I have honestly never used Overcharged Shot and though “Darn… I wish this skill was better.” Because very time I use it, it’s been incredible. Yeah, the self CC is a little sad, but I can keep people well and away for ridiculous amounts of time with all of Rifle’s skills.
Overcharged Shot and Net Shot are Rifle’s two best skills in my humble opinion.
Jump Shot getting a fluidity change (so you’re not kind of floating there when you land for .5 seconds) would be very nice, and I can agree with that.
Blunderbuss with a larger cone is in my “Condensed Suggestions” thread. We get a bigger cone from pistol 4… A smaller weapon. Having a 600 range cone for Blunderbuss, especially with the skills’ “diminshed effect” for far targets, is something that needs to happen too.
I do love my rifle a lot though, and I wouldn’t want them to change it drastically like some people have been suggesting.
Also: Rifled Barrels is absolute garbage for Rifles, go figure… Heck for most weapons except the Elixir Gun… Honestly, it should be baked into skills (the ones with under 1200 range) and gotten rid of, since 100 extra range on most attacks means next to nothing, even in sPvP and WvW.
I wish we did have Heavy armor.
I like the idea of “I built my armor” which I know is easily possible given the crafting system in GW2. But I never feel like it’s the Engineer’s idea armor. Here they are, working with guns and mines, rockets, turrets… All this “heavy” feeling gear… And they’re doing this all in leather… Which is soft, and coat-y.
It’s like saying… “I’m going to make 3/4 of my arsenal out of metal! But that jacket over there is adorable! I’m so buying that!”
Yeah, it’s a cast timer, not a recharge timer.
Cast looks like a clock.
Recharge is an arrow going clockwise inside a circle.
Drinking Elixir H only gives you one of the boons in addition to the spot heal. So you get Regen, Swiftness, OR protection, not all three of them.
That’s what the thread is covering… What it’d be like IF we got all the associated boons/buffs.
EDIT: Also… Healing Turret is friggin’ amazing… For the most part. If it worked right it’d be fantastic, especially in parties. The regen bug is killing the overall goodness though.
If you have sharp eyes, you can see the retaliation shield graphic.
Toss a Mine at them, and it’ll remove a boon. If he’s not running much boons, you’ll probably get the Retaliation.
Toss Elixir B versus No Comparable Skill (?)
Boons: 30 second Might, 10 seconds Fury, Swiftness, Retaliation vs _?_
Recharge: 20 Seconds, up to 14 Traited vs ???
Condition Removal: 1 Traited vs ???
Misc: HGH for 1 stack of Might vs ???
Analysis and Balance: It’s honestly not bad at all, but the random single buff form is really not reliable for anything. And a single stack of Might is uninspiring. Still, to ask for all 4 buffs on throw, with that cooldown, would be a bit much.
Concurrency Nerf: No Might (because it’s nearly pointless) nor Swiftness. 7 Seconds of Fury and Retaliation. This makes the Toss a quick damage buff for a fairly short period of time. Alternatively, 2 Stacks Might and 7 Seconds Fury, but that’s too similar to “For Great Justice!” to be considered the best alternative.
Toss Elixir U versus Poison Cloud (Ranger Pet: Spiders and others have variations)
Conditions: Possible 1 Second Blind vs 3 seconds Poison per pulse
Recharge: 60 Seconds, 42 Traited vs 20 Seconds, 18 Traited
Condition Removal: 1 Traited vs 0
Misc: HGH for 1 stack of Might, Mid-Duration (7-10s) Combo Field (Etherial, Smoke, or Light) vs Short-Duration (5s?) Poison Field
Analysis and Balance: Okay…Can’t really call concurrency here. The common theme is the combo field. The major difference is the recharge time. Aside from Veil, you’re practically doubling the recharge on the Smoke Screen and Wall of Reflection.
Concurrency Nerf: No concurrency… Reduce recharge to 40 seconds, get rid of Veil. Smoke and Reflection serve similar purposes: Effing up ranged attacks. Mission accomplished, and it’s still “random.” Different fields too. Want a third random spell? Feedback! Sure, it’s a circle, but it’s still a rpojectile messer-upper, has similar duration, replaces the lost etherial field, and has a recharge of… 40 seconds!
Toss Elixir S versus Virtue of Courage (Guardian)
Boons: 4 Second Stability and Stealth vs 4 Second Aegis
Recharge: 60 Seconds, up to 42 Traited vs 90 Seconds, up to 63 Traited
Condition Removal: 1 Traited vs 0
Misc: HGH for 1 stack of Might vs Traitable for Protection (5s), Party-Wide Stun Break(!), Stability (3s), recharge on rally. Also grants Aegis to self every 40 (30 Traited) seconds
Analysis and Balance: Holy buckets, Batman… Traited, Virtue of Courage is beastly compared to Toss Elixir S… Especially when you remember to include range in the above comparison. Virtue of Courage is simply better, so it’s worth the extra recharge. Untraited is good too, since Aegis ever 40 seconds is kind of nice compared to a very situational pair of buffs.
Concurrency Nerf: No nerf needed. Seriously.
Well, that’s all I got. I think I covered them all.
Been thinking about something lately. Others have suggested a chance of concurrency of effects on the RNG effects of Elixirs. I got to thinking that maybe we don’t need that, but rather just letting all the buffs happen 100% of the time.
So I’m going to post the “Full Effect” of each Elixir in comparison to a similar skill. Then suggest some alterations if there happens to be something overpowered about the Elixir. Then everyone can discuss.
Elixir H versus Healing Spring (Ranger)
Heal: 5560 vs 4920
Boons: 10 second Regeneration and Swiftness, 5 seconds Protection vs 18 seconds regeneration
Recharge: 25 Seconds, 20 Traited vs 30 Seconds
Condition Removal: 1 Traited vs 1 per 3 seconds
Misc: HGH for 2 stacks of Might vs Water Field (15s) but no traits
Analysis and Balance: Healing Spring is incredible. As a party supporting mechanic, it is superb, thanks to the long-lived water field. Elixir H, even with concurrency, can’t even compare for a single target heal. It’s main advantage is that it has trait support unlike Healing Spring, and is more mobile. That said, full concurrency wouldn’t be too overpowering in any mode, so I’d have to say that the only thing that would need to be reduced is the boon duration.
Concurrency Nerf: 5 Seconds of Regeneration and Swiftness. Protection reduced to 3 seconds. This makes it a spot heal that keeps you from dropping quickly, and likely becomes the go-to PvP heal. (Or remains so.)
TOSS Elixir H versus Healing Cloud (Ranger Pet: Jellyfish)
Heal: 0 vs 0
Boons: 10 second Regeneration and Vigor, 5 seconds Protection vs 10 seconds Regeneration
Recharge: 30 Seconds, up to 21 Traited vs 30 Seconds, 27 Traited
Condition Removal: 1 Traited vs 0
Misc: HGH for 1 stack of Might vs No action required on Ranger’s part
Analysis and Balance: This is one where the toss is better when oncurrent. As it is now, the regen proc is AS GOOD as the ranger pet skill. Traits can make it better though. The similar ability from the Ranger Fern Hound “Regenerate” is actually better, with 5 seconds less on recharge (traitable to 20 second recharge), though it is a F2 skill.
Concurrency Nerf: 5 Seconds of Regeneration and Vigor, 3 Protection. This would be a reliable “Oh snap!” button for your teammates, possibly pulling some rears out of the fire.
TK’s Magnet also most of the time only makes Dolyaks (WvWvW supply Dolyaks) ‘stumble’ a bit, i.e. not pulling them at all.
That’s probably intentional since it’s a long walk between bases, and yanking dolyaks around would probably slow things down by a huge amount.
For the Mine kit, I think that’s sort of the way it was in BW1, but got changed. The problem is that it might feel like just a lesser version of grenades, or an in-between for Grenades and Bombs. We’d have to find a way to get a unique feel before it could be a kit.
@JohnDied, I did add a lesser version of that medkit buff. If it’s all buff-giving, it feels less like a medkit though, which is why I ‘toned it down’ a bit.
As for the other ones, making our skill copy other profession skills I don’t believe is the way to go. We already have a lot of borrowed skills. Super Elixir is pretty good, but in need of a small buff up, and serves a point as a point defense heal. Same with turret.
I especially don’t want to see a turret be limited in duration. It’d take away the flavor of the turret, IMO.
How do I always manage to pick the class that is the lowest priority in every game I play?
/headdesk
Priority is about equal. People are just pissy about a nerf, but honestly, we get as much attention as other professions. It’s just we have more bugs than others, but ANet can’t just work on us or else the others will complain.
I’d be satisfied if it was just a “one-shot and it’s done” kind of deal… Like “Call Mortar Bombarbment” instead of a skill that has to be manned.
No other elite requires you to babysit it for it to actually do something. There’s Conjure Fiery Greatsword, but at least you can move while using it, as well as call it down in a spot for damage. And it stays until you drop it instead of staying until something farts in its general direction.
dunno what world wasdclick lives in but…
right now engi as about as low as its ever been.
The world I live in sees both the lowest and highest points of the Engineer profession.
Our highest DPS potential went down a chunk, that’s for certain.
But we have been improving in several low points of our profession.
Our support is getting better (the Super Elixir bug fix hurt, but we’ve gotten goodies that can circumvent that, if in an indirect way as opposed to green numbers). And our tankiness can still be pretty darn impressive for a medium armor class. It’s just our straight-up DPS that’s lacking.
Well, it depends… Are you a Grenadier Engie?
If yes, you’re gonna have a bad time. Grenade 1 got nerfed 30% on it’s damage coefficient. However, the new Shrapnel trait is a bit more worthwhile. Overall, it does take longer to kill with grenades now, even with other buffs.
If no, there’s fun to be had. Biggest thing is that Sigils on your weapons now apply to your kits. New combinations are cropping up that have made players happy. Sigil of Strength has been rather popular for might-stacking. HGH got buffed to provide 2 stacks of might when you DRINK an elixir. (Toss skills only provide 1 still.)
Since Halloween, there’s been a new popular build called TANKCAT. And Static Discharge builds are doing decently well too.
It’s also been announced that soon, weapon stats will apply to kits too, giving us more of our needed flexibility.
It’s a good time for the most part, and we’ll be getting better. That said, there’s a lot of nay-sayers right now due to the Grenadier nerf.
Pretty sure it’s a bug. No other Engie kit times out.
I feel your pain though. I wound up just re-equipping the kit every time I’m out of combat. It’s an annoying workaround, but doing whatever works right now is important for Engies.
EDIT: My theory is that Engineer Kits were originally planned to be like Elementalist conjures, with limited charges and all that. So they just copy/pasta’ed the code to serve as a base for all of our kits. With heavy editing to make kits work the way they do, it’s possible residual conjure code is still in there, like how Conjures only last for a certain period of time, regardless of remaining charges.
EDIT ALSO: To anyone that says “Oh, great, the programmers are lazy, that’s why Engineers are so horrible.” That’s not quite it. Copy/Pasta is a common occurrence in any game development. It saves entire DAYS of work. While it is ultimately lazier than writing all new code, it’s also a lot more efficient, which is much more important when you’re a code monkey with managers telling you to hurry up, deadlines to meet, and a billion other things to do simultaneously.
(edited by Wasdclick.1764)
This was before our main source of damage was nerfed into the ground.
Nofo is talking about Grenades. They are no longer our primary source of damage solo, however, they’re still GREAT in teams for high level stuff. It’s one of those “instant gratification” things.
Say you got your Thief, Guardian, Warrior, and Elementalist, all smacking things around. They do a lot of damage, likely more than you might be set up for. But if you take Grenadier at Explosives 30, each button press of grenades that you chuck will inflict 3 stacks, lasting 6.5 seconds (including Duration Bonus) of vulnerability. With Firearms 10, you can make each crit a 50% chance of an additional Vulnerability stack. And there’s a sigil that does the same thing on a 30% chance. So each throw is likely to net you 4-5 stacks of vulnerability. With Pistol/X, you can get a 10% increase to vulnerability duration, take some runes to help that, and then you’ll EASILY cap a target’s Vulnerability by yourself.
Maybe you’re not doing the best damage in the group, but you just added 25% to everyone’s damage… That means you’re more than pulling your weight in a team, just by spamming a bunch of explosive balls.
With the vulnerability alone, in a 5 man team, you are now effectively doing DPS that puts you right in the middle of the pack… Add grenade damage, and you can justly claim to have been responsible for a lot of damage, even if your white numbers are relatively low.
See what I mean? Synergy! You don’t get to see all the damage you’re actually doing.
(edited by Wasdclick.1764)
1. If you go with Pistol/Pistol or Pistol/Shield, then getting the most out of your damage conditions is great. If you plan on rifle or most kits, you get more bang for your buck out of power. Even with Pistol/Pistol, running power over condition damage is still great, and possibly even optimal. The firearms trait line will grant Precision and Condition Damage, so it’s hard to say which is overall better. Basically, you got to find your playstyle first. Annoying, I know.
2. For leveling, I suggest picking up a Rifle as soon as you can. They get more out of Power, which is an easier stat to take advantage of early. Grenades are a good buy early, just to keep handy for underwater fighting. For land combat, I personally suggest Throw Mine, because it synergizes well with Rifle’s kiting capability. An easier choice might be Rifle Turret though, as turrets scale decently at low levels when you don’t have a lot of stats anyway. (They currently don’t scale well with stats, so it kind of makes people sad pandas late game.)
When you can pick it up, get Flamethrower (Usually around level 10-12 for me, but your mileage may vary.) You may love it, you may hate it. Play with it, see how it suits you. When you love it, it’s a great leveling weapon. Otherwise, start investing in Elixirs, since they tend to be the most-used utilities late-game.
3. If you don’t use kits, you won’t see the backpack, so you won’t have to look “goofy” if you don’t like them. I have two, Sylvari and Human, as I really enjoy their stories. Especially Sylvari, as they just feel so unique.
4. Engineers are very dynamic when played properly, and especially with Kits. You need to adapt to the fight more than other professions, especially with the rifle. A well-timed knockback or blind can turn hopeless battles for you.
Sadly, there are many bugs. The forum has an extensive sticky topic on Engineer bugs, and it’s longer than anyone would like. We still can work around these bugs though.
5. The skill level on a max-level Engie is realllly high. That’s why few play them, as they feel that the skill level isn’t rewarded enough, as Engineers are one of the least capable of seeing “personal glory” like big damage numbers, hitpoints, and armor value. What they do well is synergy, and it’s a shame few people see that, or just plain disregard it when they can just roll another class and get the more instant gratification of being personally awesome.
A Thief might be able to smash things for all the damage, but an Engineer can make that Thief slice through foes like a JRPG overcompensation sword.
The worst part is that some people have allegedly taken to kicking Engineers out of fractals groups, thinking that the Engineer can’t contribute enough, when it simply is not true.
3k including Weapon Power.
2k if you’re talking just the baseline Power stat.
Pistol/Pistol with heavy Elixir support (With Formula 409, HGH, Elixir S, and Toss Elixir R especially) can be pretty good as a support build, but you’ll want to stick with at least one teammate for maximum effectiveness. Build for survival, and harass with conditions, using your Elixirs to mess with the battlefield. Not sure if it’s as effective as it is offbeat, but it does the job. Mixing it up to use Rifle can be effective, since Rifle has a lot of control.
There’s also the much-loved TANKCAT build. It was designed with sPvP in mind, and is a fantastic build with a bit of practice. It’s Pistol/Shield, and should stay that way though.
The vigor upon swiftness trait is much better anyway. It requires some extra setup, either through crits in the firearms tree, or with speedy kits… But it’s just so good.
Adrenal Implant is quite frankly, filler until ANet comes up with something good to put there. lol
So I’m aware that the regen from Healing Turret is rubbish if I pick it back up immediately.
The bug thread doesn’t quite answer all my questions about it though.
Regeneration appears to use the boon-giver’s stats to calculate the healing value. (Hence why picking up the turret kicks your regen value down to 5 per tick, since something that doesn’t exist has a value of 0 for level and compassion.)
If while that’s applied, and I get regeneration from literally ANYWHERE else, would it override the lame 5 per tick regen because of superior healing numbers? Similar to how stacking burn duration from a 0 Malice player and a 1000 Malice player will use 1000 Malice for the damage calculation.
I’m just wondering because I’m working on a support build involving a full set of Dwayna runes. A set of 6 grants 5 seconds of regen upon using a heal skill, possibly circumventing the whole healing turret pick-up bug.
I’d test myself, but I’m not sure how to test regen in the Mists since anything safe and easy to observe doesn’t cause damage to players..
@wasdclick
why not just have it tied to weapon swap?
That could work, but it wouldn’t allow people to do MH Pistol 1 with OH Pistol 2, and the like.
What would you all think on this idea?
General/Weapons: Fire Selector
When an engineer has a weapon, they should learn to use it in every way possible, and improve on as many aspects as they can. So what if when you equip a weapon of any type, on the Hero Information Screen Thingy™, you could click one of two checkboxes next to each of your weapon icons labeled modes 1 and 2? Depending on what you have, you’d get different weapon skills.
Rifle Mode 1: What we’re used to, our controlling/melee rifle of awesomeness.
Rifle Mode 2: A full suite of 1200 range, single target skills designed for primarily damage and little else.
MH Pistol 1: What we got, a condition-heavy AoE weapon.
MH Pistol 2: A fast-firing mid-range, single target weapon.
OH Pistol 2: Single-target daze/stun, and evasion skills.
Shield 2: Offensive melee charge, and an area protection skill.
This would lets us have more options, without picking up “unfitting weapons” like staff and such. As it is, we have three weapon combinations, which is sad. Even Elementalist has more than us, and conjures to parallel our kits.
This would let people have their sniper rifles and such, but also let people keep the skills we already have.
Just a weird thought.
Are you using two “On Crit” sigils?
They essentially share the same ICD, so you’d do better to diversify and take two different types of sigils.
Unlss you take two Duration sigils. Duration is the only type that stacks.
Any link with “gw2skills.net” is going to have issues here.
Because each link has a semicolon, the scourge of the punctuation world.
Something to do with the forum’s programming language or formatting code I think.
You currently get the benefit of both sigils.
So all kits are best with Pistol/Pistol, or Pistol/Shield.
Sigil of Strength is great on critical builds, usually paired with on of the “static” 5% sigils.
Weapon Swap sigils now work as well, so those are pretty popular.
- Added stealth mines (and traps for professions that get traps. It’s only fair.)
- Added stealth-reveal to Utility Goggles (Reminds me of Markerlights for the Tau in WH40k. I put it down as giving enemies the Revaled debuff, as that would seem the easiest way for it to get implemented.
- Added a few suggestions for secondary traits, either baked into our normal traits as a “third stat,” or as a second minor set of traits with “tinker points.”
- Added mobile turret, likely as a Grandmaster trait like it is for Spirits.
- Didn’t add the Aegis Armor suggestion, as I’m not sure entirely what was meant by the suggestion. But I did suggest a trait give Aegis when hit for 10% of your health in a single hit, which would be troll-tastic against Mug->Backstab combos.
- Didn’t add the “hits” armor for turrets. I feel it wouldn’t make that much of a difference, as turrets should go down quickly while being directly attacked (say about 3 seconds of focused single target fire) so layered armor like that would last 4 hits. That’d make the layers harder to balance, as Hundred Blades, or even Splitblade, could drop a turret in much, much less time. Also a small gang of skritt would teat it down in similarly tiny bursts of speed.
I should say… This isn’t about “make ALL these changes happen.”
It’s just everyone’s more sensible or creative ideas. “Buff grenades by 40%.” Wouldn’t show up here, but small merges, alternate skill ideas and the like will crop up. Some may be too powerful, but that’s what playtesting and refinement is for.
The point of this thread, is just for everyone to share their creative ideas. If we’re lucky, we’ll see some of them someday, and one of us might even be able to say “That was my idea… You’re welcome.” XD
So just discuss things, civilly of course. What’s good, what’s bad, what would just be really super-special-chocolately-covered-supreme-awesome-fudge-cake-bonanza-extreme to see implemented.
Traits
Explosives
- Evasive Powder Keg doesn’t really do much. Enemies don’t stick around. They chase the engineer, leaving the keg to blow up “back there.” Make it something like Shockwave or Rocket Boots PBAoE damage effect (minus the blast finisher) and have it count as an explosion for all those explosives traits.
- Reserve Mines, similar problem. Maybe a PBAoE knockback when you hit 25% would make for some good “breathing space.”
- Acidic Elixirs is just bad. These are teammate boosters, not damage abilities for the most part. But it they gave enemies a few small (5s) stacks of Vulnerability, we might have something great for team support.
- Combine Explosive Powder and Short Fuse. 20% Recharge traits feel more like taxes on the player than real traits, and should come with a little something extra.
- Combine Accelerant-Packed Turrets, and Deployable Turrets. Play Borderlands 2, as Axton, and take both Nuke and Mag-Lock. You’ll know what I mean, and it is glorious.
- Autodefense Bomb Dispenser should also drop a smoke bomb on downed status, just to mess with stompers.
Firearms
- Target the Mained should be bumped to 10%, like most Grandmaster damage buffs.
- Combine Rifled Barrels and Hair Trigger, again with the 20% recharge tax.
- Napalm Specialist is adept-level, not master. Perhaps add 5% damage to burning foes?
- Fireforged Trigger should increase Flamethrower damage by 15% and reduce it’s recharge by 20%, essentially combining it’s two halves of Fireforged and Deadly Mixture.
- Coated Bullets makes pistol bullets bounce instead of pierce, granting Static Shot an extra bounce, while making Poison Dart Volley and Explosive Shot less ridiculous in a tight mob.
- OR Coated Bullets should increase pistol conditions by 50%, since all the pistol skills have conditions that benefit nicely from the duration increase.
Inventions
- Automated Medical Response should trigger Healing Turret’s initial heal effect instead of recharging the heal skill. Or use Bandage Self. Engineer has low cooldown healing skills, so this trait is usually pretty weak as is.
- Protective Shield should grant 10 seconds of Aegis instead of Protection and trigger on 10% health loss in a single hit. Rename it Ablative Armor. How hilarious would it be to troll Mug-Backstab Thieves?
- Metal Plating should give more turret HP, AoE resistance, or something to make the difference in damage reduction noticable.
- Stabilized Armor should either not exist, or do more. Standing still is counter to Guild Wars 2’s combat style, and shouldn’t be encouraged without sufficient reason.
- Elite Supplies should reduce Elite skill cooldowns by 20%.
- Autotool Installation should also heal allies near a turret for a small amount, compounding if they are near multiple turrets. This would be a great support tool, similar to Phantasmal Healing.
- Elixir-Infused bombs should have a slightly higher healing coefficient.
- Rifled Turret Barrels could also grant turrets a slightly faster attack speed. And it would be awesome. Like Phantasmal Haste.
Alchemy
- Transmute, 20%. Do eet. It’s just not that noticable right now in normal situations, and in spammy situations, it’s not at all enough to truly help.
- Energy Conversion Matrix should grant 2% per boon, not counting multiples of the same boon of course. Again, high level damage traits should be worthwhile. Engineers already suffer in damage coefficients, regular percentiles will still reflect that lower coefficient just fine.
- Combine Fast-Acting Elixirs and Potent Elixirs, 20% recharge needs to be less taxxy.
- Acidic Coating should grant 5 stacks of Vulnerability on the enemy when they crit the player instead of giving a pitiful amount of Poison. Acid eats through armor.
- Merge the Elixir Gun half of Deadly Mixture with the same part of Fireforged Trigger, renaming it something appropriate. Maybe “Super Soaker.”
Tools
- Enduring Damage should increase damage when Endurance is not full, encouraging players to move and dodge enemy attacks.
- Always Prepared should trigger Big Ol’ Bomb on Downed state. Out with a BANG!
- Speedy Gadgets should also grant Swiftness on use of a gadget. 20% tax baaad.
- Scope should change to grant Fury at the end of a dodge roll. Probably get a rename too, but standing still should not be rewarded.
- Leg Mods should be 25%, and probably do something else too, since it’s pretty lame. Maybe jump higher! Reduce falling damage (non-stacking with the other one.)
- Armor Mods should be something much more inspiring. I’d say allow Engineers to war Heavy Armor, but that’s a bit much. Maybe a scaling +40 to all stats for the Engineer and nearby allies? (Vitality, Toughness, Healing Power, Power, Malice, and Precision)
- Adrenal Implant should be minor level. To make it better, perhaps gain 2 stacks of Might for 5 seconds when you gain Vigor?
Toolbelts
- In general, kit toolbelt skills need to be buffed to match the power of utility skills. We’re giving up a utility slot to have a kit, so it needs to be compensated somehow.
- All Throw Elixir “Letter” skills need to hit bigger areas. Radius 240-300 would make them a little better, but not step on the toes of radius 600 shouts.
- Toss Elixir H suffers from the same problem as Elixir H, random effect, too little to care about. If it was Regen and Vigor, we’d have something great for teams.
- Regenerating Mist needs a lower cooldown, or a larger effect. Water fields are great, but not worth a 6 second cooldown. Especially since the field doesn’t last long enough for anyone to notice it most the time.
- Toss Elixir B, RNG problems, Ahoy! You could have easily made this a throwable version of “For Great Justice!” and it would have been great. Or to make sure it has it’s own flavor, perhaps 2 stacks of Might for 20 seconds, 8 seconds of Retaliation, 20 second cooldown.
- Toss Elixir C does too little. Make it convert 2 conditions, maybe? Or create a field that pulses a three times, converting one each time?
- Toss Elixir S… Why not Stealth and Stability? I mean… It’s only 4 seconds, which is pretty small for Stability time, especially with the cooldown.
- Toss Elixir U could have been really unique. How about making it a smoke combo field that pulses allies swiftness? It’d be somewhere between Smoke Screen and Symbol of Swiftness, retaining the Quickness flavor, and crating a very useful field, even if on a long recharge.
- Analyze needs a shorter cooldown. Consider “On My Mark,” doing the same thing, but with only 3/4 the recharge, and for 25% longer.
- Mine Field needs something. I dunno what, but it just feels lacking. Bigger damage and trigger areas would probably help. Maybe also a set, predictable pattern of deployment.
- Throw Napalm should have a shorter recharge.
- Net Attack should have HALF (or less) the recharge time.
- Rocket should have a shorter recharge.
- Shockwave should have HALF the recharge time.
- Incendiary Ammo is horrendous. Make it a signet sort of deal. Passive: Burning lasts 25% longer. Active: Burn your foe for 3 seconds for the next three attacks.
Kits
- Make kits only benefit from the MH sigil, and increase damage accordingly to compensate for previous sigil-based nerfs. Rifle becomes sub-optimal for any set relying on kits otherwise. (Since Rifle can only have one sigil, but kits are balanced around having two.)
- Increase Tranquilizer Dart’s damage so Elixir gun isn’t just for show.
- Increase Super Elixir’s healing coefficient on the secondary pulses. Players should get greater benefit from being restricted to a small area.
- Add an “aiming cone” to Flame Jet, so that players are more able to accurately use the weapon. Also applicable to Fumigate, Blowtorch, and other sustained cones.
- Make Flame Blast ground-targeted or detonate on impact.
- Increase Magnet range so people can get pulled off WvW walls like with other single-target pull skills.
- Increase Bomb Kit effectiveness through longer condition durations and higher damage. People should be punished for staying next to a ticking time bomb.
Gadgets
- Give Rocket Boots “soft” landings, so players can get back into the action faster, and not get shot to swiss cheese while flat on their back.
- Reduce cooldown on Utility Goggles. It’s a good package, but it needs a small nudge in the right direction.
- OR replace the blind immunity on Utility Goggles with an AoE debuff that bestows Revealed for 10 seconds to counter Thieves and Prismatic Understanding Mesmers.
- Increase Slick Shoes to a 360 degree area of effect, making it comparable to Stomp. Reduce cooldown to compensate for no damage and no Blast Finisher.
- Make Mines (and other Traps) invisible to enemy players until they go off. They are traps after all.
Turrets
- +100% Hit points in general, as well as greater AoE resistance. These things are really fragile, even when kitted out with traits.
- Apply stats/items/sigils to turrets in the same way as other utility skills.
- On pickup, reduce cooldown by percentage based on remaining turret HP for quicker set-up of new firing lines. (Minimum of 15 seconds on all to prevent abuse of Healing Turret deployment.)
- Rifle Turret, half damage, but double firing rate.
- Net Turret, reduce time between shots to 5 seconds, reduce immobilize to 1-2 seconds. It should be disruptive, and annoying, to motivate others to kill it.
- Thumper Turret should create an PBAoE pull towards itself (slowing fire rate), to annoy enemies and provoke them to attack the turret.
- The ability to mobilize turrets. Perhaps through a Grandmaster Trait.
Elixirs
- In general, all Elixirs should have more standardized results. Random effects, as fun as they can be, become quickly unreliable in tense situations.
- Elixir U should not have the possibility of Frenzy. Engineers don’t have the same HP pool, nor toughness potential, that Warriors have, and subjecting Engineers to 50% more damage is far more dangerous to them than Warriors.
- Elixir B should do more. Consider “For Great Justice!” Which is a shout. It grants Fury for 8 seconds, and 3 stacks of Might for 25. On a 25 second timer. To allies and themselves. Elixir B grants only 1 stack of Might for 30 seconds, and slightly longer Fury, on a 40 second timer. So not even the Might is permanent. For a single person buff, this is lacking in a lot of areas, even with retaliation and swiftness.
- Elixir C shouldn’t do random boons, but rather boons that mirror the conditions cured. Confusion grants Retaliation, Weakness grants Might. That kind of thing.
(edited by Wasdclick.1764)
All righty. We all know Engineer needs some improvement. Some believe the class is worthless, but most think the class just needs a bit more love. I want to combine everyone’s favorite suggestions into one place, maybe make it easier for our voices to be heard.
This thread is for serious suggestions only, no haters, no nay-saying, no flaming, no trolls, and no nut-shots. And no “fix bugs.” There’s already a bug thread.
General
- Allow Engineers to equip a kit into a “Swap Weapon” slot. Kits are why we don’t get a second weapon, but they also limit our utility choices. This would let every engineer equip a kit, without feeling like they’re being taxed for it.
- Allow Engineers to choose their toolbelt skills. They’d still learn the associated skill from learning utilities, but could pick and choose what goes on the toolbelt independently of what’s on their utility and heal skill slots. Versatility, buddy.
- Give each trait line a third stat that gets increased by putting trait points. These stats would be unique things for Engineer utilities. Such as Firearms also increasing Turret Damage (power, precision, condition damage) sort of like how Rangers Beastmastry line increases pet stats.
- OR give Engineers a second set of minor trait points, called “Tinker Points” or something, that lets us customize our utilities to compliment our build.
Weapons
- Mace or Hammer for a little extra choice in the melee department. Something tankier would suit Engineer best, and give an extra option for use with shields.
- Increase Explosive shot bleed to 3-4 seconds.
- Either tighten Poison Dart Volley into a proper single-target attack at max range, or turn it into a spread like Splitblade or Poison Volley (Ranger). Random spread makes people sad.
- Increase Blunderbuss to 600 range like Blowtorch. Having to be inside average melee range makes Blunderbuss hard to use optimally.
Heals
- Make Medkit into a melee range AoE kit with channeled “bandaging” skills. Replace “Packaged Stimulants” with “Triage” that increases the effective AoE and reduces recharge by 20%.
- Make Elixir H give Regen and Protection simultaneously, instead of a random boon. RNG makes people sad pandas. Especially when Healing Turret can do 95% of what Elixir H does, but on a more optimal 15 second cooldown.
- Healing Turret needs to do something else when it pulses regeneration. Even a small heal, or a condition conversion, would make players consider whether to keep it out, or pick it up for a faster big heal.
(edited by Wasdclick.1764)
When you fire a ground-cast AoE with Static Discharge, it fires at the center of the AoE. So if you drop the AoE at your feet, the bolt fires at your feet.
Really? Because theyve been giving a lot of attention to Elementalist. Theyve had their stat scaling on conjure weapons adressed. Theyve had their attunements adressed to work with sigils loooong before we did. They had their horrible downed state fixed, to what is now one of the best.
Some pretty big and good things happend for Elementalist. So they are kitten well spending more time on one profession then the next. And honestly, they should. But focus on the professions that need it.
Fix the professions that shipped with the most bugs and issues first.If you keep working on all profensions evenly, the one or two that are behind the curve will never ever catch up.
And it would also inspire a lot more convidence. Sure your profession didnt get its pass this time, but you know you are getting a turn. And then you will have the devs undivided attention to really take a look at it. Instead of haphazerdly skimping across all professions, and only helping those that your dev team plays a lot themselves (cough, cough Warrior.)
Well, it is confirmed that the devs are working on stat scaling for our kits. And we got sigils. I don’t know if Elementalist conjures get sigils or not, but that’s just as big of a change as stats. And it has opened up a few more options. for the Engineer. And Conjures just get set stats based on the weapon type. We’re getting WEAPON scaling. Eff yeah. I’ll take some extra wait for that.
And you can’t say that elementalists have gotten all the attention. Rangers just got a massive melee pet improvement that makes them a lot more viable, even if not perfect. Mesmers got an awesome improvement to a Grandmaster trait (prismatic understanding).
Also, Elementalists got hit hard by the Evasive Arcana bugfix. Most all of warrior’s buffs have been to things that are rather weak in comparison, like their Arrow speed.
Would you really be happy if these once-per month updates were focused only on one class?
“This month, we worked on Necromancers. Now that they are both functional and will improved, they are now the new flavor of the month, everyone will roll one, and probably create unforeseen problems in PvP that are going to stick aorund for 8 months while we cycle through the other classes! Next month: Ranger! Sorry Mesmer, you’re going to have to wait 7 months before any problems you have are going to be addressed! HOORAY!”
The devs haven’t said squat on any class forum as far as I can tell.
I personally play other classes and I frequent those forums alot. They’ve given more attention to elementalists, necros, and warriors then they have this profession and they’ve even managed to push out the removal of class breaking bugs the same day of a patch last minute. So yes they’ve definitely communicated more to the rest of the playerbase in other professions, we’re just that cousin no one wants to talk to and only tolerates during the family get-togethers.
Well, I meant since the 14th patch, as Jon Peters has sent 2-3 messages total. One was telling players that Prismatic Understanding still had the buffing effect on The Prestige, but the stealth didn’t last longer as that would effectively increase casting time. The other was to explain how the water version of the new Elementalist falling damage resistance trait worked. And I think 1 about how they were working on getting armor preview to work properly again.
Since the 14th, nobody has said anything as to anything important.
As for total messages tossed around, I honestly don’t see a whole lot in any forum. And I jump around a lot. I’m an altaholic, so I play all the classes, visit all the forums, and spend more time theory crafting things I won’t ever use, than I do using the things I theory craft. It’s sad, but true.
And if there’s one thing I know, it’s that EVERYONE says their class is in need of buffs/communication/fixes/etc. And while I’d assert that Engineers, Necromancers, and Rangers need work most, they all have decent points for things that they want fixed. Warriors are complaining about the fact that they can’t shrug off conditions. Guardians are sad that they can’t get a decent WvW or exploring speed buff without devoting their entire build to having near perma-swiftness. Thieves complain about the lack of a 1200 range weapon, and lack of build options when it comes to late-game. Rangers have a load of pet problems, animation roots, and utility skills that are ultimately useless. Engineers have broken traits, wonky mechanics, and utilities that are ultimately useless or detrimental. Elementalists are feeling like they’re pinned into one and only one build, D/D, since scepter is weak and staff offers little to no control. Necromancers have a bunch of broken traits, and minion AI, and a trait that will get them killed nine times more than it will actually help them. And Mesmers have bugs aplenty on their clones, as well as having recently been given a speed buff that isn’t working.
So yeah, everyone’s complaining. So everyone needs to get attention. And they can’t give a few professions more attention than others. Thus, they have to do what they can, for whom they can, when they can. Some things are reallllly easy to fix (or gamebreaking), so they power it out in a hotfix. So these bigger problems with more abstract answers, like Pet AI, are going to take longer.
Everyone gets communication when the devs can report something for the players. Do you really want to hear “Day 62 of AI Troubleshooting… Pets have begun attacking their controller, exploding, then respawning as a drake… I don’t even know how the heck that happened. Anyway, back to square one. Again.”
The devs haven’t said squat on any class forum as far as I can tell.
Their last communications were around Dec 14. Then Wintersday hit. There’s a ton of stuff that had to be fixed and maintained in that time. It’s quite possible that they class devs got pulled to help with the immediate issues in events. Considering the 21st was when things seemed to stabilize most, I’d assume after that, they got pretty busy with personal holiday stuff.
So I think we all need to chill out a little and go celebrate fat guy in a red suit day. Whether it be by seeing family and opening gifts, or by going to see a movie while everyone else is busy burning the big family dinner and dealing with Uncle Bob’s drunken antics. Let the holiday season pass before expecting anything past the barest essentials.
I personally prefer the Krytan hammer. It does look a bit “lighter” than some other hammers, but it’s got a pleasing amount of detail and goes well with fanciful armors.
Okay, trying to stick to topic as much as possible.
Jon has said as much that Mesmers are to enjoy some speed buffing.
Signet of Inspiration was reworked to give 10 seconds of swiftness, and to work outside of combat.
What if, call me crazy, that Signet of Inspiration was supposed to give ONLY swiftness outside of combat, but the implementation was a bit buggy, so instead all Mesmers were getting any boon instead of the intended boon?
I would like for our all our current weapons to be made reasonably viable first.
Would another scepter or torch really make people happy?
Torch is actually pretty good when you get used to it. Maybe not top-notch like some other off-hands, but still has a good place.
Scepter 2 and 3 are rally good too, it’s just that 1 needs a wee bit of help. It’s great for a Mantra build though, since you don’t have to mind interrupting your auto-attack to recast your Mantras.
There’s data in the game for polearms, and I’d love to see those get fully implemented.
If I could create a weapon for Mesmer though, it’d have to be a Tome. Like a huge, thick, dramatically oversized kind of book that would serve as a focus for AoE skills.
As far as what’s in the game, I think MH/OH daggers would be the most fitting though. Some people have been saying throwing daggers, and that’d be great for a 900-range AoE set. Though I think I’d prefer more of a focus style of casting.
1: Ethereal Shard – Ricochets off multiple targets, bleeding foes. (Base damage of Engineer Pistol 1, 3 second bleed, 3 targets. 20% Chance of Projectile Finisher. Casting speed of Thief Shortbow 1.)
2: Impeccable Reflection – Channel a wave of ethereal bolts that pierce enemies, while at the same time reflecting ranged attacks. (Medium base damage, 10 attacks, 20% chance of Projectile Finisher, 60 degree cone. 2 seconds worth of channel and reflection. Recharge 12 seconds.)
3: Misdirection – Clone. Summon a clone that appears in a cloud of smoke, blinding nearby foes. (Low base damage, 3 second Blind, 180 radius, very quick cast time. Blast Finisher. Recharge 15 seconds.)
4: Phantasmal Harrier – Phantasm. Summon an illusion that attacks with a fan of knives, crippling enemies. (Medium damage, 60 degree cone, 5 attacks at once, 5 seconds between attacks. Each hit causes 3 seconds of cripple. Like Ranger Splitblade, but with cripple. Recharge 20 seconds.)
5: Blinding Singularity – Create a spacial distortion that draws enemies toward a single point before exploding, blinding enemies caught within. (Low damage 480 radius initial pull, followed by Medium Damage 240 radius Blast Finisher that blinds for 3 seconds. Recharge 25 seconds.) I imagine this as throwing a dagger into the center point, drawing in enemies and mesmer-y colored orbs of light before detonating in a flurry of mesmer butterflies.
I think similar ideas have been discussed. But kits as our F1-F4 would make us elementalists in medium armor.
I think the following changes would make us awesome.
1. Weapon Swap slot is a “free” kit. You equip whatever kit you want into there, and thus we effectively have a second weapon like 6/8 other professions do. This helps our versatility, while at the same time not giving us a real advantage over other professions. We could still use our other utility slots for other kits.
2. Unlinking toolbelt skills from utility skills. Having a customizable toolbelt seems very engineer to me. That would make us a heck of a lot more versatile. Playing DPS, but want to stick to ranged? Throw Wrench but no Tool Kit. Need a quick recharging heal to compliment your Elixir H? Bandage Self. Hate incendiary ammo, but love Flamethrower? That’s cool, take your flamethrower and pop in something more useful into your toolbelt instead.
Flamenommer does well enough now.
I agree that a little more love is needed, but sigil benefits have drastically improved the viability of the Flamethrower.
Crit-Might (Sigil of Strength) and Juggernaut (stack of might every few seconds) goes really well with the improved HGH (elixirs grant might). Especially if you stack boon duration (Alchemy Line, 60% Might Duration from 3 sets of 2 Power Runes)
If you do want to primary your Flamethrower… Take Pistol/Shield or Pistol/Pistol. Since you benefit from sigils, and kits will be balanced around having access to two sigils, Rifle just won’t cut it unless you need the control and like to kit swap.
So every elementalist, for your reference, effectively has 8 kits available to them in addition to ALL of their utility skills in ANY build.
Unless there was a crazy patch for elementalists in the last 24 hours… I’m pretty sure Elementalists can’t switch weapons.
WvW with engineer is so much fun for me. Everyone I see tries to chase me down for easy kill, especially thieves. They will soon realize that engineers can also be dangerous in 1v1.
I usually have no problems dealing with warriors, thieves or any other profession. Is it because enginners are so rare that ppl don’t know how to counter one or is it like that only in WvW? And I play full glass static discharge build with no stunbreaks.
WvW is what’s making you surprisingly destructive. In sPvP, you fight the same 5 people multiple times. They’ll learn what you can and can’t do, then exploit it. You’ll get conditioned to death. I have a similar build and that’s precisely what happens. It’s enough to get an initial advantage though.
In WvW, you don’t have time to learn your enemy, so unusual builds, like Burst Engineer, have less issues. By the time the realize what your weakness is, you’ve probably moved on to a new mission, a new zerg, or straight up logged off. When you’re fighting some 100 people on each side, you don’t care about the individual soldier as much.
Not to say you’re bad. Just that your build is much better for WvW than sPvP. Two different flavors, but both are delicious.
I’ve learned the enigeer class inside and out. I also play with a razer nostromo game pad, razer naga mouse, and razer deathstalker keyboard. I have every single key mapped out which allows me to never have to lift my hand from wasd (which is at my thumb) to hit any keybinding and have every single keybinding memorized from muscle memory. I control F1-F4 with my right hand on the mouse, and 1-0 with my left fingers (wasd jump and tab are all with my thunb).
With that said, if I take a day off playing the engineer I can visibly see my performance decrease.
I can take 2 months off playing a thief/warrior and it is as if I never left the class.
So yes, the engineer is exponentially more complicated, and it requires perfect execution to be 80% of what can be done on the top tier classes.
I still play the engineer (almost 700 hours played), but please don’t come to these boards and tell people that balance is hard so it is ok that the engineer player has too do WAY more to get significantly less.
I never said Engineer was a top-tier class. But I also know that Tiers aren’t everything. You don’t have to pick Ryu or Sagat to win at Street Fighter. The Chicago Cubs can win baseball games. Is it harder? Yes. Does that mean that they do less because of it? No.
There are people who research tier lists for fighting games, and come in fighting with only the strongest characters. But some people see a goofy guy in a pink gi, and think, “Challenge Accepted.” Then they learn the guy inside and out. They learn their opposition. Then, suddenly, something clicks, and Dan becomes a beast, tearing Sagat a new eye-hole in a flurry of frustratingly offbeat attacks and dedicated skill.
Also, I’d like to see any class, at all… Bring nearly as much control to a battle. An Engineer dominates the literal space in which s/he plays with knockbacks, snares, and secondary movement. Maybe somebody can dodge more. Maybe someone can perma-cripple. But nobody puts it all together like an Engineer. It’s beautiful to watch in motion.
(edited by Wasdclick.1764)
ANet has said balance is not easy. And really, it’s not.
Engineers take more effort to reach the top-level of their game, and can be absolutely incredible when played right. Problem is, they’re hard. They have a learning curve that’s higher than most other professions, and possibly even the highest. Unlike a D/D Elementalist, who is tough to learn, the Engineer doesn’t have a real burst rotation or particular battle plan. It’s all improv based on reacting and disrupting the enemy. Usually the D/D elementalist comes in with a plan of attack, with enough burst to gain mass advantage before the battle plan goes to eff and everyone’s improving.
When you get good at that improvisation… Then you’re REALLY good, and things click for our Engineer. Which is awesome.
However, it’s not awesome for a select group of players: The new players. The learning curve can be seen as insurmountable when easier things to learn crop up, like Signet Warriors and D/D “Spin to Win” Thieves. Are they better than Engineer? Not really. In fact, I never see Signet Warriors doing well in sPvP.
ANet does want to balance the learning curve so that new players aren’t discouraged. But they don’t want to take away that deep level of skill that the Engineer can achieve. That’s why balancing us is harder than just giving a damage boost. They don’t want to tell players to just L2P. It’s… Awkward at best for them to try to change things without having a drastic effect on the game state. That’s why they erred on the side of caution with the Grenade nerf last big patch.
TL:DR? Balancing is friggin’ hard. And Engineer is hard to learn. So we need to do our part for the Engineer community, and for Guild Wars 2 as a whole, to be a good, supportive community. ANet deserves our support, and so does anyone who wants to jump in and pick up the Engineer’s wrench. Besides, an Engineer shouldn’t be negative, but they should be constructive.
Highly doubt they’d give us another Virtue… but if they did… and along those same lines.
Active – Sprint for 3s (same speed as warrior charge/ride the lightning).
If they did make a new Virtue so we can have speed, the active wouldn’t be a selfish charge attack. As cool as it’d be, it doesn’t spread the love, so to speak, like the others do. Justice makes everyone burn somebody, Resolve heals, and Courage grants Aegis. So it’s have to be something buff-tacular.
Yeah, this is a sPvP-oriented build, so there’d have to be some modifications for PvE or possibly even WvW.
In playing, I found that, like others… Conditions were problematic.
However, ZAPPLANT did one thing surprisingly well: the “kitten Ninja.” That’s why you hide from LoS, leaving your bunker buddies (like TANKCAT) all alone. Just one lonely guy, trying to defend a point. A tasty target. The thief jumps in, thinks it’s going to be a kill… AND BAM! kitten ninja jumps in, turns it into a surprise 2v1, and makes the thief go back to spawn crying, unsure of what just happened.
So as a harrier/disruption role, ZAPPLANT does well. But there’s likely better ways to do this.
I’m thinking ZAPPLANT might be a bit thirsty after all that prybaring, and should be looking into packing some POWERTHIRST elixirs. ZAPPLANT loves SHOCKOLATE.
How about this?
Virtue of Alacrity (Or Fervor, Vigilance, Zeal, whatever) (F4) -
Passive: Grants 25% movement speed out of combat, and 5 seconds of swiftness when Disabled. (Knocked down, immobilized, feared, stunned, dazed, etc… But not crippled or chilled. Basically, get back in the fight, but not negating the slowing conditions.)
Active: Grants allies 5 seconds of Vigor and Swiftness, while curing Immobilize, Crippled, and Chilled.
30 Second Cooldown?
I really like Engineer Rifle. It’s flavorful, and darned effective when you learn to use it right. It’s not a Glass Cannon weapon though.
Honestly, it’s a kiting weapon more than a close-combat weapon. Immobilize, two-sided Knockback, a damage Jump… It all goes together really well for things not being near you.
Shoot, shoot, Net!, shoot shoot, Blunderbuss!, Overcharged!, shoot, Net!, shoot shoot, still alive? GOOMBA STOMP!
That said, I d want a full ranged weapon for the Engineer. Longbow ala Hawkeye and Green Arrow pleeze!
The reason Rifle is loved is because it offers such incredible control compared to Pistols, and has less recharge than Shield. Overcharged Shot is incredible (and I wish Rocket Boots had an enemy knockback component too, as that’s the only difference between the two, but what a difference it is.) Jump Shot hits like a truck. Net shot is on a nasty short recharge, and the main attack pierces, which is pretty effective if you’re mobile and good at spotting opportunities.
It’s just a realllllly good weapon.
Pistols are condition-tastic, but the early nerf to 1’s bleed caused a lot of sadness, and I think some people are still “meh” on pistols because they still feel that sting.
Pistol 4 and 5 are similar in purpose to 3 and 2 on rifle, but Rifle’s immobilize is more effective due to frequency. Their cones are fairly even in terms of being awesome though. It’s just that Pistols don’t encourage you to be near the enemy for the full cone blast.
I don’t know who else has had problems of this sort while playing… But, sometimes, my traps won’t go off because the enemy is standing still. They’re there, but the trap won’t trigger.
Same thing happens with my Engie’s Mine Skill. It’s tied to motion, apparently.
But there’s one big, yet small, difference, that makes me happier to use th Engie version of a trap: Triggered detonation.
Enemy on top of it, yet not getting exploded? Oh well, pop that sucker anyway!
Could we get traps to be able to trigger like that too? Would others like that idea?