Guild Wars 2

Zero Solstice.9754:

Trying to put the counter-intuitive nature of it behind us, isn’t the way it originally functioned the way we would want it to work? It gave it a certain niche where we would want it sometimes and not want it others; A place where it was absurd and a place where it was simply bad. Makes it feel more like the Grandmaster of an Elite Spec: Polarized and Specialized in usage. I would honestly almost prefer for them to play with the scaling and just cut the numbers, but allow us to retain the group nature of it. I would use a Grandmaster that was simply terrible in 1v1 if it was absolutely incredible in XvX, like havoc or zerg environment.

My thought is that BB is basically inverse Altruistic Healing, try it out with AH’s healing per boon and cut the LF per boon to 1/2%

Blighter’s Boon as it was implemented before this nerf was basically an inverse Altruistic Healing. So why not change BB back but then bring the healing values in line with AH (which I’ve never seen called OP)?

So like 1/2% LF or ~70 heal with no healing power.

Also consider changing Heralds so the facets apply longer boons on a larger interval (say 7s on a 7 s interval instead of 3s on a 3s interval) if the number of AOE boon stacks being thrown around is still too high.

I’ve been getting healed 3x ~135 when using RS auto attack on enemies under 50% (1 might from reaper’s might, 2 might from siphoned power)

Grimgor.7820:

Maybe changing augury of death trait to remove 1 condition from nearby allies for each foe effected by your shouts aswelll as the recharge reduction would help make shouts more viable and add some group support to reaper.

Yes please, AOE clearing 2 conditions with every shout sounds amazing (Trooper rune Reaper ftw)

Blighter’s boon is a nice boost to your survivability if you’re in a group that is pumping out a lot of boons, but not all situations really call for that survivability.

All three Reaper Grandmaster traits are good and have their uses

Playing Reaper has been so much fun this weekend that I don’t know if I can make it the 3 weeks to release

WASD
1-6 default
QERZ (3 utilities+ elite)
F1-F4 default
X to dodge
Weapon swap is on default
V push to talk
One side mouse button is do a 180 and the other is rotate camera 180
Use mouse with RMB pushed down to turn.

Should say I play on a laptop and have big hands so all these keys are easy to reach for me.

insanemaniac.2456:

fractal weapons probably take about as long to get a full set

at least this isnt rng

they wont be sellable, dont be silly. this reward is earned, not bought.

Since when is transferring to (insert bandwagon server here) earning anything?

chupa.2683:

Huh. When I get hit by a treb’s poison for example, it never gets removed. It ticks and ticks and ticks without its duration decreasing beyond it’s usual tick.

It only works on application of the condition, it won’t convert existing conditions.

I think I have that sword in my house somewhere, I use it to roast marshmallows/ hotdogs over a fire.

A zerker necro killing a really really bad warrior?

Bhawb.7408:

I think Shelter has enough things that really hard-counter it (I’m pretty sure right now you fully prevent it, not just put it on a few second CD if you interrupt it).

Correct, Shelter is a 2 second (I think?) cast that heals at the end, so interrupting it puts it on full cooldown with no heal.

Xahz.8406:

bigmonto.4215:

TyPin.9860:

killahmayne.9518:

whether it is 30, 60, 90 or 100 percent, chill regardless is going to proc before the cooldown is over.

What an odd thing to say. Get it?

EDIT:
But then I did the numbers. It turns out, that after 5 attacks already the proc chance of the sigil is 88%.

gambler’s fallacy!? After 5 attacks, the proc chance of the sigil is exactly 30%.

Don’t use terms when you don’t know what they mean. The chance on proccing it on the next attack is 30%. The chance is proccing it at least once over five attacks is 88% (assuming his math is right)

It’s actually about an 83% chance over 5 attacks

Just take your time leveling and use that time to try out different weapon and utility skill combos. Find what you like and then decide how you want to build at 80 based off of that.

For WvW I really like Scavenger Runes, the lifesteals help your sustain quite a bit and add damage. Undead are also an option, but I think the lifesteals are much better than the small toughness boost.

If you prefer might stacking Runes of the Noble (I think they got renamed, the ones that give might duration and might on heal +condi damage) are very good.

With the improved proc chance, Nightmare runes are also a possibility.

Perplexity works as well, but I think they’re cheese.

Latinkuro.9420:

LOL, balance stance doesn’t make you immune to damage, it only helps with CC !
are you serious LOL !

I don’t mind the duration reduction but all of the rest is pure none sense since it doesn’t make you immune to damage.

Then why the kitten are you comparing it to skills that do make you immune to damage?

The Devs were playing WvW to try and figure out the biggest problems, but they got zerged and spammed /laugh and decided we’re all kittens and not worth the effort

:)

Kimbald.2697:

Fai.6093:

I decided to give grenth a try.
Does the chill duration also work on the chill when I get struck / swap weapon or use a heal?

yes, but remember it goes in full seconds (since chill stacks duration like burn and not in ammount like burning).
So in order to make that 2 second chill into a 3 second chill, you’ll need the runes of grenth and 2 giver’s weapons, or the ruunes of grenth and 4 points in Explosives traitline, or the runes and the chill duration sigil together with your sigil of Hydromancy… etc.

People hate chill, that’s why I love it

But chill doesn’t tick ……

A 2.75 second chill will chill them for 2.75 seconds

They could have the axe auto be like engi pistol auto, it “explodes” and damages those in a small radius around your target.

Lemme tell you a secret OP, Engie may beat thief, but a condi necro so much as looks at an engie and the poor engie is dead.

Imagine that, counter classes.

P.S. P/D condi thief does pretty decent against Engie

I got a zerk stats ascended ring about 85% of my way through my first track

RedSpectrum.1975:

Swimsasa Stoon.8936:

hihey.1075:

Take dagger offhand and roflstomp those Condi engis, please. They are polluting every game I play with that brainless bombspam

engis only have two dmg dealing condis on their bombs… you know that right?

Incendiary powder has got your back

But burning is one of the damaging conditions already on bomb kit :O

Before the patch I believe smoke bomb’s tooltip said that it had a duration of 4 seconds and an interval of 2 seconds, meaning it pulsed blind every 2 seconds.

It now says duration 4 seconds and number of pulses 4, meaning blind pulse every second.

Did we get ninja buffed or was the old tooltip wrong?

Supply crate is the best thing since sliced bread, why wouldn’t you want it?

Grok.6714:

I don’t see how +condi dmg was buffed THAT much? Conditions will still be removed relatively fast in a good raid.

It really wasn’t buffed, just that crit damage was nerfed

Change transmute to:

Transform one condition into a boon when you use a toolbelt skill (maybe put a 10s icd cooldown or something so it wouldn’t be too strong w/ surprise shot and other low cd toolbelts)

Vanthian.9267:

Just a quick question:

Why did you link the trait set up with Arms trait IX (Opportunist)?

You literally have 0 reliable ways to immobilize people without the trait (I, Leg Specialist) in Tactics. The sword burst skill could serve, but I am not sure that trait is worth it for 1 immobilize.

Part of the build’s premise appears to be landing the sword burst and then landing 100 blades, having fury for that would indeed be nice.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

naphack.9346:

Doggie.3184:

Still full Zerk for best damage. You’d only use Valk if you want to be 100% dependant on backstab, which will limit your ability to change builds. So if you make armor I’d suggest making Zerker and not Valk since it’s 100x harder to get than the trinkets.

You could toss wvw +5 power infusions into yer stuffz (if it has offensive slot) if you really wanted to and don’t care about Fractals.

for clarification:
I meant the ascended trinkets with zerk major and valkyrie “jewels”.
the +103 power, +50 preci, +18 vit, +8% crit rings would be an example here.

I hope I’m misreading this but — you can put valkyrie “jewels” on ascended trinket?

No, but the stat combo is akin to putting an exquisite beryl into a ruby ring

There’s a couple of x+y ascended combos (zerk+valk and dire+rabid are the ones I know off the top of my head)

It has a 10 second internal cooldown

Well lore-wise I believe assassins are from the continent of Cantha

I like using koi cake + toxic focusing crystal so that my incendiary powder burn is up to 7 ticks

30/10/0/20/10 build, keeping ascended dire+rabid trinkets constant (since pure dire doesn’t exist).

Going from dire weapons/armor to rabid weapons/armor, you gain 18% crit chance for the cost of 3.5kish health

Worth it

deepwinter.9015:

Condi engies are the more difficult to counter as a thief because they can run Dire stats and not think twice about it. The issues with this stat combination has on the Meta aside, its a very tanky and very hard hitting set. If you enjoy bombs, a pistol, and a shield, this build may be best for you.

A condi engie running dire loses a lot of damage from sharpshooter, and the lower proc chance for incendiary powder. Rabid w/ dire trinkets is more common.

Slcrisis.6930:

I prefer to reflect the grenades/bombs with dagger storm tbh so I always switch elites when I see an engi, from what I’ve experienced it gets a decent amount of burst back at them + cripple etc, makes them panic that you’re not kiting like they expect you to, and before they can react properly gives me a chance to burst them down after DS ends.

As an Engie, please use dagger storm. It doesn’t reflect properly aimed grenades (at your feet), and it doesn’t do anything against bombs but make you easier to hit.

Commando was an April Fool’s joke from like 3 years ago

If you’re going to go glassy SD, I’d say that two of your utilities should be rifle turret and toolkit. Rifle turret toolbelt is good damage with an extremely low cooldown, tool kit toolbelt does the same damage as rifle turret toolbelt but can hit twice, and toolkit gives you a pull+pry bar for high damage, and a 20 second cooldown block. 3rd choice is up to you, Personal battering ram is ok, utility goggles are decent, elixir gun is a more defensive choice but is also good (#2 and #4 do very good damage in a power build)

Mazdan.2071:

These boards confuse the heck out of me. From all “experts:” MH axe for warrior is the ONLY weapon and if you use a sword or anything with conditions—-you will be kicked and you are a noob and you will rot in hell. Now I see folks complaining about conditions being powerful, so does that make it ok for a warrior to use a sword(MH or OH)since it offers condition damage? I’m just confused because all I hear is " 30/25/0/0/15 Axe/Mace or GTFO." And that’s considered the ONLY way to play this game.

If conditions are so powerful, wouldn’t this philosophy by these folks be a bit off? ::sigh::
It just seems to me that folks should play how they want. There’s no penalty for dying (this is the proper way to spell dying not “dieing”). Just have fun, and if you die, or wipe on a dungeon so what? What has it cost you? Time? Money? I just don’t understand the gaming community anymore.

You’re confusing PvE and PvP.

In PvE conditions are weak, in PvP they are good (some people think they’re too good)

If you’re running P/S power, most of your damage is going to be from your kits (nades and/or bombs). Pistol #2 can hit pretty hard, and the blind on #3 is of course always good, with shield having great utility.

Rifle is a good weapon, it’s just that conditions are more popular for roamers and pistol is obviously a better main hand for condi.

I sometimes use p/s in a power build as well simply because of the aoe CC+block

a t s e.9614:

I know because I tryed both:

- condi warr 4k armor 25k hp
- zerk warr 2,4k armor 18k hp

They both deal the same damage ( in a 1v1 situation) .

No

but Condi Warrior could use some nerfs.

Oh wait, they’re giving Pin Down a tell and nerfing Impale.

Bombsaway.7198:

Why do you find elixir S to be that much better than say Rocket Boots that would allow you to jump away 3x as often?

I just fear the 60 second timer on the elixir more than anything! Truly looking for how the elixir works well for you.

The problem with rocket boots is I run with a tight group and me jumping all over the place is more likely to get me killed than save me.

The invuln+the stealth is very useful and can save team members as well as myself.

If you watch your positioning you shouldn’t need to use elixir S unless kitten really goes down.

Solo, however, rocket boots often gets a slot over S.

I dumped it for elixir S because my 5 man usually ends up fighting much larger groups and S is a much better when I get focused.

GorgeousDave.9608:

Btw what are your guys thoughts on the 30 in Explosives.

If an Engi is running a Rabid condi build (30,10,0,20,10) – what do you recommend choosing for the Explosives traits? I’m terrible with maths and see a lot of conflicting talk regarding Shrapnel/Incendiary Powder.

I think at the moment my instinct tells me to run Empowering Adrenalin for +5% dmg when endurance isn’t full (seems like that would be more consistent than shrapnel but who knows, with Incendiary Power…. (plus obviously the Grenadier trait for Grandmaster).

Would love to hear your thoughts.

I usually run grenades and bombs, so I use bomb radius+incendiary powder+grenadier.

When I switch out toolkit for bombs, I use shrapnel.

Because Engineer is credit to team!

atheria.2837:

Cinder.2056:

its the fact that anet allowed free transfers right before season 2…
Doesnt take a genius to figure out that everyone would just stack on the highest ranked free transfer server(HoD).

I transferred to HoD. Your premise that people are “bandwagoning” isn’t true in every case.

In my research I found that I wanted a balance of play at night as well as the day – several servers looked promising but the coverage was lacking after midnight PST.

I started looking at all of the free servers since I don’t have any money (many players don’t…) and then I visited each one and ran with their pvE crowds to see what I was getting into as far as map chat or lack thereof.

HoD seemed “familiar” as did another server that was friendly as well, but the coverage 24/7 sold me. 3am pst and there are still people…. Magic. So far

Oh BTW, I didn’t even know that HoD won Bronze… so much for your “Bandwagon” theory.

Yes, because your singular data point definitely proves that HoD isn’t a bandwagon server.

Swim.6830:

a t s e.9614:

Swim.6830:

a t s e.9614:

I got hit for 14k yesterday by fresh air ele and that was in spvp … I think the only way to play ele is maximum burst, kill people before they kill you.

Which ability did 14k? Without any screens or any info on your stats as well it’s a bit… difficult to believe, unless they used several abilities in succession

Phoenix+ port ( I believe lighting flash or some stuff like that) did 14k damage and its almost impossible to dodge cuz its an instant teleport.

The teleport does around 2k, and I see no phoenix do 12k…

Any way you cut it, it’s a utility plus probably 2-3 more abilities or more. The secondary abilities can be dodged and I should mention all Ele abilities are so telegraphed that if you can’t dodge them, well then…

There are other classes that do that damage in one or 2 abilities which are quite less telegraphed and harder to dodge.

The burst Ele, as you mentioned is like playing a kitten thief as you can’t just reset the fight.

I could see a double pass through+ explosion on phoenix doing 12k

Bombsaway.7198:

Wouldn’t that cause all sorts of balance issues?
I mean as an engineer sign me up for a 4th kit!

No way man, Supply Crate is way too good to not have in PvP/WvW

Raising base health by 8k, making attunement cooldowns 3 seconds, and adding stealth were what convinced me you must be trolling.

Edit: Oh hey, ArmageddonAsh beat me too it

I almost thought this was a serious post

Fungalfoot.7213:

Berengar.6951:

A nerf to stability without a nerf to CC would just help the zerg out more, as they would overwhelm a smaller group simply on sheer volume of CC.

From my experiences crowd control makes for the best zerg busters. Right now small groups don’t have much of a shot due to AoE caps and stability. Remove the AoE caps and nerf stability and I can promise you that zerging would suddenly become a whole lot more unappealing to the masses.

If they removed the AoE cap, sure. They won’t though.