[GW2] Engineer discussion

[terrahero]

with a 10s CD blunderbuss is more to punish people in melee range than a core part of your strategy

net shot, overcharge shot, and jump shot are very much kiting/mobility tools

Uhuh, and the Flamethrower has a pull ability. Just like the Tool kit. Jump Shot can be used to escape, but deals quite decent damage when used offensively to close the distance. Making Jump Shot to someone + Blunderbuss a strong opening strategy.

There are to much elements about the Engineer that work for melee range or acquiring melee range to say that Engineer is mostly ranged. It might lean towards range, but it has a wide range of tools and abilities for melee range combat or short ranged combat as well.

[Glytch]

Uhuh, and the Flamethrower has a pull ability. Just like the Tool kit. Jump Shot can be used to escape, but deals quite decent damage when used offensively to close the distance. Making Jump Shot to someone + Blunderbuss a strong opening strategy.

There are to much elements about the Engineer that work for melee range or acquiring melee range to say that Engineer is mostly ranged. It might lean towards range, but it has a wide range of tools and abilities for melee range combat or short ranged combat as well.

I was suggesting its misleading to label rifle as a strong melee range weapon, which the quoted line suggests

Weapons don't define engineer playystyles the way it does for other professions it's all about utilities for them the weapons are really there to play off the utils

[terrahero]

I was suggesting its misleading to label rifle as a strong melee range weapon, which the quoted line suggests

Weapons don't define engineer playystyles the way it does for other professions it's all about utilities for them the weapons are really there to play off the utils

Srry if i gave that impression, i thought i was clear enough. But technically the rifle is at its strongest in close range

[PonyCannon]

Pretty good Engineer pvp video

Uses a rifle as his main weapon and 2 turrets + 1 kit as utilities including mine kit (which I personally hadn't seen yet).

Also uses supply drop elite.



Another note. Seems demon master Necro's are going to hurt a bit (Gets beat twice by the same one. only the 1st time was really bad)

[Yesadamb]

That video is actually the first time I've gotten to see how the med packs work. You don't have to press F to interact or anything, just be below 100% health and walk over them.

Unrelated, I'm a bit concerned about how the engineer will do underwater. The 2-4 spear gun skills are about the most unwieldy skills I've seen in any weapon set. The mines simply go forward a preset distance and go off after a preset time making them easily avoidable, the timed charge simply drops at your feet forcing you to stay unmoving in melee range, and the grappling line might be useful for interrupting a target/taking heat off an ally but that's about it. That leaves the net wall and the auto attack as the only skills that regularly make sense to use. I'm not very clear on how some the utility skills like kits and turrets work underwater so I don't know if they will balance out the regular weapon set or if we'll be stuck with it as our left bar.

[Mif]

That video is actually the first time I've gotten to see how the med packs work. You don't have to press F to interact or anything, just be below 100% health and walk over them.

Unrelated, I'm a bit concerned about how the engineer will do underwater. The 2-4 spear gun skills are about the most unwieldy skills I've seen in any weapon set. The mines simply go forward a preset distance and go off after a preset time making them easily avoidable, the timed charge simply drops at your feet forcing you to stay unmoving in melee range, and the grappling line might be useful for interrupting a target/taking heat off an ally but that's about it. That leaves the net wall and the auto attack as the only skills that regularly make sense to use. I'm not very clear on how some the utility skills like kits and turrets work underwater so I don't know if they will balance out the regular weapon set or if we'll be stuck with it as our left bar.

Yeah, losing kits (especially on turret builds) underwater is one of the bigger issues.

[Northy]

Do turrets last until cancelled or do they have a set time limit?
Do turrets preferentially attack players instead of pets/minions? It would suck if they didn't.

[PonyCannon]

I have no evidence of this, It's just what I think.

Turrets probably have a long duration but disappear when you get too far away from them. As for the targeting they would probably have a hit whatever you hit sort of thing going or else I think they would be severely weakened outside of 1v1.

[Mif]

An hour of 720p PVP from LewisB

[PonyCannon]

An hour of 720p PVP from LewisB

Sweet lordy... Thank You!!!

[zardon3001]

An hour of 720p PVP from LewisB

Very nice. Thank you for that. Hmm I like the setup he had.

[terrahero]

Awesome video. Im suddenly very split in my choice between Mortar as Elite or Supply Drop. Those turrets and heals are great support in a tight spot for you and your whole team.
Sadly, and this is from the description if the youtube vid, it seems skills cannot be bound to alt+ or ctrl+ or shift+. Im sad about that and really hope they change that.

[DrakeWurrum]

Supply Drop may be useful, but firing a mortar just sounds kick ass!

[terrahero]

Supply Drop may be useful, but firing a mortar just sounds kick ass!

Agreed. :P

Altough i think Mortar would be particullary usefull in WvWvW if it gains any form of siege-type damage. But using it to lob clusterbombs of explosives at grouped enemies from the walls of a keep also sounds like a fairly effective use.

There are a few concerns i have with the Engineer class tough, some popped up again during this lovely 1h pvp-fest of a video.
-Dual pistols, it just doesnt look right that you mostly use only one pistol and only the offhand one for 2 utility abilities. Even if it was just for animations sake, make it look like im firing with both pistols. It would just look so much cooler.

-Bomb kit sounds pretty poor on paper, i know i know it shouldnt be used on paper. But the few times ive seen it used it seemed to perform poorly. The toolbelt ability takes forever to go off and is glaringly obvious so its easy to avoid. And bombs in general are easy to avoid. LewisB uses it for a short while in that video, but not for long as he too realizes it doesnt do him any good.

-Underwater combat? How will the various weapon kits or turrets work? Weapon kits and turrets make up a large portion of our Utility skills. If they are downright unuseable underwater that might be a problem. But i havent really seen much underwater combat, let alone Engineer underwater combat.

[DrakeWurrum]

So does anybody know which kits Armor Mods and Leg Mods are active for specifically? :S

[Mif]

So does anybody know which kits Armor Mods and Leg Mods are active for specifically? :S

Armed: Elixir Gun, Flamethrower, Tool Kit
Unarmed: Bomb Kit, Grenade Satchel, Med Kit, Mine Kit

[DrakeWurrum]

Oooooh, I just found something fun..

Pierce is a property of shots that allow them to fly through a target and hit everything in a straight line.

But now that I've been looking over some of this, I actually do have some thoughts about the whole underwater combat thing...

How will tool kits work underwater? They're not like the standard concept of weapons sets, after all, as they are available to use through utility skill slots.

---------- Post added 2012-04-03 at 07:53 PM ----------

Do turrets last until cancelled or do they have a set time limit?
Do turrets preferentially attack players instead of pets/minions? It would suck if they didn't.

According to the wiki, we can "pack up" turrets to redeploy elsewhere.

---------- Post added 2012-04-03 at 09:53 PM ----------

So this is the build I'm leaning towards right now...

But I'm worried this might be too... "jack of all trades" in build. :S
Might it be that I should try to only have one kit?

I like the grenade kit best, but the tool kit just looks so bad-ass. Who doesn't want to hit somebody with a wrench?!

[Chronius]

Does anyone know if the bomb kit has higher damage/dps compared to other kits? as to offset that it has to be placed/timed to be effective, at least on mobile targets.

[terrahero]

Does anyone know if the bomb kit has higher damage/dps compared to other kits? as to offset that it has to be placed/timed to be effective, at least on mobile targets.

Little have i seen about the bomb kit. I saw someone play a full hour doing nothing but pvp as an engineer, and for a brief moment he tried the bomb kit. It looked "unwieldy" to say the least. The damage didnt look anything exceptional, and enemy players were easily avoiding them alltogether because they are delayed-detonation.
Especially the toolbelt skill, which drops a large bomb, which managed to fail to hit anyone every single time he used it. Didnt take long before he switches to something else and swapped the kit.

The problem lies in where the bomb kit excells. It excells against motionless or slowed targets, but this means outside support or using other kits/weapons to get a target in a position where you can use a bomb or two. Which is limited. It also excells in aoe-damage, however since bombs are melee it means YOU are in the middle of a GROUP of enemy players.

It might perform better when two large groups clash in WvW and in the chaos you can get a few good detonations off. But that us such a niché role. Problem isnt so much the damage, it could deal a huge amount. The problem is people easily avoided it alltogether. So this will definatly need some tweaking, perhaps in the blast radius and the fuse. If you drop a bomb dead centre on another player, he cannot outrun the blast unless he uses Dodge or an ability that rapidly displaces himself.

Just my impressions of the bomb kit.

[DrakeWurrum]

I'm hoping they scrap the bomb kit in favor of something else. Or, at the very least, cause them to be thrown bombs (with the distinction of having a timed fuse, rather than exploding on impact like grenades, but that would still be a major drawback... so maybe it can just be more about high burst damage than about conditions the way grenades are).

In actual application, after all, people typically won't drop a bomb at their feet....