Guild Wars 2

sorrychief.2563:

You don’t need to dodge DT. . . you can walk away from the blast radius. But it always puts a smile on my face when someone does waste a dodge on DT because I keep tabs on how many their endurance unless they have energy sigil.

Walking away from the blast radius is still a win in my book if you’re fighting a melee class. Dodging makes it even better though, as you said.

Fanta.8049:

honovi.7893:

You can’t just walk in and expect them to change something because you don’t like it. I think most scepter skills are fine anyways.

Try to use dragons tooth when you’re foe is knocked down. Gale-> dragons tooth or updraft->dragons tooth. Use water 2 on top of yourself when a thief is in stealth. Use air 3 to instantly blind heavy hitting skills (evisc, killshot, signet of spite, etc..).

Fire 1 does suck though…

Sorry but if Fire 1 good enough ,we dont need Fresh Air
Dragon tooth on knockdown foe ,yeah ,sure, why not ,but our knock down is high cd ,and when u miss it , u must way about 40~50s for another “maybe” success hit .
Water 2 is slow and small Dps ,does thief need to avoid it ?

“Fire 1 does suck though” – me. Wait hang on. Where did i say it was good enough?

Dragons tooth has more than just that use. You can force melee classes off of you with it. You can cast it over downed people. You can force people off point with it. You can generally control a fight with it. I don’t see how it is a bad skill. Fighting isnt all about DEEPS DEEPS DEEPS. You have have to think and be able to control your opponents movements… Just because a skill doesn’t hit, it doesn’t mean it was useless.

As for water two… yeah its pretty awful. It needs a buff. But you might as well make use of what little use it has.

You can’t just walk in and expect them to change something because you don’t like it. I think most scepter skills are fine anyways.

Try to use dragons tooth when you’re foe is knocked down. Gale→ dragons tooth or updraft→dragons tooth. Use water 2 on top of yourself when a thief is in stealth. Use air 3 to instantly blind heavy hitting skills (evisc, killshot, signet of spite, etc..).

Fire 1 does suck though…

Tsume.3490:

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

I have seen hit hit 16k, because it has on me. This was when i had just over 1,600Toughness and 18k health….

It DOES happen. Most of the time its in the 6-12k range, but it DOES hit that 16k depending on the build.

Yep, happened to me too. Same health same Thoughness. 16k Crit. I didn’t even stand a chance. I damaged thief and nearly killed him, but he stealth and crit again the very same moment.

Elementalist is FORCED using 30 water and 30 arcana.

If you werent using 30 in water and arcana you might have killed him. Offense is the best defense.

Anirri.4156:

Honestly those who cry about thief being OP need to play one in PVE. PVE thiefs are more kill able then an ELE. i play both both are 80. i DON’T pvp or WvW i DO PVE and raid. And honestly i have an easier time on my ele then thief. they hit the thief’s HP pool and defense. and now they hit the crit rate. I do agree that ele needs a total rework but they also need to find ways to fix classes in pvp and WvW without destroying them in PvE

That’s a little beside the point… We are talking pvp here. Any class can pve semi-effectively besides maybe ranger…

honovi.7893:

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

McFribble.2349:

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

BlackBeard.2873:

Actually, thieves need major nerfs, while eles only need minor buffs.

All they need is a 30-40second cool down on Backstab. The skill hits for WAY to much for it not to have a cool down, well i guess the 4 second delay on being able to use stealth again is a minor cool down. But for a skill that can hit up to 16k+ It needs to be at least 30-40seconds.

A skill that requires the player to be positioned behind his target, within stealth, and needs to be traited to assure a crit, is hardly in need of a ridiculously long cool down, let alone 30-40 (more than some heavy duty utility skills in this game). I know everyone has been on the thief hate train since this games release, but lets not “fix” something by breaking it. Actively nerfing a skill into uselessness is NOT how one fixes a game, no matter how much YOU dislike it.

Like stealth is hard to get, they can perma stealth with ease in most builds. So that means nothing. Oh so hard to get behind someone when they dont know you are there because you have perma stealthed up to them…Oh wait.

They are on the “hate train” because it has SO many broken mechanics that mean that its an easy class to play:

Stealth: Broken
Burst damage: Broken
Initiative: Broken. Plus a failed experiment by Anet.

Perma Stealth: Broken
Perma Evade: Broken.

when you spend like 90% of your time in stealth. It says a lot
when you spend most of the fighting spamming evades/dodges. It says a lot.

Have you ever even played a thief? They do not “get perma stealth easily”. They do not spend 90% of their time in stealth. By nature, for them to backstab you, would require them to get the revealed buff, causing them to go out of stealth for at least four seconds… If they were to spend 90% of their time in stealth, they would need to backstab you once every 40 seconds to ensure that they spend 36 (36/40 = 90%) seconds in stealth because stealth is necesary to backstab.

So now you “spam dodges”… I’ll give you a hint: you don’t ever spam dodges. You’re wasting them if you do. When a thief goes in stealth, you cast aoes on top of yourself, keep moving directions so it’s hard for him to hit your back, blind him before he goes into stealth, go invuln, cantrip away, give yourself protection, activate frost armor, plus many more options.

As to the person that says he got crit for 16k… do you have any evidence? The burden of proof is on you. I find it very hard to believe that you got hit for 16k with 1.6k toughness, even if the thief was running the 15% dmg signet + all glass.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

McFribble.2349:

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

BlackBeard.2873:

Actually, thieves need major nerfs, while eles only need minor buffs.

All they need is a 30-40second cool down on Backstab. The skill hits for WAY to much for it not to have a cool down, well i guess the 4 second delay on being able to use stealth again is a minor cool down. But for a skill that can hit up to 16k+ It needs to be at least 30-40seconds.

A skill that requires the player to be positioned behind his target, within stealth, and needs to be traited to assure a crit, is hardly in need of a ridiculously long cool down, let alone 30-40 (more than some heavy duty utility skills in this game). I know everyone has been on the thief hate train since this games release, but lets not “fix” something by breaking it. Actively nerfing a skill into uselessness is NOT how one fixes a game, no matter how much YOU dislike it.

Like stealth is hard to get, they can perma stealth with ease in most builds. So that means nothing. Oh so hard to get behind someone when they dont know you are there because you have perma stealthed up to them…Oh wait.

They are on the “hate train” because it has SO many broken mechanics that mean that its an easy class to play:

Stealth: Broken
Burst damage: Broken
Initiative: Broken. Plus a failed experiment by Anet.

Perma Stealth: Broken
Perma Evade: Broken.

when you spend like 90% of your time in stealth. It says a lot
when you spend most of the fighting spamming evades/dodges. It says a lot.

Have you ever even played a thief? They do not “get perma stealth easily”. They do not spend 90% of their time in stealth. By nature, for them to backstab you, would require them to get the revealed buff, causing them to go out of stealth for at least four seconds… If they were to spend 90% of their time in stealth, they would need to backstab you once every 40 seconds to ensure that they spend 36 seconds in stealth because stealth is necesary to backstab.

So now you “spam dodges”… I’ll give you a hint: you don’t ever spam dodges. You’re wasting them if you do. When a thief goes in stealth, you cast aoes on top of yourself, keep moving directions so it’s hard for him to hit your back, blind him before he goes into stealth, go invuln, cantrip away, give yourself protection, activate frost armor, plus many more options.

As to the person that says he got crit for 16k… do you have any evidence? The burden of proof is on you. I find it very hard to believe that you got hit for 16k with 1.6k toughness, even if the thief was running the 15% dmg signet + all glass.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

BlackBeard.2873:

Actually, thieves need major nerfs, while eles only need minor buffs.

All they need is a 30-40second cool down on Backstab. The skill hits for WAY to much for it not to have a cool down, well i guess the 4 second delay on being able to use stealth again is a minor cool down. But for a skill that can hit up to 16k+ It needs to be at least 30-40seconds.

When have you seen it hit up to 16k+ on a level 80? I used to run ALL GLASS (full zerker 20/30/10/10) and the most i think i ever got backstabbed for was 12k. I’ve only seen backstabs that high on uplevels. Even then, i’ve firegrabbed uplevels for 20k+ so its not really a huge feat to hit that hard.

I dont disagree that thieves can be frustrating to fight but there is so much misinformation on this forum.

a t s e.9614:

Can anybody link me a good D/D bunk build ? I’ve been been practicing all day , it’s not that bad but the dmg only comes from 3-4 skills … I need a good build that is able to proc fury or something to use Valkyrie amulet instead of PVT.

Too lazy for armor and all that jazz but this is the basic. I changed traits and sigils. Sigil of battle is IMPORTANT if u want damage with a valk set.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vEAQJAoIGAIPc5EWEFeo8InZsB-TIADRmFA

Stogzlol.4795:

BlackBeard.2873:

Actually, thieves need major nerfs, while eles only need minor buffs.

This is a pretty good point itself. lol

Thieves don’t need major nerfs… They are pretty much in the middle of the pack (a little above maybe) when it comes to tpvp.

Romgaard.1965:

ShadowNinja.1238:

Cause Healing Signet and ultra high stats. With full zerk u can get 3k armour 20k hp tell me thats not op.

U really need to get out more.
healing signet makes us “OP”?…really…guess the regeneration boon also makes people “OP” then.

Full zerker does not give u 3K armor….just saying
BTW…warrior stats has not changed since day 1 of this game…why is it a big deal now?

Getting out more sure has a lot to do with gw2!

LightningBlaze.4913:

honovi.7893:

LightningBlaze.4913:

Mbelch.9028:

I have not much to add here. I can’t tell if I’m biased or not…

D/D is my weapon set of choice, as everybody knows. The weapon set isn’t as well rounded as some may think. This buff will be a good one, and I think every ele should b happy for the change.

My opinion is every attune should have defensive and offensive skills. Until now, I hardly could have said burning speed was defensive. I’m sorry but too many classes can easily catch us in combat, and burning speed puts you into combat more often than not; your fire tail is unfortunate.

I can say now fire will have a defensive skill, and water will have a new use offensively and defensively with its blast finisher.

There’s no doubt that these are good buffs, but why do people keep calling them overpowered? They aren’t even here yet. The evade frame isn’t going to be that long, and it will protect you more when attacking, just so you can land your attack for once. Yes, I’ve figured out how to land BS on more than one good opponent, but it hits infrequently enough that a buff was merited.

I’ll also say.. This skill just looks like it should have an evade on it. That it didn’t baffled me. When I was learning the class, I thought it did.

So yes, perhaps I’m a little biased, which is why you can take my opinion with a grain of salt, but I just don’t think eles as a whole should ever complain about the paradigm shift from nerfing to some buffs.

We are supposed to work together, and it’s unfortunate to see some of my favorite eles on the forum bickering.

Nex sorry i missed your posts in all this bickering like you said. Just like I told ozi, even if we are biased, there is nothing wrong with that in a game. It is perfectly understandable that dagger users feel glad to get this buff and I’m glad ele are getting buffed overall instead of more nerf. I just would prefer the buffs to start with traits/utilities and specially to the weapon skills that are weak instead of improving the ones that are already stable/powerful.

Is scepter really all that weak though? Most eles see in tpvp use s/d or s/f. The fresh air burst build seems to have been, and remained, the “go-to” ele build for pvp. I prefer s/d or s/f myself but that’s just anecdotal.

I think the real problem with the elementalist is traitlines/utilities. The only eles i see are ones that run all cantrips or run arcane burst gimmick builds.

Honovi, i have been using scepter with 30 points in air waaaaaay before fresh air was even introduced. The majority of this Ele forum community didn’t even know back then that Ele can actually massive burst without being glass cannon and I was called troll for stating this fact in here. With that said I perfectly know scepter is not weak but some of its skills need adjustments like shatterstone, dragon tooth and even air 3 (blinding something.. I’m bad with names) that only offers blind. Ele god mode d/d build was nerf really hard in spvp because of its stage of abusement by the majority of Ele players. Now you see s/d because if you can’t bunker as well as before in spvp/tpvp might as well go for the other role of being a damage, burst dealer. S/d provides that with the great defense to keep yourself at range or go in and out like a boxing match.

So how is scepter or focus not a strong weapon set if so many people are choosing it over d/d? Now, keep in mind i have no real stats to back this up, but most dueling arenas i go into with eles have:
A. Fresh air s/f or s/d burst ele.
B. high pressure cantrip d/f ele.

I’m just not seeing why you think scepter and focus are so weak. Do they have skills that suck? absolutely. But they also have a few AMAZING skills that beat similar skills from other professions by a longshot.

And yes, i’ve been playing this game since release. I know the history of eles and how much qq there was about scepter being bad. It doesn’t matter if you were the first person that thought scepter was good 6 months ago or the last. Right now, i believe scepter mainhand is a better option than dagger though. But once again, that’s just me.

Any other eles think that scepter is now a BETTER option than dagger? I know these weaponsets excel at two completely different things but bunker ele is just sad now. We get ripped apart in seconds.

LightningBlaze.4913:

Mbelch.9028:

I have not much to add here. I can’t tell if I’m biased or not…

D/D is my weapon set of choice, as everybody knows. The weapon set isn’t as well rounded as some may think. This buff will be a good one, and I think every ele should b happy for the change.

My opinion is every attune should have defensive and offensive skills. Until now, I hardly could have said burning speed was defensive. I’m sorry but too many classes can easily catch us in combat, and burning speed puts you into combat more often than not; your fire tail is unfortunate.

I can say now fire will have a defensive skill, and water will have a new use offensively and defensively with its blast finisher.

There’s no doubt that these are good buffs, but why do people keep calling them overpowered? They aren’t even here yet. The evade frame isn’t going to be that long, and it will protect you more when attacking, just so you can land your attack for once. Yes, I’ve figured out how to land BS on more than one good opponent, but it hits infrequently enough that a buff was merited.

I’ll also say.. This skill just looks like it should have an evade on it. That it didn’t baffled me. When I was learning the class, I thought it did.

So yes, perhaps I’m a little biased, which is why you can take my opinion with a grain of salt, but I just don’t think eles as a whole should ever complain about the paradigm shift from nerfing to some buffs.

We are supposed to work together, and it’s unfortunate to see some of my favorite eles on the forum bickering.

Nex sorry i missed your posts in all this bickering like you said. Just like I told ozi, even if we are biased, there is nothing wrong with that in a game. It is perfectly understandable that dagger users feel glad to get this buff and I’m glad ele are getting buffed overall instead of more nerf. I just would prefer the buffs to start with traits/utilities and specially to the weapon skills that are weak instead of improving the ones that are already stable/powerful.

Is scepter really all that weak though? Most eles see in tpvp use s/d or s/f. The fresh air burst build seems to have been, and remained, the “go-to” ele build for pvp. I prefer s/d or s/f myself but that’s just anecdotal.

I think the real problem with the elementalist is traitlines/utilities. The only eles i see are ones that run all cantrips or run arcane burst gimmick builds.

Shinoobi.1259:

It won’t be too strong. It’ll be good; it’ll be better. It won’t all-of-a-sudden excel d/d eles to top tier.

Exactly this. It’s not gonna be some huge game changer. It’s just one skill, and the other buffs are rather minor.

LightningBlaze.4913:

honovi.7893:

LightningBlaze.4913:

Those telegraph skills are a lot easier to land on higher scale battles.

This. You just said 1v1’s aren’t important at all and then said that burning speed is too easy to telegraph. In a 5v5, you most likely won’t see it coming unless you are watching the ele carefully, in which case other professions will be just as likely to burst you with a telegraph-able skill.

I’m kinda “meh” about this buff. I would be much happier if they took away evasion on this skill AND the warrior GS 3 skill. Skills that allow you to deal massive damage and run away from your opponent SHOULD be able to be interrupted.

I said 1v1 is not important at all? Was I drunk? You sure it wasn’t ozi? I gotta read that post again when I get a chance.

I’m talking to Sinn. I simply quoted you because you made the point before i did, but i wanted to elaborate on it.

LightningBlaze.4913:

Those telegraph skills are a lot easier to land on higher scale battles.

This. You just said 1v1’s aren’t important at all and then said that burning speed is too easy to telegraph. In a 5v5, you most likely won’t see it coming unless you are watching the ele carefully, in which case other professions will be just as likely to burst you with a telegraph-able skill.

I’m kinda “meh” about this buff. I would be much happier if they took away evasion on this skill AND the warrior GS 3 skill. Skills that allow you to deal massive damage and run away from your opponent SHOULD be able to be interrupted.

Warrior chasing you?

Step 1. Cast dragon tooth.
Step 2. Keep running for 1s.
Step 3. 180 into AOE ring.
Step 4. Numbers.

I would be very sad if they nerfed the damage on dragons tooth. There are many very easy skills to land as an ele. We already have a wide array of instant damage skills… (air attune, scepter 2, scepter 3, arcane skills, lighting flash, magnetic wave, etc…)

Maiden England.3491:

Ok hear me out bros and girls.
When an engineer wants to use a bursty build, we generally choose 30/30 in the first 2 traitlines. for grenadier and modified ammunition.
That being said, the Critical damage line is all the way down in tools.
So an engineer has to either give up grenade kit (Best kit that scales with power) or give up modified ammunition just to be able to get more crit damage out of the tools tree.

I honestly wouldnt be complaining about this if it were the same for other classes, but its not. Guardian, Warrior, Thief, and Elementalist (the only classes I play other then engi) all have crit damage in the same traitlines used to make bursty builds. Seriously, I’ve yet to see a serious build that goes 30 into tools. Im not sure if this has been mentioned before, but it is a serious drawback to engineers using any kind of bursty power builds.

30 in the second traitline isn’t too good IMO. You’d be better of wit a toolkit/nade burst build. Something like 30/0/0/20/20 toolkit, nade kit, rocket boots (or slick shoes). Watch five guage use this build and 100-0 people if they dont have their stunbreaks left.

Hey guys welcome to Dr. Honovi! Today, we have a very important questions from a valuable member of the mesmer forums!

Q: I play mesmer and i quadruple shatter people for 10k in .01 sec. How is 100,000k damage/s not viable?
A: Because game mechanics don’t allow you to shatter people every .01 second.

Thanks for watching folks. Come back next time for another Q & A session with Dr. Honovi!

Best regards,

Dr. Honovi

Sir Vincent III.1286:

honovi.7893:

Venoms are viable when used in tpvp the RIGHT way. Just share them with your teammates. With the way immob stacking works, i dont see how venoms are in need of a buff at all. I used to use venoms in solo q when they were first buffed and it was tons of fun giving people 15s of immobilization or 15 stacks of torment because i shared them with my team at the start of the match.

How is that “fun” if you’re on the receiving end?

I never said it wasn’t fun. I completely agree that immob stacking is a bad mechanic because classes without “cleanse all condition” skills or a lot of condi cleanse get screwed, but reworking venoms because they are not viable is wrong.

Lifeson.4352:

honovi.7893:

Sons.5493:

Suggestions:
Signet of Agility removes ALL conditions on you.
Fleet of Foot: Moved to Grandmaster tier and removes 1 condition on dodge (hard to catch moves to master since it’s a poorly designed trait)
Shadow return: With the next update nerfing the hell out of this would be nice if it could remove TWO conditions instead of 1.

TLDR: Our condition removal is pathetic and so is our sustain and this need some HUGE Buffs.

IMO thief condition removal is fine. You have sword 2, shadowstep, lyssa runes, and the stealth heal skill if you choose to pick it. The options for even more condi removal are there, but you choose not to pick them.

Signet of agility would be broken if it removed all conditions.

I do think the shadow return nerf is a bit much though…. but that doesn’t change the fact that thieves still have ample condi removal. This skill is a whole different story though so i wont get into it. I just believe thieves need instant shadow return in spvp only.

So if you want to play a p/p or d/p thief that doesnt abuse stealth, or a SB thief, and you really like withdraw or SoM you’re basicly forced to use a runeset and an elite to get okay condi removal every 45 sec. That doesn’t seem right. There should be some better condi removal in another traitline, something active that removes damaging conditions.

Oh, and with the permastealth removal, can you make it so d/p thiefs benefit from the 1 second extra stealth trait. Please?

Welcome to the club. Try getting good condi removal on engi without elexir. Try getting good condi removal on warr without cleansing ire. Try getting good condi removal on guard without going into defensive trees. Try getting good condi removal on ranger without empathetic bond. Try getting good condi removal on Mes without having to spec into a useless tree or filling up your toolbar. etc…

Every class has to make sacrifices for condi removal. I dont see why thieves should be any different. You guys have plenty of clears to start with.

Susulemon.3204:

“Swiftness is valuable for escaping and has a MUCH longer duration than the other boons. Additionally, there are far easier ways to gain protection as an engi that have longer durations and happen when you need them.”

It’s not much longer, regeneration is at 13 seconds as well, same goes for retaliation and fury, if anything only might is the longest one.

There are also easier way to get swiftness too on a engineer then to rely on randomness.

So I guess it comes down to if your build have access to this and that. For people that run builds where swiftness only comes from elixirs, then for them swiftness seems valuable. For people that get swiftness elsewhere, of course they’d hate getting swiftness again if they don’t need it.

But I still think the major swiftness for HGH engineers come from the actual Elixir B anyway. Removing swiftness from H and Toss B shouldn’t make or break the HGH engineer, they ain’t that worthless

The main reason op wanted swiftness removed was for protection. Protection duration is very short on elexir H, so the long swiftness duration offsets the short protection duration. The same goes for regeneration.

Additionally, fury and might are not available on elexir H. I was only comparing the duration (and indirectly opportunity cost) of the seperate boons from elexir h.

“So I guess it comes down to if your build have access to this and that. For people that run builds where swiftness only comes from elixirs, then for them swiftness seems valuable. For people that get swiftness elsewhere, of course they’d hate getting swiftness again if they don’t need it.”

I cannot think of any build that isnt HGH that would benefit more from elexir H than healing turret.

Sons.5493:

Suggestions:
Signet of Agility removes ALL conditions on you.
Fleet of Foot: Moved to Grandmaster tier and removes 1 condition on dodge (hard to catch moves to master since it’s a poorly designed trait)
Shadow return: With the next update nerfing the hell out of this would be nice if it could remove TWO conditions instead of 1.

TLDR: Our condition removal is pathetic and so is our sustain and this need some HUGE Buffs.

IMO thief condition removal is fine. You have sword 2, shadowstep, lyssa runes, and the stealth heal skill if you choose to pick it. The options for even more condi removal are there, but you choose not to pick them.

Signet of agility would be broken if it removed all conditions.

I do think the shadow return nerf is a bit much though…. but that doesn’t change the fact that thieves still have ample condi removal. This skill is a whole different story though so i wont get into it. I just believe thieves need instant shadow return in spvp only.

Venoms are viable when used in tpvp the RIGHT way. Just share them with your teammates. With the way immob stacking works, i dont see how venoms are in need of a buff at all. I used to use venoms in solo q when they were first buffed and it was tons of fun giving people 15s of immobilization or 15 stacks of torment because i shared them with my team at the start of the match.

Susulemon.3204:

“Replace Swiftness with Aegis and I’m happy.”

I think Aegis is a bit OP though, considering the cool downs on these skills being either 20, 25, 30 or less if you go into tools, it’s a very low cool down to obtain the Aegis boon that 30 points in alchemy will already be providing.

I truly think the problem is swiftness has no value in the context of when these skills are used; if it’s there to offset the high value of other boons, then I’d suggest to reduce them a bit and rid of swiftness.

Swiftness is valuable for escaping and has a MUCH longer duration than the other boons. Additionally, there are far easier ways to gain protection as an engi that have longer durations and happen when you need them.

9. Keep up pressure while he is soft cc’d. If the warrior is chilled or cripled, you can just strafe backwards and he wont be able to catch you.

10. Remember to use deathsroud 5 as you get into it UNLESS you need instant fear. The torment from the 5 skill adds up and will really hurt a warrior who relies.

11. Use your fear when you are cc’d. Fear is almost like a stunbreak for necros. The moment i get a big stun/kd/ whatever, if i know the enemy does not have stability, i quickly hit f1 and then 3 to fear the enemy. The fear is instant and can be used when disabled.

The takeaways of this are:

1. dodge his big skills.
2. keep up pressure when he is cc’d.
3. Use heavy hitting skills when he is hard cc’d.

Good luck. I generally have no problem with warriors 1v1. The only annoying thing is warriors who run GS because they cam just run away, but pvp is based around nodes so…. sux 4 them i guess.

If you have any questions about the build you can pm me or request that i post it but the general tactics for fighitng warr’s remain the same for everyone.

Depends on the build but the regular hambow is easy IMO. Here are the basics of what i look for when fighting warriors (i run a terror build with corrupt boon, signet of spite, and plague signet, s/d staff, flesh wurm).

1. Look for his obvious hammer animations. If he is spinning, dodge. If he has his hammer held up for a longish time, dodge. When he jumps in the air, dodge.

2. Save at least one dodge for when he pops zerker’s stance. DO NOT attack him while he has this skill activated. Do. not. attack. him. at all. Just run.

3. Wait until he pops his 8s stability and use corrupt boon when he does. The hardest part of fighting a warr is if they use zerker’s stance AND stability at the same time. If they do this, you’re gonna be in some trouble, and you HAVE to dodge his big hammer skills.

4. Learn to freecast behind you. You can set the camera to “free” and then cast marks/ scepter 2 behind you. This allows you to use soft cc while evading his attacks because he will either be too slow or lack stability (due to traits, you can look into this on your own).

5. Try to know the animation of his arrow 5 skill. This is very hard to get down but since i run s/d/ plague signet/ and staff. I have 3 ways to transfer conditions. It’s a bad idea to use it on me to start with for him.

6. USE SOFT CC. Hambow warriors have little mobility and if they take the 25% speed trait, they will lack stability. Remember to freecast behind you.

7. Count dodges. If they dodge twice in a short period of time, know that your heavy hitters (corrupt boon, signet of spite,) are free game.

8. Use your heavy hitting skills WHILE the warrior is feared. Once you see that he has no stability, fear him with deathshroud or staff 5 and try using signet of spite, corrupt boon, or deathshroud 2.

Draehl.2681:

Why is Anet so reluctant on the Necro buffs?

There isnt really a “go-to” build for engineers these days. Many different engis have their own completely unique builds, but to start, you can look up:

Five gauges/chaith’s build
Teldos bomb build
30/0/0/30/10 p/s condi bunker.
30/10/0/30/0 HGH
Any static discharge build

the list goes on and on… enig is one of those classes with A LOT of viable builds.

Hype.8032:

Yeah sorry to say dude, but this is a player side problem, not balance. The chill grenade is OP against thieves.

This. When you feel like the thief is about to stab you, toss a chill grenade or a blind grenade behind you. Additionally, you can spam regular grenades behind you to pressure him. If you hit freeze grenade or blind grenade, the thief shouldnt be able to backstab you unless he decides to steal.

I disagree. Swiftness is usually only used in HGH builds which generally do not run swiftness on kit. The extra swiftness is needed so that HGH engis do not become even more sluggish.

Slim.3024:

I guess mini is not pressing his heal skill better then?

People keep claiming the 400 HP/s the warrior’s healing skill offers is too strong to overcome, though when two warriors die to one or whatever and they all use the same passive healing signet, one can’t just argue that the player made the difference, without having to realize that the healing signet is not the problem.

People claiming the nuclear bomb is too strong to overcome, though when two countries die to one or whatever and they all use the same nuclear bomb, one cant just argue that the leader made the difference, without having to realize that the nuclear bomb is not the problem.

ADD NUKES TO GW2!!!1 IT’LL BE JUST LIKE COD XD!

mini.6018:

honovi.7893:

Here is the main issue: You’re in an 8v8. A very zerg-heavy game mode that revolves around ganks. In 8v8, healing signet is less useful because fights take less time due to the fact that more players = more damage. Try running healing signet off-point or in a tournament. This is where it shines because it is very hard to take down without constant poison application.

I killed 2 warriors in 2v1 just now,one mace/gs and another hambow just now on a point in a 5v5 hotjoin.Fight lasted 30-40 seconds.Both ranks 30+ .Is my HS more op than their HS ?

OMG guys!!!! I had a revelation!!!! Some players are better than others!!!! Who would have thought >.<. Any more questions?

Confirmation bias, anecdotal evidence, and no proof may have played a role in this…

I got a good chuckle out of this thread ^O^. Spvp isnt balanced around 1v1’s. Fighting a necro on-point is hell for most classes.

Here is the main issue: You’re in an 8v8. A very zerg-heavy game mode that revolves around ganks. In 8v8, healing signet is less useful because fights take less time due to the fact that more players = more damage. Try running healing signet off-point or in a tournament. This is where it shines because it is very hard to take down without constant poison application.

JinDaVikk.7291:

In terms of spvp (not hotjoin!) SD engi isnt viable. Condition engineer is.

Every condition engineer should have:
above 1k condi damage
incind powder trait
perma vigor/swift
healing turret

Now for generally useful information I’ll give ya help with each kit…

Grenades are for ranged damage. Very strong (obviously grenidier trait)
Flamethrower is for having more burn proc. Has nice cc + blind.
Elixir gun is for team support + weakness. Not for pressure.
Bomb kit is pressure/utility. Strong but not the only pressure kit, (you need another kit)
Toolkit is defensive/for the pull) Not for pressure

Remeber playing engi with 2+ kits takes a higher skill level than a normal build. Don’t get discouraged!

Every condi engineer does not need healing turret. Elexir H is very viable in HGH builds.

Grenades are generally used in close proximity to the enemy UNLESS you are free-casting on a node. Using grenades as purely a ranged weapon is just dumb seeing as how they are most effective when right next to the enemy where they cannot be juked.

Also i would still consider SD variants viable. For example, Tool kit Nade kit PBR is a very good build for hotjoins. A properly executed combo at the right time will allow you to 100-0 them in a cc lock. However, Pure SD is not really effective because one of the vital roles of most engineers is to be able to free-cast on a node when the opportunity arises.

Turophile.4028:

My general tactic is to keep the bleed up high with nades and kite them with bombs. I got a pistol for the confusion and poison since the autoattack is horrrid and usually use the shield for extra survivability unless I’m going HGH (which I’m decent with).

The problem i see here is that you’re using your skill for all the wrong reasons. Nade’s are not really meant to stack bleeds. Instead, they are used to CC you’re enemy and kite them (you can look behind yourself while throwing if you enable free camera", blind your enemy, proc incendiary powder, proc a few bleeds, and give a little burst of power dmg (even if you are condi-spec).

The pistol 3 skill also does more than just give confusion… the blind is the most important aspect of it. Use it on hammer warriors/ Bas venom thieves… etc…

Finally, remember that attacking is better than doing nothing at all. You’re not going to hit someone at 1000 range reliably with nades, so just auto attack them.

Good luck.

Nobody uses flamethrower for it’s 1 skill. Condi engineers use it for the short CD blast (3 skill) and the instandt blind (5 skil). Power engis will additionally use the 2 skill for quick burst damage. The 1 skill does not apply enough burning and does not do enough physical damage so no one really uses it. You don’t see many people uses it because these skills all happen very quickly so it’s hard to catch the actual flamethrower being out.

IMO perception is much better if you are stacking crit damage. It allows lighting whip to apply amazing pressure.

How do you guys not see this =.=

Baron NJS.5704:

honovi do you run enhanced performance as well?

with runes of noble (might on heal) EP and sigil of battle thats 9 stacks of might right out of the gate just by switching to medkit. I should easily be able to maintain 20-25 stacks i think.
i actually have not tried the build in wvw

You think it would be worth it to just take Powder and skip EP and just put those last ten points into defence?
i think i would lose a lot of killing power

No i do not run EP. Instead, i take grenade cd reduction. After the patch, it’s not worth going 30 into explosives just to get incendiary powder and EP. So even after the patch, your build should not change unless you really want it to be more offensive by going 30 in explosives.

During the patch however, you can keep your build the way it is if you truly want to mantain A LOT of might. Nonetheless, I find myself coming out of fights with 25 stacks of might, even though I dont run EP or runes of the noble.

In the end, it’s up to you. After the patch more than ever, though, i would recommend picking up elexir H for an HGH build because it heals more than med kit, it gives booons, it has the potential to remove boons, it buffs your team, it removes conditions, and it offers the same CD. The only advantage i see with medkit is the fury it provides.

Kryank.8069:

Thanks for the tips I’ll give it a try and let you know

Remember to use your crate to interrupt downed players. As someone else has already said, poison grenade also works wonders because of the -33% healing. Your two shield skills will also interrupt a res.

Chaith.8256:

Baron NJS.5704:

Mask ur not gonna put 20 into Explosives to get IP?

honovi- Medkit provides more might overall with noble runes/sigil of battle/enhanced performance
whats your build? can u link it

Mask misspoke. He meant that you’d take Expose Weakness and then IP over Enhanced Performance. You don’t need Enhanced Performance – just take Elixir H and proc HgH, you will notice a difference, but you should have no problem reaching the proper stacks. It’s overall better.. remember, you have no points in tools for a better heal recharge on Medkit, and yet you have all the Elixir Traits to buff up Elixir H. The might stacking is great, but not everything.

This is why i don’t take it as well. 30/10/0/30/0 works fine for me. The only reason i can see running kit is if you really want fury for a little more offense.

Try out an HGH grenade build. Grenades scale well with conditions as well as damage. The blind + freeze gernade also gives you a bit of extra defense.

You’re going to have to swap out med kit for elexir H if you want that extra might. With full might runes and sigil of battle, i can still top out at 25 stacks of might without enhanced performance and mantain 20+ stacks, though. I would just go deeper in a different trait line.

It hurts to read.

I will assure you that engis do not have double the base health of elementalists.

Can we get a definitive answer on whether these were nerfed or not? A previous thread says that the tooltip indicated that it does less damage, but some just insist the tooltip was bugged before. Does anyone (preferably a dev but i doubt it…) know whether it was actaully nerfed?

previous thread:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Stealth-nerf-to-arcane-blast-and-arcane-wave/first#post3039382

No definitive answer came out of this.

It’s not just me. Large bones are not showing up/able to be brought in the tp even though it says there are 1000+ available.

You can’t just compare lighting whip to another skill. Elementalists don’t just go around spamming lighting whip. They have to switch to other attunements which greatly reduces their damage output if they want to survive.