Guild Wars 2

I haven’t played since the Halloween event, I’m curious as to what changes have been made to my beloved Engy

Well, it depends… Are you a Grenadier Engie?

If yes, you’re gonna have a bad time. Grenade 1 got nerfed 30% on it’s damage coefficient. However, the new Shrapnel trait is a bit more worthwhile. Overall, it does take longer to kill with grenades now, even with other buffs.

If no, there’s fun to be had. Biggest thing is that Sigils on your weapons now apply to your kits. New combinations are cropping up that have made players happy. Sigil of Strength has been rather popular for might-stacking. HGH got buffed to provide 2 stacks of might when you DRINK an elixir. (Toss skills only provide 1 still.)

Since Halloween, there’s been a new popular build called TANKCAT. And Static Discharge builds are doing decently well too.

It’s also been announced that soon, weapon stats will apply to kits too, giving us more of our needed flexibility.

It’s a good time for the most part, and we’ll be getting better. That said, there’s a lot of nay-sayers right now due to the Grenadier nerf.

dunno what world wasdclick lives in but…

right now engi as about as low as its ever been. hes probably right that itll be getting better. but each patch has seen the systematic nerfing of our best builds. each patch takes away another of something we are the best at and gives that title to another class.

you should really take a look at this subforum. the threads warning you away from engi have traction.

insanemaniac.2456:

dunno what world wasdclick lives in but…

right now engi as about as low as its ever been.

The world I live in sees both the lowest and highest points of the Engineer profession.

Our highest DPS potential went down a chunk, that’s for certain.

But we have been improving in several low points of our profession.

Our support is getting better (the Super Elixir bug fix hurt, but we’ve gotten goodies that can circumvent that, if in an indirect way as opposed to green numbers). And our tankiness can still be pretty darn impressive for a medium armor class. It’s just our straight-up DPS that’s lacking.

Engineers are doing great. Even post nerf, grenades do solid damage. Static discharge still does insane burst, as does any reasonable tool belt dump setup. rifle 3 and 5 still do insane burst. pistol still does fantastic condition damage.

this is the video game forums, where people complain because the more they can sell the perception that their class is bad, the more likely they will be buffed.
2 of these videos are made post patch, and the 3rd if anything shows that a grenade nerf was hardly going to make the class unplayable:
1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kaYsIR0kYg
2) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tTIWYXabmM
3) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9IdpgUJCvs

I’d say ANet seems to be normalizing all of our builds. That is to say, it’s bringing up our sucky builds and bringing down our good builds. That makes more builds viable relative to engineers, but all of them are below par compared to most other professions. Right now I feel rather aimless with how I want to play my engineer, so I’m waiting it out to see how it goes with bug fixes and future balance. I took the advice of another engineer and parked him at a rich resource node.

Edit: I do feel rather good with my engi in dungeons…not so much in WvW. I don’t currently PvP.

Raven.9603:

Engineers are doing great..

How a class that is not top tier at anything in tPvP and is hugely underepresented because of that is doign great is a mystery.

Raven.9603:

this is the video game forums, where people complain because the more they can sell the perception that their class is bad, the more likely they will be buffed.

Only the few delusional enough to think the devs blindly change things based on forum feedback, which clearly isn’t the case, barely anyone complains about engys being OP, yet it is one of the most nerfed classes.

Raven.9603:

2 of these videos are made post patch, and the 3rd if anything shows that a grenade nerf was hardly going to make the class unplayable:
1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kaYsIR0kYg
2) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tTIWYXabmM
3) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9IdpgUJCvs

And? There are videos of better players beating average or bad players in WvW for every class, in terms of balance these videos are meaningless, tPvP is where it counts (at least in regard to PvP balance), where engineers have slowly dropped down the pecking order as they have been nerfed. (removal of stability trait, smoke bomb nerf, etc).

Sylosi.6503:

tPvP is where it counts

you could’ve left it at that. you are judging the entire class based on a single facet. i concede, after having long been in demand for great bunker-ness, stability and blind, engineers are no longer part of the tpvp meta. outside of that, engineers are doing great.

though i would hardly call the amount of people who think crying on the forums results in class changes “few.”

Raven.9603:

Sylosi.6503:

tPvP is where it counts

you could’ve left it at that. you are judging the entire class based on a single facet. i concede, after having long been in demand for great bunker-ness, stability and blind, engineers are no longer part of the tpvp meta. outside of that, engineers are doing great.

though i would hardly call the amount of people who think crying on the forums results in class changes “few.”

Oh come on you seriously think this class is optimal in PvE or WvW either?

WvW doesn’t really matter I guess because its just a PvD zergfest and hopping on a ballista or cart will make you optimal.

But PvE? ahahhahaha.

No.

Engineer is in worse shape now than at release.

Certainly nothing to boast about.

Medicore from all perspectives.

Engineer is doing okay, not the best but it is playable, the issue is to many elitist players with inflated ego’s are not happy because the are not seeing the numbers they think they should see when doing dmg with there poor favorite build QQ although there are plenty of other builds out there that are doing rather well. All in all it could be a lot better but by no means in the class un-playable.

Well, I hope you’ve always wanted to be a humorous sidekick.

If you have Carpel Tunnel or some other hand/wrist RSI issues, for now you may want to steer clear of the class. What the grenade/bombs folks here aren’t saying is that those kits do not have an autoattack option for #1, requiring many repetitive keypresses to take down enemies.

My primary playstyle is Rifle /w Elixirs, no toolbelt (can’t reach regularly), sometimes FT. I did spend a few weeks trying out the Explosives line; while its fun, at the end I find myself wearing wrist braces again (something I’ve not had to do since stopping MMA practice). So I’ll probably go back to my ‘safer’ base of 0/30/0/30/10 and tweak from there. I did give EG a whirl and may add that in as well, and if turrets get a bump I may go back to nets again too.

The Rifle/Elixir config (non-SD) does work, but in my case is best used as a team support (CC) in small WvW roams. And I’m OK with that, but it was a pain (in some ways literally) to level solo. If Elixirs had well-defined traits in them (drop the RNG please) then I think the setup would work far better.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/15a13n/rgw2_now_that_the_game_has_been_out_for_a_few/

It’s pretty common knowledge by this point that engineers and rangers are the worst classes. So anyone saying “we’re in a great place” probably hasn’t played any other classes to a great extent. Engineers are tons of fun, and skill can get you through all the content. But the classes are not balanced, and the better professions can do everything Engineers can, just much easier, and much better.

Sungak Alkandenes.1369:

My primary playstyle is Rifle /w Elixirs, no toolbelt (can’t reach regularly)

I bound all my toolbelt skills to Shift + (1-4)

It’s much easier. They line up with the weapon abilities so it’s never confusing. From day one I never saw how anyone should be expected to reach all the way up to the F keys. I don’t have basketball hands.

The grenade nerf was just the straw that broke the camel’s back, really.

Bomb kit smoke bomb nerfed x2 as well as turret nerfs cut down on bunker options.
Flamethrower still bugged
Turrets still nominally viable.
Gadgets still nominally viable (but still used in niche builds)
Toolkit trait still bugged.
Mine kit nerfed into uselessness.
P/P condition build nerfed in bwe3 (compare our condition damage to other classes).

Where does that leave us? Between bugs and nerfs, the class was fundamentally shallow before the grenade nerf due to some EXTREMELY short-sighted changes to the class, now there’s little to recommend but to play it for fun; there’s nothing it excels at now. We’re ok bunkers in tPvP, but both Guards and eles are unquestionably better now.

Static discharge is probably the last strong thing that we have left, but it’s a trait that leads to fundamentally narrow builds that haven’t been especially competitive since they were discovered waaayyy back in beta. Elixir builds are still solid. So… that’s that.

The good news is that there’s nowhere to go but up at this point. ;p

Whatever you believe, that the engineer is good/bad know that there is no true versatility.

You got to spec into the kit/skilltypes you want to use, so you’re almost always just going to be using those skills which is already limiting.

After that you have to choose your 3 utilities. Whatever you choose, some other aspect of your character is going to be worse off for it. If you take CC wipe stuff, you’re not going to be doing much damage, if you take damage stuff you don’t have much control. If you take multiple kits for lots of abilities you’re going to be playing the piano with your keys trying to blow all the cooldowns with tons of conditions, but your mobility is going to suck and you’ll probably die fumbling. If you take turrets you’re going to cry.

The Engineer is underperforming in all roles and on all fronts (pve, pvp, wvw). But the biggest slap has got to be the devs official statement on class design, and that this is infact intented for Engineers.

We are supposedly a very versatile profession, which can easily be argued isnt the case since the best builds are all very specialized, and for this we get the hybrid tax. We must perform worst.
Then they turn around and anounce the Ele as the king of versatility, without getting taxed. Infact, getting prompted to have amazing support, control and ranged damage on top of being the most versatile.

So do not expect fixes and buffs soon, sooner expect nerfs. Which would be in line with what theyve been doing since launch (or even beta infact), nerfing a build every single patch.
Least played profession for a kitten good reason.

I play the tankcat build and a p/p elixir build and I do quite well with both. People are surprised when they die to an engineer.

There are still builds out there that are highly effective. Do not listen to the naysayers.

Sungak Alkandenes.1369:

If you have Carpel Tunnel or some other hand/wrist RSI issues, for now you may want to steer clear of the class. What the grenade/bombs folks here aren’t saying is that those kits do not have an autoattack option for #1, requiring many repetitive keypresses to take down enemies.

Grenade doesn’t but bomb kit do have an autoattack, one of the reasons I prefer to use it. ^^

Sabyne.6329:

Sungak Alkandenes.1369:

If you have Carpel Tunnel or some other hand/wrist RSI issues, for now you may want to steer clear of the class. What the grenade/bombs folks here aren’t saying is that those kits do not have an autoattack option for #1, requiring many repetitive keypresses to take down enemies.

Grenade doesn’t but bomb kit do have an autoattack, one of the reasons I prefer to use it. ^^

bombs have an auto-attack that stops the moment you get out of melee range, not even out of the bomb range itself…

Bombs are best used while kiting around, making use of their 1/2 second arming time.
By design, they are not best used standing totally still.
Yet the auto-attack stops once you move an inch.

It’s better than having no auto-attack of course, but I wouldn’t say the bomb auto is optimal…

Terrahero.9358:

The Engineer is underperforming in all roles and on all fronts (pve, pvp, wvw). But the biggest slap has got to be the devs official statement on class design, and that this is infact intented for Engineers.

We are supposedly a very versatile profession, which can easily be argued isnt the case since the best builds are all very specialized, and for this we get the hybrid tax. We must perform worst.
Then they turn around and anounce the Ele as the king of versatility, without getting taxed. Infact, getting prompted to have amazing support, control and ranged damage on top of being the most versatile.

So do not expect fixes and buffs soon, sooner expect nerfs. Which would be in line with what theyve been doing since launch (or even beta infact), nerfing a build every single patch.
Least played profession for a kitten good reason.

This^^^ Ele is not taxed at all, I call shenanigans on Arena-net.

Elixir F have been stealthy buffed – BWE version restored
From : 8 sec cd / 3 sec swift / 3 sec slow
To : 5 sec cd / 6.5 sec swift / 5 slow

Trasmute from 3% > 8%
A little nerf to bleed damage
A little buff to our burn
A little buff to Pistol main attack
Gear Shields from 25 sec cd > 20

They doing their stealth research :P

The only thing they fixed were sigils. Every kit was nerfed because they thought that sigils would cause us to be op. still no PTR to do actual testing so we can give feedback on the results before they post a patch.

PVE still is nerfed and broken to the point of not being able to hit anything and when we do it’s like a tiny insect bite to a giant troll compared to my ranger and thief.

This is pretty much how i feel when playing my Engi
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2_tJIgfnDA

Killthehealersffs.8940:

Elixir F have been stealthy buffed – BWE version restored
From : 8 sec cd / 3 sec swift / 3 sec slow
To : 5 sec cd / 6.5 sec swift / 5 slow

Trasmute from 3% > 8%
A little nerf to bleed damage
A little buff to our burn
A little buff to Pistol main attack
Gear Shields from 25 sec cd > 20

They doing their stealth research :P

what buff to burn and pistol main attack? what nerf to bleed?

The elixir F is a “rifled barrels” bug. And its not new.

It SAYS its 5s cripple and swiftness, when you have rifled barrels equiped, however its still only 3.

Rifled barrels is pretty silly for EG. It does all sorts of weird things.

EG without rifled barrels.
EG1. 1s weakness, 4s bleed. .4 scaling 900 range
EG2. 3s cripple, 3s swiftness. .75 scaling. 8s cd 900 range.
EG5. lists the correct aoe heal, pulse, light combo. 900 range.

With rifled barrels. (which is supposed to increase range.)

EG1. 3s weakness, 3s bleed. 1200 range. .4 scaling. 1200 range.
EG2. SAYS 5s cripple, 5s swiftness. .75 scaling. 5s CD, 1200 range.
it IS, 3s cripple, 3s swift, .75 scaling. 5s CD, 1200.
EG5 says 60 impact heal, 12 pulse, 1200 range. And thats it. Aka, level 1, beta tooltip. haha. It works fine though.

Fireforged, and rifled and Elixir F
Elixir F with its 5s CD is not effected by fireforged.
Super elixir, will say 15s CD, tick to 14s, then shift to 19s immediately.

Fireforged without rifled, gives super elixir a 16s CD. it will also say 15s, tick to 14, then shift back to 15 again.
Elixir F is a 6.5s cd with fireforged.

In hindsight, I think, I thought 5s CD was elixir F’s natural CD. Which probably explains why its so strong.

Hehe my mistake :P
Didnt know about the rifled barrels and Elixir F bugg :P
But for some reason when i eqip that trait , it gives me +28 dps on my Pistol main attack with the Rampager Amulet
And i swear 1.5-2 months ago , my bleed used to do 89 damage with the exact same build , instead of the current 75
My mistake sorry :P

I’ll see if I can ID the issue. There is something going on there.

When I was retesting this today to see if something had changed.
my listed EG 1 damage went from 285, to 290 when I equipped rifled barrels. back and forth adding, and subtracting it, as I added/removed the trait.
But during the process of testing, it went back to 285, and stayed there. I have not identified the cause.

If you want DPS engineer your out of luck. I don’t want to be SD build and I don’t want to annoyingly stack might. However if you don’t pick 1 out of the 2 you can’t deal dmg on par of others when they aren’t trying. I hate grenades.