Guild Wars 2

Note: This is a long read.

The purpose of this post is to bring together all the suggestions on how to improve the Engie in all game modes, not just PvP.

This old post from Chaith details a bunch of things that needs to happen for the Scrapper in order to improve that: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/5-Ways-to-make-PvP-Engineer-not-lame-again/first#post6137984

1.) Functionality changes to Gyros & Final Salvo.
Gyro Self-Destruct – Gyro Self Destruct Daze & Damage now occurs on the Scrapper’s location. This increases the responsiveness and accuracy of Gyro dazing.

Final Salvo – Field Effect is established on the Engineer’s location as he travels. Visual noise reduced! This allows the Scrapper to be mobile without being punished, and apply super speed to allies better.

2.) Improved Crippling ability to Elixir Gun.
Glob Shot – Projectile Speed increased 20%, projectile tracking added so projectiles won’t be walked away from.
These changes will allow the Engineer to catch fleeing opponents better.

3.) Shocking Speed never being used in any game mode – Instead of the current effects, When hit while under the effects of super speed: stuns nearby attacking foes with an electric shock (only once per 10 seconds for each attacker).
This trait could be utilized well by offensive non-hammer Scrappers to recover some slipperiness/counter pressure.

4.) Expert Examination never being used in any game mode – Stunning or dazing a foe causes damage in addition to it’s current effects. 400 base damage at level80, (1000 power), .40 power scaling.
Providing a damage option for offensive Scrappers not wanting to stack healing effects / Stability in the Master Tier

5.) Buffs to accuracy / power / cooldowns of various Pistol/Rifle/Shield skills. Goal is to have interchangeable weapon options outside Hammer.
Non-Hammer weapons are completely lacking in overall budget, even with recent pistol tweaks. Hammer leading in damage, utility, and defense really highlights this.

Here are my posts in the same topic suggesting things to improve the Engie as it stands right now: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/5-Ways-to-make-PvP-Engineer-not-lame-again/first#post6141385

ADEPT TIER
Minor remains the same, Grenadier remains the same.
Merge Explosive Descent and Glass Cannon. – Do this in order to make Explosive descent feel like less of a useless trait in almost all game modes.

New Trait: Thermite powder
Explosions apply twice the vulnerability. You explode when downed, knocking targets back – This trait is an enabler to another trait that I concocted in the Grandmaster Tier.

MASTER TIER:
Modify Minor trait Steel-Packed Powder to include Thermobaric Detonation – Thermobaric Detonation on it’s own, is not a good trait that does anything for the engineer. It’s currently not even used for style points either. Moving it to being a minor trait in the Master tier just feels right.

Merge Aim-assisted rocket with Shaped charge, gives us space for another new trait.

Sticky Grenade Hitting targets in Melee range places a sticky charge on them that explodes after 1s. The explosion applies 5 stacks of vuln dazes them and is unblockable. ICD (10s). – I suggest this mainly to have something that rewards us for how we play on different ranges. This trait would also synergize with Grenadier and Thermite Powder.

Modify Short Fuse; Bombs Explode faster and have a faster cooldown. Big Ol’ Bomb now applies 10 stacks of vulnerability.

GRANDMASTER TIER

Minor trait Explosive Powder remains the same.

Siege Rounds remains the same.

Replace Shrapnel with Forceful Explosives: Blast Finishers knockdown and apply 3 stacks of bleed, 3 stacks of vuln and cripples foes in the area of it’s activation. Blast Finishers also strip 2 boons on 30s cooldown. (Reasoning: With the rise of the Warrior and even the Necro, I’ve come to find that one of the things lacking in the engineer’s kit is boon stripping. Giving them the potential to strip boons can be crucial for them to stay in the meta without getting schooled.)

Move Thermobaric Detonation to Minor trait master tier, merged with Steel-Packed Powder as said earlier. This gives us space for a new trait.

Concussive Blast;
Hitting a foe that has vuln above the threshold [15 stacks] with an explosive applies 5 stacks of Bleeding, 5 stacks of confusion, weakness for 5s. [ICD 10s] Foes that block your explosives when they have 15 stacks of vuln are dazed for 1s. (Reasoning: I felt that there was no incentive to use skills like the Bomb Kit and some other obscure utilities and traits. Since this trait synergizes with my suggested trait in the Master Tier, sticky grenade, it allows for almost any build to use this trait as long as it can reach 15 stacks of vuln).

I think the suggestions above would do wonders for the Engie’s build viability. If you imagine them on the trait table right now, you can see how synergistic the traits are with current traits and utilies. For example; Flamethrower gets a knockdown with Forceful explosives. I’m not sure about meta viability but making changes like this to any class, puts it into the meta. Especially if those changes allow for a cool combination.

And here is my suggestion for fixing the Firearms line as well; let’s do what we’ve done for all the other classes, have each trait synergize with the next trait on the same level.
So the first line: Chemical Rounds – Pinpoint Distribution – Incendiary Powder would be the line built for Pistol/Conditions

Second Line: Heavy Armour Exploit – Skilled Marksman – Modified Ammunition but in order for the line to synergize. Skilled Marksman has to do more. Here’s a suggestion for there to be more synergy;

Skilled Marksman – Reduce Rifle/Harpoon damage by 10%. Rifle skills now apply additional conditions, attack faster and have lower cooldowns. Hip Shot applies Bleed, Net Shot applies 5 stacks of Vulnerability, Blunderbuss applies blind, Overcharged shot Applies 10 stacks of Vulnerability and Jump Shot no longer applies vuln but now applies Cripple and Bleeds.

Calculating each unique condition from the above trait using Modified ammunition (immob, vuln, bleed, blind and cripple) without counting the damage added by vuln, you pretty much get your 10% damage back, barring any condi removal from your target. I think it would be the perfect solution to making Rifle and Modified Ammunition an interesting choice. It doesn’t fix the problem with Rifle, which I’ll get to in a bit, but it definitely makes the rifle a great power weapon and potentially a good condi weapon because of the diversity of cover conditions.

Third Line: High Caliber – No Scope – Juggernaut

Juggernaut can remain the same, I don’t have any qualms with it but the other traits need to change because they do nothing for the viability of the engie. And they definitely don’t synergize with ANYTHING in this line, talk less of any other trait on the engie. So here’s how I think it should change;

Replace High Caliber with
Bullet Penetration (move this to master tier and bring No Scope to adept): Your flamethrower and projectile attacks become unblockable for 5s after they are first resisted (30s cooldown) (Reasoning: This is me trying to get to the core of the Rifle’s viability problem. In the meta now there is so much projectile reflect, deflect and blocks that it’s extremely difficult for the Engie to play anything other than Hammer. Creating a trait that targets that meta, gives the Engie a fighting chance.)

Replace No Scope with
Steady Marksman: Whilst you have stability, your attacks have 15% critical chance. (Reasoning: It synergizes well with the GM trait, Juggernaut and consequently, quite a few other builds on the engie. Also gives the engie more gearing options by reducing the need for crit chance if this trait is selected.)

These are my thoughts (and the thoughts of Chaith obviously) but let’s bring all our thoughts on what needs to improve for the engie in all game modes here. That way we can make sure Anet sees all of them.

In addition to the above, here are some ideas for improving turrets;

Apply a change to Experimental Turrets:
Healing Turret applies Resistance instead of Vigor (Reasoning: In PvP and WvW, I believe the resistance would be more useful)

Apply a change to Advanced Turrets:
Using Healing Turret whilst other turrets are active gives your other turrets a 5k damage shield and Resistance for 3s. (This replaces the 33% less damage functionality). Turret Overcharge have 100% crit chance. Turret Cooldowns are reduced by 5s when their toolbelt skills are used. (Reasoning: With a skill on a short cooldown that can apply a shield to your turrets, they wouldn’t die as quickly. The 100% crit chance on turret overcharge means that players can use turrets just for that reason only and you could even give them 25% crit chance while active to make leaving them active somewhat worthwhile.)

Will you merge the suggestions from my post earlier this week? There is some great discussion in there mostly focused on turrets, gadgets, and gyros. It would be a nice addendum to this post.

IMO what engi needs are some improovements what gives him something extra for party. Literaly every other class have something like war banners, ranger spotter, mesmer alacrity ect and we have nothing. NOTHING.
All our skills what have that great potential affect only us or are super clunky to use like fumigate.

Most ridiculous is MedKit – great buffing idea killed by affecting ONE tatget and ofc by that kitten ground targetting.

Experimental turrets – Amazing idea but dont work. Turrets still dont have enough HP (what about with that trait made them immortal but dont attacking just buffing) and apply only common buffs what you have always maxed anyway. Its need separate stackable buffs.

Elixirs – Still are partialy RNG. You could forgive that in casual dungeons but now in raids? No there isnt place for rng. They are also week compare to kits. Make them at least aoe for B for example

Juggernaut – this trait is already strong but do you know much more youseful would be engi in WvW if it apply stability also to party?

….. There are so many.. Lets pick last one

Iron Blooded – Perfect candidate for party buff like empowered allies.

padreadamo.3986:

Will you merge the suggestions from my post earlier this week? There is some great discussion in there mostly focused on turrets, gadgets, and gyros. It would be a nice addendum to this post.

Got it.

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

Throw this up on reddit as well. For some reason devs look at reddit and respond there more than they ever do here in their own forums.

I like a lot of you suggestions. Problem with E-Gun, pistol, and rifle is the amount of projectile hate other classes have. We need an ability to break through reflects and blocks to even things out and make engie more viable in pvp and wvw.

scorekeeper.6524:

Throw this up on reddit as well. For some reason devs look at reddit and respond there more than they ever do here in their own forums.

I like a lot of you suggestions. Problem with E-Gun, pistol, and rifle is the amount of projectile hate other classes have. We need an ability to break through reflects and blocks to even things out and make engie more viable in pvp and wvw.

Agreed about Reddit. Let’s unify for the engineer!

Please resurrect the “bombs bruiser/tank” build.

Infused Elixir Bomb bring tons of value.
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Elixir-Infused_Bombs

If they feared to stack with swiftness/super speed regen, put that trait at the same place in scrapper line.

:)

Scrapper is a res-bot in PvP. It depends on this role extremely strongly, because there are no viable damage options – The Scrapper can’t even properly play aggressively to assist teammates a lot of the time, as that would require expending defensive cooldowns and eating cleave, making it so you fail at your one job – revive teammate.

The result is just passively watching fights happen around you, dropping some AoE, cleansing conditions on teammates – getting to go ham when your teammates down somebody is nice. Scrapper going ham vs. enemies not in the downed state though, that’s not pretty.

After playing a lot of Druid, I just can’t take for granted the ability to do high single target damage from safe distance, with extremely high damage to survivability ratio, and still fill a healer/reviver role.

It makes me sad to see Scrapper damage shaved, as if that was remotely a problem.

The dream here, guys: change Scrapper so it has multiple builds that have aggressive styles, able to catch and hunt enemies either with hammer or pistol & rifles – it’s not a healer – and still maintain a modest damage to survivability ratio.

Explosives and firearms need complete reworking, explosives especially so there are viable condi traits able to be used. Irenio did good work with scrapper originally but those trait lines were left in a confused mess.

Honestly when I saw changes last patch then something struck me.
Engineer bruiser build got nerfed, while condi dps got minimally buffed, yet still no buffs for overall team utility…
I think Engineer next specialisation will be support focused. Otherwise why work on whole “lets keep base engi dmg competitive”. We know that Anet working on next expansion so they work on another spec. I would imagine such spec, as “Drug Dealer” (buffs, debuffs – still there is lack in GW2 for class specific debuffs, heal).
As for other stuff… net to go to work so will read leater ;-p

NiBlack.3149:

Honestly when I saw changes last patch then something struck me.
Engineer bruiser build got nerfed, while condi dps got minimally buffed, yet still no buffs for overall team utility…
I think Engineer next specialisation will be support focused. Otherwise why work on whole “lets keep base engi dmg competitive”. We know that Anet working on next expansion so they work on another spec. I would imagine such spec, as “Drug Dealer” (buffs, debuffs – still there is lack in GW2 for class specific debuffs, heal).
As for other stuff… net to go to work so will read leater ;-p

That’s an idea for sure. I think I’ll implode if the next Engineer elite spec isn’t offensive or offensive utility focused. Seeing as Scrapper is defensive utility/area denial focused

Imho, having some utility that’s more suited to group content would help the class a lot in PvE. Imho, if we want to have such utilities, they could as well scrap the current turrets and replace them with something else.
For example, let’s say we get something like this.
Utility – Amplificator K
Indestructible item (unlike turrets) that once placed emits three “waves” in a direction over six seconds (think of it as a pulsing cone effect, one pulse every two seconds), then it disappears.
Every enemy hit by a wave (up to X enemies) sees the conditions he’s afflicted with increase duration by Y seconds (up to Z stacks per condition, so that it can’t get too strong).
For example, let’s say that an enemy has a stack of burning (4s) and three of bleeding (7s). Once a wave hits, with Y=2, they become burning (6s) and three bleedings (9s).
Toolbelt – Spray Compound K
Cone attack from the engineer (similar to fumigate) that inflicts three random damaging conditions (the amount of stacks and their duration would be fixed depending on the condition, though).
It is meant to be used along the main skill, either to enable its use or for added effect.

It’s something that is meant to be far less effective when alone, but that would work greatly in a group content. Something that we lack, currently.

sometimes i forget that engineer can use a shield, then i remember that it’s just hammer #4 and 5 on a longer cooldown.

Dirame.8521:

In addition to the above, here are some ideas for improving turrets;

Apply a change to Experimental Turrets:
Healing Turret applies Resistance instead of Vigor (Reasoning: In PvP and WvW, I believe the resistance would be more useful)

Apply a change to Advanced Turrets:
Using Healing Turret whilst other turrets are active gives your other turrets a 5k damage shield and Resistance for 3s. (This replaces the 33% less damage functionality). Turret Overcharge have 100% crit chance. Turret Cooldowns are reduced by 5s when their toolbelt skills are used. (Reasoning: With a skill on a short cooldown that can apply a shield to your turrets, they wouldn’t die as quickly. The 100% crit chance on turret overcharge means that players can use turrets just for that reason only and you could even give them 25% crit chance while active to make leaving them active somewhat worthwhile.)

I think that pistol pistol now for pvp ,expecially if used with toolkit traited are really in a good spot. You have good condi damage . the only problem is that they should increase a little bit the sustain of not scrapper engi or to give to condi engi a better condition remove option . Pistol pistol now is in good spot with rabid and ft and toolkit. What it means is only that it suffer conditions more than scrapper for 2 reason : much lower sustain and lower health pool (with rabid you have 15k vitality so conditions hurt you faster) . If only a major trait of tools ( like adrenal implant for example ) would help a bit in condition clean it woul be great