Guild Wars 2

I love that the A-net devs do these podcasts etc, I know they will get a lot of flack, but I was a little sad that no1 on the dev team seemed interested or wanted to have to talk at all about engineer, more like “oh god let me repeat the class description again until this topic goes away”.

It sounded like no1 there has ever played an engineer or knows anything about them really. Using a lot of stock phrases from previous A-net class aims without having any clue which (if any) of it actually applies to engineers other than in theory.

“Engineers are a mid-range class” No they aren’t.

“Engineers can control range” No they can’t. Having only 1 non-functional gap closer is one of the worst range controllers of all the classes. having immobilise skills that basically miss over 240range? etc etc

“Engineers have some strong options at range too” (if you are as stationary as some of the NPC guards)

I hope the turret changes go well, I hope the targeting of boon stackers doesn’t hit engineer too hard. I am concerned that 100nades and elixir R and a few other things will get massively knee-jerk over-nerfed as usual.

The questions from the players could have opened up some better engineer talk but they didn’t get taken anywhere with the responses.

“Engineers are a mid-range class” No they aren’t.

Yes they are. In a sense that we stay close to ranged enemies and a bit far from melee ones, effectively dishing damage in both ranges from almost all our weapons.
Most other professions have to dictate their own distance to win and we can choose the one which is good for situation.

having immobilise skills that basically miss over 240range? etc etc

Man. Rifle 4, Pistol 5, grenade 4, bomb 5, magnet 5, net turret are all very reliable CONTROL, no other class can bring this amount of control with him.

Engineers [don’t] have some strong options at range too

This one i can agree with you.

what bromi said.

bromi.7809:

“Engineers are a mid-range class” No they aren’t.

Yes they are. In a sense that we stay close to ranged enemies and a bit far from melee ones, effectively dishing damage in both ranges from almost all our weapons.
Most other professions have to dictate their own distance to win and we can choose the one which is good for situation.

having immobilise skills that basically miss over 240range? etc etc

Man. Rifle 4, Pistol 5, grenade 4, bomb 5, magnet 5, net turret are all very reliable CONTROL, no other class can bring this amount of control with him.
.

Wait, nor can we…you just named two weapons (we cant hold two weapons), and 4 utilitys (we cant have 4 utilitys). Your responce about us being able to bring more control is confusing. Gaurdian hammer has 3 controls in one weapon and can get a control on every one of their utilitys too…..not really making a good arguement here.

Gaurdian hammer has 3 controls in one weapon and can get a control on every one of their utilitys too

Worse cooldowns and cast times, imho, and that guardian won’t dish damage to add on that control cake. In 5+ size parties, though, your argument is valid.

timidobserver.7925:

AsmallChicken.9634:

So I went over some of the interview, and I picked up that they wanted to add some things that give some hard counters to boon stacking builds. Now as this was mainly aimed towards elementalists, I’m sure our elixer drinking engineers will also feel its effects.

Yes, you know how thieves kill you in 5 seconds? If you have boons it will be 2 seconds.

Actually, the specific counter they mentioned was to create at least a couple of NPCs (not player character abilities, NPCs, presumably dungeon bosses or event bosses) that have preferential hate towards the player character with the most boons on them.

The subject of boon stacking came up in one other regard: their explanation for why thief spike damage is so high is that they were specifically worried that, since they were striking from stealth, they wouldn’t be able to use a boon stripping ability first, so they needed to be able to hit through any plausible combination of boons. They admitted that this made them too powerful against other builds, and said that they can’t do anything about that unless they decide to nerf boons across the board, which they said they’re considering, but only very cautiously if at all. That part really would hit elixir engineers, but no harder than it would hit several other classes.

They didn’t say what their fix would be to the dual problem of condition stacking limits kicking in and ubiquitous condition removal, but they did say that the damage of condition-stacking abilities was balanced around a lot less condition removal than the game currently sees. My impression is that, since they’ve admitted they can’t increase the number of DoT stacks allowed, that pretty much paints them into the corner of having to really increase the damage numbers from all condition stacks. That’d be a huge buff for quite a few engineer builds, not least of which my beloved elixir gun.

they wouldn’t be able to use a boon stripping ability first

As if there exist so many boon striping abilities.

My impression with the “boon hate” was that it dealt with traits, not NPCs. On the topic of boon stripping though, I think the Engineer deserves some of it sprinkled in places other then the Mine.

On the side, Pistol 5 I don’t necessarily agree is good control. It’s like a ranged 1s AoE Immobilize in most cases, and that’s it. I think Glue in general is extremely weak. It’s useful because with Duel Pistols it’s the only control in the weapon set, but I disagree with it’s overall quality compared to other forms of Control out there. On the whole though, I agree that outside of Glue our Control options are fantastic. We tend to always have it, where other classes have to pick up a certain weapon set.

They’ve been promising “Engineers Changes” for 6 months, since Beta. Most of the changes have been nerfs.

Don’t get excited or hold your breath. Until you read the patch notes they are just blowing smoke.

“Mid-range” is an interesting phrase. For example, engineers have a lot of great options for keeping melee builds off our backs, so we basically beat them with range. However, we don’t have the gap closers to get our burst to land if we’re being kited, so we also get beaten with range.

Engineers do have access to quite a bit of control, just not with our best builds. The standard HGH nades build has two area slows, grenade 4 being especially amazing. 100nades has a pull, an immobilize, a knockback, and a chill. I think a lot of the people who designed the profession skills probably didn’t get to know exactly how they would all be combined together, which is why there are some redundant ones and some that just cannot possibly fit into any workable build.

Conditions buff could be interesting. If they increase damage ticks I will have to stop holding out and just switch to condi burst already, it will be too good. In my opinion, they could increase duration on some bleeds/burns for some professions and call it good. Also necros need either burning or confusion somewhere.

“Mid-range” doesn’t exist and especially not in WvW. Hybrid-range is the more adequate term.

As always, I will take a wait and see approach. Just based on the comments, without having yet watched the video, I’m leaning towards the idea that Anet doesn’t play engineer the way players play engineer. 24k damage?! Srsly? What rare individual does that? Clearly I’m doing something wrong…

24k = naked warrior with frenzy.
Thats balance for you.

But seriously, Kit Refinement is just….akward, I can understand removing GB and replacing it with something like “Creates a poison, freeze, and shrapnel grenade” but Idk, its a silly trait for 10pts, whereas most grandmaster traits are terrible. Traits need redone badly.

The problem with midrange is that every class has skills built in to get away from midrange or has terrible midrange themselves(many scepter skills need buffed and go midrange) therefore there are no midrange battles, unless everything goes perfectly for you. If they want midrange make the shotgun(rifle) a shotgun.

SOTG and prepatch blogs are like reading the devs speculate about their own game.

InfamousBrad.5879:

timidobserver.7925:

AsmallChicken.9634:

So I went over some of the interview, and I picked up that they wanted to add some things that give some hard counters to boon stacking builds. Now as this was mainly aimed towards elementalists, I’m sure our elixer drinking engineers will also feel its effects.

Yes, you know how thieves kill you in 5 seconds? If you have boons it will be 2 seconds.

Actually, the specific counter they mentioned was to create at least a couple of NPCs (not player character abilities, NPCs, presumably dungeon bosses or event bosses) that have preferential hate towards the player character with the most boons on them.

The subject of boon stacking came up in one other regard: their explanation for why thief spike damage is so high is that they were specifically worried that, since they were striking from stealth, they wouldn’t be able to use a boon stripping ability first, so they needed to be able to hit through any plausible combination of boons. They admitted that this made them too powerful against other builds, and said that they can’t do anything about that unless they decide to nerf boons across the board, which they said they’re considering, but only very cautiously if at all. That part really would hit elixir engineers, but no harder than it would hit several other classes.

They didn’t say what their fix would be to the dual problem of condition stacking limits kicking in and ubiquitous condition removal, but they did say that the damage of condition-stacking abilities was balanced around a lot less condition removal than the game currently sees. My impression is that, since they’ve admitted they can’t increase the number of DoT stacks allowed, that pretty much paints them into the corner of having to really increase the damage numbers from all condition stacks. That’d be a huge buff for quite a few engineer builds, not least of which my beloved elixir gun.

If you go to 34:15 in the pod cast they specifically state they want to add things that will counter boon stacking through traits or somesuch.

Xae.7204:

They’ve been promising “Engineers Changes” for 6 months, since Beta. Most of the changes have been nerfs.

Don’t get excited or hold your breath. Until you read the patch notes they are just blowing smoke.

I share this sentiment. The opening post on this thread made me think we’ll get good things this next patch, then my mind changed when I saw the stream.

These were my impressions on the stream:
~The devs didn’t seem to wan’t to talk about the engineer
~The devs didn’t want to discuss the viability of any engineer builds
~The devs didn’t discuss anything regarding the weaknesses of the engineer profession
~The devs felt that they needed to take time to defend their changes to the profession (nerfs)
~The devs want engineers to be about turrets but they wont just go ahead and buff them, they wan’t to dance around the issue for a few more patches
~The devs made it clear that they will eliminate the 100nades build

bromi.7809:

“Engineers are a mid-range class” No they aren’t.

Yes they are. In a sense that we stay close to ranged enemies and a bit far from melee ones, effectively dishing damage in both ranges from almost all our weapons.
Most other professions have to dictate their own distance to win and we can choose the one which is good for situation.

having immobilise skills that basically miss over 240range? etc etc

Man. Rifle 4, Pistol 5, grenade 4, bomb 5, magnet 5, net turret are all very reliable CONTROL, no other class can bring this amount of control with him.

Engineers [don’t] have some strong options at range too

This one i can agree with you.

All the range options you list suffer from being really bad at range. Pressing a direction key (not even dodge) negates them very frequently. In other words, in order to make your range options work, you have to already have your target within a narrow range.

Hang time on rifle 4, net shots firing at where people have moved from, grenades 4 stoping to watch an inflight movie before finally landing and so on make these skills much less effective in practise than they are supposed to be on paper.

Mid ranged isn’t a real thing, is it 200, 450, 600, 900? Mid range is an apology for not so good for melee, yet not so good for range either. There’s only 2 situations, lets both close or who can control range to advantage better. There is no lets synchronise dance at mid range in PvP. It’s closing to melee, or best kiting.

Who’s falling behind the WvW pack (everyone has perma swift) it’s engineer, with no working gap openers/closers.

Why is it that the devs feel the need to nerf and do away with 100nades, but not all of the other classes that can just as quickly/easily kill people in as many button presses? What exactly made 100nades any more powerful than the other classes doing the same things?

Sure, it could potentially hit more than 1 person. But there’s no way to keep more than 1 standing still with 100nades, so that’s not exactly a reason.

With the Thieves doing 2-shot backstabs it was a “l2p”. But no, not with Engineer. That’s broken and OP. I don’t get it.

The most ridiculous keyboard gymnastics gap closer…ever…. Bind “about face” to a key, switch to elixir gun, about face and drop acid bomb (#4), fly to your target and about face again. I call it “The Flying Tank”.

Engineer: the keyboard gymnast profession.

I like Hybrid range as a more accurate term. That feels more appropriate than mid-range. By definition, mid-range combat can only take place if your opponent stays at mid-range, too. Since the devs didn’t describe any other professions as mid-range, well…They’ll either kite you into long range or close on you, so exactly right, mid-range doesn’t exist.

And I’m not surprised that the devs don’t want to discuss the engineer. The more they do, the more opportunity they have to say something they’ll later wish they could take back. Their best bet is to say they’re planning on vague buffs.

24k seems a bit high, but I suppose if you had an on-crit sigil, static discharge, and a lot of might you could get almost that high okittenero-toughness target. Assuming the RNG is in your favor and the nades don’t spread too far, that is.

JohnDied.3476:

Xae.7204:

They’ve been promising “Engineers Changes” for 6 months, since Beta. Most of the changes have been nerfs.

Don’t get excited or hold your breath. Until you read the patch notes they are just blowing smoke.

I share this sentiment. The opening post on this thread made me think we’ll get good things this next patch, then my mind changed when I saw the stream.

These were my impressions on the stream:
~The devs didn’t seem to wan’t to talk about the engineer
~The devs didn’t want to discuss the viability of any engineer builds
~The devs didn’t discuss anything regarding the weaknesses of the engineer profession
~The devs felt that they needed to take time to defend their changes to the profession (nerfs)
~The devs want engineers to be about turrets but they wont just go ahead and buff them, they wan’t to dance around the issue for a few more patches
~The devs made it clear that they will eliminate the 100nades build

Uhm, read other profession forums, everyone is upset about how much they talked about engineer/ele/mesmer vs other professions. They talked quite a bit about it compartively the host just kept moving things along cause they were running out of time.

Also, they just said they’re buffing turrets what stream were you watching?? They even gave examples on thumper and rifle turret.

They also said the reason they’re buffing things (including turrets, and last patch flame thrower and elixer gun) is because they’re opening up build options that previously/currently are too weak…..so they did address engineer weaknesses.

Honestly this couldnt be more of an angry troll post if you tried….go watch it again on youtube. The only thing your right on is the 100 nade build going away, but it sounds like kit refinement will be shifted to more utility instead of damage, this could be good or bad.

AlietteFaye.7316:

Why is it that the devs feel the need to nerf and do away with 100nades, but not all of the other classes that can just as quickly/easily kill people in as many button presses? What exactly made 100nades any more powerful than the other classes doing the same things?

Sure, it could potentially hit more than 1 person. But there’s no way to keep more than 1 standing still with 100nades, so that’s not exactly a reason.

With the Thieves doing 2-shot backstabs it was a “l2p”. But no, not with Engineer. That’s broken and OP. I don’t get it.

Because they have a vision for the engineer, and 100 nades is far from it.

Yeah glad to see all the optimism.
Its unfortunate to see what the Devs thought process is, they clearly do not know or care about the actually flaws of the Engineer and are more interested in the most popular QQ about a single aspect of the profession.

Really? Barrage+Barrage is TOO powerfull? A burst that requires you to be ontop of the target and FULL GC to pull of the numbers they spit out. 24k give me a break. A Thief can do that with a macro key, then stealth speed stomp you and wait to do it again. Its AoE sure but to its own detriment, that just means if there are other mobs/pets/enemies around that your damage will be diluted between all of them.

I don’t want to complain too much since this is a sub free game and I already feel like I have got my moneys worth out of it. Nerfing KR will do nothing more than kitten ppl off for a week or 2 then they will find another backasswards way to combine our mess of skills and traits into some new combo for ppl to complain about instead of figure out how to counter.

Devs I don’t think you are giving equal and just attention to all aspects of your game, you spend much more time and effort on the key classes that every MMO has and fail to fully refine the class you decided to rush in at the last minute.You mention for a 10 point Trait KR is too powerful but neglect the fact that you would need 30 points in explosion to get such high damage with barragex2. You seem to be more worried about addressing the weekly QQs than you are about finally bringing all your games professions up to release ready.

I recall when we saw the way Kit Refinement nerfed the way it was currently, there appeared to be an overwhelming majority who would rather just see the Grenade Kit variant of it nerfed. If them nerfing Kit Refinement opens the door to better direct damage PvP builds I’m all for it.

It’s important to remember everyone that nothing necessarily will make it this patch. Even if they talked about it. Changes will come slowly, like they always have. I just personally am very optimistic about what they said for the Engineer. It sounded like they have the right idea to me.

They created the problem when they smoked too much pot than decided to make the Kit Refinement Trait.

The Good
Toolkit – Box o Nails – Perfect. What a perfectly balance KR effect.
The Bad
Bomb Kit – A single bomb – So a rehash of the dodge trait.
Med Kit – Small Explosion – ??? Is this a placeholder?
The Ugly
Grenade Kit – Barrage – Really!? the KR effect is the kits most powerful skill?
Elixir Gun – Super Elixir – Once gain Really!?

They screwed the pooch and the Engineer that owns the pooch when they came up with this lopsided trait in the first place. Everyone had to expect it to get the ax at some point. The reason they didnt was because they also thought that certain other professions that have an even easier “1click burst” would also get the ax, and when they didnt, it was safe to assume that Engineers were safe.

Why would you eliminate 1 professions burst combo without eliminating other professions that can do the same thing? They mention that it is because of the 10 point Trait, but really Engineer Traits are much more important than other professions because we have only one weapon.

The only thing that irritates me is ‘a 10 point trait shouldn’t be that defining’.

But grandmaster traits like retaliation for 5 seconds out of 25 should be? What about static discharge, given that it can change how players view toolbelt skills? I thought it was just part of the engineer style of things.

Personally I wouldn’t be surprised if they not only nerf the KR effect for Grenade and EG, but also keep the 10s global cooldown.

I hope to be proven wrong though…

Kamahl.3621:

The only thing that irritates me is ‘a 10 point trait shouldn’t be that defining’.

But grandmaster traits like retaliation for 5 seconds out of 25 should be? What about static discharge, given that it can change how players view toolbelt skills? I thought it was just part of the engineer style of things.

have to agree on this, realisticly you could swap kit refinement and the retaliation trait, honestly i dont even know why that retaliation trait is in the tool tree let alone at the end. Ofc might have to change kit refinement back to how it was.

CriSPeH.8512:

They created the problem when they smoked too much pot than decided to make the Kit Refinement Trait.

The Good
Toolkit – Box o Nails – Perfect. What a perfectly balance KR effect.
The Bad
Bomb Kit – A single bomb – So a rehash of the dodge trait.
Med Kit – Small Explosion – ??? Is this a placeholder?
The Ugly
Grenade Kit – Barrage – Really!? the KR effect is the kits most powerful skill?
Elixir Gun – Super Elixir – Once gain Really!?

They screwed the pooch and the Engineer that owns the pooch when they came up with this lopsided trait in the first place. Everyone had to expect it to get the ax at some point. The reason they didnt was because they also thought that certain other professions that have an even easier “1click burst” would also get the ax, and when they didnt, it was safe to assume that Engineers were safe.

Why would you eliminate 1 professions burst combo without eliminating other professions that can do the same thing? They mention that it is because of the 10 point Trait, but really Engineer Traits are much more important than other professions because we have only one weapon.

and both our weapons are shoved into the same tree (minus offhand shield).

Your right about the power of each kits skill being lopsides, and i still dont get medkits…i figured it’d drop a medpack atleast. Though removing our burst combo, i’m not sure engineers were designed around being burst champs per say.

Take theif, its obviously supposed to fill this role. Elementalist one would think should…maybe even hunter.

But engineer (i gathered this from random dev comments, recent trait changes, starter spec/gear given for engineers as well as the engineer rune set) are supposed to be a bit tanky. Much like gaurdian or any other close range (bruiser) type. Too many of our abilities obviously reward us for getting close..NON of them reward us for being far away.(see hunter longbow, mesmer great sword).

So i think people are confused with the profession the same way people are with necromancer thinking its supposed to be a burst profession. Not that we cant pull off some good numbers but in spvp i dont think we’re slippery enough or do enough damage to be a glass cannon.

Turrent buff is a nice improvement for the Supply Crate I guess.

I’m stoked to see how these changes will play out. The problem I always had with turrets is that not only are they weak in damage and stationary (duh!), the Overcharge, which is in theory a super interesting mechanic, is very clumsy to use because of the delay (which is why I like the instant explode blast finishers much more).

I don’t mind the 100nade nerf (I use it in sPvP and if I get a drop on somebody, I just simply win) but I wish the designers would leave Super Elixir alone. Not only do I rely on it to cleanse conditions because 4 kit builds don’t have any way to get rid of conditions except for the rather slow Med Kit, but as a dungeon runner if it’s barely worthwhile when stacking 2 layers of it. Not to mention that it’s constantly being nerfed and buffed. It’s becoming tedious to even try to use it.

I would accept an overall heal nerf if the field type was changed to Water though. Guardians already spam Light fields while our only Water fields are very unreliable thanks to how short the Healing Turret’s field last. It would also put it more in line with what Healing Rain and Healing Spring already do.

Zinwrath.2049:

But engineer (i gathered this from random dev comments, recent trait changes, starter spec/gear given for engineers as well as the engineer rune set) are supposed to be a bit tanky.

I did this analysis too! Awesome. I can’t help but wonder if all these clues are a result of the original nerf (the change from a heavy armor class to medium armor).

ANET needs to distinguish and separate the mathematical calculations for the damage of sPVP. It should not be across the board for PvE and WvW. From the beginning, they should have a clear distinction between these two game play.

Karl looked a bit bad prepared in that one. It is just natural that a single person can not know all 8 classes so I think for every class the main balancing input should come from a person actually “maining” the class for a long time. Even if it gets bound to this persons opinion then it would help more than the very confusing balancing going on right now. Looks a bit like they try to answer what people ask for but it would be more healthy if they just analyze the class themselves (and someone has to do it that knows it).

I would also like to mention that hundred nades is not a ten point trait. It needs 40, and most people run it without condi cleanses.

That said, I hope they nerf it, but not too terribly bad. Maybe have it be like a backstab where you don’t die but you’re super behind in a fight.

So – I’m pretty disappointed in the video. I skipped to the engineer part, so I don’t know if he was this awkward throughout the rest of the video. His speech patterns and body language are a dead giveaway – I’ve acted like this several times in my life, and every time it’s been one of two scenarios:

- Someone has asked me a question in a meeting or in a class that I should know the answer to and I don’t so I make up some vague things to sound competent.
– I am trying hard to pacify someone to whom I’m lying.

Devs, I sincerely apologize if this is not the case, but that’s what it looks like to me.

You said you’d like to make turrets more viable. I’d be a lot more willing to use them if they’d stick around a while and not be killed off by splash damage or AOE. I can’t justify using them in their current condition. If they are supposed to be a constant presence on the battlefield (or at least a hard to remove one), either give them a ton of health and then they die when the engineer dies, or reduce their cooldown significantly so that I can place them when they inevitably die. Maybe have that cooldown start upon placement instead of their destruction. You could even increase the heal from toolkit – I don’t mind maintaining them if they are worth having.

Why can`t they stop nerfing this class? 100Nades was fine…

Extremely unfair!

I just finished watching the engineer discussion in the video (finally). Someone suggested Anet devs don’t play engineer (yet it seems Tyler does). You forgot to mention that none of the three other guys play engineer! Xeph was just repeating stuff he heard second-hand and the two other guys looked like deer in headlights. Anet, please do not ask these people for feedback!!! It is extremely unfair.

The other thing that sticks out is when Anet says turrets are meant to be an engineer’s defensive skills. Turrets do not work that way. Defense in this game implies extreme toughness with nerfed damage output. Turrets die too easily to be defensive skills!

ensoriki.5789:

AlietteFaye.7316:

Why is it that the devs feel the need to nerf and do away with 100nades, but not all of the other classes that can just as quickly/easily kill people in as many button presses? What exactly made 100nades any more powerful than the other classes doing the same things?

Sure, it could potentially hit more than 1 person. But there’s no way to keep more than 1 standing still with 100nades, so that’s not exactly a reason.

With the Thieves doing 2-shot backstabs it was a “l2p”. But no, not with Engineer. That’s broken and OP. I don’t get it.

Because they have a vision for the engineer, and 100 nades is far from it.

Im not sure about this vision thing. The most they could do was read the class description and wait for the moderator to move to a more fun topic for them like mesmers.

ensoriki.5789:

AlietteFaye.7316:

Why is it that the devs feel the need to nerf and do away with 100nades, but not all of the other classes that can just as quickly/easily kill people in as many button presses? What exactly made 100nades any more powerful than the other classes doing the same things?

Sure, it could potentially hit more than 1 person. But there’s no way to keep more than 1 standing still with 100nades, so that’s not exactly a reason.

With the Thieves doing 2-shot backstabs it was a “l2p”. But no, not with Engineer. That’s broken and OP. I don’t get it.

Because they have a vision for the engineer, and 100 nades is far from it.

Actually I agree with that 100%. When 100nades started getting popular I instantly knew I wouldn’t want to run with that spec. It just doesn’t feel like I want playing an engineer to feel. I’d rather have devs who know how they want the profession to feel and make that viable than build it around weird unintentional stuff.

That said, we have to understand that most of the engineers on this forum have spent literally dozens of hours doing research to understand how engineers work, not to mention hundreds of game hours. If the devs don’t sound too confident when they talk about what engineers do, it’s because they simply can’t put in that much time.

So what did I take away from this interview:

1. ANET is absolutely out of touch with the engineer. We’re going extinct and this is the best they can come up with.
2. Another failed attempt at turrets. What the need to do is create a turret kit. Skill #1 does damage and AoE heals turrets(maybe make a talent point in inventions that increases this AoE radius). Skills #2-#5 will now just be turrets (rifle, fire, rocket,& net).
   This would really give engineers a unique defensive playstyle by retreating and dropping turrets in a circle to kite the enemy and then swapping to weapons/kit to fight the enemy in the middle of your turrets. Or maybe make engineer super defensive holding choke points in WvW (they might have to adjust CD in PvP(.
3. Turrets are going to need an actual buff in WvW so they are viable…..or they could maybe make a turret kit mentioned above and keep their HP as it is.
4. WE HATE RNG. So you explain how players hate it yet you still keep it, really?
5. Our kits need to either be condition damage or direct damage and if they want one mixed kit that is fine. Does that mean that we need to remove all conditions from direct damage kits? No! Blinds are great, vulnerability compliments the kit,knock backs and non-damage conditions are great to work into direct damage kits. Vice-versa ANET needs to pick a kit that they want to make full condition damage and scrap the direct damage from it. There’s a reason that many people love P/P because it does all of these things but it suffers from the damage tax. My suggestion would be that if ANET made a turret kit to turn wrench kit into pure condition damage. #1 would be an AoE boomerang bleed, #2 would be magnet discharge that blows the target away for 1000 (let’s be honest nails suck)
6. This isn’t exactly just Engineers, but we need to have gear/runes that work. for example fixing Giver’s weapon condition duration would be a huge benefit to help make condition engineers on par with other builds and professions.

I know I posted some negative feedback, but I really am dying to play my Engineer again. He was my first character and after seeing how finished the guardian and Mesmer (and the insane GS & Scepter buff) its hard to play the profession.

Regardless thank you ANET for the interview.

Goloith.6349:

So what did I take away from this interview:

1. ANET is absolutely out of touch with the engineer. We’re going extinct and this is the best they can come up with.
2. Another failed attempt at turrets. What the need to do is create a turret kit. Skill #1 does damage and AoE heals turrets(maybe make a talent point in inventions that increases this AoE radius). Skills #2-#5 will now just be turrets (rifle, fire, rocket,& net).
   This would really give engineers a unique defensive playstyle by retreating and dropping turrets in a circle to kite the enemy and then swapping to weapons/kit to fight the enemy in the middle of your turrets. Or maybe make engineer super defensive holding choke points in WvW (they might have to adjust CD in PvP(.
3. Turrets are going to need an actual buff in WvW so they are viable…..or they could maybe make a turret kit mentioned above and keep their HP as it is.
4. WE HATE RNG. So you explain how players hate it yet you still keep it, really?
5. Our kits need to either be condition damage or direct damage and if they want one mixed kit that is fine. Does that mean that we need to remove all conditions from direct damage kits? No! Blinds are great, vulnerability compliments the kit,knock backs and non-damage conditions are great to work into direct damage kits. Vice-versa ANET needs to pick a kit that they want to make full condition damage and scrap the direct damage from it. There’s a reason that many people love P/P because it does all of these things but it suffers from the damage tax. My suggestion would be that if ANET made a turret kit to turn wrench kit into pure condition damage. #1 would be an AoE boomerang bleed, #2 would be magnet discharge that blows the target away for 1000 (let’s be honest nails suck)
6. This isn’t exactly just Engineers, but we need to have gear/runes that work. for example fixing Giver’s weapon condition duration would be a huge benefit to help make condition engineers on par with other builds and professions.

I know I posted some negative feedback, but I really am dying to play my Engineer again. He was my first character and after seeing how finished the guardian and Mesmer (and the insane GS & Scepter buff) its hard to play the profession.

Regardless thank you ANET for the interview.

The reason that forums are an unreliable source of information is because posts like this do not speak for everyone. they certainly to not speak for me.

I really laughed at the part where the drone on the left said that stuff his friends email him and people pm him in game about tend to get priority.

What a garbage interview.

I’m continuing to be impressed with the pessimism. They aren’t going to radically change the way things work, changes are going to be slow and gradual. You can tell their biggest fear is creating something that is overpowered. I see nothing wrong with that stance.

There is no way a Dev will see a class like an Engineer main player will. This is completely understandable. These three in particular have to play all eight classes. Of course they aren’t going to know everything about every class. It’s their job to work on it yes, but they can’t spend all of their job playing each class 2 to 3 hours a day like many of us can. Are there are others that perhaps do? Maybe, but you can’t expect these three in high level positions to know every single little issue. They know what they can scrape up themselves and what other people tell them. Their sources of information are internal and external, and even then you have to take all the external discussion with quite the grain of salt. If they took some of the suggestions on these boards and just implemented them, we’d be the most overpowered class by a mile. I love the discussion on these boards, but even I can see (especially when it gets so pessimistic) how radical some of the ideas proposed are.

As it stands, we aren’t beyond broken in our current state. We do need an awful lot of work, but so do the other seven classes in this game. We may need some more work then others, but really the biggest issue right now is build diversity and the vast majority of players have this issue.

@ Goloith, I honestly think that as long as they are giving turrets attention things are looking up. They really do have quite a danger of overbuffing those things, and making them mandatory in many situations by doing so. I mean I agree they suck pretty badly right now, but the concept could easily go overboard. Besides, we don’t even know the exact changes.

Low amounts of RNG are perfectly tolerable. Critical Hits for example are pretty commonly accepted. I’m perfectly fine with having a little RNG, but again the whole point is they know it’s an issue. The changes they suggested to Elixir U sound like the right track to me, I don’t understand why it’s not a great thing. Again, I hate the way RNG is setup now but it really looks like they are trying to ease it.

I really think there is a way to balance kits in terms of direct damage and condition damage together. I do think there needs to be a lot of work across nearly the entire game in this area in terms of improving hybridization of the types especially in mandatory skills (like Downed State), but I do think hybridization is possible. An example is Grenade Kit for the Engineer. It works with condition damage builds and direct damage builds just fine. The condition builds gain damage cooldowns, while the direct damage builds gain damage cooldowns and another variant of auto-attack. If it’s possible to balance for one kit, I’m sure it’s possible to balance for all sorts weapons. I do wish this topic was brought up though, I’d like to hear the devs response to it.

Sorry I kinda picked you out of this discussion to talk to, I really do respect your opinion. I just disagree with this instance of your opinion, really just because it’s so negative when I don’t think it needs to be. Deep down I agree with you on the core issues, I just think the devs are either addressing it and/or can be solved successfully concerning these topics.

It’s pretty evident at this point that Anet has the right idea and the wrong approach to PvP in general, let alone the Engineer profession. If you think all the issues mentioned are just for the March patch, you’ve not been paying attention since BETA, or the last several “major” updates. If you think they are on the right track? You’re right. But you better be REALLY patient, because based on their overall tone of the SOTG, March isn’t going to offer nearly as much change as people are hoping for, just a little bit more than usual of the same minor updates.

I think the point where the changes are going to come slowly need to be stressed. None of this was even guaranteed to be in the March patch. It’s going to take time. GW2 as a whole is growing as well, so they don’t need to do anything radical. I mean I think their approach is too slow as well, but all this SotG left me with was optimism.

Ayestes.1273:

I think the point where the changes are going to come slowly need to be stressed. None of this was even guaranteed to be in the March patch. It’s going to take time. GW2 as a whole is growing as well, so they don’t need to do anything radical. I mean I think their approach is too slow as well, but all this SotG left me with was optimism.

That’s just the problem. Go back and listen to all of their previous SotGs on youtube. They all leave you feeling that way at the time, with that warm fuzzy “they DO listen to us!”, but you’ll notice a trend throughout each of them… not a lot ever changes from SotG to SotG, and it’s been over half a year now, some sense of direction and progress should have been registered by now, considering the generally accepted success of the other two major functions of the game, PvE and WvW.

I’m not even saying I dislike the game, but I am saying, I’m not going to keep playing sPvP religiously or with great dedication for a year or two before they finally tweak their masterpiece into the perfect PvP module in their eyes, especially when all evidence points to the fact that it’s practically impossible to do with any MMO + the fact that they are insistent upon making conquest mode work in and of itself.

Ayestes.1273:

I’m continuing to be impressed with the pessimism. They aren’t going to radically change the way things work, changes are going to be slow and gradual. You can tell their biggest fear is creating something that is overpowered. I see nothing wrong with that stance.

There is no way a Dev will see a class like an Engineer main player will. This is completely understandable. These three in particular have to play all eight classes. Of course they aren’t going to know everything about every class. It’s their job to work on it yes, but they can’t spend all of their job playing each class 2 to 3 hours a day like many of us can. Are there are others that perhaps do? Maybe, but you can’t expect these three in high level positions to know every single little issue. They know what they can scrape up themselves and what other people tell them. Their sources of information are internal and external, and even then you have to take all the external discussion with quite the grain of salt. If they took some of the suggestions on these boards and just implemented them, we’d be the most overpowered class by a mile. I love the discussion on these boards, but even I can see (especially when it gets so pessimistic) how radical some of the ideas proposed are.

As it stands, we aren’t beyond broken in our current state. We do need an awful lot of work, but so do the other seven classes in this game. We may need some more work then others, but really the biggest issue right now is build diversity and the vast majority of players have this issue.

@ Goloith, I honestly think that as long as they are giving turrets attention things are looking up. They really do have quite a danger of overbuffing those things, and making them mandatory in many situations by doing so. I mean I agree they suck pretty badly right now, but the concept could easily go overboard. Besides, we don’t even know the exact changes.

Low amounts of RNG are perfectly tolerable. Critical Hits for example are pretty commonly accepted. I’m perfectly fine with having a little RNG, but again the whole point is they know it’s an issue. The changes they suggested to Elixir U sound like the right track to me, I don’t understand why it’s not a great thing. Again, I hate the way RNG is setup now but it really looks like they are trying to ease it.

I really think there is a way to balance kits in terms of direct damage and condition damage together. I do think there needs to be a lot of work across nearly the entire game in this area in terms of improving hybridization of the types especially in mandatory skills (like Downed State), but I do think hybridization is possible. An example is Grenade Kit for the Engineer. It works with condition damage builds and direct damage builds just fine. The condition builds gain damage cooldowns, while the direct damage builds gain damage cooldowns and another variant of auto-attack. If it’s possible to balance for one kit, I’m sure it’s possible to balance for all sorts weapons. I do wish this topic was brought up though, I’d like to hear the devs response to it.

Sorry I kinda picked you out of this discussion to talk to, I really do respect your opinion. I just disagree with this instance of your opinion, really just because it’s so negative when I don’t think it needs to be. Deep down I agree with you on the core issues, I just think the devs are either addressing it and/or can be solved successfully concerning these topics.

No problem man, just saw the video and vented.

It seems rather sad that engineers and rangers were more viable in the beta version of the game then they are now.

You can tell that they really want to avoid doing anything with the engineer when one of the very first traits has a grammar error, of all things. Six months in, with all the nerfs to both the engineer and ranger, and the bugs that have been attached the engineer since launch..completely unacceptable.

Ayestes.1273:

I’m continuing to be impressed with the pessimism. They aren’t going to radically change the way things work, changes are going to be slow and gradual. You can tell their biggest fear is creating something that is overpowered. I see nothing wrong with that stance.

There is no way a Dev will see a class like an Engineer main player will. This is completely understandable. These three in particular have to play all eight classes. Of course they aren’t going to know everything about every class. It’s their job to work on it yes, but they can’t spend all of their job playing each class 2 to 3 hours a day like many of us can. Are there are others that perhaps do? Maybe, but you can’t expect these three in high level positions to know every single little issue. They know what they can scrape up themselves and what other people tell them. Their sources of information are internal and external, and even then you have to take all the external discussion with quite the grain of salt. If they took some of the suggestions on these boards and just implemented them, we’d be the most overpowered class by a mile. I love the discussion on these boards, but even I can see (especially when it gets so pessimistic) how radical some of the ideas proposed are.

That seems like an oversight. ANet should honestly be able to have specialists who can comment on the shortcomings/overpowered aspects of a class. Futhermore, if a developer’s employees charged with managing its game’s classes don’t know/actively work to address the bugs and issues of those classes—are they really doing their jobs? All I get from the pace at which corrections and balances come with regards to SEVERAL classes that need them is that these employees are getting insufficient or unreliable information.

Ayestes.1273:

Low amounts of RNG are perfectly tolerable. Critical Hits for example are pretty commonly accepted.

I don’t even. Look, Critical Chance is nothing like the RNG of Elixirs. Critical Chance and Damage can be measured and oriented on an individual basis in order to ensure that they trigger reliably. Furthermore, all of the crit triggers have single effects that the player knows will occur if they do indeed activate. Even though you can trait for a chance at Cripple on crit (which is already a chance if your crit chance is not already 100%), it’s still reliable because you know that whenever that trigger does proc, you’re going to inflict Crippled.

Thrown Elixirs never have guarantees. You honestly don’t know what you’re going to get. It’d be like picking up a trait that grants you a 66% chance to inflict a Cripple on crit, and then ANet said, “Nooo, actually you can now inflict Cripple, Bleeding OR Poison with that trigger!” That RNG at the end completely undermines the point of taking that trait because you DON’T KNOW what you’re going to get anymore.

Alright, so you can come back at me and say that they’re tuning down RNG, fine. But I cannot let you get away with comparing Engie Elixir RNG mechanics and those governing Critical Hit chance and triggers like they’re even remotely similar.

Ayestes.1273:

I really think there is a way to balance kits in terms of direct damage and condition damage together. I do think there needs to be a lot of work across nearly the entire game in this area in terms of improving hybridization of the types especially in mandatory skills (like Downed State), but I do think hybridization is possible. An example is Grenade Kit for the Engineer. It works with condition damage builds and direct damage builds just fine. The condition builds gain damage cooldowns, while the direct damage builds gain damage cooldowns and another variant of auto-attack. If it’s possible to balance for one kit, I’m sure it’s possible to balance for all sorts weapons. I do wish this topic was brought up though, I’d like to hear the devs response to it.

I’m not so sure kits are supposed to be used for their 1 skills. Look at Elementalists. I play d/d Elementalist. Using any 1 skill is definitely a last resort option and it’s mostly just in order to proc critical hit triggers. It’s all about juggling between utility, CC and big impact skills.

Kits are pretty alright as they are right now in how they each bring a different fighting style out of the Engineer. They are Engineer attunements. If you homogenize them all (making them so you can operate with con damage or raw damage with all of them) it sort of undermines their entire point. Also, pistol is nerfed with damage because IT’S REALLY STRONG. You will almost never not have conditions on you during a fight with a pistol Engineer. That kind of capability automatically puts a timer on combat, and that sort of thing needs to be handled carefully. Also Confusion.

Disappointed. Devs were awkward as hell, not much information on changes were given, and information given showed that they didn’t know what to do with the class. Turrets need more than just a tack on buff to be useful.

Devs, there’s no point in being secretive with your changes before you release them. Air them out to the community through a public test server, let statistics and feedback help you.

Looks really promising.
Looking forward to the patch, I’d like to see them tweak the med kit KR’s effect.
The silly explosion is rather.. silly. Every time I start messing around with KR I end up turning it off again because of rather annoying effect on medkit. I just can’t stand it.
A 5 sec random boon, a small heal, a few bandages that get dropped all around you, … anything would be better.