Guild Wars 2

@ Khaeroup

I use 6/4/4 with lb/sword+dagger when roaming on a power build. Mostly knights armor and zerker trinkets with a few slots changed around to round out my stats for personal preference. Sigil of blood+omnom for some extra sustain and I much prefer mostly knights armor over zerker gear against competent roamers and 1vsx fights. Sword for kiting and dagger for the cripple, evade and poison. Thats just the setup I feel the most well rounded with when solo roaming but different strokes etc… I think you can’t go very wrong just equipping knights gear and zerker trinkets and adjusting from there with what you feel you are lacking.

@ Sai Locke.

I agree entirely that it should function like steal. I am just saying that I still feel it is one of our strongest pets for dueling/roaming. Seems to me you are the one starting to fight it out when i’m just telling you about my experiences with the pet. Pets in general need a buff in functionality. Also I am fully aware the enemy can punish you when you start picking it up. First of all it’s best to learn to use in a way that you can pick it up safely or in a situation where it is worth the risk. Nobody is telling you to start picking it up with a warrior using 100 blades on you.

Maybe it’s a playstyle thing. I don’t run full zerker and I run a rather mobile build (inspired by Flopy who was mentioned above). With siamoth you can be very very tricky to pin down. The other pigs I havn’t found worth the trouble.

Wolf/siamoth, wolf/spider, wolf/hound, wolf/raven. I pretty much only solo roam or in a party of 2-5 so for wvw. As you can see I like my wolf. With lb/s+d I almost always use siamoth and when running some condi variant I swap it to spider or hound. Drake I might swap in for clearing a camp but those are practically all I use.

I always roam with siamoth/wolf when I’m running lb/sw+d. It’s not that tricky to use once you get used to it but it only works for solo roaming and really small scale, after that things get too cluttered and you are better off taking other pets. There are quite a few ways you can use it: to initiate, while creating distance with sword leaps and just in general when you swap pet and the pig is right next to you. Easily my favorite and most effective roaming pet when used with wolf.

edit: during my 6 months using Siamoth with power builds it has been stolen only ONCE by an enemy warrior when I was careless and maybe twice by some friendly who was closer

I would like some tips regarding stats as well. I am coming from an engineer and almost 80 with my ele and not quite sure how to gear up/spend my laurels. I’ve noticed many ele’s here don’t want to share their gear setups but if I could get some pointers or tips?

I’ve been playing around a lot on the build editor and managed a stat spread I was quite happy with but that was only with 2x travelers and 4x divinity runes. This is expensive and I think I probably want to go the boon duration route for perma protection, regen and fury. Without the divinity runes I can manage about 2,5k armor, ~16k hp, around 30% crit and 2,7-2,8k attack (not counting stacks) with 60% crit dmg. THese stats are with lemongrass and the precision consumable with exotic knights, some valk and 2x ascended cavalier rings and ascended berserker+valk amulet. How does this sound to more experienced eles? Any tips on how I can do better?

Thanks.

I find it funny how as an engineer (the least played class) im taking advantage of game mechanics if I use a rune set which no doubt is strong but if left out I could get amazing defensive benefits (contemplating Lyssa for example). I never abused the perplexity runes so the nerf didn’t affect my gameplay. Yes the runes might make me kill baddies faster with an extra confusion proc but the simple fact is that good players will not get interrupted easily and better players will kill me.

Also if you find kiting, blinds, blocks and conditions gimmicky gameplay then I don’t know what to say thats what I need to do to win i can’t just spam my autoattack and stand in front of you. THis thread is the same as if I argued that necros are lame to fight against because a condi necro can just transfer all conditions with the press of 1 button or a power necro can just shroud and spam autoattack for hard damage while I keep switching between 3 kits and ground target nades. The classes are different and play different and it breaks monotony. I personally enjoy good hard duels despite the profession or build I’m fighting against.

I don’t think using perplexity runes makes a player worse and I don’t think they make me worse. I play pretty much exactly the same way in spvp with runes of the undead and my results are the same. Like I said I dont like fighting condi necros because i’m at an inherent disadvantage but I still try because well.. have to learn some tricks to fighting them and if i roam I fight what comes up against me. All in all I feel that people still complaining about perplexity have just not managed to play around it and still complain about them when there are clearly bigger balance issues. I also feel that many assume that engineers use perplexity because they got some confusion on them when in fact engineers have kit/weapon skills to apply it which is exactly the reason I don’t feel tied down to the perplexity runes and can swap runes at my liking.

Really Qaelyn? Mesmer was my first character and I still play from time to time but the buffs mesmers got and this heal are just promoting dull play as it stands now. As much fun as I had and still can have with the blackwater build, the skillfloor is low and the way it encourages passive play is just bad for pvp imo. For some this heal skill just adds to the passive play or gives an easy phantasm burst. Overall I might take out my mesmer again and enjoy this while it lasts.

Recap: I play a mesmer myself and they did not need some of these buffs and the heal just promotes the already cheesy builds. I fyi I am speaking mostly from a roaming and casual solotourney point of view. All you have to do is step into pvp and you can already see how there are even more mesmers than usual and there is a reason for that.

I feel my engineer is very strong at the moment. As in my build might be countered by some things but I feel like i’m on the same playing field and can do well if i play well.

Since there is some good advice given here i’d like to take the chance to ask for some as well without starting a new thread. In the past 2 days i’ve suddenly ran into warriors that i’ve had a lot of trouble with. I dueled with one for an hour or so and managed to beat him when I had supply crate up but without that no luck. Also when he equipped runes of lyssa and longbow i just got demolished ( which i accept do to the runes).

Anyway there are lots of warriors who I don’t seem to have problems with but then come these Greatsword warriors and they are so mobile and the damage so high that i never really get the chance to load my conditions up on them and with all their leaps I can’t kite them either. I admit I usually play really in the enemies face so it might be that I just don’t have the correct playstyle down against them but it seems that I always get caught and have to blow my elixir S and rocket boots then the warrior is on me again dishing out crazy damage.

So any tips in general on how to fight good warriors and their various builds? I now realized bomb kit might really turn these fights around for me?

Thiefs and mesmers are both strong in 1vs1. I have success killing both but sometimes i might kill a mesmer after a good fight but then get destroyed in seconds if i mess up the next one. Most roaming mesmers atm are running some form of heavy stealth/condition build in which they rely on their clones for dmg. Against those i play a very annoying style of engaging and disengaging with the use of elixir S and rocketboots. The clones are slow and away from you they won’t do much it kind of depends how well you can bait the mesmer. These mesmers always want to fight in circles so I just kite straight in some direction to take some power away from them. I don’t have much success going toe to toe.

Against phantasm mesmers i seem to do better unless they get the jump on me. I run a pistol/shield build with rabid/perplexity and med kit, grenade kit, elixir S and rocket boots pretty much always against all opponents. Against phantasms save your blocks and elixir S for their bursts and try to stay on them so you can keep condi pressure on them. Again i use rocket boots to get out of harms way and to heal etc.

Thiefs i don’t know much about. Some hit really hard but most seem to fall fast as well.. try to anticipate where they are moving as they stealth and you can hit them with nades and get condis up on them. Pistol conditions supply crate when they pop up. Timing blocks is also important.

I actually managed a 1vs2 against a thief and mesmer today by getting a few condis on then using rocket boots and elixir S to kite away, then i would suddenly turn around get some nades on them then rocket boot away, drop supply crate, try to get good blocks off. It went really well especially with them being kitteny and running after me which let me get free nade hits on the thief. But yeah in general good condition mesmers seem unbeatable and sometimes thief burst is just too much if you make a mistake.

My 2cents

I don’t mean to hijack this topic but I didn’t want to start my own either. Be warned this might be my random rambling and thoughts. Now I know there aren’t any set builds and players change skills depending on what fits their playstyle but I have weirdly found the best success with pistol/shield, grenade kit, elixir S and Rocket boots. So i run a basic condition build with Perplexity ( nerf doesn’t really affect me or my playstyle I never concentrated on getting confusion on) but the thing is I am having a terrible time trying to play any other build/skills.

Not really much of a question here but I am so addicted to rocket boots I simply can’t roam or play without it. I then had a little trouble finishing players in a 1 vs x so I replaced bombkit with elixir S and started doing much better. I don’t really have any problems with other classes except mesmers which I know just kite to oblivion but I’m worried that i’m missing out on some more potential by using only 1 kit. Just wondering if anybody has thoughts on this? Apparently my playstyle is pretty “in your face” because people seem to be getting hit by most of my nades

Sorry for the rambling I was just interested in some tips and opinions from more experienced engineers!