Guild Wars 2

Week isn’t over. It can go either way still.

In case HoD loses, I decided to make a list of premade excuses.

1. Quaggans are overpowered. And biased to SBI.
2. Torchlight 2 and Borderlands 2 just came out. how are we supposed to concentrate on WvW when we could be fishing in Torchlight2?
3. Angry Joe xfered off HoD, and how are we supposed to compete without him?
4. “Real” wvw fights don’t start till the solstice. These are just prelim.
5. Obviously, too many people. and its all everyone else fault. I’m awesome.
6. It was a 7v1 fight. Forum warriors totally count. It hurt our feelings. The emotional damage impacted our ability to fight.
7. Football season bro. Can’t play WvW with the game on.

drake.2135:

Rishara.1684:

See, the thing is we always knew HoD was the bigger threat, regardless of where their placement was over the weekend. We knew that once the week started and most of us on SBI are at work or whatever, that HoD would be able to gain points back quickly. That was why we were focusing so heavily on HoD. We knew that ET wasn’t really a threat at all. There was never an alliance between us. We just wanted to suppress as many HoD points as we could. I don’t understand why people think that this was unfair or bad tactics… So, we should actually just let HoD steamroll us to focus on ET?

If it’s anything that I’ve learned from playing any game where you have more than one opponent, is that it’s a horrible idea to focus on only one of them.

Sure Henge of Denravi is a pretty big threat, but if Eredon Terrace was really that non-threatening, then why didn’t you go to capture all of their areas, alongside Henge’s areas (if possible)? It might have been more beneficial that way.

Really? Focus is exactly what you do when facing more then one opponent. Once one is down and out, its now a 1v1, instead of a 2v1.

I believe you. what is your point?

ET was a friendly alien.

Rodarin.6058:

Bottomline is ‘skill’ will be shown in a shjort period, basically the first day or so of resets as they happen on the weekeneds and people can play. But as time goes by it just shows that population and having the ability to throw people in there 24/7 is all that really matters in terms of overall score keeping.

If there is such a thing as skill involved. Planning and organization is it. Go look at the server queue distribution graphs shown. That is the answer to HoD’s strength. the graph doesn’t look like the others, and it is not an accident.

Still lots of time to go however.

I expect to not be fighting invisible enemies 90% of the time.

I don’t think this is a problem with my expectations.

Serious serious problem.

I’m not sure why there isn’t more outcry on these forums or the WvW forum.

Its the single biggest problem right now. and might kill the game.

Every single WvW is a fight between 5 visible allies, 5 visible enemies, and 50 invisible ones.

Its really strong for pve. The lack of any hard CC makes it fairly, meh, for pvp.
There is some cross purpose in effect and traits as well.
20% cooldown, and 15% range are in firearms. Which is crit and condition damage.
15% damage is in alch. (this is only the direct damage part) Alch gives vit and boon duration.
All of the alch “elixir” traits, do not work on any of the elixir guns “elixirs”. dunno of big, or design.

Inventions gives +healing for the guns healing. but there are no elixir gun traits in inventions.
invigorating speed, and backpack regen, are two good alch traits that are not directly elixir gun oriented. but are nice to have.
Its hard to make a good elixir gun build. Its damage IS quite high though.

Having to force AA every time, I think largely turns many away as well.

there is at least good gear. shaman.
And it does make a good back up for p/p builds.

HellsMachine.4083:

Kralous.7563:

I never used to think the orbs were that great an advantage, but after being on the receiving end of 3xOrb invaders for the 1st time last night (admittedly I was on the verge of passing out just jumped on quickly after work, totally not on my game) it is a slaughter. Never had a repair bill like that.

It felt like I had gone from being able to tank 8 people for long enough for me to get mykittenouta the fire, to being squished by 3 people before the lag would even let me cast something.

The only players that don’t see it as a problem, are the players that haven’t experienced it from both sides of the fence.

Yeap. I knew they were strong. But having now seen 3 orbs on one team. Completely changes WvW tactics. And its clearly too much. had no idea just how large an advantage it was.
Its literally like having full exotics vs someone in white gear.

as others have stated orb buffs should be what outmanned gives. (although karma, exp, etc are not desirable enough to make orbs good.)

The other problem is orb placement.
1. They start undefended effectively. A home team needs to let another team steal the orb. kill the carrier, THEN move it to garrison, in a protected position. That is itself a very strange setup.
2. Why are they placed in strongholds at all? This makes holding orbs way way too easy. Especially for their benefits.
Orbs should be live balls. Alters should be either outside keeps entirely. Or in outer courtyards, so only the outer gates/walls need to be dropped to assault and steal an orb.

Optics.3289:

Casia.4281:

tested again. short fuse and grenadier do not work together still.
short fuse without grenadier. 4s schrapnel.
short fuse and grenadier. 5s.

Changed short fuse now.
I don’t understand why it doesn’t work, it really sucks : /

Been a bug since beta. Most of us use the +10% damage or the +3 stacks of might there, until it gets fixed.
And yeah its tricky since it seems to work when you get it, then later add grenadier and it breaks it. Often going unnoticed.

Tallman.5193:

Lyuben.2613

OP, please include the tip about using toolbelts without a kit. Its a big deal.

What do you mean by this?

Aralyae.7254

Lovely information, but one thing that strikes me as odd, you mention that the standard grenade does ‘mediocre damage at best’. As a pretty heavy grenade user, I would dispute that, I find that it deals a fairly heavy amount of damage, (considering you can hit your target of course!) From my brief observations, each grenade does about the same damage as a single rifle shot hit. Two grenades with base traits, and three possible with the grenadier trait, the damage adds up fairly quickly! Not to mention, the firing rate is about the same for both.
Though to be perfectly honest, I’m not sure about once you start getting higher level rifles, since you sadly can’t upgrade your grenades, as I’m only ~75 at the moment. With fairly standard weaponry, standard grenades have a much high dps (assuming you’re accurate). If I’m wrong, or maybe just using rifle wrong, I would love information disputing otherwise! Anything to make me more effective.

Remember, Aralyae, that this is a guide which is focused on the Engineer within structured PvP.

When you use Grenades, you can’t get a sigil of air proc while attacking your target. Additionally, if you ever try to use Grenades legitimately against a skilled opponent 1 on 1, you won’t land a single one. It’s far too easy to strafe, dodge, and juke the nades they throw at you while returning unavoidable damage.

Grenades in PvP are useful for Grenade Barrage and long-range bombardment of points with team support. In 1v1 fights, swapping to the GKit for a quick chill, blind, or poison isn’t a bad idea. But if you use it as your main weapon, you’re missing out on Sigil of Air burst and a lot of “unavoidable” damage that you get from the rifle.

Also remember here – you’re comparing the Rifle’s Autoattack to the Grenade Kit’s Autoattack. The rifle gets its damage from Blunderbuss and Jump Shot combos. Grenade Kit gets it from its autoattack, vuln stacks, and Grenade Barrage. I’ve fought plenty of Grenade Engineers in PvP and killed them all since they can’t land a single nade if you move unpredictably. Grenades are phenomenal in PvE and WvW since there are often stationary, clumped up targets. But in sPvP? Anyone competent will be able to take you out. It’s just not practical except in the most specific of situations.

Basically, if you’re testing these weapons in a vacuum against stationary targets, the Grenade Kit will win, because it is a PvE tool. Try spending a match in sPvP using Grenades as your main weapon, specced for grenades, then use Rifle as your main weapon, specced for rifle. You’re going to get better results with the rifle (if you know how to use its skillset) almost every time. Also, you have to spend 30 traits to get the Grenade Kit close to being viable, whereas the Rifle or Pistols are always useful.

grenades don’t somehow remove your other weapons skills. there is no cooldown, and little delay.
Net shot, supply drop, and blunderbuss all line up grenade hits just fine. nevermind other options like slick shoes. Which I admittedly don’t recommend.

30 in grenade gives you the insanely powerful grenadier trait, vul on explosions trait. (granted the 5-20 traits not as good). And +30% duration conds, and +300 power.
that +duration on shrapnel bleeds, which is FAR stronger when its 3 at 15s duration. then its 2 at 12s duration. the blind, chill, and poison are all all longer. As well as nets immobalize.
While firearms gives crit, which is nice, and +condition damage, which is fairly weak for rifle/grenades.
You get 5 point sharpshooter either way. 5% direct damage to bleeding targets vs 3 stacks of 6.5s of vul with every grenade attack. not even close.
There isnt even a 30 point rifle trait in firearms. granted there are a good 4-5 teir 1 and 2 traits that are good, and 3 points lets you pick 3, and 20 lets you pick 2.

grenades do way more damage then rifle. While rifle itself is mainly CC based. Net, leap. blowout. It can be used to set up grenade damage. Missing with grenades is the same as dodging them. aim better. engi is already a fast fingers profession.

tested again. short fuse and grenadier do not work together still.
short fuse without grenadier. 4s schrapnel.
short fuse and grenadier. 5s.

the build linked is wrong.
First it only shows 10 in alch, so you cant have 409 with that build.
Second you have short fuse and grenadier. Grenadier breaks short fuse last I checked. you can have one or the other, but not both.

I swapped to a power grenadier build recently. And I think I was a bit shocked how much bleeding shrapnel stacks. 5s cd, 15s bleeds. x3 every throw. Then sharpshooter on top of it. (The raw damage of power grenades though…. I find its just overwhelming)
Incendiary power is probably not worth taking. It sounds good. but only applies the burn to 1 target.

yeah. condition damage is proving to be WAY underpowered. Or, technically, direct damage and CRIT is overpowered.
But there are a few condition damage design problems. duration and how it works. cond stacking with multiple players. and % damage buffs not effecting cond damage.

+duration is the closest thing to actual scaling for it.
But, it seems there is a giant problem with this. It only works in whole second intervals.
example. if you have a 1s burn, or 2s bleed. which many classes have, as you might note.
A +10% rune, trait or whatever, will make it a 1.1s burn, or 2.2s bleed. The debuff will appear on the target for the 1.1s, and 2.2s. But damage will only be the same as if it was simply a 1s burn, or 2s bleed. Presumably, -10% duration via food or melandru runes would likely completely cripple such short duration conditions. do the various 1s burns not tick any damage at all being reduced to .9s?

Damage scaling traits not effecting condition damage. I don’t understand this. As an engineer, examples. 5% damage to bleeding targets. 1% damage boost for every boon on you. 5% damage when end is not full, 5% damage to immobalized foes, etc.
5% damage of force sigil. These only effect direct damage.
Vulnerability, a condition, is no longer tied to armor, but just a1% damage debuff, also only effects direct damage.
Exotic weapon direct damage, is scaling with higher stat totals, AND higher weapon damage.

giving seige weapons ammo counts would probably solve this greatly.

Treb gets 15 shots? Then you need to fill it with supply again. This would mean starving that treb now would be an effective way to counter. Instead of now, which it can fire forever, even when cut off.

Its range based. It will show who you are closest to. Guilds/servers run in packs, so it will tend to render only that one group.

Exploit in what way? simply, scouting, then having a the full group run in and be invisible while aoeing? yes. and its a severe problem.
Conversely, baiting. tricking a force to run into invisible death, by chasing a 3-5 man group retreating.

Thankfully, I think seige always loads? Ive not noticed invisible seige yet anyway.

I was astounded when I ran plunderer path the first time.
3 bosses for the first chest… who designed that?
Why do those mini-bosses have such high hp?

Incredibly tedious, and I shutter to think what fights go like if you aren’t all running in power/prec/crit glass cannon gear.

haha, yeah, Wraithowl. The barely disguised whining was amusing.
To speak on that point, though. yes, HoD is getting focused in a double team. collusion accusation are clearly incorrect.
An example from day 1 in EB. SBI and ET had split push lowlands. ET had 60+ people building seige and camping HoD spawn point, while SBI was hitting from the north, and had brought down northern/eastern walls from trebs at jerrifers.
ET’s soul purpose in the fight was to prevent HoD from getting to lowlands, so SBI could cap it. there were less then 10 defenders alive inside, and keep lord was dead, with 2 inner walls down.
SBI obviously was not in on this, as SBI took this opportunity, to instead of take lowlands, back out while ET had 90% of their forces camping HoD, to take SM from ET.
This is why you have such a lead, and all 3 orbs.(no slight to SBI intended at all, SBI has fought hard, long, fair every match.) ET’s objective is to make HoD lose, not win. A valid tactic, I didn’t think their egos had it in them honestly. But its had to seem usually easy this match up, no?

Regardless, yes the pop in issue is hitting everyone, and is making WvW near unplayable. its completely destroying any semblance of “skill”.
The rendering issue needs its own thread of outcry. one without the silly server accusation bias.

coglin.1496:

Rocket boots are a stun breaker, and they work on it just fine. I have 4 other classes to 30+ but the majority of my experience is with the engineer, and I know rocket boots work on it. As well as overcharge shot.

I understand your point. I am simply pointing out that there are several counters. The lack of using one doesn’t make the player in the video better, it just makes the others accountable for their own demise.

Particularly if you look at the hit points and defense he has, any counter alleviates a lot of his build potential. Counter his net shot, and with that low Hp pool and lack of defense and you should shred him like paper, that is the only point I am getting at.

hmm. both of those have self knock backs. I wonder if that is what is breaking it. I am pretty sure ElixirR won’t, unless you have 409. Same with my elementalist, armor of earth wouldn’t break immobilize last I checked. Again, possible something has changed since I last put it to the test.

Honor of the waves, and Twilight arbor tokens give prec/tough/cond gear.
That should be the ideal p/p gear.

I leveled p/p, grenades/alch.
Even with a +cond focus grenade toolbelt skill is crazy strong.
At 80, tried swapping grenades for elixir gun. Which is pretty decent as well in that spot. A regen toolbelt. Nice water swap, good aoe damage, conditions, another heal in super elixir, etc. It even outdamages p1 in auto attack with that prec/cond gear.

The more I break down the math though. I am really questioning the viability of +cond though.
power, crit, crit damage, and weapon damage just scale SO much.

for giggles, I swapped to a grenade build. half my gear is still +cond, but my damage tripled.

SharKol.3178:

coglin.1496:

Yeah, avoidance. It is kind of funny to see that not one person in that video uses a dodge at all, then read how everyone is shocked that they died so easily.

how can they dodge when most of the times he use net shot to immobilize them?

dodge the net too? and/or cleanse it.
net/immobalize is not a stun btw. stun breakers do not work on it. a condition removal does that.
Stun break works on"fear, stun, knockdown, knockback"
Not sure on daze.

Ashes.6418:

Having an ability that can be countered by people paying attention is not uncommon. The entire Mesmer class can be deconstructed by people who pay attention to which copy is moving like a player.
I don’t expect the cloaking device to be a fool-proof clutch that allows me to escape whenever I want. I’m not a Thief.

Your suggested change to the cloaking device would make it far too overpowered— even if it was a 1 second cloak. Any build with a multi-hit attack that stacks precision would be completely and utterly trumped by the engineer (Thief, Ranger, Warrior) Soon as they crit, they lose target, skill goes on cooldown.
Remeber that Cloaking device has no cooldown— this would happen on EVERY single crit. You would be stealthed more often than a Theif using this trait.

Not only that, but when you’re fighting in a pitched battle it is clear when you get immobilized, so you can stop attacking and keep your cloak. It’s not so clear when you take a critical hit, you’ll break your own cloak most of the time.

Its an ability that Only works vs players that don’t know how stealth works.

Pure glass cannon as others have stated.

He is 30 explosive, 20 firearms 20 tools.
No invigorating speed.

No might stacks. and that crazy power.

CoF gear. which is Power/prec/crit damage.
so he’ll have like 80% crit rate, and deal over 200% damage on crits.

As stated, thats what it looks like for anyone using power/prec/crit.
Its scaling is broken.
The only counter is avoidance. toughness doesn’t scale enough vs it either.

“The most DPS capability I can see if using Coated Bullets (Pistols pierce) + Poison Dart Volley, which should deal about 1900 damage in a line. However, isn’t the warrior’s similar Rifle ability about 3x as powerful as this? AND it has piercing as well?”

I looked into this statement.

Warrior volley is 10s cd.
5 hits
.96 skill coeff. It reads differently, listing aggregate value. It’ll read 2900.

Poison volley is
.655 skill coeff.
And it reads per hit. so will be like 213, when its 213×5 for 1065.

Additional variance will be pistols top of 1025, vs rifles top of 1205

So about 50% stronger if venom is not counted. Practice seems much higher due to stacking power. A rifle war running around with 2k+ power, while a pistol engi running around with like 1.2k power, and 1.2k cond.

Considering stealth doesnt make you immune to damage, it doesnt actaully stop ANY damage from hitting you. They don’t even need to wait for you to unstealth. They can just spam attacks on your location.

Yeah, terrible trait.
Acidic coating. yeap. very poor.

H.G.H is actually very good and fitting for its position. 6-7 stacks of might permanently from it with ease. more if you rune/gear/trait for +might duration.

as others have stated.
Stealth only breaks targeting. it does not make you immune to damage.

Ground aoes will hit with ease. But even if you force attack projectiles, they will hit, if you know where the person is.

Blind grenade is very effective. blunderbuss, glue shot, blow torch all good options.

weapon kits have a base damage of 967

Exotic rifle is 1205
Exotic pistol is 1025
Exotic staff is 1111.

This is important because the “attack” stat is a lie. Attack is NOT power+weapon damage. If that were true, the variance in weapon damage wouldn’t be so big a deal.
However it is not.
Attack damage is: power TIMES weapon damage. (specifically, (skill coeff * weapon damage * power/916)
Therefor, every point of power is 15% stronger for an elementalist with an exotic staff.

15% is no joke.

Weirwynn.2390:

You’ve completely neglected to include any justification as to why you think this ability deserves to be added over any other choice. Simply choosing an existing game effect and applying a name/description to it is not a particularly persuasive suggestion.

why not?
the game is clearly designed to be modular in adding utility skills. A new race will give every class new utility skills, collectors edition gave new utility skills. Unlimited skill points for utility skills.

You are arguing that new skills need to have a specific function. This is incorrect from the games design. new skills can be flavor, fun, etc.

engineers have limited mobility options. now this can be an argument for or against. Is it an oversight, and such we should have a better option, or was it intentional, and thus giving us one, would be too strong.

the burn on crit trait has a cooldown. You can only burn one target at a time. The bleed trait can hit aoe.
Pistols direct bleed, is only applied directly. the aoe hit doesn’t, although piercing will.

Direct damage 2 handers completely outclassing 1 handers is starting to convince me.
An exotic rifle has a max damage of 1205. An exotic pistol 1029.
They have the same attack speed.
so rifles will do 18% more damage just innately. Damage scales directly off weapon damage. 300 power is 18% stronger for a rifle then a pistol. Same with crit and crit damage.

Now grenades don’t use weapon damage, as they have a hidden kit damage value. 969 weapon damage.
But we still have power x crit x crit damage x weapon damage scaling, vs just flat +cond damage which scales with nothing.

Lets say I have 70% crit, and 200% crit damage. (+50% I think) crits doing 150% is base. not sure if addition crit damage gear is additive or mult.

Grenade 1. If I add 300 power
.163 scaling per hit. (weapon damage x .163 x power/916)
+51.9 damage per hit, without crit. 70% chance for 100% more damage is easy to math at 1.7. for +88 average damage per hit.
Total damage added for +300 power, per 3 hit volley. 264/s

Pistol 1. +300 condition.
Bleed scaling .05
15dps. 2s duration.

264 vs 15…

For reference,
300 power for p1.
.131 scaling, exotic pistol 1029 (1029x .131x 300/916)
44 damage/hit added. 74.8 with 70% crit at 100% damage.
Double hit 150 average dps increase.

Ready to keep going?
Condition damage does NOT gain from traits such as +10% rifle damage, or +5% damage vs bleeding targets, or +5% damage while not full endurance. only direct damage does.
Condition damage does NOT gain from vulnerability, only direct does.

yes, fully traited grenades are very high dps.
But you have to worry about travel time, lag, finger cramping, etc.

Love it.

Lyuben. His idea is very different.

The self use effect is the same as an elementalists lightning flash.
The toolbelt skill would be great for saving friendly’s. A great idea. Although, open to trolling.

Hello, this is obviously, a statement more then a suggestion. As any attempt to look and address the problem, would take a very large overhaul. Small patches could be made though.
The 2 main issues created here by crit and crit damage.
random number generator
Exponential growth.

1. RNG. Gw2 has set out to be a fairly pvp centric game with Spvp, tournaments, and WvW. Random effects run contrary to any skill based play. A long history of rts, fps, moba’s have shown this to be true. And even outside pc gaming. Poker, chess, etc. there is nothing random there, in the play. (obviously, poker card draws are random. But this would be akin to random map draw. You don’t play tournament poker with wild jokers, or 2’s.)
Randomness in how abilities work and perform must be kept to a minimum. An ability must do what a player expects it to, when they press it. This is a responsiveness issue. A crit or non-crit has little difference then if you press forward, and your character just randomly walked sideways instead.
A crit,if it exists in your game at all, needs to operate under a condition set. Aka. backattacks crit. Not just some passive random %. Its a meaningless lazy number. It completely negates any skill based gameplay. Exactly opposite of condition damage in this game. Which effectively does have an elaborate application and removal skill based system.

2. exponential scaling.
Direct damage:
Power x skill coeff x weapon damage x crit % x crit damage%
Defense:
toughness +armor

That sure is alot of multiplying values.
Might stacking with exotic weapons, with high crit % and damage, and high skill coeffs, far outpace defense values.
Having crit damage as a stat in the game, only serves to increase the problem, and value of crit as noted in issue 1. As now, fights are entirely decided by that 1 or 2 hits that crit. Or with high enough crit %, all your hits are crits. which again, means your damage so far outpaces any defensive stat, its a dps race.

For a suggestion, I would recommend toning down some of this scaling. Reduce the effects of crit damage as a stat.
Or, perhaps add an effect to +healing, that counter crit or crit damage. since +healing seems to be a low priority stat. vit as well, fairly under-desired.
100 vit =1% chance to be crit?
100 healing=1% reduction of damage taken from crits?

Direct damage scaling is a bit off. Exponential growth across multiple stats.

While defense (and cond) are more linear.
Offense outpaces defense. This is especially true for any direct damage build. A cond build only scales with +cond for damage really. (and in our case, crit for procs). so they need to build for more survival, and have less priority on stats, and can afford to get toughness. But for grenades, and rifle, you might want to just fullbore damage.

I favor toughness on gear,runes when gearing for defense. I go alch, so get “free vit” there, and engis have middle tier base hp.
Healing also then effectively scales with toughness, which reduces damage taken.

A 10k hit with no toughness, into 15k hp. leaves you with 5k hp. You then 6k heal yourself, back to 11k hp.
A 5k hit into 3k armor, into 13k hp, leaves you at 8k hp. You then heal for 6k, back up to 16k hp.

Crit needs to be removed. Especially crit damage as a stat.

Really?
between gearing for prec/tough/cond.
High retaliation uptime.
Cond damage dots.
Confusion and blind.
Static shot bounce, static discharge bounce.

Also allows easy supply drop, and grenade barrage’s. Closer to me, means shorter delay, and easier to aim.

Up close and personal is a very bad place to be vs me.

With bouncing damage, and explosive shots aoe. I want to be in melee, and I want to draw any pets in with me, to be on top of you as well. So, when I hit you with static shot, I hit you, and your pet bouncing back and forth. 2 hits, and 4 stacks of confusion for you. (illusions, pets, summons, turrets, guardian weapons)

Why tough, not vit.
Vit is anti condition damage. raw hp. First, you get vit from alch traiting. Second, 409 makes all your elixirs remove conditions. And thus is rare for any to last long on you really. toughness is anti burst/direct damage. which is most people in the first place, but secondly, the only real threat. A cond build already leans on requiring survival before burst.

“its cute, but even in our last competitive fight with HOD, we only lost by 1000 points, we stay in the game until it is over and thats how we play. everyone can take cheap shots at us as much as you want, but ruin has never backed down from a fight even if we are losing, but we cant hold the entire map by our selves.”

The last figures I see for the last competitive fight, on the 12th, I see:
HoD – 97.8k @ +270
ET – 48.8k @ +280
JQ – 47.2k @ +160

If you want to call that not the last competitive fight. Whose fault is that? They all count. you don’t get to pick and choose what does and does not.

Maybe you meant the 11th?
http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/62596-hod-vs-et-vs-jq/page__st__720#entry1914317

Obviously, you did mean the 10th.
http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/62596-hod-vs-et-vs-jq/page__st__420#entry1908148

which frankly illustrates the point. You gave up. HoD was only close to losing once. that game on the 9th. And what did we do? we fought back nonstop from 6k deficit to win.
The moment you lost the lead, you collapsed, and didn’t even come back to play the next two days.

now, you speak of your guild solo. Which I certainly am not directing this to you specifically. it takes a server to win. ET is not #2. The server has not shown the ability to keep fighting for more then 6 hours yet. And not once has it shown any strength, when its on the ropes. SBI has. SBI is #2. Even JQ has show stronger lasting power.

Ashes.6418:

DrakeWurrum.6049:

To begin with, the off-hand Pistol’s two skills conflict with each other. One skill is designed to keep enemies away, while the other one is most effective when they’re in melee range.

This shows a lack of understanding of how the off-hand pistol works.

Glue shot isn’t for keeping enemies away. It’s to keep them standing in place.
The Blowtorch skill does more damage when your enemy is close to you. It’s also a conal attack that is not easy to aim. Dropping a Glueshot to keep your target still and then dropping a Blowtorch on them.

Granted, this is a more PvP-centric tactic.

Blowtorch inflicts burn, which is the most damaging condition. It is on a very short cooldown, and hits up to three targets.

Meanwhile the shield abilities have long cooldowns, #4 forces you to stand still to reflect projectiles, and #5 will only block the first hit.

But in all honestly you should not compare the two offhands. They are used for different Engineer builds and strategies. I play a condition build, so I would never pick shield over pistol.

ha yeah. I was going to quote him and say the same thing.
to op,
Wait, you think glue shot is to keep people AWAY? no no no. Glue shot is to lock people down, so you can get on top of them and WRECK them.
p/p is a MELEE, to middle range spec. You WANT to be in melee range 90% of the time.

The nature of the class comes down to:
primary weapon
1 weapon kit.
3 utility/heals focusing on gadgets, turrets or elixirs.

Traits generally make you focus on one path. You can’t really mix turrets and elixirs, etc well. If you get shorter cd elixirs, 409, etc, then your turrets will be weak, and not viable for example. Or vice-verse.

Elixirs tend to be notably way better then gadgets. And turrets, to a smaller degree. there are a few decent turret builds. Gadgets seem to be notably weaker though. cooldowns much too high. And some self imposed weakness.

Explosive shot’s tooltip in heart of the mist is not accurate. Oddly, only seems to be there.

ok. Have a breather.

First. toolitp for HOTM explosive shot is wrong. while testing, I noted, the value it stated, is not the value I was hitting targets for. The actual damage dealt follows the proper scaling.

I myself, could not make any sense of the formula. however, I found another’s testing that shows promise. I have no idea where the 916 comes from. I was using average damage, but max damage works. It should be noted. spvp attack does list your max damage, while outside of it, its average damage that is shown as attack.

tooltip- (max weapon damage * skill coeff * power/916)
pistol 1,2,3: .131 coeff
pistol 4: .1075 coeff

rifle coeff:
1: .208
3: .513 close, .321 far
4: .321
5: .2885 leap, .577 land

yeah. Elixir H, B, and R are pretty standard. I find it hard to justify any build that doesn’t use them, and 409.
And H.G.H is really nice, but probably not as must have as 409.
H is then 2 might stacks on short cd. B is 3 and sometimes 4 might on short Cd. and R is one short, and one long CD might.
You can maintain 6 stacks with ease with H.G.H. 7-9 possible.
Shorter CD, longer dur, 409 AND H.G.H not possible obviously.

you definitely want R over C. U vs R is up to you. I like R. Extra dodge is great for keeping you alive. As well as the stun breaker. Stun is knockback, down, and fear btw.
The throw action is HUGE in WvW. the pulse removes conditions every pulse. And of course being to throw and aoe res downed people without having to stop fighting changes fights.

Bug. well known.
you have to force it to AA with ctrl+mouse2. every time.

last I heard, 409 goes first. some people were complaining about it.

TA and HotW have a prec/tough/cond set irrc.
Orr venders sell green prec/tough/cond.

thought, craft had vit/cond/prec, but dont see it. must have been mistaken.
May have to reroll stats in the mystic forge to get it.

CoF was dropping Shaman blue and greens for me nonstop. Not sure if its dungeon tied at all. And, how to get rare/exotic of that stat.

its going to be.
weapon coeff x power x skill coeff.

We can find weapon coeff at level 80 by:
White weapon with no power on it, and compare it to a green, blue, rare, and exotic weapon. Skill and power won’t change. so we can get that weapon value.

From there we can lock down skill values, by changing power, while keeping weapon the same.

And look at the hotm values.
923 power change. 119 damage, 135/135, and 112 changes.
.13, .146, .12 coeffs on power.
Now take those coeffs and apply them to the 1241 power, and 2164 power I listed as my stats.
159, 181, 181, 149
278, 316,316,260
As if weapon damage have 0 impact. this can only mean one thing. Damage is power x weapon. not +

It also means those coeff’s change with weapon damage.

ok, quickly. level 80 weapons.
2 stacks might 70 power increased 1-3 by 8 damage.
But with level 45 weapons mightx2 only increased 1-3 by 4-3 damage.

so power is multiplied into your weapon damage somehow. Overall attack # seems irrelevant. It is not additive with weapon damage.
Need more tests then.
We need a weapons without any power on them for better testing.
Need to get 2 level 80 exotics without power on them.. outside of HotM.

I “think” explosive shot might be bugged in Spvp. I see no reason why it would give those values.
and look.
my outside of spvp p1. with 6 stacks might, 1374 power, 806 weapon damage.mastercraft
166 damage.
While in heart of the mist, 1241 power, and 1029 weapon damage, exotic
159 damage.

Numbers. someone else do the math for me. Busy with work, can’t spend more time atm.
This is on my level 80 engi in Orr, so no downleveling. While the HotM is HotM.
p/p level 80 mastercraft pistol mh, level 76 offhand.
Attack:1970
p 1164, wd 806 /765 offhand.
1. 141
2. 141
3. 141
4. 104

Attack: 2040 (2 stacks might) 70 power
p 1234, wd 806/765
1. 149
2. 149
3. 149
4. 111

Attack: 2180 (6 stacks might) 210 power
p 1374, wd 806/765
1. 166
2. 166
3. 166
4. 124

p/p level 45 white pistols
Attack: 1679
p 1135, wd 544
1. 52
2. 52
3. 52
4. 43

Attack: 1749 (2 stacks might)
p 1135, wd 544
1. 56
2. 55
3. 55
4. 46

Attack: 1889 (6 stacks might)
p 1345, wd 544
1. 62
2. 62
3. 62
4. 51

pvp heart of the mist.
Attack: 2270
p 1241, wd 1029
1. 159
2. 182
3. 182
4. 150

pvp heart of the mist.
Attack: 3193
p 2164, wd 1029
1. 278
2. 317
3. 317
4. 262

Very odd. out of spvp, 1-3 scale the same it seems. IN hotm, suddenly 1 is not the same as 2/3.
I am not seeing the cause for this.

well, I have over 2k power and a pistol that has over 1k damage, and my explosive shot doesn’t do 3-4k damage….

Too busy atm, the actually log in and get these values. someone should have recorded them by now.

Casia.4281:

Condition builds are inherently damage over time. So I never recommend glass cannon with them.
Prec/tough/cond for p/p. or prec/vit/cond.
.

….
The entire context was, if you disregard, and go glass cannon anyway. Power is a valuable stat. As its scales with secondary effects outside of p/p. Such as retaliation, which has a high up time with elixir B. Static discharge on toolbelt use. which is REALLY strong. Grenade toolbelt skill, which is very high dps even without swapping to grenades. Hidden pistol, and the like.
The power portion will scale with your target 80% crit (+20% fury), it will scale with your 5% + damage on bleed target.
And its largely the portion that will scale when explosive shot multi-hits. Explosive shot with piercing pistols works very much like Lit field in Rift does. for anyone that has played that. A 300 damage hit normally, hitting two targets near each other now hits for each target for 300 twice. 3 targets? 300×3 to each target. (more then that, that close very rarely occurs) This is significantly more direct damage, then bleed is applied. which is only the 30% chance on crit to apply.

You DO also get free power from might, so yes, power is the least high priority dps stat for a p/p build. however, it YOU gain from it.

They have GOT to have numbers on Xfers. someone has to have looked at them, seen players bouncing back and forth. Or seen a shift TO overpopulated/winning servers, and not away.
Right? right?…