ANet power-crept all ranged engi builds into irrelevance

[Sindust.7059]

I'm doing literally 4k more dps with the spear than with pistols on my condi mech now (38k with pistols, 42k with spear). Power rifle builds have all been dead for a while, and shortbow never was a viable damage weapon. Even if I play kitless with 5 signets, spear does 2k more DPS than a more complex rotation with pistols and grenade kit. Spear condi mech is now exactly the same as what people hated about rifle mech in EoD except it also does top DPS (if I can do 42k with it, the snowcrows people can probably do 45-50k with it).

And I hate the spear playstyle. It's worse than willbender with the insane amount of forced movement.

If spears are going to be the new baseline (which it seems they will be since ANet said in their blogpost before release that they are happy with the engi spear DPS numbers), pistols and especially rifle should get a massive buff to allow people who want to play engi to actually play engi and not willbender.

Edited August 23 by Sindust.7059

[Alcatraznc.3869]

It kind of makes sense spear does more damage since you cant maintain a permanent damage uptime by virtue of being limited to 130 range. Pistol is fine I would say but rifle definitely needs some buff

[Tofu.1865]

1 hour ago, Sindust.7059 said:

I'm doing literally 4k more dps with the spear than with pistols on my condi mech now (38k with pistols, 42k with spear). Power rifle builds have all been dead for a while, and shortbow never was a viable damage weapon. Even if I play kitless with 5 signets, spear does 2k more DPS than a more complex rotation with pistols and grenade kit. Spear condi mech is now exactly the same as what people hated about rifle mech in EoD except it also does top DPS (if I can do 42k with it, the snowcrows people can probably do 45-50k with it).

And I hate the spear playstyle. It's worse than willbender with the insane amount of forced movement.

If spears are going to be the new baseline (which it seems they will be since ANet said in their blogpost before release that they are happy with the engi spear DPS numbers), pistols and especially rifle should get a massive buff to allow people who want to play engi to actually play engi and not willbender.

If you hate it then don't use it, personally I still use pistols on bosses because it's ranged, Pistol 3 is really good if there is another monster nearby and the blind is real good for ads
but on clearing fracs I use Spear because it got better CC and better burst, Spear having a little bit higher DPS is very justified because it's a CLOSE RANGE weapon, you can't be having 40k+ DPS while being ranged and while having easy rotation *laughs in condi virt*

and btw if your Spear 2 misses (happens alot), your DPS is down by ALOT, Pistols don't have that.,

[MrForz.1953]

Pistols are extremely comfy for the damage output and overall compatibility they possess and you can stay on target on far more occasions with less hoops to jump through; and since I'm not exactly in the mood to miss perfectly static targets with spear 2 I'm going to remain with pistols against encounters worth taking seriously.

For rifle... I don't know anymore. The weapon's very embarrassing to even look at.

[Sindust.7059]

12 hours ago, Tofu.1865 said:

Spear having a little bit higher DPS is very justified because it's a CLOSE RANGE weapon

So range is the only thing that matters for the DPS numbers... Not the amount of AoE, not the fact that with spear you can have a braindead 4 button whack-a-mole rotation and still do almost 40k DPS... Give me a break.

Point me to a single instance of ANet saying that that's the way they balance things. Because power tempest has all 4: top DPS, simplicity, massive AoE and the ability to go ranged and still do decent DPS. And you already mentioned virtuoso. And both of them by the way have more complicated rotations than spear mech. Their complexity is much closer to a 1 kit rotation.

Stop making excuses for ANet power-creeping fun builds into irrelevance while replacing them with the worst things imaginable.

[Tofu.1865]

6 minutes ago, Sindust.7059 said:

So range is the only thing that matters for the DPS numbers... Not the amount of AoE, not the fact that with spear you can have a braindead 4 button whack-a-mole rotation and still do almost 40k DPS... Give me a break.

Point me to a single instance of ANet saying that that's the way they balance things. Because power tempest has all 4: top DPS, simplicity, massive AoE and the ability to go ranged and still do decent DPS. And you already mentioned virtuoso. And both of them by the way have more complicated rotations than spear mech. Their complexity is much closer to a 1 kit rotation.

Stop making excuses for ANet power-creeping fun builds into irrelevance while replacing them with the worst things imaginable.

AoE does not matter in boss fights, Damage consistency and survivability matter the most, and guess which weapon of the 2 does it better? The pistols ofcourse.
Pistols won't be irrelevant since it deals 39k+ DPS too even at 1 kit.

[Sindust.7059]

20 minutes ago, Tofu.1865 said:

AoE does not matter in boss fights, Damage consistency and survivability matter the most, and guess which weapon of the 2 does it better? The pistols ofcourse.
Pistols won't be irrelevant since it deals 39k+ DPS too even at 1 kit.

I don't know the current benchmark numbers, but I'm doing 37-38k with 1 kit with pistols, and 42k with the same build with spear. If you want to talk about 39k+ for pistols, show me the same person using spear, because I'm sure they will be at 44-45k at least. Pistols are irrelevant if there is an option that does 10-20% more in most situations.

Also rotation simplicity contributes a lot to damage consistency, and it doesn't get simpler than 4 button whack-a-mole.

[draxynnic.3719]

2 hours ago, Sindust.7059 said:

So range is the only thing that matters for the DPS numbers... Not the amount of AoE, not the fact that with spear you can have a braindead 4 button whack-a-mole rotation and still do almost 40k DPS... Give me a break.

Point me to a single instance of ANet saying that that's the way they balance things. Because power tempest has all 4: top DPS, simplicity, massive AoE and the ability to go ranged and still do decent DPS. And you already mentioned virtuoso. And both of them by the way have more complicated rotations than spear mech. Their complexity is much closer to a 1 kit rotation.

Stop making excuses for ANet power-creeping fun builds into irrelevance while replacing them with the worst things imaginable.

Power tempest relies on being in overload range roughly 50% of the time. I wouldn't consider what it does if it's forced to be more than 360 away for longer than it takes overload to charge to be decent DPS.

[coro.3176]

16 hours ago, Tofu.1865 said:

 Spear having a little bit higher DPS is very justified because it's a CLOSE RANGE weapon

In practice, Pistol is a close range weapon too, and so is Rifle. Spear should probably be a little higher than both, but not a lot higher. They're trying to sell expansions though, so .. that's just how it is

[LilBiM.3581]

I don't know what all the complaining is about but if you've been around for a while you'll know that the nerfs will come. Just let people enjoy their spear for a little bit before the masses launch themselves into this forum to complain that Engineer is still playable and should be kicked between the teeth.

Doing it to yourself is just sad. ( or perhaps... 🤔 )

 

That said, it's a melee weapon, it should be a bit stronger because there's more risk or you being stun-locked to thy kingdom come ( 4 - 6 years roughly ) by a warrior then put on your back.

Personally I think they should add a blind on spear 2, and give spear AA 160 range so you can at least pretend to kite things while they AA and load you up with bleed, poison, vuln and burning. The evade on 1 is nice but I can't summon my third AA precisely when I need it to save my tail.

[Tofu.1865]

6 hours ago, coro.3176 said:

In practice, Pistol is a close range weapon too, and so is Rifle. Spear should probably be a little higher than both, but not a lot higher. They're trying to sell expansions though, so .. that's just how it is

Yes, but in mechanics you are required to move a lot out of range, can you shoot with your spear on a distance? Spamming Nade kit 1 won't give you consistent DPS, huge example is when I outDPSed a spear Mechanist in Lonely Tower and I am using Pistols while collecting orbs, we're just both fractal savants with the very same build, Guess why?
I don't mind them toning down the DPS of Spear a bit but they gotta fix Spear 2 and Spear 5 issues first.

So why are the Pistols irrelevant again?

Edited August 24 by Tofu.1865

[Alcatraznc.3869]

2 hours ago, Tofu.1865 said:

I don't mind them toning down the DPS of Spear a bit but they gotta fix Spear 2 and Spear 5 issues first.

 

I am not. When the spear does work it's a solid weapon but not OP due to having to keep the focus buff on target. Now yes it's true that auto attack 3 refresh it and S2 is on a relatively short CD but when boss moves around back and forth or switch phases, that's quite a DPS nerf you get.

But it's hard to talk about balance when your weapon mechanic is broken so I suppose waiting until it is fixed should be the top priority before anything else

[Luthan.5236]

First I thought I was kinda bad - usually played ranged (rifle) at the  1-target champ (or better) events in OW. Gives a bit CC from skill 4. Mostly focusing on power in my gear - not switching it a lot.

The spear got me killed a bit too often and the champs in JW seem tanky. Normal mobs seemed fine though and I now did stuff for the vault in older maps (not core though lol) - felt like the spear (though I still have mainly power gear ... not getting much out of the conditions it offerys) feels like melting stuff much faster.

Previously I had the hammer for open world trash mobs. Which gave with 5 then 2 a good option to do the 3 combos for daily. Need to see how I can do that with the spear. (Changed an utility skill to provide a combo field - finishers are at spear it seems.)

[Xerxez.7361]

On 8/22/2024 at 7:51 PM, Sindust.7059 said:

I'm doing literally 4k more dps with the spear than with pistols on my condi mech now (38k with pistols, 42k with spear). Power rifle builds have all been dead for a while, and shortbow never was a viable damage weapon. Even if I play kitless with 5 signets, spear does 2k more DPS than a more complex rotation with pistols and grenade kit. Spear condi mech is now exactly the same as what people hated about rifle mech in EoD except it also does top DPS (if I can do 42k with it, the snowcrows people can probably do 45-50k with it).

And I hate the spear playstyle. It's worse than willbender with the insane amount of forced movement.

If spears are going to be the new baseline (which it seems they will be since ANet said in their blogpost before release that they are happy with the engi spear DPS numbers), pistols and especially rifle should get a massive buff to allow people who want to play engi to actually play engi and not willbender.

Is that on Golem, because in actual fights I'm finding the damage to match Pistol or in a lot of cases end up lower because the Spear 2 misses and doesn't apply focus properly (Even against non moving enemies). Overall the only use I've found for Spear over pistol is fights where I don't have access to boons where it far surpasses pistol.

[Sindust.7059]

7 hours ago, Xerxez.7361 said:

Is that on Golem, because in actual fights I'm finding the damage to match Pistol or in a lot of cases end up lower because the Spear 2 misses and doesn't apply focus properly (Even against non moving enemies). Overall the only use I've found for Spear over pistol is fights where I don't have access to boons where it far surpasses pistol.

Golem. But bugfixes will come and they will not change anything about the design of the weapon. If engi spear had revenant or warrior design, I wouldn't have made this thread, nor would I have done it if engi had weapon swap and I could have a ranged secondary weapon. Nor would it be a problem if any of the kits were actually good at range (and no, grenade kit isn't good, it needs to have an enemy-targeted auto-attack to be a good ranged substitute and either have other skills also be enemy-targeted or have a much larger AoE to be able to hit moving targets).

[draxynnic.3719]

1 hour ago, Sindust.7059 said:

(and no, grenade kit isn't good, it needs to have an enemy-targeted auto-attack to be a good ranged substitute and either have other skills also be enemy-targeted or have a much larger AoE to be able to hit moving targets).

The grenade kit enjoyers like it like that - it's a skill expression to know the right place to throw it to maximise the effect and players who have practiced it probably can do better than the computer.

Would be nice to have a realistic alternative ranged kit, though. Elixir gun was once, but it's been powercrept and rebalanced into a support tool. 

[Aenesthesia.1697]

On top of it being better than pistols right now, they give us some extra CC which is always welcome. Yeah, rip pistols for the most part.