Guild Wars 2

Ok everyone, we all know that at this current time the Engineer feels sub-par to all other classes. This includes, DPS, little healing power scaling, the recent nerf to grenades, turrets dying to one boss aoe and grabbing aggro almost immediately, the misses on flamethrower #1 & 2 skill as well as elixir gun #3 skill. And a myriad of others.

But I think we need to as a community all agree on some suggestions that would fix and balance our class to pass along to the dev’s. Here is a list of compilations I have found through many threads as well as some of my own.

1) Melee Option: This includes giving the Engineer the ability to wear Heavy Armor and weild a hammer (as mace/shield, mace/mace, deter from the role of engineer and don’t feel right) Along with this change, weapon damage for 2H should be comparable to that of a warrior / guardian for melee combat. (This also includes the tool kit receiving a damage buff for the #1 and 3 skills)

2) Turrets: They die far too often, are usually destroyed by aoes and targetted by bosses and mobs almost immediately. Cool-downs are also far too high for the Engineer to be viable upon picking up the turret and moving with his party to the next group of mobs. They also have far too little defense and HP considering that they are stationary and a prime source of damage, as well as being the trademark skill of the class. Solution is to reduce the cooldowns drastically when picked up. Turret HP should be at least 5x what it is currently and damage should be reduced to turrets from aoe attacks by at least 50%. They should also have their damaged linked to the players stats and weapon stats. If the turrets continue to occupy the utility slots these changes should be looked at heavily, and if not then they should become the F1-4 skills.

3) Tool-belt skills: These skills hardly make up for a utility slot being occupied by a weapon kit. Seeing as how other classes can easily switch weapons or attunements without giving up their utility skills, we should have a revamp of these skills. Make the engineer able to equip 2-4 weapon kits and have these occupy the F1-4 slots that the tool-belt currently holds. By allowing the weapons to be actually weapons it would further reduce the classes lack of utility skills.

4) Utility skills: In addition to the toolkit revamp, utility skills should be combed over and refined to be more beneficial as their tool-belt counterparts would be eliminated. Ex. Elixir U, could become a group quickness buff but with almost twice the cooldown. In short these skills need to be buffed and changed so that they can be thrown into the engineers skill setup to keep its versatility without harming the class or forcing it into a set specialization (which detracts from its jack of all trades push the company has claimed the class is).

5) Gadgets: These skills offer little to no “oomph” to warrant occupying the utility slots. Sure some of them are actually good, i.e. slick shoes. But most of the skills are lackluster at best. These gadgets should become similar to signets. Have a passive effect for having the gadget equipped, but by activating the gadget give the effects that they have now. Cool-down can be 60-90 seconds to balance it and have traits to allow either reduction of cool-down or to retain the passive effects even once the signet/gadget is used. This change could single handedly create the versatility and utility the engineer needs

6) Weapon Attack and Stats: Our damage is the lowest among all classes, and this is either due to poor weapon kit scaling, or kits not receiving bonuses from Mainhand/Offhand weapons and Rifle stats. Weapon kit damage across the board needs to either be buffed or they should be directly influenced by the users stats.

7) Elites: Our elites are not really elite. Everyone is forced into using supply crate as it is the only decent option us Engineers have. Mortar is forced to be stationary and once placed is severely limited on where the fight by using it can take place. The elixir is too random and not very engineery. Artillery barrage is good in theory if you picked a Charr, but its range is pitiful. Elites need to be looked at to fit into the theme of versatility that is pushed onto the engineer.

8) Option to hide the backpack that Engineers wear as many people report that it clips into their armor and that it deters from them viewing their armor as well.

9) Bombkit and flamethrower: Make the reward for being up close in combat worth it. The bomb kit still does far less damage than the grenade kits #1 skill even after the nerf. Make the reward for being so close to attack worth it, i.e. increase the damage on bombs auto attack by 30%. Similarly the flamethrower while it is a power type of weapon, its traits aren’t on the power line, however they are on the prec/cond dmg line. Considering it is a 1 second burn at the end of the attack and that its damage is heavily influenced by power, it should be looked at on how to make it more viable. It also needs a major boost to damage. The sigil ability we finally receiving is not enough to make this kit worth it for dungeons, fractals, wvw, and pvp. The #1 skill also misses alot of the time, even if you are right on top of your target, the #2 skill also shoots into the ground many times if you do not manually select a target first.

10) Pistol and Rifle: The pistol attacks far to weakly and slowly to be considered a viable alternative to an engineer who wants to use it and his turrets in the utility slots. The damage on the pistol is less than that of the elixir gun auto attack, and that gives weakness as well as bleed. Solution is to either increase the attack speed of pistol or increase the damage by about 15%. The rifles range should be further than the warriors as we are currently an adventurer class. The skills from the classes using the rifle should be completely switched.

These are just the ones I remember offhand, so please feel free to contribute without flaming, as I am hoping to pass this thread of everyone’s replies to the dev’s or whoever else can systematically look at these types of changes and respond to the community with feedback and future plans.