Guild Wars 2

Decklan.7540:

Knox.8962:

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

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

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

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

First off, I agree that Engineers are sorely lacking a decent single-target, Power Based damage option right now. SD is a nice Crutch, but it’s a dangerous one. If you cannot 100-0 something expect to have to kite a lot to live.

However, I think that posting a suggestion that would add more instant casts to the game – which, by the way, are largely uncounterable and leads to evasion spam, and then suddenly withdrawing from the conversation to claim some kind of paranoid conspiracy against you is not going to fly. If you’re going to stand up and make a claim, you’d better stick to your guns, because you’re going to have to bring other people around to your point of view, not the other way around. Anyone can have a good idea, but it takes dedication to propagate it and promulgate it.

Back on topic: Here is the list of Engineer’s Toolbelt skills

As you can see by going through all of them, all of them boast either 0 (instant) cast, 0.25 or 0.5 cast time. In fact, 0.5 cast time is the longest cast for every single Toolbelt skill.

What I think you have conflated with a poor performance of SD on certain utility setups is instead to do with SD targeting itself, as Seras has mentioned. Right now SD procs without a target essentially follow a severely exaggerated camera plane downwards – into the ground. This makes it such that the only skills “compatible” with SD are:
Launch PBR
Rocket Kick
Analyze
Net Attack
Surprise Shot
Rocket
Throw Wrench

Essentially it all comes together to force SD to take only:
1 Kit
3 Gadgets
2 Turrets
out of our entire repertoire of utilities. Not a lot of possibility of build variety, here.

In addition, the most reliable SD proccers are the ones that just do one thing – damage. There’s no additional utility, like condi-cleanses, or stunbreaks, or CC (Except Net attack), or interrupts. It’s just proccing single target damage, for more single target damage.

That’s gimmicky. As Seras has mentioned, it’s good, reliable single target damage, but it doesn’t really add anything useful to the class. That being said, making SD track terrain like Net Shot does instead of flying into the ground for the non-single target stuff would be the fastest fix.

Moving forward, Engineer has the greatest room for growth if its main hand weapons were given a QoL pass – either by making it more threatening at close range by successive damage increases as you close with a target – or by rewarding controlling your range to the target with sustained DPS that decreases if the target closes. Both approaches are highly valid. In fact, Ranger Longbow already features this very thing of less damage if the target is close by.

I hope that Arenanet takes on the ongoing feedback posted, time and time again, thread by thread and forum by forum commenting on the same issues that persist and continue to propagate patch after patch after patch.

Static Discharge’s targeting to be fixed such that if the SD proc is to remain a skillshot, then it emanates parallel to the ground and tracks elevation, just like Elementalist’s Ride the Lightning, or Engineer’s Net Shot does.

Turret firing rates, Overcharges going “missing” if triggered too late, and a plethora of other bugs to be addressed such that a potentially viable set of utilities can begin to see the light of day.

Toolkit’s Magnet Pull is still extremely buggy, even after all this time after release. Targets get flung into the air, wind up behind you, clip into terrain then buggily appear right in front of you, or simply move 100 units and get back up and dust themselves off a little nonplussed.

In terms of Traits, Engineer is still heavily concentrated into random critical hit procs, which is passive, visually unscoutable, offers no class depth, and complicates balance. Traits like Incendiary Powder, Shrapnel, Go for the Eyes, Infused Precision, Precise Sights, Acidic Coating (It is unfathomable how a rework propagated an ongoing RNG effect).
We even have Target the Weak and Scope to increase our %critical chance on certain triggers – people don’t build for them because they’re bad traits, they aren’t build for because they’re predicated on RNG and not specific X for Y conditions being met to give utility or to reliably do something useful.

And this is not even getting into Elixirs. We should be able to use our Traits to give conditional benefits, like Hammer Mastery for Warrior reliably increasing damage done against stunned targets. Instead we have crit-proc conditions, crit-proc Vulnerability for Power spike damage, crit proc utility in Infused Precision, and RNG proc utility in both Minor and Major Traits. I’d wager that Gadgets, Turrets, Elixirs and Kits would be much better formulated if these traits that drag the class down were looked at and reworked to something that has reliable triggers, gives reliable benefits, and helps balance the game by introducing reliable counterplay.

I’ve actually taken to double tapping the Kit’s hotkey because of this limitation ever since I stopped running Med kit.
The reason it is there is because the game doesn’t handle Bundles or Environmental weapons too well with respect to terrain. Kits are treated as Bundles.
If you’ve ever dropped a Boulder or something similar off a cliff you’ll see what I mean, and why the limitation is there. It sucks, but it’ll likely stay with us as long as our Kits are coded in the game as Bundles.

Rocket Boots’ burn is 5 seconds base. Even without extra Condition Damage, that’s an easy 1.5-2k over the duration depending on how many points you have into Firearms on top of the base 300-400 damage you have. With SD that’s an easy 1-2k extra, crits permitting. So the damage is indeed no joke.

I still prefer Rifle Turret though, if only for its 100% projectile finisher and Blast Finisher in situ. I’ve found that the 1200 range disengage is both a blessing and a curse, especially when running Bombs. If I weren’t, then Rocket Boots would 100% be on my bar.

I used to play Grenades, Pistol/Shield, Elixir Gun, Tool Kit and Med Kit for the heal in PvE and WvW. My utility and team support in roaming and dungeons was pretty boss, but I felt that Grenade spam was un-necessarily spammy. I enjoy hitting skillshots like in any other game, but the mass of AOE was bound to hit someone so the skill was diminished. Grenades were also very safe along with Pistol Shield. Blind Grenade, then Static Shot, then Magnetic Inversion and Static Shield along with Toolkit block was just excessive active defense for a very safe ranged DPS build.

So I switched to Rifle, Bombs, Healing Turret, Elixir Gun, Rifle Turret with SD; swapping out Rifle Turret for Toolkit for WvW. Dying a lot more, but I feel that it’s a playstyle that rewards high risk with high reward – if you can hit your Net Shots into Big Ol’ Bomb and Blunderbuss, most things just fall over.

It also forced me to actually play more tactically, really learn my melee spacing and really know how long my bomb fuses took to blow up. It’s also one of the few builds with heavy emphasis on timing, skillshots, heavy use of combo fields, and active defense through CC. I’ll probably never go full SD if only because I feel I’d lose a lot of team utility though I can see the attraction of 100-0’ing people.

I have thought about a new Grandmaster Trait that could possibly help Engineers save their turrets from AOE. It also has the potential for synergy with Deployable Turrets. This is a repost from my older thread regarding Turrets.

Remote Redeployment

The Engineer may select a turret to be recalled from range. Recalling a turret reset’s the turret’s placement cooldown, such that it may be placed again. Recalling a Turret reset’s its attack cooldown, so that it will immediately fire again when placed. Once per 60 seconds per recalled turret, the Overcharge cooldown is reset.

I found that it was far too much of a bother to save a turret being attacked. Often a mob would be able to down a turret before I could kill the mob itself, since the toolkit’s repair rate is simply insufficient.

• This trait would allow engineers to save turrets under threat from AOE
• There is inherent synergy (!!) with the trait Deployable Turrets. Need to move your turret, but don’t want to reset your cooldown? Pick it up from far away and throw it where it’s needed
• Resetting overcharge cooldowns is where we begin cooking with gas. This will open up the possibility of engineers assaulting points in sPVP, not just defending them. Pack up your turrets remotely and throw them onto a defended point, overcharged, for maximum lulz.

As far as traits go, it would be:

1. Build defining
2. Open up new playstyles of the turret engineer
3. Finally give engineers a reason to invest 30 points into inventions

@Otter:
If you have a multi-button mouse, I suggest that you re-bind your “1” skill to an easy to access button on the mouse. In this way, you can have full use of the keyboard whilst still being able to throw Grenade 1.

It’s also useful when fighting Mesmers popping Decoy and the like; when they’re quite low and you need an auto-attack on them right that second .

I’m just going to repost Kimbald’s ideas about compressing some of the Turret traits such that the 50 point investment into turrets becomes somewhat less – and makes running multiple Turrets more viable.

Kimbald.2697:

If they do want to change the traits, and I am wrong, than here are my minor suggestions. Mostly aimed at changing the traits with as little effort as possible:

1. either make Accelerant-packed turrets or Deployable turrets a baseline ability for all turrets.
This frees up the need to go into 3 different trait lines just for turrets.

2. Combine Metal Plating and Autotool Installation into one trait. They both serve the same purpose and aren’t strong enough seperate to warrant a trait.

3. Replace Autotool Installation with Riffled turret Barrels as Master trait. This trait isn’t strong enough to be a Grandmaster trait. Flamethrower-Elixir gun get 15% damage from a Master trait too, and turrets already are just a portion of the full engineer damage, so their 15% is even less.

4. Either create a pure awesome sauce Grandmaster trait for turrets… or take the easy way and not force engineers to spend more than 40 points on their turrets itself. Leaving 30 points free for personal preference and buffing either engineers own damage, or the engineers survivability.

My suggestions do not change a lot in terms of what the dev’s want turrets to do.
But they do however, change the distribution of turret traits. Either 20 points in Explosives ot Tools (pick one devs) and 20 points in Inventions would give you all current turret traits.
The remaining 30 points would make sure that turret engineers actually have some choices to spend on Tool kit trait for example, some defences in Alchemy, some crit and conditions and sitting duck in Firearms, or even a support specc with healing bombs…

small final suggestion: to replace the grandmaster trait they could create a new grandmaster trait for gadgets!
This could give each gadget some permanent bonus effect, a bit like what Kit refinement was for kits. But permanent effects, more or less like signets.
Seeing how this would be a Grandmaster trait they could easily make this strong enough to be worth it.

Two flies with one hand… Turrets would get more realistic trait allocation, and gadgets would get a much needed trait of their own.

@Penguin:
Touche, sir. Touche.

@Chewablesleeptablet, Anymras:
I think it could make for a very useful elite actually; although what you describe would be tantamount to the Rampage skill for Warriors, or the Rampage component of Elixir X when the RNG rolls in our favour. Certainly I could see myself taking it instead of Supply Crate.

Engineers could also do with an elite Gadget or Kit, and this would fit the bill.

That being said, I do hope that before new skills are introduced, that Turrets and Gadgets are given a pass such that they are attractive as an alternative to Kits. Right now the foundation for them is there – Turrets have potentially 4 cooldowns including the Detonation – now there needs to be a way to make them smart enough (AI) and tough enough (Hitbox, player HP/Toughness scaling) to keep out on the field. As for Gadgets, we’re still waiting on Trait support that will give them what we’re missing – Stability, Condition management outside of Elixirs.

Arenanet seldom releases patch “previews” pertaining to balance. The last big patch of “balance” – of which the usefulness was debatable – did have some “leaked” notes that turned out to be the localisation copy for tooltips.

Hopefully sometime after the PAX Tournament the meta will “unfreeze” again and we’ll be back to monthly tweaks and biweekly tooltip updates.

We can only hope that the changes bring more things into a viable state instead of bringing up new things to “whack-a-mole”.

@Wolf, Pixelpumpkin, petespri:
I think you should probably make your own threads. I mean, I get that the title kind of implies that “new” weapons and kits should be part of the discussion, but come on.

At least contribute something that isn’t completely tangential. Thoughts? Comments? My suggestions are bad and I should feel bad? Give me something here instead of chainsaws.

@Brenil:
Holy crap it’s been a while since I’ve seen you post in here.

I have to agree that a lot of skills need to be addressed by Arenanet if only to promote build diversity. I think that the June 25th patch, although it introduced the OPness of the Necromancer, was a huge step forward in terms of build variation across all classes. Moving the stunbreakers around for Elementalist finally broke it out of 3 cantrips or bust (although there really needs to be some kind of fix to the 15 Water 20-30 Arcana minimum investment to not die Ele meta); whilst fixes to Rocket Boots, moving some stunbreakers to Elixir Gun and Thumper turret made several Engineer builds actually viable.
There is still a long way to go, even 12 months after release. I hope that before any new Weapons or Skills or Traits are introduced, those minimum 2 “broken” skill _categories should be looked at for all classes.

Forum feedback has been calling for similar things in different threads across the lifetime of GW2; time will tell if Anet finally buckles down, bites the bullet, and delivers – hopefully before interest in the game dwindles from Living Story fatigue.

@Lightsbane:
A link to my thread that discusses how Engineer Rifle, Pistol and Shield could be given some much needed quality of life changes.

Hasn’t engendered much discussion aside from people calling for Whips, Chainsaw Kits and Hammers – which I guess speaks more to the resignation that Engineers must rely on kits for competitive damage. It also says to me that people just ignore the OP and just post random things, but hey, that’s the internet.

Hopefully you can add something that that doesn’t revolve around new weapon and kit suggestions that are completely tangential to the topic.

With a few lucky bounces from SD procced from Surprise Shot, you can easily hit 2-3k SD procs, and this is before Weapon skills. With Rifle Mod, Modified Ammo and Sitting Duck nowadays you could probably burst even harder than that.

With Might Stacks, running Enhance Performance, Med Kit, Altruism Runes and Sigil of Battle, you can peak out at around 15 stacks in combat although it does take 15+ seconds to hit that level. You’d also need 2runes of the Fire and Strength and 10 points in Alchemy along with Altruism to hit the 50% Might Duration required to get the extra 3 stacks from Sigil of Battle. An extra 555 Power is no joke.

The Fury is taken care of by Drop stimulant and Utility Goggles, as is the Vulnerability from Sitting Duck and Analyze.

Coated Bullets
I think that with the Pistol 1’s Bleed duration and damage nerf (And addition of aftercast, can’t forget that), Coated Bullets has become significantly less attractive. Moving it down to Master Tier was a good move with the June 25th patch.

That being said, Coated Bullets needs to do more than affect just 2/5 weapon skills. Even if a QoL pass was done for Pistol 1 (Explosive Shot) that removed or tempered the aftercast, Pistol 1 would still be less than ideal as an auto-attack.
So why not have Coated Bullets affect other Pistol Skills as well?

Coated Bullets
Pistol shots pierce. Blowtorch has an increased arc of fire. Glue Shot travels faster.

This change would make Coated Bullets worth taking besides the niche utility of being able to cause AOE Bleed and Poison. I myself think that AOE Condition application is a little out of control at the moment and whilst this change will likely bring Coated Bullets back into popularity and worsen the situation, I feel that as long as Pistol’s Condition application and duration stays the way it is , Pistol 1, 2 and 5 will be fine, even if given a QoL pass. A single stack of Bleed for 2 seconds is hardly groundbreaking.

Rifle Mod
As I mentioned earlier, I feel that Rifle Mod is best merged with Hair Trigger and left in the Master Tier. There is little point creating trait bloat on a class that already has clunky weapon skills.

Go for the Eyes
As I mentioned earlier, trait bloat often leads to Go for the Eyes not being taken. If Hair Trigger and Rifle Mod were merged, we may yet see its use. That being said, I dislike random crit-procs and I hope that the RNG situation for Engineer will be slowly changed over time to be more conditionally consistent. What I feel would be viable and useful would instead be:

Go for the Eyes
Blunderbuss, Overcharged Shot and Jump Shot apply Blind for 5 seconds.
I feel that this change would take away some of the RNG of the Engineer. At the same time, it emphasises the utility side of the Rifle for the Engineer. Being situated in the Master Tier, this would also force a sacrifice between damage and CDR and active defense for Rifle Engineers – as traits should be doing in the first place. It would also give Rifle Engineers some close range active defense – something that Pistol Shield users take for granted, but which should also exist as an option for Rifle.

Modified Ammunition
I mentioned before that Modified Ammunition was a poorly thought out rehash. As useful as it is in one-shot Static Discharge based builds running Sitting Duck, it doesn’t do anything build defining. GM Major Traits should define a build, not be yet another DPS increase.

I feel that Modified Ammunition should replace Target the Maimed as the GM Minor 25 point trait. This would bring it in line with Necromancer’s Target the Weak as a 25 point Minor. There is no place for a flat DPS trait in the GM Major Slot. It is lazy, does not define a build, and does not increase class depth for the 30 point investment.

New Trait:
Custom Hand Loads
Overcharge your Rifle’s performance. Alters functionality of skills 1-5.

Hip Shot is now a 600 range, 30 degree radius, 3 target cleave. Deals bonus 5% damage against targets at less than 200 range. No longer pierces.
Net Shot gains Chain skill:
Reel it In
Cast time 0.75 sec, Range 1000. Cooldown 20 seconds
Pull yourself closer to your Immobilised target. Inflict 5 stacks of Vulnerability for 3 seconds. Combo Finisher: Leap.
Blunderbuss now does full damage out to 400 range
Overcharged Shot has bonus 150 range.
Jump Shot has bonus 150 range and inflicts Cripple on landing.

These changes would accentuate the close-in, mid-range fighting that the Engineer is supposed to excel at. Altering Rifle 1 would also give Engineers an alternative to Bombs, whilst not replacing them as a useful auto-attack with a different application. Rifle 1 would become monstrous at close range and becomes the “melee” alternative for Engineer.

Anyway, back onto the Traits for Engineer Weapon Skills.

Sharpshooter
As I mentioned before, it’s basically half of a Sigil of Earth. 30% Chance to proc Bleeding on critical hits fits in with the Firearms line being about critical-hit proc conditions, but I feel that if there’s one thing that GW2 is particularly heinous about, it’s passive, visually unscoutable, RNG based procs.

That’s just my opinion though. As it stands, I have little beef with the trait. But I feel that if possible, Engineer as a class must move away from RNG. It’s doesn’t add depth to the class, RNG really shouldn’t be a thing in PvP, and it’s just there to add ~50 DPS to Power Rifle or ~90+ DPS to Condition builds.

I would rather that the trait instead did the following:
Sharpshooter
Inflict 1 second of Bleeding on foes at less than 600 range.
I feel that in this way, Engineers are a lot more consistent. It would encourage Condition builds to get in close rather than spamming Grenades onto a point in PvP. It would be a Global Buff to Flamethrower because you now have Bleed to cover Burning, with bonus DPS. And it would add consistent pressure that the Rifle needs. Not much, but every little bit counts.

Rifled Barrels
I feel that for an Adept Trait, Rifled Barrels offers decent utility for P/P – and nothing else. There’s no synergy for getting in close with Rifle and a longer range auto-attack on either Pistol or Rifle is really suboptimal in nearly all cases. A QoL pass of Pistol 1 and 2 might make it passable, but what I’d really like is for a trait that actually rewards Engineer for getting into mid-range.

New Trait:
Modified Choke
Gain 5% extra damage and 10% Bleed Duration against targets within 600 range with Pistol, Rifle and Elixir Gun.
This is a slightly modified take on the Stone Splinters trait of the Elementalist. With both bonus damage and Bleed Duration, the original function of improving Pistol, Rifle and Elixir Gun is retained as all 3 weapons can cause Bleeding with either the Auto-attack, or proccing the Adept Minor Sharpshooter trait.

Hair Trigger
Engineer is relatively unique among classes in that they actually have 2 “Cooldown Reduction (CDR) Traits”;http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Recharge in the Adept tier – Fireforged Trigger also shares a Tier and similar utility.
Other CDR Traits associated with Weapon skills are also associated with extra damage, or extra utility as in Mesmer’s Focus CDR Trait also reflecting Projectiles. As a result, the majority of CDR Traits for Weapons are concentrated into the Master Tier.
The problem here is that by separating the CDR and Damage components of of Pistol or Rifle for Engineer, there exists the problem of bloat. 2 Major Trait slots (Even if both are Adept tier) are required where the pure efficiency of a single combined trait in the Master tier would be superior.

I feel that combining Hair Trigger and Rifle Mod would be a substantial buff to Engineer’s Weapon skills.
Hair Trigger
Now Master Tier. Merged with Rifle Mod. Rifle and Pistol Skills recharge 20% faster. Rifle skills deal 10% more damage. Gain 100 Condition Damage while wielding a Pistol.

@Forestnator:
I did mention in my post that Celestial Armour was pretty decent over Berzerker’s Armour, although I probably should have made that more clear in my post.

The point is that Celestial Armour sacrifices 9% Power based damage over Berzerker’s Armour, whilst you lose a lot more damage if you instead use Celestial Trinkets. I still think that Celestial has a role, especially if you’re missing EHP from your Trinkets – just not in the Trinket slots themselves.

@Seras:
I agree with Retaliation being too passive. It also kind of forces builds excessively in one way or another – You have to use very few, very hard-hitting skills to counter it. Mesmers that Shatter and Thieves laugh at Retaliation. At the same time, classes that rely on long combinations of skills or multi-hit skills to spike like Elementalist or Engineer, can take excessive amounts of damage for something that might have taken 10+ cooldowns to pull off.

Take that into WvW where AOE Retaliation is rampant, you can literally kill yourself with Retaliation proccing passively on a few targets.

I honestly don’t have a good solution other than to simply avoid zergs and playing Zerg V Zerg as Engineer and stick to small group fights and roaming, just as ShadowPuppet mentioned.

Modified Ammunition
Damage is increased by 2% per condition on the target, when wielding a rifle or pistol .
A new Grandmaster Major trait introduced with the June 25 patch, this trait replaced the fall of Juggernaut into Master tier. It is essentially a re-hash of the Necromancer’s Target the Weak , except it takes a Major slot and is much, much more limited in scope.
Other similar traits in the same vein include Exposed Weakness and Radiant Power . Again, these are Grandmaster Minor traits and have a much broader scope. Modified Ammunition sounds like a good trait until you realise you could have Rifled Barrels, Rifle Mod, and Hair Trigger – and you would deal more damage, more often, more reliably. All in all a poorly thought out rehash.

Reinforced Shield
Gain 90 toughness while holding a shield and shield skills recharge 20% faster.
This is your standard re-hash of Shield traits from other classes, boosting Toughness and recharge. For Shield and its long cooldowns, this trait does find some use. However it largely only matters in Bunker builds where the shorter CD is essential. Otherwise, the untraited Shield skills are actually strong enough on their own.

Anyway, onto the Major Traits associated with the Engineer’s Weapon skills. I will exclude all Weapon Skill agnostic Traits such as Sitting Duck and the like but I may come back to them later.

I will preface this by first mentioning that I feel that the Firearms have a lot of bloat, and often the utility offered by Weapon Skill traits is superfluous.
It’s yet another reason why Main Hand weapons are often passed over.

Rifled Barrels
Improves rifle, pistol, harpoon gun, and elixir gun range.
This trait improves Engineer’s main hand weapons almost globally by giving them approximately 1/6 more range, although the increases sometimes differ from skill to skill. Overall it’s a relatively simple change, but the truth is that most Engineers simply don’t take it.
Why is this? The truth of the matter is that the Engineer already has an option for Long Range – Grenade Kit. And it is far superior in every way to Weapon skills – in condition application, in range (1500!), and in sustained damage (0.4*3 with trait just on the 1 skill).
Not only that, but it becomes progressively easier to land Grenades as range decreases, so your potential for damage goes up. GK supplants every single possible ranged choice Engineer could bring and does it better, which is why GK is so dominant in all modes of play.
As I see it, Rifled Barrels has no conceivable application. It sounds nice on paper to have a 1200 range Net Shot until you discover that it doesn’t track and it is actually impossible to combo your Immobilise into anything else – because all of Rifle’s other skills are short ranged.
Rifled Barrels did see use in the Beta with Coated Bullets , but that was before Pistol 1 was nerfed into the ground.

Hair Trigger
Rifle, pistol, and harpoon gun skills recharge 20% faster.
Hair Trigger offers decent enough utility for an Adept Trait – as GW2 is a game with no mana or energy, lower cooldowns is always good.
You will find this trait in almost every Rifle-centric or Pistol/Pistol build. It’s solid enough for its tier, but rather unimaginative. (It seems to be like this for a lot of GW2’s traits across classes. Especially Warrior.

Coated Bullets
Pistol shots pierce.
This trait used to be Grandmaster, and for good reason. Despite it only affecting Pistol 1 (Explosive shot) and Pistol 2 (Poison dart volley), Pistol 1 at the time before its nerfs applied Bleed essentially twice with this trait slotted – once for the piercing, and another time for the “explosion”. It also redeemed the utter uselessness of Poison dart volley, because at least if you missed, you could hit the 10 other dudes behind your primary target.
Then Pistol 1 was nerfed, and Coated Bullets lost its patina. The June 25 patch made it Master in deference to Pistol 1’s current status, but has done nothing to bring Coated Bullets back into meta.

Rifle Mod
Improves damage for the rifle and harpoon gun by 10%.
It seems that %damage bonus traits are always in Master tier, and this trait is no exception. Again, it finds use in nearly every single Rifle centric mod, is unimaginative, and I feel that the presence of the trait is a crutch that is holding Rifle back from producing decent numbers from its auto-attack.

Go for the Eyes
Critical hits with the rifle have a 50% chance to inflict blindness for 5 seconds. This effect cannot trigger more than once every 10 seconds.
This trait has essentially remained unchanged since Beta. It offers niche utility – fantastic! – at the cost of being a thrice-kitten ed crit-proc – awful! Engineer seems to be a particularly horrid offender when it comes to crit-procs and this is no exception. With the buffs to Blind, Go for the Eyes has been indirectly buffed. But the trait bloat of Firearms often squeezes this trait out – other traits are simply mathematically superior, and more reliable to boot.

@Seras:
Honestly half the problems that the FT and to a lesser extent GK has in WvW zerging would disappear overnight, if Retaliation actually reflected an absolute %damage taken as it states on the tooltip instead of providing a flat damage tick that scales off the Boon Holder’s Power and procs on hit.

I have no idea why Retaliation was ever implemented in this capacity because it offers no deterrence against spike damage, and it invalidates the use of several multi-hit skills for no apparent reason, across all classes.

I would like for Engineers to have a QoL pass over their main hand weapon skills . I feel that this is the easiest way to globally improve all Engineer builds, and especially those builds that have no kits and rely on Weapon Skills for their DPS and survival. Fixing the weapon skills themselves is also relatively trait agnostic – so there is even further room for improvement if traits associated with Weapon Skills are looked at in the future.

There have been a ton of threads regarding changes and fixes to Turrets and Gadgets, and whilst the June 25 patch did a lot to bring new life into the Engineer, there is still a long way to go. Turrets and Gadgets remain relatively broken and ineffectual, and countless threads in the past regarding Turret AI and a dearth of Trait support for Gadgets have seemingly gone unheard.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/Engineer-Comprehensive-Suggestion-List/
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/It-s-time-for-Turret-traits-to-be-reworked/
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/Turrets-STILL-useless
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/Improving-the-Engineer-How-I-d-Do-It/
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/Reasonable-engineer-buff-fix-suggestions
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/Suggested-Gadget-Changes
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/Turrets-The-Buff-A-Net-Wants-us-to-HAVE

I believe that someone did the calculations in the Mesmer forum and found that if you’re switching to Knights or Celestial from full Berserker, you will lose around 9% of Power based damage.

This is due to the higher % critical damage with the Celestial Armour.

However, you actually lose damage by equipping Celestial trinkets. This is because you have less or equivalent %Critical damage using the Ascended Celestial Trinkets.

It depends on whether you think the 140 Condition damage will be worth it. Condition Damage doesn’t really begin to shine until you reach 600 and even then it’ll largely be from Burning as Bleeds won’t have begun to scale high enough yet. The most useful aspect of Celestial gear is the EHP, as you have mentioned yourself.

The biggest loss is once again in the Power. You will need to find a way to make that Power back in other areas – Power is the most important, then Precision, then Critical Damage – so that 175 is a lot more significant than you think; whilst the +3 Critical Damage is less beneficial than you think.

@ShadowPuppet:
The only thing comparable to FGS exploitation Ele is 100% glass Lightning Hammer Ele

6k autos, 10k crits at end of chain.

As for Warriors being best in dungeon, it is now well known and accepted that Axe beats out GS for sustained DPS, even if the numbers aren’t as impressive. But DPS isn’t the reason why Warriors are still highly sought after in Dungeons – it’s that they bring strong DPS with good survivability (from base HP and toughness) with great party DPS support.

On My Mark and For Great Justice grant party wide Might and Fury and gives Vulnerability to foes. You can bet that if those Shouts were ever nerfed, Warrior will fall off the face of the earth in Dungeons to be replaced by LH ele, or whichever class offers the “next best” party wide DPS amplification and big damage.

AOE Boons are so strong in fact that the only class that pukes them every second – Guardians – are 100% sought after in both PvP and PvE. Does this mean that Boons are balanced, or that Guardians are OP? Who knows.

All I know is that if AOE Boons from class utilities were nerfed and instead were shifted 100% to Combo Fields and Finishers, it would be Engineer that would become the next Apex class. Who knows? Such a meta might even encourage team co-ordination and team play.

I have thought about using Modified Ammunition in the past, but the problem with it is that it only works with Pistol or Rifle – of which Rifle is the only viable choice given that it amplifies Power damage.

The problem here is that with the way the build works – stacking up conditions for the 2% damage – is that Rifle doesn’t really have the variety in conditions, nor the upkeep to really get the most of it. On average, you’ll likely have Vulnerability, Bleed with appreciable uptime – around 6%. However, it is possible to have other, lower upkeep conditions such as Cripple, Confusion and Burning for short periods, which will kick the peak bonus damage to 12.

This basically renders the build nigh on 100% about bursting, while having not very appreciable sustained damage. This build will mostly burst hard and burst very well, but when your skills are on cooldown expect your output to drop. Rifle auto-attacks are also subpar to spam, and slow to boot.

That being said, this build will most likely be able to 100-0 people. I think it will be strong enough in 1v1s, but as the number of people increases, expect your survivability and your damage output to drop.

@The Baws:
You’re right in that the perfect build with big damage and big survivability doesn’t exist – every single build has its weakness, which is the beauty of GW2’s build crafting system. That being said, Grenades remain one of the easiest and safest ways to deal damage as Engineer in PvE, whilst being still useful in small group fights in WvW.

Unfortunately, in zergs, Retaliation calls Grenades into question, but that is more a function of Retaliation not returning %damage dealt as it states on the tooltip and instead proccing per hit. Should Retaliation be looked at in the future we can probably expect to see Flamethrower and Grenades being useful again in zergs.

@Lithril Ashwalker, go and find your own build that works for you. You will find tons of little variations in Engineer builds simply because the Traits for Engineer are all over the place and add little perks instead of offering full synergy (aside from Elixirs). For Engineers, there is no “perfect” “Meta” build for all three modes of play, and each build has its own unique weaknesses one has to play around.

I’ve offered you one build that’s possible, but re-reading your OP leads me to think that you’ll simply copy-paste it verbatim without fully thinking through the ramifications of my Runes, Armour and choices of Trinkets.
Please don’t just copy a build without taking the time to think about the ramifications of other people’s choices. You will die more frequently and deal less damage if you don’t know how something plays.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQJAqel0piYX3ShF1LJy4DdGYBiUkf63nHv1DChA-jkDBYLAIMgkIAEBgJfKrJQCiFhDRr6KsaGYqSRWbKpKYA+DR2hQZFA-w

I used to play this build until I switched to Rifle and Bomb Kit. High hybrid damage through Might Stacking by abusing Med Kit’s Altruism proc on ICD and Sigil of Battle combined with Enhanced Performance. High APM is required to maintain this build’s effectiveness. If you find yourself going down a lot, or your party mates are going down, Elixir R is there. The 15 points into Tools to get the reset on 25% health is also useful. Stunbreaker in the Elixir Gun’s Vent mist. High amounts of utility, middling CC, relatively safe.

Obviously only viable in WvW and PvE as there are no Altruism runes in PvP. Effective HP is relatively low – only 1.1k for Toughness and Vitality – because of high degree of active defense inherent in build.

Protection Injection can be switched out in areas with low risk of being disabled. 20 Alchemy is only there for the Boon Duration – 50% is the breakpoint for another 3 stacks of Might from Sigil of Battle. Feel free to swap in whatever Major Trait fits your Third Utility.

Switch out Shrapnel for Incendiary Powder in WvW. You’ll need the Burning to down opponents quickly as opposed to stacking up your bleeds.

Trinkets are just given as example. Attempt to reach 40+% critical chance if only to eke out that low Critical Damage and make the most of Sharpshooter. Obviously, more damage can be substituted in for corresponding decrease in effective HP.

Once you become more confident, switch out Elixir R for Tool Kit for even more active defense in WvW. For more offensive utility, instead use Bomb Kit and Blast your Fire Bomb to stack up to maximum 25 stacks of Might. For utility, slot in FT and Fireforged Trigger. Use Incendiary Ammo only when you have 15+ Might Stacks.

This build takes time to build up Might. You will be at the mercy of ICDs. Peak Might Stacks before Boon Duration food is 15+, minimum 6 when just entering combat. With Boon Duration food you can reach 21+. Slotting a Fire Field and Blasting it judiciously will cap you out.

This build is weak to Conditions, so you may want to slot Healing Turret instead of Med Kit if you’re getting DOTted to death. Expect a corresponding decrease in peak Might stacks, though. You’ll also miss the Fury something fierce.

petespri.6548:

Honestly, I dont think things are as bad as you say they are with weapons. No doubt some cast times, aftercasts, and dmg can all be adjusted better.

The big issue, in my book, is that kits add so much more utility and available skills that no one makes builds to support weapons.

On top of that, in the Firearms line, you have to pick up 3 traits just to increase range, decrease recharge, and add an effect (piercing:pistol, blind:rifle) that you loose a crap tone of utility.

If I were Anet, the first thing I would do to make kitless builds WORKABLE would be to clump pistol range, CD and piercing into a Master trait, and also rifle range, CD, and blinding. Then at least you would have some other traits that could focus on utility of the weapons themselves.

Just IMO, of course but Firearms is so bloated.

@petespri:
I think that whilst Traits are part of the problem, a little QoL can go a long way. As I have mentioned, some rewards are simply insufficient for the risk, whilst some casts and aftercasts are poor enough to be objectively inferior to switching over to a Kit and using cooldowns from that instead.

That being said, I’ll start going through the Traits for our Weapons.

If you look back through my posting history you will notice that I have said in the past that I believe that out of all the trait lines, Firearms is probably one of the best lines for the Engineer. One qualifying statement I would like to add to that is that it’s only the best if only because it suffers from the least amount of bugs, and actually has synergy within its own line – something that Engineer severely lacks.

Firearms
The Firearms Trait line increases Precision by 10 points per point spent, and Condition Damage by 10 points per point spent. So immediately the thought that comes to mind is crit-proc conditions, and you’ll see a lot of those traits pop up in various lines of the Engineer, most infamously Incendiary Powder

Firstly, the Minor Traits:
Out of all the trait lines, Firearms probably has one of the strongest Minors for the Engineer class, and they also synergise, which is practically unknown in the Engineer trait lines.

Sharpshooter
30% chance to cause Bleeding for 3 seconds on critical hits.

It’s a solid enough trait. Half of a Sigil of Earth , is how I look at it. For 5 points into Firearms, it’s a weapon and utility agnostic global chance to proc bleed. Great for hybrid builds when you take into account the Grandmaster Minor trait.

Target the Weak
10% increased critical-hit chance against foes with less than 50% health.

Target the Weak is unusual in that it’s one of the very few %DPS increasing traits that trigger upon foes reaching a certain %health. It’s also RNG based, which doesn’t help the Engineer’s image of relying upon the RNG for success. In terms of hard numbers, Target the Weak is essentially a boost of 210 Precision against foes with less than half health. As %Critical Chance for Engineer mainly involves condi application rather than massive Critical Damage spikes, it’s more focused towards hybrid builds.

Target the Maimed
Target the Maimed is unique in that it actually has synergy with the rest of the Minor traits in the same tree. Sharpshooter procs bleed, which then gives a flat 5% boost to damage against a target. I would say that 5% is probably pretty weak given that the exact same mechanic is present in the Warrior with Attack of Opportunity – that boost is 10% instead of just 5. It’s a minor trait and it’s there. As for whether getting to GM with Firearms is worth it, I’ll continue in other posts.

Nightmare.8351:

Jump Shot: In addition to current setup, apply a stack of Torment [3 seconds] to target on landing.

I honestly think that Torment, being a DPS condition that scales with Condition damage and not power, is not the way to go. I’ll just quote Blood Red Arachnid from the Give Blowtorch Torment thread:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

So when I hear the suggestion to give engineers torment, the first question I ask is why. What problem does this solve? What does this attempt to balance? I know why necromancers, thieves, and even warriors in part were given torment: to provide additional condition damage not tied wholly to bleeding. Mesmers were given torment to buff the condition damage nature of the scepter, which had its direct damage removed. But engineers are already good on conditions.

If anything, torment on engineers would throw engineers off balance, since it gives players yet another unique condition they have to cleanse off alongside of poison, confusion, bleeding, burning, and vulnerability.

The thought that Engineers would require yet another DPS condi that only counters kiting is simply not the way to go. Yes, it would force enemy players to think twice about trying to kite away, but one has to remember that Torment only does double DPS when player is moving – blinks and shadowsteps are not affected – and those are the biggest problems a Rifle or Bomb engineer faces when trying to pull off their DPS, not simple kiting. I’ve Blunderbussed air more than a few times because a Mesmer has kitten good reflexes.

@Anymras:
You are a gentleman and a scholar.
A 21 pop gun salute for this fine purveyor of powder kegs and potions and pistols and clockwork crank-wound catapults of cavalcades of chaos!

@oblivious:
To clarify, what I meant was for the single condition to be cleansed on impact, then another single condition to be cleansed with the first pulse. Right now Super Elixir only cleanses 1 condition on impact – which is still missing from the tooltip 12 months on.

As much as I would like Engineer to have Guardian-level condi cleansing on a kit, you and I both know that it would be the first against the wall when Necros and other condi classes play against it.

The reason why I would want Super Elixir to cleanse more than 1 condition would be because the Kit Refinement nerf destroyed more than just 100Nades – it nerfed multikit condi cleansing with the loss of Cleansing Flame proc on FT swap and free Super Elixir on Elixir Gun swap.

The Kit Refinement change is one of the reasons why I don’t even contemplate running FT/EG any more, even though I know that it could still be passable – or in Phineas Poe’s opinion, very much viable.

As for Elixir Gun being a Light Field, I can see where Arenanet was coming from by making it a Light field. The backloaded healing over time was intended to reduce the impact of conditions ticking away, whilst allies could Whirl or Projectile finish across the field to help those afflicted inside.

The problem with the Light Field is that the current implementation makes both Blast and Leap finishers give Retaliation – so Light Fields are utterly useless if you’re on your own and you need Cleansing Bolts. If Leap Finishers were changed to instead cleanse 1 condition upon Leaping through we might begin to see Guardians have some counterplay against the condi cleave meta.

In terms of Projectile Finishers that return to the user, if Shield’s Throw shield or Toolkit’s Throw Wrench actually maintained its Cleansing Bolt status and wasn’t destroyed before it could initiate its effect on return they might have been good. As it stands, Super Elixir is pretty much only good for its HoT and single cleanse effect. Any Combo Field support it provides is purely incidental and largely predicated upon allies.

@ArmageddonAsh: Please look at this page for a detailed look at base kit damage @Level 80, power scaling of individual kit skills, actual cast time including aftercast, and weapon constants (base damage calculation with Power coefficient).

In terms of stats given by a weapon, (i.e. a Berserker’s Rifle), the damage stat i.e. 986-1205 is not taken into account when using a kit and the steady 969 value is used instead. However, the stats like Power, Precision and %Critical Damage all contribute to your attributes even when holding a kit, so you still gain the benefit.

That being said, when Ascended Weapons are introduced with a new damage bracket, Engineer Kits will fall even further behind in terms of damage. I’ll look forward to what Arenanet plans to do when such a thing occurs.

I would love Static Discharge’s skillshot to be independant of the plane of the camera. As it is, Static Discharge is already a relatively difficult skillshot to hit if you use toolbelt skills without a target.

Making it angle itself into the ground with the default camera angle is just un-necessary punishment. As it is, it seems that the angle at which it flies is simply angled way too low for the actual camera angle. I find myself tilting the Camera far too high for the SD proc to actually go straight – yet it’s the only way I can get it on target.

If they simply fixed the angle to actually follow the camera angle and make sense, SD skillshots would actually be more a matter of skill than accurate guestimating of where it wants to fly.

As a final addition to my thoughts on Rifle lacking sustained pressure once close range is engaged, I have thought about turning Hip Shot into a skill chain:

Stage 1: Hip Shot:
Fire a shot from the hip. 0.75sec cast. 20% Projectile Finisher. Pierces targets. Same as before, nothing to see here.

Stage 2: Slug Shot
Fire a heavy slug out of the rifle. +10% damage at targets below 600 range. Inflicts 1 stack of Vulnerability. Inflicts 2 stacks of Vulnerability instead if target is below 600 range. 0.5 sec cast. 20% Projectile Finisher. Does not Pierce.

Stage 3: Canister round
Fire a buckshot filled canister round. +20% damage at targets below 200 range. 0.75 sec cast. Buckshot follows the Canister round to the target. Does not Pierce. Instead is a 20 degree cleave to a maximum of 3 targets in front of the Engineer. Canister round does reduced damage compared to Hip Shot with 1000 range, whilst buckshot only reaches 200 range to do the cleave. Inflicts 1 stack of Bleeding for 3 seconds if target is below 200 range.

Canister Round sounds like overloaded utility, but I believe that it is the keystone to making Rifle actually worth using over, say, Bombs, at close range.

Once again, the skill chain is intended to increase the Engineer’s damage output as range decreases. As a relatively slowly executing skill chain, its aim is to provide slow, steady pressure, whilst kiting and dodging can really punish your damage output as your chain will reset – so there is an element of danger to trying to auto opponents down.

@Yamsandjams:
I mentioned Pistol 1 in my thread regarding Engineer’s mainhand weapon choices. Hopefully the discussion around Pistol 1 can continue as it comprises fully 1 third of our weapon choices – they may as well be good weapons if we’re going to be stuck with so few for the foreseeable future.

Anyway, I would like to just mention that I don’t believe that adding AOE Bleed to Pistol 1 is the solution. If anything, it would mark a return to the Coated Bullets madness and you can bet that the cries for nerf would be swiftly inbound.

I believe that a global improvement to the Pistol’s sustained direct damage and condition pressure would be simply to remove the 0.3+ second aftercast introduced after the nerfs.

Right now Pistol 1 fires only once every 0.8 seconds – as slowly as the Rifle, without the Power scaling, and with the nerf, with the ability to only stack 2-3 bleeds on target without Quickness and Condition duration – utterly useless.

Removing the aftercast would improve Pistol’s 1v1 and 1vX potential – and it would still only be with Condition Duration% that we would be able to stack up anything more than 5 bleeds, as we have no direct +Bleed Duration traits.

@Anymras:
Congrats! Although I suppose a round of applause is in order for your tireless work. Let’s hope that some time next Christmas Turrets are playable again.

@Oblivious:
The only problem I see with Light Fields is that the current finishers do not support “selfish” finishers – only “support” type finishers help with condi removal.
What does that mean?
It means that only Whirl and Projectile finishers – finishers that generate the Cleansing Bolts – actually cleanse conditions. More than likely, it will be your allies and not yourself that would benefit from this kind of finisher.
As for Blast and Leap – they both grant Retaliation, and for only 3 seconds at a time at that.
This makes Light fields less than ideal when supporting yourself – although there are Balance issues to keep in mind – otherwise Guardian could simply Blast himself clean of all conditions.

That is why it would be objectively superior for Super Elixir to cleanse 2 conditions, or 1, then another for a single pulse – instead of changing it to Water field and all the balance issues a 10 second, 20sec CD (16 traited) Water field would engender. Balance is also the reason why Necromancers receive a Light field instead of a Water field for the Well of Blood – you don’t simply put down a 10 second Water field with 33% uptime.

@Digno
To be honest Engineer has been launched for too long without weapon swap – so much so that I honestly doubt a reversal in Arenanet’s stance. In addition, there are only 3 weapon choices – what choices are there to swap to? Keep in mind that if you have the same weapon in your off set, the cooldowns are shared for balance reasons.

@Manuhell
I find it laughable that Arenanet would say that the use of kits comes at the cost of main hand weapon skill damage. Engineer’s SD Rifle build has been 3-4 shotting people in PvP and WvW since it was popularised – so the damage isn’t lacking – the sustained pressure at close range is.

SD Made up for blowing all of our weapon skills on a single burst by adding that extra 4-5k (more with bounces) to be able to 1shot people when our burst was on cooldown. If Rifle is buffed in such a way as to give it that sustained pressure at close range, you would quickly see complaints rifle being bad disappear.

If you read my OP, you would have noted that at no point did I say that Engineer rifle lacked damage. And in fact, HAiMaiNelm’s video demonstrates that there is no shortage of burst coming from Engineer’s rifle. There is no lack of damage, but sustained damage once you get stuck in close range.

It is also of my opinion that P/X is still salvageable – given that the aftercast introduced after the nerfs to Pistol 1 – is removed. You will also note that most of my suggestions revolve around Quality of Life – making skills easier to land, and removing and/or minimising some excessively large punishments for being at the wrong range.

As for Shield 5’s nerfs in 1v1, I think it’s actually fine. The entire point of Shield 5 is to fulfil a similar role to Elementalist Shocking Aura – countering enemy setups for Melee burst, whilst setting up the opportunity for your own burst when opponents CC themselves on your shield.

It is also of note that nearly the entirety of Engineer’s burst potential is AOE. This buff to 1vX is less drastic than you think – although I wouldn’t have been averse to a reduction in CD given the loss in dueling potential.

@Decklan;
To be honest, even if Engineer was given AOE Torment, it wouldn’t make a difference at all. The reason why WvW is dominated by the Warrior/Guardian Melee train with Staff Eles and a smattering of Necros in support is because the Warrior’s weaknesses – CC and conditions – are largely countered by Cleansing Water from Staff Eles, and the generalised AOE condi clear from Guardians.

Meanwhile, the only reason why Necros are still wanted in WvW zergs is because recent buffs have put Necro condis way over the top. Their AOE Weakness and Chill and Blind put a massive dent into oncoming DPS, whilst still applying decent pressure through Bleed and Poison, and keeping the backline safe by Fearing away any would-be flankers.

They can also condi bomb someone, then Epidemic it out to a large part of the zerg for terrible, terrible damage. Torment does play a role in counter-pressure – forcing opponents that would fight the Necro away from Tainted Shackles – but it is not in any way the keystone to the condi Necro build.

Given this, it is difficult to imagine that giving Torment to Engineers would play any role in bringing them back even still. There are no Tainted Shackles equivalent for the Engineer to threaten an AOE Immobilise and subsequent condi-bomb, no Corrupt Boon to turn AOE Stability into AOE Fear, and no Epidemic to turn a single condi-bombed target into a massive AOE of Bleed, Burn and Poison. As I mentioned earlier, Torment was anti-kite – of which Engineer has plenty of, with plenty of skills to control range to boot.

The problem lies in the Engineer being a little too dependant on active defense for survival and having no reliable Stability outside of allied Shouts. In a zerg, there is also little role to pull a single target using Magnet Pull – and Mesmer’s Focus pull does it even better. Zerging doesn’t reward individual pick kills because there’s always another person in the same role. If you were angry at Engineers having no role, tell that to D/D and S/D Elementalists, Thieves (Any spec), and Rangers (Spirit Rangers are maybe acceptable, but that’s because their procs are OP).

That being said, Engineer is mad strong in roaming and small group fights. I don’t care for zerging in WvW as it is less about individual skill and positioning and more about spamming fields and finishers on cooldown. The elitism that accompanies guild-led zergs is also obnoxious. I cannot see a role that would give a sense of fulfilment in a zerg for any class bar Guardian – and even that is more a function of how OP AOE Boons are.

@daweed;
Whilst Arenanet claims to read all Profession forums and with particular reference to the PVP forum, very few dev responses have been noted. That being said, I would like to think that the buffs to Rocket Boots and Thumper Turret being turned into a stunbreaker were the result of criticism from the Engineer forum.

At the same time, there have been unaddressed issues with the Engineer profession since launch last year. Calls for the balance team to incorporate at least 1 “advocate” for each profession have also gone unanswered.

It is unfortunate that one of the most important aspects of any MMO – class balance and QA – also seems to feature the slowest pace of development. Compare and contrast this with the burgeoning biweekly content releases of the Living Story teams, and it is clear what Arenanet favours in terms of pacing.

It has been said that Arenanet would prefer that the pace of change for class balance and QA be slow to allow for changes in the “meta” to develop.

But one has to question the longstanding issues across all classes, and why the game would not be enriched by bug-free classes, instead of hampered in balance because of it.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

So when I hear the suggestion to give engineers torment, the first question I ask is why. What problem does this solve? What does this attempt to balance? I know why necromancers, thieves, and even warriors in part were given torment: to provide additional condition damage not tied wholly to bleeding. Mesmers were given torment to buff the condition damage nature of the scepter, which had its direct damage removed. But engineers are already good on conditions.

Blood Red Arachnid has the right of it.

P/X is already one of the strongest condition spreading weapons in the game – Bleed, Poison, Confusion, Blind just on the main hand, and Burning, Immobilise, Cripple on the off hand. It was so out of control, in fact, that when people discovered the P/P HGH/Cleaning Formula 409 build back when most of our Elixirs still broke Stun, that Engineers running it were one of the apex condition builds, even over Necromancers.

Fast forward past beta and Pistol 1 is nerfed into the ground. Enter Grenades with a free covering condition in the form of Vulnerability from Steel Packed Powder. Immediate QQ erupts in the PvP forums about how strong the hybrid damage and sheer condispam the Grenade kit was capable of. Grenade kit damage was nerfed.

Due to complaints after the Kit Refinement nerf taking away 2 condition cleansers for Engineers, Healing Turret was buffed and Cleansing burst given actual utility instead of being a 60 second cooldown that did nothing half the time, and only cleased 3 conditions instead of being the full condi-clear promised by tooltip.

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

Incendiary Powder is nerfed to 40% uptime, 52% when traited 30 into explosives, 66% running condition Duration and PVP runes and sigils, and at most 80% uptime running 100% condition duration. Napalm Specialist is moved to GM.

At no point were Engineers complaining that their condition builds were too weak. We had free covering Vulnerability when using Grenades, and a swathe of other conditions using anything else – along with 7-12 stacks of Confusion since buffs to Toolkit.

Conversely, Necromancers complained that whilst they were kings of Bleed Damage, they had no covering conditions. Their bleed stacks would be easily wiped off – something that could have taken 10+ seconds to build up – crushing their condition pressure unlike any other. With little upkeep of Endurance and Swiftness and a dearth of gap closers, Necros were also easily kited to death while their mid-range condi applications could not reach out and touch someone.

Introducing Torment and Dhuumfire finally gave Necros the ability to cover their bleed stacks, whilst other trait changes made Necro Staff Marks unholy condi spamfests. As a side effect, Torment punished kiting, which also put players facing necros into a dilemma.

You must ask yourself this:
“What do we need covering using Torment?” and,
“Do Engineers really need to punish kiting as a class?”

I think you will find that for the most part, the answers to both questions will be no.

I honestly think that passive procs i.e. Protection on being Critically hit/Aegis on being critically hit/Protection on being disabled/20% Damage reduction on being stunned or knocked down is not the way to go.

Although I use Protection Injection myself in WvW, there is no visually distinct way to show that you have that trait active. There’s no counterplay, and no way to scout it visually.

At the same time, all of the “Convert X% of Y stat into another stat” traits are strictly awful. They add no depth to the class and are simply there for the min-maxers. Even then, the DPS or survivability increase such traits offer are so minor as to be negligible.

Your suggestion of %Toughness to %Critical damage, Daecollo, is something that I cannot support. %Critical Damage is already one of the culprits for damage being utterly out of control in GW2, and to add to that, it’s RNG based from %Critical Chance. I’m pretty sure that Engineers already have enough %critical or %chance for RNG triggers as a class already, and I think that it’s a trend that needs to reverse, not go the other way.

What I would like to see are more conditional traits – something that Engineer is direly short of.

Traits like Adrenaline Pump and Evasive Powder Keg are examples of useful traits with a specific trigger; although Evasive Powder Keg’s usefulness is still limited.

I would much rather that more traits like Sitting Duck and Juggernaut existed instead of RNG procs for conditions (most of the Firearms line) and passive %health based triggers and RNG boons (The Inventions and Alchemy line).

HGH, Cleaning formula 409, Automated Response, Coated Bullets and the venerable Invigorating Speed/Speedy Kits triggers are all examples of traits that add depth to the class mechanically; and its something that needs to comprise the majority, not minority of our Major and Minor trait selections.

@Wolf:
If you read the PvP forums there’s been a lot of complaints recently against the Spirit Ranger build that has been making the rounds lately, which has become one of the apex builds due to its large amount of evasion, cleansing, and decent damage output due to procs from the Spirits.

The major complaint being levelled against the build is that the Spirits “body block” skills intended for the Ranger, which adds essentially 3 mini-tanks along with the Ranger Pet. As a result, it is a very potent 1v1 spec with pretty decent teamfighting capabilities as the procs are shared across the team.

I have mentioned before that it seems that the most potent 1v1 builds focus extensively on AI summons because they are essentially yet another addition of EHP you have to chew through to get to the enemy player. I believe that adding the ability for Turrets to “body block” similar to Ranger Spirits could be following a dangerous precedent that adds to the “too much AI summons and passive play” complaints levelled against summoner classes.

I would rather that Turrets retain their avoidance of skillshots and other projectile attacks, whilst having their hitboxes fixed – although I’m not sure if this is possible given that Turrets are treated as environmental objects like the destructible crates on certain maps. Giving Turrets a “normal” NPC’s health bar like Ranger Spirits or Necro Minions would invalidate their condition immunity, which would be pretty hilarious to see bleeding turrets.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

This is something I wondered about, too, however I am hesitant to change Super Elixir over to a water field for two reasons:

#1: Engineers already have two water fields. Healing turret overcharge and toolbelt skill. Changing Super Elixir to a water field really doesn’t give engineers something that they are missing.

#2: I’m not sure Super Elixir would be balanced if it was a water field. 10 second duration on a potentially 16 second cooldown… that is really powerful. Light fields have a stacking limit on retaliation, and retaliation only does so much. But that much of a healing field… just dang.

So for now, I’d keep it a light field. It’s a pretty good light field, too.

Basically, what Blood Red Arachnid said. The only Water field of similar parity in duration would be Ranger’s Healing Spring which occupies a Heal slot and is on a profession with a relatively few Blast Finishers.

That being said, what Water Fields we do have are laughably short in duration although their radius is ridiculous:

Cleansing Burst is a mere 3 seconds on a Healing Skill slot, but has 480 Radius (!!!)

Regenerating Mist again, has a 480 radius, but lasts for a paltry 1 second on a 25 second cooldown. This is post buff to its cooldown which was previously a ludicrous 60 seconds .

If anything, it is not Super Elixir that requires a buff, but Regenerating Mist. 1 second of a Combo Field warrants nothing more than spamming it for a Static Discharge Proc and the 3 second Regeneration boon. A nerf to its radius in exchange for a longer duration and additional utility; i.e. cleansing 1 additional Condition, would be far favourable to what we have at present.

As for Super Elixir, I know that there are still some in the Engineer community that are still sore about losing the double Super Elixir proc from Kit Refinement, after nerfs to Healing Power scaling and backloading much of the healing into the HoT component.

I wouldn’t mind if Super Elixir also cleansed 2 conditions in exchange for less healing.

Holesale.2640:

Projectile Speed and Hit Detection on Net Shot could use some looking at.

@Holesale:
I actually think that there are no issues with the hitbox for Net Shot – it is very reliable even across rough terrain for the most part – which is something that Magnet Pull of the Toolkit cannot claim, or even Flame Blast from Flamethrower.

That being said, there is a fine line between OP and UP for skillshots in GW2 in terms of speed. There was a lot of controversy surrounding Illusionary Leap and Swap at first because of its instant cast and very fast projectile speed leading to big damage with Blurred Frenzy.

That being said, the rest of Rifle’s Kit is clunky and slow enough to maybe justify an increase in Net Shot’s speed; mainly because Rifle is no-where near as fast or elegant as Mesmer’s Sword burst combo. There is a great feeling of landing a manually led targeted Net Shot at beyond 600 range and increasing the projectile speed will be a useful buff to a mechanically challenging skill that also has counterplay.

Going through the Shield skills with their chaincasts has also given me an idea for other ways to improve Rifle. With Rifle being the premier long-range annoyance, short-range burst threat weapon, it could also be possible to add the sustained short-ranged pressure by making Rifle Net Shot have a casting chain:

Net Shot
Cast time Instant, Range 1000, Immobilise 2 seconds, Cooldown 10 seconds

Chains into

Reel it In
Cast time 0.75 sec, Range 1000. Cooldown 20 seconds
Pull yourself closer to your Immobilised target. Inflict 5 stacks of Vulnerability for 3 seconds. Combo Finisher: Leap.
This skill would essentially add yet another gap closer to the Rifle. A secondary gap closer would de-emphasise the use of Jump Shot as the primary closer and burst opener and instead open up the use of using both of Jump Shot’s damage components into burst.
This skill would essentially be a re-hash of Elementalist Dagger Earth 3 Magnetic Grasp but in itself do no damage. By adding a longer cooldown to the secondary cast, this powerful gap closer would warrant thinking before spamming it.
In addition, with the majority of damage of Jump Shot now backloaded onto the landing component, comboing Reel it In with the intention of escaping with Jump Shot would result in subpar damage and burning 2 relatively long weapon skill cooldowns.

As a side effect, adding Reel it In would semi-automate Blunderbuss, and could potentially mean that buffing Blunderbuss is ultimately un-necessary as you now have the perfect Blunderbuss burst setup.

I also find it notable that all replies on this topic seem to address all other Engineer concerns – Turrets, Gadgets, Traits – aside from the topic of Main Hand weapon skill tweaks.

Could it be that we as Engineers have been so inured to the niche utility of weapons and have favoured Kits so much that we have forgotten that Weapon Skills exist? I find this to be a deplorable state of affairs.

Now, onto the very last skill.
Static Shield
Static Shield (Shield 5) is one of the best blocks in the game. Even after the June 25 tweaking of the skill, it is still very, very strong in all formats, and it is actually strong enough on its own to discourage a player to cast the next skill in the chain. It has a justifiably long cooldown for its power, is visually distinct, and has counterplay – all prerequisites for having a strong, balanceable skill.

Activating Static Shield makes it block all ranged and melee attacks for 2 seconds. For the first 1.5 seconds, however, melee attackers striking the shield are stunned for 2 seconds. This has been changed from the previous iteration, which had the potential stun duration last for the full 2 second block, but which ended the block upon blocking a melee attack.

Recent tweaking of the skill no longer allows activating its channel to then cast other skills whilst in the Blocking state. I would actually argue that it is an overall buff because it is now stronger in 1vX, whilst being able to still attack while blocking was an oversight as no other class may do so whilst channelling blocks. The skill as it stands still punishes melee, and multi-hit ranged attackers may no longer still get attacks through with impunity because the blocking duration has been effectively extended.
I would say that Static Shield is now well balanced; however, the cooldown could be a little lower.

Throw Shield
Throw Shield is the next chaincasted skill in line. It is essentially a thrown AOE Daze in a line with 900 range. It has a very visible, distinct animation and is great for forcing dodges. It is notable in that it still travels the full distance and returns to daze again, which again, emphasizes Engineers being progressively more dangerous to fight as distance decreases.

With good tracking to compensate its slow projectile speed, Throw Shield is a skill with fair counterplay. However, I would recommend an increase in its speed as it is slow enough to be nigh unusable as a clutch Daze – rather, it is largely used to counter channelling skills. Increasing its speed would make it better akittens intended purpose of interrupting. I feel that the projectile is visible enough to allow counterplay.

One problem I have with the current iteration is that if you Throw Shield into an opponent who is in front of a wall, if it strikes the wall, the projectile is destroyed, and you lose the opportunity to double daze. This was a recent tweak in the June 25 patch to address concerns that it was possible to daze foes on the other side of a wall. Given Throw Shields already negligible damage, I feel this is excessive punishment.

I would like this band-aid fix reversed and the skill properly coded to begin its return flight upon striking a wall. Throw Shield is already so slow it may only be used as a channelling interrupt or predictive daze (read: spam if you have the CD in case opponent casts something nasty) – this tweak did not need to happen and nerfed a skill that already had strong counterplay.

If such a solution turns out to be impossible to code, instead have Throw Shield apply a custom condition that dazes the foe after 1 second if the shield is destroyed. If the shield is not destroyed, then the return daze is executed as normal and the custom condition falls off without triggering.

@ukuni: Thanks for the bump!

As I said before, pushing new weapons out to us, or introducing new traits, does not redeem the fact that the base weapon skills could do with some tweaks.

Now, onto the last main-hand weapon choice of the Engineer – the Shield.

The Shield is unique in that it is basically the only weapon in the entire game with 2 chaincasting skills . Ergo, you essentially have 4 skills for the price of only 2 on your skillbar.

Uniquely amongst Engineer skills also, the skills involve forethought before using. I really like the Engineer’s shield moreso than any other weapon set among any class because it is one of the few skills that have long cooldowns to punish spamming; and have unique tactical applications to certain situations. It is also relatively unique amongst weapon skills because their animations are visually distinct, which allows for counterplay. Let’s get into the skills of the shield, and why it is essentially the best offhand of any class.

Magnetic Shield
Magnetic shield is Shield 4 and the first in the Shield 4’s chaincasting skills. It roots the engineer for 3 seconds to provide Projectile reflection on a 30 second cooldown. The skill is distinctly animated and a fair cooldown – other weaponskill based reflects are on par with its cooldown.

That being said, it trades off 1 second longer duration (2 seconds for Magnetic Aura and Magnetic Wave) for immobility. In addition, non-projectile attacks like Necromancer Marks, Elementalist Dragon’s Tooth/Arc Lightning/Melee attacks still go through. In my experience and from watching other GW2 streamers that use Shield (Teldo being notable), Magnetic Shield is almost never used – it is instead immediately detonated for a Blast Finisher and PBAoE pushback. I think it’s sad that such a strong skill with good counterplay is largely ignored. On the other hand, it is very much necessary because the current state of PvP dictates that movement and dodging is king – sitting there taking blows is far inferior.

I think it’s a to worthy sacrifice to self-immobilise for such a strong duration, but I would still prefer the ability to kite and a shorter duration. I believe that adding the ability to move about – even at a reduced rate – would actually bring Magnetic Shield back into its intended niche. One should also remember that the counterplay for mobile projectile reflection – GTAoE like Necro Marks, all Melee skills, and non-projectile attacks like Elementalist Scepter, Mesmer GS, Necro Axe and so on – is actually strong enough to outcompete projectile reflection regardless.

Magnetic Inversion
The second skill in the chain, this skill is favoured far, far more over its initiator skill due to being a Blast finisher and a PBAoE knockback – both essential tools in the Engineer arsenal for general utility and kiting. I actually feel that this skill is too strong as it far outcompetes the initiator skill, Magnetic Shield. There is almost no reason to self-root for Magnetic Shield as it does no damage in itself, and standing still opens oneself up to GTAoE spam that will most likely lead swiftly to death.

Its animation is also very ambiguous. It actually shares animation (that of the expanding, transparent shockwave) with Elementalist Magnetic Wave . As such, Magnetic Inversion is very much favoured on maps like Skyhammer where such a non-telegraphed pushback is deadly for pushing foes off the cliff.
I would be in favour of making this animation (And Magnetic Wave along with it) more visually distinct. I would also like there to be at least some minor cast time (0.25sec) with a minor telegraph so that there is at least counterplay.
Up the damage to compensate, or add a 1 second Daze to emphasize its interrupt nature.

Swagg.9236:

Necropost! I tweaked the suggestions (removed some, changed some). I’ve sort of given up on my Elixir X idea. It would be unwieldy to implement and also a cool change would be to give the Engineer something completely different outright than a simply RNG copy of another class’ elite.

I still think about [Bomb] (Bomb Kit 1 skill) and sometimes wonder if it wouldn’t be better as a 2-part skill chain in which the second part would prematurely detonate [Bomb] a player’s command (even directly after dropping it) and then raising [Bomb] to a 1-second recharge. That might also be too overpowered, though. It would pretty much turn Bomb Kit Engineers into walking explosions that deal a consistent 180 PBAoE range 2-3k damage every second depending on their gear and traits. Dunno.

Again, shame devs never discuss these things.

Bomb Kit has 2 problems that face it at the moment:
1: PVP players complain about it being spammy and with little counter play because you cannot tell at all what kind of bomb is placed.
2: Outside of PvP and in open-world type scenarios, Engineers essentially kite themselves. Bombs explode behind the Engineer, which basically makes BK the strongest when running away

I find that with Bomb Kit the essential problem with it is that it is mad strong in essentially 2 formats: PvP with conquest, and in PvE dungeons when meleeing bosses.

In the first format PvP, enemies must come to you as they must contest the point. They will end up eating all your AOEs you place at your feet simply because there is no-where else to go. This is half the problem with the format having capture points that are simply way too small, and half that traited bombs cover essentially the whole point. This leads to complaints that a Bomb Engineer (latest meta is condition cleave with focus on Burning damage) is excessively AOE Spammy and there is little counterplay.

In the second format, PvE Dungeons, bosses move very little when engaged in melee (which is pretty much the only reason why Warriors are viable with their superior power scaling to reward melee risk). Bombs then become actually viable, consistent DPS that is even usable while kiting as a bomb would then explode behind the Engineer, providing DPS even if the boss is chasing.

The only problem is that Bomb kit becomes significantly weaker when enemies are given space and incentive to kite. In addition, fighting a Bomb Engi essentially involves strafing or dodging backwards to force Bomb engis to run forwards, leaving bombs behind that do no damage – unless you get Glue Bomb or another Immobilise off. This is particularly important when fighting actual smart opponents in WvW

I have thought long and hard about Engineers obtaining true PBAoE using Bomb Kit and I think that the way bombs are fused and are placed at the moment are the issue here. I believe that if bombs are placed slightly forward of the player (say, ~180 units, or the traited bomb radius) such that a player moving forward without swiftness would have the bomb explode directly at his/her feet – then the problem of the Engineer essentially kiting himself is solved. In increase in casting speed would also work, but would also need to come with a change in distance the Bombs are placed forward of the Engineer.

This new bomb placement would essentially make the Engineer want to strafe from side to side exactly as a true Melee player would as the threat radius of the engineer is now slightly forward. Enemies in contact with the Engineer would want to flank in from the side and behind as there is no threat of explosions from there. Fighting a Bomb Engi would involve getting right up into point blank range to allow weaving just as a D/D ele would do the same to minimise damage against melee opponents.

This would obviously have ramifications for changing the Bomb placement animation.
Placing Bombs forward would also mean that telegraphing which bomb is placed is now extremely important.
It is vitally important that the type of Bomb that is placed with BK is visually distinct from the rest.

I know that it sounds like an indirect nerf, and it is. But giving what is essentially a 5 target maximum 180 range cleave with other, cleaving utilities sounds quite excessive already.