Guild Wars 2

How do I kill shatter mesmers and longbow rangers? They are the bane of my existence.

Longbow rangers are fine if I can block their rapid shot, but if it’s on cooldown, then I am going to die, which is a guarantee because Gear shield has a 16 second cooldown, and rapid fire has a 10 second or less cooldown.

Shatter mesmers. This class is by far the worst of the two. It’s just plain awful to fight. They do more damage the farther they are from me, dropping me to 1/2 health almost instantly. But if I try to stay close to them they instantly kill me with their shatters.

Help me my fellow engineers!

Having 16s CD on gear shield is bad, it means you have power wrench. That means you either you don’t have Protection Injection or Backpack Regenerator and both are invaluable.

For longbow rangers : remember the longbow does bad damage at close range, try to stun break then use shield as soon as they fire Point Blank Shot (their cc) so that you can avoid eating the whole Rapid Fire. PBS also has a specific animation you can look for (and dodge). I recommend pillar leeching until you can close the gap then remove Shared Anguish and/or land a couple nades.

For mesmers, it is also pretty tricky. You need to dodge the shatters which will mostly happen when they come at close range. If they try to kite you, fight on your terms : use LoS to your advantage. I’d say that 1v1 relies a lot on your ability to land magnet successfully. You could try to precast magnet from behind a wall then getting clear : you then land a little rifle/nades combo. That’s the turning point of that kind of 1v1. If you never land magnet, chances are you won’t manage to kill the mes.

Edit : yeh, as in any 1v1, landing overcharged shot will help relieve the pressure. Also, dodge the Berserker Phantasm :>

Dodge Mirror Blade! Land Overcharge Shot!

Wahoo! Bye frands!

Uhtameit.2413:

Having 16s CD on gear shield is bad, it means you have power wrench. That means you either you don’t have Protection Injection or Backpack Regenerator and both are invaluable.

For longbow rangers : remember the longbow does bad damage at close range, try to stun break then use shield as soon as they fire Point Blank Shot (their cc) so that you can avoid eating the whole Rapid Fire. PBS also has a specific animation you can look for (and dodge). I recommend pillar leeching until you can close the gap then remove Shared Anguish and/or land a couple nades.

For mesmers, it is also pretty tricky. You need to dodge the shatters which will mostly happen when they come at close range. If they try to kite you, fight on your terms : use LoS to your advantage. I’d say that 1v1 relies a lot on your ability to land magnet successfully. You could try to precast magnet from behind a wall then getting clear : you then land a little rifle/nades combo. That’s the turning point of that kind of 1v1. If you never land magnet, chances are you won’t manage to kill the mes.

Edit : yeh, as in any 1v1, landing overcharged shot will help relieve the pressure. Also, dodge the Berserker Phantasm :>

all good tips. FYI having power wrench is pretty meta: 60044 sharpnel, incendiary ammo, granadier, protection injection, backpack regenerator, speedy kits and power wrench ;-)

Gaaroth.2567:

Uhtameit.2413:

Having 16s CD on gear shield is bad, it means you have power wrench. That means you either you don’t have Protection Injection or Backpack Regenerator and both are invaluable.

For longbow rangers : remember the longbow does bad damage at close range, try to stun break then use shield as soon as they fire Point Blank Shot (their cc) so that you can avoid eating the whole Rapid Fire. PBS also has a specific animation you can look for (and dodge). I recommend pillar leeching until you can close the gap then remove Shared Anguish and/or land a couple nades.

For mesmers, it is also pretty tricky. You need to dodge the shatters which will mostly happen when they come at close range. If they try to kite you, fight on your terms : use LoS to your advantage. I’d say that 1v1 relies a lot on your ability to land magnet successfully. You could try to precast magnet from behind a wall then getting clear : you then land a little rifle/nades combo. That’s the turning point of that kind of 1v1. If you never land magnet, chances are you won’t manage to kill the mes.

Edit : yeh, as in any 1v1, landing overcharged shot will help relieve the pressure. Also, dodge the Berserker Phantasm :>

all good tips. FYI having power wrench is pretty meta: 60044 sharpnel, incendiary ammo, granadier, protection injection, backpack regenerator, speedy kits and power wrench ;-)

No vigor is sad though, +10% damage on pry bar doesn’t justify it and -4s Gear Shield CD-5s Magnet are really not worth 50% vigor uptime : 6 0 0 6 2 remains the overall best trait setup imo.

What could justify 6 0 0 4 4 is having elixir S for the minor at 3 points in tools , the throw can save you I suppose. Or packing elixir R. If you have neither, welp :’)

If you are struggling to stay alive and do not have invigorating speed, then you are doing something wrong.

Guess I should have posted my builds. This is the primary one I use:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fdAQFAElUUp+qlcxErRaLoRGm1IyMOlP/gAcUA-TJBHwAAeAABuAAl2fAZZAA

I use this one for groups that look like they are going to be condition heavy, like ones with a necro: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fdAQFAElUUp+qlcxErRaLoRFGRnxpMkP/gAcUA-TJBHwAAeAABuAAl2fAZZAA

Hey Seamus,
After 200 games with my cele engineer, I can confidently say that I would not take Automated Response. I always avoid going deeper then 4 points into alchemy with my cele setup. The reason being necros’ and thief’s burst traits which kick in once your health is under the threshold already. I never could really ‘game change’ with Automated response. Sure, it helps if you have other defences up but while you are dragging out your death, necros become more powerful and thieves refill their endurance. I’ d much rather would take the cd reduction on the shield. The block made all the difference to not drop below 33% in the first place.
Furthermore, in explosives, I’d always take incendiary powder over 10% dog increase of explosions. Compare that trait to the equivalent for toolkit and you will find it inferior.
Nades, due to telegraphs get dodged a lot, as it is the tendency with all telegraphed skills. I almost waste my grenade barrage in one vs ones to trigger a dodge. My dmg actually comes from sigil of intelligence in conjunction with jump shot, blunderbus and toolkit!

This is all debatable, but that is my personal experience in ranked pvp.
Try to get a lot of conditions on your foe in the first place, cleanses on their side open up another good consiburst after 10 seconds. You can bridge that time with cc’s or blocks or raw dmg depending on your foes strategy

one doesnt take automated response
its invigorating swiftness, protection injection, and backpack regen

yes, the alchemy adepts outclass grandmasters

Never run protection injection over backpack regenerator. Ever.
Power wrench is mostly better than protection injection unless you face 5 hambows or something.

Mesmers have the upper hand against cele engi but they aren’t impossible to kill. That’s because most mesmers aren’t good. Just don’t eat shatters. Namely mind wrack and diversion, those are f1 and f3. Most mesmers will aim to use diversion first for halting strike procs(damage on interrupt) and whatever the vuln on interrupt trait is. This wears your hp down a bit and stacks a lot of vuln for the incoming mind wrack that will surely follow.
All good mesmers will run greatsword. So dodge mirror blade. It hits deceptively hard and it’s unblockable. It also gives them clones and might. It’s on a fairly low cooldown(6s i think) so after you dodge it once counter pressure them. They got no condition removal. The phantasm(berserker) hits a bit strong but don’t waste a dodge unless you need to or you will run out of them which makes you an easy kill.
If they run sword obviously dodge illusionary leap.

For rangers do whatever it takes to mitigate the initial ranged burst. Ideally you want to dodge point blank shot and block rapid fire. If you do it the other way around they can just wait till your block expires. The most important thing is to be close to them at all costs.
The moment you get to melee they will either try to reposition by stealthing or swap to greatsword. If they block use magnet. If they hilt bash/maul just dodge or overcharge, but be mindful of shared anguish.
Avoid entangle. It’s unblockable. They will use it after you are immobilized, knocked down or feared. if you get hit by it you have to break out. If they go rapid fire after entangle just block it. Your overcharge can get you out. You can just break the vines with jump shot+another high damage skill like barrage.

Ranger setup is more or less easy. Just dodge the point blank shot and entangle.

Mesmer are next to necro the worst steup for any Engi. many solo mesmer playing Mantra of Resolve so they have good condi removal.

Thank you all for your help. I changed my build a bit to this: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fdAQFAElUUp+qlcxELSaLoRFGQdCRmxp85HEgjC-TJBHwAAeAAd2fo8FAAZZAA

I feel like I am doing much better.

I would change it further, you are getting 0 might stacks so your damage won’t be sufficient to kill a foe quickly. I’d recommend a setup along these lines:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fdAQFAUlUUpErlcx+KseNCbBNyx0GRuxq85IEgkC-TJBHwAAuAAGeAAl2fAZZAA

P.S. Some people will say battle sucks, but they are wrong. It’s still amazing and the resulting damage capability you have is wonderful. Try it out and see how you like it.

Edit:
For fighting mesmers try to land your cc and really put a ton of pressure on with grenades as their condi removal is rather weak.

Rangers you need to dodge entangle and block rf, between that just utilize all types of damage you have to melt them as fast as possible.

Ario.8964:

I would change it further, you are getting 0 might stacks so your damage won’t be sufficient to kill a foe quickly. I’d recommend a setup along these lines:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fdAQFAUlUUpErlcx+KseNCbBNyx0GRuxq85IEgkC-TJBHwAAuAAGeAAl2fAZZAA

P.S. Some people will say battle sucks, but they are wrong. It’s still amazing and the resulting damage capability you have is wonderful. Try it out and see how you like it.

Edit:
For fighting mesmers try to land your cc and really put a ton of pressure on with grenades as their condi removal is rather weak.

Rangers you need to dodge entangle and block rf, between that just utilize all types of damage you have to melt them as fast as possible.

100% agree with this guy. This is exactly the build I run (with EG instead of Elixir S), and it does wonders.

If the shatter mesmer is good, you’ll loose. However, he can’t fight on the node so he probably won’t try. The real trick is to place your Overcharge Shot. I found out that one good way to do that is to use Gear Shield when he switches to GS, and when thinks he’s smart and runs to you to try and damage you with his unblockable GS2 (mesmers always assume you don’t know that, silly animals), OS him (and watch out for the shatter he might activate while stunned). Usually, one well timed OS if he has his stun-breakers on CD and he’s dead.

And because they are weak to all types of damage (super glassy with low condi removal) you can capitalize on that by stacking as much condi as possible during the times they are cc’ed or by pumping out damage via blunderbuss, jump shot, and crowbar (each can hit for 4k+ on them)