Guild Wars 2

Bumping for a point regarding Engineers with Hammers:

Everything that has a ‘Reflects Projectiles’ tag is completely untouchable if the Engineer fighting it hasn’t got a particular set of utility skills.

This is kitten stupid.

Further explanation: The prevalence of enemies with Reflects Projectiles – Earth Elementals, Mesmers of all types, anything with an attack that reflects projectiles – leads to an Engineer causing themselves a positively ludicrous amount of damage, or being completely incapable of fighting for a while – and, of course, if they haven’t turned off lock-on or autoattack, they’ll have to manually stop attacking.

What spurs this point is, in fact, an encounter with an Ascalonian Mesmer, who could put up a Reflect bubble within a few seconds of the previous Reflect bubble dropping. Every single other class in the game has some melee capability that does not stem from their utility skills, attacks that simply don’t count as projectiles, or the ability to switch weapons (and if they have two ranged weapons equipped, at least that’s the choice they made, as opposed to being “Well, that’s what we’ve got, if we don’t use kits.”). They don’t have to sacrifice utility slots to just manage to not hurt themselves.

I’m beginning to work on a similar build, using 20/10/30/0/10 for traits, Healing/Flame/Rifle/Rocket Turrets, with a combination of Rampager, Carrion, Valkyrie and Cleric gear – now that the Healing Turret scales with the player, I want to actually get some oomph into my Healing Power.

Chickenshoes.6250:

Toolbox.9375:

Anymras.5729:

As somebody who uses turrets more often than not (and has, in fact, gone back to a full-turret build after the scaling addition), I have to disagree on them not being worth it. They’re useful, if you know how to use them.

Also: For people who don’t use kits, the shield trait is great.

How do you use them, then? I made an Engin- Heck, I BOUGHT THE GAME for the turrets, and I haven’t been able to find out a way to make them useful against anything but vastly under-leveled PvE content, nevermind WvW or PvP. I want to use turrets so badly, but can’t seem to do so. Are there any tricks you could offer?

Well, actually net turret is the only decent turret for WvW. It doesn’t do damage or need to last long so it’s perfect. I use the toolbelt net, then drop the turret for the next net, then overcharge for 2 more nets that stun. It’s pretty useful.

I also place the net turret around corners and behind objects to surprise and trap enemies. It works nicely against enemies coming through doorways. Their goal is to rush you or push in so their group can push in as well, but then they get rooted and screwed. I also place them behind objects in camps and wait or bait some enemies in.

Net turrets placed defensively with your siege helps against pesky thieves and people suicide-rushing it.

Well, disclaimer: I typically play non-Dungeon PvE (Turrets get obliterated by a hard look in dungeons). Anyway, on to how I use them:

Aggressively, oddly enough. I tend to hurl my Rocket Turret to a position where it’ll have a decent chance of hitting the enemy, even while I’m charging toward the target (or I chuck it somewhere high to keep it marginally safer). Then, when I’m about to draw even to the Rocket Turret’s position, I plant my Rifle, and my Flame follows when I’m at close range. Healing Turret as necessary (detonating after placement for combo AoE Heal effect), Overcharge everything, except the Healing Turret, and don’t be shy about detonating them – when traited, the blast deals a surprising bit of damage, and knocks enemies around. And, of course, be liberal with your Toolbelt skills.

Warning: Using a full set of Turrets is going to get you all the PvE aggro. Just freakin’ all of it. Even, apparently, when you haven’t got any of them out or done anything – yesterday, I was in Metrica, doing the Champion Steam Ogre battle with some randoms, and while I was in the middle of typing, the thing ignored everyone else, who were hitting it, and went for me before I even realized it was there.

coglin.1496:

Anymras.5729:

I don’t assume that we are the only profession with bugs -

Then why do you constantly use it as a justification in your claim that we are underpowered? If your aware that every profession has bugs, why does having bugs make us underpowered?

Anymras.5729:

we have the only dedicated bug-list page on the wiki (fun fact: there used to be another, the other one belonging to the Ranger, wherein such things as ‘Ricochet hits neutral/yellow enemies’ was cited as a bug, but it has since disappeared). This might just mean that they’ve finally gotten around to fixing our bugs, or that for one reason or another nobody’s bothered to make a bug list page on the wiki for the Engineer.

Yes, I am well aware of the engineer wiki bug page. You know why. Because I started it, personally. I remember spending lots of time explaining to people that we did not have more or less bugs then any other class, but a lot of unknowledgable folks claimed it as a sign that Anet was aware that we have more bugs or something, which is not true. There are several wiki pages I created myself in the wiki. There is much much more that I update when changes occur. The wiki is not an encyclopedia. It is user posted information. Thus exposed to said users errors.

Did you think Anet maintains that? That they have a rep who does that as a job aspect? Did you think a magic wiki fairy does it?

The Official Guild Wars 2 Wiki is an online, public collaboration of information centering around ArenaNet’s upcoming online roleplaying game, Guild Wars 2. All information contained on this website is provided by the voluntary efforts of individual players and groups working to develop a comprehensive information resource for all Guild Wars fans to use and enjoy.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Guild_Wars_2_Wiki:General_disclaimer

Well, then, congratulations on taking the initiative to do something that, apparently, no other person did (except the person who started that short-lived Ranger bug page).

As for your first comment…did you finish reading the post? I don’t think you did, as you felt the need to say that.

I’m not going to debate whether bugs make a class underpowered – for reasons that will be clear if you can bring yourself to read the last two or three lines of text in my previous post.

It’ll still be my opinion that we’re not balanced to the same level as the rest of the professions, however, for the rest of the reasons I point out in the post before that. I’m not debating those, either.

coglin.1496:

Anymras.5729:

We’re still afflicted with decreased damage (as a ‘hybrid tax’ for our ephemeral versatility), bugged traits and skills, an excessively hit-or-miss class mechanic, RNG skills, overly restrictive weapon choice (because we’re all supposed to use kits, probably), and when they get things working that they’ve meant to get working from the start, they nerf us for it.

On the bright side, I suppose, we’ve finally started getting bugfixes.

One thing you and others seem to assume when you state it like this, is that we are the only profession with bugs. This “oh our class has bugs” excuse is so unreasonable it makes it hard to take you seriously here. If you are so unknowledgable about the game as a whole that you think our profession carries the bulk of the bugs, then there is no help for you.

I don’t assume that we are the only profession with bugs – I do notice, though, that we have more bugfixes (not counting tooltip corrections) in the 28th’s patch than any other profession (even counting ones that’re possibly just rebalances), and that we have the only dedicated bug-list page on the wiki (fun fact: there used to be another, the other one belonging to the Ranger, wherein such things as ‘Ricochet hits neutral/yellow enemies’ was cited as a bug, but it has since disappeared). This might just mean that they’ve finally gotten around to fixing our bugs, or that for one reason or another nobody’s bothered to make a bug list page on the wiki for the Engineer.

Granted, bugs aren’t something that makes a class underpowered, so I suppose that I shouldn’t have cited them in the initial post. We just happen to have so many, with so few getting fixed, that it’s easy to forget that that’s not how they’re supposed to work.

coglin.1496:

Anymras.5729:

I’m looking forward to when they finally fix the Engineer to bring it more into line with the other classes. If you’re good with the class now, and it really is possible to do some crazy-seeming things with it as it is, when they make it better, it’ll be hilarious.

it is not even as close to being out of line with other classes as you often try to paint them in my opinion. You have made comparisons to warriors in the past. Comparing rifles, and comparing shouts to elixirs. Yet most people who have played both through 80 learned that warriors are only OPish in PvE. You get them in WvW or sPvP, and any competent engineer is at even odds.

Have I? I remember comparing the Engineer to the Elementalist (especially after playing as one for a little while), but I don’t recall doing much comparing to the Warrior. Well, aside from possibly comparing turrets to the banners.

In the end, my opinion will remain that the Engineer isn’t balanced on the same level as the other classes – until such time, of course, as we are.

We’re still afflicted with decreased damage (as a ‘hybrid tax’ for our ephemeral versatility), bugged traits and skills, an excessively hit-or-miss class mechanic, RNG skills, overly restrictive weapon choice (because we’re all supposed to use kits, probably), and when they get things working that they’ve meant to get working from the start, they nerf us for it.

On the bright side, I suppose, we’ve finally started getting bugfixes.

I dunno, that magnetic field has saved my Asura bacon quite a few times, and whether Static Shield gets reworked or not (probably to eliminate the “You can attack while blocking” thing), I find it handy to have a secondary block, especially one I can use while moving. I’ve done better with those two bits of defensive capability than I have with dual pistols, a rifle, or any kit that I’ve tried (and I’ve tried them all).
Magnetic Shield, in particular, has seen me through a couple Group Event champion fights, defused the initial salvo of a Young Karka horde (with the added bonus of dealing massive amounts of damage using their own attacks), and even helped me clear some much-needed space.

As for it scaling on character height…honestly, I don’t see a problem with that. It only reflects direct damage projectile attacks to begin with, doing nothing to AoEs or melee – what’s wrong with it scaling to fit the character?

Rfreak.6591:

Usually alchemy, tools, explosives and even firearms can provide useful but I consider inventions the one that lacks the most, not only it doesn’t provide synergy with most builds, but it is clearly focused on turrets even thought atm they are only worth for the explosive trait and rifle turret’s toolbelt.

Besides… the only reason I’d delve 30 points deep in inventions is stats, especially the minor trait that turns 10%healing->power easily combined with 5% toughness->power but nothing more really, even the shield trait is sub-par especially because kits won’t retain those bonuses.

As somebody who uses turrets more often than not (and has, in fact, gone back to a full-turret build after the scaling addition), I have to disagree on them not being worth it. They’re useful, if you know how to use them.

Also: For people who don’t use kits, the shield trait is great.

Inventions gives you Toughness and Healing Power. Both very handy for whatever build you happen to be running – unless you’re a glass cannon, I suppose.

Although, don’t expect turrets to do much in dungeons until/unless they get further buffed. I’ve had eight turrets down at once, and watched every single one get AoE’d away by a single mook (Fern Hound-lookin’-thing in Twilight Arbor, for the curious). You can still make it work, especially if you’re trying to protect an NPC or objective, but you’ll have to play hell and high water to do it.

That would be pretty handy, definitely. I think the Kit Refinement on Elixir Gun works as a stunbreaker (via the condition removal), but having to trait into it makes it more of a pain than it might be worth, depending on the build.

Come to think of it, probably should’ve included a stunbreaker in the Turrets-as-Kits bit. Hm. Not sure where it’d fit, so I’ll let somebody else do that, if they want.

coglin.1496:

I think that the base direct damage of explosive shot should be doubled.

I feel that we need A LOT more damage out of our shield skills.

Elixir C, in my opinion should be 30s not 40s.

Picking up turrets resets their CD to 0 except for healing turret

At least one kit needs a stun breaker. Kits are the only utility sets we have with no stun breaker on any of them. I would like to see Elixir Gun #4 skill get a stun breaker and Tool kit #2 a stun breaker.

Turrets also lack a stunbreaker, though a few of their skills can be used while stunned (Surprise Shot and Detonate Turret, for certain, though I don’t recall whether Overcharges can).

I kinda think they should add secondary effects to Turret toolbelts, like a stunbreaker on Shockwave (with a lowered cooldown) or Surprise Shot (with an increased cooldown).

Here’s my opinion (Warning: As a Turret Engineer, I’m mostly giving suggestions about Turrets):

• Not all skills are Kits. Don’t reduce the damage of a class because of a set of Utility skills, especially if there’s another class who can access four weapon skill bars and not take the same penalty, or use their Utility skill slots to get them.
• Make Turrets scale to all stats – the addition of Healing Power, Condition Duration, Condition Damage and Boon Duration to the Turrets makes them much more viable, but only the ones that inflict conditions or grant boons.
• Make Turrets more mobile. There’s a multitude of threads on the subject for consideration, ranging from letting them be picked up like Banners to letting them fly, roll or otherwise locomote.
• Turrets need a cooldown-reduction trait. Maybe add it to Autotool Installation, as AuI is basically useless in any situation where your turrets get attention – sometimes they’re not out for ten seconds to begin with, or Metal-Plated Turrets, which doesn’t do much at all. AuI needs a tune-up, besides.
• Turret AI needs work. Also, it’d be nice to be able to designate targets for them – possibly using the Mark Target command, or a version thereof.
• Toolbelt skills, in general, need redesigned – if the cooldowns stay as long as they are, they need to give more effects. If cooldowns were much, much lower, these skills might actually be useful. Turrets, of course, seem to get the short end of the cooldown stick with some long kitten cooldowns for little effect.

I hadn’t actually considered it from a graphic standpoint. It amuses me far too much to imagine the person picking up the turret just straight-up lifting the thing and running with it, though.

I think it should be a combination, I guess. Pick up the Rifle turret, for example, could be: grab a handle on the top as you run by, tripod folds up and whole thing is held under one arm, using the handle to control it and the crank in the back to make it fire.

Rocket Turret could be lifted up onto the shoulder, probably with tripod still attached (using it as the handle?).

Flame Turret and Healing Turret would both involve yanking out the guts of the Turret to reveal a hidden weapon similar to the Elixir Gun or Flamethrower, with the business end being the cap of the Turrets.

Net Turret should probably be about like the Rocket Turret – pick the thing up, perch it on a shoulder, hold it steady with one hand while working it with the other.

Thumper Turret would be pretty much just picking the whole thing up and running at enemies with it, business end first, though. Too hilarious not to.

As for Mortar, probably hold it like a bazooka.

Don’t take this idea too seriously – part of it’s to address the lack of turret mobility, and part of it’s going “Argh, kittening kits, why is the class built around a specific set of Utility skills? More things should be usable as kits, if they’re going to be emphasized so heavily.”

Juggernaut won’t stack with Reinforced Shield – simple matter of not having both equipped at once.

Now that the patch has given turrets a little scaling to stats, Condition Damage builds are lookin’ like they’d be nicely complimented by a turret.

If and/or when they let turrets scale to everything (including, possibly, Vitality and Toughness, though it honestly wouldn’t be so bad if they’d just deal decent damage, so at least scaling with Power and Precision), that’ll make them able to fit into every build, and maybe even make them a mainstay of the Engineer class overall.

Well, that, and maybe if we get lucky they’ll make the toolbelts better. Maybe have Shockwave (with a shorter cooldown, for kitten’s sake) or Surprise Shot (with a longer cooldown, or else it’d be ridiculous) be a stunbreaker, maybe make Throw Napalm or Rocket strip boons…just generally give them useful secondary effects that make them worth the long kitten cooldowns. Or just, y’know. Reduce the length of the cooldowns on both turrets and toolbelts.

I like the idea that others have proposed, which involves making the Mortar act like other Turrets, the regular attack being a long-range shot with a long cycle, and maybe the overcharge being the rain of concussion blasts. Of course, I also wish the Mortar wouldn’t vanish after two minutes, instead being treated as just a very powerful, very slow, regular turret – but I doubt that’ll ever happen.

The intent was mostly to get some kind of mobility, especially, out of turrets, without disabling the user during moving them or making them overpowered; maybe it’s not the best idea, but it’s at least something.

When using Pistol and Shield, no attack power is lost, was the point of the thing I tested. Think you’ll lose some attack using Rifle, due to the way it was implemented.

Something that might get missed, as it’s sort of an odd interaction: Turrets do scale with Power, but only if it’s gained from the Explosives trait. Used to have the same interaction with the stats they can use now, too (except for Condition Duration, I think), but now that’s moot.

I seriously agree, though – I like Turrets more than any of the other skills the Engineer has, and have actually dropped back to using my full Turret setup after the patch allowed Condition Damage, Healing Power, Boon and Condition Duration to affect my Turrets.

I think they should scale with all relevant stats, though to a reduced degree (it would be kind of bullkitten for one person to be able to have three extra sources of damage that could take just as much damage as they could, or more, in my opinion, whether they’re immobile or not), and I’d like to be able to pick them up and use them like a Warrior can use a Banner (as a weapon, of course – details are here, if anyone’s interested: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/Turrets-as-Kits-Skill-Suggestion-Thread/).

I think that particular quirk/thing has something to do with the heart coming up when a combo is triggered, regardless of whether the attack triggering it actually triggers it.

Basically: I get the feeling that the Combo system involves a few checks. Check 1 is to make sure an attack can combo with the field at all, Check 2 is to see how it would, and Check 3 is to see if it successfully does, in the case of things with a 20% chance. If my feeling is right, then the combo heart pops up after Check 2, regardless of Check 3’s result.

As Rifle Turret shots are most likely Physical Projectiles with a 20% chance of triggering the combo, the heart will pop up every time they fire through the field. Behavior also occurs when using other Physical Projectile skills like Exploding Shot and Hip Shot.

One theory I’ve seen mentioned about the weapon stats has to do with which weapon Kits match; it seems that the general idea is that the reason kits still deal less damage than some people’s weapons is that they’re matching the weakest available weapon.

For example, my Engineer uses an Exotic Pistol and Shield. When I equip a Kit, whatever the Kit may be, it doesn’t change anything (statwise, obviously) except that my Reinforced Shield trait deactivates, leaving me without a little bit of Toughness. Were I to be using a Rifle, it’s possible that my Attack would decrease upon equipping a Kit.

Edit: Upon testing, using a level 1 Rifle, Shield, and Pistol, this theory of the scale-to-the-weakest-of-the-highest-rarity seems more likely.

Numbers involved: With level 1 Rifle, my attack was 2,122; upon equipping a Kit, my attack rose to 2,933. With level 1 Pistol/Shield set, my attack was 2090, and rose to 2,932. Discrepancy is likely due to Rifle having 1 point more Power bonus than the Pistol/Shield set. Using my usual set, no change was noticed except for the expected drop of Toughness.

I’ve been testing. It has, indeed, been fixed; Boons and Conditions do scale with my equipment, and continue to tick for the same effect after turret removal.

As for whether Healing Turret is better than the Warrior’s Healing Banner, I have no idea – though the similarities between turrets and banners is part of what inspired the https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/Turrets-as-Kits-Skill-Suggestion-Thread/ . Hoping the idea picks up steam.

Anything that removed the turret from the field, really, was enough to reduce the healing to 5/s. Picking it up, detonating it, anything.

…I think I may be able to make a decent Turret Condition build, now, using Healing and Condition Damage gear with my usual Turret build. Gonna have to make sure it scales with gear stats and not just traits, like used to be the case.

…1/3 fixed? Lemme check the length of that bug sheet.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_Engineer_bugs

We’re nowhere near 1/3 fixed. Now, sure, many of these bugs are description bugs and incorrect tooltips, but…there’s still a long way to go before we’re that close to where we should have been.

Basically: Your stats are now taken into consideration for your turrets, but only concerning Boons and Conditions. At least, if I’m interpreting it correctly.

How this might change Turret function:
Rifle Turret’s Bleed effect should be affected by the user’s Condition Damage and Duration stats, and remain at full power if the Rifle Turret is destroyed or otherwise removed from combat.

Similarly, the Healing Turret’s regen will not drop to 5/s if it’s destroyed, and should scale with user’s Healing Power better, Net Turret will Immobilize things for as long as Nets from your Toolbelt will, etcetera.

I’ll hop on and test whether this is actually functional in a little while.

The tooltips are often inaccurate, for Engineers at least. Don’t trust them.

Yeah, but that one’s at least maybe just that they keep forgetting to update the description, since Rifled Turret Barrels is increasing Mortar range. Deployable Turrets just straight-up doesn’t work right.

Agreed. This skill still being broken is…kind of hilariously stupid, honestly. I hope they get it fixed in one of the other patches of this set, but I kind of doubt they will.

I’m just glad they’ve finally started fixing things. Things that should’ve been fixed a long kitten time ago, admittedly, but things nonetheless.

This isn’t the only big patch coming, besides. Maybe the others will finally finish the Engineer – or at least bring it closer to being there.

If Bomb #1 didn’t gain the unblockable effect, that would probably be okay.

Personally, I’d be more for making the Bomb (and Grenade, for that matter) kits interesting instead of just “Now! Guess what I just did!? You will suffer my wrath-or walk out of the way. God, I hate you.” to make them ‘competitive.’ To explain: Right now, they basically just have the same attack, over and over, with the same delays, same animations, same area of effect, same range – the only things that’re different are damage and conditions. Yes, that means that each attack technically has a unikittenfect among the skills of the kit, but it also means that each attack is incredibly, boringly, predictable. Bomb kit places timed charges that detonate with a given radius after a second or so (making it one of the two premier kiting kits), and grenade kit flings a handful of grenades at ludicrous range to a specific location afield (including over the user’s shoulder, allowing more kiting action). Once somebody knows what kit you have, it’s not going to be difficult to go “Maybe I should strafe with a ranged weapon/not get into melee with that guy.”

How this particularly relates to blocks: When the enemy realizes you’re using a Bomb kit, they’re going to realize, if they’ve any wit at all, that there’s some delay between when you place a Bomb and when it detonates – a uniform delay, making it easy to predict when the Bomb is going to go off, leaving the Bomb Kit’s attacks telegraphed with plenty of room for reaction, making the Bomb Kit impossible to effectively damage a fleeing target with (as far as I’ve been able to manage; it’s entirely possible there’s some speed boost I’ve yet to try), and otherwise just…well, easy to avoid, or block, if the person it’s being used against has the merest trace of observational capability.

I’m not sure having an entire kit’s skill set be unblockable (including the spammable Bomb on #1) would be a good idea, from a balance standpoint.

Of course, somebody’s probably going to swoop in and point out that another class gets exactly kitten that.

I think this is the second time this particular thing has come up. Only explanations I’ve heard have relied on the person doing the attacking trying to lay down Conditions like a madman. If I’m interpreting the reference to ‘dual arcane skills’ correctly, you’re referring to the Arcane skills the Elementalist has, which, for those unaware…don’t do conditions. Just damage. Lots of it.

If they were using a blocking skill, then it would’ve brought up “Blocked,” besides, instead of Immune.

To my knowledge, there is no Engineer ability or effect that could possibly have resulted in an Immune response to non-Condition damage (power damage is what you called it in your original post). Certainly not for ten seconds.

I’ve taken to using a sort of aggressive tanking build for PvE. 30/0/30/10/0 for traits, taking a Turret trait if it’s available (except for Autotool Installation – using Reinforced Shield in that slot instead) and trying to increase damage otherwise (except for Alchemy, which is being used for Elixir S). Pistol/Shield, obviously.

Skill loadout is Healing, Thumper, and Flame Turrets, with Throw Mine and Supply Crate.

Works pretty well, for me at least.

Xae.7204:

It’s cute people think the Developers read the Engineer forums.

Like seriously adorable.

Pretty sure all you have to do to dispel that particular notion is…

Well, look at what was chosen as the answer to the question asked. Wouldn’t have been chosen if the devs would actually have said something, in all likelihood.

“Knew I should’ve worn the heavy armor.”
-Veirkan the Engineer

They say they’re looking at each skill individually, but somehow, I just can’t quite trust that they’re actually doing that. Maybe they really are – but at this point, I’m pretty much expecting to see a blanket nerf, or us to get hit with it despite our low damage, because we’re just so kittening versatile that we need a unique damage penalty.

I would like a proper Elite of all skill types, to replace or rework the current choices. Mortar is a disgrace to the already subpar Turret category, and can’t even operate without supervision, Elixir X is the same hodgepodge of other classes’ skills as Elixir U, and Supply Crate is just a few of our utility skills in a box – and Supply Crate is the best of the three.

There should be a good Elite Turret, Elite Elixir, Elite Kit and Elite Gadget, with effects unique to the Engineer profession. I’m not sure what these should be, besides better than the current selection.

I like this, except for the part where it crowbars the toolbelt. I like the idea of being able to equip a kit as a secondary weapon, I like the idea of having the kit be an actual weapon type, I really do – but don’t mess with the toolbelt, unless it’s to improve it.

I don’t use kits much, largely because they take up my utility slots, but I do happen to like having toolbelt skills. In fact, I don’t think they get enough emphasis – looking at the forums, you’d think kits were our unique thing, they get talked about so much. Having only weapon toolbelts (that don’t exist yet and wouldn’t offer a lot of choice), kit toolbelts (least thought-out part of any of them), healing toolbelt and elite toolbelt (also doesn’t exist yet) would be…awful.

Otaur.9268:

I honestly dont understand why the Deployable Turrent Trait is still broken… It works in PvP, someone at ANet Please COPY AND REPLACE the PvE code with the PvP code…

Apparently, the issue is that they have the same code in both places, and it’s just not working for reasons unknown. They’ve been working on it, in theory.

‘course, it’s been, what, six months? I’m not holding out hope for it getting fixed, though, honestly, it should be well past due for being fixed.

As somebody who’s crafted themselves a full Exotic set of gear: Wait until you find out that Dungeon and Temple gears are just as good as stuff you work up to being able to make, with stat layouts that you can’t make.

Makes the whole thing feel like a bit of a waste, really.

They don’t talk much around here. There’s a series of ‘big’ patches coming in the next couple months, which may include weapon stats on kits.

Engineer can be decent in PvE, at least. I solo’d the Champion golem patrolling part of Malchor’s Leap earlier, before grouping up with two Guardians and a Warrior to four-man the Dwayna temple quest chain.

Just don’t expect big numbers or an impressive amount of speed.

I continue to play Engineer because the other classes are too easy by comparison. It pisses me off that I can take on a level 6 enemy with my level 2 Warrior, stack fifteen stacks of Might with my level 8 Elementalist, barely even look at the screen and murder things as my Thief, etcetera. They’re just…boring.

If they buff the Engineer to the point where it’s on the level with the other classes, then I will continue to play it because I have a love of machines. Engineer was the first class I chose because I like being a tinker.

Any ranged mob will just shoot you in the back.

Could be pretty neat. There’d also be a massive stripping of boons, and with Throw Mine mines scattered throughout, it’d cause a touch of disarray.

You should be looking to get Malign gear at first, then moving on to Ravaging and Carrion when they become available.

Engineers have a lot of combo finishers – most of them Blast, or Physical Projectile. There’s also two Leap finishers, but no Whirl finishers. As for combo fields, there’s far fewer options for that, with almost all of them being tied to Kits.

For a build that used the most possible distinct combo fields, it would have to use: Healing Turret, Bomb Kit (Smoke and Fire), Grenade Kit (Poison), and Elixir Gun (Light). To maximize the amount of finishers, Thumper Turret offers three Blast finishers (Thump, Detonation, and Shockwave), Healing Turret can be detonated with relatively little cooldown afterward for another Blast, while the Rifle weapon offers one of the only two Leap finishers available, and Throw Mine is available every eighteen seconds, untraited.

The build I use tends to emphasize the AoE Heal combo, for the little boost in health it grants. Can also use the Stealth combo, but I have difficulty getting it to stack properly, perhaps due to the order I’m activating it in.

Working on coming up with a build focusing on the use of Combos, should have it done soon.

Edit: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQFAUlIqqb3zylF1LJyIFfGnBqQeJSRlZZfUIXPIA

The best I could come up with. There’s probably something stupid in it somewhere.

This is also a fairly interesting idea.

I’m beginning to think there should be a compilation of suggestions for Engineer fixes/overhauls/etcetera, posted onto the Suggestion forums for future consideration. With these ‘big’ patches coming, that may mean that there’ll be a window between the big patches and new content that we may be able to get enough attention to wedge ourselves into.

Lord Aargadon.4135:

If you really want to, anyone with access to a polling site and time can set up a poll for this, maybe even set up a facebook poll that anyone can answer if it allows you to without log in, and simply post a link on each professions forum, or dulfy if he can get one going on his site. But yes, with how prepared Colin was when that question came up, Im really doubting that he’s telling the whole truth. Keeping fingers crossed this future infraction doesn’t get me banned from forums, if this post dissapears and you no longer see me posting, you know why

I doubt Colin plays his Engineer often, myself, or has played it much. Doesn’t help that the Host felt it necessary to comment “To be fair, the engineer is still awesome with the grenade build.” or whatever it was, which just seems like a setup/cue.

It honestly almost seems like they only mentioned the Engineer to mention ‘the Grenade build’ so Colin can go “Yeah, that’s what I run on my guy. I agree, ’s pretty awesome” and then go on to say, essentially, “Different profession, different intended playstyle” without actually addressing anything regarding what might make the Engineer feel weaker. They don’t mention the weakened weapon damage, the pervasive bugs, the lackluster everything-but-kits (and a couple Elixirs), nothing. I am sorely tempted to call shenanigans on that particular section of the interview, if not the whole thing.

Of course, there’s always the chance that Colin really does play an Engineer, and play them often. I just happen to doubt it.

Also: According to GW2census.com, the profession spread is fairly even.
http://gw2census.com/charts.php?pie=total÷=charprofession

Of course, this just means that 10.8% of the characters people told GW2census they were making were Engineers. Not that they continued to play them. I’d like to see a chart from Anet, showing which profession was most played organized by amount of time played, as opposed to a simple fraction of all characters made.

I could see that alternate suggestion there as working like the Mesmer’s Mantras. Prep them out of combat, run in, plant turrets, and have the next ones ready sooner due to the initial skill eating the cooldown. Or something.

Oh, or: If they’re used in backpacks, but don’t replace weapon skills, only let one be used in that particular fashion at any time.