Guild Wars 2

WEXXES.2378:

Bigpapasmurf.5623:

If not, just make the engi invuln when shrunk instead of evading (for the duration of it only)

It always made them invulnerable.

Check the wiki

“Drink Elixir S to shrink yourself, recover from stun, and evade attacks. "

We are not invulnerable in Elixir S.

Vagrant.7206:

TBH most classes have crap down states. I think the most useful I’ve seen are mesmer’s and ranger’s.

Necro is pretty powerful too.

Phineas Poe.3018:

scorekeeper.6524:

tigirius.9014:

Thats the thing about engineer for some reason the so called “balance team” still haven’t addressed the shear lack of burst damage on the engineer in PVE without having to resort to using the grenades or the flame thrower.

I argue that properly traited, our PvE burst is pretty good with rifle alone. It’s our sPvP and WvW burst that is lacking.

The crux of the matter is that the engineer as a class doesn’t lack damage in anything, burst or sustained. Running Explosives/Firearms/Tools together, whether power or condi, competes with anything for damage output.

The problem is that engineer in its current situation gives up far too much sustainability to match the damage output of other classes. Thieves have more stealth than us. Mesmers have more evades than us. And revenants have more blocks and better healing than us. Engineer in the current meta wins 1v1s not through spiking down targets quickly but merely outsustaining them through attrition with the help of a well-timed reveal, daze/stun, or unblockable damage versus these professions.

This will likely never change. Engineer has nearly always favored filling the role of a bruiser, and the few times glass cannon engineer was viable in PvP or WvW it was built on a gimmick or a poor foundation that was easily patched out of existence by the slightest nerfs.

If the Scrapper trait line between Adaptive Armor and Rapid Regeneration wasn’t strong enough to support Explosives+Tools or Firearms+Tools builds on its own, then nothing likely ever will.

If they continue to think of our class solely as a bruiser, well then that’s dumb. Other classes have the ability to build for different types of combat. Ele is a prime example- you can go glass cannon with staff or d/d; and you can support. Guard can also be either a support class or damage as well. Thieves can spec for power burst or condi burst. Thieves can even frontline with a staff. Mesmers can go all power, all condi, or party boon-share. And so on.

I anticipate the sword bringing the class more power burst capabilities and hopefully give the engineer class more diversity in making builds. I could also be horribly wrong. I do believe that giving the class 1 more weapon won’t magically fix everything. Indeed it might make things worse. Maybe the answer is overhauling the whole class :/

Hock.6740:

and some more – human skills and their toolbelt pair are totally crap for engi(

Racial skills are just flavor skills and nothing more. They don’t expect you to take them.

Vagrant.7206:

scorekeeper.6524:

The catch-22 then either: nerf kits to promote the use of other utilities = heavily nerf the capabilities of the class
or: buff kits = now the class REALLY has to use kits all the time or else it is shooting itself in the foot by not taking any

Honestly, I think the biggest part of the problem is that our primary weapons are so dang weak. If you use at P/P, P/S (hah!), or Rifle and you try to play without a kit, your damage will be absurdly weak compared to other classes. None of these weapons are good, forcing us to use multiple kits, which do have damage that is good (typically bombs and/or grenades).

If they actually want to fix the problem of being stuck using kits, they need to buff our primary weapons to where they are competitive and nerf certain kits to reduce their effectiveness.

You’ll notice that Scrapper in PvP only uses one kit, and that’s because the primary weapon isn’t half bad. Sure, it’s still not on par with some of the more powerful weapons out there, but it’s got some heft to it, and some of the utilities built into it that you would otherwise need a kit for.

You’re right, I should have added “buff weapons we already have” as a viable solution. My bad! But I think that shows my faith in Anet’s willingness to do so is very low and I’m hoping that the next xpac will deliver.

santenal.1054:

I think you missed what they did to the kit on 22 february 2017

I didn’t miss it, but thanks for assuming I did.

It’s a “meh” kit. Serves a purpose, but has much more potential than it currently has.

tigirius.9014:

Thats the thing about engineer for some reason the so called “balance team” still haven’t addressed the shear lack of burst damage on the engineer in PVE without having to resort to using the grenades or the flame thrower.

I argue that properly traited, our PvE burst is pretty good with rifle alone. It’s our sPvP and WvW burst that is lacking.

Are static discharges still being thrown into the ground when you use an Elixir toolbelt skill? If so, add that to the list.

To add to magnet pull- the pull is inconsistent on even terrain, sometimes a blade of grass apparently gets in the way. I feel that the pull needs to act like binding roots, so it pulls and roots the target right front of you for 1 sec, instead of rubberbanding the target a foot or two away. Also, the tooltip says its unblockable, yet there are several skills that can block this “unblockable” skill. I don’t know if that’s intended or not.

FT kit is mostly a power kit, with a little bit of condi thrown in. Since the Engi has other, better means of applying burning, I don’t think the FT needs more than it has.

I do wish Anet would buff the FT kit overall, so condi Engis don’t take the kit solely for the toolbelt skill.

I hope that with the introduction of the sword, we will get better as a class and more diverse. Despite kits, it’s the thing that holds the class back- limited weapon choices. The reason why other classes don’t suffer from a lack of build diversity is that they have many weapons to choose from, while the Engi, up until HoT, had 3. The excuse was we get kits, which are another set of weapons that we can utilize. But it’s painfully obvious that we are restricted in build diversity by our lack of weapon choices which forces us to rely heavily on kits. Couple this with the fact that our only weapon swap ability can only be produced from running at least 1 kit and you have a class that begins to be pigeonholed into 1 or 2 types of builds.

The catch-22 then either: nerf kits to promote the use of other utilities = heavily nerf the capabilities of the class
or: buff kits = now the class REALLY has to use kits all the time or else it is shooting itself in the foot by not taking any

Obviously neither situation is desirable. The suitable answer could be to buff other utilities (turrets, elixirs, gadgets, etc.), resulting in indirect nerfs to kits, but nothing as dramatic as a straight up nerf.

Or to introduce another weapon. Taking scrapper allowed us to use gyros, which were at one time great additions and really promoted the idea that running a kit might not be as necessary as before. But then they nerfed gyros, nerfed hammer, all the while buffing other classes.

This is what we are worried about- that when we get good things, they will soon be nerfed to uselessness; that not that many devs play the class as a main and therefore do not understand the problems we suffer, some problems existing from day 1; that other classes get unreasonable concessions and buffs for arbitrary and silly reasons; that the dev team clearly does not understand how to balance classes for spvp and wvw settings.

The last sentence is quite unbelievable since in GW1 there were separate pvp abilities that were not available in pve, and vice versa, since said abilities would be overpowered outside of their respective gamemode. It’s obvious, and sad that these GW2 devs are not building upon the knowledge of their GW1 predecessors.

Phineas Poe.3018:

scorekeeper.6524:

Elmo Benchwarmer.3025:

What makes Scrappers so scary? They bore the player and the opponent to death.

So true. I was fighting an Ele over a camp 1v1 for nearly 5 minutes. She eventually disengaged, went to /sleep then ported back.

While I like sustain builds, I really hope we get a true burst build with the next xpac.

This is why taking Blast Gyro over Bulwark isn’t really such a bad idea, especially if the other team has no dragonhunters or druids. You may not kill people, but you’ll at least decap points on them.

Shoulda mentioned, this was WvW, not sPvP. BUT valid point all the same, I actually haven’t tried blast gyro in a loooooooong time.

Hock.6740:

rechecked it – yep, my bad(

It’s ok, we’re such a borked class it’s hard to tell if things are working as intended sometimes

Elmo Benchwarmer.3025:

What makes Scrappers so scary? They bore the player and the opponent to death.

So true. I was fighting an Ele over a camp 1v1 for nearly 5 minutes. She eventually disengaged, went to /sleep then ported back.

While I like sustain builds, I really hope we get a true burst build with the next xpac.

alifesoft.9634:

Cele Engi is excellent in WvW because you have all usable stats (p/p/f/v/t/hp) even condi in power build with firearms traits. But I run in WvW with Cele armor, Cele trinkets and Zerk hammer. It is possible change hammer to double Sinister’s pistols if you want more condi.

That’s encouraging! As I said, watching older videos, the build seemed legit but I know that cele got nerfed a few times and I haven’t seen too many current builds out there. Glad to bear it works for you!

Panda.1967:

Except that the devs explicitly stated in an interview that Elite Specs will NOT be an upgrade from normal specs, they would simply offer a new option to the class. And with the design that GW2 was sold on, having elite specs as an upgrade is NOT a selling point. The freedom to “Play it your way” was the selling point… people were excited when they announced that Elite Specs would not be an upgrade. The fact that they were not supposed to be an upgrade was actually a selling point.

Lol, claims that elite specs were not upgrades, fails to see almost every class using said elite specs in almost every game mode meta.

insanemaniac.2456:

cele isnt a thing any more.

specializations moved IP to firearms, which means a cele build has to take both explosives and firearms to get its damage, but the problem with that is that you cant give up either alchemy or tools/inventions in a pvp setting. so cele builds got torn apart partially by that. the rest of the tearing is due to elite specs power creeping the hell out of everything, so in a pvp setting its hard to justify not taking scrapper because it simply brings so much, both damage and defense, and both at the same time, where everything a cele engi did was either damage or defense. but scrapper is essentially a power only line and brings basically no condi damage. additionally, hot also brought us marauder stats (and crusader, minstrel, vigilant, commander, etc), which all complement a power based hammer build. hot stats have a bigger budget, so the more of them that you use the more you can simply muscle out other builds that are based on older power levels purely with stats.

…so there you have it. splitting celes damage to 2 specs and power creeping the hell out of elite specs killed cele.

i suggest not making trailblazer for engi. thief, necro, ranger, warrior, mesmer, and even revenant now. but not engi. condi engi is still fairly reliant on crit for IP procs to really get enough damage out to kill, and that requires around 25% base crit rate to be reliable, and while mixing say… trailblazer armor/weapons + rabid trinkets is fun and generally effective, doing the same on any of those other 6 classes would get you more mileage and you wouldnt even be forced into building some crit in.

i havent particularly looked into updating my opinion for the last couple of patches though for several reasons. first, not much is really changing with regards to condi engi, but i admit that the flamethrower 2 and 3 changes could do tons of work to make condi engi do more with less. second, condi thief takes that trailblazer gear and barfs out aids puddles literally without needing a 2nd weapon set and you can kill experienced people np. third, another expansion looms. fourth, condi engi is pretty weak to condis — forced into firearms, and out of either alchemy or tools/inventions/scrapper makes for a bad case of 4 move slot syndrome (to take a phrase from pokemon). ill keep watching the patch notes though.

Makes sense. I did notice the lack of precision on trailblazers. I haven’t crafted a thing yet, and it’s purely superfluous as I have the “meta” gear already, but it is in the back of my mind as something I’d try, someday, even if it’s on another class. Heck I’m even looking at vigilant armor and wondering “what if”. I just roamed around HoD BL with dire gear, rabid p/s and dire/rabid trinkets tonight and it seemed doable. Just something to break up the monotony of using rifle+elixirs or zerging with hammer.

Really sad about celestial though :/ Watching older videos, seemed like a fun build. I might just do it for kicks anyway

I love that JP. PM me in game and I can walk you through it if you want.

Nirvana.8659:

If you are not full time engineer , and you have the desire to improve some other class you play , I’d suggest you to invest into another class and just use your old condi gears on your engy without wasting gold on this class if you are not 100% sure of what you are doing.

I understand that maybe my post might make it seem like I am new to the class. I assure I am not, engineer was my first class, first level 80, all the storylines are done with that character- I am well versed in the class. I have my ascended vipers and zerker sets. I even crafted a set of exotic minstrels. I have leadership runes. I have both HOPE and The Predator. I think my commitment to the class is evident. I do play my thief to keep things fresh, but I consider my engineers (yah I have more than one) to be my main class.

I no longer really care about PvE or sPvP anymore, I consider WvW to be my endgame ganemode, so I am more than willing to spend the gold to experiment. I already stated that I plan on making a set of trailblazers, which is not cheap. I ask the collective knowledge of fellow engineers about celestial since I’ve never made that type of set before, and heard about the nerfs to celestial, so I wondered if people were still playing that type of build.

Hock.6740:

Elite Mortar Kit doesn’t activate Streamlined Kits

Actually it does proc streamlined kits. Try it standing still and you’ll see it create an aoe field around you.

Yeah we’ve wanted this for awhile. I doubt they’ll care enough to change it now.

I’m referring to the old p/s and rifle builds with healing turret/rocket boots/bombkit/toolkit, no grenades.

I’m trying to decide if I should break the bank and get trailblazer gear or save that for another class and just go rabid or celestial on my engi. Dire, for me, doesn’t cut it in WvW. I already have a knights/zerker engi that uses either hammer or rifle.

Is celestial engineer not really a thing anymore? If not, why?

Odokuro.5049:

Would something like this work out? I mean it looks solid to me, but I’m no build expert.

Don’t go over 100% on boon duration- there is an in game cap at 100%, anything above is wasted stats. Other than that, yeah it looks fine.

WvW is really about your personal playstyle- what works for 1 person may not for another. And it even differs b/w classes. For example, I play a staff thief, all zerker in WvW. 14k health, and I do just fine because thief has so many evades and escapes. That’s a death sentence for an engi though, since we have 1, maybe 2 mediocre escapes, thus we need toughness and a little bit of vit to help us tank and sustain fights.

Odokuro.5049:

Dawdler.8521:

Odokuro.5049:

and how would you change the build, drop scrapper and pick up Firearms?

Sure, if you wanna severely cripple your small scale capabilities.

Outside of pure max condi dmg engie, scrapper traitline and skills is the only viable thing for WvW. Yes of course you can use rifle if you want, but as a weapon it’s mediocre. I would only recommend it if you are good with your kit swapping cause the only way you’re gonna win fights is sustain and clever tactics… and for that I dont think your gear is tanky enough.

What would be considered, “Tanky Enough”, should I get a certain amount of Toughness? Maybe Scrapper isn’t my thing, because I’m all for sustain/tanky, but I also don’t want to take far far longer to down someone, ect.

I can live with 2700 toughness myself, it just depends on your comfort. I run knights gear, a mix of trinkets (zerk, marauder, knights), zerk rifle and it suits me okay. I am at 17k health which is kind of low.

Odokuro.5049:

scorekeeper.6524:

It’s pretty much the standard hammer/scrapper build, with small variations in the armor stats. Is there a reason you aren’t using leadership runes?

When I roam, I personally use the rifle, because hammer is easily kited by ranged classes and every class with an escape ability (read: every class that is not called “engineer”). With rifle I can keep reliable pressure on enemies near and far.

I use, Durability Runes, for the Prot/Regen and added Toughness mostly, are Leadership Runes better? I do notice that I get kited, hard, when using Hammer, but have always seen/read or heard, so much hate for our rifle skills, that I am kinda, “Put-off” on using it, although I liked it when I was leveling, do you find good success in it, and how would you change the build, drop scrapper and pick up Firearms?

Leadership gives more boon duration. Durability runes are fine though, the toughness and resistance share is nice, imo. While I believe there are problems with the rifle, it’s still our only consistent ranged weapon for power builds, and in wvw where many classes have the ability to kite and port around, rifle, imo, performs okay and sometimes better than hammer. If I am in a zerg I will run hammer, but solo or with a couple of people I use rifle. The trick with rifle is to know when your opponent cant dodge your abilities. Jump shot is actually pretty powerful if you land it, I’ve crit for 7k before.

The firearms line really is for the Condi build. I would never drop scrapper line in wvw or spvp. Engi really is pigeonholed into taking scrapper and alchemy lines in these game modes, which is unfortunate since we are supposed to be a versatile class. In my rifle build I use the same traitlines as your build, alchemy, inventions, scrapper. My utilities vary, depending on how I feel like playing.

Let’s be honest here- of course the Elite specs are better than their vanilla counterparts because it’s a way to get people to buy HoT. Would anyone buy an expac if your main class was not made better? It’s simple marketing and getting the most sales you can. You think the new expac specs will be worse than the HoT specs? I highly doubt it! Otherwise no one would be interested in trying out the new specs!

Condi engi = viper + a few sinister pieces
Power engi = zerker everything

Check out http://qtfy.eu/build/engineer/ for a starting point.

It’s pretty much the standard hammer/scrapper build, with small variations in the armor stats. Is there a reason you aren’t using leadership runes?

When I roam, I personally use the rifle, because hammer is easily kited by ranged classes and every class with an escape ability (read: every class that is not called “engineer”). With rifle I can keep reliable pressure on enemies near and far.

OP, look up Chrissy Bear on YouTube. He has a good Rifle WvW setup.

Waisenpai.6028:

D/D ele is still not viable in spvp

Everything is viable in lower ranks. Supp ele in low ranks is a waste, since most people don’t know how to take advantage of it OR the ele is bad himself. In low ranks, it really is just pew pew pew.

Eastcorn.5901:

Is the role of damage-dealer in team-fights not a valid role? It is for other PvP games.

In a competitive sense, no. Other classes are more efficient at dealing damage than the engineer, thus they are selected first over the engineer.

What is the point in having so many options to build a character if you can only build them to take one role?

That is a good question and one we can speculate about but can only be answered by Anet devs.

This “one role for each class” type of thinking is what led to stagnation for PvP. Building an entire team based around high-risk damage (with mobility-support builds to match) should just as well be a viable strategy as building a team around durability and defensive posture.

I agree. This game was built on “Play how you want”. Theoretically this is true, but practically not.

Example- a thief can theoretically not use a shortbow in sPvP or WvW. But practically they lose almost all of their mobility and will die because they do not have that weapon. A similar example can be made with the engineer and its kits or the elixir traitline.

I only hope the next set of elite specs promotes more offensive play.

That’s what HoT did funnily enough. I honestly wouldn’t worry too much about future metas though, just worry about current ones. Metas will always change and evolve in spite of what the devs give us.

Vagrant.7206:

My complaint was more evidence of the apathy. I’m not sure why people aren’t perceiving that.

Because it’s easier to attack a person’s character than disprove the actual evidence presented.

Eastcorn.5901:

But I want something with some murder potential.

Then I suggest you play WvW, rather than sPvP, if you’re looking to strictly get kills. In sPvP, a scrapper is best at disrupting the enemy, because the name of the game is point capture and objectives, not who gets the most kills (aka team death match). The class I can kill with the most is the Reaper, but even if you get 15 kills, it means diddly squat if your team can’t hold points.

So you have to ask yourself the question- what is more fun: killing as many enemies as possible, or winning the game?

Tomiyou.3790:

Engineer is very much wanted in endgame cause +150 condition damage buff.

I disagree, but say you’re right for a moment- what does it say about a class and its capabilities if all it is good for is a +150 buff?

But the Hammer build is the offensive build. Are you asking if there are alternative offensive builds?

I mean you don’t have fun singlehandedly dragging 2 or 3 people to their home node and surviving so your team can keep 2 points at all times?

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Maubedo.1742:

I want to do fractals and then WvW and Raids.
I like the DPS and Support roles.

So to clarify what you’re asking for, you want these 6 metas?

• Support for raids
• Dps for raids
• Support for fractals
• Dps for fractals
• Support for WvW
• Dps for WvW

Lol, Flesh, this is the engi class, we don’t have six meta builds.

OP go to http://qtfy.eu/ and check out the engineer builds for PvE content. You’ll find we have two PvE builds, Berserker rifle and Viper Pistols. The metabattle WvW build is the Power Scrapper w/ hammer. These builds will get you started.

In terms of obtaining gear- I crafted my Berserkers and Soldiers gear, and took advantage of the free chests of Ascended gear back in Season 5 PvP to make my Viper’s. You can craft Viper’s but it’s expensive compared to other stat combinations.

And FYI, as of now, we don’t really have a support role. Yes, we can support, but since other classes do it some much better than we can (Ele for example) we’re better off sticking to DPS via direct damage or conditions. Nothing stopping you from supporting thought if you really want to. I made Minstrels gear trying to support…yeah, bad decision!

And welcome back to the Engi friend

Phineas Poe.3018:

I’m honestly relieved that scrapper has been left alone.

Me too, because every time we’re in a patch notes, it’s us getting the nerf bat more often than not.

It’ll be the death of 5v5. Everyone will queue in 2v2 because the queue times will be shorter, the game will be shorter, thus pips/rewards will come quicker. Also psychologically, isn’t it better to have 1 idiot on your team rather than 4? It would also create a very limited meta, with the 2 best classes always being picked.

No, don’t bring class dailies back please anet. You did good by ridding us of thief dailies where I have 4 thieves on my team and no one wants to switch because of MUH DAILIES. In ranked too. So yeah good change.

Yes Papasmurf, if you get Top Team Damage or Team Healing, etc you get an extra pip.

Phineas, I think his point is that if these buffs/nerfs are useless, than why waste time on them at all? He’s right in pointing out that the Devs feel Warrior rifle needs a tweak, yet Engi rifle doesn’t? It’s like they are trolling us on purpose now.

Honestly, it’s so bad now, I’m happy when we aren’t in the patch notes. ’Cause it usually means we are getting nerfed.

Also, it’s sad that there are way more talented/creative people here on the engi forum than the actual people who design the class.

Med kit used to be great. Don’t get rid of it, just make it 10x better than what we’ve got now.

Unless your class is guard, warrior, or necro, no they don’t.

You’d think engi would be a great group/team buffer class, but we’re not. We are a bruiser type class in a game where its a DPS/Support meta as of right now. I echo the above feelings, that engi/scrapper is better in small engagements rather than large ones. That being said, as a bruiser you’re a sustain-bot, thus any good support ele/druid will just stalemate you, any good dps class will eventually get you (provided you don’t disengage to reset properly).

The devs have hardons for guards, warriors, and necros so don’t expect much to change. However, saying all this I love my engis to bits and would play them over any other class, because to me they’re fun. So it’s really just a personal choice buddy.

Yes, we should get a new kit called the Med Kit which allows us to create auras of healing and condi cleanses for our teammates.

yLoon.5289:

1) High sustain and easily disengage from fight, but difficult to defend a point.

Actually we are the best class suited for defending points especially when outnumbered 2 v 1, and in rare cases 1 v 3. Since we are not a broken class like the DH our job is to create havoc at far, hoping our team will take advantage of that. The key is to not die. The more you die the more time the enemy has to kill your teammates rather than focus on dealing with you constantly capping their far. So rotate away when you are getting low, reset, and then head back in. Smart enemies will just let you be, but most people get bloodlust for you which works in your favor (again, assuming your team takes advantage of your position).

2) Which class are we good and bad against?

We can 1 v 1 anyone, except Necro. Their conditions can burst us down pretty quick.

3) Are we just good in capping huge point? I find it hard to defend in a small point.

Learn the trick spots to juke and hide. It’ll frustrate the enemy and help you a lot with survival. If you need help finding some let me know I can show you.

4) Our roles are mainly on ressing and sustain? I find it hard to down a player without anyone’s help.

Use gyro to down people. Down them, press your gyro hotkey and walk away.

5) I felt that Engineer can’t carry a bad team ;(

No class can carry a bad team. Engies can’t even carry good teams though, at least not like a DH or Warrior can. Your way of “carrying” is creating a mess at their home that they constantly have to deal with, taking resources away from capping mid or your home and dealing with you. If you do it right, the enemies swarm to you like flies attracted to a light.

Unless you like long drawn out duels, stick with DH. Or another burst class. Engies are not like the DH at all.

Also, experiment with Menders amulet, the healing will help you vs. Necros. Usually if there is at least 1 Necro or 1 Mesmer on the enemy team I go Menders. Otherwise it’s Paladin for the dmg.

RIP thread, Revelation now has a 18 sec cd. Thank you Anet

insanemaniac.2456:

i dont think revelation will change anything about engi stealth and i think you are just doomsaying.

And I think you’re wrong, but that’s not really new. So I guess we’re done here.