Guild Wars 2

Hi guys/gals,

I wanted to talk about a build that is a bit different, but really seems to add survivability.

Anyways the build is:
20/5/15/30/00

Edited for link:
http://tinyurl.com/cjacltg

At first glance I was like wtf I’m losing a lot of crit & condition damage. However, if your in a fight chances are your going to get below 25% HP and so that’s where this shines. If you look at the 15pt in inventions you will see that your heal skill recharges at 25% effectively giving you another Elixir H. With the might stacking on heal from the Explosives line and might from HGH you make up that lost 150 condition damage and gain 150 power as well. Biggest thing you get two heals. I tried this tonight in WvW and was wasting people. @ Mask, I’m using that stealth on immobilize and you finally sold me. This also works great if I stumble upon a zerg on zerg. I just swap out toolkit for FT and that second heal helps me live through retaliation and confusion.

Anyone else try this build out?

Kalan.9705:

nakoda.4213:

Phineas Poe.3018:

But when you say Engineer is fine, what you really mean is Engineer is overpowered.

well, it’s a bit more like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejCqVyROqno

edit: LOL at the “Sun” and “Mirror” headlines.

edit 2: since i’m on point with the videos, here is a take on the new KR…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EGAtLGDU7M

Funny videos

This made my day. I couldn’t stop laughing lol.

Tbh I haven’t really seen a lot of great Mesmer commander’s since they really lack the ability to frontline/charge in. This is usually better for frontliners. However, since the Mesmer is so kitten slow it actually helps the zerg / large group stick together much better.

Thinking about rolling an Elementalist………but what should I know about this profession if I’m a WvW player?

You think it’s bad, you should try playing a Mesmer……..their speed buffs don’t even stack.

Kardiamond.6952:

Goloith.6349:

Thedenofsin.7340:

Goloith.6349:

As the title says I think its only a matter of time before confusion is nerfed in WvW. Personally I think it’s fine and actually forces people to run condition removal, but as I’ve seen with the Engineer forums, there’s a high likelihood it will get nerfed. I would really like to see a statement regarding this from ANET to see if this will happen or not.

If a glass cannon thief unstealths and I do nothing for 3 seconds, I die.
If I get 20 stacks of confusion on me and do nothing for 3 seconds, I take 0 damage.

…and you want to nerf confusion?

Absolutely not! I want to see it alive and well. I love my Engineers prybar and my Mesmer’s glamour build, but I’ve been seeing so many people whine about it that I have a feeling it’s coming. If I knew they’d never touch confusion I would make my Mesmer my main instead of my Engineer.

@Goloith

I know you from the engi forum and I know you make build based around condition duration.

And you know as much as I do, that perma stack at least 5 confusion stack on someone is something really strong in WvW when the condition can hit for at least 3k on a basic HGH engineer.

You can nearly perma stack it only with prybar, nothing else. That’s crazy.

You can have 3 way to send confusion on the ennemy, and can use them each 10-15 second. Most people don’t have 3 condition removal over 15 second. And that’s if you don’t hide your confusion stack behind bleed/weakness/cripple ect.

I’d say that there is really only two confusion based abilities at one time. If you’re running HGH you will pickup toolkit for the prybar, but won’t pick up bombkit on top of that because then it becomes worthless to spec HGH. As far as removing it let’s take a look at what other professions can do:
-Engineer: Elixir C, Elixir C toolbelt, 409 (4 more) Total = 6 condition removal

-Mesmer: Arcane Theivery (3 stacks), Null Field (AoE removal), Mantra (two stacks), = 3+ AoE condition removal

-Elementalist: Etheral Renewal, Signet of Water, Cleansing Fire, = 3 + Cure over time condition removal

-Guardian: Signet of Resolve, Contempt of purity, let alone 3 shouts for removal if speced = 5 condition removal

-Necro: Well of power, Plague signet, …..hell this class wants conditions on them = 2 + massive damage from conditions

-Ranger: Healing Spring, Signet of renewal = 2 Condition removal

-Thief: Withdrawal, Roll for intitive, Shadowstep, = 3 condition removal

-Warrior: Mending, Signet of Stamina, +2-3 Condition removal if speced into it. = 2 – 4 condition removal

On top of that one could run a Human character if they want even more condition removal.

There is ample condition removal in the game and people can’t have everything…..

Ya I run with Eyefinity which is AMDs way of triple monitoring. Personally i would not try doing it windowed anyway. Your FPS is going to take a hit. Is there any settings in Nvida surround that lets you equip these monitors together?

Personally I think the speed on the Guardian is fine, but I’m Shout GS/Staff built so I’ve got access to tons of speed through retreat, save yourself, staff #3, and GS leap. I can practically go from dead last to the front of the pack.

Thedenofsin.7340:

Goloith.6349:

As the title says I think its only a matter of time before confusion is nerfed in WvW. Personally I think it’s fine and actually forces people to run condition removal, but as I’ve seen with the Engineer forums, there’s a high likelihood it will get nerfed. I would really like to see a statement regarding this from ANET to see if this will happen or not.

If a glass cannon thief unstealths and I do nothing for 3 seconds, I die.
If I get 20 stacks of confusion on me and do nothing for 3 seconds, I take 0 damage.

…and you want to nerf confusion?

Absolutely not! I want to see it alive and well. I love my Engineers prybar and my Mesmer’s glamour build, but I’ve been seeing so many people whine about it that I have a feeling it’s coming. If I knew they’d never touch confusion I would make my Mesmer my main instead of my Engineer.

MeveM.7913:

I can see it already – WvWvW players crying themselves to sleep when their bags are full and every time a tagged target dies they get a loot screen popping up all over their screen since the bags are full. I forsee a similar thread to this crying for removal.

Probably not……Its called buy more bags.

Personally I think confusion is a great damage mitigating skill. Really hope they don’t nerf it

I’d suggest the 6 button mouse from razor. Tbh I have a 12 button and I find it kind of clumsy since I have big hands. I wish all the buttons were shifted closer to the top of the mouse because the buttons next to the mat feel awkward to me.

Well the Engineer forums is a blazed on this idea of a WvW nerf on confusion. Personally I’d really like to maybe see torch really buffed to make up for it

I would say that before this latest patch they were losing players. However, numbers are back up because of the content release. It’s also a matter of time before WvW starts slowing down again. It would have been really nice if they would have allowed people to purchase Ascended items in WvW even if it costed a fortune. Don’t get me wrong I love guild missions, but if I miss one and I’m in WvW guild I don’t want to be flamed as a carebear because I missed one ankittenrying to get a guild mission together.

As the title says I think its only a matter of time before confusion is nerfed in WvW. Personally I think it’s fine and actually forces people to run condition removal, but as I’ve seen with the Engineer forums, there’s a high likelihood it will get nerfed. I would really like to see a statement regarding this from ANET to see if this will happen or not.

Please for the love of Dwayna can we get a feature to customize our cursor. I can barely find my cursor in these huge fights, let alone try and hit something with grenades lol. Please give us some options!………or give us an Auto-cast/target on Grenades or maybe some aspirin.

Kalan.9705:

T1 mostly fighting in EB. The skill lag is so bad, I have to give up on HGH builds sometimes. No point trying to manage elixirs when utilities are impossible to activate and toolbelt skills are double impossible.

Ironically the lag does actually encourage a bit more variety when HGH is impossible.

Lag this is one of the reasons I really wish Grenade #1 had an auto-cast toggle even if it didn’t have auto target. In those huge laggy fights my grenades become practically useless because I can’t continue to attack. However, I wouldn’t mind if grenades had an auto-cast/target option because in those large fights half the time a person can’t find their cursor to actually throw grenades lol.

I too do not go HGH in T1 in large fights. If I plan on running with a large group it’s Mesmer or Guardian. Flamethrower is really fun, but its depressing seeing half the bag/badges/WvW XP drop compared to on my Mesmer/Guardian.

I really hope they don’t nerf confusion in WvW. I love the prybar, but let’s be honest if they do this they are going to also destroy 1 of 2 base builds for the Mesmer. ANET needs to quit nerfing viable builds and start focusing on buffing other builds.

As far as builds concern with the Engineer I will not lie that I enjoyed the Engineers other builds that do not use HGH, but that ended when I started playing the Guardian & Mesmer. Maybe I’d feel better if they improved drop rates for bags/badges & kills in WvW with condition builds, but I just feel like a Confusion Mesmer (which is conditions) can farm bags/badges & kills about 3x times faster. Same thing with my Guardian using GS/Staff.

Again, maybe ANET’s measure of contribution is off on their bag/badge drop rates with condition, but if it isn’t there are other professions that are much solider for group play. Until then the Engineer HGH build is pretty much going to be the Meta.

Also a lot depends on what WvW server your on as well. When I was in a lower tier I really enjoyed my Engineer for its soloing capabilities, but now since I’ve been in tier one for months and things are a bit crowded other professions shine. Tbh if Grenade #1 was auto cast or had a toggle that would be awesome. The lag is so bad now its hard to really justify using grenades. Staff #1 for Guardian & Mesmer just do a better job in that situation.

Tbh there is less talk on the forums, but for many reasons. One reason is that they finally fixed Giver’s weapons let allowed the Engineer to build into 50% and 100% duration builds. This was a huge boost even though it wasn’t profession specific. It made HGH build even stronger which was already strong. Another reason is that Engineer who play sPvP weren’t too mad over KR because turrets got a huge buff. Another reason is that Engineers who play WvW were disappointed with turrets – no HP boost or AoE immunity or cooldown reduced on deployment/couldn’t reduce by picking up. Personally I think that we may have gained a bit more Engineers then we lost and tbh I’ve been playing my Engineer a lot more despite the WvW Rankings (gave up from the start). They are playing more then they are posting.

Pretty much ANET stopped the bleeding on the Engineer profession, but we’ll see how much longer the bandage holds. If we want to grow this profession ANET needs to develop a starter build that inexperienced players can get into. Engineer’s that profession that leaves you hanging, but its the fact that you get left hanging that brings you back for more.

Rfreak.6591:

@Goloith.6349

Obviously I don’t ever take into account foods, yea I’m one of those, and btw without food, if you go lyssa+mad king+krait (giver’s weps and agony sigil), you get to 95%.

About keeping those bleeds stacks, I guess it’s opinion based but I like to have a lot of duration, I mean… you are going to use giver’s+lyssa+madking for the poison+burning (from throw napalm) anyway so why don’t we give bleeds another slight boost?

Before they fixed Giver’s weapons that actually the rune selection I used :-)

I’m sorry but all this holiday/seasonal crap is just a stupid move on ANET’s part. Yes it’s great to get it nailed down, but in a fast paced industry like this it’s important to produce sustaining content to keep the players playing the game. Who gives a rip about Halloween, or Chrismtas, or April Fools if people are quiting and will never see the content ever again. You just made a bunch of content that nobody will give two hoots about 1-2 years from now. Those will be your core gamers and they would have been around had you not had these development dead-ends in the first place.

Kamahl.3621:

Rfreak.6591:

snip detailing why grenades are better

Second. At least for PvE, no comparison. Don’t need pizza or giver’s weapons or any silly stuff to keep up 25 bleed, poison, burn, and vuln (you don’t see poison in the screenshot because then that would kill the target before I can hit 25 stacks). Frees up 2 utility slots to be whatever you want, good alternative to juggling builds, but it falls prey to the ‘you have to watch out for your party’s conditions’ issue.

Tbh man this is the most abused and ridicules screenshot ever and doesn’t reflect what one can do in WvW. Almost every player knows that grenades are the way to go in PvE.

Rfreak.6591:

3 might stacks are as Worth as those 2 rune slot they are using, going 2-krait runes is cheaper and does almost the same, please consider the runes have an hidden 15sCD (not 10s as stated in the tooltip), also I’d like to add that might is only useful when you:
1-don’t have to mantain it
2-don’t waste time to cast it
3-it affects condition damage, which in fact doesn’t make you exactly lose damage while buffing

The main problem with the flamethrower is that you have to keep using it to get those might stacks only to benefit from its power rather than condition, as a flamethrower you should go power/prec AND cr.dmg (most important), and you want to probably rely on static discharge+surprise shot (that damage alone makes up for the might stacks and does even more imo).

You should really consider Juggernaut for its toughness bonus rather than the might stacks.

Grenades are generally superior to everything overall in PvE because:
1-they AoE
2-The cause a LOT of bleeds (its #2 causes 3 stacks of bleed for a HUGE 29s complimented by Shrapnel trait and probably your sigil)
3-they also poison and cause a poison field which does even more poison with your friends
4-you are the 1-man-max-vuln-stack, you alone reach the cap of vulnerability which boosts hugely the entire party
5-you don’t necessarily have to sacrifice the other utilities in order to maximize
6-you get the HUGE AoE burn from the newly revamped Throw Napalm
7-Grenades are simply better when you stack condition duration (complimented by the build itself), but in reality you can stack some considerable cr.dmg and power making these an all-around weapon with even more stats if you get the ascended all-stats trinkets.

I already have 100% duration, why do I need the Krait runes? 115% condition duration on a bleed isn’t going to do more condition damage then 100% (well until ANET puts a statement out about that). Tbh since the release of this patch maybe Grenades are worth it to use now since everything is a zergfest in WvW.

Tbh I’d like to see a statement from ANET on Bleeds w/condition duration. My line of thought would suggest that ANET would have to track how many times that bleed had been shot to add that next stack on if you’re not using a 50% increments.

No they are fixed. Are you sure your condition duration is at either 50 or 100%? If its below it won’t count the extra tick.

The recent changes to FT has been good, but I’ve noticed that my guardian or Mesmer gets more bags of loot in WvW than my FT Engineer.

My suggestion would be to give FT a wider jet.

The path that ANET needs to take is to stop dictating what players do with their free-time. The reason why most people signed up to this game was because it was advertised as a “play how you want”. All these currencies go against that original theme.

If they could just convert all tokens into one or two currency that would be amazing.

Another sad part is that people in WvW are getting the short end of the stick because they can only get exotics. I think that was a terrible mistake on ANETs part to exclude ascended from WvW.

Same problem here. This patch ended culling but made things worse and I have a high end rig. 4.2 Ghz with two AMD 6970’s should be getting over 50-70 FPS in WvW. Now I’m getting 20-40….

Scoobaniec.9561:

Weak? I would say they got overbuffed and soon will be dominating meta once ppl find it out.

I wouldn’t say they are OP, but strong because they fixed equipment. Every condition build for all professions greatly benefited from this. Have you seen a Condition Warrior? They may not have the range, but they can immobilize you, stack 15+ bleeds at half the effort and can drop burning when they want to. Now add in that 100% condition duration and 12 stacks of bleeds from it’s F-Skill is going to bite.

Engineer does very well with conditions and this buff helped conditions directly and Engineer indirectly.

I like a lot of things on this list. Especially rocket boots changes. Personally I feel like i can already lay enough burning on a target with blowtorch and on crit so I would really like to see rocket boots toolbelt skill to cause confusion or 6 stacks of bleed.

I just feel like the Engineer in general really lacks a solid easy stacking kit/skill that can apply a bunch of stacks of bleeds…..and yes much better than elixir gun.

Hey bud this last patch really fixed us even though it wasn’t an Engineer fix, more of an equipment fix – Giver’s.

I wouldn’t say that this profession is unbalanced, but rather unfinished. Big difference. Probably the biggest problem is that many of the devs tend to focus the Engineer from a sPvP side of things. I’ve seen the turret Engineer in sPvP and I’m impressed, but it is not applicable in WvW or PvE (not with bosses). Also the devs haven’t quite figured out what they want the Engineer to be yet. Do they want them to swap through many kits rapidly (KF – was the old carrot) , or do they want them using just one kit? Or on another note, do they want them to just use weapons and turrets, or weapons and gadgets?

The devs are really trying to figure out the best thing for this profession, but time after time their efforts to finish this profession hasn’t been that successful.

Infernia.9847:

First find out what is causing the lag before you make your decision. Especially if that is the main reason for your discontent.
Skill lag – where you activate a skill and it blinks at you instead of doing anything.
Connection lag? – where you are the only thing moving on the screen and nothing activates or you rubber band a lot.
FPS drop – where your fps is so bad you can barely move or determine what is going on around you. Like a slideshow of action instead of a flow.

My definitions were crude and not very technical. Sorry bout that.
The first skill lag is something only Anet can fix. It is a server-side issue and not something they fixed with the last patch.

The second is something you can check by pinging your connection speed to find out how fast/slow it is. In my house I have a lot of teenagers/preteens that use bandwidth. I am sol if I don’t plan my time in-game accordingly or stealth nerf their connections. YMMV depending on what type of connection speeds you have.

The third is the type of lag you can help by playing with the video settings in-game. If that doesn’t help and it is a pc performance issue, well…. upgrade time? When I say pc performance I am still unsure as to how much this new patch has passed off to the cpu vs gpu. Others were doing some in depth experiments to determine the cause of lag in threads prior to the last patch. And some were testing specifically what loads were on the cpu/gpu. If I find a link I’ll edit the post.
post on post-patch performance:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/tech/WvW-Performance-FPS
helpful reddit post about server lag:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/19fnoj/if_youre_suffering_with_laglatency_issues_during/

Thank you so much, I will try this.

To my knowledge GW2 is a 32bit application so I was wondering if this little program could legitimately help gw2 performance wise. People use it for skyrim so wondered if it worked here.

http://www.ntcore.com/4gb_patch.php

Like I said guys I was really pleased with the patch with gear being fixed (Giver’s weapon fixed!), but like I said I’m not sure why I’m getting so bad of lag. It’s really weird some people have zero lag while others can’t even pop their healing skills.

I’ve tried out grenades, but I didn’t notice much. What was the problem with the casting of them before? Anyone remember?

Like the title says I feel like I’m hitting the breaking point. I’ve been an avid WvWer, but with the incredible lag and performance issues its taken my carrot.

So I’m wondering what I should do. Should I take a break outside of guild bounties and level an alt or ply Skyrim. I feel like I got my moneys worth from ANET, but I’m worried I could slip away for good.

Hi guys/gals,

Thought I’d start a thread to see how people felt about the recent patch and its effects on WvW.

Please follow the below format.

The Great:
End of culling or so to speak. Glad that they were able to do this. The WvW display options are nice.

The Okay
WvW rank/titles/experience. I like the idea a lot, but the rank and titles should have been account bound. PvE & sPvP is like this, so not WvW. Personally if they were concerned about alts getting skills to fast why didn’t they just make the points account bound and purchasable skills character bound an example would be like fractal relics. Again I like the content, but ANET could have pleased both crowds, but they code not to.

The Terrible
The lag. It is beyond me why ANET decided to increase the player cap without running their culling fix separately. If I was going to fix my computer or do scientific research the one rule of thumb is constants and variables. The problem that ANET used is too many variables. There is no reason 2x 6970 (4gb of vram) is getting 20-40 fps in these huge battles. Before I was getting 40-60+. Add on top of that the skill lag.

Anyways that my two copper.

Ya I was thinking that too, just like wrench for yanking people .

Rabid gear is great for condition builds!

The toolbelt skill looks pretty cool. Blocks attacks for two seconds.

Hi guys/gals,

As you know I’m a big fan of the 100% condition duration builds and I want to again share with you an awesome build that has been working out pretty good for me. I’ve been using this build for large group fights and love it. It can also be used solo, but not as good as the HGH build found here: http://tinyurl.com/d7txqmm

Anyways this is what the build consists of the following:
http://tinyurl.com/cvq7j9f

All Rabid gear with 2xLyssa, 2xMad King, 2xAltruisim (for might on heal/medkit)
2x Giver’s Pearl Hand cannon with Earth & Corruption/Restoration

So how does this build work? Well like HGH the point is to build up Might, but you’re going for more versatility.

-You want to stay in FT as much as possible to build up your stacks of might = 6 stacks
-You want to be swapping to medkit every 10-11 seconds for might = 6-12 stacks (3 from explosive trait line and 3 from runes of altruism) you can swap medkit for double stacks of might/altruisim
>To my knowledge the might lasts for 20 seconds
-When you engage your going to throw your Elixir B/Toolbelt for your might = 1-2 stacks

= You should have 13-20 stacks of might if you time everything right. My guess is that the sweet spot will be around 16 stacks of might if you’re playing the piano.

Again this build is more for big battles, but that does not mean it isn’t bad solo either. Probably want to switch the Firearm grandmaster skill to piercing bullets. I would suggest using your magnet pull, prybar, blowtorch and once the enemy tries to run and removes your conditions you hit him with incendiary ammo and start beating on him as he flees for his life. Also if you feel you have enough burning you could swap out your second pistol for a shield with Giver’s stats.

Try this build out and tell me what you think!

To my knowledge this is a tough coding issue, but they need to make things like this a priority.

Hee Haw.7164:

I’ve really been enjoying this in WvW.

I tweaked it slightly, because I just can’t play WvW without Speedy Kits. I just…can’t. So I dropped 10 points from Firearms (giving up Infused Precision) to put into Tools. I lost a little precision and condition damage, but gained mobility, which seemed like a fair tradeoff for me.

I also tried two Superior Runes of Altruism (for 3 stacks of group might) instead of the Water runes. Not sure if I’ll stick with it, but it seems decent for now.

Anyway, thanks for posting.

Tbh I really really like the idea of changing the last two runes. I think I might do this myself.

After looking at your setup if you wanted to roll with the zerg you could swap to flamethrower. That’d be like an easy 20+ stacks of might. Personally burning damage is the hardest hitting condition we have and if they remove your blowtorch you’re losing a lot of damage. Also wish cloaking device teleported us to a random location because it only helps against ranged enemies.

@Banumiel

As much as I think poisons are under valued by players one has to keep in mind that on weapon swap sigils affect on crit sigils and Sigil of Earth is too good for condition builds. The highest recommended is sigil of battle for its weapon swaps.

Anyone know what the update is all about?

Anyone have some great Condition Warrior builds?

+1 for this, I absolutely don’t give a crap about titles.

I think they could make some changes in WvW, not just sPvP.

I do have some thoughts myself on this.

Killyox.3950:

DISCLAIMER

sPVP oriented

This is by no way extensive or “be-all-end-all” type of thing. This is just my idea how to change some of the more pressing things for engineer.
A lot of this would need to be tweaked probably like whether 1 or 2s burn etc. A lot of things could be done for other classes but since i play engie mostly i’ll put time and effort into engie post.

Focus is to have fun and useful skills instead of useless and boring or useful and boring.

KITS

Tool Kit

• Thwack – affects up to 3 enemies now. Can do full chain on turrets for increased healing.
• Pry Bar – affects up to 3 enemies now. Cooldown 12s down from 15s. Moved to #2 spot on weapon bar
• Box of Nails – replaced with Throw Wrench
• Magnet – Channel time 0,75s down from 1,25s
• Throw Wrench toolbelt skill replaced with Box of Nails. Cooldown increased to 30seconds. Cast time 0,75s. Duration 10seconds (yes, similar to Thief’s Caltrops)

WEAPONS
Pistols

• Explosive Shot – now pierces by default. Trait removed.
• Poison Dart Volley – now pierces by default. Spread reduced but still not 100% accurate.
• Glue Shot – redesigned. Now works like Blowtorch. Affects up to 3 targets in a cone. 20s CD
  Range 200 – 3s Immobilize, 3s Cripple (effectively 0s cripple with full immobilize)
  Range 400 – 2s Immobilize, 3s Cripple (effectively 1s cripple with full immobilize)
  Range 600 – 1s Immobilize, 3s Cripple (effectively 2s cripple with full immobilize)

GADGETS

Rocket Boots – now does jump instead of self knockback. Added vertical height to animation to avoid small objects blocking this. Knockbacks enemies in radius 120 (melee range). Weak knockback serving more as an interrupt. Cooldown, damage, stun breaker remain the same

I would rather see #1 wrench cause some bleeding & magnet launch instead of box of nails (think opposite to magnet pull). As far as pistols go, I think the only thing that would greatly help this is if our grandmaster trait bounced instead of pierce. I would rather rocket boots work w/o self knockdown with increased leap range on its toolbelt skill,

Just me.

I said PvP, that’s a tough one because I rarely play structured PvP.