Guild Wars 2

Killthehealersffs.8940:

Bunkers ? Not so much (cannon did a great job there)

That’s why you bunker the cannon instead of points.

Dislike. It’s stupid when a single decent Necro can make or break an entire game. At least don’t use it for tourneys, the cannon is stupidly OP not just for the damage, but for the access gate where you phase in on top of 10,000 marks and traps.

ukuni.8745:

yea but a more powered up version, something that with the right build is more optimal to take over supply kit

Can’t beat a stun, bleed, HoT and immobilize all-in-one for Elite imo…

Sorry if this has already been covered elsewhere, but I haven’t much been keeping up on things lately and kind of only log in these days to do a few SPvP matches on my Engi and that’s about it.

Currently I’m running Static Discharge build with Medkit, and I’ve noticed in the past that the #4 cleanse on Medkit is pretty weak (only cleanses one condition), but it’s really the only thing that you have as SD, so you gotta learn to love it. But apparently it has zero efficacy against Torment? Was this intended? If so, doesn’t that seem a little ridiculous? Given that a good deal of my healing (medpacks and cleanse) REQUIRE me to move around, and the universal fact that in PvP standing still = death, it seems like if they were going to introduce such a powerful, stackable DoT that they would provide some way to clear it?

And just to clarify, I’m not asking for a 1-button fix to negate Torment. Conditions can EASILY be re-applied faster than an Engineer can cleanse them. I’m just wondering if the Medkit #4 was perhaps an oversight in this latest patch…?

Part of your problem is the runes, I think. I never tried Mightgineer with only 40% duration, but just looking briefly over your post, that’s the first thing that comes to mind.

I assume you’re also running Elixir B? I found that one to be very helpful in keeping up Might.

They key is to toss and drink like a madman, a lot of it comes from HGH obviously. Maybe hit the Mists, put in those extra runes for the other 20% Might Duration, and see how that goes?

For WvW, you can use condition duration food (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Condition_duration#Related_items) instead of sacrificing that extra 20% duration on your Might.

I haven’t played Mightgineer for a bit so I hope this helps, maybe someone with a bit more insight will be along soon to help you out.

Edit: Sorry, the food increases condition damage, not duration, but combined with the Might your conditions don’t last as long but hit harder. I haven’t played around a lot with it but that might be what you’re looking for to offset the loss of the runes. Just an idea!

I love targetting pets, downed players and the like with my bouncing AoEs as, for the most part, they cannot dodge or evade and their poor unsuspecting comrades are far more likely to eat the extra pain for them (except those pesky downed Eles and Thieves…) Good tip.

I die to Retaliation more than literally ANYTHING else in SPvP, even though I am mindful about who I am hitting, what they have up buff-wise, and when I time my attack (in WvW I mostly die to the infamous OMG THERE’S SO MANY OF THEM attack that zergs find so effective.) Still, when you have ‘nades or bouncing static discharge AoE going all over the place, it’s difficult if not impossible to avoid some Retal hits in some cases. I think I hate Retaliation more than anything else, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say it’s “broken.” Just because something kills you doesn’t mean it’s not working as intended.

As far as smaller groups are concerned, you need to know when to hold back just as much as you need to know when to attack. As far as WvW zerging is concerned, all you can do is STOP lobbing grenades for a second when you see that it is taking huge bites out of you, and hope for the best.

At 00:8 it’s really hard to see, because of the HUGE FLASH OF OMG WHITE all over the screen, but if you watch the FX on him he gains Protection the same tick you hit him, it also looked like (from what I could tell) that you weren’t quite inside him on the barrage, it kinda looks like a narrowly-fumbled 100 ‘Nade to me. :/ But either way, he did take quite a bit of damage off it. I have problems with Eles in Earth Attunement in general, they’re always a pain, I usually pretend to run away so they switch to squishy Fire attunement so that I can turn around and blast them in the face… ;P

Anyway I don’t play Elementalist very much at all so I am not aware of all the tricks in their toybox, but it doesn’t look like a bug to me so much as perhaps a lot of damage mitigation and a slight placement issue on your end. When I was playing around with 100 ‘Nades (RIP) I noted that the TINIEST bit of lag or even the slightest miscalculation on my end was the difference between all the opponent’s health, or taking only half of it. I’m sure you’re already aware of that, but if that’s the only example you have it might be difficult to convince ANet to look into it, I’m afraid.

We’re still alive and kicking! I have been busy running around in SPvP on my Engie and dealing out massive amounts of pain. Sometimes, I hum the Jaws theme to myself while I sneak up on an unsuspecting victim, right before I insta-SD-combo them from 100% to downed. That somehow makes it (even more) fun! Try it!

I think some people are trying out Engie now because of the buffs to turrets, but that won’t last. Most of us who love our Engineers are going to stick with our Engineers to the bitter, bitter end. Some of us did just roll alts (I actually considered it for a while after the Patchageddon that deleted all our KR builds but I am SO glad I stuck with it.) Of course, I am now TOTALLY broke trying to re-gear Zillah to appropriately match the SD burst that I am running now rather than the many, many KR-based condition builds I had going on before.

The patch hurt us, but didn’t bring us down. We are still buggy little kittens, but we are used to it by now. Maybe it’s just quiet because after all the raging we did in forums after the patch we have nothing left to say until we figure out the next greatest thing for ANet to nerf on us. BRING IT!

I sport an A?zure Railgun (REALLY, censor?) and kinda want a Charrzooka… I think they are way cooler looking than the Legendary ones. What can I say, I’m a girl that likes REALLY big… guns! Totally going for a Quip just because of the humiliation factor for those who die to it… “You got shot in the face with confetti, some 4th of July sparklers and a gentle whiff of bubbles… you are so pro!” Kinda like every time I die to someone with the Dreamer… ARRRGH. >.<

Btw, Halloween Hair Dryer? This is my new favourite thing. ANet needs to re-name the weapon.

Rifle
About 50% of the time Jump Shot teleports me to a random location near the area I targeted, does the AoE damage safely away from my target, then teleports me to where I should have landed to start with.

I constantly get an “obstructed” message with Net Shot even when all other skills are hitting from the same position, on even ground with nothing to obstruct the shot. This usually happens when I am on a slight slope (in either direction, though opponent with slightly higher ground seems to make this bug more than anything).

Tool Kit
At LEAST half the time Magnet pulls my opponent only halfway, or teleports them to some place in my general direction, and sometimes pulls them all the way through me and they end up laying behind me.

… SO frustrating!! >.<

If any of it makes a difference, I do use fast-cast ground targeting… really shouldn’t make a difference in how the abilities act though…

Hehe sorry, it’s the Static Discharge build! You can find a lot of great guides and vids on it if you do a quick YouTube search.

google.3709:

The thing that people have failed to realized, they did not want to nerf 100nades, they were going for Kit refinement and and 100nades was just the excuse they used.

and yes, lots of build that do way more than 100nades, it used to hit for around 14-15k on sPVP ( where the “problem” was coming from ) and i have screen shots from my warrior hitting 17.2k 1,500 range on a 10s cool down lol..

My guildie has an! SS (really, filter?) of his Zerker Warrior doing a 37k hit in a dungeon. I heard complaints about some SS of a 100 ‘Nades Engie doing 24k damage and ANet has a heart attack over it. Guess they forgot that we had to perfectly-time a setup in which we pull/immobilize, run INSIDE the enemy at risk of great peril, and blow ourselves up to do the combo. Meanwhile, the Zerker just keeps on swingin’ that sword…

Nilix.2170:

This is what happens when you make a class about versatility in a game where all the classes are designed to be versatile. Every class is the best in something (supposedly) but can be built to do other things if you dig hard enough. (supposedly)

The engineer is the class that’s not to be the best at anything but capable of anything. But we have no fallback. Warriors damage, Guardians block, Thieves hide and cloak, Mesmers hide behind seven clones. What do Engineers do? Drop turrets?

Spot-on, perfectly said.

I wouldn’t say that 100 ‘Nades wasn’t OP, but I will say that there is another sneaky broken as crap class that 1-shots with the same amount of effort that hasn’t been kittened… Oh, what? Pardon me, I stand corrected – they got 5 secs taken off their caltrops… HUGE NERF.

But once again, they could have 1) moved it up the tree 2) fixed the grenade barrage or double Super Elixir or whatever they were so freaked out about. Instead they chose to break every KR build that ever existed, and essentially put all this work into re-tooling a trait that now no one will ever use.

Woulda rather seen them take it out completely and use that time to fix the Elixir S for Asura and Scope for all of us…

This is what I am doing atm and it seems to be working out really well for me. I still can’t decide if I prefer the Speedy Gadgets or the Power Wrench for that final slot in Tools, but I find that I use Toolkit less often than I thought I would (because things die too fast for me to get to that point anyway).

My Utils on this are Med Kit, Rifle Turret (for Surprise Shot only), Tool Kit & Utility Goggles. Supply Crate is the Elite I use.

Utility Goggles, Analyze, Surprise Shot & Throw Wrench are the standard SD spike and it never fails to wreck huge groups of NPCs.

http://imageshack.us/a/img4/6378/zillahsdbuild.jpg

I haven’t been using this a lot in dungeons yet but I am finding it is more than sufficient for solo PvE, DEs, PvP, WvW, and just about anything else I want to do. Solid all-around build.

Sigil of Fire on rifle, gear I am using now is an old set based around toughness and healing power for my KR stuff, I imagine that it will be even more beastly when I have proper gear to suit SD.

Edit: forgot to put in the image. -_-

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

(all the stuff you said)

Not ignoring your post, BRA. If you’re happy with that, then good for you. I am glad that turrets are working out for you. I’m sad, however, that the rest of us are kittened if we want to… you know. Use all the other stuff that we have and be good at it.

Wow… I came back to way more ranting than I can ever get around to answering to. :/ Anyway, here’s my 5am attempt:

Crisp is right: “[…] since SD works differently with skills that are targetted or not targetted the SD produced from Detonating Turrets will go straight into the ground more often than hitting the enemy)” … I do use Detonate in my SD build (and I told you that before, Amadeus, but you don’t even read my posts), it’s a really nice fast blast finisher when the Commander calls for Fire/Water fields and wants a blast-through, or that random moment when I could use the regen and one of my comrades happens to have up a field for that (or whatever). But I play my SD mostly at range, and running up to a huge group when I am stacking glass cannon gear just to drop a turret for a few extra K dmg seems… um, well, suicidal, especially since if I really need to get in the extra damage I can dodge and kite around enough until the next SD combo is up (ten whole kittenin’ seconds!!). Not saying my way is the ONLY way to play, but let’s face it – you turret kids are sorely outnumbered in the Engi community, except for amongst the new players who got the memo that we have turrets, and didn’t get the one about turrets sucking. Not sayin’ nothin’, just sayin’…

Mkay so I am real sarcastic the way I write… it doesn’t come off well in text, and I understand that. Sorry. Except this time I am not being sarcastic, Amadeus, you are a troll, and telling me to L2P isn’t helping Engineers out at all. Which was my aim with this thread – to help Engies, and to get us to start thinking about WHAT we want to be and what we should start pushing for. Not a moronic argument about how your turrets are so awesome and how many people you stomp with them 1v1. Irrelevant.

Lemme give you a lil history lesson:

In the Beginning, the Devs created Engi, and they saw that it was good. “I shall give you turrets,” he said with a not-so benevolent gleam in his eye. “But Devs!” we cried, “How can we live on those kittenin’ turrets alone!? We need the EDEN that are called Elixirs and Kits, also!!! We want to be mad scientists, we want to throw a turret over there, drink an elixir here, blow something up way over yonder – and BE ALL THE BETTER FOR IT, because that is how you have defined us in the Bible of Character Creation!” And so, the Devs also gifted Engi with his Toolkit, his Rifle, his pistols, his shield, his Surprise Shot and Static Discharge trait, he gifted us with 25-stacks Might build, and HGH ’Nades build, and SD build, and Kit Ref— (oh wait, never mind)… anyway, he gave us ALL THESE BUILDS. And Dev said, “Go forth, my inventive and clever little child, and make builds that will blow minds and will make you unique even amongst other Engineers!” – AND WE DID.

Problem is that now we are missing half the glory that was gifted us in the first place – the ability to build-your-own-Engi and still be awesome. Now it’s either SD, HGH, or GTFO (unless you are one of the very vocal minority who still thinks turrets are awesome, and there is no hope for you). And don’t get me wrong, if you are happy with your turret build… good for you. Go play in your sandbox with your turrets. But the rest of us want real, viable builds that include… you know… all the other stuff that we have…

In PvP, the Engi’s 2 and 3 skills for downed are quite useful for interrupting stomps. They are a hard counter – someone is stomping you, you interrupt them with the wire first (because it is first off CD), and when they try to stomp you again you blow them away. HOPEFULLY, by this time, one of your buddies has turned up to rez you or distract the enemy. In PvE however, it’s a different story. Some mobs have more difficult tells when they are about to hit you with something nasty, and add in channel time can make it tricky to know when to interrupt them with your downed wire or explosion.

We still suffer from RNG even on our downed Throw Junk, however, which is a real pain. I have noticed that on other classes I play, the more reliable downed attacks (such as Leech Life for Necro) seems to do me FAR more good in PvE, especially combined with the fear ability that they have while downed.

If you get a Chill off Throw Junk on an enemy that is already on top of you or that is hitting you at range, it really doesn’t help you much. Yet another example of why RNG hurts this class more than any other.

(cont’d)
We can live without Kit Refinement. But we need something else to fill the hole in our builds. I am personally happy running a very strong Static Discharge Engie, but my farming build is gone now thanks to KR nerf, and so is the levelling build that I used to hand out to my friends who were thinking of trying the class. Engineer, the least-played (and formerly most-flexible) class in the game, now is left with only 2 builds and only those who truly love the class enough to stick with it through these hard times are willing to bust their kittens (but not their kits, any more) playing it.

I believe that most of us feel that the beauty and strength of Engi lies in his ability to constantly rotate through kits, always with some unexpected attack that isn’t on CD ready to blow the enemy’s face off. ANet has clearly sent a message with this latest nerf to KR that they do not want us using multiple kits, a defining trait of our profession, or at the very least they do not want us creating innovative builds around kit-swapping.

darkace.8925:

First question: if the current iteration of Kit Refinement is so bad why not simply choose a new trait?

We have.

HGH ‘Nades and Static Discharge are now the 2 things left over from the (5ish) accepted “generally viable” builds that Engineers ran before. (I know that you run turrets, and not to sound like an elitist here but… no one does that competitively, and we still don’t even after the buff. Please don’t take this as a personal dig on you or your playstyle… play what you like! But turrets are by-the-numbers too inferior to kits and elixirs to make the grade for most of us. I’ve discussed it in other threads and I don’t want to start yet another debate about it here, so please just accept that as my researched opinion.)

darkace.8925:

The only answer I can think of is “it used to be so much better.” And that answer leads me to my second questions: if Kit Refinement used to be such a good trait that it was too good to pass up, then don’t you think a bit of a nerf was probably in order?

It’s not that they were “so” powerful that they actually needed a nerf. Pre-patch EG with KR was actually still not as good as the cleansing and healing power that Elementalists have, and that is part of our beef (or mine, at least, since I won’t speak for the whole community – but I think you will see a lot of people agreeing with me on this.) The Grenade Barrage that made 1-shot kills in 100 ‘Nades possible (see this: http://youtu.be/-gXAliTpRwk for an example) CLEARLY needed to be changed. I don’t think any dev on any game ever has sat there and said, “You know, we need a class that turns off melee assist and stands inside their target’s character model to 1-shot the opponent…” Obviously, KR needed a change because of the 100 ’Nades tactic. And tbh anyone who has successfully played a 100 ’Nadesgineer and knows how devastating it is would never seriously argue that, unless they are just the type who wants to play the 1-shot-kill class of the game. Period.

Then again, we still have 1-shotting Thieves in PvP and people who will refuse to take anyone to a CoF run if they aren’t a Zerker Warrior (and their 1 token Mesmer) on dungeon runs, so take what you will from that.

darkace.8925:

I’m not looking to rock the boat here, I’m legitimately curious why everyone’s so upset. And as I said, I don’t know what KR used to be or why it was such a staple in other builds, so please feel free to fill me in. Thanks.

I totally understand and appreciate your question. I think a lot of people are still confused about why we are SO devastated over the changes, because it’s a sticky and complicated topic and only those who ran KR builds before really have a good grasp on why it is so hurtful to our community.

And from my point of view, the problem isn’t the KR nerf in general. KR needed a small nerf to bring it in line. The problem is that ANet has over-reacted to 100 ‘Nades – they changed every single KR proc and made several viable Engi builds obsolete. Poof! They added an invisible CD that goes off even if you just try to pop a heal and aren’t looking for a proc, making it impossible for competitive players to keep track of what they are doing and when. And to add insult to injury, they have offered us no viable alternatives. They gave a buff to turrets, but turrets are still kitten and we still don’t want to use them. That is still not a viable alternative to us.

The lack of viable alternatives I think is the real crux of the matter. They could have moved KR up the skill tree but force you to spend more trait points on it and keep it as it was (but still change the grenade barrage so that 100 ’Nades was no longer possible). They could have, alternately, kept it as a 10-point trait but made it so that the additional proc off KR was not changed by other traits like additional Nades or Healing Power, which would have solved a lot of their problems with Grenade Kit and Elixir Gun being too strong in this trait.

(cont’d because it seems I am too long-winded for this forum…)

Kalan.9705:

Engineer changes will continue to lack vision, focus and relevance until we get a class dev who makes a genuine commitment to learning wtf an engineer is and does.

I vote for Chaith. >.>

Moddo.7105:

Kinda bad examples really as the things you mention are not a 10pt trait.

I thought it would go without saying, these are not actual suggestions, more of a tongue-in-cheek commentary on the recent kittening of kits. ;P

Ayestes.1273:

Make a thread with a topic concerning the Deployable Turrets bug. The Scope bug. Make bug reports about it. Put it in the Bug forums.

I totally agree with you Ayestes, that would have been a better response. But… we already tried that. We had a really nice long list of Engi bugs compiled into one easy-to-read list. The community was working together to expand and maintain the list. Bugs from there were mentioned in another post with a Dev and the Dev said, “… oh, hey, that exists?” -_-0 Well, it’s stickied right there guys… At some point, the frustration level of the community is going to start boiling over. We’re not bad people. We’re just sick of doing things the “right” way and still not being heard.

Here are a list of some changes I would like to see – not to the Engineer class, but to other classes, in order to… what is it that terminology ANet is always using? Oh, right. In order to bring them in line with the latest, greatest, Kit(ten) Refinement version of Engineer!

Elementalist:
- Signet of Restoration: Using this signet now activates the signet CD, and in addition, puts all other Signets on invisible CD. You can still pop the signet, but unless you have counted aloud to 20 first, nothing will happen.

Thief:
- Activating any stealth ability now puts all other stealth skills and stealth combo fields on an invisible 20-second CD. This will include: Hide In Shadows, Shadow Refuge, Cloak and Dagger, Blinding Powder, Shadow Trap, Blinding Tuft steals, Throw Feathers steal, and Smoke Bomb. In addition, comboing through anyone else’s stealth combo fields will have no effect until the invisible 20-second CD has finished.

Ranger:
- … nawww, leave them alone. They’re already broken enough.

Mesmer:
- Any skill that creates an illusion will now put all other illusions and phantasms on an invisible 20-second long CD.

Kabro.6518:

what are you talking about? they “fixed” KR, er…..NO they “fixed” our turrets! Quit whining or we’ll get fixed some more. SShhhh

Thieves get hotfixes. We get the same kind of “fixing” that you can get at the vet…

Kekekekekekeke!

Amadeus.5687:

Also, a lot of testing is going on atm. on new ways to use the Turrets for damage, in sPvP I see a lot of testing going on! It’s way to early just judge anything yet about how usefull they are! Now, you can keep being a Immature about this if you want, and I’m 100% in my right to analysis your playstyle from what you wrote:

“Am I saying I would never use them? No, I absolutely would. In fact, my current build has a rifle turret taking up a utility slot… Because I want that Surprise Shot for my SD build. ;P Oh, you meant am I actually putting the turret itself down on the ground? Hahahaha! NO. Of course I’m not… that would be silly!”

Because you clearly have no idea about what’s going on if that’s what you believe, and you should’t spout nonsens! Have a nice day sunny boy

Sunny girl* please, if you have to come up with condescending and stupid nicknames for me in order to respond to my posts.

I guess you conveniently decided to ignore the part where I clarified that putting the turret down so you could blow it up was obvious, but to me the idea of using the turret to sit there and (theoretically) do damage (in reality: die in the next AoE) was laughable. The fact is, that is what ANet wants us to do – why would they give health buffs to something you are supposed to immediately detonate and blow up? They wouldn’t. If they wanted us only taking turrets so that we could detonate them, they would have left them alone. They are tinkering around with turrets trying to figure out how to get players to use them and ignoring the fundamental problems of the turrets themselves. Kind of the way you are ignoring the point of this thread.

I’m glad that this thread could serve as a convenient medium for you to barge in, swagger around feeling smug and superior because you know so much more than me about Engineer’s pathetic kitten turrets. Unfortunately, you’ve also made yourself look like a total fool, because that isn’t at all the topic of the thread.

lolololol +1’d

Rolled an Ele shortly after the Doomsday Patch, also…

godmoney.6025:

Can we look forward to maybe this circa June/July?

Nope.

Amadeus.5687:

I won’ bother responding to much in this thread,

Mhm? Go on? In the thread? About how you aren’t going to respond to the thread…?

Amadeus.5687:

First of, just my putting down the Turret, and pressing the detonate will increase you damage output in a SD build! Why? Because that will trigger another SD! Oh my! All ready your wrong!

Okay, let me clarify – putting down the turret and immediately blowing it up, if you happen to be in range of your target for that to have any effect at all, sure. What I meant was, I would never drop a turret with the intention of using it as another source of ongoing damage, the way that they were clearly intended to be. If they weren’t intended to be used as a turret that sits there and fires bullets, then they would have just made them… um, bombs. We already have those.

I’m pretty sure it was obvious that wasn’t my point, wasn’t relevant, and wasn’t the topic of the discussion though, so now I kinda think you are just a troll. I’m glad it made you feel better about yourself, though.

Amadeus.5687:

I’m not sure if your being serious or not, but a comment like that ain’t helpful or constructive in any way, just stupid!

At least we can agree on something about one another…

Thank you for adding absolutely nothing worthwhile to this discussion about what direction Engineer is taking, with your completely useless, unfounded, assumption-based analysis of my personal playstyle. Please now, go get back under your bridge.

I am currently running Static Discharge. I have played both (and variations thereof) and found conditions and might-stacking builds to be too precarious in PvP, when a single Null Field is truly devastating and can basically render you useless. I’m sure it’d still be great for PvE, and I am sure a lot of people will be successful with it in PvP to one degree or another, but right now SD feels like the only really nice, solid, all-around build that we have left…

Static Discharge is still great… (until They realize that we still have something that doesn’t suck and come to break our kneecaps again)…

google.3709:

Watch this this is exactly what you’re talking about, this is april’s update

CANNOT HOLD BACK THESE LULZ!!!

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Since I’ve been running a turret control build, I really liked the buffs to turrets. It has been my experience that most criticisms levied against turrets are actually incorrect, and I am going to continue running a turret control build.

- turrets are immobile, and therefore turret builds lack mobility
- turrets cannot be ordered to prioritize targets
- turrets are easily AoE’d to death / focused down and therefore cause the Engineer to become extremely vulnerable with nothing else to back them up once they go down
- turrets draw craaaazy aggro

How exactly are these “criticisms” incorrect? And… I know that sounds super antagonistic in text, but I’m actually just asking here. Because in my mind, when you say “criticisms,” I am thinking, “… you mean the facts?” I’m glad you’re satisfied with your turret build. But most of us who know what 100 Nades, KR kitswaps, etc were capable of… we look at turrets and say, “Is this some kind of sick joke?”

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Though I do understand where people are coming from when then they complain about losing something so powerful. I remember back before the grenade nerf…

I would never argue that 100 ‘Nades was a broken (yet hilarious and super-trolly) build. I can see why they’d nerf the Grenade Barrage to put a stop to 100 Nades. Then again they haven’t “fixed” other classes that can do 1-shot K.O. combos. -cough- … You know who you are.

It’s not just losing something “powerful” that I don’t understand, however. It’s that they changed every single proc on every single kit. Some of them were garbage and really needed re-tooling, but come on? Adding an invisible CD to the procs was simply insult to injury for KR. The way I explained to one of my non-Engi friends, “It’s kind of like if your #6 heal skill put all your other utilities on CD every time you used it. And they won’t even let you see the CD timer.” And yes, I realize it doesn’t actually put the utilities on CD, but it wastes the entire reason you would have taken the KR trait in the first place.

Anyways…

I actually switched over to Static Discharge and bought all my gear for it over a week ago, because I knew that they were going to be breaking some of my favourite 3-kit builds that I have been running since launch. It just really saddens me to see one of the most versatile, unique, and challenging classes get so dumbed down, shoved off into its own less-than-spectacular corner. ANet crams turrets down our throats and tells us to stop being creative with our endless possible kit combinations and procs. “Engineer! Stop being awesome! Stop being fun! Stop having so many build possibilities to choose from! STOP BEING DIFFERENT! STOP BEING CLEVER!” Wellll… -okayface-

timidobserver.7925:

sunnypsyop.3025:

Now we have “buffed” turrets, but you notice that no one in their right mind is talking about making builds with turrets. Still. ANet clearly recognized that no one was using them, and is trying to fix that. They really, really want us to like the stupid things, but we just don’t. We never did, we still don’t, and unless turrets get completely re-tooled, we never will. Sorry, guys.

Actually, I am seeing a lot of turrets lately. I guess that people will stop using them once the fad fades and they realize that the buffs are irrelevant since the turret is going to be oneshot.

I agree. I think a lot of people are testing the waters because it looks nice on paper, but the inherent problems that turrets always had still remain (and it sounds like there are some new problems, such as the invisible 5 minute timer I am hearing about?)

A turret does not ask you how it should be prioritizing targets. A turret can be quickly destroyed (regardless of the slight boost to their health). A turret does not follow you from Point A to Point B. You have zero control and zero mobility. Tweaking the damage and health bars of such things doesn’t change the inherent flaws.

Am I saying I would never use them? No, I absolutely would. In fact, my current build has a rifle turret taking up a utility slot… Because I want that Surprise Shot for my SD build. ;P Oh, you meant am I actually putting the turret itself down on the ground? Hahahaha! NO. Of course I’m not… that would be silly!

Would I actually consider actually using the turret itself ever? Yep. If they were mobile, I definitely would try them out. Perhaps if:

- turrets rolled around with you on tank treads or sprouted little helicopter rotors and moved around with you
- and always changed their target prio to whatever YOU are hitting
- and could be “locked down” to gain health and toughness when you are point-guarding, and then could be made lighter and more mobile when you want to move on

Ehhh… I know. I’m just dreaming, now…

Halcyon.7352:

I don’t feel every engineer should be using turrets for the same reason I feel Necro’s shouldn’t be forced into using minions.

Agreed. I refuse to use them kittens.

The intent with the latest patch was clearly to pigeonhole us into… something. Turrets, it sounds like, from the way they keep crowing their useless buffs on them. News flash: turrets are still useless. At least Necro pets… you know. Move with you. Mesmer illusions get all up in the opponent’s face and explode. Turrets still just sit there and waste space in your utility slot that you could be using for stuff that… You know. Doesn’t suck.

Halcyon.7352:

google.3709:

Nah HGH won’t be nerfed.. this is what all engineers should be playing.

this has the RGN, mid range figher survival and doesn’t kill too fast, this is what Anet invasions Engineers to be, average ( not saying the is bad, the build is awesome but simply doesnt have anything that “shines” )

I personally couldn’t help but giggle a bit at the title of this thread. Some fearsome predator.

I lol’d, too…

So now we have lost our kit-swapping builds; the general consensus seems to be that most people feel KR is no longer worth having, and Engies everywhere are scrambling to find a new viable build. We used to have several of them, but now it seems to me that we are down to only two:

- HGH Conditions Grenadier
- The Old Reliable (AKA Static Discharge)

People are already predicting a nerf to the former. My personal theory is that Static Discharge will take the next hit, as it seems to be the most viable thing we have left (in my opinion). Conditions is strong but when you are running around with a conditions-heavy build and 25 stacks of Might, a single Null Field is game-breakingly devastating, at least in my experience. To the point that while I was going through trying every Engi build I could get my hands on (and playing each for at least a week to really get a good beat on it,) I quickly shuffled that particular build off onto the “nice in theory, but would prefer not to use” shelf.

Of course, fumbling any part of 100 Nades was game-breakingly devastating, and they still nerf’d that. So…

Great. So we have 1 solid build, and 1 that is excellent but a single boon rip is the equivalent of an atom bomb dropped on our heads. Game over.

Now we have “buffed” turrets, but you notice that no one in their right mind is talking about making builds with turrets. Still. ANet clearly recognized that no one was using them, and is trying to fix that. They really, really want us to like the stupid things, but we just don’t. We never did, we still don’t, and unless turrets get completely re-tooled, we never will. Sorry, guys.

Why change KR so drastically? It boggles the mind. Super Elixir and Grenade Barrage were the broken ones, but in an impressive show of over-reaction, ANet has changed every single proc and then further punished us with an invisible CD. KR is looking more like a ridiculous game of whack-a-mole now than anything. -tosses it over her shoulder and pitches it in the trash- … NEXT?

So what /is/ next? Another buff to turrets? Probably not, even though they clearly want us to use them. A nerf to Static Discharge? Probably, it’s the best thing we have going for us right now. Nerf to HGH? Maybe.

Things are only going to get more and more broken until ANet can decide what they want us to be. Are we tank-y? Not really. Our Bunker is not nearly as strong as Guardian or Ele’s versions of the same. Are we made to do massive damage? Hahaha… NO. Get out with your 100 Nades! Can we be sneaky? Of course not (and btw, we’ll be taking that Veil back, as well… you know, the RNG that never proc’d when you wanted it anyway?) Okay… how about point control? Nope… your turrets are still kitten.

ANet has no idea what we are. Still. Heck, WE don’t even know what we are any more! And until we get it figured out, the kittening will just keep on coming, as players continue to find innovative builds that transcend our merciless nerfbat beatings, and ANet continues to “put them in their place” without offering us any viable alternatives.

Miaow, miaow miaow. Hello patch, and goodbye Any-Build-With-Kitten-ified-KR!

Ayestes.1273:

Maybe we can convince Chaith to showcase the HGH variant then?

Prease, Chaith?

Turrets have always been useless garbage. They are still useless garbage.

Very, very sad about the changes to Kit Refinement. I have been playing Engineer since beta and have tried about a dozen builds, some I got from others and some I made myself. Most of my favourites of those relied on Kit Refinement to one degree or another. It’s pretty heartbreaking to watch ANet suck every last little drop of versatility and fun out of one of the most (if not the most) under-represented profession in the game.

I tried 100 ‘Nades (which is suspect is mostly what all these moronic changes are about) and yeah… I admit, pulling someone to you and blowing their face off 100% life to downed in the span of a second or two was… well, insane. Not that it’s any more insane than a certain other perma-invis class that I could name but won’t for fear of being flamed.

But the answer to this problem wasn’t to completely re-tool every single ability that procs and then further beat us over the head and face with a new CD. You guys do recall that we DID have cooldowns on KR procs; that seemed fair and balanced to me. Perhaps the KR effects for Elixir Gun and Grenade Kit were a bit too powerful (though tbh I think the only reason those were used and never any others was because the other KR effects were basically useless). Now we get a hidden CD that turns any KR build into a not-so-fun guessing game.

Engineers already suffer from more RNG on our abilities than any other class. Now we have still more unknowns added into the mix, reducing utility and playability and making KR builds more of a chore than anything, in my humble opinion.

I plan to start my quest for a build that 1) I actually enjoy that 2) doesn’t use KR or 3) our worse-than-useless turrets. Wish me luck.

In agreement with the OP that RNG skills need to be completely re-vamped. I refuse to use them (with the exception of Elixir S, but only because I want the drink on it). I think it was a neat concept, adding some chaos and a “mad scientist” feel to the class, but just because it seems like something that is “in-character” for the feel of the class doesn’t necessarily mean that it translates into playability. In this case, it falls flat.

Problem with grenades at a distance is that when you are lobbing them far away, it takes so many millions of years for them to land that people actually just walk out of the AoE… don’t even have to dodge. Basically any grenades spec is going to have to be close-to-mid range, and it makes the distance trait pretty silly unless you are using it to cover downed players on the fly, imo.

And our other kits feel pretty weak in comparison to me, at least from a PvP standpoint. Who in the history of Engis has killed anyone in PvP with Bomb Kit? (Okay, there was that one really genius warrior that I bomb-kited to death in WvW that one time, but I am talking about players with a brain). Flamethrower seems gimmicky and it kinda just does one thing (which flavour of burning would you like to apply? Oh wait, fire all tastes the same when it’s on your face). I like Toolkit but I feel too squishy to be up in someone’s face long enough to really melee.

Seems like we get to be solo PvE all-stars but the second someone has a PvP-viable build that actually strikes fear into the hearts of our opponents, we get the nerfbat.

Amadeus.5687:

But Sunny, the warrior give up any kind of movement while doing 100 blade!

You get that 100 ‘Nades doesn’t work unless you are standing right inside your opponent, right? Grenade combo mobility is = to 100 Blades mobility…

I run a bombkit build with MF gear when I am farming for mats and do very well killing big pulls all at once.

The suggestion to run dungeons is a good one also, CoF speed runs are fast and good money. Only problem is that no one ever wants anything for those except 4 Zerker Warriors and one Mesmer. Be prepared for jerks that automatically boot you the second they see that you are not one of those things.

Edit: You can run bomb kit or grenades, it doesn’t much matter. I just do bombkit because it’s easier when I am zoning out and mindlessly farming NPCs.

DDog.4350:

With the right jewel, on a squishy target. Grenade barrage (8nades) + kit refinement switch to nade (8nades) is 16 nades with crits should be able to hit 12k. But yea. I played warrior yesterday for fun. I press C – > 2 (C hotkeyed to bullstrike) and i hit for 11k. Then throw ma sword which apparently can hit for 4k? and spin for another 3k. 3 seconds. 18k dmg. Kit refinement has 10 internal CD which broke a lot of multi-kit build.

But yea, sure, nerf engi man.

I have a guildie that plays a Zerker Warrior, has a screencap of a 34k hit.

Yep, nerf Engineer, we hit too hard. -eyeroll-

irakai.6891:

Unless ANet is willing to drastically change turret raw damage and health, these changes will be nothing to write home about.

I’m okay with long cooldowns on turret actives and laying turrets. It promotes immobility, which is the point of laying turrets – they are point defense structures after all. They need to be menacing when faced head on, and hard to break with an engineer defending and repairing them. Hell, I’ll settle for annoying rather than menacing.

The problem is right now they feel like they are made of kittens. They also hit like kittens. Note that when I say kittens, I mean infant cats with their soft, furry, clawless paws.

The sad thing is turrets would function better if they were truly made of kittens. At least some people would be nice enough to stop destroying them.

This.

Turrets are so bad that I actually lol whenever I see someone using them. I am the only Engineer in my guild, but everyone there is familiar with my term, “Turret Noob” – because only someone who doesn’t know what on earth they are doing with their Eng would ever use one.

Perhaps if aggro tables weren’t so messed up they might be good for PvE. Perhaps if they had shorter CDs, were mobile (someone in another thread suggested a spec that would allow them to travel with you, like Necro pets), or even just didn’t instantly break whenever someone sneezed on them, they might be viable in PvP.

Honestly, I think the idea of turrets needs to be scrapped completely. They are never going to be as good as kits. Kits are the reason Engineers shine, give us more viable builds centred around those.

Amadeus.5687:

@AlietteFaye I didn’t say they ain’t a good class, but none of those classes got a combo that kill glass cannon geared people in 2-3 seconds! And yet you don’ see them whining on the forums about wanting one all the time, and saying it’s only fair because other classes can do it

Thief = instant-kills glass cannon
Warrior = instant-kills glass cannon

What do we have left, if there is not a single build that gives us decent burst? 100 ‘Nades hits hard, sure, but even the name itself implies that it’s basically just doing what other classes already can do. Besides the fact that to be a good 100 ‘Nades Engi takes a lot of blood, sweat and tears. We have to execute a perfect setup to make it go the way we want it to, and that often doesn’t work. What does Warrior have to do? Press 2 and watch everything die. What does the Wiki say about 100 Blades? “This skill has the highest listed damage potential of any non-elite.” Oh, plus they get heavy armor, while Engineer is stuck being squishy. Seems fair that we should have a tricky combo that allows us better damage than our slack-jawed 2-mashing compatriots.

And don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining about Thief or Warrior. Just pointing out that they also both have massive damage output potential, and with fewer drawbacks.

Andovar Edoras.2143:

So, it is quite obvious that engineer is the least favored profession, and i thought of 1 thing that would increase their popularity. And im talking about appearance..

(note that no skill change is involved, keep those)

Engineer tech looks very “charr-like rusty” war tech, so here’s how id improve it:

~How about giving each race different looks, especially for turrets. Let charr have the current, BUT for example asura would have their glyphic magitech style and sylvari would have plant-like turrets!

I often hear those “asura engi?” questions that usually end with not taking engi because of the tech appearance.

Share your opinions and/or support! Bring engi back into popularity!

The idea to change turret appearance is cute, but that’s just what turrets are to start with: cute. They draw massive aggro and die instantly in PvE (or get left behind after a minimum of usefulness due to lack of control over them, zero mobility and stupid-long recharge times), they’re laughably useless in PvP, and you really only see people who don’t understand how much more powerful kit-swapping is ever using them (I am sure some turrets Engis are going to come out of the woodwork to flame me on this, but let’s face it: if you picked turrets over kits, you picked wrong). With the exception of Supply Crate, I never see level-capped Engis using turrets at all.

A flashy new skin on our turrets isn’t what we need. What we need is turrets that don’t suck in the first place.

Amadeus.5687:

I gues what I’m trying to say, give us more viable builds, that can be used in all parts of the game! But the Engineer’s should stop nagging at the Theive’s and Warrior for having something special they can do, it’s a game with 8 proffsions, it would be boring if we all filled the same void, wouldn’t it?

Problem is… Thief (medium armor) = insta-kills and perma stealth. Warrior = heavy armor at a cost of no stealth, but also insta-kills. Engi = no burst potential like thief, no permastealth, and we’re squishy. Sure we have CC and conditions, but so do Necros, and they have pets, we don’t. Mesmers, same thing. Engineer is looking a lot like the red-headed stepchild here; we can do a little of everything, but nothing is done particularly well (or at least not as well as other classes). Normally a balanced class like this would be really nice for solo-running PvE. Except ANet has made it clear the game is meant for group play. And a “balanced” class is always inferior in PvP, as classes that focus on one thing are rewarded while Jack-of-all-trades types are severely punished.