I miss Alchemical Tinctures, and a few other traits. (Warning : rambling)

I don't understand why they decided to replace this with a worse version. Compounding Chemicals is the same thing, except they replaced the condition removal with a pitiful heal. Combined with this and Transmute being changed, our condition removal was gutted to the point where you need Elixir C or some gimmick build to be able to spam protection to take advantage of Anticorrosion Plating. Scrapper may still be okay, Holosmith has some condition removal still in its own traits and skills, but core engineer is now even worse off.

Comeback Cure might be more useful if they didn't mess up our condition removal...seems like it's just there for Elixir Gun, just like the trait it replaced. Try making Elixir Gun more useful?

Skilled Marksman is gone, so now rifle is worse. They may have made the cooldown reduction baseline, but I liked that for increasing the attack speed, which doesn't seem to have passed over. But hey, we can now do damage with Net Shot, right?...even though the auto is still stronger. Thermal Vision could've been merged with Pinpoint Distribution, since they both revolve around condition damage, while Skill Marksman could've been improved or kept for those that wanted to use rifle.

I guess they wanted to make Inventions more desirable, but they'd have to make turrets and the shield worth something first. As far as I can tell, if you have Scrapper, you might as well use the hammer over the shield. Main hand pistol is still pretty weak, and why would you ever use sword for Holosmith when your Photon Forge is already a melee-wrecking machine?

Rambling done. Feedback, I guess?

BTW, the net shot damage is actually a subtle nerf. Prevents engineer from immob'ing people from stealth. Its damage isn't bad, but it seems to have been intended as a nerf.

Non of the skilled marksman cd reductions was made baseline. Skilled marksman was a good trait to add extra survivability to rifle builds (lower cooldowns on: mobility, hard cc, immob, soft cc cleans) plus you could use your damage attacks more often. it was replaced by a hybrid damage buff in the firearms master traits where people could already choose between a power damage buff or condi damage buff, so it makes no sense to me why skilled marksman was removed without proper compensations (blatant nerf to many rifle builds imo).

The removal of alchemical tinctures results in engineer having verry few (that are good for WVW roaming builds) condi cleansing options in its utility/elite slots .

All remaining options:Thumper Turret (traited)super elixir (also light field)rocket boots (soft cc only)Elixir R (immob only)Toss Elixir R (also light field)Elixir CPurge GyroHard Light Arena (traited)Med Pack Drop(Superior rune of lyssa)(Superior rune of leadership)(sigil of cleansing)(did i miss something?)

Together With the introduction of Anticorrosion Plating + Reconstruction Enclosure the condi cleansing balance has shifted to the healing skills with the result that (assuming you take the 2 mentioned traits):-you waste 4 condi cleanses if you want to use your healing turret (which now (more likely than in the past) may be the majority of your cleanses )-med kit has a pretty good spread of condi cleanses but it's too cluncky to be properly used.-Elixir h now needs 2 traitlines to achieve the same result as before (20s cd and 2 condi cleanses)-Medic gyro benefitted from these changes-A.E.D also benefitted but remains a bad healing skill-Coolant blast also benefitted

Overall vanilla engi (rifle and p/p) builds are in a much worse state to deal with condies than before the condi damage and condi cleansing balance patches . (talking about WVW roaming build options) Shield builds might have gotten beter? but those generally lack mobility, unless they take rocket boots which means they probably aren't decent damage dealers (or have other major issues). (not talking about holosmiths)

@Vagrant.7206 said:BTW, the net shot damage is actually a subtle nerf. Prevents engineer from immob'ing people from stealth. Its damage isn't bad, but it seems to have been intended as a nerf.

TBF, the immobile duration is so damn low that this strat never mattered at all.

There are way more better ways to open strong from stealth like moa stealth, rampage stealth, photon wave, Magnet stealth (if you even dare to use that kit), etc.

@Ivantreil.3092 said:

@Vagrant.7206 said:BTW, the net shot damage is actually a subtle nerf. Prevents engineer from immob'ing people from stealth. Its damage isn't bad, but it seems to have been intended as a nerf.

I think in the current state of game its also a bit to slow to be as meaningful as it used to be aswell, my personal favorite stealth play of late has been stealth and pbm hit a necro for 17k with it alone from stealth was a good day haha

@Ivantreil.3092 said:

@Vagrant.7206 said:BTW, the net shot damage is actually a subtle nerf. Prevents engineer from immob'ing people from stealth. Its damage isn't bad, but it seems to have been intended as a nerf.

True. It just means you can't use that strat now, even though it was never a major issue to begin with. But the damage isn't even worth a crap either... I do 1k on crit with zerk gear, it's ridiculous.