Guild Wars 2

Gibbilo.3270:

Miffinator.3046:

I have to say I’ve been playing an engi since launch and I absolutely hate this class. Literally it’s like playing an orchestra on my keyboard having to juggle a minimum of 3 kits. It’s absolutely frustrating and just not fun. I took a break from this game for a bit. Almost a whole year—however I came back hoping that my lvl 80 engi got a rework. Making the class easier to play. NOPE.

I just don’t understand the purpose of this class. We’re kind-of-tanky. We’ve also have to jump between 4 toolbelt abilities, 1 reg wep set, 2 full kit sets, and an escape. I should point out I mainly do WvW. It’s mind-boggling when I play my Warrior how the comparison is—it’s outrageous. The class is just too hard to play. Honestly if this was a viable class there’d be more engis running around. There aren’t, and there’s a reason for that. The reason is L2P just so you can be almost pretty good

I think that in order to make this class work better some minor things can be done to enhance play specifically for WvW. I think honestly there should be some need for Flamethrower in WvW. Almost all builds are built around conditions, and they rotate between Nade/Bomb—Bomb/Engi/Boots. Flamethrower seems so great for WvW because of the Jugg trait, but it’s useless. I’d say add a bigger toughness bonus, or replace the flame wall for a jump.

I just think that accepting the status-quo on this class will only harm it further. I pray for a rework, and hopefully the normalization of this class. Until then I’ll be playing a Warrior/Thief in WvW because they excel in both Zerg and Roaming and are much more forgiving and effective at what they are designed to do.

I have to say I think you are totally wrong about this one. I think engi is relatively easy to understand and trait for. I think using all of the skills are intuitive. I am never frustrated when I play engi or feel like it is a chore and not fun.

I love that whenever I play that I am bouncing around kits, spraying fire everywhere, launching foes with bombs, flying around with rocket boots, dropping freight on peopls faces, smacking kneecaps with crowbars, pew-pew ing my way with pistols, etc, etc, etc, etc.

Because I am keeping track of so many different things I feel like i have tons of options for every situation and there are so many build combos. Whenever I switch to another class like guardian or thief or warrior I am bored to tears. So boring. They are good, but so 1-dimensional in design imo. They will never have the same level of fun that I experience with the engineer.

Is the skill cap higher than other classes? Yes, compared to some. Do you have to mash some more buttons? Yes. Is it way more fun ??! YES !!

You state that Engi doesn’t have utility in solo-roam or the zerg. As far as the zerg is concerned i definitely think you are wrong here. You can support your allies in so many ways as an engi in the zerg. You can also put out serious damage if you are protected by the zerg and thus afford a high damage build.

As for the solo-roam, your right engi isn’t as good as thief or warrior…. but alot of other classes aren’t either. If the solo roam is what you like to do, then it sounds to me that you are trying to force a round peg into a square hole—hence your frustration. So I agree, don’t play an engi.

Engi can solo roam tho, You just have to change it up and run a really defensive type of build, But it can work, you can reset for days just like thieves too, so its pretty easy to get away if it isnt going your way.

Sylent.3165:

So would i want something like a 2/6/6/0/0? Or something else. Thinking this would help with condition damage. Grenade kit looks like fun to.

You will prolly want a 6/6/0/0/2 build with bombkit/nadekit/rocketboots and healingturret with rifle.

Rifle does ok damage on its own by my standards, its just bomb kit is way better for autoing then rifle.

If you dont wanna juggle kits, you can go for a SD build which is generally 2/6/0/0/6

Avoid inventions line honestly and you will be fine. The inventions line is really bad for anything other then turrets imo.

Alchemy HGH rifle is a viable build in open world too. But SD/Bomb build is generally best.

Better yet, give engi a trap kit , huehuehue

LCV.7245:

I’m just going to throw this out there… The whole intention and functionality of kits is that they have extremely low swap cooldowns and they’re versatile so that you don’t camp them. Choosing to forgo kit swapping is strictly a hindrance to the engi’s potential. In fact, kits are the sole reason engi’s don’t have weapon swaps. Not running kits (or no being willing to swap them) is like refusing to weapon swap on any other profession, which is ridiculous because no combination of weapons on any profession is ready for every situation.

Trust me, friend, the only good idea you have in this post is making Mortar an elite kit, which is anything but an original thought.

I dont think that was their original intent, it just happens thats the most effective use. Id agree with this if we were talkin 1 kit. its like your weapon swap basicly. But when you have 3 and just cycle cooldowns, I dont think this was what was intended. Just like im certain they didnt design ice bow to be a “Press 4, sometimes 5 then drop” item. But it is, cause thats how you best use it right now. They designed it to be a “Healing support weapon” which it isnt used for at all.

SonOfJacob.7396:

Raven.9603:

While conditions need a lot of improvement for group play in all modes of the game, they need a huge effectiveness reduction in the 1v1 department. lowering base condition damage significantly, while allowing them to crit and having those crits effected by ferocity would be a good start.

I’ll ask again: if there were a way to implement semi-permanent condi clears for a specific amount of time (ie, a condi clear skill prevents condis from being applied for x number of seconds – I’m thinking like 4 seconds or something), would that at all help or hinder the situation?

Problem with this is binary situations.

I am a zerker warrior burst build, I go immune to conditions and kill you before it wears off, it was a binary interaction, then I fight you when my stance is on CD, and Im running litttle cleanse, I lose by a landslide.

Fighting against conditions is never for me fun or entertaining… its almost always binary.

In pve you can already camp a kit and do work.

Same in WvW, you can sit in nades/FT and it will work fine.

If you buff kits without it being a new “stay in here and get X” then they will just be abused for swap fodder, defeating the purpose.

Krag.6210:

2000 range
more responsive
more damage
auto-fires like the deployable mortar kit consumable when no one is controlling it

I agree with all of this. Can we have it count as a turret too PLEASE? I want to taste the tears.

Lifestealer.4910:

Dice Dragon.4326:

Bhawb.7408:

Spirit Weapons are some of the best designed AI in the game, requiring actual input to be successful. Just because you roll your face on a build without AI doesn’t mean you are playing more actively than someone rolling their face on an AI build. The most eSports game in the entire world – League of Legends – has a massive amount of PvE in its game mode, because (shock) whenever you make a gamemode more complex than DM you have some non-player mechanic you have to fight against.

to expand on this

Yorick, Heimer, Zyra, Malz all have AI that cant be microed and all are average power level. And none of them are strong because of the AI either. Heimer is a noob trap, he has 3 turrets and if you walk into him you are a kitten and deserve to die, he cant chase you and has no mobility. All he is good at is pve pushing.

Like I hate seeing the fricken “omfg no more ai!” complaints. It just is screaming “Scrub alert” to me.

The difference though is that the AI in those games simply compliment the build, they aren’t core. For instance, most of yoricks damage from the actual spell instead of the ghoul, most of zyras damage comes from the actual nukes from the spells etc, the AI don’t hit hard and die really fast (one or two hits). Where as in this game, look at turret engineer for instance, the turrets have massive health poor, do insane amount of damage and have lots of CC. Same can be said for minionmancer, most of its power comes from its passive minions. I will reserve judgement on spirit weapon guardian until after the patch, however if those spirit weapons hit as hard as the player then it will just be poor design once again. Another thing that AI in this game does that league don’t is they clutter up the screen making it difficult to see kitten.

EDIT: also not to mention yorick and zyra has been continually nerfed for how strong they are due to passive sustain thru AI and heal (yoricks case) and just too much nuke from plants (zyra).

So explain to me how you die to a turret engi in wvw? oh, you dont? you only lose to it in Spvp where the game mode is kittened and rewards passive play? Passive play is not the problem, the reward scale is the problem. give me more points for mowing down players and maybe il lget off point. Till then, ill sit here while you lose for running into my IMMOBILE WALL and then complain at how op it is.

Thats a great point, in regards to “Bans” Pokemon fits into “Tierlists” (atleast in teh accepted casual esport, the official tourneys are ninetendo so they are much more…. child friendly, with less restrictions. And are always in 2v2 for the most part so yeh…) So your mons have to be in the same weight class essentially to play ball. Essentially banning out your opponents from having certain mons.

AS for dota/league, There is alot of champs so there is more bans. And is used to create once again, another diversity/dynamic to take into account. if you make a 5 man combo it can be destroyed if one gets banned. so you have to play around this dynamic.

WvW/spvp in this game has none of these dynamics. It litterly has nothing. sPvP is more or less hold points win game, which is stale and belittles it to favor certain set ups while not allowing others to flourish due to poor game type.

Wvw is imo the worst though because its sorta not competitive and never will be, its “Welp their server has more dudes in the map then we do, rip” If anything id like to see GvG brought back. GvG had alot of potential and was someting I love in gw1. GW1 pvp was just plain better due to more depth of skills etc.

So really, honestly, This game just needs more depth to get to a point where it can reach a higher skill.

Bhawb.7408:

Spirit Weapons are some of the best designed AI in the game, requiring actual input to be successful. Just because you roll your face on a build without AI doesn’t mean you are playing more actively than someone rolling their face on an AI build. The most eSports game in the entire world – League of Legends – has a massive amount of PvE in its game mode, because (shock) whenever you make a gamemode more complex than DM you have some non-player mechanic you have to fight against.

to expand on this

Yorick, Heimer, Zyra, Malz all have AI that cant be microed and all are average power level. And none of them are strong because of the AI either. Heimer is a noob trap, he has 3 turrets and if you walk into him you are a kitten and deserve to die, he cant chase you and has no mobility. All he is good at is pve pushing.

Like I hate seeing the fricken “omfg no more ai!” complaints. It just is screaming “Scrub alert” to me.

Menzies The Heretic.3415:

This game needs:

• Skills with counterplay
• Less passive play
• A game mode thats obvious and instantly understandable for viewers

Yet the game listed in op, is Dota, Which has tons of heros with passive stat walls, Turtle tactics, and extremely complicated mechanics(That believe it or not dont have to do with micro, Rather When to stack, farm, push, where to stand, where LoS is, Etc etc.) That is hard to get into. Being an Esport has little to do with how the game plays. As someone who for a while was in the “High skill” Bracket of dota, I very rarely needed to time crap super fast or use lightning reflexes/Abuse tells. It was “This dudes skill set is X, And he has items Y, he is capable of doing Z” You see an engie with a rifle, you already know what his first 5 skills are and you know what each kit he does, so you need to prepare for that.

Pokemon is another EXTREMELY complex Esport(despite it being casual id still call it an Esport) That has huge skill based play that are based less on Mechanical skill and more on match up knowledge. A good prediction in mons turns your bad match up into a sweep. You dont counterplay in pokemon, you prevent them from using their tools from hitting you.

I see so many complaints of “Passive play” When almost all high level Esport play abuses the fact of Passive stats.

Mao is extremely strong in league right now, You ant counter his heal, or stop him from farming. He is good cause he is a huge stat wall with CC.

Carries in dota are litterly just walls of stats used to run over the enemy after you get items.

MTG, the best cards are not Those with sick nasty combos and good abilities, a 4/4 vanilla for 2 is the best card you can get, because its cost effective.

Basicly, GW2 will never be a good Esport because its way to shallow and is based way to much on reaction and less on the substance of the game. Atleast from my experience.

To clear it up since I tend to ramble, GW needs more substance, and more emphasis on out playing my opponent in more then one way. Right now GW2 amounts to “My active defense was better played then his, so I win” Which is very boring to watch and has no depth.

Uh, as an engi main, id dump supply in half a second flat for another utility.

+1 kit
+1 Elixir for more cleanse/might/boonstrip

And many numerous other things. Mostly these two tho.

Ok so, Elite supplies now basicly gives you “+50% move speed” basicly swiftness, and they stated tornado was now a lightning field,

HOWEVER, Warrior is getting rampage buffs

as seen here

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/September_2014_Feature_Pack/Balance_changes

Will elixir X rampage also be getting these buffs? Thoughts? I know ill prolly be running an Elixir X build now.

I guess im a minority in the fact that I love rifle how it is. I love hipshot, I dont wanna be a sniper.

I enjoy SD in pve, note its not a percet build. I also perfer, 2/6/0/0/6 so I can get modified ammo, which in parties/big events is a huge boost to damage.

That being said, you will never beat the dps/aoe/vulnstacking of bombs/nades, but you will do enough damage to make it work. my biggest beef with it in dungeons is that it does not offer anything to my friends. It just does lots of damage with zero utility for the party. it has great self utility though.

KSIBBQ.8123:

I don’t play with Berserker groups. I don’t approve of the play style. So I still don’t see how having three kits is better then a bunch of heals from Elixer gun and turret, with some decent CC. also being able to revive people. (the turrets aren’t there for the damage, but the buffs/CC/heals)

if thats the case why are you asking? if you are not optimizing, then it really falls closer to “PHIW”(playhowiwant) which is anything goes territory.

Fortified turrets is ok in STACKING enviroments, I assume you dont stack, useless trait since its so small and will most likely protect only you.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fdAQJAqelUUpPrtbxLLseNiaBNqzE6ouxA85IcgnC-TxhEABzo+jQK/E+BAs0+DkqEEAzfkoHAA-e

This build gives you aoe heals with bombs, The vuln stacking of bombs, heals on kit swap, more heals on heal skill, and TONS of blast finishers. This is prolly the best build for an inbetween imo, you dont lose out on the vuln/blasts that make engie great, but you get healing, LOTS of healing.

Throw mine can be whatever you want honestly, its just really good cause of its blast. and toolbelt, you can put thumper there if you REALLY want it.

tigirius.9014:

Well I guess they still don’t have anyone over there that understands how explosives should work. (goes back to his beta games until they come to their senses)

Rofl what are you even talkin about.

Jayden Ennok.3687:

Helly.2597:

vincecontix.1264:

You better off not running a thief as part of serious havock squad. Just stack guard and wars and you good to go.

What? No serious havok squad is ever going to abandon mesmers or thieves. Thieves still have best pressure for enemy casters and other thieves. Just hyperbole on your part there. A simple 6 second reveal isn’t going to make thieves not viable. I understand this is a scary time for you with a nerf incoming, but the fear mongering isn’t going to help. Its an addition of something people have wanted since the game’s release, stealth counterplay.

Revealed is not just stealth counterplay, it counters condi removal so many thieves use and counters D/x dps etc.

Yes but think of this, the game is balanced around team fights as ANET constantly states.(people say they do, im really unsure.) that stated, if I as an engie take utility goggles, im gaining 10 vuln stacks, blind immunity and fury. these all aid me in taking down a theif, but against a warrior? they let me do more damage, thats it, the blind immunity and stealth reveal do nothing. Also, I lose out on a kit in that slot. So we lose alot to take this, and all it lets us do is counter theives.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phalanx

implying that stacking does not exist in real combat, and that being right next to your brother in arms is not a valid tactic?

LoS corner abuse is something REAL people do all the time too.

You have 4 soldiers in a mondern combat scenerio, they use ranged weapons right? BETTER ALL SPLIT UP ACROSS THE FIELD AND NOT FIHT FROM COVER.

Ai breaking on corners is another thing entirely, but for the most part, stacking isnt a unrealistic type of combat.

You can run EG/FT even more so now since they are op as crap in trait synergy.

And I love the fact that you can FT4→EG4→FT2 and you get 2 dot on the gound, and 2 blasts on the fire field. it will be ALOT of damage.

Verificus.4320:

Does anyone think the changes to FT change anything for the pve/fractal grenade/bomb/vuln stack meta?

It might depending on the FT dps after this changes.

stacking vuln is something we do good, BUT, its not all we can do, this will allow FT better blasts in combat. other classes can bring vuln too.

Tbh, im most pleased about Elixer X, this means if you sit inside a boss with elite supplies nado, you will do ALOT of vuln and damage, its great. love it!

Ill prolly be running an Elixer X build in openworld just for funzies maybe even in dungeons with some friends.

Unless they bugged it in the last patch, engerized armor DOES work with jugg. but it gives you 14 power. 0.07 * 200 = 14.

14 power is NOTHING. 1 might stack is 35.

Deadly mixture should work, it might be tooltipped bugged, as for visual changes in damage, thats hard to see. And either way, +15% to the crap that is the total damage of FT1, its pointless.

LouWolfskin.3492:

So…after 3 hours the few people reacting to this post showed me how much of an error this was already.
I’ll just close the forum-page on my browser, ignore that i wrote this and get back to having fun instead of the same discussion with 3 people at once that, honestly, encapsule most of the community as it seems .
Thanks for showing me, again, that actually you people don’t want to play a game with innovation, but rather still WoW and the like…
It begs the question why you don’t play other games then…but that’s not my problem anymore.

Thanks again for your time people.

Id like to point out, the game used to have traits at much earlier levels. by level 40 you could max out a tree. So if I was say, a level 40 engi, and I wanted to farm events, id run turrets, events take place in a specific spot, and I would use my turrets to kill well in this spot. pre trait changes at level 40, I could MAX inventions, I could have a 1500 range rocket turret, that self heals, a 1500 range rifle that self heals, and more stats.

Due to capping of trait levels and much much much slower advancement, yeah lower level characters are weaker. you used to run grenades on engi to level, since at maxed out explosions it got a HUGEEEE buff, nades are weak without it. So now running nades is not even viable till 80. Cap. You dont get grandmaster traits till cap now. They need to rework when you get trait teir unlocks, cause honestly, Alot of the reason I play my alts is for their silly builds. I HATED my necro pre 80, I want jagged horrors, better minions, death nova! and all that fun stuff. As soon as I hit 80, I started having so much more fun.

So dont think its just cause of traits, lower level used to have them too. And honestly, you after around level 10 if you have a blue weapon, can prolly solo vetren bandit/cave troll/ all the other veterens. You wont 1 shot them like 80s, but you will be able to roll them.

edit @ harpie event, thats wrong, you can solo it as adownscaled. you just need buttloads of cleave and a blind. A theif/engi can solo it mega easy.

maha.7902:

Dice Dragon.4326:

I was talking about pugs. Not your super cool story speed running. GS has a blind?. sword is the only other weapon that has a blind. And i hardly see sword run in pugs. its always greatsword or staff. And just because you CAN swap to make the fight slightly easier does not mean its a must or will cause you to fail.

I wasnt talking about guardians in entirety as in traits etc. I only mentioned weapon and utilities. Which they dont have blind spam utilities. that comes from traits. I know full well you use your virtures to spam blinds. That has nothing to do with the utilities you take. You could leave out those last two utilities and clear every dungeon with the utilities I listed in a fine time. Could you make runs more smooth? sure. But is it 100% neccassary with what guardian can already provide with the above listed utilities, all you miss out on is a condition clear, something Feedback from a mesmer/healing turret from an engi can suffice for. Hallowed ground is great for long fights where you need buttloads of stability, but my point is to illustrate even a BAD guardian not swapping his utilities will provide a crapload to a party, just like a warrior. Why do you think pugs look for heavy classes so much? they dont have much give when they get things. what do I lose by taking stand your ground over hallowed ground? I get an INSTANT stuck break 5 second stability instead of the longer cd longer duation hallowed ground. I lose stability for longer fights, im using something worse, and still not being 100% discredit to team.

ill admit guardian is way harder to play then warrior. it alteast requires timing. But both classes have extremely easy time making a dungeon a breeze. Everyone who swaps to warrior/guardian after playing something else can tell you this. I find both heavy classes entirely boring myself. Ive cleared dungeons in pugs with staff guardians faster then with no guards. I had a party, 1 ranger, 2 guardians, me an engi, and both guardians camping staff, and I cleared it way faster and smoother then when we had zero guardians. Cause thats how good the heavy classes are honestly. or maybe they are just godly players?

Yes, the idea is to run Sword/Focus and Greatsword. The Focus is the third weapon with a blind called Ray Of Judgement. The focus also includes a blast finisher which applies might when used in a fire field.

Even if your run is just a simple pug and not some ‘uber cool speed run’, as a Guardian it is important to take the correct utilities for each fight, and it’s really not hard to swap them, even for a mindless pug. There’s also another benefit to the preference of hallowed ground and purging flames. They are fire fields.

I can’t disagree with you about these classes being easy to play, they most certainly are. I believe that more content should be designed and added to really challenge players of all classes. I also believe that there needs to be changes to get some classes up the pecking order, for example the necromancer.

I am finding it hard to pinpoint what you are trying to convey but if it is that even a guardian running a staff, who doesnt swap up utilities and is doing jack all is better than something like a necro or ranger doing the same thing, I agree with you there as well. There is certainly some imbalance there.

-GMB

thats what im conveying yes. Ive run with alot of mindless pugs, and Guardians/Warriors are just really trong classes. Guardians cause well, they are well designed as crap and just plain do what they do, support. Despite how I posted, I dont think guardians are op, they do what they are supposeded to. I dislike how warriors are designed because they are big ole fat stat piles, all they do is spam weapon abilities, their utilities are generally just that as well, big ole stat piles like I mentioned, FGJ, banners, etc. they are just more stats n boons. Stats n boons. Timing? haha whats that, spam them anytime they are off cooldown. I spam 1/2 on GS, 20 might for everyone! Dont use Adren? MORE STATS/HEALS, dont use my signets? MORE CRIT.

Warriors just overrun content with sheer stats. its like hard dps checks, they are lame.

maha.7902:

Dice Dragon.4326:

maha.7902:

You’re honestly over thinking things. Thieves honestly just stick on three passive signets that they never activate, elite of their choice and then utility skill of their choice for the last slot which might be haste or smoke screen. But beyond that it’s just repeating a rotation over and over again.

The thing with say, a warrior is that the thinking is more centred around weapon choice than utility choice and you then have to think through how you would deal with an encounter’s mechanics with your weapons rather than through utilities (you can mostly just run standard dps utilities). For guardians, switching utilities around is crucial and if a guardian doesn’t they literally might as well not even be in the group. They’re also extremely squishy so it’s not like you can brute force fights.

lol? are you serious?

Almost all warriors and guardians in pve camp GS, without a weapon on swap that fills the gap that weapon fills. Guardians generally have GS/staff, for might. Warriors in my pugs NEVER leave GS, and if the good ones carry LB for fire fields/pulling.

WoR/Retreat/Stand your ground, iwth these three skills a guardian is 100% a great party mate already, skipping is easier, they have a button to give aegis in retreat, and they can make knockdown fights easier with stability. and WoR will have a use in numerous dungeons/places.

I’ll respond on behalf of a friend here since I just noticed this conversation. I main a guardian and this bothers me-

Ok firstly, that weapon setup for guardian in PvE is a disgrace. Staff should never be used outside of clearing TA blossoms or speed-buffing between fights.

Secondly, if you take those same 3 utilities into every fight, then you indeed are being less productive for many encounters. The fact that you have yet to mention either purging flames or hallowed ground or the use of blind spam via weapon and trait choices indicates to me that you may not be aware of the meta for pve guardian at all.

What’s my opinion on warriors in regard to this thread? I think they’re fine as is when it comes to a PvE setting.

-GMB

I was talking about pugs. Not your super cool story speed running. GS has a blind?. sword is the only other weapon that has a blind. And i hardly see sword run in pugs. its always greatsword or staff. And just because you CAN swap to make the fight slightly easier does not mean its a must or will cause you to fail.

I wasnt talking about guardians in entirety as in traits etc. I only mentioned weapon and utilities. Which they dont have blind spam utilities. that comes from traits. I know full well you use your virtures to spam blinds. That has nothing to do with the utilities you take. You could leave out those last two utilities and clear every dungeon with the utilities I listed in a fine time. Could you make runs more smooth? sure. But is it 100% neccassary with what guardian can already provide with the above listed utilities, all you miss out on is a condition clear, something Feedback from a mesmer/healing turret from an engi can suffice for. Hallowed ground is great for long fights where you need buttloads of stability, but my point is to illustrate even a BAD guardian not swapping his utilities will provide a crapload to a party, just like a warrior. Why do you think pugs look for heavy classes so much? they dont have much give when they get things. what do I lose by taking stand your ground over hallowed ground? I get an INSTANT stuck break 5 second stability instead of the longer cd longer duation hallowed ground. I lose stability for longer fights, im using something worse, and still not being 100% discredit to team.

ill admit guardian is way harder to play then warrior. it alteast requires timing. But both classes have extremely easy time making a dungeon a breeze. Everyone who swaps to warrior/guardian after playing something else can tell you this. I find both heavy classes entirely boring myself. Ive cleared dungeons in pugs with staff guardians faster then with no guards. I had a party, 1 ranger, 2 guardians, me an engi, and both guardians camping staff, and I cleared it way faster and smoother then when we had zero guardians. Cause thats how good the heavy classes are honestly. or maybe they are just godly players?

maha.7902:

You’re honestly over thinking things. Thieves honestly just stick on three passive signets that they never activate, elite of their choice and then utility skill of their choice for the last slot which might be haste or smoke screen. But beyond that it’s just repeating a rotation over and over again.

The thing with say, a warrior is that the thinking is more centred around weapon choice than utility choice and you then have to think through how you would deal with an encounter’s mechanics with your weapons rather than through utilities (you can mostly just run standard dps utilities). For guardians, switching utilities around is crucial and if a guardian doesn’t they literally might as well not even be in the group. They’re also extremely squishy so it’s not like you can brute force fights.

lol? are you serious?

Almost all warriors and guardians in pve camp GS, without a weapon on swap that fills the gap that weapon fills. Guardians generally have GS/staff, for might. Warriors in my pugs NEVER leave GS, and if the good ones carry LB for fire fields/pulling.

That being said, Alot of them could do SLIGHTLY better by switching utilities, but most of the time, all the guards/warriors run the same skills and you can clear all content with this “Safe” set up. WoR/Retreat/Stand your ground, iwth these three skills a guardian is 100% a great party mate already, skipping is easier, they have a button to give aegis in retreat, and they can make knockdown fights easier with stability. and WoR will have a use in numerous dungeons/places.

Warriors run a banner and FGJ, and they camp GS to do good damage, have good movement and good evades. And if PS, great party support.

A theif generally runs D/D for dps, S/P for trash if you are killing it, and SB for stealth skipping, and camp signets? you generally run SR/Smokescreen/Whatever cause smokescreen gives you more projectile block, SR is great for healing/rezzing downed dudes in combat, AND is great for skipping. They have to think about how they use these moves. WArriors just drop banner and press FGJ, placement of the banner is largely irrelevent. FGJ has no activation it just happens. their elite signet? same thing, its just press it, get huge boons for nothing. Atleast guardian has to time their aegis.

Are warriors op? Not really, they are just to stat reliant. As much as people complain about AI, the same is true of warriors in pve. They are so good because they are a PILE of stats. They press FGJ, elite sig, and drop banner, and they have given every fury, themselves 8 stacks of might right there, themselves even more fury, and their banner is most likely MORE crit chance and crit damage. Further putting them in a position of sheer stat wall.

JMadFour.9730:

Let’s simplify this a bit, because I am not asking for a specific build to be dictated to me for a specific purpose. I think that’s been misunderstood. I’m just asking a general question.

In General, under which category would the following skills fall under, between Power/Precision and Condi/Condi Duration.

Flamethrower
Flame Turret
Rifle Turret
Tool Kit
Elixir Gun Kit
Grenade Kit
Bomb Kit
Gadgets

I.e. would you say the Flamethrower is a “Power” weapon or a “Condition” weapon set?

I’m really more trying to figure out my options in regards to the two different playstyles, and how each playstyle differs in its skill usage.

Flamethrower – both.
Flame Turret – Condition.
Rifle Turret – Neither, it does not scale. so your armor does not matter.
Tool Kit – both.
Elixir Gun Kit – Both.
Grenade Kit – Both.
Bomb Kit – Both.
Gadgets – Trash, please buff. But untraited, i wanna say power.

Almost all kits are both. EG 1/3 are condition and do poor power damage. but 2 and 4 scale quite nicely with power. I take EG often on my power build cause 4/5 and 2 are all good swap cooldowns to use.

2/6/6 is apothocary healing conditon bombs. Shrapnel can proc on each pulse of bombs. So you can get quite a few bleed stacks with bombs. And confusion/burning is condition, but bomb 1 and BoB scale godly with power.

FT can proc mad bleeds on crits with the right set up, burns. Lots of condition pressure. But it 2 and 1 if buffed up a bit, are nice power scaling.

Toolkit 1 is tons of damage and vuln, and 3 is HUGE damage. power. but confusion/bleed stacks are conditions that can be abused. its both.

Nades can stack mad bleeds/poison/burn/blind/chill/stackvuln and scale well with power. op.

Gadgets id stick in neither but fury from goggles/vuln from them, and mines and PBR are all power based. So id say power.

To play engi is to play the piano in most cases. Even a static discharge build has you pressing buttons more often tehn most professions.

My advice? just stick with engi if you like the feel of the class. I first played a ranger, I kept getting kicked cause at the start of the game rangers were… terrible and hated, and still are mostly. I was like “lets try engi” it is the perfect class for me. I love flexability and diversity, and engi offers that. There will always be the “best” a character can do, but Engi has a large number of viable builds, and many diffrent play styles. And I like that.

Alot of being a good engi is watching cooldowns and using kits. When I first started engi I ran with turrets cause they are cool concept. but they are weak compared to our strongest abilities which are in our kits. Get used to swapping kits and maintaining their cds. For example if you run med kit/bombkit/toolkit

You wanna be always using medkit 5 on cd, giving yourself moderate fury uptime. And dropping bombs 2/3 and toolkit 2/3 on cd will add lots of aoe conditions and lots of single target damage and conditions.

The Toolbelt is also a mechanic which gives us ALOT of flexability. You can run an AoE nuker build where you just run skills and try and put down alot of aoe burst as fast as possible. Bombkit/Nade kit toolbelt skills are HUGE aoe nukes that are really strong in open world for nuking a group. Add rocket turret, and you dont even have to equip the two kits or place the rocket turret, and with a rifle you have rifle 5/3, nade barage, big bomb, and rocket which will make short work of most mobs. All without worrying about managing internal kit cooldowns.

Sometimes you will take a utility just for its toolbelt skill, and dont be afraid to. I take med kit cause I enjoy the f1 it gives me. BUT, If I feel the need I will use it to pop extra heals and fury/swift in a pinch. but its perfectly usable without ever even putting it on, just to use its good f1 skill.

This is my opinion anyways, I am just a pve player mostly. so take it with a grain of salt and keep on playing your game how you want honestly.

I only use in a gimmicky 6/0/2/6/0 Elixer X build. I run knights armor, zerker trinkets, and have energized armor. the build is designed to just be real strong in Elixer X.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fdAQFAUlcTp6qVYx8KkfNyjBFqDK6AMgE85kFwzC-TxRBwAFV+tT9HU6AWcBAsu/ACzPAeAAAA-e

build is for fun. I use it for open world pve kitten, it can solo some of the weaker champs and does lots of damage. only use for elixer X and synaptic ive found tbh.

Because maybe some of us like to have a mini army to command?

I dont want active damage, I want passive damage. Thats why I take AI, I like passive play, that is fun for me, AI builds are a defensive fighter, you have to go into them to take them on. I like this style of play, I enjoy putting the fight on my terms. now if this was team death match? Ai builds would be garbage junk that wouldnt do anything. cause I wouldnt be able to kill you if you just ran away, you dont have to fight me. its why turrets dont work in WvW, you dont have to fight, you can just run away.

long story short,dont hate the player, dont hate the build. Hate the game that is so bogged down and so varientless that you can even come to hate these builds.

DonEllz.6312:

I think the blind is awesome on the FT but imo would serve better as the toolbelt skill. The incendiary is lacklustre if you want to main the FT but awesome when you use it quickly before engaging on a condi build :p the number 5 skill should be something more unique instead of just one blind which could be easily implemented into the toolbelt skill. As for juggernaut, its just wrong for a trait to reward an engi to stay in one kit as this contradicts the class mechanics of an engi /:

I disagree with this logic. Fast hands rewards and gives incentive to swap weapons alot. Forceful greatsword rewards you for camping GS.

Neither of these are class mechanics of warriors. just like kits are not the class mechanic of engi…. despite what people wanna claim. I camp bomb kit all day and have zero problems. Because bomb kit is not weak, you can camp grenades and do fine. etc. When kits were designed I dont think they were like “you are supposed to put on as many kits as possible and play piano!” that is definitely one way to play it, that is for sure.

Jugg was always trying to put the logic of “camp this kit” into peoples mind. Its just to weak right now to be used in such a manner because of poor auto damage. really the only bad thing about FT is its auto damage. its cds are low, its got lots of utility and 2 is mega strong dps on a low cd. if bomb kit had “gain 1 might every 3 seconds, and +200 toughness while in bomb kit” im sure people would love that trait. cause its free might and its perfectly accetable to be inside bomb kit for most if not all of the fight.

WTB ability to overcharge flame/thumper outisde of combat so I can stealth skip with turret build pls.

Rym.1469:

I’m not saying about Ranger overall, but it’s traits which are horrible, boring and out of place.

There’s very little to no creativity in them and there are “pet” traits which should be in pet traitlines if those existed.

You want to experiment a bit with them and then you catch yourself that you’re not even interested in most of the choices, because some are just brutally required and most are so dull that you pick the best looking one among the worst.

Problem is while the GW2 ranger has an easier time buff pet and himself its all boring. +ferocity pet trait is GREAT, its alot of free stats to your pet…. but thats it. its just… free stats. its pretty boring yeah.

“Flagellation (Latin flagellum, “whip”), flogging, whipping or lashing is the act of methodically beating the human body with special implements such as whips, lashes, rods, switches, the cat o’ nine tails, the sjambok, etc. Typically, flogging is imposed on an unwilling subject as a punishment; however, it can also be submitted to willingly, or performed on oneself, in religious or sadomasochistic contexts."

Guardians needs some crown of thorns/some whipping. cause reasons. Give them boys some bleeds.

JMadFour.9730:

Purple Miku.7032:

What makes rifle more interesting than any other weapon? The animations for it are almost completely identical on skills 1 through 4. Shooting flaming arrows all with unique animations seems a lot more interesting to me.

for me it is the Soldier-esque feel of being Heavy Armored with a Rifle. and the way the Rifle skills operate (especially while moving). also the sound and graphics (like the muzzle-flash, for instance) of firing a rifle are really nice as well. I don’t get the same feel with a Bow. Using a Rifle as a Warrior I feel like a Soldier-type. Using a Bow, I feel like I should have rolled a Ranger and got a Bear Pet. Then again, I am not an extreme min/maxer so I’m not going to bend out of shape or play something I don’t enjoy for 5% more damage numbers. If that means I get kicked out of every group I join because I’m not using a Bow or whatever the only “Viable” melee weapon is, then I guess that’s what it has to be.

I will say that I wish the Rifle had some sort of AOE damage. I’ve been using Fire Sigils for that, but lack of AoE is very much a shortcoming of the weaponset. I’ve been using a GS as my 2nd weapon for that very reason. May try a Bow again as a secondary weapon, just for that.

at level 40 you get the second tier of traits, one in arms is “Crackshot” it makes rifle rounds peirce and skills have a lowercd. if enemies are lined up, you will hit them all. its the best “AoE” you gonna get.

insanemaniac.2456:

i dont understand the nades hate either

I think the logic is to dumb down explosions, honestly id like to see bombkit take a hit. But not exactly? its just like even with this changes, I wouldnt run flame, id still run bombs. I already run toolkit in pve, and more people should start. And nades range is great for zerg in wvw, I dislike them in dungeon los stacking. Bomb kit is just the best kit we have…. it has blinds, blast, fire field, tons of vuln/condtions/bleeds when traited etc. it does alot of kitten for no good reason rofl. it being delayed melee sucks in pvp alot for me, but in pve it dont matter.

if toolkit sequnce was full cleave for all hits, id never equip bombs tho true talk. give the last hit vuln while your at it. :>

id play hardcore characters. but it would suck being unable to deck it out. no matter how good i am, i aint going to deck out my dude in exotic when I could lose all that gold investment!

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Dice Dragon.4326:

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Foefaller.1082:

Felicela.2810:

So Pistol/Shield or PP is not longer viable?

What do you recommend out of the each of those trait lines?

P/S is fine, it’s just a question of a little extra out of the box DPS or another blast for more might/healing/whatever. P/P is a bit to condi focused to compete as your main PvE weapon, though if you’re bombing or ’nading 99% of the time, you can pretty much have whatever you want on as your regular weapons.

I also want to say that while bombs and nades rule the current meta, a nice Static-Discharge build (Rifle with Healing Turret, rifle turret, Tool Kit and either Goggles (for stun break) or battering ram) can still put up respectable numbers without having to push 1 all the time. I’ve run several dungeons and 20+ fractals with either 0/6/0/2/6 or 0/5/0/3/6 and not have any complaints.

People can’t see your DPS and most don’t know what an engineer should be running.

I run bombs quite often, and have run SD as well, and I can say a SD build works fine in dps specs in dungeons. Bombs/nades are of course, the best of the best. but if you can run a diffrent build and lose 15% dps, its not really a big deal.

I honestly wanna see other kits bumped up to bomb kit levels, cause im sick of running bomb kit. But from my findings, toolkits 1 spam dps is only like 11% behind bombs. And neither kit offers damage outside of 1 or in toolkits case its 3 is a huge hit. So ive taken to running Toolkit when im bored of bombs.

Closer to about 20% but either way it misses the entire point of taking an engie in a dungeon which is basically LOADS OF VULN. Engie DPS is quite good as I’ve always said but if straight DPS is your own sell, then leave that to the staff eles. You can certainly get away with it and if it’s a pug you’re probably still the highest-contributing member of the party, but it’s really one of those “for fun” things you do since there’s really no strict reason to run this build over any other.

Yeah well that logic is why the game is so bogged down. Cause you can do something diffrent that lowers your dps by 20-30% tops, but no one is willing to sacrifice that cause “optimal” and if thats your game, then so be it. But if we are just talking “Viable” there is plenty of VIABLE and decent builds that are still sub optimal.

So basicly, aslong as you aint running nomads/turrets etc, it will be fine to run.

Stubie.5834:

Of course it can be played. Any class with any build can be played. But being helpful to the team is important in my opinion and FT builds just aren’t. BK vuln stacking cc regen and dps is what our class brings to the table. Camping FT does none of that. But with that all said play what you enjoy ????

Thats why you use FT as a better fire field, and a rotational 2 bot. its not the perfect kit, but if you run bomb kit, healing turret, mine, you have 1 extra slot, if you bring FT, you get a 10 second fire field for pre fight stacking that is easier to use then the small 3 second bomb it one, you still have if p/s, healing turret, bombkit, and mine, 4 blasts. and you get the 2 skill to add to your rotation, you also get another blind, and a knockback/projectile destroy.

is it the best use of the slot? who knows. its up to the person who is running it to ask that. As for using it as a “might stacking camping kit” is a concept I wanna love, but its auto is just to weak to even bother trying to do this. I also run FT in places where I can hit through walls etc.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Foefaller.1082:

Felicela.2810:

So Pistol/Shield or PP is not longer viable?

What do you recommend out of the each of those trait lines?

P/S is fine, it’s just a question of a little extra out of the box DPS or another blast for more might/healing/whatever. P/P is a bit to condi focused to compete as your main PvE weapon, though if you’re bombing or ’nading 99% of the time, you can pretty much have whatever you want on as your regular weapons.

I also want to say that while bombs and nades rule the current meta, a nice Static-Discharge build (Rifle with Healing Turret, rifle turret, Tool Kit and either Goggles (for stun break) or battering ram) can still put up respectable numbers without having to push 1 all the time. I’ve run several dungeons and 20+ fractals with either 0/6/0/2/6 or 0/5/0/3/6 and not have any complaints.

People can’t see your DPS and most don’t know what an engineer should be running.

I run bombs quite often, and have run SD as well, and I can say a SD build works fine in dps specs in dungeons. Bombs/nades are of course, the best of the best. but if you can run a diffrent build and lose 15% dps, its not really a big deal.

I honestly wanna see other kits bumped up to bomb kit levels, cause im sick of running bomb kit. But from my findings, toolkits 1 spam dps is only like 11% behind bombs. And neither kit offers damage outside of 1 or in toolkits case its 3 is a huge hit. So ive taken to running Toolkit when im bored of bombs.

GW1. Degen had a cap of -10. or -20 health a second. poison/bleed was already -7, Conjure phantasm was -5? Burning was -7 byitself I think. So long story short, its always worked this way in their games.

Cause honestly, if they removed the cap, GW1 would be degen wars, cause -30 degen would be easy to nab on Me/N for example, and would net you HUGE dps. And honestly, if we could stack 200 bleed on a mob, it would be kittenED how fast we could down it.

how many chests did you guys have to open to get scarf/goggles? I need these in my life.

Raenzjar.4210:

I’ll repeat myself..

“Having scars + scar tissue on my hand/ fingers jumping is near impossible. Having met players with Rheumatism and some with muscular disease, I’d like to thank Anet for excluding a zone once again. Fractals can not to be done, and now this zone.

Yes, jumping can be fun indeed (no sarcasm there)."

Not trying to be ableist here,

but thats a bad arguement. Yes some content is hard for you because you have a disability, But just like if you are colorblind you cant be a pilot, sometimes you just cant do everything unless you find a unique work around. if you can survive the combat, im sure you can do fine in the jump sections of this game tbh.

its press 1 and move over, or press 2 then 2 again, or press 3 and aim then click. like, are these really to much for you? if not im having trouble seeing you stack in dungeons, or even dodge/time properly in combat which are high stress enviroments.

As some one who is bared from being a pilot and other proffessions due to my eye sight, you just gotta take things in stride.

mPascoal.4258:

Sickle.6502:

The way I see it, Guardians are called GUARDians for a reason… They are designed to be a support class and to offer protection where possible…. However, the fact they are versatile and can go full DPS, or full Heal (Like my Guardian does)… is an added bonus, as every single class can be made and used in a unique fashion.

Personally, if a Guardian joins my dungeon and claims to be DPS, I will just replace them with a Warrior, as that is what a Warrior is designed for.

Sorry, stoped reading after this non-sence.
Cleric Guardian is the most useless spec you can have in PvE, or Magi
Healing Power is the most useless stat you can have in PvE, it’s proven how useless it is and how it is not viable to use the way the game is made.

there is vids out there of cleric guards soloing stuff really slowly but never having to move or dodge, just face tank for days.

And some people like that gameplay. I know I do sometimes.

tigirius.9014:

Ronin your build is a great example as to why they should switch power and Malice in the trait system. Here we have a guy/girl asking for a good condi-healing build and there isn’t one that uses explosives because the condition damage increase is under Rifles.

This has been a problem since BWE2 they still haven’t changed it yet.

The build I use requires that you put full points into Inventions for the elixir infused bombs.

The trait that allows engi heals to be reset when reaching a certain % also needs an update because it’s not balanced, we have to wait until 25% while guardians and rangers only have to wait until 50%.

This class is a joke at this point because we can’t even fulfill the Arenanet roles.

????

You can go condition bomb/EiB just fine. As matter of fact, going more then 2 in the explosions tree is useless since you want apothocarys, which gives you the three stats you get for going 2/6/6/0/0, what do you need from explosions past shrapnel? sure having lower cd bombs is nice, but its not 100% needed, and you dont need any of the grandmaster since you are not running grenades.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fdAQJAqelUUpPrVYxkLseNiaBF6MuxAA6LUi5+pFA-ThRAwAAeAAmV+xc/hb6BMq+TnTAAA-e

Eib? check, sick nasty heals.

Bombs have a 15% chance to bleed per tick, and on the low chance you proc more from crits, yay. They burn, and you can use toolkit for block(more tanking/defense kitten yeah.) ox of nails, more bleed, cripple AND whats that kitten, some sick nasty confusion even more so? this build can get like 10 stacks of confusion on a boss with maxed out condition damage. and bleeds and burns to go with it. and it has the typical blast finishers for stealthing for group or might stacking for more condition damage.

power shoes run real fast, etc. is a fine condition/heal build in pve if thats what you want.

The trait trees are fine and let you fill the persona of healing bomb condition build.

They might have some basic balance changes, but nothing huge or major.

Living story updates are getting pretty lame though. like BB/CP were fun, I missed them the first time they came, but I wasnt even that hype. I did it the first few days, then was bored of it.

I like meta/skill changes like they had in gw1….

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Wasbunny.6531:

sAdam.5876:

I’m lost. Nemesis video is biased because shows necros are too good or that they are rubbish? I heard both takes on that video.
I really don’t get all controversy about that video. It only shows that Necromancer are not as bad, as I originally thought and in some cases can dish out decent amount of damage. People are angry because they thought Wariors are by far superior to Necros or because we can’t say that Necros are terrible all the time?

This is what cracks me up so much about this debate.

Both Nemesis and the ‘meta players’ attempted to find out how Necromancer & Warrior DPS compare. Nemesis demonstrated his findings through real-world practice, ‘meta players’ through exhaustive theoretical calculations. Neither side disputes that Necromancers lack utility in group encounters. Here are the results:

Nemesis: Necro DPS is roughly = Warrior DPS. Necromancer DPS is fine as it is.
‘meta players’: Necro DPS is roughly = Warrior DPS. Necromancer DPS is fine as it is.

Both sides arrived at the same conclusion, even when approached from two different directions and yet they both say the other’s methods are hopelessly flawed and biased and thus their conclusions can’t be accurate.

They can’t even agree to disagree since (whether they admit it or not) they actually completely agree, as their results are nearly identical.

Except warrior DPS isn’t even good. Right now warrior is 4th from the bottom in overall DPS, take necro out of the bottom and that makes them tied for 3rd from the bottom.

Right now engineer has the second-highest DPS in the game, applies ridiculous amounts of vuln and might and can apply stealth, reflect, condition removal in liberal quantities and they’re still unpopular in dungeons for various reasons. They aren’t necessarily good reasons, but even if a necro hit as hard as an engineer there still wouldn’t be any reason to take a necro because they can’t even do any of the things I listed above.

I do all of the above on my engi, so why are we not takin again? :C

Minions/turrets are perma.

turrets are “psuedo” perma anyways, they go away after 5 minutes of being in the same spot.(though im not sure if being in combat removes this restriction.)

Atleast make them begin cooling down when you cast it, not when it dies.

Fix my melee minions in pve and im happy tbh.

so sick of half my minions afking…

Oxstar.7643:

Penguin.5197:

Yeah you can get around 3 hips shots in one flame jet. If you go power then flame jet does power damage around 2/3 as much as hip shotting, with the last burn doing a little more than last third. But it only does more damage if every tick hits. Every. Tick.

At least the other 4 skills seems okay.

Rifle 2/3/4/5 are all really good though too… so its like :C

Flamethrower has givin me success when I run no jugg builds and just swap to it. camping it is just to weak.