Showing Posts For Bleeds.4029:

WvW Titles/Rank/Skills & Multiple Characters

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Posted by: Bleeds.4029

Bleeds.4029

As a player of 7 level 80’s, and as a primarily wvw player, I don’t like this. Since the announcement, our guild chat has been discussion of choosing which character we will focus on for wvw. The issue here is clearly one of choice. If I choose to focus on s/tpvp I can play any class and reap all the rewards regardless of character choice. If I PvE and dungeon crawl, I can do the same. Now, all of a sudden, we have this severe departure in wvw. I don’t understand it.

I can, perhaps, see some need or use for it. For instance, my thief may want to carry 15 or 20 supply, but my guardian might want more defense against siege weapons or more damage using a ram. Conversely, titles reflect the player not the character. I think things like titles should be transferable. However, like the laurel system, I think the “points” or whatever is used to purchase the character upgrades in wvw should be account bound. I should be able to choose which character I will earn them on and spend them as I see fit.

I want to play “my way”. Does that still mean anything around here or was that just smoke up our butts? Did it ever mean anything?

If you can earn points on any class, and transfer them to other classes,
people will just find the class that gives Wxp the quickest, by doing the activity that gives them the most points the quickest, and transfer the points to whatever class they want. Failed system.

Lose the “play my way” thing. It doesn’t apply here. The game has systems that are in place for a reason.
Makes about as much sense as me saying they aren’t allowing me to play my way because I can’t play as a Lamp.

I can understand that you want to play as a lamp and they won’t let you. The trouble is you keep trying and failing.

Fail player

Most op? Weakest? WvW+spvp.

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Posted by: Bleeds.4029

Bleeds.4029

No easy answer to this. I could easily argue that the warrior is the most powerfully OP and the weakest at the same time. Bull Rush + 100blades = massively, ridiculously OP.

BUT! When that’s on cooldown = poop sandwich.

WvW Titles/Rank/Skills & Multiple Characters

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Posted by: Bleeds.4029

Bleeds.4029

As a player of 7 level 80’s, and as a primarily wvw player, I don’t like this. Since the announcement, our guild chat has been discussion of choosing which character we will focus on for wvw. The issue here is clearly one of choice. If I choose to focus on s/tpvp I can play any class and reap all the rewards regardless of character choice. If I PvE and dungeon crawl, I can do the same. Now, all of a sudden, we have this severe departure in wvw. I don’t understand it.

I can, perhaps, see some need or use for it. For instance, my thief may want to carry 15 or 20 supply, but my guardian might want more defense against siege weapons or more damage using a ram. Conversely, titles reflect the player not the character. I think things like titles should be transferable. However, like the laurel system, I think the “points” or whatever is used to purchase the character upgrades in wvw should be account bound. I should be able to choose which character I will earn them on and spend them as I see fit.

I want to play “my way”. Does that still mean anything around here or was that just smoke up our butts? Did it ever mean anything?

What did you give up to go Phantasm and why?

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Posted by: Bleeds.4029

Bleeds.4029

I run this build: http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-Pg-Fc;0VPVz0z6RVV71;9;4JE-T429-1;3347;9G3G3G3G35BFK

In the link ignore utilities and equipment. I run zerker with the exception of a Valk chest and legs. I am not a fan of rune sets and I put gems in my gear. (2 Valk and 4 Ruby) My utilities change all the time, but I usually run in a small group with Blink, Mirror Images, Decoy and Mass Invis. These allow me to position for dropping my phantasms. In large group warfare I get rid of mirror images in favor of Feedback and possibly toss in Null Field. Of course, I’ll load Portal and Time Warp as needed. In dungeons I might even swap in Mantra of Pain.

I based this off the phantasm builds of others before me. I run the build in all facets of the game and so far I have had nothing but great success. I would love to have 20 points in illusions, but I just can’t do it. I give up points in Illusions in order to get more out of the Inspiration line and keep my power up. My primary focus in game is wvw and what my build brings is high damage and a little team support. My build requires me to rely heavily on the iwarden which is very powerful against players that don’t know what is going on or those that group up too much. For this reason, I only recommend this build if you are very comfortable swapping weapon sets often.

Note, my focus abilities reflect which makes my warden reflect. Therefore, if I am facing a ranger, engi, pistol thief etc and I drop a warden on them they tend to blow themselves up. So many players get tunnel vision and think that they can ignore the damage of the warden (which is dumb because it’s huge) and take me out by standing there blazing away like a turret. I have literally defeated people with just the warden and because I have high health I just stand there taking whatever damage they can get past the warden, waiting on them to down themselves. Even on melee’s I can keep them in place for a few seconds with Leap/swap, into warden, into Blurred Frenzy which is tremendous damage. By the end of that, they usually want to create distance and heal, if they aren’t down, and I swap to GS and throw out a izerker and possibly iWave to interupt heal. That will down most people, though guardians can be a problem and must be whittled away. I am more prone to ignore a bunker guardian than take the time to actually down them unless I know they have blown their cooldowns and are basically a warrior with no utilities. (Don’t forget to Mind Stab guardians)

So i saw some videos of D/D eles today...

in Engineer

Posted by: Bleeds.4029

Bleeds.4029

I have both an 80 Ele and 80 Engi (and warrior, thief, guardian and ranger) the two are both very flexible and both tend to do crap for damage unless you GC them which is a death sentence when you get caught. The main place they differ in my opinion is that the Engi can be built to stand in place and hold an area really well as opposed to the Ele that has to get away and re-engage all the time. So tankiness goes to Engi, mobility goes to Ele. Then, you compare either to a thief, warrior or guardian and and you are left with 2 subpar classes and ranger just still blows worse than all IMO.

P/P - S/D WvW [Video] Something Different

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Posted by: Bleeds.4029

Bleeds.4029

Hey Lofat, first off thanks for putting this up. I have wanted to play my thief for quite a while but I just couldn’t get into the class. I was trying to backstab and all I can say is it didn’t work for me. This build has been doing great for me in dungeons and WvW!

Anyway, now that I have had some time to play around with this, here is what I have been wondering; How do you think this would work with a d/p off set for traveling, stomping and escaping in stealth?

Also, I have been playing with assassins signet(AS), signet of shadows(SoS) and shadow refuge(SR). But I think with such an easily accessible stealth option from the d/p set I could have more freedom in my utilities and possibly get away from so much SR and SoS reliance. It would be great to get some use from shadowstep, haste or roll for initiative.

Dailies, WvW?

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Posted by: Bleeds.4029

Bleeds.4029

I feel the need to do the daily for laurels to get the ascended gear that as far as I can tell is better than level 80 exotic gear. As it is, the likelyhood of me getting ascended rings is slim and none since I don’t have a single character (out of 6 80’s) that can go above fractal 3. I just am not into that content, I have done fotm a few times but it isn’t what I like personally.

Really, I wouldn’t care a lick about ascended gear if people couldn’t come into WvW with it on. However, I’m a realist, Anet isn’t going to suddenly stop ascended gear production, they aren’t likely to remove it from WvW use. If anything, there will be full suits of it at some future point and when the time comes that I am losing to people based on stats and gear and nothing that has to do with skill it will kill this game for me.

Otherwise, yes they have mentioned (ambiguously) some sort of WvW progression path and I, and my guildies, are waiting in anticipation, hoping for good news.

@Rising Dusk – While I could do the daily in WvW so long as it doesn’t include crafting now, I would still choose to do resource collection on the PvE side of the house because I need T6 mats in abundance.

Dailies, WvW?

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Posted by: Bleeds.4029

Bleeds.4029

We have a daily for PvE, and we have a daily for PvP, but why isn’t there something for WvW? I know, on it’s face this seems frivolous. But, hear me out please.

Being an adult with a full time job and a family my evenings as a gamer aren’t what they once were when I was a young single person. I can’t tie up as many hours any more. Therefore, when I log in, I want to play the game in the fashion that I most enjoy. For me, and many of my guild mates, that is doing some WvW.

As it stands, I have to give up my WvW time and go run around the PvE world killing this and that, collecting resources, even crafting now and basically doing many things that have little to nothing to do with what I want to do with my time. Thankfully, several of our tasks transfer over to the WvW setting and we can accomplish them that way. But why not separate these things out and just make a WvW daily?

Rezzing other players? Could be PvE or WvW. Collecting resources? PvE for sure. Crafting? PvE again. Events and Elites? Could go either also. But how about, Take a tower? Capture 5 (insert your choice of building/camp/ etc). Defend (insert your choice of building/camp/ etc).

You get the idea.

Ranged Theives - Permanent Builds

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Posted by: Bleeds.4029

Bleeds.4029

I play my thief as p/p & d/d combo currently, with plans of swapping my off set to s/d. Only reason I haven’t already is because I don’t have a good sword to put in place of my mainhand dagger.

I find that I rarely swap to the d/d unless I am solo for some reason and I need to spike someone. I usually leave that to a guild guardian or someone that can comfortably stand in the heat of the main battle. I stay to the outside edges of the fights ready to burst a called target.

I find my p/p thief fits my needs exactly. It may not have the burst we see from d/d builds in the hands of people that are really good with it (which I am NOT one of) but it works for me and affords me the extra time to react that comes from ranged attacks.

I originally tried the 25/30/0/0/15 but found that I died incredibly fast, I have since swapped to 20/30/0/20/0 (props to Lofat’s thread) and while I don’t quite hit as hard, I survive a longer time.

Finally, as to Anet’s thoughts on a ranged thief? They allowed us to build for p/p to the point of making several traits specific to the build. I think they want us to play it and I think the build is in a good place with some degree of room to possibly even be buffed.

Enormous backstab damage

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Posted by: Bleeds.4029

Bleeds.4029

I have six 80’s, one of which is a thief that I am learning to dearly love (thanks Lofat for the p/p build!!). In the interests of keeping it real. My guardian with 3200 (and some change) armor has been backstabbed in excess of 8k. Maybe it’s rare and random, but it can happen. Combine that with 5-6k steal, and 6-7k CnD and things get out of hand quickly. Does it happen every time to my guardian? No. But it can happen. It makes armor feel utterly useless. Then again, all my 80’s have run into the bull rush/100 blades attack and without a stun break immediately (if at all) it is ridiculous and not survivable. This combo is far easier to mitigate on my guardian than any other of my chars by a long shot. Even my bunker ele gets eaten by 100 blades if I’m not paying attention.

Bottom line, there are some thieves out there that either have some kind of macro running that can get attacks off in such precise ways or they are truely god-like players because normal mortals die before they can react. On the other hand, a warrior can win in two button pushes if they catch you, usually from behind ~and~ if they are built that way ~and~ they have all the health and armor that comes for free with that class. Both are pretty OP, but none are game breaking…yet.

Rangers and Engineers can completely melt people also given the right circumstances, gear and build. Heck, you can even build a guardian glass cannon and melt people 1v1.

My problem is becoming more and more warrior focused as I learn the thief and their tricks. To beat a thief, survive the burst. To beat a warrior….well, I like seeing the full signet warriors because they are usually a free meal otherwise I try to just avoid them. Oh, and yes, one of my 80’s is a warrior….everyone’s favorite; a glass cannon rifle/greatsword warrior. Woot. I feel somewhat OP on the warrior, but again, not game breaking. My warrior is dirt napping as often as face melting.

Is AoE actually a problem? - Discussion Thread

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Posted by: Bleeds.4029

Bleeds.4029

Dear Anet,

Please, before you make any changes to AOE, carefully consider what this will mean to so many specs of classes; but most notably the elementalist and necromancer staff user. Every push of a button is an AOE to those classes, already they are considered subpar due to low damage in non berzerker gear. The number of full berzerker ele’s is low from what I have seen. I don’t even know how to gear a necro for maximum damage. Out of those ‘zerker ele’s, and there is one in my small tactical guild, they spend a lot of their time dead.

A class shouldn’t be forced to go ‘zerker to be competetive, but it’s happening. We are seeing it from engineers and rangers due to their dismal damage potentials. We see it in thieves and we all complain how overpowered this is, even thief players recognize that it’s out of hand. We have seen what ‘zerker warriors can do with a rifle or a greatsword. What’s next? Well, in response to the out of hand practices of thieves, several of us in my guild that play guardians as mains and alts are talking about making berzerker guardians. Why? Even in our bunker gear we are getting insta-gibbed by thieves. We figure we might as well gear for damage since our 3200+ armor means NOTHING.

So what is really broken? Maybe it’s armor? Maybe armor needs to diminish a bit more damage, I have speculated a stealth nerf of armor because I used to feel well protected at 3k+ armor. Now it seems pointless. Maybe it’s the berzerker sets? Maybe there should be some real limits or hard caps on crit chance and damage?

Whatever the case, I don’t think AOE damage per se is where we are really needing to look. AOE is easily dodged and mitigated. AOE has already been nerfed. Direct damage is already higher and being used to far greater effect.

The thief and its gameplay - Your feedback [Merged]

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Posted by: Bleeds.4029

Bleeds.4029

Disclaimer: Haven’t read the thread, all is just my opinion.

I currently have 5 level 80’s (Elementalist, Thief, Guardian, Ranger and Engineer) in exotics and a level 64 warrior coming up. Each clearly has it’s own playstyle, but I wanted to mention this because having all these characters gives me some perspectives from different angles.

To the topic;

PVE: My thief is probably my most frustrating class to play while being the most survivable at the same time. The damage of the thief in PvE doesn’t feel smooth to me. Mainly because it seems like my inititive is spent and I haven’t accomplished very much. The DPS in PvE is low and then to add in a veteran or, even worse, a champion and I wouldn’t dream of attempting a solo kill. Compare this with my guardian, there is a class that while he can’t stealth/shadowstep away from the fight he often doesn’t need to, it’s just a battle of attrition that he can win with patience. Thieves don’t control the scene in pve like they do in wvw. Being more squishy means a faster loss of life against multiple mobs and PvE fights against multiple mobs are very common. Thieves don’t seem to recuperate health the way (my) other classes do. I have tried several builds and, maybe it’s because I focus so much on damage traits, I can’t find anything that recovers life the same as I can pull with my other characters. For examples; My guardian uses a meditation healing build and the ever popular Signet of Resolve which is an almost 3/4 heal. My ranger can generate a tremendous amount of regeneration over a significant period of time. My elementalist is a healing machine and I can use distance, active healing, and passive healing all at once and it is heavily impacted by my healing skill. My engineer uses the healing kit so I get a short cooldown decent heal with additional heals from the kit and, if needed, significantly more packs from my elite. On the other hand, I can simply stealth and walk away from any fight that I have determined is too hard and I can wait until conditions are more favorable. The only problem with this is that it becomes a time sink where I am not accomplishing anything.

Recap – Low PvE DPS and low healing ability, the often times need to stealth away from combat to heal and start over under more favorable conditions creates a class that can be very frustrating. However, it easily has the best survivability simply by virtue of stealth.

WvW: In WvW the thief can be the day and night opposite of its PvE self. Anyone that has spent very much time in WvW has run into that WTFBBQPWN thief that is clearly glass cannon but it doesn’t matter because they are always in stealth and can land 3-4 hits all in excess of 4k damage before you can even register that they are there. These d/d builds are ridiculous. I am hearing that people are also learning to macro abilities in the game so that an attack chain like Steal → CnD → Backstab → CnD can all go off instantly. I am guessing this may be possible with a device such as my Razer Naga that has it’s own programable interface. These abilities are hitting too kitten hard! (for instance my guardian with 3200 armor has been hit for 4k, 5-6k, 7-8k, 5-6k that’s still more health than basically ANY guardian unless they found some way to have in excess of 21k hit points by gimping themselves in some other way!) So, while D/D thieves and P/D thieves are doing very well in WvW, there are still other builds that work well for others. S/P isn’t what it once was, but it is still viable. D/D conditions are working but are laughable against certain professions. P/P seems to still need some work. While it is viable, it suffers from repetition and high intiative costs. So please devs, turn some attention here.

Recap – WvW thieves are in a happy place I think. A person can play one lots of different ways and be successful. Good players can cause a significant disruption in their enemies’ ability to travel around and are fantastic in small skirmish settings. They can even function in the zerg.

SPvP – I don’t participate so I won’t speak to this.

Our guilds experience of GW2 so far.

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Posted by: Bleeds.4029

Bleeds.4029

Our guild was talking about a lot of this over the weekend. I belong to a wvw guild and that is just the portion of the game that appeals to most of us. It is incredibly frustrating to not be able to get all of us into a single unified group. In this day and age, it is ludicrous that this type of ability or functionality was overlooked.

Also, we are sick of facing the same people week in and week out on the same terrain. Come on, you can make fractals with tons of different maps with new mobs that possess new abilities to populate them, why is wvw the same every time? We want to be thrown some curve balls! We want to be challenged!

Only point of the OP’s that I don’t particularly agree with is that of the gear (#3). UNLESS it’s applied across the board. Currently, the trend is to basically exploit dungeons for gear so you can then wvw at max efficiency. That needs to go away, this should have been fixed in beta! The way our wvw tokens are awarded needs to be redone and the system for gathering them (stopping to loot) needs to be altered as well. Also, who the heck decided that PVT stats were the only ones that gear vendors would offer in wvw? What the heck! As if that is the only kind of gear anyone would ever use. ::boggle:: Then add the expense! Good lord! It would take a year with the current settings to gear up off wvw tokens, compared to the few days of effort it takes to get geared off dungeons. pffft

Selfish Soloist (build) plz discuss

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Posted by: Bleeds.4029

Bleeds.4029

@Trungalung – I think it’s cool that I arrived at a build that you have also done. Makes me feel like I am doing something right. All I know is that the 10/25/30/0/5 works in wvw for me. I crit often and for great damage and I have survivability. So, thanks for the input. I agree, in guerrilla tactics situations the build just melts faces. 1 vs 1 it is also a real contender, at least for me.

@Bash – I think it may be a waste of time to argue with Silentstorm, you and I both know that more crit is working. Maybe it isn’t for everyone, but for some of us it works great, ’nuff said.

I think it comes down to two types of survivability. 1) you can just outlast your opponent (classic bunker tactics) 2) you can burst them to death without being blown up yourself. (Glass cannon? maybe, not in our builds imo) I suppose I would buy in on the whole glass cannon idea if I was running all power and crit with no armor and no health. For instance: full berzerkers armor, 6 ogre runes, all zerker jewelry and a 30/30/0/0/10 build. Now you’re trying to be a warrior or thief disguised as a guardian. Again, just my opinion.

Selfish Soloist (build) plz discuss

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Posted by: Bleeds.4029

Bleeds.4029

I felt good about my crit at 50%, I do feel like I crit more at 55%. I haven’t seen definitive information yet on what actual caps are in this game (some claim they don’t exist) and I am only working with my builds from a WvW aspect. I do not run this in spvp. PvE, as far as I am concerned, you can run anything and be successful.

I am happy if I can keep my crit chance at 50-55% (Just happens to be at 55% right now). What I am more interested in is where I can push my crit damage maximum. My build is actually bursty for a guardian so I need that crit damage! I really like my armor where it is also. I wouldn’t mind tweaking that on up to 3200 if possible and I want to keep power toying around the 3k mark.

I freely acknowledge with my build that you have to pay attention to your health. If you are not good at paying attention to your health and you don’t know how to dodge, don’t play my build. You’ll just die. If you can hit your meditations by muscle memory and know which one breaks stun and which cures conditions and which one to push when people are standing near you, give it a test drive.

Also, not my build, or any other, is going to let you stand still like a turret solo and take on 4+ people. I took on a 3 vs. 1 this morning and downed 1 and beat the others nearly to death but went down. A friendly messmer came along and finished them in seconds and got me up so I could loot my 3 loot bags. I call that a good day. Had it been a 2 vs. 1 I have no doubt I would have won. However, this also doesn’t mean I win every 2 vs. 1 or even every 1 vs. 1. There are some smokin hot players out there and you know when you run into them.

Selfish Soloist (build) plz discuss

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Posted by: Bleeds.4029

Bleeds.4029

I run an unusual mix of 3 Knights, 2 PVT karma exotics and 1 piece of berzerkers, all exotic level 80. I run all exotic player made knights jewelry with the exception of earrings which one is valkyrie and the other is berzerker with a knights jewel in it. (I think, it might be a soldiers jewel)

I use 5 superior ranger runes and 1 superior dolyak in my armor.

I use a 5% damage on my hammer and an energy on my staff

I have just over 3100 armor, 2950ish attack (over 3k with sharpening stone) 55% crit chance and 61% crit damage

Future changes:

I will most likely be replacing my zerker helmet for a knights or Valk helmet. I would really like to wring out a bit more hit points but I’m not sure if it is worth it. I will try them both as I get more cash and see which fits better. I think that zerker earring is going away also. I am starting to be a fan of the Valk stuff because I am happy with my toughness and the added crit damage is just fan-freakin-tastic. At 55% crit chance I crit a ton already, if I can keep it there and make those crits hit harder while adding more health for myself that is a good thing.

Regeneration + Retaliation Theory Crafting

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Posted by: Bleeds.4029

Bleeds.4029

Builds like you are describing have been around since beta and some subborn players are still running them. In PvE, they still work and retaliation is very useful because the mobs are dumb enough to keep hammering away and most deal small amounts of damage quickly which works in the favor of retal.

However, since beta retaliation has been nerfed, nerfed and nerfed some more and is a shadow of it’s former self. It still works, it still helps, but it isn’t the powerhouse it used to be.

As far as regen goes, I find it helpful, but more often than not it just doesn’t tick high enough to be called “healing”. It’s better called “helping” that’s what it does, it helps. We, as guardians, will not be seeing anything near what a class like ranger can achieve with regen, and even they have to use troll unguent to get truely huge regen. From a pvp aspect, the incoming damage just overwhelms regen and isn’t enough to sustain life. That’s why I prefer hard heals that give a predictable amount of healing. (see: mediation healing with the valor line)

Selfish Soloist (build) plz discuss

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Posted by: Bleeds.4029

Bleeds.4029

After a week or so of play in wvw, I have determined that I am very happy with my build. The only class that still gives me problems is a well played thief or other guardians because they take so long. I have had some great 1 vs. 1’s and I just wreck people. To necros, I just want to apologize because it’s simply not fair.

My final build is still;
10/25/30/0/5 using Fiery Wrath, Signet Mastery, Searing Flames, Retributive Armor, Focused Mind, and Monk’s Focus

full meditation build with healing signet

Hammer and Staff

I no longer swap out for scepter and focus while seiging, the staff #2 works well enough for my purposes and staff #3 targeted on walls is very similar to scepter #2

Only thing I am not happy with is the 13.5k health and I think this is the reason this build has trouble with thieves; simply because they can land 5k crits and 3 shot me (or anyone else…balance ftw I guess).

Otherwise, I have improved some armor/accessories and with 61% crit damage and 55% crit chance now I can pull some hefty numbers. I almost feel like a thief because I catch people holding off on blowing their heal and I can take them from 50% health to zero in two moves.

Generell questions about kits, sigils.

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Posted by: Bleeds.4029

Bleeds.4029

Great news for engi’s! I can’t wait to see it put into practice.

Selfish Soloist (build) plz discuss

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Posted by: Bleeds.4029

Bleeds.4029

Awesome stuff Bash, thanks for posting something outside of the cookie cutter norm.

Looks like you have 10% more crit than I have, but I run almost 300 more power. I also have a mix of PVT and Knights gear and I want to trim that down to just Knights like you, I think. Probably due to my PVT gear I have around 500ish? more hit points. I think I have 13.3k hit points. Our toughness is almost identical.

I’m curious, what runes do you run on your armor? I’m using 5 superior ranger and 1 +25 toughness, can’t remember which it is.

Stopped playing guardian in WWW. This is why

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Posted by: Bleeds.4029

Bleeds.4029

While I agree that guardians lack the overall mobility of some classes, they are not broken because of it by a long shot. I leverage this issue by carrying a staff/hammer combo. I have realized through experience that I rarely have need of any other weapon types unless I am actively at a seige with a pitched battle raging back and forth. It is not difficult to get out of combat at a seige and equip weapons more suited to what you are trying to accomplish; Scepter/Focus for example.

Also, I tend to change utilities on the fly and have purchased them all for my character. Different situations require different things so I watch for things I have seen in the past and prepare accordingly. Yes, I stick to the main three my build was created around, but I will swap them for a specific plan or purpose.

Selfish Soloist (build) plz discuss

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Posted by: Bleeds.4029

Bleeds.4029

I decided to just spend the 3.5 silver or whatever the nominal fee is and try putting my build into practice. I am very pleased with the results thus far. Having picked up an additional 10% crit chance and 100 power from this build it hits like a truck! Another thing that I verified to myself is that one of the things that bugged me about AH healing is that when solo, as I often am, the healing comes in a small trickle. With this build, all I need is a single condition and I can have a large heal instantly plus heavy damage in the form of an aoe explosion. (see: Smite Condition – the heal is the same with a condition or without, damage is affected by the presence of a condition) All my mediations heal for almost 2k instantly. Contemplation of Purity is a gauranteed regen also if I am bleeding. Judge’s Intervention keeps me in the fight, heals me and burns in an aoe.

I have solo’d champion mobs with the build, but find that I can’t solo all champs; it depends on their abilities. Packs of mobs are no problem at all. I tested this against several types of packs in lower level events (working on world completion) and in Orr’s Cursed Shore pulling packs of level 80’s while gathering for dailies.

@redknight – I appreciate the input but I am leary of trying to do a build centered around retaliation. Anet has been more than clear that they want retaliation to be used situationally and not be this “full time switched on, heavy hitter ability” that basically allows us to kill people without ever really swinging our weapons. It used to (figuratively) be like this back in BWE and has since been nerfed heavily. I am not quite convinced they are done with it honestly.

As this build stands, there is plenty of Retal and the ticks hit harder than the standard AH hammer build will due to the increased power of the build.

The big drawback of this build is that my hit points are very low in comparison to the standard AH hammer. Thankfully, the meditation heals allow me to leverage health loss with timing the use of my signet. It’s very clearly a trade-off. I have to pay closer attention to my health, but I am hitting so hard and so fast that I hardly ever need to heal with the signet. WvW combat will be the real test. What little I have done so far though has been positive and I’ll keep working on it. I believe that if you run with people the AH hammer build is more likely going to be most people’s better choice. If you run with very competent players or solo, consider test driving this build.

As a side note, in the Radiance line I’m thinking I will continue to use Signet Mastery for my heal cooldown and will try Searing Flames to remove boons from my enemies. I find that the additional condition removal on use of the healing signet from Inscribed Removal is basically overkill on a build that already removes conditions easily.

Selfish Soloist (build) plz discuss

in Guardian

Posted by: Bleeds.4029

Bleeds.4029

Perspective: In wvw I have most recently been playing the 10/30/30/0/0 auto attack 1hander meditation build ankittenpt seeing all these hammer guardians and thought, man that must be the most awesome thing ever! So, I swapped to the AH hammer build, made an exotic hammer and have been messing with it. My initial findings, the two builds are very similar.

Sword/focus and scepter/shield in 10/30/30/0/0 -

Pros: Crazy mobility once engaged in battle, fantastic fast damage, good luck keeping a condition on me. Heavy defense built on to the focus and shield. Good heals from my utilities. Ranged ability for real not the psuedo ranged stuff staff does; even the scepter is decent with Right Handed Strength.

Cons: If I need to run away I might as well lay down and hope I suddenly blend in to the foliage. If I want to cover the map to get to the action there better be a waypoint nearby or its going to take a while. in other words, it’s sloooooow.

Hammer/staff 0/10/30/30/0 -

Pros: Hammer is bursty, MB is awesome, the weapon just does a lot and can be used offensively and defensively. Banish off a cliff is the cherry on top. Looks sick! Staff gives healing, power buff, aoe damage, MOBILITY and the warding wall for knocking down nubblets.

Cons: Slow by comparison to a sword or even a scepter. If you can’t land the 3rd hit of the hammer chain in time you get no buffs, get no buffs, you get no heals, get no heals you gonna die. Shouts are ok, and the healing is nice with AH but only if others are near and shouts do no damage themselves.

So back to the drawing board and I am curious if anyone has tried or thought of something like this:

10/25/30/0/5 Traits are:
Power II
Radiance II and IX (?)
Valor VI X and XII

High crit, high power, high toughness, this is an “in your face” kind of build that is going to burst (in theory) someone(s) before they can outdamage you and it will allow you to get on them and stay on them. This is not a group hug, support everyone build, this is all about you and your personal survival. Meditations to keep you healed and to help your burst damage. (Smite condition is naughty if you haven’t experienced it)

Utilities:

Healing signet
All three meditations

Elite:

Your preference

Weapons:

Weapon is hammer mainly, swap with staff (traveling around) or scepter/focus (seiges)

Now, all that said, lets hash this thing out and see what’s wrong with this build. Thanks for reading this far and understand this is theorycraft at this point.

12/3 patch and how it affects wvw

in WvW

Posted by: Bleeds.4029

Bleeds.4029

Good changes, thanks Anet.

Now if we could get an update on the future of wvw….?

Your total number of "Badges of Honor"

in WvW

Posted by: Bleeds.4029

Bleeds.4029

Pretty close to 4k kills and only 303 badges as of this morning. I have never run the jp’s and I have never spent any. I have also never looted an exotic from a bag in wvw, though some of my guildies have.

I think Vorpal has it right. The “drop a bag of loot on the ground” idea is absolutely the most idiotic thing ever. I have 5 80’s, 3 of which are geared with karma and dungeon gear, 1 which is geared to the teeth with player made stuff, one still in rares with 2 exotics. It certainly seems that the ratios are all effed up. You figure even one dungeon a day for maybe (generously) 2 hours worth of work equals a 30:1 ratio of badges to time invested. WvW can be anything from 0:1 to 50:1+\-. No rhyme or reason, just RNG.

Out of all my characters, only my guardian is tanky enough to just stand around collecting from bags on the battlefield.

Also, I can’t count the times I’ve been the first guy in to a fight and downed or heavily damaged a bunch of people, been downed myself and then watched as loot bags pipe up around my corpse and I can’t loot them. The battle becomes a stalemate and I can’t get ressed and the bags expire. So frustrating! Even if I run back after waypoint, the bags have expired by the time I can get to them.

Anyway, I could go on for pages with examples of how the system is a mess from the perspective of 5 different classes and small team wvw vs. zerg wvw. Bottom line is the WvW reward system is garbage and it needs an overhaul.

Is there a good sword/focus bld with hmr/gs?

in Guardian

Posted by: Bleeds.4029

Bleeds.4029

The hammer build in the sticky section allows for this kind of combo and as far as builds go, you have a ton of freedom as a guardian to build how you like.

I am currently in an inbetween state myself. Traditionally, I have played as more of a 1 vs. 1 or 1 vs. 2 player. I run a build based around mediation healing and condition removal and powerful auto attacks (Right Hand Strength, 30 pt Radiance, is naughty). My build is focused around 1 hand sword and focus / scepter and shield. , <— total lack of wvw mobility :-(

Just keeping with my build and trait distribution; last night I swapped things around a bit to see what would happen. I put on hammer and scepter/focus. I got into a 3 vs. 6-8 in a choke point and used my scepter skills to wear the enemy down from range with a necro helping, popped focus 5, then swapped to hammer and teleported into them with Judge’s Intervention and put 4 people down before they got me, my team was able to come around them and ambush and get me back on my feet. All I had to do was loot my bags on the ground. It was epic and boy were those enemy not happy with me.

I am going to swap over to the hammer spec and run mostly with staff as my secondary for mobility in wvw. However, if I find myself in that situation again I will do the same thing. I think spec’ed for more crits I would have killed all of those guys. (In my current build I have 36% crit rate with hammer vs. 51% crit rate with 1 hand weapons, not including food) Granted, they weren’t uber players, but I definately saw a lot of full dungeon exotics on people.

Long story short, I think you can do well as a guardian with just about any spec that has some degree of synergy.

Tanky DPS Elementalist [Videos] 11/21/12

in Elementalist

Posted by: Bleeds.4029

Bleeds.4029

@Erebus Delirium.4892:

You sir, misunderstand. There are many of us that play this build. There are VERY few that play it as well as Excala. I’m just glad I’m in the same guild, I wouldn’t want to run into him on the field of battle. I don’t know what he’s doing. I can confuse people and kill them, but I often die and have a tough time. I wouldn’t dream of attempting to take on so many at once as he does.

Maybe if I get a Nostromo….? All I know is I can’t change attunements nearly as fast or as comfortably as he can. It’s work for me, all the time, every time. I also don’t use my mouse as well and I have a Razer Naga….but I think I need a new mouse pad. Point is, there is a skill factor involved here and a gear factor imo.

[Guide]30 pts in valor gameplay (Hammer)

in Guardian

Posted by: Bleeds.4029

Bleeds.4029

Brutaly, I am wanting to swap over to this build for wvw. I currently run a more tpvp oriented 1 hander auto attack meditation build. It’s fine for 1 vs. 1 encounters, but usually I run with my guild in a group of 3-15 people. Our specific job is to ambush the enemy and wreck their zergs from behind or flanks.

My gear is mostly Power Vitality Toughness exotics with a berzerker exotic pants that I found on a drop or something. I use power runes currently, but am willing, of course, to swap to rangers or eagles; whatever.

Which build/traits would you pick as the best for a person whos job is to get into the mix and just cause chaos without dying immediately? BTW The links to the builds you put up, for some reason, dont display the trait selections so what I see is several builds with the same point distribution. Maybe its something with my computer settings? ::shrug::

Thanks, and thanks for the breakdown on hammerfication.

Guardians, What annoys you the most?

in Guardian

Posted by: Bleeds.4029

Bleeds.4029

I think my own complaint stems from the lack of range on melee weapons. The hit box in the game is really pretty small, so what appears to be in range actually isn’t, especially when you factor in server lag etc. There is little worse to me than running directly on top of someone swinging my weapons and missing. Ever notice you live longer in pvp when you keep moving? There ya go…

I honestly would be 100% satisfied with my scepter/focus or even staff damage if I could just hit reliably with my sword/mace/hammer etc.

The only game that has ever addressed this to my knowledge was Aion.

For your viewing pleasure:

http://www.almarsguides.com/aion/gettingstarted/extendableweapons.cfm

Even in that game they made the weapons prohibitive to get ahold of, but I see no reason why these couldn’t at least be exotics from special vendors or even better, craftable. I would take an extendable weapon that does less damage over a legendary that does more damage every day of the year.

Or…

Just make the dang hit boxes bigger! So simple.

The New GW2 Flavor Rocks!

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Bleeds.4029

Bleeds.4029

@OP – thanks for putting this so clearly. This sums up so many of my concerns and the concerns that many of my guildies are also expressing. The forums are sure the vocal minority, but I think we, more often than not, represent the silent majority. This thread certainly does.

From patch day since, there has been a marked absence of LFG chatter for the original dungeons. This really hurts the game on so many levels. Personally, I am a member of a giant WvW guild and it is definately our focus in the game. FotM (ironic how this also stands for Flavor of the Month) represents a change in habit and expectation for gear in wvw. Previously, it was pretty much expected that you would gear for wvw from dungeons; beautiful synergy in that. The dungeons were desireable and used, wvw was used, spvp gets used regardless. Now, regular dungeons are ignored, FotM is alienating those slow to jump in and players in wvw are worried that the players of “that big server you’ll face if you can get to the next tier” will be showing up fully decked out and roflstomping you.

Additionally, on the subject of wvw token medals. Hardly anyone I know or have seen has been able to collect enough wvw tokens to use for gear. The guys that have been at it hard core since launch can buy a couple wvw items but don’t because they geared in dungeons. For most, you can get a weapon, maybe, but not suits of armor. Fact is, a lot of tokens get left on the battlefield because of the dynamics of wvw combat. The only way I have found to make meaningful amounts of tokens is to sit on a ballista holding off invaders making a rush at your keep lord in a place like SMC. Others may disagree, but this is my finding as (primarily) an engineer in wvw. The most I have ever made in a single night of play is 20. A few soloist thieves and ele’s from the guild make a large amount of medals out ganking loners, but when you run with the zerg it isn’t that easy. Conversely, you can run one dungeon a night for 60 tokens! ……or erm….you used to. Now, it’s LFG FotM lvl 8+ and I’m on level 1, others that missed the opener are on level 2, some on 3, etc etc.

Constructive Suggestions:

Currency systems: Way too many currency systems in place. WvW tokens, original dungeons each have individual tokens, the new dungeon has it’s tokens and then there is karma and regular old gold bringing up the rear. I suggest condensing some of these systems and let us just get the gear we want. There is no need to have all this so spread out. If Arah armor needs to have a higher cost than AC armor (which it does) this is still valid, the stats are the same on the armor so who cares if you want to run AC extra times to get armor that has a different look. Also, in the hunt for legendaries, you are going to need to complete the dungeons anyway right? Do I have this right? Total speculation on my part here…

Karma: Exotic vendors need a full range of equipment instead of only certain pieces with 2 or so choices of stats in the exotics. Come on, no brainer here.

WvW: Make the medals auto-looted or something to improve the rate of gain. Also, figure out what determines if you earn medals in WvW. I have soloed people and got nothing and winged people and gotten rewarded, why this RNG? It makes no sense at all. Also, as with karma vendors, make sure we have several choices of stats on the exotic WvW rewards. Lastly, why do we earn so much karma in WvW? Why not remove the karma and increase the wvw medal gain? This way, karma is for PvE, medals are for WvW, tokens are for dungeons, and s/tpvp does….whatever it is they do.

Tanky Thief in WvW! 1080P

in Thief

Posted by: Bleeds.4029

Bleeds.4029

I am running as much of this build right now as I possibly can at lvl 45 in wvw and I really like it. I gave up caltrops for the ability to stealth more frequently and without the need to be in physical contact with a target. I really, really like it so far! At 45 and obviously under geared I am not pulling down enormous damage of course, but I can really harass the crapola out of the enemy and get away. I am also running thieves guild right now instead of dagger storm which causes even more chaos.

So, thanks for posting it! It is also more sturdy in PVE, which is making non-wvw leveling much more enjoyable.

Engineer highest dps class

in Engineer

Posted by: Bleeds.4029

Bleeds.4029

@Mell – “If your fighting a warrior on the move don’t use grenades use rifle.”

Wait wait wait!! Engi’s are the highest DPS class with grenades! Don’t swap to a rifle! What the kitten are you talking about?? Use grenades dude, that’s where the DPS is, right? Just spam grenade 1, duh! Or are you saying that grenades don’t always work? Also, if grenades don’t always work, they couldn’t possibly be the highest DPS, right? Oh! If you are traited to use grenades, more than likely, you aren’t also traited for rifle, so then….your rifle isn’t the best choice of weapon either! Get it yet?

Quit talking out of your butt just because you figured out how to use the google box and you made something that you think can back up your theorycraft. Any one of us can make a google doc that shows that condition damage or precision (for example) is the best DPS, but that would be the same dummy “maths” that this is.

Understand also, nobody here needs you to tell us to swap to rifle for a ranged opponent. We know which weapon(s) to pick and when. The very simple fact that you need to swap at all, ever, is why saying that engineers are “the highest DPS class” is ignorant. A thief doesn’t need to swap to anything to roast you, nor does a warrior…but they also don’t burst people down using auto-attack; nor do we.

Engineer highest dps class

in Engineer

Posted by: Bleeds.4029

Bleeds.4029

Mell, you would be better off to say that grenades have the highest damage coefficient in the game. Claiming that Engineers are the highest DPS class is misleading, because we are quite obviously far from it.

You pointed out that a warrior must be in melee range to fight while an engineer does not. But you are wrong because a rifle or even bow build warrior fights from range and will roflstomp a grenade engineer if played simply and correctly by staying on the move and by keeping the fight at the warriors maximum range. So again, we could multiply the damage of grenades by 10, 100 or 1000 and the DPS still wouldn’t matter if none of the hits land.

Also, grenades in my experience are best played in melee range. This is why I tend to run with more PVT gear than so many other people who go all out zerkers. Further, the full berzerker wearers are mostly out looking to gank noobs by suprise. My personal style is to run in close and drop my grenades at or near my feet so that I can reliably land hits by decreasing flight time and aiming confusion due to terrain; all this to increase my actual, realistic DPS.

11/16 - TC, FA & YB

in WvW

Posted by: Bleeds.4029

Bleeds.4029

Are you sure these aren’t just afk’ers using their auto attack to kill the power node? I have never seen a bot in wvw that I can remember. If you are correct I’ll start hunting them too!

Engineer highest dps class

in Engineer

Posted by: Bleeds.4029

Bleeds.4029

This conversation is still absurd in that someone can run, not dodge, out of the way of grenades. I do it all the time against other engi’s and other classes do it against me all day long. Warrior greatsword skills for the most part are targeted attacks that, given you are in melee range, they will hit and the only way to not get hit is to dodge.

I think everyone is too tripped up on the numbers and not the reality. I get hit by warriors because I find myself in melee range, I miss my targets with grenades because they move. DPS, no matter what numbers you want to plug in, is determined by what you can actually land, not by what it can do hypothetically on a stationary target. When I get homing grenades we can talk about my engi dps vs. a warriors dps.

Engineers are definately most feared by seige weapons, if they could run from us they would. If they could speak they would say we are OP.

Thoughts on Ascended Gear? [Merged threads]

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Bleeds.4029

Bleeds.4029

For everyone that is having trouble wrapping their brain around this issue, take a look at the lfg dungeon chatter in /map chat now compared to previous to the patch.

Now everyone is lfg FotM 1 more, 3 more etc AND even worse the groups are looking for only people on level “x”. This alienates the player base that isn’t or cannot keep up with progression.

I've enjoyed this game wholeheartedly

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Bleeds.4029

Bleeds.4029

Count me as one that still loves this game and thinks that it is the best game on the market at this time.

But, you may also count me as one that thinks there is a long, LONG way to go on class balances and bug fixes. I also may be counted as one that is a bit peeved that there are developers, and I can only assume that it is the effort of an entire team(s) of devs, that are creating more content (lost shores) and only TWO that are working on class balance and trait systems.

I’ll be happy to wave my fanboi flag for this game, but let’s keep it real.

11/16 - TC, FA & YB

in WvW

Posted by: Bleeds.4029

Bleeds.4029

Seen the joint effort of Yak and TC working together twice now in person. It’s a bit lame, but makes us FA feel good to know we are that much of a threat.

Pick me an alt

in Elementalist

Posted by: Bleeds.4029

Bleeds.4029

I have, at 80, ele, ranger, guardian and engineer and a 40 thief. If I have to pick between what to play that is exciting, it is ALWAYS a toss up between the ele and the engi. I love them both and I find more and more that I am defaulting back to my engi.

I think though, this is happening because my mouse pad is breaking down and I can’t right mouse hold to steer my character as well as I need for the ele. The engi is far more forgiving. Once I get a new pad, I’ll see what I think again.

"Main" Exotic gear set choice...

in Engineer

Posted by: Bleeds.4029

Bleeds.4029

I run a mix of berzerker and PVT personally. I would love to be able to fit in more ‘zerker but I also like suvivability, its a tough choice between massive damage and survivability. Then again, I don’t try to solo and I only do wvw. For me, being able to sustain damage and live is more important than blowing my load and dying.

Recent Engineer Changes - What do you think?

in Engineer

Posted by: Bleeds.4029

Bleeds.4029

Something new (to me) since the patch, and I’m curious about the findings of other engi’s;

Barrage:

The tooltip says (or used to I haven’t looked at it in game post patch) radius 150 range 900 etc. Perhaps I wasn’t paying attention before, but I never noticed a radius appearing on the ground where I was throwing my barrage and the pattern used to be random.

Now, the radius appears to be more like 240 and the pattern is no longer random. It now appears to me to be a very uniform spread. To me this translates into me not being able to use it to burst a single person like I could before. It will still blow up several people packed together, but it just seems like it really spreads the damage around more where it didn’t before.

I didn’t see anything in the notes regarding this, or am I just way off base here?

Recent Engineer Changes - What do you think?

in Engineer

Posted by: Bleeds.4029

Bleeds.4029

I agree R5 is about useless in pvp unless you are stomping a noob that stands still. I rallied last night and when I got up, of course, grenades had deactivated and I was in rifle. I tried r5 to get to a guy, I just ended up where he had been. Swapped back to grenades and got down to business.

@Casia – I’m sure it’s a typo but above you put “Grenade. 3 has no damage, 4 is poison.” No doubt you meant G3 has no damage, G4 is damage and chill and G5 is poison.

It’s also worth mentioning that G4 has a wide radius, way bigger than G1 and bigger than G2.

Missed the boat and everything?

in The Lost Shores

Posted by: Bleeds.4029

Bleeds.4029

Maybe I just didn’t understand this event; a lot of people seemed to have fun. But for me, I didn’t find anything here earth shaking. It didn’t help that my hard drive utterly died on Nov 15th and I had to replace everything over the weekend and wasn’t running real well until the 18th. (I know, sob story, certainly not Anet’s fault) maybe this accounts for me not getting the jist of the event.

My overall take, I went to the new zone and ran all over it looking for something to do. Maybe I missed the whole event or something, but all I saw were people grinding on the karkas which , to me, looked insanely boring. I just don’t get it. There was no sense of urgency in the NPC’s. Most sat around in bathing suits like they were in some vacation zone. Occasionally, I would run into a Lionguard standing on the roadway doing nothing.
Many of the mobs I tried to kill were severely bugged and would reset constantly or wouldn’t react to being attacked at all and were immune. On top of all this, the karkas all look alike! Really? A whole zone full of things that all look alike?

To find a positive, the little baby karkas attaching themselves to your face is really cool and the attack of the big ones pulling in their legs and rolling at you is also pretty sweet, mechanically speaking.

Was there some big battle to see? I guess I was expecting something more like the final showdown in the personal story line when we fight off the lieutenant of Zhaitan or something. I ran around the whole zone and tried one of the jumping puzzles, but I don’t like those to begin with.

As if all that wasn’t enough, I find “Passion Fruit” readily available to be harvested, but it doesn’t auto store to the bank which makes it take up bag space. And karka shells can be found on the mobs, but likewise don’t deposit to the bank taking up even more precious bag space.

Then, the crowning moment. I try the FotM dungeon and the server crashes three bosses in and it’s too late to continue and try the whole thing again, so as far as I know I’m still stuck at level 1. Also, I find that if you get blown off the ramp while busting the colossus free you fall to your death and can’t be revived. That really, really sucks. Total waste of time, totally untested content being released.

On the positive side, the loot in the dungeon chests is nice and the artwork in the dungeon is no less than I would expect from this game. It is always visually stunning.

Disconnected in Fractals...

in The Lost Shores

Posted by: Bleeds.4029

Bleeds.4029

Two things:

1) Finally decided to try FotM and like many here got disconnected. Whole group got kicked out due to server crash and the time it would have taken to re-do was more than I could spare because of work today.

2) Spent a lot of wasted time dead with no ability to resurrect having been blown off the ramp on the statue portion thing. Please test these things before you release them.

Engineers: What do you want to see that we don't have?

in Engineer

Posted by: Bleeds.4029

Bleeds.4029

I’m curious, for those requesting the “sniper rifle”, what/how do you envision the skills?

The current rifle abilities are already in line with something that resembles a shotgun. So, if an actual rifle was offered the skills should really reflect what a rifle does. Kill Shot for warriors is very clearly a skill that resembles a high powered rifle. What would we have? Sniper shot? A skill that exactly mimics Kill Shot? But Kill Shot is an adrenaline skill, are we expecting to have that on a normal cooldown since we don’t have an adrenaline mechanic? And at what range would this work?

If the sniper rifle was a kit, you could have something like Kill Shot as the toolbelt skill. Also as a kit, you could add something like “Go Prone” to increase crit chance. “Sniper Hide” to stealth your position until you attack. “Ambush” for aoe cripple or immobilize. “Magnum Force” for a long range knockback.

The pistol builds should be protected as the condition damage builds. Pistol & shield should be the supportive/defensive builds. The current rifle set is more in line with a CQB specialist or support but I would think it would lose some of the range it has at least on auto attack to gain damage making it much more like a thief. Long range rifle should be…? Medium sustained damage with a high damage finisher? More of a scout role? This is where the idea falls apart for me.

I can already hear crys of OP and Nerf if someone is stealthed, drops a bunch of grenades out of stealth, swaps to the sniper rifle and gets off a kill shot before the person can even figure out where the attack is coming from.

Then again, I was killed by a thief last night that I never saw and the combat log showed I was hit exactly three times by CnD, Backstab and CnD all for around 6-7k per attack. and it took like 1.5 seconds. Ridiculous! If classes can run that kind of damage, we should all feel empowered to ask for that kind of damage. If we can’t get it, we are right to want an explanation of how it’s right for others to have it, especially when they have stealth and the same armor we are wearing. Stealth is another means of tanking btw, it’s called avoidance tanking. 100% avoidance with insane burst DPS is OP. ’Nuff said.

Which rune would you put on a Grenadier build?

in Engineer

Posted by: Bleeds.4029

Bleeds.4029

I have been toying with the possibility of Divinity runes for wvw. 12% crit damage would hurt bad when I do crit which is pretty often with grenades even though I am not built for crit. 60 points of power isn’t the same as what you can get with power runes, but there is also 60 to toughness, 60 to precision etc.

You can put 10 points into tools and never worry about swiftness again….ever.

Warrior Sniper Vs. Engie Sniper

in Engineer

Posted by: Bleeds.4029

Bleeds.4029

I tend to agree with you GoneBatty. A lot of these conversations, oddly enough, devolve into pride issues vs. honest assessment. The same engineers that complain in one thread will defend their class in another. No different than any other game when balance is on the table I suppose.

Bottom line for me is the issue of builds. If you play a support engineer, don’t expect to do damage on par with a warrior built to do damage. Expect to be on par with the damage of a warrior built to do support. But, if you choose to play a rifle sniper or some other damage oriented build your damage should be top notch in line with other damage builds of other classes. The reason for this is because every class has it’s support, damage, tanky or healy builds. The problem comes in when some classes damage/support/heal/tank builds end up being vastly superior to that of others.

I don’t mind if thief ends up being a bit higher than everyone else in damage. I don’t mind if the warrior and guardian are a bit better tanks. Point being, I just want to see good balance. I think we are very close to this goal. But I also think that there are a couple stand out classes that are getting the lion’s share currently.

I cant stay alive :(

in Engineer

Posted by: Bleeds.4029

Bleeds.4029

@Foegrim
My suggestion is to build up some money and craft. Huntsman and Leatherworking are both nice for an engineer. Doing these will push you through the lower levels thanks to the ridiculous amounts of exp you can haul in from crafting (thanks Anet). If you are having trouble with cash, make a warrior and faceroll your keyboard for money and crafting components; give the warriors loot to the engi.

Engineer is, in my opinion, kind of bland until 60. At 60 you can pick up Grenadier for your grenade kit and then it’s the engineers turn to dominate.

Also, don’t forget to find dungeon groups that are appropriate to your level. (ie. Ascalonian Catacombs (AC) story at 30, AC explore modes at 35) Save your tokens from explore modes for level 80.

Lastly, don’t be afraid to go back and do lower level content in other zones. Nowhere is it written that if you are 35 you must do level 35 content. The exp is good, DE’s are plentiful, and you can easily make some extra coin by quickly completing the heart quests.

Engineers: What do you want to see that we don't have?

in Engineer

Posted by: Bleeds.4029

Bleeds.4029

I should have been more specific;

1) Smoke Bomb, Glue Bomb and Big Ole Bomb = goodness
2) Bomb, Fire bomb, Concussion Bomb = should be brought up to the radius of the other bombs.
3) Mines in general = brought up to the radius of item #1.

I agree also with making the mines not visible, but I would likewise agree with engineers having the ability to detect enemy mines, I would even go so far as to agree with thieves or rangers having the ability to detect the mines if the damage was high enough that battles and ambushes could hinge upon whether or not they were detected. But, those should be activated, not passive, skills.

Engineers: What do you want to see that we don't have?

in Engineer

Posted by: Bleeds.4029

Bleeds.4029

I haven’t seen every post, so apologies if this has been said;

I’d like to see the mechanics of the mine kit changed for one. There are hundreds of types of mines in the real world and having the mine kit here should be tailored in such a way to make it desireable and feared. Conditions should be added to mines because mines are, by design, created to cause debilitation, bleeding and even burning. The damage of mines should be adjusted to be extremely heavy and used more like a trap skill than as a main weapon skill. We should have trip-wire sets and directional sets so we can actually make our own ambushes. This would be so fun in all aspects of the game. I would be fine with the creation of our mine lays being a channeled ability. These should be things that are difficult to set up, but worth it when they go off. Finally, the radius of explosions, especially for mines and bombs needs to be much larger imo. These are giant explosives, not firecrackers.

I do think grenades are fine as is and I am having a “blast” with them.

I would also love to see the engineer having a much more desireable role in siege. We have the mortar, but most people say it is hard to use and the damage is subpar. The added ability of a self deployed rocket launcher, cannon, or ballista would be interesting.

Engineers should be able to repair siege equipment…I mean c’mon, no brainer. Even if it meant we had to use supply to do so.