Guild Wars 2

Hi everybody!

I wanted to start a post documenting the longstanding issues with the class. I’m bored and I feel like ranting about something, and this has been bothering me for a while.

I’ve mained engineer since the launch of GW2 — and even in the betas before GW2 officially launched. I’ve put in close to 3000 hours with engineer alone. I even have pictures!

http://i.imgur.com/1JAr7Vp.jpg — My character when I first started playing in the early access beta weekends. Yes, she is jumping while sitting (a fun glitch in the beta)
http://i.imgur.com/3vu37ha.jpg — My character now

Inb4 cry moar

Preface

I’m starting this thread with the intention of documenting the longstanding injustice against engineers committed by ArenaNet over the length of the class. This thread will start with the general issues, and narrow down to the specifics.

The Class Origin

The engineer class is perhaps the only class I know of unique to Guild Wars 2 — with revenant and mesmer coming in a close second. Most MMOs do not have an analogue to the engineer. This is a good thing. Hell, this is a great thing.

But there’s a problem. The class started partly as a joke. The commando, while not responsible for the origin of the engineer (the idea started earlier than that) did play a large role in some of the skills we see today — in particular grenade kit, mortar kit, and orbital strike.

The class was also an afterthought — it was the last of the original 8 to be made, as documented in this interview.

Jon P: I wouldn’t say they were assured, but some were more likely. The ranger was on the fence as we split it into two things, and those merged back together. When we had twelve professions there was actually no ranger, but when we went back down to seven, the ranger came back. The reason I keep referring to seven professions is because for a while we thought that was going to be the final number. The reason why we went to eight was because the engineer was not part of the final seven.

Aesthetics

• Armor

Engineer was originally slated to be a heavy armor class, and was later changed to a medium armor class. This noticeably affected the armor styles available to the engineer in the early game, and even to this day. In fact, there was very little armor that was clearly designed for an engineer before it was added later via the gem store. Most of the medium armor present in the game is clearly designed for rangers and thieves, with little thought given to engineers.

Today, we still don’t see much in the way of armor design for engineer. The new outfits and gemstore armors don’t fit an engineer’s aesthetic. Minor nods have been given to us, such as Magitech armor and the Gas Mask, but by and large we don’t see much armor design given to engineers.

And this shows. The new “legendary” armor precursors hint at what the finished product will look like. While the Envoy armor doesn’t really fit any of the three medium classes (looks more fit for a necro), it REALLY doesn’t fit an engineer.

• Weapons

We also didn’t see weapons designed with engineers in mind. Notably, the first rifle and pistol legendaries were clearly designed for warriors and thieves respectively. The Predator is a sniper rifle — but the engineer’s attacks fire from the hip. Quip is a troll/joke weapon and clearly fits the thief’s aesthetic more than the engineer’s.

Throughout Guild Wars’ Living Stories, when new weapon skins were added, they typically didn’t include pistol or rifle, the engineer’s only weapons pre-HoT. The notable exceptions are the Aetherblade weapons and arguably HOPE.

Speaking of which! Our weapon kits don’t display legendary weapon effects and aren’t visually customizable. Every engineer has the same flamethrower, the same bomb kit, etc. Why are we the only class that gets screwed visually?

Core Gameplay

Engineer is possibly one of the most complicated classes to play and learn, next to elementalist in terms of complexity. Previously, there were simple engineer builds that were viable, but they have gotten nerfed into oblivion, or power creeped into obscurity.

Also notable is the fact that the Scrapper, the Engineer’s current elite specialization, is the only elite specialization that seems entirely designed for PvP. All the other elite specializations commonly see use in PvE and are viable outside of PvP. The scrapper, however, is underwhelming in raids, fractals, and solo play. Most PvE builds of the engineer use exclusively core traits and skills.

Weapons

Engineer has only 2 mainhand weapons available to it, and one offhand weapon: Rifle, pistol, and shield. Scrapper adds the hammer to bring the total to 4.

Currently, we only see viable play out of pistol and scrapper (in PvE and PvP respectively). The other two weapons languish in obscurity, as kits outstrip their damage and utility. Projectile hate plays a large part of the problem as well.

Utilities

Engineer, of all the classes, actually has some of the most engaging potential play. We’ve got silly gadgets like the portable battering ram and rocket boots. We’ve got fun toys like flamethrowers and turrets. We can even switch “weapons” rapidly.

The reality, however, is that many of these “fun” skills are useless or underwhelming. For a class that has a lot of fun stuff, many of the fun skills and utilities we could use are underwhelming when compared to their practical counterparts. They have either been nerfed to oblivion or power creeped out of relevance.

Here’s two examples:

1. Personal battering ram, a completely silly but somewhat interesting gadget that does knockback. It does moderate to weak damage and sends enemies flying. The problem is that its damage was weak when Guild Wars launched, and has only gotten weaker since. On top of that, the Flamethrower 3 skill (air blast) has the same effect, a lower cooldown, and more potential DPS.
2. Turrets were, for a time, the meta engineer build. They became as ubiquitous as the tank eles we see today for their ability to bunker. Because the vocal opposition became loud enough, both turret damage and health were nerfed into oblivion. They became even weaker with HoT’s release, which saw more AoE skills introduced. Turrets were literally a selling point of the engineer, and are pointless now.

Representation

Most classes are represented throughout the storyline of the game — both in personal story and the larger living world. But engineer has almost no representation showing. The only major representation engineer had was killed off pretty early, and there are none that spring to mind:

Heavy

• Warrior: Rytlock Brimstone, Canach, Warmaster Forgal Kernsson, the Vigil membership, and many smaller examples
• Guardian: Braham Eirsson, Logan Thackeray
• Revenant: Rytlock Brimstone. There is a story reason that revenant does not have more representation, however.

Medium

• Ranger: Eir Stegalkin, Rox
• Thief: Caithe, the Order of Whispers membership
• Engineer: Tybalt Leftpaw and Scarlet Briar, both of whom are dead.

Light

• Mesmer: Kasmeer, Queen Jennah, Lady Wi
• Necromancer: Trahearne, Marjory Delaqua
• Elementalist: Snaff, Zojja, Magister Sieran, The Durmand Priory membership

Misc: Taimi (We never observe her directly in combat, it’s only Scruffy. It’s implied she’s a golemancer, which is typically an elementalist)

Traits

As Wooden Potatoes recently documented, our traits are a mess. Many are designed for a meta that doesn’t exist any more, or has never existed at all. They have not been revisited in a very long time, and are in desperate need of reworking.

ArenaNet’s Behavior

Compounding the aforementioned issues is the fact that ArenaNet doesn’t seem to have a main engineer player on their balance team. Almost every balance patch we see a nerf or some sort of tradeoff. The latest patch, which saw a slight buff to engineer’s condition damage has possibly been the only good news we’ve seen in a long time.

In addition to this lack of representation from the Dev team, we also see a lack of representation from the moderating team that visits the forum. Excluding the most recent cleanup of our forum by Gaile Gray, we haven’t seen a developer or ArenaNet employee on the engineer subforum since the beta of Heart of Thorns, well over a year and a half ago.

In Conclusion

ArenaNet, I know you don’t have unlimited resources to devote. You almost always seem to focus on the warrior and design everything else from there.

But it seems like engineer is always an afterthought. We keep getting relegated to the sidelines and ignored. The class is quickly becoming irrelevant, and if major changes aren’t observed with the next few balance patches or next expansion, I may not have a reason to continue playing Guild Wars other than loyalty to the brand.

This thread was also posted on Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/65a8u3/the_engineer_injustice/?st=j1ha0hot&sh=c679620b

I feel your pain brother. It sucks being sidelined for months on end, when other classes enjoy more usefulness and respect like chronomancer and druid.

Well as they say “When you’re at the bottom the only way is to go up.”

It may be the bottom of the barrel now but the good thing about Engineer is that it opens up for more unique and interesting Elite Specualization for the Profession.

Things such as a Mage Engineer Elite Spec, Cybernetic enhancements, new types of Magic technology type Elite Spec, and etc.

Mage Engineer is certainly a very interesting concept I am most interested in either as the Focus Elite Spec or Staff Elite Spec.

Not that I don’t agree that Engineers have been a little neglected but is Canach a warrior? Seems to me he was pretty engineer-ish with the bombs, reflective shield, and whatnot when you fought his blighted version in HoT main story. Just saying.

Irijia.6073:

Not that I don’t agree that Engineers have been a little neglected but is Canach a warrior? Seems to me he was pretty engineer-ish with the bombs, reflective shield, and whatnot when you fought his blighted version in HoT main story. Just saying.

He is a warrior and his talents comes from survival skills he developed on his own. Anyone can set up traps as he did without being a Engineer.

When a person choose to be a Engineer they are choose to use that specific combat style above all other combat styles. Canach choose Warrior because that is his prefered combat style while all his other skills are just side addition to when he deems necessary to use though he rarely use them unless the right condition demands it.

canach is an engi… his blighted version throws grenades in hearts and minds

Irijia.6073:

Not that I don’t agree that Engineers have been a little neglected but is Canach a warrior? Seems to me he was pretty engineer-ish with the bombs, reflective shield, and whatnot when you fought his blighted version in HoT main story. Just saying.

His skills reflect a survivalist warrior, not an engineer. That might bring him closer to a ranger, but I wouldn’t posit that he is one. He typically wields a sword and shield and reflects projectiles. His direct combat most closely mirrors a warrior.

He indirectly fights like a ranger or engineer, but in the heat of battle he is first and foremost a warrior.

in the heat of battle hes carpet bombing you with fire grenades, bleed grenades, and stun grenades and using his shield to reflect just like an engi.

What about Taimi? In my opinion she definitely is an engineer.

Mork vom Ork.2598:

What about Taimi? In my opinion she definitely is an engineer.

She’s defined as an Engineer… yet, she has never made use of her engi powers at practice, as an Asura you don’t need to be an Engineer to be a genius, so, besides her current outfit, she has done little to nothing related to be an Engineer…

(I bet she doesnt know about Mecha Legs , that could help with her crippling problem…)

Please also remember Scrapper WAS THE LAST ELITE SPEC TO BE RELEASED, barely giving time to beta test it, and all those TBD on the streaming interviews with the devs.
ENGIE IS ALWAYS THE LAST PRIORITY.

Ardid.7203:

Please also remember Scrapper WAS THE LAST ELITE SPEC TO BE RELEASED, barely giving time to beta test it, and all those TBD on the streaming interviews with the devs.
ENGIE IS ALWAYS THE LAST PRIORITY.

Yep. Engineer has always been the afterthought.

What about Taimi? In my opinion she definitely is an engineer.

You never actually see her in combat. It’s always Scruffy fighting for her. While it’s implied that she’s an engineer, there’s no evidence besides some dialogue options to indicate that’s the case. That’s why I left her off the list, because there’s no real concrete evidence.

She is defined as a golemancer, but many of the famous golemancers are actually caster classes, like elementalists or necros. Since the engineer profession actually emerged from the charr, there’s no distinct reason why being an asuran golemancer necessarily implies they are an engineer.

in the heat of battle hes carpet bombing you with fire grenades, bleed grenades, and stun grenades and using his shield to reflect just like an engi.

That’s in the LS1 story, only (which gets vaguely repeated in Hearts and Minds). Every fight after that, he’s acting as a warrior does. You’ll notice he’s always wielding a sword and shield (engineer can’t wield sword) and he melees in most combat. He also wears heavy armor.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Oaken_armor – His armor
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Chain-Whip_Sword – His sword

just thought of a possible elite specialization for engineer Technomancer. just throwing the idea out there semi unfiltered. But thinking it can mimic magical effects with cyberware and technology.. just an idea.

I would love to see teleporter pads as a skill, mesmers can do it, asura can build it.

I enjoyed pistol shield for a long time, but now it’s dual pistol all the way. With grenades, flamethrower and either Elixir U or Bomb Kit, depending on whether I am farming of killing respectively.
Thief does dual pistol better in terms of animations, as the engineer only uses the right pistol for 1,2 and 3 with the left pistol being used for 4 and 5.
Dual wielding should be more pew pew visually, especially if we fire off a skill that launches multiple projectiles.

It also sucks that we have no way to customize the kits visually, which makes us all sad engi’s. But then again the engineers mindset is basically: go with what works. But currently it is missing the “and tinker to improve it”.

I think the class is fine power wise, but a lot of skills are lackluster. I would like it if there were a few more viable build decisions to be made over the meta build.

As Naturesoul suggested, a Technomancer spec would be awesome.
Perhaps they could add a magic focused spec into the engineer, adding scepter-shield, scepter-pistol or scepter-focus as a build options. This could also explain Taimi, who in mindset is an engineer through and through but in fluff does a lot with different energies and feels like more of a Technomancer. That being said, a golem is a fusion of these two so a golem kit would be nice to have as well, or golem pets which would give the repair kit something to do. And of course all the engi stuff works with Tyria’s magic as a power source but the class still feels heavily focused on the mechanical side, so a Technomancer spec would fit in nicely.

Perhaps add crossbow as new weapon type, we have a rifle, but then there are also bows doing the same damage so clearly reality is not what they are going for anyways. It would require some new skills or perhaps it could be made as rifle skins.

Mace could be added as a smaller hammer to the scrapper spec, allowing mace-shield or mace-pistol and still be able to use scrapper spec. I would probably swap out tools spec for scrapper, as firearms and explosions are just too good to pass up.

The stealth function gyro is great for extended stealth running. I have enjoyed it’s use on occasion in fractals and dungeons.

What is the Engineer’s Purity of Purpose?

The Engineer is a tinkerer, a profession that should be almost as much of the epitome of versatility in combat as an Elementalist is for the Light Armors, and as Revenant is for Heavy Armor.

However, a vast majority of utility skills aren’t even considered for the following reasons, and if they were, players quickly (I hope) find out that those skills are trash:

1. Low Damage/Effectiveness
2. Niche Utility
3. Another skill (often on a weapon kit) does what it’s supposed to be doing better.

Overhaul It: An Immodest Proposition

1. Weapon/Device Kits
Instead of leaving Engineers with 1 Weapon set, let’s do something interesting: a new profession mechanic.

Make Device/Weapon Kits the Engineer’s second weapon, effectively forcing Engineers to consider a kit option before going into combat. Yes it would be a rather disruptive nerf to their builds, but in all honesty Condi Engineers likely don’t have all that much fun jumping between 5 weapons (25 different skills), to use barely half of them, and that’s before managing tool belt skills.

2. Skill Culling: Rolling Weapons Into One
To summarize: for Power Engineers, their bread and butter damage is from the Bomb Kit auto-attack. The rest of that kit has Condi-based skills.

Grenade Kit is in a similar position, a mix of burst damage and conditions. Although the whole kit isn’t used for Power IIRC, just the Toolbelt Skill.

The Solution I have in mind is to give better clarity for what weapons serve which purpose. While at the same time combining the skills of other kits to eliminate redundancy.

A “Power” Kit:
Combine Grenade Kit with Bomb Kit into Explosives Kit

A “Conditions” Kit:
Combine Flamethrower with Elixir-Gun

1. Remove Airblast, add Fumigate, venting hazardous smoke and excess fuel to deal stacking poison damage.

2. Remove Flame Blast in favor of a new version of Glob Shot, fire a bouncing tar substance, crippling enemies, and burning enemies already on fire. (Taking Air Blast Functionality and adding it to this).

A “Healing/Support” Kit:
Combine Med-kit with Elixir Gun, still provides “Elixir” Skills for synergy with HGH.

A “Control” Kit:
Tool Kit serves this perfectly, re-buffing turrets with the condition that having the Tool Kit on hand to maintain them is imperative. I think adding a daze to the Crowbar skill can help add more control aspects to the kit.

CrimsonRipper.5087:

[…] in all honesty Condi Engineers likely don’t have all that much fun jumping between 5 weapons (25 different skills), to use barely half of them, and that’s before managing tool belt skills. […]

Do not assume that.
If you look on topics of why people like playing engi, the number of skills is a common one.

Removing or merging kits from engi would destroy great part of its appeal to some people.

Bombs and nades are more hybrid than just power or condi sets. And they work fine as they are, as you can trait for the side you want or use the hybrid approach.

lLobo.7960:

CrimsonRipper.5087:

[…] in all honesty Condi Engineers likely don’t have all that much fun jumping between 5 weapons (25 different skills), to use barely half of them, and that’s before managing tool belt skills. […]

Do not assume that.
If you look on topics of why people like playing engi, the number of skills is a common one.

Removing or merging kits from engi would destroy great part of its appeal to some people.

Bombs and nades are more hybrid than just power or condi sets. And they work fine as they are, as you can trait for the side you want or use the hybrid approach.

I can respect that, my issue with it (same goes for other professions) is that some skills are widely underutilized because they’re laughably weak in comparison.

Honestly the only way I see Engineer to get out of its position as bottom of the barrel is for Anet to give Engineer a very good Elite Specialization that can finally remove the demand to depend on kits for 90% of the Profession’s gameplay.

As nice as kits are majority of the builds and gameplay style of Engineer has been put too much focus on the Kits instead of Engineer’s main weapon.

I share our pain. I’ve played YEARS GW2, from BWE2 till now, engineer all the time 3k hours + on my engie.
Aaaand it’s the same story all the time!

• Arena.net releases engineer as last class in beta
• People reaction that engineer is clunky and very strange to play. Most of skills seems done only to fill the skillslot.
• Anet promises to keep that in mind and tweak some stuff.
• No stuff was tweaked.
• After launch community outcry that class isn’t ballanced, large part of skills has no use, some skills are hillariously overpowered (nades damage, or 100-nades burst)
• 2 years passes, anet reworks how trait works. Adds new and fun traits – Turreter becoming viable build in PvP
• Community outcries that turreter is to easy to play and counters to many builds.
• After 2 months of turrets being usefull Anet DESTROYS turrets, making them made of paper and die in matter of seconds. Ballance successfull! Nobuddy plays turrets from now on (beside Healing turret combo – which isn’t intended how turrets was played in the begining, same stuff goes with Rifle turret for SD burst)
• HoT is announced. Engineer community HYPED as kitten after seeing ROCKET EXPLOSIVE HAMMER – which was later scrapped to be electric hammer
• Same as engineer Scrapper is released as LAST proffesion. Spec seems to be “scrapped” from their class mechanic – which was later “hinted” by Irenio. Spec seems to be rushed, half of traits are underwellming, utility skills – gyros doesn’t fallow you corectly, toolbar skills from then are trash – beside being combo fields only – to be combo-able with 2! skills which are finishers in Scrapper kitten nal. Whole spec feels to be mess, however ONE build thanks to 2 great traits gets to meta – offtank Scraper whos based on superspeed HP regen and damage mitigation – gets nerfed later date
• Engineer community outcry that class mechanic is usable only in PvP scenario, and spec seems to be unfinished and needs some work!. But there’s no time to do it, HoT is already launching.
• Same story again. Irenio promises some reworks in Future’tm – and that was his last post in this subforum.
• Silience. Spec still is mess, but thanks to it’s offtank ability still is in PvP meta.
• I wonder if the story will repeat itself with #Exp2 which is comming to us soon tm.

kitten, I was so hyped on Scrapper and what I’ve got is only broken promises and scraped Elite Specialization – Scrapper – pun intended.
I still dream that someday we will see some reworks to Engie and his Elite Spec.

EdwinLi.1284:

Honestly the only way I see Engineer to get out of its position as bottom of the barrel is for Anet to give Engineer a very good Elite Specialization that can finally remove the demand to depend on kits for 90% of the Profession’s gameplay.

As nice as kits are majority of the builds and gameplay style of Engineer has been put too much focus on the Kits instead of Engineer’s main weapon.

Part of the reason kits are so necessary to engineer builds is because our default weapons are mostly underwhelming and kits have been the only part of the engineer class that hasn’t seen too much punishment from the devs.

Vagrant.7206:

EdwinLi.1284:

Honestly the only way I see Engineer to get out of its position as bottom of the barrel is for Anet to give Engineer a very good Elite Specialization that can finally remove the demand to depend on kits for 90% of the Profession’s gameplay.

As nice as kits are majority of the builds and gameplay style of Engineer has been put too much focus on the Kits instead of Engineer’s main weapon.

Part of the reason kits are so necessary to engineer builds is because our default weapons are mostly underwhelming and kits have been the only part of the engineer class that hasn’t seen too much punishment from the devs.

While i do agree the kit use on engineer should be healthy at the creation of meta builds, it shouldn’t be dominant, making it unhealthy to even just depend on 1 or 2 kits.

It’s like water, totally needed, but bad at excess.

And that’s why, buffs to the rifle have been suggested as the way to find builds, that not depend on full kit bars, kits will still be a good option, but with a new good option, more doors to another playstyle besides full kit will be considerated.

Ivantreil.3092:

Vagrant.7206:

EdwinLi.1284:

Honestly the only way I see Engineer to get out of its position as bottom of the barrel is for Anet to give Engineer a very good Elite Specialization that can finally remove the demand to depend on kits for 90% of the Profession’s gameplay.

As nice as kits are majority of the builds and gameplay style of Engineer has been put too much focus on the Kits instead of Engineer’s main weapon.

Part of the reason kits are so necessary to engineer builds is because our default weapons are mostly underwhelming and kits have been the only part of the engineer class that hasn’t seen too much punishment from the devs.

While i do agree the kit use on engineer should be healthy at the creation of meta builds, it shouldn’t be dominant, making it unhealthy to even just depend on 1 or 2 kits.

It’s like water, totally needed, but bad at excess.

And that’s why, buffs to the rifle have been suggested as the way to find builds, that not depend on full kit bars, kits will still be a good option, but with a new good option, more doors to another playstyle besides full kit will be considerated.

Xyonon’s video showing 1 kit condi engi doing ~30k dps, that’s 85% of the max meta build, not too shabby. Likewise the power build will lose damage but much less dropping grenades for personal battering ram. Single kit builds are not bad right now.

We only have one weapon because we have kits, I think a kitless build being even close to optimal is unlikely for various reasons.

With that plebineer build of Xyonon’s if you go with FT you can get around 28k, maybe a tad more if optimized further, but either way it’s not that bad either at 80% of the damage potential of the meta build.

There’s plenty to fix for Engi, but honestly I think we’re in a decent place. I do hope we get a STRONG support option as the next Elite spec, but as for now we’re looking pretty good in the roles we can fill.

With talk about kits, I wouldn’t mind if they continued the purity of purpose idea and changed bomb kit into power based and refined FT a bit more. I think it’s unreasonable to adjust grenades as they are so key to damage builds. But, if that were done it’d be 2 (3 with mortar) kit builds leaving that third utility a bit more open. It’d likely be rifle turret or Rocket Boots right now but who knows if they adjust turrets or gadgets further in the future.

Personally if I could have just one change on Engi it’d simply be making Toss Elixir B 600 radius, 180 is just unreasonable for a group buff.

I seem to be part of the minority in regards to the kit merging so you know what kit goes with what kind of build/ideology of a build.

What really bothers me about the kits is that most people take them for only one or two skills and occasionally the toolbelt. You could probably squeeze every useful kit skill into two kits for major efficiency and simplification. Those two kits would be seriously powerful, but I can’t help but think it would be an improvement overall.

As to kit purity it really makes sense. I’d suggest hybrid grenades + hybrid bombs to balance them with other kits and provide option of medium/melee range explosives synergy. Condi-flame thrower is pretty much the way most people are leaning and it really makes sense. Seriously reworked power tool-kit, to give a stable alternative to hammer, providing much needed defences to core engi. Can’t help think that it would synergise well with Scrapper too, making it a proper control-freak and get some use out of Impact Savant.

Part of me just feels like they should make us only be able to use one Kit on our “~” Key, but then I also feel like that takes away from our Utility. I don’t know ><

I agree on making Tool Kit be a natural combination for the Hammer. Adding in a Stun for Impact Savant seems like it’d be something we need for that trait to even be worth mentioning.

There’s so much work that still needs to be done with Engineers :/ Also, bring back Go for the Eyes and Adaptive Armor! I miss my Defensive Aggro Engy ><

Ardid.7203:

Please also remember Scrapper WAS THE LAST ELITE SPEC TO BE RELEASED, barely giving time to beta test it, and all those TBD on the streaming interviews with the devs.
ENGIE IS ALWAYS THE LAST PRIORITY.

I bet that it is because they actually took the time to develop it. Take a look at Tempest for example. Everything is just a copy of other assets and the whole elite spec has 0 SYNERGY with the rest of the class apart from earth. Not to mention the fact that it is hella boring to play, standing around for 4-5 seconds just waiting for casts to finish.
Your post boils down to “Waah! My class has half of the abilities completely useless (which other classes have too, not just engi) and find bad excuses to complain, saying devs care more about other classes.”

Tomiyou.3790:

Ardid.7203:

Please also remember Scrapper WAS THE LAST ELITE SPEC TO BE RELEASED, barely giving time to beta test it, and all those TBD on the streaming interviews with the devs.
ENGIE IS ALWAYS THE LAST PRIORITY.

I bet that it is because they actually took the time to develop it. Take a look at Tempest for example. Everything is just a copy of other assets and the whole elite spec has 0 SYNERGY with the rest of the class apart from earth. Not to mention the fact that it is hella boring to play, standing around for 4-5 seconds just waiting for casts to finish.
Your post boils down to “Waah! My class has half of the abilities completely useless (which other classes have too, not just engi) and find bad excuses to complain, saying devs care more about other classes.”

Took the time to develop it? Scrapper is almost exclusively designed with PvP in mind. Core engineer is still better in PvE, period full stop. However, if you want to PvP, you need to use scrapper to be competitive. Our class is literally split between PvE and PvP, the elite spec and core specs couldn’t be more different. Every other class sees integration with their elite specs and core (some more than others, admittedly), but we see nothing. That screams to me that they didn’t bother to tune the elite specialization. They threw our spec in, everything else be kitten ed, then nerfed anything that seemed overpowered in PvP.

You know that the thread for BWE3 for HoT was pinned on this forum until a few weeks ago right? They didn’t even clean it up post launch. That was the last time we’ve seen a dev on these forums addressing any of our concerns, and that’s how little they’ve cared.

I’m not saying we’re the only ones who saw the short end of the stick with HoT. Necros got hurt pretty bad, as did elementalists. But this problem has been going on much longer than Heart of Thorns — I’ve watched engineer receive nerf after nerf ever since launch, and the “buffs” we’ve received have been completely out of touch with the reality of play. Our traits are hopelessly outdated, most of our utility skills are pointless, and we’ve been in a bad way for a much longer time than HoT.

Hell, even the fact that they STILL haven’t addressed the problem with legendary effects and kits should tell you something. That bug’s been around since launch.

core engi is not strictly better in pve. sneak gyro is about as op as anything gets. the dps is marginally different. the huge thing scrapper gives up is perma swiftness, but mostly where sneak gyro is op is where you have other people who provide swiftness, and in the other cases where sneak is op, the dps you can sacrifice to get mobility is not an issue.

in addition, why would you say necros and else got screwed? reaper is practically mandatory, as is tempest. everywhere. is that what you mean, that they have to take their elite specs to compete thereby reducing build diversity?

TBD doesn’t mean “we are taking our time”. TBD means “we don’t know what to do here yet”.

Druid and Scrapper were made by the same developer. While Druid was well discussed with the dev, got a lot of player feedback and saw a bunch of changes before release, Scrapper was shown at the last possible minute, and got NOT even 1 adjustment before the launch of HoT.

The dev promised to see if something could be done to improve the Scrapper spec mechanic in the future. Apparently, nothing, because then the communication ended, to never be reestablished again.

To this day, nothing has been done to improve FGyro value on PvE, gyro’s pathing and IA. Scrapper’s trait line synergy with the rest of the profession is the only thing that has seen some work, always attached to nerfs.

So… yes. I think we do get the shorter stick.

insanemaniac.2456:

core engi is not strictly better in pve. sneak gyro is about as op as anything gets. the dps is marginally different. the huge thing scrapper gives up is perma swiftness, but mostly where sneak gyro is op is where you have other people who provide swiftness, and in the other cases where sneak is op, the dps you can sacrifice to get mobility is not an issue.

How often are you using stealth in PvE? Only time I ever use it is for the Underground Facility fractal, because stealth is kind of needed to hit that final switch. For all other cases needing momentary stealth, you can just use the bomb kit.

As for perma swiftness… that’s a matter of traits. You can either use mecha legs or streamlined kits for it, which are core traits that scrapper can access.

in addition, why would you say necros and else got screwed? reaper is practically mandatory, as is tempest. everywhere. is that what you mean, that they have to take their elite specs to compete thereby reducing build diversity?

Because look at the design philosophy behind Reaper and Tempest.

The idea for Reaper was to create a power necro (which didn’t really exist before). What they did was create a power necro that was too powerful, and then they nerfed it too hard to the point where the power necro build was weak. The reason most necros take Reaper any more is Deathly Chill, because greatsword necros really aren’t that powerful.

Tempest really didn’t have a vision or fundamentally alter elementalist play. It was more of the same. While it was technically an upgrade, it was kind of ridiculous.

That’s why those two classes (and engineers) got screwed with their elite specs. There were some slight improvements, but overall everybody else got straight upgrades.

This thread makes me sad. I was considering rolling an Engi again and actually trying to make it work. I loved the class long time ago with all it’s toys but i really sucked at it and was never comfortable.

I main a Warrior now and was hoping for something more unique. Now I understand why I never see an Engi when playing through PvE.

The major problem with the engineer is the highly limited weapon selection and no power dedicated kits/builds that have good utility. The mortar would be a great choice for power but the only good thing the mortar offers for power is the tool belt skill. Bomb kit auto attack is the only usable part. Grenades are super condition based. And the flamethrower that was passible for a power build has been nerfed into oblivion. Even at 25 stacks of might it’s damage is soo low as compared to practically any other kit. They really should go in and rework the kits so they are either condi or power based. This mishmash of the two has created a class that isn’t good outside one build.

SeranusGaming.7362:

This thread makes me sad. I was considering rolling an Engi again and actually trying to make it work. I loved the class long time ago with all it’s toys but i really sucked at it and was never comfortable.

I main a Warrior now and was hoping for something more unique. Now I understand why I never see an Engi when playing through PvE.

Don’t be sad because as of currently Engineer has the Highest Condition Damage in the game which is why it is still useful in Raids for heavy condition damage.

The problem is for Engineer though is that it does not provide much options with gameplay style if players want to perform the peak damage output which once again is Engineer’s Condition Damage.

Power damage is lacking and the Scrapper Elite Spec did not do much with providing a new experience for Engineer compared to the other elite specs. Scrapper unique function was just adding the F button to have auto res and auto finisher.

Only way I see Engineer getting popular beyond the small amount of the community that see the unique potential for Engineer’s future gameplay and Elite Specs is to release a new Elite Spec that provides a new unique experience for Engineer that does not require them to depend so greatly on kits as Engineer depends on now.

Also, when Players play their character they want to play as something that actually use their Main Weapon most of the time but with Engineer 90% of gameplay for the best outcome in damage results is to depend on Kits.

EdwinLi.1284:

SeranusGaming.7362:

This thread makes me sad. I was considering rolling an Engi again and actually trying to make it work. I loved the class long time ago with all it’s toys but i really sucked at it and was never comfortable.

I main a Warrior now and was hoping for something more unique. Now I understand why I never see an Engi when playing through PvE.

Don’t be sad because as of currently Engineer has the Highest Condition Damage in the game which is why it is still useful in Raids for heavy condition damage.

The problem is for Engineer though is that it does not provide much options with gameplay style if players want to perform the peak damage output which once again is Engineer’s Condition Damage.

Power damage is lacking and the Scrapper Elite Spec did not do much with providing a new experience for Engineer compared to the other elite specs. Scrapper unique function was just adding the F button to have auto res and auto finisher.

Only way I see Engineer getting popular beyond the small amount of the community that see the unique potential for Engineer’s future gameplay and Elite Specs is to release a new Elite Spec that provides a new unique experience for Engineer that does not require them to depend so greatly on kits as Engineer depends on now.

Also, when Players play their character they want to play as something that actually use their Main Weapon most of the time but with Engineer 90% of gameplay for the best outcome in damage results is to depend on Kits.

A new spec focused on healing or boon support, that would be my dream… (i wanna be a medic with the med kit kitten)

Ivantreil.3092:

A new spec focused on healing or boon support, that would be my dream… (i wanna be a medic with the med kit kitten)

Doubt they will release a new Support/Healing Heavy Elite spec for the 2nd Elite Spec since they said they will not make the mistake of releasing a High Healing and High defensive Elite Spec again that can be abused to make a player character Immortal by spamming the Healing and Defensive buffs.

There was a massive abuse issue with 1st elite specs that give certain professions to make themselves immortal or their entire party members immortal in battle if they properly used their AoE Healing and Buff skills which lead to a major complaint and massive nerf patches near the beginning of HoT so players that spammed the new benefits 1st Elite Specs give to certain profession’s Buffs and Healing could be killed in PvP and WvW.

As of now expect the 2nd Elite Specs to focus more on Damage.

God I hope their goal isn’t to continue power creep, especially on damage. That’s how you trivialize old content, which is specifically a goal of ANet’s to avoid, at least I thought.

Jerus.4350:

God I hope their goal isn’t to continue power creep, especially on damage. That’s how you trivialize old content, which is specifically a goal of ANet’s to avoid, at least I thought.

Doubt anything will change on 2nd elite spec.

It will be the same process of people complaining “this” and “That” is too OP for their Meta Build and then comes nerfs on Professions that don’t need it because they needed the new update to their abilities and then people complain about the nerf about it being too much and the cycle repeats again.

Engineer, however, can’t really complain for a new Elite Spec that provides new Damage boost because Engineer really needs a damage boost as it is at the bottom of the barrel and is suffering from constant nerfs due to Meta Players complaining the HoT update and adjust that were just fine for Engineer made them too OP for their Meta build to handle.

Great summary, sadly though I doubt the devs care, hardly any people playing engineer, so better to spend resources elsewhere.

As an Engineer main i might be a little jaded by now, i wonder why…

I’d love to see Engineer’s reworked to not be so kitten reliant on Kits… It’s really bad design. Quite honestly I’d personally prefer to see kits given their own slot on [~], even if that does restrict us to only having one kit on our build… either that or add a utility skill to each kit that replaces it in our skill bar when equipped, it’s rather redundant to have weapon swap on [~] and on the key for our current active kit… not to mention very annoying when I go to use another skill and accidentally disable my current kit due to my fat fingers…

Anyways… from what I can see the following really needs to be done to fix engineer’s reliance on kits…

1) Swap Pistol skills 3 & 4…
as others have pointed out many times, the offhand pistol should be more utilitary with the 2 pistol CC effects on it, and the main hand should be all damage. Having the strongest pistol damage skill on 4 is rather absurd. Especially when you consider the simple fact that Pistol is our ONLY main hand weapon.

2) Buff or Redesign Shield…
As it stands, shield has some interesting but highly lackluster abilities on it… in 99% of content it’s just not worth using…

3) MASSIVELY BUFF Rifle…
Currently Rifle serves better as a set of utility skills for kit based builds than as an actual weapon… this isn’t just sad, it’s insulting… Rifle has some effective abilities, but as a whole it’s highly underwhelming and utterly outperformed by Pistols which are again outperformed by Kits… The only weapon we have that’s actually worse than Rifles is Shield… Granted that’s not saying much given how few weapons we actually have… but still

4) Give us Mace Main Hand (Base)
Yes, you read that right… give it to us as a new BASE mainhand… do not tie this to a second elite spec. We need a solid power mainhand weapon in our base core weapon kit.

5) Nerf Grenade Kit & Bomb Kit…
I know this would be a very unpopular change, but it’s a necessary evil in this case… Weapons need to be brought up in power to at least be on par with the weaker kits, while the stronger kits need to be reigned back in… Which means Grenades and Bombs need to be nerfed…

6) Gadgets need to be made useful…
with the exception of maybe 1 or 2 of them, gadgets are practically useless in every situation… why would I take a gadget skill to do something when I could take a kit that does the exact same thing plus 4 other things… and does it better too…

7) Unnerf Turrets
seriously, who thought nerfing turrets like that was a good idea?

8) Buff Elixirs…
For much the same reason that Gadgets need to be reworked… Elixirs need to be buffed. The benefits they provide for the most part are good, but they are just too weak to be of any real value.

ofLegends.9853:

Panda.1967:

5) Nerf Grenade Kit & Bomb Kit…
I know this would be a very unpopular change, but it’s a necessary evil in this case…

I would love that. My main reason for quitting engi is I’m just so kitten sick of all the targeted spells I have to use. Other classes get to just press a button and have fun with it, but I have to constantly aim and spam grenades, yay. (&yeah, I know about the option to make them auto target. It’s not a very good one, imo.)

And that’s why there are 8 other professions :b

The one kit I’d like to see exchanged or moved is the flamethrower. It’s already a bogus weapon, but now it’s a confused addition to a tree that is supposed to be power based. The rifle is power based, but the kit in the tree is condi based yet stacks might (power)? It think either a heavy gunner kit or a sniper kit would be a perfect exchange and maybe finally get a kit that’s actually power based for once. Seriously Mortar kit belt skill is the only power utility and it’s high enough damage for power that it’s a must have. Bomb kit same problem but this time it’s the auto attack.

Wooden Potatoes did a great job demonstrating how terrible their design is for power builds. Also I hate the targeting of grenades as they require multiple actions while trying to keep your view of the fight straight. The last fight in the new zone, yeah that’s what it’s like running with grenades.

Egrimm Van Horstmann.7921:

But the kit in the tree is condi based yet stacks might (power)?

Might buffs condi too, not only power, so its not completely off putting yet that trait.

Egrimm Van Horstmann.7921:

Seriously Mortar kit belt skill is the only power utility and it’s high enough damage for power that it’s a must have. .

…. WUT? Have you forgot Big ol’ bomb? the best toolbelt power based we have on kits?
Throw wrench? Grenade Barrage? hmm?.

And if i recall, Orbital strike is only useful for opening battles, after that, its a dps loss using it between rotations, i have not seen one soo long in pvp aswell.

Ivantreil.3092

If you haven’t seen the video or played a power engineer as of late the min max of power is based around the ones I noted. He was talking about doing the most damage with a power base. And Big ol’ Bomb is part of the bomb kit so if your not on the move sure it’s there and useful but the auto attack of bomb kit does more damage per second than the big ol bomb. For PvP I’m sure it’s more effective, but for doing straight power damage it’s not soo awesome outside of situational need for defiance bars and cc. Your power buffs the Orbital to always keep it on cooldown.

I would like to see more synergy with power otherwise it’s just condi from here on out.

Grenades aren’t as awesome for power builds, it’s a condition based kit.

Egrimm Van Horstmann.7921:

Ivantreil.3092

If you haven’t seen the video or played a power engineer as of late the min max of power is based around the ones I noted. He was talking about doing the most damage with a power base. And Big ol’ Bomb is part of the bomb kit so if your not on the move sure it’s there and useful but the auto attack of bomb kit does more damage per second than the big ol bomb. For PvP I’m sure it’s more effective, but for doing straight power damage it’s not soo awesome outside of situational need for defiance bars and cc. Your power buffs the Orbital to always keep it on cooldown.

I would like to see more synergy with power otherwise it’s just condi from here on out.

Grenades aren’t as awesome for power builds, it’s a condition based kit.

Of course i saw the video, and of course i have played power engi in raids aswell.

I recognize that the current legit power skill options and the traits are not so good at all compared to the condi options as WP pointed out.

We should be actively using the grenade kit, our rifle/hammer and maybe a power gadget for deal power dps damage, not just sit in 1 kit and AA to death.

Argue whatever you want but that doesnt take out Orbital strike’s current state, his underwhelming dps is there, traited or not, and personally the bad thing its not the delay, neither the cd, its either the damage, or the casting time, if orbital was an instant cast with the delay, it would be a worthwile skill to use.

And again, the casting time would be worthwile if the damage was too.

Grenade kit its an hybrid kit if you havent noticed, pre-hot grenade kit was active because of his power damage, the damage its still there, its just that potentially, his condi version its better.

In pvp, grenades were meant as a power one, as the condi effect was (and still is) worthless, too much time the enemy had for cleanse the damage, it was jsut a little bonus the conditions back then.

Actually, orbital strike was a worthy dps skill back pre-hot, and a worthy combo finisher, the mortar trait was worthy back then… its jsut that the dps standards has raised thanks to HoT, it needs an update, simple as that.

Thinking things over a little more… I honestly believe they could just give Engineers access to weapon swap and that alone would greatly reduce our dependance on kits… it also really wouldn’t make us overpowered either… hell, we’re not even the only class with weapon kits even…

Elementalists have their Conjuring skills that summon elemental weapons they can use, granted they are temporary… but they still get them and still have 4 sets of weapon skills for their weapons…
Warriors have Banners which can be used as weapons, sure they are no better than improvised weapons, but they still get them and still have weapon swap…
Necromancers get their Death Shroud along with weapon swap, and that doesn’t even take up a skill slot…

Meanwhile we’ve got no weapon swap, only 1 set of skills on our weapons (that are hardly even worth using at that)… and if we don’t take a weapon kit we’re utterly worthless…

Elementalists being restricted to one weapon due to attunements is one thing, they can still swap… and they arn’t forced to take specific skills to do so. They can ignore their conjuring skills and be just as if not more competitive as they would be if they took them… Engineers on the other hand, don’t have a built in mechanic to swap, we have to take weapon kits for our swap, and on top of that our weapon kits are BETTER than our weapons… we don’t really have choices for our builds… we have to use weapon kits or we’re worthless.

Giving us weapon swap would give us some real choices… though all the other changes discussed would still be needed… but weapon swap would at least create functional non-kit builds a possibility

Panda.1967:

Thinking things over a little more… I honestly believe they could just give Engineers access to weapon swap and that alone would greatly reduce our dependance on kits… it also really wouldn’t make us overpowered either… hell, we’re not even the only class with weapon kits even…

Elementalists have their Conjuring skills that summon elemental weapons they can use, granted they are temporary… but they still get them and still have 4 sets of weapon skills for their weapons…
Warriors have Banners which can be used as weapons, sure they are no better than improvised weapons, but they still get them and still have weapon swap…
Necromancers get their Death Shroud along with weapon swap, and that doesn’t even take up a skill slot…

Meanwhile we’ve got no weapon swap, only 1 set of skills on our weapons (that are hardly even worth using at that)… and if we don’t take a weapon kit we’re utterly worthless…

Elementalists being restricted to one weapon due to attunements is one thing, they can still swap… and they arn’t forced to take specific skills to do so. They can ignore their conjuring skills and be just as if not more competitive as they would be if they took them… Engineers on the other hand, don’t have a built in mechanic to swap, we have to take weapon kits for our swap, and on top of that our weapon kits are BETTER than our weapons… we don’t really have choices for our builds… we have to use weapon kits or we’re worthless.

Giving us weapon swap would give us some real choices… though all the other changes discussed would still be needed… but weapon swap would at least create functional non-kit builds a possibility

Or something more in the engineer style:

Make the secondary weapon slot a kit slot.

So the engineer run kit, weapon, heal, 3 skills, elite.

Put the alt weapon kit on the normal weapon swap cooldown to give the normal kits (ie replacing a skill) the same zero cd advantage.

I really wonder why people play online games.
I play games to have fun.
I play Engineer to have fun.
I coudnt give a stuff how much or how little dps Engineers have or how they compare to other classes, or how useless the skills are.
As long as playing the class provides entertainment , thats all that matters.
Remember you cant win an MMO.

mauried.5608:

I really wonder why people play online games.
I play games to have fun.
I play Engineer to have fun.
I coudnt give a stuff how much or how little dps Engineers have or how they compare to other classes, or how useless the skills are.
As long as playing the class provides entertainment , thats all that matters.
Remember you cant win an MMO.

Problem is when you play online games, specifically an MMO, you’re dealing with other people. Being accepted into a group is important, and if you’re unable to keep up with par it’s an issue gaining that acceptance.

Now, your mentality is still the correct one, but devs do need to balance well otherwise people will be alienated because of silly stuff.