Ivantreil.3092

Even traited, it has a worse CD than Slick Shoes Toolbelt, Superspeed. So it's not even redeemable as a CC Break skill, Slick Shoes offers the same and more by comparison. That said, at least it can be fixed if Anet took a look at it, Turrets in the other hand... irredemable.

The message is clear, they don't want condi engi/holo be a thing. Either that or the balance team is so incompetent.

Sup, veteran Engi here. You would be subjectively wrong with that statement. Engineer kits are by far the most powerful skill set we have access to, and almost all of them see a fair amount of play (being the Tool Kit the weakest of the 7, but even then finds play in PvP & WvW). * Med Kit: If you play a Support build, this kit is a must, best source of Healing output we have. * Grenade Kit: Nearly all, if not most builds mandates you use this kit, best kit by far, good source of damage, ranged damage and AoE damage. * Bomb Kit: Big DPS output comes from this kit, both for power and condi builds, but unreliable with mobile targets, so it only sees plays in PvE. * Flamethrower: DPS source for condi builds, great kit for tagging targets, and has a PvP build that encourages to use FT AA as much as you can with Juggernaut Scrapper. * Elixir Gun: Built-in stun break, condi cleanse on demand & AoE unblockable skill, it increases Engineer's sustain. * Tool Kit: Gap closer with Magnet, provides a source of blocking and a decent single target burst, outclassed in damage by the other kits on PvE, but their defensive traits makes it more valuable at PvP and WvW. * Mortar Kit: It provides the longest source of ranged damage we have access to (to this date), making it good for sieging, and the AoE factor makes it a decent area denier. To summarize, we rely a ton on kits, even if this spec would discourage the usage of kits, we will still be forced on using kits by just merely how good they are by themselves.

A build focused on spamming Crash Down basically, it wouldn't be the intended way to play Mechanist for sure, but I can see that happening.

As for the post, in the most pessimist but optimal situation, what I believe that will happen to Mechanist (and the other EoD specs in general) if they fail to see competitive play, and the PoF specs go unadressed, is that there will be a balance patch response, nerfing the PoF specs, while maybe buffing the EoD specs that didn't made the cut so there's an incentive to play and buy the new stuff. In a business standpoint, it is in the interest of Anet to make their new toys look good and not be overshadowed to what it's already available.

The 10 sec cd is if the golem is unsummoned on high hp. If the golem is unsummoned on a low hp (threshold we still don't know exactly), the cd is 100 secs, that's a big yikes.

Not to disagree with everything else you said because I do agree, but Condi Engi never stopped delivering competitive DPS. I am not SC benchmarker, but I was capable of pulling 31K DPS on the golem benchmark with Condi Engi, the build never became bad, it got replaced with Condi Holo for being more flexible and having basically almost exactly the same build.

Healing Turret did recieve a CD nerf last year, now Elixir H is the recommended healing skill to use.

Hello! Main Engineer here! The guide you posted gives a basic Power build. The objective of that build is to use Bomb AA (Skill 1), so you mostly camp on Bomb Kit, however it is still good for your DPS to swapto your rifle for your Skill 3 & 5, they are high DPS dealers, but after you use said abilities you go back to your bomb kit to spam AA. It is a very easy build to play but it can certainly get boring, the reason behind being that is because our core weapons (Rifle & Pistols) have a very underwhelming AA.

This not only should be PvE, Core Engi as a whole peforms subpar compared to the other Elite Specs, and straight up bad in comparison to other classes. As someone with experience on Core, i'll put my 2 cents here: * Core Engi in PvP is really fragile, it's uncapable to deal decent damage unless you go full berzerk with it, which obviously makes an easy target to focus, you won't last if focused by multiple people. * Both in PvP and PvE Core suffers an extreme dependance on kits, sadly not surprising as it been like that since Core Tyria days, but it does as certain kits aren't capable to deal enough damage by themselves and rely on nitpicking 1 to 3 damaging skills to reach a decent damage tier. ** With the previous point, this usually happens as Gadgets and Turrets are awful when attempted to replace a kit. *Because of this dependance on kits too, whatever Core Engi could do the specs can do better, Just slap kits, an elite spec, and it's arguably an improvement over core. Not only core is in need of big buffs, but a need to have a separate identity from their Elite counterparts, make usage of Gadgets and turrets on a more efficient way would be a right step as a starter, buff the gadget sector as a starter. Not having big hopes at all, lost them a long time ago, Core Engi will always be relegated as a 2/3 kit piano build with damage comparable to an AA Deadeye. Ah, and Condi Engi on PvP is just straight up bad. Best hopes are on the new Elite spec at this point if you wanna have something fresh and new.

At contrary! The May 11 Balance Patch gave Juggernaut Scrapper a buff with the changes to Applied Force, giving bonus Power and extra Stability than before (reason why the build has gained more popularity recently), the build itself has some very obvious flaws, you must camp Flamethrower Kit all the time and the build essentially revolves around spamming the AA, this can melt people going in Berserker stats, but anyone with some Toughness or Vitality stats on their build gives them enough time to disengage the Scrapper, a big downside as it only works at melee range.

"Like that's ever gonna happen!" - Shrek

Utility Goggles definitely has room for improvement, how this skill became so worse when it was never in the eyes of meta builds? This utility used to: Grant a passive that gave you perma immunity to blindness for a fixed amount of time, not a joking cleanse blind once. The toolbelt used to be single target, but it applied 10 stacks of Vulnerability on target and applied revealed on it without the need of having the opponent stealthed prior to use, that was more useful than the current Toolbelt (which used to be Sneak Gyro's Toolbelt). For the cooldown it has, both the Resistance and Protection boon could really use an increase of duration, 3 secs of it is nearly nothing. It could also become a source of Aegis, a boon Engineer has no way to access to. The Toolbelt needs to be an instant cast skill, having a cast on a skill that does nothing but reveal leaves the Engineer on a really vulnerable position. This Utility could also really benefit from the ammo mechanic, having access to two of these would put some serious competition when compared to other break stun skills we have available, that would make it worth the usage over break skills that don't take the utility slot space.

A long time ago, talking about pre-HoT days, Turret Engineer was actually a legit strat that suppressed cap points in PvP, the build eventually was complained a lot for being so oppressive on a game where your objective is to stay in a circle to get points, that and also how no Skill Ceiling was required to play said build. Turrets ended being nerfed to oblivion and the rest is history, eventually they got a mini buff on the toolbelts not being obstructed by the detonation skill and being available all the time, but even then, that was barely anything good. * Heal Turret no longer used after their most recent heal supply nerf (sad considering it was taken as the best Heal Skill we had and the only turret worth the usage by a long time). * Thumper turret sees play in Protection Holo. * Rifle Turret sees play in raids power kitless builds, but only for the toolbelt skill, the turret itself is worthless. * Rocket, Flame & Net Turret never have seen the day of the light, only if you consider Supply Turret as seeing play. Anet will never touch the turrets ever again, even less now that these unbalanced utilities are generators of Bot/AFK strategies, in fact, your best hopes are that they get deleted and swapped by an entire new set of utilities.

I do agree on the next spec needing to focus on the Condi aspect of Engineer. It needs to help to improve the damage and take out Condi Engi from the hellish 3 kit complex rotations that never manages to stay on pair with other DPS specs. New Utilities that bring better ways to put condi output, improve P/P in ways Firearms doesn't make the cut and so on. This could definitely also benefit PvP Condi Engi, were the damage is negegible as it ramps upo way too slow and cant keep up with the condi cleanse specs pack nowadays, or a way to improve the survivability aswell.