Guild Wars 2

Within only a couple days? I would like to know Anet’s reasoning.

Roles: moderate might stacks, very high vuln stacks (with grenades), party stealth via smoke bomb + blast finishers, a wall of reflection or smokescreen (rng-based), good cc capabilities, and decent party healing/condi cleansing via healing turret. Also, very high damage potential.

Are they good for dungeons? In the hands of experienced engineers, they are extremely useful.

To clarify I was not discussing the prevalence of those conditions, but rather that they are very effective versus Engineers. Thus, even if few classes can apply torment, confusion, or chilled the conditions themselves still act as effective counters.

Argon.1563:

7. Engineer – You’re my friend, Engineers, but you don’t have the greatest DPS in the world, although you’re good at doing utility things. You’re nice and bulky though, so I don’t have to waste my sanity reviving you, unlike other people. ^w^ Looks at Berserker players

Wat.

Gotta love how little people understand about Engineers.
Additionally, how often people put Heavies at the very top. Their easiness makes them reliable, yes. But they are not objectively the best.

inhearth.2038:

(PLEASE, don’t say that engies get countered by cons. They get countered by CC and burst damage, as any other class.),

You are trying too hard to put Engineers on the pedestal. Engineers are very vulnerable to conditions. There I said it. People tend to regard Engineers as a skill spamming class, and this is usually true. Now, consider the confusion condition (you take damage on every skill use). Against an engineer using bombs or nades this condition is incredibly potent. Moreover, kit switching also triggers confusion damage while weapon switching on other classes does not. Sure, an engineer could simply stop spamming these skills, but as you have said Engineer’s CC highly contributes to their “mobility” and without that CC they are significantly more susceptible to damage.

Other conditions of importance are CC conditions (chilled, crippled, & immobilized) and torment. Why? Because Engineers are constantly kiting and actively moving in fights (dat high mobility). This is what makes them so difficult for many people to fight. Impede them from avoiding that physical damage and they are in trouble.
Lastly on the topic of conditions, Engineers usually only have 1 or 2 ways to actively remove a condition(s). Many other classes typically have more or superior ways to remove conditions.

Yes, CC can give anyone trouble when you have no way to handle it (stunbreakers and stability). Thus, this is not unique to Engineers. However, Engineers are typically more susceptible to CC because most builds have either 0 or only 1 stunbreaker and virtually no stability (unless you actually consider mortar and elixir X to be viable, which they are not).

You sound like someone who has very little experience with Engineers.

1. Ele
2. Thief
3. Guard
4. Engineer
5. Warrior
6. Mesmer
7. Ranger
8. Necro

Sins.4782:

I’d like a condition removed on toolbelt skill use, please.

I like this idea.

Ahh yes… Automated Response. Rarely touch it nowadays since the nerf. That said, I do agree that it should be reworked or changed completely. +1 condi removal on heal skills is nice and consistent, but I do not think that is enough to justify it as a viable grandmaster trait.

Remove +1 condition whenever you use a skill that removes any number of conditions would make it more viable. This means that the typical engineer build would have 1-2 more conditions removed (from heal skill + rocket boots (if immo), elixir gun, elixir r (if immo), or toss elixir c). This change would also synergize well with (X) Cleaning Formula 409 so that even elixirs that normally wouldn’t remove conditions can now remove 2. This would not necessarily be over powered, since kits are still typically the better option and HGH would not be able to be used with Automated Response (both grandmasters).

Or Anet could simply revert Automated Response back to normal with the health threshold reduced to 20% or 10% similar to ele’s diamond skin trait that operates the same way except with a health threshold of 90% and above (although 10% and below would probably be too low for it to actually matter).

In my opinion the old Automated Response was fine, considering that conditions on you prior to its activation were not removed and typical engineer builds already had little condition removal.

I’m having database connection errors while trying to access your site

I might support your claim if Engineers had better access to stun breakers/stability and condi removal on par with other classes. However, we do not and likely may never have those joys.

Turret engineers are certainly difficult to deal with, but they do not have much of a place in team arenas, and most experienced players in solo arenas can adjust their play accordingly to deal with them.

Not sure about ranger, but I’ve found runes of the pack with cele gear to work well on my engi. With hidden flask (first minor trait in alchemy trait line) and runes of the pack you have a moderately high up time on fury.

For wvw roaming, running full cele on engi can work very well (assuming you have a good trait setup), and in some cases I find myself able to getaway with more than with just rabid gear.

Otherwise, divinity runes seem to be a good compromise. Engis can keep 100% up time on swiftness with speedy kits, so (unless you don’t use speedy kits) I don’t think traveler runes would be worth using on engi.

I am also interested in this “#1 NA engi”

At least in the case of thieves that I encounter while solo roaming. If you use shadow refuge, I will not hold back on ruining your day with my supply crate.

Gibbilo.3270:

There is no way d/d ele has bigger numbers AND more survivability than an engineer. I can see one or the other. Not both. That’s just exaggeration to make the class look bad.

Bigger numbers no, but d/d eles do arguably have better survivability if you consider their superior condi removal.

As dumb as it may sound, the back pack is a real deterrent. Maybe not so much for the hardcore, but casual players coming into this game can easily be turned off by running around with these ridiculous sacks on their backs. These sort of players don’t care so much about min/maxing and using the “best” profession, they just want to enjoy the game, and the aesthetics of running around with these kit backpacks can be a turn off. As Gw2 is considered to be a casual-oriented MMO, you have to wonder how many of these players running around are just casual players. Admittedly, there is a minority that actually like kit backpacks.

Additionally, there is a whole thread full of discussion and complaints about hobosacks. It is a real contributing factor.

I suppose we are looking at this from different angles. You are mainly concerned with WvW, and I am more interested in PvE. Although, in regards to roaming I still have hard time understanding why you think they don’t cut it. WvW zerging I can understand; engineers have no designated role in zergs.

One more thing. Popularity does not equate to how good a profession actually is. Believing that engineers are bad simply because they’re not popular is faulty reasoning. There are quite a few other factors that could also influence why this is not a popular profession. To most, engineers are simply unattractive (them hobosacks). Engineers play very differently than every other profession making them feel awkward. Engineers have no reasonable access to melee weapon (toolkit whacking… yeah, no.). And, this uninformed conception that engineers are “bad” or “suck” also deters people from playing them.

Miffinator.3046:

No. This class is pretty hard to learn how-to-play. Like hard to the point it can drive players away from the game hard. The class is very twitchy, you really don’t excel at anything, and most other classes do things better than you can.

Yes, it’s one of the more challenging professions. How does it “drive players away from the game”? Twitchy? I suppose. Engineers don’t excel past other professions at specific things, but they are moderately good at most things.

Although, engineers are extraordinarily good at soloing a lot of this game’s PvE content: champs, WvW camps and towers, and more experienced engineers can solo keep lords without much trouble. Is this perk at all that useful? Not really, unless this is your intention while playing this profession.

Additionally, an engineer is actually a very useful member in dungeon PUGs (assuming that engineer is using the appropriate build and knows how to play effectively). No thief/need 15 secs of stealth? Done. Not stacking enough might? Here is 6-12 stacks. Can use more vulnerability? Look at all of these vuln stacking explosions. Need to reflect/negate some projectiles? It’s not much but I can toss in this elixir u. Want to hold that mob/boss in place? No problem. All of this while having a place among the top tier dps. I can only assume that one who states that this profession plainly sucks is very ignorant.

Engineers are an all-around good profession (as long as you don’t mind their aesthetics), and amazing in the right hands.

Rifle and pistols by themselves on engineers are indeed not so great. Our kits deal the bulk of our damage. Rifle skills #3 and #5 offer some nice bursts, but as soon as those skills are on cd you’ll want to switch to a kit. Pistols are really only useful with condition builds, but an offhand shield does provide some nice extra utility (a blastfinisher and block). Our highest dps kits are the bomb and grenade kit. The flamethrower works well, too, just not as potent as BK and GK (although, FT will be buffed with tomorrow’s patch).

Engineers have a very high dps potential holding the place of 3rd highest dps profession (really only relevant to dungeons), but this is extremely build dependent and most players cannot perform to this degree.

Haven’t seen much discussion of this in game or on the forums. When destroying objects with grenades at very close range many of my grenades tend to scatter in random directions and completely miss my target (seemingly similar to how underwater grenades work). For example, while using my grenades at close range on the elemental boss in the Snowblind fractal my grenades seem to fly upward and miss.
I would imagine this isn’t intentional in the design.

Wondering if people run into this same issue and whether Anet is aware of it.

Using the experimental turrets trait a flame turret grants 3 stacks of might to your party. So, if you replace your elixir gun with a flame turret and detonate the turret in your rotation you could stack up to 24.

On another note, I would advise highly against taking nomads into dungeon runs.

Nice thing about the engineer is that there are builds that can work well for back line and front line play in zergs. However, as East pointed out, the general consensus is that engineers perform subpar in each of these roles. Engineer utility in a zerg boils down to might stacking, condi removal + water field (with healing turret), and possibly cc if you are running a front line build.

Typical grenadier build
Traits: 6/x/x/x/x Obviously, Explosives is the core of this build. Distribution of the rest of the traits is really up to you. If you want consistent boosts in damage, target the weak (Firearms) and scope (Tools) can potentially boost your crit chance by 20% (10% if enemies are above the 50% health threshold. Enduring damage (Tools) can increase your damage by 10% while you have full endurance. Target the maimed and modified ammo (Firearms) can also boost your damage but I don’t consider them to be reliable since they are procced by conditions. Some players like to put 6 into Alchemy for survivability in the case that the front line is broken and you find yourself in the heat of battle.
Gear: If you are experienced you should be able to get away with running berserker gear. Otherwise, mixes of zerker with cele, knight’s, or other power oriented gear work well too. Do Not run condition builds for zerging since condis will be quickly removed in zergs. For weapons, p/s is the superior option (mainly for the shield’s utility) since you really wouldn’t be using your main weapon anyway.

Utility slots: grenade kit (obviously), healing turret for heal skill, and either elixir gun (leap, condi removal, stunbreaker), tool kit (block, pull), or bomb kit (if you intend to stack your own might). The elixirs are also fair choices.

Things to note: pay close attention to retaliation on enemy zergs. You could potentially down yourself from your own nade throws alone. Use your nades intelligently.

Can’t recommend using flamethrower in wvw zergs since its damage is relatively low and you will run into the same issue with retaliation. Bombs are the superior option for running in the front line.

Hope that helps.

Understandably, it can be difficult for players to fathom that engineers can have higher dps than both warriors and guardians. Even with the modest bursts attainable with #3 and #5 skill on the rifle or bob, you will never see any engineer build capable of producing such high numbers as with 100b or eviscerate. With a proper rotation engineers using a rifle/nade/bomb 6/6/0/0/2 build can maintain, 9 stacks of might, 18-25 stacks of vuln on elite foes and below, and ~1k bleeding ticks allowing them to have significantly more sustained dps than any warrior. However, in dungeons warrior burst dmg will still be more valuable (not sure if this is the same case for guards) for clearing mobs , but on champs/bosses (longer fights) engis shine.

So if we’re only considering sustained dps, it is accurate that engis are above guards and warriors. Why don’t the “top spreed clearing” guilds utilize engis in their dungeon runs? That is because the bulk of time in dungeons is spent on clearing trash mobs where quick bursts of dmg are more practical. Additionally, everything else that engis bring to a party can be achieved by other professions (might stacks, vuln, stacks, party-wide condi removal, etc).

Need open Balth on NA. Please let me know of any
Much appreciated.