Supported… revert it to the gold system please.. me swiging my Greatsword in a clump of 10 people should always hit max number of tarets, and that number should be 5, not 3, and definitely not 2 or 1…
Actually, that number should be 10, but I know what you mean.
@Xavi, well to be fair it would ban most guardians and warriors. Most mesmers have given up the class for guardians/warriors since mesmers are nothing more than veilbots in t1 zergs. All the ones yesterday were just former mesmers having fun for 15mins before going back to their real wvw classes.
My engineer is my favorite class to play. So far, I’ve crafted 3 ascended weapons. My mesmer got 2 (gs+sword) and my necro got 1 (axe). There is no reason to blow 50+ gold and the farm time for shards to get an ascended weapon for a condi engy. The stat increase on the weapons wouldn’t even raise my bleed tick 1 point. That, coupled with the fact that the weapon damage doesn’t affect kits, makes it a waste of time and money. If I were to make another weapon, it would go to my thief who I play maybe once every couple of months.
I gotta say that I love the concept of this build. I’ve been trying to find a way to make a PU build that utilizes GS+s/x. I’ve run a 20/20/30 power phantasm build, swapped traits and ran attempted shatter hybrid. I liked the builds but something was just off. After reading this post, and grabbing some rabid trinkets I think this is it. I had a lot of fun roaming on this over the weekend. I happened to run a variation 10/20/30/0/10, but the concept was the same. I have traveler runes atm and I wasn’t willing to give those up. So, I had to run my mix of zerker/knights armor. I plan to swap out the knights pieces for rabid equipped with traveler’s. With this spec and food, that will give me 60% condition duration, and 45% boon duration. My main weakness atm is condition removal since I’m not running removal on heal. I just happen to prefer the 9% damage increase and confusion on shatter. Either way, thanks for this post. It’s exactly the play style I’ve been looking for.
My guild already does them weekly on Thursday nights, but that’s not the point of the thread. I would just like to know why rings and amulets have a discount when using badges, but accessories don’t.
Well I didn’t state it correctly. The actual cost is 40 laurels + 50 globs which is the same price as in Lion’s Arch. The other trinkets give a 10 laurel discount but force us to add a stack of badges. Accessories should be the same (which would be 30+250 badges+globs). And, I totally agree that we should have some WVW based guild missions. Our guild has to spend a night doing pve guild missions to get commendations for these trinkets. We’d much rather have missions to do in WVW, especially once leagues start.
Every single times Devon mentions ascended gear acquisition in WVW, he states that accessories (earrings) are already in WVW. The problem is they cost the exact same price as they do in Lion’s Arch. Why is there no discount like there are with the other trinkets if we use badges? The cost in WVW should be 30 laurels + 1 stack of badges + 50 globs (15g). It’s pretty silly that it take only 12 guild commendations and 5g for someone to get an accessory, but 30 days worth of dailies, a monthly stack of laurels and 15g if you want to get one in wvw. Can we at least get the discount on these items like we did on rings and amulets?
For the PvE testing I only used an offhand or main hand sword. Never both at the same time since the weapon strength/attack are averaged between the two weapons.
I’m a little confused by this statement. I’ve never heard that weapon strength is averaged between 2 weapons. Based on the Wiki’s Damage Calculation page, it states:
“Weapon strength
Weapon strength is the average value of the damage range for a weapon. The weapon range is a uniformly distributed range of possible values with a single value being chosen at random. For one-handed weapons, the damage inflicted is calculated based on the weapon strength of weapon corresponding with the weapon slot. Main hand weapon slots inflict damage based on the weapon strength of the main hand weapon, off-hand weapons slots inflict damage based on the weapon strength of the off-hand weapon.”
Thus, in testing, the only thing that would determine the phantasm’s damage range would be the offhand weapon. That said, I also tested offhand ascended vs. exotic and came to the same conclusion that weapon strength has no bearing on phantasm damage. Since the only stat increase to zerker weapons is 9 power (4+5 infusion), 3 precision, and 0% crit damage, I see no reason to spend 50g + 10 laurels for ascended offhand weapons.
You might want to look into a sigil of battle to replace the 5% bursting. Battle equals 5% bursting at 2100 condition damage (3 stacks of might = 105 condition dmg which is 5% of 2100). Once you hit 2 swaps though, you increase to 210 condition dmg, which would require 4200 condition damage for 5% bursting to keep up. I understand your point of not wanting battle though. Might requires setup time and can be boon stripped/stolen.
I wanted to post an update on this. Since I last posted, I made my ascended sword. I then went to dummies in LA with dual swords (ascended in MH) and tested the damage of my sword phantasm. After determining the peak damage over the course of testing, I swapped the 2 weapons and resummoned the phantasm with the ascended in the offhand. I saw no increase in damage by having the ascended weapon in the offhand slot, thus verifying that the weapon damage has no effect on Phantasm damage. Since ascended 1h weapons don’t increase the crit % stat, and only increase power by 4 (9 with infusion) and precision by 3, I see no reason to invest the gold on ascended offhand weapons.
Just to clear something up. Zerker/Valk 1h ascended weapons don’t add any additional crit % damage. It’s 5% on both ascended and exotic. That said, of the characters I play, I made a zerker axe (necro), and zerker gs + sword (mesmer) mainly for the addition weapon damage. The stats are minimal and not worth investing in. On my condition engineer, there is no reason to even consider making ascended weapons unless I just want to waste gold. The stat increase, even with an infusion, won’t make my bleeds go up 1 point. The weapon damage is useless to a condition spec, and even more so on an engineer since kits don’t inherit weapon damage. Ascended basically made power builds quite a bit more powerful (great on my necro/mesmer) while not affecting condition builds at all. Couple that with the alleged condition nerfs coming in 5 days and it’s going to be hard to not play power builds in the future.
Most of the % damage effects don’t show up on your character sheet. You can always test it on a dummy in LA. Just unequip 1 piece of armor (preferably one w/the least amount of stats) and auto attack. You should get a pretty good idea for the amount of base damage you do. Then equip the armor piece and your damage should increase by a little more than 10%. (depending on what piece of armor you exchange). I usually compare the highest possible damage, equipped and unequipped.
Amazingly, this is already in the game in the form of grenade engineers. Fast, mobile, aoe direct and condition damage. Sadly, the retaliation mechanics, of which siege is immune to, don’t allow engineers to use their best aoe ability in the precise area of the game where it was designed to be used. If only retaliation ticks could be limited to 5/sec similar to how aoe damage is limited to 5 per attack….. One can only dream.
Thank you for the update. I was unable to test this last night due to WVW being queued and I did not want to relog and lose my spot. I’ve just retested this, and can no longer get the bug to occur. This is with or without the aqua breather equipped. Also, last night I’d added the rune to my aqua breather in an attempt to fix the bug. That may have been what fixed it after relogging. My intuition leads me to believe that if the aqua breather has a different rune, it may bug the 4/6 on scavenging rune. I’ll keep track of my actions if the bug occurs again. In the meantime, I will try your work around if it does occur. Thank you for your time.
I recently purchased a set of these runes for my engineer. Upon activation of my healing kit/turret, the 4/6 proc enables: " After using your healing skill, your next attack skill steals health." This gives me a buff icon on my ui telling me that the next attack lifetap is active as intended. However, if I use my medkit underwater with only 5/6 runes active (didn’t have the rune on my breather), the buff no longer appears on my buff bar, AND the 4/6 ability no longer procs the buff on land or in water until a full relog. I don’t know if this is a UI bug or an actual non working bug. I haven’t had time to test that yet. I plan to test if this bug occurs with the rune also on my breather to rule that out.
Eh, Grenades are usually thrown at the feet making them virtually impossible to avoid.
Grenades have a huge range of condi’s especially with Incendiary Powder trait.
Poison Grenades can stack 1 minute of Poison in 3 seconds in AoE on a point.
Grenades are utterly spammable at melee range and have a very low skill level required, you don’t need to target your enemy at all, just run in circles around the point throwing grenades at the middle, easy win.
If you get caught in melee drop slick shoes and enjoy watching your opponent be continually knocked down at least twice, maybe 3 times if he tries to stun break. So 4-6s of knockdown.
This whole thread is hilarious, but this post takes the cake.
Incendiary powder is single target and can only proc once every 10s. It has nothing to do with grenades, it’s going to proc regardless of what weapon is being used.
Poison grenades have a 25s cd and will get nerfed in the next patch when duration can only stack 5 times. That will make pistol 2 even more worthless than it already is as well as make fumigate do nothing once you have the 5 stacks on them. Basically, it will make all poison abilities worthless once you have a measly 5 stacks on someone. I sure hope they give us something else to make up for so many abilities becoming worthless.
Grenades are low skill level in melee? What other class has to double click ground target spells over and over just to autoattack? It’s much easier to play my thief, mesmer, and even necro in melee.
I’m still surprised that this hasn’t been fixed. These runes are a crutch for many engineers and I hope they fix it soon.
I think alot of people are unaware of how much confusion an engy can stack without the runes. I can stack 12 stacks of confusion easy on my engy without them. I’ll gladly trade an icd on the 6/6 for a duration fix on the runes. My interrupts are on long cooldowns, and I choose to save them for defensive reasons. I think people will whine even more when I have 100% confusion duration. So please, yes, put an icd on the 6/6 and fix the duration bonus.
If 1,2&3 have their own league, then 4,5&6 will dominate 7,8&9. So, then 4,5&6 will need their own league. Now 7,8&9 will dominate 10,11&12, so 7,8&9 will nee….ehmagerd nvm you see where I’m going with this. There’s no way this system will ever work no matter what.
I’m also curious about weapon damage on phantasms. I’ve already made an ascended GS for my mesmer and an axe for my necro. My plan was to make a sword for my mesmer very soon. From what I understand, calcs for abilities use weapon strength based on the weapon in that slot (mh vs oh). So in our case, it’s a no brainer to get a mainhand sword. The added damage from sword 2 alone would be worth it. That brings me to offhand weapons. Since all of our off hand weapons have 1 phantasm and a utility of some sort, I’d like to figure out if the phantasm actually scales to the ascended weapon damage before investing resources into making the offhand. If not, then I’m not sure it’s worth the investment to gain a measly 4+5inf/3/3 stats (or 9/3/1% crit if zerker).
Traveler runes are so worth it. I gained power by swapping to them. I’ve actually considered putting them on my classes that already have passive movement signets just to free up a utility slot.
Hey, look on the bright side, since they haven’t touched the perplexity runes, the extra 30% duration is still broken. Even when they nerf the interupt portion, people are going to throw a fit when they realize how much confusion my engy will be able to stack with 100% duration.
Condition duration is only effective on very short duration conditions, such as 2s bleeds from crits. Any condition that has a base of 8+ seconds wont really even matter because it will be removed by smart player before it even gets to 8s much less 11s (if you have 40% food). Conditions that stack in duration are even less affected by the food. I mean who really lets a poison tick for 30s? Plus, most of the duration conditions are getting nerfed next patch, and removals are getting buffed. What more do you want, complete removal of condition builds so you don’t have to take any defensive measures?
I don’t pve with my engineer. For WVW, Dire with rabid accessories (30/0/0/30/10 nade/bombs/whatever). That gives you 23k hps, 2700 armor, 1500 base con (easy 2k+ w/stacks and might), and ~20% crit chance which is plenty enough to get the burning going. Couple that with protection injection + automated response, and you are tough to kill all while laying down a ton of condition dmg.
My engy is pure conditions, so I see no reason to upgrade whatsoever. So even though its’ my favorite class, my necro and mesmer both got weapons first. Well, each got 1 before I decided ascended is just not worth my time.
I know the title of the thread is supposed to sarcastic, but it’s actually true. I play on JQ and have fought these guys many times and they’re top notch. Sure, they’ll gang up on stragglers (who doesn’t?), but they’ll also fight you with even numbers and even outnumbered unlike alot of their server mates.
Honestly, this is the last hoorah for gem paid transfers. I doubt very many will move back down to a lower tier. It’s more likely that they will just quit. It seems like with every passing day less and less guildies are logging on. Between the ascended mess, and the bloodlust buff, what’s the point?
I love the traveler runes. I went from air to traveler so it was a no brainer. I gained more stats (besides crit dmg), boon/condi duration, and the perma speed. They’re so good, I almost bought them for my necro so I wouldn’t have to keep swapping in my locust signet.
I know that I should use HT, but man I just love the kit. I tend to swap out to HT when I know for a fact I’ll need to help heal my party. The biggest problem I run into with HT in t1 wvw is that skill lag can mess up my overcharge. I tend to spam the button and just hope it drops, then overcharges. If that works then I have to blast finish it for it to really work well, then blow it up or pick it up. That’s a lot of work to heal in the middle of a fight especially if there’s any lag (which there always is in t1). Half the time between lag, ccs, etc., I can’t get it all off in time and end up wishing I just had my med kit. Kit would be perfect if the drops were instant. One can only dream.
Speaking as a grenade engineer, could you please cap the amount of retaliation damage I take to 5 per second please since every thing else is capped at 5? It’s not fun taking 12k damage from 40 stacks of retaliation from using 1 barrage throw, which was designed to be thrown into zergs. And, before the l2p comment comes in, let me say this is an example. I would never use that ability in a zerg situation because I know every zerg has nearly 50% guardians these days and light fields galore. It’s just kind of silly that a defensive near perma buff is the best uncapped aoe in the game aside from arrowcarts. If you’re going to cap aoe, then cap all aoe.
I’d just be happy if they gave us ascended mats in WXP level up chests, specifically dragonite. It’s silly that we only get 4-5 dragonite for taking bay or hills, when ppl can zerg temples over and over for 30 dragonite a pop.
I’ve seen this occur from time to time. Ironically, the only time that they 100% hit the walls are when I’m on top trying to throw them down below while defending. Then every single one hits the wall right at my feet…./rollseyes
Anytime an “on-crit” gets an icd, it becomes single target. Personally, I don’t think any “on-crit” proc should ever have an icd because it negates the whole point of having a high crit chance for proccing conditions. Withering Precision proves that sometimes the devs just have no idea what they’re doing. Who in their right mind would ever take a 30 point trait that gives a single target weakness for 5s with an abysmal 20 second internal cooldown. What’s even more silly is that Weakening Shroud is a 4 point trait in the exact same line that does AoE weakness (plus bleeding) for 6s on up to 5 people with only a 15s cooldown. I would venture to say that Withering Precision is the worst 30 point trait in the game.
It’s a bit fishy that they now will allow us to buy up to 12 bank tabs instead of just 8 with gems a mere two weeks after ascended crafting entered the game. I expect an item to increase crafting stacks to 500 to show up in the gem store soon.
Hirathi Hinterlands has a pretty quick chest run as well. There’s 3 unguarded right around the Cloven Hoof Pass wp. Then you can hop over to hangman’s saddle for one, then ourobore caves, and lastly thunderock. It’s very quick to get all 6 chests.
A perplexity build is the same as any other condition build. It just turns the shield into an offensive weapon (aoe on 4, single target on 5). What’s amusing is they are really only effective in 1v1 and small group play. Zergs have too much stability being thrown around to make them very effective. So even if they add an icd, it will change nothing on engys. We’ll still be strong in small group play and nearly useless in zerg play.
The most amusing thing about this thread is that it is the only leaked patch notes thread on the forums that won’t get deleted by mods since no devs ever visit this forum.
That said, I’m happy with the bomb changes and especially the fact that glue bomb will be unblockable. Sadly, the aoe cap including blocks will be brutal for all aoe dps including bombs/nades and will likely drive the meta further into melee train blobs.
I guess I’ll look at the bright side, if I toss barrage into a zerg at least I won’t kill myself w/retaliation if all the nades are blocked. /s
I’m not sure how the buffs going to play out, but I’m willing to wait and see. Based on what I saw on the twitch vid, it seems like the home borderland has the advantage with 2 points being so close to garrison. Thus, I imagine anet’s thought is that most of the time each server will hold the buff on their respective home borderland, which would mean all 3 servers would have the buff, theoretically. DAoC worked like that for years. The top priority was holding your realms orb and never letting anyone close to it. I can see the argument that if a server is outmanned in off hours, even in their home bl then it may be impossible for them to hold the buff.
I guess that’s why some of us would like to see a cap in the amount of ticks one can take per second. If I’m in small group play and toss a grenade barrage, and someone pops retaliation while the nades are in the air, I’ll take retaliation damage most likely for more than my grenades hit for. I’m fine with that, because I can adjust to the situation. A cap per second wouldn’t change that scenario. However in a zergball, currently if I were to try a barrage, I could potentially be hit for 40 ticks of retaliation. That’s around 12k damage I would take for using an ability that was designed to be used in that exact circumstance. The same goes for all the other grenade skills. A cap would at least allow me to manage when to use the abilities. As for now, I just can’t use them at all, and even if I do, the downtime while healing back up is a liability to my team.
PS, I play in a large T1 guild that runs a guardian heavy melee train. I’ve tried very hard to make my engy work with this meta, but it’s just not feasible when I can run a frontline necro that does way more aoe damage and lives in the safety of the guardian zergball. Now, retaliation isn’t the primary factor of why this meta is the way it is, but it sure helps.
So you’re for anything that breaks the zergball up, yet current retaliation implementation keeps the zergball together. If you’re ranged aoe engy’s are doing fine staying alive then good for them, but they’re providing nothing for you team if they can’t attack. I can stay alive all day on my engy, but in the current meta I’m better off playing my necro and frontlining with the guardians. Really, what’s the point of a ranged aoe class that can never use their ranged aoe abilities without fear of killing themselves. Engy’s can’t use pistol, nades, or FT in large scale combat due to the fact that retaliation has no cap whereas everything else in this game is subject to ICDs and 25 max stacks. So what’s left for the engineer to do? Can’t really frontline bombs b/c the stealth and fire fields will screw up the water/light fields. Retaliation is fine in small group and solo play. It’s just the unlimited nature of buff that is broken in big group play. That would be easy to fix with a per second cap. I’d even take a cap of 15 so it wouldn’t affect small group play at all, but would at least allow my engineer to not kill himself with 1 barrage into a zerg. AoE damage is the mechanic that should break up zergballs. For now, I’ll continue to faceroll my frontline necro and wipe scrubs with or without retaliation even if it is more boring than my engy.
Engineers were already better at single target confusion than mesmers even before this rune came out. Pistol, toolkit, and bombs already allowed heavy stacks of confusion. This rune turned shield, and FT into an aoe confusion applier as well. On mesmer, it turned GS, focus, pistol, offhand sword, and staff into confusion appliers. I’d say mesmers made out pretty well w/this rune.
I was thinking more along the lines of an excel spreadsheet that I could use to check off items I have. I’m just going to throw one together. Thanks though, that will help me make the spreadsheet.
