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Adaptive Engineeer
beleren
Member Posts: 63
I made an engineer build which depends fast kit swapping for adapting dynamic conditions. The main approach is change to condition remover/self healer when opponent burst out and change to damage dealer/Condition applier when you immobilize them. I know this build is heavly player skill dependant(At least seem much harder than turret build. You can't rest a little bit. You need to play very carefully to play it well I guess) but I think it has great potential because of diversity. I never played the game so I don't have any experience about kits. Can people who tested engineer comment on my build and tell me the strengths and weaknesses of different kits? I also curious about mortar elite. Is it useful in WvWvW? Because it seems like both attack and defense weapon for castle siege.
Build: http://gw2.luna-atra.fr/skills_tool/?lang=en&code=3ekag0dre4e3e0hfkdu00kk9s9va1b0b4bibm
Comments
I played a charr enginner during the stress test (min-beta) on Monday and had a blast. Hands down one of the most fun professions to play. My main will stil prob be an asura elementalist but my 2nd will def be the engineer.
Engineer totally surprised me. I had quite a bit of fun with it as well.
BOYCOTTING EA / ORIGIN going forward.
I think there isn't so much interest in engineers.
I've been working on the Engineer almost exclusively during the beta's ; tested countless builds and given my input to the Anet team for the tweaks I think are nessecary for the profession to be AS viable as the rest.
I'll preface by stating this : The engineer gives the general impression of flexibility, which is arguably an illusion. There are currently several things holding the Engineer back from being the flexible profession, namely some kits are in bad shape and traits are in worse shape. The only role that an Engineer performs on an equal footing with the rest of the professions is the CC / Support role.
I will conceed that with what I consider minor tweaks and dps buffs the engineer can easily be brought back into profession viability. Its not a dire situation .... which I have to stress, there is nothing horribly wrong with the Engineer. The reason I claim the profession needs work to be "AS viable as the rest" is because in a game like Gw2 the small factors matter the most.
Your Build : I'd like to think I'm adult enough to NOT tell anyone that a certain build won't work, play the profession the way YOU feel comfortable playing it, this is more so true with the Engineer than arguably any other profession. ( Except perhaps the Elementalist ) I will say that with the current way traits are distributed for the Engineer its unwise to try and build a character with two goals in mind, as for me it seemed to weaken the class further. Traits are the major hold-back when designing a build for the profession , as most traits seems to have been arbitrarily placed. The only critque I have of your build seems to be the major componet, constant kit-swapping. The buffs associated with kit swapping and the "spells created" by it are marginal, they didn't seem to be influencial enough to design a build around.
The only suggestion I would make is .. let's assume Anet corrects the current issues with the Engineer, thus making all kits viable and giving the Engineer the ability to be a flexible, reactionary profession as I think it has been designed to be. In that case the Engineer who actually takes multiple kits in a set build will have the most possible flexibility ; I would still structure myself around having ONE goal in mind. ( Or one playstyle )
--- I would also HIGHLY recommend playing in one of the BWE'S so you can test the profession out for yourself, I've found that most of the professions on paper play remarkably different when you have your hands on them.
These two videos will give you some insight into the power of the Engineer and what it can do in the hands of a skilled player.
He uses a 3-kit build in the 2nd video, so it's right up your alley.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuinNjbnnDM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMrz8mLcLys
NO
I am begging you and the community to STOP showcasing glorified " Best Of " videos. These videos are NOT an accurate depiction of what the Engineer is capable of, nor the players ability with that profession. Are they wonderful videos ... yes but only when you take them for what they are. People see these sort of videos and set themselves up for failure by equating that profession to whats demonstrated , which is simply not how the majority of the professions experience is.
Engineers were one of the professions I dreaded the most when I played. They seemed to have short-ish cooldowns and, while they did not have huge spikes, they managed to keep a very steady DPS while exerting a LOT of map control. The Gun+Shield build is just cruel.
Engineer is very underpowered in its curent state. As someone that played heavily with Ritualist in the first game, I'm a bit dissapointed in the lack of flexibility/viable specs that are on equal footing with other classes. I'm sure it's just part of the balancing process, but having played a similar class for years and having played every class in GW2 at least a little in both PVE and PVP I would have to say it's the weakest.
No need to get all uppity just because you didn't have much luck with the profession. Others did (myself included) and had nothing but good things to say about it. Perhaps you should reconsider your approach because maybe there's a better way than how you tested it. It's not like we've had a lot of time to flesh out all the possibilities. There are a lot of utility and control skills to learn and master.
There's a lot of possibilities with builds, but not a whole lot of viable ones. It's a very fun class, no doubt, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of room to mix and match utility skills to your preference. It seems likely to me that cookie cutter builds will become more effective than adapting to the situation at hand, at least in PVP.
I disagree, I would say its the most complex to play - and therefore its effectiveness is very reliant on some fast thinking and reaction on the users part.
Teldo ( in the vids above ) doesn't have any trouble wiping out groups of players mostly by himself - but he is very quick on his reaction time and in his understanding of what he can do and what the other classes are doing to him.
Also keep in mind the requirements he had to taken them all out that way:
1) He had to blow his epic to do it. He's not going to have that cooldown available all the time.
2) He needed amazingly fast reaction times to get all his aoes/CC out that fast without a chance to break out.
3) He had to hope noone had the presence of mind to pop something that negated his CC...as we see a Guardian do in one of this videos.
4) He ran up on foure morons going "derp" and not keeping a lookout at the obvious blind spot near their cap point.
TL;DR: Power yes, but also highly situational.
NO
I am begging you and the community to STOP showcasing glorified " Best Of " videos. These videos are NOT an accurate depiction of what the Engineer is capable of, nor the players ability with that profession. Are they wonderful videos ... yes but only when you take them for what they are. People see these sort of videos and set themselves up for failure by equating that profession to whats demonstrated , which is simply not how the majority of the professions experience is.
Oh, I guess we should show videos of mediocre players then so that everyone will think every class is terrible. That way they'll have the realistic expectation that they'll suck when they play because with the exception of these outliers everyone will be shitty.
"What do you guys think of kit engineers?"
"Here's some videos of someone doing very well with kits."
"NO! Nobody will ever be able to play like that!"
"Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." -Dr. Seuss
I say its the player, not the class..
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I completely understand this point and agree that what he did in the 1st video was highly situational. However in the 2nd video even though his elite was negated by the Guardian, look how he used the Engineer skills to continue to control the fight and not only survive the attack (by 4 players mind you), but wind up picking them off one-by-one. Now given that he's a very skilled player, he probably could have done the same with just about any profession, but the thing that he demonstrated was how it could be done effectively with an Engineer.
nvm
The post isn't about MY ability with the profession , leave the personal attacks at the door. I had nothing but success with the profession, hence the reason I'll be playing it. The profession needs work to be competitve, not fun or useful , but Competitively Viable. The Engineer currently only has a few working builds, where as most other professions have a myriad of builds showcasing ANets designs.
The reason I detest those sort of videos is because they are Edited Best Of highlight reels, they don't demonstrate a realistic approach to Engineer play. I could shot holes in his video all day ... do I really need to shoot holes in an edited highlight reel? Highlight reels are not good demonstrations of a professions ability, period.
The profession needs work , its not broken ... it just isn't competitvely viable. An Engineer player has to play better than any other player just to match the raw performance of other professions.
The problem is you are trying to censor something. That is not persuasive to people.
Critqiue the videos don't try to censor them. Censoring them has a basic underlying assumption that the people you are attempting to communicate to are stupid and gullible. This approach can never work for persuasion only for control.
Way to cut right to it, as usual, Gestalt. Your implications are correct, I do assume the majority of people will see the video and exspect the Engineer to play like that. I'm not wrong in that mindset , I'd wager the amount of people who base their class selections off Best Of videos far exceeds those who actually test them.
The engineer is by far more viable in PvE than it is in PvP.
Playing an Engineer in PvE was pretty fun once I got the hang of it, but the problem is that it feels too average without the spike potential available to other professions. It especially hurts that the DPS for ranged attacks feel a lot lower when compared to pretty much anyone else.
Although turrets are useful, they are far too weak and situational. The melee type buffs available feel too limited without any actual melee weaponry being available.
While the Engineer can work well in the hands of a skilled player, unfortunately the Elementalist or Mesmer both offer far more utility.
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My responses are in this color.
I've detailed in various other threads on these forums what needs work on the Engineer, and what I feel is currently fine.
Draefell -- " While the Engineer can work well in the hands of a skilled player, unfortunately the Elementalist or Mesmer both offer far more utility. "
Edit * Changed my font color, sorry I'm partially Color blind so .. the subtle differences escape me.
I read the Engineer forums and yes there were a lot of complaint posts, but I personally think that has much to do with the complexity of the profession plus the limited playtime we've been given with it. Not that there aren't adjustments that can be made, but to call it "not competitively viable" is an exaggeration in my opinion. Admittedly, when I first started playing the Engineer I was disappointed and switched to Mesmer which I absolutely loved. But I wanted to stick with the Engineer so I did some research, read how other people were having success with it, and watched videos showing ways to play that I didn't even consider. Then I went back during the stress test and it was night and day. The Mesmer pales in comparison (for me).
The vast majority of the complaints about the Engineer that I've read have to do with sheer DPS, mainly because people read "turrets" and they instantly presume that DPS is what the Engineer is all about... it's not. Considering all the utility and control skills available to it, do you honestly think that boosting the DPS without nerfing (or altogether removing) some of those utility/control skills will balance the profession? Once people catch on to how to utilize all the skills I guarantee you (if they do boost the damage) the nerd rage about how overpowered it is will be legendary.
* Snipping the rest *
I will conceed that a large part of the community was overwhelmed by the complexity of the profession, but after the epiphany the class really isn't absurdly complex. I'd argue that a properly played Multi Element is more difficult on a micro level, but thats not the point of the discussion.
I think the class needs a minor across the board dps boost just to begin with, I'll explain why. Take an elmentalist ... look at the sheer amount of utility in its attunements ... its almost a wash when compared to the Engineer. The difference between an elementalist and an engineer is in the DPS. You can run the comparissons with the mesmer too, which I had the benift of having a mate exclusively test/building. They don't need a huge buff, or a moderate buff ... just a small across the board damage buff. Arguably the one skill which doesn't need a buff is " Big Ol' Bomb" which I'd be willing to bet gets nerfed. ( Not that its to strong currently, its just its stronger than the rest of the Engineers abilties and thus stands out )
The traits also need to be looked at , they are incredibly uncoordinated. Examples : Explosive Elixirs in the explosive line, why? It would be one thing if the explosion from thrown elixirs was effect by the traits in the Explosive line such as shrapnel or explosive powder , but they aren't. There are SEVERAL more of these sort of issues in the traits ... which make alot of theory builds not competitvely viable.
I don't mean to arbitraily come across as splattering my opinion of the Engineer and holding it as the golden word , I realize I can be mistaken on some things. What I guess I should convey to begin with is why when I make a blanket statement about the engineer why I feel qualified to make that statement. I didn't just spend a few hours with the class nor a build or two. I went into the BWE's with the sole purpose of seeing exactly what an Engineer could do and what builds I could come up with. What I found were several minor issues which hamstring the classes ability to have many competitive builds.
As so many others have said, Engineers are fun and have potential but definitly not viable in PvP. My plan is to wait and see what ANet decides during the beta tuning. If they find a way to make them viable, I'll play them. If not, no biggy, I'll just play Ranger instead. Rangers are currently kind of like a viable version of the Eng with a mobile turret.