Guild Wars 2

Alright, I’m sure it has happened to all of you. You’re playing your engineer, you get mobbed, you nearly win the battle but one enemy is left standing with 15 or so percent HP. On any other class you’d just finish that mob off in your downed state, but not on an engineer, no not in the slightest. When you go down with an engineer, you’re pretty much down for good.

Let’s look at the kit that players get when it comes to getting back up to their feet.

1) A spammable attack, meant for taking down the enemy.
2) Some sort of ‘get away’ or CC move to prevent damage for a bit.
3) Something unique-esque. High damage move, faster revive, insta revive but die after.
4) Bandage. We all know this one.

However, when it comes to engineers, these skills aren’t exactly good. I’ll tell you why.

Throw Junk
It might throw junk, but this skill is junk as well. I understand that “random” is a gimmick that comes back to the engineer a lot. There are good uses of random (If I use this I might get might or fury, both useful) and there are bad uses of random. (I am rapidly losing HP and instead of doing the last bit of damage on this monster, I am consistently stacking weakness on it.)

Throw Junk does:
Damage: 128
Bleeding (2 stacks): 3 s (255 damage) OR Chilled: 3 s OR Weakness: 3 s

Now in theory this doesn’t look so bad. Bleeding will help kill faster, chilled will stop enemies from using skills as often and weakness will make non-critical hits do 50% less damage at 50% chance.

However, you’re still going to get killed if you chill the enemy (they will just keep auto attacking) and even if you do weakness on them, you only delay the inevitable. Eventually your HP will run out, even if you could get the mob to stop attacking you entirely.

So what do other classes have?

Well, a thief has throw dirt, which does even less damage on it. Seems like Engineer is better of, right? But no, throw dirt bleeds guaranteed on every hit, allowing you to dps faster. Life leech does less damage but restores health, mesmer does more damage and applies a guaranteed debuff that does more damage, etc. The only other class who seems to be screwed with their downed 1 is Guardian, which has it even worse.

Why is this skill bad?
When you’re down and you’re facing an enemy with a bit of HP left, you want reliable damage. “I died because instead of getting bleeding twice, I stacked 25 seconds of weakness on the mob” is not a good way of letting somebody die.

How to fix:
Increase the base damage to make it do more reliable DPS. Alternatively, make it 1 stack of bleed but make it apply all those affects at once instead of randomly. Either way, make this something to reliable kill a mob with.

Grappling Line
As much fun as it might be to shout “get over here”, this skill simply makes no sense. Every other class gets something to help them take less damage (aoe daze, teleport away, 2 second knockdown, aoe knockback), but engineer gets something that actually pulls the enemy towards them, making it easier to damage them. The only reason this skill even seems to exist is to combo into 3, which is just bad design all around because you’ll often die before 3 even becomes available.

Why is this skill bad?
It doesn’t help you in any way. If you’re down, the last thing you want is to have an enemy on top of you beating you to death.

How to fix:
Just get rid of it and move 3 ( Booby Trap ) to this slot.

Booby Trap
You heard me, move this skill to the 2 slot. You’ll want to tone down the damage of it because right now it does a bit too much compared to other skills of other classes, but this gives a reliable way for the engineer to knock enemies away from him/herself, buying them some more time to bandage, call for help, etc.

A new 3?
That obviously leaves one gaping hole, they will need a new 3. I am certain the developers can come up with something good, but here are just some random suggestions that I think could work.

Elixer D
Drink a danger elixer, which instantly rallies you, but applies the following conditions to you:

Chilled, Crippled, Immobilized, Vulnerable * 10, Weakness, immune to condition removal

The idea here being that you instantly get to rally and start fighting again, but you’re at a severe disadvantage, making it quite possible that if you do not manage to get away or kill your foe, you’ll be going down again with less HP than last time.

Jetpack
Launch yourself to safety, possibly up a small slope or at least a decent distance away, dealing damage with your exhaust to the enemies that were near you.

Theik.9340:

Elixer D
Drink a danger elixer, which instantly rallies you, but applies the following conditions to you:

Chilled, Crippled, Immobilized, Vulnerable * 10, Weakness

Lol. Then you drink elixir C and get 5 free boons and insta-rally. Nice.

But yeah, our downed skills are quite bad.

Boobytrap is especially good with all of our AoE’s. So even if I don’t kill the pack of mobs before I go down, I usually get multiple revivals just planning my targets once i’m down.

Great post! I completely agree and I’m a total noob at engineer (and GW2 in general). The downed skills feel very underpowered compared to the other classes and I have no idea why I’d want to grapple a mob to me when I’m near death.

I like the Jetpack idea, or perhaps a stun grenade.

I believe the answers for which you seek can be found somewhere between Elixir R and your tool belt…

Engineer downed state is actually pretty good in hectic team fights. Unless you get stomped right away you can hold out for a while thanks to both 2, and 3, and 1’s chill effect keeps them from reaching you. Or you can use grappling line to interrupt someone’s attack on someone else.

If I were gonna change anything I would make throw junk only do damaging conditions, that would just make more sense. Other than that, its fine.

hackks.3687:

I believe the answers for which you seek can be found somewhere between Elixir R and your tool belt…

Yes we already know about that but the point of this thread is our downed skills aren’t too good.

Penguin.5197:

hackks.3687:

I believe the answers for which you seek can be found somewhere between Elixir R and your tool belt…

Yes we already know about that but the point of this thread is our downed skills aren’t too good.

of course, but my point was that you don’t even need them

I am off the opinion that all professions must have a movement based skill on the downed state akin to ele, thief, or mesmer or those movement abilities need to be nuked from orbit and removed from the game.

The are simply far to powerful and Op to those that have them. As an engineer if your downed in AoE your dead. As a thief, mesmer, or ele that’s not the case. You can get in a tower, back to your guildies, around a corner out of sight.

For me the 2 and 3 skills are not bad, but the 1 skill is useless if you run a power spec, and even for condi engi’s the randomness of the condition hurts you. On a warrior or thief you can kill with the 1 skill, with the engi you do nothing that actually helps to get you up.

Having CC and control while downed is not horrible. But the goal of the down state is to let you rally and the engi one does not do a good job when compared to the ones with movement based skills, because in this game movement is everything.

The other professions have some balance and synergy with their abilities, because if they survive long enough to pull off their #3, they rally almost guaranteed. I’ll list the examples, and the exceptions, and why the exceptions still have balance.

Guardian. They blow up with #2 Wave of Light. This interrupts the stomps of all surrounding players (unless enemy has Stability). If they survive for when #3 Symbol of Judgement becomes available, they will rally from the combined heal of #3 and their #4 Bandage ability (or buy time for allies to rez). Balance.

Warrior. They knock down one target with #2 Hammer Toss (unless enemy has Stability). Short cooldown of 10 sec, but interrupts only 1 stomp. If they last long enough, they can hit #3 Vengeance, giving them a chance to rally if they defeat their enemy (100% chance when traited). There is some good balance here, because #3 skill gives the Warr a chance to rally (and take down their foe). Inside an enemy mob, the Warr will be stomped by the others not knocked down by Hammer Toss, but in situations where only one enemy is able to attempt the stomp, the Warrior has an advantage once Vengeance goes off. This has balance in group play if allies are delaying the stomp (the weak and situational excuse) and solo play once Vengeance is ready. It is both insanely powerful, and insanely weak, all depending on timing.

Ranger. #2 Thunderclap is an AoE Daze on a short 10 sec cooldown. This interrupts a whole group trying to stomp on the shortest cooldown of all #2 downed skills. This is insanely powerful in group play, if even just one ally causes delay for the enemy. It is powerful without help. It is just plain powerful (Stability is the only counter, as usual). Combine that with #3 Lick Wounds which revives the Ranger and you have one of the strongest downed skill sets in game. Balance.

Thief. #2 Shadow Escape allows the Thief to teleport where they want, avoiding a whole group of stompers. #3 Smoke Bomb allows the thief to stealth briefly. Stealth allows the #1 ability Venomous Knife. All together, the Thief has a lot of strong abilities and high down state damage. They can retreat toward allies or DPS their enemy. Or both. Balance.

Mesmer. #2 Deception allows the Mes to randomly teleport to a new location avoiding a whole group of stompers and summons a downed clone. #3 Phantasmal Rogue simply does high DPS. The Mes can’t reliably run toward allies, but they can avoid a stomp and with high DPS (#1 Mind Blast is not shabby), rally off their foe. Their downed state skill set is perfectly balanced imo, leaning neither toward too strong or too weak.

Necromancer. #2 Fear is on a short 10 sec cooldown, and targets one foe. This saves the Necro from one stomp (unless Stability is used). #3 Fetid Ground is simply AoE damage and poison. #1 Life Leech steals health from one foe. Necro is on the weak side of down state skill sets, but can trait to increase their damage by 50%. Missing balance imo.

Elementalist. They are able to retreat a short distance right away with #2 Vapor Form (but long cooldown) toward allies, while immune to damage and avoiding stomps of all surrounding players. This is great when near allies and is only “weak” when Ele is alone. It sets up #3 Grasping Earth to Immobilize foes away from the Ele, to buy even more time. This combo is neither strong, nor weak. The Ele can rally easily by escaping toward friends (incredibly strong in group play). Or they take risk at trying to run from the stomp and finish off their foe through damage (the “weak” component when solo). There is balance, since the Ele has a great chance in group play, and average chance solo (all professions can debate if they are doing enough damage in the solo department when downed, but the utility of their combined abilities needs to be considered). I would argue that without a group to revive the Ele, their downed skills are fairly useless and do weak damage. I would call their down state skill set weak, with the only redeeming feature being the ability to run away toward allies (if they are present). Missing balance.

Engineer #2 Grappling Line pulls one foe toward the Eng, interrupting one stomp. This allows enemy melee builds to then kill the Eng easily. It is poor design. It is supposed to possess synergism with #3 Booby Trap, an AoE knockback of large damage and able to stop multiple stomps. But the timing is so badly off, that the Eng simply pulls in the enemy and dies, with Booby Trap not even close to being ready. #1 Throw Junk is highly weak damage. And we have no useful Traits when downed (which the other professions do have, and strong ones at that). This entire down state skill set is missing balance.

A simple solution is to move Booby Trap with its current damage and functioning to #2 on a 10 sec cooldown. Then for #3, introduce a new 15-20 sec cooldown ability, like the Jet Pack suggested. Or, vice versa, with the Jet Pack at #2 to allow the Eng to fly away, and #3 will be ready by the time the enemy gets near. Also, Booby Trap might need a ranged option redesign, so it goes off at the enemy target location (like Grasping Earth from the Ele), since there is no way to bring in an enemy anymore.

Throw Junk should inflict all three Conditions at once and/or have its base damage increased. There is something sorely missing in its current functioning.

Downed Traits need serious work for Engineer. Dropping bandages and kits for party members does little for anyone’s survival. They can’t move while reviving us, so bandages do nothing for the incoming damage. The kits do nothing. Nothing increases the Engineer’s chance at survival or rallying in Traits. We have no increased damage, no AoE heal pop up underneath us, no increased health or healing, no boons (would love retaliation like the Mes Trait)…. Nothing….

Could we have a downed kit maybe? No not really, having two sets is way OP. But having another layer of depth, like having #3 or #2 based on your first utility or equiped weapon. The randomness of #1 is also incredibly unreliable, like all of the other random elixers.

I’d like our #2 to pull us to a selected location rather than pull something to us.
Getting rid of random effects on #1 would also be good.

Number 1 is a gimmicky skill, but it’s not that bad.

Number 2 is fine; people seem to conveniently forget that it’s a knockdown. If they have stability they don’t get pulled to you, and if you get blinded they don’t get pulled to you. If they are pulled to you, they’re gonna be knocked down. It’s an interrupt ability and it works. It also has good utility. I’ve saved downed allies several times just by placing a well placed #2 on the person executing them.

Number 3 is fantastic; an AoE blowout that does huge damage is hilarious. I’ve rallied quite a few times from people that were just too close to an edge when I #3’d. Everything is coming from a pvp standpoint, but in PvE the skill is pretty much always up before you get killed unless you have a ton of mobs on you. #3 for a power spec engineer is pretty much an insta-rally.

Too many engineers think our downed skills are terrible, when they’re not at all. You just have to think outside the box, just like you have to do with the rest of the engineer class.

mischwoof.9785:

Number 1 is a gimmicky skill, but it’s not that bad.

Number 2 is fine; people seem to conveniently forget that it’s a knockdown. If they have stability they don’t get pulled to you, and if you get blinded they don’t get pulled to you. If they are pulled to you, they’re gonna be knocked down. It’s an interrupt ability and it works. It also has good utility. I’ve saved downed allies several times just by placing a well placed #2 on the person executing them.

Number 3 is fantastic; an AoE blowout that does huge damage is hilarious. I’ve rallied quite a few times from people that were just too close to an edge when I #3’d. Everything is coming from a pvp standpoint, but in PvE the skill is pretty much always up before you get killed unless you have a ton of mobs on you. #3 for a power spec engineer is pretty much an insta-rally.

Too many engineers think our downed skills are terrible, when they’re not at all. You just have to think outside the box, just like you have to do with the rest of the engineer class.

No one forgot about how our skills work. Which is exactly why they are horrible.

You are downed. You throw junk at your target and watch the crap damage. You throw a grappling line and it downs your target. Great! But they didn’t move toward you….

Now you just need to go 1 to 1 with them to rally. You have a chance! Oh… no you don’t. You can’t move their downed body to you. Means #3 is useless. You can’t use yours on them, since they are out of range. But they can use theirs on you.

You now have the damage of skill #1 and #2 only. They have their whole set.

This is why the Engineer’s sucks. Not because ours isn’t useful, but because ours is the least useful.

I can brag about saving people with #2 and #3 as well. But I can brag way more when playing another profession. Mes #3 does the killing for you while you teleport away with #2. Warrior can just #1 to rally. Necro can fear away a stomp to save an ally. Etc etc etc.

Engineer is stuck in 1 location and depends on yanking people to them to blow them up. That is so situational, it just sucks.

I personally think they should increase the throwing to match the grenades, they should make it throw explosives so there’s a chance of catching enemies on fire. That would fix alot of problems with downed.

the quickness sigil on my weapon can proc when I’m downed, making for hilariously fast junk tosses.

Our down skills are not bad at all. The OPs assessment of them is factually inaccurate and incorrect in several of his points.

coglin.1496:

Our down skills are not bad at all. The OPs assessment of them is factually inaccurate and incorrect in several of his points.

…mind explaining your reasoning, then?

The only time I’ve ever liked our downed skills is in WvW while sieging a tower. If I get downed outside the walls, I consider it a free opportunity to grapple line some defender off the wall.

Of course that all goes out the window if my team doesn’t bother to get me up. Which they usually don’t. But at least I did something useful in death.

Don’t even get me started on our downed abilities… The Grapple is just a quick way to get someone to finish you off, especially since the explosion is on such a long CD and does mediocre damage.

Meanwhile I rally all the time on my warrior, even without Vengeance and if I need to, I can pop vengeance and kill for the 100% rally or run behind a rezzer line. On my Mesmer and Ele I can confuse them or run away long enough to keep myself alive. Those abilities are all fine and I’m in no way saying they need to be nerfed, just that our downed abilities need scrapped and redone.

Asytra.8172:

The Grapple is just a quick way to get someone to finish you off, especially since the explosion is on such a long CD and does mediocre damage.

Due to the fact that it knocks down the target trying to finish you off, and disrupts them, how do you determine it helps them?

So, uh, how’s the OP factually inaccurate and incorrect? I’d actually like an answer on that, wasn’t just asking to be a wiseacre. If he’s wrong, then maybe it’d be informative to everyone involved to know -how- he is wrong.

Hey great post Thiek m8. Heres my point from a WvW and PvE perspective. 2 and 3 need buffs.

Skill 1: Fine for PvE. Does no damage in WvW. However, when i’m playing my Elementalist alt his number 1 is pretty pants too.

Skill 2: This is the grappling line i think. I dont know what the range is on this but it should be at least 1500. When your downed outside a keep you should be able to pull 1 defender off the wall. He’ll likely use his invunrability to get out of it but you should be able to do it.

Skill 3: Aoe Blast away. This is the one that i have the most beef with. It should be instantly available. I think it takes 7 seconds before you can use it. You should be able to blow people away from you when your downed. I also think it should apply a 3 second cripple so they can’t get back to you as quickly.

Skill 4: No change

“Ranger. #2 Thunderclap is an AoE Daze on a short 10 sec cooldown. This interrupts a whole group trying to stomp on the shortest cooldown of all #2 downed skills. This is insanely powerful in group play, if even just one ally causes delay for the enemy. It is powerful without help. It is just plain powerful (Stability is the only counter, as usual). Combine that with #3 Lick Wounds which revives the Ranger and you have one of the strongest downed skill sets in game. Balance.”

You have obviously never played a Ranger as I have never rallied in PvP due to 2 and 3. You use 2, they are stunned for 1 second and then you still don’t even have lick wounds available yet. Your pet is usually dead by this time anyway. So you saying that we have the strongest downed skill in the game is based off pure ignorance or lack of any skill what so ever. I have never once rallied in PvP by myself. If we want to get more time we have to choose a wolf and a dazing or stunning pet in order to live just a little longer. But they can easily just focus fire on you and you will die anyway. Completely pointless. Please go play a Ranger before claiming it has the best downed skills in the game.

Anymras.5729:

So, uh, how’s the OP factually inaccurate and incorrect? I’d actually like an answer on that, wasn’t just asking to be a wiseacre. If he’s wrong, then maybe it’d be informative to everyone involved to know -how- he is wrong.

As I posted already. Claiming that an ability is just a quick way to get someone to finish you off, when the ability factually knocks down and interrupts the opponent trying to finish you. That is about as factually inaccurate as one can get. I am hoping just one example is sufficient, particularly since I posted twice for you.

Huh, must’ve taken my stupid pill that day – how the hell’d I miss that?

Well, that’s one of his points. You mention several, though. Maybe you’d be so kind as to explain the rest, so that maybe he can respond and/or go “Okay, so I guess I was wrong on that one?” I’m actually kind of curious.

I keep seeing mesmers and thieves come up here as the metric of comparison and they probably shouldn’t.

Mesmers are easily the class with the best downed toolkit, period. Their 1 is great in PvE and their 2 and 3 are absurdly good in PvP/WvW. If anything, they should come down rather than everyone rising to match them. Thieves are only slightly worse off than Mesmer, but way ahead of most everyone else.

As for elementalists, mist form is such a mixed bag. It really only saves you in a small handful of situations.

I feel like ArenaNet thinks engineer will be op, yet it has so many disadvantages mechanics.

IMO the number 1 attack should just be stronger and 2 should have more range.

1 is just pathetically weak and the random debuffs which (other than the bleed) don’t wind up helping you kill off what’s hurting you before you die to rally once you’re downed.

2 is totally useless if they are just shooting you from range (which I’ve often done vs eng’s)

3 is a good aoe blast to get everything off of you… not really for damage so I don’t feel it needs a change.

Downed states in general are in serious need of a balance…

Hsinimod.5784:

Mesmer. #2 Deception allows the Mes to randomly teleport to a new location avoiding a whole group of stompers and summons a downed clone. #3 Phantasmal Rogue simply does high DPS. The Mes can’t reliably run toward allies, but they can avoid a stomp and with high DPS (#1 Mind Blast is not shabby), rally off their foe. Their downed state skill set is perfectly balanced imo, leaning neither toward too strong or too weak.

I can answer to this.
skill 1 is crap against stompers since they take no damage from Confusion.
skill 2 does work against multiple stompers but that’s about it. The clone is useless against stompers because it spams confusion and as a clone it only deals about 30 per attack. The clone is useless as a distractions as it always appears first and real mesmer always has a red arrow over his head.
skill 3 deals nice damage, but unless you waste time you can always stomp the mesmer before this one comes up.

Against a mesmer I just go for the stomp, he disappears, his clone appears, I wait about 0.5 sec more, the real mesmer appears, go to him and stomp before he can summon his phantasm. GG.

The grappling line does interrupt tho. Not that it’s that much help, but if the enemy is in your face, you can interrupt him in hopes of pulling of a explosion.

ManCaptain.3154:

Hsinimod.5784:

Mesmer. #2 Deception allows the Mes to randomly teleport to a new location avoiding a whole group of stompers and summons a downed clone. #3 Phantasmal Rogue simply does high DPS. The Mes can’t reliably run toward allies, but they can avoid a stomp and with high DPS (#1 Mind Blast is not shabby), rally off their foe. Their downed state skill set is perfectly balanced imo, leaning neither toward too strong or too weak.

I can answer to this.
skill 1 is crap against stompers since they take no damage from Confusion.
skill 2 does work against multiple stompers but that’s about it. The clone is useless against stompers because it spams confusion and as a clone it only deals about 30 per attack. The clone is useless as a distractions as it always appears first and real mesmer always has a red arrow over his head.
skill 3 deals nice damage, but unless you waste time you can always stomp the mesmer before this one comes up.

Against a mesmer I just go for the stomp, he disappears, his clone appears, I wait about 0.5 sec more, the real mesmer appears, go to him and stomp before he can summon his phantasm. GG.

Really?

Mesmer have prolly the best downed state abilities in the game, and I think most people will agree on that.

I fought a mesmer once and I checked damage after, he was hitting me for 1.5 with mind blast, their first spamming skill. I will just stop there about the mesmer.

For the engineer, I recently switched back to my engi, from playing my necro. And kitten Necro don’t have the strongest downedstate, actually they are kinda bad.

BUT, I feel so weak now on my engi in downstate. Necro abilities are way better.

OP, you said necro #1 does weak damage. You never tried it man if you say that. I don’t even use the +50% damage and I’m doing crazy damage with my #1. It doesn’t hit for 1.5k , but it still hit for like 200-300 damage on CHANNELING. That’s really fast hitting. At the same time, you are surviving longer because you are leaching life. In WvW when you are downed, you can continu to ditch some good number before going down.

Our Hook is also bad, each time you use it, it’s like screaming “HEY FINISH ME MAN!”.
The only use is to Cancel one finisher, or hook somoene in a group fight when you have allies around you. Every other situation, using hook is a bad idea. You don’t pull melee, you don’t attrac people to you.

Our downed state #3 is a really good ability. Nothing to say about it. Sure it’s not vengeance, but it still good.

Our #1 is our worse skill, seriously, it doesn’t go anything good. Bad damage, and only chilled damage can be good. Since it’s a random effect, they could at least make it stronger. You don’t know what youy get, but when you get it it will be twice as strong.
Using #1 is like throwing wet noodle at somoene. Even in PvE it’s useless.

I don’t want OP abilities like that Jet Pack idea, this game as too much extreme downstate (myst form, teleport, vengeance) I don’t want another one. Just give us a bit more damage, hook shot should hit for crazy damage since it’s single target and it make us dying more often then not.

Engineer have a nice downed skill why u complain about it? I remember when 1st time played with these downed skill was terrible but after all I RLY LIKE THEM. Nothing to change for me :>

@Monkey

You might want to try other class downed state skill before saying that. They are really weak, and you can’t even traits for downstate.

The main issue is simply that some classes have a #2 skill that may interrupt a single stomp (if no stability is used), some classes have a #2 that may interrupt an entire group from stomping and then there are classes that have a #2 that will interrupt an entire group from stomping no matter what they do.

You can’t balance on the #3, because the classes that can’t reliably interrupt multiple stomps with #2 will rarely get to use it.

I don’t consider the downed state to be that important for overall balance, but in itself it is completely unbalanced from one class to the next because of this.

ManCaptain.3154:

skill 1 is crap against stompers since they take no damage from Confusion.

It’s a PVE utility. In that context, it’s one of the best.

ManCaptain.3154:

skill 2 does work against multiple stompers but that’s about it. The clone is useless against stompers because it spams confusion and as a clone it only deals about 30 per attack. The clone is useless as a distractions as it always appears first and real mesmer always has a red arrow over his head.

It still fools a lot of people, and also picks up a lot of autotarget hate. If you think this skill is not the best stomp defense in the game than your metric for success is way off. It’s a teleport, a decoy, and a stealth all in one. It’s incredibly good.

ManCaptain.3154:

skill 3 deals nice damage, but unless you waste time you can always stomp the mesmer before this one comes up.

It can help down an opponent in a close fight, and then you end up with a downed-vs-downed scenario in a 1v1. It’s better in sPvP, to be sure.

ManCaptain.3154:

Against a mesmer I just go for the stomp, he disappears, his clone appears, I wait about 0.5 sec more, the real mesmer appears, go to him and stomp before he can summon his phantasm. GG.

If the mesmer is all alone, this will work. If not, they’ll do it at the last possible instant and you’ll probably be under fire from teammates. Like the guardian skill, this is a 100% stomp defeater and can stop multiple people. In a team engagement that’s often enough to not be sent back to a waypoint.

Kardiamond.6952:

@Monkey

You might want to try other class downed state skill before saying that. They are really weak, and you can’t even traits for downstate.

Most of us have tried them. Engineers are great. What other professions have AoE knock backs? What other professions have a down skill that does the decent AoE damage booby trap does? Now what class has the AoE knock back and good AoE damage in one skill?

Snafoo.2869:

The main issue is simply that some classes have a #2 skill that may interrupt a single stomp (if no stability is used), some classes have a #2 that may interrupt an entire group from stomping and then there are classes that have a #2 that will interrupt an entire group from stomping no matter what they do.

You can’t balance on the #3, because the classes that can’t reliably interrupt multiple stomps with #2 will rarely get to use it.

I don’t consider the downed state to be that important for overall balance, but in itself it is completely unbalanced from one class to the next because of this.

Best post yet, and as an engineer, your dead 99% of the time if you can’t interrupt a double stomp (anymore is obvious death)

KirinDave.6451:

Like the guardian skill, this is a 100% stomp defeater and can stop multiple people.

I don’t disagree with most of your point, but the guardian’s skill is not on par with the mesmer’s, it compares best to the ranger’s; both are AoE, yet both can be negated by stability or a well timed blind, which still makes them inferior to that of the thief, elementalist and mesmer which can interrupt multiple stomps even if those boons/conditions are used.

coglin.1496:

Most of us have tried them. Engineers are great. What other professions have AoE knock backs? What other professions have a down skill that does the decent AoE damage booby trap does? Now what class has the AoE knock back and good AoE damage in one skill?

The #3 skill is a good skill, the problem is that most other classes have a multiple stomp interrupt on the #2 and against people that know what they’re doing (even in a 1v1), you will rarely be downed long enough to get to use #3.
You can’t balance the #3 from one class against the #2 from another.

[Disclaimer] I look at downed state balance mostly in respect to how well a class can interrupt stomps, because imo that is the most important ability to have by far (in PvP of course, I’ve never known an npc to try and stomp me).

In my opinion, based on the few professions i played.

-Mesmers downed is the best in PvE because monsters dont stomp and will always attack illusions, they can end up taking about 1k confusion damage per hit. They are good at delaying inexperienced players in PvP. They lack disrupt, so experienced players will wait for you to clone before killing you.

-Engineers downed are not that good in PvE, the only random 1 i want is bleed, and 2 is useless. 3 is good if you survive long enough to use it. They are better in pvp. Wait till the right moment and use 2 on foes to disrupt them. This should buy you time for a 3.

-Guardians are average. 1 has low damage. 2 is good in pvp to disrupt foes. 3 is good in pve to last longer.

-Necros work like guardians, but their 1 is better but 3 isn’t as good

Anyways i rarely rally in PvP (even as a mesmer) so i try to last as long as possible or help my allies

Raijinn.9065:

Best post yet, and as an engineer, your dead 99% of the time if you can’t interrupt a double stomp (anymore is obvious death)

99% of all PvP downs end in deaths. Not just for engineers.

you also forgot to mention that #2 is easily counterable because of the slow animation, when I down an Engi I proceed to stomp them until I see them moving their hand and charging then I dodge and stomp them again, on the other hand it’s trickier to dodge for example warrior’s or guardian’s #2 because of fast cast.
and I think warriors have the best downed because of vengeance.

The wider issue is the fact that all professions should have the same downed skills.

coglin.1496:

Kardiamond.6952:

@Monkey

You might want to try other class downed state skill before saying that. They are really weak, and you can’t even traits for downstate.

Most of us have tried them. Engineers are great. What other professions have AoE knock backs? What other professions have a down skill that does the decent AoE damage booby trap does? Now what class has the AoE knock back and good AoE damage in one skill?

So you are talking about our #3 downstate skill huh?

Yeah right, our #3 is good.

The sad thing is, we usually never use it. I always get killed before having a chance to use it.

Our #1 is a 300 damage crit (on exotic dps gear) spam that does a random effect, you have 33% of chance to have what you wanted. Some class does above 1k damage with their number #1.

And our #2. That gotta be one of the worse #2 in the game. Like a previous poster said, this skill have a long wind up, and you can see it coming. You are stomping and you see him wind up? just dodge and finish him. Also it does weak damage, and it only pull one single target.

And you know what? When I’m downed, most of the time, I don’t want to pull somoene over me. Pull that Glass cannon warrior over me? Yeah good idea. Somoene over there is fighting, why not oull him over me so he can finish me!

It has some utility, for group fight when your team is rezing you, you can pull the ennemy with you. But heck, I will use my Toolkit to do that

Like I said, our number 3 is really good! I don’t want this one buffed. But don’t act like it’s the best around. Warrior have vengeance, he rez for 10 sec and can trait to rally if he kill somoene. You can do a lot of damage in 10 seconde rez. Mesmer got a crazy damaging phantasm.

Finally, our #3 is a really good skill, but we never have to use it. If we use it, it’s because people don’t focus on us, and the same could be said if we didn’t have any skill except #3.

KirinDave.6451:

It still fools a lot of people, and also picks up a lot of autotarget hate.

It fools idiots. At rank 10+ people who stomp the clone get very rare.

If you think this skill is not the best stomp defense in the game than your metric for success is way off. It’s a teleport, a decoy, and a stealth all in one. It’s incredibly good.

I think your metric is way off. Thief’s downed is way better.
Thief num1 hits multiple enemies, hinders movement of all of them (very useful for keeping people from stomping you) and also debuffs healing on all of them.
Thief num2 works similarly to mesmer one, but it has such short recharge that if you don’t dodgeroll over to the thief, right when he appears he will disappear again. IMO thief is by far the hardest class to stomp.

All in all don’t pretend engineer has worst downed in the game, because it’s completely comparable to necro or a ranger.
The biggest problem for engineer is num 1 skill damage.That crap needs like 50% damage boost.

I play both Necro and Engineer as my “mains”, and I can garantee you I take Necro downed over Engineer any time.

Sure, Engineer #3 is better then necro, because of the AoE stun. But you actually never get to use it, except if people forget to stomp you.

You get to use #1 and #2, which a really weak compared to necro.

Necro #1 hit for the same amount then engineer, but twice as fast. And it also leech life, so you survive a lot longer if they don’t finish you.

Necro #2, same thing as engineer, except you aren’t pulling ennemy to you, you are pushing them away. I take this over pull, anytime when I’m downed.

I have only ever played as an engineer in game, with plenty of time spent in sPvP.

In my humble opinion, engineer downed skills are not that great.

In sPvP, as soon as you are downed, and there are either single or multiple enemies around, you are almost certainly screwed. Skill #2, while being a KD, draws an enemy closer. You can use it to interrupt a stomp, but 95% of the time Skill #3 is no where close to being ready to counter the next stomp.

Stomping other engineers is generally easier than other classes as well, without using invulnerability skills. Other classes seem to have downed skills that can make life much more annoying for the stomper, requiring 2-3 attempts and/ or the use of skills. Stomping an engineer rarely requires more than 1 attempt.

On the plus side, the weak downed skills are the only issue i have with an engineer is sPvP. The rest is great

what build do you play in spvp?