Guild Wars 2

To the OP: Roll an engineer. Play for 20 minutes to get to level 2. Enter the mists. Spec AR. Enter pvp and go find a necro. See how you do.

I’m rank 33 and I’m facing primarily rank 20s to rank 40s players.

I am currently using AR because it allows me to beat bad necromancers, of which there is a proliferation. Just like a stun break allows me to beat a bad warrior and bad thief, and well timed dodges allow me to avoid Shatters and not standing in the red circles allows me to beat some grenade engineers.

I’ve faced enough necromancers to be able to spot the good ones—the ones that get me to 25% and then lay into me with power damage, fear, and the knockdown from their Flesh Golem. It takes them a few seconds longer to get me down, but they do it. If they can’t, then what do you know—they come back with a power/crit teammate and I go down like a sack of bricks. Or they just send a good power teammate and he/she solos me.

You can’t expect to play a profession that can apply nearly all conditions to enemies in a couple of seconds and have an environment free of counters to that.

Same goes for Thief when they roll up on a turret bunker. Most see the net turret and turn around. Then a few moments later I get rolled by their necro or mesmer teammate.

I wish you luck in your vigil to see this trait nerfed, but more than likely you’ll just have to adjust to it like we have to boon hate/stealing, and oh—Corrupt Boon. #WINK

See what I did there?

Nice interview, Nakoda. You shared a few things I wasn’t aware of (Backpack Regenerator working with healing power, for one) and provided good insight into your playing style.

I’ve played your build and your description of it is spot on. You definitely spent a lot of time refining it and getting all of the traits, skills, and gear working together. Keep it up!

The OP makes some good points. That said, scour this sub forum. You’ll find some effective builds and odds are one of them will satisfy you. It just takes more work than the average profession.

Also, brace yourselves.

Ashanor.5319:

Grackleflint.4956:

You all don’t get it. It’s new AND bad. Nobody said they don’t like new things. They don’t like bad things no matter how new they are.

More than Spirit Watch the map demands you play certain professions with certain builds. It’s narrow and any serious teams will gravitate towards the most minmaxed compositions because that’s what try hards do.

Demands you play certain builds? You mean… almost exactly like the current meta? Could it be that THAT is exactly why you didn’t like it? I think so.

I’ve been able to bring several different build to every map except spirit watch and skyhammer.

johnsonade.9547:

Note to grackleflint: Skyhammer stage on the ground is alright, but engi in the skyhammer control room? Lulz all night.

with your turret builds you can knock any people entering onto the glass and lock them in place on the glass with net turret. I’ve seen some truly hardcore thieves and warriors wrapped up like a present just waiting to drop. Then you have magnetic inversion from the shield and air blast from the flamethrower or the overcharge from thumper turret. I’d say just be careful with any skills that change your position up there, like acid bomb or jumpshot. I dropped a bunch of mines and put an OC thumper turret up and targeted with skyhammer cannon for a few seconds. I racked up a kill without even looking.

Sounds like a good place for a turret farm, but don’t you get knocked off when you’re operating the cannon since you can’t see opponents while you’re firing it?

I always saved it for peeling. You can overcharge it while you’re stunned. Unless your opponent has stability or distortion you can use Thump to interrupt their burst combo. It’s all about anticipating their burst and making sure you’re close enough to the thumper turret. I used to place it dead center on a point before a fight. Now that the tool belt is a stun breaker with one second of stability, I save it. If I get stunned I Rumble and then use that second to place it. Then if they follow up with another stun, I overcharge it. Make sense?

Ferik.3127:

3. I have said it and I will say it again.
BRING SKYHAMMER BACK TO TPVP.
YOU MUST BRING IT BACK or I swear this will be biggest waste of your creative talents ever, ANet!!

Skyhammer was a mistake. It should feel like a mistake. It’s the only way they’ll learn.

You all don’t get it. It’s new AND bad. Nobody said they don’t like new things. They don’t like bad things no matter how new they are.

More than Spirit Watch the map demands you play certain professions with certain builds. It’s narrow and any serious teams will gravitate towards the most minmaxed compositions because that’s what try hards do.

You might like Thumper Turret a lot more now. Rumble (toolbelt) had it’s cooldown greatly reduced and a stun break added. Net Turret and Rocket Turret overcharges are bugged now. You only get one electrified net and one knockdown rocket per overcharge. I’ve noticed that sometimes they don’t even work.

I think Stabilized Armor is a much better choice than Protective Shield now, but Protection Injection is still a solid choice. Take both.

Sitting Duck got a nerf in turret builds where you can apply several back to back immobilizes, but it might be a better choice than Hair Trigger since you’re not using offhand pistol in the Cerberus build.

Elixir S got a nerf while you were gone—we can’t use any skills while under its effects now so no healing turret right before it ends. I would suggest Acidic Coating (it now has a 50% chance to cause 5 seconds of blindness once every 10 seconds vs melee only) or Blood Injection for the extra condition damage.

Static Shield also changed. It lasts the full 2 seconds even when it gets hit by melee. The downside is that doing anything while channeling it cancels it—so no attacking/stomping with it up. Also—the stun got nerfed to 1 second.

You might try something like this, Tex:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQJAqelIqSWnrSbF1LJRIF23wgKYXRKus+/ogt0F-ToAgyCqIATBmDMDYSwsgNiYiA

p.s. Don’t take your turret build into the new map Skyhammer. Even if you place your turrets at their max range from a control point, one strike from the Skyhammer can take all of them out due to the large radius of the blast.

Jae.5138:

Oh, silly Grackleflint. IF arenanet didn’t listen to those top players, it would be balancing the game around the 0.000001% (themselves)

that being said, I thoroughly enjoyed the conversation with the devs and the players in this thread. This recent patch was excellent and it sure feels great to think that there’s more coming where this one came from…

Well slappy, let me be less “silly” and more specific, then.

They need to cast a wider net. The top players are not representative of the average skill level and don’t represent a diverse player base. Their builds will always be degenerate and narrow, exploiting only the most powerful profession builds and mechanics, and they will use team comps tailor made to trivialize game modes and map layouts. The majority of players don’t fit into this mold and shouldn’t be beholden to a game built on it.

Clear enough?

I hate this map, but despite that I played as many matches as I could over the last few days. I’ve tried so many builds I can’t remember them all. My last one was using Elixir X with traits to reduce the CD to 84 seconds and increase the duration to 20/26 seconds (tornado/rampage). This is the MOST frequent stability I can get as an engineer aside from ONE second from Rumble (Turret tool belt skill). I don’t count Toss Elixir S because it’s random. I need stability because I don’t want to get killed over and over due to one badly timed dodge or because of the unreal amount of fear and knockback I’m running into.

I’m useless on the cannon because I have no stability. I’m slightly less useless on the side points, but will lose any prolonged fight where I don’t insta jib the other player first. It’s all about who lands their knockback first. If I don’t have split second timing I lose.

My turrets are useless because if they are placed on a point or are in a position to threaten a point they will get wiped by ONE Skyhammer strike.

I dare not use Rocket Boots, Acid Bomb, Overcharged Shot, or Rampage form’s Dash unless my positioning and targeting are flawless. Even in central areas of the map a poorly aimed Rocket Boots used to escape can cause lethal falling damage.

I have one pull I can use to get someone off of a ledge or a point. Then they just ignore me and run away.

I have no way to get past necromancer wells that cover the entire approach to a side point and enjoy complete immunity to skyhammer strikes unlike my form of area denial (turrets). If I try to move out of range of the skyhammer aoe which cannot be dodged I’m risking getting too close to an edge opening myself up to yet more easy kills.

Last night I actually ran into multiple guardian/necro teams. My night ended vs. a 3 guard/2 necro team. It was the first match out of over 1200 that I felt compelled to leave. That is saying something. If adapting involves giving up the profession I love and playing degenerate team comps, then I don’t want to adapt.

vinceftw.5086:

I also feel like HGH is overrated. You have to maintain 20+ stacks to actualy do the damage you can with other runes. This is for WvW by the way, as sPvP has way lower condition damage.

I run with a 1.45k condition damage build, no might stacks. With Might stacking runes I has only 1.2k where I get up to 1.7k with a good stack going. Yes, this is higher, but I also lose diversity in kits and utilities and I only have these burst might stacks every 20 seconds or so. I rather take my 2 kit build with no rocket turrets that’s almost as strong but isn’t a) limited to taking 3 elixir traits and b) uses utilities that help me survive in other ways. With HGH it’s basically kill or be killed. With toolkit, grenades and rocket boots, I can outrun small group of players and kite them very long.

Also, to the OP: I don’t like your suggestion for kits. While buffing them is good, I actually love the engineer playstyle of only swapping in to useful skills. Every other class is limited with a cooldown, making them use lesser skills. We don’t have cooldowns, which makes it so we always use whatever is best for the situation. That’s what seperates the best engineers from the regular ones.

There is always a skill useful that’s not on cooldown and we always have access to them. Gear shield is on cooldown for 3 secs? No problem, swap to something else, use 2 skills and go back. I love this and it essentialy means absolute freedom in playstyle. While I think other things need to be brought up and fixed, kits is not one of them.

Gear shield only has a cooldown of 3 seconds?!

Not to be a jerk, but I can’t take you seriously when you say things like “swap to something else, use 2 skills, and go back.” to Gear Shield.

Also, classes don’t use “lesser skills” while waiting for their cooldowns. Their #1 weapon skills is usually a very nasty 3 part chain with MUCH higher damage than anything our #1 weapon OR kit skills have to offer.

Kits are weak. Shuffling Kits every 2 seconds doesn’t make you a good player. End of story.

I expect them to read it at the very least. Believe me, I don’t expect a single developer response.

A map the favors so few professions encourages degenerate team comps. This is the antithesis of good design and balance.

I don’t care what’s done with this map as long as it’s removed from Tournament play. tPvP should be a place where group composition isn’t restricted to 2-3 professions. I can’t get any more constructive than that, because I’m upset that my monthly gem purchase money went to this. I care about the pvp community and Skyhammer is quite insulting to players who have invested time into playing and promoting your game.

Lopez.7369:

On top of having too much LOS, one-shot CC mechanics, and an overpowered cannon, the map makes mesmers and minion necromancers completely useless because their pets are immediately one-shot by cannon fire and do terrible in Z-axis situations.

Same goes for turrets which should be ideal for this map.

Jae.5138:

…to balance the classes?

I don’t mean it to be a rhetoric nor am I being sarcastic. I am genuinely curious as to why ArenaNet doesn’t seek aid from top players of the community.

You may argue… under what sort of criteria would you pick out these ‘top player’s but that’s not really the point, is it? There’s plenty of players that represent the ‘top of the crop’ and it’s hardly difficult to find a trend among the things that they demand from their classes. I don’t mean simply give them what they want and buff the class. I mean have an open discussion with them as to what sort of changes should be made to find an overall equilibrium.

Please excuse me for saying so, but after so many failed attempts to balance the classes, I see ANet’s class development team’s further attempt to balance the classes purely based on their own speculations to be arrogance. I’m sure I don’t give them enough credit in many ways; they most likely gather they feedback from various channels of resources that I’m not citing – whether it’s streams, forums, or spectator mode.

“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

Albert Einstein

That said, I really do feel that ANet really has to take advantage of the opinion from the very small number of intense pvp players that our community has. Because simply, not everyone’s opinion weighs the same.

Because you don’t balance the game around the 1%, that’s why.

Skyhammer is the definition of design failure because it requires specific team compositions to have better than average odds of success. This forces players to play other professions than the ones that they choose or are adept at and familiar with. This invalidates many hours of time invested in learning a profession and mastering its play style.

Skyhammer’s layout favors necromancers because wells can completely cover an approach to a capture point and fear lasts long enough to send players off of ledges to their death. It also favors guardians who have frequent access to stability and to a lesser degree rangers because of Rampage as One. Professions with many knockback abilities can be useful, but most teams do not stray far from the 2 guardian, 2 necro, 1 X make up.

The majority of the winning teams have 2-3 necromancers or guardians. If you don’t have stability you need to stay away from the Skyhammer controls, and point B. Points A and C are marginally easier to defend, but you will fight a losing battle against either necromancers or guardians in these locations.

As an engineer I cannot even use one of my best point defense tools—turrets. Laugh if you want, but they are tailor made for a map like this, and with Accelerant-packed Turrets an engineer has plenty of knockback to make himself a dangerous opponent. One strike from the Skyhammer destroys them all. The radius of the Skyhammer attack is such that it is impossible to place the turrets safely and in places that will threaten enemies assaulting the points.

With only 2 abilities that grant Stability—1 second from Rumble, and 15-20 seconds from Elixir X (105 second cooldown), we are not equipped for the amount of knockback and fear that hammer guardians and necromancers can bring to bear on us. We currently have no role in a serious strategy for this map beyond the few knockback abilities we can bring, but sadly they are all short range with very little blowout, and they are on long cooldowns.

Q: During testing and design were you aware that you were creating a map that would encourage and reward degenerate team compositions?

Q: Will you be removing Skyhammer from tournament rotation seeing as it falls into the same category as Spirit Watch? (see my first question)

Q: Are you satisfied with trends in team compositions due to the game mode—that is, teams with the mobility to trivialize map size and layout tend to win more than lose?

You can get +65% crit damage between traits, runes (Rage), and amulet (Valk or Zerker). Then equip Sigil of Intelligence and Sigil of Fire. Get into combat, swap to Flamethrower and use Flame Blast>Detonate. I’ve hit for a total of 6.5K between the hit, detonate, and Sigil of Fire proc. Very gimmicky and the timing is a pain in the kitten to get right, but it’s fun when it works.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQJAqel0pyanuy2F17IxoHde0ZGki6eXRKqcjB-ToAA0CvIUSpkTJjSSlsKNsYyB

Med Kit #5, Elixir B, and Utility Goggles give you a lot of Fury up time for more crits, and the extra +5% crit dmg from Runes of Rage (this is how you get to +65% crit dmg).

It’s a total troll build, but good for laughs.

They are all on the clunky and weak side compared to weapons because we can have up to 3 offensive kits in one build. That is why they are inferior to most weapons.

I would love for the developers to consider increasing the power and usefulness of the kits and then compensating that power by only allowing engineers to equip 1 to 2 kits as either our swap set or our main and swap sets.

This would preserve the special feeling of the Engineer by maintaining our access to weapons that no other profession can use, allow us more build diversity by opening up utility slots, and bring the strength of kits up to par with the majority of weapons. This would also open up the ability to use rifle/p+p or rifle/p+s. Imagine that!

It’s hard to argue that this wouldn’t make the Engineer more dynamic and diverse (not less) and more powerful and accessible to the average player.

Please don’t derail this into an FT fanboy thread. There are plenty of those.

It is not OP. Use team tactics. I’ve been using the 27K health/automated response build in tpvp because of the proliferation of necromancer rerollers. Yes—it punishes them and yes they deserve it. I was playing in a match the other night and a necro rolled up and couldn’t kill me. When he came back he brought a thief with him. I died in seconds. Then they just sent the thief only and I wasn’t equipped to deal with him.

Short answer: It’s not OP. It’s only OP against YOU. (you being most necromancers)

TL;DR moving along, nothing to see here

Bringing this to the top for one last day. To those who read and replied, thanks for the support.

Thanks for the positive responses. I put a lot of thought into how I would present each question. Even if we don’t get a developer response, I am confident that someone at Arenanet will read this as long as it’s on the front page for a day or two.

I’m going to add Keelin’s comment to question 1.

I agree.

In my “Some Questions” thread, I also point out that while I understand the flavor reasons for not giving us signets, it robs us of buffs that are not boons. Boons are vulnerable to stripping, hate, and stealing.

The Primary.6371:

Caed did a good job but in the end you can’t dodge everything.

Caed dodged a dodge dodge, but in the dodge you can’t dodge dodge. FIXED!

5) Gadgets seem to be in a better place right now with Personal Battering Ram, Slick Shoes and Rocket Boots seeing use. Utility Goggles and Throw Mine however are not seeing much use. Utility Goggles’ buffs work at cross purposes since Fury is an active ability and stun breaking is reactive, and Throw Mine/Mine Field suffer from a very small trigger radius.

Q: Are there any plans to bring Utility Goggles and Throw Mine up to par with the rest of our gadgets?

6) Mortar suffers from many issues: shorter range than grenades, extremely fragile, doesn’t benefit from turret related traits even though it’s a capital “T” turret skill, the camera is restrictive, and it has no point blank range or defense. Currently there is absolutely nothing the mortar can do that can’t be done better by one of our slot or weapon skills.

Q: Are there any plans to improve the Mortar to make it desirable? If not, why not?

7) Elixirs are relatively weak without a heavy investment in the Alchemy trait line. Elixirs S and R have been severely weakened, Elixirs C & B are currently being hated out of pvp due to boon hate/stealing and Corrupt Boon, Elixir U is still bugged when thrown/has an overly long cool down and Elixir H still suffers from RNG. Actually, I would say that given their effects they all suffer from overly long cooldowns without Fast Acting Elixirs. This is worthy of a topic all its own due to the deficiencies of each elixir as a standalone utility skill so I’ll cut to the chase.

Q: Are there any plans to adjust elixirs so that they are a desirable/viable option without a 10-20 point investment in Alchemy?

8) I know that Signets are not intended for Engineers, but please consider this—the passive buffs they provide are not boons. This means every profession except the engineer can gain passive buffs that are immune to boon hate and boon stealing effects. Currently the Engineer is the only profession that suffers from this deficiency. Which leads me to ask:

Q: Are there any plans to add passive buffs to any of our slot skills? If not, why not?

9) Trait bloat and sprawl are suffered by all professions to a certain degree. Bloat is when there are too many desirable traits competing for a build’s attention, and sprawl is when you have to invest in to many trait lines to reach essential traits thus diluting your build.

Q: Are there any plans for another trait review to clean things up some more? If not, why not?

10) How are you doing?

Q: How are you? You look great today.

Developer Questionnaire: pvp focused edition

1) It’s a commonly held belief that Kits are balanced the way they are (weaker than the vast majority of weapon sets) due to the fact that we can have access to four at once. When Engineers put kits in utility slots they give up crucial abilities such as breaking stuns and clearing conditions+. Without the ability to equip a second weapon, kits are essential to our damage so it’s logical to assume we need at least one in every build++.

Keelin.5781:

It’s also worth mentioning that a decent number of kits actually require you to trait for them , for them to be effective imo. In that sense i don’t think we’re as versatile as the devs make us out to be. Keep in mind that this versatility is why they made our actual weapons worse than real weapons (this was said by a dev in ye olde times).

Q: Have you or would you ever consider giving significant buffs to kits to bring them up to the power level of regular weapons in exchange for only allowing us to choose 1 or 2 kits as our primary and/or secondary weapon?

• +I am aware that Elixir Gun provides both a stun break and a condition cleanse, but this is one kit out of 5 weapon kits.
• ++I am also aware of kit-less builds having some success but these builds are very narrowly focused and abuse the stat stacking, food, and buffs available in PVE and WvW modes only.

2) Turrets have many problems and bugs that are preventing them from seeing use. These problems also cause unintended uses such as Rifle Turret being taken only for its toolbelt ability in Static Discharge builds and Healing Turret being overcharged and then immediately detonated or picked up rather than left in play. Bad AI, overcharge bugs, low armor/health, low damage, low rate of fire, susceptibility to area damage, coupled with long cooldowns make them currently a poor choice for most modes and styles of play.

Q: Are there any plans to make turrets either more sturdy and therefore a more persistent and reliable source of damage or more powerful to compensate for their frailty and long cooldowns—or will you continue to strive for a balanced approach to turret design?

Q: Are there plans to fix Turret bugs in the near future (within the next month)? If not, why are these bugs such a low priority given that turrets represent 27% of our available slot skills?

3) The June 25th update included trait updates, but Turret related traits were completely ignored.

Q: Are there plans to consolidate, improve, or move Turret related traits, and would you consider a trait to lower all turret cooldowns?

4) It is popular opinion that while a change was needed to Elixir R the changes made were too drastic. Both removing the stun break and adding a cast time seem very harsh in combination.

Q: Would you consider removing the cast time, or adding the stun break back, but into the tool belt skill? Why or why not?

cont…

Troll.4237:

I feel that the addition of torment has encouraged players to try out the necromancer, thus making necromancers more popular. Now that people are facing necromancers more often they are realizing the true potential of the class.

It annoys me to death that terror is considered by most to be op, even though it has not changed for along time. This story is similar to the m16a3 in bf3 nerf, even though it wasnt changed since beta and then a year later it gets nerfed because a lot of people started using it.

Oh, good. So necro is fine. Guess you can all stf up about Automated Response then.

Thanks, Dirame. Any thoughts on the sigils or amulet?

http://tinyurl.com/lcv6lh4

Tanks power/crit builds by constant application of weakness. Weakness is covered by bleed, poison, burning, blindness, and even confusion. If they do manage to stun me (I have 2 stun breakers) then Stabilized Armor kicks in.

Tanks condition builds with 6 ways to remove conditions in addition to Automated Response to shut them down when my health gets low.

The Flamethrower is included mainly for support. I only swap into this to use cooldowns and then immediately swap out. I do like the utility and support it adds so it stays.

Elixir S provides two safe stomps/revives, and an escape/stun break.

I chose Elixir H because of my investment in the Alchemy line, but would consider using Healing Turret.

Elixir X provides more support in the form of safe stomps, in addition to blowout to interrupt enemy stomps.

The Elixir Gun is the center piece of the build. It stays equipped the majority of the time so I can reapply weakness and poison.

The runes are focused on Weakness and Poison up time and the Shaman’s neck seems to compliment the build nicely.

The Sigils are debatable. I’m trying to get as much weakness and poison duration as possible but I believe that both conditions are rounded down in duration.

I’ve played the build and it’s proven, but I’m still looking to improve it and I’m open to suggestions—as long as they don’t move the focus away from applying weakness as a form of tanking. I’m having great results. I think the parts of the build that could use improvement/tweaking are: sigils, traits, and the healing and 3rd utilities.

Something to consider when creating a build is pushing your health pool as high as possible. This way all of the 25% health triggers go off around 7K health, which for some profession builds is more like 50% of their health. 7.2K is as high as you can get it in sPvP, but I’m sure the stat inflation in PVE/WvW would allow for an even higher threshold.

Reserve Mines (not great but included to be complete)
Release a number of mines when your health is below 25%.

Low Health Response System
Gain regeneration for 10 seconds when you are attacked while under 25% health.

Automated Medical Response
All heal skills recharge when health reaches 25% (90 second cooldown).

Self-Regulating Defenses
Drink an Elixir S at 25% health. This effect cannot trigger more than once every 90 seconds.

Automated Response
Condition duration is reduced by 100% when health is below 25%.

Inertial Converter
When health reaches 25%, your tool belt skills recharge.

Before Elixir S’s effect got nerfed hitting 25% health was like a fight reset. Sadly it’s been reduced to “that time when I run around and nom some bandages.”

Most players in tPvP have gotten VERY good at queuing up their burst so that it lands as soon as this effect ends. I only use the actual Elixir S utility and then only when I want to stomp or revive someone.

I use SRD in only one very specific build where 25% of my health is close to 7K so I don’t suffer so badly from timed burst when it ends.

The Alchemy traits Hidden Flask and Self-regulating Defenses trigger Forumla 409 as if you used an elixir normally.

As usual, you have some great ideas and are able to execute them well. This build looks tricky to master, but very effective if one can manage it.

I’m currently addicted to Slick Shoes + Rocket Boots. It’s hard to give them up but I need to run at least one kit and Elixir Gun is usually it.

Eviator.9746:

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

It’s gotta be the shoes!

Seriously though, it’s the shoes. I love our shoe/boot abilities. Not even an Elementalist can disengage like we can.

Oh, and in any build that uses Slick Shoes, might I suggest Sigil of Impact. +10% dmg vs. stunned or knocked down foes. This sigil really shines in zerg v zerg fights too because a LOT of knock down and stun abilities are being spammed.

Thanks for sharing what looks like both an offbeat, and effective build, Mnemesis.

I ran a full turret build for a few months, but the bugs have caused me to use other builds. Here it is in case you’re interested:

http://tinyurl.com/l96syon

The damage is condition based, but very consistent and you’ll have a lot of control. Your defense comes in the form of Protection and Stabilized Armor, but now this build has a stun break in the form of Rumble (Thumper Toolbelt ability).

Chaith.8256:

Engineer is largely untouched in tPvP, seeing as your hand was never forced to include Elixir R, or a shield offhand.

Here are the top 2 details, bullet form, on how the old Engineer tPvP Meta has been affected, and what to do about it.

• #1 – Shield 5 – going from a 3s channelled ranged block, with a 2 second (one time) melee stun, to a 2s channelled full block, with a 1 second (unlimited) melee stun.

^Projectile avoidance is basically down by a second, but defense against multiple melee attackers, or mixed attackers (ranged, melee) has been way upped. Previously, if you tried to shield against a ranged opponent AND a melee opponent (ie, Ranger with pet), the shield would instantly stun the melee opponent and stop blocking the projectiles. Therefore, in many situations, the blocking duration has been increased, due to the shield always blocking for a full 2 seconds.

It’s possible to perceive this as a nerf, but it shouldn’t be possible to perceive this as a reason to get your jimmies rustled. There are perks and drawbacks to both versions.

Pistol offhand has always been godly, and blowtorch now has a reduced aftercast. If you perceive shield to be too much of a liability, nearly every exact same build is just as good, if not better, with the pistol – after you’ve adjusted to not go overboard on burning.

• #2 – Elixir R – Going from an instant kitten energy refilling, stunbreak, to a 30s .5s cast energy refilling, non-stunbreak.

^OK. So this ability has lost it’s spot in pretty much every non-support or non-utility build. It’s required to take another stunbreak to be used together with Elixir R. It now is almost always combo’d with Elixir Gun, which now functions as the stunbreak. True support builds that utilize Elixir Gun aren’t penalized at all. This, in fact, has buffed support builds that run Elixir Gun and Elixir R together.

You can surely combo Elixir R with Elixir S, or Slick Shoes. You will likely have to give up a kit to do so, so it’s a less attractive choice – but if the revive utility is needed, a sacrifice for utility can be made. (I personally wouldn’t go for this.)

The long and short of it, is that Elixir R is only optimal in Elixir Gun support builds – so it’s a big nerf to the availability.

So what are tPvP Engineers supposed to do in the meantime with the offensive builds that used to use Elixir R? Slick Shoes. Slick Shoes is a highly devastating, offensive stunbreak, that synergizes amazingly with Grenades. When used to ‘ring’ enemies properly, slick shoes guarantees you enough time to empty a full clip of point blank grenades, and a blowtorch. The stunbreak is highly useful. Everyone needs to learn how to maximize this ability.

Hell, I’m not even doing anything that advanced with Slick Shoes and it’s a powerhouse. I’ve been using it to set up some Rifle burst as people are nearing 25% health. Slick Shoes>Blunderbuss>Jump Shot>Overcharged Shot and it’s usually over.

Long story short, I agree—this is one hell of a utility.

Chaith.8256:

I mean, do you think we’re phantasm mesmers? With 4.75 stunbreaks per minute, and 10 pseudo-stunbreaks per minute on sword & staff? LOL.

LOL indeed. I would buy gems if gems could buy a mesmer nerf.

nirvana.8245:

I actually believe that thieves are weak in 1v1s. Even though I win 90% of my 1v1 fights in WvW, a lot of them can be attributed to weaker stats/armor/weapons or the player just being experienced at PvP. I can usually tell if I am facing a good player almost straight away. What I enjoy most about thieves is I can avoid those 1v5s. Seems everytime I play all I witness is players trying to outnumber other players. They don’t want a fair fight in WvW like I do. So I stealth and run away or troll them with CnD to waste there time for being aHats for needing to bring 10 players to kill 1.

Assuming you’re not using hyperbole and you really do need to be attacked by 10 players to lose—do you honestly think it’s because you’re a super leet special snowflake, or because your profession mechanics are simply that over powered?

Take your time.

p.s. Why are people a22hats for wanting to stomp your face into the dirt? You admit to trolling people with CnD so take a look in the mirror sometime.

Synesence.7546:

Worst downed state skill? NOBODY suffers like the thief in that aspect. A downed thief is under most circumstances, a dead thief.

Stop it.

Clarification: To me, roaming = small fights or 1v1s/1vXs MILES away from anything that matters. It’s glorified dueling. You can now make sPVP maps for this purpose, so the only reason to do it in WvW is to grief, kitten stroke, etc.

I appreciate small groups that hit Dolyaks and camps, and take care of other small scale objectives. Please don’t misunderstand me. To me that’s not roaming. That’s playing WvW.

Roaming videos have been done to death. Roaming doesn’t help your world accomplish anything.

Can anyone link a video showing actual WvWvW tactics—trap placement, which bases to hit and how, proper use of siege and how to protect them, etc?

I can’t wait for dueling to be implemented so roamers become a thing of the past.

Please fix.

15 characters

This again?! Ugh

Dirame, I can’t wait to see your new videos. I feel like the meta is shifting for us and new builds are going to rise up. Get to work, man!

Lyssa only grants Protection and Retaliation now, which is why it works. Apparently they couldn’t get it working before it was nerfed. HAHA

Tolmos.8395:

Grackleflint.4956:

Is OP nakoda’s alternate account?

I have no idea who Nakoda is but you asking that either means you don’t spend much time on forums or I don’t post nearly as much as people accuse me of.

I spend quite a bit of time on the forums. I’m being facetious because nakoda sings the praises of the FT daily.

Is OP nakoda’s alternate account?

Healing Mist, Super Speed, and Rumble + Intertial Converter. I’m not sure if a build with Elixir Gun, Slick Shoes, and Thumper Turret is viable. I just found it interesting that we can have 3 stun breakers that reset at 25% health.