Guild Wars 2

I’m not so clear between the elementalist and engineer philosophies in the “leveled playing field”

Is engineer better or elementalist better at versatility?

why at the bottom of the engineer philosphy said with such great versatility comes with great dmg cost. When elementalists said king of versatility, but we want some great aoe dmg / dmg aswell.

…………… . what?

I wouldn’t read THAT much into it. It doesn’t really say much other than an overall idea. I’m more interested in the actual tweaks they’ll make rather than some execu-speak type announcement. Although I will agree that it made us sound second-rate…

Yamsandjams.3267:

I wouldn’t read THAT much into it. It doesn’t really say much other than an overall idea. I’m more interested in the actual tweaks they’ll make rather than some execu-speak type announcement. Although I will agree that it made us sound second-rate…

I wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss it. If it was just a class description on the “Profession” page I’d write it off as flashy text that doesn’t have much bearing on the game. However, these descriptions were provided with the intent of providing a snapshot of where ANet wants each class to be. In Mr. Sharp’s own words:

JonathanSharp

When designing and balancing the classes, we try to make sure that class roles and identities stay intact. So, in doing so, we make sure that there are rules and boundaries outlining the capabilities and weaknesses of each class.

I suggest we take these descriptions very seriously, because they are—nearly—the only communication we have had about the direction and goals of balancing. With that in mind, the OP raises, again, a very good point:

Engineer

The Engineer is a highly versatile class. While it doesn’t have the long range capabilities of the Ranger, or the melee capabilities of the Warrior or Guardian, they are comfortable at medium ranges in most fights. They have a lot of control, and use their boons to keep themselves (and allies) alive in a fight. They can use different kits based on the situation, but this extreme versatility comes at a cost in damage on their main hand weapons.

Perhaps it’s just me, but after reading that I have to wonder if the person that wrote it has played an Engineer. Regardless, the part that is really frustrating is this:

The Engineer is a highly versatile class. … They can use different kits based on the situation, but this extreme versatility comes at a cost in damage on their main hand weapons.

If we did have “extreme versatility,” and, as a consequence, were levied a hybrid-tax to balance it…well, so be it. As it stands, that isn’t the case. What makes this all the more frustrating is the Elementalist description:

Elementalist

We see the elementalist as the king of versatility. The skill ceiling for the Ele is exceptional, as the ability to leverage all four attunements at the right time is crucial for understanding the elemetnalist. The Ele boasts some of the best team support and control abilities in the game, as well as some great area of effect damage.

So, they have:

• King of versatility (That is, better than engineer.)
• (Some of the) best support
• (Some of the) best control
• Great AoE damage.

There is a serious disconnect between the given description of engineer (versatility at the cost of… everything?) versus that of the elementalist (versatility, with a healthy dose of everything).

To be honest, I’m tired of coming to the engineer forum and seeing the flood of complaints and whining. I’d like to see a lot more constructive threads. But don’t lose the signal because of all the noise: there is an issue, and these complaints are just the symptoms of some underlying problems.

Maullus.1273:

To be honest, I’m tired of coming to the engineer forum and seeing the flood of complaints and whining. I’d like to see a lot more constructive threads. But don’t lose the signal because of all the noise: there is an issue, and these complaints are just the symptoms of some underlying problems.

Sums it up perfectly. Congratulations, I think you just won the engineer forum. Can this be made required reading?

Engineer

The Engineer is a highly versatile class. While it doesn’t have the long range capabilities of the Ranger, or the melee capabilities of the Warrior or Guardian, they are comfortable at medium ranges in most fights. They have a lot of control, and use their boons to keep themselves (and allies) alive in a fight. They can use different kits based on the situation, but this extreme versatility comes at a cost in damage on their main hand weapons.

Engineers are known as the king of crowd control and excels in versatile and boon if built for it.

I think whoever wrote the build philosophy really has no clue about engineers OR elementalists.

I can assure everyone here that Elementalists aren’t the “kings” of versatility. Know how I know this?

The VAST majority of all of the elementalists I’ve seen since almost the release of the game have been 0/0/10/30/30 build elementalists with triple cantrip. The reason why extremely few elementalists stray from this build is because they suffer from major survivability and general viability issues when they don’t spec heavily into water or arcana.

Imagine for a moment if Engineers had an 8-10 second cooldown on each of their kitswaps. The only way to reduce this is to spec into the Tools traitline.

Almost every engineer build would then spec into the tools traitline, regardless of how horrendous the stats or the traits that the traitline gives.

Also, imagine an Engineer that wears light armor and has roughly 4-6k less health. If you don’t have a protection boon up or some impressive toughness or vitality, you’re going to die to a light breeze.

What this means is that unless you spec HEAVILY into survivability in utilities, traits, and armor, you can look forward to eating dirt on almost every single encounter.

In my opinion, being pigeonholed into 3-5 viable utilities and two traitlines doesn’t really say “versatility” to me. It just says that the elementalist faces similar problems to the engineer in terms of build variance, and that whoever wrote the build philosophy hasn’t played either class.

Lite.3819:

Engineer

The Engineer is a highly versatile class. While it doesn’t have the long range capabilities of the Ranger, or the melee capabilities of the Warrior or Guardian, they are comfortable at medium ranges in most fights. They have a lot of control, and use their boons to keep themselves (and allies) alive in a fight. They can use different kits based on the situation, but this extreme versatility comes at a cost in damage on their main hand weapons.

Engineers are known as the king of crowd control and excels in versatile and boon if built for it.

I believe that few people want to play a buff-bot. I certainly did not sign up to play a buff-bot when I created my engineer. If the developers wanted to move the profession in that direction, then they should have initiated a forum discussion with the existing engineers beforehand (similar to the Post from Charles CC in the thief forum about the playstle (“OPness”) of thieves). Further, I was led to believe that GW2 did away with traditional roles and that each profession would be capable of tanking, healing, or damage. The profession philosophy post suggests that we are to be less-than-equal in the damage department, which goes against the stated design philosophy for the game.

Lite.3819:

Engineer

The Engineer is a highly versatile class. While it doesn’t have the long range capabilities of the Ranger, or the melee capabilities of the Warrior or Guardian, they are comfortable at medium ranges in most fights. They have a lot of control, and use their boons to keep themselves (and allies) alive in a fight. They can use different kits based on the situation, but this extreme versatility comes at a cost in damage on their main hand weapons.

Engineers are known as the king of crowd control and excels in versatile and boon if built for it.

Engineers can not build for being versatile, as you put it.
They CAN build to be boon buffers, or build to be aoe’ers, or build to be bursters, or build to be heal support, or build to be cc… but at any of these fields they’ll perform worse than other professions who own that field.

If an engineer builds for ‘versatility’ he ends up being good at nothing, since no build actually supports this versatility.
Our traits are all over the place, our skill slots are limited, our kits are too single purpose.

So an engineer either:
- builds for a specific task and is second best at it.
- builds for being versatile and isn’t good at anything which takes away the whole strenght of being versatile.

Solution: make our traits support REAL versatility, make our kits better, and most of all: make sure that the most versatile engineer builds become the most usefull. Where now the most specified builds hold that crown.

Lite.3819:

Engineer

The Engineer is a highly versatile class. While it doesn’t have the long range capabilities of the Ranger, or the melee capabilities of the Warrior or Guardian, they are comfortable at medium ranges in most fights. They have a lot of control, and use their boons to keep themselves (and allies) alive in a fight. They can use different kits based on the situation, but this extreme versatility comes at a cost in damage on their main hand weapons.

Engineers are known as the king of crowd control and excels in versatile and boon if built for it.

King of CC, should we actually spec for it. Meaning, getting very specific kits and utilities aimed entirely at CC. Without that, we dont have more control then the next profession.
And then our control consists mostly out of knockbacks. Typically worthless in PvE since bosses are immune to 5 out of 6 CCs, and countered very easily by the numerous Stability some professions bring.

And then i still wonder, do we really have more control then certain other professions when they spec for it? A guardian with staff, hammer and certain utility skills can control an entire area.

I dont know what versatile boons you are talking about to be honest. We apply might with throw elixir if specced for it, and some random boons based on the luck of the draw on specific elixirs.
Then comes along a Guardian and plomps down aoe stability, protection, swiftness, aegis, retaliation and regeneration. Without even trying, or having to trait for it. All we reliably bring is Might. So does a warrior (plus Fury), and he doesnt need to spec for it either, and it only costs him 1 utility slot.

Our boons are not versatile at all, and still require heavy speccing before that kind of playstyle is possible. Yet you will still fall short of other professions, especially a guardian and necro, who dont have to try at all to get numberous boons, reliably without RNG, on multiple allies. And without speccing greatly for it.

And this is the point many raise, and rightly so. We arent versatile at all, we need to spec deeply and sacrifice a lot to just fit into a role. And if we dont, we cannot perform that role worth a single kitten And when we do, were still worst then other professions, in some cases even if those other professions dont even spec for it.

It’s not the we aren’t versatile.
it’s that when we build for being so versatile, we’re still not as strong as other professions…

It’s ok that we are not strong as other professions if we build for a specific task (boons, damage, tank, etc…)

But it’s not ok that the weakest of the weaker engineer builds… are exactly the ‘versatile’ ones.