Guild Wars 2

I’ve never met an Elementalist who thinks Engineer is a better class. Elementalists, Warriors, Mesmers, and Thieves are very common in WvW and sPvP because they’re so well-off right now. Fewer bugs, fewer orphaned or neglected skills and traits, more viable builds (with Mesmer maybe being one of the less well-endowed in the general scheme of things).

For PvE, you just have to accept you kill world monsters more slowly than burst-optimized professions. This will become incredibly apparent if you ever PvE with Elementalists who even in relatively defensive specs will just decimate opponents while your conditions are just really getting started. But if you stack condition damage the situation is not so bad for dungeons and their bosses. Most condition classes can shine here, although there can be significant competition for DPS contribution if parties are made up exclusively of condition builds.

Both are technically challenging classes to play and that can be rewarding. It’s unfortunate that it’s so hard to measure DPS that it’s difficult to demonstrate your contribution. If you love combat support (healing) and assisting with crowd control, Engineer does a better job.

Imperatora.7654:

This is exactly why most devs are BANNED from posting on the forums for live games. Admitting I was wrong was not the issue, the issue was that management was so utterly terrified of players taking what I had said out of context that they require any and all posts to be run past senior management before being put online.

An unfortunate situation, on many levels. One: that the management feels devs cannot be trusted; two: that presumably some incident led to this outcome; three: that the organization must manufacture such an inauthentic facade to maintain customer relations.

If you want more dev comments, make us less scared to do so. The more you throw quotes back at us, the more management is going to lock us out of talking to you, and the fewer dev posts you will see.

Alternatively, you and your organization should devise an editorial process. I even have one for my own personal blog! In any case devs should know when to disengage and let CSRs handle the dialogue.

Hi. I’m also a software engineer who’s worked on products that real customers use, and so I’m going to complain “responsibly” by saying that ANet gets no free lunch here.

1. That a trait has been broken so long is absurd. The idea that server sync prevents a fairly powerful trait from working is definitely plausible but… why not just change the trait. Part of knowing how to ship a good product is limiting your feature set to what can be delivered. ANet is not doing a good job of this. Simply provide a different trait that can be implemented. Is scope really so pivotal to the engineer design that it cannot be replaced? The pvp community certainly doesn’t think so!
2. While sometimes kids go way off the deep end in their complaints, the lack of other more direct feedback mechanisms means that the only way that people feel like they can be heard is to shout loudly and often. ANet has basically asked for this response by not at least offering token feedback mechanisms in game.
3. Dev quotes can and should be used against them. Each of us, as software engineers or coders or whatever you call yourself, is not somehow exempt from the day-to-day rules of communication that govern everyone else. If you say something, you’ve said it and people will listen. If you say something foolish, you may later be required to admit you were wrong. It is the sign of a healthy mind to be able to do this.