Guild Wars 2

Instead of Gyro Fuel being the timer on the Gyro itself, the Gyro Fuel should be the timer on the Gyro’s Shield.

If the Gyro came out with a Shield that guaranteed it would live for about 8 seconds or so it wouldn’t stop counter play, and would keep them from becoming trivial.

Losing 3/4 of your health bar to a thief or mesmer or indeed and engineer before even seeing your opponent is not fun.

Just my opinion but – stealth is annoying and the more counters to it the better.

THEN – classes that rely on stealth will need buffing in more interesting ways.

IMO this is good for the game.

Not sure if this has been mentioned…. subject has been done to death so haven’t read entire thread:

IMO something is OP if you 1). can’t beat it and 2). can’t avoid it.
Mesmers are just about he easiest class to run away from.

You can’t kill him so you run… he can’t kill you… seems fair.

For example – compare with how ‘sticky’ a thief is… seeing as people bringing up thief here.

That’s a great idea… we could all log our results from 10 Transforms…

I’m gonna wipe the slate clean and post mine tonight!

x15 Tornados
x2 Rampages

Anyone else seem to get Tornado a little too often?

Are.1326:

Tongku.5326:

I love this trait design due to the utility and flexibility, double blast finisher on any field I choose or any good field my teammates plop down is just awesome. You do know you get the effect 2 times right of off 1 field right ?

I’m not saying the trait is weak, in fact, my point is that it is to good when traited compeared to the untraited version. Bad design does note equal bad efficiency. The trait is poorly designed because the power gap between the traited and untraited versions are to large. Remember Grenadier before the spec patch? Nobody ran grenades without it, because an additional grenade meant 50% more of everything.

Yeah that about sums it up for me tbh… I mean a 40sec cd with a long cast time and a HUGE telegraph for such small damage is rubbish imo. It just isn’t worth the button push usually for me, I’ve always got a better option. Unfortunately this ability is lacklustre because the Trait would make it too good if they buffed it so that it actually did something untraited.

It has absolutely no place in a condi build, and even in Celestial it does like 800 damage non crit, it’s aweful.

…and I don’t see how anyone can argue that it’s OK to balance this around a Trait. It’s an Elite skill. To render a significant part of an Elite skill useless unless traited is bad design.

(PVP)

So how much condition damage should you have in a PU condi build?

So I’ve only played this game inside of Heart of The Mists, happily PVP’ing.

Decided I’d take a look ‘outside’. So geared up my character and ventured forth to WvW…

Thing is I’m feeling really weak

I’m running the PU Condi build from:

http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Mesmer_-_PU_Condi_Roamer#Skill_Bar

I’m using Traveller Runes instead of Perplexity at the moment.
My condition damage state is 1169. Would be 1344 with Perplexity runes.

My gear I bought from TP and is all Dire Exalted armour and Dire Ceremonial Weapons.

Eating Rare Veggie Pizza puts me onto 1239. Is this an OK figure for Condi damage in a build that relies totally on Condi damage?

Just seems a bit underwhelming to me… am I doing something wrong?

Really want to get into a bit of WvW

Any help appreciated!

kylwilson.9137:

Dirtyrascal.1023:

OK – I haven’t read the entire thread because it seemed to start re-hashing itslelf… For my 2 cents though… the problem with the new skills not being baseline is that in PVP it is not at all unusual for there to be quite limited scope in what is an optimum build. My prediction will be that in PVP atleast we will therefore (more or less) ALL end up speccing into Chrono or ALL won’t be. If it’s the latter and Chrono is sub-optimal then we all just carry on doing the same thing we’ve been doing for years – which sucks. If Chrono is optimal then all the previous baselines become redundant and Chrono becomes ‘Psuedo baked-in’ baseline anyway, which is just bad game design. Time will tell but personally I’m concerned that this is more likely to further limit builds than diversify them.

We will be able to grandmaster in three separate trait lines after the trait overhaul. Builds will be nothing but more diverse after this change. Right off the bat we immediately have at least three specs that have been boosted to well beyond what they were in the past, with a staple IP being made baseline. So even if Chromomancy does bring something great to the table, everyone no matter who they are will be better off than they were.

I get the impression that people are kind of focusing on a theoretical scenario in which chronomancy impacts the highest levels of play in such a manner. I’m willing to bet that next to none of us play at that level.

What you are describing is a situation where we are different to how we are now. This certainly isn’t the same as having more potential for diversity. Also whether mesmers are ‘better off than they were’ is entirely contextual and determined by how mesmers will sit in the game over all after all the upcoming changes to all classes etc.

My issue is that either Chrono is going to be (more or less) compulsory or it’s going to be obsolete. This is to a degree true of most ‘choices’ in the game. However when new content comes out it is just more fun/value to know that you are going to benefit from using the new content (skills etc). My point in a nutshell is that – big changes to classes should be done at a baseline level, not at an ‘optional’ level. If new and exciting abilities are given as an option then they have to be balanced a). for people who take them AND b). for people who don’t take them – and this causes a big problem. Either they are too exiciting and are game breaking and compulsory or they are balanced with every other build and as such really not much to look forward to. Given that ‘balance’ is difficult to achieve I’m worried that this is a bad (or at least ultimately dull) design decision.

OK – I haven’t read the entire thread because it seemed to start re-hashing itslelf… For my 2 cents though… the problem with the new skills not being baseline is that in PVP it is not at all unusual for there to be quite limited scope in what is an optimum build. My prediction will be that in PVP atleast we will therefore (more or less) ALL end up speccing into Chrono or ALL won’t be. If it’s the latter and Chrono is sub-optimal then we all just carry on doing the same thing we’ve been doing for years – which sucks. If Chrono is optimal then all the previous baselines become redundant and Chrono becomes ‘Psuedo baked-in’ baseline anyway, which is just bad game design. Time will tell but personally I’m concerned that this is more likely to further limit builds than diversify them.

………………continued
Ideal opener & Basic playstyle:
(Torch 4 for stealth if required) then -Torch 5 Phantasm > Scepter 3 confusion > Scepter 2 – stand there and really bait them so you get the block, let your character do the counter move to apply the big Torment condi then evade and switch to Staff.
Try to get your oponent and you (but more importantly you) into Chaos storm – bait a block once you get Aegis to trigger more Retaliation, phase retreat for chaos armour just before Storm ends, replenish storm, focus on keeping your clones out with evades and phase retreat and switch back to Scepter for more confusion and another big Scepter 2 block.

This isn’t a slow, passive build – it’s twitchy and active. You’re frequently actively trying to get hit – when you have aegis from Chaos Storm (to proc Retaliation) and when you’re using Scepter 2 block (8sec cooldown). So you’ve got to really get in amongst it – dipping in – dipping out and making you’re evades and defensives count.

With good timing, frugal use of torch 4, decoy, blink and evades you will put out a lot of damage to your target and those around him whilst maintaining good defence.

Always keep a back door – pretty much any one of your utilities or Torch 4 can disengage you from a fight but more than one of them combined is pretty much a guaranteed exit.

You absolutely should be disengaging! You’ll get a feel for how far you can push it – and you can push things really far with this build against multiple opponents and still disengage.

When you disengage – you can either go do something more productive or heal up, let an ability or 2 come off cooldown and get back in. Low cooldowns mean there’s rarely not something becoming available every few seconds. You won’t have to wait usually – by the time you’ve disengaged, healed and run back in – you’ll have enough off cooldown to make it a safe play more often than not. Also any clones you had out will still be doing damage while they last in your absence.

I play sPVP and tPVP – pretty much all I’ve done since beta weekends were a thing. This is one of the most successful builds I’ve played. Might just be that it suits my playstyle – I like flexibility, high mobility, viable damage, and the ability to decide when I fight and when I leave the fight. I HATE getting stomped and rarely do unless I over commit in an out-numbered fight.

I would say I win about 90% of 1v1’s what ever the class/spec (50% vs Shatter Mesmers)

I like playing the role of Far Point Assaulter with this quite often and generally do well with it – either I’ll flip the point (most likely) or make their defence so paranoid they’ll have a defender on there 100% of the game which means I can swing the balance of the game in our favour elsewhere porting back occasionally to remind them why they’ve got a man standing there twiddling his thumbs.

Just realised how much I’ve written so I’ll stop.

I know Shatter is the goto spec for Mesmer atm but really – out there in the wilds of real everyday Joe Schmoe hotjoin and solo queue, this spec, with the right playstyle can pretty much do what it wants, when it wants, where it wants, to who it wants – and then GTFO if things turn sad-face :-)

Just because top of the top tier play shatter in his meticulously organised and voice-linked, highly talented team of Guild Wars 2 aficionados doesn’t mean it’s the best spec outside of that highly optomised set-up playing against other highly optomised set ups who assume you are set up optimally high… (I lol’d when I wrote that) – but the point stands.

You’re a Mesmer – Male or Female you’re probably wearing something that looks a lot like a dress from behind and gives you about as much protection. When you get hit it really hurts. Blocks, Aegis, Stealth x3, Blink, Evade, Ether Feast, Portal… you’re not dying when you’ve got this lot… really… you’re not.

I don’t post much, but I’ll just put this out there because my experience of coming back to Mesmer after a long time away from it has been great.

This is for those having a hard time with Mesmer – I’m guessing you probably play Shatter spec because of that word – ‘Viable’ right? – try something different:

I’m playing tPVP (solo Q) and sPVP (Hotjoin).

Sry no link, you’ll have to do with the ghetto method of build display

0
3,10
5,10,12
0
5,7

Staff – Scepter/Torch – Sigils of Generosity & Doom on both
Amulet = Rabid
Ether Feast / Blink / Portal / Decoy / Mass Invis.

I don’t know how standard this build is for condi, I haven’t copied from anywhere but I know I’m not re-inventing the wheel here.

Important thing here is understanding the build and the playstyle.

There are 3 downsides to this build:
1). No condi removal (see below)
2). Shatter Mesmers are hard to fight – personally my toughest match up.
3). Cannot DPS structures like Trebs or Doors

Having no condi removal is just something you learn to deal with. Decoy and Blink both break stun. You could swap out one for condi removal BUT – death by condi I always see coming so I do something about it whereas you can get blown up in a stun, so the extra stun break with benefits suits me. This build has such incredible ability to disengage from a fight, heal and re-engage with everything on short cooldowns that with the right playstyle – I really don’t need it. Really… I don’t.

Stealth is NOT a crutch it’s a really powerful weapon. It’s not for hiding in passively. You do the majority of damage yourself in this build although your clones are great too.
Stealth = opener / disengage / target drop / heal / re-position / free-cast / extra conditions (torch 4) etc

Unless I’m disengaging I rarely let stealth go full duration – just do what I need to do and pop out to keep the damage rolling.

Basic playstyle:
Staff – With 46% crit (which also effects your clones) and Illusionary Elasticity trait you’ll have staff 1 from you and your clones bouncing around like nobodies business doing massive bleed damage and pretty much 100% uptime on burning. Staff 1 applies bleed and burning plus Duelling trait makes clones apply bleed on crit. Obviously you’re not going to keep 3 clones out, as they will die which doesn’t matter too much because you’ll be making tons of them and they apply more bleeding or vulnerablitly or weakness when they die anyway. Just forget the Staff Phantasm even exists, you don’t need it, you’ve always got something better to do than cast it.

Scepter – Torch 5 for confusion / Scepter 3 for confusion / Scepter 2 (block) for Torment and Retaliation (Dueling major trait)
This alone – especially against ele’s and Thieves who spam their abilities into the confusion stacks (ikr – but it happens regularly). This alone is big damage on a short cooldown.

continued………..

Haha – I needed that laugh – you’re a funny guy!

ellesee.8297:

dancingmonkey.4902:

gartz.7013:

I’ve seen posts from this person under ArrDee and Ellsee? and i just would like the story behindd the number 1 engi NA

He is a solid playing engineer.

He absolutely is dishonest in claiming to be the first engineer in NA to 80.

He is often on the leader boards here, but is also generally ranked below some of the other posters here that he argues with or calls bad players who disagree with him.

He has multiple accounts because he has a bad habit of making personal attacks and insulting players with profanity. I would guess he aquired other account to use when he gets enough infractions to have one on suspension for a week or two.

He states his opinion as fact.

He claims anyone who uses the inventions line is a bad person’

He tries to give the best advice he can, probably with the best intentions to help players. He is so close minded to certain aspects, that his advice is limiting, and he often appears very much against thinking outside the box.

This is my direct answers to the OP. Everything in bold, is provable fact, and everything else is my personal opinion based on my experience.

Hello frand! Vee Wee here, #1 Engi NA and world first rank 80!

Thanks frand!

Vee Wee is world first rank 80!

Who cares about leaderboards! Vee Wee plays 5 elixirs and is rank 2! The only person in front of Vee Wee has under 100 games played! That’s how bad leaderboards are! Vee Wee doesn’t call people who disagree with Vee Wee bad! You can disagree with Vee Wee and still be da best player! But if you disagree with simple facts like Inventions tree being da worst, then idk!

Vee Wee gets banned a lot! Luckily many of Vee Wee’s frands quit the game many years ago! Unluckily many of Vee Wee’s frands quit the game many years ago! )*:

Vee Wee doesn’t state Vee Wee’s opinion as fact! Vee Wee states facts as facts! For example, it is a fact that turret builds are bad as evidenced by the ToG yesterday and the day before! Many turret Engis tried! None succeeded! Not even one that was pretty high up on your precious leaderboards! An opinion would be Vee Wee likes Adventurer Runes over Balthazar! Vee Wee doesn’t think that’s fact! Balthazar Runes are really strong!

Vee Wee never stated anyone who uses the Inventions line is a bad person! That’s just crazy! Vee Wee asked in a previous thread where you said that to please quote Vee Wee on when Vee Wee said that thilly statement! No response because it never happened! Bad players or good players trolling maybe! But bad people! No way!

Vee Wee does try to give the best advice to everyone! Especially Engineers! When everybody cried about MM Necromancers being thuper op, Vee Wee was like hah! This build is bad and it was! But Vee Wee never asked any MM Necromancer to change their build like Vee Wee does with turret Engi! That’s because Vee Wee doesn’t care about Necromancer players and more people running MM Necro means less people running Terrormancer, which is impossible for an Engi to beat! Vee Wee cares about each and every one of Vee Wee’s fellow Engineer players! That’s right! Vee Wee loves each and every one of you, even if you decide to run poopy builds like turrets!

Wahoo! Bye frands!

PS: http://twitch.tv/Livskis for Vee Wee’s stream! Wahoo!

Well whatever Vee Wee is or does – he just PWND you my friend…

I have to say… from what I’ve seen Vee Wee is always polite, always helpful, always cheery and ever active…

This post has 1700 views at the time I’m posting – says a lot!

Reckon this post is a good opportunity for anyone who’s ever been helped out by a Vee Wee post or enjoyed his general cheeryness to say thanks…

So yeh, Thanks Vee Wee – keep the tips coming!

I’ve been away for a while and just come back to this… This is so completely against what Anet preached when they began GW2 – removing the grind was what this MMO was supposed to be about. An MMO where you are never arbitrarily made to do things you don’t want just so you can progress. This is a major back step. It says something about the Dev team when they want to get people to experience their content (to play the game how THEY want it played instead of how we want to play it) and they do it by TAKING SOMETHING AWAY and making us earn it back!!! This is how you treat a naughty child – not a paying customer. Surely they have the imagination to incentivise people to go experience their content in a more positive way.

Sube Dai.8496:

So a build that can 1-2 shot and gets 1 shot itself is op?

Yes.

One shotting is not fun to do to people nor fun to have done to you.

It takes ZERO skill and there’s already way too many zero skill high damage combos in this game.

Don’t care what class it’s on, every time another brainless high damage combo enters the game, the game gets less fun to play.

I enjoy playing my engineer – because it can do some fun stuff. However I think that people saying that it’s so versatile is a bit misleading and should certainly come with a bit of a disclaimer: yes it is versatile BUT it cannot take advantage of that versatility seamlessly ‘on-the-fly’.

Engi has access to a whole plethora of abilities and toys but you can’t just switch them in and you’re good to go. To be effective your entire build needs to support the Kits and Abilites you choose to run with… So if ‘versatility’ is it’s thing well to be honest you could just log out to the character select screen and log back in on another toon to experience what is probably more convenient ‘versatility’ in a lot of situations… rather than completely respeccing your engineer.

I’m not criticising engies – just for the record adding that it’s so called versatility that people are always talking about is not exactly baked in to the class to be used adhoc.

Yes an engie can bunker but if you’ve got it specced to roam, you’re gonna be more effective/quicker just logging in on a guardian in a lot of situations etc…

I think the main reason to play an engie is ‘BECAUSE YOU LIKE PLAYING AN ENGIE’. (which I do… so.. .. ..)

Appreciate that… I imagine that will be the case whatever spec I play at first… I’m expecting losses while I learn :-) Your video is really useful…. More of you playing the build would be awesome!

Thnx for the link!! :-)

Great write up… thnx for taking the time. Any chance you could link to an actual build page, maybe limited to just sPVP gear? Would bring everything you have said together in an easy to follow way. (for the more noobish amongst the engie’s… ahem… me….. ahem) -thnx!