Guild Wars 2

one of the awesome things about the FT traits is that they are in the same places as elixer traits, and so swapping between the two is really simple.

Farming cash mobs? FT wins!

PvP or more focused dmg needed? Swap traits to pistol/rifle and elixers. You are incredibly flexible as engie.

especially since what keys they are bound to is irrelevant.

the whole point of the tool belt is to recover the lost utility slot taken by the kit. kit tool belt skills are on par (more or less) with other gadget utilities, while non-kit tool belt skills are less powerful to help maintain balance.

whether this is achieved in game or not, or whether the tool belt skills are working as untended or not is irrelevant because the tool belt and kit skills are the major framework of the class and are (for better or for worse) a well designed mechanic that makes engineers so fun and frenetic to play.

yes, certain skills and abilities perform below standard, certain combinations don’t work because of bugs in some skills, but this does not mean that our profession defining mechanic needs to change.

Taugrim is a very eloquent and soft spoken game critic who I respect for his ability to not sound like many of us on the forums (myself included at times), but that doesnt make him a clever or proficient game designer. Just because he said something doesnt validate anyone’s opinion but his own. that is the rub of being a critic.

i am quite comfortable with engineer having a steep learning curve, it is bug fixes which will make the class more accessible to new players, not a redesign of the class.

you dont have to like it, but IMO, if you dont like the mechanic, and want kits to be Fskills, go play an elementalist.

/2p

KiefyReefer.8304:

If you run with the med kit, use elixir for heal when under water and if you run with the elixir as heal, use med kit when under water.
This allows you to heal twice when fighting near water =)
Enjoy it till its fixed, unless this is intended, idk.

i support these shenanigans.

thats fair, i dont play a mes, so ill chew the cud on this one.

im not entirely certain how a trait that maximizes a significant portion of peoples playstyle is "extremely situational" (a pejorative or negative thing in your terms) when the game is designed to allow players to swap traits based on the situation...

im just not sure what you are trying to argue, or where I have been uncivil. perhaps if you actually explained your point in stead of merely repeating it, you might shed light on what I am missing.

A single wrench, business end at 2 o’clock, with a distinctly octagonal and angular pipe wrench look.

If the devs are busy, I can whip ’em up an EPS in illustrator right chicken louis.

cottage.3274:

nakoda.4213:

well, re-Exploit Weakness, this trait is immensely useful in PvE farming in CS with a flamethrower where you basically cripply vast swaths of mobs and ensure they remain still for the final strokes of everyone elses aoe.

it is likewise effective in dungeons with lots of trash where your FT engie is the trash man.

you may not like being a support character, but that is what the trait is for, cleaner, more efficient, organized mob killing.

remember the days when you had to organize 40 people to do something about 20 mobs? well now you only need one: an engie.

hold on a minute .. you mean we can respec for different parts of the game? whoa.

now lets learn to read

we do have some good traits but what gets me is that most of our traits are to make things function aka baseline for everyone else and a lot of traits are extremely situational.

if this isnt “extremely situational” i dont know what is.
one use to one aspect in one role that only available when the mob/s are under 25% with a cd on it and you can replace it with something 100 times better.(and from your examples one kit)
yea sure m8 its a great design how didnt i see it before ,it sure is " immensely useful in PvE" cant do without it, get real!
and chill with your dissing all over the forum

given that a significant portion of the game does nothing BUT farming ectos and gold in CS, I would not call this “extremely situational”.

/2p

cottage.3274:

we have some really weird traits that i do wonder what the guy that designed them was smoking so i can get me some as well.
take Acidic Elixirs for size,let me kill you with my boons? why will anyone ever take this?
or Exploit Weakness in what world can this bring any benefit? on top of that they slapped a 15s cd on it lol.
Low Health Response System is just silly to have under 25%.

and we have traits that are plain useless:
Scope as far as i know is still bugged since anet confirmed it is way back and i didn`t hear anything about it being fixed,if it isnt bugged then it doesnt give a flat 10% it gives 10% to what you have so if you have 45% it will not give you 55% it will give 49.5%.(sv hunters in wow had a similar thing but they got a buff to show when it was active this will be a good improvement to have in this trait).
Leg Mods and Power Shoes gets overwritten by swiftness(33% more speed).

we do have some good traits but what gets me is that most of our traits are to make things function aka baseline for everyone else and a lot of traits are extremely situational.

well, re-Exploit Weakness, this trait is immensely useful in PvE farming in CS with a flamethrower where you basically cripply vast swaths of mobs and ensure they remain still for the final strokes of everyone elses aoe.

it is likewise effective in dungeons with lots of trash where your FT engie is the trash man.

you may not like being a support character, but that is what the trait is for, cleaner, more efficient, organized mob killing.

remember the days when you had to organize 40 people to do something about 20 mobs? well now you only need one: an engie.

hold on a minute .. you mean we can respec for different parts of the game? whoa.

bromi.7809:

Mesmer with 3 pantasms in utilities in spvp? Yeah, tell me about.

your opinion about the general census of viable mesmer builds is irrelevant.

the point is that mesmers CAN create phantasms without a target, which was clarifying the misinformation in the post I was replying to.

Manticore Five.9867:

I love how "not pressing two buttons" is always the last refuge of the scoundrel. Does pressing five buttons for an inferior result make you a better player {1} , or just inflate the ego? Does pointlessly swapping kits every five seconds {2} suddenly make you more hardcore than a warrior {3} pressing his signet of rage every 48(traited) and getting might/fury with their serving of swiftness?

@ {1} yes it does, and if you’d pay a little more attention you’d know the results are not inferior, something you’d recognize if you knew that...
@ {2} it’s not so pointless when swapping kits is how you create the situations that make your engie blow things up, it’s called stance dancing (kit swapping, I suppose, if you want to stay game specific). learn it....
@ {3} yes ... it does. in fact, if you hop over to the warrior forum, you’ll find a thread discussing this very problem, how all the warriors relying on virgin launch builds are no longer OP.

actually, here is the link since I know you don’t follow up yourself before replying...

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/warrior/This-is-why-your-WARRIOR-isn-t-good-Part-1/page/2#post1359053

cheers m8.

tigirius.9014:

OP - if you haven’t been mashing 2 buttons over and over, then you really haven’t played the grenade kit recently or the rifle.

* I love it when a poster claims there’s nothing wrong with the engineer class and that we’re all just "perceiving" that it’s not on par or as elegant as the other class designs, notably our sister adventurer classes.

actually, it explicitly says that he "never seems to be mashing two buttons" (paraphrase)

I think you need to go back to your three R’s.

here’s the quote:

Churick.9354:

I also never seem to be mashing 2 buttons for win.

Choops.3710:

Can we have one post where someone says they enjoyed playing their engi without someone telling him that he’s wrong?

only when someone posts about how much engie sucks without a rebuttal from those of us who know better.

it’s a corked vial, akin to greek fire.

imo, ele’s need to change THEIR darn icon.

Daigle.8497:

you also can’t see them if they’re facing you.

You will see them a lot if they run away though!

which happens a lot in wuvwuv! just watch any of Maska’s vids.

(yes i am aware he doesn’t use kits)

Sidt.1890:

only an engineer could fit and infinite supply of grenades, oil, bombs, unpredictable volatile concoctions, rockets, and flame thrower fuel on himself with no consequences or accidents.

That’s cuz we’ve all got threepwood pants and poppins purses.

i uswd to use a wolfking that was similar, but i didnt lile that you cpuld not rebind it’s layout.

i am not a fan of these billion button mice. thats whay keyboards are/were for.

its like the difference between QWERTY and T9 on a mobile.

well, as an example, i am a word nerd (on my mobile now soz for typoes),

as such, for me, letter association works well for me (R foe elixer R, T for turret, H for heal, etc as examples), but like i mentioned above, H can be far away, so I added G because of miskeys, and may move it to F, or even Q like CH-CH-CH-Choops (i said soz for typoes! kekeke) has, and move the elite to G or H because it gets used less frequently.

paleeshi.1924:

nakoda.4213:

So, I would also like to ask everyone:

what difficulties do/did you encounter with the key functionality and why did you make the alterations you’ve resorted to?

I think no matter how you choose to bind, the answer is accessibility, which is also highly personal.

does the question not behoove you to make a personal subjective reply? because that’s what I’m after.

KiefyReefer.8304:

Ill share mine too:
Weapon skills 1-5 are bound to f, g, x, c, v respectively
I put my kits (skills 7,8) on q and e
My utility (skill 9 , I switch this around depending on the situation) is shift + g
Heal is shift + f
Elite is the 5 key
Tool Belt skills (F1-4) are bound where the weapon skills used to be 1-4
I bound the ’use’ (F key) to ’t’
And I use the 180 button ’r’ quite often

whoa crazy.

this is precisely what I wanted to see, variants. Control is about perspective, and how we interface dramatically alters how we transfer our thoughts in to the game.

One unique thing to GW (and champions online) is a compressed "action" style control vs the traditional EQ mould of 30+ commands.

So, I would also like to ask everyone:

what difficulties do/did you encounter with the key functionality and why did you make the alterations you’ve resorted to?

(P.S. edit: for example, in shooters, I actually used to rebind jump strafes and duck to "m" "," "." and "/" with mouse control for forward back, jumping with thumb key so that I could more effectively pull off rocket jump combos in quake and jump like a fiend in heretic ii, took me *years* to go back to WASD in mmos)

(P.P.S. then, *do* you use WASD?)

messies have 3 phantasms that can be summomed from utility slots without targets. they also have clones on dodgw traits thats only need combat, no targets.

if warriors are kitten in PvP why are there videos of 5 war teams face rolling people?

they dont seem to mewl about lack of ability.

med kit, grenade kit, elixer R, net turret.

perma swiftness, end recharge, stun break, dmg, control, revive, mobility, and more.

and thats just one combination with 2 weapons, 5 utilities, and a (granted, situational) pet. ...

coglin.1496:

I do not think they can make turrets scale with our stats any more then necro pets. I read a lot about making turrets mobile here too. That wouldn’t do much for us either. The mobility serves no better purpose for necro pets. I think the best thing they can do for turrets to give them value is to make their tool belt function on a really low recast, to give the turrets value when slotted as a utility skill, even if we do not have the turrets out at the time.

this, and an alteration to turret cooldowns would dramatically increase their usability.

"picked up" turrets should be on a 10 second timer,
"destroyed" turrets should be on a 20 second timer,
"exploded" turrets should be on a 30 second timer.

this would offer pseudo mobility via pick ups, and less punishment for mob aggro in dungeons, at the least making them usable during each mahor encounter rather than every other.

backpack should simply use the skin of whatever you have in back slot. you want the backpack? choose it at char creation. you want toy bag? quaggan (FUGLY imo, hate, despise, loathe them, wish i could FT the lot of them underwater)? no problem. ascended quiver? why not

(if you dont choose backpack at creation, you get default, re-skin pack choice to make it unique)

adding dye options to kits would be a nigjtmare, as would reskinning each kit and giving us the option to alter them individually. but for soz sake, fix the gem bug on back slots.

edit: i really need to stop posting from my phone. typos!

no we didnt. we get 5 "weaponized" kit skills and an F "utility equivalent" skill usable with each kit (equipped or stowed), combined with faster weapon swapping than a warrior to also give us weapon skills in the mix.

thats up to 5 weapons, 4 utilities.

eles get 4 weapons, 3 utilities.

where do we get shorted? a lack of stun break?

fine, 4 weapons, 3 utilities, one side effect, and one stun break with side effects.

hmm.

Clearly you aren’t buying the right brand of band-aid. (That’s a pun, for those playing the home game, since band-aid is a brand).

Anything with the word "charr" built in is always good for s’s n g’s.

Also anything with aetherophasic multivalent cross directional matter transference inversion field tends to be a real blast.

That or the RNG just makes ice cream. -.-

I really think that abuse is what engies are for, by and large.

Poking ribs, pushing buttons, giving wet willies, making distracting noises, and adding mayhem to the multiverse.

Oh yeah, and belt mounted battering rams. LULZ.

The Slyfe.7231:

Are we Russian engineers now?

kekeke, I think there is a lil Russian in every engineer.

That’s why turrets don’t move, the little Russian is happy right where he is.

ba dum ching...

If it makes you feel any better, you can always count on there *being* an RNG.

:D

Not imbalanced at all... (<-= sarcasm dots)

coated bullets is increasingly becoming a must have for me for precisely this reason.

not an easy combo to get off but...

static shield (5) throw to daze a group, pistol #3, pistol #1 while run in to shield (4) knock back to interrupt everyone, rocket boots away, pistol #2 while strafing (which lines them up again), pistol #1, pistol #3 while using slick shoes as you run through the group again, this whip out the prybar and start kittening faces OR pain inverter and cycle the combo all over again.. (not my fault you didnt choose asura!)

Yujin.1785:

Manticore Five.9867:

Zenguy.6421:

There are two very different stories about Engineers that get posted on these forums.
* On one hand we have videos and posts from people confirming how their Engineer can chew up and spit out pretty every other class, up to and including 1v3 fights.
* On the other hand we have lots of complaints about Engineers being underpowered compared with other classes.

Underlying that first group of posts is the message:
*Engineers are awesome if you just learn how to play them properly.*

*So why isn’t that message working?*

Because it’s untrue, and blatantly obviously so to anyone who isn’t a groupie.

The "if you just learn how to play them properly" is a mechanism for delivering maximum belittling to people who disagree, because obviously anyone who disagrees with you is a noob.

To add to your post, I should mention that there’s a very good reason why Engineers aren’t wanted in high level fractals and somewhat in sPVP tournaments (I was asked to change classes when I tried going with a PUG once).

you neglect to actually define that "very good reason" because...

it doesn’t exist.

There is no good reason other than ignorance of non-engineers thanks to a plethora of lack luster engineers who haven’t given many groups much to work with.

imagine if the warrior forums were all "no man, actually, 5 sigils is best" and they stuck with it. eventually, no one would want warriors because they’d suck, and rightfully so.

choose your skills wisely, and choose them to benefit the situation you are about to enter. some skills need love from anet but that doesn’t make us useless or unwanted or undesirable.

edit: this is not to say that people turn down engies in groups, it is to say that a more educated and adaptable engie community will change the perception of engies for other people who don’t get to see us shine (problems or not)

i think we are starting to get a really good ball rolling here, but I would like to make one suggestion,

comparing *any* class to warrior will cause some major issues since warriors are the control class, and every one else is *meant* to be different from them. it follows then that every one else is *meant* to be even more varied from each other than they are from warriors.

as such, when we post our comparisons of x to y and y to x, we all ought to make the concerted effort to also look for and express why you think those differences (z) exist, and then begin the argument which deals with where the actual issues in the differences lie.

personally, i would hate to play a game with 8 professions that all do the same things the same way with the same functionality and capability. why have different professions otherwise?

if our feedback is to be beneficial to ANet, then it will have to be communicable in their terms as they see the game, not as we see it. this is a difficult exercise. imagine sitting at a table as developers designing classes, and how much work goes in to making things fair (not balanced) while still being varied.

balance comes later.

coglin.1496:

Ayestes.1273:

Technically it also comes with an entire weapon set and tool belt skill. Admittedly though, the duration of 4s feels crazy low.

I feel all of our bleeds are too low of a duration. I thinks that is also the general consensus.

I would go as far to say that all of our conds disappear too quickly. I think this was intended to counter balance just how many we can toss out, but the changes to cond removal priority really borked things. FT really stands out.

Why aren’t you on fire!?! Oh, 1sec duration on a coating of liquid fire….
Maybe we need primer coat first?

Anymras.5729:

nakoda.4213:

here is my problem with the problem you all have with the kits,

the engineer is designed around the kits. the whole class revoles around the kits. the kits, in essense are a form of stance dancing. you dance between the kits that fit your groove, and supplement with your weapons and your devices.

i have total confidence in my surmising that the devs behind the engies said that weapons were the fallback tools when gimickery and technical wizardy failed at last.

that said, they made using weapons primary to several builds to allow a large field of veraatility beneath the profession so more people may enjoy it.

in a way, they may have spread the butter a little thin in some areas, but in others there is a nice thick dab of creamy dairy melting into the fresh toast that is the engineer.

every class has issues of some kind. go read their forums. even eles and warriors find things to mewl about. but at the end of the day the class is playable, there are many options, lots of fun to be had, and a rich and deep playstyle to master.

games used to be about beating the game and being better than the game, not crying for patches when the game beats you. im certain they still are.

if somethimg is really and fairlu busted, it’ll get fixed.

this thread is about discussing the rich playstyle and offering feedback, positive ad critical. opinions will differ. get over it.

soz for the typos, im on a kitty touchscreen.

And here’re the problems with the Engineer being built around Kits:

1. It makes us too similar to the Elementalist, except we have to use Utility slots for our Kits.
2. They’re freakin’ Utility skills, so it’s entirely possible to just never use them, in favor of using Elixirs, Gadgets, or Turrets.
3. We’re penalized, at least in our ability to deal damage, based on the ‘versatility’ a specific set of our Utility skills offers us (despite, of course, the “King of Versatility” not having this penalty, besides the whole optional nature of Kits).

In my opinion, if a class is built around something, it should have no way to not have that available for use at all times (except when it’s on cooldown, or something similar). Building a class around something that is completely and totally optional for said class is ridiculous.

That said, I get the feeling that they did build the class around Kits, probably in the same style as the Elementalist’s Attunements, but then realized that they were basically making a tech-based Elementalist and threw together the Toolbelt instead. Must’ve gotten pretty close to release time, too.

So, from a purely surface level argument, how does putting our kits (utilities) in utility slots hinder us? Ele attunements are similar yes, but a different beast, reminds me of the guy who was upset that thieves have more bleeds then engies. Well ya…

I’m at work, and struggling to find the words to explain more clearly, so I will reply when I get home again, but the brief answer is that kits give us up to 20 utilities on top of a weapon, by swapping out n1 through n5, while ele have up to 20 attacks with only 3utilities. Apples to oranges, engies have “more” available utility skills at any given time…swappable with no cool downs…while Ele’s have major offence on 10sec(shorter with traits, sure) cool downs.

The differences are subtle but create vastly different styles and capabilities.

I personally cannot see a vision of engies being front line offensive beasts like eles. and that is what eles are for. Sorcerer boom sticks.

"thieves’s bleeds are 10x betfer"

doeesnt that strike you as ovious, intended, and part of the theme of the class? i dont think of an engineer as a bleed specialist, but getting stabby stabbed. million times by a rogue does.

however, your concern crrtainly applies to the FT. how does an FT now just set everything on fire?

im with coglin, i will defend this class till time imemorial, but like.coglin i ecognize thete are faults, but get kitten frustrated with the forum mewling fornthings that dont add up or.make sense.

here is my problem with the problem you all have with the kits,

the engineer is designed around the kits. the whole class revoles around the kits. the kits, in essense are a form of stance dancing. you dance between the kits that fit your groove, and supplement with your weapons and your devices.

i have total confidence in my surmising that the devs behind the engies said that weapons were the fallback tools when gimickery and technical wizardy failed at last.

that said, they made using weapons primary to several builds to allow a large field of veraatility beneath the profession so more people may enjoy it.

in a way, they may have spread the butter a little thin in some areas, but in others there is a nice thick dab of creamy dairy melting into the fresh toast that is the engineer.

every class has issues of some kind. go read their forums. even eles and warriors find things to mewl about. but at the end of the day the class is playable, there are many options, lots of fun to be had, and a rich and deep playstyle to master.

games used to be about beating the game and being better than the game, not crying for patches when the game beats you. im certain they still are.

if somethimg is really and fairlu busted, it’ll get fixed.

this thread is about discussing the rich playstyle and offering feedback, positive ad critical. opinions will differ. get over it.

soz for the typos, im on a kitty touchscreen.

asuran T2 with the SE medium helm for a more surgical approach.

Kalan.9705:

After 6months A-net finally managed to get sigils and stats fixed. Get as rosy tinted and optimistic as you want, but this should have happened before engineer left alpha, let alone beta.

Back on topic, closing threads full of information and opinion on the weakest of justifications, just because you don’t find those strongly and widely held opinions flattering to your company, is only a definition of ’Listening’ in La La Land.

The thread is closed, not deleted. You can still read it.

Is this your first mmo (not trying to be a nob, here)? Have you ever played a top ticket mmo title that was perfect at launch?

These things take time to fix.

Personally, as uncommunicative as they may be, I rather like the way anet handles patches because

a) they don’t tweak numbers, they alter source code. This takes longer, but over the epic journey anet is able to continually tune the whole game instead piecemeal alterations.
b) they don’t promise anything so they don’t break promises. This may seem asinine, but you are a member of these forums, could you imagine the clamour if they didn’t deliver on a proposed change/buff/whatever?

I mean, really, all the classes need work, this is inevitable. When you get this many people playing a game, we have a tendency to break things in ways the devs cannot anticipate until the game goes live. it’s not like the old days of consoles where a game is a closed system, ya?

Kevlar Eater.1985:

Only an engineer’s roundhouse kick could set someone on fire.

Actually, Tony Jaa also does this.

… 2:35 ish?

coglin.1496:

Someone watched too much MacGyver.

Someone proudly owns all the digital video discs, too! I keep then in my toolbelt F3 and load them up while I aoe spam from wvw parapets,

and...

only an engineer has time to watch macguyver while throwing grenades at people.

(edit: ft totally has more of a Walkman/iPod groove to it, rockin out to some reggae while Leviticizing some ne’er-do-wells, or like Defoe in Boondock Saints)

Well, back in November the thief forum got an official (and much needed) ANet thread for discussion. I bet that might help.

Life is like a box of nails...

You can build great things, just don’t shove your hand in blindly or you might drop the box, step on a spilled nail, and cripple yourself.

Edit: ^.^

Edit 2: oh soz, my bad.... Next patch; "Box of Nails - now applies cripple to engineer as well."

Mint Rubber.6543:

1) Use longbow full adren Combustive Shot on the horde of enemies.
2) Move into the fire field
3) Swich to dual axe
4) Whirling axe -> Burning Bolts combo
5) ?
6) Profit!

^ this is pretty much a kekeke combo, fun to play, fun to watch!

Great Balls of Fire! FIRE!

GW2 != GW1

Different games, same setting.

Pretty simple.

Most engies compile things like twine, toothpicks, bubblegum, pocket knives, and mattress springs to make explosive devices ...

Only, a (GW2) engie decompiles things like explosive devices to make twine, toothpicks, bubblegum, pocket knives, and mattress springs.

Jay.3284:

Only an engineer can spit out random bolts of lighting

oh wait...

Only an engineer’s bolts are random!