Guild Wars 2

How do you deal with this? I play a guardian, running a support/bunker build. And it’s so insanely hard to keep alive against a engineer running up, and spamming grenades. Not only are the particles disorienting, but the damage is just insane. I’m trying to get some friends into the game, and every time we come into a game where a nades engi comes strolling in, sits high somewhere and drops infinite bombs on our face, we just melt. And it discourages my team so much. I need to know how to deal with them quickly once we see the nades start flying. Or else I fear my friends will just quit because of this.

1. Wall of Reflection is your friend against nade spams.
2. HGH engi are weak against CC, and focus
3. Don’t have to cleanse every condition you get immediately. Time it wisely.
4. Line of sight and use knockback/pull abilities

Have one of your friends play Necro, corrupt his boons or send his conditions back. He should melt fairly easily. Either that, or have a Thief backstab him. Guardians aren’t going to be able to do much except retaliation, reflect, and keeping their teams safe.

Necro is a good counter to engy so is thief, if your playing on a team.

Wall of reflection. also hgh engies have NO MELee so whatever that one bubble shield ability is that can only be broken down by melee is very useful against an engy specially in 1on1.

Any class free casting ranged things from high spots is dangerous. Not sure what to say. Their damage is quite predictable, and 3 of them have medium/long cds. They’re also not that easy to land, engis have to aim and predict your movement, you shouldn’t stand still.

Uri The Impaler.2956:

How do you deal with this? I play a guardian, running a support/bunker build. And it’s so insanely hard to keep alive against a engineer running up, and spamming grenades. Not only are the particles disorienting, but the damage is just insane. I’m trying to get some friends into the game, and every time we come into a game where a nades engi comes strolling in, sits high somewhere and drops infinite bombs on our face, we just melt. And it discourages my team so much. I need to know how to deal with them quickly once we see the nades start flying. Or else I fear my friends will just quit because of this.

Don’t cluster up together. Use wall of reflection. Use a 0 0 10 30 30 build with pure of voice, soldiers runes and absolute preservation. Dodge the grenades (remarkable how often this is overlooked!)

Most importantly: KILL THE ENGI!!! Almost all engis are extremely susceptible to focus fire and lots of CC by nature of their lack of escape mechanisms and evades.

Also, an engineer spamming grenades from afar in a condition damage build is doing substantially reduced damage to what he could be doing if he was closer to you. Often times, if standing at or near maximum range, you can quite literally walk away from where the grenades are going to land.

I honestly have yet to see another player outside of an engineer player deal with grenades as effectively as they can. The lack of knowledge of how to deal with this powerful kit is staggering.

You don’t man the hgh build is broken they run around with 25 stacks of might it drops down to 14 stacks but they can pop it back up when ever they want. Until its fixed you just have to hope your dps burns them down before they do to much dmg there really nothing you can do as a bunker or any other build unless you get the jump on them. As they said above if you’re a necro you can corrupt , if you are a mesmer you can boon strip otherwise your prolly dead.

While I agree that HGH Engineers should be toned down, they’re certainly not impossible to kill. They’re actually somewhat easier to kill than a Shatter Mesmer, they simply bring ALOT to the table.

No one is using HGH in high level pvp. It offers 0 utility, just boons and grenades. Elixir S nerf is another big reason I believe.
Just my 2 cents.

HGH eng does far too much damage, it’s pretty much the only class that constantly puts me at 10% hp every 2 seconds. Even with wall of reflect and shield spirit they’re still annoying as hell. Hopefully their damage gets toned down, probably with a nerf to keeping 25 might up 24/7. Dying to 30k burn damage when I’m constantly removing conditions and always timing my condition removals properly isn’t fun.

They’re actually somewhat easier to kill than a Shatter Mesmer, they simply bring ALOT to the table.

I don’t see how a medium armor class with 18k+ hp and 1600+ toughness with a 3 second invul, a 2 second invul, a self-res, and tons of condition removal is “easy to kill”.

Mobility. Utility. Clutter.

3 things that make the Mesmer hard to kill. Harder than Engineers.

Shiyo.3578:

HGH eng does far too much damage, it’s pretty much the only class that constantly puts me at 10% hp every 2 seconds. Even with wall of reflect and shield spirit they’re still annoying as hell. Hopefully their damage gets toned down, probably with a nerf to keeping 25 might up 24/7. Dying to 30k burn damage when I’m constantly removing conditions and always timing my condition removals properly isn’t fun.

They’re actually somewhat easier to kill than a Shatter Mesmer, they simply bring ALOT to the table.

I don’t see how a medium armor class with 18k+ hp and 1600+ toughness with a 3 second invul, a 2 second invul, a self-res, and tons of condition removal is “easy to kill”.

You don’t get a 3 second invuln, a 2 second invuln and a self rez in HGH. It’s either a 3 second invuln in which you cannot do anything else on a 50 second cooldown (as the only stun break) or you get a self rez on a 120 second cooldown that is very easily counterable in anything bigger than a 1v1, ESEPCIALLY in HGH as there’s nothing like big ol’ bomb to counter it.

I don’t play HGH anymore for kitten good reason. It’s hardly as overpowered as you people claim it is. Simply put, dodge grenades, strip the might, kill the engi, don’t run without condi clear. A little bit of knowledge and perspective goes a long way to fighting an engi, something that a lot of people severely lack and would rather QQ about instead of dealing with them the way good players do.

HGH engis are abysmal at chasing people down. if you cannot fight him then run. If you cannot run then don’t engage in the first place.

If the problem is that he stays at range, well, pull and mince him. Engineers have no reliable source of stability anyway, so that will be fairly easy. Also, retaliation hurts quite a bit, due to the multiple hits grenades do.
Anyway, the only thing similar builds offer is damage. They don’t even support the group, since they’ve got to buff themselves with all the elixirs to maintain the might stacks. Any counter will render them useless, be it pulling them in short range – where you can easily toast them – or stealing their might (and they’ll drop in a couple seconds).

TheMightyAltroll.3485:

Have one of your friends play Necro, corrupt his boons or send his conditions back. He should melt fairly easily. Either that, or have a Thief backstab him. Guardians aren’t going to be able to do much except retaliation, reflect, and keeping their teams safe.

Or have the thief play S/D boon steal.

HGH is that strong because the map design and the conquest-model is forcing ppl to stay in a small area. The fight is not moving, it’s fixed on one point. Legacy luckily offers a room that is big enough to actually bring depth into teamfights and lesser the effectiveness of an HGH. But maps like forest are a pure hell of a map design, which allows no depth in teamfights, just an AoE-party going on.

Grenades are slow moving and easy to dodge unless you let the engi get right on top of you. HGH is not actually that brilliant by itself, it’s a pressure build firstly and requires your concentration on their team mates while the engi kills from afar. Of course, if you’re playing a bunker guardian it’s going to beat you because you have next to no ability to retaliate or out condition removal, you can only tank and the conditions will eventually kill you. The other part of the bunker idea to to stand in the point in fairly obvious locations, therefore it’s going to be easy to chuck nades at you. Also, HGH engi’s will try to get the higher ground and rain nades on you. You just need to watch out for that and focus fire. Most HGH build have no Toughness at all and rely on their self boons which are able to be removed, might usually being the first to go due to stacking order.

HGH is the direct counter to bunker’s. You won’t win with a support build obviously so don’t stand still and try to take it. Call target and get your team mates to deal with the engi quickly.

It is the might staking that is the problem didn’t they nerf wars that were able to do the same thing with weapon swap. Being able to maintain 25 stacks of might + attacks that do both direct and dot dmg is huge… a huge problem in a realm with limited stat options and accessibility.

Edit: the direct counter for bunkers is necro and to a lesser extent mes with their boon strips. The reason we do not see necro as often as we should is the engi ability to dish out godly dps with 25 might stacks and just out dps all of the bunkers boons instead of removing them If they did not have this ability there would be a necro in most parties.

Edit 2: I am new to necro and it takes me 20s to kill a bunker one on one but it is because of boon corruption and strips not op dps and the reason engi is taken over necro.

Edit 3: Because of this even if necro is made more survivable as planed engi will still be taken over them.

its not only hgh or grenades – engi ALWAYS dangerous for guardians

poison + tons conditions and your 15k hp behind your clerics amulett is gone
give necro more poison and its the same

sad part is all guardian players think they are THE TANK and can tank everything and everyone and everywhere and doesnt matter how much player …… etc

there will always be a counter

It’s not a problem that he can solo Guards, I mean S/D can do the same. That’s absolutely fine.
But in general, heavy AoE builds are screwed up and a total abuse of conquest-mode. This was allrdy stated thousand times and A-Net told us to fix AoE in certain ways. Seems like they allrdy forgot about it.

i disagree – aoe is not a problem in conquest – just dont stay with complete team on the node, thats the job from your bunker

when aoe would be THE big problem from gw2^^ you would have to remove shatter mesmer, shortbow from thief, longbow warrior, necro, greatsword guardian, s/d + staff ele and so on ………

gw2pvp have problems but its not the aoe^^

It is the way engi does it that is the problem thief and other classes noted above do it by stripping boons where as engi does it with a aoe dps. One strong enough because of there might stacks to down thieves with one shot and most other classes with 2-3.

Edit: It is funny I was playing around with my eng the other day just trolling hot join with the mortar and I realized I could do more dmg throwing nades not that it wasn’t fun anyway.

Well, shatter mesmer is like the top-spec in a teamfight. It is absolutely crucial to have a mesmer in the teamfight. He’ll decide it. A necro is also a very strong spec in teamfights due to his AoE, sadly not that viable as the HGH, as bleeding is too easy to be cleansed as to stack up an efficient amount.

Mentioning shortbow as heavy AoE is a bit funny if you look at the pace of his shots. Longbow warrior? mabye if the warrior had some more pressure besides that burning. Also you don’t have permanent access to AoE, due to cooldowns/adrenaline. Not gonna mention the viability of the class itselfs. Staff ele? I should visit WvW more often.

AoE is a big problem due to conquest, due to the map-design around the nodes (excluding graveyard on legacy), due to dps downed players etc.
There is a reason why ppl tend to play AoE-Builds rather than single-target-builds.

Neare.9703:

Grenades are slow moving and easy to dodge unless you let the engi get right on top of you. HGH is not actually that brilliant by itself, it’s a pressure build firstly and requires your concentration on their team mates while the engi kills from afar..

This this and this. Grenades are awesome, but remember they are NOT insta-cast AOE. Making them is a skill shot. Do NOT stay on top of the engi. Kite. If you cant kill him from range, then move in between grenade lobes, strike, and move away. Try to move in unpredictable patterns as good engis will lead you if you’re moving in a straight line.

Most engis will open with freeze and shrapnel grenades (chill and bleeds). If you avoid these, you’re golden.

Shiyo.3578:

HGH eng does far too much damage, it’s pretty much the only class that constantly puts me at 10% hp every 2 seconds. Even with wall of reflect and shield spirit they’re still annoying as hell. Hopefully their damage gets toned down, probably with a nerf to keeping 25 might up 24/7. Dying to 30k burn damage when I’m constantly removing conditions and always timing my condition removals properly isn’t fun.

I’m gonna catch some flak from my fellow engis, but I agree hgh might stacking is on the op side. I hope they dont ruin it, because grenades are extremely useful and downright fun. Its more an issue with the might stacks than the grenades themselves though.

An HGH engi is going to be super squishy, so dont let him stand up on a ledge and rain grenades with no pressure on him. Also retaliation is a very good counter to grenades. They take 3 hits of retal for every ability they use. And if you can give aoe retal, then that is multiplied by every player they hit.

Don’t let an HGH Engineer sit on a ledge.
Focus fire the engineer.
Dont burst when he pops Elixir S
Launch him out of Toss Elixir R when he gets downed
When using knockbacks: Knock him into your team; not into his.
If someone goes down; dont stomp\rez without blocking projectiles\invulnerable.
Pull; immobilize and knockdown are great against them; they need to move to stay out of danger because they are really squishy.
When in doubt; bring a good engi to counter. [or a s/d thief]

dovrak.4376:

No one is using HGH in high level pvp. It offers 0 utility, just boons and grenades. Elixir S nerf is another big reason I believe.
Just my 2 cents.

Balancing around so called “high level” pvp imo is why this game is struggling. Your average player is not running around in highly optimized groups nor do they play as much as the people that do. It is harder then you make it out to be to dodge grenades on a small point. Its stupid game design to have something that can hit multiple people hard and has good range. In just about every other game I have played AoE either has tiny range (generally point blank) if its powerful or gets progressively weaker the greater the range increases until it basically tickles people if it has the range of normal projectiles. You can defend it all you want with l2play arguments but its generally considered bad game design because every game I have played that started out with it the way GW2 has it currently they have changed it.

Brinson.7289:

Don’t let an HGH Engineer sit on a ledge.
Focus fire the engineer.
Dont burst when he pops Elixir S
Launch him out of Toss Elixir R when he gets downed
When using knockbacks: Knock him into your team; not into his.
If someone goes down; dont stomp\rez without blocking projectiles\invulnerable.
Pull; immobilize and knockdown are great against them; they need to move to stay out of danger because they are really squishy.
When in doubt; bring a good engi to counter. [or a s/d thief]

None of these counters addresses the fact that it is bad game design to have powerful ranged attacks that hit multiple people. Based on your logic it would be ok to have a class that had a 1 shot ability because you could always focus him down or avoid it potentially.

Kwll.1468:

Brinson.7289:

Don’t let an HGH Engineer sit on a ledge.
Focus fire the engineer.
Dont burst when he pops Elixir S
Launch him out of Toss Elixir R when he gets downed
When using knockbacks: Knock him into your team; not into his.
If someone goes down; dont stomp\rez without blocking projectiles\invulnerable.
Pull; immobilize and knockdown are great against them; they need to move to stay out of danger because they are really squishy.
When in doubt; bring a good engi to counter. [or a s/d thief]

None of these counters addresses the fact that it is bad game design to have powerful ranged attacks that hit multiple people. Based on your logic it would be ok to have a class that had a 1 shot ability because you could always focus him down or avoid it potentially.

I am simply going to say: yes. I think it is fair for someone to die if they don’t avoid AoE or kill the player AoE-ing.
I am an engineer. I have played HGH but I prefer not to because of its lack of defense and my desire to be up close in the fray. They are easier to kill than thieves and don’t have any escape skills. Obviously some classes are best against them than others but in a 5 man team you should have the tools to dispose of them. If not then you’re in hotjoin\soloQ or need more practice as a premade.

Kwll.1468:

dovrak.4376:

No one is using HGH in high level pvp. It offers 0 utility, just boons and grenades. Elixir S nerf is another big reason I believe.
Just my 2 cents.

Balancing around so called “high level” pvp imo is why this game is struggling. Your average player is not running around in highly optimized groups nor do they play as much as the people that do. It is harder then you make it out to be to dodge grenades on a small point. Its stupid game design to have something that can hit multiple people hard and has good range. In just about every other game I have played AoE either has tiny range (generally point blank) if its powerful or gets progressively weaker the greater the range increases until it basically tickles people if it has the range of normal projectiles. You can defend it all you want with l2play arguments but its generally considered bad game design because every game I have played that started out with it the way GW2 has it currently they have changed it.

It’s more about not clumping up into a tight group than anything else. If you do that, an HGH engi is just one of the very many things that will destroy every single player very very quickly.

It’s not a difficult concept, it’s just one that takes practice to really get. A large majority of the strongest abilities in GW2 are AoE. The less people eating said AoE, the better. It’s not super imbalanced and it’s not a terrible idea like a large number of people claim. All it does is give a larger impetus on better positioning.

The nades them self are not super imbalanced or a terrible idea it is the 25 stacks of might that go along with it. What is it? 250 power and 250 condi dmg for 25 stacks of might that is the stat gain from 50 trait points.

Thesilentflute.8761:

The nades them self are not super imbalanced or a terrible idea it is the 25 stacks of might that go along with it. What is it? 250 power and 250 condi dmg for 25 stacks of might that is the stat gain from 50 trait points.

It’s actually 875 power/condi damage. But that’s for your entire set of runes, your heal, 2 utilities, your sigil AND 30 trait points.

It doesn’t even deal the most condi damage out there, it just deals the most overall damage of any engi build out there ATM because power scales well with nades.

The sacrifice in survivability and team support more than make up for it. Lots of top tier engis, including myself, no longer run it for that reason.

So it comes out to the stat gain of about 87.5 trait points that is in addition to gear and actual trait points. No matter what the cost may be It is a advantage over any other class/spec in tpvp/spvp. I am sure many people would make that trade and auto attack people to death.

Ostricheggs.3742:

Thesilentflute.8761:

The nades them self are not super imbalanced or a terrible idea it is the 25 stacks of might that go along with it. What is it? 250 power and 250 condi dmg for 25 stacks of might that is the stat gain from 50 trait points.

It’s actually 875 power/condi damage. But that’s for your entire set of runes, your heal, 2 utilities, your sigil AND 30 trait points.

It doesn’t even deal the most condi damage out there, it just deals the most overall damage of any engi build out there ATM because power scales well with nades.

The sacrifice in survivability and team support more than make up for it. Lots of top tier engis, including myself, no longer run it for that reason.

LOL sorry but what build does more condi damage than HGH engis? And what CLASS comes even close to their condi damage. I think you misspoke.

Thesilentflute.8761:

So it comes out to the stat gain of about 87.5 trait points that is in addition to gear and actual trait points. No matter what the cost may be It is a advantage over any other class/spec in tpvp/spvp. I am sure many people would make that trade and auto attack people to death.

Hgh engies give up a lot to stack might. By splitting runes to different sets they lose 4 and 6th piece bonuses of sets as well as the higher stats from #3 and #5. Their heal is a source of might stacks as well as their condi clear.

Compare to other classes that can stack might. I play ele so Ill use that as an example. DT, Pheonix, Arcane Wave , Earth EA,Earthquake and Churning Earth are all blast finishers. Blasting a fire field gives aoe might (x3) thats 18 stacks of aoe might. Most of Engie’s is self buffing. It only requires one utility skill and can destroy most people standing in the middle of it (On a node). It doesnt require poping condi clears, heals or stun breaks. Ele’s can run battle on there weapon and 5 strength (6th piece is still bugged i believe) and maintain 25 pretty easy. And unlike engi, they can reach that 25 much quicker upon entering a fight. As well guardian can empower for 12 might aoe.

Light field + blast finisher. 3 or 4 times everyone in the fight times retaliation damage – it’s getting crazy for engi. Think about getting mesmer with retaliation on his clones.
Anything reflectiong projectiles is going to kill the engi too.

Thesilentflute.8761:

So it comes out to the stat gain of about 87.5 trait points that is in addition to gear and actual trait points. No matter what the cost may be It is a advantage over any other class/spec in tpvp/spvp. I am sure many people would make that trade and auto attack people to death.

huh? you say this like a.) only engi’s can stack might, and b.) stacking might is like a form of cheating.

And hgh “auto attack people” to death? I have no idea where that’s coming from since the last thing an engi relies on is their auto attack. this ain’t no Ranger shortbow spam Tito. Nade’s don’t even have an auto attack. Everyone of them is a skill shot.

Darek.1836:

Ostricheggs.3742:

Thesilentflute.8761:

The nades them self are not super imbalanced or a terrible idea it is the 25 stacks of might that go along with it. What is it? 250 power and 250 condi dmg for 25 stacks of might that is the stat gain from 50 trait points.

It’s actually 875 power/condi damage. But that’s for your entire set of runes, your heal, 2 utilities, your sigil AND 30 trait points.

It doesn’t even deal the most condi damage out there, it just deals the most overall damage of any engi build out there ATM because power scales well with nades.

The sacrifice in survivability and team support more than make up for it. Lots of top tier engis, including myself, no longer run it for that reason.

LOL sorry but what build does more condi damage than HGH engis? And what CLASS comes even close to their condi damage. I think you misspoke.

That I did. I was meaning the particular permutation of HGH that everyone knows and loves does not produce the most condi damage of specs even up the same trait lines. It simply produces the most damage total.

I’m just saying that overstate HGH’s damage potential even though it is one of the hardest hitting specs in the entire game. It’s similar to backstab thieves in a way.

Sure other classes are able to stack and maybe maintain might at the same capacity, but they do not have the same impact. I don’t believe any other class can effect a bunker,one on one, or group fights the same all while using the same 5 skills and lol “rotation”. Being able to tear through a bunkers boons with dps, one shot thieves by “skill shooting” their feet, and lay waste to anyone on a node by doing the same… there is no question of if it is balanced.

When theres a hgh engi on a higher elevation, i target them and pull them off. In the few seconds the engi is surprised se burthim down.
Works every time!
You ofcourse also have team retaliation, which destroys nade engis, and reflection skills.

Ostricheggs.3742:

Darek.1836:

Ostricheggs.3742:

Thesilentflute.8761:

The nades them self are not super imbalanced or a terrible idea it is the 25 stacks of might that go along with it. What is it? 250 power and 250 condi dmg for 25 stacks of might that is the stat gain from 50 trait points.

It’s actually 875 power/condi damage. But that’s for your entire set of runes, your heal, 2 utilities, your sigil AND 30 trait points.

It doesn’t even deal the most condi damage out there, it just deals the most overall damage of any engi build out there ATM because power scales well with nades.

The sacrifice in survivability and team support more than make up for it. Lots of top tier engis, including myself, no longer run it for that reason.

LOL sorry but what build does more condi damage than HGH engis? And what CLASS comes even close to their condi damage. I think you misspoke.

That I did. I was meaning the particular permutation of HGH that everyone knows and loves does not produce the most condi damage of specs even up the same trait lines. It simply produces the most damage total.

I’m just saying that overstate HGH’s damage potential even though it is one of the hardest hitting specs in the entire game. It’s similar to backstab thieves in a way.

Im still curious as to what spec has more condi damage than an HGH engi.