Guild Wars 2

I saw this on the GW2 Reddit and I must say that I am extremely happy with this bug. Not just for the laurels, but because I actually got to enjoy some tPvP with my WvW guild buddies.

Anyways the reddit post has a lot of great ideas:
http://tinyurl.com/buahy5d

Hi guys/gals,

I think if ANET wanted to make the Engineer unique would be to allow users to swap out their elite skills for something else. Sure supply drop is great, but I could definitely think of a bunch of other abilities/kit I’d like to throw in there instead. Would probably end all the whining about not having a weapon swap.

We’d really be the king of versatility then right?

Just my two copper.

The idea to add another 100 people into the borderlands was a great idea, terrible implementation. They should have just released this patch without the added people to WvW. After that settled down then work on add 100 people in.

That’s exactly what I do if I’m faced with a big fight. Swap out toolkit for FT and duration for 409. Yes juggernaut is nice for the might stacking, but one should have plenty of might already.

In WvW there is a lot of condi Engineers. PvP that’s a tough one.

Blacky Sheaperd.8690:

been running condition duration runes for a while now, gonna have to add in the “new” weapons to my kit.

i think we can all agree that watching a man on fire running from you only to die from the fire shortly later is a truly satisfying thing.

quick tip to those loving duration.

use incendiary ammo, and #4 pistol at close range to get a HUGE burn duration instantly, even with out bonus’s to burn/duration.
gotten well over 35+ seconds with just these 2 skills.

with tests, you can “one shot” all classes in the spvp zone with just that 2 skill combo. (that is if your running a high condition damage as well)

It’s beyond devastating in 1v1
ranged conditions, and CC.

If they have any condition removal you never want to stack durations like that. They’ll just cleans. If you are carrying incendiary ammo open up with that first. Once they cleanse it hit them with blowtorch

Now that it is possible to get over 100% condition duration with Giver’s weapons for all conditions I was wondering if any Necro’s have been taking advantage of this. I play an Engineer and I can tell you that this last patch was a big buff overall for condition users.

In my thread I explain the condition damage vs. condition duration as well. Take a peak:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/The-New-Meta-for-WvW/first

I would love to see some builds if you got some around this concept!

irakai.6891:

I’m afraid you just have to get used to it. It’s actually quite accurate at close to medium range.

You’ll also notice that most of our skills across our weapons and kits are only truly efficient at melee to medium range. Poison Volley isn’t bugged, it’s just following the trend.

Wait, it can actually hit other targets? I thought it was a bug too. GTK.

For those that don’t know, the first big condition buff came in the form of fixing Giver’s weapon’s condition duration. This has opened a ton of new builds for not just Engineer, but others as well.

How does this affect the Engineer the most? See my thread below and I will explain how this was a buff.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/The-New-Meta-for-WvW/first

I will try this out tonight, but with the debugging of Giver’s weapons condition duration can be greatly improved how conditions stack. I’m going to try this when I get home, but with my 100% condition build (will be 110% b/c I use it with other builds) I should be able to stack 25 vulnerability without rifle.

If your doing you blast finishers with other turrets what you need to do is drop the other turrets, except healing turret. Then you drop healing turret and detonate them all and it should give you 4-5 AoE healing if your running the Boon Spike Engineer.

This should not be gold based, it should be achieved through badges or rank

As I suggest before here is why Condition Duration is superior to Condition Damage:

Let’s use burn damage/duration for example:
If your Condi dmg/50% cd you might have 100 more burn damage. That’s equal to 400 condition dmg. We’ll use 700 burn damage as the base of the 100% duration build. So the Condi dmg/50% cd has 800 burn damage. So for example:

Condi dmg/50% cd
1sec: 100+
2sec: 100+
3sec: 100+
4sec: zero

100% Condition Duration:
1sec: 0+ (base/standard)
2sec: 0+ (base/standard)
3sec: 0+ (base/standard)
4sec: 700

With no condition removal the condition duration does 400 more damage per stack of burn.

Know lets throw some probabilities in that a person has condition removal:
Condi dmg/50% cd
1sec: 100+ @ 5% removal chance = 95
2sec: 100+ @ 20% removal chance = 80
3sec: 100+ @ 40% removal chance = 60
4sec: zero

Extra damage = 235

100% Condition Duration:
1sec: 0+ (base/standard)
2sec: 0+ (base/standard)
3sec: 0+ (base/standard)
4sec: 700+ @ 60% removal chance = 280

280 – 235 = 45 in favor of condition duration.

Edit: it would take about 66.5% condition removal chance to make them equal

Yes those are all hypothetical percentages, but I think they are more than lenient. Keep in mind that if an Engineer uses his magnet pull, prybar, blowtorch and it get’s removed the player is down their condition removal incase it procs by crit or frome static shot & etc. Then your looking at the top example of doing a lot more damage for just one stack.

Personally I think that confusion is perfect how it is in WvW. The reason it’s nerfed in sPvP is that your ability to flee is very limited. Chances are if you flee your going to run into another group of people. In WvW you pop one skill to get away (yes you take a confusion hit) and then you wait it out. Or you could run back into the friendly lines of the zerg and wait it out. Keep in mind one of the reasons why it’s also nerfed in sPvP is that Mesmers illusions aren’t getting rapidly killed by a zerg so in sPvP it’s still hard to find the Mesmer among his illusions.

Another point to keep in mind is that the Devs wanted to be able to bust bunker builds and confusion accomplishes this. It also forces people to take condition removal and actually be tactical when to use it. When I engage a Mesmer I am always keeping my elixir C and it’s toolbelt ready even in a HGH setup.

Let’s be honest though as bad as we hate confusion do you know how many people hate Engineer burns? Imagine getting hit with a 6-8k burn over 12 seconds, it hurts pretty bad, should everyone cry blood murder to nerf it? No.

Once people start adapting to using condition removal this won’t be that big of an issue.

Just did a regret table and condition duration wins out. Here’s a 4 second burn.
1sec= c DMG 2sec= c DMG 3sec= c DMG 4sec= c duration. Add all the regret/opportunity cost and c duration kicks enough on that 4th burn to beat 1-3 seconds advantage.

If we took into probability at various seconds into question we would probably see the opportunity cost shrink.

If the logic goes that good players will use condition removal frequently why stack any duration? The point is that some condition removal has cool downs so an effective condition duration user isn’t going to drop everything right away because it will get cleansed.

What ever works for you. I’ll run some more numbers, but I think condition duration still does a bit better.

What I have provided is a WvW build, not a sPvP build. Sorry I don’t really play sPvP.

Anyone know some free recording software? Maybe I’ll get a video up.

Maybe I can help you. So think of it this way, if a direct damage build wants to increase its damage it uses crit dmg% to increase its damage. The same thing condition duration does for condition builds.

At the bear minimum all condition builds need to run at least 50% duration. 100% is a bit riskier, but if people don’t have sufficient condition removal they are toast.

In WvW you essentially double your damage by increasing the duration by 100%. This allows people to stack conditions better.

If you would like an example see my post in the Engineer forums. All professions have access to this buff.

Maskaganda.2043:

I’m going to change some pieces around and try 50%. Seems easy enough now that they are fixed.

and 10 seconds confusion with 100%? that has to be stopped :p

I wouldn’t worry to much about us doing confusion, Mesmers can pack even more. People just need to have condition removal.Mask if you want you could go 15/15/10/30/00. I know you like that defensive stealth on immobilize.

P.S. if you want to try this out buy the rabid gear from the vendor if you have a ton of badges.

Tbh if someone doesnt want to run HGH the minimum a person needs is 15 in explosive.

Keep in mind that this little gem effects more than the Engineer. Think about a Mesmer, they also can perma confuse someone.

In my opinion this is where condition damage builds should be.Direct damage still does more damage and this buff helps close that gap.

Keep in mind that there is risk involved, if a person has has a ton of condition removal duration can be rendered in effective.

ANET needs to strive to give us more than this build even though it was a broad spectrum buff.

gimmethegepgun.1284:

Catisa.6507:

None of this progression is particularly needed, the rewards are so minimal you won’t notice any difference having or not having them.

If that’s the case then it shouldn’t be in the game at all.
Also, the extra supply to carry is quite significant.

This.

Also do you know that PvE and sPvP are account bound. WvW is large scale PvP so it makes sense to make it account bound. Are they going to rename WvW CvC?

Bevillian.1260:

I disagree. You seem to be complaining because every class can’t do what the mesmer does and boo hoo if you don’t have a mesmer. Use another tactic then. Stop complaining because you are disadvantaged sometimes, it’s part of the game and not anything that game developers need to be looking at. There are actual issues with the game that need to be resolved rather than making all new skills for every class and catering to people who are bad at the game and want it dumbed down by making every class able to do everything. You know why Guardians can out tank and heal an engi? They are supposed to, they are guardians. The same reason that Warriors do more dps. You don’t see people creating threads kittening about not being able to do the same amount of dmg as warriors. This is because it’s common sense. It is how the game is made. You can’t have it all.

You just proved the entire point of why this should be account bound. Guardians are going to be better than Engineers at certain things and vice-versa, that’s why we roles alts.

They need to bench the sPvP squad and just worry about WvW because they’re lost.

Florgknight.1589:

Hopefully my -25% condition duration melandru runes work properly.

Tbh I’m not sure why your running those runes, the opportunity cost is so high. Be better with other defensive runes such as Dolyak.

Guardian is pretty polished I will agree. Just want to help those that don’t have one. However, the engineer can stack 18 aoe/party might for 40-50 seconds vs 12;stacks of might for 8-16 seconds

I feel really bad for you guys as an Engineer, but in all honesty Jon Sharp doesn’t understand WvW. He’s trapped in this sPvP which most people do not play. Lol he gave turrets a bunch of buffs but they still die in under a second and targeting is terrible.

One bit of advise is to look at the changes they have made to condition duration. Now its possible to reach 100% condition duration.

Just as an update, cool downs on blast finishers are much shorter through the tool belt cool downs being reduced. Plus you can quickly use turret and detonate them. Big buff for this build.

Sorry I’ll update my post. This is a WvW build. If I could get by with lyssa and mad king runes one could use two other runes for +15% boon duration or +20% might duration.

My Guardian and Mesmer are pretty strong and if they nerf this I’m going to probably going to delete the character so I don’t come back to it.

Ya I’m pretty worried too, but Tbh every profession got the condition duration buff through the fixing of Giver’s weapons. They just need to bring everything up.

15 points outs you at 102% and to my knowledge that’s the lowest you can do with the broad spectrum condition duration runes.

timidobserver.7925:

Goloith.6349:

Hi guys/gals,

As some of you know I have been a very strong supporter of the 100% Condition Duration builds, but it unfortunately was debatable about whether condition damage + HGH was stronger.

Now the answer is very clear, but this little buff wasn’t in the Engineer changes. It came in the form of condition duration fixes on Giver’s Weapons. It is now possible to “double” the duration of all conditions and use HGH

I tried this build out and I have been kitten face.

The build:
20/20/00/30/00

Explosives: Burn Chance & Might on Heal
Firearms: Swiftness & Hair Trigger
Alchemy: S, Duration, & HGH

All Rabid gear with Lyssa, Mad King, major Lyssa (might be able to swap out – will test)
2x Giver’s Pearl Hand cannon with Earth & Corruption/Restoration

With this I’m sitting at 107% (Not sure if they fixed the problem when the % wasn’t over 50% increments it wouldn’t count)

Basically I can get over 2k condition damage at double the duration. Pretty sexy.

I’m currently using:
P/P, Elixir H, B & C, & the amazing Pry bar that now has a 10 second confusion. If I run into a large group vs large group situation I swap Toolkit for FT. I’ve actually have had a lot of success with Elixir X, but thinking Supply Crate is still better.

Buffs:
Oil and Rare Veggie Pizza.

So yes turrets without the toughness/HP buff was a bit disappointing as well as the KR changes, but hey at least P/P HGH got a huge boost.

Finally my dreams come true.

Enjoy,
Golo

I liked coated bullets but your build works out really well. I think the most I could do is 10/30/0/30/0 just because coated bullets really helps with fighting multiple enemies and getting tags in wvw. However with only 10 in explosives you miss out on the might on heal.

EDIT: I am not sure if it is worth building a nice set of gear to go along with this build. Im sure it won’t make it 2 patches. Between Pistol 3 and Prybar you can pretty much perma confusion people with this.

Your going to need at least 15 into explosives or your going to have to use sigils/runes/traits to hit 100% with only 10 in Explosives. However you will not have 100% condition duration for all conditions.

If your running HGH this is now the way to go. Think about it, if you had +300 condition damage more than this build that’s 15 bleed/75 burn more, but you lose a whole second. So take bleed: 130×4= 520 DMG vs. 145×3=435 DMG. Now look at burn 800×4= 3200 DMG vs. 875×3= 2625 DMG.

As you can see this build does more total damage. Also keep in mind the intensity stacks more as well.

Edit for clarity. I’m describing a full condition build with 50% condition duration vs 100% condition duration. If you have zero condition duration just double the difference and that’s what your missing out on.

Great patch, but the huge buff didn’t come from Engineer buffs, but rather from ANET fixing Giver’s weapons.

I’ve posted in the Engineer forums about the incredible buff that condition builds got this patch and it lies in the tid-bit about fixing condition duration on all items. Now it is possible to get over 100% condition duration for all conditions (double damage). This is the new meta in condition builds. Condition duration is the equivalent to crit DMG %. So do some experimenting and see how much total condition damage you can do.

That’s the part that really bothers me. They think they have achieved the right balance and then when they fix condition builds by fixing gear they basically have created imbalance. Tbh everything needs to be brought up to this level. However this isn’t just an Engineer buff
All condition builds for all professions got this buff.

Hi guys/gals,

First off this is for WvW.

As some of you know I have been a very strong supporter of the 100% Condition Duration builds, but it unfortunately was debatable about whether condition damage + HGH was stronger.

Now the answer is very clear, but this little buff wasn’t in the Engineer changes. It came in the form of condition duration fixes on Giver’s Weapons. It is now possible to “double” the duration of all conditions and use HGH

I tried this build out and I have been kitten face.

The build:
20/20/00/30/00

Explosives: Burn Chance & Might on Heal
Firearms: Swiftness & Hair Trigger
Alchemy: S, Duration, & HGH

All Rabid gear with Lyssa, Mad King, major Lyssa —- swapped out for runes of water for 15% boon duration)
2x Giver’s Pearl Hand cannon with Earth & Corruption/Restoration

With this I’m sitting at 107% (Not sure if they fixed the problem when the % wasn’t over 50% increments it wouldn’t count)

Basically I can get over 2k condition damage at double the duration. Pretty sexy.

I’m currently using:
P/P, Elixir H, B & C, & the amazing Pry bar that now has a 10 second confusion. If I run into a large group vs large group situation I swap Toolkit for FT. I’ve actually have had a lot of success with Elixir X, but thinking Supply Crate is still better.

Buffs:
Oil and Rare Veggie Pizza.

So yes turrets without the toughness/HP buff was a bit disappointing as well as the KR changes, but hey at least P/P HGH got a huge boost.

Finally my dreams come true.

Enjoy,
Golo

UPDATE: Runes do not need to pass the 50 or 100% threshold to count. I’ve tested this and now I am running with Superior rune of the Water (15% boon duration) instead of the two major lyssa runes.

Ayestes.1273:

Hey Goloith, have you tested Giver’s weapons yet? Are they fixed?

No idea bud, just asked in Bug forums if they have fixed the condition duration runes.

Are Condition Duration Runes still bugged? like Lyssa, Mad King, etc?

Also any idea if Giver’s weapons condition duration has been fixed?

First things first, thank you Arena Net.

However, when I really look at a lot of these changes I’m still shocked at how detached the balancers are from WvW. Don’t get me wrong a lot of these changes are great in sPvP & PvE, but let’s be honest what’s the point of having a lot of more damage if the turret stills dies in a few seconds? What they need to do is increase turret health in WvW by 100-200% or give it a drastic resistance to AoE damage.

Also with the kit refinement, the 20 sec cd kind of sucks. It does nothing to encourage players to swap between kits rapidly like you want us to. I though the entire point of having a mixed bag of direct & condition damage skills in the kits was so that we could rapidly pick through them, hence the 1 second cooldown between kits. That was supposed to be the huge advantage of the profession. The problem is that the cooldown actually discourages us from swapping to our kits rapidly. If you don’t want us swapping to kits rapidly you still have an aweful ways to go. You need to either make kits condition or direct damage based, not both (well maybe one kit both).

In good faith this was a really appreciated patch, but maybe for next patch can we get an internal cooldown timer for kit refinement? Would definitely help a ton.

Thank you.

I love how J-Sharp talks about every profession complaining how their not loved, yet there is data after data suggesting that the Engineer & Ranger are losing people yet they pull this crap in an interview. J-Sharp sees the world through sPvP, not large scale PvP in WvW. That’s why he is constantly defending the devs actions surrounding the Engineer.

Give it up J-Sharp, you know just like the rest of the community that Engineers/Rangers are the least played profession and it is going to take “more dev love” to fix them. I hope with the patch today you fixed some things, but you have a very long way to go.

Like I said, we think the Engineer is viable, but when you compare it to the other professions it has a ways to go. We are going to see not really an enrollment of Engineers, but I can see a lot of people switching to their alt Engineer and testing out turrets.

Red Falcon.8257:

Strongest
WvW:
- D/D Eles. Stop ignoring the new 55hp monk Anet, it needs nerf quick.
- Eles downed skill broken, allows them to suicide and safely get back in the tower.
- Thief still too bursty against most classes.
sPvP:
- Bunker Eles
- Mesmers on some builds are too tanky while still having big dmg

Weakest
WvW:
- Guardian, no permaswiftess unless slotting 2 utilities for it / wasting your swap, making it slower than even Necros
- Ranger being pet based, and pet being a joke = Ranger being a joke
sPvP:
- Warrior, need more counters to cripple/chill (mobile strikes?) but it isn’t nearly as bad as people make it, I’m pretty good in tPvP with it (mostly thief-killer) and I think it’s mostly a l2p problem.
The issue is it takes a lot more skill to have success in tPvP as a Warrior compared to other classes that you can be good with way more easily

You must run solo a lot bud because you listed the two most played classes in WvW as weak. Warriors if built to tank/shout are one of the strongest and most effective there is. As for as the Guardian being slotted with retreat and save yourself those are the required/standard front lining, shout Guardian build. The strongest guilds run with those.

This upcoming WvW patch is going to unfortunately push players away from unfinished professions such as the Engineer. People are going to be focused on the meta that were actually going to go extinct. Glad that the Engineer in sPvP is fine. Apparently that’s the only place devs look at them.

TexZero.7910:

Viking Jorun.5413:

Eh. Don’t knock engies aside in WvW. They are great in anti-zerg and zerg warfare.
I typically will run my engie in WvW for this reason. Tons of AoE damage that makes people disburse and fast or die.

Actually Engineers are not really bad in zergs, but compared to the other professions they leave a lot to be desired for. Grenades really need to have a toggle so it has more mobility, Flamethrower can get you killed, bombs delay kinda sucks if your grou kitten tomping people pretty fast. Bomb could also really use a shadow step like charge that drops bombs all in a line. Again not bad, but not great. Engineers best role ATM is solo.

I can’t tell you what the meta is for sPvP, but as far as WvW goes Warriors, Guardians, Mesmers, and Elementalists are the best.

I’m pretty pessimistic as well. Hope I’m wrong, but the WvW character bound will probably mean the end of me giving any hope for this profession.