Guild Wars 2

ArenaNet, I made a rather large post in the past thanking you for making such a great game. That still stands today! However, as a paying customer (I use the store often to support you folks and continued development as many others have and are), I feel the need to express my thoughts regarding some of the Engineer profession changes.

I try to participate in every game mode. I have not done PvP yet, but I have done WvW, Raids, et al. I feel as though the changes to the Engineer in this patch are rather lackluster. The engineer is my favorite class and many of my skills feel like they don’t have purpose for damage or utility. I think more drastic changes were needed because now I need to wait another 3-4 months for the next update to change things (in another small way).

I really love the concept of gyros. However, some of their tool-belt skills are just bad, the gyros should be buffable (at the very least if they can’t inherit our stats). Turrets are not effective. The gadgets are not effective. In addition, the traits that affect these items are also not effective. I feel pigeon-holed into using the “highest” damage skills and one spec. It’s discouraging when I look at the Raid LFG/LFM and I don’t see any need for an engineer.

Perhaps I should just roll another profession and move on?

I posted here because it doesn’t seem that any devs have posted on our engineer forums and perhaps other professions may feel the same way. On a more positive note, the content added in this patch blew away my expectations. Thank you!

-Padre

padreadamo.3986:

I posted here because it doesn’t seem that any devs have posted on our engineer forums and perhaps other professions may feel the same way.

Devs don’t generally post in the profession sub-forums. I suspect it’s because of the sheer volume of people who’d attack them… the profession subforums always come off to me as a place where you need really thick skin (ymmv).

There’s no point in painting such a target on yourself when you can go other places (main forums, reddit, etc), not be as much of a target, and still give/get valuable feedback.

Likely they’re reading the subforums (it’d be silly for them to not consider them a source of data), but don’t expect them to post in ’em very often if at all.

~EW

I can understand that! I have seen some rather poor responses to questions there in the past. That was another reason I posted here. I didn’t want to spark a debate and have the post derailed.

padreadamo.3986:

I can understand that! I have seen some rather poor responses to questions there in the past. That was another reason I posted here. I didn’t want to spark a debate and have the post derailed.

If you haven’t yet, copy/paste a few of your comments into the feedback thread in the general discussion: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Feedback-Thread-Summer-Update-26-July-2016/first#post6260223

Gaile mentioned in another thread that she’ll be subitting that thread in a report today.

Getting back to your OT…. don’t roll another professions to the point of abandoning/deleting your enji… but, yeah, go ahead and give other professions a try. Not because enji is objectively bad (I don’t think it is at all), but because part of the problem might be that it doesn’t completely mesh well with your play style… and no amount of patches and updates are gunna fix that. I spent 3 years toughening out with my Guardian…. mostly happy, but never satisfied… and when I tried the Warrior half-a-year ago, it blew me out of the water.

With regards to the enji being in demand or effective, all the professions have gone and will go through that period of time. Necro, Guard, Warrior, and Mesmer come immediately to mind as ones who have. It will pass.

~EW

Thank you so much for your advice. I just pasted to that thread. I didn’t even see it before; overlooked it likely. I made a Revenant and will give that I try. I really love the Engineer and the way certain things work. I just found many of the abilities to be lackluster compared to other professions, then reading the profession forums about things being broke for a “very long time” made me slightly depressed.

Thanks for the encouragement :-)

I spent a fair bit of time trying to figure out different builds this weekend and encountered a fair amount of inconsistencies in our traits, skills, and wording of tool-tips.

1. Turrets, Gyros, and “Explosions”
Currently, Detonating Turrets has a chance to proc the trait “Shrapnel.” However, Gyro self-destruct does not trigger this trait. There needs to be more consistency is language and keywords in the engineer traits and skills. Perhaps Explosion should be underlined and next to it should be the amount of “explosions” a particular skill causes?

2. Gadgets and Gadgeteer
Gadgets need to be buffed. They take up a slot and for skills with one or two uses with low synergy over “kits” they need to provide more utility than what they currently do. The Gadgeteer trait is simply not enough to invoke create uses of Gadgets. I see Gadgets as more-or-less a way to provide utility where the Engineer lacks. An engineer would make a gadget to assist them in things they could not normally do. With this in mind, how could we make gadgets unique and/or improve their utility?

I think Gadgets need a unified mechanic similar to “explosions” above or maybe give them a similar mechanic with boons like Alchemy? Perhaps Gadgeteer should be “Gain boons for each Gadget Equipped (Might for Rocket Boots, etc) .” “Boon duration is increased for each Gadget Equipped (+2 seconds).”

3. Gyros and AI
The idea of Gyros and how they “fit in” with the other trait lines needs work. We need some kind of cohesion, honestly, with other trait lines, in general, but Gyros in particular feel like they are “outsiders.” The Blast Gyro only works about 50% of the time. For example, I summon the Blast Gyro and it just sits there and does nothing. I have reported this bug multiple times. In addition, the other Gyros at times, will just disappear even though I have hit the self-destruct. The pathing on Gyros is better than where it was but there needs to be improvement there.

I hope ANet reads this and even discusses it internally. My goal is to provide a means to bring these items to light. I’m frustrated; very frustrated at the state of my profession but it’s important to channel that into constructive ideas.

-Padre

padreadamo.3986:

2. Gadgets and Gadgeteer
Gadgets need to be buffed. They take up a slot and for skills with one or two uses with low synergy over “kits” they need to provide more utility than what they currently do. The Gadgeteer trait is simply not enough to invoke create uses of Gadgets. I see Gadgets as more-or-less a way to provide utility where the Engineer lacks. An engineer would make a gadget to assist them in things they could not normally do. With this in mind, how could we make gadgets unique and/or improve their utility?

I think Gadgets need a unified mechanic similar to “explosions” above or maybe give them a similar mechanic with boons like Alchemy? Perhaps Gadgeteer should be “Gain boons for each Gadget Equipped (Might for Rocket Boots, etc) .” “Boon duration is increased for each Gadget Equipped (+2 seconds).”

-Padre

I really like the idea of gadgets being ‘equipped’ – Utility Goggles already works this way. AED could be changed to last longer and grant immunity to damaging conditions, Rocket Boots could last 10s, give Superspeed and leave burning trial behind – something like Slick Shoes, Mine would need total rework, but I really like the concept.

Rifle needs buffs, with current projectile-hate meta it should have some unblockable skills and evasion on jump shot would be a fair addition (being immobilized while flying to the targeted area means you are totally disabled, can’t even Elixir S from this…)

Shield is at the moment completely useless, with so long cooldowns it doesn’t provide enough defense and equipping it means dropping second pistol, so you will never output enough damage to matter. I would love to see one handed power weapon to go with shield (maybe mace, ANet? Please?)

I never really played with turrets, but maybe giving them PBAoE would work somehow?

Rifle certainly needs to get a bonus on range. If you are X distance away, some skills are unblockable or provide a bonus to ferocity.

Turrets need to be reworked or simply turned into a Turret kit? Turrets and gyros are very similar and they inherit the innate ability, or lack thereof, to gain a portion of the players stats.

I think there is most room for improvement with gadgets. There could be really nifty things that can be done with them. For example… Let’s take personal battering ram. If we assign this skill to slot 2 we use it first which gives us the launch effect. Using the skill again, with a required within 5 second use before it goes on cool down, would make us charge the target using a leap finisher finally ending in a stun. The tool belt skill could be a stun break or kept as is. This provides gadgets with a time based mechanic thus providing versatility on their use.

Padre, try playing elementalist. It is similar to the engie in that you can’t weapon swap and you have to cycle through your attunements like an engie cycles through his weapon and kits/utilities. Plus, you do a crapton of damage with ele, it really is a faceroll class.

As for the engineer and its deficiencies- the problem I see with the class is it is truly unique from every single other class in the game. We don’t have signets, we don’t use shouts, we don’t have the utilities that every other class has- gadgets, kits, and turrets are unique only to us. The addition of gyros actually makes us more similar to other classes since they are essentially pets (think guard’s spirit weapons, ele’s elementals, etc.)

Which brings me to my point- Anet began the class as a true break from the cookie cutter classes that are Ranger, Ele, Guard, Warrior, Thief, and Necro (I grant that the Mesmer is not really a staple class in other MMOs). But ever since conception, they are slowly degrading us to become more like those classes and less unique. Every patch they don’t do this you see the outcry on the forums. Some people are happy with watering down the class- to each their own. But for me, I want to see turrets back, gadgets, lesser used kits (looking at you medkit) and ways to make the engie more distinct, not just the redheaded stepchild of the game.

But for me, I want to see turrets back, gadgets, lesser used kits (looking at you medkit) and ways to make the engie more distinct, not just the redheaded stepchild of the game.

I’m in 100% agreement. I love the engineer, in all it’s broken glory! That’s why I’m speaking up. I will continue to do so regardless if anyone is listening because I love the game, the mechanics of the game, and the Engineer profession. This game provides me with hours of entertainment during late night gaming sessions, which is all I get now with being a dad!

I just think we need to focus our efforts on ideas; even if no one is listening. Eventually they will. I have not really tried other classes except for the Mesmer currently. As you say, I just love the uniqueness of the Engineer.

-Padre

Every profession has these same types of issues, for instance look at Spirit weapons.

That said, yes, Gadgets could be decent with some minor tweaks. They already do see some niche uses (travel with Rocket Boots, SD builds with Ram, Slick Shoes for Superspeed at times) it’s just that they are in general not strong enough on their own for regular use.

Turrets provide a much more difficult problem. They got nerfed because people loath losing to AI in PVP. Which creates a big problem. How do you make stationary turrets worthwhile without putting that power on the AI side? Not an easy thing, and any solution would likely have people angry because it’d scrap whatever niche use they use the current turrets for. At least Rifle turret gets used for SD builds, though the rest I’d have a hard time finding a use for (tryharding and swapping in thumper for rumble, but yeah…).

As a starter I’d make the overcharge effects from Gadgeteer baseline with the trait, no need to get hit. It’s a strange conditional power, you want to get hit… it just doesn’t work. From there I’d work on more skill based tweaks, like mine field being an awkwardly long cast time preventing it from being competitive at all for damage. And, slick shoes, that nerf… it needs work now. It used to be decent at least now and then.

The problem with Engineer is that our utilities are not competing with other utilities but with weapons.
Why would you take personal battering ram when you can have air blast with shorter CD, reflect and burn on top of the CC and have 4 other skills. If you reduce the CD of the ram then there will be no balance with other profession and if you increase Air blast CD to 50 sec (because there are still 4 other skills) then flamethrower will be abandoned like a gadget.
To be honest I feel that the only way to make other utilities worth is to limit the usage of kits in our bar or to split every trait for kits and have all of them as grandmaster so that we have to choose which one will be powerful. Yes, kits are one of the reason we all play engi but when FT auto does more damage than flame turret, and is mobile. The grenade kit does has more DPS on skill 1 then weapons and has some condi/CC attached to it….

Ranael.6423:

The problem with Engineer is that our utilities are not competing with other utilities but with weapons.
Why would you take personal battering ram when you can have air blast with shorter CD, reflect and burn on top of the CC and have 4 other skills. If you reduce the CD of the ram then there will be no balance with other profession and if you increase Air blast CD to 50 sec (because there are still 4 other skills) then flamethrower will be abandoned like a gadget.
To be honest I feel that the only way to make other utilities worth is to limit the usage of kits in our bar or to split every trait for kits and have all of them as grandmaster so that we have to choose which one will be powerful. Yes, kits are one of the reason we all play engi but when FT auto does more damage than flame turret, and is mobile. The grenade kit does has more DPS on skill 1 then weapons and has some condi/CC attached to it….

Interesting choice on gadgets, as Ram is the only one that will see regular use in PVE as it’s toolbelt skill packs a decent punch and is on a short cooldown so you get static discharge procs. The toolbelt skill is roughly the same damage addition as Grenade Barrage but with twice the static discharge procs.

If the overcharge from gadgeteer was just made baseline without the wonky conditional part then Ram should give more of a defiance bar hit, which would make it even more nice and maybe be worth using Gadgeteer.

Yes though Kits are hard to design around, making 2 skills greater than 6 is a tough thing to do without creating OP abilities but things do pop up.

Anyways, I can think of a few changes that I’d like to see and would make these skills things I might take. Rocket boots being a targetted leap would be nice due to how often it likes to shoot you off in weird directions, like jump shot on rifle but further. Mine Field having it’s cast reduced would be a good first step for that. Analyze would make more sense to me as an AoE like the Stealth Gyro’s skill, but not sure if people would rather the long range? Utility goggles is a tough one because reactive lenses gives it to you automatically so making it powerful would be tough, but just with baseline gadgeteer overcharge it gives might as well as fury which is not bad.

Ranael.6423:

The problem with Engineer is that our utilities are not competing with other utilities but with weapons.

…To be honest I feel that the only way to make other utilities worth is to limit the usage of kits in our bar or to split every trait for kits and have all of them as grandmaster so that we have to choose which one will be powerful.

This is a great observation. This is certainly true in a lot of respects. I think that the second paragraph speaks volumes about perhaps where the line of thinking should be.
Kits should be able to be drastically improved upon via grandmaster traits. This certainly allows people to be more specialized instead of just throwing a bunch of kits on their bar to maximize damage output.

Before we go too far on the anti-kit thing. Realize our highest PVE Power DPS build uses 1 kit. The Scrapper PVP/WvW builds primarily use 1 kit (though I often slot toolkit in for the pull in WvW). So as far as Meta builds go, only PVE Condi is the full bar of kits, that and using a few old builds for unorganized or solo PVE play, in which case scrapper might be a better option and open up your slots a little anyways

The kit problem was a real issue pre-HoT as every meta build was at least 2 kits, but scrapper has changed that and it’s much less of an issue.

I don’t think i would play engi without kits. Its what gives versatility to our class and makes engi gameplay interresting.

What would be a better idea is to just accept that engis use kits to supplement their weapon swap.
Just like guardian smybols, kits should be more reflected in our traits than they are now.

Gadgets really need to become the “engi signet”. It really fits the concept, IMO.
Something the engi wears and can be overloaded to provide extra effects then go on a CD.
So utility googles could give passive ferocity
rocket boots increase endurance regen (or 25% speed)
slick shoes gives 25% speed (or increase endurance regen)
battering ram gives passive power
AED removes a condition every 10s

I dont think this is a complex change to implement, since all the mechanics are already in game, and it would make gadgets much nicer and useful.

Jerus.4350:

Anyways, I can think of a few changes that I’d like to see and would make these skills things I might take. Rocket boots being a targetted leap would be nice due to how often it likes to shoot you off in weird directions, like jump shot on rifle but further. Mine Field having it’s cast reduced would be a good first step for that. Analyze would make more sense to me as an AoE like the Stealth Gyro’s skill, but not sure if people would rather the long range? Utility goggles is a tough one because reactive lenses gives it to you automatically so making it powerful would be tough, but just with baseline gadgeteer overcharge it gives might as well as fury which is not bad.

these sound good.

idk how viable to rocket boots thing is but it would be neat.

mine field needs a radius increase too, it didnt get the forceful explosives baseline merge.

analyze is fundamentally flawed as it is in that its proactive instead of reactive, a pbaoe like sneaks reveal would fix that but the long range / single target nature is interestingly different from a pbaoe and ought to be kept in some way so its different.

gadgeteer definitely needs something that isnt what it is atm.

lLobo.7960:

Gadgets really need to become the “engi signet”. It really fits the concept, IMO.
Something the engi wears and can be overloaded to provide extra effects then go on a CD.
So utility googles could give passive ferocity
rocket boots increase endurance regen (or 25% speed)
slick shoes gives 25% speed (or increase endurance regen)
battering ram gives passive power
AED removes a condition every 10s

I dont think this is a complex change to implement, since all the mechanics are already in game, and it would make gadgets much nicer and useful.

Simple elegant solution that I think is quite reasonable given the state engi is in currently. You did forget Throw Mine though.

Jerus.4350:

lLobo.7960:

Gadgets really need to become the “engi signet”. It really fits the concept, IMO.[…]

Simple elegant solution that I think is quite reasonable given the state engi is in currently. You did forget Throw Mine though.

Oh, I didn’t event think the mine was a gadget.
What about “33% chance to trigger a small explosion on auto-attacks (1s CD)”
would be a good combo with explosion line

lLobo.7960:

Jerus.4350:

lLobo.7960:

Gadgets really need to become the “engi signet”. It really fits the concept, IMO.[…]

Simple elegant solution that I think is quite reasonable given the state engi is in currently. You did forget Throw Mine though.

Oh, I didn’t event think the mine was a gadget.
What about “33% chance to trigger a small explosion on auto-attacks (1s CD)”
would be a good combo with explosion line

Boom, done, lets move to turrets

Jerus.4350:

lLobo.7960:

Jerus.4350:

lLobo.7960:

Gadgets really need to become the “engi signet”. It really fits the concept, IMO.[…]

Simple elegant solution that I think is quite reasonable given the state engi is in currently. You did forget Throw Mine though.

Oh, I didn’t event think the mine was a gadget.
What about “33% chance to trigger a small explosion on auto-attacks (1s CD)”
would be a good combo with explosion line

Boom, done, lets move to turrets

I really like your ideas for the gadgets! It was far more elegant than what I described! Let’s keep the ideas flowing people! Gadgets that have their own buffs and a grandmaster trait that provides a buff to all gadgets passively would be really nifty.

lLobo.7960:

Gadgets really need to become the “engi signet”. It really fits the concept, IMO.
Something the engi wears and can be overloaded to provide extra effects then go on a CD.
So utility googles could give passive ferocity
rocket boots increase endurance regen (or 25% speed)
slick shoes gives 25% speed (or increase endurance regen)
battering ram gives passive power
AED removes a condition every 10s
(EDIT) Throw Mine adds a 33% chance to trigger a small explosion on auto-attacks (1s CD)

I dont think this is a complex change to implement, since all the mechanics are already in game, and it would make gadgets much nicer and useful.

Elegant, smart and realistic. Fantastic.