Just me or is core engi badly designed?

I unlocked my holo elite today and can honestly say I'm having a blast. The spec is fun, dynamic and has interesting risk-reward gameplay with the heat mechanic. It isn't super complicated or anything, just enough to be engaging without becoming too much of a button smash contest unlike some other elite specs.

However, I cannot say the same for core engineer. After getting to 80 with all professions, but mesmer and necro (those got boosted) the engi was by far the most boring and dull experience. Is there a problem with the class? According to this: https://gw2armory.com/statistics rev and engineer are the least played professions in the game. Revenants are a DLC profession which still suffers from many bugs, lack of attention and polish. Engineers don't share most of those issues, yet they are right on the bottom of popularity and I bet this isn't coincidence.

Some people like to have a lot of buttons to press. It makes them feel "skilled" because they have a lot to keep them occupied. A guardian can press 2 buttons and stuff will die. A core engi will have to press like 4 between different kits and belt buttons to achieve similar results or less. Why? I understand if there was some kind of awesome synergy between the skills, but there isn't.

For example, imagine that you use the poison grenade and the entire area where it landed is covered in poison gas. Then you switch to the flamethrower (one of the few kits I liked) and the moment the flame makes contact with the green goo it all goes KABOOM. That would be fun, wouldn't it? It would kinda justify switching between different kits. Instead, engineer skills and abilities simply deal very low damage so you have to constantly mash buttons in order to get the illusion of complexity. At least for me, this isn't fun. But why?

Turrets are just bad. Imho, the only ok turret was the healing one. The damage dealing ones were kinda lame and the damage they did wasn't very impressive. The whole concept of luring the enemies in certain places in order to use turrets with their extremely limited effectiveness feels clunky. Maybe if they were something like...drones that kept following you it would be better?

Also half the kits feel useless. Flamethrower probably most fun, grenades most useful. What about the rest? Some extremely niche PvP purpose? Take a look at the elementalist. It comes closer to the engi than any other profession due its attunement mechanics which give you something while also taking something. DIfference is that each attunement has purpose, while many of the kits just don't. Go fire and you deal more damage, go lightning and you get speed and crowd control, go water for heals and earth will offer you survivability. Easy to grasp, easy to understand, kinda hard to master but also fun.

From what I've seen core engineer suffers from horribly outdated design and plenty of useless mechanics which makes me believe that whoever made the profession wasn't quite sure what to do with it. Are you happy with core engineer? Do you feel like it needs serious changes? Not just more damage buff or a few tweaks, but complete redesign?

No offense, but Engineer is a pretty complex class. Holo is kind of a dumbed down version of it in that you spend most of your time YOLO-ing like a warrior instead of playing engi as it was designed. (that is, taking advantage of combo fields, remembering cooldowns, constantly swapping kits for the right skill at the right time, carefully managing and changing up your distance from the enemy). I don't think you quite appreciate what engi can do in the right hands.

You're not wrong. The balance on its skills is pretty outdated in that the damage and utility has not kept pace with the expansions' power creep.

.. but it doesn't need a "complete redesign". I get the impression from your post that you don't have enough experience with the class to make that call. Watch some old-school engi pvp/roaming videos to get an idea of how core engi is meant to be played.

@"coro.3176" said:No offense, but Engineer is a pretty complex class. Holo is kind of a dumbed down version of it in that you spend most of your time YOLO-ing like a warrior instead of playing engi as it was designed. (that is, taking advantage of combo fields, remembering cooldowns, constantly swapping kits for the right skill at the right time, carefully managing and changing up your distance from the enemy). I don't think you quite appreciate what engi can do in the right hands.

You're not wrong. The balance on its skills is pretty outdated in that the damage and utility has not kept pace with the expansions' power creep.

.. but it doesn't need a "complete redesign". I get the impression from your post that you don't have enough experience with the class to make that call. Watch some old-school engi pvp/roaming videos to get an idea of how core engi is meant to be played.

Non taken. However, the core profession feels clunky much more so than any other I've tried.

The core Engie is one of the worse professions, balance-wise, today. In that you ARE right.I don't agree with you on it being boring, however: I think engie is THE most fun class there is in the whole game, with or without elite specs.

The problem is Anet has not been able to properly update it and correct the many incomplete ideas they have given to it, like turrets, gyros and gadets. Also the Kits, which are awesome to play for their speed and variety, have become a terrible problem to properly balance everything else...

TLDR: IMO, Engie IS badly designed, and can be really frustrating. But it is also incredibly fun. It needs a heavy repair, which solves its balance without killing its personality. Kitten HUGE challenge.

@"EpicName.4523" said:I unlocked my holo elite today and can honestly say I'm having a blast. The spec is fun, dynamic and has interesting risk-reward gameplay with the heat mechanic. It isn't super complicated or anything, just enough to be engaging without becoming too much of a button smash contest unlike some other elite specs.However, I cannot say the same for core engineer. After getting to 80 with all professions, but mesmer and necro (those got boosted) the engi was by far the most boring and dull experience. Is there a problem with the class? According to this: https://gw2armory.com/statistics rev and engineer are the least played professions in the game. Revenants are a DLC profession which still suffers from many bugs, lack of attention and polish. Engineers don't share most of those issues, yet they are right on the bottom of popularity and I bet this isn't coincidence.

It was the least played due to how complex the profession is, especially when you used 3 kits. Nowadays you kids have got your dumbed down Holosmith which is 10 times easier to play than core engineer.

Some people like to have a lot of buttons to press. It makes them feel "skilled" because they have a lot to keep them occupied. A guardian can press 2 buttons and stuff will die. A core engi will have to press like 4 between different kits and belt buttons to achieve similar results or less. Why? I understand if there was some kind of awesome synergy between the skills, but there isn't.

Magnet > Grenade Barrage/Pry Bar/Overcharged Shot, Infusion Bomb > Cleansing Field > Acid Bomb, Jump Shot > Pry Bar, Regenerating Mist > Acid Bomb/Jump Shot, Super Elixir > Throw Wrench etc.

For example, imagine that you use the poison grenade and the entire area where it landed is covered in poison gas.

Poison Grenade used to create poison fields that could stack poison up to a minute. Good old times.

From what I've seen core engineer suffers from horribly outdated design and plenty of useless mechanics which makes me believe that whoever made the profession wasn't quite sure what to do with it. Are you happy with core engineer? Do you feel like it needs serious changes? Not just more damage buff or a few tweaks, but complete redesign?

Yes, I would really love to see some of the turrets/kits reworked. We already had the Med Kit reworked, so why not rework/buff some of the kits?

The only time core engineer is viable is when you are good with it. Pulling off dozens of combos with kits is far more satisfying that just pressing one button to go Super Saiyan Blue. The best core engineer in my opinion that helped me to reach platinum today is support engineer with the Med Kit. I've lost count of the amount of times I saved teammates and carried matches by healing them. I use Grenade Kit, Elixir Gun and Tool Kit for utility skills, Supply Crate for elite skill, Rune of the Pack so you don't lose too much damage and Mender's Amulet.

Holosmith bores me. Like, greatsword-warrior boring. And core engi has trouble evolving into nowadays requirements. Before HoT the design was excellent, afterwards... not so much.

@MrForz.1953 said:Holosmith bores me. Like, greatsword-warrior boring. And core engi has trouble evolving into nowadays requirements. Before HoT the design was excellent, afterwards... not so much.

Thank you.

Engi kits and toolbelt skills are what made me main engineer in the first place, weaving in and out of them adapting to circumstances is incredibly fun and not similar to anything big experienced with other game. They may feel clunky to you because you're not used to playing engineer to begin with.

But yes, core engi is right now extremely unrewarding, they should make it so adapting and exxecuting with your base engineer properly rewards you for it.

The problem is that core engi is still, for the most part, balanced for the core game. It's not balanced to HoT or PoF, and its weakness in this regard is REALLY obvious. Other core professions (besides rev) have seen various updates to their skills and weapons that at least see their core viable, if not meta. But engineer, for some unknown reason, has been left way behind. Even playing the 4-kit piano is no longer that good, and that was never easy.

And it's not like its decline has been really sudden or unnoticed either. Every time condi engineer gets dirt kicked in its face because another class got condi nerfed, people point it out. ArenaNet has to notice.

After reading through this entire post, I agree with what was stated here overall. I've been running a vanilla engineer (condi build) since I started playing, and I have loved it for the core game. What people said here was right: it needs an update to current expansions. If you have been perusing metabuilds for engineer, it remained the same for the longest time until PoF came out. Then everyone bandwagoned to Holosmith because of the meta-builds for PoF, the ease of use (compared to the core engi), and light sabers. As a engineer main, I felt the Holosmith (though fun) was very gimmicky that only lured non-main engineer players to it temporarily. It honestly does play like other classes and dumbs it down so people don't complain that 'engi' is too hard anymore.

The fact remains, however, that the core engi needs fixing. Even though a few people know how to use it, it is just the red-headed step-child of the classes. This class can be great if the core skills are tweaked. Since the 'range' set of skills are dominated by rangers and deadeyes these days, it wouldn't make sense to just add range to their current skills. The close range skills are alright but as others said, there's no synergy between kits and skills. The answer lies in the mechanic between skills. How would one make the other better without breaking the game like many new specs have done?

If they want to just make more money and add new specs that's great. I hope they consider doing something like a Mechromancer SPEC http://www.ign.com/wikis/borderlands-2/Mechromancer as a complement to the deadeye sniper that we have already. That way the deadeye can perch itself in the back and the engi (mechromancer) and run around at front while gunning a dual SMG kit or something with stacks of Anarchy that bounce bullets with high crit rate with each bounce. If we stick with just the whole core engi, why not make closer to a gunslinger? With that said, what do engineers have to do with dual pistols anyway? Why not make engineer actually build and command mech-type bots "Golemancer" anyone? It could flesh out the Asura storyline a bit and make the class seem more relevant than just to the steam-punk feel of the Charr and their home of the Black Citadel.

In the end, I really thought that this class had the most potential but it wasn't given the attention it deserved. I hope they do give it some attention because they have something going for it but not enough for it to be a practical choice for a particular game mode over other classes simply because it doesn't specialize in anything like other classes. There's no one in any game mode saying: "We need an engineer to do this; we cannot do this without one."

PS I still run vanilla condi engi on one of my characters even if it isn't Meta.

To push the subject further, the overall design of the class is pretty brilliant, well modularized, and highly versatile- but its brutally hampered by terrible numbers in all of its skills, and have several self-defeating traits due to the skills their tied to. On an individual level, each skill makes a lot of sense... but several areas which SHOULD have synergy by way of mechanics, end up in conflict due to how their applied. Like Self Regulating Defenses triggering based on 25% HP, but the Skill it triggers disables skills and leaves the player fully vulnerable to any conditions already stacked. Automated Medical response reset healing skill CD at 25% HP, but is on a massive cool down, and the HP margin to narrow to successfully cast the healing skill before downed. Some kits need their related traits to function correctly. And while most kits are fairly diverse in utility, or are modified by several other traits, Engineers tend to have to stack utilities, because their base weapons don't have much utility themselves.

This is why most Core Engineers run at least 2 kits, because its the only method to get a reliably diverse skill set that the engineer can take full advantage of, in light of lacking weapon swap. Thats one of the more base conflicts with Core.... we have lots useful skills, but no matter how many we carry, we always feel we could use access to one more. The Tool belt helped alleviate the problem a lot, but we're still stuck with this need for 2 kits per build, but they simply offer much better performance then any single other utility skill. And fixing it now is also hard, precisely because Tool belt skills are making current Engineers incredibly skill dense.

Both Scrapper and Holo resolve this problem by making the weapon half of the Spec strong enough to free utility slots. Scrapper does this by basically being a supped up Tool Kit via Hammer, while Holo offers a complete offensive kit as a class mechanic. Each reduces the requirement for a Kit as general purpose, thus making utilities you do pick having much better purpose in mind. Fixing this for Core is extremely high, because their weapons don't do any heavy lifting. However..... one possible idea that might work is making Tool Kit the baseline weapons Swap, rather then a second weapon set. This could work since Tool Kit is extremely diverse and supplements the sluggishness of their main weapons. We can then update the Tool kit skills to better fit this new job, update the Tools trait lines to better represent its job as baseline enhancement, and look at several of the automated traits to clean up some awkward cross connects.

@starlinvf.1358 said:Fixing this for Core is extremely high, because their weapons don't do any heavy lifting. However..... one possible idea that might work is making Tool Kit the baseline weapons Swap, rather then a second weapon set. This could work since Tool Kit is extremely diverse and supplements the sluggishness of their main weapons. We can then update the Tool kit skills to better fit this new job, update the Tools trait lines to better represent its job as baseline enhancement, and look at several of the automated traits to clean up some awkward cross connects.

The Tool Kits' trait Power Wrench got buffed a few years ago. It used to reduce the cooldown on the skills for 20%, nowadays 33%. The best thing that can be done for the Tool Kit is a small rework on the auto attack, Box of Nails and maybe Gear Shield and Magnet.

The auto attack serves no purpose other than fixing turrets which are never used due to how squishy they are. Not only that, but the slow cast time is what makes it worse. Reduce the cast time to 0.5, 0.5, 0.5 like the Scrappers' hammer and have it apply confusion instead of cripple. Box of Nails already exists, so why do we need 2 skills for applying cripple?

Box of Nails used to have a 1 second cast time. It got buffed by reducing it to 0.75 seconds. In my opinion it's still too slow because it barely deals any damage and it's purely a utility skill which is applying cripple on foes to safely escape from them. The problem is the cripple you apply lasts for such a short time that it's not even worth using it. Increase the cripple duration from 2 seconds to 5 seconds so that it will allow you to safely escape while kiting foes.

Gear Shield could have a reflect similar to the Scrappers' hammer. Power Wrench or any other Tools trait could give Gear Shield a reflect because engineer has very few ways to reflect projectiles. This would help greatly against p/p Deadeye thieves, rangers and other ranged professions.

Magnet should have the pull bug that it always had fixed. ArenaNet to this day still haven't fixed the bug that has been present with Magnet since day 1. Six years and nothing has been done to fix this issue.

Not sure if the class was badly designed, it just hasn't aged well. The current state of the game awards very simplistic burst "rotations". Overabundance of instant skills, one button press doing multiple things at once, etc has made swapping kits for subpar effects very dated. As you mentioned, guard can hit 2 buttons and things die. That's not a problem with engi, that's a problem with the state of the game. As an engi main since release I got burnt out on holo in about two weeks, it just feels too watered down. Given the power creep I can see why they made holo what it is, and it did make the class more accessible to people wanting to try it out, I just don't really enjoy playing it.

I think making streamlined kits have individual CDs for each kit and maybe dropping the cd down to 10 secs might be a way of rewarding multi kit play. It would also buff core engi more than the two elite specs. Glue shot, box of nails, buggy magnet (as mentioned) are just some of the skills that really need to be looked at and updated as well.

@"JohnnyRico.8591" said:Not sure if the class was badly designed, it just hasn't aged well. The current state of the game awards very simplistic burst "rotations". Overabundance of instant skills, one button press doing multiple things at once, etc has made swapping kits for subpar effects very dated. As you mentioned, guard can hit 2 buttons and things die. That's not a problem with engi, that's a problem with the state of the game. As an engi main since release I got burnt out on holo in about two weeks, it just feels too watered down. Given the power creep I can see why they made holo what it is, and it did make the class more accessible to people wanting to try it out, I just don't really enjoy playing it.

I think making streamlined kits have individual CDs for each kit and maybe dropping the cd down to 10 secs might be a way of rewarding multi kit play. It would also buff core engi more than the two elite specs. Glue shot, box of nails, buggy magnet (as mentioned) are just some of the skills that really need to be looked at and updated as well.

I also think streamlined kits should be different from what it is now since some of the things it does are hardly relevant IE fire aura on flamethrower. It wouldn't really affect PvP either since the more kits you run the glassier you become.

I also think streamlined kits should be different from what it is now since some of the things it does are hardly relevant IE fire aura on flamethrower. It wouldn't really affect PvP either since the more kits you run the glassier you become.

Definitely agree, updating the effects on kits would definitely help. With the nerf to the alch line, across all kits you have only 1 condi clear and 1 stun break (on the same kit). Running any type of multi kit setup just does not give you enough of a return on investment. Flamethrower, like you mentioned, grenade kit, mortar kit might be the ones needing a look at. Maybe bomb kit too, although that seems to have some potential if it were on its own cd.

@JohnnyRico.8591 said:

I also think streamlined kits should be different from what it is now since some of the things it does are hardly relevant IE fire aura on flamethrower. It wouldn't really affect PvP either since the more kits you run the glassier you become.

That's certainly part of the problem. The powercreep from the expansions has resulted in CC and condi hell, and none of the kits besides elixir gun do anything to realistically mitigate that. The number of unblockables has also greatly increased, reducing toolkit's potential damage mitigation.

@JohnnyRico.8591 said:

I also think streamlined kits should be different from what it is now since some of the things it does are hardly relevant IE fire aura on flamethrower. It wouldn't really affect PvP either since the more kits you run the glassier you become.

Tool Kit needs to looked at the most in my opinion. Not only does it need to be buffed, but for some skills a rework. Rework the auto attack, increase the cripple duration on Box of Nails and fix the pull bug on Magnet.

According to https://gw2efficiency.com/account/player-statistics engineer is the least played core profession, so Arenanet should definitely show some love at engineer instead of gutting the core like they have been (e.g. removal of alchemical tinctures was a truly bad move, no many elixirs see almost zero play). By the way, I have 1 character for each profession, geared and level 80 of course. And my main is no longer engi as I find it so lacking.

Many engi traits are still underpowered and the good traits are scattered to way too many trait lines, forcing the player to select multiple trait lines to get most of out of single kit.

grenade kit needs 1200 range back (untraited) and 1500 range (traited). The slow projective speed + retaliation boon on enemy groups still makes grenades a viability (retal can trigger more damage on engi if tossed at enemy zerg than the grenades are causing on enemy). Maybe flash grenade should also be made unblockable as it is very weak skill and shrapnel grenade nerfs should be reverted (does too little bleeding).

Mortar definitely needs a mortar related trait in explosives line, which will improve it. Orbital command trait could increase mortar skills radius by 60 besides the current effect.

Rifle is still too much risk, because of the high amount of projectile hate in WvWvW. Ranger longbow of course has similar reflect issues, but it is much easier to use effectively and has in many real life situations about 1800 range (far more than 1200 range). Thus you see a lot of pewpew LB rangers in the game, but so few rifle engis.

I have many times suggested to quicken the rifle #5, jump shot, skill and give it an evade frame. This would allow it to be used as an effective movement skill. Now running with swiftness is as fast on level ground. Rifle #3, blunderbuss, needs a blast finisher.

I have created another thread how to improve medkit (current rework wasn't good enough for WvWvW):https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/40884/new-medkit-sucks-in-wvwvw-and-ideas-how-to-fix-it#latest

@Deniara Devious.3948 said:Many engi traits are still underpowered and the good traits are scattered to way too many trait lines, forcing the player to select multiple trait lines to get most of out of single kit.grenade kit needs 1200 range back (untraited) and 1500 range (traited). The slow projective speed + retaliation boon on enemy groups still makes grenades a viability (retal can trigger more damage on engi if tossed at enemy zerg than the grenades are causing on enemy). Maybe flash grenade should also be made unblockable as it is very weak skill and shrapnel grenade nerfs should be reverted (does too little bleeding).

I would much rather have the whole Grenadier trait changed. It is the most game changing trait in the entire game because it changes the way you use a weapon or play your profession in general. No other profession has this kind of trait.

I recommend for Grenadier to be changed similar to the old Grenadier, only this time it increases the range from 900 to 1200 and reduces cooldown on grenade skills.

• Grenade should have its' damage increased. Currently, it deals less damage than Shrapnel Grenade and what makes it worse is that it scales worse with power damage. The auto attack is a skill that should scale better with power damage, but it doesn't.• Flash Grenade could be an unblockable skill.• Freeze Grenade could have its' chill duration increased from 2 seconds to 5 seconds• Poison Grenade would be better if they brought back the poison fields it used to create.

Mortar definitely needs a mortar related trait in explosives line, which will improve it. Orbital command trait could increase mortar skills radius by 60 besides the current effect.

I remember Chaith mentioning for the trait Orbital Command in the Explosives specialization to be changed so that it improves the projectile velocity on the Mortar Kit. The current version of Orbital Command sucks and it serves no purpose.

Rifle is still too much risk, because of the high amount of projectile hate in WvWvW. Ranger longbow of course has similar reflect issues, but it is much easier to use effectively and has in many real life situations about 1800 range (far more than 1200 range). Thus you see a lot of pewpew LB rangers in the game, but so few rifle engis.

Increasing the range isn't going to fix the issue with rifle engineer which is the auto attacks' damage. It is so mediocre that it's not worth using it. The only skills that are worth using are Blunderbuss and Jump Shot with the occasional usage from Net Shot and Overcharged Shot.

I have many times suggested to quicken the rifle #5, jump shot, skill and give it an evade frame. This would allow it to be used as an effective movement skill. Now running with swiftness is as fast on level ground. Rifle #3, blunderbuss, needs a blast finisher.

I don't think it makes sense to make Blunderbuss a blast finisher. We already have a blast finisher from the Elixir Gun which functions similar to Jump Shot if you use the 'About Face' hotkey. If you're suggesting Jump Shot to have an evade, why not make Acid Bomb an evade? I believe it would be better if Acid Bomb had an evade because Holosmith would take advantage from Jump Shots' evade.

@Deniara Devious.3948 said:Many engi traits are still underpowered and the good traits are scattered to way too many trait lines, forcing the player to select multiple trait lines to get most of out of single kit.grenade kit needs 1200 range back (untraited) and 1500 range (traited). The slow projective speed + retaliation boon on enemy groups still makes grenades a viability (retal can trigger more damage on engi if tossed at enemy zerg than the grenades are causing on enemy). Maybe flash grenade should also be made unblockable as it is very weak skill and shrapnel grenade nerfs should be reverted (does too little bleeding).

I would much rather have the whole Grenadier trait changed. It is the most game changing trait in the entire game because it changes the way you use a weapon or play your profession in general. No other profession has this kind of trait.

I recommend for Grenadier to be changed similar to the old Grenadier, only this time it increases the range from 900 to 1200 and reduces cooldown on grenade skills.

• Grenade should have its' damage increased. Currently, it deals less damage than Shrapnel Grenade and what makes it worse is that it scales worse with power damage. The auto attack is a skill that should scale better with power damage, but it doesn't.• Flash Grenade could be an unblockable skill.• Freeze Grenade could have its' chill duration increased from 2 seconds to 5 seconds• Poison Grenade would be better if they brought back the poison fields it used to create.

Mortar definitely needs a mortar related trait in explosives line, which will improve it. Orbital command trait could increase mortar skills radius by 60 besides the current effect.

I remember Chaith mentioning for the trait Orbital Command in the Explosives specialization to be changed so that it improves the projectile velocity on the Mortar Kit. The current version of Orbital Command sucks and it serves no purpose.

Rifle is still too much risk, because of the high amount of projectile hate in WvWvW. Ranger longbow of course has similar reflect issues, but it is much easier to use effectively and has in many real life situations about 1800 range (far more than 1200 range). Thus you see a lot of pewpew LB rangers in the game, but so few rifle engis.

Increasing the range isn't going to fix the issue with rifle engineer which is the auto attacks' damage. It is so mediocre that it's not worth using it. The only skills that are worth using are Blunderbuss and Jump Shot with the occasional usage from Net Shot and Overcharged Shot.

I have many times suggested to quicken the rifle #5, jump shot, skill and give it an evade frame. This would allow it to be used as an effective movement skill. Now running with swiftness is as fast on level ground. Rifle #3, blunderbuss, needs a blast finisher.

I don't think it makes sense to make Blunderbuss a blast finisher. We already have a blast finisher from the Elixir Gun which functions similar to Jump Shot if you use the 'About Face' hotkey. If you're suggesting Jump Shot to have an evade, why not make Acid Bomb an evade? I believe it would be better if Acid Bomb had an evade because the Holosmith would take advantage from Jump Shots' evade.

@"EpicName.4523" said:From what I've seen core engineer suffers from horribly outdated design and plenty of useless mechanics which makes me believe that whoever made the profession wasn't quite sure what to do with it. Are you happy with core engineer? Do you feel like it needs serious changes? Not just more damage buff or a few tweaks, but complete redesign?

Outdated design? Yes, definitely but that's not unique to Engineers. Most core professions are shadowed by their e-spec counter parts. Many of us have been calling for rework/buffs to the core professions to bring their performance on par with e-specs. I'm really hoping this is on the Dev's "to do" list as I think the high end game becomes too restrictive when most players have to default into using 1 of their elite specs. I don't believe that was the intent in creating them.

Useless Mechanics? No. The Core Engineer is really the only spec that would slot multiple kits and the mechanic works just fine. Engineers have been everywhere from top DPS to last and top PvP bunker to next-to-worst. It's a hard mechanic to balance because of the intricacies of having so many skills, but it should reward those who can juggle it all. I will say that after the introduction of Firebrand I'm no longer buying any reason Engineer's can't weapon swap.

@Frostmane.9734 said:

@EpicName.4523 said:From what I've seen core engineer suffers from horribly outdated design and plenty of useless mechanics which makes me believe that whoever made the profession wasn't quite sure what to do with it. Are you happy with core engineer? Do you feel like it needs serious changes? Not just more damage buff or a few tweaks, but complete redesign?

Engineer only has 3 weapons. What makes you think that being able to use a rifle and p/p or p/s would make core engineer any better?

@Hoodie.1045 said:

@Frostmane.9734 said:

@EpicName.4523 said:From what I've seen core engineer suffers from horribly outdated design and plenty of useless mechanics which makes me believe that whoever made the profession wasn't quite sure what to do with it. Are you happy with core engineer? Do you feel like it needs serious changes? Not just more damage buff or a few tweaks, but complete redesign?

In all likelihood, it probably wouldn't. At this point, there's just no reason we can't have it.

@Hoodie.1045 said:

I recommend for Grenadier to be changed similar to the old Grenadier, only this time it increases the range from 900 to 1200 and reduces cooldown on grenade skills.

This is a good suggestion as well. Anyways, now that mortar damage has been buffed, grenade kit feels kinda irrelevant. I speak from WvWvW point of view where retaliation is common in large numbers and will hurt the engi (in fact tossing grenade barrage + 1 other grenade skill at enemy zerg under retalation might cause over 15k damage easy. I have seen retaliation drop my health over 20k in less than 2 seconds).

I remember Chaith mentioning for the trait Orbital Command in the Explosives specialization to be changed so that it improves the projectile velocity on the Mortar Kit. The current version of Orbital Command sucks and it serves no purpose.

I disagree. I think Caith is mostly a spvp player, right? In WvWvW Orbital command is really already okay. It is unblockable, non reflectable big AoE and any sort of unblockable AoE is what you want, as often as possible. But it could at same time slightly buff to mortar. Mortar still suffers from very slow projective weapon, but I actually wouldn't change it, as it fits the weapon animation.

Hammer herald revenants and staff weaver elementalists are more common than mortar engineers. Engineer doesn't need like 50 % more, but it clearly makes more to make it meta. Why all other core professions have been part of zerg or roaming meta, but engineer is left with the short stick in WvWvW?

Increasing the range isn't going to fix the issue with rifle engineer which is the auto attacks' damage. It is so mediocre that it's not worth using it. The only skills that are worth using are Blunderbuss and Jump Shot with the occasional usage from Net Shot and Overcharged Shot.

I didn't suggest increasing rifle's range. But it is clearly not as handy weapon in large open field like ranger's longbow, which really makes the entire class iconic. Rifle needs something to make it iconic. It is after mostly 1 target weapon and WvWvW zerg heavily favors AoE attacks and weapons which cleave at least 3.

I don't think it makes sense to make Blunderbuss a blast finisher. We already have a blast finisher from the Elixir Gun which functions similar to Jump Shot if you use the 'About Face' hotkey. If you're suggesting Jump Shot to have an evade, why not make Acid Bomb an evade? I believe it would be better if Acid Bomb had an evade because the Holosmith would take advantage from Jump Shots' evade.

The blunderbuss skill is a blast, even the animation looks like shotgun alike blast coming from the rifle. It makes much more sense as blast finisher compared e.g. to guardian hammer #2, mighty blow, which is a blast finisher on a mere 5 second (untraited) cooldown. Core engineer has a lot of stuff which would synergize with blast finisher. And you shouldn't expect every engineer to take elixir gun, even though it is our best kit and one of our best stun breaks (for core).

Engineer core weapons need more utility to compete with scrapper hammer, which packs tons of utility while having slightly better DPS than rifle (albeit at melee range, but top rifle damage also needs melee range).

Turrets need a nerf revertion except instead of condi imunity give em 50% damage resistance , I enjoyed playing support with experimental turrets but turret sustain is garbage, rifle turret does 1k damage every 4s and rocket does 1400 wich isnt bad , their problem is that merely existing kills them .

experimental turrets if they had sustain they would be an actual threat to enemies as they can apply protection or fury or retaliation or might every 10s on a 600 radius perfect for support builds