Guild Wars 2

Cloaking device breaks target while protection doesn’t. 3 seconds of protection let’s you live (maybe) for 3 seconds while you are being beat on. 3 seconds of not being beat on while you are locked down anyway is amazingly nice. I ran Protective Shield for a week of daily WvW and missed Cloaking Device right away. Stuck with it just to make sure but it never got better (for me).

Lanny.6987:

Cloaking device breaks target while protection doesn’t. 3 seconds of protection let’s you live (maybe) for 3 seconds while you are being beat on. 3 seconds of not being beat on while you are locked down anyway is amazingly nice. I ran Protective Shield for a week of daily WvW and missed Cloaking Device right away. Stuck with it just to make sure but it never got better (for me).

I pretty much agree with this, although the effect does diminish when you are fighting large groups, or enemies that can do a lot of AoE damage. They’ll still be able to pinpoint where you are when you’re stealthed because they know you are also immobilized (unless they’re not that familiar with engg), so it’s possible that it may not be effective against some people.

However, if you’re fast you can cleanse the immobilize and get a short time of stealthed mobility, which can help you get out of a pinch. Also, I believe if the immobilize is converted by Transmute, you won’t suffer the immobilize but still gain the stealth effect, which can be handy. The stealth also stacks, so if you get hit by two immobilizes at once, you get 2 stacks of the stealth buff. Cloaking device also has no cooldown, making it effective against chain immobilizes.

Protective shield is still a strong choice. However, since this build relies more on active defense (i.e. dodging, avoiding, kiting, blinding) than passive defense (damage reduction, blocking, high regeneration), cloaking device can be a more useful choice.

In the end, I think it just ends up being personal preference for the most part, but there’s probably situations where protective shield would help more than cloaking device (i.e. the enemy has no immobilization skills).

Monkeymonger.9235:

Hi, i started an engi a few days ago after watching your videos. So far the only 1v1 i lost was to a mesmer that used a phantasmal build [+health/damage, survival utilities].
I always brought him to 10-20%, but at this point he had berserker/duelists out and stealthed away. Do you have any advice for how to fight this build?

Also great videos ofc!

thanks, the key to those is in my opinion, dodging the phantasms. they have some very clear tells/animations.

@katsumo , pretty much what other said :p
protective shield is great and I use it for my duel build but cloaking device can make a much bigger difference especially against several guys or group fights

Lanny.6987:

Cloaking device breaks target while protection doesn’t. 3 seconds of protection let’s you live (maybe) for 3 seconds while you are being beat on. 3 seconds of not being beat on while you are locked down anyway is amazingly nice. I ran Protective Shield for a week of daily WvW and missed Cloaking Device right away. Stuck with it just to make sure but it never got better (for me).

Issue being, cloaking device has a large cooldown. On the other hand, the protection can be up pretty much indefinitely if you are into boon duration and your being disabled fairly regularly.

timidobserver.7925:

Lanny.6987:

Cloaking device breaks target while protection doesn’t. 3 seconds of protection let’s you live (maybe) for 3 seconds while you are being beat on. 3 seconds of not being beat on while you are locked down anyway is amazingly nice. I ran Protective Shield for a week of daily WvW and missed Cloaking Device right away. Stuck with it just to make sure but it never got better (for me).

Issue being, cloaking device has a large cooldown. On the other hand, the protection can be up pretty much indefinitely if you are into boon duration and your being disabled fairly regularly.

I think you’re a bit misinformed.

Cloaking device has no cooldown whatsoever at the moment (I expect that they’ll look at adding one in the future).

The protective shield trait being talked about is a 3 second protection when hit by a critical attack and has a 20 second cooldown, so it’s not possible to have a near indefinite uptime of protection through that trait alone.

I think you have it mixed up with protection injection, which is a 3 second protection triggered on being disabled on a 5 second cooldown. This is on the alchemy line and is thus not mutually exclusive with cloaking device.

Builds like Mask’s don’t really have room for the protection injection trait without giving up something else very valuable though, so it comes to down to picking between protective shield and cloaking device as the major trait for 10 points in inventions.

Amazing build Mask. You inspired me to play engineer, and I started to PvP a lot cause of your amazing skill and build. I was wondering if I could possibly set up a duel (1v1) in sPvP with you? I just want to see what it is like fighting the real deal. (Ya don’t have to if you don’t wanna, add Korrank Derringer if you do). And again, you’re amazing!!!

I think like mask stated, protective shield is better in 1v1s and cloaking device in 1vmanys. PS also works well in builds with lots of protection procs and duration runes. It will pretty much proc when available but it’s biggest draw back is its CD and vs low crit builds. One of the nicer things of cloaking device is the target drop and no CD. With someone as good as mask, it would give you the option of running or dropping a low lifer. If you do the latter, and you get immobilized again, stealth again. In the end I love both of the traits, which is why I use both in my build :-D

Korrank.7850:

Amazing build Mask. You inspired me to play engineer, and I started to PvP a lot cause of your amazing skill and build. I was wondering if I could possibly set up a duel (1v1) in sPvP with you? I just want to see what it is like fighting the real deal. (Ya don’t have to if you don’t wanna, add Korrank Derringer if you do). And again, you’re amazing!!!

Thanks, I’m glad I inspired someone :p

sure, we can duel, but according to the sig, aren’t u from fort aspenwood ? Gandara here, you know.. EU server :p

Maskaganda.2043:

Korrank.7850:

Amazing build Mask. You inspired me to play engineer, and I started to PvP a lot cause of your amazing skill and build. I was wondering if I could possibly set up a duel (1v1) in sPvP with you? I just want to see what it is like fighting the real deal. (Ya don’t have to if you don’t wanna, add Korrank Derringer if you do). And again, you’re amazing!!!

Thanks, I’m glad I inspired someone :p

sure, we can duel, but according to the sig, aren’t u from fort aspenwood ? Gandara here, you know.. EU server :p

How do you feel your build will hold up after this patch? I’ve been planning on running something similar in WvW as a change up for my regular defensive support build, just haven’t bothered getting the gear until recently. I’ve used it in sPvP, but I think it will do better in the WvW format.

Yamsandjams.3267:

How do you feel your build will hold up after this patch? I’ve been planning on running something similar in WvW as a change up for my regular defensive support build, just haven’t bothered getting the gear until recently. I’ve used it in sPvP, but I think it will do better in the WvW format.

it will probably be hit hard because of confusion nerf and elixir S nerf, so I’d wait till after the patch.
it will still be viable if those are implemented, just not as good.

I could theorycraft and speculate here but there’s really no point. better to just wait a few hours :p

well.

Ouch after this patch.
Looks like Elixir S is 10x trickier,
Cloaking Device is a little longer but only 1-2 times per fight maybe,
I am not sure Confusion will counter instagib Thieves any longer since they will burn you down before confusion does them.
And looks like a nice round of hit you through your Gear Shield skills were passed out.

Kinda sucky since there seems to be a lot tht weakens the builds but not much that strengthens it at all.

I am a little scared to go dueling now.

I’ve been playing more HGH P/P in WvW lately. I think ima go back to tankcat for a while. No more solo roaming, I guess.

It is worth noting that we’re still able to pick up dropped bandages while being Elixir S’d.

Solo roaming will be harder with this build, but this build can also contribute fairly well to group combat scenarios, which it should still do just fine in.

EDIT: Maybe a possible switch to incendiary powder or speedy kits instead?

no need for speedy kits, swiftness is close enough to permanent while in combat.
I might change for incendiary powder, still need to test if cloaking device is any good now.

I did some duels yesterday and barely noticed any difference while fighting the same classes and players. I still need to duel good eles and thieves tho. Also my dueling build is slightly different than my roaming build so I need to test that too :p

so after some testing roaming here’s what I found:

-elixir S requires some getting used too and a change in the order I use the oh kitten buttons: instead of elixir s + heal + supply crate I now do supply crate + heal + s and pick up the packs.
It’s still very very good, especially for stomps or getting some seconds for another dodge or heal or gear shield. I always tried to save it for stomps anyway, so not much as changed.

-Confusion stil kills baddies, just half as fast, which is still pretty kitten fast in some cases. I found good players to actually take more damage from confusion than before since they now actually activate some skills while before they would just kite and cleanse. the 50% change didn’t make it half as bad. :p

-cloaking device: I actually like it more now. 5 seconds is alot of time, allows me to reposition and even escape zergs with a change in movement direction. I haven’t noticed the 25 seconds cooldown to be that bad.

-IP……… I really like it now, but I don’t know what to drop for it. I could drop the extra range but I’d lose coated bullets too and I don’t want that :\

I’ll have a new vid up whenever I gather enough footage.

Mask, are you keeping toolkit or switching back to elixir c?

Im keeping toolkit, mostly due to elixir S change. gear block and box of nails give me those extra seconds to survive. prybar is still decent even with the confusion nerf.

I probably would go elixir C if I wanted tankier build but I’d drop B instead. I’d also grab potent elixirs back :p

IP or Cloaking device?? It all comes down on how you play WvW. If you are always with the big zerg get IP. If you like soloing or small groups roam take Cloaking device, it will save your life. If you do both get Cloaking device, better safe than dead.

For me, Coated bullets is a must as it’s your easy/fast AoE. HGH is a must as well. So you only have 10 points to play with and swap around.

Based on Elixir S bug (reported by Mask) I’ve switched to Elixir R until they fix it.

that particular elixir S bug has been around since ever, turns out I only noticed it now, so dont worry too much about it.
as for the rest, I agree.

“elixir S requires some getting used too and a change in the order I use the oh kitten buttons: instead of elixir s + heal + supply crate I now do supply crate + heal + s and pick up the packs.”

^^ This. Best suggestion for elixir s nerf yet. still viable just gotta change the order. Genius.

Thanks Mask ur vids rock btw.

Maskaganda.2043:

-cloaking device: I actually like it more now. 5 seconds is alot of time, allows me to reposition and even escape zergs with a change in movement direction. I haven’t noticed the 25 seconds cooldown to be that bad.

I agree as well, I like it better. The only real advantage the old one has was against chain immobilizes, but an attentive player will still know where you’re standing, especially if they’re familiar with the cloaking device trait.

The 5 seconds allows you time to pop an elixir, clear the immobilize, and still have like 3 seconds of stealth to move around with.

It does make it worse if you insta-break your stealth because of a projectile you fired just before you were stealthed.

I’ve still been using cloaking device though, although I’m really tempted to switch over to incendiary powder. An extra 6 second burn every 10 or so seconds would be quite nice, especially in 1v1 scenarios. Making this switch would also allow one to ditch the giver’s pistol and take something with more stats since you wouldn’t need the +10% condition duration from the pistol due to getting it from the explosives line (assuming rare veggie pizza, of course).

I use a full set of altruism runes on my build since it gives group bonuses and helps with fury uptime, which is useful in group WvW combat. I also have a suspicion they’ll change something to do with these 2-rune stacks that people run, but maybe that’s just me being paranoid.

can’t watch in germany.