Guild Wars 2

Personally, I feel the effect looks great but I really believe it’s best it would subside after 5-10 seconds, maybe with just a minor green aura lingering around the hands, lower arms or something. Akin to the elementalist.

If the green aura will persist at this strength I’m afraid it will add another layer of visual clutter that Gw2 really doesn’t need, in pretty much every gamemode.
The developers did a really good job with toning down the other skill effects and aura’s, so I’m hoping they’ll not overlook this one.

In terms of PvP, infusing with your pet and entering beastmode with the current animation will be very clear for your enemies despite the aura being toned down after 5-10 seconds.
It could (and probably will) be shown as a buff too since generally speaking that’s where most PvP players will be looking first anyway for information on their foe.

And lastly, as a player that dislikes flashy gear or bright colours on my characters this effect will become old really fast if it persists at this vibrancy, despite the superb animation tied to it.

I really, really hope they have been working on an expansion and made the mistake of not announcing it yet.

Most of the other posters have outlined my problems with the game.
I’d just like to add that the ‘living world’ feels very constricted. For season 2 I was expecting a short story guiding us into an expansive new map.
What I got was not even 1/4 of a average sized map that was frankly too story intensive. I want to explore and learn about the world in a meaningful manner, not have immortal NPC’s hold my hand in personal instances. (Where’s the social aspect in that, by the way?)

Phineas Poe.3018:

Instead, they just need to make them provide AoE buffs. Have the thumper turret improve the toughness of nearby allies. Have the healing turret improve boon duration when it is out. Have the rocket/rifle turret improve the power of nearby allies.

It would make engineers more on page with other professions in PvE applying group buffs to each other, and would additionally not break PvP balance too much since they’d still be destroyed very easily.

That’s some good thinking and to be frank, your idea deserves it’s own thread.

The solution could be simple. It’s true that nowadays it’s too easy to get “champion x” titles.
The “champion x” title should show class dedication, no? What if the title track doesn’t stop at 150 wins? What if after 300 tournament wins you get another title displaying your dedication to your profession? And after 600 another one? etc.

People who enjoy playing alts can still get champion titles for all classes but people who prefer sticking to their favourite class still have something to work towards in terms of profession related titles.

Personally, I’m in the latter category and it kinda bums me out there’s nothing left for me but general rank titles.

I have extensive custom playlists, but whenever I got to the heart of the mists (the sPvP lobby) it always defaults to that one track.
It’s a good track, don’t get me wrong. But I hear it way to often and it’s starting to wear on me, I can’t be alone in this.
In between tourney queue’s, while building, etc.

It’s minor QoL issue, I realize that, but could you allow us to create a playlist for the lobby or have it draw from the ambient list instead of just looping that one track over and over. Whatever the quickest fix is really, I don’t mind either way.

Or can I do something about it on my end? Aside from using an third party audio program obviously.

I’m seeing guildnames thrown around in this thread but no concrete information.
So who do I talk to if I want to get in one of these Teq killing guilds for servers based in Europe?
If you happen to be in one of these guilds, do me a huge favour and throw me an in-game mail. Thank you in advance.

JonPeters.5630:

We don’t like classes having permanent Vigor, and this is one of the areas we needed to tone down the up time of the engineer’s Vigor.

From the top of my head and I might be wrong here. But ele’s, mesmers and even guardians can easily get perma vigor. Why take it away from engineers and not from them?

I’ll deal with the loss, but I do believe this change is uncalled for.

Silvercyclone.1462:

I am a leader of a guild on JQ and I would give a month of LS to get a guild hall but whether or not we get one depends on how it is aquired. Our guild voted to not do guild missions because the ammount of influence is too much compared to the rewards we would get. If the halls require merit we will sadly not be getting one.

Yalora Istairiea.6287:

Agreed Silver. My guild only has 18 members and if it requires guild merits then we will be left out of this content too, like we were for Guild Missions.

My guild has 5 (!) active members (10 members in total) participating in guild bounties, training missions, rushes, treks and since recently, challenges.
I’ve didn’t come here to boast, but I do want to tell you that completing all these guild activities can be done with one full party.

Guild bounties (Tier 1), except for 2-mult, we’ve been able to beat them all with at the most 7 people. Most of them have been successfully done with a single party.
That means tracking two bosses down (no pre-scouting, but we do use the pathing maps) and killing them in 15 minutes. It really does sound harder then it is.
Sure, we get our kitten kicked once out of twenty attempts, especially during our first attempts. All I can say is, we figured out what we did wrong as a group and tried other strategies next time.

Rushes, well, we have 2 members who are insanely good in these missions, so we are able to pass 15 times and successfully end it.

Treks are easy with a guide. You can complete tier 1 solo. We complete the highest tier treks with 4-5 people.

Challenges, I’m not sure yet. We’ve only unlocked these 3 weeks ago, so we have done two of them so far (Southsun and defending the skritt). We have been successful in both attempts.

Guild puzzles is next on the list, but we haven’t gotten there yet.

Please, make no mistake. You do not need a “guildzerg” to complete guild missions.
You really don’t. We are all people with a life, have jobs and a household. We are not what some may define as hardcore. We don’t even use voice-chat. It’s that bad.
Doing the missions with a small group does require a tight knit group. You’ll really need to get your heads together and come up with a group build.
Define roles, play smart. Don’t try to zerk everything down.

We are currently at 235/250 merits again with a meagre 3130 influence.
Merits are the easy part. Influence is much harder to acquire.
There are training missions for that, but it’s not enough since those tend to grow dull pretty fast. I’d love to see more guild stuff tied into influence gain.

As for guild halls, I’m sure all my guildmates would give all their in-game gold for one.
Let it cost merits, but go easy on the influence. Unless you’ll give us more ways to gain influence with small numbers.

A resign function.
Too many quitters who think it’s lost after a bad start. A penalty alone won’t cure this.
You can’t do much but half afk after that, try to look for a decent fight (which you won’t because they’ll just 3vs1 you for glory) or leave yourself (which most of us refuse to do)
This is extremely frustrating.

See: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Engineer-s-magnet/first#post2487242

Tyler Bearce.3427:

This was an intentional change. The previous behavior where the pull succeeded regardless of facing, was inconsistent with other pull skills like Scorpion Wire and Spectral Grasp, as well as most other ranged targeted attacks. It’s still a useful skill. Yes it has a longer cast time than other pull skills, but it’s unblockable and brings all of the other tool kit skills along with it.

Thank you for clarifying. Shame it didn’t get a footnote in the patch notes, that’s all.
And sure, it’s still useful, especially considering the other tool kit skills. I was kinda bummed about the undocumented change because magnet is one of my favourite engineer skills but I’ll get used to it. Catching thieves who love teleporting around just got a lot harder.

Just one more thing, is there anything being done about it’s wonky behaviour?
Pulling people using gapclosers to escape from you just knocks them down in place (or is this intended?) and if there is any height difference in play, it has the same effect (knocking people down in place) or they fly up into the air when they reach you (which is rather amusing, I’ll give it that). In the worst case scenario, I’ll get “obstructed” while my enemy is in plain sight.
I think these are issues with all pull skills, if I’m not mistaken.

Since the patch magnet goes on interrupt recharge when you cast it with your back turned to your enemy or when you turn your back to your victim while casting magnet. Is this a bug or an intended change that didn’t get included in the patch notes?

And if it was an intended change, why?
The cast time and animation warrants enough of a warning to potential victims.
With everyone moving around so much it’s very frustrating to see it go on interrupt recharge because they dodged to your backside as you are casting it.
Magnet is hard enough to land against players who are familiar with the skill as is.

And as a side note, to be sure, I tried it out in hotjoin on the (magnificent) skyhammer map. It seemed to just interrupt and drop enemies at their position a lot, rather than dragging them to me. Magnet has always been wonky when there is a height difference in play, but it seems to have been worsened now.
Might be a perception thing because of the change, but that’s what it feels like.

What gives? Did anyone really considered magnet to strong?
I’m not saying it’s useless now, but it was a powerful tool that has lost (to) much of it power as it stands now.

This won’t contribute much to the thread, but I just wanted to offer my respects to the Charr guardian fighting for Seafarer’s that decided to fight me in a proper 1vs1 that started at bluewater and ended near Astralholme. (on Piken’s border)
Forgive me for not remembering the guildtag but we had a long skirmish that would have gone on forever if I didn’t decide to knock you off the cliff.

I know it was a cheap shot, but you we’re simply to smart to bring down in the usual manner. It was either that or drag you into the npc’s, but I decided to finish it without giving you armor repairs.
I was a bit suprised it actually worked, but I guess I must have caught you with your stability abilities on cooldown.
Thank you for deciding to face me without the aid of your mesmer ally. I enjoyed it, best fight I’ve had in months. I hope you had fun to.
I wanted to take a /bow before you vanished, but I was to slow. Hence why I’m making this post here.

Signed, that -no doubt- highly annoying Sylvari engineer fighting for Piken.

Why pick one over the other? Mixing different statcombinations and balancing it all out can turn out way better then going all out on one statcombo.
It just requires more work (and gold) because of experimenting.

I guess that makes sense, but if it was a bug, why tone down the stun duration and let the effect stay after a successful stun? It feels like more than a simple bug fix, to me at least.
And as a side note, being able to use other skills while blocking with static shield hasn’t ever been listed as a bug.

It’s been a week since static shield has changed and there hasn’t really been much of a discussion surrounding it. And while it’s debatable, I’m not going to say nerfed, since the effect now stays after a stun which would allow you to get off multiple stuns.

However, I’m so used to having the effect stay so I end up cancelling it every time because I simply can’t unlearn how I used it before. (Read: I go into kits or start channelling my heal )

My main question is this: What triggered this change?
Was it because we could heal why blocking ranged attacks? (Keep in mind, if you stunned someone while healing, you’d cancel your heal all the same)
I honestly didn’t see this change coming nor do I have an explanation for it. I guess, I just want to understand why this change was implemented.
Static shield was one of my favourite skills, particularly because of that nifty quirk that would allow you to get off your next moves with the effect still up.

How are my fellow shield users handling the change?
I did stick a sigil of paralyzation on the shield right after the patch to increase the stun duration again. (and boosting the daze effect all the same).
But then I got to frustrated with my own bumbling around with the new static shield that I decided to give rifle another run for it’s money, which is working out great so far.

I’m looking for opinions of any kind. PvE, sPvP or WvW-wise.
Just keep it constructive. “It sucks” won’t help the thread.

Maskaganda.2043:

no I dont!

amadeus has one tho: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0B4mbYlRiJw

also, you dont need 1900 toughness to survive a thief. I do it fine with 1350 :p

“Theif” everywhere! It’s a good vid with solid advice. But hell, that typo gets under my skin for some reason. :P

I think nearly everything has been said already when it comes to countering thieves.
Except for plain counter stealthing. If you are using bombkit and they manage to get a stealth off you (or utility wise), drop a smoke bomb and blast/leap finish in it.
Unless he used shadow refuge, you’ll come out of stealth after him, leaving him vulnerable.
You can also try toss elixir S, but that’s a 50/50 shot at getting stealth.

Imo, it’s not about whether it’s possible to complete with a full zerker set or not, as I’m sure it is. It’s about whether you should go full zerker and disregard other options.

marnick.4305:

Let’s not skip the fact that a zerker on the ground does less dps than wayfarer geared MF leeches.

Oh, but they never go down. They have inhumane reflexes and are able to negate any incoming damage. Without error. Simply put, they’ve achieved ascension and risen above us mere mortals.
Or at least, that’s what the people on the opposite end of the argument are trying to make me believe.

digiowl.9620:

The problem with adapting builds is how much of it is tied into worn gear.

This means you have to carry a second or third gear set, taking up maybe 12 inventory or bank slots.

Yes, that’s true. See attachment. But that’s not that big of an issue, is it?
Exotic gear is fairly easy to come by and requires just a little patience.
The same counts for saving up cash to craft or buy bigger bags.
But I can understand why that fact would bother you if you have a desire for a legendary or if you are a severe altaholic .

zeromius.1604:

You make a really good point. I think it’s not just the gear but also the build and skills of the group as a whole. Condition removal, damage negation, and damage avoidance (through dodges) all contribute to character survival.

Thank you. And yes, organising your group definitely matters in this dungeon.
I’m really happy with this “evolution” this dungeon tries to bring and I only hope people will start seeing the benefit of “deeper” (lack of better term really, no offence intended) builds and even start thinking about team builds, which was a big deal in Gw1. We might see more people looking into how to support their party or control the enemies to ensure the dungeon run can be completed without anyone ending up defeated.
I also realize this is harder to achieve if you haven’t got a steady guildgroup backing up the idea and actively help working on the teambuild.

The counter argument the full berserker fans will bring is time.
If you cut down on DPS, you are slowing the party down. I can’t help but laugh at that argument. An organised -and balanced- group really won’t go any slower then a full berserkers group. And even if they do, it’ll come down to mere minutes.

Kanako Davis.5364:

I agree with siofra. Don’t run around with a fixed build. If you don’t adapt to situations you will always be a mediocre gamer and you will always complain about “hard” dungeons.

While I agree with your sentiments, I’d like to point out that it shouldn’t require retraiting every time you wish to adapt.
One thing I remember Arenanet stated before release was that it was the intention that every class could assume multiple roles, on the fly. This little fact made me especially interested in Gw2, for the simple fact I love playing jack of all trades characters.
As far as I’m concerned, they are closing in on achieving that goal.

It took me months of experimenting and many patches to get my engineer to the point of being able to crank out superb control, good damage, decent support and enough survival to hold my own (for a while) in the rare instances when our guardian needs to back down from the fight. I just always felt the engineers best suited role was control and filling up the gaps in the party. (That’s not to say engineers can’t focus on other roles). As it stands now, certain classes will always out-damage me or out-support me if that’s their focus.
But that’s okay, my focus is controlling the fight and no-one will outshine me there.
Filling the gaps left in the party on other departments next to my control is a really satisfying way of playing, for me.

I have no idea clue how to achieve the same with other classes and I generally tend to play mediocre at best with other classes. But I’ve strayed far enough from the point I’m trying to make, which actually is relevant to the topic at hand.
There is one thing I learned that can be applied to all classes:
Going all out on one (and any) statcombo (and therefore direction) is very rarely a good idea.

To be crystal clear, I’m not saying that a one statcombo build is bad by nature, but just that you might be shooting yourself in the foot in some cases.
Elementalist for example has so many great support options I tend to scratch my head as to why anyone would go full zerker instead of partial zerker and filling the rest up with another statcombo that would compliment those particular skills.

That’s pretty much my opinion on the whole argument, my apologies for the wall of text and any grammar or spelling mistakes that will no doubt be present.

Maybe, just maybe, dear Mai is trying to tell you that going all zerker isn’t the smartest thing to do. Everyone in my party has some form of a defensive stat worked into their build. No one got oneshotted by dear Mai.
Instead of complaining about getting oneshotted in a high risk/high reward set, you should reconsider your statchoices.

And keep in mind, this doesn’t mean you have to start stacking vitality/toughness to the maximum. It’s about finding a balance between your defensive and offensive abilities.

And the shot can be blocked. Haven’t tried reflecting it.

Pretty solid advice, but I’d add bringing any abilities that grant invulnerability if you have them. Elixir S, mist form, renewed focus, etc.
If you find yourself in a situation where avoiding the laser walls is impossible this can be your ticket out.
If you can revive while being invulnerable, all the better.
Use it as a tool to heal your downed friends, even if a lazer is about to run over you.

Clever usage of control can really tip the encounter in your direction.
Stuff like the engineers magnet can ensure the golems don’t go invulnerable that often.

And as a last thing, the golems have a pretty big telegraph for their pulling move.
Keep your eye on it and try to negate it. It also appears that they don’t use this ability if you stay in melee range (when it’s possible of course)

I’ve been playing with the new kit refinement the moment they changed it and fell in love with it right then and there.
I used it before hand, but it always felt lacking actual “refinement”. (remember the medkit’s silly explosion)

I get what you are trying to say, Yams, but I just don’t feel the same way.
I use speedy kits just as well and it really doesn’t bother me that it pops out of combat. If I know that a fight is ahead of me in WvW I’ll wait until I’m in range to actually benefit from it. (For example, pop medkits reflective bubble as they take shots at me while I’m picking up the stimulant)
And if I get jumped? 20 seconds isn’t that long in a fight.
It’s a very minor inconvenience, to me at least. But then again, I’ll agree with you that is actually is an inconvenience.

KR is an extra tool to help you overcome the odds, but not something you should really invest your bets on. It’s a extremely good trait as is, but that depends on how you use it I guess.

Mattch.4019:

Currently Kit Refinement is completely unreliable to anyone who runs with one than one kit.

Coming from someone who runs 3 kits in PvP and 4 kits in PvE I can safely say it’s not.
I tend to get the desired effect by just equipping the right kit and the right time.
The only issue I have with KR is the little trait symbol. The “IV” logo coming up on the buff bar helps with WvW/PvP a great deal, but it can get confusing if other players want to support me with their traits.
The guardian’s “Strenght in numbers” trait shares the same “IV” logo, making me mess up timing on kit refinement all over.
More clearer and more specific logo’s on the buffbar for all these traits would make a huge difference.

Overall, I think the global cooldown is fine.
But since most people don’t share my sentiments, I could agree with lowering it for 5 seconds and making it a grandmaster trait. The effects are just that good.
I’d like to see medkit’s effect last a second longer, but that’s just wishful thinking.

As for toolkit’s KR effect, I highly doubt this will break stuns.

Ezeriel.9574:

If the notes are accurate then it doesn’t matter, because no one will ever play an engineer anyway.

even now it’s basically a spvp only class

I see you are the master of giving constructive feedback.
Maybe the problem isn’t engineer, maybe it’s you.

As many have stated, it’s possible.
They way you start the fight is the most important factor though and some supply camps are easier to take then others because of that.
Try to look for a way to bundle them up (especially the scouts and cabalists) and neutralize their initial abilities. (cabilist pull and scouts blinding)
After that, use a structure to block their line of sight occasionally as you kite around and whittle them down.

And it won’t be easy, don’t give up after a first attempt or don’t be afraid to retreat and restart if things don’t go your own way. It requires practice.

As I’m sure many of you are aware there still are certain statcombo’s unavailable in ascended trinkets. I’m using carrion stats, so I’d like to get my hands on that in ascended form.

I’m a pretty patient guy, but by now I have bought all other ascended gear I want except for the pieces that simply don’t exist.
I have a decent amount of the necessary currency and I’m looking to spend.

I scour the patch notes each time for info on it, but it never gets added.
Is there any reason why certain statcombo’s are unavailable in ascended form?
Will those statcombo’s ever arrive in ascended form or should I start spending my laurels on other things?

And the same thing applies on backpieces. There is just nothing there I can use.

If anything, I wouldn’t touch the new effects. Those are great, pretty much unexpected by your enemies and make sense regarding the kit. At least now it feels like “kit refinement” instead of a medkit blowing up in your face.

I actually like KR as it is now, but I realize many people don’t.
Maybe lowering the global cooldown with 5 seconds and placing the trait in a grandmaster slot could tempt more people into checking it out.

But the first thing I’d do is change those trait effects in the hud.
Whenever friendly players who want to buff me via traits show up, those multiple trait symbols become impossible to differentiate mid fight.

I somehow feel like I should share my thoughts on the last few steps in the living story.

After coming from the superb molten alliance dungeon, I was looking forward to the story going to Southsun.
I was a regular Southsun visitor after the karka event. The karka’s themselves are so much fun to fight and provide a decent challenge. Bringing down that champion with 2 or 3 friends from my small guild was often the highlight of my day.
Despite the drops and it not being tied to an event. Karka’s are just fun to fight.

When the update came, so did the people. I’m liking what the developers did with Southsun overall, from aesthetics to events. It all looks great and it was pretty fun.
Even despite that mass of people just jumping from event to event instead of just exploring the place and letting the events come to them.
The lag could get frustrating and sometimes outright unplayable, but to be honest, that I can forgive due to the technical nature of the problem.
However, a shown during the flame & frost arc, spreading the events over multiple maps really helps with this problem.

The magic find and gold buff really didn’t do much in terms of incentive to stay in Southsun. I really dislike farming, of any kind. I simply do not have the desire to get rich in a game, I actually prefer being poor since that provides me with way more incentive to play. The boosts didn’t hurt, but I felt it was unnecessary.

Then yesterday happened.
Like many other threads are pointing out, the single player Canach and the multi player Null are simply not fun.

I play an engineer and dealing with environmental weapons with a multi kit build is suffering. Every time I want to cleanse a condition, get swiftness/other boons/other skills the mine detector dropped from my hands and I had to go find a new one.
Sure, that can be solved by just changing my utilities and it was easy enough to just simply not use utilities, but I hope you understand that isn’t much fun to deal with.

But simple enough, you beat Canach in a very anti-climactic way and he didn’t feel menacing or dangerous at all. In the story bit posted he felt genuinely threatening and smart. About mid way in the fight I felt like I was running around with a slab of meat and he was just chasing me around like a stray dog.

I didn’t mind the area being small and just an arena. I did get bothered by the mechanics of the fight. It just wasn’t really much of a fight.
When I saw the mines at the entrance I figured Canach would be this thief champion, shadowstepping all over the place and stealthing after attempting a backstab at you. ( Think of any decent thief in WvW )
Even with the mines in place and him exploding them all occasionally (leaving an obvious opening for you to attack him while he is triggering the mines).

As for the explorable mode, I went in there with my friends and after getting zapped down we basically all shrugged, decided it was sadly not fun enough to spend our limited game time on.

I just went in again, solo, to attempt to make sense of the mechanics and to be better able to form an opinion. When I got him down to 50%, I simply had enough. It just started to feel like a chore.
Golem based enemies can make for such great champions and interesting fight mechanics. I’m just sad to see that this isn’t one of them.

Despite all the negativity in this post, I’m really looking forward for the devs to no doubt set things straight again in the next step of the living story. Overall, I’m having a blast in Gw2 and that won’t change any time soon.

If anyone else wants to voice their opinion in this thread, by all means, go ahead.
But please, keep it constructive and play nice so this thread doesn’t get shut down.
Remember, “It sucks.” isn’t feedback.

Donner.6293:

To me this enormous free MF boost looks like a last resort to keep at least some players in southsun cove over the event time. Most achievements (including all(?) rewards) can be completed in less than 2 hours and afterwards there is no reason to come back besides farming. But considering the mobs in southsun cove are harder to fight than most others and those few events with enough mobs that give loot scale like crazy, I dont think many people would do it without this ridiculous amount of +200% MF.

No reason to come back huh?
Before they rebooted Southsun I spend a moderate amount of time there.
Gathering the nodes, enjoying the sights, wandering with friends, exploring, …
wishing I could jump in the water and discover a whirlpool that led me into a whole underwater map.

Aside from that, it’s just plain fun. Or isn’t that a factor any more in gaming these days? Slaying veteran karka’s on my own always brought me enjoyment and will continue to do so, long after the event is over and done with.
I felt content with the rewards I got. I got plenty of karka shells and other materials from the veterans and even a rare here and there. It was enough for me to do a 1-2hour walk of Southun in between WvW, PvP or other PvE areas, once or twice a week.
If anything, it kinda saddens me to see so many people bumrushing the karka’s now with an unstoppable grouped force and receive more rewards then they should get. But relax, that’s just my opinion and I’m certainly not saying they shouldn’t have a guaranteed karka shell drop any more.

So in other words, when everyone has left Southsun again seeking their glory elsewhere; myself, my friends and many others I’m sure, will still be running around in that gorgeous place killing those fairly powerful veteran karka’s and their champion (and whatever other creatures they leave behind with the Southsun storyline).

Not liking the idea, Wolf. At all.

You are especially way off on bombkit’s effect.
If you daze someone they are bound to either stunbreak out or just make them realize faster that they are being carpetbombed and run away. (As the daze effect does not stop you from moving.) It would actually hamper the kit’s effectiveness.

For the rest, eh. Let’s just say I’m not liking the idea.

I like kit refinement as it is now. I’ve seen other engineers use it ingame, so it’s being used to say the least. Sure, it’s a tricky trait to use because of the cooldown, but the effects are really powerful when applied at the right time.
Perhaps, if you take a step back and look at the use of the kit, coupled with KR’s effect, you might find that the effects actually make a lot of sense.
Medkit is mostly used for a disengage weapon, so a reflective bubble is great for enhancing that.
Bombkit is used to start some fires and magnetic bomb greatly enhances the effectiveness of bombkit.
Toolkit is primarily a melee weapon, so a short speedbuff that ignores snare effects once again enhances that. Hell, it’s even great if you want to break away from the fight with gear shield up. And it’s superb for making sure that prybar hits the slippery thief you are fighting.

As for other kits, aside from the occasional elixir gun use (which has a great effect for helping with kiting imo), I don’t really use them so it would be unfair to judge them from my position.

However, everyone seems to hate KR on the forums. But then again, that’s because people who actually like the change don’t bother all that much voicing their opinion.

I use Kit refinement in tPvP, PvE and WvW in a multikit build. It took me a while to get used to it and the recent change of that trait icon popping up helps with the timing.
It could do with a more unique icon, since other people’s trait abilities can lead you to believe KR is up again and ready to go.

You are quite the train indeed, dear mask.
Never cease to amaze! Excellent vid and clever direction you took with the build.

Also, thanks for making me nostalgic with the Electric Six song.. which was strangely appropriate with you and your friend cleaning up that whole supply camp mess. :p

DeWolfe.2174:

Especially, as an American, helping others should come as second nature. It’s how we’re raised in my part of the states.

Especially, as a European, the soundtrack of Team America started playing in my head when I read that. (I’m sorry, couldn’t help it)

On topic, this will always be a problem and it’s not likely to end anytime soon.

danbuter.2314:

Shadowtech.5071:

Kalan.9705:

waka.9826:

Breaking news:

Anet doesn’t read engi forum.

Basically this.

This is not feedback

But it is the truth.

It also ruined any chance of a developer replying in this thread.
I can only hope you understand why.

On topic:
- Gadgets could use looking into.
- I’m heavily underusing glue bomb and I suspect I’m not the only one.
- Love the new kit refinement. A superb change, despite all the naysayers.

Seras.5702:

Poison cuts healing in half so against a Guardian it’s mad effective.

Not half. 33% reduction.
See: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Poison

Makes sense. Well, I hope you find the statcombo that matches your style.
Good luck.

SmoothHussler.6387:

So…one month after the prybar buff, Anet has pretty much rendered it useless by destroying confusion damage. Pistol #3, bomb kit #3 and tool kit #3 will now be much less useful in WvW.

I utilize confusion a lot. Both in WvW and PvP. (and even PvE)
Putting the confusion damage on par with PvP in WvW is a good change.

You are acting as if confusion is useless in PvP, which it is certainly not.
“Destroying confusion damage” is a rather silly thing to say. It’ll still be good, just not this ridiculously good.
Oneshotting haste thieves with prybar was fun and it’ll still be very effective in WvW, you’ll only need to push out some more damage before they hit the dirt.

A good change, imo.

Here are all the possible combinations with their names and how to acquire them:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Soldier%27s#Triple_attribute

There is no power/condi/toughness statcombo.
Carrion is power/condi/vit and rabid is prec/condi/toughness.

There is a power/condi/magic find combo, but that’s pretty much useless.

Why do you want toughness so bad?
Extra vitality will help you deal with armor ignoring damage such as conditions, so carrion is pretty good.

I use a mix between rampager and carrion trinkets. I just aimed for a balance between vitality and precision that I’m comfortable with.
Like you, I have a PvT armor set, but I have a spare carrion set in case I want to do a bit more condition damage.

I’m not saying this is the best solution since I don’t know how your traits are set up and there are plenty of other stat combo’s out there that can work.
Power and condition damage work great with bombkit, that’s all I can say.
Since you are using dual pistols I’d recommend looking into condition damage no matter what.

Hope it helps.

Nice vid once again Mask.
I listened with sound this time! First song was great, didn’t like the others all that much, but that’s a minor detail.

I see Baruch Bay haven’t stepped up their game much since we had a match up with them. (Not saying they are all bad, but I noticed some lost souls in the vid)

I’m using KR with med kit, toolkit and bomb kit.
Switched 10 trait points around from my pre patch build to take it.

It felt like the cd was way to long at first. You try and keep up with the cd in the back of your head, which you really shouldn’t.
You just have to react appropriately when it does. Or expect it will proc everytime you switch kits. It’s kinda a gamble, sure.
If you really dislike the RNG elements of engi, you’ll never like KR neither.

Medkit is mostly a disengage weapon, so the reflect makes sense and has saved me quite a lot in WvW recently. Great opener vs rangers to.
Bombkit is a great damage dispenser tool and the magnetic bomb seals the deal.
Magnetic bomb helps plenty in sPvP / WvW, it pretty much does what glue bomb doesn’t.
Toolkit’s effect is my least favourite, although it’s really good for catching slipperly thieves.

So far I’m happy with the new KR. It takes getting used to, especially when you are juggling multiple kits.
So, is the cd to long like everyone seems to be saying?
Imo, it’s not to long. KR does it’s job, but that doesn’t mean I would be against shortening the cd with 5 seconds.

Alternatively, a “buff” symbol could appear to let us see the cooldown. (Visible like a signet, which appears when KR is ready to go again)
The enemies could see this “buff” to, so it would balance out.

I started out with an idea for a build when I lvl’d up and I ended up adjusting it after every patch day so far.
I never had to drastically change anything, just adjust and adapting your playstyle a little.
We got some cool new toys to play with this patch.

I’m sure you engi has a setup running that you find fun to play.
Stick with that build but start experimenting by mixing it up with other elements, that may or may not have been nerfed/buffed.
In the end, you’ll end up playing a better version of your previous build.

In terms of other classes, every single one is fairly decently balanced.
Some might argue that mesmers are OP, but then again, some say warriors are superior. And they will all complain about their own class shortcomings on the forums.
Now, what’s the best class for you? That’s a choice only you can make.

The characters, even though they aren’t easy on the eyes from the start, are really fleshed out and I already feel a better connection with them then previous NPC’s ever will.

That’s because they are more subtle, greatly voiced and well written.
What also helps a ton in the likeable factor, is that they actually have a decent skillset.
They don’t die horribly like every other NPC in the personal story, which really helps drive the story instead of always having to pick up so called heroes from the dirt.

Both Braham’s and Rox’s story are genuinely interesting and they reminded me of Gw1 heroes, which is a good thing.

The fact that the story is mostly instanced now makes a better experience to.
Only thing I can complain about is difficulty. I wanted to jump in with my guildmates and our low lvl alts, but appearantly the story is 80 without you getting upscaled.

So we broke out the mains and 3 of us joined up to follow the story.
They are fun, nothing to complain about there, but it’s to easy.
I understand that you can’t ramp up the difficulty without hurting the more casual player who wants to see this story. It’s difficult to balance out, but the waves of normal mobs just melt like butter for us and we didn’t spot a single veteran amongst them.
The final bosses we’re both painfully easy.

Of course it’s just because we teamed up to do so, but still, the difficulty should be ramped up significantly if we do. I’m sure this was designed with solo play in mind, but I’m also sure many guilds would love to play this content as a team.

Maybe a hard mode could be introduced? The rewards could get upped tiny bit, veterans (for solo play) silver mobs (for group play) could be added into the story driven instances.
This would encourage people to experience the content together without shutting out the people who prefer to play solo.

Maybe I’m just being silly and missing the fairly challenging missions from Gw1 to much. But it couldn’t hurt to voice my opinion.

All in all, I’m really loving the patch and it’s definitely headed in the right direction.
My compliments to the developers.

Second to say that I like it to.

Works great when tossing around multiple kits.
You really got to forget about the cooldown. Expect it to happen at any switch instead of trying to time it.
You’ll switch kits at different and better times/position in the field, at least I certainly have. I’m still getting used to it, but the effects are awesome.

Only tool kit’s version is disappointing because it still doesn’t override swiftness it seems.

Killyox.3950:

• Pry Bar – affects up to 3 enemies now. Cooldown 12s down from 15s. Moved to #2 spot on weapon bar

Cleaving and reduced cooldown? Oh my.
That basically means if you jump on a node with a war and 2 thieves on it and land prybar they all disengage or die.

Also, what Mask said is correct. To many way to obvious and OP things in there.
Elixir Gun is powerful as is, pistol really don’t need pierce by default since they do splash damage by default, box of nails is fine being the caltrops little brother, blunderbuss not requiring melee for the full effect would make it way to powerful, …

And yes, I’m looking at this from a both a PvP and WvW/PvE perspective.
I’m sorry, but most changes you suggest would be way to OP.

Reposting from another thread:

In my opinion, map design and size is very well done. We don’t need bigger maps.
However, at some places the map feels to artificial due to flatness, if that makes any sense.

Having open ground isn’t bad (and needed), but it could be improved on many places (like the western supply route towards garrison/bay) by adding some tactical layers to it.
Many of the supply routes are flat, long roads with very few tactical elements to it that you can use (or abuse).
Right now, there are plenty of cliffs, but besides pushing players off them, there isn’t much tactical use for it. It’s hard to put into words and I would draw it if I was worth a kitten with a pencil, but humour me and imagine the supply routes having canyons, tunnels, hills, bridges, etc.

That way, we would have natural choke points for ambushing enemy troop movement or doylaks. Repositioning sentries along these natural choke points would make capping them a bit more vital and interesting.

The same goes for the lake. Now, everyone just hops in for the quaggan camps and gets the hell out of there asap because hardly anyone has the stones to go up against someone underwater.

If you look at PvE maps, the quaggan outposts/cities are more isolated, often hidden in caves and so forth.
It would be nice to have underwater caves where the quaggan camps are and perhaps tunnels connecting them to each other.
The pearls should still be found in the open water among the krait, above the tunnel/cave complex.

Having more tunnels, caves, canyons, bridges, … would result in having more natural chokepoints, which in turn could make ambushes/general combat more exciting, which in turn could result in the map feeling more natural, which in turn could make the players more on edge (instead of annoyed/bored) while travelling, which could result in more fun.

I’m no developer so I have zero clue if this can be done in terms of resources, nor do I claim that this is the best idea ever.
I’ve just been exploring a while in PvE and I’ve seen pretty amazing map design and I wondered why they didn’t translate some of their ideas into WvW maps.

Impressive yet again Maskaganda. Nothing beats defending supply camps.
Sad to see you drop from our tier. No more gandarians who actually put up a fight.

No idea what Dran is talking about, since I always watch the vids on a comp without sound :p

Belgrat.4306:

Siofra Crumble.2098

I see the point your making listing all our “CC area denial” skills, but, you’ve got to remember that all these skills are not avaliable at the same time.
i.e.
1 off hand pistol and shield
2 9 utillity skills don’t fit into 3 utillity slots
3 and you can only have 1 elite skill not 2.
I also doubt that you would want to fill your skill slot with only these type of skills.

I also can not see the point of useing all these skills and not being able to kill or even hurt another player. Driving them away only for them to heal and come back with a different stratergy while all your skills are on cool down. Let alone surviving if 2 or more decide they want to take this particular area from you. I understand also that it all really comes down to the classes in a lot of cases.

But on a side note it all comes down on how you want to play the class yourself.

I wrote in my previous post that you can combine “a few” of these.
Magnet, magnetic inversion, big ole bomb, bombs in general, box of nails, supply crate and let’s say slick shoes can all be easily combined into a single build.
Not saying this is the best combo ever, but it will provide you with a lot of area denial if that’s what you want.

Phoenix.3416:

Most of the skills you mention are 1 or 2 high cooldown or weak moves per kit, for a class with the apparent focus of ranged area denial 1 skill per kit isn’t exactly going to cut it.
AOE denial lasts more than a few seconds like a bomb.An example is the Glue Bomb but there aren’t any other skills that are so obviously area denial or that last long at all.
Some of those skills aren’t really what I class as area denial such as airblast is a control skill its not denying the area to enemies for a set amount of time its just pushing them back.

It depends how you define area denial, in my definition grenades are area denial but the class itself doesn’t really area denial better than any other class. Elementalists can probably control an area with AOE attacks better than an engineer while area denial is supposedly our job

I also wrote that some skills lister are better then others and/or easier to use.
But still, the skills are there for when you want them.
And the ancient “ele’s can do it better” argument, no, not really.
Sure they can AoE an area with staff, but they can’t exactly afford to get close to you.
Or they can utilize D/D for rampant close quarter action, but hardly any D/D ele will be able to go toe to toe with you for long.
They’ll die or retreat, if you are very focused on area denial abilities.

Ele’s can at most do it as good as an engineer. But they don’t have this number of area denial abilities and such easy access to it as an engineer to force you of an area.

Chaba.5410:

You need to add Accelerant-packed and detonating turrets to the list of AoE CC skills.

Agreed with your post and I’m sorry I didn’t add these fine examples.
I just did the list from the top of my head and since I’m not really a turret user I overlooked these.

Let’s update the list:

Multi target Area denial abilities:
- Traited throw wrench
- Box of nails
- B-bombs!
- Air blast
- Magnetic Inversion
- Throw mine
- Thumper turret
- Glue shot
- Big ole Bomb
- Chill nades
- Launch personal battering ram
- Slick shoes
- Elixir F
- Supply crate
- Elixir X (no matter what it procs)

Single target
- Net turret
- Rocket turret
- Net shot
- Personal battering ram

That’s 15 (!) multi target abilities that can be utilized for area denial.
Granted, some are better/easier to use then others, but combining a few of these can create a lot of chaos among your enemies when it comes to controlling an area.

And this versus 4 single target abilities.
I don’t know about you, but I feel that engineer has enough area denial capabilities.

I almost pulled my hair out when reading OP’s statements.
How did you possibly get to that conclusion? I’m not trying to be mean spirited here, I just wholeheartedly disagree.
How can you claim that bombs, etc are just simple AoE attacks?
People, guardians even, fly away in all directions or plain run away due to receiving to much damage when I decide I want that node.

I’m by far not the best engineer out there, I’m decent at best, however I feel this is engineering 101.

Let them bunker nodes all they want, my job is to simply keep them off the node without having to kill them.
Their bunkering is rendered useless when you are able to neutralize and often even cap nodes from under their noses without even killing them.
But most of the time they end up dead anyway because they are to stubborn to give up the node.

In PvE I help my teammates by keeping mobs together and protecting the ranged clothies.
In WvW I do the same, next to ensuring that nobody gets away.

Sure, it doesn’t always end up in victory. But that’s not the class it’s fault.
That’s my fault.

- Magnet
- Traited throw wrench
- Box of nails
- All bombs which makes even guardians run from nodes
- Magnetic inversion
- Air blast
- Throw mine
- Net turret
- Thumper turret
- Net shot
- Overcharged shot
- Glue shot
- Big ole bomb
- Chill nades
- Personal battering ram
- Slick shoes
- …

Absolutely right OP.
We have literally 0 skills useable for area denial.

Yes. I’d be very excited to do so.
I would love to see the south of Southsun Cove expanded with a complete underwater map with a mere single safe zone.
It would be a good location for it, since they could make it a really beautiful underwater paradise.

Bring it on.

I think underwater combat is exciting, disorienting and fun. As it should be.
Most people hate underwater because they haven’t spend enough time in the water I’m thinking. It takes some time and effort to figure out your role underwater and build accordingly.

True, there a fewer skills available underwater, but any class can still do good underwater.