Guild Wars 2

ELITE SKILLS
Mortar

• Base range increased to 2,000.
• Range when traited increased to 2,400.

Launch Elixir

• Recharge reduced from 15 to 12 seconds.

Launch Ice Mortar

• Recharge reduced from 20 to 15 seconds.
• Ice field duration reduced from 10 to 7 seconds.
• The mortar projectile’s initial hit now stuns enemies for ½ second.

Launch Concussion Barrage

• Recharge reduced from 30 to 25 seconds.

RIFLE
Blunderbuss

• Range for maximum damage and Bleed stacks increased from 100 to 180.
• Maximum Bleed stacks increased from 4 to 6.

ELIXIR GUN
Elixir F

• Cast-time reduced from ¾ to ½ second.
• Projectile speed increased by 30%.
  • Bring it in line with the firing speed and low after-cast time of Flamethrower’s [Flame Blast]. [Elixir F] could easily be a great rotational burst skill, but its current cast time undermines this prospect coupled with how slowly it moves (it rarely hits anyway if you’re firing it at a moving target from a distance of over 450 range). Simply using this skill often kills whatever momentum the player is generating with a skill chain or rotation. Truth be told, it’s underwater version could be a great model for how it should be above ground. Keeping the current cast-time would even be fine so long as the projectile was more reliable.

Fumigate

• Now behaves as does Cone of Cold or Drake’s Breath. Does not attempt to follow a target when a target is selected. Engineer must actively track a target within the cone in order to inflict damage.
• Recharge increased from 12 to 15 seconds.
• Poison duration per damage tick increased from 1 to 2 seconds.
• Now removes up to one condition from the Engineer upon use.

Acid Bomb

• Now grants a ¾ second of evasion upon use.

FLAMETHROWER
Flame Jet

• Now behaves as does Cone of Cold or Drake’s Breath. Does not attempt to follow a target when a target is selected. Engineer must actively track a target within the cone in order to inflict damage.
• Channel time reduced from 2¼ to 1¾ seconds.
• Total base damage reduced from 490 to 445.

Air Blast

• Now also counts as a Blast Finisher.

Napalm

• Recharge reduced from 30 to 20 seconds.
• Napalm wall duration reduced from 10 to 7 seconds.

Smoke Vent

• Recharge increased from 20 to 25 seconds.
• Now produces a pulsing Smoke Field (180 range) that blinds foes at Engineer’s location. The Smoke Field lasts for 2 seconds.

TOOL-BELT SKILLS
Rocket Kick

• Range increased from 300 to 450.

Smoldering Round (New Flamethrower tool-belt skill; Incendiary Ammo removed)

• Cast-time: 0
• Recharge: 20 seconds
• Fire a surprise round from your belt that burns your target.
• Damage: 70
• Burning: 2 seconds
• Combo Finisher: Physical Projectile
• Range: 1,000

Regenerating Mist

• Now also removes 1 condition from allies in its radius.

BOMB KIT- MonMalthias.4763 and Wolf.5816
Bomb

• Engineers now lob this bomb directly in front of them (about 100 range distance; dagger melee-range). The explosion, damage and delayed fuse still function the same as they do now.

BOMB KIT SKILLS 2-5

• Functionality of [Bomb Kit] skills 2-5 has been changed to resemble the functionality of a “charge-up” environmental or siege weapon such as a trebuchet (i.e. http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Charge_skill); [Bomb Kit] skills 2-5 are now thrown projectiles.
• Now, when using the 2-5 skills from the [Bomb Kit], Engineers have the ability to throw those bombs in a straight line towards a target (the direction of a thrown bomb will be determined by the direction in which the Engineer is facing). By simply tapping a thrown bomb skill and releasing straight away, an Engineer will throw that bomb in a similar manner to the [Bomb Kit] 1 skill: [Bomb] (a distance of about 100 range directly in front of the Engineer; full animation with no power takes about half a second). The maximum channel time is 2 seconds. Charging a bomb throw for that long will allow the Engineer to lob the bomb a distance of 600 range on flat ground.
• A thrown bomb projectile will behave like a linear projectile as in the case of the Warrior skill [Bladetrail].
• [Bomb Kit] skills retain the same timer with regards to when they explode. This timer starts right as an applicable [Bomb Kit] skill is released/thrown. To this effect, a bomb may go off mid-air if thrown far enough. It’s detonation effect is applied to the ground directly beneath it in this case.

ALL ELIXIR TOOL-BELT SKILLS

• Refer to Attachment.
• I use Elixir U (pardon the MS Paint reproduction) as an example for the visual application of this idea. What I mean to say is that all tool-belt Elixirs as of now give the Engineer an RNG chance for some boon or effect. RNG IS BAD. Good skills in GW2 are good because when people use them, they expect a specific effect, and then receive THAT SPECIFIC EFFECT. [Shocking Aura] wouldn’t be NEARLY as good as it is now if it had a chance to stun, cripple, bleed or knock-back enemies with effects decided by a random number generator. It’s good because you KNOW WHAT IT DOES. It stuns people 100% OF THE TIME.
• Tool-belt Elixirs should have predictable effects in order that they can have a constant and reliable impact on the flow of a battle. I propose that ANet split all of the possible effects of Thrown Elixirs up into unique iterations of the same skill that can be selected in the Tool-belt Skill slot.

“TOSS ELIXIR” SKILLS UNDERWATER – InfamousBrad.5879
All “Toss Elixir” skills underwater are much less effective than their land-based versions. The reason for this is that it is much more difficult to orient a thrown elixir’s direction, and even more difficult to time a thrown elixir’s placement so as to have a meaningful impact on a battle. The suggested solution for this was to make all of the underwater versions of “Toss Elixir” skills immediately trigger their effects in an AoE around the Engineer.

Making the Engineer the focal point of “Toss Elixir” skills would make aiming such skills much more intuitive since it is easier to move the player’s body around than it is to track a target with the current mechanic. Furthermore, it makes underwater “Toss Elixir” skills much more responsive since their effects would be triggered instantly as opposed to having a down-time between throwing the Elixir vial and then detonating it.

TURRET OVERCHARGE ACTIVATION

• Utility skill turret overcharges can now be activated outside of combat (no longer require a target).

TURRET DURATIONS

• Turrets now each have individual durations. These durations dictate a respective turret’s maximum lifespan once placed on the battlefield. After a turret’s duration is up, it explodes automatically.
• The Engineer will have certain skills that reset a turret’s respective duration when they “strike” a turret. These skills include:
  • [Tool Kit]’s auto-attack skill: [Smack]
  • Rifle’s [Jump Shot]
  • Off-hand shield’s [Magnetic Inversion] and [Throw Shield] skills
  • Off-hand pistol’s [Glue Shot]
  • [Healing Turret]’s overcharge skill: [Cleansing Burst]
  • [Elixir B]’s tool-belt skill: [Toss Elixir B]

PICKING UP A TURRET

• Manually picking up a turret now greatly reduces that turret’s recharge. The recharge reduction varies by turret.

TURRET OVERCHARGES (OPTION 1)

• A utility skill turret’s overcharge now interrupts its respective turret’s current skill queue upon activation (it triggers immediately the second that you press the button).
• All utility skill turret overcharges now begin with a 1-second long mini-version (180 radius) of the Elementalist’s [Churning Earth] animation (only the rumbling earth animation; sans the explosion at the end) that occurs at the turret’s immediate location. Either this animation would be its own skill (an overcharge would queue two skills: the harmless charge-up animation, then followed by the actual overcharge skill), or all utility skill turret overcharges would have to be reworked to simply begin with the charge-up animation. During this charge-up animation, the turret is invulnerable to damage.

TURRET OVERCHARGES (OPTION 2)

• Utility skill turrets are now triple skill chains. Skill 1: [place the turret]; Skill 2: [Engage Overcharge]; Skill 3: [Overcharge].
• [Engage Overcharge] would function akin to the Ranger profession skill [Return to Me]. It breaks a turret’s target and performs the harmless charge-up animation. It also displays the same mini [Churning Earth] animation as described above. After using [Engage Overcharge], the turret remains inactive until the Engineer activates the [Overcharge]. In this case, the [Overcharge] is then directed at the Engineer’s current target if applicable (if no target is selected, the turret attacks the nearest target; if the attack doesn’t require a target, it simply activates as it normally would).
• A turret’s respective [Engage Overcharge] would inherit the recharge of that turret’s [Overcharge] skill.
• After using [Engage Overcharge], an Engineer has 5 seconds to use a turret’s [Overcharge] ability before it flips back to [Engage Overcharge] ([Engage Overcharge] begins recharging immediately after its use).
• Activating [Engage Overcharge] grants a turret 1 second of invulnerability.

HEALING TURRET
would remain unaffected by the changes listed above (it’s fine the way it is now).

TURRET AND OVERCHARGE SKILL SUGGESTIONS
Rifle Turret

• Duration added: 180 seconds.
• Picking up this turret reduces its recharge to 5 seconds.

Automatic Fire (Rifle Turret overcharge)

• Rate of Fire increase increased from 50% to 100% (Overcharged attack rate increased from once every 1 second to once every ½ second).
• Overcharged duration reduced from 10 seconds to 4 seconds.
• Recharge reduced from 30 to 20 seconds.

Rocket Turret

• Duration added: 25 seconds.
• Damage reduced from 794 to 618.
• Burning inflicted reduced from 3 to 2 seconds.
• Recharge reduced from 50 to 40 seconds.
• Picking up this turret reduces its recharge to 15 seconds.

Explosive Rockets (Rocket Turret overcharge)

• Overcharge duration reduced from 7 to 4 seconds.

Net Turret

• Duration added: 25 seconds.
• Rate of fire increased from once every 10 seconds to once every 8 seconds.
• Immobilize duration reduced from 3 to 2 seconds.
• Picking up this turret reduces its recharge to 15 seconds.

Electrified Net (Net Turret overcharge)

• Overcharged Rate of Fire increase removed (now only fires 1 Electrified Net).
• Overcharged duration reduced from 10 seconds to 4 seconds.

Thumper Turret

• Duration added: 25 seconds.
• Recharge reduced from 50 to 40 seconds.
• Picking up this turret reduces its recharge to 10 seconds.

Flame Turret

• Duration added: 180 seconds.
• Recharge reduced from 25 to 20 seconds.
• Picking up this turret reduces its recharge to 5 seconds.

There are some great suggestions, but I’d really like to see detailed discussion on why each of these changes are suggested specifically. Otherwise it’s just a wish list. Not that I’m saying that’s the intent, but it’s what it will look like to a dev. A dev can’t get any real information out of it other then wishes otherwise.

Edit: I should note, that I do not mean to say there isn’t some explanation in here already. I think what is explained in here is wonderful, and I want it to apply to all of it.

Your getting a lot better at this swagg. Very good stuff.

EDIT: reading through it in more detail, sure there might be tiny bits here and there i dont entirely agree with. but generally this is all carefully thought out and i agree with the majority so i wont nit pick.

However, the one thing i’d rather do away with is the cycling through abilities to deal with the rng. I’d rather each of the Toss elixers, and elixer X just did one thing. Choose something for them to do, and thats all they do. By giving you the choice of what they can do, you are buffing them. Right now they actually are balanced around the fact you dont know what you will get. Look at the CD on elixer X compared to Rampage on the warrior. Its 60 seconds shorter and ours gets all kinds of traits we can make it even SHORTER cd last longer etc etc.

Anyway, i understand your reasoning on that change, but at the same time it seems like suddenly those abilities become too good because your giving the engineer an unecessary amount of options. Also, (wish list cause i hate ground targetting in this game to the extreme). Make the toss elixers require a target…it can be yourself….and it just AE’s from that target. That would make me ever so happy…its bad enough i have to aim attacks to hit my enemies…but i have to aim buffs to hit my allies?? ugh..

Other than that excellent job. Very well done.

In terms of Elixir RNG, I think some of the thrown skills are actually too weak as a base. I mean, if they didn’t have HGH and 409 I wouldn’t use them much at all, and even then I don’t exactly use them to buff my allies.

I think if they are to remain a cast time ability, they need to spread more then one effect. Reducing the RNG can go alongside that, such as having Thrown Elixir H always grant a splash heal while RNG’ing a boon and Thrown Elixir B always granting Swiftness and RNG’ing a boon. Thrown Elixir S should simply just give both Stealth and Stability. If a situation where we get Stealth isn’t too strong, and a situation where we get Stability isn’t too strong, then having them both at once isn’t going to cause us the skill to be too strong. The RNG only dilutes the reliability of the skill, which isn’t needed.

My suggestions all revolve around the FT, as that’s the only weapon I’m really using with my engineer

• FT#1: Increase range to 600 and also have it also apply 1s Burning on the first hit.
• FT#2: Make this a Blast Finisher.
• FT#3: Reduce Knockback distance from 400 to 300.
• FT#4: Change from line to a circle or area-effect 240 radius around the Engineer.
• FT#5: Make this a Combo Field: Smoke 3s or change it back to Backdraft.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Backdraft

Incendiary Ammo could also do with a little reduction on its currently ridiculous cooldown; perhaps reducing it to 45s? 45s still seems rather long for such a toolbelt skill, but the current 60s is just way too long in my opinion.

Also, I wouldn’t mind Juggernaut going back to giving Stability at the cost of reduced movement speed (the old Juggernaut). That way FT would fill the role of short-range point/bottleneck defender

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/index.php?title=Juggernaut&oldid=209198

Ayestes.1273:

There are some great suggestions, but I’d really like to see detailed discussion on why each of these changes are suggested specifically. Otherwise it’s just a wish list. Not that I’m saying that’s the intent, but it’s what it will look like to a dev. A dev can’t get any real information out of it other then wishes otherwise.

Edit: I should note, that I do not mean to say there isn’t some explanation in here already. I think what is explained in here is wonderful, and I want it to apply to all of it.

Ah, where would I start? Honestly, the goal of these suggestions is just streamlining. The first post is mainly the one that requires the most explanation. I’ll try using my extra slot for explanations. The main goal is to make the Engineer into a capable mid-ranged fighter as it seemed to be originally designed. As the profession stands now, it’s very close and just needs a few more pushes to get it to where it can really shine. I’ll address my reasoning behind these suggestions more specifically soon.

Aveneo.2068:

My suggestions all revolve around the FT, as that’s the only weapon I’m really using with my engineer

• FT#1: Increase range to 600 and also have it also apply 1s Burning on the first hit.
• FT#2: Make this a Blast Finisher.
• FT#3: Reduce Knockback distance from 400 to 300.
• FT#4: Change from line to a circle or area-effect 240 radius around the Engineer.
• FT#5: Make this a Combo Field: Smoke 3s or change it back to Backdraft.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Backdraft

Incendiary Ammo could also do with a little reduction on its currently ridiculous cooldown; perhaps reducing it to 45s? 45s still seems rather long for such a toolbelt skill, but the current 60s is just way too long in my opinion.

Also, I wouldn’t mind Juggernaut going back to giving Stability at the cost of reduced movement speed (the old Juggernaut). That way FT would fill the role of short-range point/bottleneck defender

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/index.php?title=Juggernaut&oldid=209198

Actually, I briefly had a discussion with a guild mate earlier on FT1. Most people think it’s broken. I don’t believe it’s necessarily broken as a skill, rather that the fact that it attempts to automatically follow a target is its flaw. An Elementalist’s Drake’s Breath and Cone of Cold don’t miss 80% of the time. However, those skills don’t follow targets, they simply exit in a cone shape out of the player’s front. I honestly believe that if FT1 were changed to function in the same way that it would be perfectly fixed. It needs to not de-target, but at the same time not attempt to automatically follow a selected target just as those Elementalist cone skills do.

With regards to FT2 being a blast finisher—I don’t know about you, but when I use kits, I use cool-down reduction traits. Having an on-command Blast Finisher every 4 seconds with a 600 range seems a little overpowered to me.

Swagg.9236:

Ayestes.1273:

There are some great suggestions, but I’d really like to see detailed discussion on why each of these changes are suggested specifically. Otherwise it’s just a wish list. Not that I’m saying that’s the intent, but it’s what it will look like to a dev. A dev can’t get any real information out of it other then wishes otherwise.

Edit: I should note, that I do not mean to say there isn’t some explanation in here already. I think what is explained in here is wonderful, and I want it to apply to all of it.

Ah, where would I start? Honestly, the goal of these suggestions is just streamlining. The first post is mainly the one that requires the most explanation. I’ll try using my extra slot for explanations. The main goal is to make the Engineer into a capable mid-ranged fighter as it seemed to be originally designed. As the profession stands now, it’s very close and just needs a few more pushes to get it to where it can really shine. I’ll address my reasoning behind these suggestions more specifically soon.

I mean on everything really. A change is just a wish without an argument to back it up. While much of the Engineer community may be able to see the reason as if it were obvious, someone who does not main an Engineer (most of the devs) may not understand so intuitively.

Swagg.9236:

Aveneo.2068:

My suggestions all revolve around the FT, as that’s the only weapon I’m really using with my engineer

• FT#1: Increase range to 600 and also have it also apply 1s Burning on the first hit.
• FT#2: Make this a Blast Finisher.
• FT#3: Reduce Knockback distance from 400 to 300.
• FT#4: Change from line to a circle or area-effect 240 radius around the Engineer.
• FT#5: Make this a Combo Field: Smoke 3s or change it back to Backdraft.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Backdraft

Incendiary Ammo could also do with a little reduction on its currently ridiculous cooldown; perhaps reducing it to 45s? 45s still seems rather long for such a toolbelt skill, but the current 60s is just way too long in my opinion.

Also, I wouldn’t mind Juggernaut going back to giving Stability at the cost of reduced movement speed (the old Juggernaut). That way FT would fill the role of short-range point/bottleneck defender

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/index.php?title=Juggernaut&oldid=209198

Actually, I briefly had a discussion with a guild mate earlier on FT1. Most people think it’s broken. I don’t believe it’s necessarily broken as a skill, rather that the fact that it attempts to automatically follow a target is its flaw. An Elementalist’s Drake’s Breath and Cone of Cold don’t miss 80% of the time. However, those skills don’t follow targets, they simply exit in a cone shape out of the player’s front. I honestly believe that if FT1 were changed to function in the same way that it would be perfectly fixed. It needs to not de-target, but at the same time not attempt to automatically follow a selected target just as those Elementalist cone skills do.

With regards to FT2 being a blast finisher—I don’t know about you, but when I use kits, I use cool-down reduction traits. Having an on-command Blast Finisher every 4 seconds with a 600 range seems a little overpowered to me.

Valid point (though we have a disgusting amount of access to blast finishers anyway as it is). I always felt like using flame blast felt odd anyway. I flame jet to do ae damage then stop for a moment to use flame blast….to do ae damage.

I feel like it coulda used another application, and if need be….be shifted to a 3rd or 4th ability slot to accomidate this. Much like gaurdian GS had its combo field moved to the 4th ability when they realized “hey…this is a bit too good on this short cd”.

Oh heres an idea…how about Flame blast is the 4th ability, but when you detonate it…it creates a circle fire combo field.

Then you could make the number two a cone ability called “smoke blast” or something stupid and it could replace 5 as an AE blind (with a small damage amount added on)….

Then you could come up with a 5th ability that doesnt suck.
Perhaps a gap closer of some kind, maybe a charge that does a combo finisher leap? leaves a fire trail behind you like elementalist flamesword? “shrug”

Swagg.9236:

Actually, I briefly had a discussion with a guild mate earlier on FT1. Most people think it’s broken. I don’t believe it’s necessarily broken as a skill, rather that the fact that it attempts to automatically follow a target is its flaw. An Elementalist’s Drake’s Breath and Cone of Cold don’t miss 80% of the time. However, those skills don’t follow targets, they simply exit in a cone shape out of the player’s front. I honestly believe that if FT1 were changed to function in the same way that it would be perfectly fixed. It needs to not de-target, but at the same time not attempt to automatically follow a selected target just as those Elementalist cone skills do.

With regards to FT2 being a blast finisher—I don’t know about you, but when I use kits, I use cool-down reduction traits. Having an on-command Blast Finisher every 4 seconds with a 600 range seems a little overpowered to me.

Clusterbomb is almost identical in terms of functionality yet it has double the range (1200 range) and can be used almost indefinitely without the need of reduction traits (because it doesn’t have a cooldown).

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Cluster_Bomb
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Flame_Blast

Please compare and you will see that adding a blast finisher to Flame Blast wouldn’t be as overpowered as you might believe. Even with the addition of a blast finisher to Flame Blast, Clusterbomb would still be more powerful from my perspective

As to FT#1 being broken; I have to agree that it’s pretty ridiculous how often it will miss. On that note I’d gladly trade it for the FT attack being used by the Flame Legion in CoF.

Ayestes.1273:

I mean on everything really.

Hohoho, you asked for this. Direct yourself to my fourth post. Be forewarned, it’s a doozy. I decided to just talk about it because there was so much on my mind about the topic—talk for… something like 26 minutes. But, hey, at least I got out what I wanted to say for the most part. I think it’s pretty comprehensive regarding most of my first post, but I’ll wait for your specific response on the matter whenever you get around to it.

Zinwrath.2049:

Then you could come up with a 5th ability that doesnt suck.
Perhaps a gap closer of some kind, maybe a charge that does a combo finisher leap? leaves a fire trail behind you like elementalist flamesword? “shrug”

I actually quite like that idea. I mean, I still like FT as it is for the most part, but having a gap-closer/fast-movement skill like that would be pretty nice. Maybe something like Burning Speed (Ele fire dagger mainhand 3).

Swagg.9236:

Zinwrath.2049:

Then you could come up with a 5th ability that doesnt suck.
Perhaps a gap closer of some kind, maybe a charge that does a combo finisher leap? leaves a fire trail behind you like elementalist flamesword? “shrug”

I actually quite like that idea. I mean, I still like FT as it is for the most part, but having a gap-closer/fast-movement skill like that would be pretty nice. Maybe something like Burning Speed (Ele fire dagger mainhand 3).

“Point your Flamethrower backwards and use it as a jet engine, leaving behind a line of fire that burns foes.”

Swagg.9236:

Ayestes.1273:

I mean on everything really.

Hohoho, you asked for this. Direct yourself to my fourth post. Be forewarned, it’s a doozy. I decided to just talk about it because there was so much on my mind about the topic—talk for… something like 26 minutes. But, hey, at least I got out what I wanted to say for the most part. I think it’s pretty comprehensive regarding most of my first post, but I’ll wait for your specific response on the matter whenever you get around to it.

Haha, excellent. When I do have the time I’d love to give it some good discussion.

That is actually one of the most well thought out and well written posts I have ever seen. I cannot (strongly) disagree even on one of the suggested changes, both on the “buff” perspective and on the “not going overboard” perspective. Perhaps FT2 being a blast finisher, as mentioned above, would need a slightly longer cooldown, considering the plethora of fields available to the engineer. Or battering ram with 30 sec cooldown and being instant might be too much (agree with the 30 sec, but believe it needs a slight casting time), but that’s about it.

I love in particular the changes suggested to thrown elixirs. It would really make them meaningful, and lessen the RNG, while keeping the variety. No thrown effect is useless and I reckon, engineers would be using all of them, when the situation calls for it. I agree with the posters in this thread that thrown elixirs are currently only used as a means to activate HGH and 409 traits.

I STRONGLY encourage the developers should take a look at this excellent thread and adopt some (or most) of the suggestions stated here. This thread is the sum of the collective engineer players’ experience, in both problems and solutions to them, in order to make the class both fun and balanced.

I like a lot of things on this list. Especially rocket boots changes. Personally I feel like i can already lay enough burning on a target with blowtorch and on crit so I would really like to see rocket boots toolbelt skill to cause confusion or 6 stacks of bleed.

I just feel like the Engineer in general really lacks a solid easy stacking kit/skill that can apply a bunch of stacks of bleeds…..and yes much better than elixir gun.

I have one very high priority request: get rid of all ground-targeted effects in underwater combat, the way Anet already did for grenade kit. When under water, any elixir toolbelt skill, or elixir gun’s Super Elixir, should go off at your location, or maybe just a short distance in front of you the way that Med Kit abilities and Turrets default to.

Unless you’re right up against a wall and facing the wall, they’re all impossible to use under water, because the current behavior is to travel in a semi-random straight line (actually, it’s the same direction as the last attack you fired) until it reaches maximum range or until it hits a wall, then detonate. Very, very frustrating.

this thread is just great. Thank you, Swagg.
I REALLY hope the devs take some time to read. Wishful thinking but one can hope.

InfamousBrad.5879:

I have one very high priority request: get rid of all ground-targeted effects in underwater combat, the way Anet already did for grenade kit. When under water, any elixir toolbelt skill, or elixir gun’s Super Elixir, should go off at your location, or maybe just a short distance in front of you the way that Med Kit abilities and Turrets default to.

Unless you’re right up against a wall and facing the wall, they’re all impossible to use under water, because the current behavior is to travel in a semi-random straight line (actually, it’s the same direction as the last attack you fired) until it reaches maximum range or until it hits a wall, then detonate. Very, very frustrating.

That’s honestly a great idea. While I do sort of enjoy/see the reasoning in implementing underwater Elixirs with a “detonate” chain skill ability, it isn’t really very intuitive and actually rubs Elixir-users the wrong way. Elixirs are ground-targeted because they have affects that can benefit your allies and hinder your enemies at the same time. This makes placement crucial. Since there is no way to easily direct an Elixir that is thrown underwater, it takes away a great amount of that versatility.

Having an underwater thrown Elixir instantly explode in a wide radius around the Engineer would make it easier to direct since you would just have to position the Engineer. It would also reduce the time it takes for a player to see results from his or her thrown Elixir when underwater.

I’ll just add this thought chain somewhere up in the 3rd or 4th posts.

Bump because I changed around a lot of the contents of this thread and added some new things. I also now have a big suggestion regarding the Bomb Kit. Also, the audio files have been linked to their respective posts and the one tied to the first post has been entirely redone. It’s still something like 32 minutes long, however.

i suggest to change skill 1 to auto attack/auto target..

Here’s how we can fix turrets: Put wheels and rotors on them so they follow you around like minions.

A lot of effort went into this thread. A few suggestions:
Move downed 2 to replace rifle 4 with 4’s damages but pull in and no self-cc crap.
Move downed 3 to downed 2, with 2’s timer.
Put supply drop on downed 3, with 3’s timer.
Then we have downed more in line with the quickly updated elementalist skills, our current are garbage.
Unbreak rifle 5 so the animation completed within 0.6 seconds, with out the useless hang time.
Update rifle 5 to 1200 range to be in line with warrior charge etc.
Elixir gun 3 cleanses user and 600% damage increase so it hits like a normal skill.
EG 5 changed back to decent heal.
EG2 doubled flight speed, with 2 more bounces.
EG1 doubled bleed stacks.
FT5 changed back to backdraft, or smoke field.
FT4 movement skill, ground targeted, leaves line of fire path, ring of fire at arrival.
FT1 is 10% chance projectile finisher.
Grenades are 4% chance blast finisher.
Grenades flight speed increased by 75%.
Toolkit 1 ranged auto attack, 700 range.
Toolkit 2 instant cast.
TK5 0.5 sec cast like scorpion wire.
Chainsaw kit added, something like warrior great sword.
Power gloves kit added, something like guardian mace + shield.
Kit refinement replaced with passive infinite effects while X kit is worn, no random cd crap.
Elixirs updated to work more like shouts.
Turrets 96% aoe immune. Targeted on that turret then those skills hit them normally.
All turret health doubled.
All turret cd’s under 20 secs, 60sec etc is ridiculous for stationary dumb object.
Trait revamp, over 50% of traits are currently worthless, and need replacing. Many of the other 50% need to be merged.

Czar Peter.7961:

Here’s how we can fix turrets: Put wheels and rotors on them so they follow you around like minions.

I think turrets could be fine if the Overcharges were just re-coded to interrupt and clear their current skill queue so that Engineer’s didn’t have to wait for their turrets to cycle through their current attack in order to activate a turret Overcharge. That would make them infinitely more responsive. As stationary weapons, they are alright in how they help to define battlefield lines. They can extend your range, make enemies worry excessively and sometimes even make them waste skills or dodges. If Overcharges had instantaneous activation, Engineer’s could even use Turrets as second bodies, placing them away from their actual location in order to attack from two places at once with Overcharge attacks.

Kalan.9705:

A lot of effort went into this thread. A few suggestions:
Move downed 2 to replace rifle 4 with 4’s damages but pull in and no self-cc crap.
Move downed 3 to downed 2, with 2’s timer.
Put supply drop on downed 3, with 3’s timer.
Then we have downed more in line with the quickly updated elementalist skills, our current are garbage.
Unbreak rifle 5 so the animation completed within 0.6 seconds, with out the useless hang time.
Update rifle 5 to 1200 range to be in line with warrior charge etc.
Elixir gun 3 cleanses user and 600% damage increase so it hits like a normal skill.
EG 5 changed back to decent heal.
EG2 doubled flight speed, with 2 more bounces.
EG1 doubled bleed stacks.
FT5 changed back to backdraft, or smoke field.
FT4 movement skill, ground targeted, leaves line of fire path, ring of fire at arrival.
FT1 is 10% chance projectile finisher.
Grenades are 4% chance blast finisher.
Grenades flight speed increased by 75%.
Toolkit 1 ranged auto attack, 700 range.
Toolkit 2 instant cast.
TK5 0.5 sec cast like scorpion wire.
Chainsaw kit added, something like warrior great sword.
Power gloves kit added, something like guardian mace + shield.
Kit refinement replaced with passive infinite effects while X kit is worn, no random cd crap.
Elixirs updated to work more like shouts.
Turrets 96% aoe immune. Targeted on that turret then those skills hit them normally.
All turret health doubled.
All turret cd’s under 20 secs, 60sec etc is ridiculous for stationary dumb object.
Trait revamp, over 50% of traits are currently worthless, and need replacing. Many of the other 50% need to be merged.

… Some of these suggestions seem just plain unreasonable.

Grenades are fine as they are.

I’ve already said that raising turret hp is not the solution to making them more intuitive to use—which should be the goal with all pet skills. I’ve already addressed Overcharge skills. Making turrets effectively immune to AoE is not the route to go. Once again, it’s not about their hp, it’s about how unresponsive their most powerful skills are. That is what is making them bad.

Tool Kit is amazing as it is—absolutely great. It’s only flaw is [Box of Nails] which I feel that I’ve already appropriately addressed.

ANet should really fix their current skills and traits before adding in more.

Rifle is pretty good as it is. [Jump Shot] doesn’t need a range extension, just some help with the AoE—and even that isn’t really necessary.

FT1 should not be a finisher of any kind: too many hits. It’s already good enough for proccing crit triggers. Your FT4 suggestion… are you actually saying that Engineer FT should get two powerful Elementalist skills wrapped into a single skill? I’ve considered the idea of turning Napalm into a [Burning Speed]-esque skill, though. I might make that suggestion.

EG is pretty fine as it is. EG2 getting a speed buff to its projectile and also EG1 getting another bleed stack might be interesting, though.

Engineer. downed skills. are. fine. I don’t know why I see so much griping about this topic.

I think this is worthless, they just don’t care about engineers. Every other class has been hotfixed when something was broken. But no. Not engineer. Its pretty clear now, they just don’t care. And it won’t make any difference writing here on forum. Nobody from them will answer.

Stop feeling sorry for yourself. It doesn’t get anything done. Even if it’s a distinct possibility that no dev will read this thread, I know that it is up here and I’ve done what I can to help.

Oh, right, speaking of which, I’ve made a new suggestion for Napalm. There have been a few suggestions for this before, but I now do think that changing it to something like the Elementalist skill [Burning Speed] would be a better place to go with it. It very much compliments how the Flamethrower functions.

Appreciate the time and effort Swagg, I agree with pretty much everything on your original list.

Also I agree that Grenade Kit is fine as is. It’s seen it’s fair share of somewhat deserved nerfs, but it’s time to leave it alone. No nerfs, no buffs, just bring the other kits up to it’s level, not necessarily in damage but in equal utility.

Hopefully we can get some dev’s eyes on this.

EDIT: Looks like turret traits are now working, thanks devs!

Turrets melt in 1 second or less in wvw, or they are so far from the battle they are entirely worthless, the ONLY way to make turrets useable in wvw is to give them the ability to survive aoe in some fashion. There are 4 options:

1 limiting the amounts of hits per second they can receive
2 increasing their armour and hitpoints massively (that’s bad for pve and arenas)
3 giving them damage reduction versus skills not targeted at them (% reduction or seconds of immunity, % is better)
4 giving them such big range increases they can be placed safely and still contribute in a useful fashion which is the most buggable/exploitable and worst option.

Either Turrets have to be made viable for the full range of WvW play, or they should be replaced by entirely new skills for WvW (which is far too much work). Best option is 3, % reduction based.

I do agree about overcharges needing to be active skills, and not so random/mistimed immediate cast immediate use.

Personally I’d put all the blast finishers into the overcharge skills and at trigger at player location, and have the turrets drop fields (also knockback from trait) at turret location, and delete the explode skills leaving toolbelt l turrets skills always available.

Grenades will never be balanceable easily until they do anything like similar damage to mobs and unaware players on the one hand as on the other hand the damage they do to players who press movement buttons. Grenades also won’t be a proper long range skill without changes.

Both are solved by speeding grenade flight up. The speed increases for arena modes were too small and proper speed increases are very needed in wvw also which is also a pvp mode.

Engineer downed skills are one of the biggest piles of mediocre uninspired subpar kitten I’ve seen in 16 years of MMO gaming. The only part that doesn’t need looking at is skill 4 because it’s basically the same as everyone else.

Anyway it’s a good thread, don’t let some differences of opinions demotivate you.

Kalan.9705:

Anyway it’s a good thread, don’t let some differences of opinions demotivate you.

I won’t, and honestly thanks for your input. Whether or not I agree all of the time with someone, it doesn’t mean that they can’t inspire new ideas or help finish ones already floating up in the air.

Speaking of which, I sort of like your idea of making every Overcharge a Blast Finisher. However, I sort of have two worries about that: it would make the [Detonate] option sort of a wasted slot; and giving Engineers a free Blast Finisher with every Turret might be just a little broken—maybe not. The other thing you suggested was just remove the [Detonate] skill and replace it with skills that produced different combo-fields based on the associated turret. This could be cool (I personally love combos in this game), but if we removed the [Detonate] skill, it might be difficult to move about a field with Turrets. Since they don’t blow up on their own, Engineers would be forced to retreat to their placed turrets and pick them up manually before moving to a different area. If there is a range that triggers turret auto-detonation, then it’s HUGE—maybe something like 10,000 range or something which is honestly too big to warrant not having some sort of remote detonation skill.

However, even with all that, I still feel that turrets can be made viable without adjusting how they react to damage—although, it’s certainly a valid solution. I was thinking of how turrets could be redesigned. Flame Turret, for instance, is one of the worst. I think that its main issue is its very short range and lack of hp. If it had a longer range, then it might be more viable. However, extending a flamethrower effect to something like 900 range would be crazy. So maybe it could fire a blob of napalm at passing enemies that exploded on impact and created a fire combo field that burns foes for 3 seconds before disappearing? Those are the sort of changes that I would like to personally see come to turrets.

I’m just going to repost this from my other thread. Turrets are far from being slot-able right now, but if the following changes happened, I might just take them for a spin.

What if turrets were instead balanced around them being fully disposable?

Let us imagine now the following:

• Placing a turret down begins to tick down the cooldown for the turret. At the end of the cooldown, the emplaced turret self-destructs.
  This change would make AOE damage destroying turrets a lot less crippling than previously. In PvP, this would encourage opponents to destroy turrets as soon as they are placed. This would be fully intended, because damage going to turrets is not going to the engineer.

• Picking up a turret reduces its current cooldown by 50%
  This change is mostly WvW and PvP focused, where smart opponents exist. In addition to the first change, this could result in some clutch moments where the engineer shaves crucial seconds off his cooldowns if the opponent targets the turret. In PvE, this would increase engineer mobility and allow the engineer to set up his turret base in different locations more often.

• Turret overcharges reset the attack timer on the turret, but destroy the turret at the end of the overcharge duration. However, turrets are invulnerable to damage whilst on overcharge.
  This change is the most dramatic one, and in my view the one thing that will make turrets an attractive slot choice. It seems silly, but bear with me for a moment.
• Overcharges making the turret invulnerable would finally eliminate the annoying chance that a turret can be destroyed during overcharge. Resetting the attack timer will also lead to more clutch plays in PvP.
• The self-destruct at the end of overcharge is to balance the fact that turret CD will be ticking down the whole while. It also emphasises the engineer’s class flavour to have their gadgets destroy themselves at the end of giving an enhanced performance.

And finally, a new Grandmaster trait for Turret Engineers.

Remote Redeployment

• The Engineer may select a turret to be recalled from range. The turret is recalled to the engineer as a bundle, which may be placed at the Engineer’s location. Placing the turret will reset the placement cooldown.
• The turret is fully repaired upon recall. Overcharge cooldown is reduced by 50% when turret is placed.

• This trait would allow engineers to save turrets under threat from AOE
• There is inherent synergy (!!) with the trait Deployable Turrets. Need to move your turret, but don’t want to reset your attack cooldown? Pick it up from far away and throw it where it’s needed.
• Halving overcharge cooldowns is where we begin cooking with gas. This will open up the possibility of engineers assaulting points in sPVP, not just defending them. Pack up your turrets remotely and throw them onto a defended point, overcharged, for maximum lulz.
• This trait assumes that other turret changes, such as turrets being invulnerable whilst overcharged, self-destruction upon ending of overcharge, and cooldowns ticking upon turret placement were also implemented.

As far as traits go, it would be:

1. Build defining
2. Open up new playstyles of the turret engineer
3. You can now assault nodes in PVP with turret engineer.
4. You can now use turrets in PVE without being unviable and immobile
5. You can now use turrets in WVW without them being instantly destroyed by AOE
6. It will also finally give engineers a reason to invest 30 points into inventions

MonMalthias.4763:

What if turrets were instead balanced around them being fully disposable?
[All of your ideas]

I’M THROWING MONEY AT THE SCREEN, BUT NOTHING IS HAPPENING. I’m so glad that you posted this here. I actually had a radical idea for turrets myself a while back that involved doubling turrets as environmental weapons that Engineers could pick up and set down again at their leisure. I never got around to posting that.

However, your idea is not only more in-line with the Engineer flavor, but much more active than running to a turret, picking it up and then fiddling with more skills. It also seems a much simpler solution. I’m going to reflect on your post and I’ll probably throw up a theoretical Turret skill overhaul (just one or two skills) later on to see if I can hit the mark you drew up with your idea. I’d love to hear your feedback after the fact, but seriously, yours is a solid idea. It just needs a little more fleshing out to really be top class.

TURRET OVERHAUL – MonMalthias.4763
Rifle Turret

• Cast-time: ½ second
• Recharge: 15 seconds
• Deploy a rifle turret that shoots at foes.
• Damage: 476
• Rate of Fire: 2 seconds
• Attack Range: 1000
• Duration: 20 seconds

Automatic Fire (Rifle Turret overcharge)

• Recharge: 30 seconds
• Overcharge your Rifle Turret to fire a burst of bleeding shots that pierce targets.
• Rate of Fire increase: 100%
• Bleeding (2): 3 seconds
• Duration: 4 seconds

Rocket Turret

• Cast-time: ½ second
• Recharge: 30 seconds
• Deploy a turret that fires rockets.
• Damage: 794
• Burning: 3 seconds
• Rate of Fire: 4 seconds
• Blast radius: 240
• Attack Range: 1200
• Duration: 15 seconds

Explosive Rockets (Rocket Turret overcharge)

• Recharge: 30 seconds
• Overcharge your turret to fire explosive rockets.
• Damage: 1270
• Burning: 3 seconds
• Rate of Fire: 4 seconds
• Knockdown: 2 s
• Duration: 7 s
• Blast radius: 240
• Attack Range: 1200

I actually didn’t… do much work at all on these now that I’ve posted them. It’s only Rifle and Rocket for now just in order to promote some discussion.

The only things that I did were some minor adjustments related to recharges. I also added a “duration” to each of the turrets to signify that they have a time-limit before they self-destruct. Honestly, the more I think about it, Monmalthias, your idea seems pretty self-contained as it is. It works really well in making turrets much more active-use abilities. I’m a little unsure about how long you personally thought about making the individual “count-down timers,” as you put it. I just sort of guessed on it and scaled the recharges in accordance with damage, overcharge capability and general threat on the battlefield.

@Swagg.9236:
To clarify, what I meant by “count-down timer” was the Recharge cooldown.

Looking over at the skill mechanics, it’s interesting that you chose to give Rocket Turret a 35 second CD, but only a 15 second duration before self destruct.

I had never thought of anything less than 100% turret uptime before your post, but it does bear some consideration. As it stands with the current Engineer Turret implementation, analysis of the

• damage,
• turret health,
• lack of stat scaling, and
• generally sub-par Toolbelt abilities,
  you can definitely tell that ArenaNet intended turrets to be a semi-permanent “pet” entity.

That was the reason for my post re-imagining them as fully disposable gadgets. Freed of the possibility that the Engineer could place a turret in PvE, then go AFK and farm up a storm, and the sheer point-control possibilities of turrets in sPVP if left alone, ArenaNet’s balance team could then work with them as a temporary boost to an Engineer’s Area Control and Area Denial capabilities.

In this way, ArenaNet could keep turret health, lack of stat scaling, and even base damage if Turrets became fully disposable.

Your idea of less than 100% uptime for turrets is actually quite sound. For one, it further emphasises mobility of play, and active play at that.

• It would encourage Turret Engineers to pick up turrets close to the very end of their lifespan. (However, it might “Force” Engineers to do so from a cooldown-reduction standpoint, so that’s a negative consideration to think about)
• From a PVP standpoint, destroying an Engineer Turret is now even more of a priority (Assuming buffs were made to the threat Turrets pose)
• Turret Overcharge can now be thought of as a way to extend the lifespan of a turret if they were to be invulnerable during Overcharge.

The only difference I would make to your turret overhaul would be changing the Condition that Rifle Turret inflicts on Overcharge. Assuming that Turrets keep their lack of stat scaling, implementing a Damage Over Time condition that simply increases a turret’s ability to deal damage doesn’t add to the Utility that Overcharge is supposed to bring.

I run Rocket Turret underwater, and in certain dungeons, solely because of the control Overcharged Rocket Turret shots bring. Knockdown spam can strip Defiance pretty quickly. To that end, I would rather that Rifle Turret’s Overcharge instead inflict Cripple.

Ah, sorry I didn’t get back to you earlier, MonMalthias. An idea did strike me, though. How about this for a general turret overhaul (with my post in mind regarding a turret’s “duration” being typically shorter than its recharge):

REVAMPED TURRET PROPERTIES – MonMalthias.4763
Duration:

• All turrets now have a respective duration. This duration dictates how long they will be active on the field before automatically self-destructing. This automatic self-destruct would be equivalent to the [Detonate -name- Turret] skill (Blast Finisher and all).

Cool-downs

• A turret’s respective cool-down does not begin counting down until that turret has been destroyed. A turret can be destroyed either by an enemy reducing its total HP to 0, the Engineer using the [Detonate -name- Turret] toolbelt skill that appears when a turret is active or if the Engineer simply lets the turret run through its total duration and allowing it to self-destruct on its own.

Picking up a turret

• Picking up a turret with the [interact] button removes the turret from the battlefield as it does now.
• Picking up a turret fully heals that turret and reduces its base cool-down by 75%.

Overcharges

• Overcharges will remain on a cool-down timer separate from their respective turrets’ cool-downs.
• Turrets now have a 75% damage reduction buff while an Overcharge is active.
• If an Engineer activates an Overcharge on a turret, that turret will reset its current skill queue in order to instantly trigger its respective Overcharge attack.
• Turrets will now automatically self-destruct at the end of an Overcharge (this also counts as destroying the turret).
• Overcharges will reset its respective turret’s duration, allowing for a turret to always have a chance to fully execute its entire Overcharge regardless of when an Engineer activates it. As such, using an Overcharge with good timing can be a means to lengthen the lifespan of a turret past its normal duration.
• An Engineer cannot pick up a turret while it is in Overcharge mode.

I figured that letting turrets take some damage during an overcharge would not so much be in the interests of balance, but more in the interests of confusing enemies—if that makes sense at all. I also thought that making turrets invulnerable during Overcharges might be better saved for a trait. I also took your “pick-up to reduce recharge” thought a bit further. I figured that if an Engineer really had to wade through a battle just to pick up a little turret, it better be worth it. More importantly, with a super-short recharge, an Engineer could keep adapting battle lines with turret presence on a more consistent and responsive basis.

I have a simple but effective way of making Elixir X a good elite skill; make it give you 15s of chaos armor.

Numot.3965:

I have a simple but effective way of making Elixir X a good elite skill; make it give you 15s of chaos armor.

I don’t like Chaos Armor because of its reactive nature. I’d much prefer even what we have now for Elixir X than 15 seconds of Chaos Armor. Using Chaos Armor means you’re going to purposefully let an opponent get hits in on you in order to get some sort of bonus. I’d much rather just try to CC and smash the guy with Rampage or Tornado (as sub-par as those skills are) than let that happen.

I rather they just give us the stability from the Elixir save the transformation most of the times. Not sure how balanced that would be though lol. I was meaning to comment on this mega thread but havent gotten around to it. Also dont think that post will fit into 1. lol

NickDollahZ.5348:

I rather they just give us the stability from the Elixir save the transformation most of the times. Not sure how balanced that would be though lol. I was meaning to comment on this mega thread but havent gotten around to it. Also dont think that post will fit into 1. lol

Ya I just want the stability, the only good transforms are underwater.
The other thing they could do is make it grant condition immunity for 8 sec. It would be worthy of being an elite since there is only one other way to be immune to conditions, it wouldn’t become overpowered by stacking boon duration because immunity isn’t a boon, it would give reason to get Potent Elixirs, it would look cool and have uses in any area of the game.

NickDollahZ.5348:

I rather they just give us the stability from the Elixir save the transformation most of the times. Not sure how balanced that would be though lol. I was meaning to comment on this mega thread but havent gotten around to it. Also dont think that post will fit into 1. lol

This was actually the solid, simple solution that a guild mate suggested to me some months ago. It would honestly make the skill infinitely better and more intuitive (you could actually use your Elite at a proper time now—imagine that!). Flavor only gets you so far (as seen with most gadgets). The only reason I made that chart was because I thought that Elixir X can really be a genuinely good elite all of its own and not just something that literally gives you a 50% chance of copy-pasting another profession’s sub-par elite. I mean, my version is still uses the copy-paste paradigm, but the options are much wider, thus giving the player more ways to respond to a given combat situation.

I know that your suggestion wouldn’t really make Elixir X a genuinely good or unique elite skill (no offense at all), but if push came to shove and my idea were thrown out for whatever reason, I’d definitely back your idea.

Mortar-
The change to mortar would be really nice. When mortar range comes up, people always devolve to the whole “others classes can’t go past 1500” argument, but classes other than Mesmer can’t teleport people across the map. I’d be fine with Engi’s getting decent range on the mortar.

Flamethrower-
Flame thrower needs to be adjusted so that the cone can hit 5 people in one blast.

Turret-

Your turret suggestions are actually good, but I would remove them. I don’t like any turret suggestions at all. Every time Anet spends a patch making changes to turrets, it is a completely wasted patch, and then they go and nerf other stuff to accommodate the useless buff they made to turrets.. They should focus on the parts of Engi that can actually be salvaged without a complete and total overhaul. Until they are ready to completely and utterly redo turret mechanics, they should just ignore them and fix everything else about the class. To that end, I wouldn’t even suggest any turret changes.

timidobserver.7925:

Flame thrower needs to be adjusted so that the cone can hit 5 people in one blast.

Fixing the way that the Flamethrower detects targets would be a big enough buff in and of itself. If FT1 reliably hit targets, it would be like having a melee attack cleave angle except with a 450 range. That’s crazy good.

timidobserver.7925:

Your turret suggestions are actually good, but I would remove them. I don’t like any turret suggestions at all. Every time Anet spends a patch making changes to turrets, it is a completely wasted patch, and then they go and nerf other stuff to accommodate the useless buff they made to turrets.. They should focus on the parts of Engi that can actually be salvaged without a complete and total overhaul. Until they are ready to completely and utterly redo turret mechanics, they should just ignore them and fix everything else about the class. To that end, I wouldn’t even suggest any turret changes.

What you’re saying here is that turrets need an overhaul… but then you’re saying not to suggest a turret overhaul. While I understand where you’re coming from, I’m keeping the suggestion up there. MonMalthius’ idea is too good not to see some sort of representation. Besides, I think that (I hope, but I guess I don’t really know whether or not if) the average joe can see which of this thread’s suggestions are more simplistic, quality-of-life changes that would be relatively simple to incorporate into the game while separating out bigger projects that could be done in a different fashion (such as the turret or bomb kit overhauls).

I just finished watching the guildwars2pro.com 1v1 tournament, casted by Teldo for EU and it is quite interesting because it featured the Turret engineer in particular.

Feel free to skip through a lot of duels but the important one featuring the Turret engineer (Doll Vegas) starts at 32:22 and 38:00. Here you can see the Turret Engineer akittens best: in 1v1. The strong repeatable CC of Net Turret combined with a possible chain knockdown combo with the Rocket Turret Overcharge could completely destroy an opponent caught in a single immobilise out of position. This is where Grackleflint is coming from when he speaks of his home point defender Turret build; where strong CC and clever Turret positioning can obliterate opponents.

You will notice in the second duel that the Engineer takes on a BM Ranger. With the addition of another target and with Turret AI only targetting the closest target you can clearly see that the Ranger had a strong advantage despite playing a build with an amulet that was not optimised for it. (Shaman’s Amulet was banned out). The victories the Engineer scored were once again due to clever positioning and pushing the Ranger into CC range of the Net Turret to win.

The footage shows that Turrets are in a not too poor position right now. Direct damage was certainly not lacking as there was significant direct damage pressure put on the Ranger despite using a Carrion Amulet, not a Soldier’s or Berserker’s.

The weaknesses of Turrets were however, magnified, especially in the Ranger fight. With the addition of a single additional target, Turret presence is essentially negated. Even though the Ranger elected not to kill off the Turrets, he still came out on top because of this.

If you watch the whole tournament (The second half of the VOD is Team Paradigm doing Tournament queues.) you will notice that at the end Teldo comments that it seems like the strongest 1v1 builds right now use a lot of AI. Minions, Turrets, Phantasms (The Phantasm Mesmer was crushing faces in this tourney, and Xeph elected not to play it because he felt it was cheesing), even Rock Dog summons dominate this kind of play. The reason being that having a summon essentially adds another amount of EHP and damage to your build.

Players have to play around either negating that additional damage and not do damage to yourself (more EHP); or try to kite and avoid the damage of the summons on top of your own sources of damage and CC (more damage). You will notice that summons have 2 clear sub-categories: Those with high uptime, but crippling downtime if negated (Turrets, Ranger Pets, Rock Dog from Ogre Runes), and those with low uptime, but are essentially disposable (Mesmer Illusions/Phantasms)

Anet has seen to it that nigh on all summons have sufficient HP and damage to at least be significant in the cases of the “permanent” summons. Herein lies the crux of Turret balance and issues.

It is clear that Anet intended Turrets to be the High uptime, crippling downtime if killed summons. They have strong features on the field especially with Overcharge. But here is where you have a design break.

• Anet clearly did not want Turrets to be as strong as Ranger Pets, nor as controllable; so they leave the Turrets at relatively low base HP and allow no targetting options. Imagine being able to target a 30%-40% uptime, repeating Immobilise – cries of “Nerf” would surface immediately.
• Despite all this, Anet wanted Turrets to still have high uptime as summons, but wanted a similar mechanic to Ranger Pet Attacks. So you now have Overcharge. But you also want these strong attacks to be on a long cooldown to prevent CC chaining abuse. The balancing factor for the strong Overcharges is that they have a firing delay, and foes can move out of range.
• Now you have 2 balancing quandaries: You want Turrets to be a high-uptime summon, and you want them to deal significant damage, but you also don’t want the strong Overcharge mechanics to be too overwhelming.
• Anet then remembered that Engineers actually had a Toolkit and hurriedly designed some Tack-on, very very low uptime skills.

Fast forward 9 months and you only see Engineers taking Turrets in 1v1 PVP tournaments. They are almost completely absent in PVE and WVW, where strong, repeatable cleave and AOE from foes is omnipresent and crushes the design break of “Strong, high uptime, crippling downtime”.

This is why a new paradigm is required. Turrets need to be balanced around “Strong, low uptime, mediocre downtime”.
It worked for Phantasm and Shatter Mesmers. And it may yet work for Engineers.

How about an Elite skill worth taking? Elixir X outside of an Elixir build isn’t all that and supply drop just further cements our title as a support class. Mortar is…yeah, don’t…don’t use that.

I’d like them to remove the caltrops from #2 on the toolkit, restore the caltrops to the kit refinement of the toolkit, and make them appear as quickly as the caltrops do on a dodging and traited thief that throws those out with dodges so they can replace the thing with a more useful attack that does a larger amount of damage like a drill or a chainsaw or some other power tool that we see in modern kits.

I’d also like to see them give a AOE damage resistance to the turrets, and the mortar across the board (not toughness a % AOE immunity.) so that these things aren’t killed in two seconds flat like they are now. (when i say across the board i mean to the other two pet classes as well, spirits, pets, summoned on rangers/necromancers.

I think I’m going to lookup my old suggestion threads and copy and paste them here.

The addition of a standard ooc 25% run speed boost as an option for equipping the Rocket boots/Slick Shoes gadgets to free up the points normally used in the 33% run speed by switching kits constantly to have better movement in open world environment.

Also almost forgot. Add a tar field or accelerant field with the trait Acidic Elixirs so that when they are thrown on the ground they drop a tar like substance that causes an increase in damage output on burn conditions, the #1 skill on FT, and the #2 skills on bombs etc.