Engineers need a big hug and a lot of love - A suggestion thread

Mesis.2951 · July 22, 2019

Greetings,I will be joining into a discussion as an unsatisfied engi player. I have mained engi ever since the launch. I always considered engi as a somewhat similiar class to WoW vanilla druid - jack of all traits and master of none.

I think we should break down core mechanics of the class first.Mechanics

Tool Belt
Weapon Kits
No Weapon Swap
Versatility
Cooldown based resource

I think at this point engineer should probably be completly overhauled, both the core and elite spec.Overhauling the whole class is certainly a huge task but I will try to pitch in some ideas.

Tool BeltI think it is quite odd that the tool belt skills are tied your skills, after all they are skills on your belt which should not require a connection to their equivalent skills.So my suggestion would be to allow us to chose which skills to put on our tool belt freely. I believe this would greatly increase build diversity and allow for more interesting tool belt skills to be added not themed around any skills.

Weapons KitsI am somewhat mixed on this mechanic.On one hand it allows engineers to have up to 5 additional weapons to offset the lack of weapon swap and is the core of the piano gameplay problem/boonOn the other hand we have a tiny, almost nonexistent pool of weapons becouse of it and no weapon swapIt also doesnt help that the kits have no visual progression

I honestly dont know what to so with kits, an option could be to remove them from the skill set and place them in a weapon category and give engineers a no cd weapon swap

ScrapperFunction gyro in the current form is not a good mechanic in my opinion. I was thinking how to make scrapper interesting and I think I might have found a solution.

The answer is Scrapper only resource - Scrap. This resource would be gained by damaging enemies, reflecting projectiles, blocking etc. Pieces of Scrap could "drop" on the ground and by walking over them or a Scrappers friend - A function gyro - would try to pick them up

Function gyro would also replace F5 slots however the effect of F5 button could be modified. Either several variations of the skill, similiar to the non restrictive tool belt idea suggestion above - these skills could be the current skill gyro´s all baked into that 1 button,. The drawback would be that you could chose only 1 gyro, the solution to that could be in a traitline or a skill that would allow you to swap the currently chosen gyro in combat.

Now what would be the Scrap used for?Since core engi is cooldown based, I was thinking that all tool belt skills could have a scrap cost, allowing them to ignore cooldowns for a price. Lets say 1 scrap = 1 sec of cooldown

HolosmithI dont like the theme of Holosmith and Holo Forge but I really enjoy the heat mechanic I think the spec is in the right direction .Holo Forge is sadly just a glorified Weapon KitCurrently heat is quite limited, doesnt interact with a lot of skills and there are no abilities that even use heat to lower it. I would love to see more heat interaction with all the abilities and changes to Holo Forge, preferably a mode that would modify the current weapon/kit you are holding instead the current generic skill set.

On additional note, since engineers lack a weapon choice, I would love to see all the elite spec weapons - hammer and sword integrated into core set. Obviously with Elite spec these weapons could have additional functionality.

Thank you for taking a time reading this,Mesis

Mesis.2951 · July 22, 2019

Reading through my post again and I am quite happy with the suggestions although I should have worded some things better.

I read some concerns that the changes would alienate the players but I don't think that would be the case.The core aspects of "bruiser" and "glasscannon" could be easily kept, after all it is the traits that mostly define the spec.

When I was lvling in gw2 my build consisted of rifle, rifle turret, grenade and mine kit and mortar. I quite loved the build since it allowed me to to solo far harder enemies than I should have been able to thanks to the long preparation (5-10 lvls higher,including champions)This build fulfilled my fantasy and sold me engi

TurretsNow I feel the turrets were quite neglected, I wish they were not a simple drop and forget button. Compared to necro's minions their main disadvantage is obviously being immobile so positioning is very important.

I wouldn't put turrets into "minion" class skill but rather into an "AoE" category.

My vision for turrets would be to give them ammo.For example:Rifle turret would have 15 ammo and each shot costs 1, The automatic fire would fire a burst of 3 shots.The "pick up" turrets F button would instead replenish the ammo count and the turrets would explode 5 seconds after they run out of ammo or after 1 minute of not being resupplied.

Turrets in general should scale on players stats such as toughness and vitality

Tool kitTool kit would synergize with this playstyle, in addition to repairing turrets (which should probably be higher and scale with healing power), it would also boost the damage of the next attack the turret uses and reduce the cooldown of its active ability.

It should also probably be renamed to Repair Kit as that would fit the function far better.

Proximity MineAs you might have noticed I liked the Mine Kit and would love for it to return.

The mines would work on charges similar to the battering ram with the maximum you can have placed at any given time.

So what mines could be added?Proximity mine - the current oneShrapnel mine - Bleed and cripple (Charr racial)Echo mine - Daze and confusionMagnetic mine - Slow and Torment

Tool belt minefield should get a set pattern or be layed down behind the Engi similar to Slick shoes.

I am interested in the community opinion so let your feedback be heard.

I really miss the old mortar too ;-;

Razor.6392 · July 22, 2019

Yes they need massive nerfs I agree.

coro.3176 · July 22, 2019

Holosmith

supposed to be a glass cannon dps. High risk, high reward
is not actually risky because heat management is trivial. No one ever overheats accidentally
can play very tanky because having PF on a toolbelt skill allows it to run defensive traits and utilities whereas other engineer specs have to devote much more of their builds to damage if they want to be effective

Scrapper

supposed to be a tanky team-support brawler
is not particularly tanky any more thanks to -3k vitality and sustain traits being gutted
can make up for this with the impact savant barrier trait, but is forced to dedicate huge amounts of its build + play to dealing damage to keep this barrier up or else it becomes very squishy quickly
is forced to play power damage - can no longer spec heal support or condi and still get value out of scrapper traits

Core

supposed to be a jack of all trades
originally was one of the few classes that could do this, but has fallen behind due to elite spec power creep
feels like it doesn't quite have enough of anything - not enough killing power to down players. not enough sustain to survive. no flexible tools that other classes don't have

That's pretty much all I got.

I'll add that I really miss playing condi scrapper .. Please anet, if you see this.. make some changes so that support scrapper and condi scrapper are playable again.

Dediggefedde.4961 · July 23, 2019

I play healscrapper with clerics. This works very well in a zerg. Damage-dampener is a great defensive trait, so I can even use applied force.
I don't think core is supposed to be a jack of all trades. There was a time where it had the highest build diversity. This went as far as merging builds would still be viable. However, group supporter was only really added as a role with the medikit/mdf patches. dual-damage was only viable for a short while and not providing much team support. I also liked the time, where core was best at dealing condi damage, while holo was mostly power-based.
In principle I don't care about the role of core if there is a role that makes it favorable. supporters still go scrapper for gyros/superspeed, damage (condi, power, burst/SD) and utility (mobility, tagging, focus) all go holosmith. Some condi/power builds also go scrapper.

Aside from this, I agree with your points. ^^

Josif.2015 · July 23, 2019

Now that ArenaNet is headed in the direction of elite specializations having actual trade offs, I believe the toolbelt is where they should focus on. The kits are what make core engineer, the piano playstyle that requires lots of skill rotations and cooldowns to memorize in order to be good especially in end game content. Scrapper and Holosmith don't really benefit from using kits other than a few selections, such as the elixir gun for support Scrapper builds and the grenade and bomb kit for power Holosmith builds.

With that in mind, I was thinking; what if core engineer was the only one with access to kits? As in, if you equip an elite specialization, you don't get kits on your toolbelt. Instead of having a toolbelt skill from a kit, the kits are the toolbelt skills. So the grenade kit can be your F2, the elixir gun your F3, the tool kit your F4 and so on. I know this will nerf certain builds like support Scrapper not having access to the elixir gun or Holosmith not having access to the grenade and bomb kit in PvE, but whether people think it's a good or a bad idea, it's still something worth thinking about.

Thokketh.7594 · July 23, 2019

I am of the mind set that scrapper and holosmith's roles need swapped. Especially after the recent patch. And Core Engi Needs buff/rework.

Naming/thematic wise. Scrapper sounds like it should destroy things. Holosmith sounds like it should make strong (but temporary) defenses, aka Generate barrier, and protection or Aegis.
ScrapperIf scrapper got a DPS increase it would be in a great place right now for glass cannon.
Function Gyro- Keep current interation but add a 20% attack speed boost and 15% cool down reduction (a weaker version of quickness + alacrity) while you have super speed. (superspeed is not really useful in PvE, superspeed should feel like the class mechanic for scrapper imo. Might be unbalanced in pvp but I don't have a lot of experience there.)
Impact Savant- should have lower barrier gen off damage (to like 10% or maybe lower) but make it also work with condi damage as well. and remove the -3k hp. (or keep the -3k if you want to make sure its GLASS)
Shredder Gyro- Maybe swap the damage of laser-disk and shredder gyro. (shredder should have more)
Bulwark Gyro- Change into a condi damage Gyro (preferably burning).
HolosmithHolosmith would need more work to change than scrapper. But still not Much.
Photon Forge- Make it into a support/barrier generation kit. (keep penalties for overheating... maybe not the tool belt one, but might still be fine if its not a DPS focused specialization)
Thermal Release Valve- Make it grant barrier instead of burning.
laser's Edge- Make it increase barrier generation (to you and allies) based on heat instead.
Photonic Blasting Module- Change to explode barrier to allies instead of the Hit damage. Used for emergency barrier generation. (or change to something else Defense oriented.)
Laser-Disk- Maybe swap the Damage of laser-disk and shredder gyro. (shredder should have more)

To make Photon Forge more of a support Kit.

Light Strike- lower its damage by a bit but make it1 also generate barrier like how weaver's sword auto in water does. but keeps its current animations and number of attacks. (1st and 2nd attacks generate personal barrier at a minor amount. 3rd hit generates allies barrier at an increased amount.) Traited would make the ranged projectile generate the barrier around both you and the enemy.
Holo-leap- make the area of its pad larger.
Corona Burst- Increase its Cooldown, but make it give stability to you and allies per attack (un-traited) and generate barrier for yourself AND allies as well when traited.
Photon Blitz- Change into Holographic Shockwave but at a reduced radius and not auto crit. And reduce its heat generation to 15% instead of 25%
Holographic Shockwave- Moved to #4, fill slot with the new #5 which would be a longer cooldown, large radius, 10 person. single stack of aegis and 3 seconds of protection. (for those very timed and clutch saves)
Core EngiCore engi needs buffed, But I can't really tell you in what direction it should head. So I have some general buffs for things with no goal Archetype in mind. Imo the traits are good for the most part. I think abilities might just need number tweaked. There is One addition that should be added onto Core engi and one DRASTIC change that I think would be good. But would completely change how the class played.

Pistol

Make it focus more on condi damage, instead of hybrid damage.

Shield

Magnetic Shield- Increase area to scrapper's Defense Field size, to make up for scrapper losing bulwark gyro.

Addition

Mace/Axe- give core engi a main-hand melee weapon to pair with shield. Mace if its power based, Axe if its Condi based. (I would personally prefer a Power mace over condi axe.)

DRASTIC CHANGEThis will completely change/remove a playstyle (Piano) of engi. I think it would be worth it but I know many others won't.

Profession Mechanic- Make kits the f5. Make selecting your kit drastically change what the engi does. But buff kits across the board. End goal is a viable build per kit. Trade off of Elite specs is not being able to pick different kits. (might have to make function gyro for scrapper into a kit somehow, or just make function gyro remove the kit, but buff function gyro then)
F5- make the previous f5 abilities into their own skills.

Dawdler.8521 · July 23, 2019

The only thing that would accomplish is piss off and alienate whatever engies that are left liking the elites for what they where sold on.

Just deciding that the names doesnt thematically fit so we flip everything is about as reasonable as claiming to make a tank by forcing it to go berserker.

HnRkLnXqZ.1870 · July 23, 2019

Here is my list of bad ideas:

Increase damage absorption rate of Watchful Eye to 50 % or higher.Increase number of targets a Gyro effects to 10, when traited with Gyroscopic Acceleration.

Make AED a single strike mantra. Increase the cast time to activate the buff. Remove the timer for the buff. Nerf the base heal to 9k, but let it scale with overhit-damage (= the damage you receive beyond 0 HP).

Modify MDF to work with Barrier and HP (input & output).

Make the -Vitality from Impact Savant scale with the amount of Gyros used (= on skillbar). Every Gyro costs 100 vitality, Function Gyro included. In terms of purity of purpose, we share our health with our summons. Apply this mechanic to all classes which can use minions/summons/banners.

santenal.1054 · July 23, 2019

Making suggestions to the people currently in charge of balancing is pretty pointless. We (all?) know this, yet it is always tempting to do.

The best thing that can be done for class balance is to let it be balanced by people (proven top level PVP players) with alot of integrety, theorycrafting/testing experience and a passion for the class they balance.

A way to encourage that those new people in charge would maintain integrety could be to pay them for their work a sum of money relative to the rating their work gets from the community at the end of a year. (eg. 100€*x²=payout with x ranging from 0 to 10)

Iozeph.5617 · July 24, 2019

@Thokketh.7594 said:
Naming/thematic wise. Scrapper sounds like it should destroy things. Holosmith sounds like it should make strong (but temporary) defenses, aka Generate barrier, and protection or Aegis.

This is just conjecture but I believe when they called it scrapper they had something similar to Rocky Balboa in mind- the fighter that gets his face turned into hamburger but stays in the fight and goes the distance because he's got heart. Not that it matters. Bunkers, or people gearing and trying to play that way, just lose by attrition to powercreeped glass builds in this game.

Mesis.2951 · August 5, 2019