Guild Wars 2

Tallman.5193:

CptCosmic.3156:

the healing values scales with level. healing power increases healing done but the gain is marginal cause it scales very poor. it is much more effective to take toughness to make heals more efficient.

While your advice is sound for solo play, most people who really invest into healing are looking to help heal others – if that’s the case here, he should invest in Healing to actually increase his heal output, instead of toughness to increase its self-heal efficiency.

I understand the point but it just is not worth.

the healing values scales with level. healing power increases healing done but the gain is marginal cause it scales very poor. it is much more effective to take toughness to make heals more efficient.

toughness is never a bad idea on the engineer. you can troll melee quite long and effectively with all the blinds and knockbacks but avoiding ranged attacks is much harder and you will eventually get hit.

imho after alot of playtesting thoughness/power/precision is the way to go. the bleed and burns are just a bonus.
http://tinyurl.com/8prlrz7
runes of the engineer and all traits would provide 30% (depending on how many vulnerability stacks you achieve) or more damage bonus making crits and every point of power more effective. sigils dont matter as they dont affect kits at the moment.

condition damage tree is not bad for flamethrower at all. the flamethrower (due to the nature of the main ability) will proc alot of vulnerabilities and bleeds thus it is not wasted. the free might stack will enhance both the damage from your conditions and from the flamethrower. the bleed will also automatically give you another free 5% damage boost from “target the maimed”. take “deadly mixture” and superior engineer runes and you look at 25% free damage boost before vulnerability stacks.

problem is that the engi bugs are well known since beta for months but for some reason none of the devs bothered to fix it.

a good option would be to take 10 points from alchemy and place them into tools for static discharge: http://tinyurl.com/9hyyyeq

1. I dont use rocket boots but slick shoes for extra CC and the ability to keep the range you desire.
2. crits not only increase the damage output and applies conditions but also makes every point of power more efficient. this is especially true if you consider that this setup increase the damage of the flamethrower by 30% and more (depending on how many vulnerability stacks you get via crits)

the effects you can produce via combos are not that strong, have very limited duration on a 45s long cooldown and you have to give up a utility slot for this which could be use for more damage or CC.

in no way were the effects gamebreaking or frustrating for other players. it was fun and gave the engineer a creative way to bring in support for the group in from of AOE combos. removing this just dumbs down the engineer even more to the 3 builds (pistol condition, power rifle or grenade spam) because everything else does not work as it should or is just bad due to clunky mechanic. the devs should instead focus on fixing the bugs.

I dont think this actually was an issue, it was fun and gave the engineer a creative way to bring in support for the group in from of AOE combos. the effects you can produce via combos are not that strong, have very limited duration on a 45s long cooldown and you have to give up a utility slot for this which could be use for more damage or CC.

in no way were the effects gamebreaking or frustrating for other players. removing this just dumbs down the engineer even more to the 3 viable builds (pistol condition, power rifle or grenade spam) because everything else does not work as it should or is just bad due to clunky mechanic. the devs should instead focus on fixing the bugs.

if you want to use flamethrower then go for: http://tinyurl.com/982hws5
gear: thoughness, power, precision & superior runes of engineer for another +5% damage bonus. sigils dont matter for flamethrower at the moment cause they dont work with kits

engineer rifle damage rotation is actually hard to pull of, easy to dodge and the build is squishy as hell but promotes close range.

the character is holding pistols wrong while performing the racial skill “hidden pistol” and the toolbelt equivalent on the engineer.

stopping firing is not an option because in a group you can stack retaliation endlessly via combos.

simple, retaliation needs internal cooldown on the person it deals damage to. it should not proc more then once per second on you, does not matter how many sources. it may not be that obvious at the moment but more and more people are realizing this and stack retaliation on the group. some abilites can potentially one hit yourself and this is not really fun mechanic. we had a similar buff in warhammer online before it was nerfed and I can assure you that the same will happen here, it will turn WVW into “which group kills himself faster” sooner or later.

Visionary.5681:

You have to sacrifice alot for +condition duration and or +specific condition duration. If it turns out that the ui is correct, then surely it means if you are going for a burn spec engineer.

1. actually it is pretty easy to get both +50% bleed and +50% burn duration
2. after some point it is way more efficient than getting more condition damage

2x krait, 2x afflicted, 2x lyssa runes, napalm specialist, 10 points in explosive tree, 1 sigil of smoldering

thus you have
bleed: 10% from explosive tree + 15% krait + 15% afflicted + 10% lyssa => +50%
burn: 10% from explosive tree + 20% napalm specialist + 10% lyssa + 10% sigil of smoldering => +50%

Gurt.9368:

Tolore.6138:

The important thing here is that you want to make sure all your moves are exactly on the second marks or else the condition duration is worthless(this is true only for poison/burn/bleed). This is very bad for our pistol 1’s bleed as you need a full 50% increase in bleed duration to get it to another second.

Unless I’m missing something in the mechanics, mathematically you’d need a 100% duration increase to get a bleed of 1 second to last for 2 seconds. 50% increase applied to a base 1 second comes out to 1.5 seconds.

he meant 1 ability, not one second. it is a 2 second bleed.

1. yes, only full seconds do damage but it might be still worth to have a bit of a bonus to condition duration because your target might have condition duration reduction.

also remember that it is more efficient to get condition duration instead of more condition damage at some point, especially for incendiary powder.

2. sigils dont stack “oddly” as you say it. some sigils share the cooldown. having 2 sigils of the same type with internal cooldown means that only 1 will go off. I have tested this extensively and found out that some sigils (some not even of the same type) share the cooldown. the best would be to use one that is passive in the second weapon slot.

it is not really that powerful for attacking but more for not dieing. you can get 6 seconds of invulnerability with traits and utility skills out of elixir S BUT elixir unarms everything you hold and switching applies 1s global cooldown thus you dont have enough time to get more than 1 attack off in that time.

all I can say is: condition application was nerfed on most classes, but for some reason thiefs and warriors were left out and still have high duration conditions and are able to stack bleed to 20 easily on their own.

coglin.1496:

Also I see several posters stating that you cannot AoE bleeds with explosive shot, but you absolutely can do so. With splash crits, all of your sigils as well as “on crit” damage traits take an AoE effect.

1. sigils share cooldown, this means 2 sigils with internal cooldown wont work together.
2. due to internal cooldown sigils will affect only one target.

the only effect that will proc on the AOE on regular basis are firearms on crit proc traits and sigils without internal cooldown (and from my knowledge there arent many without internal cooldown)

Andazeus.1928:

Why a stun for pistol/pistol if you can have a stun plus knockback, two dazes, block and projectile reflection with a shield alone?

because blowtorch deals 6k damage lategame with proper equipment (althought it takes 9 seconds for the burn)

people are underestimating the blowtorch ability. with proper equipment and runes it will deal 6k damage total when you manage to hit it at close range.

btw rifle warrior is stronger then engineer in both power and condition damage setup. just compare the pistol 1 vs rifle 1. 6s bleed vs 2s bleed. higher base damage, higher range and warrior can also make it pierce + 20% cd reduction and it is not even grandmaster trait… warrior just needs nerfs everywhere.

FROGJON.3094:

CptCosmic.3156:

durability alone does not help if you cant fight off your enemy. if you want a durable build go pistol shield condition damage: http://tinyurl.com/8h56z6t

1v1 you can kill
2v1 also
3v1 you can only survive

1. if you fight 3vs1 then you are doing it wrong
2. it takes you too long to win a fight

PokeyPenguin.6178:

Id rather see other down states be nerfed to equal ours. But your right, Engi down is rather week.

this could be done too.

BeardRex.6739:

What? We have 2 interrupts. Kinda OP. Plus, in PvE, grapple line + booby trap can equal an easy rally.

rally with what? the nonexistent damage?

durability alone does not help if you cant fight off your enemy. if you want a durable build go pistol shield condition damage: http://tinyurl.com/8h56z6t

lets forget all the bugs and issues with kits and traits for a moment =D
lets discuss something: engineer downed state abilites…

in my opinion they need a rework.

throw junk: a random condition, again something random destroying the fun just like the toss elixir abilities. random abilities have no place in a game where a big part is pvp. now look at ranger with nonrandom FIVE SECOND bleed additionally to his pet that still attacks you.

Grappling line: I am dying, why should I grab the enemy to me? I should be able to use it gain distance instead but I guess its better to use it do get killed faster

PokeyPenguin.6178:

There also many complaints about it in WvW, It will probably be reworked over the next few months.

But, keep in mind, super fast attack speed is really good for us, especially if they ever fix sigils with kits. I can’t wait until i’m walking around with 20 stacks of might because my flamethrower or grenade kit crits 4 times a second!

i am sure this will receive a nerf after a week if that happens. 25 might stack would be easy to achieve with crit condition damage build, thats free 875 power and condition damage. proper runes and you have perma burn and the burn damage alone would deal crazy amounts of damage.

with my pistols I use utility skills exist to help out the weapon not the other way around so your point is invalid

JoxerNL.3752:

CptCosmic.3156:

the mine field toolbelt triggers the combo field 5 times and is alot easier to time right.

I have no problem doing it anymore after a day of WvWing, sPvPing and some dungeoning.
Guess it’s upto the player in the end

that is not the point. the point is the mine field triggest the combo FIVE times. the turret explosion only once.

JoxerNL.3752:

CptCosmic.3156:

2. AOE combo water field from the toolbelt with mine field => crazy amounts of heal

Actually the turret puts down the same AoE, just explode the turret 0.5 seconds after the top thingy starts spinning, once you get the timing you only need your turret for the combo.

the mine field toolbelt triggers the combo field 5 times and is alot easier to time right.

sorry but the healing turret is by far better in WvW.

1. you place the turret and quickly pick it up => AOE heal and regeneration and 15 second cooldown recharge
2. AOE combo water field from the toolbelt with mine field => crazy amounts of heal

high crit with condition damage. bleed on crit and burn damage will work better. what is more important, with some proper runes can easily achieve perma burning and burning is the most powerful damaging condition. power sounds nice on paper but it does not really work due to the constant misses of flame jet. a few misses dont bother condition build that much.

the explosive shot from pistol does not apply bleed on the explosion (which the tooltip claims it does)

0. some kits work well but it is too much of a hassle to use them most of the time.

RapBreon.9836:

CptCosmic.3156:

I have met plenty of nade spamming engineers and none was able to constantly hit me. I dont have to care about aiming with pistols, I just stack my conditions which together with my attacks will deal close to 3k dps and with perma swiftness and vigor I can just dodge and avoid grenades all day long.

Condition builds have a hard time with heavy removal builds, especially Mesmer or Necros. Or another 409 Engi.

condition removal is annoying but luckily the engineer conditions have mostly short duration and are reapplied very fast

also I wish you good luck against anyone with retaliation. getting hit back 3 times everytime you hit with a grenade ability is not fun, especially in WvW and area retaliation combos.

shortcake.8659:

Retaliation is just dumb, especially in wvw. If you’ve ever tried defending against a zerg that has any aoe retal going, it’s hilariously awful. I’ve killed myself by throwing grenades in under two seconds without ever taking a single attack from an enemy.

mhm there was somehting similar in warhammer online till it got nerfed good old times

RapBreon.9836:

CptCosmic.3156:

there is a big problem with this kind of testing.
1. you dont have the proper equipment for a condition build, condition build should look for atleast 1200 condition damage and alot of condition duration
2.you are shooting a stationary target that does not dodge, does not heal and goes down pretty fast. fights in pvp dont last 5 seconds, they last longer. players can also dodge and move around, thus power build damage will go down significantly but the stacks of bleed will continue to do damage.

I did a build that hard stacked condition damage, I got similar results, there is no amulet that allows 1200 condition damage whilst allowing me to keep the other stats. This is why I dislike Rampager’s amulet. They have close to maximum relevant condition duration, using same trait trees but different runes.

I’ve paid lip-service to longer fights. Players dodging also affects the condition aspect on grenades, if you miss Shrapnel grenade, no dot damage for 5 seconds is worse than missing one set of regular grenades. That scenario works both ways.

Grenades are useless in small-scale PvP? I absolutely hammer people 1v1 with them, I find them beyond useful in duels. We must have very different experiences with the kit.

I have met plenty of nade spamming engineers and none was able to constantly hit me. I dont have to care about aiming with pistols, I just stack my conditions which together with my attacks will deal close to 3k dps and with perma swiftness and vigor I can just dodge and avoid grenades all day long.

RapBreon.9836:

I have decided to do another test for the sake progress! Same rotation as last time.

Traits were;

30 into explosives, incendiary powder, explosive powder and grenadier.

30 into firearms, precise sights, napalm specialist, nothing.

10 into tools, taking nothing, done only for crit damage.

These are pretty much the best traits for improving grenade damage. Blood injection could of been an option for the condition build, but due to only having 1.2k vitality and such a high crit rate with Rampagers, I felt 10% more crit damage was better.

Power build: 300 condition damage, 130% condition duration, 3,273 attack, 49% chance to crit, 180% crit damage. Ogre runes, Zerker Amulet.

Time to kill

1. 5.9
2. 6
3. 5.7
4. 5.9
5. 6.1

Average. 5.92

Condition build: 1,127 Condition damage, 130% condition duration, 2,750 attack, 62% crit chance, 160% crit damage.

1. 6.9
2. 6.9
3. 6.7
4. 7.1
5. 7.2

Average. 6.96

This only further illustrates to me grenades are not a condition centric kit, they are a direct damage kit with some condition damage tacked on. The purpose of the kit is not condition damage like say the pistol is. They function better with traits and stats with power-crit and crit damage and anything that supports this set-up.

This was done on a heavy dummy and maybe in very long fights could condition damage ramp up enough to possibly catch up on heavily armoured targets. But seriously Rampagers Amulet for a condition build? You’d be stomped on so quick without some way to survive and let those conditions wear your opponent down, I still maintain even under the absolute best circumstances conditions for the grenade can’t compete with the direct damage component.

there is a big problem with this kind of testing.
1. you dont have the proper equipment for a condition build, condition build should look for atleast 1200 condition damage and alot of condition duration
2.you are shooting a stationary target that does not dodge, does not heal and goes down pretty fast. fights in WvW dont last 5 seconds, they last longer. players can also dodge and move around, thus power build damage will go down significantly but the stacks of bleed will continue to do damage. power build has other advantages. it is apples and oranges.

beside that, grenades are almost useless in small scale pvp. I can assure you, you will not land a single grenade on me in pvp.

Minilys.4765:

CptCosmic.3156:

Minilys.4765:

CptCosmic.3156:

i didnt included shrapnel trait into the calculation. with just 51% crit chance every second grenade toss applies a 5s bleed with that setup (6 nades with grenadier * 0.51 * 0.33 => 1,0098)

You throw 3 grenades per second, not 6. Unless you’re talking underwater.

I have never said anything about throwing speed (second adjective != second substantive)

Re read your first post

just aim for atleast 50% crit chance and you apply one 5s bleed every second ability

The “ability” is what escaped me. I instead focused on the every second.
But it doesn’t really matter, since it’s pretty meaningless to know that you get roughly 1 bleed every two cast.

it isnt meaningless cause the bleed lasts long.

Minilys.4765:

CptCosmic.3156:

i didnt included shrapnel trait into the calculation. with just 51% crit chance every second grenade toss applies a 5s bleed with that setup (6 nades with grenadier * 0.51 * 0.33 => 1,0098)

You throw 3 grenades per second, not 6. Unless you’re talking underwater.

I have never said anything about throwing speed (second adjective != second substantive)

Minilys.4765:

CptCosmic.3156:

and my calculations are right:
30% from explosives tree
+15% 2x krait runes
+15% 2x afflicted runes
+10% 2x lyssa runes
=> +70%
sharpshooter 3s +70% =>5s
shrapnel 12s +70% => 20s

grenadier throws 3 nades thus statistically you get 3 crits every 2nd grenade toss with 50% crit chance. that means statistically you have 0.99 grenades proc a bleed every 2nd grenade toss . if you have slightly more then 50% crit then you get atleast 1 bleed proc every second grenade toss statistically.

I didn’t mean the duration but the proc chance:
(Let’s pretend proc chances add for the sake of simplicity)
You throw 3 grenades per second (spamming only #1 let’s not add poison grenade or grenade barrage, again for the sake of simplicity)
With Sharpnel (trait) you get a flat 6% per grenade so 18% chance per cast to bleed.
With Sharpshooter you have a 30% chance on a crit to bleed; at 50% crit that’s 15% chance per grenade, totalling 45% per cast.
So at 1 cast per second (or 3 grenades) at 50% crit, your chance to inflict a bleed, either from Sharpshooter or Sharpnel is 63%.

i didnt included shrapnel trait into the calculation. with just 51% crit chance every second grenade toss applies a 5s bleed with that setup (6 nades with grenadier * 0.51 * 0.33 => 1,0098)

Minilys.4765:

CptCosmic.3156:

proper runes give you a 8 second bleed from shrapnel grenade.

Shrapnel Grenade’s bleed base duration is 12 seconds, don’t know where you’re getting those 8 seconds from but it seems you’re mistaken.

And it looks like you’re wrong with sharpnel+sharpshooter calculations as well.

I actually meant 20seconds, I dont know why I wrote 8 =D

and my calculations are right:
30% from explosives tree
+15% 2x krait runes
+15% 2x afflicted runes
+10% 2x lyssa runes
=> +70%
sharpshooter 3s +70% =>5s
shrapnel 12s +70% => 20s

grenadier throws 3 nades thus statistically you get 3 crits every 2nd grenade toss with 50% crit chance. that means statistically you have 0.99 grenades proc a bleed every 2nd grenade toss. if you have slightly more then 50% crit then you get atleast 1 bleed proc every second grenade toss statistically.

Aristio.2784:

We have high burst on the Rifle too. With the Rifle, I usually go with Gadgets as well. So my burst rotation is Analyze>Personal Battering Ram>Jump Shot>Net Shot>Blunderbuss>Throw Wrench. EASILY breaks 10k, 15k on lighter targets.

one dodge and some thoughness and your rotation maybe scratches 50% of someones hp and then you die to 3k dps from condtions because you have no condition removal. this build is not as good as you think.

I would go for condition damage crit build and rabid amulet, mostly because I like condition damage and good amounts of thoughness. the grenade kit already has 2 damage conditions in his kit. you also throw 3 grenades with grenadier thus have 3 chances to proc on crit conditions with each skill.

conditions with grenades are very potent.
incendiary powder, napalm specialst and 30 points in explosions give you a 3s burn.
30 points in explosions and proper runes give you a 8 second bleed from shrapnel grenade. the proc from sharpshooter would last 5 seconds. just aim for atleast 50% crit chance and you apply one 5s bleed every second ability statistically from sharpshooter + the bleed from shrapnel.

Maderas.9741:

The only real beneficiary is Shrapnel Grenade, Poison seems to scale really, really poorly from the testing I’ve done over the past few days. It seems like the skill is meant to be used for the combo field rather than to do direct damage.

condition damage always scales the same on every ability. you just dont have the proper equipment for a condition damage build.

I think the reason was cause engineer has easier access to all conditions. anyway it does make no sense, all condition applications where nerfed when I am not mistaken but it looks like the warrior one was forgotten.

nice on paper bad in reality. you have only 1 high cooldown delayed condition removal. you dont have the elixir S for oh shiat moments. you waste alot of points in explosion tree without actually using grenades but just for a few might stacks.

beside that an elixir pistol build with HGH and a single sigil of strength will constantly have a high amount of might stacks during combat. not only that but will have better damage projection at range, offers AOE with coated bullets, has alot more utility and does not rely on clunky flamethrower mechanics.

if anything I would go for a flamethrower HGH build and rune for might duration. you would have 9x might just from juggernaut + all the additional might applications from elixirs. much easier, has alot more utility and does not waste so many points in explosion tree.

in short: there is no reason to go for it.

Brick Mantooth.9520:

CptCosmic.3156:

Brick Mantooth.9520:

CptCosmic.3156:

there is only 1 issue with condition removal and it is your lack of player skill, thats all. play thief then you will see what lack of condition removal means.

Not sure if serious. Hide in Shadows, the skill you start with, that’s a healing skill slot, removes bleeding, poison and burning AND it puts you in stealth AND heals you… on a 30 second cooldown.

I’d take that over a turret that has a mystery ticker and an elixir with a 40 second cooldown that takes a skill slot.

apples and oranges. it removes all those things but oh wait you are crippled/chilled/immobilized, have 10 or more stacks of vulnerability and other nasty stuff on you like confusion. what does your hide in shadow help you here? players are not npcs that stop attacking when you are in stealth, a player will still hit you by AOE or shooting in your direction. beside that, it is situational at most or would you waste your healing skill cooldown while you are almost full health just because I stacked some conditions on you at the beginning of the fight? I guess not.

the most effective form of condition removals are either burst all at once or steady one by one. engineer has both. also I dont have any issues with the healing turret condition removal even it is not instant.

When we’re talking about not having a viable option other than using elixirs and unreliable cooldown turrets, you say we’re full of it and compare it to a thief. When we say the thief which you stated was unequivocally worse than the engi, has a better skill for the same thing we are discussing it’s “apples to oranges”. Got it.

that was not the topic, have you read anything here? the OP claimed you have go deeply into alchemy otherwise the condition removal is useless which is wrong.

also the thief skill is not the same, it removes only 3 types of conditions on just a shorter cooldown. you cant use it at the start of the fight when you have alot of bleed stacks and your health is still almost full or you waste the heal and you cant reserve it when you desperately need a heal. it is far worse and more situational for a bit lower cooldown which does not matter as you will use it anyway only once per fight.