Guild Wars 2

If Holosmith form damage is to be nerfed, there really needs to be a buff to sword 2, holosmith utilities and tool belt skills. In this beta engineer is in a viable spot where it no longer has to rely on garbage utilities for mediocre damage. Now we can slot defensives and rely on holosmith form. If the damage is to be nerfed though, engineer will be back to the trash state it was in before, being forced into the same mediocre utilities. Please fix sword 2 and buff other utilities/damage if holosmith form is to be nerfed.

This skill is actually so bad. Let’s ignore the awful damage and the useless amount of bleed and just look at the fact that the skill doesn’t even land. The projectile doesn’t even shoot towards the target, it shoots to where you are facing, but the projectile is not nearly large enough to make this work. Please fix.

On a side note, why do almost all the tool belt skills for the new utilities suck? If the damage for holosmith is going to get nerfed, there better be buffs for this specs utilities and tool belts, because they are mostly garbage.

Sword 3 is said to be a leap but isn’t a leap as well.

LilBiM.3581:

People tend to use this ‘jack of all trades’ term to describe Engineer as being average at everything but it wasn’t, it was good at solo play and dueling. Somewhere people seem to have lost the true spirit of the Engineer, believing that it was solely used to tank content but instead through a bit of player ingenuity with traits, the right gear and a little practice tanking was just ONE of the MANY things that Engineer did well pre-HoT.

It is sad that it was arguably at one point the best example of a class that could be used to select a singular role and stick to it. Now as opposed to what it was Pre-HoT it is REDUCED to a singular role that YOU have to stick to (different flavors of tanking).

This is the most random post I’ve ever seen. From this I do not know your position on the balance of engineer. As far as tank engineer goes, I do not believe that was ever a thing besides turret engineer which was quickly nerfed.

EdwinLi.1284:

Most of the hate originates from the lack of Utility provided to the new Elite Spec.

There is a very high demand for Engineer to be given a decent or high Utility focus Elite Spec so it can compete against other Jobs that provide far more utility/support while also dealing the same amount of damage at the same time.

^

Scrapper is not a “DPS Spec”. The complaint should not be about holosmith doing damage. If anything engineer needs a viable damage spec.

Seems like they want holosmith to be a damage spec, but from what i’ve seen it doesnt look like the damage makes up for the fact that it has very little sustain or good defensive built in to the kit. Can’t say too much though so we just gotta stay optimistic.

Sad times. I’m still trying to remain optimistic as we haven’t tried the classes hands, but i’d rather go into the expansion with extremely low hopes than high hopes.

Vagrant.7206:

tigirius.9014:

Have to completely agree with this post.

We need the “Balance Team” to take time off from buffing warriors and nerfing thiefs to spend some real time with the engineer trait lines to make them complete.

This class has been neglected since beta in a serious way. It was even obvious in how much time they took to display the holosmith on the latest launch video. Seriously it was like 10 seconds of time compared to the rest of the time the other classes new specs were talked about. How disappointing.

If the “Balance Team” takes some serious time on the engineer in the next stream and upcoming trait/balance patch I’ll have hope about their skills again but until then they have severely disappointed the Engineer community with their lack of concern for the class.

You’ll also notice in the trailer video, holosmith was the only class where a weakness of some sort was mentioned (the overheating). It’s like they go out of their way to make us different in a bad way.

I’m just scared that the payoff for overheating will not be worth it and holosmith will be in the same boat as rifle engi…high risk, high mechanical skill, no reward.

Twigifire.8379:

MrCameron.4863:

If anybody wants to see my gvg footage or duel me or something idk to validate my experience to have these opinions, let me know.

Can you duel me to validate?
Completely agree though.

And for the love of SD engi, move SD out of the same tier as power wrench for any other trait but adrenal implant!

Yes please

Kusumura.8642:

Dear Anthony,

Based on what you’re saying, it sounds to me like you’re doing the one thing that you really ought not do as Engineer; trying to set up to either be the frontline of a zerg or the beastly-burst DPS of a group. Don’t try and set up to straight-jacket tank, and forget about healing the group – nobody wants you.

In fact, nobody wants Engineer in a group. As an Engineer main since launch and someone that will irrevocably lock themselves to the class until death, it saddens me that the Developers have chosen Engineer to be the laughing stock class each and every patch. Those who say otherwise do not mainplay the class, and do not deal with the classism and racism toward it.

Try finding a raid group that will accept you.

Now, what Engineer excels at is being the jack-of-all. ie, run with Clerics. The Zerker/Assassin meta really has no place for Engineer, ESPECIALLY in PvP. We simply do not have the means to utilise the burst/sustained damage that Zerker/Assassin gives, in PvP.

But, roaming with Cleric’s, it gives you enough defence, healing and damage to – and listen to me on this – enough to Out-survive anybody else. Every single fight you have as an Engineer will take HOURS. But it’s the unique thing that Engineer brings – switching combat styles at the drop of a hat thanks to kits – that lets it do so.

If you are running with anything that is not a triple-kit build, leave now. Give up and go home. You are REQUIRED to take Flamethrower and Elixir Gun. Bomb Kit or Grenade Kit is up to you.

Take Pistol/Shield, Rifle or Hammer. You want the defensive aspects of these weapons. Do not listen to inbred buffoons that try to tell you to take Pistol/Pistol. That is a damage option. What did I tell you about damage?

You can’t kill anybody in a short amount of time. Your TTK is impossibly high. But, played correctly, everybody else’s TTK versus you becomes equally high. You have enough to heal yourself with, as long as you use your defenses appropriately. You have enough damage to whittle someone down – a death of a thousand papercuts (I think papercuts hurt more than Engineer at this point to be honest) is a death all the same.

Once you are real good, you can become a pest to entire groups of 5+. You will never kill a single person in that group, but by Jove – unless they completely focus together, you’re never going to die.

Engineer is exactly like Batman. Cannot kill a single soul, but no other soul can kill them. The goal of Batman (and Engineer) is to outlast someone until they’re too tired and slip-up too much to the point that they can’t recover, or decide to disengage and rethink their life.

Don’t play for score, damage numbers, or anything else.

If you are trying to play outside of the realms of PvP, then don’t think you’ll ever get the chance to progress with raids. All groups will simple kick you upon noticing your gear or Hammertime icon in the group window.

I hope this rant has helped you understand a little more and helps you enjoy your play (Hint: It won’t. Nothing can possibly make this class feel fun to play, unless you’re a sadistic tosser such as myself than enjoys being a thorn in other peoples’ sides and nothing else) with Engineer more!

Sincerely,
Kusumura.

I hope this response is a joke. Have fun playing cleric engi. I hope you aren’t recommending this build to pugs in WvW.

Chaith.8256:

It’s what you get when it’s attached to a 15s or 30s stunbreak utility that reduces damage and conditions taken by 50% for 3s

They wanted to have a strong utility so they attached a limp toolbelt, that’s balance

I don’t think having a decent utility is a reason to have the toolbelt skill be useless. It’s a glorified flamethrower 5 on an insanely high cool down.

A 240 radius blind on a 40 second cooldown. I hope this is a joke.

I wrote a gigantic response and it all got deleted. I’m gonna just rewrite this though. I do not believe you have the experience to back up your claims in rifle engineer 1v1 matchups. Scrapper also does bring a lot to group play in WvW with it’s unmatched ability to stealth friendly downs and to reveal enemy downs.

One huge solution to the engineer issue is buffing toolkit to have a comparable auto attack chain to other classes melee auto attacks. This way engineer has a response to other people getting in their face besides kiting (Something that is not as nearly useful as it was for rifle engineers compared to pre HoT).

Tomahawk.7361:

bravo, communicated very well despite your declaration of being enraged while writing it. i wish everything you said was taken into consideration but does anet ever take these things into consideration? i sure hope they do.

man it would be silly if anet didnt update old traits because they were afraid no one would buy new content. i would never say no to well crafted new content and fighting styles. if anything having more success in builds makes me want to try new ones even more.

I really hope they listen and pay attention to the outdated aspects of the game. Sure, outdated traits and utilities, whatever. But having a whole weapon be useless on a class with no weapon swaps, a limited amount of weapon options, and kits that are near useless, is ridiculous. And having traits like the daze on gyros being blown up being removed but having the trait that synergies with the daze be untouched is ridiculous.

Zepi.3170:

I miss the old days of roaming in WvWvW with static discharge rifle engineer. I still have fond memories of it after 4 years.

Yep. Those were some good times where more builds were viable.

Fade.8473:

good post

<3

I have played this game since launch. I’ve sat in duel servers for days on end. I’ve played tPvP I’ve ran Ascalonian Catacombs until my eyes bled. I’ve roamed in WvW and transferred servers countless amounts of times. I’ve played in GvGs. I’ve done PvE Raids. I’ve played every class. All these years my favorite class has been engineer. I loved the fact that before Heart of Thorns, engineer was a jack of all trades class. It could do a bit of everything. However, since HoT, engineer has been the jack of doing of everything awfully. Ever since the June 23rd trait patch, engineer has been left in the dust and turned into a gimmick reliant class. At first the gimmicks were enough to keep the class kicking, but over time it just got left behind further and further.

Engineer Utility Grave: Reason of death? Being useless gimmick skills.
Slick Shoes
Every turret (except for rifle, but that is reliant on static discharge. Another gimmick)
Utility Goggles
AED
Med Kit
Throw Mine
Battering Ram
Elixir R
Nade Kit (Reliant on explosives trait line, which is an awful trait line) (good in pve)
Bomb Kit (Low condition output, and the main use of this kit is the auto in pve and big ol bomb for bar break) (good in pve)
Flamethrower (good in pve)
Shredder Gyro
Heal Gyro
Supply Crate
Mortar Kit

The few good utilities on engineer are unable to be replaced in any situation. Do not get me wrong, some of these gimmicks can be used, but it is just so extremely situational. And even then only a few of these utilities listed make that situation. (Eg. Utility goggles just for the reveal on downstate in GvGs.) Also, the fact that one of engineer’s only viable heal skill is able to be destroyed by a single skill is actually ridiculous. One warrior whirlwind, one rev sword 2, etc etc is enough to destroy heal turret mid cast. Even the good utilities such as e gun have broken and useless skills such as elixir gun 2. It could be decent if it actually hit at a distance.

What had made engineer viable before was its ability to kite using cc’s. The releasing of HoT introduced an immense amount of projectile hate, stability, and insanely low cool down stun breaks, rendering overcharge completely useless. Without reliable overcharges the only form of kite you have is jump shot, which is now a more “spike” oriented skill (have fun jump shotting into classes that out damage you and out preform you in every aspect), turret explosions which are reliant on turrets which are bad and the explosives trait line, and elixir gun 4.

Useless Engineer Traits: (Bad traits / Traits that will never be taken cause the other options are in all situations better)
No Scope
Juggernaut
Short Fuse
Thermobaric Detonation
Siege Rounds
Health Insurance
Inversion Enzyme
Throw Stimulant
Iron Blooded (Relies on boons which are gained from elixirs, but if you have elixirs you are gonna be taking HGH. You don’t have many boons besides passive elixir B, turret trait (that’s a sick joke). And if you are getting boons from other players there is a high chance you don’t need a few percent of damage reduction)
Excessive Energy (skills that give percentage damage increase when at full endurance are ridiculous)
Passive Utility Goggles
Gadgeteer
Experimental Turrets
Soothing Detonation
Advanced Turrets
Medical Dispersion Field
Shocking Speed
Expert Examination (The lack of stuns and dazes that engineer has outside of hammer 5, hammer 3, and a few other gimmick skills makes this trait unsuitable for any situation)

In order for rifle to be semi-decent, engineer needs to have a source of unblockable (utility goggles makes sense to have unblockable. It would be an appropriate buff), an evade frame on jumpshot and blind on rifle 3. Engineer’s lack of defensive cool downs outside of tool kit 4 (nerfed) and Elixir S is what makes Engineer so reliant on Scrapper.

Scrapper excels in stealthing and reviving down teammates, and pressuring nodes in tpvp. And sadly that’s it.

All this brings me to Holosmith. Unless rifle is buffed or changed, holosmith is forced to use either sword pistol or sword shield. Shield on engineer being extremely outdated and subpar to other classes defensive weapons due to its high cool downs, and pistol being locked into a hybrid or condition holosmith setup. For as long as I played this game I have been optimistic about engineer rifle, but every patch since the june 23rd trait patch has not failed to disappoint me.

Please Anet pay attention to aspects of the game’s classes that are outdated, untouched, and nerfed to the ground. I understand that you want people to buy your expansion so you make the specializations stronger, but not touching skills and leaving them outdated is absolutely ridiculous. Years of being disappointing yet I still play this game due to its amazing combat. Please live up to the game’s potential and make more traits, more skills and more weapons viable.

(I wrote this in a torrent of frustration, forgive me for the poor organization of my thoughts. If anybody wants to see my gvg footage or duel me or something idk to validate my experience to have these opinions, let me know.)

Anthony.7630:

Engineer is not a bad class. It has good skills for when you 1v1 or do duels. It can destroy most classes 1v1.

For pve engineer is mostly sustain dps and does a high amount of damage.

The reason i said engineer is selfish and a solo class is because i do wvw pvp.

I think that …well…. engineer is great for solo or 1v1 but…if you read the other classes traits and skill builds and see their abilities…. they have good stuff too.

Anet doesn’t seem interested in giving engineers buffs to become a stronger 1v1 duelist OR group utility for a role to be unique in zergs or raid groups.

Engineer is not bad, it’s not a weak class. It’s just a very “solo” profession it seems these days.

Engineer brings damage to groups and gyros are useful when you’re in a party (but a guardian is better support) elixirs are also kind of useful for some group support (again…. guardian is better)

but yea… engineer could be buffed to be a powerful support character, but i think anet gives engineers the tools to solo 1v1 any class WITHOUT being over powered in their versatility.

You know what i am saying ? Engineers have strong heals for themselves, stability for themselves, cc and damage, and they have some stealth, and they also have stun breakers and fields.

But that’s all for them to solo 1v1 pvp. It’s not “good” for group play. I think elemental has better water fields than engineer. Everybody has better skills than engineer but engineer has all the skills for themselves to solo 1v1 pvp.

Any ways that’s my opinion on this. I am not saying engineers suck, i am saying they are not heading in the direction of a support character, but rather, a pvp duelists.

No, engineer is not a “solo” class. Literally the only reason people run it in gvg is because of its unbeatable down stealth. Also it has the ability to slot in a utility that pulls w/o losing much.

Twigifire.8379:

Rifle needs quality of life changes not a complete overhaul. It’s a very fun risk vs reward playstyle at the moment with a little too much risk involved.

TOO MUCH RISK 0 REWARD

I don’t believe you have enough experience to make these judgments. As an engineer main who duels, pvps, and gvgs, Engineer brings amazing utility outside of small groups and 1v1s. In guild vs guild, Engineer is unmatched in its ability to stealth his downs and to reveal the other team during the beginning stealth engage. This single reveal and amazing down stealth is what can make or break a gvg round. On top of that pull can be used very effectively to pull targets out of their stack and 100 to 0 them.

Deniara Devious.3948:

This entire “balance” patch is a BAD joke when it comes to engineer rifle. It seems the developers do NOT understand the game at all nor the engineer profession.

People choose hammer over rifle, because of the utility it gives. I haven’t done any tests, but I think the damage between rifle and hammer is roughly the same, but hammer has far better utility. You can reflect and black and do good damage at same time with hammer. Hammer has 1200 range AoE stun, blast finisher, lighting field etc. A mere 10 % damage buff to bluderbuss isn’t gonna make it break or break it. And why the change is just pvp specific? Rifle engineers are rare as hen’s teeth in WvWvW, so they would even more require buffs in WvWvW. Hammer is much more common there as well.

If Arenanet would have wanted to buff rifle, they would have been adding functionality to rifle:
- make blunderbuss (rifle #3) a blast finisher
- add evade frame to jump shot (rifle #5) and make the animation tiny bit faster to make it a viable movement skill (now immobilize in air really ruins it)

I would leave overcharged shot (rifle #4) as it is. High risk and high reward. And yes, I would shave off hammer a bit, it has too many goodies going on at same time.

It is really sad that Arenanet doesn’t seem to get “it”, when it comes to balancing engineer. They added some damage to rocket boots, which is was another stupid change. People do NOT choose rocket boots for the damage, but for the utility. At the current form most gadgets are sorely underpowered compared to kits, elixirs and gyros. A better to way to make them more viable is to add some functionality e.g. make rocket kick a stun break and/or lower the cooldown.

Not to mention Arenanet destroyed medkit when they turned in into “toss” skills. Medkit really needs attention. Why an earth still medkit #1 doesn’t heal the engineer himself and has so small cone it is really utterly useless skill in the game (compared to druid staff auto attack and ele water staff #1, which both do damage and heal at same time).

*The lack of viable healing skills for many professions is a serious issue e.g. almost all warrior’s use healing signet for obvious reasons. *Arenanet could have made some other healing skills viable e.g. reducing the cooldown “To the limit!” to 25 s and lowering the healing amount accordingly or reducing the activation time to 1/2 s.

The lack of diversity in viable builds is one of the biggest problems in spvp and I don’t see this patch much fixing it. The deletion of many amulets + HoT power creep was the last straw for me.

Don’t see the high reward when other classes have stun breaks with lower cool down than overcharge, reflects and other ridiculous evade frames/blocks/stab up times/passives. High risk no reward.

Still would be useless with that change, it needs multiple knockdowns to be viable.

Slick shoes is one of the utilities that make rifle engi semi decent in pvp. Post nerf, the skill is useless with only one knockdown. Why dont we split the skill between pvp and pve so the one knockdown is fair for raids and the multiple knockdown makes it viable in pvp (especially with it being a 40 second cooldown).

Crinn.7864:

You can still use it as a escape.

Previously rifle 5 is “either damage or mobility” the split damage nature meant that it couldn’t be used for both, as bursting someone with it required casting it on yourself in melee range.

At least now we can jump at people and give them a decent whack on landing, and it use as a escape ability is unchanged.

Sure the change is not going to be making rifle meta anytime soon, but it’s not a nerf.

Please find my post in the main forum post.

“At least now we can jump at people and give them a decent whack on landing, and it use as a escape ability is unchanged.”

Giving them a decent “whack” is suicide on rifle engi against other specs. Also escape ability is not unchanged.

Yea its really awful how little thought is given to rifle on engineer. It stayed viable and alive before HoT because of its cc’s and kite potential, both of which are rendered obsolete against the new specs.

As an engi main who has played for years, I always stay optimistic about rifle buffs, but after a while this just gets kind of sad to be honest. Especially when you get nerfs meant to affect scrapper that hurt rifle engineer even more.

Thane.9421:

Does anyone else get the idea Anet doesn’t understand classes have roles in pvp? They act like they want any class to be able to fulfill any role, but that’s ridiculous. Scepter dps ele, lol.

Also, 55% and 33% nerfs on Rev plus a survivability nerf? RIP power rev, you had four seasons.

Its a great change for fresh air. No reason to be mad with that change.

dustydawg.3105:

Engi changes: Play hammer or gtfo

It will always be like that unless they buff core utilities and auto dps on rifle.

Jump Shot: The damage of the initial jump has been reduced by 56%. The damage of the landing has been increased by 28%?

Please, explain to me why a ranged class like rifle engineer (who is insanely lacking in sustain and defense against HoT specs) would decide that its a good idea to rifle 5 into a fight? Engineer should have a flat dps buff on all the rifle skills. The current state of rifle forces the engineer player to go defensive utilities in order to be remotely viable.

Jump shot should be an evade frame, blunderbuss should give a blind, and overcharge should not knock the user of the skill back (With all the projectile hate, stab, and low cd stun breaks present in the game, all overcharge accomplishes is screwing (originally said the f word, but I guess this site is PG) over the person using it). Given some form of sustain besides elixir s and gear shield (recently nerfed for whatever reason), rifle engineer can focus on dps and other utilities. However, damage utilities on engineer simply do no damage besides acid bomb, pry bar, and grenade barrage (Grenades are useless though unless paired with the explosives trait line, which is an awful trait line if you want to have a decent build setup). Besides damage utilities that do no damage, engineer is loaded with the most useless and gimmick utilities in the game (Post nerf slick shoes, utility goggles, battering ram, med kit, any turret besides rifle (and rifle turret is only decent with static discharge, another damage trait that does no damage), and Elixir R).

In the end you have a weapon set built for damage that does not do comparable damage to other classes ranged weapons, and a spec that relies heavily on the two defensive utilities, elixir s and tool kit.

Or you can go a bunker amulet and be a potato rifle engi.

Oh and btw, healing turret (best engi healing skill atm) can be destroyed mid cast by something like warrior whirlwind or a vault? That’s fantastic.

Thanks for the feedback. But in that situation I had the steal abilities so I didn’t need to use too much initiative to keep stealthing.

Feedback and constructive criticism is appreciated.

Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=995pBPjs_3Y

Wanted to share a new video I made. Part 2 and Part 3 will be coming extremely soon. Would also appreciate some feedback.

The gear is as EvilHero says. It’s a mix of soldiers and zerk. You can make anything work really in the rune option, just depends on how much you are willing to spend. As for food, spec into whatever you are lacking with your choice of rune.

Btw, this isnt cele :P. Well actually I use one exotic cele trinket haha.

Just wanted to share this with the community.

Would appreciate if you guys checked out a video I made!