Guild Wars 2

Play it first tomorrow, then complain after.

You might be right, or it might be a mechanic that requires some nuance to overcome.

I want to point out that Anet said they are adding the new mechanic “Barrier” to core skills as well as with the new elite specs.

I think they will apply this to Overshield. Based on the decisions they’ve made recently, it seems likely that they will give us this…if they plan to at all.

This is conjecture of course. But we only have a little over a month until the expansion, not long at all to wait.

My only problem is that no changes were made to address our over-reliance on Inventions and Alchemy to survive in PvP.

The Minesweeper trait was the defensive trait for Explosives, but it is lackluster unless you’re fighting squishy opponents.

My fun suggestion is to take the initial cast and overload and combine it into one skill. Since the overload is used immediately anyway, why not have everything just cast at once?

Healing turret would be less clunky, which is the primary complaint right now.

Things like the thumper turret knock-up would cast instantly as you put it down, rather than having that annoying delay. This makes it so that the initial cast of the skill is the primary use, with the actual turret as a secondary benefit.

Next change would be making it so that when turrets land a hit, they shave off a few seconds from the overall cool-down. Turrets that are allowed to land consecutive hits on enemies will refresh cool-downs faster (i.e. 2-5 seconds per hit). This will promote the Engineer to set up turrets in safer locations (thumper turret obviously needs to be right in the middle of a teamfight, which is good because with my suggestions it would be stupidly strong), and enemies will be encouraged prioritize killing turrets. Note that cool-downs would still only start ticking after the turret is destroyed. So a turret that never hit any enemies and is destroyed would have the full cool-down. This is to de-incentivize “pre-trapping” a point, like what old turret engineer did and what the current dragonhunter does with traps.

Then, I would make the power portion of turrets scale with an engineer’s power, precision and ferocity. If you want the turrets to actually hit hard, then you need to choose a less tanky amulet.

If you want the old turret engineer gameplay, where you set up a nest and tank enemies while turrets kill them, then my suggestions are definitely not what you want. The idea of the turret engineer I want to create is one that is semi-squishy, and moves around strategically to catch enemies in the initial overload turret casts while setting turrets up to distract and disrupt enemy teams. The turrets will be very temporary, but will provide enough of an impact such that the Engineer can rebuild them rather quickly if they are actually hitting enemies, and the enemy makes the mistake of letting them live.

Weaknesses would be the lack of stability, and that condi-removal occurs in bursts rather than continuous (you only really have healing turret, supply crate tool-belt and the traits in Inventions).

Unfortunately, until Rifle is buffed there is no way my suggestions could work. Also, this idea assumes turrets have their current weak survivability. If they become tougher in the future, then this idea should never be implemented.

We don’t know yet.

There was a Demolisher Scrapper played in the recent tournament. I am not sure what the traits, rune and sigils were, but based off of the skills used, I assume it looks like this:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vdAQFASlUUh2tY5Vw+KQ+FLTGl4zUABA9fX37d42lMhFA-TJRQABf/AAAY/BUvAAUXGAA

Note that sigils and runes can by changed to what you think is better for you. For instance, you might prefer Rune of the Scrapper instead.

I’m not sure it really needs more burning in a PvE sense. If you want to create an AoE burn build for open world PvE you can run Flamethrower, Bomb Kit and Flame turret/Rocket boots. Thanks to the turret changes, napalm can be used every time it’s up and the turret itself now only has a 20 second cool-down.

Nevertheless, I can get behind increasing the burning on flamethrower auto-attack just so we can make flamethrower+elixirs builds more efficient at clearing mobs in open world. A stronger burn on the auto-attack would also help condition builds in PvP deal with all the projectile hate, but it might also be a bit un-fun to fight against.

My recommendations for traits:

Explosives

Explosive Powder – Remove the knockback from exploding turrets (will be added to inventions below), add a blind when executing blast finishers (10 second cooldown). Turrets belong in the Inventions line, and a turret build should only be required to take the Inventions line, not Inventions AND Explosives. The blind on blast finisher is to promote the usage of BOB and Mortar Orbital Strike as defensive abilities. Right now the Explosives line is extremely risky to take in PvP/WvW.

Thermobaric Detonation – Remove internal cooldown, or remove this trait. Additionally, Evasive Powder Keg now applies cripple.

Firearms

Skilled Marksman – Rifle keeps the 20% reduced cooldowns. Blunderbuss and Jump shot refreshes cooldown if it downs or kills an enemy. Rifle is a burst weapon, that burst should be rewarded adequately. I admit this change is more for my own personal fun.

Inventions

Overshield – Compare what our shield CDs and skill effects to the CDs on Chronomancer’s shield, and the effects THEY get. The power discrepancy is insane. The correct change to make is that Mesmer’s shield needs increased cooldowns, but since that probably won’t happen, the Overshield trait should grant more protection and should lower cool-downs further.

Advanced Turrets – Turrets gain the ability to knock back enemies when self-destructed, in addition to the current boon application.

Alchemy

Inversion Enzyme – Makes fumigate affect the engineer as well, in addition to converting conditions to boons on allies hit. Good trade off for not picking SRD, no?

Stimulant Supplier – Drops Antidote instead. Gives resistance, instead of Fury. Remember that Alchemy is a defensive line.

Tools:

Gadgeteer – Well, for one I don’t think anyone can say this one is good. The trait depends on you getting hit, and any build that slots several gadgets will inevitably be squishy. Change it to: gadgets remove 1 condition and grant 2 seconds of super speed when used. Reduce gadget recharge by 20%.

Streamlined kits – Kit effect only procs in combat. Continues to allow Swiftness procs all the time.

Scrapper

Expert Examination – In addition to current effects, gyros regain their ability to daze when self-destructed. Fair trade, considering we’re giving up the personal damage of Mass Momentum, and the sustain of Rapid Regeneration, right?

What do you guys think?

Rifle is a weapon from a forgotten age where cool downs were higher, passive defenses weren’t as ubiquitous, and singular interruptions were hugely disruptive.

It is in severe need of attention; though I would argue that the power level is fine and every thing else is far too powerful and needs to be brought into line.

Is worth it to go Firearms instead of Inventions? The rifle trait’s 10% attack speed increase doesn’t really help that much. While the cooldown reduction does, I kind of feel like the survivability from Inventions (or even scrapper) outweighs the risks of taking Firearms.

True that.

I guess I can have still fun being a bunker butt. I know Anet has been slowly removing passivity, but the amounts of it still in the game is still annoying.

Balance and build diversity are equally important for a game like GW2, otherwise why even bother with builds; might as well be like Overwatch where you select your class and are stuck with your pre-defined kit.

Every class should have one ‘offense’ role, and one ‘defense/support’ role, at least. Now that I look at the patch notes, I think it is kind of happening.

Revenant as a DPS is good, so Anet buffed their support/bunker options.
Reaper is good as a condition/boonrip DPS, so Anet buffed their bruiser ability.

Neither change will make the latter playstyles as viable as the former, but it looks like things are trending in the right direction.

But it is when we see notes with nothing for the engineer, or when we see things like “might stacks on phantasms” for mesmer (seriously wtf…), that I question if the Devs understand where they are going. I guess patience is required, but it’s hard to be patient when your primary builds haven’t changed in well over a year.

I don’t entirely agree that it has always been stagnant before HoT, though the class did have a plethora of glaring issues (some of which still exist today, like the RNG on Elixir X).

In PvE before HoT it wasn’t as bad, in the sense we went from non-viability for a LONG time to pure grenades → 3kit rifle with the first of the piano rotations → 3-kit power OR 3-kit condi (both were pretty good right before HoT dropped).

PvP we went from non-viability → 100nades → P/S condi → cele rifle → soldier rifle. Far more unique states than since HoT dropped. That was since 2012, so over a period of ~3 years, but most of the above happened in the latter portion of the timeline. The great part was that P/S condi was still definitely decent in PvP, even though soldier rifle was better.

Once HoT dropped, in PvE we have had pure condi and in PvP we have been bunker hammer and nothing else (a period of ~2 years now).

Stagnation has always been a problem in GW2, but for the Engineer class we have been in the longest period of time where our main builds have had little variation, unless we include when GW2 first launched but I find it hard to complain about that part of GW2’s existence because most players didn’t know how what to optimize for any class, really.

Doesn’t qtfy benchmarks put Engineer as the second highest DPS against small targets?
Less than 1K DPS below condition daredevil.

Benchmarks are here: http://qtfy.eu/benchmarks/

I play Engineer in everything, pretty much. In fractals it is amazing thanks to blinds and solid damage, in raids they are great as DPS in any line-up, in PvP the meta scrapper build works just fine. In WvW we are slightly lacking in some areas but balance there is kind of a crap-shoot anyways.

The problem with engineer is that their playstyle has been stagnant since HoT released. There has been little overall variation in anything. If you haven’t played in >1 year then this shouldn’t matter, but for us experienced engineers it is kind of frustrating.

Engi turrets were a completely different beast. The problem there was that turrets could not be critically struck or hit by conditions. Overall access to strong AoE skills and sustain was lower, so as an engineer you could pick the tankiest amulet (back then Anet’s PvP philosophy did not prohibit amulets such as Cleric’s, Soldier’s or Sentinel’s) and rely on Rifle CC to lock up enemies. Offensive output and defensive sustain was lower amongst all classes, which didn’t help. The problem was less to do with boon application, though general tankiness was a problem in the sense that those super defensive amulets existed.

Turret engineer wasn’t king, however. It was fairly easily countered by coordination. A turret engineer on one point meant that he could not easily move to another (since turret cooldowns were much higher at the time), making the old “just hold two points” strategy very effective. A turret engineer on one point meant it was 5v4 on the others. If they had 2 turret engineers, you could steam-roll the one that had fewer supporting allies; turret engineer could only hold his own 1v3 against particularly unskilled opponents. Turret engineer also only had the ability to condi-cleanse through healing turret.

Source: me. I played PvP a lot around that time and dominated against turret engineers by not playing to their advantage.

But, I will say that the fact turret engineer COULD exist in that state for as long as it did was stupidity. It was NOT fun to fight against, and that level of area denial shouldn’t be in the game. Not as bad as the Bunker Meta, at least.

Is the role of damage-dealer in team-fights not a valid role? It is for other PvP games.

What is the point in having so many options to build a character if you can only build them to take one role?

This “one role for each class” type of thinking is what led to stagnation for PvP. Building an entire team based around high-risk damage (with mobility-support builds to match) should just as well be a viable strategy as building a team around durability and defensive posture.

GW2 has too much of the latter strategy. The abundance of boon application and passive durability rewards it generously. I only hope the next set of elite specs promotes more offensive play.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great build. It’s great for surviving, bunking and supporting.

But I want something with some murder potential. Understandably, such a build would be weaker to focus fire, but we need some kitten variety.

kitten it.

I really hate the way Anet has balanced the classes. It’s not okay to be pigeon-holed into ONE build.

I really hope the next set of elite specs don’t add more of the same crap.

We don’t even know that they understand what’s wrong with the class.

Hey all,

I’m getting tired of running the standard gyro hammer build in PvP (seriously…it’s been two years and this is still where we are at? It’s quite pathetic).

I feel like whenever I spec enough damage, I lose out on too much survivability. And because condition application and CC is so high, it makes it insanely hard to survive against other popular builds.

Any thoughts?

I didn’t expect much mid-season, honestly.
I am really not feeling the urge to play PvP much thanks to this boring meta.

And yeah the might stacks on phantasm still confuses the hell out of me…

PART of me is thinking that Anet is moving toward making turrets such that the primary use of the turret is the initial cast (overcharge), and the left over turret is a secondary benefit that is disposable. This would play more towards a style of play that actively moves about, placing turrets primary to make use of, say, thumper turret’s overcharge for AoE CC or Net Turret’s stun right away. Basically using them one at a time and leaving the turrets as annoying residue that annoy the enemy as you move about and gun them down yourself. As opposed to the type of playstyle that sets up a nest with all the turrets at once on one point and tries to survive as long as possible. I think Anet may have realized that the type of turret engi playstyle that sets up a nest of turrets is not fun to fight against…though it is quite funny to play.

The problem with this is that:

1) Rifle is not good enough as a stand-alone weapon to facilitate this type of play-style.
2) A full turret skill-bar means death via conditions, even with the Supply Crate F5 change.

Nevertheless, if the queue times weren’t insane in PvP, I’d like to try out a build that used:

- Demolisher or Paladin’s Amulet with Strength/Hoelbrak/Pack runes
- Rifle with the sigils that remove 2 boons and removes a condition on weapon swap
- Healing turret, Elixir Gun, Net Turret, Thumper Turret, Supply Crate as utilities
- These traits: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vdAQFAUlUUh2tYdVwyKw6FL5FF4BGAVlYAlD1QYM1PXGA-TpQOABAs/A3lBAA

Has condi removal through healing turret, elixir gun, supply crate F5 and alchemy line. Also has single target CC with net turret and rifle and AoE CC with thumper turret and supply crate, as well as two stun breaks. Only problem is that it does not have as much passive damage reduction like in the meta Scrapper build and it uses rifle (-_-; rifle needs love). It does have a nice combo: supply crate most of enemy team → jump shot onto stunned enemies → thumper turret, which will basically force 1-2 stun breaks for the rest of your team to abuse while dealing a lot of damage. Plus when you get stunned, you can stun-break with Thumper Turret’s tool-belt and use the stability to quickly over-charge shot a dangerous enemy without self-stunning yourself. Against a full team of condi cheese, being able to clear condis from your entire team with F5 really helps.

Very high risk, but I think if we see more nerfs to projectile hate, and more small buffs to rifle, we can see this type of build work.

Magic is so ingrained into every profession that Engineer is, arguably, already a magitech user.

Although, since it has come to light that magic flows in a network throughout Tyria, one idea for a “mage” engineer is a ley-line “hacker”, capable of manipulating and draining others of magic using new technologies.

Cool build. I love the PMs you got. I’ve never gotten that much rage and I’ve been playing almost since launch.

Just an FYI, the Blast Gyro Tag is unblockable, but the actual exploding gyro is not. Be careful about using it on players with really long blocks.

The trailer showed quite a few noticeable scenes of an Engi with rifle and flamethrower…

Given the response in the Engineer forum section after the last balance patch, there may be a chance of some buffs?

/hopeful >_<

Yep. I don’t know what their plan is, but it’s frustrating as hell.

Exactly.

You should be rewarded by increasing the risk.

Unfortunately, even ballsy builds are forced into Alchemy now. This is the price of the stagnation forced on us by poor decision making.

This has been happening for the last 4 years. 3 years ago in an interview, someone addressed Engineer’s issues, the reply was “well they have grenades”. And we were stuck with grenade spamming for years. About one year later, Anet described their vision for Engineers. They said that “engineers are versatile, but make a tradeoff for that versatility”. And then a few paragraphs later, they dub elementalists the “kings of versatility”, with no mention of tradeoffs. And ever since then, we have been shoehorned again and again into singular playstyles, with almost no wiggle room. I don’t see any evidence that Anet has any vision for the future of this class.

I don’t see any value in this class anymore. I’m starting to consider leaving GW2 entirely, but I have friends who play, and I actually do love this game. But I am definitely changing my main now.

I’ll probably swap to Ranger, since our guild still needs a powerful condition class. We all know that Necro isn’t so hot in raids anymore. But hey, at least they didn’t touch epidemic. Heck, fractal frequenters are even saying 5 Viper Reapers might be the new meta. Fancy that?

Anyway, for those of you who read all of this, thanks for hearing me out. I’d love to hear everyone else’s opinions.

Engineer is still very very strong, but the lack of diversity has killed it for me.

(split into two posts)

So another balance patch drops, and once again, many engineer mains are underwhelmed.

The changes are documented here:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/updates/Game-Update-Notes-October-18-2016/first#post6368392

These changes show a clear disconnect between where the skills team want to see improvements, and where the engineer community wants to see improvements.

For the past few patches, the individuals responsible for balancing Engineers have made changes that make no sense, or are extremely inadequate.

For instance, the buff to bomb kit. A buff to power builds for sure. But here is the problem: we are ALWAYS forced into Bomb and Grenade kit. Either as condi, or power builds. Do you know what we wanted? We wanted changes to rifle. We wanted rifle (hammer, for some) to become the additional element to increase our DPS abilities. We wanted changes for rifle that would allow us to perhaps drop bomb kit in favour of other skills, so that we aren’t shoehorned into the same playstyles over and over again. In PvE we have been living in the shadow of explosives for too long.

A buff to shield is very welcome, but how can we use shield and also give up off-hand pistol? In all gametypes, the trade-off for losing off-hand pistol is too great. Blowtorch is THAT powerful and dominant in the P/P skillset. Do you want us to use Overshield more? Overshield offers a measly 4 seconds of protection! Why would we want to use that over superior traits?

The damage buff to rocket boots is laughable. Rocket boots functions as an escape. When we use it in any gametype, we reserve it for when we NEED TO MOVE. Furthermore, utility goggles having a shorter cooldown is not going to make us use it more. The problem with gadgets is FUNCTIONALITY. Why would I take rocket boots, when I can bring Elixir gun, which has a stun break (which you removed from rocket boots), condi clear, leap and more? Why would I take Utility Goggles, when I can bring far more versatile skills? Personal Battering Ram is outshined by Flamethrower, which gives me an AOE knockback, as well as a PBAOE blind. AED will never be used so long as it has that cast time. It is unreliable when there is so much CC in PvP. Cut down on CC, or cut down on the cast time on AED. Otherwise I will never touch AED.

Gadgets will never be seriously used until you address their inferior usage in comparison to kits. Elixirs will never be used seriously (with the exclusion of Elixir S and Elixir X toolbelt) until you make their supportive effects comparative to kits. Elixir B only gives ONE stack of might. ONE. The only reason I have ever taken it was for the toolbelt stability, and the condition clear with Alchemy.

Speaking of Alchemy. This traitline, in my opinion, has been the defining failure for Anet in terms of establishing Engineer diversity. For years, in PvP and WvW we have been forced to take Alchemy to survive. After continuous nerfs to Self Regulating Defenses, we are still forced to use it, because we have nothing else. How else can we deal with conditions? Alchemy, a traitline full of passiveness. A traitline that contains nothing that scales with an Engineer’s skill. Inventions is inadequate in the condi-clear department, and tools has nothing to help us with conditions.

Despite the fact that we have been stuck with Alchemy for so long, you nerf Gear shield. One of the active skills that truly helps Engineers who refuse to use Alchemy. Engineers who prefer to use Tools, which offers a myriad of more fun and exciting traits, relied on gear shield to overcome the power-creep of HoT. It was the Tools version of Self Regulating Defenses. But no, you decided to nerf it. Why?

The nerf to Gyros is the most laughable of the changes, only because of your justification. “Purity of Purpose”? Why do you mention such a thing, but not define what you mean? Is your purpose for gyros that we not detonate them early for the daze, but rather keep them out for the buffs? Why are you controlling the purpose of gyros, instead of letting the community dictate this? We don’t want to use gyros passively, we want to actively use them in an offensive manner. We want to control our enemies. It’s not our fault that the only gyros that have a good passive effect are Purge and Bulwark (and stealth gyro, but we use that for the passive anyway). Perhaps if you improved the targeting on Blast gyro (so it can fly down cliffs), or improved…EVERYTHING on Shredder gyro, we would find active uses for passive abilities. But you didn’t, so we won’t.

Well, maybe if PVP people can access Ad Infinitum, then sure.

But that doesn’t have anything to do with the cosmetic problem, which is the topic of this post.

The wings hang very low on Asura. I was wondering if it was possible to adjust the droopiness on the wings to be a little bit stiffer so that they are a bit more raised?

As you can see below, it really doesn’t look that great when the wings cover our character’s eyes. A lot of effort went into it, so I think this would be a good change.

<3 it otherwise!

I think solutions like these should not be the way we should go about the projectile problem (assuming it was raised because of how weak projectiles are in pvp).

Rather, we should be looking at why this game has so many reflects and projectile blocking.

Condi Engie technically got buffed, if PvE is your thing.

+1 second of burning on Poison Dart Volley and Fire Bomb per shot/pulse. It’s actually a pretty decent overall buff, but it doesn’t change the fact that maximum Engineer condition DPS is still pretty dependent on non-moving enemies. Reapers likely still have an edge over us thanks to epidemic bouncing, sadly.

Most of the anger is because Scrapper received a lot of nerfs, but for some reason rifle didn’t receive any worthwhile buffs. And despite clearly needing love, they did not even touch shield.

And their interpretation of “improving underused skills” was decreasing AED’s cool-down. PvP-wise, it went from a horribly unreliable skill with a ridiculous cool-down to a horribly unreliable skill with an okay-ish cool-down. However, I might use it in open-world PvE now, just because mobs are usually predictable and CC helps I guess.

Overall, I am extremely underwhelmed with the Engineer portion of the patch, but Meta-PvE-Condi Engineer has come out slightly stronger. Despite Meta-PvP-Scrapper receiving nerfs, we have to see how it fits in with other classes on a relative level. It might still be an extremely good class still. Though I have doubts.

I, for one, wouldn’t mind Rifle auto-attack becoming a close-range buckshot. It’s how I like to play Engineer.

Yeah, I’d spend way too much time hopping like a bunny on Pocket Raptors.

What if Jump Shot’s cool-down reset completely if you killed or downed an enemy with it.

I dunno, I was playing on the HoT maps and I thought it would be a fun way to use rifle if I could hop around with it while killing mobs.

This idea won’t make rifle any more viable in PvP or WvW, but it would increase the fun factor by a lot, unless you increased the range on it or something.

I think that this is a great idea. I would definitely be in support of this change. I like that you bring shredder gyro in with this, because I feel like that Gyro could have been something better than what it is now. I might actually bring in AED, if the cool-down on that skill ever gets reduced.

From a PvP perspective, I don’t see how this will break anything.

My mains are female medium asura (engi and thief). I’m okay with more feminine armors, but I’d rather they be more like Tristana from LoL, and less…belly dancer-ish.

And please drop the stupid trench-coats or trench-coat-like butt-capes please.

“Blunderbuss is not affected by anti-projectile skills and traits.”

- GW2 Wiki

Well, we have a spot for Vale Guardian. I’m hard-pressed to think of a good reason for why you would bring an Engi over other classes for any of the other bosses though.

We’re pretty great at Fractals, PvP and WvW roaming and gank-squading, at least!

That would be a cool idea. Would add the ability for us to not get knocked down when using over-charged shot by using up a stack of stability.

By using Rifle over Hammer we give up a lot of defensive abilities, so getting one 3-sec duration stability stack every 3 seconds in exchange for that would not be bad. I would like a +10% damage increase trait for rifle though :<.

Psssht, range is overrated. Let’s port the Scrap Rifle auto-attack over to the Engi rifle, then maybe swap blunderbuss for one of the other Scrap Rifle skills.

I say we go balls deep all day, everyday.

So you can’t optimize a build, then. Must be why you need passives to play. So sad.

We have kits though, that’s why we only have one weapon. My current build comes with Elixir gun (one stun break), blast gyro (one stun break plus stability with final salvo), and Bulwark gyro (more stability) or Elixir S (a stun break). If you can’t work in enough stun breaks right now, then you must not know your class that well.

Hammer alone gives as much utility as two weapon sets for most other classes.

I mean, if you made this argument pre-HoT, I would agree with you. But using it now is laughable.

Leagues are somewhat relevant. If you’re so bad you need to rely on passives, then stick with the bad players. The rest of us who don’t need crutches can move up. If leagues were permanent, then it would be far more relevant, but that’s another kittenty Anet design, just like passives.

…every class has pressure on their utilities to carry stun-breaks. No weapon set in the game has a stun-break. Engie isn’t even under as much pressure from CC with hammer in the field, which has evades, blocks and reflects, alongside Final Salvo Gyros.

And also, we have leagues to separate low-skilled casual players and players who actually want to get good. If you don’t want to play harder, then play with the lower ranked players. There’s no shame in that.

lLobo.7960:

- Jumpshot gains 2 blast finishers (on lunch and on land) becoming a tripple finisher skill (blast, jump, blast)

What if I’m playing closer to dinnertime?

Yep. It’s not hard to see why these traits are bad for the game. Now, I’m wondering what the thought process was that allowed them to be implemented into the game.

Any ability that lacks counter-play, no matter how trivial, needs to be changed or removed. Rune of Nightmare has no indicator, no cast-time to interrupt, and no way to remove the effect without minions, which few classes can viably use. I don’t care what passive effect is the first to be removed from the game, I just want one effect removed to set the precedent so that progress can be made.

All successful competitive games work hard to remove aspects that cannot be countered.

Anything that punishes people purely for successfully landing a hit should be removed.

Things like Ranger GS’s counter-attack are fine, and things like this should exist. However, things like Rune of the Nightmare should not. Mesmer’s Mirror of Anguish, while relatively unused now, should not exist. Revenant’s Eye for an Eye should not exist. Engineer’s Self-Regulating Defenses, while important thanks to Engi’s low condi removal and overall power creep in the game, should not exist.

It is actually idiotic that they do.

Meta only matters at pro-level play. Dragonhunter isn’t that underpowered, it’s just that their main ways of pressuring people are easier to mitigate than for other classes.

Dragonhunter is still the king at punishing incompetent players in team-fights.

DPS or Bunker?

DPS, not that far. Only works against people who don’t know how to focus you.

Bunker, you’ll go a good ways in. D/F is better, of course, but Staff is alright as well for it.

I would also like to point out that raids introduced a new mob (Gorseval spirit) that is immune to hard CC, and susceptible to soft CC. Off-hand pistol with static shot and glue shot would be ideal here, over shield.

Yes, they had net shot, which hit one person. Over-charged shot…which hit one person. They had Magnet, which hit one person. The real complaint about Engineer wasn’t truly that it had a huge AMOUNT of CC, as Hambow would definitely beat it there, but rather that the CC had no telegraph, which I agree was silly (much as I think that all the non-telegraphed CCs today are silly).

Though lesser-skilled players tend to simplify matters and falsely blamed the problem on “too much CC”, much as they had blamed Condition Chronomancer’s problems on “double moaing”. It is clear that such was not the case in both examples.

Grenades had AoE damage, but the AoE area was tight, and hitting targets at range was tough against non-trivial opponents. It also had no control other than Chill, which was not easily applied continuously. True, you could control with rifle, and then utilize grenade kit after, but could be argued that any opponent that let themselves be immobilized and pummeled with grenades (outside of the Grenade Barrage tool-belt skill) deserve to be downed.

In a contextual analysis, it’s quite clear that while Engineer had the potential for above average AoE pressure via grenades, it did not have significant AoE CC pressure. In a broader look, the AoE pressure of grenades was unique to Engineer, Staff DPS Elementalist (a rare build, even now) and Necromancer (only when using staff). While some classes were capable of intense burst AoE pressure (i.e. Warrior and D/D Elementalist), there were limits which prevented it from being spammed.

Now, however, it is the norm to output a plethora of AoE damage and CC effects.

Nevertheless, I used Engineer an example for a point that addresses all classes in general. It is patently obvious that every other class other than arguably Thief (only arguable as they did get some AoE damage with Staff) gained an enormous AoE and/or CC potential increase. Your own point even unintentionally concedes that increasing the amount of CC in GW2 would be problematic, as Engineer had above average CC potential on a single target, and that was considered problematic in the same vein as Hambow.

Logically, it fails to prove my point wrong, and furthermore arguing that it proves the opposite is laughable.