Guild Wars 2

I may be wrong but for me the real problem with mortar in wvw was always projectiles hate. I don’t care at all about what it offer, about its damages and effects, since I can’t use it at all. The more a projectile is good, the less you want it to be reflected, and the best way to not be reflected in wvw is to choose something else over any projectile.

Thank you for all the answers with explanations, I now realize I didn’t understood it right at all.

I prefered the dodge trait because we can also boost endurance regeneration. With at least 6-7 dodges, its like to have more than 200% max heat (+ sooner/faster heat reduction & health regen + burnings). Since dodges are already a good thing for pvp, I got obsessed by this gm trait.

But I didn’t toke into account this dodges had a cost while ECSU is more self sufficient (+ all strong buffs, while the other ways to get the same without ECSU also have a cost !).

I missed the occasion to test many others builds less focused on dodges …

Did you found any use out of this trait ?

I fear it fall in the already crowded graveyard of useless engineers great master trait ? I don’t see any interest since we already have too many way to stack power and since it only buff sword which have really poor interrest for now ?

Maybe its real interrest is to concentrate every game design errors in the same stuffs, so for a change we don’t have any regrets and can forget it right now to play with the interresting stuffs only ?

Heat is a new ressource to manage with gameplay, not a problem to fix with a buff.
Photon Forge is powerful because of the heat mechanism which counter balance it. Any buff to its duration will obviously also come with a nerf to its effectivness.
The more you play photon forge auto attack, the more you play it wrong.

Omg, please forget Photonic Blasting Module and prefer Thermal Release Valve !

Holosmith just does damage if you choose to play it like this. This is not the first time we have a burst template, and this is not the first time people run into it, invest everything in it and then complain how glass canon and boring it is like this …

With PBM, the burst have a great cost : we can’t use photon forge for 15s, which is our main switch.
With TRV this is the exact opposite, it allow to use photon forge longer + damages + sustain.

And there is a lot of really differents builds possibles with Vent Exhaust, not only condi. Once you manage to get enough energy to complete it, you can find a working build for almost any amulet !

Because I prefer the gyros and their strong defensives buffs : double protection, triple stability (or adaptative armor), damage reduction, reflect, function gyro … and the great stealth which is even better as a condi engineer (hit and hide).

Alchemy have good passive purge yes, but I still can change to purge gyro when I see heavy condi opponents. I never liked Proc Elixir S as it break my current timing and action (which may be a heal) and opponents usually burst engi when it end. Drink Elixir S is good. The whole seems not enough to me.

The other choice would be to drop tool and take back alchemy, then the following trades with skills put you back fast in the old meta. For me, buffed toolkit+boots make tool specialisation worth it, even over alchemy which is no more a silver bullet.

Rocket Boots also fit really great with spvp now, in a condi build.
Rocket kick was already good but now we also get great mobility from the boots.
I tried condi scrapper with rocket boots and it did worked good :
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vdAQJAqancoCFpilcB+dBEqiF2iC8DLxAgO4H+lfsNGjaD-TJRHQBJpMwCPBAVY/BA8AAAA

I never liked much the condi meta, not enough apparents synergies.
But now the tool specialization make all sense, since toolkit and rocketboot are strong skills with condi attacks, and scrapper complete it nicely as it provide strong defensive options (mitigation, protection, stability, stealth) which fill the remainings slots.

There is no room for shield.

1. When you are not condi, hammer bring everything you can expect from shield (defensive ability and control) in a better way (better control, better defensive ability, but also damages and mobility)
2. If you can’t take scrapper or don’t want hammer, then rifle is still a more interresting choice (jump, root, bump, damages)
3. When you are condi, you definitly can’t drop pistol 4 for shield. Even if we had pistol 4 somewhere else, pistol 5 may still be better than shield (more condi to saturate cleanses)

Give to shield something others choices don’t bring : we have better choices for defense, control, mobility, power/condi damages, but we have no choice for group support (strongs buff & heal), the 4s protection on a 24s cd 360 range isn’t good at all.
Even traited, engi shield isn’t better than guardian shield (just close to it), while we can’t switch to something as strong as what guardian can access while CD reload …
Our support problem will always remain : in overall, we lack supportive switch, and pistol 1 isn’t supportive at all !

Because of the versatility, especially in pvp. It did evolved a lot over time, but engineer/scrapper is the cls which seems able to adapt the more to every situations, with any ally, against any opponent, if well played.

While playing scrapper, I never say to myself “I can’t manage this situation as a scrapper”. I may say “I failed to do this right” (like when I moa a reaper at the wrong moment) or “My build was wrong” (like when I prefer blast gyro over purge and die by condi dh).

Each time I tried another cls (but I didn’t tried thief neither ranger), I enjoyed it and loved its own specificity once mastered, but I always end up to admit I was weak in some common situations, with no solution as changing my build bring others problematics situations.

In sPvp as a power scrapper, I feel balanced against almost everyone, once I learnt to manage them, not better not worst just equal, gameplay then do the difference. Only mesmers can be really hard to manage. I played reaper/dh and prefered my scrapper, who can adapt to more situations with no weakness.

What we lack the most is choice. We have to take alchemy inventions scrapper, others spe bring nothing good, no fair trade, and not only this but also with each traits. Our meta is just obvious because anything else looks like absurd.

100% agree but the video is too long, 43 minutes with 3 sentences per second, how he can hope it will make any sense in game designers mind ?

Fact is that in pvp/wvw, engineers HAVE TO take the most 3 defensives branchs. We can try anything else, it bring nothing more, just few more damages but no more effects.

In pve engineers just try to min/max dps because they have nothing else to bring.

Anything really valuable we bring is what ? Anything else than brutal numbers ? There is something wrong with the class, we try to compounds with the random stuffs we got, but we don’t have differents logics to arbitrate between, the choice are more or less obvious, the cls is broken in the wrong way, poorly designed.

Also, the new FT broke Juggernaut.
You now go FT only for the condi damages, nothing else.

This is a PURITY OF PURPOSE problem :
- if you are power you don’t take anymore FT
- if you are condi you may take FT
- then you always prefer Incendiary Powder
- so one of our great master trait is useless

So, Juggernaut should be unrelated to FT.

May you share a screen of your +-2 step please ? Or maybe it’s your own logic which is based on no evidence ?

I try to always keep my mouse position between center and top of the screen, it became a reflex. When I hold right mouse button and cast a ground targeted spell, I just play with the camera to select the right spot. It’s the most efficient way I found, and it became fast and natural.

But sometime my mouse is somewhere else, and I lose efficiency, so I would love an option to simulate a mouse always in this position (between center and top of the screen) for ground targeted spell.

You are currently moving fast to your right rank.

The step also depend your opponent mmr, when the system can’t find opponents who match your rank, then if you are under you earn more rank by victory (lose less by defeat), if you are over this is the opposite.

Btw, before complain people should understand it’s not a reward/punishment system, it’s a measurement system, the more you play, the more accurate it is.

I believe it does work fine, you would see it if you would experience it extremly.

At 1500, I had a +/-12 mmr step, and a 50% win/lose ratio.
I lost about 150 mmr very fast trying another class (playing it wrong …), and near 1350 the step became +12 -8.
Switched back to my main again, and I won 80% of my games.
I think I will reach back 1500, and then stay here again with a 50% win/lose ratio, with a +-12 step, except if I improve myself.

The system may seems frustrating, but it’s just a fair one : your mmr should converge to your right level, where you have 50% win/lose chances, faster if far / slower if near.

I was surprised how efficient the system appear to be : even if the win/lose ratio could be enough to converge at the right speed, this step change reflect something true about the situation (an asymetric doubt about my current rank)

I prefer to fight than to speak

Wow, i’ve never given as much +1 in a row, you guys just wrote all together a pvp engi bible in less than 24h, thank you so much !
I main engineer then scrapper since begining but as casual, and I never though about many tips you just gave.

But you all don’t understand : engineer should have NO purpose, this what they meant by “Purity of purpose”, in the case of engineer it did mean to reach the great “NO purpose” final state they worked on last years.

Everyone would agree those nerfs were a great success : we had few purposes lefts, and this was absolutly not right, so they removed some.

I believe next patch is the good one, few incoming nerfs will now be enough to make the last ones playing engineer definitly drop the class.

Congratulation Anet, good job

If 2s is now the right duration for 13s CD, so please, give us 20s CD and 3s block duration.
2s is just crap, become 100% useless, whatever the CD is, you can delete the skill, would be the same, and also the whole kit which I will never take again.

If I try to think like a game designer …

They realized you could cumulate about 7 evades (2 from bases + 2 from elixir R + 1 sigil + 1 rune + 1 recharged), and so deal pretty strong aoe damages in melee for about 7 seconds with 7 blast while being almost invulnerable … which could also stack with rocket charge (2 times, at start and end) and shock shield, so it was 11s of block/evades with 14s of damages … and so 1 more evades could recharge which finally give 12s of block/evades with 15s of aoe damages + 8 blasts and 4 leaps. In fact, maybe they just realized half of this, which would already be enough overpowered.

So they added this ICD. And to choose the duration, they looked at others auto damage traits ICD : boom, 10s (others traits which don’t cost a dodge in melee, are automatically targeted, and are passively triggered from any damages, humf). Then they stopped at this point and were satisfied by the balanced result. But they didn’t asked themself what does this result really worth in pratice, it was enough for them to make it just fit into their balancing principles in theory.

If they would had done this (thinking about the result), they would had seen this result just worth nothing. They would had deleted major trait, or reworked both from start. ICD killed the whole mechanic of those traits, it was added on the minor to limit the effect of the major (the minor was never a problem before HoT), one more free nerf on the spec, suffered even if you don’t take the major. Like this, both minor and major have now no interest at all.

In the first communications on HoT, there was no ICD mentioned, everyone could see great synergies with soothing detonation (ever asked yourself where is the interrest of this other trait ? here was the anwser), our different water fields, our endurance regen abilities, it was looking really cool. So, in fact, there is not only the 2 Explosives traits to rework, but also this other one from Inventions. Just one ICD killed them all, no more purpose, all original intentions were surely already forgotten.

Am I wrong ? If not, please do the rework from start, better late than never !

I agree, Explosives is just a bunch of no choices, a dead end. Explosive Decent, Thermobaric Denotation, Evasive Poweder Keg have no interest at all : could be deleted and leaved empty, nobody would even care.

This is the spec of 2 kits, you go here only for more direct damages with grenades or bombs, and then all choices are already made.
- 1st majors : required if nades OR useless OR crap
- 2nd majors : good OR good OR not enough regarding bombs usage (spam 1)
- 3rd majors : crap OR crap OR useless

Summary :
- Nades = useless + REQUIRED + good + GOOD + good + CRAP
- Bombs = useless + CRAP + good + GOOD + good + CRAP
- Anything else = useless + CRAP + useless + GOOD + useless + USELESS

They could replace everything in Explosives with a single minor traits which would include : Grenadier/ShortFuse/SiegeRound/+x% damages with explosions + some balancing … it would looks exactly the same.

When you compare to the well designed Firearms :
- 1st majors : Condi if pistol OR Buff/Debuff OR Crit
- 2nd majors : Condi if precision OR Rifle OR Crit
- 3rd majors : Flamethower OR Direct damages OR Condi
- Minors : Condi+Crit
So you can go there just for FT OR just for rifle OR just for crit OR mainly for condi, you will still appreciate all minors and majors filled in.

Skills 2 3 4 5 really sucks because those are 1. throwables 2. for a single user
If not throwable, we could at least use med kit for ourself. And maybe a trait to up those four skills for 5 targets in a 360 range. Also, skill 1 should make few damages, and maybe heal ourself, or have a bigger effect with an higher CD, or heal two times more. Thank you Santa Clause.

Ghotistyx.6942:

Engineers aren’t designed to replace anyone. They’re (so far) designed to supplement. Implying they bring nothing is demonstrably false. Moral of the story, if you want to be the most helpful you can in a zerg, bring elixirs and/or superspeed until we know what relevant things we get in the next elite spec (if anything)

Actually, engineers are designed to be replaced by any GREN. Anyone who understand the dynamics of wvw raids know what matters is to complement each others. Not to supplement, not to do the same thing with less efficiency, it bring nothing more to the raid. A place is just busy by someone who do a bunch of things with less efficiency than others.
To be useful in zerg, I stopped to join queued map as engineer. I removed my blinders, I now want something unique/powerful/shareable with a wvw raid to play again my engineer, instead of trying to convince people everything is just great/perfect/right as it is, which leads to nowhere.

Replace any engineer stab by a guard stab and there is no more “user” problem, there was just a problem with a spell which have to be targetted+casted+throwed on a 180 tiny radius land, which got replaced by 2 self centered 600/1200 radius instant cast spells. This is what I call a no reliable spell to share. It may be enough reliable for ourself, but it will never be for the raid.

When you try to count on toss B in raid : “Sorry, you didn’t stick enough in this 180 radius tiny circle to all receive my stab, sorry our commander move wasn’t predictible enough and he stopped/turned right before my toss landing, sorry my cast got interrupted”
Reactions : “Please, we want a guard instead of this”

All things we do, others just do it better. We are self-sufficient, we don’t really need them, they also don’t require us, we are not essential, we share nothing reliable+powerful except by accident, and once again, this is by design.

I agree about our moving reflect field. Even if there is now many reflect skills, defense field is probably the best : for its reliability, its efficiency, its duration/CD (especially when toolbelt is traited). This is our 1 unique/powerful skill (we could pretend to have 2 before slick shoes nerf)

Toss elixirs for stab/stealth/revive is the perfect example of fake shared skill as a random side effect.
The only thing you can be sure about it : you hope to receive the effect yourself (if not rooted/slowed down before). Constraints are highs with no counterparts.
The time to target + to cast + to land is pretty high cumulated, the area of effect is pretty small, the only move you can really predict is your own in such case. It’s not reliable for group usage, it’s mainly for yourself again, and sometime some random ally take profit of it, but I believe they won’t even notice it, because it was just random and others already do similar with more ease/reliability.
Revive is nice, especially for self rez, but compared to banner, it’s slow and the radius is tiny. Defense field is better than Toss elixir U, you may take both to stack anti projectiles effects, but if engineer had a real place in raid, then a good rotation of defense field between engineers would be enough. Currently people don’t care because engineer are not required and appear as randoms pickup.

The usage of superspeed as buff group have the same problems, not reactive and hard to land in the right place, with a lightning field which may recover water as side effect.

Btw, I am not attacking engineer, I played it enough long, and defended the many interrests he provide the same way you are doing. I feel like just repeating the counter args people gave me each time.
But my point is that what optimized raid want is synergies from shares, where 1+1 > 2, but it can’t work with engineer which is a more self-sufficient class, which also means more and more selfish by design.

Hello everyone,

I play engineer as my main since begining, mostly for wvw and spvp. Even if engi dont bring anything more in gvg/zerg, it does neither draw back anything, neither unbalance the raid, it’s just a perfectly neutral add. But the fact is : he may take the place of a class who would bring something more, and so commander don’t like engi much.

With hindsight, I would like to share a thought : engineer is maybe the most selfish class of the game, I start to believe. Progressivly and wittingly designed like this on purpose. In fact, the only few things we share are just side effects (or inherited from vanilla), definitly never taken on purpose. There is in fact nothing valuable (unique … or just powerfull) we could take in the willing to share it with raid.
At the same time, we can be two times more easily self-sufficient on everything than average, and cumulate many strong effect (ie avoidances) like no one, but just for ourself.

Another way to see it :
Since hot, each class specializations have mainly one purpose between :
Power, Conditions, Heal, Boon, Defense, Class Mechanics
And so, for engineer, respectivly :
Explosives, Firearms, Inventions, Alchemy, Scrapper, Tool

This is also how engineer won a great sustains, because with hot, its defensive spec became its elite spec (while inventions became its heal spec). Leveraged by its selfishness once again.
On the other hand, our other powerful spec, not conceivable to take off, is : Alchemy. And this is our boon spec, which we take for ourself because it substantially increase our sustains, but alsmost only ours.
In gw2, boons are a really important part of pvp, even more in zerg. And this is how our selfish boon spec became so powerful for ourself.
An opposite example : the boon spec of revenant is also its elite, but is very altruistic, he share everything + have uniqueness, and this immediatly gave him an important place in zerg.

So considering this, I now think there is no hope for engineer in gvg/zerg in futur, to be part of the “meta”. Because the class is wittingly designed selfish. To make it more altruist also mean to rebalance, and so surely have to sacrify a lot in scrapper and/or alchemy. This would also change the class so much.

Am I wrong ?

I disagree.

This is the core of pvp : attacks which are not just damages/conditions, and counters/defenses which are not just heals/purges.
The less cc there is, the more it turn into a damage contest, and there is already pve for this.
Obviously, there is a lot of (differents) cc because there is a lot of (differents) counters, and this is perfect like this. GW2 PvP is different because of this, and I really love this system. There is already 1000 mmo where pvp is primarily a damage contest, which I can’t play anymore after GW2.

What do you think about it ? Everything looks like designed for PvP, and even more for WvW. Scrapper/Hammer looks like our GvG/W meta.

Gw2skills is the best calculator

Firearms/Invention/Alchemy Celestial Rifle Juggernaut Elixir MightStacker is definitly my favorite build in sPvP
So much a concentration of everything our class provide in a such simple and evident design, can’t understand how I had to test soooo many build until I adopt this one … :/

But where is our new blast with a very short CD ?
Even if this hammer is cool, seems it don’t fit really much to our new stuffs …

DjZeBeR.3549:

I really don’t see why we vote when the map with less votes has a higher chance of being picked after the spin!

Hopefully, the actual system does not work like this.

Bombs are the new nades to deal mixed damages, since burning is the new bleeding to take profit of conditions damages, and since bombs provide a short CD aoe burning + also confusion + some good controls

Try to answer the questions :
When the places are limited (15), which class of GWEN+MT you remove to add an engineer ? What do you loss, and what does engineer would provide in replacement ?

These are the questions any commander think about when he try to compose his rooster, and I can’t manage to find the right args to defend my own place …
When the places are not limited, there is no reason at all to reject an engineer with an adapted build, which will always bring some good tools, and contribute to the overall. But don’t tell you have a stuffed reroll, like a guard, they will always prefer one more guard instead of one more engi…

The harder with engineer is first to find the right build, not only efficient but which also fit to yourself, because unlike others classes there are really many to choose, the meta isn’t fixed at all.
Since june patch, I may tried around twenty very differents builds, with a dozen adjustments on each, and some which looked very strong at first proved very disappointing finally. It’s already enough playoff to explain why you don’t encounter too many really good engi.

Engineers don’t need more of what they already have. Engineers need something that nobody else do. For now, engineers bring nothing essential, unlike all others class of the meta.
Engineer, like everyone, is already dealing damages and/or aoe cc and/or can have a good survivability and/or can dispell/buff/anything. You can always find a strong build which will contribute to the basics needs, but you will never find one with a unique ability only engineers could do.

This is a very odd subject, because this is again about the broken holy trinity.

GW2, compared to others game, have the same amount of damages (and maybe more aoe), at least as much cc, but no healer role. In such situation, you obviously need to give powerful defensives abilities to balance the whole. Everyone have dodges, most have protection and stability (OP buffs), there is also stunbreaks/dispells everywhere, and immunities/stealth/such complete the picture.

The whole balance isn’t so bad when you consider all this. But still delicate, WvW proved it when the meta changed : more burst aoe damages totally broke this mode, the lack of healers there was a lot more sensitive.

Maybe one day they will also redesign combo system because for now fire/water/smoke blast make it very simplistic, when it could contribute a lot more to the whole balance in a less random/fool way.

For GvG/GvW, engineer don’t lack anything, he can provide all the basis required to have a good use there : water fields (which are better than elem), high aoe (burst/)damages, aoe cc, massive conditions to buffs conversion, some good buffs (but very hard to share in practice).
But all this basis already come from GWEN+M+T, who are better specialist of their role than engineer, and/or who also bring an unique ability.
ATM, we can’t replace any of the GWEN+M+T, and we have nothing to bring over the basis, anything unique and essential.

First, we can’t be a serious frontliners anymore (no more cleric elixir infused bomb) especially in the current meta, so there is no way to take a GW place. Necro will always do better aoe damages, without sacrificing survivability. Mesmer have uniques habilities. We could compete with elem and thief but they are still better in their role than engineer would be.

The really best would be to come with our own role, that’s all, but which one ?

Nice one, very glass canon but also with a very high burst from both conditions and direct damages. But I think I would prefer Elixir S over Elixir U, to ensure stomp and for more escape/survivability vs many.

I always insult them back 2 times harder because I am not wise at all, even when it’s not addressed to me, even if I am perfectly aware “they started it first” is childish.
I also report/block. I am sure they report me back, and I never got banned for my overreactions, so I am also sure the report system is just useless.
Anyone who can’t take his part of a defeat and prefer to insult his team is just the first guilty of the failure he want to reject : he played against his own team and out of it the whole time and finally prove it at the end.

Because bombs also pulse explosion while mortar pulse only simple effects.
This one was easy, what did I won ?

We just want a very short CD blast on our hammer. Can we all agree on this ?

With engineer, you can precast/aftercast blast.
Orbital strike, B’olB, mine, any turret are good for precast.
EG4, FT2 are good for after cast.
HT+OC+Blast is the basic one.

The more I practice it, the less I precast, the more I aftercast (even/especially with (rifle) turret). Because I am never sure what I can manage to do the next 2-3s. But I know for sure what I can do the best right now.

I agree, we definitly want the video.

I also prefer when someone revive an old post than start his own copycat.
ANet killet Cleric engineer, we are so many to agree, but we already expressed ourself somewhere else, and when you start a 5 late replies post, it worth less than revive a 100 strong replies with lot of args and debate.

It’s possible, yes !
A very good engi, with the right build, against 10 very noob opponents, can kill 5 out of 10 without die, yes !
This is why a part of us are still playing the class in pvp, because …. this … just can happen, but with a chance as low as to become rich from lottery, but still, there is a chance. This is about skillcap and such. Well, elem also, but for others reasons, also.

There is more and more people who are disconnected from the begining until the end of a match. I can’t understand how it’s possible to let thoses people join the match, start the match even if they logged off, wait for a minute while they are still off, and then launch the most unbalanced match possible while they never come back from the begining until the end.
And the best : this people have no penalty when they are back. Someone can freely ruin match of four others and give a free win to five others, and repeat it forever while nobody care about.

This poll worth nothing since people who don’t play engi will answer kitten just to see the results.

- Elixir Infused Bomb was aoe, Bunker Down is single target
- Elixir Infused Bomb was immediate, Bunker Down requires to walk forward
- Elixir Infused Bomb could be proc in void, Bunker Down requires to hit something (hi ranger ?)
- Elixir Infused Bomb could be maxed from healing power only, Bunker Down requires precision and so can’t be maxed without lacking of defense or damages

Bunker Down definitly worth nothing compared to Elixir Infused Bomb, its only advantage : you can proc it with everything … but only with stuff that deal direct damages (ie, dont work with bomb 345).