Guild Wars 2

I will often blast the water field with everything BUT the turret detonate and then pick it up to get a faster reset. It just depends on speed and what I need more.
It is much harder to quickly hit other blast finishers and often it comes down to things like will I need the Shield 4 or Egun acid for another purpose.

Toolkit is more or less 1v1. Bomb kit is always AE and very helpful with things that are hard to target like thieves. Both are good. . . situationally.

I prefer bombs because of the AE perplexity, smoke bomb blindness and power scaling of the auto attack. Glue is an excellent escape if you have something like rocket boots too. It helps more in outnumbered situations.

TK is excellent if you are dealing with a single target. It is excellent in dealing with a single runner with pull. But even in a 1v2 you simply will do better with the AE of bombs as well as all the fields and the enormous utility of Big Ol Bomb.

In a zerg, you could argue easily that the block on TK is essential. In that case, I might go with the mine (boon stripping) and an escape (elixir, rocket boots, etc) to reset the fight. The larger the zerg, the less utility bombs tends to run because you won’t effectively area deny nor will you get close enough typically.

1v1 TK is a great kit. . . if not one of the best.

Thief is another good example. Their stealth matters little in spvp but in wvw is annoying if not op.

Engineers are excellent on points (if not over powered).
Engineers are in a good place in roaming (near top but not really the top. They do lack good mobility without serious sacrifice).
Engineers in zergs tend to lack an effective role. Sure they can do damage with a power build but are not as effective because of mobility and stability issues. Conditions are of lesser importance in zergs as are healing bombs.

So much of balance is situational. You can’t simply say nerf an engineer when in WvW large groups you basically are meh.

Several things my power engineer does that I find might work for you and are different than your build.

First, take grenades AND bombs. Bomb #1 scales extremely well with power and is remarkable damage when the enemy gets close or can help you deny an area. You also will benefit quite a bit from the utility skills of bomb. I often use the smoke grenade with blasts to reset a fight in stealth.

Secondly, Elixir C is ok but not nearly as important as say Rocket Boots. Engineers struggle escaping and again this allows you to reset the fight very easily. If you are really swift, I tend to think that Elixir Gun and the leap skill is actually better because of all the other utility of the weapon but that takes a lot of time to learn to play well.

Finally, your traits. If taking bombs (and you should), then 10% damage increase for explosions is quite useful. (Works for Grenades too). Much better than implants. Forceful explosions is not to be overlooked either with bombs. If sticking to just grenades (boo hiss), then shrapnel.

Short fuse is tempting and if only using nades is a toss up in damage (your harder hitting nades can be thrown more often), but it has greater utility (faster CC). However, with bombs, adding 10% to all explosions and the auto attack is better I find.

In a few situations, sure you keep the HT up.
Generally, you blow it up if you don’t want to save the blast finishers.

Might I suggest something to “re-energize” the rewards we will eventually get after clearly the player base is a bit deflated over the first execution?

What if (I believe this would be the easy way to handle) you simply make the prices of everything cheaper this one time only on the merchant. So a 400 ticket item would now be 300 tickets etc.

If people have to wait for a fix, let them wait knowing they are going to get substantially more value.

That should do it!

Dear ANET,

I greatly appreciate your June 4th post. It is not June 6th with no update and coming upon a weekend.

Might we get an update. Explaining the issue or bug found and steps you are taking is a great way to build confidence (assuming explaining the bug found would not lead to further exploit issues). If you have any idea of timeframe that would be helpful even if “next couple of days” “within a week” etc.

I do believe that sometimes you simply fix problems and then explain thereafter. In this case, it may be better to keep regular conversation with a customer base that will otherwise lose loyalty or stickiness quickly. It was a reward for 2 months of effort. Updates reinforce that you care and it is a priority. Lack thereof. . .

Love the idea.
Cost is fair if it is for an entire “episode” like the Tower of Terror.
How will you find enough people to participate?

It is the implementation and getting enough people to make it worthwhile that will be what I want to understand more.

Also, will all loot and rewards be available?

One of the things that breathes new life into WvW is map changes.

How often should ANET roll out a new map?
Should it be for all BLs or should they make each BL different?

EOTM is part of wvw. As such, there should be an expectation to fight but alas it has become a karma train. I thoroughly enjoy taking a thief into EOTM and picking off just about anyone I can.

I would love to see more organized groups get into EOTM and simply attack K-trains.

Why?

Because EOTM cheapens WvW ranks. It is sooo much easier to get your WvW ranks up by K-training EOTM than actually learning how to fight against another player. If EOTM is to be part of PvE (gross mistake) versus WvW then at the very least don’t have it provide WvW experience!

Bust the K-train!

Frankly PvE is in a better place and should NOT be the focus of a patch right now.
WvW should be a higher priority.

Badges of honor should be usable for ascended gear which currently basically has to be crafted.

so given the unfairness, which do you take?

I get torn between perplexity because I do interrupt and confusion stacks intensity not duration and undead given the extra bonus to all condition damage.

My issue with Balthazar is that burning stacks duration and I have so many ways to burn you again if you were to lose the condition that I just don’t get enough out of the extra duration (and I use koi/6 grenades too).

Choices! Anyone else have a thought?

What sigils are you using and why for a 3 kit condi engineer now that you can’t use the underwater weapon for your condition damage stacks?

I am using condition damage stacks (corruption) and battle or torment.
Debating if the 6% condition damage wouldn’t be better than stacks at this point.

Is it still perplexity?

Or these days do you look at undead, scavaging or something else as being better?

WvW focused question.

While I realize the irritation it causes, this is the only logical thing to do.
Think of the alternative and the confusion it could create to determine who has tickets, tripped the meta, was rewarded (as those reward tickets get spent) etc.

I just wish ANET would come out and say this is a serious problem and is being treated as a/the top priority until fixed and every available qualified resource has been placed on it, etc. etc. In other words, acknowledge that a delay for the reward of 2 months of effort is a big deal that must be resolved. Also, is there any reason not to be transparent and explain what the issue is that caused the goof and why it is a bit of a problem to solve? Transparency is often less bitter medicine than imagination.

Odd concern but a real one.

The maps have far different “completion” times. By that I mean, some matches simply take longer to complete based on the map.

If you move to a “pick the map” meta, will we start to see everyone picking the map that is the fastest to play?

Thanks Michael. I think people will be far more comfortable submitting a ticket and knowing they have “logged and documented” they were impacted in a timely manner.

Always better than being told not to do so!

Having fully loaded characters of 1/2 the classes, ranger was my main and is largely played only in a few game modes.

In WvW, we do quite well in small groups but struggle in larger ones because of the lack of AE and the AI of pets is no real help. In short, the bigger the zerg, the less I would want my ranger vs other characters.

In PvP, we do quite well but PvP tends to respect more of the evade and melee style over range so it takes a bit of a different spec than most play.

In PvE (leveling), few things beat the ease of having your own meat shield.

In PvE (dungeons), the ranger has a few cute traits but plays very oddly (from what you would think a ranger should do).

Ranger outside large WvW is viable but a frustrating class because it likely will not meet the expectations you had of playstyle when you rolled a ranger.

What a horrible thing to ask a customer to do. Support should welcome tickets even knowing it will get plenty of them.

Double the AE cap. Melee zergs are keeping a lot of tactics from being effective and providing too few tactics for different types of fights. Murder ball should be only one option.

Large scale fights good.
Large scale single blobs on commander bad.

New Maps. Bigger maps that allow for more roaming.
WvW success impacts PvE (make EVERYONE have a stake in the fight).
WvW provides better rewards both ascended gear AND realm points that give bonuses you can use in PvE too.

No Box SOS. Did the meta. I want to be happy. . . . Maybe if we got interest for waiting? LOL.

Maybe all of us who didn’t get boxes could come over for dinner? That way we could hear personally how much you love each and every one of us. The only question is which team member to flash dinner mob? (Who would have the best stocked fridge)?

Ok, joking but could we get a tinge of emotion in your posts like “whoops we really know how disappointing it is but we assure you everyone who deserves a chest will get one as soon as we find the stupid Asurean who built our delivery system and feed her to a Char”? The posts read a bit like we are a nuisance to ANET for having a problem. That isn’t the tone you mean but reread your writing.

If anything there is TOO LITTLE loot (especially high value loot) in WvW. Right now you are forced far too much to play PvE to get acceptable loot.

Why does everyone forget that an engineer can be quite effective stripping boons?

It is just not balanced. It is fun certainly but totally unbalanced and that is why it is not going to happen.

Engineer is still a low population class BUT recently in relative terms there are quite a number of new engineers I see (often veteran players now rolling a new engineer).

What is the reason for the increased popularity on your server (if there is such an increase)?

1. Commanders getting a sense of abilities in a zerg?
2. Familiarity built from Spvp and the decap engineer?
3. Just needing something different?
etc.

The skills and utility we bring to any game aspect really hasn’t changed much. What are people seeing now in the engineer that they were not seeing about our class say even 3 months ago?

Well before we pounce on the OP, I do think there is some point in his post.
The engineer was a far less played class than it is now.
The interesting question is why all of a sudden do you see a relative surge in people playing engineer? The skills haven’t dramatically changed nor has what you can bring to the table. Is it awareness? Other classes losing the ability to fit such roles? Or people who are bored finally getting around to play that class they ignored?

And yes, to an extent I do understand wanting to have that unique build or be different. It won’t last long in an MMO and I’m not sure what the OP was hoping to accomplish with their post.

Conditions don’t have tells because they can be cleaned. The damage is higher because it generally isn’t all going to be taken.

Engineers have relatively weak stack intensity conditions (though they have a lot of them). They rely on burning and perplexity for the foundation of their condition damage.

You would do too much damage to an engineer stripping out this trait.

There are a lot of annoyances but those don’t really cause an overall decline versus a bit of dissatisfaction or frustration.

The key issues are just a few:
1. WvW hasn’t changed much. (It may be time for a new map. New Frontiers really put sizzle back into DAOC when they did the same).

2. WvW rewards miss. They don’t do enough to make a dedicated team powerful enough to take on a casual blob. Consider given trait points at each major rank bronze, silver etc up (FOR WVW ONLY). Whatever it is a smaller group of silvers should take on a larger group of bronzes and both should do well against a larger group just getting started. That will help bust up zergs and create individual pride.

3. Server Pride. Because the maps are the same for each team and because there is no tie back to a particular race or alliance, it is much harder to build pride especially with the more PvE focused people who play a bit of WvW but couldn’t tell you who commands different servers. A relic system that would impact PvE easy or difficulty or change loot drop rates would immediately get people interested in winning.

Roz:

Thank you for your reply. I have used FT in the past but find it to be less than satisfying from a “help the zerg” perspective. It is like the Guardian “loot stick”. It tags a LOT but it really doesn’t help win battles much.

I built my engineer and experience in pvp and roaming (under 20) wvw.

Trying to better understand advanced tips and tricks for zerging.

Issues:
1. Survival with a single stun breaker.
2. Conditions being or marginal use (play tri kit condi).
3. Slow loot bags. Grenades take a long time to get on target resulting in a lot of misses and tagging far fewer enemies for loot than many other classes.

Thoughts:
1. Healing engineer is decent and very survivorable but lacks real punch. (And try telling a commander your not ranged).
2. PVT power engineer has good damage but what the heck utilities make sense.
a. Grenades for range?
b. Bombs (would you ever really get yourself close enough to the blob to use)?
c. Rocket Boots (seems something like e-gun would be better but I need distance and the quick ability to get out of a movement reducer)?
d. Throw Mine (could be incredibly useful for boon stripping but what would go)?

One thing I am finding is that the rifle is just a better power zerg weapon.

And what role and position techniques do you use in a zerg fight as an engineer?

Right now trait unlocks are either very expensive for a new player or force all sorts of game modes they may have little interest in (especially PvE type modes).

What if an alternative to skill point/gold unlocking would be badges of honor? This would appeal greatly to more player v player types (inc wvw in this category).

I see little downside.

I like to use coyotes in WvW. They spawn quickly and are decent stats. You can pull several together too.

It would be great to know what the expected time to kill is for burst versus condition for a “standard” toon (a base of health, toughness and condition removals).

In short, the burst should be faster BUT higher risk of failing. Condition should be slower but much harder to get rid of.

It is perfectly fine for TTK to be faster for condition against burst classes and burst is faster than condition for condition classes. That makes perfect sense.

But is it that way?

One of the biggest problems is that condition damage simply doesn’t scale in a large fight forcing people to go burst. On the other hand, a small fight often favors condition damage. If that is the case, the balance is wrong because it essentially says “In some game modes there is a clear preference for one damage type over the other” which leads to class diversity problems. On the other hand, saying “one type of damage is better for about half the classes and types of mobs” works to ensure that every class has a role in each gameplay mode.

The system makes a great deal of sense for a veteran player who could be encouraged to see parts of the World that they otherwise missed as well as use it as a means to drop inflation. That player can use their main to farm gold if necessary for those skills they want but wouldn’t want to do the quest. As the OP mentioned, some are in WvW or EOTM. Some like that. Others hate it. I hate PvE map completion and there is a heck of a lot of those quests for skills now.

Where it absolutely falls apart is the new player that has a primary enjoyment of WvW/PvP. Leveling just became a bigger chore.

In terms of raw getting away the engineer has the potential of being quite good. Rocket boots and blasting a smoke field is quite a nasty combination. Rocket boots have a short coolddown.

The trouble for the engineer specced to getting away is getting stunned or dazed. They typically give up the stun break for such mobility.

The engineer, therefore, is better frankly at catching just about anyone with rocket boots that tries to get away. Rocket boots, frost grenade, run up and glue bomb or glue shot etc. etc. Magnet them back to you.

I would say the engineer is better designed to reset the fight that full fledged get away. The movement is not sustainable over time.

My thief, on the other hand, can move across a map quite quickly even if chased. Stealth allows you to move without the enemy being sure what direction.
Blinks are fast and fairly plentiful.
The ability to stealth by 2 utilities, a leap combo and/or hitting a target is probably the very best way to get out of jail. But that is the role of the thief anyway!

Warriors are a bit odd. Heavy armor, all the weapons, great cc control AND move like they are classic lighter armored rangers. Huh?

Rangers, which suggest speed, are actually a bit slow. Huh?

Engie is in a good place.
Thief needs a buff to stealth duration (quality of life vs spamming combos) but a nerf to the ability to stay in stealth if you get hit with X% of damage and/or far greater limits in getting back into stealth in combat (with more ability to get out of combat).

I know both. Engineer has greater upside.
There are fewer engineers and they are very hard to master. This is why you get a preference for the known class of warrior which every commander will have memorized what it can do.

The engineer adds more support on a single toon than any other and with VERY quick changes to skills can move to different specs (same weapons, armor, etc) and turn a siege or defense. Too often players are not changing out utilities and traits (just a few) as they move from open field skirmish to something else.

Engineer will be better at area denial.

You can go heal or condition damage easily and mix it up for whatever zerg situation you find yourself in.

In terms of small groups, engineers shine because they really can add so many different conditions, stuns and knockbacks, blasts and water and even stealth.

They are VERY hard to play.

In summary, the engineer has more if played well outside of large zergs where the warrior excels.

Simpler ideas:

1. You only get your PPT if your realm killed more players than it lost during that tick.
2. (Variant) You only get your PPT if your realm killed more players than it lost during the tick weighted for population differences.
3. Kill could mean piked or simply double downed.
4. (Variant) Same as above but instead of doing this by tick it would be a longer timeframe.
5. (Variant) Same as above but would take into consideration clusters of realm ranks as modifiers. Silver higher than Bronze etc. Some players worth more.

A simple meter would show how you are doing in the “killing enemy” metrics.

Second idea.

1. Increase loot substantially when outnumbered (double or triple).
2. Decrease all loot (NPC and player) when doing the outnumbering. This would include karma. In short, you will help win the fight but personally get less than a competitive battle.

Third Idea:
Each objective has a defined contribution to PPT but it is divided by the net difference in players taking objective over players defending. In short, you get far more points taking an objective solo or with a small group than a blob OR engaging in epic blob v blob battles! Calculate the right base PPT is the key.

Horse is out of the barn on this one. Best you can do is get plenty of CC to stop those heavies.

However, it would make a great deal of sense to provide some passive ability for a ranger to move faster.

Theorizing on how you could avoid PPT.

The problems with PPT (assuming you considering them a problem) revolve around things like coverage and lack of an “epic” feeling (like a good sport’s match where the lead goes back and forth) after a few days of a match.

Here would be my idea:

1. Relics. The battle would be over control of key items that would be placed in Hills, Bay, Garrison of each realm.
a. Promotes defense and offense.
b. Idea is you tick points still for player kills but the “building and territory” points are replaced by the “influence” of holding an enemy relic or an “epic” defense protecting your own. You can win without ever having a relic by the sheer slaughter of the enemy, but without slaughtering the enemy the only way to get pts is relic capture and holds.
c. You only tick these non-player kill pts on a map by holding a relic (in other words, if no team ever got an enemy relic then everyone would tick equally. They would only tick on their map).
d. Each server is divided into 3 time categories. Main 8 hours provides very weak NPC defense for the relic keeps. In short you could ninja a relic. Off Peak provides a mid level of support. Night would require a significant enemy force (e.g. wake up raid) to get the device back.
e. Where you hold the enemy relic matters in terms of the points you get.
Holding it hostage in the enemy’s realm (Hills, Garrison, Bay) is not worth much.
Holding it in your (Hills, Garrison, or Keep) is worth a good amount of pts.
Holding it in SMC is worth the most pts
f. You could get a lot of 2 v. 1 fights naturally as NEITHER enemy will want a powerful realm to have a relic (because it hurts both equally) especially being held at SMC.
g. Running a relic back to a better point location is tedious. The bearer is slowed down (almost moving at encumbered speed) and loses all abilities (must be protected). However, theoretically, while you couldn’t take a relic easily with a small group outside primetime, you certainly could move a relic to a better point giving location.
h. In order to “take a relic” someone with a commander tag has to issue a “relic challenge”. The keep then can’t be attacked for X minutes and a waypoint to that keep exists for the enemy to create a defense. The time depends on the day segment of the server. It might be 10 minutes in prime and a whole hour in night. The guards would one shot you if you attacked the keep during this cooldown. After which, there is a timebox depending on prime, off peak, or night for which you must secure the relic or lose a significant number of points for a failed attempt.
I. Being “outmanned” on a map while engaged in a relic defense or when capturing an enemy relic gives you an “EPIC” bonus of points (of course, only if successful in the take or the defense). This would be equal to a day of keeping and holding the relic.
J. On the other hand, there is no initial amount of points given for the taking (but NOT defending a relic) using overwhelming force (creating an outnumbered situation). Call it a thug penalty. However, you can easily make it up by holding that ill gotten treasure for a period of time.
k. In addition to normal guard and chest loot, each non-relic keep, camp, etc would provide a bonus that would help taking a relic or transporting it (for example owning all the camps on the map might allow for faster movement speed of the relic carrier).
l. You have a choice to take a relic without taking the rest of the map, but it would be much harder. You know that if your map turns the enemy color, your relics will be much easier to take and move.

Rough ideas but it really isn’t all that hard to implement.

A new map would be ideal. I remember when DAOC redid their wvw map and it really added something new.

Ideally, I’d like to see them create a new map for each zone minus the silly “knock me off the ledge” mechanics of EOTM. Sure it might be thought of as “unbalanced” but not if each server cycled thru them the same number of times in a season.

In other words, in a season, you would change maps 3×. Each week would be a different map.

The more often you change the maps, the more fun WvW will stay. So introducing a new wvw map every season or two would be ideal. Take one out, add one in and have a body of maps ready to switch in and out.

In keeping with the potato theme, let’s hope that getting the meal out to us doesn’t take until Thanksgiving.

While I do enjoy a good yam, I’m hungry.

There are ALL KINDS of on crit conditions including runes not to mention skills in other classes.

It is just the big hit spike damage attacks that need a tell. The “tell” of burning is the flashing condition tag. Just remove it.

Why not allow WvW players who hate the idea of crafting to get ascended weapons for 1k badges? Their pick on weapon and stats.

How about 1k badges for an ascended weapon?

WvW is designed as end game content. Really, anytime you face another human versus AI you need to have not necessarily the best gear but at least all your skills.

While you can enter WvW as a level 2, you won’t have a good time and neither will anyone who has you on their side.

On the other hand, you can do reasonably well just short of 80.

I suggest you go take an 80 to wvw and treat it as a second beginning for your character!

SOS

Hashtag

He makes you play hard and laugh even harder. You get to know people, unwind at the end of the day and just generally have fun. If you are new, no problem, Hashtag will get someone to help you best play your class.

He creates some of the oddest terms for maneuvers too.
The filing cabinet?