Guild Wars 2

This is a community feedback thread, not a controversial complaint/self pity topic. I just wanted to make sure that if the devs check these forums for community feedback, they’d see what we think about the prospect of our AoEs being nerfed. I wan’t to keep this topic civil and to the point, so no engineer self pity/bashing or L2P nonsense.

In response to:

Matt Witter.6982:

There are a few different knobs we can turn in regards to AoE some of the bigger ones being:
Radius of the AoE
Frequency of the AoE Damage
Damage of the AoE
Max Targets of the AoE

Currently, some players causing the AoE are able to do more damage to one person while also controlling a portion of the field, compared to a player with single target damage.
In our balance discussions we always look at what these changes could do to PvE as well as PvP. Any changes we make will undergo a lot of testing, both internal and by our trusted alpha team. It is important to understand that we are not doing a blanket nerf to all AE’s or a dramatic adjustment of the damage AoE’s can do. There may be some cases where players can build for AoE damage, but are just not viable or other cases where AoE is clearly the dominate way to build, and as such the other builds get left on the side lines. Its these classes/builds that we are concerned about.

What do engineers consider a fair reduction in the radius, frequency, damage and max targets of our AoEs? These were already thought to be balanced due to the Grenade nerf, but I wan’t the community’s opinions on this.

Ok, this topic will be a discussion, but I will take the feedback I get from other engineers to edit the OP to the following structure:

AoEs we’re worried about

Grenade Kit
Bomb Kit
Flamethrower
Rifle #3 and #5
Pistol #1

Do we consider these AoEs to be effective/have synergies with our other skills?
How do these abilities fare in comparison to our single target skills?
How do these abilities fare in comparison to other classes AoEs?
How do these abilities fare in comparison to other classes single target skills?

Reserving space

JohnDied.3476:

AoEs we’re worried about

Grenade Kit
Bomb Kit
Flamethrower
Rifle #3 and #5
Pistol #1

Do we consider these AoEs to be effective/have synergies with our other skills?
How do these abilities fare in comparison to our single target skills?
How do these abilities fare in comparison to other classes AoEs?
How do these abilities fare in comparison to other classes single target skills?

Here are my personal opinions:

For grenades, I would say that there is a huge difference between PvE and PvP so it can be hard to balance between the two I think. In PvP, grenades are almost impossible to land due to the long travel time and the small radius, unless you are pretty much in melee range. There is no way I can see them justifying a nerf to them in PvP. In PvE however, most monsters don’t move around very much, making them pretty much as good as or better than our single target skills on solo enemies, and much better on multiples. So based on ANET’s reasoning I could see them being nerfed a bit in PvE. However I think the better idea would be to improve our single-target skills rather than nerf this one, since I feel like some of those are still a bit lackluster in terms of damage.

For bomb kit, I don’t see why it would be nerfed. You have to be pretty much in less than melee range, the bombs are on a short delay fuse meaning your opponent can take 1 step backwards and not get hit, and the damage, while good, is nothing terribly amazing given the drawbacks. With the range restriction I see no reason why this would or should be nerfed, if anything I think it should be buffed because of the low range.

Flamethrower is really buggy so it’s hard to assess it accurately without including the inevitable “missmissmiss”. Still, even without the misses, it still does significantly less damage than the rifle to single-targets, and requires you to be pretty close to your targets as well.

For the rifle skills, I don’t even really consider them to be AOEs. It’s very rare that you’ll end up hitting many targets with either of them, particularly in PvP. And for the pistol I don’t really use it enough to comment, but I think that the radius is small enough and the direct damage low enough that it isn’t an issue.

The problem is that Engineer is nothing but aoe. Every single weapon is dominated by attacks that can be classed as aoe, hitting multiply targets. The only exception is maybe the Toolkit, but the first two swings from your ability1 chain are cleave and hit multiple targets.

And then there is ANets intention to bring up underwhelming weapons. And id sure mark up Engineer weapons and kits a underwhelming.
So, we got a conflict here. On one hand, kits are all AoE and ANet wants to bring down AoE. But on the otherhand, kits are underperforming and should be brought up.

Positive stuff has to start happening. But i fear it wont happen because they want to bring down aoe, not up. So they end up just not touching Engineer, and thats not good enough.

maybe not touching engineer will be good enough since they will be nerfing “tough encounters” as well

I deeply hope that the devs leave our working abilities alone and focus on fixing our bugs, or buffing our underutilized skills. I wouldn’t urge others into thinking that this will happen though. Sometimes I like to think that if we prepare for the worst we will not be disappointed, and in fact we might be surprised when something good comes our way. That being said, it can be a long time before something good happens for the engineer.

Back on topic.

Bomb kit

Radius of the Aoe: I do not think it prudent to reduce this even more than it already is, as it already takes you into melee range with a medium armor class. The radius is already shorter (untraited) than most of the close combat skills heavy armor classes have available to them.

For the comparison with other classes: The bomb radius with the range of a Guardian’s mace or a greatsword. Bomb radii is 120 on a medium armor class which relies mid range combat, while mace and swords’ range is 130 for the Guardian, a heavy armor close combatant with multiple ways of mitigating damage which include passive regen, aegis, and protection.

Frequency/Damage of AoE damage: The range and delay of the bombs already balance this out and gives ample opportunity to dodge the attack.

For the comparison with other classes: I think I’ll stick to comparing the damage sustained damage or the bomb kit’s auto-attack with the auto-attack of a mace guardian. Bomb kit offers more burst damage than the mace guardian, but the mace guardian does more sustained damage because of his second and third strikes, this may seem unbalanced but the bomb kit can attack in all directions as well. With regards to frequency the bomb kit fares well enough.

Max targets of the Aoe: The engineer bomb kit can damage enemies within range at all angles, and (if live-stream info is applied literally for bomb kit) up to five opponents. This seems overpowered, but to even be able to damage with bombs the engineer needs to keep his enemy on the bomb for the duration of the delay and possibly mitigate a lot of damage to do so.

For the comparison with other classes: Mace guardian cannot attack in every direction within his range at once, but he does not have to deal with a delay in his attacks and he has his class mechanics and greater armor to mitigate a lot of damage.

I hope someone takes on the mighty task of giving out an analysis of grenades, giving that they are AoEs with less limitations than bomb kit. Also, I haven’t played much with the flamethrower so if someone would like to defend it in hopes of it being overlooked in the Aoe nerf, feel free.

Just butting in real quick, but I don’t think bombs qualify as AoE to the players or Anet, they are melee, and like most melee attacks it ‘cleaves’ , but in an circular AoE fashion instead of a box AoE in front of the player. Im betting on bombs staying relatively the same or slight adjustments(dmg or on touch boom maybe?).

The only “Problem” skill is grenade kit when mixed with Kit refinement. It also for a spike that can absolute annihilate targets that are stuck in place. It deals about 17k damage in under a second. The key here is that this is against a not so well defended target AND they have to be standing still. The grenades from Kit Refinement are different than the grenades from Grenade Barrage, because instead of going towards your target, they go all around you, a bit randomly. Thus, the closer you are, the more damage you deal. It’s very strong, but also a bit difficult to pull off.

This is what the build can do:

1) Spike for about 16k in under a second if everything goes well. If the Kit Refinement grenades miss, it’s about 5k off. If the main grenades miss, it’s about 7k off. Neither are easy to hit when it’s moving targets.

2) Elixir S is great for stomping and staying alive.

3) Goggles are a decent stun breaker and allow me to not miss spikes (immunity to blindness).

Problems:

1) The spike isn’t amazingly easy to pull off.

Verdict:

1) This is pretty much the same damage pulled off by the warrior. The player needs to be still for it to work, so I don’t see the issue with this build.

Grenades make us relevant. I wouldn’t touch them.

Do we consider these AoEs to be effective/have synergies with our other skills?

Definitely. Kit Refinement has given this skill the name 100nades, where the engineer gets up real close to an enemy, to the point of occupying the same space and using grenade barrage + grenade kit at the same time with Static discharge. The spike without Kit Refinement is easily 11k damage, so the same together is about 16k if not more.

In PvE, these are fantastic. Great damage and the above spike can really lay down the damage. Skill 4 is a great escape skill.

In WvW, these are fantastic for attacks on the front gates. Fairly balanced too, since you need line of sight.

How do these abilities fare in comparison to our single target skills?

What single target skills? The only ones I can think of are Elixir Gun’s #1, Tool kit’s melee attacks and… that’s it. Tool Kit’s Melee attacks are underpowered. Elixir Gun’s #1 is fantastic for support. It achieves a different goal. OH! There is Pistol 2 and Overcharged shot. Overcharged shot is great damage and has that knockdown. It can also help you escape sometimes I’ve found. Pistol 2 is kind of bad. I have poison on grenade kit and it’s not only AoE, but it stays on as long as they are in there. That said, I think Pistol 2 is underpowered, not Grenade Poison is over powered.

How do these abilities fare in comparison to other classes AoEs?

In PvE, I think I see warriors out damaging us, even if they don’t have all of our conditions. Eles I think are just a tiny bit below us with this.

In PvP, we’re pretty much unmatched. Hate to say it but if I jump into a crowd and throw this down, I get dead bodies. I probably get killed right afterwards, but they die too.

How do these abilities fare in comparison to other classes single target skills?

Thieves still kill me. Warriors still kill me. I feel like I’m on par with them though. It’s really nice using this build because of that. Normally, I see a thief and I just run, but this build dares me to fight them.

Honestly, I see grenades with Kit refinement as the build that allows Engineers to be as good as other classes. Touching it would fully put the engineer behind all other classes without a doubt.

i know that i have problems getting close enough to use the flame thrower and when i do it works great but i die soon also using it threw a keep gate is great other than the cata killing you when it hits the gate :/ the grenade kit is good for hitting people up on walls that are right there in sight but not the other way around and you when you throw them after the first hit they usually move away and its hard to throw them ahead of them to hit them if anything leave the flame thrower alone give grenade kit a little more radius but lower the hit people amount and i haven’t really touched the others

Note: They’re not talking about skills that hit more than 1 person, like cleave attacks or projectiles, they’re talking about ground AoE that covers an area.

I don’t see how Grenades could need nerfed. If they need another damage reduction, then they must have been ungodly powerful a month ago (they weren’t). Grenades have a rather large delay between throw and hit, are skill shots, and require a grandmaster to be truly powerful.

Bombs deal a lot of damage, but are balanced because they’re melee range and have an attack delay, meaning their use is limited to melee range defensive.

Flamethrower is already low on damage. Their criteria is for skills that are too powerful in comparison to single target attacks. In addition, it’s not a ground based AoE attack.

Anotha quick butting in, we engineers don’t really have much to worry about, since most of our AoE has been toned down/nerfed already:

Bomb kit’s smoke bomb, flame turret overcharge, pistol #1, grenade #1, mine kit now mine, kit refinement EG, and toss elixer R.

The only cases we can shine in is Static Discharge, but that merely puts us subpar glasscannon. And grenade kit when PvDoor and ZvZ in WvW, where you can chuck grenades into a crowd /wall and deal havok on any clustered players, which still makes us merely on par compared to others.

Bomb kit; decent melee dmg, no worries
Grenade kit; great-nonexistant damage depending on situation, only worry is if they mess with grenade barrage or add cd 1-1/2s to #1 to avoid situations like dominating walls with grenades(if they decide to blow up) and blowing downed units to bits, also needs to be traited into to be worth it.
Flamethrower; Its damage is already clearly balanced for hitting multiple targets, while like the grenade kit, is easily countered via area retaliation.
Pistol #1; Like grenade kit, needs to be traited to deal considerable AoE damage, and like FT, is damage is already based upon hitting multiple targets at all times(in other words it needs traited to not be horrible.) and like both kits, can take serious retaliation damage if hitting multiple targets.

Personally… Engineers have just STARTED to get playable. There are plans to improve kits (THANK YOU GOD).

IF there are nerfs, do it after the core mechanics changes are implimented.
I would LOVE a crosshair for AOE combat also. :P

I think AoE and control (including area control through aoe) could actually be things that the engineer is intended to excel at. Who knows, maybe Anet will nerf the aoe of other classes while leaving engies alone. That would actually give us a bit of a niche in the game.

I’m not too worried about bombs, pistol, flamethrower, or rifle aoe just because they’re all pretty short range or difficult to place. Bombs have plenty of factors working against them and they’ve been nerfed multiple times already; I don’t think anyone sees them as OP anymore. Pistol 1 has what? A 1 foot radius? Rifle 3 and 5 both have short range and are somewhat difficult to place. FT 1 doesn’t seem too bad and FT 2 is pretty difficult to handle.

Grenades might get changed. Personally, I think the way grenades are designed is kind of genius (well, in principle anyway). Anet likes ranged to be weaker than melee, and since grenades have air time and spread, they automatically balance themselves depending on the range at which you use them. But yeah if they nerf the overall kit, I hope they compensate by reducing air travel time more. They said grenades are supposed to be long-range, but they’re unusable past ~800 range or so unless you’re chucking into crowds or at stationary people. I guess skill 4 is supposed to help with this, but it does a mediocre job.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Thieves still kill me. Warriors still kill me. I feel like I’m on par with them though. It’s really nice using this build because of that. Normally, I see a thief and I just run, but this build dares me to fight them.

This is kinda shocking. Thieves, I can somewhat understand, but you get killed by warriors?
What is your build exactly? Are you using all offensive gear or something?
Thieves and warriors are by far the easiest classes to handle for me.

Siofra Crumble.2098:

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Thieves still kill me. Warriors still kill me. I feel like I’m on par with them though. It’s really nice using this build because of that. Normally, I see a thief and I just run, but this build dares me to fight them.

This is kinda shocking. Thieves, I can somewhat understand, but you get killed by warriors?
What is your build exactly? Are you using all offensive gear or something?
Thieves and warriors are by far the easiest classes to handle for me.

Mostly offense. My defense is Med Kit, My stun breaker (Goggles) and my other stun breaker (Elixir S). I can kill warriors fine, but it’s certainly not going to happen against someone who has 3 times my rank. I’m just not that good yet.

I agree that a big part of the problem with the Engineer is that most of our single target effective abilities are already AoE.

The Grenade Kit has already been hit pretty significantly in direct damage, and I feel it is where it should be at least in PvP and WvW. They are naturally going to be subject to a fair amount of misses and partial hits. In PvE, it’s completely realistic to have the damage output reduced however – as long as our single target abilities in the Pistol and Rifle are brought up.

The Bomb Kit requires a trait in order to actually have an effective radius, which would be the only part of it that makes it strong. The rest of it is justifiable by it’s extremely close range and even delayed attacks.

The Flamethrower is justifiable by the close range of it, as well as the Tool Kit. Not to mention pretty tight AoE’s. In fact, anything that is close range is pretty justifiable to have AoE damage due to the cleave-centric style of melee as it is.

The Pistol 1 I feel doesn’t even need to be AoE as it kind of limits what it is capable of. I know it’d be incredibly boring just to have another shot that puts out bleed damage, but frankly if there is going to be any AoE nerfs to the Engineer beyond what we’ve already had then we need our single target pushed up so it can actually fill the gap. The only other AoE of concern would be Blowtorch, but that is difficult to land as it is as well and is also pretty short range.

The Rifle probably would need it’s single target capabilities pushed up and for the love of god the 4 and 5 need smoother animations. Right now they probably penalize anyone new to the class more then they benefit them.

Really the only thing I think might need a change is a PvE side of Grenades, but they’ve already been hit. Depends if ANet pushed Grenades down to where they thought AoE should be already. If our AoE does get hit though, they really do need to bring up what the Pistol and Rifle are capable of for single target.

Guys stop worrying lol. I sincerely think that we are going to be ok. ey guys riojin here. Here is a bit of an update on what they are trying to do. it seems that they are only going to take a look at the most problematic area of effect spells and balance those . It seems that for engineers I think it is safe to say that flame thrower , pistols, rifle, and to some extent bomb and grenades will not be touched in a major way. It sounds crazy but hear me out . The area of effect on our weapon does not fit into the category of aoe spells being abuse in both Dungeons and Pvp. Due to the rate of fire on the flame thrower and it’s limited range its effective damage per second is actually less than single target spells. The only edge that it has is that it is area of effect and that it Procs on crit effects. And since most are on an internal cool down then it takes this spell off that list of op and abused as well. Next is grenade that everyone is worried about they specifically said in this recent twitch that they are happy where grenade damage is . Which leads me to bombs they have already had their range reduced and there were some fixes to smoke bombs and since they are mostly for stacking conditions it makes me feel that is it safe to say they won’t be bothered either. This was what I gathered form the recent twitch.

@The Gate Assassin

I don’t know if you tried the build in competitive tPvP, but it doesn’t work as well as you make it sound.

To pull this combo, you have to take your ennemy by surprise. Any good pvpers will know when you try to pull off this combo. You have to be inside the ennemy.

The usual net shot + jump shot and 100 nade combo won’t take you far, as most people learned how to block it.

And you always get 17k combo? Man I’m lucky if I can get a 10k combo. I’m not full glass, I’m +power +prec +vitality.

Most combo will miss because the ennemy moved a bit to the side, because they blocked, because your jump shot failed, because of lag. There are so many reason this combo can miss. A bit to the side, and 4-5 of your 6 grenade form kit refinament are out.

Now you missed your super combo? Good luck with the rest of the fight And good luck using this vs any descent Bunker Guardian/Elem.

the 100 nade combo do a similar job then BS thief in tpvp, but is subpart. The BS thief will do the same damage or better, a lot easier, a lot harder to counter, and with better mobility.

Like someone said in another thread, it’s not that engineer is bad, it’s that our builds are all outshined by another class. (Condi P/P vs Necro, Bunker vs Guardian, Burst vs Thief/Warrior).

Kardiamond.6952:

@The Gate Assassin

I don’t know if you tried the build in competitive tPvP, but it doesn’t work as well as you make it sound.

To pull this combo, you have to take your ennemy by surprise. Any good pvpers will know when you try to pull off this combo. You have to be inside the ennemy.

The usual net shot + jump shot and 100 nade combo won’t take you far, as most people learned how to block it.

And you always get 17k combo? Man I’m lucky if I can get a 10k combo. I’m not full glass, I’m +power +prec +vitality.

Most combo will miss because the ennemy moved a bit to the side, because they blocked, because your jump shot failed, because of lag. There are so many reason this combo can miss. A bit to the side, and 4-5 of your 6 grenade form kit refinament are out.

Now you missed your super combo? Good luck with the rest of the fight And good luck using this vs any descent Bunker Guardian/Elem.

the 100 nade combo do a similar job then BS thief in tpvp, but is subpart. The BS thief will do the same damage or better, a lot easier, a lot harder to counter, and with better mobility.

Like someone said in another thread, it’s not that engineer is bad, it’s that our builds are all outshined by another class. (Condi P/P vs Necro, Bunker vs Guardian, Burst vs Thief/Warrior).

The thing is that the thief doesn’t have the AoE part of our spike. If there’s a big battle, I just jump right in and spike. I’ve gotten 3-4 people at once before. In tPvP, I can see how this wouldn’t be likely. It’s more of an sPvP build.

100 Nades is still competitive in tPvP, it’s just you are far less likely to pull of a full combo at the start of a fight. Compared to other burst builds (except the Thief, but that’s a special case superiority over all burst builds period) you also have ton of use outside that combo.

The combo also has the advantage of being AoE, so if you do it on a point with multiple fighters then it’s likely you will hit someone. Even the Kit Refinement Grenade does great damage without being inside someone when it’s on a point. The whole point of a burst build is to kill something quickly in a 2v1/2v2 anyway, which it still does. Especially if you feint the combo via an early Net Shot or Pull.

What tends to happen is you run around and just finish fights decisively. You also have some staying power and can fight pretty well beyond the combo, which many burst build have trouble doing.

@Ayestes

From my experience, the AoE damage it does that is not “inside” the ennemy isn’t that great, but maybe I should build more glassy!

Don’t mistake me, I think it’s a good build (outshining any other build we have, yes even DS build), but I don’t think it cut it. In the current meta, we are pitted again BS thief, GS Warrior and others.

Kardiamond.6952:

@Ayestes

From my experience, the AoE damage it does that is not “inside” the ennemy isn’t that great, but maybe I should build more glassy!

Don’t mistake me, I think it’s a good build (outshining any other build we have, yes even DS build), but I don’t think it cut it. In the current meta, we are pitted again BS thief, GS Warrior and others.

If a BS thief is a 10/10 and a GS warrior is a 9/10, this is probably an 8/10.

Kardiamond.6952:

@Ayestes

From my experience, the AoE damage it does that is not “inside” the ennemy isn’t that great, but maybe I should build more glassy!

Yeah it’s not really great single target, I meant it more when you are on a point and hit multiple people with it. That’s when it’s still decent.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

If a BS thief is a 10/10 and a GS warrior is a 9/10, this is probably an 8/10.

Honestly I think it’s better then a GS Warrior, or at very least equal to. The burst itself is easier to pull off and you have powerful ranged damage to back it up beyond the cooldowns. It’s slightly less burst, but even a Frenzied 100B combo rarely works in a team fight. The cooldowns themselves are also significantly shorter, in basically all the aspects. It’s also a ton of AoE damage without having to sacrifice a Shield for a Longbow.

My Engineer is mostly used in PvE. I run dungeons almost exclusively at this point, though I am finishing world completion for a second time. I use Grenades only and fear it falls into what they are talking about, I dont use one single target skill in 99% of fights because grenades just do so much more damage.

Currently in Prec/Tough/CD Gear my #1 Pistol hits for about 250 and bleeds a few ticks at 109 approx. I can use the 1 Grenade skill which is easy to land in PvE for 3×250+ damage, and usually gets me 1-3 stacks of vuln and 1-3 stacks of bleed. Its equal damage with the opportunity to do 3x the damage my pistol would, and the closer they get the truer that 3x becomes a reality.

I would love to see an increase in our single damage abilities, strictly from a Pistol stand point as I am not a fan of rifle, #1 skill needs its damage doubled, bleed lengthened (how sad is it my 15 warrior hits equally as hard as my fully exoticed Eng when he is not downleveled and 3x as hard when he is), Poison Volley needs to hit every time, allow for 2 misses with Static Shot, increase duration of confusion, or increase initial damage. #4 hits just fine assuming it hits and #5 is fine as well.

We may see a nerf to grenades bleed and vuln stacking, thats all really, with wep stats going on kits, devs will probably decide that the condi stacking with grenades is OP.