Showing Posts For Kalona.9508:
This happens in sPvP too. When assaulting a point that had a guardian and a couple mesmers, 2-3 tosses of grenades got me down to half hp from the retaliation alone -_-
HGH has a 20s base duration. Going 30 points into Alchemy gives you 30% additional boon duration and HGH builds typically run boon duration runes which give another 40% boon duration total, meaning that you get 70% extra boon duration. This means that HGH has a 34s duration on one stack of might. Elixir H has a 20s cooldown, which means that you can (most of the time) keep 2 stacks of might up using it. Elixir R has a 32s cooldown, gives 34s of might from HGH and 51s of might naturally. The toolbelt skills from both of those also only have 30s and 20s cooldowns respectively. Basically, engineer has a whole bunch of abilities that give one or more stacks of might, and have shorter cooldowns than the duration of the might buffs.
Elixir H is a great skill imo, it’s just that it’s different than the healing skills that some other professions have. Particularly if you’re running an HGH build, Elixir H is a skill that you want to use as often as possible because it ISN’T a huge burst healing skill like some of the other classes (particularly guardian) have. However, between the elixir itself and the toolbelt skill, it can mitigate a lot of damage and/or provide a lot of healing over time, if you use it early enough to have that time (if you get double regeneration from the elixir/toss, the total healing will be around 8k without any healing power.) It’s rather silly to be complaining about the lack of burst healing on Elixir H when it isn’t designed to be a burst healing skill, it’s designed to be a utility healing skill.
If you want burst healing/direct healing, you should go with the med kit, as you can get up to 14k direct healing out of it.
Also, as far as engineer healing skills seeming bland, with the right traits, I think that elixir H is far far from bland. If you have HGH, the skill + toolbelt skill gives you two random boons and two stacks of might for 20s each, that’s getting a whole lot from one skill. Med kit is also more than just a “regular heal”; the toolbelt skill is just a regular heal, but the kit itself gives great healing and great utility through condition removal and fury/swiftness.
(edited by Kalona.9508)
There will be spoilers in this post.
These are the major things I’d like to see:
1) More realism. I realize this may sound silly when referring to a fantasy world, but I what I really mean is self-consistency and not using deus ex machina. For example, in “The Source of Orr”, right before the final chamber where you fight the Sovereign Eye of Zhaitan, you’re faced with a pack of Champion Risen Royal Guards, which, based off of experience fighting mobs like them elsewhere, would be more than sufficient to fight you off. Instead though, FOR NO APPARENT REASON, the Eye invites you in to kill it. Really? Additionally, the purpose of the quest itself is pretty bad as a deus ex machina. Trahearne, out of nowhere, tells you that he can randomly cleanse the corruption of an entire continent, by himself, against the power of an Elder Dragon. There’s absolutely zero evidence that this is something that could ever happen in the game world.
In general, the way that you so easily fight through Orr and kill Zhaitan is ridiculous. Zhaitan raised an entire CONTINENT from underwater, the entire population of which is now under his control, and there’s plenty of evidence that Zhaitan can, and will, corrupt people or raise the newly dead into his armies. This means that every Pact soldier that dies, is a potential recruit for Zhaitan, which means that the Pact would have to kill two risen for every death of their own, something nearly impossible to do given factors such as morale and supply lines that the Pact has to worry about and the risen don’t. Thinking about the story in these terms just highlights how ridiculously easy the victory is.
2) More hard choices and more grey areas. Right now, the choices offered in the personal story are essentially meaningless; all they really do is reach the same goal with no real differences or lasting effects, with a few exceptions. Anet has stated that they don’t want to give you the option to be a villain in the personal story, which is fine, but you can be a good guy without being this white knight character they seem to want to force you to be (again, with a few exceptions). What I’d really like to see is more options to be pragmatic, and to have to CHOOSE to be. The perfect example of this is in the human personal story if you choose to come from the streets. When the bandits are both going after your childhood best friend and poisoning Divinity’s Reach’s water supply, you have to choose between saving the city, or saving your best friend. The choice is actually difficult, because regardless of what you choose, someone WILL die. This is what I’d like to see more of. More hard moral choices that have no real “right” answer and that have a lasting effect on the storyline. What if you had the option to actually save your order mentor? But what if that option came at the cost of sacrificing an entire squad of soldiers under your command instead. This would also add a greater depth of meaning to the way tht Anet likes to kill characters off; something you CHOOSE to make happen will affect you much more than something that happens no matter what.
The thing about build suggestions is that it really depends on what you want to do. Guardian will never be a pure DPS class, so for dungeons, you’d want something more tanky/supporty than what you currently have. There are several good builds that all work for both dungeons and WvW, and also for solo PvE, but they tend to be worse at the solo PvE just because they’re more tanky, and therefore you don’t blow through the mobs as fast as you could. That being said, I think that a build that is good for dungeons/WvW and CAN do farming/solo PvE is still better than what you’re currently using, which seems like it would only be usable solo.
I think that the best choice for you would be this build http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQJASBFVhzCJFiPkiIXg9BAipAjZ86hDpIDB;TgAA1CtoyyklILbWuskZB . Brutaly (the author of the AH hammer guide sticked at the top of the forums) recommends this build, along with Soldier’s gear (Power/Vit/Toughness) as a good starting point. It provides you good solo power, and is still good for dungeons and WvW.
The way I am spec’d revolves around mass condition removal and maintaining constant retal throughout a fight. I don’t really build into any damage nor do I use any equips for damage. I’m almost pure tank, but can still hit hard with the help of retal and some of the other traits that increase damage based on boons/endurance. Shout Guardian basically so you are laying down support for your allies as well as yourself.
Overall it works out really well in wvw not only for small mans but also larger fights.
I am pretty interesting in playing with Retal, what is your trait setup like?
It might seem a bit weird….compared to other builds. I was going to get around to putting up a video of my build on my channel this week, but I run 0/0/20/25/25. All your shouts give retal or two of them do. One of the major traits increasing retal by 25% you can constantly keep about 30+seconds of retal up through a fight.
Alot more to my build, but thats the majority of the retal part.
Cool, can’t wait to see it. Do you know the impact of +cnd dmg on retal?
Not off the top of my head…. I know feedback mesmers kitten themselves on retal.
According to the wiki, retal damage is increased by power, not condition damage.
1. As far as I know, they stack, but I’m not positive.
2. AH applies to all boons, so it works with both shouts and boons gained from your symbols. It does also heal you for boons applied only to yourself.
3. As far as I know, the term “allies” refers to not only other friendly players, but you yourself as well, so yes, Writ of the Merciful will heal you.
same reason a swordsman would kick an opponent. becvasue an opportunity opened up and he wouldn’t be expectiong it.
If we’re talking realistically…a swordsman WOULDN’T ever want to kick an opponent. Kicks leave you off balance and dangerously open to counterattacks.
It’s the same principle when it comes to attacking with claws/teeth as opposed to actual weapons. Why would you ever choose to forgo the reach advantage of a sword or hammer to try to attack with claws or teeth, particularly when claws and teeth are completely ineffective against any sort of armor.