Guild Wars 2

Sorry. I need to rant a bit. I’ll keep it nice if I can.

Elixir H: Randomness isn’t good! The two other healing skills are great! The turret heals and regenerates the party. The kit gives you speed buffs and due to the long staying duration of the stuff you place, you can hold a point like a boss! This finds a place in elixir builds, yes. But that doesn’t make it good. It just happens to fit. Make it so you get all three buffs. It’s not overpowered, especially in comparison to some other skills in the game (Save Yourselves anyone?). Or at least let us know which one we’re going to get! Swiftness and regeneration are NOT the same type of boon! They don’t help in the same situation! Regeneration and protection are about staying in the fight. Swiftness is about getting the kitten out of there!

Toss Elixir U: Someone has to explain to me what they where thinking The issue with this skill is that the ideal use for two of random spells is to put it in front of your party, thus blocking stuff. The ideal use for the last one is to put it on your party, and BEFORE a battle. Not during. Allies will be attacking, and the stealth will be off in a fraction of a second. Either remove veil OR add another skill that does this walling effect. All random skills should be able to be used in the same way or else there’s always a 33% chance that the 60 second recharge skill will do nothing when you are using the skill right.

Toss Elixir B: With random effects, all random outcomes must push towards the same goal. Swiftness and retaliation achieve different goals than fury and might. Just make this give fury and might or swiftness and retaliation. Or just make it give one! But we need to know that if we do take a second or two to throw this skill (which misses a lot), that the skill isn’t going to crap out on us and give us an effect that’s useless at that moment.

Utility Goggles: This skill naturally works against itself. Breaking out of stun is something you do in battle. Applying fury and immunity to blindness is something you do just before battle so you can spike. Thus, you kind of have to screw yourself in one way or another.

Shockwave: You’ve got to be kittening kidding me. I don’t get this skill at all. You deal basically no damage to very few people and it’s a 90 second recharge? Honestly…what? My suggestion is to actually make a skill here. It seems like someone forgot to take out the temp skill.

Rocket: Useless. Hardly any damage and a huge recharge. This skill doesn’t have a to be damaging. That’s what the turret is suppose to do. Just make it useful in some way. What is the purpose of the tool belt if the skills in it are so weak in comparison to their main utility counterparts? You mind as well not have a skill there, and if that’s the case, it makes the whole thing that makes the engineer special, worthless.

Elixir X: Random effects are not good. They’re both bunker skills, I get that, but one is CLEARLY better than the other (Tornado). When I’m charging at a zerg in WvW that’s standing on the edge of a cliff, I don’t want to be some giant that only has one knock back skill.

Mortar: My grenades have a longer range than this. Why on earth would I use this over grenades?

Flame Blast: Just made the kitten kitten kitten skill hit the target I’m selecting. I don’t want it to roll through foes. That’s totally useless, counter intuitive and causes this entire kit to be weak. Warriors hit ONE skill to deal 11k damage. Why can’t we have this skill deal 5k damage?

Tool Kit: If you’re going to make a melee kit, make a melee kit that can actually hurt people. The utility here is great, but why have an auto attack and Pry Bar if there is literally no reason to use it? No one heals turrets. Why on earth would you do that?

Turrets in General: The way people WANT to use them is completely useless. People want to use these like a base, where you get to a point or something and – holy kitten – it’s an engineer and he’s already set up. The problem is, doing this makes you completely defenseless, strangely enough. An elixir build has stun breakers. Kit builds can take a stun breaker because it has so many extra skills. Why can’t a turret build have some kind of stun breaker? Turrets are such a cool ability, yet trying to utilize them to the fullest is punished =/

My main observation of this class is that there are a lot of skills that seem to be there only for consistency’s sake. Tool Kits auto attack, the turrets tool belt skills and Toss Elixir skills to name a few. That’s not a good idea. Why even have them there? Doesn’t that make us exactly like the other classes? Think about it. If we put a utility skill in and the tool belt skill with it says “This skill does nothing”, do we really have two skills there?

We don’t need to have crazy damage buffs on everything, we just need every skill to be useful for something!

I agree with pretty much all of this, especially the bits about randomness.

I’d like them to go over the Toolbelt again, make Toolbelt skills able to be chosen independently, and craft a whole new set of Toolbelt skills that’re properly balanced, instead of “And here’s our attempt to not unbalance this other thing, since somebody reminded us that switching between four sets of weapon skills was already taken as a class mechanic.”

Trust me, Engineers will never be competitive. You can still have fun with them and with friends get invited into high level fractal.

Decklan.7540:

Trust me, Engineers will never be competitive. You can still have fun with them and with friends get invited into high level fractal.

I kind of doubt that. The fixes I mentioned above are really simple, and they make the class actually effective. I can make this whole post really simplified:

1) Remove random effects that don’t work towards the same goal.
2) Make every skill useful, not just consistent.
3) Don’t be afraid to give us some damage.

If they do that, the class is fixed.

Oh and the bugs. Those being gone would be nice, too.

Flame blast doesn’t bother me so much but the skill requirement to use it effectively is almost insulting compared to that of other classes.

The reason it pierces is because the intended purpose of the ability is to hit a target at a specific range to deal bonus damage. It would work if the pierce had high damage and the explosion dealed powerful damage as a reward for the engineers skills at estimation. You can tell the design by the blowout ability. It seems they want engineers to torch the enemy with a few auto attacks, then knock them back complete with a fiery ball of death that will hit them with a bang on their way back. the blast was the reward for using the ability after repelling a target when they got to close or you were finished torching them with your midranged auto and wanted to finish them off.

The problem is the pierce does crap damage and the explosion does average damage, making it’s use as a reasonable damage skill pointless.

I don’t think it should be redesigned so that it merely aoes upon hitting a target like the ele staff skill, but that the pierce damage should be greatly increased and the blast damage add burning or other conditions as a reward, maybe a short cripple.

Agree with the random. I like the random, but it’s never good when you toss elixir B during battle and get swiftness instead of something useful. The same for elixir H. Sometimes it gives regen which is completely useful, other times you get vigor which is not so much. “H” is for heal. If it’s not going to heal or at least provide protection, it’s not doing its job.

And like everybody else has been saying, all skills need to be useful, and it wouldn’t be OP if engineers got some damage here and there.

Bard.7215:

Flame blast doesn’t bother me so much but the skill requirement to use it effectively is almost insulting compared to that of other classes.

The reason it pierces is because the intended purpose of the ability is to hit a target at a specific range to deal bonus damage. It would work if the pierce had high damage and the explosion dealed powerful damage as a reward for the engineers skills at estimation. You can tell the design by the blowout ability. It seems they want engineers to torch the enemy with a few auto attacks, then knock them back complete with a fiery ball of death that will hit them with a bang on their way back. the blast was the reward for using the ability after repelling a target when they got to close or you were finished torching them with your midranged auto and wanted to finish them off.

The problem is the pierce does crap damage and the explosion does average damage, making it’s use as a reasonable damage skill pointless.

I don’t think it should be redesigned so that it merely aoes upon hitting a target like the ele staff skill, but that the pierce damage should be greatly increased and the blast damage add burning or other conditions as a reward, maybe a short cripple.

I completely agree. In fact, this (put more generally) could describe every issue with the engineer. We do a lot of work to get less of an effect. If the effect was worth it, this would be a brilliantly difficult class, and I’d love it.

Tool Kit is simply put the most amazing kit we have, and it outshine any other Weapon setup I have seen other classes have! don’t you dare touch it! it’s awesome!

Tho, I do agree on pretty much the rest of the rant

Tool kit isn’t that bad, but I believe that since our kits take up a utility slot they need to be slightly enhanced versions of the weapons they resemble.

The shield side of Tool kit is enhanced. We have the fastest CD block in the game with this kit, traitable to 16 seconds. Magnet is a great compliment, but should have a faster activation time. Having you stand there for a full second (or up to a second and a half) is pretty much ridiculous.

The weapon side of Tool Kit is okay, but it should do more (reason already said above).

Adding vulnerability to the first two swipes doesn’t do much. Sure, it adds 2% damage for 6 seconds, and if you could cancel out of the third hit it would make this attack amazing. But ANet won’t do that. What we need is a buff to the third strike. It doesn’t have to add to damage, but what we engies really want is damage. It could be a stun, a weakness, or even a 1s of . . . quickness.

1s of quickness can be very advantageous, and I would see it being worth the windup that our third strike costs. You can use it to combo into other kits. A 2 1/2 second FT Flame Jet becomes a 1 second flame jet, poison pistol shots cycle faster, and fumigate can remove boons and apply conditions much quicker. Or you can just apply it to the next round of wrench blows to make your strikes do more. Keep this boon up and you are applying more vulnerability more often, which means your attacks cause 10-15% more damage twice as fast.

Our box of nails needs to drop faster. This whole showy thing of “I’m raising my hand” needs to go. Give it a 1/2 second activation time.

Prybar. . . .Actually I think Prybar does well for what it does. Maybe, and a big maybe, add 1 or 2 more stacks of confusion.

This is my idea for improving Tool Kit.

Hi everyone,

Thanks for posting this. We like to know your concerns about your class. We will forward this to the team so they are aware. Please keep the discussion constructive and friendly.

PS: for the sake of constructiveness, we are going to edit the title.

Thanks for your understanding

Something else I notice is that I think the designers of this class had one specific purpose for certain skills in mind, but there’s a more obvious ability the skill COULD allow, but doesn’t. For example, the pull skill with tool kit is probably designed for WvW zergs and yanking people out so we can murder face. It has a long charge time, which is fine for something of this purpose. However, if you look at other classes, they have things like this with MUCH better cast times and some extra effects. In PvP, this is sort of weak. Standing still for so long while IN combat is a terrible idea. So basically, it seems like this skill was ONLY designed for pulling while out of combat. So while it is a great skill in certain narrow situations (Out of combat), it’s terrible in many others(In Combat). Some other examples are Toss Elixir S (Stomping only) and Tool kits melee attacks(Fixing turrets only).

That isn’t how a skill should be designed, especially not in a kit. Skills that have extremely specific places and times it can be used are not good skills.

Don’t get me wrong: Skills shouldn’t always be the perfect skill to use at that moment. However, skills should NOT be great in only very specific moments. In real life, very specific skills are great because we have a brain that holds a crap ton of knowledge. Our characters for some reason can only remember like 10 skills.

Jump Shot is one of the best skills for engineers, even if you don’t like the delay before smashing. It gives you the ability to be mobile in ways other classes can’t, it spikes like a boss and it’s even nice enough to apply vulnerability. THAT is how skills should be. Skills should ADD possibilities and be used in MULTIPLE ways. THAT is versatility. Versatility is not “Hey look I have 65 million skills”, it’s “Hey I can use this one skill 65 million ways”. THAT is what engineer should be. Utilizing one skill in multiple ways, rather than having an army of skills (Ele) that we spam.

I mean, that’s what real engineers do, right? We take what we already have and we use that knowledge and power to fit the situation we’re trying to fix.

So apply that to this class! Redesign the skills so yes, there is the obvious use of it, but there’s also multiple others. Think of Jump Shot while fixing skills. Every time I look at a skill I should think “Oh wow! Think of all the awesome things I can do with that!”

The design philosophy of the engineer is fundamentally flawed, or at least misunderstood. If you just say something is the master of none, no one will take you. Especially when there’s a class which is exactly like you (ele), only does everything well. REAL engineers are not “Masters of None”. Engineers are smart and utilize the available tools in multiple ways to get the job done. They see a hammer and see not just the ability to hit things, but to nail nails, remove nails, keep open doors, throw it at faces, knock stuff in, break stuff apart, make noise to get someone to come after them or make noise to get them to go away.

THAT is an engineer.

I also notice there seems to be some fear with these skills. The designers seem to be afraid to make this class powerful, so they keep it down with things like randomness and weak tool belt skills. BE BRAVE! Useful is NOT overpowered. Versatile is NOT overpowered.

Side “Feedback and Opinion on Skills”:

Turrets. Their secondary skills are annoying and I am never sure if they are actually working. I had to go to the Mists just to check how they work. One thing I noticed was that there is an annoying delay between when I activate the skill and when it actually takes effect. With normal skill, this isn’t an issue. There’s a casting time to it. However, since I can’t see it, I have no idea if it’s even working.

I also noticed that sometimes, even if there’s an enemy RIGHT next to it, it’ll stop working if I don’t fire at it.

I also noticed that the way these work is that when you overcharge a turret, you aren’t actually CAUSING it to fire better weapons. Instead, you’re causing it to have a period of time in which it fires better weapons. That’s a little bit…boring. It means that if you are in battle, the best time to use it is …whenever! It really doesn’t matter! Constantly is the best time to use it. Also, they don’t go after your target, they go after the target they first started on, so they aren’t even working with you! It would be really interesting if these were sort of like a ranger’s pet that didn’t move and ignored our target UNTIL we tell it to overcharge and fire.

This gets back to the fundamental flaw in this class is that we have very little control over our skills. Randomness, turrets attacking the wrong place, skills that defeat themselves all cause us to have no control over what we are doing. If we want control over the battle field, we need control over our skills first.

I am actually glad to see a moderator passing feedback along, gives me hope our class might still be improved. Now that ive I said that, yes I agree on removing or limiting the absurd amount of luck skills we have, for the reasons already posted by previous people. And yes dont be afraid to give us a damage increase!

Moderator.1462:

Hi everyone,

Thanks for posting this. We like to know your concerns about your class. We will forward this to the team so they are aware. Please keep the discussion constructive and friendly.

PS: for the sake of constructiveness, we are going to edit the title.

Thanks for your understanding

Thanks for letting us know. We really do appreciate knowing that our voices are being heard.

Flame Blast – Why not like so many other skills in this game, change the ability once its launched allowing us to explode it when we decide its best, solves that problem. Also if you choose not to, it does at the max distance or hitting terrain.

Randomness of Elixirs can be annoying at times, I would really prefer to know what is going to happen, but its not the worst thing IMO

The thing I hate most is our downed skills. Most classes have a way to do real damage, or run away in some form or fashion. We can pull people towards us, thats nice now they can cap/kill me faster. Sure its meant to set up the combo with #3 but that cool down is so long that if more than 1 person is beating on you NPC or Player you are dead before you can set it off.

Regarding RNG skills, I think there is a simple way to improve them and make them much more appealing:

Make the effects situational.

For example, make Elixir H grant Swiftness if used at 66-100% health, grant Regeneration at 33-65%, and Protection at 1-32%.

This would make Elixir H more of a skill based ability where you want to use it situationally. A similar concept could work for to toolbelt skills of Elixir B, S, and maybe even U and the effect of X.

Flame Blast: The concept is perfectly fine, I just think it needs tweaking. As it is now, whether or not you’ll make contact with the explosion is partially skill mostly luck because it is slow moving and out of the flamethrower ‘1’ range, and enemies are constantly moving. I suggest either:

1.) Keeping it mostly as it is now, but making it a chain skill where you can detonate it in mid air.

2.) Decrease the range by 100 or so. As it is now you have to compromise your ability to use Flame Jet just to have a chance at hitting with the blast of Flame Blast. You would still need skill to pull it off via positioning, but now you wouldn’t purposefully have to get out of ‘1’ range. The blast radius in theory should make up for the increased range, but in practice enemies are constantly moving and so are you, so by the time Flame Blast explodes the enemy is out of the blast range and you’re out of ‘1’ range.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Jump Shot is one of the best skills for engineers, even if you don’t like the delay before smashing. It gives you the ability to be mobile in ways other classes can’t, it spikes like a boss and it’s even nice enough to apply vulnerability. THAT is how skills should be. Skills should ADD possibilities and be used in MULTIPLE ways. THAT is versatility. Versatility is not “Hey look I have 65 million skills”, it’s “Hey I can use this one skill 65 million ways”. THAT is what engineer should be. Utilizing one skill in multiple ways, rather than having an army of skills (Ele) that we spam.

In pvp that delay makes it virtually worthless. Offensively, it makes it almost impossible to hit a target that isn’t somehow mezzed or immobilized. Defensively, it makes a skill that could be a real life saver when you’re being zerged and need to down someone quickly an utter fail. There have been so many times when I’ve been killed while hanging there like an idiot…I seldom even try to use the power to be honest. There are many teleportation powers/gap closers in the game and this one is the only one that has such a lousy drawback. It’s one of the many issues of an engi that seems punitive for no apparent reason.

Slan.5496:

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Jump Shot is one of the best skills for engineers, even if you don’t like the delay before smashing. It gives you the ability to be mobile in ways other classes can’t, it spikes like a boss and it’s even nice enough to apply vulnerability. THAT is how skills should be. Skills should ADD possibilities and be used in MULTIPLE ways. THAT is versatility. Versatility is not “Hey look I have 65 million skills”, it’s “Hey I can use this one skill 65 million ways”. THAT is what engineer should be. Utilizing one skill in multiple ways, rather than having an army of skills (Ele) that we spam.

In pvp that delay makes it virtually worthless. Offensively, it makes it almost impossible to hit a target that isn’t somehow mezzed or immobilized. Defensively, it makes a skill that could be a real life saver when you’re being zerged and need to down someone quickly an utter fail. There have been so many times when I’ve been killed while hanging there like an idiot…I seldom even try to use the power to be honest. There are many teleportation powers/gap closers in the game and this one is the only one that has such a lousy drawback. It’s one of the many issues of an engi that seems punitive for no apparent reason.

It’s still an extremely good sbility that can be used in multiple ways and takes some skill from enemies to avoid, and skill by the user to fully connect.

Just use Net Shot before you connect. Or use overcharged shot and hit them while they’re down. Or use some form of cripple.

I agree that it’s unnecessarily long and could use tweaking, but that doesn’t break the skill.

Alarox.4590:

Regarding RNG skills, I think there is a simple way to improve them and make them much more appealing:

Make the effects situational.

For example, make Elixir H grant Swiftness if used at 66-100% health, grant Regeneration at 33-65%, and Protection at 1-32%.

This would make Elixir H more of a skill based ability where you want to use it situationally. A similar concept could work for to toolbelt skills of Elixir B, S, and maybe even U and the effect of X.

Interesting idea, but then what do you do with the Thrown version? Would it be the same?

I would love if they took this idea and tweaked it a hair, Drinking/Throwing guarantees Elixir H will give Regeneration and based on Health a secondary Boon. It gives us the real consistency we need combine with skill based.

Felicela.2810:

Alarox.4590:

Regarding RNG skills, I think there is a simple way to improve them and make them much more appealing:

Make the effects situational.

For example, make Elixir H grant Swiftness if used at 66-100% health, grant Regeneration at 33-65%, and Protection at 1-32%.

This would make Elixir H more of a skill based ability where you want to use it situationally. A similar concept could work for to toolbelt skills of Elixir B, S, and maybe even U and the effect of X.

Interesting idea, but then what do you do with the Thrown version? Would it be the same?

I would love if they took this idea and tweaked it a hair, Drinking/Throwing guarantees Elixir H will give Regeneration and based on Health a secondary Boon. It gives us the real consistency we need combine with skill based.

I was thinking it would be the same for the thrown. It would be pretty interested too since you have two instances of the same buff pattern, so you could mix/match the three boons.

Your idea sounds good, and would apply to Elixir B’s thrown even more. The only issue is that it entails rebalancing since it will always give 2 boons instead of 1.

I dont think it would, we can already stack Might so really whats 1 more, everything else would just increase the time for things on B, on H most only last a few seconds and Regeneration doesnt stack in intensity, and when I am in a group there is always some Regen running.

I think giving 2 boons would better fit the description of our Boons help save lives, if thats what we are suppose to do, then lets do it right.

Alarox.4590:

Regarding RNG skills, I think there is a simple way to improve them and make them much more appealing:

Make the effects situational.

For example, make Elixir H grant Swiftness if used at 66-100% health, grant Regeneration at 33-65%, and Protection at 1-32%.

This would make Elixir H more of a skill based ability where you want to use it situationally. A similar concept could work for to toolbelt skills of Elixir B, S, and maybe even U and the effect of X.

At first I didn’t like this, but with a fairly large range, this could be interesting. Maybe make the choice based on the target’s hp rather than the throwers. Then you KNOW it’s going to give you a good effect.

Alarox.4590:

Slan.5496:

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Jump Shot is one of the best skills for engineers, even if you don’t like the delay before smashing. It gives you the ability to be mobile in ways other classes can’t, it spikes like a boss and it’s even nice enough to apply vulnerability. THAT is how skills should be. Skills should ADD possibilities and be used in MULTIPLE ways. THAT is versatility. Versatility is not “Hey look I have 65 million skills”, it’s “Hey I can use this one skill 65 million ways”. THAT is what engineer should be. Utilizing one skill in multiple ways, rather than having an army of skills (Ele) that we spam.

In pvp that delay makes it virtually worthless. Offensively, it makes it almost impossible to hit a target that isn’t somehow mezzed or immobilized. Defensively, it makes a skill that could be a real life saver when you’re being zerged and need to down someone quickly an utter fail. There have been so many times when I’ve been killed while hanging there like an idiot…I seldom even try to use the power to be honest. There are many teleportation powers/gap closers in the game and this one is the only one that has such a lousy drawback. It’s one of the many issues of an engi that seems punitive for no apparent reason.

It’s still an extremely good sbility that can be used in multiple ways and takes some skill from enemies to avoid, and skill by the user to fully connect.

Just use Net Shot before you connect. Or use overcharged shot and hit them while they’re down. Or use some form of cripple.

I agree that it’s unnecessarily long and could use tweaking, but that doesn’t break the skill.

Break it? No. Greatly reduce it’s usefulness? yes.

The skill shouldn’t be crappy because net shot or overcharged shot are on cool down. I tend to use those powers to set up my burst or prevent a stomp. I’m glass cannon so I’m generally chipping away at range. It would love to be able to leap right in there and melt some people, but I’m not going to do it if the power leaves me hanging and increases the likelihood of me being downed myself. Uneccessarily.

First thing, I think I read twice about having to stand still while using Magnet Pull from Toolkit. ? Why are you standing still ? You can move while pulling ppl which makes this skill one of the best skills we have. It is great for pulling runners and even if you are pulling a person off a wall I would suggests strafing while doing it so its harder for them to tell. The one downside to the Pull is the obvious graphic effect that it does which makes it easy to dodge if you pay attention.

Toolkit is overall a solid kit.
I think the #1 needs to be revamped to attack faster and #3 Prybar should be made to hit multible targets in front of you.

Elixirs NEED the RNG taken away, its not fair or competitive at all to have random effects, especially when those effects have such different attributes.
I think the effects being affected by your current Health is an excellent idea and really adds alot of strategy to using Elixirs effectively.

Turrets are by far the most disappointing aspect of the Engineer I think for everyone.
You can find uses for them sure but overall their weakness and lame skills really hold them back from being anything more than a gimmick.

I think Gadgets need a little something else to make them a viable alternative in non-SD builds. Most of them aren’t bad skills but they should come with a passive effect either constant or while on CD.

But MOST of all the current bugs and glitches with skills needs to be fixed.
Things like Flamethrower and Rocket Boots which fail a good amount of time and our Traits really need some quality control.

Alarox.4590:

Slan.5496:

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Jump Shot is one of the best skills for engineers, even if you don’t like the delay before smashing. It gives you the ability to be mobile in ways other classes can’t, it spikes like a boss and it’s even nice enough to apply vulnerability. THAT is how skills should be. Skills should ADD possibilities and be used in MULTIPLE ways. THAT is versatility. Versatility is not “Hey look I have 65 million skills”, it’s “Hey I can use this one skill 65 million ways”. THAT is what engineer should be. Utilizing one skill in multiple ways, rather than having an army of skills (Ele) that we spam.

In pvp that delay makes it virtually worthless. Offensively, it makes it almost impossible to hit a target that isn’t somehow mezzed or immobilized. Defensively, it makes a skill that could be a real life saver when you’re being zerged and need to down someone quickly an utter fail. There have been so many times when I’ve been killed while hanging there like an idiot…I seldom even try to use the power to be honest. There are many teleportation powers/gap closers in the game and this one is the only one that has such a lousy drawback. It’s one of the many issues of an engi that seems punitive for no apparent reason.

It’s still an extremely good sbility that can be used in multiple ways and takes some skill from enemies to avoid, and skill by the user to fully connect.

Just use Net Shot before you connect. Or use overcharged shot and hit them while they’re down. Or use some form of cripple.

I agree that it’s unnecessarily long and could use tweaking, but that doesn’t break the skill.

You really overestimate the damage it does, its ok for gap closing and that’s about it.

If you play alot in WvW where ppl will run away as much as they will stand and fight you will see how clunky our ground covering skills really are.

Ele, Theif, Mesmer and War all have much faster ground covering skills that dont penalize them like our Jump Shot and Rocket Boots do.

Jump Shot and RB need there skills to work the same as the EG #4 or the eviromental Charrzooka you can get at Jormag.

I guess if you look at it a certain way you could say the Engineer is one of the most balanced professions since it seems we have the most downsides to all of our skills and abilities.

Jumpshot and RB do damage but also self stun to counter these effects.
Weapons do less damage to counter the versatility of kits.
Kits must be toned down to receive the benefits of the gear you work so hard to get.
Elixirs have RNG to counter the benefits of their effects.
To bring damage kits up to par with most weapons they must be fully traited.
Just to name a few…..

Maybe one day we will stop being penalized OR maybe one day there will be some downside to stealthing or riding the lighting all over the place.

Also our Downed skills are just horrible.
In WvW us and Rangers will usually receive the focus in smaller groups and the reason is we are a gauranteed finish unless we get revived by a teammate.

It is completely unbalanced and unfair that some professions get a gauranteed interupt while we a gauranteed finish.

Our #2 downed skill needs to be removed, since it is lame and is also just a rehash of a thieves skill.

We should get an area pull.
This would go perfectly with our area knockback.
It would make it so ppl will actually have to use stealth/stability/invu to down us like we have to use on everyone else.

nofo.8469:

Alarox.4590:

Slan.5496:

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Jump Shot is one of the best skills for engineers, even if you don’t like the delay before smashing. It gives you the ability to be mobile in ways other classes can’t, it spikes like a boss and it’s even nice enough to apply vulnerability. THAT is how skills should be. Skills should ADD possibilities and be used in MULTIPLE ways. THAT is versatility. Versatility is not “Hey look I have 65 million skills”, it’s “Hey I can use this one skill 65 million ways”. THAT is what engineer should be. Utilizing one skill in multiple ways, rather than having an army of skills (Ele) that we spam.

In pvp that delay makes it virtually worthless. Offensively, it makes it almost impossible to hit a target that isn’t somehow mezzed or immobilized. Defensively, it makes a skill that could be a real life saver when you’re being zerged and need to down someone quickly an utter fail. There have been so many times when I’ve been killed while hanging there like an idiot…I seldom even try to use the power to be honest. There are many teleportation powers/gap closers in the game and this one is the only one that has such a lousy drawback. It’s one of the many issues of an engi that seems punitive for no apparent reason.

It’s still an extremely good sbility that can be used in multiple ways and takes some skill from enemies to avoid, and skill by the user to fully connect.

Just use Net Shot before you connect. Or use overcharged shot and hit them while they’re down. Or use some form of cripple.

I agree that it’s unnecessarily long and could use tweaking, but that doesn’t break the skill.

You really overestimate the damage it does, its ok for gap closing and that’s about it.

Jump Shot: 1044 damage
Kill Shot: 1276 damage

“Engineers are smart and utilize the available tools in multiple ways to get the job done.”

Exactly. Which is why I don’t really understand the beef with randomness. Our skills are useful for both offensive and defensive goals. Take for example Elixir S which is not only good for safely getting out of harm’s way, but for also getting into harm’s way and planting a bomb. It’s the same with the skills that have random outcomes. I am just not seeing that the outcomes are at odd goals.

Actually, the Engineer profession seems to be designed to be hilarious and the random outcomes are part of that effect. We’re mad scientists and sometimes our inventions don’t always go off the way we planned them, but we’re able to capitalize on the situation.

Additionally, we get more effects out of a single skill than others without randomness.

give flame blast 1000 range and make it able to be detonated mid air then it would be awesome as it would be an AoE explosion wich could be shot every about 6-5 seconds with the cooldown reduct or was it 4 seconds? anyways it would be useful at least.

I’d love one of our skills to be able to block treb. We’re supposed to be combat engineers, no? Who do you think designed siege engines?

Alarox.4590:

nofo.8469:

Alarox.4590:

Slan.5496:

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Jump Shot is one of the best skills for engineers, even if you don’t like the delay before smashing. It gives you the ability to be mobile in ways other classes can’t, it spikes like a boss and it’s even nice enough to apply vulnerability. THAT is how skills should be. Skills should ADD possibilities and be used in MULTIPLE ways. THAT is versatility. Versatility is not “Hey look I have 65 million skills”, it’s “Hey I can use this one skill 65 million ways”. THAT is what engineer should be. Utilizing one skill in multiple ways, rather than having an army of skills (Ele) that we spam.

In pvp that delay makes it virtually worthless. Offensively, it makes it almost impossible to hit a target that isn’t somehow mezzed or immobilized. Defensively, it makes a skill that could be a real life saver when you’re being zerged and need to down someone quickly an utter fail. There have been so many times when I’ve been killed while hanging there like an idiot…I seldom even try to use the power to be honest. There are many teleportation powers/gap closers in the game and this one is the only one that has such a lousy drawback. It’s one of the many issues of an engi that seems punitive for no apparent reason.

It’s still an extremely good sbility that can be used in multiple ways and takes some skill from enemies to avoid, and skill by the user to fully connect.

Just use Net Shot before you connect. Or use overcharged shot and hit them while they’re down. Or use some form of cripple.

I agree that it’s unnecessarily long and could use tweaking, but that doesn’t break the skill.

You really overestimate the damage it does, its ok for gap closing and that’s about it.

Jump Shot: 1044 damage
Kill Shot: 1276 damage

And the 3 auto attacks you could do in the time it takes you perform this clunky feat of acrobatics?

Also thats odd, because I have seen kill shots hit for far harder than anything jump shot can produce.

Yeah I’m pretty kitten sure a 3 bar KS has a higher base damage than that. I have never seen a jump shot over 7k let alone 10k-15k

Chaba.5410:

“Engineers are smart and utilize the available tools in multiple ways to get the job done.”

Exactly. Which is why I don’t really understand the beef with randomness. Our skills are useful for both offensive and defensive goals. Take for example Elixir S which is not only good for safely getting out of harm’s way, but for also getting into harm’s way and planting a bomb. It’s the same with the skills that have random outcomes. I am just not seeing that the outcomes are at odd goals.

Actually, the Engineer profession seems to be designed to be hilarious and the random outcomes are part of that effect. We’re mad scientists and sometimes our inventions don’t always go off the way we planned them, but we’re able to capitalize on the situation.

Additionally, we get more effects out of a single skill than others without randomness.

The problem with randomness is that if all of the random effects don’t achieve the same goal OR do not work in the same situations, it gives a skill a chance to not work at ALL. So it wasn’t your SKILL that caused the skill to fail, it was a random number being in the wrong range. THAT is the problem with randomness.

And the 3 auto attacks you could do in the time it takes you perform this clunky feat of acrobatics?
Also thats odd, because I have seen kill shots hit for far harder than anything jump shot can produce.
Yeah I’m pretty kitten sure a 3 bar KS has a higher base damage than that. I have never seen a jump shot over 7k let alone 10k-15k

The damage doesn’t matter. The only thing that can be improved is the landing speed. That’s it. This is meant for one thing: Spiking.

Our downed skills are just fine. Thieves, Eles and warriors downed skills are just OP. The blowback effect we have is SUPER powerful, especially while fighting on cliff edges in WvW. If someone isn’t in melee, range, don’t use skill two. Seriously, it’s that simple.

In short, Eles, Thieves and Warriors need to tone it down in the downed state department. We don’t need to get to their level. Otherwise, the entire downed mechanic would be annoying because THAT would be where everyone’s is.

TO ANYONE WHO STILL THINKS RANDOMNESS ISN’T BAD:

Let’s say we have two players who go into identical battles. They both have Elixir U. The enemies are all ranged, so they both throw Toss Elixir U at the space between them and the enemies. The first player gets the guardian wall skill, so all of the projectiles are reflected, the party is safe and the enemies die. The second player gets veil, so nothing is reflected, the party is damaged, and could probably die. Either way, the damage is done, and the engineer did nothing to help.

What is the skill difference between the two players? Nothing. They both did the same thing, only one got lucky, and one didn’t.

Let’s say two players are trying to escape from battle. They both toss Elixir S. One gets stability from being a giant and gets wrecked because they can still see him. One gets Stealth and is able to avoid being killed because of it. What’s the skill difference here? Nothing. The battle was determined by LUCK.

Let’s say two players are trying to speed buff their group, so they toss Elixir H at the party. One gets swiftness and the party moves faster. One gets protection…and his party looks at him funny. Skill difference? Nothing

Let’s say two players are in WvW and the enemy zerg is attacking Anz. They’re up on the hill and are building siege. Both player’s zergs attack the zerg and use Elixir X. One player gets the tornado and one gets the giant. The one with the tornado knocks the entire zerg off the cliff and feels like a kitten from 300. The other one gets the giant, and gets maybe a few people off with the kick and slam skill, but in the end just gets murdered. Skill difference? You guessed it. Abso-kitten-lutly nothing

I believe a really good way to make turrets viable is turning them into a kit.
Why is that? They are not really strong, i mean, rifle does little damage, the burn from flame turret doesn’t last long among other things. But if you could have them all at the same time… Ohh that’s different. If we had a Turret Kit we could carry it and the tool kit along with a stun-breaker. That would make it viable.

P.S – A way to balance this could be something like this: Upon using the turret kit a single turret pod appears in place (can be traited to be ground targeted) and each of the turret skills actually upgrade it, meaning that if you use all of them you would have one turret that shoots nets, bullets, missiles, flames and thumps. The balancing happens because although you have all your turrets at one time, they can all be destroyed at one time(the bigger the turret the bigger the health i guess). and you could focus on healing it with the tool kit. It rewards the engineer that takes time and effort to setup his turret and keep it alive, instead of using all our utilitys for 2 or 3 turrets that can, and likely wiil, be one-shotted.

Sporadicus.1028:

Tool kit isn’t that bad, but I believe that since our kits take up a utility slot they need to be slightly enhanced versions of the weapons they resemble.

The shield side of Tool kit is enhanced. We have the fastest CD block in the game with this kit, traitable to 16 seconds. Magnet is a great compliment, but should have a faster activation time. Having you stand there for a full second (or up to a second and a half) is pretty much ridiculous.

The weapon side of Tool Kit is okay, but it should do more (reason already said above).

Adding vulnerability to the first two swipes doesn’t do much. Sure, it adds 2% damage for 6 seconds, and if you could cancel out of the third hit it would make this attack amazing. But ANet won’t do that. What we need is a buff to the third strike. It doesn’t have to add to damage, but what we engies really want is damage. It could be a stun, a weakness, or even a 1s of . . . quickness.

1s of quickness can be very advantageous, and I would see it being worth the windup that our third strike costs. You can use it to combo into other kits. A 2 1/2 second FT Flame Jet becomes a 1 second flame jet, poison pistol shots cycle faster, and fumigate can remove boons and apply conditions much quicker. Or you can just apply it to the next round of wrench blows to make your strikes do more. Keep this boon up and you are applying more vulnerability more often, which means your attacks cause 10-15% more damage twice as fast.

Our box of nails needs to drop faster. This whole showy thing of “I’m raising my hand” needs to go. Give it a 1/2 second activation time.

Prybar. . . .Actually I think Prybar does well for what it does. Maybe, and a big maybe, add 1 or 2 more stacks of confusion.

This is my idea for improving Tool Kit.

The only thing is that I don’t think Tool Kit does less damage than other similar melee weapons (maces on warr/guardian). I do agree that it’s only best used situationally rather than using it to actually hit people with the wrench. Here are some of the issues I think it faces:

1) Function – I think the toolkit is a bit confused in terms of what it wants to do. Our rifle works well as a close-range, high damage/CC weapon. It does more damage up-close than the tool kit. I think this is fine, since the rifle works so well, BUT it means the toolkit should have other advantages. I really think a trait should buff some survival capacity (e.g. more toughness) when the toolkit is equipped, otherwise it is only reasonable to swap to it for magnet/prybar/gearshield, then swap back out. Ideally, it would be possible to make a build for each kit that prioritized having that kit equipped most of the time. These builds exist for grenade kit, flamethrower, bomb kit, and maybe elixir gun, and mostly through traits. I think the tool kit could be buffed similarly through traits to be a ‘sword and board’ (or mace and board) style tanky kit.

2) Autoattack doesn’t work right – the third hit only hits a single target and not other targets in range. No other melee autoattack (except daggers, by design) does this. Same for prybar, is it only supposed to hit one target?

3) vulnerability (as you mentioned) is not very useful as slow as it’s applied here. You can get 6-8 stacks or so, but it takes 10+ seconds to build it up. This is really only marginally helpful for bosses/champs. I think it needs to stack vuln faster or do something else instead (weakness?)

4) box of nails. I agree that the cast time is too long – it’s really only useful for retreating. That and, once you trait the toolkit, you’ll never need it for the cripple in an offensive situation.

fluidmonolith.3584:

2) Autoattack doesn’t work right – the third hit only hits a single target and not other targets in range. No other melee autoattack (except daggers, by design) does this. Same for prybar, is it only supposed to hit one target?

Guardian Mace does this. To compensate, it heals you and nearby allies.

I love the toolkit and I like almost every skill the way they are now. My only problem is with the Thwack not striking three opponents. The Guardian Mace gives you the added benefit of healing; the third hit with the wrench gives you nothing.

In fact, the first and second hit have more utility than the third. They have half the cast time (so the same DPS), both apply vulnerability, the first one applies cripple when traited, and they both strike 3 enemies.

Prediction for next patch: “We believe Thwack is underpowered and not working as intended. In order to bring Thwack in line with the rest of the chain, Smack and Whack no longer apply Vulnerability and Smack no longer applies Cripple when traited.”

Elixer U (thrown) is better in small fight situations. You can keep shooting through it and lay down confusion or you can cross it and break target on yourself. The real pain of Elixer U is outside of a speed rez/spike in pvp/wvw the quickness on drink isn’t a huge boost. It is at least on a decent cooldown.

The Engineer is just not a party support class. You might support your party along the way to supporting yourself but the ONLY skill I can think of that is really and truly “party” based is Heal Turret and even then it’s best used by throwing it down and picking it right back up. (Ok. And Elixer gun which I never use so total blind spot there.)

Anymras.5729:

I agree with pretty much all of this, especially the bits about randomness.

I’d like them to go over the Toolbelt again, make Toolbelt skills able to be chosen independently, and craft a whole new set of Toolbelt skills that’re properly balanced, instead of “And here’s our attempt to not unbalance this other thing, since somebody reminded us that switching between four sets of weapon skills was already taken as a class mechanic.”

Exactly. The ability to choose our Toolbelt skills will help in overcoming alot of obstacles some people have. It would not be a game breaking fix. It would make the Engineer more competitive in WvW and sPvP. “Oh cool Rocket Kick!…Oh wait…I gotta take this Rocket Boots Stun Break-Self-Stun…”…“Oh sweet Surprise Shot! The Turret can…melt in a second…Huh.”

Alarox.4590:

Regarding RNG skills, I think there is a simple way to improve them and make them much more appealing:

Make the effects situational.

For example, make Elixir H grant Swiftness if used at 66-100% health, grant Regeneration at 33-65%, and Protection at 1-32%.

This would make Elixir H more of a skill based ability where you want to use it situationally. A similar concept could work for to toolbelt skills of Elixir B, S, and maybe even U and the effect of X.

THIS!!!! THIS THIS THIS!!!!!

what THAT guy said!!

instead of randomness, delegate what effect happens based on % of HP. this should be the case for EVERY random elixer we have… have the tooltip show at what percentages each effect will take place.

Now, in my opinion, Anet is going to look at this idea and think “well, the experienced MMO players will be fine with this, and understand the concept, whilst using it to its fullest ability… but our ‘new to the MMO Scene’ players will have a hard time grasping the concept of having yet another variable to pay attention too..”

NOO!!! let them re-roll! Its not Our fault they are incompetant!! In my opinion, engineer is one of the most complicated classes to play effectivley, due to the random nature of most of our utilities, and our ability to equip kits, giving us the absolute Maximum number of abilities to micro-manage….

so please Anet, dont turn us into a creepy clown of a class, simply because some people have trouble with our class mechanic….

$0.02

PS= OR!! just let us pick a trait or 2 that defines Exactly what buff we will receive from any given elixer. 1 trait for ‘dmg ish’ elixers, and 1 for ‘oh snap, time to run’ elixers….

Every class have his own bunch of useless skills. I have a guardian and fell like all the spiritual weapons and others skills don’t have any use but have fun sometimes.

@Toolkit

This is the best toolkit we have. What it lacks in damage, it makes up in utility. I nearly use it on every build I run in spvp.

You don’t use it for auto attack, you use everything else.

Use magnetic aura to interrupt + prybar.

Gear shield is a life saver, low cd + 3 seconde of block. It saved me so many time.

Need some space? Use #2 and LoS your ennemies. They will be slowed down and you are now free to escape.

the #1 attack was supose to be used to keep our turret up, but our turret are non competitive. That’s why our #1 is so poor.

Here the skills I think deserve a remake, from a spvp point of view:

BlowTorch : This skill seems to miss way too much. Not sure whats the deal with it, prolly the same thing then flamethrower miss.

Rocket Boots : Looks good in theory, not so much in game. The self stun is just way to bad of a draw back. Each time I use it, I find myself suffering a combo because I’m laying on the ground. Some combo breaker have invulnerability for a duration, we have a self stun.

Personal Battering Ram : Could use some range, but overall a good skill.

Slick Shoes : I’m trying to make a build around it, but it’s really hard. Other defensive skill just seems to be better at the job. Elexir S is better for the same job. The duration is too short (1 sec for each “spot”), the area of effect seems to be too small. And 60 sec cooldown is huge.

Super Speed : Not bad, would be cool to have a bonus effect along with it. It Just feel too simple.

Throw Mine : I don’t know why, I just don’t use this skill. Each time I use it, I’m telling myself : A stun, damage and boon removal, niiice! But it’s just seems lack luster in game. The damage is low, and it’s hard to land it.

Mine field : If the range of detonating bugged? When used against me, I have to directly walk on them to activate them. Damage is also a bit low.

Turrets : Cooldown are too long, damage are too low. You have to sacrifice your utility slot for them. If you want a turret build, and you take at least 2 turret, it mean ether no kits (you are stuck with only 1 weapon) or no Stun breaker. They can get insta destroyed with the AoE in this game. They have a low damage output, some have really low range (thumper turret really). Rifle turret is only used because of the toolbelt skill.

Mortar : Useless in spvp, really low efficiency in WvW. Grenade are better.

Flamethrower : #1 miss too much, got an average damage output (our only efficient damage in this kit). The number #2 bug too many time, the damage on the explod should be higher since it’s a skill shot. the #5 isn’t bad, but should have a additional effect. Like weakness.

Elixir Gun : Damage is low, but this is a support kit. the #2 miss a lot, it’s not reliable. The missile speed is way too slow. The #3 is so situational, low range cone effect used for 1 sec of poison and dispel conditions from allies. But hitting allies never happens. Should dispel conditions from yourself. #4 isn’t bad, but shouldn’t be affected by your movement speed. The #5 was perfect before last patch.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

The problem with randomness is that if all of the random effects don’t achieve the same goal OR do not work in the same situations….
TO ANYONE WHO STILL THINKS RANDOMNESS ISN’T BAD:

There isn’t a judgement call to be made. The opinion that the randomness is bad arises out of a playing style that demands a high degree of pre-planning, expects execution to always go according to plan, and has a low tolerance for deviations. I understand that one can get upset at the randomness, especially in the hypothetical situations. I’d be upset too if I always expected that I would knock a zerg off a cliff with Elixir X or that I wanted to speed buff a party with a toss of Elixir H (I think you’re actually thinking of Elixir B ).

Let’s say we have two players who go into identical battles. …The enemies are all ranged, so they both throw Toss Elixir U at the space between them and the enemies. The first player gets the guardian wall skill…. The second player gets veil…

What is the skill difference between the two players? Nothing. They both did the same thing, only one got lucky, and one didn’t.

And Veil creates a light field which can be followed with one of our many blast finishers for Area Retaliation. Projectiles reflected. All three of the random outcomes can reflect projectiles actually. The difference here is in playing style. One player had a planned goal for a particular skill which they plan to follow up with some other move and the other player compensated for a deviation from that battle plan. This is a result of the difficulty in playing an Engineer. We have to be familiar with waaaay more skills than other professions because one skill is really three different skills.

Let’s say two players are trying to escape from battle. They both toss Elixir S. One gets stability from being a giant and gets wrecked because they can still see him. One gets Stealth and is able to avoid being killed because of it.

The difference here is an expectation that only the Stealth outcome equates escape from battle, that the only way to escape from a battle is to become invisible. Keeping in mind that we are not Thieves and we do things differently, Stability grants immunity against incoming control effects which can also allow us to escape from a battle. Their purposes are not crosswise for this goal. Both Stealth and Stability from this toss last only 4 seconds which means we have to be ready with another skill anyway. Why not Drop Stimulant or activate Super Speed while either Stealth or Stable?

Let’s say two players are trying to speed buff their group, so they toss Elixir H at the party.

Again, there’s an expectation of goal, that the purpose of Toss Elixir B (not H, H grants Vigor) is to place speed buffs on the party so it can get to the target destination faster. Yes, that is one thing that can be done with it even if not reliably. Yet consider how many other professions would love to be able to block a treb shot for an area like an elementalist? There are other projectile block skills that only partially work but not like the elementalist because that’s not our role. Not all professions can serve the same purposes. But we can be sure we won’t get funny looks from our party when they get that random 30 second boost of Might right when they reach the target or in the middle of a fight (which is when I usually Toss Elixir B ). Lanny.6987 touches on this concept too when he considers above that Toss Elixir U is better for smaller fights and his mention of us not being a support class (he should try Elixir Gun sometime). Consider too the randomness in receiving such buffs from us in the middle of a fight from another player’s perspective.

Let’s say two players are in WvW and the enemy zerg is attacking Anz. They’re up on the hill and are building siege. Both player’s zergs attack the zerg and use Elixir X. One player gets the tornado and one gets the giant.

The giant form’s Stomp also does blowout like the tornado and there’s no reason we have to stay in that form until we get killed. The giant form also has combo finishers.

I hope it can be seen above that there is a difference in these situations. An expectation of outcome was made, it wasn’t the one desired, and the playing style didn’t have tolerance for any adjustment to be made. Or maybe the difference is due to the difficulty in being familiar with the skills since we have so many more than other professions. If anything, I’d call judgement on the difficulty of having to remember so many more effects rather than attribute the problem to the randomness of certain skills.

Lastly, randomness makes battles much more interesting. Toss Elixir S while pushing forward and suddenly the enemy sees either a group of huge Asura or we’ve all just disappeared. If you want group stealth more reliably, stop trying to use Toss Elixir S for that. A smoke bomb and a blast finisher does the trick nicely.

I really hope they don’t change anything with the elixirs, except maybe for elixir X. I’m having alot of success with them, would hate for it to be changed just because it seems too random for some people who don’t even use them.

Wow where to begin.

The opinion that the randomness is bad arises out of a playing style that demands a high degree of pre-planning, expects execution to always go according to plan, and has a low tolerance for deviations.

This is basic game design. You want your games to be games of skill, not luck. Candy Land is a fantastic game for kids, because kids have no talent (Sorry, it’s just true xD). Thus, a game that lets them win because they were lucky enough to shuffle the deck correctly is a great game. We’re adults here (Mostly). Games where luck is a huge factor in survival just don’t work. This is a competitive game, and if a skill doesn’t shine when you are being smart about using it, then something is wrong with the skill.

It’s about being fair. Life is unfair enough, I don’t need things in the games I play unfair as well.

And Veil creates a light field which can be followed with one of our many blast finishers for Area Retaliation. Projectiles reflected. All three of the random outcomes can reflect projectiles actually.

Engineers don’t have a lot of blast finishers. Here are our options:

Detonate X Turret – You have walk up to the veil first off. Next you have to blow up your turret. All to get something that lasts for half the time of the guardian field and two seconds less than the thief’s field. Not to mention, the guardian skill is a light combo field as well, so you could do both tricks if you really wanted to.
Big Ole’ Bomb – It needs to be close enough and it takes about four seconds just to go off anyways. Chances are, you’ll miss the field due to how long this would take (Reaction time, walking time, detonation time).
Booby Trap – You need to be downed.
Detonate – Possible, but you’re wasting a use of your mine on something that might not even hit the entire party, or anyone.
Magnetic Inversion – Possible, but again sort of wasteful, and this would require that you take a shield instead of going damage (Flame skill from dual pistol, also glue shot).
Rocket Boots – No. Removes you from the battle.
Shockwave – Not really a skill. 90 second recharge on a terrible skill.
Supply Crate – Too long of a recharge and a waste of your skills to use it in middle (position wise) of a battle.

This is all accepting the fact that all players will be in range of your blast, which they probably won’t be. This is also accepting the fact that doing ALL of this will result in a lesser effect than if you get lucky and just get the good skills.

Again, your luck would determine your effectiveness, instead of your skill.

The difference here is an expectation that only the Stealth outcome equates escape from battle, that the only way to escape from a battle is to become invisible.

This is a personal experience that happens to me ALL THE TIME. I use Med kit and Elixir S all the time in WvW. When I throw down Toss Elixir S, I do WAY better with escaping if they can’t see me than if I’m a giant. Stability doesn’t stop Crippled, Chilled or Immobilized. Being invisible sort of does. How do you apply effects to something that you can’t see? My chances of survive go WAY up simply because I was lucky.

Again, there’s an expectation of goal, that the purpose of Toss Elixir B (not H, H grants Vigor) is to place speed buffs on the party so it can get to the target destination faster.

Two things here:

1) Again, there’s an expectation of goal, Yes! There is! I just need to know what I can expect from it! That’s it. I don’t care if it grants stability, swiftness or w/e, as long as I know what it will do for me!

2) Yet consider how many other professions would love to be able to block a treb shot for an area like an elementalist? But that’s exactly what the engineer profession lacks: That special purpose that no other class can do.

Mesmers can portal. Eles can block treb shots and take out siege behinds walls. Warriors absolutely destroy things. Necromancers can place wells on the walls of castles. Thieves can assassinate yaks even when they’re heavily guarded.

Where do we come in? When do I get to read in chat, “ kitten it’d be nice if we could get an engineer here!”

The giant form’s Stomp also does blowout like the tornado and there’s no reason we have to stay in that form until we get killed. The giant form also has combo finishers.

This is a real experience I had. I was at Anz and I did use Elixir X to try to knock them off. I got the giant, so I only got one knock off. I got wiped. I’m thoroughly familiar with this skill. I use to use it in PvP when I was bunking (Don’t laugh at me). I know exactly what each skill does, so it’s not a lack of skill. Tornado hits multiple people and it does it multiple times. It’s CLEARLY the better of the two skills.

Maybe you don’t believe it is. Maybe you think that one is better in a smaller fight and one is better in a bigger fight. Well the why the kitten are they in the same skill? If I’m in a 1v1 and I get a tornado, that’s bad. If I’m in a zerg on a cliff edge and I get the giant, that’s bad.

Think of it like this:

You own a store and you can only hire 10 employees. One of your employee’s slots is actually two people. One is a straight A student and a fantastic worker. One is a drug dealer and has murdered multiple dogs. There’s a 50% chance that the drug dealer will be the one to come in. Sure, you could work with him. Maybe you might get a bit of good use out of him, but it’s sure as hell not going to be as good at the straight A student. Furthermore, you could just fire both of them and get someone who is going to show up and always do their job.

That’s exactly what is happening here. I’m Tossing Elixir S and I’m getting a drug dealer every so often. It’s annoying.

I’m tossing elixir S and doing just fine with the results, maybe the problem is on your end?

Maskaganda.2043:

I’m tossing elixir S and doing just fine with the results, maybe the problem is on your end?

I think you’re missing the point. I’ll give you this: Toss Elixir S is one of the better Tosses. That doesn’t mean it’s where it should be. Stability and Stealth are semi related, but in the end, they don’t always achieve the same goals. Fury, Might, Malice and quickness without a doubt achieve the same goals. Stability and Stealth CAN achieve the same goals (Stomping), however in the not so rare case of trying to escape, Stability is much less useful than Stealth. When I’m trying to get out, I hate getting Stability and proceed to exclaim “kittenin’ thing! Why would I want that now!?” Skills should be reliable. They should excite you with the possibilities. This, I know, is unreliable. I use it because there’s a chance it might do what it’s suppose to do. It’s still not a good skill.

I only have a lvl 42 engie, but I already see some big issues:

In no particular order:
i) The random effect of certain skills has to go. It’s just wrong. (many have explained above)

ii) I’d like to see more condition removal skills, for builds that don’t rely on elixirs

iii) Gadget skills that break stun are very awkward. Rocket boots – can take you out of a mess and land you in another (self inflicted knockdown in aoe). Utility goggles – give fury when you want to escape (usual case for a stun breaker); a better function would be to give swiftness or stability.

iv) the rifle (overcharged shot) self-inflicted knockback is a serious drawback. As a comparison, the ranger has a similar longbow skill that only launches the enemy. It would be much more appropriate for the engie too.

iv) the rifle (jump shot) is confusing as well. For maximum effect the skill is used as a ‘stationary’ jump (i.e. jump and land on the same mob). This probably goes against the intended effect. A more useful effect in my opinion would be to have the skill function like rocket boots (immediate jump back without ground targeting with combo finisher effect).

There are more issues to be addressed but I’ll leave it to others.

I’m not missing the point at all. I know what I use the tosses for and I have good results with them. You said it yourself, toss S is a good skill to stomp (and revive too) and an ok skill to escape. What more do you want? It’s not like toss S is an engies only tool to escape a fight.
Oh, and you can also trait it for non random effects on all tosses.

I’d hate for this and other tosses to get changed, it works very well for me atm.

Maskaganda.2043:

I’m not missing the point at all. I know what I use the tosses for and I have good results with them. You said it yourself, toss S is a good skill to stomp (and revive too) and an ok skill to escape. What more do you want? It’s not like toss S is an engies only tool to escape a fight.
Oh, and you can also trait it for non random effects on all tosses.

I’d hate for this and other tosses to get changed, it works very well for me atm.

It’s the annoyingness of it. If this skill ONLY gave stability, I’d be okay with the fact that it probably won’t get me out of battle. At least I know what it will do. That’s really it. Good skills are skills that have consistent and useful effects. The reason Toss Elixir S is passable is because it has the second part of that statement. It’s useful, not consistent.