Guild Wars 2

The background of the Writer

I’ve played an engineer since the second or third beta and have loved the class to death in its ups and downs. I’ve done both PvP, WvW, and PvE, all casually, and perhaps sometimes a bit more seriously.

Though I consider myself a bit more of a PvE enthusiast, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed PvP and WvW in this game. The point in this being, that all in all, I can honestly say that I don’t think there’s a build I haven’t tried to make work at least once. Thus, I usually keep an open mind regarding builds and the like.

Now, naturally I was psyched and hyped to see the scrapper coming. Something to stirr things up, and change it around completely.

Now that it’s here, I do love it and it’s great, but I can’t help but feel that what should’ve allowed us to get creative with new things, has really only changed one weapon we hardly use for another. And that’s…it.

Allow me to explain my chain of thought.

The Reason for Writing This

I was having a discussion with another engineer the other day, and I happened to tell him I was trying out a build that didn’t focus as much on kits. Why? Because I feel kits has become all it’s about. And I still do. Not to mention, scrapper and kits feels… a little awkward. Forced, if I may.

While kits were part of the reason I started playing an engineer, I kind of miss all the other aspects of engineers I also fell in love with. Like gadgets, turrets, and elixirs. Now also, gyros.

I linked him my build (link slightly below, if you have an opinion, share!), a build I know is not at all the top dps or best build there is, but something I really enjoy.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vdAQFASnUUBdehtpCGpC0ehl7ji+Uj1bFshiosIciCgMB-TxRBQBXR5He0QgJ1fM4+DP4CCAgHEgZUCGA4AIAf/Nnf+5nf+597v/+7v/GA-e

Would you care to guess his reaction? He laughed, because according to him, it’s the worst thing he has ever seen.

“Who uses slick shoes?” he asked. I said it worked wonders on defiance bars.

“Shredder gyro sucks!” he said. Only if you use it wrong, I explained.

“You’ll never need bulwark!” he finally stated. To which I replied, that others might.

A Community in Which Build Diversity is Discouraged

It seemed to me that the only skills he did not trash, were the Healing Turret and the Elite Mortar Kit. The HT has long been considered one of our strongest heals, and similarly the EMK is arguably the best option for an elite skill we have as well. Which is probably why he said nothing about either. It is simply expected that we use all the strongest skills.

So I asked him, what kind of build he would run. His reply: “All kits”. Something it seems a lot of engineers agree on. Even I, really. In many ways, the engineer community strongly discourages build diversity. Why? Because as an engineer, if you want to perform as well as the other professions in gw2, you have no choice.

This is how it’s been for the past three years, and so we’ve become jaded. And I’m disappointed that despite our new specialization, that it’s is still the case. Kits are, and will continue to be, the only viable option in any given situation such as they are.

The Concern for Our Future

At the moment, the engineer power meta seems to lean against a minimally edited version of the old power meta. A meta in which neither gadgets, nor turrets, nor elixirs were considered “usable” skills. Even our new gyros, often misunderstood as they are, seem to be considered useless by many.

The engineer condition meta too, is almost completely unchanged. Except for some minor gear changes, that you don’t actually need to do yet. Everything utilizes nothing but kits. Kits upon kits, upon kits.

As it currently stands in gw2, the meta is determined by who can deal the most damage in the shortest amount of time. This, however, is not only in terms of pure, raw dps, but also in terms of support and buffs. Perhaps even more so, with the upcoming raids. Buffing, healing, debuffing, etc. will play a much larger role in the time to come.

This worries me. It worries me greatly.

Anything You Can Do…

As engineers, we are the “Jack-of-all-trades” of gw2. Something many consider to be a good thing. However, as the Jack-of-All-Trades, we are also the Master-of-None. Anything, and I mean absolutely anything, we can do, both can and will be done better by other professions.

Yes, we are part of the meta right now. But what happens once our pure, raw dps isn’t enough? As a guardian, you can change one of your utilities easily to get more reflects or condition removal as needed, without it impacting your performance, but if you remove one of the kits from an engineers rotation, it will be disastrous for his overall performance.

Not only this, but we are an astonishingly selfish profession, if you take a good look at it. Our only, truly redeemable feature, is that we stack vulnerability easily… However, 10 people in a raid will have no problem capping it without us, so what else can we offer? We’re second rate might-stackers, we’re not the best stealth-stacking class, and our healing is third-rate, at best. Even our dps is overshadowed by the dps others can do, for the time being.

So what can we do?

A Possibility for More?

It’s been suggested to me that a possible role we can play as scrappers will be that of a tank. Now, while this is an excellent possibility on paper, it’s still extremely hard to imagine it being possible for the time being.

Firstly, it seems several of the traits we’ve been given in the scrapper trait-line would work well with such a role. Namely, the Rapid Regeneration and the Adaptive Armor traits. RR is easily maintained, giving us nigh permanent healing in melee if used correctly. The AA trait, makes us natural damagesoakers, as it allows us to take a much greater beating. Less so, after its nerf, but still quite a beating. The condition damage reduction is simply ridiculously strong as well.

Now, the reason I find it hard to imagine this working in practice, is simple. Gw2 is a game centered around avoiding damage, not soaking it. It is simply more effective, and rewarding. We’ve seen unavoidable, unblockable attacks this expac, which is a good indicator of new requirements, but it’s just as crushing to be hit by it no matter how tanked up you are. In other words, it is simply easier for everyone to go full dps, rather then gear around survival. And thus, my concerns stand: is this what the developers had in mind with the scrapper? If so, is the scrapper rendered useless if it is determined that tanks are not needed?

In Final Summary

My reason for writing this, is not to bash or criticize people at all. It is simply, as stated in the title, some feedback and concerns from someone who has played this game for a long time, but never really voiced my opinions about how it is for the time being.

Yes, there have been changes to the game, and there will surely be a lot more changes coming. That being said, whether those changes will benefit us or not, is still to be seen. As it stands, and as it looks right now, though, is what I’m concerned about.

And I believe that a lot of people agree with me on this, because even though the forums are an excellent source of information, there are a lot of people like me out there. Those who play, read forums, but aren’t really as outspoken about it as some others.

I encourage discussion, and would love feedback on my thoughts…

And I hope it was an interesting read.

From a PvE perspective, I definitely agree with you, but you need to remember that apparently this game is balanced around sPvP, which inadvertently renders the majority of our non-kit skills niche or downright useless. The biggest offender here as you point out though is the kit mechanic itself. Because our kits offer so much over and even in some cases similar functionality (who uses Elixir C?) to other utilities it becomes a clear choice to just bring a kit to serve that purpose as well as others.

Consequently, I think that Scrapper was built with the same mindset and offers more in a PvP setting where sustainability is more of an issue versus open world where damage is king. As you see in these forums many players who are PvE-centric share a similar outlook and feel that Scrapper is somewhat lacking, but ultimately I believe that there will be few changes that will really benefit us at this point, since in sPvP Scrapper seems to be doing quite well in higher tiers of player skill.

The fact that the game is balanced around sPvP, is an obvious part of the problem. And the scrapper is doing great in that regard, as it works seamlessly with many of our utilities and elixirs.

That being said, as I mention above, with raids coming, I worry that our PvE-viability will drop significantly, as any role we can perform is outperformed by all other professions in any raid setting.

I’m happy to see I’m not the only one thinking about this.

I’ve realized for instance, that the engineer is the only class that hasn’t received an elite (at all) that can be beneficial in a group or raid setting. The supply crate is good, but still rather lacking compared to time warp or “Feel My Wrath!”. Name any profession, and they have a better elite.

Edit: Again, this is not me saying “buff engineers!”, or “nerf all others!”, this is me stating an obvious flaw with our class, that can render us obsolete in terms of raiding.

To further the point even more, I’ll add another small story/example.

One of my best friends made an engineer a year or so ago, because he wanted to have one top level character of each profession. He leveled an engineer as I did my guardian, and as we reached lvl 80, he wanted me to explain the engineer for him.

I did my best, and while he was impressed by the damage (and rather confused by the rotation), he finally asked me “That’s it? That’s all? You have like no support. No group buffs, or anything”.

In discussion, we concluded that while the engineer had very good raw damage, it brought very little else to the fight. There’s no group-wide stunbreaker, or passive healing, or impressive amounts of might-stacking. An engineer alone, and it’s just dps. Not even that great dps anymore, because we neither have great might nor any other great buffs.

He hasn’t logged into that engineer since. In aftermath, conditions have been buffed and recieved a complete overhaul, but still… the situation is the same. Raw dps.

I disagree with that, while in currently engi is seen as a top damage dealer and does not offer something uniquely that other classes cannot do better does not mean that damage is the only thing it has going for it. It is because Engineers have access to many different utilities is what makes them useful.

Healing Turret is one of the best party heals in the game without having to spec into anything on a relatively low cool-down, our stealth access only second to a thief using black power in organised groups and is more than enough for most counters. The same can be said about our blast finishers, and our fields. Also, blind uptime is better than most other classes as well (assuming we’re talking about condi engi). Even our reflect is great since we can quickly swap it in and out per encounter without sending the entire utility skill on cool-down and if traited and lucky our wall is longer than the guardian’s.

I digress, but the point I’m making is that although we may not excel in any single department, we can provide the means to fill that particular role at the given moment. Gap-fillers, really.

For lack of a better way to phrase this, my reply would be “who cares.” I don’t mean to trivialize you, and I know you’re voicing a concern many have.

I’d go back to your point, however, that we are Jack-of-all trades, master-of-none. This is always a position that will inherently corner the profession away from group play; a well coordinated group of specialists always outperforms a similar group of generalists. This makes us tend to be less “needed” for group content. We are still highly capable, and in solo play the engineer is king – no other profession can be as prepared for such a variety of hurdles. This is a trade-off, and trade-offs are the very essence of variety.

The other issue sounds like you don’t like being “forced” to go DPS-centric. I would argue that this is also something faced by every other class in the game. People that play every profession complain that they’re forced into one of a couple top DPS builds. This is only true, however, if you want to do speed runs of the game content. If you want to do things fast, DPS is always going to be king. This is not something that Anet can do anything about; it’s a simple product of the mentality of the player base.

In all, while I see your concerns and think many others (across all or most professions) share them, I think it really all comes down to your play style and the trade-offs that you do or do not want to make.

Edit: typos

Allow me to continue the discussions a bit further.

We are Jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none. This is true. And despite what some believe, we do have plenty of uses. I’m not arguing that we’re worthless, not at all.

I know exactly how much an engineer can perform, given the chance. My concern lies more within the area of future progression for the class, especially so in PvE.

Every elite specialization has added an option to their class. An option that evolves their playstyle in a different direction than previously used. Allow me to reflect that over a couple of classes:

Necromancers, as the previous black sheep of PvE, can now become Reaper melee-trains, with plenty of usefulness for roles in both sPvP and PvE. Shouts have added a quick CD aoe, that can both damage foes and help allies.They’ve always been plenty usefull in WvW, so that’s not an issue. While their dps is still not the best, their standing has been thoroughly elevated. I find I have more supportive utility in PvE on my necromancer, then on my engineer. A feeling that I find awkward.

Elementalists, have always been a big part of the PvE meta, and an extremely successfull part of both sPvP and WvW. As tempests, they have even more utility and healing then ever before, though at the cost of a slightly reduced dps. Our Healing Turret is, in fact, no longer the nr.1 heal anymore, as any elementalist with a warhorn can tripple the healing and condi removal easily. Not to mention they bring some of the strongest shouts to date to the group.

The scrapper brings… nothing even comparable to that. What, other then being able to fight in melee (which we always have, really), has been added to the class via scrapper? Especially in a raid-setting, the lack of utility for a larger number of people will become painfully obvious.

As this game initially was, a game where the highest number of organised PvE involved 5 people, a Jack-of-all-trades was very useful. However, as it stands to become, what does one stand to gain by bringing an engineer to a group of 10, whereas 8 of them are classes that outperform us in (almost) every single way? Each on their own, no less.

I am not at all worried about the PvE community turning on engineers (although it has before), nor am I worried my guild will not want me to join in raids, but I voice my concern, because despite (or rather, no matter) how much I love the engineer, it takes its toll seeing I could do so much more playing another class.

Although my initial point was not at all about being forced to go “dpc-centric” in builds, etc, but since you’ve brought it up, allow me to bring some thoughts into that as well.

If you’ve ever been a part of the Tangled Depths meta event, you’ll realize that it’s an event centered almost entirely around dps. It requires an insane amount of dps, almost to the point where it’s not possible.

Try bringing a zerg of soldier-equipped people to that, and people will literally laugh at you. I reckon the devs had a lot of fun playing with this zone.

The event have only been completed a couple of times, and requires you to get the max dps out of your character, no matter what you do. Anything less than max, and you might as well leave the map to make room for someone who can get there. If not, it will fail.

Saying that this game is playable exactly how you want to, is in fact just not correct anymore. Time and time again, it’s proven that a high dps is incredibly important to succeed at this game, not through the community, but through the requirements of the events within the game itself.

I dare you to level a character from 1-80, and through the Maguuma maps using only soldier gear. It’s simply not rewarding.

shredder gyro is the most pointlessly hilarious thing I have ever seen.
but, then again I have a purely PvP perspective. still I can’t see how it could hold more value than a kit anywhere.

PvE makes me so bored I have to take a break from the game and have a lie down. basically anything works in big open work events anyhow, so just run whatever.
I’ll run kits you can run a shredder gyro and I will laugh out loud whenever I see it then I’ll get bored of grinding for chests and do something else.

engineer is excellent in PvP. it’s got loads of AOE support through heals, boons, and condi clear. great sustain, great Cc, great damage with might. it’s the only class I’ll play and I never feel I don’t have the tools for the job.

choovanski.5462:

shredder gyro is the most pointlessly hilarious thing I have ever seen.
but, then again I have a purely PvP perspective. still I can’t see how it could hold more value than a kit anywhere.

PvE makes me so bored I have to take a break from the game and have a lie down. basically anything works in big open work events anyhow, so just run whatever.
I’ll run kits you can run a shredder gyro and I will laugh out loud whenever I see it then I’ll get bored of grinding for chests and do something else.

engineer is excellent in PvP. it’s got loads of AOE support through heals, boons, and condi clear. great sustain, great Cc, great damage with might. it’s the only class I’ll play and I never feel I don’t have the tools for the job.

I’m glad you’re satisfied with the way engineer is in sPvP and WvW. Even in PvE, we’re viable as of now. However, as this post is mainly concerned about the future PvE of engineers, which you’re not interested in, I’m not entirely sure why you felt the need to post.

Unless it was purely done to degrade someone else’s opinions about a part of the game that matters an equal lot to them that sPvP do to you. In terms you probably understand better; unless you did it to mock.

Now, I value people’s rights to their own opinions, so I’m not going to engage any more then that, but ask in general that the discussion be kept to the subject.

I’ve got a Revenant that I ran up to 80 and filled out his Herald elite spec. (Yes this does relate to the current state of Engineers. Just bare with me.) Needless to say I’ve become very impressed with the over all flexibility of design and wide range of capabilities I can do with the Revenant, especially in combination with their Herald elite spec.

I then switched over to my Engineer / Scrapper and very quickly had a realization. My Revenant is now… what I hoped my Engineer would be. “Jack of all Trades” class that I can setup as a Tank, DPS, Healer or Buff-bot. You name it, the Revenant is most likely more than adequate at it. All I have to do is carry around some spare gear in my bags and boom, I can switch spec and functionality inside of a minute, tops.

So now.. circling back to the Engineer: the brand new Scrapper addition is more than a bit of a joke in several ways. Gyro movement speeds and A.I. are buggy at best. The ‘self destruct’ function on all Gyros are exactly the same. The list goes on and on… and that is just with our NEW ‘Elite Spec’.

The base class itself? Almost as broken, if not more so. Turrets are almost entirely pointless and quite often get ‘focused down’ by monsters as soon as they are placed. Elixirs have a bare amount of usefulness and appeal at best. Just about the only thing everyone agrees are ‘good’ are weapon kits, and even those have some pretty glaring issues at points as well.

I’m really hoping that the Engineer will see some fixing and soon. Until then? I’ll be playing my ‘other Engineer’ (the Revenant).

I will speak my experience on 2 things – wow mmo and engineer.

Wow mmo……i played world of warcraft for 11 years. I played a shaman. Shaman used to be this bard jack of all trade. Shaman was reworked to be a damage dealer and healer. The new meta of tank healing dps killed shaman class skills and made them similar to a druid and a priest.

I know wow has raid encounters where dps are too low and the bosses enrage. Anet should study blizzard wow games and see how their design is.

AS FOR ENGINEER my experience with engineer is – i get bored with pve and pvp.

I play engineer and do condition nades and i do awesome aoe damage, and decent pistol single target damage. BUt like you said, nobody cares or appreciates my gyros, tool belt elixiers (buffs) or anything. It’s just cc (bar breakers), damage, healing, and dodges. Thats pve for heart of thorns.

I know in pve i struggle with what skills to use. When i solo i find virtually 80% of my skills useless. Hammer is useless in pve because it doesn’t do enough damage and doesn’t provide enough tankiness against the monsters. I know elixirs are not that great because you use them to stack might but it’s not the “best” dps build you can go.
Gadgets are useless solo wise and so are turrets.

In group play, i often get confused – should i spec for the team utility or for damage. If i spec utility i just spec cc breakers and buffs and utility. BUT nobody appreciates that stuff. In fact people can do my roles easier than my class can do them. I wish i could do STRONG damage and STRONG cc and STRONG utility. But as it is, i am useless to my party.

PvP wise, i don’t do enough damage to go on a killing spree i die before i get more than 1 kill. I know to be succesful in pvp you have to use rifle and kits or hammer and kits. But PVP has this focus on soloing, and winning by your self, and not caring about the team or working as a team, except in guild wars 2 spvp esports, and everytime they use an engineer, the team that uses engineer loses.

SO my point is, engineer sucks at pvp and pve. We are supposed to be a support dps class, but fail to be damaging or supporting. It’s the fault of the design content AND the player base. Players don’t care about supporting. They care about winning , killing, and soloing, and engineer does neither damage or supporting.

The tool belt skills are generally not very useful. Only elixier x is useful (for controlling polymorph) and that is an elite skill.

Turrets die to fast, and you cannot make a build around them. If you use full turret traits for boons and reflections, they hardly make a “REAL” defense or buffing difference in solo or group play.

Gadgets are generally combo finishers and cc. Their coldowns are too long, and combos with engineer hardly do anything (dps or survival wise) only blast water is good for the burst healing for solo or group.

Gyros are clunky and annoying and a waste of a skill slot. The utility you provide with gyros can be provided more easily with other classes. Also fields are not very “game changing” as pure conditions or raw zerk damage is better.

Elixiers are only small boons that don’t last long, and waste skill slots to cast with heavy coldowns. Most people selfishly use elixirs to boon themselves up for dps and defense.

The ultimates are not that great. The medical supplies is only good for the stun. Morter kit is best in slot for 1200 range attacks and explosive dps. The fields don’t last as long as some other classes.

PVE RANT DONE

PVP RANT

in pvp engineer is tanky and solos alright but doesn’t offer team support, and cannot do enough damage to go on a killing spree or solo cap points with 2 or more people.

Engineer can only solo 1v1 a person and as soon as it’s 2v1 you die or run. Other professions (chronomancer reaper, dragon hunter) can 1v2 and are a lot less punishing for making mistakes and reacting to pvp combat.

PVP RANT END

WVW PVP

Engineer is not as good as a warrior with a war horn. Also zerg combat is so unbalanced that i don’t think any profession is best with zerging. Just spam, arrow carts, spam aoe, and spam heals and push into the enemy zerg and wipe up.

For small skirmishes, engineer doesn’t do good 1v2 and a good chronomancer and necromancer can 2v3 or 2v4 depending on the gear of the enemy and skill.

WVWPVP rant end.

Sorry i am complaining, but engineer is my main, and i take frequent breaks playing other games until i forget what engineer problems have – then comeback and am like “Oh”

I think engineer should get a skill that no other class has. That would make them unique and have a place in the game.

I think a lot of people are doom and gloom. Even the OP has something wrong.

Bad things about engis:
We have bugs. Our toolkit 5 pulls half the time, trips the other half, for example — even after being “fixed”

Our gyros are slow, and dont know how to fly.

Mortars fly WAY too slow to be useful in WvW.

HOWEVER — That being said:

1) Elixirs are amazing for pvp, as it provides you with a ton of might when combined with HGH and Scapper (or anything, however, scrapper has the ability to convert the 3 stab from Toolbet elixer into additional might). The condi cleanse is also useful.

2) We are likely the lynch pin to a pick squad in wvw. If you can properly target your foe, pull them, net them, and then kitten them — they will die to your pick squad. No questions asked.

3) “Masters of none” — We are the supreme god of Condi damage in PvE/Fractals/Dungeons. Not a single class can out dps us when it comes to “Here, you have 60 seconds, 120 seconds, 180 seconds” whatever it be. There is NO class that can call themselves king of DPS/Conditions without themselves being an engineer.

4) Engineer can 2v1 just fine, as long as you play it properly. In doing so, sometimes I end up rarely taking damage. between my evades, vigor, higher endurance, blocks, and dazes.

5) “Elites are not that great”
Mortar kit is an amazing elite, aside from the slow trajectory of the attacks. You have access to 4 fields, a 100% projectile finisher (drop them under your feet if you wish), and the ability to blast those fields from afar.

Malpractice.7850:

1) Elixirs are amazing for pvp, as it provides you with a ton of might when combined with HGH and Scapper (or anything, however, scrapper has the ability to convert the 3 stab from Toolbet elixer into additional might). The condi cleanse is also useful.

2) We are likely the lynch pin to a pick squad in wvw. If you can properly target your foe, pull them, net them, and then kitten them — they will die to your pick squad. No questions asked.

3) “Masters of none” — We are the supreme god of Condi damage in PvE/Fractals/Dungeons. Not a single class can out dps us when it comes to “Here, you have 60 seconds, 120 seconds, 180 seconds” whatever it be. There is NO class that can call themselves king of DPS/Conditions without themselves being an engineer.

4) Engineer can 2v1 just fine, as long as you play it properly. In doing so, sometimes I end up rarely taking damage. between my evades, vigor, higher endurance, blocks, and dazes.

5) “Elites are not that great”
Mortar kit is an amazing elite, aside from the slow trajectory of the attacks. You have access to 4 fields, a 100% projectile finisher (drop them under your feet if you wish), and the ability to blast those fields from afar.

Now, what you’re mentioning above are the reasons engineer works as it stands. However, I think you’ve slightly misunderstood why I post, and what I’m actually concerned about.

The base engineer is good, in terms of conditions, but the fact still stands that as a class we haven’t evolved at all despite the introduction of an “elite” specialization.

I’m not at all saying that the scrapper is bad in terms of sPvP, sPvP isn’t really what I care about here. But with raids coming, and a huge part of the playerbase going for it, what can we bring to the group now that we couldn’t before?

More directly said, the way this game is evolving, especially in terms of PvE, the scrapper has no obvious use. Not at all. The only thing a scrapper can bring, in terms of (for sake of argument) a raid, is “Superspeed”… and even that is a mere 3 seconds.

What the hell did the developers have in mind when they designed the scrapper? That’s really what I’m asking. It is completely useless outside of sPvP, unlike EVERY other elite specialization they introduced.

Are we supposed to run condi-engies for the rest of our lives, which has become boring as kitten?

I don’t listen to other people saying what I should use, ever. I observe and learn that way, but do not copy. If you were meant to be like everyone else you would not have been given the power of thought, because to be like everyone else takes no thought at all.

I too play it because of its flexibility (a kit for every situation). I hardly use anything else but that’s because I don’t find anything else useful (not saying that it isn’t) mainly because of the terrible cool down system I could age on, and also because I’m used to mechanics of other games, where I don’t need to wait half a minute on average for a spell to become usable again.

Fast-paced gaming. ANet forces variety upon its players while their desired spell is being recharged. In reality, you should be able to use what you want, whenever you want, or as quick as you want (this begs the question: won’t a class be overpowered that way? Won’t the game suffer from the same as other games? Read on…)

There used to be masteries for that too (not in this game though). You might think I’d like to see the game turned into a fast-paced Korean Lineage 2 or smth clone. Yes and no, because this is MMORPG, mainly RPG, so if you switch places with your character having its powers you’d sometimes want to just spam one skill on your opponent until they are dead.

What I dislike about the game in general, and also when playing Engi, is the cool down. That’s why I use kits, so I can quickly switch and use something else until what I need again cools down. (They wanted to impose way too much “strategy”, made it only boring on many occasions.)

I consider it the most versatile class of all, adaptable to virtually any situation and if played right, coming out of every fight as a winner. It has something to offer to anyone, but even though one may play it in many various ways, it still has one main course outlined for it, and that’s condition damage.

It certainly doesn’t help that the few things we had as scrappers, that were kind of good, have been nerfed, because apparently it was too strong in sPvP. The fact that a side-effect of this makes it ridiculously, nay, horrendously bad in PvE…! That’s just ignored!

Have they no self-respect?

Inoki.6048:

I consider it the most versatile class of all, adaptable to virtually any situation and if played right, coming out of every fight as a winner. It has something to offer to anyone, but even though one may play it in many various ways, it still has one main course outlined for it, and that’s condition damage.

I really like what you’re saying, but it still doesn’t change the fact that they introduced us to an elite specialization that were supposed to offer an alternative usefulness than that we already had.

In this, they have failed dramatically.

The condition engineer is in fact the only usefulness we have in PvE for the time being, and that in itself is a depressing fact. Further on, the realization that being a scrapper AND a condition engineer just doesn’t work at all, makes it all so much worse.

I usually run a build that I find to be fun. For the time being, I find the scrapper to be plenty of fun, in PvE, sPvP, WvW and in open world.

I have a… strong conservation for people who think everyone should run the same builds, simply because “those are the best”. That being said, for every other class, doing what you want to do is acceptable because it still works.

As it stands, doing whatever you want to do as a scrapper… it’s simply not arguable anymore. Because it just sucks compared to everything else.

Again, in the interest of PvE.

Allie.4925:

they introduced us to an elite specialization that were supposed to offer an alternative usefulness than that we already had.

In this, they have failed dramatically.

The condition engineer is in fact the only usefulness we have in PvE for the time being, and that in itself is a depressing fact. Further on, the realization that being a scrapper AND a condition engineer just doesn’t work at all, makes it all so much worse.

Much like adding Druid to the Ranger = 0 synergy with the rest of the trait lines. I made a choice, I quit playing the Druid all together.

It’s kind of fitting you bring up the druid, as it’s the other extreme in this case. Although there’s no synergy with the other trait lines available, druids still have an insane amount of potential when it comes to PvE, more accurately, raiding.

If the engineer had a tenth of that potential, I would shut up.

I don’t think all of the specialisations were built for raids. scrapper seems like a spvp focused specialisation to me, as does DH.

I have no issue with still playing regular engineer, and I don’t mind if it’s better than scrapper for pve DPS. scrapper is focused on personal sustain and brings that to pve builds that want it. the extra block and evades/tripple leap finisher make hammer worthwhile for any game mode.

Not seeing a problem here.

Not every spec needs to be super-performant in every game mode.

sPvP Scrappers are amazing and PvE Scrappers do just fine. And that is okay.

There are definite things that can and should be improved about the spec, but most of that is QoL and general flavor.

You would have a much better argument if baseline Engineer was not so kitten capable.

I don’t play too much PvE, I’d say my main game mode is PvP closely followed by WvW so you may expect me to be somewhat satisfied with the hammer or the scrapper.

Lets just say that HoT provided me with just enough value to request a refund… (maybe in a few months it might be worth my time).

So I guess this supports Lord Dark Flare’s point. My old build baseline engi is far better (at least for me) than anything new.

choovanski.5462:

I don’t think all of the specialisations were built for raids. scrapper seems like a spvp focused specialisation to me, as does DH.

I have no issue with still playing regular engineer, and I don’t mind if it’s better than scrapper for pve DPS. scrapper is focused on personal sustain and brings that to pve builds that want it. the extra block and evades/tripple leap finisher make hammer worthwhile for any game mode.

So, in other words you have no issue with the complete standstill we’re at right now, where the engineer hasn’t evolved or changed at all for, what, three years?

We’re still running the kitten builds that started becoming popular in the freaking beta, back in early 2012. Why? Because it’s all we can do in order to keep up.

Yes, there’s been some polish, some fixes, but otherwise there’s not been any change at all.

Sure, we can do lots on our own in sPvP, but heck, my auto-attack chain crits for 2500, while my bloody revenant does the same for 5000, all the while stun-locking everything in her path.

Meanwhile, anet are kittenscared to buff us, out of fear for the overblown rage-response doing so will get them from the sPvP community.

Allie.4925:

choovanski.5462:

I don’t think all of the specialisations were built for raids. scrapper seems like a spvp focused specialisation to me, as does DH.

I have no issue with still playing regular engineer, and I don’t mind if it’s better than scrapper for pve DPS. scrapper is focused on personal sustain and brings that to pve builds that want it. the extra block and evades/tripple leap finisher make hammer worthwhile for any game mode.

So, in other words you have no issue with the complete standstill we’re at right now, where the engineer hasn’t evolved or changed at all for, what, three years?

We’re still running the kitten builds that started becoming popular in the freaking beta, back in early 2012. Why? Because it’s all we can do in order to keep up.

Yes, there’s been some polish, some fixes, but otherwise there’s not been any change at all.

Sure, we can do lots on our own in sPvP, but heck, my auto-attack chain crits for 2500, while my bloody revenant does the same for 5000, all the while stun-locking everything in her path.

You keep making the same mistake. Again, you think we arent the kings.

Remember, we AREN’T playing keep up. Our DPS is the single highest DPS rotation in the game, and sustains indefinitely. We arent using the same build to keep up, we’re using the same PVE build to stay ahead. Your auto attack may crit at 2500, however, I do (easily) that 5k in burning alone. And its got 100% uptime. Thats not to mention my bleeds, crits, poison, and confusion in on that.

You hope that we are 10% the usefulness of druids in raids — The key factor youre missing out on “Will healing be needed?”
Lets say it is. Sure, druid is a good healer. Is it better than a Ventari tablet with long kitten protectile blocks (Who, can also keep almost 100% uptime on their buffs for the party)

Lets say its not needed, then are we less effective than the druid whos not wanted? Or the ranger thats still shunned?

We do not know raids yet. We provide more DPS than a thief nowdays, even power, and can provide great stealth. Maybe there is bosses that require revealing? Maybe you need to be able to break a breakbar, which we do just fine. Possibly even daze the foe, which we do amazingly well. Youre assuming we will be bad, when we are currently “the best” to bring to a fractal at level 100. Not even mentioning the fact there is a boss that only takes condition damage. We will be wanted.

Remember, the specializations needed to “change” the class. It has insurmountably changed how Engineer is played in both PvP and WvW. I couldnt do a melee train engi while bringing protections, 5 water fields, and 5 blasts — while shrugging off almost all conditions and having stun breakers to boot.

In PvP ive seen it shift from Power, to Cele rifle to condition to cele rifle, to marauder power, to soldier scrapper, and now cele scrapper.

I’ve seen in pvp going from Power to now Condition damage, and being the king for the last 6 months. Which will not change.

Allie.4925:

As engineers, we are the “Jack-of-all-trades” of gw2. Something many consider to be a good thing. However, as the Jack-of-All-Trades, we are also the Master-of-None. Anything, and I mean absolutely anything, we can do, both can and will be done better by other professions.

I disagree here. With the modifications anet made to our mortar, our class is the only one that can apply constant ranged AOE pressure with no CD. This is especially useful in WvW for zergs that bunker down with arrow carts. While other classes have to risk getting into 1200 range, I have an extra 300 range gap. I help push them back while bombing them from a distance. Twin orbital strikes with Kinetic Battery hurts like hell and it’s enough to cause panic or down a few people, which is vital for rushing.

HoT introduced several new beneficial options for our class as well. We are now the 3rd class with access to lightning fields. Those stuns/dazes are very useful in HoT, and in a WvW zerg too. Secondly, our sneak gyro is a bloody lifesaver / time saver. Doing missions, opening chests, or activating sources of power without getting annoyed by trash mobs. And using it to help rez the down while keeping agro off. Shadow Refuge doesn’t even come close to this utility, especially with its very long CD and lack of mobility (yes you can argue AI pathing issues, but there are workarounds). The function gyro has also saved many lives in my travels and although Anet could improve the quality of life using it, so far I have come to love it.

“Meta” for some might mean min-maxing and chugging down game content by DPS’ing your way to the finish line, but in this game utility is what I enjoy and engineer’s have tons of it. With other professions I have to ration my stun breaks or condition cleanse, or wait for backup to take on a champ. With my engineer, I can charge head in and feel much safer doing so.

My advice: Ignore what everyone says and play how you want. The game is much more fun that way.

PWNcakesAndROFLs.8263:

From a PvE perspective, I definitely agree with you, but you need to remember that apparently this game is balanced around sPvP, which inadvertently renders the majority of our non-kit skills niche or downright useless.

Agreed. And it’s hurting the game pretty badly in two major game mods (those being PvE and WvW) that balance is always centered so much around such a different game mode, mechanically.

Why you’d use sPvP as the balance basis when the majority plays something else is beyond me, though. The usual arguments are “but that’s where balance matters!”, but well, looking at threads like these, obviously it matters just as much elsewhere? Or look at the WvW complaints, sure balance should be based on one game mode working differently than the others instead of the majority?

Allie.4925:

choovanski.5462:

I don’t think all of the specialisations were built for raids. scrapper seems like a spvp focused specialisation to me, as does DH.

I have no issue with still playing regular engineer, and I don’t mind if it’s better than scrapper for pve DPS. scrapper is focused on personal sustain and brings that to pve builds that want it. the extra block and evades/tripple leap finisher make hammer worthwhile for any game mode.

So, in other words you have no issue with the complete standstill we’re at right now, where the engineer hasn’t evolved or changed at all for, what, three years?

We’re still running the kitten builds that started becoming popular in the freaking beta, back in early 2012. Why? Because it’s all we can do in order to keep up.

Yes, there’s been some polish, some fixes, but otherwise there’s not been any change at all.

Sure, we can do lots on our own in sPvP, but heck, my auto-attack chain crits for 2500, while my bloody revenant does the same for 5000, all the while stun-locking everything in her path.

I run a large variety of engineer builds in wvw and PvP, both with and without scrapper. I always run kits, and to be honest I don’t enjoy playing builds with less than two kits. that doesn’t stop me having variety and fun with my builds. static discharge, p/s condi, flamethrower, cele bombs, and now cele hammer. there are so many good builds out there, and now we have a new weapon and traitline- both of which are great.

it’s better to be an engineer than ever before. if you don’t feel like a bright young God on scrapper you need to change your build. it can go toe to toe with anything.

sure, pve DPS rotation builds are boring, but DPS rotation pve is boring so what do you expect?

I feel like rather then trying to understand my point, people keep to their trenches while firing from their hips here.

I KNOW the scrapper is useful in sPvP, WvW, whatever, but the POINT I’m trying to bring forward, is that they CAN’T make a new specialization, with it’s useful functions lying almost entirely in sPvP/WvW, and call it an ELITE specialization that will (quote): “CHANGE THE WAY WE PLAY ENGINEERS COMPLETELY”….

I am NOT talking about sPvP or WvW, I’m glad it’s working there, but I simply don’t CARE about those. And I would dare assume that at least 50% of engineers feel the same way.

Seriously, if the scrappers only useful function had been PvE, the sPvP / WvW community would go berserk.

Furthermore, YES we are KINGS with conditions, doing 30k dps or whatever, but NOTHING HAS CHANGED for the past three years, despite them constantly promising it.

What I’m actually kittened about (and gets more kittened about the more people miss the point) is that we have the same bloody rotation we used in the BETA.

And if you’ve tried any of the new PvE content, or raids, you KNOW that using a set DPS rotation (Edit: that our condition build requires us to do, flawlessly) just won’t DO anymore.

I will say my full opinion instead of ranting like I did above. I used flamethrower grenades elixir s berserker build and nothing else in pve. Sinister pistol nades doesn’t do dps fast enough even in ascended armor compared to ascended zerker gear from my experience. That’s my only build. I switch out elixir s for an other elixir or ram to shield break with moa and flame thrower 3. I don’t bother with my other elixirs or ultility or turrets. You might call me a noob but I think I do my job pretty well. I think most engineer skills are useless or give less value then a full zerker grenade flame thrower build I have. This is speaking from a pve stand point. Grenades aoe flame thrower single target. Healing turret and shrink and dodge for defense and stealth for group ultility in fractals. I switch between more kit and elixir x. Also in spvp I just do muarader rifle nades tool kit and get solo kills and solo caps. Even if I lose the match I still get 3 chest for higher points and killing spree. I think it’s not engineers fualt we suck. But the meta favors damage rather then ultility and defensive builds in pve and spvp has objectives so that is hard to balance classes. They should make an arena where you duel in a sand box for 3v3 or 5v5. In pve I Rez people and bar break and follow mechanics. But I think 25 stacks of might is not as good as some other traits and with runes of strength you can slowly hit 25 might anyways. Elixirs would be better if they didn’t require skill slots or we could cast the. While maintaning our kits. Engineers are not jack of all trades if you want to min max. Most of the ultility they bring can be brought by other profession and we are good at damage only. Our rezzing is not that great when you can just Rez them your self instead of gyro or elixir field. I am speaking from a fractal perspective. Dps is king in endgame for engineer. Tanking in raids won’t be very good for scrapper. Scrapper dies quickly to mobs in silver waste as tank spec. Champions elites and veterans do too much damage to tank. Just dodge and deliver max dps as possible. Anet needs to make it so after you dodge all damage is reduced by 95% for 3 seconds before a dodge comes off coldown. Or give tanking engineers more conditions to apply and healing power to heal ally’s. A tank that does no damage cant heal or bring useful ultility and conditions is worthless. Dps that can’t dps are worthless. This is my opinion in a calm way about pve content and engineer.

Sorry i was on an iphone when i typed that.

Any ways yea for most pve content i do, i focus on damage and berserker gear. I know ice bows and warrior banners were a thing back then, but i just stick to berserker gear and kits.

I don’t think i could be an engineer tank. Scrapper has to focus on avoiding mechanics not absorbing damage. The traits give toughness which is nice, but toughness cant save you from the damage you take it in fractals or raids (in my opinion) but i don’t have much experience.

I find elixirs to be useless. Yes you could go elixir build and might stacking for heavy damage but i think setting 2-5 with elixirs and trying to stay 25 might stack is tedious. I rather use skills for shield breakers (cc) and kits that do damage or brings fields. The only 2 elixirs i like are elixir s (defense bubble and stealth) and moa shield breaker (elixir x)

Obviously i am a noob so maybe i don’t know what i am talking about, but that has been my experience playing heart of thorns.

SPvP i don’t do.

Gyros are useless in solo content, decent in group content (stealth and rezing are my favorite) and i don’t do spvp that much.

World pvp is not great if you zerg but if you hunt players, engineer can be fun.

Sorry i am ranting i wanted to clear a few things up.

NOT ALL ENGINER SKILLS ARE USELESS. but i just dps are engineer, never tank.

Ignoring all the bad builds everybody seems the need to shamelessly plug in every time the word “build” gets mentioned, the engineer is fine.

Kits are a huge part of the class. They are designed to fill the gaps created by lacking a weapon swap and weapon variety.
Kits are used because even if some other utility is good, there simply isn’t a place for it on the utility bar.
Oh and the pvp meta uses like 1 kit only.

Allie.4925:

In discussion, we concluded that while the engineer had very good raw damage, it brought very little else to the fight. There’s no group-wide stunbreaker, or passive healing, or impressive amounts of might-stacking. An engineer alone, and it’s just dps. Not even that great dps anymore, because we neither have great might nor any other great buffs.

I would think healing turret, e-gun and mortar kit are excellent support abilities.

robertul.3679:

Oh and the pvp meta uses like 1 kit only.

Isn’t it 2: e-gun and mortar kit.

Allie.4925:

Meanwhile, anet are kittenscared to buff us, out of fear for the overblown rage-response doing so will get them from the sPvP community.

We have the highest dps in PvE boss fights, we are very strong in PvP at the moment, what is there to buff? I guess support could be buffed a bit but we do have adequate support as I note above. We do have stuff that needs fixing but so does every class.

The major issue facing the class at the moment is that the scrapper class mechanic is poor in relation to other class mechanics but this has been discussed heavily here with no real response from the devs so I guess its died down a bit. But that doesn’t mean we need buffs it means they need to heavily rework the class mechanic.

morrolan.9608:

Allie.4925:

Meanwhile, anet are kittenscared to buff us, out of fear for the overblown rage-response doing so will get them from the sPvP community.

We have the highest dps in PvE boss fights, we are very strong in PvP at the moment, what is there to buff? I guess support could be buffed a bit but we do have adequate support as I note above. We do have stuff that needs fixing but so does every class.

The major issue facing the class at the moment is that the scrapper class mechanic is poor in relation to other class mechanics but this has been discussed heavily here with no real response from the devs so I guess its died down a bit. But that doesn’t mean we need buffs it means they need to heavily rework the class mechanic.

Then we agree.

Sorry, that last post there was slightly off topic. What I meant wasn’t to “buff” us, per se, but to change things, in order to make them better, as our core mechanic isn’t good.

I think my biggest problem overall, this very moment is how engi seems to be the grab bag for other classes.

What I mean is, Berserker got our missing rifle traits, Dragonhunter has our orbital strike (and an even flashier effect to boot) etc, etc. Just seems like whenever a class dev dips into the engi jar, we lose something else, and when that happens something else that worked fine either breaks or is just flat out gone.