Guild Wars 2

EoNxBoNx.9213:

How does stacking up to 20s of immob (as a team) remove team coordination?

Anet pls…

Can’t tell if.. dark sarcasm or.. you think it’s actually teamwork for multiple people to hit all their immobilizes on an immobilized enemy without thought, compared to coordinating immobilizes so there is no wasted overlap (much more difficult, and previously rewarding.)

jmatb.6307:

I called it…

Metric ton of QQ about immob stacking only took 24 hours to start flooding the forums.

Condi clear utility skills are calling your names and waving at you

Makes for a pretty bland game if everyone is forced into that one build that’s really really good at removing conditions.

DiogoSilva.7089:

I think immobilize should get the fear treatment (count both as a stun and a condition). Yes, it would be the first cc effect that doesn’t disables skills, but it would fix it, in my opinion, because a stronger effect would get countered by a higher amount of tools. It would make immobilize a bit more high risk/ high reward.

I would personally love being able to stunbreak immobilizes. It’s frustrating sometimes to get 100-0’d by multiple people despite blowing blocks or an invuln, and having two useless stunbreaks do nothing to help you regain control of your movement.

Troll post detected..

George Steel.1804:

K U T M.4539:

Yes, Warriors stomp. A stunbreak that gives stability and launches is “useless”.

If you’ve seriously had a problem with warriors running stomp, you need to re-evaluate your playstyle.

It counters Slick Shoes extremely well.

Carighan.6758:

Chaith.8256:

Phantasm code is also balanced with mostly traited 16 second cooldowns. If you were arguing that the phantasm value, implementation & user friendliness are in any way worse than turrets, you’re fighting a losing argument

Yes, ofc, I was arguing exactly that. I was also arguing how Mesmer toolbelt was so much superior to Engineer toolbelt and how much better Elementalist Adrenaline skill on Greatsword was.

(comparability, you don’t have it)

I was talking about a technical consideration, which I thought was obvious. Phantasms cannot switch targets, and unless the programmers were extremely bored when writing the code, the code doesn’t support switching targets.

If Turrets are supposed to be like Phantasms, might as well remove them tbh. Turrets would only be cool if I can use them to set up a fire base. It should assists me or – even better – assist the called target whenever possible (since that works when solo now). The latter actually makes a lot of sense, because it’s immediately obviously to everyone who the turrets will fire at, but the enemy cannot see it.

They’re not at all comparable to Phantasms, no. Much like Engineers cannot be compared to Mesmers. And I doubt the targetting code is transplantable (plus as said, it’d be rather meh).

..

Did you think people are able to tell by your tone that you’re making the exact opposite argument you sound like you’re making? As well as 3 other assumptions?

“Looks for another post by Carighan talking about ’Mesmer Toolbelt, and Elementalist Adrenaline skill (wat)”

“Doesn’t find it”

You could quite possibly by in the wrong thread.

Carighan.6758:

Yoshifxe.8346:

Mesmer phantasms attack the target they are called on and don’t stop attacking until they die or their target dies for the record. They have the implementation to make it work they just don’t bother.

And you’d prefer your turrets to explode when their target dies, too? I suppose? Because yes, then the Phantasm code can be used.

Phantasm code is also balanced with mostly traited 16 second cooldowns. If you were arguing that the phantasm value, implementation & user friendliness are in any way worse than turrets, you’re fighting a losing argument

Med.6150:

Varonth.5830:

Med.6150:

The problem isn’t the stacking, but the bug that accidentally removed the ICD on Leg Specialist.

How many times do you think immobilizes were overwriting previous instances of immobilization before this patch? It did happen, but rather rarely.

Fix Leg Specialist (obviously an oversight, because the ICD was introduced specifically for the reason that Hamstring got moved to the autoattack chain) and most of the issues will go away (well, it will go back to what it was pre-patch anyway).

Tested it without Leg Specialist.
Every 20s I have an immobilize downtime of ~1s.
With the ICD back on Leg Specialist, I would gain 4 additional seconds of immobilize, once it is fixed.
Still 100% uptime.

Never mind.
Other rotation went 100% uptime on immobilize without leg specialist.

So, in other words, you went balls to the wall to maximize your immobilize uptime and were able to achieve a theoretical close to permanent uptime on it. Now my question is, in what way is that any different than before, other than it requiring less timing on your part (and a stationary target)?

It takes 2 abilities to keep somebody “perma-immobilized”. There was little timing involved in staggering those skills and achieve just that, yet nobody was complaining.

No, you don’t get it. Leg specialist having no internal cooldown is just as necessary to hotfix as the chaos storm doing 30k damage was necessary to hotfix. It’s a huge gamebreaking bug, and not something that was a conscious design decision, like immobilize stacking was. Sure, the super buggy leg specialist plays off of the immobilize stacking change, but it’s a hotfixable bug in nature.

Tooltip bugs on minions all around. All the tooltips think that they scale with power, but they don’t. Hit something. It’s most likely going to hit for the unchanged static 600-700.

Seems to be intended, along with a few other undocumented changes, like the re-work to “Rocket”, the Rocket Turret’s toolbelt ability. RIP. I’m guessing we’ll see some “BTW” notes roll up pretty soon.

I want to say it’s 90 seconds, same as the Inventions 15 pt minor. But it does exist, and it’s a decent cooldown.

What you decide to combo with Magnet is determined by how many unique conditions your enemy has on them.

As a side note, if you get quick enough, you should always be able to pry bar and do one more 1/2 cast before they can move again. So go straight for Blowtorch or a grenade, and save your Glue Shot for another combo.

For example, if you see that your allied Necromancer casts Signet of Spite on an Engi, and the Engi panic-dodge rolls twice:

• Magnet -> Prybar -> Blowtorch Then stop. If he has a dodge roll, it almost always comes after the Magnet wears off. Glue Shot -> Grenade 2 Then stop. After that, just use whatever is available. Pistol 2-3, Grenades as necessary.

If the target has no conditions on them when you magnet, I don’t advise using blowtorch first – set your blowtorch up later by starting out with vuln & bleed first.

• Magnet -> Prybar -> Grenade 2 Then stop. Wait for dodge roll, Glue Shot -> Blowtorch.

Stopping between your guaranteed hits are very important.. if you just go ham and repeatedly unload all the buttons, there is a super minuscule chance of you landing everything. Unless your magnet pull scared them so bad that they just lost all hope – and they stop trying, try to let them dodge when it doesn’t benefit them.

You mean like using Consume Conditions, Putrid Mark, Deathly Swarm, Plague Signet, or the popular one, soaking it with Spectral Armor & Death Shroud?

Phineas Poe.3018:

Adamantium.3682:

I don’t mean to rain on the parade here, but is anyone else bummed the Stability from Toss B is only 4 seconds? I mean that’s pretty sad. I wasn’t expecting 20, but when you look at other professions (which could be my problem) that are easily getting 30+ seconds of stability, it’s frustrating that this “fix” is giving us 4.

Considering Stand Your Ground lasts 5 seconds, what exactly were you expecting?

That’s right. Toss Elixir B you can apply to multiple allies, IE, when reviving. Obviously toss Elixir B has nothing on Stand Your Ground, which is one of the most silently OP utilities in the game. Stand Your Ground is a stunbreak, an instant 600 radius from caster (wow) stability & retal effect. Toss Elixir B is a 180 radius from a ground targeted point. Not equally as user friendly. If you use it intelligently, and luckily, you can do just as good as Stand Your Ground with it, when double-triple reviving. The 4 second stability is justified. I mean, it’s just a straight up buff where there was nothing stability-like there before.

Lamps.8014:

28 views and no feedback :c

Well rounded for what? I’m assuming WvW roaming & zerging, since you have it locked in that mode.

It seems like you sacrificed a lot of things that you didn’t need to, in order to make this a “well rounded build”.

6 Soldier items, 3 Berserker items, 2 Valkyrie items, 1 Cavalier, 1 Celestial. Your gems in your jewlery are spread out over: Power, Condition Damage, Toughness, Vitality, Critical Damage.

If you want to have balanced stats, which is very common for professions like Eles and Engies, Celestial gear in WvW/PvE is the only option. You will get 55% more stats from gear by just equipping Celestial instead of spreading the stats out using regular gear.

Celestial is well-balanced godly for Engineers that are able to run builds that deal hybrid damage, stack might, and scale with healing. Seriously, it’s amazing.

The build you’re running right now runs pretty light – 1217 Toughness, 22k HP, and 54 healing. So you’re obviously used to running a more squishy rifle build, good.

Try this out:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQFAUlIq6ZnvSyF17IyoCdmoHVW+ZZfewWy1DC-jUCBYjBhgAhEBI5TQM5RZtKsIasqaER16aYWzFRrWKAmEGB-w

Celestial Head, Chest & Legs give more of an increase across the board compared to Berserker then, say, the Shoulders, Gloves, Boots. It’s strange.

Anyways, this build can swing around 20 stacks of might (I swapped out your Auto-bomb dispenser for Enhanced Performance)

Look at your new stats, and rejoice! When self buffed with 20 might, and 25 Bloodlust (defensive food):

Offensive Stats:
2748 power
35% Critical chance, no fury.
74% Critical damage.
1277 Condition Damage for your Incendiary Powder, Bombs & Prybar.

Defensive Stats:
1310 Toughness
22,722 Health
394 Healing

Obviously, you’ll have to step-up and get Ascended Celestial jewlery, and if you can’t get an Ascended/Legendary rifle for celestial stats, a Berserker/Assassin one will do.

But seriously, for a build that is ‘well rounded’ with some healing, that does hybrid, but mostly power damage (Bombs, Nades, Flamethrower, Toolkit, Elixir Gun), Celestial gear is so good. Simply stacking some might to recoup the power loss will make you hit as hard as a berserker, while having increased toughness, healing, vitality, and hybrid damage.

I didn’t change your utilities cause’ those really vary per person. My choice for this 30/0/0/30/10 Celestial/Zerker build is: Healing Turret, Grenade Kit, Elixir Gun, Toolkit.

Yeah.. it’s not the same, really. You should have to position yourself well to trap people, not just follow them around and Ward them all day, easily.

Ostricheggs.3742:

The new bombs are gonna outshine elixirs.

kittens about to get real.

I don’t like that they’re steering towards more blanket AoE. But that Bomb1 skill looks so fancy, for power builds. I am definitely intrigued..

Personally, perma vigor and and an entire other kit seem like pretty good reasons to not be HgH, but no-one can deny that taking Elixir S and Elixir B together is very strong.

ensoriki.5789:

Would be cool if Healing signet was more like Hercules Mitigate wounds but the constant healing isn’t really boring to me. What’s lame is that Signets have actives with the purpose of them being used and the healing is strong enough that most just disregard the active and the active itself is fairly underwhelming.

It’s just like the Ele Glyph of Renewal heal. Except I’ve actually seen Eles pop that when they get desperate enough. 90% of the Warriors I see will take the Healing Signet passive with them to the grave. It’d be cool counterplay if once the Ele/War were incentivized to use the Actives enough, but they’d be forced to kite or disengage until the passive effect was closer to kicking back in.

Myrmidian Eudoros.4671:

Chaith.8256:

The Paralyzation sigil is getting the axe tomorrow, I’m waiting to see how that affects the Warrior profession. It might be more significant a nerf than people expected.
…
Personally, I am not a huge hater of Berserker Stance. To me, it made the game better, allowing Warriors to do their intended roles for a short period. I still think Warriors aren’t going to be the top of the food chain for long, even without any drastic nerfs.

The change to Paralyzation Sigil will be impactful, but the over-buffed passive heal combined with high damage output probably still is enough of a crutch to hold warrior firmly in the meta for now. Killing a warrior 1v1 requires either kiting zerkers stance (like you suggested) and then condition-kiting him to death or poison+DD pressuring him to death. Neither method is available to a number of the classes in this game that fail in either poison ability, damage output or kiting ability. Even the classes who can manage to win that match-up usually take an extremely long time (too long to be a viable solution). Perhaps they might slip from being the apex predator, but I don’t expect them to go anywhere. The primary builds are just too effective and too easy mode to disappear.

That sounds like you’re saying Warriors will have a secure spot even after losing Paralyzation sigil and Apex Predator status (I never thought they were Apex Predators, lol.) I think that’s good. In the MLG tournament, we’ve observed a lot of Spirit Ranger vs. Longbow Hammer Warrior duels, and it’s not a guaranteed win for the Warrior. It truly isn’t.

I think that if Eles can get a re-introduction to survival in the current meta, Warrior, Necro, and Ranger aren’t going to be quite as represented as well.

I think S/D thieves and Power Engineers to a lesser extent (it’s not easy), counter berserker Longbow/Hammer warriors pretty well. Poison, either Boon Strips or CC, and resistance to stuns through high evasion and limitless pseudo stunbreaks, aka being a thief (lawl), or protection injection. I imagine that if we ever saw Mesmer vs. Warrior matchups, it’d be a pretty easy roll for the Mesmer, too. It’s painfully hard for a Warrior/Engineer to land anything on a Mesmer.

I am really not a fan of healing signet. I dislike that it’s always ticking, ticking, ticking away, and poison is really the only counterplay. It’s pretty boring, actually. It’s like not having a heal skill at all. I would like it if Warriors had to micromanage it.

Arheundel.6451:

You don’t seem to get the point at all….

The ele burst is high risk=high reward, and cannot be compared to thief or mesmer burst as it’s low risk= high reward because : stealth + low CD on burst skills , instead the ele got 20s + CD on all burst skill and this means if you fail…you die..or run away and call it a victory like players as @Avead do.

Everyone understands your points, you don’t have to keep drilling the basic Ele risk/reward facts for the playstyle.

Arheundel.6451:

- Lower dmg of ele
- Reduce CD of dmg skills ( ex : phoenix 15s CD, arcane wave 20s CD )
- Add an additional effect as compensation ( ex : arcane wave now apply 2s burning if used while in fire )
- Add a 3/4s casting time to arcane skills

This is what I call balance, what you guys propose is…whack a mole balance.

What could doing these things possibly change? Using a ton of development resources to give Eles more actions per minute, but net the same amount of damage? How will that make Eles wanted in PvP, or perform better in the current meta..

Sure.. telegraphing is good on abilities, I agree, I’d be fine with a visible cast time on Arcane utilities in exchange for more utility.

But honestly, something needs to be done about how bruiser Eles perform in their non-glass cannon builds against conditions I.E, using Valks or other more balanced stat distributions. There’s no way for them to win a sustained battle now. I think the Berserker, arcane, ninja-style Eles should retain their unique playstyle, but they could stand to benefit from simpler ways to exist. That’s why I still am a fan of a short, easily accessible condition immunity, as to not repeat the same mistake of simply adding too much sustained healing. But I’m repeating myself.

Bottom line is, if we’re talking about brainstorming ways for Eles to become wanted, valued members of a tPvP roster, then the changes either have to give the Ele the tools to cope in the current meta, or change the current meta. No damage shuffling or overpowered RTL relapses are going to be effective.

Myrmidian Eudoros.4671:

Chaith.8256:

My Suggestion:

Elementalist:

Signet of Water has been reworked – Active ability no longer chills enemies, but reduces the duration of incoming conditions by 100%. Duration, 8 seconds. Cooldown increased to 40 seconds, now instant cast. Passive effect remains unchanged.

I agree with pretty much everything you’ve pointed out in this thread, but on this one…No dude.

Condition immunity like the Warrior exhibits has no counter-play and should not be in the game to begin with, let alone expanded on.

There is an overall issue of power creep that has evolved over the last few balance patches. The introduction of more conditions without balancing the relative number of cleanses available lead to a condi-overload meta, and reactionary balance pass(es) thereafter created condition immune, auto-healing stun lock turrets. Ele’s problems are pretty much all derived from the fact that conditions are still too out of check with cleanses and Warriors were over-buffed in an effort to give the primary offenders of the condi-meta (Necro, Ranger and to a somewhat lesser extent Engi) a super-mega-hard counter. In fact, Ele and Mesmer (generally regarded as the sub-optimals at the moment) are both suffering for the same root cause. The solution is to attack the root of the problem and fix the condition overload and fix warrior to a position that it can have intuitive counter-play. Further buffing classes will only add to the power-creep and cause more bad meta’s.

No one likes nerfs, everyone likes buffs, but the reality is that the combat system in this game will get better with Nerfs than it will with Buffs in the current state of things.

I agree wholeheartedly. I suggested what I did because I just can’t see Arenanet making this solution:

Myrmidian Eudoros.4671:

The solution is to attack the root of the problem and fix the condition overload and fix warrior to a position that it can have intuitive counter-play.

I thought about trying to draw up the patch notes for that one. That would probably involve more changes to the game than the PvP balance team budget for 2014 is. This one-liner solution needs like, a 10 page analysis, not to mention making the “Warrior’s body less sturdy”.

The Paralyzation sigil is getting the axe tomorrow, I’m waiting to see how that affects the Warrior profession. It might be more significant a nerf than people expected.

To be honest, I’ve started doing a lot better against Warriors since I found some meaningful counterplay to Berserker Stance, Rifle Engineer PoV:

• Overcharge shot his face and wait the Berserker stance off.
• If he stacks multiple stances, like stability, all I have to do is give up the point, make a strategic 6 second retreat out of his grubby paws, and then bang out a defenseless Warrior, or demolish him with Supply Crate. It’s not the hardest thing to deal with, once I got my head around the fact that letting the point neutral/cap isn’t the end if I can just re-cap/neut it.

I understand not all classes can just escape the engagement, but I feel that people haven’t learned they need to, yet. Personally, I am not a huge hater of Berserker Stance. To me, it made the game better, allowing Warriors to do their intended roles for a short period. I still think Warriors aren’t going to be the top of the food chain for long, even without any drastic nerfs.

Arheundel.6451:

Do we even play the same game ?

Did you really say that a s/d ele deal more burst dmg than a backstab or shatter ?…seriously dude, yesterday got hit by a 7k backstab while having 1.5k toughness…we’re talking about a single skill eating over 50% of my HP bar and the kittening thief was a trolling d/p perma stealthed, you don’t see him coming as he can stealth from his base and reach your..while still stealthed

And mesmer? The other day was trying this bunker build with 2k toughness and 14k HP…got killed in a single shatter rotation… over 14k total dmg , only the I zerker can hit you for 7-8k dmg from 1200 range

The majority of you don’t even know that both arcane skills got nerfed by 22% last patch, now base dmg is 700 dmg, meaning an ele must go full glass to deal over 2k dmg with each arcane skill, and using 2 aracan skills + LF, the ele will have 0 stun breaker

An electric discharge engy deal that dmg with the freaking rifle auto-attack.

Despite all these claims of “OP one-shot wambo combo”, even [CC] the last official team to use an ele in GW2, decided against bringing one at the last MLG.

In SoloQ all you find are warriors/ranger and necros, so where are these OMFG one-shot combo wonder eles?

P.S
about your “numerical analysis”, a zerker ele with scholar runes and 50-54% crit dmg deal the following numbers on a heavy armour golem using the “untelegraphated” skills:

-Lighting stike: 1700-1900 dmg
-Electric discharge : 1900 dmg
-Arcane skills ( same dmg ) : 1700-1800 dmg each

Arheundel.6451:

The day that a burst ele can burst me down from 100% to downed while wearing a soldier amulet, like a thief or mesmer, will be the day I’ll join you in asking to tone down ele burst

Look man, try searching up some videos on how to combo your zerker Ele’s abilities better. Cause you just aren’t getting how it’s possible to get your numbers up there.

Cancel that. Here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gAif9qE4WY

Basically, just from memory (I don’t play Ele at a high level), the highest hitting combo that Eles can do that does like, 20k damage off a lightning flash in a bit over a second: Earth → Hurl → Earthquake → Lightning Flash → Fire → Phoenix Triple hit → Air → Lightning Strike → Arcanes. This happens in the span of about 2 seconds. There are other ways to combo this. Regardless, it is indeed more instant damage than a Mesmer or Thief can do.

So now you actually know what everyone is talking about. Now you’re on the same page, don’t think that I’m saying that every MLG team needs to take an Elementalist using this.

FirstBlood.7359:

Why has the elementalist been the dominating profession for the first 9 months? Why has everyone stopped playing elementalist since the trait rework patch?

Obviously “low HP and low armor” are not the correct answers, these are just excuses made by bad elementalists. Further, there are no fundamental problems with the profession.

The trait rework patch buffed several other professions and shifted the meta in a direction unfavorable for elementalists. The condition meta combined with some minor nerfs made the elementalist an inferior choice in competitive play.

The ele does not need a rework. Some minor buffs could fix the ele such as reducing the cooldown of RTL back to 20s.

Pretty much, this. I still stand by giving burst Elementalists a tool to survive condition pressure long enough to do things in teamfights, and/or a tool if used intelligently could nullify a 1v1 condi-burst and counter. In the past, we had Eles outlasting everything through sustained healing, but that was more of a permanent near-invulnerability, rather than something that had a lot of counterplay.

My Suggestion:

Elementalist:

Signet of Water has been reworked – Active ability no longer chills enemies, but reduces the duration of incoming conditions by 100%. Duration, 8 seconds. Cooldown increased to 40 seconds, now instant cast. Passive effect remains unchanged.

Illusion.1807:

As for fresh air burst, many eles including me don’t really like it, which is almost like a cheese, you either quickly kill or die, or do both.

From a design standpoint, I think fresh air is interesting, but all it really is:

• Air 15pt Minor – Un-telegraphed instantaneous spike.
• Air, Scepter 2: Lightning Strike – Untelegraphed instantaneous spike.

It does add some really good sustained damage, but seems way more fun and engaging for the Ele than it is for people on the receiving end. For the people getting targeted, it’s more like, “Oh that Ele just took 35% of my life from 900 range, with no animation. Nice.”

Since arcane abilities are very difficult to predict as well, you just have a lot of instant damage flying around. Typically Ele has been balanced so well with risk vs. reward, and designed so well with telegraphed skills having the most value. Fresh air feels like a small step away from the good design.

insanemaniac.2456:

your 15 tools is totally wasted, you didnt proc it once for heals and you never use your other toolbelts anyways cuz your a condi build

How do you know he’s 15 in tools? :P

Fortus.6175:

People, you guys dont seem to be getting the question, let me repeat it;
Every class has an emblematic thing you would bring them over to your team;

Guardian; unmatched team utility and boons. Good sustained DPS.

Mesmer; best duelist in the game, incredible amount of team utility.

Warrior; Best damage in the game. Insane CC. Great aura utility on banners, including revival and might/fury buffs.

Necros; Condition damage, fear, DS, very durable, wells.

Engis; great point defense, team buffs in the form of boons, heals, more heals, very sturdy.

Rangers; spirit ranger can take on the world…and still survive. They bring best sustained DPS in the game and very useful traps in the right hands.

Thief; Unmatched dueling power. Most mobile class after warriors. Can insta burst anyone out of the blue. Very OP useful Sw/D in this meta.

Eles; Very telegraphed moves, damage dependent on AF]K players, 0 team utility since arcanes and cantrips are selfish. Boons are good, at expense of very lenghty cooldowns who leave them on even longer attunement CD, which cuts their only way or survival. Only “viable” build is a burst hit-or-miss who will die in a teamfight first thing.

Can you please cut the hyperbole garbage – summing a profession up in one oversimplified sentence that’s nice and exaggerated just to support your point.

The first 20 words of my post were merely there to outline how hyperbolic garbage that anyone can say doesn’t mean any class is going to see play, or not. “There are some things the Ele does well, but that’s the wrong question to ask” and then you continue to fixate on that exact thing, ignoring 100% of the point of my post. Kind of ironic.

Just to explain, those exaggerated things I said at the start of my post were there to entertain your bad question of: “Name one thing Eles do really gud”. I said these before I made my point (which you ignored):

This is clearly going down the gutter already, but I’ll explain why I said those things, and why tracking what classes do ‘da best’ are not good metrics to track for balance.

• Arcane S/D Eles’ wombo combo does have the highest singular burst in the game, in tPvP. Higher than Shatter or Backstab. It’s nothing more than a simple numerical fact. Meanwhile, S/D Ele remains as one of the overall mediocre burst specs. Shatter Mesmers and D/D thieves have problems of their own, not to mention being just as non-existant in tPvP as Eles are.

• When I referred to the ‘best swiftness’ in game, I was merely referring to the “Staff Lightning-field-swap weapons back” combo to give the whole team 60 seconds of swiftness before a match starts, so the mid point can be contested better. Nobody can give that kind of pre-game swiftness. Again, it’s a numerical fact, not sole justification to take an Ele.

• For the 1-2 D/D Eles that remain in tPvP somewhat, Skovex & Sivvy, I’m pretty sure that RTL -> Vertical Lightning Flash -> Burning Speed is going to get you on point @ Clocktower faster than 7/8 professions can. EVERYTHING GOOD about Ele has remained since launch, besides the sustain nerfs, and RTL’s cooldown. They’re still more mobile than your average tPvP Engineers, Rangers, Guardians, Necros, Longbow/Hammer War/Mace/Shield War, Mesmer. Yet Elementalists still aren’t a desired pick. Well I wonder why that is? We already brainstormed on things that Eles do well :Sarcasm.:

There. I hope I explained the point I was trying to make there, better.

Now, I explained in my last post what I feel Elementalists need to push them back into being a good pick. If you have any more comments, try that.

Fortus.6175:

I want to remain as unbiased as possible, so I will try my hardest to stay humble and civilized. This is about eles compared to every other class in PvP only

Given the latest development of the meta and the last MLG;

What can a ele bring to a table that other classes cant bring better and without that many sacrifices.

Eles have the best burst in the game. Eles give the best swiftness in the game. They’re competitive for being amongst the most mobile. These are not grounds for saying they are balanced, I feel they don’t stack up in the current meta, either.

My point is that you’re asking the wrong questions. The question should be, what kind of tools do elementalists need so they can stay relevant in teamfights, and relevant in sidepoint 1v1s.

Elementalists have never been about utility. Don’t stress out that your utility skills don’t hugely support your team. If that’s your goal, then try a Spirit Ranger, or a Mesmer with Portal & Illusion of life. Or a Banner warrior. Obviously, these builds have limited use and aren’t all included in ’what’s good’ right now. Many, many builds that are most viable right now aren’t totally support oriented, and that’s ok.

My analysis of Elementalists in PvP teamfights:

Elementalists are essentially ‘too good’ a target. I really think Elementalists should have the option as D/D bruisers to make them a pretty un-satisfactory target in a teamfight. Take the modern day Warrior for example. A typical 20 seconds of stability, and 10 seconds of condition immunity – enough for any smart player looking for a quick kill to deselect the warrior (even though he’s usually Berserker) and go for the peripheral team fighter – IE, Grenade Engi, Necromancer. That’s why Warriors work in teamfights. If Eles had some kind of short condition immunity period, I think that would be almost all it would take for D/D and S/D eles to be valuable in teamfights. They can already get a good amount of stability.

Overall it’s just important for professions that are designed to have a presence in fights (Guardian, Elementalist, Warrior) to be difficult enough focus targets while not being unable to eventually be brought down. It’s kind of perfect how balanced Warriors are in teamfights right now, actually. I wish the same for D/D and S/D eles.

Poliswag.8240:

NondSwiftshot.9168:

I’ve gotten the dire gear and need three more ascended accessories but haven’t started grinding CM yet. Any suggestions on some runes that I could use temporary until I get my nobles?

Undead runes are good. There are also a set, I believe they’re Fire (?) runes, but they give 20% might and might on heal. Then just get another two with 20% might. The reason why Noble is better is because you get a ton of condition damage alongside those

Good luck!

BTW if you don’t have Noble runes yet, here’s what you do:

2 Fire, 2 Hoelbrak, 2 Altruism. This combo does the exact same thing as the Noble Runes, but instead of condition damage it gives +Power, and +Healing. There’s not enough power & healing to compare to Noble runes, which are a definitely better if you’re running a condition build.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQJAqal0piYH5y3F1bJyoCdWoC2HoC5loC53nHs1DChA-jECB4gCh0CJkEBIPqIasVhFRjVPjIqWdDziuIa1SBAz0I-w

This build seems more like it: 30/10/10/10/10 – Incendiary Powder, Enhanced Performance, Grenadier, Hair Trigger, Stabilized Armor, Invigorating Speed, Speedy Kits.

More unlikely variants:
30/20/0/10/10 – Taking Coated Bullets or Rifled Barrels (Possible, but unlikely, would leave very vulnerable to Stuns & Knockdowns)
30/15/0/10/15 -
30/15/0/15/10 –
30/10/0/15/15 -

You could be 5 pts off, and he would say ‘WRONG’, but I assure you, it is one of these. Armor mostly used is Apothecary, and likely some Shamans or possibly even a Celestial piece of two for some recoup on vitality.

Key Features of the build:

• Peaks at 2400-2600 condition damage with full stacks of might and corruption stacks.
• Medpacks heal for 1500ish, Bandage heals for 6kish
• Just enough vitality to push health past 18k.
• Around 18 second cooldown on heal – 10-15pts in tools.

So, aim for these things if you want to build like this Engineer. Any slight difference is insignificant.

If I were this Engineer, and I wanted to preserve the same build/playstyle:

• Definitely recommend investing in backpack regenerator. It scales with healing power as of June 25th, confirmed. You can pull off a 30/10/0/20/10, 30/0/10/20/10 or 30/0/0/30/10. I feel that having no stunbreak, no protection injection, no stabilized armor, and relatively lower HP is a liability, so I just hope in your current build you’re at least running stabilized armor. If you feel that not having these things doesn’t mess with your #yoloswag then carry on.

• For 1v1’s that you know you won’t have to escape a zerg, I would take Elixir Gun -> Slick Shoes -> Over rocket boots, in that order, given your gear. Elixir Gun 5 would push your 4 condition removals per minute up to 7 per minute, which ain’t bad – not to mention benefit from all the healing you stack. And a stunbreak, and regen on the toolbelt. That’s pretty much just what the no stunbreak, no regen heal stacking build called for.

• Slick shoes is a good chasing/escape, too, and the active has huge 1v1 synergy with your magnet pull. Not as awesome for zerg escaping, but still won’t lead you astray.

• In the end, you are roaming WvW, not pvp, so Rocket Boots does make a lot of sense.

Zorgog.3908:

Five Guages’ power engi build is pretty good for team fights (as long as the Warrior hasn’t popped stability). Pull the warrior into your team as you’re moving on the point, circle Slick Shoes around him, then proceed to dps the poop out of him. 1v1 is a bit tricky for me so far. A condi build would probably do better. Also (and surprisingly) turrets 1v1 lock down Warriors pretty hard since they usually don’t have enough stunbreaks to get out of all your cc. The thing that sucks about that one is turrets in a team fight are bad. This might be fixed once turrets attack your target, we’ll have to see.

\

With my set-up, you can become a CC warrior’s hardest match-up by playing dirty.

Playing dirty:

• Flat out run at key points in the fight to deny the windows where you can’t stop the warrior.
• Play extremely defensely, IE: do not get closer than 700 range while stability is up. Doesn’t matter if the point gets neutral. Or even capped, as long as the warrior’s about to die – you can just instantly re-neutral it.
• If you are ever going to die to a warrior, it’s going to be when stability is up, and you can’t pry him off you. Keep this in mind.
• Treat berserker stance as stability when your overcharge shot is down, and you depend on a net or chill hitting.
• As soon as Stability goes down, wait for a dodge then overcharge shot. This is like, a must-land move.

If you learn how to do these things, the Warrior is not going to kill you. Once you outlast the massively cooldown based Warrior, you can easily beat him down. Or absolutely decimate him with Supply Crate. It all depends on how well you can hold your own against an enemy that has a huge, but limited advantage.

Alternatively, if you went soldiers, you’d probably not have to run as much. But if you can make up for it with a playstyle change, yet have great teamfight pressure, I think berserker is the way to go.

BlinkTwice.7932:

Well This is more of a discussion on how valuable Bunkers are. Specifically, of course, Engies.
I was told I was the best Bunker ever today. I know im not the best, but for someone to say so to me I feel really accomplished. I usually feel as though I am such an important piece to my team. I can tell when autobalance sometimes throws me on the other team.

Surviving 2/3 Vs 1 holding a point is a big difference maker. From my experience, I think Engies make better Bunkers than guardians. Though I understand why guardians are considered better at it, I still think that a Highly skilled Engie bunker can out bunk a guardian. =\ What do you guys think?
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQJAqelIq6ZX3y3F1LJxoCdO0jCjf1KSRlt8nCyF-TkAg2EGpMyZkxIpRWjGNM/A

Ive been pretty successful with this build surviving Heartseeker Thief with the Elite(the two extra theives) and 1 more enemy on a node by the skin of my teeth. Any way to help this build so that I can better prepare for those type of surprise attacks?

There’s a difference between living forever and being a bunker. I’d say Engineers are better at sustaining forever. What’s preventing bunker Engineers from fulfilling the bunker role, over a guardian, is the fact that they have little to no stability. If you’re standing on point, you’re eating every CC spam under the sun, and versus many comps, you won’t get to play the game ever. You really need a Guardian for AoE stability – your team’s stomping and reviving power simply would not be there, otherwise.

Ostricheggs.3742:

backpack regenerator was my invention kitten it! Hate to be vain, but it’s true. Took me forever to figure out that trait wasnt a piece of kitten.

I agree with everything you said after this point. Lol. You didn’t seriously run this trait until June 25th. Nobody did. And rightfully so, it was underperforming before June 25th.

June 25th Patch Notes

Alchemy

Backpack Regenerator: This trait has been reworded so that it doesn’t imply that it adds the regeneration boon. This now scales with healing power from 125 to 192 (1500 healing power).

What’s not written here in these notes is that switching to a kit activates backpack regenerator for 10 seconds. Yep. Before it would only tick if you were sitting in a kit. If you say you have 60% uptime of kits, pre-patch, this trait just got buffed to 100% uptime. Every Engi, NA & EU started noticing this trait on June 25th. Or when you specifically invented it, did you mean you coded & re-wrote the tooltip?

Your competitive tPvP build on June 8th:

http://www.twitch.tv/ostricheggs/b/414088343

@ 2:00:09 – No Backpack Regenerator

Day of patch, June 25th – tPvP experimental build:

http://www.twitch.tv/ostricheggs/b/421474057

@ 0:15:46 – Ostricheggs invents the Backpack Regenerator

Rejea.1045:

I stick to BR i feel its a good dps mitigation and im in a kit almost always…
3 seconds out of every 5 assuming you get CC’d every 5 seconds(some times it feels that way) it could be up 60% of the time, while i think im in a kit atleast 80%+ so based on that i kinda stick with the kit regen. I figure i get more bang for my trait since its pretty much always active.
but i honestly havnt given PI much of a shot i pretty much die and blame it on not having my regen…

Swapping to a kit applies a lingering (5 seconds?) on backpack regenerator. You get ticks when you’re not even in a kit as long as you have been recently.

Berengar.6951:

You can’t rely on that 8% chance to save you from conditions. It’s more of just a nice little bonus.

It’s going to have rare, but amazing moments where you convert a Necromancer’s first fear into stability, and he chains 2 more fears into you while you have stability (because derr).

The majority of the time, you can’t tell it’s working. But it is working. Very strong minor trait overall.

Shanks R Us.2489:

Basically, me.

Chaith is also up there, though. Always has been. Before he stopped playing, “The Baby” was the best far point assault.

What is “The Baby”?

slaughterfest.6250:

Starting a Engi for my second 80, I was wondering which race yall likes for Skins/Armor?
my original idea was a Charr Iron Legion Engineer,fits perfectly in the storyline and etc, but seeing how thatlast until lvl 30, then all the storys merge to fighting the undead, which Endgame race, is most physically appealing? (Human, Charr are my two up and comings)
ANY personal opinions welcome, not looking for someone to Tell me what to do, just looking for yalls side of the story ^^, thanks.

Norn Engineer, great for roaming WvW. Many times has my Become the Leopard escaped an entire zerg.

It’s kind of like calling the police because someone dissed your sports team. Telling someone to go back to PvE because they’re bad at PvP, while annoying, doesn’t really violate any terms of agreement with Arenanet. Block him and move on.

yolosmurf.8052:

thats one of the easier ones to dodge and one of the less effective pushback skills in the game gg

Easy to sometimes random dodge, if you’re, y’know, into randomly spamming your dodge key like that. It’s less effective pushback is related to the fact it’s not telegraphed at all if double tapped immediately. That’s his point.. you can’t just skill dodge it.

From the little PvE experience I have in explorable dungeons only, it’s either you run supporty/hybrid and finish the dungeon in 30 minutes, or run berserker and finish it in 15 minutes. Obviously, build enough survivability for the encounter, but why not contribute to doing the dungeon faster? Conditions kind of flop for PvE, too.

So, my suggestion, based on that, is to grab some full berserker gear, slot grenades & rifle, and have a 30/x/x/x/30 build.

If that sounds unenjoyable, just build as tanky or as offensive as you like – with whatever kits you like. Forget the forum troll build snobs. Nobody will be able to call you out if you’re not dying, and you’re contributing plus or minus what needs to get done.

Alkaholic.3875:

Anywhere to see footage of this?

Yeah! Check out Major League Gaming on Youtube, here’s a link to Good Fights vs Car Crash in the first set (quarter finals) of the MLG Invitational. The rest of tournament is uploaded too.

Match #1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bGDoK5QMks

Match #2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5k8FXVl0CyI

Match #3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXHCHF-CZwQ

If you think PvP is bad for childish behavior like griefing, noobcalling, and jerk behavior in general, what is your opinion on the WvW community?

Let me start by saying that this is something that happens often to me, and only my personal experience.

^Often, a thief will jump me in a Borderland, and I will turn the fight around and win. Instantly I am added to party, and whispered if I don’t accept his invitation to rage at me. What they say usually ranges. Usually that I am ‘bad’ or a ‘noob’ and he’s going to report me to my guild leader so I get kicked. Often it just turns out to be a stream of profanity and ‘come at me, 1v1, bro’ demands.

Personally, I find in WvW if the enemy isn’t emote spamming you, or adding you to party and kittening you out for something then it’s not the game mode I know. Two things which I rarely ever see in pvp.

Like Forty Seven Ninjas.6982:

Not sure if everyone here only plays sPvP, but here is a variant of this for WvW that I’ve found outstanding. I switch slick shoes out for the EG and use healing turret for more group oriented fights.

WvW build

My WvW build is nearly identical! Try celestial gear, it has about 55% more stats packed into it than other exotic level gear, all of which is used by this build well.

FlamingForce.6389:

How the hell do you win with a combo that relies on magnet? I can do the rotation just fine but magnet is way too predictable to be relied on imo.

Patience, mostly. People are really scared of overcharge shot and are usually more than happy to blow multiple dodges when you enter kill range.

I do consider Magnet a pretty broken skill, seeing as it’s random where your enemy lands, and random how many times the magnet moves them. It really affects Engineer gameplay negatively. But the good outweighs the bad.

When magnet gives you lemons, just use your grenade throwing arm.

Bumping this on request

Adamantium.3682:

No kits? You have Elixir Gun, even mentioned in one of your damage combos O_O.

Yeah.. it is indeed a kit, but in the stunbreak category of that build. Take a thumper turret, take slick shoes, it really isn’t that big a deal. The challenge is getting something that has no kits, AND complements the Celestial gear.

Arkham Creed.7358:

A quick question about damage:

I’m looking over the wiki and I find that turret damage does not scale with our stats or weapons, no surprise there, but conditions applied by turrets do. Doesn’t this mean that, theoretically, a turret build would benefit more from gearing for condition damage than power? It seems to me, at only a cursory glance, that a flame turret and overcharged rifle turret being used with high condition damage would be a superior DPS build, especially when paired with pistols.

Yeah.. turret are much better with condition setups. The only turrets that do meaningful pressure are: Net, & Rocket Turret. And seeing as Net Turret does not actually do damage, in any offensive Turret Build (in my opinion) is condition based, and has Rocket Turret. Extremely shallow depth of turret builds. Using Flame Turret ever is pretty.. impossible, and Rifle Turret is only used for it’s toolbelt ability.

2; I refuse to use the healing turret primarily as a blast finisher. I disagree completely with the notion that setting that turret only to blow it up a split second later is its intended use, and refuse on principle to make use of that tactic. A turret is supposed to be set up to provide a consistent tactical advantage at a given location, so I would be using turrets to actually use them, not just place > overcharge > detonate > repeat.

Beyond that, go nuts.

I respect your decision to use turrets to provide ongoing benefits.

But, sorry to say, if you’re going not going to pick your healing turret after overcharging for maximum efficacy, or blowing it up for maximum burst healing, it’s not a good option to take it. Your healing turret will die, and you will routinely either go 30 seconds without any healing, or, you are forced off your healing turret, making healing impossible. Take Medkit, if using Healing Turret violates your principles. Anet has made it impossible for players to play healing turret like other turrets are played (left out).

It’s like if I refused to use my dodge function because I disagree with it being in an MMO, in principle, then building a ton of vigor in my setup. Not the smartest.

With these things in mind… if you are actually still set on using celestial gear, here’s the all-purpose build I recommend to you.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQFAUl0pyVX3SbF1LJyIFdGjBqgdJSR+pffUwWPIA-jECBYjBhgAhEBI5rIasVhFRjVVjIqWZDzerIa1SBwkyI-w

Why?

• 2 Turrets, no kits. (Medkit doesn’t count) it’s a legitimate turret build.
• Has a Stunbreak.
• Has sufficient condition removal of 7 per minute + preloaded antidotes.
• Has power damage, healing, and condition damage to benefit properly from Celestial gear.
• Has killing power. Net spam & acid bomb, while rocket turret is going ham.

glhf

Ralkuth.1456:

I love the concept of this build. I’ve run variations before. Glasscannons usually can’t eat the full combo due to lack of stunbreaks before dropping and you can do some serious 2k Rifle autos. Being on the receiving end of the combo with a Necro or an Engi (personal experience here…) hurts real bad.
I went 30/0/0/10/30 (http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQFAUl0pic38SiF17IyoHdGpJaiKkffewWtFEC-TkAg0CnIQShkDJDSSksINsA) for Fury + Static Discharge and quick Grenade Barrage gibs but I do feel naked without at least Protection Injection. That trait is very dependable.

@Alkaholic: For a title grind, if you have a free day I highly suggest setting a target of 5 wins -> 10 wins then a break. Couple that with chatting to good teammates/enemy players you meet. Time will fly by so fast. I also suggest a condition-based spec like (http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQJAqelIq6Z37SiF17IyoCdmoH5nl5YfewWyFEC-ToAAzCuIaS1krJTTymsNNWY+B) because it’s easier to play and require less concentration/allow more mistakes than a Power-based spec. Then again I haven’t come across too many warriors and the Control spec with protection and blocks and all that juggling might just be the answer to those. I would love to see some Warrior tears.

Running without protection injection takes huge stones, in pvp. In WvW, I YOLO even harder, typically. Switching slick shoes for either Rocket boots, or Rifle Turret

Alkaholic.3875:

I’d love to see some vids of this in action. I love/hate that we have so many builds. So much gear to farm. Full apothecary, dire, zerker and now whatever this build uses. Being gated by laurels means my alts will never get any love.

Edit:
PS. Thank God for protection injection and stabilizing armor. Just clicked it an saw that it used zerker armor. Sweet! I won’t have to farm gear to use in wvw. Though I would have to get another set of Runes of the Noble. 75 power vs 183 condi dmg but more importantly, 60% might duration vs 40% might duration AND 3 stacks of might on heal.

On the subject of runes & gearing -

The build linked is in a tPvP format. In WvW, Runes of the Noble would be competitive, but 2 Fire, 2 Strength, and 2 Altruism runes do the exact same things, just instead of Noble Rune’s +183 condition damage, instead you’d be bringing +50 power & +25 healing. Highly comparable for an Engineer power based build.

Since you brought up Stabilized armor – my favorite build doesn’t bring stabilized armor. I prefer having a 16s cooldown on my block, 20s cd on my burst and cripple added to the combo mix.

So, good news is that the final ten points in tools are highly adaptable. The 30/0/0/20/10 – 60/70 of points spent is quite firm for every damage based tPvP Engineer (in my personal opinion, since I’m not an advocate of deep firearms.)

Best places to shift those last 10 points around:

• You could easily put those in inventions for Stabilized Armor like you prefer, Cloaking Device, or Protective Shield if one of those appeals. Stabilized Armor in a build with toughness & protection would be truly impossible to deal with as a control warrior.

• You could put it into firearms for Hair Trigger, or Sitting Duck – quite an underrated trait. I like 10 points into Firearms when I build as a more tanky bruiser – the condition damage and very competitive Adept traits for dueling.

• You could re-invest it in Alchemy Further, adding HP & Boon duration for might stacking. Pick up a really nice trait, like Backpack Regenerator or Perhaps Automated response if you are a 1v1 troll at heart. I feel that this takes the build down a slightly different direction, however.

Writetyper.1985:

Considering I have first hand seen the strength of this build on the receiving end I’m aware that this can be very good, but I wonder why you’re using HGH/Might stacking rune set up with minimal might building capabilities? I mean, if you use someone else’s fire field you’ve got two blast finishers, and then weapon swap, and then enhance preformance off cooldown, I can only see ~18 stacks of might being up at any one time at maximum.

Of course that’s not horrible, but surely those rune slots would be better used damage wise on superior shrek runes or scholar or something?

If only the Engineer could use Grenades, Incendiary powder, and Toolkit and simultaneously fold all the condition pressure into pure power damage. I wish, too! It would make rune choices so easy to maximize.

I’ll explain my decisions the best I can, why 15 perma might, or 18 perma might if Medkit is being used – trumps the ogre/scholar set, for adding the most overall utility, in my experience.

• This build’s damage composition is probably 80% power damage, 20% condition damage. This is in a full berserker setup – the Engineer cannot escape hybrid damage, so might stacking which increases both power & condition damage is very effective.

• Of that 80% power damage this build does, about 45% of that 80% is explosion power damage. That’s why I’m not very incentivized to use the other options for Master Tier explosive traits, such as 10% explosion damage, which I’d value at about a 4.5% output increase. Or the 20% CD reduction to grenades, because my Grenade1 is actually a good filler.

Engineers & Elementalists that spew large involuntary amounts of conditions, even when power based, just scale so well with might. Having might makes your rifle hit like a truck, where the alternative makes your rifle hit like a mini cooper. I’d imagine that’d still hurt, but in my opinion, being stacked with might is almost always more dangerous than scholar runes/fire sigil. As an Engineer/ele, not as a thief/warrior

If there was a way to build solely a power damage assassin Engineer, like AK Engi’s 100mine setup, then might stacking would be less effective. But heck, even when I ran 100nades, I used a might stacking variant and that was even marginally better.

Hey Engineers,

There’s been a lot of demand for competitive power build alternatives for Static Discharge variants, lately. If you’ve ever felt something to that effect, try plugging in the following:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQFAUlIqiY38SyF17IyIFdmoJSR+pffewWPIEC-ToAg0CnIyRpjTHTOygsBNE5AB

^The above is my main tournament build. Note that Medkit and Healing turret are interchangeable. Medkit grants fury for the combo as well as better might stacking, & a heal refresh @ 25% health. Despite this, I normally run healing turret for the quicker healing, condition removal & water combos.

The main pillars of the build are:

• Great downed body pressure.
• Great juggling/control on kill targets.
• Good 1v1 capability (Does not keep points capped, however.)

Here is some basic tournament footage:
http://www.twitch.tv/chaithh/c/3125309

Here is a highlight of a good Death Combo™
http://www.twitch.tv/chaithh/c/3125426

Roles:

• Peripheral Team Fighter – This build functions best on the peripheral edges of teamfights, pumping grenades and hip shots into enemy clusters.

• Every 20s, attempts to combo an enemy Necromancer/Engineer priority target with Magnet enemy into dangerous position, Prybar, Overcharge Shot, Throw Wrench, Net Shot, Grenade Barrage. When magnet is done properly, all 5 subsequent actions are guaranteed hits, with full potency – provided that the target doesn’t have a stability/invulnerability to blow.

• Every 60s, attempt to ‘death combo’ an enemy Necromancer/Engineer priority target with Magnet enemy into dangerous position, Prybar, Slick Shoes ring, Grenade Barrage, Jump Shot, Blunderbus, Overcharge Shot, Net Shot, Throw Wrench, Grenade x2. Same deal, when landed properly, makes the juggled enemy target unable to do anything while you land a full range of abilities.

• Occasional Home Point – I swap out with the Good Fights™ spirit ranger who’s on home point duty if the enemy team is trying to counter him by sending Warriors over. This build duels Warriors pretty successfully, but there are better variants. It’s an ‘all-purpose’ build, for now.

Build #2

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQFAUlIqiY38SyF1LJyoCdGoC5lIF5n+95Bb9gQIA-ToAA1CnIyRpjTHTOygsBNE5AB

This is a more tanky variant of my main tournament build that is better suited to dueling Warriors while keeping the point capped in the Engineer’s favor. Less utility in teamfights than berserker.

Hope you guys enjoy trying out these builds.