Guild Wars 2

Engineer has many, many, many viable options for WvW.
It all depends on the role you want to play, but what’s been said about us shining in a small group couldn’t be more true if it tried.

We can be heavy hitters, supporters, utility minded and excel at being a hybrid.
This whole “you can only trait into 1 kit and that makes the others useless” argument is driving it to far.
It takes a lot of time and experimenting with traits, but it’s certainly possible to trait into multiple kits. You just take the traits you really need and drop the excess/luxury traits. (for example: You really need forceful explosives but short fuse is luxury)

I played other classes, like Maskaganda, in WvW but none of them felt like hitting it home. When I want to preform and not muck about, I go in with my engineer.
I’d suggest the OP takes all the medium classes for a spin in sPvP first and then rolls with whatever he likes the most.

On warriors in WvW:
I’ve beaten 3 warriors at the same time. I’ve beaten 2 warriors at the same time.
I’ve never been beaten by a solo warrior in WvW. Ever.
Like Maskaganda said, they are by far the easiest class to kite and keep off your back.
Don’t get me started on GS users in WvW. You should really rethink your strategy if you get bumrushed by a GS warrior and didn’t survive it.
There are amazing warriors out there who use odd weapon choices and preform niche builds. I applaud them for trying and encourage them to keep playing until they get a deserved mobility buff, but warriors are still weak in PvP.

On bombs being bad in WvW:
Ha. No. Far from it.
Bombs have crazy utility and great damage.
The whole argument of “they just run away from it” couldn’t be more then false.
As engineers, we have control abilities in almost every kit which can be used in conjunction with each other to keep enemies into bomb range.

And more often then not, warriors/guardians/thieves will be more then happy to run into your bombs and go downed before they know what actually happened.
Bombs are harder to spot then you think and they ignite quickly enough.

It just takes practice and good synergy with your entire build. Don’t dismiss something you barely tried in a PvP setting.

In my opinion, map design and size is very well done. We don’t need bigger maps.
However, at some places the map feels to artificial due to flatness, if that makes any sense.

Having open ground isn’t bad (and needed), but it could be improved on many places (like the western supply route towards garrison/bay) by adding some tactical layers to it.
Many of the supply routes are flat, long roads with very few tactical elements to it that you can use (or abuse).
Right now, there are plenty of cliffs, but besides pushing players off them, there isn’t much tactical use for it. It’s hard to put into words and I would draw it if I was worth a kitten with a pencil, but humour me and imagine the supply routes having canyons, tunnels, hills, bridges, etc.

That way, we would have natural choke points for ambushing enemy troop movement or doylaks. Repositioning sentries along these natural choke points would make capping them a bit more vital and interesting.

The same goes for the lake. Now, everyone just hops in for the quaggan camps and gets the hell out of there asap because hardly anyone has the stones to go up against someone underwater.

If you look at PvE maps, the quaggan outposts/cities are more isolated, often hidden in caves and so forth.
It would be nice to have underwater caves where the quaggan camps are and perhaps tunnels connecting them to each other.
The pearls should still be found in the open water among the krait, above the tunnel/cave complex.

Having more tunnels, caves, canyons, bridges, … would result in having more natural chokepoints, which in turn could make ambushes/general combat more exciting, which in turn could result in the map feeling more natural, which in turn could make the players more on edge (instead of annoyed/bored) while travelling, which could result in more fun.

I’m no developer so I have zero clue if this can be done in terms of resources, nor do I claim that this is the best idea ever.
I’ve just been exploring a while in PvE and I’ve seen pretty amazing map design and I wondered why they didn’t translate some of their ideas into WvW maps.

Attached is a picture of a canyon in frostgorge sound which would be awesome to have on the supply route from the north camp towards the western tower (a bit southeast of the skritt hideout) for example.
Just imagine the Minotaur being a supply yak.

Looks really promising.
Looking forward to the patch, I’d like to see them tweak the med kit KR’s effect.
The silly explosion is rather.. silly. Every time I start messing around with KR I end up turning it off again because of rather annoying effect on medkit. I just can’t stand it.
A 5 sec random boon, a small heal, a few bandages that get dropped all around you, … anything would be better.

Sporadicus.1028:

in my server’s market.

The trading post is global across all servers.

As for the topic I’m sporting a mix between carrion and rampager trinkets with PvT gear for WvW. (Using bombs and pistol/shield)

Depends on your build but eh, the shield is a great defence vs thieves, mainly static shield will stop them in their path. Placing down AoE or a perfectly timed supply crate can crush thieves in 5 seconds.
Toolkit’s gear shield or a smoke bomb can make all the difference to.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Rune_of_the_Nightmare

The mesmer could have been sporting these runes.

I love those fights where a mini commander zerg hits a camp and you are severely outnumbered. But you’ve got one thing going for you, the element of surprise.
Such chaos and havoc. It’s all about keeping momentum at that point and aiming for the commander.
You can literally see all the enemy players starting to panic the moment their self proclaimed leader goes down.

Glorious Masky, Glorious.

Those thieves aren’t even real thieves.
Useless thread
Reported

You can magnet ele’s using ride the lighting.
Start casting when you feel they are about to bolt and just switched to lighting.

Tyaen.5148:

Siofra Crumble.2098:

1) Stacking runes for stats instead of the effects is generally a bad choice.

You do realize that you can stack to 25 and then switch right?

I’m talking about runes. You are referring to sigils.
On heal effects are on runes are especially great and we are the only class that can pull it off.
Look at Rune of the centaur for an example.
There are even better ones beyond centaur.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Runes if you want more examples.

Speedy Kits
Gain swiftness for 5 seconds when ever you equip a kit. This effect cannot trigger more then once every 5 seconds.

Invigorating Speed
When you gain swiftness, you also gain 5 seconds of vigor. (Cooldown: 5 seconds)

1) You toggle medkit or another kit
2) You receive 5 sec swiftness from the speedy kits trait
3) As you’ve gained swiftness, you’ll gain 5 sec vigor from the invigorating speed trait.
4) This will happen every time you equip a kit, hence granting you with perma swiftness and perma vigor as long as you keep on eye on your buffs.

I think you are grossly underestimating the effect on flow of combat of these traits working in conjunction.
There is no such thing as having to many dodges.

Paulytnz.7619:

My primary reason for using the Dolyak’s runes was for the Toughness/Vitality. The Hp Regen is a bonus. Those so many regens coming in is very helpful when you need them, that being soloing champs.

With regards to bombkit as I said it is mainly only there for the F key knockback, the damage is extra, a bonus. Yes my Flamethrower also has pushback but it does not push anything back to the sides or behind me. It also can’t be used underwater and I have to have it equipped to use it. Big Ol Bomb I can use anytime I am swamped by enemies while using any weapon such as Elixir Gun when supporting or Rifle for long range high damage etc.

Actually for a good long while I was using Elixir R over the bomb kit as it is very helpful in dungeons etc for an extra 2 dodges as well as reviving allies from afar, I still switch to it from Bomb kit for special cases as this.

Elixir S I don’t find too useful in any situation the 60 second cooldowns just make it too useless in my eyes.

Vigor is what, simply faster dodge recovery? Meh a minor thing to me. Anywho thanks for your feedback.

Opinions incoming:

1) Stacking runes for stats instead of the effects is generally a bad choice.
2) Keep the bombkit underwater instead of flamethrower, use flamethrower on land.
3) Elixir S makes you invulnerable. Nothing can touch you but you can still use kits. Worth the long cd, but it’s your choice.
4) Vigor? Minor? Vigor means 100% faster regeneration of the endurance bar.
Combined with speedy kits this means 100% of the time 100% faster endurance regain.

How can you call vigor minor while you said you like having a full endurance bar upon using Elixir R?
How can you afford not to utilize perma vigor in a so called tanky build?
The vigor boon is extremely powerful. Getting it presented on a silver platter with your build and not taking it is a crying shame.

At least try it out.

You’ve done a lot of things I wouldn’t, but it seems a decent build.
It requires more finetuning tho.
Finding a balance between damage, control and support is a good thing to aim for however, so I applaud you for your efforts.

I just feel Runes of the doylack aren’t worth it. The hp regen is what? 30?
Sure it stacks with backpack regen and the regen boon, but overall, you’ve got so many regens coming in from everywhere already.

There are much, much better rune choices.
The medkit is a great healing ability and it has the added benefit of working great with all the trigger-on-healskill-use type runes. You should check those out.

I also feel the bombkit is heavily undertraited in your build.
You need at least forceful explosives.

Flamethrower, eh, I never understand why people run the flamethrower except for fun. The kit has to many issues for me, that’s all I’m saying.
I’d drop either untraited bombkit or the flamethrower. Filling every utility slot with a kit is temping, but no kit beats a good stun breaker.

If you really like flamethrower that much and feel tanky with it, then stick with it.
Bombs don’t make a lot of sense then, big ole bomb is big damage but you have an area knockback in flamethrower. You don’t need bombkit.

Elixir S (survival) or Elixir R (support) would make a lot of sense instead of bombkit being traited the way you are now.

One last thing. Using speedy kits and not using Invigorating speed together will make many engineers shout at you. I’ve refrained from doing so and offered some (hopefully) constructive critism.

I feel bombkit is in a good place actually.

I use it as my “main” kit and except for Glue bomb’s ridiculously short duration I’m fine with the other abilities.
I think damage is in a good place actually, it really just boils down to placing the right bomb in the right situation.

When enemies move about to much, you just gotta know when to whip out the bombkit and when to stow it to engage/defend with other abilities.
And the risk vs reward thing with bombkit? It’s worth it imo.

As stated by other players, the toolbelt is great and the kit shines when you utilize the combo effects.

For the record, I use bombkit in sPvP, WvW and PvE.

Could you be any more of a stereotypical forum tough guy Silver?
It’s become way clear that you have little affinity with engineer and are envious of the players that do handle engineer well.
But then again, you act as if you are the only good player and everyone else is just horrible.
What’s the point of trash talking on forums anyway? Grow up man.

I usually ignore rampant kittens like you.
I can’t even believe I’m dignifying your useless post with an answer.
Just stick with warrior and don’t come back here. Please.

And on topic, as stated by Emerge,

Utility. It wins fights.

Could not possibly agree more.

8/10
Clean and simple. I don’t know where you got it from, but it seems fitting.

Siofra
Sylvari Engineer (female)

From wikipedia:
Síofra (pronounced “shee-fra”) is a feminine given name originating from Ireland. In Irish, síofra literally means “changeling” a changeling is when a fairy swaps its new born fairy child with a newborn human child. (though “peaceful” and “mischievous” are other translations).

Seemed fitting with the Sylvari theme.

In my opinion… pic related.
But to each his own, friends.

SilverWF.4789:

Cool video, and it shows how weak Engineers…

“And people still complain about thieves, huh.”
I’m sure, you didnt even seen the REAL thieves.

What is a thief?
Are those the guys that make up, euh, a huge part of the population that roams around in WvW?
Oh and about the same amount in every single round of hotjoin sPvP?
Those guys? If so, no, sure haven’t seen any. Don’t play one neither.

Anyway, no worries! Nothing our sniper kit and full zerker gear can’t handle!

Maskaganda.2043:

I’m sure he has, since he is a pro thief (and engie) too :p

Wouldn’t say pro, decent enough to win against you when the planets align, but not pro.

And people still complain about thieves, huh.

Nice vid, as always. Loved the thiefs and mesmers.
Although I run a completely other setup, I can safely say that protective shield is worth it.
Whenever I switch out my trusted shield for the rifle I swap reinforced shield for protective shield.

Edited because I mixed up the traits.

I like what you’ve done with the place.
Downscaling harder makes for better experiences in lower lvl areas.
But I’m still having it way to easy. Dungeons seem to be more affected, AC has become slightly more challenging.

The loot tables are good as is now.
Even in lower lvl areas I’m ok with it.

I’m enjoying Orr and other areas again.
Southsun Cove is lacking. Way to little space and not much variety going on in combat.
Slaying veteran Karka’s solo or with random bypassers is challenging.
I like beating down the Karka champion once in a while but I still can’t do it solo. Yet.

But the champion needs at least an event tied to it, by the way.
And make killing it worth it. Give us a chest that we can’t stealth our way to.

Anyways, the area is beautiful, just what someone needs after a hard days work in Orr. A big hands up for the artists there. I’m also loving the hard difficulty.

But where it is really lacking is underwater combat. Give us way more of that.
Add another map if you have to, a FULL underwater map with only 1 safe haven in it.
I would LOVE that. 25 underwater kills for the daily? I get what you are trying to do, putting people underwater and show them how fun it is. So much content underwater, shame that so many just pass by it because of the combat there.
I for one, as many others I’m sure, am enjoying underwater combat.

The south of Southsun cove would make for a beautiful and epic underwater map.

This is a pet peeve that is stopping me from using Kit refinement.

When I’m roaming in WvW with friends and I’m using rune of the centaur to give everyone perma swiftness while trying to slip by an enemy zerg undetected I can feel everyone’s eyes on me looking like I’m some sort of idiot with my constant bangs.

Please, turn this into something else. 3 sec protection, 3 sec regen, condition cleanse, I don’t care really.

Just make it something more .. silent.

playandchill.3908:

Roleplay + PvP = Meh

Don’t be silly. It is a merely a myth that RP’ers are terrible PvP players.

As for the thread at hand, I’ve been in Piken since release.
I’m not much of a serious RP’er, I only do it casually.
I spend more time sPvP’ing or WvW’ing then anything else.

I’ve seen the community take a turn for the worse a couple of weeks ago, during the matchups with Gandara.
Not only the new people are to blame here, I’ve seen piken veterans throwing tantrums about and against the newly landed.
I get why they aren’t really welcome, but acting this way only makes the whole community even more toxic.

You can safely say that we have become a victim of our success.
I personally feel that our lower tier match-ups we’re way more fun, especially for people who avoid big fights and aim to complete the smaller objectives.

During those match-ups we had to split up our outnumbered forces and small teams or even solo players could leave a big impact on the field.

Every week I see more and more zergs and less and less roamers like myself.
This includes allies and foes alike.

It’s a shame, to say the least. Hopefully things will balance out.
I’m sure the newly hopped on players don’t enjoy the queue either.

LittleMusing.8257:

Medkit’s Kit Refinement is an explosion. Either make it a regenerating mist or – gasp! – a blast finisher.

This is the only thing that’s stopping me from using kit refinement.
Every time I ran it the annoying blasts from constantly equipping the medkit for swiftness just killed it for me.
Not to mention that it gave my position away in WvW or PvP.

It’s a pet peeve, but it doesn’t make any sense neither. It’s a medkit, the refinement should be a defensive one.
I would be happy if they changed it to a 5 second regen or make it drop an extra bandage on equip.
Or alternatively, make it cure one or more conditions on equip.

Overall, I haven’t much got complaints about engineer.
Would love to see the supersize removed from Toss elixir S if it procs stability. (It instantly makes it obvious to enemies that you have stability compared to other classes)
And I would love to see the immobilize on glue bomb made just a little bit longer.
I can hardly make another bomb go off before the immobilize expires (and most players dodge after being immobilized).

Great vid again.

Epic recovery from the mesmer, that was a really close call.
No idea why she decided to start running all of a sudden, that was a big mistake.

Also, lolled with the commander thief.
That fight clearly demonstrates how underestimated engineers are.

Never saw a guardian drop that fast to. It’s like he was wearing nothing but zerkers.

Great fights, great vid, keep it up

Bump. This is turning out to be successful.
I have received few whisps so far, both from new players and players looking to get into engineer after playing another class.

This really needs to be stickied!

Might be relevant and obvious, but still:
When facing off versus ranged characters, you can block for 3/4 the duration of static shield and still throw it at the time the block is about to expire.
You can time it by keeping an eye on the cast bar.
After some practice you’ll be able to do it blindly.

So you get about 1.5 sec’s worth of blocks and a daze (or two, if you position it right)

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Thieves still kill me. Warriors still kill me. I feel like I’m on par with them though. It’s really nice using this build because of that. Normally, I see a thief and I just run, but this build dares me to fight them.

This is kinda shocking. Thieves, I can somewhat understand, but you get killed by warriors?
What is your build exactly? Are you using all offensive gear or something?
Thieves and warriors are by far the easiest classes to handle for me.

Immune is not the same as invulnerable.
Blocks also shows up differently.

It might have been the automated response trait.
“Immune” shows up pretty big and your base damage that you we’re still doing might have been lost (to you) in the heat of the moment.

jay.4132:

Can someone please explain why engineers don’t have any signets but every other profession does?

Why on earth would we even need signets?
Signets on other classes aren’t that great either. There are some signets out there that fit certain playstyles but all signet builds tend to be severely lacking.

jay.4132:

And why we only have one use able elite?

I don’t know about you but I can use all my elites.
Press the button and stuff will happen, I guarantee it.
As for why is supply crate the best? Because the other 2 are more situational elites.

jay.4132:

Arena net just admit this profession is an after thought.

What a silly statement.

Terrahero.9358:

More nerfs.
Arenanet is disconnected from their own product.

What a bold statement.

Terrahero.9358:

And they dont even seem to play Engineer.

I highly doubt this is true.

Terrahero.9358:

Every patch since launch has been a nerf.

Making the sigils working on kits was hardly a nerf.
The reduction of nade damage was done rightly so after introducing sigils on kits.
As for other nerfs, it was either something I saw coming a mile away (nades underwater) or something that was needed (Toss elixir R)

Terrahero.9358:

Before we can see good things happen, Arenanet has to critically rethink and fundamentally change their design intentions behind the engineer. At this point they probably still think they are doing it right.

To me, they are. Every class has issues, it’s not only engineer.
Bugs and traits not properly working is an all around problem.

From a design point of view, I think anet did fairly well with engineer.
The concept works. I know so many claim it doesn’t, that’s to bad.
It works for me and it works for so many other players.
We can mix and match abilities that allow us to play multiple roles on the same build.
We might not be as good at these roles like other classes, but that seems only fair considering our options.

Perhaps you should critically rethink how you play engineer and what you really want from it.
I’m really sick of people like you burying the thread in negativism and making sure Anet devs will never respond to these threads.

Look, engineer has flaws, sure.
But claiming the whole idea is fundamentally broken is going to far.
You aren’t even trying to get constructive criticism out.

On the topic at hand:
I think they’ll get weapon stats working for PvE/WvW.
I hope they’ll revise the infamous “missthrower” and sort the kit out.
Getting some of our bugs fixed would be great.

Updated but still no engineer for EU?!

We can’t have that! Sign me up for everything except paids.
Although I can probably help with that, I’m still in the process of getting a team together so it wouldn’t be justified.

I run a 3 kit build.
I wouldn’t switch out my stunbreaker for any other kit.
It just isn’t worth the risk imo.
There are some good players out there who will have their way with you if you can’t break their stuns. Such as good mesmers, thieves and even warriors.

And there are some lesser players out there who’ll macro you to death with thief if you can’t stunbreak out.
I wouldn’t risk getting killed by any of those for the sake of having another kit.

From a PvE perspective, take all the kits you want.

Me: Engineer

Most feared: Shatter mesmers
One slip up can come at a hefty price when facing these guys.
Mess up the timing and it’s game over.

Least feared: Warriors
These are the most predictable bunch to me.
Most warriors also roll Norn, making their movements even more obvious.

I don’t want to sound like a total kitten here, but the best course of action is just to try every possibility out.

No one can tell you better how to set up your traits then yourself.
I’ve changed my trait allocation ridiculous amounts (surely 100+ times) before I found a combination that really worked for me.
And I’m still messing around with the final 10 points to see if I can get better results.

Only advice I can give you is to trait for the traits, not for the stats.
And experiment! Dungeons and WvW are excellent testing grounds for new builds.
Oh, and support mixes great with condition damage, so you might want to look into that.

If you want to try out completely other stuff that requires other gear, try it out in PvP first or if you don’t like that, buy green/yellow gear of the TP.
It’s decent enough for testing out new stuff.

Taking inspiration from other people’s builds is fine, but in the end there will be no better build (for you!) then something you tailored for yourself.

Excellent vid.
Every fight is well executed and impressive to behold.

I see elixir C is working out for you, although I can see why you would miss the fields from time to time.
Especially the part with the 2 upscaled engi’s and the pistol/dagger thief would probably have gone smoother with the fields.

That said, elixir C is very potent condition remover and it proves it’s use multiple times in the vid.
Have you tried out swapping B for U once?
Seems like a hard bargain, but you still have hidden flask to compensate for the loss.
It’ll strip you from your swiftness tho, so it would be a hefty price to pay.

I’m still amazed how well you deal with the randomness of the elixirs and the lack of control in your build, that requires some serious quick thinking.

No Walking.6349:

Pretty useless in PvP and PvE bosses

Eh. I use bombkit all the time for PvP.
It has more uses then just spamming for damage.
You can create nifty combos to which are extremely helpful in PvP.
Ex: Smoke bomb + magnetic inversion, fire bomb + throw wrench. (There are much more possibilities, just experiment)

And for PvE bosses?
I have been soloing so many champions with bombkit (in combination with other kits/weapons) I’ve lost count.
I’ve been running almost every dungeon with bombkit.

In short, bombkit is pretty awesome but don’t just spam mindlessly.
Think about what bombs you want to put out there before you place them.

There are many viable tools we have at our disposal for dungeons.
What to use depends on what your party members bring to the table.

Some will suggest grenades, which are fine if you like ranged combat.
Other kits, such as the elixir gun and even the infamous missthrower might do the trick for dungeons.
Even turrets or support via elixirs is viable.

That aside, I personally prefer the bombkit.
When traited into it, it provides adequate DPS and this especially shines when you have a guardian/warrior in your group.

Pistol/shield is something I’d recommend because of the stun (and dazes in a row when thrown right).
The reflect shield brings is nifty in dungeons and it’s an easy way to set up combo blast finishers.

In short, you can make something work out of anything really.
What sort of kits and utilities do you like?

Monsterboy.2490:

I keep hearing about this mysterious “Jack of all trades” things we engineers can do, but all the builds I’ve seen so far are glass cannon builds and the exact opposite.
Is there a way for us to be able to use any ability, because I can’t even manage to find a stun or daze ability in our entire arsenal of weapons that doesn’t involve also being an iron juggernaut (tool kit, tankcat build i think)

So what’s the question exactly? I’m fairly confused.
Also, static shield and throw shield.

Why is it that when a rune drops in a dungeon that it is immediately soul bound instead of account bound?
I’ve gotten 2 superior runes of the monk on my engineer during AC runs.
It’s a good rune, but it has no purpose on my engi but it could suit my Guardian alt.

I’m just wondering why the dropped runes are soul bound instead of account bound.
Is there any reasoning behind it I fail to see?

I’m pretty sure it would make a lot of people happy to change this.

Well, our duel lasts pretty long, that’s something I guess.

But it’s interesting seeing how things played out from your side.
I made some mistakes, but it couldn’t have ended any other way then with my face in the dirt.
Your pistol damage greatly outmatches mine and since you completely neutralized my bombkit on multiple occasions, there wasn’t much I could have done different.

I did put in some decent reflects here and there, but the return was fairly minimal since you we’re quick enough to cancel your shots.

Nice vid, but I’ll take the remaining pride that I have and call our duel the highlight of the vid.

Gunnar’s hold.
The server that I’ve had the most fun times with while roaming.
Skilled players, lot’s of /bows and honourable fights we’re had.

Despite them losing most of the big guilds, they still fought valiantly during our match-up.

Far shiverpeaks comes in at a close second for having great individual skill and sportive behaviour.

Both these servers deserve better rankings, hands down.

Greetings from Piken!

@Skinny
D/D ele’s can’t run from me.
Ride the lightning is one thing, I just pull them back in.
They can’t spam it.

@Doomdesire
If he’s good, he shouldn’t have to resort to spamming an attack skill to get away.
And sure, I can accept thieves slipping away. But again, it has to be done right.
Spamming heartseeker to get away is a lame way to do it, since there isn’t a reliable counter.

I’m not expecting some kind of resolution here, but I just wondered how thieves themselves felt about it.
I couldn’t just spam heartseeker to escape in PvP without feeling terribly guilty about it. So I never did.
That’s all.

@ Jefzor
No, all my cripple and immobilizes are melee range
The durations are fairly short and they can just double dodge, lose the cripples and heartseek away.

@Poizie
Sure, but there is a right way and a wrong way to do it.

Well, after being beaten to a pulp by you on my borderlands I feel obligated to post something.

You rendered my bombkit completely useless because you pretty much knew what was coming I’m guessing.
My only chance of winning was my trusted pistol and my shield but those lacked in comparison to yours, which are fully traited.
It’s amazing how fast you can properly react to the randomness the elixirs provide tho’.
Had a blast fighting you and it was literally the first time another engineer kicked my kitten in a straight and fair 1vs1 fight.

Ps. I didn’t mean to pull the guards (didn’t see them). I was just scattering to stay alive.

Hope you enjoyed it as much as I did and keep roaming.
Engineers are without a doubt one of the best classes for roaming WvW.

Cheers

I tend to save my yard-sale for when they start running from me.
But sure, it creates a stalemate where I have they have the unfair advantage of being able to abuse heartseeker to get away.

Like I said, it wouldn’t be much of an issue if it wasn’t for their heals, dodges and utilities recharging in the meantime.

I have a decent shot at stopping shortbow users.
The high initiative cost of the #5 ability makes it fair and I’ve caught a fair share of them.

That’s only partially true Dundir.
True, my magnet ability does not work while the leap is in progress.

However, if my timing is lucky enough to pull him in between heartseekers it works.
He’s at my feet again. What do you think happens next?
He goes into hs spam again and getting out my grasp at a rapid pace and there is nothing I can do about it.

Sure, iniative is not limitless, but while he is spamming away from me, his stealth abilities and endurance is recharging.
He can easily chain dodges, stealth and hs spam to lose me quickly.

I’m not crying for a nerf, certainly not regarding the damage heartseeker pumps out.
I just feel that the heartseeker skill should not be so easy to spam and it certainly should not be a viable escape tactic.
Sadly, at this point it is.

@Gungnir and Panacea
As an engineer if have a huge amount of control abilities.
I try to deploy them all vs thieves and yes, while cripple and other slowing abilities cut down the leap of heartseeker, I still won’t be able to stop it in the grand scheme of things.

Due to the ability to spam heartseeker for copious amounts in a row they simple outleap my cc’s and cripple durations.
Even when I’m using my rifle instead of my trusted pistol/shield, net shot will just blatantly miss when they are spamming away.

Even if I’m successful in placing all my slowdowns, the condition duration simply isn’t long enough to be able to chase him down.

I also have perma-swiftness, so that should count for something.

@ Stiv
I’m experienced enough to predict when I’ll have a runner on my hands and when he’ll start doing so.
But again, in 90% of the cases I dealt with a hs spammer, I was unable to catch them.
Our only source of chill is the grenade kit.
And I’m unwilling to slot that kit just for the sake of catching thieves because my other control abilities don’t work vs heartseeker spammers.

Hello my thieving friends.

A friendly engineer here, with a question.
My main focus is WvW, and as I’m sure you are aware, the amount of thieves in WvW/PvP are getting ridiculous.
I’m not here to complain, I know how to handle thieves and in 80-90% of my encounters with thieves I come out on top.

I expect the thief population to go down once more people figure out how to counter them and other people start to realize being a thief isn’t babymode to victory.
But I’d digress.

I have a small pet peeve when it comes to your ability to escape from lost fights.
Even if I drop everything I’ve got on your kitten some of you still manage to slip away.
I’m fine with most thieves escaping, if done right. Using the shortbow’s abilities and the correct utilities to escape is just dandy and acceptable to me.
GG and we’ll meet again some other time.

Most of the time I just know when my thieving opponent will start to run because he is at the losing end of the stick.
Sinces thieves are hard to catch when they run I go all out in my attempts to stop them.
I’ll drop my supply crate (stun & immobilize if you don’t stunbreak fast enough) followed by glue bomb (immobilize) and further dps’ing.
In most cases, thieves are quick enough to stunbreak and create some distance.
Then I’ll pull them back in range of the net turret with magnet (a pull ability).
I’ll cripple you with box of nails and interrupt your escape anyway I can.

But here’s the thing.
Some of you just spam heartseeker to get away and there is literally nothing I can do.
Magnet does not work. When I apply magnet to a heartspamming thief he’ll fall flat on his face for a brief moment but he will not be pulled towards me.
The thief gets back on his feet and just happily heartseeks away.

To be crystal clear on this, my magnet ability will interrupt heartseeker and create a knockdown at the position where the thief is a that point, but will not be pulled towards me as it should.

The problem here in lies within heartseeker itself. (and magnet not doing what it is supposed to be doing ofcourse)
I have a thief alt and I feel what makes heartseeker the skill that so many bad thieves abuse and arguably slighty OP is the pretty big leap it does.

How do you thieves feel about it?
Try to look at it from my point of view.
Having a thief lamely escape with an obvious attack ability instead of using the many other escape abilities that you have under your respective belts out of a fight that they lost.
It’s just simply to easy to escape by pressing #2 multiple times instead of being able to think fast and come up with a solid exit strategy.

I don’t want to cry for a heartseeker nerf, but I would like to see a solution and your opinions on it.
Any ideas or opinions?

I’m an avid bomb kit user, maybe this is useful:

-Standard bomb
Not much to say here. Stuff goes boom.

-Fire bomb
Excellent damage dealing bomb on a relative small recharge.
Leaves a combo field.
Fire aura for leap finisher.
Fire damage for projectile finisher.
Area might for a blast finisher.

- Concussion bomb
Not a bomb you want you just spam.
5 stacks of confusion will get any thief or frenzying warrior of your back.
Combine with static shot and pry bar for maximum effect.

- Smoke bomb
Again, not a bomb you just want to spam.
Handy vs all melee classes trying to beat you down.
Has a slightly larger radius then the other bombs.
Does no damage, but gives AoE blinds per tick and leaves a combo field.
Blindness for projectile finisher.
Stealth for a leap finisher.
Area stealth for a blast finisher.
This is great for passing by large groups of enemies in WvW or just screwing with their head while fighting them.
You can stack the stealth duration the more blast finishers you throw in there.
Big ole bomb, magnetic inversion, blowing up a turret, rocket boots, dropping the supply crate, …

- Glue bomb
Immobilizes and cripples. A great opener for any “bombing run” or something to drop when being chased.
Does no damage.

- Big ole bomb
Has a big radius. Covers about an entire node in sPvP.
Knockbacks enemies and has a blast finisher.
Very handy tool for saving your friends, if you are fast enough.
Say your partner in creating havoc goes down, drop big ol’ bomb next to him and start ressing. Anyone trying to stomp your partner will get knocked back before they can finish the stomp.

Also very handy for stopping players trying to resurrect their friends.
Big ole bomb will even knockback downed players. I don’t think there is any other skill with this ability. (Please correct me if I’m wrong on this one).

You can trait the bombkit for damage via explosives and/or for more defense via inventions.
In my opinion, it’s a great kit that offers a good balance between control, damage and support all combined into one kit.
It will take a decent amount of practice to get the timing on the bombs right, since they all have a small delay and various effects you have to keep in mind.

For maximum effectiveness, keep every combo field in mind to.
Engineers have so much fields and finishers, it would be a shame not to use them.

In terms of roles, that depends on how you trait.
If you go with elixir infused bombs you can really back up your tanky friends in dungeons or even tank yourself. (you’ll need more then bombkit to go full tank).
You can certainly go for big damage with the bombkit to.
In PvP you can really protect a certain area against multiple opponents with the bombkit. (such as nodes in sPvP or keeping them off your gate(s) in WvW)

Hope this helps

Also, @ Anymras, who said the following:

Also: Flamethrower doesn’t have a knockback. It has a Smoke Field overcharge that doubles as a Blind. Thumper turret has a knockback, but it’s on a bit more of a cooldown than fifteen seconds.

See: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Air_Blast

I think you are not done here, yet I disagree on a couple of things.
This is coming from an engineer who roams WvW solo most of the time, to put this post in context.

The engineer is perfect for solo play. We can sustain ourselves just fine.
We have good survival tools, decent damage and the means to create a good balance between the two without having to go “bunker” or “glass cannon”.
Sure, we are a credit to the team, but saying we should be prepared to run with groups just doesn’t fit.

In terms of control, the reason why I choose engineer, you talk about rifle and how “essential” the rifle is.
Again, in my humble opinion, simply not true.

Combining pistol/shield and the right kits can give you even better and reliable control.

I tried rifle extensively and this is what I learned:
- Net shot has the tendency to miss in PvP situations. The net itself is rather slow.
I have avoided it many times myself without having to use the dodge button.
- Overcharged shot is a single target knockback, but it knocks you back to.
The downside is obvious here, but I’ll give you the escape ability which is pretty nifty.
- Jump shot is neat, but it can be really wonky to use in PvP situations.
It’s fairly easy for enemies to spot it and react accordingly.

Let’s compare to pistol/shield:
- Static shot provides an area blind (the shot bounces between 4 targets)
- Magnetic shield provides reflect.
When doubletapped, magnetic inversion will create an AoE knockback.
- Static shield will provide a stun if you are close enough.
When doubletapped, throw shield provides multiple interrupts and dazes (depending on how good your throw is).

It all comes down to preference in the end, but you can’t deny that pistol/shield boasts a lot of control options that are more reliable then the rifles abilities.

I always have my exotic rifle with me in case I would need it’s abilities, but I prefer pistol/shield by far for the above mentioned reasons.

To each his own, but just don’t say that rifle is “essential” for control based builds, that’s just no true.