I’d swap out the slot for either a kit or yet another turret. Maybe make use of the Radiation Field, for once.
I’m not all that much of a fan of Japanese-themed things, especially if it just doesn’t fit the rest of the game.
That said: it’s amusing you think the Medium Armor sets look too Engineer-themed, as there have been threads on the Engineer forums about how the Medium Armor sets look too Thief-themed.
Yeah, there’s a minor advantage in switch time, as well as duration – but, as mentioned, not near enough of an advantage to make it worth the rest.
The Engineer has nowhere to shine – every traditional niche (damage, mobility, versatility, boons, condition damage, and pets) has already been filled by other classes. I wrote up an idea a while ago on how to give them a unique niche (Preparation), via use of a custom set of additional traitlines; not a lot of feedback on it, but here’s the link.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Give-the-Engineer-somewhere-to-shine/
I still play it because I’m stubborn and like the class, but I find myself playing others simply because I can’t stand how it’s being handled as a result of a lack of clarity of vision on Anet’s part. I pretty much only play it when running with my girlfriend’s level 80 Guardian.
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I, personally, rather liken the Engineer to a battlefield decoy, considering the amount of aggro gained versus danger represented.
Oh, they didn’t bother marking those, either? Well, they oughtta do that.
That’s about it. There’s no way to tell how strong a given Master Pick is until you use it, while there are also apparently several ‘strengths’ of Master Pick.
Jeweler Rares require Ectoplasm to make, so they’re right out. I’ve mostly used Rare Leather Boots or something.
While adventuring in Southsun Cove, myself and a friend attempted to mine the Rich Orichalcum Vein using Master Pickaxes; the result was Ruined Ore.
Now, apparently, there’s two versions of the Master Pickaxe, one of which can be used on Orichalcum – but you can’t tell the difference between the two without using them, according to one of the other people on Southsun Cove.
Is this true?
They haven’t felt the need to comment, as far as I’ve seen. Only seen them comment here on something needing improvement once – and that was HGH.
And that is exactly why I suggested this – if we can’t be good at anything, then let us be good at customizing what we can do.
I’ve made a suggestion thread on the suggestion forums regarding an idea for a mechanic intended to make the Engineer able to shine somewhere.
Turrets, of course, are the only things I’ve used enough to come up with ideas for all six trait nodes along their path, including – and this is the bit that’s germaine to the thread subject – a mobility option at 30 points.
I thought that, too, until I started considering what Engineer utilities bring to the table compared to other classes: nothing particularly special, except for Toolbelt skills that 1) can’t be chosen independent of Utilities, often leading to great disparities in usefulness between Utility and Toolbelt skill, 2) turn each Elixir into a random-number-fueled, tiny AoE attempt to dispense a boon to an ally and 3) have some of the extreme non-Elite cooldowns of any Engineer ability, ranging from 10 to 90 seconds with the 10-second skill being far more useful for most purposes than the 90-second.
I’ve tried out just about everything the class offers. I went to level 80 using primarily Turrets.
Kits? Done it, hated how much better they were than Turrets. Gadgets? Some of them. Most of them are awkward in application, so I’m not much of a fan. Turrets? See above – and that’s with at least two major bugs and no scaling to gear. Elixirs? Random number bullkitten, but I used ’em. Still use Elixir R and B every so-often, but rarely.
I’m not going to apologize about being irritated about Anet not fixing the damn bugs or even so much as going “Hey, guys, yeah, we’re trying to fix it, it’s not going well, we’re honestly not sure what’s going on with it. We’re sorry about this situation.” Not even a word of acknowledgement – except for HGH, of all kittening things. Good puppy job. I’m not even going to apologize when they fix it. Their lack of acknowledgement or bugfixing actually drove me from the game once, and I still don’t really have as much fun as I used to, knowing that they think that the way to cause build diversification isn’t by making more builds viable or fixing bugs, but by nerfing the ones people like.
I can tell you, right now, exactly what my response will be when they either delete the class because only a few people use it or fix the bugs and balance issues that are driving people out: About kitten time.
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I like ‘em anyway, though they could use some more differentiation, yeah – although, the Charr are also generally masculine-looking, only showing that the female are not-male by the females generally having more graceful head shapes (lionesses as opposed to fugly lionmen). Male Ogres apparently also have spines sticking out of their backs, but not females, so that’s…uh…something. Just not much at all.
…seriously? Hahah, wow. I guess they figured that it wasn’t relevant to the topic at hand. I’d, personally, view it as a spring for more discussion/conversation – perhaps comparisons between the Ogres and Tengu or something.
Also: Yeah, Tengu pretty much have a lock. I’m hoping Ogres are also planned, but only time will tell.
Yeah, I kinda figured a lot of the traits from the normal lines would be rolled over into the Upgrade Paths, but that’s not the kind of thing I shouldn’t point out to begin with – I’ll go back and make a note of that. Thanks for pointing it out.
Hey, Pain. Click my name – third blue link on the page.
Yeah, if played right the class has a crazy number of combos they can accomplish, and a lot of control. Even an all-Turret build can be great in the right hands. Doesn’t change that the Class Balance Philosophy notes basically go “They’re versatile, but they’re not so good at killing things. They’re also supposed to get boons from somewhere while being versatile? Oh, and the Elementalist is king of versatility. Pays for it…by being a mage.”
The disparity between the two sections led to a bit of outcry on the Engineer forums – which led me to make an Elementalist, which led to me realizing the reason the Engineer gets no attention from the devs: They don’t know what to do with it, because they’ve filled every general role. Mesmer is the only one that the Engineer isn’t second-fiddle-at-best to, and that’s because their real strengths are so weird that the Engineer just doesn’t have any real point of comparison that I’ve noticed, aside from maybe Control. Every profession has a concrete thing they’re really good at…except Engineer, who’s apparently supposed to be the understudy of everybody. That’s no way to design a class – certainly not if they’re going to be made less capable of defending themselves (via main-hand weapon, which is, for any build that doesn’t use kits, the only weapon they have that isn’t a Utility skill) as a result.
If the increasing number of people claiming to be turned away from groups for being an Engineer is anything to go by, there is a serious need for some work done on the class, besides.
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I’d suggest putting the cooldown reduction on Auto-Tool Installation, perhaps – Deployable Turrets, if made to actually function, would be one of the two best Turret traits, the other being Accelerant-Packed Turrets (unfortunately enough), and with an additional cooldown reduction component, it would basically make it too good.
On the other hand, Autotool Installation is currently next to worthless if you’re not just farming mobs via turret nest, and just about never taken (certainly not by me, except when farming) over Elite Supplies X.
Okay, uh, there’s what I got. I couldn’t come up with stuff for a couple of the things, though.
Here’s the idea: Give the Engineer something to be good at, that no other class can quite match. I’m thinking Preparation sounds good.
Here’s my method: Whenever an Engineer gains a Trait Point, give them an Upgrade Point, as well – which can be spent on one of four Upgrade Paths, corresponding to the four Skill Types available to the Engineer. Allow on-the-fly respeccing of Upgrade Paths only.
Each Path would also increase the effectiveness of the relevant skills, and only those relevant skills – no using Kits to increase your Flame Turret or Pistol damage, for example.
Upgrade Paths:
Kits [Increases Bundle Power & Condition Damage, 5 points each per point]
Gadgets [Increase Condition Duration & Knockback, 1% each per point]
Elixirs [Increase AoE 1% & Chance of Concurrency 3%, per point]
Turrets [Increase Cooldown Reduction & Turret Vitality, 1% each per point]
Every five Upgrade Points in a given path, of course, would unlock a Customization Node, allowing the Engineer to modify their abilities in various ways (changing the Condition inflicted by Turret, tilting the RNG in a particular direction for an Elixir, or enhancing Gadgets, for example).
Nodes 5 and 10 would allow customization of Healing and Tier 1 (1-point) skills, 15 and 20 would allow the same for Tier 2 (3-point) skills, 25 for Tier 3 (6-point) and 30 for Elite – with, of course, all traits unlocked at each Node being cumulative.
If this idea were to be used, I’d assume that they’d roll some of the existing traits into the appropriate Upgrade Paths.
Credit where it’s due: GoZero and LinguisticallyInept both contributed.
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I like the three stats-per-traitline thing, but my only issue is basically that we’d still be using the same sets of traits, thus defeating the original ‘customize the kitten out of everything to make the Engineer the master of preparation’ intent.
However, this seems to have been well-received enough to not get people going “That’s stupid, you’re stupid,” so I’mma maybe clean it up a little and put the better version on the Suggestion forums.
Yeah, me too. Too difficult to tell if things actually need rebalancing or if they just need to fix the bugs until they do. As it stands, though, that’d be a way to increase the Engineer-y feel of the Engineer.
Kinda wish they’d let us wear Heavy armor, too, like they originally meant to.
Here’s another one: When I type a search in, it offers an autocompleted version in the dropdown (let’s say I type ‘Ectoplasm,’ and then get ‘Glob of Ectoplasm’), if I press down to select it and press Enter, click it, or otherwise attempt to avail myself of the autocompleted version, I get that loading circle in the middle of the BLTP screen – and it never goes away. Doesn’t let me click anything, nothing. I have to drop out of the BLTP and then type in the whole thing instead of using a tiny shortcut.
But I think one of the biggest thematic letdowns for me with Engineers is how there is nothing of “engineering” in them. I was hoping for a hopelessly fiddly class where a near infinite and absurd amount of customization was possible. Like point allocation into turret stats and stuff. Didn’t get it. I hoped for some idea of like customizing equipment. Didn’t get it.
Now that is a damn fine idea – I wonder if it’ll maybe be possible to convince the devs to make Engineer the Customize Everything class? I’m not even being sarcastic, I love the idea of being able to switch which barrels/ammunition/armor/powersupply/everything my turrets use, just because it would make me feel like an Engineer.
Now that you mention it, though, I find myself wondering how much farther that could be applied – most of the other classes don’t really have a lot of explanation for reasons their character did things in ways that others did not, or a lack of a place to shine. The Engineer’s one ‘unique’ mechanic is really just a reskinned Elementalist gimmick – so why not give them another one?
An Engineery one. One that involves customizing things to maximize the desired effects, minimize the others, and generally squeeze every little drop of potential out like blood from a stone.
How I can kinda see that working: Introduce a new value for Engineers, gained at the same rate as Trait points – one per level, starting at level 11 (or, you know, one every other level, if this turns out to seem too unbalancing. It’s six-forty in the morning, I’m tired and just running with this idea before it chokes and dies). I’ll call this hypothetical value “Engineer Points,” because I just don’t feel like being clever about naming things, okay? Okay.
You’d use Engineer Points to buy Upgrades for your different skill types – Gadgets, Turrets, Kits and Elixirs, probably most easily imagined as basically having a secondary set of Traits. Points in each traitline would improve the effects of that particular type of skill, without affecting the Engineer themselves – just their skills. At each 5 points, choose a trait that affects a particular kit/turret/gadget/elixir in a particular way, with the traits otherwise acting like they do usually (Grandmaster traits can be used to use Master traits can be used to use Adept traits, except now it involves six nodes instead of three).
For example: Turrets would have Cooldown Reduction and Turret Vitality as the stats they increased, Elixirs would have Area of Effect and Chance of Concurrency (chance of giving more than one boon at a time when thrown, and spread effects of elixirs drunk onto nearby allies in accordance with AoE), Kits would have…uh…I have no idea what kits could really use, same with Gadgets.
I’m gonna arbitrarily decide that the 5-point trait for the Turret line is Ammunition, in this particular case, just to be clear:
Now let’s say, going by this system, I put five points into Turrets, and decide my Rifle Turret needs to cause a different Condition than Bleed – so I trait it to deal Poison instead. Or I decide to change Net Turret into a Bleed+Cripple instead of an Immobilize by giving it a Razorwire Net or something.
How stupid is that thing I just said? If by some miracle it turns out to not be stupid, I’ll try cleaning it up and posting it to the Suggestions forum.
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Yeah, think I originally saw them a few weeks into playing, when I actually explored Lion’s Arch. Just one of those things that ends up getting forgotten and then popping back up.
…kitten, really? Gonna have to try to get in there now.
While wandering Lion’s Arch some time ago, I came across a rather…striking…pair of fellows – Ogres, according to dialogue, though they’re rather less brutish looking than the troll-like gents wandering the mountainous countrysides of human territories. They look like jungle folk, speak of their clan setting nearby, and show a hint of customization (mostly from toenails and armor types) – I don’t know if these guys are going to be joining the cast in an expansion or not, but it would be awesome if they did, and I really wouldn’t be surprised.
Also, I noticed something odd, but probably coincidental – they’re just about the same height as the large Asura golems. See?
!http://imgur.com/nVprC!
!http://imgur.com/eZVzs!
This, of course, made me wonder – I bet these Ogre fellas would get along swimmingly with the Asura. And look great wearing armor patterned after the golems themselves.
My suggestions for dealing with Elixirs, not that any are likely to be implemented: !https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Suggestions-for-Engineer-and-possibly-others-Aesthetic-and-Functional/first#post179948!
I suggested, a couple months ago, making Elixirs work on a context-sensitive basis, using character stats and professions to choose effects.
Nobody said anything about it, but I still think that would be the best way to deal with Elixirs.
Edit: Found my post about it. !https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Suggestions-for-Engineer-and-possibly-others-Aesthetic-and-Functional/first#post179948! Thoughts?
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I think the Toolbelt skills are actually supposed to make up for using Kits as Utilities – it’s basically like they’re Attunements, just on 6-9 instead of f1-f4, and we have to choose which ones to use instead of getting all of them. Our Toolbelt skills generally seem about as useful as most of the (first-tier) Utility skills of other classes – limited condition-on-attack (Flamethrower), personal quickheal (Medkit), AoE regen (Elixir Gun), burst of AoE damage (Grenade kit), and a knockback (Bomb kit).
Pity they’re still weaker than Elementalist attacks will ever be, likely to get nerfed yet farther because the devs think it’s smarter/easier to nerf into oblivion than maybe get a clearer view of what the Engineer should be and then make it fit that (especially now that Engineers can activate two sigils simultaneously on one weapon kit – I don’t know if having a Sigil of Fire on one pistol would make explosions when the other pistol was fired, but I figure they’ll take that away as soon as one of them notices a Flamethrower kit setting off both Sigil of Air and Sigil of Fire).
Having played a few other classes while waiting for them to start fixing things: The Engineer’s Utility skills are actually…pretty good, compared to those of other classes, I think. I sure have an easier time figuring out what the point of them is. In general, short cooldowns abound, combined with easy identification of purpose (and even Elixirs get better, when they’re just a Utility skill). Longest cooldown on any non-Elite Engineer skill is one minute, and most can be reduced in length by traits. I very rarely, when choosing an Engineer skill, went “That sounds absolutely useless,” as well.
This has brought me to an epiphany: We’re second-best at kitten everything. Our problem is that we have nowhere to shine. What I mean is:
We’re a condition class…but Necromancer does it better.
We’re a speed-Utility class…but Thief does it better. Ditto for the Mobility.
We’re a versatile class…but Elementalist does it better.
We’re a minion class…but Necromancer and Ranger do it better (especially Ranger, what with their various pet-aid things).
We’re a boon class…but Guardian does it better.
We don’t have a range to excel in, we don’t hit particularly hard, and we can’t do whatever it is Mesmers can do well very well, either. We’re a class designed around being second-best, and we’re second-best to everyone at everything.
tl;dr: We suck because the devs couldn’t figure out what to make us good at without stepping on somebody else’s toes.
I’d like a soloable/scalable option for dungeons, too. Don’t like being forced to group up to advance the story.
Does anybody else have just an awful time fighting these things?
Five ranged mobs, with a Confusion-inflicting shriek, and a tendency to somehow pop four boons on at a time, including a minute-long Protection effect and Regeneration…I’m not sure if it’s something I’m doing (opening a box, noticing it’s Princess Dolls, trying to tear them apart before they get awful), or if this is something other people are having issues with.
I’ve heard it said that the issue is that they’re not sure what the problem is – as in, the same code is in PvE as is in PvP, and thus they’re not sure what’s causing it.
I agree, though. This is an incredibly irritating bug – not only does it use a trait slot, only work for two turrets, but it then disables one of these two turrets’ toolbelt skills, giving the Engineer one less Healing skill to be able to rely on while the turret is on cooldown.
Every single patch, I’ve looked for Deployable Turrets to be fixed. Every. Single. One. I’m not even kidding. It being broken even drove me away from the game entirely for a while, and I still don’t enjoy the game as much as I did before Deployable Turrets started to kitten me off.
Probably need to do that in WvW for anybody to take notice.
Still only get actual versatility if you’re using kits, which still requires sacrifice of a utility slot. Sure, you get some awkward thing for your toolbelt skill, but you never get to choose it beyond ‘Well, it came with the kit…’
As for how many kits are available: That’s 30 potential Kit Skills, with three possible combinations of weapon (45 weapon skills total), four toolbelt skills and one Elite.
Each Engineer can carry up to four kits at a time, and one set of weapons, so that’s a total of 30 skills (20 Kit skills, 5 Weapon Skills, 4 Toolbelt, 1 Elite).
Elementalist gets five possible weapon combinations, five attacks each, with four elemental attunements. 20 skills available each for Staff, Dagger/Dagger, Scepter/Dagger, Dagger/Focus, and Scepter/Focus. And that’s without counting their Utilities or Elite – which they could easily use to gain 25 more possible skills, via Conjures.
Each Elementalist, therefore, could potentially have 40 (5 Weapon Skillsx4 Attunements + 4×5 Conjured Weapon Skills) weapon skills, and then their Healing skill on top of that.
Sure, Engineer can choose from more kits. Elementalist can choose from more weapons. I’m not overly experienced with the Elementalist, so I can’t say what all of the things they do…well, do, but in sheer numbers, it seems pretty clear who’s got more options, and it sure isn’t us.
Edit: Realized I completely forgot that one skill slot is restricted to Healing skills, and thus that I had given the Elementalist four more skills than they would actually have available.
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I’ve run a Turret build through Orr and a couple dungeons.
For Orr, the greatest issue is the amount of enemies, especially enemies with Pulls, compared to the cooldown on the turrets and turret fragility. Oh, and Risen Knights, even vanilla, will erase several turrets with one attack.
For dungeons, the greatest issue is, again, amount of enemies, compared to turret cooldown and fragility – oh, and ludicrous aggro assignment. Ever had party members go “Okay, that’s getting unnerving” about how every enemy in a room decides it needs your guts for garters? I did. Only way I wasn’t the star of the enemy’s slaughter party was when there was a Thief along. Doesn’t help that, in dungeons, a single random mook can one-shot all turrets with a single AoE (seriously, go into Twilight Arbor and lay down a turret nest on a Fern Hound. Take a video, it’ll be funny.).
I’m pretty sure the issue with turrets in later content and dungeons is that they don’t scale well at all – likely due to how they completely ignore your gear, only scaling to your naked stats, including traits. That gives them a possible +300 to Power and Condition Damage; don’t know if there’s a way to give them more durability or not, aside from that one trait rendered worthless by their low health.
That’s roughly half the possible benefit offered by gear, or even less. Naked, no accessories, no weapon, nothing but traits, my Power alone is 1,246. With my full set of gear, as it stands now? 1,907. That’s a difference of 661.
And my turrets get -none of it.-
And that’s without even touching on the turret AI, which will try to shoot through walls to hit enemies on the other side, seemingly insensible to the fact that it’s doing nothing – or, even worse, focus on destroyed structures.
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Also: Only particularly versatile if using a particular set of utility skills (kits), as opposed to the Elementalist, which will always have their attunements available, regardless of their utilities.
Hey, Anet, you realize there’s other parts of Engineer besides Kits, right?
That’s a really cool thing they let you do with turrets that I completely forgot about (and one that’s always getting the Ash Legion that Ghostbore stuff, for that matter). That would also be an awesome way to handle it.
And that’s why I’m about to go looking for Risen Knights to record demolishing several turrets at a time – to post it on the Game Discussion boards in hopes that the staff will actually see it.
Take some video or screenshots of it failing to hit, if you can – maybe if they’re posted on the Game Discussion forum, they’ll actually realize there’s an issue.
I’d gladly accept a patch in which they would not introduce new things (presumably buff something, and then nerfing the whole profession to balance things out), and instead fix ALL the existing bugs. Kitten, I’d gladly accept a second patch after that, in which they do nothing at all to the engineer.
Is it just me, or does this sound like what they should have done in the first place?
Turrets need some work, in my opinion; I’d been using them from the time I got them to recently, when I stopped using them in favor of kits.
Here’s my suggestions on the subject: !https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Suggested-Turret-Changes-by-Anymras/first#post1009187!
Man, it’s weird how so many people seem to confuse “I don’t particularly like playing with groups” with something involving time, or not knowing how to find a group. It’s not like I’ve seen “lfg [ac/hotw/se/fotm/etcetera]” in map chat just about everywhere, or like I know that there’s an LFG tool in the Contacts section, really.
That was sarcasm, if you’re planning on missing the point there, too. No, I’m not going to re-explain the point; go read the original post if you’re having trouble. Carefully. Same goes for people who seem to think I meant it took too long to get together with, and do the dungeon with, a group, though you might have to read down to my second post, where I clarify the comment about time.
Yeah, I’m not asking for a specific percentage, just…where did you find that out, anyway?
…wait, they reduced every kit by 30% damage? Did they screw up nerfing Grenade, or what?
…I hope they actually have dummies that can affected by critical hits, then. And that might also explain why turrets get nothing; they keep testing them on dummies.
I’d like for them to maybe focus on fixing the bugs with traits and abilities, as far as their attempts to balance the Engineer go. Then again, I’m of the opinion that it’s pointless to go balancing everything exhaustively when there are some fairly significant issues with the function of some classes, that aren’t directly related to balance (using Turrets as an example: Deployable Turrets, Turret AI), but that could cause a shift if they were corrected (for example, while Deployable Turrets mostly functions in PvP, to my knowledge it still lacks the Healing Turret’s toolbelt ability, which means the Engineer has one less healing ability than they should possess if they equip Deployable Turrets in order to be able to more strategically place turrets).
They seriously need to fire the people they had working on balancing this class, they need to hire a prior military munitions and explosives expert officer and they need to get someone in there that can actually perform math because someone is not doing their job.
I’m not sure what the point of hiring a ‘prior military munitions and explosives expert officer’ would be, but I have the strangest feeling the explanation has to do with realism. Which, y’know. ’s all well and good.
I’ll just be over here in the corner with my four-foot-six, shark-toothed, possibly reptilian genius, spraying alchemical fumes all over people to make people I like get better and people I don’t get sick, shunt a blob of acid on the ground and then hit everybody with Flubber.
Point is: Realism is all well and good, but it ain’t that kind of game. If that’s what you’re angling for, you may want to play something a bit less…y’know, fantastical.