Guild Wars 2

funny how much people complain on eles, and yet they are pretty much as far as i can tell, the only class that has been nerfed on every patch, the only thing wrong with eles is basically the lack of build choice.. auramancer or go home, and yeah auras are hella good and yeah its pretty easy for auramancers to have 100% fury and swiftness uptime, 30% duration from arcane, attunement switches and auras, 2x easy and 1 combo field 1 on d/d personally id like to see some incentive to go back to staff, or maybe even the focus as an option.

p.s for the people who was talking about runes of lyssa for cond removal/all boons it cant be done every “36” sec on theives the effect has a internal cooldown of 45 secs so any elite with a quicker cast time can actually hinder it, e.g necro elite pet, both the summon and the knockdown can proc the effect

nah grenades arent crappy, its just that the grenadier trait is pretty much mandatory if for nothing else, the barrage and kit refinement barrage is nice as a “downed player” finisher when u dont wanna get messed up on ur rifle glass cannon. and yeah ability to quickly vulnerability stack, and get some nice amount of trait bleeds and trait burns, as well as the no2 being great dmg and applying 3x 12 sec bleed? the poison nades can easily give people 30 secs worth, and the chill is sweet also, blinds are ok, but meh its only gonna make them miss once.. and bomb yeah they are sweet, i dont really use them for powah builds but for condy builds.. ahhh that confusion bomb… 5 stacks aoe… its just too nice! used with static shot and prybar, u can pretty much 10 confusion stack someone i mean.. magnet pull-prybar-concussion bomb-blowtorch-static shot

elixir gun is good u just cant look at at as weapon more of a support kit, and flamethrower is just buggy and broken, even the juggernaught trait will only give 5x stacks of might without might runes etc, ur actually better off using that 3x might stack on heal, and just switching in and out of med kit every 10 secs lol.. i mean that gives u instant might, and totals 6 stacks without might duration.

switch kit grenade barrage , regular grenade barrage.. dead.. so about 0.5sec-1sec

i dont think they are terrible they are just buggy.. and alot of juggling heres some underestimated things on engi. personally i play glass cannon rifle/kits engi with 62% crit dmg 42% crit rate i think but perm fury and sigil of minor accuracy

1. ELIXER GUN!!!

its underestimated because its situational but….

1. auto atk when used with rifled barrels causes 3secs of weakness (its a bug but hey! we deserve some possitive ones)

2. its a very low cooldown cripple and also can grant u swift and allys but its abit buggy at that, but with rifled barrels cooldown is like 5 sec, dmg is ok also

3. fumigate… its pretty crap dmg but its a good condition stacker, also it cures up to 5 conditions on ur allys, super handy if your playing with a friend

4. a totally amazing skill.. scales well with power/crit this is seriously awesome, its basically a powerful well and a retreat in 1, and on a seriously low cooldown, this retreat will do aoe dmg of about 1700 per tick! on crits.. and people are oblivious to it often.

5. super elixr is super… its not a great heal but u can keep 100% uptime on the light field if you so wish by using the kit refinement, it also gives 2 free cures aswell as the cure projectile finisher.. is great if ur not relying on cleansing formula!

TOOLKIT!

more lowcooldown super abilitys, shield is pretty much self explaitory but magnet pull is super awesome not just cos its a control but because u know exactly where they will be can easily be comboed as such

magnetpull > pry bar (also awesome dmg) > switch to grenade kit (free barrage) > grenade barrage toolbelt 1

box of nails (from switching to kit)> magnetpull > pry bar > elixir gun no4

magnet pull > prybar > blunderbuss >overcharged shot> jump shot

i think static discharge is abit broken so i dont use it but KIT REFINEMENT!!! epic!!
also the medkit skills are throwable is an awesome trait as it changes all the cooldowns (another bug :P) giving you 100% uptime on fury/swift with just the no5 skill.

even though the grenade auto isnt what it used to be, grenade barrage aswell as no2.4.5 grenades are sick… engi has awesome comboing opportunitys and can easily to some sick dmg in short time, the main thing i have noticed is you shouldnt be using auto atk very much because they basically arent that good, rifle one is ok when ur chasing but you should be trying to netshot/magnet pull and combo them out of that, theres so many different low cooldown combo options its just the buggyness that makes engi under represented!

the only thing playable about it is the grenade barrages really, the auto atk could be rebalanced i think. i feel like the grenades are balanced as if they will always hit, u use grenadier trait and you dont have to aim it yourself, in practise ur lucky if 2 grenades hit, ur lucky if u dont get obstructed or just have them hit some floor, and ur super lucky if ur target dont just move! that being said glass grenade barrage is no problem!! in super close range

personally i think only the elixr gun and flamethrower need sorting out, flamethrower is good on paper but never hits people on inclines, the number 2 (main dmg skill, is odd and will only hit withing about 600-900 range) elixir gun has buggyness relating to the rifled barrels trait and could probably do with a buff to the fumigate and auto

Kaylogin.2846:

You don’t need an extra tick to get a dmg increase on conditions! Any duration increase gives you moredmg! Test it yourself on golems.the tool tips gets also updated in terms of dmg over all foot condis

nah thats not true.

if for example your main bleed is 2 secs long. there is absolutely no point in having an extra 40% bleed duration as you would need 50% to get the extra tick, conditions tick on the second, so they are only useful if they stack duration. which burning does i grant u, but the blowtorch skill is already a long duration burn, most people only use that 20% extra burn with the 33% chance to burn on crit, to give a free 100% (ish) burn uptime.

basically you should always make sure you have a logical amount of duration, based on the condition you use most or your just wasting runes. also you must keep in mind most charachters have a decent amount of condition removal and you shouldnt expect a condition to last the full duration, if your conditions are already quite long, its better to focus on cond-dmg instead

lmao :P u do get used to the boom :P kit refinement is sick free cure and small heal and cure field on elixir gun, free grenade barrage on ur point with grenades (my personal fav but u need to stand directly ontop of someone for max dmg, on my dirty glass cannon i do netshot immobilse, switch to grenade kit, then grenade barrage = 2x grenade barrage= about 8-12kdmg in 1 second and probably 10 or more vulnerability stack and a few bleeds and burn! win!) and with toolkit u can pretty much keep up those box of nails perminently, its not as good as caltrops i know but still, it triggers ever 10 secs, and lasts 4. when used with the box of nails skill u can get pretty decent uptime!

static discharge on the other hand….. the potential is there..but its just too kitten in consistent with most skills

watched it, some nice ideas, not sure about some of the trait choices like 20% extra burn duration, seems like a waste since that doesnt provide and extra tick, considering you could get the penetrate effect instead, would love to see how u play it, ive always thought that cond-engi’s main weapon is the easy confusion stacking, u could get an easy 10 stacks up and hopefully laugh as they kill themselves :P, i currently play rifle+toolkits build. it does huge burst dmg. i think the reason engi’s dont get alot of love is all of the bugs :P most of them negative :P

a few “positive bugs” ive noticed is the packaged stimulants trait decreases ur fury+swiftness pot to a 15 sec recharge making it easily 100% uptime with just that

elixir guns auto atk does 3 sec weakness instead of 1 sec when used with rifled barrels. it also decreases the recharge on the no2 to 5secs giving a cheap cripple.

although almost all the bugs i noticed are negative such as flamethrower being totally useless on slight elevations haha

i would say the skill recharges dont make it redundant, it compliments it, so many times ive been fighting a small group on engi, seen my toolkit heal come back up just to get knocked back or dazed before it activates, i think with self res elixir r,toolkit spells back at 25%hp and immune to conditions, gives a great last ditch survivablity. but i dont actually use it, because i cant invest 30 in alchemy in my current build.

i thought the nerf was only in spvp? in which case grenades were never op, i figured it was just an attempt to try to balance the intruduction of the sigils working on kits and the increased grenade velocity. the increased velocity is great but i dont think grenades should be balanced from 3x hits, cos actully hitting someone with all 3 hits on grenades just aint gonna happen.

dd ele= op..but generally not cheap
d/d glass cannon backstab combo cheap. and maybe op? mostly cheap
d/d heartseek spam.. just cheap
haste,bullscharge,100b,eviserate- increadibly cheap. not op :P
mesmer- moa… hugely cheap.. not op
mesmer portal . situationally both cheap and op.

the two are not mutally exclusive!

ive been playing a similar build recently but 1 change i use is the kit refinement trait so you get an effect when you activate a kit gives you an epic combo vs minions/mesmers or immobile targets, mesmer tried to shatter combo me earlier and just got some nice instant 12k dmg to him and his clones. im talking netshot-switch to grenade kit (creates a barrage on ur position,then grenade barrage) u need to literally be standing ontop of them for the auto barrage to hit well but seriously its epically funny :P . it also can take out a heavy golem in under 1 sec also i go for the 15% chance to apply bleed on explosions, it seems to proc in groups e.g u get 3 stacks or 6(forbarrage) or none. the only thing i have noticed is i suffer badly if its lagging

a game full of theives is easy points mate… the other day i did a hot join enemy team was 5 guardians and 2 mesmers.. seriously if games are gonna be saturated with any class thief is one of the more bearable ones. imagine playing against 5 guardians some of them bunker and some of them high dmg.. them basically having almost perminent block shield etc and occasionally u get wacked super hard it was funny as hell but also infuriating :P if you play alot of tpvp u will be used to guardians being almost pure defence, and when u come across them and they wipe ur hp away in 1 sec with a little spinny spinny. you are like da hell :P

look as far as theives go, its not the dmg, its 2 things, cnd/mug backstab combo.. make mug break animation. then thats fixed if people care so much. second is heartseeker needs to be directional instead of pulling on a target, so people actually have to face the right direction, instead of just spam and faceroll in any direction. the dmg is fine, and actually its just the use of thief skills that annoy people (i actually play sword/dagger) as its way safer then d/d and i love the daze/immobilise options.

hes saying he saw alot of new players not that he got gw2 for christmas. lol

if you dont run a stunbreaker ur basically asking for this to happen.

and yeah guess i can agree there is too much quickness in the game although i dont really care about those either. theres normally more useful utilities.

now all i gotta do is wait for a naked vulnerable warrior just after i poped all my utilitys and 25might stack :P itll definately happen eventually, still 68k pretty lol

tbh i feel the problem in guild wars2 is that barely anything relys on perfect execution. but thats probably because ive played competitive fighting games where a good player will make a bad player look like an absolute joke.

i completely agree with jonathan on this 1 its gonna be almost impossible to ban every macro player as software macros are pretty easy to find, if people are using commonly used tools but hardware macros are gonna be very tricky and where do u draw the line? what about custom controllers? are they ok personally i think so, im lefty and i use custom controllers, but there arent any 1 button = 5 action type buttons set up, but i could easyily do so if i want, but really its just lazyness and ur gonna only ruin urself, if you was so lazy for example to set a macro for cloak and dagger/steal/backstab. you would get into the habit of doing that and your gameplay would probably become more predictable as a result

on the other hand, if noone played the op class to point out the problem it would stay broken

yeah to be honest heartseeker as it is, people will complain even if it wasnt op which i dont think it is. the actually problem like you say it that it is homing and requires no skill to spam, i think this actually annoys people more than the damage, i almost got killed by a hs spammer earlier got hit once, when shadowrefuge because i was around 3 people, got hit by 2 more hs while invisible they continued to hook on me for a while, i think it needs just to go what ever direction your facing, infact in many ways that would be better, i used to hate it on ele when i try to escape with rtl and it points me back towards the enemy lol

bring a really big straw

underwater combat is just tiresome even if it was balanced, apart from that “skirmishes” seem broken on that level, and with the lack of points switching hands, games usually last longer and score less on that lvl then anywhere else. just get rid of it, the other lvls are all fine, and temple is great fun

its not that bad.. but i do know how u feel, i would never play a charachter just because its currently the most buggy overpowered one, tbh ive used up all my charachter slots, so i couldnt even if i wanted too. but i do understand the frustration if you happen to like say engineers and get annoyed at the lack representation in tpvp or how noone wants you! the last big balance was a couple of mad changes like mesmers and breaking protection on elementalist (now fixed i think) and just lots of underwater combat, which should have been 1 millionth priority. seems like it was a distraction to buff up the changes list. instead of balances id much rather see more spvp content. come on. massive pve content released all the time, is it really that hard to make a few more maps, so we dont have to play 1/5 maps on the water lvl :P

yeah i do kinda agree with you above poster! unfortunately have you ever played a game of raid of the capricorn that isnt zerg on zerg? its just how it goes there.. as hardly anyone bothers with ruin.. and with good reason because underwater combat is boring and unbalanced.. still it was my first game after fixing my lag and i wanted to get back to making videos.

i speed up on parts that i find boring, in order to cut the over all video time, i try to slow down back too 100% everytime there is any action worth watching.

also to anyone saying “in the future you will have better ping”. its simply not true. ping and bandwidth are totally different although ping can be improved by taking a direct route, information can only travel at the speed of light. seems fast but it does amount to some milliseconds across the planet

dirty maths!

speed of light

299 792 458 m / s

diameter of earth!

12 756 200 meters

furthest possible distance from 2 places on earth

diameter x pi / 2 = 20037392.1064774 meters

minimum possible ping with direct connection =

0.06683754568127727883000979297485 ms

so yeah 66m/s is the lowest theoretical ping a direct route between opposite ends of the planet. in reality this is a best possible case scenario.

p.s the only way to get a higher ping than this would be via quantum entanglement which is likely to be the next generation of quantum internet, this is still bound by the speed of light however, the lack of need for physical cable means the signal can be bounced via satalite

i hope you have enjoyed this presentation about the speed of light :P

back to making videos! been really laggy last week or so, finally sorted out my connection so i thought id record my games again. first game back got 20kill 0 death game on raid of capricorn and somehow 0 skirmishes! doesnt really make sense but heyho. hate this lvl! but its the first game ive recorded with sword dagger, so i thought id post it, even though its in 720p i think my encoder messed up the video abit seems a little low quality but watchable! hope you enjoy it, build in vid description

i would say keep the speculation to a minimum statistical analysis is probably done regularly by the devs etc to get a non bias view.. humans have a very bias view on stats. some people saying things like all these classes are op but this one class is balance or all these classes are overplayed but this one is balance.. have very much misunderstood the nature of statistics.. if you were too look at regular spvp for example you would see that the majority of players are thiefs and mesmers. but this data alone is meaningless for example we dont know what the chances of a team winning is based on class alone, if for example we had strong data that indicates that the team with the most mesmers for example is 80% likely to win. then yes its obvious that class is unbalanced unfortunately spvp players range widely in skill giving an unacceptable p value. in paid tourneys at least you can assume players are of a similar skill lvl, most of the differences will come from tactics and group synergy and communication. without ranting too much basically what im saying is that, you could have a highly overpowered class that is not over represented due to general perception of that class.. doesnt mean it shouldnt be nerfed though.

its definately because of latency, im from uk playing on eu server, last week ive been getting mad lag, i did a trace root, found out that instead of going london-france-germany. my connection was going london-dallas-washington-paris-germany…. epic ping fail been playing with 150-200 ping instead of 40 or so. let me tell u the lag makes it unplayable, almost all melee atk will just miss as they are out of range server side. it makes any stun break and “oh kitten” reactions pointless and you also elastic band all over the place after any sort of teleport and the engineer “small and invulnerable” elixer also causes you to repeatedly elastic band back to the original spot. lag is actually horrific in this game if you get it :P

actually since the latest patch d/d eles and mesmers pretty much are gods, when experienced pvp’ers have trouble dealing with noobs simply because of the class they playing its serious business..

i regularly play tpvp with a roamer on my team engi using rifles hes really good and hes magnet,knockbacks and immobilises are invaluble, not too mension he does great burst dmg, keep with it, because actually i think being a good player is more important than class.. and u know they bring alot more variety than a glass warrior or thief, though personally i feel glass thief could be fixed by adding small dmg increases but removing the pull on heartseaker and adding a very small cast time too steal, so that it interupts spells (no more mug/cnd/bs) builds (i actually play thief)

anyways i think more emphasis should be on mastering a class and all its utility and being adaptable especially if new game modes are introduced. people wont just stick to the boring bunker cannon mentality

changing infiltrators arrow too a target only skill would effectively ruin it, its not a buff or a nerf its a death.. u really thing a small blind and teleport too target is worth 6 ini, when you would have to swap weaps to actually take advantage of a gap closer in that situation. would be pointlessly bad, maybe just fix it so some of the current places u can teleport through arent possible, bugging through walls etc, though personally i think its fun, its surely unintended :P

makes me laugh when i still see things like “nerf backstab” have you ever played a non glass cannon thief and backstabbed someone.. it does about 1700 lol, or 2.5k or so if ur lucky to crit, its only because some people go proper stupid with 100% glass cannon instagib builds that unbalance the skills for everyone else who is playing other builds those skills become uselessly bad, problem is rarely the individual skill but how traits or builds affect them. i feel that some of the previous changes to thiefs reflect that, like the mad 50% dmg reduction on throwing dagger thingy without any initiative change.

i actually play a condition dmg thief (well actually carrion set sorta mixed dmg)
theres some small changes id like to see such as the pistol auto atk being made abit faster, or the shortbow auto with a small bleed but maybe reduced physical dmg slightly. just nothing gamebreaking so i have to roll a new class in pvp lik what happened too ele last time.

but anyways just my two cents.

i agree without con-duration, well tbh its kinda semi garbage, only use i ever found for it was either with venom share and group stoning people or with rune of lyssa set to proc the “on elite” effect. the fact that the immobilse venom doesnt stack it “replaces” per hit, is also kind of misleading, makes the chill venom a tempting prospect when used with venom share/residual venoms etc as it would stack shame its like a 1 sec chill

personally i seize the opportunity, too if i see the res will be too fast before i can finish, stack alot of caltrops on the 2 of them, and mayb go for some cluster bomb spam, putting enough dmg on the resser and bleeds that will seriously pressure him, and normally at that time u got 2 people on low hp if he gets a res. u can always use something like basilisk venom,headshot,scorpion wire to res interupt if you feel that way inclined

seems abit more fun the the regular death blossom spam builds, might try something like this, and btw no cond duration doesnt tick at 25% or any% its based on seconds, if its a 4 second bleed 25% will make it 5sec, it just has too be a whole number, so if your main bleed is 10 secs like death blossoms is (i think) 20% will make it last 12.

HEADSHOT!

another misleading post, seriously any QQ’s should start with wvw,pvp,pve or tpvp. talking about esport and wvw in same sentence is like talking about prostitution and the pope.

to make these threads at least somewhat relevent i urge people to include in the title if there issue is with wvw pve spvp tpvp, because actually just coming to the thieves board and remind us that stealth is a thing. isnt particularly productive.

sorry what?? although i enjoyed your high and mighty post on “oh heres an exploit”..
your entire topic is about a play style not an exploit. secondly your talking wvw so meh.. you really think that spamming auto atk is an exploit? theres no exploit here, going stealth turns vital shot into sneak atk, making stealth highly utilisible pistol/dagger condition builds have fairly good survivability if played properly as you have stealths for condition removal and spacing, and you dont really need to go in close unless its fairly safe. that being said, still have low toughness, can get creampuffed in a second by any glass cannon.

talking about wvw and culling issues is completely separate from class balance, and in future if your complaining about a class in pve or wvw make that known in the topic, as it was a waste of time me reading it thanks.

like that enchanting wep thing in the fractal, plus i think ctf would reinforce bunkers less than conquest which is basically domination. since in ctf you only really need 1 bunker, as havi ng more than 1 flag defender would probably encourage thieves to just sneak in and run out lol. you would more likely see more chasers and knockbacks so, eles probably

i dont see the problem with teams running 1-2 bunkers, personally my tpvp only runs 1bunker with myself as a staller on the first point. having more than 1 guardian is pretty cheap but, its not the end of the world.. as far as the whole rock-paper-scissors issue people keep saying about im not sure i agree totally, people saying

condition->bunker->cannon->condition

i dont think this hold true, in my option condition beats both bunker and cannon if they do not have sufficient condition removal, however if they have lots of condition removal of course its the other way around. its not so simple as a condition beats bunker as they are likely to have quite good condition removal options as a solo or team. cannons however are unlikely too, assuming you can avoid the initial burst condition will beat cannon.

for example i play condition thief i would say given a 1 vs 1 situation with an equally skilled bunker guardian i will win eventually. given a 1 vs 1 with a bunker necro i will most certainly lose to an “equally skilled” one. or at least be throughly neutralised by them in a team fight. vs a cannon thief i can get taken by surprise and downed very fast as i have a fair amount of hp but not great toughness. for the first 2-3 seconds the fight is in there advantage after that short period. the chance of me winning goes up dramatically, same thing vs glass cannon warrior, no excuse to be hit by those burst.. but if you are unlucky you can get creampuffed in seconds, to get to my fundamental point you cant make sweeping judgements like all bunkers are op. or all cannons are op, look at individual builds, and obviously in conquest where the point is to stand and claim points, being able to do that effectively is going to be a tactical advantage. if we ever get team deathmatch, i doubt bunkers will be op :P though i can still see one as a flag defender if we had ctf

not really an answerable question, different people are better at different aspect of the game, and some people might be amazingly skilled but in crappy teams, really what your asking is who is the necro “etc” on the top teams out there. and since gw2 isnt competitive at all and barely anyone actually goes into paids at the moment id say its a pretty small sample size :P

ya the ele downed skill is abit broke now, it only the hp regen that makes it so, im quite happy for them to have the skill, but they shouldnt be able to use it on 5% hp then suddenly be back to like 75%. that being said it only lasts 3 seconds and is pretty obvious. i would say its probably OP when couples with “teamwork”

theres no excuse for being killed hit by a haste-bullscharge-100b combo. besides lag or it being a messy 8v8.

sounds like a massive buff to lazy mesmers who prefer to just dodge about and let the clones do the damage.

theres kinda no benefit to having both condition dmg and precision on the same tree as there are no “on crit” bleeds,burns or poisons. i would welcome some reworks on the thief but i dont think itll be this simple :P

well apart from the fact that people are refering to single traits as if all thieves run all of them all the time, i mean that would be op.. have you ever been caught in caltrops in real life.. of course you would have bleedy feet and what to get out of them immediately! as a general idea most bleeds thieves in tourneys will use these utilies

1. caltrops.
2. shadow step or roll for initiative
3. shadows refuge or some other supportive skill

they will most likely be using carrion set and relying on cloak and dagger for the majority of stealths, the biggest problem i have is if glass cannon or burst builds in general fool me into dodging early, by looking like they are going for there major burst but are actually waiting to mind wrack me or some shizz when i finish dodging. glass cannon builds are only good if played with abit of deception or caught out from behind etc, if u literally charge into me, you will regret it. i will absolutely agree with you that condition thieves are a tough fight because we arent intrested in a fast kill, that being said, if you dont give us opportunitys to cnd alot and just stand outside the caltrops which rarely cover the entire point, you really cut our options alot.

yeah aga is correct, and actually if you look at most of the stats, there is a point of diminishing returns, where it takes a large sacrifice to add a small lvl of dmg or defence.

i personally do use condition duration, as my condition dmg is already sufficiently high to warrant adding duration since my duration is very low without it, and im quite happy for people to burn their condition removals on my bleeds knowing full well, ive got an extremely large amount more of them coming their way

in my experence bleed duration is more useful on shorter bleeds such as ranger shortbow auto, engi pistol auto or bleed thieves, if you consider that alot of bleeds are already +10secs long especially on necro you would want to increase the per tick as actually your unlikely they will have that bleed for the full duration. if your a thieve and you can stack bleeds very quickly, having them go from 3 seconds to 5 seconds is a huge burst in dmg. what you need to do really is find a sweet spot. for instance my auto atk does 4 ticks of bleeds i think without runes, with 45% it only does 1 extra and alot of wasted time, with 45% and 5in cond duration it does 6 ticks, look at what your most common skill is to apply bleeds and work around that. as a 4 sec bleed will become 6seconds with 50% duration, but a 3sec bleed (caltrops for me) will only do 4.5sec only adding 1 bleed, so i personally go for 25% duration using 2x krait and 4x rune of lyssa for “condition duration and some other random boon on heal” test what works best with your build and most used skill. more condition dmg will get the dmg out faster, and more reliably then simply increasing duration. though abit of both is probably good.