State of Engi

whats everyone thought at the moment on the class? I'm possibly thinking about giving up on the class depending on how the next balance patch is.... at the moment engi are in odd stage where it's either dps or bunker... and in all honestly for both dps / bunker build they don't hold all that great in comparison to other classes that can do the same thing but in much better ways.

At the moment the idea that you need strongly need invention as to clear condi effectively kinda destroys the class for me over all, It's needed on scrapper, Holo , and even core engi. The trait-line is beyond BORING and really doesn't offer much besides healing/protection passive traits. The idea that holo were a high risk/high reward class was great however after the last balance patch it just hasn't been the same at all. What's the point in playing bunker holo if Bunker Mesmer,Warrior, or ranger can all do it in a much much better rate? What's the point in playing class cannon if thief, Warrior, Mesmer, Rev and even possibly guardian can do much better dps(or equal) with better boons or might stacking?

I understand that this class has been in a odd spot almost every season but i just can't get over the idea that they really becomes useless as each season progresses and it kills the fun in wanting to enjoy a class with it's unfair "balance" patches with traits that aren't even good/useful because they been outdated.

what has to be done to make this class worth investing so much time on with it's lack of build diversity for competitive matches?

Well, you don't need to clear condi. You can live dangerously and run tools/explosions/firearms instead :). I personally prefer that to altering my build to abuse the official condi clear trait du jour. You just end up having to disengage if you get condi bombed. HT usually cleanses enough to survive.

That said, if you're going to play that style, it makes you a +1 dps rather than a point holder, and like you said, thief/mesmer/rev is better suited to that playstyle, so yeah.. probably not optimal.

@coro.3176 said:Well, you don't need to clear condi. You can live dangerously and run tools/explosions/firearms instead :). I personally prefer that to altering my build to abuse the official condi clear trait du jour. You just end up having to disengage if you get condi bombed. HT usually cleanses enough to survive.

That said, if you're going to play that style, it makes you a +1 dps rather than a point holder, and like you said, thief/mesmer/rev is better suited to that playstyle, so yeah.. probably not optimal.

at that point im completely useless in team fights for solo rank lol. Easy target able to die in seconds making it a handicap for my team overall, and as you said +1 full dps trait line is possible but theirs better classes for that sort.

If we're talking core engineer, it's really not doing well compared to the Holosmith. I'm not saying that core Engineer isn't viable in PvP, it's just that you have to play like a god in order to beat a Holosmith or be on par with everyone else, especially you're using 3 kit power builds.

As far as your question on what needs to be done, I've made a list on how to improve Engineer, specifically core Engineer if you're interested.

To address the whole condi issue:This is the build I've been using most of the time recently and it's got plenty of surviveability as well as lots of damage.http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vdAQFAUnUUBFJj1IDmIDcJjlKDb8DkeaPiLjAQ4pPD+BHhA-jJxHAB7s/gyXAgrLDAwDAAAIt doesn't have as much clear as inv holo but it's enough to deal with any of the builds you'll be fighting in this meta.

As for thoughts:The class is still the most fun class in game for me. No other class feels as fluid and self reliant (outside of broken stuff like chrono) to me as the engineer. That being said, it suffers from poor design in it's traits. Engineer imo was the class hardest hit when the specialization system was introduced into the game when it came to trait diversity. Engineer has lots of potential synergy over the class but it's held back by the fact that you need some of the broken traits on the class to cover basic design flaws (I.E. purity of purpose which is OP as kitten to cover engineer's lack of boon access and ACP to cover their condi clear). This is a problem which is very hard to fix without either temporarily buffing the class to god mode status or nerfing it to uselessness (I'm talking worse than rev) because you have to rework and redesign lots of engineer's skills and traits to have better designs and functions but you also have to nerf some of the ridiculous traits available to them to stop them from being too strong. Personally I think a good fix for this would be to allow people to spec into more than 3 lines but only have enough points to max 3 (kind of like how the old system worked but still with the restriction of 1 espec). This would allow players to utilize the full range of the class' capabilities within the restriction of points they have and would definitely lead to some diversifying of builds.

Imo, engineer's biggest problems:

• Lack of reliable stability access
• Lack of reliable condi clear outside of ACP (which should be given at least a 1 second icd to make room for other condi clear options to be designed and implemented without the risk for making builds that are completely immune to condi)
• Engineer's kits need to be reworked. The design of many of the kits is obsolete and in need of some changes. I have two thoughts on how we could address this. One option is to do the changes below:1) Med Kit (placed on the ammo system (2 charges per 2-5 skill, 3 seconds between each use and a count recharge of approx. 25 seconds for each skill)
• Make each of the throw skills a PBAoE or a grenade like projectile that explodes the effect in the blast zone to allies
• Base healing for each of the skills would be buffed to 1000
• Auto would be a PBAoE that heals nearby allies (no effect on the player to avoid immortal engi type situations)2) Grenade Kit (2 charges per 2-5 skill, skill recharge of 4 seconds, count recharge of approx. 20 seconds)
• Grenadier velocity and range increases added as baseline (Effect would have to be replaced with something on heal to be consistent with other classes)
• Poison grenade now leaves poison fields like it did before the change (lasts for 4 seconds)
• Grenade damage increased (outside of barrage)
• Flash grenades leave a pulsing set of blind fields like the poison fields from nade 5 (lasts for 3 seconds)3) Bomb Kit (2 charges per 2-5 skill, skill recharge of 5 seconds, count recharge of approx. 20 seconds)
• Short Fuse time to explode made baseline
• Bomb durations all increased to 4 seconds
• Glue bomb now does 2 seconds of immob on explosion and 2 seconds of cripple every second you are in the field4) Tool Kit
• Box of nails radius increased to 400, duration increased to 5 seconds, now applies 2 stacks of bleed per second at 4 seconds each tick along with 4 seconds of cripple each tick. Cast time reduced to 1/2 second
• Magnet pull needs it's bugs fixed. (Too many people get pulled and port back to a different spot avoiding any follow up from pry bar or OS)
• Auto turret heal increased to 10%5) Egun
• 2 tracking fixed and increased velocity. Damage increased by 10%
• 3 cast time reduced to 1 1/2 seconds. condition clear now also affects the player
• 5 Removes 2 conditions now
• Auto damage increased by 15%6) Flamethrower
• 2 Functions similar to ele's scepter 3 (ground target that explodes once it get's to the target)
• 4 is now a circle like fire bomb but only lasts for 5 seconds now
• 5 is now a 5 second effect where you pulse blind around you every second in a radius of 300 (can't be stripped or removed)7) Mortar needs to be completely replaced with something else as right now this kit has no defined purpose. I personally have no idea what to do with it right now without stepping on the toes of the other kits or making it useless/broken8) Overall kit stuff
• Juggernaut would now function as "Gain stability when you swap weapons (1 stack of stab for 4 seconds with 10 second icd)"
• Backpack regenerator now regenerates 135 hps for 10 seconds when you equip a kit (swapping in again just refreshes the buff like soothing mists with ele)
• Streamlined kits has all previous effects removed, now grants swiftness for 15 seconds (10 sec icd) and 5 might for 10 seconds (10 second icd) when you equip a kit

The other option:Move kits to the toolbelt and have people choose 5 kits (sacrifice elite kit for photon forge in the case of holosmith) to have on their build (grenade, med, and bomb kit would all rely on the ammo systems described above). The toolbelt skills in the game and their respective utilities would require a large redesign and rework to allow for the balance changes but overall this could heavily boost diversity in how the engineer is built. For example, you could utilize defensive kits to improve the surviveability of a glassier build or offensive kits on a bruiser to improve damage output. It'd help solve engineer's issue of a lack of weapon swap but it avoids trampling on the elementalist as kits function differently for an engineer than attunements do on an ele. Kits would still need to be tweaked of course.

I think some of these problems would also be fixed with some general changes to the game that would allow it to function better as a competitive game:

• Re- introduction of bunker amulets (or remove the amulet system and make every armor piece selectable with stats that you'd have on amulets)
• Nerfing base damage, healing, defense availability, boons, conditions, etc
• Reducing AoE presence
• Reduce AI influence on builds (AI based builds should never be as effective as builds that don't rely on AI unless the AI interacts with the player in a way that makes it's use skillful)
• Removing passive procs
• Rework damage mods and reductions to be multiplicative, not additive (this would help a ton in reducing the possibility of 1 shot type builds or god mode builds existing)
• Reduce cc in game

Note: Edited for weird formatting stuff.

@"Hoodie.1045" said:If we're talking core engineer, it's really not doing well compared to the Holosmith. I'm not saying that core Engineer isn't viable in PvP, it's just that you have to play like a god in order to be beat a Holosmith or be on par with everyone else, especially you're using 3 kit power builds.

As far as your question on what needs to be done, I've made a list on how to improve Engineer, specifically core Engineer if you're interested.

I currently play a Core Build based on doing dps range with grenades, it's really not easy, you can do lot's of damage, but at the end of the day, your effort is at the mercy of how good your teammates are aswell, otherwise, you are screwed into disengaging with rocket boots all the time, that's not good if half the game you spend it on escaping for your life...

Sometimes the build blasts, sometimes you look stupid and helpless against other opponents, but i guess that's what i get from tryharding a core build.

Core Engi needs to return at the PvE Raids.

Scrapper needs to get better diversity at PvP, bringing Core playable or Holo more diversity is debatable.

Scrapper or Holo also need to get a solid WvW build worthy of being part of a squad/zerg.

That's my conclusion.