Guild Wars 2

I just want to discuss one point on Class balance philosophies. https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/news/Game-Update-Notes-December-14-2012/999226

JonathanSharp Worte about Engineer philosophies : “… and use their boons to keep themselves (and allies) alive in a fight. …”

how do we do that… To my mind the boons to keep you and your allies are :
Stability, Protection, Vigor and Regeneration.

The Heal turret give us and allies Regeneration => ok, for this boon is the philosophy ok.
Traits give us regeneration but not to our group => half ok for this boon
we do not have any reliable source of Protection, we have 2 traits that grant us Protection upon Crit hit or Disabled. But in this 2 situations in PvE, Protection comes too late ! (PvP or MvM it could be ok) I find our source of Protection in Dungeons where Mobs hit very hard unreliable, you will go down with or Without Protection ! We need to have Protection before we get hit not when we are down ! And we can’t give stability to our allies
Stability : We only have a random stability, we can’t give us stability to our allies.

=> A class that should rely on boon to keep themself and allies alive and who only have acces to a reliable source of Regeneration for the party and Vigor for themself can’t rely on the boons to keep themself and allies alive

We need a good source of Protection and stability to make this Philosophy possible !

I think if we use a lot of elixirs, we can grant a lot of boons and conditions removals to allies

zugly.9035:

I think if we use a lot of elixirs, we can grant a lot of boons and conditions removals to allies

Shame we can’t dictate which boons are given.

Its possible for an engi to have 7 blast finishers loaded into his bars counting thumper as 2. Combined with our light, fire, smoke, water, poison and ice fields or someone elses fields we can amass quite a bit of aoe buffs or detriments.

Yes we can make use of Combos and finisher like no other class I think. And it were ok for me if the philosophy stated that we make use of Combos like no other to boost and keep our party alive !

But that’s not what they wrote, they wrote that we rely on our boons to keep us (and our party) alive. Stability and Protection can’t be granted via Combo !

Today we rely on our boons to boost our damage and the damage our party But it has nothing to do with : “rely on boon to keep us alive” ! (think at Protection & Stability)

Stealth, heals, and retaliation ( a deterrent for the opposition in pvp ) while not stability nor protection do offer a defensive aspect to our buffs. Personally stealth imho more versatile and has a larger damage reduction depending on play style then protection.

I realize what you’re saying is that elixers or some other skill should straight out support buff your buddies, but discounting blast finishers or even blinding with a projectile finisher as not a supportive “boon” would be fallacy.

It would be quite unfair to give one class everything for as much as we have I wouldn’t want to play a guardian. In regards to the pve boss/ champion scenario we have access to a far cry more chill and weakness than most. 66% movement and skill speed nothing to sneeze at.

Given the randomness of elixirs, i wonder if not the recharge times could be halved. Right now the recharges are on par with skills that can reliably give comparable effects, meaning that the opportunity cost of the engineer version is higher.

I make a difference between Boon and the Bonus of Combos.

If you look ant the official Wiki what a Boon is http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Boon. And if you look the color of any Boon, you will realise that Stealh (as a lot of the combo Bonuses) is not a boon.
And If you look at this Boon list, witch of these may be Life savers against PvE Bosses : Aegis, Protection, Regeneration, stability, Vigor (and swiftness in some situations)

We have a reliable acces to Vigor, Regeneration (and swiftness if you count it as life saver) and which of these boon can we give our party : only regeneration !

==> I Quote myself
A class that should rely on boon to keep themself and allies alive and who only have acces to a reliable source of Regeneration for the party and Vigor for themself can’t rely on the boons to keep themself and allies alive

PS : I Enjoy the Eng as It is today every day (I’t my main). I Just want to show Arenanet that there is a Problem between our class philosophy and reality
PPS : may be I’m too optimist that this thread will be read by Arenanet

We have terrible boon support in my opinion. We can pull of a Fire Field and pick up a bunch of Blast combos, but that wrecks our Utility slot choices. Other professions to me can provide non-combo based boon support much better, especialy if specialized in it. Not to mention many of their combo based boon support options are much more viable as builds then us taking Bombs and Turrets in our valuable utility slots.

Elixirs are terrible as boon support even when fully augmented with HGH, and there are quite a few places where we in my opinion should have some Combo Finishers where we don’t. Things like Grenade Barrage, Static Shot, Poison Volley, and many more that I don’t frequently play with.

I mean, I run what is basically an Elixir build. It doesn’t support anything. The only good support I offer is the Condi-Removal, and that even pales in comparison to what some other professions can do. I mean we do have ways to do some specific things such as a Dungeon Support build. I think those are viable, but I personally think it gives up way too much in other categories compared to what other Support builds bring.

WhiteDwarf.6879:

Its possible for an engi to have 7 blast finishers loaded into his bars counting thumper as 2. Combined with our light, fire, smoke, water, poison and ice fields or someone elses fields we can amass quite a bit of aoe buffs or detriments.

Tell me how we can:

1) Have 7 Blast Finishers
2) Have more than 2 Combo Fields
3) Be useful

All at the same time

I feel like Anets class Philosophy is almost contradicting to the ingame mechanics.
I almost feel like a lot of classes (not every class) can give more (defensive) boons to their group than the engineer. Even classes which are not particulary dedicated to do that.

It´s more like the engineer is not using boons to keep the group alive but rather to weaken the enemy so it´s far easier for the group to take it down.
Yeh, that somehow sounds more correct to me.

Aristio.2784:

WhiteDwarf.6879:

Its possible for an engi to have 7 blast finishers loaded into his bars counting thumper as 2. Combined with our light, fire, smoke, water, poison and ice fields or someone elses fields we can amass quite a bit of aoe buffs or detriments.

Tell me how we can:

1) Have 7 Blast Finishers
2) Have more than 2 Combo Fields
3) Be useful

All at the same time

1 Shield has a blast
2&3 Thumper has 2 if you really wanted all 7
4 Heal turret for both water fields and a another blast
5&6 Insert Rocket boots, Bomb Kit, Elixer Gun ect in remaining utility slots
7 Supply Crate

Bomb gives fire and smoke, Heal turret water, EG Light

I guess effective is a matter of opinion. Mine would be no 7 finishers would be terrible but 4-5 is just peachy and changes with what I’m fighting when.

I assumed stealth was a boon since its affected by boon duration but if wiki states otherwise I stand corrected.

Luc Willem.2865:

JonathanSharp Worte about Engineer philosophies : “… and use their boons to keep themselves (and allies) alive in a fight. …”

That class philosophy sounds more fitting for a Guardian as I can keep myself and allies alive in a fight much better on my Guardian compared to my Engineer. At present time I wouldn’t even consider bringing my Engineer to a dungeon over my Guardian in terms of group support and survivability.

I personally believe the main issue is regarding thrown elixirs, their randomness in effects and their small effective radius. In my humble opinion Engineers should see the following changes so their thrown versions:

• offer 1-2 specific boons to yourself and allies instead of 1 random one.
• increase the radius of thrown elixirs to at least 360 (180-240 is just too small)

Some suggestions would be:

• Toss Elixir B: Toss Elixir B, granting fury (5s) and retaliation (5s) to allies.
• Toss Elixir H: Toss Elixir H, granting protection (5s) and regeneration (5s) to allies.
• Toss Elixir S: Toss Elixir S, granting stability (5s) and aegis (5s) to allies.
• Toss Elixir U: Toss Elixir U, granting quickness (3s) to allies.

When it comes to thrown Elixirs, dropping a single boon even if it wasn’t random doesn’t even feel like it would be necessarily worth the cast time. I have this issue even when it has HGH, it doesn’t feel worth it. Not only do they need to not be as random, they need more of an effect.

As it stands, I only use them out of combat or for cleansing. At least when it comes to H or B. That just doesn’t feel right. They should actually feel worth using in terms of buffing your allies, even in combat. That’s even compared to using my freetime with Explosive Shots, which are pretty bad in their own way.

Ayestes.1273:

When it comes to thrown Elixirs, dropping a single boon even if it wasn’t random doesn’t even feel like it would be necessarily worth the cast time. I have this issue even when it has HGH, it doesn’t feel worth it. Not only do they need to not be as random, they need more of an effect.

As it stands, I only use them out of combat or for cleansing. At least when it comes to H or B. That just doesn’t feel right. They should actually feel worth using in terms of buffing your allies, even in combat. That’s even compared to using my freetime with Explosive Shots, which are pretty bad in their own way.

Same here, I learned my lesson to stop using it in combat when I saw that by the time it had finished casting I had lost like 15% of my health to just my enemy auto attacking me, leaving me at a disadvantage. Plus when you add he rng factor and you end up getting one or two stacks of might…no..just no. A chunk of health is not worth so little

RNG still plagues the elixers. And tbh, in a game designed around people running and rolling/dodging around and teleporting. They really shouldnt have so many beneficial spells require us to aim where our allies are going to be. In mid combat its very hard to land one of our crappy RNG elixers on someone, hell the gaurdian has TONS of buffs he applies to his team by clicking a button…bam ae buffed, no need to aim. I think the whole reason it has a mechanic to make us try to aim is for Roleplaying reasons….and not for actual fun gameplay functuality.

Also, our elixer gun heal, whos gonna stay in that? even in PVE scenerios your rarely sitting in one spot tank/spanking, everyone is rolling around trying to kite the boss/monsters. So yea, how about we do away with aimed AE buffs/heals entirely….

Zinwrath.2049:

Also, our elixer gun heal, whos gonna stay in that? even in PVE scenerios your rarely sitting in one spot tank/spanking, everyone is rolling around trying to kite the boss/monsters. So yea, how about we do away with aimed AE buffs/heals entirely….

This is the main reason I stopped using the elixir gun, and the reason the kit refinement nerf didn’t affect my play-style.

Everyone keeps touting the elixir gun as this massive help during dungeons, when the only ability it’s good for is SE, and the use of SE is situational at best.

In my cleric gear I would get better use out of my on-heal regen runes, than I would out of super elixir, because the runes give party wide regen and are auto cast.

As for keeping allies alive with our boons, I have to disagree. The only party wide boons we have access to are due to combos, every other boon we have is extremely selfish in its use and purpose.

Btw, why only 1 point on class philosophy? I find the whole text about engineers questionable.

I actually agree with the class philosophy on what we should be, but I do not agree that it is what we are now. Which is what I explained above concerning the quote.

Which parts do you find questionable? Could you elaborate? I see some great potential for discussion on this.

Okay, I´ll try to explain a little what I particulary meant with “questionable”.

While the engineer 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.

I think this is questionable in so far that I find myself often jumping between melee and range. I dont have the feeling that there´s something in between that could be called medium range. On the other hand, if one considers jumping from melee to range and back to melee as midrange….

They have a lot of control, …

This is very true. Only question that comes to my mind on this are things like stability or PvE boss-fitghts where people rather rely on DPS and doge than control. So I wonder whether it´s a valid argument.

They can use different kits based on the situation, but this extreme versatility comes at a cost in damage on their main hand weapons.

This is a difficult one and the main reason I find the engineers class philosophy questionable.
It´s clearly awesome to have more weapons accessible during the fight whenever you want.
But personally I don´t feel more versatile with it. I simply have more skills that compliment my build or not.
I can´t switch to my Elixiercanon out of the blue and say: “Now I´ll heal you and myself like a bauss!”
or switch to grenades because the situation calls for it. In my opinion grenades need to be traited to be effective. So I dont feel the versatility with them. They are a new weapon. No compliment to the player´s playstyle.
Sometimes I even feel kitten when using these kits that promise us versatility. They completely lack a stun break and there´s no (reliable) stability anywhere near. Also, as part of this discussion, there are no boons they provide for the team except for combos.
But on a side note I also have to mention, that, if there´s a kit that´s versatile it´s in my opinion the tool kit. I think they have done a very good job with it. Defense, offense, conditions and control are in good shape in this kit.

I always like to compare the engineer to our step-sister, the elementalist. King of versatility, great group support and control. That´s roughly how the elementalists class philosophy goes.
As we know the elementalist has incredible boons and can support groups like no other, do comparably good damage and has good survivability.
Somehow I can´t see a way to achieve only one of these things without a huge tradeoff. And yet it´s the engineer who has to pay the prize for versatility in damage.
Of course elementalists also use traits to push their skills but is there any attunement that you have to trait for, just to make it viable?

These are the main questions that come to my mind, when reading the whole class philosophy. Also it´s only my humble opinion, it could be that I´m completely wrong with some of this, so please feel free to correct me, wherever it´s necessary.
And I know it´s quite the long text and currently I´m very tired x) So I´ll apologize in advance if I went too far off topic with something.

Good night

Cero.5132:

I always like to compare the engineer to our step-sister, the elementalist. King of versatility, great group support and control. That´s roughly how the elementalists class philosophy goes.
As we know the elementalist has incredible boons and can support groups like no other, do comparably good damage and has good survivability.
Somehow I can´t see a way to achieve only one of these things without a huge tradeoff. And yet it´s the engineer who has to pay the prize for versatility in damage.
Of course elementalists also use traits to push their skills but is there any attunement that you have to trait for, just to make it viable?

I main an Elementalist, so I’ll chime in here.

Elementalists have incredible boons and support if they trait for it.
They also have good survivability if they trait for it.
They can also have good damage if they trait for it.

Most Elementalists currently trait for survivability and support (because it also helps survival), and let gear choices take care of the damage. If you decide to trait for straight up damage you die a lot, and fast. Without all the boon spam and healing Elementalists are the glassiest of cannons, with the lowest health and lowest armor in the game. In exchange for that they get mediocre damage (for glass cannon), better than average burst, and carpal tunnel from all the attunement swapping and dodging they do.

They are designed to be versatile and flexible, but are forced to specialize in shoring up their biggest weak spot due to flawed trait tree design. Sound familiar?

I borrowed my wife’s Engineer for a bit, and was amazed at how similar it plays to an Elementalist.

PinCushion.7390:

Cero.5132:

I always like to compare the engineer to our step-sister, the elementalist. King of versatility, great group support and control. That´s roughly how the elementalists class philosophy goes.
As we know the elementalist has incredible boons and can support groups like no other, do comparably good damage and has good survivability.
Somehow I can´t see a way to achieve only one of these things without a huge tradeoff. And yet it´s the engineer who has to pay the prize for versatility in damage.
Of course elementalists also use traits to push their skills but is there any attunement that you have to trait for, just to make it viable?

I main an Elementalist, so I’ll chime in here.

Elementalists have incredible boons and support if they trait for it.
They also have good survivability if they trait for it.
They can also have good damage if they trait for it.

Most Elementalists currently trait for survivability and support (because it also helps survival), and let gear choices take care of the damage. If you decide to trait for straight up damage you die a lot, and fast. Without all the boon spam and healing Elementalists are the glassiest of cannons, with the lowest health and lowest armor in the game. In exchange for that they get mediocre damage (for glass cannon), better than average burst, and carpal tunnel from all the attunement swapping and dodging they do.

They are designed to be versatile and flexible, but are forced to specialize in shoring up their biggest weak spot due to flawed trait tree design. Sound familiar?

I borrowed my wife’s Engineer for a bit, and was amazed at how similar it plays to an Elementalist.

Yeah considering both classes are meant to be versatile I’m not surprised they play similar. The difference only being that one sacrificed a lot of mobility for some slightly higher armor. Kind of like being armored eles I think.

PinCushion.7390:

Cero.5132:

I always like to compare the engineer to our step-sister, the elementalist. King of versatility, great group support and control. That´s roughly how the elementalists class philosophy goes.
As we know the elementalist has incredible boons and can support groups like no other, do comparably good damage and has good survivability.
Somehow I can´t see a way to achieve only one of these things without a huge tradeoff. And yet it´s the engineer who has to pay the prize for versatility in damage.
Of course elementalists also use traits to push their skills but is there any attunement that you have to trait for, just to make it viable?

I main an Elementalist, so I’ll chime in here.

Elementalists have incredible boons and support if they trait for it.
They also have good survivability if they trait for it.
They can also have good damage if they trait for it.

Most Elementalists currently trait for survivability and support (because it also helps survival), and let gear choices take care of the damage. If you decide to trait for straight up damage you die a lot, and fast. Without all the boon spam and healing Elementalists are the glassiest of cannons, with the lowest health and lowest armor in the game. In exchange for that they get mediocre damage (for glass cannon), better than average burst, and carpal tunnel from all the attunement swapping and dodging they do.

They are designed to be versatile and flexible, but are forced to specialize in shoring up their biggest weak spot due to flawed trait tree design. Sound familiar?

I borrowed my wife’s Engineer for a bit, and was amazed at how similar it plays to an Elementalist.

I was merely trying to quote the elementalists class philosophy. I can only talk about what my friend can do with his ele And I´m only just leveling an elementalist and therefore I´m not very experienced with them, yet.
So thank you for pointing that out.
It seems both the “versatile” classes share a problem there.

See I actually find the damage tax on mainhand weapons needed because of versatility. Not necessarily versatility in switching to another role, but because of the versatility of having multiple damage cooldowns among multiple kits. Having 3 weapon for example sets essentially without cooldown swaps is an advantage and nothing less then an advantage.

Do I think it’s executed correctly right now though? Not at all. I think we should have some form of Kitless trait that beefs up the mainhand weapons to where the handicap of not having a weapon swap at all would be, and I think the damage tax is a bit overdone as it stands. It should be much less severe then it is now. As it stands right now, unless you multi-kit it up your sustained damage output is going to be smaller then it should be. It can be a little different in PvP because utility can often make up for overall DPS, but the problem is still there in a lesser form.

When it comes to being medium range, I think that’s true. We aren’t a 1200-1500 standoff class and we aren’t really a melee class. We play best somewhere in between, where we can move from range to melee at our discretion to output the damage. I do think that the Rifle needs some work on the #3 though, as I think that is entirely too short. There are some other discrepancies between the theory and actuality though, and that needs to be addressed.

As I see our opinions are not too far apart. But I think we have different ideas on what versatility is.

And you made a good point with the damage-tax. Maybe it really is needed at some point. When we equip 3-4 kits we have immensely low cooldowns on many useful skills.
There´s still a downside. No stunbreaks. Of course there are little tricks like using ft´s blind or SE while downed. But I find the lack of stunbreaks a bit disturbing.
But what about builds that dont use kits? They´re almost forced to trait into HGH or Static Discharge to come up for the loss of fast cooldowns.

On the other hand I believe it´s very hard for the devs to bring damage, survivability and support in line for engineers who like to use many kits AND engineers who prefer not to use too many kits.