Expanded Weapon Proficiencies Beta Feedback: Engineer

[CoffeePlease.3082]

13 minutes ago, Decinomicon.4619 said:

So that begs the question, who was this weapon for? Because it certainly wasn't engineer. What is the point of this weapon? All the other profession weapons have a purpose, I am not seeing one for shortbow.

It also shines a light on the new expansion content rollout and the big flaws with it. Putting all this development time into new weapons vs new specs is going to be incredibly hit and miss, because at the end of the day there are just going to be "the best weapons for your spec" and all the other ones will either be situational or never used by anyone taking the game seriously to any extent. That compared to new specs which gives you a new way to play your class is never going to deliver.

[Love.1975]

17 minutes ago, Love.1975 said:

I find it difficult to even provide constructive criticism for this. Shortbow has near zero synergy with Engineer's trait-lines and specialization. Having 4 skills to target with such small radii and range just doesn't work. The chain reactions are underwhelming. Cooldowns are long. Effects are blockable/easily cleansed.

Faster animations, shorter fuse times, wider radii, stronger conditions/boons, pulsing conditions, longer field uptime, traits that actually benefit the bow could be steps to save it...but honestly, this is VERY poorly designed and executed compared to the other classes. Severely undertuned.
 

PvE clearly has better alternative options over the bow. Shortbow initially felt like something that could really have a place in PvP/WvW...but current state it isn't even a threat or benefit.

• Skill 1 - Arc Detonator
  • Pros:
  • Cons: Small radius, Low damage, Slow fire rate and no synergy with other bow skills. Applies wrong condition.
• Skill 2 - Essence of Animated Sand
  • Pros:
  • Cons: Small radius, small barrier, small chain, unnoticeable condition (Cripple), long animation.
• Skill 3 - Essence of Living Shadows
  • Pros: Great conditions.
  • Cons: Small radius, small heal, long fuse time. Having all conditions (Weakness and Blindness) pulsed would be better.
• Skill 4 - Essence of Liquid Wrath
  • Pros:
  • Cons: Small radius, 1 condition (despite saying conditions...plural), yet another skill with might...
• Skill 5 - Essence of Borrowed Time
  • Pros: Great conditions.
  • Cons: Small radius. Having all conditions (Slow, Stun) pulsed would be better.

 

Also like to add... Chain reaction bonuses are insignificant. If the thought was to strategically place them instead of spamming them on top of each other...okay sure...but the "reaction" and the benefit? Not there.

Each skill provides a different combo opportunity, but Engineers definitely cannot make use of it and other classes won't have the time to.

(Also sad other shortbow Engis can't chain of your chain. I understand why, but would have been awesome)

Edited November 28, 2023 by Love.1975

[Valdel.7325]

3 hours ago, Dakmarios.8407 said:

Skills feel weak and to short of duration, radius too small......

I was going to write a long answer...but whats the point the weapon is worthless and Anet wont even care about the feedback, they never had and never will....I will just stay playing holosmith.

I was shocked at how poor the concept and workings were, too. Other weapons were in some cases clunky, but you could see the idea and design. I, like you, just don't get it. It was terrible and with no movement or defence, you are dead in competitive. I can't even offer feedback as it needs a complete rework.

[Corvolupo.5708]

Tested on bounties SOLO and then with a friend.

It Is... Well, Is bad... How much? It Is VERY bad. The aoe Is so small that you can't even catch your mate if he decide to sidestep. The DMG Is non-existent. Barriers and heal are average and IF they land  !!!IF!!!  They do something... Not much, but something. Thematically Is uninspired, gameplay-wise is so boring that even if they tweak the numbers by A LOT, i won't play It.

Seriously, what Is the meaning of this? I refuse to think that the team Simply don't care about our class but this thing Is a staple of a serious disconnection between ANET and the engineer comunity as a whole.

[CptnChumps.1932]

I'm normally not the type to doom and gloom about new features but this weapon is just... really bad. I'm not sure what role its supposed to cover in a class that cannot weapon swap. It has some unique features with the chain reactions but they seem so lackluster and doesn't seem like there was a real intention put into what this was supposed to be. It either needs to be an all support weapon or a all DPS weapon. Engineer cannot really afford to have their only weapon slot filled by a hybrid utility weapon. 

 

I don't have any suggestions other than picking a direction and sticking with it. Whether that be a dps or support weapon. If it doesn't offer anything better in either purpose there is absolutely no reason to use it over the weapons engineer already has.

 -- As it stands I wont pick it over rifle as there's no damage to compare and hitting a moving target with nothing but ground based attacks in a movement based combat system is annoying. I'd just stick with rifle. 

-- I wont pick this over a mace and shield as now I only have some small healing and some might generation over having more barrier, more cc and  2 defensive cool downs that synergize well with heal scrapper and mech. 

-- Compared to hammer there is absolutely no reason to pick this either. 

 

I guess this could maybe work as a defensive weapon in WvW/PvP? Maybe? Thats a real stretch though and supppper niche but the only thing I could think of. 

[LilBiM.3581]

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.

Edited November 28, 2023 by LilBiM.3581
To add alt for additional ideas

[TowardsTheFuture.2160]

Things we needed: a new set to deal condi damage. Maybe some resolution or resistance for support. Would need protection to compete with overshield so we can keep up prot if meant for healing. Slow is nice.

 

What we got: negative damage. small AoE's. More barrier (signet, mech, mace, bulwark). More healing(elixir gun, mortar kit, heal kit). More might(blast gyro, barrier burst, Explosive Knuckle, HGH). More Vulnerability (any explosive and honestly never look at it because its always at 25 so whatever other sources we have). More Weakness.(elixir gun). More Cripple (any explosive, elixir gun, pistol, bombkit). More Blind(pistol, bombkit, mortar kit).... all useless as we have more than enough of basically all of the above.  

Skill 5 is the only one that's not complete garbage, because at least it gives access to slow and an ethereal field. Two things we could actually use. However, it should also give confusion. 

The rest of  the skills are just bad.  Lose protection uptime to gain basically nothing.

[Decinomicon.4619]

40 minutes ago, CoffeePlease.3082 said:

It also shines a light on the new expansion content rollout and the big flaws with it. Putting all this development time into new weapons vs new specs is going to be incredibly hit and miss, because at the end of the day there are just going to be "the best weapons for your spec" and all the other ones will either be situational or never used by anyone taking the game seriously to any extent. That compared to new specs which gives you a new way to play your class is never going to deliver.

Thing is the other new weapons are actually good and have a use. Shortbow just doesn't.

[Gendalfs.7521]

Anet can we have some short interview with person who made this? Maybe we just dont understand the Grand idea of it?

[Ale.3280]

BAD:

• I can't play it.... the thing that i have to click the same button twice to have some effect is annoying..all buttons---2-3-4-5...It could be better if the "wells" are like the necro-staff... the well does his effect/damage when the enemy goes on it..
• the condi are wrong for me... try torment..bleeding..burning...no1 of them on the shortbow...
• no explosions...
• low dps in general
• small radius..
• superspeed instead of quickness
• some support ability (barrier, healing, etc...) are not on the Engi...he needs to stay on the circle..   you could add them staying ranged only for the engi
• too long the animation of the arrow... the targets will move in that time

GOOD:

• autoattack with more target with the elettric module... but wrong condi.....vulnerability COME ON!!

 

 

Edited November 28, 2023 by Ale.3280

[TowardsTheFuture.2160]

Sorry, forgot to mention: MORE GROUND TARGETING. As if we didn't have enough from grenade kit. They managed to take the annoying parts of grenade kit (so much ground targeting with slow travel time) plus bomb kit (arm time). Just let the things stick into enemies. I like the idea of choosing what bonus from detonations but, I'd rather like stacking arrows from AA then using 2-5 to set off chain reactions while also just doing their normal effects on use. Allowing you to choose to AA a bit between skills to get bigger effects or use them off cooldown. Also could give a reason to stay in weapon instead of in kits forever. 

[Nanoir.2315]

Gave bow a shot and really tried my best to give merit where its due.

The only nice thing I can say is this feels like a massively downgraded necro staff. 

I can't even begin to understand how this was approved. If you needed more time to design another weapon then go for it but instead this feels like someone liked necro staff and wanted to give engi one too on a really short notice.

Also with the introduction of buying hero points and a title that is exclusive to rmt??? Rip those poor newbies that will be spending cash on something that can be done easily. Kinda predatory if you ask me.

 

This game used to have so much going for it but devs aren't listening and now going into predatory practices. 

Nice one lads.

Edited November 28, 2023 by Nanoir.2315

[Blanche Neige.7241]

Kinda useless in open world PVE.

Useless against moving target : by the time you put one arrow on the ground, the target is already out of range of it's effect.

Useless agains every target : damage is so low it's laughable. And what is most needed in open world PVE is damage. Support is only useful in some very specific situations. You don't need support against regular mobs.

It's so slow to put 4 arrows on the ground that it makes the gameplay simply boring.

It is sad to see that some devs put their efforts on this to come up with something so useless...

[Jaruselka.5943]

1 hour ago, Zzik.5873 said:

Or make another weapon lol

Or improve the current weapons..

*cough*

*cough*

*pistols*

*cough*

 

[EdwinLi.1284]

I am certainly not feeling this weapon. It kind of miss the mark this time around.

[Atmaweapon.7345]

This weapon is the product of the same design mindset that crippled Engineer's design from its inception; It's like the devs feel like Engineer should be about "quirky" effects and equating quirkiness with fun regardless to how it actually feels in practice. This weapon is not only just a different flavor of Grenade/Bomb kit, the way it handles makes it feel so much worse to play.

Shortbow needs to be redesigned from the ground up. Chain reaction just doesn't work with static aoes on the ground, imagine if Shatter just detonated all of your clones on the spot and required an enemy to be at the center of them all to get the full effects, or if Scourge had to stack every single shade on the same spot to get the full effect of their F abilities.

Edited November 28, 2023 by Atmaweapon.7345

[SoftPup.3048]

I don't think I would use this even if engineer could weapon swap. Other than the graphics I don't have anything nice to say 😞

This is from a PvE Heal Scrapper instanced content perspective, as that's where I play heal Engineer.

Mace 2 gives barrier, regen, vigor, vuln, and acts as a finisher for quickness.
Mace 3 does (minor) CC and can provide barrier with System Shocker.
Shield 4 does protection, blast finisher, reflection, and CC (barrier again)
Shield 5 does protection, blocks, and CCs (barrier again)

Shortbow 2 provides barrier, and more than any individual application on Mace/Shield.
Shortbow 3 provides healing, which feels unnecessary considering how packed with healing Engineer already is. It also cleanses, but again, Engineer has an absurd amount of cleanses.
Shortbow 4 gives might and vuln, which aren't really that valuable in instanced PvE because they're everywhere, and scrapper easily provides this with Blast Gyro and HGH.
Shortbow 5 gives 3 seconds of superspeed on a 20 second cooldown. This is worthless on Scrapper because even without Gyroscopic Acceleration your heal and blast gyro toolbelt skills provide superspeed.

The barrier on Shortbow 2 could be useful if you need to pick something other than System Shocker, but not enough to give up Mace/Shield. I can't see myself using shortbow unless its completely redesigned. It's not just the power of the weapon, it's also just very boring.

[Icefyer.9208]

Support engie main chiming in. I agree with pretty much everything so far. Clunky, tiny radius, very weak compared to others, no protection so no reason to run it over mace + shield, etc... I was honestly curious and looking forward to this weapon when I first saw it and learned it was a support weapon.

Key word being WAS. Actually previewing it killed any hope I had for it on the spot. Which is a shame. I was really looking forward to a ranged support weapon, because I'm not a fan of exclusively melee due to hand problems.

[WhoWantsAHug.3186]

After some playtesting in PvP, I can say with certainty that shortbow is 100% the worst designed weapon in the game and it isn't even close. Completely obsolete and a HUGE liability to anyone running it. If you use shortbow you are gimping yourself to the nth degree, absolutely unplayable.

 

Ridiculously long cast time, projectile speed, coupled with having to manually detonate AND pathetically small radius makes for EXTREMELY clunky and frustrating gameplay. Needs a MAJOR overhaul/rework. Whoever gave the greenlight to release this after internal testing should be evaluated by management. Sorry not trying to be a kitten, but this is a major disappointment. I fail to see how anyone who designed this weapon actually plays GW2 or has any understanding of how combat works. Hopefully my message makes it apparent that this weapon needs updates IMMEDIATLEY. 

Aside from that, LOVING the engi buffs in PvP and the new relic of Vass is AWESOME!!!! support scrapper pumps so much healing now and comboing with Relic of Karakosa is super fun. 

Edited November 28, 2023 by WhoWantsAHug.3186

[RDBuck.6098]

I have play it for and hour and I couldn't stand it more I hate it and I will not be using it at all when it come live. That the radius not large enough takes too long to set up and to use this shortbow you need to weapon swap if you can weapon swap in a battle it could be useful but other than that it crap big time.

[mynamepickle.1673]

Possible bug? Tested in WvW

If you are are far away from a placed Essence trap, you cannot detonate it. Pressing detonate puts the flip skill on a small CD with no other action. The consequence of this behavior is that you have to wait for the original Essence to time out (up to 20s) before you can place a new one. Feels really bad in WvW where fights often take place over great distance.

 

 

Edited November 28, 2023 by mynamepickle.1673

[Swagger.1459]

Skills #2-#5 would be cooler, and far more useful, as straight aoe skills without needing extra activation. Think a tad bigger AoEs as well, have to go back and check. Less UI and more play please? 

[Robotmoxie.4025]

I'm pretty sad about how shortbow looks right now. I've wanted to use the Slingshot skin on my engineer for years now, and I've been maining my engineer for longer than that, watching the class grow and change from expac to expac.

Engi's in a great place when it comes to healing and damage. Making shortbow a support weapon- and then making it like this, with weak synergy and weak individual skills and weak damage coefficients- well, we're a class that can't weapon swap. We're not gonna lock ourselves into a weapon that doesn't play ball with the rest of the profession.

When I say this thing needs a redesign, I mean from the inside out. Keep the fantasy- the fantasy's fun! Bottled essence of this class or that, a brief explosion that results in a second or two of say, necromancer or guardian or mesmer flavor, that's great. But maybe start with the synergies and work backward toward the skills, if that makes sense? Say "I want this skill to count as an Elixir" or "I want this skill to count as an Explosion." For goodness' sake, if you said something crazy like "I want this skill to count as a Turret," you'd at least be cooking something.

My personal opinion is that we should be doing more Looney Tunes stuff with the shortbow. The auto-attack should have a stick of dynamite or a boxing glove strapped to it. The payloads should be more reminiscent of the classes they're cribbing- instead of strictly a little vial of liquid essence, maybe a funky little skull-shaped potion bottle or a swirling purple time magic with clock hands, I don't care. What I'm looking for is flavor, and the flavor of this weapon seems to be "engineer can bottle and weaponize what makes other classes successful," and that's both funny and a good idea.

Shortbow just ain't pulling it off. Stumbles at the execution. In an ideal world, it would synergize neatly with some aspect of Engineer's traits, and in doing so, exemplify the flavor it's intending to get across. Say Shortbow 5 was something wild like a Turret skill, as I mentioned earlier. Maybe it's a ground-targeted turret that you can fire on any surface. Suddenly that's WACKY for WvW, and it has direct synergies with Turret-enhancing traits, and with Tool Kit, because you can whack it back to health. Can you think of a use-case for a ground-targeted reflective bubble shield with a 900 range? Because I sure can!

I feel like I'm overstating my point, so please forgive me, but I feel very strongly about this. Engineer deserves a good shortbow, and not just because I want to use the Slingshot skin. Remember 2012, when the marketing material said that Engineer represented some of the newest ideas in Tyria, and the changes in Tyria's understanding of technology? This is a great opportunity to deliver on that core, original fantasy, by having the class say "Haha, I put your necromancy in a jar and fired it at a guy, and when he died he burst into minions." You know, or anything to that effect. It's a chance to reflect on the attitude of the class and produce a fresh take on it, and y'all...

Arenanet, I love ya, but again- you ain't doing it with this.

[Quentin.7140]

I think the idea has potential, having us choose between the effect of the combo field and the effect of the chain reaction is indeed pretty interesting. However in its current iteration it has many problems.

1. Currently the weapon is only usable as a heal support weapon
   1. Right now, i don't see how it's better than mace + shield for that role while being more complex
   2. Maybe put burning on 4, confusion on 5 and maybe torment on 3 but then it's competing with dual pistols

Then assuming it stays as a pure heal support weapon

1. The buff/heal/barrier radius is way too small.
   1. Free aim ground targeting is not equivalent to radius
   2. You can keep the 180 radius for the attack but buffs sould be at least 300 if not 360 (and as a general complaint just increase all buff radii everywhere)
2. The delay between the button press and the effect is too high
   1. Too much setup to do (potentially mid fight) for good results
   2. Attack times 2 to get a chain reaction going + delay after the manual explosion
   3. Maybe have the effect happen as the arrow gets into the ground and then have another explosion effect that would be reinforced with the chain reaction
3. The chain reaction on 4 and 5 is useless imo
   1. On 4 both the chain and the combo have the same effect : might generation but the one from the combo field is simply just better than the one from the chain
   2. On 5 it's basically just 50 breakbar damage, maybe have it give another boon
4. Too much screen clutter
   1. Have only the manual explosion create a combo field (it's the only one that will get triggered anyways)
   2. And chain reactions should do the explosion finisher alone after 0.25s
5. Healing on 3 is pretty underwhelming
   1. Could be resolved by switching the combo field to water and maybe replacing the current chain reaction wi some buff (choose between massive healing or one buff)

[Tulki.1458]

Most others already remarked on effectiveness. The weapon just isn't effective from a numbers standpoint, though the ability to do a chain reaction with skill 4 to grant 25 stacks of might is a cute novelty. Unfortunately that's where the effectiveness stops.

Another big problem (among everything else said) is that it's just too clunky and weirdly lacking in damage capabilities. Yes it's supposed to be a support weapon, but other support weapons still have some degree of damage scaling (including engi mace...). They're also more effective with less micromanagement.

The expectation that an engineer is required to line up chain reactions with FIVE casting delays (2,3,4,5 +chain) is completely silly. Engineer builds already need to incorporate kits to be effective in virtually any role, so not only is the shortbow underwhelming -- it also requires so much babysitting that you can't really use kits effectively. And the only payoff you get is something substantially worse than any other option, or no effect at all because the target walked slightly out of range while you were busy casting five skills.

I wish this wasn't made for support, because the engineer already has great support builds since SOTO launched. It honestly needs significant buffs and a radical redesign into something completely different, like maybe a hybrid stat weapon or something.