Guild Wars 2

This is maddening that a dev would think this trait worked. I usually side with devs during all the complaining and nerf whining but this is just inexcusable.

Do you even play an Engineer? Have you ever tried this trait?

Tough to defend something like this. That’s pretty sad that a dev actually said that.

Really maddening actually.

Sporadicus.1028:

I agree with Nakoda on this. The 15 second CD gives you a small heal, condition removal, and a 3 second water field.

Also count in the fact that the CD on the toolbelt has been lowered too.

Even if they reduced the initial healing, this turret is better by far.

Miles better. I really wish people would TRY things before they complain about them, eh?

SAME heal, just now half of it goes to our group. Water field is still there (and easier to see!). AOE 2 condition removal with every heal.

Why are people so quick to complain? Oh yeah, we’re Engineers and this game sucks and the devs are morons and don’t know how to make a game.

Mine is Gizmo Gigawatt

Lupanic.6502:

Toolkit has a gear schield blocking damage. You can equip toolkit use the gear shield and switch back to your weapon and start shooting while still blocking.
Blocking for 3 sec. Maybe it was something like that.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Gear_Shield

I think most of this thread covers the mystery of bunker Engineers but I just wanted to clear this up. Static Shield is what continues blocking while you use other skills. Gear Shield must be channeled.

That’s T2 shoulders, which look better than T3 would IMO. Cool outfit I like those Peacemaker pistols (also name reminds of a Colt Peacemaker which is awesome). I appreciate a good mix up of different armor sets to make a unique look.

Spracket.9604:

I dont understand why every engineer isnt using the SE set.

That set is my favorite, especially the helm. Fallout FTW! Too bad the rest looks weird on an Asura. I used it up until I got my cultural.

Scootabuser.4915:

The big problem is that, although engis have a great vuln build that is one of the most desired party slots in high-end PvE, if you have 2 engis in the party, the engi doesn’t have any way of bringing competitive DPS, offensive buffs, or defensive buffs to the table.

This perpetuates the negative stereotypes of Engineers. This suggests that the only viable build is a Grenadier and that no other build can bring anything the Grenadier can’t. That’s silly.

Welswift.9813:

Static Discharge is not, by any means, deserving to be nerfed. It requires skill, it lacks durability, and it is basically comparable in every way to a warrior’s kill-shot, at a more limited range.

How? Kill Shot is a high damage shot that takes a long time to charge up. Static discharge has no animation and is used automatically with our toolbelt skills, and it bounces from target to target. I would argue it takes way more skill to pull of a Kill Shot.

As to the topic of the thread… I don’t think anything is getting nerfed. I like the term I saw used before “nerf mongering”. Sometimes I think some of the Engineer community just wants something to complain about.

I have a few pieces of Soldier’s for WvW and/or tanky builds. I also have a few pieces of and really like the “NA/Rabid” configuration that gives Condition damage/Vitality/Toughness on top and Rabid stats on bottom.

I love the shield. I think it is one of the most powerful weapons in the game, especially considering it has just 2 skills. One skill gives you a reflect, knockback, and blast finisher. The other gives you a long daze with 2 interrupts, block (which you can use while you do other things!!!), stun, and projectile finisher. I don’t think you can find 2 other weapon skills in the game that give you that much utility. This is the reason I am choosing to make Flameseeker Prophecies as my legendary.

If I could equip two shields I would!

No ty, I think this would eliminate almost all the choice required to make a build. TAKE ALL THE SKILLS

My issue with it is that it looks like you added up all the skills for DPS, even though you can’t use them all at once or even the instant each one is available. This is what a rotation is for. Also you do not take into account flight time, and you’re assuming all 3 grenades are hitting every time. Any grenadier can tell you this is not realistic.

I never understood using spreadsheet work to figure out DPS. It’s usually not something you can calculate easily, it’s something you go and test. I don’t mean to devalue anything you’ve done and I am not even saying I could do better, maybe I just don’t fully understand what you’ve done here.

You have told us that you calculated it using the damage formula, but nothing further than that so it leaves me with a lot more questions than answers. What rotation were you using? Against what armor level is this? What does “4” mean for cooldown of rocket turret and how on earth is it contributing 200 DPS by itself?

Would you mind explaining how you calculated these? It looks as if you added up the damage of each skill and say that’s the DPS.

Decided to spend some of my legendary savings on t3 armor since I wanted it anyways.

Charcoal, Matte, and Adobe Sunset. I’m an Anaheim Ducks fan

Skewjo.9243:

You were also considering dropping Formula 409, but I believe the elixir gun 5(the healing light field thingy) is considered an elixir and will remove a condition – I’m not sure if this is from 409 or another trait that I missed.. (The EG 4 is considered an elixir but WILL NOT remove a condition.

This is part of what Super Elixir does, not anything to do with 409 or any other trait. It’s not on the tooltip for some reason so I can see the confusion, but none of the Elixir Gun skills are considered “elixirs” (even though they’re named as such… again confusing).

I agree on the Sigil of Life though… drop that and get a weapon swap sigil.

If you want AOE, then grenades and/or bombs are the way to go. Bombs are better survivability because of the smoke bomb, or you can just kite in a circle while the mobs follow you and get hit by all the bombs. Grenades are more damage and range, but also more annoying to use for some people and they don’t have the utility that bombs do. With that said I used Grenades for the majority of my levels up to 80.

Bomb Kit + Elixir Gun is also good combo for leveling. Elixir Gun keeps you healed and you can drop Acid Bomb after a Glue Bomb for a lot of quick AOE damage. Plus mobs almost always run up to you, so bomb kit works naturally for that.

Protip: If you press the weapon swap button right after Acid Bomb fires you can stop yourself in mid air. You will get the message “you cannot drop a kit in mid air” but it will stop you from flying backwards much at all, allowing you to continue dropping bombs without having to run back to the enemy. This is great if you don’t want to use Glue Bomb or it is on cooldown, keeps all the mobs right in your Acid Bomb quite nicely.

Healing skills are different than toolbelt skills. There is a trait for each, and if you have both slotted then both would reset. I’m not quite sure what the confusion is, did you have another question about how they work?

I don’t… I just… wow.

I can’t figure out what half of this post means but it’s full of win.

New motto: I died. Don’t worry, I rallied.

Like NevirSayDie, I think a bunker bomb build is very good with a rifle.

Cleric’s gear with Elixir Infused Bombs goes a long way. It synergizes well with rifle because of the power you will have. It has great survivability especially if you grab Tool Kit or Elixir Gun (Elixir S will have great value with your high healing power). Though the survivability may be just a notch below Ele/Guard like NevirSayDie mentions, I think it makes up for that in the ability to control the node itself. Meaning if they are on the node they have no choice but to eat every single one of your bombs. If they are off the node, you have it controlled and you can still survive quite a long time if they just want to try to kill you from range. Rifle is also great at keeping them outside the node if they try and get in. Net Shot after Big Ol Bomb, or Overcharged Shot will keep them stuck outside the node while you cap.

Something like this would be a great place to start I think. Tons of healing and dodging, and if you time it right even a way to quickly get back up on the off chance you do go down. Just something I threw together, could go more into Alchemy if you were so inclined.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQFAUlsp6ZX3ShF1bJxoCdO0jCjf1CqQeFVI/fKIXA;TgAgzCmo2xsjYH7Oudk7A

Nope I’m not wrong, and kokocabana is right that not everything is about what would happen if HGH Engineer vs. Turret Engineer. That’s a ridiculous way to compare two builds, and the fact that you want to compare them this way takes some of your credibility away for me.

He’s also right that there’s no point arguing with you. You have your mind made up, and in my opinion it’s your loss.

Ah yes, forgot the +20% elixir duration trait, gg. I’m not convinced that alone is enough for perma retaliation, but it’s pretty close. I bet an HGH build could be pretty easily tweaked to also keep 100% uptime on retaliation. That sounds pretty nasty right there.

Thanks Mask for bringing that up.

I think you definitely could, I don’t know how much your build would be handicapped just to bring the blast finishers you need but you probably could do it.

Elixir B = 13s every 32s with proper traits (30 in Alchemy, -20% CD)
Jump Shot + Healing Turret > Detonate + Acid Bomb inside Super Elixir’s light field = Another 11.7s every 20s.

Plus the chance from Toss Elixir B, and the trait Seras mentioned. Can get some more +boon duration from runes, and Rune of Sanctuary gives additional chance for retaliation.

I think you could, and looking at the skills you could use (Elixir B, Elixir Gun, Healing Turret) it doesn’t seem like you would be handicapped too much there, those are solid skills with an extra slot for stun breaker available. Traits might be worse since you have to take armor mods as well as likely go 30 into Alchemy, but overall it’s possible. I’m sure someone out there could make a usable version of this build and I would be interested to see how well it works.

kokocabana.8153:

ManCaptain.3154:

kokocabana.8153:

Any build is viable so long as you know how to use it properly

This is so wrong.

Based on what? It’s viable because you saw it on a youtube video and decided to copy it? I don’t run grenades, bombs, or all elixirs with HGH and I have no problems in WvW or PVE. What should matter is if you can take down the other guy or boss.

Agreed. Some people just can’t see past the FOTM builds to make their own.

Non-Elixir builds are viable.
Non-Kit builds are viable.
Turret builds are viable.

I wouldn’t say any build you can make is viable, not as if that is unique to the Engineer anyways that’s part of the game, but you don’t need X skill or X trait to be “viable” — whatever twisting that word has gone through to mean.

If all ManCaptain is saying is that you can’t just throw together any combination of skills and traits well I completely agree with that, it’s just not a revolutionary statement. That’s part of how the game is designed.

Agreed. Sometimes you can work around that specific targeting problem but it shouldn’t need to be worked around, it should be fixed.

ManCaptain.3154:

Full elixir build without kits is viable. Everything else isn’t.

Don’t listen to this. Go look at some of the threads about turret builds, those can work well.

In b4 the QQ

It’s definitely the most fun for me. I have not been able to get an alt above level 10 before I’m dying to come back to my Engineer.

I’m sure if you asked all 8 profession forums what the best profession was you’d get at least 5 different answers. Asking what “the best” profession is is not a meaningful question. Are you looking for a specific area of the game? A specific play style?

It sounds like you already answered your question when you say you really like the Engineer. Play it.

Dimes.7281:

Elixir H doesn’t heal for as much as our other healing abilities because it also gives you a random boon.

This is not true. Elixir H is the most healing we have in one skill. I will sometimes slot it for this reason alone, when I need the most healing I can possibly get and don’t have time to run through Bandages or fiddle with the Healing Turret water field.

The boon is a welcome bonus on top of the best healing. By Tossing the elixir as well as drinking it normally means you are likely to get protection.

They definitely should prioritize our target. With that said, using turrets in my build recently, I have some pointers.

They do not target “yellow” mobs unless you turn the “red”. Those that are not aggressive naturally. You can place them right next to these and they won’t do anything. They target the closest aggressive monster to them, even if you have not yet pulled it.

For this reason I have been having success without using the Deployable Turrets trait. With a bit of practice, you can reliably predict what the turrets are going to target when you drop them at your feet. It’s simply the closest target to you. Sometimes this takes some extra maneuvering, but you can definitely get to a point where you’re getting turrets to target what you want.

Work with them, not against them. Knowing their behavior helps a lot, because they are unable to react to you so you are left to react to them.

nakoda.4213:

Penguin.5197:

You know what would help? If the engie’s favorite game designer and awesome all around engie * wink wink Tyler Bearce ;D * was able to define what they mean by versatility. Does it mean choosing skills before battle, during battle or some other time?

Its questions like those that keep me up at night. Apparently it does for Tyler too, this guy always posts here around midnight pst lol

he’s probably one of those pimp-kitten devs who shows up for work at, like, 2330, and then logs on to pwn some nubs while his code compiles, code which he hammered out on his android while riding in the back of his charr-chauffered bentley complete with asuran chicks pouring drinks while on the way to the office.

This… this… so much this haha.

Tyler we need you to record and upload a day at the office to YouTube. Make it happen. Thanks.

Versatility. I don’t believe this is at a cost of being “jack of all trades master of none” either. As Forestnator said we’re dominant at condition spamming, even if you don’t go the flavor of the month HGH build.

It’s great going into a fight and being able to react to anything. Tool Kit alone allows you to pull someone to you, cripple them and kite them, confuse them if they’re trying to spike you, or block any big hits coming your way. We have great survivability, CC, and even condition removal if specced for it all while pumping out some of the best condition damage in the game.

Reflects vs ranged, condition clear vs condition spammers, blocks/invulnerable vs spikers, CC for anything else is all relatively easy to put in 1 build and still focus on whatever else you want. I don’t know if other professions can do that.

I think Engineers can be quite efficient, but I get what you’re saying. It takes us a lot of button clicks to do what other professions can do quite easily.

I also wholeheartedly agree about the gadgets being underwhelming. I love the idea of gadgets, but they’re just not good enough to use. Some say they made an Engineer because of the kits, or turrets, but I really liked the gadgets. I hope they get some upgrades in the future.

Dimes.7281:

Adamantium.3682:

nakoda.4213:

our kit swapping is already inherently better than weapon swapping because it is instant. we carry up to 4 weapons without inventory space. this costs us in terms of a utility slot, and is (marginally, I agree) compensated by the tool belt.

we are in no way suffering from lack of options during combat.

That assumes all kit skills are on par with weapon skills which is very obviously not the case.

Maybe that’s because the designer’s intent was to center our class around versatility and not efficiency.

The two are not mutually exclusive, in fact I would say almost dependent on one another. If you are versatile, you are efficient in the way you engage combat.

nakoda.4213:

our kit swapping is already inherently better than weapon swapping because it is instant. we carry up to 4 weapons without inventory space. this costs us in terms of a utility slot, and is (marginally, I agree) compensated by the tool belt.

we are in no way suffering from lack of options during combat.

That assumes all kit skills are on par with weapon skills which is very obviously not the case.

Tyler Bearce.3427:

I’ll try to respond to some of the comments since my last post…

…

Kit Refinement works in my build for a couple of reasons. First, I’m often bunkering a point. So my refinement is cooling down while I’m waiting for an opponent to show up, unless I’m preemptively dropping bandages and antidotes. It depends on who I expect to show up. The other reason is because my fights tend to last a long time, so even if it isn’t off cooldown at the very beginning of the fight, I’ll often still get multiple uses out of it before I fight is concluded.

…

Thank you for the reply Tyler, I feared we would never see you again! I can understand that this might be a good place to use the new Kit Refinement, but what about multi kit builds that actively swap between kits all the time? Those are widely viewed as very fun builds, regardless of what the flavor of the month is. Is the new KR simply not meant for those builds? If true it would seem counter intuitive that a trait benefitting the swapping of kits penalizes you for doing it a lot. Penalize meaning you can never know what effect you’re actually going to get so you can’t plan for it, making the trait annoying and hardly worth taking. As much as I don’t like comparing to other profession skills and abilities, it’s hard not to look at all the goodies Elementalists can get when attunement swapping.

I appreciate you telling us your experience. You pvp more than I do, and although we may disagree on KR, contrary to what some would like to believe it looks like you do know how the Engineer works and it is heartening that we have someone “in our corner”. I have been using turrets more lately, and aside from the AI on them on the way the overcharges don’t work instantly, I really like them. Like most people I have certain concerns about them but specifically about cooldowns I have an idea.

Cooldowns are pretty bad on Rocket/Thumper, I think a good idea might be to look into either lowering those or changing the toolbelt skill you get to something less potent and on a smaller cooldown. It is frustrating to not only have a turret unavailable for nearly a minute after it dies (a lot), but also the toolbelt skills unavailable for nearly a minute as well. I think all toolbelt skills should be balanced similar to Surprise Shot from Rifle Turret. Doesn’t hit hard, low cooldown, something to use when you don’t want to waste laying Rifle Turret or it just died. To be completely honest I don’t think Rocket or Shockwave are that great, but if that means Rocket doesn’t do AOE or has less damage, or Shockwave isn’t a blast finisher (we have plenty already) then so be it. I think that is more to the spirit of what the toolbelt skills were introduced for, something to actively use while your turret is gone. Just my two cents.

Looks fun, just yesterday I bought a good condition set of gear so I could try my turret build. I may take some pointers from this one, thanks for sharing.

Chaotic Storm.2815:

I’v even had a few times someone put their own char between me and the boss to take a few range blasts off me while I recover.

I love the projectiles in this game for this reason among others. What’s really nice is we can do Static Shield and then start reviving someone. We’ll still have the 3s block going while we’re channeling the revive.

I have never been kicked from a group for not being an Engineer. I have only not been invited once (oddly enough the only time I can ever remember even being asked what my profession was before invite), but I found another group that went smoothly a couple minutes later.

Avoid groups that spam “lfm, need ____”, and if you get booted for being an Engineer you probably didn’t want to be in that group anyways. I mean it. In my experience those groups are worse (and take longer to form) than groups that understand this game is not built around the healer/tank/dps trinity.

For some people that is really hard to let go of so they always make sure they have an Ele, or at least a heavy and high dps, etc. They’re just handicapping themselves.

Player > Profession

Open on Blackgate now

This is why I was saying Coated Bullets is good in the other thread You’re getting an insane amount of hits, more than a FT easily (just as good at the very least, but from much better distance and no “miss” problems), into a group of enemies. Tons of chances for any crit proc gear, which synergizes very well with that trait. Plus the bleeds that come with the #1 skill, but even if you don’t count those you can get tons of burns (Incendiary Powder), more bleeds (Sigil of Earth, Sharpshooter), life steal (Sigil of Blood, food), Flame Blast for tons of AOE goodness (Sigil of Fire), and so much more.

Well both, I agree Coated Bullets isn’t as game changing as other GM traits but it’s a solid trait that make #1 and #2 on pistol very good. That annoying spread on Poison Dart Volley actually becomes a fantastic way to spread poison around.

Plus, it’s not like you’re wasting points in Firearms just to get that trait, you get good stats, minor traits, and other trait choices for going up to Coated Bullets.

waka.9826:

Coated bullets is kitten because pistol is an kitten main hand weapon.

I’m guessing this is sarcasm but you shouldn’t mislead new players like this.

I agree calculating the precise effect of Might stacks is near impossible, but the Earth vs Geomancy (you know, the actual point of this thread) is legitimate and makes for a tough decision in some builds.

I am going to change my HGH might stacking build soon. Just getting bored with it. Going to go with a condition build that doesn’t require 30 Alchemy.

While looking for the gear I’ll need I have done the Earth vs Geomancy calculations like you have and come to similar conclusions. I had decided on Earth partly because of that awesome 2s cooldown (I thought it was 5s) and partly because I am planning on keeping my distance with this new build, so it was kind of a no brainer. However it’s also going to have Coated Bullets for tons of AOE damage so it might be worth getting close just to proc Geomancy… Hmm. Wasn’t going to use a kit though.

I’ll have to think of it more now!

RaynStargaze.6510:

Tyler Bearce.3427:

Thanatos.2431:

Hows that invisible cooldown on kit refinement treated ya? I think your the last engi to still have it…..

It’s not perfect, but it opens up some interesting play possibilities, especially while stunned. I don’t have a stunbreaker in this build, but I can still swap kits while stunned, which allows me to pop a clutch magnetic aura while being pelted with projectiles, or a magnet bomb to interrupt a melee spike.

^oh rly? so you just sit there and never use medkit or bombkit until you get stunned?

pro strat!

I wonder why we never get Devs to comment here.

I agree on the trait distribution. It’s madness. On top of that, the Grandmaster trait only gives +15% damage? For investing 30 points into? Don’t forget that stat boosts that just give a flat % boost to damage affect only direct damage. This synergizes very poorly with our turrets because they don’t even use our power, only our condition damage. That trait needs way more to it for me to even consider using it.

I’ve been trying turrets a bit more lately, but I usually emphasize my main weapon and use the other 3 good turret traits (Explosives IX, Inventions III, and Tools V). The little bit I have played with it I like this because I’m not totally dependent on my turrets but they aren’t just an afterthought either.

Just saw this thread as I’m on my way out the door, but as I post here I’ll be able to find it later to comment on that video! Thanks for posting.

Tyler Bearce.3427:

Yeah, separate cooldowns was on the table, but it put the trait into the a little too powerful category. It’s entirely possible that we’ll revisit this trait again at some point, but for now that’s why it is the way it is.

This bums me out, I disagree but you’ve got the trump card as the developer. I don’t at all think a 2-3s aura, or 3s of Super Speed is at all overpowered once every 20s assuming perfect timing.

Thanks for staying up late to discuss this with me anyhow. I would appreciate that with any poster but being a developer makes it extra nice, so thanks for at least sharing your thoughts. Hey, I’m moving to Seattle in June maybe I can come convince you. (On a serious note visiting your HQ would be amazingly awesome)

It’s not about synergy with Speedy Kits though, it’s just about being able to reliably predict when the effect will proc and when it will not. If I haven’t used Med Kit in about 20s I should know without a doubt that when I do use it I will get Magnetic Shield. Currently I do not because I was also using Bomb Kit, or Tool Kit, or swapping between FT and Elixir Gun. It’s impossible to keep track of when the last effect fired and also be able to predict when the next one will fire unless you are drastically reducing the amount you swap kits, which brings me back to that being against the spirit of the Engineer.

I’m glad to hear you don’t want it to feel random, but unfortunately that’s exactly what it currently does for most players that I have heard from. I think simply making each effect on its own cooldown, even if you want to keep it 20s which I think is a little long, would do wonders for this. Was this on the table at any point, or is it now?

I think most of us understand and agree that it was too powerful, and the new power level I think is great. The problem is the predictability. If you are actively swapping kits you can never know which effect you’re going to get because of the global cooldown. Is this something that you wanted for this trait, for it to be a random benefit? I hope not, as it sounds like you intended for it — and you personally use it — for the specific effects at specific times depending on strategy.

I totally agree about KR. I love the new effects (mostly), but a 20s global cooldown makes them completely unreliable. I would love it if each had an individual cooldown, it would be so much more user friendly.

Ideally I can see how the reflects can be nice, but it’s just not predictable when it shares a cooldown. I feel like to have them be predictable, you would only have to swap kits once every 20s+ so you know every swap gets the effect. Isn’t that kind of against the spirit of kit builds and Engineers in general? What do you think Tyler?

Whoa! Cool, a Dev that plays an Engineer!

That looks… frustrating to play against for lack of a better word. Not much for damage, but unless you run into someone with oodles of Stability I can’t imagine that build being much fun to play against at all.