Guild Wars 2

I’m going to have a moment of honesty here: after 100+ games this season in Platinum, fluctuating between 1800 and 1650 all season long, I have no idea what my role is in this meta or how to crack beyond the top #150 on the leaderboard.

I am a self-defined PvX player, dabbling a bit in all the game modes, but with the launch of the fifth season I have put more emphasis on PvP. I have over three thousand matches played on my account, mostly on my engineer—and almost exclusively consisting of matches played before Heart of Thorns came out.

Like many, I quit in the middle of season one, disgusted by the 2x rev 2x chrono meta. I came back in short bouts in season two and three, but not enough to still get a firm understanding of the scrapper and its role in the meta. As such, season five is my first real effort trying to be competitive in Heart of Thorns PvP, and I have to admit that despite my games played on the engineer, I’m at a serious loss understanding who I’m supposed to beat 1v1 and where I’m actually supposed to be.

Pre-Heart of Thorns, engineer had two counters: (1) conditions and (2) boon corruption. This made condi mesmers and signet necromancers our primary arch-nemeses for many years. With the addition of the scrapper tree, however, I’m not entirely sure that’s the case anymore. Purge Gyro and Adaptive Armor cancels out most condition spam, and most necromancers aren’t running signets or scepter anymore in platinum. This has put me in the precarious situation in which I’m not exactly sure what I’m supposed to win and lose against, or when I’m supposed to circle back home to defend it.

This problem is only further exacerbated by the fact that scrapper in its current role just doesn’t dish out very much damage to effectively 1v1. Even with a Marauder amulet, dragonhunters and revenants just outclass our spike damage outside of chugging Elixir X in my experience, which gives me the impression that those classes are far better suited for those situations. Not only does scrapper not deal an impressive amount of damage, but the spec itself is pretty slow with no real gap closers; despite what I said above about our vague (but optimistic) 1v1 potential, engineer feels like the absolute worst class to defend home with for that reason. We’re easily among the slowest classes in the game right now, which means an engineer being forced to rotate back and forth to defend home spends more time traveling and less time team-fighting (vs. say a thief, revenant, mesmer, or even guardian).

So I’ve really tried my hardest to help win team fights through the Function Gyro, Fumigate, and Elixir X … but I can’t help but feel like the damage problem still persists. And because our sustain isn’t anywhere near the level of a bunker elementalist, scrapper just feels like it’s in this awkward position where we just don’t excel at anything.

I have risen and fallen from Plat 1 and Plat 2 all season long, hitting around #150 on the leaderboard at best and falling into Gold 3 for a few hours at worst. I am about to leave to go on vacation sitting at a humbling ~1650. I have no illusions of being a pro player or even sniffing the top 50, but I don’t feel like I’m losing games constantly because of poor mechanics or rotations but simply because I’m playing the engineer, and I would like to know what I can do to push back into the top 250 and potentially the top 100 when I return to the game in January as someone that primarily solo-queues.

I was very optimistic about our role in the meta at the start of this season, but after 100+ games in platinum I feel like I’m at a loss regarding what I should be doing. I have tinkered my build to the nth degree to bring some kind of edge, but nothing I produce ever matches the damage output of a necro or guardian or the sustain of the elementalist.

Well, just try to outnumber your enemy as much as you can. Scrapper is good far spotter. You should never loose any 1v1. Difference between us and tempest is, that we can kill intruder. I don’t tell my trics, but you are able to decap point with tempest in 30sec solo.

For example: your druid has 1v2 on far. So you run on far, get ready your fun gyro (often you arrive to rezz your mate) then fight continue.

Try to be in heavy fights as much as you can.

Right now, Engies are rez bots and +1ers like David has alluded to.

That’s their special role. Get the rez even in the most difficult of circumstances.

That said though, I personally, don’t like that playstyle AT ALL. I absolutely hate the idea that the only way I can help is by being a rez bot or a tanky slow thief. And the problem with that as well is, being a rez bot, doesn’t necessarily guarantee or increase your chances of winning. You’re not countering anyone, you’re not the nemesis of anyone in particular (as you have articulated very well) and you’re definitely not downright blowing anyone to smithereens.

That’s why I play this build sometimes: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vdAQFAUlUUhqrYXWw+Kw6FLsFFYIuBBgYHNFPBdzf8PPA-TJBFABAcBAaf/hHeAA/XGAA

It doesn’t beat other Scrappers, it doesn’t always win against Necros and Warriors but it MOST definitely craps the hell on Mesmers, and Revs and Thieves and can put a dent in the armour of the Dragonhunter and even decap an Ele. But it can never beat a good Druid.. except with a well coordinated burst combo that’s incredibly hard to pull off.

And in team fights, it’s acts like a long range dot on the focus target, they can never get away from you cos you just keep poking at them for crazy amount of sustained pressure. (I’ve literally taken down mesmers in team fights by just spamming 1 with no one else doing damage to them).

So if you want a build with weaknesses and a role, then I’d recommend that. But Hammer Scrapper with Mender or Paladins, is still the best all rounder build for this meta.

David.5974:

Well, just try to outnumber your enemy as much as you can. Scrapper is good far spotter. You should never loose any 1v1. Difference between us and tempest is, that we can kill intruder. I don’t tell my trics, but you are able to decap point with tempest in 30sec solo.

For example: your druid has 1v2 on far. So you run on far, get ready your fun gyro (often you arrive to rezz your mate) then fight continue.

Try to be in heavy fights as much as you can.

I instead agree with Phinaes . Scrapper in 1 vs 1 is strong but no more that strong. Every fight that you win is also quite long and it happens that you win the fight but your opponent is able to decap.
For this reason , for example , in this season i switched to ele. Mender ele is not the old cleric one . You have not great dps but your dps are not so low (with sigil of accuracy i arrive at 37% of critic ) and 2k power… not that bad as damage at all. For my experience tempest mender can kill 1 vs 1 not much differently from scrapper … really long fights and so on ( with cleric it was another story ) .
Probably i am not a champion but i see that i win 1 vs 1 playing scrapper or playing mender ele in the same way ( i sometime lose with both , it depends on my opponent ) .
Perhaps with ele i have more problems against warrior and less against condi bomber… it depends . In any case i see 1 vs 1 comparable while in teamfight there is really no game … and it is sad becouse i have more than 5k matches on engineer , i am not an ele fan boy but in this season i find it better.

I feel your pain, I am also platinum and after some time I thought the same: what is my role?
If you need a bruiser: go dh, warri or rev
If you need support: go ele or druid
If you need condi: go nec or mesmer
If you need decap: go thief

There is ZERO reason to take a scrapper over another class, we are a all-in-one, but we cant perform as well as the other classes in thier specific role.
With marauder or demolisher amulett you die like a fly, and with mender or paladin you wont win a 1v1 because there isnt enough damage output.

Scrapper feels very weak this season, I feel too underwhelming compared to other classes.

David.5974:

Well, just try to outnumber your enemy as much as you can. Scrapper is good far spotter. You should never loose any 1v1. Difference between us and tempest is, that we can kill intruder. I don’t tell my trics, but you are able to decap point with tempest in 30sec solo.

For example: your druid has 1v2 on far. So you run on far, get ready your fun gyro (often you arrive to rezz your mate) then fight continue.

Try to be in heavy fights as much as you can.

I agree that we belong in heavy fights, but i really couldn’t disagree more with the rest of what you said.

We have no on command swiftness unless we blast our healing skill into a lightning field, we have no teleports or gap closers (Rocket Charge is clunky af and hardly moves much faster than normal run speed), nor do we even have the spike potential necessary to quickly decap and win far points, so why do you think this is something we excel at?

If a druid is 1v2 at far, not only would a rev, thief, or mesmer be far quicker to assist them and rotate back to a larger team fight, they’d also contribute much more damage than a scrapper does. Staggering kills and respawns is such an integral aspect of even being able to hold far points, and scrapper just slaps like a wet noodle and drags out 1v1 and 2v2 fights to the point where the very classes I just mentioned above do exactly what we’re talking about and kill either me in a 1v2 situation or kill off my teammate and then create a 1v3 situation.

So while you’re right (and I said this myself) that scrapper can 1v1 anybody, we don’t have the toolset to do it properly. Engineer this season just feels like a hand me down elementalist, fulfilling a lot of the same responsibilities of condi cleansing and AoE healing, though with much less personal survivability.

I usually just make a point to pick a DPS on my team (usually the necro) and just banana ride them the whole game with my Elixir Gun and Mortar Kit. The only problem with this strategy is that you’re then only as good as your DPS, which makes it almost impossible to “carry” games.

No good reason to play Engie on Raids, no good reason to play Engie on PvP, no good reason to play Engie on WvW. Nice. We are the proverbial irrelevant profession now.

I agree with you guys. I really don’t like where scrapper is right now.

Ardid.7203:

No good reason to play Engie on Raids, no good reason to play Engie on PvP, no good reason to play Engie on WvW. Nice. We are the proverbial irrelevant profession now.

I wouldn’t go that far. Engineer is still quite valuable in raids and fractals, and I handle myself just fine in WvW, both roaming and in zergs. The problem is really just that as far as PvP is concerned, there’s little we bring to the table that can’t be covered better by another profession—and PvP is probably the one place where the difference between what’s “optimal” and what’s “viable” is most apparent.

It really isnt surprising that Engineers do not have a role anymore, ANet has spent the entire year since HoT nerfing Scrapper piece by piece.

Right now Scrapper offers nothing unique and as you say, is outclassed by everyone else in any specific niche. There is really no reason to play Scrapper or Engineer in any game mode right now, we have no unique buffs to offer, dont have the highest DPS or Healing nor do we have any utility really.

Scrapper and Engineer has been on a downward slide since the June trait overhaul when they gutted us and gave us so many useless traits. Maybe the next XPack will fix it but I dont think it will. Engineer is clearly not a favorite class at ANet so we dont get the love that Guard, War or Ele get to experience. I mean, do you remember when War was supposed to be weak to condi? lol! Now they get to stack resistance so high that condi’s dont even matter to Zerkers. Ele and Guard complained about their elite specs and ANet buffed them into absurdity.

I love my Engineer and only play it but there is no denying we are the worst class at the moment.

Since Anet “Scrapped” my scrapper build (pooped on it violently…like ate Taco Bell and Mcdonalds at once bad), ive gone back to my vanilla engi (slightly modified to go vs HoT builds) and its carried me from Bronze to Gold so far. Plague reapers are a pain (learning to fight vs these). No problems vs scrappers or zerkers. Thieves hate me, condi classes wanna be me (that sounded almost good didnt it?)

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vdAQJAqalcTh+uY5Vw+Kw6FLsFVYKeRxmYHNFPB4HWiBAA-TJhMABg+AAUuMAA7Pw6JAAA

For a Vanilla, it holds its own quite well. Only real pain, as mentioned, is plague reapers. Ive 2v1’d and has a couple 3v1’s (2v1’s I got recorded on my twitch/upcoming build vid). Good if you are bored, good if you want to try something different, good if you want to not be meta. Good if you are hyped on go-go juice (energy drinks).Saw someone close to this once (2 utilities and 1 wep off) and it still rocked them down.

Have fun

Get rid of the bursting sigil. It’s been bugged for ages and doesn’t actually change with your condition damage stat, so it’s basically worthless. Also, Healing Turret >>> Elixir B, and Bunker Down is still too good to even consider anything else in that slot.

Sins.4782:

Get rid of the bursting sigil. It’s been bugged for ages and doesn’t actually change with your condition damage stat, so it’s basically worthless. Also, Healing Turret >>> Elixir B, and Bunker Down is still too good to even consider anything else in that slot.

If you are referring to my build, I find it better with my play-style to have my set up and about the bursting sigil, after testing it with the golems, I do get the increased damage. The elixirs can be swapped for others as see fit so it can lean to many play-styles (I do swap to Elixir C from time to time)

If you are not referring to my build…uhhh…ummm…errrr…carry on mate.

displacedTitan.6897:

It really isnt surprising that Engineers do not have a role anymore, ANet has spent the entire year since HoT nerfing Scrapper piece by piece.

Right now Scrapper offers nothing unique and as you say, is outclassed by everyone else in any specific niche. There is really no reason to play Scrapper or Engineer in any game mode right now, we have no unique buffs to offer, dont have the highest DPS or Healing nor do we have any utility really.

Scrapper and Engineer has been on a downward slide since the June trait overhaul when they gutted us and gave us so many useless traits. Maybe the next XPack will fix it but I dont think it will. Engineer is clearly not a favorite class at ANet so we dont get the love that Guard, War or Ele get to experience. I mean, do you remember when War was supposed to be weak to condi? lol! Now they get to stack resistance so high that condi’s dont even matter to Zerkers. Ele and Guard complained about their elite specs and ANet buffed them into absurdity.

I love my Engineer and only play it but there is no denying we are the worst class at the moment.

I have started playing warrior and druid in ranked games and it’s unbelievable how much better druid is at 1vXing and warrior is at dueling. The only class I can’t regularly kill on my warrior is guardian.

When I’m put up vs. pro league players I still swap to engineer since it’s what I’m best at, but I agree in that beyond the function gyro we offer literally nothing another class isn’t better at.

1 burn @ 1200 condi damage w/o bursting = 317 damage per stack second
1 burn @ 1200 condi damage with bursting = 328 damage per stack second, a ~3.47% increase.

So already we can see it’s considerably lower than the 6% damage increase you might have thought it was. That’s because instead of flat out multiplying the final damage numbers by 1.06, like the superior rune of the berserker’s ⁶ bonus would, it’s only calculating as if your condition damage stat was 6% higher, and thus the condition’s base damage receives no increase. That’s not the worst part, though.

1 burn @ 1200 with full might (1950 total) w/o = 433 damage per stack second
1 burn @ 1200 with full might (1950 total) with = 444 damage per stack second, a ~2.54% increase.

Like in the tests with no might, the bursting sigil is still only giving a bonus of +11 damage, despite your effective condition damage stat being a full 62.5% higher thanks to might. Unfortunately, bursting sigil does not recalculate its bonus when your condition damage increases from things like might, traits like pinpoint distribution in firearms, or bonuses from food/utility items. This leads to its actual damage increase again being significantly lower than you might have expected.

TL;DR: you’ll get a higher damage increase by using a condition applying sigil instead, or even by going with corruption sigil assuming you don’t suck. Bursting is trash.

So an update.

On Saturday I reached 1775 with my duo partner, with something like a 150-145 record. He stopped, and in my hubris I decided to keep playing. He’s decided that he wants to decay to solidly land in the top 100, so I’ve been left to solo queue on my own this week.

Long story short, I’m now now 1598 at this time on Friday afternoon, holding a sterling 177-182 record on the season.

I’d be angry about it, but after all the ups and downs I’ve dealt with this season, I’ve kinda reached a state of ambivalence, if not having become completely zen about it.

Having not seriously played this game in nearly a year, maybe I overestimated my aspirations of the top 150-250 range to start the season. I never did AGs or anything remotely serious, but I felt that I was a player that was somewhat on the edge of pushing “real” rating. I had no aspirations of winning most 1v1s vs. pro league players, but I felt like I had a genuinely good grasp of the game mode and, minus momentary situations of blindness, I do a pretty good job of “holding my own.”

I’ve kinda just resigned myself to this fate and like the PvE Pleb Lord I am, am just enjoying raking in the gold, dyes, and transmutation charges. I also just got an ascended armor box this morning, which is cool.

Phineas Poe.3018:

So an update.

On Saturday I reached 1775 with my duo partner, with something like a 150-145 record. He stopped, and in my hubris I decided to keep playing. He’s decided that he wants to decay to solidly land in the top 100, so I’ve been left to solo queue on my own this week.

Long story short, I’m now now 1598 at this time on Friday afternoon, holding a sterling 177-182 record on the season.

I’d be angry about it, but after all the ups and downs I’ve dealt with this season, I’ve kinda reached a state of ambivalence, if not having become completely zen about it.

Having not seriously played this game in nearly a year, maybe I overestimated my aspirations of the top 150-250 range to start the season. I never did AGs or anything remotely serious, but I felt that I was a player that was somewhat on the edge of pushing “real” rating. I had no aspirations of winning most 1v1s vs. pro league players, but I felt like I had a genuinely good grasp of the game mode and, minus momentary situations of blindness, I do a pretty good job of “holding my own.”

I’ve kinda just resigned myself to this fate and like the PvE Pleb Lord I am, am just enjoying raking in the gold, dyes, and transmutation charges. I also just got an ascended armor box this morning, which is cool.

Sorry man. This is around the time when I start trying out new builds to see if I can fix the problem somehow. I would suggest doing that. You could figure some way of playing hammer Scrapper with bombs that no one has thought of yet.

Dirame.8521:

Sorry man. This is around the time when I start trying out new builds to see if I can fix the problem somehow. I would suggest doing that.

After I wrote that post I told myself I’d just grind it out, but things didn’t fare much better. Rock bottom for me was pretty much falling to 1550 (Gold 2) with a 181-193 record. It was the lowest I’d been all season and I was starting to get frustrated. DPS would simply die all around me, or I’d get elementalists that had no idea how to rotate.

I then put a ton of thought into what was occurring and made a decision to simply change my approach. Instead of playing the walking ambulance or wet noodle Paladin kitten I made the decision to just roll a DPS spec and see where it took me. I ended up running with this:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vdAQFASnUUBtoitbBGpCkfhlJjS8ZKgAIc7Smwi+vr79G-TJBFABys/g4lBA4CAwwDAAA

Marauder+Elixir X isn’t anything new, of course. I’ve tried it at multiple points in the season but it just felt too squishy to me. Truth is, what I had been missing the whole time was dropping Purge Gyro for Blast Gyro, enabling me to better put pressure on the other team through raw CC or doubling up on Bypass Coating and Hydromancy to be much more slippery. Condition pressure still hurts a lot, so I try to be smart about my engagements and positioning, but Melandru+Adaptive Armor helps a lot in that regard.

Without Final Salvo and Sneak Gyro I’m not as effective at safe stomps and resses, so I have my second engi run a Paladin variant that’s much more effective in that regard when I feel we need it. For a point of comparison, what I run on that character is pretty much this:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vdAQFASnUUBtoitbBGpCEqilJjKc7SmwS8ZKgAg+vr7+G-TJBFAB3v/w/lBY4BAAwFAAA

Between both these builds, I’m now 1661 with a 200-204 record. I still have to even out my record, and I’m still a solid 100-150 rating lower than where I want to be, but I won like 60% of my games since the build change and being back in platinum at least feels nice.

phineas poe.
Important thing about engi in spvp is, change your build, customize your utilities on demand your team and what you expect from enemy. Few times I was switching into my personal condi build (1x druid,2x tempest against us) We had not expecting condi class in team, and I was definetly destroying tempests on point in 15-20sec. But this is only rare scenario…
Blasty gyro is useless in many times…trust me. I was running it this seasson, until I reach 1800 rat. Then I start using purge gyro (for poison,blast poison for weakness) and weakness removal. If I expect heavy burst, I switch elixir S and Elixir X. Changing runes, amulets, everything to be most prepared to fight.
Sometimes is better stay in paladin, sometimes I switch to mender, rare times to marauder or traibalizer for condi. Yep, it can happen then I was make few times mistake, but it was practice and now I know. So , try to tweak your build, try to expect what you will do in match(heavy fight? bring bulky/purge gyro/stealth gyro … or solo far holder? bring bulky/elixir s / elixir X , or do you expect to dealing alone with tempest/druid? then bring blasty)

And end match with top revieves as much as you can. It’s your job.