JohnnyRico.8591

E-gun outside of support is not all that great. If you want to fool around for theme/fun, you could try something like Firearms/Alch/X HGH, Sanguine Array (might on bleed), Earth/Strength sigils, Aristocracy rune (5x might on weakness). Egun provides bleed/weakness on auto. Having said that, you could be using other better skills rather than auto'ing for might. Also don't know what game mode you are looking at, almost anything can work for open world. For gear, maybe vipers? or viper with some cele mixed in for boon duration. Good luck

Water doesn't do much unless specced for healing? Not sure about that. At least in WvW, the most common build I run into is Fire/Earth cata after the earth line changes, mostly cele, mostly scepter/dagger. Dagger 4/5 does some pretty respectable healing in cele. 2500+ from Cleansing Wave + 3 condi removal, 1500+ from detonating frost aura, and the ability to use the elite and run both of those skills again if under pressure. Dagger is core, so applies to all ele specs, just giving an example using cata. And if you are running fire, the frost aura is also removing condis. Agreed that water doesn't provide boons outside regen. Water is mostly focused on condi removal and healing. What engineer utility skills are best in game? Two of my most played classes are engi and ele, so I would agree that ele utility skills aren't the best, but saying engineer utility skills are best in game is a reach. Elixir U is incredibly good. Rocket boots are up there too, although these days it just allows engi to keep up with the mobility creep. Turrets except heal turret are in dire need of a rework, the gadgets besides rocket boots are very situational. I think elixirs are probably the strongest engi utilities, because the game is so boon centric now, but that doesn't mean they are best in game. As someone who for years preferred multi kit engineer builds, I can't see how any kit can be like having 3 utilities in one. If you go back far enough in the pre-HoT/early HoT days, kits were good, and a bit more difficult to play because of it. Playing the piano and remembering cooldowns of your other kits was challenging, but the payoff was having the jack of all trades feel and being able to adapt to a number of situations. That has been blown away with the power creep though. Minus some cd changes and minor number changes up or down, kits really haven't changed. Not one kit has a reliable mobility skill in a game that has added mobility tenfold through leaps/teleports/dashes etc. (unless you count acid bomb pushing you backward). There are very few boons provided through kits in a game that has become extremely boon centric. You can run specific traits to get a little might out of e-gun, or stab/might from flamethrower. That's about it. I agree having 20 weapon skills does not mean much. Running a solid build in the current iteration of the game means having one button press do x number of impactful things and trying to repeat that with as many skills/abilities as possible, not just having a bunch of random skills. Having said that, I can run the arcane line with ele and attunement swapping will get me fury, a small heal, and more boons. I can also get boons while disabling an enemy based on attunement, and another spell cast while dodging on a 10s icd, with the icd being separated by attunement. All of this is packed into one line. To me, that is pretty good design, not overpowered, and doesn't need changing. In contrast, engineer has 3 individual traits (all in separate lines) for grenade kit, flamethrower, and medkit. The grenade kit trait is a requirement for usability reasons, the flamethrower kit requires camping the kit, which seems counterintuitive to engineer playstyle, and medkit is used by heal scrappers, and that's about it. There are two traits affecting kits as a whole. Backpack regenerator gives you a small heal for camping the kit, again an odd requirement for engineer, and streamlined kits is kind of like evasive arcana, except all kits share the icd and it is 20 secs, not 10. So if you like running multiple kits, in a fight you'll basically get a random effect, and it is hopefully what you are looking for. Disclaimer: not talking about PvE, as I do not participate all that much outside open world stuff.

There really wasn't any reason outside nostalgia to run core even before this proposed change. If they counted the F5 abilities for the core elites (med pack drop/toss elixir x/orbital strike) toward the Power Wrench trait, it might be worth checking out since the elite specs don't have access to them. I'm just looking forward to seeing another trait whose name has nothing to do with its effect (Takedown Round). For better or worse, engineer has grenade kit. and as long as grenade kit is what it is, the class will be considered in a "good place".

Leatherworker/huntsman is the way to go. Make another engineer and do chef/x (jeweler/artificer) and you should be covered

Trait Rework [Tools] Streamlined Kits - Needs an update, make the cooldowns for the effects separate per kit similar to evasive arcana. Would also like to see the icd dropped to 10s as well, but at this point, separate cooldowns per kit would be a major improvement. In general, would also like to see an additional trait that would benefit kit swapping. Right now there are only two traits in the game that impact engineering kits, and one of them (Backpack Regenerator) promotes camping a kit. Engineer was supposed to be that jack-of-all-trades class pulling out the right tool for the right situation, but it feels like each successive elite spec has walked the class back from that. I think getting some meaningful reworks/QoL to kit swapping, and rewarding play that uses 3+ kits in a build would be something nice for core engineer without excessively buffing elite specs.

Where's the main hand shield option??

Not going to disagree with the first part, it benefits the HQS build. The issue is that according to the dev team "In competitive modes, we're taking another look at improving bruiser scrapper builds and bringing back one of its more iconic defensive traits in Rapid Regeneration." The change was supposed to be for WvW/PvP, not PvE. And unfortunately, it's not any type of buff for cele roaming scrapper. The damage modifiers from Object in Motion are needed so you can actually do damage, which competes directly with Rapid Regeneration. If you are cele, you might run the superspeed or the stability adept/gm traits, but the master trait pick will always (or should) be OiM. I think this just proves they have no clue what playing scrapper is like outside of a boonball zerg in WvW, at least.

Sums it up perfectly, I think you are right. I have never enjoyed the healscrapper play in WvW, avoided it for years, but if you don't run it, you're left with the cookie cutter explosives/alch/scrapper nades build...which relies on Object in Motion for a bunch of its damage. Real build diversity... What's strange is that its self heal only, and MDF gives such a small percentage of its healing. I don't even think the old 340 base healing would have been relevant.

Exactly. I don't even know how you could build something around this. I mean, I guess you could try a Big Boomer, Backpack Regenerator, Rapid Regeneration stacking? is that enough to sacrifice the damage bonus? It feels like Rapid Regen should have just been included as part of a minor trait

Just checked the Rapid Regeneration numbers for WvW and PvP, healing was at 89/s for swiftness, 178/s for superspeed. PvE numbers were 102/s for swiftness, 341/s for superspeed. Above numbers were with 40 healing (had some food effect on me), so this is roughly base value. Looks like this isn't exactly the old version https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Rapid_Regeneration, and they nerfed it for competitive modes. I didn't think this was ever going to compete with Object in Motion, and now I am pretty sure of it. I guess scrapper could be a PvE bruiser? is that a thing?

Thanks for the clarification, and good point. So I guess their reasoning is that RR will enable you to be tanky even though you aren't hitting anyone? Makes sense, although in the current state of the game, I don't know if 300/s is enough. Yup, I do remember that, at one time the healing conversion was at 50%, then 25% with the competitive split. Now it's.....7% in WvW. I think we can safely say that it won't be carrying anything anytime soon, at least in WvW. It will be interesting to see if they play with the base numbers. The game was also much different and not as power crept as it is now.

Agree with the logic about it being for heal scrapper, that is really where this trait makes sense....I think the real issue is that according to their own notes, the goal was to address bruiser scrapper builds. Unfortunately, this doesn't seem to do that. Maybe I am just missing how anet defines bruiser. I think bruiser, I think consistent offensive pressure, ability to stay in melee range, and the ability to tank hits. I don't remember Rapid Regen in its original form scaling well, and even then, if you are playing that "in your face" type playstyle, I don't think you would be stacking healing power and sacrificing damage. I think if they really wanted to address bruiser type builds, they should have just rolled adaptive armor effects into impact savant, maybe dial the numbers down a bit if it were overkill, and made rapid regen a GM trait scaling off of power, or something like that. Who knows, maybe the raw numbers will be increased. I just don't see how Rapid Regen will ever be able to compete with Object in Motion and its potential 15% increase in dmg outside of heal scrapper builds.

Best time to use it is on a target that is already cc'ed, to chain. Rifle 4/Tool Kit pull, etc. At least in my experience

Not a problem, and agreed. Tool belt skills are supposed to be what makes engineer different, and one of the reasons I don't play a whole lot of mechanist. The battering ram toolbelt isn't all that bad, I used to run it in my core rifle SD build a long time ago. The actual ram is extremely hit and miss though. 130 range is basically standing on top of the other person

The tools traitline got a bit better, but still needs some work. Mechanized Deployment: still needs to work for Mechanist skills outside PvE. Condi clear addition was great Static Discharge: needs some type of dmg buff, it used to be somewhat relevant outside holo Streamlined Kits: how this doesn't have separate cds for separate kits after all this time is beyond me. If you are one of the unicorns out there playing 3+ kit builds, it'll normally be a toss-up on what buff you'll get in a fight. This is basically a perma swiftness trait, with a minor random buff every 20 seconds. Kinetic Battery: Kind of similar to Streamlined Kits...this will trigger at random times, unless you plan around using that 5th toolbelt skill at just the right moment. Even then, the boons it provides doesn't merit holding off using your toolbelt skills. Takedown Round: Makes no sense if the trait line is build around vigor/endurance recovery. Should just switch it to 10% dmg increase while at full endurance, or even better, change it to something less boring than a flat dmg increase. Gadgets: Lets be honest, Rocket Boots are the only reason 99% of people run this trait, for the lower cd and extra range. Utility Goggles is halfway decent, but the old Analyze toolbelt skill was what made it great for SD builds (when SD did real dmg). Battering ram's range is pretty pathetic, only to be outdone by the one stack of burning when traited. Double or triple the range when traited, and it might be usable. Same with the toolbelt skill for AED. Lock On: internal cd on it seems awfully high, but I get it, the trait gives 6 secs of revealed. Don't know how that could be changed, maybe just more fury uptime. Static discharge does work, and it comes out of the mech, not you. The recharge works only in PvE, don't know if that is a bug or by design.