Guild Wars 2

locoman.1974:

ReV.6097:

Is “The Secret World” any good?

At the rist of derailing the thread (and risking a closing since it’s no longer about GW2), I’d say The Secret World is GREAT, but also very different from GW2.

My experience is from back when I was playing (before GW2 release and sporadically afterwards). If you like good stories, the the storyline and the delivery are EXCELLENT, I’d say it’s one of the best MMOs out there when it comes to storyline, lots of memorable characters.

On the other hand, if you’re looking for lots of group content, and specially open world group content, look elsewhere. The game is very athmospheric, and actually works better when there are fewer people running around. Some quests are easier with groups, but also most of quest lines have solo instances so you won’t be able to complete them from beggining to end with a group. Each area has a 5 man dungeon but chances are you’ll outlevel (your character doesn’t have levels, but your gear does) them long before you manage to find a group to do them, but you can do them at level cap in a harder mode anyway, which is what most people do. Dungeons are great and usually short, most boss fights have interesting mechanics (it’s a trinity based game), and there’s very little trash to fight, so usually you go almost straight from boss to boss.

My favorite thing about TSW is the investigation quests, but they’re not for everyone. Basically they’re quests where you have to think more than you have to fight. BTW, if you believe that the game should give you all the information to complete the quests, look elsewhere, as you will have to frequently look for outside sources to complete them, and asking for solutions in open chat is generally frowned upon the community, as it would accidentally spoil the answer to someone that is trying to do them on their own (asking for the answer to be whispered or in private chat is ok, though).

Some examples of that, at one point in egypt you get an item relate to some biblical events, but the names used to activate the item are in ancient hebrew, so you have to find out somewhere how those were written to use the item, at another point (this one is early in the game) you spy on a communication sent to someone that might be an undercover agent for a rival organization, the comnunication is a series of beeps (turns out it’s morse code) which you need to manually transcribe and decode, another one you’re looking for information related to a specific (fictional) celebrity in the area, you find another character that has a fansite that might have that information… and the website URL you’re given is a real website (created by funcom, of course) where you can dig around to find the information.

Biggest problem, however, is replayability. Any character can eventually get enough points to basically have any build, so there’s really little incentive to create alts. The story is great, but once you’ve gone trough it, even if you do chose another organization, changes very little on a second playtrough. End game consists basically on the same 8 dungeons in hard mode, then again in nightmare mode and (as of last time I played) 1 short raid with a single boss. The story continues on more chapters, including new areas as well, but you have to buy them. Still, I’d recommend it at least for one playtrough.

This guy nails it

It’s so bad right now, it’s almost hard to believe any company can be so utterly inept.

Mark Katzbach.9084:

fourhim.3584:

This accusation gets tossed around a lot – that certain people who post such high praise for Anet’s decisions might be rewarded in some way. I haven’t reached a decision on this yet, so I thought the best approach is just to come right out and ask.

Will someone at ANet please tell the rest of us if you reward certain people for their forum comments? If you could just issue a flat out denial then that might diminish the number of accusations, especially right now.

We do not pay players to post on the forums nor do we make use of shill or sock puppet accounts. Honestly, I’m surprised if anybody takes these accusations seriously.

Stop lying, you have been stealth deleting my posts all day to combat the truth.

Trust me they do, they even have them over on Reddit (the mods are paid by them)

Telemin.7380:

Aside from the obvious /sarcasm, this is one thing they have said they wont bring over, various times.

They also said they wouldn’t force the chinese client on us. Don’t you have more pride than to be suckered again?

Interesting read, I think we should all consider it.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/2g003k/ladies_and_gentlemen_of_tyria_i_think_its_high/

“TL;DR: Trading Post and miniatures aside, most of these changes are rotten fetid kitten, I think it’s obvious why they were made, and I don’t expect that any of it has to do with making the Western playerbase any happier. I may finally after 2 years be done with this game. If I want Asian handholding cashgrab grindfests I’ll go back to playing Aion, at least there’s no pretending at being something better than what they are there.”

That’s really nice Anet but me and plenty of people are ALREADY leaving your game (especially since Archeage comes out TOMORROW) I bought your game 2 years ago at launch because Guild wars 1 was an incredible experince that explored numerous cultures in ways that hadn’t really been done in fantasy games.

You’ve lost the faith of long time customers and they are spreading the word to your new ones.

You dun goofed.

wolfyrik.2017:

Blackjacks.9856:

Shaogin.2679:

Vee Wee just trying to keep players that have never been ranked from steering newer engineers the wrong way is all.

Now, on topic, if you’re going to bunker a point, I’d say Stabilized Armor. For a more mobile build that can avoid much of the hard cc I’d say Protective Shield.

No he isn’t he is an annoying self important troll who holds his opinion over all others, even when he is wrong. This whole “Pro worship” culture of gaming really needs to stop, now.

I agree re: “pro worship” but you’re making a fundamental mistake in your reasoning. Veewee isn’t touting his opinion from a position of fame or because he’s just a good player, he’s explaining from two years of experience and build trialing. There is a wide margin between talking like you know it all because you have position and talking like you know it all because you actually have done it, tried and tested .

He’s also correct.

My first engi builds were centered around the inventions line because I wanted healing bombs. I pretty much dropped them though because the other traitlines offered more power and versatility. The fact is that elixir infused bomb builds have all but died out because the rest of the tree is so god-awful. Some of the traits sound good on paper but in practice they are too situational and provide too little benefit to warrant the cost to offensive power. The uptimes of the effects are so low that they’re forgettable and many of them can be replicated in a more effective way, or just plain replaced through other trees, for greater benefits to survival and damage output, across a wider range of scenarios.

I know where you are coming from and I really want to like Inventions, but it really is our weakest traitline.

As for OP, yeah if you’re gonna stay in inventions then Stabilized Armor can be a good choice situationally. Alternatively you can pick up freqeuent vigor, constant healing, aegis, automatic condition cleanse every 15 seconds and protection through other traitlines such as tools and alchemy to replace the loss of stabilized armor, you probably won’t miss it. I don’t.

He is NOT correct. Inventions is incredibly useful for anyone running turrets/shield/wants more defensive options. The whole idea of “MOARDPSPLZ” is great for pve, great strength is nothing without the ability to APPLY it and make it effective.

Engi is about fun and engineering, engineer your own builds and have a blast! Remember, the only bad build is the build thats bad for YOUR playstyle

Basaltface.2786:

Blackjacks.9856:

hggt.7260:

I’m not saying kits are useless. I’m just saying that there are other options. There are too many people who think the meta builds are all there is. But there are other options. As you can see, not everyone uses kits. Because it’s not necessary in all builds. So just know that there are other options if you want to spend time working on a back piece or legendary.

I 100% agree with you, I’m totally against the kit swap “meta”. Hell the kits I do use other people laugh at me for (FT/EG). People rea really underestimating the power of turrets these days, and gadgets has some cooldown issues but can still be fantastic for eclectic builds.

with the upcoming patch the FT\EG combo is nothing to laugh anymore

Don’t you just love being meta before it’s even a thing? Half the reason I quit playing MOBAs is because I would get trashed for “troll builds” but still outperform FOTM builds simply because I knew how my skills worked and I always play to my strengths.

BaineCooper.2850:

How good is using Experimental Turrets? Is it worth going 6 points into the Alchemy line?

It is when you realize the added survivability that comes with it, if it makes it easier, think about it like a “Wow shaman” (is how my friend describes it).

Shaogin.2679:

Vee Wee just trying to keep players that have never been ranked from steering newer engineers the wrong way is all.

Now, on topic, if you’re going to bunker a point, I’d say Stabilized Armor. For a more mobile build that can avoid much of the hard cc I’d say Protective Shield.

No he isn’t he is an annoying self important troll who holds his opinion over all others, even when he is wrong. This whole “Pro worship” culture of gaming really needs to stop, now.

ArrDee.2573:

Hello frands! Vee Wee here, #1 Engi NA and world first rank 80!

Here are Vee Wee’s thoughts!

Divinity Runes are really bad! Don’t use them! Go for Ogre, Strength, Hoelbrak, Pack, Pirate, or even Vampirism!

You need dodges! Put 10 points into Alchemy for Vigor! Dodging is everything in this game! Especially on a fragile SD build!

There is so much cc in this meta! You need a stunbreak, especially on a fragile SD build! Vee Wee would swap out Rocket Boots for a stun break! Utility Goggles will be the obvious choice for an SD build but Vee Wee absolutely hates that skill!

Vee Wee does not like SD builds! SD does no damage! Vee Wee crit a Thief for under 1k with it! Not good! But your build is similar to Vee Wee’s Gadget build! Check it out!
SD version!
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fdAQFAUlUUpzrlcxxLseNSfxM6nWKHQGfAiM/9B-TJBFwACuAAy3foaZAAPAAA
non SD (and better imo) version!
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fdAQFAUlUUpzrlcxxLseNSeBN6kMlgAyAkARGwBC-TJBFwACuAA12foaZAAPAAA

Wahoo! Bye frands!

Don’t bother with a stun break, wont save you. Why? Because we don’t have stability and another stun is probably following that first one. CC wars 2

insanemaniac.2456:

try knight armor + zerk trinkets + zerk weapon to start off (or a knight weapon if you want to use a dps runeset and not a defensive runeset)

…whatever you do, do not use undead runes with power gear

You use undead runes for a very nice bump to condi damage, engineers are about balance man, not about stacking ALL of one thing. Giving yourself a bit of condi damage on top (seriously run an HGH build with celestial gear and you will see an improvement OVERALL instead of in one field.)

alofear.9637:

Why not add stability to the Sitting Duck trait, so our gluebomb/shots do aoe buff.

Maybe even give slickshoes skill as an added bonus.

Neither of those make any kind of sense, personal battering ram makes sense for stability, as do both shield skills (I mean look at those massive cooldowns, adding stability will finally make them balanced)

You could easily go rifle and play midrange tank/control. You could even do Flamethrower or Elixir gun (IF you don’t mind those kits) if you don’t mind using runes of the undead, though I hate to say it HGH build for any of them is pretty much your best bet.

If you don’t mind getting a little crazy you could go full turret, the “deployable turrets trait” meshes very well with non kit builds allowing you to place ranged turrets in unreachable places (to melee people) and allows you to focus on kiting/staying alive!

Also totally off topic, but might I recommend divinity runes if you don’t plan on using kits (or plan on using FT or EG)

Removing stability from the juggernaught trait has to be one of the worst ideas around, it was perfectly balanced by the fact YOU BECAME practically immobile, so sure you could stay in FT kit, but you won’t get anywhere fast (except with rocket boots now, which thematically is perfect)

Anet, give us back the TRUE juggernaut!

chungiee.8764:

Blackjacks.9856:

ArrDee.2573:

Hello frands! Vee Wee here, #1 Engi NA and world first rank 80!

You are right! Vee Wee was insane! Going 30 Inventions is the condi Engi meta! How could Vee Wee have been so blind!

Wahoo! Bye frands!

Meta doesn’t mean “good”. I can run a full turret build or a turret/elixir gun hybrid and both are insanely effective, neither are meta.

Another off topic post but i’d say you have it the wrong way around.

I’d say Full turret build is very much meta with every 2nd rerolled Engie running it. Definitely not insanely effective.

The amount of frustration a Thumper/Flame turret combo (that is also providing 5 stacks of might and 5 seconds of protection every 10 seconds to allies in the area) is kind of amazing for general defense, the ability to throw them turns you into a battlefield mastermind.

It really works well in pvp, go Tankgenineer and use any weapon you want and just backpedal.

hggt.7260:

I’m not saying kits are useless. I’m just saying that there are other options. There are too many people who think the meta builds are all there is. But there are other options. As you can see, not everyone uses kits. Because it’s not necessary in all builds. So just know that there are other options if you want to spend time working on a back piece or legendary.

I 100% agree with you, I’m totally against the kit swap “meta”. Hell the kits I do use other people laugh at me for (FT/EG). People rea really underestimating the power of turrets these days, and gadgets has some cooldown issues but can still be fantastic for eclectic builds.

If you are doing pvp, Celestial trinket, Divinity Runes, juggernaut+HGH stuff with elixirs. You will be a speedy tank god among men, you basically have perma prot, regen, retaliation, massive might stacks, stability, and if you take Elixir U you have a ground targeted wall that reflects/negates projectiles and creates a light/smoke field.

ArrDee.2573:

Hello frands! Vee Wee here, #1 Engi NA and world first rank 80!

You are right! Vee Wee was insane! Going 30 Inventions is the condi Engi meta! How could Vee Wee have been so blind!

Wahoo! Bye frands!

Meta doesn’t mean “good”. I can run a full turret build or a turret/elixir gun hybrid and both are insanely effective, neither are meta.

Engineer=The best kind of kill is OVERKILL.

Everyone else gets fantastic dueling, engis just want to watch the world burn.

ArrDee.2573:

Hello frands! Vee Wee here, #1 Engi NA and world first rank 80!

Deleted my old post because Vee Wee was being too unfrandly! It was very unlike Vee Wee! Anyway “Turret Engis are trash Engis!” -Hiba, ToL2 winner!

And he is right! Vee Wee explained why Turret Engis many times in previous threads! Inventions is just a worse Alchemy tree! Taking both means you have no offensive power! That’s just how it is my frands!

Wahoo! Bye frands!

Oh I see it’s just like the Moba scene where if a “pro” does it or says something, it’s law right? Builds aren’t hard man, if you need to constantly be told what is/isn’t good then you yourself aren’t good.

Part of being an engi is engineering your own build, I have seen some seriously (and even come up witha few) wacky engi builds and the only thing that really separates any of them is skill/understanding their skills and their opponents.

Chaith.8256:

Blackjacks.9856:

insanemaniac.2456:

stab armor in wvw!

its just a little perk along the way to getting power shoes & the heal reset.

The heal reset provides endless instances of severe trolling.

The 90 second cooldown really prevents ‘endless’ instances of trolling, but it’s a solid 15pt trait.

Also you’re saying that 25% speed increase, 3 seconds of prot every 20s, and static turret damage is so great for condition Engineers?

I’m sure it can do the trick sometimes but..

Why would you ever need Protective Shield over Protection Injection or Invigorating Speed – while you’re simply on the way to getting godly traits like Transmute and Backpack Regenerator?

Why would you ever need 25% speed increase when you have 33% speed increase for less investment?

Why would you need a base damage increase on turret auto attacks when you’re running a condition build?

Instead, try investing all of those 6 points in Inventions into Explosives and destroy everything?

Inventions won’t be worth taking in condi builds until it becomes at least situationally better at surviving than Alchemy will, point for point. So far, Alchemy wins out. Explosives is pretty much a must, too. Firearms and Inventions are the poor man’s Explosives and Alchemy, respectively.

0/0/6/6/2 is only going to really work for a build that either doesn’t need offense (pure support/bunker), or derives it’s damage purely from A.I turrets.

Th secret strength of turrets: Being able to do guaranteed sustained damage without actually having to be “there”. Kiting is something engis do well, thumper turret makes kiting almost TOO easy, an AoE cripple that does just under 700 damage with an AOE higher damage launch (that is also a blast finisher, mix with the smoke screen from smoke turret or the water field from healing turret)? Not to mention you have the ability to THROW it at someone with it applying 5 seconds of prot every 10 seconds it’s already a winner, toss in your weapon skills, other turrets (that free elixir B you get at 75% health), it’s a very effective and versatile set up that is easily tailored to your tastes.

Plus you don’t look stupid swapping between 4 kits to do the exact same thing, kill something.

Vsevedzna.6527:

So… I was meddling with the engineer trying to make an elixir gun build(because i refuse to take nades), and this is what i’ve come up with. My idea behind this was to just spam elixirs and conditions, whilst primarily being a supportive role. I was wondering if i should keep the sigil of agony(since primarily, i want to spam the elixir gun skills) or should I switch to the sigil of bursting? Any criticism is greatly appretiated, but please dont beat me up.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fdUQJAqalcTp6qFYxdLkfNSdxA6AWIBRXzN98p/B-TRSAABKcgAUUPh0nAAxU+Z9CCA8ABQV9ne2PoNlgBAQACQmzM2tu1tu1tuJFwiSjA-e

Elixir gun is secret OP, don’t let someone tell you that you need to constantly swap kits/throw bombs or be “meta” to be good. The most important thing to keep in mind is your build needs to play to your personal strengths and still sure up any gaps in your playstyle.

Run elixirgun with the standard HGH build (Alchemy wise), if you are doing pvp you can EASILY get away with celestial trinket and whatever runes you prefer (I take undead most of the time). 4 points into explosive gets you incendiary power which is VERY nice, I like to put the other 2 stats into inventions (protective shield and power shoes really round out some of the issues I have when playing).

Honestly though you can run ANYTHING man, when I don’t feel like being a condi tank I switch out elixirs (but not elixir gun) for thumper and rocket turret (dropping the 4 points in explosive is an option if you prefer to use flame turret…which is also a great choice).

If you are feeling really bold I highly recommend trying this out 6 inventions/6 alchemy/1 tools.

The winners here are
Inventions-Metal Plating/Autotool installation/rifled turret barrels (or fortified turrets if you feel like it, more about this later)

Alchemy-Pretty much anything you want up until grandmaster (you want the experimental turrets trait for grandmaster)

Tools-Deployable turrets<—this, this guy right here is so under utilized. This takes turrets from ok to being an incomparable battlefield control tactic. With fortified turrets, you can toss a turret and half a second later it has a reflective dome shield, think about that. You see an ally getting shot at from multiple sides and you can toss your turret on to them (say healing turret) giving them a free 4 second reflect and whatever boons your turret now applies to allies (healing turret is vigor, thumper is prot, flame is might, rocket is retaliation and yes supply crate turrets ALSO apply boons)

This build even allows you to run machine gun turret, toss it and rocket turret on top of something high and laugh as you have covering fire over a ridiculous range and you can still place a thumper or flame turret near you to force them to fight in a a damage field that is constantly supplying you with buffs in 10 second intervals.

in my opinion P/P or P/S works really well with this since you now have some pretty strong extra damage sources really cementing the pressure conditions apply.

insanemaniac.2456:

stab armor in wvw!

its just a little perk along the way to getting power shoes & the heal reset.

The heal reset provides endless instances of severe trolling.

ArrDee.2573:

Hello frands! Vee Wee here, #1 Engi NA and world first rank 80!

Vee Wee thinks Inventions is the worst tree that the Engineers have! It has ok defensive traits but the Alchemy tree is always better! And if you go both Inventions and Alchemy it’s just going to poop on your offensive power! But if you really wanted to pick up Protective Shield or Stabilized Armor, well Vee Wee thinks it’s situational! If you are against many hambows, take Stabilized Armor! Stabilized Armor + Protection Injection work great together! If you are against many burst classes like Fresh Air Ele or Thieves, take Protective Shield! If Vee Wee absolutely had to pick one for general use, Vee Wee would pick Protective Shield! Protection is an amazing boon!

Wahoo! Bye frands!

Um…you are kind of way off base about inventions. Reinforced shield, power shoes, turret traits (which stack AMAZINGLY well with a condition engi build that needs added burst damage to really make conditions hurt)

I can run the same build for PVE/PVP/WVW

0
0
6
6
1

Mork vom Ork.2598:

hggt.7260:

Perhaps the weapons are initially weaker, but you can make a build where they are just as effective as a bomb kit.

Really? I challenge you to post only 1 no-kit-build that is even remotely comparable to the 6/6/0/0/2 Grenade/Bomb/EG build for PvE.

There are exactly 2 builds without kits that could be called effective: P/P HGH condi and Rifle SD Zerker burst. Both are niche builds for PvP and that’s about it.

This pretty much sums it up:

lakdav.3694:

However i feel that the point is not how crucial or not a kit or two is in every build, but the mere fact that arguably the most usefull utility type of the engineer class greatly undermines the point of the endgame.

All other classes get to always display their back items, no matter what spec and weapon they are using. And all of them get to show their legendary weapon when equipped with a temporary exception for summoned ele weapons.

Wow such misinformation, this is the issue with theorycrafters, they constantly spout numbers and theories but guess what,numbers and theories used like this can only be applied to OPTIMAL situations….which are very few in PVP/WVW.

The only kit I will touch these days is elixir gun, I run P/S gadgets in WVW and P/P turrets in pvp. I run elixirgun/turrets in either when I need my “supression” build (also great for champs in PVE)

That Guy.5704:

Hey look more backpeices to conflict with hobosacks https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/crafting-backpacks-new-leveling-items-and-more/

Ugh these are just from the chinese release…wonderful we are just getting handmedowns….