Guild Wars 2

So I decided to put together a personal list of traits that seem like they shouldn’t exist and what I think we can do the change them. Their right of existing comes down to usefulness. We can all agree traits like Incendiary Powder are great, and everyone uses it at some point, but what about those that make you scratch your head while you say, “Wut?”

So without further adieu

Explosives
Acidic Elixirs. What’s up with this skill? It does about 500 damage on ONLY on Toss Elixirs. With Toss Elixirs being party-wide buffs, you are hardly going to see any effect from this as you’ll never use it on an enemy other than when you are in melee range.
Suggested Change: Rename this skill to Explosive Canisters and have it proc near you when you use a Utility Elixir. Since you can literally hear the bottle break when you use a regular Elixir, making all use of Elixirs be effected by this trait and not just to toss skills would give more incentive to use this.
Exploit Weakness. Another worthy skill of being changed. 5 second cripple on a 15 second recast?
Suggested Change: Lower it to a 10 second recast.
Enhance Performance. 3 Stacks of might when we use our Healing Skill, for a master trait?
Suggested Change: 5 Stacks of might is much better and would more enticing.
Autodefense Bomb Dispender I don’t know what to say about this skill. It’s just plain bad and should feel bad. A 60 second recast on a smoke bomb? This one should just be scrapped or severely changed. But, since this isn’t a trait idea list, I’ll just go ahead and try to salvage this the best I can.
Suggested Change: Lower recast to 30 seconds. Change the smoke bomb effect to a Big Ole Bomb effect. (Has to be instant as well) The reason being is I don’t go 30 into explosives to lay down some smoke, I go 30 into explosives for well, Explosions. Following the theme of the tree and the talent, it would provide a needed defensive cooldown while laying down the hurt.

Firearms
Knee Shot I’m not sure what the point of this skill is supposed to accomplish. Net Shot does a 2 second immobilize, so you’re only getting a 3 second cripple on that, and Glue Shot would be the only skill you could really get it’s full effect on since it comes with a 1 second cripple.
Suggested Change: Change to a 50% chance to cripple for 2 seconds on a critical hit. 5 second recast.
Sitting Duck It’s not that bad, but it’s just not good either.
Suggested Change: 5% damage increase on Stunned, Immobilized, or Knockdowned foes.
Coated Bullets I don’t have much of a problem with the skill on it’s own, but why does it take 30 into a tree to get bullets to pierce when Rifle does that naturally? No, I’m not saying let’s lower the tree requirement for it, but just to change the flavor of this skill while improving the DPS of the pistol.
Suggested Change: Rename: Homing Shots. Pistol attacks bounce.

Inventions
Protective Shield Not much to say here. Protection doesn’t last very long and it’s recast is pretty bad.
Suggested ChangeIncrease duration of Protection to 10 seconds.
Cloaking Device Ugh. I hate talking about this trait. When immobolized, we become invisible. Does anyone else see nothing wrong with this? You are IMMOBILIZED. That means the enemy knows exactly where you are going to pop up. As such, just lay down the hurt exactly where we turned invisible. This skill should truly not exist.
Suggested Change: When hit with a critical hit, you become invisible for 3 seconds. 30 second recast. Ok, not the best of recast, but at least we get to move. It’s an Adept trait anyway, so it can’t be too powerful.
Reinforced Shield This isn’t a bad skill at all, I just have two things to add.
Suggested Change: This skill now activates with the Tool Kit, and using Shield skills now adds protection for 4 seconds after activation.

Alchemy
Acidic Coating I REALLY don’t like this trait. Why on only melee attacks? Why only a 50% uptime? WHY ONLY A 20% CHANCE? Everything about this skill just urks me. I guess it’s just going to be used as a healing debuff for melee enemies, but it just really falls short of being useful.
Suggested Change: Increase to a 30% chance on damage. Not just melee damage either.
HGH Decent skill, just not up to par for a Grandmaster trait.
Suggested Change: Increase to 2 stacks, MAYBE 3.
Automated Response Again, pretty decent when it works, but it’s just not quite there.
Suggested Change: Removes all non-damaging conditions on you already. Weakness/Vulnerability/Immobilize/Cripple/Chill/ect gone. If it removed damaging conditions, Condition builds could never kill you.

Tools
Always Prepared I’m not sure what the point of this trait is. Maybe a joke trait, I will never know. First off, allies can’t use the gun you just dropped. Secondly, you have to BE DOWNED for this trait to work, which could kill you more than likely. So, I suggested a complete scrap, or change it to a “On reviving a downed player”-type skill since we don’t have one.
Suggested Change: When reviving an ally, drop 3 Bandages around you. 10 second recast. Could also drop a Smoke Bomb on reviving, but I prefer not changing traits too much.
Packaged StimulantsNot very helpful for a Master trait. You can now “throw” packages from the Med Kit. I don’t see a use for it, but maybe I’m just being shortsighted.
Suggested Change: Med Kit abilities now have a 50% chance to drop an extra package. Great change overall. Increases healing and support capabilities of the kit.
Armor Mods Look, retaliation is a great boon, and we don’t have much of it in our boon list. I just don’t see a 3 second retaliation on a 25 second recast being of more use than an increased 50% endurance regen. We only have a 0.12% uptime on this trait.
Suggested Change: Lower recast around 10 seconds. I would prefer is a 5 second recast as it’s a Grandmaster trait, but I think that would be too powerful. Although, 5 wouldn’t be unheard of as Adrenal Implant could be the “defensive” trait and Armor Mods could be the “offensive” one. I could live with 10 seconds if the retaliation was 4 seconds. 4 seconds allow us to synergize better with the alchemy tree to improve the duration of it.

So thoughts/ideas?

Considering stealth doesnt make you immune to damage, it doesnt actaully stop ANY damage from hitting you. They don’t even need to wait for you to unstealth. They can just spam attacks on your location.

Yeah, terrible trait.
Acidic coating. yeap. very poor.

H.G.H is actually very good and fitting for its position. 6-7 stacks of might permanently from it with ease. more if you rune/gear/trait for +might duration.

I’m surprised you missed out Transmute and Shrapnel:

Transmute- 3%? Seriously… that is pathetic and it might as well not exist.

Just make it 25%, and give it a 15s ICD.

Shrapnel- 6%? Again… negligible and pathetic. I understand that it is not on crit, but even 0 precision means that you are going to get incendiary powder to trigger around the same amount of time, for a lot more damage.

I’d suggest beefing it up. But in a way, that doesn’t disproportionately affect grenades. So, maybe 2 stacks of bleeding for 7 seconds, on a 5 second timer with a 25% trigger chance. Making it similar, but not identical to incendiary powder. Plus remember, incendiary powder is ALL crits, while this is just explosives. Needs big big buffs.

I didn’t go over minor traits on purpose. I find Shrapnel -fairly- useful on a Grenade spam build, but I do agree that it could juiced up to 10% on explosions. The biggest draw of the trait for me is that it does not need to be critically hit to activate. It’s just a flat 6% chance with three grenades. (Grenadier build of course)

I like your Transmute idea. In use, your new Transmute idea would be three condition removals over a minute. Which is a great skill.

Knee Shot is already awesome, it just needs fixed so it works with all our nets. I actually think you aren’t giving any of the crippling traits enough credit.

Acidic Elixirs and Acidic Coating are terrible. The first would be useful if they caused burning or blindness or something (acid in the eyes!). I usually throw elixirs to help the guys with melee on them, so a blind would be a huge help. Acidic Coating is just god-awful.

Packaged Stimulants and Power Wrench belong in the Inventions line, maybe swap them with Stabilized Armor and Elite Supplies. Tools is just a mess in general, it’s got a couple cool things like the Adrenaline traits but it just has so little focus otherwise.

Also, a trait that reduces turret cooldowns would be very nice.

I disagree on Cloaking Device. I never play without this trait— both in PvE and PvP. It has saved my hide more times than I can count, and only very rarely do enemies actually stop to attack you where you are immobilized, the only time you ever get hit is when they were already up close to you when they immobilize you, which does not happen that often.

Even if they do start hitting you when immobilized, you can pop Elixir S without breaking your stealth and become immune to damage. You can also chain Cloaking Device with the toolbelt of Elixir S and confuse your enemy even more when you do not reappear where they imobilized you.

I would enjoy it if the stealth activated on critical hits also, but don’t take away it’s existing functionality.

For PVE sure, but PVP is an entirely different game.

Cloaking Device is horrible. You cannot move, so people who know what just happened will figure out where to aim that 100 Blades/Jump Shot/Dragon’s Tooth. To me, it’s like putting on a blindfold to smack a Pinata that can’t move. You said you can pop Elixir S and just be immune to damage. If you were without this trait, couldn’t you just do the same exact thing?

I know what Cloaking Device looks like. If I’m fighting against another Engineer and I pop my Net Shot and he vanishes. I just Jump Shot/Blunderbuss right where I was already aiming. Sure, like you said you could POSSIBLY chain invisible, or you can do the exact opposite and turn into a giant target.

Having an ability that can be countered by people paying attention is not uncommon. The entire Mesmer class can be deconstructed by people who pay attention to which copy is moving like a player.
I don’t expect the cloaking device to be a fool-proof clutch that allows me to escape whenever I want. I’m not a Thief.

Your suggested change to the cloaking device would make it far too overpowered— even if it was a 1 second cloak. Any build with a multi-hit attack that stacks precision would be completely and utterly trumped by the engineer (Thief, Ranger, Warrior) Soon as they crit, they lose target, skill goes on cooldown.
Remeber that Cloaking device has no cooldown— this would happen on EVERY single crit. You would be stealthed more often than a Theif using this trait.

Not only that, but when you’re fighting in a pitched battle it is clear when you get immobilized, so you can stop attacking and keep your cloak. It’s not so clear when you take a critical hit, you’ll break your own cloak most of the time.

I attached a 30 second cooldown to my suggested trait. And skills don’t stop firing once you broken target. For only 3 seconds of invisibility. An ideal of only 10% upkeep time over a fight.

You break your own Stealth all the time with Cloaking Device as is, I don’t see your point. Can you tell when an Elementalist use Signet of Stone? Can you tell me when a Necromancer uses Dark Pact?

Auto attack breaks stealth from cloaking device almost every time. If it didn’t do this, i could see it being a decent pve skill. Although a change to make it more viable for pvp would be welcome.

Try rocket boots with cloaking device, let them waste all of their skill while you laugh 900 range away.

Aristio.2784:

Cloaking Device is horrible.

No, it is pretty good. Then again, I have yet to see a single post from you on a single ability or trait about this profession, in which you weren’t bashing it.

For example

Try rocket boots with cloaking device, let them waste all of their skill while you laugh 900 range away.

Works great.

Honestly, why do you play the class if you hate it so much that you never have a good thing to say about any aspect of it.

Did I say I hate the class? I’m sorry, it must be under all my post on giving others some advice on builds, my post on how I love nearly every aspect of the class, and numerous idea post on how to improve the class. I say I don’t like some traits like Acidic Coating, Acidic Elixirs, Always Prepared; and now I hate the class and should stop playing it?

…Wut?

Are there things I don’t like? What do you think this thread is about.
Do I want to change every aspect of Engineer into some OP god class that only fits my needs? I don’t think so.
Is Cloaking Device weak? I think so.

I don’t like Rocket Boots either. Blink/Shadowstep/Lightning Flash-type ability should be in it’s place. Something like:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/New-utility-idea-teleporter/first#post214755

Why? Because Rocket Boots knocks you down and could probably send you off a cliff or into a wall two meters behind you, thus is unreliable as a means of escape.

Aristio.2784:

Did I say I hate the class? I’m sorry, it must be under all my post on giving others some advice on builds, my post on how I love nearly every aspect of the class, and numerous idea post on how to improve the class. I say I don’t like some traits like Acidic Coating, Acidic Elixirs, Always Prepared; and now I hate the class and should stop playing it?

…Wut?

Are there things I don’t like? What do you think this thread is about.
Do I want to change every aspect of Engineer into some OP god class that only fits my needs? I don’t think so.
Is Cloaking Device weak? I think so.

I don’t like Rocket Boots either. Blink/Shadowstep/Lightning Flash-type ability should be in it’s place. Something like:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/New-utility-idea-teleporter/first#post214755

Why? Because Rocket Boots knocks you down and could probably send you off a cliff or into a wall two meters behind you, thus is unreliable as a means of escape.

Exactly my point. You seem to assume everything about that class that you dislike should be changed, regardless of how it effects anyone else who may like the trait, ability, or skill.

It would be one thing if you opened it up for debate, but all you do is tell anyone who disagrees with you, how wrong they are. And regardless of how many posters point out they like an ability that you dislike, you bash them and it.

Example: Cloaking device. You do not point out that you simply dislike it, you make a flat claim that the ability is bad. When another poster explains why they like it and how they use it, you simply reply again that the ability sucks.

A poster counters to your claim that it is bad, and you absolutely dismiss his example of a good use for it, and very literally reply by exclaiming “it is horrible” as your reply.

Cloaking Device is horrible. You cannot move, so people who know what just happened will figure out where to aim that 100 Blades/Jump Shot/Dragon’s Tooth. To me, it’s like putting on a blindfold to smack a Pinata that can’t move. You said you can pop Elixir S and just be immune to damage. If you were without this trait, couldn’t you just do the same exact thing?

I know what Cloaking Device looks like. If I’m fighting against another Engineer and I pop my Net Shot and he vanishes. I just Jump Shot/Blunderbuss right where I was already aiming. Sure, like you said you could POSSIBLY chain invisible, or you can do the exact opposite and turn into a giant target.

If you want to stick on the very first sentence of my argument, sure. I gave my reasoning why it’s bad though and it seems you’re purposely ignoring that.

Edit: Also, when did I bash any posters, at all?

You mean the way you ignored the explanation about how you can move 900 and still be cloaked? There are several ways to move and stay cloaked.

You go on to continue to “claim” you cannot move directly after it was explained to you, one simple way to do so.

I again, gave my reasoning why Rocket Boots is unreliable as a Utility Skill. One ankle high ledge will stop you a few feet from your starting position if you aren’t careful.

Edit: I’m also whole-heartedly laughing at the person who +1 everyone’s post, BUT mine. LOL. Classic. That’ll teach me.

Ashes.6418:

Having an ability that can be countered by people paying attention is not uncommon. The entire Mesmer class can be deconstructed by people who pay attention to which copy is moving like a player.
I don’t expect the cloaking device to be a fool-proof clutch that allows me to escape whenever I want. I’m not a Thief.

Your suggested change to the cloaking device would make it far too overpowered— even if it was a 1 second cloak. Any build with a multi-hit attack that stacks precision would be completely and utterly trumped by the engineer (Thief, Ranger, Warrior) Soon as they crit, they lose target, skill goes on cooldown.
Remeber that Cloaking device has no cooldown— this would happen on EVERY single crit. You would be stealthed more often than a Theif using this trait.

Not only that, but when you’re fighting in a pitched battle it is clear when you get immobilized, so you can stop attacking and keep your cloak. It’s not so clear when you take a critical hit, you’ll break your own cloak most of the time.

Its an ability that Only works vs players that don’t know how stealth works.

Aristio.2784:

For PVE sure, but PVP is an entirely different game.

Cloaking Device is horrible. You cannot move, so people who know what just happened will figure out where to aim that 100 Blades/Jump Shot/Dragon’s Tooth. To me, it’s like putting on a blindfold to smack a Pinata that can’t move. You said you can pop Elixir S and just be immune to damage. If you were without this trait, couldn’t you just do the same exact thing?

I know what Cloaking Device looks like. If I’m fighting against another Engineer and I pop my Net Shot and he vanishes. I just Jump Shot/Blunderbuss right where I was already aiming. Sure, like you said you could POSSIBLY chain invisible, or you can do the exact opposite and turn into a giant target.

Wrong. I use cloaking device with Rocket Boots. Mind f’s my enemies everytime. I had a warrior circling around the area for 5 secs before he realized I long out of that area. I /wave him. Secondly, Rocket Boots is amazing in everywhere its good for cc, chasing or escaping, depending on how exactly the person utilizes it. Plus, the tool skill it offers is amazing for pistols engineers, which I happen to use as well and have a significant amount of wins under my belt in tournament.

Synergy is the key to most skills and traits. Some synergies aren’t immediately noticeable (rocket boots while Cloaking Device procs? I didn’t think about that!). Some are blatantly obvious. (Traiting 10 points into Explosives to give your Precision condition build yet another condition to add to your repertoir).

Before you bash a single skill or trait, you need to ask if any skills work well with it. Some skills are horrible by themselves, but if you put them with others, their effectiveness is multiplied tenfold.

Don’t think to yourself, “This trait sucks. Why is it here?” Think to yourself, “This trait sucks by itself. Is there anything that works well with it?” If not, then you can rant and rave to the forums.

Also, you can drop smoke bomb and use rocket boots as a blast finisher to AoE invis your friends. In certain situations you can set it up on the enemy and all they see is the invisibility activate and look for you in that area, when your actual at a 900 range from them.

But yeah, its getting old hat, reading post after post from the same few people who want to claim something needs a change, just to see them essentially tell the rest of us to shove off when we attempt to explain that a lot of us like it and use it.

Most of the things I mentioned are just minor upgrades. A few lower timers and an additional effect added.

Can you give me a situation where Acidic Coating, Always Prepared, Armor Mods, or Packaged Stimulants is worth taking or can work well with other traits? Because those are the ones I’m mainly asking to be changed. All the other suggestions are just small.

Cloaking device also remove Ranger’s Entangle elite without using any immobilize breaker skill or destroying them.

Why is my reply button always gone when I want to quote someone?

Anyhow, MeVe.2856, that’s clearly a bug and you should report it.

Aristio.2784:

Most of the things I mentioned are just minor upgrades. A few lower timers and an additional effect added.

Can you give me a situation where Acidic Coating, Always Prepared, Armor Mods, or Packaged Stimulants is worth taking or can work well with other traits? Because those are the ones I’m mainly asking to be changed. All the other suggestions are just small.

Always prepared drops bandages and then in addition either an elixir gun or FT. You do not have to like it, but dropping bandages is a dang handy thing. Particularly if someone takes hits in WvW trying to get to you and need the heals. Works well in general for a support build as well, or at least I think so.

Acid coating, I find no value in it for myself, but I don’t know if anyone uses it.

Armor mods, for easy damage. Perhaps the cool down needs looked into, to see if it could be lowered. Kind of surprised I have to explain the benefits of of retaliation up 7% of the time. That is extended with buff duration gear as well.

As far as package stimulants, I cannot believe I actually need to explain to you the benefit of being able to place your med packs where you want. In a dungeon I can set 3500 worth of healing and a condition remover at my buddies feet, without having to run through the AoE to set it there. this is a very handy ability for a very supportive build.

I don’t know why anyone hasn’t mentioned this, but armour mods is objectively inferior to a warrior version of it.

Warriors have a trait, that is also grandmaster, that gives them 5 seconds, every 15 seconds. That is some great uptime.

Engineers have a trait, that is grandmaster, that gives them 3 seconds, every 25 seconds. That isn’t so great.

Now, I don’t know about you, but I believe that the warrior isn’t necessarily more deserving of that greater uptime. Why? Well they have a lot higher base toughness, and a lot lot higher base health.

So really, you shouldn’t even be defending it, it should be obvious that this is simply an overlooked, badly designed skill from the days of them trying to change how it works during the betas. Your life ISNT on the line if you don’t defend arenanets every action, and there is no shame in pointing out things that plain suck and don’t work.

And the other traits, “acid coating”, you don’t value it, you don’t know anyone who values it. Maybe it does indeed suck? If a trait isn’t worth slotting, then that trait needs to change.

Always prepared is I’m afraid a bit of a bad one. I don’t know of anyone who actively takes an on ‘on downed’, ability, let alone this one because it has a few bandages. The only possible way I could see this being useful, is if it was somehow redesigned into an ‘on revive’, so that you somehow help the people you are reviving. And honestly, while bandages are nice, the opportunity cost of spending 10 out of your 70 traits, for a trait that doesn’t help you, and only happens when you are downed, is pretty dang high.

The answer, is that it needs a redesign, or a pretty big buff. The RNG element is just hilarious as well, who thought that was a good idea? Drop one or drop both. And who would ever pick it up? They likely haven’t used it if they don’t have an engineer alt, they will lose stats, lose sigils and any trait benefits, as they cannot possibly trait for something like ‘fireforged trigger’, so in reality, no one should ever want to pick up that from the floor, ever.

You do not have to pretend its perfect, but its pretty clear that these traits are awful, and need changes.

Packaged stimulants I have no place for ever, but I see its value.