Guild Wars 2

I’m a little confused here. You regard Supply Crate as an “I win button” in 1 v 1’s, yet you say that only bad engineers use it. If it allows them to easily kill you and (presumably) take/keep a point, then it’s not exactly a bad use of the skill, is it? Sounds like it was used pretty effectively against you. So how is the player bad if they are so effective that you seem to have been driven to complain about it here?

With that said, even as a bad engineer, I typically won’t use up my Supply Crate on a 1 v 1 fight. I try to save it for a team fight or a 1 v 2 or 1 v 3 fight. But sometimes I spend a lot of a match just capping and holding points away from the main fights. In those cases, I often am just running into a ton of 1 v 1’s all game, usually a trickle of people who just respawned after dying in the main fights. If all I am seeing is 1 v 1s, then yeah, I’ll use Supply Crate in 1 v 1’s because it’d be a huge waste not to use it.

WhiteRose.6934:

lessthanjake.6049:

…

Your point however helps my own point further.

I agree, as I already stated, that skilled players can make engi truly shine due to their knowledge and abilities as a player, however average engi Rose can jump in and do almost as good rolling my face on the keys. I may not know the proper rotations (Spoiler: I don’t) but there’s not much anyone can do under the pressure that engi’s can dish out, whether they know what they’re doing or not. That makes the class have an extremely low skill floor.

There’s a reason so many people are running engi in spvp, and it’s not because it’s complicated. Players always will use what will bring them the easiest victory.

I think there’s an element of truth to that. The fact that there is essentially no cooldown on switching kits makes engineer more n00b-friendly than elementalist, where you can really mess yourself up by making the wrong attunement switch. With engineer, you do not really need to know some set rotation and, when stuff gets crazy, you are not really penalized for making a rash switch. So yeah, I tend to agree that engineer takes less thought to be competent at than elementalist does (case in point: I’m a bad player and am competent as an engineer and incompetent as an elementalist).

With that said, an engineer does take skill in a different way. Many of their attacks are unique and require more skill to pull off correctly than other professions’ attacks. Specifically, grenades and bombs are unique and require anticipation to use. Players who are new to the profession/game are unlikely to be skillful enough to be effective with those, which is a real problem since those are the two highest DPS kits. Even Flamethrower requires some skill/practice; Flame Blast is, by far, your best attack, but in order to get the most out of it, you have to time it really well so that you detonate it AFTER it has gone through the person, but not so far afterwards that it is out of range.

So here’s what I’d say. For a player with low technical skill at the game, engineers will be super bad. For someone with high technical skill, but low knowledge of the class, engineer can still be pretty good since you can just easily cycle through high-damage abilities (though, of course, you at least need enough knowledge to know what those abilities are). The latter is what you are objecting to. And I get that. But this game is meant to reward technical skill first and foremost, so I do not really have a problem with people who have that skill being able to be pretty good with a technically-difficult class they aren’t an expert in.

WhiteRose.6934:

coglin.1867:

Yes, experienced engineer tend to not camp in kits. So are you suggesting you are not constantly spamming weapons skills, heals, utilities, elites, and dodges, on every single profession in every fight?

What I’m suggesting is that in my experience some classes take more thought process to their ‘spam’ as opposed to others. I have an 80 of every class, and am extremely good at playing at the minimal skill level required for all of them.
In my mediocre experience I’ve found that engi is one of the classes that takes the least amount of thought in order to succeed, as I can just click though my kits..rinse and repeat..oh look I’m winning.

Every class has their own spam, engi just has more than others. It takes as much thought as hambow warrior in my opinion. Certainly not as complex as people like to preach.

I’m certainly not hugely knowledgable about the game, but that strikes me as a simplification. If all you are doing is cycling through each kit, using each kit’s respective highest damage skills, then yeah, it doesn’t take much thought. And you might even be able to be successful that way, because you simply have more high-damage abilities to use.

But there’s more to engineer kits than just the highest damage abilities. Each kit also has utility abilities, and by virtue of having so many kits, Engineers will typically have far more utility abilities at their disposal than other classes. The more options at ones disposal, the more thought needs to go into maximizing your effectiveness. So I think a good engineer likely needs to think more than a good user of other classes.

For instance, you COULD just cycle to Toolkit for the high Pry Bar damage. But you’d be ignoring Gear Shield and Magnet, both of which are quite effective but require thoughtful use. You could use Bomb Kit for its high-damage auto attack. But it also has a fire field and smoke field that takes thought to use effectively, not to mention Glue Bomb which is good but needs to be deployed well to be effective. You might just cycle to Elixir Gun for the Acid Bomb damage. But Fumigate can be super helpful if deployed at the right time in groups or to help you figure out where a Thief is. Flamethrower is not just a great tagging device. It also is useful for a low-cooldown blast finisher, a fire field, a really good knock back, and an instant aoe blind. Grenade Kit is the closest to a spamming kit, but, even then, Flash and Poison grenades are at least somewhat situational.

So yeah, you can probably be successful as an engineer just cycling between kits, using some combination of shrapnel grenade, freeze grenade, pry bar, flame blast, acid bomb, blunderbuss, jump shot, and your high-damage tool belt skills, as each of these get off cooldown. But you’d be more effective if you knew when to use the MANY situational skills you have as well. And knowing when to use those takes skill.

Nemitri.8172:

Why do you have both power shoes and speedy kits? it’s redundant, maybe better to go for 10 more points in alchemy for experimental turret or automated response. Also a soldier’s amulet may be better as healing power just scales horribly. Would bump you up to 24,000 ish hp. Also instead of protective shield, you could grab stabiliazed armor, that and protection injection can give a potential -53% damage taken when CC’ed.

I did not realize that power shoes and speedy kits did not stack (though I was suspicious, since I didnt see much of a speed boost from swiftness). I think I’d replace that with Elite Supplies.

As for Soldier Amulet, I think that might be better. I did Cleric’s to maximize my healing per second from bombs and backpack regenerator. Healing Power doesn’t scale well normally, but for bomb healing it actually scales decently. With Soldier Amulet, you get 191 healing per bomb, while you get 331 with Cleric’s Amulet. Taking into account that bombs are laid like every 0.82 seconds apparently, that means 170 extra healing per second from that. That’s pretty significant, especially when it often affects allies as well. Meanwhile you’d get 47 extra healing per second from Backpack Regenerator and 23 extra from the Dolyak Rune. This means you’re looking at 240 extra healing a second. You also have Regen up the majority of the time with this build (and are giving it to allies as well), and you get 117 extra healing a second from that. Thus, when regen is up, Cleric Amulet gets you 357 EXTRA healing per second. That’s like having a Warrior Healing Signet added to the build. And that doesn’t even take into account Super Elixir, which scales decently with healing power as well. So I don’t think Cleric Amulet is DEFINITELY worse than Soldier for this build. But of course, the extra like ~6000 hp and ~300 power from Soldier is beneficial as well. I imagine the extra healing probably increases your survivability more than the extra hp, but it depends on the situation (i.e. Soldier is more survivable against burst builds, of course, while Cleric is more survivable in longer fights). Soldier’s Amulet gives you extra power, while Cleric’s allows you to heal your allies a significant amount more with your bombs/regen/healing turret. It seems like largely a wash.

STRanger.5120:

lessthanjake.6049:

Thief:
- Shortbow

On which planet?

Hmm, I don’t have a thief, so that might have been a misinformed opinion, but I thought I read posts by people saying no one used the shortbow. Ah well. I’m sure there’s something else that no one uses, like Ice Drake Venom.

I think it is very true that EVERY profession forum is full of people saying their class has been endlessly persecuted by ArenaNet.

I am a very new player, so I am largely unfamiliar with balance changes made long ago. I’m sure every profession DID get nerfed at some point. But, looking through the profession forums in the past month or two was honestly a little shocking. EVERYONE acts like things that have happened to their class are ten times worse than what has happened to others. Obviously, that just can’t be true.

With that said, there still might have been ill-advised nerfs (or buffs). That is inevitable, so undoubtedly some of the complaining is legitimate. But, logically, the vast majority of it cannot be.

Really, I think what people should be complaining about is that certain skills/traits are never really worth using. In my opinion, the game is more fun the more types of builds and strategies are remotely viable. More variety = more fun. The more skills/traits are useless, the fewer viable builds there are. In this sense, every class DOES have plenty of problems. For instance, just off the top of my head, here are some examples of seemingly useless skills for each class. THey might not be the best examples; they are just ones I thought of quickly:

Elementalists:
- Conjure Earth Shield. As far as I can tell, no one uses this.

Warrior:
- I’ve never seen builds where people use the “Physical” utility skills. MAYBE Throw Bolas, but even that is not really used.

Rangers:
- No one uses any Spirit except for Frost Spirit.
- The Shouts are largely useless.
- The pig, spider, and devourer pet types seem not worth it (particularly the pigs).

Necromancer:
- I really do not know necromancers well, but off the top of my head, I think Corrosive Poison Cloud is basically never useful.

Guardian:
- It seems to me that Spirit Weapons are really never used, despite recent buffs.

Thief:
- Shortbow

Engineer:
- I’ve never seen a build make use of Slick Shoes.
- Mortar is useless.
- A.E.D. is largely useless
- Elixir X is basically never useful due to its randomness.

Mesmer:
- I really do not know Mesmer, but my sense is that torches are essentially never used.

That is the sort of stuff people should be complaining about. And, in fairness, ArenaNet is expressly trying to deal with issues like this. But the community should make an effort to bring this sort of stuff to their attention.

Lowest Animal.8014:

Congrats on finding a build you like and have fun with. As you progress you might find that other classes outshine bunker engineer at the same role but for now I would advise to just keep playing and paying attention to what is expected out of a bunker. You have already successfully identified aspects of a good bunker beyond just staying alive such as CC, team support and securing stomps.

As for advise, you can experiment with celestial and settlers over clerics if you want to keep using pistol shield since it and bomb kit benefit more from condi amulets. Rifle is a good choice for power based amulets, it brings great sustained damage and more CC to help decap points. protection is great but taking both protective shield and protection injection seems too much especially when you can take invigorating speed instead it will easily give you more dodges. Along the same vein, taking both speedy kits and power shoes is a waste because power shoes’ increase doesnt stack with swiftness and speedy kits gives you swiftness anyways along with proccing invigorating speed. I would also highly recommend doom and battle sigils if you want to win wars of attrition. One last suggestion is to try out tool kit over the turret, it gives you a block that has saved my life and stalled enemies countless times, a pull that has wrecked many enemies, and the classic prybar to an enemies face. Enjoy.

ps. This is the varation of the celestial engi build I use. Its less forgiving than a bunker build but you can decap, hold a point and kill people pretty well

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fdAQFAUlUUpErlcx+KseRCbBNqxAqNIyNWlPHhAkUA-TJRHwAFuAAAeAAk2f4YZAA

Thank you for the feedback! I did not know that Power Shoes and Speedy Kits do not stack, but it totally makes sense. I was feeling like swiftness wasn’t making me go much faster, and evidently that’s because it wasn’t haha. I think I’ll replace Power Shoes with Elite Supplies. I use Supply Crate in lots of super important moments, so that would be a useful trait, I think. Or I could stay with Power Shoes, not take Speedy Kits and take 2 more points in alchemy for Acidic Coating or something. That was actually my original build; I then modified it to get Speedy Kits.

I also originally tried Settlers Amulet. I think it’s a tough call for me on that. Clerics increases my direct damage a lot and makes my healing better, but Settlers makes my condition damage higher and gives me more toughness. Seems like it’s basically a wash to me, but I chose Clerics because I’m spending most of my time camped in bomb kit, which has some condition damage but seems more suited to power. Obviously, my main aim isn’t to kill stuff, but the 60% damage increase on the bomb AA is still nice to have.

I have tried toolkit a little bit as well (on an SD build, not this one though), but I think that block is probably far more useful for more experienced players. I can’t yet tell when other players are about to unleash their big attacks, so I feel like I just sorta block randomly. I might try it though. The block would still increase my survivability, and the pull would be useful for decapping.

So I am pretty terrible at PvP. This is my first MMO, I have only had it for like a month or so, and I play on my laptop without a normal mouse (making it hard to turn or aim stuff quickly). I very briefly tried a few builds in PvP as I’ve been working my way through PvE content. I tried a power-based shortbow ranger (using quickness to burst), an Axe-wielding warrior (for the Eviscerate burst), and an SD engineer. All of these burst builds were a huge fail for me (though I tried each for only a few matches). I would occasionally get kills, of course, but more often than not, I would be dead before I could really do almost anything. I was so bad that my teams actually lost the first 13 matches I played in. Basically, I’d provide virtually nothing to my team so it would be like my team was playing a man down, and my endless deaths would give the other team points.

So I decided to try a bunker build. And, in general, I’ve been having the most fun, by far, with engineer, so I decided to use an engineer for it. I used the following elixir-infused bomb build (with various modifications):

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fdAQJAqelUUpPrVWxdLseRiaBNqzE6bsxAIyQmlPFBA-TJxGwAAOBAMLDQ4BAsZ/BA

It was such a big difference. I went from being useless to my team to always feelings like a solid contributor and sometimes feeling like a really key player. With the help of turrets and my survivability, I could decap and hold a point against single opponents most of the time (though I had a particularly tough time with mesmers for some reason; I guess I just don’t know their tricks yet). I could also hold my own in 1v2s if the opponents weren’t particularly good. I wouldn’t kill them, but i’d waste their time until my allies came. But where this build really shined was when my allies were around. I am constantly providing SO MUCH healing for them. I’ve got bombs doing 331 healing every ~0.8 seconds, healing turret giving tons of regeneration and blasting water combos, Super Elixir on points for like 4500 total healing every 20 seconds, Sigil of Water, and occasionally Supply Crate’s med kits. Meanwhile I provide lots of CC to help allies survive and kill things more efficiently: smoke bomb for tons of blinds on capture points, glue bombs, three separate knock backs, etc. And then when the opponents are finally downed, I often lay down a smoke bomb that typically assures a finisher. As a result, I really felt like my teams were winning virtually every single 2v2, 3v3, and 4v4 showdown I was in.

I was 0-13 in matches prior to using this build, and my teams were 8-4 after I started using it. Pretty big difference. And in some matches I died very few times and managed to get the “You are on a Rampage” message. I suppose a n00b like me having success with a build probably indicates it is cheesy, but I just felt the need to share my success with this setup. For a bad player, this is a way to feel quite useful in PvP.

ALSO: Unrelated sidenote: one of those 8 wins was unbelievably amazing. On the map with the Svanir monsters (Forest of Niflhel?) that give you 25 points if you kill them, my team had fallen way behind but came back. We were down 475-499 and the other team was solidly holding 1 point (i.e. they were gonna win in like a couple seconds), but we killed a Svanir monster at the last moment to ninja out a 500-499 victory.

Velimere.7685:

You mention holding points and 1v1… but you’re in PvE gear?

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fFAQJArdhMMac25wACfEBDAGxlwVIUAYcN4GcEFdCA-TJBBABAcCAoZ/hwLDsxDAAA

Well two things: first, it is easier to make an insane build in PvE, so that’d be the main reason I used it. And second of all, you can have 1v1 in WvW. But yeah, I get your point; the build is more suited to sPvP. I’m still fiddling around with an sPvP build that would be similar, but it would not be as strong. You’d be stuck with lower crit chance, power, armor, etc. It seems to me that the build might be more suited to a WvW roamer.

I think I have come across a decent build while messing around with ideas in my head. I should say upfront, though, that I am not an experienced player, so I am more wondering whether this is a decent idea than arguing that it is actually super good.

The idea of the build is to use Stone Heart to its fullest to create a really tanky character who can hold points and be essentially impossible to kill 1v1. In order to maximize Stone Heart, though, one needs to stay in Earth Attunement, which does not yield very good damage. However, one can use a Lightning Hammer while in Earth Attunement, keeping Stone Heart, but still being able to do good damage. Basically, you can create a really tanky character that still does solid damage. I think the build does a good job of balancing both. It includes Stone Heart, 4k armor, 3 condition cleanses, 50% crit chance, 200% crit damage, and 2000 power.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fFAQJArdhMM6b24wACf0ADAWoAw4aQO4IKOFcC+AA-TlCBABKqFoLlV9pDINlgfqWBAnAAvUqkpqKys/QAPAgAAHAz3+A45nf+5nfuf/93f/95SBwmyI-w

TANKINESS

Due to Stone Heart, you cannot be critically hit. Moreover, when attuned to Earth and with Rock Barrier on, you will have exactly 4k armor. So all those non-critical hits will do very little damage to you. Of course, condition damage bypasses armor and, as an elementalist, your HP is not that high. So condition damage could be a problem. However, you have condition cleanses on 15, 25, and 40 second cooldowns, each of which cleanses at least 3 conditions. As such, you shouldn’t have too much of a problem with conditions. So there really isn’t anything that does much damage to you. Moreover, you have a 4 second invulnerability spell, a projectile reflecting spell with a cripple, a multi-foe blind on 15 second cooldown, a long immobilize every 30 seconds. And when in lightning hammer, the third attack of your AA blinds, and you have a multi-foe 2-second stun, as well as a knock back. You do not have a stun break or stability (though you could slot either and just lose a little toughness; Signet of Air is probably the best). However, Tempest Defense means you’ll stun people who attack you while stunned/knocked down. One With Air, will allow you a quick getaway if you do ever get overwhelmed. And lastly, you’ve got the small regen from rune of the dolyak.

DAMAGE

Lightning Hammer is a super effective weapon. And you have 25 charges of it every 60 seconds. You also have Fiery Greatsword for some times when LH is on cooldown or when you need big AOE damage. You have 2002 base power, 51% crit chance, and 201% crit damage while in LH. Obviously that is not the highest DPS you could get, but it is pretty good. It is especially good, since there are a number of damage multipliers you get from your traits. 10% damage increase when within 600 units, which will be always with the LH. 20% higher damage to enemies below 33% health. 5% increase from Sigil of Force. 10% damage increase when endurance is full. 20% damage increase to stunned or knocked down enemies (and you have a stun with LH). You also have vulnerability on critical hits, which will stack a few extra percent damage. And your condition damage is actually pretty solid, so your earth AA can sustain not completely terrible damage from tons of stacked bleeds for the occasional times you are not in LH/FGS.

What do you all think? I made this build not completely optimal, since I wanted to get to the 2k power, 4k armor, 50% crit, and 200% crit damage benchmarks regardless of complete optimality. A truly optimized build would be a bit different. For instance, it would replace some toughness with vitality. I know that. It would probably also replace Signet of Earth with something else with a stun break, like Signet of Air. The question is just whether it is a decent build in general.

Hi, so I bought Guild Wars 2 last night. I have never played an MMORPG before, primarily because a monthly fee does not appeal to me. However, given its lack of a monthly fee (and other positive things); I have been following Guild Wars 2 since before it was released. Since I have a Mac though, I was unfortunately unable to get it. I just realized yesterday that there is now a Mac version AND the game was on sale, so I figured I would finally get GW2 after thinking about it for years.

I have played a lot of single-player RPGs, so there are plenty of things about GW2 that I am familiar with (i.e. things like having skills on cooldown). As I said, though, I am quite new to MMORPGs. Because of this, when I read about the game, many things seem very foreign to me, and I am wondering if people could help me out with some basic questions before I jump into the game. Some of this is specific to character builds. While you might say I should just try out a bunch of builds and see, I am quite busy and do not see myself doing more than getting one character to level 80, so I kind of want to understand the mechanics enough to get it right the first time.

1. What is a good class for me to play?

Engineer seemed appealing to me. But then I’ve read a ton that says that they’re super hard to use. While I understand the basic mechanics of GW2, my impression is that MMORPGs tend to be played at a much higher pace than single player ones with similar mechanics. So I don’t expect to be super fast with my button clicking like an experienced MMO player might be. As such, I kind of want a character that will not require super high actions per minute.

But I don’t want a class that is boring. I tend to have fun with characters in RPGs that are super versatile. So, ideally, I like characters where I can decide to play melee or ranged, heal, tank, do AOE damage, etc, all with the same character, depending on the situation and how I feel like playing. And ideally, I’d like to actually be pretty effective in those roles (you don’t feel that versatile if, technically, you COULD do something, but it wouldn’t work well).

Those are a bit contradictory, since versatility will often require lots of actions per minute to utilize. But I would be okay with having to switch out skills to do the different things; I just watch flexibility from one battle to the next rather than necessarily flexibility within a battle. I hope that makes sense. Is there a class that fulfills all of this? I have gathered that maybe Mesmer is my best bet, but I don’t know.

2. What is a good server for a new player to join?

I am new to this idea of joining a persistent server with its own personality. I gather that the servers are different. I want one that is alive and well, but fairly n00b friendly. Does that exist?

3. What race has the best personal story and capital city?

Since I do not necessarily intend to put in the time to go through the personal story of more than one race, I would kind of like to know upfront which race’s personal story is most enjoyable. I’m kind of looking for something that is either just very fun or quite mysterious such that you really want to keep playing to see what’s going on.

4. Do I have to join a guild to see a ton of the content?

As I have said, I am a pretty busy person, so I doubt that I have time to really be the member of a guild, nor do I think I will be good enough anytime soon to be asked to be in one. I also don’t think I know anyone from real life who plays the game, so I wouldn’t be able to run around with friends. So I am kind of wondering how much of the content requires being in a guild or having a group? My understanding is that “dungeons” do, but that that is a small part of the game. But can I just explore around and do most anything either by myself or with a group of random people that happens to be around?

5. How important are status effects in the game?

I see a ton of skills provide secondary effects like bleeding, crippling, dazing, etc. Many also provide positive effects such as might or swiftness. Most RPGs have similar effects. However, RPGs tend to differ on how much those effects matter. In some games, they are everything. In others, they aren’t. In my experience, the RPGs where they matter the most are ones where there are ways to do hard crowd control (i.e. an effect like stun that completely stops an enemy from doing anything). Such effects do not seem that prevalent in GW2, but nevertheless, I’ve read stuff and watched videos that seem to indicate that “conditions” and “boons” are really important. So I am not sure. Should I aim to make a character that creates lots of status effects, or are straight damage figures more important? If status effects on important, which ones are particularly good?

I probably have more questions if I thought a bit longer, but that is it for now. Thanks in advance for any responses!