Guild Wars 2

Stice.5204:

What does it mean? It means the assertion that the engineer is “the class they left behind” (which, you might note, is the title of this thread) is ridiculous.

Do you really need “comparison or perspective” on a list of 114 positive changes to accept that Arenanet has obviously been working to improve the overall state of the engineer since the game launched? If you go comb through the patch archives yourself and find that maybe elementalists got even more fixes is that somehow going to validate the original argument that Arenanet ignores engineer issues?

If you have a “strong feeling” that you’re being neglected by a development team that has been improving your character at a rate of nearly 10 positive changes a month, there is a name for that: confirmation bias.

Number of changes does not equal actual effort. I could probably pump out 114 changes, positive, to any class in a single day. Hell probably even before my lunchbreak. They’ll be underwhelmingly small changes, that might or might not actually have any serious positive effect.
But i can pamper up a list nonetheless.

No one here believes Engineers have had no development done since launch, thats not the point of this thread. The point is that when it boils down to it, Anet seems unmotivated to work on Engineers. And overall spends more time on other professions. And thats certainly not due to the stellar track record Engineer has.

And that is why 114 positive changes in perspective is important. What if they made 600 negative changes? New bugs, broken skills, nerfs, etc. They’ve essentially just made Engineer worst. See? That perspective is important.
What if they made 300 positive changes to every other profession? But how do we even rate a positive change? Surely one buff or nerf is going to effect the profession more then the other.
The buff to Prybar from 3 to 5 stacks of confusion was surely outdone, and then some, by the sweeping Confusion nerf. That slashed confusion damage down to little under half. Basicly putting Prybar back to 2.5stacks, and nerfing Conc. bomb and Static shot aswell. To name just one example.

So a fancy list of all those positive changes in and of itself means nothing if you cannot place it in the proper context. And thats a lot of work if you really want to sort it all out, and not without a certain degree of bias. And i am certainly not going to do it for you.

Terrahero.9358:

Anet seems unmotivated to work on Engineers. And overall spends more time on other professions.

Some statistics would really bolster your arguments. How many fixes are other professions getting that makes you feel ignored? Is Anet regularly commenting in other profession forums? What unresolved issues are other professions still waiting for fixes on?

This thread is hilarious, here

Engineer:
Bomb Kit – Bomb: Base radius increased from 120 to 180. Radius when traited with Forceful Explosives is increased to 240.
Bomb Kit – Fire Bomb: Base radius increased from 120 to 180. Radius when traited with Forceful Explosives is increased to 240.
Bomb Kit – Glue Bomb: Radius when traited with Forceful Explosives decreased from 360 to 300.
Kit Refinement – Magnetic Bomb: Radius when traited with Forceful Explosives decreased from 360 to 300.
Self-Regulating Defenses: This trait now functions with Fast-Acting Elixirs.
Hidden Flask: This trait now functions with Fast-Acting Elixirs.
Autodefense Bomb Dispenser: This trait now functions with Short Fuse.
Sharpshooter: Critical chance increased from 30% to 33%.
Metal Plating: Damage reduction has been increased from 30% to 33%.
Homing Torpedo: This skill will no longer fail to strike larger worm creatures.
Glue Bomb: Added an unblockable fact.
Smoke Vent: This skill now has a range indicator.
Steel Packed Powder:: Fixed a bug so that the vulnerability condition will be applied when is equipped on the grenade skill and not the Reserve Mines trait.
Elixir C: This skill now functions with Potent Elixirs.
Toss Elixir R: This skill now functions with Potent Elixirs. Resurrection has been normalized to 17%, from a random percentage chance (14-20%). Underwater version now functions the same as well.
Toss Elixir S: This ability now only grants stealth. Base duration of stealth increased to 5 seconds.
Toss Elixir B: This ability now grants stability to allies, in addition to a random boon. Base recharge increased to 30 seconds.
Elixir H: Normalized protection duration from 7 seconds to 6 when traited with Potent Elixirs.
Mine Field: Base explosion radius increased from 120 to 180.
Reserve Mines: Base explosion radius increased from 120 to 180.
Throw Napalm: This skill now leaves a fire field behind for 3 seconds when it lands that burns enemies for 1 second every second. Burning duration of Throw Napalm on impact reduced to 4 seconds from 5.
Rifle Turret – Automatic Fire: Bleeding has been removed. This ability now applies 8 seconds of vulnerability each hit.

NevirSayDie.6235:

Is Anet regularly commenting in other profession forums?

That´s not about regular comments but still a good example:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/RIP-conjure-builds/first

Elementalists received an answer about conjured weapons with ascended weapons, Engi – where atleast one kit is in most builds – not.

It also shows for me where the problem rather is: we´re probably not left behind as a class on purpose but Engi is so different that Anet can´t find good solutions without much extra effort and always fears to create something overpowered (see also: damage-tax on main-weapons).

But why they would choose bomb- and elixir-builds to buff, which aren´t in such a bad place anyways – no idea.

Cribbage.2056:

So during my 8 month break the class went backwards. I couldn’t find a single positive change.

• Flamethrower much better.
• Rifle much better.
• Traits for Flamethrower, Rifle, Pistol and EG resorted and partially buffed.
• Elixir X buffed.
• Rocket Boots buffed.
• Healing Turret buffed a lot.
• Toss Elixir U is much more reliable because Veil is no longer in it.

And that’s just what I could write down without having to think about it at all.

Engineer is a hybrid class with mid-range capability – that is, it is progressively more dangerous to fight as distance closes, and DPS is predicated on a combination of both Conditions and Direct damage. Contrast this with Elementalist where conditions play a significantly smaller role and Burning is not used to condi-burst someone, but as a % damage multiplier for skills like Fire Grab, and most of the Elementalist skill-shots are close range or even PbAoE.

With that over, it’s easy to realise why Arenanet is so cautious about changes to Engineer. Playing Engineer is exploiting all the little niches and nuances and having lots of skills at hand even when playing something that’s theoretically passive like a triple Turret build.

Unlike Elementalist which will always be limited to the 9 second minimum Attunement swap, and then spamming cooldowns on set rotation chains because of it’s class design and is mechanically challenging to hit those skills, Engineer is all about improvising the rotation and knowing what to switch to and when.

The purported upcoming October changes reflect a lot about the plan Arenanet has for the Engineer moving forward. Bomb kit and Turrets are all about controlling space, and they’re getting buffs next patch; whilst the changes have not mentioned anything about Weapons, FT or GK.

I feel that Arenanet is using the current Grenade Kit as a benchmark right now for the Engineer’s power level – skillshots that require mechanical skill to predict, that become more and more effective as the range decreases. Perhaps the patch after this we can probably see Arenanet finally address Gadgets, and then sometime in the future, trimming down the fat in our Junk traits. One day, Kit Refinement will make its resurgence and then Triple Kit will be top dog once again. I can only hope.

This thread has been remarkably bullish regarding the state of Engineer and I feel as though it’s downplaying the buffs to Engineer. June 25 was a huge buff to Rifle and it’s almost viable to 100% Rifle now which is something that could not have been said 6 months ago. The shuffling of Stunbreaks have also brought CC mitigation to Triple Kit, Triple Turret and triple Gadget – something unprecedented amongst all classes. The only class that can come close is probably Warrior and we all know where Warrior has always stood.

However, I have said this many times and will continue to say that Engineer has a long way to go.

• Many of our traits are junk – some of these after rework – Acidic Coating and Acidic Elixirs spring to mind.
  People seem to have forgotten that Autodefense Bomb Dispenser, Modified Ammunition, Rifled Turret Barrels and Healing Bombs, Automated Response and finally Armour Mods – 6 out of our 10 Grandmasters struggle to compete against our Master and even Adept traits.
  Part of the reason why Build variety is so bad right now isn’t actually because players are bad at innovation, although Arenanet has claimed this in the past. It’s because short of using the “meta” builds with variations for taste, there isn’t much else because what’s there sucks.
  Warrior has been the class with the most rework to traits, general design and changes to utilities, and it’s clearly on top right now with significant variegation thanks to this tuning. Arenanet needs to repeat this same thing now to every other class, and there’s only so many Dhuumfire patches you can put out without driving everyone away with potentially unbalancing changes.

• There is still too much RNG in Elixirs, although apparently Arenanet’s upcoming October changes may mark a shift in their prior stance that RNG is apparently “high skill cap”. When traits like Chaotic Interruption exist that guarantee a certain proc along with an RNG proc exist, one wonders why a similar attitude was not applied to Elixirs. Elixir B guaranteeing Might on being tossed alongside an RNG boon was something that should have been put in 6 months ago.

• Certain skillsets are still languishing since beta nerfs, most notably Flamethrower – losing Stability and Backdraft along with a nerf to FT1 damage has relegated FT to a mob tagging kit with Utility given the existence of GK and BK which are objectively superior.
  Arenanet should also take a stand for Elixir Gun being utility condi-based Power DPS oriented, or condi-oriented with its covering conditions Vulnerability and Poison. I believe that EG Fumigate still has a 0.15 Coefficient per second with Power as well. And Toolkit 1 and 2 really need a good looking at to determine what makes TK extremely inefficient at fighting whilst 3, 4 and 5 are just so good.