Guild Wars 2

The new borderlands map is designed to break up zergs, and it achieves this by adding in a whole lot of CC:

• New CC siege
• At least two of the keep lords and their rooms are absolutely filled with CC
• Air keep has those turrets around it.
• Charr tower lords is CC-heavy.

Where it doesn’t use CC, it uses conditions:

• Fire keep is, obviously, full of things that set you on fire.
• Earth keep has crippling turrets.
• Mage tower lord chills/burns.
• Lich tower lord dumps all sorts of conditions on you.

I main an engi on EU bronze tier. As an engi I can’t run in a zerg due to my poor stability, but do quite well in havoc and roaming groups.

Having looked at the new BL, I’d like to say:

HELP!

Even without opposing players, it’s going to be a nightmare getting around with all the CC and condis flying about from the PvE effects. Engis are very weak against both. I expect Necros are also in the same boat regarding CC (though they obviously fare better with the conditions).

Are we going to get some balance changes that will actually make this viable to play in with all classes?

I don’t particularly want to have to run around with a guard as a crutch – it rather restricts solo roaming and on bronze tier you often can’t find a guard (let alone one who wants to babysit you) much of the time.

Maybe engi will get some help with the new specialisation, else using the new hammer on a class with crappy condi removal, crappy stability, normally only one stun break is going to be pretty futile, unless of course the hammer is more ranged than melee.

Other than that the chance of getting balance for WvW is non-existent, you’ve had 2.5 years of engi being sub-par and unwanted for large groups in WvW, I doubt Anet are suddenly going to start giving a flying **** now.

Think of how us necromancers feel.

I mainly play an engineer in WvW, mostly for solo roaming, and I am overly exited about the new map! It’s obviously designed to break zergs apart, but why should I care? I don’t belong in zergs. Bring EG to deal with your conditions a bit better if needed, but apart from players, there’s nothing to fear on this new map. Let me explain why you’ll have a great time.

- Engineer excels in taking objectives solo. You can take a fully upgraded camp in under a minute. So if the mechanics annoy you, just take the shrines!

- You have superior mobility. Just move out of the way of the new siege weapon, avoid the knock-bakc gargoyles, etc.

- Engineers are insanely strong in confined spaces. In some chokeholds, you’ll be able to 1v3/1v4 warriors, thieves, rangers, mesmers, you name it!

- The verticality! One of the things I enjoy the most on my engineer is running away from a large group and taking out enemy players one after the other, in a stream. Vertical maps allow you to LoS your foes, knock them back from cliffs, and spam bombs/nades behind you as you kite.

The only thing I’m worried about is the burning immunity near the fire keep. If it’s just the lava burning, then it’s fine. If it’s burning per say, my flame legion runes say no!

I wouldn’t say engis are weak against CC or condis. At least I’ve never had any problem cleansing myself or breaking out of a stun. I don’t care much for stability (prefer stun breaks so-as not to affect my build), but if I need some stability then I’ll just pop an elixir X for 15-20s of stability or toss elixir b for 6s of stability. Perhaps the worse when it comes to CC is the aetherblades and although they can be a nuisance, I’ve never felt underwhelmed from them even without stability and taking on a group of them in EotM. From my experience, it’s all about position and how aggressive or defensive you are. Keeping my distance and flanking is the best strategy for my engineer. If someone gets close, I have enough CC to play pinata with my opponent. And if he pops stability, we play cat and mouse for 7 seconds and then I return the favour.

As for the new map, I dunno yet. I’m pretty sure there’ll be strengths and weaknesses for all classes in certain areas by the sounds of it. I think it’s going to be really exciting with all the different areas and unique effects. As an engineer, we have lots of cool skills at our disposal that might prove fun with the new map. Motor with 100% stability uptime might prove useful. A well timed concussion barrage could spell doom for an aggressive group treading on a thin line. Or popping an elixir X and getting lucky with a tornado could be enough to troll with in areas where there’s not enough ground to stand on. Though, I’m really curious how the new stability rules might affect those skills. Like if a tornado only has 5 stacks of stability and a zerg manages to knock it all out, does that mean your tornado can now be CC’d? Or that you can be pulled off your mortar? Will be interesting to see what Anet does there.

Nate.8146:

Or popping an elixir X and getting lucky with a tornado

First time EVER an engineer thinks that^^.