Guild Wars 2

There’s large and active thread about whether or not the HGH Eng needs nerfing – but despite HGH Engs having a range of weaknesses, discussion about how to actually deal with them in game is noticably absent.

Rather than just crying ‘foul’ on the forums and begging for a nerf, how about a decent discussion on how to counter HGH Engs?

1. What the weaknesses of HGH Engs?
2. How can you exploit these weaknesses?
3. And a bonus question: How can you counter the strengths of HGH Engs?

Boon-hate Warriors.

Boon stripping (from necro/mesmer)

Or just good ol focused fire. Most only run one defensive cd/stunbreak, and don’t have great disengage abilities. So not terrible to take down if you can team up on them.

I’m not sure however, what the best class to deal with them for a 1v1 would be.

Mesmer has a good shot at them if you can avoid the granades :P.

In teamfight, or 1on1. 1on1 they are vunerable to necros who run boon hate. And mesmers who are clever about dodging grens/using inv to avoid confusion or blowtorch.

In teamfights they are vunerable to CC and need to be pressured, other than a well necro probably have to be top priority in teamfight.

I am a fan of blocking and dodging “through” them to make it harder for them to adjust their grenade throws.

HGH nades is weak to:

1) Burst
2) Kiting (unless is solely condition damage)
3) Boon Stripping
4) Heavy CC

They have one stunbreak, which is a 3 second invulnerable (they shrink). Other than that, they can peel off conditions well. Do not let them get close unless you are burst that can finish them off before they finish you. They melt in a matter of seconds under focused fire if Elixir S is on cooldown.

aydenunited.5729:

HGH nades is weak to:

1) Burst
2) Kiting (unless is solely condition damage)
3) Boon Stripping
4) Heavy CC

They have one stunbreak, which is a 3 second invulnerable (they shrink). Other than that, they can peel off conditions well. Do not let them get close unless you are burst that can finish them off before they finish you. They melt in a matter of seconds under focused fire if Elixir S is on cooldown.

what class is not weak to this? ^.^

Necro is you best friend against them;

Well of Corruption
Corrupt Boon
Putrid Mark

Those are just the major ones I’ve listed.

Any skills that reflect projectiles make HGH engineers practically kill themselves

Skills that simply absorb projectiles also help as well

Mesmer: Feedback, and traits/skills that grant distortion and cause distortion to grant reflection

Guardian: Wall of Reflection, shield 5, focus 5, Shield of the Avenger

Warrior: shield 5, sword 5, mace 2 (all of these cause reflection with the V trait under Defense)

Ranger: greatsword 4, axe 5

Thief: Smoke Screen, Dagger Storm (this one is tricky, the grenades need to physically hit your character before hitting the ground or you will suffer damage)

Elementalist: (earth) staff 3, (air) focus 4

Bring wall of reflection and dance through it while they reflect their grenades back to them.

Biggest counter to HGH Engi is…. wait for it……………..

Get on the class and learn it yourself, once you understand how the build works you won’t be so ignorant about the build and class in general…

and the only thing you gotta be afraid of is.. that you’re gonna fall in love the the class since it’s actually fun and not as brain dead as playing guardian, thief or mesmer on PvP. where the build you play actually matter a lot more than the skill of the player.

google.3709:

Biggest counter to HGH Engi is…. wait for it……………..

Get on the class and learn it yourself, once you understand how the build works you won’t be so ignorant about the build and class in general…

and the only thing you gotta be afraid of is.. that you’re gonna fall in love the the class since it’s actually fun and not as brain dead as playing guardian, thief or mesmer on PvP. where the build you play actually matter a lot more than the skill of the player.

Playing it right now facerolling everyone no one is countering me…

throw mine hehehehee

Lylandrissabelle.5463:

Any skills that reflect projectiles make HGH engineers practically kill themselves

Skills that simply absorb projectiles also help as well

Mesmer: Feedback, and traits/skills that grant distortion and cause distortion to grant reflection

Guardian: Wall of Reflection, shield 5, focus 5, Shield of the Avenger

Warrior: shield 5, sword 5, mace 2 (all of these cause reflection with the V trait under Defense)

Ranger: greatsword 4, axe 5

Thief: Smoke Screen, Dagger Storm (this one is tricky, the grenades need to physically hit your character before hitting the ground or you will suffer damage)

Elementalist: (earth) staff 3, (air) focus 4

When you use a projectile reflection, Engis will obviously stop attacking and wait for your skill to end. So what you’re saying is the counter to HGH Engis is for them to choose to stop attacking you. That’s wonderful.

What if I told you that I played a class where if I press this button, you will die, no matter what. I press it = you’re dead. And the only way you don’t die, is if I don’t press this button. What would you say to that?

HGH has 0 peels after the build is done using elixir S.

Spam Flanking strike.

jportell.2197:

google.3709:

Biggest counter to HGH Engi is…. wait for it……………..

Get on the class and learn it yourself, once you understand how the build works you won’t be so ignorant about the build and class in general…

and the only thing you gotta be afraid of is.. that you’re gonna fall in love the the class since it’s actually fun and not as brain dead as playing guardian, thief or mesmer on PvP. where the build you play actually matter a lot more than the skill of the player.

Playing it right now facerolling everyone no one is countering me…

lol i guess you like me but on a serious note, as someone who plays both mesmer and engineer i could tell you, mesmer is alot more faceroll in PvP and have been for a while and i’m sure many people would agree.

but you particularly seem to be having the most trouble dealing with Engi so let me give you a tip, try a curtain mesmer see how i goes.. a little spoiler: Good

Meta seem to be changing so you either, adapt or QQ on forums, js. and also, if you’re so good at engi, maybe mesmer wasn’t the class to you my friend, join us

1. Kill
2. /dance

Zenguy.6421:

1. What the weaknesses of HGH Engs?
2. How can you exploit these weaknesses?
3. And a bonus question: How can you counter the strengths of HGH Engs?

1. Fear is a great counter to engies, and before you say “oh condition removal”, think about it for a moment. The HGH engie has no instant cast condition removal meaning they cannot remove it except for their stun break. Fears for Engies are pretty much stuns, so they can force an early Elixir S.

2. By using fear and stun without overlapping, this will effectively throw them out of every team fight.

3. Other than what I have mentioned, you can also go boon stripping, HGH relies heavily on it so you can just wait for his elixir tosses then remove them all making his stacking useless and his elixirs wasted. for added help partner w/ an immob heavy partner to get easier boon removal.

Stof.9584:

Boon-hate Warriors.

loled for about 5 minutes straight

google.3709:

jportell.2197:

google.3709:

Biggest counter to HGH Engi is…. wait for it……………..

Get on the class and learn it yourself, once you understand how the build works you won’t be so ignorant about the build and class in general…

and the only thing you gotta be afraid of is.. that you’re gonna fall in love the the class since it’s actually fun and not as brain dead as playing guardian, thief or mesmer on PvP. where the build you play actually matter a lot more than the skill of the player.

Playing it right now facerolling everyone no one is countering me…

lol i guess you like me but on a serious note, as someone who plays both mesmer and engineer i could tell you, mesmer is alot more faceroll in PvP and have been for a while and i’m sure many people would agree.

but you particularly seem to be having the most trouble dealing with Engi so let me give you a tip, try a curtain mesmer see how i goes.. a little spoiler: Good

Meta seem to be changing so you either, adapt or QQ on forums, js. and also, if you’re so good at engi, maybe mesmer wasn’t the class to you my friend, join us

Temporal curtain isn’t a guarantee… And yes I know exactly what you are talking about… Warden’s feedback… The reflects don’t last long enough… This is a huge faceroll spec because aside from insane damage it has good defense through its condition cleanses and crowd control… Better CC than most other builds considering that it has an immob/chill and an aoe stun… other builds have just limited CC…

Only good one I can think of is well necro. Even then it is a tough fight

Lonny.9873:

Had some good results vs HGH on my Mesmer using the following build:

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-NFcZ;1VPF01A7wUV71;9;4JJ-T-06-49;225A;9Ewk2Ewk25Bk

You lose quite a bit of utility and damage, but get pressured a lot less overall…

mesmers, necros , and retialation.

Also in teamfights. CC , if elixir s is down they are very vunerable to thief burst.

Chaith.8256:

Actually Zone, a properly played Carrion, Condition Necro is the hardest fight for an HGH Condi-Nade Engi. Condi nade HGH Engies do not win an equal skill 1v1 duel vs. a conditionmancer.

You’d need to seriously outplay them to win, IE, predict and dodge at least putrid mark, sometimes both Staff4 & Dagger4. If the Necro uses his flips badly, or misses, and the Engineer blows supply crate, thats when the Engineer wins. A necro’s common plague form is completely useless in a 1v1.

Here are the main determinants:

• Condition Flips: If a necro flips a blowtorch and 1-2 shrapnel tosses, all he needs to do is corrupt boon and its an auto-lose. You can start channeling your condition removal, but in my experience, removing 1 condition at a time in panic mode rarely saves you, unless you RNG remove the burning and bleeding first. As soon as this happens, I’m forced to run while removing conditions, and typically reset combat with little health.

• Damage avoidance: Engineers get to nullify one rotation of conditions around every 25s by casting elixirs for about 3 seconds. In that duel, a Necromancer can Consume Conditions on the Engineer’s first rotation, and Putrid Mark the next rotation, and Death Shroud soak or Deathly swarm any residual.

• Health Differences: Carrion > Rabid in a condition fight. The Necro should be sitting at around 24k, and the Engineer at 18k.

• Control: During the fight, the Engineer is going to have a decent amount of fear dropped on him. Elixir S is the only counter, but multiple fears.

I’ve gotten like, 15k putrid marks to the face after really putting the hurt on a Necro who I thought had nothing left. There’s no telegraph or projectile for Putrid mark, so, hope you get lucky.

Alchemy Engineers do die to overwhelming conditions. Engineer condition removal handles a full bar of conditions poorly, you can’t just Cleansing Flame 4 conditions off, or Contemplation of Purity, or Consume Conditions. HGH Engineers have smaller, but persistent condition removal.

Necros on the other hand, handle full bars of conditions quite well, with Consume Conditions & flips. That’s the main reason why the Engi will go down before the Necro in a condition damage slug-fest.

D/D Ele focusing on CC & Dodging.

Example here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSyiTT41LLU&hd=1

have everyone on your team equip a sigil of nullification

jsu.4370:

D/D Ele focusing on CC & Dodging.

Example here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSyiTT41LLU&hd=1 =)

yup I agree with u, I’ve seen a d/d ele with 20 stacks of might take down 2 glass cannon people instantly with just burning speed before.

notice his hp dropping 5k just from running through the eles burning speed.

1v1:
—cc, kiting, and necros are pretty much hard counters to HGH nade engies. Boon stripping also works but it’s not really necessary.

Teamfights:
—focus the engi down. It’s a pure sustained dps build so if you’re not focusing the engi, joke’s on you.

In general:
—stop bringing four bunkers to every match.

By the way, thank you so much for starting this thread.

jsu.4370:

D/D Ele focusing on CC & Dodging.

Example here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSyiTT41LLU&hd=1 =)

You had such an erection from this fight, it’s hilarious, haha. “JSU vs. OstrichEggs” Like a pre-arranged duel or something, savor the moment.

Just goes to show, if you walk into a situation where your enemy has an elite, and you don’t, you will lose.

If you get hit by things, you can’t sustain yourself. You will freakin’ die.

If you miss both chill grenades & a blowtorch, you will freakin’ die.

Clearly a faceroll, heh. More people should see this video.

Somehow I don’t think engie would die to ele elite.

NevirSayDie.6235:

1v1:
Teamfights:
—focus the engi down. It’s a pure sustained dps build so if you’re not focusing the engi, joke’s on you.

This.

Cant count how many times I target the hgh engy and my team keeps trying to kill the other guys running in circles while the engy is sitting on top just throwing nades casually.

1. Confusion and Retaliation

2. Some classes have access to both at ease. Some profession like guardians have give retaliation to their allies downing Engineer almost instantly. Unlike other classes like warriors, retaliation was basically made to kill grenadiers. Confusion keeps the Engineer from tossing grenades consistently or they will practically cause their own death. Grenades, with a cast time of 1/2 seconds, makes it a good candidate for confusing.

3. When a Engineer is down they are practically out of the game with a horrible set of down skills with nearly no chance of getting back up. So don’t stomp them, bleed them to death instead and keep them out of the game as long as possible. They don’t have any moving down skills or any type of super self-heal skill.

Compared to other classes, Engineers would be one of the easiest classes that I can down in almost any situation because of the amount of personal skill to play a grenadier skillfully. I also never stomp an Engineer because they pose almost no threat when down.

No idea how they even became meta when their flaws are so obvious.

NevirSayDie.6235:

1v1:
—cc, kiting, and necros are pretty much hard counters to HGH nade engies. Boon stripping also works but it’s not really necessary.

Teamfights:
—focus the engi down. It’s a pure sustained dps build so if you’re not focusing the engi, joke’s on you.

In general:
—stop bringing four bunkers to every match.

By the way, thank you so much for starting this thread.

^^^ You are by far one of the best voices of reason for the Engie community. The reason why HGH Engies are suddenly “OP”? Because prior to their introduction into the current META, the current META has/had shifted to mostly defensive point control teams based around Guardians, Eles, etc. that could control a point vs. 1-2 indefinitely. You can’t do that vs. HGH Engie.

I guess that makes them OP.

Anyway, my own slanted bias aside, what I’m saying is, I think you’re usually spot-on, and you are again here IMO.

waka.9826:

HGH has 0 peels after the build is done using elixir S.

this pretty much – very squishy after elixir S is gone – only high cd access to snares.
Pretty hard to stay alive after elixir S if you`re getting focused by 2 dudes or more. Also our downed still suxx very hard.

Other than that:

Retaliation

and most of all dodgeing! i swear if people start managing to dodge shrapnel and blowtorch reliably the dmg output is pretty much gone
Dodgeing becomes especially easy when youre staying on range. Getting close vs nades is a terrible idea in general.

edit: also be smart about your condi removals use them only after a close hit by blowtorch or a 3hit shrapnel – in these cases you need to be quick to cleanse because the duration is so long and waiting till you drop to low hp and then cleanse is not a good idea

Chaith.8256:

jsu.4370:

D/D Ele focusing on CC & Dodging.

Example here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSyiTT41LLU&hd=1 =)

Clearly a faceroll, heh. More people should see this video.

I don’t think this is a good example of a definitive counter to HGH engineers. The video was more like a series of bad decision making on that particular engineer’s part. First, he chose to engage that fight without his elite. Second, after receiving that Fire Grab crit, the engi could have stealthed and escaped out of there to reset the fight; nope, he chooses to turn around, run up the stairs, and continue fighting an uphill battle after failing to evade damage.

NevirSayDie.6235:

1v1:
—cc, kiting, and necros are pretty much hard counters to HGH nade engies. Boon stripping also works but it’s not really necessary.

Teamfights:
—focus the engi down. It’s a pure sustained dps build so if you’re not focusing the engi, joke’s on you.

In general:
—stop bringing four bunkers to every match.

By the way, thank you so much for starting this thread.

Necro a hard counter to HGH build? It is a fairly even fight I would say. Besides it is rarely if ever going to be 1 v 1. If necro had something like elixr s then it would be more fair in a team fight scenario.

Lordrosicky.5813:

NevirSayDie.6235:

1v1:
—cc, kiting, and necros are pretty much hard counters to HGH nade engies. Boon stripping also works but it’s not really necessary.

Teamfights:
—focus the engi down. It’s a pure sustained dps build so if you’re not focusing the engi, joke’s on you.

In general:
—stop bringing four bunkers to every match.

By the way, thank you so much for starting this thread.

Necro a hard counter to HGH build? It is a fairly even fight I would say. Besides it is rarely if ever going to be 1 v 1. If necro had something like elixr s then it would be more fair in a team fight scenario.

Well a conditionmancer has several abilities to punish HGH engineers by flipping boons and transferring their conditions. I would maybe argue (i’m no expert) that necro DS can be compared to elixir S for survivability purposes – it’s on a 10s cooldown so assumign the necro is built for some reasonable LF generation they can absorb a lot of damage with DS while engineer only has that one short invuln on a much longer cooldown. Basically… what Chaith said :P

aydenunited.5729:

NevirSayDie.6235:

1v1:
—cc, kiting, and necros are pretty much hard counters to HGH nade engies. Boon stripping also works but it’s not really necessary.

Teamfights:
—focus the engi down. It’s a pure sustained dps build so if you’re not focusing the engi, joke’s on you.

In general:
—stop bringing four bunkers to every match.

By the way, thank you so much for starting this thread.

^^^ You are by far one of the best voices of reason for the Engie community. The reason why HGH Engies are suddenly “OP”? Because prior to their introduction into the current META, the current META has/had shifted to mostly defensive point control teams based around Guardians, Eles, etc. that could control a point vs. 1-2 indefinitely. You can’t do that vs. HGH Engie.

I guess that makes them OP.

Anyway, my own slanted bias aside, what I’m saying is, I think you’re usually spot-on, and you are again here IMO.

Yay! Can you follow me around in real life at job interviews and parties?

Chaith.8256:

jsu.4370:

D/D Ele focusing on CC & Dodging.

Example here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSyiTT41LLU&hd=1 =)

You had such an erection from this fight, it’s hilarious, haha. “JSU vs. OstrichEggs” Like a pre-arranged duel or something, savor the moment.

Just goes to show, if you walk into a situation where your enemy has an elite, and you don’t, you will lose.

If you get hit by things, you can’t sustain yourself. You will freakin’ die.

If you miss both chill grenades & a blowtorch, you will freakin’ die.

Clearly a faceroll, heh. More people should see this video.

Wow Chaith… Kinda lost some respect to you for that first bit in your post. I’ll start by saying I’m a fan of OE. I watch his stream a lot and I’ve also seen him post highlights of duels that were not clear 1v1 duels vs other eles: http://www.twitch.tv/ostricheggs/c/2093759 so I don’t see how you can make a big deal about that.

Yes, he did make some critical mistakes in our duel, and I have lost to him before he’s a very good player…. but since this is an anti-HGH thread let me outline some of the advantages my D/D build has:

- 5 different condi removals (not including #6 heal)
- 6 CC abilities
- 3 stun breakers
- 4 sources of gaining vigor (one being crits)
- moderately high health pool (17k hp good vs condi ticks)
- high burst potential in fire attunement

Those who are smart will figure out what build I’m running. It’s not something you can just pick up a and play, a decent skill level is needed. That being said it can go toe-to-toe with top players, and it will wreck your average hgh player. Your play style has to be focused on dodging grenades, CC’ing the engi, cleansing at the right times, and bursting at the right times.

In team fights. My goal as a roamer / mid fight support is to train the engi. If the engi isn’t putting out AOE condi dmg to my team because of my cc’s then I’m doing my job.

1. Area Retaliation – Engie will do siginifcant damage to himself if he’s spamming nades onto a point. I’ve seen some nade engies even kill themselves from one guardian using Stand Your Ground in a group fight.

2. As other people have mentioned, conditionmancer necros will also make them kill themselves between Plague Signet, Deathly Swarm, and Putrid Mark. Will have to soak some damage though. They do have form. 409 usually, but if each elixer takes a little bit to cast, and only removes one condi. They are usually running elixer B instead of C anyways, so you should still be able to pressure them hard if they are tossing all elixers trying to wipe.

3. CC in general. Elixer S is their only stunbreak, so once you get through that one you’ll likely be in control. Don’t follow so close though waiting for them to come out, they can still throw nades while in mini-me form.

4. Burst in general. Now granted you won’t land this if they have elixer S, But again, elixer S is on like a 48 s Cd even when traited, so if you’re a thief, stealth up, backout, and come back with bask venom to light them up hard. They don’t have that much armor, just watch out for the freeze grenades if you’re trying to finish with HS.

Last tips:
These engies usually come into a fight very aggressively, I think it’s best to also be as aggressive as possible. Playing too passively means that their conditions will wear you down pretty much regardless of how much condi removal you have. Pressure them as much as possible, and when they get their nade kit out, dodge as best you can, freeze nades + shrapnel nades kill quickly, especially if you’re pure melee. Use a condi wipe if you can after they are out of the nade kit and hit them as hard as you can.

Again, repeating what others have said but:
DODGE SHRAPNEL GRENADE (as much as possible)
DODGE BLOWTORCH (use anything to get out of this)

These are the 2 hardest hitting skills in this build. Dodging every shrapnel may be hard, but if they come in close with pistols, they are likely going for a blowtorch.

I doubt this would work against top notch players, but your average FotM player caves under early pressure. They panic and mis-target their elixir tosses (or don’t do them at all) and don’t have the huge might stack. With only about half of their potential might stacks, the build is much more tame.

Also, grenades have a flight time, so constantly strafing at a distance reduces the number of hits you take from average players.

jsu.4370:

D/D Ele focusing on CC & Dodging.

Example here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSyiTT41LLU&hd=1

rofl that song and that video

Play a glass cannon ranger with bear pets. After they kill you enough times, most will feel some shred of sympathy and maybe – just maybe – let you live. Then you poison their soup.