Guild Wars 2

I like a bursty amulet with defensive traits and shield.

FT, Elixir C, EG, Mortar.

Firearms, Alchemy, Inventions.

Something like a Vipers amulet.

Pistol Shield.

You should be able to get a lot of blast finishers on water, as well as decent stun/daze combos going to burst down enemies.

Even though you don’t have any particularly bursty weapons, you can do insane timings with incendiary ammo condi bursts, covered by CC.

I honestly think shield is in a really good place, it will probably always be a high tier weapon given the quality of it’s skills + the worthwhile trait in inventions.

Shaogin.2679:

Stability on Shroud 3 and Elite. Very little stability access compared to what others crap out.

No.

You’re being quite hyperbolic, Reaper has extremely impressive stability uptime with no require trait/ability investment beyond selecting the Reaper line.

Do play other professions if you would like to experience the truth of the matter.

Elixir C is already one of the most potent competitive abilities in the Engineer’s kitten nal.

Granting additional boons to this skill is practically begging to see it nerfed out of the game.

This said, your proposed change would certainly make the skill more attractive for PvE, where other Elixirs currently completely outclass C as you rarely need more than an occasional cleanse.

TL;DR: only as a PvE exclusive change.

Giving in to mindless memes and deleting stats is a immensely poor move.

This hamfisted approach to balance will see me giving up on this game.

Welcome to MMOs OP.

The “NEXT BIG THING” bandwagon will roll on forever.

Diamond skin wasn’t part of the metabattle.com Elementalist meme build.

This is the major reason it wasn’t seeing widespread use, the vast majority of players believe that website is the holy gospel.

There were complaints from veterans when the trait was introduced and it has always been gamebreakingly powerful.

Also, try not to potter out the old “git gud” memes, they are always so cringe inducing in their desperate attempt to distract from the most obvious of points: what if the other player got good too?

ANet deleted the Engineer trait because it was cancer, not because all non-engineers were utterly incapable of competently playing the game.

Lexander.4579:

I don’t want a vast majority of the mechanical complexity of this game to exist, because it is too hard

/facepalm

this 4 year old meme? Seriously?

This was the exact same rubbish people were spouting back then, and we’ve all learnt it was and remains self-defeatist nonsense.

The vastly inferior Engineer version was deleted years ago due to virtually hardcountering condition builds. (no new condi application below 20% health).

This Elementalist version, beyond all comprehension, was introduced AFTER all we learned from the Engineer version AND is significantly more powerful.

Why does this trait, which does literally hardcounter all hybrid/condi builds still exist?

How in the world has this been ignored by the balance team for so kitten long?!

Pistole/Schild is great.

I think most people playing Hammer do so because it is new and fun. Not because it is vastly superiour to the other weapons.

100% pure passive immunity is a bad mechanic.

A less hateful version of the exact same trait was removed from Engineer due to it being terrible design.

Change the trait to something much more clever like reduced condi damage per condition on the Elementalist.

Pure immunity traits have no place in a competitive game.

This trait is the only significant concern with balance at the minute, as it is the only thing which completely hardcounters half of all potential builds.

Don’t run a meme build.

If you found it on Metabattle, good players have been slaughtering the build for weeks.

Build to kill what you find on metabattle.

Celestial Scrapper is a hell of a lot tankier than Marauder, I’m not sure how you came to conclude the opposite.

All the metabattle engineer builds were designed to kill the PvE burst builds we saw at HoT release. None of those builds are going to give you an easy ride in the current “meta”.

Every Scrapper I’ve come across running a meme build has been a free kill.

yolo swaggins.2570:

1.) Lack of game types.
2.) Absence of balance between professions and builds.
3.) Toxic players.
4.) Broken competitive systems.

This is what keeps players away from the pvp scene.

1.) Isn’t going to change that we already have a fantastic PvP mode.
2.) Isn’t strictly true, a vast VAST majority of complaints are the farcical delusions of unskilled players
3.) You’re gonna get grumpy kittens in every PvP game. This is an issue with humanity.
4.) Another farcical delusion turned Reddit meme. The only thing “broken” with the competitive system in place is that self proclaimed skilled players have to suffer the discomforting realisation that running a memebattle build and zerging for kills does not make you a good player, and that they will struggle to advance through the divisions , not because balance, some hidden system or because all their team-mates are bad, but because they themselves don’t possess the requisite skill or creativity.

Cool, I was having trouble copy-pasting directly from memebattle.

It’s quite unrealistic to expect perfect civility from any community at all times, least of all a PvP community.

Take it as an opportunity to prepare yourself for life outside the house by cultivating a thicker skin.

If you are condi, take Elixir C in case you let them transfer.

Only burst condi once they have burned their transfers.

Use CC to control their healing.

You’ll do more burning with napalm on FT than shredder Gyro.

Shredder is useless as far as I can tell.

There are plenty of really solid plain Engineer builds, for me I play Scrapper because it’s new and interesting.

I’ve already played plain Engineer for 3 years.

Nerfing noob’s ability to post on the forums would be a better solution.

Maybe we’d see new players actually working on their skills, rather than heading straight to the forums to whine for unnecessary balance changes.

Delete all internet forums?

Tough task.

As a Redditor, I feel I am extremely highly skilled, yet for some reason I lose all my yolo queue matches.

The only consistent factor in all these games is that I am on my team, but we couldn’t possibly be losing because of me, I am a highly skilled Redditor.

Therefore, I contend it must in fact be the balance I don’t understand or the matchmaking I have no statistics on that are causing me, a highly skilled Redditor, to lose PvP matches.

sexymofo.1986:

That build was posted by The Abjured’s engi himself.

A good player can still come up with sub-optimal builds, my man.

One is not required to roll over and give in to the memes.

That build is a joke, as is memebattle. No decent condi with celestial stats… mindboggling.

Nevertheless, you are extremely well equipt to counter Reaper with that travesty.

Auto with EG for weakness, most Reaper’s are Marauder. Use stunbreaks as necessary.

Hammer 5 into Hammer 3 for CC/burst/healing combo. Follow with 2 if they are on the field or 4 if they are off and winding up a big hit.

You’d be better off with a good build though. Swap Shoes for Flamethrower and it starts to look a lot better right off the bat.

Comfy build, I rate it.

Your build, while OK, would be plain better as a power spec.
There are no worthwhile conditions available to you here, and you will not see any decent bleed through the explosives traitline in real fights.

Something to consider is that even on a Marauder amulet, shrapnel is still good, not just for the cripple but because the condi stresses most players out, to your advantage.

Lastly, for future videos avoid the “PvP is cancerous with new builds” type comments, it is a huge beating neon red flag in regards to perception of a players skill.

Avoid traps.

Carry at least one stunbreak or have some available stability.

Kite.

Marauder Trap DH is just as easy to beat as any other easymode Reddit cheese build designed to dominate PvE-ers.

The trick to fighting DH is to best avoid triggering it’s whopping 9k+ heal trap, the rest are essentially negligible as you can stunbreak and dodge out of their radius and the profession otherwise does meager damage, almost all of which can be kitted, interrupted or mitigated (block, evade, Invuln, dodge).

If you treat the DH like some PvE NPC though, you’ll get completely wrecked. Just as you would any PvP build.

How people are complaining about DH traps or Rev Unrelenting Assault is beyond me when we’ve all had months to get used to similar yet arguably much more potent burst builds like Rampage Warrior or Well/Lich Necro.

There seems to be boatloads of unskilled players flooding to PvP though, maybe these complaints are all coming from new players, I don’t know.
It is nice to have so many people interested in playing PvP if that is the case, but it is eyebrow-raising to see so much qq directed at such simple builds.

This is the only good non-fps PvP game on the market.

There is matchmaking, sometimes your team isn’t as good as the opponents. There can only be one winner, this is how PvP works.

Of course Reddit types (the woefully ignorant, pretending at knowledge) will erroneously claim there is no matchmaking, or X class is overpowered, or that X class is useless. None of it is true.

The better player wins fights, the better team wins games. People who regularly lose are quick to blame matchmaking or anything beyond their control before considering the one significant factor in every one of their matches: they are on their own team. Maybe they need to git gud.

This is the same story in every PvP videogame, physical sport or indeed any activity which involves skill which has ever been invented, and always will be.

We have a saying for this in the English speaking world:

A good tradesman doesn’t blame his tools.

Oh no! You can do damage to the lord if you use skills!

Quickly, nerf something I have trouble fighting so I don’t have to make an effort to learn how to play!

That wasn’t subtle at all OP.

In this thread: people who haven’t played Revenant.

At least play the class before you make suggestions, ladies and gentlemen.

It has the same counterplay as any power skill.

Block
Evade
Positioning
Invuln
Dodge
Defensive boons
CC (initial cast)

Additionally, on damage, you cannot reasonably expect to have your cake and eat it too.
Meaning that if you run glass cannon builds, you will be wrecked by other glass cannons who get the jump on you.
This is beyond obvious and clearly by good design.

May I suggest less hyperbolic whinge and more thoughful practice? Don’t be a Redditor

Good luck, OP, I believe in you.

Given that we already have a very strong 5v5 mode, and Stronghold is seemingly built with 8v8 in mind (being such a large map with a variety of objectives) why is Stronghold not 8v8?

TheLargeUnit.2793:

scrapper poops on regular engi

Na, standard Engineer is still fantastic.

Although some of the Reddit meme builds are being shown the door as they weren’t particularly good to begin with.

None of the elites are mandatory.

Just another case of fresh new PvPers wanting their cake to remain whole as they continue to scroff it down.

In PvP, if you want to run fully siq glass cannon full burst, you NEED TO EXPECT TO GET REKT when you don’t get the jump on someone.

If you want to be able to properly 1v1, you need cleanse and you need stunbreak/stability.

Learn to build.

Learn to play.

Good luck, everyone.

ChronoPhantasma:

Sadly, this trait NEEDS to be nerfed.

I would strongly suggest a cooldown.

Traditionally it has been a noteworthy feat to win 1v2 in sPvP. Currently it is far too easy to completely demolish players up to 1v3 as a Chronomancer.

It is fun, but this specialization is far more powerful than anything GW2 has seen before. It will have to be shaved down before release.

I believe a change to the ChronoPhantasma trait would go a long way to achieving this end.

Amazing work on this spec otherwise Karl & team. Really well put together, adds to the skill ceiling and is an utter joy to play

From a PvP perspective:

Rocket Charge:

Would be much more pleasant if it would not always leap max range.

The skill will miss 2 of 3 hits vs a moving target, 1 of 3 vs a stationary target, which isn’t particularly fun.

The skill will leap outside of a field, resulting in only 1 of 3 hits applying a leap finisher, which isn’t particularly fun.

Reducing damage to compensate for chance of landing 3/3 hits would be an acceptable option if necessary.

Function Gyro:

Desperately needs a more obvious visual tell on summon.

Desperately needs a more obvious tell while stomping.

Currently it is better to assume the Gyro doesn’t exist, as you cannot tell what it is doing or where it is during a hectic team rez/stomp situation. This isn’t fun at all.

Impact Savant:

Seems a little odd to have +25% stun duration on this minor trait, given Thunderclap is only a 1 second stun, and our only other stun is on supply crate.

Obviously this last one is an extremely minor concern.

Generally I’m loving the ideas with Scrapper, if the AI on the bots is fixed and their health massively buffed, the spec is looking solid. Nice work Irenio & the team, thankyou all.

Elementalist’s “Ring of Fire” got nerfed.

If you are a player who just runs back and forth through it with wanton abandon, you will get a lot less rekt now, which is nice.

You should still start including cleanse in your builds though, it helps a lot.

Things to try

In Game

Turn off ANet’s arguable terrible post processing

On monitor/In Windows

Turn down brightness on monitor

Turn down contrast on monitor

Turn down vibrance on monitor or windows settings

lower Gamma

Other

Are you running SweetFX or similar?

Tone down Vibrance

Tone down bloom

don’t try all these at once, the game will become very dark and washed out

Don’t run Grenades.

Don’t run Elixir S.

Don’t use Explosives Spec.

Don’t use Tools Spec.

You aren’t a power build, all this stuff is for Burst builds.

You do want to run:

Firearms, Inventions, Alchemy.

Pistol/Shield. Flamethrower, Bombs.

Rest is up to you.

They just need a metric kittenload of health, same as all the other AI.

Discussing the 3rd Minor Trait in the Alchemy line.

Is this trait meant to have no effect on non-potion Elixirs?

The trait would be relevant to far more builds if it affected Elixir Gun’s Elixir skills (#4 Acid Bomb, #5 Super Elixir and Toolbelt Skill: Healing Mist).

Mortar’s #5 Elixir Shell is also an Elixir skill not affected by this trait.

Mortar offers a water field for blast healing potential, and AoE poison which is nice for dumping on downed to slow healing.

The main reason to use Mortar in my opinion is for the AoE blind. 4 Blinds over 4 seconds makes a big difference, especially in a 1v2 on point.

Elixir X gives you Rampage or Tornado, which are great for shutting someone down in teamfights.

The Moa can be a amazing for shutting down players in transforms, or a low health necro who just popped a full deathshroud.

Both are good.

PvP is as tight as it ever has been.

There isn’t really any stage I go down where I can’t either point to a specific few mistakes or I’m outnumbered.

Being very familiar with the game and it’s mechanics helps, I suppose.

Additionally, Ele is getting a shave for the HoT release, which is the only build currently legitimately considered ever so slightly too powerful. And even then, it is only vs burst builds.

Personally, I am very impressed with ANet

Every class has combos which make you think “kitten , that’s OP”. It all goes towards making you feel powerful whatever you play.

Of course when everyone is OP, no-one is. The classes in this game show clever design, which most importantly, is very fun.

Actually looks like a bug, given how high the quality of animations usually are in this game, the single handed fire animation looks incredibly janky.

Interested to hear what the deal is with this, especially given everyone seemed to be happy with the previous animation.

Given this is perhaps a bug which affects just about every class in some way, I suspect it will be looked into asap.

Both.

Pick up Rev as your heavy.

Necro for juicy AoE burst slaughter, Rev for the weird condi brawler playstyle and Engi main, so as to enjoy it’s god-like 1v1 potential.

Good times.

At risk of ruining my advantage, here is the best solo build in the game

You’re all welcome.

Edit: you can swap Mortar for elixir X, depending on how much you value the blind field/water fields

Revenant is actually pretty good. Probably one of the better brawlers in the game, scales in power with the number of players attacking it too.

The Revenant is basically permanently immune to conditions, so verses multiple players applying condi, you stay at max health while those in melee range simply die.

Currently all good Revenant builds use Mallyx, Mace/Axe + Hammer and spec into Corruption and Invocation.
The rest is personal taste.

Revenant has better access to stunbreakers than any other class with Legend swapping.

Revenant requires careful use of their abundant CC to combat direct burst builds, as their damage output is relatively low without incoming conditions.

Conditions are already well handled by cleanse, resistance will be a heavy blow to condi builds.

I made an effort over the Beta to craft a solid Revenant PvP build, and played well, the class is not only basically permanently immune to conditions, it transfers them back.

It will be interesting to see where things go.

Remap keybinds to solve main difficulty in moving the tablet.

Tablet should auto-summon on activation of Centaur legend.

Moving tablet is great fun.

Moving tablet may perhaps cost too much rift energy for the value of the heal.

Experienced a lot of this over the weekend.

Definitely whilst playing Necro.

I don’t think it happens playing Revenant (copied conditions rather than transfer) although I can’t be sure.