Guild Wars 2

Engie is my main and thief is my secondary.

Engineers hate to be immobilized or crippled. Our condition clearing is too often tied to the healing turret. KILL IT. Stun breaking is another problem for an engineer.

Engies have lots and lots of abilities, but if you interrupt, stun, immobilize or otherwise hamper their ability to get them down quickly, the engineer is pretty easy to beat.

Couple of things I find thieves forget:
1. An engineer can stealth too. I see you stealth, wait a second and stealth too which screws up your backstab chance.
2. Bombs can have a large radius making kiting fun and attacking the engie w melee hard.
3. Engies have a LOT of blinds too which really screws up thieves at the wrong time.
4. Engineers can be almost anything and you often don’t know (because they run many of the same kits) till the fight starts. An engineer makes an excellent healer, physical damage dealer as well as condi spam.
5. Engineers are really good at getting invulnerability (short duration) for your big attacks if they time them right. (So juke them).

Your biggest fear should be the engineer’s bombs and ability to immobilize you.
Don’t go into SR except as a last result. The grenades will do you in.

The most important thing you can do to an engineer is stun them followed by immobilizing. Basilisk venom is very helpful as is shadow step!!!!

Yishis uses rocket boots in many of his videos.
Rocket boots effectiveness depends on who you run with (or if you are solo).

We are the perfect backup utility player. You just need to keep one player up and you have fields, stealth, blasts, heals/water, cleanses etc. Another may be better, but we can do it all. That means if the engineer is up, you have an ability to react often to a bad situation.

Bombs deny area.
Our heals are quite good
We can cleanse a team that over reached well (and survive many times)
We have lots and lots of fields and finishers!
We are the second best class at stealthing a party which is wickedly good for stomping or reviving.

The trouble with the engineer is that a lot of our utility scales with coordinated play of parties. I drop smoke for just a few seconds and your blasting it with me provides a really good stealth. I drop water and you need to time it right to blast. That is quite hard for casual groups to master.

I love hearing:

“Need to stomp these guys” (smoke screen time)
" Need more cleanses on me" (Fumigate)
“Get a light field here” (Super Elixir)
“All condition damage on my tag”
“Need more water” (I have one of the fastest recharge water fields)
“RUN” (Nothing like blasting a smoke screen to help others get away)

Plus, I carry 4 blast finishers at least. Now if only I could get them all off in time!

We are misunderstood a lot. Even in my guild there is a sense of trying to figure out our role.

When I add that I can provide great stealth you can almost see the blank stares.
Or when they praise the elementalists (all down) for water but it was a healing turret. . . .
Or when the light field is from the elixir gun and the blasts from all my toys.
And don’t get me started on what confusion gets sown when I respect to a healing engineer.

One thing I personally find people do get about engineers is our ability to add confusion and burning.

We are a great utility class and that is very powerful in WvW. Keeping one engineer up provides a small zerg serious “uh oh” utility. Are we as good as four classes combined? Not really, but how many times have you seen the ele go down and there went the water? How many times is the guardian not near the range and there goes the condition removal? How many times have you seen Mesmer’s portal go down but there is need for a quick stealth so you can stomp or get away or revive?

The versatility of the engineer is what makes them such a good addition to a team and what makes them so hard for other players to wrap their arms around the role.

I think it is safe to say that ANET didn’t need to respond so a response is generally an indication of some change.

The question is will this apply for ascended too?

There is a Reddit post (see engineer forum) that indicates from ANET that this is getting fixed. ANET didn’t need to respond to the question, but did and said wait a couple of weeks.

Thief is my third class so I certainly play one.
They have plenty of risk.

They also are the most annoying class in the game in many situations (running back to your group). But isn’t that their purpose?

Do you really want a game where you can just run around to “the one fight on the map” with no real risk? Boring.

As for their “getting away”, of course they can. Otherwise, what good would they be as a scout?

To me the issue is if you are paired up, can a thief easily kill one of you and escape? I find it really depends on the skill of the two players running together vs the thief.
That is the ideal balance.

I could care less if the thief gets away if he really doesn’t kill anyone.

And a thief in a group setting is very susceptible to AE and often adds little unless the group getting played against is a bit disorganized.

Any class with low HPs and low armor is going to have higher risk. With that can come higher reward with skill. A GOOD thief (I’m not there yet) is going to ruin your day.

Condition Damage OP? User experience may vary.

The fact is that condition damage can be OP and then in the next fight it gets countered easily. It is VERY volatile given the number of cleanses, mitigations and cures.

Too often these threads degrade into “you only need one stat” arguments that essentially point to the fact that the condition based damage dealer can also have good defensive abilities. This is true. . . but. . . .

Too often we look at maximum damage output without thinking of the reality of the amount of actual damage that gets eaten. Condition damage is far more susceptible to actually not doing all or most of its potential.

The trouble is there is no clear metric showing players how much potential condition damage they averted. I wish this would be added to the combat log. It would greatly help people start to see whether condition damage really is OP or is just perceived as if it could be OP.

What is the effective amount of condition damage that you take?

Too often we look at the maximum damage you COULD take.

Condition damage has the widest variety of counters, cleanses and mitigations.
It also occurs over time giving you time to actually counter, cleanse or mitigate if using an active effect.

Physical damage does have counters like dodge (which also works to avoid a condition if timed right even though the tells are better on physical). But those counters are fewer, far more active, and require greater skill. Likewise, ONCE you take the damage you have taken the damage.

So the key metric which we don’t have and I hope ANET does is how much actual damage gets taken of that maximum potential.

I’m not sure that condition damage is actually problematic or when it is.

Really liking a crit based spec too, but need help!

Running
0
30
30
10
0

Trouble is what do I take in CS and SA.

Choices for CS:

Side Strike or Furious Retaliation? I can make a good case for either. Fury right now as I tend to get you down to 50% fairly quickly from stealth.

Hidden Killer or Executioner? I love 100% crit on stealth attack but my crit is at 50% anyway. On the other hand, 20% increase in damage is just huge.

Choices for SA:
I know I won’t live without Shadows Embrace (condition removal) and Shadow’s Rejuvenation (Heal) but the third could be:

Shadow Protector (Regen) or Infusion of Shadow (Initiative) or Cloaked in Shadow (blind).

If I use cloaked in shadow, does the blind reveal me?

Thoughts and experiences welcome. I’m the thief noob

Probably the most exciting thing I have heard for the megaserver actually.
I look forward to learning new tricks to take back.

I hope ANET gives an indication in their blogs on the size range (population) they will be shooting for on each map. Love to know how massive versus manageable the size will be.

Check out the megaserver blog post by GW. Problem solved. Others created? We shall soon see.

A few things necessary to make this exciting:

1) I get to play with my guild members with almost no exceptions
2) I see the same enemies and friends in other guilds (nothing like a good friend or enemy to make you loyal to the slaughter)
3) Population doesn’t become TOO massive. There has to be some room for small skirmishes. This can be done by adjusting the size of each map I suppose.
4) I have to feel “grounded” in my map because that is where my team, my guild, my friends and even my “enemies” are.

Overall, I like the idea. It’s the implementation that scares me.

Can you explain coglin how that helps? I am not sure I quite understand but if it helps, I want to know why and try it

Why do you find elixir S to be that much better than say Rocket Boots that would allow you to jump away 3x as often?

I just fear the 60 second timer on the elixir more than anything! Truly looking for how the elixir works well for you.

I run a 30/10/0/20/10 build and spend equal time in small scale and zerg pvp.
I also sometimes run a healing spec engineer (elixir infused bombs) but that is not the topic for this thread (important though because I can switch to it for bigger zergs).

In explosives:

Pros and Cons of Shrapnel v. Forceful Explosions?
When do you switch and how often?
I am starting to find myself resetting between the two traits before a fight.

In firearms:

Pro and Cons of Hair Trigger over Rifled Barrels?
Do you ever find the extra range better than the reduced cooldown?
Personally, I am not pulling out the pistol as frequently as I should I suppose.
On the other hand, I seem to be impeding a lot more from farther range (play a bit more backline then rush to bomb, then return back)

In Alchemy:

Big decision on the minor trait.
Invigorating Speed, Blood Injection of Protection Injection?
Does the size of the battle matter the most here?
What are the pros and cons that drive your decisions?
This is one I tend not to change (see firearms) for a fight because you really never know and I only have time really for a single change.

WvW

I have pistol/shield for single target.
I feel I am either using bombs or grenades for damage depending on range and pressure v denial.

What am I likely to miss of the e-gun?

Obviously, the stun break is nice. I do like the auto attack and fumigate is great for my team if not me.

Then situationally, I could use rocket boots, tool kit or an elixir.

Anyone out there who plays the standard 30/10/0/20/10 engineer in wvw ever dumped the e-gun and if so how did it work?

In a small group setting, I find that it is pretty important to have bomb kit.

You now can effectively have solid physical damage with a lot of condition damage.

Bombs tend to be used when you run thru the train or when you want to deny an area which happens a LOT in small skirmishes. AE is important when outnumbered too.

We also use the bomb kit in organized small groups to provide group stealth for the initial attack or to reset.

BOB is another skill that tends to get used a whole lot more than the rocket boot toolbelt skill.

I do use rocket boots frequently when solo roaming because of their escape potential.
While you can escape in a very short term with bombs (stealth), you can’t really flee a large zerg as well because engineers lack good gap creators.

Likewise, when I use rocket boots I often go grenade/bomb/boots. One of the great things about rocket boots is that they are blast finishers. So drop that smoke bomb and blast your way out!

Playing from 4pm-9pm CT on SoS in EB and heavy population BLs.
Not feeling but a slight amount of lag.
Yesterday, there was skill lag about every 5th encounter.

Seems to be working. There is still some real choppiness (teleporting herk and jerk) which is a real pain when it is your commander and they say “follow me”.

The “tells” on skills are still a bit rough, like listening at a bar to a TV station on Slingbox while watching the big screen. Manageable but annoying.

So many things wrong with the mortar. It can’t be a mini piece of siege equipment (that would be great though) so a kit seems like the best alternative.

One thing I would really like to see is it hit far more than 5 targets (maybe 15 given it is an elite).

Oh boy, I have so many roles.

1. Fields and Combos
2. Confusion and Blind
3. DPS with COMBINED power and condi (so I am never a one trick kinda damage)
4. Pulls
5. Cleanses for team (e-gun fumigate)
6. Light field plus ability to blast it several times (for area retaliation).
7. Glue (bomb, e-gun, pistols sometimes)
8. Knockbacks and decaps

Just because you have a lot of roles doesn’t mean you can’t be very good with any one role at any one time.

I’m struggling to see where all of a sudden this patch makes us weak.
If anything, it looks to improve many specs.
Power gets hit a bit, but engies are often condi.

We can make more use out of more types of runesets (boon, condition, might, power, condition damage, etc. etc)

Sigil changes seem to hit everyone pretty hard not just us (stacks in particular). But what is new about us and sigils?

Seeing lots of little annoyances, but every class will have those.

Some of the new rune sets that have been shown on Twitch suggest that HGH may have more viability after April 15th.

My experience is a bit different and I learned about bombs from Yishis videos.

Take a zerg first. I will start with grenades or pistol shots (anything AE really) and then I tend to rush into the stragglers or backlines and bomb. I leave when there is any sort of real pressure and go back to grenades, pistol and sometimes E-Gun (to get the straggler, light field, etc).

Take roaming or small groups. Very often I bomb as my primary kit just sticking on a warrior. This also keeps thieves on their toes. I alternate between pistol and bombs in this case more than anything. It is too easy to wiff with grenades and not hit anything in these small fights. Nades are more shotgun (drop at feet) based here.

Take Defense. Bombs are a lot of fun in denial. I frequently use the glue bomb then a freeze grenade a few seconds later behind me to help my team get away or to slow down the enemy stragglers. BOB is just classic fun to split up small trains.

I think it is a much better argument to have as to whether a jumping puzzle should ever be in a pvp zone (I don’t think so) versus

If ANET puts a jumping puzzle in a WvW zone, isn’t the whole point to kill the other player?

I STRONGLY support a lack of etiquette and the mass slaughter of those trying to do the jumping puzzle. Maybe then we will have less PvE in WvW.

Kill em all. Let ANET sort them out

On April 15th, ascended gear (including armor) becomes account bound.

Can exotic as well?

Here is why. WvW players often have 3-4 sets of armor for different builds. It is often the same armor as their next character. For example, I play 3 medium armor classes.

If I don’t have ascended armor, then each character carries around berserker, dire, etc. etc. It just takes up room and bank space.

Account bound would be much easier!

Typical build seems to be 10/30/0/0/30.

Can someone link a build and explain how it manages without shadow arts?

Somewhat new to thief and just finally got the hang of d/p and want another fun build/set for roaming wvw.

There will be a critical strike type rune set amongst the many changes. Not worried about that.

As for Lyssa, I like the changes as being balanced. I’m sure some set will have stability just not this one.

Well all the other rune sets are being changed too. Each will fit a theme.
You may well find a new rune set that serves the purpose.
Frankly, this one got well balanced.

Will the PvP skins be usable now in PvE? I think the answer is yes but not sure.

At this point, given all the controversy over tournaments v skyhammer farming and the new influx of people to spvp anticipated given the integrated reward system, it is time for a complete reset.

Let’s start over with ranks and just provide say “loot boxes” based on people’s current rank as a consolation prize.

I think the fundamental issue is that you don’t have enough character slots for one of each class. So at some point in time, you either are compelled to buy more character slots (which personally I feel is quite fair) or you will delete characters/alts to make room.

One thing I would look at is how much revenue is really being generated from buying character slots versus the revenue that could be anticipated if players tried additional classes (having 8 slots) and then bought gear/bonuses for them?

I have a sneaky suspicion that there would be a real advantage to upping the number of free character spots.

Thief is pretty important to wvw. It is the natural scout (and should be). It kills stragglers (because there should be a risk to getting back to a group).

It can ninja sentries and camps but not much else (well balanced)

On the other hand, it is really meh within the group (because it was designed to be a solo roamer).

You are not supposed to have “even odds” fighting a thief that hits you first out of stealth. However, you should do quite well with even 2 players, if you coordinate.

Run solo at your own risk.

They were going to rid pvp of ranks altogether.
There was a lot of complaining about that.
The idea seems to be to have a soft reset on spvp so that the influx of new players trying the game mode would not feel disadvantaged. The new players should come for the integrated reward system (e.g. getting dungeon loot from pvp).

So this really is a compromise where the original idea was just to be rid of ranks.

In other words, you already are at the middle ground. This is the best you will get.

Each rune set is getting a theme. The changes make sense and look balanced to me relative to the other sets we have seen on the Twitch channel.

Two choices come to mind depending on you.

1) Getting skins which now go to the unified wardrobe (so based on what I can gather from the blogs means they can be used in other game modes now)

2) Getting tomes of knowledge so you can quickly level up an alt if you hate PvE.

But ANET should be willing to lose you as a customer if necessary to get a large number of players anchored into the game mode.

Any change will have some leave and some rejoin.

What I am saying to you is that you simply can’t and shouldn’t win this fight. The real solution was originally to rid everyone of rank almost like a soft reset on spvp. The compromise was to lower ranks. That really is the best you can expect. And if that causes the casual to still think pvp is inaccessible, I would suspect the removal of ranks will indeed be next.

You have to consider the counter argument.

Remember, the original plan was to do away with ranks altogether. Why?
Because that would really make Spvp seem “new”, “even”, “Balanced” for the influx of players to this mode they ignored as ANET integrates game modes (e.g. allowing dungeon loot to be obtained in PvP).

This game mode needs new players. More people playing equals more reason to focus attention on the game mode. Otherwise, it simply makes more sense to spend time and effort disproportionately on WvW and PvE.

The motivation of casuals is often achievements (loot, titles, ranks etc) versus “sport” or at least a combination of the two. So if the top achievements are sooooo hard to get starting from zero, then why bother? If the top achievements are hard to get unless you JUST play Spvp (which never was the intention to have a “his and her” game mode) then why bother?

The dragon rank finisher must be semi-casual friendly.

Look at it this way. How much moaning and groaning was there that ascended gear required dungeons and crafting? Rightly so. It was not semi-casual friendly. You had to do too much of one game mode to get it.

Do you really want to get this new influx of players trying the game mode with the changes and integration and then lose them?

You simply have to look at the problem from the perspective of the greater number of players who don’t have the finisher but will want it!

It would be sadder if new players to pvp showed up and then never showed back up because achievements were too hard to get. With the integration of game modes, there will be an influx of new PvPers which is essential if you want this mode to get the attention it deserves.

How do you make them loyal to the mode if the achievements (which motivate them) are almost unattainable without sacrificing their participation in other game modes they already are interested in PvE and WvW?

There are very few players who will be harmed by this change and they are already addicted to the game mode (and probably need some time in the other game modes frankly). There are a great many who benefit from these changes.

With every nerf there are winners and losers. The issue is which side is greater.

You will never get the rest of the population to play Spvp regularly if the chasm between achievement holders and achievement seekers is too great.

In many ways, they should reset the ranks (which was the original intention) before a lot of people said that is TOO far. Personally, I would have thought that was just right.

So a compromise was made in lowering how hard it is to get the ranks.

For the hardcore PvPer, this is a MUCH better solution than the original which would have wiped away ranks altogether. To some extent that really would have helped bring casuals in. Remember a casual who joins Spvp and enjoys it doesn’t stay casual for long

Kind of fun to have a map where there is underwater combat. It is just something different.

Kind of fun to have a map with a bit more hard cover, a bit higher grounds around the points for raining down arrows or grenades and a cannon to fight over.

All runes are being changed.

We are not sure how each rune set that is not perplexity will be changed.
From early indications (a few rune sets which were shown in Twitch channel) these changes make them similar in power to perplexity runes which got nerfed (thinking of the might rune set they showed)

Therefore, I would just wait before over-reacting. I’m betting a bag of popcorn that perplexity runes will not be the rune set most complained about.

I think there is so much we don’t know about sigils and runes that my advice would be to wait

Engie will be fine if not better than fine. You just need to adjust to a new build but that isn’t all that difficult.

The ability to quickly change traits on the fly in WvW is going to really help the engineer who can use a single set of armor with multiple builds, trait swaps for specific encounters etc.

Frankly, I’m pretty darn excited by these changes on my engineer more than other classes.

The change is not bad. The need for the change was great.

“WHY WOULD YOU WANT dragon finisher if EVERYONE has it???

it would have ZERO prestige…"

You are thinking like a hardcore player. For you and your microcluster this would not be a sensible decision.

But for the multitude of other player microclusters this is brilliant. They view the dragon finisher as nothing more than another achievement to obtain. It is not per se more or less important than any of the other 100 achievements to obtain. This fits a strategy to make PvP more unified with the achievement and reward structure of PvE and WvW to encourage more of those players to anchor themselves (at least a bit) in PvP and help population etc.

It is not a mistake and they did not screw you over at all. It is hardly wrong.
It is a solid decision.

The achievement or gear loving MMO semi-casual player wants to “get it all”. that is part of the addiction of an MMO. The time it would take to get that very cool finisher is just too long. Moving to the middle of the bell curve is just smart.

No, this is simpler. You want new semi-casuals to try PvP. They are not going to do so if the barrier to getting ranks is that high. Essentially, it can’t take them a year to “catch up” or they will just get frustrated with the whole experience outside of the player who just wants to get some new dungeon loot.

So a decision gets made, keep the uber hard core players happy or appeal to the MASSIVE number of casuals who you may be able to anchor into pvp with a unified system of rewards, playstyles etc.

After all, this is hardly the only change. You have dungeon loot available as well as skins that can be used in PvE and new runes/sigils that reflect what people use in other modes coming. Look at this change as part of the whole.

VERY smart idea to include it. Look, ANET wants more people trying PvP. One of the key reasons for a new player to try it (besides the new dungeon loot) is to get experience using the build and gear you will fight with in PvE or especially WvW. So to not have the rune set in is probably worse than to have it in.

Remember, all game modes are now unified and being integrated.

Likewise . . . .

Perplexity runes got nerfed. They are now in line with everything I have seen on the Ready Up videos for other sets that are getting buffed.

You can’t look at this set without considering the changes being made to other sets. I doubt you will find all that many perplexity rune wearers honestly.

It would be foolish not to add it to the mix.

I thank them for making pvp far more accessible, understandable and valuable to the causal player who might enjoy PvE or WvW but has not really found any reason to PvP. Now they will have amble reason to join a few fights and that is exactly the breathe of fresh air that was needed.

Most people who start pvping based on these changes will hardly be hardcore and probably won’t care all that much.

Exceptions are team arenas.

The whole goal is to bring the causal into the game mode. Believe me this is a step in that right direction. Looking forward to it. Not at all concerned about ranks.