Guild Wars 2

I love your post. Sadly, no one at anet will ever see it. I’m pretty sure they have all hidden the Engineer subforum on their computers so that it doesn’t even show up.

1. Whose idea was it to make turrets viable by making everything else not viable?

Just as a heads up, not matter how much you nerf everything else, people won’t use your beloved turrets lol.

danbuter.2314:

I love your post. Sadly, no one at anet will ever see it. I’m pretty sure they have all hidden the Engineer subforum on their computers so that it doesn’t even show up.

Maybe someone from A-net browses from a mobile device they haven’t setup engy blocks on yet

Too bad our forums aren’t read by the dev’s..

timidobserver.7925:

1. Whose idea was it to make turrets viable by making everything else not viable?

Just as a heads up, not matter how much you nerf everything else, people won’t use your beloved turrets lol.

Particularly worrying comment in state of the game about the heal turrets being good because they don’t get focused in WvW and dungeons. Shows a total disconnect between the devs and reality. Average turret life expectancy it’s what, under a second? Any turret surviving longer is so far from where the battle is, that turret is pointless.

Why does poison dart volley shoot in some kind of useless pseudo-cone fashion? Why, why, why, why, why can’t it just shoot them all at the targeted enemy?

Why doesn’t explosive shot apply its bleeds in the AoE like it says on the tooltip?

When was the last time you logged into Guildwars 2 and actually played a lv80 Engineer for more then 10min in…. well, anything?

Do you honestly think that nerfing the one build that works, magically makes all the other broken builds usefull?

Do you think its possible that, in the (distant) future, we might see a patch where you don’t nerf Engineer?

How many times are you going to be nerfing Grenadekit?

And the follow-up to the last question. Do you even remember how many times you’ve nerfed Grenadekit now?

I’ll add: does next Tuesday’s patch include a fix for the fact that Deployable Turrets didn’t get the same damage buff and armor buff that regular turrets got in the last patch?

Also: why do engineers have so many ground-targeted underwater skills, given that it’s almost impossible to hit anywhere or anything with a ground-targeted skill underwater?

The solution to all of our problems are very simple. If Karl is one of the people developing our traits, this game will never get balanced. I’ve never seen someone so unsure about everything. No offense if you read this Karl, but watch the SOTG’s I’m not certain that you have a clue what’s going on.

So my question is for Karl.

What’s the deal man? You live and breath GW2 development, building, creating and maintaining traits and skills. How do you not know what you’re fixing, or how they’re going to be fixed or what they even do for that matter. I’m really glad to hear that the Mesmer “Is in a good spot” again, but the engineers as it’s been stated will have build diversity because of consistent nerfs. Fix what’s broken rather than playing triage nurse with the symptoms.

Excellent topic and set of questions.

Minor tweak: revise #13 revise to acknowledge ANet’s recently work to improve the FT and EG, and ask what plans ANet has to complete this work and bring the FT and EG up to be as valuable as other kits such as the Grenade Kit and Tool Kit. Or is that not their intention?

Here’s some possible additions:

• Where does ANet see multi-kit builds fitting into their vision of the Engineer? Have they considered encouraging multi-kit builds? If so, how might they do that?
• Recent changes mean elixirs are now the distinctive characteristic of Engineers, supported by Grenades or the Tool Kit. However the GW2s promotional videos for the Engineer profession ignore elixirs. Only the Grenade Kit is featured and the other videos (rifle turret, glue shot, jump shot) emphasise skills that have serious deficiencies in play and are therefore rarely used. When will ANet provide an introduction to new players that reflects the true nature of this profession?
• The promotional material for the Engineer profession used to feature Gadgets but there is no mention of gadgets in the current promotional material. Also, recent work on the engineer ignored Gadgets and they are rarely if ever used in play. Is ANet considering dropping Gadgets from the Engineer arsenal? If not, what plans are there to make gadgets viable?
• The Engineer profession is now dominated by elixir engineers. Is this how ANet see this profession? Or does ANet have another vision for the Engineer? If so, what is it?

^ I disagree with Engineers being dominated by Elixir Engineers. I have seen a good increase in the number of Engineers playing in WvW and PvP and almost none of them have been HGH Elixirs.
Most are somekind of Bombkit Hybrid Bunker or a wannabe 100Nades type build. In PvP there has been a surpising number of Turret triers.

So my question would be

1. Where is the evidence to actually justify the nerfs and changes the Engineers have recieved? You keep claiming you want to diversify Engineer builds but all you have done to accomplish this is systematically eliminate the most popular Engie builds every month. We even received a pre-nerf to Grenades because we were going to get Sigils in the future, a pre-nerf.
   In short WTF is your goal with this profession because it is becoming a waste of time having to constantly anticipate what build you will delete next and it is a waste of gold trying to spec for things tht will get removed if they are too good.

CriSPeH.8512:

^ I disagree with Engineers being dominated by Elixir Engineers. I have seen a good increase in the number of Engineers playing in WvW and PvP and almost none of them have been HGH Elixirs.
Most are somekind of Bombkit Hybrid Bunker or a wannabe 100Nades type build. In PvP there has been a surpising number of Turret triers.

So my question would be

1. Where is the evidence to actually justify the nerfs and changes the Engineers have recieved? You keep claiming you want to diversify Engineer builds but all you have done to accomplish this is systematically eliminate the most popular Engie builds every month. We even received a pre-nerf to Grenades because we were going to get Sigils in the future, a pre-nerf.
   In short WTF is your goal with this profession because it is becoming a waste of time having to constantly anticipate what build you will delete next and it is a waste of gold trying to spec for things tht will get removed if they are too good.

That’s a good point Crispeh. It doesn’t necessarily have an impact on all players considering sPvP and tPvP have free gear, but for the players in WvW and PvE these changes come at a cost and I can see where you are coming from.

I’m actually anticipating the upcoming changes to Healing turret and building a support build around it. I personally already see it as being much too powerful, considering the amount of blast finishers readily available to engineers, but it sounds fun.

what are you thinking for support? I currently run a cleric’s support build in high level fractals with healing turret and bomb heals. I use the turret, auto explode it for the water field area heal and I think these changes will be a nerf to it.

I just want to know what is Anet’s current goal for the Engineer, just want an answer to this simple question.

Kalan.9705:

Snip.

I read your feedback – I hope that counts for something.

One question
What the kitten are you smoking and where do I get it?

Nevets Crimsonwing.5271:

what are you thinking for support? I currently run a cleric’s support build in high level fractals with healing turret and bomb heals. I use the turret, auto explode it for the water field area heal and I think these changes will be a nerf to it.

I’m seriously hoping that it’s a true water field on the Healing Turret now. Something that can actually be useful in group play, not like the current implementation of the turrets water field which is an absolute joke.

The Op’s list is pretty much what I would ask, but as general questions I would add these:

1. What is your primary source for engineer design changes?

From the comments of devs I get this feeling it’s mostly theorycrafted, at best based on feedback from other professions but not from engineer play. Small details hint that most changes do not come from extensive personal experience on the engineer.
Picking up healing turrets as general practice, turrets not getting aggro in pve, turrets living long enough in big fights… these small examples all suggest that it’s not a turret user speaking, but a theorycrafter.
Almost all official comments on the engineer appear a bit out of touch with the actual player practice.
So what is your source?

2. What is your current design philosophy for the engineer?

It seems to shift somewhat each patch, as if you haven’t made up your mind yet.
Latest SotG suggests we carry the tool kit, so no more ‘mid-range’?
Last patch ruined Kit refinement, so no longer focusing on ‘versatile’ as that trait is now anything but versatile.

Nord.5360:

Kalan.9705:

Snip.

I read your feedback – I hope that counts for something.

It does and it counts for more that you post a reply. Truly though, it would great to see you go in with some pre-prepared tougher questions, and not give the devs a totally free ride when the spout total theory craft nonsense that has no bearing in reality e.g. turrets don’t take much damage in wvw.

Please more Jeremy Paxman style, and encourage your guests to do it.

Okok, I have a concern I’d like to add to the list.

For a few months now the engineer kit and weapons have been modified to do less direct damage and do more conditions, however, most kits and weapons still scale better with power than condition damage.

For the last two months the community has taken this to mean that the devs want us to go mixed direct/condi damage. The builds which excel at this kind of damage are HgH builds due to might stacking.

Other engineer builds during this time have been either changed to fit in with this direct/condi model or have been made inconvenient like multi-kit builds. This doesn’t remove other builds (except 100nades), it just makes them look like they aren’t as good as HgH builds due to every weapon now being a mix of direct/condi damage.

Now that a large amount of engineers (and FoTM players) have started playing HgH the devs seem to think that this build is too strong despite having its own weaknesses. It isn’t a burst build, nor is it a bunker build. Its just a mixed build which suffers the weaknesses other mixed builds suffer. If someone has a lot of condition removal we still have direct damage with it, if someone melts in conditions then they probably needed condition removal. We can’t take the damage other builds can because we aren’t bunkers (looking at naks flamethrower builds) yet we aren’t glass cannons so we don’t get killed too quickly.

We use boons to keep ourselves alive in fights, as per the design philosophy the devs have shown us. We can complement our medium armor (remember, we are mid to close range fighters) with protection and regen, and complement our reduced damage (due to being versatile) with might stacks and fury.

My question is essentially this, if HgH builds are bad or overpowered, how do the devs want us to play engineers? What is the new class philosophy we should be adhering to? If all the changes (nerfs/buffs) have been leading us here, why is it that the devs consider these builds negative for the proffession?

I know this is probably too much for grouch to ask a dev without overstepping some kind of boundary, but this is the situation a lot of the old (pre grenade nerf) engineers find ourselves in. Some of us just want to know why it is that when asked about grenades devs just sigh and start talking about taking them down again, or when asked about HgH it seems like the devs consider it overpowered.

why the class that designed the rifle has no long range damage capabilities with it.
why that commando troll class can’t just be reworked(IE remove all the ridiculous crap) and make that the engineer. Engineer seems designed to be heavy armor(which the game keeps reminding me that i can’t use it by having heavy armor wearing NPCS using pistols.)

If you fell down a mineshaft and broke your leg, I’d wave a mobile phone for calling help at you, but just out of your reach, and then hand you a sword.

If you were just about to be savagely bitten by a rabid dog, I’d taunt you with a sword, then hand you a mobile phone to fight it off with.

Both times I’d tell you “See how much more fun it is to have random skills that are totally unreliable!”

Is there any chance you might finally listen about random skills? Stop adding yet more random unreliable crap like the ridiculous random hidden cooldown new kit refinement. Also clean up the sins of frustrating random skills you’ve already committed, make those random skills do all options, or the best of the options.

To be fair, ANet reduced (not eliminating, but at least reducing) a little of the Eng randomness in the last patch. That they are still heavily attached to randomness as a core Eng mechanic sucks, as the only people that seem to be disadvantaged by the Eng’s random skills are the players who use them.

Zenguy.6421:

To be fair, ANet reduced (not eliminating, but at least reducing) a little of the Eng randomness in the last patch. That they are still heavily attached to randomness as a core Eng mechanic sucks, as the only people that seem to be disadvantaged by the Eng’s random skills are the players who use them.

I take your point but personally I’d consider another perspective. The kit refinement idiocy added a lot more damaging randomness than was removed in the U changes (so damaging that people don’t really consider multi-kit builds as options anymore). The U change was also removing i.m.o. the weakest of 3 potential debuffs and leaving the 2 stronger ones, so not so cool.

1. Why no test server? Exactly, what I’ve been asking for months now. definitely needed if only for the class changes on pve/pvp/wvw.
2. WvW doesn’t exist (uhm actually for engineers WvW build work well, it’s PVE that doesn’t exist to them for us. PVE is the most broken and convoluted mess I’ve seen in any game in a long time for this class. Why are they ignoring PVE so much in this class? Do they seriously just want us all to be HGH grenade engis?
3. Engineer downed skills are THE hands down WORST in the game. Seriously, a cord to pull the enemy closer so they can kill me faster and a bomb that doesn’t do anything but annoy the enemy is the worst one. Why haven’t they changed this yet. We have a cloaking device, multiple bullets, a flame thrower, and chemical warfare why aren’t there better options?
4. Engineer released with a 20 page bug and QoL list, after 6 months they have a 19 page list, will this ever become a priority? Exactly, completely agree, why hasn’t more been done. This class is either a soldier or an adventurer it cannot survive as both!
5. Turrets survive less than a second in WvW… What are you kidding turrets survive less then a second in EVERY situation. One of the many reasons why there was a 90% immunity to AOE skills in the elephant in the room was due to this problem and due to bosses outright taking every pet down in a second. And Increasing toughness and hitpoints won’t change the problems faced in PVE. Including lack of mobility.
6. The entire trait system for engis needs a complete rework, there’s too many defensive activations of boons, too many buffs that only occur occasionally, not enough burst dps building traits, and nothing that allows for permanent on while out of combat abilities that other classes have seals/signets for. (like 25% movement)
7. They claim they are going to improve the AI, we’ll see. Hopefully turrets won’t fire at obstructed or out of range enemies anymore or at the minions instead of the bosses.
8. Kit refinement is horrible design choice, it needs to be revamped and redone, the changes only last for two second and shouldn’t be so short for their benefits. It’s ridiculous to make a weak system weaker.
9. Engineers need a revamp on rocket boots to fly forward now backwards, they need to take out the self CC and rng on everything, they need to make it a more serious class and give it the respect it deserves, and they need a sniper option.
10. If HGH/might stack builds are going away, why is nothing coming in to replace it for engineer? Exactly we don’t need fewer options we need more. No more nerfs we’ve had a year of nerfs it’s now time for a new system.
11. Will there ever be a viable PVE build other then grenades, will you ever boost the damage output of the other kits to keep them on par with nades.
12. Engis need more versatility not less.
13. Flamethrower, Elixir Gun, just how bad do they have to get before something useful and non-fluff happens? Exactly they are as worthless as gadgets atm.
14. Gadgets… seriously where to start… Add traits that actually support them, overhaul all of them, add signet style passives to them etc etc Why can’t wearing rocketboots give the run speed of 25% while out of combat just like a signet?

All I’m asking for is that the description for the combat being equal ACTUALLY be true and ever present in their minds while balancing engineers in PVE so that we can finally and at long last get what we paid for. (no class left behind)

[/quote]

SIMPLE!

“What do you guys smoke when balancing the game?”

If devs accidentally break a skill for thief for example you hotfix it in a day. Why is it acceptible to leave engineer turrets broken so long?

We at SOACGaming are actually working with the Devs from anet on doing a show like this. We will have our Engineer podcaster ask engineer questions, and then get to follow up. It is coming soon, probably next month once I get my entire list together.

I would ask the Devs about whether they read the forums, mostly, and if not, suggest to them that they do. Also, yes, I’d ask what the hell is going on with Turrets – why they can’t keep them working, why they don’t fix them, why they stopped the changes where they did instead of implementing full scaling, etcetera.

After that, I’d probably just ask them if they actually consider any player suggestions; some of the suggestions I’ve seen on here to make the Engineer a more polished class are really cool.

Bas.7406:

We at SOACGaming are actually working with the Devs from anet on doing a show like this. We will have our Engineer podcaster ask engineer questions, and then get to follow up. It is coming soon, probably next month once I get my entire list together.

Glad to hear it, I hope it won’t be another puff piece!

Can you have your interviewer watch some Jeremy Paxman clips to get in the right mindset. I’d love to see real interview questions, not soft balls with no follow up and no challenge, particularly when devs make glaringly erroneous statements like “turrets are fine in wvw and pve because they don’t get focused” which begs a follow up like “turrets usually evaporate into a fine mist before finishing their placement animation, let alone doing anything useful, or are so removed from the battle that they have no relevant input into the battle. They are the opposite of fine.”

Along with “why did the pets and minions patch ignore turret problems, instead breaking their traits and putting them in the worst position yet?”

The devs coud replace the animation on our “rifle” so to speak. Serously the rifle dosn’t make any kitten sens on engineers I mean it’s have a long ranged ability which you character aim from the hip and it’s have the longest range from the “rifle” abilitys (serously wtf? a engineer shot like a pro sniper from the hip instead of aiming from eye level? Yeh seems legith)

Then you have the overcharged shot which is a somewhat fiting ability in my opinion for our “rifle” wiht a mid range.

Then we trow out the logich out from the windov and shot our “rifle” like a shotgun wiht a close range ability.

Then we shot a net out from the tube like it’s a grenade launcher and this is a long ranged cc ability.

Then we do a rocket jump like the solder from TF2 wiht it agan on a long range.

Coud the devs finaly make up there mind what they whant to make out from the engineer’s “rifle”? Serously the warrior youse the rifle as a normal person woud and thet rifle make sense it’s a rifle not a sniper/rocket launcher/shotgun hibrid all in one.

I know thet the dev’s woudn’t change the rifle abilitys becouse most of them are okay in my book except the 1 skill. Serously they nead to replace it wiht a normal eye level aiming animation and a new name and icon becouse so far it dosn’t make any sense.

Alos the kit’s and the turret’s. If we whant to youse a kit wiht it’s full potentional then we nead to heavyl talent into it other whise it’s going to be weak and or yousles. The turrets are even worse I mean WvWvW where all the fun happen we all know it (well those of us PvP players I can’t speak about the PvE players since I am not a PvE player) and the engineer well what I gathered meant to be thet class the spam the turrets all over the place and make the life of other classes a living hell. But the fact thet the turrets AI is as smart as a rock and there healt and armor is so love thet any normal player can one shot it wiht out paying any atention to it.

So my rant in a nut shell: Replace the 1 “rifle” skill animation wiht a normal animation thet have a eye level aiming becouse so far the skill and the animation wiht the fact thet it’s the longest ranged ability on our “rifle” is sticking out from the other skills like a sore thumb and fix the AI of the turrets and there healt or armor so we coud youse them in WvWvW wiht out the fear thet as soon we put it down it’s get destroyed becouse our oponent looked mean on it.

Why do you constantly nerf us?

-Can we get more reliable condition removal thats not tied to a HGH build, like letting elixer guns fumigate work on the engineer also

-Can we remove randomness from things like elixer X or S, give us the choice, as in, press once for this effect, twice for this effect

-If turrets are to be viable, they need
:; enough HP to survive three auto-attacks
:; not explode in aoe
:; 1s cooldown for placement if picked up, much like a kit (this should not affect either detonate OR the internal cooldown for firing rate
:; overcharging a turrent should cause the effect immediatly

-We self CC ourselves too much

Taerik.3405:

-Can we get more reliable condition removal thats not tied to a HGH build, like letting elixer guns fumigate work on the engineer also

-Can we remove randomness from things like elixer X or S, give us the choice, as in, press once for this effect, twice for this effect

-If turrets are to be viable, they need
:; enough HP to survive three auto-attacks
:; not explode in aoe
:; 1s cooldown for placement if picked up, much like a kit (this should not affect either detonate OR the internal cooldown for firing rate
:; overcharging a turrent should cause the effect immediatly

-We self CC ourselves too much

All really good questions, the conditional removal losses from medpack 4, FT and EG losing kit refinement removal have never been replaced with any useful functionality elsewhere. (healing turret is just not viable in many wvw, pve and even pvp situations – it’s quite a risk taking a skill that is often useless and now does half the healing and evaporates before the other half can trigger)

WAIT… I can do this. Because no devs ever read these things, I will step in. Put a sticky-note marked “Waggy Balanceright” over my name! Paint red the part of your screen in which my name appears! Get your thumbs-up fingers ready because I am your personal, ANet Developer for this thread!

Kalan.9705:

1. Why no test server? It’s proved a good idea on every other MMO for the last 17years.

Because GW2 wasn’t ready 08/28/2012. Also, we don’t know what we’re doing.

Kalan.9705:

1. You refer to s/t-PvP as being THE PVP like WVW doesn’t exist, and most balance decisions seem to have extremely poor WvW viability. Yet WvW is a far more successful game mode, and is far more likely to generate gems because WvW is (unfortunately) grind based, isn’t it time to add a WvW class balance team and separate skill balances?

We don’t comprehend the concept of balancing around PvP.

• People think this is either a bad thing outright or too difficult to implement: balancing an entire MMO around PvP. It really isnt. Balancing a game around PvP shouldn’t be that difficult or problematic so long as PvE at higher levels resembled a PvP environment (aggressive enemies with short attack intervals, evasion skills, control skills, gap-closers and skill chains in the proper amounts).

Kalan.9705:

1. Elementalist downed skills as released were really subpar but were fixed in a few weeks, why are engineer downed skills still extremely subpar after 6months?

Engineer downed skills are not bad.

• I’m serious about this one.

Kalan.9705:

1. Engineer released with a 20 page bug and QoL list, after 6 months they have a 19 page list, will this ever become a priority?

No, but LOOK AT ALL OF THIS LIVING STORY AND TOWN CLOTHING, GUYS.

Kalan.9705:

1. Turrets survive less than a second in WvW, or are out of battle range and therefore useless, will you consider making turrets aoe immune?

No.

• Zerg fights/assaulting towers are a terrible place for minions in general and if you’re trying to use them there, you’re using them improperly. Turrets are bad, but not because they can’t help you take down a keep or fight 5 people at once. They are, however, practical for defining battle lines during small-scale skirmishes (3v3, 5v5, ect).

Kalan.9705:

1. There are 60 points spending to get all turret traits, which are a mess and scattered illogically through the trees, all 60points of spend on all turrets gives less impact to the gameplay than many 5point passives let alone 10pointers.

We’ll look into re-organizing most turret traits into the Tools trait line if we aren’t too busy with our LIVING STORY. Also, we’re somehow afraid of some probably non-existent Turret-based build that is really powerful—I swear, guys, it is.

Kalan.9705:

1. Minions including turrets are painfully dumb, any upgrades coming to their artificial intelligence to actually include any intelligence e.g. stopping them futilely shooting at some pet that left the area several minutes ago?

No, because LIVING STORY, GUYYYYS.

• It would be nice to have them just attack your current target.

Kalan.9705:

1. The kit refinement changes were hated by the engineer community because it made all multi-kit builds worthless not just 100nades, will the kit refinement mistake be learnt from and replaced?

We don’t learn from our mistakes.

• That said, the current effects are pretty good at the core. A lot of them just need to have their durations increased to varying degrees and all of them need to be put on separate cool-downs.

Kalan.9705:

1. Engineer is supposed to have options to control the distance of battle as the only ‘mid range’ class, yet it is trying to do it with basically just swiftness which is mostly worthless in battle (jump shot is slower than running etc). Will we see working gap opener/closers on aspects of the engineer that are actually workable?

W-we’re… looking into it.

• Several skills could easily be converted into gap-closers
  • Rocket Kick – extend range to 600 and add a leap finisher
  • Super Speed – this skill is already almost a gap finisher if you use it that way, but it could be adapted to a charge or something and given a shorter cool-down
  • Jump Shot – give it a more direct leap animation (i.e. that of Savage Leap)
  • Rocket (Rocket Turret toolbelt skill) – because JET PACKS and why not

Kalan.9705:

1. If HGH/might stack builds are going away, why is nothing coming in to replace it for engineer?

We feel that Engineer would be in a good place after removing the might-stacking capabilities of HGH.

• To be honest, 25 stacks of anything is excessive from a pvp stand-point. The capacity to stack any stackable condition or boon should have probably been hard-capped at 15—but, then again, that would imply that ANet knew anything about balancing a game around pvp.

Kalan.9705:

1. If HGH/might stack builds are going away, and 100nades was entirely deleted from the game, why are so many of the other (many stronger) Apex builds from other classes that have been around for far longer being left untouched?

• You apparently don’t know the capacity of Static Discharge. Grenades are stupid good just by themselves. HGH alone does not necessarily make the HGH build—gear stats and the entire Elixir trait line do. There are quite a few interesting ways to play the Engineer class effectively that aren’t set on HGH Mode. Also, 100nades was broken. People who played that build regularly were worse than Heartseeker-spam Thieves.

Kalan.9705:

1. Engineer has vastly less builds now than months ago, yet none of the “diversifying engineer builds” measures are anything but thinly veiled nerfs doing nothing
   worthwhile to open any new builds? What will happen to open some new builds up?

• Despite this, Engineer still arguably remains the class with the most flexible combat options in GW2. They also did say in their last State of the Game how they wanted to bring other skills up to par with some of our strongest options at the moment rather than going the nerf route. I’m not defending them—I have as little faith in ANet as you do right now—I’m just saying that the Engineer has a lot of options, they’re just more or less balanced. It looks bad because the most often used builds aren’t balanced, but brain-dead, button-mashing rotation-machines because humans always look for the path of least resistance, and ANet’s skill at balancing only worsens the situation.
• However, with the power of hind-sight, it is nice to look into the Engineer’s past and analyze some of the builds that people used back then and the links between them (because we all know that, with changes like Kit Refinement floating about in our past, ANet will stretch themselves beyond the lengths of idiocy in order to nerf 1 thing with little thought put into the possible repercussions of their actions), and then compare those builds to those of the current pvp meta-game. I will agree with you, though, that Engineers had more options than they do now several months ago.

Kalan.9705:

1. Flamethrower, Elixir Gun, just how bad do they have to get before something useful and non-fluff happens?

We think that EG and FT are in a good place right now.

• EG is actually pretty well-off, but FT could use some damage compression for its auto-attack and more combo options.

Kalan.9705:

1. Gadgets… seriously where to start… Add traits that actually support them, overhaul all of them, add signet style passives to them etc etc

Yeah, gadgets are bad.

I shouldn’t have done this while tired and half-drunk. Especially not after having updated my own theory-crafting threads. Feel free to take out your question my words at leisure. I’m sure some parts are pretty flawed.

Swagg.9236:

WAIT… I can do this. Because no devs ever read these things, I will step in. Put a sticky-note marked “Waggy Balanceright” over my name! Paint red the part of your screen in which my name appears! Get your thumbs-up fingers ready because I am your personal, ANet Developer for this thread!

Lol’ed at this part

Kalan.9705:

Lol’ed at this part

I’m glad you enjoyed it because what follows gives me a migraine reading over it again, haha. I still stand by most of it. I will say that I really like your original list of questions. They strike at serious points of contention regarding the Engineer class and GW2 in general, and I don’t really have anything to add (except for a bump) beyond what you’ve already set up there.

why does every class but engineer get signets

Where’s our Scope fix?

Where’s our trait merging? You said it’d be coming, instead you gave an example for warriors.. and that was all that went through to live.

Q: How do you reconcile your design philosophy of making the engineer a versatile and flexible combatant with the engineer talent trees that force deep specialization to even achieve a modicum of effectiveness in an exceptionally limited and inflexible playstyle?

Lightsbane.9012:

why does every class but engineer get signets

^This.

I get that Signet’s are a form of magic and Engineers don’t use magic, but as many of us have suggested—give Gadgets a passive buff and active use. This would bring Gadgets up to a level where people would use them and would give us static stat boosts to bring us up to par with every other class since they all have access to Signets.

Signets for engineers can be implants. We already have a trait called “Adrenal Implant” which gives faster endurance regen.

Genesis.8572:

Q: How do you reconcile your design philosophy of making the engineer a versatile and flexible combatant with the engineer talent trees that force deep specialization to even achieve a modicum of effectiveness in an exceptionally limited and inflexible playstyle?

Indeed. Also, can we get a comprehensive design vision statement for engineer, that is actually relevant to the profession, and is consistently worked towards.

Grackleflint.4956:

I get that Signet’s are a form of magic and Engineers don’t use magic, but as many of us have suggested—give Gadgets a passive buff and active use. This would bring Gadgets up to a level where people would use them and would give us static stat boosts to bring us up to par with every other class since they all have access to Signets.

This is a great idea and would actually get engineers to even consider taking gadgets.

Kalan.9705:

Genesis.8572:

Q: How do you reconcile your design philosophy of making the engineer a versatile and flexible combatant with the engineer talent trees that force deep specialization to even achieve a modicum of effectiveness in an exceptionally limited and inflexible playstyle?

Indeed. Also, can we get a comprehensive design vision statement for engineer, that is actually relevant to the profession, and is consistently worked towards.

Right, what is the core directive that drives the engineer design?

With the supposed flexibility, why is it that most high-level PvPers are in about 2-3 builds?

How many Engies are STILL playing as a percentage of the total population, can we get this as total aggregate hours played by each class, per month since August?

What abilities, conditions, and unique functionality are you trying to highlight for our profession? Is fire part of it? If so, why do you keep nerfing our access to it?

Why are your condition mechanics the same as other games were years ago even after theirs were shown not to work well?

Why do you keep adding HP to mobs and bosses in dungeons without balancing it with armor increases, creating a prejudice against condition builds and pressuring the general population to roll berserker stats?

What percentage of the total GW2 population uses at least one piece of berserker gear?

In hours played again, how many pieces of zerker gear are equipped as a percentage of all gear nomenclature?

If turrets are not mobile, why do they have such low survival attributes? For weapon emplacements, should they not have more defense and be more on par with siege weapons instead of minions or elementals?

How many hours monthly are played in each profession by ANet employees? I would prefer actual data to anecdotal accounts of “Mark, that guy in accounting who has an Engie, I think…”

Are there any plans in the future for profession specific mechanics in WvW, since Warrior banners can buff inanimate objects, mesmers can portal into towers and what not, and now there is an anti-stealth trap? Any chance it would be siege related?

lunyboy.8672:

How many Engies are STILL playing as a percentage of the total population, can we get this as total aggregate hours played by each class, per month since August?

What abilities, conditions, and unique functionality are you trying to highlight for our profession? Is fire part of it? If so, why do you keep nerfing our access to it?

Why are your condition mechanics the same as other games were years ago even after theirs were shown not to work well?

If turrets are not mobile, why do they have such low survival attributes? For weapon emplacements, should they not have more defense and be more on par with siege weapons instead of minions or elementals?

How many hours monthly are played in each profession by ANet employees? I would prefer actual data to anecdotal accounts of “Mark, that guy in accounting who has an Engie, I think…”

Are there any plans in the future for profession specific mechanics in WvW, since Warrior banners can buff inanimate objects, mesmers can portal into towers and what not, and now there is an anti-stealth trap? Any chance it would be siege related?

Funny point about condition mechanics, why the hell have EQ1 style DoTs, haven’t we learned anything since last century?

Why do you keep nerfing engineers left and right when not only are they under powered but their skills are buggier than an ant kill? You nerf grenades into mediocrity before you even tried to fix turrets then your fix broke everything and then after the “fix” they are still 99% worthless.

>Have you actually played an engineer before you call code ready?
>Why not allow grenades to be thrown at a button press when something is targeted?
>Why not allow our turrets to be used under water(dont give me this its unreal BS, how does a ranger lion breath under 500 feet of water?)?
>Why not allow turrets to be mobile(Treaded/Tracked Turrets like tank treads or maybe a little golem carries them) or picked up into the toolbelt for redeploy.
4)Make turrets survivable. If nothing else immune to AOE.