Guild Wars 2

Something I hear a lot is how HGH is really overpowered and needs to be nerfed and what not, but honestly I feel it is very easy to counter. Sure we can do pretty good damage, but honestly its easy to shut down.

1. Base damage revolves around skillshots with grenades, not an easy thing to do. Easy to spot projectiles making it easy to just walk or roll out of the way.

2. You put any pressure on an HGH engineer and it falls apart. With little escapes (elixer S is about it) and very little condi removal (just elixers), any class that can spam conditions quickly, put confusion on us a a lot, or even do a ton of single target damage can easily shut this down. Thiefs with lots of gap closers, rangers with great long range single target dps, etc.

3. Projectiles. As with every engineer build, all they do is use projectiles. Any class that uses projectile reflects can really shut down HGH engineers. I was fighting a guardian today that used that reflect wall skill. She would just sit in it or move on either side to the point I couldn’t hit her.

Honestly, this build feels balanced and how every build in the game should be.

It can do lots of damage, however it has little to no survive ability. Other classes such as thiefs, mesmers, and somewhat eles (they don’t do massive damage, but still can do a lot) have a lot of survive ability despite being squishy. Theifs with all their gap closers/makers and stealthing, mesmers with the clones/phantaasms and stealths, and then eles with all of their gap closers/makers and mobility.

I just don’t see why people claim them to be so over powered.

Im SD rifle engi and have noticed the same thing (point 2.) when facing Hgh engies. Their entering damage is great but I know that and go “duck and cover mode” and burst back with SD and rifle and thats about it. Some HGH been better than others but somehow ive been winning most encounters. Nothing op on them. If u let HGH eat u its ur fault not the builds.

HGH engineers are very good at the top level of tournaments, maybe the best couple hundred players in the world. In a top-tier team, everyone is on voice chat, so as soon as the engi starts getting focused he will call for a “peel.” Also, top-tier teams have depended heavily on bunker guardians and eles for a long time, and HGH engineers are particularly good at killing people who think they can live through anything.

So it’s mostly top players who find it OP. For good reason—it’s a very strong damage build—but it’s certainly much better at the top tier than anywhere else. Top teams are able to compensate for the weaknesses while utilizing the strength of the build, which is countering bunkers.

Is it actually OP?

Or is it just effective at dealing with a particular type of build (bunkers) if played very skillfully over an extended duration and the other player doesn’t play with the same level of skill?

it IS actually OP. There are no rivals at what it does. It kills the kitten out of everything with no remorse.

In top tier tournaments I win 90% of all even fights and 1v1s. Team fighting is a breeze.

The build is insane, but also takes a lot of practice. I am pretty sure it will get nerfed next patch, so have fun while you can!

Ostricheggs.3742:

it IS actually OP. There are no rivals at what it does. It kills the kitten out of everything with no remorse.

In top tier tournaments I win 90% of all even fights and 1v1s. Team fighting is a breeze.

The build is insane, but also takes a lot of practice. I am pretty sure it will get nerfed next patch, so have fun while you can!

Well if this gets nerfed, they really need to buff something else. If they nerf engineers hgh, a large portion of them will leave the class again. HGH is honestly the main thing that keeps a majority of the engineer population alive imo. SD is good, but is risky in that you don’t have a lot of hp/survive ability. The SD doesn’t do a ton of damage. If they honestly nerf this, I will bet you that there will be an outcry of engineer players asking why dont you nerf mesmers damage or thiefs 10k+ in a couple of hits damage, or the eles sustainability.

That is just my 2 cents. I hardly see engineers in WvW, even more so in PvE. The ones that are in there are usually running some type of HGH. Pre HgH buff, nobody really used HGH. They just took 409, it will revert back to that if it gets nerfed again.

I’m just tired of seeing engineers nerfed so much every patch. I honestly dont see as many complaints about this class as I do with mesmers, thiefs, or eles.

Okay, I’ll ask for it. Can someone please show how this CCless build could possibly dominate any decent 1v1/duel scenario? Any videos or anything to go off of? It contradicts everything I’ve learned since BETA for what wins 1v1 and it’s driving me crazy that a player with Ostrich’s re kitten aying it’s the best 1v1 build in the game amongst all professions.

Ostricheggs.3742:

it IS actually OP. There are no rivals at what it does. It kills the kitten out of everything with no remorse.

In top tier tournaments I win 90% of all even fights and 1v1s. Team fighting is a breeze.

The build is insane, but also takes a lot of practice. I am pretty sure it will get nerfed next patch, so have fun while you can!

Just wondering, since you’re 1 of the main persons behind the HGH build. what will you do if they do in fact nerf it ? what’s your backup build ? will you still play the class ? etc :]

The Engineer community are masochist. Why can’t we be very strong, is there something wrong with that?

I wouldn’t call us masochistic. Just polyhedralhypercompulsively antagonistic.

with a drop of hyperbole.

Hgh build is a bit nuts, and can be called op when in a good group. So can anything else… It’s time consuming to set up for most, but nothing a little crowd control can’t handle.

I just don’t see why people claim them to be so over powered.

Because you are playing it wrong?
Skill throws of grenades? Reflecting projectiles? Countering by pressure in close?

Anyone who just comes in close to hgh engi with stacked might simply melts down in seconds. He doesn’t need very strong protections cause of all condition spam under himself, not somewhere far away as you suppose.

Good ele and thief will run away, and good ranger will kite you on max distance and kill, yes, they are worst for us.

google.3709:

Ostricheggs.3742:

it IS actually OP. There are no rivals at what it does. It kills the kitten out of everything with no remorse.

In top tier tournaments I win 90% of all even fights and 1v1s. Team fighting is a breeze.

The build is insane, but also takes a lot of practice. I am pretty sure it will get nerfed next patch, so have fun while you can!

Just wondering, since you’re 1 of the main persons behind the HGH build. what will you do if they do in fact nerf it ? what’s your backup build ? will you still play the class ? etc :]

I was honestly thinking about that earlier, and the depressing answer is that there are no other viable builds that don’t rely on HGH.

After kit refinement was gutted I have no others. I’ve tried so hard to find anything, literally anything, to replace or rival the efficacy of HGH and I have been since I discovered the build. Last patch both of the substitutes I “found” (hundred nades with elixir C/might stacking instead of toolkit and bunker with tookit/e-gun) depended on kit refinement as a main part of the build.

So really, I have no idea what I’d play. Obviously there needs to be some buffs to a LOT of underperforming traits and utilities. Right now we’re in the same boat as eles. We only have one spec that’s anywhere near decent, but that spec is overpowered. How can you nerf the only spec a class has? A-net has a depressing record of nerfing classes into the ground, beyond the point of unplayability, for months and months at a time.

I’d prefer that not to happen to us AGAIN. In a perfect world I would like to see HGH get a nerf and far, far more viable builds created via buffs to kittenty stuff

Ostricheggs.3742:

[…]
I was honestly thinking about that earlier, and the depressing answer is that there are no other viable builds that don’t rely on HGH.
[…]

This is something that bothers me. HGH-builds are not that good because of only HGH but because of the whole Alchemy-Line which is just so kitten good.
Its the condition-removal-line. We got other removals but none that good or easy (or just an unskilled elixir).
Its the selfbuff + buffduration line on top of that. Plus the utilities of the elixirs themselves which really aren’t bad.

So.. even non-tournament-builds tend to come back to one form or another of HGH. At least thats what is happening to me.

I call bullkitten.

There are many counters to a HgH build. Such as CC. We only have one way to stability: throw elixer S. It’s on a 45s CD and is only a 50% chance we get stability. Hammer guardian kicks our kitten

HGH*409 based builds offer you everything you need. It’s really too bad that you get to be pigeonholed in there in order to be exceptionnally effective. I.. wouldn’t mind seeing it go to be honest, fed up with Elixirs.

The only way for it to ‘go’ should be bringing other trait lines up to par, not nerfing Alchemy/HGH.
Also, I think people are talking sPvP mostly in this thread.
From my point of view (WvW), HGH is fine in non BS builds. HGH pulls us up to the damage other professions are putting out with ease (and potentially without might stacking… but just pulling this out of my kitten). If it gets stripped, we’re sausage again.
Retaliation generally kills Grenade builds in zerg situations, even more so if its traited Grenadiers.
Of course some honk in a BS build will gank people, seem op and people call for nerfs… Its sad the whole community gets hit by nerfs, when they should really only hit honks.

It’s a very OP build, enjoy it while it lasts.

OGDeadHead.8326:

It’s a very OP build, enjoy it while it lasts.

They need to buff something else when they nerf it though. As they said before, we don’t have a whole lot we can do besides HGH. It will just be a few bunkers.

I’m just saying, if they nerf HGH and do nothing else the next patch…it wont be good.

Ostricheggs.3742:

google.3709:

Ostricheggs.3742:

it IS actually OP. There are no rivals at what it does. It kills the kitten out of everything with no remorse.

In top tier tournaments I win 90% of all even fights and 1v1s. Team fighting is a breeze.

The build is insane, but also takes a lot of practice. I am pretty sure it will get nerfed next patch, so have fun while you can!

Just wondering, since you’re 1 of the main persons behind the HGH build. what will you do if they do in fact nerf it ? what’s your backup build ? will you still play the class ? etc :]

I was honestly thinking about that earlier, and the depressing answer is that there are no other viable builds that don’t rely on HGH.

After kit refinement was gutted I have no others. I’ve tried so hard to find anything, literally anything, to replace or rival the efficacy of HGH and I have been since I discovered the build. Last patch both of the substitutes I “found” (hundred nades with elixir C/might stacking instead of toolkit and bunker with tookit/e-gun) depended on kit refinement as a main part of the build.

So really, I have no idea what I’d play. Obviously there needs to be some buffs to a LOT of underperforming traits and utilities. Right now we’re in the same boat as eles. We only have one spec that’s anywhere near decent, but that spec is overpowered. How can you nerf the only spec a class has? A-net has a depressing record of nerfing classes into the ground, beyond the point of unplayability, for months and months at a time.

I’d prefer that not to happen to us AGAIN. In a perfect world I would like to see HGH get a nerf and far, far more viable builds created via buffs to kittenty stuff

I’ve been trying as well. As you say, most of the time I just hit a wall and realize it’s not possible. I think I hit on a bunker build that’s more or less viable, though. I tried it for the first time yesterday and did pretty well vs. some good teams. If eles get nerfed, it may even be a competitive bunker build. So I believe a non-HGH build is possible, just maybe not yet.

Not a big fan of HGH builds. The way it stacks Might, forces me to blow all my utility skills. It gives a lot of burst at the beginning of the fight. Although you have to reuse all your utility skills to maintain might stacks. This takes too much time in a fight and really cuts down on your dps as you cant attack while buffing unless you use the laughable Acidic Elixirs.

I moved on from HGH build long ago. So they can nerf it to the ground for all I care, but honestly other classes and builds do it better.

NickDollahZ.5348:

Not a big fan of HGH builds. The way it stacks Might, forces me to blow all my utility skills. It gives a lot of burst at the beginning of the fight. Although you have to reuse all your utility skills to maintain might stacks. This takes too much time in a fight and really cuts down on your dps as you cant attack while buffing unless you use the laughable Acidic Elixirs.

I moved on from HGH build long ago. So they can nerf it to the ground for all I care, but honestly other classes and builds do it better.

If you have an Engineer raining down grenades on a group fight and nobody spots him and stops him, right now, no other profession provides that kind of sweeping AoE damage by a long shot.

My point of contention is with those who say this build is amazing 1v1. I guess I haven’t seen top tier 1v1 fighting, but last I checked CC and damage mitigation wins in most 1v1s, and the HGH build has almost zero of any of those things. To me, it’s the pinnacle of the ‘sidekick’ build, in that you always run with another or a group, and they peel opponents off of you and do the CC for you while you rain terror.

But anyway, yeah… HGH nades I think is the strongest AoE damage build in the game, especially when you consider how far away from the fight the Engie can be to do said damage.

In the situations that you specified, Grenades and turrets both do a great job in forcing your opponent to leave the node/spot being bombarded. I’d argue that they wouldn’t out right kill you. At least not anymore that 100 nades is gone.

Which bring up a whole different point of using the terrain to your advantage to deny your opponent a node with 1500 range. Whether or not that is balanced has nothing to do with HGH. It speaks to rather or not Grenades themselves are balanced. Which is a good question for another thread.

As far as sidekick build, I think there alot of other classes/build that can destroy a CC’d opponent. I believe grenades are the strongest ranged AOE damage skill in the game.

Looking for substance behind the “it’s OP” and “it’s not OP” posts produced the following:

Deified.7520:

Sure we can do pretty good damage, but honestly its easy to shut down.

ikiturso.4026:

Their [HGH Engs] entering damage is great but I know that and go “duck and cover mode” and burst back with SD and rifle and thats about it.

NevirSayDie.6235:

it’s a very strong damage build—but it’s certainly much better at the top tier than anywhere else. Top teams are able to compensate for the weaknesses while utilizing the strength of the build, which is countering bunkers.

Ostricheggs.3742:

In top tier tournaments I win 90% of all even fights and 1v1s. Team fighting is a breeze.
[…] takes a lot of practice.

PhelanDisturbed.1650:

It’s time consuming to set up for most, but nothing a little crowd control can’t handle.

bromi.7809:

Anyone who just comes in close to hgh engi with stacked might simply melts down in seconds. He doesn’t need very strong protections cause of all condition spam under himself, not somewhere far away as you suppose.
Good ele and thief will run away, and good ranger will kite you on max distance and kill, yes, they are worst for us.

Ferum Flamebender.5910:

There are many counters to a HgH build. Such as CC. We only have one way to stability: throw elixer S. It’s on a 45s CD and is only a 50% chance we get stability. Hammer guardian kicks our kitten

Pannonica.5378:

HGH pulls us up to the damage other professions are putting out with ease

NevirSayDie.6235:

I tried it for the first time yesterday and did pretty well vs. some good teams.

NickDollahZ.5348:

It gives a lot of burst at the beginning of the fight. Although you have to reuse all your utility skills to maintain might stacks. This takes too much time in a fight and really cuts down on your dps as you cant attack while buffing unless you use the laughable Acidic Elixirs.
… but honestly other classes and builds do it better.

aydenunited.5729:

If you have an Engineer raining down grenades on a group fight and nobody spots him and stops him, right now, no other profession provides that kind of sweeping AoE damage by a long shot.
[…] last I checked CC and damage mitigation wins in most 1v1s, and the HGH build has almost zero of any of those things. To me, it’s the pinnacle of the ‘sidekick’ build, in that you always run with another or a group, and they peel opponents off of you and do the CC for you while you rain terror.

NickDollahZ.5348:

In the situations that you specified, Grenades and turrets both do a great job in forcing your opponent to leave the node/spot being bombarded. I’d argue that they wouldn’t out right kill you.
[…]
As far as sidekick build, I think there alot of other classes/build that can destroy a CC’d opponent. I believe grenades are the strongest ranged AOE damage skill in the game.

Draw your own conclusions …

Still waiting on in-game video that shows HGH being OP. Anyone have some?

twitch.tv/ostricheggs

I think the only way to consider this skill OP is to take it in the context that everything goes your way.

You’re spec’d and geared a certain way, you never miss a toss elixer, you never miss your key grenades, your opponent never dodges or cleanses the nasty stuff, you’re in the right sort of fight for it to work… You have to be an octupus to keep this all up. Who else has to work this hard to be considered a threat?

Now there might be some of us who find themselves in this perfect situation more often that others, but I hardly think you can claim something is op because those people are doing well. Frankly those people will do better than the curve regardless of spec or class.

Besides, what is HGH anyway? It’s just might stacking. In WVW I was seeing 25 might stacks well before using HGH. It would be a mistake to nerf HGH if what they’re actually concerned about the impact Might has.

I could care less what they do frankly. I play this class BECAUSE it’s a clunky, disorganized mess. I just would like for sensible, measured decisions would be made for change.

I agree, it is probably just might that is OP. Up around ~20 stacks is a lot of extra stat. The only somewhat special thing about ’nades is that they stack nicely with both the extra power and condition damage.

Ostricheggs.3742:

twitch.tv/ostricheggs

Just watched that for 5 minutes while you played in a group fight. In that time you killed one player who was hanging back from a fight when you arrived (you even ran away from them twice while they were downed before finishing them), you were killed twice and you captured an abandoned point with no opposition.

You play well (much better than me) yet there was nothing that I saw in that time that even suggested HGH might be OP.

HGH is not OP as I wrote in my post. It is the interaction with Grenade kit + HGH that makes it strong (READ: NOT OP). This speaks more about the power of the Grenade kit then HGH itself.

Zenguy.6421:

Ostricheggs.3742:

twitch.tv/ostricheggs

Just watched that for 5 minutes while you played in a group fight. In that time you killed one player who was hanging back from a fight when you arrived (you even ran away from them twice while they were downed before finishing them), you were killed twice and you captured an abandoned point with no opposition.

You play well (much better than me) yet there was nothing that I saw in that time that even suggested HGH might be OP.

Suit yourself. You won’t find me 1v4’ing top tier players in structured if that’s your basis for OP.

HGH excels in all aspects of tourneys except point holding. Like it or not, that’s the consensus and that’s what I see and feel. The build as a whole is overpowered.

NickDollahZ.5348:

HGH is not OP as I wrote in my post. It is the interaction with Grenade kit + HGH that makes it strong (READ: NOT OP). This speaks more about the power of the Grenade kit then HGH itself.

^This.

Anet doesn’t know how you balance Grenade Kit.
That was at least one of the reasons KR was redone. (Anet stated)
And now it might be the reason for another Trait to get messed with.

Grenadier is the OP Trait and it always has been, or find a few competitive Builds that use(d) Grenade Kit without 30pts in Explosives!

Hey o’eggs, if hgh got nerfed couldn’t ya just take 10 points out of alchemy and put it into firearm, then use undead runes? U will have an extra 300 – 400 base condi dmg, and still have the ability to roll with constant 10 might stacks, sounds comparable to me, plus u could swap ex b for toolkit or bomb kit or whatever

Ostricheggs.3742:

google.3709:

Ostricheggs.3742:

it IS actually OP. There are no rivals at what it does. It kills the kitten out of everything with no remorse.

In top tier tournaments I win 90% of all even fights and 1v1s. Team fighting is a breeze.

The build is insane, but also takes a lot of practice. I am pretty sure it will get nerfed next patch, so have fun while you can!

Just wondering, since you’re 1 of the main persons behind the HGH build. what will you do if they do in fact nerf it ? what’s your backup build ? will you still play the class ? etc :]

I was honestly thinking about that earlier, and the depressing answer is that there are no other viable builds that don’t rely on HGH.

After kit refinement was gutted I have no others. I’ve tried so hard to find anything, literally anything, to replace or rival the efficacy of HGH and I have been since I discovered the build. Last patch both of the substitutes I “found” (hundred nades with elixir C/might stacking instead of toolkit and bunker with tookit/e-gun) depended on kit refinement as a main part of the build.

So really, I have no idea what I’d play. Obviously there needs to be some buffs to a LOT of underperforming traits and utilities. Right now we’re in the same boat as eles. We only have one spec that’s anywhere near decent, but that spec is overpowered. How can you nerf the only spec a class has? A-net has a depressing record of nerfing classes into the ground, beyond the point of unplayability, for months and months at a time.

I’d prefer that not to happen to us AGAIN. In a perfect world I would like to see HGH get a nerf and far, far more viable builds created via buffs to kittenty stuff

GW1 has an excellent track record of poor balance. One profession get buffed into the heavens, while another is ground into dust, and nothing is done about it.

Monks sure could heal, but their Smiting wasn’t allowed to last long.
Paragons… I never saw the point.
Dervish, really? What couldn’t they get away with.
Ritualist was nerfed, and still was strong—in PvE. PvP was debatable with how long everything took to activate.
Etc, etc, etc.

With GW2…. I don’t know what to think. It’s been 8 months. Flame Thrower was just recently fixed to not miss miss miss miss anymore. And frankly, I just assume it really is fixed (who knows if it is, since Blowtorch on the Pistol still misses). And what about Poison Dart Volley? Do our Engineers need Diazepam to get their snipe off?

NickDollahZ.5348:

In the situations that you specified, Grenades and turrets both do a great job in forcing your opponent to leave the node/spot being bombarded. I’d argue that they wouldn’t out right kill you. At least not anymore that 100 nades is gone.

Show Spoiler

hide spoiler

Besides the occasional trolling with Explosive Descent. Jump shooting off a cliff onto your opponent then Grenade Barrage. ZOMG 100nades is back

Which bring up a whole different point of using the terrain to your advantage to deny your opponent a node with 1500 range. Whether or not that is balanced has nothing to do with HGH. It speaks to rather or not Grenades themselves are balanced. Which is a good question for another thread.

As far as sidekick build, I think there alot of other classes/build that can destroy a CC’d opponent. I believe grenades are the strongest ranged AOE damage skill in the game.

In no way can I see Grenades as being OP, when I can see others out-do that damage with ease. Only with the synergy of Grenades with other factors do you see it climb. That synergy is in question. Not HGH alone or Grenades alone.

Frankly, my Grenades in my build only hit for as much as my Bombs (30 Explosives). I didn’t min/max them with my gear stat choices. They were simply because I liked the spread and Vulnerability. (pve speaking). They were nerfed long ago. It didn’t affect me much, but I noticed the loss in damage. If they get nerfed again, I’ll be demanding that pvp and pve skills just get split off from each other. As messy as that is, it just doesn’t make sense to balance everything about a class because of subset in pvp.

Any class that can out-range another has an advantage.
Any class that can cast multiple AoEs has an advantage.
Any class that can do decent front-loaded damage has an advantage.

When all those fall into 1 build, it will look OP. They are far away, laying down a spread of damage, and it is hurting. LOS is a friend, along with stripping Might, and a good direct burst. Condition and Boon swapping is deadly, or at least deadlocks the point of HGH.

If everyone at high levels of tPvP is running cookie-cutter builds, that is an obvious problem, since they are being predictable. And it means the class design is poor.

Frankly, I don’t see why anyone can self-buff to 25 stacks of anything. It should be a group reaches the total together, but an individual hits around 10 and then the stacks start falling off as fast as a solo person can place back up. Support should be buffed to make up for that, allowing multiple people to combo to full boon stacks of 25. But eh, who knows. I don’t play with the numbers.

Hsinimod.5784:

In no way can I see Grenades as being OP, when I can see others out-do that damage with ease. Only with the synergy of Grenades with other factors do you see it climb. That synergy is in question. Not HGH alone or Grenades alone.

Frankly, my Grenades in my build only hit for as much as my Bombs (30 Explosives). I didn’t min/max them with my gear stat choices. They were simply because I liked the spread and Vulnerability. (pve speaking). They were nerfed long ago. It didn’t affect me much, but I noticed the loss in damage. If they get nerfed again, I’ll be demanding that pvp and pve skills just get split off from each other. As messy as that is, it just doesn’t make sense to balance everything about a class because of subset in pvp.

Any class that can out-range another has an advantage.
Any class that can cast multiple AoEs has an advantage.
Any class that can do decent front-loaded damage has an advantage.

When all those fall into 1 build, it will look OP. They are far away, laying down a spread of damage, and it is hurting. LOS is a friend, along with stripping Might, and a good direct burst. Condition and Boon swapping is deadly, or at least deadlocks the point of HGH.

If everyone at high levels of tPvP is running cookie-cutter builds, that is an obvious problem, since they are being predictable. And it means the class design is poor.

Frankly, I don’t see why anyone can self-buff to 25 stacks of anything. It should be a group reaches the total together, but an individual hits around 10 and then the stacks start falling off as fast as a solo person can place back up. Support should be buffed to make up for that, allowing multiple people to combo to full boon stacks of 25. But eh, who knows. I don’t play with the numbers.

Even in your post that is trying to defend Grenades. You point to the imbalances of Grenade Kit. Grenade Kit should not out damage Bomb Kit. Melee skills are suppose to deal more damage then range ones because of the risk involved.

Your 3 points about any class are all true if you just equip the Grenade Kit.
Grenade Kit sit at the max range possible.
Grenade Kit throws 3 AOE per toss with a decent spread.
Grenade Barrage one of strongest front load damage skills. So much so that we lost the Grenade Barrage on Kit refinement.

Should Grenade Kit be nerfed? No, reworked which in some cases it means nerfed, but overall easier to use in all cases. Although that is for another thread.

HGH might stacking is actually not our strongest way of stacking Might but it’s the most popular and easy to pull off. Also other classes can stack might alot easier and take less time then it does with HGH. They dont have to give up all their Utility/Heal slot cds too.

NickDollahZ.5348:

Hsinimod.5784:

In no way can I see Grenades as being OP, when I can see others out-do that damage with ease. Only with the synergy of Grenades with other factors do you see it climb. That synergy is in question. Not HGH alone or Grenades alone.

Frankly, my Grenades in my build only hit for as much as my Bombs (30 Explosives). I didn’t min/max them with my gear stat choices. They were simply because I liked the spread and Vulnerability. (pve speaking). They were nerfed long ago. It didn’t affect me much, but I noticed the loss in damage. If they get nerfed again, I’ll be demanding that pvp and pve skills just get split off from each other. As messy as that is, it just doesn’t make sense to balance everything about a class because of subset in pvp.

Any class that can out-range another has an advantage.
Any class that can cast multiple AoEs has an advantage.
Any class that can do decent front-loaded damage has an advantage.

When all those fall into 1 build, it will look OP. They are far away, laying down a spread of damage, and it is hurting. LOS is a friend, along with stripping Might, and a good direct burst. Condition and Boon swapping is deadly, or at least deadlocks the point of HGH.

If everyone at high levels of tPvP is running cookie-cutter builds, that is an obvious problem, since they are being predictable. And it means the class design is poor.

Frankly, I don’t see why anyone can self-buff to 25 stacks of anything. It should be a group reaches the total together, but an individual hits around 10 and then the stacks start falling off as fast as a solo person can place back up. Support should be buffed to make up for that, allowing multiple people to combo to full boon stacks of 25. But eh, who knows. I don’t play with the numbers.

Even in your post that is trying to defend Grenades. You point to the imbalances of Grenade Kit. Grenade Kit should not out damage Bomb Kit. Melee skills are suppose to deal more damage then range ones because of the risk involved.

Your 3 points about any class are all true if you just equip the Grenade Kit.
Grenade Kit sit at the max range possible.
Grenade Kit throws 3 AOE per toss with a decent spread.
Grenade Barrage one of strongest front load damage skills. So much so that we lost the Grenade Barrage on Kit refinement.

Should Grenade Kit be nerfed? No, reworked which in some cases it means nerfed, but overall easier to use in all cases. Although that is for another thread.

HGH might stacking is actually not our strongest way of stacking Might but it’s the most popular and easy to pull off. Also other classes can stack might alot easier and take less time then it does with HGH. They dont have to give up all their Utility/Heal slot cds too.

I disagree with a very large majority of your post for reasons I am too tired to put into words. I am sorry for not contributing to the discussion.

Tough times

Since GW2 is not a hardcore mmorpg grind game, it’s community is different. And I see that especially engineer community consists lots of casuals who do not know their profession . Calling HGH build OP is really ridiculous. There are lots of cons of this build among with it’s pros. You should not call your build OP when you kill bunch of players whose build or team was not prepared enough for you . And do not forget that most of the players do not even know engineer skills since we are few. And am I wrong or is this HGH build has any CC ? Get real guys or devs are going to really think that HGH is op and you are gonna whine in the end. Actually I just use P/P condition build in TPvP and I just do not loose. And I kill SD rifle engies, bunker Engies, and HGH engies. So they should nerf my build too?

Anyone crying about HGH being OP probably is just bad. The longer a battle drags on the worse the chances the engineer has, so just kite around LOS objects until their stacks start to deteriorate.

Or if you’re a mesmer/necromancer, either strip, steal, or transform their boon into condition. If their boon disappears, or worse, gets turned into weakness, they’re in serious trouble.

And am I wrong or is this HGH build has any CC

How about 3 of it?

@this individual,

Still waiting on in-game video that shows HGH being OP. Anyone have some?

Looking up the player attributed as “mask” may be the confirmation u need.

retaliation + might stacking makes me a smelly fish

bromi.7809:

And am I wrong or is this HGH build has any CC

How about 3 of it?

yeah blind and cripple ftw

Lunar Corporation.5720:

@this individual,

Still waiting on in-game video that shows HGH being OP. Anyone have some?

Looking up the player attributed as “mask” may be the confirmation u need.

retaliation + might stacking makes me a smelly fish

OP means “Over Powered”.
OP does not mean “effective if used skilfully in extended play”.

HGH is a great build. But it is misleading to calling it OP when it requires prolonged application of masterful skill to be effective and can be countered by other class’s builds using comparable levels of skill.

I love Maskaganda’s videos and all the others who take the time to post great Eng videos here – they are testaments to masterful play. The only ‘superior force’ in those videos is the skill each person uses against his opponents.

If anything is OP here, it’s the skill level of our top Engs. Those guys are awesome, and a real tribute to what can be achieved with this class when played masterfully.

It doesn’t matter if it requires more or less skill, it’s probably overpowered because it gives you too much (condi cleansing, condi burst, might stacking, range aoe, boons, with some luck protection, and decent armor). Sure you don’t have tanking, good mobility or more than one stun-breaker, but as a roamer, the build is too good.
They should probably nerf it, and when they do it I don’t know what build i will play in spvp, the others that i tried seem to be way worst.

Baldric.6781:

It doesn’t matter if it requires more or less skill, it’s probably overpowered because it gives you too much (condi cleansing, condi burst, might stacking, range aoe, boons, with some luck protection, and decent armor). Sure you don’t have tanking, good mobility or more than one stun-breaker, but as a roamer, the build is too good.
They should probably nerf it, and when they do it I don’t know what build i will play in spvp, the others that i tried seem to be way worst.

This. This exactly.

The build is so kittening balanced and an exceptionally good player with a good team can make up for its faults and exacerbate its strengths.

Ostricheggs.3742:

Baldric.6781:

It doesn’t matter if it requires more or less skill, it’s probably overpowered because it gives you too much (condi cleansing, condi burst, might stacking, range aoe, boons, with some luck protection, and decent armor). Sure you don’t have tanking, good mobility or more than one stun-breaker, but as a roamer, the build is too good.
They should probably nerf it, and when they do it I don’t know what build i will play in spvp, the others that i tried seem to be way worst.

This. This exactly.

The build is so kittening balanced and an exceptionally good player with a good team can make up for its faults and exacerbate its strengths.

It’s so kitten balanced that it’s OP? Isn’t that… like… completely contradictory?

Ostricheggs.3742:

The build is so kittening balanced and an exceptionally good player with a good team can make up for its faults and exacerbate its strengths.

I think the balanced part was just a mis-type. But I completely agree with you. On the top level of tournaments (maybe top ~100 leaderboards) teams are so good that they can cover almost every weakness of the build, and the only viable counter is to focus the engi at the start of every team fight and hope you take him down quick. Everywhere else, it’s just a good build somewhere in the vicinity of a bunker guardian. Does its role well, pretty one-dimensional, can decide the match if not countered.

From my perspective HGH is one of the few things that is actually a decent Grandmaster trait that’s working as intended.

So yeah, that one ability might seem OP in the grand scheme of things … because everything else on an Engineer feels pretty crap.

So maybe ANet should focus on bringing all those underpowered abilities up to accceptable levels, instead of nerfing the few things that actually work into oblivion.

NevirSayDie.6235:

Ostricheggs.3742:

The build is so kittening balanced and an exceptionally good player with a good team can make up for its faults and exacerbate its strengths.

I think the balanced part was just a mis-type. But I completely agree with you. On the top level of tournaments (maybe top ~100 leaderboards) teams are so good that they can cover almost every weakness of the build, and the only viable counter is to focus the engi at the start of every team fight and hope you take him down quick. Everywhere else, it’s just a good build somewhere in the vicinity of a bunker guardian. Does its role well, pretty one-dimensional, can decide the match if not countered.

If this was an RPS game every team would have at least one fundamental weaknesses that could be countered by the next element in the RPS cycle. Where skill levels are virtually equal, team-vs-team matches would determined as much by where each team is in the RPS cycle as anything.

But ANet have deliberately avoided turning GW2 combat into a Rock-Paper-Scissors game. How would you know they’ve achieved that? Top teams are able to compensate for the weaknesses of each member of the team, and success comes from the consistent quality of play of each team. This sounds like the situation you’ve described.

If it turns out every top team has to include an HGH Eng to be competitive, then the HGH Eng probably will need winding back. Given the quality of skill being applied, the difference between being OP and UP at those levels may be very small, and the degree of winding back require to correct this may be equally small.

Deified.7520:

Something I hear a lot is how HGH is really overpowered and needs to be nerfed and what not, but honestly I feel it is very easy to counter. Sure we can do pretty good damage, but honestly its easy to shut down.

1. Base damage revolves around skillshots with grenades, not an easy thing to do. Easy to spot projectiles making it easy to just walk or roll out of the way.

2. You put any pressure on an HGH engineer and it falls apart. With little escapes (elixer S is about it) and very little condi removal (just elixers), any class that can spam conditions quickly, put confusion on us a a lot, or even do a ton of single target damage can easily shut this down. Thiefs with lots of gap closers, rangers with great long range single target dps, etc.

3. Projectiles. As with every engineer build, all they do is use projectiles. Any class that uses projectile reflects can really shut down HGH engineers. I was fighting a guardian today that used that reflect wall skill. She would just sit in it or move on either side to the point I couldn’t hit her.

Honestly, this build feels balanced and how every build in the game should be.

It can do lots of damage, however it has little to no survive ability. Other classes such as thiefs, mesmers, and somewhat eles (they don’t do massive damage, but still can do a lot) have a lot of survive ability despite being squishy. Theifs with all their gap closers/makers and stealthing, mesmers with the clones/phantaasms and stealths, and then eles with all of their gap closers/makers and mobility.

I just don’t see why people claim them to be so over powered.

I was going to wright out a bloody speech but I’ll keep it short.
Due to anets rushed, poor implementation of our class abilities, and our overall subpar dps performance. I cannot say, with good conscience, that HGH is overpowered. The dps we pull while running our HGH build, is a somewhat average or maybe slightly above average dps build to other professions. It’s one of our highest dps builds and the fault with this lies with anet nerfing us every chance they get and not buffing our weapon/kit damage. Anet has said that engineer’s wouldn’t be forced to use kits, that the kitten running around with only p/p or rifle would be as useful as the kitten running with kits. Thanks to HGH and ONLY HGH is this true. We do not have the ability to weapon swap, and our kits are useful for 1-2 skills a piece (minus the grenade kit), which means if I am running with 2 kits I may be using the same amount of skills a class that can swap weapons is using. Meanwhile the other skills on said kit, are situational, example: magnet. Anet seems to be afraid that Engineers would become what is the Warrior. The master race.
Anet’s “vision” for us is to be the WoW Shaman and they keep proving that this is their vision every patch. Buffing our turrets, upping the damage ever so slightly. But our turrets are weak, both dps and defensivly, and our turrets are so stupid they are broken The only reliable turret we have is the thumper, since it’s AoE but the AoE isn’t even close to big enough, even when traited. The other turrets get distracted by pretty rocks and things out of range. The worst part is if you’re running a turret build, you’re sacrificing a lot. You won’t have a stunbreaker, condition removal, etc. Until we become the area control via turret characters that anet wants us to be, and we have the ability to use turrets at the same time we are running an HGH build. HGH is where it needs to be.

Aveneo.2068:

So maybe ANet should focus on bringing all those underpowered abilities up to accceptable levels, instead of nerfing the few things that actually work into oblivion.

Man its not Anet style for our class. They dont buff weaker builds, they nerf useful ones into same useless state.