Guild Wars 2

I’m in! Raine Avina.

Only an engineer places a bomb at their feet…and doesn’t run away.

Shoyoko.7309:

@ The Gates Assassin, the elixir gun kit refinement is just aoe condition removal, it doesn’t do regen no?

It does regen. It’s basically an exact copy of Super Elixir.

I don’t get why people think grenades are bad. I kitten damage, switch to my pistols, then switch back. The point is, just don’t stay on the kit if you can do something else too!

That build is great. Build it around condition damage and constantly switch between your kits. I’d take P/P or P/S instead. Works better with the condition damage. You can take out svanir and the chieftan pretty easy this way with the extra ranged abilities. It’s overall just more utility than the rifle.

My Grenade barrage with static discharge deals 12k damage in under a second (With analyze helping it). Then mix that with about 1.5k damage with grenade, 2k damage + bleeding with Shrapnel Grenade and 2k damage + chilled with Frost Grenade. I blind, confuse and poison with other stuff. Mix that with area healing and retaliation from Elixir Gun + Kit refinement + extra regen from Healing Turret and my Elixir Gun’s tool belt skill. Not to mention I could call in a supply drop and have two healing turrets at once. So that’s huge amounts of regen, huge amounts of condition removal (From super Elixir and skill 3 of Elixir Gun) and great damage.

We do just fine in dungeons.

Ayestes.1273:

Elixir X would be so nifty if I could choose which form I wanted. This probably because Rampage is awful though.

This is the only reason that skill sucks. If it was just tornado, I’d be happy.

If you take kit refinement, you get an extra condition removal just by switching to Elixir Gun. Specifically, it makes switching to Elixir Gun drop Super Elixir around you, so you can either maintain super elixir constantly or keep both up at once, doubling the healing.

Automated response only stops you from getting new conditions at 25% hp, it doesn’t remove them. Still good, but if you want the double Super Elixir, that’s probably the one to drop.

I’m pretty sure you’re missing a stun breaker. Since your elixirs will remove conditions, Elixir S might be a better choice. That combo will do something really nice that most professions don’t get: Removing stun, immobilized and make you invulnerable.

I also highly suggest Med Kit over Healing Turret, especially if you’re going to be alone. Way more healing and it has condition removal, a speed buff and fury.

We don’t have signets because…I guess our class is less magical than others and signets are magic.

As for usable elites, Supply Crate is good for 1v1 and holding positions. Mortar is good for group support (It has a really strong healing field and some good snares). Mix it with grenade kit and it’s great for holding certain keeps in WvW. Elixir X is great for bunking people off cliffs.

Elixir X and Mortar need some work, but they aren’t useless, they’re just not useful in many situations.

I found that Pistol/Pistol is better for normal battles, Rifle is great for spiking/mobility and Pistol/Shield is for defense.

Don’t lock yourself to one. Observe the battle before entering and switch weapons accordingly.

In PvP:

Check out the Static Discharge trait in tools. It can pull off some really powerful spikes.

Rifle is great for spiking.

Pistol/Pistol is great for condition builds. Try switching between grenade kit, bomb kit and rifle for a crap ton of conditions.

In WvW:

Tool kit has a skill that can yank people from 1,200 range, which is great for zerg battles and walls.

Grenade kit is great for destroying things when attacking a keep.

Toss Elixir R is great for reviving multiple downed players in tough zerg battles.

In PvE:

If you need damage, I always go Pistol/Pistol with grenade kit and static discharge.

Some other players like to go with an Elixir build that utilizes the trait HGH, giving you two stacks of might when you drink an elixir and one stack of might when you throw it. This combined with the pistol shots piercing trait can get out a lot of condition and direct damage.

This also goes well with the Juggernaut trait, which lets you gain might as long as you have your flamethrower kit out. Great damage there.

Try using Kit Refinement (Trait) with Elixir Gun. Switching to Elixir gun causes Super Elixir to happen around you. It has a 20 second recharge. Elixir gun also has Super Elixir, allowing you to have multiple of these at once, or have one up constantly. Mix this with healing turret and you can have some great regeneration on this party without even any investment. Not to mention, Super Elixir removes a condition of impact (It’s not listed).

Notes:

If you run grenade kit, make sure you have the Grenadier trait on.

Don’t underestimate Oil Slick. The tool belt skill for it says that it only doubles your speed, but it actually does that AND causes you to ignore all slowing effects that don’t stun you, including the slowing effect from being in battle.

Deployable Turrets sounds great…it’s bugged. It just doesn’t work. Don’t use it. I know, I know…sad.

Chaba.5410:

Lanny.6987:

Poker, I’ll point out, also has the same chance for either player to succeed even though there is a lot of randomness.

Games of skill typically have elements of chance.

True, but there’s a distinction to be made between randomness and random elements that are balanced. If a random element can cause the difference between complete success and complete failure with the same level of skill from the player, it’s unfair.

Anyone who says poker isn’t a game of skill needs to watch Tom “Durrr” Dwan beat a pro poker player with 7 2 off suit. If none of that made sense to you, don’t talk about poker until you’ve seen/played it. The randomness is balanced, because in the end, it’s all about reading your player, making moves when you have the right position and creating a story with your moves that other players will buy. It doesn’t matter what hand you have, as long as you read everyone correctly.

HGH. You have three elixirs and 30 in alchemy. HGH. That with the stacks coming in from Jug would be great.

Let me put it this way, and I think we can all agree on this.

When we fail, we want it to be OUR fault. Nothing is worse than joining a team and being the only good player, thus losing because everyone else sucked. It’s awful. This is the same thing here. We’re randomly getting an effect (Previous example, a team) and sometimes it works out, and sometimes it doesn’t. It’s awful when it doesn’t work out because it wasn’t our fault we lost. It’s simply not fair. When we look back on what we could have done, we don’t want to know that the answer was nothing. A game which goal is to be fun should be fair.

Sure, if I had the same choices with same durations we have atm but on demand instead of random it would be much better. It would also be insanely op.

How? Is might + stability + condition removal on a 60 second recharge OP? The throw is only one stack of might. Stability is only 4 seconds. Compare it to the guardian skill “Save Yourselves” which gives the guardian 10 seconds of pretty much every boon in the game and transfers all conditions from allies to himself, which are easy to remove on guardian. Not to mention, it breaks stun and has no cast time. I can assure you , it’s not overpowered in the slightest.

It’s this fear that holds back the engineer. Some people still think we’re in GW1. In GW1, this might be OP, but now, we’re all titans of combat. We can kill people ALONE in under a second. That’s considered fair in this game. Mesmers can portal people radar range. That kinda stuff got nerfed like crazy in GW1. It’s fair in this game. We need to be on THAT level if we want to be good. Throw out your old notions of what is OP. they’re wrong.

You know what I think would be great about Elixers? If I could just think, “Right now I could really use a smoke screen for the blind.”, and Luck would read my mind and I got exactly what I wanted right then. “Could really use stability!” Poof “Time to get Protection!” Bang (Ok. That one’s just Drink B.) Yeah. That would be neat. Also neat is getting those wishes granted about 1/3rd of the time.

Know what happens when I want super elixir at my feet? poof! It’s there. Guess what, that wish gets granted 100% of the time.

To me, versatile should me that with one skill, there is a hole host of things you can do. That might mean it’s like a kit where you actually have multiple skills in one. It could also mean it’s like my jump shot example (ignoring all debate on how good it is). Multiple uses in one skill. It could also be the Toss Elixir H suggestion someone earlier gave (Aka, a skill that bends to the situation naturally, so you don’t have to).

Those are how you do versatility.

Maskaganda.2043:

I’m not missing the point at all. I know what I use the tosses for and I have good results with them. You said it yourself, toss S is a good skill to stomp (and revive too) and an ok skill to escape. What more do you want? It’s not like toss S is an engies only tool to escape a fight.
Oh, and you can also trait it for non random effects on all tosses.

I’d hate for this and other tosses to get changed, it works very well for me atm.

It’s the annoyingness of it. If this skill ONLY gave stability, I’d be okay with the fact that it probably won’t get me out of battle. At least I know what it will do. That’s really it. Good skills are skills that have consistent and useful effects. The reason Toss Elixir S is passable is because it has the second part of that statement. It’s useful, not consistent.

Maskaganda.2043:

I’m tossing elixir S and doing just fine with the results, maybe the problem is on your end?

I think you’re missing the point. I’ll give you this: Toss Elixir S is one of the better Tosses. That doesn’t mean it’s where it should be. Stability and Stealth are semi related, but in the end, they don’t always achieve the same goals. Fury, Might, Malice and quickness without a doubt achieve the same goals. Stability and Stealth CAN achieve the same goals (Stomping), however in the not so rare case of trying to escape, Stability is much less useful than Stealth. When I’m trying to get out, I hate getting Stability and proceed to exclaim “kittenin’ thing! Why would I want that now!?” Skills should be reliable. They should excite you with the possibilities. This, I know, is unreliable. I use it because there’s a chance it might do what it’s suppose to do. It’s still not a good skill.

Super Elixir (Engineer)17.7k healing over 10 seconds. Removes one condition on impact.

Empower (Guardian) 1.5k healing over 4 seconds. Also causes 12 stacks of might.

Same recharge.

Sactuary (Guardian) 2.6k healing over 6 seconds. Enemies literally cannot enter, nor can their projectiles. Cannot be destroyed.

X Turrets (Engineer) These get smashed super easily and even Healing turret doesn’t heal for very much: 4k for you (Average) 1k for everyone else over 8 seconds.

Protective Spirit (Guardian) 1.2k range. Grants 33% less damage and 1.3k regeneration of 10 seconds. 15 second recharge. That’s about 5 seconds of downtime.

Regenerating Mist (Engineer) 780 health. 480 range. 60 second recharge.

That’s just comparing our healing. Let’s check out protection.

Toss Elixir U Randomly gives you either a wall reflection skill (guardian), a wall reflection skill (Thief) or veil from mesmer (Not a reflection skill).

Wall of Reflection Literally the one of the skills from Toss Elixir U, only a better recharge and always casts this wall.

I’d talk more about other professions, but I don’t know them as well. You can blame Eles and say “They do it worse than us” but that still doesn’t fix the fact that Guardians are the ultimate in support in terms of keeping people alive. So much so that other classes should not even bother with this type of support.

This class plays so much like a tank it’s shocking. I mean christ, one skill is basically an agro ability (Binding Blade). It pulls the mobs together so the DPS can kill it. Sounds kind of like a holy trinity to me.

Also, just because this can also be damage doesn’t really refute anything I’m saying. It just means this class is good at not only support. That’s a good thing. Every class should be able to fill every role effectively. It’s just this class does it so shockingly better.

The giant form’s Stomp also does blowout like the tornado and there’s no reason we have to stay in that form until we get killed. The giant form also has combo finishers.

This is a real experience I had. I was at Anz and I did use Elixir X to try to knock them off. I got the giant, so I only got one knock off. I got wiped. I’m thoroughly familiar with this skill. I use to use it in PvP when I was bunking (Don’t laugh at me). I know exactly what each skill does, so it’s not a lack of skill. Tornado hits multiple people and it does it multiple times. It’s CLEARLY the better of the two skills.

Maybe you don’t believe it is. Maybe you think that one is better in a smaller fight and one is better in a bigger fight. Well the why the kitten are they in the same skill? If I’m in a 1v1 and I get a tornado, that’s bad. If I’m in a zerg on a cliff edge and I get the giant, that’s bad.

Think of it like this:

You own a store and you can only hire 10 employees. One of your employee’s slots is actually two people. One is a straight A student and a fantastic worker. One is a drug dealer and has murdered multiple dogs. There’s a 50% chance that the drug dealer will be the one to come in. Sure, you could work with him. Maybe you might get a bit of good use out of him, but it’s sure as hell not going to be as good at the straight A student. Furthermore, you could just fire both of them and get someone who is going to show up and always do their job.

That’s exactly what is happening here. I’m Tossing Elixir S and I’m getting a drug dealer every so often. It’s annoying.

Wow where to begin.

The opinion that the randomness is bad arises out of a playing style that demands a high degree of pre-planning, expects execution to always go according to plan, and has a low tolerance for deviations.

This is basic game design. You want your games to be games of skill, not luck. Candy Land is a fantastic game for kids, because kids have no talent (Sorry, it’s just true xD). Thus, a game that lets them win because they were lucky enough to shuffle the deck correctly is a great game. We’re adults here (Mostly). Games where luck is a huge factor in survival just don’t work. This is a competitive game, and if a skill doesn’t shine when you are being smart about using it, then something is wrong with the skill.

It’s about being fair. Life is unfair enough, I don’t need things in the games I play unfair as well.

And Veil creates a light field which can be followed with one of our many blast finishers for Area Retaliation. Projectiles reflected. All three of the random outcomes can reflect projectiles actually.

Engineers don’t have a lot of blast finishers. Here are our options:

Detonate X Turret – You have walk up to the veil first off. Next you have to blow up your turret. All to get something that lasts for half the time of the guardian field and two seconds less than the thief’s field. Not to mention, the guardian skill is a light combo field as well, so you could do both tricks if you really wanted to.
Big Ole’ Bomb – It needs to be close enough and it takes about four seconds just to go off anyways. Chances are, you’ll miss the field due to how long this would take (Reaction time, walking time, detonation time).
Booby Trap – You need to be downed.
Detonate – Possible, but you’re wasting a use of your mine on something that might not even hit the entire party, or anyone.
Magnetic Inversion – Possible, but again sort of wasteful, and this would require that you take a shield instead of going damage (Flame skill from dual pistol, also glue shot).
Rocket Boots – No. Removes you from the battle.
Shockwave – Not really a skill. 90 second recharge on a terrible skill.
Supply Crate – Too long of a recharge and a waste of your skills to use it in middle (position wise) of a battle.

This is all accepting the fact that all players will be in range of your blast, which they probably won’t be. This is also accepting the fact that doing ALL of this will result in a lesser effect than if you get lucky and just get the good skills.

Again, your luck would determine your effectiveness, instead of your skill.

The difference here is an expectation that only the Stealth outcome equates escape from battle, that the only way to escape from a battle is to become invisible.

This is a personal experience that happens to me ALL THE TIME. I use Med kit and Elixir S all the time in WvW. When I throw down Toss Elixir S, I do WAY better with escaping if they can’t see me than if I’m a giant. Stability doesn’t stop Crippled, Chilled or Immobilized. Being invisible sort of does. How do you apply effects to something that you can’t see? My chances of survive go WAY up simply because I was lucky.

Again, there’s an expectation of goal, that the purpose of Toss Elixir B (not H, H grants Vigor) is to place speed buffs on the party so it can get to the target destination faster.

Two things here:

1) Again, there’s an expectation of goal, Yes! There is! I just need to know what I can expect from it! That’s it. I don’t care if it grants stability, swiftness or w/e, as long as I know what it will do for me!

2) Yet consider how many other professions would love to be able to block a treb shot for an area like an elementalist? But that’s exactly what the engineer profession lacks: That special purpose that no other class can do.

Mesmers can portal. Eles can block treb shots and take out siege behinds walls. Warriors absolutely destroy things. Necromancers can place wells on the walls of castles. Thieves can assassinate yaks even when they’re heavily guarded.

Where do we come in? When do I get to read in chat, “ kitten it’d be nice if we could get an engineer here!”

8/10. Gives me the chance to call you by a short name and the first name is kinda fun.

My main is Raine Avina. She’s one of the main characters in a game I’m creating.

Still missing my main point.

This class is a role instead of a play style. All of the skills are pushing towards the role of being a supporter, whether that’s healing or protection doesn’t matter. The point is that it does it better than any other class, which severely limits the options available to other classes. I mean christ, one of the skills gives the guardian practically every boon in the game. It’s the ultimate support class in a game where every class is suppose to be able to fill any role. Sure other classes can do it, but this one does it WAY better.

Check out my “Feedback and Opinion on Skills” post. Pretty much sums up the problems in the class. It’s a fun class, no doubt. It just has a lot of issues, both in design and coding.

But we’re not in other games. We’re in this game. If I want to be a support build, it’s stupid to do it on anything but the guardian. If I want damage, it’s stupid to be anything but the warrior.

This class has been dedicated to a role, rather than a playstyle, which doesn’t sound like what this game was original said to be about. I see the same issue with the warrior (Kings of damage). Basically, it feels like this class is taking up a role that other classes could fill in their own play style.

I’m talking straight PvE and Dungeons here btw. No PvP or WvW.

Seriously. I’ve been playing engineer and I’ve been trying to make a good support build, but then I look at the crazy healing that this class can do and I wonder why I would even bother! I thought the whole point of this game was to NOT have a healer class. I thought the point was that ANY class can support, CC and damage just as well as any other. The difference was that each does it in their own way. Their own play style.

Am I missing something here? If this game is trying to kill the trinity, why is part of the trinity still here?

Chaba.5410:

“Engineers are smart and utilize the available tools in multiple ways to get the job done.”

Exactly. Which is why I don’t really understand the beef with randomness. Our skills are useful for both offensive and defensive goals. Take for example Elixir S which is not only good for safely getting out of harm’s way, but for also getting into harm’s way and planting a bomb. It’s the same with the skills that have random outcomes. I am just not seeing that the outcomes are at odd goals.

Actually, the Engineer profession seems to be designed to be hilarious and the random outcomes are part of that effect. We’re mad scientists and sometimes our inventions don’t always go off the way we planned them, but we’re able to capitalize on the situation.

Additionally, we get more effects out of a single skill than others without randomness.

The problem with randomness is that if all of the random effects don’t achieve the same goal OR do not work in the same situations, it gives a skill a chance to not work at ALL. So it wasn’t your SKILL that caused the skill to fail, it was a random number being in the wrong range. THAT is the problem with randomness.

And the 3 auto attacks you could do in the time it takes you perform this clunky feat of acrobatics?
Also thats odd, because I have seen kill shots hit for far harder than anything jump shot can produce.
Yeah I’m pretty kitten sure a 3 bar KS has a higher base damage than that. I have never seen a jump shot over 7k let alone 10k-15k

The damage doesn’t matter. The only thing that can be improved is the landing speed. That’s it. This is meant for one thing: Spiking.

Our downed skills are just fine. Thieves, Eles and warriors downed skills are just OP. The blowback effect we have is SUPER powerful, especially while fighting on cliff edges in WvW. If someone isn’t in melee, range, don’t use skill two. Seriously, it’s that simple.

In short, Eles, Thieves and Warriors need to tone it down in the downed state department. We don’t need to get to their level. Otherwise, the entire downed mechanic would be annoying because THAT would be where everyone’s is.

TO ANYONE WHO STILL THINKS RANDOMNESS ISN’T BAD:

Let’s say we have two players who go into identical battles. They both have Elixir U. The enemies are all ranged, so they both throw Toss Elixir U at the space between them and the enemies. The first player gets the guardian wall skill, so all of the projectiles are reflected, the party is safe and the enemies die. The second player gets veil, so nothing is reflected, the party is damaged, and could probably die. Either way, the damage is done, and the engineer did nothing to help.

What is the skill difference between the two players? Nothing. They both did the same thing, only one got lucky, and one didn’t.

Let’s say two players are trying to escape from battle. They both toss Elixir S. One gets stability from being a giant and gets wrecked because they can still see him. One gets Stealth and is able to avoid being killed because of it. What’s the skill difference here? Nothing. The battle was determined by LUCK.

Let’s say two players are trying to speed buff their group, so they toss Elixir H at the party. One gets swiftness and the party moves faster. One gets protection…and his party looks at him funny. Skill difference? Nothing

Let’s say two players are in WvW and the enemy zerg is attacking Anz. They’re up on the hill and are building siege. Both player’s zergs attack the zerg and use Elixir X. One player gets the tornado and one gets the giant. The one with the tornado knocks the entire zerg off the cliff and feels like a kitten from 300. The other one gets the giant, and gets maybe a few people off with the kick and slam skill, but in the end just gets murdered. Skill difference? You guessed it. Abso-kitten-lutly nothing

Let’s try to make this as clear as possible. What is wrong with turrets? Be specific. Here’s my list:

1) They are easy to kill.
2) Rifle Turret’s damage is terrible, even when overcharged.
3) Taking too many turrets makes YOU play more passive, which is boring
4) Odd delay on overcharge abilities
5) Turrets do not attack your target if you switch targets

Solutions:

1) Either make them harder to kill, or make them more worth being alive.
2) Raise damage or give it a more meaningful condition. Think utility, not damage.
3) Make the tool belt skills more interesting. Make the secondary skills more active. Rifle Turret, Net Turret, and Rocket Turret are all passive and there’s hardly any reason to not have their overcharge up constantly during a fight.
4) When I activate an overcharge, fire that skill IMMEDIATELY. It could lead to some interesting builds that require you to think about your positioning related to your turrets.
5) This is fine for normal attacks, but for overcharge, this is down right not okay.

In short:

*Make the overcharge effect immediate on activate and have it take my target. *

Alarox.4590:

Regarding RNG skills, I think there is a simple way to improve them and make them much more appealing:

Make the effects situational.

For example, make Elixir H grant Swiftness if used at 66-100% health, grant Regeneration at 33-65%, and Protection at 1-32%.

This would make Elixir H more of a skill based ability where you want to use it situationally. A similar concept could work for to toolbelt skills of Elixir B, S, and maybe even U and the effect of X.

At first I didn’t like this, but with a fairly large range, this could be interesting. Maybe make the choice based on the target’s hp rather than the throwers. Then you KNOW it’s going to give you a good effect.

Moderator.1462:

Hi everyone,

Thanks for posting this. We like to know your concerns about your class. We will forward this to the team so they are aware. Please keep the discussion constructive and friendly.

PS: for the sake of constructiveness, we are going to edit the title.

Thanks for your understanding

Thanks for letting us know. We really do appreciate knowing that our voices are being heard.

Something else I notice is that I think the designers of this class had one specific purpose for certain skills in mind, but there’s a more obvious ability the skill COULD allow, but doesn’t. For example, the pull skill with tool kit is probably designed for WvW zergs and yanking people out so we can murder face. It has a long charge time, which is fine for something of this purpose. However, if you look at other classes, they have things like this with MUCH better cast times and some extra effects. In PvP, this is sort of weak. Standing still for so long while IN combat is a terrible idea. So basically, it seems like this skill was ONLY designed for pulling while out of combat. So while it is a great skill in certain narrow situations (Out of combat), it’s terrible in many others(In Combat). Some other examples are Toss Elixir S (Stomping only) and Tool kits melee attacks(Fixing turrets only).

That isn’t how a skill should be designed, especially not in a kit. Skills that have extremely specific places and times it can be used are not good skills.

Don’t get me wrong: Skills shouldn’t always be the perfect skill to use at that moment. However, skills should NOT be great in only very specific moments. In real life, very specific skills are great because we have a brain that holds a crap ton of knowledge. Our characters for some reason can only remember like 10 skills.

Jump Shot is one of the best skills for engineers, even if you don’t like the delay before smashing. It gives you the ability to be mobile in ways other classes can’t, it spikes like a boss and it’s even nice enough to apply vulnerability. THAT is how skills should be. Skills should ADD possibilities and be used in MULTIPLE ways. THAT is versatility. Versatility is not “Hey look I have 65 million skills”, it’s “Hey I can use this one skill 65 million ways”. THAT is what engineer should be. Utilizing one skill in multiple ways, rather than having an army of skills (Ele) that we spam.

I mean, that’s what real engineers do, right? We take what we already have and we use that knowledge and power to fit the situation we’re trying to fix.

So apply that to this class! Redesign the skills so yes, there is the obvious use of it, but there’s also multiple others. Think of Jump Shot while fixing skills. Every time I look at a skill I should think “Oh wow! Think of all the awesome things I can do with that!”

The design philosophy of the engineer is fundamentally flawed, or at least misunderstood. If you just say something is the master of none, no one will take you. Especially when there’s a class which is exactly like you (ele), only does everything well. REAL engineers are not “Masters of None”. Engineers are smart and utilize the available tools in multiple ways to get the job done. They see a hammer and see not just the ability to hit things, but to nail nails, remove nails, keep open doors, throw it at faces, knock stuff in, break stuff apart, make noise to get someone to come after them or make noise to get them to go away.

THAT is an engineer.

I also notice there seems to be some fear with these skills. The designers seem to be afraid to make this class powerful, so they keep it down with things like randomness and weak tool belt skills. BE BRAVE! Useful is NOT overpowered. Versatile is NOT overpowered.

Side “Feedback and Opinion on Skills”:

Turrets. Their secondary skills are annoying and I am never sure if they are actually working. I had to go to the Mists just to check how they work. One thing I noticed was that there is an annoying delay between when I activate the skill and when it actually takes effect. With normal skill, this isn’t an issue. There’s a casting time to it. However, since I can’t see it, I have no idea if it’s even working.

I also noticed that sometimes, even if there’s an enemy RIGHT next to it, it’ll stop working if I don’t fire at it.

I also noticed that the way these work is that when you overcharge a turret, you aren’t actually CAUSING it to fire better weapons. Instead, you’re causing it to have a period of time in which it fires better weapons. That’s a little bit…boring. It means that if you are in battle, the best time to use it is …whenever! It really doesn’t matter! Constantly is the best time to use it. Also, they don’t go after your target, they go after the target they first started on, so they aren’t even working with you! It would be really interesting if these were sort of like a ranger’s pet that didn’t move and ignored our target UNTIL we tell it to overcharge and fire.

This gets back to the fundamental flaw in this class is that we have very little control over our skills. Randomness, turrets attacking the wrong place, skills that defeat themselves all cause us to have no control over what we are doing. If we want control over the battle field, we need control over our skills first.

Ummm, No Dragoon. Here’s the math:

Grenades, with the Grenadier trait (which you should ALWAYS take if you have this kit) makes a crit about 500 damage. Normal, is about 350. So that’s about 1.1k (1.5k) for grenades. Grenade kit without it is about 700 damage. Bombs is about 700 damage, 1.1k on critical. The normal damage is the same between them and with the trait, the grenade kit is better.

However, that’s not why you choose one over the other. Bomb kit rewards pushing in with two fields (Fire and Smoke) and a fantastic cripple. Grenade kit has great range (1500 with the trait).

The tool belt skill for Grenade kit is for damage. No question there. The tool kit skill for grenade kit is for bunking. No question there either.

It really depends on what you need. I’ve used builds that have both in them which are designed to vomit conditions on enemies and keep them off points in PvP. Overall, their damage is pretty kitten close.

Alarox.4590:

It seems entirely random as to whether or not it will work out of combat.

Welcoming to the kittening engineer.

Bard.7215:

Flame blast doesn’t bother me so much but the skill requirement to use it effectively is almost insulting compared to that of other classes.

The reason it pierces is because the intended purpose of the ability is to hit a target at a specific range to deal bonus damage. It would work if the pierce had high damage and the explosion dealed powerful damage as a reward for the engineers skills at estimation. You can tell the design by the blowout ability. It seems they want engineers to torch the enemy with a few auto attacks, then knock them back complete with a fiery ball of death that will hit them with a bang on their way back. the blast was the reward for using the ability after repelling a target when they got to close or you were finished torching them with your midranged auto and wanted to finish them off.

The problem is the pierce does crap damage and the explosion does average damage, making it’s use as a reasonable damage skill pointless.

I don’t think it should be redesigned so that it merely aoes upon hitting a target like the ele staff skill, but that the pierce damage should be greatly increased and the blast damage add burning or other conditions as a reward, maybe a short cripple.

I completely agree. In fact, this (put more generally) could describe every issue with the engineer. We do a lot of work to get less of an effect. If the effect was worth it, this would be a brilliantly difficult class, and I’d love it.

Decklan.7540:

Trust me, Engineers will never be competitive. You can still have fun with them and with friends get invited into high level fractal.

I kind of doubt that. The fixes I mentioned above are really simple, and they make the class actually effective. I can make this whole post really simplified:

1) Remove random effects that don’t work towards the same goal.
2) Make every skill useful, not just consistent.
3) Don’t be afraid to give us some damage.

If they do that, the class is fixed.

Oh and the bugs. Those being gone would be nice, too.

Sorry. I need to rant a bit. I’ll keep it nice if I can.

Elixir H: Randomness isn’t good! The two other healing skills are great! The turret heals and regenerates the party. The kit gives you speed buffs and due to the long staying duration of the stuff you place, you can hold a point like a boss! This finds a place in elixir builds, yes. But that doesn’t make it good. It just happens to fit. Make it so you get all three buffs. It’s not overpowered, especially in comparison to some other skills in the game (Save Yourselves anyone?). Or at least let us know which one we’re going to get! Swiftness and regeneration are NOT the same type of boon! They don’t help in the same situation! Regeneration and protection are about staying in the fight. Swiftness is about getting the kitten out of there!

Toss Elixir U: Someone has to explain to me what they where thinking The issue with this skill is that the ideal use for two of random spells is to put it in front of your party, thus blocking stuff. The ideal use for the last one is to put it on your party, and BEFORE a battle. Not during. Allies will be attacking, and the stealth will be off in a fraction of a second. Either remove veil OR add another skill that does this walling effect. All random skills should be able to be used in the same way or else there’s always a 33% chance that the 60 second recharge skill will do nothing when you are using the skill right.

Toss Elixir B: With random effects, all random outcomes must push towards the same goal. Swiftness and retaliation achieve different goals than fury and might. Just make this give fury and might or swiftness and retaliation. Or just make it give one! But we need to know that if we do take a second or two to throw this skill (which misses a lot), that the skill isn’t going to crap out on us and give us an effect that’s useless at that moment.

Utility Goggles: This skill naturally works against itself. Breaking out of stun is something you do in battle. Applying fury and immunity to blindness is something you do just before battle so you can spike. Thus, you kind of have to screw yourself in one way or another.

Shockwave: You’ve got to be kittening kidding me. I don’t get this skill at all. You deal basically no damage to very few people and it’s a 90 second recharge? Honestly…what? My suggestion is to actually make a skill here. It seems like someone forgot to take out the temp skill.

Rocket: Useless. Hardly any damage and a huge recharge. This skill doesn’t have a to be damaging. That’s what the turret is suppose to do. Just make it useful in some way. What is the purpose of the tool belt if the skills in it are so weak in comparison to their main utility counterparts? You mind as well not have a skill there, and if that’s the case, it makes the whole thing that makes the engineer special, worthless.

Elixir X: Random effects are not good. They’re both bunker skills, I get that, but one is CLEARLY better than the other (Tornado). When I’m charging at a zerg in WvW that’s standing on the edge of a cliff, I don’t want to be some giant that only has one knock back skill.

Mortar: My grenades have a longer range than this. Why on earth would I use this over grenades?

Flame Blast: Just made the kitten kitten kitten skill hit the target I’m selecting. I don’t want it to roll through foes. That’s totally useless, counter intuitive and causes this entire kit to be weak. Warriors hit ONE skill to deal 11k damage. Why can’t we have this skill deal 5k damage?

Tool Kit: If you’re going to make a melee kit, make a melee kit that can actually hurt people. The utility here is great, but why have an auto attack and Pry Bar if there is literally no reason to use it? No one heals turrets. Why on earth would you do that?

Turrets in General: The way people WANT to use them is completely useless. People want to use these like a base, where you get to a point or something and – holy kitten – it’s an engineer and he’s already set up. The problem is, doing this makes you completely defenseless, strangely enough. An elixir build has stun breakers. Kit builds can take a stun breaker because it has so many extra skills. Why can’t a turret build have some kind of stun breaker? Turrets are such a cool ability, yet trying to utilize them to the fullest is punished =/

My main observation of this class is that there are a lot of skills that seem to be there only for consistency’s sake. Tool Kits auto attack, the turrets tool belt skills and Toss Elixir skills to name a few. That’s not a good idea. Why even have them there? Doesn’t that make us exactly like the other classes? Think about it. If we put a utility skill in and the tool belt skill with it says “This skill does nothing”, do we really have two skills there?

We don’t need to have crazy damage buffs on everything, we just need every skill to be useful for something!

Amos.8760:

My engineer remains my only extensively played class. He continually impresses other players in dungeon and fractal groups, holds his own well in any type of pvp, and explores any pve area without trouble. He looks forward to some well-deserved buffs and knows that because he does well now, he will only do better then. He certainly does not lie around wallowing in self-pity waiting for other people to improve things for him.

Good on ya and glad I’m not the only one who feels this way. When Anet gives you lemons, throw some grenades.

insanemaniac.2456:

nah, the lack of response just suggests the devs dont actually respect the community enough to stay in touch. its reminiscient of maplestory/nexon and d3/blizzard. and the opposite of lol/riot.

if they loved the game, theyd post. theyd be visible. to them its just a job.

Actually, if they loved the game, they’d make it and keep working on it. Oh wait, they are.

Updates are coming. They want to make sure they’re making good decisions. They have a LOT on their plate.

I don’t get what everyone is complaining about. While leveling my engineer, I was able to do entire missions while 12 levels under the recommended level. In PvP, I own faces with the SD spike and in dungeons I have a lot of things I can do. Is engineer perfect? No. Is it bad? NO!

Elementalist: Why, Engineer, Why? Why do you do it? Why log in? Why keep fighting? Do you believe you fighting FOR something? For something more than a few small buffs? Can you tell me what it is? Do you even KNOW?

Is it being the best class? Or just okay? Perhaps usefulness in dungeons? Could it be for love?

Illusions, Engineer! Vagaries of perception. Impossible hopes of a feeble profession trying desperately to justify an existence that is without meaning or purpose, and all of them as artificial as Guild Wars 2 itself, although… only an engineer could invent something as insipid as “Elixir X”.

You must be able to see it, Engineer! You must know it by now! They’ll never buff you! It’s pointless to keep fighting! Why, Engineer!? Why!? Why do you persist!?

Engineer: Because it’s actually kind of fun.

~The Matrix: Revelations

I think the problem with turrets is that if they are powerful, they encourage lazy gameplay where you simply place the turrets and forget they are there. If they are weak, then no one uses them.

Solution: Make turrets more powerful, but make them require you to be more active. Maybe even control WHEN the turrets fire.

We can deal spike damage fine and it’s really not that hard. The problem is that when you are all traitted up to do it, you’re an easy target. Here’s an example:

Analyze + Grenade Barrage + Surprise shot + Jump Shot + Overcharged shot

All of that with Static discharge is about 18k damage. That’s a pretty great spike, and that’s not even the full version of it. Full spike is this:

Analyze + Grenade Barrage + Surprise Shot + Jump Shot + Blunder Buss + Grenade Kit (Trait ability) + Overcharged shot

That raises it to about 23kish.

Problem is, look at your defense now. You have 0 defense coming in from traits. You have one stun breaker and one immobilize remover (Overcharged shot).

Also, snare? Good luck. If you miss your net shot, the only thing that will probably hit is surprise shot and the static discharges. That’s a decent amount of damage, but you won’t be killing anything that isn’t the glassiest of glass cannons.

Compare this to a thief, who not only has some great defense such as invisibility, multiple stun and immobilize removers, but also has even stronger burst damage with a more reliable stun/immobilize. Not to mention they can spike WAY more often than engineers.

The problem isn’t damage. It’s that when we CAN do the damage, that’s literally the only thing we can do, and other classes can do it better.

I never use them and I never see them used outside of supply drop. The only things I see them useful for is exploding (thus pushing back with the right traits) and rifle turrets surprise shot (for spiking). Unfortunately, the former is outdone by guardians and other skill (such as shield’s and rifle’s push backs) and while the engineer spike can do a fair amount of damage, it sacrifices all defense, making the engineer WAY too easy of a target.