Thoughts on Oct 8 patch for Engi

[coro.3176]

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 Blunderbuss: Increased the minimum power coefficient from 0.87 to 1.1 in PvP only.

 Energizing Slam: Increased the base barrier from 196 to 516 and the barrier scaling from 0.2 to 0.5 in PvP and WvW.

Eh, good, but doesn't fix what makes those weapons unplayable in competitive, so I predict they will still not be played. Also, offhand pistol and sword could use some love too.

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 Healing Mist: Reduced the cooldown from 28 seconds to 25 seconds.

Eh.. I guess? This kit was already good, and Elixirs already see lots of play. Probably doesn't need this buff. Other kits need attention much more, like bomb kit, tool kit, etc.

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 Utility Goggles: This skill now applies protection in addition to its previous effects.

Does not address what makes this skill bad - it takes up precious space on the skill bar and doesn't do anything except stun break. Maybe Holo can afford this because it has a free damage kit with forge, but most specs can't afford to run gadgets like this. Maybe if it had ammo charges, like PBR? Maybe if it provided more general utility? Also, if you're going to give it another boon, Lesser Utility Goggles should get it too.

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 Regenerating Mist: Reduced the cooldown from 21 seconds to 18 seconds.

Nice QoL buff that makes your heal rotation less of a headache if not running tools

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 Smoke Vent: This skill now breaks stun. Increased the cooldown from 15 seconds to 25 seconds in PvP and WvW.

.. why though? If there's anything Flamethrower needs, it's not a stun break, given that its whole thing is pulsing stability with Juggernaut, and camping the kit. If anything a FT build is one that could afford to run utility skill stunbreaks like Utility Goggles. I'm just saying "I'm getting CCed too much in Flamethrower" is a problem no one was having.

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 Elixir X: Reduced the cooldown from 85 seconds to 75 seconds in PvP and WvW.

... ... ... ... if you asked *anyone* what the problem with Elixir X was, their answer would not have been "the cooldown is too long".

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 Energy Amplifier: This trait now grants power in addition to its previous effects.

This is actually huge. The problem is that the rest of the Inventions traitline is completely defensive/support focused, so you probably still won't run it unless you're going full cheese mode CC spam for Bunker Down.

[Jerus.4350]

I’m stoked for the stunbreak on ft5, but that’s cause I like to play condi Engi in PVE and dropping a kit hurts, so free stunbreak, heck yeah!

[bethekey.8314]

Didn't you say you're in Silver in another thread? That's fine and all, but I wouldn't frame opinions like an expert on what competitive Engi needs/doesn't need lol. Engineer is already in a bad place.

I agree with some things, but the Flamethrower = Juggernaut and Healing Mists/Elixirs takes are just bad.

I see almost 0 Engis performing well with them among players who know what they're doing.

 

 

[draxynnic.3719]

3 hours ago, coro.3176 said:

.. why though? If there's anything Flamethrower needs, it's not a stun break, given that its whole thing is pulsing stability with Juggernaut, and camping the kit. If anything a FT build is one that could afford to run utility skill stunbreaks like Utility Goggles. I'm just saying "I'm getting CCed too much in Flamethrower" is a problem no one was having.

Juggernaut is pretty much a meme build. Can be fun for messing around in open world or just ignoring frequent CCs seen in events like dragonstorm, but nobody runs it anywhere serious. It occasionally pops up in sPvP, but it usually gets smacked down pretty quickly when it does.

When you do see flamethrower in a serious build, it's usually running Incendiary Power instead and treating flamethrower pretty much like most other kits: dip in, use a high-impact skill or two, move on to the next kit.

[coro.3176]

1 hour ago, bethekey.8314 said:

Didn't you say you're in Silver in another thread? That's fine and all, but I wouldn't frame opinions like an expert on what competitive Engi needs/doesn't need lol. Engineer is already in a bad place.

I agree with some things, but the Flamethrower = Juggernaut and Healing Mists/Elixirs takes are just bad.

I see almost 0 Engis performing well with them among players who know what they're doing.

no, gold 2, but I lost all my placement matches and started in low silver. You don't think elixirs see play? That's most of the roaming builds I see in wvw, especially with vass relic

[bethekey.8314]

52 minutes ago, coro.3176 said:

no, gold 2, but I lost all my placement matches and started in low silver. You don't think elixirs see play? That's most of the roaming builds I see in wvw, especially with vass relic

Ah ok my bad 🙂 I don't consider WvW that competitive given all their stat modifiers and zerging. I do play an Elixir build and have good success but overall I consider them fairly weak. With equal skill, no build on Engi competes with the meta and we are arguably the easiest kill in the game for awhile.

Elixir S cd should be brought down to its old 20% reduced 48 sec cd as baseline, Elixir R should be a stunbreak again, Elixir B should probably grant 10 might to account for boon creep etc.

[Langeball.9351]

I get not liking the randomness of elixir X, but the skill really is insane. Relic of Rivers alac, power wrench and this patch lowering the cooldown further... Use elixir R and you can actually go full transformer mode. I haven't done the math, but you could probably reduce the cooldown to like 25 seconds.

 

Adding stunbreak to flamethrower actually makes it somewhat competitive. Maybe I choose that over elixir gun on maps where I can cheese by shooting through walls. Next up, buff Incendiary Ammo and reduce auto attack cast time to 1.75 seconds.

Edited September 17 by Langeball.9351

[H K.4057]

11 hours ago, Langeball.9351 said:

I get not liking the randomness of elixir X, but the skill really is insane. Relic of Rivers alac, power wrench and this patch lowering the cooldown further... Use elixir R and you can actually go full transformer mode. I haven't done the math, but you could probably reduce the cooldown to like 25 seconds.

Elixir X had a 75 second CD for a year in 2018, and this was further reduced by HGH trait to 60 seconds. It wasn't worth using power wrench back then, and it probably won't be worth using now. In actual gameplay, you can't really just pop Elixir X on CD. The best way to respond to an Elixir X is to just spam damage into it, so popping it willy nilly is just asking to be bursted down.

So, I did some math on Relic of Rivers and Power Wrench:

1. We get 2s of alacrity with relic, which translates to .5s CD reduction. This would be a total of 3.5s of CD reduction every time we dodge.

2. We can dodge twice immediately after using Elixir X, and then once every 5 seconds if we max our endurance regen.

3. We can dodge 2 more times when we use Elixir R.

4. We can dodge an additional time every 10 seconds using Sigil of Energy.

Doing all of this reduces the CD to about 30 seconds. So, we'd have a 33% uptime on Elixir X. The problem is that now we'd be spending 33% of our time transformed, which is not ideal.

TL;DR: Elixir X just isn't that good, and investing a lot of effort and skills to letting us use it more just means we are making ourselves more mediocre.

Edited September 17 by H K.4057
Mathed

[foxtrot.6902]

The "changes" feel a bit uninspired and more like a gesture. Most have me scratching my head a bit and an "ok I guess?". Slightly leaning towards don't bother with most of these so any future or real adjustments will be less convoluted.

I don't want to be mean, but it feels a bit like whoever is on changes/design either doesn't play engineer or plays a very different obscure version in one small corner of content of the game. 

pvp/wvw: engineer has a ton of versatility on paper, the problem is has a difficult time executing most due to multi-step requirements and stun-lock, utility slot cost/benefit, or setup time not worth the payoff. Time spent flipping in/out of a kit, cast time of kit skill, then if it's a projectile there's aim time + air time. All that extra dead space means zero counter pressure.  Eat a stun or miss and that's going to punish harder than most other professions. Or a kit-less example: Toss Elixir B, 1/2sec cast time but more likely closer to 1sec once you factor in aim/air time. Would be great if Toss Elixir B was a mist like "Regenerating Mist", off gcd even better, or if they're going to keep it as a toss at least bump up the base stability duration. In fact, would be nice if all the toolbelt elixirs were a mist version vs toss except for toss elixir R and X. 

Regenerating mist: the water field lasting longer than 0.5sec would be more helpful than a cd reduction

Utility goggles- ok I guess? Still seems like a luxury utility/toolbelt slot item most builds won't be able to afford. I'm down to be wrong but not sure I see it changing its lack of play time unless you can end up cheesing some sort of 100% protection uptime with it. Which might be able to w/gadgeteer + another source until it gets boon corrupted. Stability would've made it more of a competitive choice for me personally.

The change to flamethrower is nice to see, if that means they're starting to relook at kits. Won't argue against it, not sure it'll be all that stellar if you're not already in the kit since you'll have to swap into to hit it which cost a little time (maybe not a big deal for pve).  

Idk...don't wanna be super doom and gloom or get too hyperbolic lol. Engi isn't in the worst spot,  but the amount of gymnastics you have to do to compete with someone face rolling stuns and auto attacking feels a little off, add in changes to other professions, and starting to feel a little left behind competitively.  

[H K.4057]

20 hours ago, coro.3176 said:

Does not address what makes this skill bad - it takes up precious space on the skill bar and doesn't do anything except stun break. Maybe Holo can afford this because it has a free damage kit with forge, but most specs can't afford to run gadgets like this. Maybe if it had ammo charges, like PBR? Maybe if it provided more general utility? Also, if you're going to give it another boon, Lesser Utility Goggles should get it too.

Holo doesn't want this either since we already have Spectrum Shield. Having -50% incoming condi and strike damage plus multiple stacks of stability is far superior to resistance, prot, a removing 2 conditions. If the blindness removal and resistance is supposed to make Goggles our "break stun and burst back" utility, then Elixir U giving us stab and quickness is also superior. I personally think they need to just rework utility goggles into something much more offensive. For example, having it make our attacks unblockable and deal additional critical damage would be very interesting to build around.

[Twigifire.8379]

8 hours ago, H K.4057 said:

Holo doesn't want this either since we already have Spectrum Shield. Having -50% incoming condi and strike damage plus multiple stacks of stability is far superior to resistance, prot, a removing 2 conditions. If the blindness removal and resistance is supposed to make Goggles our "break stun and burst back" utility, then Elixir U giving us stab and quickness is also superior. I personally think they need to just rework utility goggles into something much more offensive. For example, having it make our attacks unblockable and deal additional critical damage would be very interesting to build around.

I think you're undervaluing utility goggles here. It's a very solid engineer stunbreak when traited for and the buff will definitely help it out. Utility Goggles + Traited + Lesser Utility Goggles + Durability Relic will give us perma-protection plus a huge amount of cleanses with inventions. Holo just has traited holo-leap that covers the weakness of SS to soft CC's and disengage superspeed that covers its long CD. If you didn't have traited holo-leap I'd argue utility goggles in a 1v1 will do you better more often.

Core Engi also has no skill like SS which breaks stun and provides cleanses/damage negation and losing that would be difficult to overcome with thieves/mesmers/willbenders/rangers/revs all having high mobility with CC-into-burst combos.

I think more attention should be put towards making skills like mines, ram, bombs, elixir c, elixir r, net turret, rocket turret, etc., viable before going too crazy with messing with goggles function. (They should just make elixir r an insta-cast stunbreak already again)

The patchnotes appear to still be messing with the things that probably don't need as much work as so many of our other skills and traits do.

[Luthan.5236]

Flamethrower ... also feels a bit more melee. (After the spear that is more melee.) I would prefer rifle buffs again. 😄
Not really interested in any other weapons.

[H K.4057]

7 hours ago, Twigifire.8379 said:

I think you're undervaluing utility goggles here. It's a very solid engineer stunbreak when traited for and the buff will definitely help it out. Utility Goggles + Traited + Lesser Utility Goggles + Durability Relic will give us perma-protection plus a huge amount of cleanses with inventions.

 

I can't wrap my head around a Holo build that not only takes tools and Gadgeteer, but also takes inventions. Is this an open world build?

[mov.1246]

The only really good thing in this balance patch is the flamethrower stunbreak. this is a great addition to all gamemodes.

But now the bad news: engineer is still in a very bad spot in pvp and this patch doesnt change it.

[SleepyBat.9034]

5 hours ago, H K.4057 said:

I can't wrap my head around a Holo build that not only takes tools and Gadgeteer, but also takes inventions. Is this an open world build?

More of a gimmick pvp/wvw build.

[SleepyBat.9034]

24 minutes ago, mov.1246 said:

The only really good thing in this balance patch is the flamethrower stunbreak. this is a great addition to all gamemodes.

But now the bad news: engineer is still in a very bad spot in pvp and this patch doesnt change it.

We will have to wait and see how much power they give inventions.

[coro.3176]

52 minutes ago, SleepyBat.9034 said:

We will have to wait and see how much power they give inventions.

Even if it's 250, the traitline is still missing a good GM trait IMO.

• can't get enough value out of Anticorrosion Plating unless you're spamming tons of protection.
• can't get enough value out of MDF unless you're playing full-support
• can't get enough value out of Bunker Down unless you're spamming a ton of CC

[Tofu.1865]

On 9/17/2024 at 8:31 AM, coro.3176 said:

Eh, good, but doesn't fix what makes those weapons unplayable in competitive, so I predict they will still not be played. Also, offhand pistol and sword could use some love too.

Sword and Pistol is already in a good place, Power mechs can do 36k DPS with just 5 buttons, dont even need to use a kit, same as my open world scrapper build that uses sword/pistol, can maintain perma quickness and 22 stacks of might.
Main hand pistol is kitten atm feels so bland and weak for a main hand weapon, Pistol 2 needs some projectile finisher

Rifle needs some team utility, not more damage, im a big fan of Rifle cuz I like the boom boom sound effect of HMS but I dont want it to have more damage because It will just get nerfed to the ground again.

All I can say is, Bomb kit needs some love and Engi Spear 2 issues needs to be fixed.

[Codename T.2847]

On 9/17/2024 at 5:14 AM, Jerus.4350 said:

I’m stoked for the stunbreak on ft5, but that’s cause I like to play condi Engi in PVE and dropping a kit hurts, so free stunbreak, heck yeah!

I agree! I started playing spear Engi in PvE recently, and it will be fun to not have to worry about stunbreak in case I get CC-d (no I'm not running juggernaut) 

[shion.2084]

Won't you have to be in FT in order to use the stun break when you you are stunned?   Who happens to be sitting around in FT in PvP?

[H K.4057]

17 hours ago, coro.3176 said:

Even if it's 250, the traitline is still missing a good GM trait IMO.

• can't get enough value out of Anticorrosion Plating unless you're spamming tons of protection.
• can't get enough value out of MDF unless you're playing full-support
• can't get enough value out of Bunker Down unless you're spamming a ton of CC

Bunker down would have been fine it it triggered on crit with an ICD. Not sure why they thought making a mediocre effect trigger on CC was ok for a gm trait.

[Ovalkvadratcylinder.9365]

50 minutes ago, H K.4057 said:

Bunker down would have been fine it it triggered on crit with an ICD. Not sure why they thought making a mediocre effect trigger on CC was ok for a gm trait.

probably because the idea was for bruiser builds to use it, and those builds might lack crit. atleast thats wha ti gathered form the stream, but idk tbh. on-crit seems way more usefull

[bambi.6214]

These are very reasonable comments, I can agree with most of them.

These changes in general again sound like ANet has a "possible changes for engineer - list" somebody prepared 9 years ago, and they're just pulling stuff from it at random. These are certainly changes to engineer of all time. Like, nobody really asked for those, they won't change much, and ANet was certainly able to introduce them.

Edited September 20 by bambi.6214

[Twigifire.8379]

5 hours ago, Ovalkvadratcylinder.9365 said:

probably because the idea was for bruiser builds to use it, and those builds might lack crit. atleast thats wha ti gathered form the stream, but idk tbh. on-crit seems way more usefull

It used to be on-crit but it was nerfed from Engi being a bit too good at side-node bunkering with a Demo/Paladin amulet. 

[MaLong.2079]

On 9/16/2024 at 11:14 PM, Jerus.4350 said:

I’m stoked for the stunbreak on ft5, but that’s cause I like to play condi Engi in PVE and dropping a kit hurts, so free stunbreak, heck yeah!

This is no buff though, it is a nerf in disguise.  A stunbreak is only useful if you are immobilized (of course! 😁) but blinding the opponent for 5 seconds on a 15 second cooldown is useful at any time.

If they just added the stunbreak then that would be good and I would consider it balanced because using the skill to blind your opponent would run the risk of having the stunbreak on cool down when needed. But adding the stunbreak and almost doubling the cool down from 15 to 25 seconds for both the stunbreak and the blindness... thats a hard nerf on the blindess.

I really don't like that change.  🤢