Guild Wars 2

That will work.
(You always have ranged weapon: pistol or rifle.)

Post this over in the SPvP forum if you want it to get fix priority.

Where’s the best place to post about balancing between classes in PvE?

You’ve got a lot of unused skill points there.
What skills are you using?

@conflict: Where do you prefer to play?

PvP: Engs are strong
WvW: roaming Engs are strong; larger battles not so
PvE: reasonable solo roamer and dungeon support, but weaker overall, especially in large events.

Overall, Engs are a kitten load of fun if you like an active class – and you need to be active to be viable as an Eng.

StevoSupremo.4037:

Awesome, thanks so much for the info guys.

You’re welcome.

tigirius.9014:

PTR’s might be messy when it comes to showing people new content too early, however, the are the single best testing system out there

^This,

and PTR testers give their time for free.

A range of Eng skills have slow animations with significant delays (in play terms) between casting and the effect being triggered (e.g. bomb detonation, turret overcharging).

• For most players the slow animations reduce the effectiveness of these skills (e.g. the enemy may move out of range before the effect occurs).
• However, for master players, these delays create opportunities to combine with other skills for added effect (e.g. Big ol’ Bomb does double damage when the player uses Elixir X before BoB explodes).

The result is a balancing problem:
Balance for the master players and everyone else gets a nerf to a skill that for them may be only average, or worse. The top players think it’s fine, and the rest of us (the huge majority of Eng players) experience a nerf to an already (for us) weak/difficult class.

A better balanced solution?
Whenever the top players find a way to exploit one of the Eng’s slow animation skills, it may be better to shorten the animation time (thereby removing the opportunity for the exploit) rather than nerf the skills being exploited. This would keep these skills viable for the majority of Eng players while maintaining the balance for high-end PvP.
(I’m assuming it’s far less work to shortening the run time of an existing animation than it is to create a new animation.)

Making Engs more viable overall
Shortening animation times may also allow for increased build diversity and Engs to be more viable overall. This is because skills that were previously really only viable for top players can then be rebalanced to be useful to all Eng players (including the top PvP Engs) and viable in far more builds.

So the problem isn’t BoB after all!

The problem is that Elixir X creates exploitable synergies with Eng mechanics. Once again, some cunning Eng’s have found a way to turn an Eng disadvantage (the delay between cast and effect for bombs) into a potential advantage (though lets face it, 13K burst is only spectacular to Engs).

This is starting to sound like all those calls to nerf HGH (including some of the same players), when the real culprit was Elixir S.

I sure hope Anet have given a bit of thought to the overall trait mix for each class into consideration when making these changes, rather than just generating narrow-mined replacements for individual traits that are dropped or merged.

We’ve seen the mess that can result from “It’s just a 10pt trait” thinking.

Hopefully ANet have learned from their earlier experiences and these changes will also help improve our trait line synergies and options.

StevoSupremo.4037:

Also, a big issue used to be that kits weren’t effected by weapon sigils, but it looks like that has changed somehow (at least for swaps maybe)- can someone clarify what they did to alter this?

The Dec 14 patch changed the code so that “Weapon sigils now function while holding a bundle (such as engineer kits).”

FYI, sigils now share CDs, so its not worth equiping both an on-crit (e.g. main hand) and an on-swap (e.g. off-hand) sigil as the CD from one will prevent the other from triggering. (See http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Sigil for the individual CDs on Sigils. The wiki needs updating to state the shared CD.)

All good points.

1. Alternative Elite choices would be good . . . and personally I’d put it much farther down the list.

2. We need builds that are viable (i.e. comparable in performance to other classes solo, not just support builds) in PvE, including condition based builds.

3. Yes to being viable staying in a kit, especially FT, EG and TK.

4. Yes to making other kits viable in WvW. We’re supposed to be a mid-range class, but our WvW viable kits are close and long range. Make our mid range kits viable in WvW.

5. Mortar. OMG, I tried that in WvW a couple of days ago – what pathetic range! Even cannon seemed to have better range.

ANet has made a range of change to Engs over the last few patches. As a result, Engs are now well balanced for PvP. Only problem: most of us Engs don’t PvP and Engs are still a poor cousin in PvE and large scale WvW.

Engs need balance for PvE
Lets face it, unless you’re a kitten Yoda and don’t mind ruining your hand grenade spamming, your Eng is an ‘also ran’ in dungeons and major events. If you happen to run a condition build, which is a primary focus for many Engs, your contribution in major events will be truly pitiful.

Engs need balance for large scale WvW
Engs are poor performers in WvW battles. We can roam in WvW, but that’s just PvP on a larger map. Put us in the battles that make WvW awesome (and distinguish WvW from PvP) and our performance drops off enormously, just like it does in major PvE events. We can’t even provide emplacement support as our turrets are made of cardstock and work better as bombs, and our mortar is pathetic.

Anet, now that you’ve got Eng’s working in PvP, make Engs comparable to other classes in the areas most of us actually play, please

Grenades are still the best kit, and the traits for them are in the Power line which is best for PvE. (Cond builds get swamped in large events and one cond build/party is enough in dungeons.)

Not sure of a best build, but good places to start would be :

• Grenades, Bombs (good dps on PvE mobs that don’t know to run form bombs) and Med Kit or Healing Turret (for quick party healing: drop, overcharge, explode) are good combinations.
• Grenades/Bomb Kit (depending on circumstance) and elixirs with 30 into Alchemy for Might stacking (HGH).

Punkins.2087:

still an awesome skill.

Because?

Great run Koroshi. Thanks for posting that.

In PvE you need full cond damage gear to get any cond damage ticks during large events (even then I’ve yet to see any damage from my burning ticks – obviously not stacking enough Might).

Cond damage gear works well in WvW if you can catch or pull people away from zergs as they aren’t used to conditions doing that much damage and they can’t clear them as fast as we can inflict them. It’s great to see a thief escape and then get down by the conditions we’ve stacked on them.

1. Big Ol’ Bomb does 548 AoE damage raw. How do you get it to 13K damage?

2. Is BoB better than any other profession’s AoE skills?

3. Is 12K better than any other profession’s chained burst damage?

Whelm.9072:

Make Glue Bomb a Tar Bomb. Same movement impairment along with a burning bonus.

I like that – good idea.

A new Master or Grandmaster trait with on swap kit specific effects similar to the kit itself and 20s individual cooldowns for each kit. To avoid effect spamming it would have a 1s global CD.

Hey guys, give Jon Peters a break. He’s acknowledged the problem and committed to sorting it out. It’s not as though this bug is as game breaking (for PvP anyway) as the Glue Bomb one.

What’s more, by posting here Jon’s showing that he’s listening to our feedback, which is the first constructive dialogue I’ve seen between the ANet Devs and the Eng community – and that’s something that’s been missing for too long.

Lets just

1. thank Jon for taking this one on – Thanks, Jon!
2. accept that there is still a lot of work to be done which will take far longer than we’d like but hopefully less than we fear; and
3. encourage Anet’s constructive participation with this community.

JonPeters.5630:

I vote fix. We have a proposed change that should be coming in about 4 weeks. Wish it could be sooner but we need translation time and testing time.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you!

Thank you for posting in this forum to show that you’re listening to this forum and the Eng players who care enough to post here.

Don’t wait for the patch. This will get hot nerfed as it’s PvP.

Hey, we might get a hot fix!
Or would that be a hot nerf?

Far more of us PvE . . .
. . . and there we’re poorly represented because of our lower dps rates, condition caps and boss immunity to CC. Eng’s are UP in PvE.

Something I forgot:

Fix our DOWNED skills!

1. Balance other kits to the level of Grenade Kit
2. Balance weapons to the level of Grenade Kit
3. Autotarget option for Grenades (as per underwater)

ANet increased the down scaling when running in lower level zones to make them more of a challenge for higher level characters. At the same time they increased the cap level of drosp to the level of the character, so now lower level zones take a L80 a bit longer to beat but the drops are better.

Part of the problem is that we have to take all the traits of a related type to be effective in one area – e.g. 50pts to make 1 kit effective. This commits us to the associated minor traits, whether want them or not.

Legendary weapon on an Eng? Doesn’t seem worth it to me – especially as it only has one set of stats and the way the Eng keeps getting changed so we have to reequip it might end up being an horrifically expensive piece of luggage.

Now a Legendary Flame Thrower, that’s something I’d put the work in for.

That’s Vigil Engineer, brother of Rachil Engineer and Nigil Engineer. Their father, Patrik Engineer, was know both as a good shot and as the worst speller in the village.

Our downed skills are bad.

1. is too weak. #2 is hopeless (unreliable single target interrupter and gap closer for enemies). #3 is too slow.

No reliable counter to enemies. No way to avoid damage. No way to lose agro.
- They’re kitten.

MonMalthias.4763:

The one thing I dislike about Engineer is that the Power Scaling of skills, cooldowns, and trait layout all imply that the class was designed around Might Stacking to deal competitive damage. I think it’s a deplorable state of affairs because it adds an artificial skill floor to the Engineer without increasing class depth.

When you then compare the Engineer to classes like Warrior or Thief or Ranger or Mesmer, whose skills and traits were clearly designed to have Might as a Transient Boost rather than a necessary evil to remain competitive – you get this massive break from the design philosophy of the Might Boon in general, and in fact, Might Stacking is holding the Engineer back from achieving “Equally viable” status in PVE, PVP and WVW right now.

I would love to see a day when Grenades, Elixir Gun, Flamethrower were buffed up to their pre-nerf levels, Enhance Performance reworked, and HGH to supply 5 stacks of Might for only 10 seconds for ~avg 30% uptime after Boon/Might duration AND CDR traits.

Designing a Hybrid Class means a compromise between types of damage (In this case, Power and Condi), but it should NEVER be designed around the abuse of a single boon.

Very astute observations, MonMalthias.

Overall, Might stacking is out of balance with other abilities.
Just look at condition damage: 20 stacks of might = +700 condition damage; that’s nearly 75% of a total investment in +cond damage armor, weapons, trinkets and jewels. Get to 25 stacks and you’re at 90% +cond damage compared to equipment. And then you have the equivalent +Power on top of that.

Want a +condition build? If you’re not stacking Might you’re not in the game. Try doing condition damage in a Dragon event when you’re not stacking Might – your cond damage simply doesn’t score enough enough to register.

As it currently stands, Might is out of balance with the rest of the game, but we need it to be viable.

Small wonder Engs are forced into Might stacking builds. Of course, if Anet are going to fix Might, they’re going to have to do something about getting the rest of our output up to scratch (I hope…).

Really, I’d given up bothering about weapon skins as I spend so little time using them.

You da man, Nilix. Yo da man!

Sadly, I can’t see ANet reworking Kit Refinement. They’ve invested too much time for too little reward on this trait already. Not mention that a second rework would be tacit admission that the first rework was unsuccessful – somethign they’ve scrupulously avoided so far. (Shame that, as such an admission would actually improve the relationship they have with the Eng community here.)

Now a brand new trait that rewards multi-kit builds – that would be worth having. But it would have to be something genuinely new and, what ever it was, it would have to stand in line with all the other things that need work on the Eng class.

Good one koroshi – how to make them respect Eng’s.

Good point.
Leaving Eng kits up as standard in PvE just discourages Eng players from investing in weapon and backpack skins.

Specterryu Quipter.8412:

If this doesn’t deserve a hotfix, nothing does.

Thinking about how ANet might look at this problem:

1. It is working as designed
2. It’s only a minor (as they may think about it) disadvantage experienced by one of the least played classes in the game
3. It occurs only in one part of one path of the lowest level dungeon in the game
4. It’s not in a priority area of the game (e.g. SPVP, new content, etc.)

It’s #2 that’s likely to hurt us the most, as that one is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Ironwill.5389:

I think we are the perverbial “hot potato” class. Given how simple tweaks to the engineer’s skills render all of the turret traits useless; you have to wonder how snarly the code is…

^This,
Add in a limited understanding of the class and spillover balancing from high end PvP, and you end up with the challenges we have.

For such a fun class it’s a crying (but understandable) shame that we’re not better represented across GW2.

Shadowtech.5071:

warriors get boon hate and new traits, thiefs get boon hate, mesmers buffed, ele’s fixed and hunter and guardians pets buffed. Engineer gets well nerfs. So were in a BLACK SHEEP state right now

To be fair, ANet did commit resources across two patches (Feb and Mar) to try and improve the state of the Eng class. Unfortunately they didn’t understand the class well enough (and ignored what players were saying on this forum), with the result that much of their work was inadequate and what they considered simple correction of a minor trait turned ot to be a diversity killing nerf to the class (as if we hadn’t given them enough warning about that).

Eng’s are so awesome it’s a waste of time testing changes to the class before release them.

Rabid is the way to go.

This thread ( https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/HGH-P-P-Cond-Armor-What-is-best-for-WvWvW/1952326 ) is nominally about WvW but applies to PvE as well.

Where are you planning to run this build? PvP? WvW? PvE?

Yes. But does that reaction differ from how you’d respond to someone who uses non-random skills to produce the same effects?

Maullus.1273:

I can’t help but feel that the people that complain the loudest—in particular, those that complain about having multiple builds nerfed—are the ones that are actively chasing fotm stuff.

I was one of those who complained loudly about having multiple builds nerfed and I’ve never run a fotm build.

Overall, I think ANet did far better by our class with this patch than they did with the March one. Still a long way to go, but at least there seems to be some attention to what works for this class (the Healing Turret buff is the first that’s delivered something worthwhile for our turrets, so maybe someone is listening after all).

google.3709:

Zenguy.6421:

Great that you’ve found a useful, google, if only with med kit.

Overall, would you keep running it in PvP? Or is it still below the value of other traits?

Yea, I’m going to continue running it, but i would never choose it over speedy kits/static discharge. even tho Magnetic Aura is nice, even with timer it doesn’t take away from the feeling that you just got really lucky if it actually does something useful. I just wish anet would tone down the volume on that stupid sound animation -_-

That’s cool. Not sure why you wouldn’t just put the 10pts somewhere else though.

Haven’t been running Elixir S, myself, so couldn’t say.

Suggest you post this in the SPvP forum as it’s more likely to get noticed by ANet there.

luckywaldo.6089:

I’ve been under the impression for a while that:

0 kit = awful and you will be far behind everyone else
1 kit = what areanet wants you to do
2 kit = ok but it hurts to lose that utility compared to 1 kit
3 kit = you haven’t played the game since before kit refinement change

(note: for utilities, not including heal/medkit)

Kalan.9705:

Whilst we get a low cooldown swap, we do loose stat and sigil choices, and only 3 weapon combinations is frankly lazy.

That seems like a disturbingly good summary.

Great that you’ve found a useful, google, if only with med kit.

Overall, would you keep running it in PvP? Or is it still below the value of other traits?