Guild Wars 2

Would a trait that allowed you to keep your turret Toolbelt skills available while your turrets are deployed be interesting to anyone? Call it something like “Refined Turrets.”

This would lock you out of your blast finishers, but it might be an interesting and useful change.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Hammers-for-Engineers-old-idea-new-twist

Posted in the suggestions forum. Would love to hear what people think.

There has been some focus on the Engineer lately and a good portion of that has been on our turrets. Right now the problems with turrets are many and varied, from bugged/non-functioning traits, to extreme fragility and AI issues.

For a while now, some Engineer players have been advocating for a fourth weapon choice for Engineers. I’ve seen some cool threads about Torches and Hammers, but I’m advocating for Hammers because this could help Anet’s vision of turrets as something we leave out for a moderate amount of time and use to control an area.

I see the Hammer for the Engineer as a defensive/control weapon that repairs and/or buffs turrets in its area of effect. Maybe it has a cleave attack on the #1 that does a moderate amount of turret healing, an overhead smash/cone attack that knocks back/down an opponent and does more turret healing, or a whirl finisher that causes all of our turrets to overcharge and gain haste for a few seconds.

This opens up a new and interesting weapon set for Engineers, gives us another Legendary to chase, and helps bring turrets in line with (what I think) Anet’s vision for them is.

Good suggestions, and I will work on this more. A google doc will be forthcoming. It’s a fun exercise and who knows, maybe if Anet sees this it will spark something.

Trait: Junk It! (Adept-Tools) Your Throw Wrench now pulls all of your deployed turrets to you resetting their cooldowns and detonates them for massive damage knocking back foes, and your Thwak and Pry Bar skills do Siege Damage.

Here are the second and third screenshots.

I’m working on an Excel spreadsheet in an attempt to clean up our trait lines. This included some improvements and tweaks. I know this is pie in the sky thinking, but I’m curious as to what you all think of it so far. I can’t attach an excel file, so I took screenshots of it.

Some traits are new, some are combinations of old traits, and some are old traits with fixes and tweaks. Everything new should either be highlighted or in bold text.

First and foremost we need all of our bugs fixed, more so than anything.

Then we need a serious design pass. Our flavor needs to come from the skills, not from things like RNG (random effects out of our control).

We need to be able to count on our utilities doing exactly what we expect them to do on demand.

I would be okay with being a hybrid adventurer profession if:

*our bugs were fixed
*the traits we shared with other classes cost the same investment of trait points and had the same numerical benefits.
*traits lines were cleaned up to allow for focused builds. Turrets is the prime offender with traits in 3 different lines and requiring a 60 point investment to reach them all.
*Completely lackluster traits were eliminated: Acidic Elixirs, Always Prepared, etc.
*Traits were combined, and others were made baseline to their corresponding skills: for example Accelerant-packed Turrets should be baseline to all turrets.

Hahahahaohhhhhhmy. I hope someone at Anet feels bad about this. So sick of things breaking every time they “fix” us.

There’s a nasty Catch 22 going on here. If I spec into Alchemy to get some condition removal, I am automatically giving warriors with the boon hate trait a 12% dmg bonus against me when Hidden Flask Triggers. Also, some of my best survival traits like Protection Injection and Invigorating Speed grant an even further damage bonuses to these warriors. Pop an Elixir C to change a few conditions into boos, forget about it.

Anet has turned the Boon/Condition interplay into a nasty love triangle, with Boon Hate crashing the party. Boons are a liability anytime warriors and thieves are present.

I can tweak traits and utilities before a match after I have seen the enemy roster, but I can’t refund trait points to avoid things like Hidden Flask. I suggest that either boon hate be re-evaluated, or allow us to refund trait points before a match begins so that automatic boon creation traits can be avoided altogether, when necessary. I consider necessary when there are at least 1 warrior and 1 thief on the opposing team, or multiples of either.

It is no fun to be completely counter comped because of things out of our control.

I would be open to guesting on your podcast from time to time. Send me a PM.

Phineas Poe.3018:

Tyaen.5148:

I logged him on and he had better survivability as an ungeared upleveled character than my fully tweaked Engineer.

Having a “fully tweaked” Engineer and Guardian, I have to question this.

Guardian is certainly a very powerful class in damage mitigation with all its projectile reflects, Aegis/Prot spam, and healing skills. Putting 30 points each into Honor and Valor makes you very difficult to kill when played right.

But I think much the same can be said of Engineers, and I find it hard to believe that anybody with 30 points in Alchemy should have any issues surviving even with the change to Elixir S, especially when they’re using the traited Tool Kit too. Having 12 seconds of immunity every 48 seconds is significantly powerful.

Nobody is arguing that, but you’re ignoring the fact that not every build is suited to going 30 into Alchemy. There’s no argument that Elixir S is still great for those that go 30 into Alchemy, but a lot of us don’t.

Maybe I haven’t combed this thread thoroughly enough, but I haven’t seen anyone say “I’m 30 points into Alchemy and Elixir S sucks!”

Step 1. Net Turret
Step 2. Throw Mine
Step 3. Collect Thief Tears

Pro tip (shield users only): When you see Shadow Refuge drop, rush in and pop Magnetic Inversion. Then refer to steps 1-3.

I rarely run into a thief I can’t beat 1v1. However, that’s not where they shine. I personally think that they are best played as a finisher using hit and run tactics. Look for the player that’s below 50%, jump in and kill them, and then either move on or stealth and wait for the next opportunity.

Let’s say I’m running a turret build (because I am) and I want Healing Turret because Accelerant-packed Turrets adds another layer of utility to it. Now I have a heal, condition cleanse, water field, and a knockback all in one. (it’s nice how the proper trait(s) suited to my chosen build make a skill really shine, isn’t it) Now I grab my two turrets of choice—Net and Rocket for control and damage. Something’s missing in my build though—a stun breaker. I grab Elixir S because it’s a great stun breaker. However, I don’t have any points into Alchemy. I should probably move some points into Alchemy to get the most out of Elixir S since I am giving up another turret or kit for it—at least 20 to get to Cleansing Formula 409. Now I have 2 extra condition cleanses in the form of Hidden Flask and Cleansing Formula 409—and—I’m on my way to playing a completely different build.

This is a problem. I think asking for a small heal or condition cleanse (1) on Elixir S baseline, is not completely unreasonable. We are not all running the same build and shouldn’t be. Especially within a profession that gives up so much offense in exchange for defense.

And before anyone says Turrets aren’t viable in tPvP, a lot of you FT advocates are fighting a similar battle to change the perception of your favorite kit in tPvP.

Phineas Poe.3018:

Mif.3471:

I don’t see why it’s unreasonable. Previously we could use med kit while under the effect of Elixir S and heal for 3k.

Which is not how they intended Elixir S to work, the same as Mist Form.

With the right traits, Elixir S is a 3-second immunity on a 48-second cooldown, breaks stuns, cures a condition, gives two stacks of Might, and can additionally be thrown for another removed condition, another stack of Might, and Stealth/Stability. And you want it to heal us too? GTFO. This entire thread reeks of entitlement.

Mug/Steal is a class-defining skill. Elixir S is a utility skill. They’re not even comparable.

Show me one stunbreaker that any class has that even matches half the utility of Elixir S, and then we can talk.

Amazed that this community has devolved to bawling over balance changes that are 100% reasonable.

You just described what Elixir S does in an HGH build. I know that you put a twist on the might stacking build by using FT, but that doesn’t eliminate the fact that what you’re saying highlights the lack of build diversity achievable within our profession—well, highlights it or is just accepting of it.

I’m in the middle here because while I think the OP is not being constructive, I do see a problem with accepting a skill as being okay within the context of a very specific build.

This post is overly dramatic and vitriolic, but I’m liking the discussion that’s come out of it. Way to turn it around and get to the heart of the matter. Threads like this make me glad to be part of the Engineer community. This is not tongue in cheek or sarcasm.

The talk about build diversity is a good direction to take this thread in, so I hope it stays open for a while longer.

I have to say that I don’t like the idea of being forced to take 20 points into Alchemy to make this Utility skill really shine. Build diversity, to me, is about being able to grab the Utility skills you think you will need without diluting your build’s focus. I think Elixir S should be able to stand up to other similar skills without the benefit of 20 points worth of traits that not all builds need.

The healing turret change is a step in the right direction, as clunky as it is. Without any traits whatsoever, it’s a functioning condition cleanse, and medium sized heal. My only problem with it right now is that it takes bad opponents to really make it shine and work as intended.

I feel that the same goes for Elixir S. Generally, players don’t burst until they know they have you stunned or locked down. That’s where Elixir S comes in, but there’s the rub because they can bait your Elixir out, and then delay their burst combo by 3 seconds, and possibly use another CC when you come out of your invulnerable state. Bad players however will make Elixir S look like a tier 1 ability, when in reality it is now solidly (imo) tier 2.

Thoughts?

If they want other builds to have condi removal, how about this idea:

Inventions (Adept) Grounding Wire: Your turrets have X% chance to absorb incoming conditions and you receive -15% to Stun duration.

Kind of like the Grounding Totem of the Shaman in World of Warcraft, this gives players a reason to keep a turret out and try to keep it alive. I’m just brainstorming here, but there are more creative ways to promote build diversity and condition countering.

nakoda.4213:

drop -> overcharge -> detonate is still on the same timer, so, once every 20 seconds you can heal for ~6k, cleanse two conditions, and leave a 5 sec water field.

why waste energy leaving it up when regen mist is now 25 second?

this could be better than medkit, but in so doing makes the Drop Stimulant Swift/Fury that much more valuable a choice in many cases.

Rfreak.6591:

@Grackleflint.4956

It doesn’t have to actually, provided they fixed the overcharge responsiveness, the water field created AND the explosion will trigger the heal.

All we have to do is hope and try the overcharge’s responsiveness

I really hope so, but then if we start doing that they’ll change it again. They clearly want us to leave this thing out and protect it (ROLLING MY EYES SO HARD RIGHT NOW), but it would need massive changes to its health and all turrets would need a big reduction to incoming damage for their vision of turrets to be a reality.

bomber.1540:

healing turrent heal is reduced, but if you overcharge it, then blow it up, it should heal for around 5k and cure 2 conditions. so its not too bad

It would have to survive long enough to trigger, Bomber. So it is rather bad.

- Cloaking Device trait: Increased cloaking duration from 2 seconds to 5 seconds. Added internal cooldown of 25 seconds.

This was one of our best tools for surviving intense focus fire. If this cleared the immobilize as well, it would warrant the 25 second cooldown, but as it is this is very much diminished in usefulness.

- Regenerating Mist skill: Reduced Healing Turret Toolbelt skill recharge from 60 seconds to 25 seconds.

It’s about time this got a recharge reduction. It’s too bad we couldn’t get all other toolbelt skills a reduction in recharge while they were at it. They’re all too long.

Healing Turret skill:
- Reduced the deployed heal by 50%. Straight up nerf. PVP is a game of burst and we needed this burst heal in non elixir builds. This actually makes it the worst healing option for a turret build. I have no idea what they were thinking.
- Healing range is now 2520-3270.
- No longer applies 2 stacks of regeneration every time the turret fires. Now applies 3 seconds of regeneration every 3 seconds.
- No longer passively creates a water field.
- Normalized the ranges of all aspects to 480 (previously 240, 360, or 480).
Cleansing Burst skill: The following changes, while good, will not matter until turret overcharge skills activate immediately. This laundry list of benefits is useless without the turret able to survive long enough to trigger them.
- Reduced Healing Turret overcharge skill recharge from 60 seconds to 15 seconds
- Now heals as much as deploying does.
- Healing range is now 2520-3270.
- Now applies 5 seconds of regeneration.
- Removes 2 conditions when activated.
- Now deploys a 5-second water field.
- Normalized the ranges of all aspects to 480 (previously 240, 360, or 480).

- Kit Refinement trait: Now displays on the player’s buff bar when it is out of cooldown. A quality of life change that has nothing to do with how weak this trait is. I can think of a dozen quality of life changes that could have been made instead—ones for traits we actually use.

- Low Health Response System trait: Now has a 10-second recharge. Nerf

- Thumper Turret skill: Updated skill facts to reflect cripple while Deployable Turrets is equipped. The skill facts didn’t need to be updated, the actual version of the turret deployed is what is broken. Again, I cannot recommend highly enough that the devs play their game.

I didn’t bother commenting on the rest because, well—they’re not really big changes or very helpful at all. I could use less of this kind of help anyway, so I’m looking forward to next month since they’re skipping an update patch in favor of a bug fix patch. I still have to wonder how many bug fixes will just create new bugs for our professions. : \

http://img.alibaba.com/photo/225681859/17cm_wooden_ruler.jpg

Right click and select print for your very own “Am I a Good Duelist?” kit.

I have similar experiences when using my turret build; it’s a slow and steady demise for the majority of my opponents. Healing Turret is on such a low cooldown and with the Area Heal from detonating it after placement, it heals for quite a lot. With a good burst heal, long up-time on protection, control from my turrets (rocket & net), boon shred/knockback from Throw Mine, and detonate turret to interrupt burst I find the only profession I cannot beat reliably 1v1 is the Mesmer.

Rangers pose a big threat as well, but if they’re just pelting me from 1200 and hoping I’ll go down they’re not contesting the point, and eventually a teammate will come ’round and gut them for me.

I’ve been tempted to run a power turret build with the rifle, but with my build I have 923 condition dmg and 2589 power so I get a lot of good sustained damage out of my conditions. Once I have a full stack of +condition dmg from my Sigil of Minor Corruption, it gets even easier to win fights.

Because you can roll a new character and go directly to the Mists, the FOTM rerollers will do just that—reroll.

aKIRA.7123:

Kain Francois.4328:

Elixir S nerf = No more Tank Kat (RIP!)

the elixir s thing wont kill tank cat. the fact that people will be able to stun us out of shield blocks will tho, since we dont have reliable sources of stability.

also the changes to retal and confusion will probably make it harder to play as well, since that was the build’s primary damage source vs glass cannon thieves, warrior, etc.

This. More and more collateral nerfs. These needs just as much attention if not more than the direct nerfs, because they cripple more builds than do the direct nerfs.

Chaba.5410:

What was up with that talk about prybar as a counter for something? I don’t use toolkit in my wvw support build (except underwater).

Grouch was talking about how we are strictly a ranged class and Guardians can shut down our damage completely by popping their defensive bubble, to which Jon Sharp flippantly replied “Yeah, so.” Then Karl said something about going into it and using melee.

So apparently Guardians should fear our Wrench #1 dps!

Kain Francois.4328:

Elixir S nerf = No more Tank Kat (RIP!)

This hits any build that uses a kit, since we used to be able to go invulnerable and get a key ability off for our survival.

Incendiary Powder = This helps with build variety, how exactly?

It doesn’t. This is a straight nerf. Builds that don’t use a crit amulet still won’t have the crit to support this trait and still won’t take it. End of story.

Healing Turret = More like TF2 dispenser? I actually welcome this change, if it’s done properly.

*Triple its health.
*Reduce Turrets incoming damage from AoE by 90%.
*Reduce incoming direct damage by 30% baseline.
(Throw us a freakin’ bone here.)

Something needs to be done to increase its longevity. If Jon wants to make teams actively counter it, then I think the AoE dmg reduction needs to happen because right now teams can nuke the healing turret in a passive (brainless/accidental) way. There are absolutely no resources that need to be devoted to nuking down a turret that is anywhere near the action. It’s just a side effect of battle.

Overall, it does sound like we’re getting hit with the nerfbat again.

I’m more concerned with the collateral nerfs: gutting sigil of battle and sigil of energy, buffing warriors (3 unblockable attacks, greatly reduced immobilize), boon hate. There is nothing to compensate for the things that are going to punish our most effective builds. I won’t even be able to rely on Protection any more.

Ostricheggs.3742:

Penguin.5197:

Ostricheggs.3742:

EVERYONE CHILL THE kitten OUT!

Don’t start with the hyperbole again, please.

We have no idea outside, of what they’ve already said they’ll change, what’s going to happen.

They’re just my initial impressions but so far nothing really good from what they have said.

The healing turret change is going to open up a LOT of builds for engis in tourneys. The lack of condi cleanses forces us 20 up alchemy, 15 up tools (with R) or 15 up inventions (with healing turret).

It’s a good change.

I don’t mean to sound hostile, I just know that people naturally react like idorts when faced with nerfs.

Health
On Level 80:

Thumper Turret: 11950
Flame Turret: 8960
Rifle Turret: 7470
Net Turret: 7470
Rocket Turret: 7470
Healing Turret: 5980

This turret is always better when detonated for the AE heal, or picked up for the reduced cooldown for a reason. Jon Sharp saying that now the other team has something to focus on and counter is the overstatement of the year. They just need to keep using cleave and AE abilities and there’s their counter.

Until Turret longevity is addressed, this is a nothing buff that is going to go nowhere.

The main problem I have is that they are dismissive of hard questions, and a lot of their answers show a lack of knowledge about how their game actually plays.

John Sharp re Healing Turret: It’ll be great in pve because nothing is attacking that turret.

Really, John? Bosses and mobs run RIGHT at turrets and destroy them in seconds. PLAY. YOUR. GAME.

I support the views in this video. There are issues across the board with GW2 from bad UI design to bosses. Stop worrying about the living world content and fix what you have. It’s like hanging Christmas lights on a house that’s got holes in the roof, walls and floor.

Oh, good point Yamsandjams. I forgot about the visual queue of the overcharge. (awesome name, btw)

I think it would be a fine change. The idea that we should wait 3-10 seconds for an ability after activating it is just silly.

Maskaganda.2043:

actually I’d have to disagree rasputin. supply crate is awesome, the only bad thing about it is the long cooldown.
it’s like a second chance, even if you mess stuff up, you can always drop supply crate and turn things in your favor.

as for the other 2, they are almost useless. X can be fun but the randomness annoys me so much I can’t use it.

Hold. The phone. An Elixir…lemme get this rightAN ELIXIR…has a random effect…and MASK doesn’t like it?!?!

Who are you and what have you done with Mask?

Wreknar.5076:

Dirame.8521:

Sorry dude, I don’t have a problem getting burst immediately I drop the turret. I guess you just need to learn to click or press buttons faster or something.

Really? You can queue up cleansing mist before the initial fire on healing turret? I’ve never been able to do that with 40ms ping (I live in Seattle, right in the neighborhood of their server farm). Even with spamming that button as hard as I can it won’t queue up on the first go.

Mind you, my timing can’t be that off as I am able to do the turret-spawn into detonation for a water field/blast combo with no troubles what-so-ever. If that’s what you’re referring to, I think there’s a miss-communication then.

I’ve been able to get the cleansing mist on the first activation several times…over hundreds of games. So, it’s unreliable at best. It’s not a matter of the 1% having “no trouble with turret overcharge timing.” It’s about making it a reliable function of the profession for everyone. So yes, it needs fixing and should be on demand. It already has a cooldown for kittens sake.

Roman Legionary.6715:

lol is this a troll post, i think so

lol, is this a reroller trying to be dismissive of a problem that affects more than his/her precious .01% of the player base? maybe. I don’t know. I’m not a mind reader, and neither are you.

I don’t think so. This is a segment of the player base that has many hours a day dedicated to playing tPvP, so even with monthly resets, they’ll be looking for a way to protect their main accounts ratings while they feed their habit.

@Seera: I’m not a programmer and I don’t know the best solution, but it is a problem that needs to be looked at and solved. Thank you for pointing out the problem with a shared computer. I hadn’t thought of that.

@Kokocabana: You don’t rise through the ranks quickly enough. There is no win/win unless Anet wants to trade a one time 40 dollar transaction for an average 10-20 dollars per month that they could get from a player who doesn’t do pvp to the exclusion of all else.

Hardcore pvpers like it or not, the pve players who spend money at the gem store every month are driving this game. I’m not one of them, but I respect them and want them to feel a part of all aspects of the game. This kind of thing was going on in WoW and it completely hamstrung their Arena system discouraging widespread participation. I hope Anet takes heed of the problems that WoW had with their e-sport and act accordingly by eliminating the possibility for players to reroll in this manner.

Alternatively they might be able to implement a practice arena where the opposing team is run by AI. I know that seems silly, but a practice arena with human players on both sides would just perpetuate the problem as high ranking players would see it as a place to roll new players just for fun.

Today it came to my attention that players are buying additional copies of the game for the sole purpose of preserving their pvp rank on their main characters. By creating a separate account, they can practice pvp at the expense of new players who are getting unfairly matched up against them.

The pros:
*Anet makes an additional 40-60 dollars off of these players per each new copy/login they buy.
*It preserves the rank of said player’s main account.

The cons: (the first two counter the pros directly)
*Dedicated pvp players spend the least at the gem store. The gem store is focused on PVE currently, and the 40-60 dollars gained is hundreds lost in not retaining a PVE player that might have enjoyed PVP if it weren’t for these rerollers.
*The second “pro” is selfish and doesn’t foster community growth. It’s all about the player who wants to preserve his or her rank.
*It creates an artificial barrier to entry of tPvP because new players who think they are getting into an even match will be utterly destroyed by a team made up of rerollers who display as rank 10 or less, but are in actually rank 50 or higher in skill and experience.

I suggest tying rank to IP to prevent players from making rank 1 teams with rank 50 or higher skill levels. I’m not sure if this is possible, but I think it’s important to address this issue to keep the pvp side of the game growing and changing, and to foster the GW2 community.

These pvp junkies concerned about their kitten will create an artificial barrier for new people entering tPvP. They are getting matched up against Rabbits when they have Tiger or higher experience and roflstomping them into the ground. This practice needs to be reined in. Moving to the suggestion forum to see if Anet can attach your rank to your IP address.

If they know that their e-sport is at stake, they might sit up and take notice, then put the shaft to you ratings junkies. It would be well deserved.

I would suggest a more mild solution—creating a practice arena— but that would just be another ego feeding machine for you pro gamers out there. You wouldn’t queue with the intent to practice while keeping your rating safe. You would queue to get your jollies off of beating new players. I wish there was a way to weed this type of player out of all MMOs.

A highly underrated sigil in WvW is Sigil of Impact. 10% damage bonus to stunned or knocked down foes. In team fights, people spend a good deal of time either knocked down or stunned.

Bodge Cogswell, turret bunker posing with his two best friends.

In Photoshop CS6:
Go to image → adjustments → vibrance
Put vibrance up to 100
Go to filter → oil paint
Put shine on 0

Thanks for the feedback, Well.

Power Shoes and Leg Mods stack for a slightly better speed boost. You are right about Speedy Kits though, but that’s mostly for out of combat movement where Power Shoes and Leg Mods don’t apply. Also, Big ol’ Bomb is fairly easy to block or dodge roll, while the oil slick cannot be avoided by someone who is following right behind you.

I appreciate the feedback, but there are a lot of wvw bomb builds out there(Flaunz’s for example), but I’m trying something different. Also, Cloaking Device is one of our absolute best anti zerg traits. It has no noticeable cooldown and has kept me alive more than most of our survival skills. I might drop Power Shoes for something else, but only if I decided to change my utilities.

WvW Group Oriented Roamer

http://tinyurl.com/c8az4m5

The aim with this build is to always be a part of the action, so you need to get to where you’re needed fast and slip past the occasional roamer or run away from enemy groups. Run supplies, stick with your group, build siege weapons, and spy on enemies. This is not a roaming build for gankers or duelists. This is a team oriented build meant to keep you alive and moving.

Gear: Full Soldiers.

Weapon: Rifle for control and immobilization, cripple, and chill cleanse. This is also your contribution to team fights. This build has a whopping 3500 power, so spam that Hip Shot into large packs of foes—it pierces. If anyone gets close to you, Slick Shoes, Net Shot, Overcharged Shot, etc. should dissuade them and give you an out.

Sigil: More Endurance for more Dodges.

Runes: Speed! Power, +swiftness duration, and a chance to gain 30 seconds of Swiftness on being hit (more than that with the 2 rune bonus and 20 points into alchemy).
Utilities:

Med Kit: More swiftness, healing, and a condition cleanse. Triggers Speedy Kits.
Tool Kit: Block, Cripple, Pull, Confusion! Triggers Speedy Kits.
Elixir S: Get out of jail free. The tossed version also gets you out of tough spots.
Slick Shoes: Super Speed and the ability to knock down your pursuers or put a zerg flat on its back.

Elite: Doesn’t matter. Play around and swap to whichever one you want in the moment. WvW takes as long as you want it to, so you’ll have plenty of time to get out of combat and choose an elite that suits the situation.

Traits: See the build. I chose traits that make you fast, keep you alive, and give you some passive regen and condition cleansing.

Have fun!

http://tinyurl.com/c8az4m5

The aim with this build is to always be a part of the action, so you need to get to where you’re needed fast and slip past the occasional roamer or run away from enemy groups. Run supplies, stick with your group, build siege weapons, and spy on enemies. This is not a roaming build for gankers or duelists. This is a team oriented build meant to keep you alive and moving.

Gear: Full Soldiers.

Weapon: Rifle for control and immobilization, cripple, and chill cleanse. This is also your contribution to team fights. This build has a whopping 3500 power, so spam that Hip Shot into large packs of foes—it pierces. If anyone gets close to you, Slick Shoes, Net Shot, Overcharged Shot, etc. should dissuade them and give you an out.

Sigil: More Endurance for more Dodges.

Runes: Speed! Power, +swiftness duration, and a chance to gain 30 seconds of Swiftness on being hit (more than that with the 2 rune bonus and 20 points into alchemy).

Utilities:
Med Kit: More swiftness, healing, and a condition cleanse. Triggers Speedy Kits.
Tool Kit: Block, Cripple, Pull, Confusion! Triggers Speedy Kits.
Elixir S: Get out of jail free. The tossed version also gets you out of tough spots.
Slick Shoes: Super Speed and the ability to knock down your pursuers or put a zerg flat on its back.
Elite: Doesn’t matter. Play around and swap to whichever one you want in the moment. WvW takes as long as you want it to, so you’ll have plenty of time to get out of combat and choose an elite that suits the situation.

Traits: See the build. I chose traits that make you fast, keep you alive, and give you some passive regen and condition cleansing.

Have fun!

I just want to bump this one more time. It got no traction on the Engineer forum, but I assumed it was because it was tPvP focused. Does anyone have any opinions or feedback on this question?

How much pre-match tweaking is too much? I feel that I get countered hard by necros and mesmers, which is what started all of this gear swapping. Do any of you do this in tPvP? If so, how much and what exactly do you bring to shore up your defenses against builds that straight up counter you.

A little more explanation:

I carry two extra sets of armor, one with Runes of Earth and one with Runes of Mellandru. My standard set is Runes of the Forge. I put on Earth for Ranger/Eng heavy teams, and Mellandru for Mesmer/Necro heavy teams. I also swap to a crit amulet and Sigil of Purity vs. Mesmers and Necros, and a Sigil of Nullification against 2 or more Guardians. I also change up utilities, swapping out Throw Mine for Tool Kit (again vs ranged heavy teams) or Elixir Gun (Necro heavy teams).

P.S. Our team played two back-to-back matches against the same team last night. They had 2 Necromancers, 2 Mesmers, and 1 HGH Engineer. I have to say, I was glad to have my Mellandru set and the Rabid amulet for higher crit to trigger Sigil of Purity.

I carry two extra sets of armor, one with Runes of Earth and one with Runes of Mellandru. My standard set is Runes of the Forge. I put on Earth for Ranger/Eng teams, and Mellandru for Mesmer/Necro teams. I also swap to a crit amulet and Sigil of Purity vs. Mesmers and Necros, and a Sigil of Nullification against 2 or more Guardians. I also change up utilities, swapping out Throw Mine for Tool Kit (again vs ranged heavy teams) or Elixir Gun (Necro heavy teams).

My question is, how much pre-match tweaking is too much? I feel that I get countered hard by necros and mesmers, which is what started all of this swapping.

Do any of you do this in tPvP? If so, how much and what exactly do you bring to shore up your defenses against builds that straight up counter you.

Maybe something like this:

(cut and paste link)

http://tinyurl.com/cl746tx

The first idea that came to me is using chill in conjunction with Protection. Sigil of Hyrdomancy + 40% frozen duration* = 4 seconds of AOE chill every 9 seconds. This will severely hamper your enemies ability to damage you on top of your already high Protection up-time. Bombs and Mines make the point very difficult to fight on, and with Elixir infused bombs you further mitigate the damage you are taking.

*sigil of chilling + 2 runes of grenth + 10 points into explosives

After playing without a stun breaker for a few weeks and seeing just how good Protection has been at keeping my Engineer alive, I personally feel that this is our best defensive boons. I’m looking for help brainstorming the best ways gain it, and maximize the duration.

We can gain protection through utilities, traits and Runes:
*Elixir H (random, 5 seconds)
*Toss Elixir H (random, 5 seconds)
*Protective Shield (I Invetions): Gain protection for 3 seconds when you are hit with a critical attack 20 second cooldown.
*Protection Injection (VI Alchemy): Gain protection for 3 seconds whenever you are disabled. (stun, daze, knockdown, knockback, launch, float, sink, fear). This effect can trigger once every 5 seconds.
*4 Runes of Earth: 25% chance to gain Protection for 4s when hit. (Cooldown: 30s)
*6 Runes of the Forge: At 50% health you gain protection for 10s and burn all nearby foes. (Cooldown: 60s)
*4 Runes of the Grove: 25% chance to gain Protection for 4s when hit. (Cooldown: 30s)

We can increase the duration by investing points into Alchemy, and Runes.
*2 Superior Runes of Earth: +20% Protection duration
*4 Superior Runes of the Forge: +20% Protection Duration
*2 Superior Runes of the Grove: +15% Protection Duration
*2 Superior Runes of Water: +15% Boon Duration
*2 Superior Runes of the Monk: +15% Boon Duration
*4 Major Runes of Altruism: +15% Boon Duration
*2 Major Runes of Sanctuary: +10% Boon Duration

Currently I’m favoring an Elixir Build (30 points) with 2 Superior Runes of Earth, 2 Superior Runes of the Grove, and 2 Superior Runes of the Monk. That’s a 65% increase in Protection Duration, or 85% if you select the Potent Elixirs trait. I also feel like a good argument could be made for going with 6 Runes of the Forge since the protection duration you get is so high at 10 seconds and guaranteed to proc when you reach 50% health. My only problem with it is the 60 second cooldown.

This turns every 3 second Protection buff into 4-5 seconds, and every 5 second Protection buff into 8 or 9 seconds. As far as I know Protective Shield and Protection Injection do not share a cooldown, so it is possible to have Protection up at all times when being focused—with some lucky Elixir H procs. I would even consider Elixir C on the off chance that you can turn a condition into Protection.

So what’s all this good for? I feel that this is a great foundation for a bunker build. I’m not sure what the rest of the build looks like, but I want to start some discussion about it. Let me know if I’ve omitted any options for gaining protection or increasing the duration. Keep in mind my focus is on tPvP so maybe you WvW vets have some other ideas on this.