Guild Wars 2

Hey everyone,

I’ve been searching for a good use for Elixir C in WvW to help with our condi-cleansing difficulties. I haven’t yet found a build that isn’t hampered by taking elixir C over some more versatile/mobile/powerful utility. Has anyone else had any success putting elixir C to good use in WvW?

Elixir C needs a shorter cooldown or a stunbreak added to it to be in a good position. Elixir Gun is superior, Super elixir cleanses one condition on land and another condition for each projectile fired in it, which your allies will do easily.

Why are you having a hard time cleansing condition ?

engineering has 4 other ways to remove condition beside elixir c,

1) elixir gun – super elixir, remove 1 condition every 20 sec

2)med pack- antidote, remove 1 condition every 15 sec

3) 3 pts in alchemy – transmute, turn 1 condition into a boon every 15 sec

4) 4 pts in alchemy- Cleaning Formula 409, remove a condition when using a elixir.

Cleaning Formula 409 has to be the strongest cleansing ability in the game since you can use 8 elixir at the same time if you wanted too

Also the reason why elixir c has a high cd and can be reduce by 20% is b/c it doesn’t cleanse condition but converts it into a boon

The issue as I see it, is that the devs state that the engineer is balanced around using a kit to fill one of our utility slots. This cost us one slot that other professions have for a direct condition removal or stun breaker. What compounds that issue is the fact that we only have one kit that fills a utility slot that offers either of those option.

Drakent.9605:

Why are you having a hard time cleansing condition ?

engineering has 4 other ways to remove condition beside elixir c,

1) elixir gun – super elixir, remove 1 condition every 20 sec

2)med pack- antidote, remove 1 condition every 15 sec

3) 3 pts in alchemy – transmute, turn 1 condition into a boon every 15 sec

4) 4 pts in alchemy- Cleaning Formula 409, remove a condition when using a elixir.

Cleaning Formula 409 has to be the strongest cleansing ability in the game since you can use 8 elixir at the same time if you wanted too

Also the reason why elixir c has a high cd and can be reduce by 20% is b/c it doesn’t cleanse condition but converts it into a boon

This is all true. I don’t mean to imply that our only option for condition removal is Elixir C. Rather, based on a recent State of the Game talk with Anet, condi removal is intended to be one of our weak points. Despite that, Elixir C still seems unused. I wanted to generate discussion to see if other people agreed that Elixir C was useless, or if anyone had found any clever uses for it.

I don’t think that Elixir C is underused because it is weak. For a 40 second cd, you convert all condis into boons, and you get a toolbelt skill that does the same for a single condition. This is, on paper, stronger than most other classes’ full condition clearing abilities. I think Elixir C is underused because it requires a utility slot, which are highly needed for us to function competitively, arguably more so than other professions. So, has anyone found a way to take advantage of Elixir C in such a way as to negate the cost of the utility slot it goes in? For example, being able to use AED, since you can use Elixir C to clear conditions and no longer need Healing Turret. Or is there anything anyone has done to make particularly clever use of the huge influx of boons you get for 5 seconds after using Elixir C? Etc.

fluidmonolith.3584:

This is all true. I don’t mean to imply that our only option for condition removal is Elixir C. Rather, based on a recent State of the Game talk with Anet, condi removal is intended to be one of our weak points. Despite that, Elixir C still seems unused. I wanted to generate discussion to see if other people agreed that Elixir C was useless, or if anyone had found any clever uses for it.

I don’t think that Elixir C is underused because it is weak. For a 40 second cd, you convert all condis into boons, and you get a toolbelt skill that does the same for a single condition. This is, on paper, stronger than most other classes’ full condition clearing abilities. I think Elixir C is underused because it requires a utility slot, which are highly needed for us to function competitively, arguably more so than other professions. So, has anyone found a way to take advantage of Elixir C in such a way as to negate the cost of the utility slot it goes in? For example, being able to use AED, since you can use Elixir C to clear conditions and no longer need Healing Turret. Or is there anything anyone has done to make particularly clever use of the huge influx of boons you get for 5 seconds after using Elixir C? Etc.

its best use is as a sneaky trick in a duel, which isnt saying much. its got really bad 4 move syndrome in pretty much every other use case.

even in a duel, youre likely to be better off going turrets or 3 kit or SD

Drakent.9605:

Why are you having a hard time cleansing condition ?

engineering has 4 other ways to remove condition beside elixir c,

1) elixir gun – super elixir, remove 1 condition every 20 sec

2)med pack- antidote, remove 1 condition every 15 sec

3) 3 pts in alchemy – transmute, turn 1 condition into a boon every 15 sec

4) 4 pts in alchemy- Cleaning Formula 409, remove a condition when using a elixir.

Cleaning Formula 409 has to be the strongest cleansing ability in the game since you can use 8 elixir at the same time if you wanted too

Also the reason why elixir c has a high cd and can be reduce by 20% is b/c it doesn’t cleanse condition but converts it into a boon

1.) Is probably the most reliable one thus far. The heal also counteracts a lot of the health you lose from conditions but beware of overwriting people’s fields.

2.) Another good choice, but immobilize is a problem. You’re also sacrificing the water fields for group play.

3.) This trait is okay, but not really that good. The thing is that it only applies to incoming conditions and not ones already on you. While it’s good at handling condition pressure, it’s pretty useless when they burst you with a bunch of long lasting conditions.

4.) Strong, but the problem with this is that it competes with a lot of other traits in the alchemy tree— not to mention they were silly enough to put 4 elixir traits in the same tree! So this option is really good with condition removal, but then it makes you only good at condition removal— you lose either invigorating speed, backpack regen, or protection injection. And you still wouldn’t even have elixir cooldowns which are honestly very long with the exception of toss elixir b (which doesn’t even get affected by the cooldown trait due to it being a tool belt skill)— you’d have to sacrifice another one assuming you’re maxing out alchemy. Furthermore, you’d only be able to use one utility toolkit as one 409 powered elixir would hardly be enough, unless you want to replace your heal with that elixir, and that’s questionable.

Ultimately, engineers do have many ways to combat conditions and I have tried builds in wvw that take care of condis easily for myself and even the group, but at a big cost. It’s just that I do feel that they have to overspecialize in it a lot more as opposed to other classes to a degree where you sacrifice the class’s unique strengths in order to accomplish things other classes could do way better anyways. (Well, I play engi, necro, ranger, and main guardian, dunno about the rest). I could tell engis to take leg mods which is an awesome trait and laugh at immobilized, but it’s hard to fit that to many people’s builds even if on paper it’s the godsend to one of the Engineer’s key weaknesses. And likewise, Elixir C, while would be an awesome slot to take on say, a ranger, becomes problematic on an engineer.

@fluidmonolith.3584 and ArchonWing.9480 both of you are missing 1 huge detail about cleansing condition and that is that cleansing is a defensive action, meaning when you go on the defensive you sacrifice power for survival, I am sure you guys heard the phrase " you can have the cake but you cant eat it "

The reality is that every class in this game loses something just to get access to condition cleansing , is not giving for free.

If you play a ranger you would feel much better about what you sacrifice as engineer over what a ranger has to lose to have access to more then 1 condition removing skill.

What ppl fail to understand that trying to protect from condition is not different then trying to protect your self from physical damage and when ever you try to fully protect your self then you trying to be come a tank and you cant dps and tank at the same time.

P.s
you dont have to lose skill to get some protection from condition , there 2 option in this game.
1) Trade your offensive skill for cleaning skill
2) Trade your offensive food runes and sigil for condition protection

Lol?Cleansing ire is no power sacrificed for it.

Healing spring might not be the best in a mobile pvp fight, but in pve/point holding, it takes 1 condtion a pulse, this thing is kittenED good at healing you AND removing conditions from you, and everyone else.

Engi is once again in a position where, wanna do big deeps? you bring bombs/nades, generally lack defenses though. Wanna stack might? lose out on dps utilities/blow cds to blast for it. We can cleanse conditons but lose so much for it. but I think this is a good balance.

As for Elixer C, I used to run it, but in most cases what makes it bad is that it removes a ton of conditions at once, but has no other application. Elixer C problem is its SO good at removing condtions. Even if it had a stunbreak, EG removes Conditions, and can cleanse others with 3. and heals, and is a stunbreak, and cripples, and weakness spam, and bleeds, and has a blast/escape in acid bomb. it really is just plain better then Elixer C in all regards other then BURST condition placement where they place 6 of them on you are once, you can pop C to be free of them INSTANTLY, but most condition builds add them over time, slowly chipping you. sooooo its useless.

Dice Dragon.4326:

Lol?Cleansing ire is no power sacrificed for it.

Healing spring might not be the best in a mobile pvp fight, but in pve/point holding, it takes 1 condtion a pulse, this thing is kittenED good at healing you AND removing conditions from you, and everyone else.

Engi is once again in a position where, wanna do big deeps? you bring bombs/nades, generally lack defenses though. Wanna stack might? lose out on dps utilities/blow cds to blast for it. We can cleanse conditons but lose so much for it. but I think this is a good balance.

As for Elixer C, I used to run it, but in most cases what makes it bad is that it removes a ton of conditions at once, but has no other application. Elixer C problem is its SO good at removing condtions. Even if it had a stunbreak, EG removes Conditions, and can cleanse others with 3. and heals, and is a stunbreak, and cripples, and weakness spam, and bleeds, and has a blast/escape in acid bomb. it really is just plain better then Elixer C in all regards other then BURST condition placement where they place 6 of them on you are once, you can pop C to be free of them INSTANTLY, but most condition builds add them over time, slowly chipping you. sooooo its useless.

This is sort of what I was thinking. I’m not complaining about our condition removal or asking for defensive options for free. Instead, I thought “I’d really like to use Elixir C. How can I make it useful?” (I primarily play WvW). So I tried it out and, in my experimenting, it was generally better not to use it than it was to use it – often by replacing it with a kit, a stunbreak, or a mobility skill. Even with Elixir C, I felt more sources of condi removal were needed, since once you use it you can’t remove any more conditions (save 1 every 30 seconds from the toolbelt) for 32/40 seconds – this is a very long window of vulnerability. This is not a factor unique to the engineers’ full condi cleanse, of course.

I don’t like useless skills, so I try to find applications for them. It could be that Elixir C is not terribly useful in WvW, or atleast in the roaming-capable builds I tend to play.

My god, what is WITH these anti kit people? That is how the class is designed, EVERY class got a gimmick they depend on! Why do you even complain if you purposely limit yourself?

Oxstar.7643:

My god, what is WITH these anti kit people? That is how the class is designed, EVERY class got a gimmick they depend on! Why do you even complain if you purposely limit yourself?

no one is happy with what they have

hoomanz r greedy kittens

Oxstar.7643:

My god, what is WITH these anti kit people? That is how the class is designed, EVERY class got a gimmick they depend on! Why do you even complain if you purposely limit yourself?

Because it is an extremely stupid design.
If engineers are supposed to be always using some kit, make kits the main mechanic. That is, by the way, how the other classes’ “gimmicks” are forced upon.
If it isn’t the main mechanic, then it is something optional. And giving fixed penalties for something optional doesn’t make sense, despite what some people may think.

I always took the “Engineers are balanced with the idea that they have at least one kit” in more or less the same way as “Other non-Engie and Ele professions are balanced with the idea that they use weapon swap in combat.” I.E. that kit is there for when you’re up against something your main weapon wouldn’t work well against.

…Unless there is some research that prove pistol/x and rifle are inferior to kits in pretty much every way, regardless of build. But most of the time, people complaining about kits being “required” just point back to that dev comment that IMO doesn’t really say more than you are expected to have a backup weapon for emergencies.

Anyway, back on topic!

Elixir C… As others have mentioned, a “total cleanse” condi removal skill isn’t that useful all by itself. Most other skills in the game that do that or come close usually have something else going for it (Like how Necro’s Consume conditions doubles as a heal skill, or Ranger’s Signet of Renewal, which is clearing a condition every ten seconds untill you shunt them all to your pet) Guardian’s Contemplation of Purity is probably the only one that’s objectively worse (with a 60 second base cooldown) but it’s on a profession that has many other incidental condi removal skills and traits. Usually, it’s better to remove the real nasty conditions (like poison or confuse) as soon as you suffer from them, which makes the single condition removal skills with their shorter cooldowns much more useful.

Elixir C usually only shows up in alchemy-based builds, but it’s because after B it has the shortest cooldowns for stacking might with HGH, not for condi removal, and even then most people will pick up S instead, cause it’s usually a choice of either that or have no stunbreak.

Imagine engineers had no kits at all. Suddenly, not having weapon swap seems ridiculous. Elementalists don’t need weapon swap because of their class mechanic where each attunement = 5 skills per attunement. Engineers only have 4 abilities with their “class mechanic” and most of these abilities are bad. Rocket just does damage, nothing else. Throw Wrench does damage, nothing else.

then pick s/d, toolkit, pbr, and rifleturret.
there you go, your “class” mechanic is suddenly a pretty hefty burst on a very low cd.

or pick EG, Toolkit, Bombkit, medkit and go down the tool-tree.

Suddenly your class mechanic is a mayor heal, a stunbreaker, a small dps support, and a mayor dps support + knockback.

See it that way:
ele: forced to use 4 kits, 1 healing skill and 3 utilities.
engi: free to choose up to 4 kits, 1 healing skill and between 4-7 utility skills.

inb4 conjured weapons: as long as an ele hold them, their atonements only affect their utility skills and give traited effects, so you can ignore them basically in this comparison.

While not the “main mechanic” perhaps, kits represent why the main mechanic is what it is. They were a far more significant time and effort event than other skills too to develop.

When I hear how “we lose” a utility slot with a kit, I am reminded of a number of classes that would kill to have 3 actually usable slots. Many classes have one “essential” utility for say speed which we get with a simple trait (either power shoes if you really want to be kitless or speedy kits). Thieves and rangers come to mind as classes that must dedicate one slot.

So losing A slot for A key utility (of which you have the option to take 1 of 6 and each has extra utility) doesn’t make us disadvantaged at all. If anything, we have the most flexible design in utilities.

As for condition removal, we have a lot of ways to make it work. None are particularly easy or passive and many come with disadvantages.

We can get to almost -100% immobilize, chill and cripple which are our big problems lacking stability but it costs us food, runes, and a spec that has leg mods.

On the other hand, you can work with E-gun which will do 1 plus several with projectile finishers (if you master that somewhat arcane way in which the removal is someone “near your target”). The combo part works very well in a roam situation though.

Elixir C on occasion is interesting (if facing say an engineer with lots of different conditions to dump on you). In that case, the ability to convert ALL the conditions into very predictable boons is nice. The duration is too short to make it worthwhile and getting enough conditions on you is hard.

As for the “toss” it could use a stun break or increase the number of conditions to two. Though again, certain conditions transform into certain boons. You can get 5 seconds of retailiation for the entire team. The trouble is that it picks a random condition if you have several. So you can’t really time its use to get a certain group benefit. Having it pick 2 random conditions would greatly increase the odds of your getting the boon you want. 5 secs retailiation or 5 secs protection or even 5 secs fury isn’t bad for a group.

It will never be an easy elixir to use, but it could have value. I just struggle not to take 3 kits as they have sooooooo much versatility.

So a lot of good discussion. Just to throw my .02 cents in. I run elixir c in PvP with an HGH build. Because you are roaming and sometimes solo, p/s with elixir c is key for me. I defend with shield 5, pop elixir c, hit healing and I’m back to solid ground building might. Area blind with pistol, pop bombs, spam the point. Healing turret is better but ONLY in situations where you are not moving. You have to remain in the area of effect and it has a higher cool down to pick up and drop. Elixir gun is “ok” but I prefer to cleanse and go back to bomb kit to continue damage on point. When the bombs are on cool down, I stick with pistol as my source of damage since it’s an area attack when traited.

In WvW, when you are in large groups, area skills are key for helping the pack. However, if elixir C was changed too much then it would have an impact to other parts of the game. If you look at our stun breaks for elixirs there is a down side to using one. Elixir C would have none which would go against what they were doing for the engi build.

To sum: Elixir C is a poorer choice when playing a support role for the group but can be a better choice when providing single source cleansing on the move. Adding more to it might imbalance the skills when compared to other stun breaks.