Guild Wars 2

So i wanted to ask simple question. I like engi in wvw and pve , but dmg wise they are not so , great . Now, i like scrapper hammer builds most and from my exp it wasnt op . So from where came this idea to nerf skill shock shield? Am i missing something here ?
Please for reasonable answers dont wish to get into mess post , tx.

Its purpose is to negate damage. Both negating damage and dealing respectable damage at the same time was too much.

It is fine as-is now.

A relatively quick reuse sustained block skill alone is worth having, with damage on top it’s a great skill. With high DPS such that it can be used just for DPS… that’s a bit much. Change is fine.

Because engi simply has to have some nerf in every patch thats how our world works.

have you read threads in this sub for the last 6-9 months? hammer is clearly op. players acknowledge it and arent like no its not.

The shock shield nerf was intended to make engineer less effective in spvp. It kinda sucks for other game modes but the change to shock shield and the other engineer nerfs were fair for spvp.

Razor.9872:

Its purpose is to negate damage. Both negating damage and dealing respectable damage at the same time was too much.

It is fine as-is now.

lol. Yes because everyone said hammer was too strong in PvE. Come on.

style.6173:

Razor.9872:

Its purpose is to negate damage. Both negating damage and dealing respectable damage at the same time was too much.

It is fine as-is now.

lol. Yes because everyone said hammer was too strong in PvE. Come on.

hammer being op in pve matters a bit less. you can run through most content without expecting to die, unlike pvp or wvw, so the defensive stuff hammer brings is just bonus when hammer also fills your rotation better than rifle and does similar dps. “too strong in pve” is more exclusively defined as “does too much dps”, something hammer doesnt particularly do. yet there it is, still making sure rifle sees very little play.

insanemaniac.2456:

hammer being op in pve matters a bit less.

And that alone says enough about how well they balance.
It isn’t particularly surprising that engineers (let alone scrappers) aren’t wanted for any serious PvE content, seeing that PvE always is an afterthought in their balancing passes.

Manuhell.2759:

insanemaniac.2456:

hammer being op in pve matters a bit less.

And that alone says enough about how well they balance.
It isn’t particularly surprising that engineers (let alone scrappers) aren’t wanted for any serious PvE content, seeing that PvE always is an afterthought in their balancing passes.

did you see the ele nerfs or do you only play engi?

insanemaniac.2456:

did you see the ele nerfs or do you only play engi?

I did see them. They’ve got anything to do with this matter, though. Engineer is still getting nerfed in PvE due to their pvp performance, even if something got splitted.
Unless you mean to say that skills like bulwark gyro or medic gyro were too strong in pve, or that bunker down was oh so useful for some fractal or raid. Or should i talk about turrets and how they’re still terrible, or how they didn’t care about making gadget a decent choice after they nerfed the only one that did see some use?
Let’s speak frankly, did you ever see some balancing that wasn’t somehow dictated by pvp (and yet applied to any mode)? Even slick shoes saw people whining for months in pvp about it, and like turrets ended up useless after they “rebalanced” it. Same for the traits. The old juggernaut, the old kit refinement, all changed only due to pvp. Did they ever do something to make the engineer a better choice in PvE? Should i remind you how the engineer was one of the less used classes in PvE and still sees few to no uses, especially in any harder content, mostly because it doesn’t offer anything that other classes can’t already do anyway, and yet nothing was ever done in this regard? And let’s not take the “versatility” excuse, because we aren’t versatile to begin with: we must spend all our utility slot just to deal damage. You know who’s versatile? Elementalists. And they do get used, unlike us. Even our only good point, condi dps, depends on enemies standing essentially still all the time (how else should napalm do all the hits otherwise). Nice for theorycrafting, not much in practice. But even that isn’t enough to be actually chosen. Not when other classes got banners, party buffs, pulsing boons…things only their class can do, and that they can easily bring while still dealing good damage. And we’ve got nothing like that. And even if we had skills like that, it would compete with kits, so we likely wouldn’t bring it anyway. That’s how the class work. Badly.
But nobody in the balance team cares about that. They never cared about PvE.
We’ve got some builds for pvp. It means we’re fine. No need to do anything. As usual.

Manuhell.2759:

insanemaniac.2456:

did you see the ele nerfs or do you only play engi?

I did see them. They’ve got anything to do with this matter, though. Engineer is still getting nerfed in PvE due to their pvp performance, even if something got splitted.
Unless you mean to say that skills like bulwark gyro or medic gyro were too strong in pve, or that bunker down was oh so useful for some fractal or raid. Or should i talk about turrets and how they’re still terrible, or how they didn’t care about making gadget a decent choice after they nerfed the only one that did see some use?
Let’s speak frankly, did you ever see some balancing that wasn’t somehow dictated by pvp (and yet applied to any mode)? Even slick shoes saw people whining for months in pvp about it, and like turrets ended up useless after they “rebalanced” it. Same for the traits. The old juggernaut, the old kit refinement, all changed only due to pvp. Did they ever do something to make the engineer a better choice in PvE? Should i remind you how the engineer was one of the less used classes in PvE and still sees few to no uses, especially in any harder content, mostly because it doesn’t offer anything that other classes can’t already do anyway, and yet nothing was ever done in this regard? And let’s not take the “versatility” excuse, because we aren’t versatile to begin with: we must spend all our utility slot just to deal damage. You know who’s versatile? Elementalists. And they do get used, unlike us. Even our only good point, condi dps, depends on enemies standing essentially still all the time (how else should napalm do all the hits otherwise). Nice for theorycrafting, not much in practice. But even that isn’t enough to be actually chosen. Not when other classes got banners, party buffs, pulsing boons…things only their class can do, and that they can easily bring while still dealing good damage. And we’ve got nothing like that. And even if we had skills like that, it would compete with kits, so we likely wouldn’t bring it anyway. That’s how the class work. Badly.
But nobody in the balance team cares about that. They never cared about PvE.
We’ve got some builds for pvp. It means we’re fine. No need to do anything. As usual.

applied force.

Manuhell.2759:

snip

You talk alot about what engi doesn’t have and i compltely agree.

I’d even throw WvW into the mix where engi has been sub par since basicly forever.

But on what i do not agree is that these nerfs overly hurt. PvE builds don’t care about the bulwrak nerf esp. in high tier play. Medic is an inconvenience at worst and the shock shield nerf won’t decide if a boss dies or lives either.

Bunker down does irk a bit because scrapper is the problen not the base engi.

I mean its fair to complain that engi is still unwanted in 2 out of 3 gamemodes but thats because nothing has changed yet again rather than these insignifcant nerfs that we recieved this patch.

insanemaniac.2456:

applied force.

That was created anew, though. And they did so because they moved down (and rebalanced) perfectly weighted. A trait that saw many pvp people complain about scrappers’ passive stability (even after its stability was reduced to a single stack due to making it adept, but still). But sure, that trait may also have been implemented to improve scrappers’ performance in PvE. Albeit it didn’t help much, as we can see.
Fair enough, one change over several years may have been implemented to improve pve (or at least had that side-effect). Guess everything is fine then.

Pride.1734:

But on what i do not agree is that these nerfs overly hurt. PvE builds don’t care about the bulwrak nerf esp. in high tier play. Medic is an inconvenience at worst and the shock shield nerf won’t decide if a boss dies or lives either.
Bunker down does irk a bit because scrapper is the problen not the base engi.

But neither they were warranted in PvE. Making things worse won’t improve our diversity, especially when those things weren’t used because deemed not useful enough to begin with.

Pride.1734:

I mean its fair to complain that engi is still unwanted in 2 out of 3 gamemodes but thats because nothing has changed yet again rather than these insignifcant nerfs that we recieved this patch.

Yeah, nothing has changed yet again. That’s the problem. We’ve been saying that same phrase for years. Maybe, after years, it is fair to complain that our situation is still the same as it has ever been. And that nothing is being done to change it.

Shock Shield deals less damage than an autoattack now, it is disappointing

Why was this nerf needed? Shock shield is so badly animated so it is not clear when you are supposed to be blocking or not, its not reliable at all. BUT 50%%%. How did you come up with this number? waaaay tooo much.
The worst nerf in this patch imo was the medic gyro nerf. I am a WvW player and it felt perfect there. The point that you could instantly cast it was the whole selling point of the gyro. Now almost as badly nerfed as the healing turret…
Please stop trying to make me leave the game Anet… very disappointed in you again. I bet next pathc you will nerf bulwark gyro and defense field as well to have a 1s cast time. Shame on you

Manuhell.2759:

insanemaniac.2456:

applied force.

That was created anew, though. And they did so because they moved down (and rebalanced) perfectly weighted. A trait that saw many pvp people complain about scrappers’ passive stability (even after its stability was reduced to a single stack due to making it adept, but still). But sure, that trait may also have been implemented to improve scrappers’ performance in PvE. Albeit it didn’t help much, as we can see.
Fair enough, one change over several years may have been implemented to improve pve (or at least had that side-effect). Guess everything is fine then.

dont be ridiculous.

• flamethrower auto buff
• juggernaut w/ mass momentum & applied force
• nade/mortar auto nerfs
• glass cannon
• rocket boots overhaul
• napalm specialist (pvp nerf and a pve sidegrade)
• heavy armor exploit & high caliber
• shaped charge
• skilled marksman
• pinpoint distribution
• reactive lenses
• streamlined kits

all of these traits and skills have been made or remade with pve as either the only consideration or a consideration equal to wvw or pvp, cuz they are all either used solely in pve (as primarily damage buffs) or widely used across multiple game modes (cuz they provide excellent utility).

time to stop saying pve engi has been ignored and post something of value.

insanemaniac.2456:

dont be ridiculous.

• flamethrower auto buff
• juggernaut w/ mass momentum & applied force
• nade/mortar auto nerfs
• glass cannon
• rocket boots overhaul
• napalm specialist (pvp nerf and a pve sidegrade)
• heavy armor exploit & high caliber
• shaped charge
• skilled marksman
• pinpoint distribution
• reactive lenses
• streamlined kits

all of these traits and skills have been made or remade with pve as either the only consideration or a consideration equal to wvw or pvp, cuz they are all either used solely in pve (as primarily damage buffs) or widely used across multiple game modes (cuz they provide excellent utility).

What should that list prove? Most of those skills aren’t seeing any use in any serious PvE content, so if those changes were made for PvE, they weren’t successful at all. Some of those traits are just the byproduct of previous pvp related nerfs (like the old kit refinement, or even the first juggernaut) or changes made to simplify the trait system (thus merging traits together, since they reduced the total number of traits). I would also find some choice questionable (reactive lenses is near useless in PvE). And some are just so generic that can see some use in any mode.

Meanwhile, just how many nerfs and changes we’ve got due to pvp during these years? Just take the last patch note, even counting out the splits, how many of those changes make any sense in PvE? None.

Since the start of the game, just how many skills have been nerfed to uselessness in PvE due to PvP, or were outright ignored because having useless skills means they don’t pose an hassle in their beloved PvP mode? How many nerfs have turrets got back then, due to pvp? When did gadgets ever become useful in PvE (the only one that did got nerfed to uselessness…and saw constant whining in PvP)? Did they ever do anything to make elixirs more useful in PvE (as in: making them actually useful in a group situation instead of the pitiful personal effects and the clunky tossed elixirs we’ve got, and no, they did nothing)? Where is our supposed versatility, if we must spend all our utility slots in kits just to have a dps comparable to other classes? Where is our elite spec mechanic that can actually be useful in PvE? When were we ever rewarded for having the most obnoxiously complex rotations of all the game? What do we offer in a party that others can’t already do better?
Was anything ever done to solve those issues?
No.
But let’s keep waiting, cause someday they’ll surely do something, right?
Oh, please.
PvE was, is and probably will keep being an afterthought as far as balance goes. Even with the balance splits, as we could see with these last patch notes.

time to stop saying pve engi has been ignored and post something of value.

Keep ignoring reality if you want to do so. Our situation hasn’t improved at all from the first year as far as PvE goes. Other classes get to be useful in parties, doing things others can’t do (while still dealing dps comparable to ours). We just fill the spots left, assuming there isn’t someone more useful. That’s our role in PvE.

Manuhell.2759:

insanemaniac.2456:

dont be ridiculous.

• flamethrower auto buff
• juggernaut w/ mass momentum & applied force
• nade/mortar auto nerfs
• glass cannon
• rocket boots overhaul
• napalm specialist (pvp nerf and a pve sidegrade)
• heavy armor exploit & high caliber
• shaped charge
• skilled marksman
• pinpoint distribution
• reactive lenses
• streamlined kits

all of these traits and skills have been made or remade with pve as either the only consideration or a consideration equal to wvw or pvp, cuz they are all either used solely in pve (as primarily damage buffs) or widely used across multiple game modes (cuz they provide excellent utility).

What should that list prove? Most of those skills aren’t seeing any use in any serious PvE content, so if those changes were made for PvE, they weren’t successful at all. Some of those traits are just the byproduct of previous pvp related nerfs (like the old kit refinement, or even the first juggernaut) or changes made to simplify the trait system (thus merging traits together, since they reduced the total number of traits). I would also find some choice questionable (reactive lenses is near useless in PvE). And some are just so generic that can see some use in any mode.

Meanwhile, just how many nerfs and changes we’ve got due to pvp during these years? Just take the last patch note, even counting out the splits, how many of those changes make any sense in PvE? None.

Since the start of the game, just how many skills have been nerfed to uselessness in PvE due to PvP, or were outright ignored because having useless skills means they don’t pose an hassle in their beloved PvP mode? How many nerfs have turrets got back then, due to pvp? When did gadgets ever become useful in PvE (the only one that did got nerfed to uselessness…and saw constant whining in PvP)? Did they ever do anything to make elixirs more useful in PvE (as in: making them actually useful in a group situation instead of the pitiful personal effects and the clunky tossed elixirs we’ve got, and no, they did nothing)? Where is our supposed versatility, if we must spend all our utility slots in kits just to have a dps comparable to other classes? Where is our elite spec mechanic that can actually be useful in PvE? When were we ever rewarded for having the most obnoxiously complex rotations of all the game? What do we offer in a party that others can’t already do better?
Was anything ever done to solve those issues?
No.
But let’s keep waiting, cause someday they’ll surely do something, right?
Oh, please.
PvE was, is and probably will keep being an afterthought as far as balance goes. Even with the balance splits, as we could see with these last patch notes.

time to stop saying pve engi has been ignored and post something of value.

Keep ignoring reality if you want to do so. Our situation hasn’t improved at all from the first year as far as PvE goes. Other classes get to be useful in parties, doing things others can’t do (while still dealing dps comparable to ours). We just fill the spots left, assuming there isn’t someone more useful. That’s our role in PvE.

oh so suddenly the reworks to firearms and explosives that we got when specs became a thing dont count as buffs even though they were buffs and gave us like 20% more damage and youre just gonna ignore them because… you want to?

get over it. you are wrong and you are whining and wallowing in some weird self pity for the class instead of coming up with useful buffs that are easy to implement and would make you want to play engi over another class.

you cant just choose to ignore every buff ever just so you can say engi gets no buffs in pve. look at last patch. fire bomb, pistol 2, and pistol 5 got duration increases. that is literally a buff to pve engi. look at the previous quarterly patch. pistol 3, 4, throw mine, and rocket kick were all buffed. those are buffs to condi, power, and just-messing-around pve builds. the quarterly patch in january had applied force, which you should be taking every time you take scrapper in pve no matter what because its really good.

are these buffs enough to make you do cartwheels of joy? no. but engi is slowly being built up, cuz it IS actually pretty bad in pve, not because it lacks dps or group support, but cuz those things come at the price of being immensely more concentration intensive and unreliable in the hands of anyone but the most skilled players while other classes push 1 button to turn the same thing on (or just attack cuz they get the thing thru traits). and that is an issue. you should be rewarded for playing harder.

but its entirely useless to come cry about it instead of say “hey, since were in the habit of slowly buffing condi engi, lets make poison shell base 5 sec duration instead of 2, because its not a useful skill the way it is”. and everyone will nod and smile, and if like 30 people do it, the dev assigned to engi will prolly be like “hey time to buff mortar 2” the same way hes been doing for the last 9 months with other random things.

Those reworks you speak off killed the few diversity we had still left. There isn’t much to be proud off. And it isn’t like we’re the only class that got some buffs, so comparatively speaking, it didn’t change the situation much.
And most of those skill buffs are meaningless anyway, because they don’t solve any of the issues we’ve got. Gadgets won’t be used just because they’ve been buffed a bit. Not when they have to compete with kits, and not when our dps is based upon using said kits. But i could say that of any other utility we’ve got. I’ll repeat it again: how are we supposed to be versatile, when we have to spend every single slot to bring our dps at a level comparable to the one that other classes can bring along with some actual utility?
That’s not something you solve by adding or removing a second here and there. And they aren’t taking any step to solve it. Thieves aren’t in a good state either, but look at what they did with venoms. That’s a concrete approach. Not what we’ve got.

You talk about me wallowing in self pity? No, i’m just fed up of the unreasonable optimism i see in these forums. I’ve been reading this subsection for years, and people mostly seem to think we’re fine and well. Meanwhile, in the actual game, we are still as unwanted as before even after several years. Raids just shown it more clearly.
And now we get a balance patch every three months. Patches that are still focused onto PvP, anyway (else we wouldn’t have got any PvE nerf in this last one, seeing what’s the state of engineer/scrapper there). Oh, sure, maybe in two or three years we’ll be fine. Guess i should just wait for that.

And why should i bother making other suggestions, by the way? I already spent far too much time doing that, in the past. I made them for turrets, like many other people. They just nerfed them to the floor and left them there. I proposed some rework for slick shoes too. Well, having them made useless was considered a better solution, it seems. The suggestions they’re implementing, at most, are about some cooldown reduction, some duration change, some faster animation. Changing some numbers and be done with it. All things that aren’t actually solving anything.

I can see why this can be “good thing for pvp”, but in pve and wvw with that, i still dont see why. In pve (raids/fractals) engi is mostly considered low dps and not bringing enough to the team. For those that pug its quite known u will not get invite for any raid except maybe VG, and even VG require you to be condi.
In wvw, targets are not dumb mobs and will move dodge, and mostly completely avoid dmg from it. Druids for example are mobile insane dmg and srsly op heal with hides and significant pet dmg (also range, not close to player). Mesmer condi meta, range insane condi , mesmer kitten heal/dmg over the top.
I could go on on wvw part but thing is i REALLY dont see how is this close combat addition to dps that was already low, smart choice.
Lastly, i wish to bring my engi to wvw and pve(fract/raid) a bit more , but i really dont see how anymore.

PS.
For those that think wvw/pve ppl are wrong, link us please any competent raid/fractal running one or god forbid , two, engi. Hell, is there even any more engi roamers anymore ?