Guild Wars 2

Well the numbers are pretty much what I got with a self test so to speak a few months ago. Toolkit is the only one that jumps out at me as being whaaaat; but as you said its mainly after cast on that one. I may do some digging tomorrow with the terrible forum search but I though there was a turret thread that complained about how the turrets all dealt the same DPS pretty much around last year or so. It was either turrets or the kits, dang wish I could remember….

Azukas.1426:

When you balance the game you don’t take outliers into consideration (your top or bottom 5-10%). You take the average player and make your adjustments since they make up the majority of your player base. You can scream and cry all you want but these changes are extremely intelligent and needed.

So what is intelligent? Nerfing one of the engineer’s only way of countering condition pressure to counter a build that ONLY EXISTS IN PVP or rather change the way of how the game mode works to make it so this one build isn’t as effective. Alternatives to nerf decap engineer would have been to shorten the length of the knockbacks and/or make the cap circles larger. This would have nerfed that pesky decap engineer without destroying every other engineer build that didn’t run this decap build. Now for alternatives to this nerf, we have elixir C to use. From that, there is no more build variation for the engineer anymore. It will always follow this setup of P/S HT 2kits and EC and SC. No variation because we have no other way of removing conditions and we can’t swap much out otherwise we will perform less effectively than most other classes. I agree that 100% immunity is BS, but literally nerfing every engineer just because of one oddball build that annoys people isn’t good design, its just giving in.

For the record, probably a good 75% of the thread that was asking about decap engineer being a problem were saying nerf AR/remove it. So a lot of people screamed and cried to get to happen. Food for thought.

Chaith.8256:

Explosives:

• New Grandmaster: Synaptic Overload – Gain 3 seconds of Quickness when hitting a foe with a knockback skill. (20 Second cool down.)

• New Proposed Grandmaster: Demolition Specialist – Damage values of Fire Bomb and Concussion Bomb are improved. Successfully performing a blast finisher in a combo field generates a second, identical effect. (5 Second cool down.)

Honestly, this trait depends a lot on what else we get skill wise in the patch. It could pair well with rifle assuming it works on launches as well for some high burst from jump-shot and blunderbuss, but I could be wrong. I do like your idea for the x2 blast finisher combos, however I think that might have to be toned down/restricted since blast finishers are not hard to come by for us. I mean pair this with healing turret and now you have a 7k ish heal with no healing power. An alternative to it would be to double the duration from these finishers instead or provide an extra effect like the eles grandmaster fire trait. Water fields apply regeneration, light fields remove a condition, smoke fields provide swiftness, etc.

Chaith.8256:

Firearms:

• New Grandmaster: Bunker Down – When you critically hit, you create a mine that lasts 10 seconds at your location. (2 second cooldown)

• New Proposed Grandmaster: Sweltering Heat – Flame Jet and Flame Blast have increased area of effect, and deals further increased damage to burning foes. Flame Jet: Range increased from 425 to 700. Flame Blast: Range increased from 600 to 900, Radius increased from 240 to 360. Additional damage increase to burning foes: 20%.

Extra Firearms proposed change:

• Rework Juggernaut: (Old) You gain toughness while wielding a flamethrower. In addition, gain might at regular intervals while using this weapon kit.

• New Proposed Juggernaut: Incoming Retaliation damage while equipped with a Weapon Kit is suppressed. In addition, gain might and fury when swapping to a Weapon Kit (EG, FT, TK). Might: 3 Stacks for 15 seconds. Fury: 5 seconds. Cooldown: 10 seconds. Incoming retaliation damage reduction: 50%

This trait feels like it will do more damage that modified ammunition simply because you won’t have to worry about condition cleanse ruining you damage constantly. May be fun in Spvp since you can have extra node control but I wouldn’t write home about it being amazing.

Can’t argue about a flamethrower buff, but I think the kit needs a rework on some of its damage values since having rifle out DPSs flamethrower heavily. Same goes for toolkit but that’s another story.

Chaith.8256:

Inventions:

• New Grandmaster: Fortified Turrets – Creates a reflective shield for 4 seconds on newly spawned turrets. Shield ends if turret is picked up or destroyed.

I can’t say anything about this that wouldn’t be taken and derail this thread so I won’t.

Chaith.8256:

Alchemy:

• New Grandmaster: Experimental Turrets – Turrets Apply Boons to allies every 10 seconds based on the turret: Thumper Turret, 3s Protection, Net Turret, 10s Swiftness, Rifle Turret, 5s Fury, Healing Turret, 3s Vigor, Rocket Turret, 3s Retaliation, Flame Turret, 3 Might stacks for 10s.

This is a good trait, honestly the only good one we got. Shame it is in the wrong tree. In my opinion this should replace fortified since this one can put up a fight with RBT for a build. The boons need to be reworked though because the durations on some of those do not justify taking the turret/leaving it out on the field. For example healing turret. No engineer is going to leave his healing turret up on the field for 3 seconds of vigor it will still be drop and pick-up(destroy). I would say having like double that vigor would be good in itself, but I think that the problem is more in with the turret not rewarding the engineer enough to keep it up on the field. That’s another story though. Good idea needs tweaking, but again depends on what turrets get for changes.

Chaith.8256:

Tools:

• New Grandmaster: Gadgeteer – Gadgets apply a boon on use, unique to each Gadget. A.E.D, 3.5s Retaliation, Personal Battering Ram, 5s Fury, Rocket Boots, 4s Vigor, Slick Shoes, 8s Regeneration, Throw Mine, 6s Aegis, Utility Goggles, 8s 5 Stacks of Might.

• New Proposed Grandmaster: Gadgeteer – Gadgets remove bleed, burning and poison upon the effect activation.

Gadgets are gadgets and there is nothing more to say until it reaches the ears of the determined devs.

I would bet money if I was a betting man that the turret hit-box will still be a bit buggy since that shield from the inventions looks to be the size of the current hit-box. I digress though, not entirely the point.

Explosives-Synaptic overhaul
Assuming this works with both knockback and launch skills it may open up a few non grenadier builds. Zerker rifle may become a thing since I think haste makes you travel through the air faster not 100% certain on that. Won’t work in PvE very well due to defiant stacks obviously. Not really the greatest one that we got but its defiantly not the worst thing to get. A lot of this hangs on what else we get in this patch for us.

Firearms-Bunker down
Honestly, if you were going to take 30 into the firearms tree, this would be the perk to take simply because it does a lot more for you than napalm or Modded Ammunition in the long run. PvE it will help since mobs will be mobs and run into them anyway. It may be good in WvW since it can get clustered and people will likely walk on them. PvP it would be extra node control but its probably not worth the 30 points into a wonky trait line.

Inventions-Fortified turrets

Fortified turrets is a skill that promotes drop and pick up since you only get the effect once per turret. Meaning that in long scale fights this trait harms the user too much. In PvE I will yield and say that is CAN be useful and important. However, when most of the PvE bosses spam AoE attacks that are ground based, that 4 second of reflection can easily become 1 second. In WvW it can have its use for a reflect chain in large fights until it either gets dropped from 8+ people in melee or Ground targeted AoE. In PvP, most of the fights become melee skirmishes very fast and those that aren’t you will get 1 or 2 reflects off. It’s a giant blue sphere that says don’t shoot me pretty much. Even then, it has to compete with RTB and RTB will just flat out win every time since its buff lasts the entire lifespan and not the first 4 seconds. If it was 4 seconds of say like damage immunity with the shield it may be good to pick up (or to powerful but hey that is what balance patches are for. Once every 4 months…….).

Alchemy- Experimental turrets

Honestly, this is probably the best trait that we are getting from this patch. Boons to help the engineer fight and the engineer heal the turret to help him fight is the kind of symbiosis, integration, pairing w/e you want to call it for turrets. It is in a completely bogus line unfortunately and has to compete with AR for its spot which in this meta is all condition all the time so AR wins. Honestly, they should switch this with fortified turrets because this trait could at least put up a “fight” with RBT. Needs a little work on some of the boon durations in my honest opinion. Anyhow, PvE this trait would work assuming that turrets didn’t die instantaneously from every trash mob in one hit and provide nice banner like support without sacrifice too much damage(if they got adjusted). WvW wouldn’t be that useful since 20+ people hitting a bunker with protection will still die in a few hits. Would be useful for small scale fights and PvP node control as well for the banner-like properties and damage.

Tools- Gadgeteer
Gadget buff is always nice. It’s not worth the 30 points with how they are now. This to me is more like a master quality trait since its like 5 second buffs applied every 20 seconds or so. Other than that, its a gadget trait for a skill set that like turrets needs to be looked into a lot more.

All in all, I say we got one of the shorter straws for the new grandmasters. We got a couple good things, but nothing to write home about as being overly amazing.

Vergil Huragok.3967:

To be fair, more traits that the ones listed are coming, but looking at the compared to others presented in the blog to ours it does make us seem shafted, but turrets always have been especially in regards to other AI in terms of ability and damage

All of which are grandmaster traits. We are getting 1 new trait for each line and unless those other 4 are going to integrate with turrets(which is very doubtful since 1 WILL go to gadgets) turrets will still be turrets unless they drop an entire rehaul of this skill set on the patch.

Yes because projectile defense is entirely what they need now………

Terrible grandmaster to slot in comparison to RBT (assuming it worked) so that a turret can get it’s 1.5k static damage on a target without dying it the first 5 seconds to arrows. Oh wait its dead in the first 3 from melee/AoE……

Poison grenade nerf is justified across all modes simply because it can apply 30+ seconds of poison with one throw.

Net turret on the other hand is not justified by any means. Simply put, the net turret when it is summoned may fire while the person is stunned because luck would place it facing the target. If that happens, the immobilization will tick through the stun. Currently it becomes a 1 second immobilization if that happens so it still has some use now. Otherwise with this change it won’t even be noticed after the stun effect.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY THREAD!!!

(was going to write a song but too grumpy and tired to make one.)

Disastro.4086:

I have a hard time understanding all the engi posts they singularly feel like the most well-rounded right now. Their primary issue I’d say is how garbage turret builds are and aesthetically the Hobosack… pls no more hobosack. Outside of that I’d say it’s a l2p issue and people wanting things to be what they dream up in their heads instead.

Hahahahaha…. NO
To be brief and blunt more than half of our options for builds are either buggy beyond belief or have little to no integration with traits (gadgets and profession mechanic).

That being said
1) Engineer
2) Elementalist
3) Ranger

I wouldn’t say it’s a bad turret, it has its uses (10 second lockdown if you take that and rifle) but from the technical standpoint they shouldn’t add this with what has happened with turret changes in the past. The change to the grandmaster perk 2 months ago or so broke net turret really bad to where there was no point taking it for the 1 shot you got from it and rocket turret tool belt got changed to where it unusable underwater or in any encompassed area from I think 3 months ago or so. Took them 2 weeks to fix that net turret bug which was a pretty big deal and rocket turret still hasn’t gotten an answer to it yet. Lets just say that their track record on balancing turrets just adds more problematic bugs to that list of yours. Unless the good stuff that wasn’t mentioned is the 20 some odd turret bug fixes on top of others, doubtful about that though. It just gets really annoying when a buggy skill set keeps getting “improved” when it still just won’t work. It just going to get harder and harder for them to fix the turrets when new functions/variables are called and changed.

Anymras.5729:

I have two questions about Engineer Turrets, and one about Engineer main-hand weapons.

• Will Turrets ever get to scale with Power, Vitality, and Toughness?
  This would open up a lot of builds, make some viable that weren’t before…and if they scale to Vitality and Toughness as well, ’zerkTurret builds will be just as vulnerable as any other ’zerk build.
  It might also reduce the prevalence of the drop-and-pop method of Turret use, by way of making them actually useful to keep out by having them scale to your build.

• Will Turret AI ever actually target the user’s target specifically, as opposed to the last-damaged enemy?
  There’s too many area-of-effect autoattacks for the current method to be reliable – within a week of the implementation of this version of Turret AI, there were reports of Turrets refusing to fire due to constantly switching target.

• On the subject of autoattacks, is there any word on Engineers getting main-hand melee weapons?
  This is a balance issue because, as it stands, an Engineer without one of a few completely optional Kits has no recourse against enemies with Reflect Projectile effects aside from simply not attacking at all. As far as I know, this is an issue unique to the class.

Any other questions I would have are about bugfixes, so I’ll leave those off.

In addition to these points (which should be addressed due to the fact that they are other build pathways that do not work at the mechanical level) I also add these two points as well.

*Kit-Scaling up to Ascended Quality – Ascended weapons and armor are both out now and have been for some time now(armor 1 Month/Weapons 6 Months). Can our kits now scale to Ascended quality when we have these ascended weapons equipped? 5% isn’t a huge increase, but it should show and still be incorporated if an Engineer has spent the time and resources to get this weapon and can’t use it because he spends more time in a kit that doesn’t get gear improvement. Which goes on to the second point…..

• Hobo-Sacks- To save time
  https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/Hobo-Sacks-A-Terrible-Fashion-Statement/first
  This has been asked for a while now with good reason. Engineers get gated from these back pieces that you give for rewards and put on the gem store because they won’t see it 90% of the time. Most of the better points are in that thread, but it’s almost unanimous that we don’t like these meshes/textures that are on our backs all the time and can’t customize it or even remove it.

I read the title and was like….. what? Why is he of all people asking for nerfs. Reads post OHHHHHHH….

Anyhow, I do agree with the turret changes stat wise with what you have been going on about. However, I doubt anything will be done with them any time soon since there seems to be a giant fear of summon builds now-a-days. Still nonetheless I agree with you wholeheartedly, but I would rather they fix the current skillset as is before they do any changes. An entire skillset unviable mainly due to coding for almost a year and a half now is kind of ridiculous.

Nomin.5901:

This sounds great, as long as it Does not affect supply, that would make an already amazing elite, 100% god-mode.

I rather it would for the time because that means less variables for it to call from and thus less bugs.

JonPeters.5630:

There is some merit here. This skill had such a high risk/reward tradeoff that we knew it was possible that it had a chance to become too strong or not strong enough. I do think it is closer than you all think and I would be wary of increasing it. I think the key question is going to be where do you increase, which is a better discussion. Does it need a better baseline? Does it need a better reward heal? Longer buff duration? Faster cast time? Lower cooldown? Or maybe just gadgets need some good traits to empower it more?

Besides the trait addition for gadgets that have been asked for a long time now, the two main problems with this skill is the amount it heals for and how it has the unnecessary cast time.

Compare this skill to healing turret (4,300 for AED and 5000 for HT) and you will find that healing turret heals for more, removes 2 conditions, and places a water field to further increase that heal amount if timed correctly. Assuming that the engineer has at least 1 blast/leap source in addition to the detonation form HT that 5000 point heal moves up to 7,600 points every 20 seconds or so depending on the other finisher used. This is almost double the base heal of AED on half the cool-down meaning that during a 40 second interval, HT will heal more than AED if the health threshold heal is reached. From a personal standpoint (based on my HP values), AED only heals half of my HP at the death-heal. My healing turret combo can pretty much heal that same amount (1-2k HP less) every 20 seconds whenever I need it and I don’t have to be sitting at near death to get the heal. Clearly there is a problem with the amount when another heal can achieve the same amount with little extra effort with much more convenience. Some have suggested making this like ride the lightning where it would half its cool down based on if it hit a target or not, something like that here would be reasonable with maybe some better healing power scaling or scaling to the actual hit point value. Even then though, its hard enough to get that bonus heal as is stands now. AED has to hit the health threshold every time to be even worth taking and its difficult enough to pull that heal off as is. You have to “die” with AED on to get that bonus health reward and most enemies can make AED work to their advantage because of this. Any physical damage based build just stops attacking and waits or plays defensive for 5 seconds then proceeds with his damage. Or because you have to activate this at near death, he burns through a low part of your health say 2k HP or so before you can even get off the heal. Condition based builds can’t really do this, but since the conditions still stay on you when that heal goes off, you are likely back down to a 10k heal that you just got (maybe like 6k if poison was on you as well) and still likely dead in the next few seconds. If the heal didn’t have to be activated via death, but rather at a reasonable health threshold for the trigger it might get some more use. Hypothetically, if you are at <10% health during the end of the 5 second duration you get the bonus heal. With this change obviously the 1 second cast time should not be altered to balance the larger health threshold. You can still get stunned out of this heal and still likely die with it being on a 5 second cool down at 10% health threshold, but you are not solely reliant on the opponent to keep attacking to get the bonus heal.

TL:DR
This is not a high risk/high reward skill, this is a high risk/low-medium reward skill. IMO this skill heavily requires the opponent to not be aware of this skill for its duration which is very unlikely. The two things (besides the gadget traits that may help it, but this is on the current trait listing) that need to be done to this skill is the amount it heals for in comparison to the others. Half of my heath is very lackluster when I had to almost die to get that heath. The other being the cast time/trigger mechanic because the enemy has a bit too much control over this heal skill.

It’s a high cool-down skill that has a 50/50 chance of being something useful for the situation or not at all. If you have terrible luck like me or others, it becomes a question of “is this worth the risk” more than “when do I use this to get the most out of it”. I wouldn’t have a problem with this if it was more concise as to what it does, say for instance (hypothetically cause this is the first thing that popped into my mind) it’s either Glyph of Elementals of Flesh Golem when you use it. You KNOW you are getting some kind of summon from it, just what exactly it is is on the questionable side, but you KNOW you are getting some kind of summon from using this. Currently, it’s either point clear or single target lockdown. You DON’T KNOW what you are getting at all and it may not help you and you may loose an engagement not because of bad playing skill, just plain bad luck.

Elixir U had this same problem, the tool belt was either 2 projectile walls or a stealth veil. I mostly got veil from it when I needed those walls and lost a few or had some engagements lengthened because of that. They removed the veil aspect and now elixir U is a good example of what RNG should be, the base purpose of the skill should be the same on all possible outcomes just the effect or how it does it can be different.

garythesnail.8475:

I also dislike the toolbelt skills being replaced. Really kills turrets for me.

I see what you did there…

hydeaut.1758:

I don´t understand why it would be so hard to code some kind of a weapon-check:

if an ascended weapon is equipped, base weapon damage of kits goes up 5%

The most frustrating is, that even with all their glorious talk about communication with players and about balancing on 10th December + many threads about the problem, there hasn´t been even a single word of proper justification or explanation for months now.

This was the main gripe with this, there was no justification for this change, just we don’t want to make kits have an ascended base stat line. With the armor addition now, I was hoping that this would change because I fail to see why power based engineers should do 5% less damage to targets with ascended armor (or w/e the stat increase is from exotic to ascended) because of how they want to play. The assumption that I make now is that they can’t split kit damage statistics and range on kits in PvP and PvE/WvW, and they haven’t told us.

You are upgrading the armor cap to ascended quality now, can engineer kits (and ele conjures and warrior banners to the same extent) get that stat increase to ascended levels now? If not, please explain the logic as to why this will not happen.

I’m getting somewhat similar results with overcharge delays on the other turrets that have their overcharge on a timer.

Rifle turret won’t produce the overcharge effects at all unless you overcharge the first moment its deployed with rifled barrels and without the trait (although I think that has been there before).

Rocket turret won’t even fire it’s overcharge unless it’s overcharged on its first shot on deployment as well both with and without the rifled barrels trait(partially the case see following). Further experimentation shows that the turret doesn’t fire its overcharge if the overcharge is applied after the rocket fires, but BEFORE the loading sound the turret makes after the shot is fired(the cha gunk).

Guhracie.3419:

I was trying to figure out from the wording of Smoke Screen if it would proc rune of the Guardian, but my guess is no.

That rune set only works with self-blocks so to speak. Things like aegis or nine-tailed-strike. You don’t get block floaters with smokescreen so no it doesn’t proc.

Nike.2631:

…Actually if Rune of the Guardian didn’t work for thieves, then it would be 7 out of 8 (since someone pointed out a suitably round-about way an Necromancer can block once in a blue moon).

But thieves can block… underwater. Nine-tailed strike .

But still, the real question is if you’re concerned about Engineer competitiveness and involvement, why ware you wasting 1s & 0s over a bit of FLUFF like the final set bonus on an obscure rune you may never even see, when there are so many other issues to take up torches and pitchforks over?

Well I will give you the nine-tailed strike, but to counter that slightly there isn’t much water combat areas left to fight in WvW and no PvP map (other than port map) that has areas designed for underwater combat. That and they have stated that underwater combat is not fun among the player population, and I doubt a thief will go into water and loose there stealth and evasion. On to your main question though because thief discussion is not what this is about…..

We have raised torches and pitchforks and made comments about the other things that matter. I’m not going to get into specifics or giant discussions about what they are, because honestly the engineer specific forums is where most of my extrapolation will come from. We have a thread dedicated to the awful things we call hobo-sacks on our back being very ugly and wanting them gone or at least an option to turn them off. Some of us want to see Tybalt on our back being awesome not a brown rucksack that is really oversized on any race but Asura. That has been requested since I think March or so and no progress has been made evident on that approach. I could pull maybe 20 or so threads about turrets and gadgets that have had meaningful conversation or complaints about their current state (aka turret targeting). Point being is that we have made comments and suggestions many time over and have been overlooked. Just like the in the design of this rune we were overlooked, again. Content as an end game reward, that took resources and time for development, and we can’t use it.

Nike.2631:

There is no part of your contention that isn’t flawed. They’ve done 7-professions-out-of-8 runes before, they’ve done “endgame” runes of limited application before. Not every profession is going to delight in every release.

No disrespect, there is not a single rune set out there currently that flat out restricts only one class. Sure there are runes that don’t cater to all professions but they don’t gate only one from ever using them like this one currently does. Your guardian rune also doesn’t work with thieves so it’s not preventing only your profession from using it. This Resistance rune is the only rune set that we have now that gates literally only one profession from ever using this until major class changes are made. It wouldn’t be so bad if we could choose to get it(like the Queen’s Jubilee rune transactions) , but it has to be part of a random drop system. This rune, unless I missed something somewhere, is the only difference for doing the difficult fractals (30+) with the others. Thus, doing higher level fractals actually lessens my chance for rewards that I can actually use or rather prefer.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

Clearly my comment has caused some confusion and offense, which was not my intent. For that, I offer my apology and a more literal version of what I mean to say:

Every profession has aspects that make it different than the others. Sometimes those aspects can exclude a player from taking full advantage of certain bonuses from equipment. But that is not the reason those choices exist. The implementation of a signet-related rune is not an oversight, nor is it meant as a deliberate exclusion of the engineer profession. It is meant to be a new, interesting choice for players that want to use to signets and want to play professions that have them.

The problem is not entirely that we can’t use these runes effectively, it is that and the fact that we have this rune in our drop tables at 30+ fractals (which will likely be soul/account bound) and we can never use it. It’s like giving a warrior a soul-bound The Legend (granted not this extreme just an example), he can never use it and it’s literally only good for vendor trash.

What is the point of doing high fractals if we as engineers can only reap a small amount of the rewards?

Also that V

Anymras.5729:

I
Jon, I have to ask, because it’s bugging me – what’s up with the asterisk in ‘•Inventions X – Autotool Installation. Increased healing percent from 1% to 5%. * Decreased interval from 10s to 3s?’

As my attempt to put your mind at ease may fall short, I think that was a typo for a bullet point or text formatting that wasn’t taken out. That’s what I think but hey I could be wrong.

Anyhow, moving on…

Incendiary Powder

To be blunt and save some reading time Ostrich gave very good reasons as to why this shouldn’t be implemented just yet so just read his posts.

Firearms

I hope by altering this line with those adept traits as you said, you will consider moving rifle mods down a tier since rifle doesn’t gain much benefit from going deep into this tree, that or change how rifle can function with this tree. Seems kind of lackluster when the rifle can only put bleeding out there one stack or 2 stacks on average. Anyhow, if this is in the works I won’t judge it to hard since most of it will hopefully be changed.

Master Trait Changes (you forgot to add scope to that list as well)

First off, most of those traits better keep the same effect if they do get buffed. Personally I don’t want to loose my 25% movement speed from power shoes for a 90 second cool down I block one stunning effect. A few thoughts I had on a few master traits were these

Accelerant packed turrets (Just based on its current position not after this build)- Maybe add something to give the turrets a bonus somewhere such as a fire rate increase, stat increase, or passive buff to player/turret.

Explosive powder- The only benefit that I can think of to improve this would be to give it the steel powder ability where it will vuln the target or with the cool down perk.

Power shoes- I would say keep the movement in combat part of this and add onto it stabilized armor or something along the lines of dealing with a stun effect. Would also open up a trait for turrets to deal with specifics issues at the moment (coughmovementcough)

Elite supplies- This should be looked into honestly AFTER the 2 blaring ineffective elites are looked into. Elixir-X SHOULD NOT BE AN RNG ELITE. I fail to see the reason behind this when only half of these transformation are even remotely good and you can’t rely on getting the one transformation you need. Mortar- to sum up in 3 words: IT DOESN’T WORK. 90% of the time it jams up and burns cool downs that never fire, has less range then traited grenades (and less damage for that matter), has min range which means no use to man when you are in CQC, and has a weird targeting arc where it can’t hit things unless placed in direct LOS of targets. Example of this is in WvW mortar can only hit rams when its placed on the very edge of the wall where it get nuked by the zerg down below. Point being, and to the next few master traits that I will get into, is that the item being traited should work or be optimal before you start changing the traits for them.

Deadly Mixture/Power Wrench

Once again I don’t see the reason to change or buff these traits until the core parts are buffed as well. Specifically, flamethrower and toolkit do less damage over the course of a fight than compared to rifle. Why should I take them when they have very little reason or benefit to slot compared to grenade/bomb kit. Before these kinds of traits be looked into the kits that they relate to need to be looked at.

Basically in short before you start buffing traits for skills that don’t work functionally, you should consider looking at those skills first before trait changes.

JonPeters.5630:

Engineer:

• Explosives V – Incendiary Powder. Moved to Master tier.
• Explosives VI – Exploit Weakness. Increased the health threshold from 25% to 50%
• Explosives IX – Accelerant packed turrets. Moved to Adept tier.
• Firearms XI – Modified Ammunition. This trait now works regardless of equipped weapon.
• Inventions V – Energized Armor. Increased conversion from 5% to 7%.
• Inventions X – Autotool Installation. Increased healing percent from 1% to 5%. * Decreased interval from 10s to 3s.
• Inventions XI – Elixir Infused bombs. Increased healing scaling by 50%.
• Alchemy V – Blood Injection. Increased conversion from 5% to 7%.
• Alchemy 15 – Transmute. Increased % chance from 8% to 100%. This effect can now only trigger once every 15 seconds.
• Tools VI – Speedy Kits. Increased Swiftness duration to 10s. This effect can now only trigger once every 10 seconds.
• Tools XI – Armor Mods. Changed this to now trigger on struck instead of on critical hit incoming. Reduced the cooldown from 25 seconds to 15 seconds.

Let me start off by saying that if our permanent vigor is going to be nerfed (which is fine by me) please also add by this patch equal nerfs to the 5 trait point perks for Guardian and Mesmer. Seems only fair considering that we had to invest 20 to get permanent vigor and they have to invest 5.

Moving on…
*The explosive trait changes, yes to the exploit weakness I would rather see that perk exchange when turrets become a bit more impactful. That change, in my honest opinion, won’t help turrets gain any ground as being slotted for use. Unless you have a patch coming beforehand that revamps turrets like you said Jon in a SoTG I think 6 months ago or so. Speaking of which..

*Auto tool installation-Nice to see its getting a buff, but once again objectively where turrets are it’s still not going to help turrets out when they currently die in about 4 hits. Would like to see this get merged with the metal plating since this perk seems to be about letting turrets fix themselves and allowing it to take reduced damage to heal itself back up while the engineer deals with the threat. Also would free up a trait slot for something else to help turrets function.

*Modified ammunition change isn’t bad, but I doubt it will be that good either.

*Tools Trait adjustments are mediocre at best considering that a few traits in that line are actually worth picking up. Would like to see some tweaking done for a few of these skills. Scope, for instance, benefits only power builds with moves greater than 600 range. The total number of skills that are even remotely viable with this trait are 4 skills. Four skills. Another example is packaged stimulants, you have to re-run over the bandages, antidote, or stimulants when I just tossed them directly onto you. That trait really needs a QoL fix. Also, if you ever decide to put more effort into turrets, I would respectively ask that you move the toolkit perk down to adept tier in this trait line or in a different trait line since tool belt cooldown isn’t effective when your tool belt is 50% detonate from having turrets on the field.

For my own partial sanity I must ask this, are engineer turrets even being thoughtfully worked on at all? I ask this because I fail to see why this turret targeting even was given the ok since most of the engineers damage kitten nal is AoEs and multi-hit abilities. It has also been months since we were told turrets were being looked into functionality wise and I have yet to see anything that supports that claim. I am not trying to be mean, but it is generally frustrating that I can’t use certain utilities and play the style I want to play as because core parts of the build just won’t function appropriately.

(I also know that there are builds that don’t function similarly on other classes, but I can only speak of what I know to be true.)

First off I fail to see how a 1.6k damage rocket once every 4 seconds (or even rifle turret when fire rate is bugged) destroys a person from 1000 range, but turret balance in the meta is not what this is about so I’ll get right to it.

The issue that I have with this is that in the case of multiple targets, I don’t necessarily want all my damage focus on a single target but I may want it to split between the two. Granted your system works for 1v1 fights and certain small scale ones, but there are times that I myself have wanted to have my turrets cc one guy while I go fight another. I could do that with the old targeting system since it was closest target set up turrets to chain the guy close to you which I could isolate. Guess what can’t do that anymore because it goes for the guy that I am fighting.
There needs to be a separate target for minion AI with its own binding and it might even open up some decent summon builds when you can start controlling where your damage is going.
Basically, good idea if your turret build involves semi nuking one target, bad idea if you need your turrets and you to do separate things.

Not sure if this would classify as a turret bug, but the underwater tool-belt for rocket turret requires a ground target. Meaning, it can only aimed at terrain (like grenades on land).

Well I wouldn’t put it to that targeting system, because then if you go into a party, its then a party target. Not a huge issue in PvE, but put that into a party scenario then it might get a little problematic when people are calling targets on things that you have no quarrel with. Example your fighting a Mesmer on one end of the map and your buddies are fighting another group on the opposite side of the map.

The comment I made wasn’t to say “make turrets like phantasms” like a lot of posts seem to think, but to rather point out that other forms of targeting exist that function 10 time better than this current turret targeting.

Rangers have their F-skill target
Mesmer clones/phantasms are linked to their target
Necromancers minions attack the target the necromancer is targeting (first target I believe unless that got changed as well)

Honestly, there should just be an option by this point for player controlled minion targeting by now. Make it just like the ranger’s target and simple in and out “press this button for all underlings to attack said target.”

It’s getting to the point that I really want to see this turret change that they said they were working on back in like December/(Early 2013) SOTG because I am not seeing one iota of effort from the balance team.

Mesmer phantasms attack the target they are called on and don’t stop attacking until they die or their target dies for the record. They have the implementation to make it work they just don’t bother.

So yea, I tested this and this really bugs me.
Considering than about 80% of all combat moves that the engineer has (weapons and kits to be specific) are multi hit abilities this targeting system effectively doesn’t work. Sure it attacks the last thing I hit but what if the target I want to hit is a Mesmer in front of me and I just happen to hit a clone of theirs with a pierce shot from rifle or blunderbuss both of them, guess what the turret attacks that clone instead. This is not a targeting improvement when it is likely that these things will happen (multi-opponents in an area) and the turrets will STILL not attack the right target.

So congrats turrets are still mediocre as ever and you haven’t shown any true progress towards fixing them.

I don’t play ranger much, but I would play it more often if I could have this one pet. Take it as you will.

Deacon.9725:

a) Engineers are not Elementalists and I don’t see a rational inference that we were meant to be such.
b) We have access to multiple kits that we can slot on the fly. We don’t have to keep all of them slotted at the same time. I don’t think the dev quote used above implies that. I think it implies that there are options for Engineers to use multiple kits based on different scenarios. For example, I normally do not run with grenades, but I can switch out one of my utilities or current kit for grenades when I need to be in a more distance AOE role rather than a field-supplier. That doesn’t mean that I have to run with grenades AND 2 other kits all the time.
c (or b-2)) Part of the inherent playstyle (which I don’t find broken or horribly designed, but rather complex and cognitive) is situational awareness and using a host of utility skills as the situation demands. Now, if we had to go back to a trainer to reset our utility skills each time we wanted to switch out, that would be a severe detriment to the on-the-fly versatility inherent in the utility skills, including kits.

(if this goes on to be a discussion I should point out that I bear no ill will to anyone just I like discussions)

a)Considering that we are supposed to be versatile(just like the ele), have no weapon swapping for this (just like the ele), the kits are similar to the attunements (FT>Fire: Med kit/EG>Water), and as a personal opinion; the tool belt to me is an unimaginative mechanic that may have been something else before, but they removed it because it was too similar to an already designed class and they were worried that they would be heckled for it. You can’t deny that a lot of those tool belt skills are lackluster to say the least. To my knowledge engineer was the last designed profession.

b)You can’t swap kits for other kits during combat and I probably should have made this clearer. When you engage in combat, you can’t change. In PvE this is not a problem that I have because all fights are the same in PvE and I can change accordingly before the fight. In PvP, you are set in stone for your build. For example, if I am roaming in WvW and I come across say a minion master necromancer I would rather have bombs/FT than tool kit or rifle. Its the more optimal choice in that scenario. If I get combat locked before I can change to that I am stuck with what I have, I CAN’T change it at that point. You don’t know what the enemy is packing unless you get written notice. That every tool for every situation only comes into effect when you know what’s coming.

c)Before I go on this bit, if they come out with load outs this issue is invalidated. For blatant example, grenadier is better for a grenade build for very obvious reasons. In WvW I can’t go get my grenade build if I am holding a tower/keep unless I port back to spawn, take the 3 minutes or so to walk to the point I need to go back to the defense, and attempt to get into the objective before its taken. Basically there’s not enough time to swap your build to the more optimal when you need it.

Before someone makes a point that engi can’t be this counter everything guy. I agree with that notion it shouldn’t, but I would rather put up a fight rather than just flail around and fight a hopelessly lost battle.

Duke Blackrose.4981:

Absolutely not. I like the tool belt – it’s interesting. It’s the only profession mechanic in the game that is fully customizable.

Instead, they should improve tool belt skills and make non-kit utilities and main weapons actually relevant – because frankly, kits are too important.

“Customizable” as in you can choose your tool belt skills. They are linked to what your utilities are and can’t be swapped. Your utilities define your tool belt so if you want a specific skill you are forced into taking the corresponding skill. Granted, if I could choose the tool belt skills, there would be a lot more build combos that people could pull off.

ellesee.8297:

if it weren’t for monk’s focus and meditation mastery, no one would bother with meditations at all!

your argument is so nonsensical. obviously if you put something in the utility slot you trait for it. our toolbelt skills are great and our damage is fine. everything about the engineer is fine godkitten it. find something else to complain about.

The damage output is not fine and not everything is fine on the engineer. Don’t have tunnel vision that since your build is fine everyone else’s must be as well. Shall I list off the 20 some odd bugs/issues with turrets that have been present for over a year and we are getting one of those fixed (hopefully) next patch.
One, just one after a year of asking for changes to them.
ONE
Let that sink in there for a bit

As for damage, not going to throw out numbers since I have things to do, here’s a quick example.
Of the five kits, I shall leave out grenade since it isn’t the best physical damage kit now since the nerfs to it months ago.
Anyhow toolkit and bomb kit and flamethrower(to a lesser extent) could be considered our melee kits. Why is it that toolkit and flamethrower have less physical damage compared to our equipped rifle when every other class gets a damage boost for using melee over ranged combat. The only kit that grants that boost is bomb kit for one of its 5 skills and is really easy to avoid.

There’s a reason why the only viable builds for engineer are condition based and not physical based. They’re the only form of damage that we have that isn’t severely imbalanced amongst our weapons since condition damages are set for all classes and weapons.

Now back to the topic on hand, the complaint that the OP is making which I don’t think has reached most people is this.

If the class was designed to swap between kits like an elementalist swaps attunements, then the class should have kits as a profession mechanic and not as a utility where it is now.
The developers have even stated that:
“They can use different kits based on the situation, but this extreme versatility comes at a cost in damage on their main hand weapons.”

They expected us to swap between kits with this class, but I don’t feel the benefit of taking 3 kits because what good does it do when I only use certain parts of the kits and never touch it again. As I stated above, why take toolkit when rifle does more damage over the course of the fight. I take it for the pull/block and never touch it again until one of those is up again. I would rather have that generic kit on the tool belt than have toss wrench which is very lackluster in terms of effect on a battlefield.

Basically, if kits were meant to be a part of EVERY engineer build. Make it so that every engineer has them with EVERY build. They can CHOOSE to take it out at ANY time. This will validate what they said back in December with classes.
If they don’t want to do this and have it be a rehash of the elementalist that’s fine, but then the tool belts skills should have more options to us. It doesn’t feel very impressive that I have this one skill that I never use, but I have to have it because my build requires its counterpart.

Honestly, the first thing that should be done with the Engineer and should be the main issue on the devs minds are the bug fixes for this class. Its really way to buggy to be balancing at the same time.

As far as the class goes, gadgets need to be be tweeked a lot since a lot of them are not very good. Rocket Boots self stun for 2 seconds is kinda dumb since most if not all of the other classes can go that 900 units before you can and set up to fight there. Wouldn’t be so bad if it was like the Char racial where I could shoot and still be “evading”. That would definatly get a slot on a few builds then. Mines and utility goggles are the other 2 in the sense that mines are not reliable to use unless you maunally detonate the mines and the goggles I feel need to do more than just Blind Immunity. The only class that CAN spam enless blind is a */p theif or the Vet scouts in WvW.

Elixers are hit and miss for a lot of people. RNG isn’t a bad thing IF THE OUTCOME IS STILL THE SAME. What I mean is this, if I consume elixer h I will get healed from the health and I have a 33% chance of healing more from regen. The other 2 are protection and swiftness. Now if I use that elixer, I used it to HEAL I would expet the RNG boon to be giving me something to protect me or heal me. Stuff like Aegis, Protection and regeneration; not swiftness. Swiftness does nothing to help me heal unless the opponent is confined to melee weapons which is VERY unlikely. RNG as it stands with elixers isn’t fair RNG to the user and doens’t have much of an impact to the enemy. Perfect example of good RNG in this game is staff mesmer as stated by the OP. Each attack will burn, bleed, or apply vuln. as well as boosting the dmg oyu can do it you are close enough. The mesmer using that attack will get some kind of damage off just in a different way. Outcome is still the same no matter what the role is.

Turrets.
Ok all I said about turrets is here
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/Turrets-not-Scaling-with-Power/first#post1314738

Hoping that the turret buff that happened was the sign of the Devs are working on fixing the engineer

Elites
Need better elites like badly. Supply crate no issues with. Elixer X- get rid of it or drastically reduce the CD for the RNG factor. An elite should never be random it should be certain things that you can count on.
Mortar-…..Only use for it is in WvWvW and even then its terrible as is. Line of sight makes it have ot be used on the edge of battlements where it procedes to be shot down in 5 seconds. Honestly ok with this idea of a skill if it had an actuall mortar like feel to it. Buff the range to arrow cart range and goodness sake make it so that the shells go up and down on ground targets rather than into the ground.

Kits
Personally, I don’t like them too much. Agree with OP’s veiws on what kits need fixes or changes so not going to waste time with that point. Have no issues running with one or 2 but I don’t want to have to use 4 kits to be “versatile” and do as well as every other class. Also kinda bugs me that the devs are and have been concerned soley about kits these past few patches. It feels like they are only going to focus on and fix them to the point where it becomes that running all kits is the best way to play engineer and the only good way. They said that they didn’t want any class to be forced into one build, but it feels like engineer is just becoming too kit based to me now a days.

Honestly, to make engineer more popular, change how he can be versatile. He isn’t really versatile as is since we are forced to use a skill to get the specific toolbelt and visa-versa. Like maybe SWAPING TOOLBELT SKILLS would be good so I don’t have to use the slot skill counterpart that I may not want cause its terrible. Would love to not use the toolkit’s toolbelt skill if I could swap it for say a reviving circle or grenade barrage.

Before I begin, this will most likey end up being into a partial rant/question post when I am done.

First off I am ok with the fact that turrets got a buff in the recent patch that made them scale off of condition damage and boon effects. That needed to happen eventually, but WHY after 6 months do they not scale off of the POWER stat.

Every other summon; ele elementals, mesmer phantasms, etc., scales off of the hero’s power and shows (I know necros minons don’t scale as well before people remark aobut that, but the minions have a lot more convientent traits if you intend to use them like 50% extra health, a better on death effect, and 30% extra damage). Why is it that the stationary, limited range, paper-mache defense turret does far less damage then any of these other summons mentioned above. Am I the only one who thinks that the stationary summon should either deal more damage than that of others or at least be able to take a few hits from dungeon tier mobs to account for its lack of mobility?

Really, what I want answered at some point is why do turrets not scale with actuall power because I believe a summon should pose just as much threat as the player itself and not just some annoyance that keeps picking off 1-3% of your health.