Guild Wars 2

Engis can’t really play fun bursty builds anymore. We are stuck with support tanky role. Our burst leaves much to be desired. But instead of whining I suggest that we try to imagine what it should be like.
My ideas:
Tools traitline
“Excessive Energy” gives a 10 percent dmg increase when endurance is NOT full instead of the opposite. We saw similar change with thieves’ initiative trait and I think it would make it much better for pvp
Static discharge- 20 percent dmg increase. This trait should be combined with Power wrecnch and become a master trait.
Adrenal implant – should give you some endurance back after using tool belt skills to make the playstyle more fun. Passive grandmaster traits are not exiting.
Takedown Round – the delay should be half of a second
Explosives
Turrets always knock back foes without any traits. This skill type is too weak and not used in any game type. Needs some love.
Siege rounds – the trait is too weak for a grandmaster. The projectile velocity increase would make it playable not only in wvw but in pvp too. The tool belt cast time is too long.
Thermobaric Detonation – you cause damage and knock back your foes at the end of the dodge every 10 seconds. The other details remain the same(25 dmg increase and its a blast finisher.)
Rocket – the projectile velocity is increased by 15 percent.
Firearms
Skilled Marksman is no longer a trait but a permanent characteristic available without firearms because the trait line doesn’t fit power builds. The rifle damage is increased by 10%.
Inventions
Over shield now gives you protection when the skill ends. You don’t want to waste your protection when you are blocking or reflecting.
Advanced Turrets – the reflective shields are now spawn without a delay.

Throw wrench – the range is increased to 1200.
Surprise shot – 1200 range.
Rocket boots are now a stun breaker.
Alchemy
Stimulant supplier now gives 10 seconds of fury.
Scrapper
Applied force – get a 1,5 second of quickness after using a tool belt skill.
Blast gyro tag – the gyro now has a superspeed.
Shredder gyro – pulls enemies to the gyro within 450 range.

Some other skills changes
Net shot now works like the hip shot(chases enemies a little bit). The same with glob shot
Overcharged shot gives you 3 seconds of stability after knocking you back.
A.E.D – now has 1/2 cast time and the cooldown of 30 seconds.
Mine field now has half a second cast time.
Elixir X now gives you rampage if you have a tool equipped and tornado if you don’t(we all hate rng, right?)
Supply crate – the cd is reduced by 20 percent. The cast time is 1/2 sec.
Nerfs:
Self-regulating defenses – the cooldown is 80 seconds.
Protection injection – the cooldown is 10 seconds.

Some players might think that is makes engi op. But it doesn’t. The current engi is using completely different trait lines. If they are dropped, they lose all the sustain. So you sacrifice one thing to get the other.

You are welcome to give your ideas about engis’s dps role.

And I forgot one more thing: static discharges from detonating turrets follow your target just like usual ones. The same with mines and rocket. Actually with all the skills except for elixirs. I’m surprised it hasn’t still been changed.

Engineer burst builds are still good. It’s just the meta involves a lot of aoe protection spam and projectile hate so it’s not played. They don’t really need buffs. It’s power creep we don’t need.

What needs to be buffed is condi Engi. That build is just worthless. There’s no viable offensive tool for condi Engis atm except a gimmicky Flamethrower build where the only damaging ability it has is Incendiary Ammo, an ability that require multiple hits to reach full effect and is negated by any form of condi clear, all of which have a shorter cooldown than the whopping 50 seconds IA has.

Another issue that needs to be addressed is the heavy reliance on the Alchemy tree. It’s the only trait line that has any form of condition removal and any worthwhile ability the Engineer has that has condition removal on it is buffed by this line. There needs to be more condition removal on things other than Elixirs and Elixir gun.

I agree that alchemy should not be mandatory. But as for condi engi, I highly doubt it needs buffs. It has really good damage in pvp and its top tier in pve if I’m not mistaken(I don’t pve). The only things about condi engi which bother me is the passive incendiary ammo(the fact that it’s passive), weak shield and the strange shrapnel trait.
And let’s stop buffing condis, ok? They are ridiculous already

Condi Engi damage in PvP is atrocious. And many raid groups don’t even want a condi Engi except on the first boss. What are you talking about?

Let’s say that condi engi is bad and power(not bruiser but a burst) engi is good. Why is condi playable but the power isn’t then?
Or you want to say that tools trait line is equal to inventions or alchemy? This problem worries me the most. Engis defensive traitlines and skills are just much stronger than offensive ones. That’s what I addressed in my post. Moreover, most of the changes I wrote are not about buffing but about changing skills.
You say that we don’t need power creep but you want the condi engi be buffed. Isn’t it power creep?

I said it’s unnecessary power creep since a power grenade build is already pretty good in a vacuum. If we buff power grenade builds and the rampant projectile hate spam gets nerfed, now you have an overpowered build. That’s power creep we don’t need.

Condi Engi, on the other hand, is absolutely worthless. The Engineer has no viable weapons to make a condi build work. You’re essentially stuck pewpewing with the pistols and that’s not going to kill anything or if it does it will take an obscene amount of time. In teamfights you could probably burst someone down with Incendiary Ammo and the ideal 12 burn stacks, but there’s so much AoE condi cleanse being thrown around like Healing Turret, Fumigate, Ele shouts, Ele auras, Necro staff 4, Plague Signet, Leadership Runes, Revenant staff 4, etcetcetc. It’ll be cleansed before you know it and most of these skills can be used multiple times before IA even comes off cooldown. Condi Engis are just not good and haven’t been good since the trait lines were converted into specializations. They need buffs. Desperately.

ellesee.8297:

Engineer burst builds are still good. It’s just the meta involves a lot of aoe protection spam and projectile hate so it’s not played. They don’t really need buffs. It’s power creep we don’t need.

What needs to be buffed is condi Engi. That build is just worthless. There’s no viable offensive tool for condi Engis atm except a gimmicky Flamethrower build where the only damaging ability it has is Incendiary Ammo, an ability that require multiple hits to reach full effect and is negated by any form of condi clear, all of which have a shorter cooldown than the whopping 50 seconds IA has.

Another issue that needs to be addressed is the heavy reliance on the Alchemy tree. It’s the only trait line that has any form of condition removal and any worthwhile ability the Engineer has that has condition removal on it is buffed by this line. There needs to be more condition removal on things other than Elixirs and Elixir gun.

You can’t have an anti power creep comment and then suggest buffing underpowered roles. That’s just silly.

Non-meta Engi builds are all bad, if power builds are ‘good’ as you say, they would be considered situationally meta in some way.

All I want is more burning to flamethrower.
And a lot more unblockables.

I suppose power grenadier will never be considered situationally meta because there will never be a situation in this meta where there isn’t some kind of rampant anti projectile spam. But to say it is a bad build overall is just false. You have good burst, good cleave, good cc, good mobility, good disengage, etc. If you buff it to suit this meta, it would need a whole lot of work and then eventually when all the anti projectile skills are toned down, the super beefed up build would be too strong and you’re just back to square one. This is what I was arguing against, the unnecessary power creep, the endless balance shifts.

However severely underpowered builds like condi Engi absolutely need to be worked on to promote build diversity. I don’t know how anyone could be against build diversity. The only one viable build per class feature that we’ve had for years is just tiresome.

guildabd.6529:

All I want is more burning to flamethrower.
And a lot more unblockables.

Please, god, not more unblockable. I almost want this feature removed from the game. It’s kind of stupid to have skills that block, but then everyone and their dog has some attack that is unblockable anyway. It kind of defeats the purpose of having blocks…
As for OP, I think you make some good points in there. The turret trait in explosives makes no sense, totally agree. I think the list is not really comprehensive – I’ve seen quite a few other good ideas on parts recently. Also if all those buffs were included I do think it would be a bit OP, so we may need to be more selective there. Static discharge absolutely needs help (it’s damage is pathetic), and I also agree that it needs to not compete with the toolkit trait, since the toolkit is the only kit that really synergizes with the trait… not sure what Anet was thinking on that one. I almost feel like what we need most is something that would enable projectiles to be conditionally “unreflectable,” like the analog to unblockable. Per my statement above, in the big picture I think this would also be kind of dumb, but unless there are some serious CD increases on every projectile hate skill in this game, I don’t really see any other way we’re realistically going to get away from the rigid, pretty much mandatory, hammer bunker meta. Projectiles are just such an unavoidable element of any other engi build.

Edit: also yes, agree with ellesee, we desperately need to get condi clear options that aren’t elixirs. That is a ridiculous limitation that would be so easy to fix and is currently absolutely destroying any hope at build diversity. In terms of the condi engi discussion, I don’t think it’s quite as bad as you say. I’ve had some luck with it. Just needs shorter CD on IA and less projectile hate. Although it’s true that all the condi clears on some classes are a bit much (I’ve noticed especially eles and warriors don’t seem to have to sacrifice any dps to still have essentially zero-effort required to remain 100% condi-proof). Also necros, but honestly I don’t mind that since its kind of their whole thing.

The list is really big because I understand that even half of it sadly wont be used in the game.
Baseline knockback of the turrets+20% static discharge dmg+rifle CDs reduction+make power wrench a master trait+10dmg increase when the endurance is not full instead of the opposite+maybe getting endurance back after using a tool belt to make the playstyle more active would already make it playable if not for pvp but at least for 1v1 and wvw roaming. And it would never be op because you need to drop the strong defensive lines and utilities to get this.
And even if the dmg would become decent(almost revenants dmg lol) it would not become meta because you don’t have really high mobility like revs, mesmers and thieves have so you can’t fill the role of plus 1ing around a map.

The reason why I’ve made this topic is because sd engi is one of the most fun builds which ever existed in the game and it’s sad that anet doesn’t support such builds.
So it would be really great if we could attract devs attention to it.

ellesee.8297:

I suppose power grenadier will never be considered situationally meta because there will never be a situation in this meta where there isn’t some kind of rampant anti projectile spam. But to say it is a bad build overall is just false.

No, it’s not that. It’s about standing up to other well rounded damage builds: Mesmer, Warrior, Necro, and Revenant. Having a fair shot at making an Engineer damage build that can deal comparable damage and survive comparably well against other damage builds, and not be at a huge disadvantage in every case, that’s my reasoning why all the damage builds are bad, not just condition damage options as you say.

I’ve been much more successful on condition flamethrower builds than non-hammer based power builds in fact, but that’s apart from my point.

Yes, just what Chaith said. I don’t ask for 2-3 meta builds for every class. But as a rev, for instance, you can play retri for a bruiser or a invocation for high risk/high reward. Such builds are much squishier but they let you be really effective if they are played right. There are no such builds for eles(rip fa), engis(rip sd) mes(rip shatter) etc. It’s the reason why many players I know left the game. Sd never was a meta build but you could be decent if you played it correctly. It was the balance between casuals playing cheese optimal builds and other players who knew class’s mechanics better and could afford playing a more offensive variant.
Anet obviously encourages condi builds and its not bad. But if you look at the meta now there are no power dpsers except for invo rev. Who is power now? Druid is support, scrapper is support. Who deals damage? It’s mes, necro, warrior. They are all condi(let’s forget about thief it’s a completely different topic).

Well we’ll agree to disagree then. I’ve had enormous success with power grenade builds and little to no success with condi. I think “huge disadvantage” is somewhat of an exaggeration. The damage is definitely comparable, the survivability questionable; I feel like that should be the gold standard in build balance. It goes back to what I’ve been saying across multiple threads. More offense should mean less defense. Instead we have classes like the Revenant who is hyper mobile, huge damage, loads of defensive cooldowns, CC, evasions, high armor high health etcetcetc… I’ll never understand.

But I digress, personally I think power grenade Engis would perform well if not for the billions of projectile hate in the meta. And even if projectile hate were to be nerfed I don’t think it would replace the Revenant as the primary physical damage dealer in pro leagues, but would absolutely be worthwhile in high tier queues for those of us who absolutely despise playing the, what I find to be extremely boring, meta hammer build and that’s why I don’t think it should be buffed further.

ellesee.8297:

But I digress, personally I think power grenade Engis would perform well if not for the billions of projectile hate in the meta. And even if projectile hate were to be nerfed I don’t think it would replace the Revenant as the primary physical damage dealer in pro leagues, but would absolutely be worthwhile in high tier queues for those of us who absolutely despise playing the, what I find to be extremely boring, meta hammer build and that’s why I don’t think it should be buffed further.

Outside getting countered by Chrono, Berserker, Reaper, Rev, yeah, if Scrapper and Tempest no longer countered power nades with projectile hate it’d be great.

Well if PvP is ever balanced on 1v1’s, I’ll take that to heart.

how do you guys even use static discharge, as long as I’m over head view, the thing fires into the bloody ground every time it procs….. At least I actively trigger the flame thower ball of fire so can aim it with my screen… but its an annoying perspective to be in.

you could try my undead runes / knight condi build ellesee for fun!

Use projectile based tool belt skills like tool kit’s and rifle turret’s. Ram works well too.

lolobum.3082:

Use projectile based tool belt skills like tool kit’s and rifle turret’s. Ram works well too.

Yeah this is the way to go. Unfortunately static discharge rules out the option of picking up the really strong toolkit trait in exchange for some pretty mediocre damage (~500? Really?). This trait used to hit hard, but now I almost don’t notice it. Also, taking rifle turret for its toolbelt is difficult because you’ve basically given up a utility slot. I guess you get the blast finisher, but it’s kind okittenward to use just for that, and if you leave it out long enough to do anything else you’re not getting anything out of static discharge (not that you get that much anyway…). SD is just plain bad right now, imo.

It would at least be better if the discharge went after who ever you current highlighted target was, regardless of which type of toolbelt skill you used…. actually doing damage would be an added bonus.

There are ways of making any tool belt skill hit what you want but it’s clunky and useless because the whole burst with all sds does pathetic damage and you need to get rid of all defensive utilities for this useless dmg.

I think projectile hate is the biggest thing keeping engi down. The uptime on them is just so long, that as a rifle/nade build, it’s pretty demoralizing to attempt to fight them. Most of the time I just run away when faced with a scrapper, ele, etc.

To add to this, most of the projectile hate skills allow the defender to attack you while also reflecting / nullifying your attacks for like .. up to 5 seconds at a time. That’s too much. Example: Defense field from bulwark gyro. That’s 5 full seconds where you can’t attack the scrapper. 5 seconds is an eternity in pvp. That easily allows them to close a gap, wait for one of their heals to come off cd, bunker a point, etc. all while being able to attack, move, combo.