Guild Wars 2

There really needs to be something done about the engineer’s rifle. It needs things that help engies stay a far distance away. I mean, practically all the skills are close range but 2 of them. What’s worse is some environmental weapons are better. Anyone been around the Ascalonian ghost area? That place has these “ghost rifles” that you can pick up that have way better skills(one of them being a charged shot that practical ko’s the enemy in one go) then our regular skills. I just wish arena net would add something to help balance it out.

Stop,just stop…its perfect the way it is,we do not need more topics like that.

While I agree there are enough topics about this already that this could have beeen posted in, the suggestion itself is not a bad one. Coming off hostile is not going to help things. Maybe try a suggestion of your own or explaining why you don’t like something in a cronstructive way.

Mr Zablinx.7239:

It needs things that help engies stay a far distance away.

…Seriously?

The only way it could do that better is if they replaced Blunderbuss with Shadow Strike.

The ascalonian ghost rifle effect works only on the ghosts. It’s a special attack designed to help you in a special situation.

Don’t expect that ability to be there for you anytime soon.

Environmental weapons are designed to be more powerful in attack but limited in nature. This is because usually they are scenario-based or one-use. Boulders have enormous damage and a knockdown, but you have to run over and pick it up again before you can use it.

To compare an environmental weapon to your normal weapons is . . . absurd.

Sporadicus.1028:

The ascalonian ghost rifle effect works only on the ghosts. It’s a special attack designed to help you in a special situation.

Don’t expect that ability to be there for you anytime soon.

Environmental weapons are designed to be more powerful in attack but limited in nature. This is because usually they are scenario-based or one-use. Boulders have enormous damage and a knockdown, but you have to run over and pick it up again before you can use it.

To compare an environmental weapon to your normal weapons is . . . absurd.

This exactly. The other day an Asura for a heart quest handed me a special rifle whose 1st skill applied a 1min chill, 2 skill froze chilled enemies in a solid block of ice, and 3rd skill shattered frozen enemies for nearly an instakill. Why can’t we have that too?

Rifle is a bit boring in comparison to pistol/shield or Pistol/pistol to be fair. (WvW perspective)

There’s only the #1 attack that has decent range, #3 tends to be an escape and not a decent dmg ability, 2# is a root, #4 requires close range to be effective and #5 is kind of pointless unless you’re stood on the person you’re trying to hit to get both dmg effects (it should be changed to a single dmg effect on landing imo..)

Pistol/shield or P/P you have far more options at range to hurt things. Sadly the dmg sacrifice and inability to build toughness into a condition build effectively makes wvw as pistol/condition build a painfull experience at times.

the #1 attack should be a 400 range cone of bursty love.

Shotgun all the way.

I still think they should add the weapon swap button to the engi, but instead of switching between weapons like other class it changes the mode of the weapon you have.

So your rifle can be toggled to rifle or shotgun mode. You are an engineer after all; tinker, tinker, tinker.

Engineers having a shotgun/scattergun/blunderbuss is actually quite fitting. Shotguns are known for being able to use all sorts of ammunition and are meant as breaching and self defense weapons. This increased utility fits the engineer theme pretty well if you ask me. The warrior class fits the marksman rifle theme far better.

I personally would not mind if the default #1 shot was a ~600 range shot with a small cone. The #5 shot seems rather awkward and extremely silly. The only times i use it is if a bunch of mobs are clustered around my turrets, which i follow up with a #3 and #4 shot.

Another way i use #5 is to use it as a ‘Charge’ ability to start a battle, then do a #3, #4, followed by a #2 to keep the mob in place while it takes fire from my turrets and my #1.

How I’d make the Rifle even better…

Nr1: Make it do more damage the closer you are.
Nr2: Make it actually hit if you’re in range
Nr3: Increase the minimum range, even wars do max dmg out to max melee… We have to literally stand ontop to do max
Nr4: It’s alright as it is
Nr5: Smoothness mate, smoooooothness.

Honestly after reading many replies and topics on this forum I am under the impression they should have just scrapped rifle and called it shotgun. In fact looking at the skills we have more argument for it being a shotgun than we do a rifle (despite the name).

#1: hip shot: While the name is shotgun-esque it is the only skill in the bunch that acts like a rifle. Fire a projectile that can pierce at range. Possibly this should have been a different skill to avoid rifle confusion.

#2: net shot: This is believable from a blunderbuss or shotgun like weapon and provides utility. Rifle shooting a net? Doesn’t seem to jive for me.

#3: blunderbuss: This literally is a kind of shotgun. More damage the closer you are and adds bleeds in the same manner. Perfect for shotgun but doesn’t make sense in a rifle.

#4: overcharged shot: Either a rifle or shotgun could fit into this mechanic as both could have a powerful kick. I would say a shotgun more stereotypically fits this idea but calling it a draw as a case could be made for either.

#5: Jump shot: Blast the ground, damaging nearby foes and leaping to your target. Seems to fit better with a shotgun than a rifle. If I shoot a shotgun at the ground I am going to pepper everything in an area from ricochet damaging nearby people. With a rifle I am going to lose a bullet and make a hole in the ground.

I believe the issue is with them calling the weapon a rifle (probably to use the same animations/textures/etc.) and not just calling it what it is . . . a shotgun. I don’t think that is bad though as a shotgun would fall in line range wise with the other items in our kits and feel fitting for an engineer class. Having a rifle means there are a few items that need to be fixed ability wise to make it fall in line as a ranged weapon.

TLDR:
I call typo on ArenaNet’s part. Shotgun not rifle.

Don’t change rifle. Good long ranged damage with pierce, immobilize, gap closer, burst, and a push. It’s one of the most well-rounded weapon sets engineers have access to. You can easily control the entire flow of a 1v1 (PvE) encounter with that single weapon alone.

P/P or P/S is good too, but without the overcharge, you’re required to kite more with glue or slow. Granted, you have utility skills that can push them away (ram) and push yourself away (rocket), but I feel like if you wanted to put something else on your utility slots, rifle is a great way to encompass some solid damage at a decent range, good burst at close range, immobilize, gap closing, and distancing in a single weapon.

If it was called a shotgun we’d probably not have that range on 1. It mostly has some melee attacks because you will never always be at range, and seeing as engis get only 1 weapon set, it needs to have some melee application so its effective at different situations.

They should just change the name of the #1 skill to Slug or Dolyak shot. Buffalo shot is just a hollow point slug. Do that and I’ll be happy.

Wow, never really thought about it, but yeah…it’s totally a shotgun. Not a rifle.

It’s a rifle. They not going to add a new weapon because you guys want a long ranged wep and a short range wep. It’s not going to happen. If you don’t like the skill set why do you play engineer rifle? Thats how the engineer profession is and how it needs to stay. Not people who like having engineer under their names but not actually liking the profession. Go play Rifle Warrior or Ranger if you want something more ranged.

Engineer is Perfect as it is. As for the kit non-sense about no sigils for kits I have to say I hope they never bring sigils for kits because they would be extremely overpowered. As they currently are they deal alot more damage than other professions. Don’t you think they would have thought about the lack of sigils for engineer when they designed the class. Stop trying to make it what you want an Engineer to be. This is the Engineer, if you don’t like it leave it.

If the kits were bugged then yeh I want it fixed, if any engineer wep was bugged I would want it fixed and would try and help the profession out but as the engineer currently stands it is well balanced and needs very little tweaking.

Jordan.6157:

Engineer is Perfect as it is. As for the kit non-sense about no sigils for kits I have to say I hope they never bring sigils for kits because they would be extremely overpowered. As they currently are they deal alot more damage than other professions. Don’t you think they would have thought about the lack of sigils for engineer when they designed the class. Stop trying to make it what you want an Engineer to be. This is the Engineer, if you don’t like it leave it.

There is so much wrong with this i don’t even know where to begin.
First of all saying that all kits deal a lot more damage than other professions is just a straight up lie. The grenade kit does very viable damage especially for it’s range but if you think the rest does you need to try some other classes.
Second, the lack of sigils has already been acknowledged as a problem that they want to fix.

The engineer is by no means a bad class but has it’s fair share of problems.
Failing to acknowledge those problems is just as bad as what you are complaining about.

It’s neither. A rifle or a shotgun can actually kill something.
They should call it “the thing I accidentally use for 2 attacks when my grenade kit drops for no reason”.

Mif.3471:

It’s neither. A rifle or a shotgun can actually kill something.
They should call it “the thing accidentally I use for 2 attacks when my grenade kit drops for no reason”.

HaHa!! more truth to this than I would like to admit.

BakBakaa.2453:

Mif.3471:

It’s neither. A rifle or a shotgun can actually kill something.
They should call it “the thing accidentally I use for 2 attacks when my grenade kit drops for no reason”.

HaHa!! more truth to this than I would like to admit.

Nailed it !

Keelin.5781:

Jordan.6157:

Engineer is Perfect as it is. As for the kit non-sense about no sigils for kits I have to say I hope they never bring sigils for kits because they would be extremely overpowered. As they currently are they deal alot more damage than other professions. Don’t you think they would have thought about the lack of sigils for engineer when they designed the class. Stop trying to make it what you want an Engineer to be. This is the Engineer, if you don’t like it leave it.

There is so much wrong with this i don’t even know where to begin.
First of all saying that all kits deal a lot more damage than other professions is just a straight up lie. The grenade kit does very viable damage especially for it’s range but if you think the rest does you need to try some other classes.
Second, the lack of sigils has already been acknowledged as a problem that they want to fix.

The engineer is by no means a bad class but has it’s fair share of problems.
Failing to acknowledge those problems is just as bad as what you are complaining about.

Okay okay..

Bomb kit – Extremely simple and easy to use, decent damage. Why is it not as powerful as some other professions dmg wise? Oh ye, bcus it has a large AoE blind, it has a good control ability, it requires extremely no effort what so ever, it has a confusion ability causing the enemy to faceroll themselves.

Grenade kit – Deals amazing damage for someone who can control their target. It rewards people for playing right. Standing at a distance with this kit and throwing grenades hoping to hit someone is not playing it right. This kit is amazing damage.

Flame-thrower – Very easy to use but rewards people massively if used right. Does decent damage but alot of damage is sacrificed for the amount of control it has and it’s blind ability. If used with the right utility skills and good knowledge of how to control your enemy you will be amazing with this kit.

Elixer-gun – All condition builds are weak at the moment so I really cannot say Elixer-gun doesn’t need a buff. It’s decent support. Have not really used it much.

Tool-kit – Obviously for a turret build. Definitely mainly for PvE. I personally have little respect for turret builds in PvP. Seems braindead. But turret builds in PvE can prove quite the support. I don’t really see many turret builds even use this since it would cause them to lose one turret.

Our kit with rifle includes the following:

1. A long range skill with piercing
2. A long range immobilize on a short cooldown
3. A short range nuke with bleeding/AoE
4. A short range gap-creator with knockdown
5. A gap closer with nuke-like AoE

The only suggestion I would make for this already near-perfect skill kit, is putting the range of ‘5’ back to where it was in the promo video. 700 (800 traited) is absolutely nothing. It doesn’t really close gaps (it’s animation is too slow anyways) and 90% of the time I have to use it while on top of enemies because the launch damage is worthless when you aren’t near an enemy. It should all be rolled into the landing damage.

TL;DR: ‘5’ needs to have 1500 range, and do all it’s damage at the end, no launch damage- just landing damage.

How about this for jump shot.

If you jump to someone, and hit someone, it does say… 50 damage. Upon landing, it does 50 more.

However, if you jump, and hit no one, upon landing it does 100 damage.

Could work to make it more of a mobility tool.

Just to toss this in there. Originally there was going to be shotguns in the game, but they ended up merging them with rifles since only engineers primarily used them. Was no point to having them. Shotgun style skill stayed, but the rifle is what the gun is called.

AndrewWaltfeld.4621:

Just to toss this in there. Originally there was going to be shotguns in the game, but they ended up merging them with rifles since only engineers primarily used them. Was no point to having them. Shotgun style skill stayed, but the rifle is what the gun is called.

This explains quite allot and in a way confirms what I was saying about them being one and the same.

Do you have a single fact to support the claim that the game originally was going to have shotguns? Was something said or mentioned somewhere by a dev or a production staff member?

I don’t have any problem killing anything with the rifle. Its my main weapon for exploring in pve. I keep grenades up..and flamethrower, but that mostly for the incendiary rounds for the rifle.

But yeah….its basically a shotgun. I hate the look of the most of the rifles, especially the blunderbuss..except for the “arquebus”. Which reminds me of a short, full stocked carbine. Really like that one.

The mechanics, the animations, the SOUNDS….all scream Shotgun. It all makes sense now. Engineers were going to use shotguns and they simply swapped rifles in their place.