Guild Wars 2

15% chance isn’t really that much, you’d be on the lucky side to get a single proc over six grenade hits. Earth Sigil is only going to give you one bleed in this as well. Shrapnel Grenade gives three stacks of course, but even then Shrapnel Grenade + Poison Grenade is probably only going to give you 5 stacks of Bleeding. The bleed cap is 25. I’m confused.

I’m not entirely convinced PvP is the reason they want to nerf AoE. I think it’s PvE. Guess we will have to see. Only real concern would be the Elementalist, because anyone else with decent AoE is set on cooldowns or already has a lowered damage output on their AoE spam.

A Sword Warrior as well can hit the bleed cap on their own. I don’t see many people advocating how powerful Sword Warrior DPS is. Heck I originally want to be a Condi-Dmg Warrior until I realized how bad it is compared to what other builds the Warrior has and what other Condi builds the other classes have.

I’m not entirely sure how you hit the Bleed cap with just grenades though, the proc chance on that one skill isn’t really that high. Is there something I’m missing with it…?

I usually go with Corruption in a condition build. I could see some argument for dmg or crit chance, but it’s not really that hard to get stacks.

It’s completely possible that where ANet put the grenade damage output right now is where they want everyone else’s AoE as well. I don’t know what else of our AoE would be threatening, since Bombs have the “melee-cleave” and delay components backing them up.

The generic nerfing of AoE is problematic to the Engineer, since much of our single target DPS just happens to be AoE as well. I’m not sure how this is going to be done, but it’ll be a wait and see thing.

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

The elexier S is bugfree. Plague should be too… maybe i was confused cuz i was 1v1 against a offensive guard.

An offensive guard can remove your boons whenever they apply Burning or something like that. Probably took off Stability.

I am certainly curious how much the burst would be slowed down if Steal was given a 1/4s casting time.

azmodeus.3409:

warrriors have excellent cc/condition removal, soldier runes are best, you remove 2 from sio, 1 from fgj, 2 from mending, and if your using horn thats another two.

While I do think the reports of Warriors being underpowered and easily kitable are greatly exaggerated (while still being real issues), I have to strongly disagree with this sentence. I used to play a Warrior, and frankly these single doses of one or two conditions removed are terrible for reliable condition removal. Not to mention the shouts sacrifice a lot of other utility. It’s useful yes and a decent build overall, but if you are concerned with condition removal this is not the way to tackle it.

I play an Condi Engineer and frankly if I load a Warrior up with conditions they have more then eight conditions on them. You can use up every single condition removal you have at once to get rid of them all, or slowly kitten away at the latest itty bitty stack of bleed I put up over and over. Condition removal relying purely on removing 1 or 2 at a time doesn’t get you that far. You are much better off with Signet of Stamina, Lyssa w/ Elite, and Mending then a shout build if you are concerned with condition removal. Condition overload is a thing everyone needs to consider when dealing with condition removal. Some classes cannot overload conditions (like the Warrior), but the good ones can not only rapidly reapply conditions but they dump them like a thick gravy all over you.

Frankly I’m not even convinced dungeon bosses would be easier with condition damage builds compared to the direct damage ones we have now. Each skill use still does X damage, it doesn’t magically magnify to the extreme because the cap is removed. If a single condition user is a balanced choice between no condition users in a party, then why would it change if suddenly there were more then one.

In 8v8 you can take a dps and a support and often wreck the 5 to 6 man zerg. 8v8 meta… isnt’ really a meta.

tPvP tends to revolve around uneven fights yes, so they can crack the Bunkers quick enough before reinforcements arrive. Or your bunker is strong enough to survive the 2v1 so they can be reinforced. That basically feels like tPvP in a nutshell. There are some builds out there as of late that can rip up bunker builds 1v1 though, which is changing some things.

I’m definitely more on the strong side of thinking Confusion and Retaliation need to stack in intensity with a stack removed each time it’s triggered. Would be much more reliable to balance.

The real reason was likely it was an easy programming/design choice to make. Most MMO’s make the same mistake in some kind of debuff limit early in their lifetime.

The sustained damage output of a condition class is slightly higher then that of a direct one too, but I don’t think it’s enough to justify the lack of a direct damage class. Even the devs have said that the “bleed limit” is a problem. This likely has nothing to do with balance, since as stated before it’d be seen as completely silly to limit direct damage taken per second.

If you are choosing which one, it depends on your critical chance and boon duration. If your critical chance isn’t high enough, then battle is ideal as long as you are swapping kits. If you have over 50% crit reliably though, then I’d stick with Earth. If you have something like at least +50% boon/might duration then Battle might be better as well.

Might gives you 35 power and 35 condition damage per stack. This increases direct damage and condition damage. All the damage conditions out there check your current condition damage score everytime they tick for damage, so gaining the Might after the condition has been applied increases the damage that is currently ticking.

It’s not out of the ordinary to me to have 800 damage Burn ticks, and I’m pretty sure that’d be near impossible without Might, especially since I only have about 1200 condition damage as a base.

If you go deep into Alchemy though (like I do), then HGH and 409 give the Elixirs some dependable effects. It greatly diminishes the randomness.

I love explosives. I love throwing them. I love sitting in them. Watching the world explode while I laugh and roll gives me the greatest of pleasures. Running at my opponents while throwing a hail of multi-colored grenades only to drop multitudes of multi-colored bombs all over only to duck behind a rock and shoot my multi-colored bullets from my pistols is my favorite past-time.

I tend to run condition and power hybrids pretty much always with Grenades and Pistols. I’ll pick up the Bomb Kit in most situations as well, but not necessarily in all WvW and Dungeon situations. I tend to supplement it with a poppin’ pills style with Elixirs. A pretty damage focused playstyle, but with all the blinds it’s survival is pretty high. Generally you end up with a group of opponents all lit up with more then six conditions alongside decent direct damage and retaliation.

rizzo.1079:

Firearms isn’t ‘required’ for p/s or p/p, but the pre/cond bonuses are great and Coated Bullets is pretty much a game changer that turns your pistol into a mini aoe machine.

I prefer a ConDmg/Pow/Vit spread so the Precision isn’t as great, but I’ll admit the ConDmg is always missed. I’ve never personally liked Coated Bullets since I have all the AoE I need anyway with Bombs/Grenades, and after using it I wasn’t really impressed either. I just don’t see these 20 extra points as required, heck I’m not even entirely certain the 10 points are but I like the Pistol CD reduction. The freedom of having an extra 30 points compared to 10 points can give you a lot of defensive flexibility where as 20 points in firearms doesn’t really offer any (at least in my view) game changing traits.

Again though, totally agree that Grenadier is just flat out mandatory and that is sometimes problematic. That trait line in general offers really good things though for Bombs/Grenades so it’s something I’d probably do regardless of Grenadier. Not to mention the +30% condition duration doesn’t make it too hard to get to +50% condition duration.

http://www.intothemists.com/calc/?build=-VRR;2Z-Vg0c-FQFx0;9;4T9-T-27A5;319A;1SN1;0o0-hoHAhoHA1Fp

There’s what I tend to run. The little poke of Might stacking in it is pretty recent. I used to run Geomancy Sigil and Protection Injection previously for better point domination and anti-burst, but I find incredibly increased damage output valuable in the killing of Bunker Guardians and Eles. Build is also flexible with the 20% cooldown reduction traits, but I like the ability to never have to touch the 1 key and use purely cooldown related skills. It lacks stun-breaks and perma-swiftness though, which may bug some. Stun-breaks aren’t needed as much with the health pool and numerous blinds, but the perma-swiftness is something I tend to miss. The ability to win duels in a decent time frame against bunker builds though is worth the trade off in my opinion.

Grenadier is required, I’d agree there. What do you think in Firearms though is required to use a Pistol? I only have 10 points in Firearms myself.

Personally I adore a Pistols / Grenades / Bombs build with Condi-Dmg in tPvP / hot-join.

Elixir X would be so nifty if I could choose which form I wanted. This is probably because Rampage is awful though.

Edit: I missed word.

Yeah I was just being silly, I think the Signet-Utility skill argument is likely the real reason.

I sometimes seriously question if it would even be overpowered if we received all/specific buffs instead of a random one. Some rebalancing afterwords certainly, but would be better then it is now.

I mean they are usable, but not in anyway shape or form dependable. Which is a problem.

I agree, I was just pointing out specifically claiming he’s of low skill isn’t going to get this conversation anywhere. You can make this argument without doing such, and besides you can’t know how truly skilled he is via a forum post no matter how much you disagree with it.

It’s rather true though that an Engineer has a bit of extra randomness to it when it doesn’t necessarily need to exist. It’s a cool theme, but personally I dislike it. It’s not really unmanageable though, just not dependable.

Personally I wish we could just choose what procs from the Elixirs, but I could see this as a bit too strong. Then again most people think the Engineer is weak so maybe this could be an answer, or even just making it so we get all the boons like Elixir B.

I don’t think an Engineer should focus on Bleed stacking or Burn stacking specifically, when they can both at the same time incredibly effectively. The +50% cutoff for Bleed is probably the most important for the extra tick, but beyond that I wouldn’t specialize in anything. Condition damage works on all conditions, and the choice of sigils/traits that would be seen as focusing on bleeding are still just as good in one that theoretically focuses on burning.

Heck personally I have +50% to all condition duration, which makes all my conditions violent. It’s the sheer overload of every damage condition out there that makes the Engineer condition builds effective in my eyes. We can’t stack enough intensity on Bleeds no matter what we do, and Burning can’t do the damage alone. It’s everything at once that the trick.

Technically Battle can suck in a boon removal situation, but I’d agree with Intigo that it’s a lot less situational then Hydromancy. Although Chill is one of the best conditions out there you have to be pretty close for it to work.

I personally would not look into Shield with this build, as without any access to Burning you would drop severely in damage. Heck I love dual pistols, and even with the Bomb Kit I still desire Blowtorch for the Burning damage.

Main difference between P/S and P/P is Offense vs. Defense. Burning is a healthy chunk of damage, but the Shield has great control.

Nier, while I agree with you I don’t think calling someone a low skill player regardless of whether you believe it or not is going to help the discussion.

In general the Longbow is highly underrated as of late, and has been since the beginning.

I’m impressed, I actually agree with the vast majority of this.

The other option in dealing with a Bunker is bringing a build that may not necessarily beat them, but will knock them off the point enough to neutralize. Was a great strategy for us, except for maybe the mid of Foefire.

An Engineer Grenade/Bomb/Pistols condition damage build can neutralize Guardian (and Ele) Bunker’s as well. Kills them better then any Necro build I’ve ever tried, even with perfectly timed Corrupt Boons. It can easily overwhelm their condition removal with sheer condition overload. Retaliation damage, bleeding damage, burning damage, confusion damage, poison damage, and even a healthy chunk of direct damage all lead it to being capable of dealing with a Bunker, especially when combined with a Chill. Wins 1v1 fights at an okay speed, but it wins the 2v2 fights even quicker.

It’s not perfect though, as it lacks a stun break and perma-swiftness. It’s probably not ideal outside of Anti-Bunker Roaming, but to be completely honest I personally find the survivability and dueling power of it to be extraordinary when compared to the sustained damage output that even happens to be a lot of AoE. Easily can solo the Lord, breaks down doors and trebs rather quickly, and can steal Svanir with the knockback bomb, AoE blinds, and grenade barrage. Beats burst builds with blinds, Rangers with confusion, and Mesmers with AoE. Basically has the tools to handle everything, but you have to see it coming. Again though, it lacks perma-swiftness which as a Roamer sucks horrendously. Makes up for it by actually killing the Bunkers though.

Just remember that there are many that enjoyed your video regardless of what is said here. I do believe the response was due to that line Kardiamond mentioned though. It reads as condescending, and then gets people off on the wrong foot when they watch the video.

Elixirs are magic to the uneducated, we engineers know that it is truly science that gives them power.

I love you all.

Magic is indeed for pussies. Grenades and Bombs are superior to fancy hand waving.

I technically have 3 auto-attack-like abilities and 15 cooldown abilities in my most common build, I don’t think I have a shortage of skills to use. Heck I rarely if ever use my non-cooldown related abilities.

The general consensus does align with what binidj said above. Just remember that like in most class forums in any MMO the situation is often greatly exaggerated. Dungeons are an issue for many of the classes because a select few are awesome, but we have couple of very useful builds. sPvP is always a contest on the forums of trying to solicit for buffs and peg others with nerfds, but again we have a couple of great builds and some decent variety in there. That said, we have a lot of broken skills and traits either in viability or even usage. Most other classes are in the same boat for that, but we might have it a little more extreme. There is some truth to what everyone in this consensus, but don’t let the negatives scare you away. I personally play tPvP and hotjoin PvP quite often and I most often prefer my Engineer.

To answer the title question, we do both.

Personally I think the layout of the traits and trait themes are fine. They just need to make sure a bunch of the lesser-used traits are actually valuable compared to the ones that we do see. To do this, I really think they’d have to make some of the mandatory ones currently automatic. Like the increased bomb/mine explosive range. I could never use Bombs without that trait and I’m forced to ignore all the other options if I use Bombs.

What kind of stats are you running? Grenades do well with both direct damage and condition damage. Heck it’s very easy to do both, like I do. Of course, if you do both then you lack crit and the on-crit Sigils aren’t worth it. However, on-swap is a pretty healthy alternative since if you are running a Condi-Dmg build you swap kits all the time. I tend to switch around between Sigil of Battle and Sigil of Geomancy in this case, depending on how I’m feeling about Geomancy at the time.

The inability to 1v2 and even 1v3 in this game is greatly exaggerated. WvW only extends this with possibility with gear. The multitude of people that only know how to zerg in this environment doesn’t help much either, especially since their builds probably focus on that concept. Add in the fact the Engineer gets plenty of blinds and tools to outplay opponents with a healthy chunk of AoE damage and frankly this is easily believable.

I mean, in hotjoin sPvP it isn’t exactly rare to succeed in 1v2 fights. 1v3 isn’t that much of a stretch.

To me the Engineer isn’t the master of Bleeding or even necessarily Burning, but it’s a master of dumping conditions like a thick gravy over the opponents until their condition bar is a beacon of red light.

We have Bleeding, but we can’t apply it that thickly. We have Burning and are even one of the best at applying it, but it isn’t enough damage on it’s own. We have Poison and again are one of the best at applying it, but the primary purpose of this is anti-healing and not the damage. We have Confusion and again are one of the best at applying it, but it can be unreliable in it’s damage output. All of these powers combined give us incredible sustained condition damage output that makes it difficult to regenerate and causes action use to be heavily penalized.

Not to mention, one of the biggest difficulties in dealing with our condition builds is they often supplement it with a slew of control conditions. Heck, the build I use can apply literally every condition to someone in the game. Even Fear through Nightmare Runes and Weakness through the Poison Blast combo. It’s not uncommon for someone to have far more then six conditions on them from me, and they are incredibly easy to reapply. If their condition wipes only clear off one, two, or three at a time then they aren’t going to get anything done at all.

I’ve tried the condition builds of other professions. It’s just not the same. The unholy union of all the damage conditions assisted by multiple control conditions gives us incredible damage output and utility. That and Blind is probably my favorite condition in the game and we have a ton of it on very short cooldowns.

The Condi-Dmg is for the Sword and Longbow together, not necessarily just the Burning on the Longbow. The Bleed, Confusion, and Burning more then make up for damage lost on an Arcing Arrow.

I’d agree though, that if you weren’t pairing the Sword with it then Condi-Dmg is a terrible idea. I think it’s also underestimated how close this build’s direct damage is to a build devoted to that concept. It already has 50% crit under Fury and Crit Dmg doesn’t feed your damage output as much as I think most people think.

Not saying it doesn’t have it’s weaknesses, because there are clear ones such as dueling things that aren’t vulnerable to AoE. Damage output as a weakness isn’t one of them though.

Well the Longbow can utilize Condition Damage as well, but the Warrior even more so then other professions needs Power in the build as well. Crit and Crit Dmg isn’t necessarily as important if you have powerful condition damage. You end up doing almost as much condition damage as a condition damage build and a ton of direct damage as well since the Sword and Longbow have healthy damage coefficients.

In particular it handles Mesmers pretty well since it has the Longbow. It just has troubles against condition removal, since it doesn’t have too many conditions it applies at once. Burn, Bleed, Confusion, Blind, Cripple, and Immobilize are pretty much it. You also need to sacrifice a slot for Signet of Fury likely, in order to have some decent adrenaline generation to power Flurries and Combustive Shots. I admit though, Signet of Rage plus the 30 point Strength trait for free Berserker’s Stance is extremely helpful in adrenaline gain beyond that. It’s not uncommon to start a fight with a full power Combustive Shot followed by a Fire Shielded full power Flurry.

I run a 30/30/x/x/x build with Carrion Amulet / Rampager’s Jewel and +20% condition duration from runes. Signet of Fury, Bull’s Charge, and Signet of Rage are key. Sword/Shield and Longbow as the weapons. Defensively you can fill the utility slot with Endure Pain, but honestly I prefer Fear Me! since you are pumping it’s duration by +50% anyway. Mending for condition removal is my preference as well, but running Signet of Stamina and the adrenaline heal is worth it too I bet. I’m also running an Opportunist variant right now for extra Fury uptime, but Furious is also viable considering you have 30%/50% crit even without much for Precision in you gear.

Your basic combo of Combustive Shot -> Longbow 3 -> Longbow 5 -> Sword 2 -> Flurry will kill anyone without condition removal up, and anyone that does now has that much less condition removal to deal with you. +50% Burn Duration and +100% Bleed Duration matters. Also have to keep in mind your direct damage is actually very meaningful as well. Incredible in team fights since you can lock down targets so well, survive with a shield, and have the AoE damage the Warrior often lacks.

Well generally you want something that offers dashes and/or swiftness to help you move around for a high scoring type of build. AoE attacks are also pretty useful since they allow you to tag everything and can sway team fights in your favor as well so you can even get those points.

Most of the above options are certainly good, but I’d totally suggest an Engineer with Bombs and Grenades in a Power/Condition hybrid. Most people in hot-join don’t understand the concept of staying out of the Bomb explosions and it makes the fights really easy. It offers AoE damage at 1500 range and has a fair chunk of Swiftness – not the most mobile though compared to most Engineer builds.

http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mzMzz9Mz0MaNoMMaNoMxa0x0cRqoMoa8kiT7kiO7070z7kiT707kIa70z7kNL70c7ow18ofZ

Beats most of the flavor of the month builds as long as you see them coming. Confusion and Blind gives you the kit to outplay opponents. It does lack a stun break though, so it has less reactionary options then you may like.

The lack of a stun breaker isn’t as big a deal when you have Smoke Bomb. It just turns everything into preventative care rather then reactionary. You need to dodge or blind all the troublesome stuff. It’s not really that hard to accomplish either, given everything we have.

I’ve been sPvP’ing with Grenade Kit, Bomb Kit, and Elixir B for ages. No stunbreak. Given, I have 25k health with Protection Injection just in case. Even without Protection Injection you should survive a burst combo, I just find it really helps out in 1v2 situations.

The build is excellent, but certainly not overpowered by any means. It accomplishes a lot of what the other professions can do for burst. A little more setup, but a bit more ranged capabilities beyond the burst combo.

On a side note, the Engineer more then fine. The despair in these forums is simply sad to see. There are a fair chunk of builds that can do very well.

I use a Pistol / Pistol, Bomb, and Grenade build and it works fantastically. Blinds are an amazing condition when combined with the the additional control you have with Immobilize, Knockback, Cripple, Chill, and Stun. Best part of all is all the damage is pretty much AoE, and it feels like single target DPS.

I’m not sure what’s going on in this thread, but I have a few opinions on the matter.

Engineer condition damage is extremely effective, and I personally think is a “secret OP” type of build that very few people use in sPvP. Grenades, Pistol, and Bomb conditions are incredibly powerful. They even have fantastic direct damage coefficients, so a Carrion’s Amulet is a very viable choice. You match the condition damage output of other condition damage dealers, except you bring tons of Blind, moderate direct damage (with Carrion’s), overload people with a variety of conditions, and can have incredible survival and mobility while doing so. It’s one of the few professions that can bring so much Chill and Poison to shut down bunker Guardians. You can cycle through an effective three weapon sets so that you hardly ever need to use “auto-attacks”, making it so everything you do is as potent as using cooldown attacks in succession.

Conditions are generally not that great in WvW however, due to the faster nature of the combat. This can be turned around by having a Necromancer use Epidemic, as that pretty much makes it game over without AoE condition removal. It’s going to require a good amount of teamwork, and at minimum Grenades are crazy ranged so you always have something to do. Engineer’s are one of the better WvW professions in my book.

Engineer Power builds are fine in their current state. Are they as good some Thief or Mesmer builds? No, but I think those are above and beyond what they should be. The Engineer is a perfectly viable profession choice, and in my opinion one of the top ones out there. There are tons of things that need to be fixed and adjusted before they start becoming useful, but all professions have this issue and it’s to be expected in a young MMO.

At low levels though, in WvW, you aren’t going to have the trait support for super effective condition damage. +50% or more condition duration makes a huge difference, and of course trait support can make a huge difference. Tbh though, I leveled up aiming toward a “Carrion” style of gear anyway (Condition Damage, Power, Vitality). It’s the kind of build that solos 4 to 5 veterans just as easily as it kills a single veteran. Smoke Bomb is absolutely incredible.

Ferum Flamebender.5910:

I completely understand it takes time, that a patch does not fixes everything.
If you buy something tou want it to be good, you want it to be finished, I paid 60 euros.

Those 60 euros give me right to complain, it does not give arena net the right to ask us to be patient. We are the customers not they.

It’s a little bit of entitlement here though. 60 dollars does not buy a bug-free and finished MMO. It never has. Traditionally it’s been many hundreds of dollars in accumulated subscription fees that bring about a much more bug-free experience with refined content. This is the most finished and playable MMO I’ve ever played at launch (Aion, WoW, SWTOR, Tabula Rasa, and WAR), and honestly when I login and play I enjoy myself greatly.

In regards to the Engineer, I swapped through every profession recently while picking something for PvP. The Engineer is by far from being in the worst boat. We have multiple competitive builds and plenty of subtle variations that are more then viable. We are on the top end of viability for PvE and sPvP. I’m not entirely sure with WvW, but I’d imagine we are well enough off. Are there broken things? Heck yeah, just like with all professions. Is this out of the ordinary? No, not in regards to other professions nor is it out of the ordinary for MMOs in general. Context matters, especially in a game that is as large as an MMO.

I mean, to me the game is playable right now. More then playable, in fact it’s very enjoyable. I trust that they will eventually fix things that frustrate me as well. I mean don’t get me wrong, I wish they could get it right the first time, but historically and via my own experience as a software engineer, that is impossible. In general, I think there is a lot of exaggeration on these forums combined with a lack of understanding.

I’m not sure you guys understand how running an MMO works. Unfortunately you can’t fix everything all at once, it takes time. The kit issues, garbage traits, garbage skills, and bugs are annoying, but you need to remember that for every profession they have these outstanding issues yet to fix. It’s not going to be done in a day, a week, or even a month.

I’m sure you think it’s just a simple numbers change, but quite frankly it isn’t. Every single change on those patch notes consumes much more time then you realize. Meetings, testing, problem solving, analysis, collaboration, coding, more testing, theory, and even more testing. I’m sure they are aware of many of the bugs you are are all worried about, but bugs in particular are the hardest of things to squash. You have to fix it without breaking anything else, and that requires an incredible amount of testing that I don’t think a non-programmer would understand.

Short and sweet, it’s evident they are working on it. The Engineer isn’t the only profession with problems. Things will get fixed, but every patch won’t fix “everything”. Just have some patience, which needs to be on the order of many multiples of months. Actually, I think the best advice would be to not even wait for patches. Play what is here, if you don’t like it move on.