Guild Wars 2

Haha, I need to try out Slick Shoes more often offensively. I agree Kardiamond that the number was a bad number to choose, but when you are on the spot and reaching for a number in your memory I don’t blame him for recalling that instance. The only reason I find it not outrageous though, is that it in the end is technically possible.

Bombs in general don’t work on a Mesmer at all, ha.

I can only compare it to my Mesmer for first hand, and I like my Engineer more. They are needed for Portal Bombs and Time Warping Golems though, I’ll admit. The only thing we have even close to that is Mortar for the #5 to deal kill off deep siege weapons on the walls, but Ele’s have Meteor Storm for that too.

But whether it’s rolling around in the guild zerg throwing grenades into the ground at invisible enemies I can’t see or roaming around in a small group taking camps I never feel like I’m behind. Perhaps I do need to finish leveling up my Warrior and take him into the field, but even from the videos I’ve watched I don’t see much difference in the grand scheme of things. Are there better builds out there for WvW in different professions? Yeah, I think there are. I don’t think they are significantly better the point where it makes us irrelevant though. We could use some changes, but I don’t think it’s that bad and many other classes need the same kind of changes.

A lot of my comments on general in this thread agree with what everyone is writing in terms of the topic, I just don’t agree with the severity of the issues that seem to portrayed here. Exaggeration make it even more unlikely that a dev can take our discussion seriously as well, so it’s really just unhelpful. Perhaps I’m misreading some of this and that’s my own fault, but I don’t think we are as bad off as many people seem to portray.

I know it was spoofed, but I don’t blame them for calling it out as a number. Especially since it is actually possible. Unlikely like I said, but it’s possible. I don’t think the build is overpowered in the grand scheme of things, but I don’t think it’s a good thing for the game to have any one-shot type of things at all around.

I’d rather have Kit Refinement be moved more towards utility, and if the build is weak after that it given buffs to compensate. Mesmers are a problem for any “combo” based build, since that’s what they avoid best is burst combos with their X ways of countering control and access to damage invulns.

Yeah pretty much every class forum complains about build diversity. Engineers are not unique in this situation, and us having maybe 2 or more viable builds as it stands is something that is above and beyond some of the other classes.

I mean, if you place a 5s Immobilize on a target and follow it up right away with another 5s Immobilize, only the last Immobilize on the stack will exist so it would not total up to 10s. Not that the condition duration can’t be increased, because it certainly can.

I noticed this on my Condi Warrior (probably not viable but fun!), when I’d have a 6s Immobilize overwritten by my 1.5s Immobilize and actually release them before the 6s would’ve expired.

Edit: Ah ok, you figured it out before I posted, oh well.

Well, they are nerfing Thief burst and watching Mesmer burst carefully. It’s not unreasonable they nerf our burst, when it’s potentially even quicker then the rest. Whether it’s OP is a matter of opinion at this point, and standing inside a target feels like an exploit to me. That’s not to say it wasn’t fun though, the build is a whole lot of fun to play. HGH Power Nades though to me at least sounds just as fun, but I’ll admit I haven’t done it.

Well, Immobilize doesn’t stack in duration contrary to the tooltip. Still possible though with proper play so if it was added perhaps Net Turret could use a change, but I think it’d be worth it in a way.

If we are petitioning extra stuff with the Turret changes, I’m going to throw in a mix of reduced cooldowns, increased survival, and the overcharges resetting the turret cooldown so they activate instantly into this bucket. Oh and AI changes so that it always tries to target what you are aiming at or hit last instead of at targets out of range of itself.

I’ve actually seen HGH direct-dmg grenade variants work out pretty well too. That was at least what Team PZ was experimenting with before the Kit Refinement part of it became widely known. With lots of Might and Fury, it’s not unreasonable to get 10-13k out of just the single Grenade Barrage which is significant in itself. Then just use Jump Shot on top of them or something in addition to it (without the Rifled Barrels trait so it goes faster).

It is possible to do 24k bursts with 100 Nades as it stands now. It’s incredibly unlikely though. I think their specific reference to this was a thread that popped up awhile ago, where they had a screenshot for the 24k.

They did they say wanted to buff many of the crappy utility skills out there as a generalist topic. You could put gadgets in there.

chrisk.4320:

Get rid of Toss Elixir S RNG. Make it always stealth or always stability. I don’t really care which, I’m just constantly annoyed when I need one and I get the other.

I don’t think it’d be too strong to just do both.

SilverWF.4789:

just wondering – who have asked for turrets buff? don’t they see we need something another?

I apologize if this wasn’t meant to be taken literally, but a lot of threads on this forum alone have asked for turret buffs in some form.

Condi-Burst is still around, played by Teldo, Hiba, and many others.

http://www.intothemists.com/calc/?build=-VRR;0B-Z-Vg0u5FQFx0;9;4T9-T-49A5;319A;1VN1;11-hoHAhoHA7Zi

Rune choices and Amulet choices are subject to change of course, pending personal preferences and bugs.

lettucemode.3789:

Lay off of Karl. Grouch specifically asked him to summarize the first couple classes, so then Karl assumed that’s what he wanted for all the classes, and Grouch nor the other interviewers ever asked him to stop doing that. It’s not Karl’s fault, it’s the interviewers’.

So he’s not a good public speaker. So what? If there wasn’t someone from the balance team there I’m sure people would complain even more. So he forgot whether or not a certain skill has a blast finisher. So what? There are hundreds of skills and effects in the game, he can be forgiven for forgetting one. So it makes him appear less capable at his job. So what? He’s a human being and human beings all make mistakes, he doesn’t deserve to be judged for that.

“They said ele healing is fine, lol” – no, they said that the amount that eles heal is fine and that they want to increase the casting times of those abilities. They want an ele getting his heal off to be a big deal, but they admitted that right now it is perhaps too easy to do so.

“same build diversity as necros? Necros have no build diversity, lol” – wrong. There’s the standard condition build, then you have 30/30/10/0/0, you have the condition build with Terror mixed in, there’s a 30/20/0/0/20 ele-killer build which is super fun with 4.2k life blast crits and incredible dagger spam damage and boon removal, you have the minion bunker-buster or bunker build, heck take a look at the two builds in my sig. The point is that the tree is diverse enough to support a wide variety of builds, AND there is room for “tweaking” builds to suit personal preference. Whereas there’s only one mesmer shatter build, for example.

“leaderboards will probably release six months from now” – oh my lord, they said specifically that leaderboards are in testing. Meaning that all of the programming work is done unless the testers find a bug that needs to be fixed. They also said that leaderboards will be here soon, maybe even before the patch! How in the hell do you interpret that as “6 months”?

EDIT: sorry for the venom in this post. The forums have been frustrating me lately, there was a thread where someone dared to say that they were actually having fun with sPvP and everyone on here tore him a new butthole. I guess I’m frustrated over how this forum behaves, but it is the internet, so I should probably get over it…

I wrote several posts like this and decided not to post them for various reasons, but I’d like to say that I agree with pretty much everything you wrote and am glad you put it down. The venom is mostly deserved, this forum goes overboard on being negative.

Moddo.7105:

Ayestes.1273:

I guess we just disagree that changing things slowly is as big a problem. I think they could go a little bit quicker, but not by much. I’ll just wait and enjoy what I have now.

They could do changes more quickly if they would use this new idea I came up with. A server that is open to customers that you place test code on and let customers test out balance and find bugs with. I am such a genius to think of this new and innovative method that no other MMO has ever used. Anet just scared to use my idea because it is so new and not proven method of helping QA process.

Haha, the sarcasm is so heavy it could sink a battleship.

Phineas Poe.3018:

What I’m saying is that the Engineer’s Super Elixir doesn’t work as a miracle machine precisely because we do not need it to.

I agree with this. Super Elixir is fine, I just want additional boon support in the Elixir Gun outside that attached to a trait. That’s all I asked for, I’m not sure if we really disagree here or are just misunderstanding each other.

I don’t disagree that the Elixir Gun’s Kit Refinement (ah, you changed this to Grenade Kit, I misinterpreted this before you changed it then) needed to be changed, I just feel that the boon support in the Elixir Gun is lacking. Some of this opinion is intended to counterbalance the incoming change to Kit Refinement, however. I do acknowledge that a Guardian has to give up other areas, but I don’t think it’s nearly as much. Given, this comes from discussion among friends that play Guardians and is not first-hand experience at all.

Sorry I added that in, I have a habit of just clicking post and editing things multiple times afterwards instead of reading through it before I click post. (Haha, seems you do the same thing.)

I don’t think there a utility skill that can maintain meaningful healing, but there are certainly builds that can do that. Builds as a whole are what matter anyway, not just a specific utility skill comparison. If we were to compare our utility slots in power to any other class, we’d grossly overpower them simply because we are designed to have kits. I’m pretty sure a Warrior would pick up Flamethrower Kit over Kick just for the CC, for example.

Oh no, it’s going to plenty time for meaningful changes to take effect. They don’t change things quickly by any means. It’s going to take patience, which I have but unfortunately I appear to be the minority in that regard. Which is understandable as most players.

I didn’t say Elixir Gun needed to heal more, I said it need more support. I merely said I don’t think the healing numbers are astonishing by any means. I want more boon support on it attached to some trait. Perma Fury costing us our runeslots isn’t really that great to me, since there are much easier ways for many classes to maintain fury on a group without resorting to that. Again, I’m not saying the Elixir Gun needs more survival, I want it to have more boon support. As it stands I’m not impressed at all with what it has in that category.

You are right in that it’s difficult to talk about speculated changes, but we do know that Super Elixir on the Kit Refinement is looking at some form of change in the nerf direction. Maybe not this patch, but eventually.

Well, this assumes the latest possible change of removing Super Elixir from Kit Refinement. I guess we don’t know precisely will happen. As it stands though, even double Super Elixir isn’t really all that much healing (considering that is basically our only source of meaningful splash healing). I want some kind of deeper trait that enhances the support of an Elixir Gun, especially in the case of mobile fights like PvP brings. I don’t really think rapid rune on-heal procs make up for it. Quite frankly I don’t think an ally would really notice much if you had an Elixir Gun, compared to say having a Guardian or Ele focused on Support next to you. Not that I think we need that strong of Support, but I don’t think we are even close. I think the Elixir Gun is usable in it’s current state, but I in my opinion it’s not competitive at all for PvP.

I didn’t really want to get into this 15% damage discussion, but I disagree with it as well. A bandaid fix is most certainly what we don’t need. Heck our direct damage output would be too high with a 15% damage buff, and the same goes for condi-dmg. We need targeted fixes to all the gunk instead of a global buff. We have working builds as it stands right now and those do not need such a significant buff.

I think there are some unique and nifty ways to support a group right now, but I think they require too much sacrifice in other areas to achieve. I think some trait combination with the Elixir Gun should be capable of stronger support, and I think tossed Elixirs should be better support as well.

aydenunited.5729:

That’s just the problem.

I guess we just disagree that changing things slowly is as big a problem. I think they could go a little bit quicker, but not by much. I’ll just wait and enjoy what I have now.

Swagg.9236:

(as above)

As for having specialists, we don’t know if they have them or not. I’m not going to get into whether a company should have specialists or generalists in regards to balance as that is a topic that can be heavily debated among game designers, but as to this specific instance we couldn’t even have a chance for specialists because frankly they only had 3 people on the show. Bringing in another 8 additional people for specific balance discussion was simply not something that appeared to be asked for by the community beforehand. It’s always about dissecting the feedback and prioritizing it. I don’t think people understand what it’s like to be in their shoes at all, because from my position I see them as extremely caring about the community.

I mentioned very specifically I say low amounts of RNG. When I referenced low amounts of RNG I mentioned Critical Hits. I never associated the current high state of Elixir RNG with Critical Hits. You are assuming things about what I wrote that are incorrect. I hate the current state of Elixir RNG. I’m one of the bigger advocates on these forums for radically reducing the unreliability of our Elixirs and flat out buffing the Tossed Elixirs so they are actually supportive to allies. As a short example, I think Elixir B should always grant Swiftness and additionally grant one of the other 3 buffs. What they described about Elixir U changes actually aligns with what I want, radically reduced RNG and dependable effects. I like their comments on it, and I’m glad they’ve finally discussed that they acknowledge we hate the RNG.

In regards to Kits, I honestly don’t know what the devs are thinking about them. I do think they at least are designed to sometimes use the Auto-Attack, or they wouldn’t have balanced the Grenade Auto. I personally think they should change it so Grenade, Bomb, and Elixir Gun no longer have autos and just have new #1 cooldown related abilities, but that’s not really what I was discussing here. I agree that Kits are optimally in many cases used best for their cooldowns and not their autos, which is why I have the above opinion of removing most of them.

I am not an advocate of homogenizing them by any means, as they can have many different styles. I want more hybridization, but not complete hybridization. The main place I want hybridization is not even our weapon sets and kits, it’s actually in places such as Downed State. Our weapon sets could use little tweaks, but we are one of the closest to being hybrid viable out there. Other classes need a lot of work in this regard though. I was merely pointing out to Goloith in this case that I think the hybridization concept is perfectly viable, and that the game needs more of it and not less of it.

Goloith.6349:

In my opinion the Devs see the engineer in the vision of PvP and not WvW. I really would like to start seeing them making things more WvW centric.

Why do you think that is the case? I don’t think we are much worse off then any other profession out there. I actually think we are great in WvW. Could you elaborate?

I think the point where the changes are going to come slowly need to be stressed. None of this was even guaranteed to be in the March patch. It’s going to take time. GW2 as a whole is growing as well, so they don’t need to do anything radical. I mean I think their approach is too slow as well, but all this SotG left me with was optimism.

I’m continuing to be impressed with the pessimism. They aren’t going to radically change the way things work, changes are going to be slow and gradual. You can tell their biggest fear is creating something that is overpowered. I see nothing wrong with that stance.

There is no way a Dev will see a class like an Engineer main player will. This is completely understandable. These three in particular have to play all eight classes. Of course they aren’t going to know everything about every class. It’s their job to work on it yes, but they can’t spend all of their job playing each class 2 to 3 hours a day like many of us can. Are there are others that perhaps do? Maybe, but you can’t expect these three in high level positions to know every single little issue. They know what they can scrape up themselves and what other people tell them. Their sources of information are internal and external, and even then you have to take all the external discussion with quite the grain of salt. If they took some of the suggestions on these boards and just implemented them, we’d be the most overpowered class by a mile. I love the discussion on these boards, but even I can see (especially when it gets so pessimistic) how radical some of the ideas proposed are.

As it stands, we aren’t beyond broken in our current state. We do need an awful lot of work, but so do the other seven classes in this game. We may need some more work then others, but really the biggest issue right now is build diversity and the vast majority of players have this issue.

@ Goloith, I honestly think that as long as they are giving turrets attention things are looking up. They really do have quite a danger of overbuffing those things, and making them mandatory in many situations by doing so. I mean I agree they suck pretty badly right now, but the concept could easily go overboard. Besides, we don’t even know the exact changes.

Low amounts of RNG are perfectly tolerable. Critical Hits for example are pretty commonly accepted. I’m perfectly fine with having a little RNG, but again the whole point is they know it’s an issue. The changes they suggested to Elixir U sound like the right track to me, I don’t understand why it’s not a great thing. Again, I hate the way RNG is setup now but it really looks like they are trying to ease it.

I really think there is a way to balance kits in terms of direct damage and condition damage together. I do think there needs to be a lot of work across nearly the entire game in this area in terms of improving hybridization of the types especially in mandatory skills (like Downed State), but I do think hybridization is possible. An example is Grenade Kit for the Engineer. It works with condition damage builds and direct damage builds just fine. The condition builds gain damage cooldowns, while the direct damage builds gain damage cooldowns and another variant of auto-attack. If it’s possible to balance for one kit, I’m sure it’s possible to balance for all sorts weapons. I do wish this topic was brought up though, I’d like to hear the devs response to it.

Sorry I kinda picked you out of this discussion to talk to, I really do respect your opinion. I just disagree with this instance of your opinion, really just because it’s so negative when I don’t think it needs to be. Deep down I agree with you on the core issues, I just think the devs are either addressing it and/or can be solved successfully concerning these topics.

I recall when we saw the way Kit Refinement nerfed the way it was currently, there appeared to be an overwhelming majority who would rather just see the Grenade Kit variant of it nerfed. If them nerfing Kit Refinement opens the door to better direct damage PvP builds I’m all for it.

It’s important to remember everyone that nothing necessarily will make it this patch. Even if they talked about it. Changes will come slowly, like they always have. I just personally am very optimistic about what they said for the Engineer. It sounded like they have the right idea to me.

I’d just like to say I really hope Xeph is on these often. He brought amazing discussion to it.

Overall, I liked what the devs had to say too. While it’s tiring to hear “soon” in a sense to most questions, it’s good to know it’s on the agenda. Realistically, they can’t do everything at once and I can’t fault them for not being able to do that. I really liked the balance discussion and I hope there is more of it.

I’m unsure if it is possible, but it’d be nice to hear some more discussion on where things are on their priority lists. This kinda assumes the community is mature enough to understand things can change on a dime in that list though. I know the showtime is supposed to be only an hour, but maybe it should be scheduled for 90 minutes instead? We always seem to run over as it stands.

Med Kit 4 could use 2 conditions removed, but certainly not all. I’d actually like it if Med Kit healed in a short AoE (and did #4/#5 AoE as well) when someone picked up the pack as well. It’d make you actually feel like a Medic.

Since Engi Utility slots are so powerful as they stand, I could see a Portal variant put in as well.

My impression with the “boon hate” was that it dealt with traits, not NPCs. On the topic of boon stripping though, I think the Engineer deserves some of it sprinkled in places other then the Mine.

On the side, Pistol 5 I don’t necessarily agree is good control. It’s like a ranged 1s AoE Immobilize in most cases, and that’s it. I think Glue in general is extremely weak. It’s useful because with Duel Pistols it’s the only control in the weapon set, but I disagree with it’s overall quality compared to other forms of Control out there. On the whole though, I agree that outside of Glue our Control options are fantastic. We tend to always have it, where other classes have to pick up a certain weapon set.

Ostricheggs.3742:

Zinwrath.2049:

@Kimbald

I think what i gathered from the dev interview, was that they want a turret build to not need a stun breaker. That utility you might need would be built into the turrets over charge. No turret has a stun breaker unfortunatly but turrets can stun/knockdown/knockback someone trying to stun you or stunning you. So i guess thats supposed to balance out that way. not saying it does or that its perfect, but thats what i gathered from the interview.

There is no tourney viable, or even hotjoin viable, build without a stunbreak. You WILL die. I don’t care how tanky you are, when updraft stuns you for 3 seconds you are going to die even if you have 3400 armor.

And using an overcharge with a CC as a replacement is even worse. That’s completely factoring out stability and the fact that overcharge works on the turrets next hit which can mean the entire duration of the CC. That also assumes the turret isn’t going to get one shot by the frenzied warrior buttkittening you.

One example off the top of my head is the Trap Ranger which lacks a stun break, and instead relies on the evades and Pet CC to use while stunned. I think there are viable builds without stun breaks out there. Very few builds yes and it is a strong determining factor, but I think the statement cannot be said in an absolute fashion.

I do think there are problems in terms of utility slots as a Turret Engi though, but it’s not necessarily just because it lacks a Stun Break.

Stun breakers are not mandatory. At least in my opinion. Heck there are a lot of viable builds out there right now that that lack stun breakers as well. I think saying that stun breakers are mandatory is just pigeonholing yourself into such builds. Stun breakers are really, really good inside glass cannon like builds I’d agree, but a Turret build isn’t necessarily a glass cannon in this case. That is if it ends up being good enough after the changes.

In terms of the Engi being brought up for Elixir R and Super Speed… those things are actually very good for flag running irregardless of whatever issues the Engineer have. I see nothing wrong with that being brought up as an example of other things that are good on that map. RTL is a heck of a lot more common I’ll admit and fits into more builds, but that still doesn’t make that comment irrelevant.

Yeah link is in the top post now.

Haha, I’m not even worried that you misspoke. You have to know 8 classes in the entirety, getting a little mixed up is completely reasonable to me.

I personally really liked your responses in their entirety.

Grenades and Rifle even with long range capabilities work much better at short range. Grenades are much more accurate and land all three hits reliably, and Blunderbuss is a ton (technically infinitely) more effective at 100 range then 1200 range.

I’m comfortable with being called a mid-range class, and it makes a lot of sense to me. We can be mindbogglingly dangerous at close range, especially in terms of AoE.

• 1. Bombs to be unblockable. This would allow them to combat bunker builds in a unique way.
• 2. Glue to have 2s condition durations instead of 1s. Right now it feels far too weak since as soon as you leave it it’s a non-issue no matter how long you were in it previously.
• 3. Elixir RNG reduced with reliability and the tosses boosted for allied support. H should always give Protection, the Toss H always give a splash heal, Toss B always give Swiftness, Toss S always give both Stability and Stealth as examples. Too much RNG at the moment to react to.
• 4. Finishers brought to Pistol Volley, Static Shot, Grenade Barrage, and more. I think we have access to a bunch, but they feel like they are in obtuse areas.
• 5. Many of the kit #1 slots should be cooldown abilities. An example would be Shrapnel Bomb on the Bomb Kit being a large direct damage hit with a bleed component. This is likely someone many disagree with though, but I think that having too many auto variants makes it so they have to nerf all the autos in general and I don’t like that.
• 6. Downed state buffs. I just want Bleeds on #2 and Burns on #3, but I’ve heard some great ideas. I’m fine with us being vulnerable to all the stuff, I just want to go down with a bang.
• 7. Scope should be a range buff. Should also actually work.

I thought it was Rifle Turrets, I’ll relisten to it again once the vod comes up. I don’t remember anything Rifle specific, but my memory isn’t always perfect.

Edit: Seems I only put “Rifle” instead of “Rifle Turret”, oops. Sorry if I caused any of this.

I think the point was to nerf Super Elixir and Grenade Barrage to make them like the utility options the other types bring. However, they weren’t specific other then mentioning Super Elixir and Grenade Barrage, and then talking about changing it as a whole towards utility.

Guru SotG March – Engineer

• Kit Refinement nerfs towards utility. “… more utility and less damage output.” 100 Nades and Super Elixir were too good compared to the rest. 100 Nades mentioned specifically, in that a 10 point trait isn’t meant to be that powerful. 24k damage mentioned, which while up in the top end of possible damage is still possible. “…we wanted to normalize how this works and make it useful for all kits.”

• Turret buffs such as Thumper gaining AoE Cripple (3s every 5s) and Rifle Turret getting more damage. “… and some other cool stuff that you’ll see.”

• Overall a lot of changes planned, mostly buff-centric. “…couple pages worth of notes…” It appeared it was data for the next patch, but isn’t necessarily the case. “… pretty heavy focus [on the Engineer]…” Globally some changes are planned in increasing the strength of the weaker utilities, so perhaps that may be addressed here as well.

• Described as mid-range skirmishers that can control battlefield in various ways such as with turrets, control skills, AoE, and other ways. “…they are going to be impactful in close range fights and have the ability to control space…” Intended on buffing the things that aren’t used as often so that they do get used as different playstyles.

• RNG toned down, but not necessarily removed. Example is Elixir U only has Frenzy and Haste variants and the Toss lacks Veil now so it always blocks projectiles in some fashion. Not much done in the March patch yet though. “… smaller subsets [of RNG].”

• Condition buffs, non-specific. Mentioned offhand during the Thief discussion, but it was in reference to Engineers and Thieves in particular.

Also, remember not to hate on their comments. Don’t overreach into what they say and take it negatively. Discussion is great and it gives us insight into their thoughts. The only negative thing here I find is Kit Refinement, but I think nerfing the effects towards utility is a better option then going through with the ridiculous internal cooldown fiasco for example.

I very much liked this State of the Game, especially in regard to Engineers. Things take time, and I think they are on the right path.

Not only is the RNG terrible, but tossing an Elixir on the ground for a single boon isn’t even that great. If it wasn’t buffed up with HGH and 409 it wouldn’t be worth it, and even then it’s certainly not worth it in combat just for the Might and random boon. Not to mention on top of all that, buffing your allies with tossed elixirs is a noob trap and incredibly ineffective.

Lupanic.6502:

The idea is nice but do be honest it is big love to engineers

I think the Engineer does need big changes, but I’ll agree that every class would need similar changes to keep pace. In my opinion at least, the game isn’t really that far off from being balanced. Fixing one classes crap skills while leaving everyone else’s crap skills in the game would be too much of a buff for one class.

Basically, these changes are awesome but even if implemented they would need to come slowly alongside other global class changes.

Goloith.6349:

I’m sorry but this a terrible build. I’ll explain.

1. You are carrying a bomb kit which is best used with power, not condition damage.
2. You are not using a Rifle which has the best CC and best for setting up bombs.
3. You should be going knights gear.
4. You have no points into firearms yet you use p/p. That’s over 6 stacks of might required to make up for that condition damage.

I disagree with some of that and agree partially with other areas.

Concussive Bomb and Incendiary Bomb are condi-dmg cooldowns. The only thing with decent direct-dmg is the regular Bomb without a cooldown, which isn’t really all that special aside from being a little more damage then a Grenade auto. Honestly the best combo would be high condi-dmg and moderate direct-dmg, but that’s describing most HGH condi builds anyway. Bombs when they are landing do far more condi-dmg then direct dmg, and it’s appropriate to gear for that. Bombs are in a tricky position where they can kinda do both, but I honestly lean it towards the condition damage side. With Elixir Infused Bombs though, where you want to Bomb auto, then it becomes a power primary selection. Condi builds tend to rely on cooldowns more, and the Bomb Kit provides that.

Glue shot can also setup Bombs, but I’ll agree that the Rifle would be better for it as long as you can land Net Shots point blank. Beyond that it isn’t going to be much more special. You don’t necessarily need to go into Firearms to use Pistols. It’s lost condition damage, but trait utility is potentially better. I don’t think we should be placing arbitrary constraints on things, as that restricts ingenuity in our builds. That said, I personally like the traits in Firearms more then I would in Invention.

As an aside, Bombs and Nades combined with the Shrapnel trait is our highest condi damage output in PvE. It’d be silly to say that Bombs are only a direct damage choice in this context. Bombs can be used for both paths.

Instructional videos are always awesome, especially from someone who we already know is talented.

This is interesting indeed. My only questions really deal with HGH. What is the amount of time that is required to chug elixirs to maintain maximum Might stacks? Is the cast time of a tossed elixir even worth attempting for a single stack of Might?

The only reason I bring these questions up is while our DPS may be higher when we are dealing damage, we aren’t actually dealing damage when we are chugging elixirs. I’m curious if that was factored in, and if it was how it those questions above would be answered. I imagine drinking Elixir B is always worth it, but the others I’m not really so sure on from first glance.

Grenades don’t really miss when you are basically in melee range. Ranged attacking with them is just an option, and the inaccuracy of them is really overrated in PvE situations.

In probably every build, you could just swap in a Grenade Kit while running around and point blank tag all the mobs by throwing them on the ground. That’s at least what I do. Definitely one of the easiest classes to tag mobs with, since we can kinda skirt the AoE cap with having 3 separate AoE attacks in one.

While HGH isn’t nearly as good as seems to be commonly believed, it is still very good as a trait selection compared to our other options. There are potentially undiscovered better builds out there I’ll agree, but as it stands now Condi-Burst (aka HGH Condi Nades Pistols with Geomancy) is a competitive build that matches up alongside the rest of what is viable in tPvP. It’s not necessarily because of HGH, but going down Alchemy for Elixir self-utility (boons, condi-removal, quicker Elixir S) is not something I’d dismiss as wasting points. Are there ways to better stack Might? Sure, but HGH is a single trait that grants a whole ton of Might which is a surprising return with such a low opportunity cost.

HGH is triggered off the automatic elixir drinks as well, so you get two stacks of Might for those to answer the OP’s question. It’s not triggered off anything from the Elixir Gun.

As an aside, it might even be less viable in PvE because time spent chugging Elixirs is time not spent necessarily dealing damage. This is just quick conjecture though, and at least I personally don’t make a habit of chugging elixirs on cooldown when I use the build for Dungeon purposes.

Grimwolf.7163:

The reason is that condition damage ignores level differences, so you can kill enemies far higher level than yourself and burn through content much more quickly.

Yeah it wasn’t uncommon for me to find myself in areas ten levels above myself before I realized it.

Back to the topic… Shooting for HGH probably isn’t the best way to level, I’m sure there is a more specific way to get to it with a respec at 80. I just didn’t bother, since the content is actually extremely easy as a Condi-Engi and I had tons of supplemental levels from crafting, wvw, and dungeons.

As soon as you get Bombs and Nades for kits with two Pistols that’s all you need. Just focus on Condi Damage and then Precision/Power after that. Go Firearms, and then play around with whatever traitline looks nice after that. The only big change in power is when you get Grenadier, but you are preferably fine before that.

For me I’d just gather things up with Pistols, then drop a Smoke Bomb, and cycle through Incendiary Bomb, Concussive Bomb, Shrapnel Grenades, Poison Grenades. Use Flash Grenades and a second Static Shot to stay immune to damage. Good Trait choices on the way up are Shrapnel and 409. The rest isn’t really needed and is aloft with personal preference, heck you don’t even need the boosted Bomb radius trait when you are using it for PvE. Incendiary Powder is great when you have the crit chance, and Fast Acting Elixirs is great if you use elixirs early. Speedy Kits is a nice trait to pickup early though, so you have that. I think we are really flexible here.

Well Mask has room for Potent Elixirs, which with that extra boon duration from runes would make that pretty crazy for everything combined. Elixir B stuff though tends to be on anyway for a long time in terms of most fights, since it gets boosted by the auto-chug one at 75%.

It’d be interesting to see some good testing on it, or even math. I wish I had the time for it since it’s driving me nuts now.

Direct damage is probably a simpler way of leveling up. I did actually level up with Bombs, Nades, and dual Pistols with a condi-dmg/crit/power attribute spread though. Traited straight to 30/10/0/30/0 for HGH and Grenadier. You can solo a lot of things with constant Blind applications, and the kill speed is plenty fine. The only real problem I have with it is doing Dungeons when someone else is using Condis.

I actually question how much the entire benefit is, but I admit this is just speculation and anecdotal experience instead of anything mathematical. You give up a decent chunk of stats for splitting runes, and the 6/6 bonus can be pretty good. A simple comparison is just using Undead runes, where you get like 250+ more condi damage as a base. The extra Might duration doesn’t seem like it’d get high enough to outdo that, but then again it also gives Power even if it isn’t that big a percentage wise of the damage. Again though, it’s all speculation. I haven’t had time to do much lately, such as test that hypothesis, due to a sick daughter.

HGH does not need Might runes to be effective. It’s always nice certainly, but most Elixirs do not work the best by chain chugging them and that’s the only way you are going to generate more Might stacks in that fashion.

In my experience, Condi-Burst (Condi Nades w/ Geomancy) is really, really good in WvW. Eat some Rare Veggie Pizza and then slam a group with Confusion, x6+ bleed stacks, Burning, and Poison all the while just trying to survive after that and then pick up multiple bags. Seems very few people, unless it’s an Ele, have condi-removal out there in WvW. Makes little sense to me, but I’ll take it.

TK Takaishi.6270:

Ayestes.1273:

Yeah I’m not entirely sure why they gave Prybar a boost

God forbid engis actually get something really good for once

Haha, I meant it isn’t the part of Tool Kit I’d have fixed – I thought Pry Bar was okay as it was previously.

It’s something I didn’t know before.

I could only imagine how awesome it would be though if Mortar was automatic like a turret. It’d actually be useful, given it’d probably have horrible accuracy issues, but it’d be interesting to see.