Here is my issue not just with scrapper but with general engineer as well.
Scrapper traits are decent . I use scrapper traits with marauder amulet offensive rune and sigils, and stack all defense traits. It balances out to a semi tanky extreme pressure melee dps.
Hammer deals way to much damage. My autos hit for like 1.5 to 2.5 k a hit and my 2 3 4 5 buttons all do anywhere from 2-10k damage depends on crits and if they land.
If you look at the tool tip i think the average damatge is 4.5k or 2.5k x 5
I won’t lie, i love playing hammer because i get killing blows – like a warrior hammer greatsword stance kind of pressure. But it is the only build worth using in structured pvp.
And in pvp i never rez other people. Why should i rez other people when i can do damage and put pressure ? I use scrapper traits for defensive to cover my offensive stacking of runes sigils and amulet. Scrapper trait line is not that good in pve or raiding. It doesn’t reduce the massive damage you take in raiding. Better to dodge or avoid damage all together rather than reduce damage.
and in PvE hammer is a fail concept as raid tank. I don’t think hammer can do enough damage to maguam jungle monsters and survive. Condition pistols are better for soloig, leveling, raiding. Hell any offensive build is better than a defensive build in PvE – soloing, being an engineer raider, farming and grinding.
As for classic engineer. Tool kit used to be good prior to the expansion, but hammer is better in almost every possible way. Tool kit needs a remake or incredible buffs to be even considered being used in pvp pve. Hammer is not just a defensive weapon – it is a Defensive and Offensive burst pressure weapon. Toolkit is hard to hit with a tiny melee hit range, and while it has some decent skills (magnet is pretty cool and shield is basically immortality for a few seconds) ultimately it’s not that great. Tools is not that great.
Bomb and grenade kit has it’s place. I use it as “part of a rotation” not as stand alone kits. I use pistols and swap to grenades and use 2 and 5 (bleed and poison) and then swap to bomb use 2 (fire field) and out of it, until those skills coldowns are up.
Same with morter kit. I only use morter kit for the poison field and never anything else.
I cannot image making a power build with grenades or bomb kit. Seems like it doesn’t do enough damage, clunky aim, and doesn’t offer any useful utility. Bomb kit could be decent in pvp, but i think it is still not as awesome as hammer.
Elixirs….elixirs i don’t like. They take up a slot to be use as a “reactive” ability and you save it until you use it in reaction to something – cleansing conditions – rezzing allies – buffing your self for damage – going invincible for a few seconds to absorb fatal attacks.
I think elixirs are like defensive and offensive coldowns. Just like World of warcraft.
WORLD OF WARCRAFT – You get 25 spells on 3 hot bars. You get 5-7 attack rotation spells, 2-3 defensive coldown spells – 1-2 offensive coldowns – 1-2 buff spells – 1-3 Utility spells – 1-3 class abilties (totems, pet training skills, stealth stealing spells, rage mechanics skills)
Why am i talking about world of warcraft ? Well the engineer has only 3 slots for spells 1 healing slot and 1 ultimate slot.
Elixirs are like Heavy coldown abilities. If you have the elixir spells in addition to 1 healing slot skill 3 utility slot skills and 1 ultimate slot skill, you would be incredibly powerful.
World of waracrt balances their classes by giving every class the same tools – some defensive and offensive coldowns, some utility coldowns, some attack rotation abilities, class abilities, and other buttons for profession, teleporting, summon toys pets, and stuff.
Engineer elixirs are NEVER worth slotting in your utility slots. Even if you go HGH you still are useless when you pop your elixirs or try to counter every build and you get boon ripped, as well as having no cc damage or healing. You lose a lot to have elixirs slotted instead of kits.
The engineer has a lot of good skills that would be awesome for a game where you had all your skills. But the way guild wars 2 is designed, that makes it hard to balance engineer. You can only slot 3 skills 1 healing skill and 1 ultimate skill. Because the meta gaming and min maxing, you will usually slot kits and maybe that shrink invisible elixir as a defensive coldown.
In guild wars 2 the limited number of active skills you can use, make engineer very weak. If he could spam turrets and elixirs and gadgets and use all his kits and spells in 1 package in combat – engineer would be crazy good.
Why slot kits ? Because slotting kits gives you more attack options, more crowd control, more utility, more options. Each kit has 1-3 attack abilities, as well as a cc conditioning attack, healing or slow (elixir gun tools) and overall it’s just more powerful to have kits as your slots and have options to be strong for many counters.
If you need more extra support, buy a razor naga mouse, it gives you very much powerful control of your kits and abilities.
I am not angry, salty, upset, or mad, i am ranting kind of haha. I am just telling you my philosophy and experience with the engineer class.
As for rifle…rifle has the potential to be good, but it should have it’a 1# auto attack damage increased or maybe inflict vulnerability perhaps ? It pierces which is kind of nice, but it is only good in Mass zerg wpvp and there are much better options.
The rifle has a tons of cc, and decent close melee range damage. It’s a decent weapon, but hammer is better.
Hammer has damage, defensive reflects, a stun, and a way to get into melee. The hammer is a strong overloaded weapon. It’s amazing.
Elixir gun is useful for it’s 1# because of fumble, and it can be useful in pvp if you can aim it’s skills (clunky aiming) but it scales poorly because you need healing power, condition, Power, and precision to make it useful for damage. The elixir gun is useful more for it’s utility and boons and conditions. It is a decent underrated weapon, but in PvP offensive and aggression are kind. Elixir gun is a defensive support weapon, and doesn’t serve well.
The pistol’s shield is not useful at all. Look at elixir. Same concept. With shield- You get defensive coldowns that last 3 or 4 seconds and they have 30 + sec coldown. That doesn’t work well and it is better to slot more damage from the pistol than to slot 2 defensive coldowns. The hammer has better defensive skills. If you were to make a bunker build, i could see shield elixirs being decent, but you would lose more games than win games
A note – in PvP games are won by putting pressure, not by playing defensively. If you are winning by playing defensive, it means the enemy is not putting pressure – or trying to win.
Turrets are incredibly useless in pvp and pve. They are basically cones / totems – immovable little objects that are supposed to block and create defensive perimeter (turtling) guard a area. Since anet sees that has toxic gameplay in pvp, they cannot function in the role they are supposed to do. In Pve they should be able to do 50% more damage to PvE NPCS or AI target monsters.
The boon thing has the potential to be useful. I would do this -
Make turrets tankier in pvp and make them create boons at a range of 1500 feet (Super long range) BUT give them a limited duration (maybe 6-8 seconds) and remove self destructing the turret OR keep it for blast finisher w/e. Now they are buffing cones. You can summon a boon buff every 25 + seconds for 6-8 seconds and help defend an area (buff all allies). The different between that and elixirs, is turrets would have shorter coldowns, better boon giving, still be able to fight (auto attack) and yes…they would make an area more entrenched if 3 or 4 players are there getting boons it would be like a turtle but more of a buffing zone.
But that is just a suggestion.
I think gadgets have the potential to be the most Overpowered skills in the entire game, but right now they are not that strong.
If you increased or gave damage to the gadget spells, they would be powerful damage and cc abilities, and you could slot 3 gadgets and the tools trait (that shoots lightning bolts) and make a strong OP bursting engineer. But other than that gadgets are good for pve bar breaker.
TLDR: Hammer is OP in PvP needs a heavy nerf or rework, engineer kits are viable in pve and pvp for having access to more spells for situations, elixirs are useless to take, turrets cant fulfill their defensive role, gadgets could be good but need damage buffs.
Thanks for reading.
