Guild Wars 2

If you use a conjured weapon as an elementalist, your utility slots that were previously locked show as empty, with no padlock icon.

You can select utilities (elite included) for the slots but cannot change them once the conjure is gone, as if you had unlocked the slot before the patch.

Please see the below:

Ice bow equipped – slots available to change: http://i.imgur.com/WYIeXRa.jpg

Ozii that is spot on.

People overrate how strong engineer is because so many of our attacks can be avoided simply by keeping your distance.

I play power engie for the most part and I kill the large majority of opposing condition engineers by staying back. If I don’t stand in bombs, they can’t get enough condi pressure. If I keep far enough away that I can sidestep grenades, they can’t get enough pressure.

It’s so simple to beat an engineer who doesn’t know what they’re doing (such as a flavour of the month player) because they spam bombs and wait for you to step in them.

Most of the people who cry to me that I’m playing an OP class are walking into my zone and taking all my hits when they should be staying back and avoiding them. The engineers favourite zone is close quarters without much room to move, just as a thief likes places with lots of obstacles to LOS with, every class has their optimum fighting distance and if you stay away from it most of the time you will win.

If you don’t have a ranged weapon to combat me with, that’s your problem and not the engineer class.

We have had no significant balance changes that would shoot us into OP territory in the past few months, the spotlight has simply fallen on us because more people are playing the class after the crit damage changes, and people don’t understand how to counter an engineer.

I just fear for nerfs just because we’re in the spotlight, it will likely come anyway but hopefully they won’t touch power builds anyway.

Why is it that everyone always talks about X class being OP they list everything the class can do but it’s impossible to have it all in one build?

Thieves are OP cos they can stealth stomp, heal and cure condis in stealth, reduce damage in stealth, do good burst, evade everything and guarantee rez and spam bleeds.

Mesmer is OP cos they can spam condis with clone death and shatter, and do crazy burst and stealth and spam phantasms and blink and get tons of good defensive boons in stealth.

I can never take any of these threads seriously because all people do is this, instead of giving actual legit criticism on why X is OP and how to fix it.

PS: If you’re having trouble with engineers, don’t stand in his bombs meleeing him, get a ranged weapon out. If you don’t have a ranged weapon that’s your own problem. Thief shortbow can easily kill engies who sit on points, whereas if you get in their face you’re playing right into your hands.

You wouldn’t stand still when a thief stealths to let him get a free backstab, so why get close to an engineer, where they are very powerful.

There have been no significant changes to the engineer that would make them any more powerful for months upon months, it’s just because of the shifting meta of it being FOTM along with necro that people are saying they’re OP.

Balth runes and Strength runes are ridiculous though.

Is… Is that second guy using PVT on a thief?

Anyway, the thing you have to remember is that a thieves only defense is their stealth, it’s what keeps them viable just as regeneration of HP keeps Guardians viable. Going for condi cleanse and heal in stealth means they do less damage, sacrifices must be made in order for greater sustain. If they stealth and run away, you’ve won that fight.

The nerf to Infusion of Shadows was great and made the stupid D/P permastealth troll builds die out a bit since they’re now completely non-viable even against the worst players, they were never an issue of “these guys can kill me” more “I can’t kill this annoying thief”

I don’t play thief much so I don’t know a lot of the intricacies of the class but I feel they’re in a decent spot right now, not too weak and not overly strong. Sure, I get annoyed at stealth sometimes but you have to deal with it I suppose. I’m expecting someone to mention the “but omg 13k backstabs” post, but to me it’s largely irrelevant, as if I see one of these “1 hit KO” thieves in PvP i know we will win, as we’re basically one team member up since they contribute nothing as once they blow all their signets for might stacks for one kill only they have no escapes, stunbreaks etc. and will melt when anyone looks at them.

I’m still of the opinion that threads like these are appearing lately because of the crit damage nerf, so people think it’s unfair. However, I will chip in.

I main an engineer and I will totally agree that condition application in 1v1 is very easy to maintain. It drops off as the amount of people in a fight increases, as everyone already knows. Whether this is an issue with conditions themselves or the actual removal of them… More likely the latter but some classes are better at things than others. I have no idea why everyone seems to want every single class to play identically.

Anyway, I digress.

People previously mentioned making them more “tactical” to lower spam and make them more situational.

I had a thought about maybe changing condition damage into another stat, perhaps something like condition intensity.

Then, normalize the damage of conditions to scale with level instead of stat points, and instead have intensity ramp up the secondary effects of conditions, while keeping bleed and burn damage only conditions to keep it a competitive damage option, perhaps even increasing the base damage of these conditions to compensate.

Quick shoddy examples all level 80:

Poison: Static 150 damage per tick. Intensity ramps up healing reduction.

Cripple: Intensity ramps up speed reduction.

Chill: Intensity ramps up cooldown recovery slowdown. Reduce speed reduction to maybe 33% or remove altogether so it’s not just a better version of cripple.

Bleed: Either damage increase or reduction in time between damage ticks.

Burn: Straight damage increase.

Torment: Reduce base damage to a very low static figure, intensity effects the damage while moving only.

Hell, maybe even make regeneration remove 1 condition per 10 seconds. It’s a boon obtained by most classes easily. Maybe even make protection reduce condition duration by 33% as well as the physical reduction.

It’s just a brainstorm and such, but if it was an absolute necessity to change conditions, coming from the perspective of someone who mains a condition build capable class I would feel that this would be fair and would perhaps slow down the condition spam for at least the slightly skilled players who would save certain condis for certain times in a fight, like using a chill after an important cooldown.

All in all I would be not too bothered about a change to condition application, but for the love of Dwayna don’t blanket nerf because of crybabies and make condi builds useless in PvP too. Each of the conditions has a different use and even now it’s better to save certain skills until specific points in a fight, so you can’t change them all in the same manner.

glaphen.5230:

So then the bunker is still doing 700 dps ignoring the fact that the number I used gets higher over time and that it was just something you can inflict in less than 2 seconds and then /dance. I also ignored 5 stacks of confusion, sigils and runes. So 700 damage vs 0 as the healing power bunker Engineers cooldowns are rapidly coming up. Engineers also have almost no cooldowns with the 3 kit build I used so its not like condition removal works or any animations to dodge.

No animations to dodge?

Bombs are easy to avoid, grenades are easy to avoid assuming they’re not on top of you, prybar is easy to dodge, magnet pull is predictable just learn the cast time. Flamethrower has only a 1s burn with dodgy hitboxes, if you stand in the napalm field you deserve to lose the fight.

Engineer applications are really predictable. Hell the fire bomb has a big pillar of smoke above it before it goes off.

Also why is the engineer in your example doing 700dps but the opponent doing 0? Is he standing there doing nothing?

Again, the number can get higher but you can cleanse it. If you main a class that has weak condition removal then you have to deal with it. Honestly most people who complain run builds with 0 counters to condis. Every class has some form of removal, some are better at it than others but everyone can do it, just like everyone can counter burst.

Why does everyone keep saying “You can stack this and this and this” but never says “Then use this skill and cure some of them lowering the damage”

Also confusion shouldn’t be counted into any DPS calculations as it requires you to attack, if you don’t then it does 0 damage, so if you want to be pedantic it would be half the damage calc example.

This entire thread is a bit of a mess to be honest. People from both sides accusing each other, asking for sources when neither side delivers, and when a source is shown the opposing member just vehemently disagrees with any points raised.

I play an engineer main, and I’ve always been on a mixed stance with conditions being either too good or not.

First off, anyone who states there is no difference between dire over rabid is wrong. Go test it yourself, there’s your source, you don’t need a video you’re just lazy. I recall seeing someone also say that no one uses the “chance on crit” proc traits. 99% of engineers use incendiary powder as without it our damage is incredibly poor. I can’t speak for necros because I don’t play one.

Now, onto application and their effects.

Someone previously said that condis have advantage due to armour. Yes, conditions do set damage. This is both a blessing and a curse.

Lets do an example. A condi ticks for 500 damage on an elementalist, and it ticks for 500 on a warrior. Armour doesn’t matter, so it’s an advantage against warriors, but a disadvantage against light armour users.

A crit backstab might do 4k to a relatively tanky warrior, but will do more around the sum of 6k on an elementalist. This is where the difference lies.

Also, regarding spam of condis – I would like to point out, at least from an engineer point of view, we cannot spam condis anywhere near as much as has been constantly stated in this thread. We have a single skill that applies chill, and it’s with grenades which are the easiest skills to dodge in the entire game unless the engineer is right on top of you. I will however say that necros can apply ridiculous amounts of chill if specced for it, but then their build is weakened overall.

I would also like to point out that people will incredibly rarely reach 25 stacks of bleeding on you, and if they do it will last for a few seconds before dropping down, and you should be cleansing at that point anyway.

Now I do definitely agree that conditions can be applied too easily. I 100% agree with this. No manner of condition cleansing can keep you clean from them all the time, especially against necromancers. If there is any issue regarding conditions it’s not the damage, but the application rates and I would be fine with a reduction in them, but it would need to be done very carefully.

I know it sounds like I’m trying to protect my own class here, but if engineers had a nerf to grenade condition application then they would become useless. I already mentioned how easily avoided they are. Necromancer marks are a bigger problem however, the tell is less obvious and you have a very small window to avoid it and as they can be spammed within a space of 3 seconds it can quickly become overwhelming.

Regardless, you need to build for condition protection just as much as you do for burst protection, and a good burst build can kill you before you can do anything if they know what they’re doing. Condition builds can never burst you down before you can react as it’s simply impossible. A burn might do 5k damage over 10 seconds, but a thief can do 5k damage in half a second with a backstab.

I have had fights where I’ve beaten people 2v1, and I’ve lost fights 1v1. Player skill as usual always plays a part in the game. I will also say some condition builds are far too strong, such as the infamous PU mesmer and should be looked into ASAP.

Some classes are better at dealing with condis than others, and you have to accept that, just like some classes deal with burst better than others. Hell engie is awful with condis unless you go full elixir build, then your damage is significantly lowered.

On the flipside, If I fight an ele specced for condition control the fight is usually a neverending stalemate since neither of us do enough damage to each other.