One easy change that would benefit Engineer builds

[MagicBot.1570]

I'm surprised that it was never decided to move Thermal Vision or Pinpoint Distribution around. They were purposely put next to each other, to force players into making a choice : either the selfish, personal DPS option, or the party-buffing option. But chances are you're unlikely to bring multiple condi Engineers in a party, because those builds are hard to play and they sometimes have a hard time competing with other best-in-slot DPS classes in real scenarios.

Major Master seems completely overloaded in Firearms, you essentially have to pick one trait out of three excellent traits, and it really is a bit of a shame. Moving Pinpoint Distribution to Explosives Major Master would help, but it would hurt the integrity of the Explosives traitline which I feel is well designed. Tools on the other hand is a very, very poor traitline where Pinpoint Distribution would fit extremely well. It would also give a purpose to core Engineer and make it a lot more support-y, by enhancing allies' condi damage. This way, both condi Engineer and Condi Holo (which in its current state is almost perfect) would be pretty competitive, even if both rotations are hard.

We don't know yet what the Engineer specialization will be like, but I am assuming, like other specializations we're currently seeing, it will have some disposition to be played as condi. In that case, adding Pinpoint to Tools would allow three condi Engineer builds to be somewhat competitive with each other, without any build really stepping onto the other since, really, the DPS gains from Pinpoint Distribution and Thermal Vision are pretty similar party-wise.

 

So my main point is that one of these two traits should be moved, and I suggest to put Pinpoint Distribution in Tools to allow for more build diversity. Thoughts?

Edited September 16, 2021 by MagicBot.1570

[Zzik.5873]

Its only a 100 condi damage. It wont change anything that much, anet nerf all the similar party buff a while back. Where would you put it in Tool? Which trait would you delete for this one?

[Ghos.1326]

While at a glance having both Pinpoint and Thermal doesn't make sense due to the reasons you pointed out, I also think there is some key differences that may explain why this was created this way.

Pinpoint only requires that you be in combat in order to get the gain in condition damage, as well as can pump it out to an entire team including yourself. Thermal, on the other hand, requires you keep burning on your target, which pairs very well with incendiary powder GM trait. Each of these scenarios can really drastically change what other traits/utils you take as well as what your possible teammates are/could be running. 

[Ghos.1326]

On 9/16/2021 at 7:10 AM, Makuragee.3058 said:

Its only a 100 condi damage. It wont change anything that much, anet nerf all the similar party buff a while back. Where would you put it in Tool? Which trait would you delete for this one?

100 extra condition damage is nothing to sneeze at, it's a pretty big jump in overall effectiveness of your DoTs.

[MagicBot.1570]

I don't think I understood what you meant, I think Pinpoint and Thermal are next to each other only to force a tradeoff, I doubt there was a lot of thought put into it. But I believe this trade off feels bad and it shouldn't exist

Edited September 25, 2021 by MagicBot.1570