Guild Wars 2

So…why does Thief get a tier one power trait (Mug) that causes his F1 to do an instant ~500 base damage, while the Engineer gets a tier one power trait that causes his elixirs to become damaging projectiles…for about a ~50 base damage?

Our trait for damaging elixirs is objectively, unarguably worthless, especially compared to the thief’s Mug, which almost every single thief takes in his arsenal. Both are what I’d consider extremely similar traits in theory, yet with extraordinarily different baseline damages.

I’m wondering, how many of these traits and skills do we have that are clearly inferior to other classes’? Until recently, tool kit was just an inferior mishmash of skills from other classes – Box of nails is a horrible version of Caltrops, doing roughly an eighth of the bleed stacks and cripple. Gear Shield was a Shield Stance that lasted half as long. Magnet was a Scorpion wire with a shorter range and a tripled cast time.

Now, I know Tool kit received a massive buff recently. After months of being largely considered the most useless kit, it’s finally found a place on some of my builds despite still having a horrendous 1 and 2 skill. Regardless, this doesn’t change the fact: How many of these things do we have? Anyone have an answer?

I’m beginning to feel as if our class either got left behind in the dust in the pre-release balancing, or we our class has been purposely designed to be inferior to other classes. Why else would we have joke traits like Acidic Elixirs? I can spec full glass cannon in PvP and this piece of crap will be doing 450 damage on CRITS to other glass cannons. That’s less than the damage that a full toughness specced guardian bunker might do with an autoattack.

I’d be fine with this trait if all classes had useless traits in the adept traitline, and only started getting useful traits in master and grandmaster.

But thief gets Mug, and we get Acidic Elixirs.

PLEASE BALANCE OUR CLASS.

Static Discharge is Tier 1 as well. It’s pretty darn good…

We also get Rocket Boots, which is Lightning Reflexes on a shorter CD. Slightly different side-effects, but the sides serve the same essential purpose and the core functionality (break stun and create space) is the same.

We also get Elixir S, which is Mist Form on a shorter CD.

I can’t speak much as to the specific traits Mug and Acidic Elixirs, but something tells me Mug affects one skill, while Acidic Elixirs can affect up to 4. Something also tells me that every ability affected by Acidic Elixirs is an area attack, while I’m pretty sure Steal is single-target. Don’t quote me on that, though.

Different classes have different strengths and weaknesses. As it turns out, thieves are really good at single target DPS by design, and engineers have, by design, lots of versatility.

Consider that toolkit has always given 4 abilities plus a #1 attack whereas, for example, Caltops and Scorpion Wire give 1 ability each.

@Townopolis

Steal is also an instant cast and can be comboed with incredibly easily. If Acidic Elixirs made elixir throws instant cast as well, I’d be perfectly fine with the trait. It’s a slap in the face that it does subpar damage and the only justification is “well, it’s AoE! And you can throw up to four of them!”

If you want to contend that Acidic Elixirs should be better at AoE damage, let me advise you that it does roughly 1/6-1/7 the baseline damage of steal. That means that you would have to gather up many many mobs, and then have to have multiple elixirs, just to make this trait worthwhile.

But then if you wanted AoE damage, you should have just been throwing grenades! Oops!

Rocket boots ccs the user, and is probably one of the worst skills in the game. Great, a stunbreaker that stuns me! Just what I needed! Oh wait, I’d take Lightning Reflexes any day. I honestly want someone to prove me wrong on this. Saying “Oh, using it in a smoke field is useful though!” Doesn’t make sense. It would be like Shadowstep on the thief only being useful if he also took another skill to make it useful. Then it’s not very useful at all…And on top of that, Rocket Boots has only single-use functionality. We can’t use it to gap-close, since that will leave us CC’d near our enemies. We can ONLY use it for running away, and it’s subpar at that. Versatility at its finest?

I’ll grant you that Elixir S is probably the best invulnerability in the game. Not only is it on the shortest CD, engineers also benefit the most from invulnerability, because they have full access to their kits while invulnerable. The only problem…Arenanet seems to think that because we have a good invulnerability, we don’t need access to stability.

Stability is important for pointholding, and until we have a reliable source of it, (An elite that hardly anyone uses, and…Elixir S toolbelt 50% chance to proc stability on an extremely short duration, 50% to…stealth. Which makes it so we can’t contest.) we’ll likely always be inferior to Guardian and Elementalist bunkers in TPvP.

Different classes have different strengths and weaknesses. I’m okay with that.

What I’m not okay with is a class that has singular, un-synergetic strengths that pigeonhole us into certain type of builds forever.

Acidic Elixirs will never be useful in current implementation.

Rocket Boots will never be useful in current implementation.

And by the way, saying that “if you set it up properly, and in this one situation, and things are like this, then it has potential to be useful!” that’s basically the opposite of useful. It’s overspecialized. The opposite of versatility.

Here’s the thing about the Rocket Boots self-CC. It’s very short. The skill gets me out of whatever death-zone you tried to lock me in, be it a dragon’s fang, stacked wells, 100b, or a dungeon boss using their own roided-up version of any of these. Rocket Boots gets me out and then, a moment later, I’m up again. I’ve only ever encountered CC in two versions: the kind I just sort of ignore and the kind that has me sitting down eating kitten for multiple seconds. Rocket Boots is always preferable.

Perhaps people who only play tPvP will dislike the skill, will be averse to any ability that includes self-CC, but I have a lot of trouble believing anyone who says Rocket Boots will “never be useful” because it is useful. It is very useful.

Nope. Using any of the other stunbreaker utilities would almost always be more useful.

If you’re talking about PvE, then you will never encounter a situation where, oh boy, I’m immobilized and cc’d and dazed and 50 AoEs are being laid on top of me by an intelligent, malicious enemy player. You’re fighting predictable computers with predictable rotations, and you might as well just be using a regular stunbreaker to get back into the fight faster. And if you need an “oh dang” stunbreaker every 24 or 30 seconds – Just what the hell are you doing? Are you getting pulled in by every single one of Kohler’s spins? You’re not being useful to anyone being on the ground for 2 seconds out of every 30, and if you’re not using it that often, you are using an inferior stunbreaker, because the main draw is the “relatively” short cooldown time.

Also, I don’t “only play PvP”. I play WvW, PvE, SPvP, and TPvP. In SPvP Rocket boots is only good for gimmick builds and running away, and any burst class with intelligence and mobility will instantly be on top of you again if you try to use that as an escape in SPvP. I don’t speak out of turn, either – I’ve tried it. A thief will steal or shadowstep to close the distance, an elementalist will ride the lightning or teleport, and a warrior will rush or whirlwind attack. The list goes on. And the enemy will be in your face again, and here you are down a utility skill. If you are fighting less intelligent enemies – well hey, I can use a 4-turret build and demolish people! That doesn’t mean the build is good, that means your enemies are bad.

And even if your Rocket Boots skill does work, that’s all you can use it for. Just one thing. Running away. Your extremely precious utility slot, doubly precious for being a kit-wielding engineer, is now useless because you decided to take a utility just for running away. Elixir R can be used for two extra dodges and Elixir S can be used to hold aggro, and those are on top of the stunbreaking capabilities. They can also be traited for additional elixir effects.

On the other hand, Rocket boots can be used for running away. And that’s it. The toolbelt skill is subpar if you don’t spec for condition damage, and provides no extra utility. Rocket Boots is probably the only stunbreaker in the game that can only be used for a single purpose. The ONLY time I could see it being used intelligently is perhaps in WvW scouting where you would combine with another stunbreaker for a fast getaway from enemy zergs – overspecialization at its finest.

Believe me, I want every Engineer skill to be good. But you’re deluding yourself in attempting to make this skill out to be anything other than subpar.

Sure, I can make a subpar skill work. But it will almost never be the best skill I could be taking in any given scenario.

a 500 damage with cooldown is nothing. Just saying.

I agree acidic elixir is on the weak side, but what is an Acidic Elixir Glass Cannon? In fact i think the fact that there is only 1 offensive toolbelt elixir kinda screws up any offensive alchemist builds. However I think you should go pvp using a thief first before you claim that thiefs are better than engineers.

All professions have trash traits that not a single one of the million plus players will ever, ever use more than once or twice for laughs. It’s part of a time-honored RPG tradition of having some tempting, but underpowered choices, so that you feel like you’ve accomplished something by discovering the better ones.

NevirSayDie.6235:

All professions have trash traits that not a single one of the million plus players will ever, ever use more than once or twice for laughs. It’s part of a time-honored RPG tradition of having some tempting, but underpowered choices, so that you feel like you’ve accomplished something by discovering the better ones.

…Dude.

What?

Did you really just try to tell me Arenanet intentionally made Acidic Elixirs useless just so someone else can feel good when they discover that Grenadier is a good trait? And you think this is TRADITION?

That just

I dont even

I have no idea why mug scales so well.
5-6k is nuts.

Frankly the entire 1-5 traitline in explosives is terrible.

Destroyer made a good point about static discharge, or alternatively kit refinement.

Rocket boots are very very usefull in www skirmishing. And thats where I realy put my effort into. I use it all the time in www. I dont play spvp and I agree on rocket boots in pve. I never use Rocket boots in pve…they suck for that. For pve i use the rocket turret (or elixir gun) in the “rocket boots” slot.

With the meta how it is… I’d say Engies are one of the more balanced classes out there. Yeah, there’s problems, but Engies look on the brightside and say “Well, we still have a lot of fun and useful tools.” Heck, we have quite a few viable builds available to us, one of which seems to heavily rely on smacking things with a friggin’ wrench! Sure, Grenadier is the big flavor of the month right now, but there’s Flamethrowers running about, Elixir gunners running some of the most effective support in the game, Bombermen, Condition pistoleros… We’ve got a lot of great options. Sure, there’s some stinkers, but if ArenaNet said “Hey, we’re only going to work on bug fixes for Engie while we fix some more pressing troubles in other classes.” I’d give them the thumbs up, set up my dispenser, my turrets, and play some good ol’ acoustic guitar.

Heck, what about poor Shrapnel, right there next to acidic elixirs? That poor guy needs some love. But in the meantime, I’ll take Incendiary Powder or Exploit Weakness, maybe even Forceful explosives.

The point is, when I look at the Engineer, I am guaranteeing myself one thing: choices. Glorious, stupendous, choices.

Now excuse me while I strap on some rocket boots. I’m gonna go kite me some Champions.

Choices. Engineer..

What?

1 right choice.

5 eh. if you say so choices.
and 10 oh, god what are you doing choices.

Casia.4281:

Choices. Engineer..

What?

1 right choice.

5 eh. if you say so choices.
and 10 oh, god what are you doing choices.

So…

A user earlier posted a great niche build called Tankcat, that the user found to be hilariously capable of doing great things in their chosen area of play. They reported great success using the build, and encouraged others to try it out.

I’ve been having great success running my Pistol/Shield tanky condition build.

I have a friend who dominates with a flamethrower, minefields, rocket boots, and a maniacally loud laughter that haunts my every waking moment.

But I guess… Despite our success… We are doing it all wrong.

Lemme guess, we need to spec Grenades to be useful?

If you can give me some real reason that other builds aren’t viable, then by all means. And saying “This build is better” isn’t a good reason. Maybe Grenadier does have better damage by a noticable margin. Doesn’t mean that my pyromaniac friend should be burying his face in a tear-soaked pillow.

If your friend is “dominating” with flamethrower, then I think that just speaks of the level of what you consider viable. When the kit is mathematically shown to be under-preforming.

Everyone has anecdotes. Anecdotes are not evidence.
Post after post with people insisting to use condition on pistols, just cause pistols do cond damage. They obviously have not actually put any thought into it, or did any math on the matter.

There is admittedly some shift in spvp vs wvw and pve, since traits and abilities often work differently in each.
You do not lose stats for using kits in spvp for example, since weapons have no stats, only sigils. While in pve and wvw, your weapons will have like 170 power, 9-10% crit damage, etc, that you lose. that is a pretty huge shift in how powerful kits are vs rifle/pistols.
Or deployable turrets only working in spvp. That right there, turrets are FAR more viable in spvp because of that alone.

but all around grenades are FAR more powerful. perfect imbalance is fine. but the variance here is 3-4 times as powerful. not 50% more powerful.
And elixirs also outshine gadgets, and turrets by a pretty large margin as well. Cleansing, might, raw utility in haste, wall block/reflect, S evade, R resing/cleansing, B’s massive buffs.

I do have to chime in and say that every class has crap traits. And engineer, if you wanted, could combine static discharge with tossed elixirs for a decent chunk of damage per throw (not that I advise this, as you’re kittening yourself compared to the option of just running grenades).

I will say that the explosives early traits are not bad though, bar acidic elixirs. 6% chance of bleeding per explosion translates to 17% chance of at least one bleed per grenade attack. The bleed lasts 15 seconds (assuming 30 points in explosives). If you don’t like grenades, it has a 33% chance of a 2s burn every 3s. Great for single target things in sPvP.

The only craptastic traits that come to mind are a few – 3% chance to convert incoming conditions to boons (If it ever goes off, I don’t notice – unless it gave me aegis and I suddenly, randomly block with no allied guardian around). Juggernaut (if only because flamethrower scales so terribly with power, and giving might is like saying here’s a pixie stick to go with your lighter), Precise Sights is indeed crap (1 stack of 2s vulnerability oh my god), Autotool Installation (Wow it heals for 10% every 5-10 seconds? What a great trait!), Armor Mods (another crap 30-point trait: WHY IS THIS NOT PROTECTION, I don’t care if we’d have 2 traits that did it then), Scope (doesn’t work), Always Prepared (Here lemme rez y- what the kitten did I just pick up?).

Compared to other classes, we actually have far more useable traits. I mean, look at warrior – regenerating banners compared to healing shouts is like comparing grenadier to the smoke bomb dispenser (not that smoke bomb’s bad, just terrible by direct comparison).

Anecdotal evidence isn’t something to disregard simply because it’s not backed up by a stack of numbers high enough to make Einstein say “no thank you.”

People’s play style, their preferences, how they view a given situation… All of them have a heavy impact on how things work for them. I’ve done Grenadier. I honestly can’t get it to work impressively better than some of my other builds. A set isn’t as good as the napkin math in an idealized vaccum tells us it is. It’s as good as the player who is pressing the buttons from behind a monitor. What works for me, might not work for you, vice versa.

My definition of viable boils down to one thing: is it doing it’s job without making me slam my face into my keyboard in frustration? If so, then yes, it is at least viable. Maybe my build doesn’t trivialize content like you seem to assert that Grenades do. Maybe that means that the problem doesn’t lie within Engineer, so much as it does with one skill perhaps being a bit much…

Yah you know what some of our utility skills are subpar compared to other classes…. Anyone ever stop to think that…. hey.. we have pretty much ALL of the utility skills… know any other class that can drop more blast finishers in a row?? Engineers imo are the best class in the game…. WHY? because we can access to like… 26 skills at the same time in one build if we want to ….. That leaves a tonne of choices…. Thieves do single target dps very well and they should. Scorpion Wire is better then Magnetic pull and it should be… WHY??? because they dont have access to 2 aoe knockbacks and 2 block skills at the SAME time. Engineers are the jack of all trades. If all our utilities that we borrowed from other classes were as good… it would be horribly inbalanced.

Ricky Rouse.1583:

NevirSayDie.6235:

All professions have trash traits that not a single one of the million plus players will ever, ever use more than once or twice for laughs. It’s part of a time-honored RPG tradition of having some tempting, but underpowered choices, so that you feel like you’ve accomplished something by discovering the better ones.

…Dude.

What?

Did you really just try to tell me Arenanet intentionally made Acidic Elixirs useless just so someone else can feel good when they discover that Grenadier is a good trait? And you think this is TRADITION?

That just

I dont even

Yes, I was exaggerating a little. And I’m not saying it’s a good tradition. However, in any of the eight professions, there are traits that no one in their right mind would ever use.

Same goes for other games as well. I played a certain recent blizzard ARPG (can’t recommend it)—each class had something like 60 skills to choose a bar of six from, and every single person in the game used maybe a total of 10-12 of them from each class. That’s a pretty blatant example, but I’d argue that there are just bad choices in most RPGs.

Elementalists have a blast finisher on a 4.5s cooldown (I know it doesn’t work at the moment, many things don’t work). I don’t think engineers can compete. If you’re talking about just chaining blasts together, warriors can chain 5 in a row purely off utility skills. Guardians have a melee-ranged one on a 5s cooldown. Ours are flashy and require chaining (double-tapping shield, crate, big ol’ bomb, detonate mine), but then we have to wait for quite a while to pull that off again.

So what your saying is they have to select their utility skills just to be able to do it.. ok yah not the same thing if that was the case we could have what? let me count. 5or 6?

How many fields do they have access to? 1. Engineers have access to 6..

Thiefs can spam blast finisher with shortbow clusterbomb. which nearly matches grenades damage btw.

Frankly, the argument is nonsense. everyone can hot swap skills and weapons. and most of them can do it better.
Engineer traits are poorly designed in that they REALLY focus on one or two things.

Power wrench, grenadier, juggernaut. All super powerful and super specific to 1 kit.
Play a mesmer, and “buffs illusions” works on every weapon, cause they all have illusions. it works on clones and phantasms. you can swap weapons, and utilities and still have your traits effect them.

Imagine alch traits counted for Elixir gun, or glue shot, or poison grenade/bomb. etc.
Explosion traits counted for acid bomb, rocket turret, detonates(actually that does I think(, explosive shot, rocket jump, rocket boots.
For everyone else stuff like that DOES.

Casia – the thief’s cluster bomb skill actually does weak damage if you go for the blast finisher, and comparable damage (only due to bleeds) to the grenade kit’s auto attack if you detonate and land all 3. It’s significantly less damage than the engineer’s shrapnel grenade.

Littledeath.2684:

So what your saying is they have to select their utility skills just to be able to do it.. ok yah not the same thing if that was the case we could have what? let me count. 5or 6?

6 at most, and that’s, but as I said, you’re kittening yourself with fairly kitten skills. I’m saying 6 because you could run 4 turrets + supply crate + shield, and the only good utility skill would be crate (and maybe net turret but you’re detonating it so why did you even – nevermind). Warrior could run 4 banners, pick one up, and use plant banner for a 5th blast finisher. And banners are hardly useless, the worst one is probably the might/condition damage one, and it’s like a free 3 stacks of might (which in my opinion is actually pretty weak for a banner, why not just run FGJ, but that’s only because the other banners are much better).

I suppose engineer could use bomb kit for one blast finisher, shield for a second, crate for a third, healing turret for a fourth (have to time it so you don’t pop it in the water field), but there’s just so much bluh about doing all that – you shouldn’t be going out of your way to produce effects like that in overall benefit, it should simply happen due to clever timing (like using fire bomb before big ol’ bomb) for maximum effectiveness. The only time I’d say going out of your way is worth it is blast finisher + water field, and the only decent water fields in the game come from rangers/eles (a 2s field or .25s field from healing turret is not decent). 3 stacks of might per blown skill for 15s isn’t too gravy when the other options for engineer (toolkit, medkit, elixir gun, grenade kit, RIFLE) are just straight-up better bar niche situations, like bunker engineer (why aren’t you a guardian!?).

Necro wins the “Useless major traits that add nothing” award right now.

Wow I log in to find my precious rocket boots being called one of the worst skills in the game? What game are you people playing? How many escapes are there in this game that let you get out of situations while knocked down? If there’s more then people need to start using them, because It’s awesome!

In PvE you get jumped by those graveling scavengers in AC? No biggie. Hell miss-time Kohler in the same dungeon and you just boot out and keep going.
In PvP they’re invaluable.. Hundred blades from a warrior? Nah… Thief gonna open on you? Not today. Being able to negate every knockdown followed by massive damage move is useless though you’re right…
Majority of my playtime is in melee range (bomberman) so the toolbelt skill is always nice to use, though I concede its not optimal for the grenade throwing glass cannons some of you seem to think is the only viable option to play…

Point being that rocket boots is FAR from useless.

Hmm i counted five pretty much useless trait.
Deployable turrets-the worst trait engineers have.
Backpack regenerator-the regen is just really low.
Deadly mixture-honestly eg and ft skill set were not made for damage, but for cc/soft cc/regen. And combo field /starters
Go for the eyes-rather have 10% damage. 15% with target the maimed.
Packaged stimulants-its like 2000 hp/ 18000 per package and it travels really really slow.

The Slyfe.7231:

Wow I log in to find my precious rocket boots being called one of the worst skills in the game? What game are you people playing? How many escapes are there in this game that let you get out of situations while knocked down? If there’s more then people need to start using them, because It’s awesome!

In PvE you get jumped by those graveling scavengers in AC? No biggie. Hell miss-time Kohler in the same dungeon and you just boot out and keep going.
In PvP they’re invaluable.. Hundred blades from a warrior? Nah… Thief gonna open on you? Not today. Being able to negate every knockdown followed by massive damage move is useless though you’re right…
Majority of my playtime is in melee range (bomberman) so the toolbelt skill is always nice to use, though I concede its not optimal for the grenade throwing glass cannons some of you seem to think is the only viable option to play…

Point being that rocket boots is FAR from useless.

Players nowadays put too much emphasis on damage (and dps). They are used to being rewarded in “a blizzard mmo” for just standing still and spamming.

Someone please tell me why you would ever get Rocket Boots over Elixir S.

And dont say “Distance.” If they enemy has a ranged weapon and half a brain they can get free hits on you while you are on your butt, stunned, when the whole point of a stun breaker is getting away so they CANT GET FREE HITS ON YOU.

I would gladly trade 1/2 the range of the self-knockback of the boots in exchange for not being stunned.

Ricky Rouse.1583:

Someone please tell me why you would ever get Rocket Boots over Elixir S.

And dont say “Distance.” If they enemy has a ranged weapon and half a brain they can get free hits on you while you are on your butt, stunned, when the whole point of a stun breaker is getting away so they CANT GET FREE HITS ON YOU.

I would gladly trade 1/2 the range of the self-knockback of the boots in exchange for not being stunned.

Let’s compare…

Rocket Boots vs Elixir S

Cooldown: 30 vs 60 (24 vs 48 traited)11

Vast advantage goes to Rocket Boots here.

Traits: Speedy vs HGH, 409, Potent, Fast-Acting, Acidic

As far as power in a vaccum goes, Elixir S has way more options. However, Rocket Boots is superior on builds that are tight on trait slots, where Elixir S’ options only make it superior when you have trait slots to burn, and likely makes you want to use more than one Elixir to justify the expenditure.

Downside: Knocked down for a second vs Unable to attack for 3 seconds.

The rocket boots get you back to attacking much sooner. I know you can swap to a kit to resume attack actions when under the effect of Elixir S, but I don’t believe that is by intent, and still harms Rifle and Pistol users. Advantage only goes to Elixir S if you’re kit swapping, possibly taking advantage of an unintended feature/bug, and may be subject to change.

Toolbelt: A 5-second burn and punt on a 20 second cooldown vs 4 seconds of Stealth or Stability at Random

Quite frankly, neither are too great. The boot to the head has some niche uses in a condition build for a quick smack before retreating. The tossed elixir however, is too unreliable to be relied on for anything. A 50% chance of getting the effect you want is pretty bad. And the stealth doesn’t provide a covering blind, so you’re still likely to get tagged by channeled attacks and attacks started before stealthing. Advantage: neither, really, but boots are at least stable.

Side Effects: Blast finisher, decent melee radius damage vs Nothing

Blast finishers are fun, 10/10 would bang. Advantage Rocket Boots, winning by default as Elixir S only has side effects if you trait it.

Vs Melee: Get the bloody kittens out of dodge vs Walk Away at normal speed

Rocket Boots are winning here. Sure, opponents may have a leaping attack to chase you with, but if they used that to get to you for their burst combo, it isn’t off cooldown yet. Beats trying to outrun someone who is able to move the same exact speed as you.

Vs Ranged: Silly tricks vs Not get shot for 3 seconds.

Elixir S is easier to use here for sure. But there’s some fun to be had with Rocket Boots. There’s a function you can assign to your keyboard called “invert direction” or something like that. Basically instantly makes you flip a U-Turn and turn your back to whatever direction you were heading. Getting behind an opponent with a ranged weapon usually provide enough chaos that they have to let up fire for a precious second, possibly wasting a channel if it ticks and you’re not in the range of attack. And with good environmental awareness, you can dive behind cover, or onto a lower level of a battlefield. It’s not better, but it’s far from being useless like some might assert.

Overall

Rocket Boots have a shorter cooldown, and require less expenditure of resources to use, for trait-tight builds… It’s great. They also have a more versatile array of uses, for the creatively-minded engineer. (And dear goodness me, Engineers are creative by nature, so too should their players.) This is also the one to go to for anti-melee protection, getting you out of melee range with gusto.

Elixir S is great when you intend to trait into Elixirs, and doubly so if you don’t mind using a tactic that may be called a bug changed sometime down the road. You don’t have to think about its uses as much as you would Rocket Boots, and optimal use is a little more accessible play-wise. This is the better route for anti-ranged protection, as it provides longer protection that’s easier to achieve.

So yeah… Reasons for both. Enjoy.

Rocket Boots are bad in most sPvP situations because it blows you off the point. The toolbelt is nice, I’ll admit.

Oh, and S guarantees stomps. The toss ensures you’ll kill a warrior, engineer, or necro without any issue. 50% chance of the toss getting guardian and ranger killed. Or, you could just pop S mid-stomp to make kitten sure you kill them dead. This can be a critical issue in the heat of a fight, when both sides have a downed player or somesuch and their death means your teammate’s survival.

I will admit that rocket boots does mess up basilisk venom or whatnot quite well, as they’ll miss another of their heartseekers while you’re lining up shots.

Spvp is one of the few places I would argue for it. haha.

I think my main complaint with gadgets is single target, melee nature of so many. (Which granted, is a larger overall problem)
and the lack of good global traits for them.

20% cdr is the only one right? Probably could argue, static discharge.
Does auto-bomb activate on rocketboot self KB? same question on rifle I suppose, never tested that. Throw mine has a few, largely due to be counted as an explosion.

NevirSayDie.6235:

All professions have trash traits that not a single one of the million plus players will ever, ever use more than once or twice for laughs. It’s part of a time-honored RPG tradition of having some tempting, but underpowered choices, so that you feel like you’ve accomplished something by discovering the better ones.

The point of this thread is they shouldn’t.

There are also glaring issues with some, like putting “explosions heal” in the weirdest place ever on the traits? Why isn’t that under alchemy? and why is it a tier 3 ability??? Have you seen how little each grenade heals? Grenade kits don’t scale remember so they heal that tiny amount no matter how much + to heal you get.

It’s things like that that the OP is talking about. Why put these choices in there if they are mostly useless.

It’s like the 5% damage with daggers thing. Really? when will anyone ever choose that one.

Meanwhile there are glaring problems like the adventurer classes all universally not having a stability buff they can use and move at the same time. Go ahead check. I play all three none of them have it. So how are we supposed to do some of the jump puzzles that absolutely must have it? How are we supposed to efficiently resist this type of attack? say like in Orr for example where EVERYTHING uses pulls knockdowns knockbacks ?

tigirius.9014:

NevirSayDie.6235:

All professions have trash traits that not a single one of the million plus players will ever, ever use more than once or twice for laughs. It’s part of a time-honored RPG tradition of having some tempting, but underpowered choices, so that you feel like you’ve accomplished something by discovering the better ones.

The point of this thread is they shouldn’t.

There are also glaring issues with some, like putting “explosions heal” in the weirdest place ever on the traits? Why isn’t that under alchemy? and why is it a tier 3 ability??? Have you seen how little each grenade heals? Grenade kits don’t scale remember so they heal that tiny amount no matter how much + to heal you get.

It’s things like that that the OP is talking about. Why put these choices in there if they are mostly useless.

It’s like the 5% damage with daggers thing. Really? when will anyone ever choose that one.

Meanwhile there are glaring problems like the adventurer classes all universally not having a stability buff they can use and move at the same time. Go ahead check. I play all three none of them have it. So how are we supposed to do some of the jump puzzles that absolutely must have it? How are we supposed to efficiently resist this type of attack? say like in Orr for example where EVERYTHING uses pulls knockdowns knockbacks ?

Certainly, I agree 100%. It’s kind of dumb to have so many pointless things in games, but there they are. I was just trying to get across that it’s not because “Anet hates engineers”—this is really, really normal.

tigirius.9014:

It’s things like that that the OP is talking about. Why put these choices in there if they are mostly useless.

It’s like the 5% damage with daggers thing. Really? when will anyone ever choose that one.

To be fair, your definition of useless is a bit skewed.

Dealing 5% more direct damage with daggers is a good thing. It really is a useful trait. A static, constant bouns means one less thing you’re worrying about.

The problem is that there are traits that are just clearly leagues ahead of others. You go full 30 in Explosives, and you feel obligated to pick up Grenadier. Poor Autodefense Bomb Dispenser never gets picked… And it’s an AMAZING pvp trait. We were just talking about using Rocket Boots and Elixir S to escape stun-based burst combos. Well, Auto F-U can mess up their follow up attack pretty well. But Grenadier is “so much better” and universally applicable.

There are also skills that just pain don’t work, like our Deployable Turrets, apparently. Some things just need a fix, others need a buff to catch up.

They aren’t useless, they’ve just got to get a little love.