway; with a sturdier party…cause the important part in that fight was having sustained dps and not people agonizing on the floor every 10 seconds.

Seriously I did that dungon about 20 times and always – ALWAYS – got the 15 minute achievment. This is ridiculous, after 10 months most people still have no clue about engineers. So ignorant… grrrrr!

Well engineer’s mechanics are very very situational, like using Mortar to dps cof1 gate from a safe spot, using grenade kit to constantly dps coe3 destroyer boss without having a reduced dps mechanic for jumping down and ramping up like those melee dpsers. And even then my only complaint is tat Engi’s main dps is from the grenades kit which isn’t auto attackable like other weapon skills and i hate breaking my fingers ( i dun need excessive clicking like clicking millions of karma)

I’ve never had any problems with groups with regards to being an engineer. Anytime I’ve had problems was because of my unfamiliarity with a particular dungeon causing wipes. For living story dungeons, I tend to learn them very fast on my own in pugs and start leading my own pugs on achievement runs.

The problem with the engineer class isn’t what it is capable of. In the hands of a skilled player, it is clearly a powerful tool. The problem with the class is that, in the hands of an average player, you don’t get nearly those same kinds of results.

Warriors don’t do significantly more damage than other classes. People like running in a random group with tons of warriors because it’s hard to screw one up. Even just standing there auto attacking with an axe, a warrior will do almost as much damage as a weapon swapping pro.

If you’re going to run a group with a bunch of random people you’ve never met, you don’t filter your choices based on the max output level of the classes; you filter on the people you ‘typically’ get. It is definitely easier to play an engineer ‘badly’ than it is to do so on a guardian or warrior.

My answer is this. PvE is so simple that you can run any class and be OK. Engineers can be excellent in any scenario. Start the dungeon (LFG and instance) yourself if you do not want to get kicked. Knowing the run is more important than the class you play. Do not go bunker for easy content you kitten yourself and waist time. It mind sound a bit elitist but bring some DPS (you do not have to be full zerk) to the table if the run is not challenging.

HGH with nades is likely the simplest engineer build there is and the highest DPS in terms of AOE. It the most useful for easy runs given the vulnerability stacks (increases Party DPS) and the base damage. horror stories with engineers in the party are greatly exaggerated in many cases. The best DPS build for this class is not only simple but “spam” like in its play and has a max range of 1,500 units.

The zerg train that is high tier WvW is boring as kitten and all about stun trains. In Keep defense and taking engineer is still a good class to play. Serious WvW groups have many criteria and if you are into that then by all means conform to their rules. That being said they can not kick you out of a raid (since there are none) or keep you from engaging in any content they are doing. You tag more with nades than just about any other build save necro with marks (and you should still end up ahead). Roaming (solo or otherwise) and small group captures are the greatest skill challenge in WvW atm. Engineers are welcome to do both.

TheGuy.3568:

HGH with nades is likely the simplest engineer build there is and the highest DPS in terms of AOE. It the most useful for easy runs given the vulnerability stacks (increases Party DPS) and the base damage. horror stories with engineers in the party are greatly exaggerated in many cases. The best DPS build for this class is not only simple but “spam” like in its play and has a max range of 1,500 units.

While I agree we should “Bring some DPS,” I disagree entirely that HGH is the “easiest” way to do that. HGH with grenades is the most annoying amount of ground targeting I have ever done, and I spent more time on might maintenance than I did actually killing/dodging mobs.

If you are running grenades in a dungeon, get a pistol/shield set up, run 2 sigils that are appropriate for the instance. For CoF Path 1, I run one sup. sigils of smoldering and night, run the potent Flame legion slaying potion, and your food of choice, I run Choc. Omnom creams, for the boon duration because I run 2 runes of altruism and like to maintain some might.

In full crit gear at level 75 (CoF scaled), I can hit my #1 grenade skill for 1400 per crit, with up to 3 crits per grenade toss. I also run the new scope, so that I can stand back and get about 60% crit chance for almost 2/3 crits per toss.

I also run SD, and my grenade barrage hits like a truck. Dropped from a plane. No HGH necessary, and you get to focus purely on hitting targets instead of maintaining stacks for might.

Deniara Devious.3948:

In huge zerg fights engineer is not wanted, because:
1) it offers nothing the other professions couldn’t do better
2) its damage using the same gear is weaker than any other profession unless engineer has might stacks (and pro zergs can have full stacks of might on most of the players, thus engi damage is still weaker)
3) many engineer CC skills have single target e.g. compare with warrior’s hammer
4) retaliation is still a very powerful counter against engineer good damage options

LOL are you trolling or is that for real?

The is no single class that can offer the same AoE-Spam Engineers can offer realiable (One skill -> 3 AoE circles -> 15 Targets per Hit). AoE-Fields are LIMITED to 5 Targets. Even Ele ’s are worse, as their AoE ’s mostly are way to slow and shiny when casted (=more evades). And dont tell me the thiefs shortbow is usefull as well lol. Way to much spread, even more slow and way lower range.

Also a laught for the lack of AoE-CC:

Big Ol’ Bomb? Mine? The first does a massive amount of damage, the least even removes a boon AND is unblockable …

You know you can only take 3 Utility Skills with you but two of them
could be big kitten AoE-CC ’s to begin a fight with …

imaginary.6241:

LOL are you trolling or is that for real?

I am NOT trolling. WvWvW is my main game. Yesterday evening our guild [TLA] was about to have a gvg against [VII], which is one of the highest ranked guilds in the world. The patches and entire WvWvW shutting down ruined it the gvg. Anycase [VII] would have won, but it was once again an interesting opportunity to observe how the best guilds in the world play and what kind of builds they use.

http://gw2gvg.com/

The 20-man [VII] team seemed to have at least 5 hammer warriors plus about same amount of guardians, 3 staff elementalists, 1 signet ranger + 1-2 thieves whose role was to snipe out enemy ranged players. They have no engineers. I have also been watching how some other top guilds like Golden Horde [GH] or Good Old Days [GD] play. Currently engineer has no place in the WvWvW meta.

If you think spamming grenades or using the big ol’ bomb is the best thing ever, you have probably never fought against the best gvg guilds. But I am not here to judge your skill or knowledge, I will now just point out few important things:

Very good enemy teams have high uptime of retaliation. Spam in a lot of grenades and your health will go down faster their the health. Theoretically one grenade barrage can hit up to 40 different targets (8×5), but let’s put a more realistic number: barrage hit 20 targets on a tightly packed enemy melee train. Each hits you back 350 retaliation damage. That means 20×350 = 7000 retaliation damage on you just from using one skill. And I have seen it happen. Similar problems with flamethrower/bombs etc vs retaliation.

Engineer area CC simply pales down what other professions can bring to table. Just look at warrior hammer:
large area stun (from burst skill, can be used roughly once per 10 seconds)
cleaving / cone weakness and cripple
area pushback
knockdown

That was just one weapon. Warrior can have another weapon besides that and still choose whatever it wants as 3 utility skills + elite.

And if you think supply crate is better than hammer burst earthshaker, because it has longer range (1200). Well, turrets from supply crate get destroyed in a zerg battle in less than a second. Its only use is that 2 second area stun and it has 180 second cooldown (!). For comparison let’s look at one elementalist skill.
Air staff #5, static field
40 s cooldown, unblockable and inflicts several 2 s stuns in a large area for 4 seconds. And it is also a lighting field, which can be with blast finishers give a very long last swiftness for all allies. So ele just takes a staff and gets 20 different skills from it, one is better than supply crate, which takes the elite skill slot.

Many elementalist staff skills can actually hit more than 5 targets e.g. meteor shower and the radius (especially with blasting staff trait) is much greater than the grenades.

And using the bomb kit against one of the elite teams in the world. They are chaining the stun skills, immobilize, knockback. Unless you have stability on, you will not live more than few seconds inside such melee train with an engineer and engineer is infamous of not having much any stability.

Many engineers are proud of their conditions, but they should realize the good enemy teams have incredible amount of condition removal and generally eat -40% condition duration food (lemongrass poultry soup) plus might have 6xMelandru runes and traits for even more condition time mitigation (e.g. warriors can have -98% condition duration). I have been spectating some of the best guilds play. Even stacks of conditions vanish in a second and when conditions get reapplied they vanish again.

I am not saying engineer is total crap in WvWvW. It has its places in very small groups and solo roaming, but unfortunately in controlled good zerg any other profession is better, easier and brings more to table.

I doubt that any of the Arenanet developers is playing guild-vs-guild or WvWvW at highly competitive level. This game is mostly balanced based on tpvp, which is more less about contesting and holding small circles. Engineer is good in such small scale stuff, but really in WvWvW, engineer is currently in the bottom tier. The rarest profession for a reason.

I was today solo roaming as a warrior. After the warrior buffs, warrior is now in very sweet spot for WvWvW. Guardians also got slightly stronger (larger symbols + monk focus). Two most common professions in WvWvW keep getting buffed. Sure sign Arenanet doesn’t understand about WvWvw profession balance.

Instead of just complaining here a cool idea how to make engineer more viable for large scale battles in WvWvW:

Change the mortar elite so that it is a weapon kit. You can move around it, but only the engineer using it can use it (just like other kits).

Imagine running around with the mortar kit (elite). Most of the mortar kit skills are weak e.g. healing from mortar #3 is a bad joke, but launch concussion barrage is powerful area push back.

Giving engineer a mobile siege weapon would suit the profession very well.

Deniara knows exactly what he/she is talking about.

Even down tier, half of my utility is eaten by the stability chaining from guardians, and the perma-stun crap is amazingly prevalent there as well.

I have the amazing privilege of running with other good engineers when playing WvW, and we all basically say the same things about our weaknesses, and Deniara is spot on with how we compare to the top 5 professions.

None of our specs fit those predefined roles that 90% of the wvw teams require. The closest would be our Rabid condition bunker, which is mitigated by the OP food, rune, trait, and skill synergy available to some professions (and is SO much more prevalent due to the Necro buffs). In a 5-man team, one guard and one ele cleanse most of the conditions we lay down anyway, rendering us superfluous without territory control with marks or fear.

Every profession has that one thing that they do, and do well. Except engineers. Again.

So you’re telling me highly coordinated GvG is your usual ZvZ? It ’s not.

You cannot focus on synergies and your acompanies builds as much in ZvZ as they vary greatly and switch really fast from situation to situation. You have many more unpredicted situations there and need a build more realiable on your own skills but then on a whole team that backs you up i. E. abusing certain game mechanics to their purpose like combining 5 Earthshaker Warriors to stunlock, 5 AH-Hammer Guardians to outheal any damage and pull the enemys Zerg in place .

Concerning Eartshaker:

It ’s stun is ONLY at 2 seconds after you have fully build up your adrenaline which requires a build soley to focus on specifiy traits AND another weapon like the axe to build it up really fast to put it out any 10s. Dont forget the weapon swap cooldown is there too, that way you will never ever put out a 2s group-stun every 10 seconds at the most time being ALONE (yes if you have 5-10 people using the same build you can do a stunlock of course but what of it is skill?). And that is taking aside the fact that it has flawed targeting mechanics and you have mastered working around it (have fun with a minion necro counterbuild).

On the other side you have the Mine. 18s cooldown untraited (14.4s traited), unblockable, launch (ok that isn’t perfect and requires readjusting sometimes) and boon removal (i. E. removes protection or aegis) and can be remote controlled (!!!) meaning way better tactically used. Aside from that you do not see it comming that good because it ‘s missing a big red AoE circle. Edit: Oh and it’s a Blast Finisher.

That given it ’s NOT bound to any specific traits, kits OR weapon-skills it ’s ONLY a utility skill. You take a hammer -> you are bound to 5+1 skills. You take a mine -> you are bound to 1+1 skills and still have place for two more weapon kits meaning 6+6+5 skills that can be combined and have greater synergys and combo fields that any hammer warrior can offer (lol not counting the blast finishers they don ’t have). Also warriors have really up to none reliable utility skills they can use to counter you when YOU stunlock / CC or Conditionflood them. 8s Stability on a 40s Cooldown yeh … Medicore Condition removal … yeh. They are forced to run in a group with synergies that protect them – that ’s where they shine.

Also you should do your research – Meteor shower is really useless nowadays (not like it was in the first days). Not only because its limited to a 5 person hit a the same time – no also it ’s meteors need to phyisically hit their target meaning not everyone just standing in the big red circle will get hit. Maybe it ’s ok as an backline support skill but nowhere near Grenades are.

Also static field will not always trigger to anyone just standing inside of it. You need to actually be forced to move outside/inside of it and could just put up immunity (i. E. Elexir S) before getting stunned by it.

Edit 2:

lunyboy.8672:

Deniara knows exactly what he/she is talking about.

Even down tier, half of my utility is eaten by the stability chaining from guardians, and the perma-stun crap is amazingly prevalent there as well.

Every profession has that one thing that they do, and do well. Except engineers. Again.

So you ‘re telling us balance-abusing meta builds in a horde is what you’d like to do as that defines skill and fun of gameplay for you? Well then why dont you just roll the currently overpowered meta-profession of the week / month then?

But don’t come back here whining about why it isn’t at easy as you thought it would be and gets fixed soon after you finally aquired all of the gear for it.

Trust me it will be always like that. In an endless circle until the game-economy falls apart and everyone moves on (ab)using the next game to their purpose.

Bascially why most of you lose is not only because you are either a good or a bad player that doesn’t think about what he ’s doing but believes in every little word he ’s heard or experience he ’s made and holds true to them.

You think theory, plain numbers and predefined metas decided anything forgetting about the whole fact that another human being is sitting behind that godly character which isn’t mathematically perfect. If there ’s a human then there ’s a way beating them – but beware they all more or less tend learn fast that ’s why it continues to be a challange and continues to be fun (if it ’s not move on or do something else).

On the bottomline it ’s fun to see how every single engineer should be able to solo groups of multiple enemys of any kind with any kind of build with any kind of skill and without any reasoning

Especially when there are few ones already doing it thought …

imaginary.6241:

So you’re telling me highly coordinated GvG is your usual ZvZ? It ’s not.

…

Concerning Eartshaker:

It ’s stun is ONLY at 2 seconds after you have fully build up your adrenaline which requires a build soley to focus on specifiy traits AND another weapon like the axe to build it up really fast to put it out any 10s. Dont forget the weapon swap cooldown is there too, that way you will never ever put out a 2s group-stun every 10 seconds at the most time being ALONE…

Medicore Condition removal … yeh.

Those top guilds are not doing just guild vs guild (I would estimate that 5% of time is spent in gvg). Most of the time they are owning enemy teams in the open field and inside keeps. A well-coordinated guild team can win over twice and sometimes even 4 times bigger PuG group. If you have seen guilds like Red Guard [RG] vs Pugs, you know what I am talking about. I have been on the same server with RG and also fighting against them on the opposing server.

I don’t know how you have trouble building adrenaline on a warrior who fights inside a zerg? Most warriors choose cleansing ire, which can remove up to 3 conditions with a burst. But with that trait you also get adrenaline every time an enemy hits you, no matter how tiny the hit (previously there was a trait called embrace the pain, but it is now merged with this trait). If you are inside a hectic zerg fight or surrounded by an enemy mob in pve your adrenaline is going up rapidly all the time. E.g. an enemy engineer spams grenades at you, 3 ’nades hit and you get 3 strikes of adre for free. Now imagine several enemy engis doing the same. You adre is gonna be full in few seconds.

Alternatively you could take furious (but not that many hammer warriors take that GM trait) or use signet of fury, which completely fills adrenaline bar with 24 s traited cooldown. But I would argue that cleansing ire is the best way to go. Berserker’s stance makes you completely immune to conditions and gives you 5 strikes of adre per second for 8 seconds.

My warrior has 5 second cooldown on weapon swap thanks to fast-hands trait. For your information most melee pain train warriors use hammer + sword/warhorn, not axe as they need mobility, plus warhorn helps with conditions (see below).

People tell that warrior has bad condition removal, but I think that is either old news or simply a fallacy. Let me spell it down for you:
- mending removes 3 conditions besides a nice heal, 20 s cooldown
- shake it off removes 1 condition, 25 s cooldown
- every shout (you can take 3 shouts) removes 1 extra condition with 6xsoldier runes
- signet of stamina removes ALL conditions on 36 s traited cooldown
- 6xLyssa runes + signet of rage removes ALL conditions on 48 s traited cooldown
- cleansing ire removes 1-3 conditions based on how much adre you have
- shrug it automatically removes 1 condition per 30 s if you have multiple conditions
- dogged march doesn’t remove conditions, but it reduces movement impeding condis by 33% and gives you regeneration
- warhorn charge cures chilled, crippled and immobilized
- warhorn + quick breathing makes all warhorn skills to convert a condition into a boon

Overall warrior currently has one of the best condition removals in the game.

Instead of spreading hogwash, let me tell a real life story from today. I was solo roaming as a warrior. I use a hybrid warrior build (2 swords + rifle since Autumn 2012), mostly direct damage, but also condition dmg. The isle of storms events had been on for a long time so it had triggered twice the amount of kraits. I went to kill them with my warrior fully alone. I was down to 50% health due fighting against several dozens kraits and most of my skills were on a cooldown. Then an enemy condition necromancer surfaced from the water and immediately attacked my warrior. The necro spammed crazy condition stack on me. He of course also used death shroud and everything he had. Guess which one of us won?

He lost despite putting crazy condition stack on me twice, because warrior can have good condition removal. I would still argue necromancer are bit overpowered at the moment as they offer very easy insta gibbing of most players with conditions (unless you bring a lot of condition removal and skills that quickly remove over 4 conditions at same time).

I am NOT saying that the current melee WvWvW meta is the pinnacle of fighting and skill. I dislike it a lot. Trust me. I have been spending dozens of hours trying to think how to make engineers viable and counter the melee train, but so far I haven’t figured it out.

OK.

I play on Sanctum of Rall. So I too have access to following along with the top-tier WvW guilds in this game. NA. SEA. EU. Whatever.

I agree with others’ assessments that the Engineer is not a top-tier profession in WvW. I generally do WvW on my Guardian. There’s just no better badge vacuum than the Staff, with its 5 target max and wide arc. The class also just mitigates damage way too well; there are many situations I survive just fine in on my Guardian that would have slaughtered my Engineer, even wielding the Flamethrower with Forge runes.

That being said, I don’t really see the need for the doom and gloom insinuating the class is useless. I still easily get my 50+ badges per hour when plowing through zergs. I have perma Swiftness for roaming. Magnet is one of the best troll skills in the Jumping Puzzles. And Engineers do have access to projectile walls (Toss Elixir U), AoE Retaliation (Super Elixir), and mass condition removal (Fumigate) for zergs. We contribute plenty. So while I agree that Guardian (and now Warrior) are much more effective at WvW, it’s not like classes are imbalanced to where the Engineer is useless.

Play whatever class you enjoy. So long as you’re getting your badges and not dying every 10 seconds, does it really matter? Like my post about PvE, people fuss so much about who is the best that they fail to grasp that so long as you effectively play your class, you’re always valuable. To any group.

Deniara Devious.3948:

…
I am NOT saying that the current melee WvWvW meta is the pinnacle of fighting and skill. I dislike it a lot. Trust me. I have been spending dozens of hours trying to think how to make engineers viable and counter the melee train, but so far I haven’t figured it out.

Reworking retaliation would be one step forward to counter melee trains, you need to have smart ranged able to stand off the side and nuke a packed train without killing themselves.

Either making retal only ever a % of the damage it caused (maybe between 5-10% based on power) Or receiving retaliation damage is limited to maximum 5 retaliation hits per 5 seconds or something similar.

Either way ranged need to be able to pressure melee trains without having to stack those ranged to get healing vs retal (making them an easy target for the melee train).

Some aspects of GW2 make me wonder if the A-net devs have actually played other MMO’s, a lot of large scale mechanics problems seem to be flaws of a ‘console game’ design viewpoint.

While this thread has gotten a little off-topic I really enjoy the subject of discussion. I have all but given up on WvW on my engi as of late.

/rant
I have said from the beginning that Retaliation should work similarly to Aegis removing the buff when damage is done, but be able to stack it like might.

I have also been screaming from obscurity at the atrocity that is engineer traits, when compared to other professions traits. Just look at the new “Dogged March” vs our new “Leg Mods”. One whole tier difference AND it adds regen. This shows that engineers have, and continue to be “engineered” to be worse than other professions.
/rantover

Now that being said the way to counter the current Melee Pain Train meta is to figure out how its so effective. I believe boons have are a big part of it, therefore it seems logical that boonstripping should be part of the counter. Which if your looking at patch notes for the past few months seems to be on Anets mind.

Would giving engineers AOE boon punishment be OP?

I did more then 100k kills with my engineer , mainly not zerging but in small groups or solo. So here are my 2 cents:

Engineer has no special strength. He has the best sustain range dps. But that’s a point which is not needed that hard in wvw, expecially because necros marks are unblockable.

But here are the engineers strength in my opinion:

- engineers comes close to have no weak spott if played well. Yes, it is not that easy to play engineer well. But if, then you are able to counter anything while giving the enemie very less weakspotts.

- engineers are perfect for split tactics: Usually commander split zergs into things like. range – melee or glasscannon – tanky/CC. But this is justnot how the meta should go. If u need a good split in zerg fights you could easily say: engineers, split up please, flank xyz. Because if 10-20 engineers group up, they can almost simulate a whole zerg in functionality. They got everything important to act like a zerg excluding mesmer portals. Nothing will reach 100% in efficiency but about 80%. This is a definitly ignored smooth tactic which could finally integrate the enginer in the wvw meta.

Advent Leader.1083:

Would giving engineers AOE boon punishment be OP?

Do you mean, something similar to this warrior trait?
If it was given to us, it would probly be limited to only work with bombs or only be 2% per boon.
We sort of already have boon hate in the form of throw mine .
It is sort of lackluster in the fact that the toolbelt has a 2 second longer cooldown and gives 5 mines that are very similar. Perhaps they could cause extra damage on boon removal.

Engineer is a fine class for dungeons.

The problem is nobody knows how to play them. For some reason there is a myth that we have low damage, even though bombs are one of the strongest autoattacks in the entire game.

More than half the forum still do not know how to use properly use turrets.