Guild Wars 2

This thread will basically be an open discussion on how to buff our non-condition based builds.

I will begin.

I feel we need a few more instant cast toolbelt skills to open up some variation for the static discharge build. If this was to occur, damage should definitely be adjusted.

This would give the player access to the following:

Analyze: Instant Cast, low cooldown, no actual damage (other than the SD proc), vuln stack.
Suprise Shot: Instant Cast, low cooldown, high damage.
Launch PBR: Instant Cast, moderate cooldown, moderate damage, cripple.
Net Attack: Instant Cast, moderate cooldown, low or no actual damage (still debating), immobilize.
Rocket: Instant Cast, low cooldown, high damage.
Throw Napalm: A complete change from a ground targeted aoe, to a single target aoe explosion, moderate cooldown, moderate damage.

This would force the player to make a decision. They could take utility goggles, rifle turret, and rocket turret, for the shortest cooldown toolbelt skills to increase their DPS, or they could opt for more utility in the form of cripples and immobilizes and take net turret and pbr. They could also opt for a form of AOE dmg and slot in Flame Turret.

I purposely left out throw wrench, as I feel tool kit itself already trumps most of the aforementioned skills on its own, and if throw wrench was made instant cast, then every player would pretty much slot tool kit 100% of the time.

That’s all I have for now. The other ides I have call for more drastic redesigns of kits, which I am too afraid to post about in these forums.

-Random remotely related opinion-

I wish the Charr Racial “Surprise Pistol” was available to all Engineers.

I like the ideas Decklan, i would also suggest maybe adding some type of boons to the gadgets. I think boons being in the gadgets would make them more viable.

P.S. Stability comes to mind as a boon since they took it from FT

Decklan.7540:

This thread will basically be an open discussion on how to buff our non-condition based builds.

Why do they need to be buffed?

Engi needs a power-based main-weapon which can be used together with shield (for example an axe with Ranger´s autoattack)

Decklan.7540:

Analyze: Instant Cast, low cooldown, no actual damage (other than the SD proc), vuln stack.
Suprise Shot: Instant Cast, low cooldown, high damage.
Launch PBR: Instant Cast, moderate cooldown, moderate damage, cripple.
Net Attack: Instant Cast, moderate cooldown, low or no actual damage (still debating), immobilize.
Rocket: Instant Cast, low cooldown, high damage.
Throw Napalm: A complete change from a ground targeted aoe, to a single target aoe explosion, moderate cooldown, moderate damage.

I’m confused. Most of these are already instant cast or close to it. I know for a fact that Analyze and Surprise Shot are both instant cast, and both Rocket and Launch PBR only have a 0.25 second activation.

But why do you think Launch PBR should only deal moderate damage? It has almost twice the cooldown of Surprise Shot with less range, so it should dish out more. As it stands right now it’s actually the second best ranged toolbelt activation we have, behind only Throw Wrench. But because Surprise Shot’s cooldown is so short, there’s still not much reason to take PBR aside from having an additional launch from the utility skill.

Phineas Poe.3018:

Decklan.7540:

This thread will basically be an open discussion on how to buff our non-condition based builds.

Why do they need to be buffed?

^This

Why don’t you put pressure on fixing stuff that is broken like Rocket Boots instead of dreaming up fixes to problems that don’t exist?

If your biggest gripe with Static Discharge is a 1/4-1/2 sec cast time on toolbelt skills, which I don’t recall ever being an issue in the past, then the build is in a pretty good place.

Sagramor.7395:

Phineas Poe.3018:

Decklan.7540:

This thread will basically be an open discussion on how to buff our non-condition based builds.

Why do they need to be buffed?

^This

Why don’t you put pressure on fixing stuff that is broken like Rocket Boots instead of dreaming up fixes to problems that don’t exist?

If your biggest gripe with Static Discharge is a 1/4-1/2 sec cast time on toolbelt skills, which I don’t recall ever being an issue in the past, then the build is in a pretty good place.

Nooooooo. I love the burning on its toolbelt skill, meaning I can run the FT without Incendiary Powder or a pistol offhand (Blowtorch). And it cleaves, which is nice.

Unless you were talking about cleaning up the animation for its utility skill?

I meant when you activate Rocket Boots (not the toolbelt) it stops you briefly at the end of the animation. Something that actually needs a fix, unlike anything in the OP.

Sagramor.7395:

I meant when you activate Rocket Boots (not the toolbelt) it stops you briefly at the end of the animation. Something that actually needs a fix, unlike anything in the OP.

Yeah, it seems to lock up similar to how Jump Shot used to. I’m sure they’ll get to cleaning it up soon.

Phineas Poe.3018:

Sagramor.7395:

I meant when you activate Rocket Boots (not the toolbelt) it stops you briefly at the end of the animation. Something that actually needs a fix, unlike anything in the OP.

Yeah, it seems to lock up similar to how Jump Shot used to. I’m sure they’ll get to cleaning it up soon.

Soon™

Sagramor.7395:

I meant when you activate Rocket Boots (not the toolbelt) it stops you briefly at the end of the animation. Something that actually needs a fix, unlike anything in the OP.

This is a suggestion thread, nothing more, nothing less. Maybe you should post about your rocket boots in the bug report forum?

Then again, seeing as you appear to enjoy hijacking threads with inane statements, I’d probably have more luck finding your statements in a world matchup post.

Oh, hey, they are talking about ascended weapons in general discussion! Perhaps you could voice your concerns about rocket boots in there?

I actually use Goggles’ Analyze with my SD build.

The simplest solution would be to make the Static Discharge hit your target no matter the toolbelt skill. In other words, you use your mines (untargeted) and the SD still shoots out at your current target. This would let SD work on every utility.

Reducing cooldowns would obviously help SD, but I don’t see Anet redesigning so many skills based soleley on a single Master trait.

My hope is that when they add new weapons/kits/utilities they give us power-based single target options. Something we’re completely reliant on SD for at the moment.

Seras.5702:

I actually use Goggles’ Analyze with my SD build.

The simplest solution would be to make the Static Discharge hit your target no matter the toolbelt skill. In other words, you use your mines (untargeted) and the SD still shoots out at your current target. This would let SD work on every utility.

Reducing cooldowns would obviously help SD, but I don’t see Anet redesigning so many skills based soleley on a single Master trait.

My hope is that when they add new weapons/kits/utilities they give us power-based single target options. Something we’re completely reliant on SD for at the moment.

That would definitely be a good change as well.

However, it does lead to a slight problem. Most people would run analyze, suprise shot, and soothing mist (elixir gun toolbelt) in that case though, as it would give another stun break in addition to being instant cast.

Seras.5702:

My hope is that when they add new weapons/kits/utilities they give us power-based single target options. Something we’re completely reliant on SD for at the moment.

Yes please. Now there’s something I can get behind.

Decklan.7540:

However, it does lead to a slight problem. Most people would run analyze, suprise shot, and soothing mist (elixir gun toolbelt) in that case though, as it would give another stun break in addition to being instant cast.

True, but EG’s toolbelt has a comparatively long 40s cooldown and doesn’t heal, just grants regen. So what they gain in stunbreak they lose in SD burst. Not to mention that if Soothing Mist is used as part of the burst, they’re out a stun break. It’s a give & take that I think is balanced.

Are you considering zerker nade or zerker bomb builds as power builds?

Both of those will do excellent damage already, although it is a mix of condition and direct damage.

Knox.8962:

Are you considering zerker nade or zerker bomb builds as power builds?

Both of those will do excellent damage already, although it is a mix of condition and direct damage.

I don’t post my suggestions for anything other than very slight quality of life changes on this forum anymore, so I cannot answer your question with a confirm or deny, and adding some more instant cast abilities to our toolbelt is as minor as they come.

I’m sorry if I am being vague, but there are certain people on this message board who berate and dissect every word I type then gang up on me with their legions of guildmates/followers so I keep most of my ideas to myself now.

Decklan.7540:

I don’t post my suggestions for anything other than very slight quality of life changes on this forum anymore, so I cannot answer your question with a confirm or deny, and adding some more instant cast abilities to our toolbelt is as minor as they come.

I’m sorry if I am being vague, but there are certain people on this message board who berate and dissect every word I type then gang up on me with their legions of guildmates/followers so I keep most of my ideas to myself now.

Can you believe Decklan? He just said “certain people” like he’s…..nah I’m kidding. lol I don’t even know who you’re talking about. Don’t feel like you aren’t allowed to post on the forums. That’s what they’re for. But if you’ve caught flak in the past, maybe reread your words before you post them to make sure you aren’t being _ (fill in the blank). If you are, rewrite it. If not, post it. Everyone’s ideas should be welcome. Just don’t flame, troll, or be an kitten .

Sagramor.7395:

Phineas Poe.3018:

Decklan.7540:

This thread will basically be an open discussion on how to buff our non-condition based builds.

Why do they need to be buffed?

^This

Why don’t you put pressure on fixing stuff that is broken like Rocket Boots instead of dreaming up fixes to problems that don’t exist?

If your biggest gripe with Static Discharge is a 1/4-1/2 sec cast time on toolbelt skills, which I don’t recall ever being an issue in the past, then the build is in a pretty good place.

No my gripe with Static discharge is that it is a crutch. You blow utility skills for no tactical advantage but just to do decent damage. Cast time is not an issue brainless waste of skills is.

Why call it a crutch, without SD most rifle power builds are simply useless. Its a one trick pony. The weapon itself should do the damage not some utility trait that encourages you to just blow everything at once.

Conan.8046:

No my gripe with Static discharge is that it is a crutch. You blow utility skills for no tactical advantage but just to do decent damage. Cast time is not an issue brainless waste of skills is.

Why call it a crutch, without SD most rifle power builds are simply useless. Its a one trick pony. The weapon itself should do the damage not some utility trait that encourages you to just blow everything at once.

I would call it a crutch in the sense that’s it’s really the only way Engis can deal decent single target damage (read: not Ret fodder). But it’s a gimmick too. I see it in the same vein as HGH builds blowing all their elixirs to stack might rather than using them for their designed purpose.

SD needs to be fixed to shoot the charge at our target regardless of whether the toolbelt skill is targeted or not. That, in my opinion is more of a bug fix to make SD work properly. It also would broaden the SD builds.

That aside, what we really need is another single-target power option altogether. Hopefully, with the new weapons and skills Anet has promised in future patches we’ll get just that. Maybe even a true melee option too.

In general terms, our weapons are pretty weak. You can prop up pistol damage with HGH, but when you get in a group setting where everyone has might stacks, the damage is pretty anemic.

Rifle is similar in that you can use SD to prop up burst damage, but you’ll leave the sustained damage in a pretty weak spot.

The weapons themselves really need to be brought up to make non-kit setups more workable.

Decklan.7540:

Knox.8962:

Are you considering zerker nade or zerker bomb builds as power builds?

Both of those will do excellent damage already, although it is a mix of condition and direct damage.

I don’t post my suggestions for anything other than very slight quality of life changes on this forum anymore, so I cannot answer your question with a confirm or deny, and adding some more instant cast abilities to our toolbelt is as minor as they come.

I’m sorry if I am being vague, but there are certain people on this message board who berate and dissect every word I type then gang up on me with their legions of guildmates/followers so I keep most of my ideas to myself now.

First off, I agree that Engineers are sorely lacking a decent single-target, Power Based damage option right now. SD is a nice Crutch, but it’s a dangerous one. If you cannot 100-0 something expect to have to kite a lot to live.

However, I think that posting a suggestion that would add more instant casts to the game – which, by the way, are largely uncounterable and leads to evasion spam, and then suddenly withdrawing from the conversation to claim some kind of paranoid conspiracy against you is not going to fly. If you’re going to stand up and make a claim, you’d better stick to your guns, because you’re going to have to bring other people around to your point of view, not the other way around. Anyone can have a good idea, but it takes dedication to propagate it and promulgate it.

Back on topic: Here is the list of Engineer’s Toolbelt skills

As you can see by going through all of them, all of them boast either 0 (instant) cast, 0.25 or 0.5 cast time. In fact, 0.5 cast time is the longest cast for every single Toolbelt skill.

What I think you have conflated with a poor performance of SD on certain utility setups is instead to do with SD targeting itself, as Seras has mentioned. Right now SD procs without a target essentially follow a severely exaggerated camera plane downwards – into the ground. This makes it such that the only skills “compatible” with SD are:
Launch PBR
Rocket Kick
Analyze
Net Attack
Surprise Shot
Rocket
Throw Wrench

Essentially it all comes together to force SD to take only:
1 Kit
3 Gadgets
2 Turrets
out of our entire repertoire of utilities. Not a lot of possibility of build variety, here.

In addition, the most reliable SD proccers are the ones that just do one thing – damage. There’s no additional utility, like condi-cleanses, or stunbreaks, or CC (Except Net attack), or interrupts. It’s just proccing single target damage, for more single target damage.

That’s gimmicky. As Seras has mentioned, it’s good, reliable single target damage, but it doesn’t really add anything useful to the class. That being said, making SD track terrain like Net Shot does instead of flying into the ground for the non-single target stuff would be the fastest fix.

Moving forward, Engineer has the greatest room for growth if its main hand weapons were given a QoL pass – either by making it more threatening at close range by successive damage increases as you close with a target – or by rewarding controlling your range to the target with sustained DPS that decreases if the target closes. Both approaches are highly valid. In fact, Ranger Longbow already features this very thing of less damage if the target is close by.

Seras likening blowing your elixirs to stack might with HGH is exactly what the case is with Static Discharge. The same could be said for Warrior’s that run shout healing builds. Damage is Static Discharge’s tactic.

You have a whole set of abilities Elixirs/toolbelt/Shouts/etc. that now have a secondary(and in some cases tertiary) function.

@ Conan:

When I’m playing HGH I’m chugging H/B and tossing both almost on cooldown to keep might stacks up, all the while crossing my fingers for Boons I need from the RNG gods. Is that a crutch too? It’s equally as mindless.

I don’t understand why you think Rifle should be the only thing doing the damage. It’s not how the profession is designed. Half of the Rifle abilities (not counting auto-attack) are for control. Use it how it’s intended, supplement your damage from other sources, and kill stuff.

It should be noted that Engineer already has the potential for rewards by keeping the enemy at bay. The problem is that the only trait in the game that involves Range for Engineer is RNG.

Scope is what I’m talking about. It’s a fairly simple mechanic. Keep your enemy more than 600 units away and be rewarded with an extra chance to crit. This is all well and good if you’re playing Grenadier, but playing with Rifle, the only true “long range” skill is your Hip Shot .

If you want to give Engineers a real alternative to running Ranged other than Grenades, here is your best bet. Outside of that, it’s introducing new traits – and given Anet’s track record with new traits (cough coughDhuumfire*cough cough*), I have little faith in a trait release resulting in a decently placed, decently balanced, and decently counterplayable trait. But one can dream.

Now, to make ranged a decent option for Engineer Rifle, the most important thing to do is to make Scope also replace Blunderbuss with another skill. That’s it. Net Shot, Overcharged Shot and Jump Shot already control the range – Blunderbuss is the reward for getting to close range. Therefore, Blunderbuss must be replaced by something else with the Scope trait.

So a new weapon skill that could replace Blunderbuss could be:
Marksman’s Shot 3 second Charge Cast . 15 sec CD.
Does more damage the longer Marksman’s Shot is channelled. Damage is halved below 600 range. Inflicts increasing Vulnerability the longer it is channelled:
0 seconds channelled: 1 stack of Vulnerability for 8 seconds
1 second channelled: 2 stacks of Vulnerability for 8 seconds
2 seconds channelled: 3 stacks of Vulnerability for 8 seconds
3 seconds channelled: 6 stacks of Vulnerability for 12 seconds

Press and hold to charge cast. Release to fire. Charging reduces movement speed by 50%.
Animation: Target has red crosshair across centre-mass that increases in size as cast is charged. Similar to Kill Shot, enemy dodges do not interrupt the cast. However: Projectile upon firing is same speed as Static Shot (and just as visible) to allow for dodging.

Now, as for replacing the RNG of Scope giving %Crit chance beyond 600 range, instead make it like this:
Scope
Inflict 1 stack of Vulnerability for 8 seconds on targets at greater than 600 range.

This rework turns %Critical chance into %damage – more reliable, visually scoutable, and builds up over time – it takes 8 seconds to achieve peak Vulnerability stacks, which is an eternity trying to kite. Support the entire party by making your target take up to 10 % more damage 8 seconds later – if you can keep it at arms length.

One can also make Scope alter Pistol 1 such that it instead inflicts 1 Bleed stack for 4 seconds – essentially doubling its current duration – if the target is beyond 600 range.

Personally I find no problems with the options we have. My only problem is with the weird way the options we have function.

If you look at rifle, there are so many points in which it tends to screw up. If an enemy is behind you and you do a quick turn around to knock them back or you get up close to someone for a blunderbuss, sometimes those things fail, leaving you open a good pummeling from your enemy.

I’ve made quite a few power builds for the engie and to me the options they have are quite vast but playing them effectively can be a dice-roll of “when is that control failure going to happen” most especially with the Rifle.

If we are talking power builds, we best put 2 things aside first, to avoid making our 2 best builds completely overpowered:
1. HGH condition build is strong enough as it is
2. Rifle power damage in an SD build is more than enough too.

So, concerning power, I would like to see a buff to pistol main hand POWER damage.
Not to condition damage, so not faster speed as such because it will stack bleeds more in a HGH build.
Pistol main hand, auto-attack #1 I mean, needs a buff. But we can’t buff HGH p/p more… so I suggest power damage increase.

Secondly, I would like to see Flamethrower be on par with bombs. Bombs are full aoe and easier to land the damage in melee range than flamethrower wich needs very good Flameblast #2 timing to hit people up close.
Auto-attack #1 bombs win by a large margin.
More power damage to FT please, especially the auto-attack again.

Elixir Gun is more condition, but often we double it with the Flamethrower, or the Bomb Kit in a healing build.
EG #4 hits hard, pure power. So maybe give EG more power damage as well. or in this case: do increase the attack speed of EG #1. Either more condition stacking, or more power damage… hybrid weapon galore!

Tool Kit: simply increase attack speed of #1 to bring it on par with bombs again.
Bomb Kit outdamages Tool Kit by far again.
Both offer utility in different ways. The fields of Bomb Kit are not to be neglected, they offer great group possibilities.
Tool Kit offers better utility for the engineer as such.

A new weapon?
Either 2H melee (but bombs and toolkit do that just fine)
But mostly: a 1H better main hand than the pistol to couple with the shield!

Those are my suggestions and my input to this thread.
I’m deliberately not reacting to the suggestions in the OP.
Partly becuse I don’t think engineers lack power options.
My opnion is more that our damage options are poorly balanced: bombs, grenades, HGH p/p, Rifle SD… compared to those, the other options are slacking behind damage wise (not utility wise, totally different discussion!)

@Kimbald:
I agree with EG1 being made to do a little more damage. Elixir F and Fumigate, too, could do with a little buff to the Power component.

At the moment Engineers have little capability to deal sustained, single target damage, and EG is one possibility that can rectify that, as can Tool Kit. Perhaps if the Bleed component of the EG1 were de-emphasised such that EG could be closer in function to Warrior’s Rifle (although damage doesn’t have to be close to that) we could have an alternative.

On the other hand, we could also buff Rifle’s Hip Shot, but that would also make Rifle both a high burst and high sustained weapon – which might not sit well in terms of balance.

I say drop the cooldown of RB’s toolbelt skill just a few seconds. It’s a great single target skill for both direct damage and conditioners and comes packaged with one of our most fun utilities.

I’ve never found PBR to be effective as a damage tool. It’s a control tool and one I’ve never needed since I’ve either gun my trusty rifle or ocassionally my P/S.

Other gadgets….Slick shoes is control. Goggles (which I love btw) deal no damage but pretty awesome. Throw Mine is again a control tool (boon removal, knockback) but deals ok damage. Mine field is unreliable: the spread is completely random and the radius incredibly small. Not to mention that many of us are traited to drop a bomb when we dodge and that works better.

Ok so turrets for direct damage then…..yea they die a lot. I mean, they’re mostly designed for damage (flame, rocket, rifle) and sometimes control (net, thumper) but we’ve all agreed that their design needs tweaks.

Elixirs…yea moving on.

So kits: grenades, bombs, FT are all aoe kits and 2 of those 3 are hybrids. ToolKit is pretty sweet, hits hard. It’s our only true melee option. Elixir Gun is an awesome utility kit. Long range, aoe heal, escape, scales well with power & conditions but doesn’t quite do enough in the way of damage to use as our main damage source.

Which leaves our actual guns: pistol and rifle. Pistol does crap damage (tho #3 scales well with power if it hits) but works in the current HGH build (not single target direct damage). Rifle can hit like a truck when built around but requires a lot of moving about. Does have amazing control.

So that’s it folks. We’re reduced to Rifle/SD for ranged direct damage that won’t kill us with Retribution.