Guild Wars 2

I’ve been meaning to post a topic like this for some time now and with the next patch only 4 days away, now seemed like a good time. I realize that not everyone will like my ideas, but I ask that you read through and think about them before dismissing them. As always constructive criticism is both welcome and encouraged.

First of all, I want to start by bringing a concern of mine to light: the engineer is designed to excel at control and support (and to some degree, does) while sacrificing damage. This can’t quite work as intended in PvE because the game measures contribution in damage. Focusing on control and/or support (like keeping enemies away from glass cannons) in events, while very helpful in completing the event, hurts our own reward levels because we dealt less damage than others in the event. In PvP this is also an issue because the ultimate goal is to kill your opponent. No amount of control or support alone will do that. Every second that you don’t kill your opponent is one less second he needs to wait for an important cooldown. It seems to me that no matter what the focus of the class is, the engineer needs to do more damage so as to guarantee that we are rewarded equivalently to other classes in all areas of play. As such, I believe that the bulk of fixes to the engineer should involve either increasing damage or making abilities easier to balance (which would lead to increased damage).

Secondly, I’d like to take a bit of time to mention the state of the engineer in comparison to other classes. Now, I recognize that this can be a very slippery slope, but I feel that class comparisons are important to make, one just has to be careful to not get carried away. The “holy trinity” in GW2 has been stated to be Damage – Control – Support. The engineer, as we all know, is supposed to be focused in control and support and therefore should lose out on damage. But what of other classes, how do they stack up? The mesmer is supposed to fall into a control and damage role, and they can do both of these things quite well. But by speccing into Chaos Magic the mesmer can do some very interesting support through the application of random boons. This is before considering that the mesmer has access to both an AoE invisibility, and an AoE haste (although not at the same time). Both of these are extremely powerful support tools and many would argue that they make the mesmer better at support than the engineer. The implication is that the mesmer, a class that isn’t focused in an area that the engineer is is better at it. Looking at the guardian we see a similar situation, the class is focused in support yet does more damage and has about the same amount of control. The engineer on paper does have more options for support than mesmer, and more options for control than guardian, but some are simply better than others, don’t work without traits, or both and the number of real choices we can make is extremely limited. This leaves the class feeling lacking in the role it is supposed to excel at, in addition to problems with the game rewarding damage more than control or support mentioned above.

Also worth mentioning is that the vast majority of the engineer attacks are AoE in some form or fashion. Reading the forums, I get the impression that many people don’t realize this. On the pistol: #1 explodes in a small area, #3 bounces around, #4 is a cone and #5 is ground targeted. For the shield both #4 and #5 can be activated to have a burst and line AoE respectively. Rifle #1 pierces and hits in a line, #3 is a cone, #5 is ground targeted. The only non kit, single target ability we have for dealing damage is pistol #2. The situation remains the same when kits are taken into consideration. Every damage dealing kit, with the exception of the Elixir Gun and the Tool Kit, are literally 100% AoE. What’s more, the Elixir Gun #1 is the only not AoE skill on the kit and the Tool Kit has multiple AoE attacks. Personally I think this is a huge problem. Not only do our skills do less damage because damage isn’t our focus, but all of our damage is reduced further by virtue of it being AoE. We need either single target options or for what good damage abilities we have to be changed so that they can be used more.

Now for the meat of my post: the changes I would make.

Toolbelt
It has long been my opinion that the toolbelt as a mechanic is holding the engineer back. It makes skills needlessly hard to balance and in practice one often ends up picking a skill simply for the toolbelt skill or simply for the slot skill, seeing the other as something on the side. In this way it feels like a good skill may be balanced by a intentionally bad belt skill or vice versa. Not only is this not bad design, it’s unfun (not “not fun” but “unfun” it removes fun that would exist). Additionally, we were given this mechanic so we could have kits and utility skills at the same time, so why couldn’t kits have just been in the toolbelt?

My changes:
The mechanic changes so that toolbelt skills and slot skills are not longer linked. Kits all become toolbelt skills (the current kit toolbelt skills become slot skills). Purchasing a slot skill with skill points unlocks the equivalent belt skill, but they are chosen independently. One belt skill is reserved for a healing belt skill. Under this setup, I could run Med Kit on my belt and Elixir H as my healing skill. Of course all utilities and belt skills would need to be balanced around having access to all combinations, but in my opinion most are weak enough for that currently.

Weapons
The only weapon I would really change is the rifle. Pistols do their job pretty well and a single minor tweak (like removing the AoE on #1 and increasing damage to compensate) would go a long way to fixing the weapon. Shields function fine as is.

Rifle
The rifle is a good weapon except that there is no focus in what it is supposed to be. #1 is a decent damage far range shot, #2 keeps them where we want them, #3 is a high damage cone with low CD that requires us to be in melee range to get full effect, #4 is a retreat/keep away that puts a low duration self cc on ourselves and #5 is a high damage gap closer/retreat. This doesn’t work well. I can do the bulk of my damage from range, but to maximize damage need to be in melee range, but to stay in melee range means losing out on the range that #1 has.

My changes:
1. Blunderbuss – Bleed lowered or removed for no CD (let the pistols cover conditions), range increased by 100 on all ranks
2. Slug Shot – Functions identical to Hip Shot, increased damage, 2 to 5 second cooldown
3. Net Shot – Functions as is
4. Overcharged Shot – Lowered range, cone AoE, no self cc, use should knock back enemy and roll engineer backward, CD potentially increased and/or damage lowered to compensate
5. Jump Shot – Functions as is

These changes would increase the damage and usability of the weapon. As things stand, the engineer doesn’t have a weapon with a good kick to it. These changes give the engineer a close ranged weapon that has a long range pull/hit, an immobilize, a retreat, and a gap closer. By simply moving #3 into #1 we move the focus of the weapon from undefined to close range, the other changes are made for no other reason than to support using the weapon in close range. A weapon kit for long range single target damage/control should also be added to fill the gap left by lowering the rifle’s long range capabilities.

Elixirs
It’s been said hundreds of times in the past, and I’m gonna say it again: RNG is wrong, bad design for clutch play. Elixirs were designed with the intent of promoting clutch plays with well timed uses and effects. This is impossible with RNG. Throwing an elixir to give yourself 1 or 2 seconds stability so you won’t be sent flying by the attack you see coming is a great example of clutch play done right. When it has a 50% chance of being useless in that situation it’s just called luck. Elixirs should either have RNG in a way where we can determine what the effect will be before use (like thief steal) or it should be removed entirely. RNG should never ever come into the actual play itself.

Turrets
Turrets, as they are, are completely useless in high level play. Even when fully traited they do low damage, are extremely fragile, have terrible AI, gain no scaling from any gear, have relatively long CDs that don’t start until destroyed, are immobile, when they aren’t out are a wasted utility slot, and when they are out remove a belt slot. Completely useless.

My changes:
Make turrets like a cross between warrior banners and elementalist conjures. Summoning the turret places a device that automatically attacks enemies in range and can be detonated by using the ability again (like in beta). The difference now is that each turret is a bundle that can be picked up and moved to gain a weapon with relevant skills. Picking up the Rifle Turret would give something like a chain gun that had a fast attack, picking up the Rocket Turret would give a makeshift rocket launcher. Turrets could then be placed in a new location to revert to auto attacking.

That about sums it up. I feel that these changes would go a long way to making the engineer a fun and effective class.

Gurt.9368:

First of all, I want to start by bringing a concern of mine to light: the engineer is designed to excel at control and support (and to some degree, does) while sacrificing damage.

My first thought is what do you base this on?

Gurt.9368:

Toolbelt
It has long been my opinion that the toolbelt as a mechanic is holding the engineer back.

I love the tool belt. I find it to be an inventive feature, and very good for the profession. I completely disagree with you here.

Gurt.9368:

Rifle
The rifle is a good weapon except that there is no focus in what it is supposed to be.

I am starting to have trouble taking you seriously. It is had not to laugh at someone who believe they have such a magic insight as to presume to repeatedly claim to know what something is intended to do or supposed to be.

coglin.1496:

Gurt.9368:

First of all, I want to start by bringing a concern of mine to light: the engineer is designed to excel at control and support (and to some degree, does) while sacrificing damage.

My first thought is what do you base this on?

Responses from and conversations with developers. They’ve said time and time again that we are intended to focus in control and support, not damage.

coglin.1496:

Gurt.9368:

Toolbelt
It has long been my opinion that the toolbelt as a mechanic is holding the engineer back.

I love the tool belt. I find it to be an inventive feature, and very good for the profession. I completely disagree with you here.

Yes, you’ve said as much before in other threads. Tell me though, why would you turn down what is only an improvement to the current mechanic? Do you feel that all belt and slot skills are balanced with each other? Do you disagree with the notion that tying two skills together makes them harder to balance?

coglin.1496:

Gurt.9368:

Rifle
The rifle is a good weapon except that there is no focus in what it is supposed to be.

I am starting to have trouble taking you seriously. It is had not to laugh at someone who believe they have such a magic insight as to presume to repeatedly claim to know what something is intended to do or supposed to be.

Please, enlighten me. What is the rifle supposed to be? It has enough damage to be a bruiser weapon, but the ranges are unintuitive. The #1 skill tells us that we should want to be at range, but then we don’t get the benefit of the pierce. The #3 suggests we should be in melee range or close to it. By moving the #3 skill into the #1 position we see the rifle fully as a melee weapon.

I like it. Especially the part about the toolbelt and how you get a stupid watered-down version of the utility skill and can’t choose. I’d have the engineer to be able to put 3 kits in by his choosing. (line Elementalist, that would make us have same amount of skillsets, because we don’t have weapon swap now)

Also, RNG is a very bad idea.

Gurt.9368:

Rifle
The rifle is a good weapon except that there is no focus in what it is supposed to be.

Rifle to me makes complete sense. I vision it and use it as flexible weapon intended for kiting melee attacks, landing a heavy burst combo on a glass cannon caster, etc. 2 CC’s, a leap, and 2 attacks based on range/kiting. I absolutely love the rifle and its versatility.

@coglin
How is the tool belt “inventive”? All they are, are 4 extra utility slots.
@Gurl
How is that different really? Your changes just change positions for key strokes. Removing the link from tool belt and utility slots still means tool belt slots are nothing more than extra utility slots.

@rifle
My problem with this is it’s half range half melee. 1-2 says range while 2-5 says melee (2 to keep them away or close). Pick a range and stick with it

@turrets
I feel should be redesigned from the ground up with mortar in mind.
- no more auto targeting (AI is crap anyway) and they just fire at a fixed interval (like the thumper turret) in the direction they are deployed to fire at
- turrets deployed in the same way the warrior whirlwind attack such that turrets appear at your feet and are pointed in the direction of your mouse. So aim is on you as the player and not on some really stupid AI.
- turrets can be mounted like the current mortar for additional skills like aiming and pick up.
- instead of life they could have charges (tool kit would replenish charges instead of hp) making them unkillable but have a “duration”.

Having kit in the toolbelt and have utility skill unrelated to them would be too powerful.
I mean toolbelt is a “weak replacement” for our utility slot being taken by the kit, but have 5 skill(1 heal, 3 utility, 1 elite) +kits would be really really too much.
I’d prefer some refinement of the kit’s skill than have more skill.
Things that I’d like happen to engi:
- kits and turret retain weapon damage and stats.
- turrets, if they would become viable, need some cd reduction when picked up, some more survival to aoe(even pve damage not only player’s damage) and that turret aim at out target, or even the “called target” as it was for henchman in GW1.
- less RNG on throw elixir and elixir H
- decent autoattack for pistol(should be a condition weapon but has weak bleed stak with useless “aoe”) and rifle, and need a non-grenade ranged weapon(our rifle skills benefit more to be in melee than be ranged)
- healing should become a statistic that is worth the investment,I know ANet don’t want the healer role, but invest 1000 in healing to heal ~ 200 more is pityful, even if our super elixir would heal ~ 500 per pulse it would be not totally unbalanced, we sacrifice damage and survival(thou-vit) to have more heal(before december was op because super elixir heal a lot even without the healing stat, but healing that much with an appropriate healing stat is acceptable).

i agree with most of what you say the only thing i don`t agree on is to remove the aoe from pistol 1.
as for why i don`t agree its simple its our only reliable aoe,what i mean is its not like bomb/grenade kit,
in pve they do the job but in pvp its hard to get the most of the aoe out of them unlike pistol 1 which is amazing with piercing it can hit and bleed a f load of ppl.
in wvw its the most amazing thing ever.
they can nerf skills 3,4 to buff single target if ppl feel to aoeish with pistols.
as for elixirs the rng need to go period,but if they want to leave the element of it for flavor for the love of god leave it out of utility elixirs like toss s,u and the use of x.
i dont really care if they leave it on b&h tho i would prefer if they just get rid of rng all together.

all in all great post +1 there is a large consensus in the engineer community about what wrong and how to fix it the ball is on anet court now.

I think it’d be fine to remove the AoE from Explosive Shot and just call it Shrapnel Shot. Seriously whatever it takes to get rid of the awful 2s base duration bleed. I understand that our kits make it so our mainhand weapons aren’t as strong as other classes, but that is way too low.

Then our AoE Pistol trait could be reworked to make every Pistol ability more AoE. Shrapnel Shot in this case could just have a radial explosion that bleeds everything hit by it. Poison Volley could still pierce. Static Shot could bounce two more times. Blowtorch could have a much wider cone. Glue Shot could be a bigger radius.

Heck I also wish there was a trait early in Firearms that made it so we can’t equip kits. Except to compensate this trait would give us 30% additional cooldown reduction on the Rifle and Pistol while increasing the Pistol auto’s base bleed by a second or two and the Rifle auto’s damage. Make it so Pistols and Pots isn’t damage nerfed simply becuase it doesn’t take kits. For the Rifle, make the Scope trait a deep tools trait that increases range by a further 25% and damage by 20% instead of the current iteration of it and you could have some interesting Sniper builds that lack kits. Change Blunderbuss to be usable at full Rifle range as a damage cooldown (with it’s close range super strength still) and you have just made two builds completely viable.

I mean I personally love kits myself and would never go without them, but it doesn’t mean I don’t think these other builds shouldn’t be viable. Going kitless should be traitable, and if the current concept revolves around our mainhand weapons being damage nerfed because we have kits then a change needs to be made.

Gurt.9368:

Please, enlighten me. What is the rifle supposed to be? It has enough damage to be a bruiser weapon, but the ranges are unintuitive. The #1 skill tells us that we should want to be at range, but then we don’t get the benefit of the pierce. The #3 suggests we should be in melee range or close to it. By moving the #3 skill into the #1 position we see the rifle fully as a melee weapon.

kind of answered that yourself in your previous presumption didn’t you?

Gurt.9368:

Responses from and conversations with developers. They’ve said time and time again that we are intended to focus in control and support, not damage.

Seetoo.9316:

@coglin
How is the tool belt “inventive”? All they are, are 4 extra utility slots.

Because we have the ability that no other profession has. The ability to control what are F key skills are. Just because you may not like it, does not mean it isn’t unique and inventive.

If you guys do not like all of these abilities, clearly you do not like the profession. If you dislike the profession, do not play it. Stop trying to change the care concept and mechanics of the profession.

Gets old reading threads in which every posters is attempting to convince the community how we we need to make changes to the profession so that it taylors to them, and there play style specifically. We have 100 other threads on this topic. Everyone thinks they need to make a new one just for thier opinion, because they feel what they have to say is too important to be part of the ongoing discussion already going on.

Thanks for all the feedback, everyone!

Allow me to elaborate my thoughts on weapons. To me, in a perfect game, all weapons across all classes should have a unique or fairly unique specialization. Playing to a weapon’s strengths should be rewarded and allowing others to use their weapons should be punished. Making the changes to the rifle I suggested, especially making Blunderbuss the #1 (and adding an extra 100 to 150 range at all levels) and adding an evade to #4 instead of self cc removes all doubt about where the weapon should be used: just outside of melee range. It would have a gap closer, an extra dodge, the bulk of damage would come from close range, an immobilize to keep people at our range, and #2 (which would be Hip Shot with another name) would be used to keep up damage aver dodging away from a melee attack. Currently we can do some nice stuff with the rifle, I’m not saying we can’t. But in my mind we should always have weapons that are more specialized, and blunderbuss by itself isn’t reason enough for people to not want to be in melee with us.

As for the pistol, the removal of the AoE is something I’d like to see if and only if we got more damage out of it, but I think that traiting for the pistol should add some way to get the AoE back. Perhaps only one trait gives it back the explosion and pierce.

The way I see them, toolbelt skills are already nothing more than extra utility skills that we can’t really choose. I’d rather lose power on the whole lot of them if I got to chose them myself. I disagree with the notion that it would be inherently unbalanced to have them this way, and personally I feel that kits should have always been belt choices because we have the belt for the kits. Would having real utility and versatility in our class mechanic make us op? Would it be any stronger than 3 pets that distract others in combat and can deal massive damage; the ability to grant aegis, the ability to inflict burning, and heal everyone around you; or the ability to have 4 sets of weapons, a heal, 3 utilities, and an elite?

Gurt.9368:

Thanks for all the feedback, everyone!

Allow me to elaborate my thoughts on weapons. To me, in a perfect game, all weapons across all classes should have a unique or fairly unique specialization. Playing to a weapon’s strengths should be rewarded and allowing others to use their weapons should be punished.

I doubt anyone would argue that. The problem is that a weapons “uniqueness” and “specilization” are extremely subjective, and open to interpretation.

I absolutely disagree with your proposed changed and feel they would weaken the rifles general use and limit its capability severely.

Gurt.9368:

The way I see them, toolbelt skills are already nothing more than extra utility skills that we can’t really choose.

Just plain NO

We are the only class that does not have a static set of F key skills. In many cases professions have only one. We very literally are the only profession that can chose what they are. This is a core mechanic to the profession. If you think you wish to change it now, go play another profession and see if you get tired of the 1 skill some of them have. I see this same argument in the warrior forums every day too. Because their F key skill various from weapon to weapon. Anyone with any foe sight has enough sense to know it would result in a huge nerf if we got to pick an chose our F keys separate from utilities. Some combinations would logically be OP and subject to nerfs.

I mean if we are going to allow picking and choosing on that level, why stop there? Why not just allow players to pull there favorite skills from each weapon and combine them too?

Your F key suggestion throw all logic and balance out the window, and it is just to chaotic to be a positive idea in the least.

The Rifle should stay a ranged weapon. If anything, the weak end of the the Blunderbuss attack should be extended to full Rifle range while keeping the high close range damage intact.

I would like to see a trait for rifle called “shotgun” that adds 10% damage & crit when the target is within 500 range, and also adds 200 toughness when a rifle is equipped. Make it the XII trait. As for juggernaut, the skill should be automatically applied to flamethrower when the kit is equipped.

coglin.1496:

Gurt.9368:

Please, enlighten me. What is the rifle supposed to be? It has enough damage to be a bruiser weapon, but the ranges are unintuitive. The #1 skill tells us that we should want to be at range, but then we don’t get the benefit of the pierce. The #3 suggests we should be in melee range or close to it. By moving the #3 skill into the #1 position we see the rifle fully as a melee weapon.

kind of answered that yourself in your previous presumption didn’t you?

So the rifle is suppose to be a bruiser weapon that’s bad at bruising because of unintuitive ranges and lack of skill synergy outside of one skill rotation, got it.

coglin.1496:

Gurt.9368:

Responses from and conversations with developers. They’ve said time and time again that we are intended to focus in control and support, not damage.

From Jonathon Sharp’s blog:

Engineer

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

We are being balanced around the philosophy that we lose our on damage because of the versatility of our control and support

coglin.1496:

If you guys do not like all of these abilities, clearly you do not like the profession. If you dislike the profession, do not play it. Stop trying to change the care concept and mechanics of the profession.

Did you even read my suggested change? I don’t suggest anything so drastic as a core concept change.

coglin.1496:

Gets old reading threads in which every posters is attempting to convince the community how we we need to make changes to the profession so that it taylors to them, and there play style specifically. We have 100 other threads on this topic. Everyone thinks they need to make a new one just for thier opinion, because they feel what they have to say is too important to be part of the ongoing discussion already going on.

Then don’t read them. You’re probably the one person who still thinks the engineer is completely fine as is and you’re more vocal about not changing anything than any suggested change I’ve ever seen. Nobody wants a new class or to see the engineer concept fundamentally altered. You irrationally defend your position with so much zeal and fervor that you come off as blind to the real issues. We want changes, yes, but it’s not a bad thing to want to push the class to mechanics that better fit it’s defined role and the role that the game expects of the classes.

Gurt.9368:

Did you even read my suggested change? I don’t suggest anything so drastic as a core concept change.

Right. Because suggesting that we toss the whole tool belt idea out the window in an effort to change it so you pick what you want at random isn’t a core change.

Gurt.9368:

You’re probably the one person who still thinks the engineer is completely fine as is and you’re more vocal about not changing anything than any suggested change I’ve ever seen.

No need to try to put words in my mouth and attempt to speak for me, your struggling enough to do for yourself.

Gurt.9368:

Nobody wants a new class or to see the engineer concept fundamentally altered. You irrationally defend your position with so much zeal and fervor that you come off as blind to the real issues. We want changes, yes, but it’s not a bad thing to want to push the class to mechanics that better fit it’s defined role and the role that the game expects of the classes.

I disagree. You literally broke down your desire to completely change our weapons skills. You proposed completely rebuilding our profession specific tool belt skills. And you misrepresent facts about certain weapon skills and abilities. Do not confuse the desire to use facts instead of accepting your misrepresented opinion as zeal and fervor.

We do not need to fix things that work fine. We need to fix actual problems like weapons stats effecting kits. FT misses. Ridiculously long CD such as PBR on a 45s cool down which does the exact same thing as warriors kick, on a 20s cool down.

We do not need to change the rifle. If you want solid ranged damage use grenades.

We need changes to comparable skills like kick and PBR with vastly different CDs and skills that do not function properly like FT misses and Flame blast usability being limited to a static range of its explosion, not redesign the pistol and rifle for your personal play style. SO seriously, stop trying to claim I do not want changes just because I want real fixes and not just to tailor the profession to my personal wants as you are.

coglin.1496:

If you want solid ranged damage use grenades.

Grenades are NOT solid ranged damage.

In WvW anyone that is stupid enough to stand in a red circle and wait for a grenade to land isn’t even worth targeting in the first place.

Grenade spam is little more than a tool to herd zergs. They see the red circle and move. As for killing anyone from 1500 range, good luck with that.

There is more to this game then wvw. And I can literally move side to side in a shuffle motion and dodge all of a rangers arrows or a warriors rifle shot. I can reflect the warriors rifle shots right back at them as well. Your point is moot. There is a counter for everything.

I offered suggestions of real issues and things that literally do not function as intended versus others proposing to to redesign perfectly functional, acceptable, and useful abilities. This has been covered on the other 300 threads on topic.

coglin.1496:

Gurt.9368:

Thanks for all the feedback, everyone!

Allow me to elaborate my thoughts on weapons. To me, in a perfect game, all weapons across all classes should have a unique or fairly unique specialization. Playing to a weapon’s strengths should be rewarded and allowing others to use their weapons should be punished.

I doubt anyone would argue that. The problem is that a weapons “uniqueness” and “specilization” are extremely subjective, and open to interpretation.

You are free to disagree with my opinions, but these statements are downright untrue.

Uniqueness – having the quality of being unique
Unique – being the only one of it’s kind; unlike anything else
Subjective – based on or influenced by personal feelings, tastes, or opinions

Something either is unique or it isn’t unique, it is not open to interpretation, and therefore not subjective.

Specializations aren’t subjective either. If you don’t believe me then, go grab a rifle and try to use a pure condition damage build. It won’t work well because a rifle has no skills in support of condition damage (aside from traits and blunderbuss). The rifle is not specialized for condition damage, the pistol is.

coglin.1496:

Gurt.9368:

The way I see them, toolbelt skills are already nothing more than extra utility skills that we can’t really choose.

Just plain NO

But that’s exactly what they are. If you choose your belt skills, you didn’t choose the slot skills, and vice versa.

The follow paragraph is a rambling mess of text with little to no structure, so I’m breaking it up to respond to it.

coglin.1496:

We are the only class that does not have a static set of F key skills. In many cases professions have only one.

Only three classes have just one F button: warrior, thief, necromancer. The thief’s F1 changes every time he uses it, and the necromancer’s gives him four new abilities to use for a short time. So really, only one class has one profession ability. One is not many.

coglin.1496:

We very literally are the only profession that can chose what they are. This is a core mechanic to the profession.

Very true, and my proposed change does nothing to alter this.

coglin.1496:

If you think you wish to change it now, go play another profession and see if you get tired of the 1 skill some of them have.

I do play other classes; thief, guardian, and warrior. While I do think the warrior’s mechanic should get a little something, something to make it more interesting, I don’t get tired of the mechanic itself. And the thief’s I love, steal is one of my favorite class mechanics. Same goes for not only the guardian, but all the classes I’ve played

coglin.1496:

I see this same argument in the warrior forums every day too. Because their F key skill various from weapon to weapon.

Has nothing to do with the argument

coglin.1496:

Anyone with any foe sight has enough sense to know it would result in a huge nerf if we got to pick an chose our F keys separate from utilities. Some combinations would logically be OP and subject to nerfs.

This not entirely true. The developers already have to balance against many of combinations because most combinations are currently possible. What this change would do is allow for a few combinations that can’t happen right now, i.e. Elixir H + Medkit, as well as some multiple skills combinations that would require many of the slots. This is not inherently op. While it is true that some skills would need to be nerfed, I would gladly take that nerf for the added versatility, and I know many others would too.

coglin.1496:

I mean if we are going to allow picking and choosing on that level, why stop there? Why not just allow players to pull there favorite skills from each weapon and combine them too?

Because as you’ve said several times, the core mechanic of the belt skills is that you’re supposed to be able to choose them, but the restrictions in the choices we can actually make are stifling.

coglin.1496:

Your F key suggestion throw all logic and balance out the window, and it is just to chaotic to be a positive idea in the least.

Actually, separating the skills out would make them easier to balance for because when you tweak a skill up or down you won’t need to worry about adjusting the power of a skill that it’s tied to.

I don’t see how this is chaotic or illogical in the least. Please elaborate.

coglin.1496:

There is more to this game then wvw.

And there is more than PvE too.

You want real issues?

We need a class mechanic that works as advertised and allows us the versatility that we already pay for in damage.

We need reliable single target sources of both ranged and melee damage.

We need utility skills that aren’t completely useless in literally every build and every spec.

We need elites better than a random assortment of bad utility skills on a separate cooldown.

I am not trying to tailor the class to my play style. If I were to do that I’d suggest they remove the toolbelt entirely and give us something like what the elementalist uses. But I don’t make that suggestion, because it’s not good for the class or the players that play the class. I’m making suggestions for changes that address issues I see with the class.

And for the record, you strike me as the one having trouble forming arguments and not using facts.

Actually, no, my point is NOT moot.

You claimed that grenades are “solid ranged damage” and I countered by stating that grenade AoE damage is easily avoidable, which you confirmed with your subsequent comment proving my point.

As such, grenade damage does not qualify as “solid range damage” and my comment was completely relevant to the discussion.

@gurt
You do not think our rifle skills are uniquely different then the other rile skills in the game?

You do not feel that pistols reward specializing in condition damage while rifles reward in specializing in direct damage?

Now I will do as far as pointing out that you literally have no concept of memo balance if you believe allowing a player to pick what skills go on the tool belt while having all together seperate skills in the related utility slot.

If the profession is so bad that you feel you needed to make your own thread on an already overdone topic, instead of participating in the already on going discussions, and that you prefer to change perfectly functional and useful skills to suit your personal wants, while ignoring the more important broken skills, skills that do not function as intended, or skills with identical functions to others but significantly out matched recast or effects, then perhaps the class is not for you, and you should move on and play one that is. That is much more preferable to trying to redesign the professions core mechanics to tailor to you while leaving the rest of the community blowing in the wind.

@mrsilver
All of the threads on grenade damage and the hundreds of threads in the other sub forums exclaiming them as OP support that the community as a whole disagrees with you.

If you like, I can guest over to a server in your tier and we can meet in a secluded location for 1v1 opportunities and I can demonstrate to you how the rifle net skills and knock back, combined with other control abilities will allow me to riddle you with grenades.

coglin.1496:

Gurt.9368:

Did you even read my suggested change? I don’t suggest anything so drastic as a core concept change.

Right. Because suggesting that we toss the whole tool belt idea out the window in an effort to change it so you pick what you want at random isn’t a core change.

Ad hominem.

coglin.1496:

Gurt.9368:

You’re probably the one person who still thinks the engineer is completely fine as is and you’re more vocal about not changing anything than any suggested change I’ve ever seen.

No need to try to put words in my mouth and attempt to speak for me, your struggling enough to do for yourself.

Insult.

coglin.1496:

Gurt.9368:

Nobody wants a new class or to see the engineer concept fundamentally altered. You irrationally defend your position with so much zeal and fervor that you come off as blind to the real issues. We want changes, yes, but it’s not a bad thing to want to push the class to mechanics that better fit it’s defined role and the role that the game expects of the classes.

I disagree. You literally broke down your desire to completely change our weapons skills.

Moving a few of the existing skills on weapon around is not “desire to completely change our weapon skills.”

coglin.1496:

You proposed completely rebuilding our profession specific tool belt skills.

I suggested a new method for selection and the swap of kits and their belt skills. This is not “completely rebuilding.”

“And you misrepresent facts about certain weapon skills and abilities. Do not confuse the desire to use facts instead of accepting your misrepresented opinion as zeal and fervor.”

What facts about weapon skills have I misrepresented?

You have made several false assertions about skills and abilities in this thread. This does not illustrate a desire to use facts.

coglin.1496:

We do not need to fix things that work fine. We need to fix actual problems like weapons stats effecting kits. FT misses. Ridiculously long CD such as PBR on a 45s cool down which does the exact same thing as warriors kick, on a 20s cool down.

I completely agree with this notion.

coglin.1496:

We do not need to change the rifle. If you want solid ranged damage use grenades.

Grenades aren’t viable outside of PvE (with the exception of 100 ’nades), and even then they only really shine if you spec for them.

coglin.1496:

SO seriously, stop trying to claim I do not want changes just because I want real fixes and not just to tailor the profession to my personal wants as you are.

Don’t put words in my mouth. I don’t want the profession tailored to my desires, I want changes that better reflect the playstyle Anet tells us we’re being designed around.

edit: Don’t know why but something broke in one of the quotes.

coglin.1496:

@mrsilver
All of the threads on grenade damage and the hundreds of threads in the other sub forums exclaiming them as OP support that the community as a whole disagrees with you.

If you like, I can guest over to a server in your tier and we can meet in a secluded location for 1v1 opportunities and I can demonstrate to you how the rifle net skills and knock back, combined with other control abilities will allow me to riddle you with grenades.

Explain how are you going to land a rifle net shot at 1500 range when rifle net shot is unreliable at 1000 let alone the traited 1200 range shot.

coglin.1496:

@gurt
You do not think our rifle skills are uniquely different then the other rile skills in the game?

I do think they are unique otherwise I wouldn’t have suggested simply rearranging them. All classes should have unique skills, and we do have some very unique skills.

coglin.1496:

You do not feel that pistols reward specializing in condition damage while rifles reward in specializing in direct damage?

I completely feel that pistols reward condition damage, if you read my post you would know this.

I don’t feel that rifles reward power enough to warrant the specialization. The skill rearrangement, however, is to tackle the issue of “what is it.” The rifle lacks the specialization in it’s range. It’s neither close range nor long. Classic design confusion, and I see it in several places through the engineer kit, but no where as bad as the rifle.

coglin.1496:

Now I will do as far as pointing out that you literally have no concept of memo balance if you believe allowing a player to pick what skills go on the tool belt while having all together seperate skills in the related utility slot.

And I would venture to say that you have no concept of balance if you believe that any issues that did arise couldn’t be easily balanced.

coglin.1496:

If the profession is so bad that you feel you needed to make your own thread on an already overdone topic, instead of participating in the already on going discussions, and that you prefer to change perfectly functional and useful skills to suit your personal wants, while ignoring the more important broken skills, skills that do not function as intended, or skills with identical functions to others but significantly out matched recast or effects, then perhaps the class is not for you, and you should move on and play one that is. That is much more preferable to trying to redesign the professions core mechanics to tailor to you while leaving the rest of the community blowing in the wind.

Stop. Putting. Words. In. My. Mouth. I am NOT trying to tailor the class to my personal playstyle. If you suggest that this is what I’m doing any more I will be forced to believe that you are nothing more than a common forum troll and I’ll think myself rather foolish for indulging you all this time.

I don’t think anyone who makes a thread like this, myself included, thinks the class is bad. I look at the engineer and a diamond in the rough. It would be a shame to let something so close to gaming brilliance amount to nothing more than wasted potential.

I know that engineer is the class for me, I’ve tried to leave; believe me, I’ve tried. But I can’t, I always come back. Don’t assume that anyone who sees an issue you don’t see would be better suited playing a different class. And just because I don’t immediately go to issues that you go to assume that I don’t also have grievances there.

I think they should just let us equip one kit in the weapon swap slot. That would be a huge plus giving us a needed boost. Also I think they need to change the piercing shot talent to a bouncing shot. I can’t count how many times that talent goes to waste because enemies are not in a line.

Hate it when everyone says “if you dislike this portion of the class, don’t play it.” Really? It’s perfectly possible to like a class’s overall theory and playstyle without thinking it’s perfect.

Anyway, some comments regarding the OP:

Rifle:
I like the rifle. What others call “incoherent,” I call “flexible.” Engineers have a lot of skills. That’s basically their thing. What’s the purpose of the rifle? To collaborate with other skills. Sure the rifle may seem odd by itself, but you’re not looking at the whole picture. Throw a flamethrower in the mix and now things are interesting. Now R2, R4, and FT3 work with R1, R2, FT2, and FT4. R5 already works with R2 and R3, and now it works with FT1, FT3, and FT5. And so on. Throw in any other kit and you have a whole ’nother set of possible interactions. If you ask me, pistols are just too straightforward. Shield makes up for that though; engie shield is kittening glorious.

The bad part about rifle is that it does not work too well in builds with 0 utility kits. (However I think that is more of a problem with non-kit skills having far too little versatility compared to kits, but that’s a whole ’nother discussion.) I think a kit-less rifle could be made more practical through traits. If there was a new trait that gave the rifle another layer of self-contained versatililty (with a high investment cost, presumably), that could really open up possibilities for gadget/elixir/turret-augmented rifle builds. Alternatively, they could just give us more weapon options.

Toolbelts:
I disagree with the toolbelt solution. Balancing individual skills is made more difficult by linking them to toolbelts, that is true. But by unlinking them, balancing builds is a nightmare. Yes, a nightmare. You just have to take a hell of a lot more into account when balancing each skill. You have to think about its potential interactions with every other skill available. How do I know it’d be a nightmare? Because that flexibility is a big part of what destroyed GW1 balance. It’s why weapon skills are tied to each other, and it’s why each of the 10 slots are grouped the way they are. Anet went far out of their way to solve this problem, and I guarantee they’re not about to re-introduce it, even if it would be present on a smaller scale.

Another major point: Free range toolbelts would make build construction far more complicated that it already is. You may not mind this, but the game developers will. Their game needs to be accessible.

Also, doing this would involve redesigning most of the available skills, since they’re designed with their counterpart in mind.

Plus if kits were in the toolbelt, toolbelt cooldown reduction (“ingenuity” in the tools line) would be awkward as the class’s primary line. Not sure how they’d replace it.

Elixirs:
Hate the way these are implemented. I wish they could find a way to implement them to make them interesting and competitively viable.

Turrets:
Turrets are terrible, but I think they really just need stat buffs and recharge buffs. Their toolbelts are mostly underwhelming as well.

I think it’s kind of odd to suggest an overhaul here. Sure they suck right now, but that could just be because they’re weak. We can’t know if they’re fundamentally flawed since they’ve always been god awful; no one has had a chance to actually try them legitimately.

Gurt.9368:

I don’t think anyone who makes a thread like this, myself included, thinks the class is bad. I look at the engineer and a diamond in the rough. It would be a shame to let something so close to gaming brilliance amount to nothing more than wasted potential.

You titled the thread “how I would fix the engineer”. That alone could not imply the class was broken any more if it you tried.

As I said, I am all for fixes to what does not function correctly or to what is broken or bugged. But your lobbying to change the professional mechanic, while making complete changes to the weapons skills.

I disagree with your ideas on the rifle, tool belt, and, a lot of the changes to them. You claim to have insight to what the devs meant or their intentions for the profession or its skills. When asked to support that with a fact, you refused. Stop acting as if you are permitted to make such claims and lobby make drastic changes to the profession, all the while acting as if I, or anyone else who disagrees has no business doing so.

None of that though explains why you had to make a new thread on a repeat topic with multiple threads on this discussion already ongoing. I mean it just adds more threads for readers to wade through, and it makes doing an honest search just that much more difficult.

I am also curious, you claim we need a class mechaninic that works as advertised. I would truelly love to see one fact to display what they claimed, and how it doesn’t work as they claimed. You have a really bad habit of claiming to know what they devs meant, wanted, or intended. I am all for a serious discussion of serious issues, but these claims are getting ridiculously outlandish.

Wow, such a good OP and the thread gets trolled right off the bat.

Anyway, I really liked this:

Gurt.9368:

Now for the meat of my post: the changes I would make.

Toolbelt
It has long been my opinion that the toolbelt as a mechanic is holding the engineer back. It makes skills needlessly hard to balance and in practice one often ends up picking a skill simply for the toolbelt skill or simply for the slot skill, seeing the other as something on the side. In this way it feels like a good skill may be balanced by a intentionally bad belt skill or vice versa. Not only is this not bad design, it’s unfun (not “not fun” but “unfun” it removes fun that would exist). Additionally, we were given this mechanic so we could have kits and utility skills at the same time, so why couldn’t kits have just been in the toolbelt?

Yeah, I’ve kind of always thought that we should have had kits on the tool-belt from the beginning. The fact that we have to sacrifice a slot skill to have a weapon swap never sat right with me. Either give us a kit for free or give us a choice when it comes to what goes up on the toolbar. The devs probably thought last minute that it was too similar with the elementalist’s atunements, covered it up to look different and never gave it more thought than that.

Also, our skills are balanced around their toolbelts not being overpowered because other classes don’t get them. I think the toolbelt is what makes us “sacrifice damage in out mainhand weapons,” so thats what the devs think makes us versatile, more abilities that do the same only on longer cooldowns. So if we’re already balanced around not being overpowered with the toolbelt, why can’t we choose our toolbelt abilities? Wouldn’t this actually make us versatile?

as i see it there needs to be a middle ground here.

making the toolbelt all kits and since you want to unlink slot skills from toolbelt skills plus letting us pick and choose slot skills(from what we drop from the toolbelt+the existent slot skills) as we like ,
will effectively be too good, and smart and creative players will find a way to exploit it (in a good way like 100nabs which is very creative to use a aoe toolbelt kit skill for single target massive burst) and new engineers will fail and will be overwhelmed just from the sheer amount of options available.
and it will be heavily theorycrafted to min/max.
this will eventually conclude in a frequent big buff/nerf fix loop for a long time.

on the other hand
equiping one kit in the weapon swap slot suggestion i see here and there will reduce our versatility a lot to the point of self gimp since a lot of builds scrap that most builds use 2 kits and more leave the dmg factor out just to lose the utility makes it unplayable.

add to this that there is no real reward to play kitless and traits dont support this kind of gameplay.
and no one will drop the utility kits give you just to hit a bit harder, if they want to make it viable the dmg needs to be crazy.

and what you get is the mess we are in now.
some skillslot+tollbelt skills are op some up some just don`t fit and some have way way way to long cd.

as for me i would love them to leave the toolbelt as is ,make a new ui for kits outside of slot skills and let me get the 3 slots i want and the kits i need so i can play effective and be viable.
yep i know its a buff but we sure need one no?

coglin.1496:

I am also curious, you claim we need a class mechaninic that works as advertised. I would truelly love to see one fact to display what they claimed, and how it doesn’t work as they claimed. You have a really bad habit of claiming to know what they devs meant, wanted, or intended. I am all for a serious discussion of serious issues, but these claims are getting ridiculously outlandish.

well did you see the engineer trailers they made before release?the one when the rifle turret solo mobs?
hmm did your rifle turret ever solo a mob?:)
or the one when the engineer uses glue shot that actually stops mobs for you to set big ol` and it hits?:)
in my book this is a classic case of false advertising:)

cottage.3274:

as i see it there needs to be a middle ground here.

as for me i would love them to leave the toolbelt as is ,make a new ui for kits outside of slot skills and let me get the 3 slots i want and the kits i need so i can play effective and be viable.
yep i know its a buff but we sure need one no?

This is honestly the best option, but what are the odds that we’ll ever get fixed that well. I would love to have kits and slot skills because we don’t get a second weapon. Redesigning the UI is probably what the engineer needs, but It’s not going to happen because the class is already out and the game has been released. Besides, a redesign of the UI would kitten off a lot of people.

What’s less likely to kitten people off and bother the devs is that the current UI should be changed, a little, to be less lackluster. At this point some skills give out great toolbelt skills (Like BoB, grenade barrage, toss elixir R), while others weren’t thought out and are really terrible. At the same time some skills are really terrible and are only taken for the toolbelts (looking at rifle turret).

How about making kits into toolbelts (like atunements) and their toolbelts into slot-skills. The kit toolbelts already resemble slot-skills, while the skill toolbelts look like an afterthought. So now bomb kit is a toolbelt-Kit and BoB is a skill you use out of your skill slots. At the same time make it so that we can choose our toolbelts and skills separately from their respective pools; being the old toolbelt skills with the kits, and the old kit toolbelts with our other slot-skills.

With this someone can run a flamethrower “tool-kit” and run around with grenade barrage in his skills if he wants to. Someone can have elixir R on their toolkit and run elixir s in their slot-skills. If the toolkit is really “balanced” then this shouldn’t be a problem, if it isn’t balanced this change will make it clear which toolkits need a buff.

JohnDied.3476:

How about making kits into toolbelts (like atunements) and their toolbelts into slot-skills. The kit toolbelts already resemble slot-skills, while the skill toolbelts look like an afterthought. So now bomb kit is a toolbelt-Kit and BoB is a skill you use out of your skill slots. At the same time make it so that we can choose our toolbelts and skills separately from their respective pools; being the old toolbelt skills with the kits, and the old kit toolbelts with our other slot-skills.

With this someone can run a flamethrower “tool-kit” and run around with grenade barrage in his skills if he wants to. Someone can have elixir R on their toolkit and run elixir s in their slot-skills. If the toolkit is really “balanced” then this shouldn’t be a problem, if it isn’t balanced this change will make it clear which toolkits need a buff.

this will be imo like i said way too op for creative player and will get exploited and will lead to a nerf/buff routine for sure ,the near endless combo options is too strong.
and as for making it like attunements well attunements got a cd so it will get one also for sure just like any weapon swap.
if kits have a cd you can forget about using bomb kit/med kit and some clutch skills like toolkit shield block,magnet or flamethrower blind/pushback ect.
also if they make the cd too long it will be up like i said, if it will be too short it will be op again like i said.

middle ground works the best imo.

cottage.3274:

and as for making it like attunements well attunements got a cd so it will get one also for sure just like any weapon swap.
if kits have a cd you can forget about using bomb kit/med kit and some clutch skills like toolkit shield block,magnet or flamethrower blind/pushback ect.

I hadn’t thought about the cooldown. Maybe you’re right and we have to wait until the devs decide to fix our wonky class mechanic.

JohnDied.3476:

With this someone can run a flamethrower “tool-kit” and run around with grenade barrage in his skills if he wants to. Someone can have elixir R on their toolkit and run elixir s in their slot-skills. If the toolkit is really “balanced” then this shouldn’t be a problem, if it isn’t balanced this change will make it clear which toolkits need a buff.

I think this paragraph illustrates the frustration engi players feel about their skillset. If being able to “mix and match” like that would make us OP, then logically, we can reason that some of the skills we’re forced to take are just plain less effective than the ones we’d like to take. Some of our skills are just bad.

In other words, if it would be OP to use Elixir S and toolbelt Elixir R as one utility, obviously there’s something less desirable about the current setup.

All that is frustrating, but it is essentially our class mechanic: a lot of weak skills rather than a few powerful ones. Add in the fact that our skills are available to us at all times, unlike the ele, which has the attunement cooldown. Thus, our skills are even weaker.

I don’t see this as a problem—I love having 3 skills that make up for 1 of my opponent’s. However, the fact is that it’s very easy to see all those bad skills and think, “aw, this profession is garbage.” It can also be frustrating to not be allowed to take all of our strong skills at the same time—so many of our skills come in strong/weak pairs when it comes to utility/toolbelt. Add in a list of bugs and you’ve got a frustrated playerbase. Add in a list of top-tier players who rank engineer as the worst or next to worst profession and you’ve got a really frustrated playerbase.

Those who have succeeded at engineering (I consider myself one) should take these things into consideration and patiently explain ways to overcome, while working for small, practical buffs to our underperforming builds.

tl;dr? Engineer feels really frustrating for a lot of players. That doesn’t mean the class is awful. It should affect the way we discuss buffs/nerfs/playstyles.

NevirSayDie.6235:

However, the fact is that it’s very easy to see all those bad skills and think, “aw, this profession is garbage.” It can also be frustrating to not be allowed to take all of our strong skills at the same time—so many of our skills come in strong/weak pairs when it comes to utility/toolbelt.

Personally, I think this is a big deal. Balancing taking strong skills by forcing weak skills is bad design. All skills should ideally be of about the same strength so that no few builds completely outshine others, unless simply put together poorly. Now, I fully realize that perfect balance is impossible, but it should always be striven for.

cottage.3274:

well did you see the engineer trailers they made before release?the one when the rifle turret solo mobs?
hmm did your rifle turret ever solo a mob?:)
or the one when the engineer uses glue shot that actually stops mobs for you to set big ol` and it hits?:)
in my book this is a classic case of false advertising:)

Yes it did. Before they changed spacial dynamics, I could place the turret in a location that the mob couldn’t do damage to it, but it did not get the “invulnerable” flag that it does now. Although I would love to see the video you mention. They also showed a video for a profession called the “commando” that could call air strikes too. Did you slam the forums when that didn’t happen for you?

The difference is, unlike yourself, I will provide a video to support it, and not just make a claim.

You guys do not have to like it, but if he is going to make a 100th thread on a topic, I am entitled to disagree. And I will do so anytime anyone is trying to change core professional mechanics, which is exactly what our tool belt system is now. It works, and there is nothing wrong with it.

When posters are continuously ignoring the broken, dysfunctional, or imbalanced skills to lobby to change the skills, abilities, and mechanics that work just fine, I will adamantly argue it.

I still don’t get the QQ about RNG, especially after holding up random mesmer boons as a great thing.

Chaba.5410:

I still don’t get the QQ about RNG, especially after holding up random mesmer boons as a great thing.

There’s a fundamental difference between the RNG on elixirs and the other two major sources of RNG (mesmer boons and conditions in chaos spec and thief Steal skill). The difference is in how the abilities are used. The mesmer boons and conditions are chosen from a list of a few, like the engineer’s, but are applied very frequently. The Staff attack is the auto attack, and as such is constantly giving allies short duration boons pulled from a list of two. It’s not uncommon for a couple of the allies of a staff mesmer to end a fight with both boons with above average duration due to how boons stack. The other major ability mesmers use for random boons is Chaos Storm. Chaos Storm not only applies boons and conditions to enemies, but it’s also an Ethereal field (which are quite powerful) and does damage in a fixed area. Both of these are reason enough to cast it, and the boons come from a list of 3 while the storm lasts for 6 ticks. The storm may not give everyone all three of the boons, but all of the boons it gives are powerful defensive boons used in both melee and ranged combat.

The thief RNG is completely different. The thief steals an item randomly from a foe and then chooses when to use that item. The thief has time to determine what the effect will be and has ~45 seconds to use the item before it could hinder him by blocking use of steal. All of the stolen items have their own unique icon too, so an experienced thief can determine what he has in an instant and wait for the optimal time to use it.

Engineer elixirs give a boon or effect once and then go on fairly long cooldowns, often without doing anything else. Toss Elixir H, for instance can give either 10 seconds of vigor or regeneration, or 5 seconds of protection. The target will only get one, unlike the mesmer boons where odds are they’ll eventually get all two or three, and the skill has a 30 second cooldown. Chaos Storm, for comparison has a 35 second cooldown, is a combo field, and deals damage in addition to either giving 18 seconds of one boon or giving multiple boons. Elixir H is about as good as it gets for the engineer in the RNG department too. Toss Elixir S has a 60 second cooldown for either 4 seconds of stealth or 4 seconds of stability. The duration of the ability isn’t too far for the cooldown of the skill imo, but stealth and stability are conflicting boons.

Your kidding right?
I am sorry, but RNG is RNG. Chaba is right, you cannot sit here and complain about one and justify the other and expect to be taken seriously. That is the definition of hippocraticy.

I don’t really endorse RNG in any skills, especially situational skills like stealth or stability. RNG is never going to compare to reliable boon skills, and so elixirs will never be as good as something like shouts. Hold the line, save yourselves, stand your ground and retreat all make our Elixirs look like garbage (exept for S and toss R which are our only reliable ones), which means that most people won’t use them and that results in the devs monitoring (and nerfing) our more reliable skills.

As for mesmers and thiefs, I don’t think they benefit from RNG either, but at least the mesmer less than others. Mesmers often put out all the available boons in a single fight just by virtue of the skills being an autoattacks. I party with a mesmer and notice it, there’s barely any RNG to it because you know they’ll put out all the boons anyway. With regards to thief though, if they had a better mechanic maybe they’d have more than two builds and were of more use to parties. The way they are now it’s glass cannon dagger dagger or dagger pistol condition tank. Not a lot to work with, so I guess the devs figure they can fix a broken class by making one build ridiculously powerful.

coglin.1496:

cottage.3274:

well did you see the engineer trailers they made before release?the one when the rifle turret solo mobs?
hmm did your rifle turret ever solo a mob?:)
or the one when the engineer uses glue shot that actually stops mobs for you to set big ol` and it hits?:)
in my book this is a classic case of false advertising:)

Yes it did. Before they changed spacial dynamics, I could place the turret in a location that the mob couldn’t do damage to it, but it did not get the “invulnerable” flag that it does now. Although I would love to see the video you mention. They also showed a video for a profession called the “commando” that could call air strikes too. Did you slam the forums when that didn’t happen for you?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1tv9VpnwmY

The difference is, unlike yourself, I will provide a video to support it, and not just make a claim.

You guys do not have to like it, but if he is going to make a 100th thread on a topic, I am entitled to disagree. And I will do so anytime anyone is trying to change core professional mechanics, which is exactly what our tool belt system is now. It works, and there is nothing wrong with it.

When posters are continuously ignoring the broken, dysfunctional, or imbalanced skills to lobby to change the skills, abilities, and mechanics that work just fine, I will adamantly argue it.

is this guy for real?
first of the commando was a april fool’s joke also fyi
“The engineer profession influenced the Commando April Fool’s joke”.
so no i did not slam the forums when it didn’t happen coz i can take a joke and not be a fool like some people.
and since you are unfamiliar with google search i`ll give some links that you apparently cant look up by yourself.
and for the rifle turret you made it work by exploiting a bug gj for you m8.

http://massively.joystiq.com/2011/04/04/guild-wars-2-dev-blog-exposes-the-commando/

http://www.arena.net/blog/goin-commando-with-horia-dociu

at this point i cant take you seriously you borderline troll us i get your kind of ppl that want to argue just to argue.
if we will say its night you will say its day if we say its cold you will say it hot so on and so on.
so there is no point in engaging in a serious discussion with you.

Gurt.9368:

NevirSayDie.6235:

However, the fact is that it’s very easy to see all those bad skills and think, “aw, this profession is garbage.” It can also be frustrating to not be allowed to take all of our strong skills at the same time—so many of our skills come in strong/weak pairs when it comes to utility/toolbelt.

Personally, I think this is a big deal. Balancing taking strong skills by forcing weak skills is bad design. All skills should ideally be of about the same strength so that no few builds completely outshine others, unless simply put together poorly. Now, I fully realize that perfect balance is impossible, but it should always be striven for.

Fair enough. It’s what makes the engineer more difficult to craft a decent build out of than any other profession—it’s really difficult to avoid the things that don’t work and find a use for the things that are bad, but that you are practically forced to take. I kind of enjoy that, but maybe I’m just a glutton for punishment.

My point, though, was that insisting over and over again that the engineer is fine and those who disagree should reroll or get better is not a very effective way to communicate. Yes, there are some effective engi players. No, the engineer should not/is not going to be “re-worked” from the ground up. No, that does not mean that the profession is fine the way it is, and it certainly doesn’t mean that those who have succeeded at engineering should belittle the suggestions of those who haven’t. There are very good reasons that engi players are frustrated.

NevirSayDie.6235:

. No, the engineer should not/is not going to be “re-worked” from the ground up. No, that does not mean that the profession is fine the way it is, and it certainly doesn’t mean that those who have succeeded at engineering should belittle the suggestions of those who haven’t.

I couldn’t agree more. This was why I was stating repeatedly that folks should stop making threads attempting to complain about almost every skill, or lobby to change almost every skill, and to focus on what actually needs fixing. Part of the problem is folks ideology being inaccurate, all the while they assume it is fact. Point in case, the rifle. You consistently read that the warriors rifle does so much more damage then the engineers, when the engineer rifle damage coefficients are in fact higher on all but I think maybe one skill. Posters have a bad habit of assuming they know what other professions can or cannot due based purely off what they have see or hear, but do not experience. It wasn’t until I had leveled all 8 professions and spent time on them, that I fully realized this myself.

Ayestes.1273:

Heck I also wish there was a trait early in Firearms that made it so we can’t equip kits. Except to compensate this trait would give us 30% additional cooldown reduction on the Rifle and Pistol while increasing the Pistol auto’s base bleed by a second or two and the Rifle auto’s damage. Make it so Pistols and Pots isn’t damage nerfed simply becuase it doesn’t take kits. For the Rifle, make the Scope trait a deep tools trait that increases range by a further 25% and damage by 20% instead of the current iteration of it and you could have some interesting Sniper builds that lack kits. Change Blunderbuss to be usable at full Rifle range as a damage cooldown (with it’s close range super strength still) and you have just made two builds completely viable.

All my kudos for this, after trying several kit builds with my engi, I just went with a kitless rifle crit build. The idea of “denying” kits to yourself seems very interesting, as it would open up a lot of build possibilites.
While I can see that kits are currently a major part of the engineer profession, these changes would be good to see ingame. (atleast they would replace the useless Firearms traits.)

I believe I read somewhere that ANet said that Engineer is a class comfortable in Mid-range and close quarters combat. They should first make a clarification that an engineer’s weapon is not a Rifle but rather a Shotgun. ANet needs to clarify that engineer is a CQC/Mid-ranged class so people stop comparing out Attack range to a warrior’s rifle.

Rifle. I like the “Rifle” skills we currently have, but they need some buffing. I like how you “fixed” the skills especially on Overcharged shot. We need that CC, not the damage. So having it make lower damage while making it a cone AoE CC w/o self knockback is the way to go. But I believe we should limit it to only hitting 3 targets at a time or else its gonna be OP. I think they should fix Jump Shot’s animation and damage though.

Turrets. Yeah I like your idea of picking them up then gaining some other skills. Though I still believe they should get lower a cool down and scale with your current level.

Engineer as a CQC class. What is Close Quarters Combat? It’s a type of warfare where units engage at a very short range, 30 meters to hand-to-hand combat. We have the Flame Thrower Kit, Bomb Kit, and Tool Kit for that. But both the FT kit and Tool Kit are underpowered. I believe I don’t have to explain how FT is broken. Tool Kit though, has some great skills yet they still lack something. Toolkit #1’s animation is very slow and does little damage. Remember, we are a CQC class and we need something reliable for us to go melee. Tool Kit auto attack needs some buffing. #2 needs a higher stack of bleed. #3, 4, and 5 are good enough for me. Though they can fix Magnet Pull a little.

Engineers as masters of Combo Fields. Yes, I believe that engineers are very well the Masters of Combo Fields. We are the only class able to dish out 6 combo fields and have enough combo finishers to use them well. Yet, combo fields feel a little underutilized in Guild Wars 2, given that this is one of the unique features of the combat system.

Engineers can easily give out 12~15 stacks of might w/ all our blast finishers. We can also do 7k+ AoE heal with water combo field + blast finishers. Yet why is nobody doing it? Simply because the Combo Field feature is overpowered by the basic hack-and-slash and skill-to-kill combos. Let’s face it, although there are people who use combo fields, majority of players would go “Oh, there’s a whatever-it-is-combo-field-circle on the ground! I’ll still use whatever skill I have!”

ANet need to add some goodies so that people won’t ignore Combo Fields. Combo Fields and Finishers are great features but is too underpowered for people to value it. How about this, aside from giving out 3 stacks of might for Fire Field + Blast Finisher, how about dealing damage and some minor burning for your next attack as well? Here’s a rough draft.

Fire Field
Blast Finisher – 3x Might, Bonus Damage, Next attack deals Minor Burning damage(2s).
Leap Finisher – Fire Armor, Bonus Damage, leave a small area for 3 secs which inflicts burn(2s) if people step On it.
Projectile Finisher – Burning, Bonus Damage.
Whirl Finisher – Burning Bolts. Bonus Damage. Nothing much to change.

Water Field
Blast Finisher – Area Heal, Bonus Damage, 30% chance to Heal on your next 3 attacks.
Leap Finisher – Healing, Bonus Damage. Leave an area which heals 140 per pulse for 3 seconds. Area Heal stacks in duration.
Projectile Finisher – Regeneration, Minor Damage.
Whirl Finisher – Healing Bolts, Minor Damage.

Poison Field
Blast Finisher – Area Weakness, Bonus Damage, 30% chance to poison(3s) on your next attack.
Leap Finisher – Weakness(5 secs), Bonus Damage.
Projectile Finisher – Poison, Bonus Damage.
Whirl Finisher – Poison Bolts, Bonus Damage.

Light Field
Blast Finisher – Area Retaliation, Bonus Damage, Protection(2s).
Leap Finisher – Retaliation, Bonus Damage. Leave an area(4s) which grants protection. Does not stack in duration.
Projectile Finisher – Remove Condition, Bonus Damage.
Whirl Finisher – Cleansing Bolts, Bonus Damage.

Lightning – Note: I believe Engineers should get access to this Combo Field as well. As of now, only elementalists can.
Blast Finisher – Area Swiftness, Bonus Damage, 3x Area Vulnerability(4s).
Leap Finisher – Dazing Strike, Bonus Damage, 3x Vulnerability(4s).
Projectile Finisher – Vulnerability, Bonus Damage.
Whirl Finisher – Brutal Bolts, Bonus Damage.

These are just examples of what Anet can do to these Combo Fields and Finishers. I think a lot more people will value Combo Fields and actually plan on how to use their skills effectively, not just unleash their skills as soon as it finishes cooldown.

I really like your ideas about the combo fields, but I’m not so sure about your reasoning for people not bothering with the combos. It seems to me that the good, smaller groups will make regular use of combo fields (I know that the couple I usually run with and myself do), while in larger engagements nobody cares because someone’s using a finisher anyway. I will agree that most combo finishers are underpowered, however.

I completely agree with your bit about engineers focusing in CQC.

-Give turrets smarter targeting and a extra button above each turret in the skill bar for ‘attack my current target’ , they could also need a little buff as even fully specced into em die to easily.
-Give rifles long-range skills that fit its high range on the auto attack and make a shotgun kit out of some of its current skills.
-Do something against the pain caused by hammering down 1’ when using the grenade kit… by god theres no need to press the same button furiously against any target even if its stationairy … its frustrating and the reason why almost noone uses it.
-Improve the Toolkit and give it more interesting abilities to secure a location for example. Setting up 2-3 nodes that link with electricity , used to keep people off turrets or points for example stunning them if they pass through shortly or something like that.