Guild Wars 2

XelNigma.6315:

IMO the engineer should be an engineer with devices and gadgets and not standard weapons like bombs and grenades.
And not the stupid cartoon gadgets like slick shoes or the pocked ram, or the fail-rocket boots.
I would have things like a robotic clockwork backpack kit that dispenses small drones that fly around you for a bit and shoot at enemys. Much like the StarCraft Carrier/Interceptors and an elite skill that instead of a weak kitten mortar it would be a steampunk mech suit, the animation for it could be like how Gizmoduck’s armor attaches to him (or for you kiddies, how the new Ironman armor attaches)

I’ll stop here, iv hated how the engineer is a joke from day one. and to see a topic where “What the engineer should be” is only have more weapon kit slots feels like a waste to at least talk about how the engineer could have been an engineer rather than a grenade throwing grunt.

I agree with you, Anet had potential with this class, but it was wasted on a half hearted attempt to make a sudo class. I won’t go into much more detail on this subject since there are many forums already talking about the wasted potential that we Engineers are. We could discuss this all day, but frankly, I don’t think Anet will be able to rectify their mistake until an expansion pack. So lets work with what we have instead.

Welswift.9813:

Sorry but… no thanks. I am okay with not always having turrets I need to stay by. I do not want the “OPness” of my class to be determined by something that would only be useful until I ran out of range, which I can often do.

The current system allows builds like HGH and Rifle builds that don’t even have to touch turrets. This would force everyone to use them, and to sacrifice for them aswell. I think that them adding the toolbelt for Engineers is enough.

Also, the weapon skills… I don’t want to have to work any harder to get the mediocre results we already get.

I didn’t say anything about being forced to use turrets or utility slots being changed to do so. Those are merely place holders.

nakoda.4213:

so you want to be able to have, essentially, 20 weapon skills AND 8 utility skills at all times, hindered only by a 5 second cooldown?

do not like.

the nature of the instant kit swapping facilitates…

Fair enough.
My question to you is, to balance having 28 skills available at all times what would you do? Remove a kit? Lower the cool down? Not have a cool down at all? Remove tool belt abilities?

In case there was miscommunication, you would be able to switch between kits somewhat freely, as I said the cool down only applies after leaving the kit. Think of it similar to an ele switching attunments.

Before I start, I am not sure on ANET’s policy on editing pictures of GW2 in a manner such as this. If I am breaking any rules please let me know to prevent future issues.

I am here to present you with what the Engineer should be (my opinion). See attached Please don’t get too upset over my bad photoshop skills, I know I am bad, we can both agree on this.

A brief explanation in case there are questions.
Starting at the top left, Kits would be moved to where the toolbelt abilities were. You would have three kits available, and would be able to freely select which ones you want to run with. To balance having three kits available at all times, there would be a five second cool down when leaving a kit and the kits’ toolbelt abilities have been made available as utility skills.

Let me point out that Medkit would still be located at the number 6 skill slot, and the toolbelt ability for it is located right above the number 6 skill; Medkit would not have a cool down. With Medkit you would be able to run with 4 kits.

On to the right side, tool belt abilities would remain, and would be moved near/above their respective skills. The only other changes to this side, would be the old toolbelt abilities from the kits. As already mentioned, they would be made available as utility skills.

Now that the explanation is over, let us discuss.
I’ll start by asking some questions.
Would you rather have something similar to this, or what we currently have?
Do you think this could make us more competitive in pve, pvp, or both?
Would you consider this OP, Why?
If considered OP, what could be done to make it more fair?

Lets discuss!

nakoda.4213:

do not want. bad idea. not because it lacks creativity or whatnot, but because kits are technically a utility skill, not an equipment slot. to make kits equipments slots either:

a) kits get removed and become engi specific weapon sets. there was a thread awhile ago talking about this, most people poo pooed for good reason, which is …

b) if sigils could be placed ON kits, kits would need to be penalized for swapping on a ten second timer like everyone else’s weapons.

This would destroy what the engineer is.

Or C) We have a kit acting as our second set of weapons, while still being able to use the other kits, as utility slot skills. The kit that gets designated as our second set of weapons, gets some kind of bonus determined by which kit it is (more power, more healing power, longer range, etc) as well as being able to have a sigil attached to it. Like the other classes, the secondary weapon/kit, wouldn’t benefit from the primary weapon’s sigils, but this could breed more potential with on weapon swap sigils. This would also free up a utility slot for say, another kit, or just an additional utility skill.
This is more what I had in mind. As far a cool down goes on our kits, I wouldn’t mind one, if they were to do something like I suggested (Probably a 5 second CD). I would rather have a CD on our kits, than for us to remain how we currently are. I am not saying we are a bad class, or that I am going to rage quit because we hardy have any dps options. I am saying that we are taxed too much for versatility, and not many people are offering solutions on how to fix this, at least not anymore. Could this destroy what the Engineer currently is? Maybe. But it could also help redefine what is, the Engineer.

nakoda.4213:

IMO, the ability for medkit to count as an “on heal” ability on sigils, and for the ft to proc “on crit” sigils, etc, etc, mitigates the lack of a single weapon set.

If you had the option to attach sigils to kits though. Instead of having all your kits only use your main weapon’s set of sigils, like they currently do. Wouldn’t this open the door wider, for build customization? I’m not saying we should be able to attach sigils to all of our kits, that would clearly be OP. What I am stating is, being able to attach a sigil to one kit. Maybe we should be able to designate a kit as our second set of weapons. I don’t know, it’s an idea I had while at the kitten end of the afternoon.

Since most classes have access to weapon swap, and are able to put sigils on all their weapons. Wouldn’t it be fair for Engineers to be able to somehow put sigils on one of their kits? Or is this too OP, lets discuss.

google.3709:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/It-s-time-to-nerf-Engineers

proudest moment of my life seeing someone comparing us to Eles and asking for our class to be nerfed! LOL

In the past, we been getting nerfed without anyone QQ about us, if people start complaining now, does that mean that now we’ll get deleted? or is it like reverse physiology and now we’ll be getting buffed?

I wouldn’t let it get you you, clearly, whoever made that thread is an idiot. The worst kind of idiot. A lazy idiot. Many people have to role a thief or ele to figure out how to counter them. Instead of doing the same with the Engineer, they cry nerf.

Maethar.5627:

Engis are close to eles in strength right now but their fix is much simpler in my opinion, just reduce hgh stacks duration and then re-evaluate their strength. Honestly I’m surprised that there is minimal qq about engis considering how powerful they are at the moment.

First off, you’re an idiot every patch since alpha has been a nerf to the Engineers.
Second off, you do not see many Engineers running around for good reason. Our HGH build, the one you want nerfed, is subpar to the dps every other profession can dish out. I can say this since I have rolled every class to 80 and through end game. Yet it is our second highest dps build, second to grenades. The only reason you find HGH OP is because you do not know how to counter it. Which is something many people have to do, to figure out how to deal with thieves and eles. So instead of taking the time to roll an Engineer and figure out how to deal with them, people like you cry nerf.
Third off if we want to talk about things that need to be nerfed, why don’t you take a look at the ele d/d build that you are no doubt running this very instant. Does this build need to be nerfed? Yes. The only reason why it’s tolerated by people such as myself, is that we know you have no other options. Eles are in the same situation as the Engineer, forced into one or two builds. So before you go crying nerf, how about you take the time to roll an Engineer and figure out how to counter them.

google.3709:

also, the dev admits to being spike down (19k) in a matter of 3-5s in PvP, that translates to a lot more than 26k in WvW.

he also admits to rolling a thief, and learning how to counter them.. but 100nades nerf was based of a screenshot, kinda like Grande nerf was based off damage to an immobile dummie, why not have someone actually play the class to get accurate feedback ?

Not trying to sound like a kitten, but I think the Engineer community is well aware of the dev’s incompetency when it comes to balancing our class. 100nades was the easiest thing to avoid, as long as you knew how the build works. Similar to how most of us need to role a thief or ele to figure out how to counter them. They only seem to nerf our class the dumbest ways possible, via training dummies and community feedback. If every class was nerfed based on screen shots then the warrior, ele, and necro would be nerfed to oblivion. If every class was nerfed on community feedback the thief and d/d ele wouldn’t exist and the warrior wouldn’t be doing half the dps they are currently achieving. Yet they continue to nerf the Engineer via these methods, and when we question their methods we are made out to be the bad guys. I wish they would just decide what our roll is and build us accordingly, instead of slowly destroying our class so that we meet their “expectations.”

Deified.7520:

Something I hear a lot is how HGH is really overpowered and needs to be nerfed and what not, but honestly I feel it is very easy to counter. Sure we can do pretty good damage, but honestly its easy to shut down.

1. Base damage revolves around skillshots with grenades, not an easy thing to do. Easy to spot projectiles making it easy to just walk or roll out of the way.

2. You put any pressure on an HGH engineer and it falls apart. With little escapes (elixer S is about it) and very little condi removal (just elixers), any class that can spam conditions quickly, put confusion on us a a lot, or even do a ton of single target damage can easily shut this down. Thiefs with lots of gap closers, rangers with great long range single target dps, etc.

3. Projectiles. As with every engineer build, all they do is use projectiles. Any class that uses projectile reflects can really shut down HGH engineers. I was fighting a guardian today that used that reflect wall skill. She would just sit in it or move on either side to the point I couldn’t hit her.

Honestly, this build feels balanced and how every build in the game should be.

It can do lots of damage, however it has little to no survive ability. Other classes such as thiefs, mesmers, and somewhat eles (they don’t do massive damage, but still can do a lot) have a lot of survive ability despite being squishy. Theifs with all their gap closers/makers and stealthing, mesmers with the clones/phantaasms and stealths, and then eles with all of their gap closers/makers and mobility.

I just don’t see why people claim them to be so over powered.

I was going to wright out a bloody speech but I’ll keep it short.
Due to anets rushed, poor implementation of our class abilities, and our overall subpar dps performance. I cannot say, with good conscience, that HGH is overpowered. The dps we pull while running our HGH build, is a somewhat average or maybe slightly above average dps build to other professions. It’s one of our highest dps builds and the fault with this lies with anet nerfing us every chance they get and not buffing our weapon/kit damage. Anet has said that engineer’s wouldn’t be forced to use kits, that the kitten running around with only p/p or rifle would be as useful as the kitten running with kits. Thanks to HGH and ONLY HGH is this true. We do not have the ability to weapon swap, and our kits are useful for 1-2 skills a piece (minus the grenade kit), which means if I am running with 2 kits I may be using the same amount of skills a class that can swap weapons is using. Meanwhile the other skills on said kit, are situational, example: magnet. Anet seems to be afraid that Engineers would become what is the Warrior. The master race.
Anet’s “vision” for us is to be the WoW Shaman and they keep proving that this is their vision every patch. Buffing our turrets, upping the damage ever so slightly. But our turrets are weak, both dps and defensivly, and our turrets are so stupid they are broken The only reliable turret we have is the thumper, since it’s AoE but the AoE isn’t even close to big enough, even when traited. The other turrets get distracted by pretty rocks and things out of range. The worst part is if you’re running a turret build, you’re sacrificing a lot. You won’t have a stunbreaker, condition removal, etc. Until we become the area control via turret characters that anet wants us to be, and we have the ability to use turrets at the same time we are running an HGH build. HGH is where it needs to be.

Like google said, they are going to change might, not nerf HGH directly. Hopefully they have enough foresight to buff up unused/useless traits/kits to make up for the nerf, but don’t count on it.

It’s a little old but Here you go mate
http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/74468-art-of-the-spanner-a-comprehensive-engineer-guide/

bromi.7809:

In the rifle build, why you take 25 inventions? not that much of stat, you could take 20% wrench recharge which is great.
Also, rune and sigil choice is very strange. Crit proc when you have almost no crit..

With the traits you’re probably right, but at least now penatbater.4710 has a build to build from. The rune choice was due to SE now scaling incredibly well with healing power and the bird helps. If you’re running the build right, the sigil should proc every 6-7 seconds which I find to be fine, since there is a 5 second cool down anyway.

Here you go mate. I’ve been using both of these builds for some time, and I can tell you that they work extremely well.

You may have to copy the link into your browser.

Pistol/Shield
http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQJAqelIqqbH5ShF17Iy4DdWYGSohB6helX8FA;TsAA1CsoAyAkAILQOgkANs4YxkAA

Rifle
http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQFAUlIqqbH5ShF1LJy4DdWYGS49BSRe5XiKUZA;ToAA1Cno6x0joHbPuek9Ms4YB

Kardiamond.6952:

And why the kit refinement? The effect from toolkit is pretty weak, and EG is situational at best.

Phineas Poe.3018:

Specterryu Quipter.8412:

I definitely enjoy it more than when I was forced to use KR.

But you build has Kit Refinement?

Thanks for pointing that out, I clicked the wrong box! I am using speedy kits not KR. My build was created and tested in game, I then moved it to gw2skills. I have now corrected my build in the original comment.

Kardiamond.6952:

But It just feel like it doesn’t have much synergy?
You have a very low amount of condition damage (345), and you use pistol and EG.
You seems to be “power” geared with conditions weapon.

Quite the contrary I find that this build has a lot of synergy despite not having a ton of condition damage. I originally tested this build with rampager and carrion gear, but I was running into having a hard time staying alive (i/e not being able to do enough dps to outlast other classes) and almost scraped this build. In a last ditch attempt I threw soldier gear on, and my view on this build shifted 180 degrees. The thing is, the pistol and EG don’t seem to scale well with condition damage. Please don’t eat me alive if anyone disagrees, this is just what I have noticed. The only thing that really benefits from having condition damage is confusion, and it doesn’t last long enough for me to justify making a build around it. You’re almost unkillable if you know what you’re doing with this build (yes this includes SPvP). Its difficult to make any kind of guide for this build since depending on a situation you are going to change it up. But here is an example of what I am talking about.
Elixir F>Magnet>Pry bar>Acid Bomb>Static Shot>Poison Dart Volley>Throw Wrench.

hydeaut.1758:

Interesting, you´re using runes of the grove? I thought about them for a wvw-roaming build because of high protection uptime and the root – which is on a very long cooldown though, is this worth it in spvp?

Rune of the Grove great for SPvP, there may be a better rune out there for this build but I really like protection, and wanted to have it in this build. The roots are worth it, the more CCs in SPvP the better, and the roots work well in PvE.

I’m proud to say it isn’t HGH. I’m just putting this build here for those who do not want to run HGH. It’s a tanky support build that still dishes enough dps to be useful. I’ve been using it in PvE since yesterday’s patch and I definitely enjoy it more than when I was forced to use KR. I have been doing some SPvP with it as well, and have been rolling faces. Thieves, why you burst when confused?

You may have to copy the link to your browser
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQJAqelIqqbH5ShF17Iy4DdWYGSohB6helX8FA;TsAA1CsoAyAkAILQOgkANs4YxkAA

NevirSayDie.6235:

I’ll agree that build variety took a hit this patch. I do think Anet knows what it wants playing an engineer to feel like, but I don’t have much evidence to back up that theory.

While nerfing KR could be considered “fine.” My biggest beef with this last patch and the ones before, is instead of buffing unused traits and skills. Anet just nerfs traits that stand out. (And then there are turrets…) I guess every flamethrower engineer should prepare themselves for the reworking of Juggernaut. This isn’t me spewing poison though, yes they nerfed KR, they also buffed EG’s SE and our turrets, fixed numerious bugs and tooltips. While the turrets still need more work than a gutted and rusted out Bronco, at least they are TRYING to make turrets useful. We had the most work done on us this patch, some growing pains are going to come with that.
Agree or disagree with me, I also believe Anet may have a general idea what they want to do with our class now. Its hard to put into words, but I want to say they want us to be some kind of tanky troll. They want us to be difficult to kill, but at the same time, to be able to punch out enough dps and heals to be somewhat potent. Just an observation though.

sunnypsyop.3025:

So now we have lost our kit-swapping builds; the general consensus seems to be that most people feel KR is no longer worth having, and Engies everywhere are scrambling to find a new viable build.

I agree that KR is no longer worth having, mainly because the abilities do not last long enough to be considered useful. The only use I can see from KR from this point, till the next patch, is stacking vulnerability with the EG and maybe the magnetic bomb from the Bomb kit. however this is where our opinions on this patch, and the Engineer in general diverge. The Engineer has more build options than any other class, in most cases we have more toys as well. Start thinking outside the box, yes it took me 3 hours to create a build up to snuff as the one I was using before the latest patch. Guess what? The build I am now using is even better than its predecessor. As I said earlier, we got the most attention than any class this last patch, growing pains are going to come with that.

Sinoftw.8263:

has any one tried to stack invulnerables? with sitting duck trait.
use rifles, net turret and goggles. everything else is up to you

You forgot, EG with KR. 25 stacks in 5 seconds.

Dagnis.2936:

I’m having an error causing the same problem, however, not with confirmation. Instead no matter what way I attempt, I can’t seem to successfully purchase gems. I get to approval and it always fails. I’ve tried 2 cards, and paypal, which gives me an error when the purchase goes back to guildwars2.com… q.q

Just adding my name on the list of people not able to purchase Gems. I have attempted the same thing the quoted player has, to no avail.

Ticket number 130328-000563

I was playing around with KR. You can now use the EG to put 25 stacks on vulnerability on a group in under 4 seconds. (Using the sitting duck trait) and it sticks around for some time. Although this seems to be buggy sometimes… Perhaps this patch just requires us to continue to think outside the box?

Jahiliyya.7095:

I haven’t seen the statistics on Engi usage. Is it still an underplayed class? If so, why is ANet continuing to hold it down?

We are the, self proclaimed, most underplayed class. I don’t think the overlords are holding us down intentionally, they are just in ignorance. They are so detached from their own game that they are going off of what the community says and right now the community is saying 100nades needs to go away. Which is fine, but their methods of “balancing” said builds brings all of us to question their methods. They get tunnel vision and are not seeing the big picture. Yes they may end up balancing that one build, but in the process they will bull doze many other builds to achieve their goals.

google.3709:

What do you guys think the buff to turrets will be ?

my predictions:

What i believe won’t be happening

• They will not buff toughness/hp at the risk of becoming PvE Tanks.
• They will not scale with power because people would just use them to point hold on sPVP
• They won’t be made to follow your targets for sPvP purposes.

Unfortunately until these happen, I don’t think Anet has a chance in kitten to make turrets viable. Thanks to the last patch instead of having turrets made out of paper mâché, we now have turrets made of rotten wood. However turrets still do not scale with power, which makes them weak as kitten in level 60+ areas. Lets not forget that IF you go for a full turret build you are sacrificing a lot, for something mediocre. You lose stun breakers, condition removal, and overall survivability. Which means they need to take all 5 turrets and combine them into a Kit. (Kudos for whoever came up with this)

google.3709:

What i think will be happening

• Increase the turrets damage by 10% ( 15% if they feel generous )
• Moderate fix to cool down to make up for the fact that they get destroyed 3s after being summoned
• increase the healing done by tool kit

what do you guys think, is a 10-15% damage increase enough to make you want to try turrets ? what are your predictions ? discuss

please leave negative comments out and lets have a productive discussion! thank you

To answer your question, the 10%-15% increase in damage doesn’t make up for everything I previously stated. IF they were to increase the damage and make the turrets into a kit, I would definitely give them a second chance. Kitten, if they just combined all the turrets into a kit, I would use them.

Kimbald.2697:

Mesmers already have a lot going for them, so i really wonder why they get all the fun new stuff.
how come some of those ideas weren’t used or the engineer, who still needs some defining abilitiesin groups since launch.

The Mesmer already had a clear cut role from GW1, all Anet had to do was continue to build upon that role. Engineers are a new profession and Anet doesn’t have a clue what they want to do with us. They keep throwing this word versatility at the Engineer, but when they have already declared the Elementist the king of versatility; I can’t hep but wonder if Anet is being ignorant or stupid. We need a new role. Until the devs realize this, we will continue to not be able to fulfill our role or any roles; since any roles we could assign to ourselves are being overshadowed by other professions, that can just fulfill those roles better than we can.

We’re in the same situation that most of the other professions are in. We have one useful elite, and the rest are situational at best. The Elite skills for every profession need to be revised.

“As you see, no other class can do even 1% what we can.”
“So much talk from the kiddies, STILL NO VIDEOS.”
I know you didn’t say this, but her math is opinion based. Since Super Elixir heals for just as much when you’re spec’d as a healer and lets not get started on what the Guardian can heal for. As for the no videos portion of her post, there are plenty of youtube videos of the Guardian racking up heals (and a few with the Engineer). I would just ignore her post, don’t feed the troll.

Soul.9280:

Not that I’m asking the OP to provide a spreadsheet that has all this info, but it would be great if the community could put something like this together in a structured way for all classes, weapons and attacks and build off of it. Would make it much easier for us (and maybe for the devs) to see how the classes truly compare, and give us the raw material for putting together new effective builds.

What do you think of this, pull 3-4 of the most common builds for every profession, rate each build by how much dps/healing was done within a minute (Not quite sure how you would factor in tanking…maybe the average of how long you can last against a certain boss without healing?) Then average together the builds for an overall score. Perhaps you can go more into depth and count the amount of times you attacked/healed/got hit as well.
What do you think?

Soul.9280:

Can you provide some real dps numbers for common ability rotations for key builds for the various classes?

This could take a bit, but I will start doing this.

Ego.2358:

I’m not bashing the engineer or even trying to provoke an argument btw, I think your efforts are admirable and i do enjoy reading about other peoples opinions even if i do not agree with them as they often put things in a different light.

However my point is that what you are trying to infer from your results is that the engineer is about equal to the other classes, which your results are bias towards showing. When you force yourself to give each class a 5 point rating the results will be that every class has 5 points, if you use a variable rating system and produce a bar chart rather than a pie chart you can see where a profession is lacking compared to other professions.

For example i would rate a thief’s dps as 10, i think they have the highest damage in the game due to their class mechanic allowing them to use their highest damage abilities repeatedly while other classes have to wait for cooldowns. Compared to thief dps i would rate warriors as 8, ele’s as 7 and engineers as 6/7, thats just imo.

Now if we look at tanking i would rate a guardian as 10, due to their reflects and general healing abilities, i would rate a generic ele build as around a 7 and an engi bunker build at around an 8.

If every class were given a score out of 10 for the three attributes you have listed what would each classes total be? If the engineer has a total score of 19 (6 tank, 6 dps, 7 support) would a thief/guard/war/ele have more or less? I suspect in my own opinion that Ele would probably rate highest overall while thief and warrior would rate highly in dps but not in support.

(class, dps, tank, support, total)
Ele, 8, 9, 9, 26
Engi, 6, 6, 7, 19
Guard, 7, 10, 8, 25
War, 9, 7, 5, 21
Thief, 10, 6, 4, 20

Now those are just numbers that i made up on the spot, i have played each class but not fully geared at 80 or in several builds. I would be interested to see how you rated the classes based on your experiences using the scoring system i proposed.

With reference to builds by the way in my opinion most other professions can swap and change their utilities to cover another role without totally retraiting, ie a dps guardian can slap on some reflect utilities and a different weapon set for one pve fight if needed and still perform as a “tank”, however a bunker engi cannot just swap to ’nades and dps when he needs to as his traits lock him into the tank role. That it something which is very hard to measure and would result in me knocking 1 off of any score i gave to the engineer or would require a whole new catagory such as “Build Versatility”.

I believe I may have inadvertently used the system you proposed, (Except for the graph) take a look at the updated chart. Let me know if this is what you were talking about. Looking the chart though, it doesn’t make Engineers look that appealing, although that was not its intent.

NevirSayDie.6235:

JohnDied.3476:

Also, What exactly are you looking for in this thread Quipter? You seem to react negatively to every piece of feedback and have been shutting down all discussion. If the purpose of this thread is to show your charts but not incite discussion or feedback, then I propose this thread be closed for all the good a thread does like that in a discussion board.

I would also like to hear the answer to this question. I don’t have a problem with the numbers—everyone’s entitled to express his opinion—but why post a controversial thread if you don’t want discussion?

I react negatively, when the question has already been answered in the original post; or if the person is just trolling up a storm. There are so many people that say TL:DR and just say/give their 2 cents on the chart. Even though what they are talking about is explained in the original post. As a side note though, I actually have not been reacting negatively to hardly any posts (Sorry Fiorrello.8126). It’s easy to misinterpret emotions with text, so you may take it negatively or offensive, when its intent was just to inform. As per everyone’s reaction, I have changed the number system, while it made sense to me, I wanted this to benefit the community as a whole. It isn’t that I do not want discussion, I just want intellectually stimulating discussion.

Chaba.5410:

Engineer as a tanky profession. I don’t find this idea as particularly odd. Look at what Rune of the Engineer gives. Keep in mind we were supposed to be a heavy armor class.

I really wish they would have left us as a heavy armor class. Maybe this is something we will see in future updates.

So I had a mate of mine take a look at my excel, he was running into issues you guys were. So per his suggestion, I just rated each class role on a scale of 1-6. 6 being the highest, 1 the lowest. (Since I only reviewed 6 professions) Take a look at the original post for the updated excel.

Fiorrello.8126:

a chart based entirely on opinion, with such an inaccurate method of measurements (ie a self admitted margin of error of at least 20%-40%) only serves to show us a very very rough estimate of what what you believe the classes have in terms of balance to one another.

I don’t even know what to say to this. If I am understand what you’re saying, you’re that a that opinions can be taken as facts and I need to include a margin of error? It’s all opinion based, a margin of error doesn’t matter. You include a margin of error when introducing facts, I am assuming you’re intelligent enough to know what a fact is. Everyone has different opinions, and as I stated in my original post: Do you find this post stupid? Go away then, this isn’t for you.

Malvado.1460:

Specterryu Quipter.8412:

Let me quote myself on this one:
In regards to the Ele comment:
I classify healing just yourself, also as support. Why? If you can keep yourself alive via heals you are supporting your party in not having to have them rez you. If that makes any sense, it does to me anyway.
Tanking, I define as being able to take big hits. Either due to having a big health pool, and/or having a lot of armor.
I am grading the entire profession, not one glass cannon build (but let me add) or tank builds.
In regards to the Guardian and Engineer comment:
depending on the build each roll can go up or down by one.

And I agree with what you r saying just not the 1 part… depending on build every class can be 3 … Dont get me wrong I am just thinking that you lacked some experience with different builds on each class… example you would never say engi is 1-2-2 if you run like this you are failing… as DPS/Tank/Support:
Engi could be 3-1-2 a 1-3-2 or even a 1-2-3
What I’am trying to explain here is that you can’t rate classes like that since there are so many variants on the builds

I just responded to Ego,
The 5 point system. Now I do agree with what you’re saying, I probably needed to go to 10. Since this seems to be the biggest complaint how about I review my excel doc? Give me a bit and I will update it. I will not rush this though, expect something tomorrow. BUT, in the mean time; does the 5 point system only “show my ability to create pie graphs.” I would have to disagree. It gives you a clear cut answer on which professions are weak in what areas, as well as where each profession is average/strong in. But this still leaves room for different builds. As I have said before, depending on a build each roll can go up or down by one. If one profession has 50 different builds, how can you account for each and every one of them on a bigger grading scale? You can’t. That was the issue I was running into.

Amadeus.5687:

The way you classify “Tanking”, is then wrong in my openion, and I think most other is!
Since in this game you can’t really “soak” damage, tanking turns more into: How much Damage can you avoid, reflect, or how much health can you regain yourself! You tank if you take 3k damage, but heal 4k back!
Tanking is when you some how “soak” the damage that would have been delivered, no matter how you do it, but you do it yourself, not helpt by others

Support is when you help other players, that can be helping them soak damage (By healing them) or making them deal more damage (like giving fury and might ect.)
So support is when you give something to someone else

I forgot to copy/paste the first part of what I originally said, so let me just copy the whole thing.
I classify healing yourself, and/or party members as support.
I classify healing just yourself, also as support. Why? If you can keep yourself alive via heals you are supporting your party in not having to have them rez you. If that makes any sense, it does to me anyway.
Tanking, I define as being able to take big hits. Either due to having a big health pool, and/or having a lot of armor.

This whole post is my opinion, each and every one of us have different opinions. You’re entitled to you’re own and I am entitled to mine.

Ego.2358:

Specterryu Quipter.8412:

Now you’re probably wondering why I put this here, and not elsewhere on the forums. Since I frequent this part of the forums often, I am either seeing one of two things. New builds and ideas, or people saying our class needs to be more like another for X reason. Because of the latter, I am putting this here to show you that Engineers are not in a bad spot, and where the Engineer’s potential lies.

If you have given every profession a pool of 5 points to use up of course the results are going to show that each profession is about equal, your methods undercut your point.

I agree the the engi isn’t in such a terrible way however without following a rating system which isn’t bias towards an equal result you show nothing but your ability to create pie charts. The fact remains that the engineer has all this versitility which you have to sacrifice to be effective at any one role and normally there is another profession which does what you can do better due to specialisation, these results in now way reflect that.

Edit: I also agree a build centric result would be more appropriate as no profession can be great at all three roles at once, while exploring the top builds for each class you would also gather data on build diversity at the same time.

Let me start with:
This is not a post for you to continue to complain about the faults of the Engineer, or the developers, there’re plenty of forums already doing that. Go there.
Then
These are my opinions of the class as a whole

Now onto the serious stuff:
The 5 point system. Now I do agree with what you’re saying, I probably needed to go to 10. Since this seems to be the biggest complaint how about I review my excel doc? Give me a bit and I will update it. I will not rush this though, expect something tomorrow. BUT, in the mean time; does the 5 point system only “show my ability to create pie graphs.” I would have to disagree. It gives you a clear cut answer on which professions are weak in what areas, as well as where each profession is average/strong in. But this still leaves room for different builds. As I have said before, depending on a build each roll can go up or down by one. If one profession has 50 different builds, how can you account for each and every one of them on a bigger grading scale? You can’t. That was the issue I was running into.

Malvado.1460:

Agree with Amadeus.
This is mostly your opinion in non specified builds you have tried..
Warrior : 3 in most no doubts
Eles can’t tank? lol…
Gardians: cant support/tank strongly? bahaha
Engis: dps1 |?|?| don’t even know what to say about this..
Anyway, honestly thinking all classes can be lvl 3 in some roll, despite they sacrifice something else. So the overall this exel is kinda wrong i would say.
For this to be more specific it should be rated from class builds and not just professions in general

Let me quote myself on this one:
In regards to the Ele comment:
I classify healing just yourself, also as support. Why? If you can keep yourself alive via heals you are supporting your party in not having to have them rez you. If that makes any sense, it does to me anyway.
Tanking, I define as being able to take big hits. Either due to having a big health pool, and/or having a lot of armor.
I am grading the entire profession, not one glass cannon build (but let me add) or tank builds.
In regards to the Guardian and Engineer comment:
depending on the build each roll can go up or down by one.

Ego.2358:

Your lack of 3’s on profession/build combos like support ele, tank guardian, dps warrior, etc kinda invalidates your approach in my opinion. While i can see you have erred towards average for every profession in every role a table which says each profession is average at 2 things and weak at one does not explore the true roles of the individual classes enough to rate them against each other.

I would recommend going back over your table with a 1-8 approach and try to rate the classes against each other in each role, ie don’t use the same number twice in each role, or just go for a 1-10 rating to give you a larger spread. This would allow you to see for example the warriors 8 in dps compared to the thieves 10 compared to the engineers 4 or the comparative support abilities of the classes. However i think this is all so build dependant it would be a mammoth undertaking to rebuild, regear and assess each and every “top” build on every class.

It also doesn’t compare the difficulty of the classes or the diversity of builds, which is actually most peoples problem. It would also be nice to see a break for tpvp, 80 pve and wvw as classes perform differently in each area.

Amadeus.5687:

I would actually have given the warrior a point more in support then you did, did you ever try out a Shout Support / Damage soaker Warrior? Quite the good condition removal in AoE, AoE healing and buffing they do! And would have given the elementalist 2-2-2 (See Dagger/Dagger elementalists, pretty much as tanky as they get)

else I actually kinda agree with you! Engineer depeding on the build can ace up to 2 dps tho, but at the cost of one of the other!

Edit:
actually Engineer can probaly move from 1 to 3 in any of the group in my openion now that I think about it, you just pay the price in lowering one of the others!

Ah, I see one of you didn’t read what I said, depending on the build, the role number can go up or down by one. I classed each profession as a whole not on one variable. I wanted to keep the total role number at 5, it was rather difficult for me to rate certain professions, since some are not quite average or strong. In my book though each profession leaned more than another so for the most part each profession fit in nicely. If I was to do this again, I would probably up the total role number to 10.

You may be asking yourself, why is there a lack of 3s? The reason is simple, each profession as a whole, does not have an amazing amount of dps. (Minus the Thief) Can a Warrior pick up a bow and punch out as much dps as he can with the Rifle? Not likely. Remember I am grading the entire profession, not one glass cannon build.

darkace.8925:

I don’t know how you define “tank”, but in a game without aggro I define it as being able to survive while fighting toe-to-toe with one or more enemies (i.e. not relying on fleeing, crowd control, or stealth to stay alive). Given that definition, along with my personal experience with the class, I don’t think your tank score for the thief is at all accurate. It’s your chart, based off of your personal experiences, but I just wanted to throw my two cents in on that subject.

Right after I submitted this topic, I realized I did not go into what I define as tank and support, I fixed that.

As the topic says, I have been rolling the other professions, and I have been throwing what I think of them onto an Excel Sheet. It started out with first impressions, and now that I have gotten all these toons to 80, geared out, and done WvW with them/tried different specs. I rated them on how each class fits into certain rolls. We can argue all day what the “true” roles are, but on this excel document, I listed rolls as Dps, Tank, and Support. These are my opinions of the class as a whole and as the pic of the excel document will tell you, depending on the build each roll can go up or down by one.

Perhaps I should go more into depth on what I define as support and tank roles:
I classify healing yourself, and/or party members as support.
I classify healing just yourself or keeping yourself alive for that matter, also as support. Why? If you can keep yourself alive via heals/stealth/whatever you are supporting your party in not having to have them rez you. If that makes any sense, it does to me anyway.
Tanking, I define as being able to take big hits. Either due to having a big health pool, and/or having a lot of armor.

As the topic says, I have been rolling the other professions, and I have been throwing what I think of them onto an Excel Sheet. It started out with first impressions, and now that I have gotten all these toons to 80, geared out, and done WvW with them/tried different specs. I rated them on how each class fits into certain rolls. We can argue all day what the “true” roles are, but on this excel document, I listed rolls as Dps, Tank, and Support. These are my opinions of the class as a whole and as the pic of the excel document will tell you, depending on the build each roll can go up or down by one. Edit: Potentially two
Now you’re probably wondering why I put this here, and not elsewhere on the forums. Since I frequent this part of the forums often, I am either seeing one of two things. New builds and ideas, or people saying our class needs to be more like another for X reason. Because of the latter, I am putting this here to show you that Engineers are not in a bad spot, and where the Engineer’s potential lies.

Perhaps I should go more into depth on what I define as support and tank roles:
I classify healing yourself, and/or party members as support.
I classify healing just yourself, also as support. Why? If you can keep yourself alive via heals you are supporting your party in not having to have them rez you. If that makes any sense, it does to me anyway.
Tanking, I define as being able to take big hits. Either due to having a big health pool, and/or having a lot of armor.

Let me save you some time:
This is not a post for you to continue to complain about the faults of the Engineer, or the developers, there’re plenty of forums already doing that. Go there.
Don’t bother raging about the ratings, its my opinion, we all have our own.
Don’t bother trolling, you won’t get a reply.
Do you find this post stupid? Go away then, this isn’t for you.

Kimbald.2697:

Do you mean when you use Elixir gun by itself? In which case: obviously…
If you mean in combo with the tool kit: than mostly it’s the same yes, except when you reverse the order in which you use them.

^This is what I meant. ^
All you have to do is change your rotation to make up for the patch. If you time switching kits properly, KR still goes off every 10 seconds. But you can only use a certain KR ability, say EG, every 20 seconds. So you cannot spam the EG KR every 10 seconds but if you have another kit, say the FT. Then you can set its KR ability off right after SE ends. (10 seconds) Maybe I am failing to understand what yourself and others have been saying, but this what I have discovered.

Kimbald.2697:

And how would I be basing my whole argument on grenade kit, when I didn’t say anything about grenade kit?
In case you’re still in doubt: I am NOT basing my argument on grenade kit. Not at all.

My apologies, it wasn’t you mentioning the Grenade kit, in the link you posted, but someone else, on that note. I have read the link you posted, before I created this one.

Kimbald.2697:

Why do I seem offended by your post?

Didn’t read the rest of that paragraph, troll elsewhere.

I realize where the disconnect between what you and I have been saying was, in my original post. We have been essentially been saying the same thing, but I have not been understanding you, and vice versa. I edited my original post to clear that up.

Kimbald.2697:

This thread for example is covering the changes in a more correct manner:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/Kit-refinement-nerf-tested-explained/first#post1570490

Sorry to be so harsh, but if your first line starts with saying how you want to straighten something out, and how much nonsense you read… you better make sure your own post is correct.

I have been playing around with KR, since 100nades emerged from the depths of SPvP. And like I stated in my post, the KR cool down was 10 seconds on the elixir gun and tool kit. Feel free to flame away, but that is what it was. Perhaps somewhere along this time frame the cool down was reduced on these two kits, mistakenly or otherwise. After playing with these two kits for a bit, it appears they have not changed, they don’t even appear to share a cool down. I think ANET may have overlooked these kits. Sorry my post seems to offend you. These are my observations though. I have seen may posts saying mixed things and having mixed results. I am not by any means saying that ANET has balanced KR. What they did was rather pointless, since all it did was break a lot of builds that were centered on KR. But since I was not using any of those builds, this last patch was more of a buff than a nerf to me.

Kimbald.2697:

For now some kits are efected and some not. Not even the patch notes are accurate in that regard.
So we can’t even figure out how it should work, if the patch notes would be correct.
At best we can figure out workarounds for the current effects.

You said this, yet you do not understand what I am saying. I am saying that the Elixir Gun and Tool Kit remain unaffected by ANET’s patch. You are basing your whole argument here on the Grenade Kit.

I want to straighten something out before I actually mention the build I am talking about. I keep seeing this nonsense on Kit Refinement being broken. KR comes off of cool down every 10 seconds. The only change is the KR ability now has a 20 second shared cool down. As a result you have to wait 20 seconds before you can queue up the same KR ability. This doesn’t break KR, it just requires us to rethink our rotation. Perhaps this wasn’t the case with the grenade kit, I wouldn’t know, since I avoid this kit like it was 100b.

I guess this last update buffed an old build of mine even further by increasing the healing on Elixir gun and fixing some bugs I was experiencing.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/A-viable-build-Not-another-rant-post/first#post1378648

Kozai.8269:

Linc.6834:

I’ve actually taken to leveling and gearing a guardian just because they are so valuable to dungeons

While I’ve never been kicked from a group for being an Engineer, I’ve had my /join requests refused several times, so maybe that was it. And of the PUGs I’ve joined for dungeoning (my guild doesn’t have enough people who enjoy high dungeon difficulty to run with the guild), I’ve got about a 40% failure rate on dungeons. Thus, based on how much easier my Guardian finds it to beat things in outdoor PvE, I’m also leveling and gearing a Guardian for the same reason.

Which is a pity, since concept-wise I find the Engineer more interesting. I just don’t seem to have the skill to play it well enough to be competitive, even in PvE.

Perhaps the groups you tried to join needed a Guardian or strong dps class?
Last I remember, when you invite yourself to a group, they cannot see your class (Unless you’re within clicking distance, if you know what I mean.)

We are too much of a wild card, probably why we get the boot. Typically, when most people see the Engineer, they think you’re going to be tanky or going to be throwing grenades. Being the only Engineer in a 400+ player guild, I seem to run into this issue a lot. Educate the ones that listen; the ones that don’t listen, are bad PUGS anyway. Think of it as an easy way to avoid bad runs. On a serious note, don’t take it personally. As long as there are RPG/MMOs, you’ll have an under powered class and an overpowered class.

NevirSayDie.6235:

(Engineers aren’t far above, but you get the idea)

You’re saying Engineers are considered a bad class for pvp? I whole heartily disagree. I believe we have more viable specs than all the other classes. We have the highest skill cap, I would argue that it is TOO high, but this isn’t the place for it. People either like being bunkers or seeing big numbers with little effort, and those are the builds that become popular. (Backstab thief, 100b warrior, glass cannon ranger, shatter mes, D/D ele, glass cannon ele, 100nade, etc.) Since we can’t spam 1 and 2 and have insane dps, people see us as a second class citizen. Most people would rather take a guardian bunker than an engineer bunker, simply because we are such a complex class that if we so much as breath at the wrong moment we could end up dying. And here I thought I wouldn’t bring up that our skill cap is too high…

I’ll end with this, we aren’t a bad class in pvp or pve for that matter. We are a class that if you do not play to perfection, you could end up on your kitten.

Skrill.6170:

u could use the tool kit for more cc (cripple, huge pull) and additional defensive options.

and if ur worried about the condi remove just use the med kit!

As far as the medkit goes, it only removes 1 condition. Yes it is the better heal overall, but I was banking on having as much protection as possible, and it works (unless the RNG goddess looks away for even a second). You could swap the tool kit with one of the turrets, but that would defeat the purpose of this build. I wanted to make a build that could utilize turrets and still pull out all the stops.

I have been seeing an influx of creative builds here recently, so I decided to give it a go and to try and make something creative of my own. I’ve been experimenting with a build that makes turrets useful. I seem to have stumbled upon one, while throwing traits and runes around like a mad man.

I have been running this in SPvP for a few days now, and this has been a build that I have found enjoyment from. Maybe I am the kind of person to enjoy perma immobilizing that pesky backstab Thief, Mesmer, 100b Warrior, or D/D Ele. While standing behind them, watching their futile efforts to break free, and laughing until my stomach hurts.

The only issues I have, is this build does not have stun breakers or condition removal. Just know that condition heavy builds may pose a problem. I understand and can overcome this limitation, dodge and protection are your friend. If you really want a condition removal, you can always use the Superior Rune of Lyssa. To get the maximum amount of enjoyment, try running this build with another Engineer who is using the same build. The comments will roll.

I am unsure how this build will be in PvE, or WvWvW as I have not gotten around to fiddling with it there yet. I imagine in dungeons this builds true potential will not shine, but you will do a decent amount of damage, and be able to take a lot of damage regardless.

Here is a quick how to:
Your goal is to keep your target immobilized and crippled as much as possible, so don’t stay in the flamethrower kit for too long. Make use of the rifles’ net shot, blunderbuss, and jump shot abilities.
At the start of a battle use Toss Elixir H for (hopefully) either Protection or Swiftness. Drop your turrets, keep decent spacing to ensure the warrior or ele can’t nuke them to oblivion. Use your the rifle turrets automatic fire. Keep your target immobilized, and give them a taste of your blunderbuss, and flamethrower. When your turret’s automatic fire is done, blow it up and spam the kitten out of Surprise Shot for decent burst damage. If a second victim comes your way, drop the supply crate on them. For best results run in pairs.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQFAUlspyUnrSrF17IxoCkO0jEf/FD6xet7dB;ToAA1CuoAzAmAMLYOwkgNE5YB
You may have to copy the link into a new window. Enjoy!

CriSPeH.8512:

It just seems like because they threw together a profession at the last minute and now they don’t really know how to balance it. They seem too afraid to give us and advantage because it could be seen as OP and they give us unnecessarily strong nerfs because of how things look on paper.

It’s probably conceited or narcissistic of me to quote myself, but I am lazy and agreed with your post so much that I wanted to reply with something, so here goes:

…If you have rolled other a few characters, you’ll notice more than half of our traits and some skills come from other classes, so we are the sudo class; what makes this bad, is that our class FEELS like it was thrown together at the last minute. The only unique thing we have are elixirs, kits, and turrets, and turrets don’t work. And you can go even further arguing that most of our kit skills come from other professions…
…I’m just tired of this word, “versatility.” If our overlords are having a hard time figuring out what “versatility” means, remove it altogether. As of right now, any class that was supposed to be “versatile” is under powered. All the while, the classes that were not formed around “versatility” are insanely overpowered. What ever happened to this so called balance that or overlords were trying to achieve? If we were truly balanced, we would only have to press 1 and 2 to be on par with the Warrior; or the Warrior would have to use every single ability to kill one mob.
Our overlords need to give each class a role, in both pve and pvp, and build that class accordingly. Quit trying to build your classes around a single word…