Guild Wars 2

I applaud OP for his work.
I only wish that GW2 tool-tips were as good as GW1 tool-tips. Seriously, what in heaven’s name happened?

danbuter.2314:

This is why games should NEVER be balanced around PvP.

This concept isn’t as bad as it might seem. Balancing a game around PvP shouldn’t be that difficult or problematic so long as PvE at higher levels resembled a PvP environment (aggressive enemies with short attack intervals, evasion skills, control skills, gap-closers and skill chains in the proper amounts).

As it is now, there is often either none of this (most dungeons) or too much of this (krait and dredge—except dredge are just stupid mostly because of the sheer numbers in which they appear and high hp due to Protection EVERYWHERE). New Orr is actually not bad in this manner when it comes to regular enemies (plenty of movement, range swapping and aggressiveness), but most veterans and champions encounters remain entirely brain-dead (“Oh, hey guys! Good idea! Let’s take a regular enemy, extend its health bar into low-earth orbit and call it a Champion!”).

If there were more enemies like Niflhel’s Svanir and Chieftain Utahein as PvE veterans and champions in mid to high-level areas, the whole prospect of balancing around PvP principles wouldn’t be so difficult or contrived as it is now.

Do you REALLY need 25 stacks of might to kill a player? No. How about in PvE? Well, in PvE, a lot of target enemies have such stupidly high HP pools that maximum damage is really the only way to go. Therefore, 25 stacks of might in PvE is either very much appreciated or required in order to cut down on boredom as much as possible. Is there a discrepancy? Then there’s a problem. However, the REAL problem is that is STILL ASTOUNDS ME how there exists this huge gap in required skill/profession mastery between PvE and PvP encounters, and yet ANet still gets their panties in a knot over negotiating balance between the two formats. Honestly, slashing HP pools across the board for champion, veteran and elite enemies in PvE would really shed a lot of light on the true state of “balance” in GW2.

The biggest issue with Engineers is that our Weapon Kits automatically kitten our Utility Slots. Simply by playing the Engineer the way it was pretty much designed, you are cut out of 1 or 2 Utility Skills. Playing a multi-kit build is difficult since you’re often bottle-necked when it comes to key skills like stun-breakers or control skills. I’ve been partial to my little picture below when it comes to solving this problem and providing a little more versatility to the Engineer’s Weapon Kits, Turrets and Utility Skills overall. It sort of finds a middle ground between your suggestion (which, months ago, I probably would have been all for) and the current state of Engineer F-skills/Utility Skills.

Quick Mouse.7635:

I’m fine with the current defiant mechanism. It takes coordination to interrupt a boss’ killer move.

Perhaps, but you don’t find coordination in overworld mobs. Furthermore, my proposals wouldn’t really change the fact that players would need coordination to stop a boss’ big attack. You would still have Unshakable enemies with 4 stacks of Defiant each time you disable them for the first time in an encounter (in dungeon scenarios). You have to carefully chew through those before getting to the gooey center that is a boss susceptible to CC skills. The only difference would be that players would get more of an opportunity to get in big damage for a brief time window after Defiant wears off since the boss would be susceptible to CC at will. Although, maybe 5 seconds is too much for Exposed. Maybe 3 seconds would be better.

My suggestion isn’t about making it easier to interrupt an Unshakable creature, rather it’s about making interrupting an Unshakable creature more rewarding and giving players the opportunity to use “all-in” skill combos or attacks that otherwise might go wasted in a tedious boss fight.

Also—and this is apart from your statement, I suppose—I honestly cannot defend the health levels of elite dungeon creatures and champion creatures. This sort of plays into making more window for all out attacks on bosses available to players since right now everything just has so much health that most “high-level” encounters are just maypole dances with everyone skipping around the boss in circles and beating it with sticks and magic for several minutes until it dies. It’s not fun.

THE DEFIANT BUFF

• Stacks of the Defiant buff now have a fixed duration of 20 seconds.
• Unshakable will now only grant two stacks of Defiant for every two players in the area.
• If an Unshakable creature is disabled more than once within 10 seconds, it gains 2 stacks of Defiant. This is to ensure that Defiant can still proc even in 1 on 1 battles with an Unshakable creature.
• The maximum amount of stacks of Defiant that Unshakable can grant is now capped at 12 in order to save on bandwidth.
• Whenever a stack of Defiant expires on a creature, that creature receives the “Exposed” debuff. Exposed means that this creature cannot receive the Defiant buff. Exposed has a fixed duration of 5 seconds.

CHAMPION AND ELITE ENEMIES

• All “Champion” class enemies have had their health pools reduced by 33%.
• All “Elite” class enemies have had their health pools reduced by 40%.

I’ll expand on my reasoning later, although it pretty much comes down to how current “high-tier” enemies normally nothing more than average enemies with a ludicrous health pool and a fancy circle around their face next to their health bar. Things like that combined with the current Defiant mechanic make fighting these guys about as fun as chopping down a tree with a baseball bat.

Oh—another option for your Condition Damage dilemma: if you went dual pistols, then it might be worth it to invest in Condition Damage. You would have more burning there that you could stack with your bombs and the immobilizing/cripple #5 skill can help set up areas for bomb attacks.

However, you don’t get a blast finisher with your off-hand pistol like you have with your off-hand shield and you don’t really have any trait points to spare in order to get a cool-down reduction trait for your pistols (which is really good; honestly all cool-down reduction traits are amazing), so in the end I’m not sure that it’d really be worth it.

TRAITS
Honestly, I’m not sure Kit Refinement is worth it anymore. In its current state, it mostly punishes players for taking more than one Weapon Kit. Furthermore, its updated skills are rather lack-luster. My opinion there would honestly be to just take out 10 from tools, put 10 into Alchemy and get the Invigorating Speed trait. You can manage your kit for infinite swiftness and vigor which will prove useful if you’re going to often be in the face of your enemies.

By “Speedy Boots” I assume you mean Power Shoes? I’d personally drop that for the 20% reduction to shield cool-downs trait. Having those shield skills available to you more often can really help, and the +90 toughness is pretty nice too.

As for Explosive Powder (the +10% damage to explosions trait), it’s hiiighly debatable whether or not you’d want that or the Short Fuse trait (20% cool-down reduction on bomb and grenade skills). Personally, when you have conditions like burning and confusion along with fire and smoke fields floating around in the Bomb Kit, sacrificing the ability to use those more often for +10% damage to explosions doesn’t seem worth it to me. I’d personally go with Short Fuse.

UTILITIES
Even though I sort of bashed Kit Refinement, don’t let that stop you from running two kits if you want. I personally think that—especially if you’re going for a more support-style character—the Elixir Gun would work well for you. It has some nice healing with Super Elixir and you can really shed your allies’ conditions with Fumigate. However, I think its best quality comes in Acid Bomb. It’s a beautiful escape skill while also doubling as a Blast Finisher. Since you’re going to probably be within Combo Fields all of the time by using bombs, you can easily chain into an Acid Bomb in order to get the most of those fields. It’s also really nice damage to boot.

If you choose not to do multiple kits, then maybe you could bring two stun-breakers. In any case, it’s up to you.

GEAR
Your friend is… sort of correct about Condition Damage being a mediocre partner for bombs. Condition Damage (especially in pvp) really shines when paired with conditions like Burning and Confusion—both of which the Bomb Kit can dish out in spades. However, those aren’t conditions that stay on someone for very long and the Bomb Kit doesn’t have access to any damage-over-time (DoT) conditions like bleeding or poison. Even so, if you decide to stack Condition Damage, your burning and confusion can function as a burst in place of raw damage that a Berserker build might put out with just their damage skills. The beauty of the Engineer is that a balanced spec can sometimes work here whereas most other classes are often isolated to narrow-spec builds.

If I were gearing for something like this, I personally wouldn’t use Apothecary armor, though. Bombs do really lend themselves to more power builds despite the fact that you really expose yourself to damage by using them. I mean, they’re effectively melee weapons. To this effect, I would maybe try to set up some damage on your Chest, Leg and Helmet armor pieces (major slots) while focusing your Condition Damage and Healing Power in your Shoes, Gloves and Shoulder pieces (minor slots) along with maybe some of your accessories.

Maybe a Soldier’s chest, Rampager’s Helmet and Legs with Apothecary’s minor slots would work. You wouldn’t have a lot of raw damage, but you would be pretty tanky and balanced. From there you could decide whether or not to go full condition damage or damage with your accessories or continued on a balanced path there.

Then again, I’m not really the best guy to talk about min-maxing so maybe someone else could step in and give their two cents.

stale.9785:

Too many changes for a weapon that doesn’t need it. The two skills that need attention are Shatterstone and dragon’s tooth. Dragon’s Tooth needs the speed boost, but not ground target.

While it’s true that Shatterstone and Dragon’s Tooth do need somebody to sit down and have a talk with them about their performance, the scepter on the whole is very slow when it comes to seeing results when compared to main-hand dagger and even the staff at times. Furthermore, as already mentioned in the thread, Elementalist scepter main-hand has a dreadful lack of CC. The weapon in general is honestly pretty alright. It just needs a few things added and some cast-time reductions in order to really shine. While it looks like a lot, the changes I’ve proposed aren’t terribly drastic (except maybe for the water 1 and earth 3 skills).

Mik.1324:

Hey Swag, I am a fan of your suggestions on improving the Ele scepter mainhand as these proposed changes would make the weapon set feel a lot less clunky as well as add in more utility as the scepter has less than both the dagger and staff.

One idea I would like to propose would be an alternative to shatterstone:

Instead of reducing the charge up I wouldn’t mind the charge-up animation providing a 3 second chill to enemies that pass through it, punishing enemies for going through the area and potentially making it easier to catch them in the post-cast spell.

As for your proposed change to arc lightning I would keep arc lightning the same and move a similar chain to either earth or fire.

Thanks for the kind words. I actually really liked your idea for Shatterstone. I updated my suggestion accordingly. As for the Lightning Arc suggestion, I actually changed it up a bit and moved the idea into Water in order to give that attunment a little more “oomph.” It was the only auto-attack that didn’t do anything besides damage. I mean, well, Lightning Arc does nothing but damage, but it’s also constantly hitting and also now has that “strikes enemies that pass through the beam” aspect to it, so I figured Water’s Ice Shards could use some more love.

Sabull.5670:

I’d say Dust Devil should a knockback, a mini tornado. It would push straight out same way as now, just on top of blind do a mini knockback. Scepter having no CC atm so … Also would help on wvw usefulness.

I thought that this was a great idea too. Blind is alright, but on a 15 second cool-down skill with low damage and no other redeeming attributes, it isn’t spectacular. A knock-back would make that skill so much more interesting and add some more surprise to the scepter play-style. I’ve updated my original post accordingly to match your suggestion.

Grok Krog.9581:

Fire: Flamestrike doesn’t do enough damage to do deserve a damage nerf.

Agree with Dragon’s Tooth.

Water: Again, not enough damage to deserve a nerf.

Shatterstone needs not lock your character from attacking after casting

Air: Arc Lightning is a fine skill, doesn’t need to change. However it needs to do more damage for the time spent casting it.

Blinding flash needs to do about 50-75% of the damage Lightning Strike does.

Earth: Bleed duration doesn’t need to be lowered

Rock Barrier is awesome as is. Hurl needs to do more damage or cause 5 stacks of bleeding

I think that the damage on most of the scepter skills is fine since it’s more of a Condition-oriented weapon than straight damage or CC. Also, I haven’t straight-up nerfed anything. All I have done with the suggestions in question is lowered everything together so as to keep roughly the same damage output, but just make the attacks come faster so the scepter Elementalist isn’t wasting so much time casting. Hurl is OK as it is since it’s a nice way to get quick damage in, but I felt that the scepter just needed more CC in general so I think that adding Weakness and Cripple to the skill would grant it more relevancy in combat. It would maybe even be fine if it just stayed as it was (all five are launched at once) and added something more like Weakness or Cripple.

Another reason for this suggestion beyond reducing the stress of gearing one’s self in GW2 is that GW2 is seeing declines across the board in several PvE activities such as low-level fractals and dungeon running (aside from CoF p1 and 2). Getting gear from these places is becoming increasingly difficult simply due to the lack of people willing to group up and get the job done. This sort of suggestion would help make creating and gearing new characters much easier on them. It’s sort of a “transitional period” suggestion. GW2 seems slower due to a lull in new content, so people are going to drift away or not be as active. By allowing high-end gear to be more accessible to everyone, GW2 could maybe maintain a stronger player base by making it easier for all players to experiment with the stats of new and old characters alike.

JDrover.9175:

It does not Help that the current AC is horribly glitched in every path, Extra Spawns, getting stuck in walls halfway through fights, even monster regeneration, its just unplayable

This. It’s sort of not an issue of the dungeon being “too hard” as it is it just being a bugged pile of slop.

Furthermore, I feel that not just AC, but most dungeons in general are dying given that most people by now are level 80 and are focused more on farming what is easiest rather than grinding dungeons for fashion, leveling or otherwise. AC just isn’t as appealing as CoF—nothing is. CoF has decent enemy health levels and isn’t buggy as the crow flies.

I’m resurrecting this thread because this issue still seems to be very alive and well in GW2.

I’ll start off by citing one phrase commonly uttered in effectively every path of every dungeon if possible: “Skip these guys.”

Whenever a group decides to skip a portion of a dungeon, that group realizes that there is a significant lack of reward in proportion to the work that they put in to clear the skipped area in question. The fact that EVERY dungeon in GW2 has a section that a group typically skips is honestly nothing short of abhorrent. More importantly, why specifically do people skip dungeon sections? What is it that makes it so much work to chew through your average GW2 dungeon mooks?

The answer: HEALTH.

Hit points, hp, red bars—call it whatever you like, but the fact STILL remains (even 3 MONTHS AFTER MY ORIGINAL POST) that there are far too many enemies in GW2 dungeons with just far too much health than what is logically sound when compared with the level of skill it takes to defeat them. This single factor brands several areas of all dungeons as “skip zones.”

You know that army of elite enemies that lead up to Frost in Caudecus’ Manor explorable mode? Skip ’em.
You know that champion ice dog just outside of the opening corridor at the beginning of Crucible of Eternity? Skip it.
You know AS MUCH OF HONOR OF THE WAVES THAT YOU CAN GET AWAY WITH? SKIP IT, PLEASE.

And the list could easily go on. And you know, maybe this will never be fixed. Maybe these fat enemies will never see the drastic health reductions that they so desperately need (as positively baffling as that would seem since such a fix wouldn’t require that much effort). However, let these areas serve as lessons in “How not to make a dungeon.” Champions in GW2 are lessons in “How not to make a mid-boss/event boss.” When all do you is take a normal enemy, increase its health 100-fold and call it a “Champion,” it doesn’t make an encounter any more challenging, rather just infinitely more tedious and less enjoyable.

Furthermore, Elite enemy presence (enemies with silver or gold rings around the images next to their names) are far too high in dungeons. Their damage is fine—a single hit from them can often turn an average fight into a tight pinch. However, the time it takes to beat them makes no sense given their low level of activity in a fight (slow attack speeds and lack of dynamic combat mechanics like gap-closers, teleports, knock-backs or pulls). These guys… I don’t even know what to say about Elite enemies. I feel like they should just be entirely removed. It’s much more enjoyable to go all Double Dragon on a dungeon area in which everything is just a crazy brawl with normal enemies that spout damage, go down quick and respawn fast enough to maintain a tense situation.

miriforst.1290:

Swagg.9236:

If you want a buff: just give burning to Booby Trap. Engineer downed is fine as it is. It’s like you people expect yourselves not to be punished for losing.

Yeah its like they expect to be on equal footing with other classes in one of the most important parts of pvp!

miriforst.1290:

one of the most important parts of pvp!

wat
Look, you went down. You pretty much deserve to die. The opening exchanges of a fight is typically where much of the proceeding action is determined. If someone bested you, it should be up to a teammate to get you up. It shouldn’t be you somehow turning the fight around after someone beat you. That doesn’t make sense.

Besides, look at Toss Elixir R and tell me that that isn’t silly good.

If you want a buff: just give burning to Booby Trap. Engineer downed is fine as it is. It’s like you people expect yourselves not to be punished for losing.

InfamousBrad.5879:

I have one very high priority request: get rid of all ground-targeted effects in underwater combat, the way Anet already did for grenade kit. When under water, any elixir toolbelt skill, or elixir gun’s Super Elixir, should go off at your location, or maybe just a short distance in front of you the way that Med Kit abilities and Turrets default to.

Unless you’re right up against a wall and facing the wall, they’re all impossible to use under water, because the current behavior is to travel in a semi-random straight line (actually, it’s the same direction as the last attack you fired) until it reaches maximum range or until it hits a wall, then detonate. Very, very frustrating.

That’s honestly a great idea. While I do sort of enjoy/see the reasoning in implementing underwater Elixirs with a “detonate” chain skill ability, it isn’t really very intuitive and actually rubs Elixir-users the wrong way. Elixirs are ground-targeted because they have affects that can benefit your allies and hinder your enemies at the same time. This makes placement crucial. Since there is no way to easily direct an Elixir that is thrown underwater, it takes away a great amount of that versatility.

Having an underwater thrown Elixir instantly explode in a wide radius around the Engineer would make it easier to direct since you would just have to position the Engineer. It would also reduce the time it takes for a player to see results from his or her thrown Elixir when underwater.

I’ll just add this thought chain somewhere up in the 3rd or 4th posts.

Rizzy.8293:

because a cloth armour shouldnt look like its made out plate metal
and vice versa

I don’t even know what you’re trying to argue here, and in any case it’s incredibly subjective.

Benjamin.8237:

I understand everything you said, but the answer is Lore. An Elementalist studied the arcane arts, not to wear heavy armor. A mesmer is meant to be a dueler, think of fencing. Swords yes, but they don’t wear massive armor. IMHO I would love this option though, want a heavy shoulder piece on my norn.

Lore. What a terrible excuse. And that’s not on you; I don’t want to shoot any messengers here. Using lore as an excuse for armor style restrictions is bad since it completely bottle-necks further style and lore development.

Also, why wouldn’t a d/d ele wear heavier armor? They’re pretty much a spell-brawler at the close-range at which they operate. Why wouldn’t an Engineer maybe don a heavy chest plate?

However, I do understand the worry that suddenly a bunch of nonsensical spell-casters would suddenly don spike-laden heavy armor in full abyss for a maximum edgy look just because CoF light or Arah light wasn’t good enough anymore. Even so, I just don’t understand the reasoning behind limiting cross-armor-class transmutation. I don’t understand it because there is no logical argument in the contrary.

Clipping? Is that an argument? It could be. It’s a terrible one, but I guess it is. I just don’t understand that if it IS an argument, why people wouldn’t just avoid cross-class armors that clip? There is no need to redesign armor across the classes so that they don’t clip with each other. People would just naturally avoid silly-looking combinations. More importantly, clipping is also a non-argument since there are several armors within the same armor class that already clip with themselves or other armors of the same class. Good going on that one.

Teraphas.6210:

Plus devs have stated not likely to happen as they want players easily identifiable as to which weight class they are in by sight thus reducing you having to guess what class you may be facing

What?? I completely addressed that issue in my original post:

Swagg.9236:

The only other issue that I could think of would be WvW-related. As of now, when selecting targets in WvW, players cannot instantly determine which profession their enemy is. Armor can help narrow down the possibilities, but it’s still not entirely certain. Cross-armor-class transmutation would completely throw this out the window. However, aside from the fact that any opening salvos or set-up would instantly reveal an opponent’s identity, we already have the feature in PvE where selecting a player will display that player’s profession icon next to their name. Just add that to WvW. Problem solved.

Something like “Oh, but you can’t tell which profession they are anymore” is a non-issue since Profession Icons next to a player’s name already exist in this game.

Wuffles.5319:

Why does anet hate us so much? I just don’t understand why we get nerfed to the ground? It’s probably because they only look at spvp but still. They shoudl at least have some insight to how we work in pve?

You are COMPLETELY overreacting. It’s Kit Refinement. Engineers are actually pretty blessed with how they aren’t totally reliant on one build or trait in order to make them good as a profession. A nerf/function change to Altruistic Healing could possibly trash all Guardians. Changing up the general Auramancer build would most likely throw 90% of all Elementalists off their game. This is Kit Refinement that we’re talking about. While it is rather disgusting that ANet seems to be punishing us for using multi-kit builds lately (as if gimping our Utility Skills isn’t bad enough already; and that has been a feature from the start) and that most of the new Kit Refinement functions are pathetically reactive (and even when used properly are pretty sub-par), there are still several other very viable options for the Engineer as it stands right now.

I wonder if Flamethrower 1 flubbing consistently has anything to do with how sometimes I will be turning quickly into an enemy (perhaps having come out of a dodge roll or just after having done an about face) and use Blunderbuss (Rifle 3) only to find it misfire on me. Instead of Blunderbuss actually going off, all I will see are the particle effects (akin to a typical “charging my laser” visual trope—if you will—that shows air or light being sucked into a weapon before it goes off) that appear in the brief 1/2 second before it goes [BOOM] and damages foes in its range. All I see is my Engineer charging up his Blunderbuss except that nothing happens afterwards. The only thing that happens is that I get stuck in the Blunderbuss firing animation for 2 seconds while the skill itself goes into a three or so second recharge.

This same issue occurs with Overcharged Shot as well.

However, more to the point of this thread, I still push for Flame Jet to function like the Elementalist’s Drake’s Breath or Cone of Cold. Flame Jet seems to pursue a target. Elementalist cone attacks, while they still allow you to select and “lock-on” to a target, do not attempt to track that target at all. It is entirely in the Elementalist’s hands where a Drake’s Breath or Cone of Cold hits.

Truth be told, de-targeting right before using Flame Jet often results in a much more reliable skill and better experience for me. However, using such a tactic all the time is really clunky and you would really only get away with that in PvE where your opponents are pretty numb-skulled.

To get to the point: Flame Jet should just be a non-tracking cone-based attack like Drake’s Breath or Cone of Cold. It would fix everything.

I’m not entirely sure why this isn’t a thing. I mean, I guess I can understand why if someone argues “But it’s for flavor,” but that argument is paper-thin on a good day given that when you click on a character, their profession icon appears next to their name and all professions are rather easily distinguishable from the get-go by their skill animations alone.

If it’s a programming issue, then I suppose I can accept that, but even that doesn’t seem like it’s a terribly strong excuse. Can’t armor rating be tied to profession, as in a medium armor profession will always have armor stats equivalent to medium armor regardless of whichever armor skin he or she is wearing?

The only other issue that I could think of would be WvW-related. As of now, when selecting targets in WvW, players cannot instantly determine which profession their enemy is. Armor can help narrow down the possibilities, but it’s still not entirely certain. Cross-armor-class transmutation would completely throw this out the window. However, aside from the fact that any opening salvos or set-up would instantly reveal an opponent’s identity, we already have the feature in PvE where selecting a player will display that player’s profession icon next to their name. Just add that to WvW. Problem solved.

More importantly: ANet. You know that you would make a killing by releasing something like Cross-Armor-Class Transmutation Stones into the Trading Post. 5 for 500 gems. A KILLING. You can’t resist that.

JustCurious.3457:

I like this. Especially the swapping of emblems rather than having them destroy each other . Only bad side is there may be slightly less of a currency sink.

That’s… exactly the point…
Designers shouldn’t drag out their game’s content by packing it with time-locked content and currency-sinks. ANet is bogging down their own game by tying stats to gear and making Ascended items so time-consuming to acquire.

Also, I still don’t understand why Ascended items aren’t more flexible with their stat customization. I mean, really. If the reason is because somebody was worried that such a thing would break the game somehow, Ascended just shouldn’t have been added in.

On “GW2 MMO Manifesto” principle, the Ascended armor tier shouldn’t have been added in the first place, but that’s an entirely different topic.

PROPOSAL:

• All players can now rotate their characters (change the direction in which they are facing) while immobilized or stunned.
• Now whenever a player is immobilized or stunned, that player receives a “Flatfooted” de-buff. While a player is Flatfooted, all incoming attacks that he or she receives from enemies are counted as “flanking” attacks regardless from which direction that those attacks come.
  • Flatfooted has a fixed duration of 1 second. It is not affected by Expertise or any other Condition Duration extenders. It does not stack intensity or duration. For instance, if Player A were to immobilized an enemy, then Player B instantly immobilized the same enemy at roughly the same time, Player B’s application of Flatfooted would overwrite Player A’s application.
• Basilisk Venom still locks a player in place and prevents any re-orientation.

REASONING:
There are quite a few stun-breaking, retreat-based movement skills in this game that are effectively kitten by this single aspect of stuns and immobilizes. While it is true that in most competitive PvP situations, you probably won’t see these skills ever used because turning your back on your enemy is typically asking for death (and they’re sort of underwhelming anyway), in PvE overworld and even in WvW these skills have a lot of potential to shine. The only problem is when you’re caught by something while running in one direction. If you’re running, you’re probably trying to get somewhere that you’re facing, right? Makes sense. So then why, if I’m immobilized or stunned by a pursuing enemy, can I not do an about-face and use a retreating stun-breaker to recover, put distance between us and re-set the fight?

I play a lot of Engineer so maybe I’m biased, but I like to use Rocket Boots (mostly for the tool-belt skill since using the actual Utility—even properly—while in tense situations can easily result in my own death). Rocket Boots is amazing because it breaks stun and immobilize while also moving you backwards a substantial distance. The only problem is, I almost never want to use it when it’s meant to be used the most (when I’m immobilized or stunned).

Giving players the option to re-orient themselves while immobilized or stunned would breathe new life into several underused, movement-based stun-breakers as well as add a new dimension to combat in this game. The addition of the Flatfooted de-buff would curb issues regarding players trying to cheat Thieves or Rangers out of free flanking hits—and even then—how many of those actually exist? Flanking is not an enormous component of this game. Flatfooted would address the issue of players rotating in stunned/immobilized states just fine with regards to skills or traits that operate on Flanking strikes and even give new ways and reasons to use those skills in their current states.

It’s probably due to its 1,200 range. That’s an enormous pull distance and the effect of falling over and being dragged that far in under a second can be very disorientating. It’s probably kept at 1 1/4 second cast-time because when used in chaotic battles, it’s extremely effective. It has no projectile, it has no audible cues and its only visual cue is honestly pretty subtle—especially when a lot is happening around you. Engineers with Magnet Pull are also capable of dragging enemies off of high ground areas like walls.

It’s really, really good. If the Engineer could simply press 5 and drag someone 1,200 range straight up to his feet, I feel that that would most certainly be broken. I do admit that that 1 1/4 second wait is a little brutal sometimes, but it’s probably for the best so that it doesn’t become completely overpowered.

And besides, if Magnet Pull baits a dodge out of your opponent, that’s one less dodge that you have to worry about. A player only gets 2, and if your opponent isn’t stacking vigor, losing that single dodge can be pretty huge in combat.

EXOTIC ARMOR AND ASCENDED ACCESSORY UPDATE
All exotic armors and weapons now have an Emblem Slot and Ascended items now have an Upgrade Slot.

• Emblem Slot: This slot pertains to the stat-triads tied to an Exotic piece of armor or a weapon. Instead of stats being innately tied to Exotic armor and weapons, this gear tier will now have stat upgrades called Emblems that a player can slot into individual weapons or pieces of armor as they would runes or jewel upgrades. Nothing about Exotic armor/weapons will change except that players can now slot in different stat-triad Emblems into existing pieces of exotic gear. Emblems are classified by name in the same manner as regular stat triads (Beserker, Rabid, Cleric, ect).
• Ascended item Upgrade Slot: As one would imagine, this is a pretty straightforward change. Ascended items now lose their originally fixed “upgrade stats” (that is to say, the bottom half of their current stats that carry lower stat bonuses) and now new Mystic Essences are available for purchase at Ascended item vendors as upgrade slot components for Ascended accessories. Mystic Essences are classified by name in the same manner as regular stat triads (Beserker, Rabid, Cleric, ect). The name “Divine” will refer to the Mystic Essence upgrade that provides a boost to all stats (as does the Eye of Janthir or the Eyes of Abbadon).

IMPLEMENTING EXOTIC STAT EMBLEMS AND ASCENDED MYSTIC ESSENCES
Exotic Emblems

• All Exotic armor and weapon costs (tokens or karma) is reduced by 33%. All vendors selling Exotic armor or weapons of a particular stat triad will now also provide corresponding Exotic Emblems. For instance, let’s imagine that someone unlocks Lightbringer Brutefur in the Cathedral of Eternal Radiance in order to purchase the Karma Armor that he sells. Under the guidelines of this change, all of the gear sold by Lightbringer Brutefur would see an across-the-board price reduction by 33% and all of that armor would come with an empty Emblem Slot (that is to say, without stat bonuses). Brutefur would then also sell Exotic Knights, Clerics and Rabid Emblems (stats that his armor already provided) that would make up that 33% reduction in price.
• To this effect, his armor pieces would each cost 29,400 Karma while his Exotic Emblems would each cost 12,600 Karma. The total would still equal the original 42,000 Karma at which he currently sells his armor, but the level of customization provided to the player immediately spikes with the Exotic Emblem option.
• This same principle could easily be applied to all Exotic armor merchants—both Karma and Token-based.

Ascended Mystic Essences

• The principle surrounding the implementation of Ascended Mystic Essences is very similar to that of Exotic Emblems. All Ascended accessories merchants would now simply have additional items in their inventory that reflect the options that Ascended items provide regarding stat boosts. The only tricky part about this is that a simple across-the-board price reduction wouldn’t fit this change. Thus, depending on the vendor and accessory, a smorgasbord of unique prices would have to be developed in order to keep prices for various Ascended gear pieces in line with one another.

ASCENDED MYSTIC ESSENCE PRICES

• Ascended Mystic Essences sold at Guild Commendation Traders set at 1 guild commendation.
• Ascended Mystic Essences sold at Laurel Merchants set at 5 laurels.
• Ascended Mystic Essences sold by BUY-4373 set at 2 pristine fractal relics.

Behavior of Mystic Essences and Exotic Emblems

• Many people are asking for armor lockers for their several sets of gear that they often lug around on their main characters. In the interests of the streamlined gearing philosophy that shone in GW1, I propose that Exotic Emblems and Ascended Mystic Essences be items that simply swap places with one another when replacing other Emblems and Mystic Essences in occupied slots. To this effect, unlike runes or other upgrade components, Emblems and Mystic Essences would not destroy each other when slotted. Therefore, instead of a player carrying around loads of armor, the same player could simply tote about a collection of Emblems and Mystic Essences that he or she can slot in outside of combat should he or she desire.

And there you have it. Gearing at high levels shouldn’t be as stressful as it is now. With so many time-locked currencies, it’s incredibly frustrating to gear more than one character to full with Exotic and Ascended armor, and even MORE tedious to change armor stats around since one has to grind for more specific stat-based armors in addition to the armors that one has already bought.. Items like Exotic Emblems and Ascended Mystic Essences would simply streamline the process of gearing out a character and make the entire experience much more enjoyable for players looking to deck out several characters in high-level armor and weapons.

Because writing it all down would have been a hassle, here’s my verbal defense for these proposals: http://www.mediafire.com/?kzue0awfqk1r5i4

ASCENDED EARRINGS

• Laurel Merchant price reduced from 40 laurels and 50 ectoplasm to 15 laurels and 10 ectoplasm.
• Guild Commendation Trader price reduced from 5g and 12 guild commendations to 5g and 3 guild commendations.

ASCENDED RINGS

• Laurel Merchant price reduced from 35 laurels to 10 laurels.
• BUY-4373 price reduced from 10 pristine fractal relics to 3 pristine fractal relics.

ASCENDED AMULETS

• Laurel Merchant price reduced from 30 laurels to 15 laurels.

Everyone should know by now that ANet is pretty bad at doing something in a serious tone. They only truly shine when they let loose and get goofy.

Kids don’t know ’bout my Static Discharge.

Zinwrath.2049:

Then you could come up with a 5th ability that doesnt suck.
Perhaps a gap closer of some kind, maybe a charge that does a combo finisher leap? leaves a fire trail behind you like elementalist flamesword? “shrug”

I actually quite like that idea. I mean, I still like FT as it is for the most part, but having a gap-closer/fast-movement skill like that would be pretty nice. Maybe something like Burning Speed (Ele fire dagger mainhand 3).

Ayestes.1273:

I mean on everything really.

Hohoho, you asked for this. Direct yourself to my fourth post. Be forewarned, it’s a doozy. I decided to just talk about it because there was so much on my mind about the topic—talk for… something like 26 minutes. But, hey, at least I got out what I wanted to say for the most part. I think it’s pretty comprehensive regarding most of my first post, but I’ll wait for your specific response on the matter whenever you get around to it.

Aveneo.2068:

My suggestions all revolve around the FT, as that’s the only weapon I’m really using with my engineer

• FT#1: Increase range to 600 and also have it also apply 1s Burning on the first hit.
• FT#2: Make this a Blast Finisher.
• FT#3: Reduce Knockback distance from 400 to 300.
• FT#4: Change from line to a circle or area-effect 240 radius around the Engineer.
• FT#5: Make this a Combo Field: Smoke 3s or change it back to Backdraft.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Backdraft

Incendiary Ammo could also do with a little reduction on its currently ridiculous cooldown; perhaps reducing it to 45s? 45s still seems rather long for such a toolbelt skill, but the current 60s is just way too long in my opinion.

Also, I wouldn’t mind Juggernaut going back to giving Stability at the cost of reduced movement speed (the old Juggernaut). That way FT would fill the role of short-range point/bottleneck defender

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/index.php?title=Juggernaut&oldid=209198

Actually, I briefly had a discussion with a guild mate earlier on FT1. Most people think it’s broken. I don’t believe it’s necessarily broken as a skill, rather that the fact that it attempts to automatically follow a target is its flaw. An Elementalist’s Drake’s Breath and Cone of Cold don’t miss 80% of the time. However, those skills don’t follow targets, they simply exit in a cone shape out of the player’s front. I honestly believe that if FT1 were changed to function in the same way that it would be perfectly fixed. It needs to not de-target, but at the same time not attempt to automatically follow a selected target just as those Elementalist cone skills do.

With regards to FT2 being a blast finisher—I don’t know about you, but when I use kits, I use cool-down reduction traits. Having an on-command Blast Finisher every 4 seconds with a 600 range seems a little overpowered to me.

Ayestes.1273:

There are some great suggestions, but I’d really like to see detailed discussion on why each of these changes are suggested specifically. Otherwise it’s just a wish list. Not that I’m saying that’s the intent, but it’s what it will look like to a dev. A dev can’t get any real information out of it other then wishes otherwise.

Edit: I should note, that I do not mean to say there isn’t some explanation in here already. I think what is explained in here is wonderful, and I want it to apply to all of it.

Ah, where would I start? Honestly, the goal of these suggestions is just streamlining. The first post is mainly the one that requires the most explanation. I’ll try using my extra slot for explanations. The main goal is to make the Engineer into a capable mid-ranged fighter as it seemed to be originally designed. As the profession stands now, it’s very close and just needs a few more pushes to get it to where it can really shine. I’ll address my reasoning behind these suggestions more specifically soon.

TURRET AND OVERCHARGE SKILL SUGGESTIONS
Rifle Turret

• Duration added: 180 seconds.
• Picking up this turret reduces its recharge to 5 seconds.

Automatic Fire (Rifle Turret overcharge)

• Rate of Fire increase increased from 50% to 100% (Overcharged attack rate increased from once every 1 second to once every ½ second).
• Overcharged duration reduced from 10 seconds to 4 seconds.
• Recharge reduced from 30 to 20 seconds.

Rocket Turret

• Duration added: 25 seconds.
• Damage reduced from 794 to 618.
• Burning inflicted reduced from 3 to 2 seconds.
• Recharge reduced from 50 to 40 seconds.
• Picking up this turret reduces its recharge to 15 seconds.

Explosive Rockets (Rocket Turret overcharge)

• Overcharge duration reduced from 7 to 4 seconds.

Net Turret

• Duration added: 25 seconds.
• Rate of fire increased from once every 10 seconds to once every 8 seconds.
• Immobilize duration reduced from 3 to 2 seconds.
• Picking up this turret reduces its recharge to 15 seconds.

Electrified Net (Net Turret overcharge)

• Overcharged Rate of Fire increase removed (now only fires 1 Electrified Net).
• Overcharged duration reduced from 10 seconds to 4 seconds.

Thumper Turret

• Duration added: 25 seconds.
• Recharge reduced from 50 to 40 seconds.
• Picking up this turret reduces its recharge to 10 seconds.

Flame Turret

• Duration added: 180 seconds.
• Recharge reduced from 25 to 20 seconds.
• Picking up this turret reduces its recharge to 5 seconds.

TURRET OVERCHARGE ACTIVATION

• Utility skill turret overcharges can now be activated outside of combat (no longer require a target).

TURRET DURATIONS

• Turrets now each have individual durations. These durations dictate a respective turret’s maximum lifespan once placed on the battlefield. After a turret’s duration is up, it explodes automatically.
• The Engineer will have certain skills that reset a turret’s respective duration when they “strike” a turret. These skills include:
  • [Tool Kit]’s auto-attack skill: [Smack]
  • Rifle’s [Jump Shot]
  • Off-hand shield’s [Magnetic Inversion] and [Throw Shield] skills
  • Off-hand pistol’s [Glue Shot]
  • [Healing Turret]’s overcharge skill: [Cleansing Burst]
  • [Elixir B]’s tool-belt skill: [Toss Elixir B]

PICKING UP A TURRET

• Manually picking up a turret now greatly reduces that turret’s recharge. The recharge reduction varies by turret.

TURRET OVERCHARGES (OPTION 1)

• A utility skill turret’s overcharge now interrupts its respective turret’s current skill queue upon activation (it triggers immediately the second that you press the button).
• All utility skill turret overcharges now begin with a 1-second long mini-version (180 radius) of the Elementalist’s [Churning Earth] animation (only the rumbling earth animation; sans the explosion at the end) that occurs at the turret’s immediate location. Either this animation would be its own skill (an overcharge would queue two skills: the harmless charge-up animation, then followed by the actual overcharge skill), or all utility skill turret overcharges would have to be reworked to simply begin with the charge-up animation. During this charge-up animation, the turret is invulnerable to damage.

TURRET OVERCHARGES (OPTION 2)

• Utility skill turrets are now triple skill chains. Skill 1: [place the turret]; Skill 2: [Engage Overcharge]; Skill 3: [Overcharge].
• [Engage Overcharge] would function akin to the Ranger profession skill [Return to Me]. It breaks a turret’s target and performs the harmless charge-up animation. It also displays the same mini [Churning Earth] animation as described above. After using [Engage Overcharge], the turret remains inactive until the Engineer activates the [Overcharge]. In this case, the [Overcharge] is then directed at the Engineer’s current target if applicable (if no target is selected, the turret attacks the nearest target; if the attack doesn’t require a target, it simply activates as it normally would).
• A turret’s respective [Engage Overcharge] would inherit the recharge of that turret’s [Overcharge] skill.
• After using [Engage Overcharge], an Engineer has 5 seconds to use a turret’s [Overcharge] ability before it flips back to [Engage Overcharge] ([Engage Overcharge] begins recharging immediately after its use).
• Activating [Engage Overcharge] grants a turret 1 second of invulnerability.

HEALING TURRET
would remain unaffected by the changes listed above (it’s fine the way it is now).

BOMB KIT- MonMalthias.4763 and Wolf.5816
Bomb

• Engineers now lob this bomb directly in front of them (about 100 range distance; dagger melee-range). The explosion, damage and delayed fuse still function the same as they do now.

BOMB KIT SKILLS 2-5

• Functionality of [Bomb Kit] skills 2-5 has been changed to resemble the functionality of a “charge-up” environmental or siege weapon such as a trebuchet (i.e. http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Charge_skill); [Bomb Kit] skills 2-5 are now thrown projectiles.
• Now, when using the 2-5 skills from the [Bomb Kit], Engineers have the ability to throw those bombs in a straight line towards a target (the direction of a thrown bomb will be determined by the direction in which the Engineer is facing). By simply tapping a thrown bomb skill and releasing straight away, an Engineer will throw that bomb in a similar manner to the [Bomb Kit] 1 skill: [Bomb] (a distance of about 100 range directly in front of the Engineer; full animation with no power takes about half a second). The maximum channel time is 2 seconds. Charging a bomb throw for that long will allow the Engineer to lob the bomb a distance of 600 range on flat ground.
• A thrown bomb projectile will behave like a linear projectile as in the case of the Warrior skill [Bladetrail].
• [Bomb Kit] skills retain the same timer with regards to when they explode. This timer starts right as an applicable [Bomb Kit] skill is released/thrown. To this effect, a bomb may go off mid-air if thrown far enough. It’s detonation effect is applied to the ground directly beneath it in this case.

ALL ELIXIR TOOL-BELT SKILLS

• Refer to Attachment.
• I use Elixir U (pardon the MS Paint reproduction) as an example for the visual application of this idea. What I mean to say is that all tool-belt Elixirs as of now give the Engineer an RNG chance for some boon or effect. RNG IS BAD. Good skills in GW2 are good because when people use them, they expect a specific effect, and then receive THAT SPECIFIC EFFECT. [Shocking Aura] wouldn’t be NEARLY as good as it is now if it had a chance to stun, cripple, bleed or knock-back enemies with effects decided by a random number generator. It’s good because you KNOW WHAT IT DOES. It stuns people 100% OF THE TIME.
• Tool-belt Elixirs should have predictable effects in order that they can have a constant and reliable impact on the flow of a battle. I propose that ANet split all of the possible effects of Thrown Elixirs up into unique iterations of the same skill that can be selected in the Tool-belt Skill slot.

“TOSS ELIXIR” SKILLS UNDERWATER – InfamousBrad.5879
All “Toss Elixir” skills underwater are much less effective than their land-based versions. The reason for this is that it is much more difficult to orient a thrown elixir’s direction, and even more difficult to time a thrown elixir’s placement so as to have a meaningful impact on a battle. The suggested solution for this was to make all of the underwater versions of “Toss Elixir” skills immediately trigger their effects in an AoE around the Engineer.

Making the Engineer the focal point of “Toss Elixir” skills would make aiming such skills much more intuitive since it is easier to move the player’s body around than it is to track a target with the current mechanic. Furthermore, it makes underwater “Toss Elixir” skills much more responsive since their effects would be triggered instantly as opposed to having a down-time between throwing the Elixir vial and then detonating it.

ELITE SKILLS
Mortar

• Base range increased to 2,000.
• Range when traited increased to 2,400.

Launch Elixir

• Recharge reduced from 15 to 12 seconds.

Launch Ice Mortar

• Recharge reduced from 20 to 15 seconds.
• Ice field duration reduced from 10 to 7 seconds.
• The mortar projectile’s initial hit now stuns enemies for ½ second.

Launch Concussion Barrage

• Recharge reduced from 30 to 25 seconds.

RIFLE
Blunderbuss

• Range for maximum damage and Bleed stacks increased from 100 to 180.
• Maximum Bleed stacks increased from 4 to 6.

ELIXIR GUN
Elixir F

• Cast-time reduced from ¾ to ½ second.
• Projectile speed increased by 30%.
  • Bring it in line with the firing speed and low after-cast time of Flamethrower’s [Flame Blast]. [Elixir F] could easily be a great rotational burst skill, but its current cast time undermines this prospect coupled with how slowly it moves (it rarely hits anyway if you’re firing it at a moving target from a distance of over 450 range). Simply using this skill often kills whatever momentum the player is generating with a skill chain or rotation. Truth be told, it’s underwater version could be a great model for how it should be above ground. Keeping the current cast-time would even be fine so long as the projectile was more reliable.

Fumigate

• Now behaves as does Cone of Cold or Drake’s Breath. Does not attempt to follow a target when a target is selected. Engineer must actively track a target within the cone in order to inflict damage.
• Recharge increased from 12 to 15 seconds.
• Poison duration per damage tick increased from 1 to 2 seconds.
• Now removes up to one condition from the Engineer upon use.

Acid Bomb

• Now grants a ¾ second of evasion upon use.

FLAMETHROWER
Flame Jet

• Now behaves as does Cone of Cold or Drake’s Breath. Does not attempt to follow a target when a target is selected. Engineer must actively track a target within the cone in order to inflict damage.
• Channel time reduced from 2¼ to 1¾ seconds.
• Total base damage reduced from 490 to 445.

Air Blast

• Now also counts as a Blast Finisher.

Napalm

• Recharge reduced from 30 to 20 seconds.
• Napalm wall duration reduced from 10 to 7 seconds.

Smoke Vent

• Recharge increased from 20 to 25 seconds.
• Now produces a pulsing Smoke Field (180 range) that blinds foes at Engineer’s location. The Smoke Field lasts for 2 seconds.

TOOL-BELT SKILLS
Rocket Kick

• Range increased from 300 to 450.

Smoldering Round (New Flamethrower tool-belt skill; Incendiary Ammo removed)

• Cast-time: 0
• Recharge: 20 seconds
• Fire a surprise round from your belt that burns your target.
• Damage: 70
• Burning: 2 seconds
• Combo Finisher: Physical Projectile
• Range: 1,000

Regenerating Mist

• Now also removes 1 condition from allies in its radius.

Shameless bump. This thread is really old and I was wondering what people would think of it now.

Rifle/EG/FT was always great fun for me in PvE because I could often solo huge packs of enemies with my mobility, control and damage mitigation. Recently I’ve opted to take just the Tool Kit and two utilities (typically Slick Shoes and Rocket Boots but lately I’ve been using a Static Discharge build that uses Rifle Turret) so it’s gotten a lot less flashy, but I will never forget the fun I had hopping all over the place.

It’s a shame that the Engineer’s design sort of punishes people for taking multiple kits in the first place what with them gimping our utility slots.

I was planning on making an Engineer-esque character for an uncoming DnD campaign. So far, the DM and I have gone the route of Weaponsmaster Rogue with a lot of points into crafting skills. The guy makes a bunch of silly weapons that technically anybody can use, but he just uses them the best/in unique ways.

So, yeah: Weaponsmaster Rogue with investments into Weapon Crafting disciplines.

Sororita.3465:

Rocket boots should be ground targetable like the rifle jump shot( without the hovering), id really like a way to chase down running targets, i think were one of the only classes that doesnt have a good blink ability.

I was wondering about that possibility as well. I can’t really give you a direct answer about why I’m mostly against turning Rocket Boots into a targetable leap, but I feel that it works well the way it is now. The fact that it removes all slowing Conditions, breaks stun, counts as a blast finisher and has a 30 second recharge (24 seconds with Speedy Gadgets) already makes it really good. Simply removing that self-CC at the end would skyrocket this skill into relevancy. It’s already pretty close, in all honesty.

It actually just occurred to me that sometimes the distance that Rocket Boots covers when activated can vary wildly while in combat (sometimes I will go about 900 range while other times it seems more like 300). A ground-targeted version would fix this immediately and also give the Engineer more control over where exactly the skill places the player.

However, once again, something just stops me. I feel like Rocket Boots is really in a nice place where it is. Maybe it’s the flavor, maybe it’s the way you really have to play around its effect and work with the skill to get your body moving across the field in the way you want, but Rocket Boots being a backward retreat fits the Engineer well.

Then again, chasing people with Rocket Boots sounds awfully fun. Ah, I’m conflicted again.

Zinwrath.2049:

So saying mine should do MORE comes off silly to me, tweaking what it is already doing or adding new gadget traits to aid it sure. But right now it makes battering ram look like a pos. His change would give it more utility at boon shred which is unique to this ability, as we dont have access to boon shreds outside of it. (btw, i occasionally use it as it will get rid of stability on elite users and interrupt players channeling a block)

That’s actually an interesting point, but it still sort of feels weird to make traits for Gadgets and then leave out Throw Mine because it falls into the middle of the trait Venn Diagram. Uhhh, I don’t know here. You are right about Battering Ram, though. After some review, it did sort of get shafted compared to my suggestions. I should address that.

As for the traits themselves, I felt that if Elixirs have already gone down the passive, homogenized buff road with their trait base, then Gadgets could go the individualized, active skill route. The best way I thought of doing that was by implement traits that tack on big effects or entire skills that trigger with Gadget skill use.

So what about Throw Mine? I’m a little lost on this one. I still don’t see the harm in keeping those trait suggestions. Is it more just that it outclasses Battering Ram? I suppose that that could be fixed with some function tweaking and buffs.

The burning one is really good. If you can crit reliably, it’s a nice way to supplement your damage. Since it has such a short duration matched with a short cool-down, you can renewing it constantly and it’s almost like gaining an extra auto-attack.

Bleeding is alright—like burning but just worse off since it does less damage but has the same chance to proc (3% is somewhat negligible).

Vulnerability was already covered by Kardiamond. The only way you’d really get the most out of it would be to use it in tandem with Poison Dart Volley and a high crit chance build, but even then you can only get a maximum of 5 stacks out of it which would vanish within your next two attacks or so—not really worth it.

Blindness. Eh. I suppose it’s alright for openers if you have the range. It’s honestly not terrible since it could ruin an opponent’s opening strike or even proc randomly in mid-combat and flub up someone’s combo or sustained assault. I personally just don’t think it’s worth it given the lack-luster effect of Blind and its cool-down.

The swiftness one is pretty alright. With even a modest crit chance, you end up getting infinite swiftness in combat. I slotted the trait once and after extended combat, I would always have roughly 20-30 seconds of swiftness still on me. It’s a viable replacement for Speedy Kits if you want to proc Invigorating Speed, the only trade-off (and it’s a big one) is that you don’t have a renewable source of swiftness outside of combat.

• Note: When I traited for swiftness on crit, I also had Speedy Kits traited. Using them both gets you swiftness for days but it’s probably best to trait just one in order to preserve your slots for diversity’s sake.

Suggestions and comments are welcome. The idea behind my post was to bring Gadgets into their own as an Engineer utility sub-type. Elixirs-only builds work for Engineers despite being single skills (as opposed to the extra skills and utility that kits grant) because of a good Trait foundation. With the proper trait adjustments, Gadgets could open up doors to new playstyles and increase an Engineer’s contribution in active combat. Instead of focusing on “buffs-on-use” abilities as are Elixir traits, I figured it would be more interesting to suggest an “additional-skills-on-use” approach for Gadget traits in order to preserve their identity and, again, push for new playstyles.

There exists the distinct possibility that some aspects of this list are overpowered—I tried to make the suggestions balanced—so if you want to call me out on something that you see, please do.

GADGET UTILITY SKILLS

Rocket Shoes

• Activation no longer interrupts the player. Player simply jumps backwards 900 range. Animation and effect identical to Acid Bomb’s retreating leap.

Slick Shoes

• Now breaks Stun.

Throw Mine

• Recharge increased from 18 to 25 seconds.
• Now removes up to 3 boons.

Personal Battering Ram

• Recharge reduced from 45 to 35 seconds.

GADGET TOOL-BELT SKILLS

Rocket Kick (Rocket Shoes tool-belt skill)

• Range increased from 300 to 600.

Super Speed (Slick Shoes tool-belt skill)

• Recharge reduced to from 45 to 40 seconds.
• Now removes Crippled, Chilled and Immobilized.

Launch Personal Battering Ram

• If you strike a foe that is disabled, you do double damage.

TRAIT REMODELING

Explosives —> Inventions: [Exploit Weaknesses]

• [Exploit Weaknesses] function change. [Exploit Weaknesses] is now an Adept Trait in the Inventions trait line. To compensate, [Enhance Performance] is now an Adept Trait in the Explosives trait line.
  • Upon activation, all Gadgets convert a Condition into a Boon for each Gadget you have equipped (maximum 2 Conditions).
    • The Condition-to-Boon effect uses the same conversion table as [Contemplation of Purity].

Inventions —> Explosives: [Gadget Blowout Overdrive]

• [Power Shoes] replaced by [Gadget Blowout Overdrive] (new trait). [Gadget Blowout Overdrive] is now a Major Master Trait in the Explosives trait line.
  • Personal Battering Ram now removes Stability. When the mine from Throw Mine detonates, all nearby allies now cure up to 2 Conditions (Radius: 240). Rocket Boots now deal +10% more damage and burn foes (Burning: 3 seconds). Slick Shoes now produces a Glue Puddle at your location upon activation. Utility Goggles gains a powerful headlamp (chains into a new skill).

• Deer in the Headlights (new Utility Goggles skill)
  • Activate your goggle’s powerful headlamp, dazing and blinding foes in a line.
    • Range: 900
    • Daze: 2 seconds
    • Blind: 6 seconds

Firearms: [Mach Drive]

• [Knee Shot] replaced by [Mach Drive] (new trait) and swapped with [Napalm Specialist]. [Napalm Specialist] is now an Adept Trait (tier 1) and [Mach Drive] is a Master Trait (tier 2). Both respectively remain within the Firearms trait line.
  • Rocket Boots now grant evasion for 2 seconds (all incoming attacks miss). Slick Shoes now grant Swiftness and Retaliation (Swiftness: 15 seconds; Retaliation: 7 seconds). Throw Mine and Personal Battering Ram can now be activated while stunned (they still do not break stun). After using Utility Goggles, your next attack now immobilizes your enemy for 3 seconds.

OK, so I just watched the Engineer section of March’s State of the Game and I felt a little ill afterwards. Bump.

Tool Kit’s block increases survivability.

Speedy Kits (Tools 10) + Invigorating Speed (Alchemy 10) is almost a must for infinite dodges and swiftness.

I find Slick Shoes are crazy good for survivability. You can stun whole mobs with it to buy yourself time or just to stun lock them for free damage. Furthermore, it’s Tool-belt skill [Super Speed] is incredible during combat since it brings you up to about +33% out-of-combat speed regardless of Cripple or Chill conditions.

Elixir Gun/Flamethrower is actually really great too. The instant-cast Blind on FT can save you from big hits—especially while knocked down or stunned—while FT3 can buy you some time. Acid Bomb is amazing for damage and keeping out of reach of enemies. Also EG2 is incredible since it bounces and can slow up to 5 targets (those two seconds of cripple can be crucial and it does pretty solid damage to boot).

Rocket Boots are also pretty good. I like using the Healing Turret so I can chain the Blast Finisher with the brief Water Combo Field that the turret and its Tool-belt skill create for a little extra burst healing for combat sustainability. Healing Turret is also a pretty safe bet since it can combo with itself for burst healing on top of its initial heal whenever you cast it, then self-destruct it when the Water Combo Field pops up.

Rifle is also good survivability due to its snare, jump (again, more movement away from certain targets and into others) and Overcharged Shot (It’s amazing even without stun-break).

The point is, in the end, survivability on an Engineer really comes down to how well you can juggle targets and timing the uses of big defensive skills like Tool Kit 4 or a Utility Stun-break. Cool-down reduction traits, I’ve seen, also really contribute to survival. The more times you can use your evasive main-hand and kit skills per minute will only lead to a more slippery Engineer.

Kardiamond.6952:

Slick Shoes.

Those shoes are nasty in duel or WvW roaming.

5 second of perma stun?

Stun a whole team?

Free escape toolbelt?

Love it.

One of the best roaming utility.

Somebody got to it before I did. This guy knows what’s up.

TURRET “PICK-UP” FUNCTION
See Attachment 1 (maybe I should lay off the MS Paint icons).
Instead of simply picking up Turrets with F (returning them to your skill bar in a manner of speaking), picking up a Turret now grants new Weapon Skills.

TURRET OVERCHARGES
Overcharge skills now activate instantly. Turrets that fire projectiles will immediately fire their Overcharge skills at the player’s current target. Turrets will interrupt their current action in order to perform an Overcharge skill if commanded to do so.

Smoke Screen (Flame Turret overcharge)

• Generates the Smoke Field and initial Blind effect at the player’s location.

Cleansing Burst (Healing Turret overcharge)

• Applies its effects at the player’s location.

TURRET RECHARGES
Flame Turret

• Recharge reduced from 40 to 30 seconds.

Rocket Turret

• Recharge reduced from 60 to 45 seconds.

Thumper Turret

• Recharge reduced from 50 to 35 seconds.

Net Turret

• Recharge reduced from 30 to 25 seconds.

SECOND ATTACHMENT
I think having the option of equipping a Turret skill without it taking up your Utility Bar would really help push them into mainstream use.

Zinwrath.2049:

(to start my opinions are from a SPVP perspective)

Also, what you changed the flameturret toolbelt skill to sounds too OP, have you looked at the other turret toolbelt skills?

Also FT’s flame jet is good for proccing things, but it also gets wrecked by retaliation. Any profession you fight who wants to be in mellee range with you hits MUCH harder and FT doesnt offer quite as much utility as it does damage so its only appropriate for it do that well, even a 25% increase to damage would not put you on par with another professions mellee weapon up in your face.

Slick shoes might be able to pull off stunbreaker, like i said. Just not an AE knockdown. It already is a counter to warriors/theifs who jump up behind you. Just click and walk away slowly while they are knocked down often for 4 seconds while you prepare more CC. (keep in mind they had to nerf this ability several times since launch…buffing it has to be careful cause it wouldnt take much to push it back over the edge)

Also, Rocketboots thats why i said a knockback not a knockdown. Your overcharge on your rifle is a knockback for you but a knockdown for your opponent thats why you hop up first. Not to say this ability doesnt have more going on for it that you mentioned, its toolbelt is incredibly powerful and the ability itself isnt just a stunbreaker/blast finisher/teleport it also clears you of chill/immob/cripple.
But maybe it could have the self CC changed from knockdown to knockback…it would definitly make it very attractive even outside of condition builds.

Also utility goggles i think your asking for way too much.
1. Stability doesnt fit the goggles thematicly.
2. There is no reveal stealth in the game, and i beleive the game is balanced around not requiring such a thing and coupled with stability this would definitly push this ability FAR into the must have zone.

Your original stuff mostly seemed appropriate, but now your just sounding greedy.

Keep in mind with the exception of mine, gadgets dont have but one trait that effect them individually. Imagine if gadgets and potions swapped traits for example…. One utility group is being HIGHLY ignored by traits. So instead of going overboard with buffs to gadgets themselves, perhaps suggest some traits to be put in.

I LOVE it.

Thanks for keeping me in line. I was thinking to myself off and on lately with regards to this post about whether or not I was getting greedy with buffs and in which areas. You really did call me out on that and I appreciate it since I want to keep these suggestions and ideas as principled and viable as possible.

Now that the knockback/knockdown thing was cleared up for me, I see where you’re going with it, but I still wish that it was just a straight leap backwards (mostly because then I could use it to do goofy terrain maneuvers across gaps and whatnot). However, I would even take a knockback since, you’re right, it is far better than the 2-second KD that we have in place now.

The retaliation aspect of FT1 was a good point and I didn’t really think of that. I also feel a little out-of-touch with FT1 in general since—and I guess it’s because of points you’ve already raised—I don’t use it all that much. I would run FT and EG with the Rifle with the two related cool-down traits so I could just cycle through the most powerful/interesting abilities at will. You’re right in how I never really used FT1 because it just doesn’t really match up to other attacks.

As for the traits, I had mentioned either here or elsewhere before that that really was the case for Gadgets: they have no real trait base, meanwhile Elixirs (also single-skill abilities) have such a strong trait-base that an all-Elixir Engineer can actually be a viable combat set-up. My next project for Engineer suggestions was going to be some sort of trait shenanigans, but I wanted to better refine some of my current Gadget suggestions in order to see what others felt about them before moving on to traits that would in effect buff them further.

Thanks again for your input.

Aristio.2784:

Swagg.9236:

Aristio.2784:

fishybill.6908:

Aristio.2784:

15% damage buff across all skills.
Pistol getting 6 second bleed as a base auto-attack. Explosion bleeds for 4 seconds.

lol do you want us to be super heroes?

Yes.

The same way Elementalist, Mesmers, Thieves, Warriors, and Guardians do.

P.S. Sounds like you enjoy being the “underdog.” I enjoy being on par with other professions.

You don’t know how to play Engineer.

You make me laugh.

Alright, so you’ve apparently played Engineer for quiet a while, but that doesn’t change how plain and honestly limiting a “15% damage buff across all skills” suggestion is. Do you even know what you’re asking for? Do you know what you’re NOT asking for?

I mean, sure, you want a buff to damage, but seriously that’s it?? You can’t ask for more damage and then all the interesting tweaks and proper fixes that would make the unwieldy or lack-luster skills usable and interesting. That’d probably just end up being broken.

Engineer is a mid-range class with crazy capabilities that no other class really has—especially when it comes to the Rifle. Engie can be fixed to be a viable mid-ranged class, but it’s a road far more interesting than just buffing damage across the board. The Engineer doesn’t need damage buffs, it needs streamlining.

Jump Shot is scary. Honestly, it’s really depressing when I go for desperation leaps as finishing blows and then I’m killed during the landing animation before I can inflict any damage—I mean, during that [DIP-BLOOP-DOOP] whatever animation it is where you hang like a cradled baby in the blasted air for about half of a second before actually landing and inflicting damage.

I actually take that trait regularly too because it allows me to Overcharge Shot and then jump directly from where I land right on top of my enemy that I just knocked down.

Anet really needs to smooth out the final animations for that skill altogether and should just double the overall animation speed of Jump Shot when traited for longer range. Traits are buffs, not things that undermine your ability to do damage.