Guild Wars 2

I remember when the game first started the the devs philosophy was that they would not play whack-a-mole with profession balancing. I think the engineer is a fine example of how this philosophy has failed. Im tired of getting cut down in less then a second by thieves or skipping over a traits bc its not useable. Its time to let the pendulum swing. The engineers who are from what I can tell a very loyal to the profession have never “had their time”…..like many other professions that have been a little more viable and powerful since launch.

btw im mainly speaking about wvw where i feel we are viable but not feeling the impact as a Mesmer or thief. Just an example. I can only speak from this view point bc this is mainly what i play.

This is meant to generate discussion among engineers. What are your thoughts on balancing with this profession so far? Be calm and state your point. We are 9 months in to the game.

PS. L2P players need not apply

-Charbucks

Engineer is in a good place right now, surprisingly; in PVP and WvW, Engineers see play at all skill levels and all roles. This is something that not even Elementalist can do right now with the nerf to RtL and other aspects of Elementalist sustain.

Our build variety is actually pretty up there and I would say on par with Mesmer; whilst having more versatility. Mesmers have the most builds, but each build is one-note and has its weaknesses. We are one of the few classes, Elementalist aside, that can bring long range (900+) damage, short range (>600) damage, sustain, condi cleanse, and stunbreak in a single build.

Where we fall down is in our traits and our Power Scaling. We are also extremely dependant upon Kits which is really our limiting factor right now. Our kit replacement utilities – Gadgets and Turrets – are almost universally useless with the exception of a few.

Our power scaling seems to have almost been designed with Might stacking in mind, and many skills and utilities like Grenade Kit or Flamethrower really come into their own only within the presence of Might. This is why you see a lot of Engineers running Condition Damage, especially in PvP and WvW where Boon stripping, stealing or corruption can be a liability.

I would actually put Engineer in the middle right now in terms of viability in all 3 arenas of play – PVP, WvW, PvE.

Full Power builds, like Static Discharge, give up a lot of survivability options for less rewarding decrease in Time to Kill (TTK) compared to the ease with which other classes can pull their burst and sustained damage. Condition builds still retain a modicum of Toughness or Vitality (Rabid or Carrion) whilst retaining good condition cleanse.

I also wouldn’t class Thief as a high-impact class in WvW. Thieves melt in zergs to incidental AoE (Stealth does nothing); so they are relegated to roaming. Then again, I haven’t really met any highly skilled Thieves in WvW, so for all I know they could solo a Keep Lord after abusing Infiltrator’s arrow to get past the gate.

i dont think i consider engineer a whack a mole balance. Engineers have a huge variety of skill and are a very versatile class. Of course, they will have to specialize a bit to do meaningful damage but they can fight any class they wish.

Sorry, the class is a L2p issue. Engineer have the highest skill floor in the game.

Real whack a mole balance is the necro. Strong against classes with lots of boons and very little condition removal. Weak against burst classes such as thevies.

I’m not a QQer, but in some ways I actually agree with the OP. There are a few things about engineers that simply need huge, unmitigated buffs/fixes/changes—for example, gadgets need traits (plural) and turrets need targeting (yay! I immobilized another mesmer clone…)

That said, engineer is already pretty strong in all three areas of the game. Engineer is also very difficult to learn and extremely unforgiving, and all the things that new players expect to use when they make an engineer (i.e. turrets) are bad.

So in a way, I do wish the devs would play a little whack-a-mole. That’s against their philosophy, so they won’t. One or two individual turrets will be slightly buffed every other patch or so over the next 1-4 years until the devs add basic AI targeting to them, at which point they’ll probably become OP after all of those buffs. Gadgets might get some weird experiments done on them, but for a long time won’t see more than a few cooldown reductions and maybe some passive effects.

From outside the engi community we did have our day in the sun. It was called 100nades. And the supposed ‘balancing’ of it was definitly ‘whack-a-mole’ esque

From a WvW perspective I feel the Engineer is one of the strongest professions out there right now. I really feel like we have access to just about everything. When I get my can kicked in WvW I’ve never ever once thought “Engineer is just weak.” Its always because my skill with the engineer is weak.

I can’t really say that with the other professions I’ve played.

Honestly, Engineer has as many or more tools than anyone to deal with thieves.

At least, this one does.

Nothing counters burst like CC / Control, and we have more of it than anyone.

I should know better than reply to a thread that includes a ‘L2P crowd not welcome’ disclaimer, but…… ‘L2P’ it is.

I use my engineer solely in wvw. I actually look forward to thieves trying to be clever and attacking me. Immobilizes/crowd control work wonders, and they are usually squishy enough that if you have some for of burst rotation they are down.

My suggestion if you are having trouble with thieves is to carry a stun breaker, and a form of burst. this way you can avoid there burst and then counter assault. The utilities I run are net turret, elixir r, and grenade kit, with a rifle main hand.

BrimstoneAshe.5043:

From a WvW perspective I feel the Engineer is one of the strongest professions out there right now. I really feel like we have access to just about everything. When I get my can kicked in WvW I’ve never ever once thought “Engineer is just weak.” Its always because my skill with the engineer is weak.

I can’t really say that with the other professions I’ve played.

i’ve never felt engineer is weak either, i’ve felt other classes are stronger.

Lots of what they are doing lately is a backwards philosophy instead of breaking things in an already broken class they should be buffing the things they want us to choose more often. Gadgets/other kits then grenade/ racial abilities (yeah I noticed that warriors got their buffed)/ Pistol speed and damage / Turrets all are almost worthless most of the time they need to focus their efforts on these things next.

There’s alot of work to be done fixing just the traits themselves and I’m not solely talking about those that aren’t working due to bugs, there are alot of traits that are just plain worthless or should be combined like they’ve done with many a trait in Ranger’s trees due to the need for more might builders more diverse boon builders for engineers.

Engineer is undeniably at it’s weakest in WvW. We’re stronger in both sPvP and PvE situations.

That being said, I feel far from useless or underpowered in any way as an engineer in WvW. I have every profession except for Thief and Mesmer at 80, and I prefer to WvW with my Engi by far, because I’ve found a fun fairly survivable, hard hitting, and good support-y build. (In signature for reference)

tigirius.9014:

Lots of what they are doing lately is a backwards philosophy instead of breaking things in an already broken class they should be buffing the things they want us to choose more often.

Anet made a business/economic decision to to “de-buff” an ability in a particular class rather than “buffing” ALL other classes in response to a perceived OP.

I have to imagine it’s easier (and less costly) to change the code of one class rather that all of the others.

But is this a viscous downward spiral? Will all classes eventually be reduced to the lowest common denominator? (And if this does happen, won’t Guild Wars 3 be on the market by then?)

I have this horrible suspicion that 8 or 9 months from now, all classes will be flinging Rolaids tablets at each other, in between beta-test weekends for GW3.