Guild Wars 2

This has been something I’ve run when roaming with one or two people or a small group:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vdAQJAqalUUh+uY7WwWLQ7FL3Fl4B1D5w4I2EfGYC+gBAA-T1hAQBxUJIM2fIaPAAPq8zhq/AgTAg/0TQIgFrBA-w

Can use dire/rabid instead of trailblazers or use vipers if you don’t mind being squishy. I tend to sit in flamethrower while running around to build up the might stacks, then on engaging the target: Incendiary Ammo → Blowtorch → Rocket Kick for a decent few stacks of burning from the get go.

This one:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vdAQFAUlUUh+uY5VwdLQ7FLDG1XAketn47UChw4CWDHGA-TFCFABKpkBJlTXpEk99HNEppDAgHAg+q/UwFAgQAjGDA-w

is currently my default zerg build. Offers decent AoE condi cleanses + some healing via mortar 5, EG 5 and Healing Turret. Usually with this build I sit on the back line peppering the main enemy zerg. If you get Orbital Command triggering, use orbital strike on the same area to get a nice chunk of damage that usually downs a few people. Good for bag farming.

A couple of thoughts

While at +50% heat:

Rifle 1: Gain increase damage/crit chance, increased range and reflects have no effect. Lose 10% heat per shot

Pistol 1: Gain additional burning (3s) per shot and reflects have no effect. Lose 10% heat per shot.

A different take on heat management. Offers something to counter the projectile hate and improve both the pistol and rifle without going too overboard.

I would like a support/healing engineer to be a viable option in PvE/WvW content, however the issue arises (as it has in the past) that you run the risk of making the engineer too powerful. Not because the individual traits/skill(s) are overpowered but their interaction with/and the engineer’s access to their other traits/utilities.

That said I do think med kit needs yet another overhaul. Remove all but skill 1 and replace them with elixirs that modify either the healing output or boons skill 1 gives. Or just turn med kit into an elixir kit where you throw full strength elixir H, B, C, R, U at allies to heal/buff them.

One solution would be to let Grenadier and Short Fuse provide additional effects to the Mortar kit. Grenadier would give the Mortar kit increased projectile velocity (and possibly increasing the field size) and Short Fuse makes Mortar 1 act more akin to how Fireball works rather than being ground targeted.

Treat the Rifle as a CC weapon rather than a DPS weapon. Yes it has some burst but overall it was always meant to be used in unison with the heavier hitting kits, for example the old 1000 ’nades build for the early glory days.

I currently run a Mortar kit setup for WvW (admittedly for running in the zerg) that uses Rifle more for CCing fleeing foes and a quick bit of burst for finishing them off. That said I think there was a ‘Drunk’ rifle engi build around here somewhere that its user was having success with in PvP.

If I were to improve the current rifle then I’d be looking at making net shot more reliable/effective and giving that evade to Jump Shot.

Otherwise if it were a complete overhaul then swap blunderbuss with hipshot, though reduce overal damage and bleed, make net shot into a solid slug shot that has additional effects if the target it moving, hipshot would become a long range, heavy damage shot, Overcharge and Jump Shot would remain where they were. Basically make the rifle more of a shotgun than a rifle.

This is something I run in WvW for small to mid size groups or zergs when there doesn’t appear to be much in the way of healing from eles or revs.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vdIQJAqelUUh+uYXWwdLQ7FLGGlY60fbwYB+CBWYAcf5HA-ThxGQBEU5HAOhAk7BB6JEy+D0T9nJqEccABwqKoWZIEChghQIECSB43KN-e

Rather than doing big single chunks of healing, you’re doing lots of smaller amounts via regen and Soothing Detonations + Medical Dispersion Field triggering. It wont stop heavy spike damage but it’ll help keep a group topped up so that the bigger heals from other professions can be saved when needed.

Never tried it in raids but I doubt it could compete with either the standard druid or a ventari rev.

Currently playing with a build using the Photonic Blasting Module grandmaster, mostly to sit at 70% heat so that all the sword and utility skills are getting buffed without dancing in and out of photon forge. Current combo has been to use Hard Light Arena → Prismatic Singularity → Laser Disk → Blade Burst → Holographic Shockwave → Overheat Blast, with orbital strike kicking in.

Traits have been Explosives 2,1,1 / Inventions 1,3,2 /Holo 1,1,3 (mostly for quicker heat gen)

Still sword feels a little off atm, I think its skill 2 & 3. Works well with shield if focused more on power though pistol would work better for hybrid/condi (as we thought it would). Kinda feel that there should be something heat based that works with the base engi weapons, just to present another weapon option.

Laser disk is currently my favourite skills, though I suspect in a zerg its going to be a retaliation magnet like flamethrower or grenades are.

Hard Light Arena feels it should be applying the bonus to allies on +50% heat (hence the increase range).

Spectrum Shield is a decent stun break + damage reduction, need to see if it’ll reduce Heat Overload’s damage.

Haven’t played much with Photon Wall

Prime Light Beam is a godkitten giant laser beam, whats not to love about it?

Heal turret remains the best heal (more so with inventions due to minor condi cleanse trait)

So far liking it, just have to experiment a bit outside of the default explosives/firearms/holosmith build you’re given on character creation.

From the looks of it the Holosmith and other more DPS focused specialisations have been built around the use of the new Grieving (power, condi, precision, ferocity) more than the current available stats.

A mix of ’zerker and sinister/viper stats would give you something similar until you were able to craft/acquire Grieving weapons and armour.

If they’re going to replace our toolbelt skills then I’m hoping that holo mode will be toggled by weapon swap. You’d loose a fair chunk of engi utility (not to mention a main heal from med kit) by replacing it by default.

I can’t see them replacing the toolbelt slots for anything else as you’d be indirectly nerfing every core utility skill (Elixir gun just for example where you’d be losing one of our best stun breaks) along with various traits in the tool trait line. A temporary effect, like a conjured weapon maybe, but not a permanent change/replacement.

Keeping it in is current form also means that any new elite spec utilities can be tweaked to either enhance the spec’s base mechanic is or the new weapon, in the hammer’s case by granted three of the gyros a combo field to use with hammer 3.

There is still plenty of mechanics that would fit with a ‘Holosmith’ (assuming that is still the direction the spec will go it) such as creating an illusionary copy of your offhand weapon in the main hand via weapon swap or the new utility toolbelt skills temporarily changing your toolbelt into a mini holo kit for a few charges.

Wouldn’t mind sword MH being both a long ranged weapon and a melee weapon using weapon swaps. One can be for defensive/support play and the other for straight up offence, possibly condi. The utility skills could also swap function with the weapon swap.

I’d be tempted to turn turrets into a damaging version of banners ( like the one some of the mordrem drop in HoT).

Turret auto attacks become PBAoE, with their overcharge remaining as it is (so there is some single target damage).
Each attack drops a turret’s health by 10% (bringing the idea of tool kit to heal turrets back)
Each turret’s overcharge grants other turrets within it’s range a turret only boon
Overcharge activation drops a turret’s health by 20% (If it would destroy the turret it becomes immune for the duration of the overcharge then explodes)
Turrets are (once again) resistant to damage but using a stun or daze can disable them for the stun/daze duration.
Turrets can be picked up to be deployed to a new location but can also be stowed for 20% cooldown reduction.
New set of skills while holding a turret would be: Turret themed auto attack, overcharge turret (triggering the overcharge but destroying the turret bundle) and drop turret. A 4th, engineer only skill would be a channelled skill that repairs the turret and the 5th, turret owner skill, would stow the turret.

To me, turrets have always been about defensive DPS and area denial. It should be hard to remove a fully deployed turret engi from a point they’ve bunkered down in. But unlike before, the turrets now have limit attacks and overcharges before they’re destroyed + can be disabled to give an opponent(s) time to overpower the engineer.

Think I’d like to see Engi get another ranged weapon rather than another melee one.

Shortbow with Wells as the utility skill type (Mad elixir throwing Alchemist)

or

Sceptre with Phantasms as the utility skill type (Holomancer)

with weapon swap being the specialisation mechanic that either swaps the weapon skills (shortbow) or utility skills (phantasms) from damaging to support/healing.

Anet doesn’t have to ‘chase the meta’ when skill balancing but, as with pretty much every class based MMO, they will pay attention to it. Its a good indication to see what professions may be over powered in some areas and underpowered in others.

Currently Engineers are underpowered in most game modes, based on what they can bring to the team as a whole. Anything we can do another profession can do more effectively or easier and we don’t have a gimmick that makes up for that shortfall (Bomb Kit 1 having a blast finisher via trait for example).

Using the meta to highlight the reasons for requesting skill and/or trait changes is perfectly valid in this case. Its showing that against the other professions, the Engineer needs an update to make it competitive when it comes to being selected for organised raids/fractals/PvP/WvW etc.

Eh why not

Signet of Binding
-Cooldown:- 30s
-Passive: – Summons one Jagged Horror every 10 sec (maximum 5)
-Active: – All your active minions become immune to damage (can still be CCed) and charge your target, detonating as a Putrid Explosion.

Went for minions for the signet but gave the minions a different role rather than the current ‘summon and tank’ setup. In theory could get up to 15+ minions with Rise + traits but also gives non MM necros access to a slow build up ‘bomb’ skill. The low cooldown reflect that it will take at least a minute to get the full effect from the signet’s active effect.

Well of Lost Hope

-Duration: 10 sec
-Pulses: 1 sec
-Cooldown: 60 sec
-Target Area pulses, damaging foes and inflicting conditions.
-Each pulse will inflict the following conditions based on the foe’s current conditions.
-No conditions → Bleeding
-Bleeding → Poison
-Poison → Torment & Cripple
-Torment → Burning
-Crippled → Chilled

Wanted a well for the condi necro to favour along with the standard back/mid line necro in WvW. It starts out fairly weak but quickly ramps up, adding more conditions as time goes on. Since conditions can get cleansed fairly quickly in a WvW situation, wanted the well to last longer than the others but it also gives it a chance to put a reasonable amount of conditions onto a PvE foe.

This is very similar to how the original mine kit used to work (except each mine became detonate after activation) and that was replaced in favour of the current mine skill.

I’d rather see the Explosives trait line looked at again and bomb kit given some tlc through that (elixir infused bombs I’m thinking of you and maybe a trait giving skill 1 and 20% blast finisher) than see the skills rejigged.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vdEQFASnUU5miqrUXZRq6rwdL7WQoqNRLTG146VBRA9cX37t4zUABAA-TFCFABNpcRJlUppjALlg1s/gAPQADV/BgLEwmBBgJAJ8//3kkEpA0ToF-w

That’s my standard catch all setup for zerging/roaming. Depending on how the fights are going, I’ll swap out stealth gyro for mortar kit just to give some more long ranged options/support. Could swap out EG for Slick Shoes but I like having the zerg support options there from a HGH enhanced EG.

Been running this of late in PvE.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vdAQFASncoCFpideBubB0ehl7jieVj1bNsGCgM57fGoDC-TFCFABNpkCgLAwVKBRS5iAPAADV/pm9HSTHQAAEADdoDdoDdotzdO0dO0dGA-w

Throw down hammer 5, jump into the middle with the reflect bubble up and become a whirling hammery ball of exploding death. Bunker down, enhanced by the explosive traits, its surprisingly punchy.

For WvW I’m typically running with the standard FT Scrapper tank or Alchemy + Inventions just because it give me far more tools for survival. That said I am thinking about tweaking things so I can at least take the Bulwark Gyro for the mobile reflect bubble.

Overall I’m still tinkering around but I think for general play I’ll probably end up using either HGH hammer or FT tank setup.

Was running something similar myself over the weekend: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vdAQFASlUUhqrY9VwdLQ7FLTGF9cn37dY/kMhl4zMeBAA-TFCEABOp0JKlRcpE0gHAgiq/kz+DtpDAgLAQAAEgbezAwQH6QH6QHakCgJlRA-w

If I’m front lining I prefer getting my overall armour to around the 3K mark, compensating for the lack of crit chance with fury (elixir which pushes me to around the 45% on top of typically sitting at 3k power after might stacks.

Much prefer using HGH over Ironblooded because it not only reducing the cooldowns on the EG/Mortar kit (which also happens to be my other healing and condi cleanses) but the extra duration length is nice for might stacking and increasing fury’s duration longer since I’m relying on it more. Plus I’m using Elixir B mostly for the 5 sec of stability that you will need if you’re front lining, rather than relying on a guardian for all your stab.

Overall I had decent amount of success with this setup, although I did prefer the flamethrower set up a bit more (dropped Inventions for Firearms) as this gave a constant 15 might + constant stab, while I was equipped with the FT for the initial push, then swapped to hammer for their backline. Worked reasonablly well but as coglin said, needs more than 3 days to form a decent opinion + things like the hammer AA to be sorted.

While I hate the idea of disabling a trait and leaving a profession with just two options rather than three (more so when they’re kinda meh), this was the only real action that could have been taken due to how grossly imbalanced it was.

It also highlights the lack of alternative traits that are worth taking in the adept line. 5% damage increase when health is about 90% isn’t all that useful and the fall trait is situational. Wouldn’t mind seeing Explosive Decent and Grenadier merged together and throwing in a new trait.

I don’t think engineer is in a bad spot balance wise, although I would like to see a step away from the grenades meta that’s been with us for far too long and hopefully hammer engi will do that. Three things I would like to see changed before HoT would be:

An update to our downed skills, possibly lowering the cool down on skill 3 so that if you interrupt with 2 you can at least get 3 off before being stomped.

Kit refinement re-tweaking. Remove the global cool down and replace with a 10-15 sec cool down for each kit or swap the trait with a master tier trait and have it improve the functionality of kits (med kit bundles healing more, flamethrower negating retaliation damage, elixir traits effecting EG, etc)

Another look a gadgets so they are brought up to a similar level as kits/turrets/elixirs in functionality. Currently to me, it feels that there is still something missing from gadgets that makes me want to take more than just one gadget on my bar. Possibly giving them additional functions like signets via the gadgeteer trait rather than short lived buffs.

Your location: UK
Time and date of incident: Most days and times for the last month (GMT)
Game World: Gandara/Jade Quarry

Typically starts when trying to interact with the world, mostly with combat and skill lag. After engaging there will be a second or two pause where everything will stop moving before a sudden flurry of activity as the client tries to catch up with the server. This happens numerous times during a single combat as well as when trying to activate items like chests or even while crafting.

Because of these repetitive bouts of mini lag I can’t really play WvW/PvP (which is what I tend to play the majority of the time) and its making PvE frustrating.

Usually Accelerant-Packed Turrets and Incendiary Powder.

APT is useful with Supply Crate and HT and can usually catch a few people off guard, either breaking their flow or knocking them into your zerg. IP because theres nothing wrong with having some extra burning, more so if you get caught by yourself or in a small group and are having to flip between FT (might stacks, KB and AoE Blind), EG and rifle.

You can sub out APT for Exploit Weakness (but I don’t find it that useful in a zerg situation) or Acidic Elixirs if you’re running HGH + FT and IP for Enhance Performance if you want some more might rather than a reliable burn.

On the odd occasion I find myself running in a zerg (mostly roam these days) I tend to use one of three builds (unless I’m lazy and cba changing spec, typically when I’m running condi). For the most part I run celestial with traveller runes (because why not), 4 ’zerk accessories and two knights, all ascended.

6/2/0/4/2: The standard grenade setup. Its a good, effective and reliable build that gives you the AoE coverage, poison, and chill along with decent survival. Just have to watch for the retaliation damage when lobbing grenades.

2/0/6/6/0: Tanky healing bomb build designed more for support than damage. Usually take HT, Elixir S or Rocket Boots, EG (best condi cleanse in the game imo) and BK. I usually run this with P/V/T armour or celestial with PVT accessories.

4/4/0/4/2: The good old classic flamethrower build. This one you have to pay attention to the retaliation damage so you know when to drop back to the rifle or EG. Does decent damage and can usually catch a fair few enemy squishes as well as near death ones. Its not a popular build because of the amount of retaliation in a zerg but most often you’ll find that focused on the enemy tank ball. Their DPS however usually is retaliation free for the most part or at least small enough to handle through the amount of background healing in the zerg.

In general PvE/WvW I don’t because they either die to quickly and/or they don’t have the mobility required that other builds have. In PvP however I will happily run a 2/2/4/6/0 or 2/0/6/6/0 turret build using experimental turrets for the boons.

The build amuses me, more so when camping the cannon in skyhammer, and its surprising how often I can easily handle a 1v1 or 2v1 with it, despite the lack of stun removal. Thumper turret and rocket turret overcharge seems to keep on taking people off guard, giving me enough time to run around kiting on the cap point/cannon while the turrets do their thing.

Would like turrets to become somewhat more mobile via a trait that changes detonation to a teleport for the turret. If they did become more mobile then I’d probably use them more often outside of using rifle turret (SD builds) and healing turret.

I use enhanced performance (explosives X) over modified ammo but then I like being self supporting rather than relying on others to condition dump for the extra damage. That said MA is useful if you’re up against mobs (elites and upwards) that can take a pounding and are in a group/zerg.

Gear wise I’d go for full ‘zerker or celestial, depending if you want to focus on pure damage or have an all rounder armour set with runes/accessories deciding what you want to focus on. Runes are up to you although power based ones like Ogre, Privateer, Scholar or Strength might be an idea if you’re mostly in PvE land. If they’re too pricey for you then just slot ruby orbs until you can afford them or stick with the orbs if you’re happy with the straight up stat increase.

Hope that helps.

I’ve been dinking around with this setup for a gadget/FT based build:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fdAQFAUlUUptrNexWLseNSdBN6v8kRDyAUARWkYA-TliFABwt/wSKhkU9nqUCakyBAeAAHpEhKlEnpDIhLAQAAEgbezAAyAovAA-w

While it does lack the overall power that an elixir based FT build, I’ve found it to be rather amusing since the added bonus of static discharge + PBR for another KB adds for an extra that most people don’t expect.

It does require either traveler runes or runes of speed for the 25% speed buff although you could drop speedy gadgets for speedy kits.

I tend to find I get less value with condition damage boosting food than with duration food (pizza has both hence why its commonly used). Condition damage is only going to apply to bleeding, confusion, torment and poison where as duration food will affect those + all the others (except fear I think though I might be wrong on that one). Plus you can get condition damage from armour, trinkets, weapons, runes and sigils where as duration has far few options so the extra +100 or +70 condition damage isn’t going to matter as much as +40% duration in the long run.

Travelers on my celestial set, eagle on my PVT, Water on the cleric set, Noble on the dire and Perplexity on the rabid set. Might change the perplexity set for a set of krait runes. The extra bleed duration + the poison, bleed and torment on elite use has been rather nice on the condi mesmer and ranger.

Overall I like the wardrobe change, means I feel I get my gems worth out of any armour I get from the gem store. However one thing I don’t like is that I now have no way of recovering any runes/sigils from karma armour/weapons now that transmutation stones no longer exist. My suggestion would be to either make all armour and weapons salvageable or increase the number of charges for the extraction tools to 25 per 250/500 gems.

Because it’ll be fun? Seriously though engineers will do what we’ve always done and adapt. We’ll find another ‘imba’ rune/trait combo that will cause tears of frustration from people who can’t kill a well played engineer.

Kinda liking the trait. Its something that turrets should have had from the start but better a trait than nothing. As for being in the Alchemy line again I’m okay with. Gives another reason to spec 30 into alchemy that isn’t HGH related (never been a fan of AR). Hoping that it works with supply crate’s turrets, since combined with elite supplies you’ll have fury, might, swiftness and vigor dropped as well + other boons from any other turrets you have.

Probably give a 10/0/30/30/0 turret setup a try post patch.

Magitech + Midnight ice (gives more texture than abyss) main, charcoal for the detail, steel for the metal work and orangespring for the highlights (also matches the ascended backblades and predator rifle)

All depends on what I’m running, since I have both.

If I’m running elixirs then I use my dire set with noble runes (Elixir H can give 8 stacks of might), which usually means that I sit at around 1.8K – 2.2K condi damage with 25 corruption + 4-14 stacks of might. It gives me decent durability along with enough condition punch to make P/P without having to use a kit doable.

If I’m feeling cheesy and/or want to run kits then I’ve got my good old set of rabid armour with perplexity runes (mmm cheese). Doesn’t have the durability or the same level of condition punch (it usually sits at around 1.7K condi damage) but it does give me the chance to drop bleed, burn, poison, confusion and torment all in one go fairly often along with bringing all the utilities from tool kit, EH and Bomb kit. Tend to run P/S for this setup.

Just so that I have a decent crit chance to proc bleeds/torment I have full rabid accessories. Weapons are carrion just because they were easier to craft at the time.

The open world raid style content is fine, the issue arises when you’re having to precisely co-ordinate 50+ people with a very small window of error and you’re effectively instancing the zone anyway through hard capping (having to get to a zone almost 2 hours before the event fires is not okay in my book). Hard content is fine but at the same time if people aren’t able to do the content due to their server only doing that event once or twice a day (because cat herding is fun…) then you have ask yourself if the event is worth having as a world event.

New Teq and to an extent the Wurm could have been designed as part of a 25 man raid style expansion for Arah/Twilight Arbor allowing for the level of difficulty to remain but also allowing people to take part at a time that suits their guild/friends/random group.

For me Twisted Marionette is an example of how world bosses should be done. It has a good event mechanic, requires a level of co-ordination that can be easily explained through map chat., there is room for mistakes (such as an unlucky group on the platforms) but can punish too many of them and its satisfying to repeat.

Perfectly viable depending on your setup for WvW. Currently I run a 20/20/0/30/0 generic build with a set of dire armour + rabid trinkets so I have a reasonable amount of defense (typically I go with elixir H, B, S and toolkit/bomb kit/EG) while still able to deal a high amount of condition damage. Mostly use that setup for solo/small group roaming where conditions tend to count for more.

Juggernaut is fine as it is. While FT doesn’t have the same punch as grenades/bombs (which is fine since I see it as a pressure DPS kit rather than a burst DPS kit) it does bring more overall utility from Juggernaut/synergy with the EG.

That said it could do with some TLC to make it more of a tempting option vs grenade/bomb it. Suggestion:

FT#1 : Burning duration increased to 2/3 seconds. This would allow higher chance of receiving the 10% vs burning targets. Also allows for the possibility for perma burning without getting IP if the target doesn’t evade the flames.
FT#2: Also receives 10% vs burning targets.

Napalm Specialist: Renamed to Tormenting Flames. Every time you apply burning you also apply 2 stacks of torment for 5 seconds.

In my eyes Napalm Specialist isn’t worthy of a GM trait when majority of our conditions are fairly short lived without investment into either explosives or condition duration food. While aimed mainly at the FT, condition engineers using P/P or IP would also benefit and it’d increase the FT dps while maintaining a pressure role.

Blammf (asura)

Was going to be Blamf Boomstick but settled with Blammf instead (mostly because someone had already taken Blamf at release)

Not liking how we’re slowly being moved into a handful of useful builds, with the majority of DPS being grenade kit based, by the tweaking of traits. Unfortunately this is an issue I’ve seen in other games with jack-of-all-trade type classes, where Devs become over cautious at giving the class a buff in case it synergies with one or two other skills that when used together makes an OP build (1000 ‘nades I’m looking at you).

Since I would expect any changes to be trait based, these are my suggestions:

Explosives:
Shrapnel now effects all explosions, such as pistol 1, harpoon gun 2 etc
Autodefence Bomb Dispenser isn’t a grandmaster worthy trait. Needs to be replaced with a new trait that can compete with Grenadier

Firearms
Merge Rifle Barrels with Hair Trigger into one trait.
New Adept trait: Precision Tinkering: Gadgets gain an additional effect
Rifle Mod is merged with new version of Modified Ammo
New Master trait: Speed Upgrade: Turrets gain quickness
Grandmaster Trait redesign: Modified Ammo: 20% damage increase for rifle/harpoon gun and 200 condition damage for pistol.
Napalm renamed to Tormenting Flames: Burning you inflict now causes 3 stacks of torment for 5 seconds (3 second cooldown)

The idea behind these changes is to open up firearms to other forms of play as well as improving builds that already delve deep into firearms (SD builds for example). Precision Tinkering would open up the prospect of more gadget based builds by allowing the addition effects to plug up gaps in the gadget line. Example ideas would be:

Rocket Boots: Leaves a fire trail
Slick Shoes: Oil splotches causes poison
Utility Goggles: Cures 3 conditions
Battering Ram: Blast finsher
Mine: Causes a small smoke cloud that acts like a mini null field for 3 seconds
A.E.D: 5 seconds of retaliation

Speed Upgrade would up the overal DPS of turrets in their current state and make them more of a threat than they are now. A Turret engineer should be able to turn a small area into an effective kill zone with turrets but outside of that zone they’re incredibly vulnerable.

Changing Modified Ammo to this new form rewards engineers who want to focus more on using rifle/pistol as their main source of damage rather than kits, which imho should be the focus of the trait line.

The Napalm change is mostly aimed at the flamethrower, presenting a reason to go a full 30 into firearms while at the same time it presents a p/p condition engineer an alternative to taking Modified Ammo (and the 200 condition damage buff).

Inventions:
Merge Metal Plating with Autotool installation as a Master tier trait
New Adept Trait: Re-deployment Beacon: Turrets no longer can be detonated. Instead they now can be teleported to a new location

One of my biggest issues with turrets (other than the list of bugs) is that they aren’t overally useful in areas where you have to be fairly mobile (dungeons/fractals/WvW) since if you’ve put them in places to keep them out of harms way (using rapid deployment) and you can’t reach them then you’ve effectively made yourself dead weight until they’re off CD. This new trait would help reduce the downtime and make a the turret engineer more mobile in a similar fashion to the old spirit herding ritualist.

Alchemy:
This line is mostly okay. Has flexibility between elixir builds and non elixir builds

Tools:
Kit Refinement reworked so that it is usable. Suggestion would be to change cooldown from global to individual kits and either rework some of the effects (med kit, bomb kit and to a lesser extent tool kit are fine) or kits now have the passive effect of a on crit/on kill sigil along with whatever sigils the player is using currently.

These are just a few ideas off the top of my head but overall I do feel that engineers need to be looked at before they start falling behind in the power creep that is starting to happen with the other professions.

I’ll admit I’m expecting to see a lot more grenade engineers after this patch. It would have been better if they had also buffed up a few traits, maybe even merging a couple and throwing in some new ones (firearms could do with getting a gadget and a turret based trait) then it wouldn’t be so bad. I do miss the early days where I used to have to choose between taking kit refinement (another trait that was nerfed badly and pretty much made it unusable) and IP when I was running a FT/EG (0,30,0,20,20 or 10,30,0,20,10).

Just a shame that grenades are swiftly becoming the only real viable option for engineers considering the build diversity we used to have back at release.

If I’m running with a zerg or with a small group then the standard 30,10,0,20,10 condi-nades build with either perplexity (Rabid armour) or scavenger (Dire armour) runes tends to be what I run. Utility wise I’ll run ‘nades, EG (extra heal + condition removal and a stun break) and either bomb (if I’m zerging) or rocket boots/Elixir S and using crystals and condition duration food for the buffs.

My standard tactic is to usually open up with static shot to ruin their opening strike, then just flip between EG, ‘nades and pistol to keep poison, bleeds, confusion on them + torment from my sigil. When it looks like they’re gearing up for another big spike or are about to run away I’ll drop a supply crate on them. If things get too much then I’ll rocket boot/ Elixir S stealth away.

Thieves, Necros and clone Mesmers tend to be my biggest pain but other than that I can drop most things. If you can survive the initial spike and keep the conditions up then you should be able to wear them down before they wear you down.

Currently I’m having more fun with a 10,30,0,20,10 setup (will most likely become 0,30,20,20,0 after Dec 10th update) with dual pistols, EG, Tool Kit and rocket boots. It’s less punchy than grenades but I’m finding that since most people I’ve been fighting with it are expecting grenades, the change of tactics throws them.

Still if you’re not finding grenades aren’t working for you then experiment with different builds until you find one that suits your play style.

Only other kit I could see elixir infused bombs working with is the grenade kit. However that would make a grenade engi on the verge of being OP if each grenade was healing for the same amount as a bomb. Even if the healing for each grenade was lowered, you still end up with a setup that has the potential to heal up to 15 people (5 people per grenade) at long range, without much risk and still has a reasonable damage output. It’d be even worse to take down in a 1v1 situation.

That said I agree that its a rather weak grandmaster trait, even after the Dec 10th update. Wouldn’t mind them adding something else to it that was only activated while bomb kit was in use.

In any case, once this patch hits I’ll be experimenting with a 10,0,30,20,10 build using either full clerics or PVT depending on how well I’m surviving in a zerg’s front line.

•Explosives V – Incendiary Powder. Moved to Master tier.

While I can understand the move I can’t say I agree with it. It now means that you’re going to lack the build diversity that the engineer normally would have because people are now having to put 20 into explosives rather than the 10 they had left over after putting points into their core build. Not only this but it’s now fighting with Enhance Performance and Short Fuse.

•Explosives VI – Exploit Weakness. Increased the health threshold from 25% to 50%

Nice but not really a decent trade for IP being moved to Master tier

•Explosives IX – Accelerant packed turrets. Moved to Adept tier.

Might be worth using with healing turret but other than that, unless Turrets and their relating traits getting a decent overhaul, this will most likely end up being a filler trait to get to IP.

•Firearms XI – Modified Ammunition. This trait now works regardless of equipped weapon.

Not a bad change and I might run a 30/30/0/0/10 build with grenades and rifle for lols but honestly I’d rather spend those points in getting IP.

•Inventions V – Energized Armor. Increased conversion from 5% to 7%.

Decent enough change if you’re intending to run turrets or healing bombs/bunker.

•Inventions X – Autotool Installation. Increased healing percent from 1% to 5%. Decreased interval from 10s to 3s.

Again until turrets get an overhaul it’s okay but nothing that screams ‘use this trait’. If I’m being honest, I’d rather see this merged with metal plating and a new turret trait created.

•Inventions XI – Elixir Infused bombs. Increased healing scaling by 50%.

This I like. Gives me a reason to put on my cleric gear and run a support build when WvW with a 10-20 man group.

•Alchemy V – Blood Injection. Increased conversion from 5% to 7%.

Again a decent enough buff for the times I run a condition build and don’t take IS

•Alchemy 15 – Transmute. Increased % chance from 8% to 100%. This effect can now only trigger once every 15 seconds.

I’ll have to see how this one performs out in the field. Still it does mean I do have a reliable passive coniditon removal every 15 seconds (number of times I’ve died from having one stack of bleed on me, being near death and having my condition removal on CD)

•Tools VI – Speedy Kits. Increased Swiftness duration to 10s. This effect can now only trigger once every 10 seconds.

So you want to nerf perma vigor, so you nerf this trait instead…would rather have seen a 10sec CD on IS rather than this.

•Tools XI – Armor Mods. Changed this to now trigger on struck instead of on critical hit incoming. Reduced the cool-down from 25 seconds to 15 seconds

It’s very rare I actually use the Toolkit line for anything more than speedy kits. Sure having regular access to aegis is nice I honestly don’t think it’s 30 points nice, unless I’m running a SD build and want to give up on the toolkit trait.

Overall I’m feeling that this patch isn’t going to help with build diversity, if anything it’s going to limit them, given how there isn’t a decent replacement for IP. It was a nice 10 trait that you could fit into majority of builds and it boosted your overall DPS from ‘meh’ to reasonable.

Suggestions.

Explosives II: Shrapnel

Have this work with more than just grenades and bombs. Explosive Shot and the Mortar Skills come to mind.

Turrets:

Turrets at the moment need to have a more indepth rejig than just tweaking their traits. I have no real reason to take them over say Elixirs, Kits and even gadgets as the die far to easily, can’t easily be redeployed when in a fast moving group and bring no other utility to the group than a small bit of DPS. What would be nice is if they acted like warbanners to some degree, giving people who are in range either a stat boost or a boon. This would open up some possibilies as a turret engineer acting as defensive DPS where one is hard to kill while near their turrets but vulnerable when either caught off guard or their turrets have been destroyed.

Gadgets

Again another skill set that needs to be looked at in a bit more depth. Currently I usually have one gadget skill on my bar (usually rocket boots or utility goggles) and have no real need to take any more as it’s a poor trade off compared to taking a kit. Having them act as a pseudo-signet is one way but something like having them combo together would be somewhat more interesting. One example would be using Oil Slick with Rocket Boots. Rather than creating an long oil slick it leaves both a fire and smoke field behind it. Theres opportunity to turn the gadget line into a rather quirky combo setup line.

Anyway we’ll have to see what the changes are like in practice when they’re release, but on paper I am somewhat concerned.

Blammf in his new magitech armour

I can see this farm getting hit the same way as the Harathi centaur farm did so that the loot:time ratio is better for completing the chain than failing at that one point repeatedly. One way I guess would be to hold back any champ boxes until the end of the event where they can be collected via wiggly chest. If the event fails then no boxes earned. Another, probably more easier, way would be to reduce the number of champs present in offensive events but increase them for defensive ones to compensate, potentially making holding Arah/Anchorage more profitable than taking it.

Personally I always liked the fact that Arah was locked down unless your server had control over it. It meant that the server cared if the quest chain wasn’t done or when Arah was under attack.

I’m going to have to disagree about the runes being overpowered, for the simple fact you can run the build fairly reasonably with undead runes, trading the extra confusion chances and duration for more toughness and condition damage. If you’re running a 100% condition duration build then you’re laughing. Most of the kills I get with the confusion stacking build I use, are from people who don’t pay attention to the conditions they have on them and don’t use/carry a cleanse skill.

I’d rather not see confusion/this rune set nerfed because a: people don’t want to adapt to it and b: it gives every profession a way to use confusion in their builds at the cost of their rune set.

It all comes down to what you want to do. For example if I’m in a condition mood I’ll use my set of rabid armour + accessories and use two carrion pistols. If however I’m in more of a direct damage mood I’ll use my set of rampager’s armour (precision/power/condition damage) + a mix of emerald and ruby accessories and use either two berserker pistols (gasp) or a berserker rifle.

These days I mostly run a FT/EG build (10,20,0,30,10. Take all the key flamethrower traits + speedy kits) so the rampager gear compliments it nicely with it’s high crit rate + a small boost to the bleeding/burning the crits will generate.

However if I’m running in WvW then I’ll usually run the FT/EG build in PVT armour but with the berserker pistols and the same mix of emerald and ruby accessories. Yes I loose some damage but I gain a lot more survivability in Zerg on Zerg fights. The only time I don’t is when I’m running in small group stuff or when I’m paying enough attention to get out of harms way majority of the time.

Power/crit builds are viable in WvW depending on what you want to do. The FT/EG is more useful in group/zerg based plays because of the AoE healing you can toss out and the FT is great for zerg fights.

These days I run with healing turret (it’s overcharge cleanses and grants water field that you can then detonate for more healing), Rocket Boots (for mobility/blast finisher), EG and FT. While the combination of healing turret and the EG doesn’t grant you as much condition removal as 409 does, it gives you enough overall healing to compensate.

Something like the rifle/SD builds are more suited for roaming, where you need to kill them before they kill you. That said if you pay attention while you’re in larger fights, you can still be a nice ball of bouncy lightning death.

While you’re still getting a feel for a power/crit build that works for you, I’d use a set of PVT armour with whatever runes/crests/orbs you want. PVT will give you that extra toughness and vitality that’ll let you outlast someone in full berserker’s. With my PVT set up I usually sit at around 50% crit chance with about 65% crit damage. I could get it higher but I like the survivability I have.

Judging from what they’ve said about giving every profession access to all weapon times, I’m guessing that any new skills would be weapon based. With that in mind here are a few ideas.

Hammer

Skill 1: 3 chained attack applying weakness, vulnerability and ending in a cripple
Skill 2: Leap attack ending with an AoE burn and a 3 second fire field
Skill 3: Small AoE attack. Blast Finisher.
Skill 4: Projectile attack that leaves a trail of smoke/fire
Skill 5: Large AoE attack resulting in burning, bleed and knock back.

Greatsword Leaning more towards the alchemy side of the engineer

Skill 1: 3 chained attack that damages -> poisons -> AoE poison field
Skill 2: Spinning Attack
Skill 3: Small ranged AoE attack that acts like the thief’s gunk steal ability
Skill 4: A single target pull followed by a repulse.
Skill 5: Wall that causes a random condition every time a foe passes through it

Staff

Skill 1: Launch a small explosive projectile.
Skill 2: Create a spider mines that will run after target foe. When it reaches its target it’ll detonate causing AoE damage along with bleeding and burning (3 seconds each)
Skill 3: Create a spider mine that will run after target foe. When it reaches its target it’ll detonate leaving a puddle of oil that will cause foes running over it to fall down.
Skill 4: Create a spider mine that will block the next three attacks before detonating
Skill 5: Create a elixir infused spider mines that will seek out injured allies to heal. Leaves a small AoE healing circle that classes as a water field and lasts for 3 seconds. Can be manually detonated.

Sword Lightning rod

Skill 1: Ranged attack that leaves a charge on the target. At 5 charges all nearby foes are pulled towards them
Skill 2: Ranged AoE Lightning bolt
Skill 3: PBAoE that damages and gives 10 stacks of vulnerability to surrounding foes

Mace

Skill 1: 3 chained attack that damages -> damages -> damages + 2 second burning
Skill 2: Launch a projectile that leaves a trail of fire behind it.
Skill 3: Damages and dazes the target

Axe

Skill 1: 3 chained attack that causes bleeding on each strike
Skill 2: Three strikes that cause vulnerability on the target
Skill 3: Throw the axe to damage and bleed the target. If target is already bleeding then they become crippled as well.

Scepter

Skill 1: Fires a glob of alchemical gunk at target. Causes a random condition
Skill 2: Fires a jet of acid that damages and strips a target of a boon each second. Lasts for 5 seconds
Skill 3: Releases a cloud of alchemical fluid that gives each ally three random boons

Torch

Skill 4: Throw a sticky bomb at target. After 3 seconds it detonates causing burning and bleeding on target foe and surrounding foes
Skill 5: Leave pools of burning oil as you run. Foes who run over this are set on fire and fall over.

Focus

Skill 4: Throw an acid bomb at target. After 3 seconds it detonates causing weakness and poison on target foe and surrounding foes
Skill 5: Removes 3 conditions from yourself and transfers it to target foe

Warhorn

Skill 4: Damages foes and dazes them. If they are already dazed then they are knocked over
Skill 5: Cause a tremor in a line in front of you, crippling those it hits. If it hits a target that is already crippled then they are knocked over.

Merge Autotool installation and metal plating into a single master trait, create a new adept trait that allows you to call targets for the turret then rejig Rifle Barreled Turrets into something like this:

Advance turrets: All your turrets have been upgraded.

Advance rifle turret: +15% damage and range. Overcharge now fires in a 45 degree spread

Advance Rocket Turret: +15% damage and range. Overcharge now fires a salvo of four rockets

Advance Thumper Turret: +15% damage and health. Overcharge now removes 1 boon from tagets.

Advance Flame Turret: +15% damage and Range: Overcharge now causes burning.

Advance Net Turret: +15% range: Overcharge now snares near by foes

Advance Healing Turret: Now heals turrets in it’s area of effect. Overcharge heals turrets.

Rapid Deployment: Now removes detonation from the toolbelt and replaces it with reploy, allowing the turrets to be moved to a new location.

Those changes would help improve overall turret play, allowing the engineer to turn a small area into an effective fort.