Guild Wars 2

CriSPeH.8512:

hmm now that I have got into the game and tested it I am kinda scared.

The nerf doesn’t even work right. FT and EG are the only KR effects that trigger the ICD. So you can still TK Pull + Barrage/Barrage and really use and KR effect one after another as long as you use EG or FT last.

Adding an ICD to a single trait effect doesn’t seem like too complicated a task and yet they have completely botched it.

I am kinda worried that at the last minute some Thief playing Dev crybaby tried to rush in a nerf to stop from getting his face moneyshot on by my nade explosion.

What I’ve learned about Kit Refinement (KR) so far:
1. Med kit and tool kit are completely unaffected by the change. Med kit is instant, tool kit is every 10 seconds regardless of what you’re doing with the other kits.

2. FT KR has a 10 second cooldown, which it shares with other KR. Meaning, if you use the FT KR, it will be 10 seconds before you can use ANY other KR (including med kit and Tool Kit)

3. If you use grenade KR, it will be 20 seconds before you can grenade KR again.

4. If you use grenade KR, you can immediately do a bomb, FT, or EG, Tool Kit, or Med Kit.

5. Elixir Gun’s KR has a 20 second cooldown, which it shares with other KR. Meaning, if you use the EG KR, it will be 20 seconds before you can use ANY other KR.

Clearly, the patch notes have nothing to do with what’s going on with the trait now, because there’s so many exceptions, that the exceptions are the rule.

This is why I rarely come to these forums. So much doom and gloom. I do great without 100nade noobness in PVP and I do great without relying on 1 consumable in PVE/WVW, but these forums have shown me it’s pointless to try and be positive when anything in this game gets changed, or dare I say fixed.

I make builds that are effective without relying on 1 borderline broken aspect of the game. It’s actually pretty fun that way. Yes, no cooldown on life steal food was borderline broken, if you thought that was actually intended given how the rest of the game works… I’m sorry.

I sense someone was angry that they’re point and click noob cannon 100nade build is dead. Except it’s not really dead as others have pointed out. You simply have to jump now. Jumping is unacceptable? Right… it’s better when you don’t have to think and can kill anyone with 1 click. I wish they would have gotten rid of it completely, it’s a terrible build. People that think “it’s the only good build for Engi” need to expand their horizons.

Changes look great! I’ve been tearing it up with Flamethrower, can’t believe it’s getting better! Also my tanky build with Elixir Gun got better as well. Great update, can’t wait to go try them.

Good day,

Even at the risk of appearing obnoxious, I decided to comment as follows: Your rank and FoTM level mean nothing to a struggling engineer because you offer precious little practical advice, and more random cantrips. That’s exactly the problem with people who don’t teach the Engineer Way of Thinking, but go with something like 100nades and decide that everyone else is bad because they are having problems.

The Engineer needs to know their skills, and traits by heart and how to combine them to achieve a desired result. It has been discussed to death on these forums that Engineers need to specialize highly to be effective. Only experience or a very experienced tutor can remedy this, because now we bump to the primary problem up and coming Engineers have:

They are extremely dependant on gear (and its stats and runes), which with the specialization issue bloats the disparity between hitting like a noodle, and hitting really hard and soloing champions. If one furthermore experiments with the Engineer damage in sPvP and goes back to PvE and tries to do something with a mix and match of masterwork and rare gear, it’s not hard to understand Engineer players who go: “What on earth? I’m doing like no damage, this isn’t fun.”

Furthermore, sweeping statements concerning pistols and condition damage hint towards a minor amount of axle grease between the ears. You won’t motivate anyone to play by making a thread about how everyone is doing it wrong instead of offering advice.

Not a single time was it mentioned that the #1 important thing as an Engineer is to adapt to the task at hand, and more importantly your team. This can be a particular obstacle to less savvy players because of the time investment, knowledge about mechanics and the requirements of having several gear and trait sets. I don’t mean to be a kitten but if you attempt – say – double pistols when your role is not clearly defined as being the bleed/burn/poison bot, then you need to be thwacked firmly on the noggin’. (Even then, Grenade or Bomb kit has its advantages over double pistols, and these differences are the ones you should be teaching; where they are usable and where less preferred.)

I don’t really know what people like you want, but you get no points from me for sweeping statements and running 100nades.

On an unrelated note, I am always up for discussing builds, traits and uses. Hit me with a mail or a tell in game if you’re interested in Engineers and reading this.

Thank you.

Alpha is really just an exercise in counting to 3.

Make your own low level groups. Problem solved.

Guild Missions. Complete with yet another new currency! Oh, my. Sounds like fun for the folks in big guilds. I guess. So, like, yay. And stuff.

Okay.

What else ya got?

Here’s something that helped me got started when I first play GW2:

http://imperiouspariahs.enjin.com/forum/m/6424424/viewthread/3502399-everything-you-need-to-know-get-started-on-guild-wars-2

Write up is rather old and I’m not sure if some things already outdated. But it is a good starting point.

Here’s another (GW2 New Player Handbook): http://www.bob-guild.net/gw/page.php?69

if i were you i would do the following:

Exotic gear: mystic forge cause there is a chance of getting exotic item and sell it on trading post for money if you dont like risk go with toughtless’s option with black lion kit only!

as for exotic WEAPONS: go mystic forge all the way! no matter what. cause you know those precursor weapons. yah those!

It’s not hard. Finding a decent pug group for CM is.

Why is it that everyone that complains about the dungeons being “way over the top hard” are the very same people that ABSOLUTELY refuse to follow even the simplest of instructions?

Is it really that much fun when you die over and over and over and over because you can´t be arsed to actually pull mobs, instead of RUSHING into them and eating 2-6 ground AoEs just because some 3 warrior / 1 guardian / 1 mesmer group on youtube did that?

Every class gets lots of utility in one form or another, using it is never bad. It´s getting frustrating when you first have the task of finding people that want to try dungeons, then you start on up, only to find out that one guy in the group is the type of clown that gets outsmarted by a turret and ends up wiping your group when he does manage finding a group of mob that is´nt permarooted and pulls them all.

The playerbase here is so DPS focused (and I admit, when you DO know what you´r doing, you can take off as much utility as possible in favor of DPS) that it makes dungeons ten times harder then they should be.
In all fairness, I recon something like half the players crying in this forum are the kind of players that you are actually better of trying to 4 man the dungeon without them.

CM is the first dungeon that actually requires you to think on your feet. Calling it hard is a mockery of any hard dungeon in any game. It´s not hard. At all. Even at 45 (I did every dungeon at level so far) and certainly not at 80.
Now, if you go in at 45 with a group that has another make-up then the youtube groups you´r watching before you go (or heck, same make-up but different traits / skills picked) then yeah, what they did MIGHT NOT work for you.
Lets not rush to the forums and whine about it.

For any dungeon in any game ever made, first time you do go, you should be a bit careful. When you pull, the basic line of thinking is “judge amount of mobs – shoot the one furthest from the others – hide ENTIRE group behind terrain”, this makes the gnarly and all his friends run over. Since they don´t see you, they don´t stop to cast or shoot on their way over. When they come around the corner, you unload. If the mobs are lacking stability this is a good time for the group to unload 1 AoE CC of some kind. Or AoE guard. Or AoE reflect. Or AoE “whatever”. After a bit they die. You move on, rinse repeat.

In all honesty, speed ruuuuuushing trough dungeons rather then being a bit careful IS ONLY FAST IF EVERYONE KNOWS WHAT THEY ARE DOING AND WHAT THE DUNGEON LOOKS LIKE AND HOW IT WORKS AND WHERE THEY ARE GOING AND WHERE THE MOBS LEASH (this bit is in caps because its SOOOOO IMPOOOORTANT) and if ALL of the above isn´t true, odds are your rush is going to end up with somewhere between 1 and 5 dead party members. Sometimes you MUST rush, say you wiped a bit and the mobs are now placed poorly and you have no choice left, but thats RARE if you and your group are even a little careful.

In CM the key to sucess is PULLING (not RUSHING INTO) onto your group. You get small chunks of mobs (top pull is 5 silvers, but they come first 2, then another 3 after a bit) and after that its just target priority. Which ones go down first depends on whats in your group mostly. If riflemen are present, stand still when the big red target is under your feet.
Blinds rock. Knocks rock on ANYTHING that shoots or wants to melee, unless a thug is present. Reflect rocks. Fear rocks. Cripple rocks. Terrain is your friend (gnarly monsters, like white men, can not jump) always.

Good luck in your future runs. Stop complaining, man up, don´t let those TRIXXY TURRETS outsmart you (the solution when you see a turret is…. waaaait for iiiit…. DON´T FIGHT BY THE TURRETS, move the mobs, after all mobiles are dead, stand around a bit, toss in some ground target stuff, get a general idea about how many mobs you hit with those, active dodge into room, push off AoE blind / stun / daze etc and quickly burn down whats left) on your next run. ANd never ever ever run up and into a group of gnarlies if you aren´t SURE that they are trivial for your group.

And me personally, I don´t even like running into groups of mobs when they ARE trivial since that makes people sloppy.
You better belive that the first people that figured out those dungeons had their fair share of wipes as well. But, if they are anything like me, it sure as heck wasn´t on the trash.

Didn’t know it was impossible to res people in combat without consumables.

Oh, wait.

laokoko.7403:

If they want to make hard dungeon, they should put it on a timer. So people know that the hard dungeon is serious and not suppose to be run in pug. Since the same people are locked up for the dungeon and they can only do it say once every few days.

You know what your problem is? For some reason you think that 5 man Dungeons are supposed to be easy and everything with more players involved should be difficult. This is not WoW or other games that allow such big group of peoples, this is GW2. There is nothing above 5 man groups for instanced PvE and that’s why 5 man dungeons can also be hard.

1) Don’t use titles that look like fact, but are opinion.
2) Don’t judge dungeons based on your ability in a PuG group.

So there are how many really bad paths? That’s the question here. There are 24 explorable paths for each dungeon. Are 12 bad? Are 18 bad? Are 6 bad?

I love how people focus on the stuff they can’t do, and ignore the stuff that’s fine. But you know, the stuff you can run through in 20 minutes, is what most people want. They want to do a 20 minute run and get their tokens. That’s it. They don’t care about difficulty as much as speed.

Most dungeons have a faster path and slower paths. Personally I think path rewards should be based on the difficulty of the dungeon, not universal. I think that if you’re in a path of a dungeon that takes twice as long you should get more tokens.

But the idea that dungeon design is bad because there are some bad paths, that’s a bit much. Some of the dungeon design probably does need to be looked at, but it’s not that big a deal.

I need two more runs on CoE for my legendary token requirement, and I’ll likely never go back into that place (except to help guildies) but it’s not as bad as the OP is making out.

And you know, the butler run in Caudecaus is so fast, it’s like not even doing a dungeon. I sorta like having a couple of harder paths to bang my head against.

What Alarox said.

The offhand also doesn’t give any control at all, except maybe for Shield of Absorption and it’s 40s cooldown, so offhands make poor 1v1s or few vs few choices.

Even if you don’t consider 1v1 or few vs few PvP, for example, in WvW, if you’re using a 1H & OH you’re just “another guy attacking” someone.
When someone’s about to escape or deal some damage, you have nothing (with the exception stated above) to prevent or help this situation, and you’re relying that your teammates will do something about it.

The Sword & Offhand is awesome if paired with a Greatsword, but because the Greatsword is awesome by itself and Sword is just another weaker version of it that you can use when your GS cooldowns are down for more target pressure.
The problem is that the Sword by itself (with an offhand) isn’t a solid option like any other 2 hander.

You might think it’s good for Empowering Might? Same mechanic of Virtue of Justice, but since it has an internal cooldown, it’s not really that effective depending on how much crit % you run with a Greatsword.
What about support? Focus has Blind/Regen and block, Shield has pushback, protection and heal? Well you can pair your Greatsword with a Staff and still enjoy most if not all of your enhancing traits!
Line of Warding, awesome Might for 10 secs+, AoE heals, AoE Swiftness, slow ranged damage that can be used for healing and wall-bypassing wide arc attack? Sounds a little more useful for support than a Focus or Shield if you ask me…

And I’m sorry if you think they’re fine “because I kill lots with it”.
You’re just gimping yourself and you could’ve perform much better in all nearly scenarios with a Greatsword.

And don’t get me wrong, I love Swords (and Shields).
I personally made my Guardian just because I love the looks of that a Heavy Armored class with a Sword and Shield in hand. The Sword’s flashiness is also awesome, but I just don’t find it comparable to a Greatsword/other 2Hander for most or all parts of the game.

I change my Traits quite often, picking Empowering Might (I don’t run this usually), Battle Presence, Right Handed Strength (I don’t play AH), and think “Hmm, so I get this great passive support, let me play!” and when I die or fail a hard event because I think “I didn’t damaged or pulled enough mobs of the NPC, or my healing lacked” I go back to my Power/Health symbol healing & everything AoE Greatsword/Staff combo.

I just want Swords (and Shields) to be as great as these two weapons (can’t speak about the hammer because I don’t use it too much).
Then I’ll be able to look cool while still being awesome on top. For now I’m just awesome =(

It doesn’t suck. It’s simply boring and niche, but in that niche it does well.

Boring because all you do is spam ‘1’ and hit ‘2’ when you’re out of range. Hitting 3 is a bad idea almost always since it hits for about auto-attack damage and it puts you out of melee range (since you’re immobilized). The off-hands have long cooldowns (the exception being the Torch) and don’t have very powerful effects except in specific situations, meaning you’ll still stick to ‘1’ and ‘2’ for most of the fights. There’s really not a high skill cap on this at all.

Niche because it lacks control, support, and AoE. (Please don’t bring up Torch 5; the DPS on that skill is low compared to just spamming ‘1’ with the sword and never worth using unless you’re hitting 4-5 enemies.) What it does have is high single target damage and a short cooldown gap closer, so in any 1v1 scenario it is just as effective as a Greatsword or Hammer.

I farm Orr events perfectly fine. Mesmers can tag all mobs, even if there are multiple groups at a time.
Leveling can be a bit of a chore in the lower levels, but it will get better at some point.

I wrote this leveling guide, maybe you can get something useful out of it…

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Lazy-Kai-s-Guide-to-PvE-Leveling-Guide/first#post850721

Axe/Focus can be used as a setup weapon for direct damage builds that utilize DS, outside of that niche axe is generally a worse choice then any other weapons we have.

Staff is incredibly reliable and versatile, that’s why it’s our most popular weapon.
Staff is also one our few weapons with only good traits. The only build I know of that doesn’t use it is the exact one that uses Axe/Focus + Dagger/WH, a single target DD build.

Dagger has our highest DPS with it’s auto-attack, which is also our singular melee skill out of the water.
Dagger 2 is unreliable in PvP but ok in PvE.
Dagger 3, when it hits, is an incredibly long immobilize.

Scepter has a very good sustained damage with a condition build and a very useful 2 skill since it cripples+bleeds in AoE, scepter 3 is generally a waste of time. Scepter also has one of our best weapon traits as a GM trait in the curses tree.

WH is best when combined with dagger since 5 is pretty much a melee skill and the 4 daze is hard to hit from longer ranges.

Focus can be combined easily enough with most MH weapons, but it’s most useful with a DD or Hybrid build.

OH dagger is better with condition builds since it has a condition transfer and an AoE bleed+ weakness, all of this adds up into OH dagger being good in ranged builds, a bit odd since MH dagger is pretty much melee centered.

We’re all standing around Lion’s Arch.

First thing to recognize is staff. It is not a “condition” weapon, it is a “group condition” weapon. This weapon is optimized for group encounter situations. that is why you apply vulnerability. that is why you produce a field. It is why your warlocks damage is optimized in a group setting (i.e. more conditions on a target).

Condition application – The class is reliant on clone crits for bleed stacks. No you will not apply the same amount of bleeds as some other classes but you will shatter your clones to produce confusion and swiftly replace them. You class mechanic replaces ‘OMG condition damage’ with versatiliy.

Confusion is what drives a mesmer’s condition damage and it function either as steady damage that additional to your bleeds + retaliation, or it funtions as ‘condition-burst’ where you stack large amounts of confusion to do large amounts of damage “now”.

Phantoms – The condition phantasms are the mage and the duelist (to a smaller extent the warden). Phantasms do not exist in a vacuum and therefore must be created with duelings 15 train in mind.

I do not agree with the phantasmal mage’s implementation however. the duration should be longer (at the least as long as the recharge timer on the phantasm’s attack). I also question whether it should be single target as the prestige is an aoe.

Build diversity – this presumption is only correct when your goal is simply ‘max number of damaging conditions’. Yes rabid is the only way to achieve the max. Other viable ‘condition’ specs exist within the other amulets but they sacrifice max condition application for some other tools or power-damage. It would be cool to have another ‘max’ alternative but then ‘max’ is ‘max’ after all.

Traits – The trait deceptive evasion: I actually am not thrilled that our primary resource mechanic is tied up in the precision line. Why should a carrion or shaman’s amulet wearer have to care about precision? I’m not a fan here.

I have not experienced any real issue with clone AI.

Shatter burst should not be the only build option – I’m not sure how to answer this. There is basically bleeds, poison, burns, and confusion. Most classes have bleed stacks. A couple make burns their primary source of cond damage. One or two can do significant poison damage. Only one class can really focus on confusion damage….us. I feel that if you want to do massive bleed stacks you’ve come to the wrong place.

Once it’s bought you get the achievement.

Blink works if you can WALK to the point. If the path requires you to JUMP to get there, you cannot blink there. Example, in kyhlo, you can blink up the ramps and the roof from below

why WvW? because risen sure as hell aren’t going to be impressed with a legendary. i will never understand pure pve players.

Rabid and Carrion are both ok in general. I feel that Rabid tactically over-invests into condition damage (by employing both Sharper Images and direct condition damage). This means an opponent with good cleanses shuts you down, and you have no burst.

Carrion will lose ~80 or 90% of the Sharper Images DPS, but will shift that to harder hitting Mind Wracks (which you use all the time for Confusion anyways) and significantly harder hitting iWarlock and other direct damage stuff.

I think Carrion provides a better spread of condition and direct damage.

The only complexity is that this type of build really like lots of Clones, and picking up Deceptive Evasion not only costs 20 points in a tree you otherwise don’t use, but also picks up SI.

If you can play this build without DE (WHICH IS VERY DIFFICULT IMO), then Carrion is the clear winner because you don’t need 20 Dueling. Otherwise, it’s a toss-up based on whether you want a bit more synergy (Rabid), or more damage vectors and burst (Carrion).

Actually, I feel like I want to investigate more ‘no-Dueling’ options for this build. Probably won’t pan out well, but worth looking again. Bye bye.