Guild Wars 2

My main is an engineer, I had a lot of fun leveling it up. Until Anet decided to nerf us on every update, and just turn a blind eye on this class.

I took a long break from the game after they decided to nerf our underwater skills to the ground. I remember warrior being extremely powerful for pve, and thief dominated pvp.

Did anything change? Did they fix the multiple engineer bugs, and buff us? Is Engineer still the weakest class?

They haven’t fixed anything. The buffs they’ve given are minimal. The Engineer is probably still the weakest class.

Doesn’t mean you can’t do some crazy impressive stuff with it, though.

When they finally fix things and rebalance some of the particularly bad parts of the class…it’s going to be hilarious.

Did anything change? Yes. Weapon sigils now work with kits and to compensate grenade #1 damage was nerfed by 30%

Did they fix the multiple engineer bugs, and buff us? Nope.

Is Engineer still the weakest class? That’s debatable. In my personal opinion the answer is “yes, or close to it” if looking at the game broadly across the aspects of combat and game content. My Engi can farm Orr DE loot like a beast though!

I keep enjoying the engineer because it’s fun to play—using four kits, no two fights ever go exactly the same way in PvP and there’s an extremely high skill cap that I certainly haven’t hit yet. It’s also very rewarding to do well with an engineer because you know you’re playing against the odds.

Sigils were patched to now work with kits, which has pretty much been our only buff so far. In other words, not much has changed, but engineer players are now so pro that when the profession gets balanced engi players will look like superheroes

I too enjoy the engineer despite its state of underpoweredness and bugginess. If you think about it though, ideally, we have nowhere to go but up. We can’t really get any worse, so if you can adapt and do decently now, it will only get better.

With that said though, the versatility that the engineer brings is second to only the elementalist and there’s a strange sense of satisfaction to make something work against the odds (not from a balance perspective though).

How? Easily. I have a whole compliment of skills that are fun to use, I’m extremely well rounded and can switch from good DPS to group support at the drop off a hat, and the engineer is probably the wackiest, quirkiest profession in the game, and that brings a satisfaction all its own.

I am a credit to my party whenever I go on a dungeon run, and I never feel useless. Sure, anet still has some kinks to work out with us, but I find it far more worthwhile to enjoy the unique aspects of my class than to look at others with envy.

To quote the Heavy that often likes to jump on my Engineer’s teleporters in TF2…

“Engineer is credit to team!”

Same goes for Engineer in GW2. I’ve always had a blast in teams, and a good Engineer can contribute so much, just by being the quirky effect machine that it is. Also Flamethrower. I’ve learned to use it well and avoid the issues that some people claim make it unplayable, thus making it mmph munna muh muuff.

“How do you keep enjoying Engineer?”

Easy, I rolled a Warrior. I’m loving my Engineer so much more now that I play my Warrior full-time.

“How do you keep enjoying your engineer?”

Easy, I joined a few other engineers in this all engineer guild and only play him in somewhat coordinated attacks with mortars in WvW. Its a blast.

I’m looking forward to when they finally fix the Engineer to bring it more into line with the other classes. If you’re good with the class now, and it really is possible to do some crazy-seeming things with it as it is, when they make it better, it’ll be hilarious.

The engineer’s skillset is fun to use even when nerfed. All the CC allows for you to do some pretty off-the-walls unexpected stuff and get away from it. I don’t think any other class can have the same feeling.

This is why I empathize heavily for rangers. They’re in a pretty bad state, AND their skills don’t seem as fun to use (in a nerfed state) as the engineer’s are.

Still, I’d like more DPS-focused builds for the engineer (that can compete with other classes) that don’t revolve around spamming grenades. Once they fix the bugs and apply the buffs to allow for that, I probably will not play any other profession.

Eastcorn.5901:

This is why I empathize heavily for rangers. They’re in a pretty bad state, AND their skills don’t seem as fun to use (in a nerfed state) as the engineer’s are.

They’re as boring as a Warrior with the imbalance of an Engineer. Poor guys.

Eastcorn.5901:

This is why I empathize heavily for rangers. They’re in a pretty bad state, AND their skills don’t seem as fun to use (in a nerfed state) as the engineer’s are.

I wouldn’t consider Rangers to be in such a bad state. I love stacking conditions with my short bow before going into melee range and dancing around my opponent with sword and torch. It is really satisfying to do good melee damage then evade powerful attacks at just the right time (with the in built sword abilities), or maybe get back into using short bow. I wish my engineer had that much maneuverability with his main-hand weapons, instead of having to use kits to be able to have some fun.

I do admit that rangers need a lot of fixing, just like the engineer, although they seem to be underpowered for reasons opposite to those the engineers have. Engineers are balanced around doing moderate damage when specked completely into a traitline (ie grenadier, might stacking flamethrower, etc), so they’re kind of kitten poor at things they’re not specked into. Rangers are balanced around doing moderate damage with their main weapons without the use of traits, mostly because most traits and skills are really lackluster and boring. I love both classes, but I find it funny how they can be broken for such different reasons.

EDIT: I do want to emphasize that as someone who loves playing both engineer and ranger, I consider engineer to be more broken (because of nerfs). The sword buffs and having the best heal in the game don’t mean the ranger is fixed (that will take a complete overhaul of their really boring traits/skills), but it’s made them competitive, unlike the engineer. At least in dungeons I consider rangers to be way better than engineers (that isn’t to say that some people don’t do better with engineers :3).

I recently switched to a pistol condition build. It’s not great, but at least I don’t have to play knots in my fingers for mediocre results.

On Rangers I agree with the above post, the December fixes have gone a long way to fix the most glaring issues and while they’re far from finished, they’re not in as bad a position as many still seem to think.

By trying one new trait build after another in WvW, randomly dueling people I come across and create movie’s out of it! There is a ton off different play style’s, some more niche than other’s, some for pure roaming alone, and again other’s that shine under teamwork! There is so much differently to do I hardly have time to play anything else actaully!

as long i enjoy playing my engineer.. nothing that worries me. i dont care if other classes look down on us, i dont even bother… im still making an experiment how to counter all classes.

Was in a frac then someone called me a support class

You ask with the assumption that everyone has stopped enjoying their engineer. I for one have never stopped enjoying the class. Despite all the nerds and so called minimal buffs engineer has never stopped being fun. I have never seen any class as impossible to take down or any part of the game in playable. But to answer the question I have always just kept things fresh. I have done the nades thing until they adjusted it then I stopped just spamming nades and switched a kit for once. I found that my damage output increased as I became used to switching kits every second. I then went on t use bomb kits, tank at variations, pistols. Flame thrower then now back to nades. I have found that engineer lends itself to so many play styles that I literally have like 4sets of armor to switch it up on the fly. I never get bored because I do not allow myself to be that way. N I don’t do save so I don’t know how it plays out there but everywhere else is pretty fun. And another thing about the “underpowered” state of our class, any supposed jack of all trades class shouldn’t be expected to be on the level of classes that skew towards a certain strength. Get used to the fact that we won’t be the best X class because from jump street we weren’t designed to be so.

jeez so many crybabies ’round here… Just how do you guys play the engineer? it is without a doubt the funniest class, it has HUGE blowouts, immobilizes, multiple conditions, good AoE, AMAZING support, best condition remover, perma swiftness, AMAZING heals (now that the healing turret works), perma swiftness, amazing synergies with the many runes and sigils (which now work correctly) best pull of the game, it has simply so many ways to own ANY class in pvp.

And btw… we HAD bug fixes:
-Flamethrower’s AoE doesn’t miss as often as it did before, because it has finally be adjusted to match other cone skill’s functionality, no longer bound to camera as it used to, there’s still some issues but not that game-breaking.

-Flamethrower’s fire field now hits properly due to the general change of Rectangular Skills (it’s finally gonna hit AND scare).

-Weapon stats now apply to kits

So… besides those the only major fixes that still need to be addressed are:
1-turrets
2-static discharge
3-shield skills rework/fix

I wonder why you guys keep asking for buffs when I don’t really see the need, maybe an extra 2s bleeding duration on pistols, fine but what else? I guess you should just play warriors and I’m glad you do, ‘coz I don’t want such bad community inside the engineer section and I’d feel the shame of having such comrades… honestly I can own any warrior in any department with an engineer.

Anymras.5729:

I’m looking forward to when they finally fix the Engineer to bring it more into line with the other classes. If you’re good with the class now, and it really is possible to do some crazy-seeming things with it as it is, when they make it better, it’ll be hilarious.

it is not even as close to being out of line with other classes as you often try to paint them in my opinion. You have made comparisons to warriors in the past. Comparing rifles, and comparing shouts to elixirs. Yet most people who have played both through 80 learned that warriors are only OPish in PvE. You get them in WvW or sPvP, and any competent engineer is at even odds.

I avoid other Engineers like the plague. All they want to do is talk about how other classes are butterflys and kittens, and how Engineers get “Nerfed” every patch. Ive been a flamethrower Engineer from Beta till now. It’s awesome, it’s always been awesome. Now that theve added the sigils its even more awesome. I know for a fact, tons of engineers out there have stopped playing there class, not because it performs diferently. But because someone told them it was" broken" now.

The only people i kinda felt sorry for was the Grenadiers, but that change is ancient history now. And im pretty sure i keep reading about a Grenade build thats one shotting people in PvP. So im going to pack up my tears for that lot as well

I love this class. I haven’t noticed much changes except the fix to EG’s #5 which doesn’t bother me when I heal in dungeons like CoF and TA or even in WvW. I noticed the fix lto FT last night which allowed me to burn a group trying to take out our siege, but I prefer my prybar :P I never saw anything wrong with this class, just takes more time/skill to adapt to. I will still play this class regardless before going back to my level 80 mesmer and thief.

coglin.1496:

Anymras.5729:

I’m looking forward to when they finally fix the Engineer to bring it more into line with the other classes. If you’re good with the class now, and it really is possible to do some crazy-seeming things with it as it is, when they make it better, it’ll be hilarious.

it is not even as close to being out of line with other classes as you often try to paint them in my opinion. You have made comparisons to warriors in the past. Comparing rifles, and comparing shouts to elixirs. Yet most people who have played both through 80 learned that warriors are only OPish in PvE. You get them in WvW or sPvP, and any competent engineer is at even odds.

I think one of the problems we have is that this game keeps getting balanced around PvP and WvW and those balances affect how each class performs in PvE. If you compare how a thief performs in a dungeon party with a guardian, you can see that the guardian is obviously the better choice, meanwhile in WvW most consider the thief to be competitive as their kill ratios are greater. Warrior on the other hand needed some buff in the other aspects of the game, but not by any means in PvE, where he can solo dungeons if the player is competent enough. The engineer is in this odd spot where depending on his build he can be really mediocre at dungeons/WvW/PvP in comparison to every other class in the game. At the same time though, we can be really competent if built properly, but our usefulness isn’t always obvious and we often go overlooked by some parties.

What seems to happen a lot is that, since the engineer has such a diversity in builds, people may want to force their build into an aspect of the game it isn’t suited for. In any case, I think the engineer is on the right track. The devs have shown us with the last patch that they’re willing to fix the problems our class has, so hopefully we will be good at all aspects of the game and not considered a “support class” for the others.

EDIT: As a final note, Guardians are definitely overpowered in dungeons/PvP, and thiefs are a broken class that’s only good at two aspects of the game (only with two builds). To remind everyone, while being more boring than the engineer, Ranger is still a way stronger class, at least in PvE.

Jester.1236:

The only people i kinda felt sorry for was the Grenadiers, but that change is ancient history now. And im pretty sure i keep reading about a Grenade build thats one shotting people in PvP. So im going to pack up my tears for that lot as well

Yeah teldo just posted a video 6 days ago of him 1 shotting with grenade barrage.

So yeah, clearly we are the most underpowered class out there.

Seriously though, we do need more of our skills to be in line with comparitive skills other professions have.

coglin.1496:

Anymras.5729:

I’m looking forward to when they finally fix the Engineer to bring it more into line with the other classes. If you’re good with the class now, and it really is possible to do some crazy-seeming things with it as it is, when they make it better, it’ll be hilarious.

it is not even as close to being out of line with other classes as you often try to paint them in my opinion. You have made comparisons to warriors in the past. Comparing rifles, and comparing shouts to elixirs. Yet most people who have played both through 80 learned that warriors are only OPish in PvE. You get them in WvW or sPvP, and any competent engineer is at even odds.

Have I? I remember comparing the Engineer to the Elementalist (especially after playing as one for a little while), but I don’t recall doing much comparing to the Warrior. Well, aside from possibly comparing turrets to the banners.

In the end, my opinion will remain that the Engineer isn’t balanced on the same level as the other classes – until such time, of course, as we are.

We’re still afflicted with decreased damage (as a ‘hybrid tax’ for our ephemeral versatility), bugged traits and skills, an excessively hit-or-miss class mechanic, RNG skills, overly restrictive weapon choice (because we’re all supposed to use kits, probably), and when they get things working that they’ve meant to get working from the start, they nerf us for it.

On the bright side, I suppose, we’ve finally started getting bugfixes.

Anymras.5729:

We’re still afflicted with decreased damage (as a ‘hybrid tax’ for our ephemeral versatility), bugged traits and skills, an excessively hit-or-miss class mechanic, RNG skills, overly restrictive weapon choice (because we’re all supposed to use kits, probably), and when they get things working that they’ve meant to get working from the start, they nerf us for it.

On the bright side, I suppose, we’ve finally started getting bugfixes.

One thing you and others seem to assume when you state it like this, is that we are the only profession with bugs. This “oh our class has bugs” excuse is so unreasonable it makes it hard to take you seriously here. If you are so unknowledgable about the game as a whole that you think our profession carries the bulk of the bugs, then there is no help for you.

coglin.1496:

Anymras.5729:

We’re still afflicted with decreased damage (as a ‘hybrid tax’ for our ephemeral versatility), bugged traits and skills, an excessively hit-or-miss class mechanic, RNG skills, overly restrictive weapon choice (because we’re all supposed to use kits, probably), and when they get things working that they’ve meant to get working from the start, they nerf us for it.

On the bright side, I suppose, we’ve finally started getting bugfixes.

One thing you and others seem to assume when you state it like this, is that we are the only profession with bugs. This “oh our class has bugs” excuse is so unreasonable it makes it hard to take you seriously here. If you are so unknowledgable about the game as a whole that you think our profession carries the bulk of the bugs, then there is no help for you.

I don’t assume that we are the only profession with bugs – I do notice, though, that we have more bugfixes (not counting tooltip corrections) in the 28th’s patch than any other profession (even counting ones that’re possibly just rebalances), and that we have the only dedicated bug-list page on the wiki (fun fact: there used to be another, the other one belonging to the Ranger, wherein such things as ‘Ricochet hits neutral/yellow enemies’ was cited as a bug, but it has since disappeared). This might just mean that they’ve finally gotten around to fixing our bugs, or that for one reason or another nobody’s bothered to make a bug list page on the wiki for the Engineer.

Granted, bugs aren’t something that makes a class underpowered, so I suppose that I shouldn’t have cited them in the initial post. We just happen to have so many, with so few getting fixed, that it’s easy to forget that that’s not how they’re supposed to work.

Anymras.5729:

I don’t assume that we are the only profession with bugs -

Then why do you constantly use it as a justification in your claim that we are underpowered? If your aware that every profession has bugs, why does having bugs make us underpowered?

Anymras.5729:

we have the only dedicated bug-list page on the wiki (fun fact: there used to be another, the other one belonging to the Ranger, wherein such things as ‘Ricochet hits neutral/yellow enemies’ was cited as a bug, but it has since disappeared). This might just mean that they’ve finally gotten around to fixing our bugs, or that for one reason or another nobody’s bothered to make a bug list page on the wiki for the Engineer.

Yes, I am well aware of the engineer wiki bug page. You know why. Because I started it, personally. I remember spending lots of time explaining to people that we did not have more or less bugs then any other class, but a lot of unknowledgable folks claimed it as a sign that Anet was aware that we have more bugs or something, which is not true. There are several wiki pages I created myself in the wiki. There is much much more that I update when changes occur. The wiki is not an encyclopedia. It is user posted information. Thus exposed to said users errors.

Did you think Anet maintains that? That they have a rep who does that as a job aspect? Did you think a magic wiki fairy does it?

The Official Guild Wars 2 Wiki is an online, public collaboration of information centering around ArenaNet’s upcoming online roleplaying game, Guild Wars 2. All information contained on this website is provided by the voluntary efforts of individual players and groups working to develop a comprehensive information resource for all Guild Wars fans to use and enjoy.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Guild_Wars_2_Wiki:General_disclaimer

How do you keep enjoying Engineer?

Simple.

I rolled a guardian.

coglin.1496:

Anymras.5729:

I don’t assume that we are the only profession with bugs -

Then why do you constantly use it as a justification in your claim that we are underpowered? If your aware that every profession has bugs, why does having bugs make us underpowered?

Anymras.5729:

we have the only dedicated bug-list page on the wiki (fun fact: there used to be another, the other one belonging to the Ranger, wherein such things as ‘Ricochet hits neutral/yellow enemies’ was cited as a bug, but it has since disappeared). This might just mean that they’ve finally gotten around to fixing our bugs, or that for one reason or another nobody’s bothered to make a bug list page on the wiki for the Engineer.

Yes, I am well aware of the engineer wiki bug page. You know why. Because I started it, personally. I remember spending lots of time explaining to people that we did not have more or less bugs then any other class, but a lot of unknowledgable folks claimed it as a sign that Anet was aware that we have more bugs or something, which is not true. There are several wiki pages I created myself in the wiki. There is much much more that I update when changes occur. The wiki is not an encyclopedia. It is user posted information. Thus exposed to said users errors.

Did you think Anet maintains that? That they have a rep who does that as a job aspect? Did you think a magic wiki fairy does it?

The Official Guild Wars 2 Wiki is an online, public collaboration of information centering around ArenaNet’s upcoming online roleplaying game, Guild Wars 2. All information contained on this website is provided by the voluntary efforts of individual players and groups working to develop a comprehensive information resource for all Guild Wars fans to use and enjoy.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Guild_Wars_2_Wiki:General_disclaimer

Well, then, congratulations on taking the initiative to do something that, apparently, no other person did (except the person who started that short-lived Ranger bug page).

As for your first comment…did you finish reading the post? I don’t think you did, as you felt the need to say that.

I’m not going to debate whether bugs make a class underpowered – for reasons that will be clear if you can bring yourself to read the last two or three lines of text in my previous post.

It’ll still be my opinion that we’re not balanced to the same level as the rest of the professions, however, for the rest of the reasons I point out in the post before that. I’m not debating those, either.

Like someone else said, I run different traits and gear depending on if I want to be GC rifle SD build, Nade spamming, P/S toolkit/elixer tank, or whatever else I think would be fun. Engi is a very versatile proffesion. The high skill cap is what keeps me playing it though.

How do I keep enjoying my Engi?

I pull out my motherkittening flamethrower! That’s how!

(seriously, though, that is one of the most fun weapons in the game)