Guild Wars 2

The typical apoc ranger setup seems to be sword/dagger and axe/torch. My question really is, why do none of them implement the shortbow? To me, the sword doesn’t seem to be a very good condition weapon. Yes it has a poison, but other than that it seems more geared towards a power type build.

The shortbow however has access to two bleeds and a poison. Granted, one of them is restricted by a flanking requirement, but it still seems like a better choice on paper. Is there a reason why most apoc rangers don’t go shortbow and axe/torch?

Just looking for answers as I research more about apothecary ranger builds, as I mostly play a “zerg” power ranger with longbow (which does net a lot of bags with barrage and piercing shot rapid fire) and was interested in gearing up and trying out a “roaming regen” ranger for small group situations.

Le Rooster.8715:

You do realize i was trolling aswell, i honestly don’t take this game seriously (half the kitten i post on the forums is for getting a reaction).

Can we please turn this into a “I-knew-you-knew-that-I-knew-you-knew that I was trolling” debate followed by an intense discussion on the subject of Yu-Gi-Oh trap cards?

Fannwong.3059:

Hello Decklan,
There are prominent guilds in every server, the ones that indelibly shape the ethos and community through their words, decisions, actions and commitment. The militia and 90% of the WvW population look up to the leadership of the leaders. Even though this is a video game, loyalty and reputation crosses over from real life. The anonymity also makes it easier for folks to show their real nature, their real selves so to speak. Hence the feelings of betrayal is extremely painful.

Yeah, and I still have friends who I talk to on SoR and BG because I don’t let video game politics spill over into my real life. I’ve seen too many people get lost in this world of PPT and server pride. It’s just a downward spiral from there.

There was this guild leader from SoS, I think he was one of the ambassadors or something, that was so obsessed with winning he would play 10-12 hours a day and make forum posts about how this game was destroying his life. This same guy felt depressed when he had to spend time with his family and his server lost a single T1 matchup (new years week). He did exactly what you are writing, he let loyalties and bonds formed in a video game spill over into his real life. I don’t know if he plays anymore, but it should say something that I don’t even remember the guys name even though he dedicated so much of his time to this game.

In the end this is really just a game. If some guilds transferring off your server effect you that much, if not achieving first place is something that will ruin your self-esteem or outlook on life, then maybe it’s just time to stop. Play the game, have fun, that’s all that matters. It’s really the only reason I’ve stayed on JQ even though we have only placed first a few times in the past, I don’t know, four months? I just see the community here as more casual, and less about PPT. Sure we might lose guilds, sure we might gain guilds, sure we might drop to T2 or T3, but it doesn’t matter in the end. The community here on a whole never seemed to be obsessed with winning over fun.

It’s why I hear stories from other servers about commanders yelling at random pugs for wearing zerk gear. Hey, I’ve never experienced that. JQ wipes, it wipes, so what. JQ takes 2nd, so what. JQ is knocked down to T8, so what. Yet I read forum posts about people from SoR and BG who have been so ingrained and brainwashed by austere commanders that you could recommend some crazy build on a PROFESSION forum and they would chime in and say how useless your advice is because one of their guild leaders gave them a 15 minute rage-fest about how THEY were the reason the other team rallied and won the fight.

Then again, maybe it’s my age. I guess when you grow up and garner more responsibilities, the politics of a server matter less and less and just logging on and having a good time matters more and more.

And before you say, band wagoner, I’ve been on JQ since week 2 (I started on Yak’s Bend) and experienced all of its ups and downs; whether it be winning, losing, or dropping down to T2.

Kiff.8157:

And that, do not let me see any of the MERC on the borderlands during SEA or EU timezone. If I have you down, I am gonna stomp you all with the big cow butt sitting on your face and me sitting on your body, dancing and laughing. It is not classy I didn’t do that before and I will not do that to anyone else except MERC and no remorse.

Wow, you must be a total blast to hang out with in real life.

“Hey, Kiff, want to go out for some drinks?”
“Sorry, I have to write this 10 page manifesto on how much I hate people I’ve never met because they pressed a few buttons to transfer to another server in a fantasy realm.”

Now that I think about it, the reason JQ has been in T1 for so long (dropping down to T2 a few times) is because we seem to be more fun-loving than any other PPT hunting server out there. I can’t recall anyone on JQ getting frustrated when TKG left, in fact I think most of us wished them well. An attitude like that is probably why they felt they could come back and no one would hold any ill-will towards them. I have a feeling if the MERC members that transferred wanted to go back to BG you guys would troll them and treat them with intense hostility.

Then again, it might also be that two of the most outspoken members on BG are Monsoon and Kiff. Maybe you guys should send them a message in game, as their numerous angry and troll-like posts cast a very poor light on the rest of you.

Fortunately phoenix, ranger has a wealth of power build options for you to choose from, you just have to find one you like.

Also, every group could use frost spirit and spotter, so you will always be a welcome addition imo.

Straegen.2938:

Hopefully someone has posted a solid build if not I would try the typical condi-heal build and practice open field movement with the sword.

Before you let yourself down, you have to actually hit something with the first attack in the chain in order to activate the next parts that actually move the ranger forward (2nd and 3rd attack in the chain).

It’s nothing new. BG has had an incredibly strong OCX/SEA for several months now. JQ did go ahead and recruit guilds for those time slots to remain competitive. What is insulting however is that numerous people from BG accused us of stacking and buying guilds. Do those people really enjoy pvdoor so much that they would rather auto-attack planks of wood instead of partake in actual pvp?

I for one never cared about PPT but I am absolutely ecstatic that JQ got these guilds. The battles out there during SEA time are a lot of fun right now and I can’t wait until SoR gets back in here for some real 1v1v1’s.

Heiltdo.2891:

Play however you like, Trap builds are nice vs trash mobs.
You want heavy cond duration for PvE, Axe/torch-dagger . Shortbow is nice.

Dude, come on. It’s been a year already and arena net is not budging with how condition damage works in dungeons/world bosses.

This is a warning, condition damage is mostly useless in dungeons. I’m not evening mentioning that it is ENTIRELY useless against structures (mounds in AC for example).

Unless you want to make your group work harder, then please just do any number of power builds out there. This goes with ANY profession in the game right now.

Anet really needs to add disclaimers to their game towards the newer folks. Something along the lines of, “Condition damage is a form a of damage that is viable in all aspects of the game except dungeons and fractals.”

Don’t spec for condition damage in dungeons. It’s horribly underwhelming.

VIVorcha.7853:

Considering that the Engineer is so much harder to play, it should be noticeably more powerful than other professions. I’m not getting that.

Mesmers are that way. A good Mesmer is properly rewarded by roflstomping entire parties.

And a good engineer can do the same, it’s just far more difficult to execute.

Here’s a perfect example. A poor ranger can apply excellent group support by pressing one button, Healing Spring. It’s a large waterfield, and it’s fire and forget. They can then easily blast finish said healing spring with the press of warhorn 5 while simultaneously granting swiftness/fury/might to their allies. That’s two button presses.

Now, let’s see how many button presses and cooldown management that takes for an engineer. First they have to drop their Healing Turret. One button press. Then they have to overcharge their healing turret. Two button presses. Then they have to wait a few seconds and time it correctly before detonating their healing turret as the water field does not appear instantly on overcharge. Three button presses. So, already you are adding one more action to a combo that a ranger can pull off with two.

Now, let’s see how easy it is for the engineer to screw this combo up. One, they could accidentally detonate the turret before the water field appears. Their finger could slip and they could “interact” with the healing turret before detonating it, causing it to despawn. The turret could be insta-gibbed in an enemy aoe chain. If they do manage to detonate it correctly, then the water field is gone, whereas the rangers immune Healing Spring is invunerable and lasts for another 15 seconds. This is why a bad engineer is seen kitten ineffectual and why a lot of people complain about the class. What’s even crazier is this is probably the simplest situation in where an engineer can screw up.

The point is, is that when an engineer makes a mistake they are punished SEVERELY, whereas other professions have a wider margin for error.

This is not a problem though as let’s take a look at what a well played engineer can do in comparison to the ranger.

When the ranger drops his water field and blast finishes it with warhorn, that’s it, they are out moves. A good engineer however has far more options.

Let’s take a look at what a good engineer can do with his healing turret water field.

They can drop their healing turret, overcharge it, then SWAP to elixir gun and acid bomb out granting one blast finisher. They can then utilize rocket books to jump right back in and apply ANOTHER blast finisher. They can then switch back to pistol/shield and use shield 4 for a THIRD blast finisher. To top it all off they can then detonate the turret for a FOURTH blast finisher. This is above and beyond far more powerful than what the ranger player just accomplished with healing spring and warhorn, but the catch is that it’s also FAR more difficult to accomplish.

This is also why most people would rather run with a poorly played ranger than a poorly played engineer. A poorly played engineer will not completely understand the intricacies of the class and if they make a mistake during any of their extremely precise rotations then they might as well just be free food for the enemy.

You are not going to be able to stack might as easily as a warrior, but if you master a blast rotation you can stack just as much might, if not more, to the entire team. You are not going to be easily granting the entire team regen/swiftness like a ranger can with “Guard” and “Nature’s Voice” but if you equip the proper runes and master the correct rotation, you can grant a lot more team wide boons it’s just harder to pull off.

This is the main reason people complain about this class. It is extremely difficult and not very intuitive.

Should it receive buffs? In it’s current state no. Could it receive more quality of life changes? Absolutely, but those would come at a great cost and severely effect the engineers versatility.

In my opinion, a buff to turrets would go a long way in opening up a simpler and effective play style for the engineer.

For example, if their was a grandmaster trait that made turrets mobile and more powerful BUT removed their ability to be detonated, then you would have a strong option for players who want a simpler play style while simultaneously preventing good engineers easy access to a mobile blast finisher. Good engineers will still stick with two/three kit and avoid turrets, as removing their detonate would be horrible to them, while bad/average engineers could still be effective on the battlefield.

The engineer profession is not weak, it’s just incredibly difficult to play. I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that it is one of the strongest roamers in WvW while still offering a very competitive zerk dps option (bomb kit) for dungeons. The problem lies in that it is very difficult to accomplish these tasks.

Anything one class can do with one button press you are going to have to do with three. That’s just the design of the class, and is the reason why it can’t be buffed, or else it will just become a god mode profession for good players. If you don’t get it, and it doesn’t appeal to you, then I highly suggest playing another profession that you do enjoy, because I will warn you, a bad engineer is basically one of the most useless professions in the game, more so than any other player playing their respective profession poorly.

If you are a good player, and can master the engineer, then go for it. You will literally be at the wheel of the strongest profession in the game. If you can’t though, then I highly recommend one of the other seven professions.

If blackgate is so focused on these bloodlust buffs then why are they 12k points in the lead? Trust me, your server has enough people to have the bloodlust buff and win PPT.

Any complaint made by someone from BG should be nullified lol.

Some of you posters remind me of those crazed sports fans that beat up people and put them in comas because they wore another teams jersey. I mean, I’ve heard of server pride, but this is ridiculous.

Have you seen a thief run it with this? (This skill has no cooldown btw and is only limited by initiative)
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Headshot

Or perhaps a warrior run it with this?
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Distracting_Strikes

Trust me, it’s one of the most ridiculous rune sets anet has added to the game. Someone even made a build for this rune set for the ranger.

Also, if you for some reason have some CoE tokens saved up you can get the Dire Armor from the vendor in lions arch. I think it’s 1360 tokens for a full set.

tattoohead.3217:

Now to sink about 10g into runes that will probably see a nerf soon lol (just my luck not saying they are op)

No, they are indeed OP. Two of the best engineer roamers, Koroshi and Yishi, use them right now. In fact Koroshi started a thread on the WvW sub-forum to bring up the incredible amount of power they bring and many people agreed with him.

Like I said though, you will need to use pistol/shield to get it’s full effect.

Monsoon.2589:

Rhaegus.8924:

As BG liked to point out and rub in our face last matchup, we have had nowhere near enough coverage to win vs them or SoR.

I have a solution for you:
How about moving away from T1 and let another server in instead of trying every options to desperately stay in T1?

I’ll bite.

JQ has been in T1 for a very long time. They always managed to rally up a force to stay somewhat competitive. When SBI was destroying us with the War Machine night cap, JQ still managed to keep its morale and stay in T1. When SoS arrived with its mega alliance and completely obliterated the competition for several months, JQ still stayed strong and managed to stay in T1.

JQ had its “mega-alliance” moment several months ago after its huge recruitment push and managed to swing guilds over like SF, RG (for a few weeks), PRX, etc. At that point yes, wvw was very unbalanced and JQ was literally zerg blobbing everything. But those days are long gone. Right now BG is incredibly strong with coverage. SoR has great coverage too. JQ however has really just been surviving on its SEA and NA. We have dipped down to sub 100 PPT during OCX and EU. And yes, that does effect server morale. So yes, JQ recruited a few guilds to help us in those areas.

This was NOWHERE near the size of recruitment JQ made in late jan when we literally turned into HoD 2.0. That actually hurt the scene more than it helped. This recruitment was on a smaller scale and brought in some extra competition into the T1 scene. It will be better for everyone. Who doesn’t want a score of 200k/200k/200k by the end of the week? I do. 100k blowouts are boring, people stop showing up on tuesday when those happen. I think JQ realized this and didn’t go on a crazy recruiting spree this time because of that.

BG and SoR should look at this as just another challenge. See it as less pvdoor occurring and more actual battles on the field instead of 30 people chasing down 5 at a camp. Now you actually have some people to fight during OCX and EU time zones.

If you’re going condition, you need to just go p/s and get runes of perplexity. You don’t have to go grenade kit, you can go bomb kit/tool kit/rocket boots I guess, dunno, the standard perplexity build is bomb kit/grenade kit/(insert rocket boots or elixir gun).

Not talking about theory here. Everything looks great on paper. I do a lot of wvw roaming and I get killed by every engineer with a shield running perplexity no matter how many of their conditions I cleanse. I eventually lose out the war of attrition as they amount of confusion they can apply, in addition to a projectile reflect, just defeats me each time.

Sure, I’d go p/s and switch it up, but I hate shield. I hate the way it looks, I can’t stand its animations, and captain america was one of my least favorite comic book characters. It’s sad, but p/p is really in a bad state right now when compared to p/s.

The reasoning is pretty much blowtorch and incendiary power. With IP and Bomb Kit a pistol/shield engineer can easily apply burn to an opponent, while also providing a flame field that they can blast finish themselves with their shield.

All p/p gives you is another way to stack burn with blowtorch and a horribly slow moving snare/root aoe. Off-hand pistol needs something to stand out from off-hand shield, something unique that an engineer can only get by equipping an off-hand pistol. Right now, there is no point, and it sucks.

There are so many things they could do to increase the effectiveness off off-hand pistol and not make it overpowered. If it provided some bleed stacks, I think it would be well worth it, especially if it was a decent amount. Right now, the only access engineers have to a powerful bleed (please note how I said powerful bleed here, I’m not talking about elixir guns bleed or explosive shot) are shrapnel grenade which provides three stacks and blunderbuss which I think provides 5 (I forget). Shrapnel Grenade is a kit and can be easily accessed by a pistol/shield engineer, and blunderbuss is on the rifle, which is more suited towards power/control builds.

Off-hand pistol really needs something to stand out from the crowd. As it is right now, it’s just another neat looking weapon.

And yes, I am well aware of maskganda’s p/p build, but I still believe, his build/rune choice/gear choice would do better as a p/s build. In fact, I tried it myself and had greater results, I didn’t miss blowtorch at all. Then I saw myself holding a shield and wanted to reroll.

One day Turrets will be mobile, until then, I’ll always be upset.

Honestly, I wouldn’t even mind if it was a grandmaster trait that made them mobile…

I am sorry you feel this way. You have had one year killing people carte-blanche with little to no risk involved. Now you have to adjust your play-style to one profession that is going to bring a stealth reveal ability.

Volrath.1473:

To those that say that this is the first counter play to stealth, let me tell you that there always was counter play to stealth, only noobs don’t know it!
- Fear
- knock back
- knock down,
- aoe dmg
- pets/clones/phantoms
- torrents
- channeled abilities
- walls (mesmers & necros)
- traps
- marks
- wvwvw stealth trap

so yeah… Good thing they are adding the first way to counter stealth in game after 1year.

Are you serious?
Let’s refute some of these claims.
A good thief will avoid all those aoes you list. Do you seriously run into marks, traps, aoes? I easily avoid most of these in a 1v1 situation on my engineer. A thief can easily do this while invisible as the opponent has no idea where you are.

Channeled abilities? What thief goes stealth then stands in range of the channeled ability? Rapid Fire has 1800 range with eagle eye (a bug I know) So you are probably referreing to this, but a thief has numerous movement skills that they can employ to get out of range, not to mention that you can dodge roll half of the attacks.

This just sounds like another thief claiming L2P when they know that they have the most access to the one ability in the game that has ZERO counters. (rangers/mesmers/engineers have access to it to, but it is nowhere near permanent). Stealth has zero counters and you know it. Everything you listed counters bad players, not the stealth ability itself.

Arguing this is pointless though. Stealth is getting counters and their is nothing you can do about it. The developers are adding it into the game, and short of forming a petition, running for congress, and passing a bill that outlaws anet from adding it, you are going to have to learn how to adjust. Every other roamer has adjusted their builds to stand up against thieves, now its your time to adjust to us. And seriously, it’s literally only the ranger, and Sic Em is a TARGETED ability.

I however, do still plan on leveling up my ranger and becoming somewhat decent at it just to hunt thieves in WvW. The tears taste so delicious.

This is a great addition to the game. Finally after one year there is a single counterplay element to stealth!

Thieves are one of the most disliked professions in the game, everyone has been trolled by a perma-stealth thief in WvW at least once, and it is frustrating. It’s like fighting the predator. If they can’t win they just stealth away. No one profession should have that strength.

And yes, I also think warrior mobility should be toned down too, seeing as they completely negate the one counterplay element they have with dogged march/lemongrass poultry/melandru runes (near 90 percent reduction to snare/root/chill) but that isn’t going to happen anytime soon unfortunately.

There should be serious risk going into a 1v5. It should never be a casual experience to pick off one player in a group then merrily stealth and leave.

This news does make me want to dust off the level 50 ranger and level/gear him up.

Azunai.5974:

insanemaniac.2456:

use perplexity runes

toolkit, p/s… other utilities are your choice

its op.

hell you dont even need precision, switch to some dire.

Precision works really well with proccing a poison sigil and bleed/burn on crit traits.

But yeah, just revolving around perplexity runes instead of everything else may work with dire stats. But I don’t recommend it.

There’s a sigil that procs poison now? AFAIK the only sigil that does this is doom, which procs poison off a weapon swap, not on critical hit.

1:14 = The power of the flamethrower!

Unless someone posts a video of the flamethrower being effective in any sort of pvp/wvw environment, then I feel it needs a serious improvement.

If your talking about PvE and you want to max your damage then just go rifle/bomb kit.

Ensign.2189:

I don’t see a problem with nerfing some of the worst condition stacking offenders in PvP and letting it carry over to PvE. Even if it moves some power down on those characters, you can put that power back in places that won’t cause issues in sPvP, such as attack skill chains.

Watch this ensign.

I don’t see a problem with nerfing some of the worst zerk offenders in PvE (warriors) and letting it carry over to PvP. Even if it moves some power down on those characters…

You and I both know they won’t be adding any new attack chains to skills like engineer pistol 1, or ranger shortbow 1, or, well you get the drift. Instead it will just be a flat condition nerf. How would you feel if I told you I thought warriors did too much damage in full zerk in PvE and they should be nerfed in that regard. Never mind the fact that it would spill over into PvP where they are already low tier.

The argument works both ways. Stay out of our game and we stay out of yours, why should you be the ones that dictate class balance though just because you guys are angry with the condition meta in your pvp games?

I am glad people agree with me here. Everytime I see, this is imba, this is too OP, this is that, it’s generally from the spvp crowd. And I know I am casting a broad stroke here, but if they want things to be truly equal, maybe they should force spvpers to work just as hard to get gear, work just as kitten the new crafting cap to get ascended weapons, and work just as hard to farm mats to stay competitive…then let’s see how eager they will be to ask for nerfs for a specific class/build.

I edited my post. I was confused, I saw the post on the spvp forums but it was about the warrior. Just got mixed up in the head because I was so frustrated with how they frequently balance this game based on the whims of pvpers, who make up a very small majority of the player base.

The ones who are actually buying gems to get infinite axes to chop 500 elder logs a day (this isn’t me it’s just an extreme example) are the very players who often get shafted because the vocal minority that is the pvp player base will never stop incessantly whining until their precious “meta” is balanced. Cool, tell that to the guy who just spent laurels and gold to make a rabid ascended weapon. I know it might seem like a minor setback, but to that player it was a lot of time invested, only to then read that their damage source is getting nerfed because the pvp scene is “upset” with condition spam.

Yes, you are correct, the engineer, along with the necromancer, is probably the definition of a condition spam class. Just another case of them balancing the game to cater to a player-base that only makes up 17,000 people (spvp) instead of balancing the game for the rest of us.

I laugh whenever I hear warriors complain that they are bottom of the barrel in spvp. WOW cry me a river! It takes exactly 2 minutes to roll a different class then gear him up ENTIRELY for FREE and get him to level 80 by pressing ONE button on the top of your screen when you are talking about spvp mode. But nooooo, warriors don’t like condition spam, so lets nerf them.

Never mind the fact that these nerfs geared to help “balance” the spvp setting greatly effect joe somebody who spent 1000 of hours gearing up his condition character, whatever the profession, with TIME GATED ascended jewelery and VERY expensive crafting materials to get their ascended weapon.

Healing and bomb kit is definitely more suitable for smaller team roaming. You will be frustrated walking into melee range to unload your bombs only to be CC’d to death because you have almost zero ways to provide stability to yourself. Hopefully you have some smart guardians with you at all times.

You’re best bet with zerging as an engineer is to just say screw it and have fun. It’s a harsh truth but we truly suffer in large zerg settings. Medium armor has always had this problem though, but even trap rangers and stealth-stomp thieves are finding a niche roll in zergs now.

I hope and pray for the devs to stop focusing so much on spvp and small-man roam where the engineer shines, and start to address its glaring weaknesses in large scale battles. Maybe they could change and buff turrets in such a way that they would be the go-to build for zerg battles but incredibly weak in small-team or 1v1 situations. That would keep our power-curve at the same level, while giving us an option to go when we want to zerg.

I think every profession out there has a capable zerg spec:
Warrior: Hammer – Mace/Shield stun train.
Guardian: Almost every build lol.
Ranger: Longbow and Traps (unblockable, low cooldown, can easily toss into the zerg)
Thief: Perma-stealth thief is incredibly useful at stomping and double downing opponents, they just have to be wise and avoid the AOE.
Engineer: Umm, maybe grenades if no-one has retaliation or projectile reflect? Good luck with that.
Mesmer: Feedback
Elementalist: Master of AOE, including the amazingly useful lightning stun aoe.
Necro: Unblockable marks spec with epidemic and boon destroyer.

So you see, every profession can really spec to their go-to zerg build, while the engineer I feel doesn’t have such an option. What should we do? Go grenades? Retaliation obliterates you in that case, so does projectile reflect. Flamethrower? Same situation minus the projectile reflect. P/P HGH? This is more of a 1v1 small roam build. Static discharge? Same situation. Bomb kit? Sure if you want to go into melee range and die to the CC train. I just don’t see many, if any, options for the engineer in this situation. It’s pretty much why I solely havoc squad with my engineer (10 man) and is probably the same reason why some of the more well-respected engineers like Mask, Koroshi, and Yishi also stick to small-team and solo roam as well.

I really wish this trait was changed. It’s far too much of a frontloaded benefit for pistol shot 1, while so mediocre or non-existent for the rest of pistols abilities. Someone suggested a while back that it should be changed to all pistol shots bounce, but that would only add an extra benefit to static shot (which already bounces anyway).

Personally, I wish it was switched back to grandmaster and made you fire two shots for every pistol ability. So you would fire 10 poison dart volleys instead of 5, 2 explosive shots instead of 1, 2 static shots instead of 1, have both pistols fire out a blowtorch, and double shot glue field (larger radius). That might be too overpowered though.

Tyaen.5148:

VIVorcha.7853:

Engineers simply do not win a 1v1 fight against a good player, unless specifically built for 1v1. Our class is much harder to play than every other class, and can be countered with much less effort than we put in.

Couldn’t disagree more. I win the vast majority of my 1v1’s. Any class that is specced specifically for group support will probably have a harder time, but Engineers not winning 1v1’s because we’re inherently harder to play? Flat out false.

I agree, engineers win a lot (most) 1v1’s, but yes, Necros are extremely difficult to beat as a condi engineer. Maskganda sums it up perfectly though.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQFAUl0pqdnpSyF1LJyIFkWnFShEWYgUkX+loC6HA-jUyAYLgsnyaCUQsMWENW9CmuUQWdmUP+gm9HJVKAmEGB-w

Tanky static discharge build. You won’t see the largest numbers in the world, but you will still have the DPS and defense to kill anyone running full zerker. Melandru/Poultry help immensely vs condition damage.

3k armor, 3k attack, 41 crit, 20k HP.

Edit: This build DOES NOT use grenades. Just an alternative tanky/power build for you to try out if you are so inclined.

VIVorcha.7853:

Might stacking: Might stacking is not inherently useful. All it does is increase your DPS…

Phineas, what you should of done here is ask him why he thinks increasing your DPS is bad. I am in agreement with you though, I do not understand why Vorcha thinks it’s bad to stack might. When I roll with 2 guardians and I get 25 stacks of might my condition damage is nearly 3000. Do you have any idea how much bleed and burn ticks for at that number? You can literally condi-shot thieves with that much might.

What I think, and what I HOPE Vivorcha means is that it’s not useful for an engineer to stack might for his group as it is far more difficult and costly. If I was stacking group might with turrets and bomb kit then all of my turrets/toolbelt skills and BoB would be on cooldown. If I was using rocket boots and elixir gun then TWO of my escape mechanisms would be on cooldown, JUST to stack might.

Phineas Poe.3018:

VIVorcha.7853:

Might stacking is not inherently useful.

Okay. I think I’m done here.

I think you are misreading this. I feel vivorcha sees the ease in which 2 guardians can grant an entire group 25 might stacks, and then sees the difficulty it takes for an engineer to accomplish the same thing through fire fields/blast finishers, unless they spec for mass turrets/bomb kit to get four blast finishers. But then you are just creating an entire build around might stacking and are really poor in other areas, especially considering you just put all your toolbelt skills and turrets on cooldown just to stack might.

Then again, the grass is always greener right?

Just as an aside phineas, maybe people would be more apt to open a discussion with you if you refrained from making snap one sentence remarks and asked why they wrote such a statement.

Phineas Poe.3018:

Most Static Discharge builds revolve around using gadgets. Have you not tried it?

Umm, the standard static discharge build uses exactly one gadget, utility goggles. The other two slots are rifle turret and tool kit. If launch pbr was insta cast then you would see the standard switch to utility goggles/pbr/tool kit, but that has yet to happen and probably won’t.

As a condi engineer necro’s counter you extremely well. You really have to just out play them. Even the mediocre ones will give you fits as they can stack you with conditions and unless your running elixir c, its gonna take several tosses and consumes to get rid of them. Then when those are on cooldown it’s good night.

It’s a completely different story with power builds though, especially static discharge. You can make a semi-tanky static discharge build with the right gear and still have the dps to just destroy any necro out there. This is especially true with runes of melandru and lemongrass poultry.

The problem then lies in the fact that you are now building to just kill necros. Honestly, they are slow. If you are losing to lots of necros while roaming, just roam with a group and stack your condition damage as high as you can. With a combo of rabid trinkets/weapons and dire armor and a 10/30/0/30 (you will have to take 5 percent vitality to condition dmg here)/0 spec you will have almost 2k condition damage WITHOUT might or corruption stacks. It’s a lot of fun. Sure you will suck hard roaming 1v1 but you will be a great asset to a small man team. It only gets better when you have 25 corruption stacks and 2 guardians to get your might up to 25. I literally kill thieves with one blowtorch and one auto attack when that happens (barring no condition removal).

Three-Kit Engineer killing almost everyone he sees.

That is why you take 3 kits AncientYs. I don’t want to quote your post though, as it’s inflammatory towards the OP and I have a feeling it will be deleted by a moderator, which would subsequently delete this one.

Now, for some actual constructive advice for the OP.
I highly recommend taking 10 points out of tools and putting into explosives to get Forceful Explosives to increase your bomb kits radius. Bombs are very difficult to land without that trait as the radius on them untraited is quite small.

Your build is creative and I am glad you are having fun with it.

Jackums.3496:

Whilst I don’t think they need to be touched in PvE, especially with Rangers in general being one of the worst PvE professions

Why do people still say this? Ranger was one of the professions that helped obtain the fastest speed clear of CoF at approximately 5 minutes. Their frost spirit is such a huge boon to group dps and is completely unique of things like might stacking (IE, no other class can provide frost spirit’s dps boost).

I agree the pet does need a lot of work in pve settings, but it appears frost spirit alone is more than enough to justify bringing at least one ranger along in a dungeon/fractal.

tattoohead.3217:

Man i had to laugh at this post!

Which post were you laughing at? If it was mine that would make no sense, as my first sentence basically discusses everything you just said.

Phineas Poe.3018:

It’s really not, though.

Pretty much every Warrior runs some kind of variant of the Axe/Mace rotation. Some mix in the Greatsword as their secondary set.

This statement is incredibly misinformed.
What about Sword/Sword – Longbow condi builds?
What about Sword/Mace – Mace/Shield stun builds?
What about Hammer – Mace/Shield melee stun train?
What about Rifle Snipers?

There are so many warrior builds out there right now, and I see plenty of variations while roaming in wvw every day.

I can count on my hand though how many engineers I’ve seen with dual pistol or rifle, most of them are running multi-kit – pistol/shield. Last time I saw an engineer with static discharge was three months ago.

Engineers are not bad, in fact that are quite overpowered…in the right hands.

Three kit condition engineers can win any fight 1v1 in wvw/spvp and even come out on top in 1v2’s or 1v3’s. Ostrich Eggs, Kishi, Koroshi and Teldo have proven this. But therein lies the rub, three kits. That’s 20 different weapon skills, while also juggling their tool belt abilities.

How do you apply buffs to a class like this without completely breaking balance in the process ? The only way would be to make kits incredibly weak and buff our gadgets/main hand weapons/elixirs/turrets. But how many players would be happy with that change?

I am absolutely convinced that there are two schools of thought across the engineer player-base. One-kit or lower engineers who feel we are sub-par as they rely entirely on their main hand weapons, and 2 to 3 kit engineers who feel we are absolutely amazing on every level as they can effectively juggle the NUMEROUS conditions/crowd controls/blocks/condition removals…the list goes on.

Elementalists suffer from the same fate. Those who can’t attunement swap at a reasonable rate of effectiveness eventually reroll.

There are six other professions that use a weapon swap mechanic and have a max of 10 weapon skills. The mesmer could probably be seen as the most complex out of those six. Your only true option is to play one of those if you find the engineer to be weak, as right now, the engineer is in an impossible state to buff in any way shape or form without completely nerfing kits in the process.

Grenade Kit is not really a kit you want to spend a lot of time in. This is just my opinion though. It’s large nerf to its power scaling completely castrated zerker engineers, it’s 1 skill is not that useful anymore to be honest.

A condition grenadier is basically swapping to grenade kit to apply it’s bleed, poison and freeze, then swapping to bomb kit to apply it’s burn and confusion, then swapping to pistol to stack more bleed, poison and confusion. It’s a lot of kit swapping but it’s very effective and is more powerful than sitting in grenade kit most of the time.

Most if not all of these abilities are AoE to boot with great radius when traited.

Grenades are great fun when you use them in a condition build. In that case it is more beneficial to just use their 2-5 skills and avoid the “auto-attack” all together. Then switch out to another kit/weapon.

I do admit, zerker grenades is quite tiresome and frustrating though as you are constantly ground targetting the 1 ability.

Maskaganda.2043:

^
I can’t imagine any circunstances where a full rabid user will kill my elementalist, for example. I mean, ether renewal alone removes 8 conditions in 4 seconds, every 15 seconds. Even if you manage to interrupt it, there’s still a gazilion other removals and heals in the typical cantrip build… and then it’s ready again in 15 seconds.

That’s true, but yishi does fight an elementalist in that video who cleanses a lot of conditions, however his reapplication is so fast with bomb kit and grenade kit that the ele ends up overwhelmed. It also doesnt hurt that he has perplexity

Maskaganda.2043:

It still wont be as strong as people think. I have an hard time understanding how full rabid kills a good thief ora good ele, full dire will have even more of a problem beating competent players. condi damage alone shouldnt be enough.

Here is a video of yishi fighting outnumbered against some reasonable opponents in wvw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQd53qlCvo8

He runs full rabid with perplexity runes.

I do understand how your specific build has trouble killing people with condition damage alone, as you are rely entirely on pistol and to a lesser extent tool kit to apply them, whereas it works very well with a 3 kit engineer who can utilize bomb kit and grenade kit to just continuously overwhelm an opponent with aoe conditions.

Do not take this as an affront to your build however, which is great at what it does, but please understand that full rabid has its uses and with the right build and kits is extremely powerful and will decimate good thieves and elementalists all day.

This guys build will only become more powerful with dire stats. With the right gear combo he can gain another 3k hp easily, upping his hp pool to 20k. Sure his critical rate will suffer, probably down to 30 percent, but I am sure he will still be able to overwhelm opponents with similar amounts of condi damage.

Yeah, it’s a pretty poorly designed trait.
Hip Shot – Ok its useful here
Net shot – no damage, doesn’t benefit
Blunderbuss – 600 range traited, does more damage in melee, no benefit
Overcharged Shot – 600 range traited, no benefit
Jump Shot – Damage is melee aoe, no benefit

Pistols, ok, I can see it working here, but really does a weapon with horrible power scaling need this? Let’s see.

Explosive Shot – Benefits, but pistol 1 has .3 power scaling. And really, how many power, crit, crit damage pistol builds are there?
Poison Dart Volley – Wildly misses 75 percent of its shots beyond 600 range, no benefit really.
Static Shot – Very poor power scaling, see explosive shot.
Blowtorch – Deals more damage the closer you are, no benefit.
Glue Shot – No damage, no benefit.

Now, let’s look at kits.
Elixir Gun
Tranq Dart – Poor power scaling, no real benefit
Elixir F – Great power scaling, actual benefit
Fumigate – Even traited, cannot get enough range to benefit
Acid – Melee damage, no benefit
Super Elixir – No damage, no beneift

Bomb Kit
All skills are melee range, so no real benefit

Tool Kit
All damaging skills are melee range, no real benefit

Med Kit
Umm no lol

Flamethrower
Useful with the number 2 skill, and that is all

Grenade Kit
I can see it have a use here in pve setting

So, you have to ask yourself, is this trait really worth taking if it only really benefits one kit, and to a much lesser extent another (flamethrower)? Or, do you see it as going against anets idea behind our class design, strong mid range fighter? I see it as a poorly designed trait, but that’s just my opinion.

inb4 phineas poe quotes my post and states “why do you think its a poorly design trait” :p

A combo of this stat and rabid could easily lead to 20k hp, 40 crit, nearly 2800 armor rating, and probably 1600 base condition damage. Not bad.

amiable.4823:

Perhaps I was inartful in that line. A better way to state it in response to Decklan is: How would they bring class mechanics line with others?

If they wanted to do it quick, they would just give us a secondary weapon slot, some extra weapons to wield, and turn kits into activated spells with a cooldown, so instead of flamethrower kit you would just have two flamethrower spells, one from the utility slot and one from the toolbelt.
Do I want this to happen? Absolutely not.
Do I think this would be a horrible idea? Undeniably yes.
Can I see the justification behind such a redesign from a logistic business standpoint? Unfortunately I can.

Phineas Poe.3018:

I’m not twisting your words to “rile you up.” I just don’t understand where you get the idea that ArenaNet has any interest in streamlining professions when they’ve put so much work into the Engineer. If my responses offend you, then maybe you should take a lap and re-read what I’m saying.

Once again, you are twisting my words. I never once said that anet has an interest in streamlining or redesigning the engineer. I gave the OP reasons why they would redesign the class if they actually did, which I would prefer they don’t. Maybe “you should take a lap and re-read what I’m saying.”