being in melee range of spider queen isn’t an exploit.
Keep telling yourself that. You’re forgetting to mention how it almost completely negates 90% of her damage.
They’ve fixed things like this before, for very obvious reasons.
(edited by Captain Swag.5893)
posting in a “stacking is exploit” thread!
It isnt, but when it stops bosses from using their mechanics, it is.
Could we please hurry and fix the boss stacking issues in AC?
It’s not only just the abuse of mechanics, it’s totally time and gold wasting.
If ONE problem happens, the group wipes due to AoE poison from the spider queen, AoE from the Howling King, or mobs, or Kohler’s AoE, or whatever else. And then the group falls apart, and nobody is having fun.
It’s SO much easier to just fight the boss like a normal person anyway.
Sometimes people are idiots, and this is starting to be one of those times.
So, there are people being jerks, people who didn’t read a word of what a wrote, judging instantly, and just completely ignoring anything I say.
Stay classy, Engineer forum.
I’m not any amount of a fanboy to the flamethrower, or elixir gun, or whatever. I’d just like to see more builds open up in a reasonable way. And as I said, they’re not going to buff 3 things a lot without nerfing something else, even a little bit.
If the premise of this thread is that bombs/nades are OP I’m just going to have to disagree. Play some other professions and you’ll see bombs/nades are really where we should be just to be equal.
Not OP, just the “Best” that there is at the moment. If the best was brought down /ONLY A LITTLE BIT/, and the others were elevated to their new level, everything would be a “good choise”, and there would be no “best choise”, so more builds would open up.
I guess I just don’t get why you have to bring anything down in the first place.
I’d love to see that, but God knows, and anybody knows that ArenaNet hates Engineers and would never buff anything without nerfing another of our things.
If this is another premise of your thread, I’m just going to have to step away entirely. Asking for changes under the guise of “Anet doesn’t even care, they hate Engis” is beyond ridiculous.
It’s not ridiculous. They’ve not once buffed something without nerfing something else, even slightly. You misinterpreted what I said.
If the premise of this thread is that bombs/nades are OP I’m just going to have to disagree. Play some other professions and you’ll see bombs/nades are really where we should be just to be equal.
Obviously you didn’t read what I proposed very well.
I sure did:
Bring down the grenade and bomb kits a LITTLE bit, to make them less “god-tier”, but “good tier”, and then buff all other kits to be “good-tier” too. That way, there is no “best pick”, and you’re more open to pick what you want.
Bombs/nades should not be brought down. They are not OP. Ideally all of our options would be balanced in line with the bombs and grenades.
I’d love to see that, but God knows, and anybody knows that ArenaNet hates Engineers and would never buff anything without nerfing another of our things.
If the premise of this thread is that bombs/nades are OP I’m just going to have to disagree. Play some other professions and you’ll see bombs/nades are really where we should be just to be equal.
Not OP, just the “Best” that there is at the moment. If the best was brought down /ONLY A LITTLE BIT/, and the others were elevated to their new level, everything would be a “good choise”, and there would be no “best choise”, so more builds would open up.
If the premise of this thread is that bombs/nades are OP I’m just going to have to disagree. Play some other professions and you’ll see bombs/nades are really where we should be just to be equal.
Obviously you didn’t read what I proposed very well.
I think that the Tool Kit should be less condition-based, and more power-favoring, as it is now. Engineers have a LOT of condition things as well, power needs some love too.
true true..
I’m just trying to keep some synergy to a crazy idea that Engineers can be just as dangerous as other melee class… If not for DPS, then for something that Engi’s are great at doing: Applying Control with Condition spamming.
…… also because people would consider Toolkit OP if those move changes “proc” so easily.
Oh. By all means, buff the tool kit, but don’t give it more conditions. we have enough already.
It’s already consensus that Engineer is one of the weakest professions for dungeons:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/Dungeon-usefulness-list/firstWhat do you think would happen if the Engineer’s strongest options would get nerfed without the other kits getting buffed way above the current level of Grenade Kit/Bomb Kit?
Nobody is reading a word of what I wrote.
Nerf the grenade/bomb kits SLIGHTLY, then BUFF ALL of the other kits to the point where the Grenade and Bomb kit will be brought to, so that ALL of them are GOOD options, but there isn’t a “best” option.
…..um… I’m not a fan of the grenade kit, but I LOVE the bomb kit (even before the range increase).
I believe certain moves in the kits should be tweaked in this way for these types of roles, in my opinion.
(here is your “nerf” applied with my idea)
Grenades for long distance condition spam and support:
Freeze grenade creates a 5 second ice field. (reduce to 1 grenade, 2 when traited)
Flash bomb a stun move and blast finisher (reduce to 1 grenade and increase CD)Grenade Barrage:
Throw ONE of Every type grenade to cause bleed, blind, chill, and poison. (launch 200)
Balanced by spreading the field placement the farther its thrown, and remove one “regular” grenade unless traited.Flamethrower to be a mix of channeling condition pressure damage and CC:
Flame jet: cause burning on first and last tick.
Smoke Vent: stun move?
Toolbelt skill: Duration reduced to 6 seconds.. All attacks cause burning and blindEG could be improved by adding more effects to…
-fumigate: Also cause torment …. or chance to grant allies 1 stack of might and protection on condition cleanse.
-Elixir F: Also grant quickness besides swiftnessToolkit:
Thwack: chance to cause knockdown on opponent with conditions (5% per condition).
Prybar: chance to launch opponent with conditions (5% per condition)
Throw Wench: Cause knockdown……Can’t be that crazy to think this aggressively?
I think that the Tool Kit should be less condition-based, and more power-favoring, as it is now. Engineers have a LOT of condition things as well, power needs some love too.
My point is that only two, MAYBE 3 of them get any use. They need to be brought down a bit, others need to be brought up a bit, so that all of the kits are on the same level, but making EVERY kit as good as the grenades/bombs in their current state would be overpowered.
Why not buff the other crappy kits for a change?
If you nerf our 2 “viable ones” to match up the “other crappy ones” this class is totally destroyed.Seriously, go troll in Guardian thread please. Maybe you can ask for a nerf to their shouts.
Im not trolling, don’t be a jerk.
Bring down the grenade and bomb kits a LITTLE bit, to make them less “god-tier”, but “good tier”, and then buff all other kits to be “good-tier” too. That way, there is no “best pick”, and you’re more open to pick what you want.
We pick those not because they’re OP, but they’re the only competitively useful ones.
The real problem is kit occupying out utility slots, so we have to make hard choices to pick the most competitive valuable ones. Other kits have their uses but it’s more like gimmick than being really useful. We have to sacrifice too much survivibility or mobility if we want to choose the other more gimmick and less important kits.
The only way to fix our problem give Engineer 2~3 extra space to carry kits, much like how elementalist works.
It’s reasonable because the current kit system works like you WASTE an utility slot just to do what every other classes can do w/o using an utility slot: SWITCHING WEAPON.
So why every other classes can switch their weapons w/o using an utility slot, but only engineer has to waste an utility slot to do the same?
Elementalists have their weapons skills for each aspect, and slot skills. Their f1-f4 buttons are the Aspect Swap things.
We have toolbelt skills, the slots (which are taken by kits) and weapon skills.
Its more similar than you think.
(edited by Captain Swag.5893)
My point is that only two, MAYBE 3 of them get any use. They need to be brought down a bit, others need to be brought up a bit, so that all of the kits are on the same level, but making EVERY kit as good as the grenades/bombs in their current state would be overpowered.
Why not buff the other crappy kits for a change?
If you nerf our 2 “viable ones” to match up the “other crappy ones” this class is totally destroyed.Seriously, go troll in Guardian thread please. Maybe you can ask for a nerf to their shouts.
Im not trolling, don’t be a jerk.
Bring down the grenade and bomb kits a LITTLE bit, to make them less “god-tier”, but “good tier”, and then buff all other kits to be “good-tier” too. That way, there is no “best pick”, and you’re more open to pick what you want.
My point is that only two, MAYBE 3 of them get any use. They need to be brought down a bit, others need to be brought up a bit, so that all of the kits are on the same level, but making EVERY kit as good as the grenades/bombs in their current state would be overpowered.
Go find any engineer and ask them if they’re using a kit. If they are, it’s more than likely grenades or bombs. Even for support. Conditions or power, grenades or bombs are the only way to go to get the most efficient build. (Even some Static Discharge builds use it.)
Let’s be honest, turrets are prety useless as well. What does that leave us with? HGH Conditions, Gadgets… Not much else for a “viable” build. (Note the quotes around viable)
ArenaNet is trying to vary Engineer builds by nerfing Incendiary powder, so on. If they REALLY wanted to vary our builds, they would add new things, nerf the high-tier things (10 points is something that ANY build can get, now it’s just going to make nade/bomb builds even better) and buffing the weaker things.
Engineer builds aren’t going to change a lot. Grenades or bombs, static discharge, or maybe some off-build that’s subpar compared to everything else.
TL;DR
Please nerf grenades and/or bombs, that will really open up more doors than any trait change will ever do.
While youre at it, buff some of the “trash moves” so that they’re not trashy anymore.
Edit: I’m not proposing that they’re nerfed hard, just a little bit, so that they’re not the “best” choise, and if other things are buffed to be good choises, then more builds will open up, not this “trait swapping” nonsense.
(edited by Captain Swag.5893)
A-net is working on getting all weapons for all classes. One specific weapon for one specific class probably isn’t real high on the priority list until they have the kinks worked out of other weapons for other classes as well.
Could you give a source to this? I’d really love to see it.
The statement about toolkit was a farce. Tool kit and power wrench equals perma cripple. And thwack to the face is something no one likes to feel. Many an GS warrior has eaten my wrench.
Look at the abilities however. They’re not meant for dealing raw damage, theyre meant for non-damage-dealing things aside from the box of nails applying bleed. Compare the Tool Kit’s damage potential to like, the flamethrower or the bomb kit and it’s laughable.
“The problem is that engineers have NO melee”
Is every profession supposed to have melee? I don’t ask this to be a jerk, but wonder why you think this makes your argument a valid one? If you want melee, chose a profession with melee. Problem solved.
The entire point of this game was that every profession was relatively self sufficient, and can do a myriad of things, in this case, every profession can do everything, except Engineer with melee.
Tell me how that’s fair, exactly?
Not to mention, it’s such a perfect fit. There’s only 2 professions using hammer, as opposed to 4 using greatswords, so on so forth, and it would add more diversity to who’s buying the weapons, as well as provide new builds for Engineer, which they’re trying to do now.
That’s my argument.
The problem is that engineers have NO melee (Tool kit isnt a fighting kit, it’s for utility)
Engineer is the only profession without some form of melee, and they’re already EXTREMELY limited in what they can build.
Only 2 professions use them, and for a “Fantasy Mechanic” role a giant hammer fits perfectly. Why has this not been implimented yet?
Agreed. They should take a note from some of league of legends balance change philosophies.
Make the skill easier to use, more responsive at the same time they nerf it. Or the would fix a bug associated with the skill they would nerf. Some sure fire way to counteract the nerf. Although at the end of the day it is still a nerf.
This exactly.
Example: The Healing Turret Nerf/Buff. They fixed the problem of people placing it and detonating it right away by making it more useful to a team, instead of just butchering the heal. They need more changes like this.
In order for “BALANCE” to be achived, when a class is nerfed, it needs to have more power redistributed in areas that need it, except in the rare case where EVERYTHING is overpowered. Arena net has been nerfing the things that were too stong (I hate to admit it, but 100n.), and TYRING to redistribute power into new moves that they hope we’ll get more use out of.
No.
They’re “redistributing” it alright, but they’re also butchering every good build one by one, and leaving useless and crappy abilities in their wake.
Arena net, if you’re going to really balance this class you need to understand that you can’t just mindlessly butcher move after move and build after build without showing SOME form of valuable dedication to actually doing it properly.
Hey, Arena Net. Why don’t you switch Static Discharge and Adrenal Implants in the Tools trait line? I’d rather have Stati Discharge be limited to 30 pt Tools builds than to have it butchered completely.
Compare the Engineer 30 pt trait Adrenal Implants to the Ranger 10 pt trait. They’re the exact same thing. Why not switch them around as they should be, and spare us the almighty wrath of the nerf bat?
Feel free to add me ingame if you’ve got any questions. I’d be more than happy to answer.
Yes, it is a “burst” build, but the whole focus of the build is low cooldown times. It’s not like, “everything at once and you’re useless for a long time”.
And generally, in PvE everything dies fast enough for burst to be more helpful than sustain.
Another good thing is that it wont get hit by the upcoming Boon hate as hard as others will.
For a sturdy PvE damage build, you could always go with 10/20/0/10/30.
Take Explosive Powder, Hair Trigger, Rifle Mod, Invigorating speed, Speedy Kits, Static Dscharge, and Power Wrench, with Med Kit, Tool Kit, Utility Goggles OR Battering ram, and rifle turret. Supply crate, for your ultimate, obviously.
It’s (arguably) the best dps build that an Engineer has, with berserker gear.
The entire focus of the build is to crit often and hard, and Static Discharge helps alot with that. The utilities might seem a bit weird, but this is because of their Tool Belt skills. They either have the lowest cooldown to trigger Static Discharge, or they’re good in general to have as a “utility” utility.
I respect your oppinion, I just don’t agree with it.
No, no, and more no.
Engineers are the only profession without some form of melee (Tool kit doesn’t count. Utility =/= Damage)
Give Engineers Hammers or Maces.
A Mace/Pistol or Mace Shield Engineer would be kitten.
And a hammer is not only lore friendly, but it would fill a MUCH, MUCH needed slot. Only TWO professions in the game use Hammers, and warriors barely ever use them. Only Guardians get any serious use.
Both Engineer and Hammer need some love. Why not put them together? There is no reason not to.
MAYBE if the “staff” was melee based. Engineers need SOME love for the up-close stuff.
(edited by Captain Swag.5893)
Berserker gear. The #1 most used armor set in the game. Its damage is unparalelled.
Condition damage. Slow, but reliable dps. Not burst based.
There isn’t really a “straight dps” condition set, they always have some 3rd sat thrown in, like Power. (Rampager) or Vitality (Carrion)
A new armor stat combo needs to be made with something that compliments Condition Damage builds more than Power does.
Perhaps a (non precision related) Condition Crit Chance? Condition duration? Condition Haste? I don’t know.
My point is, if you give the Conditions more dps capability, they would be chose for alot more content.
(edited by Captain Swag.5893)
Every single class has some form of viable melee damage source, except the engineer. This is a huge downfall in my oppinion, and a Melee Engineer sounds really fun.
The most obvious candidate for this would be the Hammer. Engineers only have two available weapon choises, even less than Elementalist. That’s a problem. A hammer would be “lore-friendly” (Hammer/Nail), and it has alot of potential to be fun.
Personally, I was thinking of some “ability” ideas myself to throw a few things in the air. If anyone else has an idea that they think may be more appropriate, just chime it in.
1:Standard 3 hit combo, with the third hit giving enemies in a small aoe five stacks of bleed.
2: Supercharge.
A barrier would form around the engineer for several seconds that absorbs 5 attacks. If the barrier absorbs 5 attacks, it explodes, dealing damage to enemies in a small aoe and burning them,while briefly silencing the Engineer. If the barrier doesn’t absorb 5 hits, the barrier explodes after the duration is complete, granting three stacks of might to the engineer and up to 4 nearby allies in a small aoe, and the engineer’s next few attacks will deal Burning. For every 1 hit the shield doesn’t absorb, the engineer gets 1 charge of burning.(Note: The Engineer is not silenced if the barrier doesn’t absorb 5 hits. This skill is mainly to be used as a pre-combat buff for a strong start.)
3:Grappling Hook
The Engineer throws out a chain at a medium range that hits one enemy and damages them. The engineer can activate this ability a second time to jump toward the enemy, removing a single boon, but not dealing direct damage.
4:Hammer and Nail
The Engineer swings the hammer over their head, with a small cast time, and hits one enemy for heavy damage and briefly stunning them.
5:Electrocution.
The Engineer channels a field of electricity around him that deals damage periodically to enemies that stand in it. The field lasts several seconds, and moves with the player.
Obviously this is a really “rough idea”, but the main purpose was just to throw some ideas out and to show that it could be alot of fun if created properly.
You guys are taking what I say wrong. I’m saying that it needs to be possible to avoid the endless camping. Even by one person. the arena is IMPOSSIBLE to do, even if one mesmer is sitting at the top. It needs to be counterable. A choke point or something would be great.
I’m still standing adamant about what I said. By all means, keep it there and let it be a good source of loot. However, if you’re keeping it there, make it actually POSSIBLE to counter.
There is no kittening way to stop it other than permastealth, which is now impossible due to nerfs. (Thanks)
This is about the #1 most aggrovating thing in this game, and it needs to be taken care of.
It’s allowed, yes. What I’m saying is to move the kitten thing entirely. A PvE “puzzle” shouldnt be put into a pvp warzone due to the massive swarm of kitten and pre-pubescent trolls that follow. The fact that they BENEFIT from this is kittening sickening. There’s no “skill” involved in this fighting. It’s being an kitten. That’s it.
Either move it, or make it POSSIBLE to counter. Right now, a mesmer sitting in the arena is literally NOT kittenING POSSIBLE to counter. Portal, knockback, pportal, stun, portal, knockback, portal, down, portal, kill. That’s just kittening stupid.
(edited by Captain Swag.5893)
PLEASE For the love of God, do something about the jerks camping the JP in the Eternal Battlegrounds.
In the Arena room, there is NO avoiding it. They’ve got a superior point, and there is no stopping these kittenes from pushing you down, every single time. No amount of Stability or Stealth can possibly last that long unless you play a Thief or Mesmer. This is a JUMP PUZZLE, not a PvP base. Why is this even in the WvW area to begin with, I wonder?
Seems like a really crappy design choise to me. I understand making people want to fight for the jump puzzle. Having people basically “bullying” over it is just unacceptable, for Christs’ sake.
Traits are the biggest issue. Our level 30 traits are equal to some other classes level 10 traits.
Also, battering ram is awesome, it just needs a shorter cooldown.
Yeah, that’s the idea. Each one has some fatal flaw. Whether it be a long CD, or useless ability, or both,
THIS NEEDS TO HAPPEN.
I’m tired of having my wrists get sore from spamming 1 all day.
The solution here is to make the 1 ability an auto attack, similar to underwater grenade kit’s attack. Keep the other abilties ground targeted, but make the first one auto.
PLEASE, for the sake of every Engineers’ wrists. This NEEDS to happen.
Engineers med-kit heal should be % say it give 20% off your health back / bag so you can get 60% back with all 3, as it is now it give 2% / bag.
I main an engineer and med kit is one of the most thoughtful and well rounded heals. The reason why each bandage heals for so little, is because you can lay down a good number of them at every opportunity during a fight, in preparation for when you do need them. The bandage duration is longer than the recharge.
This to the 1000th degree. (You forgot to mention the bonuses when running out of combat too, though.)
Anyone that thinks the Med Kit is garbage needs to rethink how they use it. I DO still stand by the “ground targeting should be default” thing though.
I feel there are many things to improve the game and I hope this thread can be used as our suggestions on improvement.
1. Make guesters guest on an overflow on the server they are visiting.
2. Turn DR off or communicate how it really works so we all know how to keep it from effecting players that just want to play the game their way.
3. Make Spvp balance for classes completely different than Pve balance.
4. Boost dps on engineers and rangers for Pve and add more survival for ranger pets or just remove them from the game and change the class to an archer.
5. Quit with the secret loot nerfs and place a limit on how many porous bones a player can get in one day.
6. Stop releasing silly fluff content patches and focus on making the game better.
7. Don’t buff anymore dungeons and ruin them for the levels they were intended for. If you can’t make a decent challenging dungeon to begin with don’t change it and further anger your loyal players. If you want to make it more difficult then add a hard mode and make changes there with increased loot chances. If players are abusing a dungeon decrease the tokens granted for the most popular path.
8. Stop posting important game information on Facebook or Twitter first. This is your forum so use it first to share game news.
9. Get rid of multi guild representation.
10. Stop over moderating the forums and also ask for devs to keep rude comments in a private message instead of making not nice responses on the forums.
11. Don’t add gated content. Mmo players are going to find a way to burn thru any content as fast as possible so focus on replay enjoyment.
12. Add world bosses and dungeon bosses that are complex and not something that just spams a one shot at players.
13. Make loot drops also based on area effect healing and support skills. Don’t give glass cannons all the glory for playing the game. If support got as much credit for drops then it would slow down progression and even out demand for crafting mats for dps and support gear.
14. Add a sub option without DR or mail restrictions.
I’ll add more later unless this is merged or deleted or moved etc…
I agree with every single one of these.
These are all (mostly) simple fixes, so why haven’t we seen them yet? That’s the real question.
Weapon Selection
The engineers as you know have the most limited weapon arsenal to choose from. Yes, kits exist, but kits are ABILITIES, and should be treated as abilities, not weapons. Expand the engineers’ arsenal a bit. For example, Hammers, Maces, or Swords.
Giving Engineers some melee capability would give ALOT more use to the Tool and Flamethrower kits, helping to make them a viable pick again. It would also open a WIDE range of new builds. Some abilities you may have overlooked earlier.now that you mention it-i would like a melee weapon. it could make me serve as tank even. plus-weapon swapping is not avalible to the engineer, making him tacticly a lot less proficent
imagine an axe/shield Engineer? flaming axes…exploding axes…electrified axes…omnom.
as overpowered as that sounds it wouldn’t compare to thief’s or warriors output.
I like the electrified weapons, but axes dont seem fitting. When making things, you may use a hammer and some nails, right? Engineers have experience hammering, so why not give them a hammer?
My reasoning behind adding a Hammer specifically is that Engineer weaponization is very limited, even if you include kits. Sure, you can use more than 2, but you don’t have very many to choose from. Someone here suggested a Steam-Hammer kit. That would be FANTASTIC. A viable melee “weapon” that could be used with the Tool and flamethrower kits as suggested. Engineers may use hammers, but not giant hammers. But then again, they don’t use flamethrowers or potion guns either. A steam hammer would fit well with the “feel” of the fantasy rpg engineer, and it would fill a spot that they DESPERATELY need filled.
Make it happen, please.
So give us Hammer the weapon and just get yourself a Charr Steam Hammer. It’s a thing. Then Engineers can have a reasonalb melee weapon without having to get another skill and use up the space in order to keep it. I like rifle, but I would rather walk around with a hammer.
I agree with you completely, but God knows Arena thinks that Engineers should use kits and ONLY kits.
Well, you said that Med Kit was sad. That’s a problem.
I agree with you that it doesn’t heal for alot, but if you’re in a dungeon and need to run, heal, and remove conditions, it’s am amazing tool for doing so. It isn’t for group heals, it’s for “Omg I’m gonna die, run” heals. [/quote]
My reasoning behind adding a Hammer specifically is that Engineer weaponization is very limited, even if you include kits. Sure, you can use more than 2, but you don’t have very many to choose from. Someone here suggested a Steam-Hammer kit. That would be FANTASTIC. A viable melee “weapon” that could be used with the Tool and flamethrower kits as suggested. Engineers may use hammers, but not giant hammers. But then again, they don’t use flamethrowers or potion guns either. A steam hammer would fit well with the “feel” of the fantasy rpg engineer, and it would fill a spot that they DESPERATELY need filled.
Make it happen, please.
Nails already cripple
I had meant immobilize, my bad. You don’t often see crippled people freely walking about, so in my mind cripple = not moving.
(edited by Captain Swag.5893)
Finding an empty pvp server and hoping for it to remain 1v1 is rather a pain.
/support
Weapon Selection
The engineers as you know have the most limited weapon arsenal to choose from. Yes, kits exist, but kits are ABILITIES, and should be treated as abilities, not weapons. Expand the engineers’ arsenal a bit. For example, Hammers, Maces, or Swords.
Giving Engineers some melee capability would give ALOT more use to the Tool and Flamethrower kits, helping to make them a viable pick again. It would also open a WIDE range of new builds. Some abilities you may have overlooked earlier.
Power split
ALL of the kits/weapons don’t know what they want to be: power or condition damage. No matter how you build, you are always missing out on half of the weapon unless you sacrifice a major stat to gain damage with a mediocre weapon that is being taxed to begin with. Refine the weapons and kits to be more build-fitting. For example, all power builds now are generally Rifle builds. Most Condition builds use Pistols. Make the pistols scale much less with power, but much higher with condition damage, and remove the Bleed effects from rifle while buffing it’s power. Remove some power scaling from Flamethrower, while making it focus alot more on Burn DoTs. Add some more power to the Tool Kit, while toning down it;s bleed to be only a crippling effect.
This would let players know what to build for, and eliminate alot of confusion about what traits/skills go to which weapon set. (Arena Net, I know you encorage people to build how they want, but in this case, that just simply will not work. Something needs to change for that to be a viable possibility.)
The Bugs and Dev Hate
Go look at the Engineer bug forum post. No, really. I dare you. The list is HUGE, and many of these have been around for a long time, remaining unfixed. (Add Elixir U to the list, baby)
There’s a huge bug where a Tools trait named Scope doesn’t work at all. Not partially, at all. 0% effectiveness. This is a real letdown, as Scope would be a very useful trait for PvE content.
Is it just me, or does Arena Net KNOW they screwed up beyond repair? Think I’m wrong?
They’ve considerably nerfed engineer repeatedly, regardless of the massive outcry and their own knowledge that Engineer needs some hope.
Their bugs are remaining unfixed, for ages after they are reported.
They refuse to address much of the concern regarding engineer. (In fact, I’d be more than amazed if any engineer post in the Suggestion forum got answered)
I would really like to see the justification on some of the nerfs that are going around.
The folks who balance the engineer need to pay attention to the community, they might learn a thing or two, or twenty.
Elixirs and RNG
The elixirs are great and each fills their role rather well, except for one problem, THE RNG. EVERYONE and their grandmother hates it.
It makes strategy impossible, it’s a pain for everything and accomplishes nothing, and is a sad excuse for “utility”. If Elixer S Throw always gave stealth, you could assist your team in pvp or dungeons. If it fails, however, you’re just going to end up embarassing yourself for trying. You want to give your team stability on that boss fight? Nope, stealth. Congratulations, you used a totally pointless move and wasted time that could be spent bursting the boss down. Give each elixir one thing it does, and make that its purpose. Once again, if an ability is going to take the place of a Kit on your bar, it needs to be worth while. Often, only one or two are even close to being worthwhile, when a kit can give you generally much more.
Conclusion
Engineer needs alot of love, and the developers are either seriously slacking, or completely unaware (somehow) to how bad it is. I love the engineer and will never re-roll, but I’d really like to see some love brought to this profession. It really is deserved.
TL;DR
Engineer is broke as crap. Fix stuff. No more RNG, no more condition/power confusion. Gadgets suck. Kits are weird. Damage tax is unnecessary.
(edited by Captain Swag.5893)
The Tool Kit
This one is also a bit interesting. This kit has no purpose, but utility. It has a 3-hit autoattack, good for nothing but repairing those crappy turrets, an AoE bleed, a power-based nuke that confuses, (which is great,) a shield block, (also great,) and a magnet pull. This kit does a little bit of everything, as it’s meant to. However, the auto attack is put to shame due to Turrets being garbage. It may have gotten buffed, but even if you have all of your turrets firing, while you auto attack to hit the enemy while repairing, your damage will be low and your turrets will still break. I recommend buffing the damage/speed of the swings a bit, to give it a bit more useful application. The AoE bleed is fine where it’s at, but I believe it cou;d also do with a crippling effect, but only in the area of the spikes. If I stepped on a giant nail that impaled my feet, I’d probably slow my steps to avoid further injury. Why shouldn’t enemies do the same?
Floating enemies? Forget about em. They have imaginary feet.
Med Kit
At first, I really disliked this kit. However, with a few points into Tools I began to like it alot more. However, I do believe that the Med Kits should heal for a bit more, and automatically use ground targeting similar to a grenade. I don’t see why it would be challenging to throw a box of Bandaids to someone on the field, and that you need to “train” to do so is silly.
Elixer Gun
I really liked this kit at first, but as time went on it became pretty useless. It’s auto attack is a slightly weaker version of the pistols’, it’s 2 is barely noticeable in combat, it’d 3 is a wannabe-flamethrower-attack that causes vulnerability, it’s 4 is fine where it is,(an escape,) and it’s 5 is a weak, aoe heal. The auto attack is fine as it is, it’s a support gun, not damage. It’s 2 needs to do more than swiftness/cripple. Swiftness is barely noticable during combat, and if allies are actually within range of an enemy for it to cripple it, a cripple only meant it has to move slow WHILE attacking. Your allies aren’t really gaining anything, and your enemy hasn’t lost a thing. Its 3 is a neat idea, but it’s just bad overall. It does no damage, has a bad condition scale, and applies less vulnerability than spamming a few grenades. It’s damage should stay low, but possibly raise the condition damage/vulnerability apply rate. The 4 is fine, leave it alone. It’s meant to be an escape, and it does it well. The 5 has potential to be a great ability, but it falls vert short. The AoE heal is barely noticable, both the heal and the area is covers. Overall, it falls just short of being amazing, even after it was buffed. The rate of the heal needs to be significantly buffed, and the area needs to be made a little bit more clear.
Elite Skills
Engineer elite skills are rather bad, frankly. Supply Drop is an aoe nuke that drops turrets and medkits. The damage and medkits are nice, but they need to be toned up. One medkit simply doesn’t heal for a lot, and honestly the damage is sub-par. And don’t even get me started again on the turrets.
Damage Tax
I read a Red post somewhere that Engineers received a damage tax with their main hand weapons, due to kits. The problem with this is that even with kits, their damage is still terrible, and their gadgets and elixirs are only a mediocre attempt at fixing that. Remove the damage tax from their weapons, it’s not accomplishing anything good for the class and even less for overall class balance.
As we all know, engineer is CLEARLY the most fun profession there is. However, it’s still suffering from useless abilities, nonstop RNG gameplay, and low damage/healing/defence overall.
Let’s take a look at a few abilities that need some work.
Elixir U
This ability is alot of fun, however there’s a post-patch bug going around right now that’s causing the quickness to not apply properly while still triggering the cooldown. Obviously this needs to be fixed. Aside from that, I think this move is in a good spot. You gain offence and lose defence for a few seconds. Perfect burst ability, minus the bug.
Every single turret
These things are just garbage, except MAYBE the net turret if you’re doing pvp. The main problem with them is that often they’re completely broken seconds after you place them. These things have low health, slow fire rates, and bad damage. Even their active/toolbelt abilities stink, for the most part. If these things are going to be balanced and viable, they need MUCH higher health, more damage, faster fire rates, and possibly lower cooldowns.
Gadgets
Gadgets. Just, gadgets. Most of the gadgets are completely useless, and a waste of a bar space. For example, when was the last time you saw an Engineer using Slick Shoes? Never? I believe so. Some of them provide effects that your weapons normally give you, with a significantly longer cooldown. Granted, some of these’ toolbelt abilities aren’t bad for triggering static shock, but that’s besides the point. With Kits being the highest damage source from the sheer number of abilities they have available, Gadgets PALE in comparison to any kit. Gadgets need to be SUPER buffed, to compensate.
Consider the 100n build, or a power bomb build, widely considered the best damage builds an Engineer can do. It’s main burst comes from spamming, a lot. Gadgets need to be equal in worth to a kit, and since kits have quantity of abilities, gadgets need quality.
Kits
Kits don’t necessarily have strong abilities, they have A LOT of abilities. You give yourself a Grenade/Bomb build and you just go down the line with your abilities. That’s how they work, save the Elixir Gun due to it’s support nature.
Personally, I think the Grenade and Bomb kits are in a good place right now. The grenade kit gives raw damage (although a little on the low side compared to some) with a little bit of conditions, and the bomb kit is amazingly disruptive.
The Flamethrower needs some work. The flamethrower is supposed to be a “close range brawler” type of kit. Oh, it’s close range alright, but it’s no good. It’s got a knockback, (which potentially both weapons have,) a glitchy as hell auto attack that’s a pain to “aim”, a blind, (which is a bit useful, however a bit strange,) a fire wall for area denial and damage over time. The main problem here is the auto attack and its damage output. The damage just isn’t that high, and it’s overall a pain to tell where the fire is hitting, and where it’s going to hit. You can hit enemies that aren’t anywhere near the flame, hit enemies inside the flame as intended, or completely and utterly miss. Why even bother using this kit compared to the Bomb kit? There’s nothing it has that the Bomb kit doesn’t do better, including a blind, cripple, and confuse. (There’s your area denial, firewall.) Please, give this kit some love. I hate it, personally, but it is in deperate need of some viability.
Well, I’m glad I’ve gotten this much feedback! Generally, the replies summed up can be said as “get used to it or re-roll”. I’m more than used to the “hard mode” play and I rather enjoy it. It’s the “nobody likes engineer because they’re UP as crap” problem.
Engineer is really fun, however it’s more underpowered than any other.
The day is coming when they’re getting buffed, hopefully. Until then it’s still a blast, and I don’t regret one minute of maining an engineer.