Guild Wars 2

I never could understand Anets treatment towards engineer when compared to the other classes.

Since release, a majority of complains I hear when the talk about Overpowered comes up is it either deals with Thiefs, Warriors, or Mesmers. Yet these so called “OP classes” go untouched since release. The only time i heard complaints about engineer being too good was either A. When talking about Bunkering in spvp, or B. when talking about their old p/p build before it was nerfed into the ground. I mean since release we were one of the least played classes. Yet we continue to be nerfed. Especially grenades. People said they were good, but I never heard an overwhelming of complains about them. Especially since if you’re paying attention they can be easy to counter.

However, if we get even a simple small buff they nerf us into the ground. I feel like engineers are on their low priority list when dealing with classes and as a result, they are looking at the class very narrowly. They give us a small buff (which should have been there in release) of sigils affecting kits, and the nerf the damage 30%. It seems like they really didn’t look at anything with the class or how the kit works. It seemed like the generalized the buff and did a very generalized nerf.

Sometimes I hear a common defense of “If they nerf thief (mesmer, or warrior) they can’t do anything else!”. Which is not true, but engineers I felt were in a far worst position then they are. Grenades was our only viable build in pvp areas (besides bunkering and support, though support was “fixed”) and high level fractals according to many high level engineers. The three classes are still considered overpowered by many, but they remained untouched.

I can’t help but feel like they are looking at engineers through a very simplified scope and not taking everything the engineer can do into consideration. It is very bad when our class is the only class that requires another player to do well against another player.

I am just trying to figure out why Anet has treated this class the way they have. I personally feel from my MMO experience that this is one of the worst treatments to a class compared to the rest in the game. I’ve never seen a MMO in which the community complains about one overlyplayed class about being overpowered, and they nerf the least played one again and again.

We’re supposed to have a January update, and if they nerf engineer again I feel there is going to be a huge firestorm.

We are. It’s prolly why people have been telling me they have two people working on the fixes. TWO people. I wonder how many the other classes have.

Anyway I hope they update this class in january and if someone is reading this over there no more bug fixes for underwater until land is fixed! Please, it’s like (oh let’s fix the 10% of the game that most people never see or do)

I found yet another bug this evening, when using static discharge and hgh build with FT the discharges go everywhere BUT at the enemy. Seriously they were flying up in the air and down into the ground never hitting anything.

This class needs sooooo much work.

I don’t understand their treatment of us either. No gaming company with a fantasy setting has ever been able to pull this type of class or profession off. They usually nerf everything because people who aren’t us complain constantly. I’m like this, don’t complain make one. You’ll figure out the weaknesses by walking in our shoes for a week.

tigirius.9014:

I found yet another bug this evening, when using static discharge and hgh build with FT the discharges go everywhere BUT at the enemy. Seriously they were flying up in the air and down into the ground never hitting anything.

Yea. Were you throwing elixirs for your toolbelt/static discharge? Static discharge acts really weird for ground-targeted abilities.

@maullus

so many of our skills are very awkward. Any ground target + static is very awkward and a hassle to hit people with.

@tigirius

Yeah, i tell the people the same thing. Many of my friends thought I was over exaggerating when I complain about the engineer, though none of them have ever played the class. I’ve played Thief, Mesmer, Ranger, Guard, and Warrior and I can say for sure 1 skill of one of those classes = 5 skills of the engineer to get about 4/5th of the same result…

tigirius.9014:

We are. It’s prolly why people have been telling me they have two people working on the fixes. TWO people. I wonder how many the other classes have.

I thought they said they have two people working on ALL classes, not only engineer.
Two people who are responsible for fixing all bugs on every class. So it would explain why it works so slow.

Maullus.1273:

tigirius.9014:

I found yet another bug this evening, when using static discharge and hgh build with FT the discharges go everywhere BUT at the enemy. Seriously they were flying up in the air and down into the ground never hitting anything.

Yea. Were you throwing elixirs for your toolbelt/static discharge? Static discharge acts really weird for ground-targeted abilities.

From wiki: “If you use an area of effect skill – including an elixir or skill that doesn’t normally deal damage – it will fly towards the center of the AoE and hit anything in a straight-line path.”

Shivenis.3761:

Maullus.1273:

tigirius.9014:

I found yet another bug this evening, when using static discharge and hgh build with FT the discharges go everywhere BUT at the enemy. Seriously they were flying up in the air and down into the ground never hitting anything.

Yea. Were you throwing elixirs for your toolbelt/static discharge? Static discharge acts really weird for ground-targeted abilities.

From wiki: “If you use an area of effect skill – including an elixir or skill that doesn’t normally deal damage – it will fly towards the center of the AoE and hit anything in a straight-line path.”

Wiki is incorrect on this one!

Some AoE skills (like bomb fromb bomb kit) will still hit your focus target reliably. Most skills which are clearly ground target aoe (like grenade barrage) will only hit if you are standing directly in front of your focused enemy. Otherwise it will go straight into the ground right in front of you no matter where you actually targeted your aoe – no “hitting everything along its path” here .

come on guys u clearly haven’t used a sd build properly, imagine if we could run a might stacking build with a sd that would allways hit, the damage would be incredible, atleast this way it forces us to use skills that arnt that fantastic, lol run into a group of enemys with elixer s, grenade kit and bomb kit with a might stacking build…….knockdown everything, insta kill most classes befor they see you when they do pop elixer s run away without a problem, that in my opinion is a bit op

ukuni.8745:

come on guys u clearly haven’t used a sd build properly, imagine if we could run a might stacking build with a sd that would allways hit, the damage would be incredible, atleast this way it forces us to use skills that arnt that fantastic, lol run into a group of enemys with elixer s, grenade kit and bomb kit with a might stacking build…….knockdown everything, insta kill most classes befor they see you when they do pop elixer s run away without a problem, that in my opinion is a bit op

lmao. have you tried to use bomb kit in spvp lately? yeah. have fun.

ukuni.8745:

come on guys u clearly haven’t used a sd build properly, imagine if we could run a might stacking build with a sd that would allways hit, the damage would be incredible, atleast this way it forces us to use skills that arnt that fantastic, lol run into a group of enemys with elixer s, grenade kit and bomb kit with a might stacking build…….knockdown everything, insta kill most classes befor they see you when they do pop elixer s run away without a problem, that in my opinion is a bit op

The issue seems much rather to be that you cant put SD + grenade/explosions + might stacking in a single build

The only issue is that elixirs toolbelt skills don’t really work with SD. And that if you’re already using grenades+might stacking, using SD on top of it is kinda hard. You’ll need to mash even more buttons, while still having to dodge agony and stuff. I don’t think you can use it effectively, even if elixirs did work with SD.

Deified.7520:

We’re supposed to have a January update, and if they nerf engineer again I feel there is going to be a huge firestorm.

I expect a berf or a nuff by means of giving us weapon stats on kits and then reducing damage output on every kit. This has the potential of nullifying some of the few viable builds people are running at the moment….
But who knows, maybe awesomeness is coming towards us!
Wait…
no.
We are too versatile already. We are almost, but not quite, the kings of versatility.

Yeah they are paranoid of engies being good.

Consider that when we got sigils we also got small nerfs to kits. What does that mean? It means that in their eyes kits were already good damage wise, and that when sigils were added that was not a buff, it was a mere shift in power.

I am almost positively sure that when the weapon stats are added to kits, another slight nerf will happen and we are back to square one.

Yeah, your conclusion seems solid.
They are happy about how the Engi performs, or don’t care (lack of dev posts/communication in our forum).
Kind of sad though, to be honest. q

Penguin.5197:

I am almost positively sure that when the weapon stats are added to kits, another slight nerf will happen and we are back to square one.

Doesn’t seem logical given engineers skillls are already balanced to take account of those stats (from amulet/jewel instead of weapon) in sPvP.

Sylosi.6503:

Penguin.5197:

I am almost positively sure that when the weapon stats are added to kits, another slight nerf will happen and we are back to square one.

Doesn’t seem logical given engineers skillls are already balanced to take account of those stats (from amulet/jewel instead of weapon) in sPvP.

You know I actually forgot about spvp (who hasnt lol) and I really hope you are right.

Haha, you’re right. Didn’t think of that neither.
Probably a berf for everything excluding sPVP then. ._.

Speaking of the static discharge trait, I would actually like it if they make it a fixed reaction. Simply target someone, use your toolbelt skill, and the static goes toward the targetted enemy.

To me this makes it a LOT easier to predict what will happen, rather than have it go shoot a bolt 3 feet into nothing when you use a self-buffing toolbelt skill.

The randomness is strong in us.
Thank you ANet…

the grenades did too much damage relative to other kits and needed to be nerfed, period. they still do more damage than any other kit.

saying it was because of sigils was just being polite about it.

Talking WvW here: It is really hard to tell whether grenade kit did too much damage relative to other kits, while other kits (or traits that impact kits respectively) being as buggy as they are (not restricted to WvW of course).
Another reason you can’t really compare them, is that grenades have a high chance to not hit a moving target (at range).
Did you hear other people fighting Engineers complain about our grenade damage?
Also, not only Grenade Kit was toned down but other kits, as well as written in the patch notes, plus it was more than 30% to Grenade Kit… more about 35%.

My point is: fix bugs first, then check balance in targeted environment (including communities opinion filtered through devs views), then tone down (if needed at all).

My question is why are we even discussing this? This isn’t advanced kitten, it’s extremely basic and obvious problems and I’m out of my mind amazed that anet haven’t after half a year either fixed it or at least mentioned it in a list of things to fix. Engineer isn’t the only area where this is true, all over the game there are straight out dumb stuff going on that any person could see needs fixing. Most of them aren’t even hard to fix. Like seriously change one line or two in coding and it’s fixed! (and I’m in a guild with a bunch of nerdy programmers)

What I’m saying is take one week and have 8 people of the staff play one profession each from 1-80 then have another week to play lvl 80 content. During the time make a list of all the problems you see and FIX THEM. THEEEEEEEEEEEEEN work on new content/balance. Also I’m not sure if anet has this wild dream of becoming a pro pvp game but.. sorry anet no one gives a kitten about spvp as long as pve is filled to the top with bugs/problems. =/ (some people might do but, you get what I mean)

Bunch of Nerdy Programmers… I hope your guild is all Asuras then, aye?
Also… whats your guild tag?

Pannonica.5378:

Bunch of Nerdy Programmers… I hope your guild is all Asuras then, aye?

You bet..

A good example of the “all-over problems” that LukeTheQuke is mentioning is the way a lot of underwater enemies all of a sudden bug out and go invulnerable during combat. WEIRD and frustrating!

Raven.9603:

the grenades did too much damage relative to other kits and needed to be nerfed, period. they still do more damage than any other kit.

saying it was because of sigils was just being polite about it.

This isn’t just about the grenade kit. Engineers are very under powered compared to other classes. I shouldn’t have to go into detail on this topic, because if you have rolled any other class, you realize this is true. It seems like ANET can’t figure out what to do with the engineer yet. I’d say in a year or so, we should have some kind of defined roll.