Guild Wars 2

Why not 20 tools for the utility/crit Dmg and the 33% reduction on cripple chill immob?

Mines to remove boons and a lower cool down knock back. Some find them useful.

Going with EG is a solid choice.

I recommend taking a look into going pistol/shield for 2 sigils, a blast finisher, block, reflect/knockback, and blind. More utility there. Taking toolkit instead of bomb kit will let you supplement your FT damage by throwing your wrench (while staying in FT); combo with FT4 will also apply additional burn. Moving 10 from explosives to firearms will open up 5% damage to bleeding targets and let you take modified ammo for a damage boost. The % modifiers will do more than the 100 power. Or instead of modified ammo, you could look into the swiftness on crit trait to help your mobility. Combining that with invigorating speed will give you many extra dodges. Lastly, maybe look into taking mines instead of the flame turret.

All that should help you with closing range/dealing with annoying ranged fighters.

Seras.5702:

I think that’s where the confusion comes from. Most people swap to FT for its utility and #2 spike and then back to the kit/weapon they use for sustained damage or continue thru a rotation. You’re suggesting spending time in FT just to stack might, then swap out of it. IF might stacks are your primary use for Jugg/FT, I think there are better ways to stack might and still maintain effective autoattack damage than using FT.

This is true for me. Once I gave up juggernaut my performance improved.

That single trait is very frustrating in its current form. I really wish it incorporated the elixir gun to have more synergy with deadly mixture. Then I think juggernaut would be quite nice for might stacking on top of the battle sigil. It’d also really help the FT in direct damage b/c a swap to EG for condi stacking wouldn’t cost all your might and you get a further boost with modified ammo. Plus, FT 4> EG4 on top of all that would be very nice. That alone would really help towards bringing FT/EG builds on par with the standard ’nade/bomb builds.

I just posted this build in another thread, but here it is again, b/c I appreciate the FT.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vcQQJAqelUUpdrlcxWLseViMqQnFqgECqQdJ6R+1YW2nC0FA-z0yAYuASiAJCAZP0EIR0YlsIasqaAFDm2Mp6zI7TY0qJFwTTAA-w

I’ve been playing a very personalized build lately that does use flamethrower, toolkit, and elixir gun. It is loads of fun in wvw, has good utility, and has some good cc. Fair warning though, it looks very weird when compared to meta builds and requires nearly constant kit switching for 1 or 2 abilities. I pretty much never autoattack unless I want to spam weakness on something or am flaming down siege.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vcQQJAqelUUpdrlcxWLseViMqQnFqgECqQdJ6R+1YW2nC0FA-z0yAYuASiAJCAZP0EIR0YlsIasqaAFDm2Mp6zI7TY0qJFwTTAA-w

I have played it with mines instead of toolkit for the boon removal (stability is very annoying), but I just like TK better. YMMV

Thanks for the feedback. I’ll look into some of the changes. Pretty sure that on crit and on swap sigils don’t share icd tho. As for the rest I agree it doesn’t look conventional, but for whatever reason it works out with my play style. It certainly isn’t a min-max build.

I like a rocket boots, toolkit, grenade build for solo and 1-2 person roaming. I also really like maximizing the effects of hitting 1 button, so I run with medkit, enhanced performance, sigil of battle, and runes of altruism. Additionally, taking speedy kits and invigorating speed gives swiftness and vigor. In a fight, it is pretty common to get 15+ stacks of might before any teammate applies might.

Swap to medkit will do the following for me:
1. 3, 6, or 9 stacks of might depending on the various cooldowns.
2. Fury (can be perma between altruism and using ‘5’ on cooldown).
3. Swiftness (permanent)
4. Vigor (50% uptime)
5. Altruism procs will give nearby teammates 3 might and fury.
6. It is also possible to buy the food that removes a condition on heal – works OK, but too defensive for me.

Here’s the build I use (it is somewhat hybrid, prybar and grenade barrage to a fair amount of damage)

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQJAqel0p6dH5SiF17IyIFdmoJSR+ZZfe8Ws1DC-j0CBINgoOAUFAkIg5RFRjtIsIasqaAaGYaTJVlKy+ELqWKAYmDA-w

Medkit + altruism runes + enhance performance + sigil of battle. I’d take leg mods and poultry lemongrass soup for anti-immob and anti-cripple. Just my .02.

You can also look into kit refinement on medkit.

Having both an engineer and elementalist, I find the engineer a little more complex depending on the build you choose to play. Self combos are a huge part of the play and condi removal can be tricky.

Picture the playstyle you really want to try and there are likely a few different builds that will be different but still accomplish the same thing. From your wishlist, it looks like you’ll want a hybrid style of build with more focus on power (PVE). Maybe look into what the bomb kit has to offer and pack a lot of blast finishers for the might stacks.

I like geomancy and corruption. If you don’t like getting the stacks for corruption, bursting is nice.

This is probably common knowledge already, but the on swap damage sigils like hydromancy and geomancy will proc if you switch kits in the middle of dodges. I like to take advantage of that when I can.

ukuni.8745:

who wants to join me in making a build that resembles the old dd ele as closely as possible, you need to stack alotta might, great mobility, great healing and as best an engi can get with Condi removal since we can’t exactly get close to an eles amount of Condi removal.

you will also need to mimic typical dd ele combos, this isn’t going to be an easy build to accomplish, but I have faith we can accomplish it.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcQQJAqelIqae37ynF1LJx4DcO0D7bY1K+g+/UQuA-jkyAYuASiAJCAZxioxWBLiGrqGQxgpPjseNp+EGtaZAKmAA-w

Closest I can come up with. Slick shoes for the stunbreak and to mimic earth 4 on d/d ele. P/S to give a blast finisher and to mimic mist form/static aura. RB for rtl-esque play. Bomb kit for the pbaoe. HT for condi clear and regen. Elixir bombs to mimic healing signet. Sigil of accuracy for more crit percentage as we’re working without fury. Sigil of battle for the might stacks. Sigil of hydromancy would work really nicely too w/ the bomb kit.

EDIT: Played this for an hour during my lunch break. Was roaming in duo with a guardian and the build was really a lot better than I thought that it would be. I’ll be sticking with it for a while. Slick shoes are hilarious and can be devastating.

I run both ele and engineer roaming in wvw. I pretty much never use AR on the engi, and while I’m 30 points into earth magic on my ele, I don’t use diamond skin. For what it is worth, I feel that there are better traits in the master/adept tier.

The argument about losing healing power to get diamond skin doesn’t seem fully thought out to me. Until an ele has about 2900 armor, I’d always take more toughness over more healing power. It is a heal for more versus make your current healing more effective tradeoff. In other words, reduce damage by X% from all direct damage sources versus increase healing by maybe 50 hp/sec from one source.

A more logical argument would be giving up the vitality or boon duration for diamond skin. A well thought out build will compensate with armor choices however.

You can try something more like this:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJAoYhEmabyx4wjDAjHi0xIiCPUekzM2A-jEDBofAYjgkIAEBgJfFRjtMMsVXRr8KIqaAKbYqXLq2auIa1SBExEA-w

I run healing signet instead of ether renew, but that is just personal preference. Less damage, but a lot more survivability. The loss of group condi removal is offset by frequent group stability.

johnpoc.8732:

Wenrolio.8063:

Had some fun fights earlier today while roaming on my engineer (red and white). Notably the EA d/d ele that fought to stalemate at west camp and the RI warrior and guardian at se camp. Too bad you guys had some more add on me. I wanted to stay and fight. See ya around.

I’m the EA ele, had to go on the middle of they fight though it looked like it would never end lol. See you around on the field!

I thought you just figured we would be there forever and decided to go. It was a fun fight though. See ya around!

Fun fights in nsp bl this morning to the Os roaming group I ran into on my engineer. Those staff ele fields. Yeesh.

Had some fun fights earlier today while roaming on my engineer (red and white). Notably the EA d/d ele that fought to stalemate at west camp and the RI warrior and guardian at se camp. Too bad you guys had some more add on me. I wanted to stay and fight. See ya around.

Anet use tricky word problems. Everyone hates math word problems.

I still wish there was a trait or built in cripple to the 1-4 bomb skills with quick application. Something like locust swarm by way of a magnetic gadget would be cool.

Roaming and messing with necro builds in 3 hours (12 PM EST start). DH or FC can message me if you want fights. I’ll be the brown and green asura with the dry bones hood. Otherwise I’ll be taking whatever camps I can find in FC or DH BL.

PS. I’ll fight but I won’t make promises about being any good.

Looking at the PVP build direct damage, scepter+dagger/staff will never beat diamond skin. The healing signet alone will 100% negate the auto-attack chain on scepter (assuming no crits). The signet heal does 220-350-ish healing per cast.

The only real counter a rabid necro has is to change the staff or offhand weapon to something that offers more direct damage as well as changing runes/sigils and mixing a rabid amulet with a different jewel, thus not being a pure rabid build anymore. The trait layout will work I think, but it needs to give up condi pressure for more direct damage (obvious), while not becoming too hybridized.

Why reaper’s precision with only 22% crit chance? Seems like weakening shroud would add a bit more attrition.

Currently using 3 mantras. I don’t think they need to change and making them recharge out of combat wouldn’t save anything. In order to not break the skills/balance the passive recharge time would need to equal the time needed to have the skill come off CD anyways. I like not having to rely on passive charge generation.

If this is similar to other profession’s passives, at max healing power and three illusions the heal might end up somewhere between 350-450 hp/sec. The base heal with no healing power and 3 illusions might look something like 200-250 hp/sec.

It would make some sense to curb cheese builds by having a flat % reduction on effectiveness based on whether or not your character is in stealth. But even out of stealth, a staff Mesmer with decent boon uptime will have a very high protection and regen uptime plus this heal to bunker with. That’d look like a d/d ele with signet heals, less condition removal, and less direct healing from skills like cleansing wave and evasive arcana in water.

Good fights for the past hour in NSP bl. Had to get back to work.

-Your friendly blue engineer.

I’m running all kinds of builds constantly. The most successful for me is below:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQJAqel0pqbH5SiF17ICoC1noH5nl5YfewWpFEC-j0yAYuAShAJCAZP0EIR0YzoIasqaAFDm2Mpq0I7TY0qlC4pJAA-w

Really though, a lot of my solo roaming ends up with me being outnumbered and running for my life.

Short fuse to adept tier would be a nice tradeoff for IP going to master.

Exploding turrets for knockback AND boon removal would be nice. Stability kills that trait in wvw. We have the mine or acidic elixirs for boon removal but they are a bit weak.

I am missing everything! Haven’t been able to be online during guild wvw much at all.

I have had fun roaming around FA and EB BL during EST 7-8 AM and 12-1 PM. Some good fights have been had. Most of which I lose, but who cares? If you see a lone blue or orange/gray MEND asuran engineer running around say hi before trying to kill me.

As for all the MEND v. CORE stuff. Haven’t been there to see it. Most likely both groups are running around with more than a handful of unaffiliated rez batteries.

I’ll party it up and 1v1 anyone for fun if you whisper me when I am on (assuming it isn’t between 8:30-11 PM).

Health pool on an ele maxes out slightly over 24000. To get to that, an ele would have to be 30 in water with sentinel’s gear. A x/x/30/30/x ele isn’t going to kill you anytime soon. More realistic ele hp is 18000, maybe around 20,000 in wvw with the fortitude buffs. A very slight build modification to add some power to get the direct damage above 1,800-2000 in a short burst isn’t going to hurt. Going pure condi damage has always seemed like a bad idea b/c of cleanses en masse when facing organized opponents.

ZaCeze.9416:

This was what happened to me last night, sadly.

This gif is awesome.
I pretty much had the same experiences yesterday, but it was a lot of fun seeing the various ways I could be run over as well as how long I could cheat death.

Had a fun lunch break today in SBI and YB BLs. Got my butt kicked thoroughly, often outnumbered, but still had a good time. Definitely was a good environment to try out new builds.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcQQJAqelIqqb37SrF17IRIFF++gUU37K6h+tcjB-jUCBofBkiAkwAI7pIaslOhtAaIaabYqYER1WzFRrWKgKWAA-w

There are other more survivable builds though. A zerg with retaliation will kill you in just a few auto-attacks. You can play with the gear to get more tanky or more damage. Don’t do multi-kit unless you are planning on getting very used to fast swaps to drop key skills before switching back to FT. You can also play with the major traits for more damage or survivability.

Lately, I run a 30/10/0/20/10 build with dual pistols, med kit, elixir gun, tool kit, and grenade kit. I use apothecary armor, shamans guns, an ascended soldiers neck piece, rabid rings, shamans accessories, and the sclerite karka shell backpiece with 6/6 altruism runes and coral jewels. The sigils I use are condition damage on kill and steal life on weapon swap.

I switch between that build and a 10/0/30/20/10 build switching out the grenades for bomb kit.

Rabid builds tend to go all rabid and use an on crit sigil and an on kill sigil. Depending on what you want to do.

What’s your build and utilities?

Same, 15/16 earned. Kinda sucks we can’t get the last one.

Best use of the healing turret is to double tap to drop/overcharge immediately and pick it up immediately. Blasting is ok if you are in trouble but gives a longer heal cd. The point is to not leave it out so it can’t get blown up.

Had fun solo roaming this morning in GoM bl. Sadly had to go to work so I couldn’t continue. Good fights to the few of you that I ran into.

New content.

We have abysmal attendance when there are new pve things to do. But I don’t think that accounts for such low presence alone.

Regardless it lets us roam and do stupid things while not having to pay for repairs. I had good times in ET bl last night with a few others. HoD bl too during our guild wvw time. Lots of Os last night. We even got to tangle with some IOM. Good fights to all.

@ Runamok

I hear you. I also don’t speak for Mend. Just my experiences. A mix is definitely great. We only really do organized guild wvw during a few hour window EST. Outside of that we roam, flip camps, run with any other random group, etc.

Having been in an unorganized group with a couple of PAXA before it is a lot easier to understand where they are coming from.

Some of us (mend) will definitely open field with you guys; however that really isn’t a core focus of our guild. We tend to pick a place, cap what we can, and then try to hold on to them as long as possible.

Last night I missed ETBL completely and logged on while we were homeland defense. After Flappy logged those of us still online ran into IOM by the sentry at the south camp. It is fair to say they were far more organized and compact than our group. Has IOM made open field a priority over all else? That is, do you cap then mostly go out and try to catch the other guys in transit instead of bunkering in?

Anyway, I’ll keep an eye out for you. I’m also asuran and have been using my mesmer last night and this morning.

Also I really like the fight I had with an nsp thief outside of redlake this morning. And the xoxo mesmer duo around hod garrison this morning. You guys are tough and I had to switch builds to try and compete.

I think those issues are on all servers Varconi. It seems that it is a matter of proportions. ET has been great from what I have seen this matchup. We ran into a very coordinated IOM (I think that was the tag) group last night that really knew their stuff. Would love to meet up with them again.

NSP as usual has been fun to fight as well. Both servers will really offer a lot for my non-peak roaming/learning adventures.

Runamok.9638:

Wenrolio.8063:

Runamok.9638:

katz.8376:

sioux.1653:

I sometimes get the impression that ET is seriously broken and has issues that are completely incurable at this point outside ANET having a “special transfer weekend” where it opens up 50 free transfers to the bottom server.

-Plains@HoD

Can you expand on this thought? What part do you consider broken on ET?

i am also curious.

ET has spent several months meeting with a highly unqualified psychotic therapist who has determined the source of all problems are…daddy issues. See ET was abandoned by its daddy while on a WvW bidness trip to T1 many months ago. ET’s daddy found a toothless Asian stripper named FlabbybobSparklesKisses that entranced him into thinking BungholeGate would bring him WvW cyborzsexy good times for eternity. How would anyone ever recover from such madness? Thanks for caring.

-One Angry Motha

Are you saying that Mend transferring servers caused ET’s current problems? Move on bro.

Not at all but I needed to find some way to include your fearful leaders name into this mornings troll. Fish on!! See that post of mine was in no way serious but somehow you found a way to make it so. You mad?

-One Angry Motha

Nope. Troll on. Have fun this week too.

Runamok.9638:

katz.8376:

sioux.1653:

I sometimes get the impression that ET is seriously broken and has issues that are completely incurable at this point outside ANET having a “special transfer weekend” where it opens up 50 free transfers to the bottom server.

-Plains@HoD

Can you expand on this thought? What part do you consider broken on ET?

i am also curious.

ET has spent several months meeting with a highly unqualified psychotic therapist who has determined the source of all problems are…daddy issues. See ET was abandoned by its daddy while on a WvW bidness trip to T1 many months ago. ET’s daddy found a toothless Asian stripper named FlabbybobSparklesKisses that entranced him into thinking BungholeGate would bring him WvW cyborzsexy good times for eternity. How would anyone ever recover from such madness? Thanks for caring.

-One Angry Motha

Are you saying that Mend transferring servers caused ET’s current problems? Move on bro.

Right now my top three are:

1. Shattered Conditions
2. Empowering Mantras
3. Halting Strike

I run 10/30/0/30/0, primarily in wvw. I switch traits around often to either focus on mantras/daze/interrupts or phantasms. Utilities vary, but most often, mantras of recovery, distraction, and concentration along with blink and mass invis. Full zerkers gear and ruby orbs. Great at dishing out the pain, and very fun to try to keep alive.

I also find that the trait layout is extremely flexible with weapon/armor swaps.

Oozo.7856:

Nothing wrong with some double power necro action. :P

Nice movie.

I don’t always play my necro. But when I do, I play power necro.

Npac.3476:

So, funniest thing happened to me today. Was out soloing around near Bay today and cut down what appeared to be a newly 80 thief…as well as 2 or 3 other players (also new…or just straight zerk). As soon as the battle ended (and to my intense surprise) said thief decided to invite me to join his party…where he promptly told me he had “reported me for hacking” and that I should “enjoy my ban”.

Translation: You hit me while I was stealthed. You can’t do that. Game mechanics are kitten

another note; was fun pairing up and roaming earlier today.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQFAUlIqqbnpSyF17IyIFdGpF6hEaf33HFsFdB-jEyAYMAKCQasIasthioxqmBUNYK1FV7EY0qlBQfBA-w

Sit near the back, throw wrench and surprise shot whenever they are up. Blast your water fields, double tap the healing turret to overcharge on drop, blow it up, drop and blow up your rifle turret, use EG #4 to blast and move you back away from the front line → 3 blast finishers and a water field every 20 seconds on top of your own 6k self heal from turret drop and overcharge and the turret explosion knockback on the baddies. If anyone gets close to you, rifle #3, #4, #2, and move somewhere else. If you need to duck into a tower or run through something nasty; gear shield.

This is just my suggestion for WvW. Direct damage and direct heals generally work better.

Just finished up an awesome lunch hour fight in NSP bl. Had a good 2v4ish in the north camp then an awesome cluster fight for Greenlake. Shame I had to get back to work though.

Hope to finish out the day strong and have a great reset tonight.

FWIW, here is what I was running around with last night with great success. I was grouped with a guardian that took care of condition removal, otherwise, the EG and the healing turret are solid choices for utility slots. Medkit condi removal is something that you really need to plan for, drop antidote early and often so it’s available to run over when you need it.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQFAUl0pyXnpSyF17IyoHkWnJageAY+1I+pAbB-jUyA4LAKCQ2bIqZxM2GKiGriBTfuoa1Lg3gRrWGA9FA-w

I typically sit back and auto-attack while looking for an opening on someone to burst, then it’s get close, shoot everything, and hope they are dead while I run back under cover of gear shield. The burst is super nice when using all of the rifle skills and SD, but the auto-attack supported by SD is what I used most when we were facing larger numbers. Also, using positioning and magnet pull is clutch.

Like I said though, this is just what worked well for me. It’ll take some time in WvW with a build to get used to it and fine tune everything to what works with how you want to play.

As for the two pieces of cleric’s gear – they were left over and I’m working on replacing them with soldiers.

Fun fights over lunch break in HoD and FC bl. Back to work for me though.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcQQFAUl0pCYnpSyF17IyoHk2E2ZgeYX+1I+pAbB-jEyA4LAKCQ2rIasthioxqew0lLqW9C4NY0qlBQfBA-w

I run PVT with ruby jewels on my elementalist, necromancer, and engineer in wvw. Since the gear is defensive, I pick more offensive traits.

This is not a get in the middle of everything and tank build. It is a balance of damage and survivability. I usually roam in smaller groups where bringing a bit more damage can make the difference in a fight, but at the same time, it is necessary to survive long enough to apply it.

I find for soloing things, condition damage and full tank builds are far better.