Guild Wars 2

I’d rather go the other way and make it a whole lot easier to see and target.
Too often, it is hard to notice being up.

The last thing you would want to lose is the toolbelt skills of the gyros.

Gyros are pretty good save some minor tweaking and functional issues (e.g. pathing). Just use the one you need for each encounter.

Function gyro you either love or hate. I love it. It speeds up rezzes. Helps a lot, I find.

Gyros need some work but not as much as some would say.

1. Bulwark probably would benefit in PvP and WvW from taking the adjusted damage or actual damage the player takes OR only taking the damage the engineer takes versus others. That would be strategic.

2. The Stealth gyro just needs tweaks to pathing.

3. The “bomb” gyro needs a bit more something (e.g. blast finisher too) or a shorter cool down. It does a nice launch but not nearly often enough.

4. Purge is a great concept if the gyro would survive a bit longer. I’d probably increase the range and make it “hang back” a bit more so that in smaller fights it works better (enemy has to pick which to focus on). In mass WvW, there is a problem inherently. If you add defense, you break the ability to kill it for small encounters.

Lots of builds for a hammer scrapper can utilize only one kit. That isn’t all that different than other characters that swap weapons. You don’t need to have 2+ kits with the hammer scrapper, but you can and it adds a great deal of flexibility. If button mashing is not your cup of tea, we have lots of solid utilities such as slick shoes and several of the gyros are worth looking at (e.g. bulwark). You can use e-gun for range imho and be decent enough.

I have to agree that the inclusion of EIB would be unbalancing given the state of healing that the engineer can put out.

This would have huge negative effects for game modes that are NOT pve. For example, could you imagine running into an engineer with all the gyros AND multiple kits in spvp?

The gyros are actually quite useful in multiple game modes. They need to be improved upon a bit, but the idea of being able to take all of them in one slot would be overpowering.

I would love to see gyros have the ability to toggle their movement much like ranger pets. We should be able to move them or have them stay. Of course, that would apply to all gyros out (save function) or it would be a mess to manage.

In WvW and PvP, given the gyros can’t really have 95% damage avoidance, the answer would be to give them much bigger ranges of their abilities just for those game modes. 900 seems about right based on grenades. Midrange seems like a good start especially if the gyros can be told to stop. The answer for gyro frailty should be positioning.

Coming back into the game because of all the excitement of new maps and SCRAPPERS.

One thought on wvw gyros dying would be:

Rather than “blowing up” upon being “killed”,

A gyro will “regenerate” (or rez) itself taking say 2-4 seconds (can be adjusted as needed) until all its original fuel is used up.

Once all the fuel is used up, it blows up.

There still is an advantage to “killing” the gyro because in theory it would just have to keep regenerating itself versus providing its benefit. On the other hand, just a few blasts of AE wouldn’t effectively shut it down until the reset timer was up. The key would be the balance of the time to regenerate around both large and small scale battles.

Thoughts?

Vee Wee is our resident Engineer mascot.
Generally, the people who dislike her, wish they had the personality to get their opinions considered as easily as she does.

Is she the best? I doubt it. Is she the most interesting read? Absolutely!
Definitely no stick up the posterior.

Anyone play with stacking bleeding with the mortar yet now that it benefits from all the explosion traits?

We reapply conditions really fast. Less worried about that than getting my new bestie sigil!

Ok, maybe this would help a bit more.

I use the following three kits with pistol/shield.
E-Gun, Grenade, Bomb.

What would be the precise combination you would use to stack stealth?
What is the timing? (Do I just mash all the steps as fast as I can?)

In short, I get 2-3 stacks max typically.

Right now it is:

1. HT
2. BOB
3. Smoke Grenade
4. Blow up HT
5. MI
6. If I get it off, Acid Bomb

I enjoy the game and generally am happy with it. I suppose buying gems at the rate I do, I either have to be enjoying something or insane.

However. . . .

The game is getting a bit “stale” because ANET makes minor changes versus big one’s in terms of how the game plays out. . . especially in WvW.

I love balance patches and they are necessary, but what about as the next big project just changing out the whole map? That makes the whole experience brand new for quite sometime in ways that these little changes don’t.

It would be like adding 2 new ways to fight in PvP (last man standing, capture the flag etc).

The game is the best one on the market but it is getting a bit stale or it feels like all the innovation is cosmetic.

Sometimes I think ANET is just risk adverse and, well, just trying to hang on versus have that fire in the belly that made GW2 quite different than GW1. I remind clients all day long that being risk adverse may be a slow way to die but is sure way to die.

I want to see more bold and creative. Surprise me from time to time.

You could always limit the number of builds you could save (2 per char) and sell expansion wardrobes for additional builds using gems!

I love grenades. I hate retail.
I love longbows. I hate retail.

Is it out of whack? A bit because it encourages murder balls. The problem in WvW is if you sit back as a backline caster you lose critical buffs AND take a ton of damage that would otherwise be dealt with.

The result is the game is like watching children play soccer/football. Just follow the herd. It would be great if positioning counted for a lot more.

Retail is not the biggest factor creating the problem but it would be easy enough to “fix” by making it only apply 1x per target (versus getting hit multiple times if you stack up).

Hmm. . . have to do this by class and I’m basing it on what looks awesome vs what is the best or most effective skill

Eng. . . Big Ol Bomb is hysterical but supply crate is just unique and classic.
Ranger. . . Barrage just seems so right with all those arrows falling down on you
Guardian. . . Any of the tome animations. Just reading a book is awesome for a fight
Thief. . . Unload is just such a great animation too
Elementalist. . . not sure yet

What is the trick to getting it to stack so many times? When I try, I get a similar maybe 9 second timeframe (at best).

Are there tools and tricks to make it easier or more reliable? Are others having trouble getting the hang of it?

I tend to drop HT, then BOB, then smoke, blow turret, magnetic and if I could move fast enough e-gun.

Also, it seems like it is only 2 seconds per blast and not 3 that the Wiki mentions. Correct or am I just having trouble max stacking the combination?

I do it a bit different. Build editor is down so warning on the format.

I would take p/p initially because burn is super strong (like a Norn’s body odor).
It is also easier to get the hang of.

For kits, if you want conditions you should be using grenades and e-gun (which is super effective for defense and is great 1v1 with weakness restacking). The third kit is really up to your playstyle. I like bombs (go figure I was named for that kit) because you can do so much with it (might, stealth, confusion, immob, smoke etc). It can add a lot of condition pressure, but I am fine if it just is a utility kit while I toss nades!

Forceful explosions is great. Shrapnel is the best if you don’t take bombs, but it isn’t really that special.

Invigorating speed can often be swapped to protection injection. Protection is soo OP.

Sigils:
Energy (need vigor some way)
Torment (great to have even more conditions and this one covers burn)
Battle (you swap so many kits that you should have 6-9 stacks up which is a lot)
Corruption

Others are situational:
With Krait armor take Sigil of Earth (for max out bleeding)
Taking Giver Weapons to get to 90% (look at a sigil of malice that extra 10% is an extra tick for many skills).

RUNES:
Perplexity is great in small battles
Antitoxin is great defense (- condition duration)
Some take Scavaging

Situationally I like Krait as that really can make stacking bleeds very fast.
Aristocracy has value too but it requires YUCKY PvE to acquire.

I think you should offer the next fight to be a water balloon fight. That way it will be perfectly even! THEN CRATE HIM.

I always thought glue bomb and glue shot should have a small stability ONLY for allies and engineers standing in it. Essentially, you get glued in place too.

Both have a relatively long CD and there could be a disadvantage that the engineer and/or allies would ALSO get the Cripple effect (slow movement).

You could make the stability effect allies and enemies too.

A glue bomb slugfest!

The only issue is how long would be fair?

There really are not so many commanders on a field so as to make colors more than just helpful. I suppose it helps when saying “Follow blue or Follow Yellow” and that is helpful, but not really critical or that impactful.

I see this as more of a quality of life feature vs something that will create new strategies etc.

Well it is hardly balanced but, on the other hand, it makes combat more fun.

It makes good sense.

Guardian likely needs a few changes while necromancer needs several. It makes for a manageable sized video.

It is a bit ironic that players want BOTH quicker patch cycles AND the ability to give extra feedback which would delay those cycles.

In all fairness, the patch ideas so far have reflected quite a bit of the player feedback. No reason to suspect that will not continue.

I played something sort of similar for grins but I used quite different utilities.
For one, I like bomb kit much more than tool kit with this build. Plus, stealth and might stacking might work well too. And you can might stack

Next, I prefer (until patch) e-gun’s stun break and utility to utility goggles. For a power build, the acid bomb is quite nice! And the condi clearing in PvP off the light field helps as does having an extra large regen on a point.

Combos work out much better with those utilities too in pvp imho. I love having 5 blast finishers (2 for mine, one for e gun, one for HT, one for BOB) to use on either the light field (retaliation) and/or the fire field (might!!). Huge damage spike increase and it isn’t like you will use these just to get stacks versus to do damage. Leaping thru the fire field is also quite compelling to jump up the might stacks with the sigil of battle too.

I have also found that resetting a fight with smoke bomb is extremely helpful.

Runes are fine but might duration might be better with runes of strength.
Sigil I always suggest with power build engineers a sigil of battle. It is about 10-12% damage increase depending on the number of stacks.

I typically find that having 6 stacks of perma strength (or 9 with right runes) is much better than say an AE sigil of fire.

Umm. . . Grenades have a LOT of good utility outside of pure dps (arguably better than the elixir).

For one, they are a great way of applying weakness. A few blast finishers on the poison field can really make a big difference (or force a cleanse).
You also have a chill and a blind (to go along with the bomb blind).

There are very few poison fields in the game.
Chill is also a bit limited too.

I find I can get a lot of stealth out of the bomb kit so as to make the elixir toolkit skill a bit less critical. Elixir S makes more sense to me when I am not running bombs. I suppose, if you want to have LOTS of stealth, having both makes sense. I suppose.

Jumping puzzles are just not my thing so I understand the OP. Are they per se difficult or just a waste of time (and often require several attempts)? Either way. . . .

I suppose that leads to a greater question of where should loot come from. In my opinion, we have moved far too much to a PvE model of character progression and too far away from PvP and WvW.

If I had to jump puzzle to get to a particular height to rain down arrows or grenades on an unsuspecting enemy in WvW, I probably wouldn’t mind. But when I see a jumping puzzle in PvE it is twice the torture (if that makes sense). Not hard, just something I wish I didn’t have to do.

And on difficulty, in fairness to the OP, what you don’t do often is harder than what you do. A lot of new WvW players get face rolled initially and can’t really roam or 1v1. They may be exceptional at jumping puzzles or PvE boss fights. Works both ways.

Debating moving to precise sights for my wvw build.
Standard 6/2/0/4/2 condition based.
Yes, I know that vulnerability works better with power but this trait would help teammates in the speed at which I could apply stacks of vulnerability to the enemy especially at range with grenades for an initial push.

In short, it replaces hair trigger or rifled barrels which seems to be a more than fair trade off.

Anyone else have experience with precise sights on a 3 kit (usually nade, e-gun, bomb or tool) build?

What was the reason for the change Coglin? Doesn’t seem like it would have a big impact on balance.

Well Vee Wee, what if the OP ran into a necromancer? I recall that your advice on necromancers is to run Somewhat similar idea.

Kits you should learn to play well:

Offense:
Grenade
Bomb

Defense:
Elixir Gun
Tool Kit

You will typically take at least 2 kits if not 3.

Armor to start tends to be condition based imho.

Pistol/Shield is the combination of weapons to give you the greatest opportunity and combinations.

Engines certainly will use utility goggles in about 10% of power based builds. But, remember, those builds are Zerg focused. Likewise, the skill requires you to have a target first. It is bad only after you attack.

Warriors will still be top tier. These are long overdo and highly welcomed changes.
If you are good, they are only a minor nerd. If bad, well. . . So much for being the noob class to play!

I love the changes. Perfect risk/reward. Please keep proposed changes!

ArrDee.2573:

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

I explained why Engis will never make good bunkers! But here are some reasons again!

No stability first and foremost! Bunkers need to be able to stab stomp or stab revive! These things win team fights! There is a reason why Guardians and Elementalists are meta bunkers! They have many sources of stability!

Depends on the size of the battle really. In smaller fights, I can often stomp or revive using stealth. On point, my best way to avoid needing stability is tied to knocking the enemy around a bit before they can knock me around.

Unquestionably, this works much better in hot joins or solo joins than team fights because ultimately a lack of stability is a problem, but it takes a lot of coordination to beat the knockbacks, reflects, dazes, blinds and stealth of an engineer.

Inability to clear poison! Poison is the destroyer of bunkers! It kills your sustain! Good bunkers can clear this many times! Engis have awful condi removal! Lots of builds run Sigil of Doom because poison is so strong and there are too many Warriors and Elementalists with insane regen!

In pvp, this is a hot mess for an engineer. Overall, I can avoid a LOT of conditions with active play (blind, dodges by the dozen, knockbacks etc,) but that poison off a sigil of doom is a nightmare.

Personally, condition removal of poison makes bunkers in pvp all about whether you are playing top teams or not. If NOT, then the engineer will play EXTREMELY well, but the minute you get a real top tier player, this is what they will exploit.

Wahoo! Bye frands!

I disagree with Wolf . . . in part.

TK can be overkill and is VERY 1v1 oriented or defensive in nature. It works well on a single target to pull/prybar but I almost always suggest grenades for WvW. Between them and bombs, you have a lot of active ability to avoid damage in smaller situations. There is so much utility and you can throw those grenades easily at your feet or mid range. Long Range it works with practice too.

I would only get rid of automated response and put 2 pts in firearms for either extra range or a reduction in the cooldown of the pistol (more bouncing blinds/confusion and more poison).

I agree on sigil of tormenting or earth. For runes I find lots of possibilities but Krait is rather incredible with Earth Sigil and 2 pts in Firearms. Antitoxin is a classic too.

It is a mixed bag.

1) It is hellishly annoying in terms of the wrists (and a major reason I got a new high end mouse).

2) But the gameplay makes far more sense without the AA.

A good solution would be a way to ground target that was less difficult on the hands/wrist versus giving up the benefits of more directed targeting.

Personality counts. Biggest one on this forum. The ability to instantly find a Vee Wee post helps. I don’t really think she takes it as seriously as you might think.
And the advice is solid (mostly) if sometimes a bit terse.

Ideas:

Celestial is better frankly.
I like stacking both burn and bleed with my FT builds versus burn and might.
Doom is great if you otherwise are not adding poison. But, I like to swap out of kits EVEN if using FT to stack. Bleeds come from all your kits so it is a bit more versatile.

WvW- Engineers have more roles in more situations than anyone and have very strong situational builds. For example, you can quickly trait fortified turrets when you have a lot of siege on a wall without really changing much. Quick to change it back.

In large situations, you are great if a power build with grenades OR with heal bombs. Conditions are poor, but that is true of all classes/builds. . . potentially if you hit the blob versus the backline/tail or pick.

PvE. You can do it and it isn’t super hard, just others don’t know. It is about having the right kind of build (versus the one that a lot of PvE casuals enjoy and built an engineer around).

PvP It is solid enough that you can be very effective but requires you to have the player skill (e.g. time invested in the class) to make it work. Known weakness to condition necros.

Knock them around and use as many interrupts as you can while loading them up with either damage or conditions.

Thought it might be interesting to get some situational tricks of the trade for other players around common WvW scenarios. A lot of threads really tie to a specific trait/skill or build versus talking about specific roles and what a new player really needs to get accurate.

This would be more of a noob thread for players new to class or new to WvW.

I will post my thoughts later (time restraints now).

1) Camps- How do you solo them as quickly as possible?

2) Stacking Sigils- Where do you go?

3) Best solo roles for a zerg?

4) How often do you stay in particular kits?

5) When you roam with your engineer and a second toon, what class do you prefer the other player roams with?

6) What do you do differently with spec and skills:
a) taken a sieged up keep/tower etc
b) defending on the walls (assume you are not on siege obviously)
c) in a choke (bridge, arch etc)
d) Defending a set position (camp, lord room etc)?

Or are you a “set it and forget it” type of build/food/gear person?

6) How often do you switch gear, traits, food “on the fly” in a WvW environment, if you switch at all?
Do you create a build that specifically allows for such easy adjustments?
How many adjustments does it take (food, gear, traits) and how fast can you make
them?

7) What gear sets should the new player first acquire and how many do you really need?

8) Where did you practice specific skills (e.g. grenade tossing) to get the hang of them? How did you practice “playing the piano” of the engineer and getting all the potential combinations and reactions right given so many potential skills thru kits?

9) What is your survival strength and weaknesses (we cover condition cleansing a LOT on forum but talk to the newer player about where we really excel at defense)?

10) What is the one piece of advice you wish you were told as a new WvW engineer or one trick you are dying to tell the community you use in WvW?

I view transmute as a way to get a random boon versus a real source of condition removal. It just is unreliable as Untimely points out.

You really have healing turret, elixir gun and the ability sometimes depending on kits/number of players etc to get a projectile finisher off the light field of elixir gun 5 Super Elixir.

You are weak on condition removal unless you spec for it or gear for it.

By spec, elixirs. Downside. . . fewer kits.
By gear, condition reduction. Downside. . . less condi damage
By food, -condition. Downside. . . no +duration.

In short, this is why I keep several sets of armor and several types of food available at all times. If the going gets really condition hot in WvW particularly, I swap out at the first opportunity. In sPvP, you just have to find your comfort zone.

One final note, regeneration can mean you don’t have to cleanse the little stuff (if you can actively manage to know what you have on you) and dodges can keep you from taking conditions but you have to time them well (and it is harder to time dodges for conditions than physical damage with an easier tell).

If you are using bomb kit, one way to reduce the amount of conditions you take is to go into stealth mode upfront (see how Yishis did it) or go into stealth mode soon after you are engaged.

Getting the feeling that engineers are much better avoiding conditions in small 1v1 or 1v2 situations but could easily get “overloaded” in larger settings? Yep. It’s true!

Don’t think condition removal is something engineers are suddenly good at with anything but the most unbalanced build to focus on it (e.g. right gear, food and elixirs as utilities). If you are not THAT build, when in doubt, run and come back.

Would be great to have one simple tweak to shortbow. . .

Auto attack bleeding no longer requires being to the side or in back of the target. Helps in all game modes and not at all overpowered.

Don’t forget to use the reveal you need a target. No target, no analyze. So you will see one enemy assuming, you catch them unstealthed to target them first. Just seeing a smoke field, won’t let you target the thief.

In fairness to Vee Wee. . .

The key to condition removal is getting rid of “the big one” on command. A good condition player will drop the big ones first then cover them with “junk”. Think LIFO. last condition in is the first one removed. Long duration big damage skills which are covered are tough on the engineer.

Trouble tends to be that you will remove “junk” with transmute and even super elixir. That leaves the heal for the important removals.

A couple tricks make us better at condition removal/prevention.

1. We have a good reflect and a lot of projections come in on projectiles.
2. We have a good block on shield and if you take tool kit 2 blocks. That can avoid a lot of conditions IF you can guess them. Lots of big conditions have small tells.
3. Interrupts are something we do well which can mess up the enemy’s ability to dump conditions.
4. We get a far number of dodges with the right spec.
5. In small settings, the light field will remove several conditions with projectile finishers. We have only a few but it can help. . . Some.

Ok, note we do well 1v1 with avoiding conditions and really managing them. In bigger settings, our active play (save dodges) really let’s us get over burdened.

I use condi damage and bomb/grenades/e gun all the time. Rabid gear and different runes perplex/krait/antitoxin/adventurer based on what is needed.

Conditions are fine roaming and they can’t clear all of them. You have a LOT of dodges and ability to outlast any anti condi abilities.

In zergs, often the enemy is already lit up with condis or will have multiple guardians etc. power can work there better. I always run with both sets on me.

Having played a ranger with “sic me” it is critical to understand what putting reveal on analyze will and won’t do. They key is you need a target FIRST, so if the thief is in stealth already and jumps you, you can only potentially keep hi. From re-entering.

You can’t “reveal” what is not already targeted. Multiple thieves nearby? You will reveal only one that you target. Similarly, if a Zerg veils BEFORE you see it, there is no target to reveal. If you can pop reveal just before they veil, one and only one target will not go into stealth.

It is a great counter attack but it is not game changing as some suggest.

Really the only thing I was a bit disappointed in is that they did not remove the positioning requirement for bleeding on the auto attack of shortbow.

In short (pun intended), you have a lot of goodies for power builds and not as much emphasis on condition.

Still. . . I do enjoy the changes. LB/GS will be fun to run again. Still no way to get myself out of major trouble but I’ll enjoy the fights!

Very modest changes to the engineer. Having FT be viable is quite exciting.
2 things that really could make an impact:

1. Quick blast finisher on FT (6 seconds or less) really allows for far more fields we drop to be blasted (think light, fire, smoke, etc). This will be extremely important for survivorability too. Sure we have a LOT of blast finishers, but this one has a very short ICD.

2. Utility Goggles may be a great tool for roaming given you will be able to negate the biggest threat of a thief (then glue shot them with a faster projectile and melt melt melt).

Minor things:

1. Tool Kit will allow you to land more melee with cripple being applied across all sorts of ranged (throw wrench) and auto attack functions.

2. Lots more bleed and burn builds predicted especially with runes of Krait

3. You MIGHT see some heal skill diversity especially in smaller groups. MedKit heals very nicely and now you can remove immob. Not quite the condition removal of HT but the heals are better and the “on swap” potential is amazing. AED could be great 1v1.

Well, I guess I don’t care much about PvE so on to WvW.

The changes have some really interesting impact.
1. Fast blast finisher on flamethrower will be extremely useful for a group especially given it goes off quickly and we can lay down so many fields.
2. Utility Goggles are tempting when roaming now, but to lose a kit otherwise would be tough.

Napalm now does damage on each tick as well as applying burning.