Guild Wars 2

Seetoo.9316:

Er, no. By my logic everyone defending FT should stop so anet doesn’t get the justification to leave the crappy stuff at their crappy levels.

This is the entire sentiment of this thread, but there will be people who react aggressively towards this because they feel that we are attacking their preferred weapon.

Phineas Poe.3018:

Because a lot of it does have to do with “feel.”
[…]
I don’t get that with the Grenade Kit. I don’t like having to constantly aim. I don’t like having to deal with the air time. I don’t like having to deal with having no auto attack.

I just don’t like the Grenade Kit. I never did. I never will. I don’t know if not liking a kit is a perfectly legitimate reason not to use it, but it’s how I decide how I play the game.
[…]
And I have fun with the Flamethrower despite the slight DPS loss. I think the biggest tragedy in this thread is the perpetuation that there is some massive difference in damage between the Flamethrower and the Grenade Kit when there really isn’t—and has already been illustrated in this thread.

Feel is everything to a play-style, but we aren’t critiquing your play-style we are just objectively looking at a weapon kit that is deficient to the others and needs improvement.

The sheer numbers have been crunched, the mechanics have been analyzed, the play-styles discussed. What it comes down to simply, is that the flamethrower is a weapon that needs a redesign or some serious buffs (not more of this might stacking nonsense that just serves like a bandaid to a bruise).

What we’ve had so far is arguments from people who go to great lengths to improve a weapon that they enjoy, which is a good thing but isn’t very helpful. We want to improve this weapon so that people who didn’t think “wow I love using a flamethrower” will have a reason to use it. We wan’t this deficient weapon shine at it’s niche in the engineer arsenal and not be outclassed by bombs and grenades.

The DPS loss is not slight, the loss in utility is not slight, the loss in mobility is not slight. Flamethrower engineers make it seem slight through runes/sigils/practice. Anyone can stack 10+ stacks of might through rune/sigil/traits and boost any weapon, it’s just that most weapons don’t need to be boosted and allow players to utilize those runes/sigils/traits on other things like survival. When grenadiers put that much effort into boosting their grenades you get devastating (and broken) builds like 100nades. When flametroopers do it you get acceptable (and broken) flamethrower builds.

Same thing can be said of HGH pistol builds. In a game that’s all about one character being able to do a little of everything, if you have to dedicate everything about your character into boosting one weapon set then you have a broken build. Regardless of it being effective in WvW, it’s still broken and the devs will try to “balance” it (just look at the kit refinement nerf brought on by 100nades).

Skilled players will always make something look good, even if it’s a weapon or build that’s terrible for the character and the class.

Phineas Poe.3018:

Silentsins.3726:

Phineas Poe.3018:

Well the funny thing is that you have plenty of room to face your target while kiting them. Just look at the skills you have at your disposal with the FT (and EG):

400-range Knockback (12 second cooldown)
PBAoE Blind (16 second cooldown)
400-range Leap (12 second cooldown)
3-second Cripple (6.5 second cooldown)
100% Vigor (Invigorating Speed)
100% Swiftness (Infused Precision)

Coming from someone who also has a Guardian, I actually think it’s much easier kiting on my Engineer. Especially since I have room in my build to slot the Net Turret as my third utility.

Which is pretty comperable to other loadouts… except other loadouts don’t have the drawback of having to face your target.

Except the Grenade Kit is actually relatively terrible at kiting, offering only a 2-second chill every 16 seconds (20 untraited). The Grenade Kit is our Fire Attunement. It is a damage-dealing build. Regardless of whether or not one can throw them behind oneself doesn’t change that fact. Only the Bomb Kit really matches the Flamethrower/Elixir Gun in control.

But the conversation wasn’t about how good the Flamethrower is as a kiting kit compared to other kits. You simply talked about how it was difficult to kite with it even though the amount of leaps/knockbacks you have at your disposal, especially if you’re using the Rifle in conjunction, which offers an additional leap, snare, and knockback, is really more than enough.

The FT/EG Engineer has more than plenty options to keep enemies at bay, regardless of whether I have to face my target or not.

The reason the flamethrower is terrible at kiting is not due to it’s CC, it’s due to it’s restricted radius of attack and how it slows down movement.

When fully traited Grenades offer burst/condi-burst from 0 to 1500 in a 300 degree radius, much less than that behind you, they offer 4 sec chill untraited, 6 sec chill with grenadier (if you have any aim you will land all three grenades since the fields overlap) and a blind. They can damage 5 enemies at a time (each grenade) and they will hit enemies in any direction you target no matter where your character is facing.

Bombs offer a full 360 degrees of attack, they can damage 5 enemies at a time, and they will hit no matter what direction your character faces. Bomb kit also offers good CC abilities like smoke bomb, glue bomb and concussion bomb which (if you’re any good at using it) will prevent most attacks from damaging you when in melee range.
Bombs do have a shorter range than flamethrower, being at 120 untraited and 180 traited.

Meanwhile flamethrower has at most a 60 degrees on its attack radius (30 degrees to each side tops), has 600 range max and misses if your target exits this cone of damage. Most of the time you have to be back pedaling (pressing S) to deal damage and keep enemies from going behind you (or the sides) and exiting your radius of attack. Backpedaling in itself is slower than going in any other direction, so to do damage and kite you have to move slower than others.

Using bombs you can dart in an out of melee applying CC (if you’re any good at timing) without having to worry about where you face or being slower by backpedaling. Grenades are just as good only they have a range advantage and a multitude of conditions.

This is what people mean by saying that flamethrower is worse at kiting. What they mean is that to do damage you reduce your mobility considerably while other kits don’t have this effect.

Welp, I thought I was on to something. I’m back to not understanding how this trait is useful again.

About the sig, I was thinking up something like it when I read yours. It fit perfectly and I don’t mind crediting one of the more level headed engineers out there (Although I never asked for permission first >:3)

Does backpack regenerator scale down in lower level zones? ie in ascalonian catacombs will it still regen 128 per tic even though you’re leveled down?

I run this, it’s a support build though.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQJAqal0piY3zShF17IyoCdWoHFG+pWfeIXpFEC;TIADRmFA

I run rabid gear with cleric trinkets and 6 runes of altruism for party wide fury and might. You can pretty much trigger on heal runes whenever the cooldown is up with the med-kit. Grenades are for vulnerability stacking and conditions, while bombs are for when things get close and you need a little more control. Elixir R is always good because of it’s toolbelt.

EDIT: Copy and paste the link

Welp. It’s up to you to play the class and form your own opinions about it. If you end up coming here with suggestions on how to improve it, then you might find out that there’s valid points across these forums. The more you play the better you get at filtering out the non-content.

Just don’t judge the whole forum based on how we act after a patch. Those tend to bring up a lot of resentment here.

Yeah… at your level you might be able to do a static discharge build?
To tell the truth, most of our builds don’t open up until level 60 because the devs balanced this class around its grandmaster traits.

Personally, I don’t see this suggestion as a reason for someone to use one kit. If done properly I see this suggestion as a reason for engineers to use more than one kit, but to focus on each kit better than they do now.

It seems counter intuitive, so let me explain.

Right now you go 30 into explosives to get grenadier, 30 into firearms to get juggernaut, and 30 into inventions to get healing bombs. Having this be a grandmaster trait for the tools line (and remember having another grandmaster for gadgets) will mean that we can only focus on one other thing, that being survival or beefing up one more kit. The benefit however is that we have reasons to go into any kit (assuming we boost none) and therefore loose nothing if we decide to switch kits between battles.

This would certainly boost our versatility since we get bonuses for every kit, encouraging us to choose any kit without changing our build.

Before anyone says that this is overpowered, because we’d see 4 kit engineers as the only viable option, remember that this would require you to invest 30 into tools (a line no one invests 30 into right now). Also, this trait would only benefit people who spend time in each kit, want regen? spend some time in the medkit instead of just spamming every button and then switching out. Want to cleanse conditions off allies? Use your elixir gun instead of just spamming SE when it’s off cooldown.

This trait would encourage 1 or 2 kit engineers to learn to utilize every ability a kit has to offer, instead of being kings of spam.

So with something like this trait, we get rid of two problems engineers have. First we get rid of the problem where engineers feel forced to use one or two weapons always because they chose a specific build. Second we get rid of engineers just spamming abilities across the board because hey, I have 29 with my 4 kits why not use all of them?

As for Gadget specialist, I’ve got some ideas. PvPeers can come and tell me I’m crazy but at least suggest some better ones while you’re at it.

Gadget specialist: Using gadgets triggers additional effects.
Battering ram- Skill applies 4 stacks of vulnerability, toolbelt causes 3 stacks of confusion
Rocket boots- Skill causes blind, toolbelt causes 3 stacks of vulnerability
Slick Shoes- Skill applies 4 stacks of vulnerability, toolbelt grants 3 seconds of quickness
Goggles- Skill grant’s 3 stacks of might, toolbelt causes weakness
Mine- Skill causes 3 stacks of confusion, toolbelt strips boons

EDIT: If these changes make turrets look like crap then good, they need to scale with our toughness and power before they’ll be any good.

Some kits still need buffs, like flamethrower (which is terrible unless you dedicate every rune and sigil to buff it’s damage) and elixir gun (if they replaced this entire kit with a double SE slot skill I wouldn’t mind). Grenades and bombs are fine for now.

Therefore, the change you suggest isn’t needed to get people to use kits. Where I can see this suggestion working is as a grandmaster for the tools trait line. Replace armor mods and adrenal implant with Kit specialist and Gadget specialist.

Kit specialist gives you passives for your kits:
Grenades-Stacks of might (3 maybe?)
Bombs-Retaliation
Flamethrower- 6 sec stability every 10 sec.
Elixir gun-Cures condition every 10 sec is good
Toolkit- % to cause stun when hit
Medkit- Regen for allies is fine.

To get these passives the player has to be using the kit. This would actually give people a strategic reason to be in kits like toolkit and medkit when your #3,4,5 are on cooldown.

Also, being a grandmaster, this trait would need to compete with traits like grenadier and juggernaut. It would give us a reason for going 30 into tools, other than kit refinement and speedy kits.

I do believe that we are in need of some better traits for gadgets and a similar trait for them would be in order as well. Gadget engis should suggest some passives for a Gadget specialist trait.

Phineas Poe.3018:

OmegaCael.1450:

Give FT 1500 range and perhaps FT has a place over grenade kit.

Why does it need to be used at 1500 range to have a place over the Grenade Kit? The Grenade Kit is great at what it does, but you are no where near as durable/safe at close range.

Got a point, although bombs have better damage and control at melee range. Really don’t know what range the flamethrower is made for, perhaps that sweet spot medium range the devs keep harping about.

Depends on what weapons you take. If you take grenades or bombs then its a good idea to invest into both.

If you’re just relying on flamethrower or elixir gun for tanking then I would recommend you only go for power. The conditions on the elixir gun are a waste because of its terrible damage, and the conditions on the flamethrower are minimal as well, to the point where it scales better with power.

What I run for “Tanking” is grenades, bombs, rabid gear and cleric trinkets. I find that it’s a good combination of vitality, toughness and healing power, while not sacrificing too much dps.

Minor buffs here and there. Nothing to really bring you back if you decided to leave until things got fixed.

The engineer is not dead, it’s just having another seizure as the devs take take him off another machine in hopes of reviving him. Honestly, this class has been unfinished for six months, and the devs are probably going to take another six months to finish this class.

They are however going to do it their way. See, the engineer community is a stubborn one which, when faced with a class that was essentially broken, has made the most out of the working traits to the point of them being very powerful for our builds. The devs probably see this as exploitative and are taking some things away (like the omnom flamethrower).

You know what’s odd? Recently I’ve been hoping that Anet nerfs the kitten out of things like static discharge, and 100 nades. This is just so that when they do I hope that they make our rifle and grenades hit harder. I hope that they take away how med-kit procs on heal runes, maybe then those guys who like getting 20 stacks of might will realize that the weapons they’re buffing (pistol & flamethrower) do really terrible damage and need some buffs.

Maybe when we’ve had all of our “10 button mashing at the same time” combos (which take advantage of the ways this class is unfinished and broken) well be able to get some reasonable buffs and be a complete class. This is what I hope is what Anet does.

They might not though. They might just take everything away and give us some more minor Elixir gun, flamethrower and turret buffs that don’t fix our problems.

I have to say, after making a flamethrower/condition build that required might stacking, I wen’t ahead and used the same gear but with my bomb healer build. I am very happy with the result.

I switched my knight trinkets for clerics, and switched my condition runes for runes of altruism. Now my bombs and grenades do about the same direct damage than before, only I can stack conditions like crazy with them, on top of healing support.

I may not prefer the flamethrower, but the stuff you guys use to buff it sure is great for bomb builds as well. I’m a very happy camper with this new set up.

Penguin.5197:

“They have a lot of control, and use their boons to keep themselves (and allies) alive in a fight.” – Arenanet on engineer class philosophy

Yah.. because we bring a lot more boons than say, an elementalist.

Yah.. because we bring a lot more boons than say, an elementalist.About stability. They should add it to another elixir, I’d prefer at a 100% change, but knowing the devs it would be another RNG thing.

Aristio.2784:

Increase damage by 20% across the board, except for Grenade Kit and Bomb Kit by 15%.
Fix all bugged traits.
Tweak some skills here and there. (Pistol 1, Recast on Turrets/Turret TB Skills)
Do something with Gadgets

Fixed the Engineer class with 4 sentences.

Fix all bugged traits is an understatement, but pretty much.

Flamethrower and pistol do not do competitive damage when compared to bomb or grenade kits. The amount of legwork you need to do to get these to work is immense and ties you down to only either buffing yourself or damaging. Very little CC, and no support.

These weapons just need to be on the level of grenades and bombs and maybe people will stop playing keyboard pianos to get them to work.

Kai.3680:

Maybe coated bullets changes the sound now?

I didn’t have coated bullets so that might be why I didn’t notice it.

nakoda.4213:

strength sigil! enhanced performance! or, HGH! also, testing out fire sigil with the buff to air blast.
but, with strength sigil it is rdiculously easy to hit 20+ might stacks, also (edit) you ought to have a base 60% crit (80% w/ perma fury – soz, but medkit swapping is key).

I didn’t have HGH because I wanted to run Elixir gun as well. Plus It’s either HGH or Enhanced performance, can’t have both with Juggernaut.

I think I had decent crits, but my chance was only ~45% (Ran Rabid gear with Knight trinkets). I kept applying Med-kit 5 and Elixir B to keep up the fury, but it seemed like I couldn’t keep it up permanently.

The runes I ran were 4 for condition duration and 2 for boon duration. Can’t remember the names, just remember what they did.

The reason behind going rabid with knight gear and the rune set up I chose was that I had that gear lying around from a few weeks back (failed condition pistol/kit build) and I was going to try out a HGH might stacking elixir/pistol build.

Turns out that for the pistol build I was stacking might a lot easier (and fury), but the throwing elixirs really got on my nerves. It just seems so broken to do so much for so little damage.

All in all it was only money spent on the runes, but I didn’t like either build. Both builds seemed really flimsy and required me to be very selfish with my skills to work. Flamethrower had terrible mobility and no sustain (flame blast is really great now but I had no follow up). It did a little more damage than bombs but not by much.
HGH Pistol/elixirs was terrible, it did terrible damage (Things only started to pick up after 30+ seconds into a fight with all the boon stacking), had no CC, and tossing elixirs was a pain.

I run grenade kit as a staple. I love throwing grenades, but I still hated having to toss elixirs to do better damage.

I don’t know how you guys do it. You must have great timing with your builds, and a lot of patience to put up with them. I’d rather stick to my grenades and bombs until pistols/flamethrowers get some more (well deserved) buffs before I try those again.

Despite everything in this thread I tried out a flamethrower might stacking build, because kitten it, it was one of the only buffs we got. It was in fact very easy to stack might up to 11 out of combat, In combat I had a little more trouble. I assume that people with more experience with the flamethrower would have milked out more damage with it. I kept having to go into med-kit to keep the might up past 7 and after a while it just got on my nerves to have to do it. In the end I decided to quit it because the damage was only “all right” for the cost of jumping through hoops for this kit.

I do take back what I said earlier. A decently geared (experienced) flamethrower engi will do more damage than my grenade/bomb (healer) engineer. In fact, if they are shrewd and experienced, a flamethrower engineer can do top notch damage. They just have to do all this stupid bullkitten to do it.

It’s just a pain in the kitten to do it and requires very specific rune set ups. I’d rather run bombs and grenades, do good damage and have better mobility.

Tried out an elixir pistol build today… didn’t notice the sound change
Wen’t back to grenades/bombs, I hated throwing elixirs.

Waka, could you explain a set up with this build? I take it you have so save your ccs to get at the node. What do you do if there’s a defender with stability? I guess you probably hold your bombs.

Ah… not really. This patch didn’t really change much. Flamethrower is looking a little better than it did before, and so is toolkit.

Nothing really game changing for your level, so don’t worry.

Glad the arguments haven’t broken out here

I made this post in an “anti-QQ” thread (If I’m being honest that’s what it was). I think I’ll drop it here as well just so the intent of this thread is clear.

JohnDied.3476:

Personally I’m not really upset with the changes because they’ll break builds. In fact, I don’t believe they will. The engineer community is an adaptive one that has come up with some crazy things to make up for the deficiencies that the engineer profession possesses (look at 100nades), I don’t think learning new key combinations will deter us. To tell the truth, the post detailing the new kit refinement is a fine example of what the community does, it analyzes our limitations and then it finds ways of optimizing our play-styles based on those limitations.

This habit of the engineer community however, has this side effect of finding out all the ways the profession was never finished or polished. So we take what we have (a buggy unfinished profession with no clear niche or purpose) and we make the most of it. Most engineers complained about the stow med-kit bug until we found a way to incorporate it into our playstile, now that the devs have found out and changed it we wan’t our crutch back.

We seem to find all these “crutches” to make up for the weaknesses the profession has as byproducts of rushed design work and implementation. So when the devs take them away, we flounder, complain, and then adapt.

That being said, Kit refinement was not a crutch. It was not something we cobbled together like static discharge builds or 100nades. It was a functional, reliable mechanic that a lot of engineers used. It wasn’t over powered, not everyone ran with it. I switched it out for speedy kits when I found that SE’s weren’t that productive to a party.

The reason why I’m upset with the change to kit refinement is because it was neither needed, nor intuitive, nor polished. It was a buggy change that has made a convenient trait (to some) into another broken thing for our profession. A part of the engineer community finds this change to serve no purpose and to inconvenience those who use it. A part of the engineer community finds that the devs have broken something that was fine, so we react.

Mostly we react in the forums (the only place to give feedback) in the hopes of the devs having some food for though. Nothing will probably go our way, and the profession will be ham-fisted into whatever the devs seem to want out of us. At least we gave our feedback.

Keep on with the catharsis friends

Personally I’m not really upset with the changes because they’ll break builds. In fact, I don’t believe they will. The engineer community is an adaptive one that has come up with some crazy things to make up for the deficiencies that the engineer profession possesses (look at 100nades), I don’t think learning new key combinations will deter us. To tell the truth, the post detailing the new kit refinement is a fine example of what the community does, it analyzes our limitations and then it finds ways of optimizing our play-styles based on those limitations.

This habit of the engineer community however, has this side effect of finding out all the ways the profession was never finished or polished. So we take what we have (a buggy unfinished profession with no clear niche or purpose) and we make the most of it. Most engineers complained about the stow med-kit bug until we found a way to incorporate it into our playstile, now that the devs have found out and changed it we wan’t our crutch back.

We seem to find all these “crutches” to make up for the weaknesses the profession has as byproducts of rushed design work and implementation. So when the devs take them away, we flounder, complain, and then adapt.

That being said, Kit refinement was not a crutch. It was not something we cobbled together like static discharge builds or 100nades. It was a functional, reliable mechanic that a lot of engineers used. It wasn’t over powered, not everyone ran with it. I switched it out for speedy kits when I found that SE’s weren’t that productive to a party.

The reason why I’m upset with the change to kit refinement is because it was neither needed, nor intuitive, nor polished. It was a buggy change that has made a convenient trait (to some) into another broken thing for our profession. A part of the engineer community finds this change to serve no purpose and to inconvenience those who use it. A part of the engineer community finds that the devs have broken something that was fine, so we react.

Mostly we react in the forums (the only place to give feedback) in the hopes of the devs having some food for though. Nothing will probably go our way, and the profession will be ham-fisted into whatever the devs seem to want out of us. At least we gave our feedback.

Okok. I’ll explain what I meant.

To the engineers who don’t care about the appearance they have (or the image they put forth) with a kit, the flamethrower is a subpar weapon in every way. Those engineers wan’t the flamethrower to be buffed so that we have a good reason to use it. Otherwise it’s just a waste of space and development time.

To the engineers who use the flamethrower because they like how they look with a flamethrower, the flamethrower is good enough because to them it serves it’s purpose, it looks good.

What I don’t understand is why every thread that tries to make people ask for a better flamethrower turns into this huge argument between the two groups?

Well, I lie. I do understand. The fact that we are attacking one aspect of the flamethrower makes the people who like another aspect think we’re attacking something they like, therefore they retaliate.

Anyway, I should say this then. If you say that the flamethrower is fine as a subpar weapon, why would you argue with someone who wants it to be a good weapon?
Wouldn’t improving the flamethrower for the first group be beneficial for the second?

Best thread title ever.

I’ve always though that solution 1 was the only solution. Backpacks Identify us as engineers, so let us upgrade those ugly things when we upgrade our gear.

The reason why engineers bash the flamethrower is because we can’t depend on it to do anything better than another weapon, we consider it a waste of development time.

The reason why engineers defend the flamethrower is because it looks cool…

Great

Daigle.8497:

Only an engineer will* get nerfed during every* buff patch

Fixed it for ya

Chain refinement procs in quick succession? at most you’ll trigger three (I woudn’t count med-kit’s useless bowel discharge). After they’ve triggered you need to wait for the duration of their original cooldowns to tick before you can do so again. They should have done away with the original cooldowns and made the 10 second one work on every kit. This would actually be manageable and would require less internal cooldowns, we would be able to get used to it.

Wouldn’t an increase to both Elixir-gun and flamethrower’s kit refinements be better than having to manage two internal cooldowns?

Just increase flamethrower’s kit refinement to 20 seconds (if it’s still to powerful increase Elixir gun’s to 25), don’t take away a perk we had to kit swapping.

Before this patch kit refinement didn’t encourage engineers to spam switch kits, it gave us a class unique advantage for having a lot of kits equipped (at the cost of stun-breakers). There is literally no good reason to have two internal cooldowns on kit refinements. One cooldown is enough to manage, now we have to worry about how switching to one kit will eliminate all kit refinements for the duration of the second internal cooldown.

How is this effective for our class to have? How was kit refinement so out of control to the point that it needs two individual internal cooldowns to manage?

Quickly swapping kits was the only thing the engineer had over the elementalist in terms of managing weapon sets. This change to kit refinement only punishes us for doing so. It tells us that the direction the devs want from this class is one where we don’t swap our kits more often than an elementalist switches atunements.

If this is the case we are on route to becoming a much less versatile class.

EDIT: I didn’t actually mind the idea of having a 10 sec cooldown on all kit refinements. What bothers me is that we now have 2 internal cooldowns to manage a singular (and minor depending on your build) trait. This to me is ridiculous

Wait, so the global kit cooldown of 10s didn’t replace each kit’s respective cooldown? What was the point to the global cooldown then? to screw with the engineer some more?

I was under the impression that they thought we were abusing the kit refinements, now it just seems like they’re just playing with us. Why do we need a global cooldown if we already have individual cooldowns?

They should have just slapped another 10 sec on the flamethrower cleanse instead of screwing over kit engineers.

Probably because the efforts are too minimal to appreciate on this kitten buggy class. I don’t even know why they bother with all the might stacking on flamethrower, just give the kit some kitten damage to compensate for the low mobility and call it a day.

EDIT: I agree that the flamethrower’s cool factor is probably what’s kept it alive, it’s just a shame that it’s useless to people who weren’t impressed with it to begin with. Talk about there being a kit you never consider taking if you don’t care about looking cool.

I think the damage it does is pretty reasonable. Wait no, the opposite.

I swear, I get more damage out of a grenade/bomb engi with cleric gear.

EDIT: Oh, and I get reliable burning with bomb kit.

Anymras.5729:

I had a Flame Turret roast the dirt when I threw it at a Young Karka. Was embarrassing. Being able to throw them at enemies doesn’t do a whole lot if they don’t attack the enemy, after all – nor does being able to repair them do much if they get obliterated moments later. Maybe a cooldown change?

However, it is really nice to finally be able to throw them.

Now we have the same problems minion-mancers have. At least it’s a start

Does SE even heal as much as it did before it got nerfed in december? I haven’t checked it out.

Woohoo, deployable turret borked thread is back.
Is there any chance that the devs think they fixed this trait a while back? Because this is getting silly

I didn’t find the diagram confusing at all. I think getting the two freebie slots for kits and turrets would alleviate some of the issues engineers are having with out utility slots. Since we have the choice between having an extra kit or having a kit+kit-toolbelt (like BoB) this would please both groups of people (those who want things to stay broken, and the one’s who realize that our kit mechanic needs tweaks) and allow for more versatile gameplay.

amiable.4823:

I appreciate the quote. The other half of the equation is the “tax” we pay for the toolbelt skills. Most of the toolbelt skills are weak to the point of almost uselessness (with a few notable exceptions), but we pay a “tax” for the extra skill by making the main utility somewhat less useful and/or substantially increasing its cooldown. Now there are some exceptions (Elixir S and its toolbelt are both pretty good, but again the randomness of the toolbelt is VERY frustrating).

Yeah, I hoped you didn’t think I took anything out of context. The original reply was in agreement with your post, so I kept the quote in there for that reason.

Anymras.5729:

I agree with the sentiment that our weapons need work, in light of the fact that I just don’t use kits.

I don’t, however, think ‘upvoting’ is a thing on this forum. It’s rather like a big, less funny game of Who’s Line Is It Anyway?, as far as I can tell.

I took out the edit. I wasn’t sure about it since I normally don’t like them either. Your comment solidified this sentiment. Thank you.

Cero.5132:

I´m pretty sure that the devs said something about versatility comes at cost of damage on our mainhand weapon.
And yeh, that´s the issue you try to address if I´m not completely mistaken.

The problem with this is that we are not versatile if we are both ineffective and inefficient. I’m talking about our main-hand weapons because fixing them would be a start. If you look at kits you would see that they have the same problems, just look at might stacking flamethrower.

Cero.5132:

O, and you forgot the might-stacking 4 kit engineer ;D

I did forget him. I always try to…

I originally wrote this post as a reply to something in the “is engineer that bad? common” thread.

I decided to create a new topic because I actually wanted the following to be discussed in detail. Sorry if this seems like a rant, but it’s something that’s been bothering me for some time.

Anyone is more than welcome to tell me that they disagree with my opinions, this topic is to elicit though and discussion on something I consider an issue for the engineer class. That being said, please be kind, we’re all friends here

amiable.4823:

Take for example Mesmers, elementalists and thieves, who can both stack utilities that are helpful both offensively and defensively, while putting out far superior damage over time. Even if we have a build that does not focus on kits many of our utilities are flat out worse than comparable utilities in other classes and either possess a significant drawback such as a self root or have a random effect that means most of the time you re rolling the dice and hoping for the effect you want.

After having made elementalist and mesmer alts, after the whole OMG this is so OP wore off, I kept note of something that I’ve noticed when making alts for any other profession in the game. What I noticed was that those classes (Ranger, Guardian, Elementalist, Mesmer) aren’t completely dependent on slot skills to be effective. Those professions are solid without their slot skills and better with them. The engineer isn’t solid without slot skills, in fact, it is kitten useless without them.

This reflects something the devs need to address with regards to the engineer, they need to address the issue that our main-hand weapons are inefficient and ineffective. Some may not agree with me, but I think this is symptomized by two kinds of builds the engineer has, the kit engineer and the might stacking engineer.

The kit engineer tries to make up for our inefficient main-hand weapons by loading himself with kits, which are themselves mostly inefficient by design (bar a few). He equips himself with a lot of kits to be able to acquire (what he considers) a necessary amount of useful skills. Why? because our our main-hand weapons lack enough useful skills for a good build and no one kit contains all the skills which we will need. That is why you see 4 kit engineers running around without stun breakers because they want to have at least two damage kits (like grenade or bombs) and the elixir gun (for one skill, SE). Grenades and bombs are a whopping 10 skills, on top of our 5 main weapon skills. Why do we need 10+ damage skills? Why have the devs made the engineer’s damage so low that some consider 10+ skills necessary to kill things? Why have they made our utilities so minor and spread out across so many kits to the point where some need 4?

A well built ranger only needs 14 skills. A 4 kit engineer gets 29 skills. I don’t see why we need 29 skills at once. Our kits and weapons need a much needed clean up or redesign.

On the other side of the engineer spectrum we have the might stacking (as well as the static discharge) engineers. These builds embrace our main-hand weapons, they focus on using every skill they provide and are perceptive of the nuances and quirks of each weapon or kit they use. The might stacking or static discharge engineer likes our main-hand weapon skills, but they thing they just need a little kick to them because they’re ineffective on their own. So the SD or Might engineer uses our all to valuable slot skills to buff our damage, in any way possible. If the person is capable enough to go without stun breakers or defenses, they can go full GC and dedicate every slot skill to be able to achieve the effectiveness they want out of our main weapons.

A warrior/thief/mesmer/elementalist doesn’t need to use 4+ skills to buff themselves to be able to do great damage as a glass cannon. Why then do static discharge/might stacking engineers do that? What I can discern from this is that our weapon damage needs a well deserved increase

The devs have said that the engineer sacrifices damage on our main-hand weapons in order to be a versatile profession. The problem with this is that we are not versatile if we are both ineffective and inefficient. I’m talking about our main-hand weapons because fixing them would be a good start, but If you look at kits you would see that they have the same problems. Just take a look at the might stacking flamethrower.

Off the top of my head.

Rare veggie pizza makes our condition builds because we have a lot of sources of condition damage, but most are short. So the 40% condition duration goes a long way.

Saffron Scented poultry soup is also a really good food for bunkers that don’t go for formula 409. Synergizes well with med-kit so that every 10 seconds you can cleans a condition (on top of whatever on heal ability you might have).

These two foods are ridiculously good for engineers.

EDIT: I’m trying out new builds (I hate our support options). I’ve tried out a p/p condition build before but found the damage really disappointing, and I’ve recently started partying with a necro so the conditions would be waisted. I’ll probably try out a mixed condi/power might stacking build next, although I can’t figure out if I want to go for p/p or grenades.

Thiefs bring vulnerability just as quickly along with damage and harder conditions, but it takes a good thief to not get insta-downed and weigh down the team. I like to take theifs as another example of a class that performs stupendously in certain parts of Gw2, but terribly in others (as in a broken class).

Engineers are great for WvW due to food buffs (I can only imagine the outcry in these forums when they nerf food), but I still can’t find a good mix for dungeons. I still try to find a build that works well for me, even though I’ve all but given up internally.

Kit swapping, Like many things pertaining to the engineer class, is something that slipped through the cracks due to lack of attention/time/testing. We weren’t exactly a finished class at launch (we might not be one still). Last patch was when we got our weapon stats and sigils to work for our main sources of damage.

While you’re at it, you should give med-kit a spin

EDIT: We are finished, albeit very buggy

We’re the CC specialists. We also bring support although not as much as a Guard or an Ele can do without trying. What I mean is that a Guard or an Ele can concentrate on other things (like damage) and still bring support, we need to concentrate solely on support (or tanking/support) and what we bring is still not essential.

We can bring dps, but not as much as a warrior. If we go full GC we have much less defense than a thief or a mesmer (this doesn’t matter if you’re a really good player that can avoid getting damaged).

For the longest time I embraced the fact that we’re CC specialists and provide support. I would go around providing constant regen (with on heal runes+med kit), chilling/crippling champs, with some immobilizes thrown in (to reduce defiant stacks) along with super elixir. No one would use the condition cleanse fron SE and it’s heals were wasted because no one would be dumb enough to stand still for it’s duration. On top of that, any elementalist on the party would provide regen anyway as he would dps everything and provide other boons.

In the end, I’ve gotten blamed when parties would fail due to lack of dps, even though I would be the last to fall due to kiting/chilling/cripples.

So out of damage/support/CC were really good at the one that’s not so great for dungeons, and provide less than other classes when we spec everything into another.

This month’s winner of the best post award. Supply drops everywhere.

Anymras.5729:

JohnDied.3476:

Anymras.5729:

I happen to like turrets as they are – secondary methods of attack. Replacing all turrets with boon dispensers would leave people like me, who use turrets because they like turrets, going “Well, great, I guess I’m Boony McBoon, the Boon Booner.”

The OP suggestion for turrets includes having them as secondary methods of attacks (look at the overcharges he included). In fact, what the OP suggests would involve the engineers activating our turrets’ attacks, which would finally give us more control over the bloody toasters.

And then we either lose our turret toolbelt skills or our ability to detonate turrets, in exchange for being able to apply boons with them. I think turrets need work, yes, but I don’t think they need to be replaced.

I would definitely take near constant protection/fury/swiftness for an entire group without traiting for it, over a toaster’s measly damage (with buggy AI).

Also, the OP never took the detonate function out. The suggestion in fact made it more appealing to detonate any turret by adding combo fields to them.

Aristio.2784:

This thread went from why people don’t like Engineers to why Engineer’s don’t like Elementalist.

Think of it more like why Engineers envy Elementalists

(I know my engi does, that’s why I started my ele)

I thought of the idea of giving turrets boons when the last patch came out, albeit less eloquently than what AuRiley has written. It was more along the lines of well, since our turrets’ boons benefit from our stats, why don’t any of our turrets (except for healing) give any boons? The patch note should have said “fixed healing turret bug” because that’s all it did.

I think that the turret selection in the OP is quite nice, it would make me want to actually take those terrible toasters. If the weaker boons (might and regen) get constant stacks (like for great justice does with might) I can very well see a use for engineers in top notch dungeon runs.

Anymras.5729:

I happen to like turrets as they are – secondary methods of attack. Replacing all turrets with boon dispensers would leave people like me, who use turrets because they like turrets, going “Well, great, I guess I’m Boony McBoon, the Boon Booner.”

The OP suggestion for turrets includes having them as secondary methods of attacks (look at the overcharges he included). In fact, what the OP suggests would involve the engineers activating our turrets’ attacks, which would finally give us more control over the bloody toasters.

Since the overcharges turn the turrets’ only attack into an aoe, it will make it easier to use the turrets to attack a specific target. No longer will we need to watch as our rifle turret tries to attack broken wall traps as we get stomped by champs. Maybe we’ll even get some use out of the things when we attack dragons.

I can also see that by giving the turrets combo fields we would actually be torn between keeping area boons going, or blowing turrets up for the quick combos.

All in all this has been the best turret suggestion I’ve seen in quite some time. It’s a shame the it’ll take too much work to implement and that if it didn’t the devs would still ignore it because of how they deal with the community’s suggestions on class issues

Phineas Poe.3018:

Except the Elementalist wears light armor and has the lowest tier health pool. You can wear P/V/T gear with Emerald jewelry on your Elementalist and pretend that you’re as survivable as the Engineer is, but the numbers don’t lie; you’re not.

No, he is. Bunker eles are way tankier than bunker engis because of their great heals, it’s just a fact of the game right now.

Don’t worry though, that may not be the case in a week. Bunker eles have Nerfs incoming

EDIT: Forgot to say that bunker eles don’t have to be D/D. Some of us wan’t to be a great team support with staff. That’s what I wanted out of my engi, but couldn’t figure one out, all everyone tells you to do is “run elixir gun noob” because they think that measly little heal will do any good against a champ.

For the longest time I ran pistol/shield and it gave me the impression that our main hand weapons were garbage in comparison to our kits. I would just use #4 to set off combos and switch back to bombs.

Recently I’ve tried out riffle and now I actually use it (for the utilities), its not bad. I still think pistol/shield is garbage though

I don’t think buffing pistol #1 will make our pistol builds revolve around auto-attacking. Kit engineers need to have a reason to switch out of out kits. The way things are now I’d rather have a kit replace my main weapons and take another kit or stun-breaker in my utilities. So far I only see pistols/pistol-shield (I don’t run conditions) as this awkward weapon-set that gets in the way of my kits’ versatility.

Engineers are in a good spot when it comes to WvW thanks to tanky condition builds. With regards to PvP engis have gotten a little more popular due to how diverse the builds can get, and the sheer number of them.

Dungeons are where Engineers are in a hard spot right now. We are CC specialists but that doesn’t do much in PvE. When we build for utility we don’t provide as many offensive or defensive boons as an elementalist, guardian, or mesmer (banner warrior may be a toss up because I haven’t partied with many of them), and we don’t do as much damage as any of the other classes (unless we go full GC but then we become less reliable than mesmer/thief/ranger GCs).

We can definitely do dungeon runs, if the player is good we can do kitten well at them. One question persists though, Would you be more effective playing an elementalist or a mesmer?

It’s up to the player. We choose to stick to the engineer because it’s fun and we consider fun to be our top priority when playing this game. It sucks that we have to choose between playing as effectively as we can in dungeons, and playing our preferred class.