Guild Wars 2

Engi Flamethrower kit. Such a sad weapon when it could be good.

Dave Pare.2069:

let’s be honest guys, there are some classes that deserves a particular attention in this balance patch. Above all I would say Elementalist and Ranger: stop nerfing them and give them possibilities for different builds because, by now, these are two very limited classes. Warrior needs some more nerfs I think, the Healing Signet one is not enough (only 8% nerf?): it’s not fair at all that a specifc build of one class can fulfill every single role (talking about PvP): the HamBow build has CC, AOE damage (both direct and condition), great susteinability, insane amount of remove conditions etc etc… finally I find very unfair the “automated response” trait from the alchemy trait line of the engineer: let’s be honest, warrior’s “berserker stance” is already OP in my opinion, a complete immunity to conditions with no cooldown or duration is absolutely unmanageable for some opponents with condition builds. The options are two: do some serious nerf to skills and traits clearly too strong or give weaker classes the traits and skills needed to deal with OP builds.

If you want to be really fair, engineer needs that particular attention, too. You mention exactly one trait that is overpowered (in PvP), but in general the engineer is not in a good place at all, despite some people’s insistence that it is. So yeah, let Anet please take an extra care of the bottom 4 professions, i.e. Ranger, Elementalist, Necromancer and Engineer.

Creld.8702:

While this is great for engineers, it’s not really good for pvp overall.

I would contend that this is bad for engineers. Right now we get judged on pvp alone for “balance” (another good joke) and engineers in every other game mode get ignored or have their builds stunted because of it.

Engineers are possibly in a good place in PvP (apparently, I can’t really speak for it though), but they’re still one of the least played, least loved professions in every other game mode. It would be nice if balancing stopped looking solely at PvP.

Two main talking points the way I see it:
- FT#1 needs to be buffed and some of the FT’s other skills need to be reworked.
- Turrets need to be fixed and improved, like ASAP.

I’m against the pick and will not buy it. Convenience, sure, but this is a blatant gear threadmill and P2W.

rogerwilko.6895:

Same for me, but usually I think “well… maybe a better engi player would match that freakin warr… or at least something close to that”.

It’s an entirely distinct possibility that I’m simply a bad engineer player haha

I never really had problems with the aim system when using FT#1 and EG#3 for some reason. Maybe it’s all in the wrist? ;D

I must have set a bit of a higher bar than some people, like Bombsaway (fine person though he or she is, undoubtedly); I’m not satisfied with “fine” damage when I can only see other professions rip through enemies. And as far as I know there is no real power build at the moment unless you want to use a Static Discharge build (which doesn’t really use kits).

For instance (this is a PvE example, but it certainly doesn’t limit itself to there.):

One time during the Tower of Nightmares story, I was fighting 2 Nightmare Court Sylvari and two Naga Krait. I switched between FT, EG and rifle like a pro, even if I do say so myself, stacking conditions, popping cooldowns, and all those hip things young people do these days. It took me quite a while but I had them whittled down to just one Krait after a several minute fight.

Warrior comes in. Kills Krait in a few seconds. Keeps running. Gee, thanks, Mr. Warrior for saving me.

So, I don’t know… Seems like a bit of a disparity there?

Again, not saying kits-that-are-not-grenades-or-bombs have to be able to do the same damage as a zerk warrior, but the difference shouldn’t be this big.

Bombsaway:

Conditions are only a partial answer to this thing. It’s great that we have access to many conditions, though even you mention that you have to use bombs and grenades to do it. Besides, as soon as you’re not the only one focused on conditions the actual damage that you’re doing drops dramatically.

You make a good case for the EG, but make no mention of the flamethrower. Swapping kits all the time is awesome, but makes the juggernaut trait useless. Furthermore, it makes slotting other utility skills difficult. What if I want a power build without having to use grenades but with EG or FT and two gadgets*? Nope, sorry, if you want to be doing any decent damage, you’re pretty much stuck with having to have at least 2 kits “because omg you’re so precious at condition stacking.” I’m not saying FT or EG needs to do as much damage as a zerk warrior (lol), but a slight increase in base damage might be nice.

It’s frustrating, like Ichishi says, you can button dance all you like and be really good at it, but chances are you’ll do a lot less damage than any random other profession who just needs to press 1 2 3 4 5.

I seem to be not getting much support on this though so maybe I’m wrong or maybe engineers are so used to being at the bottom everyone’s grown comfortable there.

*Not saying this is likely, gadgets aren’t in a good place at this moment. It’s just an example.

Yep. I think you misunderstood and/or trying to prove a point that I wasn’t disputing: sure, FT and EG have okay to pretty good (depending on how you choose to represent it) CC and support. Everything cool so far.

My main point is that they just don’t really do any damage worth mentioning (which in a way you proved by simply listing all the OTHER things they can do). Other weapons in the hands of other classes do “stuff” too, but still manage to be good damaging weapons. So why not these kits?

I don’t see a lot of engineer discussion here and I was somewhat surprised it hadn’t come up yet. Now, I’m a bit of a casual player and from what I read on the forums engineers are in a super-good place and a top-tier profession in PvP. I guess I’ll have to take people’s word for it, but there’s still one thing that somewhat bothers me.

I think that, apart from the grenade kit and the bomb kit, engineer weapon kits perform really inadequately in terms of damage. Flamethrower and Elixir Gun especially have really lackluster damage rates. Sure, I understand their use can be valuable in other ways, such as CC and support, but all in all it just doesn’t seem much of a viable damage mode at all.

And in my opinion, the entire engineer profession does mediocre damage at best for the amount of effort and button dancing involved compared to some other professions.

So personally, my suggestion would be to up the damage of some of the kits (and perhaps pistols and rifles too, I don’t know) by some % that I’m not mathy enough to calculate but maybe someone else can.

Your opinions?

Zera Allimatti.2541:

Is this really a topic? Holy skritt it is… is there really no medium left where a person can find enjoyment without worrying about these kinds of people with a sense of entitlement trying to shame them and guilt trip them for not catering to every single person on the planet? So suddenly we’re all horrible people for playing this game just because it doesn’t have a character that looks like you?

I’m thinking that sense of entitlement you’re seeing is your own. I’m also pretty sure no one was calling anyone a horrible person for playing this game. I might have missed some posts, but overall that isn’t really the point people (such as me) are trying to make in favor of more inclusiveness.

I would love to play a fat character. Made a human the other day and was disappointed I couldn’t make her fat. Sure, you can make her have a big booty (and curiously only small breasts to go with said booty) but that isn’t really the same. So yeah, I do understand the OP.

I’m not entirely surprised the backlash on this topic is so heavy. A large percentage of gamers tend to act entitled of any privilege they have, be it skinny privilege, white privilege, cis privilege, etc… Most of these so-called counter-arguments can be refuted in 100 words or less, but it’s not my job to educate others, so… please educate yourselves?

I miss my WoW parachute XD I’ve often wondered why engineers can’t just, y’know, make one.

I would love for it to get darker during the night than it actually is right now. Whether this is done through an optional slider or whatever I don’t care, just make it possible for the night to be actually a night.

Yeah, this really didn’t work out for me either. I’ve been away on vacation since before New Year’s, still am actually, and don’t read the forums/Twitter/FB that regularly then, nor can I log in to check the BLTC front page. When I happened upon a post of someone mentioning that they’d bought a permanent forum pass I was really interested. (REALLY interested.) I would have bought that baby in a snap.

So I actually downloaded and installed GW2 on my wife’s laptop so I could log in for five minutes and buy the blasted thing…. guess what? It’s not even being sold any more because someone at Anet decided that it’s just too precious or something to want to offer everyone a chance to buy it.

What is that about “Reading is hard”? Maybe next one of you will tell us that you can’t even go offline any more for fear of missing things.

Really dropped that ball here, Anet.

I agree with the OP for the most part. I main engi and have termed my build “off-everything” (off-dps, off-support, off-tanking), and it’s cool and I really enjoy playing it… buuuuuttt I can’t agree with the people who say the engineer is “just fine”. The class is not just fine at all and is grossly overshadowed by every other class out there. Especially considering the fact that you need to button-dance really skillfully just to be on par with some of the more “easy” classes such as thief, mesmer or warrior.

My main suggestion towards lifting this class up a bit is to give us a boost in damage. That, and fix turrets.

PS: telling other players to L2P solves nothing :p

Wow, warrior do more dps and is better at support than engineer? Who’da thunk?

No.

Fun for you, maybe, but I always find it annoying getting asked to duel by some random punter even if the option is there to auto-decline duels. So definitely in open world this would be seriously vexing.

A dueling arena-ish thing? Sure, have at it.

Dante.8456:

I mean look at the number of weapons that a warrior has access to vs the number a Guardian can use – obviously a warrior should have more but the Guardian does appear to be lacking in choice somewhat.

Try playing an engineer first and then comment on the lack of guardian weapons :p

On the one hand, I would love a mount and be able to ride it across the lands of Tyria. I would especially love it if there was mounted battle.

On the other hand, the maps are too small to warrant mounts. Furthermore, adding mounts and removing waypoints (and/or increasing size map) amounts (haha!) to nothing more than a time sink. Also, the game doesn’t really need it.

Overall: No from me.

I would love custom skins for the kits. I would pay actual money for that.

This armor is the worst. Another example of how things are in a male dominated industry.

Lol hi, and welcome to engi-hood.

I have been using power/precision/toughness on my engi and it works pretty well. She can do some decent off-damage while doing some off-tanking and even some off-support, depending on the skills that I choose. Together with some of the many ways we can get health regeneration, she almost never dies (except when being zerg-rolled in WvW.)

Good hunting!

Cures.7451:

so anyone got troubles in pve? really? thats … well .. bad :P
There are enough 30+ frac engineers that will tell you we are fine. those are the people you should listen too. and mask or amadeus here? watch their videos. WvW = fine. go to the ranger forums, the warrior (!) forums or any (non guardian ^^) forums and find the same whiny attitude going on. its nothing engineer related – its the players. its you.

I wish I could -1 posts.

The problem between those people who claim the Engi is OP or “fine” and the people who look at the profession critically, is that there is still a difference between a profession being “playable” and UP. Yes, the Engi is playable. Yes, skillful play can yield nice results. No, the Engi is not UP.

But is it really on par with the other classes out there? No, of course not. Are there still mechanically broken aspects to the Engi? Yes, of course, there are.

Usually, no one is saying that they just can’t play the Engi and ragequit. (Usually.) But that doesn’t mean there isn’t cause to look at the profession critically and really understand that there’s not a fair balance between classes.

And the people on this forum who insist on there being nothing wrong with the Engi are missing this particular point by a massive amount.

+1’ing too. I think you’re right on all three points. The only one I don’t really mind so much is #2: While I have never had more than 30 gold myself, I don’t find it such a constraint and I am able quite well to outfit my 80’s with enough variation in their gear. Not in full exotics, of course, but then I don’t think the game demands more than rares in most cases.

Shorts and boots? More likely a schoolgirl skirt and boots.

No, but in all seriousness, it is completely ridiculous that some female armors have to look like that. (I assume that’s what you’re going for.) I agree that it’s not something they should do, at all.

I’ve had some problems getting the names I wanted, but there’s always a solution if you add a surname or change the spelling a bit.

Desolation here, too, and I’ve had the same problems.

Even if I am able to do the events, it’s just a terrible time with the lag and everything dying in 2 seconds.

1. Warrior, duh
2. Engineer, with the Ranger as a close second
3. PvE dungeons
4. 7 – it’s okay, it doesn’t bother me but I guess it’s not perfect either
5. 3 – I don’t experience a lot of bugs myself
6. PvE dungeons
7. 8 – goodish

Guh! While I quite like what I read there, it just bugs me that the message seems to be “yes, you need to be in a big guild because of the huge costs, especially if you want the loot/rewards, and yes, small guilds can go to kitten.”

This is ascended gear all over again. I am seriously disappointed in this.

Yyyyeah, that’s disapointing. The decision to put the first guild mission on AoW level 5 baffles me, really. My guild is supersmall, that’s how I like it, so for us to EVER reach this influence quota (in a tree that is otherwise basically useless to our guild) is looking quite impossible. So… thanks?

At this point I’m hoping this is untrue and it was just one example of how guild missions are going to work.

psyt.9415:

I think we must be onto something legitimate here if the consensus is that Necros, Rangers and Engies need help.

That’s exactly it for me.
Yes, there are people who complain about their favorite class because of this or that.
Yes, there are people who will insist that there’s nothing wrong here (even among the players who play these professions.)
But if by general consensus the majority of players here agree that these three professions are simply the worst, then that’s probably a good indicator that they are legitimately not as good as the other five professions.
And so at the very least those professions specifically need some resources devoted to them in order to make the on par with the rest.
QED etc…

No thanks. Just have them fix the kits.

Aaahh I can feel my fingers!!! Too. much.

I actually like the flickering of the fire animation. So soothing.

I think the FT is a good kit, with just a few fixes or changes needed (basically the ones nakoda suggested), but a slight increase in damage would be good. As it is, it’s just a little underwhelming.

Raege.1069:

At the moment I feel like instead of risk = reward, it’s simple = reward. Both warrior and thief (the two concidered most unbalanced compared to everything else) only have one f-skill and tbh I don’t really see how either would get hindered too much if it was taken away. Compare to ranger*, ele and necro (maybe engi?) who would all get utterly destroyed if their f-skills were taken away.

Definitely the engi as well.

Otaur.9268:

I do not know if it is this month, but in the State of the game stream, they mentioned during the “We are going to be nerfing the D/D Ele” segment, that they are currently working on Engi’s, so got my fingers crossed.

I will not hold my breath. It’s going to be the “we have THIRTY bullet points of engineer fixes for you guys” all over again. 90% is going to be “fixed spelling” etc…

I’m going to repost my opinion on (just one aspect of) class balancing here because my previous attempt at joining the conversation was merged into a closed off thread (!), telling us we should contribute here… so here I am!

From personal experience, I can confirm that engineer and ranger are somewhat under par compared to how I see other professions perform. It would be pretty cool should that be resolved soon, by either buffing the weakest professions (the engi-necro-ranger trinity), or by changing the game so that those classes become valuable. The latter would be the coolest, but would also be the hardest to do.

Pistols should be buffed a tiny little bit, yes. As it is now, autoattack 1 is useless and I never even use it, switching back to a kit after using skills 2 and 3.

EDIT: In general, I think a lot of the engineer’s weapon damages could be buffed. I mean, Flamethrower anyone?

We are the least played profession, for sure. And because we are the least played, Anet doesn’t devote a lot of resources to engineer bugs and balance. And because they don’t devote a lot of resources and the bugs and balance are what they are, we are the least played profession. Ad infinitum.

That being said, I am an engineer and loving every minute of it.

While I cannot speak for the warrior being OP (not having a warrior character), I can only confirm that engineer and ranger are somewhat under par compared to how I see other professions perform. It would be pretty cool should that be resolved soon, by either buffing the weakest professions (the engi-necro-ranger trinity), or by changing the game so that those classes become valuable.

Any name containing the word “weed” is also inappropriate. Which is too bad because it prevents a lot of good Sylvari (sur)names, like Stinkweed or Tumbleweed.

I quite like the patch. We def got some of the things we desperately needed for some time now. Pretty sweet, I’d say, I’m one happy engineer now

Kalan.9705:

The communication we want is fairly simple, either:

a) Most of our engineer players are wrong. Engineer is just how we (A-net) want it. Give up, reroll, leave game.

or

b) We realise our vision is disconnected from our engineer playerbase. We’re finally going to fix some bugs. We’re going to completely reconsider our class justification statement with regards to engineer. You don’t need to reroll or leave game, we’re listening now.

I would like this. I have no superhuge problems with the engineer class, it is my main and I love playing my engi. But I do see the discrepancies and holes between the engineer and other professions and within the engineer profession itself, by which I mean… there are things wrong with it. And it would be nice to hear some acknowledgement of this fact and maybe hear a plan on how they intend to tackle it.

The problem with Anet’s communcation, though, is that they tend to … lets call it “be overly enthusiastic” about future plans and changes, and they’ll hold up this big balloon full of big ideas to the player base… and then comes the needle of reality that pops the balloon and we’re left with the question: “is that it?”

So even if they do communicate with us, I’m going to be wary. I would love for them to shoot straight with us and be realistic about things, but I’m pretty sure that’s not going to happen.

It seems to have become a pattern in Anet’s way of communication towards the players in that they act very excited and start boasting about the things to come and then it turns out that what they’re actually introducing is …. meh. Or bad. Or just besides the point. Like in this case: “OMG, you guize, we have 30 bullet points of changes to your engineer profession!” And then, come patch day, it turns out that the changes are just completely useless.

I mean, these engineer patches are bland. Bland bland blandy McBlanderson. If there was a Blandsville, these patch notes would be its mayor. If there was a brand of Bland, these patch notes would be in all its advertisements. If you look up bland in the dictionary, these patch notes would be given as an example.

I am quite disappoint.

penatbater.4710:

Kana.6793:

I’m amazed this unpleasant thread hasn’t been locked yet, since it serves no useful purpose and is largely being used to insult people.

Certain elements of this community are more elitist and rude than anything I’ve seen on WoW.

I haven’t seen a single “hardcore” player calling people noobs and telling them they have no right to speak. I have seen many posts from certain self-proclaimed casual players calling others locusts and telling them they have no life, must be unemployed and have no right to an opinion about the game.

You cannot have a meaningful discussion if you keep referring to people as insects and rudely dismissing them.

I disagree. It serves to enlighten some of us who are unaware of the complex dynamics a community plays in shaping their game. More so, the vocal and the hardcore ones. The idea suggested by the article is very interesting, and if it is offending, there must be a reason why. And the reference to locusts, I’d guess, is due to a locust’s nature to hop on to brazenly eat a location’s food source dry. That’s, imo, a rather objective definition of what the article says. If it should offend you or some other people, part of me wants to say grow some balls, while part of me wants you to speak up and argue against it from a different perspective, providing good arguments of course.

Thanks! I had wanted to say something similar about how some people get huffy over the term “content locusts”. I find it a very apt and accurate term, describing exactly the what’s-up in just one simple compound word. I guess what the people who are offended at the term need to do is realize that the content locusts aren’t actually being called insects, just their actions are being compared to the actions of a member of the Acrididae family.

First post just to say: No. Seriously, no to Ascended items.