Its so funny that yesterday i been fighting a guy using gs+mace/shield in spvp. It is pretty easy to counter tho, but its seems that it worked as ppl had no idea what to do.
Easy to counter how exactly? It’s pretty much impossible to avoid every Skull Crack and even guardians/eles eventually run out of stun breaks/stability at which point they’re dead. Now 1v1 yes you could do the same old kite fest but then you can just switch to dogged and mobile strikes. Skull Crack on an Asura is also almost impossible to see cause the animation is so small.
A strong blind build should be able to do it. A bomb build Engineer or any condition overload build should be able to do it. If there is no cover/obstructions any decent ranged build should be able to do it.
The main issue with this build is the fact you know the warrior needs to close the gap and is going to double stun. If you blow your stun breaker on the second stun there isn’t much the warrior can do to counter. That being said if you get caught it is likely over. I don’t think Ill run this much. Stun lock to me is just….. Either way more power to warrior who run this. A win is a win on this class more than any other. It would be nice to see one warrior QQ thread like the old days.
Well that being said when I see a bomb Engi I’d probably play defensive till I knew he had used the best bombs because the CD on those things are pretty long. I haven’t fought many engis that use bomb kit for more than Big Ol’ Bomb and Glue for running away though. I will say yes the fact that you have to get in close is a problem but that being said a warrior running a longbow build would probably also lose to a Engi and I can’t think of a build that would really counter it well and still be viable vs other specs.
(Edit: I am still new to engineer so I do not know it all, but this is what I have observed so far. Just being honest.)
Big ol bomb is great but it is not my favorite nor do I consider it the best. I would put Fire Bomb at the top of the list in a condition over load spec and Smoke Bomb right behind that.
Now bombs in PvP especially WvW are not that great. Enemies can usually predict them and get away unsaved. However the trick I am finding out is to use bombs plus projectiles and blast to off balance the enemy. Any build that actually needs to close the gakitten usceptible to bombs. Fire bomb is on of the best access a condition spec gets to burning beside running FT. The fact it makes a field helps with application from ranged. Smoke bomb is good for when the stun break is down or when you simply want to stealth away.
No matter how good a warrior spec is if you are landing your conditions as long as he doesn’t catch you he will die. Melandru or not half of condition enjis run between 80 and 100 condition duration. So you are right with perfect play no real countering engineer.
Either way if it does get out of hand I will be one of the first to post how the stun should be nerfed. I do not play or like 1 button I win builds. Main reason my thief is half shelved. I do not think it is that bad though and we need a win as it is. I think we should all look at DD ele at a time like this. For a long time it was considered up it was mentioned that it would get buffs. The meta changed things got weird and it got nerfed into the ground.
Kor The Cold Heart War Wrekkes-Engineer Kore Rok Thief-Asraithe-Ele
I don’t really think Skull Crack is a 1 button “I win” considering how many teleports, blinds, stun breaks, and stability skills there are in the game. The only class this build can just destroy is Necro because they don’t have a lot of ways to break out once they are locked down. This is actually kinda cool because if people are going to keep running two necros on teams than having a class that can lock them down might make us appealing.
Just an angry old man…
Old Man Burr (War), Bad Hat Ben (Engi), Manly Manny Manson (Guard)
I don’t really think Skull Crack is a 1 button “I win” considering how many teleports, blinds, stun breaks, and stability skills there are in the game. The only class this build can just destroy is Necro because they don’t have a lot of ways to break out once they are locked down. This is actually kinda cool because if people are going to keep running two necros on teams than having a class that can lock them down might make us appealing.
Not to be too rude but you said yourself, “It’s pretty much impossible to avoid every Skull Crack and even guardians/eles eventually run out of stun breaks/stability at which point they’re dead.”
I could say the same about a thief missing their first back stab but know fully if it lands anybody is sol (easy counter however). In this case because its a stun you fully sol. 10 second CD on a stun that long with that quick of an animation. I would call that an “I win” button in most cases.
Kor The Cold Heart War Wrekkes-Engineer Kore Rok Thief-Asraithe-Ele
I don’t really think Skull Crack is a 1 button “I win” considering how many teleports, blinds, stun breaks, and stability skills there are in the game. The only class this build can just destroy is Necro because they don’t have a lot of ways to break out once they are locked down. This is actually kinda cool because if people are going to keep running two necros on teams than having a class that can lock them down might make us appealing.
Not to be too rude but you said yourself, “It’s pretty much impossible to avoid every Skull Crack and even guardians/eles eventually run out of stun breaks/stability at which point they’re dead.”
I could say the same about a thief missing their first back stab but know fully if it lands anybody is sol (easy counter however). In this case because its a stun you fully sol. 10 second CD on a stun that long with that quick of an animation. I would call that an “I win” button in most cases.
That doesn’t mean they can’t easily kill me first before any of my Cracks ever manage to land. I have decent sustainability for a warrior but if I lose a fight it’s typically because of a lack of sustain or just not being able to remove conditions frequently enough. If ANet re-nerfed Skull Crack and didn’t give something awesome in return I would probably just quit PvP because the more they try to encourage build variety the more we find ourselves forced to run at least 20 in defense and 15 into discipline. New mace might finally be our chance to have SOMETHING good to add to a team. Combustive Shot on LB is good but locking down a currently OP Necro is much more useful.
Just an angry old man…
Old Man Burr (War), Bad Hat Ben (Engi), Manly Manny Manson (Guard)
Speaking of how the build wrecks Necros – I did the burst combo back to back on a Necro yesterday. First one are all their full built DS, then the next one they were out and I hit them for a full 15k 100b. Some ranger must have used hunter’s shot or something, I was laughing.
Engineer definitely seems like it would have best chance to counter this in 1v1 (I main Engi since beta). Bombs are great and as mentioned BoB is cool but easily dodged and less useful in open fights like a 1v1 not contained to a capture point. Your strong bombs in 1v1 are burning – somewhat, smoke bomb – blind field hell yes, and concussion bomb – coupled with pry bar and static shot you can get 14 confusion stacks… Nasty.
Honestly I personally feel Flamethrower is a stronger 1v1 weapon. On tap instant AOE blind, 12s CD AOE knockback, nice long fire field and then #2 actually hits pretty hard with pass through + detonate damage. The auto from FT would also allow you to attack without fear of reflection whenever on Mace/Shield. Throw in tool kit to block bursts and stack confusion and a nice cripple field. Elixir gun also offers stun breaker on a relatively short CD, healing field, unblock able damage field, and a poison spray you can again use during mace/shield with no reflect worry.
A defensive high condi duration engi has a really good shot of countering this build. Everyone is too busy complaining about necros but i think this is 1 of the best builds to countering them atm. I personally don’t think the build is OP but any more warriot buffs that affect the build might push it over the top. This is WvW of course, in sPvP warriors still need a bit more since they still suffer from the same problems in group fights as before, its just slightly less worse.
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Jade Quarry – Team Savvy – #1 NA WvW Solo Guild
It would be interesting to see how this build further develops. Personally after solo/small group roaming in wvw for so long, it is the first time I actually consider warriors to be a major threat with this build.
Heidia- The elementalist is the #1 most OP profession in this game since beta!
Its so funny that yesterday i been fighting a guy using gs+mace/shield in spvp. It is pretty easy to counter tho, but its seems that it worked as ppl had no idea what to do.
Easy to counter how exactly? It’s pretty much impossible to avoid every Skull Crack and even guardians/eles eventually run out of stun breaks/stability at which point they’re dead. Now 1v1 yes you could do the same old kite fest but then you can just switch to dogged and mobile strikes. Skull Crack on an Asura is also almost impossible to see cause the animation is so small.
Experience ; ) I been running mace/mace pre patch, and i still runs it. And i actually enjoys that. Ive noticed before that skull crack+chain does pretty nice damage to bunkers, and deadly to gc, as it stand now i can skull crack+chain+tremor>switch to rifle>volley+butt. When i manage to get full adrenaline again (matter of seconds) i usually use stomp to set up ks. Thats works ofc olny if ur enemy is out of stunbreaks.
Somehow i actually managed to get decent healing too (healing signet heheh).
I’ve been running this pretty nicely in WvW with Hoelbrak, Lemongrass, and Dogged March. I picked up Defy Pain too, and running around 60% crit with signet of rage up. I have two impact sigils which helps even further on the damage of 100blades and skullcrack. It’s pretty fun. I don’t know if there’s a better build honestly to complete the greatsword due to the chance to land a full 100blades.
I’m fairly new to this game so don’t know most class mechanics which causes my untimely deaths at certain engagements where I don’t know yet what’s coming. Specifically, an engineer got me the other day – I had all my conditions reductions going but to some other persons point above I would imagine he had food and other somethings to increase his condition durations because they didn’t bounce off me like they normally do.
Normally, against average players my missile deflection does the trick to keep them at bay long enough where they’re scared and fumbling but not this guy.
I can’t see myself picking up cleansing ire with this spec; landing the skull crack in MELEE range to get the conditions off me is counter intuitive because the most logical time I need to get it off me is when I’m not in melee range, lol. So without a longbow it’s tough to pick it up.
I likely just have to slot signet of stamina and be done with it to offset these scenarios.
Daze/stun/knockdown/knockback all trigger unsuspecting foe.
They don’t.
Stun is a completely different effect from Daze. Knockdown and Knockback are disables. Daze/Stun/Knockdown/Knockback together fall under the flag of disables.
Wrong, it affects all disables. Did you actually test it or did you go off the tooltips because you should never do that on vague tooltips. Ive tested it and it works like i posted above.
Well, since you asked, I tested it in HotM using Eviscerate, Bull’s Charge and Shield Bash. 52% crit rate, so Unsuspecting Foe would push me to 100%. I tried both Shield Bash + Eviscerate and Bull’s Charge + Eviscerate and found that the latter did not guarantee crits. It’s a knockdown, so according to you, it should.
As i said above i was testing hammer with unsuspecting foe and hammer #4/5 were auto crits as of 2 patches ago.
Lets stop the back and forth here. I should point out no one here is new. It has never affected knock downs. Not up for debate unless they ninja changed the trait and last I checked they did not. Do not derail the thread trying to prove a point. This is common knowledge.
I guess i just got extremely lucky with my crits when i tested it. Managed to get 10 crits in a row right now until it did not crit with 52% crit chance alone.
Good talk bros.
Did you have critical bursts? That’d would make your crit chance 62% ontop of that
No, but that only affects F1.
He did say he was testing Bulls Rush + Eviscerate, the latter which is an F1 ability.
Its so funny that yesterday i been fighting a guy using gs+mace/shield in spvp. It is pretty easy to counter tho, but its seems that it worked as ppl had no idea what to do.
Easy to counter how exactly? It’s pretty much impossible to avoid every Skull Crack and even guardians/eles eventually run out of stun breaks/stability at which point they’re dead. Now 1v1 yes you could do the same old kite fest but then you can just switch to dogged and mobile strikes. Skull Crack on an Asura is also almost impossible to see cause the animation is so small.
Experience ; ) I been running mace/mace pre patch, and i still runs it. And i actually enjoys that. Ive noticed before that skull crack+chain does pretty nice damage to bunkers, and deadly to gc, as it stand now i can skull crack+chain+tremor>switch to rifle>volley+butt. When i manage to get full adrenaline again (matter of seconds) i usually use stomp to set up ks. Thats works ofc olny if ur enemy is out of stunbreaks.
Somehow i actually managed to get decent healing too (healing signet heheh).
Log combat from 2 necros..dumb ones but yeah..
I’m sorry, but the fact that you’re saying you’re using rifle AND Healing Signet in PvP makes me question how much you actually understand the class. In WvW I could see a use for rifle to Killshot zergs, but I’m talking about TPvP here. Even if it was WvW Healing Signet is just a inferior heal altogether. I also don’t think Mace/Mace synergies as well as Axe/Mace (although Axe is much harder to use now) because mainhand mace is a very reactive weapon while mace offhand is a very offensive weapon. Mace/Shield with Reflect Projectiles synergies well and Shield bash and Skull Crack also go well together.
The key to beating a Necro 1v1 with Mace/Shield + GS is to use Whirlwind to avoid their cripple/chill and get in close then start CCing the hell out of them, they have no real counter to it so it will quickly overwhelm them. Hammer is also pretty good but blind is a big problem because Earthshaker is so slow.
It allows you to constantly use Skull Crack on cool down, you can switch out Reflect Projectiles for Dogged March or Shield Master based on your preference.
Just an angry old man…
Old Man Burr (War), Bad Hat Ben (Engi), Manly Manny Manson (Guard)
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