Guild Wars 2

Novuake.2691:

PierPiero.9142:

The problem is that without invention you have to take elixir B for speed ( no 25% more ) and you lose in survivability. Sure you have better dps and damage but you lose quite a lot in survivability and i think that the “great thing” of scrapper is that he can last really long and in meantime he can make good damage. Your build is fun ( i played something like that) and can works but it can not replace the meta for the same role

Its not designed to replace the meta scrapper. This build isn’t a cap holder and does not fair well vs revenants for example. You play it like you would a condi necro. In and out of the fight as your cooldowns and HP allows.
If you run the Seekers variant you don’t have issues with mobility. But yes in general the build is not quite as mobile as the meta one.

Instead of Hoelbrak, I would take Leadership. Then your swiftness lasts longer AND your quickness.

Hey guys,

Over the last two weeks I’ve analysed two of the European matches. Check them out, may be you’ll learn a thing or two! …. or nothing at all….

TCG vs ORNG https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ibIyu9MxqM
- Learn Some of the reasons why ORNG lost
- See one cool move from Sindrener
- Learn a few tricks for fighting mesmers

55 Dragons vs Vermillion https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSJSX1C9yjM
- Learn why the Necro-Engie combo from 55 is so strong
- Learn why Texbi’s build isn’t so crazy
- Learn some of the reasons why Vermillion lost the match on Temple
- See some cool kiting ability from Misha

Feel free to drop your thoughts on my analysis down here or on youtube. I’ll be doing more match analysis videos in the future but as of right now I’m too busy mining Emeril in No Man’s Sky….

I use Wanderer’s and I play base necro. I played base necro for 90% of last season and got to Legendary with it. Why? Because I knew how to counter half the professions that were in the meta and this new meta calls for counters or Get Out.

My build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNBmWDbkjGqpxybwzG4vxBuQF36J4DgXdAsA00oM+CA-TZxHAB/eBA6uMAQ7PQwBBAgnAAA

And if you really want to use Reaper: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNBmWDbkjGqpxybwzG4vxCugFfF7ihRorWAYBEt1mAfAA-TZxHABdXG43LAAAPBACOIAys/AA

Why does this build work? Because Engies spam boons, other necros spam boons, Warriors REALLY spam boons and if a Ranger even thinks of popping Rampage as One, you make them face the wall. It’s the ultimate counter to most, if not all of the professions IF and ONLY IF played with a brain. You can’t just run in and spam (you can, you just have to be smarter about it).

- I use Plague to guarantee stomps and rezzes
- The instant fear in base necro that last for 2s absolutely wrecks anyone without a stun break and does great when fighting thieves because you can time it. Not like the fear from Reaper Shroud that can’t even manage a full second.
- The benefit of Reaper is the movement and the downed cleave. So use Reaper if you think that’s more important. I personally think it’s more important to be able to actually DOWN someone first.

The build is just too good imo. Disclaimer though, if I encounter you playing it and you beat me,…. I will come for you in your dreams ¬_¬….. I’m watching you.

Heyo, [insert complaint we’ve heard a thousand times here]. See ya, wouldn’t wanna be ya o/

Phaeton.9582:

Dirame.8521:

To run condi though you need those kits to provide adequate pressure.

As far as other builds are concerned.. many people quit because they weren’t happy running purge gyro or elixir c. Because I could teach my 10 year old cousins to play that.

Just as other people have said above me, you don’t necessarily need bombs to deal adequate pressure nowadays. It’s actually a bad idea to get into melee in this meta because; Guardian traps (you never want to heal a guardian by mistake), Necro Reaper cleave, Mesmer shatters, Warrior stuns, etc.

I find it easier to play FT/EG condi build because it has the combo element (stacking might) and the skill element, timing reflects and knockbacks and skill shotting flame blast.

Your changes won’t necessarily bring Teldo’s engie back. People will play Engie if they make these changes, but the overall weakness of the profession comes from the limited tools it has to deal with the current meta.

So blasting combo finishers twice won’t help in any tangible way and Blast Combo finishers removing a condition would help but people will go for things with faster activation like Elixir C or Cleanse Gyro.

The only way Teldo’s engie can come back is if the Engie can strip boons (mainly stability and resistance) and pierce block skills. Because those are the things that permeate most of the dominant professions now.

Nades on the other hand, can actually be used in this meta, but it’s up to you guys to find that build, I personally never liked nades.

Wielder Of Magic.3950:

I like the idea, especially how you handled preparations.

May I suggest to rename Dual Shot to Forked Arrow(s)?
Dual shot is ( already mentioned ) in use by ( I believe ) warriors, and Forked Arrow did something similar in Guild Wars 1.

Good suggestion! Thanks!

Wielder Of Magic.3950:

Sword; Serpent’s Quickness : This one would need careful balancing because the ranger sword already has quite a few damage modifiers through traits and can easily be pushed over the edge. Perhaps either the CD reduction or the attack speedbonus, but not both?

One thing I came to realize after playing GW2 for so long is that increasing attack speed reduces evade frames. And having cooldown reduction helps alleviate that problem. I didn’t really create the Preparation with all that in mind though, but it seems I stumbled into a good idea somewhat, hehe.

That said though, I took your comment to heart and reduced the cooldown reduction to 6%.

Wielder Of Magic.3950:

After reading all these unique preparations I actually felt a bit disappointed when I saw Axe and Greatsword had some re-used ones instead of unique ones like the others.

Axe could perhaps do something with:

Body Throws, cooldown skills inflict vulnerability/
Debilitating Throws, cooldown attack-skills make the target lose endurance (5-10)?

Greatsword possibly:

Splintered hilt: foes near your target take damage when you use a cooldown attack skill?
Disrupting accuracy: Critical hits with cooldown attack-skills daze foes ( 1/4 s, just enough to interrupt)?

It’s hard coming up with Unique preparations that fit the Axe and the Greatsword specifically so I went for things that would be the most plausible. But now that you’re lit a fire under my butt, I’ve decided I’m going to rethink them.

Your suggestions aren’t singing to me though.

Wielder Of Magic.3950:

I also love the hammer as a new weapon, I do get the nostalgia feelings from my golden pvp bunny thumper days.
But have you considered to work the Guild Wars 1 bunny thumper build into the weapon skills?
something like for example this:

auto: bash, bash, twomp, every hit applies vulnerability, last hit applies (1s) cripple ( if you hit someone’s with a hammer they won’t walk away that easily).

2: Bunny thumper; hammer bash. Knockdown for 1(s), your pet’s next attack inflicts poison ( reverence to the rangers that ran poisonous bite back in the day)

3. Bestial Mauling; knock back target ( 250), summon (3) bunnies (3s) that apply (3s)bleeding with their attacks ( mostly novelty, but the thought you had with skill 2 about summoning bunnies made me laugh).

4. Brutal strike: Deal damage in a chain (3x), last hit dealing bonus damage if target is under 50% health. If under 50% health, your pet gains quickness.

5. * place any of your skill 3/4/5 here, they would all be great additions to a cc/control set).

I would definitely not be opposed to this but I wanted to differentiate the Ranger from the Warrior when it comes to Hammer functionality. Cos’ the Warrior has a knockback and a knockdown, I wanted to do something different.

Wielder Of Magic.3950:

I see you have opted to give each utility skill-line a single new skill instead of opting for an entirely new line?
I am unsure what I think of that, but it is creative, that is for sure!

Yea I thought Hunter was so similar to Ranger that it would work better as an enhancement rather than a completely new thing.

Wielder Of Magic.3950:

The heal:
I feel this is doing way to much.
heal 50% of your health back ( more if coupled with your own hunter’s proficiency trait), a dodge (50% endurance), lose 3 ( 5 when you trait for wilderness knowledge) conditions AND swiftness?
Other heal skills need to be traited and still won’t get this much!

Yea that’s just me being bad at english when I type too fast (you might notice it in this post as well hehe). I actually meant to say; “Restore 50% endurance. Gain health.” So you don’t gain 50% health back, you get a scalable amount of health back. And I should change the condition removal to resistance ‘cos I was trying to imitate Melandru’s Resilience from GW1.

Wielder Of Magic.3950:

Signet Of Sight…
I feel a bit conflicted.
The duration is fine, so is the recharge and stunbreak, but the effects..
They feel a bit uninspired.
Is there a way this could inherit some of the traits of the GW1 skill Archers signet?
Like when active it increases your condition duration by X for your next X attacks that inflict conditions, and passive decreases blind duration on you by X%?
While precision may seem like a cool buff, most rangers already bring spotter for this and this skill would have to compete with that trait ( and most likely lose).
This way it might have a niche imo.

Haha, you know, I saw Archer’s Signet recently and I thought “Why the heck didn’t I type that instead!!” but yea, now that you mention it, I shall go ahead and change it.

Wielder Of Magic.3950:

Finish’em: In the line of thinking that spawned Search And Rescue. Sure, why not!
But perhaps think of something to make it useful in PvE as well, not much stomping to be done there.

Done and done.

Wielder Of Magic.3950:

Spirit Of Favourable Winds: This feels…clunky…and unfun to me.
Perhaps something among the lines of enemies within range move 5% slower and have less range on ranged attacks ( like 200 range because the spirit makes the winds blow their projectiles back) and allies move 5% faster and have increased range on ranged abilities?

I agree with this assessment.

Wielder Of Magic.3950:

Hunting Pack: OH MY GOD I WANT THIS!
Seriously, this is pure gold, I cannot wait to spawn my own pack of pocket raptors.

YAY! And guess what? I came up with this idea without even knowing pocket raptors existed… so I guess I was foreshadowing?

Wielder Of Magic.3950:

Traits:

On it’s trail: since it’s the first minor make sure the speedboost is not extremely big.

Tranquillizer: Would need an ICD to prevent abuse.

Hunting Party: would need an icon on the statusbar of the target so both allies and enemies know who is getting focused ( so counterplay can be a thing). Once again, careful balancing is needed, since we talk about ( probably) an unstrippable effect.

Hunters Companion is something pets need that is for sure. I would have loved to see this as a minor trait. Perhaps instead of On it’s Trail? Then you have a free trait spot for whatever you desire.

Hunter’s Defence: Ok.

Hunter’s Determination: Depends on the availability of cripple ( for example, it would be OP if combined with my own suggestion for a small cripple on the auto). 3s CD reduction does feel like quite a lot tho. Either a change or an ICD I think.

Advice taken.

Wielder Of Magic.3950:

Salted Wounds:
I am confused at to what this does ( wording is a bit unclear to me)

Camouflage: Extremely strong when combined with other traits and skills.
Quickened Pulse: Since preparations have no CD, this would basically be free quickness 30% of the time without any investment besides picking this trait. I’m okay with giving ranger some more access to quickness, but I am unsure if this is the way to do it.

Hunter’s Proficiency: Depends on the amount of healing, would need an ICD most likely, and would have to exclude your healing skill probably.

These are my thoughts, I hope some of it can help you

Let me rephrase Salted Wounds: If a foe is burning when you apply poison to them, you also apply torment. Hopefully that makes more sense.

Thanks for you thoughts man, they have been quite insightful. And you can check the original post to see the changes I’ve made.

Draeyon.4392:

Like the idea of the spec especially if it increases build diversity (for pvp and wvw anyway).

No new heal? Really want to see a ranger signet heal introduced at some point.
Something like
Signet of the Faithful
Passive: Heal your pet 10% every x seconds
Active: Your pet gives its vitality to you. You heal for half the % your current pet (pet at 100% = 50% heal). Your pet dies in the process. (not a single healing coefficient too be found, you want healing power? Go druid or a different heal!)

Sounds good to me but i’ll remove the pet dieing. Rather the heal will take a snap shot of the percentage your pet and halve it.

Draeyon.4392:

Oh, and a pet centered elite spec would be good if they fix the existing pets (lackluster skills, bad overall damage/tracking, no dodge/evade of any kind).

There’s a trait that I suggested above that deals directly with the “no dodge for pets” thing.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vdAQJAqOlUUhatY7Wg1LWYLqxccM+RwPsEDAxOqKeCA-TJBHwAAeAADOBAW2fIZZAA

4 Years and I’m still beating people with pretty much the same old non-meta build.

Scrapper Edition for fighting Guardians: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vdAQJAqenUUB1ahtbBGpCsehF2iSsjqingu5H+kH8DLxAA-TJBHwAW2fIZZAAPAgBnAAA

rpfohr.7048:

My post may seem like it is full of contradictions but it is only because I did not clearly enough indicate that I was juggling 2 separate idea’s in the same post.

To address your concerns……..The way the mechanic was set up in OP was you could only reset it by stealth and out of combat. Now we have a few ways to get stealth such as smokescale and trapper runes but its pretty obvious that LB3 is the go to here. This is why I feel it was to favoritism to LB.

The whole predator thing isn’t really related to your idea….it would be if I were to build my own elite spec around preparations. I DID like where you went with reseting pres through stealth. I just DIDN’T like how much it favored LB. I think a focus of the elite spec would have to find more stealth access to non LB builds.

If you read the traits and the skills, you’ll see Conceal Presense is a skill that gives you stealth, and Camouflage is a trait that stealths you when you activate a preparation. So all Weapons CAN access stealth in some way. It’s just their choice whether they want to or not.

And I get what you’re saying about the dust cloud thing. Makes sense. But this spec is already about CC, it’s about crippling your prey, so that you can keep up with it, it’s about tactically disabling your target so that your pet can handle the rest. The only thing that is bludgeoning about it, is the bunny thumper ability and that was designed because I wanted to have a laugh with myself. And the thought of seeing a ranger release a bunch of spirit bunnies only to smash them, is hilarious to me.

Drussthelegend.2630:

I know we got some fixes but they hardly were to the extent that the population in spvp should jump 2x or 3x what it was. Bandwagoners that don’t even understand what was changed? A lot are DH that dont even use scepter or sword. All this is going to cause is people asking for nerfs that are totally unjustified using the specious logic of look at all those guardians they must be op! The class got a nice smallish boost and that’s if you use what was actually boosted. A bunch of bandwagon jumping numbnuts are going to cause a bunch of anti Guardian PR. It’s already happening. If you want to play the very strongest classes/builds there are still quite a few better then any build Guardian has.

That’s what happens when a class gets new stuff. Doesn’t matter which one it is.

Jim Hunter.6821:

Dirame.8521:

Jim Hunter.6821:

One thing really missing from all this GW1 nostalgia is the interrupt ranger. Maybe instead of dual shot on shortbow we could bring back choking gas that do aoe interrupts for 2 seconds around your target. Would come in pretty handy for breaking up zergs.

Would’ve done choking gas but I thought it would have to be a skill. Like the Ranger’s own Chaos storm. Also the Thief already has the patent on Choking gas as the name of a skill.

I was actually going to do something like Disrupting Accuracy but I thought, that would be OP and it’s best to let people do more active interrupts. But I did cave and make the Preparation for the Hammer have a 50% chance to daze targets that are casting a skill.

Warriors already have the patent on dual shot. They can call it whatever they want.

The shortbow skills have a decent enough cooldown that you couldn’t straight up spam interrupts and be effective. It wouldn’t be a whole lot different than a mesmer or thief that builds for interrupting, plus shortbow would finally serve a purpose and stop being the kittentiest weapon in the game.

Oh yea, auto-attack! Totally forgot about that. I guess that’s what Mr. Dadnir was talking about when he said I was ersatz-ing.

The problem I have though, is that you would have to put an internal cooldown on the interrupts so that they won’t be spammed back to back. And I don’t feel like doing that for something like a Preparation but that’s just my thought anyway.

Jim Hunter.6821:

One thing really missing from all this GW1 nostalgia is the interrupt ranger. Maybe instead of dual shot on shortbow we could bring back choking gas that do aoe interrupts for 2 seconds around your target. Would come in pretty handy for breaking up zergs.

Would’ve done choking gas but I thought it would have to be a skill. Like the Ranger’s own Chaos storm. Also the Thief already has the patent on Choking gas as the name of a skill.

I was actually going to do something like Disrupting Accuracy but I thought, that would be OP and it’s best to let people do more active interrupts. But I did cave and make the Preparation for the Hammer have a 50% chance to daze targets that are casting a skill.

rpfohr.7048:

This thread sounds like a GW1 fanboy

Hammer makes no sense as a hunter weapon. You don’t bludgeon your pray to death. Hunters come from killing their prey for sport or to eat for survival. You don’t hammer them.

A one time per use ability. Not to mention preparations are pretty similar to venoms which the thief has.

Pistol or rifle a better fit the theme.

I Think more the predator when you think of the hunter. Constantly stalking and disappearing. Watching and waiting for the advantage in his relentless pursuit to kill

I appreciate your feedback but listen to yourself;

First you say:

The preparations need to be flushed out far more. To Reliant stealth.

Then you say:

I Think more the predator when you think of the hunter. Constantly stalking and disappearing.

First you say:

Favors longbow too much.

Then you suggest ranged weapons as the defining weapon:

rpfohr.7048:

Pistol or rifle a better fit the theme.

The reason why the spec favours the bow is because the bow is a hunting weapon. The Hammer in this e-spec is all about nostalgia, yes but that isn’t a bad thing. It’s just an aesthetic choice for the fun of it.

And if you were going to flesh out Preparations, what would you do? It would be good to know what you think Preparations are lacking.

rpfohr.7048:

A one time per use ability. Not to mention preparations are pretty similar to venoms which the thief has.

What makes you think that Preparations are a one time per use ability? They literally last for 30s and technically have a five seconds cooldown when out of combat or a 2s cooldown if you use stealth.

Okay so let’s take this one by one. If you want an E-spec that handles your pet more readily then this isn’t supposed to be that. This e-spec was NEVER meant to be about the pet, it was meant to deal with the Ranger’s lack of AoE damage (and I believe I said this in an earlier post) so with that in mind, you can’t come into a restaurant and ask for what they don’t serve. But I very well understand that it is your opinion that we should handle the pet thing first. That’s all well and good, but I feel it is more important to handle Ranger’s AoE damage first so…. opinions are like butts, we’ve all got one.

With that said let’s now reply to all the stuff you’ve said;

Dadnir.5038:

Your new mechanism buff weapon, nothing more, nothing less. It’s an ersatz of the warrior system like druid is an ersatz of the necromancer system.

Please explain how Preparations are an ersatz (don’t even know what this word means but I’m going to use it anyway) of the Warrior system? Seriously, which warrior skill, affects all his other cooldown abilities? Which warrior skill compares to Preparations? I checked, I don’t see any. And it’s not like I care if it’s similar to a Warrior thing, I’m just trying to let you know you may have gotten something mixed up.

Dadnir.5038:

It’s bound to be unsatisfying since it leave all the flaw of the ranger’s mechanism as they are. The traits are a mess that try to support the pets via core ranger thing which do not promote in any way all the “new” thing that your elite spec give :

- Minor traits feature opening strike in a rather OP fashion (tranquilizer)

Slap a 15s cooldown on it and it would be brought in line.

Dadnir.5038:

- Adept feature signet of stone (it’s good idea in itself but not on an Espec line)

Okay this is where you totally contradict yourself. In the rest of your post you say that I should be proposing an elite spec that helps fix pets in some way. THIS TRAIT HELPS PET SURVIVABILITY AND ITS IN THIS ELITE SPEC! But no, it can’t be in an elite spec all of a sudden. This makes it sound like you’re just trying your hardest to make everything I have said, sound wrong when the reality is, I have actually done some of the things you like.

Dadnir.5038:

- Anet dev try really hard to not have 2 traits featuring the same skillset. Hunter proficiency break this “law”.

Yea that’s why Guardian of 5 different block traits spread out between 3 different lines and Eles have aura traits spread out between 3 different lines. I mean, that law must be really hard to enforce if they can’t seem to keep track of when they break it.

Dadnir.5038:

- Your healing skill is OP. (Even more when double traited.)

When Guardians use the Valor line and they take 2-2-2 + the new heal trap, they cleanse 2 conditions and heal for 8k health.

I haven’t even mentioned healing numbers and you’re already saying the heal is OP. It may sound OP to you but trust me, in practice, it’s probably just alright. I already have a build that does a heal, restores 50% endurance and cleanses 2 conditions, it’s not that big a deal.

Dadnir.5038:

- Spirit of favourable wind feel out of place. It doesn’t feel like a skill that we reliably could see in game. Beside… The ranger’s spirits tend to affect only allies and you would need to add an effect on the core trait affecting spirits.
… etc.

If I conform to a paradigm, you tell me that I’m ersatz-ing, if I don’t conform to a paradigm, you complain that I’m not conforming. I made a spirit that directly affects enemies, enemies can kill it with AoE or by focusing it and it gives reliable CC, who cares if Anet hasn’t done it before? Is this not about giving them ideas? Or are you so happy about my elite spec that you think it can get made so I have to make sure I can please anet? If so then, thanks!

My Necro has remained the same for 4 years, through weakness and health. So if you were to ask me, which time was best for you and your Necro, I would say…. ALL THE TIME! So…… woop woop for me?!

I like the idea a lot and I like that you’re hunting down that Ritualist theme HARD but I have only 2 issues and that’s with the traits.

Vile Miasma and Soul Barbs, I think it’s too complex. Simplify them. People rarely ever take things that take too long to activate.

And that’s it. I think you’re good to go.

Dadnir.5038:

Well… sadly it’s another “let’s discard the pet” e-spec. I know that almost no ranger like the special mechanism associated to the ranger but I want to expect that Anet will finally make some effort and work with this mechanism instead of giving a shroud (druid) or burst skill (the hunter) to the ranger.

Note that 1 preparation per weapon is already more than enough.

Where did you read in my post that your pet is discarded? If you actually read the traits, the pet is actually featured prominently. Or if you even read the hammer skills, you’ll see that the pet is also featured prominently….

Jeez man! At least read the bloody thing if you’re going to make assumptions!

Fluffball.8307:

Usually these threads are… well, stupid, but I like the idea of a preparation buff as the F5. I sort of ignored your details, but the concept I can get behind; it’s almost like an ele attunement for our weapon sets.

I also wonder if the next elite spec is coming in the expansion they’ve said they’re been working on for a while. Hopefully it’s priced reasonably.

Glad you like the concept. It’s stolen from GW1 where rangers couldn’t go without having some sort of preparation. My idea was actually developed to solve 1 issue, ranger aoe damage. Combustive Arrows was the answer and the hunter was born.

Hunting requires a lot of Preparation.

Each main hand Weapon has two Preparation skills you can select for the F5.

F5 becomes Preparation. Preparations charge up when out of combat (takes 5s) or in stealth (takes 3s) and can be charged up manually (2s channel). Preparations last for 30s. Preparations have no cooldown, they only need to be charged up manually or you need to be out of combat.

Long Bow Preparation;
Apply Poison: all longbow cooldown attacks now apply poison.
Combustive Arrows: Your arrows move slower and take longer to cast but now deal aoe damage and apply 3s of burning..

Shortbow Preparation:
Kindled Arrows: Your Shortbow cooldown attacks also apply burning.
Forked Arrows: Fire twice the amount of arrows on your cooldown abilities.

Sword Preparation:
Serpent’s Quickness: Reduced cooldown by 6% and increase attack speed by 15%
Serrated Edge: Cooldown Attacks apply bleed.

Axe: Apply Poison/
Boomerang Axes: All your Main-hand Axe attacks (including auto attack) arc back to you after you throw them.

GS: Apply Poison/
Cold Blade: Critical chance is increase by 10%. Critical hits from your cooldown attacks chill the target.

Hammer Preparation:
Spiked hammer: Your cooldown attacks also bleed the target
Blunted Weapon: Your cooldown attacks have a 50% chance to daze the target if they are attacking

HAMMER

1. Thump
2. Bunny Thumper – Unleash a hatchet of bunnies. Smash your hammer repeatedly in a mad frenzy to catch all the bunnies
3. Yeti Smash – Release a shockwave in front of you, that cripples targets it hits. Your pets next attack knocks down the target
4. Leg breaker – Immobilize your target by breaking his knee. Your pets next physical attack does 50% more damage.
5. Rhinos Charge – Charge at your target carrying them with you. Push back foes you brush past

The Hunter gives a new skill to each skill line:
Heal Skill:
Signet: Signet of the Faithful
Passive: Heal your pet 10% every x seconds
Active: Your pet gives its vitality to you. You heal for half the % your current pet (pet at 100% = 50% heal).

Survival skill: Conceal presence: You and your pet gain stealth

Signet: Archer’s Signet
Passive: Immune to blind.
Active: Increase condition duration by 50% for 10s. (stun break)

Shout: Finish’em
If your target is below 50%, your pets deals 50% more damage for 5s. If your target is downed your pet runs to the target and stomps them.

Trap: Bear Trap:
Immobilize target. If the immob ends or if they break out, they are crippled and bled.

Should the druid ever have the ability to also be a hunter here’s a glyph for that
Glyph:
Glyph of Diversion: Apply confusion and fear targets in 360 radius.

Spirit of Favourable Winds:
Summon a spirit that makes enemies move 10% slower and their attacks have a 200 shorter range. Allies move 10% faster and have 200 increased range.
Active: Knock all foes in the area back.

Elite:
Hunting Pack: Summon a random pack of Canines or Raptors to help you take down your foes.

Traits:
MINOR
- Gain access to All the hunter things
- Hunter’s companion: When you evade or dodge your pet gains 1s of signet of stone (doesnt stack in duration).
- Tranquilizer: Opening strikes apply 1s Daze and 5s of cripple. If using hammer, they are knocked down instead.(15s ICD)

ADEPT:
- Hunting Party: Allies in your party deal 10% more damage to targets that you are focusing on.
- Hunter’s Determination: Hitting crippled foes reduces the recharge of your hammer skills and your pet’s non-f2 skills by 3s. (10s CD)
- Trapped: Immobilized, chilled or knocked down foes take 10% more damage from you and your pet.

MASTER
- Hunters Defence: Lay down Bear trap when you start casting a preparation.
- Hunter’s Proficiency: When you use a survival skill, it heals you and your pet.
- Salted Wounds: If a foe is burning when you apply poison to them, you also apply torment.

GRANDMASTER
- Camouflage: Use Conceal presence when casting a preparation (you break stealth if you stop before the cast ends). Casting your Preparations in stealth takes 1s.
- Quickened Pulse: Gain quickness for 3s every 10s whilst a Preparation is active.
- Dangerous Prey: Your F5 applies both Preparations to your weapon.

Just a crazy idea for an Elite spec.

Nightmare.8351:

I really like the idea, and it seems to cover the weak area of engineers: strong team support. The only real issues I have with it is those stuns seem kinda long, but at the same time a lot of the skills rely on hard cc so no idea for that.

The other nitpick is I see a decent amount of conditions from the skills can be applied like you pointed out with Sonic Boon, but no trait synergy with them for being a hybrid-ish trait line. Look at the Firearms trait line, it has synergy with the bleed stacks that can be applied. What I would say is move some traits around so that some hybrid traits can be put in. I don’t know, something like:

Master Trait – White Canary: Whenever you inflict poison, inflict fear and blindness. (X cooldown)

GrandMaster Trait – Gas Pocket: Attacking someone with a poison condition applies burning to all foes near the target. (x cooldown)

Regardless, I do like the idea.

Hm, I saw your feedback and tweaked Head Ringer to have a synergy with confusion application alongside dazing and stunning. So when you apply confusion, you also deal direct damage, emphasizing the hybrid spec and synergizing with Sonic Boon!.

Rozbuska.5263:

I quite like it. Just grandmaster traits are bit meh. Also what we need is bit more team support and those ideas have quite space for it

Glad you like it and yea, coming up with interesting GMs can be hard. I decided to go with enhancing the playstyles I was trying to create. So for instance, gaining quickness on daze / interrupt allows you to finish channelling much faster, boosting Crescendo’s effectiveness or allowing you to pull off your heals much quicker if you use Good Vibrations. Or if you were to take Sonic Boon, it allows you to just hit harder from both a condi perspective and a pure damage perspective.

And also, your complaint allowed me to figure out where I wanted to put the might stacking heh! I edited Sonic Boon for some more offensive support.

LORE: After spending so much time underground chasing Primordus, engineers are beginning to discover Dredge and Asura technology that helps them deal with the rigors of being underground. These tools also seem to come in handy during skirmishes.

Excavator/Miner – http://imgur.com/0K4AXsz
Uses Sonic and Gravitational to keep Safe whilst digging underground tunnels and caverns.

These skills are called Excavation skills or Mining skills. They act as a second weapon set for the engie. So you can swap to it

1 – Grapple Line – Leap towards a target area. 900 range. (10s CD)
2 – Sonar – show all foes on mini-map for a few seconds, reveal all Stealthed foes in the area and reveal all traps/mines. (20s CD)
3 – Debris Absorption Bubble (25s CD)
When activated, debris and projectiles fired at you are stored up and can be released to be fired back
4 – Gravitational Distortion Field (40s)
When activated, all foes around you float for 1.5 seconds. They are slammed to the ground when it ends dealing damage to them.
5 – Sonic Shotgun (30s)
Release a blast from your sonic rifle that deals 50% more damage to dazed/stunned/knocked down foes.

STAFF

1. - Sonic Wave – Release a wave of sound energy that damages foes in it’s path.
2. - Sonic Blast – Release a sonic blast in a cone in front of you that cripples foes, deals more damage the closer you are to the target and pushes foes back if they are close.
3. High pitched wave – Raise your staff upwards releasing a high-pitched wave that dazes targets in the area and stuns foes near you.
4. Bad Vibes – Dash at your foe and stab your staff into your target immobilizing them whilst channeling a vibration that deals damage.
5. Sonic Shockwave – Stab your staff into the ground and channel tremors that knockdown foes that are crippled and deals damage.

SKILLS:
Heal Skill: Dredge Repair Kit
Activate repair kit 5s. Heals you for 30% percentage of health you have missing (percentage increased by healing power) and proceeds to heal you for every condition removed whilst repair effect is active. Toolbelth: First Aid: Heal Allies within 900 radius of you for 20% of damage taken (percentage increased by healing power)

Survey Peg: Drop a survey peg that fires a laser at your target making them take 10% more damage. Toolbelt skill: Fire a tracking tag on your target. You can track your target on the map even if they are stealthed for 30s.

Sonic Grenade: Explosion. Excavation. Lob a sonic grenade that stuns all foes in the area for 3s and stun breaks allies in the area, granting them swiftness. Toolbelt skill: Flare gun: Fire a shot that burns and blinds foes at the target area.

Personal Drill – Dig into the ground and evade all attacks for 2s. Knockdown all foes in the area when you come out of the ground – Stun Break (40s CD) Toolbelt skill: lunge toward your target with your drill dealing damage to them and applying 5 stacks of bleed.

Hard hat and work boots – Give you and your allies 3 stacks stability and protection for 10s. Toolbelt: Hard hat Headbutt: Smack someone whilst wearing your hard hat stunning them for 3s.

Rock Softening Agent – Do not Drink. Toss this at your foe. It removes 3 boons and applies a stack of bleed, poison and burning for every boon removed. Toolbelt: RSA: Toss this on the ground to create an area of sludge that strips swiftness from your foes, slows and cripples them.

ELITE: Dredge Mining suit. Toolbelt skill: Call down a Drill that flattens anyone in the area and explodes.
Call down a Dredge Mining suit and get into it.
1- Drill Arms – Punch your target stacking bleeds on them
2 – Tear out a piece of the ground and chuck it at your target knocking all foes in the area down.
3 – Spin to clear a path. Daze yourself for 1s when you stop spinning.
4 – Pummel the ground dealing damage to all foes in the area.
5 – Rocket pack: Charge at your target with your rocket pack

TRAITS
MINOR
- Get access to all the things
- Painful Pitch: Dazed, stunned and knocked down targets take 10% more damage.
- Safety First – Gain Aegis when you swap weapons (10s CD)

ADEPT:
- Counter UAV: All your excavation and survey skills have reduced cool down. Activating Sonar distorts enemy maps and dazes targets in the area.
- Good Vibrations: Sonic attacks also heal allies in the area of their activation.
- Escape Required: Instantly recharge your grapple line if it is on cooldown, when you block an attack. (10s CD)

MASTER
- Sonic Staff Mastery: Staff attacks recharge faster, have a larger hit radius and deal increased damage 10%
- Crescendo: Sonic attacks that have a channel time release a blast wave when completed. (sonic attack, blast finisher)
- Head ringer: Applying confusion/Dazing/Stunning targets deals damage. (5s CD)

GRANDMASTER
- Gotta Go Fast: Gain 3s of quickness and 5 swiftness when you daze, stun or interrupt a foe (5s CD)
- Sonic Boon: Sonic attacks apply 5 stacks of might to allies in the area, rip 3 boons of foes affected and apply 5 stacks of confusion (10s CD)
- Sonic Screwdriver: Sonic Shockwave gives stability to all nearby allies, Sonic Blast removes conditions from you and allies in the cone, High pitched wave destroys projectiles and is unblockable. Bad vibes gives you fury and applies vulnerability.

Silly ideas, I know.

Rym.1469:

Ajax of Telamona.6974:

Question is this map have only one exit? If yes this need to change cause when ur team get killed enemy’s camp on exit and wait u

Each base has two exits, just like any other PvP map.

The other exits put you in combat. They shouldn’t even be considered exits.

EDIT: I can’t believe I forgot to mention that with my feedback.

Well can’t argue with you if you feel you’re getting results.

Hugh Norfolk.2798:

That was one of the earlier iterations of the secondary for RotC. We felt like teams that went for the bell early could get “robbed” of their hard work by not getting the third or fourth bell capture. We wanted the secondary to be about the more your team commits to the bell the more your team gets out of it.

Couldn’t that argument be used in maps like Forest where someone works hard to kill the boss and then a thief comes in and kill steals it? Or in a map like Spirit where you get the orb close to your point only for someone to decap it, kill you, pick up the orb and get the point score?

I mean, conquest is full of situations where people work to get something only for it to be turned against them. So whilst I see a merit in having a map be different compared to the rest, I don’t buy the argument of “feeling robbed”. I don’t think it has legs to stand on when you look at the other maps.

You won’t survive against Warriors. You won’t survive against other engies. Necros will kick your kitten and Guardians will actually be more likely to decap you. UNLESS what you do is run off point and come back after they’ve used their cooldowns?

I have only one suggestion for RotC. I’ve played the map quite a few times now and this just keeps bugging me every time I’m in there so I thought I’d just share the idea and get people’s thoughts on it.

The idea:
Instead of having seperate point distribution depending on who fires the cannon, why not have a Shared system where, no matter who fires the cannons, the multiplier goes up for both teams.
The idea is that this will make it a game of risk. If you capture the cannons and increase the amount of points you gain on the next capture, there’s a chance the enemy team will be able to use it to catch up with you.

Gives the game more excitement I think.

padreadamo.3986:

Will you merge the suggestions from my post earlier this week? There is some great discussion in there mostly focused on turrets, gadgets, and gyros. It would be a nice addendum to this post.

Got it.

I spent a fair bit of time trying to figure out different builds this weekend and encountered a fair amount of inconsistencies in our traits, skills, and wording of tool-tips.

1. Turrets, Gyros, and “Explosions”
Currently, Detonating Turrets has a chance to proc the trait “Shrapnel.” However, Gyro self-destruct does not trigger this trait. There needs to be more consistency is language and keywords in the engineer traits and skills. Perhaps Explosion should be underlined and next to it should be the amount of “explosions” a particular skill causes?

2. Gadgets and Gadgeteer
Gadgets need to be buffed. They take up a slot and for skills with one or two uses with low synergy over “kits” they need to provide more utility than what they currently do. The Gadgeteer trait is simply not enough to invoke create uses of Gadgets. I see Gadgets as more-or-less a way to provide utility where the Engineer lacks. An engineer would make a gadget to assist them in things they could not normally do. With this in mind, how could we make gadgets unique and/or improve their utility?

I think Gadgets need a unified mechanic similar to “explosions” above or maybe give them a similar mechanic with boons like Alchemy? Perhaps Gadgeteer should be “Gain boons for each Gadget Equipped (Might for Rocket Boots, etc) .” “Boon duration is increased for each Gadget Equipped (+2 seconds).”

3. Gyros and AI
The idea of Gyros and how they “fit in” with the other trait lines needs work. We need some kind of cohesion, honestly, with other trait lines, in general, but Gyros in particular feel like they are “outsiders.” The Blast Gyro only works about 50% of the time. For example, I summon the Blast Gyro and it just sits there and does nothing. I have reported this bug multiple times. In addition, the other Gyros at times, will just disappear even though I have hit the self-destruct. The pathing on Gyros is better than where it was but there needs to be improvement there.

I hope ANet reads this and even discusses it internally. My goal is to provide a means to bring these items to light. I’m frustrated; very frustrated at the state of my profession but it’s important to channel that into constructive ideas.

-Padre

In addition to the above, here are some ideas for improving turrets;

Apply a change to Experimental Turrets:
Healing Turret applies Resistance instead of Vigor (Reasoning: In PvP and WvW, I believe the resistance would be more useful)

Apply a change to Advanced Turrets:
Using Healing Turret whilst other turrets are active gives your other turrets a 5k damage shield and Resistance for 3s. (This replaces the 33% less damage functionality). Turret Overcharge have 100% crit chance. Turret Cooldowns are reduced by 5s when their toolbelt skills are used. (Reasoning: With a skill on a short cooldown that can apply a shield to your turrets, they wouldn’t die as quickly. The 100% crit chance on turret overcharge means that players can use turrets just for that reason only and you could even give them 25% crit chance while active to make leaving them active somewhat worthwhile.)

Note: This is a long read.

The purpose of this post is to bring together all the suggestions on how to improve the Engie in all game modes, not just PvP.

This old post from Chaith details a bunch of things that needs to happen for the Scrapper in order to improve that: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/5-Ways-to-make-PvP-Engineer-not-lame-again/first#post6137984

1.) Functionality changes to Gyros & Final Salvo.
Gyro Self-Destruct – Gyro Self Destruct Daze & Damage now occurs on the Scrapper’s location. This increases the responsiveness and accuracy of Gyro dazing.

Final Salvo – Field Effect is established on the Engineer’s location as he travels. Visual noise reduced! This allows the Scrapper to be mobile without being punished, and apply super speed to allies better.

2.) Improved Crippling ability to Elixir Gun.
Glob Shot – Projectile Speed increased 20%, projectile tracking added so projectiles won’t be walked away from.
These changes will allow the Engineer to catch fleeing opponents better.

3.) Shocking Speed never being used in any game mode – Instead of the current effects, When hit while under the effects of super speed: stuns nearby attacking foes with an electric shock (only once per 10 seconds for each attacker).
This trait could be utilized well by offensive non-hammer Scrappers to recover some slipperiness/counter pressure.

4.) Expert Examination never being used in any game mode – Stunning or dazing a foe causes damage in addition to it’s current effects. 400 base damage at level80, (1000 power), .40 power scaling.
Providing a damage option for offensive Scrappers not wanting to stack healing effects / Stability in the Master Tier

5.) Buffs to accuracy / power / cooldowns of various Pistol/Rifle/Shield skills. Goal is to have interchangeable weapon options outside Hammer.
Non-Hammer weapons are completely lacking in overall budget, even with recent pistol tweaks. Hammer leading in damage, utility, and defense really highlights this.

Here are my posts in the same topic suggesting things to improve the Engie as it stands right now: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/5-Ways-to-make-PvP-Engineer-not-lame-again/first#post6141385

ADEPT TIER
Minor remains the same, Grenadier remains the same.
Merge Explosive Descent and Glass Cannon. – Do this in order to make Explosive descent feel like less of a useless trait in almost all game modes.

New Trait: Thermite powder
Explosions apply twice the vulnerability. You explode when downed, knocking targets back – This trait is an enabler to another trait that I concocted in the Grandmaster Tier.

MASTER TIER:
Modify Minor trait Steel-Packed Powder to include Thermobaric Detonation – Thermobaric Detonation on it’s own, is not a good trait that does anything for the engineer. It’s currently not even used for style points either. Moving it to being a minor trait in the Master tier just feels right.

Merge Aim-assisted rocket with Shaped charge, gives us space for another new trait.

Sticky Grenade Hitting targets in Melee range places a sticky charge on them that explodes after 1s. The explosion applies 5 stacks of vuln dazes them and is unblockable. ICD (10s). – I suggest this mainly to have something that rewards us for how we play on different ranges. This trait would also synergize with Grenadier and Thermite Powder.

Modify Short Fuse; Bombs Explode faster and have a faster cooldown. Big Ol’ Bomb now applies 10 stacks of vulnerability.

GRANDMASTER TIER

Minor trait Explosive Powder remains the same.

Siege Rounds remains the same.

Replace Shrapnel with Forceful Explosives: Blast Finishers knockdown and apply 3 stacks of bleed, 3 stacks of vuln and cripples foes in the area of it’s activation. Blast Finishers also strip 2 boons on 30s cooldown. (Reasoning: With the rise of the Warrior and even the Necro, I’ve come to find that one of the things lacking in the engineer’s kit is boon stripping. Giving them the potential to strip boons can be crucial for them to stay in the meta without getting schooled.)

Move Thermobaric Detonation to Minor trait master tier, merged with Steel-Packed Powder as said earlier. This gives us space for a new trait.

Concussive Blast;
Hitting a foe that has vuln above the threshold [15 stacks] with an explosive applies 5 stacks of Bleeding, 5 stacks of confusion, weakness for 5s. [ICD 10s] Foes that block your explosives when they have 15 stacks of vuln are dazed for 1s. (Reasoning: I felt that there was no incentive to use skills like the Bomb Kit and some other obscure utilities and traits. Since this trait synergizes with my suggested trait in the Master Tier, sticky grenade, it allows for almost any build to use this trait as long as it can reach 15 stacks of vuln).

I think the suggestions above would do wonders for the Engie’s build viability. If you imagine them on the trait table right now, you can see how synergistic the traits are with current traits and utilies. For example; Flamethrower gets a knockdown with Forceful explosives. I’m not sure about meta viability but making changes like this to any class, puts it into the meta. Especially if those changes allow for a cool combination.

And here is my suggestion for fixing the Firearms line as well; let’s do what we’ve done for all the other classes, have each trait synergize with the next trait on the same level.
So the first line: Chemical Rounds – Pinpoint Distribution – Incendiary Powder would be the line built for Pistol/Conditions

Second Line: Heavy Armour Exploit – Skilled Marksman – Modified Ammunition but in order for the line to synergize. Skilled Marksman has to do more. Here’s a suggestion for there to be more synergy;

Skilled Marksman – Reduce Rifle/Harpoon damage by 10%. Rifle skills now apply additional conditions, attack faster and have lower cooldowns. Hip Shot applies Bleed, Net Shot applies 5 stacks of Vulnerability, Blunderbuss applies blind, Overcharged shot Applies 10 stacks of Vulnerability and Jump Shot no longer applies vuln but now applies Cripple and Bleeds.

Calculating each unique condition from the above trait using Modified ammunition (immob, vuln, bleed, blind and cripple) without counting the damage added by vuln, you pretty much get your 10% damage back, barring any condi removal from your target. I think it would be the perfect solution to making Rifle and Modified Ammunition an interesting choice. It doesn’t fix the problem with Rifle, which I’ll get to in a bit, but it definitely makes the rifle a great power weapon and potentially a good condi weapon because of the diversity of cover conditions.

Third Line: High Caliber – No Scope – Juggernaut

Juggernaut can remain the same, I don’t have any qualms with it but the other traits need to change because they do nothing for the viability of the engie. And they definitely don’t synergize with ANYTHING in this line, talk less of any other trait on the engie. So here’s how I think it should change;

Replace High Caliber with
Bullet Penetration (move this to master tier and bring No Scope to adept): Your flamethrower and projectile attacks become unblockable for 5s after they are first resisted (30s cooldown) (Reasoning: This is me trying to get to the core of the Rifle’s viability problem. In the meta now there is so much projectile reflect, deflect and blocks that it’s extremely difficult for the Engie to play anything other than Hammer. Creating a trait that targets that meta, gives the Engie a fighting chance.)

Replace No Scope with
Steady Marksman: Whilst you have stability, your attacks have 15% critical chance. (Reasoning: It synergizes well with the GM trait, Juggernaut and consequently, quite a few other builds on the engie. Also gives the engie more gearing options by reducing the need for crit chance if this trait is selected.)

These are my thoughts (and the thoughts of Chaith obviously) but let’s bring all our thoughts on what needs to improve for the engie in all game modes here. That way we can make sure Anet sees all of them.

Sandzibar.5134:

Agree with him completely. Ok changes but nothing stellar.

Reinforces the medi build as the best option.

This one seems short-sighted. More symbols on short cooldown and quick activation means, the honour trait line can get some use. And an Honour based sustain build can be made. Sure it may not be as stronk as Meditations but it is now a more viable option.

I don’t see how the Necro has been nerfed. Yea we lost Nightmare runes but… we don’t really need that to shrek people. “Rise!” could be 100% damage reduction and it still wouldn’t save you frome getting blown up. To me, we’re still the same old same old.

Fat Disgrace.4275:

Not played this map, but if understand this correct it’s fine for bunker or ‘tank’ builds with good sustain to sit on a point that is surrounded by obstacles wich makes it easy to use Los so said thief/ranger has a hard time to get at you but it’s totally wrong for the thief ranger to have a bit more freedom with the space they have now?

And you can still LoS in this map anyway.

This patch didn’t add more build diversity. I’m still waiting anet, still waiting.

style.6173:

The issue isn’t the casting. I think they do a pretty good job.

The problem is the marketing group at ANET is quite poor. They need to ramp up more excitement, get people passionate about certain teams. Right now, they just post a bunch of articles the week before a big tournament and then hope people come watch it.

How do you get people amped about certain teams? If you can give an example of how you would go about doing that, then I’m sure Anet would be more than happy to do that.

In reply to the OP:

The casters try to do everything that you say and in many cases they do. Maybe you watched a few matches where they didn’t do it as often?

Shadelang.3012:

I mostly avoid queing to avoid the standard composition that tends to end up in that mode.

Two tempests. One Condi Reaper. and 2 of any other class.

The condi reaper can deny any other class the ability to cap and then immediately cap. (Talking about channeled mists) as well as providing powerful tools to deal with attacking players, doorbreakers.

Two tempests produce enough sustain to prevent any doorbreakers from dieing. Or they provide enough healing,cc and projectile deflection/destruction to deny most if not all lord kills. And if the lord goes down. They have the ability to invuln res. But typically the match isn’t going to last long enough for them to have to worry about that. As they are more than capable of keeping the original heavy doorbreaker team long enough to breach the enemy lord room.

I ran into this often enough that I jsut stopped wanting to que for stronghold. It wasn’t fun to play. I actually REALLY like the game mode. But with the games combat the way it is right now. I just can’t enjoy it. The “Meta” for stronghold isn’t fun to fight against. ESPECIALLY on an unorganized pug group that probably doesn’t have the focus fire necessary to deal with two tempests or two druids healing eachother as well as their allies.

Edit

Infact. My memories fighting those teams are bad enough that I would rather simply avoid the 4 good games I could have in that game mode just to keep myself out of that fifth incredibly awful one that sucks the fun out of an entire afternoon away from me.

Easy solution to your encounters. Moa the Reaper (so use an engie or mesmer). Employ trapper Rangers and Dragonhunters to destroy door breakers. They would die faster than the Tempests can heal. Treb helps too.

The game mode has no winning strategy. It’s all about team play more so than anything else. And since you can’t get good teamplay in soloque, it becomes a hard sell to solo players. Especially when those players keep going up against teams (which was happening in season 1 of pvp).

SlimChance.6593:

Then revert the quickness/stomp change. Why is that singled out but not others?

Because Revenant downstate auto attack was annoying and quickness/slow stomping was bugging stomps.

I recommend Trap Guardian, condi guard or Hammer guardian.

Trap Guard catches them off-guard with a well placed Elite trap, Condi Guard (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brWTJZohy1A) blocks all the attacks whilst applying burning through the blocks (you don’t even need to attack), Hammer Guard has Ring of Warding to counter the evade spam.

Chaith.8256:

If all elite spec utilities and weapons were not restricted to people running that elite spec, it severely limits how unique and different the subsequent elite specs can be. Why? Cause players would have the ability to cherry pick the best weapons, profession mechanic, and utilities. It would amplify balance problems, cause instead of having another overall balanced elite spec, you’d have to micro balance the budgets of each category, weapons, utilities, traits, etc.

I never said anything about separating the unlock of weapons from the Elite Spec. I’ve only talked about separating the Trait Selection from the Elite Spec selection. So basically, if you want to use the Elite spec, you don’t have to use the trait line BUT if you want to use the trait line and the weapons, you have to use the Elite spec. I do hope I’m making sense here ’cos I know it can genuinely get confusing.

Just as I illustrated in the first image in the original post, I photoshoped in a new tab for the Elite Spec selection and the trait lines selected were core trait lines. That’s all I was suggesting they do.

Chaith.8256:

Re: Stronghold, you can’t insinuate that it’s unpopular simply because influencers in the community don’t fancy it, /facepalm. The content will speak for itself, and we’d actually have a loyal Stronghold fan base if it were appealing to any demographic of PvP players.

The new game mode should have catered to those PvP players who don’t like conquest, but as it turns out, that player group isn’t partial to ignoring players and PvE racing either.

Stronghold doesn’t have a significant enough fan base to warrant not changing it heavily, to my knowledge. There is nobody passionate about Stronghold to cater to.

I would propose Stronghold change to have a strong emphasis on players living/dying to progress, as opposed to whether NPCs live or died. No more ignoring players until you kill guards/door breakers/Lord then retreating, if applicable, no more ignoring players and stability capping mist essence. The whole experience is PvP adverse, PvP sometimes doesn’t happen during a game.

If ArenaNet wants to have Stronghold thrive, they need to do more than throw a tournament for an extinct competitive Stronghold scene.

You’re right in the sense that if the content was great, it would have a stronger playerbase but the issue is further exasperated by no real push to show it off by anet. But yea, it needs fixing.

Exedore.6320:

I like fun. I don’t like bad suggestions.

Elite spec trait separation

So while I agree some elite specs should be toned down through removal (ANet will never do it), splitting them apart doesn’t help anything. It ruins the coherency and creates a balance nightmare for future elite specs. Elite specs are mutually exclusive to limit balance permutations while keeping the style unique and interesting.

Ruins the coherency how? And creates a balance nightmare how? Genuinely asking because I can’t see your perspective on this.

If an Elite Spec is released even as it is in this iteration of the game, it would still have to be balanced with other trait lines in mind. Separating the Elite Spec from the trait line does not change that. You won’t lose coherency with the Trait line it came with because it was built with that trait line in mind, you won’t lose coherency with other trait lines because that wouldn’t make any sense and it wouldn’t be a balance nightmare because when creating the new Elite spec, they should’ve already balanced it alongside the other trait lines anyway.

Exedore.6320:

Psuedo-Old Trait System
Anyone who asks for the old trait system doesn’t understand balance or design. The new system is much better and allows expansion, i.e. elite specs.

Read my post again and look at the examples I gave. I’m not asking for the old system, I’m asking for a modification of the new system.

Exedore.6320:

Stronghold Tournaments
Stronghold is a mess right now and widely regarded as a failure. Fix stronghold so that it’s more than a “protect the doorbreaker” PvE race before even talking about tournaments for it.
Further, few competitive players prefer stronghold to conquest for competition. Why have tournaments if your target audience for tournaments doesn’t want them?

Some people like the Protect the Doorbreaker PvE race. Catering to one audience “The PvP elite” won’t always get a company more viewers or participants. If Anet wants to build a big game, they have to ask, who is playing Stronghold and who enjoys it? Let’s create a tournament for those people.
So far because Anet has let the PvP elite tell everyone that Stronghold sucks, it’s become a thing that everyone echoes, Stronghold sucks.
This is not to say that Stronghold doesn’t have it’s issues, Elite capping, Archers being useless half the time, etc. But the fact is, even in that state, its still a fun map, let’s cater to the audience that enjoys it and ignore the ones that don’t. They’ve got Conquest right?

Kyon.9735:

As long as Anet keeps “game changing” traits in “mandatory” trait lines. By this, I mean specific traits are mandatory to be able to survive. I don’t like to use metabattle as a reference but take a peek at it and you’ll see every class for every “meta-viable” build has a mandatory trait line.

Ele – Water
Mesmer – Inspiration
Guardian – Valor
Engineer – Alchemy
Necro – Soul Reaping
Ranger – Nature Magic
Warrior – Defense
Thief – Deadly Arts/Trickery

These Trait lines have become mandatory to at least survive. Eles shouldn’t think that Water is for healing and for cleanse. Same for Defense for Warriors. Anet needs to add more sustain and cleanse traits on other trait lines and fix the core mechanics of these classes. Of course, there will be nerfs to these current meta traits to balance it out.

Then instead of needing 1 trait line to survive, you’d need three or two? It’s hard for me to say whether this will work or not but it may become a case where there are too many similar traits and instead of increasing diversity, you end up reducing it.

This is not to say your idea isn’t intriguing. I’ve actually thought of this solution myself but I ultimately concluded that it won’t truly solve the issue because of what I mentioned above… but that’s just my opinion.

Erasmus.1624:

Longbow. Ritualist spec. Nightmare weapon, Spirit(Soul) Rift and spirit utilities.

Not Longbow. An Urn. Necros would just carry an urn of ashes around.

Or a Ritualist Drum!

Call the Elite spec; Spirit Caller! or just Ritualist cos who cares?

Chaith.8256:

Dirame.8521:

That’s not what I’m saying at all. What I am saying is, regardless of what build is made, the player is sacrificing something they would normally take just to make that build. This guarantees there will be holes, or weaknesses and weaknesses can be exploited.

This change wouldn’t be that crazy but that’s just my opinion.

As an example, if something was extremely overpowered in lots of matchups, but still had a counter, that’s not very comforting.

It should be! Isn’t that what technically won TCG the matches they played? Rotating to give themselves the best match-ups?

I’m not going to deny that there won’t be builds that need nerfing. Increasing choice comes with it’s problems obviously, but it’s really not going to change the status quo all that much. We are still dealing with what people consider to be “OP” classes here, there and everywhere and everytime I play what I consider to be the counter class to said profession, I notice a huge uptick in my chances of winning that match.

So you can say “We don’t want OP set-ups” but there is no getting away from it, no matter what weapon or Elite spec they create. The best Anet can hope to do is create counters, create openings, and give every class an opportunity to be in the meta. And this change, that I suggested in the OP, could do that.

Chaith.8256:

I don’t really want to theorycraft with you but if you’re saying the good balance between meta builds we’ve struck will stay, and every profession will equally benefit from unlocking the trait restrictions, that’s just a laugh m8. Not worth, let’s just alter balance in more controllable and deliberate ways

That’s not what I’m saying at all. What I am saying is, regardless of what build is made, the player is sacrificing something they would normally take just to make that build. This guarantees there will be holes, or weaknesses and weaknesses can be exploited.

This change wouldn’t be that crazy but that’s just my opinion.

Chaith.8256:

Especially stacking Elite Spec traits that all have huge synergy, but had that synergy limited by only being able to pick one at a time. I could make a broken Scrapper build with Adaptive Armor, at the same time as Final Salvo, Rapid Regeneration at the same time as Mass Momentum, and protection on heal at the same time as Perfectly Weighted. It’s just something unnatural that would undermine how the traitlines were designed to limit choices.

But TL;DR is that they’re just whims that are oddly specific and don’t aim to fix anything but a perceived lack of fun. I’d personally rather they do a simple balance pass on weak utilities and weapons.

Awesome! Okay. The question that I have to ask is, what are you losing when you pick Final Salvo, Adaptive armor, Rapid regenration, Mass momentum and protection on heal? And I’m guessing you’re going to put the 3 remaining traits in Alchemy to get Protection Injection, Self Regulating Defenses and HGH right? And based on what everyone runs with the meta Scrapper, they would normally take inventions because it pretty much provides infinite regen and a good level of sustain…?

Hmm, so to get all that stuff you just mentioned, you’re losing mobility when out of combat (Mecha legs), a heal reset (Automated Medical response) and near infinite regen and extra damage (Bunker down). And let’s not forget cleansing synergy, it’s a pretty good adept minor trait.

Sure the build you made is good but… you’re still losing something. You’re still sacrificing something useful to get it. You still have a weakness.

And the whims are aimed to fix build diversity or more like, build “possibilities”. Which then = fun.

alemfi.5107:

Your Opinion. Your Opinion. Your Opinion.

Your specialization changes are just what you subjectively think would make the game better. Stronghold tourneys are fine, I think the mode needs more exposure. Automated tournaments requires infrastructure.

My opinion indeed. And Automated Tournaments requiring infrastructure is not something I’m oblivious to. I’m just suggesting it alongside some level of organised promotion.

Chaith.8256:

As for things in the OP like trait reworks, I’m just gonna say that I’d rather not, as there are other ways to have a fun, functional skill balance if ArenaNet so desired any builds to be used in PvP besides going with what the Elite Spec dictates you do.

All you guys say is, “I’d rather not” never any examples of why you’d “rather not”. You’re killing me man, killing me!!

BlaqueFyre.5678:

So you want the trait system that we had from launch that was only replaced last year on June 23rd…

No. The old system only allowed you to pick 7 traits maximum and you could only pick 3 traits in any given line. The system I’m suggesting is only like it in the most minute way.

alemfi.5107:

I don’t agree with needing to separate out elite specializations from the rest of the specializations (no longer called traits). They made their decision to keep it easier to balance in new elite specializations. Separating it out right now, but keeping 3 specialization lines would just be increasing power creep.

Personally I’m surprised to see that nothing was mentioned about:
- Build Templates
- Queuing up outside the mists (AT LEAST it should be allowed in custom arenas)
- and a personal plug about using shards of glory to maintain custom arenas…

How is it easier to balance when people are still complaining about power creep right now anyway? What would be the big change if they were to separate it really? Other than giving people more freedom and frankly more reason to just enjoy theorycrafting in GW2.

- Introducing build template won’t automatically give classes new builds and new ways to play. It’s would be nice but it isn’t a game changer.
- Queueing up outside the mists, also nice but not a game changer
- Shards of Glory to maintain custom arenas, I can definitely support that but it’s also not going to do anything to make the game more interesting or keep people logging in.

Exedore.6320:

No.
No.
Definitely.
No.

Why are you scared of having fun?

The funny thing about you guys saying that this whole thing will bring power creep is that, I’ve actually gone and looked at the possibilities and what builds people will be able to make on certain classes. My conclusion was, people will still have to sacrifice what was big parts of their current builds in my suggested system, for them to find new builds. Which creates a nice counterbalance to the builds that could be made. That’s not to say some crazy builds won’t be made, they probably will but, it will have weaknesses because of the nature of the system. At least…. based on the angle I’m viewing it from. If you guys can come up with a build that you think would be OP, I’d be happy to debate things based on that.

Hey guys,

So I’ve been thinking quite a lot lately about what’s missing in GW2 and what Anet could change to fix these things. I came up with 4 things they could do. Two of which are PvP focused.

For those who don’t like long reads here’s the video edition: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=485Kt4gE2XI&feature=youtu.be

- Separate Elite Specs selection from their Trait line selection:
This one is self explanatory. Elite specs being attached to trait lines is just a tad too limiting. We need a way to select our Elite Specialization without the need to equip the trait line (check the first image added at the bottom of the page for an example of how this can be implemented). If we didn’t need the Reaper trait line to play the Reaper or the Scrapper trait line to play the scrapper, there’d be a few more builds in circulation right now but because we’re restricted with what feels like an uncomfortable restriction (I use this expression because that’s genuinely how I feel when I think about it), the builds we make for these elite specs usually fall under a similar pattern. Rather than the variety that should be delivered when an expac launches, we’ve been playing the same builds for almost 8 months now.

- Make the Trait System more open:
What do I mean by this? Instead of the current system, why not make it more free-form. For instance, instead of telling us we must pick 3 trait lines, why not let us just pick 1 trait line or 2 trait lines if we so desire? And let us pick 9 traits maximum from the amount of trait lines we’ve decided to choose (check the second image attached below to see an badly photoshoped example of this). It would bring a new meaning to the word ‘Specialization’. Of course there should be restrictions within this system.

The restrictions would be, we’d have a maximum selection of 9 traits but we’d still have to pick minor traits in order to have access to choosing major traits and so on. That said, we can then decide to pick all 9 traits within one trait line (as seen in the second image attached below). For instance if I’m a warrior, I can pick all 9 traits in Defense or as an Engineer, I can decide I want to go Firearms and Alchemy and just pick 4 traits in Firearms and 5 traits in Alchemy. I think this would go a long way to make GW2 more interesting and fun for the theorycrafters out there.
A lot of the fun in GW1 came from testing a build out, failing at it and tweaking that build to perfection. The magic was there when GW2 started but it’s been 3 years and the new trait system hasn’t invigorated theorycrafting that much. If this suggestion is implemented, you’ll see people spending hours just tweaking silly, dumb and amazing builds for hours. And aren’t games supposed to be about having silly, dumb fun?

- Give us Automated Tournaments that are better than Guild Challenger League:
I don’t think the Guild challenger League is doing much to invigorate participation in GW2 pvp. And to fix that, I’m suggesting anet create an automated tournament outside of pro league, that has smaller rewards than Pro Leage but more significant than it currently is. How do you achieve this ‘more significance’ thing? Well, remember that authorized shoutcaster program that you were running before? Yea, do that again but this time, notify casters about Automated Tournament matchups based on the High MMR teams playing against each other.
The casters who are available will cast these games on twitch, building themselves a fanbase, whilst also promoting GW2 pvp, whilst also giving good players some exposure, making those players confident enough to play in things like Pro League… does that sound like a win-win to you? ‘Cos it sounds like a win-win to me.
Also make the first place rewards $500 and a legendary weapon of your choice that isn’t account bound (so it can be sold – this may not seem important but it is!! Think about it!), Second place can be $250, gems or a combination of those two things and third place could be just gems and gold. Just make the rewards miniature versions of the pro league so if these players never compete in pro league, they can at least feel like they are getting something for their time.

And finally;
- GIVE US STRONGHOLD TOURNAMENTS

Nuf’ said.

Thanks for reading and hope you implement something that keeps me playing.

Or you could just play the game in such a way that you intentionally enter deathshroud when you’re at say 50% health, then leave deathshroud after you’ve eaten some damage so that when Unholy sanc activates, it takes you right back into deathshroud when it’s supposed to be on cooldown.