Guild Wars 2

There seems to be some measure of talk about giving melee weapon choices to Engineers. The Engineer playstyle, traits and skillset seems to favour range that changes between short and long ranges, and developer interviews in the past seem to reinforce this:
http://www.wartower.de/artikel/artikel.php?id=562
“The main way the Engineer works with that is, that he can get up close to people but he still doesn’t want to stand toe to toe with them.” – Eric Flannum

Similarly, the official website for the engineer seems to emphasise versatility, area control, and engagement at a variety of ranges.
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/professions/engineer/

There have been multiple threads in the past few weeks and months calling for Melee options to be added to the engineer. I feel that this is incredibly important because the Engineer skills at present seem slightly lacking in the mid range (flamethrower #1, rifle #3, 4, 5, elixir gun #3, turrets, gadgets). By mid range I mean 300-750 – Far enough to safely range, close enough to hit with most skillshots and GTAoE.
Adding a melee option would allow us to shore up the weaknesses of these skills.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/Poll-Engineers-with-hammers/
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/Why-can-t-engineers-use-hammers-1
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/Improving-the-Engineer-How-I-d-Do-It
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/Engineer-Sword-Dagger-Bayonette
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/Chainsaw-Kit-More-melee-for-Engineers

Engineer is sorely lacking in some reliable distance closers such as charges and leaps and teleports, and certain combo fields and finishers as well, such as Lightning field and Whirl.
Some great ideas are circulating around in the Poll thread for Engineer Hammers
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/Poll-Engineers-with-hammers/

I’d like to dedicate this thread to One Hand options for Engineers in order to keep the Hammer thread on topic. There have been some pretty interesting suggestions, such as:
Mainhand Shield

Actually, I’m going to advocate for main hand shield instead… dual-wielding shields would be too awesome.

Powerglove or Chainsaw Kit

Nah, I’d prefer the engine to gain a power glove or chainsaw kit before getting a close range weapon. Kits fit the theme of engineers more than giving them hammers and torches.

Torches (for everyone’s inner pyromaniac)

(TL;DR? Scroll down for example main-hand long-range torch skills)
I clicked +1 on your post to show my interest to ANet, though I’d prefer a mainhand torch instead of a mace or hammer.

So, let’s discuss Main-Hand Melee options for Engineers here!

Reposting from the other thread, lorazcyk.8927’s suggestions on the torch:

(TL;DR? Scroll down for example main-hand long-range torch skills)

I clicked +1 on your post to show my interest to ANet, though I’d prefer a mainhand torch instead of a mace or hammer.
Why?

• I know a lot of people want a mace or hammer, but unlike others I don’t think that really fits the engineer, though I do understand why others think that. But repairing things with a hammer isn’t exclusive to engineers, other professions do it too, and you wouldn’t repair machinery with a hammer anyway. So to me, it doesn’t make sense.
• Heat and flame is used to create or repair hardware/machinery/welding. Soldering irons and butane torches come to mind. Therefore I think the torch would be more fitting to an engineer than a hammer or mace.
• We only have one mainhand weapon that we can use with our offhand weapons. With a mainhand torch, you’re not stuck with the pistol mainhand anymore.

The Mesmer has a greatsword that behaves like a ranged staff — so why couldn’t we have a mainhand torch?

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I want a weapon with an auto-attack chain; none of this pistol and rifle auto-attack-with-only-one-skill nonsense!

Here’s an example on how they could create the engineer’s mainhand torch, in this case, a weapon with an auto-attack of 900 range.

Skill 1 in autoattack chain, inspired by Molotov Caulktail
(the word and the link got kittened, so I caulked it)

• light a napalm flask/elixir with your torch, then toss it at your target to damage & burn enemies in the area
• AoE has 120 radius, improves to 180 with Juggernaut trait
• 20% chance of creating a Blast finisher
  (yeah, I know elixirs are supposed to be beneficial, but, but… molotov caulktail!)

Skill 2 in autoattack chain could be:
- AoE, no burning, no blast finisher
- single-target with burning, no blast finisher
Whichever ANet thinks is best.

Skill 3 in autoattack chain inspired by a butane torch

• slightly longer activation time than the other skills in the chain:
• burn a flask/elixir of metal powder and toss it at your target, creating a sickening vapor that damages & poisons enemies in the area
• AoE has 120 radius, improves to 180 with Juggernaut trait
• 20% chance of creating a Poison combo field, in addition to the poison created by the skill

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Then we have…

Skill 2: Throw your torch at your enemy, damaging & burning them, and leaving a trail of smoke on the way

• ranged attack (as ranged as the “smoke screen” … is it 900? or 1200? I don’t remember)
• 100% chance of smoke screen combo field (starting where you’re standing when using the skill)
• the smoke screen goes in a line parallel to you, from you to the enemy, not perpendicular as it normally is.

Skill 3: Slam your torch on the ground at your location, creating a ring of napalm

• similar to the ranger’s bonfire torch skill
• … but remove combo field since the other skills already have some
• reduce pulses (ticks) to every 2 seconds instead of every second
• cause 1 second of burning with each pulse
• cause 2 or 3 seconds of cripple and bleed when you use the skill (the first pulse), because of the torch splinters
• (another option could be to burn liquid nitrogen with your torch, causing chill and bleeding for 2 or 3 seconds on the first pulse, then bleeding with each pulse. I don’t know… what do you think? )
• AoE has 120 radius, improves to 180 with Juggernaut trait

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I think this weapon fits the Engineer theme, and provides good synergy with the pistol and shield off-hands available to us, as well as the flamethrower kit.

Maybe you’re thinking, “that’s awesome, make it a kit!”.
But I don’t want more kits, I want another main-hand weapon to use with my offhand shield and pistol!
.

If ANet refuses to create another main-hand weapon, I’d be happy with being able to swap weapons when you don’t have any kits in your utility slots.

(Oh, and bug-fixing would be nice in 2013?!)

They can already melee with the tool kit. In addition this kit has a skill called magnet which pulls enemies to the engineer. It can also be used underwater.

Plus there is not really any safe range distance. Most classes can easily close the distance between themselves and another player.

I’d just like to start off by posting a weapon skill design for Main Hand Shield. I’ve had a few ideas floating around for it, but I’ve settled upon the concept and skill design flavour of an Electrified shield, because Shield Offhand already features skills based around Electricity.
I figure the skill design will be based around disruption, interruption and team support, given the utility Off-hand brings. There’s also class flavour potential here, with only the Engineer being crazy enough to bring 2 shields to a fight.

The world of Tyria is rough. Time to double your protection
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_u0tDx3Ky0

Shield 1 will be a standard 3 hit chainskill auto-attack.
Electric Bash 0.5 second attack. Engineer strikes a foe with an electrified shield. Animation shows Engineer striking foe with the boss of the shield, withdrawing to strike again with
Edge Bash 0.5 second attack. Engineer strikes a foe with the edge of the shield, inflicting Weakness for 1 second. Animation shows the Engineer bringing the shield forward like a punch to strike a foe.
Electric Drive 1 second attack. Engineer strikes a foe with a power blow, causing 2 stacks of Vulnerability for 5 seconds.

A short attack chain, along with the potential to stack permanent Weakness and Vulnerability onto enemies gives both offensive and defensive utility to the auto attack chain. Weakness is an under-appreciated condition IMO given that it not only turns normal attacks to glancing blows, it also reduces endurance regeneration by 50%, reducing the kiting ability of enemies, especially in PvP where dodge rolls are life.

Shield 2 will be the distance closer/opener.
Electric Surge is a 900 unit targeted charge. It will use the same targeting reticule as the Warrior’s Greatsword Whirlwind attack, or the Elementalist’s Fiery Greatsword Fiery Whirl.
0.75 sec cast time, Leap finisher, 15 second cooldown.
It will end on impact with a foe. On impact, Electric Surge deals damage and Dazes a foe for 2 seconds.
During the animation, the Engineer will be encased in the same Aura as an Elementalist’s Shocking Aura. Projectiles striking the Engineer mid-animation will stun the enemy from which they originated for 1 second if they are within 600 units. However, it will still be affected by soft CC, so this is very much an Engagement tool with a view to rushdown enemy ranged foes, rather than to be used as an escape.

Shield 3 will be the team support ability.
Project Absorption Field will be a 150 unit wide, Mobile Projectile destruction wall. Visually similar to the Guardian’s Wall of Reflection, except it does not have a combo field, and it is mobile.
3 second channeled ability, 30 second cooldown
This is a throwback to the Absorb ability.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Absorb
Project Absorption Field chains into
Redirect – 0.75 sec cast time, 40 second cooldown.
Redirect the first absorbed projectile back at a targeted foe.
Reflecting only the first absorbed projectile weakens the skill compared to a full duration reflect, however, I feel this is balanced considering you can shield team-mates with this ability. Doing damage is secondary.

So there you have it. A skill design for main hand Shield. I’d like to see more melee weapon skill suggestions, so bring them on!

WonderfulCT.6278:

They can already melee with the tool kit. In addition this kit has a skill called magnet which pulls enemies to the engineer. It can also be used underwater.

Plus there is not really any safe range distance. Most classes can easily close the distance between themselves and another player.

Engineers are quite lacking in engagement skills right now. For a mid-range class (not my words, the developers), Engineer lacks strong distance closers.
I do acknowledge that Magnet Pull exists on a kit, however, I think you will notice that it does not change the Engineer’s position, instead bringing a foe into an Engineer’s range. Magnet pull does you no good against a foe with Stability/Defiance, or who dodges in PvP or WvW. Distance closers are agnostic of a foe’s defensive boons, and improve our ability to position ourselves.

Rocket Boots and Acid Bomb, being leaps backward (they aren’t even Leap finishers), are primarily escape tools, and pretty poor ones at that, given that they are still affected by soft CC such as Chill, Cripple and Immobilise. Please read the Opening Post to see why I am advocating new Weapon Choices and Weapon Skills.

It isn’t because I feel Engineer’s are weak in Melee, far from it. Toolkit’s melee auto attack does more damage than Warrior’s Mace auto-attack chain with better power scaling, and can be traited for perma-cripple:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mace_Smash
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Smack

TL;DR Engineer Melee isn’t weak. But Engineer positioning through gap closers and openers could do with some new skills right now

Ill take weapon swapping over melee weapons any day.

But we already have the tool kit and arguably the Flamethrower for melee.

I’d rather see those fixed/buffed than another tool added.

Bombs are melee kit. Tool kit is a melee kit, even FT is close range. Nades has 1500 range but are probably even better in melee (because of travel time).
So why on earth we need some weapon, melee weapon? We lack “ranged” combat really because basic weapons (rifle, pistol) sucks and only nades (so lack of choice for ranged combat) deal good damage.

The reason why I bring up Melee weapon choices for Engineers is manifold:

• There are only 3 weapon choices for Engineer’s right now: Rifle, Pistol Shield
• Engineer has no weapon swap, so it is dependant on Kits for true versatility

Engineers as a class currently lacks the following:

• A dearth of Leap Combo Finishers, which decreases the team synergy possible running in a group
• A complete lack of Whirl Combo Finishers, which is one of the best team support Finishers in the game due to Bolt generation.
• A dearth of reliable distance closers and distance creators, given the range Engineers must fight in (Mid range). Even Ranger, the supposed “long range” class, has weapon skills and options to close or widen the distance between themselves and foes.
• A deplorable lack of weapon skills and associated traits

The fact that you would not support more weapon options for Engineers is baffling. New weapon choices open up the possibility of designers adding additional ways to play, even additional roles. Are you implying that you would rather have less options and by extension, build variety?

MonMalthias.4763:

The reason why I bring up Melee weapon choices for Engineers is manifold:

• There are only 3 weapon choices for Engineer’s right now: Rifle, Pistol Shield
• Engineer has no weapon swap, so it is dependant on Kits for true versatility

Engineers as a class currently lacks the following:

• A dearth of Leap Combo Finishers, which decreases the team synergy possible running in a group
• A complete lack of Whirl Combo Finishers, which is one of the best team support Finishers in the game due to Bolt generation.
• A dearth of reliable distance closers and distance creators, given the range Engineers must fight in (Mid range). Even Ranger, the supposed “long range” class, has weapon skills and options to close or widen the distance between themselves and foes.
• A deplorable lack of weapon skills and associated traits

The fact that you would not support more weapon options for Engineers is baffling. New weapon choices open up the possibility of designers adding additional ways to play, even additional roles. Are you implying that you would rather have less options and by extension, build variety?

engineer build variety? whats that?

MonMalthias.4763:

The fact that you would not support more weapon options for Engineers is baffling.

So is the fact that you’d prefer more broken and unbalanced skill and traits over fixing the existent ones. Apparently.

Really, the devs have plenty work cut out for them, and we (as a class) have plenty room to grow. Just from bugs and quirks and them hopefully getting fixed eventually.

Carighan.6758:

MonMalthias.4763:

The fact that you would not support more weapon options for Engineers is baffling.

So is the fact that you’d prefer more broken and unbalanced skill and traits over fixing the existent ones. Apparently.

Really, the devs have plenty work cut out for them, and we (as a class) have plenty room to grow. Just from bugs and quirks and them hopefully getting fixed eventually.

The devs have plenty of work cut out for them is not an excuse. The reason they should add more instead of fix is because tons of the existent traits are completely useless. Not because they’re weak or bugged, only because theyre not even useful. 3 weapons is ridiculous. We need more variety. Kits are great and all, but theyre so inflexible. I want more variety in my builds. The way it is right now we are given a few options. Variety is something I expect in all professions, no matter what.

Just as a comparison of Engineer Weapon choices against other professions;

Warrior: Hammer, Greatsword, Longbow, Rifle, Axe, Sword, Mace, Shield, Warhorn, Harpoon Gun, Spear
Guardian: Hammer, Greatsword, Staff, Mace, Scepter, Sword, Focus, Shield, Torch, Spear, Trident
Ranger: Greatsword, Longbow, Shortbow, Sword, Axe, Dagger, Torch, Warhorn, Harpoon Gun, Spear
Thief: Shortbow, Sword, Dagger, Pistol, Harpoon Gun, Spear
Elementalist: Staff, Scepter, Dagger, Focus, Trident
Mesmer: Greatsword, Staff, Scepter, Sword, Focus, Pistol, Torch, Spear, Trident
Necromancer: Staff, Scepter, Axe, Dagger, Focus, Warhorn, Spear, Trident

Engineer: Rifle, Pistol, Shield, Harpoon Gun.

That’s right. Engineer has the least weapon variety of any profession in the game. This is followed by the Elementalist, then the Thief.

You may argue that Engineers have Kits, and therefore that means that they have more “weapon” skills available to them. If you want to be really pedantic, you could also make the case that the 4 kit engineer not only has 5 weapon skills, but also 20 Kit skills along with 4 Toolbelt skills. But you’re missing one thing: Engineer Kits are utility skills.

As a Utility skill, Kits take up a Utility slot. They offer no scaling off Weapon Damage. In fact, expect Kits to be indirectly weakened by the introduction of Ascended Weapons because of this very fact. Consider also that no kit offers a tool for gap closing – that domain is covered by Rifle only. You could count Elixir Gun’s leap, but that means you have to take Elixir Gun.

Add all this up, and you get a profession that is almost entirely dependant upon ranged attacks. Bomb Kit is PBAoE, but that entails getting to PB (Point blank) range in the first place. Stability is the downfall of Engineers; because we can’t Magnet Pull them. We have plenty of Snares, which would be great if not for the fact that almost every Profession takes a movespeed Signet, and the preponderance for easy snare cleansing and the presence of movement skills that Teleport.

Our one and only movement skill is Jump Shot. It’s also almost as fast as running to a target.

All classes need more skills, many weapons that would make sense aren’t in use yet. I’d vote mace / torch / hammer next up for engineers.

Have a feeling we’ll be waiting til an expansion.

MonMalthias.4763:

You may argue that Engineers have Kits, and therefore that means that they have more “weapon” skills available to them. If you want to be really pedantic, you could also make the case that the 4 kit engineer not only has 5 weapon skills, but also 20 Kit skills along with 4 Toolbelt skills. But you’re missing one thing: Engineer Kits are utility skills.

It does make sense from a complexity point of view, though. The same reasoning probably applied to why Elementalists have comparatively few weapons, they already provide 20 skills per weapon.

Engineers also have few weapons, they provide twice as many skills per utility + 4 extra per kit. That’s a lot of skills to weight in their head for someone who’s not an expert at gaming, I think. Of the people I talked into GW2, the “newbies” all shy away from Elementalists and Engineers if they tried them. Or they play them but most of their skills sit around available.

Now you may argue: Yes, but unlike the Elementalist, there are no weapon skills added, so the complexity of another weapon is just the 2-5 skills it provides.
True, but like I said above, I doubt the devs would follow suit on that given the high amount of total abilities already available. Pure flexibility is based on how many things you can select from in total.

I guess the better resolution would be to reduce the total amount of utility skills we have (in return for each providing 2 skills and kits providing 6), but thats not where things are right now and I don’t they they want to do that.
Though personally, toss the 5 gadgets and add Mace MH and OH. Slightly less skills actually, but could still provide more flexibility due to the new combinations.

Is it too late to throw the whip into the mix? —> Weapon Type: Whip
Don’t know if I would count it as melee as you need to be at a specific (short) distance to do damage. But that’s the one I want to see more than anything.

The hammer fits although I wouldn’t want to use it on my engineer, personally.

What about Dual Shield – only for Engineers

http://img507.imageshack.us/img507/6639/dualwieldshieldsweb.jpg

Do you have any idea how awesome this would be? This means main hand shield with 3 new abilities.

emikochan.8504:

All classes need more skills, many weapons that would make sense aren’t in use yet. I’d vote mace / torch / hammer next up for engineers.

Have a feeling we’ll be waiting til an expansion.

They said long ago that additional weapon types would be added during expansions, so I’ve since stopped worrying about it.

I wish our conjures were as good as engi kits :p being able to switch them out at will would be awesome.