Guild Wars 2

… to find a reason to play for more than a few minutes. At least in PvP. I’ve played other professions, and they do nothing for me. My engineer was the first character I created in pre-release and though I love the playstyle, I’m getting a little tired of hopping to different builds in hopes I can reduce the damage done by the nerfbat (which ultimately comes down to ’here’s this build that can do things this other profession can do, except not as good’, but I digress). Anyone else feel this way? I’ve been playing less and less of the game since November, just wondering what other engis are doing. Shelving the character til another patch? Rolling new toons?

New toons and more involvement in WvW. My engineer is parked at a rich resource node waiting to see what happens next.

Everyone, we wait and hope for the light to shine on ye old Engineer class, it needs fundamental changes like the Druid in warcraft for example.

I’m playing the kitten outta my engineer, im looking forward to the next update, the only thing that i feel stands reason to get nerfed is the SD build but if they nerf that for engis then they really gotta do something about glass cannon thief’s.

I’ve played around 900 matches on my Engi, after initially rolling a Guardian and playing up to around 600 matches. Never looked back so far, and I’ve found in PvP we are quite good and have more variety of builds available to use than most professions, despite a lot of posts on these boards.

The main problem is that everyone wants to just kill things quickly, and we don’t do that quickly without sacrificing a lot.

aydenunited.5729:

I’ve played around 900 matches on my Engi, after initially rolling a Guardian and playing up to around 600 matches. Never looked back so far, and I’ve found in PvP we are quite good and have more variety of builds available to use than most professions, despite a lot of posts on these boards.

The main problem is that everyone wants to just kill things quickly, and we don’t do that quickly without sacrificing a lot.

I also have great success in PvP with my engineer. However, this statement feels like an oversimplification, given the huge popularity of bunker guardians. They don’t kill things quickly either, and yet they are extremely popular and effective.

I think, perhaps, it’s a mix of several things: 1, the issue you describe; 2, engineers have a high skill floor; 3, engineers have a higher-than-average number of bugs; 4, engineers have a couple of real holes/viability problems with their skill sets/mechanic.

I appreciate that you’re not berating other engineers for not being good enough, like some other engineer players seem to enjoy doing. I also agree that engineers aren’t as bad as everyone thinks. But maybe we shouldn’t dismiss everyone’s troubles so simply?

NevirSayDie.6235:

aydenunited.5729:

I’ve played around 900 matches on my Engi, after initially rolling a Guardian and playing up to around 600 matches. Never looked back so far, and I’ve found in PvP we are quite good and have more variety of builds available to use than most professions, despite a lot of posts on these boards.

The main problem is that everyone wants to just kill things quickly, and we don’t do that quickly without sacrificing a lot.

I also have great success in PvP with my engineer. However, this statement feels like an oversimplification, given the huge popularity of bunker guardians. They don’t kill things quickly either, and yet they are extremely popular and effective.

I think, perhaps, it’s a mix of several things: 1, the issue you describe; 2, engineers have a high skill floor; 3, engineers have a higher-than-average number of bugs; 4, engineers have a couple of real holes/viability problems with their skill sets/mechanic.

I appreciate that you’re not berating other engineers for not being good enough, like some other engineer players seem to enjoy doing. I also agree that engineers aren’t as bad as everyone thinks. But maybe we shouldn’t dismiss everyone’s troubles so simply?

My intent isn’t to sound dismissive. On the contrary, I’ve posted several builds posts here, and I give in game advice quite often when other Engie players ask.

But those posts? Yeah, they scroll off the first page within a day, where the complaint posts stack up dozens of posts of people chiming in on things we supposedly can’t do. I don’t understand what happened in gaming where if something is a challenge to do, ‘why bother trying’ seems to be the mentality. That’s the part of me that probably starts to shine through and sound a bit dismissive, but it truthfully does come out of a mentality of wanting to help other Engineers and show them what we’re capable of, but it feels like there isn’t any interest in that, because it’s hard.

aydenunited.5729:

My intent isn’t to sound dismissive. On the contrary, I’ve posted several builds posts here, and I give in game advice quite often when other Engie players ask.

But those posts? Yeah, they scroll off the first page within a day, where the complaint posts stack up dozens of posts of people chiming in on things we supposedly can’t do. I don’t understand what happened in gaming where if something is a challenge to do, ‘why bother trying’ seems to be the mentality. That’s the part of me that probably starts to shine through and sound a bit dismissive, but it truthfully does come out of a mentality of wanting to help other Engineers and show them what we’re capable of, but it feels like there isn’t any interest in that, because it’s hard.

Understood. In that case, keep up the good work and happy thief crushing.

I’ve been trying to get into a flamethrower spec for PvE, and the number of bugs and annoyances of the spec just keeps pushing me away. I cant speak much for PvP though, even though I’ve seen some people on Twitch play them really well.

aydenunited.5729:

NevirSayDie.6235:

aydenunited.5729:

I’ve played around 900 matches on my Engi, after initially rolling a Guardian and playing up to around 600 matches. Never looked back so far, and I’ve found in PvP we are quite good and have more variety of builds available to use than most professions, despite a lot of posts on these boards.

The main problem is that everyone wants to just kill things quickly, and we don’t do that quickly without sacrificing a lot.

I also have great success in PvP with my engineer. However, this statement feels like an oversimplification, given the huge popularity of bunker guardians. They don’t kill things quickly either, and yet they are extremely popular and effective.

I think, perhaps, it’s a mix of several things: 1, the issue you describe; 2, engineers have a high skill floor; 3, engineers have a higher-than-average number of bugs; 4, engineers have a couple of real holes/viability problems with their skill sets/mechanic.

I appreciate that you’re not berating other engineers for not being good enough, like some other engineer players seem to enjoy doing. I also agree that engineers aren’t as bad as everyone thinks. But maybe we shouldn’t dismiss everyone’s troubles so simply?

My intent isn’t to sound dismissive. On the contrary, I’ve posted several builds posts here, and I give in game advice quite often when other Engie players ask.

But those posts? Yeah, they scroll off the first page within a day, where the complaint posts stack up dozens of posts of people chiming in on things we supposedly can’t do. I don’t understand what happened in gaming where if something is a challenge to do, ‘why bother trying’ seems to be the mentality. That’s the part of me that probably starts to shine through and sound a bit dismissive, but it truthfully does come out of a mentality of wanting to help other Engineers and show them what we’re capable of, but it feels like there isn’t any interest in that, because it’s hard.

I apologize if my post annoys you. I’ve only played Engineer since launch, and have resisted playing other classes even though they are in a much better place than us, and I stick with it because I enjoy the playstyle. I’m Glory Rank 35, which I got 98% of playing as an Engineer. It’s not that it’s challenging that makes me not enjoy it. It’s that I can’t get spots on tournament teams without being a bunker (and even then, not all the time) because other classes do what I do better. I posted twice on the forums today. You swooped into my post in sPvP to tell me to l2p, and now you’re doing it again here. I suppose I’m not the monster Engi player that you are, but I assure you it isn’t from lack of trying. I merely voiced my frustration and asked other Engis what they were doing, as it’s widely regarded that despite what you say, we’re not fine. I posted this to get some suggestions on what everyone else is doing to alleviate the frustration. I did NOT post this so it could be inferred that my problem with the class is it’s too difficult and I suck. You’re not coming off as helpful, you’re coming off as extremely condescending. So again, I apologize for posting one of ‘those’ types of threads. I’m sure your day is much worse because of it.

I rolled a thief… got it to 80 and geared it out with two full sets of exotics. Working on my third as I try out new thief builds. I also started an elementalist.

I’m in the same boat as the OP. I’ve played every profession but the engineer is the only one that I absolutely love. I’m losing interest and I feel like I’m being punished for choosing to play an engineer. I really can’t see myself playing GW2 for much longer. I actually haven’t even played in about four weeks. It’s funny because ANet specifically made GW2 to be played longer than GW1 but even though I played GW1 for years, I can barely bring myself to play GW2 any more.

i find myself reading alot more people getting on the l2p ban wagon with engineers, straight up we all have our issues with the engineer but at the end of the day some of us are doing great things with the engineer and that’s not a matter of the engineer class its self but the skilled players who are really getting the most out of the class.

I’m not trying to be a dick when i say this but sometimes you just gotta accept u cant do it and move on, hell i wish i was great a picking up women but sadly I’m not, so at the end of the day when a better player says learn to play go get better, it doesn’t matter what you read on these forums you gotta put the work into the engineer to find a build that your gonna be pro at.

the amount of failing tank cats i see compared to actual individualistic builds is kitten (no offense tankcat build, its a great build that i find fun to use now and then), so engineers that complain to much about the class yes you need to learn to play, i’m sick of hearing how kitten it is and how every other class does what we do but better, we are not every other class, start comparing yourself to other players before you start raging on the class.

ukuni.8745:

i find myself reading alot more people getting on the l2p ban wagon with engineers, straight up we all have our issues with the engineer but at the end of the day some of us are doing great things with the engineer and that’s not a matter of the engineer class its self but the skilled players who are really getting the most out of the class.

I’m not trying to be a dick when i say this but sometimes you just gotta accept u cant do it and move on, hell i wish i was great a picking up women but sadly I’m not, so at the end of the day when a better player says learn to play go get better, it doesn’t matter what you read on these forums you gotta put the work into the engineer to find a build that your gonna be pro at.

the amount of failing tank cats i see compared to actual individualistic builds is kitten (no offense tankcat build, its a great build that i find fun to use now and then), so engineers that complain to much about the class yes you need to learn to play, i’m sick of hearing how kitten it is and how every other class does what we do but better, we are not every other class, start comparing yourself to other players before you start raging on the class.

I love that in response to my thread I’m getting l2p and move the kitten on. I stated how I felt, asked if anyone else felt that way and if so, what they were doing instead of getting frustrated. That’s it. I didn’t go on a long rant about how gimped we are, I expressly stated that I love the class and it’s playstyle. Elitist kittens for the win. Any cool builds you guys are trying out, any tips for getting more enjoyment out of this class etc would be welcome. If you’re here to tell me I probably just suck or re-roll, get the kitten out, because that’s not what the thread was about at all.

It’s best to ignore trolls and fanbois. Neither has the IQ of a walnut.

I did reroll. But I liked the engineer play style best and can’t seem to enjoy another. I guess I’m moving on though, to a different game. I found this fun, cheap strategy game called fallen enchantress to entertain myself with while I wait for the engineer to be fixed.

Choops.3710:

I love that in response to my thread I’m getting l2p and move the kitten on. I stated how I felt, asked if anyone else felt that way and if so, what they were doing instead of getting frustrated. That’s it. I didn’t go on a long rant about how gimped we are, I expressly stated that I love the class and it’s playstyle. Elitist kittens for the win. Any cool builds you guys are trying out, any tips for getting more enjoyment out of this class etc would be welcome. If you’re here to tell me I probably just suck or re-roll, get the kitten out, because that’s not what the thread was about at all.

I’m sorry if i came of that way i just simply saying the way i felt on the learn to play matter, on that note id like to take us back to your original post.

Choops.3710:

… to find a reason to play for more than a few minutes. At least in PvP. I’ve played other professions, and they do nothing for me. My engineer was the first character I created in pre-release and though I love the playstyle, I’m getting a little tired of hopping to different builds in hopes I can reduce the damage done by the nerfbat (which ultimately comes down to ’here’s this build that can do things this other profession can do, except not as good’, but I digress). Anyone else feel this way? I’ve been playing less and less of the game since November, just wondering what other engis are doing. Shelving the character til another patch? Rolling new toons?

Well im glad you like the engineer but this is clearly a rant about Anets attention on the engineer, so this brings me back to my original point of why are some of us doing really well and then people like yourself say things like “I’m getting a little tired of hopping to different builds in hopes I can reduce the damage done by the nerfbat” what nerf bat? is it really a nerf bat? if it was that messed up of a class every one would be feeling it, but there are people doing really well with it, and people who have literally said in this thread that they are doing great

so if you really wanted to say

Choops.3710:

Elitist kittens for the win. Any cool builds you guys are trying out, any tips for getting more enjoyment out of this class etc would be welcome.

then say that next time, instead u rant about how much this class is apparently getting destroyed, and and whilst i may not be saying what u apparently wanted to hear i am simply replying to the post you left, on that note i think we all want to see some fixes rather then nerfs or buffs and id me more then happy to chat about the real issues involving the class

If it’s getting more difficult, you’re on to something good.

/#hopping to different builds/ Like you, likewise. Takes time to get a good build with traits and getting all the moves down playing engineer. I got the most points in the mists with high damage builds like a high crit SD (tool belt spec) build. But I got tired of it because I liked the kits pve. I figured out how that works in pvp (for me). And i am still enjoying all the combos to be had. Mashing toolbelt skills for SD—like the current thief initiative system—is a lackluster in performace. No combos at all or rhythm to the fight.

now back on the apparent topic lets look at what the engineer can do, in 1v1 1v2 using the right skills it can be a monster, but lots of people don’t like the idea of solo and roaming in a team orientated game so lets look at that and why the engineer is the best team mate, from playing with team mates and not trying to be some crazy damage dealing animal what can i do for my team that’s gonna put them a cut above.

going a more saboteur build is one way running a bomb kit, flamer and p/s you now have some mad aoe cc which when used right is the biggest damage dealer when it comes to team play, what else do we have with this, the ability to drop 4 stacks of blind in half a second, as well as a smoke combo field (machine gun rangers do your thing) as well as when combo’d with the 1st shield skill an aoe stealth fantastic for helping with revivals and finishing with out getting involved in it, we also have a good 13 seconds of fire combo fields and with aoe’s skills once again aoe might stacking, and once again machine guns do your thing.

u can also run elixir infused bombs and the trait that increases there radius, now your not only a mad cc machine and team support yor now throwing out some epic regen with i think is something around 170 hp every bomb at 1/2 second cast time over 300 heal a second take into account that most heals have at a minimum 20 second cd ure now healing about 6k hp between each of there own heals while still throwing out some great combo fields and devastating cc.

lets get this how good engineers really are ball rolling aye

Choops.3710:

I stated how I felt, asked if anyone else felt that way and if so, what they were doing instead of getting frustrated. That’s it. I didn’t go on a long rant about how gimped we are, I expressly stated that I love the class and it’s playstyle.

ukuni.8745:

then say that next time, instead u rant about how much this class is apparently getting destroyed, and and whilst i may not be saying what u apparently wanted to hear i am simply replying to the post you left, on that note i think we all want to see some fixes rather then nerfs or buffs and id me more then happy to chat about the real issues involving the class

Choops.3710:

Anyone else feel this way? I’ve been playing less and less of the game since November, just wondering what other engis are doing. Shelving the character til another patch? Rolling new toons?

Looks to me like he did say it in the very first post. Maybe your fanboy blinders were on, and when you saw a negative comment about his personal experiences playing the engineer you quit comprehending what you were reading and replied with the same pat answer you always do to anybody who isn’t entirely satisfied with the class you feel obligated to defend because you chose it.

Zonzai.2341:

Choops.3710:

I stated how I felt, asked if anyone else felt that way and if so, what they were doing instead of getting frustrated. That’s it. I didn’t go on a long rant about how gimped we are, I expressly stated that I love the class and it’s playstyle.

ukuni.8745:

then say that next time, instead u rant about how much this class is apparently getting destroyed, and and whilst i may not be saying what u apparently wanted to hear i am simply replying to the post you left, on that note i think we all want to see some fixes rather then nerfs or buffs and id me more then happy to chat about the real issues involving the class

Choops.3710:

Anyone else feel this way? I’ve been playing less and less of the game since November, just wondering what other engis are doing. Shelving the character til another patch? Rolling new toons?

Looks to me like he did say it in the very first post. Maybe your fanboy blinders were on, and when you saw a negative comment about his personal experiences playing the engineer you quit comprehending what you were reading and replied with the same pat answer you always do to anybody who isn’t entirely satisfied with the class you feel obligated to defend because you chose it.

maybe i did have fan boy blinders on but he did say in his response to me that he wanted to know what other engineers where doing in terms of playing the engineer, which in his original post which i quote “I’ve been playing less and less of the game since November, just wondering what other engis are doing. Shelving the character til another patch? Rolling new toons?” which to me seems more like a is it even worth it anymore not “hey whats new with the engineer any sick new builds lets talk strategy” which is apparently what this thread was created for

Is English your second language, dude? If that’s the case I can understand how you could misread his post so erroneously.

I posted this initially because I wanted to hear what other engis were doing to keep playing, stave off the frustration that a quick look at this forum will show that quite a few people feel. Looking for other peoples input, that’s it. Somehow this got labeled as a QQ post when I intended it to be anything but, and then somehow it ended up being people are doing amazing things with the engineer, sometimes you just have to move on and also included some amazing insight into your inability to talk to women. Yeah. Stayed right on topic. So, I’ve gathered from this post that the best thing for me to stave off frustration with engineer is to avoid the engineer forums. Thanks for the help.

wow lol, okay so you wanted to know what engis were doing to keep playing with the problems that every engineer faces then it changed to “Any cool builds you guys are trying out, any tips for getting more enjoyment out of this class” that’s not a complete 360 at all, so why are we even having this argument, o wait im sorry my fanboy blinders are closed let me open them wait they are open let me get my windscreen wipers out so i can wipe away the built up crap, so now lets get back to your apprently original topic of “Any cool builds you guys are trying out, any tips for getting more enjoyment out of this class” unless that’s going to be a problem since i already tried to end what i had to say and get back to the game in general.

ukuni.8745:

wow lol, okay so you wanted to know what engis were doing to keep playing with the problems that every engineer faces then it changed to “Any cool builds you guys are trying out, any tips for getting more enjoyment out of this class” that’s not a complete 360 at all, so why are we even having this argument, o wait im sorry my fanboy blinders are closed let me open them wait they are open let me get my windscreen wipers out so i can wipe away the built up crap, so now lets get back to your apprently original topic of “Any cool builds you guys are trying out, any tips for getting more enjoyment out of this class” unless that’s going to be a problem since i already tried to end what i had to say and get back to the game in general.

No, you know what, you’re right.

That’s not a complete 360.

At all.

I still play my engi in WvW with a P/P and P/S Condtion Build and it works fine, but i still look forward to new changes and bugfixes. I also have a 80 Mesmer and it is way easier to play this class in WvW than engi, but also it is more boring.

Tons of quality of life issues for engineer.
RNG, Slow animations on MANY skills(many elixirs, rifle leap, etc). Self CC(elixir S, rifle leap, rocket boots, overcharged shot)
Lots of traits not working at all. Or working incorrectly. And have not been addressed.

spvp, and wvw/pve are very different. This is far more true for engineers then any other profession.
In spvp stats are on runes, and ammy only. Stats on weapon, not effecting kits doesn’t happen there.

However, kit weapon damage is still low. And there are massive variances in power on kits. FT is just woefully up.

Offensive power in pve and wvw dramatically outscales defensive power. Full zerker, ascended will basically be able to instant gib full defensive builds in wvw/pve. (yes, conditions and defensive builds in wvw are doing it wrong. I will accept a nominal amount to “take the edge off” any burst, however)
But in spvp, where everyone stats are capped via set ammy’s, this is not true. Offense never attains the massive advantage. Opening up more builds, and at the same time killing most burst builds.

solo vs team play builds are still an issue. Most people talk past each other on this. The prime example of the grenade spvp builds, which are not remotely ideal in solo pvp, were anyone can basically just run you down, with your lack of CC, and need to aim in a 1v1 situation. while, in team play, the ability to lay down constant high aoe damage from range is very powerful. (hammer war knocks you down, while a grenadier lays down the carpet bombing. Gl with that)

I feel exactly that way OP, I am personally not logging back in until they fix this class properly and they fix the drop rates properly. (unless my husband wants me to help him with something or play with him on one of his tinies, and then only on my thief)

This class’s traits are nowhere near what my ranger/thief traits are in boosts to damage output and enhancements to stats yet we’re supposed to believe that somehow it’s justified to nerf this class with every patch? Even our kits aren’t affected by stats yet! spssh.

The combat vision states that no class will have problems in combat, well that doesn’t jive with this class right now. See there’s the thing. There’s already been a long history of other mmo’s trying to do just what they did to this class on other games. WoW’s early druid, LOTRO’s early LM comes to mind. They both learned that you can’t limit the damage output without killing the gameplay entirely and eventually had to boost the damage on those classes for people to be able to play them again. And when it comes to classes that were considered support, WoW’s healing priest comes to mind instantly. For a time in their BC campaign a healing priest could absolutely not solo anything without fighting it forever, so making support do less damage on this class isn’t the answer either. Not to mention that other classes in this title don’t have to give up anything to be support and yet remain just as versatile. Then there’s the whole “pets and warlike abilities make you too powerful in pvp”, WoW players, remember what they did to hunters some time back in cata, couldn’t even play pve because pvp had to be balanced. I had high hopes that their interviews about separating pvp and pve coding in this game would work. Something went wrong somewhere. Guess what I’m trying to say is this….history teaches us alot and saves us alot of time.

What makes things worse are the traits need to be made en par with Rangers/Thieves traits. I’ve been comparing them line by line in the three classes. There are things we should have as engis that are missing entirely. I’ll be posting that soon.

tigirius.9014:

WoW’s early druid

I made the EXACT comparison in another thread (engineer to vanilla WoW druid).

Why am I always drawn to classes that look so good on paper but in practice fall so short of the mark.

Casia.4281:

spvp, and wvw/pve are very different. This is far more true for engineers then any other profession.
In spvp stats are on runes, and ammy only. Stats on weapon, not effecting kits doesn’t happen there.

solo vs team play builds are still an issue. Most people talk past each other on this. The prime example of the grenade spvp builds, which are not remotely ideal in solo pvp, were anyone can basically just run you down, with your lack of CC, and need to aim in a 1v1 situation. while, in team play, the ability to lay down constant high aoe damage from range is very powerful. (hammer war knocks you down, while a grenadier lays down the carpet bombing. Gl with that)

Out of the multiple arenas in this game, WvWvW should carry less weight in balance discussions as a matter of course. Any arena with intentional imbalances like orbs, zergs, keeps and siege equipment, as well as unintentional imbalances such as the culling bug, are naturally going to have more power discrepancies than other formats. Heck, thief shortbow trickshot and cluster bomb still have similar scaling to pre-nerf grenades in this format, and it’s ALWAYS had better base damage. Imbalance exists in that format, no matter what.

aydenunited.5729:

But those posts? Yeah, they scroll off the first page within a day, where the complaint posts stack up dozens of posts of people chiming in on things we supposedly can’t do. I don’t understand what happened in gaming where if something is a challenge to do, ‘why bother trying’ seems to be the mentality. That’s the part of me that probably starts to shine through and sound a bit dismissive, but it truthfully does come out of a mentality of wanting to help other Engineers and show them what we’re capable of, but it feels like there isn’t any interest in that, because it’s hard.

No one is arguing that we lack viable builds. As long as viable builds exist, the class will always be playable, and good players will still be able to beat people that are sufficiently worse than you at the game. The important question that needs to be asked is: "Why is “viable” enough?". “Viable” just means functional. It works. It’s not broken. Viable DOES NOT MEAN competitive. Or worthwhile. Or clearly worth a spot in the group.

Part of the complaints are purely due to frustration over the completely arbitrary nerfs leveled at the class. Mine kit was OP with the 5 blast finishers, but to nerf it to borderline un-usability, is that good design? Bomb nerfs: you had to be insanely lucky or good to line up the smoke bomb puleses to stopping every hit of a multi-hit skill. Why did that warrant a nerf? Grenade PvP nerf: Grenades weren’t even one of the more favored utilities in s/tPvP… yet the were too strong on one node of one map (Capricorn). They drop the hammer on it in Nov, and decide to make it game-wide in Dec. WTF?!? I have no idea if you’ve been on the tPvP scene for the past couple of months, but we went from one of the most dominant bunkers in the meta to falling out the bottom of the meta in a span of months. That’s not balance. That doesn’t suggest a unified vision of where they want the class to be.

I’m sorry, but there’s not more viable builds in this class as there is in others for PvP., there just isn’t. If you want to include the also-rans such as Tankcat, Static Discharge burst, and P/P condition, you also have to include builds like Earth Ele bleed toughness, warrior bunker, Guard greatsword burst, and Thief Ninja Medic; builds that are perfectly viable, but not especially GOOD. That’s the level that Tankcat and Co. are at, and every class has several of those.

So, you can win fights with your enge. So can I. That doesn’t mean that the class is in a good place. It doesn’t change the fact that I have to work 10x harder for the win in my enge than I do on my burst Mes, defensive Guard, or mobility Thief, and for less benefit as well. Is that intelligent design? It’s good to have viable builds. It’s not good enough though…

MrSilver.5269:

tigirius.9014:

WoW’s early druid

I made the EXACT comparison in another thread (engineer to vanilla WoW druid).

Why am I always drawn to classes that look so good on paper but in practice fall so short of the mark.

There’s a more direct comparison to GW1’s Dervish, imo. It was a confusing class that didn’t work as well in game as it did on paper. It had clearly underpowered and overpowered features, and it was nerfed to the point where it was down to one (clearly overpowered) build in the meta. A-Net eventually revamped the class into one that was extremely elegant, diverse, and powerful… but that was a full expansion and several years after the class was released. The history of the Dervish both comforts and disturbs me…

I hope ANet fixes the engineer faster than they fixed the Dervish. It took them what, a year before they decided to rework it entirely? I don’t recall the time frame exactly, but it was a long time.

Silentsins.3726:

No one is arguing that we lack viable builds. As long as viable builds exist, the class will always be playable, and good players will still be able to beat people that are sufficiently worse than you at the game. The important question that needs to be asked is: "Why is “viable” enough?". “Viable” just means functional. It works. It’s not broken. Viable DOES NOT MEAN competitive. Or worthwhile. Or clearly worth a spot in the group.

Part of the complaints are purely due to frustration over the completely arbitrary nerfs leveled at the class. Mine kit was OP with the 5 blast finishers, but to nerf it to borderline un-usability, is that good design? Bomb nerfs: you had to be insanely lucky or good to line up the smoke bomb puleses to stopping every hit of a multi-hit skill. Why did that warrant a nerf? Grenade PvP nerf: Grenades weren’t even one of the more favored utilities in s/tPvP… yet the were too strong on one node of one map (Capricorn). They drop the hammer on it in Nov, and decide to make it game-wide in Dec. WTF?!? I have no idea if you’ve been on the tPvP scene for the past couple of months, but we went from one of the most dominant bunkers in the meta to falling out the bottom of the meta in a span of months. That’s not balance. That doesn’t suggest a unified vision of where they want the class to be.

I’m sorry, but there’s not more viable builds in this class as there is in others for PvP., there just isn’t. If you want to include the also-rans such as Tankcat, Static Discharge burst, and P/P condition, you also have to include builds like Earth Ele bleed toughness, warrior bunker, Guard greatsword burst, and Thief Ninja Medic; builds that are perfectly viable, but not especially GOOD. That’s the level that Tankcat and Co. are at, and every class has several of those.

So, you can win fights with your enge. So can I. That doesn’t mean that the class is in a good place. It doesn’t change the fact that I have to work 10x harder for the win in my enge than I do on my burst Mes, defensive Guard, or mobility Thief, and for less benefit as well. Is that intelligent design? It’s good to have viable builds. It’s not good enough though…

My point is, by your logic, there should be no professions in sPvP or tPvP other than Guardians and Mesmers, because they can do everything every other class can do and just as good.

So we’re in the same boat as 6/8 of the professions from a PvP standpoint, going by that logic.

Sounds ridiculous? Because it is. We already offer more to PvP than Warriors and Rangers do, but somehow all the talk here is doom and gloom, useless, overhaul, Anet doesn’t love us. We definately need some work, all bug fixes, a few buffs, but overhaul? Redesign? Hopeless? Really? I just don’t see it, it seems very overly-dramatic to me. Maybe I just haven’t played enough top-level teams to see the difference, but truthfully, that’s such a small portion of the total PvP pop that I doubt it would ever matter, let alone be relevant to the people posting on the forums who represent and even smaller portion of that focal elite.

PvE wise, I tend to get the malaise, I can see the frustration, but PvP wise… just don’t see the panic. Good things are coming our way and we’re already a pretty solid profession for variety, so I don’t fret too much about it.

I think there’s a disconnect with lots of us… I think we ALL know we need some buffs, I don’t dispute that. But people posting on these forums make their posts sound like they are just short of slitting their wrists, and I just don’t see things remotely that bad at the moment.

aydenunited.5729:

PvE wise, I tend to get the malaise, I can see the frustration, but PvP wise… just don’t see the panic. Good things are coming our way and we’re already a pretty solid profession for variety, so I don’t fret too much about it.

I think there’s a disconnect with lots of us… I think we ALL know we need some buffs, I don’t dispute that. But people posting on these forums make their posts sound like they are just short of slitting their wrists, and I just don’t see things remotely that bad at the moment.

It’s difficult to discern what somebody is feeling from a forum post. There are no facial clues or body language. Different personalities and dispositions will read the same thing differently. A lot of people who end up “fan boys” are just naturally more relaxed. Not that fan boys and haters don’t exist, they do. Plus you have to understand why people come to these forums. They come to vent. And when you’ve been anticipating something for years, and your expectations are really high (realistic or not) and you feel let down, you are going to vent. That’s just how humans work. Throw in the anonymity of the internet and you have a recipe for this sort of thing. The best thing to do is not to argue with someone who’s mad. (Now if you could just tell who’s mad and who isn’t…)

-EDIT- And then there are people like me who are just bored.

If so many people have noticed the amount of problems and bugs the Engineer has, then why would this be a ‘learn to play’ issue?

Learn to play…I hate that phrase. Really, I do. With other classes, if you make a mistake, you get a ‘reset button’. With Engineer, you have to be PERFECT.

I’ve had some great moments, and I’ve had some moments where I get outplayed. I’ve also had moments where I “Back off”, when I see an upleveled player try and take me down(I don’t know why I do it, I just do).

With each new build I try there have been ups and downs.

I don’t play to ‘own’, or anything like that. I am an average player, that occasionally shows up on the highlights reel.

e.g. came across a Ranger who was up against a Warrior, Guardian, and Necro. Rushed right in to help out. He dropped, but I managed to drag those three away from him, bringing them in close to some Eagle Griffons in WvW. That leveled the playing field. I made sure that they were too occupied with me and the Griffons. When one tried to leave to finish the Ranger off, I YOINKED him back with Magnet. Sure enough, that Ranger was up and giving me his Pet, Longbow and AoE that I needed(that Guardian was giving me alot of hell!). He thought my survivability was “Amazing”. Wasn’t anything like that. I replied “I got lucky”, because his Ranged Attacks saved my kitten . It was teamwork, plain and simple.

But I understand there are frustrations with the bugs associated with this class. There have been times when I’ve had these issues during a critical moment and I just do this face :/ . My FT shoots sideways, or up in the air, while I’m trying to burn someone down, or they are close range and my FT misses. That’s annoying.

Good with the bad. It happens.

My advice?

Play to have fun. Try out other builds that are just crazy (e.g. I tried Snow Leopard Form with my Norn Engineer and ran down a D/D Ele. I eviscerated that little Asuran. That was nothing short of nasty, and fun!).

BTW, I use D/D Ele as an example because, aside from Thieves, I encounter ALOT of them in WvW.

aydenunited.5729:

My point is, by your logic, there should be no professions in sPvP or tPvP other than Guardians and Mesmers, because they can do everything every other class can do and just as good.

So we’re in the same boat as 6/8 of the professions from a PvP standpoint, going by that logic.

Sounds ridiculous? Because it is.

It sounds ridiculous for the epic amount of words that you’re putting in my mouth. Seriously, try a re-read or something, I’m not even sure where you’re coming from.

aydenunited.5729:

We already offer more to PvP than Warriors and Rangers do…

Eh, warrior brings a lot more than we do at this point on the strong split. I’m not fully up to speed on rangers yet, so no comment.

aydenunited.5729:

but somehow all the talk here is doom and gloom, useless, overhaul, Anet doesn’t love us. We definately need some work, all bug fixes, a few buffs, but overhaul? Redesign? Hopeless? Really? I just don’t see it, it seems very overly-dramatic to me. Maybe I just haven’t played enough top-level teams to see the difference, but truthfully, that’s such a small portion of the total PvP pop that I doubt it would ever matter, let alone be relevant to the people posting on the forums who represent and even smaller portion of that focal elite.

Shrug More examples of things that I didn’t say personally. In terms of an overhaul, I like how the profession plays personally, but I could see the logic. If the intent is to really make us a versatile class, the way that the way our traits are set up completely undercuts that. Our utilities are similarly messy. The most common enge builds either go 1 kit and the rest elixirs in order to cover condition removal, stun breaks and support or if they go 2 kits or a gimmick build they forgo either a stun break or meaningful condition removal. Why? There’s a really, really shallow spread of these key features accross our utilities. Compare that to:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJAoYhImkbxx5gjDAkHm4CLhCKUeMTO2A
Condition removal, support, stun breaks, defense, offense… all covered by the utility/trait spread. Similar results from war/guard shout builds, thief deception builds, ect. Don’t take my word for it, go ahead and look over most of the enge builds and look at how many of them skip either a stunbreak or meaningful condition removal. That is broken.

That being said, overall balance isn’t that bad in the grand scheme of things, I agree. It’s close enough that one or two abilities is enough to take a class from “good” to “must bring”. That’s also why the continual knee-jerk nerfs to this class are disturbing though…

Personally, I’m thinking that they need to be tripling up the usefulness of some of our utilities. Perhaps juggernaut could make FT a stunbreak. Perhaps C could be a break as well (with an increased CD)… that sort of thing.

Silentsins.3726:

In terms of an overhaul, I like how the profession plays personally, but I could see the logic. If the intent is to really make us a versatile class, the way that the way our traits are set up completely undercuts that.

Based on the GW1 experience I think I can say two things fairly confidently…

1. If there is an engineer overhaul the way the profession feels/plays will be retained. This is something ANet is big on keeping throughout all of their revisions (or at least has been in GW1).
2. They will eventually fix the traits but it won’t be for a long time. I’m guessing probably not until late this year or early next year. The reason for this is tournaments. They will put off fixing the professions that need a lot of work in favor of getting tournaments up. And they won’t implement any drastic changes until after the tournament season.

I still play engineer from time to time but im very happy that i started a mesmer as soon as possible. It makes me sad how easy it is to play a mesmer compared to engineer for success.

I created threads on the gw2guru/official forum about the problems with kits after BWE1 and i said that if this horrible design goes live we will have to wait a long long time until we get a fixed profession. Of course i got flamed by fanboys for that because anet knows how to blanance things out better than i do, im still laughing.

I would play a mesmer but I feel dirty afterwards. It’s like taking candy from a baby. Same with the guardian and thief. It just makes me ashamed of myself. LOL

Zonzai.2341:

I would play a mesmer but I feel dirty afterwards. It’s like taking candy from a baby. Same with the guardian and thief. It just makes me ashamed of myself. LOL

LOL, I understand this all too well. I played a Mes before I played Engi during pre-release. For a while I bounced between both, but felt like the potential for the Engi was infinitely higher due to our ‘versatility.’ Now when I play the Mes for even a half hour I get the same feeling when I used to use the Game Genie on NES. Yeah, I’m more successful but it feels so, so wrong, lol

Zonzai.2341:

Based on the GW1 experience I think I can say two things fairly confidently…

1. If there is an engineer overhaul the way the profession feels/plays will be retained. This is something ANet is big on keeping throughout all of their revisions (or at least has been in GW1).
2. They will eventually fix the traits but it won’t be for a long time. I’m guessing probably not until late this year or early next year. The reason for this is tournaments. They will put off fixing the professions that need a lot of work in favor of getting tournaments up. And they won’t implement any drastic changes until after the tournament season.

Yeah… A-Net has a history of being sloooowwww with the large fixes. Usually when they get around to the changes they are very well done (their revamped Dervish is genuinely one of my top-3 favorite MMO classes of all time), but they are a small team.

Either way, I agree with the sentiment that enge problems aren’t THAT bad in the grand scheme of things. This is not the grand arena, these are not great injustices; this is a game we play with our free time and disposable income. The A-net team does this for a living, so they’re not going to do things just to anger their customers. This is also their art, and they are therefore as passionate about this game as we can be sometimes.

A-net doesn’t “hate the class”— with only 2 people doing the bugfixes, nerfs are simply the path of least resistance toward balance, since bug fixes and new features require additional code, and nerfs merely require that some numbers get turned down in a lot of cases. It’s MORE likely that the current state of the class is a product of neglect more than anything else; no one is entirely sure where they want the class to “fit” in the game and most of the nerfs happened since no one is looking at the class holistically. They devs are only human, after all…

Either way, I have the utmost confidence that the devs will get it right… eventually. In the meantime, I feel that it’s important to discuss the places where the class can be improved.