Here’s the open world build I’ve been using for the new HoT content:
http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vdAQFASnUUB9dh1aBupC0ehl7iie1j9ZHcBjwAYcLaiPD-TxRBABXp8jm9HwTHwCXAAAeAAUq+jZKBBA-e
Juggernaut + Mass Momentum allow you to sustain 10 stacks of might, even without Strength runes when you camp FT. This allows FT to be competitive with other builds in DPS when solo since you generally won’t sustain that much might on your own unless you stop to do a lot of active might stacking.
Stability with this allows you to deal with the CC that’s now thrown around in new open world content.
Static Discharge + Rocket Kick allows you to combo this with Flame Blast to burst low health mobs.
Rocket Boots with Gadgeteer provides high mobility which is great for either travel or kiting particularly tough mobs.
Shredder Gyro can be tossed on lightning fields for long fights to stack vuln or on the FT fire field for short or AoE fights.
Elite can easily be switched out for just about anything else.
Scrapper traits allow you to run this with zerker gear.
I honestly haven’t had that issue with stunbreaks, but that’s because I’ve found that juggernaut with mass momentum is pretty awesome for open world. Here’s what I’m running:
http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vdAQFASnUUB9dh1aBupC0ehl7iie1j9ZHcBjwAYcLaiPD-TxRBABXp8jm9HwTHwCXAAAeAAUq+jZKBBA-e
Since you’re limited in personal might stacking and don’t really get in danger of wasted might due to the cap, such as in group play, this ends up giving pretty substantial damage, despite being based on FT, and the perma-stability negates the need for a stunbreak.
However, if you don’t like Juggernaut, there are still 3 great options for a stunbreak: Elixir Gun, Slick Shoes, and Reactive Lenses (Tools trait).
Even if you run a pure gyro build and don’t like the Blast Gyro, you can use Sneak Gyro to stealth you when you get CCed.
As for Swiftness, I also haven’t found this as a problem, particularly since Streamlined Kits is such an easy choice for just about any engi build. Even if you are obstinately opposed to the Tools trait line for some reason, you can easily use blasts with your lightning fields for swiftness. There are so many ways to blast fields, even without having to stop that this shouldn’t be an issue.
As for armor, I’m still finding zerker to be fine for open world, but knights/valk would be fine if you want more sustain. If you run a kit swap build, you can go heavier on the valk side and just run a sigil of intelligence.
Overall, just remember that just because you have new shiny Scrapper stuff doesn’t mean you can only run builds that use only Scrapper stuff.
What are you doing wrong? I can’t say, but if you want to see how strong Scrapper can be, run a build like the one below (shamelessly stole that one from Chaithh’s Twitch). Builds like these allow for really high sustain with substantial damage.
This is, of course, assuming that you’re talking from a PvP perspective.
http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vdAQFASlUUhqrYnXwdLQ7FLsFFdwP8JPYIeiBgYHNFPBA-TJhHwAEeAAAuAAj2fwYZAA
I love how that site was brigaded by reddit to force positive reviews from the fanboys.
Guess you didn’t see it a couple days ago, when the average score was like 3/10 because of all the buttmad kiddies giving 0 stars?
So all Reddit fan boys trying to manipulate the metric score are any better than these so called butt mad kids? There are some truths to both sides in the reviews!
Reddit fan boys? right because any who like the expansion and disagree with vocal minority are fan boys right? The fact is bad posts there can be downvoted to oblivion, while bad post on offical forum stays.
Pretty much. “Fan boy” is just another name calling tactic that uses rhetoric on the level of gradeschool kids to try and subvert anyone from feeling comfortable speaking up about anything they like about a game.
lol the same thing as calling anyone that disagrees with you point of view is a “level of gradeschool kids” and you try to subvert anyone who dislike likes something about the game.
Look the rhetoric works both ways, which was what I was pointing out!
People calling players giving bad reviews kids etc and you get mad because some said “fan boy” You can’t have it both ways!!
Like I said there are some truths to both sides in the reviews and you people should be more open minded then being blinded by your own personal view point on something. So really no need for anyone to attack anyone regardless which side of the line you stand on since no one side is any better then the other.
No, not really. See, the difference is ‘fan boy’ criticizes by applying an identity (i.e. name calling), while my statement criticized an action (name calling).
I didn’t call anyone a grade school kid, even if I did say that name calling was a childish act.
Review in progress from MMORPG.com:
There's no way to get mastery points anymore?
in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns
Posted by: Dahkeus.8243
You only need 2-3 people for the champ hero points. I logged on this morning to pick up a hero point at around 7 am and was still able to find someone. I just had to wait for maybe a minute after I arrived at the hero point.
Hmm…first thing that comes to mind is messing with their dyes. You can dye their character pink or rainbow colored and it won’t cost them anything to change it back.
You could swap armor skins, but that would cost them transmute charges to change it back.
edit for the “long con”, you could buy a cheap low level weapon and then transmute it to look like their regular weapon. Unequip their regular weapon and put it in the bank. This will cost them 1-2 transmute charge (2h weapon vs 2 1h weapons), but that’s pretty negligible.
Not at home right now or I would. =P
@ OP: That’s pretty similar to what I run for open world stuff, except I use Mass Momentum over Expert Examination since that’s pretty much a guaranteed 10 stacks of might that don’t go away as long as you stick to FT.
If you want vuln stacked, drop the shredder on a lightning field near your mob.
I love how that site was brigaded by reddit to force positive reviews from the fanboys.
Guess you didn’t see it a couple days ago, when the average score was like 3/10 because of all the buttmad kiddies giving 0 stars?
So all Reddit fan boys trying to manipulate the metric score are any better than these so called butt mad kids? There are some truths to both sides in the reviews!
Reddit fan boys? right because any who like the expansion and disagree with vocal minority are fan boys right? The fact is bad posts there can be downvoted to oblivion, while bad post on offical forum stays.
Pretty much. “Fan boy” is just another name calling tactic that uses rhetoric on the level of gradeschool kids to try and subvert anyone from feeling comfortable speaking up about anything they like about a game.
And I thought the idea of leeching was a dead concept for modern MMOs, lol.
I’m sure you can do this if you want, but just be aware that you still won’t be able to get all the hero points with ‘teleport to friend’ due to the diverse nature of how you complete hero point objectives.
I stopped playing GW2 a little over a year ago and I am considering coming back. However I just want to know from those who are playing HoT, is the expansion worth the $50 price? Do you feel like it has plenty of new content? Or do you feel like it was a bit pricey for the content you received?
What I am looking for is, should I go ahead and buy now, or wait a few months for a sale?
Yea, in terms of pure content, it’s definitely worth the $50. That doesn’t mean you’ll love the expansion (as seen by the angry posts around here), but there’s tons of stuff to do. Below is a link to a vid that summarizes all the stuff in the xpac pretty well:
I love how that site was brigaded by reddit to force positive reviews from the fanboys.
Guess you didn’t see it a couple days ago, when the average score was like 3/10 because of all the buttmad kiddies giving 0 stars?
So all Reddit fan boys trying to manipulate the metric score are any better than these so called butt mad kids? There are some truths to both sides in the reviews!
Sorry, but asking for people who are generally more caught up in playing the game than raging on the forums to actually speak up and balance the conversation isn’t ‘manipulating’ the score. Manipulating the score would be asking people to register false accounts or to get friends who haven’t even played HoT to post high reviews.
I mean, that’s like saying that a politician telling people to go out and vote during a speech is ‘manipulating’ the vote. It’s not fixing the election just because they’re speaking to people that agree with them.
I’d get a ton of stuff to invest in my guild’s hall.
Is there a pic of this skin anywhere?
Awesome.
Now go do it again on ten other characters. From the exact same hero points every single time.
Ok, so that’s 50 days if you really need to unlock a specialization on 10 characters.
GW2, base game, has been out for 3 years. If you really need to burn through everything new on every single character on your account in less than 2 months, you have pretty unrealistic expectations.
Wanna know why reviews have gone up? Because tons of people who were upset with decisions such as the elite unlock requirements got up in arms and posted bad reviews.
Meanwhile, people who were happy with the game played it. Now that those players have had a chance to get their fill, they’ve come back and given their honest assessment of the expansion as a whole.
You’ll see this same thing play out with other expansions. It’s the same reason why a game can be successful and run profitably while the forums for those games are full of angry, bitter posts.
People who enjoy the game play it. People who are upset about it go try to find someone to listen to their complaints.
It’s worth mentioning the game has a 5.8/10 on Metacritic right now.
Granted, thats with only 23 user reviews.
I’d give the game a 5/10, and really only because its riding on the base game’s coattails. The maps feel claustrophobic. Acquiring mastery points and hero points is confusing with the mastery gating system not being explained anywhere on the map. The open world content is limited and repetitive. And the thought of doing all this over, and over, and over again, each time I want to unlock the elite spec on an alt makes me want to just put the whole thing down.
There were so many poor design choices made for HoT. It’s not unplayable, but the idea of playing it is not attractive to me at all.
It’s worth mentioning that it’s now 7.0 on Metacritic. Pretty much shows that the majority of people who gave the expac a review so quickly were people who just had a grudge with a single decision that ANet made and didn’t really even play the content to get a well-rounded view.
I’m genuinely curious.
I can guarantee you that no one who has the information on HoT sales will release that information, especially on the forums. GW2 is ran by a publicly owned company and things like sales have a huge impact to shareholders and investors.
What you’re seeing here is another generic bitter forum troll who’s just trying to pass on their bad day to someone else.
Like all the topics on megaserver being broken ? well why no word at all on Anet about it ? maybe it’s not broken and there is just so few ppl who like h.o.t zones that there are empty ..
You’re right. Totally a conspiracy. I blame aliens.
You can pretty much take the MetaBattle Power Grenadier build and swap the Tools specialization for Scrapper and swap Rifle for Hammer. The build works pretty much the same way, except you use the hammer skills instead of rifle skills in your rotation.
I know people love to hate meta builds, but it’s honestly a lot of fun and hammer skills bring a lot more potential utility to the table.
I’m genuinely curious.
I can guarantee you that no one who has the information on HoT sales will release that information, especially on the forums. GW2 is ran by a publicly owned company and things like sales have a huge impact to shareholders and investors.
What you’re seeing here is another generic bitter forum troll who’s just trying to pass on their bad day to someone else.
People like this will make any excuse to justify their own self pity or grudges. If GW2 had a rough launch, people would say it’s because the devs did a terrible job and launched a bad expansion. When it actually launches smoothly and has frequent and immediate updates to any problems, people say that it’s because the game isn’t popular enough.
Basically, there’s always an excuse from people that rely on them.
(edited by Dahkeus.8243)
So…what are you getting at? Do you think that people don’t actually enjoy the game in a way that it doesn’t feel like a grind? Cuz I fit in that camp. Yea, I wish I could play with all the elite stuff at the start, but I’m really enjoying the journey to unlocking everything.
And that’s why it doesn’t feel like a grind. I’m not just fixating on what I don’t have. I’m checking out all the new events, exploring all the new content, and just generally paying attention to what’s out there and available right now.
If you think the game is a grind, then either you have the wrong mindset for an MMO or maybe you just really are better off with a different game for some reason, but the GW2 content is really high quality and shouldn’t be a grind for people that like games like this.
What is your take on the events/exp/gated rewards then?
Nobody has ever answer that question, instead they keep on pointing to exploration and some other vague kitten. Please answer my question.
“events/exp/gated rewards”? Can you clarify on what exactly you’re asking about?
edit Ohh, you mean about how elites are gated behind hero points and how some of those are gated behind masteries?
I already responded to that, but as I said, I like it.
The idea of having to get Y ability before you can get to X area is nothing new and what you need to do to unlock anything is far from grindy since there’s so much content to do. The new areas are huge and there’s plenty of new events to join in that keep things interesting until you can get to those areas you couldn’t reach before.
I think that elites probably should have had a lower requirement to become fully unlocked, but I love that masteries take time.
There’s no need to do anything repetitive (which is the only situation where I think the word ‘grind’ would occur). Also, feel free to check out the latest WoodenPotatoes video on youtube as an example of this. There’s events on there that the majority of the players probably haven’t even experienced yet.
(edited by Dahkeus.8243)
So…what are you getting at? Do you think that people don’t actually enjoy the game in a way that it doesn’t feel like a grind? Cuz I fit in that camp. Yea, I wish I could play with all the elite stuff at the start, but I’m really enjoying the journey to unlocking everything.
And that’s why it doesn’t feel like a grind. I’m not just fixating on what I don’t have. I’m checking out all the new events, exploring all the new content, and just generally paying attention to what’s out there and available right now.
If you think the game is a grind, then either you have the wrong mindset for an MMO or maybe you just really are better off with a different game for some reason, but the GW2 content is really high quality and shouldn’t be a grind for people that like games like this.
You haven’t been around for many MMO expansion releases, have you?
^ This.
HoT is easily one of the highest quality/smoothest launches for just about any MMO in a long time.
Complain about the grind for hero points or any other decision the devs made that you disagree about if you want, but there’s really no argument to say that this launch was excessively buggy or unpolished.
Yea, this kinda shows that you can’t be an expert in GW2 just because of your WoW/LoL experience, even if you were a glad. =P
Probably, but honestly there’s almost no reason to ever be using the auto attack anyways. The non-AA skills deal way more damage and you’re better off using a kit like the grenade kit when those skills are on cooldown.
Yea, I’d honestly say that from a min/max DPS perspective, the hammer is better than rifle. Considering that it also has some really advantageous utility on the weapon skills that the rifle doesn’t and I’d say that hammer is hands down the best weapon for any power-based dungeon/fractal scenario. Considering the usefulness of blocks/reflects, I think it’s even better for fractals.
My biggest beef is that the function gyro still doesn’t have enough health. Give this little guy some sustain please.
Viper's (new DPS) Insignia/Inscription Mats
in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns
Posted by: Dahkeus.8243
So, this stat combo is really in direct competition with Sinister stats as they’re both glass cannon condition stats (although Viper has a bit more power). Because of this, I think a lot of people are waiting to any theorycrafting to show whether this is better than sinister for their build. Because of that, I think one of the big community names in PvE could probably make a big impact on this market just by posting a video on how much better/worse these stats are than Sinister.
Buy it. It’s the best xpac I’ve seen for an MMO in 7 years of MMO gaming.
I’m definitely not surprised to see so many people playing the elite specs. They’re the new shiny and even high end players are going to want to play with what’s new when it comes out. However, there’s definitely some balancing issues going on. Here’s my overall 2 copper:
1) AoE overall is a bit too strong. A lot of this comes back to Dragonhunter needing a damage decrease to traps, but Reaper also contributes to this quite a bit with the new DS.
2) Chronomancer will probably do much better once AoE is toned down, but I expect there to be a lot of calls for a nerf to them, simply because of how potentially aggravating it can be to fight against them.
3) Thieves will benefit from less AoE as well, but they still need more sustain for actively fighting. This shouldn’t be confused with being able to disengage from a fight to survive. The devs know the danger of putting too many evade frames on thieves from previous balance patches and I wouldn’t suggest that, but their base HP or toughness may need to be tweaked upwards.
4) Warriors need a more specific reason to be brought to a group. There’s a lot of potential to have warriors as the high-stability/high-CC brawler and I think this should be focused on with any buffs they receive.
Can other classes hit on top of walls (like staff eles) or is this an engi-specific issue?
9/10
I’m not a big fan of the hero point gating for specializations, even though I totally don’t mind how long it may take to grind out masteries. However, there’s so much good, solid content in addition to stuff that I never expected would be in a GW2 expansion that it’s easily the best MMO expansion I’ve played.
Agreed.
One thing in particular I’d say was that I’m usually not a fan of open world PvE, but I’ve really enjoyed travelling around the new maps. Not only are they beautiful, but they’re deep, challenging, and interesting.
While I’m not a fan of the elite spec requiring so many hero points, I really have enjoyed the gameplay that’s involved.
Big thanks to all the devs who put in all the extra hours that it took to make this expansion.
New content is amazing. If I wasn’t at work, I’d be in game instead of posting here, lol.
“will said crash be good for the game?”
There’s a lot of rhetorical charge in that statement, lol.
The economy will be fine. We’ll see some definite change in the economy, but hardly anything to be called a crash.
Well lots of ppl with high ticket items on the tp will loose thousands of gold, in my case I will have 3k gold stuck in the tradepost forever or loose hundreds if gold by relisting. Thats somewhat a crash, since it affects a large portion of players.
In other words, because you have one or more high priced items listed, this shift in the economy that might hurt you means the economy is going to crash. Remember, making an sweeping conclusion based on your particular case is not always justified.
Your wrong. As I said, it affect anyone with items on the tp in different scales.
We’ll see. I have trouble believing that your conclusion that some high priced skins having to go down some in price will crash the economy though. Your pocket book getting hurt isn’t my pocketbook getting hurt isn’t the economy crashing.
Ok pal.
Well, if it crashes, maybe they’ll get a full time economist to work for them to study the economy and model the changes before they make them.
They already have a full time economist studying everything.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/members/John-Smith-4610/showposts
Here’s my 2 copper:
From a pure output standpoint, I don’t think that Scrapper really shakes up a lot of meta builds. If you’re maxing out DPS as condi, you won’t use scrapper and if you max it out as power, then you just use a hammer instead of rifle.
From a flavor standpoint, it’s a moderate change. The utility from the hammer is really pretty nice, but the gyros don’t change much since most aren’t worth using anyways. Function gyro is great for rezzing downed players, but it really shines in sPvP where the specialization is fully unlocked anyways.
If you’re looking for a profession that is really changed from the elite spec being unlocked, consider Necro. Reaper is a really strong elite and it’s a big change from traditional necro. Chronomancer and Dragonhunter would probably be a close second on this. Dragonhunter, however, seems to depend on traps for a lot of damage and you’ll have to wait a while to get those unlocked since they’re on the far side of the elite unlock circle.
Hmm…I actually think it looks better than the original, but I don’t think they could match the concept artwork since it would clip with the muzzle.
“will said crash be good for the game?”
There’s a lot of rhetorical charge in that statement, lol.
The economy will be fine. We’ll see some definite change in the economy, but hardly anything to be called a crash.
Best expansion I’ve played in my 7+ MMO history. I think WoodenPotatoes has said why it’s a great expac better than I have, but I hope they devs realize just how amazing their work has turned out to be.
Sad to see that, but not entirely a surprise.
Player expectations are through the roof, and this xpac kinda shows that. ANet made an expansion with MORE content than players had asked for and had a perfectly smooth release.
However, players are frustrated that they don’t get everything they want on day 1 and actually have to play against challenging mobs for once.
I’ve played MMOs for over 7 years and this is probably the best expansion I’ve seen. However, MMOs are a really crowded genre that are filled with players who see everything they want spread across every MMO out there who don’t understand the scope of work it takes to create hardly any of it.
There is an option…but I don’t know what it’s called.
It lasts 4 seconds…you don’t need 5 stacks.
Save your melodramatic cries of injustice for something of actual consequence.
It works fine with action camera. And it wasn’t that bad before. You just had to aim your character in the general direction of your targeted enemy.
Really?
Come on…take your head out of the sand for a second.
We got TONS of new armor skins during the time when there was no xpac.
With HoT, we don’t need a billion skins because we got actual content.
Ever think that maybe we didn’t get skins because the devs were busy giving us:
– Entirely new zones
– New progression for every profession in the form of Elite Specializations
– An entirely new targetting/control system (action combat system)
– Massive guild halls
– Complete new crafting profession
– 3 new Legendaries
– New legendary crafting system that gives depth to the path of getting legendaries
– Gliding system with customizeable and dyable glider skins
– New WvW borderlands
– Entirely new sPvP game mode and map
– Custom PvP arenas for guild halls
– New levels of Fractals
– Motherkittening raids
I mean come on…consider for a moment what it takes to create all of that and then consider that there are at least 2 complete new armor skins (not including the new outfit that you got for free pre-release and the new outfit on the gemstore) and several new weapon skins on top of unique weapon skins and armor skin for Elite Specializations.
If this dissappoints you, don’t ever expect to be impressed by anything a developer will come out with.
If it works for regular Engineer, it works with Scrapper. That being said, the hammer isn’t really well designed for a condition-based build, so your mileage with condi builds may vary.
With your first build, you still have 2 water fields and 4 blast finishers plus a leap finisher outside of your healing turret. If you get in trouble, you can use Regenerating Mist or Elixir Shell with your rifle leap, EG blast, FT blast, and/or Orbital Strike blast to heal up.
If those are on cd or if you’re still low on health, a lot of times you can just back away from a fight and just focus on your more ranged attacks like grenades until your heal comes off cd. It’s a small DPS sacrifice, but much smaller than getting downed.
Also, don’t forget about your condi removal on EG skill 5 if you get caught with a condi when HT is on cd.
True , but for me it feels “painfull” to use Orbi or , JS and AB for 1,4 k health.I mean they are decent dmg skills and it would feel more as a “waste” for me , maybe thats , because my build is more dmg orientaited.
Yeah i try to do that , but it feels like enemies are a mecriless hunter and/or i gain from some other mobs the attention and getting wrecked by them pretty bad.Mostly , if im close to get HT back to reuse it.So ….UGH ! WHY !?
True i always use and im thankfull for it , even as a “little” healing.It helped me quite a lot,but still combos as engi are sometimes hard , if the Skill que que is so … “clumsy”.Maybe its just me , but thats a “No-Go”Smooth Skill queque or NO combo classes easy as that.That’s my opinion atleast.
Well, if you’re using those skills in your normal rotation, it’s not specifically using those skills just for the healing. The only difference from using them to DPS is that you just have a water field under you. If you pop Regenerating Mist, you don’t even need to pause in your rotation to get the benefit, which will keep your DPS high. Of course, this can prevent additional might stacking if you’d otherwise be dropping Napalm for a fire field.
However, in less than 24 hours, we’ll be getting Scrapper and you can use a pretty similar build, but with hammer instead of rifle and this will give you a projectile reflect, 3 evades, and a block to help keep you alive when your HT is on cd.
Hey guys I am coming back for this expansion after a 3 year break. I had afew questions on engineers in PVP.
Back in the day I would run as a tankish engineer using prybar,healing, and pistol shield tactics to run into groups and cause mayham. Can engineers still run this role? Or have they changed to a more DPS class?
And what about for PVE? Im not planning on doing too much endgame PVE, but if its good i might do alot
There’s been a lot of changes, but yea, you can certainly still play a similar role, although the most popular build for that uses rifle (build cited here: http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Engineer_-_Soldier_Rifle)
With Scrapper coming out, there will likely be even more room to fill a tanky role in PvP. Several players in the last beta found that a hammer Scrapper build worked well and had a lot of sustain.
P.s. Welcome back. =)
Hehe, very funny vid. Glad to see Colin is such a laid back guy to handle that so well. =P