Expanded Weapon Proficiencies Beta Feedback: Engineer

[TheTigerBlaze.8617]

I would like to let everyone on this thread who weren't aware know that Engineer Shortbow has already been established as a support weapon since they announce a preview of this a couple weeks ago. For those who have been expecting another alternative for a power or condition ranged weapons, sorry to disappoint, but this is already the direction they are going for this weapon.

I do have notes for feedback though (might add more the more I mess around with it):

• Bigger AOE Radius: Right now it's too small especially if the group spreads out even a bit
• Buff up numbers, shorten casting and refresh time: Self explanatory. I can see why it feels clunky due to long refresh and casting times. Modifying the numbers would solve this issue, especially when doing chain reactions per certain arrows.
• More boons and conditions in skills: Having more boons in each appropriate arrows such as Protection in Skill 2, Regen in Skill 3, etc, or while passively pulsing prior to a detonation would be nice. Weirdly enough, in the skill description of 3 and 4 noted that they would also do condi along with supporting allies, so would be great to add damaging conditions on here.

Overall, engi shortbow has a lot of potential, and since this is just a beta test I feel like the team will have time to give this a bit more love.

Edited November 29, 2023 by TheTigerBlaze.8617

[BenaSPACE.6028]

I like the idea of the skills shortbow has, but it feels more like an elite specialization mechanic than an actual weapon mechanic-- By all means, keep the idea, but for a weapon like shortbow, it feels like it puts all of its eggs in another's basket; Namely kits.

Inventions first line of skills are pretty deadlocked into overshield; AMR and AdBD are unreliable at best, and unusable under ideal conditions. In terms of support, if we were to remove overshield from the equation entirely, this also leaves the issue that it has a much stronger competitor in Mace, which provides valuable boons already, and leaves a slot free for an offhand of your choice.

My suggestion:

Shortbow 5 becomes "Deploy mode", allowing you to kneel (similar to deadeye) to place and detonate your nodes for greater chain reaction effect.

Shortbow 1's passive chain lightning effect can target and activate a lesser chain reaction of deployed nodes.

as for shortbow 2-4, I would say the theming should be to activate the nodes' lesser chain reaction effects.

Edited November 29, 2023 by BenaSPACE.6028

[Ten.2617]

Horrible!

I was excited by the concept but the implementation made me retreat...

• Basically the weapon doesn't exist.
• No damage, no survivability, no mobility, the support is not enough even properly geared.
• The skills 2 - 5 never hits a minimally mobile target.
• The skills 2 - 5 takes too long time to toggle their icons.
• The skills 2 - 5 do not buffer before landing.
• The skills 2 - 5 have that fuse time that completely breaks the weapon.
• Looks like somebody balanced the kit (shortbow) upon the golem of special force training area considering the scenário where all arrows hit all pulses at same time...
• Must be reworked!

Here my thoughts about each skill:

1 - 5:

• All arrows definitely must be able to hit mobile targets. The travel time must be short enough to allow this.
• All arrows from 2 - 5 should trigger manually or by other arrows.
• All arrows should not have that fuse time. The explosion should be instant, like a mine (gadget).
• All arrows should be bufferable on air, so they would instantly explode on landing.
• Each skill should have unique identity, role and effect to allow a proper deployment.
• Each arrow should replicate its animation and pulse effect on other affected arrows but without trigger their animation nor initial effect. (e.g. 4 arrows => 4 magic sands).

 

1:

• The discharge is ok and helps a lot but both, the initial impact and the discharge, have very low damage.
• The discharge phase is not applying weakness (which is dismissible).
• The 1st strike should be an explosion. Both impacts must have their damage increased.

 

2:

• Both, the initial and the pulse barrier are very weak.
• The cripple is dismissible.
• The skill should only apply a strong barrier on initial pulse and an  almost strong barrier on each pulse (e.g. 2000/1000).

 

3: 

• No idea here...

 

4: 

• The engineer already has too many source of might...
• The kit (this shortbow) lacks a true damage source.
• It's weird a fire that doesn't burns...
• Just replace might by burn. Turn this skill damage true by apply burn on initial and subsequent pulses.

 

5: 

• Here is where the cc arrives. The concept is good but the implementation can be adjusted.
• The initial stun is ok, just make each subsequent pulse to:
• Grant swiftness, quickness and alacrity to allies.
• Apply Slow and Chilled to adversaries.

 

It's that!

Sorry for any mistake or offense.

Edited November 29, 2023 by Ten.2617
Fix misspell

[Overedge.2435]

3 hours ago, Bomboed.5697 said:

This weapon just proves that nobody in anet team actually play Engineer. They hate this class and have no idea what to do with it.

I agree with most of this, but I don't think they hate engineer. They hate mesmer.

They just don't care about engineer. So what's worse: hate or apathy?

[Benevolent.4083]

When I heard Engineer was getting a shortbow I had a ton of ideas of what it could be and I'm SERIOUSLY DISAPPOINTED!

1. As an Engineer, I don't need another support build. I have options on Scrapper AND Mechanist already. What purpose does this weapon add to Engineer? Nothing. It's uninspired and lazy.

2. This weapon HEAVILY relies on enemies to stay still in order for it to do anything mildly useful. The players gain zero benefits unless you in melee range, which defeats the purpose of a ranged weapon. Roaming in open world, the enemies just wander towards you and your "traps" are left behind. You think in PvP and WvW players are dumb enough to stand in one place long enough for an Engineer to perfectly place 4 traps AND detonate them? Nah.

3. The Engineer already has an excess amount of skills to manage, and now we need to place up to 4 traps down AND detonate them before anything will happen? The only way this somewhat worked was because my Mech dealt out a ton of damage.

4. Please make these skills combo fields and NOT ground targeted. Just have them land wherever the target enemy is and do immediate effects. If allies are within range (which should be 240 at least, NOT 180) then they can gain boons and such. Also, please let the player gain some boons/barrier upon releasing the arrows, similar to Harbinger Elixirs.

5. None of these skills are explosions meaning the Explosions trait line provides NOTHING to this weapon. None of them add fire/bleeding so the Firearms trait line adds NOTHING. So we're left with the other mediocre traits which add NOTHING. This weapon doesn't mix with anything that the Engineer has. There's no build that enhances the use of this weapon!

6. None of these skills are combo fields/finishers, meaning all the benefits from combo have to come from utility skills. Please fix that. (I've been correct on this. Skill 2 is a combo finisher. And AFTER detonation they become fields. I guess it was just hard to utilize them when the enemies were running at me, lol.)

 

That all being said... Shortbow for Engineer WAS a good idea. Just very poorly executed.

Edited November 29, 2023 by Benevolent.4083

[Atlas.2173]

I like the sound effects and increased access to fields. The effects are cool. The weapon feels similar to a kit with long cooldowns. The auto attack does not feel memorable (compared to necro sword auto). Without access to weapon swap, it feels like you should be in a kit while the mortars are charging. Having the auto attack influenced by the active field or dropped mortars would be an interesting way to compound effects or promote holding onto mortars and more strategically detonating.

I like the weapon, I just feel like it is missing elements.

Skill 1 condition is inconsistent with description (weakness) and the tooltip information (vuln).

"Shock Targets: 3" is a unique way of saying number of targets. Shock is also not used on any other skill effect. Why was this reworded?

Potentially add the projectile tag or blast tag to the shock so that it can proc in fields.

The flip skills for the skills (placeholder icons) should match the colour of the dropped mortar for visual identification.

The fields should have a positive pulsing effect for allies and a negative effect for enemies. Some suggestions:

Skill 2 - The field should pulse barrier or grant barrier to allies who enter the field

Skill 3 - Should pulse alternative effects, aegis, heals, then end with stealth

Pulse damage and steal health, increasing the health healed to allies per enemies hit.

Skill 4 - Pulse damage, causes burning enemies shocked in the field.

Skill 5 - Add Explosive Tag, Make Stun the chain reaction with the detonation causing slow.

Chain Reaction - this could cause the detonating field's effects to stack on all other fields. So that depending on the situation, one arrow will always provide the intended effect.

It feels like this weapon is missing traits which could augment it. Comparable to necro staff except with manual detonation.

I think this could be a cool weapon in WvW and PvP.

 

 

Edited November 29, 2023 by Atlas.2173

[CoffeePlease.3082]

19 minutes ago, Benevolent.4083 said:

6. None of these skills are combo fields/finishers, meaning all the benefits from combo have to come from utility skills. Please fix that.

2 is a blast finisher on detonate and all the other skills leave combo fields when detonated. The initial skill landing isn't anything though. 

[Benevolent.4083]

7 minutes ago, CoffeePlease.3082 said:

2 is a blast finisher on detonate and all the other skills leave combo fields when detonated. The initial skill landing isn't anything though. 

I must have missed/forgot that when I was venting! Lol. Thanks for correcting me! 🙂

[Bomboed.5697]

After several more hours of testing I came to a conclusion, that this weapon is bad at conceptual level. Numerical changes will not fix anything, Anet can increase literally anything, damage or radius, speed or anything else - this weapon still will be bad.
It is simply unfun to play, clunky to use, has no purpose and solves no problem. It adds nothing to the class, but reuses something the class already has, but in ever worse form.

It looks like it was made by someone who never played Engineer at all. I can't understand how it is possible for someone to think this is a good design. I can't understand how it is possible for someone to approve this idea. This weapon has no reasons to exist. It is almost a crime against game design itself.

[elteano.2679]

Shortbow feedback:

My options for using my four cooldowns are:
- Chunk of barrier
- Healing
- 25 might
- Debuff enemies

Barrier is helpful, but is some 2k barrier a good use of my 15 and 20 second cooldowns? Probably not.

Healing is nice but I have plenty of options for that elsewhere: medkit, elixir gun, elixir shell for utilities; plenty of Water Fields to blast.

25 might is pretty sweet but not sure if it is worth taking a weapon for. I have other sources of might and do not need my weapon to give 25 stacks. Nice that it can maintain the stacks on its own relatively easily though.

Not sure why I would ever trigger from skill 5. Maybe some unlucky sap is in for a big slow surprise, if only it was possible to hit someone.

Low damage coefficients and no damaging conditions means this will not pass for a hybrid damage / buff setup and no use offensively. Damaging conditions would likely solve this. Additionally, the 1 skill does more strike damage than any of 2-5 due to its shorter cast time. Engineer already has Bomb Kit and Flamethrower that deal more strike damage on skill 1 than on any of 2-5. It is strange to see another option for Engineer that discourages using skills with cooldowns to deal strike damage.

I do not know why I would be trying to buff my allies with 180 radius 900 range skills. If the radius were larger then I can hit them as they run around, but otherwise it has no use unless they are standing still. More likely I am shooting these at my own feet because we are all stacked up, or I am using skills that have practical radii.

---

Being able to trigger off of effects already on the ground is nice. It comes with the unfortunate side effect that unless you pay close attention, you may accidentally place a skill you wanted and detonate it off of a skill you did not. For example, if I detonate 5 for the CC, I may lose the bonus Might, healing, or barrier from one of the more useful effects, instead inflicting some additional Slow.

I appreciate the reliable blast finisher on skill 2. Combo effects are lovely. Unfortunately I need to be careful how I use it due to the reason above.

----

Compared to the main contender for support, Mace+Shield:

With Mace I can give barrier, Regeneration, and Vigor. Shortbow does not give Regen or Vigor. Mace also has much more reliable CC that does not have the drawback mentioned above. While I can get Regeneration and Vigor from Med Kit, full uptime (for Vigor at least) requires Mace.

With Shield I can give Protection. With Shortbow I cannot. Outside of Shield, Engineer only gives reliable Protection through Mechanist traits, meaning Scrapper will likely prefer taking Shield as a support.

The upside is that I gain access to direct healing and Might with the Shortbow.

Healing is not useful as it is covered handily by Utility Skills. Those utility skills have already been nerfed due to Engineer's overall healing output, and I expect either the utilities, Shortbow healing, or both would be nerfed if Shortbow is launched as-is.

Might is a more complicated story but the short of it is that a support Mechanist has no problem whatsoever maintaining 25 Might and Scrapper can do so as well through HGH and blasting.

Shortbow Barrier output is higher than Mace barrier output, if I am brave enough to use skill 2 off cooldown and potentially ruin my chain effects.

I gain group superspeed, which for Engineer is mostly in Scrapper gyros.  The cooldown is pretty long at 20 seconds though so it will not be reliable superspeed.

---

Compared to what I can gain from Utility Skills:

Med Kit: This covers the healing I need while providing useful buffs. This gives me great direct healing, Regeneration, Swiftness, and Vigor. This gives me condition cleanse and a water field. While I have Med Kit, I can support anyone, anytime, regardless of my weapon choice. My ranged support comes from Bandage Blast, which should be easier to hit ranged friendlies with today's update, and Infusion Bomb, which has a long cooldown and no direct healing. On the flipside, Infusion Bomb has a wider radius, meaning it will be easier to hit my friendly. Med Kit only provides Might through blasting other Fire Fields and does not grant barrier.

Elixir Gun: This gives me a great heal with Super Elixir, a Light Field, a blast finisher, Might with HGH, and two options for condition cleanse.

Mortar Kit: This gives me a moderate heal and water field with Elixir Shell, as well as a light field with pulsing blind on Flash Shell. It gives me an Ice Field I can blast for Frost Aura's damage reduction. I might consider taking Supply Crate in PvP or when roaming; otherwise, there is no alternative.

---

There are three scenarios I can see using this:
- I am in PVE buffing my squad who are all around me, and hoping that nobody has wandered an inch too far out of my 180 radius. I am not using its 900 range unless I am performing a mechanic, and in that case I am great at multitasking because I have many skills to juggle and a key order in which to use them to obtain my desired result. Alternatively, I have a friendly standing on a button, and I want to be able to blast them with a bit of healing instead of using those combos to support the stack. My subgroup is okay with my imperfect vigor uptime from Med Kit 5.
- I am in WvW looking to stack Might on my zerg before we smash into the other zerg. Being out of combat, I swap to the more practical Mace+Shield before we engage.
- I am in PvP looking to bait my allies into a killzone, as my opponents know that I need to set up my combo chain and how to identify its placement.

----

The chain reaction effect is neat although the effect is that the user is restricted in their skill use. Reactive skill use destroys the chain reaction that was being built, long cooldowns restricts the user from creative use of the chain reactions, and certain effects are clearly less useful than others meaning there is no creativity to be had. I either blast 2 with 3 or 3 with 2, and always trigger with 4 when I can because otherwise I need to ask myself why I am not using Mace+Shield. 5 is thrown at enemies only and hopefully does not infect my group by wasting my chain reaction on additional slow on the enemy.

The idea that Engineer raided Scourge, Specter, Guardian, and Chronomancer for its weapon is an interesting concept and I am not a fan. No other profession needs to blatantly steal their tricks from the others. Let Engineer stand on its own legs.

In short, I just do not see why I would ever choose this weapon with its current skills. I do not understand which problem Shortbow is trying to solve and I do not know which niche it fills.

Was this playtested before the beta?

 

[foxtrot.6902]

Honestly, it's hard to give any feedback on with just how far off the mark it is for an engineer weapon and not trying to be dooms day hyperbolic. It seems easier to just scrap the whole thing and go back to drawing board. If it was a kit, I could see it getting some play as it is now. Even if we had weapon swap (which I don't want, would rather see kits brought up to speed) I don't think I'd want to be locked into bow for 9 sec as it is now. 

Guild Wars 2 is super dynamic, this weapon isn't and feels out of place. There's all the small stuff that could be polished on short bow like radius, damage, boons/buffs, cast time, etc etc but plainly put, it plays poorly.  "Same skill different flavor" is a tough sell for engineer's one equip-able weapon, you'd be giving up too much. 

From a PVE support perspective, I don't get it. Much of what short bow has to offer is extremely redundant. A majority of the skills play as more of a nuisance with field clutter working against trying to do anything with intent like blasting water fields. 

From a pvp/wvw point of view, it's another engineer item that leaves you feeling like you're trying to play a first person shooter with lag against people with zero ping and aimbots and the payoff doesn't really seem worth it ex) Kit swap time (for 1-2 useful skills) > aim time > cast time > slow projectile time > flip out of kit time. All those dead time points = zero counter pressure. It takes ~2sec to cast time> air time > fuse time > detonate, but ya once one's detonated you can hit the same spot to auto-detonate others. Again, not very dynamic and doesn't work for much of what Guild Wars 2 is and how it plays. 

[Calen Elee.8452]

 

 

After trying this prank that they had has an idea, with a criticla eye it is very bad. 

if the idea was to provide a weapon for support, choose a ranged weapon it's not the best choise, due to the way of this game has, in any instance or type of game. 

It's very static and without movement, in which it dependes on a lot of external factors and not on the payer who handles it, it's impractical.  

In the case if the idea was to use blisters with X component to provide support, in my belieft a pair of daggers would have been a better weapons, not a short bow. 

I really don't know what is the pont or purpose is of doing something like that, I think it's a waste of time. From my point of view, the developers have a lot of work ahead of them if they really want to do something decent. 

 

I apologize for the wording but english is not my native lenguage. 

 

Edited November 29, 2023 by Calen Elee.8452

[alliboogaloo.9047]

I don't post much, I generally just have fun playing the game and don't read the forums. I came to let you know that the arrows on 2-5 using the slingshot skin shoot backwards.

TLDR: It is like playing staff necro but worse since enemies run through the area before detonation happens. Making them work like marks would be "ok" as a proven easy concept. As this sits, it just doesn't meet the "I'm having fun and this is going to be interesting."

I have played core engineer since launch, I dabbled with the elite specs but didn't like them all that much over the years. I was hoping this weapon might reinvigorate me to want to play my engineer again. That said, I kinda thought it was interesting the first few minutes on low end minions without much health, then I ran into multiple enemies and a couple veterans at the same time. I can usually handle this with little difficulty on my engineer, it just takes some time and work to get them all dead. I really needed help because nobody was in the stupid, tiny circles when they were ready. I ended up kiting them by using auto-attack, elite skill turrets and throwing elixirs on myself to stay alive. I did this a few times to see if it was going to work as a solo core engineer weapon, not really. It is not really a fun weapon against mobile enemies or groups that move around.

Group Content: If there is a tank then it works sorta, you just keep dumping the arrows on your friend. The support side needs a lot of help if that is what it is going to be doing with a short bow. The elixir gun and mortar are more effective without the wait time to do their thing.

Possible Fix: It might be possible to make it work if the auto-attack was a cripple and after a couple attacks becomes a short immobilize, at least some of your arrows might be in the right place by then.

[lorddarkflare.9186]

The issues have been outlined pretty well. My suggested improvements:

1. Detonations should be blast finishers (remove the fire field)
2. Essences should last at least twice longer on the field before they reset.
3. Essence radius needs to be much wider. Well-sized I think.
4. Auto-Attack gains +25% damage for each essence on the field.
5. Double all chain effects.

[Drag You Down.2615]

Some thoughts about new HEALING/SUPPORTIVE weapons as a healer main:

Engineer Shortbow:

1.    Greater ideas and concepts, but even worse approach than Mesmer. I will promise that no one will use this weapon if it is released in this way. The main reason is it does not work with any Engineer elite specs. For Alac Heal Mechanist, it provides even less boons than mace/shield, and the barrier has the same CD, cannot improve their QoL from spamming mace 2. For Quick Heal Scrapper, it has one less finisher than mace/shield which will make quickness harder to apply.
2.    The radius of 2, 3, 4, 5 are way too unpractical in any game mode. This will only be useful if the radius is 240.
3.    The effects of skill 2 and 3 are too weak. Change shortbow 2 to pulsing barriers for chain effects. The total amount could be 120 to 150% of the original one-time application. Shortbow 3 should have increased healing, at least 150% of the current total amount. Again, it is very unfair compared to the healing provided by mesmer rifle and warrior staff. This is not even HALF of what their skill 3 can provide, besides their boons and bonus buffs.
4.    Change the cripple in shortbow 2 to any defensive boon, it could be vigor, protection, resistance, resolution, which can solve the problem of lack of boon variety.
5.    There could be one more blast finisher, for example, shortbow 4, change it from a combo field to a blast finisher will make it much more useful for scrappers.
6.    Add fury to the initial application in shortbow 4. Warrior doesn't need more fury, but Engi does.

[zaced.7948]

from a purely support perspective (because the weapon is utterly useless in terms of dps/control):

- the fields are too small; why would i have my team stack up in that tiny circle when hfb and healscourge (and even ham) exist? in pvp none of the skills will ever hit. teammates and opponents will just walk out of them with a/s/d. they are so small that slow walking is enough, no w required.

- the effects are too minor:

      # mace gives similar barrier + cc without any janky interactions and using the whole skill bar to make it close to worth

      # the heal is so small, it doesn't even matter. again you'd have to use the whole skillbar to make it worth and by the time all that is casted the target to be healed is already down.

      # vuln and might bring nothing to the table since both are capped by just 5 players existing near each other and autoattacking a target.

      # superspeed and stun that won't do much in pve and will never hit in pvp

- the travel time of the projectiles is waaaaaaaay too long; cool animation and stuff but if i want to heal a target it'll be dead by the time the arrow drops and i activate it. that's just for that one skill. talking about setting up multiple arrows for maximum heal is delusional, the target will be dead 5 times over. casting heal fields and setting up blast finishers (like infusion bomb + cleansing field) already takes forever compared to hfb which has heal on button press with no cast time but a few thousand heal over a span of 5-7 sec when the burst heal comes in at second 4 or 5? utterly useless

also, in pvp you will never ever hit anything ever with that travel time. by the time the arrow arrives (let alone you setting up a multi detonation combo) the opponent (or teammate) are probably already half across the map.

 

i don't see this weapon played anywhere in any build except for memes. it's clunky, it's effects are pointless. the damage is nonexistent (less damage than non-holo sword lol), it has very little control and as for support weapons mace+shield does a way better job without any clunky setup, has more cc, protection and utility. will i play it? probably, it'll be fun in openworld for a day or two but the power level is so far below all the things we already have that it will never see the inside of an instance.

engi getting shafted by "weird and quirky" design once again, what a surprise.

[WhoWantsAHug.3186]

HERES MY REWORK SUGGESTION FOR THE SHORTBOW 

 

2 SKILL - ammo ability that throws out Lingering gas in LARGE radius. 

3-5 skills - ground targeted darts that ignite the gas fields for Lingering effects, obviously these will have their own effects that work independently of gas ignition, so you can use them as stand alone skills, or to ignite the gas!

Please rework shortbow! I see the vision in it, but the execution was below poor. 

[Nate.8146]

Sorry Anet, but this shortbow is what you call an air ball. A cold turkey. A few cans short of a six pack. The lights are on, but nobody's home. It completely misses the mark in terms of engagement, entertainment, purpose, and fulfillment. I took it around PvE, fought a couple tough roaming bosses and IMO the weapon just doesn't click.

 

Cons:

1. It's a ranged AOE weapon that's designed for you to stand in the AOE to receive its benefits, which effectively puts you in melee range with the enemy.
2. The boons are short and pointless. My mech gives way more useful boons and survivability. The barrier and heals are pitiful. The #4 arrow that gives 25 stacks of might in a game that's power crept over the years and hands out boons like candy is also pointless. At the end of the day, people are going to bring what works best and reliably to a party comp. An engineer shortbow is going to make best friends with the kick button.
3. Too long, too many button presses. 2, 3, 4, 5, then any 2->5 btn to detonate. Several seconds will have gone by and you will have contributed nothing to the fight while you were busy trying to setup the boom booms that will disappear faster than it took you to set them up.

Pros:

1. Chain reactions. It's nice that you're thinking outside the box, something GW2 has been known to do well over its life. So I give you credit for the idea, but not its execution.

 

Imagine an alternative shortbow. Ground targeted bow #5 creates a tar patch, slowing all within it. Ground targeted bow #4 lobs a fire arrow that lights the tar patch up, creating an aoe burn field. Ground targeted bow #3 lobs a gas arrow that detonates in the fire patch to create a larger poisonous AOE gas. Bow #2 creates a static discharge in the gas cloud, zapping everyone for additional damage. That IMO would have been more engaging, purposeful, entertaining, and fulfilling. You could also pair the skills differently to create unique combinations and effects. Like shooting a gas arrow first then a fire arrow second to create an explosion with knockback. Or you could wait to stack 4 arrow combos for maximum effect. For an engineer that spends 95% of our time in kits, this alternative supports weapon swap play and provides us with unique combat experiences. We don't need more boons, we need more ways to play. GW2 was always about supporting yourself, not others. Give us more offensive variety.

Edited November 29, 2023 by Nate.8146

[mootshell.8530]

There just doesn’t seem to be a good niche for shortbow. Mace/shield is far less clunky as a support weapon and gives better boons, shortbow’s current design does nothing for helping Scrapper keep up quickness, and the chain reaction mechanic, while cool in theory, I find to be a bit confusing and hard to pull off in practice.

Honestly? It would fill a better role as a ranged condi weapon. Engineer’s condition builds have been lacking for years, and having the choice between pistol/pistol and shortbow might be a step towards revitalising them.

It just seems like the whole kit needs a rethink.

[Kris Knives.8513]

Personally I really like the concept and want to play with it as I did have fun with the shortbow but feel the current execution is lacking as others have said.

Negative:
1.)  I hate how the short bow doesn't interact with anything.  I expected the arrows to be explosive and at least one to be an elixir to allow us to interact with those trait lines. 

2.)  The arrows need something more.  The amount of work/time to set up arrows is not worth the pay off.  While doing group events most enemies would be dead before I could put down my third arrow much less execute a chain attack.  I didn't feel like I was adding much to the fight aside from barrier and the effects lacked a unique "wow" factor to make them stand out.  In theory that is the blast chain mechanic but at the moment I don't really feel that at all.

Personally I'd like to see either on hit effects added so we're not 100% locked into chain explosions and/or the arrows act as minor turrets, perhaps on par with Mesmer Clones, until detonated.

3.)  Given the pace of GW2 combat, the bow seems very slow.  The time to drop and detonate a single arrow means it can often just be walked away from without even forcing your foe to use a dodge up.  This is probably unrealistic but I would prefer that some or all of these these be quick horizontal skill shots (like Guardian bow 3) that drop off the payload (and have some on hit effect depending of if it hits friend or foe).  This could also allow for the arrows to leave a fuse trail behind them which could make linking up explosions easier and more interesting.  We don't have many of those sorts of skill shot and it would give the short bow some additional personality.

4.)  I feel like auto attack could be doing something a little more here.  Maybe something like it gets a bonus after you detonated a skill (allow it to have turret synergy) similar to what we see on the Lava Axe.  It feels odd we have these turrets which already have a detonate mechanic and now arrows with a detonate mechanic but no synergy between them.   I'd love to see trait tie these two together and enhancing the detonate effect of both.

Positive:
I'm relieved to see that cool down starts after the arrow is fired, not after detonation so major kudos on that point at least.  I feel it would be unplayable otherwise.

I do enjoy its combination of buff and debuff effects.  Given how hard it it to get targets into the AoE this helps allowing me to get some benefit as long as anything is in the blast radius.

I didn't have any survivability problems, I was able to solo elites and duo to Drizzlewood camps with shortbow support.

Overall after spending a few hours in PvE both playing with it and being supported by it:
I like the shortbow and hope we get a refined version of it at full release.  It felt most at home to be on Holosmith where I could toggle between DPS and Support, okay Mechanist but felt worthless on Scrapper.

[Bloodtau.4672]

I feel that the skills doing absolutely nothing until you detonate them is a bit of a cop-out. We need them to do something, even if it's some smaller, weaker pulses that get stronger when you detonate. Like a well or a symbol, but with the chain reaction mechanic added on. It takes a few seconds to set them up, seconds where you are basically useless in all game types.

Edited November 29, 2023 by Bloodtau.4672

[Groggyfrog.9754]

The chain effect could be cool. But personally I think it'd be cool to rework into the bomb kit or the mortar kit. Hell maybe both. They would benefit greatly from the rework and setting bombs down in melee range so you can benefit from the boons as well seems way better, plus since it's explosive it would also have synergy with the explosives trait line. 

 

Then just go an entirely new direction with the short bow 

Edited November 29, 2023 by Groggyfrog.9754
Misspelling

[miriforst.1290]

Let's just say it took nonehotbuildtest hours to come up with ways to complain about this weapon.

A clunky and costly way to do something which we already do. What could be more classic engineer than that?  It actively avoid synergies without bringing anything particularity new.

I chuckled a bit when i saw the prenerfed cooldowns in wvw. As if it was going to change the meta at an alarming rate in this state.

In terms of constructive feedback:

You could increase the radius to 240 or even 360. You could make the firefield apply a few stacks of burn instead of token vulnerability. You could increase the coefficients on a weapon so die hard dedicated to doing "support" over damage. You could make the pulse effects on some of the skills more attractive than slow or (hah) cripple.  You could even go crazy and allow it to provide any one of the real attractive boons such as protection, stability, resistance or even the fabled quickness or alacrity.

Some of these changes might even make it effective.

The elephant in the room is that even if that was the case (instead of it being forgotten as an embarrassing mistake like turrets), I don't believe you would be able to make it fun to use.

 

[Darkhart.4769]

My take on the bow is that it is very much a pve weapons, its react too slow for wvw/pvp especially prepping/setting them up to be useful on moving targets.

On the matter of its skill bar, I feel it is underwhelming, having 4 skill putting down arrow canister isn't very innovative. Having said that if you intend to stick with the canisters skill, I suggest improving its interaction with as much from the engineer trait as possible.

1. Allow skill 2,3,4 and 5 detonation/chain reaction to have the explosive trait. And also maybe have skill 1 auto to inflict cripple as well to help with making enemies get hit by the canisters.

2. For a support weapon it should have access to provide either protection, regen and or condi cleanse into the canister and not just provide might to synergies with support trait like alchemy and inventions

3. Radius effect size. Easy to get hits in pve but hard to be effective on wvw.

All in all with healing, barrier and superspeed, the best synergies I found was pairing them with scrapper and mechanist specialization trying both with support trait line and offensive trait line. Had fun in pve but easily destroyed in wvw with its slowness to be of use in fights with even the small radius of its effect, enemies easily avoid them.

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On the subject of feedback for engineer, I might as well try to post it here to improve my chance for the dev to read them,

On mechanist mechanical genius, I have a suggestion on a rework having a different approach towards the reduce stat % or increased cooldown mech skill on mechanical genius.

Instead of mechanical genius effecting attribute stat or cooldown, why not have mechanical genius be the trait that allows boon to share with the mechs. Whenever we are close with the mech or have the mechanical genius UI active, whenever the player gain boons, it is share towards the mech like the shift signet thus removing it from the signet. And whenever the mech move away too far from the player the the boon share is turn off.

The reason I suggest this is because shift signet have became the ultimate mandatory skill to equip in every mechanist build and I feel like I only have two utility skill slot that i can freely change instead of three, having that effect be remove from the shift signet would allow mechanist to diversity their build, opening them up to usage of other utility skill in the engineer arsenal. That is just my suggestion and if it feels not worth to try, at least I voice my suggestion on the matter and ty for taking your time to read my feedback.

[Nanoir.2315]

14 hours ago, LilBiM.3581 said:

Let me just offer my own suggestion for SB for Engineer:
AA Chain: Standard 1/4s SB animation. Jolt Bolt: First Attack: 1x Vuln (5s). Second Attack: Hammer Bolt: 2x Vuln (5s) .Final chain: Poisoned Bolt: 3x Poison (3s). All bolts bounce between 3 Targets, Projectile Finisher (20%)
2 Skill: Explosive Bolt: A bolt streaks across the ground that pierces, crippling foes and applying a Timed Charge ( https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Timed_Charge ) on all struck targets. Projectile travels in a straight line. Cripple for 3s. 1200 range.
3 Skill: Holographic Shot: You evade for 1/2s as a holographic image fakes out your opponent. If you successfully evade an attack you and nearby allies (240 radius) are granted Super speed (3s) and 5x Might (8s) (at your location) and the holograph creates 3 clones that shatter, granting aegis (3s) and inflicting weakness (3s) (240 radius at the clone's location).
4 Skill: Crashing Shot: Drop a lightning field (240 radius) that removes conditions from allies and strips boons from foes. When it ends static electricity built up erupts (200 base x ( 1 + number of conditions / boons removed, up to a total of 20). Pulses: 4, Removes 1 Condition and 1 Boon per Pulse. Alt: Instead of Damage on eruption: Keep lightning field and condition / boon strip and simply offer Protection (5s) and Resolution (5s) on target location.
5 Skill: Singularity Shot: Launch a bolt that produces a wave of infused magical energy (fire) that pulls all foes (5 targets) in a funneling cone from the user to the target location ( up to 600 range away). After Knocking Back foes the arrow detonates on the target location copying your boons to allies at the target location. Knock Back (600), 240 radius Fire Field (3 Pulses), Explosion, Transfer Boons on the Engineer to 5 Allies at the target location.

This sounds 1000x better than what the company put out. Anet hire this guy pls