Guild Wars 2

Static Discharge now reliably affects the targeted mob, regardless of the toolbelt skill being used.

Static Discharge damage reduced by 33% to compensate for this.

I think this is a splendid idea, traits that affect whatever skills you attach them to … I like that idea a LOT. Not that I imagine ANet will pick it up but it’s nice to dream.

@Gozero – As far as I’m aware in lore the only race to invent science-based technology is the Charr; so Engineers from whatever race they may be are all using Charr technology as a base for their skills.

The Grey (Piken Square) dance event in various locations around Metrica Province:

https://vimeo.com/57375817

My Engineer is responsible for farming in Orr; he is, quite simply, better at it than any of my other characters. Much as I’d like to take him into dungeons, he just doesn’t offer enough (and I really don’t want to have to fully re-trait and re-equip every time I go into a dungeon) to groups in most situations. Before the Super Elixir “fix” I was happy to take him along as support, now not so much.

So my Warrior is getting a lot of dungeon spotlight time, though I might send my support-y Necromancer in to one or two of them just to mix things up.

Meanwhile I’m also levelling my various other alts (and just not “getting” the Mesmer).

OP clearly needs to go play another profession for a bit to find out what “need” actually means. I’d suggest Engineer, Necromancer, or Ranger.

If I’m in a dungeon with one of my (usually better geared) alts and the group is failing, I’ll bring in my Warrior and suddenly everything gets better. One of the key tricks in dungeons is slotting weapons based on the needs of the specific encounter, with Warrior more than any other profession I find myself slotting and unslotting weapons between encounters.

I hate skipping content because (at least for me) content = fun … what’s the point in accumulating a whole load of awesome gear if you aren’t going to use it to melt faces?

“Your father’s grenade kit. This is the weapon of an Engineer. Not as clumsy or random as a greatsword; an elegant weapon for a more civilized age. For over a thousand generations, the Engineers were the guardians of peace and justice in Tyria. Before the dark times… before the nerfs.”

Sylosi.6503:

Killer Parakeet.9435:

Well good for those people then. My point is if the class is not working out for you, then clearly you should do something else instead of crying and hoping anet gives you a “kill” button.

You didn’t have a point, you came out with some illogical waffle that because you beat some bad/undergeared/underleveled mesmers/thiefs in WvW that it equates to the engineer being on a par (or better) than other classes, when it does nothing of the sort.

That anyone who complains merely needs to l2p, despite the fact there are people far better than you who complain about the state of the class.

Sylosi the only issue I have with anything that you are saying (other than the not playing PvE bit … that’s just odd ) is that you are blatantly engaging in the pastime of troll-feeding.

Best advice I can offer is that as soon as someone says “why not go play an easy-mode Warrior” is to stop reading … because that post, that’s a troll right there.

That’s pretty much the same as my setup so you may find this useful, if only to point and laugh at it: http://youtu.be/vOG8yvFFqR4

I think we had at a conservative estimate about 10% of our guild who completed this.

If people would step away from their personal experiences for a moment and look at the spread of responses here, I think we’d see a pattern and possibly a solution. First off, we don’t all find the same things easy, while one person may have found the Wintersday puzzle trivial, another will find it overwhelmingly difficult … criticising anyone in either camp just makes you into that guy please don’t do it. Instead why don’t we look together at how to resolve the situation so that the largest number of people can leave the event glowing with seasonal good cheer?

Frankly the most obvious solution is to have more than one level of difficulty (three seems to be the favoured number) with the easiest level having (to take Wintersday as an example) no time limit, no damage (essentially the same thing) and Rare rewards in the chest; while the hardest has a really stiff time limit but Ascended rewards.

If there is only one level of difficulty to the jumping puzzles then a significant proportion of the player base will find them either too hard or too easy, the number of people in the Jumping “Goldilocks zone” is likely to be too small to make it worth while. With multiple levels, that Goldilocks zone gets much larger and the number of people at either end (too easy, too hard) can be reduced to a tiny fraction of the player base.

The only way to change a situation in the Gem Store that you don’t like is to vote with your money. Don’t like RNG? Don’t like account-bound RNG? Then don’t spend any money on it. But also don’t be that guy and refuse to buy anything ever again because that doesn’t encourage ANet to change their behaviour. Instead, spend your money on the stuff that you want to buy … so for me I spend money on character, bank and bag slots, and (very occasionally) town clothes. I haven’t spent a single gem on any RNG results because I despise that mechanic (account-bound or not is irrelevant to me) and I’m content to do without the potential (virtual) rewards.

For as long as they keep making money from the seasonal and Black Lion chests, ANet has no incentive to change them, so stop giving them money for stuff that makes you angry, and give them money for stuff that makes you happy instead.

Kimbald.2697:

- Gadgets? They are for fun.
Try out the mines, the rocket boots (but that’s a bit like rifle #4 but with an extra stunbreaker), the slick shoes for a great escape… etc.

As a Charr, whatever you do don’t waste your time with the Rocket Boots, use the racial Hidden Pistol instead. Not only does Hidden Pistol do almost the same thing as Rocket Boots but without CC-ing yourself, the toolbelt skill is far and away better.

Wintersday
Hovering somewhere between 1 and 2 for me. Box mobs in the world were way too strong for the most part (the Skritt were fine but the others involved a serious fight … usually involving several tactical retreats) and felt geared to groups rather than solo. I think it would have been more accessible had the regular presents been aimed at solo players, while having specific scalable events pop up here and there (a bit like Halloween) for groups of players to enjoy.

As with Meglobob it would have been nice had the Tixx dungeon been more worthwhile … perhaps if one could obtain one the same daily rewards available in the capital cities (ie. something desirable and not obtainable elsewhere) that would increase the demand beyond those unfortunates who missed out on one of the cities.

GLaTOXx
My conspiracy theory is that all the Princess dolls everywhere are skritt that have been transformed by the paint gun. GLaTOXx was tasked with obtaining lots more “raw materials” by Tixx (I seem to remember a dialogue hinting at supply issues of dolls in Divinity’s Reach … though I may be reading too much into that) and lured a bunch of skritt on board with promises of a golden land of opportunity and adventure … and shinies. Of course, skritt being skritt, there was inevitable fiddling with stuff that (in numbers just large enough to be dangerously incompetent) they didn’t understand … and by “stuff” I mean GLaTOXx, the assembly line, toys in general … pretty much everything on the airship. Things started breaking, and (having realised what was in store for them) skritt started running amok in the ship, breaking stuff and looking for food, revenge and/or a way out. Looking at it this way, the skritt assault on the princess village suddenly becomes a case of heroic skritt trying to come to the rescue of their enslaved and horribly transformed brethren; how do you feel about your part in driving them off now? You monster!

Lot of fine ideas here, my personal top 3 (after fixing the blasted bugs) are:

1. Change Elixir Gun’s Super Elixir field type from Light to Water.
2. Remove random effects from potions.
3. Give Hidden Pistol to all Engineers, it is superior to Rocket Boots in every respect and fills the same function. While obviously all Engineers should be Charr, this skill really does mean that if you aren’t a Charr you’re doing it wrong (something I’d only ever said in jest before).

I love my toolbelt skills and am really only just (at this late stage) starting to really see what they’re capable of, so please don’t get rid of them!

/signed.

The insistence that WvWvW is PvE is ludicrous, I wish ArenaNet would let go of it.

Charr are far superior to all other races. Anyone not playing a Charr is doing it wrong.

That being said, somebody in ANet didn’t get the memo that Charr have tails so quite a few bits of armour have tail-clipping issues. If you’re bothered about appearance then you’d best get used to using transmutation stones!

NightyNight.1823:

BrimstoneAshe.5043:

Interesting topic and replies. I’m pretty new to GW2. I’ve trying out the different classes. Just made a Charr warrior this weekend. I don’t know if it’s the class or the content(first Charr I’ve made) but my level 16 Warrior died more times this weekend than my other characters combined. I don’t know what I was doing wrong. Clearly I was missing something, but I was dieing a lot when soloing. I felt tougher on my mesmer than I did on my warrior.

Its not that you’re doing something wrong , its just harder to level as a Warrior compared to other classes.I know most of the people told you that its easy but the truth is, mobs destroy you on lower levels if you try to melee .Kitting whit Longbow becomes your only option until you get to level 80.After that they become pretty amazing.

I levelled with Sword+Sword/Rifle and didn’t have any trouble at all in levelling my Charr Warrior. Make sure you keep your gear and weapons close to your level, choose where and how to fight and you should be fine. An awful lot of levelling a warrior for me was checking out mobs from a distance, seeing their special abilities and deciding whether to pull them with the rifle or to run up and smack them in the face with my sword. While people will tell you it is technically possible to melee anything, I’d strongly advise picking your battles … sometimes it’s just easier to fill them full of lead. I never got on with longbow but your mileage may vary; and I’ve recently switched to Sword+Axe/Rifle which lacks the block of offhand sword but that so rarely works in PvE that the extra burst is worth it.

As a Charr I’d strongly suggest getting the landmine as soon as you can, it’s insanely powerful and complements a bleed build admirably.

A rambling and probably very sub-optimal build here … but it’s fun and I like it. Armour is mostly Power/Toughness/Vitality with Knight jewellery.

http://www.youtube.com/embed/vOG8yvFFqR4

The key change I would like to see is the Super Elixir (Elixir Gun #5) field type being changed from Light to Water. That one change would transform the support Engineer from being a second choice in dungeons, to up there with the other support specialists.

Bug fixes kind of go without saying and I suspect that the profession will be in much better shape once they are all addressed. At the moment it’s difficult to evaluate our intended performance because of all the bugs.

Also, getting rid of the self-CC abilities would be super-nice.

Another vote for Supply Drop, it eclipses anything else in terms of usefulness.

ukuni.8745:

… rifle warrior over a rifle engineer lol what a joke, now the only way a rifle warrior is gonna beat a rifle engineer is if he has massive damage and gets lucky, meaning that skilled rifle warrior verses a skilled rifle engineer has got nothing, its a simple dodge dodge knock back blunderbuss jump shot net shoot in the back till hes dead, and that’s with out using any utility skills.

Firstly, Warriors tend to do massive damage with their rifles … it’s sort of a given. If by “gets lucky” you mean that he sees the Engineer before being hit by a net then yes, fair enough; if the Warrior does see the Engineer first though it’s pretty trivial to keep out of range of all but the Engineer’s auto-attack whilst keeping comfortably in range of the vulnerability, cripple and burst damage of the Warrior’s rifle.

TL;DR
In a rifle-duel a Warrior is likely to out-perform an equivalent-skilled Engineer.

rogerwilko.6895:

at level 31, using a rifle and bomb kit I have alot of trouble killing lv 30 mobs. I must shoot 15-20 times to kill one.
what am I doing wrong?…

Firstly, check that your gear is up to date, it’s very easy to let it fall behind. You need to update your armour and weapons every 5 levels really. Secondly, check that your utility skills are supporting your play style. Are there any skills that you don’t really use? Replace them. Thirdly, turrets aren’t too bad to use while levelling; if you have “free” utility slots, put a turret in it. Finally, make sure that you use your toolbelt skills; even without the Static Discharge trait they are useful, with it you will notice your damage significantly increasing. It’s worth equipping all your utility skills at some point just to see what toolbelt skills they offer.

ukuni.8745:

there was to much to read so excuse me if i repeat some thing that has already been talked about

It was here that I realised there was no point at all in reading the rest of your post.

Extremely strong at event farming.

Pistol & Pistol with Piercing Shots is extraordinary. Add turrets for more tagging, though I do like to include other utility skills to avoid the boredom!

Is the Engineer fun?
Yes, without a doubt.

Is the Engineer capable of performing well in every aspect of the game?
Yes, if played with a high skill level.

Is the Engineer as good as any other profession?
No, all other professions perform better in their specialisations given an equivalent skilled player.

I love playing my Engineer but then my motivation isn’t to be the best in terms of any aspect of the game, it is simply to have fun. Engineer delivers fun by the bucketload. It could be stronger if some of the bugs and flaws were ironed out, I would like to feel that I was contributing more when I went into dungeons, but don’t create an Engineer if you are expecting that to happen any time soon.

TL;DR
If your aim is to have fun then roll an Engineer.
If your aim is to face a challenging profession then roll an Engineer.
If you want to dominate in any field of the game then roll something better suited to the task.

I used pistol & shield whilst levelling and did just fine. in retrospect I’d suggest getting Static Discharge trait as soon as you can and loading up Rifle Turret and Personal Battering Ram asap, also heal with elixir rather than turret.

Don’t get too attached to Static Discharge though, chances are it will be nerfed in the interests of “balance” in the not too distant future.

Rfreak.6591:

we’d still be VERY lacking in every possible way (ever tried our elites? supply crate’s just “viable” not even that great)

There’s no denying that the profession has significant issues but Supply Crate isn’t one of them. If I could give my other characters our elite then I would do so in a heartbeat, it’s just so useful. you could argue that it’s not as powerful as other professions’ elite skills, and you might have a point, but here is where I think the “versatility over power” design really works, because Supply Crate is useful in a broad variety of scenarios, I never feel like I have to hold onto it for something specific (eg. waiting till people are downed) but feel free to use it in all sorts of different circumstances.

It rather depends on how you define “fun” … I really enjoy playing my Warrior but I don’t find it as complex as my Engineer, so for me it depends on mood and circumstance. The really nice thing about Warrior from reading this forum is the sheer adaptability it has. However unlike more obviously hybrid classes the adaptability comes with skills and traits, so it’s something you need to build in advance.

In terms of ranged abilities they’re ok, not outstanding by any means but pretty solid … I don’t feel that I’m letting the side down if I switch from melee to range if circumstances require it. Again though this is a function of build, had I traited differently it would probably be a different story.

ETA: Best looking is Charr, obviously; however there is the constant issue of the tail clipping through armour (there are some that are tail-friendly but not many) which is extremely irritating.

KirinDave.6451:

It’s to the point where I don’t want to inflict my engineer on other people. I am at the point where I feel guilty bringing an engineer into a party because I am pretty sure I am doing 1/4 of what anyone else facerolling the keyboard could do.

This pretty much sums up how I feel at the moment. I love playing my engineer solo, it takes a bit more time than my other professions but I feel much more in control of pretty much any situation. When it comes to group content though I feel that I am contributing less and that makes me uncomfortable so, unless there is clearly a lack of support then I’ll bring a different character.

Caveat: It may well be that I’m an unskilled player, in fact this is very likely; but it’s sad that I feel that I can’t contribute as much with this one profession in PvE group content as I can playing other professions with an equal lack of skill.

Aegael.6938:

The Grenade nerf is ok, guys! Let’s just use our other kits that haven’t been nerfed yet!

Like Bomb Kit…Oh wait.

What about Elixir Gun? No, that got nerfed too.

Flamethrower? Oh right, the “Miss” bug, which is 3 months old, still hasn’t been fixed.

Well, we can use turrets, the RNG elixirs, and the Tool Kit! Oh, and don’t forget our ever-useful gadgets. Who needs Shadowstep when you can self-cc yourself with Rocket Boots?

What a great class, right guys?

No one is “just” complaining about one skill that gets nerfed. One nerf is fine. Three nerfs are fine. Nerfing our class every single patch without even making appropriate bugfixes for three months in a row is a slap in the face. Please don’t talk like you’re the most special snowflake in the world for trying to work around the numerous nerfs to the class.

Spot on in every particular.

Agree completely with points 1-4 (though I am saving items to make minipets so point 1 applies slightly less to me … but still makes a great deal of sense).

Sort of agree with point 5, though from the opposite end of the spectrum; I found the jumping puzzle insanely hard and have actually made less progress on it than I did with the Mad King’s Tower. This would point toward the idea of having variable difficulty seasonal jumping puzzles being of benefit to the whole playing population. So much hard work has gone into them both in terms of art and the design of the things that it seems a shame that they aren’t engaging as many people as they could. Ditto the Bell Choir, I find it crazy hard where some people are finding it trivial … maybe you need to make the easy part really easy. Certainly a lot easier than it is currently, and skippable for people who feel more confident.

Point 5 I don’t have a clue about, haven’t done it as it appears to be PvP. Not that I’m objecting in any way to having PvP elements in the seasonal activities, just that I don’t have any input to offer because that’s not a part of the game that I engage with.

What is a Warrior good at?

Well, since you asked, Warriors are very good in PvE.

Sporadicus.1028:

The combo field of SE is big and lasts a long time. This gives you and other players the benefit of removing conditions from yourself and other people. That’s 10 seconds duration to apply condition removal and retal application.

The thing is that we have a number of other ways of clearing conditions (a really large number if traited for it) on ourselves and others so the Light field is, while by no means useless, isn’t as useful as it could be if it were a Water field.

I was trying to think about what it was specifically that I enjoyed about playing an Engineer, there is so much to be enthusiastic about. In the end though what I like most about the profession is something that I only realised when playing my Warrior yesterday. I was running with a PuG in the Hoelbrak Tixx dungeon, there were three Thieves and a Warrior (me) then we got our fifth member, an Engineer. At first I thought nothing of it either good or bad, then we got into a fight and I started to notice Engineer skills going off left, right and centre. My initial thoughts weren’t “wow, whoever is playing this is uber,” they were “ah, an Engineer, everything will be alright.”

Now admittedly I probably only thought this because I play an Engineer myself but that feeling of security is what makes me happy, knowing that a good Engineer can just make things better.

Actually it sounds quite similar to WoW’s pet talent system for the Hunter class. So not stupid at all. That being said, speaking from a purely personal point of view, I’d much rather they fixed the profession’s basic state before they start adding additional mechanics to it.

Reminds me (a little) of the Techno Viking:

http://youtu.be/FYKH5S93hT0

As soon as I completed the Hoelbrak Tixx I instantly ran to Lion’s Arch where I gave the relevant components to Zamoros and DEATHREAVER the plushie gryphon was born. He is my new bestest friend (please don’t tell Railgun though, he gets jealous) and we go everywhere together.

I wonder if he’ll like Orr?

Irikami.6270:

Being “carried” in dungeons, really?
Idk why peoples cry so much about engi in dungeons, it’s not the best class but is really good, you can do a great DPS and still heal a lot, sometimes the group can simply tank spank bosses with just a engii heals, i save a lot of peoples in my group, even warriors going to the ground so fast. You can be a OP support in dungeons in heals and tank and do a good dps at same time, and for pvp with a good build, if you don’t kill easy, you doing it wrong.

Just last week I would have agreed with everything you have to say. This week? Not so much.

To be honest, I think that the situation could be resolved if the field type of Super Elixir were simply changed from Light to Water and everything else kept as is. I mean, obviously what I’d really like to see is a return to the “bugged” state plus a Water field but that’s not going to happen sadly.

Panzen.4625:

Other than that, please refrain from using such an agressive posting style. It doesn’t help anyone here.

This.

Let’s keep things civil between each other; I’ve grown quite fond of the Engineer community here and its tendency to avoid the “leet” behaviours seen elsewhere. If you disagree with a set of numbers, provide your own or, at the very least, avoid being rude to someone … even if they have forgotten to carry the 1.

Still enjoy playing my engineer, soloing or duoing world content but I’m starting to feel a bit guilty taking him into dungeons as there is the definite feeling that he is being “carried” by the other people in the party. There was quite often that feeling when trying to dps but now it’s feeling that way in support too; so it feels that all I can bring to the table at the moment is condition removal, a couple of very situational tricks (like Magnet … which can also be brought by Thieves or – to a lesser degree – Necromancers), and lack-lustre heals and even more lacklustre-dps.

So as I say, solo it’s still fun and challenging … but in a group, unless you get a kick out of mooching, it’s deeply unsatisfying now.

Alexandra Triplett.1280:

Hey everyone. This is a fix that is working as intended. As these armor types were never designed to be worn together, it resulted in some graphic issues when previewing them.

The graphic issues with previewing non-wearable armour types were no more serious than the preview issues I have with the armour I can wear. The change seems wilful and ill-considered, I know this isn’t a game designed by committee but really at the moment it seems that ANet are actively trying to annoy the customer base by “fixing” bugs that either never really existed (preview panel) or which were beneficial to characters (Super Elixir), whilst long-standing features (Guesting) or bugs that affect characters negatively (underwater combat invulnerability/reset) appear to fall by the wayside.

If there were graphic issues with previewing non-wearable armours then why not fix the preview bugs rather than just disable it? I mean, this is probably a pretty low priority item on the list but honestly I’d rather have the bugged version than nothing at all.

Unfortunately in the run I did in Black Citadel yesterday we got all of the possible events, with some overlapping. It felt bugged.

After a half hour of not getting any further than the third snowflake it became abundantly clear that I was not having fun, so I stopped. I am gradually starting to enjoy jumping puzzles and my technique has improved no end in the past few months but I’m still not great at them and having a timed aspect pretty much puts them out of my reach. I’d like to add my voice to the suggestion of having varying difficulty paths (clearly labelled as such) for these seasonal puzzles, nice easy option for people like me with no time pressure at all, and then other levels getting progressively more challenging so I can push myself to improve gradually. Escalating difficulty might also allow a version that is truly hardcore for those who find the current ones too straightforward.

Coltz.5617:

so there is no way of attaining such numbers without some kind of buff? Not just armor states then.

If you went all-out precision/%Crit in equipment (armour, weapons, jewellery, sigils and runes) and traits, and were in a situation where those traits activate then it is probably possible to get that number or close to it. With temporary buffs from food etc. it should be relatively easy … but you’d still have to be a complete glass cannon, which I don’t think most people would recommend.

Kamahl.3621:

They’re lying. Highest you can really get is ~55% with 300 in firearms, all berserker/precision gear, etc. That’d be 75% with fury, 85% when they’re below 50% health, and 95% if Scope worked (which it doesn’t). So, optimally, if traits worked – when you stand still and the target is below 50% health, with fury up, you could have a 95% critical hit rate.

With a Superior Sigil of Accuracy and a Superior Sigil of Perception you can bump it up quite a bit more. Then adding Superior Runes of Eagle/Lyssa/Ranger/Thief you can bump Precision up a bit more, possibly enough to get you to 104 … downhill with the wind behind you.

Well I have no regrets about using that trait at all, looking at the other options there’s nothing I would swap it for.

Coglin has the right of it.

Charr. Obviously.