Guild Wars 2

Grenadier is, arguably, our most important trait. Without it we are worthless in every game mode, as grenades are central to all our most effective builds.

The filter will not let me use words that accurately describe how I feel right now. I am not happy with you right now A-net, not even close to anything resembling happiness.

Really? So you’re saying Engineers are worthless without an objectively bugged trait that is clearly ruining some aspects of the game? This very thread is an insult to competent Engineer players.

WhiteCrow.5310:

Really? So you’re saying Engineers are worthless without an objectively bugged trait that is clearly ruining some aspects of the game? This very thread is an insult to competent Engineer players.

I still don’t know what was bugged about it, the dev post never clarified. Are they referring to how overpowered Grenade barrage was? How did grenadier cause that?

Engineer is my favorite class, it always has been, and grenades have always been the backbone of our DPS and the recent major change to traits only made it more so. And the “grenadier” trait was the most important of those traits. Go hit stuff with grenades now, our DPS is much lower.

Guess I’ll have to play Thief until they give back out main trait, which will be sometime after HoT comes out probably.

With that trait set you could get 13 grenades on barrage

Other than the fact that I deal plenty of damage using grenades without grenadier; if I were to agree with you, this indicates a much bigger problem.

If a trait to buff grenades is the one thing keeping engies viable, that means we only have one worthwhile skill. Which means, rather than complain about the nerf to grenadier, perhaps we should be asking for buffs to the alternatives. If grenades are the backbone of every good build, that’s a serious design flaw, and the other kits should be brought up to par. (I’m looking at you, bomb kit. Get some buffs already!)

The New grenadier wasn’t supposed to be a DPS increase at all, just something to make it easier to land them. They made the 50% increase that comes with the extra grenade baseline, so you don’t even need the trait for grenade DPS. That’s why it was downgraded from Grandmaster to Adept.

Anyway, since you asked, the bug was causing grenades to MULTIPLY when piercing a target. Effectively, doubling the amount of hits you got with a throw at the proper angle. 14 explosions out of grenade barrage. Normal throws got extra hits too though.

Gern.2978:

WhiteCrow.5310:

Really? So you’re saying Engineers are worthless without an objectively bugged trait that is clearly ruining some aspects of the game? This very thread is an insult to competent Engineer players.

I still don’t know what was bugged about it, the dev post never clarified. Are they referring to how overpowered Grenade barrage was? How did grenadier cause that?

Engineer is my favorite class, it always has been, and grenades have always been the backbone of our DPS and the recent major change to traits only made it more so. And the “grenadier” trait was the most important of those traits. Go hit stuff with grenades now, our DPS is much lower.

I definitely agree with you, and again, their communication is utterly inept at pinpointing exactly what was wrong and causing Grenade Barrage to behave the way it was. All we can guess at is that the grenades themselves were piercing targets for damage, exploding for damage, and hitting multiple times where it shouldn’t have. It’s gross speculation, but I know how important the Trait is. Grenades are nearly worthless without it, but there are viable builds that can still perform. I just think a sweeping statement like the entire class is worthless is a bit much.

Arioso.8519:

Other than the fact that I deal plenty of damage using grenades without grenadier; if I were to agree with you, this indicates a much bigger problem.

If a trait to buff grenades is the one thing keeping engies viable, that means we only have one worthwhile skill. Which means, rather than complain about the nerf to grenadier, perhaps we should be asking for buffs to the alternatives. If grenades are the backbone of every good build, that’s a serious design flaw, and the other kits should be brought up to par. (I’m looking at you, bomb kit. Get some buffs already!)

The New grenadier wasn’t supposed to be a DPS increase at all, just something to make it easier to land them. They made the 50% increase that comes with the extra grenade baseline, so you don’t even need the trait for grenade DPS. That’s why it was downgraded from Grandmaster to Adept.

Anyway, since you asked, the bug was causing grenades to MULTIPLY when piercing a target. Effectively, doubling the amount of hits you got with a throw at the proper angle. 14 explosions out of grenade barrage. Normal throws got extra hits too though.

I 100% agree with you, that is why I was also very upset with the massive mordar damage (aparently the filter doesn’t like ’damage" after “mortar”….) nerf. The problem you have described about us being so dependent on one kit, and one trait has long been a problem of the Engineer, and one which we have been asking A-net to fix for a very long time. There is simply no other kit that can match the damage output of grenades, whether they are with a condition based build or a power build grenades are always the highest damage, and by a lot. And grenadier even when it is working properly does amount to a DPS increase, because faster grenades = more DPS (damage per second)

Gern.2978:

There is simply no other kit that can match the damage output of grenades, whether they are with a condition based build or a power build grenades are always the highest damage, and by a lot. And grenadier even when it is working properly does amount to a DPS increase, because faster grenades = more DPS (damage per second)

When burning stacked by duration, as it did pre-patch, this was definitely true. But now that burning stacks with intensity, it completely outclasses bleeding, and has pretty much replaced it as the premiere damaging condition. People used to laugh at the idea of condition guardians; I guess they’re the ones laughing now. Just scroll through the PvP folder and look at how many threads have cropped up since last Tuesday about how condition guardians are too strong. And they only have native access to one condition!

Once the Bomb Kit is buffed so that its attacks have baseline 240 radius again, and Glue Bomb 300, you will see just how ridiculously good the damage is. Even with 180 radius it’s still viable; you just have to be specific with your positioning and bomb placement, and probably stick to team fights where you have a mesmer or warrior providing CC. Even if you don’t, I found it effective to use Glue Bomb or Glue Shot, which is good enough CC on your own to land up to 9 stacks of burning that last 6-7 seconds total with Balthazar runes from Fire Bomb and Blowtorch.

I’m not saying it’s easy. And I’m not saying it doesn’t have its counters. But slotting the Bomb Kit or Flamethrower over the Grenade Kit can have pretty significant advantages, especially if you work with your team to root players in your fire fields. And if there’s no one around to help you, just use Streamlined Kits to suction them into your fiery pit of death.

Teldo has been running builds like these for years in PvP and WvW, and now condition damage has only gotten stronger. Don’t tell me that our class is worthless. It’s an insult to him, me, and anyone else that has put in the effort to come up with the builds you use.

If the Grenade Kit no longer ends up as our primary damage option, we will adapt—gladly—even if you choose not to.

I don’t think the Engineer is worthless, but when Teldo was playing PvP and his bomb build, there was less damage flying around and no immob stacking so you could get close with the bomb kit and not fear being immoblocked and/or instadowned! I don’t think bomb kit is very good because getting close in this meta is a death sentence! It’s pretty decent in 1v1s but again the meta favors high mobility roamers so a 1v1 for a long period of time is unlikely! Also condi necro and necro in general was awful!

I do however think that the Engineer isn’t even close to what it was pre patch!

Wahoo! Bye frands!

Engineer is definitely worthless now.

Guys please stop saying you get more grenades. You’re not getting more grenades you’re getting PIERCING grenades. the reason why you keep thinking you’re getting 13-14 grenades is because your grenades are doing damage when they pierce the target and dealing damage when they explode on the ground. Piercing + explosion = 2 hits, 7 grenades hitting twice = 14 hits.

They’re fixing it anyways so it’s not like it matters anymore.

Grenade Barrage didn’t pierce! It threw double the amount of grenades! Grenade Kit 1-5 pierced though!

Wahoo! Bye frands!

Wtf are you guys thinking when you try and defend grenadier? It was a bug that was not working as intended! Disabling didn’t kill engi… Go play mesmer if you can’t hack it!

It is NOT one bugged trait, but something deeper:

Current situation

Engineer is currently the worst profession for WvWvW. Engineer was never part of the zerg or gvg meta. Engineer used to be good for one thing: solo and small scale roaming, but even there engineer was never among the top5 professions (thief, warrior, guardian, ranger, mesmer, elementalist). The increases to burst damage and offense, while not buffing defense at same time, made solo roaming more difficult for any profession. Basically every major patch Arenanet makes just makes solo roaming more and more painful as if their agenda is to push everybody into zerging or teaming.

Now with the lack rifled barrels (needed for the 1200 range with elixir gun and rifle) and grenade range being mere 900 and radius only 120, engineer sorely lacks long range weapon, which can hit mobile targets (mortar isn’t that). Pushing engineers to become mid range and close range skirmishers doesn’t work that well, because engineer lacks mobility. Unlike ranger or thief engineer doesn’t have good access to evades. Rocket boots is only 900 leap (swiftness/speed no longer affects it) on 20 sec cooldown and requires to equip it as an utility skill. It was never enough to catch up with GS warriors or any common thief, but now it is even less so, you cannot even escape mesmers. I feel that the engineers going to get significantly less common in both WvWvW and pvp. In the former they were already the least played profession before this patch!

The remaining engineers are forced to take healing turret (AED is too selfish, only for 1 vs 1, medkit sucks in its current form), toolkit (for pull and block) and/or elixir S (invulnerability + stun break). In other words there is not much build diversity.

Why did this happen?

Trait lines lack synergy. Many defensive traits were eliminated: protection when hit by a crit is gone, healing bombs are gone etc. Many existing Master and GM level traits are too weak e.g. gadgeteer and adrenal implant. Shrapnel is useless without grenades. Shaped charge gives mere 5% damage buff to targets with vulnerability. Compare this with another master level trait forceful greatsword from warrior:
Gain might on a critical hit with a greatsword or spear. Greatsword and spear skills deal more damage and recharge faster. +10% damage increase (honestly this trait should be made GM)

Many things (pistol #1 being explosive), rifled barrels being baseline etc. didn’t make into this patch. Now that grenadier is disabled massive nerfs to the grenade kit (range, lack of poison field, reduced radius of all grenade skills to 120).

So many things are bugged at the moment, but this is true for all professions.

Disclaimer:

Please avoid flaming: I know you are not all interested in WvWvW balance, but that game mode is more popular than spvp, so it should be important as well. I know I am a low rank 31 player in spvp. I always solo queue in ranked or unranked. In my observation the average spvp player is actually less skilled than WvWvW roamers in top tiers in EU, so please drop the elitism that spvp > WvWvW.

That guy srsly complaining about bugged trait?

VitalSuit.1980:

Guys please stop saying you get more grenades. You’re not getting more grenades you’re getting PIERCING grenades. the reason why you keep thinking you’re getting 13-14 grenades is because your grenades are doing damage when they pierce the target and dealing damage when they explode on the ground. Piercing + explosion = 2 hits, 7 grenades hitting twice = 14 hits.

They’re fixing it anyways so it’s not like it matters anymore.

You are wrong. Barrage clearly throwing 13 nades. We are not blind and know how to count up to 13.

It. Was. A. Bug. Not. A. Legitimate. Build. Get. Over. It.

Deniara Devious.3948:

snip

This person gets it. There is terrible synergy in engineer traits. This latest patch has left engineer in a really bad place in WvW.

For every non engineer reading this thread, no one cares that grenade barrage is getting fixed. It was obviously OP. We DO care that grenadier was disabled, thus nerfing our best kit. READ what this post is about. It is NOT about grenade barrage!

Grenadier was causing grenades to pierce, do damage on the piercing, and then additional damage when landing.

Grenadier caused grenade barrage to function like that, but it also had the unintended effect of throwing 13 grenades instead of 7 for some kittening reason. (How does this even happen?)

But because of the piercing effect, grenade barrage had the potential to hit 26 (albeit rarely) times, when each grenade can hit for about 1.5k, i think you can see the problem.

LOL so class is worthless if it can’t oneshot ppl? haha nice thinking.

People really can’t read. It’s not the bugged nature of trait which made it OP that was important, it’s the AoE bonus and velocity which allows grenades to get their damage across more and quicker. With the mortar nerf grenades stayed as the #1 kit across all builds for damage and taking out the trait entirely has kitten them. I haven’t bothered PvPing since the patch on the 23rd due to anticipating broken things such as this, but removing traits entirely is pretty harmful for overall DPS.

Worthless? LOL. Yeah right..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqpIY-pz0I4&feature=youtu.be
20k+ aoe grenades out of hide working as intended?

It’s over. Get over it.

L2P FT or forget Engineering.

Sev.3826:

For every non engineer reading this thread, no one cares that grenade barrage is getting fixed. It was obviously OP. We DO care that grenadier was disabled, thus nerfing our best kit. READ what this post is about. It is NOT about grenade barrage!

It’s a temporary situation, just like the Symbol trait for Guardians. It’s not like they said, “yeah, we’ve disabled it and we’ll get around to it eventually”.

If you’re honestly finding engineer impossible to play without the trait, play another class for a few days or, you know, take a break from the game. It’s summer, yo.

I feel bad for Anet. They’ve made some fantastic moves forward to the game with this change-up and we’re all in the period where unanticipated things happen, balance needs to be restored, etc. and, even when they put in a temporary measure to deal with a problem that so obviously needs to be fixed, they still get rage and QQ.

Engineer seems like an excellent class to me. Not saying there isn’t room for improvement, but it’s got a lot going for it and some people do very well as engineers. If someone finds it doesn’t suit them, maybe finding a class that does is a better way to go than lamenting the temporary disabling of a broken trait as the death of the engineer.

The whining about this being disabled reminds me of the original 100nades Nerf, except a good trait wasn’t gutted in the process of fixing it, like that version of kit refinement and turrets being Overly Nerfed as a whole in a more recent example as a response to a build that was only useful in Spvp in the first place.

Classic situation of the general population not caring about engineer till something is broken or deemed “OP” and Anet being heavy handed in terms of fixing or reducing the effectiveness of said build or skill to the determent of the class as a whole.

currently not playing till they fix engi…played since launch with 3000+ hours on engi using nades just to get them “fixed”. can we start a petition?

Honestly, I only need to keep saying what I have been saying for the last months: Give builds without Grenade Kit at their center a better treatment. Boost FT, support gadgets, stop puting the best DPS alternatives on the same trait line.

Engie =/= Grenades. <— Make this true.

Gern.2978:

WhiteCrow.5310:

Really? So you’re saying Engineers are worthless without an objectively bugged trait that is clearly ruining some aspects of the game? This very thread is an insult to competent Engineer players.

I still don’t know what was bugged about it, the dev post never clarified. Are they referring to how overpowered Grenade barrage was? How did grenadier cause that?

Engineer is my favorite class, it always has been, and grenades have always been the backbone of our DPS and the recent major change to traits only made it more so. And the “grenadier” trait was the most important of those traits. Go hit stuff with grenades now, our DPS is much lower.

Guess I’ll have to play Thief until they give back out main trait, which will be sometime after HoT comes out probably.

Lol. You’re funny. Bye now.

So the OP didn’t even know what the bug was when this thread was created. Also OP contends that without Grenadier the grenade damage is much lower…

Move along, nothing to see here.

i have not used nades for the bug, but now, i go back using them with cele build. I have to say that nades are strong in any case . Sure, with granadeer they would land fast so they ‘d have more dps but i think that they are quite strong in any case . I tried many different setup but for now , in my opinion, setup with cele rifle , inventions ,alchemy and firearms , nades, elixir S and toolkit plus crate remain really the strongest setup . It is very effective to use crate tooltip to get fury … and i am not so sure ,that with granadeer ok ( not bugged ) it would be better to take explosive or firearm … i really don’t know… what do you think ? ( ip remain strong and burning is strong now )

Please correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t Grenadier only increase flight speed of grenades and not actual casting speed? This would not result in any damage increase as you’re still throwing the same amount of grenades in a set amount of time.

Adamantium.3682:

Please correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t Grenadier only increase flight speed of grenades and not actual casting speed? This would not result in any damage increase as you’re still throwing the same amount of grenades in a set amount of time.

I spent like 20 pages trying to explain mortar with a .8s attack speed and .8 coeff, is the exact same dps as 1s attack speed and 1 coeff on grenades.
They still didn’t understand this.

Don’t expect them to understand a projectile speed nerf.

I didn’t even notice any change. I still cannot for the life of me figure out what was different before. Engineers still seem pretty excellent to me.

Does the OP not know the original grenadier trait was made baseline? Is that what’s going on?

WHAT IS GOING ON?!

engineers worthless, hmm, i often do top player, and i don’t even touch turrets, or kits, you simply need to learn other things

Gern.2978:

WhiteCrow.5310:

Really? So you’re saying Engineers are worthless without an objectively bugged trait that is clearly ruining some aspects of the game? This very thread is an insult to competent Engineer players.

I still don’t know what was bugged about it, the dev post never clarified. Are they referring to how overpowered Grenade barrage was? How did grenadier cause that?

Engineer is my favorite class, it always has been, and grenades have always been the backbone of our DPS and the recent major change to traits only made it more so. And the “grenadier” trait was the most important of those traits. Go hit stuff with grenades now, our DPS is much lower.

Guess I’ll have to play Thief until they give back out main trait, which will be sometime after HoT comes out probably.

It was giving it some bonuses from the old grenadier trait, it had 1500 range and was launching way more grenades than intended

Casia.4281:

I spent like 20 pages trying to explain mortar with a .8s attack speed and .8 coeff, is the exact same dps as 1s attack speed and 1 coeff on grenades.
They still didn’t understand this.

Don’t expect them to understand a projectile speed nerf.

Well, people didn’t even understand that elite skills are usually balanced differently compared to utility skills and that something that has the same dps but processes far more traits and sigils ends up with superior dps, after all.

Have you ever try something that doesn’t use explosive at all?
Think outside of box and stop thinking about using exploit to win.

Condition elixir build is rather nice. P/P and elixirs got buffed an immense amount.
For the first time I ditched the common explosive and tool line and actually find immense success from using other trait lines. Also condition grenade is fine even without any explosive trait too!

hmm ill avoid talking about people not understanding math and attack speed and projectile speed cuz… well i dont think i can even talk about why without getting a month ban this time. anyways, i really wanted to respond to this:

Deniara Devious.3948:

It is NOT one bugged trait, but something deeper:

Current situation

snippy

Why did this happen?

snippity

Disclaimer:
snip

because a lot of this stuff is udder bull. moo.

first, engi has always had a good place in small scale and roaming. however, as a current citizen of NA t1, which im sure is very much like what your game experience on desolation has been, roaming in general just sucks balls. there are too many people around. when you defend a camp, scrubs just swarm to it until there are enough people to kill you. if you kill someone in a 3v2, they bring a 3rd. if you kill them again 3v3, they bring a 4th and 5th. if you kill them again 3v5, they come back 3v10 and suddenly you cant handle the numbers. this is how things are in t1. in such an environment, there are 2 types of classes you can viably play as a roamer: the classes that can stealth long enough to juke, and the class that can run the fastest. that actually doesnt leave a lot of room for anything.

however, in any other environment, an engi is capable of soloing an entire undefended map. an engi is perfectly capable of fighting even numbered fights without being carried. i have done it for 2.5 years as power, and condi is even easier.

in addition, nades with 1500 range have never been able to match 1200 range rifle as a ranged weapon. nades were no different from the current mortar. they have 0 hard cc. and i dont even know why you bring 120 radius into this, because thats been a thing since forever. and in fact, the lack of rifled barrels is prolly a bug. you really, really need to keep in mind that anet isnt gonna leave balance where its at for very long (for example groucho said on his stream the other night that grenadier would be fixed in the next release, before they disabled it — and disabling it was likely a result of the gamebreaking bug becoming publicized) and that they do not have a test server. idk how to emphasize this enough.

they do not have a test server.

they do not have a place where they consolidate all changes at once into a stable prerelease for testing by either a large paid QA team or a much larger group of players.

they have to use the live servers in the absence of a test realm.

you can kitten about how thats bad practice all you want, but it is the state of the game. we, the veterans, get to be volunteer QA. it sucks for our playing experience but its free for anet and if you dont wanna report bugs, someone else will be happy to.

if you see something you do not like about what they are going to do in the future, make your voice heard, be calm and collected and have good reasoning. the turnaround time on your voice being heard can range from 1.5 years to 1-2 months, but i can 100% guarantee that if you do so in an enthralling manner then the really good ideas that you have will be incorporated into gameplay. and i know this because i can point to a thread that was certainly a starting point for the explosives changes.

but anyways, the crux of your complaints about engi is all based on nonexistent or bugged functionality. so see where its at after the next release. whenever that is. because apparently the next release fixes grenadier and gives us split skill bars between wvw and pve, which means while it may not be major, it will be significant from a programming and gameplay perspective.

in the mean time, i highly recommend you try AMR in wvw. dont use it with healing turret, because thats bugged too. but a 10 sec reset on H or AED prolly about as op as disabled grenadier as long as you arent going 1v5 against silver++ roamers. you might wanna make sure you have a bit of vit too so the 25% threshold isnt too scary. also, gadgeteer + AMR + AED prolly acts really strange in a good way for the engi and imo needs a lot of exploration with slicky too before i call gadgeteer bad in any way. and finally, keep playing pvp if you want your mmr to rise. rank 31 is barely scratching the surface, and if all the people youre killing are truly baddies compared to you, then either your mmr will rise or you need to (re)learn positioning, player rotations, and map awareness as its applicable to pvp (because youre too used to wvw and how map awareness is practically a nonfactor there).

Either a troll, or an Engineer alt. We’ve been skill shotting with nades since the beginning and hitting everything just fine if we’ve practiced enough. Grenadier is a waste of a trait now except in very niche situations.

Disabling grenadier is not even a big deal. It’s not like we don’t have mortar kit.

Bubby.6475:

Disabling grenadier is not even a big deal. It’s not like we don’t have mortar kit.

Grenades are better, and don’t take an elite.

You pick the mortar if you desperately want long-range and to play more of a support/utility role. For damage it’s not worth it.

Disabling the Grenadier trait doesn’t do to much. But it does leave that adept-tier pretty devoid. Fall-damage trait, trait not working, 5% dmg when above 90% hp. The latter may be the best, but not because it’s good but the other two are virtually (and quite literally) useless.

Disabling grenadier trait is (lets assume it is fixed now) even a dps increase if you swap on the alternative 5% dmg traits. Grenades will always be used for it’s toolbelt, 2# 4# and 5# for dmg and 3# for utility. Nothing changed by disabling this trait.

I personally didnt even use it, since I’m not a fan of “using op bugged stuff” :P Don’t cry about something that has never been yours intentionally!

Terrahero.9358:

Bubby.6475:

Disabling grenadier is not even a big deal. It’s not like we don’t have mortar kit.

Grenades are better, and don’t take an elite.

You pick the mortar if you desperately want long-range and to play more of a support/utility role. For damage it’s not worth it.

Disabling the Grenadier trait doesn’t do to much. But it does leave that adept-tier pretty devoid. Fall-damage trait, trait not working, 5% dmg when above 90% hp. The latter may be the best, but not because it’s good but the other two are virtually (and quite literally) useless.

You appear to have a very limited understanding of the engineer as a profession, in my opinion.

As a long time engineer commander, who never cared for grenades, running a bomb kit and 2 gadgets. Mortar is ideal for my, and my play style, and many many others as well. You see, the value of Supply Crate diminished greatly with the changes to turrets, and the mortar offers a much longer water field, an ice field, and the poison field that grenades no longer have.

If you think range is the only benefit of the mortar, then you are looking at it in an unreasonable narrow perspective if you ask me.

coglin.1867:

If you think range is the only benefit of the mortar, then you are looking at it in an unreasonable narrow perspective if you ask me.

I think you misunderstood his point.

Terrahero.9358:

You pick the mortar if you desperately want long-range and to play more of a support/utility role. For damage it’s not worth it.

I would agree with his assessment. It’s a support kit that benefits best with Celestial/Settler hybrid builds, and shouldn’t be used for damage unless you’re ranging to avoid wells or something.

insanemaniac.2456:

however, in any other environment, an engi is capable of soloing an entire undefended map. an engi is perfectly capable of fighting even numbered fights without being carried. i have done it for 2.5 years as power, and condi is even easier.

and i dont even know why you bring 120 radius into this, because thats been a thing since forever

in the mean time, i highly recommend you try AMR in wvw. dont use it with healing turret, because thats bugged too.

rank 31 is barely scratching the surface, and if all the people youre killing are truly baddies compared to you, then either your mmr will rise or you need to (re)learn positioning, player rotations, and map awareness as its applicable to pvp (because youre too used to wvw and how map awareness is practically a nonfactor there).

Some grenades, like the freeze grenade, used to have much larger radius than 120. The loss of this is still significant.

I never claimed that I am a good or very experienced spvp player. I am an old person with very slow reflexes, which means my dodges are more or less random. The match up making especially in unranked spvp seems to be more or less random, so even when my rank was much lower (around 20), I was matched up with players who are clearly very high rank. Phoenix rank finishers (spvp rank 70+) either in my team and/or opposing team or players with marauder title. It seems you can get total beginners, who don’t even understand the value of capturing and defending points or the experienced top players when you solo queue. The skill gap between them of course is massive. It seems the player base is simply too small to allow more even match making.

Map awareness is actually the most important skill the WvWvW solo roamer or outnumbered commander has. Map awareness is everything when enemy players clearly outnumber you (happens a lot on Desolation). But I agree map awareness and rotation in spvp is a totally different story.

Of course the engineer can solo capture objectives, but the same is true for most professions! The reason why thieves (and now also mesmers) reign so supreme in roaming is that they able to disengage easily using shadowstepping and stealth. Being able to solo a camp or tower proves nothing about balance.

I haven’t had trouble with my engi, warrior or ranger to solo camps or even towers. Keeps are extremely difficult to solo as solo killing the keep lord + guards takes several minutes and every time it brings enemy players to defend it, so you usually need to flee. I always try to get 1 team mate to assist me to kill the lord faster.

FYI: I am using AMR with medkit. It works okay. Over 25k health allows to push the the 25% limit quite high, but the biggest problem is that bandage self has 1 s activation, making it easy to interrupt. Medkit would become much more viable if its skill #2-4 would have faster activation time and would work like before (dropping the vial in front of you instead of ground targeting).

I still feel engineer is right now NOT in a good spot in spvp nor wvwvw. I yesterday made my own clearly non-optimal celestial mesmer build with scepter (!) and winning in spvp was very easy as a mesmer even though I totally suck as a mesmer and I have played 2400+ more hours as an engineer.

Phineas Poe.3018:

coglin.1867:

If you think range is the only benefit of the mortar, then you are looking at it in an unreasonable narrow perspective if you ask me.

I think you misunderstood his point.

Terrahero.9358:

You pick the mortar if you desperately want long-range and to play more of a support/utility role. For damage it’s not worth it.

I would agree with his assessment. It’s a support kit that benefits best with Celestial/Settler hybrid builds, and shouldn’t be used for damage unless you’re ranging to avoid wells or something.

No, I do not feel I misunderstand his point. I disagree with how he expressed it, as well as disagreeing with a portion of the point.

Part of my point, was how the value of supply crate has slipped a fair bit. As well, it serves similar purpose as the grenade kit, for builds that do not run grenades, was also part of my point.

Supply Crate is still pretty legendary in 1v1s. Just depends on your focus.

For team fighting, Elixir X and Mortar Kit are more useful, with Elixir X edging out in damage builds and Mortar Kit for support. Our elite diversity really has never been better, and is one of the best choices ArenaNet has made for our class. Sad it’s being ignored/understated due to all the crying about Grenade Kit.

Xyonon.3987:

Disabling grenadier trait is (lets assume it is fixed now) even a dps increase if you swap on the alternative 5% dmg traits. Grenades will always be used for it’s toolbelt, 2# 4# and 5# for dmg and 3# for utility. Nothing changed by disabling this trait.

I personally didnt even use it, since I’m not a fan of “using op bugged stuff” :P Don’t cry about something that has never been yours intentionally!

Naw, it was also giving extra normal nades I was seeing 4-5 from the 1 skill when I tested it. Much more than a 5% buff. But, hell yeah I abused the kitten out of that, made me LOL, glad it got disabled though.

Phineas Poe.3018:

Supply Crate is still pretty legendary in 1v1s. Just depends on your focus.

For team fighting, Elixir X and Mortar Kit are more useful, with Elixir X edging out in damage builds and Mortar Kit for support. Our elite diversity really has never been better, and is one of the best choices ArenaNet has made for our class. Sad it’s being ignored/understated due to all the crying about Grenade Kit.

I think it is important to note, that I specified “as a commander” in my original comment, so obviously, most of my views come from the perspective of a player who spends the majority of his time in WvW, which is where I find the range, AoE damage, combo fields, and weapons skills effects, to thrive in combination.

Deniara Devious.3948:

I still feel engineer is right now NOT in a good spot in spvp nor wvwvw. I yesterday made my own clearly non-optimal celestial mesmer build with scepter (!) and winning in spvp was very easy as a mesmer even though I totally suck as a mesmer and I have played 2400+ more hours as an engineer.

i actually agree — the thing keeping us afloat versus rerolling to other classes was bugged grenadier. now that anet has finally realized it really was gamebreaking and disabled it, we must await balance to other classes.

however, as i suggested… i was playing this last night and its quite troll. i seem to eat mesmers for breakfast. they simply do too much damage and cant 1v1 me. most of them can survive me for a pretty long time – especially the pu pieces of kitten with tons of stealth, weird regen, and condiaids – but they cant kill me. i think it cant quite 1vX though without prot injection, but who really cares about 1vX when you can troll mesmers and teefs?