Guild Wars 2

You can still run warhorn if you want, shield isn’t a key part of the build. I just think it isn’t worth it anymore, and investing in tactics certainly isn’t worth it as I’m not interested in being a nerfed shout bot. Selfish, but effective at what it does.

No – I disagree with that. Warriors can have a different role now warhorn is garbage, so many other classes are better at clearing condi now. Warrior’s job can be to leap in with commander, immobilize, stun and deal damage – which is relatively high with this build from extensive play testing in 50v50 battles. Then drop banner when required and be mobile/tanky enough to move with commander, which this build is. If people want to run around with nerfed warhorn and waste points in tactics thats up to them, I won’t be

Also signet fury is to ensure you have enough adrenaline to do a level 3 flurry at the beginning of a fight when you start with no adrenaline, as well is maintain the precision buff for the 50% baseline crit chance, which will be 70% with fury. Even with full PVT you definitely not hit like a wet noodle, trust me.

Like I said this is for zerg combat primarily – not pvp. You realise there is a tonne of condi clearing going on in a zerg anyway right? You will be running with a party as well. I’d rather have the massive damage boost from destruction empowered than clear 1 condi on weapon swap which is insignificant in zerg combat.
Also disagree about arms, and you seem to have missed the signet trait completely which is a key point of the build. but lets agree to disagree.

I wouldn’t have posted the build if I wasn’t having a lot of success with it. You guys can make your own decision I don’t mind

? don’t get where you are coming from here, sure leave out dogged march but you are 33% more vulnerable to those conditions, sword 2 is for leaping in, shield 4 is for emergencies. immobilize spam in wvw is real, I wouldn’t go without dogged march personally.

Well I disagree with that but fair enough, yes it is selfish but I don’t deny that.

Modified the build as above, now includes optimised zerg + roaming options. Hope people find it useful.

Im currently running this in wvw zerg + roaming:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/external?l=http%3A%2F%2Fintothemists.com%2Fguides%2F5601-wvw_zerg_assaulter

Arms is amazing. I also like burst precision as it guarantees crits on your burst skill when you need them while staying tanky in soldiers armor, sigil of intelligence isnt realiable if you are swapping weapons every 5 secs

If you think nades are bad, try flamer. use skill 1 on a large group and its instagib from retaliation.

elixir gun is our most interesting kit now, please leave it as it is thankyou. the days of full elixir builds are over

Use this build for roaming + pug zergs. For guild raids run warhorn and shouts as warrior is still apparently a support bot***

http://intothemists.com/guides/5633-wvw_zerg_assaulter_20

Version 2

Fun and effective zerg build post patch. Now updated with some tweaks to optimize zerg performance. See bottom of summary for trait changes recommended for roaming – having a lot of success here as well.

Warhorn and Shoutheal got nerfed into the ground, so I decided it was time warrior became an assault class again, no more shout/horn bot.

This build gives you a tanky, mobile, high damage warrior, with lots of escapes should you find yourself getting focused.

Any feedback is welcome.

28% is just insane, just like the 30% nerf to nades previously. no other class has ever received nerfs this extreme to damage skills

kitten mortar is nerfed so hard you can’t even type it now

you loose 15% might duration and 5% damage though, although further -20% condi duration would be nice. think with the nerf to mokittenps is more important now.

Remade build following mortar nerf. Compensated with more dps as detailed above.

looks like the balance team aren’t coping, I’d call this kneejerk except it seems completely random. where were all the posts complaining about mortar 1? seriously

I find this nerf sickening when people in tanky gear are getting 2 shot by some classes. and burning hasnt been nerfed, looool

Really kittened off by this, just brought my engi back to wvw after a 1 year break, just preordered hot. 28%??? no other class gets nerfs like that. its almost as bad as the 30% grenade nerf back on the old days. guess I will just wait for an icebow if I want to be effective in wvw from ranged now right? of course, this was an esports nerf because a player in zerker who cant dodge was getting crit for 3k in pvp, the rest of the game is irrelevant.

the worst is the loss of the minor in tools which recharged the toolbelt skills at 25% health. that gave you a double heal off medkit

but you get the 40% longer field duration on mortar with the trait

a blanket nerf seems most likely however

thing is the blast on dodge completes with the mortar GM trait, which I can’t run without

maybe just me but looks like build isnt saved properly?

looks fun, shame to run elixir gun without traits from alchemy though. can’t help think you would be better using a gadget instead like rocket boots

I run both mortar and nade in wvw large groups. open with mortar, switch to nades when enemy gets close. see my sig if you want a build. for roaming/pvp you will just run condi nades

how about a mortar reskin :P

Updated the build with some clarification. Currently leaning towards mecha legs + bunker down + protection injection + healing turret as mentioned above, as the ally healing traits in inventions don’t seem that powerful in retrospect and the extra blast finisher + water field from healing turret is really useful.

Aye, you simply do not need the elixir heal skill in wvw, you get more than enough might from everything else trust me and medkit/med turret are far superior for healing. As noted above, elixir gun 4+5+toolbelt now all count as elixirs, in addition to mortar 5, so this build actually runs with 6 elixir skills total + elixir B at 75% health for an extra 2 stacks

http://intothemists.com/guides/5571-wvw_zerg_hgh_mortarnade_engi_version_2_post_mortar_nerf

Updated the build following ridiculous mortar nerf. Now healing turret +mecha legs + bunker down + protection injection as standard, invention support traits + medkit removed following various research done by community showing they are a waste of space.

Swapped Celestial trinkets for Zerker to compensate for mokittenamage nerf, armor still Soldiers.

Still very effective in WVW zerging. I am now swapping to nade kit as soon as I am in range however, mortar is for max range and combo field support only. Don’t forget to cleanse party with elixir gun, skill 3 is very useful. Try to predict when waterfields are needed and cast mortar toolbelt in advance.

give it a rest now, I think the point has been made.

So I’ve spent the past day raging on reddit and in game about the expansion price and ascended 5-10%, said anet is a joke and worse etc etc. However now I’m just tired of the whole thing and ashamed of the behaviour of myself and others. Truth is I love the game and want it to be success. I also respect the devs as people who love what they are doing and try their best. People should stop for a second and consider the effect their behaviour is having not only on morale at anet right now but on the future of the game itself. If people want to kill the game they are going about it the right way. Anet have made and continue to make mistakes sure, and I expect them to make amends in some way as they always do. But I think we all need to take a step back, take a deep breath, and start behaving like reasonable people. That goes both ways, radio silence from anet is no more acceptable than rage and insults from the community. I hope we can sort out this mess soon before permanent damage is done.

Roaming scene in T1 europe is pretty dead already so things cant get much worse. In any case, if you are running exotic and narrowly loose a fight, you wont know whether that was because your opponent was more skilled, or because they have gear that is more powerful. Increasing to 10% just makes the latter more likely. This kills wvw pvp for me and now I just zerg or play structured pvp.

The main application of mortar now is in wvw with the water field on skill 5 which you can position on top of the melee and blast with f5 (potentially 4x with the relevant traits) from the back line. Who knows how powerful this will be if you spec into healing and take other support traits. Combine this with the buff to juggernaught with stability and you have a potentially very tanky engi that can dps from max range as well as push with commander and drop a long lasting water field on demand, in addition to tagging stuff with ease. In pvp/pve I’d imagine supply crate will still be king with the new buffs.

bump – please improve it for engi – special effects for kits like with quip or new sound effects maybe. chronomancers and revenants will also want a better looking shield

Tempest = Stormwizard.
Specialises in air and water.
Gains access to sword: cc + mobility + burst focussed.
Looses access to fire and earth. Gains weapon swap in return so net weapon skill number remains the same.
Traits: designed around either increased synergy between air and water, or further specialisation in one or the other, allowing you to take arcana and 1 attunement in addition to tempest. Bonus to cc/mobility/burst damage. Unique utilities: mix.

Just thought this would be cool.

So turrets now take conditions, but can’t cleanse and run away? cant wait to unload everything onto a thumper turret helpfully placed mid point and use epidemic with my condi necro :p Its going to be beautiful

Not much more to say, we have the hood, but I’m sure there are many of us that want the whole thing in all its glory!

As mentioned above, when you get to initialising, wait few seconds, then hit enter. If you have auto log in, just wait a few secs after the first enter, then hit enter again, and the game will load. If you dont have auto login, but the email at least is saved, when you first press enter the screen will stay same, but the cursor should change. Then without clicking anything, type your password in. Then hit enter again, wait a few seconds and then hit enter once more. Game should load. If you have email login verification on your account, keep an eye on your email, you will be sent verification email after the first or second enter depending on whether you have auto login or not (just hit enter again a few secs after you have responded to verification email.

This will work with sweetfx if you follow the instructions exactly – however if you dont have your email saved and usually have to type both that and your password in, Im afraid you are screwed ;P

Absolutely nailed it.

Glint’s lair was perfection – amazing level design, beautiful music and aesthetics, intelligent gameplay and boss mechanics, and of course, massive lore and story value.

The library is awesome and it would be criminal if this was not made into a new instance accessible from the open world. It should be continually updated with new books offering lore tidbits and hints at future content. Its certainly a great way to introduce new players to old gw1 lore, which I am hoping is going to continue to be key to future updates!

The new map is also very good. The pact camp feels busier and more alive than any other settlement in the game, including major cities (which apart from la feel empty imop). Multiple npcs saluting you as a hero and pact commander was a great touch and something the playerbase has been asking for. Trahearne may be in charge, but its nice to see ordinary soldiers acknowledging who is really getting the job done! In many ways it feels like my char has finally come home and is where he belongs (as opposed to running around with a bunch of outcasts and misfits the story is trying to make me bond with – DE 2.0).

Much has already been said about the successful introduction of wvw mechanics into pve in the new map. I agree that it is working very well in this instance, but also agree with others that a balance needs to be struck between the exciting open battlegrounds of the new map, and the slower pace but more intelligent level design of drytop, which also feels a lot more detailed from a lore and story point of view. I mean, we saw all those cool ruins in the trailer, but we can barely interact with them at all currently.

But anyway, very well done and keep it up!

Think we are jumping the gun here, not ptw just yet!

I do however think that the revamp of personal story steps is pointless at this stage, with the changes made by the living world to the map completely destroying any immersion new players might hope to find in many ps instances e.g. LA. As many people have already said, living world and personal story are completely incompatible and the longer ANET try and keep them both going the worse it is going to get. This game needs an expansion with a new leveling zone and personal story if they truly want to create a good experience for new players. Otherwise focus all resources on endgame content for the existing player base and fully embrace living story as a concept. I’m talking massive changes to Orr in line with the death of Zhaitan and removal of risen events from Kryta and Caledon Forest, replacing them with events related to Mordremoth’s spreading corruption. I’m talking the successful ending of the foefire and signing of the peace treaty between the charr and ebonhawke: each with significant impact on the zones involved, perhaps replacing existing events with new ones related to new or existing threats e.g. minions of Kral or Primordus. Unless we see changes like this taking place, living story as a concept will never be taken seriously by the playerbase.

Would have thought most keys would have been used up when the chests had double ticket chance. Of course that might just mean there are lots of tickets waiting to be used, I know I have my fair share!

Depends on popularity, chaos skins are a lot more popular than phoenix so will sell for a lot more once they go up to 5 tickets. I agree however that it will be the next set that sells for significantly more as there will be a lot less supply generated from the very beginning.

I take it you guys agree with devs decision to destroy the efficacy of AR then? May I ask what alternative anti-condition defense people use? Seriously I’d love to know. Surely as a class that is supposed to be the master of elixirs and medicines, we should have many options for condi-removal right? I mean a war can cleanse 3 conditions every 10 secs just by hitting you with a hammer…

I’d recommend some tankier gear, if you survive their initial burst a thief will either run away or be an easy kill in my experience. If both you and the thief are full zerker then the one who strikes first will win, which will obviously be the thief due to stealth, which I personally don’t have a problem with :P

Get where you are coming from but automated response is not a hard counter to a condition build, it is a hard counter to bad players. Here is how you beat automated response if you are playing a condition build:

Overwhelm engineer with multiple different conditions. Engineer has terrible condition cleanse options, so he will rarely be able to cleanse all of them. Therefore if you apply burning/bleeding first and then cover that with other conditions like torment/poison/weakness/chill/cripple, all of which the condition necro has easy access to, the engineer is unlikely to survive. If the engineer somehow manages to cleanse all damaging conditions in time when he gets below 25% health and AR kicks in, as soon as he heals above 25%, condition spam him again, he will have no condition cleanse left and you will kill him. You might even consider holding back some condition burst e.g. burning for this very reason, rather than facerolling all your skills at the beginning and expecting the engineer to melt.

And on the subject of hard-counters, how about the warrior, who has access to:

Endure Pain: Immunity to ALL damage for 4 secs. Add on the defy pain grandmaster trait and you get endure pain twice: 8 secs of GODMODE (10 secs when traited).

Berserker Stance: Immunity to ALL new conditions for 8 secs (10 secs when traited). This is arguably far superior to AR, as you can use it before you hit 25% health. Yet this is ok but AR is OP? ROFL

Add on healing signet, adrenal health, cleansing ire, melandru runes, – 40% food etc etc and you really do get a hard counter to condition builds.

There are obviously ways in which good players can work around these warrior skills/traits, but the same can be said for AR, arguably more so in fact, which is the point I am making here.

So many double standards and inconsistencies in this game when it comes to class balance. I rarely post on the forum but when the engineer gets nerfed just because bad players can’t accept loosing to us I get really annoyed.

Automated response only kicks in at 25% health, and even then it only affects NEW conditions, so if you already have bleed/burning stacks you are screwed. And guess what, despite this massive drawback, devs are nerfing AR to the ground anyway in next patch! If you think things are bad atm, they are gonna get a lot worse.

engineers easily loose to condi necros because we have terrible condi removal. that isnt ltp, thats bad balance

check out the ff/rifle build in my sig, been using it for ages, works well for roaming and zerg (just change the trinkets around a bit as mentioned at bottom of 1st post)

Mord.9237:

Fresh 80 here, I come from well armored classes, warrior and guardian and WvW is my poison! I could care less about min maxing pve really! But that’s just a personal preference. I’m currently running Mask’s version of P/P HgH build and loving it, the confusion, the in your face combat etc! But personally missing some survivability and find myself getting bursted down by thieves, but that’s mainly due to not being used to my utilities, the tool kit block, elixir s, etc! I’m sure once I get used to that I’ll have no problems. I thoroughly enjoy roaming which is why I picked up Mask’s build to learn and enjoy. I’m curious how much luck you’ve had roaming or is this more of a group/Zerg build? How good is it roaming as far as survivability/getaways/mobility, what are its burst capabilities to actually kill a target without them escaping, and how survivable is it? It sounds fairly tanky based on the gear but has great power and crit through perma fury, it looks like it might be more geared towards what I’m looking for in a class but still maintain the engi feeling of a class with the flamethrower!

Any and all answers to my somewhat lengthy post would be much appreciated!

-Mord

This build is very good for roaming and duels. In zergs add some tankier trinkets and go pistol/shield (see edit at bottom of build post). The key is intelligent use of the ff and rifle, which have great synergy when on the offensive. The eg and medkit provide all the utility you will need alongside elixir b and supply drop.

sorry for the very late response, took a hiatus from the game! updated the main post with the suggestion about using 4 altruism runes and 2 monk, works well (thanks shouzama). elixir b toolbelt is now also a source of stability as you know. everything else is still the same and I’ve had fun with it today in the new wvw meta

awesome trailer, but can you imagine the zhaitan fight complain thread on the chinese forums once they realise how ‘epic’ it really is? :P