Guild Wars 2

Does anybody on the ANet balance team remember this from about 2 months ago?

Gaile Gray.6029:

We’ve been making some gradual changes to pistol and rifle, hoping to bring them a bit more in line with hammer. As for Jump Shot, it’s difficult to land both the first and second attacks consistently unless you’re cleaving a downed player. To address this, we’ve moved some of the initial damage to the end of the attack, making it easier to spike. The total damage done by the skill will be the same.

• Blunderbuss: The damage of this ability has been increased by 10% at all range thresholds in PvP only.
• Jump Shot: The damage of the initial jump has been reduced by 56%. The damage of the landing has been increased by 28%

Hi balance team! It’s been months since you suggested improving Pistol and Rifle in PvP and PvE. The changes we got back then were relatively minor, and really didn’t do anything to help the overall situation for these weapons.

Today we got some improvements to kits, which is great for us condi engineers in PvE.

But pistol and rifle still suffer horrible issues in PvP, making them non-viable. Why has it been months since ANet acknowledged the issue, and they STILL haven’t responded with anything meaningful? The class is suffering badly from a lack of build diversity, and this balance patch does little to address the issue. Engineer needs some love, particularly in PvP.

Case in point: The changes to blunderbuss. Rifle has always been power-based weapon, not condition-based damage. Its main DPS comes from its autoattack. The other skills are utilities. So why does the balance team insist on giving blunderbuss more bleeds? This solves a problem no rifle engineer has. What gives?

Does the balance team not understand the class or its weapons? Do they not realize the issue with projectile hate right now? Do they not recognize that most of the engineers main weapons (and some of its kits) are projectile-based?

I think we have to face it, with Colin gone (Engi main player if I recall), most of the enthusiasm/knowledge or focus for this class has probably gone too. But then again I could be TOTALLY wrong and am hoping so!

Engi main here and I dunno about this update yet, still haven’t logged in and assessed all the changes. But I’m gonna miss my Elixir Gun Skill 5+4 Retaliation combo. Gone for what, a measly 1 cond removal? Sure it’s meant to aid in “supporting allies” but really just 1 cond? Come on it should be at LEAST 2-3!

Given how relatively stingy light fields are I agree that just 1 condi removal is a bit bland, still though 2-3 condis might be a bit much.

Paulytnz.7619:

I think we have to face it, with Colin gone (Engi main player if I recall), most of the enthusiasm/knowledge or focus for this class has probably gone too. But then again I could be TOTALLY wrong and am hoping so!

Engi main here and I dunno about this update yet, still haven’t logged in and assessed all the changes. But I’m gonna miss my Elixir Gun Skill 5+4 Retaliation combo. Gone for what, a measly 1 cond removal? Sure it’s meant to aid in “supporting allies” but really just 1 cond? Come on it should be at LEAST 2-3!

Given that not only you but everyone else on your team/in your party/whoever you play along with, can trigger a blast finisher this can add up pretty fast and isn’t it an AoE cleanse?
I honestly think this is okay as a change and we should wait to see how exactly it plays out.

I have been a flamethrower engineer for five years now and consider myself knowledgeable in the class (1). This update has destroyed my primary burst skill (Flamethrower 2) by changing it from power based to condition-power hybrid. Flamethrower has always been a power weapon with a smattering of condition burning. In order to make my build effective with the flamethrower again, I would need to re-stat all my ascended gear.

I will not do so.

It is clear to me that the engineer is in flux and under the guidance of a developer who is disconnected from the community (2) and unsure what to do with the class (3). Until I see the direction of my favorite class, I will not be making any costly changes to my gear.

I highly recommend the person responsible for working on the engineer open a dialogue with the engineer community and take advantage of the free resource of players who are willing to provide feedback for the betterment of the game.

-Sources cited-

• (1). See attached screenshot for my playtime. (3,510h 40m over 1,625 days for the character / 6,823h, 37m over 1,643 days overall)

• (2). Mike makes a reply to #3 of my post see (2a). The implication is that the official profession forms are not read by developers. However, after an argument with Gale Gray about it, I did some more research and found that she was correct – those forums are read by the developers, or rather, specific professions are being read.
  According to my research since the launch of HoT on October 23, 2015 the developers have been active on the profession forums for the following amount of days:
  Thief 2
  Warrior 2
  Elementalist 4
  Engineer 1 (October 29th, 2015. Still current as the last developer post.)
  Guardian 5
  Mesmer 2
  Necromancer 2
  Ranger 11
  Revenant 9
  These count each day a developer was active, not number of posts on a specific day, for which there may be more than one post. If asked, I can provide the detailed report I created, linking and dating every post for confirmation.
  This shows and proves the disconnect between the developers and the community in regards to the Engineer.

• (2a). “Why do you ignore the official forums? The last post from a developer in the Engineer forums was October 29th, 14:45 (2015). ( Source )”
  “There are a lot of individual forums on the official site. They’re a mix: some are places to contact devs, and many are there for the community to use. That’s mostly for legacy reasons. There are too many forums for devs to effectively monitor, and we don’t ask devs to monitor them all.”
  Source

• (3). The following is from a patch preview Dec 8th, 2016 that was patched into the game.
  “We’ve been making some gradual changes to pistol and rifle, hoping to bring them a bit more in line with hammer. As for Jump Shot, it’s difficult to land both the first and second attacks consistently unless you’re cleaving a downed player. To address this, we’ve moved some of the initial damage to the end of the attack, making it easier to spike. The total damage done by the skill will be the same.
  Blunderbuss: The damage of this ability has been increased by 10% at all range thresholds in PvP only.
  Jump Shot: The damage of the initial jump has been reduced by 56%. The damage of the landing has been increased by 28%””
  There is no change made in this patch to the pistol, yet it is mentioned. A strong argument could be made that moving the damage to the landing of Rifle 5 makes the damage easier to avoid, as the landing is easier to read, making this, arguably, a nerf rather than a change that would bring it in line with the hammer.
  Source
  The October 18, 2016 patch described the engineer changes as follows:
  “We’ve been looking to improve the engineer and to support the areas it’s been lacking in so that the profession can perform more effectively in a DPS role. In order to improve purity of purpose, we have removed the daze functionality from the Gyro utility type for scrapper.”
  As many have commented already, please read the link below showing the details, the changes made in this patch did nothing to improve the profession’s performance in a DPS role. In addition, this rendered the Scrapper’s Grandmaster trait “Impact Savant” half-useless. There was purity of purpose in the Gyro’s daze – it had synergy with this trait. Without that daze functionality, the trait’s Daze and Stun bonus only affects 6 skills with 2 additional skills randomly acquired with Elixir X Rampager.
  Source
  The above is evidence that the developer in charge of Engineer balance is unclear of what direction to go with the profession.

Personally I would have preferred they got rid of bleeds for Skill 3 Rifle and add more Vulnerability to it so it can synergise with 5. Either that or rework 5 altogether so it gives something more worthy. 3 Vuln is nothing. Compare that to Ranger skill 2 (instant 25) and you see a HUGE difference.

Rifle needs a complete rework imo it’s just all over the place now. It’s trying to be damage/control/teeny weeny not even worth it condi and a teeny, weeny, not even worth it support via the Vuln.

I also main Flamethrower as primary source and this Skill 2 change I don’t really like. Cond damage? Well I always did wonder why it didn’t add some at all but a complete change to make it pretty much only Condi damage now was not expected or totally wanted. I too will not change my gear for this. Maybe if the skill 1 chain was shorter would it be worth it…..

I know I’m alone, but I prefer the rifle being a hybrid weapon. I would love to get some confusion on Jump Shot, Cripple on net shot, etc…

I guess I’m alone here but I like the direction they’re going, and only think they haven’t gone far enough. Our weapons and kits have no identity, every single one does hybrid damage and a little bit of everything and you really play your traits more than your skillls. I wish they would repeat their last two balance patches x10

Flamethrower should be condition, Bomb kit should be power, Grenade kit should be hybrid. I mean there is a BURNING condition, it’s a FLAMEthrower, that is a no-brainer.

But instead, the Flamethrower is still a sucky condition weapon and a lesser hybrid to the Grenade kit. Bomb kit is a power weapon with two condition skills that really is only good supplementing other kits instead of abusing it’s INSANELY high scaling power auto. And grenade kit is a weapon with four conditions skill and an inexplicably nonsensical power-scaling auto that becomes a condition weapon with traits. Yeah, try explaining that to a newbie engine, it can’t even be done in any sensible sounding manner, because it’s just plain awful design beyond justification.

And the problem is the same it has always been; one of two things need to happen, and I’m going to catch a ton of flack for either as I have every time I’ve suggested them before.

If all our weapons are going to be hybrid until traited, then the triple proc on the grenade auto needs to go, so our bleed proc traits can be buffed to actually be useful anywhere else beside the grenade auto. However, this option, honestly leaves so much to desire concerning identity, theme, and fun; plus people like the grenade barrage auto, it’s cool and fulfills a fantasy.

Or, conversely (and in my opinion, the better option) they need to make all of our weapons not mandatorily hybrid in the first place, giving the weapons unique identities from each other.

To do this, add bleeds to the grenade auto, a ton of burning to the flamethrower, swap the grenade kits blind and the bomb kits confusion, make the bomb kits fire field last longer but apply less to no burning. Move shrapnel down to a major or minor trait with an ICD. And boom, now all of our weapons do their own thing but can still be made hybrid with traits. And everything else that applies conditions doesn’t have to utterly suck in order to keep the grenade kit in line.

EDIT: And you people that are saying it has always been power are sitting on a throne of lies! I’m kidding, but still, you are mistaken. History lesson! I’m not sure if it was in the beta only or made it to some time after launch but the flamethower applied some of the highest uptime burning in the game. But because it was channeled, players figured out they could cancel the channel partway through, and start it over again, and get 100% burning uptime with no condition duration. So the developers backloaded the burning, when player stopped using it, they gave it a ton of power scaling as “something to use it for”.

Or in short, it was never intended to be a power weapon, not even a hybrid weapon, it was originally intended to be a full on burning condition weapon, and became a hybrid, then power weapon, to prevent an exploit the developers didn’t have the tech to address at the time. And when it became so it was originally with the intent to change it back someday, but the previous engineer-specialist in the design team didn’t care much about theme or identity and preffered the “ele” engi builds; forced multikitting, rotations, combos, constant swapping, and basically no thematicism and no build diversity because dependency on combos and rotations make for a rigid meta build.

So again, I, for one, am glad for this direction, and hope they take it further until our kits are actually distinguishable from each other in their use, as they have not been in the past.

I agree with the OP, that the most recent patch proved the company has absolutely no clue about the game they are developing, or they do and they make it a mess on purpose. I am out of ideas as to why would someone intentionally overlook the much needed changes.

e.g. everyone knows condis are OP, what does NC… sorry ANet do? Buff them more…

#Logic

Rifle:
* Damage on Blunderbuss is nice, but would prefer power damage over condition
* It also doesn’t address the main weaknesses – risk vs reward on Overcharged Shot, Unable to land Jump Shot due to lack of evades. I’ve said it a million times, but Overcharged Shot can’t remain the way it is when there are auto-proc-on-cc traits out there like Last Stand.

Power/Condi:
* It’s really unclear how to optimize for damage given the number of hybrid skills we have.

Guess I’ll just post here what I did on reddit:

It’s cool than engi has insane DPS now, but I wish instead of giving huge buffs to the meta builds they gave huge buffs to the underused, crappy stuff. Blowtorch was already probably engineer’s single best skill, why is it getting buffed by 33%? Meanwhile blunderbuss gets a 10% buff, what a game changer. This kitten makes no sense.

And flamethrower gets buffed under the guise of “purity of purpose”…that was the only kit you could even consider dropping before, now it just solidifies the 3 kit build, with any other engi utility being unusable. Meanwhile grenades and bomb kit are still “general DPS plus conditions”, pretty much the same kitten as each other with no focus towards power or condi on either. Where is the “purity of purpose” on those? I guess we only get one skill purified per patch.

Meanwhile hammer is still completely unusable in pve, alchemy, inventions scrapper all get nothing while explosives firearms are buffed so I really can’t change traits. This patch killed any possibility of diversity in pve. We have achieved purity boys.

Oh, the irony. They moved this from the general chat where there was a chance it could be read to the unread Engineer forums. That speaks volumes for the point I made above.

Edit: more irony – Guild Wars 2 does not uninstall properly.

PaladinVII.1647:

Oh, the irony. They moved this from the general chat where there was a chance it could be read to the unread Engineer forums. That speaks volumes for the point I made above.

Edit: more irony – Guild Wars 2 does not uninstall properly.

Well that’s just forum policy. It’s a thread specifically about Engineers, therefore it belongs in the Engineer forums. Highly doubt this thread would of received any more dev attention on the general forum than it would here in the engineer forum.

I’ve yet to play an MMO where you don’t have to adapt your builds to the ebb and flow of the game changes. Better learn to get used to it. There is a reason you can re-stat ascended gear. You certainly don’t craft ascended armor and weapons because of the stat value jumps …

coro.3176:

Rifle:
* Damage on Blunderbuss is nice, but would prefer power damage over condition
* It also doesn’t address the main weaknesses – risk vs reward on Overcharged Shot, Unable to land Jump Shot due to lack of evades. I’ve said it a million times, but Overcharged Shot can’t remain the way it is when there are auto-proc-on-cc traits out there like Last Stand.

yup and not just this. We still also have the following problems:
- gadgets suck (why not at least reduce their CD and make gadgeteer’s overcharged versions as baseline)
- medkit is horribly cumbersome to use and medkit #1 is useless (why not to make medkit #2-5 instant cast or activate much faster and make medkit #1 also self-heal the engineer or cause some damage like ele water staff #1/druid staff #1)

Would be great if Med Kit skills were just some sort of Aoe skills from the Engineer or from pylons or something. This whole throwing down tiny bandages to be picked up is never going to be effective.

PaladinVII.1647:

This shows and proves the disconnect between the developers and the community in regards to the Engineer.

Just because they don’t reply that doesn’t mean they’re not reading.

Phineas Poe.3018:

PaladinVII.1647:

This shows and proves the disconnect between the developers and the community in regards to the Engineer.

Just because they don’t reply that doesn’t mean they’re not reading.

See (2) and (2a). It has been over a year and a half. There is still a sticky of beta weekend 3 on the top of this forum. It is my belief that this is evidence that this forum is dead. I would be delighted to be proved wrong.

Shaogin.2679:

Would be great if Med Kit skills were just some sort of Aoe skills from the Engineer or from pylons or something. This whole throwing down tiny bandages to be picked up is never going to be effective.

I remember them showing off a preview version that had pylons and stuff that granted boons in a fixed location and what not around the time they were ditching the kit backpacks then the actual patch came out and everything turned into their current ground targeted versions no explanation .

You know, shatter mesmer and fresh air ele didn’t get a single buff either this patch. Pretty sad, since rifle engi, shatter mesmer and fresh air ele were some of the most beloved burst builds pre-HoT.

I (rifle engi) am happy to run across a fresh air ele or power mes in wvw. It’s always a fun fight decided by which of us dodges correctly or blocks the other’s burst. I don’t mind losing to that at all. It’s skillful. Waaaay more enjoyable than condi mes + bunker/healbot ele.

just give rifle more damage than hammer. currently even rifles autos do less damage, so we have hammer with better utility & damage. rifle would need a complete skill rework to compete with hammer for utility, so buffing damage is the way to go. just straight up buffing rifles damage is easy, & it would make it a compelling weapon choice again.

so easy.

won’t happen tho

choovanski.5462:

just give rifle more damage than hammer. currently even rifles autos do less damage, so we have hammer with better utility & damage. rifle would need a complete skill rework to compete with hammer for utility, so buffing damage is the way to go. just straight up buffing rifles damage is easy, & it would make it a compelling weapon choice again.

so easy.

won’t happen tho

Buffing more the damage wont solve the rifle state in pvp, theres still many projectile hate going around an that his main threat over there, adding an evade to jump shot like everyone has been saying would be a big buff in pvp.

It prob would help in pve, ill grant you that.

Holesale.2640:

Shaogin.2679:

Would be great if Med Kit skills were just some sort of Aoe skills from the Engineer or from pylons or something. This whole throwing down tiny bandages to be picked up is never going to be effective.

I remember them showing off a preview version that had pylons and stuff that granted boons in a fixed location and what not around the time they were ditching the kit backpacks then the actual patch came out and everything turned into their current ground targeted versions no explanation .

I remember this too! Glad I’m not just going crazy. Don’t remember them ever saying why they scrapped the idea though.

PaladinVII.1647:

Phineas Poe.3018:

PaladinVII.1647:

This shows and proves the disconnect between the developers and the community in regards to the Engineer.

Just because they don’t reply that doesn’t mean they’re not reading.

See (2) and (2a). It has been over a year and a half. There is still a sticky of beta weekend 3 on the top of this forum. It is my belief that this is evidence that this forum is dead. I would be delighted to be proved wrong.

Didn’t even notice that til now. That’s incredibly disturbing that it’s still stuck.

PaladinVII.1647:

Phineas Poe.3018:

PaladinVII.1647:

This shows and proves the disconnect between the developers and the community in regards to the Engineer.

Just because they don’t reply that doesn’t mean they’re not reading.

See (2) and (2a). It has been over a year and a half. There is still a sticky of beta weekend 3 on the top of this forum. It is my belief that this is evidence that this forum is dead. I would be delighted to be proved wrong.

Nothing in “2” or “2a” dispute the actuality of my statement. Just because they don’t reply that doesn’t mean they’re not reading. And really, what is there to respond to around here? Look up and down the top page of this forum. It’s full of people crying that their open world FT build is nerfed or that kits should be turned into a full-blown profession mechanic with cooldowns.

If I was Irenio I wouldn’t waste my time replying to such drivel either. Most people commenting here have such a poor understanding of this profession it shakes my head that ArenaNet devs are actually forced to subject themselves to it.

I agree, that could be a possibility. I would not reply to most of the posts on this forum either.

But I would expect to see at least one post of “Thanks for bringing this to our attention, I’ll look into this bug” during such a long period of time. Since there is none and Mike responded as he did to my question…

Personally, I would like it if they would preview these changes beforehand. They were doing a nice thing where the significant changes seemed to only go to sPvP (where it is free to restat characters) first, then were unsplit if it worked. I’d like to see more of that if A.net is considering future drastic changes such as what happened with flamethrower 2. That gives the community time to digest the changes and provide feedback – if they will listen.

I’d also like to see more AMA’s and that skill balance thread they started in the general forum that I unfortunately missed. Stuff like that is great.

PaladinVII.1647:

I agree, that could be a possibility. I would not reply to most of the posts on this forum either.

But I would expect to see at least one post of “Thanks for bringing this to our attention, I’ll look into this bug” during such a long period of time. Since there is none and Mike responded as he did to my question…

Personally, I would like it if they would preview these changes beforehand. They were doing a nice thing where the significant changes seemed to only go to sPvP (where it is free to restat characters) first, then were unsplit if it worked.

I’d also like to see more AMA’s and that skill balance thread they started in the general forum that I unfortunately missed. Stuff like that is great.

This isn’t the bug-fix forum. Such threads don’t belong here in the first place.

But I would like it if ArenaNet communicated more, too. I would like it if most developers were more open to players across most games I play, but it’s just not very common and a lot of it depends on the attitudes and maturity of the player base as well as the philosophy of the design team.

Tynan Sylvester, the creator of Rimworld, for example, regularly reads, responds to, and even publishes his own content on Reddit. GGG is also incredibly active, and most Paradox studios make a point to be communicative to their fans. I think ArenaNet as a company culture doesn’t value those kinds of interactions the same way—but as I said before, there’s plenty of reasons why if you just look around at what is actually written in here.

They’re very much not alone in that mindset among design teams, and there are very few online games I play where developers make a point to be super active considering they’re often busy doing other things. It’s simply just not their role at ArenaNet, which is pretty much in effect what Mike was trying to convey to you. You read it as saying that they don’t read this folder when in reality it’s just not a part of their job description.

PaladinVII.1647:

I’d like to see more of that if A.net is considering future drastic changes such as what happened with flamethrower 2. That gives the community time to digest the changes and provide feedback – if they will listen.

I pulled this apart from the rest of your post because I think it’s important to establish that ArenaNet does listen to us, and many of the changes made through the pipeline are based on community suggestion.

We asked for an elite specialization that lessens our dependency on kits and gives us a bona fide weapon—and they delivered one to us. We asked for a simpler PvE rotation and they buffed power engi to where it now does 30K DPS. We asked for a unique aura and they overhauled Pinpoint Distribution. We asked for more build variety in PvP and they buffed Blowtorch and Flame Blast, ostensibly for the core condi engi build.

Do they do everything we ask for? No. Of course not. And given what kind of ridiculous ideas are floated around in this folder I don’t think they should, either. But Irenio in the AMA directly responded to a number of questions regarding kit use, and he came out and said that gadgets are a priority for him.

Instead of complaining about their lack of communication, maybe you could make a point to help him, and give him something to read that’s actually worth responding to: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Official-Skill-Balance-Thread-22-February-Update/page/2#post6505559

Communication needs to be two ways. Even IF they are reading, they are not communicating with us.

Paulytnz.7619:

I think we have to face it, with Colin gone (Engi main player if I recall), most of the enthusiasm/knowledge or focus for this class has probably gone too. But then again I could be TOTALLY wrong and am hoping so!

Engi main here and I dunno about this update yet, still haven’t logged in and assessed all the changes. But I’m gonna miss my Elixir Gun Skill 5+4 Retaliation combo. Gone for what, a measly 1 cond removal? Sure it’s meant to aid in “supporting allies” but really just 1 cond? Come on it should be at LEAST 2-3!

yes this change to light field made me very sad.

Spartacus.3192:

Paulytnz.7619:

I think we have to face it, with Colin gone (Engi main player if I recall), most of the enthusiasm/knowledge or focus for this class has probably gone too. But then again I could be TOTALLY wrong and am hoping so!

Engi main here and I dunno about this update yet, still haven’t logged in and assessed all the changes. But I’m gonna miss my Elixir Gun Skill 5+4 Retaliation combo. Gone for what, a measly 1 cond removal? Sure it’s meant to aid in “supporting allies” but really just 1 cond? Come on it should be at LEAST 2-3!

yes this change to light field made me very sad.

No way, man. Is this a joke? The combination of Super Elixir→Acid Bomb now clears three conditions on a 16 second CD with HGH. Do you not realize how immensely powerful this is?

This was a buff. If you need more retaliation, just run Elixir B or Rocket Charge your Super Elixir.

Phineas Poe.3018:

Spartacus.3192:

Paulytnz.7619:

I think we have to face it, with Colin gone (Engi main player if I recall), most of the enthusiasm/knowledge or focus for this class has probably gone too. But then again I could be TOTALLY wrong and am hoping so!

Engi main here and I dunno about this update yet, still haven’t logged in and assessed all the changes. But I’m gonna miss my Elixir Gun Skill 5+4 Retaliation combo. Gone for what, a measly 1 cond removal? Sure it’s meant to aid in “supporting allies” but really just 1 cond? Come on it should be at LEAST 2-3!

yes this change to light field made me very sad.

No way, man. Is this a joke? The combination of Super Elixir->Acid Bomb now clears three conditions on a 16 second CD with HGH. Do you not realize how immensely powerful this is?

This was a buff. If you need more retaliation, just run Elixir B or Rocket Charge your Super Elixir.

This! Super Elixir and Acid Bomb is now an amazing one-man combo! Light fields are now useful! Well, they were useful before – our enemies could drop a light field and blast it and watch a flamethrowing engineer take 6,000+ damage from each autoattack…

PaladinVII.1647:

Phineas Poe.3018:

Spartacus.3192:

Paulytnz.7619:

I think we have to face it, with Colin gone (Engi main player if I recall), most of the enthusiasm/knowledge or focus for this class has probably gone too. But then again I could be TOTALLY wrong and am hoping so!

Engi main here and I dunno about this update yet, still haven’t logged in and assessed all the changes. But I’m gonna miss my Elixir Gun Skill 5+4 Retaliation combo. Gone for what, a measly 1 cond removal? Sure it’s meant to aid in “supporting allies” but really just 1 cond? Come on it should be at LEAST 2-3!

yes this change to light field made me very sad.

No way, man. Is this a joke? The combination of Super Elixir->Acid Bomb now clears three conditions on a 16 second CD with HGH. Do you not realize how immensely powerful this is?

This was a buff. If you need more retaliation, just run Elixir B or Rocket Charge your Super Elixir.

This! Super Elixir and Acid Bomb is now an amazing one-man combo! Light fields are now useful! Well, they were useful before – our enemies could drop a light field and blast it and watch a flamethrowing engineer take 6,000+ damage from each autoattack…

It only further solidifies the Elixir Gun as a valuable PvP utility. I don’t think it’ll ever leave our bar.

Yeah.. I’m somewhat disappointed because I want more build diversity, not less…

We already rely SO MUCH on elixirs/egun for everything in pvp. It’d be nice if you could run like .. gadgets or something, but you can’t spare the skill slots when you need all the elixirs you can get to cleanse condi burst.

Honestly, I’d like to trade my elite skill slot for a regular skill slot. Then I could run a fun gadgets/rifle/scrapper decap build and use Purge Gyro for condi cleanse. It’d still suck compared to the meta builds (condi cheese, etc.), but at least it’d be playable.

coro.3176:

Yeah.. I’m somewhat disappointed because I want more build diversity, not less…

Why are you disappointed? Power scrapper may be the best build for us in PvP/WvW, but it was hardly an S-tier choice in season five. This change only makes power scrapper better, and makes us a more competitive option in season six. I anticipate seeing more engineer mains in the top 250 this time around.

Does this change ultimately overshadow the Blowtorch and Flame Blast buffs? Maybe. Maybe not. There are a lot of factors that hinge on condition engineer being viable in PvP—most of all its inverse relationship with necromancers. Condition engineer will only be as strong as how weak necromancer is. And while the Blowtorch and Flame Blast buffs are quite nice, there’s a glaring flaw that the core engi suffers from in that it’s incredibly difficult to land Pry Bar and Blowtorch on aegis/dodge-spamming professions like thief and guardian that historically were more easily countered with it. I imagine a great deal of this would be resolved with a gadgets overhaul, and to address your other point:

coro.3176:

We already rely SO MUCH on elixirs/egun for everything in pvp. It’d be nice if you could run like .. gadgets or something, but you can’t spare the skill slots when you need all the elixirs you can get to cleanse condi burst.

I would imagine this is entirely what the dev team will be focusing on between now and the next expansion. I already have a few suggestions/ideas in mind for making gadgets more attractive: the most radical of which being that they keep most of their current active effects but doubly function as signets.

Engineer is in a far better state than people think it is regarding the balance between our utilities, and ArenaNet is right to pretty much leave most of them alone.

coro.3176:

Honestly, I’d like to trade my elite skill slot for a regular skill slot. Then I could run a fun gadgets/rifle/scrapper decap build and use Purge Gyro for condi cleanse. It’d still suck compared to the meta builds (condi cheese, etc.), but at least it’d be playable.

But why? Elixir X, Sneak Gyro, and Mortar Kit are each incredibly strong. Even Supply Crate is pretty amazing by 2017 standards. Engineer has probably the best selection of elite skills of any profession in the game. For most classes they’re stuck with 1 or 2 utilities for pretty much the entire game.

Outside of quickness resses/stomps in the early months of Heart of Thorns, when has guardian not ran Renewed Focus, for example?

I understand coro’s dissapointment. Two decent builds aren’t enough to speak of build diversity.

Ardid.7203:

I understand coro’s dissapointment. Two decent builds aren’t enough to speak of build diversity.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that complaining about build diversity is pointless when there’s literally only a dozen engineer mains in the entire top 250—most of whom duo’d almost exclusively.

Season five was completely dominated by warriors and guardians, and while seeing nerfs to both those classes is great, the light field buff helps even the odds against warriors even further.

It just seems incredibly tone deaf to me to complain about this change, especially when we still have ample access to retaliation through other means.

You guys can complain about build diversity when engineer actually has a build suited for the meta-game.

I guess to simplify a bit:

If you want to be competitive, you need a lot of on-demand condi clear. On engi, that means elixirs or purge gyro. Purge gyro doesn’t do anything else and pathing/aoe can be a problem, so it’s usually not worth wasting a skill slot on. To this end, I’d like to trade my elite for a regular skill (and our elites are really good! I just need another skill slot for condi clear if I want to survive). The alternative is playing Alchemy & Inventions, like every other PvP build.

I’d personally like to play Rifle in competitive pvp again (it’s been like 2 years..). I’d like to spec Tools and use some gadgets. I’d like to see duels that are more like a chess match on a point rather than playing the rotation (scrapper) or sorta-cheesy tag and harrass (condi p/p).

You’re right though in that it’s getting better. 2 viable builds are better than 1, but we’ve got a ways to go.

PaladinVII.1647:

Phineas Poe.3018:

PaladinVII.1647:

This shows and proves the disconnect between the developers and the community in regards to the Engineer.

Just because they don’t reply that doesn’t mean they’re not reading.

See (2) and (2a). It has been over a year and a half. There is still a sticky of beta weekend 3 on the top of this forum. It is my belief that this is evidence that this forum is dead. I would be delighted to be proved wrong.

I can personally guarantee beyond reasonable doubt that these forums get read. if you don’t care to believe me, that’s your skepticism getting the better of you.

but they don’t really respond (except with too few patch notes in an untimely manner, unfortunately), which is the kind of visible feelgood you’re looking for.

coro.3176:

I guess to simplify a bit:

If you want to be competitive, you need a lot of on-demand condi clear. On engi, that means elixirs or purge gyro. Purge gyro doesn’t do anything else and pathing/aoe can be a problem, so it’s usually not worth wasting a skill slot on. To this end, I’d like to trade my elite for a regular skill (and our elites are really good! I just need another skill slot for condi clear if I want to survive). The alternative is playing Alchemy & Inventions, like every other PvP build.
[…]

I have felt the very same way for a long time now. Many times I feel like the elite skill slot is holding back core Engineer builds. You could come up with many working core builds if you didn’t have to sacrifice utility for damage (or the other way around). I would chose that option even if I had to sacrifice a specialisation and grand master trait.

coro.3176:

I guess to simplify a bit:

If you want to be competitive, you need a lot of on-demand condi clear. On engi, that means elixirs or purge gyro. Purge gyro doesn’t do anything else and pathing/aoe can be a problem, so it’s usually not worth wasting a skill slot on. To this end, I’d like to trade my elite for a regular skill (and our elites are really good! I just need another skill slot for condi clear if I want to survive). The alternative is playing Alchemy & Inventions, like every other PvP build.

Purge Gyro is still pretty valuable just on the basis of its versatility. Its toolbelt is solid, you can activate it for a stack of stability, and blowing it up does a fair amount of damage. I pretty much always run it unless I feel like Blast Gyro would be more worthwhile.