Guild Wars 2

Caino.7130:

Just over 1,200 games on my engi so i know a lot about them.
Is the engineer dead? No
Is it still the weakest class? Yes
A lot of keyboard work/effort for the smallest gains of all the classes.

This.

I love my engineer, but it is in spite of the class not because of it.

The Spiral King.2483:

Seriously, the only reason I took Med Kit was so I could keep swiftness up easy via Speedy Kits and Centaur Runes.

You don’t need speedy kits for perma-swiftness if you have 6/6 cent.

Ironically, this build just got a little buff:

Elixir U: Quickness is now consistent at 5 seconds.

Thank you all for your kind and thoughtful responses.

I used to run full Berserker’s and although the damage increase is substantial, I was getting crushed by steal/C&D/BS combos. As soon as I switched to P/V/T for my armor I was easily able to survive the first burst and could reset the fight. I still use zerker’s for my trinkets and rifle.

I’ve considered trying out valk for the extra crit damage, as well as going to precision/crit damage food.

This build was specifically designed to counter all of the D/D glass cannon thieves that were EVERYWHERE a couple of months ago.

I wouldn’t run this for pve. I use a grenadier build against mobs.

I find thieves to be one of my easier match-ups. Here is my build: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/The-Thief-Hunter-or-The-Rifleman/first#post1495462

OK here are the stats with artisan maintenance oil and plate of steak and asparagus. I also use the Bear, Snow Leopard, Wolf, and Raven offerings for 4% additional damage.

Attack 3,197
Crit: 43% (63% with fury)
Crit Damage: 45%
Armor: 2,404
Health: 20,322
Raw stats:
Power: 2,228
Precision: 1,731
Vit: 1,440

Yeah I like the rifle as well for the cc on short cooldown. You can really frustrate mele classes. I just have never liked the feel of the pistol/shield. But that is a personal play-style thing.

…and thanks for the comment!

This is the build that I have been using for quite some time now. I developed it months back in response to all the d/d thieves that were prevalent in WvW.

It is far from revolutionary, but it works for me and I still play it with success.

So feel free to pick it apart. All constructive criticism is welcomed and will be responded to.

Armor:

All Soldier’s (Power / Vitality / Toughness)
6/6 rune of the centaur

Trinkets: All Berzerker’s

When I get home I’ll enter the stats with food buffs.

Weapon: Rifle. I’m currently using sigil of force (5% damage), but a good argument can be made to use sigil of accuracy (5% crit) or Bloodlust/Perception or Energy.

Traits:

Explosives: 0

Firearms: 20 Trait VI (Hair trigger 20% reduction on cooldown for rifle) & IX (Rifle Mod 10% damage for rifle).

Inventions: 20 Trait I (Protective shield – 3 seconds of protection when crit w/ 20 second cooldown) & then I swap between a couple of traits for the second slot.

The three I like:
Trait II Explosive descent (50% less falling damage & grenade barrage) – Can be a real life saver as well as having some offensive utility when roaming in high terrain areas of WvW.

Trait VI Cloaking device (invisible when immobilized).

Trait V: 5% of toughness converted to Power if you want a little more damage.

I usually swap between Cloak and Descent depending on where I am on the map. If I’m running with a zerg I may just opt for additional damage from Trait V.

Alchemy: Trait II (Fast Acting Elixirs 20% recharge); Trait VI (Projection Injection 3 secs of Protection when disabled w/ 5 second cooldown.)

Last trait is a toss-up as there are a few that I love.

Trait IV: – Self-regulating defenses gives you an extra Elixir S. Really nice to re-set a fight especially against burst thieves.
Trait X: cleaning formula 409 consuming elixirs removes conditions (really nice against poison/bleed thieves. Coupled with antidote in med-pack and you have a ton of readily available condition removal.
Trait I: Invigorating speed (5 secs of vigor with swiftness – triggers when you hit medpack or elixir B. Also note if you choose this you may want to consider sigil of energy if you are going for a dodge build).

Utilities:

Medpack
Elixir B (13 seconds of retaliation blows up a thief) You also get another Elixir B at 75% health from the minor trait. So you are talking about 26 seconds of retaliation right there, and there is only a 19 second window where you won’t have retaliation before elixir B becomes available again off cool-down. Toolbelt skill gives you extra condition removal on a 20 second cooldown and a RNG buff.

This leads me to my next utility:

Elixir S.: Stun break and 3 seconds of immunity. That coupled with the toolbelt skill as shown by Tankcat you can finish anything. I used to run slick shoes. The knock down from Oil slick is amazing especially for thieves that are behind you, plus there is a blind component, and double speed ignores all snares. I REALLY miss slick shoes, but Elixir S has a shorter cooldown (48 seconds v 60), and also removes conditions when coupled with 409, as well as allowing you to finish downed targets from the toolbelt (invis/stability).

Elixir U: 5 seconds of quickness + RNG self-debuff. I believe that it is still a little bugged as you may only get 3 seconds of quickness in certain instances (48 second cooldown). Regardless this is the bread and butter for your burst damage. The build really doesn’t work without it as you just won’t be able to finish anything.

Supply crate: I know that this is an elixir build, but supply crate’s stun and net turret own thieves.

So there it is.

This build does not do the most damage (see 100’nades), nor is it the tankiest (see Tankcat), but it is one version of the engineer that I often run and enjoy.

Terrahero.9358:

a large portion of the people that did play one has already rerolled and realized how much better any other profession infact is.

Count me as one of them. I was one of the original engineers, creating it as my main character within the first seconds of early start release.

I rarely touch my engineer now.

I think they should introduce new gear every 4 months that requires the completion of irrelevant daily/monthly tasks because that is not grindy. After all, ANet doesn’t make grindy games.

Couldn’t agree more with virtually everything you have written.

Great post!

Rfreak.6591:

It’d be pretty wrong to ask to be exactly like elementalists but just better (lack of cooldown and sudden change in skill range) imo, but I’d surely find myself more comfortable if I was able to completely edit the skillbar’s layout and UI (even the numbered slot for easier access to kits at times), however after this much time playing the engineer I don’t think it’s a problem.

I’d be fine with a cooldown on kits so long as you could spec to reduce it.

Taugrim has finally decided to check out the engineer finding what most of us have known for quite some time: the engineer is really only played right in the hands of an experienced player.

“My point here is that the design of the Engineer class creates a unique learning curve from a control perspective. This creates an unnecessary hurdle to player performance – it’s going to be harder for players to get comfortable with Engy compared to other classes. "

See: http://taugrim.com/category/game-title/guild-wars-2/

He also suggests the following, which I COMPLETELY agree with:

“However, for UI design consistency I would have preferred to see kits slotted on the profession bar, similar to attunements for Elementalists”

I made this suggestion back in BWE2, and unfortunately it fell on deaf ears. As for the toolbelt skills, add them to the utility selections.

I don’t know about any of you but it certainly would be nice to be able to have access to all of our kits, as every single one of them has at least one ability that would turn the tide, and give us the versatility would currently lack.

This one simple change would be a fantastic step in the right direction imo.

Smokee.1754:

RES is prolly the most classy guild on BG

Which doesn’t speak well for BG.

Read the link in my signature for a comprehensive discussion on the subject.

So it has been a few days now since the patch. I’m not feeling any significant change in damage from kits.

What are other people’s thoughts?

YourOwnFear.2743:

After testing in wvw for a bit I noticed there is almost no change in damage and healing with kits on. Weapon damage to kits would have been a better step imo but alteast we didnt get nerfed.

Disappointing, but not unexpected.

“Engineer
Removed collision from engineer turrets that were causing player pathing issues.
Elixir X: Fixed a bug where this skill’s tooltip did not reflect the cooldown reduction from Fast-Acting Elixirs.
Hair Trigger: Fixed a bug which prevented this trait from working correctly for some skills.
Healing Turret: Fixed issues with this skill’s description when the Deployable Turrets trait was equipped.
Incendiary Ammo: The number of uses on this skill’s effect will now decrease if an attack lands or if the attack is negated by Blind, Block, Evade, Obstructed, or
Invulnerable.
Reinforced Shield: Fixed a bug which prevented this trait from reducing Static Shield’s cooldown if the Throw Shield skill was activated.
Reserve Mines: This trait’s area-of-effect rings now display the appropriate area that they can be triggered at.
Speedy Gadgets: Fixed a bug that prevented this trait from reducing the cooldown of Throw Mine.
Toss Elixir S: This skill will no longer remove transforms from players."

Also:

After testing in wvw for a bit I noticed there is almost no change in damage and healing with kits on. Weapon damage to kits would have been a better step imo but alteast we didnt get nerfed.

Time to finish my warrior.

Samhayn.2385:

Ah well guese I can work on my third 80 well I wait for things to change come February.

It’s what I’ve been doing.

If they don’t fix the culling soon I’m taking my ball and going home to the next shinny new toy that comes out.

Cosine.1786:

100nades, accomapnied by the patch note text: “Fixed a bug that could cause engineers to become vaguely threatening.”

This may be my new signature.

Well played sir.

Well played.

See: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/Warning-Do-not-roll-an-engineer/page/8#post1297851

There is already a comprehensive discussion on the subject.

coglin.1496:

@mrsilver
All of the threads on grenade damage and the hundreds of threads in the other sub forums exclaiming them as OP support that the community as a whole disagrees with you.

If you like, I can guest over to a server in your tier and we can meet in a secluded location for 1v1 opportunities and I can demonstrate to you how the rifle net skills and knock back, combined with other control abilities will allow me to riddle you with grenades.

Explain how are you going to land a rifle net shot at 1500 range when rifle net shot is unreliable at 1000 let alone the traited 1200 range shot.

Actually, no, my point is NOT moot.

You claimed that grenades are “solid ranged damage” and I countered by stating that grenade AoE damage is easily avoidable, which you confirmed with your subsequent comment proving my point.

As such, grenade damage does not qualify as “solid range damage” and my comment was completely relevant to the discussion.

coglin.1496:

If you want solid ranged damage use grenades.

Grenades are NOT solid ranged damage.

In WvW anyone that is stupid enough to stand in a red circle and wait for a grenade to land isn’t even worth targeting in the first place.

Grenade spam is little more than a tool to herd zergs. They see the red circle and move. As for killing anyone from 1500 range, good luck with that.

I played with a gadget build for the longest time, and came to terms with the fact that the alchemy build was better for me.

For my playstyle Elixir B and U are absolutely must haves, and as much as I LOVE slick shoes, I found that Elixir S has way too many uses. As such, I generally trait for the reduction of cool-downs for Elixirs, condition removal, and either self-regulating defenses, projection injection, or invigorating speed, or potent elixirs. All of those traits are so good, you could make an argument for all of them. IMO, alchemy has the best traits of any that we have.

It would be nice if they would merge potent elixirs together with fast acting elixirs into one traid (reduce cool-down AND increase duration).

Just my opinion.

I’m going with tankcat.

It has the most views.

mark.3160:

Wow, this feels like playing a one armed mesmer or a blind thief in pink shorts.

I’m stealing that line for my signature.

I would like to see a trait for rifle called “shotgun” that adds 10% damage & crit when the target is within 500 range, and also adds 200 toughness when a rifle is equipped. Make it the XII trait. As for juggernaut, the skill should be automatically applied to flamethrower when the kit is equipped.

I’ve been leveling up a warrior, and couldn’t help but notice the disparity between the warrior’s rifle skills, and the engineer’s rifle skills, finding that the warrior’s rifle base skills have baked-in elements that an engineer is required to trait for.

For example the warrior rifle #1 Skill has a base 1200 range, has a 100% chance to cause bleeding for 6 seconds, and has a 20% chance to be a projectile finisher. The engineer’s #3 skill has a 100% bleeding component, but it is most effective at 100 range. To get bleeding out of our #1 auto-attack skill we must spec into firearms, and even then there is only a 30% chance to inflict bleeding on crits. Moreover, we must trait into firearms to achieve the base 1200 range. The warrior has a similar trait that causes bleeding on crit, only there is a 33% chance to bleed. Yes it is only a 3% increase over the engineer, but every % does matter when factoring RNG.

So the warrior, with inherent advantages in both HP and Armor can inflict a condition on an auto attack from 1200 range with 100% certainty, and the engineer has only a 30% chance to inflict bleeding on auto-attack and must trait to get it to 1200 range, or alternatively be required to stand within 400 range of the target to add a bleed. Seems counter-intuitive to me considering the fact that the engineer has a smaller base health-pool, and armor.

Warrior’s #2 rifle skill has a 100% chance to add a cripple, versus engineer’s net shot, which is fantastic… when it lands. I don’t have any hard numbers, but I miss with net shot from 1,000 range as much if not more than I hit it. I would rather have a 100% chance to cripple, than a spotty chance to immobilize any day of the week.

Warrior rifle#3, 1200 range big damage shot v. engineer’s 100-400 range big damage shot. Which would you rather have?

Warrior #3 From 1200 range 100% chance to inflict vulnerability v. engineer that must trait to get a 50% chance to apply vulnerability on rifle crits, and the warrior also has this exact same trait.

Engineer #3 does have a great CC knockdown component (which I love)… that also cc’s us (which I don’t) v Warrior’s #5 that also has a knock-back on a 15 sec cool-down, that has no self-cc component. Which would you rather have?

Engineer’s number 5 has vulnerability but the animation delay makes it easy to avoid unless the target is cc’d.

Lastly the warrior has the dreaded 1500 range kill shot, which has an easily noticeable animation that makes it easy to avoid if noticed, but from 1500 range good luck noticing it. It is akin to a sniper’s “boom headshot”, and is one of the biggest QQ skills in the game.

As for the traits, either of the warrior’s top tiered traits (XI – adrenaline from crits for more killshots if you are doing wall defense or XII – 4 secs of quickness when target under 25%, w/ 90 second cool-down i.e., an execute when roving) in Arms have immediate application to the rifle, whereas neither of the engineer’s top tiered traits in firearms (where the other rifle traits are) have anything to do with improving your rifle (one applies to flamethrower, the other to pistols).

As for the engineer’s other rifle traits, as stated above you must trait to get 1200 range, an additional 10% damage, and a 20% reduction on rifle cool-downs (with no added bonus). The warrior also has to trait to get a 20% reduction in rifle cool-downs, but in so doing rifle shots pierce (just like the engineer’s). Moreover, warrior get a trait that increases bleed duration by 50% that results in a 10% damage increase to bleeding foes if you spec 25 points into arms. Your target will almost always be bleeding due to the 9 second traited bleed on your auto attack that is easily reapplied (i.e., from auto-attack).

What is also better about the ranged warrior is that for close quarter combat they can swap weapons which do incredible damage, and have amazing escapability, crowd control, damage, or defense without having to sacrifice a utility slot.

So here is the bottom line, if you are looking to play a ranged rifle profession in WvW, that can also stand toe to doe from mele range the warrior simply does it better than the engineeer in virtually every way.

…And mind you, there are only two professions that have access to rifle in this game.

If you want to use a rifle, which would you pick?

Alodar.5794:

I would like to personally welcome the CD guilds that have joined Tarnished Coast in the last few days. Already we have seen many of you in WvW. Looking forward to meeting the rest of you.

Tarnished Coast has always been known for it’s strong community and the maturity level of the server. We don’t have the huge zerg guilds with ego’s to match, but instead we have many strong guilds who put checked their ego’s at the door and all work together for a common cause and what’s best for the server.

People truly get along and want to work together and take great pride in winning as a team.

I blame Canada.

What new guilds have moved to TC?

Here is the opinion of another veteran engineer. Looks like we are on the same page.

Specterryu Quipter.8412:

Before I get the L2P comments, let me mention that I have over 900 hours on the Engineer, and done everything with this class (Legendary, map completion, SPVP, WvWvW, etc). This is a collection of all the gripes I have had. This thread will discuss the shortcomings of the Engineer and how it can be improved upon. I will give my honest opinion on each skill and weapon’s attacks. I will not be commentating on race abilities. Feel free to comment, and express your opinions, but keep it clean and constructive.

For his comments see: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/Shortcomings-of-the-Engineer/first#post1256815

Great thread.

Thanks to the OP and others who have taken the time to contribute to it.

+1

@ the Stormbluff Human Engineer from [RedV], once, just once, I would like to be able to 1v1 you without your mesmer friend blowing me up. If you ever care to arrange a fight please feel free to look me up in game.

Read this thread: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/Warning-Do-not-roll-an-engineer/page/7#post1238970

To the SOR Charr warrior from [CAPS] great fight, and classy move on your part.

Good luck this week.

~Dreadlord Silver

I’m one of the very first engineers. Been playing one since BWE2. It was my first character created within seconds of the opening of head-start, and is one of only two 80s I have, with 700+ hours played. My other 80 is a thief, which I only created to better understand the class because for a while I was having so much trouble with them.

That all said, I’ve shelved the engineer, and only play the thief now, even though I love my engineer more.

I just don’t have it in me anymore to watch the engineer get gutted every single patch.

Another grenade n-erf incoming.

http://dulfy.net/2013/01/17/gw2-dev-livestream-jan-17-transcript/

AoE abilities balancing
-One of the issues brought up a lot in WvW./sPvP is AoE (Area of Effect). We feel like they are too strong at the moment and a lot of people in WvW are gaming the system using AoEs.
-For people that don’t know – max targets for siege weapons is 50 while max targets for AoE is 5.
-Reducing AoE effectiveness to bring them in line with the single target damage skills.
-Major update coming to all the AoE skills – make classes that are good at single target damage stand out a bit more.
-Same thing with dungeons – right now if you have a lot of AoE you can past encounters by just spamming AoE which is not what we want.

Notice: “make classes that are good at single target damage stand out a bit more.”

Looks like thieves and warriors just got another indirect buff through the n-erf of AoE dependent classes, i.e., engineer.

Gilgamesh.2561:

The OP is right, but in the wrong ways. I’ve been playing Engineer since BWE2.

The Engineer is, unquestionably, under-powered in sPvP and WvW against other professions.

However, that doesn’t mean the Engineer isn’t fun.

I never said I didn’t enjoy my engineer, or that it wasn’t fun. To the contrary, I said that I continue to play my engineer despite its inherent flaws, and that I am able play successfully despite the deficiencies.

That said, since I wrote my original post I finished my thief, got three different sets of exotic gear and weapons, and have have been experimenting with different thief builds. Since I did that I have only gone back to my engineer a couple of times and played about 200 hours on the thief. When I get back on my engineer I can’t help but think how lacking it is in comparison, and usually log off after about ten minutes. I also have a lowbie elementalist and a mesmer that I started. Even at lower levels the elementalist feels so much more intuitive and finished than the engineer. It really isn’t even close.

Point being, I never said that you shouldn’t roll an engineer if you don’t mind playing an unfinished, underperforming class. If that is your cup of tea, go for it. I know there are many people that can’t help but play the underdog class, as that IS their playstyle.

I created the thread to warn people that are new to the game that are not in the “I prefer to play the underdog” camp, and would rather not be handcuffed at end-game after putting in the hours only to find out that they are near the bottom of the barrel as compared to the other more polished professions.

Cheers!

Whelm.9072:

Throughout the history of MMOs there have been various classes/races/builds which are comparitively less powerful or useful than their counterparts. i.e. Balancing is hard. These lesser constructs always have their few vocal supporters that argue that ‘everything is ok’ or ‘we are actually overpowered’.

In some cases these supposedly lesser classes were actually ‘ok’ in the scheme of the greater game and a place was found for them. Of course, if the developers acknowledged the deficiency and changed them in the power structure these advocates weren’t heard from again on the topic. The debate will always exist but these threads provide a good base.

What I have found however is that when a number of players display their frustration about their place in the game and they provide analysis concerning the relative power or usefulness of the class over the general population their argument is not refuted by a personal experience. “Well I can do this with my engy..” or “I can kill everyone..” are not substantial arguments. While personal experience is valid it isn’t a way to provide analysis of the class for a general population.

Some might say that the class is meant for the experienced, dedicated or well financed player. In that case, make your point known, as it may be a valid one, but it isn’t what the OP was arguing at all. The ‘Learn to play’ argument can be applied to every class so essentially what you are saying is that the engineer requires more work and dedication to achieve base results. Again, a poor argument concerning the OP’s premise.

Mostly what these class discussions bring on that count is people showing up to say “Look what I can do..” without providing any relevant reasoning. Debate the relative power or place in the class structure of the engineer for the general population or declare your point that it is a ‘learn to play’ issue for an ‘advanced’ class.

Such a great post. Well written and spot on.

The point of this thread wasn’t to claim that engineers can’t be successful, it was to alert new players to the fact that they are at the low end of the power spectrum as compared to other classes.

Iohanna.4863:

IComeInPeace.1768:

Hey KOM,

I dont mind that you use speed hack

I dont mind that you use radar

I dont mind that you use ports near the fight after you down

What I do mind is:

1. When I’m owning your thiefs 1v1, you jump in and help or they speed off 1300 range away.

So – When ever any one of you want to 1v1, let me know and 1v1. You can use any hack you want becuase as you know – I’m still beating you.

Malf
(HNIC)

An affront to Thieves has been detected.

Sir, a little known fact even among Thieves is that the follow-up skill to Infiltrator’s Strike – Shadow Return – is an almost unlimited range teleport. This may look like a hack to those who don’t know about it.

Some Thieves have reported teleporting so far that they had to go through the WvW loading screen. Infiltrator’s Strike is no. 2 main-hand sword, so sword Thieves can do this pretty often.

Just as a FYI, Malf plays a thief. In fact he is without a doubt the most skilled thief I have EVER seen in this game. He knows what he is talking about. He runs He runs d/d and I wanna say s/d, and knows all about infiltrator’s.

~Dreadlord Silver / Zilver

Shea.3572:

I have only played my thief to level 14 so I can not speak too much on that. I am however a lvl 80 engie with multiple exotics sets as well. I almost always wear my full beserker with the flame runes, to increase burning dmg and damage against burning targets. My traits are in 30 firearms, 30 elixirs, and 10 in the first one =) I run with the flame thrower kit and rifle off hand. Using this as a skeleton I’ve not died to a thief yet. I was downed once by a good d/p thief since I didn’t have condition removal up. Aside from that I really enjoy the class and what it has to offer. Maybe it’s because my build is one of the viable few, but I have to say I disagree with engineer being bad. I love it =) Flame on!

Full berserker engineers may be the easiest thing in the entire game to kill for a thief. How many HPs do you have? 17K?

Steal/C&D/BS dead.

It is seriously that easy.

What server do you play on?

On a thief, thinking about leveling an elementalist.

jrdnjms.8703:

so OP’s complaint about the class seems to be not so much the class sucks but more like its not his playing style and now he is too lazy to do another character.

Ummmm…

No.

The engineer IS my play style, only the tools the profession gets are either substandard, bugged, or over-n-erfed.

Since making this thread I finished my thief, have it geared out with 3 full sets of exotic gear and weapons, experimenting with weapon sets.

Knowing the engineer profession as well as I do makes engineers easy kills as I can spot what they are able to do and counter accordingly.

That said I built my engineer to counter thieves, but the truth of the matter is that an average player on a thief can give fits to the exemplary player on an engineer. Hence the reason for this thread.

I advise you to re-read the original post..

To the Sylvari SOR p/d thief from [FEAR]: Good fight. Must have lasted 10 minutes going back and forth with neither of us able to take the other down. Fun fight.

Thanks.

Stiv.1820:

MrSilver.5269:

Stiv.1820:

I’ll give 50% speed another shot and well as the crit on swap sigil. I think that’s a good balance that allows me to keep 20 acro which I just can’t get away from.

Does 50% movement speed in stealth work? I was under the impression that it was bugged out?

I’ve been using it and I think it does. I think there is probably still a hard cap on how fast you can go and that’s +33% of out of combat speed. So if you try to compared out of combat it doesn’t show. You can get +50% movement in combat and not hit the 33% out of combat cap.

Ahhhh… this makes sense.

Decisions. I’m not sure I can live without 50% less fall damage & stealth.

I guess I’ll have to swap it out depending on where I am on the map.

Does anyone know if fleet shadow (50% run speed in stealth) is giving the full 50% to run speed when you have signet of shadows applied (25% run speed out of combat)?

I was playing around with it yesterday and couldn’t tell if I was actually going at 50% when in combat while running next to someone with a 33% switftness buff. It appeared to me that I was only going at 33%.

Can anyone confirm?

Thanks in advance.

WvW is simply unplayable the last couple of days. I can’t see anything.

Stiv.1820:

I’ll give 50% speed another shot and well as the crit on swap sigil. I think that’s a good balance that allows me to keep 20 acro which I just can’t get away from.

Does 50% movement speed in stealth work? I was under the impression that it was bugged out?