Guild Wars 2

Justin ODell.9517:

We have been looking at the problem, and we believe it may be a hardware issue and not the map itself. We have reconfigured so new instances of the map are being created elsewhere, and it appears to have improved.

Please let us know if it continues to be a problem, or if begins to happen on another map.

I did a Temple of the Silent Storm about half an hour ago, and while I wasn’t rubber banding across the map, many else were. Thank you for looking into this.

And are you freaking kidding me, Temple again, making that 3/4 of my last solo queues.

Acandis.3250:

why isn’t this map disabled yet!?!?!!?

Seconded.

This is a legitimate and serious problem that’s bringing the live production value of GW2PvP to about zilch.

I say this as I am sitting in a 3 minute rubber-band lag spike in temple. I just got a stack of dishonored.

Josh Davis.6015:

Thanks guys – it does seem like something is missing here. I’ll let the team know!

The shark finisher has been pretty fishy for the last couple months, no pun intended.

It sounds like the Engineer Elixir Gun3 ability, Fumigate – instead of the regular splash. Who would do this? Lol.

ronpierce.2760:

Chaith.8256:

ronpierce.2760:

I wish they’d remove vigor and just make Vitality increase endurance regen rate. That’d be cool.

I’m sure most Necros and Warriors share that point of view!

Are you making fun of me? :P
(Also, I DO mean Vitality, not total hp, so the opportunity for all classes would be equal), however I assume you mean because they have the least vigor opportunities?

Lightly teasing, lol.

Carrion Rangers, Carrion Necromancers, Soldier’s Amulet MM Necromancers, and Soldier’s Amulet Warriors of all types typically ran without investing in vigor – either unwilling or unable.

I can’t condone adding something like what you’re suggesting because all of these insanely beefy builds would just get a massive boost of endurance regeneration without any additional investment, or even changing their builds.

ronpierce.2760:

I wish they’d remove vigor and just make Vitality increase endurance regen rate. That’d be cool.

I’m sure most Necros and Warriors share that point of view!

Thedenofsin.7340:

Helseth quitting Mesmer: http://www.twitch.tv/helsethgw2/b/500201131

I have never laughed so hard than at 2:40 .. highly recommend.

kitten did I just read

Carighan.6758:

Heh, but the thing is, I wish my phantasms scaled properly in the first place.

They scale with Power, Precision and Malice IIRC.
No Prowess, no Concentration, no nothing.

No prowess, no concentration, no nothing? Lol

So you’re saying that a Mesmer with 100%+ crit damage (prowess) will hit a Phantasmal Berserker for the same as an identical stat mesmer, EXCEPT with +0% crit damage?

Ok man, whatever you say, lol. Pretty sure you’re totally out to lunch on this one. Phantasms get full scaling from crit damage.

Also, doesn’t scale on concentration? Like… the retal from the Torch offhand Phantasm or something?

Reesha.7901:

Since those 2 professions are competing for a similar role on a team, I think it is somewhat problematic that the matchup greatly favors the thief.

Same relationship between Necromancers and Engineers. Same roles, absolute hard counter. There’s no conceivable way for the equally skilled Engi to beat a Necro that’s 1v1 oriented. (Golem, Spite, Corrupt Boon, even Plague Signet I’ve seen LOL).

But outside the 1v1, say, in a teamfight – there’s not even a way for an Engineer to counter-pressure the Necro if he’s able to over-extend. You pretty much completely starfish while the Necro enters you.

I’ll admit, even as an experienced condi Engineer I would lose to anyone picking up that Necro build for the first game.

But that’s alright, in the grand scheme of conquest. Fortunately there are a ton of ways to work around the hard counters in this game. For example, as an Engineer, simply bail on the objective rather than 1v1 a Necro. In a teamfight, have your Guardian pop resolve, which has about a 37.5% chance of removing the 20 second cripple, enabling the Engi to dip off point to survive.

Phantaram.4816:

No other class can do that much raw damage with that much mobility and still bunker points 3v1 for large periods of time.

Some things that could be looked at to balance it.

1. Too much damage (I feel like this one is never brought up but the amount of raw damage an S/D thief can do is insane, and none of it is on a cooldown. Their burst and consistent damage are all the same thing, they are constantly doing both.)
2. Too much dodging
3. Lyssa runes

Bring up whatever else you think could be looked at balance wise for an S/D thief.

Thieves are really (extremely) viable in conquest tPvP, that’s for certain. Most of their viability stems from the massive decapping power (via mobility).

However, I’m of the opinion that they really need to be left alone. When a thief assaults a far point with a Warrior, Ranger, Engineer, MM Necro, DPS Guardian, often an S/D, S/P Thief is unable to quickly win a fight, if at all. And if this Thief DOES win out against their 1v1 target – they’re spending a significant amount of time off-point to avoid the target’s turn for retaliation.

S/D, S/P Thieves break glass mesmers, glass eles, and glass engies. Pretty much glass anything. However, like Reevz said, you just need to run a counter-thief on a mission to explode the enemy back-line thief, while he’s flexing on your glass X profession.

Now that sword 2 isn’t a get out of jail card if a good knockdown/bassy venom is in place.. coordinated ganks can really drop that thief trying to devastate your back-line.

With your claims that the Thieves you are facing are 1v3 bunkering your point, I’m sorry, but I can not relate or possibly fathom that happening to the other 3 equally skilled players. On NA, every single thief is 10/30/0/0/30 for various benefits, but it seems your gripe is with the Acrobatics thief.

As for your last couple points, too much dodging, and Lyssa runes, I definitely think both will be addressed soon. There’s an impending Rune and Sigil revamp, and we’ve seen nerfs to popular Engineer build’s ability to dodge.

Zirith.6429:

engies have and will always be the most op class for pvp, they have more sustain than warriors(turret spam on cd + toolbelt skill with blast finisher is 100 more hps than heal sig), take less damage than wars(more armor because rabid ammy and high prot uptime), can go invis, have a longer invuln than warriors, have a stronger version of dhuumfire, and have so many spammable condi spells.

I have to say that Engineers have always been the most OP profession for PvP until the massive power creep of June-July 2013. More Engineers are mastering the profession and realizing all there is to offer.

However, the tables really turned during the June-July 2013 legendary power creep. Rangers, Warriors, and Necros were pretty much overhauled.

Don’t forget that the meta Engineer builds can remove 6-8 conditions in a minute, whereas a warrior can remove about 30-40 when utilizing Lyssa and or Signet of Stamina under condi-burst conditions, and nullify all incoming conditions for 8 seconds.

Engies are much more counterable than Warriors are, right now. There’s not really much a soldier’s amulet hambow Warrior has to worry about.

Engies have the worst condition removal in the game – perhaps on par with Mesmers. Engineers still rely on kite-or-die strategies. There are definitely things you can do to shut down an Engineer.

juno.1840:

@kyubi:

Pet damage is impacted by the beastmastery trait. So it’s not “static” as you say (more beastmastery = more pet power stat = more pet damage).

Stopped here… because if you don’t want to call it static, having one way to modify it is pretttttty far from dynamic. It requires stat scaling, not just from one trait line modifier.

Phoenix.5047:

See, this is what happens when you corner engineers into easy-mode condi bunker builds.
They forget how to play.
I love this heal, it’s the perfect addition to my PvP build: gadget Zerker.
Once you get the timing down, instant near-full heal. And, being a squishy Zerker, it’s always going to go off.
That’s not to mention the addition of another stun. What you have to keep in mind about it is there’s a slight cast time to it, so you activate it as you’re closing in on your opponent. Then drop the burst.
A.E.D. is great for clutch gameplay that, given a skilled player, will always be in your favor.
Don’t change it!

Well, no. You’re fooling yourself. Use healing Turret in your high-stakes squishy build and ‘it will always be in your favor’ much more, and your allies will be much better off. That’s the inherent problem.

GLHF getting A.E.D’s 1s cast off when you get focused. Even if it goes down to .75s as proposed, it still lacks any kind of mitigation. People will easily go through your healed HP even if you succeed!

Stalima.5490:

engineer turrets do actually scale with power but cant crit

I too like to spout nonsense as I see fit.

flhauldhod1o`njalfajafaf4a12ni

Iavra.8510:

Actually, i’m all for giving ranger pets power/condi scaling. I think it’s kinda silly when the ranger is able to go full tank/regen or condi and still have his pet doing high crits all day long.

For sure.

It’s a common belief held as truth that the fact that when A.I doesn’t scale, it’s vastly underpowered for offensive builds, and if it’s ever usable, it’s broken as hell – being used by a tanky character to do 1v1 damage that’s much higher than should be possible.

Iavra.8510:

(Besides the target requirement of phantasms.)

There you have it.

Mesmer is a pure 1v1 class, and gets increasingly useless, the larger the fight gets.

Also, engi turrets dont’t get countered by Blind last time i checked.

Well I’m just going to remind you that this isn’t a game of ‘spot the difference’. This is a thread that’s advocating proper scaling mechanics, where you jumped in as a naysayer.

Sure, there are many differences between the different kinds of A.I attacks – but what you’re saying is Turrets and Pets/Minions should not scale based on the user’s stats because of a lack of a target requirement. Perhaps you’d like to elaborate as to why?

Edit: Being marginalized in teamfights and more for pure 1v1 is a trait that’s shared by A.I focused Rangers, Mesmers, Engineers, and Necromancers. Another double standard..

Samhayn.2385:

1) Phantasm mesmer gets all its damage from phantasms,

2) phantasm attacks have a lengthy cool down,

3) phantasm mesmers personal damage output is fairly low,

4) in larger fights the phantasm can die to aoe before it even does its damage,

there are reasons they work differently then pets or minions.

1) Turret Engineers gets all its damage from Turrets,

2) Turrets have a lengthy cool down,

3) Turret Engineers personal damage output is fairly low,

4) in larger fights the turrets can die to aoe before it even does its damage,

there are reasons they work differently then pets or minions.

1) Beastmaster Ranger gets all its damage from Ranger Pets,

2) Good Ranger Pet atacks have a lengthy cool down,

3) Beastmaster Ranger’s personal damage output is fairly low,

4) in larger fights the Ranger’s Pet can die to aoe before it even does its damage,

there are reasons they work differently then phantasms or minions.

Do you see the massive double standard of every single one of your arguments? (Besides the target requirement of phantasms.)

killahmayne.9518:

Lol @ this kid. I left Berserker Stance because it is NOT a source of condition removal and Lyssa runes is a RUNE not an inherent Warrior condition removal mechanic. And it is true, just look at warriors pre cleansing ire. You can’t deal with a good necro, ranger or engineer without it because of their ability to quickly put conditions on you. You are talking about condition wipes every 36, 48 seconds when conditions are put on you every second.

I’m not even sure how to address this.. your post was supposed to be about how Warriors deal with conditions in the current meta. And because you mentioned me only as ‘kid’, I guess umad?

Is it relevant that it comes from a rune, or is condition immunity instead of condition removal? Not really – it’s viable, demolishes conditions, and used by absolutely every Warrior in tPvP. You will have a dam’ inaccurate view of how Warrior is performing vs. conditions if you refuse to take into account stuff like that..

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

coglin,
that is still true. massive condition overload burst will still put down a warrior very quickly.

Massive condition overload burst puts anything down. It’s just not okay if one profession is a huge outlier in the time-to-kill from condition pressure. His point was that it’s a big deal that this huge outlier is also the profession whose archetype was originally designed to be at an average or mediocre resilience to conditions.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

cleansing ire is useful, but far from overpowered.

if cleansing ire is truly overpowered, warriors will not need berserker stance at all.

massive conditions overload in a very short time frame will still burst down warriors very quickly.

Cleansing Ire would need to be SO GOOD that you didn’t even need Berserker Stance for it to be overpowered?

That’s the same as saying: If the pre-nerf Shattered Strength for Mesmers (full might stacks on big shatter) was overpowered, then why aren’t Mesmers traiting out of Illusionary Persona and picking up something worse? Lol. It just doesn’t add up.

If the old Guardian block bug was overpowered, then why weren’t Guardians un-equipping all their armor, eh? Checkmate. Lol, I kid, I kid.

Things can be overpowered for many reasons… look objectively.

Jinx.7258:

Im completely aware how the tokens can be obtained. This didnt stop him from getting fooled by the pic that OP has them for real.

Lol, calm yourself. I didn’t open the picture and study it, past the thumbnail – because it was obvious what he was trying to show.

Cygnus.6903:

Getting so tired of posts like these.

Didn’t you notice the huge contradiction in your post? Saying warriors have trouble with conditions outside of CI is false, then posting the only viable high lvl PvP build we have, which includes CI………………….. Take it out, and we get absolutely facepalmed by conditions, lyssa/SoS or not.

Weak rant.

…

Of course Cleansing Ire is in the current build.. you’d be insane not to, with how overpowered it is (which isn’t the purpose of this thread, or my post).

However, the point of my post was to outline just how I am not any more shafted than other professions when dealing with condition burst when I’m on my Warrior – using abilities that are not Cleansing Ire. In a hypothetical scenario, more along the lines of what I’m speaking of, where Warriors had never had the option of Cleansing Ire, I know they’d still be desirable, and NOT getting ‘absolutely facepalmed by conditions’ like you say. Try focusing down something with an 8 second immunity through Berserker Stance and an average of 2.92 full condition resets per minute, through Stamina & Lyssa. How little emphasis can there possible be on actually avoiding conditions as a Warrior instead of just powering through them with condition removal?

Just what do people think is an acceptable level of defense vs. conditions?

Playing scrims against Denshee (who I consider to be one of the best Wars) on his Hambow, who plays it extremely efficiently, makes a full team’s condition pressure look like a mild allergic reaction.

My point is that condition resilience on Warrior has crept up way past the par for profession-wide condition resilience. Ranger being the only exception:

Good DPS Guardian builds, meta Engineer builds, good Mesmer builds, meta thief builds, good Elementalist builds…. all of these professions operate with a much shorter time until death from conditions compared to a Warrior – even without Cleansing Ire traited.

Maybe that’s a contributing fact as to why a huge portion of those above mentioned professions have been pushed out of the Meta?

Warriors have trouble with conditions outside of Cleansing Ire? The Warrior apologetics are getting bolder, lol.

@ OP – I’ve noticed you left Berserker Stance and Runes of Lyssa in tandem with a traited Signet of Rage out of the equation. That’s… an impossibly massive oversight because you’re trying to analyze where Warrior stands when dealing with conditions in the current meta.

@ Everyone else that claiming Warriors would be lost at sea without Cleansing Ire – Log a Mesmer, or Engineer into the game and note how unforgiving it is when you make a positioning mistake and get conditions on you. Lyssa runes on a 48s cd, and Berserker stance is enough to make anyone spoiled.

sPvP Warriors have room in their build to run a utility of your choice, entirely. This is assuming Balanced Stance and Berserker’s Stance are mandatory. Load up on a second stability, bring Fear Me, Bulls Charge, or bring the Signet of Stamina. Warriors often don’t even do this, despite it being an extremely good option because the time to kill a properly played warrior with conditions is by far the longest in-game.

Here’s an example of a totally top tier, viable Warrior build:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fIAQJASTjkOpwxQCPMxBE0DNsK4C1D7YDjjUBxA-TwAA1CnIKSVkrITRyisFNKYJyBiHEA

A full condi wipe on a 36s cooldown (Signet of Stamina), and a 48 second cooldown (Lyssa runes), 8 seconds of condition immunity at will, 25,512 HP, very strong sustain (in the realm of 550 per second – like, 33,000 per minute lol)

Let’s be real here, if you just cycle your cooldowns properly as a Warrior playing a typical tPvP build, it hardly matters how many condition users are attacking you – you will be able to face-tank any amount of conditions for about 20 seconds and walk out with high HP if that is your goal. Full condition wipes are convenient like that.

After the cooldowns are spent, it’s probably time to stop going ham with impunity and back off a bit? You are regenerating massive amounts of HP and you don’t have to sit in Hammer all day.. I think that Warriors are way too forgiving of bad positioning already.

For the poster above me – people complain about Cleansing Ire even though it’s active usage, vs. Empathic Bond’s passive usage, for example, is because choosing when to fire Combustive Shot means you get to actually remove conditions at the precise time when you want to. This is worth thousands of HP in those times where your ‘Purity’ or ‘Empathic Bond’ ticks are cleansing you when you don’t have many/any conditions.

For all the other posters after the OP, saying that Cleansing Ire is highly counterable with blinds, dodges, etc – The reason why the OP made this thread is due to the nature of Cleansing Ire when used with Hammer or Longbow. Good luck trying to deny a Hammer/Longbow Warrior any Cleansing Ire procs. As soon as his Combustive Shot is aimed at the ground, your options to stop the War from wiping conditions are pretty slim (absorb or reflect a projectile not aimed at you?). Cleansing Ire has very little counterplay, despite what Warrior Apologetics claim because the entire community has moved to the weapons that have difficult to counter burst skills.

Yeah.. you buy t3 cultural or equilivant Dragon level gear from vendor, and salvage it. Welcome to Dec. 10th, 2013

Locuz.2651:

Thats where the realistic statement comes from. Since a lot of people seem to think that anets resources inexhaustible.

That’s very true. And to add on to that, the interests of the sPvP community and where the development budget needs to go is completely out of alignment.

Locuz.2651:

describing some realistic plans that could turn GW2 in to a pvp powerhouse.

Realistic? When has an MMO been able to change the way the trinity, base stats, entire professions and post-release?

Any rate of change faster than what we’re observing in GW2 now is unrealistic.. the systems in place are performing well enough in PvE and WvW that this level of overhaul isn’t necessary, and what developer would even bat an eye at a list of changes like these for the benefit of PvP.

Small PvP player base → small PvP development budget → Small PvP player base.

That sounds like a cool game, is there a trailer out yet?

I think adding a 1, 1.5, 2s knockdown to Arcing Slice, instead of fury, would be a much smoother transition into making the weapon somewhat self sufficient – like pistol whip is, with the immob and stun on the 2 and 3 skills, respectively.

But who knows – maybe Arenanet feels it’s a good thing that there are some powerful abilities in the game that require other weapons/allies to set up a spike? Not every weapon has to be totally self sufficient.

2nd page bug

/15char

Meglobob.8620:

Same will happen with Warrior longbow, already see less using it after nerfing the F1 skill on Longbow, skill 5 is where the majority of a Warrior’s Longbow damage comes from, so after nerf it will be rarely used/seen.

Edit: Yes, put down Longbow and never use it again in tPvP. It’s going to be… er.. so unplayable – you Warriors wouldn’t even find it fun anymore. Scouts honor.

Meglobob.8620:

I usually play PvP most days and I can’t remember the last time I saw a Ranger with a shortbow, it suffered a MASSIVE decline since it was nerfed.

Same will happen with Warrior longbow, already see less using it after nerfing the F1 skill on Longbow, skill 5 is where the majority of a Warrior’s Longbow damage comes from, so after nerf it will be rarely used/seen.

95% of Rangers in PvP that run builds competitive with the current meta builds have shortbow. I’d put 95% of Warrior builds that can hang with other profession’s top builds as completely reliant on Longbow in order to maximize Cleansing Ire.

We have Hambow Warriors, and we have the Axe/Sword & Longbow reflect bug abusing Warriors.. but the Longbow is common to all the most powerful builds.

As for your prediction that Longbow will rarely be seen on Warrior, from being on every good Warrior, if we add .5 seconds to the Pin Down – you’re entitled to your own opinion even if it couldn’t be farther from the truth.

Good Warriors will continue to land their Pin Down, whether it’s a .75s cast or .25, and continue to be one of the strongest Weapons & PvP build in the game. =)

Dahkeus.8243:

Stopped listening when he said that thieves could 100-0 people on backstab just because of fire stacking with air. =P

Taking Air/Fire compared to Air/Force -

Yeah.. adding fire to the mix will allow the Thief to inflict 1500 more instant burst damage, but I don’t see that being hugely different to the Sigil of Force giving 450 extra damage on a 9000 backstab. Especially because the Sigil of Force is going to give 5% on every single attack in the next 5 seconds, where Fire Sigil is sitting on kitten CD just before proccing another 1500.

Meglobob.8620:

Anet devs HATE bows…

Used to play Ranger Shortbow but they nerfed that to oblivion so looked around for a alternative…

Moved on to Warrior Longbow, now they have nerfed that to oblivion…

After the tears subside, take a look at Ranger Shortbow and Warrior Longbow’s usage in PvP.. they’re amongst the most viable, if not still absolute must haves. And they will remain so.

God forbid you have an important skill that you will need to set up or count dodges to land.. welcome to every other profession (except necro)

nicknamenick.2437:

MiLkZz.4789:

Yea, everyone will still be using full zerker in dungeons because it is still the quickest. It makes no sense nerfing it.

Except I don’t really care about dungeons :-) I do for WVW/roaming..

loosing some minor damage in dungeons doesn’t do that much.

Where in wvw you often go for some mixed gear in power builds you do get a massive nerf (more compared to full zerker) that’s why I say make it scale like toughness..

So people still do same damage on mixed gear but less on full zerker.

What you’re saying makes really little sense..

If your build is ‘mixed’, and say your stat budget is like, 20% allocated to Vitality, 20% allocated to Toughness, 20% allocated to Power, and 20% allocated to Critical Damage (Ferocity),

^When Critical damage is shaved by say a (made up) 10%, in the transition to Ferocity, only 20% of your stat budget is being reduced by 10%. It’s pretty much peanuts to a mixed build like yours.

When your Berserker stat allocation is of 33% Power, 33% Precision, and 33% Critical damage, a shave of raw Crit damage for every point of Ferocity in your build is more punishing.

Any nerf to the baseline effectiveness of a stat IS the most punishing to the people who’ve stacked the most of it, IE, Berserkers – this is because you are essentially repeatedly stacking the nerf margin.

Regardless, I don’t think anyone should be up in arms about this (PvP, WvW, PvE). I predict the impact will be extremely minor.

ronpierce.2760:

Power MM wasnt OP until I played it.

Oh get outta here.

Mrbig.8019:

S/P is still inferior to S/D ( altough it’s really S/D fault of being too dumb easy to play) even when played properly, while not allowing room for error.

I know magic toker plays S/P and does fine with it, but in EU nobody plays it for a reason ( i would say usually thieves here reroll, shad is the most glaring example, unless playing acro thief).

Pistol offhand is miles ahead of dagger offhand.. Pistolwhip is much better against targets with little stability. Due to the lockdown. There are situations where S/D is better, IE, attacking retaliating enemies or enemies with priority boons, but bountiful theft does the trick fine when it counts.

Very few people have tried P/W seriously, let alone skill capped it. After the patch, you’d be surprised..

If you run a lot of interrupts (shield, kit refinement bombs & Big ol Bomb, or magnet pull, then perplexity will be infinitely more OP.

20s duration of 5stack confusion PER interrupt, with no internal CD (as far as I know it hasn’t been nerfed yet?) It’s broken OP.

Auesis.7301:

Personally, I think the best option is to revert the nerf to the damage (15% I believe) and then change the amount of registered attacks to 4 instead of 8 in PvP. 8 never made sense as there are only 4 strikes in the flurry, and this means Retaliation procs twice as much as it should.

No, pistol whip 10/30/0/0/30 is a super top tier build for thieves when played properly.

It does not need a 15% damage boost and to take less damage from retal.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Aberrant.6749:

I agree, necros need better telegraphs.

So that we are all on the same page, which abilities do you think need better telegraphs? Other than the difference between Mark of Blood, Chillblains, and Putrid Mark, (and the different wells) every necro skill is pretty well telegraphed and unique. The wells, you should respond to all of them the same anyway (leave the well), so that’s not really a valid concern.

It’s not the fact that you can’t tell marks apart. It’s the fact that Necro Staff and Scepter are all non-projectile abilities that appear underneath you and instantly take effect (with the exception being Enfeebling Blood). Lots of really good suggestions have been submitted:

IE: Marks & Grasping Dead becoming instant cast, and have a .75s ‘inscribing time’ before they hit that area, letting the player know where and when the damage is coming, instead of letting the player know that information after it hits.

Right now, all the ‘wind-up’ on abilities is done internally on the Necro, represented by a generic looking cast. What needs to happen is for the ‘wind-up’ on Necro abilities to be represented externally, so players can understand where and when the nuke is coming, in order to time dodges.

I’m not gonna argue over how the Necro’s mechanics should change, in this thread, but the conceptual part is that in a character model based game, as opposed to a UI based game, there needs to be an adequate flow of information for intelligent exchanges during combat.

It is definitely the hardest 1v1 counter that exists in the game, at equal skill levels. That’s for sure.

But you’re wrong in a lot of things. Like: saying that nobody wants to play with Engineers because Necros counter them. Condi Engineers are prospering in “coordinated” PvP more easily than Necros do, currently. When I say coordinated, I mean in encounters where teams do all of the things they need to do to counter the enemy’s composition. Letting a Necro free-rain on a point, or 1v1 your Condi-Engineer all day simply doesn’t happen. It’s a very well known counter. Don’t 1v1 it. Don’t leave it alone, and Necro is just an average tier profession in high level tPvP.

Also, like I just mentioned, focusing a Necro with the Warriors and Thieves on your team does not make it harder on your team, like you claim. Having your Engineer risk himself to point blank grenade a Necro is really risky, though. Because the Necro will pick you over the Warrior/Thief, and he will blow you up, and you can’t do a thing – so just stay away from it unless you’re REALLY at a numbers advantage.

I do feel that the way Necros apply conditions is at too fast a rate (you die in 4 seconds on an average vitality build). Also, as I’ve said before: Necros don’t communicate which abilities are being thrown at the target at all, leaving the victim the choice of either dying, or awkwardly random dodge rolling. The attack combo is just a mess of a dozen generic abilities.

But that’s just due to what’s viable for PvP Engineers – as you’ve referenced, Power Builds, Elixir C, Lyssa runes, high mobility, high evade frames, respectable condition removal would be great, but unfortunately they’re just not a part of any Engineer builds optimized for high level tPvP.

Chicago Jack.5647:

Do warriors require the least amount of teamwork to get things done? Yeah, there is a reason why you see so many of them in soloque. But all warrior teams are terrible.

Ah. Yeah, I think 3 Warriors per team is the magic number, not 5. You’re right.

Seras.5702:

Linc.6834:

… I think if the cast time were halved, and it gave Frenzy for the duration of the buff, it would fit into a ton more builds …

Now that’s a great idea.

For sure. Compared to all the multi-purpose perks that Engineer heals typically have, A.E.D is plain vanilla.

I think that more than anything, we should leave the A.E.D healing numbers alone, if possible, and think about having A.E.D other, unique, useful perks like all the other heals currently have, such as:

• Toggle-able heal for efficient use of on swap/heal mechanics, drop-able Swiftness/Fury, toolbelt heal reduced in cooldown by traits, drop-able small condition removal, drop-able healing.
• AoE regeneration, water fields, blast finisher, good AoE condition removal.
• Random Swiftness/Protection/Vigor/Regeneration, traited small AoE condition removal, traited might stacking.

There is just so many dimensions of Engineer heals besides the healing number (which is still pretty important.)

The A.E.D-“cool things”-budget is definitely very focused on taking ‘lethal damage’, and ‘not dying’ as a perk. I would just like to point out that this is pretty much the illusion of a perk.

I’ll explain: When you have A.E.D active, and your HP is reduced to zero, even if A.E.D has 4 seconds left on the buff, it’s removed. There’s not an actual period of defying death, you just immediately start taking full damage. It’s the exact same thing as simply using any regular heal that heals you immediately after the cast. You’re just using it super late. If you used another heal with the same, or better, sustained healing and used it at any time you had missing health, it would put you in the same, or better, position.

A.E.D’s ‘defy death’ feature is a really nasty requirement, or drawback, that’s disguised as the perk of the ability. To reiterate, this new requirement forces the A.E.D user to lose effective healing time until in a position to go into the downed state. You have to get a 1s cast time heal off, like most do, and then you are healed regularly, like everyone else is – afterall, you just successfully got your heal off.

Remember that A.E.D’s healing per minute is single target, and only gets the same self-healing as Healing Turret when you are getting the A.E.D reward heal every 32 seconds (traited), which is impossible, due to all the hoops you have to jump through. See the previous flowchart for hoops to jump through in order to get your full heal. (http://i.imgur.com/XNTwrsz.png)

Hey, if A.E.D is pulling a level of sustain over time in the realm of Healing Turret – even if you need to get the 12,288 reward heal every 32 seconds to do so – I think the numbers are fine. I would be wary increasing them as well. But I think for this to be usable we really do need to create value elsewhere.

There are really great suggestions for adding value in A.E.D mentioned in this thread, keep it up.

@ Jon Peters, what do you feel the biggest unique strengths of A.E.D are? Also, consolidated suggestions for A.E.D in OP

silvershadez.8421:

Ether renewal short by 1 tick? Making first ticks tick smaller then last so we get EVEN MORE penalized then allready when interrupted? Where is that a buff exactly?

It reduced the time you spend out of your day channelling Ether Renewal by 15%, but nets you the same healing. Also, frontloads more healing to you rather than spreading it evenly. Healing now is always better than healing later – if it gets interrupted, you almost certainly gained more healing than you would have without frontloaded healing.

I made a handy dandy flowchart for A.E.D use!

http://i.imgur.com/XNTwrsz.png

JonPeters.5630:

I think the key question is going to be where do you increase, which is a better discussion. Does it need a better baseline? Does it need a better reward heal? Longer buff duration? Faster cast time? Lower cooldown? Or maybe just gadgets need some good traits to empower it more?

Gadget trait empowerment is definitely the least toxic solution, while not being the smallest scope of work. I think the average player should feel confident in taking a fully traited A.E.D over an un-traited Healing Turret. Just like how a player feels confident in Elixir H after investing in Quick Elixirs, Cleaning Formula 409, and HgH.

I made a mock offensive Gadget build, in which to test which type of trait support would be desirable:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQFAUnIEFxazL+uQ9aEZ0DOb06MRFyvPPer2CCB-jUCBYgBhgAhEBI7UZNRVQsMsIasKkYaXER12bFRrWKAmEWB-w

I’m a big user of fun Grenade variants, so gadgets are actually pretty interesting to me, when combined with explosives. This is just an example of a true double Gadget build that’s somewhat viable at WvW roaming, for example.

• Add Tools X “Leg Mods” effects into the Tools III “Speedy Gadgets” traits. Speedy Gadgets: Reduces recharge on Gadgets by 20%, reduces duration of Cripple, Immobilize, and Chill by 33%. This consolidates two pretty under-utilized traits, and opens up room for a Tools X Gadget trait.

• New Trait! Tools X. Stroke of Genius: Increase the ‘range’ of Gadget abilities. Damage of Gadgets increased by 33%.

Actual effects on Gadgets:

• A.E.D: Duration increased to 7 seconds, from 5 seconds. (Or, crazy option, grant A.E.D’s effects an 180 radius effect – dat allied defibrillator).

• Static Shock: Range increased to 400 from 180.

• Throw Mine: Range increased to 1200 from 900. Mine Field: Spread over a 480 radius area instead of a 360 radius (this removes the unintended ability for Engineers to instant nuke a point blank target with increased traited damage)

• Personal Battering Ram: Range increased to 400 from 130. Launch Personal Battering Ram: Range increased to 1200 from 900.

• Rocket Boots: Rocket Boot Range increased to 1200 from 900. Rocket Kick range increased to 600 from 300.

• Slick Shoes: Increased Radius to 120 from 60.

So in a round-about way, Gadget traits being supported are really big for A.E.D to be possible, but the biggest thing is probably A.E.D performing better at it’s purpose -being an actual tide turner – healing numbers aren’t everything. Healing Turret is a much better tide turner if using it removes a long burn or high bleed stack. I think adding the specific condition removal features to A.E.D, combined with incentives to use Gadgets would solve a lot of Gadget problems at once.

I’ve observed Arcane Brilliance, Defiant Stance, an occasional Water Spirit, Signet of Vampirism, Litany of Wrath, Skelk Venom, Signet of the Ether at least at some point during my travels in Hotjoin, Solo Queue, and Team Queues, WvW Roaming, and a few Dungeons. It’s been seemlingly quite popular on the Mesmer and Guardian heals, in particular.

Lots of these heals are not viable in every game mode, and that’s alright – there’s a great use for these heals in some part of the game. Water Spirit and Signet of Vampirism have mechanics that mesh with multiple people lobbing attacks at a big creature (PvE). Litany of Wrath and Defiant Stance take advantage of big crowds of people exchanging blows, a mechanic that meshes well with WvW.

In all my travels on my Engineer, I have not ever found a moment that A.E.D would be preferable over an un-traited Healing Turret.. I think this is a decent skills & balance problem.

Let’s analyze in greater detail:

A.E.D Flowchart use: http://i.imgur.com/XNTwrsz.png

Just as an opening observation, you can only use A.E.D one way. If you want to have comparable healing to taking other heals, when you use A.E.D, you need to have your health reduced to zero, and you need that 12k ‘defy death’ heal. If you take A.E.D into a fight with the intent of using A.E.D WITHOUT ‘defying death’, then any other heal should be taken. A 4.5k heal on a 40s cooldown without any secondary effect (evades, water fields, condition removal, etc), easily takes the ‘worst heal in the game’ award. So, A.E.D must be used properly – sat upon, until low HP.

Weak Synergy with existing traits & abilities. This is how it disagrees with a lot of good Engi mechanics:

• Automated Medical Response (Inventions 15pt). This trait works with all the other heal fine – you’re going to use your healing skills as early as possible without wasting the healing to get maximum healing over time. Naturally, when you hit 25% and your heal refreshes, it’s like ‘oh, sweet, this trait is awesome’. With A.E.D, you hit 25% and the trait is rendered useless because the ability isn’t even on recharge until sub-15% typically. It’s true you can track the internal 90s cooldown of this trait, and know when your heal is about to refresh – enabling you to use A.E.D at high HP without ‘defying death’. But really.. I don’t have time for that crap.

• Speedy Gadgets (Tools, 10pt). This trait brings A.E.D down to a 32s cooldown, which is cool. The biggest question is how can one justify taking this over Speedy Kits, Static Discharge, Power Wrench, or other essential traits? Not super attractive. It’s not that A.E.D is bad because of this, but since it’s a Gadget, it’s subject to all the lackluster gadget traits (or lack thereof).

• Condition removal. Equipping A.E.D pretty much removes all the viable ways Engineer has to remove conditions. 1) Healing Turret, and 2) Cleaning Formula 409. The only other significant condition removal you can get while running A.E.D is from Elixir C. Even if you manage to make this work in your build, you’re pretty much at the ‘shatter mesmer’ level of condition removal outside those long CD Elixir C uses. In PvP, as an Engineer with relatively low evade/invuln/stealth uptime, that’s like asking to be burned for 30s straight.

• Static Shock (A.E.D Toolbelt ability). It hits decently, that’s good. 3/4s cast and 1/2s aftercast equals 1.25s of self CC for 1s of enemy CC. That part isn’t so good. You only have .5 seconds to actually do something with this stun. I can see this being fun in a Static Discharge build, but one has to be extremely quick. Meh, overall. Useless outside of a Rifle SD build if you don’t even have enough time to cast a skill after using it due to the big aftercast.

• Opportunity Costs. Healing Turret is pretty much the best sustained healing, the best condition removal, hardest to interrupt, the best group utility, that requires no traits. Might Stacks decently well with Enhanced Performance too. Med Kit is great sustain with deep tools builds, and the best at might stacking. Elixir H is the best in Elixir Builds. I think these are the real reasons why A.E.D seems so disapponting – Engineer has really well integrated and awesome healing skills – and A.E.D is like 3 steps back.

Good Suggestions for adding more value to A.E.D:

• A.E.D To remove Bleeding, Poison, and Burning at the end of the effect.
• (Linc.6834) A.E.D To apply frenzy while the buff is up.
• A.E.D To prevent the Engineer’s health from going under 1, while active.
• A.E.D To have a .5 cast time to help even the disproportionate risk to reward.
• A.E.D To not have such a terrible heal when lethal damage is not taken. It’s really bad.

Question for the people reading this – How plausible is it for you to slot A.E.D, in your GW2 Experience? Can your build run it with the content that you do?

bobomb.5209:

Warriors are in a good place right now. Other classes need to be improved.

No no no no. The game would be so far out of alignment/broken if we brought up every role on every other profession. And also not the direction that we are moving, thankfully.

On Dec. 10th, Arenanet demonstrated that successful shaves on performance can actually work, as Warrior and Ranger damage got a small shave without being gutted (at all) – Earthshaker, Staggering Blow, Storm Spirit, and Sun Spirit took some hits. Engineer took some defensive hits, too.

You can’t even run without (both) a super resilient Warrior and Ranger, still, in tPvP.

Even now, the game would be infinitely better if Warrior and Ranger sustain were shaved, and Engineer & Necro condi application / damage was shaved.

We can’t afford more buffs after how Warrior, Ranger, and Necro transformed. (Engi was always OP, ask Ostricheggs).

We need the December 10th patch shaves to happen like, 2-3 more times, without doing any dumb buffing, and then DPS Guards, Power Engies, Power Necros, DPS Eles, Non-exploiting Mesmers, Power Rangers & Glassy Warriors would be re-introduced.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

really?

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Attack
“An attack is an action intended to cause Damage on a specific target or area.”

“fear me!” does not cause damage.

anyway, time for a topic about blind, the condition.
this topic has served its purpose 7 months ago.

You’re really reaching here, and splitting hairs. Every ability in the game that affects an enemy is currently affected by blind. Abilities that do no damage, too. There’s dozens of them.

And no, not time for a topic about blind. It’s working completely as intended.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

quick question, does blind still affect the “fear me!” shout utility?

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Blind

“Next outgoing attack misses; stacks duration.”

please fix “fear me!” since it is a point blank area of effect (pbaoe) shout with a radius of 600 thus it should be unaffected by blind.

blind should only affects attacks, not shouts.

thanks!

You really Necro’d your OWN thread from 7 months ago, only to suggest that incoming offensive shout attacks should not be blind-able?

/palms the face.

There are currently no exceptions to offensive attacks and blind. Blind makes your next attack miss. And it’s not good for the game if Shouts don’t get affected by blind. Why is a big ol’ bomb affected by blind? It’s still gonna blow you the hell up? That’s because blind is working as intended. Please try to see farther than the handle of your hammer, please. It’s bad enough you’ve been lobbying for Warrior buffs since early 2013, regardless of actual game balance.

If your Engineer is condition based,

• A condition necro with Dagger offhand, Staff, and god save you from the Plague Signet – you do not stand an ice-cube’s odds in hell of surviving this kind of condition application. Engineer’s condition removal is amongst the worst in game, especially at dealing with big (burst) condi applications.

To be honest, you have a chance at beating anything else 1v1. A decent chance, if you play your Engi very well. Hard matchups: Hambow Warriors (what doesn’t struggle vs Hambow Warriors?) Spirit Rangers: You can’t dodge their burning, as it’s just spam applied by pets & 1111111. The meta Spirit Ranger has about 3.75 times the Condi removal of the meta Engineer – you have to bait his uncontrollable condi removal (Empathic Bond) and then completely condi spike him down to win. Oh, and if he pops his Elite spirit, you simply cannot kill it. Phantasm Mesmer: Kill it with fire as fast and as accurately as possible, (don’t get dodged,) or you will lose the sustained damage fight very quickly.