Guild Wars 2

Perhaps I’m fighting against exceptionally talented friends, but I tend to struggle as an Engineer against condition based players.

This might sound ridiculous in the context that Engineers have a ton of Condition removal skills compared to many professions and yet a talented Necromancer can literally burn me down in seconds.

As present, I’m using a 0/20/20/30/0 build (see here http://bit.ly/QZ4ulu) with lots of condition removal. As part of my tournament team, there’s very few professions I can’t kill 1 on 1 and yet condition players really seem overly challenging at times. After I’ve used my Elixir C (and subsequent Elixir Tossing) I’m incredibly vulnerable for a long period of time.

Does anyone have any suggestions against condition Necromancers and Rangers? I must stress it isn’t a case that I can’t or don’t beat them, just that I’m open to options, strategies or build changes

C is bad.
swap that for R.

R cleanses periodically on throw. Moderate sized aoe. And can self res you.

It might be true, that some of my “conditions are terrible” comes from an engi/elem bias. 409 and elem water traits let me remove conditions nonstop.
My mesmer has a much harder time removing them. (granted wvw, glamour/phantasm build)

You have 6 cleanses. I would suggest, you are just using them too frequently, if you feel you have down time?
Immobalize generally, get off asap.
Confuse, 2-3+stacks or more. dont worry about 1 stack.
Bleeds. 6 stacks or more. dont worry about 2-3.
Burn. asap is ok. depends on the situation. Burn is high damage. And usually long cd. removing it right away will cut its usefulness down alot. but at the same time, its just damage. Saving that removal for chill, confuse, poison, immobalize, etc might be more important.
Chill. brutal get off asap.
cripple. probably not essential to get off.
poison. not important unless you need to heal. its damage is low. If it will timeout, before you need to heal. let it run out.

conversely, letting 3-4 conds stack up, that are not essential to remove. Means when you have that 1 you do need to remove, you won’t be assured the one you want, is the one that gets cleansed.

I run, H, grenades, B, R, supply drop. and frankly, feel near immune to conditions.
I also really like elixir gun and its cond removal.

I did use to use R actually (for the self rez) but swapped it out to really beef up my condition removal ability. I’ll have a go at re-prioritsing my condition removal, and test the R again

Really not a fan of flamethrower either. I think you could even take your build, and jsut swap to elixir gun, and be even more effective.

Especially if you try doing this on the fly. See a memser, or necro incoming, swap to elixir gun.

@ Casia: I do that already I predominantly use Flamethrower by default for the Blind and Knockback. As I’m usually assisting my tournament team, the Knockback alone is incredible.

Yeah, my typical pistol/elixir gun. lacking knockback to interrupt stomps is the main problem. You can give up elixir B for ram to attain it. or slick shoes.
Pistol blind I would think would be more then enough.

Elixir gun is secret op.

It actually scales really well. and of course tons of utility.
People focus so much on +cond, they overlook how much eg2 and eg 4 scale at.
Even eg1 is good.

+range on pistols brings them from 900-1050. Only 2 skills really gain from it. static and p1. +range on eg brings it from 900 to 1200. on 3 skills.

eg1. .380 scaling. 4s bleed for .2 cond scaling .9s cast same as pistol/rifle. and weaken/phsy proj
eg2. .715 bouncing 4 bounces. Let me say that again. .715. 6.5s cd with fireforged. Large bounce range too. So aoe, and can also double hit the first target.
testing, in zerker gear vs heavy dummy, no might or vul stacked. 1200 crits per hit with elixir F. vs players with might/vul and less armor, we are talking 2-2.5k crits on that.
eg3. fumigate is poor. ill admit that. it needs to be reworked. its damage scaling is atrocious. .385 over 3s, or .128/s Consider I just said F does 6-11 times as much. poison, is weak damage, and if you are doing eg, you probably have pistols as your weapon swap. PDV applies that poison at longer range, longer duration, more direct damage, better in every way. 6stacks of vul. ok, but not at that cost of such low damage. Everyone applies vul. cures conditions on allies… again. eg? kitten 409, and super elixir. you dont need fumigate to cure conditions. Fumigate is a terrible, terrible ability.
Eg4. super underrated. again, because people build +conditions, they don’t see how strong this is. .809/sec. 5s duration. would be nice if it broke stun or cripple/chill. or was leap combo. (actually, does it do any of those undocumented? never tested that..) But regardless, it does evac. and does a good amount of damage. its lava font level of scaling. drop that on seige, or a player that can’t move.
eg5. super elixir. pretty sure everyone knows now good this is. Unlimited target heal. 1200 range +240 radius is HUGE. Light combo for retaliation and cond removal. Ret scales with power.

Casia.4281:

It actually scales really well. and of course tons of utility.
People focus so much on +cond, they overlook how much eg2 and eg 4 scale at.
Even eg1 is good.

All the calculations in your post are about the scaling of EG with power, correct?

yes those numbers are for how much they gain from power.
Although did mention eg1 condition scaling as well, without any +duration.
I did not mention how much poison scale at. as its very low.
And did not mention how much super elixir scales at… which I have not tested. someone else did that at one point. search might work.

I run a completely different engineer build (turrets, mostly) and I also have problems with conditions.

There is a very simple explanation for this, actually. Most classes that have condition curing abilities actually do “something” while they cure a condition, or their main healing skill jut natively cures conditions. Just to name a few:

Thief: Hide in Shadows stealths and heals. Roll for initiative retreats and grants initiative.
Warrior: Mending heals and cures conditions, Shake it off AoE cures and breaks stun and gets shout support.
Necromancer: Putrid Mark, Deathly Swarm, and Plague Signet transfer conditions to your enemy. Consume Conditions heals and cures.
Guardian: Cleansing Flames causes AoE ring burn and cures, Smite Condition Causes Damage, and a ton of passive condition curing abilities.
Mesmer: Glamour Field rips boons and has glamour support, arcane thievery steals boons and transfers conditions
Rangers: Healing Spring cures and heals, has passive condition heal and Empathetic Bond regularly takes conditions away.

The problem with Ranger condition curing is that it doesn’t do anything else useful. Elixir C converts conditions to random short lived boons, making it unpredictable and not really useful in a pinch. Elixir R pulses slowly and is on a long recharge. Healing Turret takes forever to finally activate it’s condition heal. Autoimmune response only makes you immune to newly applied conditions once it’s too late. The best condition cleaner is 409, which requires you to run multiple elixirs to be useful, and even then using the throwing skills is mostly useless for elixirs since all they do is grant a random buff. When you compare Elixir C to something like Arcane Thievery or Cleansing Flame, Elixir C is incredibly kittened. Compare Cleansing Burst to Consume Conditions or Hide in Shadows, and Cleansing Burst seems horrible by comparison. So, when you make an engineer, you have two options: Either you use elixirs and take the Cleaning Formula 409 trait, or you have a bad condition weakness.

I actually took a completely different route. I equipped runes of Melandru onto my turret engineer and completely forwent condition curing, instead focusing on regen and controlling my opponent. The build can hold a point like boss, but it undoubtedly has a condition problem.

Now, as for your posted build, my advice is as follows:

Axe Elixir C for something else. Elixir U comes to mind: it is unpredictable but it’s utility is unparalleled. 1/3 chance for smoke field that blocks projectiles, 1/3 chance for light field that reflects projectiles, 1/3 chance for stealth field which isn’t as useful but nonetheless a 2/3 chance to stop projectiles is awesome. If you don’t want elixir U for whatever reason, Elixir B gives fury, swiftness, and retaliation and Elixir R regains endurance and makes for an excellent death-recovery mechanism.

For traits, remove 10 points from alchemy and put them into explosives, getting incendiary powder. That trait is a must-have for condition builds, and the 10% increase in condition duration helps a bit.

For equipment, cleaning formula if used correctly should be sufficient for nearly all condition problems, so runes of Melandru are not necessary. I would suggest either Runes of Lyssa (10% condition duration, increased precision, boon on heal, elite cures all conditions and grants all boons), or for condition offense runes of the Orian, which gives haste at 20% health.

our healing turret has that cleanse thing dosent it? and you can blow it up when it does that water field thing to heal more too i think.

The turrent cleanse takes forever to activate. A lot of people say 7 seconds to finally activate, but it seems like a lot more time than that. 7 seconds with 15 bleeds or so takes off half of your health, so it isn’t a reliable way to cure conditions.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

The turrent cleanse takes forever to activate. A lot of people say 7 seconds to finally activate, but it seems like a lot more time than that. 7 seconds with 15 bleeds or so takes off half of your health, so it isn’t a reliable way to cure conditions.

Are you saying it isn’t cleansing until 7 seconds after you hit the key that triggers the effect?

I guess that is exactly what he is saying.
I can confirm that the healing turret takes long (too long) until it cleanses.

I hadn’t used it since much since beta really. I had no idea it was having such an issue. I would definitely say it is a bug though.

Not sure if it is a bug (while definitely being annoying).
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Healing_Turret

Quote: "This turret’s overcharge ability Cleansing Burst applies when the turret next fires, not instantly. "

What really puzzles me though is that the tooltip of the healing turret reflects Regeneration ticks correctly, but the turret doesn’t apply it.

Quoting from the German forum:

“Regeneration has a base healing of 130. Plus 12,5 healing on top per 100 healing power.

Regenerating mist works, but the turret never exceeds 130 healing/tick – no matter how high my healing power is.

Whats even more strange, is that the tooltip shows the correct values:

Healing power 0:
— Tooltip: 8s Regeneration: 1040 Healing
— actual healing ticks: 130 Heal (in 8s = 1040 Heal) – correct

Healing power 1223:
— Tooltip: 8s Regeneration: 2263 Healing
— actual healing ticks: 130 Heal (in 8s = 1040 Heal) – false"

Be aware I can’t verify this at the moment. Also it could be either the tooltip or the implementation that is wrong.
Moreover this is off topic. Sorry.

There are in-fact two types of conditions in builds. I name them Consistent Conditions and Explosion Conditions.

Consistent conditions build’s goals are to stack one or two conditions continuously on you. Using condition removal with long cool downs are very ineffective against these builds, because they will simply instantly put the same amount of conditions stacks back on you. Consistent condition builds are weak against conditional removal with short cool down.

Explosion Conditions build’s goal is to have many small stack conditions on you ticking at once. Condition removal with short cool downs are ineffective against these builds, because short cool down condition removal tend to remove 1 or 2 conditions only leaving you to suffer the rest. Explosion conditions builds are weak against condition removal with long cool down because they remove all the conditions are once. Explosion condition builds also have long cool down skills making it difficult to quickly reapply the many conditions.

Your build:
I see you are running a heavy toughness elixir build engineer. Your build looks fine. I think the problem you have is how you use those condition removals. your many elixir provides a counter to consistent condition builds and your Elixir C provides a counter to explosion condition builds. To correctly counter consistent condition builds remove conditions only when they start becoming a problem (ie, ~7-10+ stacks of bleed or long duration burns or poison) instead of the instant you see them. To correctly counter explosion builds save your Elixir C for those moments when you have ~5+ different conditions on you at once, it’ll take almost just as long for your attacker to restack those ~5+ conditions. (Unless you’re standing still and letting him nail to the wall, of course)

How I counter conditions:
Elixir Gun + Kit Refinement (5 Points in Tool)

Upon switching to Elixir Gun, you active a Super Elixir which removes a single condition and place a small healing field that stacks with regeneration and even with itself. If that is not enough Elixir Gun# 5 has a Super Elixir to remove another condition. Both Elixir are 20 seconds cool down. The Super Elixir is a perfect counter to consistent condition builds. For explosion condition builds, I tank their conditions. I also run a low health engineer build, but explosion conditions tend to be very short duration allowing my small healing field from Elixir Gun to counter act the effects. Not a very good counter, but it allows more trait room for my offensive engineer.

Off topic: Your pistol engineers is an explosion condition build. I recommend incendiary powder, adding burn to your condition list, if you want to be more offensive. :P

- Sincerly, An overly offensive engineer

Pannonica.5378:

Not sure if it is a bug (while definitely being annoying).
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Healing_Turret

Quote: "This turret’s overcharge ability Cleansing Burst applies when the turret next fires, not instantly. "

What really puzzles me though is that the tooltip of the healing turret reflects Regeneration ticks correctly, but the turret doesn’t apply it.

Quoting from the German forum:

“Regeneration has a base healing of 130. Plus 12,5 healing on top per 100 healing power.

Regenerating mist works, but the turret never exceeds 130 healing/tick – no matter how high my healing power is.

Whats even more strange, is that the tooltip shows the correct values:

Healing power 0:
— Tooltip: 8s Regeneration: 1040 Healing
— actual healing ticks: 130 Heal (in 8s = 1040 Heal) – correct

Healing power 1223:
— Tooltip: 8s Regeneration: 2263 Healing
— actual healing ticks: 130 Heal (in 8s = 1040 Heal) – false"

Be aware I can’t verify this at the moment. Also it could be either the tooltip or the implementation that is wrong.
Moreover this is off topic. Sorry.

That is working as intended. Turrets and other skill summoned entities don’t receive stat bonuses from anything on the player. Because of this, the regen caused by the healing turret will always be for the same amount.