Guild Wars 2

neonreaper.4805:

Should be obvious, especially when we had a matchup like this already.

Obvious and Expected have different meanings.

Well we did hijack this thread with talks about a specific build.

Really? I saw NNKs today. Don’t know who GA is. I think this is false.

Okay I can see that. I thought it was something like that, but I didn’t know about the distance increase with RB.

When you say “feels like” does that mean “I saw this trait and thought ‘dang that sucks for condi builds’”, or did you own or get owned by this trait?

Ouch!

/15 char

Let me ask this: how are you liking the engineer playstyle? Be honest now.

You rolled an Engineer because you were impressed by the skills of someone using it. Not the best reason, I reckon.

Upon further analysis Mnemesis’s build has another couple things that bug me, aside from what GeneralBama said; maybe you can comment. With KR granting 2 seconds of Super Speed, it’s somewhat redundant with Speedy Kits? I know Super Speed is faster, but you’re effectively wasting some of that Swiftness time. Secondly, because you have the med-kit, sometimes you’re going to trigger magnetic aura. I’m wondering if healing turret would be better, but then you lose double heals with Inertial Converter…

Mnemesis, that build looks like fun. Think I’ll give it a shot, though with a few minor trait changes.

Yep, those two.

Here’s a little story that may illustrate what you need to work on. Nothing amazing, just a little view into the right mindset.

Running P/P I’ll attack a sentry by first shooting “Static Shot” (pistol 3). That’s because I know the first thing the sentry does is throw a projectile at me that immobilizes me. Since I blinded him his immobilize will miss, and that allows me to get into “Blowtorch” (pistol 4) range to put on the burns. The next thing he’s going to do is charge me and knock me down. Sometimes I’ll dodge knowing that’s coming, sometimes I’ll use my “Gear Shield” (TK #4). Next I’ll hit him with “Prybar” (TK #3) and drop my “Box of Nails” (TK #2). While kiting back I’ll hit him with “Poison Dart Volley” (Pistol #2) because I know he is about to heal himself and poison reduces the amount of that heal. Alternatively I can watch out for when he raises his hand and do a magnet pull to interrupt his heal. At that point it’s just cleanup mode because all he has left are auto-attacks.

What is there to learn from this story? Though this is only a NPC fight, most professions and builds lend themselves to a nice ordered set of skills. In a way it’s predictable. Over time one learns what skills look like while being cast and you can figure out which skills need to be mitigated. I’m by no means good, but I’m starting to learn how these things work through an increasing number of encounters, and slowly but surely I’m getting better and better.

As for builds, these forums have some videos posted by people who are not only very good but also use a good build. It’s helpful to watch those videos and learn how those skills are best utilized.

Hey guess what. I won four duels in the last hour. Now they were all against the same engineer who was fond of the Charrzooka, so I don’t think we has as tryhard or as impressed with me as I was. On the other hand, he had the help of NPCs in all fights, so that’s something.

But before I toot my own horn, I got killed in the DB BL jumping puzzle by a FA warrior. In my defense I watched him spend like 20 seconds buffing up and eating food and stuff in preparation for a fight that I assumed wasn’t going to happen. I managed to fend him off for a minute to finish the jumping puzzle (for the daily), and then half a minute afterward before he could kill me. I think I might have fared better if I was less concerned with the JP, but I didn’t like the idea of maybe losing and having to run back. After all I have work to do.

How the heck did we queue EB during EU primetime?

EnRohbi.2187:

Eviator.9746:

Well I die in 1v1s and 1v2s. I haven’t won a 1v1 in like 3 weeks.

Not even against uplevels?

How often do you see uplevels roaming solo? Maybe I’m just unlucky. Anyway, though I lose 1v1s, I still try to fight them. I could have run into SM during that duo thief fight, but it was more fun to troll them even though it cost me 1.5 silver.

Well I die in 1v1s and 1v2s. I haven’t won a 1v1 in like 3 weeks.

Congrats to the perma-stealth [VeT] thief duo from FA that finally killed me after a two minute battle in EB. And then laughed over my body. I’m the one laughing, because you should have killed me in 15 seconds.

Thanks Jin, you have now set in motion the SD nerf we engies have been expecting for months.

To bring this topic back down to earth for us mere mortals, as it was said in a previous thread, thieves can be handled as long as:

1) you are prepared at every moment to respond if you start to get ganked
2) you have sufficient stats to survive the initial burst
3) you have skills/traits that allow you to go defensive until the thief finishes blowing his initiative
4) you have the power to put pressure on the thief once it’s your turn to go offensive
5) it helps to have CCs (chills, cripples, immobilizes, stuns, etc.) to interrupt their flow

For the average player, it takes some practice, and it is often suggested to spend some time in hotjoin sPvP so you get some experience.

Interesting. So given that there are some professions that won’t be part of the top teams because there are better alternatives, that means ANet either has to fix balance, or assign special roles. I believe the former can never be accomplished unless all professions can do everything equally (boring). I believe ANet doesn’t want to do the latter because then folks will be pigeon-holed into specific roles based upon profession by design, instead of by meta. I don’t think there is a solution, folks.

Edit: Whoa, Demon and I may have just mind-melded

Still even with the roles of guardians and engineers relatively easy to understand, where do the rest of the professions sit?

Well then guardians are the point defenders. That’s their specalized role

Please fogive me, just being devil’s advocate, trying to understand what this is about.

Correct me if I’m wrong, aren’t Engies pretty good point neutralizers? That’s a pretty big deal. Or maybe is that too specialized?

Niim.9260:

Is the ALS guild the same one, granted a different name, from Anvil Rock? They play just as poorly, so that is my assumption, but thought I would check before making assumptions.

Some magicians can walk on water. Niim can swim through land.

I wanted to start getting into a bit of PvP using a build where I had a good understanding of the mechanics. A P/P+TK+HGH boon duration build was my choice. After getting past the obvious traits (Fast-acting elixirs, 409, HGH, Hair trigger), I chose the rest of the traits based on a mix of defense, offense, and utility. Turns out I chose the exact traits you did.

Power shoes is the trait that I consider most questionable, but after seeing that I’m able to run circles around other professions while on capture points, often getting behind them when they do their big forward attacks, I’d say they’re pretty handy. It’s only hotjoin, but last night I was on the winning team in 14 of 15 games, and I was top 3 in 13 of those. Felt pretty good considering I generally lose all 1v1s in WvW.

I’m not qualified to answer for “good engineers”. In fact I only have 18 games under my belt, with 15 of them just tonight. Somehow I managed to be top 3 in 13 of the 14 games I won tonight in hot join. Yeah yeah I’m comparing apples to oranges, but in case folks come here thinking engineers suck in PvP altogether, it’s not true below the top levels at least.

It does sound like that, doesn’t it? Actually I haven’t been able to play in 2 days Even so, I’m sure he would slaughter me too (see sig). I don’t understand the mindset of doing what he did with the screenshots. The victories speak for themselves. Does he need to be so childish on public forums?

Yeah forum post history indicates he mainly plays ranger.

Waffler.1257:

Eviator.9746:

Maybe you should set up a live stream so that you can brag about your awesome skills in real time.

I’ve thought about it.

Yeah you should do it! Then you can see how many people actually care.

Waffler.1257:

I went down and rallied about 3 seconds later from killing the sentry. Any other questions?

Well that does explain the stacks. There is 20 minute gap between the first four or so pictures, but I guess it’s possible nothing happened in that time.

Maybe you should set up a live stream so that you can brag about your awesome skills in real time.

Waffler.1257:

Welp, I did a little solo roaming in DB BL this morning, and I took pictures! First, I ran into an ele who hesitated to attack me at first but eventually got up the courage and engaged. Unfortunately, he went down in about 5 seconds. Next a thief and warrior decide they want a 2v1 fight, but they don’t fare much better and both go down in about 15 seconds. Then a necro and engi see me and despite having a 2v1 advantage decide they want to have a hug party with the sentry. I figure they need the extra help and engage anyway. The engi goes down and dies quick, then the sentry dies, then the necro decides to try run for the garrison but also goes down. Mr engi spawns at the garrison and runs back to try save the necro but is too late, and once again he goes down fast. Fortunately for him, Mr d/d ele shows up to res him so that they can get back to their 2v1 odds. The ele gets wrecked and runs off, but after consecutive outnumbered fights, Mr engi finally manages to down me… and then he gets downed himself once again. Since he went down after me though, he had the health advantage and won the fight. Mr engi then decides he will dance on my corpse in celebration of his awesome victory. Quite impressive.

There is a hole in your little story here. Your stacks of corruption seem to have been wiped out a few times.

Heh, there’s another solution: get the T3-T8 servers to transfer a ton of guilds into TC, DB, and FA that way those servers have blowout matches and the top 6 servers separate from the rest and never get matched up with the lower servers. Hmmm, interesting.

SoR/JQ/BG/TC are now situated to have large fights nearly 24/7. The guilds that play in this “tier” like to have large fights, and they like to be able to have them at any time of day (ask AGG, who moved to JQ from DB). That’s just not possible on any other servers. Asking guilds to transfer away is asking them to stop liking the style of fighting that they like, and solely for the sake of helping to even out the matchups.

SykkoB.9465:

anet has the power also

by making the top 6 servers only face eachother and t3 and t4 the same and so on down the list instead of this stupid t2 vs t4 servers

Ahem, as I said on the last page: “That’s silly. When would FA (or DB for that matter) ever get a chance to win, unless a higher ranked server lost some huge guilds?”

SykkoB.9465:

sor bg jq/ tc db fa thes 6 servers should never face anyone but thos top 6 ANYONE ELSE its just a blow out and kills wvw

That’s silly. When would FA (or DB for that matter) ever get a chance to win, unless a higher ranked server lost some huge guilds?

Neophyte.4985:

ARGH!!!! CD how could you!? You took our match up T.T DB…. FA… I miss you so much. At least you have each other…

I too am curious what TC looks like now that it’s been a few weeks. From what I can tell you guys have gotten stronger, and you might even put up more of a fight against the top 3 servers than we did.

Manuhell.2759:

I’ll repeat myself: warriors were able to win that tournament as well in the past. Did that meant they were powerful and almighty at that time?
No, they weren’t, exactly as they aren’t now.
Simply put, that tournament doesn’t prove anything.

Oh, well okay. I guess engi sucks now.

Ah, it’s been a while, CD. Let me summarize this entire thread to save folks some time.

1. DB will be called a zerg bandwagon server
2. There will be many complaints about the new matchup system
3. All DB, FA, and CD guilds suck and run from open field fights
4. Nobody really cares about PPT, they just want good fights
5. DB and FA won’t fight unless their odds are at least 2v1
6. If FA or CD had DB’s SEA presence, they’d be in T1
7. Every battle was won against overwhelming odds

Have a nice week!

Manuhell.2759:

Warriors won one too some time ago. I suppose they were fine back then, right?

When the OP says “This puts the Engi class in a bad position in tPvP in my opinion”, a day or two after the new engis won a pretty big tournament, I start to question the logic.

Crazy, cause the “new” engineers just won the SOAC profession tournament, at least NA, perhaps EU too.

KStudios’ hand is the only hand that can beat a royal flush.

I assume you’re talking PvE here. You actually are doing much better than you think because you are asking the right questions.

Step 1: learn to dodge. I’m sure you know how to dodge but there’s more skill to it than is immediately obvious. Most professions cannot take more than a handful of hits. There’s not really any tanking in this game, but there is damage mitigation. The bad guys often “telegraph” their big moves, either by taking a big swing, or a weird visual distortion effect. Dodge a second or so after they start making this telegraph (take some practice).

Step 2: learn to CC. Part of damage mitigation is preventing the bad guys from doing damage to you. Engineers are pretty darn good at CC: blind, stun, daze, knockback, immobilize, cripple, chill, weakness. Study all your abilities to understand the secondary CC effects they apply beyond just damage.

Step 3: learn to kite. With the exception of the bomb kit and the tool kit, engineers are a ranged profession. There’s a technique called circle strafing where you run in a circle while all the mobs follow you, but they are still in front of you enough to hit them with ranged attacks. Because most mobs are melee, they can’t hit you.

Once you learn the above you’ll already be way better. Engineers also have a bunch of specialized abilities, many of which are of more benefit in WvW and PvP situations. For example the tool-kit #4 (gear shield) blocks all attacks for a few seconds. While that could have use in PvE (e.g. you need to get the heck out of a sticky situation), it’s rare an not necessarily worth taking just for that. The same ideas apply to elixirs. Turrets are for point defense. In some events you can stand in one small area and complete the event. But most of the time you are mobile. So turrets are often more of an sPvP thing where you stay to defend a point. As for kits, each has its strengths and weaknesses in certain situations. For PvE, most people stick to only one or two weapon kits, and the other utilities might be an elixir B or a turret or a cool gadget. The grenade kit and the bomb kit are popular PvE kits because they dish out AoE. Turns out both are also pretty good for single-target mobs, but since you asked about using the weapon versus using kit, you’ll find the weapons more appropriate for single targets.

I know you asked other specific questions (stats, skills, and traits), but often the answer is actually about personal preference, not min-maxing.

Jinks.2057:

My experience with your guild is that unless its 5 of you vs me it’s not a fair fight.

I mean i can understand you wanting to win that ppt and what not, but c’mon let’s look at the score for a second ;P

Jinks is 1/8th Cherokee. It has nothing to do with ancestry, he just ate a Jeep.

Oh no! Now there’s gonna be more cries for nerf, specifically our CCs.

elkirin.8534:

Maxim 37:
There is no “overkill”.
There is only “open fire” and “time to reload”.

-The Seventy Maxims of Maximally Effective Mercenaries”
? Howard Tayler

I’ve never seen this. And it’s pretty much awesome.

If you fear being in the front lines taking a lot of hits, I’m sorry to say grenade kit is your best option. But if you don’t mind being up close and personal with the bad guys, you can have a lot of fun with the bomb kit and/or flamethrower. Personally I like to run bomb kit. I’ll rush head-first into the enemy zerg with gear shield, throw down box of nails, drop bomb 2, 3, and 4 (not necessarily that order), then big ol’ bomb, then leap back out to my group with Acid bomb. In other words, I’m specced to wreak havoc on the zerg so the rest of my team can mop up. Sometimes that bravado gets me killed, but hey it’s a game and it’s fun when it works.

It’s not overkill. I say it’s not overkill enough!!! I demand more golems next time!

nightraven.4513:

Eviator.9746:

nightraven.4513:

24 golems, sos keep in less then 1 minute…. because we can

Impressive! This looks like SM, no? millenium.org is still showing it being owned by DB. (or are you on DB, I can’t really tell).

We took it and ported all golems back to SM. A random person started to line them up.

Knowing DB, those golems are likely to time out right about 9:00 am server time because nobody will bother refreshing them.

nightraven.4513:

24 golems, sos keep in less then 1 minute…. because we can

Impressive! This looks like SM, no? millenium.org is still showing it being owned by DB. (or are you on DB, I can’t really tell).

I suppose most people here will ask the question “what do you want to do?” For example, if you want to win 1v1s, there’s builds for that. If you roam in small groups there’s builds for that, and if you like to run with a big groups, there’s builds for that.

I’ve decided to stop responding to trolls and instead I will just boost their already inflated egos with matchup relevant Chuck Norris jokes. For example, Chuck Norris wears [GF] underwear.