Guild Wars 2

How do we fix Engineer? Half our skills are either buggy or almost completely worthless. I think it’s pretty summed up in the Thumper Turret: a turret that puts pressure on a local AoE area. That sounds reasonable to have but really let’s break it down…

Assuming we don’t waste Trait points to get Metal Plating or Rifled Turret Barrels:
•About 30% less damage than Hip Shot from the basic attack. It only activates every 3 seconds. At level 80 and 1960 power, that’s 107 DPS. I wish I was making this up.
•240 range. That’s about double the range of basic one-handed melee attacks.
•Can’t take any sort of pressure. How bad is it in this particular category? In pitting the Thumper Turret against the Fireflies near the Lion’s Arch/Gendarren Fields port with no support from my Engineer, a single Firefly ANNIHILATED the Thumper Turret without losing 1/3 of its health from the Thumper Turret. Let me repeat, a single firefly destroyed the Thumper Turret without losing one-third of its health. Surely I’m making this up now, surely I jest. No. I recorded it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7cPmZ8q6n8&feature=youtu.be
And the utter irony of it? The Thumper Turret is described as “high-health”.
•Oh and a certain entirely useless Toolbelt skill called Shockwave that does 311 damage (again less than Hip Shot) on a 90 second cooldown. But don’t worry it’s a freaking blast finisher.

It’s clear in cases like this that more thought was put into thinking up the Thumper Turret than was actually put into making it. It’s absolutely pathetic in terms of offense, defense and usability. I feel like this describes half of our so called “walking arsenal that carries everything need to dominate the battlefield”. We have no thought put into our profession and it increasingly seems like ANet is unwilling to make enough of a change to the Engineer to actually make it on par with the other classes.

NaturalPortman.9562:

I think this change alone would be enough.

Make kits our F skills.

Then we really should just change our name to Elementalist-lite. If the Engineer loses the toolbelt skills, I’m hanging up the class for good.

Angelus.1042:

Strikerjolt.5910:

Tolmos.8395:

I think they should reduce the price of exotic gear on karma vendors and give us ascended gear for the current exotic price, considering they nerfed all the fun ways to karma into the ground.

They really should get to this pretty soon though. If they release expansions at the same pace as GW1, it won’t be too terribly long before we see the first expansion. And since they already announced that they definitely plan to increase the level cap in expansions, it would make all this gear null and void and we’ll have to start a brand new gear grind at max level again a la WoW.

Would be a bit much to hand us alternative ways of getting ascended gear only to make it all worthless within a couple months after.

Wow.. really? they’re going to increase the level cap?
Well I might as well stop playing then, because I purchased Guild Wars 2, because it wasn’t like WoW that it constantly upped the level cap, and just gave out new gear.
And “Casual players” could never keep up with the majority of the elitist crowds unless they had really good friends that pulled them along.

Wow.. really? they’re going to increase the level cap?
Well I might as well stop playing then, because I purchased Guild Wars 2, because it wasn’t like WoW that it constantly upped the level cap, and just gave out new gear.
And “Casual players” could never keep up with the majority of the elitist crowds unless they had really good friends that pulled them along.._.

Anet has said in many interviews way before and even after the game was released that their would be level cap increases with expansions.

I’d really like to have a single source on that. It’s not that I don’t believe you, I’d just like to see the statement for myself.

The moment I saw the Steam creatures I wondered why the Engineer didn’t have any relation to them. Sadly it turned out they’re just more Asuran tech.

Turrets turn into Steam creatures that can follow you and behave much like the Elementalist, Guardian and Necromancer pets. They have similar overloads. Toolbelt skill makes them charge the enemy firing their weapon and explode if they reach them and the explosion mirrors their type. Rocket Steam Creature is a big explosion, Rifle Steam Creature sends out a volley of bullets, Thumper Steam Creature does something similar to the Elementalist’s Earthquake, Net Steam Creature explodes into a swarm of nets, and Flame Steam Creature explodes into the Napalm skill. The only exception is the Healing Steam Creature which explodes at the Engineer’s side for a base 1000~ AoE heal.

Kimbald.2697:

Or better: actually give us the versatility that seems to warrant this low damage penalty.
We don’t have it now… or traits only support single purpose builds, never a true versatile build.

So if we pay the price for it, I would really like to have the actual versatility now, if you dev’s don’t mind…

This is how I feel. The Engineer as it stands isn’t a versatility class like the Elementalist, it’s a variety class like the Warrior where you never know what you might be facing when going against one because of the Weapon Kits.

The worst part? The only way to describe the Engineer is to compare it to other, superior classes in some regard or another. You don’t compare the Guardian to a better tank or the Thief to a better Spiker. Short of CC (which is almost meaningless in PvE and doesn’t have the large fields the Guardian has to be useful in WvW) we are truly the second-fiddle to every other class.

Considering we’re the only class in the game that tends to rely more on our Utility skills than our Weapon skill and Class abilities, it just seems to me that using one of those Utility slots for a stun-breaker that leads into another stun ten feet away isn’t very efficient. Instead of that spot for the Rocket Boots you could:
• Use Tool Kit and use one of the best blocking abilities in the game as well as a Confuse and a Cripple (very good Warrior and Thief counter) as well as an impossible to dodge pull. Throw Wrench is also very good for the popular SD build.
• Use Elixir Gun and retreat using Acid Bomb. It doesn’t break stun or Immobilize but it gives you about the same distance without having to stun yourself. Then use Fumigate to help your allies, Tranquilizer Shot to screw up your opponent’s offense, Elixir F to further retreat or Super Elixir to set up a combo field that heals you. Healing Mist isn’t great but Elixir Gun has to have a fault somewhere.
• If you’re Immobilized with a Rifle remember that Overcharged Shot is supposed to break that Immobilize and send you back without stunning you for nearly as long as Rocket Boots do WHILE blowing back your opponent and dealing better damage than the Rocket Boots can (though sadly it’s one of the more buggy skills Engineer’s have) and that’s without using a single Utility slot.

And if you are more interested in a stun-breaker than a retreat let’s look at:
• Utility Goggles break that stun and grant 10 seconds of Fury which can be a huge difference if you have a Critical Damage or Proc on Crit build. While Analysis is unlikely to beat Rocket Kick in a SD or Cond. damage build, it may serve more in a group effort when all your teammates are suddenly hitting 10% more damage.
• Elixir R breaks your stun and instantly refills your endurance meaning that you can immediately roll out of the fray and make about half the distance Rocket Boots can without having to make yourself vulnerable by stunning yourself. Not to mention the godly Toss Elixir R which can revive anybody in 5 seconds or less including yourself.

So with all of that, what exactly is your argument for Rocket Boots again?

Walorx.5129:

Well rocket boots is a great way to get out of battle quickly of you’re about to die, so I think it functions well for its purpose IMO. The tool belt skill fits well with it too, although the cool down could be shorter.

I still feel like any time I use them I still die because a.) I don’t have another stunbreak to break the Rocket Boots stun and get jumped on b.) I’m fighting someone with a range weapon or a Thief so the range I make doesn’t really matter c.) I still get hit in the rocket boot retreat and die instantly because I was in the mid air or d.) rocket boots fails to disable immobilize and I fail to launch.

I think Rocket Boots would be worth while if they fixed the movement-impaired issues and either made it either one long dodge animation or removed the stun at the end.

Your strategy of avoiding attention in hopes of not getting worse is a sad one. When you’re dying of cancer you don’t shut yourself up in your house to start feeling better, you go talk to a doctor and have the two of you figure out the best course of treatment. We suck in PvE, our WvW capability is limited, and we’re mid-tier at most in sPvP. That’s not at all the position I want to be in when I sit down and shut up as an Engineer.

Yes and no. The real problem is that instead of being good at everything but not outstanding in many ways, we’re stuck with being meh at everything and nerfed everytime we’re good at something. It’s because ANet looks more at the “master of none” part instead of the more-sensible “jack of all trades” thing.

I just wish “balancing the Engineer” for once meant buffing instead of nerfing. The Engineer Grenade Kit was doing too much damage? Nerf it! No point in trying to bring the other kits up to its level so that the Engineer does sensible damage compared to other classes. Nope.

I think the majority of Engineers are rather pessimistic at this point. I’m not even sure if we’re excited for the January patch seeing as how the last two big patches have been unjustified nerfs, broken promises and an extremely obvious lack of direction.

On topic, it’s just another bug that comes with the Flamethrower. There’s not much you can do except hope ANet gets off their butts and attempts to fix the Engineer bugs.

Anymras.5729:

I’m of the opinion that the last two trait ideas should be how things work to begin with – turrets are annoying to use due to their general underwhelming effectiveness, and Toolbelt Skills are what we get when the dev team tries to make us spend Utility slots for a gimped Elementalist’s versatility, and then give us back the utility slots as preselected things.

The first two suggestions, though, seem interesting.

Just going to go ahead and post this link as far as my suggestions for Traits go, though: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Give-the-Engineer-somewhere-to-shine

It’s basically a set of Engineer-specific customization traitlines.

I read your ideas a few days ago and really liked them. As odd as it sounds, I do like the idea of making the Engineer more complicated because I tend to see that complication increases combinations and options, something that the Engineer should be excelling at. One thing your Preparation idea should feature is the ability to change the Trait Nodes on the fly (as in not having to go to a Engineer Trainer) to really bring out the “Preparation” thing. That way you could respec the Trait Nodes for turrets if you suddenly need to hold a point or put them into kits if you need to do increased damage. While giving the Engineer such an expansive overhaul would be very nice, I feel like it’s not something the developers would be willing to commit the time and effort to.

Kyon.9735:

Rezzet.3614:

insanemaniac.2456:

off hand pistol blows kitten use shield

pistol autoattack damage is crap compared to rifle

2 has ridiculous accuracy problems

BUT RIFLE DOESNT GIVE YOU 2 SIGILS!!

You do know only ONE sigil procs at a time then both go under cooldown?
wich makes having 2 sigils near useless.

I thought having 2 of the same sigils with the same cool down procs the cool down, but having a sigil proc every 2 seconds and another that procs every 5 seconds work? Correct me if I’m wrong.

Sadly I am pretty sure you are wrong. As far as I’ve tested and read, all Sigils that have a cooldown share the same cooldown. When both Sigils can proc at the same time, the Sigil in the main hand will apply first. Therefore if you’re using the Sigil of Frailty in the main hand and the Sigil of Strength on the off hand, even though both have a one second cooldown, the Sigil of Fraility will apply almost every time with the Sigil of Strength rarely applying. For this reason I suggest using a Sigil with a cooldown alongside with a Sigil that applies a continuous effect like the kill stacking effect Sigils or the Sigils of Accuracy or Force.

I think most of us realize that the majority of our Grandmaster traits aren’t exactly rewarding. Aside from Grenadier or Juggernaut, very few of the Engineer builds I see have anything to do with going beyond 20 in any single trait. I’d blame this too Engineer requiring a good mix of everything to be effective but such pigeonholing should be discouraged. What I would like to do is see if you guys have ideas for what could make a good Grandmaster trait. I’ve been fumbling around a few ideas and I’d like to see what you guys think:

Explosives: Grenadier rebalance
Grenadier may be one of the single best traits in the game. In fact, it’s so good that it’s the reason why Grenades have been nerfed time after time. No other Traits pretty much says “Increase damage output by 50%”. However, I love the third Grenade not because of the damage but because of the additional proc. Any good Engineer using the Grenade Kit realizes the Vulnerability stacking potential of the Grenades is excellent (especially now that we can use the Sigil of Fraility alongside the Infused Precision trait). While it would look strange and pointless to someone who is first looking at the traits, I think the following would be a good balance for the Grenadier trait:
“Lower Grenade Kit damage by 25%. You throw an additional grenade with each Grenade Kit skill in addition to throwing grenades 25% further.”
Of course, if this were to be implemented, the Grenade Kit would be required to return to pre-December 14th damage. It would still inflict more damage when using the Grenadier trait but just not the 50% more it does now. It would also not sacrifice the multiple procs that I find very useful in the Grenades.

Alchemy: Corrosive Tranquilizer Darts
I feel like the main attack on the Elixir Gun is underwhelming. It’s better than the Pistol’s in terms of bleed but lacks the small AoE, it’s slower and barely has any more oomph to it. Replaces Automated Response.
“Apply a random condition (2-3 seconds) to enemies when hit with the Elixir Gun’s Tranquilizer Dart.”
A trait like this would make the Elixir Gun useful for more than switching to it briefly to use a single skill like Super Elixir or Fumigate.

Inventions: Homeosynced Turrets
One of the most common complaints I see about turrets is the lack of skill scaling that’s so important in any play style. With that in mind, I thought this up:
“Increase the attributes of your turrets by —% of your own attributes.”
This would serve as a way to make turrets more in line with whatever play style you use. While an Engineer with 30 points in Traits would be unlikely be extremely good at things other than taking damage, it would allow Engineer’s with Berserker gear to have turrets that deal much more damage or Engineers with Soldier gear to have turrets that can take many hits. While I do not know if that variable should be 20% or 50%, I do think this would be a good way to increase the practicality of turrets. Replaces Rifled Turret Barrels.

Tools: Tool Belt Variety Pack
This one is just so Tools has a single Grandmaster trait worth touching. While having the potential to be unbalanced, I think it would open many doors and really help the versatility that ANets bills Engineer to be capable of:
“Tool Belt skills can be selected regardless of Utility Skills.”
In other words, it would allow the Engineer to use Tool Belt skills separate from his or her Utility skills. Still limiting it to four skills but choosing them and accessing them like the Utility skills currently are. This would be gigantic in changing around the way Engineers could heal, deal damage, and respond to situations. Imagine having access to Surprise Shot without needing to set the Rifle Turret to its own slot or having both the Healing Turret and Bandage Self. Think about having access to Rocket Kick in a Flamethrower build without having to equip Rocket Boots. If you’re using Elixirs, no more being forced into ground targeting skills that have lackluster range and effect. Instead you could change those Toss Elixirs into techniques that actually have gravity in your party or just a nice switch from having to use Incendiary Ammo to having acces to Big Ol’ Bomb or Launch Personal Battering Ram. I think it would be incredibly door opening for the Engineer to have a Trait like this. Replaces Adrenal Implant or Armor Mod.

So those are just a few of my better ideas. I’d like to hear yours and don’t limit yourself to just the Grandmaster Traits or just Traits in general. I’d really like to see ideas for Elite skills too. Surely many of us have good ideas that would be worthwhile to read and consider.

Dante.1508:

Yes makes no sense, we are suppose to be the versatility class (according to Anet) yet Elementalists kill us in every respect even DPS, what the hell are we if other classes kill us in the only thing we are suppose to be good at?

This class needs an over haul and a direction to follow asap..

You hit the nail on the head. ANet’s lack of clarity on what the Engineer is supposed to be is even highlighted in their patch notes from the December 14th patch:

The Engineer is a highly versatile class. While it doesn’t have the long range capabilities of the Ranger, or the melee capabilities of the Warrior or Guardian, they are comfortable at medium ranges in most fights. They have a lot of control, and use their boons to keep themselves (and allies) alive in a fight. They can use different kits based on the situation, but this extreme versatility comes at a cost in damage on their main hand weapons.

We’re expected to sacrifice our offense for versatility (which take up extremely valuable Utility Slots) for the sake of a number of Kits that also suffer in damage and being statistically screwed. True, we are good at control but in PvE the bosses that we actually need to control are completely immune to it and half the classes in PvP can pull out Invulnerability or Stability when stomping or running away and make our controls completely moot. Our boons are regarded as terrible (no reliable protection or stability which are the most valuable boons and very bad Regeneration that comes from the Healing Turret) and completely suck at applying them to others (small ground targeting radius that’s trying to hit a teammate that’s often moving and is completely unreliable in trying to buff entire groups without having them all stack up for a single ten second boon). And our kits aren’t “based on the situation”, they’re based on the build we use. Hell, to get two of them to be viable now we have to put 30 points into either Explosives or Firearms and starve the rest of our traits. That’s not what I would call “versatile”.

Compared this to:

We see the elementalist as the king of versatility. The skill ceiling for the Ele is exceptional, as the ability to leverage all four attunements at the right time is crucial for understanding the elemetnalist. The Ele boasts some of the best team support and control abilities in the game, as well as some great area of effect damage.

Where as Engineers are “highly versatile”, the Elementalist are the flippin’ kings of versatility. Like the Engineer, they have alternative weapon skills that don’t require equipping a different weapon. Unlike the Engineer, they default to having 20 weapon skills without sacrificing their Utility skills and while their access to them is slower well… they don’t have to sacrifice their Utility skills to access them. I can’t make that point enough. Sorry if I don’t consider the Toolbelt (which has half of the skills having either painful recharge times or underwhelming effects) to be exactly useful compared to that. They also tend to benefit from a number of traits that unlike the Engineer’s Kit are actually built to uniquely benefit all of their Attunements.

This leaves the Engineer looking like a sort of bulkier Elementalist-lite. That’s not exactly fair to Engineers who enter the class expecting to have access to powerful turrets, unique weapons and intelligent design like you would expect an Engineer to have because that’s exactly how the class is billed by ANet.

LegoTechnic.5910:

Anyone who completely dismisses turrets is a fool.

I want to agree with you and say that the turret can be useful (I got into Engineer because I loved the whole turret idea) but as it is now its utility is situational. None of them can take any sort of pressure, many of them won’t make much of a difference over a different slot skill, the cooldown times are absurd and the damage is just above minuscule. You’re onto something by saying it can throw both PvE and PvP enemies into a loop but the functionality of the turret is not worth the slot skill in my opinion. The Rifle has a skill that the Net Turret functions for, Bomb Kit has the same range as the Thumper Turret but with much better mobility, versitility and damage, the Rifle Turret does jack for damage and is only really considerable for the toolbelt skill with Static Discharge and the Rocket Turret has decent damage but it’s also criminally slow and the Overcharge seems to take an eternity to take effect. Every turret except the Rifle Turret has a useless toolbelt skill (mostly because of absurd C/D times) And again, they all have no mobility and are cripplingly fragile.

In general I find that glass cannons builds are far too risky in Guild Wars 2 to bother with and right now Engineer turrets are not worth using. At all. Forget them and go with Gadgets or Weapon Kits. And face it, the grenade kit is the single best weapon the Engineer has for tagging multiple mobs in Orr. No ifs, ands, or buts. An Engineer using Grenades is like a Warrior using a Greatsword or a Ranger using a Short Bow. It’s just what you do if you want to get the best output. Compare the ranged AoE of Greandes to other weapons. Coated pistols fire in a line, the Bomb kit requires you to dive into mob swarms, and the Flamethrower lacks accuracy and range. It’s no contest.

Of course simply using Grenades is a guarantee of failure if you try to deal with anything that’s now hitting a ton of mobs at a safe distance. I utilize the Rifle combined with Med Kit, Elixir R, Grenade Kit and Elixir Gun and while I can’t just dive in and tear through mobs like I can with a Guardian, I still have little trouble dealing with pressure and disposing mobs in Orr. In fact, I can solo most open world bosses on an Engineer while I can’t do that on my Guardian. This same build will win me 90% of sPvP 1-on-1 fight and half of 2-on-1 fights.

I think the most important thing with Engineers is to remember to switch it up and go through loops with intelligence. It seems that, based on what I read about Engi complaints and such, many Engineers just knuckle-headedly go into battle expecting to fight it like a Warrior and that simply does not work.

I find your lack of inner Gunkitteno be disturbing.

… Really, censors?

Since the instance and not technically “in” town, using a Waypoint charges you money. Teleporting to Heart of the Mist and back is a free way to fix the issue.

I suffer from this too.

Esplen.3940:

Don’t use Auto-run.

It’s not auto-run. Holding W and pressing F to pick up an object (such as a Reflective Crystal in the Solid Ocean Fractal) has many times caused me to become stuck in a run and fail to pick up the object for about a second. A second doesn’t sound bad but in Solid Ocean Fractal it can either lead you to being downed or just walking straight off a cliff. I’ve seen other people do the same thing as well.