Guild Wars 2

Elementalists’ downed skills were horrible at release, like ours still are.
Theirs got upgraded, a long time ago, ours got ignored.

We have been waiting since beta 1 for the rushed, unfinished, last class to finally get some polish. Instead we keep getting the few workable areas either toned down or eliminated. The changes we get appear to lack vision, focus and consistency and directly contradict the stated dev aims and class vision.

It’s clear our devs have no clue what the hell to do with engineer. Kit Refinement was the only trait that actively supported their engineer is versatile fantasy, the other traits also stat and power/cond layouts actively prevent versatility. Yet KR has been given a hammer-nerf to the testes destroying all multi kit builds and ensuring the only reliable condition/cc defence is an elixir build.

Engineer has far less viable builds now than at release. Engineer still has a 20 page buglist and a 40 page QoL list. Engineer still has no real compensation for lacking weapon swap (& sigil swap!) everyone has Fkey mechanics. Elixirs are still rubbish compared to shouts. Turrets are still laughable. Gadgets are still very unfinished, and barely supported by traits. Engineer still has no working gap ability (jump shot animation = fail).

Just what the hell is the devs intention for this class, and why do we keep going in the opposite direction from their started aims?

Look at the zero finishers on FT, look at the finishers on every single warrior longbow skill and it’s range and range traits. Look at the lame field on FT which engineers can’t use, look at the great field on longbow which warrior can make excellent use of. Engineers sacrificed weapon swaps and sigil/stat versatility for this crappy kit with it’s pathetic toolbelt skill. Then rebalance.

The minor kit changes don’t save FT. The lack of omnom defence against retaliation and confusion+proced confusion, make it extremely risky to use.

Kit refinement idiocy means there are no reliable counters to conditions and cc but elixirs and that all multi kit builds are dead.

Awful patch yet again, greatly reducing the small number of viable builds, yet again.

Massive nerf on kit refinement. Now you can only really use 1 kit at once, in line the colossal mess that is our traits.

Another kick in the testes to any remaining small shreds of versatility engineers had.

A load of nothing changes that don’t compensate for kit refinement nerf.

The biggest problem with Engineers is people saying it’s a L2P issue in order to wrap both their hands around their own ego and stroke it furiously.

People who say L2P need to actually L2A Learn to Analyse.

Engineer is a great deal less polished than many of the classes and has genuine issues in many areas.

Glue bomb is rubbish, and engineer is completely missing working gap openers closers leaps.

Although I’d suggest that this and big old bomb be changed to implodes, pulling enemies in not away, and synergising properly with the tiny range on bomb kit.

Bomb kit is way too easy to just stroll away from.

Grenade kit needs twice as fast flight speed.

The massively long timer means one barely ever gets to use 3. Even if that wasn’t true, supply drop is still not going to do as much to save a downed engineer as most classes much more powerful 3 ability. The turrets evaporate to any passing breeze and if they do even manage to get one shot off it is usually wasted on a target that it’s out of sight or range or just plain irrelevant.

Move ability 3 to 2, with 2’s timer.
Make supply drop the new 3.

Edit: increase 1’s damage with at least 2 conditions.
Side note: Use current 2’s pull to replace rifle 4, no more self KDown.

Don’t forget, All this time and engineer downed state still represents no threat to anyone, it’s a guaranteed easy kill once down. So that’s another good reason to target engy.

Engineer as a community is actually one of the most patient and least vocal I’ve seen in 15 years of mmo playing. Or it’s just that everyone left to go play a class that gets dev time.

Regardless I’ve never seen an underdog class take so many punishing nerfs while getting so much of it’s issue areas completely ignored at a mmo launch. Normally classes with like ten page bug lists and whole core areas that are broken, have nerf-fixes held back until some broken areas can be addressed also.

The last patch is the first that hasn’t had 1 step forward with 9 steps backward for the engineer. Lets hope it’s a much needed course correction from the devs, and not simply an anomaly to the unimpressive track record so far.

I have 3476 kills. I guess I should stop healing downed allies and only ever run burst specs not support, and only run in groups, changing groups every time someone leaves.

That’s really kitten awful game design though, severely punishing team and positive objective oriented play.

There is a way to fix this, grant retro-actively large numbers of badges for levels in all the different WvW achievements.

I have approx 500 hours in WvW nearly all on my level 80 main. I have sub 500 badges earned total to date over all 5 months. I loot all bags that appear, they simply almost never appear no matter how much damage I do.

5 months is a long period of consistent empirical data, comparing to the massive droprate most people enjoy. Is it even possible that certain accounts or classes or characters could be broken for droprate? I know weird things happen with code sometimes but that just sounds so unlikely, but yet I have the personal evidence to support that something is clearly wrong.

FiftyTwoBears.5482:

“I’m sorry, your buff is in another patch.” Super Mario Bros.

Made me think of the whole engy being rushed out before it was ready thing and this series of Grolsch ads that ran in the UK a while back

STOP! the Engineer isn’t ready yet

“Hold on while I get my wrench out… "

Engineers have many fewer viable builds now than at release, but on the otherhand we have just had the first patch that took some steps forward for engineer and increased builds diversity. Although 5+ months to get something as simple as sigils & stats means we’ve been very low on the foodchain of dev time.

Grenades aren’t fine btw, standing on a attackable wall shouldn’t make you invulnerable. Grenades also have issues that are apparent once you get outside of dummy (mob, mist or player) testing.

Being on the receiving end of grenades is basically “oooh look how pretty sparkly grenades floating gently through the air, now which movement button shall I press for a free Evade”. Nades need a genuinely big reduction in flight time, similar to net shot net turret jumpshot glue shot etc. Our ranged options should actually be viable at range. Walking should be less powerful than dodging. Halving flight time or more, would make Nades vastly easier for devs to balance against both smart and dumb opponents.

Perhaps this symbol might be easier to contrast for all the players who’ve never seen an engineer before.
We’re not just some elementalist doing it wrong!
We’re doing great with the tools we were given!
No more discrimination against engineers!

engineer

;)

Very few magnet pulls actually work out in wvw.

I’d wait, instead try one of the classes that has had a decent amount of dev time. Engineer was built last and wasn’t finished basically. You may get a kick out of being such a rare class, but the flipside is it’s rare for a reason.

Compare the multiple functionality of shouts, and how many boons they give to user + others at the same time, over such a massive area, with 1 single cast, without cast times, how shouts can have armour/runes supporting them, and all the good synergy that shouts can have via well developed traits.

In comparison a kit with 5 elixirs actually is entirely reasonable.

Turrets are so paper thin that a kit full of them is just the start of what’s reasonable.

Wanting a kit that is genuinely long ranged on all it’s skills not 1/2 out of 5, and without giving away free evasion to any enemy who presses a walk button is completely reasonable.

After 6months A-net finally managed to get sigils and stats fixed. Get as rosy tinted and optimistic as you want, but this should have happened before engineer left alpha, let alone beta.

Back on topic, closing threads full of information and opinion on the weakest of justifications, just because you don’t find those strongly and widely held opinions flattering to your company, is only a definition of ‘Listening’ in La La Land.

A big step to making an engineer versatile (like it’s supposed to be according to latest dev info) must be re-working every trait that pertains to specific a kit, and making them instead work on every kit.

e.g. Juggernaut works on all kits
e.g. Grenadier renamed Improved Reach and adds 300 range to all kit skills. n.b. Grenades now always throw 3 without requiring being 60level and 30points to make them even worth considering.
and so on

Then
Elixirs should be condensed to 1 elixir kit
Turrets should be condensed to 1 turret kit
same for gadgets
and long range kit added.

Engineer’s big weakness is both how pigeonholed and non-versatile our traits and skills are. Currently our traits allow us to bring just 1 kit from awful upto mediocre level, and often preclude having reliable condition removal because that relies on lots of elixirs and little or no room for anything else.

Finally the loss of utility required by compensating for our lackluster weapons with kits that remove util slots, and total absence of weapon swap, would start to make any sort of sense.

A lot of more specific work needs to be done with the amount of traits that are plain awful and never used by anyone apart from testing, no RNG anywhere, ever, the bad synergy overall, how often bad animations speeds ruin otherwise ‘useful on paper’ skills and general skills & cooldown balancing, inclusion of functioning stability on demand and gap closers on demand, quite apart from the vast and largely untouched bugs list for engineer.

Because A-net don’t listen. In fact they’re so keen to not listen, that most threads full of good information on what people don’t like, get closed just as soon as there’s the faintest sniff of a weak opportunity. e.g. 444 post engineer thread closed just today.

Probably this thread will be closed also.

As long as you don’t want any badges or kills, then yeah, go ahead and tickle the enemy with vulnerability.

Very funny, good work! Sadly close to the truth though.

I enjoy WvW , and really don’t see the point in playing pve, when that is a chore for me, this iso supposed to be fun afterall.
I loot all my bags .
5 months in and I have under 500 badges lifetime earnings.
I mix my play between support/bombs and grenades , more nades.

It feels like my character has a broken drop rate, but that just sounds ridiculous.

Engineer rifle is basically a weak melee weapon, with only 2 skills that sort of work at anything approaching range. It also has a really nasty self CC, a gap closer which often opens the gap further because it’s so badly animated, and a rooting skill that mostly works on things that are asleep, or already rooted.

This is how engineer turrets sounded, like the turret guns sequence from Aliens directors cut
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGE_h4jBBXc

This feels more like what we got:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4T-ZGVEcP4k
I was looking for a good clip of the comically inept scutter robots from Red Dwarf but couldn’t find one.

Only an engineer would design grenades with such poor aerodynamics, that seeing into the future and/or psychic powers to predict direction changes are required skills, for hitting moving targets. Then..

Only an engineer would design their long range option, to actually spread out at long range so even if they’re lucky enough to hit, the grenades partially or wholly miss anyway. Then…

Only an engineer would nerf the grenades, because one time at bandcamp they successfully used it on, a staked to one fixed spot, training dummy.

Only an engineer would design a Net-Shot that flies slower than walking, so walking targets get a free bonus evade.

Only an engineer would execute Jump-Shot so slowly that they end up further behind the person they are chasing not closer.

Electro.4173:

Actual devs for each class? No. They need more devs working on balance in general, but they should all be working on overall balance, not balance of specific professions only.

However, profession “representatives” to help keep track of major issues for each profession, put forth ideas (whether those ideas are from the community or the reps own mind), ect would be a good idea I think.

Can anyone really disagree with the balance team needing to be bigger? Smooth class-play improves every area of the game.

Keep the 2 guys they have currently doing class wide balance, and have 8 new guys bringing those two specific analysis and problem solving for each class. Would go a long way to improving each of the classes problem areas.

nofo.8469:

Only an engineer, don’t worry.

/thread

Just 2 lone devs can’t balance 8 classes for 3 game modes. It’s just not possible.

I’ve seen a lot of classes released that are unfinished in the last 15 years of MMO playing. I’ve played a lot of underdog classes. usually it’s no big deal, they get fixed eventually.

GW2 Engineer is the first underdog class I’ve ever seen consistently and regularly go backwards post release. Many of the few working things Engineer used to have are now removed and almost all the major broken things are still ignored.

It’s really a case of 1 step forward 3 steps backward for the last half year. Additionally dev statements indicate they think they’re doing a great job with engineer, and the community as a whole is just wrong about engineer. So be warned: don’t expect your engineer to get fixed anytime soon.

Engineer is so bad that alts feel like Godmode.

People are also upset that engineer is much worse off now than it was at release or BWE1. Engineers used to have a few cool things, but those have pretty much all been taken now (though there’s a tiny few the devs haven’t ruined yet). That might be acceptable if any real progress had been made into engineer game play breaking bugs, or engineer wasn’t second best at all roles, but almost everything needing fixing or tweaking upwards have basically been ignored and only our good stuff has been removed.

It feels like a bait’n’switch, the class we have now, versus the class we used to have. When most of us anticipated getting fixes to our bugs and problems areas we got the exact opposite.

Engineer has far less viable builds now, than at release, that’s the bottom line. The class is being mismanaged, and the dev team appear to lack vision focus and clarity about what this class can do now and what it should be able to do in the future.

Medpack#4 being changed from curing all conditions to curing one single condition.

400+ hrs in WvW as an engineer, a lot playing support. I also have a 40’s guardian alt in WvW. The guardian is more effective support than the max level & geared engineer.

To small radii on most things, rng skills, bad heal scaling, and too slow animations, plus bugs ruin engineer’s potential.

I want my engineer to be better, I try crazy combos to try and make my engineer better, it’s just not versatile enough to do a much while supporting as much a even a low level ungeared support guardian.

Anet don’t have enough people working on classes. From a dev’s interview statement people infer that they basically have just 2 people working on all 8 classes. Those 2 people or 10 people or however many it is, simply need more help. Adding at least 8 more class focused devs, in addition to whatever they have now. Each class focused dev dedicated to a singleclass would go a long way to getting some of the backlog of issues cleared, and better depth into some of the classes trickier issues.

Great art, new content, that stuff is fine but it only works fully when the actual classes play nicely and 2 people cannot do it alone.

Every time someone sifts thru the mess of half finished engineer skills and finds some weird new build that is above mediocre at just one thing Anet reacts.

Anet targets the marginally viable engineer build and smashes a nerf-hammer into it’s ballsac with such force that even it’s distant relatives fall down dead… what’s even more frustrating is A-net slightly adjusts the wording of a tooltip that was maybe mildly unclear at the same time, while completely covering their eyes to the actual engineer gameplay bugs.

Rising Dusk.2408:

What we should have is not a dedicated development team member, but a dedicated development team liaison. This person just needs to bloody communicate with the player base about what’s going on in each class, why they’re considering it, and enact conversations with the community. They don’t have to promise anything, or even confirm anything. They could pose theoretical questions weekly or whatever and ask for the players’ opinions on assorted topics, then assess the threads at the end of the week. Heck, they could even start inane topics about what we like most about a given profession, and even that would substantially improve how we feel about the class/the development team/the game.

I don’t want more developers, I want more communication.

A dedicated community communicator for each and every class would be great as well. But what the game really needs is enough dev people tasked specifically to classes function, bugs & balance, to start actually getting the workload there is for classes done.

Interior A-net APC
A-net devs watch the screens as classes enter the BWE1 heat exchangers

Ripley: Lieutenant, what do those engineer pistols fire?
Gorman: 10 millimeter explosive tip caseless. Standard light armor piercing round, why?
Ripley: Well, look where your enginners are. They’re right under the primary heat exchangers firing at non-engineers.
Gorman: So?
Ripley: So, if they fire their weapons in there, won’t they stand a chance of applying conditions like other classes?
Burke: [interjecting] Ho, ho, ho. Yeah, she’s absolutely right.
Gorman: [turns round to Burke] So? So what?
Burke: Look, this whole balance situation is basically a big ego-trip reactor for the classes A-net actually plays…
Gorman turns back to stare, horrified, at the screen
Burke: …right? So you’re talkin’ about a thermonuclear explosion and “Adiós, muchachos.”
Gorman: Oh, great. Wonderful. kitten!
Gorman: Apone! We can’t have any engineers having fun in there… I want you to pull everything that isn’t already broken from the engineers immediately, pistols, medpack #4, smoke skills, bomb radii, grenades, juggernaut, everything, collect the viable engineer builds from every patch… Leave em with flame units that miss only, unfinished kits that miss finishers/leaps/stats/swaps/remove utility slots, the crowbar skill, laughable comedy broken turrets and 500 bugs.
Hudson: Is he kittening crazy?
Frost: What the hell are we supposed to use, man? Harsh language?

— Aliens

Class playability affects everyone and all content, A-net has much fewer people working on the classes than they should.

2 people cannot do the class job by themselves, that its abundantly clear, those 2 people need 8 more, 1 for each class, to help them.

Bombs healing, combo fields and support can be helpful, but very situational on range and battlefield movement. No-one dies to grenades anymore, people even step aside while they’re wandering through the sky these days. Expect to earn your badges using a different class.

17 years of mmo play tell me, the engineer class design is unfinished, lacking vision, coherence and focus. That happens with getting MMO games out on time sometimes and it would be fine if the class wasn’t getting worse not better post release, and we didn’t have a class design statement justifying this unfinished mess as intentional.

Ready for release are you? What know you of ready for release? Completed, your class design, is not. – Yoda

If you could find some of the Wolfpack people responsible for Shadowbane that would be a major plus, they were as talented at balancing classes in multiple pvp & pve roles as your graphic art department for example.