Guild Wars 2

I’m not sure what’s going on, but I’m only getting a global cooldown between FT and Elixir Gun from what I’ve tried. Tool Kit and Grenade Kit don’t seem to mess with each other.

I didn’t think the introduction of a global cooldown meant the per skill cooldowns were going away, interesting.

The problem is, if they wanted to nerf 100 Nades specifically they should have done that. The way it is currently, the only thing that’s nerfed about it is you don’t really want to use the Tool Kit Kit Refinement for the free nails. It’s a hefty micromanagement increase, and that’s all. It does similar things to Elixir Gun and Flamethrower for using Kit Refinement as well.

This probably the worst way to nerf Kit Refinement someone could come up with. It wrecks build diversity with kits and Kit Refinement in general. Managing more mental cooldowns isn’t exactly fun.

It didn’t need a nerf, I agree. I’m just saying it doesn’t remove the build entirely. Especially one that just makes it more frustrating to manage.

Well, this doesn’t remove 100 Nades. It just means you have to be careful with Tool Kit and Grenade Kit equips. You don’t want a Tool Kit activation of the cooldown to wreck the Grenade Kit one.

The problem is Engineer utilities are extremely powerful compared to other class options, which would theoretically make up for that damage tax. Battering Ram is more equivalent to that of someone else’s utility so it’s difficult to pick up. In fact a lot of our utilities have this issue, even considering the tool belt skills that come along with it.

Battering Ram is a great skill, but you could pick up the Flamethrower for a knockback instead.

Bomb Kit destroys anything melee, but so can Grenades aimed at our feet. Now, if that Thief actually uses the Shortbow, that’s a different situation altogether.

Jumper.9482:

It was originally like this.

Indeed, and it was changed due to heavy community support. Self-inflicted RNG isn’t fun in PvP situations. (stupid elixirs…)

It’s too bad we couldn’t have had 1-round solo queue and 1-round team queue. I don’t think this would be to terribly different from the current system, with the exception of introducing the logic that prevents teams from joining the solo queue. What we are getting now though is a step in the right direction, and I like it for that.

That said, I don’t think any unofficial soloq choice will work. I’m willing to follow through with it, but it’s highly likely the 3-round tournaments will have rather low turnout.

I’m pretty sure I ran into someone using Pistol / Shield, Flamethrower, and Battering Ram once. I spent most of that fight on my back.

Probably a side topic, but I kinda hope Giver’s weapons are fixed this patch.

Malvado.1460:

Ayestes.1273:

Mortar with improved Range and Radius would be okay. The #1 could certainly use a damage boost though.

This trait does not work

I wasn’t even talking about the trait. I had completely forgotten about the existence of that trait.

Don’t stomp him with stealth or stability, that’s terrible advice. You need to either quickness stomp, DPS the corpse, or make sure they aren’t in the field when they die.

From a rough survey of builds on the Engi forums, most of us don’t even take the skill, so I’m not sure how broken the gimmick is if many Engineers don’t even see it as better then Elixir S. It’s useful yes, but it relies on someone being uninformed about the skill. I haven’t used it in forever, and it’s the only reason Elixir R has any sort of advantage over Elixir S.

Depends on the build. If you have HGH then you could easily run with just over 1000 Condi-Dmg, but without it the minimum should probably be around 1200. Generally though, the more you have the better.

Duration can be found via runes, Explosives traits, and Rare Veggie Pizza. Anything over 50% is easily enough, but I’ve seen many that don’t even that have that much that do well.

As long as you stick to Rabid/Rampager/Carrion gear it’ll be fine.

While the issue needs to be fixed, I found I can often self-fix it by having my camera zoomed out fully and pointing it so I’m looking straight down on my character. Doesn’t always work, but it helps.

I remember when Condi Engis were brought up a bit ago as well and no one believed it.

Some of this has been answered before, but may have been misinterpreted or changed.

From what I know, matchmaking will attempt to put solo players with solo players and teams against teams. If it takes too long however, they will pit them up against each other. They may or may not have some sort of matchmaking rating equations that help match these types of situations up.

They probably won’t have a ladder up right away, but their eventual plan is to have one up. It likely won’t show your hidden rating, and would be something more akin to what Starcraft and League of Legends is now. Their main focus is just getting what they can out. This kind of stuff takes time remember.

Mortar with improved Range and Radius would be okay. The #1 could certainly use a damage boost though.

This is still a bug. Just noticed it today after transmuting to them, kinda sucks.

Asura Female Engineer here. Only the Blowtorch animation is accurate.

Awesome work.

Harrier.9380:

Ayestes.1273:

a Condi Warrior

This is an oxymoron.

I never said it was viable. I do it only to have fun. It was what I originally wanted to play when the game debuted in beta, but it has serious issues in PvP.

Prana.8690:

Ayestes.1273:

I’m not going to comment on the rest of the issues at hand here regardless of my opinions, but I’m pretty sure the problem is anticipating what a well-played Thief can do. Not what 90% of the hotjoin population does. I don’t think anyone is advocating we balance based off 90% of the hotjoin performance.

I mean I agree I can dodge most Thief burst too simply by watching the Basilisk go up. What happens when the Thief knows that you watch their buffs, and waits for that dodge to end though? The general assertion that instant attacks are by far to the advantage of the user in terms of accuracy is a sound argument, and to be nitpicked at like this is petty. You cannot react to something that is instant, you can only anticipate. Which is exactly what was said. Sometimes there are clues to use for anticipation, but that’s not always the case and still goes along with what was said.

I think the problem with what you’re asserting lies in your words well-played. If you’re beaten by someone who played they’re profession well then you should just chalk it up to being outplayed. Assuming that two players are at the same skill-level (well-played), then the other person will still be able to set-up a counter to the thief’s opener.

I think the issue most people have is the perceived low skill-to-success ratio that the thief profession offers. What most people don’t realize is that the pay-off of that play-style does not last long, once you start encountering players who have a reasonable idea of how to play their class.

That’s true you should be beaten by someone who is better then you. This is however pertaining to the specific discussion on whether a teleport can be reacted to or is only anticipated. There is also the fundamental issue of determining what is well-played comparatively to what is just a relative skill difference between players.

I’d argue in this case that the only thing a Thief needs to be well-played is to simply recognize that they do not have to start their combo immediately after activating Basilisk Venom. That doesn’t mean a Thief isn’t well-played if they perform an instant combo after Basilisk Venom, they need only realize it as an option.

Now dodging in reaction to the burst because Basilisk Venom has just been used will work on the vast majority of the player-base. It’ll even work on most well-played (given the above dentition in this specific instance) Thieves once or twice. At that point though, they will have recongized that they need not play into that pattern and could simply wait to see what the opponent does first. This makes it so even though you are reacting to the Basilisk Venom, it’s clearly only in reaction to the Basilisk Venom. You cannot reactively dodge a Steal. Instead, you are only anticipating it.

That’s all I’m pointing out in this discussion, is that shadowsteps and teleports need to be anticipated in order to be dodged. It’s impossible to reactively dodge these skills. What I intended to point out is that, and that alone. The only way you can avoid it is with anticipation which is a part of skill no doubt, but the advantage by far goes to the user of the aforementioned instant abilities.

I did not mean to assert that well-played meant anything beyond a Thief played at what would be an acceptable high level, nor did I mean for it to imply that one side of the fight would in the end win over the other. Anticipation instead of reaction influences the factors that lead to the success rate, but that is incredibly complicated and as you mentioned has more to do with overall skill then this single instance. What was brought up was about this specific situation, and I merely wanted to comment on that very specific situation.

Remember Bleeds aren’t the only issue. Poison and Burning have stacking problems as well. The whole stacking on a duration thing is fine when you are alone, but when you mix in other players it’s a bit silly when there is 40s of Burning on a target and your Burn you just applied won’t take effect until 40s have passed, even though you had no Burns on them to begin with. It’s incredibly unintuitive to a new player. (“Why isn’t my damage being dealt now?”)

I’m not going to comment on the rest of the issues at hand here regardless of my opinions, but I’m pretty sure the problem is anticipating what a well-played Thief can do. Not what 90% of the hotjoin population does. I don’t think anyone is advocating we balance based off 90% of the hotjoin performance.

I mean I agree I can dodge most Thief burst too simply by watching the Basilisk go up. What happens when the Thief knows that you watch their buffs, and waits for that dodge to end though? The general assertion that instant attacks are by far to the advantage of the user in terms of accuracy is a sound argument, and to be nitpicked at like this is petty. You cannot react to something that is instant, you can only anticipate. Which is exactly what was said. Sometimes there are clues to use for anticipation, but that’s not always the case and still goes along with what was said.

Prana.8690:

Ayestes.1273:

I imagine they had plenty of single condi cleanses to remove the bleeds when they got threatening, and a condi Thief doesn’t have much to cover up the bleed especially since it gets refreshed on the stack so often. Makes sense when I think about it more.

Exactly… it wouldn’t hurt my feelings if thief burst got toned down and we were given more readily stackable condition types.

When I used to play a Condi Warrior, this felt like one of their problems as well. Interesting how I gravitated towards the Engi, which consequently has the best condi-dmg variety in the game.

It does trigger Revealed when you deal damage from the stealth, so there is a short cooldown attached already. Or at least, that’s how I think it works from what I’ve read and how Thieves work. I myself have never used the trait.

I’d actually say one of my bigger weaknesses is a well played D/P & Shortbow Backstab Thief, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t anything you can do to fight against it. Most Thieves though are fairly predictable and if you can predict what anyone will do you can easily beat it. Even if they are unpredictable nothing is ever hopeless.

What is the best thing to do against Thieves? Control them with whatever you can. AoE the ground where they stealth. Invuln the damage you could be taking. Most of all, just deal them damage. Thieves are ridiculously fragile when you apply damage to them, anything you can do to give yourself just one extra hit against them can completely change the fight.

Know how to deal with the ones that use Shortbow to finish you off, the ones that use Dagger offhand to restealth, the ones that use Pistol offhand to restealth, and all the other various builds out there that a Theif can use. Knowledge is the biggest key in making you better at this game.

I imagine they had plenty of single condi cleanses to remove the bleeds when they got threatening, and a condi Thief doesn’t have much to cover up the bleed especially since it gets refreshed on the stack so often. Makes sense when I think about it more.

It’s not a player or monster issue. It’s a technical issue. If there is no cap on 20 people shooting direct damage on a player per second, it makes no sense there would be a cap on 20 people shooting condition damage on a player per second.

I have no idea of how it is currently designed behind the scenes, but I think what is needed is some sort of data consolidation. I like the current system for it’s flexibility, but what we have here is a major issue.

What I’d propose at a meeting of some sorts is a solution that deals with adding up the damage values and a tick timer. A 100 strength bleed that lasts 3 seconds would setup 3 values one for each of those 3 seconds. At each second those values would expire and the damage would be dealt. Add on a 50 strength bleed that lasts 5 seconds at the same time and you’d have 150/150/150/50/50 for tick intervals. You’ve effectively in this case wrapped the 3 second bleed into the 5 second bleed. The strength of the system would be when you get thrown x70 bleeds of various strengths that only last varying degrees of duration between 2s and 10s. At most, those 70 bleeds only require 10 chunks of data to be transmit back, one for each of the intervals remaining. This would also allow partial ticks to be added fairly easily, since a 2.5s duration bleed could simply throw out 50% of it’s tick strength at the 3s interval.

The problems this solution deals with though, is there may be trouble attaching ownership to Bleeds. Making sure things always align with the tick timer could have some interesting race conditions to deal with as well. Extremely long bleeds also can create huge chunks of data required to maintain it while previously it was probably much less. It’s an idea though. Data consolidation is one way of trying to tackle the problem, but you do generally lose some information while doing so.

You know, I think I’ve seen that before too, crazy.

I wasn’t assuming it, I just wasn’t going to dispute it as an argument because of that very reason of me not being there. The only consideration I have towards the subject is I think it’s silly to decide whether to play only to influence the tier position.

rizzo.1079:

It’s definitely harder than other professions. After 300ish hours on my engy, I started a Mesmer and he’s sooo easy mode comparatively.

This is anecdotal evidence at best though. My personal experience is from Warrior, to Mesmer, to Engineer. Everytime I changed (primary) professions I thought it was easy mode comparatively. Specifically in this case, solo PvE and sPvP I to me are much easier with my Engi then with my Mesmer which were the things I was doing at the time.

Besetment.9187:

Ayestes.1273:

It’s a silly idea to decide not to play any week period if that reason has anything to do with what Tier your WvW is in. I’d rather fight outmanned and outgunned in Tier 3 then do the opposite in Tier 4. I’ve had some awesome fights here in Tier 4 though, nothing against anyone here.

You should try being an Australian on Maguuma or a US night shift worker that players during Oceanic primetime. You go 15 vs 60 in your own borderland every single day. They are the hardest working players on our server and if they’ve had enough they’ve had enough. No qualifiers necessary.

I’m not going to dispute that it’s difficult or disheartening to play constantly in this situation. Nor am I belittling anything our night presence does. All I’m saying is it’s silly to decide whether or not to play so you can influence the Tier we would be in next week.

Oh I already use Mortar as a makeshift siege weapon to tear down opposing siege or play around with some defense, I was just curious if it hit the rams through the door. Yeah the damage output is low, but I figured it’d be a safer way then using the flamethrower if I ever lacked pie and they actually had retal.

Kardiamond has it right, if you are gibbing yourself on Flamethrower anti-ram usage just eat the pie.

One thing I just considered though, has anyone ever tried Mortaring the door from inside the keep? I’ve never actually tried it and I’m surprised it only just occurred to me.

It’s much more complex then either learn to play or learn to analyze. I don’t think the right answer is learn to play, because we have tons of issues that need to addressed certainly. It’s not learn to analyze though either, because every other class has a bunch of their own issues and each of those classes would also tell you they are the most unpolished. Not to mention, with a select few builds and a lot more micromanagement then other classes we can be right up there with the best in terms of competitiveness situationally.

Basically, you are all arguing extremes. We are not fine by any means, but we aren’t broken either. Now I’m not a dev for GW2 or anything, but when I see exaggeration it makes the discussion much less credible in my eyes. Discussing what we can do with what we have though, that is valuable stuff and it’s disappointing any discussion on what we can do ends up turning into a bunch of exaggerated despair.

This should really be a thread about hopes and dreams rather then expectations. I mean, there will be some changes, but many of you are expecting way too much. There is a feasible limit to what they can accomplish in a single patch cycle, and much of what is being discussed has already been put down as not yet.

Only things I expect are the new map and the makeshift solo queue’ish matchmaking in 1v1 frees. That may not even be accurate.

I guess we simply have different experiences. While there is always a zerg that runs about, I’ve always found one or two people on the sides.

Hotjoin isn’t necessarily an unskilled zergfest. Especially if you avoid the zerg. You can get tons of 1v1, 1v2, 2v2, 2v3, and 1v3 fights that are a whole lot of fun. You just literally avoid your own zerg. Heck it actually wins you more games too alongside picking up tons of capping glory. I personally find I get more glory by avoiding the zerg then by joining it and having some battle over a neuted cap point.

It’s not properly competitive, but it’s not necessarily an unskilled zergfest either.

Slamz.5376:

Ayestes.1273:

I honestly think you should be able to steal a portion of your opponents score by taking Keeps.

That’s….not a bad idea at all. That would certainly put a lot of pressure to hold a keep defense.

The only problem I see with it is that right now the way to take keeps is “surprise golem rushes”. Show up with 12 golems on a dead map and bam, it’s yours. It’s too easy. Really, they should implement your idea but also remove golems from the game and increase the supply cost of rams. We really need time for defense to show up so that these keep contests won’t just be about a sudden rush.

Golem rushes wouldn’t be so bad if the Garrison gate wasn’t so bugged up, and gates didn’t drop so easily to zerg damage. Or at least that’s what we did you guys last night, Watergate is so bugged and it feels so dirty. I don’t think they need to remove golems, because they are quite the investment and create a unique type of attack. They just need to fix that bug, and make Reinforced Doors almost impervious to “small-arms fire”.

Even if it was left in the game, if people just traded the keeps with sneak attacks it would only serve to balance out the score. It would also prove to be a huge incentive to attack whoever is on top for the biggest rewards.

An individual stack limit need only apply to Bleeding, Burning, Confusion, and Poison. The others can easily remain the same. I don’t think any skills would need to be even redesigned if this were the case.

This type of thing really needs to happen or else having more then one condi-dmg player focusing anything else gets really hampered in damage output. Heck, random Burns and the like really mess with how the damage gets dealt out. It’s incredibly unintuitive to a new player that their damage is somehow delayed for 8 seconds because it’s sitting at the back of the Burning stack.

It’s a silly idea to decide not to play any week period if that reason has anything to do with what Tier your WvW is in. I’d rather fight outmanned and outgunned in Tier 3 then do the opposite in Tier 4. I’ve had some awesome fights here in Tier 4 though, nothing against anyone here.

I honestly think you should be able to steal a portion of your opponents score by taking Keeps.

Hotjoin isn’t really competitive, it’s just meant to have fun and fool around. The problem is Free Tournaments aren’t really that great for a competitive experience right now either, due to being stomped by teams and extremely long queue times. Hopefully the patch helps that out, but it’s possible that’s a bit further off.

Yes that’s important to realize as well, is that conditions only mitigate conditions they do not solve them completely. Or else you’d have anyone who deals damage with condis almost completely negated.

I kinda wish there was a big glowy animation for Transmute so I knew it was actually doing something. I never notice it personally, but that’s the perception for ya.

You can miss yourself with HGH just as much as you can miss yourself with 409. You still need to hit yourself to apply the HGH. Or at least, I’m pretty sure. It’s actually pretty difficult to miss yourself with a thrown elixir after months of practice though.

I mean I think there is a valid complaint about some of the other condi removals we have, but 409 isn’t one of them. It’s one of the strongest condi removal options in the entire game. I mean, the Tool Kit heal should probably cure 2 conditions, Toss Elixir C should probably convert 2 conditions, Elixir C should probably be instant cast, and Automated Response really needs to cleanse all conditions when it’s activated. But 409 is one of the best single sources of condi-removal anyone could have access to.

The silly thing is though, I do think 409 needs a boost, but only because I think thrown elixirs should be capable of healing support and placing that in additional traits would make it difficult for a support engi to pick up them all. Basically I think it needs to give a small splash heal, but this idea was rather unpopular in the past and may likely still be unpopular.

When playing my old Condi Warrior build I found an Engi with this trait. It’s hilarious, I’m pretty sure my target was invisible more often then visible. As stated before though, with melee attacks it’s extremely easy to keep hitting them. With ranged it takes a bit of targeting practice but you can still hit them.