Guild Wars 2

All three of the necro elites are good. You just have to understand how they are meant to be used (eg. you don’t use plague form for dps). If you look at necroes in pvp, you’ll see all 3 elites being used in different builds.

I don’t think I’ve ever encountered an engie using mortar in spvp. And I’ve seen elixer X maybe a few times after 2k+ games.

I think that build is sort of a hard counter to power necroes. They have the ridiculous ability to restealth every few seconds from C&D, in addition to whatever stealth abilities they have in their utility slots. Taril’s suggestions are good, but it’s one of those situations where you really have to play well and not make any mistakes in order to not get worn down.

If you’re doing that much damage when you hit, try lich form. In spvp my auto-attack hits for 3-4k against squishy targets. Your average medium-low skill level p/d thief isn’t expecting a necro to suddenly start blasting them that hard. You can kill them or soften them up a lot before switching to your regular bag of tricks.

I think staff is required in spvp. It’s your only long range weapon and, if traited, your best option for building up life force quickly. In addition, it brings tons of utility with the chill, fear, and condition transfer. If you’re trying to escape an encounter, staff improves your chances because you can drop marks on the ground as you run (also good for preventing stomps, chasing, etc.)

I hate the slow trajectory of staff #1, but it does respectable dmg and I believe it pierces in addition to granting lf. Once you get used to staff, it’s really hard to go without.

I don’t see how power necro is worse off than any other kind of necro. I generally do pretty well against thieves unless they catch me with lf completely depleted. I run dagger/focus and staff with berzerker amulet.

Traits are either 30/0/10/0/30 or 10/0/10/20/30
You want to build lf as quickly as possible and learn to pop in and out of DS in order to eat enemy bursts. Also DS will hit pretty hard. Keep chilling them with the focus and the staff while you replenish lf. The dagger #2 will continue to hit them after they go stealth unless the channel is interrupted. If you land dark pact, then you can burst them down with the dagger autoattack.

Also, I run lich for my elite. The #1 attack hits for 3-4k on a lightly armored target. It works surprisingly well against a lot of thieves because they aren’t expecting a necro to turn around and burst them back.

Not saying it’s easy, but you should have a pretty good chance against thieves on a necro.

He’s not complaining about getting hit hard. He’s complaining about the thief, by default, having access to a better fear than what the necro can achieve through traiting. A freebie fear that long in the hands of a burst class is ridiculous.

The point is that the thief doesn’t have to do anything to get the skull fear. There is no trade off or build issue. Any thief that steals from a necro can get a fear that is more potent then what necroes themselves can trait for.

You can bring a stun breaker. So what? Maybe the thief hits you with the fear, then uses basilisk’s venom after you blow your stunbreaker. Or vice versa. The question isn’t whether you have possible options to deal with this. The question is whether it’s reasonable that the thief’s class mechanic is so potent against necroes in particular, particularly in light of their burst potential.

I run into this a lot in spvp. Any decent thief knows that when facing a necro that they can steal this long duration fear. So they can engage the necro and hold on to it until they’re in a good spot to burst. Or even just another get out of jail free card.

You can bring stun breakers or trait in a way to counter this fear—in order to counter an ability that ANY thief can accomplish straight out of the box. This doesn’t include any other CC the thief might have at their disposal. Consider also that this is part of steal, which can be traited to do damage, provide stealth, grant init, etc.

I agree with the OP. Given the prevalence of thieves in pvp, necroes face an inherent deficiency based on the thief class dynamic.

I read that in an earlier incarnation dark path was a teleport skill, similar to the thief shortbow skill, rather than the targetted gap closer it is now. That’s a change they should definitely roll back, it would put necroes more on the level of other classes in terms of being able to disengage.

I think it’s a good mechanic with a lot of strategic value. I just wish they would do some tweaking with the lifeforce generation. I feel locked into using the staff because it’s the ony decent way to build up some lifeforce before jumping into the thick of things. And scepter is horrible for it.

coglin.1496:

Slan.5496:

“When it comes to
1 v 2,3,4, the engineer has the advantage over the thief.”

I’m not even sure how to respond to this. A thief generally has way more escapes, while bursting harder, than an engineer.

My point exactly. The engineer kills them, at least I do. The thief can burst one down, then stealth and run away.

Engineers dominate thiefs when it comes to AoE damage was my point

Again, is this WvW or Spvp? I’m not seeing engis running on to a point in spvp and burning down 2-4 people at once with aoe dmg. Unless they’re drunk or afk or something.

Your point is shifting around. I responded about the bleeds. Now you’re talking about aoe dmg in general. Yeah the engi can pump out higher raw numbers. But the thief can deliver faster, sustained bleeds with a much greater degree of surviveability. If you start to get focused, you run away…and then spam clusterbomb. My goal was never to burst down one target. It was to do as musc aoe dmg as possible.

coglin.1496:

Shhhh, do not post that here. You might plant a seed of doubt in the mind of all the trolling QQers. You know, the ones who spam remakes of the same thread day after day. The last thing you want to do is demonstrate that the profession is solid.

Because that demonstrates the profession is solid right?

The issue isn’t that the profession is not solid. It’s that it isn’t competitive and could use some buffs. But you appear to have a major axe to grind about people disagreeing with your viewpoint.

coglin.1496:

Engineer pistol #1 is not as impressive 1 v 1 or 1 v 2 although against a thief, we have the ability to have 150 range advantage, 300 if you count the splash radius of the explosion. It is not the only way we can stack bleeds either. I was comparing straight up, the two pistol skills. I can drop Box of nails, which is the same as caltrops in that they cause bleeds and cripple. I drop caltrops just by switching to tool kit with kit refinement, then I can instantly hit #2 and do it again. My point was that with multiple targets, engineer will do more over all damage and with single targets, thieves pistol skills will dominate. Although as far as the bleeds go, caltrop absolutely dominates box of nails. But that is irrelavent, because I was comparing pistol #1 skills.

Comparing what you can do to a golem to a player is unwise. Especially when your asking how skills work against groups fighting intelligently. Golems do not have Elixir X times two and toss elixir R to remove those bleeds instantly. When it comes to
1 v 2,3,4, the engineer has the advantage over the thief.

On a direct comparison of skill to skill you can make comparison of equal skills between thieves and engineers. When you compare them in game play though, your comparing apples to oranges.

I mentioned the golem just to illustrate how much more damaging thief caltrops are than box of nails, since you mentioned being able to stack 5 bleeds on a zerg. Bear in mind that caltrops has a much wider spread, almost covering a point. And while the engineer is spamming toolkit to drop more nails, I can get coverage just from dodging. And so far I haven’t factored in bleeds from death blossom.

“When it comes to
1 v 2,3,4, the engineer has the advantage over the thief.”

I’m not even sure how to respond to this. A thief generally has way more escapes, while bursting harder, than an engineer.

coglin.1496:

I have a thief, thanks. The point I was referring to was the Skill #1 on both professions, the pistol shot is bugged and shoots at a slower rate then intended. As far as the “thief’s better” can of worms, I disagree. They are both better in different situations. You can say all you want about bleed stacking but your wrong. I can run into a WvW zerg and put 5 bleeds on 17 players. So in that situation I can stack many tomes over, the bleeds a thief can. Single target, thieves win, hands down.

How does that work out against smaller groups that are actually fighting intelligently and on the same footing gear wise? My condition thief can kill a heavy golem with ONE application of caltrops, which lasts for 14 seconds. That’s bleed and cripple over a fairly large area. The wiki says that each tick is adding 2 stacks of bleed—so 5 doesn’t sound all that impressive.

@Ezeriel

Yeah I play a necro. It has a lot more utility and surviveability than my engineer, probably more dps as well although it doesn’t burst as hard.

I play the game for spvp. That IMO is where the engineer starts to underperform and you don’t see that many in matches, let alone the variety of builds you mentioned.

“honestly wtf more do people want? all this nit-picking…”

I want them to do something about the crappy bleed duration on the pistols.

I want them to remove the idiotic pause at the end of jump shot so that people can’t just walk away from it. And it could also be viable as an escape option.

I want them to remove the punitive RNG aspects of the class. The tornado from elixer X looks kinda cool. Am I going to roll the dice with it in pvp? Hell no.

Etc. The assumption that people are “whining” because they don’t know how to play an engie is garbage. It would be equally valid to assume that the people who believe the class is fine as is simply haven’t had enough experience with other classes to know better.

With regards to the opening post in this thread: in spvp I don’t see engineers chewing up every other class and I’ve never seen one take down 3 people at once. The fact that someone might do that in WvW where gear disparity comes into play says nothing about the strength of the class.

I’m starting to wonder if questions like these can even be answered. The game currently revolves around one mode—capture the point. A lot of people are hoping that Anet offers more game options (ctf, deathmatch, etc.). If that happens, the current pecking order may be upended entirely.

^
QFT

One of my biggest complaints with this game in general is power activation getting constantly interrupted. Not only by cc from other classes, but from your own actions for unknown reasons.

I’ve had a lot of issues with supply crate not dropping. It was the worst the other day when I had several exchanges with a thief that was after me. I had at least 5 different occasions where this guy was bursting me while I was trying to drop the elite on him. The sound would go off, I would actual see the crate drop on the ground, and then….nothing. No damage, no stun, no supplies. It’s idiotic that the activation could get that far and then be interrupted. I don’t know if it’s a latency issue or something, but extremely frustrating.

Dee Jay.2460:

Thieves might not be fun to fight against but they are not any more overpowered than Elementalists, Mesmers or Guardians.

In fact they’d lose many straight-up 1v1 against those classes.

Yeah but those are currently the top 4 classes aren’t they? What if you ignore those three and imagine the thief vs. warriors, rangers, necroes and engis?

Personally I think thieves in gw2 are the most stupidly stupidly unbalanced stealth class I’ve seen in an MMO. Particulary if you’ve ever fought a good thief that’s using the class to it’s full potential. The thief shortbow with spammable teleport is really off the hook.

However, they really aren’t that tough. You can burst them down and the more organized your team is, the less effective the thief is going to be.

IMO the focus at this stage should not be further nerfing of the thief class, but buffing the classes that are underperforming and promoting more build variety overall.

Loco.4561:

The moral of the story is, people on certain professions are not learning and adapting to playstyles, once you learn to counter D/D Ele’s they are easy enough to beat, I do this on my other characters. Instead they simply state that Ele’s are OP without trying to figure out how to counter or fight them.

This Ele Build is an attrition build, there is no “insane” burst, in the hands of a GOOD player they are nightmare to fight against and it seems overwhelming especially if someone use’s CC properly and effectively. However D/D Ele’s are not this godmode profession that everyone complains about, they can be easily countered, if people are willing to learn.

Your example has you dueling a thief—the most complained about class in the game. And after a little practice you start to beat him. I don’t see how this anecdote supports your point. Maybe your friend mains a thief and has a lot of time spent trying to master the playstyle. And then after a few matches you outclass him.

Show me something like this: you duel your GC engineer friend. And after getting wrecked a few times, he adapts his style of play and starts consistently winning against you. I very much doubt that will happen.

Anecdotes are like this aren’t at all useful to the discussion. First of all we don’t know the respective skill levels of you or your friend. Secondly, you’re dueling which is not relevant to how conquest mode works. In an actual match, the ele would be supporting teamates while tanking. And if things started to go south, the ele would just haul kitten out of there to reset the fight, which is one of the main complaints people have.

I think it goes without saying that people are responding to the specific build they commonly see in pvp. Why else would they be complaining about it in this section of the forums?

I also think it’s safe to assume that said build uses certain traits and equipment. What build doesn’t? Your response to people’s complaints seems to boil down to: you have to build a certain way to achieve those results. Yeah? So?

I don’t think anyone can really anticipate how Anet will react to a specific, OP build in spvp if they do in fact make any changes at all. Denying that people may have a legitimate complaint doesn’t make your stance any stronger.

Also: on my necro, I’ve waited for an ele to have a nice big stack of boons and then used corrupt boons on them. Then watched as they cleared all the conditions and then built up a new stack of boons in the space of about 15 seconds lol.

Arheundel.6451:

That’s called a glass cannon ele with hit and run tactic, unless you want to show me a build with burst/bunker capabilities.
For burst I mean 7k+ hits, because for me 3-4k hit are not burst at all, those for me are the number of axe warrior auto-atatcks

This indicates a skewed perspective if you think it’s fine for a class to have the surviveability of the ele while reliably doing 3-4k hits. My power necro can do that kind of damage in lichform for about 20 seconds. That’s it. My glass cannon engi would maybe hit around 7k on a well executed jumpshot. Factoring in static discharge—maybe a few 3k hits as part of the burst. I kill a lot of people on both toons, but I have nowhere near the surviveability or mobility of the eles I commonly see in spvp.

Comparing the swiftness engis can get through speedy kits to an ele’s speed is a joke. I’ve been on a point, standing right next to an ele and fired my auto attack, which is traited for range. Then watched the ele haul kitten away—so fast that the next auto attack misses because it can’t reach.

I don’t particularly wish to see elementalists nerfed in any way. I would much rather see the classes that are struggling get buffed. But let’s keep it real—they are that strong.

MrAptronym.2846:

I am mostly talking from a PvE standpoint here. City of Heroes had PvP as an afterthought, it was neither well received by fans nor well supported by developers. Arenas and PvP zones were empty, very often literally.

Lemme guess—you didn’t arena pvp in coh either. This is the typical false characterization I got from the anti-pvp crowd.

If you look at where the game started, and where it ended, you could easily argue that the devs nerfed everything after five issues and then progressively added things such as the incarnate system to bring characters back to the level where they were in the first couple issues. The only real difference it ever made to me in pve was that I would have to occassional take breaks to regain my endurance during that middle period. Yay. In pvp however, said changes killed build diversity and progressively dwindled the pvp community due to the imbalances.

I see the potential for the same misguided approach here. Hope it doesn’t happen.

MrAptronym.2846:

Hearing the news of coming AoE changes reminds me of my time playing the game City of Heroes. Around the time of the fifth and sixth major updates for that game, a series of incredibly far reaching and debilitating nerfs hit that game. Skill improvements were given diminishing returns, a few very powerful skills were changed completely and there was a massive reduction in the power of AoE effects, especially control effects.

There were a lot of cries against it, I myself threatened to leave the game in a rather childish fit, but the truth is, that game was better because of the changes.

Very much disagree with this. It was better in some respects, worse in others. It didn’t become funner as a result of these changes and a lot of people did leave. I13 was a subsequent round of far reaching nerfs that pretty much destroyed pvp in that game. I would hope that Anet would regard COH’s approach as a case study of what not to do.

Nerfing aoe is the kind of lazy balancing that I associated with COH.

“stunbreak, dodgeroll 2 engi, slap him with a glove, dead engi.”

Alarox.4590:

Slan.5496:

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Jump Shot is one of the best skills for engineers, even if you don’t like the delay before smashing. It gives you the ability to be mobile in ways other classes can’t, it spikes like a boss and it’s even nice enough to apply vulnerability. THAT is how skills should be. Skills should ADD possibilities and be used in MULTIPLE ways. THAT is versatility. Versatility is not “Hey look I have 65 million skills”, it’s “Hey I can use this one skill 65 million ways”. THAT is what engineer should be. Utilizing one skill in multiple ways, rather than having an army of skills (Ele) that we spam.

In pvp that delay makes it virtually worthless. Offensively, it makes it almost impossible to hit a target that isn’t somehow mezzed or immobilized. Defensively, it makes a skill that could be a real life saver when you’re being zerged and need to down someone quickly an utter fail. There have been so many times when I’ve been killed while hanging there like an idiot…I seldom even try to use the power to be honest. There are many teleportation powers/gap closers in the game and this one is the only one that has such a lousy drawback. It’s one of the many issues of an engi that seems punitive for no apparent reason.

It’s still an extremely good sbility that can be used in multiple ways and takes some skill from enemies to avoid, and skill by the user to fully connect.

Just use Net Shot before you connect. Or use overcharged shot and hit them while they’re down. Or use some form of cripple.

I agree that it’s unnecessarily long and could use tweaking, but that doesn’t break the skill.

Break it? No. Greatly reduce it’s usefulness? yes.

The skill shouldn’t be crappy because net shot or overcharged shot are on cool down. I tend to use those powers to set up my burst or prevent a stomp. I’m glass cannon so I’m generally chipping away at range. It would love to be able to leap right in there and melt some people, but I’m not going to do it if the power leaves me hanging and increases the likelihood of me being downed myself. Uneccessarily.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Jump Shot is one of the best skills for engineers, even if you don’t like the delay before smashing. It gives you the ability to be mobile in ways other classes can’t, it spikes like a boss and it’s even nice enough to apply vulnerability. THAT is how skills should be. Skills should ADD possibilities and be used in MULTIPLE ways. THAT is versatility. Versatility is not “Hey look I have 65 million skills”, it’s “Hey I can use this one skill 65 million ways”. THAT is what engineer should be. Utilizing one skill in multiple ways, rather than having an army of skills (Ele) that we spam.

In pvp that delay makes it virtually worthless. Offensively, it makes it almost impossible to hit a target that isn’t somehow mezzed or immobilized. Defensively, it makes a skill that could be a real life saver when you’re being zerged and need to down someone quickly an utter fail. There have been so many times when I’ve been killed while hanging there like an idiot…I seldom even try to use the power to be honest. There are many teleportation powers/gap closers in the game and this one is the only one that has such a lousy drawback. It’s one of the many issues of an engi that seems punitive for no apparent reason.

Lol is this guy for real? All these posts complaining about people complaining?

And now I have images of like…..toddlers tumbling over boxes while some lunatic frantically grinds QPs.

DaliIndica.9041:

Slan.5496:

Just because something is an opinion doesn’t put it on the same level with every other opinion. The fact that stupidity, in general, is the status quo doesn’t justify being willfully stupid.

Right, so when an opinion differs from yours the person is stupid? I am not so arrogant to assume that I have the world bang to rights with no chance of me being wrong. Maybe go out into the world before you claim its full of stupid people. Stupid people who have managed an immense amount from our cave man days.

People should be able to back up their opinion with solid reasoning. If the reasoning is bad, the opinion doesn’t automatically have value because it’s “an opinion.” The rest is a straw man.

Just because something is an opinion doesn’t put it on the same level with every other opinion. The fact that stupidity, in general, is the status quo doesn’t justify being willfully stupid.

Necromancers are good at removing boons. Spinal shivers removes three. Corrupt boons will convert all boons to conditions (this will almost one shot a buffed up warrior. It’s decent against guardians, and slows an elementalist down a bit). There’s also a well that converts boons to conditions.

If they were chasing a half naked woman carrying a horn and a dagger, this would be one of my typical hotjoin matches.

Might gives you 35 power and 35 condition per stack. It’s trivial to maintain 12 stacks in combat and I’ll usually have more. So you’ll have roughly the same amount of power as a Berzerker’s amulet plus a lot more condition dmg as well.

You could go ahead and slot Berzerker’s if you like, or another amulet. It wouldn’t change how the build functions. I just go for higher crit so that I can proc more conditions.

I’ve been running this lightning discharge build in spvp and thought I’d post it here. I think it’s pretty solid for having fun in matches. Not sure it’s the best choice for tpvp, but what engi build is?

Anyway, it’s:
20— V, X (incendiary powder, enhance performance)
5
0
20— I, IV (invigorating speed, self-regulating defenses)
25— VI, II (speedy kits, static discharge)

pitol/shield
med kit, tool kit, rifle turret, goggles, supply crate
Rampager’s amulet and jewel.
Runes: 2x strength, 2x fire, 2x hoelbrak
sigils: superior battle and something else depending on preference

The attachment shows the stats. The main point of the build is to stack and sustain might during a fight. Outside of combat you can activate 3 stacks by popping in and out of medkit. So you can have 6-9 stackes up before entering combat (generally 6). With the rune buffs and the boon duration buff from traits, these stacks have a duration of about 26 seconds.

Things get better when you’re in combat, because then swapping kits activates the rune of superior battle which adds another 3 stacks of might for an even longer duration. The most I’ve ever stacked on the training dummies is about 20. Realistically that’s not going to happen in a match, but I’ve often ended an encounter with about 16 stacks going. About another amulet’s worth of power and condition dmg.
Crit rate is pretty good at 50%, so in addition to bursting your main target the discharge is hitting anyone nearby with a decent chance of procing burn and/or bleed on them as well.

I went with pistol/shield for added surviveability and the option to use two sigils.
If anyone uses a build like this, or tries it out, I’d love to get their feedback. Thanks for reading!

There’s a tendency to discuss something like killshot while imagining some idiot warrior that just spams it in some predictible fashion. Remember they’re gonna have another weapon set and they can intelligently chain utilities together to make it work. I played around with a build where I would bullrush—riflebutt—killshot before they were able to get off the ground. And the killshot hit for around 9k in spvp. Not saying it makes warriors better than engineers, but it can be used to good effect.

SUPERPOGI.1780:

Pwn an all-thief team in tpvp with only 4 guys. Not sure why you whine too much about thief being OP. Study their class and learn to counter.

If rank numbers are any indication of skill, your team of 4 far outclassed those thieves. Furthermore, you’re on a bunker build. My bunker engi can easily handle two thieves while tanking, healing the team and clearing conditions. Would your team have done so well if you were non-bunker spec? Maybe, maybe not.

BlackKaiseR.8320

The “carried away” argument that has been stated in this thread is far away from being real, it’s a mere insult to loads of players probably way better than you are, a player that can’t even see how amazing a well played necro is right now in tpvp.

Can someone elaborate on how the necro is being used in these lineups? And possibly link to a build? I played an engineer and a condition thief before starting on my necro. I’m having some difficulty understanding what the role is in organized pvp (conditions, boon removal, tanking, what?). My main source of experimentation atm is hotjoin and that probably doesn’t help.

I thought the title was please nerf hats, lol.

I don’t know. I play the same build in pvp and the aoe dmg is awesome. I’ve just started pveing with it though.

Necroes are pretty much a hard counter for my condition build thief. Sometimes I have to hope that somebody else engages them while I blast away with pistols from range.

Just had two in a row. I play a human female thief and a human female engineer.

This is ridiculous. People have been patient. If you , like me, bought this game to pvp—it means the product you purchased does not work. If a household appliance stopped working persistently, even after it had been repaired at least once, an ordinary person would take it back to the store and never purchase from that manufacturer again.

Nothing sucks more than being in a close match and then getting locked out near the end. Also with the constant imbalance in spvp matches you’ve got to wonder how many peope are experiencing this at a given time.

I think I’ve had it 3 times so far today.

I never really got much use out of the box of nails, unless I had traited kit refinement and swapped kits as I was running away to slow someoe down. It’s damage and duration are neglible which always struck me as unfortunate because a more powerful skill might make it acceptabe to stay in the kit.

In contrast, one application of my condition thief’s caltrops can kill a training golem by itself and has a much larger aoe (something like 14 second duration). I wouldn’t expect the same potency from a kit, but it would be nice if the duration was maybe 7 seconds with faster application and more coverage.

Just had two in a row, both on legacy of foefire.

I use a lightning discharge build with the tool kit for the wrench throw. It’s awesome that they changed magnet, I’m actually getting some use out of it now.

“Man what you wanna do is just be able to burst them so hard whenever they appear, that they’re scared to even go for you. Being a tanky wall doesnt help much as i’ve seen, since these little buggers also have the best escapes in the world.”

Yeah, that’s what eventually worked for my on my engi. People kept saying add toughness, which just prolonged the encounter a bit. Eventually I went full glass cannon and just unload on them hard. I try to hit them on the way in, dodge their initial rush, and hit them with everything I have. It works well with run of the mill thieves.

The problem is more strategic thieves that will burst from stealth while you’re fighting someone else, or simply run away if the fight isn’t going their way. It’s crazy to me that damaging them doesn’t unstealth them. I think that takes away a lot of the skill of using a stealth class.

Grappling Hook

I use the tool kit as part of my build and was very disappointed with the magnet power. The range is so ridiculously short that enemies in pvp will often just move out of range before it goes off, often without even noticing me trying to pull them.

I’d like to see the range extended to something useful, or have the power replaced with a grappling hook that would pull the engineer to the target. I would particularly like to see a vertical motion component to this, so that the engi could pull up to enemies on ledges, up stairs, etc.

This would be useful as a gap closer for the rest of the tool set and also provide some supplementary movement speed outside of combat depending on how it was implemented.

Jump shot is a finisher as well.

I wouldn’t care if jumpshot had a windup in the beginning, you could compensate for that. I believe the power as it stands has a windup in the beginning AND a windup at the end. So if I use it on someone, for example, that was engaging another player and didn’t see me—I travel over them to hit and then hang there for the duration of that pause. Basically it gives them a second chance to avoid it if they didn’t see me coming—or as is often the case they just keep moving while they fight and I essentially miss because of the pause throwing off my timing.

I’m a fairly casual player. I’ve had a lot of problems getting ganked by thieves, wrecked by mesmers, etc. But I understand that most issues are likely to change with experience and or getting together with a good team.

But the thing that continues to plague me in this game is the crazy camera and how it whips around or sometimes zooms in to obscure your vision while you’re mid fight in a way that’s very damaging to success.

In the attached image, I had been knocked into a bush or something in the mine area on the forest map. My vision was blocked and for some reason I could not get out of it. Maybe I was immobilized by another player, but I have a strong suspicion that I was running into geometry that I couldn’t see. Thus I suffered a stupid death from unseen assailants while running in place like an idiot.

Am I missing something here? I changed the camera to manual rotation but that doesn’t seem to affect the zoom in any way. Are there any other adjustments to be made or is this just the way things are intended to be?

Yeah that little delay at the beginning and end is really lame. There have been many instances where I activated the power at point blank range, against enemies who were almost dead, and then died when they killed me during these pauses. There are plenty of high dmg closers in the game that fire off quickly. This should be one of them.

Awesome to have a pro show up when some noob asks a question (aka crying) about a bug.

I’m currently running a pistol/shield build that uses grenades. Today I ended up in a match against a backstab style thief. Not sure if this guy was any good but a strategy that worked really well was hitting the #5 power (2 second stun/block) right as he was coming in to attack. Then he wa stunned for 2 seconds, at which point I immediately switched to grenades and cut loose point blank with as many as I could. That was pretty effective in mowing him down. Then if he ran I stacked bleeds with the pistol.