Guild Wars 2

Here’s my huge list of reworks that aim to give significantly more options. This is pretty Utopian in that it represents an ideal state of utility for condition, power and defensive builds. In order of most rewards needed.

Tools

I Always Prepared- Using a toolbelt skill reduces the cooldown of other recharging toolbelt skills by XX%. Recharge toolbelt skills on rally (20 sec cd).
II Static Discharge- Equipping a kit causes a bolt of lightning to strike foes within a radius of 360 units (max of 5). Scales with your power but can’t crit.
III Speedy Gadgets- Moved to Master tier. Gadgets grant 10 seconds of swiftness.
V Deployable Turrets- In addition picking up a turret lowers its cooldown by an additional 25% and its respective toolbelt skill.
VII Packaged Stimulants- Moved to adept. Med kit skills 4 and 5 remove an additional condition.
VIII Power Wrench- Moved to Grandmaster, changed to: Tool kit can now be equipped in your elite slot. Equipping the toolkit heals nearby turrets over time and grants 10secs of fury to nearby allies initally (20sec cd)
IX Scope- Also increases damage done to vulnerable foes by 5%
X Leg mods- Swapped with ‘Inertial Converter’ as a minor trait. Inertial Converter now grants 5secs of fury on use of a toolbelt skill (5sec cd).
XI Armour Mods- Gaining a boon also removes a condition or whilst under the effects of a boon you gain XX toughness and -XX% condition duration.
XII Adrenal Implants- Gain might (5 stacks) and fury for 15 seconds when either you or your foe drop below 75%. Gain a portion of your endurance back for each successful evasion

Inventions

Low Health Response System- Increase threshold to 50%, cd to 15seconds.
I Protective Shield- Moved to master. Increase duration to 5 secs. Merge with Stabilised Armour.
III Metal Plating- Add an additional 30% reduction to AoE damage (ie when it’s not being targeted).
V Energised Armour- Boosted to 10%.
VI Cloaking Device- Works when cc’d too.
VII Reinforced Shield- Gain 3 seconds of protection (20sec cd) when you make a successful block.
VIII Power Shoes- Moved to adept.
IX Elite Supplies- Moved to Grandmaster, merge with X and renamed to ‘Elite Inventions’. Turrets now follow you around as well as self repair. XX% of your power and vitality is added to theirs.
XI Elixir-Infused Bombs- Critical hits also removed a condition from all nearby allies (10sec cd)
XII Rifled Turret Barrels- Moved to Master.

Continued:

Explosives

I Acidic Elixirs- Being effected by an elixir skill removes a boon from an enemy with your next hit. If a boon is removed they also suffer 5 stacks of vulnerability for 10secs.
II Shrapnel- Increase chance to 33%, reduced duration by 20%
III Forceful Explosives- Merged with Grenadier, keeps the name of Forceful Explosives. Moes to the GM Tier
IV Empowered Adrenaline- Dodging gives you 5secs of swiftness and might (5sec CD)
V Accelerant Packed Turrets- Counts as a blast finisher when destroyed as well as detonated (still only one finisher). Allies gain 5 seconds of fury within 360 units of the destroyed turret.
VI Exploit Weakness- Deal 10% more critical damage to foes suffering from vulnerability. Double when foes is <50%.
VII Explosive Powder- Moved to adept.
X Enhanced Performance- Gain 5 secs of fury too.
XI Grenadier- As mentioned above, merged with and renamed to ‘Forceful Explosives’
XII Autodefense Bomb Dispenser- Equipping the Bomb Kit now grants stability and aegis for 5 seconds (15 sec cd). In addition you gain 150 toughness when it is equipped.

Firearms

I Fireforged Trigger Moved to Master. Whilst the EG is equipped any critical hits caused 3 stacks of bleeding for 5secs (10 sec cd) and FT causes burning for 3secs (15 sec cd). Cooldowns are seperate.
IV Rifled Barrels- Merged with coated bullets.
VII Juggernaught- Merged with Napalm Specialist, which replaces the might stacks.
IX Rifle Mod- Enemies within 600 units take an additional 10%.
X Go For The Eyes- Works with pistol too. Moved to adept.
XI Modified Ammunition- 7% of condition damage is also converted to power.
XII Napalm Specialist- Renamed to ‘Condition Specialist’. Duration of all conditions increased by 33%. Every time you inflict a condition on an enemy, you cure one on yourself (15sec cd).

Alchemy

III Acidic Coating- Merged with Self-Regulating Defenses
V Blood Injection- Changed to +3% condition damage for each boon on you, capped at 5.
VII Deadly Mixture- Critical hits with the EG cause 3secs of burning (20sec cd) and FT cause 1 stack of bleeding for 10seconds (1sec cd). Separate cooldowns.
VIII Potent Elixirs- Merged with HGH.
IX Backpack Regenrator- Now grants the regeneration boon for 10secs when equpping a kit, 10sec cd.
XII Automated Response- Changed to gain -50% condition duration whilst under the effects of a boon. Drink an Elixir C when you have 3 or more conditions (50 sec CD), affected by Fast-Acting Elixirs.

Now here are some skill changes I’d like to see as well:

Elixir Gun- Now utilises a chain of 1 hit, 2 hit and 3 hits. 1st hit inflicts the weakness as usual, 2nd causes poison for each strike and 3rd inflicts bleeding for each hit.
Elixir F #2 is now a cone spray.
Fumigate #3 is now an instant AoE such as regenerating mist that leaves a poison field for a few seconds. Enemies are poisoned immediately and if they are still in the field when it ends lose a boon.
Acid Bomb #4 inflicts 3 stacks of vulnerability for 10secs on enemies affected by a condition.
Super Elixir #5 Removes an extra condition at the end of the field.

Flamethrower- Decrease the time it takes for flame jet to occur in 1 3/4 seconds.
Flame Blast #2 detonate causes 2secs of burning.
Smoke Vent #5 is now a blast finisher, cd increased to 25secs

Utility Goggles- Increase fury to 15secs. Tool belt skill ‘Analyse’ inflicts a unique debuff that increases critical damage against this foe by 10% for 10secs.

Personal Battering Ram- Is now a blowout AoE skill such as Warrior’s Stomp. Increase to 30secs. ‘Launch Personal Battering Ram’ now functions like the old PBR, cd increased to 35 secs.

Slick Shoes- Breaks stun and evades backwards, creating an oil slick behind for 3 seconds. CD Lowered to 45. Toolbelt sill changed to ‘Tar Coat’ (similar to the tar elemental), throw a blob of tar at enemies that causes double burn duration for 5secs on effected enemies within 240 units.

Elixir U- No longer grants a haste skill. Instead it give stability and causes you to reflect projectiles for the next 5secs. Enemies hit by reflect projectiles also lose a boon.

Elixir X- Changed to: Jettison Elixir X into 360 units around you (like Regenerating Mist but with a 1 second cast time and obvious tell). Allies gain 3 random boons and lose 3 conditions whilst enemies have 3 boons converted into conditions. Enemies that lose 3 boons are also daze for 2secs.

Hi Aretak. I read trough your whole post and… Well some of your posts are nice but some of those would become EXTREMELY op. Turrets following you around…. I played turret spec some time in pvp and it did really well even though i couldnt move around at the map/chase. so that weighs it up pretty much.

Another thing i saw is that you’re slightly biased as you come with absoutly no nerfs and come with those op suggestions. As engineer might lack loads of build diversity they’re still the mightiest duelers and got 1500 range leap. So you gotta come with some nerfs to their dueling specs. and you might talka bout opening up the other specs. but overall good suggestions)

i looked thru some of this stuff, but frankly im getting tired of reading 2-5 post walls of changes. a lot of what youve thought up is pretty interesting and creative, but youve also added in some bad stuff:

-adept grenadier is scary
-utility goggles toolbelt is strictly worse than current, and i think unnecessarily so
-too much boon stripping can be a bad thing, you have it like all over
-backpack regen
-static discharge
-speedy gadgets crowding a niche with speedy kits and power shoes without being reliable
-shrapnel doesnt need a buff
-modified ammo doesnt need a buff

among other things im sure, but seriously my attention span for this kind of thing is pretty much shot ><

A great many of your ideas are counter intuitive to engineer game play as a whole. You go from ridiculously over powered, to remove very good skills and traits all together, to changing great skills and traits to useless, I just don’t understand 90% of you ideas here as to how they would relate to usefull builds in game play. I have no idea what would posses you to push to redesign the entire profession. If you are unhappy with it, simply make another profession to play.

I’m not going to even mention the trait changes you’ve proposed because I see way too much for me to talk about in a single post, so I’m going just talk about some of the skill changes you’ve proposed.

The change to Analyze, as mentioned before, makes it strictly worse than its current version, going from a 10% direct damage increase to a 10% increase in damage for crits, which only serves to lower your damage output if you don’t have 100% crit chance, and keep it the same if you do.

The change to Personal Battering Ram is pointless, in my opinion, because it’s still going to have a longer cd than the version the Warrior has, and won’t be a stun breaker like Stomp currently is.

The change to the Tool Belt for Slick Shoes is infinitely worse than what we currently have, and is way too specialized to actually find a lot of use. The change to Slick Shoes itself, while interesting, is worse than what we have currently, and would run into the same problem that the Ranger’s Lightning Reflexes currently has, if you’re immobilized when you use it, you won’t go anywhere, and if you’re crippled or chilled, you’ll only go a short distance. Also, knowing ANet, they’d just make it function similarly to the old Rocket Boots, self CC and all.

I don’t understand why you’re changing Elixir U at all, considering there are already reflects on the toss, but your proposed change would see the skill only be used for the stability, which toss B already gives, and if there’s no tell for when the Engie has used the skill, the counter-play will be non-existent, which isn’t fun, and having the reflected projectiles strip boons makes no sense in terms of what the skill is.

Finally, your change to Elixir X. Oh, your change to Elixir X. In my eyes, what you’re proposing is not worthy of being an elite skill, at all, and would send Elixir X down to the same place that the Mortar currently is, the worst of the worst elites. The Daze and Boon converting does not warrant the 105 second CD, and the converting 3 condis to random boons in a PBAoE also doesn’t warrant the 105 second CD, and all that together doesn’t warrant the 105 second CD, because Daze is one of the weakest CCs in the game, in my opinion. Also, considering there’s that 1 second cast time and obvious tell, you’re never going to hit anyone with it, or you’ll just be interrupted because they know you’re trying to clear condis, or you’ll just die to the condis before the skill goes off. 1 second is too long to wait for condi clears, and if I have to wait 1 second, I want the skill to do more than just convert 3 condis into random boons. In my opinion, this version of Elixir X is all but strictly worse than Elixir C, and barely anyone uses Elixir C.

If you wanted more build diversity, the last thing we need is randomly nerfing skills that aren’t even used much into oblivion, while buffing traits that are already constantly used. Also, I’m surprised you didn’t even try to change Mortar, I would’ve thought that would be the go-to elite to change if you were going to change an elite.

TL,DR: I think that most of your proposed changes need a lot of work, or are just out right pointless, especially nerfing Elixir X to hell.

Engineers have way more options than quite a few classes.

Engineers are already a top contender for variety as a profession. Not that I would deny them adding even more or making some changes, because a few areas could really use it.

Big Tower.5423:

Hi Aretak. I read trough your whole post and… Well some of your posts are nice but some of those would become EXTREMELY op. Turrets following you around…. I played turret spec some time in pvp and it did really well even though i couldnt move around at the map/chase. so that weighs it up pretty much.

Sadly while skills are shared across PVP and PVE, mobs and characters are nothing alike. End result is that what works in PVP simply don’t in PVE. And this then heavily limits any professions choices in PVE.

turrets work in PVP (particularly SPVP) because you have some reason for the enemy to come to you and stand still (capture points). This means you can take on a siege mentality and set up killing fields by spreading the turrets around.

Never mind that larger mobs can take multiple times the damage a bunker build can take, while still delivering damage that can match or exceed a zerker (and often in AOE form, bye bye turrets). This so that players are forced to used blocks and dodge to stay alive, no matter the build.

I think a simpler approach is in order honestly like giving boons to the use of gadgets, restoring many of the functions of kit refinement that were unnecessarily changed out of the blue just to nerf that 1 heal (like caltrops when switching to toolkit), and increasing the damage bonuses or even giving gadgets damage themselves (for those items that don’t normally have any damage on them) instead of some terribly tiny hardly beneficial debuff.

I also think that it’s high time that Anet listens to history and fixes things like pets/summons so that they aren’t instakilled by every mob when summoned by giving them a 90% AOE immunity and preventing them from being auto-targeted by players or mobs when using skills that auto-target (like #1 skills).

I also think tho that moving around certain traits is the answer that part is very true they have traits that are hardly worth it in the grand master section and traits that use up a 5 point selection that should easily be a tiny trait selection (like 50% faster stamina regen).