Guild Wars 2

i guess that is what toolkit and flamethrower are for

Novomundum.8325:

[…] Simply replace the the usual weapon swap function with the drop function when carrying a bundle […]

This way you could not use function gyro / forge when you use a bundle or kit and would always have to hit the button twice to drop first.
Also when you cancel skills (for example acid bomb) and you are in a situation where you don’t have constant 60fps and <30 ping then most of the time you have to mash the drop bundle key for it to register in time. With holosmith you could accidentally activate the forge if you mash the button when you don’t intend to.

for 1 second after using a kit this button is the only way to get back to your weapon.
Also you don’t have to find the key of the kit you are using to get back and its also the key for dropping bundles (ele weapons …)

At the moment nothing has changed with kits at all. And what we saw on the weekend is probably not final.
Also with the (buggy?) low damage of photon forge in PvE it might not even be viable.
When the expansion comes around some engis probably don’t want to give up ranged combat completely and still run grenades or mortar.

if such a key is needed at all it should be F6

The weapon swap key already has a perfectly fine funtion.
It’s called “switch back from kit to weapon”.

If you look closely you can see me. \o/

It worked quite well for us. We didn’t specifically say that no one should use cc but we certainly did not tell people to break the bar when it appeared. Our breakbars lasted between 30 seconds and a minute i would say. Dodging the orange circles is easily doable by just walking out of them (in pase 1 and 2 at least – also depends on the Lane geography and boss position). If you get hit you will be cc’d for 4 seconds though so bring a stunbreak or lots of stability.

There is actually no dmg increase if you break his cc bar – none.
That’s why we came up with this in the first place.

Inverse.2967:

I was on Nuhoch lane and we had enough overcharges to possibly have killed him in phase 2 already if we had gone all in at that time.

This is only on the Nuhoch lane though.
The Overcharge there gives you priods of 2.5x Damage on the boss so its no miracle that its the fastest lane to kill the boss.
On the other lanes the overcharges give far less damage increase or none at all (scar) so you need to have high dps players there.

Stationary Boss, no new pheromone donuts more and slots for high damage skills on players.
If you can dodge the AoEs this works well in phase 1 and 2.
In Phase 3 there will be a lot of circles and you are better off just breaking the bar sooner than later.
Does not apply to SCAR lane.

Raeysa Penrose.8450:

We’re destroying the break bars in under 4s.

Try not doing that. Try keeping him in the AoE Phase as long as possible.

Joel Helmich.7398:

When you are using a skill, and for a short period after the skill completes, your character will face in camera direction.

What about skills that do not need you to face a certain direction?
For Example Grenade Kit, Mortar Kit.
I have always been able to throw them behind me while moving full speed by using autorun and rotating the camera with left click.

What i was trying to say is:
grenades>bombs for condi builds, precisely because of shrapnel and vuln stacking,
always has been, always will be (with the proposed changes at least)

Grenades is still one of the best condi weapons.
Vulnerability is great for condi builds.
Explosives line helps to stack vulnerability and the grenade kit.
I see no problem.

In PVP, bombs have always been crap because you cannot hit anything with em.
Maybe this will change with the faster explosion timer but who knows.

as far as i know mortar kit deploys an ethereal field under your feet

Entenkommando.5208:

Grenades now have a standart range of 1200.

Grenades are 900 now.
In fact apart from the mortar kit engineers now have nothing that can shoot farther than 1000 (Rifle autoattack) as it seems they have removed the range increase traits from rifle/elixir gun and pistol

Any idea what happens to the Engineer Pistol, Rifle and Elixirgun range increase Traits?
Baseline or removed?

Well Lock On competes with “speedy kits” for the adept slot
so don’t expect too many engineers running it 24/7

Akikaze.1307:

Considering racial utility skills didn’t have a toolbelt skill. It’ll most likely be the same thing.

Oh they do have toolbelt skills Mr.

My experience:
The traited Grenade-Kit is one of very few ways for engineers to be viable in endgame-Pve (and WvW). It is the only competetive ranged-AoE Utility/Weapon currently available to engineers from a DPS perspective (it certaily has some of the best AoE damage/soft-cc at 1500 range in the entire game). This makes it quite important for playing in Dungeon pugs and not slowing down the team.
Big changes to this Kit/Trait should be well thought through as they potentially change the way engineers have to approach ranged DPS completely.

Yamsandjams.3267:

EDIT: Razer keyboards on the other hand… stay away. Very, very, very far away. They will only bring you misery.

So True

Basaltface.2786:

http://www.ingame.de/files/2010/10/razer-naga-molton-2.jpg

get this one.. you will not be dissapointed

In my opinion buying a 100$ / 15-button mouse for GW2 only is not smart use of your money.

• 1-5 – Weapon skills
• 3 Mouse Thumb Buttons – Utility 7-9
• Q – Switch weapon/Drop Kit (funnily enough one of the most important keys for an engineer because we can/should use it more than any other class)
• V – Heal
• C – Elite
• E – Toolbelt 1
• CTRL+Thumb Buttons – Toolbelt 2-4
• F1 – F4 are also bound to the Toolbelt skills

relevant?
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/archive/suggestions/The-Predator-and-other-2nd-Class-Legendaries

Here are some pictures for those who are not familiar with the footfalls so they get an idea.
Picture 1 shows the the Footfalls of the Legendary Rifle, Longbow and 2H Sword
Picture 2 shows the Predators Footfalls when running uphill.
Picture 3 shows the Predator Footfalls alone.

the footfalls of incinerator and predator are actually very similar in duration, color and size

I know the trick with the Watchknight tonic and stacking auras.
But even when i don’t use the trick my aura stays on when i’m underwater. Even if I equip a kit.

They should fix/change it so that auras are always visible – to everyone.

I have seen countless Bifrost users standing around without their weapon in hand and they still have the big ball of rainbow around them same goes for Quip and Bolt
was that just a visual bug on my side them?

Greetings,

about 3 months ago i finished crafting a legendary rifle (The Predator).
After using it for a while and observing other players with legendaries I
noticed some things that i want to share and bring some attention to.

Let me start with all the positive aspects about it before we go into the the problems the weapon has. Note that i play an Engineer and do not know how the weapon changes things for Warriors.

• New sound-effects:
  Auto-attacks and Skill 5 with The Predator sound awesome and are the most noticeable change that come with the use of the weapon.
• New visual-effects:
  The auto-attack and Downed 1 shoot orange glowing balls that have an orange trail and enemies you kill with the weapon use the fire-death animation that happens when you kill someone with fire damage.

Now i want to point to the problems The Predator has in regards to its effects when used on an Engineer.

1. Footfalls:

• The Footfalls are very small and have a very short duration. Compared to other 2 Hand Legendaries (Longbow, 2H Sword) the footfalls are really small and disappear very fast. They last about 1 second while the flower-garden footfalls you get from using the Longbow stay for 5 or 6 seconds.
• The Footfalls disappear completely when using an Engineer Kit.
• The Footfalls usually disappear when running up inclines.

2. Aura:

• The Aura you get from using the Predator is only visible when you have the Weapon ready and not if you have it “sheathed” on the back. I have not seen this behaviour on any other legendary that gives an aura. I am pretty sure this is a bug. (see below)
• Compared to other legendaries that give an aura the aura-effects you get from The Predator is very subtle and is mostly located very close to the “skin” of the Character. Sword or Staff give you very big/visible auras in comparison.
• The Aura disappears completely when equipping an Engineer Kit.
• The Aura is only around the body meaning that, when you use an armor skin that has a skirt (so about 90% of medium armor skins) the skirt will cover up the effect that is around your legs and you will only see the aura around your torso.
• The Aura is almost invisible for Charr and Asura. By speaking to other players who have the weapon and by playing the fractals where you get transformed into charr/asura i have noticed that the aura effect is only slightly visible when using the weapon on these 2 races.
• BUG: When you go underwater and re-equip The Predator there you get an aura that stays when you sheathe your underwater-weapon and it also stays when equipping an Engineer Kit. (So underwater it’s basically how it should be)

3. Skill-effect changes: (Engineer)

• Only a small number of skills get changed.
  2 skills gets visual and audio changes (auto-attack and the Grenade Kit’s Toolbelt)
  1 skill gets only a visual change (downed skill 1)
  1 skill gets only an audio change (Rifle Skill 5)
• Rifle skills 2-4 are completely unaffected and behave the same way they would with any rifle.
• As far as i know “Throw Wrench” (Toolkit Toolbelt skill) used to have a special effect with The Preadtor but this was removed before i completed mine so i am not sure this is correct
• Skill-effect changes are sometimes not applied for asura characters. (Namely the Grenade Kit Toolbelt skill.)
  Though i can not reproduce this bug in the fractal where you get transformed into an asura, i have seen and spoken to an asuran engineer that did not get the changed visuals for this particular skill.

Dear ArenaNet, I would really like to know if all this is “by design” or if you might consider looking at some of the things i listed and maybe change them.
I know its a long list but i would really appreciate if you would at least take notice of some of these problems. (Especially the ones with the Engineer Kit interaction and the issues when sheathing the weapon)

I know the Predator is not the only legendary that could use some love and it’s also not the most popular Legendary (probably because only 2 classes can use it and one of them is the least played class). But i bet there are more people who have noticed these things and want them fixed.

To all my fellow Tyrians:
Do you have anything to add?
What are your experiences with your (2nd Class) Legendary?
And to all the Warriors that use The Predator:
How does this relate to you? Do you have something to add that affects only Warriors?

Tl;dr: The Predator’s effects could use some bugfixing and effect-increasing love.

The healing turret is probably our best healing skill for pve. (and arguably pvp)
It has 2 major use-cases: (numbers are conservative and without healing power)

1. ~5000 self heal and ~2500 AoE heal with 2 AoE Condition Removal every 15 seconds.
2. ~6500 self heal and ~4000 AoE heal with 2 AoE Condition Removal every 20 seconds

The AoE Heal is for up to 4 additional people with a decent radius (480) and is one of the strongest aoe burst heals in the entire game.

The traits that make the turret really strong are:

• Shortest casting time (1/2s) of all healing skills in the game
• 2 Water fields
• Big AoE Heal
• Very short cooldown (15s) when picked up
• Blast finisher included (also does 1000 damage when exploded)

I have never looked back to medkit/elixir since i started using it.

AED is so bad in comparison its not even funny.

Using Super Elixir (Elixir Gun 5) is a double edged sword, especially in WvW.
While it is a moderate AoE Heal (for 5 People) it is also a 10 second light field that messes with fire-field and water-field finishing which will affect everyone.
If you want your WvW Zerg to fail just constantly spam super elixir at gates and you will prevent your zerg from healing and gaining might.

Also Healing Turret is one of the best heal skills in the game.
For group support it might well be the best overall.
Aoe Heal – Aoe Condition Removal – Water fields – Blast finisher – 15 sec cd when picked up – Ridiculously low activation time.
All in 1 skill with no trait points necessary at all.

Elixir H just pales in comparison.

We just got it.

We killed the ~10 mobs nearest to the entrance and the “Alarm Bot” before we engaged the boss. We pulled the boss clockwise along the wall (passing the 2 pipes that were mentioned before) until we were below the entrance and then started to dps him. You don’t really have a lot of room to fight there and 2 of our people died during the fight. The remaining 3 players killed him and resurrected the 2 AFTER the boss was dead. We then engaged and killed the remaining ~10 mobs and got the achievement.

Just opened on Elona Reach [DE]

Grenades work great with berserker gear.
I have been running berserker grenades since the beginning.
I use the Adventurer rune set and 2 or 3 celestial accessories and have around 500 condition damage.

While grenades really do apply a lot of conditions you shouldn’t count on conditions to do full damage all the time. Especially in dungeons – if there is even 1 other player who applies some stacks of bleeding – you reach the condition stack-cap quite quickly and at that point the damage you can do with conditions stagnates. They also do not benefit from all the vulnerability stacks you apply at all. Vulnerability only increases direct damage and is not influenced by (and does not influence) condition damage at all.

here is a general overview of the build i use but i change utility skills and traits frequently depending on the activity. (utility slot 2 is usually filled with the toolkit or the net turret)

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQJAqOlIqiY57i6lEZUhODkC9ivEVI/+84taLIE-jAyAYLhQCCIJKIJvioxWaLiGrqWQWXjpcTKA-e

just make sure to use the shrapnel grenades and the toolbelt skill whenever they are available.

Let me rephrase that.
[…] the reason why i don’t like grenades in PvP.

Knox.8962:

For each second you’re attacking, you’ll hit 3 + 5*(1+toolbelt recharge rate) / 30.

Fair enough

i did not include Grenade Barrage because of the buggy/unclear behaviour
(when all grenades from grenade barrage hit an enemy directly for example when you throw a barrage “through” an enemy only 6 hits register. – when 7 grenades hit the ground around a target and the 8th hits directly only 7 hits will register)

Dojo.1867:

Every grenade hits is a ridiculous assumption.

It is when you fight moving single targets outside of melee range yes.

But against a stationary target, groups of enemies or when you 1v1 a champion Mob (that has no evasion) its not that unrealistic – its just difficult to pull off.

But this is one of the inherent weaknesses of grenades and its the reason why they are not really useful in PvP. sadly.
For example against Mai in the Aetherblade Dungeon i don’t even bother trying to use the Grenade kit (or Shrapnel for that matter). I just use pistol/shield with incendiary ammo.

Ok so i thought about the Simultaneous Stacks thing and came up with my own results.
First – i cannot figure out how you get to 5.7*ConditionDuration.
My thoughts:

• With 0 Condition Duration Shrapnel bleed lasts 12 seconds.
• In 12 Seconds you can throw up to 36 Grenades.
• 36 Grenades * 15% Chance = 5.4

So if anything the formula should be 5.4*ConditionDuration.

But there is another problem.
This formula does not care for the fact, that bleed damage only ticks when the duration reaches a multiple of a full second. You have to factor that in if you want the “effective simultaneous stacks”.

Picture 1 is a Table with all 3 Ways to calculate it. (Delta x = 10%)

• The column labeled 1 is “5.7*Duration”. (Your Method)
• The column labeled 3 is “5.4*Duration”.
• The column labeled 2 shows the results when you factor in that condition duration has to reach a new full second to be effective. (Effective Simultaneous Stacks)

Picture 2 shows the 3 Different Methods in a Chart (The Delta x i used for this chart is 1% so i calculated 100 points for each line to get an accurate result)

• We can see that the “Effective Simultaneous Stacks” (Green Line) stay on the same level for a while and always increase at specific breakpoints.

I filtered these breakpoints and list them in picture 3.

So the only thing to figure out is exactly how many grenades you can throw in 12 seconds. I tested it by measuring 1 minute and counting how many throws i can do in that time. I counted exactly 60 throws in 60 seconds and used that as a basis from that on.

I might be wrong though. If you can – please explain how you get to 5.7*Condition Duration.

Bleeding DPS = (0.05*cndDMG) + (0.5*lvl) + 2.5

(using my PvE Stats)
Average Bleeding Damage per 10s =

• BleedDPS (67.75) *
• Duration (15s) *
• Grenades thrown in 10 seconds (30) *
• Chance to apply bleeding per Grenade (0.15)

=4573

You might notice that i used 15s for the duration even though i calculate for 10 second intervals. This is because in longer fights you will have some stacks from the last 10 seconds carry over and do additional damage. Turns out that to factor in this damage you just have to multiply by the “real” duration.

So the 4573 Damage only apply when your stacks are in full “swing”
For the first 10 Seconds you have to multiply that number by 1/3.
And for the next 10 seconds (10-19) you have to multiply it by about 0.9.
I found these numbers (1/3 and 0.9) by calculating the damage second by second and they only apply to Condition Durations 25 or 30. When you have higher condition duration it takes longer to get to the equilibrium but you also have more stacks ticking simultaneously when you reach it.

As for the average values. I assumed that you apply 1 stack of bleed with 15 % chance.
If you are lucky and apply 6 stacks with your first 2 throws you’re gonna have a good time. Vice Versa when you don’t apply any with your first few throws your damage will be kitten. So the chart only shows the absolute average case.

Happy to help

I can just Quote:

ColinJohanson.2394:

It’s something we’re absolutely aware of and want to address in the future, one of my main characters is an engineer so I feel ya on this one. My poor quaggan backpack is visible like 2% of the time I play as I kit swap, never mind my weapon skins.

We’re currently focusing our engineering (programmers, not guys with net guns) resources that could work on solutions to issues like kits/skins on major systems that address issues higher priority and wider reaching like lag in large battles, LFG, custom arenas, spectator mode and so on but this issue is absolutely on our radar.

As always, please post your ideas of what you’d like to see solution wise, we love to see the fun ideas y’all come up with too!

found here:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/Problems-with-Engineers-and-Legendaries/page/3#post1824137

They are definitely not strictly cosmetic.
Enemies have to see what “weapon” the engineer is carrying so in PvP and WvW the Kit-Backpacks are pretty important.

For PvE however its not that important.

True – in small, fast WvW Skirmishes Shrapnel loses a lot of what makes it good. But when spamming from a wall or invis bombing (swiftness → stealth → jump from wall → run towards enemies throwing grenade 4, grenade 2 and grenade toolbelt and have them hit at about the same time) Shrapnel does a lot more damage. (though not up front)

(TLDR available)

Greetings fellow Engineers,

I have been playing my Engineer with Grenadier (3 Grenades), Incendiary Powder (Burn on Crit) and Napalm Specialist (+Burn Duration) since the beginning.
The last few Game Updates changed some traits (probably because of all the HGH builds) and made me rethink my trait selection. Note that I don’t play structured PvP and did this analysis with Grenade Kit and PvE/WvW in mind.

First Incendiary Powder was changed to:

• 100% chance to inflict burning for 4 seconds on critical hits. This effect can only trigger once every 10 seconds.

Then Napalm Specialist was moved up one tier to Grandmaster and now reads:

• Burns you apply last 33% longer.

Because i only have 20 Points in Firearms, Napalm Specialist is now no longer available to me and because of all the changes my burning uptime went from about 90%-100% down to about 50%.

So i did some theorycrafting to compare Incendiary Powder to

Shrapnel:

• Explosions have a 15% chance to cause bleeding.

because it uses the same Trait slot and therefore would be an easy replacement.
Base duration of this bleed is 12 seconds.

I used my PvE Stats as a base:

• 505 Condition Damage (unbuffed)
• Level 80
• +30% Condition Duration

I also made some Assumptions:

1. For Incendiary Powder: Crit Chance is high enough so the fire always gets reapplied ASAP. (Best Case) (Not unrealistic with grenade kit and 50%+ crit chance.)
2. For Shrapnel: Every Grenade hits. (Best Case)

I also used average values for Shrapnel because of the 15% chance.

Attachments 1 and 2 show the results for my stats for single target damage.

We can see that:

• For (single target) fights that last less than 5 seconds Incendiary Powder is vastly superior.
• For fights that last less than 10 seconds it still has the advantage.
• For fights between 10 and 15 seconds both are about even.
• For fights longer than 15 seconds shrapnel will do more damage on average.

The tables in attachment 3 show the ratio of Shrapnel Damage to Burn Damage for different Character Levels and Condition Damage.
Example:

• 20 Second Fight – level 80 – 500 Condition Damage.
  -> Ratio: 1.24 (Shrapnel damage is 1.24 times Burn Damage so Shrapnel did 24% more damage)

We can see that Shrapnel profits more from Condition Damage and always does more damage in fights that take 20 seconds or longer – regardless of level or condition damage.

Condition duration:

• DoTs only tick every full second.
• If you have 0% the burn will last 4 seconds and the bleed will last 12 seconds.
• at 10% the burn will last 4.25 seconds (rounded down to the nearest quarter second) and the bleeding will last 13 seconds. So the bleed will get another tick while the burn will not.
• at 25% the burn lasts 5 seconds and the bleeding 15 seconds. so burn gets another tick and bleeding gets 3.
• at 45% burn lasts 5.75 seconds and the bleeding lasts 17.25 seconds. Meaning that the burn still only ticks 5 times while the bleeding will tick 17.

• This means that if you have 20%, 45% or 70% condition duration (just short of the burn getting another tick) shrapnel will profit a lot more.

Condition Removal:

• Probably won’t happen in PvE very often but Shrapnel should have the advantage because the bleeding can be reapplied immediately and the burn has a 10 sec cd.

AoE:

• As soon as you hit multiple enemies Shrapnel damage outclasses the burning damage almost immediately, because even if you hit 5 enemies with an explosion and all 5 crit – only 1 enemy will start burning. Shrapnel does not have this restriction and 1 explosion can apply bleeding on up to 5 enemies (I tested this behaviour)

Pistol/Rifle:

• Incendiary Powder will apply to Pistol, Rifle and Shield attacks.
• Shrapnel will not apply to Pistol, Rifle and Shield attacks. (not even pistol 1)

Conclusion/TLDR – When using the Grenade Kit:

• If you only attack single targets and kill them in 15 seconds or less. go with Incendiary Powder.
• If you attack multiple enemies and/or fights take 20 seconds or longer or you expect a lot of Condition Removal on your enemies go with Shrapnel.

I personally will use Shrapnel with the Grenade Kit for PvE and WvW now.

tl;dr available at the end

You have to spend 10 points and you’re not considering speed signets can stack with swiftness.

that is not entirely correct, speed buffs only stack to a max of +33%
so someone with swiftness moves at the same speed as someone with swiftness and any other speed increase. You can only run faster if a single skill gives more than +33%. This has been this way since Beta (actually since GW1 but that’s beside the point)

I really like that we have the chance (multiple even) to get increased movement speed without having to sacrifice a utility slot.
I think spending 10 points is a lot “cheaper” than bringing a utility skill which you don’t even really want to actively use because the active part is probably awful and you lose the passive speed when you do (bla bla ele has a trait to keep the passive part even when the signet is on cd bla bla – this is a (grandmaster) trait so doesn’t really count)

And utility slots are more valuable to us than to other classes because we get our “Weapon swap” from kits and all utility skills give us an additional tool belt skill. So you actually WANT to have as much utility customization options available as possible. It would really suck if we had to bring the “must have move speed Signet” just to keep up and run around with a skill we don’t use and a tool belt skill that might suck.

So considering that:
permanent swiftness > permanent 25% and
swiftness = swiftness + permanent 25%
i would say that we don’t really need a movement speed signet

PS. if you don’t use a kit – well tough luck. That’s almost like not using weapon swap on other classes so you are probably doing it wrong. (Don’t flame – just my opinion)

tl;dr: Having no signet is absolutely fine because: Permanent swiftness > REST

That’s exactly why i want to know as well.
Chances are todays patch got rid of the shield part.

Mithril nodes changed to only respawn every 24 hours for every character so shorter supply not higher demand is the problem.

Hi,

could a Dev answer why the Mystic Forge Recipe:
250 Powerful Blood
1 Giant Eye
50 Mystic Coins
1 Eldrich Scroll

sometimes gives you a “Lidless Eye” and sometimes a “Wall of the Mists”?

As a PvE and WvW Engineer i can say with certainty, that there is nothing that beats a grenade kit engineer in raw long range (AoE)damage. Sustained or burst. I really hope this stays like this because everything else the engineer (or any other class) has does not even come close to the ranged damage of the grenade kit when used with the right traits and the right exotic armor supporting it. You are rather squishy though.

Me and some Guild Members are experiencing heavy lags at the moment. Including dungeons, towns and explorable areas. We are all playing from South/West Germany. I created a -diag file and will attach it to this post.

i found another one
the range increase trait “rifled barrels” increases the damage of the pistol auto attack by 15% but it does not say so in the description