Guild Wars 2

QUESTION
I don’t know mutch about engineers and I don’t know how viable the Inventions line for engineers is for pve but if it’s worth enough to take the new turret trait I’m afrait of being less viable for reflections than engis.
Engineers of course have the better damage skaling on weapons(/kits) and won’t have a problem with killed phantasms which mean a damage loss to a mesmer.

As far as I know engis have

• better dmg
• better combofields
• better combofinishers

Will reflection make them better as a mesmer for dungeoneering?

Short answer: No.

Engineers would be forced to waste all of their utility slots to get projectile reflects. This means giving up those combo fields and finishers you mentioned.

So for temple of blath, I sometimes run bomb heals to keep the NPCs alive (25/15/30/0/0). In dungeons my engineer is always 30/30/0/0/10.

When running around orr, my bombs (super optimized sigils etc) hit for about 5k without might. When pumped up with group support I can hit upwards of 10k per bomb but average at 8k per crit. With the bomb heal build, it’s closer to 2.5k crits and 4k might crits. So there is a huge loss in DPS going 30 into inventions. Those are only crits and bombs are 1 bomb per second.

With the new trait (If there is no ICD) an engineer would take 3 turrets+bomb kit. Rotate turrets and then immediately pick them up for the faster recharge on turrets. So 2x 4 second reflects on a 15 second cd and 1×4 second reflect on a 20 second cd.

As you mentioned, they also have fire, water, blind fields in that build and the turrets can be blown up for blast finishers. 1-3 additional blast finishers depending on elite/weapon choice. They also have aoe condi removal with the turret but this build leaves them with no stability or stun breaks. They will also stack mass amounts of vulnerability (10-20 depending on traits/fight).

For lupi, I still think mesmers will be better and the engi is better off going full dps. I also suspect the aoe of the turret reflect will be small and might have an icd (just speculating on that) For some fights though, having 3 guaranteed mini reflects on short cd can be better. They won’t have pulls unless they go 10 into tools but that is a terrible pull on a 2 second delay and small radius when they swap to the bomb kit.

TLDR: No it won’t replace mesmers as reflectors. It’s decent and with the new trait reset anytime, could be useful to swap to it occasionally if your group really needs the extra reflects. I would not run it normally and will still play both classes.

Edit: Just saw pryos post. No they don’t give up most group utility as seen above. They just give up a ton of damage.

Guardians are replacing mesmers (at the moment, and nothing will change, ecxept Mesmer phantasm will get a huge amount of AoE dmg reduction in dungeons).

Engineers are replaced by warrior/thiefs. Or stacking elementalists.

Don´t forget the new trait is in a (PvE) useless traitline. Turrets will still be useless. So the Engneer playing the new GM Trait will do crappy dmg and he will not have alot of finishers/and combofields.

engi will be able to partially fill a guards niche by providing long duration reflects and make high level fractal parties with no guardians viable

mesmer still has portal and complementary reflects, but has never been sufficient to replace a guardians reflect wall + SotA + blinds… mesmers niche is untouched by this trait

Thanks for the answers. :> What a relief.