Expanded Weapon Proficiencies Beta Feedback: Engineer

[Overedge.2435]

There are enough support weapons added with this update/beta, and engineer already has access to decent support options already. What we need, and what several classes' shortbows specialize in, is ready access to conditions. Even the world's best engi piano player can't put out the condition damage a dual pistol guardian now can just by headbutting their keyboard once.

I say keep the shortbow but entirely rework it into a condition and CC weapon.

Edited November 29, 2023 by Overedge.2435
Fixed a typo

[Bomboed.5697]

It is not even funny when literally all fan concepts or suggestions are ten times better than dev's design.

Edited November 29, 2023 by Bomboed.5697

[LilBiM.3581]

3 hours ago, miles.5961 said:

It's terrifying how good this sounds compared to what we got 😅. The idea of mimicking Mesmer shenanigans with skill 3 via holograms is an awesome roleplay element, love it.

Thank you. It was designed in a few minutes. Obviously I don't know of all of the design considerations/limitations that the devs have to endure when making a new weapon however I tried to keep to the flavor and nature of the Engineer while maintaining it's concept of a typically low mobility, stand and fight duelist. The Engineer is typically one that buffs itself primarily and as such having a skill that could transfer those buffs on the Engineer to others could provide lasting utility when assuming the role of support. We do have challenges in providing high uptime might and ferocity to allies, while this weapon concept is unlikely to solve the ferocity issue the access to a fire field and boon transfer may help to increase might uptime in the group. It does provide Explosion on two traits to allow for triggering Ferocity traits. Overall it was designed to have skills that could be used effectively in a duel but also to provide support in ways that the Engineer currently does have access to, maintain high uptime on conditions such as vulnerability which is something that the Engineer traditionally is capable of and to provide access to conditions such as poison and burning for those out there who are crazy enough to think about running it in an alternative style.

What it does lack is access to a barrier skill for synergy with alacrity traits. Honestly it could be flavored into skill 3, instead of AEGIS on shatter it could instead provide ~1.2k barrier to yourself if you just mash it and nobody attacks you.

Alternatively we could have the Engineer come up with a new field type, Holographic Field:
Blast - 500 Barrier
Leap - 1 clone Shatter on the user
Projectile - Confusion for 5s
Whirl - Slow for 2s

Slap that as the field on Skill 4 (Crashing Shot) and see how it goes. Now you can support with the right execution, utility skills and traits.

[Overedge.2435]

1 hour ago, Bomboed.5697 said:

It is not even funny when literally all fan concepts or suggestions are ten times better than dev's design.

ANet's lack of any interest in engi is just spotlighted with how the shortbow is just one skill/mechanic they copied three times across the rest of the weapon, instead of making anything about any of the weapon skills unique the way every other weapon in the game is.

Edited November 29, 2023 by Overedge.2435
Fixing typos

[DarkLancer.1902]

Well, this thing has got a hell of a learning curve. Still, I can tell I got it right a few times, because I obliterated a squad of Kryptis with ease. Not that I can do that consistently, hence the learning curve.

A bit odd, conceptually, though. Not sure how this came out to be shortbow, but hey, engineers were always weird.

7/10 overall, and only escapes a higher rating because of the time and effort necessary to master it.

[Nero.7369]

Sadly all my concerns applied, and its even worse with those tiny radius of 180 lol... and lets not talk about the numbers 🙈
IMO the worst weapon in the game now.
Original concerns:

Please consider throwing this prototype of a weapon concept away and come up with a new one. I'd be really grateful.

Edited November 30, 2023 by Nero.7369

[Dark Red Killian.3946]

If not reworked,, I recommend for skills 2-5 having the first button press 2-5 activating ground target mode, which means you only have to press to target once, then skills 2-5 automatically trigger when you hit each key once. For example the button press could be 2, find your target area, press 2, 4, 5, 3 and it will place where your cursor is without keeping to have to press each button twice. Pressing 1 will negate ground target mode. You will still autoattack while placing.

[Aulmpiter.2956]

13 minutes ago, DarkLancer.1902 said:

Well, this thing has got a hell of a learning curve. Still, I can tell I got it right a few times, because I obliterated a squad of Kryptis with ease. Not that I can do that consistently, hence the learning curve.

I have a HAM that can obliterate a pile of kryptis while I'm AFK. That being said, the shortbow is so clunky to use that you could solo legendary bounties with it and I'd still rather play something else.

 

[Hynax.9536]

Honestly the best thing I was able to do with this weapon was drop all traps stacked then start reaction with the one that gives Might boon, which after a few seconds standing over the AoE chaos gave me a solid 25 Might Stack for a decent duration, but takes so much time to prepare I can't even think where its gonna be useful since you don't have enough time in a real combat to do that.

Yeah this weapon needs a lot more thought and love, specially when compared to some weapons that other classes are getting that feel way more consistent and useful !!😰

[Perceptor.7189]

At this point, every other post on this thread has nailed the major issues on the Shortbow. But there's something more that bothers me, and that's the selection of abilities.

What was the full idea??

Make the Shortbow a support weapon who could replace a kit in the current triple kit meta build?? 

Or make the Shortbow a complement on the current triple kit build that most people use??

This second point feels more like the correct answer, and it would explain why the beta product it's so lackluster, because was concived with the vision of using healing/elixir/mortar kits in conjuction. Problem is, we could be just fine with those kits and any other weapon than shortbow. 

And on that last point it's my major concern/problem: Anet devs stubbornness on encourage engie playes to use less/no kits by creating a new weapon and/or balancing other less usefull skills. 

[Gimli.9461]

My feedback on trying Engineer short bow in beta: pls keep in mind I am not into build crafting, so this is purely how the combat felt:

- I LOVE these fields and that you can explode them on top of each other or separately. I love their colors, very dense/rich 😄 I love the Sound! 

- BIGGER fields: please make these bigger they are too small 😄 

- Strange that nothing happens on first placing of arrow for the 2-5 skills. It'd be nice if something happened, at least a slight kinda graze on the mob if you place it on the mob? 😄 

Overall I really like this! It feels very Engineer appropriate and quite unique with the canisters. My biggest ask is make the fields bigger, basically 🙂 Not much else I have to say 😄 

 

[Barraind.7324]

I dont know who thought up the current design of Engineer Shortbow, but I can confidently say they are more likely to be fired than it is (because the bow itself is probably never going to see any use, see)

I cant say everything about it is poorly executed, because we dont know what the icons for the skills will look like.  It doesnt do anything its seemingly supposed to, it doesnt fill the niche a "ranged support weapon" could fill in the one place those three words stuck together would matter, and its probably worse at doing its job than mace and pretending your other arm was lost in a war.   It cant chain-react on a large or bigger sized hitboxes assuming your friends are not standing in said targets crotch.  This isnt the worst thing ever, because chain reacts dont really do much anyway.   Theres no proper use of positioning spinny gas canisters, theres no masterfully lining up chains to pop gigantic barriers or debuffs, you just go pew worse than anything else you have goes pew, and you do some mediocre secondary effects along with your worse-than-mediocre damage.  

 

The positives of this weapon are that its design can be changed into something usable before its launch. 

Edited November 30, 2023 by Barraind.7324

[Decinomicon.4619]

Anet, I have been looking at the feedback that has been left after mine. Yall need to go back to the drawing board with this. THe short bow is a complete miss, while I know you probably won't because there isn't enough dev time before these launch to completely redesign the weapon. Redesign this anet, by someone who actually plays engineer. 

[Squigglez.1236]

Not sure what niche this is supposed to fill right now. The effects the bow has can be done with other sets already. Since the mechanist alacrity trait has a 1s cooldown stacking the barrier doesn't help with alacrity uptime. The heal stacks don't seem strong enough since you'll already have medkit if you're heal support, also shield lets you blast water fields. I don't think slow is that useful in PvE, it doesn't effect defiant enemies and other enemies get melted. Traits let mechs stack 10+ might just for having the bot punch things already, might is pretty easy to come by now so even the rapid 25 stacks doesn't feel super useful. I'd find it more interesting if the bow had a resource mechanic like thief initiative or firebrand pages, maybe that would let you just choose which arrows you need at any given time instead of trying to stack them in such a strange way.

[Shinjiko.1352]

I was really looking forward to shortbow, I imagined some kind of gadgeteer shooting things like bombs and elixirs etc. More of a dps/ utility weapon than a support weapon.  Whatever this is... is just a dissapointment for me. I really hoped it was going to be better than the trailer made it look. It really isn't. It feels really clunky and without weapon swap, really no need to run it. Everything else performs better.

Also it feels like there's just no synergy with anything. The auto has detonator in the name and isn't an explosion. I really hope, but doubt they will, that they redesign this to be better. It's clear it is extremely unpopular. Especially compared to what every other class got.

[Alcatraznc.3869]

I dont know much about support but I can say it is horrible to use and it's super unfun.

 

-the radius is too short. The buff you get they look strong on paper but not enough to justify the pityful 180 radius

-the concept of the weapon is to do chain reaction but you only really seem to get 1 reaction. So yes you can trigger all canister arrow at the same time but you'll only get 1 chain reaction buff and 3 wasted canister.

-the setup time is just too long. Waste a second placing one arrow, waste another second to place the second arrow, wait half a second to detonate the arrow. The weapon isnt smooth and you are expected to use SB while juggling with kits. The shortbow only synergize with very few field that engineer has. You can either do:

     -Put arrow on the ground-->Kit-->drop a field--->switch back to SB--->detonate---->put another arrow down--->kit and so on which is....very annoying to do on the long run

      -Kit--->drop a field--->switch to SB--->drop arrow--->detonate which is smoother to do but very likely to fail considering the wasted time between switching kit and waiting for the arrow to be ready for detonation

 

And this is only for the PvE aspect. I've seen people being able to make use of it but honestly it feels like the worst support weapon engineer has, beaten by Mace which only has skill 2 as a support skill. That says a lot about SB. This needs to be put back to the drawing board. 

[Vennyhedgie.5369]

I really liked that suggestion of a Kneel mode like Rifle on thief. Since it no longer is locked into the elite spec, it'd be neat to have a similar mechanic on another profession, and this could be a good place to put it. (Though I feel like allowing you to move on kneel was the wrong move, but I can live with that).

[Vinny.7260]

I think this might be an unpopular opinion...

Purely a PvP perspective.

I actually don't think Shortbow is all that bad, at least in PvP- in very specific scenarios.

It has really high burst healing and options to provide barrier instead. The fact the 2-5 can't be stopped via projectile hate makes it even better into things like Tempest or other projectile denying specs.

Main issue I see is the weird cast time issues, the delay on it landing, and the numbers/power of each of the skills.

1: An auto, neat. Decent damage with power. Can nudge someone's health pool over time and make them react. Auto/10

• Maybe add a bonus effect if standing inside one of the canister effects, meaning you can have your auto do 4 other things at once?

2: Burst barrier/more barrier per chain reaction. Not much past that. 7/10

• Following the canister logic, activate a pulse of barrier when landing an auto.
• Possibly pulse barrier similar to the 3 skill pulsing healing. Obviously need to reduce the amount.
• Manual detonation should be an Explosion and do a little damage.
• Increase the pulse radius to 240.

3: Burst cleansing/healing/weakness/blind, pulsing healing per chain reaction for each canister's duration. 9/10 strongest of the 4.

• Following the canister logic, activate a pulse of healing when landing an auto.
• Manual detonation should be an Explosion and do a little damage.
• Increase the pulse radius to 240.

4: Burst might/pulsing might. A LOT OF MIGHT. 5/10

• Following the canister logic, activate a pulse of might when landing an auto.
• Arguably mundane, needs a little more going on. Perhaps make it hit harder than others or grant a different boon on allies who already have 25 might.
• Manual detonation should be an Explosion and do a little damage.
• Increase the pulse radius to 240.

5: Stun/slow on activation, pulsing slow per chain reaction. 8/10

• Following the canister logic, activate a pulse of slow (and possibly cripple) when landing an auto.
• Weirdly strong but not, considering the radius. Possibly inflicts cripple per pulse as well.
• Manual detonation should be an Explosion and do a little damage.
• Increase the pulse radius to 240.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PeQAQlNw8YPMHWKe+TXtLA-DaJ8MyUBUtEwm3DAA

This was the build I was using:

• Relic of Karakosa instead of what is listed there.
• Shortbow instead of Rifle.

I had a lot of fun in certain maps, but other maps it felt absolutely useless due to the size of the mid node or the amount of moving there was going on.

I wonder if there could possibly be a way to make it so the Engi could carry one of them instead of landing them on the ground.

 

 

Edited November 30, 2023 by Vinny.7260

[SongBird.5046]

Having spent some time trying this out, I don’t think it’s the disaster some other people seem to think it is, but there are some definite pain points that stop it from being a weapon I’d choose to run over mace/shield.

First, the radius of the arrows. With how long it can take to set up a chain reaction, if there’s any movement involved your target will probably be out of the effect of the arrows by the time you set things off. The radius of the effects really needs to be bigger if we are going to have any chance of actually hitting our targets.

Then there’s the chain reaction effects themselves. I like the first two arrows. Their effects are fun for supporting people, and show the potential of the weapon as you have to make decisions on what chain effect you want in the moment. The problem is with the last 2 arrows.

Arrow 4 just gives might. The problem here is that mechanist has no issues giving 25 might already, and scrapper can get to 25 stacks with blast gyro and the base effect of the arrow alone (and with HGH maintaining that becomes even easier). Because of this, the chain reaction feels useless. I’m giving up extra barrier or healing to give more of a boon I’ve already capped on. Personally, I think it would be more interesting if the chain reactions gave fury instead (it is an essence of liquid wrath after all). This preserves the design of empowering your allies while giving a meaningful boon that engineers could actually use some help with maintaining.

And then there’s the arrow 5. I’ll admit it’s better than I originally thought, as the slow can actually be useful for supporting people when you’re fighting enemies that are affected by it. The problem is, when fighting anything with a defiance bar, if the bar isn’t active this skill is useless. The stun and slow do literally nothing in this case, so the only thing this arrow is doing is giving 3 seconds of super speed. On mech, 3 seconds on a 20 second cooldown just isn’t impactful enough to feel meaningful, and scrapper has so much super speed already that this is just redundant. There are 2 things I think could be done to fix this. First, aegis. I’m not the only one to say it, but a good source of aegis is what engineer actually needs, not more super speed. It still works thematically, as increasing your allies speed would give them better reaction times and allow them to block attacks. But, if you don’t want to go that route, I think making this arrow a blast finisher would also help. At least then, it gives scrappers another source of quickness to match the leap and blast you have with mace/shield. I think having the 20 second cooldown skill blast its own field should be fine. Function gyro already does it. 
 

Those are the thoughts I have so far. I think there’s some real potential here, but our biggest, most impactful skills end up feeling bad to use most of the time. Some tweaks there (and an increase in the radius. Please, if nothing else, increase the radius of the arrows) should help make this a solid alternative to mace/shield. 

[GoodMartin.6307]

I don't even play engineer that much but tested the shortbow on beta slot and i just burst laughing at that. Seriously? Whole weapon being about dropping 4 aoe copy-pasted syringes with different colors that you also have to chain together to be even remotely useful? Even remotely useful might be an overstatement for that. As some have mentioned it legit feels like Arena Net turned a weapon kit with same 4 skills just with different effects and turned it into a full out weapon.

[Kris Knives.8513]

3 hours ago, Vennyhedgie.5369 said:

I really liked that suggestion of a Kneel mode like Rifle on thief. Since it no longer is locked into the elite spec, it'd be neat to have a similar mechanic on another profession, and this could be a good place to put it. (Though I feel like allowing you to move on kneel was the wrong move, but I can live with that).

What would Kneel do on short bow, give you access to a different set of arrows??  
Stand:  Arrows explode on contact?
Kneel:  Arrows wait to be detonated?

[Icefyer.9208]

56 minutes ago, Kris Knives.8513 said:

What would Kneel do on short bow, give you access to a different set of arrows??  
Stand:  Arrows explode on contact?
Kneel:  Arrows wait to be detonated?

Nope. If you read above at the top of this page by Bena, stand is dps that can also trigger the chain effects in certain ways, kneel trades movement for high support power by placing them and detonation ability, like how deadeye trades movement for sniping damage. Movement cancels the kneel mode apparently. So you can place the nodes, then swap to a DPS mode that will do damage and allow movement, but still trigger minor chain-reaction support.

It sounds so, so much better than what we're getting it's honestly just sad...

And it wouldn't be the first time engineer copied something from another class. Mechanist is sort-of like a customizable Ranger pet for example. Or like how Necro gets elixirs through one of their elite specs, or Firebrand gets Mantras which were formerly a Mesmer only thing.

Edited November 30, 2023 by Icefyer.9208

[Swagger.1459]

Just replying again to reiterate on skills 2-5.

Step 1- Shoot/Place Arrow.

Step 2- Arrow blows up in a 300 AoE (like them good ol' necro staff skillemebobber marks).

Step 3- Player is now happily playing the game, with fun and useful skills not playing the UI! Win-Win.

[Iustitian.9176]

- Skill 1: Tooltip describe it would inflict weakness, but it inflict vulnerability + no Projectile Combo Finisher info in tooltip

[Osmose.5893]

My feedback will be aimed towards functionality with both Heal Scrapper and Heal Mechanist, as the shortbow was touted as a 'support' weapon and synergises best in that role and with the above elite specs.

The core mechanic of the chain reaction is fun, but it's hard to get past it's anti-synergy with healing despite it being targeted for that position.

I tested both builds with Harrier gear (100% Scrapper BD, 93% Mech BD)

 

Positives:
Amazing might generation

Shortbow 5/3 combo is an effective CC

Great synergy with Karakosa relic

Amazing quickness uptime on scrapper with the blast synergy

Good barrier generation, especially on Mech, which also synergises with alacrity

 

Negatives:
Forces you to run thumper turret and burn your function gyro for protection and even then falls short of acceptable uptime

Running thumper turret on any fight with even small amounts of movement feels terrible

Restricts regeneration uptime purely to med kit and firing mortar kit through water field for regen finishers which for most players is an unfriendly way to play

No access to Fury

Radius of the combo fields is too small

Speed that the canisters shoot from the bow, while better with quickness, could be a bit faster, since if you're used to a higher APM it does feel a bit like counting seconds just waiting to be able to pull off your combos

 

My suggestions/solutions:

Add a combo finisher projecitle to the auto attack (I understand this restricts it's use in PvP and WvW due to reflects but I feel like the shortbow is shut down so easily by any movement that it probably won't see play there much anyway)

Change the dark field on shortbow 3 to a water field > Combo with the auto to grant regen to your party (also has synergy with blasting water fields) Rebrand the lore and name of the skill to be the essence of Ele's water attunement

Without protection access this weapon is dead on arrival, not only are you giving up Regen and Vigor from Mace 2, you're also giving up 100% prot uptime on your shield, there is literally zero point in choosing this weapon as a support option over existing options.

Combo'ing all of the canisters together could generate protection/Fury uptime, encouraging you to interact with the mechanic

These are my observations after a few hours of play, both testing in the golem and actual instanced content. I've tried to suggest changes within the actual realm of possibility that would be balanced for a strictly support weapon. Thank you for reading.

 

Edited November 30, 2023 by Osmose.5893
Added absence of 'Fury'