Guild Wars 2

anyway the warrior blows doesn’t really matter to me. To me…

So you think the toolbelt abilities are worth as much as another professions utilities?
So you think a kit is as strong as another professions weapon skills?

Even IF you could answer both questions with yes:
Where would our additional Sigils be placed, as Engineers could still slot only one Set?
Where would your proposed CD place the Engineer in terms of gameplay, to set them appart from say warriors (who also mostly use 5sec swapping CDs) or any other class, really?
and lastly: Gimme teh Signets!

All things must NOT be equal!

Just did a more controlled testing, not in real combat.
Working as intended.

PLease /close thread, nothing to see here except an overworried warrior

The new active effect on Signet of Might seems bugged:

if you land an attack that would normaly be blocked that knocks down or stuns the damage is applied, the CC effect is still negated.

Tested on Guardian with Aegis up but NO stability.

Is this intentional?
In that case the new signet is much more underwhelming than expected, and the description simply misleading.

Did i really just witness an Ele crying on the warrior forums about PvP matters?!?

Delicious yet somehow disturbing…

im using Elixier C sometimes for midpoint defense/support against teams with 2-3 condition heavy classes. In my experience the removal works on all condies active at the moment.
Is it possible that you were still being piled on?

The 5sec duration is for the boons the removed conditions are being turned to, it is correctly prolonged by boonduration too.

Dolan.3071:

Let’s Go
- Sling your opponent over your shoulder and carry them around.

That would be hilarous!

the variant “stop hitting yourself!” using the carried opponent as an improtu hammer would be worthy of an elite shout

Edit:
the more i think about it the more awesome your idea becomes:
Physical utility “Meatshield” siezes an opponent, for 4 seconds any effect or damage applied to the warrior applies to the opponent as well. roots in place or cripples self for the duration.

I think your approach is a bit back to front:

In what context (PvE/WvW/PvP) do you want to play?
What do you want to achieve with your build? Bunkering of some kind i suppose.
What Weapons and Utilities do you LIKE to use?

After that decisions you should start looking for the fitting traits, not the other way round imo.

As your choice doesnt define a preference for any damage type you can use either Pistol MH + X or Rifle equaly… mediocre (with Inv. Alch. youll never be doing impressive damage)

The Inventions traits support using Turrets or Bombs , the Alchemy traits are almost totaly focussed on Elixiers.

If choosing turrets to be supported by your traits id say go for conditiondamage and therefore Pistol(s) as weapon, since turrets are taking into account your condidamage stat.
If prefering bombs you could go either way, as bombs profit from power as well as condition damage.

In both cases elixiers will be your best bet as additional utilities.

Im currently using a 10/0/30/30/0 Setup for tPvP Bunkering, using Elixiers plus Bombs as Utilities.
Weapon choice (and amulet) change according to closepoint or mid positioning:

For CP duty:

http://www.intothemists.com/calc/?build=-W70;2Z;0i0c-FQFx0;9;49-TT-2;303A159;1U;5qNnCrBl34By

for mid/groupsupport:

http://www.intothemists.com/calc/?build=-WRw;2Z;0i0c-FQFx0;9;49-TT-2;306A159;1UN1;3qNnCrJG49cW
or
http://www.intothemists.com/calc/?build=-WRw;2cP-i0c-NQFx0;9;49-TT-2;306A15B;1UN1;3qNnCrJG49ce (for extremely condition intensive opposing groups)

Note:
in all builds im still experimenting with Runes… for the pistol-setups i like Monk/water/Lyssa best
full forgerunes could play out well too, probably better in conjunction with Elixier C, Alch. XII, Healingturret as the boons provided by H and B are missing.

firebreathz.7692:

one tip for those being suppressed.. stop using the the up arrow to retype a message.. reword it and you wont get suppressed..

Ah, didnt know that one. Thanks!

A little strange though: in solo games with bunker build i usualy prepare a Chat message like “ALTAR incoming!” copy it and paste it into chat, often edited with number of attackers or class.
Every message was different (or at least copied into a fresh chatline) , yet i got suppressed by the system something cruel

I’m running into this issue on some solo tournies.
Even announcing incomings alone often suffices to trigger the chat suppression on a busy farpoint ;/
Makes comunicating with a random team even more of a pain, and separating soloquers even further from premades… who mostly dont talk by chat.

Kimbald.2697:

the cooldowns of your sigils work against each other.
When one procs, the other has it’s cooldown also set in work.
Despite them being totally different sigils in mechanic, as soon as both have a cooldown… setting of one also sets of the other.

So if you swap and get the hydromancy proc, it will take 9 seconds before the condition removal of purity can even work at all.
if after those 9 seconds you happen to swap again… no condition removal for 9 seconds again.

Sad, but true.

A shame, since those very 2 are my exact favourite sigils (the generosity version in WVW but in pvp it doesn’t exist).

Discovered that sad fact the hard way… this is mostly the reason wy i switched to Corruption istead of Purity lately.

Switching out Hydromancy would invalidate the Grenth runes, therefore leading to a radicaly different build… something im just not ready to accept (jet)

Kimbald.2697:

Other than that I really really like this build, since it is very close to what I tend to use the most myslf.
Lately I’m more experimenting with turrets, so I have to adjust somewhat.
But your build uses several of the core abilities I always want to keep.

The chill on heal is great for escaping by the way. And it’s great to lower burst somewhat too. Not a lot, but some…
I never see chill as damage, even though it does quite decent powerbased damage. I see it as a slow and an attack speed slow. The damage is extra, but not what I use it for (except on grenades, there the 3 x chill hurts as well)

Not that they are the ‘best’ choices, but I simply love them:
- using Power wrench trait with Tool Kit (most don’t bother for this trait)
- using a shield (Reinforced shield gives this extremely good cooldowns, but hard to justify those points).
- sigil of hydromancy (but as condition removal is more important I use generosity/purity more )
- runes of grenth

By no means are these the best things to use, but I fell for them and almost can’t imagine playing without them.

The idea of the build was not maximising damage in the first place, but adding together different ways of area-control and winning by outlasting and whittling down opponents.
The weak points are dealing with massive conditions, and/or ranged enemies…
the first weakness i hope to mitigate by using Purity, ranged arent TOO much of a trouble once i manage to get a cripple running by throwing the wrench, or they get magneted into a gluebomb/boxoNails/freeze.
That said, Traphunters are my nemesis… but this seems not to be build specific

Mass conditions are still a problem… but then: in what build but Elixiers with 409 arent they cause of death No.1? (Im missing my Elixiergun KR /sniff/)

Kimbald.2697:

Nice thing about your build: in WvW or dungeons, just get out of combat and pick up grenades instead of bombs if you’re following a zerg.
That build isn’t just for pvp, it’s fun for just about anything.
For me at least, even if my variation is slightly different.

Your totaly right, in PvE/WvW i use a very similar setup:
Exchanging Bombs for Grenades almost permanently, and using 2*Lyssa, 2*MadKing plus 2*Altruism (in combination with Explosives X plus Sigil of Battle foralmost instant 6-9 stacks of Might). Im not to sure about the latter combo, as the build is missing almost any boonduration (10%).
Will try out Geomancy and reduced Grenade CDs as soon as some Gold comes in

With a Givers weapon and Pizza this amounts to 100% condiduration while retaining much of the intended playstyle. Prybar in WvW is just evil!

For Dungeons i often swap out Toolkit for Elixiergun, and Power wrench for Scope (not knowing if that thing was fixed, didnt have the patience to test).

Thanks for your comments, im following the recent threads about turret setups with interest… and itching to try them out soonTM!

The condition cleansing in the first (more defensive) variant is ok, if abusing the lightfield from Elixier R…
Your right, the condiremove is my biggest grief in the other variants.

As for your point on Chill/conditions:
Ive always thought of chill as a defensive/pressuring mechanism, inhibiting the use of offensive skills and heals. In addition its potentialy covering up the more offensive condies.

Seeing your point though: if using/thinking about chill as offense its definitely the stronger option to use it in a power build (another strong reason for using grenades).
broadened my mind, thanks a lot

150 views and not a single criticism/comment?

aka: shameless selfbump

testing a hybrid of the two variants above atm:

retaining Rabid amulet for more Thoughness/survivability, but using Elixier S and Alchemy I
Sigil changed from Fire (not enough power to support it) to Corruption.

http://www.intothemists.com/calc/?build=-WRw;2sPVi0c-3UFx0;9;4T9-9J2475;30;057-WN1;3ecX9ecX92Vc

Variant:

“Flame and Frost, the Razing”

http://www.intothemists.com/calc/?build=-WRw;2sPVi0c-3UFx0;9;4T9-9J2475;30;057-WN0;3ecX9ecX97Fo

This versions changes four aspects:
- Elixier R → Elixier S (as described above)
- Alchemy VI → Alchemy I
For offsetting the lost endurance gain from Elixier R, and losing the protection/thoughness synergy. (see Amu change)
- Rabid Amulet → Rampager Amulet
Most damage options scale in the build scale well with additional Power/Precision, and the loss of most Condiremoves is mitigated by slightly higher HP.
- Sigil of Purity → Sigil of Fire
Damage is the focus here, Firesigil scales well with power and complements the skills nicely.

Quite a long writeup, and possibly much to thorough
TL;DR: Engies rock, and 409/HGH is not our only option (as strong AND fun as it is!)

SwiftstompTM Research and Development proudly presents:
“Flame and Frost”, a balanced build for tourney play.

This being the first of my homegrown builds (and the only one to have weathered the KR-Patch, by not using it despite having multiple kits) to be presented to a audience greater than a guild forum.
I would be grateful for constructive criticism and optimization tips!

So without further ado, here comes the build followed by some thoughts/playstyle notes.

http://www.intothemists.com/calc/?build=-WRw;2sP-i0c-3UFx0;9;4T9-9J2475;35;057-Wc0;3ecX9ecX92Vs

Core to the build is the utilization of PBAoE Conditions, with the combo of Grenth runes, Medkit and Sigil of Hydromancy for a massive uptime of freeze.

Depending on Map and/or group setup the build can be played as
- closepoint defender
- farpoint attack / decap
- groupfighter with realy decent condition damage

Further down i’ll post a variant GC Setup i dubbed “Flame and Frost, the Razing” which i sometimes use for pure groupfighting/roaming.

Strenghts of the Build:

Area Control:
The possibilities are almost endless

- AoE Cripple (Toolkit 1, 2, Throw Wrench and Bombkit 5)
- AoE Knockbacks (Big Ole Bomb, Shield 4)
- Stuns (Shield 5, Supplydrop)
- Daze (Shield 5)
- Pull/Knockdown (Toolkit 5)

In adition to our utilities and weapon skills we also have massive AoE freeze uptime:
- By slotting Grenth runes we reach +50% freeze duration, and freeze on heal for 4sec on a 10sec CD, just entering the Medkit is counted as healing and triggers the rune
- Sigil of Hydromancy gives 4sec/9sec CD
- Random freeze on hit by Grenthrunes 4piece bonus (singletarged only)

Defense:

Elixier R for
- stunbreak on a short CD
- 100% endurance refill
- lightfield (including reset at 25% HP) for condiremove and rezzing

The GC Variant below switches Elixier R for Elixier S, as it lacks defense against direct damage, and for stomping (thrown)

Resistance against direct damage
- 2650 Armor is quite near the theoretical optimum, as diminishing returns kick in drasticaly at around 2700-2800
- Alchemy VI grants Protection if disabled, so more often than not its up when enemies set up to burst
- Blinds (Pistol 3 (Bouncing), Bombkit 4)
- Block/Projectile reflect (Shield 4, 5, Toolkit 4)

For added conditionremove a Sigil of Purity is used in one of the weapons, as the build lacks in HP (only around ~16k)

Offense:

Being a conditiondamage focussed build it makes HEAVY use of confusion for either massive damage against reckless enemies or forcing the opponents into playing defensively.
- Pistol 3 (2+ stacks, bouncing)
- Bombkit 3 (5 stacks, AoE)
- Toolkit 3 (5 stacks, singletarged)

in addition we have got
- AoE Burning (Bombkit 2)
- AoE Bleeding (Toolkit 2)
- Poison (Pistol 2, “singletarget” yeah, right!)
- Bleeding (Pistol 1, 30% chance on crit through Sharpshooter trait)
- Burning (33% chance on crit through Explosives V)
- Vulnerability (Toolkit 1)

With stats of 1200 condition damage and ~40% critchance without Fury its getting uncomfortable in PBAoE range rather quickly

Utility/mobility:

100% Swiftness uptime:
5,5sec Swiftness at Kitswap, 5sec CD (Tools VI)
11sec Swiftness, 20sec CD (Medkit 5)

Roundabout 50% Fury uptime (Medkit 5)

Combofields:
- Lightfield (Elixier R-Toolbelt)
- Firefield (Bombkit 2)
- Smokefield (Bombkit 4)
+ Finishers:
- 3 Blasts (Bombkit-Toolbelt, Shield 4, Supplydrop)
- 2 Projectiles (Toolkit-Toolbelt, Shield 5)(+ Pistol 1(20%))

Gameplay notes:

Despite the build being relatively sturdy i would advise against playing too defensively. Forcing opponent into the defensive using chill and/or confusion and pressuring them as hard as possible with multiple condidions works out best (for me).

Due to the fact that every weapon and kit, with the exception of the shield, has its CDs shortened by 20% with their respective traits, and defensive/offensive options strewn everywhere the build is not easy to play. The fact that many skills have multiple purposes only serve to make matters worse…
To be frank, i still feel im far from reaching its full potential jet