Guild Wars 2

I’m making this decision based on the balance design philosophy going forward.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/news/Game-Update-Notes-December-14-2012

Engineer

The Engineer is a highly versatile class. While it doesn’t have the long range capabilities of the Ranger, or the melee capabilities of the Warrior or Guardian, they are comfortable at medium ranges in most fights. They have a lot of control, and use their boons to keep themselves (and allies) alive in a fight. They can use different kits based on the situation, but this extreme versatility comes at a cost in damage on their main hand weapons.

VS

Ele

We see the elementalist as the king of versatility. The skill ceiling for the Ele is exceptional, as the ability to leverage all four attunements at the right time is crucial for understanding the elemetnalist. The Ele boasts some of the best team support and control abilities in the game, as well as some great area of effect damage.

So basically versatility is both their “thing”, except that ANet recognizes that Engi’s sacrifice damage for versatility whereas Ele’s have phenomenal AoE damage. So are they using the higher skill ceiling for Eles as a legit reasoning for making Engineers an inferior class??

Joshua.9346:

I’m making this decision based on the balance design philosophy going forward.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/news/Game-Update-Notes-December-14-2012

Engineer

The Engineer is a highly versatile class. While it doesn’t have the long range capabilities of the Ranger, or the melee capabilities of the Warrior or Guardian, they are comfortable at medium ranges in most fights. They have a lot of control, and use their boons to keep themselves (and allies) alive in a fight. They can use different kits based on the situation, but this extreme versatility comes at a cost in damage on their main hand weapons.

VS

Ele

We see the elementalist as the king of versatility. The skill ceiling for the Ele is exceptional, as the ability to leverage all four attunements at the right time is crucial for understanding the elemetnalist. The Ele boasts some of the best team support and control abilities in the game, as well as some great area of effect damage.

So basically versatility is both their “thing”, except that ANet recognizes that Engi’s sacrifice damage for versatility whereas Ele’s have phenomenal AoE damage. So are they using the higher skill ceiling for Eles as a legit reasoning for making Engineers an inferior class??

It’s funny because playing ele is honestly not that hard.

There have been many threads about this on our forums before, but yeah thats the way it seems to go. I have tried looking at it through developers eye and the best reason I can come up with is that its probably because we get heavier armor. Though I made a thread some time ago were I pointed out other ways we get taxed for versatility. But yeah it is hard to understand arenanets motives when making engineer changes.

Edit: Here is what I wrote on why that philosophy on engineers should be changed if you happen to be interested in reading it: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/To-developers-What-we-pay-for-versatility/first

valkyrie ele just way op atm – needs a nerf bad

You have to pay attention to their attunements when fighting an Ele… if you spam your CC while they are in earth attunement, for instance, you’re likely to be disappointed with the results. When they are in air, make sure you save your dodges and blocks for this attunement, when they are in water, go all out attack on them and CC as much as you can… when they are in fire, a balanced attack approach.

This is generalizing, of course, as a good Ele works around these things, but this might help if you’re been struggling.

For me Its really hard to beat elementalist.
Here is my old clip fighting against ele. I m not good at reacting and I lost to her but after i watched this i realized ele used skills as almost same queue.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXMhRJ-Fxek&feature=youtu.be

Maybe the ONLY good point of engi is free from these queue.But i have to sacrifice a stun breaker to be somewhat versatile. For my build i have no problem to sacrifice because EGs nice leap and heal give me more survivability than 60s cd skill at both of mass fight and 1vs1 so far (im still r43).
But anyway the necessity of sacrificing important utilities to kits is big disadvantage for engi.

I’ve looked into this, and this is why they consider the engineer a “highly versatile class.”

Our major advantage is we can cycle through our kits/weapons fluidly (1s CD timer vs 9 or 10 seconds with all other classes save Elementalist, who I will explain below), effectively giving us 10/15/20 weapon skills to use along with 4 toolbelt skills.

However, having 20 weapons skills leaves you with no utility for stun-breakers, gadgets, elixirs or racial utilities.

The Elementalist is similar except he cannot shift back to an element he has shifted away from for 15 seconds (traitable down to 8 seconds from what I get from the trait list. Am I right?)

Engineers can move in and out of a kit at the rate of 1 second per kit, and is the only class that can go right back into the same kit or weapon skill set in 1 second.

@ Sporadicus: – So the engie is the master of all spam? And what is the point of cycling through 3 kits to unload all the skills if they don’t do more damage per second than the warrior autoattack?

I never said there was a point to cycling through 3 kits. I would definitely not advise using 3 kits at all. You have no getaway skills to protect yourself.

I agree that our kits are definitely lackluster compared to the spamming burst attacks warriors and thieves can put out.

Some of an engineer’s power lies in the ability to flip constantly between his main weapon and a kit without worry of a large cooldown that all the other classes (elementalist being the exception) have.

Silver Chopper.4506:

@ Sporadicus: – So the engie is the master of all spam? And what is the point of cycling through 3 kits to unload all the skills if they don’t do more damage per second than the warrior autoattack?

good point about the damage, we don’t do more damage by rotating.

We can sometimes do other things though:

for example going from Bomb #3 to Tool Kit #3 to pistol #3 will put up a lot of confusion just by rotating.
The issue here is: a build involving both bombs as tool kit, while using pistols… is likely to be a build that is missing several traits OR it has to be a bunker healing-bomb build and the confusuion will be weak anyhow…

You can find more examples of combo’s across kits and weapons, but each time you’ll hit some issues in either the build, the stats, or the effect simply being weaker than other’s simple skill spam.

Sporadicus.1028:

I never said there was a point to cycling through 3 kits. I would definitely not advise using 3 kits at all. You have no getaway skills to protect yourself.

For this very reason I’ve been suggesting to give our kits finally some stunbreakers and built-in blast finishers.

Engineers are supposed to be ‘versatile’ but we lose slots simply by needing stun breakers, boons or condition removal…
Neither kits nor turrets are good enough to fill those elements. And they should be…

Having only stunbreakers in elixirs and gadgets is not enough.
Gadgets are ‘fun’ but there simply isn’t real room for them in any build that is supposed to be versatile.

Kimbald.2697:

Sporadicus.1028:

I never said there was a point to cycling through 3 kits. I would definitely not advise using 3 kits at all. You have no getaway skills to protect yourself.

For this very reason I’ve been suggesting to give our kits finally some stunbreakers and built-in blast finishers.

Engineers are supposed to be ‘versatile’ but we lose slots simply by needing stun breakers, boons or condition removal…
Neither kits nor turrets are good enough to fill those elements. And they should be…

Having only stunbreakers in elixirs and gadgets is not enough.
Gadgets are ‘fun’ but there simply isn’t real room for them in any build that is supposed to be versatile.

This more then not, is what I run into when theorycrafting

The Elementalist truly IS a very versatile class. They have 5 weapon skills *4 = 20 weapon skills + 5 utility/heal/elite. 25 skills only an attunement change away. Yes, they can’t swap their attunements instantly like engineers do, but let’s be honest – they can cycle it. (You can’t go back to the attunement you just switched off, but you can change to another one pretty quickly. And they got 4!)

Engineer got the shaft, because for getting a different set of skills, we have to sacrifice a lot of survival and 1 utility skill slot.
Baseline engineer = 5 weapon skills + 5 utility/heal/elite skills + 4 toolbelt skills = 14
1 kit = essentially 10 weapon skills + 4 utility/heal/elite + 4 toolbelt skills. = 18
2 kits = 15 weapon skills + 3 utility/heal/elite + 4 toolbelt skills. and yes…good luck to survive with only 1 utility skill. = 22
3 kits = almost impossible to use and survive in PvP or really tough battles.

Toolbelt skills help to make up for it a bit, but…only a bit. They aren’t real skills with the same usability as normal utility skills.

crow.2709:

The Elementalist truly IS a very versatile class. They have 5 weapon skills *4 = 20 weapon skills + 5 utility/heal/elite. 25 skills only an attunement change away. Yes, they can’t swap their attunements instantly like engineers do, but let’s be honest – they can cycle it. (You can’t go back to the attunement you just switched off, but you can change to another one pretty quickly. And they got 4!)

Engineer got the shaft, because for getting a different set of skills, we have to sacrifice a lot of survival and 1 utility skill slot.
Baseline engineer = 5 weapon skills + 5 utility/heal/elite skills + 4 toolbelt skills = 14
1 kit = essentially 10 weapon skills + 4 utility/heal/elite + 4 toolbelt skills. = 18
2 kits = 15 weapon skills + 3 utility/heal/elite + 4 toolbelt skills. and yes…good luck to survive with only 1 utility skill. = 22
3 kits = almost impossible to use and survive in PvP or really tough battles.

Toolbelt skills help to make up for it a bit, but…only a bit. They aren’t real skills with the same usability as normal utility skills.

Fix the CDs on those skills would make a huge difference… 90 second CD on the blast finish toolbelt skill for Thumper Turret… why? Makes no sense.

The thing is, though, and some might not see it… they have to be very careful scaling up our class, because where we lack this “versatility” thing… ugh… such an overused buzzword…

…we do have “variety”. And it would be SO easy for Anet to buff one thing that fits into a niche build that can just wreck havoc. You see peeks of it with things like the static discharge burst build. We provide damage in odd ways and often creative ways, so they will take baby steps towards balance with us, rather than having another shatter mesmer bug type scenario on their hands.

The Dev’s biggest problem is what Aydenunited said. They have to figure out how to make our kits effective without being powerful.

Like I said before, when we choose a kit we get 5 extra skills plus a minor effect that we can trigger. They have to make the toolbelt skills similar to the utility skill, either in theme or in effect (Goggles’ vulnerability is an example of theme, while EG’s regen cloud is an example of similar effect). They also have to balance the effectiveness of the toolbelt skill. This is done both in the effect of the toolbelt skill and its cooldown., and in Elixirs’ cases a random effect.

Reducing a toolbelt skill’s cooldown increases the frequency of the effect. For toolbelt skills with already low CDs, a second or two reduction can increase the power considerably.

Increasing the effect can be done in a number of ways: range, AOE, power, duration of effect, etc. This is a more complicated side to adjustment, some having a smaller effect than others.

The toolbelt skills can’t be equal to or better than other class’ normal utility skill because they are extra skills we receive in addition to our kits and normal skills. The kits can’t have all 5 skills that are each equal to or better than a normal utility skill.

It’s gonna take some time to balance engineers out, and since it was the last class to be focused on it is judged versus all other classes.

Joshua.9346:

I’m making this decision based on the balance design philosophy going forward.

So basically versatility is both their “thing”, except that ANet recognizes that Engi’s sacrifice damage for versatility whereas Ele’s have phenomenal AoE damage. So are they using the higher skill ceiling for Eles as a legit reasoning for making Engineers an inferior class??

From what I see personally playing both classes.

ENGINEER is lower overall damage.
Their kits allow them to adapt to a situation. example: range enemies? Use your guns. Group of enemies? Use a flamethrower. Melee enemies? Use bombs.

Also the Engy is kinda that hybrid class that does not truly master anything. You can build them anyway you want but you wont be Godlike in anything.

ELEMENTALIST is higher damage but horrible defense.
They adopt much differently. They are designed to constantly switch attunements depending on the needs of the team. Example: Need healing? Swap to water. Need defense and condition damage? Swap to earth. Speed and crowd control? Swap to air.

Typically you will excel in 2 attunements but in the end you must use them all and constantly switch playstyles in combat.

the limitations of Elementalist are in the weapon choices. Staffs are medium dmg and long ranged with lots of ground targeting. scepters and Focus are single target. daggers are close range nuke. Once you choose that weapon, you are stuck in that combat style. That is where the Engy is better; they can change their combat style completely. An Elementalist cannot. They can only change the attributes of their combat style.

Urrelles.4018:

Joshua.9346:

I’m making this decision based on the balance design philosophy going forward.

So basically versatility is both their “thing”, except that ANet recognizes that Engi’s sacrifice damage for versatility whereas Ele’s have phenomenal AoE damage. So are they using the higher skill ceiling for Eles as a legit reasoning for making Engineers an inferior class??

From what I see personally playing both classes.

ENGINEER is lower overall damage.
Their kits allow them to adapt to a situation. example: range enemies? Use your guns. Group of enemies? Use a flamethrower. Melee enemies? Use bombs.

Also the Engy is kinda that hybrid class that does not truly master anything. You can build them anyway you want but you wont be Godlike in anything.

ELEMENTALIST is higher damage but horrible defense.
They adopt much differently. They are designed to constantly switch attunements depending on the needs of the team. Example: Need healing? Swap to water. Need defense and condition damage? Swap to earth. Speed and crowd control? Swap to air.

Typically you will excel in 2 attunements but in the end you must use them all and constantly switch playstyles in combat.

the limitations of Elementalist are in the weapon choices. Staffs are medium dmg and long ranged with lots of ground targeting. scepters and Focus are single target. daggers are close range nuke. Once you choose that weapon, you are stuck in that combat style. That is where the Engy is better; they can change their combat style completely. An Elementalist cannot. They can only change the attributes of their combat style.

Well, as an Engineer once you choose spec, gear, nourishment, which abilities to equip and combat starts, you’re locked into a style as well. And there were many situations in which I regret I had made that particular choice of style.
Surely, we have to pay the price for our amazing versatility… doh. :P

Of course before battle you can spec or equip abilities that are completely different, but every profession can do that.

@Urrelles.4018:

As kits are right now they are merely used for a “fast-switch” to get either utility (elixir gun, flamethrower or toolkit) or time-limited strong DPS (grenades are not meant to be your all-time weapon, yet they force us to specialize into it to get the damage, ‘coz they aren’t rly for utility…), the bomb kit is the only exeption, thought it NEEDS the forceful explosive trait and I read it’s still half bugged, plus you just can’t go up close to everything in pve, only really useful for running AND doing damage at the same time while being chased… pretty situational to need a trait isn’t it?.

While it is true that they actually let us change the combat style, it’s not exactly so ‘coz our traits do not exactly synergize, but specialize instead of what we should be meant to… So instead of switching ’coz of the situation you simply switch to get 1 or 2 skills and then go back to whatever you were doing, just like elementalists but worse I’d say.

I must say that combat-style switching is mostly effective in pvp, which is why engineer can still prove worthy of battle, but it becomes useless in pve where you mostly have to “specialize” to actually be useful to your party.

Rfreak.6591:

@Urrelles.4018:

As kits are right now they are merely used for a “fast-switch” to get either utility (elixir gun, flamethrower or toolkit) or time-limited strong DPS (grenades are not meant to be your all-time weapon, yet they force us to specialize into it to get the damage, ‘coz they aren’t rly for utility…), the bomb kit is the only exeption, thought it NEEDS the forceful explosive trait and I read it’s still half bugged, plus you just can’t go up close to everything in pve, only really useful for running AND doing damage at the same time while being chased… pretty situational to need a trait isn’t it?.

While it is true that they actually let us change the combat style, it’s not exactly so ‘coz our traits do not exactly synergize, but specialize instead of what we should be meant to… So instead of switching ’coz of the situation you simply switch to get 1 or 2 skills and then go back to whatever you were doing, just like elementalists but worse I’d say.

I must say that combat-style switching is mostly effective in pvp, which is why engineer can still prove worthy of battle, but it becomes useless in pve where you mostly have to “specialize” to actually be useful to your party.

But the big difference here is if you run into a situation where you must fight a specific style, an engineer can switch easily and do some decent damage.

Example: A boss that destroys anyone in melee range. A D/D Elementalist will be utterly useless during that fight. Many Eles don’t use conjured weapons as backup so in most cases an Ele will just have to sit in the background and shoot off support abilities till the battle is over or the team wipes.

An engy in the same situation can switch to his default gun.

Basically, the way Engy kits are setup in conjunction with their default weapons, allows them easier access to different playstyles without getting “stuck”. A mage on the other hand can esily get stuck in the useless box if they do not know what type of combat is coming in the near future. You don’t know how many times I’ve seen a mage cursing at the game as they struggle to use a staff during a fight against highly mobile enemies who are being kited and running about ain every direction. You don’t know how many ties I’ve seen dagger mages getting destroyed by anti-melee bosses too. I never seen an engineer in those situations though.

Joshua.9346:

I’m making this decision based on the balance design philosophy going forward.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/news/Game-Update-Notes-December-14-2012

Engineer

The Engineer is a highly versatile class. While it doesn’t have the long range capabilities of the Ranger, or the melee capabilities of the Warrior or Guardian, they are comfortable at medium ranges in most fights. They have a lot of control, and use their boons to keep themselves (and allies) alive in a fight. They can use different kits based on the situation, but this extreme versatility comes at a cost in damage on their main hand weapons.

VS

Ele

We see the elementalist as the king of versatility. The skill ceiling for the Ele is exceptional, as the ability to leverage all four attunements at the right time is crucial for understanding the elemetnalist. The Ele boasts some of the best team support and control abilities in the game, as well as some great area of effect damage.

So basically versatility is both their “thing”, except that ANet recognizes that Engi’s sacrifice damage for versatility whereas Ele’s have phenomenal AoE damage. So are they using the higher skill ceiling for Eles as a legit reasoning for making Engineers an inferior class??

It says we’re highly versatile but Eles are KINGS. Basically you are correct. I love my Engineer and will not quit. However if I had read these descriptions at launch(were they even available?) than I would have not rolled an engineer. I’m still glad I stuck with it.