Guild Wars 2

this is mine

EG 2/4 does a large amount of dmg and add some condi clean, a stunbreaker and a gtfo jump backwards. I like it. Another thing is, you can add a bunch of condis in no time (yey underrated weakness) and profit from modified ammunition.

on the con-side: you lose a hard hitting toolbelt skill.

so with 25 might and a few conditions covering your burn even a 30k Hp warrior will melt in seconds.

This is so ridiculously shortsightened and OP, and you call it ‘balanced easily’.
Not to mention it pushes the current Meta even further.

I couldnt believe that youre serious with that.

Jabberwock.9014:

When playing longbow and axe/shield war in pvp, killing eles is like killing sparkflies… it really is obscene how fast they melt. Whenever I see an ele I feel inexplicably happy and immediately focus fire them. If by some miracle they get away I feel cheated, since in my mind I’m the winner before even landing an attack. And this is me in tanky pvt armor with utterly ridiculous staying power (500+ heal per sec, shield block, endure pain, zerker stance, massive hp and armor) , still dishing out 7k eviscerates (that also happen to clear 3 conditions). I honestly get anxious when I try and play ele in pvp now, since I KNOW I have a giant target on my back. It’s night and day with focus fire playing ele vs anything else… everyone and their mom always nuke ele, and for good reason: ele can’t survive focus of ANY kind; be it direct damage or condition or both.

no class can survive heavy focus of any kind…. except thief.

imho OP has enabled the ‘new’ condition combat floaters and his condis are adding up.

nothing else.

Mercenary Higgins.1807:

yeap, 10 in water for the extra vul condi on signet use

Two reasons why I have the rabid and cav gear.

1.) increased precision-I did some testing and inorder to really keep the superior sigil of geomancy close to the cooldown, as well as to make sure I am using the 25 tree in arcana I needed about at 25 base crit chance, 50 with fury.. But once the sigil patch comes, and I can have two on swap sigils with separate cooldown procs I will definitely be going hydromancey or battle with doom, at which point I can drop my total the rabid, and I will go with a mix of Tough Condi Vitality or Tough Condi Healing

2.) I just geared up my engie, and I am all out of laurels :/.

geomancy doesnt need crit, and 25 arcana is one of the worst, if not the worst gm minors in the game. with 50% crit you got a whooping 5% chance to applie a short dot. its laughable. one firegrab crit with 10k instead of 5k makes a difference

I have a similar condi-build 10/0/30/0/30 with Fire V, or 20/0/30/0/20 with fire V,III and yes its fun, no one excepts a condi ele why 10 water? to cover your other conditions?

Two things may be useful for you:

- going with earthshield conjure needs practice, but once you get into it, the fun begins.
- going full carrion with a few dires would add much more to your build, since most of your attacks profit from power, and you’ve no conditions on crit traits. have you tried that?

1&2: using knights with a 20/0/20/0/30 in dungeons and even in WvW, it works well. Most players don’t expect the hard DS crits this build serves…

5. every time I use a healing-centric build/equip i’m disspointed regardless of profession. Imho its wasted and you get not anywhere near back from healpower as you invested.

highly telegraphed isn’t justifing oneshots, its kind of an ignorant statement… if you’re out of dodges, you die. And if you don’t notice that you are targeted….

Comparing that to meteor (walk out of the red circle) is a joke.
Even comparing a glassy warrior to a glassy ele or thief is ridiculous.

TLDR: oneshots shouldn’t be possible.

Fall.8475:

Phineas Poe.3018:

Fall.8475:

My Highly Classified Build’s stats seem better.

Pass. I’ll take 200 Power, +10% bomb damage, and vulnerability stacking over 20% critical damage and 10% extra damage with full endurance. Especially since critical damage is about to get nerfed. Vulnerability is a party-wide damage gain, and 10/30/0/0/30 does an absolutely terrible job of maintaining it. It’s easily the number one thing we contribute best in groups at the moment, and you’re not building around it.

I think I have some similar stuff you listed above.

17 stacks of Vulnerability
5 stacks of Confusion
10% more crit if 600
10% damage if full
10% damage if not full

Here is an update stats matching your build. (Updated weapon from Exotic to Ascended. No Boons)

Effective Power 8276.18
Effective Health (EHP) 16265
Damage Reduction 7.27%
Reference Armor 1836
Critical Chance 63.48%
Damage % 61.78%
Critical Damage 118%

hell, what do you want with posting your numbers? its simply a fact that a x/30/x/x/30 build doesn’t contribute to your group like 30/30/x/x/x
I love my SD Build, but its rather selfish.

Fall.8475:

Also I think using bombs requires close range. In zerk gear will require lots of dodging.

with forceful explosives you can bomb outside melee range.

honestly, these few changes will change nothing.

• PvE Zerker cornerstacking need zerk warrior guardian remains the same
• Condi meta remains the same
• conditions are still beyond useless in pve
• existing bugs remain AGAIN (I doesn’t even take in account how much new bugs will be added with your ’adjustments)

Maybe its me, but gw2 balance feels more and more out of control. And it gets even worser…

Fall.8475:

blutstein.2468:

Adamantium.3682:

Fall.8475:

My Highly Classified Build’s stats seem better:

random b***

If by “highly classified build” you mean you’re not going to tell us, what is the point of this post? A neener-neener? I-know-something-you-don’t-know?

Great topic, PP. Keep up the good work. I enjoy reading your thoughts on the Engineer, helps me add things to my own builds or use certain parts of yours the way I want to.

easy to tell how the ‘highly classified’ build looks like if you take a look at his stats: 10/30/0/0/30 with SD probably.

But its still a complete mystery whats he purposed with his bland post…

Because there were players keep asking my build in-game. I though I should leaks “some” information after 1.5 years. Would it be better if I continue to keep silence, posting nothing at all and left everyone continue living in an engineer trial and error illusion? Guess no one likes puzzles.

Also complete disclosure of the information would give me more liabilities then benefits. Examples are: A-net Nerfs (They already nerf one of my skills) and PvP countermeasures.

No need for justifying your pretty standard build, sir. We already got you, you can go back on your wooden throne of engineering.

I just need my beloved rifle and my wrench.

MrSilver.5269:

You will be shocked at how funny the engineer is as compared to the warrior.

fixed that for the OP.

insanemaniac.2456:

consider …. straight rabid for pve

thats a joke, isn’t …it?

sry, forgot my silver platter to serve you a build.

there are about a million threads about a pve build.

Adamantium.3682:

Fall.8475:

My Highly Classified Build’s stats seem better:

random b***

If by “highly classified build” you mean you’re not going to tell us, what is the point of this post? A neener-neener? I-know-something-you-don’t-know?

Great topic, PP. Keep up the good work. I enjoy reading your thoughts on the Engineer, helps me add things to my own builds or use certain parts of yours the way I want to.

easy to tell how the ‘highly classified’ build looks like if you take a look at his stats: 10/30/0/0/30 with SD probably.

But its still a complete mystery whats he purposed with his bland post…

MrSilver.5269:

rogerwilko.6895:

And no, if you want a “rifle build” that uses rifle I guess you have to roll a warrior.

Yup.

The following is an old post and may be outdated but breaks it down:

I’ve been leveling up a warrior, and couldn’t help but notice the disparity between the warrior’s rifle skills, and the engineer’s rifle skills, finding that the warrior’s rifle base skills have baked-in elements that an engineer is required to trait for.

For example the warrior rifle #1 Skill has a base 1200 range, has a 100% chance to cause bleeding for 6 seconds, and has a 20% chance to be a projectile finisher. The engineer’s #3 skill has a 100% bleeding component, but it is most effective at 100 range. To get bleeding out of our #1 auto-attack skill we must spec into firearms, and even then there is only a 30% chance to inflict bleeding on crits. Moreover, we must trait into firearms to achieve the base 1200 range. The warrior has a similar trait that causes bleeding on crit, only there is a 33% chance to bleed. Yes it is only a 3% increase over the engineer, but every % does matter when factoring RNG.

So the warrior, with inherent advantages in both HP and Armor can inflict a condition on an auto attack from 1200 range with 100% certainty, and the engineer has only a 30% chance to inflict bleeding on auto-attack and must trait to get it to 1200 range, or alternatively be required to stand within 400 range of the target to add a bleed. Seems counter-intuitive to me considering the fact that the engineer has a smaller base health-pool, and armor.

Warrior’s #2 rifle skill has a 100% chance to add a cripple, versus engineer’s net shot, which is fantastic… when it lands. I don’t have any hard numbers, but I miss with net shot from 1,000 range as much if not more than I hit it. I would rather have a 100% chance to cripple, than a spotty chance to immobilize any day of the week.
Warrior rifle#3, 1200 range big damage shot v. engineer’s 100-400 range big damage shot. Which would you rather have?

Warrior #3 From 1200 range 100% chance to inflict vulnerability v. engineer that must trait to get a 50% chance to apply vulnerability on rifle crits, and the warrior also has this exact same trait.

Engineer #3 does have a great CC knockdown component (which I love)… that also cc’s us (which I don’t) v Warrior’s #5 that also has a knock-back on a 15 sec cool-down, that has no self-cc component. Which would you rather have?

Engineer’s number 5 has vulnerability but the animation delay makes it easy to avoid unless the target is cc’d.

Lastly the warrior has the dreaded 1500 range kill shot, which has an easily noticeable animation that makes it easy to avoid if noticed, but from 1500 range good luck noticing it. It is akin to a sniper’s “boom headshot”, and is one of the biggest QQ skills in the game.

As for the traits, either of the warrior’s top tiered traits (XI – adrenaline from crits for more killshots if you are doing wall defense or XII – 4 secs of quickness when target under 25%, w/ 90 second cool-down i.e., an execute when roving) in Arms have immediate application to the rifle, whereas neither of the engineer’s top tiered traits in firearms (where the other rifle traits are) have anything to do with improving your rifle (one applies to flamethrower, the other to pistols).

As for the engineer’s other rifle traits, as stated above you must trait to get 1200 range, an additional 10% damage, and a 20% reduction on rifle cool-downs (with no added bonus). The warrior also has to trait to get a 20% reduction in rifle cool-downs, but in so doing rifle shots pierce (just like the engineer’s). Moreover, warrior get a trait that increases bleed duration by 50% that results in a 10% damage increase to bleeding foes if you spec 25 points into arms. Your target will almost always be bleeding due to the 9 second traited bleed on your auto attack that is easily reapplied (i.e., from auto-attack).

What is also better about the ranged warrior is that for close quarter combat they can swap weapons which do incredible damage, and have amazing escapability, crowd control, damage, or defense without having to sacrifice a utility slot.

So here is the bottom line, if you are looking to play a ranged rifle profession in WvW, that can also stand toe to doe from mele range the warrior simply does it better than the engineeer in virtually every way.

…And mind you, there are only two professions that have access to rifle in this game.

If you want to use a rifle, which would you pick?

that’s easy: clearly the engineer!

with a rifle/bomb build I would go berserk=celestial>rampager>condi.

Cleric isn’t worth imho due to the bad healing power scaling.

Anymras.5729:

Explanation: Condition Duration/Damage, Boon Duration and Healing Power are the only things Turrets currently scale to, after all. Ignore the tooltips. They’ve been right less and less as they bug Turrets up more and more in their attempts to balance what isn’t working right to begin with.

the strange thing is that anet removed nearly all condition dmg from the turrets… Do we have to understand this?

Anymras.5729:

Berserker would not be a good choice; its stats do absolutely nothing for your Turrets.

not for the turrets themself but: they are contributing to your dmg. They are far to weak to contribute to their dmg.

I prefer berserk/celestial, even with turrets. But the only 2 really fun spec i found (for me) with turrets is 20/0/30/20 Turret SD or 30/0/30/10/0… With both specs I use turrets more for the additional utility (cripple, firefield) than for their dmg.

rogerwilko.6895:

Rifle is a control wep, for DPS you will need to use Kits (bomb kit / grenade kit / go conditions).

2 out of 5 skills are control skills, one of them with nice dmg. I would consider the rifle as a Power DPS weapon (and this is why in every powerbuild nearly all rifle skills are weaved in the rotation)

you could run a Static-Discharge build

not as strong as grenades/bombs but really fun and with EG nice group support. The burst is handy in many fights. i used this build for openPvE, dungeons and fractals up to 30.

With Modified Ammunitions and a few stacks might you see these sweet 17k jumpshots coupled with 4k AA Hipshotscrits (and with fury you are sitting around 85% critchance)

yes, you are squishy, but its also a good level and starter-build for fresh 80 imho. In OpenWorld you burst everything down before it even attacks. With Knockbacks (2 of them), Netshot and Cripple/acid bomb you have a lot of control. I burst even veterans down without one attack against me.

I’m running Zerker/Cavalier with either 20/0/30/0/20 pr 20/0/20/0/30.

the question is for what gamemode you wanna use the ugly little beasts, PvE/WvW or S/TPvP….

Pls never go soldier or apothecary in PvE (maybe some world events but thats it…)

Always modified ammunitions. In every situation.

Your build is fine with —> some trait adjustments

I didn’t change your equip, it depends on you: if you plan to mainly use bombkit I would go with Zerker/Assassin and Forceful Explosives. I go with rampagers coupled with celestial/zerker gear when goin mainly ranged with grenades.

Modified Ammunitions is a must for PvE. A very strong GM trait (and synergises well with sitting duck)…

Kanto.1659:

Ichishi.9613:

Wait, engineers actually do damage?
Good (piano keyboard player) engi barely outdamages thief auto with occasional skills.
That is why I went for support engi.
If anything, engi needs a drastic damage increase (don’t forget grenades were already nerfed by 30%)

The same thief that dies if the boss sneezes on him? I kinda wave my hand at all these claims, from warriors proud of their 100b DPA to super duper thieves who can ‘autoattack with occasional skills’. On paper and in anecdotes these are great. Without a DPS meter that is all we get, paper math and anecdotes. Paper math does not include that dodge that just robbed two seconds of DPS, or that melee that had to stop to go hide and heal up. Let us not even go into downed people.

Don’t forget, these crazy min-maxers never die. They are simply too experienced.

Ryn.6459:

Archaeopteryx.7409:

want to switch to a high-burst class with default survivability and takes knowledge to use effectively.
Any suggestions?

Mesmer is a good alternative, but they don’t have burst.

Shatter Burst is one of the craziest bursts ingame…

Nemesis.8593:

Mirsa.1628:

I never understood why people want to spend more time in a dungeon for the same reward.

The reward is usually as meaningful as the struggle/journey to obtain that reward… Ever heard the saying “the harder the battle, the sweeter the victory” ?

If you put it like that… why would you even want to spend any time in a dungeon, just have a starting vendor with all best gear in the game…

exactly this. And even then the people would complain.

to clarify: I have no problems skipping a group of trash here and there, but skipping 90% of the dungeon doesn’t seem right to me.

J Eberle.9312:

blutstein.2468:

J Eberle.9312:

For the love of kitten! Hurry up and force me to play how you want them to!

fixed that for you.

That made no sense. Much like killing every mob in a dungeon.

yes, why even kill the bosses, just give us the reward for looking at them! At least ascended stuff, pls, because its so difficult to skip the trash to look at the boss!

To be honest, you are the perfect player for the reached bottom of mmo design.

Iris Ng.9845:

But, but random Elite Risen and Spiders aren’t exactly fun. That’s why they are to be skipped ;D.

and the bosses are exactly the fun you need?

limbeurt.9642:

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

I agree. If they want to make people clear Arah instead of skip it, they should make the mobs in Arah more profitable. As soon as those mobs drop better loot, doing Arah also becomes more fun. Kind of like how mobs in Underworld dropped ectos, and mobs in FoW dropped Obsidian Shards back in GW1.

A good example is the second set of stairs in CoE, it can be skipped but it usually isnt because the mobs there give decent loot and more importantly have a reasonable amount of hp.

The “major design flaw” isnt the skipping, its the boringly unrewarding damage sponges constantly thrown at us.

the design flaw definitifly is the skipping. Unrewarding, this is another kind of ‘modern’ mmo behaviour, thanks to WoW. Hell, sometimes i miss the good ol’ times, where rewards were a matter of months.
Now everyone needs rewards just for logging in. Such a shame.

J Eberle.9312:

For the love of kitten! Hurry up and force me to play how you want them to!

fixed that for you.

you don’t understand it yet. Runes of altruism work like intended on every profession if they activate their ‘button 6’ heal with the delicate distinction that we have our medkit.

So you activate your medkit and get the might from the runes even without using your toolbelt healing skill. The game doesn’t count a F1-skill as a healing skill.

btw its way better the way it is, than on F1.

tl;dr

make turrets scale with us and crit > issues fixed > turrets viable.

its one of the worst mechanics I ever encountered in a mmo, and I play them since Everquest 1.

Anet, you designed plenty of paths in various dungeons and I enjoy the most of them, but for what if you allow players to skip 80% of them, from boss to boss.

Its a major design flaw imho and I couldn’t believe thats the way you want them to be played.

Maybe some paths have to be adjusted in terms of length or mob density, but its not that difficult, isn’kitten

JonPeters.5630:

There is some merit here. This skill had such a high risk/reward tradeoff that we knew it was possible that it had a chance to become too strong or not strong enough. I do think it is closer than you all think and I would be wary of increasing it. I think the key question is going to be where do you increase, which is a better discussion. Does it need a better baseline? Does it need a better reward heal? Longer buff duration? Faster cast time? Lower cooldown? Or maybe just gadgets need some good traits to empower it more?

Hopefully that helps direct this discussion a bit. Let’s keep this thread to this particular heal. If you have concerns about the effectiveness (in either direction) of other heals either start an individual thread for those that you are concerned about, or start a general thread but keep in mind that you will have to work hard to keep a general heal balance thread focused and productive.

Jon

I think the following is ok:

• base heal
• reward heal

it could need:

• longer buff duration (2-3 sec)
• higher threshold (~5-10%)

it definitly needs:

• instant or nearly instant activation. For such a high risk/reward, it should be nearly uninteruptable.
• gadget traits to make it more attraktive to use gadgets over TK Trait, adrenalin implant or speedy kits.

spoj.9672:

blutstein.2468:

finally, its disgusting reading all the wannabe-elitists comments in this thread mostly from people who follow mindless the ‘meta-super-elitist-guide with 1% mo dmg than others’ after another while being way to closeminded to adjust according their own playstyle. Yey, Lemming-Power and the people are proud of it, congratulation!

Of course the PvE Part of GW2 is soooo difficult that min-max is a absolutly must-have…. maybe fractals >40, but for every other part of PvE its simply ridiculous.

I think your signature sums up this post quite nicely.

so you don’t like cats?

finally, its disgusting reading all the wannabe-elitists comments in this thread mostly from people who follow mindless the ‘meta-super-elitist-guide with 1% mo dmg than others’ after another while being way to closeminded to adjust according their own playstyle. Yey, Lemming-Power and the people are proud of it, congratulation!

Of course the PvE Part of GW2 is soooo difficult that min-max is a absolutly must-have…. maybe fractals >40, but for every other part of PvE its simply ridiculous.

Siobhan.3582:

What Zaragoz said. I run a mostly solo roaming build for WvW (really all I do is wvw, but will small group and at time zerg it up)..

Jump all in on the condtions then. Get out of the power line completely.

I run 0/30/20/20/0 will all dire and rabid trinkets. I run perplexity runes also like you. My difference is I run off hand pistol for the most part. shield is great, don’t get me wrong, but I just like the burns on the pistol too much (just me, I understand min/max shield is better and do carry one).

The amount of dps you put out with the rune set and the conditions is just silly good. Get used to working in prybar with pistol 3 and the runes. Just melts folks.

thats a completely different playstyle, bombs are the prefered way of the OP, so

• carrion gear is not wasted, bombs scale extremly well with power.
• no need for pistol OH, the shield offers much more to a bomb build than dual pistols.
• condition renders protection useless, condi removal and -CD food or runes (to be honest, this is the only counter to the current meta and there are more people with this stuff up than toughness and protection) render conditions useless, whats the point here?
• Explosives XII is a decent trait but the CD is a bit to long for a master, so I agree with short fuse, much better if you bomb alot.

for me, the build looks very solid (and btw. its the ‘standard’ build for WvW.)

nice vid!

only thing worth mentioning regarding your playstyle is a bit to much backpedaling. You would be often safer if you would strafe instead.

btw running the same utilities myself but power based, using 20/30/0/0/20, lot of fun!

so how about looking yourself at your traits, utilities and skills, look what you definitifly need and build around it. Because we dont know whats your goal with the build, we don’t know your preferences, your playstyle etc.

Its faster & easier than you think instead of waiting that someone serves you a build on a silver platter.

teg.1340:

OMG I ever read ‘on crit’ but its ‘on hit’ for Shrapnel. That makes Shrapnel really useful.

I’m still undecided about Sigil of Earth. It’s on a 2s internal cooldown. What happens if it procs on a grenade which hits 5 enemies. Does all 5 enemies get the bleed proc or just one?

just one.

this is NOT a lockdown build. 2 Weaponsets that daze doesn’t make a lockdown build. you did’nt choose any of the ld-traits, so you neither punish your opponent nor you get benefits for an interrupt/daze.

But looks like a viable phantasm variant.

Cares Less.9631:

Zen.4678:

No idea about that, but I run Doom/Torment once I have a full set of stacks on my hybrid condi build. I just think it’s extra pressure with my ~50% crit chance.

This.

not.

AFAIK its fixed and on-swap and on-crit shares the cd. I test it once i’m online.

tested this build in a few fractals and its fun!

During the runs i adjusted:
- Harmonious mantras to confounding suggestions for the better heal synergy
- GS Training to halting strike

Running Sw/Sw Sc/P, healmantra, dazemantra, blink and a situational utility. Tons of dazes, nice dmg, and the most important factor: its fun!

On top of that i slotted 6 mesmer runes.

I have to admit i fell in love with dom XII

its great for my SD build. finally 4 damaging toolbelt skills at low cd!

but still need some time to get used to.

i thought it works on my warden yesterday… but not sure.

yeah wanna try it if its still bugged. But it works for warden and warlock, the setup i run atm. On top of that blade training and Duelists is kind of meh to with IC because the cd Reduction for the illusions don’t stack.

running 10/15/0/25/20 atm. works fine

like i said, nothing personal, i use an interrupt build too.

Nothing wrong with your build, i’m simply tired of this 20/20/30 setup. The last 5 new builds i load the builder and hey, again a ‘new’ 20/20/30 setup.

I know it works fine, so again: nothing personal its only my feeling about it.

@Noss: you sir are clearly the winner.

oh look another 20/20/30 build with a new name. its been the 10th?

Nothing personal, so sorry, don’t want to read any further. I’m somehow tired of this setup.

basically to prevent that an ele could escape every fight they don’t want. no big deal for most players that don’t jump on every bandwagon they come across.

WhiteAndMilky.2514:

Aridia.3042:

WhiteAndMilky.2514:

*snipped junk

What is the point here?

You sure talk a lot someone who doesn’t even get what the point is.

Let me spell it out for you. You should never be able to 1 shot someone with full HP with any skill. Because there’s zero counter play.

And no, don’t bother to bring up backstab. That’s broken too. Two wrongs don’t make a right.

The only people it one shots are those in full zerk armor, with full zerk traits. That’s going to be a glass cannon ele, and a thief. That is also commonly with stacks of vuln on you.

There are counters to it. Let me help you.
1. The insanely obvious animation
2. The skill tracks you, should be obvious when you’re the one being targeted.
3. Immobilizes warrior, can’t move while channeling killshot.
4. Decent duration channel time.
5. Bullet has flight time

Tools at your disposal:
1. Dodge roll, easiest one. You have 2 dodges at start, and 1 dodge per 10 seconds BASE. You can dodge most killshots just with your BASE dodge rolls.
2. Running vigor, endurance regen traits, sigils of energy and stamina.
3. Evade skills… no point in describing this.
4. Block skills, unless the warrior is running signet of might, you can block killshots.
5. Interrupts, interrupt him……
6. Blinds, can’t shoot someone if you’re blind.
7. Invuln skills. Can’t be killshotted if invuln.
8. Weakness, weakness is amazing now, a weakened killshot warrior does MUCH less damage.
9. Teleport/Leap skills. Not only to get out of range, but if these are used at the right moment, they will cause the killshot to over-compensate it’s trajectory, and it will simply miss because it went flying off in another direction.

If you need more help than that, I can teach you how to read a rifle warriors build, and counter him through his build.

that are some really really progamer tips, glad we have you, otherwise i wouldn’t know how to reach lvl 10.

the grass is always greener on the other side.

isn’t it kind of a pointless thread until we definitifly know what/how will be changed?

its funny to see the armageddon-scenarios some people coming up here with numbers and percents based on speculation.