Guild Wars 2

Phineas Poe.3018:

To be honest, I think our next elite specialization should lock us out of kits but give us weapon swap.

It wouldn’t work. Not after several years in which everything else has been balanced over the use of multiple kits. Our gadgets are terrible, and the few that got some niche use got even nerfed to the floor (hello, slick shoes). Elixirs are but measle self-buffs that have no use in party settings (other classes can provide those boons far better, and at the whole group). Turrets…that they’re used just to be detonated says enough. And even our weapons were balanced over kits, anyway (something we know due to some balance note released back then). And being a new specialization we wouldn’t be able to use gyros and hammer. We would have to rely on new weapons, and only those. But all the old things would end up being too weak for the aforementioned reasons.

If they ever did a redesign, they would have to decide what to do with kits. They can’t be optional and yet impact so heavily over the balance of the class in its entirety.
If they balance them so, they should end up being the class mechanic – something the class always has at their disposal. Or delete most of them and put the remaining ones as elite skills (thus limiting the amount of kits available at a time as a single one). Maybe that could be enough to not have to balance everything over kits, dunno.

Way to ignore everything he posted, uh.

By the way, it’s not like they’re even bothering to follow their own designs. Turrets are still described even now as “devices that help defend and control an area”. Yeah, good luck with that, they either die in a couple seconds (in pvp/wvw) or are so bad in doing so that they’re better used as disposable devices.
And despite what you may say about devs being unconcerned by balance, they got nerfed due to that…as something that defends and controls an area ended up being too perfect for a mode that’s all about defending and controlling some areas.
But it’s not like they ever bothered changing them to make them balanced and still follow their design. They just forgot about them and gone on.

Obtena.7952:

I guess your point of view is different than mine. Maybe you think there should be no consequences to choices you make; I don’t get that irresponsible thinking. Maybe you think it’s OK making bad choices can complain about the results; I think that lacks maturity.

Again, the rest of the game doesn’t work like that. There is no consequence for applying retaliation, it’s no risk and all rewards. An autoattack, that can’t be balanced as anything but a low reward skill, can’t have high risk either. And yet flamethrower’s autoattack is outright unusable in most of the situations, else you end up killing yourself.

Obtena.7952:

When you say that FT is designed for hitting large groups of people in PVP, I think that’s just a poor assumption. Why do you assume this weapon was designed as a capable PVP weapon in the first place? Other than ‘weapons design philosophy’, no one really seems to have an answer … or consider it was never intended to be.

So now you’re even debating that it is supposed to be a weapon designed for hitting multiple enemies, despite all the skills doing so (all while having an autoattack that’s balanced over hitting multiple enemies, and thus doing relatively mediocre damage per target). And all of that is based over retaliation being far too strong toward this weapon. Talk about poor assumptions, huh.

Obtena.7952:

In my opinion, an auto attack that does AOE at range is some of the most broken PVP concept you could ever come across in a game … and you think it should be fixed so you can trounce around and melt people with it with no consequence? You are not thinking objectively about how an FT AA change would affect the game. Even if you reduced the number of hits, you still wouldn’t be able to recklessly go and BBQ a group of people with retal. The solution here for now is to make good weapon choices.

Whereas a commonly applicable boon being able to shut down a weapon by itself is a totally acceptable concept, right?
And we’re talking about an autoattack that wouldn’t be that good even if it were actually useable, in case you’re forgetting about it. With low reward should come low risks as well.

Obtena.7952:

If this is even close to what you believe should be happening, I think we have little left to say to each other. As someone else said, it’s obvious to me you just want to abuse a ranged autoattack AOE. Clearly, that’s not the opinion of anyone who cares about the health of the game.

Yeah, i’m sure having weapons and relative traits being shut down by a single common boon is very healthly for the game.
“Abusing a ranged autoattack AOE”,lol. It would be mediocre even if it was actually useable in the situations it is balanced for.

I agree that we can close the discussion here. I don’t think you ever supposed to want one from the start, since you’re outright trolling.

Oh, Midontto, regarding that napalm, i mentioned it because it didn’t use to have direct damage back then; thus it couldn’t proc retaliation either. They changed it in some patch, putting a direct damage so terrible that you’re, yet again, harmed more than the damage you deal. Except that you can’t do anything about it once it’s down, unlike the autoattack.

Your arguments just don’t make sense, Obtena. Nothing else works like you describe. Even retaliation is no risk and all reward. Yet using the flamethrower’s autoattack should be such a dangerous action? You can’t be serious.
There shouldn’t be “severe consequences” in using an autoattack in the situation it is designed for – it’s a cone attack that can hit up to three opponents and whose damage its balanced upon such an occurrence (so, not that high). On a weapon that is supposed to not be switched out frequently, due to the Juggernaut trait.
Debating otherwise is foolish, if not outright trolling.

Edit: there are a ton of skills that can either give retaliation or create light fields (that, in turn, can give area retaliation). And given we’re talking about an attack that’s supposed to be used versus multiple enemies, that just raises the chances one of them will be able to apply some area retaliation;
And given they’ve added some little direct damage to napalm as well, even that skill can severely harm the engineer…and you can’t do anything about it, apart for not using it entirely, as given its long duration, enemies can just put retaliation after you’ve put it down and just walk over it (they get some burning, but light fields can be used to heal conditions as well, after all).

30 hits of retaliation per autoattack aren’t just “a few hits”. That retaliation damage usually end up being far more than the damage dealt by the engineer itself. And given that the autoattack is supposed to be used versus groups – it’s a cone autoattack with a relatively good range – you’re essentially saying you shouldn’t use an aoe autoattack in situations where it is supposed to be used for, all because of a boon that’s far too easily applicable in group situations.
The “slow weapons” you mention doesn’t suffer from the same issue, so what’s the point of even mentioning them?
Those are all things you should already know, anyway. Frankly speaking, it doesn’t seem like you want to acknowledge these issues, for whatever reason.

It still wouldn’t solve the issue with multi-hit, low damage skills like the flamethrower’s AA (and being an autoattack, it isn’t supposed to have high damage to start with).
Even changing retaliation to a number of hit, it still doesn’t change that you either have to consume all of them (and getting harmed in the process either way) or somehow strip them (just to see them replaced soon thereafter, as this still wouldn’t solve the issue of it being far too commonly applicable).

Seeing as most of the advantages got artificial caps by means of ICDs, they could just do the same with retaliation, by making it so one can’t be harmed by the same instance of retaliation more than X times per second.

Make it a chain skill.
The first part works like now, except that the puddles knock down only moving enemies.
Pressing the skill again ignites the oil; after a short amount of time (in which the puddles aren’t slippery anymore, so that by reacting well an enemy can escape unharmed) the oil puddles burst into fiery flames that persist for a few seconds, damaging the enemies nearby.

Retaliation is far too easy to apply in group situations to talk about risk and rewards. Maybe if they toned down heavily its application it would be different, but right now it just makes no sense. It’s all risk and no reward, as that autoattack just can’t be used for the situation its damage is balanced for. And becomes more risky to use the more opponents there are, even if they just don’t do anything – a passive boon will do the damage for them.
It is even more absurd if we consider that the flamethrower has a trait made to push toward a constant use of such kit – Juggernaut. If you have to switch out all the time, what’s the point of such a trait? Its "purity of purpose?

Most advantages of multi-hit skills were nerfed in the first months of the game, anyway – back then foods didn’t even have internal cooldowns, and neither sigils if i remember well. All those traits without an IC are already balanced over multi-hit skills, anyway.
And yet, the disadvantages are the only things that were never toned down.

And yet we’ve seen “on hit” and “on crit” effects get repeatedly nerfed during these years, with internal cooldowns put on them that deny any meaningful advantage with the aforementioned skills. All it’s left are some traits…that are already balanced over the use of those multi-hit skills, and end up being rather useless with anything else.
So, what’s the point of having multi-hit skills, if anything gets toned down or is balanced as not to be strong with multi-hit skills? It strips them of any advantage they were supposed to have, while still retaining the weakness to retaliation. So what’s the point of them being multi-hit now? Even grenadier is gone, and they already balanced everything over 3 grenades – more precisely, over all of them hitting the same targets, as we could see by their nerfs over the years – so they could as well just make them a single hit now and make those other traits more functional with the rest of the weapons.

Even worse, we have a trait that is designed to make us camp a kit – Juggernaut – along with some other traits that complement it…and yet we can’t do it due to a single, common boon. Yet somehow this is considered acceptable just because we can switch it out (thus denying us any advantage those traits were supposed to give us).
So much for purity of purpose, eh.

Theonord.6359:

Ye this has been a problem for years that we take 3x as much dmg from retaliation than anyone else

Getting more damage than the one you deal must be the purity of purpose of flamethrower and grenades, i would guess.

Elixirs good? Maybe in PvP, but in PvE they were always terrible. Tossing them is just unnecessarily clunky, aside from the weak effects, and even their effects on the engineer itself aren’t even good enough to warrant their use instead of some kit. Whatever is provided for personal use via HGH can just be given at the whole party by some other member, or via blast finishers on fire fields.
Sure, if you just have to camp a point and no one else can give you that might, they’re better than nothing. The rest of the game just doesn’t work like that, though.

And how many of these other ones you mentioned require scrapper? Oh, none. That trait ends up being better suited for the base spec than the elite spec whose it is a minor for. Purity of purpose at its finest, huh.
And before this patch we had 11 ways to put dazes, then. More than half got removed in a single sweep.
Let alone actually use those sources in a single build, and one that actually has any chance to work. But sure, feel free to use a build with shield, battering ram and net turret, i’m sure it will all work fine.

Dirame.8521:

Let’s be smart here guys. Ask yourselves;

What is Thunderclap?

What does Thunderclap + Rocket Charge do?

What does Shredder Gyro toolbelt: Spare Capacitor skill do?

I mean seriously, did you forget that there were other skills and other ways that a Scrapper could apply daze?

Yeah, exactly two ways, how amazing. And they removed, like, six.
But everything is fine, eh.

And turrets are supposed to defend and control an area as written on the engineer profession page since launch, yet their “purity of purpose” didn’t prevent devs from nerf them into oblivion and make them into makeshift blast finishers. Same for Slick Shoes, whose only “purpose” is to knockdown people and have been made terrible even for that, considering their cooldown.
Amazing how “purity of purpose” applies only when they have to nerf things, huh.

Guess they could change Impact Savant as well then. Having a minor trait to raise duration of stuns and dazes is meaningless if they keep removing ways to deal them.

“Purity of purpose” is just a convenient catchphrase to somehow justify a nerf, and that’s all. As somehow that didn’t apply when they “balanced” turrets, our utilities that should be used to “defend and control an area”, and that were made useless as anything but blast finishers since they’re were doing exactly what they were designed for.
And as we could see, turrets are as forgotten as ever.
Just excuses. Nothing but excuses.

ampy.1387:

There was a little bit of love but still doesn’t tickle my kitten…

A bit of love?
They’ve put relevant nerfs (that make no sense outside of pvp) and some useless buffs that won’t absolutely make the class better in what it lacks. Not even the first time it happens, anyway.
If anything, i would say they despise us, at this point.

Can’t say i’m particularly surprised. Devs focused their attention for months unto raids, but they’re essentially niche content. And the maps from the expansion being an handful didn’t help either. Sure, they’ve got replayable events, but even those can get boring after a month or two. Many people likely found themselves without something fun to do and just stopped playing, or did that after getting shunned in raid (be it due to their class or something else). And people that don’t play also don’t pay.
Sure, they could try to churn some expansion in a relatively short time, but given what happened with the last one (especially due to the missing legendaries) i doubt that many people will trust them again.

Xyonon.3987:

You wouldn’t take a Druid solely for it’s buffs, neither a Warrior. They both have to contribute to the total party dps in order to be solid picks. What I want to say is that we aren’t valuable due ot our abilities alone, but we are more valuable compared to alternatives who are basicly the same as us, but just without those little bonus things.

But that’s what i was saying – those classes provide dps and do things they can solely do. And that’s why they’re picked. Cause no one else could take their place.
No one other than warriors has banners (or PS either). No one but a chronomancer can provide alacrity. Only druid get spirits coupled with really good group healing abilities.
Even thieves get to apply venoms to the party, they just don’t happen to be useful enough, yet. Necro have a limited niche with epidemics, compared to the examples above. And we had an even smaller niche with slick shoes, back when they were still situationally useful.

The only thing we’ve got like that now is bulwark gyro, but as i said above, it just wasn’t done to work in a group situation (as unlike those other utilities, its effect doesn’t scale with the group).
And then there are all the trait-party wide buffs. Those help, too. And we got nothing like that.

Sure, we may be not the only ones in such a situation, but that doesn’t help much.

We, as either as power or condi in-/dependend of Alacrity, are on Ele / Thief dps level against small hitboxes. Maybe not on paper, but what matters is in practice.

I can agree, but in practice, we are one of the hardest professions to get results with. And one where theorycrafting and practice can differ the most. Take napalm, for example. On paper it is one of our most damaging skills. In practice a couple steps are enough to avoid all of it. It works if the enemy stays perfectly still for 10s, but how many bosses will actually do that, when their mechanics are involved?

For example every single aura tic will rip a Thief / Ele from it’s Scholar bonus for a few sec, unless they have Protection (or a Bulwark Gyro -> supports team dps in that case), at least until they got healed again. Auras tic per 3 sec. Engis have enough HP to prevent this or simply are condi who don’t care at all.

There are also traits like Takedown Round, who’s dps contribution gets doubled if adds are present or Modified Ammo who sometimes boosts beyond the assumed 8 conditions in raids.

Then there’s the time you spend on range. Matthias for example forces you into ranged combat from time to time. And if you can’t block strips your Scholar bonus aswell.

What about the dps loss of being kicked? Losing Scholar in the same moment aswell? Getting attacked by any add and losing Scholar bonus. Maybe even forcing someone to use his own heal, all those little things can sum up.

It’s the same for us. What if they move just after we casted napalm, what if we had to move afar and can’t put a fire bomb on the boss during that timeframe. A group can find means to apply protection to their members, but if the mechanics require the boss to move, there isn’t much to do about it. Sure, having a large amount of skills we’ll likely have something to cast either way, but straying from the “perfect rotation” will still lower our theoretical dps. It’s especially important for us due to the sheer amount of skills we’ve got, and our dps depends on chaining a large part of them as much as possible.

Xyonon.3987:

In the end, the Raids are doable with many different “max efficiency” compositions. The differences between two comps may be so small that RN-Jesus has more impact on the outcome than the professions itself. The problem is that good professions are often determined by their usage in records. But just because another profession hasn’t been used yet doesn’t mean that they are a bad pick. If RN-Jesus smiles upon me and we get the best crits and spawns at lets say Xera, and are able to setup a record run while we used an Engi, everyone would lose their mind.

Well, people obviously try making things easier for the raid group to succeed. Taking classes that can stack unique bonuses or that can constantly apply boons to a group is a way to do so, provided they can also deal appropriate damage. But we lack those tools to start with.
We can rely on our damage – then again, depending on the circumstances – and we do have some other supportive abilities. But it isn’t we’re the only ones who got them.
Sure, we aren’t necessarily a bad pick. But i wouldn’t say we’re a good one either. And people that want to make their raid easier won’t pick the average one, they’ll just go for the option that makes things easier.

Xyonon.3987:

I don’t say “Hey guys, Engis are sooo gud, everyone should have one in it’s party!”, but I say that we are just as good as any other top tier dps profession, if we invest a bit more efforts to support the whole team.
About them large hitboxes? Fancy tactics or swap to Ele I say :P

---

Greez!
- Ziggy

And that’s wrong, imho. A raid is made by 10 players. Every (base) class could potentially have a spot, yet while some classes have guaranteed spots, it’s deemed better having several multiples of the same classes than taking an engineer (or some other class – we aren’t alone in that regard). There is a large disparity, and not much is being done about it.
(and again, mostly is due to a pvp-based balancing, imho)

It would definitely make more sense, as it would make it better for group situations. Right now it blocks the same amount of damage whether you’re alone or with other people, but it still is balanced for a solo situation (like tanking a point in pvp).

Removing the damage redirection would make it akin to banners and other similar utilities, with a bonus applied per member (and thus stronger in groups) rather than a fixed one shared by all the people affected (that makes it weaker the more people there are).

Xyonon.3987:

-cut-

It’s nice to be able to do those things, but they still don’t make us a valuable addition to a raid group.
The problem isn’t what we can do as a single group member. Because there are ten of such in a raid group.
The things you mentioned can easily be done or shared between other classes – there are ten people in a raid group, after all – and they can do those things in addition to what they can uniquely do.

And there is nothing worthwhile for a group situation that we can uniquely do. We had an insanely strong CC, back then, one strong enough to be considered something we could solely do. It got nerfed to the floor. Since they wanted everyone to contribute doing so (yet anyone else having things they can only do seems fine).
Sure, we do have things like bulwark gyro that could take that role, in theory. But while it can be used in a group, it wasn’t made to work in a group. Unlike a banner, whose utility is proportional to the number of people affected, bulwark gyro protects always for the same amount of damage, be it defending one or five people. While still being balanced over its protection of a single character, due to pvp. It’s probably the only buff ingame that gets weaker in proportion to the amount of people that get affected by it. And that’s why it just isn’t good for a raid. The toolbelt is nice, though.

Even if we had utilities made on purpose for group content, it probably wouldn’t help much. They still have to compete with kits.
It would have to be something that’s really strong in a group setting, but much less worthwhile when alone, so that it doesn’t immediatly get nerfed to the floor due to pvp.

Well, in this particular case, a depowered banner of strength – as it’s weaker in both effect and duration – doesn’t seem particularly worthwhile.

Imho, having some utility that’s more suited to group content would help the class a lot in PvE. Imho, if we want to have such utilities, they could as well scrap the current turrets and replace them with something else.
For example, let’s say we get something like this.
Utility – Amplificator K
Indestructible item (unlike turrets) that once placed emits three “waves” in a direction over six seconds (think of it as a pulsing cone effect, one pulse every two seconds), then it disappears.
Every enemy hit by a wave (up to X enemies) sees the conditions he’s afflicted with increase duration by Y seconds (up to Z stacks per condition, so that it can’t get too strong).
For example, let’s say that an enemy has a stack of burning (4s) and three of bleeding (7s). Once a wave hits, with Y=2, they become burning (6s) and three bleedings (9s).
Toolbelt – Spray Compound K
Cone attack from the engineer (similar to fumigate) that inflicts three random damaging conditions (the amount of stacks and their duration would be fixed depending on the condition, though).
It is meant to be used along the main skill, either to enable its use or for added effect.

It’s something that is meant to be far less effective when alone, but that would work greatly in a group content. Something that we lack, currently.

Those reworks you speak off killed the few diversity we had still left. There isn’t much to be proud off. And it isn’t like we’re the only class that got some buffs, so comparatively speaking, it didn’t change the situation much.
And most of those skill buffs are meaningless anyway, because they don’t solve any of the issues we’ve got. Gadgets won’t be used just because they’ve been buffed a bit. Not when they have to compete with kits, and not when our dps is based upon using said kits. But i could say that of any other utility we’ve got. I’ll repeat it again: how are we supposed to be versatile, when we have to spend every single slot to bring our dps at a level comparable to the one that other classes can bring along with some actual utility?
That’s not something you solve by adding or removing a second here and there. And they aren’t taking any step to solve it. Thieves aren’t in a good state either, but look at what they did with venoms. That’s a concrete approach. Not what we’ve got.

You talk about me wallowing in self pity? No, i’m just fed up of the unreasonable optimism i see in these forums. I’ve been reading this subsection for years, and people mostly seem to think we’re fine and well. Meanwhile, in the actual game, we are still as unwanted as before even after several years. Raids just shown it more clearly.
And now we get a balance patch every three months. Patches that are still focused onto PvP, anyway (else we wouldn’t have got any PvE nerf in this last one, seeing what’s the state of engineer/scrapper there). Oh, sure, maybe in two or three years we’ll be fine. Guess i should just wait for that.

And why should i bother making other suggestions, by the way? I already spent far too much time doing that, in the past. I made them for turrets, like many other people. They just nerfed them to the floor and left them there. I proposed some rework for slick shoes too. Well, having them made useless was considered a better solution, it seems. The suggestions they’re implementing, at most, are about some cooldown reduction, some duration change, some faster animation. Changing some numbers and be done with it. All things that aren’t actually solving anything.

insanemaniac.2456:

dont be ridiculous.

• flamethrower auto buff
• juggernaut w/ mass momentum & applied force
• nade/mortar auto nerfs
• glass cannon
• rocket boots overhaul
• napalm specialist (pvp nerf and a pve sidegrade)
• heavy armor exploit & high caliber
• shaped charge
• skilled marksman
• pinpoint distribution
• reactive lenses
• streamlined kits

all of these traits and skills have been made or remade with pve as either the only consideration or a consideration equal to wvw or pvp, cuz they are all either used solely in pve (as primarily damage buffs) or widely used across multiple game modes (cuz they provide excellent utility).

What should that list prove? Most of those skills aren’t seeing any use in any serious PvE content, so if those changes were made for PvE, they weren’t successful at all. Some of those traits are just the byproduct of previous pvp related nerfs (like the old kit refinement, or even the first juggernaut) or changes made to simplify the trait system (thus merging traits together, since they reduced the total number of traits). I would also find some choice questionable (reactive lenses is near useless in PvE). And some are just so generic that can see some use in any mode.

Meanwhile, just how many nerfs and changes we’ve got due to pvp during these years? Just take the last patch note, even counting out the splits, how many of those changes make any sense in PvE? None.

Since the start of the game, just how many skills have been nerfed to uselessness in PvE due to PvP, or were outright ignored because having useless skills means they don’t pose an hassle in their beloved PvP mode? How many nerfs have turrets got back then, due to pvp? When did gadgets ever become useful in PvE (the only one that did got nerfed to uselessness…and saw constant whining in PvP)? Did they ever do anything to make elixirs more useful in PvE (as in: making them actually useful in a group situation instead of the pitiful personal effects and the clunky tossed elixirs we’ve got, and no, they did nothing)? Where is our supposed versatility, if we must spend all our utility slots in kits just to have a dps comparable to other classes? Where is our elite spec mechanic that can actually be useful in PvE? When were we ever rewarded for having the most obnoxiously complex rotations of all the game? What do we offer in a party that others can’t already do better?
Was anything ever done to solve those issues?
No.
But let’s keep waiting, cause someday they’ll surely do something, right?
Oh, please.
PvE was, is and probably will keep being an afterthought as far as balance goes. Even with the balance splits, as we could see with these last patch notes.

time to stop saying pve engi has been ignored and post something of value.

Keep ignoring reality if you want to do so. Our situation hasn’t improved at all from the first year as far as PvE goes. Other classes get to be useful in parties, doing things others can’t do (while still dealing dps comparable to ours). We just fill the spots left, assuming there isn’t someone more useful. That’s our role in PvE.

insanemaniac.2456:

applied force.

That was created anew, though. And they did so because they moved down (and rebalanced) perfectly weighted. A trait that saw many pvp people complain about scrappers’ passive stability (even after its stability was reduced to a single stack due to making it adept, but still). But sure, that trait may also have been implemented to improve scrappers’ performance in PvE. Albeit it didn’t help much, as we can see.
Fair enough, one change over several years may have been implemented to improve pve (or at least had that side-effect). Guess everything is fine then.

Pride.1734:

But on what i do not agree is that these nerfs overly hurt. PvE builds don’t care about the bulwrak nerf esp. in high tier play. Medic is an inconvenience at worst and the shock shield nerf won’t decide if a boss dies or lives either.
Bunker down does irk a bit because scrapper is the problen not the base engi.

But neither they were warranted in PvE. Making things worse won’t improve our diversity, especially when those things weren’t used because deemed not useful enough to begin with.

Pride.1734:

I mean its fair to complain that engi is still unwanted in 2 out of 3 gamemodes but thats because nothing has changed yet again rather than these insignifcant nerfs that we recieved this patch.

Yeah, nothing has changed yet again. That’s the problem. We’ve been saying that same phrase for years. Maybe, after years, it is fair to complain that our situation is still the same as it has ever been. And that nothing is being done to change it.

insanemaniac.2456:

did you see the ele nerfs or do you only play engi?

I did see them. They’ve got anything to do with this matter, though. Engineer is still getting nerfed in PvE due to their pvp performance, even if something got splitted.
Unless you mean to say that skills like bulwark gyro or medic gyro were too strong in pve, or that bunker down was oh so useful for some fractal or raid. Or should i talk about turrets and how they’re still terrible, or how they didn’t care about making gadget a decent choice after they nerfed the only one that did see some use?
Let’s speak frankly, did you ever see some balancing that wasn’t somehow dictated by pvp (and yet applied to any mode)? Even slick shoes saw people whining for months in pvp about it, and like turrets ended up useless after they “rebalanced” it. Same for the traits. The old juggernaut, the old kit refinement, all changed only due to pvp. Did they ever do something to make the engineer a better choice in PvE? Should i remind you how the engineer was one of the less used classes in PvE and still sees few to no uses, especially in any harder content, mostly because it doesn’t offer anything that other classes can’t already do anyway, and yet nothing was ever done in this regard? And let’s not take the “versatility” excuse, because we aren’t versatile to begin with: we must spend all our utility slot just to deal damage. You know who’s versatile? Elementalists. And they do get used, unlike us. Even our only good point, condi dps, depends on enemies standing essentially still all the time (how else should napalm do all the hits otherwise). Nice for theorycrafting, not much in practice. But even that isn’t enough to be actually chosen. Not when other classes got banners, party buffs, pulsing boons…things only their class can do, and that they can easily bring while still dealing good damage. And we’ve got nothing like that. And even if we had skills like that, it would compete with kits, so we likely wouldn’t bring it anyway. That’s how the class work. Badly.
But nobody in the balance team cares about that. They never cared about PvE.
We’ve got some builds for pvp. It means we’re fine. No need to do anything. As usual.

insanemaniac.2456:

hammer being op in pve matters a bit less.

And that alone says enough about how well they balance.
It isn’t particularly surprising that engineers (let alone scrappers) aren’t wanted for any serious PvE content, seeing that PvE always is an afterthought in their balancing passes.

What’s the point of having an “huge variety of skills and possibilities” if almost all of those bring just about mediocre results?
What’s the point of turrets, that could never be used as intended outside of pvp (and that got nerfed to the floor there too, and forgotten thereafter)?
What’s the point of gadgets, that are just too weak to see some use in a class that’s essentially balanced over using kits, and whose only gadget that saw situational use got dumped right in the garbage bin?
Why should someone waste their slots over elixirs in PvE, if their effects are mediocre, their group support is even worse and by using them you end up lacking the means to use that might they may provide – assuming you’ve traited them and that nobody else is already doing so party wide and better…something that will instead happen in any decent enough group or raid squad.
And now we got gyros, that somehow end up being an amalgam of all the weaknesses an ai minion can have – they’re dumb, non responsive at all while having effects provided around them, they’ve got both a duration and an health bar, and yet they get constantly neutrered.
All that’s left are kits. The skill type designed to make us “versatile” (they don’t, we use them just because we lack dps sources by baseline) and which pigeon-holed us instead.

Let’s just face the harsh reality.
No one cares about having an engineer in party, and ironically enough, scrappers are even worse in that regard. We don’t offer anything worthwhile to a party that other classes can’t already provide. We should be versatile, but we have to use all the weapons and utility slots just to provide dps comparable to other classes, in complex rotations that have the same result that other classes can provide by pressing a bunch of buttons.
Engineers are just that terrible as far as group content goes. And nothing is going to change.

Because we may have a couple builds good enough when we stand alone inside a circle, and we get balanced over that specific display of performance…even if the rest of the game just doesn’t work like that. But it isn’t like anybody cares, right?

What did you expect?
They made a spec based over melee combat, low mobility and ai minions and they’re balancing it over a mode based upon tanking inside small points versus people that hate every form of ai.
Of course it would end up as a disaster.

Scrapper is even more useless than before in pve, base engineer sees useful traits nerfed and gets some fluff that for the most part won’t help at all, gadgets and turrets are still in the garbage bin. Great.

I don’t think that having those armors restricted to raids is a bad idea, in itself.
On the other hand, not all classes are so lucky. Whereas some are always welcomed, others are essentially excluded from raid activities. Mostly due to a pvp-based balancing that utterly screws up any other mode, imho.
So, how about we actually get all classes to be equally useful in raids, if we’re supposed to do them for such rewards?
And no, making alts isn’t a solution. Nobody will ever ask an ele, a warrior or a druid to take their alt character, assuming they haven’t got too many of them. So i don’t see why other classes should do so just to have a chance at raids.

Ensign.2189:

- It dramatically increases transition costs between modes of play, which are felt disproportionately by the least hardcore players (aka, those that are least likely to post on forums)

It isn’t like the modes don’t already require to learn different things, anyway.
And i don’t particularly care, actually. I would just like for PvE to not get ruined again and again by another gameplay mode.

Ensign.2189:

- It makes coding, testing, and otherwise maintaining the game quite a bit more difficult

If it ends up having worthwhile results, it seems like a fair trade to me.

Ensign.2189:

- It encourages lazy balancing around specific encounters instead of demanding more robust balancing against other classes

Right now they’re lazily balancing around how people fight inside a small point. Case in example: turrets. Designed to defend and control areas, nerfed to the floor and got most of their traits removed in every mode because they happened to work in a mode where you’ve got to defend and control areas. Never made useful again. Go figure.

Ensign.2189:

- It tends to snowball on itself off of interaction effects; split skills interact differently with other skills, which have their balance impacted differentially as well.

Yeah, that’s how balancing works.

Ensign.2189:

- It tends to lead to a less healthy balance state overall, as skill power levels are not purely a result of context, and outliers are easier to spot in some game modes than others.

It can’t be less healthy than now, where things are balanced purely in a “defend a small circle” context, apart from exceptional cases.

Ensign.2189:

- It very quickly gets to a point where it makes a game much more difficult to balance, not easier.

Yeah, actually balancing two or three modes instead of balancing one and thinking that everything is fine would require some additional work.
It would also mean those other modes actually get balanced, unlike now.

Ensign.2189:

That said, there are certainly cases where splitting skills or items is warranted – I’m not aware of any pressing balance problems where a split makes sense, but I’ve seen enough of them in other games to know that those situations do exist.

Indeed, i doubt you would have made a post like this one if you had any understanding of how balancing over PvP made and still makes a ton of skills useless in any other mode.

Ensign.2189:

I am sympathetic to the costs imposed on players to re-gear after a balance patch (though I am suspicious of the argument, in that it only seems to pop up after nerfs and not after buffs). I am understanding, but not terribly sympathetic, to arguments centering around character power progression and nerfs feeling bad as a result – it is impossible to balance a game if the knob can only turn in one direction.

It is also impossible to balance a game if you keep thinking that everything will go well by nerfing and buffing everything according to how they work in a mode that ends up being hugely different from the rest of the game.
And indeed, balance in the rest of the game is horrible, with ton of skills being useless.

There can’t be build diversity if they keep putting everything together in the same pot.
Skills that are useful in PvP aren’t necessarily useful in PvE, and eventually in WvW either.
They’re different modes, with different goals, that provide different situations and gameplay.
Yet everything is balanced over one situation and goal in particular. It shouldn’t be surprising that it just won’t work.

For example, see the engineer. What’s the point of elixirs in PvE? In a group setting, they’re awful. Gadgets in PvE? Only slick shoes for raids, and even that got neutered. Turrets in PvE? As a turret, never, because they’re just terrible in that regard; at most they were used as some kind of bomb – summon it, do a skill, detonate it yourself. They were designed to defend a control an area, did it in PvP, and were nerfed because they did what they were designed for (and one should wonder why they bothered designing them in that way, then). Then we get the scrapper, and there are gyros. That can’t even keep up with players…because they were likely balanced over the player standing still or moving into a small area. Or that are weaker the more allies there are – bulwark gyro just dies extremely quick if it absorbs damage from multiple players, unlike a banner or, well, anything else.
As far as PvE goes, they should rebalance almost all these skills. Same for a ton of other classes. That’s what happens when you neglect balancing other game modes for years.
They will just continue to ignore the problems.

The issue seems more like about some skills being terrible and others being too good, in the same set of weapons. And they would be terrible (or too good) wherever they would end up, be it in the main or off-hand pistol.
Pistol/pistol is supposed to be our condition damage dealing set of weapons, but in practice a very large percentage of the damage is centered into a single skill – blowtorch. Switching it between main or off-hand doesn’t solve anything. Whatever gets it is the useful weapon, while the other ends up being the useless one.

Dirame.8521:

The reason why Elite specs are comparatively strong is because, in some cases, the plug they holes that the base profession has (Mesmer, Necro, Ranger). And in cases where it doesn’t and just adds more of the same (Engie, Warrior, Ele), you see they either get what I would call a stacking benefit (incredible healing in the cases of Engie and Ele) or they continue to do badly against kiting (Warrior).

I would say that giving engineers a main melee weapon does plug an hole, as we hadn’t got any so far. And given that the scrapper was supposed to be tanky by design, there shouldn’t be anything surprising if they end up being so. Sure, it may pose issues when you end up balancing everything over a mode where tanking a point, often alone, is such an important task…but if they have to end up making the whole tanking design of the spec meaningless due of it, maybe they just shouldn’t have designed the specialization like that to begin with.

I don’t believe they balance the game like that but they do take into account how certain changes will affect other game modes and take the route that won’t rock the boat too much.

Like when they nerfed the turrets to the floor, you mean? Well, of course it didn’t change much in the other modes – nobody used them before, and nobody used them thereafter.
Again, how do you think engineers ended up having kits build as the only good choice in the other modes?
Because the low performance outside of pvp just never mattered as far as “balance” goes. Gadgets, turrets, even elixirs have been useless outside of pvp for years. And somehow, that seems to be fine.

Changes that sit well with all game modes?
You mean, like they nerfed turrets to the floor and removed most of their traits? Or how gadgets are essentially useless right now?
Engineers in PvE are just about kits (as elixirs aren’t that good in a group setting, and buffing is better done by other people instead). Why do you think it ended up like that?
Let’s speak frankly, all they ever bothered to do was changing things so that they wouldn’t bother anyone in PvP, without any care for their performance in the other modes.
Why do you think there is such a lack of diversity right now? Core professions have seen any skill or trait deemed problematic being squashed into the floor, and left in the dust, for years. Instead of having proper reworks done. Of course, if you kill skills and traits one after the other, you end up with few nice things and a ton of mediocre choices. No wonder that elite specs end up being comparatively strong…they’re fresh, not yet broken choices in a sea of mediocrity. You can just get whatever good was left from the old things, some new things and you’re done.

Oh, and i’ll add it as well – without splitting the skills, there can’t be proper balance. The modes are just too different for that to work. The rest of the game isn’t about defending a small circle, and shouldn’t be balanced like that.

Xyonon.3987:

@Manuhell
I believe your team comp is always 1 rev, 1 druid, 1 war, 1 chrono and 6 tempests then? :P Only pugs brought engis for cc only … we shine because of the COMBINATION of dps and utility. For the EG, protection, cc, blind, pull n’ push, etc. A good engi is gold, a bad one be better replaced by a guard or ele tough.

What “combination of dps and utility” are you talking about?
First of all, let’s separate theory from practice. Sure, our theoretical dps is good. But how many people do you think will actually achieve our theoretical dps in a raid setting? Enemies aren’t sitting ducks, and there are mechanics to follow. That napalm won’t ever do its full damage on a moving enemy, for example, being a thin slice of fire.
And when you’ve got to bring vale guardian away, that fire bomb won’t deal its full damage. And most of our skill are like that.
Then, utility. First of all, we’re horribly dependant on our utility slots, more than any other class. Anything that requires us to give up some kit means a dps loss already. And when other classes can easily offer both dps and group support, that alone makes us a second choice. Unless there are reasons to do so – like slick shoes for CC duty. But that’s in the past.
You mention the elixir gun. Fine, that’s already something a condition build won’t use, since it loses dps in doing so. A power build use it and benefit from acid bomb, though. You’ve got some regen and fumigate, and that’s it. Theoretically you could use super elixir to heal a bit, but given that combo work on the oldest initiator, and super elixir is awfully long, either you end ruining combos for everyone else or you just won’t stay in there enough to have some tangible benefit. And while fumigate is nice to heal conditions, you would also need for the people affected to be conveniently huddled together to actually hit them. I’ve rarely seen it happen, in practice. Other classes (or even our healing turret) often clear conditions in a radius, without having to aim anything, and that works quite better.
Protection. The only skill that reliably gives it is Reconstruction Field, and that means you aren’t using healing turret for area heal/condition cleanse. But sure, if people stay in a 300 radius around its source for all its duration (since it’s a pulsing field) they do get some good protection. In theory, at least. Meanwhile, other classes press a button and they give protection instantly and in a larger radius, and they’re done with it.
CC. The only outlier was slick shoes, and now they’re useless. We don’t have any particularly strong CC in our kits (Big Ol’ Bomb would be an exception, but the 3s delay makes it worthless) and the ones that aren’t kits still aren’t good enough to take the place of a kit (since they mean a dps loss).
Blind. Bosses have got defiance, so it’s useless for the most part. May work on some minion if they’re near enough, but that’s it. It isn’t like we’re aiming for those, anyway (and if we do, it’s a dps loss).
Pull and push. Again, others pull better than us (and it isn’t difficult, since our pull is single targeted). We’ve got air blast that’s nice for knocking back seekers, and that’s it. But then, other classes could just slow them down or immobilize them with other means, it isn’t like we aren’t easily replaceable.
Etc. Group boons? Better done by others. Stat bonuses to nearby allies via traits? We haven’t got them. Other types of buffs? We’ve got to use kits for dps, but even if we didn’t, our choices aren’t good either. The only one of that kind would be the bulwark gyro…that by absorbing damage gets weaker the more allies it has to protect, since its hp are the same either way. Issue that banners or spirits don’t have, anyway.
A good engi may be gold, you say. Well, i guess the issue is that good other classes are platinum then…and with a quarter of the effort required.

Darknicrofia.2604:

being able to 1v2 because of your spec is NOT the sign of a good player, its the sign of an overtuned build

An overtuned spec that no one ever cared about outside of pvp. Ever asked yourself why?
Because “being able to 1v2” was the only thing it was good at, that’s why.
Oh, of course it gives it some advantage in a mode where all that matters is staying inside a small circle, often alone. But that’s it. That’s all it did.
No one cared about scrappers outside of pvp before, and now they’re even more useless.
Of course, being the pvp section, i’m kinda sure you don’t care a bit about how the other modes end up.
And i wish i could say the same. But i can’t, because we don’t have a split balance, thus i must see classes balanced toward their performance in defending a small circle from other players.
Given that’s how they balance the game, i wonder why they even bothered designing the scrapper as it is. Giving some good self-sustain to a class and expecting it wouldn’t go well in a mode that’s all about defending a point is rather asinine. But that’s how it is, and that class ends up being neutered for the sake of this single mode.
Well, sorry for the rant. But since this mode has been ruining classes in the rest of the game for its own sake for years, i’m sure you will pardon me.

Xyonon.3987:

Phineas Poe.3018 has made some great points. In short – yea, Engi isn’t the best dps, but still nr. 3 in terms of dps. It’s the combination of utility AND damage the Engi offers. That’s why it’s the best fractals profession there is. In Raids you rather want him than a thief. You also rather want a guard than a thief for the protection, don’t you? Meanwhile the thief really has the problem to be unable to offer anything else but damage, where he is outclassed by the ele, easily…

Greez

Except that most of the time, said utility comes with a cost in dps. Even slick shoes required us to give up a kit, and the effects on dps were noticeable. Not that it will be an issue anymore. Oh, sure, we have fields, we can do things with them. Things that other classes do better, anyway. And in a raid setting you’ve got ample choices – you get to bring other 9 classes beside you, after all.
Engineers weren’t brought for their might, they weren’t brought for their healing capabilities. They weren’t brought for the boons they provided with their elixirs or for the group support they provided with gyros or fields. They weren’t brought for their dps -despite requiring obscene rotation to actually output it, i may add.
Cause all of them were already covered by someone else who did them better.
They were brought merely for CC duties, and now we can’t do that anymore.
If you bring an engineer now, you’re just making it harder for the other people. You could as well leave your place to someone better suited.

We aren’t fit for CC duty anymore, our group support was always lacking, and despite requiring insane rotations – that won’t realistically be done in a raid setting – our DPS isn’t even top tier.
There is no reason to use an engineer in raids anymore. If you do, you’re just making it harder for everyone. Just use some other class.

CC duty was the only role the engineer had left. Other classes are better at dps, other classes are better at group support (well, not that it would be difficult).
As you said, our damage isn’t even top tier. And it requires insane rotations to actually deal it, rotations that won’t be realistically done properly in a raid setting.
Why should someone even bother having an engineer in group, if there are far better choices around?

Argilla.8340:

pls keep pve related stuff out of here this is only pvp related

I wish i could, really. Except…i can’t. Because those mindlessly stupid nerfs keep affecting everything else.
If anything, the issue is that the whole nerf isn’t just pvp related, as it should be.
Despite being all things pvp people constantly whined about. Essentially, devs they did what they usually do: appeasing the whining pvp crowd. And screw up anything else in the process.
Since any other mode is stuck with the useless version of slick shoes as well, tell me, what’s the point of that skill now in a raid? A single 2s knockdown on Gorseval or Slothasor with a relatively long cooldown? Oh, please.
How many people complained for the healing turret in PvE? No one, i guess. Was the survivability of scrapper a problem in PvE? No, cause people didn’t even care about using a scrapper to begin with (and even less so, now). And i could say the same for any other nerf. Oh, but we got buffs, sure. Some cooldown reduction on gadgets and elixirs…that won’t do anything. No one cares about gadgets and elixirs in PvE. No one cares because they are useless, and they’re useless because either kits can do the same things, or because they aren’t good enough to use them instead of a kit. Spending slots for a couple boons? Other classes can do that for us (whereas we can’t do the same – decrease the cooldowns all you want, tossed elixirs are still terrible). Gadgets are single skills in a class balanced over using kits, and they lose by default. The only one that had a niche use was slick shoes, and it ended in the bin. The hammer autoattack “buff”? A joke, there is no reason to use that autoattack to begin with – you would just switch to bombs for their superior damage – and might and vulnerability are likely already provided by other classes, anyway, classes that have got good group support aside from dps, unlike us. The only thing that can be tangentially useful is the pistol reductions, and even then, it will just make rotations more complex. Whereas other classes can just achieve the same results in far simpler ways, and maybe even giving some group support on the side.
I said times and times that they should have reduced the self-sustain and give some group support in return, but no, that was not what the whining crowd wanted. Let’s just screw up the other modes. That’s all balance entails in this game.

TL;DR: an engineer fed up with balance changes centered upon PvP, but that are still applied to the whole game despite being no reason to do so.

Buffs are meaningless, nerfs are substantial, and some things that worked nicely in PvE are made useless due to PvP (no, seriously, tell me why one should even bother using slick shoes now).
PvP is nothing but a bane for this class.

Healix.5819:

It actually does. Consider how often patches break something in the game that had nothing to do with it. If SAB was permanent, they’d have to fix it every time it was broken, compared to only once a year as a festival.

It also means they won’t have to spend much time to fix it once april comes next year.
I mean, the reason why we couldn’t have it back before is exactly because it ended up totally and utterly broken. Fixing bugs once some issue arises would be simpler than piling them up and ending up with a ton of bugs all together (that may likely create other unintended consequences, and make the whole debugging all over more difficult).

It should just be permanent. Keep separate SAB dailies for the orange weapons and make people do them at their leisure, without them feeling like a chore.
If there is something i hate with a passion, it’s being forced to do something because of a timegate. Especially when it is possible only within 3 weeks out of a year.
Add a world every 1st april, and that’s it. Fresh new content when the festival comes, eventually make items cheaper on festival time to incentive people doing SAB at that time, and let’s be done.

I hoped they would have kept it permanent this time. And expand it further when the festival came.

froacus.6892:

Mistakes were made. I get it. You get it. ANet definitely gets it. And now, they are trying to fix said mistakes. This will require a substantial amount of short term pain, for hopefully a significant long term gain.

No, ANet doesn’t get it, that’s the problem.
Else they wouldn’t be removing people from developing a feature we already paid for.
They could get those people from the expansion team, or even the gem store team if they lack graphical assets. But they aren’t. They’re actively developing new content they can sell us to get more revenue, and suspending “indefinitely” the one that they promised, got paid for, and that won’t give them any more money.

WvWhat?
Do we even have a mode with that name?
/sarcasm

EdgarMTanaka.7291:

Sird.4536:

Legendary weapons are content and guess what Mike, it will give us more content than your pathetic living story. It took me a day to go through Season 2, how long will your Season 3 last?

I supported you from GW1 and now you have destroyed the last bit of hope and respect I had for your company. There should be grounds for a compensation because I payed for legendary weapons and I am not getting them. I wish I could truly vent my frustration but I would get banned with the amount of expletives.

Scrap that expensive Pro League, scrap new money grabbing gem store skins and scrap the new expansion. Finish this half shipped expansion first!!!!!!!!!!

You know for players like me grind and farming isn’t content. Story, maps to explore, new skills, new weapon types (Skills), Elite Specs and new mechanics are content. The weapons/skinns are content in it self but counting the ammount of time it takes to compleate content does not count as content, many MMO developers are putting up walls that you have to grind for months to get over just too make us play the game longer. Anet made clear that this is not what they want with the game and I loved that, with the release of HoT GW2 started too look more like all other MMO’s with alot of grinding, new stuff you have to grind over and over again to get (like the festivals shoulder armors), events that takes hours, raids and no update to the living world. This game started crumble in my eyes. With the AMA and these news I have once again hope for this game.

It is sad to hear that People who have hoped for more Legendary weapons wont get more and I feel sorry for you all but it changes nothing to be rude to the devs.

It is still something they marketed upon, that players paid for, and that the developers should deliver.
They shouldn’t have to cut people from working on content we’ve already paid for – that “tradeoff” shouldn’t even happen to start with. If they lack people, they should get them from the expansion team or the gem store one. If that means they’ll have to delay the expansion (thus delaying future revenues as well) or that they’ll have less gem store content (and less revenue for the time being) so let be it. It’s not our concern. We aren’t shareholders, we are customers that paid for a product that was marketed with certain features, and we deserve to get all of them.