Expanded Weapon Proficiencies Beta Feedback: Engineer

[Coolster.2536]

I liked the concept for shortbow. I thought it was going to add really interesting totem gameplay, similar to Renegade spirits. Leaving massive area denials while bruiser'ing up yourself and allies, but it all just fell flat. You could give an 8k barrier with Animated Sand, a massive burst heal from chaining Living Shadows, or instant 25 Might with Liquid Wrath, but with how long it takes to set up, whoever you were trying to give it to would be long gone before the chain went off. Even with chaining the arrows one-by-one, the effect of the first arrow would end before the fourth arrow landed. And with how small the radii are, that "massive area denial" only ends up being like 400 radius at best, if the opponents actually feel it. The lingering effects by themselves are really weak. With how the conditions are on Shortbow, you'd need Expertise to make them stronger, but healers want Healing Power and Concentration. You know what stat set has Healing Power, Concentration, and Expertise? Celestial, and Celestial Healers are not known to do very much healing. The boon access on Shortbow is very poor for being a "support" weapon. Mace/Shield was three boons in Regeneration, Vigor, and Protection, while all Shortbow has is Might. Shortbow not having Protection makes me consider not running Inventions, since I feel Inventions is a boring traitline, but the only other option, Tools, is even worse for Support builds than Inventions, so the adept tier in Inventions just ends up as a dead tier, especially on Heal Mechanist. As a whole, I really don't see what niche shortbow is supposed to fill. It's too slow, immobile, and unimpactful to see use in sPVP or WvW and the support it provides is worse than other options to see use in PvE. On the plus side, Shortbow makes Engineer the first class to have every combo field in the game!

Below is a list of nitpicks and suggestions I had and I hope they're useful in making Shortbow better. As I said before, I like the totem playstyle, so I don't want the entire concept scrapped, but I do want it made more flexible to fit Engineer's versatility.

• Arc Detonator could interact with the rest of the Shortbows kit more, since it's all you have after setting up a big chain. Maybe like "Attacking the same target 5 times tags them with a spare canister that will chain if the target is hit with any arrow" or something.
• As a support, you're doing nothing while setting up arrows to be chained. Consider moving the detonation effect to trigger on impact and then we detonate to start a chain reaction
• Remove the fuse animation and just have the canisters blow up instantly. Most of the arrows are too weak to for the fuse time to be meaningful. Maybe keep it for Borrowed Time, since I can see people wanting a tell to dodge the stun.
• Increase the radius to at least 240. Consider allowing the chain bonuses to have a larger radius than the canisters, otherwise it'll just encourage dropping everything in the same spot, instead of spreading them out to cover a larger area.
• I'm not sure how I feel about barrier on Animated Sand and healing on Living Shadows. Barrier and Healing effectively do the same thing, so it makes these skills feel redundant to me. Most weapons pre-SotO seem to have one or the other, but not both.
• Borrowed Time is probably the best skill on the weapon, but chaining the slow is a very weak effect. I think it'd be very interesting if the skill had a pull instead of a stun. core Engineer doesn't have an AoE pull, so putting one on shortbow would solve that problem and allowing it to chain would be like having a mini-Gravity Well
• Boon access on the Shortbow is very poor. Engineer doesn't have an easy way to share Fury, Aegis, Resolution, or Resistance to allies, but if you want it to compete with Mace/Shield, it will at least need Protection.
• Honestly, it seems like you want Shortbow to replace Medkit or Elixir Gun. But Shortbow doesn't do enough to take one of those out of the equation or shore up Engineer's other weaknesses to make it an option over shield. It feels more like a utility weapon than a support one, which is bad on a class that can't weapon swap.

Visuals

I know visuals and animations are a WIP, but to add my 2 cents on Shortbow's visuals

• Animated Sand: Ground effect is distinct enough, but the chain animation just looks like a fart cloud. It'd be cool if you reused the swirling bone animation from Scourge Sand Shades and make them bigger to be more noticeable (and hopefully not too visually cluttered)
• Living Shadows: The Ground effect looks really similar to Liquid Wrath. Consider making it less indigo and more purple/black/red. The chain effect also looks a lot like Mesmer's purple magic. It'd be cool if you reused the walking shadows effect from Specter Wells for it, though Specter Wells are notoriously visually cluttered.
• Liquid Wrath: Ground effect looks similar to Living Shadows. Consider making it the same type of blue from Cleansing Flame (Guard Torch 5). The chain effect looks about right, but it could stay fire-y for a bit longer instead of turning into a cloud
• Borrowed Time: Good.
• Arc Detonator: Good. The spark-y sound is a nice touch.

On 11/29/2023 at 4:35 PM, BenaSPACE.6028 said:

After sleeping on it a bit, I think I can come up with some example skills:

~snipping the kneel design so this post wont be overly long~

I like this design and could be interesting. Though wouldn't it feel clunky since you'd have to Kneel -> drop payload -> Stand Up -> DPS to get any effects of the chain bonus?

On 11/29/2023 at 7:16 AM, Darkhart.4769 said:

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.

+1 to this idea. I had another idea where Mechanical Genius worked similar to Compounding Power or Deadly Blades on Virtuoso, but folding Shift Signet into Mechanical Genius is a much better idea to balance the Mech.

[inci.3705]

I'm going to be restating/rephrasing my comment from another post here:

One question that needs to be answered for shortbow to be usable in small-scale WvW: what tools does shortbow have to let me escape/survive being focused by a cele Willbender and how effective are they? Because even with some hefty buffs, the answers are either just die or slot photon wall and/or toolkit.

The shortbow itself is not a reactive weapon (somehow even slower than mortar kit) and I hate the AoE spamming playstyle. If an ally is being focused by said cele Willbender, you are better off swapping to a kit to try and help them.

So I'm just going to throw out alternatives and cross my fingers that something sticks:

• #2 can probably kept the way it is
• Change #3 to something like DH longbow #3 and add a manual detonation flip skill
• Change #4 to fire a series of arrows in a line that make a stab roads/prime light beam fire field effect on detonation (and please add the burning! I want to be lay down both at the same time for megaburns!)
• Change #5 to a channeled distort that you can end prematurely to shoot an insta-detonating arrow that is stronger the earlier you fire it.

The idea is to preserve some of the 'trapper' gameplay while providing better reactive gameplay and some defenses.

Edited December 4, 2023 by inci.3705

[Throfin.5932]

I like the skill play. Comboing the fields feels fun and impactful, but really only seems to work in PvE. In PvP, the fields are too small and take too long to trigger. The target is usually out of the field by the time I'm able to trigger it.

Love the character of the weapon though. Very creative!

[Chrome.6798]

This is form a PvP standpoint. Engineer Shortbow felt so bad i was disappointed. its slow and the aoes are so small they did nothing. it would be ALOT better instead of stuck in the ground why not stuck into the target?? use your target as the AOE source.  

[Ironhide Wolf.3275]

POV I play very little Engineer, I know very little about combo fields, I got bored with this weapon and didn't test it long...

• improve it's AOE just a little bit... BUT Also count these as "Wells" to play off the AOE range extension of "Gyroscopic Acceleration". IMO would be a decent trade-off between having Scrappers AOE stuff, and having Mechanists "pet" that you can keep alive using shortbow. 
• Give these skills something other than just "Combo field potential" for smooth brained warrior (and sometimes druid) mains like myself...
• Don't let this weapon become another "It's good in WvW but nowhere else" weapon, like some weapons in the game have become (like warrior shield). 
• Don't be afraid to expand on the AOE radius of the boons separately from the Damage field... We're already maxed out on 5 people we can share boons with. Having the extra AOE range on shared support skills so PvE'ers like me can support the main snuggle pile PLUS the kiter or tanker, or the one guy doing ranged from a ranged position would be ideal. Also being able to provide boons during most "spread" mechanics that cause the snuggle pile to break up would be awesome. This is what makes Alac Bladesworn so good imo. That massive AOE makes sure everyone in your subgroup gets what they need. Though this is more of a blanket change and not just a shortbow suggestion. 
• I did not test this bit out... Not sure if they count as explosions or not. IF NOT, Count the detonation of these as Explosions, Or if they already do count as explosions, put it in the tool tips. Need more weapons to synergize with stuff like "Big Boomer" and other explosion-based traits. 

[LadyKitty.6120]

Kitty's instanced PVE 20 coppers...

-Shortbow 2's blast finisher felt really unreliable. Dunno what was up but Kitty has issues triggering blasts for Scrapper's Kinetic Accelerators, esp. if not specifically setting up multiple fields together with Shortbow 3 and 4 before detonating.

-It's quite purely a support weapon and Kitty personally fails to see the point of auto-attack's secondary hit since the power coefficient is so low. Making the auto-attack heal a bit as secondary effect instead(maybe something like 208 (0.15) as healing values) would make it better for its role, in Kitty's honest opinion.

-Third thing Kitty noticed was that it grants tons of might but not really other boons, except alacrity as Mechanist if you use Shortbow 2 as the detonator for multiple barrier applications. If possible, it would be nice if shortbow 2 was changed to give protection/resolution/aegis if it combo-detonated shortbow 3/4/5 and shortbow 4 gave swiftness/vigor/fury for combo-detonating shortbow 2/3/5. Esp. Aegis on shortbow 2+5 combo would be nice as Scrapper is one of the few healers that can't share it to allies when needed which makes it worse option for stuff like Deimos CM. In the same vein, shortbow 5 could apply weakness/chilled/blind if it combo-detonates shortbow 2/3/4 respectively.

Nonetheless, it's a pretty fun idea even though it kinda requires thinking like a chrono does due to delayed effect and thus thinking a few seconds ahead for positioning. With the aforementioned changes it would become a pretty competent option for support engi builds.

[Coolster.2536]

One more thing: I'm not sure how I feel about new arrows chaining to previously detonated arrows. On one hand, it makes it quick and easy to keep the chain going or to get instant effects. On the other, it was really annoying when I was  trying to set up a new chain but if I placed them too close to my previous chain, I basically just wasted my skill since I didn't get the chain bonus I wanted. Maybe it's just a "Learn to Play" thing, but it was frustrating when it happened.

[DragoTheWise.7256]

Engineer Shortbow’s beta debut shows a pretty weak support weapon that is clumsy and slow. It requires the player too much manual interaction to provide support resulting in the player not able to deliver what is needed quickly. With how slow the skills are, it feels more like a longbow than the snappiness that usually comes with using short bow skills. The current AOE radius for skills 2-5 are too small making it difficult to provide support within GW2’s combat system. I’m not sure the auto skill fits the theme either. The skills need to have a look over as to what this weapon is really trying to fill for Engineer as it feels like it does not add much to the Engineer’s kit. It is a hard weapon in its current form to be used in GW2’s combat system. I get that it is like a slightly faster thief preparation skill but on a range weapon, but it just doesn’t quite work.

Main issues for me-

• Too slow for support- There are plenty of support skills that have long range, however, they have a much snappier response. Support needs to have range skills that happen when they are used to help allies immediately… like Druid CA 3. We can’t have the following: fire the arrow, wait for the arrow to prime, then hit the flip skill, then the slight delay for activate. And that is just one arrow. If we want to even have an additional arrow to cause a chain skill, that takes up more time. Allies more often need to move out of the way by the time an activation is triggered or just trying to setup bonus chain reactions, it also doesn’t help the AOEs are currently so small.
• AOE Radius- The current AOE radius is too small. Trying to use this in PvE and WvW was a nightmare. Anyone just moving slightly ended up not getting the benefits of the AOE by the time it was triggered. Unless you are using this on MO or a stationary boss, you are going to miss a lot. For WvW, I did a mix of roaming and zerg fighting and it was difficult to get the skills to line up to help allies. Sometimes if we held a tiny choke for a short time, there was some decent use, but it quickly went away due to how GW2’s combat works with the amount of movement.
• Lack of boons- The only real boon that this weapon gives is might which is a boon that Engi doesn’t have an issue generating in the first place. Why not put some boons on the weapon that Engi normally doesn’t have access to like resolution or resistance? Maybe add protection so that it can be competitive with mace/shield? It also makes the first line in Inventions having an issue of a “good” for selection without shield to provide protection to allies.
• Identity- I get that for range support Engis are a lacking; however, with how slow this is, a lack of boons, and short range, I just don’t see many folks actually adapting this weapon compared to what we have now. There is a question as to what it exactly this is filling for the Engi considering the current kit outside of just range support. It doesn’t have very good damage scaling as it is supposed to be a full-on support weapon but skill 1 focuses on damage.

I realize there won’t be any big sweeping changes nor a complete pivot to a different type of weapon like most folks were hoping for in the first place. However, short term, the following could at least help the weapon work better with what we have.

Short term fixes-

• Make the AOE skills (2-5) more snappy- While the chain reaction allows faster activation once one is activated, that won’t always be the case as you wouldn’t want to blow the full kit. The initial skills just take a little too long to setup and then activate. Simply removing the fuse time may have this work better.  
• Increase the AOE Radius- Right now it is set to 180. Needs to be up’d to 240 at minimum but I would prefer around 300 considering how much it takes to setup these AOEs.
• Boons- I would like to see one more boon added, perhaps adding it to skill 3 and removing one of the condis or removing the condi removal. The boon could be protection or give a boon that Engi doesn’t have such as resolution. Or change Skill 4 to provide a more variety of boons since Engis tend to have might already covered.
• Explosions- Considering the theme of the weapon, I would like to add the Explosion trait to skills 2-5. At the very least, skill 2 since that is already a blast finisher.
• Skill 1 needs to be changed- I’m not sure why a focused support weapon with really low damage scaling has a skill that is focused on damage. Either adjust the damage scaling or change it to meet that support theme.

In terms of bugs, I only noticed the following:

• Mech- Using skill 3 didn’t activate the mech’s Mech Fighter ability. If this isn’t fixed, it will be one more thing a Mech player will be losing in addition to Reconstruction Enclosure.
• Skill 1- Tool tip says it would apply weakness in the description but rest of the tool tip shows that  Vulnerability is applied instead.
• Skill 1- This didn’t arc like normal shortbow arrows do. I would assume that the final version will have the arcing.

Before I close, I do want to touch on what felt good about the weapon-

• Barrier generation: Has tons of it and was one of the few parts that came in handy for support.
• Extra fields: Provides engi with fields we don’t normally have; however, using said fields appropriately can be an issue. When in play, I mainly focused on the main skills’ use and not so much about the field it would be giving me especially since setting up chains will have a field overlapping the other ones.
• Skills 2-5 non-projectile: At least in my play, it seemed that the skills could be placed anywhere and were not subjected to reflections/absorption. This is a benefit to not only try to place skills in the middle of battle, but also against the enemy via the non-lethal condis.
• Healing/condi cleanse- While the Engi kit already has plenty of this, it was OK to have a main hand weapon to have this.
• Theme- I really do like the theme of the Essences of various magics strapped to arrows to be used by the Engi. It really fits within the world of Tyria. 

In closing, the weapon needs work. The short-term fixes will at least give it a bump in usability but may not take over mace/shield. I would focus on cleaning the weapon up in the short-term and then later down the road trying to fix its functionality to be a bit less manual intensive and possibility adjusting its mechanic. Try to make it competitive against our support options so that we can chose for the correct situation and allow some flexibility for utility skills.  

 

[eXistence.3876]

I really love the auto attack and the concept of any kind of arc lightning FINALLY being added to the game in some way...

Before the weapon beta event started, I was playing the Diablo IV demo and was realizing "it would be so cool if gw2 had some arc lightning attacks expanding out to foes".

The canister skills are cool in concept but are clunky in application for "in-combat" gameplay. They are great for a set-up, but after the set-up and initial attacks, I think it falls short.

[Zzik.5873]

19 hours ago, eXistence.3876 said:

I really love the auto attack and the concept of any kind of arc lightning FINALLY being added to the game in some way...

Before the weapon beta event started, I was playing the Diablo IV demo and was realizing "it would be so cool if gw2 had some arc lightning attacks expanding out to foes".

The canister skills are cool in concept but are clunky in application for "in-combat" gameplay. They are great for a set-up, but after the set-up and initial attacks, I think it falls short.

The could rework the whole weapon around the lightning chain concept and just dont make the canister thing. Just give 5 DPS skill that do some kind of chain lightning among enemy you tag with the weaponl, donno, anything but 4 clunky aoe.

Edited December 6, 2023 by Zzik.5873

[Bomboed.5697]

16 hours ago, Zzik.5873 said:

The could rework the whole weapon around the lightning chain concept and just dont make the canister thing. Just give 5 DPS skill that do some kind of chain lightning among enemy you tag with the weaponl, donno, anything but 4 clunky aoe.

I would rather save lighting theme for potential Staff weapon, like a Tesla-rod or something.
While Shortbow is an ideal weapon for gadget-arrows, explosive arrows and alchemical arrows.

[Corvolupo.5708]

1 hour ago, Bomboed.5697 said:

I would rather save lighting theme for potential Staff weapon, like a Tesla-rod or something.
While Shortbow is an ideal weapon for gadget-arrows, explosive arrows and alchemical arrows.

I like the idea of a compound gadget bow but i don't see anet changing this abomination too much in the near future. For the lightning/Electrical theme, i fear the Hammer will remain our only choice till the end of times.

[Josif.2015]

Engineer using a shortbow isn't a bad idea, however in the beta, it's not as fun as I thought it would be. Here are my thoughts on the weapon:

Arc Detonator (shortbow 1): make it apply weakness instead of vulnerability like it says in the tooltip, but it doesn't.
Essence of Animated Sand (shortbow 2): reduce the cripple duration from 1.25 seconds to 0.75 seconds.
Essence of Living Shadows (shortbow 3): increase the healing.
Essence of Liquid Wrath (shortbow 4): reduce  the initial might stack from 5 to 3.
Essence of Borrowed Time (shortbow 5): reduce the stun duration from 2 to 1 second and reduce the slow duration from 1.25 seconds to 0.50 seconds.

[RcTamiya.5472]

1 hour ago, Josif.2015 said:

Engineer using a shortbow isn't a bad idea, however in the beta, it's not as fun as I thought it would be. Here are my thoughts on the weapon:

Arc Detonator (shortbow 1): make it apply weakness instead of vulnerability like it says in the tooltip, but it doesn't.
Essence of Animated Sand (shortbow 2): reduce the cripple duration from 1.25 seconds to 0.75 seconds.
Essence of Living Shadows (shortbow 3): increase the healing.
Essence of Liquid Wrath (shortbow 4): reduce  the initial might stack from 5 to 3.
Essence of Borrowed Time (shortbow 5): reduce the stun duration from 2 to 1 second and reduce the slow duration from 1.25 seconds to 0.50 seconds.

Wait what? Why nerf an underperforming weapon, when you allready stated you didnt like it?!

Theres many things wrong with shortbow and the flaws have been repeated a lot of times:

1. Too small radius

2. Takes too long to setup the chain 

3. Too low dmg on its auto attack, probably adding healing to it instead fr fixing the lack of damage?!

4. Boons provided by shortbow are not worth the change from mace/shield

5. Skill 3 doesn't trigger Mechas stunattack.

 

We all can only hope that feedback will be listened to.

[Bombsaway.7198]

On 11/28/2023 at 1:41 PM, Panda.1967 said:

The arrows all need to do something prior to detonating... even if all they do is set up a combo field... and detonate should be a blast finisher on ALL 4 arrows... Also there is some inconsistency on detonate skill recharge & activation... I've had it randomly put skill 3's detonate on CD the moment I place the arrow, and I've have Skills 4 & 5 immediately reset without detonating 3 times in a row... Immediately Immediately... like the moment the arrow appears on the ground it vanishes and the skill goes on full CD...

I agree with the idea that arrows should all be combo fields and detonations should all be blast finishers.  Finally, any ally should be able to use any blast finisher to detonate them.  This creates a much larger set of opportunities not just for the engineer but the group.  Right now, if the engineer sets up the arrows and dies or gets preoccupied, they do very little for the group.   

[Panda.1967]

6 minutes ago, Bombsaway.7198 said:

Finally, any ally should be able to use any blast finisher to detonate them.  This creates a much larger set of opportunities not just for the engineer but the group. 

I have to disagree here… allowing any ally to detonate them actually makes it a whole lot harder to actually make tactical use of them… a lot of builds have blast finishers as part of their basic rotations. Allowing any allies blast finisher to detonate the arrows means they will almost always be detonated immediately. 

[Dirame.8521]

From what I've gathered, Shortbow is a set-up weapon and most people aren't used to it.

What one can do is: Throw Shortbow #5 down, Toolkit Magnet pull into it, detonate SB#5, fire other SB skills into the field and if playing Holo, you spank them with Holoforge skills, if playing Mech, you unload on them with your Mech skills and chain stun them to death with additional CC skills, or if playing Scrapper, they are either already dead from your Gyros or they will be in a moment.

I feel it may be a L2P issue for all of us.

My advice to the devs working on Bow is, buff the damage by 20% and i think it would be golden.... at least for people like me....

Edited December 10, 2023 by Dirame.8521

[miriforst.1290]

2 hours ago, Dirame.8521 said:

From what I've gathered, Shortbow is a set-up weapon and most people aren't used to it.

What one can do is: Throw Shortbow #5 down, Toolkit Magnet pull into it, detonate SB#5, fire other SB skills into the field and if playing Holo, you spank them with Holoforge skills, if playing Mech, you unload on them with your Mech skills and chain stun them to death with additional CC skills, or if playing Scrapper, they are either already dead from your Gyros or they will be in a moment.

I feel it may be a L2P issue for all of us.

My advice to the devs working on Bow is, buff the damage by 20% and i think it would be golden.... at least for people like me....

We have dragonhunter at home.

Dragonhunter at home:

[Stx.4857]

I would much prefer if this weapon was a support condi damage hybrid.  I have no use or interest in a pure support weapon.  And honestly other classes got hybrid damage/support weapons so why does shortbow have to be pure support?

[Zzik.5873]

8 hours ago, Stx.4857 said:

I would much prefer if this weapon was a support condi damage hybrid.  I have no use or interest in a pure support weapon.  And honestly other classes got hybrid damage/support weapons so why does shortbow have to be pure support?

Because were the engi class. What did you excpect? Something good? Something worth it?

[Ferix.1528]

One of the things this weapons seems to lack is regeneration  boon application. Heal Engi seems to rely on quite a bit, getting stronger regen and extra healing power from having regen but unlike mace this weapon has no regen application and the other ways of applying regen to yourself are not consistent, med kit 5 does give a fair amount but its not enough for a full uptime i think and eventhough med kit 2 applies a bit of regen aswell this does not always target yourself (if you are full health) so some regen application on any of the short bow skills would already be a fair upgrade.

[derenas.9542]

scrap it and make more like rev sb something that can be played as condi or power

[Osujin.4280]

Shortbow needs CC on more skills, Regen on skill 3, and Vigor whenever a "chain reaction" occurs for it to have full boon support and relevance.

[Stalima.5490]

I'm not entirely sure what the shortbow is actually trying to achieve, it doesn't really have anything that says "im better than another weapon", assuming that it instead provided resolution rather than protection and you possibly reworked toss elixir B to always or even only give resolution/stability then you may have a unique niche for it at that point outside of what other weapons can do, I don't really know how that would pan out though.

 

the reason I say this for elixir B is because elixir B often has its might, fury and swiftness boons completely invalidated by people excessively providing these things, thus frequently making it nothing more than a glorified resolution flask

[Dirame.8521]

The Shortbow is a Control weapon.

Once I figured out what the fields were, what the combos did and when to use it against my opponents, it became a viable option beyond what people seem to be recognizing.

It's a game of sacrificing one combo benefit for another combo benefit and that's makes for good gameplay and good trade-offs in the middle of the fight. Sacrifice 1 extra chain stun to get an extra blind, sacrifice your blast finisher to get more might stacks from your chain reaction, etc.

So far this is the build I've been using: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PeQAUlJw2YMsFWJOsPmrdA-D6IeGZLBCZBYrnAAA

And yes, it is Core Engie... what people call the weakest Spec....

And I've been having good success with it.

I also like the Scrapper set-up though: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PeQAUlJw2YMsGWJOuPmNVA-D6IeGZLBCZBYrvAAA

I would have preffered that the Bow kept its damage overtime AOE's because that would have made it amazing for downstate cleave but if you guys don't change it to do that it wouldn't be the end of the world.

Edited March 5 by Dirame.8521