Guild Wars 2

Immediately went into Heart of the Mists like I always do when I make a character. Was going through the traits…

30% chance to cause bleeding for 3 seconds on critical hits… okay… my Necromancer that I’ve played for 4 months does this too but it’s a 66% chance for 1 second which is essentially the same thing.

Cripple a foe that’s immobilized? Well that seems useless.

Mmhm, mmhm… okay, more RNG traits. People wanted Thieve’s Steal changed for a reason.

Gain regeneration for 10 seconds when you are attacked while under 25% health. My necromancer gets regeneration when hit below 90% health. This seems useless.

Invisible when immobilized? I like the thinking out of the box, but this is useless. You are still immobilized.

25% faster movement speed in combat. Okay, so this is pretty good.

Tons of endurance regeneration stuff? Well Thieves and Rangers have those as well but they are more of the evasive type. I’d make one of those if I wanted that playstyle.

TL;DR
Traits seemed boring. So did all of the available skills. The grenade kit was nice though.

Well to be fair, it’s not like competitive Necros would touch the Soul Reaping line as well since Death Shroud on land is pretty useless. You’re right though that most of the engineer’s traits are a bit underwhelming.

Engineers are probably the hardest profession to theorycraft a build for, because we have a lot of flat-out bad options that must be avoided, both in traits and skills. I personally find it a fun challenge, but it’s certainly not…optimal.

We do have a lot of “borrowed” traits and skills from other professions. Again, not optimal, but I can live with it.

We do have some completely original and fun traits and skills as well, and those are usually the ones to go for. Cloaking device is one of my favorite things about the engineer. Combine that with transmute (another unique trait) and you’ll laugh like a maniac one out of twelve times you get hit with an immobilize skill. Is it even effective? Barely. Is it fun? Umm…yes.

Cripple a foe that’s immobilized? Well that seems useless.

This is nice. You 1st cover more important conditons 2nd let the kite begin. More good for solo pve of course but good enough for pvp too.

You are still immobilized.

But you lose focus and can’t be direct targeted. Good to survive focus in 3×3 as foucs often starts with control. Of course you’ll have to eat AOEs.
Otherwise, agree.

And you forget 25% shrink, which is > any other class save

{But you lose focus and can’t be direct targeted}
Yeah….apart from as you say all the AoE skills and ANYBODY using a melee weapon.
Hmmmm…i just immobilized this engi and his vanished, i wonder where i should swing my attacks ^^

Stealth while immobilize is awesome imo (in minor Inventionst isnt some other useful trait anyway) Once some mesmer wrote me how its totaly ruin his single target spike.

Engis traits are fine, personaly only trait what iritating me is Scope where you must “must standing still” witch is against game philosophy of constant moving.

Rozbuska.5263:

Stealth while immobilize is awesome imo (in minor Inventionst isnt some other useful trait anyway) Once some mesmer wrote me how its totaly ruin his single target spike.

Engis traits are fine, personaly only trait what iritating me is Scope where you must “must standing still” witch is against game philosophy of constant moving.

Agree: cloaking device is a decent, very fun trait, especially for adept level.
Correction: scope doesn’t actually work at all. So, not exactly fine. But we do have some good/working traits, which can be crafted into several super fun, reasonably effective builds.

25% faster during combat is completely overwritten by swiftness that you can maintain permanently with any kit.

Grenades might work nice against stationary dummies, but players evade and run around like chickens.

lots of big problems with our traits, many of which I’m too lazy to explain and mainly have to do with the fact that our best option is grenades and the lack of viability/room for gadgets and turrets. Two of our trees are underwhelming, one of them entirely worthless. Many minor traits are terrible. A lot of tiny differences are frustrating to take note of, like the fact that rangers get 50% endurance regen permanently on a five point minor trait where we get the same thing as a grandmaster trait. That is in addition to their copious amounts of dodges on their weapons and their 2 seconds of protection on dodge (also a minor trait)

There are some niche builds, but really you have to be a masochist to try and theorycraft a “new” build on an engi that actually works in TPvP. I literally know of no effective build that does not go 30 up explosives for grenades and 20 up alchemy for the cleanses. Healing turret as your only condi cleanse is a death sentence. Have fun allocating 20 other points

Exactly what many of us have been saying for some time now. If you compared them to the thief and ranger traits as I did, you’d notice a larger disparity between the traits (things like gaining a huge bonus up front, then things like Elixir B type benefits and % extra damage to help kill the enemy going off at 50% of the enemies hitpoints instead of 75% of your own) It’s definitely not an adventurer class setup is it.

I made a necro recently and was stunned and the synergy between the different branches. Such as traiting down one branch while offering power, also offers condition duration which one of my attacks applys automatically (without a trait) making it useful in condition/hybrid builds. It seems a hell of a lot harder to get synergy going as well for engineers. That being said, i still like my engineer better

Ostricheggs.3742:

There are some niche builds, but really you have to be a masochist to try and theorycraft a “new” build on an engi that actually works in TPvP. I literally know of no effective build that does not go 30 up explosives for grenades and 20 up alchemy for the cleanses. Healing turret as your only condi cleanse is a death sentence. Have fun allocating 20 other points

Don’t forget that flamethrower and elixir gun both remove a condition with kit refinement. It’s still super hard to squeeze them into any “new” builds, as you say, but I find them far more fun and effective than 409 or healing turret for cleansing.

If those kit refinement cleanses are ever removed, though, we’re in serious trouble. Well, even worse than we already are.

Yes, cleaning with EG is fine enough. If only its 4 was stunbreaker.
Though, having that little cleaning (usually u go with 4 medkit) makes you really learn what do you REALLY have to clean not to be 1button solutioon like thief

cloaking device seemed useless and counter productive to me.

I mean you’re standing on the point and you just have to decap it or keep the enmy from decapping/capping it, then all of a sudden you’re immobolized. not only does everyone just swing right on top of where you obviously are and drop aoes like its their freakin only job or something, but then you also dont count towards holding the point you’re standing on……

idk, I only ever had use for it when trying to run away from a massive zerg in random pug matches, cause 80% of the players in those games are new or just bad lol other then that, worse then useless.

Can’t speak for others, but I find the cloaking device to be a life saver during fights, unless you’re fighting 1v1, or other really small fights (I WvWvW most of the time) the cloak is usually enough to lose focus of everyone you’re fighting at the time.
And ranged classes that immobolize to set up a huge damage spike, and then just stand there looking unhappy.

try fighting mesmers with cloaking device and you ll see how priceless it is when neither him or his clones can target you most heavy hitting attacks require a target but hey it all comes down to your build maybe you can spend up the extra 10 points in something else.

bromi.7809:

Cripple a foe that’s immobilized? Well that seems useless.

This is nice. You 1st cover more important conditons 2nd let the kite begin. More good for solo pve of course but good enough for pvp too.

I personally love the idea of Knee Shot and have used it for a long time trying to see if it’s actually worth it. In comparison to something as simple as a 20% weapon cooldown reduction trait though, it just accomplishes too little. I’d honestly advocate the trait increasing Immobilize and Cripple duration by 25% or 50% in addition to what it already does.

I don’t know about you, but giving a mesmer 2 free seconds to get more clones out seems to me like a BAD idea.

Guardians have a utility skill that’s somewhat similar insofar as it delays the enemy finishing you off, it’s called sanctuary. For a class that has GOOD alternatives, an ability that merely gives your enemy more time is rightfully considered quite marginal.

But for a class like ours where all but a few abilities are marginal, such an ability appears to have ardent defenders.

Mesmers cannot summon Phantasms or Clones without a target. Sanctuary is a different ability entirely and an active one at that which can be defeated with Stability. Cloaking Device’s usefulness seems to be exaggerated in both directions. It’s not invulnerability by any means, as any targeted AoE or melee attacks can still hit rather easily. However many tools that people have do tend to be targeted, and in the midst of any chaos it can be extra confusing.

messies have 3 phantasms that can be summomed from utility slots without targets. they also have clones on dodgw traits thats only need combat, no targets.

Mesmer with 3 pantasms in utilities in spvp? Yeah, tell me about.

we have some really weird traits that i do wonder what the guy that designed them was smoking so i can get me some as well.
take Acidic Elixirs for size,let me kill you with my boons? why will anyone ever take this?
or Exploit Weakness in what world can this bring any benefit? on top of that they slapped a 15s cd on it lol.
Low Health Response System is just silly to have under 25%.

and we have traits that are plain useless:
Scope as far as i know is still bugged since anet confirmed it is way back and i didn`t hear anything about it being fixed,if it isnt bugged then it doesnt give a flat 10% it gives 10% to what you have so if you have 45% it will not give you 55% it will give 49.5%.(sv hunters in wow had a similar thing but they got a buff to show when it was active this will be a good improvement to have in this trait).
Leg Mods and Power Shoes gets overwritten by swiftness(33% more speed).

we do have some good traits but what gets me is that most of our traits are to make things function aka baseline for everyone else and a lot of traits are extremely situational.

bromi.7809:

Mesmer with 3 pantasms in utilities in spvp? Yeah, tell me about.

your opinion about the general census of viable mesmer builds is irrelevant.

the point is that mesmers CAN create phantasms without a target, which was clarifying the misinformation in the post I was replying to.

cottage.3274:

we have some really weird traits that i do wonder what the guy that designed them was smoking so i can get me some as well.
take Acidic Elixirs for size,let me kill you with my boons? why will anyone ever take this?
or Exploit Weakness in what world can this bring any benefit? on top of that they slapped a 15s cd on it lol.
Low Health Response System is just silly to have under 25%.

and we have traits that are plain useless:
Scope as far as i know is still bugged since anet confirmed it is way back and i didn`t hear anything about it being fixed,if it isnt bugged then it doesnt give a flat 10% it gives 10% to what you have so if you have 45% it will not give you 55% it will give 49.5%.(sv hunters in wow had a similar thing but they got a buff to show when it was active this will be a good improvement to have in this trait).
Leg Mods and Power Shoes gets overwritten by swiftness(33% more speed).

we do have some good traits but what gets me is that most of our traits are to make things function aka baseline for everyone else and a lot of traits are extremely situational.

well, re-Exploit Weakness, this trait is immensely useful in PvE farming in CS with a flamethrower where you basically cripply vast swaths of mobs and ensure they remain still for the final strokes of everyone elses aoe.

it is likewise effective in dungeons with lots of trash where your FT engie is the trash man.

you may not like being a support character, but that is what the trait is for, cleaner, more efficient, organized mob killing.

remember the days when you had to organize 40 people to do something about 20 mobs? well now you only need one: an engie.

hold on a minute .. you mean we can respec for different parts of the game? whoa.

nakoda.4213:

well, re-Exploit Weakness, this trait is immensely useful in PvE farming in CS with a flamethrower where you basically cripply vast swaths of mobs and ensure they remain still for the final strokes of everyone elses aoe.

it is likewise effective in dungeons with lots of trash where your FT engie is the trash man.

you may not like being a support character, but that is what the trait is for, cleaner, more efficient, organized mob killing.

remember the days when you had to organize 40 people to do something about 20 mobs? well now you only need one: an engie.

hold on a minute .. you mean we can respec for different parts of the game? whoa.

now lets learn to read

we do have some good traits but what gets me is that most of our traits are to make things function aka baseline for everyone else and a lot of traits are extremely situational.

if this isnt “extremely situational” i dont know what is.
one use to one aspect in one role that only available when the mob/s are under 25% with a cd on it and you can replace it with something 100 times better.(and from your examples one kit)
yea sure m8 its a great design how didnt i see it before ,it sure is " immensely useful in PvE" cant do without it, get real!
and chill with your dissing all over the forum

@Cottage

To be fair, most class have this traits.

The slow on hit when below 25% is like a standart traits like the “50% less damage from fall” traits.

It can be useful for certain build, especially in WvW or sPvP. Sadly, incendirary power pretty much outshine it on every build, or wider explosion radius.

I don’t think they are goign to change it, since this is the same traits for everyone.

Kardiamond actually only rangers have this trait (exactly the same, predator’s instinct and i would kill to have 50% of the rangers traits on the engineer)
and necros have spinal shivers(chill,dmg,boon remove) which is subjective bad but more good then exploit weakness.

if you want to compare the under 25% traits on other professions (and i dont advise it so you dont feel bad) you can start with warriors to see what is a really good design.
and if its self under 25% you can also go see mesmers,guardians, necro`s and so on.

cottage.3274:

nakoda.4213:

well, re-Exploit Weakness, this trait is immensely useful in PvE farming in CS with a flamethrower where you basically cripply vast swaths of mobs and ensure they remain still for the final strokes of everyone elses aoe.

it is likewise effective in dungeons with lots of trash where your FT engie is the trash man.

you may not like being a support character, but that is what the trait is for, cleaner, more efficient, organized mob killing.

remember the days when you had to organize 40 people to do something about 20 mobs? well now you only need one: an engie.

hold on a minute .. you mean we can respec for different parts of the game? whoa.

now lets learn to read

we do have some good traits but what gets me is that most of our traits are to make things function aka baseline for everyone else and a lot of traits are extremely situational.

if this isnt “extremely situational” i dont know what is.
one use to one aspect in one role that only available when the mob/s are under 25% with a cd on it and you can replace it with something 100 times better.(and from your examples one kit)
yea sure m8 its a great design how didnt i see it before ,it sure is " immensely useful in PvE" cant do without it, get real!
and chill with your dissing all over the forum

given that a significant portion of the game does nothing BUT farming ectos and gold in CS, I would not call this “extremely situational”.

/2p

im not entirely certain how a trait that maximizes a significant portion of peoples playstyle is "extremely situational" (a pejorative or negative thing in your terms) when the game is designed to allow players to swap traits based on the situation...

im just not sure what you are trying to argue, or where I have been uncivil. perhaps if you actually explained your point in stead of merely repeating it, you might shed light on what I am missing.

nakoda.4213:

messies have 3 phantasms that can be summomed from utility slots without targets. they also have clones on dodgw traits thats only need combat, no targets.

I will definitely test this, especially since I played a Mesmer for a month before Engi and never even noticed. It’s certainly very interesting. I am curious about the 3 utility skills you reference in particular though, since as far as I’m aware there are only 2 explicit Phantasm skills. I imagine you are mixing it with the Clone skills in language?

Ayestes.1273:

nakoda.4213:

messies have 3 phantasms that can be summomed from utility slots without targets. they also have clones on dodgw traits thats only need combat, no targets.

I will definitely test this, especially since I played a Mesmer for a month before Engi and never even noticed. It’s certainly very interesting. I am curious about the 3 utility skills you reference in particular though, since as far as I’m aware there are only 2 explicit Phantasm skills. I imagine you are mixing it with the Clone skills in language?

Phantasmal Defender + Disenchanter are the only two I could come up with. I’m also 51% sure that Disenchanter requires a target, but I haven’t used either of those abilities in quite some time.

The dodge roll clone also goes after the nearest viable target, so while it may spawn, it’s probably running off to fight that moa that just aggroed.

Mister Mustard.7203:

Ayestes.1273:

nakoda.4213:

messies have 3 phantasms that can be summomed from utility slots without targets. they also have clones on dodgw traits thats only need combat, no targets.

I will definitely test this, especially since I played a Mesmer for a month before Engi and never even noticed. It’s certainly very interesting. I am curious about the 3 utility skills you reference in particular though, since as far as I’m aware there are only 2 explicit Phantasm skills. I imagine you are mixing it with the Clone skills in language?

Phantasmal Defender + Disenchanter are the only two I could come up with. I’m also 51% sure that Disenchanter requires a target, but I haven’t used either of those abilities in quite some time.

The dodge roll clone also goes after the nearest viable target, so while it may spawn, it’s probably running off to fight that moa that just aggroed.

Just tested some things wtih Disenchanter last night, it does indeed require a target.

thats fair, i dont play a mes, so ill chew the cud on this one.

Easily my favorite class in this game