Guild Wars 2

Phineas Poe.3018:

They reworked Retaliation precisely because of how easily Guardians can stack it, and have acknowledged that they’re still not satisfied where the boon is at. They reworked Confusion in World v World precisely because of how easily Mesmers and Engineers compile it.

Retaliation is a boon accessible by most professions. Confusion can be applied by a traited warrior, mesmer, engineer, ranger pets, and right now with the runes of perplexity pretty much the rest of the professions too. Applying auto-attack to kits, sigils to kits, and weapon stats to kits affected exactly one profession: The Engineer.

I am not going to apply a retort to the rest of your post, as you still appear to be misinterpreting me. Let me make an analogy to a kitchen/restaurant. Let’s say you have a menu with 8 items. All items use beef as a main ingredient. 7 of those items use lettuce, while one item uses bell peppers. Let’s say the item with bell peppers sells the least but it is still profitable. A new form of beef comes in (lets just say kobe beef) and it blends well with all the lettuce items but doesn’t really work with the one bell pepper item. As a business owner what do you do? Spend time and money on extra ingredients and kitchen staff just to make the bell pepper item work with the kobe beef or do you just change the bell pepper item and make it use lettuce?

I hope the analogy makes sense to you, and it will apply perfectly with the ascended weapons about to hit in the next live patch. Do you spend the time and money to make ascended weapons function the same way as they would with the other 7 professions or do you just, as I said above, change the bell pepper to lettuce?

Also, I will note that I replied to the OP with an answer as to why I THINK anet might redesign the engineer. All of it was theoretical. And in theory, adding in extra work to an area of a game that already works with 7/8th of your product would force 99% of the game companies out their to scrap or redesign. You took those words and turned them into a personal dissection of my comment when all I did was give the OP a reason WHY they would redesign the class not that they WILL redesign the class.

In fact, if you read the entire post you will see at the end that I would much prefer our class to stay as it is.

Phineas Poe.3018:

They’ve put a lot of work into this class, a lot more than you’re giving them credit.

When did I say that they’ve put little work into this class? My entire post was about them being forced to spend extra time on us because we are so different from every other profession in the game. You really need to stop twisting my words to try to rile me, it’s rude and impolite.

Phineas Poe.3018:

If you’re using that infographic they released the other day as your source on Engineers composing 10% of player population, that number is based off characters created. There’s just no way that Guardians are equal to Necromancers in player population at level 80, or that Rangers are the second-most played profession.

Would you have rather me said that the engineer was one of the least played classes along with the Mesmer?

Phineas Poe.3018:

As for spending “copious amounts of time” for one class, I think they’ve already done that. They overhauled Ranger pets, didn’t they? And that was only one class mechanic.

I highly doubt a stat buff to ranger pets could be considered an overhaul. The AI is still the same, they still die incredibly easily to cleave, and many rangers are still generally annoyed with them. This thread is not about the ranger though, so before I get off topic I will stop right there.

Phineas Poe.3018:

Engineers are in a very good place right now, and that was done by spending copious amounts of time on us.

At no point in my post did I mention whether or not we were in a good spot, the entire post was about the extra time they were required to spend on us to bring us up to par, which includes the sigil update, and what may very well be a fiasco for the engineer when they introduce ascended weapons into the game.

To make things clear, an overhaul is something that requires a massive update to a previously programmed mechanic. Do you remember when we had to toggle auto-attack back on every time we switched to a kit? That wasn’t a problem with kits, it was a problem with bundles in general. All of the programming they did with bundles had to be rewritten and debugged all for the sake of one profession. Adding weapon stats and sigils to kits? Once again, an exclusive engineer problem that required code rewrites on bundles themselves.

I don’t have the game engine in front of me, nor do I confess to know how much work it required, but I do remember developers coming into these very forums and stating that they wanted to fix these things but that they would take time. And time is what it did take. 1 month for auto-attack on kits, about 3 months for sigils and weapon stats.

This is the exact same thing I am sure they are discussing right now with Ascended weapons and kits. Extra programming, extra work, extra manpower.

Once again, before you get ahead of yourself Phineas, I am only stating that from a producers standpoint, when they look at the breakdowns of work required, and they see an area of the project that requires more manpower for 1/8th of their class population, then you can be certain they might be posing the question for a redesign just to streamline it with the other classes.

I am not defending a decision like this if it is made, but they are running a business, and in the end, all that matters really is the bottom line. I have worked on many games that have had some of their best features cut or redesigned solely because of problems like this, and I highly doubt a successful company like anet functions any differently.

Then again, a redesign might never happen, and personally I would be much happier if one never happens, but logistically I could feasibly see why anet would want to overhaul this profession.

Who knows. Anet has encountered a lot of problems that are specific to this single class though, which takes away from developer/programming time to address. Obviously, to a producer, streamlining the engineer to fall more in line with the functionality of other classes would seem very enticing.

For example, the problem with legendaries. Currently engineers are the only profession with the problem of showing off their legendary as builds with kits tend to perform better than builds without, and we all know what happens to your shiny legendary when you switch to a kit. No other class has this problem, and from a producers standpoint, why would you want to come up with and implement a fix to this problem if it takes away productivity from other areas of the game and is catered to a single profession?

It took time for them to implement sigils and weapon stats for our kits. That was time I am sure they would have rather spent in other areas of the game, yet it was an absolute necessity in order for the engineer to remain competitive. I am sure at least one programmer sat down after months of rewriting entire lines of code for a SINGLE profession and thought, “wow I wish we didn’t have the engineer in this game.” Once again, this was a problem that singularly affected the engineer, and no other class in the game.

So, fast forward to ascended weapons. Now we have many concerned engineers wondering how the increased weapon damage will apply to our kits, if it does at all. One hopes this issue is in the minds of the anet developers, but if you take a close look, and how they might be budgeting their time across their programmers, then it would be reasonable to assume that there is not enough manpower available to implement any sort of change what-so-ever.

Lets just say you are a Guild Wars 2 developer. The team finally balances out and designs all of these great new ascended weapons. All of that work that was put in to create these weapons should be done at that point right? The answer is no. You still have to come up with an idea on how to implement these weapons for a single class, the Engineer. After hours of brainstorming, you might just give up, and task your team towards other goals, as spending copious amounts of time for less than 10 percent of your player population is not conducive to a happy player base.

What would you do in this case if you were a developer working for arena net? It’s a known fact that a lot of the new things created have to take the engineer into special consideration. Create a rune with an effect on heal? Make sure you program in an ICD or else you will have the same outcome as you did with runes of torment. Add in ascended weapons with increased weapon damage? Cool, hopefully you make it so our kits scale with weapon damage now. Oops what’s that? You didn’t factor in the fact that you also have to program that little line of code into EVERY SINGLE other bundle in the game and now you have a few exploiters running around soloing champions with a portal gun (I know this is an extreme example).

At this point you probably think to yourself, why on earth did we design a class that is so different from every other class in the game? One that requires hours of manpower just to implement ideas that are already programmed successfully for our other 7 professions? And when this question is asked, in the industry the answer is always generally the same: “Redesign the entire class so its streamlined with the others.”

I am sorry if this disheartening, but it’s true. And as much as I love the engineer to death, and think its class mechanic is the most fun thing in the game, arena net might eventually reach a breaking point with this profession and just redesign it all together.

Please don’t read this as a request to redesign the profession. I am just giving you all an example as to why the engineer, out of many classes, always seems to get the short end of the stick when massive new system updates are created. In the very near future this will be ascended weapons and how they work with kits, and you can certainly bank on the fact that they will not when they are first released.

I can understand guardian using every stat but I guess I’m ignorant with elementalist. Would healing power be wasted on them?

Edit: Let me correct myself. I see the guardian has a lot of heals and easy access to burn (condition damage), however is it similar for the elementalist?

Yeah, I was just posting what classes I currently have. Like I said, I’d be willing to roll a class that makes the most benefit out of it.

So elementalist or guardian is your recommendation?

I am coming up on my 30th charged crystal, and was just wondering which profession do you think will make the best use out of celestial?

I have an engineer, warrior and ranger, but I would be willing to level up any of the other professions.

I just want one non-min-max profession to take out and have some fun with that has a true jack-of-all-trades theme.

Yes, I am well aware that they are removing magic find.

Knox.8962:

Are you considering zerker nade or zerker bomb builds as power builds?

Both of those will do excellent damage already, although it is a mix of condition and direct damage.

I don’t post my suggestions for anything other than very slight quality of life changes on this forum anymore, so I cannot answer your question with a confirm or deny, and adding some more instant cast abilities to our toolbelt is as minor as they come.

I’m sorry if I am being vague, but there are certain people on this message board who berate and dissect every word I type then gang up on me with their legions of guildmates/followers so I keep most of my ideas to myself now.

Hmm, let me try and explain why it’s bad in another way.

One weapon set should not dictate the dps of another weapon set. This would be the equivalent of telling a warrior that in order for them to achieve max dps on their greatsword they have to equip sword/sword in their other weapon set instead of something like a longbow in order to get a bonus from two sigils instead of one.

If anything, if they made such a sweeping change to kit damage, they should first just give us a sigil slot for our kits. Create a sigil slot on our character pane. When a kit is activated, it uses that appropriate sigil. That would go a lot further in balancing out the p/s or p/p approach most engineers are forced to take if they spend most of their time in a kit.

Phineas Poe.3018:

Would be nice if they just re-designed kit damage entirely and had the Weapon Strength of your Rifle/Pistol be the modifier, and not the Weapon Strength of your kit.

May not be the simplest fix, but it is the cleanest, while still giving incentive for acquiring Ascended weapons.

Since the last one was deleted, here is why I think this would be bad. If they scaled off weapon power, then in power based kit builds, it would be mandatory to take a rifle if you wanted to max dps, instead of opening up more build diversity by allowing people to take something like pistol/shield, have access to a blast finisher, but not have to give up the incredible 15 percent damage increase they would get if they equipped a rifle.

Phineas Poe.3018:

The Med Kit is better…

This is quite the blanket statement you have here. I am sure if he is heading towards organized group play they would much more enjoy Healing Turrets incredibly large water field over Med Kits better personal healing capacities.

Phineas Poe.3018:

There’s a lot of different ways you can take your Engineer, and there’s considerable depth to it, perhaps more than any other class. I do also love the Warrior and Guardian, but they are very simplistic. Even if you’re a DPS Guardian, you’re still going to be using many of the same utilities as you would if you were an Anchor/AH Guardian. This really can’t be said of Engineer builds; they’re really quite diverse.

There are many complexities behind the warrior and guardian classes. Calling them simplistic is quite irresponsible. Some of the best players out their understand when to cancel their attack animations, the correct time to projectile reflect or block, time their interupts, when to use their adrenaline, etc. I’m sure Defektive could write many pages on the nuances of the warrior and would laugh or view it as a personal insult if you called the warrior a simple profession.

Having such a narrow minded view over an entire class could be considered by many people to be an immature outlook on things.

Phineas Poe.3018:

LadyRhonwyn.2501:

I don’t care about boons at all. I don’t have boons on my ranger.

Um, Call of the Wild much?

I believe LadyRhonwyn could be referring to her specific ranger build, one which might not have access to many boons. Perhaps a trap based ranger without warhorn.

Before calling people out with snide remarks perhaps it would be best to privately message them first and ask them what they meant by their statement? It is only polite.

It’s not though!
Both chars have 25 stacks of bloodlust.
Pistol dude has 5% in both pistols, increasing damage by 10%
Rifle dude has 5% in his rifle, increasing his damage by 5%. He is dealing 5% less damage!

But wait! Rifles max weapon damage is 15% more than pistols!

Rifle wins!

You have to wait for the field to appear. It is not instant. It requires timing. Best place to get a feel for it would be the mists.

A lot of bug fixes.
Major changes would have to be:

Ability to use sigils with kits (this finally gave engineers the option to use weapon swap sigils like sigil of energy)

Jump Shots animation changed to actually be functional (you no longer hang in the air for several seconds)

Rocket Boots completely changed. They now propel you forward, and break chill/immobilize/snare. The self-cc and stun break were removed.

Deployable Turrets now works.

There were many other changes too, but those four would probably be the most noticeable to someone returning to the class after one year.

google.3709:

an extra s sigil.. 1,029 + 250(bloodlust) :O! bamm! now pistol is more powerful than rifle ;p

One rifle with bloodlust, one rifle with whatever you want. Get 25 stacks, swap out rifle.
BAM rifle is now more powerful than pistol!

These runes are incredibly strong, probably one of the best options for a solo roaming p/s engineer right now.

Mask is right though, if you pay attention and turn auto-attack off (if you watch koroshi’s video closely you’ll see he gets most of his interupts while the opponent is auto-attacking the air) you can beat this build.

It kind of reminds me of the perma-stealth full zerk backstab thief. When I first encountered one in wvw I thought I was literally fighting a god-mode class. After a few months (yes I’m a slow learner) I slotted in some toughness, adjusted my build, timed my dodge rolls better, and started to AoE more. Now I pretty much beat any zerk thief I come across.

The question is though is that do these runes illicit the same community response as perma-stealth thieves? Do they punish casual players as severely?

Well, they certainly punish casual players, but as of right now, the wvw forums do not have 10 threads regarding these runes, and perma-stealth thieves used to get 10 threads a day asking for them to be nerfed.

Seras.5702:

I actually use Goggles’ Analyze with my SD build.

The simplest solution would be to make the Static Discharge hit your target no matter the toolbelt skill. In other words, you use your mines (untargeted) and the SD still shoots out at your current target. This would let SD work on every utility.

Reducing cooldowns would obviously help SD, but I don’t see Anet redesigning so many skills based soleley on a single Master trait.

My hope is that when they add new weapons/kits/utilities they give us power-based single target options. Something we’re completely reliant on SD for at the moment.

That would definitely be a good change as well.

However, it does lead to a slight problem. Most people would run analyze, suprise shot, and soothing mist (elixir gun toolbelt) in that case though, as it would give another stun break in addition to being instant cast.

Sagramor.7395:

I meant when you activate Rocket Boots (not the toolbelt) it stops you briefly at the end of the animation. Something that actually needs a fix, unlike anything in the OP.

This is a suggestion thread, nothing more, nothing less. Maybe you should post about your rocket boots in the bug report forum?

Then again, seeing as you appear to enjoy hijacking threads with inane statements, I’d probably have more luck finding your statements in a world matchup post.

Oh, hey, they are talking about ascended weapons in general discussion! Perhaps you could voice your concerns about rocket boots in there?

This thread will basically be an open discussion on how to buff our non-condition based builds.

I will begin.

I feel we need a few more instant cast toolbelt skills to open up some variation for the static discharge build. If this was to occur, damage should definitely be adjusted.

This would give the player access to the following:

Analyze: Instant Cast, low cooldown, no actual damage (other than the SD proc), vuln stack.
Suprise Shot: Instant Cast, low cooldown, high damage.
Launch PBR: Instant Cast, moderate cooldown, moderate damage, cripple.
Net Attack: Instant Cast, moderate cooldown, low or no actual damage (still debating), immobilize.
Rocket: Instant Cast, low cooldown, high damage.
Throw Napalm: A complete change from a ground targeted aoe, to a single target aoe explosion, moderate cooldown, moderate damage.

This would force the player to make a decision. They could take utility goggles, rifle turret, and rocket turret, for the shortest cooldown toolbelt skills to increase their DPS, or they could opt for more utility in the form of cripples and immobilizes and take net turret and pbr. They could also opt for a form of AOE dmg and slot in Flame Turret.

I purposely left out throw wrench, as I feel tool kit itself already trumps most of the aforementioned skills on its own, and if throw wrench was made instant cast, then every player would pretty much slot tool kit 100% of the time.

That’s all I have for now. The other ides I have call for more drastic redesigns of kits, which I am too afraid to post about in these forums.

Since I don’t have full celestial yet (16 more days) I went to the mists and tried out a celestial engineer build with the amulet. Obviously, it’s nowhere near the amount of stats you’d get in wvw/pve full celestial, but it was something.

I thought to myself, why not try out something strange with this amulet, and went with p/p static discharge. Against all possible odd, I was actually quite pleased with the results.

The build was
10 in explosives, taking burn proc
30 in firearms, taking coated bullets, recharge rate, and modified ammo.
10 in inventions, taking stealth on root.
20 in tools, taking speedy kits and static discharge

Utilities were
med kit
utility goggles
pbr (I know no suprise shot)
tool kit
supply drop

Rotation was, pull with magnet, prybar, analyze, auto attack, poison dart volley, pbr, launch battering ram, static shot, blowtorch.

The damage was unique and surprising. Modified ammo was really noticeable on blowtorch after stacking 6 conditions (confusion, vuln, cripple, bleed, poison, and burn which will probably proc off of the explosives trait). The combination of somewhat decent SD burst, in addition to the somewhat decent condition damage ticking, seemed to throw a lot of opponents off guard, coupled with the fact that you are also throwing a knockdown into the mix with pbr.

I figured, with the increase in stats you’d get in wvw, this build might be a unique roaming variation on the p/p hgh build (that I have grown bored of after several months of playing it).

As far as sigils and runes go, I was experimenting and just went with runes of melandru and two 5 percent dmg sigils in each pistol. I’m sure there are better options, but I will have to research this more to find out.

Anyway, if anyone does have full celestial (trinkets and armor) and wants to try out this build in wvw, it would be great. I have 16 more days until I have enough charged crystals to give it a whirl.

joffmonk.1285:

engineers to a lesser extent with rocket boots and jump shot…

Many engineers won’t slot rocket boots as it takes away from a crucial utility slot that engi’s need very badly as we use utility slots for our kits.

Also, jump shot is a rifle skill, and most rifle builds use static discharge, which is pidgeonholed into taking very specific utility slot skills, all of which do not normally take rocket boots. It’s why you see so many bunker engineers in spvp. Because that is literally one of our strengths, not mobility.

With that said, I don’t think warriors need a nerf.

MonMalthias.4763:

Fast forward even more and Teldo makes his perma burning far point assault build with BK, FT, Elixir R, Sigil of Doom with revitalised Healing Turret, and Rabid amulet. Bombs are apparently now “OP” because they cover the whole point and calls to nerf Engineer Burning due to a potential 100% uptime with Sigil of Smouldering and Condition Duration runes.

I’m beginning to understand why this game can’t be balanced now actually. You have two types of pvp. SPvP and WvW. Medium armor classes are considered inferior to heavies and lights in wvw, yet in spvp they shine. Warrior is a lynchpin to the popular melee train in wvw, yet in spvp they are bottom rung. In fact, they are amazing roamers now too due to the way they can build the high healing power/condition build and stack it with food to have near complete, or very close to complete, condition immunity. This particular build is countered heavily by poison in spvp, but if you take a look at the food and runes in wvw, the one counter it has is completely castrated. How could anet balance a profession in one aspect of the game without completely destroying it in the other.

I then look at phrases like “they cover the whole point” in the quote above and I totally understand how bombs are very strong in pvp. Yet how effective are they in WvW? How many points in wvw are completely covered by bombs. Camps? Lords Room? Towers? There’s a reason you don’t see many bomb kit engineers in wvw, accept the rare outlier like joebamf, mainly due to the way wvw is balanced.

I have to admit, I was looking at this whole thing from a wvw standpoint, and I understand why spvper’s might think it would be very very very OP. I also feel that most of the people who agree that we need torment might play wvw more than spvp.

I realize that this game has a long way to go before class balance is achieved across all three facets of the game (wvw, pve, pvp) and that some classes shine in some areas and are completely terrible in others. I guess I took my frustration out on everyone here, and for that I apologize.

It just angers me to no end seeing all of these 20v20 GvG battles with a big fat no-engineer sign in front. I had the idea in my head that if we brought aoe torment, then maybe engineers would be more accepted in the wvw meta.

I believe he is talking about leaps and dashes.
The closest you will get to those on the engineer are rocket boots, the 5 skill for the rifle, or the elixir guns 4 skill (which blasts you backwards).

We do have access to perma swiftness via speedy kits, however many builds, especially condition damage builds, do not take speedy kits as they need to spend the points elsewhere.

Mobility outside of swiftness is definitely one of our glaring weaknesses when you compare it to other professions. I believe the class was designed to be less mobile though and make up for it with more access to cripple or net.

Then again, some of the more mobile professions also have access to the same mobility reducing skills. I don’t know, I’m getting off point.

I think dodge roll only procs confusion when you have at least 5 points in explosives for the bomb on dodge roll minor trait.

With that said, I tried this out for a week but the play style is for someone who is very reactive in nature. You have to actual interrupt people, not just blindly stun or daze them. The rune only activates on interrupts.

TLDR: If you enjoy baiting people into fights that they think they can win then this rune is definitely for you.

He beat you because you were running p/v/t dual pistols with tool kit probably. Without the ability to apply any pressure to the ele, he was able to wear you down while simultaneously ignoring the minor damage you put out.

You’ll also see he dueled an engi with very high condition damage and similar armor to yours (rabid probably) and that engi won a few times.

I’d duel him one day, but I’m not the best engi, in fact I happily admit I’m one of the worst, but I do understand theory and stats. Mask’s p/p hgh build would probably do very well against him with his near perma boons and a combination of condi/power damage.

Tyaen.5148:

Standard HgH P/P build with Tool Kit. I’m not trolling…

You run P/V/T dual pistols. Wow. Ok, I now know why we aren’t afraid of SoR zerg blobs that much if those are the types of builds you guys run.

You’re using one of the best condition spreading and worst power scaling weapon sets in the game with no condition damage and all power.

Yes I play on T1.

johnsonade.9547:

I dunno I’ve run perma-burn builds in PvP and PvP duels, always applied poison via pitol #2 and a poison sigil, applied traited and sigil-based bleeds and had lots of might stacks to go with my berserker gear, but there’s no “easymode” burst techniques that I see in engineer builds like I’ve seen in other classes since the Torment condition tweaked the meta. If you kite like I do in midrange while applying conditions, you’ve probably caught an kitten -load of fear+torment+burn+bleed that is the mid-range necro. Or you got yourself dominated by a mesmer that has Torment in addition to Confusion and unreflectable, long-range attacks. 409 trait did nothing for me versus this. I do my best not to whine, but I see why the OP would like this condition (and have it attached to an offhand weapon instead of a kit) to compete with these other classes. Our Confusion stacks are okay, but if the enemy runs and stops attacking they’ll live. If the enemy takes my ability to kite away via Torment, all my cooldowns go towards getting that back. You still pay torment’s toll even under the effects of elixir S, rocket boots won’t save you, and we have no way to reliably transfer conditions besides a sigil.

To tell the truth, I just want to be able to apply Torment or an equivalently meta-changing condition in whatever form besides runes so that I can go on about my business and keep my builds diverse. Sure, we’re a malleable class, but I have to slither around the boulder-sized meta the Torment classes have in addition to constructing some sort of burst damage from our multiple kits seems like the most daunting task I’ve had yet as an engineer. I’m thinking all I can go with are immobilizing traits and quickness bombkit burst but I’ll be sure to ask the forums for help if I still can’t get anywhere.

You’re treading dangerous ground Johnsonade, you actually saw something from my point of view.

Now you just gotta get prepared for people to troll you, net detective you, send you harassing PM’s, disagree with every point you make, and all around treat you like a complete jerk. Welcome to my world, enjoy the stay.

This has been a very strange week for JQ.
I have no clue what is going on.
BTW smokee, an engineer in your guild pretty much convinced me to go runes of perplexity after he rolled me numerous times in a row.
I did and man, these runes kick some serious….
Until they get nerfed, which please dear god no.

Even.4687:

Proc’s supposed to be short for programmed random occurrence, and is often used in the sense of crits which are random.

Incorrect. There is irrefutable evidence that Proc comes from the phrase “SPEC_PROC.” When an item in a MUD would have a special effect attached to it, the MUD’s programming would use “SPEC_PROC”, short for “special procedure.”

Don’t go rabid rifle. It doesn’t work.
Rabid will work very well with pistol.
If you really like pistol offhand, then go for it, but I still feel you give up a lot of utility.

Proc stands for “SPEC_PROC.” It’s just an abbreviation for a term used in really old text based MUDS from the early 90’s. Basically it means an ability activates when certain parameters are processed. In guild wars 2 that usually means on critical strike. So, if you have an ability that applies a bleed 60 percent of the time whenever you crit, I would say, you are procing a bleed.

Sigil of Earth is an example of a sigil that ‘procs.’ Whenever you critically strike you have a 60 percent chance to apply a bleed stack on your target. We also have a 5 point minor trait in the firearms tree that ‘procs’ a bleed when you crit, and a 10 point trait in the explosives tree that ‘procs’ a burn when you crit.

This is why rabid is beneficial to an engineer, as you want to have some reliability in applying those abilities, and the best way to do that is to have a high crit chance. You also want those conditions doing damage, so of course you will need the “condition damage” stat on your gear as well. In addition you probably want some toughness to boot so you can survive longer. Rabid does all of this as it gives you precision, toughness and condition damage.

You can also mix and match some power into your build if you are going p/p as you want your blowtorch to do some respectable physical damage. I am not the best at telling you how to gear like that, but fortunately an engineer named maskganda created a good build for p/p that you can shoot for.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cmgYIXdnik <——Mask’s P/P build

If you want my build it is full Rabid (everything including weapons and accessories are all rabid)
Pistol/Shield
6 runes of perplexity.
I take 10 in explosives and get Incendiary Powder
I take 10 in firearms and switch back and forth between 10 in hair trigger or 10 in rifled barrels.
I take 20 in inventions and take cloaking device and reinforced shield
I take 30 in alchemy and take fast acting elixirs, self regulating defense, and cleaning formula 409.
My utilities are elixir H, tool kit, elixir B, elixir S, and supply drop.
I use sigil of earth and sigil of corruption on my weapons.

I drink and toss my elixirs to remove conditions mostly (I don’t waste elixir B for the buff as I’m not really stacking boon duration anyway and would rather have it to cleanse a condition) and elixir S I save as a get out of jail free card.

With that build you will have 3100 armor, two blocks, projectile reflect, stealth, and two elixir s chances (one with the utility skill and one with the trait). You will also do very respectable condition damage and be a nice asset to your group. You can also use your shield 4 skill as a blast finisher to help the group stack their aoe buffs before a big battle.

But please, you really have to trust me here, there are much smarter and better ways to gear for defense than P/T/V. P/T/V really gives you nothing and in my opinion, just makes you dead weight.

You will also find that I am very opinionated, and that irritates a lot of people, including “mr.not-true” poster above, but I am only trying to help other engineers make more informed decisions and not be scrap metal out there.

Sagramor.7395:

Phineas Poe.3018:

This thread presents the notion that Engineers need Torment in the first place.

Why do we?

Bingo

Don’t worry, condi warriors didn’t need torment either.

I find it absolutely pathetic that this is the general reaction I’m getting for asking to get torment placed on a single skill.

Well, I’ve played the engineer since release and only have one alt, a warrior who is level 26. I’ve played most if not all the builds out there, and there is just no convincing me that offhand pistol is better than shield in its current state. Give it more oomph and I might change my mind.

Regardless, this thread is about an engineer seeking to gain more survivability. Can we at least agree that P/T/V is a lazy way out and there are better ways to gear up that give you both survivability and group presence?

I just don’t like, nor have I ever really liked burn in group play. I wish it stacked in intensity. Too much to give up for a condition that I see get applied all the time by the group I roll with. YMMV.

Well, you could go total cheese mode and get rifle turret and rocket turret.

So skills would be
Whatever heal your comfortable with (turret, med kit or elixir H)
Rifle Turret
Rocket Turret
Elixir S
Supply Drop

What you would do is supply drop, then rifle turret, then rocket turret. Then overcharge both turrets.

That build should let you kill her pretty easily.

Remember though, I wouldn’t take that build anywhere else in the game other than the gauntlet lol.

Also, unlike you, instead of troll posting with the words “not true” over and over I actually provide points as to why p/v/t is bad. Yes you can survive, but that’s all you can do. This isn’t the hunger games.

And yes, compared to Pistol/Shield, Pistol/Pistol is very weak. You are trading out a blast finisher, two CC moves, a block, and a projectile reflect for an aoe burn and a short duration aoe snare/root.

If you really think full p/v/t isn’t overkill then I don’t know what to say.

And at what point did I say I run full zerker?

I run full rabid with 3100 plus armor with blocks, projectile reflect, and two get out of jail free cards (elixir s slotted and free trait proc).

I am giving him defensive suggestions that are NOT P/T/V. You should read and note that my suggestions all involve garnering toughness.

And I seriously doubt you are damaging “any” class with full p/v/t gear. What exactly are you doing to damage these classes? And please don’t say you can kill uplevels or people in zerkers gear.

You have no crit, crit dmg, or condition damage. How do you apply any pressure? Are you the groups dedicated stomper then? Grats on choosing that as your role with the profession with the least access to stability. You have zero healing power so you provide no support through healing what-so-ever.

You do not have to believe me and you can continue to live in that world, but please do not try to convince freshly minted engineers that p/t/v gear is the way to go.

There are ways to gear to survive while you know, still actually providing something meaningful to the group.

You know what, screw it. GMR Lion go for it. Gear up full P/T/V, take out that shiny rifle or pistol and just go to town! Gasp in amazement as you provide zero condition damage and physical attacks SOARING into the high tens, no hundreds of damage!

Go condition damage.
Get 25 stacks on a sigil of corruption, which is very easy as people are always zerg farming the pavilion.
Take elixir s and spec for the free elixir s at 25 percent.

Supply drop her right away and fire static shot and pdv then just auto attack her. The strategy is to apply as many bleed stacks as you can until a tornado hits you. If the tornado bats you into another tornado just pop elixir s and find a safer area to continue auto attacking.

You really don’t need to go PTV. Better to focus on a style you like. PTV is very broad but you really don’t do anything productive. PTV is decent on other professions, but not engineer.

You do want toughness though. You also want the off-hand shield. And you want toolkit. If you want to go rifle, forgo defense all together and just be a crit-nub. You will get some kills and output some nice damage with static discharge.

P/P in its current state is very weak no matter how tanky you try to make it through boons (you will encounter plenty of boon strippers in wvw).

You can small roam with full rabid gear P/S and have 3100 armor and ~1550 condition damage. The build is 10/10/20/30/0. The precision is their so you can crit proc your burn and your bleed. You take 30 in alchemy so you can get condition removal on elixir consume and toss, lower elixir cooldown, and proc elixir s at 25 percent hp. Take elixir h, toolkit, elixir r, elixir s, supply drop. 10 in explosives is burn on crit. 10 in firearms is to lower your pistol cooldowns or increase its range (choice is yours), 20 in inventions stealth on root and the shield trait that lowers its cooldown and gives you an extra 90 toughness.

Rabid gear is precision/toughness/condi. At 3100 armor you will laugh at people who go full zerkers. Start with full runes of the undead, then when you get some gold get six runes of perplexity. You will apply great pressure through conditions and be incredibly difficult to kill.

Sigils are your choice really. Some like nullification, some like earth, some like the might proc (i personally don’t like the might proc though). For your other sigil just throw in a sigil of corruption. Your tough to down so you can keep the stacks up.

There are also some really nice support builds out their that utilize clerics or apothecary sets. Those sets give you healing power, toughness, and either condition damage or power. I don’t know too much about those builds though but they provide great support through healing with elixir infused bombs.

Just don’t under any circumstance go P/T/V. You will be very unhappy and just feel like a giant meat-bag . A healing signet warrior could literally afk at your feet as you struggle to put a dent in him if you gear p/t/v.

Penguin.5197:

And chances are that by next balance patch the runes will get an icd

These runes ain’t getting nerfed. Warriors are using them to give people 9 stacks of confusion with one shield move (when traited with 4 confusion stack on interupt).

Anything newly created that a warrior can do well by definition will not get nerfed for 8-12 months.

But god forbid engineers can stack 25 stacks of torment by spamming a med kit and doing NOTHING else lol. Insta hot fix.

And I mean, seriously, Box of Nails? Really? People can move out of its range before it lands even when they are crippled. It’s really a sad and ridiculous skill, and adding torment won’t fix its inherent problems. Also, last I checked you can still go P/S with tool kit…

SD Rifle has one of the most fluid and fun gameplay styles in the game and is incredibly effective in PvE. Rifle is absolutely fine.

Flamethrower has received numerous buffs to the point where it is actually competent DPS. I’d still rather go with Bomb Kit SD Rifle if I wanted to max DPS but that’s another story.

Elixir Gun is fine PvE support.

Tool Kit needs a few fixes to it’s 1 and 2.

Grenade Kit is fine as damage or condition pressure or hybrid.

Off-Hand pistol needs a SERIOUS buff to compete with P/S. I’m sure even the P/P pioneer Mask considers P/S with its projectile reflect, two CC moves, block (that you can attack with at the same time!) and blast finisher.

Giving torment to offhand pistol would give real incentive to take it and remain competitive.

Honestly, at T1 the difference between going P/P and P/S is night and day. Trust me, the past week I’ve been going P/P in wvw and the difference is absolutely staggering. You’re gonna get destroyed by the competent roamers at this level if you don’t bring projectile reflect and block. Destroyed. That great burn it applies, trust me it will get cleansed. Gear up for extra power to add some oomph to the blow torch? Great, you just waltzed into melee range with only gear shield to save you.

Sure, I can go around and beat scrubs all day with P/P. Anyone can. They don’t dodge, they don’t bring condition removal, and they don’t CC.

Honestly, and this is getting off topic, but I would love to see mask (the pioneer of p/p) fight a really good p/s engineer. One that actually dodges abilities, kite cleanses confusion, attacks while blocking, saves elixir tosses for condition cleanse, etc.

And btw, that really good p/s engineer wouldn’t be me.

Edit: I watched masks most recent video and wanted to turn it off after looking at a great sword warrior spam the air with hundred blades. It made me laugh, but then consider transferring down to a t4 server so I could roll people with p/p.

Would any of you be really upset if we had torment?
Probably not.

You want to stick it on box of nails? That skill is so awful to begin with, how about giving it a much shorter cast time first?

It would be a small buff that would give engineers the opportunity to apply aoe burn and torment on a short cooldown.

But you know, I guess we can all just stick to grenades for condition pressure instead of trying to get arena net to wake up and give us more build options.

P/P should be tier 1 condition pressure in my opinion because of what it sacrifices. Right now the best condition pressure an engineer can put out is either through grenades, or Pistol/Shield! Yes P/S! Why? Cus you can cheese the runes of perplexity lack of cooldown and get two interupts, getting you to 10 confusion stacks fairly quickly, then you still have prybar and the proc from the four piece bonus (maybe get to 16 confusion stacks). On top of that you still have the pressure from your pistol 1, 2, and 3. All you lose is blowtorch and glue.

If arena net wants to buff weapons that aren’t doing their job properly then they should take a hard look at off hand pistol.

Really? It doesn’t fit? Kinda like how when a warrior impales someone it applies torment instead of bleed?

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Impale_

God, have we engineers become so pathetic that we don’t even want buffs?

No, you really need one kit.
Pistol/shield works really well with runes of complexity and tool kit btw.

Pistol is not power type damage but condition damage.
He is right though, with 100 percent condition duration you have a 4 second bleed on pistol 1. Couple that with the fact that every pistol skill applies a condition and you can overwhelm players that don’t roll with condition removal (which is unfortunately very common these days due to the necro surge).

Getting off topic, but if blowtorch added torment, it would amp up the engineers roaming capability 10 fold.

Still, you can do some really annoying things with 100 percent condi duration, including a 12 second snare with glue shot when you trait sitting duck.

We are just really lazy on JQ. Probably the only server that has maintained so many weeks in T1 since release without even caring or trying.

This isn’t a compliment to our server btw, so don’t read it as such.

Since you’re going bulky, swap out the rifle turret for PBR. You’re tougher in melee range so you can easily hit the knockback. Since this build isn’t so much about insane burst damage anymore, there is no need for rifle turret/suprise shot. Might as well get some more CC.

Just wanted to point this out to you fellow engineers.

You can now get 100 percent condition duration with only 10 points invested into Explosives.

Sigil of Malice = 6%
2 Runes of the Lich = 4%
2 Runes of Lyssa = 10%
2 Runes of Mad King = 10%
2 Givers Pistols = 20%
1 Rare Veggie Pizza = 40%

Total = 100%

I’ve been playing the typical p/p pistol build with this setup in wvw and it’s actually a lot of fun.

Full Rabid

10/10/20/30/0 – Defensive Oriented

or

10/30/0/30/0 – Offensive Oriented (more total condition damage plus you can get sitting duck, pistol range, pistol cooldown). Glue Shot with sitting duck is a lot of fun with 100% condition duration. 12 second cripple.

Anyway, experiment with it as you wish.

Macros.6120:

Rifle: For when you want to single-handedly stunlock someone for the remainder of their short life.

No one worth a grain of salt has been stun locked by a lone rifle engineer. Net is easily dodged by any human being with the average reaction time of someone 50 years old or younger, and overcharged shot is subject to numerous obstacles (short range, block, etc).

Four kit builds are the epitome of gimmick, and I’m not trying to be insulting. There are numerous flaws towards your concept, including using an entire kit (flamethrower) for a single nuke, while ignoring its benefit as a fire field generator to stack area might with blast finishers.