Guild Wars 2

Hello,

Some time is gone after the HOT release, and I had enough time to play the scrapper.
I mainly play wvw and pvp, and i noticed that the scrapper is a lot better than the “normal” engineer.
The hammer is a true gift to our class, for a power orientated build it provides much more dmg, finishers and sustain than a rifle can do.
The CD’s are pretty low, it feels smoother to use the hammer instead of a rifle.
A tools/alchemy/scrapper build is the strongest i have ever seen on engineer, u can melt all other melee professions without any problem.
I see no more reason to use the “classic” engi in wvw or pvp, what do u think?
Is the “classic” rifle engineer gone?
Do you see any reason to take the rifle instead the hammer? For range attack i still use the mortar…

Well, Hammer doesn’t offer much range damage, so it means you have to compensate for that in other ways with your build. It brings a tradeoff, and what you get is a solid melee weapon with the first auto-attack almost worth using for engineer. I had ran a hammer flamethrower build, and got rekt by a trapper DH. So, it gives you a lot of strengths, and for sustain builds it is probably stronger, but I felt base engineer was better for damage.

Scrapper doesn’t really have much to offer an Engineer who wants to use conditions but as far as power builds go, there’s little reason to skip on Scrapper and Hammer.

Hammer scrapper is rly strong , i can win against nearly all builds , except cele nekro/reaper .
But i wouldnt say hammer outperforms rifle , rifle sd scrapper is rly powerfull too .

In PvP, I’d say that Scrapper is generally better than base engi. I’d even put Scrapper as being best for open world PvE. However, base engi Condi meta seems to be best for Fractals and is looking good for when raids come out.

@ PvP Hammer vs. Rifle

Rifle is/was an amazing weapon that has been quite consistently working in it’s own unique way. It’s less specialized than pure melee or range weapons but with a mix of ranged pressure, single lockdown/CC and PPAoE burst it has a well rounded skill set.

Rifle hasn’t changed directly. With the trait work and now HoT release however the overall context has shifted quite a bit.

It might be me but I’ve always felt the engi profession performs best when it gets to use all its tools and play its strengths. This won’t happen if you get taken out at range while not being able to do more than auto-attacking. This won’t happen if you are stuck in melee all the time. I’ve always seen pre-HoT engi as “alternating range” class. You have to create a battle with fluid transitions of distances in order to not be outperformed by ranged weapons at range and melee weapons at melee.

Overcharged Shot is a (if not the) core of this gameplay, being able to influence the enemies position plus the few sec you have to reposition yourself while the opponent is CC’d. You could call it a positional reset of the combat to your liking. The problem of this important tool: there are many ways to fail. Blind/block/stabi/dodge/reflect/minions inbetween/positional desync (it fails due to your opponent not actually being right in front of you) plus you always have to deal with the drawback of the self KB.
These things used to be interesting having to be played around in the past (sometimes frustrating, mostly interesting though in my opinion). But trait patch and HoT just added so many counters to OS that it’s barely worth the risk anymore. All professions have gotten more tools to deal with CC, block projectiles or perform better at range. There’s more “random” blind flying around, more stability, more and shorter CD stun-breaks, more CC in general (making OS’s single Launch worse in comparison) and more attacks with evade frames etc. . It’s much harder to hit OS now than it was in the past and it hasn’t got more rewarding.

And OS aside, what else has Rifle to offer compared to Hammer?
Ranged pressure (which can also be done by kits) and a clunky Immobilize.
Hammer on the other hand has more defensive utility, more mobility, more PBAoE, more combo potential and an inbuilt CC-chain.

tl;dr: many new skills/traits function as counter to Overcharged which is arguable Rifle’s best skill so risk/reward is a bit off. Hammer easier and more rewarding to use.

So far, I’m liking my sinister p/p engineer better. Though, that’s just me being a big fan of conditions.

Wouldn’t call it better, just viable, as all weapons are right now which is a gift compared to other classes.
Although… i am kind of sad, that scrapper gets its idendity almost completly by the hammer instead of sth. special. I love hammer but i pray for an improvement regarding class mechanic.

I haven’t really found a place for the scrapper in my currently preferred style of PvP. I like being effective over a variety of ranges and feel that rifle offers too much versatility to want to be limited by the hammer. In addition if I am using rifle, then a lot of the scrapper traits are a harder sell.

Yes scrapper > Engi. For condi engi is scrapper not useable. hammer > rifle. Maybe SD scrapper is possible with rifle. But I like pistol/pistol and I see no new build for my p/p engi