Guild Wars 2

So what’s the modern role of the engineer in PvE, WvW, and sPvP?

After playing for a few months and maxing out my first character, an engineer, I saw a series of nerfs that left the class quite hurt. It ended up being a PvE support class. Discouraged, I moved on to other games. I was asked to come back, but I’m curious if the class is more sound and playable now than when I left.

A friend asked me to come back, but I’m curious if I should try my engineer again or if I should just roll up another character. Did Grenades ever get un-nerfed? Did turrets ever get more useful? Did the effect additions to engineer skills actually help? I see mixed threads in the forum, so I’m not sure if things actually got better or if they never really did. Because when I left, the only really interesting engineers were a sort of uber-bricky Elixir-S spamming retaliation tank. There were legendary videos of people epically rifling it, but they tended to be the “Hey check out my gear in WvW pretty sweet right? Oh crap here comes a _!” where _ was an equally geared non-engineer.

What’s up? Has this changed?

It also helps to roll a thief into sPvP and play them. I logged 45 games as a thief of various kinds and my win rate against them has very much improved because I can anticipate them much better now.

The healing mantra does indeed scale through the roof compared to the other mesmer heals.

But this idea that having ~3k power and no crit or crit damage means your damage is good is wrong, and you really cannot have high +heal, high +crit, high +critdam, and high +power all at once. Something has to give in the itemization. The other big weakness of the healing mantra is that if they catch you channeling it and interrupt you, it’s out for the cooldown; and given the long channel time it’s not exactly difficult. Mesmers have a few utilities that could help cover those channels, but they’re competing for other (now traited) mantras and have relatively long cooldowns. The torch is no help, as some people seem to suggest, because the torch stealth is a channel and breaking the channel ends the stealth.

Nearly every class has access to bunker-ish builds that sacrifice spike damage for sutainability. The Mesmer is an unexceptional example of this. The very best classes have good heals and clearing, AND access to protection, vigor and regeneration. This is why elementalists and engineers can be very difficult to kill despite poor base stats: good access to protection and regeneration and vigor.

Try building to have good uptime on regeneration and protection as a mesmer and still have the mantra traits you need. I found it very difficult to do and still have a viable build.

What confuses me so much about this discussion is that people keep talking about the mechanics of timewarp itself rather than its impact on the match:

Timewarp gives a mesmer’s team a good 10sec advantage. Its cooldown is such so that it will probably never have a more than 3x (and most likely 2x) in a match. For 10s 2-3 times a match, the Mesmer’s team will have the advantage (optimally at one point). Honestly it doesn’t sound so bad for me when Mesmer is otherwise a very gimmicky burst? And several bunkers have ways to totally negate incoming damage for a significant portion of Timewarp’s duration?

I’ve got less than 350 games under my belt, so I’m not the legendary PvPer many people here are. But, uh… that seems counter-able and I’ve seen it countered in my play experience? As mentioned, the usual call is for someone to slot reflection abilities or damage negation abilities. And I’ve been in a game where we had a mesmer timewarping and the other team started countering with a very well-organized Area Retaliation (lol light field, I know). I was sort of shocked how that seemingly unimpressive thing totally destroyed us.

Seetoo.9316:

So why don’t you die after shattering then? It’s like you’re an illu and not at the same time.

Oh we’re playing this game? Cool.

Because there is an illusion of you right over you at all times, perfectly mirroring your movements. That illusion shatters and reforms. Look closely and you’ll see the effects of the shatter around your character as their skintight illusion shatters.

Kalan.9705:

and the dev team appear to lack vision focus and clarity about what this class can do now and what it should be able to do in the future.

This is my big problem with the class. You cannot define a successful class as, “Like everyone else, but worse!”

Engineers should be like Batman, not Robin. A series of hot-swappable blow-par features does not a cohesive and fun class design make.

Thresher.3049:

some really awful skill lines,

Actually, the skill lines make a lot of sense. They just expect you to be making various types hybrids.

For example, there are some really neat pvp damage/condi hybrids that lean on DS and spectral skills for survival. Unsurprisingly, they want points in Curses and Soul Reaping. And hey, look at that, precision, critical damage, more DS damage mitigation, and condition damage in one package.

Look at all the most successful necro builds: they’re all hybridized in damage. Very few successful builds totally focus on one aspect of things.

It’s also worth noting how very powerful and generally good most (non-minion) Necro utils are. Unlike many classes where a 30-point trait is required for a spec, Necros are a lot more about utility choices and stat focusing. If the minion AI wasn’t so unreliable, they’d be very good utilities too.

But you’re right that Necro is a very weird class in the GW2 panoply that requires very specific disciplines and build strategies.

NeryK.5301:

I have both a necro and ele in their 40s and have a hard time deciding which one to level first. I must say the temptation to jump on the d/d ele bandwagon is great, in a WvW perspective.

Do both. But also do try Dagger/Focus on your Elementalist. It’s quietly gaining popularity as an exceptionally good skirmisher build. Its defensive abilities are stunning.

Seetoo.9316:

SS gives you might per shattered ILLUSION. Persona shatters yourself. You however are not an illu so why would you get might from it?

Persona is supposed to make you count as an illusion for the purposes of shatter effects. Distortion clearly works this way, so it’s unclear why this trait would not. As noted after the adjustment to 1 might per shatter it is probably not a problem. Really its an argument for consistency in mesmer mechanics more than anything else.

The really funny part about burst thieves is they’re typically pretty good at using their stealth, but awful at dealing with other people who have it. If you have a torch, decoy or veil you can really mess with them. Remember, they can “unload” with no cooldown, but initiative regain for those builds is pretty mediocre. If their burst misses then the fight is yours (i.e., the worst outcome for you is the run away).

But in WvW if you are rocking glass cannon and a burst basilisk thief targets you, you’re at a huge disadvantage. Burst d/d thieves are a build that is a very strong counter to other glass cannon builds; that’s what they are and what they do. No amount of skill can really make up for the mechanics combined with the current culling issues. The Moral Of The Story Is Toughness And Vitality matter.

Oh, and Mirror of Anguish (Chaos VII) is part of a totally amazing family of talents, and a particularly strong example of one.

Xavi.6591:

Don’t forget the hidden nerf of Illusionary Persona no longer giving you Might when you Shatter. We should really get 4 stacks of Might instead of 3 if we have this trait.

Anet failed to mention this nerf in the patch notes.

Sounds like a bug we should report. There’s no reason it should be working that way.

Soyboy.3548:

Who the hell uses mantra of concentration? It’s not even long enough to get a new mantra cast off! It was decent in beta with the 1 use and longer uptime of stability. But 2.5 seconds is obviously overlooked. Why would anyone take that over say blink or decoy?

It’s arguably much better than mantra of pain for a bunker build. Mantra uses are instant cast, so they can be done during channeled actions. You can use it during a stomp or revive the way people use instant blinds on reaction to preserve stomps. It’s also two/three stunbreaks in one slot, which is pretty great. Boon duration stacking could get you even further.

By comparison 3s of stability on an instant is a 30 point trait for Necromancers.

It’s sort of like Mantra of Distraction in that it’s high skillcap but potentially pretty strong with traits.

Their bunker build out damages my survive build and wins…

It’s a good point, I guess. I haven’t seen many awesome mesmer bunker builds even though on paper it looks like it should be very possible to do. Plentiful stunbreaks, invulnerability, reflection, clones, mantra heals all fit in one build with 2 utility slots left over.

And I dunno if people have experimented, but the actual scaling +heal on mantra of restoration is actually pretty good compared to our main heal (x1.2) when you compare what a dump of a 3x heal mantra would be. The downside is, of course, the channel.

Edit: Off the top of my head, this build seems like if played correctly would be nigh unkillable and the phantasms would be really obnoxious to kill: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQNAsfRl4zyonSTqGZ9IxpHQ35PHVhuT6hpf9qB;TgAgzCvoMyYkwIrROjkGB

lettucemode.3789:

Necro is far better than the first post claims. Necro still has problems. The end.

This bears repeating.

Necros do need fixes and perhaps some slight trait tuning (although the trait issues are nowhere as bad as people like to make them out to be…). It’d be great if all the AI issues for minions could be worked out, or minion power drastically raised to account for their unreliability.

But the class is hardly in the worst place, as the OP states. The Engineer class is in absolute shambles. The Ranger class is struggling to find a place, with only one really viable type of build emerging. Of course, every forum is convinced their class is in the worst shape. There is a thread up top in the Mesmer forum about giving up that class because it’s not viable anymore. Which is crazy, and we all know it, but people feel that way…

Threads like this are ultimately ignored by the devs. Stop wasting your time and actually make a list of corrections that is not, “I demand to play GW1 minion necros.” Because that playstyle is never coming back no matter how many bite marks you make in your keyboard.

Some rebuttals to the OP:

1. Anyone who says, “Necros have poor survivability” needs to roll a thief and take it into sPvP. Play at least 25 games. I promise you both condi and power Necros will be both on your list of top 3 most hated opponents by the end of it, and they’re out there waiting to destroy you. Necros have great survival tools against burst, and easy access to a lot of passive healing to help with longevity.
2. Necros have acceptably good PvE support. Run a group healing & condition build and watch how happy your teammates are. As for WvW, they’re some of the best wall defenders out there and Nemesis has gone into great detail on this.
3. If you think that “everyone else can run away from a zerg” then you have a very distorted opinion of the world. Personally, I blame youtube for this. D/D elementalists, long-stealth thieves, and mesmers who luckily have a portal up can get away from a zerg reliably. Most other classes get steamrolled. Moral: don’t get caught by a zerg.

Nekroseth.5186:

but found it to be, to centered araund damage. It felt as it is all it can do.
(excluding the mantra healer build)
Trough i am only 36 with her yet. Damage felt a bit low actually.

Ultimately, every class is about damage.

They offer a lot of group buffs, and stealth, and do area denial, and multiple ways to reflect projectiles. They also have fairly good defense via invulnerability.

It does take some time to understand them, and pre-level 40 it’s tough to make a good burst build.

Nekroseth.5186:

I am considering my lv 50 ele isntead. Trough i dont like the design of spells, the roles and the combat feels a bit more fun then most of classes.

Do you keep typing “trough” when you mean “though?” Just wondering.

But yes, Elementalists feel like you’re flying a jet. If you have a staff, it’s like you’re a high-altitude bomber. If you’ve got a dagger (in either hand) you feel like a fighter jet. It’s fun.

Nekroseth.5186:

Also not sure if Rangers are another underdog class….are they?

They are not as bad off as Engineers, but do have some issues. They are doing pretty well in the sPvP meta, though. I think their PvE players are the most verbal. Managing a pet means working with the (sometimes substandard) AI and understanding how pets are rotated in and out, managing their health and sometimes calling them back. It’s not easy.

tigirius.9014:

Ever stop to think that the reason they bring fewer kits is cause none of them work properly right now?

I do not think so. The only kit with significant problems is the Flamethrower, and even if it worked perfectly I wouldn’t be slotting it.

People think kit management is hard. It’s not difficult to swap kits by any stretch of the imagination. What’s hard is managing cooldowns so that what you need is up; because that requires anticipation of your opponent. Remembering what button to push is the easy part. Guessing when you’ll need to push it and tracking that in your head is hard.

aydenunited.5729

We can remove them via:

1) A trait that makes every potion use remove a condition, giving 2 removals per potion (considering the toolbelt skills)

This is the primary way they do it. So it’s on long cooldowns, and you have to use a skill you would otherwise use to help yourself or your team for condition removal.

aydenunited.5729

2) Elixir C, removes all and the toolbelt removes 1

No one carries this, mostly because there is so little room in the Engineer utility slots for this. But yes, this is the Best Option.

aydenunited.5729

3) Elixir R, toolbelt skill

Using Elixir R for this is terrible, and we both know you shouldn’t use it that way.

aydenunited.5729

4) 15 points into Tools line means that at 25% life, you get all of those toolbelt Elixirs back

It’s way too late at this point in the fight.

aydenunited.5729

5) Automated Response gives immunity to any new conditions applied after 25% health

But at 25% you’re probably already well dotted up by most Necromancers, who stack very persistent bleeds. Necromancers can actually break the +100% condition duration cap for bleeds and poison. So at that point they’re going to start spike damaging anyways, and probably fearing you.

aydenunited.5729

6) Kit Refinement + swap to Flamethrower = 1 condition removal every 10 seconds.

I assume you meant Elixir Gun? Yes. But this is another utility slot. Doesn’t fit in many builds.

aydenunited.5729

7) Medikit Drop Antidote every 15 seconds + the ability to stack 2-3 on the node itself if you are playing bunker.

An awkward mechanic that only gets worse if you trait it.

aydenunited.5729

8) Traits in Alchemy line mean 8% of all conditions are not affecting us to begin with

This doesn’t inhibit condition stackers in the slightest. It’s really a rare out out for cripples and immobilizes.

How much more condition removal do we need?

For a bunker? You need both passive and active condition cures that fit in your build.

Most good bunkers have a variety of ways to do this. Most engineer builds do not have room for more that Formula 409. Very very few WvW builds can take the Elixir Gun. Where does Elixir C fit in Tankcat? What happens when you blow your Toss R to clear a single random condition (or maybe 2 if traited?). Besides, Elixir S has greatly eclipsed Elixir R in popularity, because it’s such a better defensive skill.

Necros don’t care about one or two clears every 30 seconds or so. Guardians can barely keep up with them on condition application. And necros counter-clear conditions very well too (their most-used heal actually clears all conditions and gets stronger for every condition, in their heal slot!).

It is, uh, not a mark of shame to have counter builds. They exist. It’s also not a mark of shame to admit the Engineer needs a lot of work and most popular builds don’t handle condition stackers very well.

Once you get to Master traits, 20 points in Dueling gives you Deceptive Evasion. This lets you trade off dodges for clone generation, which makes PvE much easier.

The general plan for a condition/damage hybrid using Staff and Greatsword looks something like this:

1. Approach the mobs, casting your phantasm.
2. Immediately Phase Retreat. Begin to Circle strafe to try and draw the monsters into a tight pivoting group. This is a skill that has to be practiced, but many classes need to do it so it’s not Mesmer specific and it’ll pay off for many characters to understand.
3. Dodge, Mind Wrack. This should hit at least a few of the mobs you’re grouping for good damage.
4. Switch to Greatsword as the rugby team is running in, and use GS4 then GS2.
5. Dodge, and use GS5 to contain the group. Either GS2 or stamina will let you make a third clone.
6. Use Cry of Frustration, switch back to staff, start generating clones again.
7. Repeat until the group goes down. Remember you have utilities and Distortion if you need it.

Staff clones really are the best clones though. You can pretty much just kite with them melting enemies one at a time. It’s especially effective once you get the Master trait from Illusions, Illusionary Elasticity.

ShaunZ.1098:

I completely agree with the last paragraph. Engineers are the banana peel class of GW2

It’s too bad deployable turrets doesn’t work in WvW. I think you’d see jugglers a lot more if it did.

And also Forceful Explosives is still bugged and doesn’t seem to interact with Accelerant-Packed Turrets, which is likewise too bad because that’d make turret builds much better.

Nekroseth.5186:

*BTW why you all say Mesmer is good? (they complain the most)

They really do complain a lot.

But their class and class design is one of the most solid and interesting in the game. There is a ton of depth to that class both in the utility and damage output sides. And unlike Thieves, they’re doing amazing stuff in WvW without abusing culling.

Nekroseth.5186:

what is your opinion on Eles trough?*

Ele’s are interesting. They can fill a ton of different roles in the party but their weapon decision before the fight really determines their playstyle. There is a lot of space in the class to carve out rotations you like and despite complaints there actually are a ton of really interesting and viable builds (people say you MUST take 30 arcane or 30 water, but that’s really not true and PvE heros routinely do 30/0/30/0/10), but it’s also a hard class to understand with tons of fiddly trait combinations.

aydenunited.5729:

Except that you’re nice and low on HP, and your condition damage goes limp at 25% with Automated Response. And even if you kill me the first time, I’ve already got Elixir R thrown on the ground and rez myself to continue the fight.

Hypothetical duels don’t really mean much, we could go back and forth all day countering what the other can do in words. I would love to face more tough Necros to work on my build, look me up in game and we’ll have a go sometime, should be fun.

I sort of agree with the sentiment that mind duels are only cool in Kungkittenmovies, but Necros are a very nasty class for engineer bunkers to deal with. I think it’s worth talking about because it highlights some of the weak points of TANKCAT.

Probably the hardest part about being an engineer is dealing with condition builds. Engineers simply lack good condition clearing, and they’ve very vulnerable to having their limited access to buffs stolen. TANKCAT’s primary damage output is Retaliation, but they actually have limited access to it. If you take it away or don’t do the bulk of your damage via direct hits, TANKCAT has basically no way to do anything but slowly lumber away dropping easily avoidable nail fields.

Necros are a particularly bad type of condition build to deal with for tanky engineers. Unless they’re spec’d heavily AoE, they will keep conditions on you always, corrupt your boons, ignore your burst, wait out your blocks. And if you are one of the rare engineers that spec’s to ignore conditions at 25% hp, the Necro can pop death shroud and actually hit shockingly hard with life blast. And that’s assuming they haven’t been banking their ultimate.

The main reason Necros are not an absolute terror in small groups in WvW is because they tend to roll with utilities that give them the best AoE condition damage options in the game. Swapping out Epidemic for Corrupt Boon changes that equation, as does trading in a staff for a dagger/dagger or dagger/focus. Occasionally you see users like Sheobix make roamer power builds and they’re pretty frightening to watch (necro’s melee damage is shockingly strong). I’ve never seen an engineer build has a chance in hell of beating a well melee necro. The easy access to Stability (from DS), Chill, and Corrupt Boon just ruins Engineers of all kinds.

Anyways, the greatest strength of an Engineer is supposed to be mid-fight versatility. It is currently not the case that engineers have that (and Rangers do it better with pet swapping, not that it’s great). For now, Engineer’s actual greatest strength is that if you want you can rock so many knockbacks that you can keep melee players on the ground for quite some time, and stability becomes a must-have. Of course, Engineers have no real ways to capitalize on this power because their direct damage options are so lackluster, but if you’re rolling with a team you can make the fight much easier for the team by keeping enemies on the floor.

Ramiah.5648:

Holy cow, the staff clones bounce and can grant boons now? WHEN did that change, or have I just never noticed it? I sat right in front of a mob in the mists and set staff clones on it and didn’t notice I ever got a boon. Man, that makes me so happy to hear as it’s even better support than I thought to go staff.

It’s been that way for a very long time. The staff really shines when you get Illusionary Elasticity from Master Illusions and some clones up. It does good condition stacking and good boon stacking if you have boon duration builds.

The downside: melee allies steal your buffs. >:(

juno.1840:

KirinDave.6451:

You can bring a ton of utility to a zerg.

Unfortunately “utility” doesn’t win you badges — tagging with lots of DPS does. That’s the life in a zerg.

I actually agree with you. This is sort of depressing. I hope Anet fixes that. Because what you do to get your server to up rank in WvW and win the cycle is very different from what you do to get badges, and that’s too bad.

Levetty.1279:

Why can every other class attack the top of the wall but Mesmers cant?

Cannot hear you over the bucket of necro tears sloshing around at my feet. That class is slower and has a harder time doing things during a siege. Warrior isn’t very fun either.

Levetty.1279:

Why did they have their phantasm mechanics specifically changed so that they couldn’t do this (a massive negative change in all modes of play due to the stupid obstructed bugs and lets not even get into how they are the only class that can have their summons blocked)?

As a trade off, phantasms have the best (practical) attack rate, AI, and recharge time of any indirect source of damage in the game. Seriously, they’re better even than Guardian weapons. Way better than Engineer turrets, Necro minions, or Elementalist summons. About the worst that can be said is that sometimes they get you into combat when you don’t want to, but every summon and aoe class has that problem.

Levetty.1279:

Engineers had Grenades nerfed because they did way too much damage for a spamable aoe and had sigil effects added to them, they needed nerfing. They still have a spamable aoe that can keep keep walls clear as enemies back away from the damage and the other effects 2-5 do.

No one is afraid of grenade spam anymore. It no longer does significant damage. Smart engineers do not spam grenades at players; they keep the toolkit around for pulls into nail fields followed by knockdowns to try and kill the player. This actually makes a difference rather than posting big numbers.

Only one class can still do what mesmers used to do, and that’s Rangers. It is not likely they will continue to be able to do that Nature’s Ninja stuff much longer, and ANet has already said they’re going to reduce the power of AoE in general to make it line up with the actual opportunity cost of the abilities.

Levetty.1279:

As I said I am sure you love having Mesmers around to use their gimmicky, high cooldown skills to help you do stuff in your little supply running/camp capturing bubble but if you want to talk about that then make a thread about that. That isn’t what the thread is about. Maybe giving them something to do in the mean time won’t be so bad.

Mesmer’s have reliable access to even more than I’ve described. They’re actually awesome keep defenders when appropriately traited, too! They have a TON of access to ranged reflection on reasonable cooldowns, which means mesmers can collaborate with guardians and necros to make breaking a gate even harder.

I’ve decided to make Mesmer my next main after my Engineer fell apart as a profession, and my server takes WvW pretty seriously (we’re trying to break into the top 10). So I’ve been carefully studying what they can do. It’s an impressive list. He is not yet L80, but I have a few hundred kills with him him WvW and over 50 games in PvP as I have evaluated the class. I am not an expert, but you do not need to be one to see mesmer potential.

Oh wait we have portal, that fixes everything.

I’ve mentioned portal once, because it’s a good skill. It’s hardly the alpha and omega of what a Mesmer brings to a group. Very, very few classes are as good in WvW as mesmer, and I submit no class has the potential to contribute in so many ways without a respec.

Levetty.1279:

Congratulations on writing the worst post in the history of these forums, I wish I had something I could give you.

Don’t you have something interesting to say? Let’s see. Scroll down…

Levetty.1279:

Favourite bit has to be that casting berserker on top of keeps is ‘cheese’ but Barrage, grenade spam and Eles aoes are pro. Nice.

Um, grenade spam has been nerfed. Hard. Keep up with the patch notes. And uh, the AoE? All the hitboxes have been reduced in size. Keep up with the patch notes.

Levetty.1279:

‘Mesmers have portal so all their problems are non existent’ point. Bravo.

Not what I said. I said Mesmers bring a massive amount of utility to a WvW siege party. Mesmers bring a massive amount of utility. And you’re upset because you can’t do fire and forget damage on objects and NPCs. You have multiple group stealths, multiple group buffs, the ability to turn any self-buff-stacking trick into a group-buff-stacking trick, good damage, an incredibly good pull/knockdown tool, the best AoE swiftness tool in the game, the best team ultimate in the game. There are literally no ultimates anyone has to match timewarp. The fact that you can also timewarp and also give everyone all buffs for 6 seconds without a single trait point allocated is also pretty insane.

I don’t know what your build is, but I do know what your class can do. Very few classes can approach the utility that a Mesmer can provide to a raiding group, and you don’t need to sacrifice small-unit combat viability to bring it like a banner warrior does, you just need to re-equip.

If you cannot see this, then WvW is probably not for you. Mesmers are fine in WvW. They just don’t post the obscene numbers on keep defenders they used to. And that’s fine, because you’ve got better things to be doing anyways.

But feel free to keep repeating the same, “Lol you don’t understand” stuff. This post is not really directed at you. It’s directed at other people who read these forums and wonder if you’re right. They will then read this exchange and realize you actually have no real argument against what I just said, and what I just said is pretty kitten accurate, and dismiss you as another entitled mesmer player.

Levetty.1279:

… complains about bad spec, only full burst shatter specs allowed …

… complains about weapon selection, “I need my sword so I can shatter, and have you SEEN the berzerker’s big numbers?”

… complains about inability to use utilities besides those that stunbreak and generate more clones for shatters, because omg have you seen those videos?…

You can bring a ton of utility to a zerg. Some examples:

1. Signet of Inspiration is awesome, because it lets you buff friends. Combine with runes and Sigils and Inspiration Traits to let you give your roaming team huge buffs that let them take on teams larger than themselves.
2. Mass Invisibility and Veil are awesome in so many situations. Help people do supply runs by covering them and keeping them stealthed so teams in the keeps don’t callout supply runners and direct raids. A single well-placed veil and a coordinated team can make it easy to take out a team twice as big as yours.
3. Feedback is amazing in WvW, it affects a LOT of things. Illusionary Warden is amazing in WvW, it affects a lot of things.
4. Temporal Curtain is amazing in WvW, letting you help move your team and letting you yank people off walls at least as as well as any Engineer can. Better, in many cases.
5. Your ability to generate clones is itself amazing in WvW. Just 2 mesmers at a gate crashing party can easily make a small group appear much larger and delay counter-attacks.

Mesmers complaining about WvW siege utility becuase they cannot cheese out LoS anymore makes me so bored. Sorry you can’t press a button and go make tea anymore; you’re going to have to work at breaking defenses like the rest of us. Mesmers are also still the single most powerful siege breaking class in WvW even after the portal nerf. After every keep capture everyone must meticulously scour the fortress for Mesmers or risk having the keep taken without a siege.

So seriously. Go do something meaningful in the zerg and stop complaining.

Ejiofor.4801:

Found this on the Elementalist forums…:

“While an elementalist does have some of the greatest potential in healing, utility, DPS, and tanking capabilities, there are its drawbacks. A user who plays as an elementalist has to work much harder to deliver the same results that other classes can perform.”

Thought it was funny.

They do. Engineers do less cooldown management than Elementalists and routinely bring fewer kits than the Elementalist is demanded to work with. Elementalists also have less base health and toughness to rely on, whereas many successful Engineer builds stack at least toughness and sometimes toughness and vitality.

Of course, Engineers would bring more kits if they could… but they take up utility slots with toolbelt skills that are frequently lackluster. The actual kits are pretty hit-or-miss, too.

Amadeus.5687:

Well, I gotta admit I’m sloooooowly leveling my mesmer at the moment, which actually was meant to be my main (also the one I named Amadeus, which is my usual game tag) and the class i played during all beta weekend’s, but I just kinda fell in love with the Engineer when I made it the last day in the third beta weekend!
But I ain’t gonna do much on the mesmer beside siege work when my guild is missing one for portals and AoE haste for ze golem army!

I’m working on Mesmer and Necro myself. Both are very fun.

NastyPiggy.2046:

Go watch some videos by Teldo to see what you can do with the engineer in tPvP…
Engineer 1 on 4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EX7T5BqQd64&list=UUXOD8AuOQxlDD8ORiiXrMkw
How to solo the guild lord…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUl9yQM1a0s
Defending Nodes…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6h9cvRdNtU&list=UUXOD8AuOQxlDD8ORiiXrMkw

And here’s some tips for engineers from reddit…
http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/12pr1j/post_random_engineer_tips_so_more_people_would/

We have. They’re… um… I mean I hate to be a jerk about it but they’re either not incredibly impressive OR they rely on things that don’t work anymore. Compared to what you can find for other classes, anyways. And maybe that’d be okay if Engineers had a higher diversity of builds than everyone else, right? But they don’t. You can make an Ele power bunker or GC or roamer, you can make a Ranger bunker (oh god these are insanely strong right now) or Roamer or GC (also under-appreciated).

I mean you go back and see the old pre-pistol nerf engineers and say, “Wow, GC pistols would rule!” Then you realize that all has been nerfed and the pistol tooltips lie about their ROF.

I don’t like to call specific people out this way because Teldo does a good job of it, given the tools he has. Great player. Mediocre results because of his toolset, though.

Amadeus.5687:

@KirinDave: I did no damage to the Guardien mostly cause he removed condition’s all the time with his setup, which hurt’s my confusion damage a lot, and he knew when not to attack when I had many stack’s.

Yeah, people with experience in WvW realize how dangerous confusion can be and treat it like a daze.

I think it’s more that Engineer condition damage is sort of mediocre if you can’t keep firing, and when you start getting chased it’s hard to keep them up. I think the design intent was that Engineer conditions are harder to remove because they’re short duration and constant application; and when they aren’t being chased it actually works acceptably well.

Amadeus.5687:

Also, the Necromancer put a lot of pressure on me to begin with (This setup can have problem’s with conditions), so in that fight I was a lot more focused on just staying alive and avoid that big hammer hehe, I’m afraid of the Red Guard!! ^^

Yeah I noticed this too. Don’t feel alone though, Engineers have a lot of problems against good condition builds. Nice work staying alive, you’re 2x better than everyone else in the video at least.

If you could get another geared character of a class in less disarray, you’d be a monster. Are you working on any alts?

Amadeus.5687:

I’m there to soak up the damage! and heck, I love being the side kick, so much more fun then playing the Theif atleast!

I am glad I am at least not alone in saying that the Wild Bill playstyle is super boring.

Isslair.4908:

Killer Parakeet.9435:

Go play your “easy mode” warrior and thief.

Actually, I push a lot more buttons on my warrior, than I did on my grenade engi. Also I need to time the skills right. Not just faceroll during my grenade rotation.
Doesn’t change the fact, that a lot more tankier warrior deals a lot more damage.

This is the saddest part. Lots of people here like to call Warrior, Mesmer, and Thief “easymode”. I’ve even seen people call Necromancers “easymode” because of DS. And if you play it you realize that in PvP/WvW, everyone is working hard.

An engineer making a good sidekick?

It’s almost like ANet designed them this way.

It’s also pretty frustrating to watch in that Engineer perspective fight how the Engineer focusing the guardian did no damage, but the instant the attrition thief started focusing then he starts to fall rapidly and the Engineer just kept him busy. An attrition build doing better DPS than a straight up power/toughness build.

Killer Parakeet.9435:

Seems like a lot of you are doing it wrong.

Just because you’re not good at a class doesn’t make it bad. It makes you bad. Go play your “easy mode” warrior and thief.

Look, the very fact you admit that the Warrior and Thief can do bigger and better things with less effort is the problem. Those classes are where they should be; Engineer is not. End of discussion.

There isn’t some special medal you get at the end of the day that says, “Congratulations you played Engineer and We All Know That’s Rough.” There is Glory, there are Kills, there is your server’s WvW rank, there is your PvE progression, and there is you having fun.

If you have fun playing Engineer, for whatever reason… Great? But please don’t try to take that feeling of satisfaction as a sign that the class is okay. Because that sense of satisfaction you feel is what you have, but by your own admission its not a class that is directly competitive.

Killer Parakeet.9435:

it’s still a new game especially considering anet spent their time during the holidays working on holiday events for obvious business reasons and taking vacation like real people do.

And we all appreciate that. And we all realize that the game is new and it’s certainly in a better play balance state than WoW was within year 1.

But that doesn’t mean we’re going to call the Engineer anything but a deficient class. If we don’t complain, no one will. Because if Anet isn’t aware of the problem then the L80 engineers we have cooling their heels will be sitting there mocking us for wasting time on them.

Killer Parakeet.9435:

Engineer is not an easy class to play. I am constantly switching kits and lining up combos…

I cut this off because it’s so boring and predictable. Congratulations, you’re a good player. You can play most classes and do well against bad players. And you know what? Honestly good players are rare, so you probably only seldom meet your equal.

So let’s pretend that everything you’re saying is true and you’re awesome: none of that matters. What the engineer is right now, and its class design, is not competitive. And while you may spend your time patting your back for succeeding with engineer, the vast majority of players (who are all less deserving of oxygen than you, we grant) are not playing engineer. The stats for the class are plummeting, and that’s what Anet has to listen to.

I think my favorite part of these videos is watching Shortbow rangers DPS themselves down when confused and consistently not seem to get it. Every time I see those clips I start cackling, “Yes. Yes. Keep shooting his face.”

Windwalker.2047:

Please do share your exalted ele build that does so much damage i would love to see it.

GC s/d can do amazing things in PvE. 40k bursts with good escapes in good gear. You never see them outside of farming because the instant you hit anything that doesn’t die in the burst you have no sustainable defense beyond a few escape cooldowns.

plasmacutter.2709:

FreshCookies.7024:

go play a engineer then you have all the right in the world to complain

Sorry, can’t hear you over all the grenades making piles of shiny corpses out of everything in every DE the game has to offer, giving engies more rares per hour than anyone else in the game, even with the new nerfed grenade damage.

Also, thanks for the heal from the turret, it does more than the entire mesmer profession, including mantra builds.

This comment, more than anything else, shows you have no idea what you’re talking about when it comes to other professions. You might want to read patch notes. This kit was nerfed very hard, and the only part of it that still does great damage is the toolkit ability.

And of course the fact that they’re slow, ground-targetted projectiles. I stopped using it in november, and prefer the bomb kit for DEs now just because it is a more reliable tag.

It does seem pretty incredible how full of rage you are over DEs, which are just one very, very small part of the game. If you think Engineers are great because they have DE tagging, then you should roll one and learn what true GW2 despair, class confusion, and dev neglect is. Meanwhile Mesmers are going to continue to be a core part of the WvW and PvP gameplay, and an undeniable asset to most difficult dungeon runs.

So shelf it. Roll an engineer. Pull out that grenade kit. You’ll sure tag some mobs in DEs! Of course you’ll be denied spots in fractal groups >5 with “lol sorry it’s hard enough with a pug as it is”, have huge itemization problems, expect every much-needed and fair buff to come with a massive nerf, have Anet speak incoherent nonsense about your class design, and be told by your friends that Engineers have no place in the tpvp meta. But DEs! DEs!

Levetty.1279:

Much easier to get high stacks and keep them up constantly. Also the hardest hitting weapon in the game.

I am not like a pro warrior but every main warrior I know says that you’d not really use that skill to stack over 20 might quickly. High might stacking was the auspice of banner warriors blowing cooldowns, and this is often used as a trick to get hundred blades and kill shot to spike absurd numbers.

And I think Rifle has better attack coefficients, doesn’t it? I’ve seen killshots break 20k.

Esplen.3940:

KirinDave.6451:

Levetty.1279:

Can somebody explain to me how Shattered Strength was OP but no other might stacking is?

I’ll try.

Shattered Strength was one of the easiest, least time sensitive, and straightforward might stackers in-combat. If you can easily and reliably self-stack >20 might in combat without using utilities or relying on someone else’s fire fields, you have a massive advantage over every other class. Might stacking was just really easy and everyone was doing it.

Sorry, but…

If you can easily and reliably self-stack 20 might in combat without using utilities

If you’re self-stacking 20, you’re using utilities. The only way to sustain 10+ might was to use utilities and blow, literally, all your cooldowns.

You could nearly hit the cap with one utility OR with one trait, right? All you had to do was feather your shatters (which the bug let you do quickly) and then get the cooldowns to reset. That could be done in the middle of a fight by noticing your hp and traiting appropriately.

But yes, I meant to edit to say the big stack comes from popping signet of illusions, so it’s one utility.

Levetty.1279:

Can somebody explain to me how Shattered Strength was OP but no other might stacking is?

I’ll try.

Shattered Strength was one of the easiest, least time sensitive, and straightforward might stackers in-combat. If you can easily and reliably self-stack >20 might in combat without using utilities or relying on someone else’s fire fields, you have a massive advantage over every other class. Might stacking was just really easy and everyone was doing it.

Or at least my experience with most classes suggests very few ways are easier. Offhand, the only one I can think of is a 30 point Engineer trait for a kit that is terrible and people only use for 2 of its skills, and that’d let you trait to hover around 15 stacks of might pre-sigils. Most other ways involve blast finishers, which is not necessarily hard but either blows multiple utility cooldowns or requires you be out of combat to swap weapons.

I know banner warriors can do it, but they have to drop all banners and they can barely touch 17 stacks of might. Some engineer builds can hit 25 stacks but they usually use blast finishers (by detonating turrets) and have 60 points of traits decided to make that happen. Some guardians can do it but they have to rely on your actions to make it happen, and it’s a build that loses a lot of mobility. Offhand, I don’t know of anyone else who can do it.

And I suspect you’ll get buffed back to 2 stacks of might in the future. For all ANet’s talk about gradual changes to help meta stability, they get very reactionary when people start abusing a bug, and this might stacking technique was being abused by the other bug.

EasymodeX.4062:

Damage and AI components are balanced by the part where they die pretty kitten quick (if you are talking about an actual DPS build).

My experience fighting mesmers in sPvP: I lose if I bother to kill your phantasms unless I have some pretty epic aoe to drop. Maybe when I’m playing an elementalist I can, otherwise I am wasting time my opponent is using to kill me. And you can trait to make that decision deleterious if you so choose.

So I’m pretty sure we can safely say Mesmer’s clone and Phantasm mechanic is “good” in a variety of ways.

EasymodeX.4062:

The issue is the allowing them to be defendable twice compared to once is significantly different from any other ability in the game — regular attacks or necromancer summons.

The Mesmer could be summarized pretty succinctly as, “Significantly different from any other [class] in the game.” I’ve played them all now, Memser stands out as unusual in an ecosystem of unusual classes.

Is it irritating? Sure. Is it unbalanced? I’m not sure.

EasymodeX.4062:

Your summary and opinion here is a result of a deficiency of reading comprehension.

Must you?

EasymodeX.4062:

The bug that was poorly balanced was the 57 Might stacks on a trait that was already balanced and didn’t need a buff.

Perhaps your prodigious and enviable reading comprehension could briefly focus on the the might stacking rules on the wiki.

And in any case, it was obviously against the designer’s intent.

EasymodeX.4062:

Also, a GCD on shatters is asinine. Ohwell.

Fortunately for your point of view, it’s not permanent. It’s a stopgap measure until Anet can fix the underlying problem, which they seem to feel is obscure. So your dignity need not suffer forever.

EnRohbi.2187:

Phantasms right now hover in some weird purgatory between Attacks and Summons, they have all the negatives of both and none of the positives

Except some of the best damage, best AI, and lowest cooldowns of any external damage source in the game?

Have you seen Necro minions? They do what they want, when they want. Have you seen Engineer turrets? You’re lucky when they shoot. Elementalist summons seem stay on target, but they have very long cooldowns. Thieves Guild is similarly cooldown-based. And you should experience Guardian’s hammer frustration first hand. It’s like shatter-runtime frustration but even worse.

I am not saying the Mesmer class does not have bugs or room for design improvement. Every class does. I’m just saying this thread makes several other class communities fume. Memsers are so kitten strong and here ya’ll are writing a thread being upset because of something that even your community viewed as questionably balanced.

SteepledHat.1345:

Mesmer phantasam summons are blocked by blind/dodge/etc because they’re normal attacks. That’s why my duelist’s unload attack can trigger a flame sigil…. oh wait.

No one’s summons attacks trigger sigils, though, right? Not even Elementalist’s summons do. Seems like a specious argument.

And ask yourself, do you really want to make Thieves Guild any stronger?

Raideen.5973:

Clearly has not tried a long range spec with an engineer.

There is one long range spec with an engineer and it is terrible. You have to choose mostly terrible utilities for your toolbelt slots, and run a glassy build with none of the useful defense mechanics that GC (thieves|mesmers|rangers) can use.

So let’s just not talk about that build like it’s anything but the apoplectic thrashing of a foundering class design.

plasmacutter.2709:

This patch has made clear ANet’s utter lack of interest or commitment in the mesmer profession.
When faced with an obvious damage calculation bug causing mind wrack to do 100% more damage, they nerfed our might stacking instead and instituted a global cooldown for mesmer only

I’m shelving my mesmer for good.

You over-privileged, entitled, pretty kitty.

Do you realize how bad other classes have it right now? Engineer is more buggy, in a worse design space, losing users left-and-right. Necromancers are about to receive and AoE nerf but have fundamental problems, a nearly completely non-viable weapon (there’s only one good use for Necro axe and it’s very specialized and only recently discovered). Ranger is still trying to find its footing in a world that greatly seems to prefer shortbow thieves.

Mesmer, at least, has great and clear roles in PvE and is an important part of the meta in multiple ways.

From my perspective running Engineer and Necro, your problems are pretty enviable.

P.S., multiple classes have global-cooldown-like mechanics. Elementalist comes to mind right off the bat, and their clearly one of the top-tier classes right now.

After a bunch more work, I’ve decided this build is rubbish, like the class. There’s really no point to pursuing it except in very specific teamfight scenarios that don’t make any sense.

Huh, I guess it was just bigger than I remembered.

Upshot, that’s a free trait that doesn’t have to be devoted to turrets.

Aegael.6938:

Speaking of which, have you actually tested that forceful explosives increases the explosion radius of the turret explosion? Last I checked, it didn’t. If it does now, great.

I am pretty sure that the bugs with forceful are currently fixed. The radius is much bigger than I remembered it (which was crazy small). The bugs with evasive powderkeg’s range seem to be fixed too.

JuniorSB.7089:

“You are the most annoying build in human history,” one gc thief whispered to me.

I loled pretty hard at this.

But my damage was so bad I had a hard time killing him.

Btw, fun point: stunbreaker is not super necessary for this build because you can detonate large-radius knockdown turrets while stunned. Keeping a turret nearby means you can throw people down.

JuniorSB.7089:

Hey so I really like your build idea, it’s pretty cool. So I did some experimenting in the build editor and here’s what I got.

Thanks!

JuniorSB.7089:

“2. Is the last 10 points in tools worthwhile?”

In my opinion, not really. It’s good for keeping your explosions and CC up more, but if you’re not able to kill people, then you should invest a little more in power.

So what I would suggest is to put those 10 points into explosives and get Explosive powder like you said. The extra 10% damage is just awesome, and the minor trait gives vulnerability, which is great as well.

This is really tempting. The +10% cooldown reduction and +10% crit damage is also pretty awesome, but 10% flat damage increase is very tempting as well as the vuln and Moar Power™.

JuniorSB.7089:

“3. What runes and sigil could be better?”
I put in Dolyak Runes because I like the regen and tankyness it gives you. On the weapons I put minor sigils of accuracy and corruption so as you kill people your precision and cond. damage get better.

I think the Lyssa runes actually help this build more with staying alive. The big problem is the lack of condition mitigation (which is a problem engineers have in general). Having your elite become an epic awesome fight resetter is fantastic.

A really fun question, “Do turrets count as companions?” If so, the Ranger runeset might be cool!

JuniorSB.7089:

Now, some other changes I put in:
Changed the Alchemy trait to IV Self-Regulating Defenses. This trait has saved me countless times, and with about 20k hp, it’ll be going off when you’re at about 5k hp.
The protection is nice, but I’d rather have 3 sec of almost invulnerability

Yeah this is a tough choice for me, too.

JuniorSB.7089:

The other change I’d like to mention is the weapons. You mentioned the purpose of the build was to use a lot of CC, and the shield on the engineer is awesome at it. The 4 skill reflects projectiles, blocks attacks, and has an AoE knockback. This skill can be used in a variety of ways to mess with your opponent and can be used really easily. The 5 skill is one of my favorite skills on the engineer ’cause I feel like Captain America when I use it, plus the boomerang daze effect is pretty sweet.

I think the biggest problem I have with this combo is how lousy the pistol is. It’s easily one of the worst weapons in the game and without stacking more condition damage just doesn’t do much at all. But yes, the shield is one of the best offhand weapon sets out there.

JuniorSB.7089:

Hope this generates some ideas for your build. I actually want to try it sometime on my engi.

The juggling is crazy funny. I think there is probably a full bunker build based around this, too. Because I had people deciding to run away rather than fight me for a point because I was so irritating. People were whispering to me that my build was annoying, “You are the most annoying build in human history,” one gc thief whispered to me.

Kamahl.3621:

It looks alright, but I’ll just give you some quick pointers:

1) Invisible while immobilized is worthless once you start playing anyone with half a brain. Engineers only have one non-combo source of stealth from their abilities, and one trait method.
2) No stunbreaker. Your own personal defense is kind of limited due to this fact. Sure you’ve got a lot of point control, with the current turret spam. However, consider what’ll happen when you end up going against a ranger who just doesn’t care? He stays off the point, his pet encourages you to waste your bombs on it instead (and the moment it gets low, he’ll just swap it out and get 2s of quickness to hammer you with – even worse if he’s using dual hound pets to fear you off the point). Same thing can happen with a mesmer, albeit much worse.

I’d personally discard the static discharge idea, dump rifle turret, pick up Elixir S and Toolkit. Magnet + Prybar will usually get most classes in a pinch, the toolbelt skill (Throw Wrench) is fantastic (especially if you trait it, which you’d be doing if you took out static discharge), and Gear Shield is god tier (OH NOES I’M IMMOBILIZED AND – oh wait I’m immortal suckers), as it’s the fastest cooldown block in the game (3s block every 16s is pretty nice).

Thanks for the feedback. I think dropping static might be a sound idea, but the big problem with this build is the lack of damage. You’re shooting a pellet gun at someone in full armor…

Right now this build has 5 kbs (FIVE! FIVE knockdowns! Four of which are easy to pull off with deployable turrets, and the cooldown of the rifle and healing turret is very low), & 3 imms (glue bomb, rifle net, net turret toolkit skill), so in small scale engagements the defense is proactive juggling and for the first 10 seconds of the engagement the fight is incredibly one-sided if you play it right. It just lacks the damage to follow through. Do you think it’d be worth dropping the rifle turret for the toolkit when that costs damage potential (overcharged rifle turret + explosion is >2k damage easily) for additional defense?

On itemization, I’m actually sort of wondering if crit% + critdam is the way to get better damage, though. Rangers use this to great effect with the shortbow, and engineers can deliver a lot of hits.

But maybe dropping rifle turret and adding toolkit would let me use Zerker gear.

EDIT: I actually sort of wonder if the turret knockdowns are justification enough for the traits I have put there, and bomb kit is a red herring for this build. Because having toolkit would synergize well with the existing turrets and add magnet, for SIX on-command knockdowns, and it’s arguable that the toolkit offers more damage than the bomb kit for this build.

Something like: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQFAUlIqyVnpSyF1LJxoHMW0bOUhCLqg+/oQu0F;TkAg0CtoKyUkoIbRuikFNKB