Guild Wars 2

I already spoke about the argument that “our class requires more skill”. If your playstyle is more difficult, you should get a better result, not be in the middle of the pack or barely scraping by.

Compared to other classes, our class lacks so much in survivability that we really need dodges, and our tools trait tree gives us a means of restoring it.

I HATE elixirs, but they’re constantly forced upon me. 70% of the builds I’ve looked at involve elixirs, because your only viable other option is kits.

Just look at gadgets and tell me they’re balanced. Rocket boots is pretty good, and I slide that into my builds, just for the blast finisher and comedy value. Slick Shoes, on the other hand, is a 60 second cool down for such a mediocre effect. The toolbelt is a five second burst of speed+stunbreaker, which isn’t long enough to get real mileage (literally), unless you’re using rocket boots.

The thing that bugs me about the toolbelt, is that none of our skills relate to it in any way. If you look at almost every class, their class mechanic is affected by their main skills.

Maybe using skills and their toolbelt together rapidly should produce a new effect?

Caution: SPOILERS

This was the best you could do for the final boss battle? We were barely even fighting the boss.

Phineas Poe.3018:

VIVorcha.7853:

Okay, I just saw your edit, and that really confused me. Are you trying to say that the Engineer in its current state is not in need of any changes? That the uselessness of Gadgets and Turrets is perfectly fine? And the fact that we only have one good elite (Supply Crate)?

Well, this is just my own opinion, but I think gadgets and turrets are far from useless. Rocket Boots is a common aspect of many builds these days across all areas of the game. The Blast finisher is great in PvE, and it’s a very useful escape in WvW/PvP.

VIVorcha.7853:

You can also say that we have lots of “intuitive builds”, but they all boil down to one of three things:

HGH
Static Discharge
Grenades

No they don’t.

Our traits and skills notably lack synergy compared to other classes. Alchemy is one of the only trees with really good synergy.

If you look at other classes, skills and traits within one group tend to synergize or at least go along with each other. The gadget skills, Tools traits, and Inventions traits really fail at that.

Okay, I just saw your edit, and that really confused me. Are you trying to say that the Engineer in its current state is not in need of any changes? That the uselessness of Gadgets and Turrets is perfectly fine? And the fact that we only have one good elite (Supply Crate)?

You can also say that we have lots of “intuitive builds”, but they all boil down to one of three things:

HGH
Static Discharge
Grenades

It might be better if they fixed all the bugs, such as turret scaling, but until then, the class is seriously in need of help.

Phineas Poe.3018:

VIVorcha.7853:

My problem with this is that the toolbelt in its current state is not anywhere near as useful as Adrenaline for warriors.

I stopped reading here.

Adrenaline is probably the worst example you could’ve picked considering most Warriors do absolutely nothing with their Adrenaline but stack it and sit on it for Critical Hit Chance and Damage boosts from Heightened Focus and Berserker’s Power. Because of that, burning your Adrenaline by using Burst skills often results in a DPS loss for Warriors, adding yet another passive mechanic for a class that is already filled with banners, shouts, and signets that promotes an overwhelmingly passive (see: boring) style of play.

I do love my Warrior, but to suggest that toolbelt skills as they’re currently designed are less useful than a glorified damage meter is total bullspit. Our toolbelt abilities are some of the best the class has, including a 10-second projectile wall (Elixir U) and a 1200 range area revive (Elixir R). Many toolbelt skills can be traited to deal damage (Static Discharge), remove conditions (Cleansing Formula 409), and remove boons (Acidic Elixirs). It’s easily one of the most adaptive and diverse aspects about the Engineer, and really shows the depth and complexity of the Engineer as a class; because of toolbelts, utilities effectively become two skills in one slot. This adds a lot more weight to every decision you make constructing your build, but it also makes the process more experimental (see: not boring).

You shouldn’t need to trait into something for it to be viable. It should stand alone.

As I mentioned above, several of the Toss Elixir skills employ RNG that renders them ineffective (notably H and.

I have a warrior, and I actually found the Adrenaline meter to be an incredibly fun and powerful mechanic, but maybe that’s me. I’ve tried multiple other classes, and all of them were way more fun and effective than the engineer. Especially the Ranger.

Maybe a handful of the toolbelts are useful, but the rest are only good as a means of delivering trait effects (such as Static Discharge) and they have far too long cooldowns.

Chaba.5410:

Why should class elites be unique to that class? Class traits are not necessarily unique to classes so why should elites be? Why would being a non-unique skill make it suck? I fail to see the reasoning. Skills suck when they are useless not whether they are unique. Elixir X has uses, especially if you need reliable access to stability.

And like Kor noted, those classes don’t even necessarily use those elites. Warrior typically uses Signet of Rage or Battle Standard. You’ll be hard-pressed to find a warrior using Rampage.

You’ll also be hard pressed to find an engineer using Elixir X.

Most Engineers use Supply Crate.

Anyway, unpredictability in a game that is supposed to be skill based is a disadvantage. You don’t want to get something you weren’t expecting. That’s not the thing you want in a skill that’s supposed to turn the tide of battle.

Each profession is supposed to be uniquely defined, and making the most powerful skills of a profession copy-pasted is not the way to do that.

Celestina.2894:

Eldrake.1543:

I think a decent solution to this would be to introduce NPC henchmen who can join you in story path dungeons.

Everyone who played GW1 will know what I am talking about.

I should point out that I recall the popular opinion of most fellow GW1 vets is that heroes “ruined” the game by giving the community increasingly less reason to interact.

Not that I am agreeing or disagreeing, just felt it needed to be pointed out.

If you’re a GW1 vet, you should be aware that Henchman and Heroes are not the same.

TheGuy.3568:

Chaba.5410:

What I am hearing is that people are upset that Elixir X results in an elite from another profession as if that is such a big flaw. I don’t see Elixir X that way and find it odd that it would be considered “broken” because of that. Elixir X is my most reliable access to stability and I use it frequently. Most importantly, engineer can gain access to those other elites MORE EFFICIENTLY than the source professions when traited. Those elites on 84 second cooldown compared with 150-180 seconds? Check.

Elixir X does not suck. I’ve seen engineers break up blobs and scatter the enemy almost entirely solo when used right, done it myself even.

QFT

However most players aren’t going to understand this. Elixir X is actually one of the best elites in the game if you use it correctly.

Class elites should be unique to the class. If you wanted elites from another class, then go roll that class.

Chaba.5410:

It’s a game. Where does the engineer stuff that giant ram’s head that pops out even when naked?

Nerf pants.

Don’t you dare nerf us until you fix the kittenload of bugs and buff our turrets and gadgets.

XelNigma.6315:

Nice Review VIVorcha, Great job at poiting out the elixir flaws. All but the biggest flaw imo.
And thats; WTF is an engineer doing with magic potions?

Ok my hatred for these thing aside, once you add in the defective turrets and subpar gadgets its starting to lookt pretty bad.

Luckly engineers have weapon kits that are more powerfun than our real weapons. Then sprinking in an elixir or gadget that stun breaks and thats your build.

I’ve asked people why engineers have magic potions, and I got told “It’s technology because it’s like chemistry.”

But alchemy isn’t chemistry. Alchemy was people in funny pants who didn’t understand how the universe works.

Stice.5204:

VIVorcha.7853:

In fact, every class has a massive advantage over the engineer.

This is a pretty bold claim to be making when the only evidence you have is a few cherry-picked examples of bad traits and underpowered utility skills. Do you actually have any statistical evidence, like representative breakdowns from sPvP tournaments or high-level fractals or something?

So engineers suck because nobody wants to use turrets or most of the gadgets? Guardians don’t use spirit weapons. Rangers don’t use their shouts. Necromancers don’t use their blood magic trait line. Mesmers rarely use signets or mantras. Every profession has a bunch of underpowererd traits nobody in their right mind ever slots.

If you want to ask for general buffs to turrets and gadgets and the useless traits, go ahead, but you’re not going to convince many people that the entire profession is at a “massive disadvantage.” The engineer has about as many competitive builds as every other class and is decently well represented in every area of the game by players using those builds.

If more than half the profession is undisputedly underpowered, I would consider that a massive disadvantage. Especially when those are the only really defining features of the class.

Also, it’s a huge problem that even more of the skills become useless if not traited. Notably our Toss Elixir skills, which give terrible effects by default and can only be used for anything if you spec for HGH or Cleansing Formula.

A quick look at the elixirs.

Elixir H: Heals, and randomly grants swiftness, protection, or regeneration. The healing is good, but the RNG makes the boon aspect pretty bad. Especially since swiftness is not a direct survivability boon.
-Toss Elixir H: Toss to grant protection, regeneration, or vigor. Again, the RNG. And why is vigor in this one? That’s ALSO not a direct survivability boon. It’s not even that useful if the person doesn’t anticipate it.

Elixir B: Grants fury, might, retaliation, and swiftness. This is a skill I like, but it has really short duration on the swiftness and fury. Pretty good all-in-all, though.
-Toss Elixir B: Randomly grants fury, might, retaliation, or swiftness. Also has a tiny radius. So we have RNG that you can’t even apply over a usefully large area. My huge issue with this one is that the boons are so varied in application that you will often get one you don’t need.

Elixir C: Converts your conditions into boons. It’s a standard condition removal, but since we have this, I don’t see why the Cleansing Formula is available as a trait. It renders this skill useless and actually reduces the positive effects.
-Toss Elixir C: Convert a random condition into a boon for allies. Only one is kind of disappointing, but at least the RNG here makes sense. You have no way to prioritize the conditions.

Elixir R: Drink to refill your endurance. This is pretty straightforward… I kind of like this one, except that it makes me feel inclined to waste dodges just so I have an excuse to use it. That’s not the fault of the skill, though.
-Toss Elixir R: Revives downed allies and cures conditions.This is the only really, REALLY good Toss Elixir skill. You drop it right before you go down to self revive, or you can use it on a teammate. It’s also a condition removal.

Elixir S: Drink to shrink yourself, break stun, and become invulnerable. This is a fun skill, and one of the better ones, in my opinion.
-Toss Elixir S: Make an ally grow and grant them stability, or grant them stealth. This is good until you see the “stealth” part. What? This should have been the engineer’s stability skill. I DON’T WANT RNG.

Elixir U: Gain quickness and a random debuff from another class. RNG again…. AND stealing from another class. If I wanted to have the abilities of another class, I would play that class.
-Toss Elixir U: Creates a random wall that blocks projectiles. I have no problem with the RNG here, because all results have a similar effect.

…and last but not least, the biggest offender.

Elixir X: Become a Tornado (Elementalist elite) or gain Rampage (Warrior elite). Underwater, you become a Whirlpool (Elementalist underwater elite) or a Withering Plague (Necromancer elite). This skill is flawed on so many levels. It combines RNG with stealing from other classes. This isn’t an engineer elite, this is the elite of three other classes, with one randomly given to you. Why would I ever want this? Not that it’s a secret that our elites mostly suck.

Six of these are flawed in serious ways. One of them is an elite. That’s almost half of the elixir skills.

The flamethrower is good for lower levels, but the damage scaling quickly renders it inferior to the Rifle and Pistol at higher levels.

Anet really needs to fix that. At level 80, it does barely any damage, considering it’s a 2 1/4 second channel.

Stice.5204:

VIVorcha.7853:

You know that trait “Adrenal Implant”? It’s a Grandmaster trait in the Tools line.

Well, rangers get that as a minor adept trait.

That’s just insulting.

We were given a minor trait as our grandmaster trait.

Making these kinds of comparisons in a vacuum is really not very informative, and borders on deceptive. Are you really trying to claim that rangers have a massive and obvious advantage over engineers?

As a good counterpoint, the engineer adept trait Incendiary Powder is an exact copy of a necromancer grandmaster trait. Who’s being insulted now?

Basically, there are hundreds of differences between any two professions in the game. Cherrypicking one specific comparison that puts your favorite character at a disadvantage and acting as if everything else was equal is reductive and silly.

In fact, every class has a massive advantage over the engineer.

No other class has such useless trait trees and such a subpar class mechanic.

You can paint a class as “requiring more skill to play” but the difficulty of use and the effectiveness are in no way related. Turrets are useless, gadgets are underpowered, elixirs are an RNG fest, most of our elites suck, and the downed skills invite people to stomp you.

I’ll post specific improvements as I get around to them.

Suggested Improvements

Gadgets

Three things.

1. Rocket Kick specifically should be changed to have better synergy with Rocket Boots. Adding a knockdown effect would be better suited and also add more synergy to the gadget skill set, which seems largely control-oriented.
2. Reduce the cooldown of gadgets and their toolbelt skills. They don’t give effects good enough to justify their current cooldowns, and reducing them would make gadgets a more fun and viable skill set. For example, Slick Shoes has a cooldown of 60 seconds, which is ridiculous.
3. More gadget traits in the Tools line. Scope in particular could be replaced, as it only really helps the Rifle auto attack and has a negligible effect.

Turrets

Turrets just need lots of love in general.

1. Increase the health of all turrets by at least 50%.
2. Add a trait, “Blast Shield”, that reduces AOE damage to turrets by 50% and AOE damage to the player by 10%. It could be under explosives or inventions. AOE would be defined as “creates a red circle on the ground” or “is targeted with a green circle”.
3. FIX TURRET SCALING. I don’t know if it’s a bug, but turrets don’t scale with the stats of the player. For instance, power doesn’t make them do more damage and toughness doesn’t make them tougher.
4. MORE TURRET TRAITS. My suggestion is a new trait “Mechanical Attunement”, which increases the toughness of you and your turrets for each turret you have deployed, up to a maximum of four. This could replace “Rifled Turret Barrels”.

Kits

Flamethrower: First, switch Smoke Vent to slot 4 for consistency. It has a lower cooldown than Napalm. Also increase the radius slightly and add a smoke combo field to it. The lack of a combo field seems like an oversight.
Elixir Gun: Acidic Elixirs and HGH don’t apply to elixir gun skills, which is probably an oversight. The last two skills and the toolbelt are marked as elixirs.

Elites

Mortar: This needs a lot of work. Seriously increase the health. This is an elite, and it’s just as squishy as normal turrets. Also increase the base range to at least 1800. A mortar should have longer range than grenades, and the fact that it doesn’t makes using it pointless. I’m also pretty sure that the Elite Supplies trait is bugged and doesn’t apply to mortars at the moment.
Elixir X: Totally revamp it. Turn it into a mega-elixir, instead of a random elite from another class. It could even have some RNG if ANet really wants that. How about Stability, 5 stacks of might, and 3 three other random boons? All of them would last for 15 seconds by default. Elixir X also has an issue. The duration from Elite Supplies doesn’t stack with Potent Elixirs, which is another oversight, I would assume.

Downed Skills

The worst downed skills of any profession. As I said in the first post, 1 is more RNG, and doesn’t provide the crucial damage needed for a rally. 2 invites players to stomp you. 3 has such a long warmup and cooldown for such a medicore effect. The other classes can all escape or heal while downed. Engineers can’t. We need to change that, or give them something unique.

A suggestion I saw was that the 3 skill be moved to the 2 slot (with the same warmup and cooldown as the current 2 skill), and the 3 skill be replaced with “Break Elixir”, which grants rapid regeneration, or stealths and teleports you.

Traits

There are flaws with many traits and the trait trees. Many lack synergy or aren’t worth the points put into them.

Acidic Elixirs (Explosives Major Adept I): Change the boon removal effect to the conversion of a random boon to a condition, like the reverse of Toss Elixir C.
Exploit Weakness: (Explosives Major Adept VI): This is just a bad trait. Replace it with something useful.
Short Fuse (Explosives Major Master VIII): Make it apply to mines as well.
Accelerant-Packed Turrets (Explosives Major Master IX): Add bonus damage to turret explosions.
Coated Bullets (Firearms Major Master VII): Add 10% bonus damage for Pistols.
Target the Maimed (Firearms Minor Grandmaster): Make it also apply to targets with Weakness, Crippled, or Vulnerability.
Stabilized Armor (Inventions Major Adept IV): Change the effects. Make it apply Stability for 3 seconds when the user recovers from being disabled, with a cooldown of 30 seconds. Essentially it’s an anti-stunlock trait with these changes.
Cloaking Device (Inventions Major Adept VI): Reduce the cooldown to 20s and make it also work when crippled or chilled.
Power Shoes (Inventions Major Master VIII): Make it provide a 25% speed boost at all times (unless engineers receive a better source of speed, we need something like this). You could also swap it with Rifled Turret Barrels (a Grandmaster trait), which would really be better suited as a Master trait.
Autotool Installation (Inventions Major Master X): Speed up the rate of repair.

The Engi was the first class I rolled. I recently leveled it to 80, but ever since my earliest levels I’ve felt like this class had been added as an afterthought by Arenanet.

Let’s do an analysis of the class, shall we? If you just want to see my suggestions for improvements to the engi, go to the next post.

Skill Types

Engineers have a unique skill types, like all the other professions.
-Elixirs, which are like magic potions, grant boons or other positive effects
-Turrets are stationary deployables that periodically fire off an effect and can be overcharged to temporarily become more powerful.
-Gadgets are various tools that can be activated
-Kits replace the engineer’s weapon skills

Class Mechanic

Engineers have the toolbelt as their class mechanic. It’s a set of skills, determined by their utility skills, that can be activated using the four profession skill keys.

My problem with this is that the toolbelt in its current state is not anywhere near as useful as Death Shroud for necros, Adrenaline for warriors, or Virtues for guardians. Its simply a set of four extra skills, and quite often those skills don’t synergize with their counterpart on the main skill bar.

Elixirs

These are actually not so bad. Elixir B gives several useful boons, Elixir S lets you shrink yourself, and Elixir R’s toolbelt skill lets you revive a downed ally.

Unfortunately, Arenanet decided to give us a heavy dose of RNG, which is out of place and extremely frustrating in a game which is supposed to be moving away from the problems present in most MMOs. Toss Elixir B (the toolbelt for Elixir B ) doesn’t give a guaranteed boon; instead, it gives a RANDOM BOON from the normal skill. It’s totally useless, because the boons are varied in their application. You might get a useless 1 stack of might, or you could get retaliation when you’re not even getting attacked. Toss Elixir H is even worse.

And worst of all, Elixir X (AN ELITE SKILL) gives us a random elite FROM ANOTHER PROFESSION. So this elite isn’t even unique to our class.

Turrets

Abso-kitten-lutely useless. They’re bugged to hell, they have barely any health, the hitboxes are massive, they do almost no damage, and… I think you get the point. The health of turrets needs to be doubled, and the Metal-Plated Turrets trait needs to give extreme AOE resistance to our turrets.

Gadgets

Mediocre at best. Rocket Boots and Slick Shoes synergize pretty well, but the latter has a huge cooldown that makes this synergy almost worthless, and the skills themselves aren’t great to start with. The others are rarely worth taking in your build.

Kits

The bread and butter of engineers, kits are the only thing that is truly worthwhile with engineers. And then Anet went and slapped them with the nerf bat. There are some things that need tweaking, but the kits are more solid than everything else about Engis.

Downed Skills

Dear god. 1 applies a random condition, so it lacks the damage output to finish off an enemy while down. 2 is an invitation to stomp you. 3 is nice, but not worth the huge warmup.

Traits

Engineer traits are largely a joke. The Alchemy line of traits is fine, but the others need serious work. Our Grandmaster traits especially need help. You know that trait “Adrenal Implant”? It’s a Grandmaster trait in the Tools line.

Well, rangers get that as a minor adept trait.

That’s just insulting.

We were given a minor trait as our grandmaster trait.

We have just as much need for mobility and dodging, if not more, than Rangers. They’re already more mobile than us without Natural Vigor.

With Extra Cheese

However, it’s not just small details like Trahearne or the lack of continuity that cause issues. There’s also the nonstop use of clichés, stereotyping of the in game races, ridiculous talking heads cutscenes, and generally bad voice acting. These all do much more damage to the story than Marshal Salad did.

Everything is a cliché. The overall story is practically the story of DAO. I have no problem with that, original overall stories are not something I really expect. However, when the sub sections are then divided into smaller clichés… and the characters themselves are clichés… it gets kind of old.

As for the stereotyping of the races, almost every member of a race is the same. There are few exceptions. All Sylvari are optimistic and bubbly. All Norn make references to their spirits and culture constantly. All Charr are sarcastic and aggressive. All Humans are shining beacons of heroism. All Asura are arrogant and talk a lot. There’s very little variation.

The talking heads are annoying. That kind of cutscene disconnects you from the action and takes the scene out of context. It’s literally the worst possible way to implement a cutscene, because it altogether defeats the purpose. In addition, it restricts the scene to two people at once, gives you no sense of the physical activity occurring in the scene, and involves very little animation aside from standing and staring at each other. That’s the one thing Tortanic did right. Those cutscenes were amazing.

The voice acting… how did we get such bad voice acting? To be fair, the factors I mentioned above might have degraded our perception of it, but it’s still not that great. I mean, I mistook the female norn for a male asura when she shouted “Might makes me right”. It’s especially odd, considering how the voice actors they chose have done such excellent work in other games. Troy Baker, for instance, was the voice of Booker DeWitt in Bioshock Infinite, yet his character (Logan) in GW2 is so bland. How does that happen?

I could go on for much longer, but I’d rather not extend this wall of text even more.

Just post intelligently. Which means no stuff like “Why are you playing MMOs for the story?” This game

I just finished the personal story for the first time, with the exclusion of the quest that requires five people. I… this is… appalling. There are so many issues with this story. I had quite a bit of fun at some points, but it was totally outweighed by everything being predictable, over-the-top, and often nonsensical. Maybe I was expecting too much, since I’m a Bioware fan, but I think my assessment will be pretty fair.

Lack of Continuity

My first character was a Female Charr Engineer. I chose Iron as my legion, Reeva as my sparring partner, and Loyal Soldier as my father’s legacy. The earlier levels, in my opinion, had the strongest writing.

After [spoiler]my first warband was killed, I liked how Reeva started to be developed as a character. It was even more awesome when I found that I could recruit other members into my new warband based on the choices I made. [/spoiler] For those first levels, it felt like the choices I made mattered. It reminded me of Dragon Age and Mass Effect, to some extent.

Then, the time came to join one of the three orders. I assumed I would get to bring my warband along. Nope. Reeva took over and I never saw my warband again. Seriously. I spent 40 levels building my relationship with these characters and they vanished to make room for the rest of the Personal Story.

Once you join an order, it stops being a “personal story”. ABSOLUTELY NOTHING you did in the first 40 levels makes any difference. It’s not even acknowledged. A handful of characters make reappearances, but most of them don’t seem to recognize you.

But wait, the Order stories aren’t so bad. My female charr joined the Priory. When you join the Durmand Priory, your mentor is Magister Sieran, who's an extremely optimistic and adventurous Sylvari. Her voice acting is excellent, and the character is well-developed... and then she gets killed, because apparently, killing off literally the ONLY INTERESTING CHARACTER in the game is considered deep. Her death is totally pointless and unnecessary. As the title of the section says, this was done because Anet didn't want to have any continuity between story sections. That’s when the Impersonal Story starts to go down hill.

Non-Sylvari are introduced for the first time to Rear Admiral Rutabaga, who is the only persistent character in the entire game. He gets his own section in this, don’t worry.

For the next 30 levels, here is what you can expect: You will be introduced to many, many named characters. You will find at least some of these characters engaging, and you'll want to know more about them. They will then do one of two things: A. Star in a mission and disappear, never to be seen again outside of brief appearances where you can't interact with them in any meaningful way, or B. Die in a pointless and nonsensical way. The latter is much more common, and it quickly becomes comical as you realize the characters are being introduced solely for the purpose of being killed. Gratuitous death does not a deep plot make.

Batman and Robin

You will very quickly discover in GW2 that you are not the protagonist of the story. No. That honor goes to…

TRAHEARNE.

Also known by the following names:

Broccoli Batman
Marshal Salad
Rear Admiral Rutabaga

Trahearne is a character whose voice actor is qualified by the merit of being able to speak in a total monotone and mispronounce words in funny ways. You may know him from such productions as “The Battle of Clawr Island”.

Now, you might be wondering, “But of course we’re the protagonist! Who are we if not the protagonist of our personal story?”

Well, the short answer is: You’re Robin.

He’s Batman.

Except in this case, Robin fights all the battles while Batman lies facedown in the dirt after being roflstomped by a single Risen. Batman also gets Excalibur and can summon monsters to protect himself while he stands on the battlements and surveys the battlefield, like a good general. He comes with the added feature of running slowly while shouting vague orders and not moving towards objectives if his babysitter commander isn’t escorting him 24/7.

My biggest grievance with Trahearne, if you haven’t figured it out yet, is that he hogs the spotlight. In a video game, the spotlight should always be on the player character. It’s called the PERSONAL STORY for a reason. Have you ever held your cursor over the exact point of entry to your story instance? It says “My story continues here…”. That’s MY story, not the story of some stupid vegetable. Unless I chose to roll a vegetable. But that’s my choice.