Guild Wars 2

Also bugged on Anvil Rock

Bugged on Anvil Rock

It could be confirmation bias, but I’ve been doing fine using just pistol/shield, battering ram, elixir S, elixir B, supply drop, med kit/elixir h in sPvP.

Balancing the pistol for engineer could be tricky since we’re the only class that has the pis/shield combo and the shield can provide some great utility and control. Thieves may have a harder hitting pistol, but may not have access to an offhand that can provide the utility of our shield. Due to this, our pistol dmg is lackluster to make up for the potential utility/control of the shield. Unfortunately, this makes dual pistol for us rather weak since the dmg from blowtorch and utility of glue shot just don’t compare.

Basically, if we were to buff pistol, we better have a kitten good reason other than “x class’s pistol does more dmg than ours.” Either we’d be forced a longer CD on our shield abilties, or we could see offhand pistol buffed (this would address the concern of pistols being weak for us, without strengthening pis/shield). Although, this is assuming Engineer is on level with all the other professions.
I wouldn’t mind just seeing our pistol being buffed, but that’s due to my bias as an Engineer.

Lyuben.2613:

Some of my oddities I guess:

Armour mods is inferior to the warrior version in every way.
Coated Bullets is inferior to the warriors crack shot in every way.
Elixir S is superior to mist form in every way.
Warriors get a minor trait that increases damage against bleeding foes by 10%, engineers get one that does so by 5%.
Elementalists have a minor trait that increases damage per boon by 2%, engineers have one that increases damage by 1% per boon.
Necros have a minor trait that causes bleed on crit 66% of the time, engineers have one that causes it 30% of the time. (Not sure if they have an ICD or its duration though)

Weird how Arenanet allows skills/traits that are functionally the exact same, but balances them differently.

It could be because Elementalists can only stack roughly half as many boons as engineers reliably. For Necros, there is a lot more opportunity cost going for a crit build + that trait than, say, engineer going for a crit build +bleed on crit trait. I don’t think I can rationalize the warrior stuff.

Also, before you possibly shut me down completely Lyuben, I’m just trying to offer what might be ANet’s rationale behind these values, I don’t know if there is actual weight behind my statements – maybe elementalists can stack the same number of boons as an engineer reliably while speccing for that trait. I haven’t looked hard enough at the trait trees for other professions to give a complete, comprehensive opinion.

In my experience, Bomberman in WvW’s biggest strength is being a finisher/executioner. Smoke bomb → Finish. If smoke bomb is on CD, just bomb the downed person.

Otherwise, it is pretty lackluster since most of your control/dmg relies on people sitting in your bombs (notably fire and smoke bomb). You need allies to provide immobilize/cripple in order to shine in combat. Okay against melee, terrible against ranged. Either get the drop on ranged opponents, or have them exhaust their endurance before dropping glue bomb (even then, they may have an escape mechanism to get out of it). Also potentially don’t get the benefit of healing bombs due to the mobile nature of fights and zerg burst of WvW (healing only benefits in drawn out fights).

You can play supportish, going 10-0-30-20-10 (inc radius, 20 toughness = 1 power, tough with shield or 10% combat movespeed, elixir infused bombs, cleanse), using a pis/shield to provide a blast finisher to give allies a stealth buff or might buff (smoke and fire bomb, respectively). Using Cleric gear (pow,tough,+heal).

A more offensive build is 30-0-30-0-10. Probably using a rifle in this case for an immobilize and since it scales with power, using the leap finisher from stealth bomb for possible getaways or disorientating/juking/distancing opponent in a duel. Using Cleric or Knight (+pow, +prec, +tough) gear.

If you want, you could try something with 20 points in Tools so that the wrench in tool kit cripples, use the magnet to pull in ranged (sadly unreliable due to the delay and lackluster range). Provides another block. Downside is you only have 1 more free utility slot and have to choose between a stun breaker or a cleanse. Might as well take out the points in Alchemy trait tree since you’ll have nearly no elixirs to use, maybe only getting 10 points for the emergency elixir S. Kinda gimmicky but maybe someone could get it to work.

Could give a flamethrower build a shot. Maybe rifle with battering ram, med kit, 2 elixirs (could drop one of the elixirs for goggles stun breaker). Flamethrower won’t really do that well against the zerg – better for skirmishes. Rifle would work when there’s the usual standoff and people are just poking and prodding – could work in small skirmishes if you can stay back and let a tankier person take the hits.

Just search this forum for some flamethrower builds. Here’s the rifle build I had in mind – http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#McMM9mmnrgMmnGgM0xx0amszVRso
For gear I’d go knight’s (power, prec, tough).

Just went to the heart of the mists to check – it’s working fine. You may not be double tapping your 4 key fast enough.

Krab.9315:

Pinkamena Diane Pie.8541:

The thing about the engi is that you have to work harder to get the same results as other classes (dps/utility wise).

That is why it feels better at then end of the match when win top player for each category

That’s hardly justifying. Using that same logic, people would be doing silly things such as balancing a cup of hot tea on their head for the entirety of a match for the feeling of accomplishment at the end since it made it “harder.”

A whole profession shouldn’t be designed/treated as a “tryhard” class that doesn’t have anything about it to stand out other than it does what everyone else does to a lesser extent and has to try extra hard to be up to par (i.e. playing Backittenboard, landing targeted projectiles on enemies and allies, etc.).

If people are looking for challenge, they should set challenges for themselves – you are implying the class is designed to be subpar for a sense of challenge. That’s ludicrous. Every class should be on par with one another.

Edit: Apparently Bach should be censored. lol

Used solely for the 50% falling dmg. The grenades effect is for a bit of flavor – could potentially compromise a flanking maneuver, however due to the noise.

I used a very similar build once I unlocked tier III traits. It offers some great utility – you can swap the backpack regen for cleansing elixirs (would swap out for this in group play), get permaswiftness from the tools trait as you explore the map, then swap back to the elixir trait for tough fights or group play.

And I, like you had no WvW experience. In WvW, it mostly effective vs. PvE content, melee PvP (notably leap strike spamming thieves, need to time your blocks for warriors, but you can take a lot of punishment from them. Huge disadvantage vs. ranged, however), finishing downed opponents (dropping a smoke bomb then execute, or just keep dropping bombs on them), and when your team besieges a tower/keep gate to keep the melee healed up (which shouldn’t be happening anyway, as predominantly siege weaponry should be used). It works far better against other players if you have teammates to help keep the enemy locked down so they are forced to eat your bombs.

received as well, changed password.

Made me really scared since the title is “email account changed”, but the actual email says it was a request. Came here to see it was probably just a mass send out

PuffballPink.6035:

The fire shaman really is far off the beaten path. This must be why the designers added a bubble in the area that grants regen and makes you invulnerable to the shaman’s attacks.

The one time I tried using it (before the group of 4 others showed up), the boss just walked in and killed me anyway. The regen was insignificant and the invuln could maybe be used to block off the dmg from his thrown cleaver if there wasn’t a delay on the invuln buff and the cleaver was a little more telegraphed. I think the bubble is there mainly for the NPCs so they can regen (the regen on them was far more noticeable).

During the actual fight with the group, I think only 1 person used the bubble once to bide time for their heal skill to come off CD while the boss focused on the others, which seems to be the only application of the bubble for PCs. And if you’re downed in the bubble, you can’t use your 4 skill to get back up since you are prevented from using abilities in the bubble.

There is a Champion Elite Fire Shaman group event at The Blasted Hearth in Iron Marches that requires a couple of people to complete. The fight is pretty long, boss hits like a truck, at 25% he turns into a giant fire elemental (akin to meltdown clean up event in Metrica Province) and summons Blazes, with streams of fire separating the group. There are NPCs there trying to defeat the shaman as well. Due to distance from waypoints, it also seems like a rare case where it is better to revive a defeated person than to run back (if there are enough people).

Since it is high level zone, but not max level, and doesn’t really have an event like the Shatterer to attract high level heroes, it isn’t very populated. This is the first event I’ve ever stood around and said in map chat “LFM Group Event Fire Shaman, [The Blasted Hearth]” and waited quite a while for 4 other heroes to show up. We did really well, with people jumping to assist downed players and no one being defeated.

Much to our disappointment, however, the boss awarded no chest – merely a dynamic event completion, with no follow up or anything. I’m not sure if this is a bug or not, but this event seems deserving of some kind of chest.

This should probably go in the bugs forum. Otherwise, yea, I agree that Iron Marches is horrendously bugged. Probably the most bugged zone I have gone to as of yet.

Just noticed this now. I used Elixir C underwater, and when I came up to the surface (immediately after using it), my Elixir Gun kit (in the same utility slot as Elixir C underwater) had the cooldown carry over.

galeigh.5721:

…my turrets were being one-shot by everything.

Turrets are currently in a bad place, they could use some love.

galeigh.5721:

as a direct response to this I specced for defense and starting using a pistol and a shield. My survivability only went up marginally…

That shouldn’t be the case. Maybe you aren’t timing your shield cooldowns properly and/or are still in pure glass cannon gear from when you were rifle or dual pistol.

galeigh.5721:

…and my damage fell to unreasonably low levels.

From personal experience, I find you can’t just depend on the pistol for your dps if you are going pistol/shield after the early levels and speccing into Inventions. By this point you should have unlocked a few kits, start using them. My rule of thumb is if I’m in pistol/shield, both poison dart volley and static shot are on cooldown, and I’m not in immediate need of one of the shield skills, then I should swap to another kit for dmg (recommend bombs, even tool kit’s wrench auto attack will do more than the pistol auto attack). This is assuming you can close the gap to do the dmg in the first place.

galeigh.5721:

So I specced into a more support role and gave up doing any real damage and went on to do even worse healing and buffing.

:( Chin up, bucko. Engineers can still do great dmg even if they spec purely into survivability (and this goes for several other classes too, if not all).

I hit lv 60 the other night and finally got access to the 3rd tier of traits and knew I was going to get elixir infused bombs. I’m loving bomberman. I’m mostly focused on PvE content, but I think I’ll start doing WvW before the end of the month for the monthly achievement kills.

The goal of my build was to be as bulky as possible and support my party/DE group, notably the melee with constant heals. Going only 10 into Demolitions for the bomb drop when dodging and increased radius so more people could get healed, and my utility bombs would provide more protection (notably smoke bomb). I think using the 10-20 I would’ve spent for more damage was better spent in Alchemy. Vitality to help deal with conditions (which are my only threat due to the obscene amount of toughness I have from Cleric gear, which is +pow, +tough, +heal) and to bring cleanses to the group. Lastly 10 in Tools for swiftness to get around the map, but I may change that to 10 more in Alchemy for dungeons.

http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#McMzM9cMNgo0MNgG0a0xGacVkqmao

Also, just to be sure, the heal from elixir-infused bombs scales off of healing power, right? Or power? Or both? I’m not entirely sure.

Most of the anger stems from that, not the specific nerf.

Most of the replies I’m seeing are people saying, with all the bugs affecting the vast majority of our kits, they decided to, not just nerf, but completely gut the Mine Field. One of the few kits that actually worked and the only possible bug was cooldown time from not being affected by the Tools trait line.

I can understand why it was nerfed, but it didn’t have to be completely gutted. There could’ve been a reduction on the number of mines, but keeping the blast finisher. Or, given more mines, even a lower cooldown, but no blast finisher to compensate. Now the only reason to give a utility slot to mines is for a 18 s blast + 1 enemy boon cleanse. Compared to what else is available, it will probably be pushed to the wayside for an elixir or something.

This is pigeon holing Engineers into an ever shrinking number of viable builds and taking away one of the biggest draws of the class – it’s versatility and potential for variety of play styles. I think that’s partially why this forum is finding it so infuriating.

“But what I aim to achieve is so that:
Leaving it on>Picking it up>Destroying/Getting it destroyed
As opposed to how it is now:
Picking it up> Destroying/getting it destroyed>Leaving it on”

Couldn’t agree more. It just feels natural for a player to be rewarded for keeping the turret up and punished for not picking it up before it is destroyed. I would love to see changes in this direction.