Guild Wars 2

Menzies The Heretic.3415:

Chaith.8256:

I think there’s a discrepancy between builds being used, possibly.

It’s the Air Attunement & Lightning Strike instant double hit that happens randomly, instantly, and doesn’t respect a cooldown due to Fresh Air’s mechanic.

The answer is that you can’t react to it, you have to pro-actively kill them before they can proc Fresh Air enough times to kill you. If you dodge the phoenix, which is possible, you buy yourself much more time before you double over to the Air damage.

S/F Fresh Air Ele (if that is the version of Scepter you’re referring to) operates under the assumption that there will be a substantial deal of pure instant damage. Be aggressive, get them on the defensive, and dodge the phoenix. That’s the best advice, don’t worry about dodging un-dodgeable things.

Exactly, so how does one do that assuming he’s fighting something else. I mean, everyone is getting crazy about Rapid Fire, but this will most definitely one shot you assuming you are playing zerker.

Its not that I’m having real trouble in a 1v1 situation. It just bothers me that there is basically no tell of when the air spike is coming. Random dodge it is then.

Honestly, you should most be ready to randomdodge (LOL) when the Ele is in Earth, and he’s 111111 spamming at you. They have a high rate of fire and are used often to proc fresh air, and then the inevitable Air and Lightning Strike.

But the thing is if the Ele is good, he will sink the swap & strike right after your random dodge ends. Random dodging gets worse and worse as your enemies get better.

If you aren’t having trouble beating them, then.. just shrug and accept it. lol.

Delta Blues.8507:

most of ele’s damage come from fire attunement combo, they will tipically pin you down with earth signet while unleashing they’re tooth on you. it shouldn’t be too hard to save a stunbreak for when you’re immobilized.
Also if you have burning on you and ele is in fire attunement stay away from fire grab)

Basically hit them + put all condi you can (especially poison) as soon as they swap to water and keep pressure, keep in mind you’ll have probably have to deal with chill (frost aura) and be carefull of the only 2 hard CC they have which are earthquake (earth attunement) which is fairly telegraphed even if quite quick and updraft (air) which only works in melee range.

But most of all DODGE at all cost fire combos, don’t let him come too close to you if you have burning (or make sure you dodge it) because fire grab (melee range) hurts. A lot.

I think there’s a discrepancy between builds being used, possibly.

It’s the Air Attunement & Lightning Strike instant double hit that happens randomly, instantly, and doesn’t respect a cooldown due to Fresh Air’s mechanic.

The answer is that you can’t react to it, you have to pro-actively kill them before they can proc Fresh Air enough times to kill you. If you dodge the phoenix, which is possible, you buy yourself much more time before you double over to the Air damage.

S/F Fresh Air Ele (if that is the version of Scepter you’re referring to) operates under the assumption that there will be a substantial deal of pure instant damage. Be aggressive, get them on the defensive, and dodge the phoenix. That’s the best advice, don’t worry about dodging un-dodgeable things.

Rusc.4978:

You’re both quite right that Engineer isn’t the only class with a balance issue, but that doesn’t mean the problems with Engineer should be ignored because there’s other stuff wrong.

I think it’s smarter to shave Celestial amulet, battle sigil, and fire field blasts. Or other things in common that’s elevating bruiser Eles, Engies, and Warriors above support and burst archetypes.

It’s a battle of playstyles we should be talking about here, not profession.

Steb.2571:

Compered to the game in it’s entirety. It brings too much to the table, has a counter for everything, and has a solution for nearly any problem (both offensive and defensive) aside from condi transfer.

It’s good in nearly every situation, and has virtually no weaknesses (again, with the exception of condi transfer). It has everything, and sacrifices nothing, that’s literally a textbook definition of overpowered. There’s no trade-off or balance.

Alright Steb.

If you can tell me what weaknesses Warriors and Elementalists have that are more exploitable than Engineers, then you will have a decent point.

(You can’t, because Elementalists and Warriors have an even more impermeable defense, with fewer exploitable weaknesses.)

In sPvP, an Engineer is simply a variation of the bruiser-esque teamfighters that comprise 50% of the professions (Ele, Eng, Rngr, War) who are normally designed to fight on-point. The HPS, Burning, CC, Utility, defensive CDs, condition removal, on all these all-purpose builds are real. From this broad archetype, Engineer sacrifices the ability to fight on point, due to kitten poor condition removal and no stability. It does this to gain a more lethal barrage of conditions and control.

Man, I’m not disputing that this bruiser archetype is ridiculous. Ele, Eng, Rngr, War, you need these professions in your team, there’s no way around it. Ranger I feel is slightly under-tuned as a condi bruiser, damage wise, right now.

But in my opinion, everything you’re saying is hyped by a personal Engineer vendetta, just because of the matter of D/D eles and Warriors existing as they do right now.

Out with the Engi, in with more double Ele, am I right? Cause I would like to see your 4 zerker team attempt focusing eles first instead, if Engies are too hard for you guys to burst.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

You’ve been chillin in the top tier for too long. You have to understand that 99.99% of players aren’t top 200 and they are not facing players who are this good at focusing. Who cares if engi is easy to focus down for the absolute top tier? It’s kittening off everyone who isn’t an absolute god at this game.

Lol, perhaps. As the game ages, my expectation for the average player’s skill definitely increases. It is frustrating that there’s not really a way to use the Elixir S Invuln or Gear Shield more intelligently other than waddling to the back line after using them. It does make the build easy in Solo Q, usually people just forget about you, instead of realizing that a 2s immobilize and subsequent rancid fart will topple you. Engineer’s defensive cooldowns are very low-brow and basic. They’re never going to suddenly whip across to the opposite ledge, throw a stability up, or shed all conditions.

Over time people will force the habit to be extremely persistent on the Engineer after Elixir S goes down, all throughout the PvP playerbase.

Steb.2571:

Sorry, I thought an AOE burn on heal was pretty strong, with additional burning and might duration, on top of running might sigil for might stacking.

Do you still play this game, you dinosaur?

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Superior_Rune_of_Balthazar

Ain’t no might duration.

Steb.2571:

Where did I say anything about rabid, weakness spam, or double leap / additonal cleanse? Nowhere in here did I imply you’d be running e-gun. I stated you COULD take a 3rd kit, but all of what I listed above is just a standard rifle, balth, celestial double kit (nades and toolkit since I apparently have to be exactly specific) and elixer S build, with celestial.

It was mostly confusing because you have no kittenin’ reason to run Balth runes when your only source of burning is IP. You’re celestial, you need at least a few might stacks to not suck.

You said Engineers have weakness when you said they have every condition except Torment in your hyperbole

vinceftw.5086:

Are you saying that an engineer cannot survive 5 seconds of getting trained? Elixir S, dodge, swap mid air, block with Tool Kit. Your last sentence is also a gem. A thief HAS to take Shadowstep and Shadow Refuge. A mesmer HAS to take decoy and blink. What if they want to take something else? All classes have must-use utilities, not only the engineer… Most engineer builds even run celestial or rabid amulet, providing defensive stats as well.

Some people just tack on perma E-gun weakness spam to the list of conditions Engineers have readily available to them, who shall not be named. The problem is that nobody realizes that you have to kiss a precious damage-stop goodbye to get it.

Steb.2571:

I know Chaith, it must suck, having a shield on a lower CD than warriors who have to invest in an entire weapon slot, 0s Weapon swap cooldown, undodgeable long duration burn, a pull, a knockback, and a ranged immob, an insanely powerful elite, access to 3 weapon sets at a time (4 if you went triple kit), stealth personal or team, invuln, Every condi in the entire kittening game, except torment. Multi strike ranged attacks that bypass blind and aegis. A leap, Enough power to crit for 3k with prybar, and 1k ranged autos. A heal that aoe burns, a heal that clenses, and blasts a water field in an aoe healing yourself and allies on an insanely low cd, and gives regen with the highest Heal / s in the game. 18k Base health with medium armor.

All in one build.

Yeah, you’re right, the struggle is real bro.

Steb..

You literally just combined the Celestial Rifle and P/S Rabid builds, that run both Egun, spamming perma weakness, running Elixir S, Balthazar Runes, and Might Stacking setup in order to crit 3k Prybars as Rabid. The best part was when you said ‘and all in one build!’ At the end, lol’d.

Don’t be a sensationalist hype-kitten .

Just to reiterate, no build has a Net Shot, Jump Shot, 1k Ranged Autos, and conversely run the Rabid things like Balthazar Runes.

sinject.4607:

you know what else dies to a coodinated burst that fast?
everything else in the game

congrats on the great post man

No 2 professions is going to kill an Ele, Warrior, Guardian, a Thief with Shadowstep&Refuge, a Mesmer with blink/decoy, in 5 seconds. All these professions have multiple stunbreaks and o-kitten buttons that they can layer. Most professions can expend cooldowns and exit harm’s way, and will need to be hard swapped to LATER.

If it comes down to it, you can hit up to 3 stances. Up to 3 Cantrips. Stunbreak, Stunbreak/teleport, Shadow Refuge. You get the idea.

The point is, which you are being too kitten dense and trolly to observe, is that Engineer defensive CDs blow. They’re god awful. They don’t displace you, or drop you as a target / stop the pain train for more than 3 seconds. The only reactive ability that is capable of doing this is the Elixir S Stealth. The problem with this is that you get Steal/Doom on you as soon as you exit your Invuln, and the stealth is easily interrupted. In the first place, Elixir S is the only one that’s really capable of doing any of these things. What if you aren’t packing Elixir S and Toolkit? God forbid anything else be brought into PvP.

Booms.2594:

yup if u cant avoid:
mirror blade
earthshaker
burning speed
whirling wrath

then ur probably pretty trash

Shockwave.1230:

I’ll leave you to figure out why that is.

Snarkiest thread, NA, EU, China

Booms.2594:

Chaith.8256:

Arachnid.4062:

I like how none of the engineers replying to this thread do anything to contradict what i said about the broken/stupid mechanics in my OP. Thanks for proving my point guys.

Their arguments can be summed up in basically 2 sentences: " Oh but condi necros can beat us!!! So we must not be overpowered and Incendiary powder must be a good mechanic!!!"

That’s because it’s a dead horse. And unhelpful. Yep, A.I, super insta procs, and hard to avoid mechanics are very capitalized on, in PvP. Too bad none of those categories are Engineer specific. That’s why it’s irrelevant to this thread. Everyone uses instant damage procs and attacks that are not able to be reactively avoided. Necro, Mesmer, Thief, Engineer, Warrior, Ranger, Ele.. and.. RIP Guardian.

yup if u cant avoid:
mirror blade
earthshaker
burning speed
whirling wrath

then ur probably pretty trash

Actually I was more referring to: Air Sigil, Fire Sigil, Steal, Doom, Nightmare Runes, Air Attunement & Lightning Strike, Point Blank Shot. Clearly I wasn’t talking about the extremely easy to dodge attacks, what are you smoking? I know you’re trying to make me sound ridiculous, but it doesn’t even make sense enough for a funny joke.

Arachnid.4062:

I like how none of the engineers replying to this thread do anything to contradict what i said about the broken/stupid mechanics in my OP. Thanks for proving my point guys.

Their arguments can be summed up in basically 2 sentences: " Oh but condi necros can beat us!!! So we must not be overpowered and Incendiary powder must be a good mechanic!!!"

That’s because it’s a dead horse. And unhelpful. Yep, A.I, super insta procs, and hard to avoid mechanics are very capitalized on, in PvP. Too bad none of those categories are Engineer specific. That’s why it’s irrelevant to this thread. Everyone uses instant damage procs and attacks that are not able to be reactively avoided. Necro, Mesmer, Thief, Engineer, Warrior, Ranger, Ele.. and.. RIP Guardian.

Booms.2594:

Chaith.8256:

Cynz.9437:

except when you had 6 engis every match you kind of get fed up with them

also chaith, saying that you need 2 classes/players to beat 1 engi just says a lot about how broken engi is

they need to nerf IP, idc how
turrets need to be affected by condi and crit dmg
all AI, not just turrets should be affected by master stats, if you build full tank your AI may be tank but does 0 dmg
celestial/might stacking needs to go from pvp

Majorly twisting my words. Engineers are the best target in team fights, at top end. Better then anything. Besides.. Eura’s power ranger….? This is because they’re quite rush-able and very susceptible immobilize and CC. Just to spell this out, with no way to pop conditions off, or very good stunbreaks, and no teleports, that makes a candidate for focus.

hahaha 3s block on 20s (16s traited) cd and kitten stealth and a 3s invuln and a 8k+ heal on a 20s cd and tons of spam damage while running away.
yeah totallyyyyy easiest target. tbh after playing medi guard and bunker guard for forever in q’s and then rolling engi for a few, I was SO surprised how EASY it was to stay alive just by using blocks off cd and kiting like a motherkittener with perma swiftness.

If you’re coming from a (teamfight) garbage tier- setup like Medi Guard, at least when it comes to dealing with focus, yes, Engi is better off than Medi Guard with Elixir S/Toolkit.

Problem is, the stealth you have to spend the casting time, and when you get locked and rocked in high tier, it’s not even going to happen 80% of the time if a Necro is assist-training you.

Also, while Elixir S and Toolkit are indispensable for Engineers to navigate Teamfights, there is a drawback to using Elixir S and Toolkit block as your primary means for surviving. That weakness is that you’re just hobbling away towards the backline while you’re using the invuln frames. The enemy push can not be survived if you get caught in even a short immobilize after. You can’t easily reposition yourself on an Engineer, bad positioning is punishable by death.

It’s not the same as Blinking, Shadowstep & Hide in Shadows, Flesh Wurming. Only people that can counter-teleport can catch up or push for you.

Also please tell me more about the Engineers that counter-spam you with damage while they’re locked in invulnerability, stealth, and channelling blocks to run away.

Cynz.9437:

except when you had 6 engis every match you kind of get fed up with them

also chaith, saying that you need 2 classes/players to beat 1 engi just says a lot about how broken engi is

they need to nerf IP, idc how
turrets need to be affected by condi and crit dmg
all AI, not just turrets should be affected by master stats, if you build full tank your AI may be tank but does 0 dmg
celestial/might stacking needs to go from pvp

Majorly twisting my words. Engineers are the best target in team fights, at top end. Better then anything. Besides.. Eura’s power ranger….? This is because they’re quite rush-able and very susceptible immobilize and CC. Just to spell this out, with no way to pop conditions off, or very good stunbreaks, and no teleports, that makes a candidate for focus.

Thief spotted

Yep, it sucks for you that those things counter you hard when you 1v1 an Engineer who’s in a defensive position.

When an Engi is being ganked properly by a Thief/Necro or Engi/Necro, there is nothing he can do to survive. It’s probably the fastest 2v1 in the game, is what my point is. There is enough interrupts to chain fear/daze/knockdown the Engineer to death in record time, and Elixir S is incapable of stopping the gank, merely delay it by 3 seconds.

Ask Caed, Backpack, or Nos. Their business in tPvP is pretty much hunting opportunities to overwhelm Engies in 5 seconds, and snowball the map. That strategy really just isn’t viable against professions who, when they use all their defensive cooldowns, you can be certain they arent’ going to still splat in under 10 seconds.

My point is not that ‘engi dies when outnumbered (like everything else, omg!).’ It’s that none of the Engineer’s tools are highly successful get out of jail cards. When focus fired in the above mentioned scenario, there’s usually not even the chance to get the Toss Elixir S stealth off – it’s .5s cast is prevented by the chain interrupts, and magnet counters the gear shield handily.

Squishy.3694:

So my question is – Are thiefs using stealth too reactively as opposed to proactively.

The Way I see it is there are three scenarios for stealth usage.

1) The engage. In this scenario the thief stealths before the opponent sees them and gets of a burst and then continues. As a frequent PvPer I don’t see this happen much.

2) The evaluation. In this scenario the thief has gone for their burst but either it misses or the opponent mitigates it. The thief then backs off to re-evaluate the situation.

3) The retreat. In this scenario the thief is low with few Utilities ready to go and so uses stealth as a retreat but often the opponent tracks and downs the thief. This is perhaps the most common situation I see.

So should we be using stealth more proactively (scenarios 1 + 2) rather than reactively (scenario 3).

~ Squishy

The only other way Thieves can react to high pressure is to Shadowstep away. Sure, I get what you’re saying, but you’d also need to suggest a replacing mechanic to reactively use in place of stealth to accompany your first idea of how stealth should be for Thieves.

Lol at this slanted, already determined, and clearly biased OP.

We’ll be seeing Necros on most top NA teams in the upcoming qualifiers.

I’m not sure if you realize, but meta Cele engineer builds only run with 10 might stack, from battle sigil and a rune proc. They generally have no fire fields or blast finishers, with exceptions.

I repeat… Cele Engineers don’t generally have blasts, or fire fields. There is no might stacking going on outside of battle sigil, and the one might stack that Hoelbrak/Strength runes proc.

D/D Eles can solo stack 20+ might with the same, simple, sigil/rune investment. Adding a blast to Frozen burst was kind of a mistake, in my opinion. Unfortunate, unforeseen turn of events.

Some degree of passive play is needed in a game where it’s so easy to foil somebody’s pressure by dodging well and rotating defensive abilities.

Technically, its not passive play that’s needed.. as that’s NEVER a good thing (so I agree with you) but there is a need for a small degree of GUARANTEED damage in this game. It unfortunately has a huge correlation with being very passive in it’s application.

No passive burn to gradually ensure the fight ends? Endless fights will be much less fun than AoE fire fields that cover the whole point, or Incendiary Powder, I assure.

Things that I think are just AIDS for the game: Turrets auto-attacking, passive CC fear procs. All other A.I that has auto-attacks goes here.

Evan Lesh.3295:

Team ratings are absolutely more accurate than individual ratings. Seems like the best implementation of your suggestion would be actual teams with ratings.

Nice. Agreed 100%. Next step is to make the game actually reflect the views of Arenanet staff (you).

kelman.9451:

What I mean is this:
Stealth = able to be seen if close enough in front of someone and movement speed is reduced.

No, I think you have this game confused with some other game.

skinskins.3518:

Hey guys,

Coming back from a >year break from spvp and GW2 competitive, just wanted to know what the current meta is like? I left when Ranger spirits was huge and just curious what I should be ready to play against. I used to play at a high level and would love some help to get back to it!

Thanks,

Beric/Skinskins

The newest meta picks on NA are like:

• D/D Ele
• Rabid or Cele Engineer
• Hambow Warrior
• Terrormancer with double teleport stunbreaks
• Last pick is usually another Engineer or Ele.

It goes Guardian-less, and attempts to force 2-3 person skirmishes all over the map.

Let’s put an end to the ‘funny’ picture and video replies. Steb you are more guilty of speaking in memes than BMing people, imo.

Cynz.9437:

Chaith.8256:

Simon.3794:

rabid engi is as strong as celestial
without celestial, axe/sword would not be as good
dd, staff ele will not be as good.

Yep, note that celestial is tied into the viability of eles the most, out of any profession.

didn’t stop anet to make ferocity changes while certain classesd depended on crit dmg

Seeing as you’re posting in the sPvP forums, keep in mind that no changes in power level came from the ferocity changes in sPvP.

Simon.3794:

rabid engi is as strong as celestial
without celestial, axe/sword would not be as good
dd, staff ele will not be as good.

Yep, note that celestial is tied into the viability of eles the most, out of any profession.

OlrunTheBlade.1486:

In regards to Celestial/Soldier amulets for Warriors: I think that Celestial is significantly stronger on A/Sw LB than Soldier’s is, but since the patch I’ve noticed that most warriors have gone back to Hambow anyway. I think Soldier’s is the stronger option for Hambow. Hambow is much more prevalent, so Soldier’s amulet is probably used more than Celestial on Warriors nowadays.

Yep. Celestial Hammer is … erm, not exactly a winner. And hammer is more common than Axe/Sw.

SoLeciTO.3490:

Nerfing IP CD will fix a lot of issues.

Right now there is nothing that can compares an engi in SPVP . . . not even close.

Haha, that’s just flat out wrong. Cele D/D eles are stackable and more or less as useful than engineers, right now. Eles are harder to focus, as well. I’m not going to make an opinionated statement as to which are overall more of a must-have, but, if you say no pick can compare to an Engi pick right now in SPVP, that’s just un-true.

Scaredycat.7153:

Power engi or get out.

That would be dope. Celestial is the closest to power engi viability as we’ve seen since launch.

Pure power Engi, unfortunately, isn’t good due to the inherent strength of the Engineer’s conditions. Hybrid, Condi, or bust – maybe in the far away future there will be a build that is worth building purely for power damage!

Mrbig.8019:

Engi on rabid loses survivability, A LOT.

And CCs.

An engi on P/S is a totally different beast than a rifle one: no decaps, no blowout on dead bodies, less condi resistance cuz forced to take condi dmg runes etc…

Saying it won’t matter is silly and u know it.

War on soldier will deal way less damage with burning and bleeds and torment just dodge eartshacker/eviscerate and they go back sucking like they should.

Currently if you die against a war 80% of damage log is burning, then torment, then bleeds then whatever else.

Totally fine, don’t u think ?

The game sux balls right now and it’s all thx to celestial, both on high end and low end ( where there’re also turret engies, totlly gamebreaking).

Wow, what a nice game we have.

Going from Celestial Rifle to Rabid P/P or P/S loses survivability, and CC? Wut

Thanks for pointing out the obvious. But my point is that having max condition burn ticks with IP and Balth runes is enough melting power to keep Rabid Engineer on the same tier as the Celestial counterpart. Cry about the Rifle knockback or the Increased Celestial health and healing, and you get burnt..

Also, Celestial Warrior isn’t all that. The poor scaling through healing, and the loss in power makes it kind of a side-grade to Soldier’s amulet for 1v1ing. The top tier Warriors aren’t all on the Celestial train..

My point is that if you’re in tears about how hard the game is for you now that there are Cele builds that you can’t beat, just remember, you weren’t beating these players when they were on Soldiers, or Rabid either. Sorry mate, but it’s the truth.

Booms.2594:

Engi losing cele actually hurts a lot.

Depends on how you mean ‘hurt’. Hypothetically, losing celestial closes off the hybrid play style, hurting versatility, but won’t hurt the maximum strength of the profession. Rabid Engineer is just as strong in what it brings to the table, just forces the Engineer into a condi-spam role.

If a Warrior traded his Cele amulet in for a Soldier’s Amulet.. I’m not exactly sure what you expect would change.

If an Engineer traded his Cele amulet in for a Rabid Amulet.. they still kick kitten . Lots of people still prefer Rabid to Cele.

If an Elementalist traded his Cele amulet in for ….. any other amulet, the Ele would be quite nerfed, yes.

(Drake’s Breath is the problem)

YourFriendMarvin.4127:

True, but i’ve seen it proc off turret detonations,

Nope, that can’t crit either. But yes, IP is easy.

YourFriendMarvin.4127:

As for non-turret specs, the only thing really is IP trait that can proc off anything even a dodge roll, turret damage, anything that crits.

Turret damage can’t crit

Simply because you can’t get the proper transform that you need.

It’s not going to be overly useful until something changes about how each form is accessed.. like:

75% health threshold and below for Rampage, and above 75% health threshold to start a decap in Tornado.

Or a modified engineer-unique transform.

ArrDee.2573:

Hello frands! Vee Wee here, #1 Engi NA and world first rank 80!

ANET PLZZZZZZ
http://www.twitch.tv/veewee/c/5093808
PLZ

Wahoo! Bye frands!

Sweet baby jesus that was the slowest server reaction I have ever seen on a desync.

When your party members join a custom arena, and you want to 1-click follow them by using the link in party chat:

Instead of uselessly telling the player “INVALID PASSWORD”, make it open a password prompt instead.

Plz

ArrDee.2573:

Hello frands! Vee Wee here, #1 Engi NA and world first rank 80!

Vee Wee would like to see the 1 skill be a blast finisher! Vee Wee doesn’t think Mortar will ever be a damaging ability! So make it a utility ability! Frost Aura! Might stacks! etc!
Vee Wee would also like to see the healing mortar actually heal something!
Vee Wee would like to see faster projectiles!

Also Mortar does use your condition damage and condi duration! THe tooltips show power scaling but in actuality it does not scale with power! The healing mortar tooltip shows healing power scaling but Vee Wee did not test! It probably doesn’t! Goshdarn it Anet! Why are your tooltips so shoddy!

Wahoo! Bye frands!

It heals for 370 healing ticks even when I have clerics amulet on. It doesn’t scale. And yes, I don’t know why I thought that condition damage didn’t work… just tested it too quickly I think.

Yes, very good ideas. I would love it if elixir x was based on health thresholds rather than randomly assigned. Like, tornado from 75% health and over, and Rampage for below that threshold.

An engineer specific transform would be even better. Elixir X has less of a mad alchemist feel and more of a bargain bin elite skill vibe.

Some may have seen in the Sept. feature patch that Mortar explosions now benefit from explosive traits, like the 10% damage trait, the vulnerability on hit, and chance of bleed on hit. This made me remember how far Mortar has to go before it becomes better in any situation over Supply Crate.

To explain, for those who aren’t acquainted with the skill – because unless you’ve played Engi, you probably haven’t seen it:

Mortar is an Engi elite that, more or less, spawns an immobile seige weapon that players can interact with to gain 5 new skills, and stability. Each shot has a 2 second global cooldown. It has a minimum range of about 400!

#1: Launch Mortar Shot: 180 Radius, single serving of 830 damage.

#2: Launch Caltrops Mortar: 240 Radius, 6 second Caltrops field that applies cripple, and bleeds every second.

#3: Launch Elixir: 240 Radius, 5 second healing field that heals 370 per second.

#4: Launch Ice Mortar: 240 Radius, 10 second Ice field that chills 2.5s every second.

#5: Launch Concussive Barrage: 360 Radius, 5 highly spread out shots, hits the same as the #1 skill, but disrupts targets with a 300 distance knockback. Typically each enemy in the radius gets hit once.

If this ability was useful anywhere, it should be PvP. We have small radius objectives where enemies are committed to standing on, and many sniping points in which people can fall back to.

Okay. Now that we’re all on the same page – it’s really clear that the Mortar has strengths and weaknesses. It’s strength is the #4, 10 second Ice Field. It’s base chill duration is nice, and the field is valuable to blast and leap.

Now we can look at what’s not okay with the Mortar.

• Complete lack of accounting for the player’s stats, and inability to crit. Static damage.

• Power, precision, ferocity, healing, all of these stats that can be specialized in are meaningless to the Mortar. Mortar just gets left in the dust by scaling.

• What dilemma this ends up creating is: “I can throw grenades as far, with a faster projectile, with a rate of fire 3-4 times faster, and do equal or better damage per lob, so why would I ever cast the #1 skill? I can pretty much do 3-4 times more damage while staying mobile!”

This trend stays pretty steady.

• Why throw down bleed stacking AoE when the Shrapnel Grenade does it better and faster?

• Why throw down the Elixir if it’s only going to heal allies 1850 if they stand in the entire thing? I’d rather take the time to sneeze on my enemies for 1850, or cast a fast Super Elixir from E-gun that’s better, lol.

• Ice Mortar is legit. I won’t knock it.

• The Concussive Barrage similarly lacks speed, accuracy, and damage, but the small disrupt (like Accellerant Packed Turrets) is along the lines how the Mortar should be.

My suggestions for the direction of the skill:

• First and foremost, allow Mortar abilities to crit, benefit from power, precision, healing, and ferocity. This might be impossible due to technical limitations on A.I – if so, change Mortar to an Environmental (bundle) category weapon that roots you.

• Improve the projectile speed of all mortars by 20%. It shouldn’t need to take 4 seconds of travel time (not exaggerating) to hit max range. 3.2 seconds is more reasonable.

• Tighten up the spread of the Concussion Barrage. Reduce the radius from 360 to 240. Add the ability for each of the 5 Mortars to remove one boon, like reserve Mines. This way, if cast upon enemies with stability, (during group stomps and revives) they will be barraged for more damage before getting knocked out of harm’s way.

• Change the ‘Elite Supplies’ trait. Nobody in their right mind would use a Master slot trait in order to increase the range of a Mortar from 1400 to 1500, and nothing else. Insanity. Suggestions: #1 Reduces the cooldown on Mortar abilities by 1 second (reduces global from 2 seconds to 1). #2: Deploy a 10 second duration reflective shield around the mortar when activated. This way, the Mortar could even be used defensively if you get jumped without a chance to pre-plan the mortar snipe.

• Reduce the dang particle effects on the Mortar 1 ability. It’s the same effect as a Big Ol’ Bomb explosion, for a piddly 830 damage.

What do you guys think about Mortar in this game? Is it better as an elite skill? Or should it remain as an RP skill?

Sadly most of the balance changes are for PvP. The vast majority.

zone.1073:

Chaith.8256:

Ok. With the buff to Nightmare runes, and Reaper’s Protection becoming meta, the Necromancer’s control effects has risen siginificantly compared to other professions. Engi Rifle and Warrior Hammer aren’t creeping up in control, that’s for sure.

This fear build has not been in the game since day one. Nightmare Runes 3s Fear is quite recent, I assure you. And it’s a bad bad idea.

So, I’m confused. I’ve been lurking the forum looking for specific balance changes that will get me to play this game again. What rune buffs? Do you mean from the April 2014 balance patch?

Yeah.. before April balance patch, even with a 30/20/0/0/20 build, all a Necro could achieve from Nightmare Rune proc was 1.95 seconds..

Now it’s been bumped to 2 seconds base, and you get feared for 3.3-3.5 seconds (depending on rounding..?) when you poke a necromancer, with the new 0/6/4/0/4

It’s really the only thing that needs to be changed a bit.

Merlin Dyfed Avalon.5046:

This fearbuild has been ingame from day one, i guess it’s the one viable build in spvp for necromancer. (there really isn’t any atm) but for good order lets say it is.

consider now the control effects that other professions have and compare all these controll effects and application to necromancer..

Ok. With the buff to Nightmare runes, and Reaper’s Protection becoming meta, the Necromancer’s control effects has risen siginificantly compared to other professions. Engi Rifle and Warrior Hammer aren’t creeping up in control, that’s for sure.

This fear build has not been in the game since day one. Nightmare Runes 3s Fear is quite recent, I assure you. And it’s a bad bad idea.

Mia Crazymike.1780:

So the build is OP because of the “million” of conditions necromancers place, the fears, or is it Rune of the Nightmare?

It’s the fact that Doom, Nightmare Runes, are nigh impossible to counter. Reaper’s protection can be outplayed but there’s no telling when it’s going to happen so, that becomes problematic.

But overall, the way fear scales via traits is super strong when it becomes available via runes, as well.

If Rune of the Nightmare was reverted, or even changed on the 6pc bonus to something less obnoxious, it would remove a great chunk of the fear procs that are just out of nowhere.

@ OP I hope that you resolve your latency/bandwidth issues asap.

Narcarsis.5739:

People don’t seem to realize how Steal works at the moment so I’m going to try to explain – keep in mind I’m on a phone so bear with me please.

Previously Steal was an ability that works in two parts. First the damage portion was applied through an LoS (which was later removed) and if you had a straight line to your target within range then it would apply the mechanics of stealing an ability, Mug, Kleptomaniac, Thrill of the Crime, Bountiful Theft, and Sleight of Hand (as well as the 1 point trait in Deadly Arts which I can’t remember the name of off the top of my head, but it’s the poison application). After this or would attempt to teleport which didn’t always work. However the important thing to not was that the ability was still reliable to use because you could always control the damage and interrupt regardless of whether the teleport buffed or not. This made the teleport failure bearable.

After the patch they changed how the mechanic of Steal works. Previously it did the damage in a straight line – regardless of LoS (which is silly, and should never have been changed) and then would teleport you to your target. Now the ability attempts to teleport first, and then has a small radius of about 160 around you that it will trigger the other benefits of using Steal (Mug, SoH, etc). This is where all the problems come in. With the mass of teleport bugs in the game it renders the entire ability unreliable and useless at times. If your teleport bugs then you miss Steal – pretty straightforward. But it gets worse. If you Steal to someone as they teleport away then you will teleport to the spot they were at previously and be out of the 160 radius range, missing Steal. If someone moves an enemy as you Steal (Magnet Pull, Illusionary Wave, etc) you will teleport to where they where and miss your Steal. While the timings for these things are small and seem improbable they happen extremely frequently (multiple times a game) and can be very frustrating.

On a separate note Steal should be reverted to using the other mechanics prior to teleporting but not be able to be used through LoS. This adds reliable counterplay as well as making Steal a reliable ability again, and I cannot comprehend why they would change it from that. Hopefully that clears up any confusion to what the bug actually is and how it works.

Caed

Edit; Some spelling errors caused by using a phone – RIP internet.

+1 +1 +1

Very clear explanation and agreed

Standard condi necro :O

bethekey.8314:

Seems like a player-side issue. Have you tried resetting your router?

I used the google and it told me to turn it off and on again

Ostricheggs.3742:

Chaith.8256:

To anyone reading this thread, I encourage you to record, highlight, and post all of your magnet de-syncs. No matter how small!

So basically I should go into WvW and pull anyone. It has about a 10% success rate out there for me…

Why is it only Engi PvPers who complain then? What is this sorcery… a huge deal of the player base zergs WvW – why aren’t there more forum tears? Lol. I don’t get it.

Balanced Stance, Berserker Stance, and Endure pain when used together will prevent your health from dropping, versus indefinite stuns, conditions, and damage spikes.

Technically you can strip the stability and CC the Warrior, but don’t forget that commonly, invulnerabilities are guaranteeing you are self CC’d, and not contributing to capture points. Read: Mist Form, Elixir S, Renewed Focus.