Guild Wars 2

I’m loving this build:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vdMQJAqalUUhSsYfWwWLQ7FLpF14PmGlBYJuiHw3GGANAA-TRyCABAcgAOZ/BFOgAOr874HAAynAQPQKaIWW9nxUCSKAYWWB-e

Start a fight with Incendiary Ammo → Orbital → Fire Bomb → Napalm → Flame Blast → Blow Torch, you can stack up enough burning that you’re hitting for upwards of 11k per tick (again that’s a high end, need vuln/might to hit that). You can slip in a Big Ol Bomb if you don’t have to worry about knockback (at a wall or against defiant stacks)

Not sure if it’s better than what Sly said for more solo/open world play, especially with all the moving around things do in Open world with others knocking things around and pulling agro, but god, it’s sweet when you can end up with 11k burns, 4k bleeds, ~1k confusion on attacks, and ~700 poison in addition to your power damage.

I’ve been screwing around with mine in various areas including SW and it’s just a fun change of pace from my typical Power Engi. Plus P/P looks kitten (got my guy Gallant Pistols with Exalted outfit on a norn and looks strait up Hitman, if only I could get a barcode on his neck ).

I will say I actually think Sinister weapons are superior in that they provide more burst than givers. Givers may come out better in total DPS in situations but especially open world being able to burst something down by the time you finish your burning rotation is huge. It takes seconds off each kill. The sigils/Runes maybe beneficial for keeping might up which translates just as much to burst as it does sustain.

I personally go with Super Pizza and normal Quality Tuning crystals because I’m cheap and don’t like spending a gold for half an hour of play

I also just default to Adrenal Implant, the Kinetic energy is high in potential but I feel low in practical application. Often I find it procing after I’ve used all the toolbelt skills I’d want to use it on, and that just leaves me sad.

Also, Mortar kit… god the blind is great, with Siege Rounds which is a great option it lasts quite a while. Also the chill field and poison field isn’t bad. Plus being able to tag something from far away with the 1 skill or drop a Big Ol Bomb +Orbital into your water field for some healing.

Overall I find it very satisfying, not quite Power Engi level awesomness, but a great change of pace to the condi style and in some situations superior.

I’d end on saying I don’t thin Chemical Rounds is worth grabbing unless you’re using offhand Pistol. If you prefer shield drop that trait for one of the others (either will do honestly). And you will eventually default to grenade spam, but it’s a bit of a cycle till you get there, and it’s a few nades then back to firebomb toss a few more including shrapnel and back to blow torch and static shot. Overall a little less grenade intensive than a power build, but grenades are just too good to not use for any engi build.

Majic.4801:

“one-shot, insta-down” tradition we’ve seen so far, it won’t change anything at all.
.

hmmmmmmmm…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZgRUtK7LkM

FT, Med Kit, Toolkit

None of these put you in combat. Use that to your benefit

With med kit you can even toss a pack and get some extra swiftness on top.

It’s a pain but a little attention to detail and swapping can have you living just fine. I actually like that it activates out of combat now, without that I’d have to get in combat first to trigger my magnetic bomb for example.

Remedy.3429:

Jerus.4350:

Quarktastic.1027:

Jerus.4350:

For PVP/PVE? And we have Scepter and Sword, need more than an ‘S’. Also if it’s PVE meta would dictate Mace/Torch for DPS, however if you don’t care about that, that’s fine.

If you’re referring to sword it’s pretty much GS -> Whirling Wrath -> Symbol -> Leap -> Binding Blades -> Auto till WW up and WW again, swap to the Sword/Focus -> Focus 4 and maybe 5 -> Auto attack till weapon swap it up and finish your chain then swap.

If you meant Scepter it’s pretty much the same but with dropping smite when it’s up. Maybe tossing the immobilize in either for vuln or just to lock them down if people are kiting.

If you’re running Symbolic Avenger (you should be, it works now) you want to drop your symbol before hitting whirling wrath.

True, still old rotation in my head, plus you delay it now with the mace/torch set starting things off.

for the OP, for large hit boxes such that it’s worth using scepter you’ll actually want Scepter + Torch/Focus (I believe, maybe just torch).

If you stick to GS do the normal rotation as I said before but as pointed out above drop the symbol first.

With Torch you grab Radiant fire and it’s a noticeable increase to damage getting those 2 bursts from tossing zealot’s flame. Then as far as rotation you’ll start in Focus 4/5, then swap torch and get 4 Zealot’s flames out (2 radiant fire procs followed by the actual skill each time) then swap back catch another focus 4 and swap back to torch when you can for the same 4 Flames.

Welp I just got a fractal mace, so I’m gonna use GS+M and should I use focus or torch? I already have Zojja’s artifact.

Torch w/radiance = DPS
Focus = Defense

Depending on how comfortable or the situation will depend on what you bring.

Zeal/Honor/Radiance with torch is pretty sweet damage. Zeal/Honor/Virtue with Focus is pretty great support/defense.

While we lost sword as an option we gained strength on torch for DPS situations. I actually feel Guardian is more diverse in it’s play than before.

You’ll still want Scepter on large targets, if you check out Obal’s guide it actually has a few imgur pictures one being a graph showing the DPS. A few different builds are all pretty close (GS+Mace/torch at the top in general) Scepter is the one that shows the biggest difference… on large targets.

So personally as I said above for the mace options, but then you also have Hammer as an option for even more support, or GS for a little higher damage and it’s own utility (pulls).

I suggest having a GS/Hammer/Mace/Focus/Torch all set up so you can swap it as you feel like or as the situation calls. I’ll personally use Focus on Mossman or Archie and try to stick tight and hopefully he focuses me and I can block rotate if I don’t fail. I’ll drop to torch for anything I feel more comfortable going all out on and I’ll pull my hammer out when I feel like being lazy or that I’m just not on my game.

:D
I didn’t mean to paint the entire EU under one label, just saying I hear EU is a bit more hardcore in various areas, so I am not surprised that they have a greater presence at the top.

I know ya’ll are cool people, no offense or negativity was intended. I was just calling it as I saw it from reading the forum.

Crossaber.8934:

There are hundreds of game ouy there that force a team to require tank and healer. This is one game that don’t require those roles and players don’t have a lot of play time can hop in hop out whenever they see fit. Please leave this game as is.

I am fine is combat is a bit fine tuned to require more def stat it is not if tank and healer is required.

I don’t think the goal is to require a healer, but to encourage having some extra support possibly through heals which is quite open to many professions. Now, finding that balance is going to be an impressive feat if they can pull it off. Not sure I have faith but I’ll be the first to give them a bow and applause if they pull it off.

From what I’ve gathered the entire EU playerbase is a bit more on the hardcore side. They’re ahead in PUG strats, they are more demanding in PUGs, quicker to kick, and all that stuff. It’s no surprise that leaning to a more hardcore play style follows with a higher amount of real Hardcore players.

NA it seems at this point we have DnT and LoD for high end dungeon/fractal play. As active as I am on these forums, as much of a supporter of the Meta, that’s simply not my personal play style. I find it pretty boring honestly. I much prefer trying different professions and different styles just to mix it up. Recently I rolled a Condi Engi, played a bunch of Necro and even made myself a Cleric Guard Cancer build just to screw around. I have far more fun screwing around than grinding out speed runs. I’ve been there done that, with that scene in other games. I simply don’t have the motivation anymore. I tried a few times to get into it, and it just got boring quick. Not trying to knock it at all, again I’m in full support of it. It’s simply not my preference.

I usually come home from work, have a big glass of whiskey and start to do stupid stuff in the game. That’s my style.

Point being, I think it’s just a different personality type. EU seems to have a more hardcore presence which I think just pushes more all the way to the top. NA has more that are all about the grind and getting shinies and really detracts from the desire to go “all the way”.

fixit.7189:

Dinks.2478:

you’re just as useless to your team as a clerics guardian using a staff.

And there we have it, this is what it all comes down to.

You are useless if you go clerics or any other support type build/gear set that isn’t the meta dps; you heard it here first!

Not precicely, I believe I posted a video showing the usefulness of a clerics guard. However it wasn’t a staff guard. Problem is a lot of people slap whatever they feel like together and call it whatever they want and expect people to just agree.

A staff guard is bad for pretty much everything but tagging or using a few of the skills and swapping to a better main weapon. See a guard camping staff auto attacks and no matter what gear and build you’re running it’s not going to be very good.

Want to run Clerics Guard, pull out your mace, trait up in Honor and Virtues and play support. AH is a decent option for self survival but the strength of valor is NOT support no matter what many claim.

Here’s the videos again. It’s old traits but you can adapt with the new stuff and it’s still pretty good.

Only thing is, well, with the content we have, you just don’t need that kind of support. However as you can see in the videos it can create a pretty stress free environment.

Cameirus.8407:

Depths.4051:

its a good thing they changed it, its nice not feeling like a homeless person carrying all your valuables in a ratty backpack. I’m sorry your character looked penniless so it could match the backpacks, but most of us didn’t, and didn’t like them owo.
The change is much appreciated.

I liked it, it made me feel like an engineer, with my kits and my gear. I thought it looked good.

Really not happy Anet caved to the qq. and did not leave an option to keep it if you wanted.

Yeah, how dare they give in to a huge community complaint. It’s like they wanted to please their customers or something! Such craziness.

ok, had to play the sarcastic card, but I hear ya, I know a lot dislike the gaurdian Aegis shield. I love it. However if it were removed I’d be fine with that as A LOT don’t like it, just like with the kits, you had a huge sticky post complaining about it, makes sense to remove it.

I play just for the funsies, but that’s why I’m doing things like playing Necro a lot lately and got a 3rd engi (<3 engi) for a condi build. As well I just finished setting up a full healing Guard just to see what I can do with it and have some fun.

I generally don’t PUG much anymore though, just not worth it, but over the last week or two I did a handfull of Arah paths with the Condi Engi and Necro, surprisingly no complaints.

It’s one of the new favorite PVP builds as I understand, so no surprise it’s leaking into PVE. Seem to see that a lot, whatever is popular in PVP people just carry over and call it good still.

Quarktastic.1027:

Jerus.4350:

For PVP/PVE? And we have Scepter and Sword, need more than an ‘S’. Also if it’s PVE meta would dictate Mace/Torch for DPS, however if you don’t care about that, that’s fine.

If you’re referring to sword it’s pretty much GS -> Whirling Wrath -> Symbol -> Leap -> Binding Blades -> Auto till WW up and WW again, swap to the Sword/Focus -> Focus 4 and maybe 5 -> Auto attack till weapon swap it up and finish your chain then swap.

If you meant Scepter it’s pretty much the same but with dropping smite when it’s up. Maybe tossing the immobilize in either for vuln or just to lock them down if people are kiting.

If you’re running Symbolic Avenger (you should be, it works now) you want to drop your symbol before hitting whirling wrath.

True, still old rotation in my head, plus you delay it now with the mace/torch set starting things off.

for the OP, for large hit boxes such that it’s worth using scepter you’ll actually want Scepter + Torch/Focus (I believe, maybe just torch).

If you stick to GS do the normal rotation as I said before but as pointed out above drop the symbol first.

With Torch you grab Radiant fire and it’s a noticeable increase to damage getting those 2 bursts from tossing zealot’s flame. Then as far as rotation you’ll start in Focus 4/5, then swap torch and get 4 Zealot’s flames out (2 radiant fire procs followed by the actual skill each time) then swap back catch another focus 4 and swap back to torch when you can for the same 4 Flames.

Harper.4173:

Jerus.4350:

Harper.4173:

Thaddeus.4891:

Khristophoros.7194:

The only way a healer would be useful is if it is required for the party to survive. Why would we slow down our DPS to have a healer if we don’t need it?

I’m fine with this though. It’s quick and easy to pug because we don’t need certain professions or roles.

Well you could have different option and healer could be one of them. Average pugs couldn’t complete content with 5 meta zerker. But you could complete it with 5 zerker and 3 of them would have support trait and runes. Or 3 zerker, 1 tank, 1 healer would also work. Or 3 zerker and 2 zealot, etc.

As long as you need something to keep your team alive and an Healer is one option possible to do that.

How is having something restrict you a good thing?

I’m not a fan of what Thadd implies as he’s basically advocating an attrition based mechanic. That’s the only style that NEEDS healing. I’m not a fan of that stuff.

However, I am a fan of NEEDING a projectile defense, needing CC to strip the breakbar, needing different mechanics that people can fill in different ways.

That’s the beauty of this system and while not perfect you have many different options with different professions.

I could see an encounter that had an environmental mechanic that you had to go pick up these certain berries that grew around the room, but they were very toxic such that getting too close and holding them damaged you. So you’d either have to be insanely quick (probably impossibly so) or have someone with some healing gear taking care of it with relative ease. So most are fighting a normal fight but you have a use for building yourself up to be defensive.

There are so many options.

I’m of course concerned with the idea of carrying half a dozen sets of 12 pieces of gear… but maybe they’ll come up with some more options regarding that if it becomes a problem.

This type of “attrition” system only makes things longer since people will stack defensive gear and slowly inch their way though. It won’t be fun or glorious – it will be tedious.

Also the mandatory many gear sets is another issue that would be a pain.

Actually it’s a bit of the contrary. Attrition mechanics split things up into extremes. Either you pad yourself up and win the battle of attrition, or you strip down and lay down the damage and beat it out before you go down. In both cases I just am not a fan. You either bang your head on it till you figure the right combo of damage being strict to a meta that’s above the expected damage output of a team or you have a nice boring fight as you said. In either case again, just not a fan personally.

Finding a balance that rewards these healing and mitigation defensive tools without creating this type of situation is going to be quite an undertaking.

I do think WP is on to something with this “skulls” namely the no out of combat health regen, and no rallying. Even going further with death being permanent and no Waypoints. These are the types of mechanics that simply reward damage at the cost of support.

Either way, I’m pretty skeptical about the content we get. If it turns out to be more like the PVP style in this game, welp, that’s not for me. Which I’m very afraid of in that Colin specifically mentions that it’s the only game mode that really captures those lesser used mechanics.

I don’t want a combat system where I’m expected to constantly be absorbing hits and countering it with heals. That’s not the active gameplay that I love. I am very much down for a style that is faster though, that requires us to take our full list of active defenses to come through unscathed and has an alternative of eating some of those hits and countering it with some support players using mitigation and healing. But that’s a fine line to find, too fast of attacks and aviodance is no longer an option, and too slow and it’s still easy and we haven’t changed. To strong of hits and healing won’t be enough without a full change to more defensive setups for everyone, too weak and we’ll be able to just use zerker guardian mace or maybe swap a single trait or two on other professions to pump out a little extra sustain.

For PVP/PVE? And we have Scepter and Sword, need more than an ‘S’. Also if it’s PVE meta would dictate Mace/Torch for DPS, however if you don’t care about that, that’s fine.

If you’re referring to sword it’s pretty much GS → Whirling Wrath → Symbol → Leap → Binding Blades → Auto till WW up and WW again, swap to the Sword/Focus → Focus 4 and maybe 5 → Auto attack till weapon swap it up and finish your chain then swap.

If you meant Scepter it’s pretty much the same but with dropping smite when it’s up. Maybe tossing the immobilize in either for vuln or just to lock them down if people are kiting.

Stacking is a tendancy on old content that was previously trivialized by FGS and the PUG tactics have still not changed.

Jump into fractals where there is some content that’s not completely mind numbing and well you get a situation like I had the other day where in one group everyone starts ranging Archie, and another the whole group responds with “wow, everyone melee’d, you never see that in a pug”.

Harper.4173:

Thaddeus.4891:

Khristophoros.7194:

The only way a healer would be useful is if it is required for the party to survive. Why would we slow down our DPS to have a healer if we don’t need it?

I’m fine with this though. It’s quick and easy to pug because we don’t need certain professions or roles.

Well you could have different option and healer could be one of them. Average pugs couldn’t complete content with 5 meta zerker. But you could complete it with 5 zerker and 3 of them would have support trait and runes. Or 3 zerker, 1 tank, 1 healer would also work. Or 3 zerker and 2 zealot, etc.

As long as you need something to keep your team alive and an Healer is one option possible to do that.

How is having something restrict you a good thing?

I’m not a fan of what Thadd implies as he’s basically advocating an attrition based mechanic. That’s the only style that NEEDS healing. I’m not a fan of that stuff.

However, I am a fan of NEEDING a projectile defense, needing CC to strip the breakbar, needing different mechanics that people can fill in different ways.

That’s the beauty of this system and while not perfect you have many different options with different professions.

I could see an encounter that had an environmental mechanic that you had to go pick up these certain berries that grew around the room, but they were very toxic such that getting too close and holding them damaged you. So you’d either have to be insanely quick (probably impossibly so) or have someone with some healing gear taking care of it with relative ease. So most are fighting a normal fight but you have a use for building yourself up to be defensive.

There are so many options.

I’m of course concerned with the idea of carrying half a dozen sets of 12 pieces of gear… but maybe they’ll come up with some more options regarding that if it becomes a problem.

Xyonon.3987:

You can even face completly at nowhere and hit the target if you just hug it stong enough :P

I tought Brazil is only the guy who makes the vids and tells everyone what the true class players in DNT tell him what the best “is”? I know he plays too ofc, but not all guides he has on his channel have been made all by himself, have they?

As I understand it Dekeys does Ele and is the holder of the Great Spreadsheet they all run their maths through. Obal does Guard, Nike Warrior and Brazil and Nike dabble with the rest. I don’t think he claims to have things perfect, but it’s certainly a solid option.

I’m sure everyone here agrees you start with Shrapnel grenade not end with it in that cycle. Also should be starting with an Orbital more often than not regardless of the in combat damage because so many fights either activate or require running towards. I’m sure loving my 2 free blasts with like what 20k+ damage? Yeah not bad.

Either way I think he puts out guides not to say “this is the best option” but “here’s what you can do and here’s some math to back up why it’s solid” and there’s certainly enough little details where you change your approach on Engi that summing it up in a quick guide is impossible.

Personally I’ve been doing:
Incendiary Ammo → Orbital → Napalm → Flame Blast → Acid Bomb → Grenade Barrage → Jump Shot → Blunderbuss → Shrapnel Grenade → Poison Grenade → Flame Blast → Freeze Grenade → Grenade → Grenade → Grenade → Shrapnel Grenade → Grenade → Flame Blast → Acid Bomb

That’s about my standard start. Quick 15 might about 6-7s in, 12 right off the bat.

Curious if anyone has found something better?

ionix.9054:

Geneaux.9547:

People chew them out because many individuals have twisted mindsets in that having yourself and others delegated to one task(dps, healing, or tanking) to clear a dungeon, pvp match, etc, is “fun”.

What I liked about old MMOs was the fact that there were designated jobs. I always had fun helping in a way that wasn’t the same in nearly 99% of games out there; I didn’t have to attack.

It was also fun to become known for your role… where people begged you to play with them because you rocked at the job that you did. If you got bored of healing, then switched toons to be main CC, or MA, or tank etc.

In this game, everyone does the same crap. Zerker attack mode. I find most people I associate with don’t even care what their group composition is in WvWvW. As I say in every thread I post… it feels like a red/team blue team halo match to me. Everything that made MMORPGSs unique and interesting to me has been removed.

And I agree, what I loved about MMORPGs are not popular with the rest of gamers these days.

And no. I never played WOW.

You weren’t playing high end then. At least not in any of the games I played a lot of.

Even the tanks/healers/CC people were expected to pump out as much damage as they could.

That meant sometimes even running tanks/healers in DPS gear or builds if we could manage it. There’s always been a maximum level of effective defense. What’s the point of lobbing out a 5k heal if they only took 1k damage for example. What’s the point of tanking up to the point that you take almost no damage if you can manage with regens to survive while taking more? Defenses cap out, offense only caps out when you reach the point of it being trivial content and dying in one shot.

The problem here is that that level of required defense just isn’t high, not in the ways that would promote these types of builds. We do have encounters where a lot of active defenses are needed, but that allows people to still go nearly full damage builds maybe sacrificing say a guardian’s max damage to get a longer duration wall of reflection. People don’t accept this as a support oriented decision, but it is, it’s just not far enough for some people. People want that mace guardian with clerics gear to be a thing. And well, tehre is power in it, it’s just that it’s not needed and means a slower run if you’re good enough to not benefit from leaning on it for a smoother run.

Either way, kinda went on a tangent there, but if you did ONLY your role, well that was mediocre play in the other MMOs I played, the good players contributed in any way they could even if it was a small percent of what a DPS could do the healers would still do what they could. It all adds up.

The ferocity patch didn’t increase damage but it did screw up scaling. 80 dungeons we lost damage, as you got scaled down to lower levels you actually gained damage capabilities because of poor scaling. I remember the patch we went from ~3 fiery rushes to a little over 1 to kill SQ. I was scratching my head about that one for a while. Took them over a year but they finally took a look at scaling again this last patch, and that’s why while at 80 we’re seeing a dramatic increase in damage, at lower levels we’re not seeing as much.

PookieDaWombat.6209:

I’d love for it to matter that I can go out in a healing build on my guardian and keep people standing in spite of themselves while possibly tanking a good amount of damage and allowing my ranged people space to melt a boss. That isn’t how this game was developed though.

Let me introduce you to a set of videos that proves quite the opposite:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCID7oABjK4&index=3&list=PLCxfgAjHhmmy0a29VtGeRpCK4ADb4SQTS

Just take a look. The possibility and the power are there already.

Of course it’s possible with full zerk too, meaning you’re sacrificing like 10-20% group damage to gain ease of play which with this stale content many people simply don’t want. They just want to blow things up.

There exists a lot more options than the content has encouraged us to actually utilize.

That said, I’m a bit worried about the implications of Colin’s statement. I don’t really want to have battles of attrition, I’ve never really liked them all that much. But, to encourage healing that’s what you have to make with the current systems at hand. I will say the more and more I look at things the more I like Wooden Potato’s suggestion of removing out of combat healing for certain more challenging instances. That alone I think would do a lot to encourage more healing as a team, sure it might be an organized bomb on a water field, but that’d mean less blasts on stealths/swiftness. It’d certainly change things.

Problem with rampager is that condi damage simply scales very well. It’s too hybrid. Your build between condi and power damage will greatly change. So you’re lacking the full power of condi that Sinister would give, and lacking the full power of “power” that Zerk/assassin would give. Basically it’s taking a hit in both areas while being unable to make full use of it.

There are some skills that are nice and hybrid like, the bleeding from Phantasms for example, but it’s simply not enough to warrant going Rampager. So IMO go one way or the other, build around the direction you go because hybrid just sacrifices too much with whatever play style you go for (staff condi or Sword for power).

Lord Kuru.3685:

Leaving the disastrous NPE in the state sorry state that it was for so long already taught everyone to tome their way to 80, so the changes are a bit too late now.

I had every intention of hitting 50 and using some extra tomes to finish off my 3rd engi. I ended up just strait leveling it the whole way (well after a birthday booster to 20). The new system is actually quite good. You can go well into whichever trait line you choose getting some nice skills, at 45 you get your second, 71 iirc the third. You get all your utility skills pretty quick. Overall it was actually a very enjoyable experience.

Quarktastic.1027:

How is it that you have so many level 80 characters, and less than 1200 spirit shards?

Across my two level 80s, I had 1,557 spirit shards when the change went live. To top it off, I’ve spent skill points on two legendaries, and a bunch of ascended crap.

Um, you realize that excess skill points primarily came from after leveling to 80 right? If you spent the same time playing 2 chars as someone else did on say 20, well, you’re going to have more as they had to spend time skilling up and leveling all 20 of those characters while you just racked up the points.

That said, yeah when it went live I had like 2k and change, it’ll last me a while, but I do find the change annoying with the augur stones remaining the same price.

But, but, I’m helping with my might and healing! I wanted to roleplay as Gandalf.

Legendary effects on Barrage need to come back, and with it more things like it. Silly to get a legendary on a Engi right now.

Ohh I understand, why I use condi food, duration Sigil and duration runes. If you’re rich and want to throw away money you can even get a duration tuning crystal.

Problem I see with Givers is you’re sacrificing 2 offensive stats to get it. Condi Damage, Condi Duration, and Precision stat weapons would be kitten sweet though

Then there’s also the burst issue, condi already suffers a bit in that area, so I’ll take any benefit I can get and condi damage > duration when talking burst. That said I can get up to my 7k+ burns in about 4s, not terrible. And there’s some power damage, bleeds and what not in there.

There is still one more specialization though! It’s not too late to keep necro down at the bottom, you can do it ANet I believe in you!

EcoRI.9273:

must be heitred on his new account.

Why would he have a new one? his old ones still up and running…

Axelwarrior.9084:

He explains his reason in his post and it’s perfectly valid.

EDIT for clarification: I don’t mean I agree with his solution, but it’s not like he’s doing it for no reason.

Good edit, because there is NO valid reason for going out of your way to grief people. Simply none. Well, other than getting your jollies at others expenses if you’re into that kind of thing, but it’s certainly against the rules and I’m sure that thread will get locked and disappear soon.

It’s sad that there are people who are dirtbags, but going on a witch hunt doesn’t help anything, it just continues the cycle.

Yay sticky. Thanks Gaile.

Been playing a sinister engi for the last few days. I don’t think givers is worth it but I honestly haven’t sat down to do the math.

I don’t think blending will be beneficial, as your big hitters are kinda one side or the other. Nades and some of the more baseline sustained tools have a nice mix, but I really wouldn’t recommend mixing, either get your condi damage maxed out or go all power. With that I don’t think Rampager is a good idea either, yes we have some “on crit” stuff that makes that nice, but again, if you’re going condi damage go full condi damage. I can tell you it’s pretty noticeable even when I just forget my food/tuning crystal.

Right now I’m using:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vdAQJAqalUUhSsYtWwPLQ7FLpF14PmGlBYJuiHw3GGANAA-TxhMABlq+DA7PEjSpTV2A6DAI0TAoHgHlgECQxcA-e

The Rabid there is just because I hate the LS stuff and haven’t gone back to finish out achievements to complete my sinister set.

Then I just do a rotation like: Incendiary Ammo → Orbital Strike → Fire Bomb → Blowtorch → Static Shot → Napalm → Flame Blast → Shrapnel Grenade → Poison Grenade → Freeze Grenade → Big Ol’ Bomb → Fire Bomb → Flame Blast … then kinda grenade spam rotating through to get the big guys

Of course Orbital I only really use if I can drop it as I run up and I might put napalm first if I don’t think I can catch the blast in time with a firebomb. And I only use BoB if there are defiant stacks such that I don’t throw things around… and yeah all that.

Finding it a lot of fun, it’s not as good as power builds which can hit up to high 17kdps on paper over 30s though I don’t think I actually do that but I don’t think I’m too far off. I haven’t done math for it but looking through combat logs after fights it seems I bounce between like 8k-16k DPS looking at like 2s increments at a time so right around 11-12k sustained DPS on a fight if I do things right. Not bad for a fun screw around build. Fun seeing 11k burning ticks with 4k bleeding along side 1k confusion and like 700 poison all as I have a shrapnal nade crit for 1.5k each when things line up just perfect but that’s not something to expect regularly.

There is a tell for reflects, big purple dome, big glassy white wall, glowing “orange” ball around the target, or maybe even a traited warrior doing his block animations. In all cases there’s a tell as well as the projectiles flying back at you.

I don’t understand how anyone can defend the cost remaining the same while the ease of obtaining the currency is made more difficult. I used to pull in 10-20 SP a day without batting an eye, now I’ve gained maybe 30 since they changed the system.

Minigrump.4961:

Wot

:D

No easymode is more fun! Though I did end up getting downed >.<

In the past rules were set down and they’d vote on points like twice a year or so. All done with a different format.

So… got my first vote kick yesterday, yup first ever!

Fractal 50 advertising for a D/P Thief. Join asking if Engi is ok, if not I’ll swap the gear to my thief. See the votes starting and leave.

Thought it was pretty funny, had to send the initiator a tell laughing, he comes back explaining why they wanted thief. Laughed again and told him the point was I offered to change…

Anyways, made me laugh, my cherry is popped

Naw it was always 5s, but with 30% that meant it was effectively 6.5.

I wouldn’t really put ourselves in the vuln stacking niche anymore though. While we still have probably the best sustained, it’s just so meaningless, especially now. Sure some fractals last longer than the dozen seconds or so, but of those most are phased such that it’s a series of spiking damage. In which a warrior/Ele combo can stagger their vuln bursts to exceed our output. We may still be able to burst out 20 vuln but it takes a few seconds and by the time we peak they’re starting to fall.

It’s nice for lesser groups that can’t burst the damage, and we still do offer sustained vuln at a higher level. It’s just we can’t even maintain half of a full set of stacks anymore and that’s with factoring in food.

It’s a hit I certainly feel. Luckily my groups often run with 2 engi’s just for funsies still the most fun profession to play with plenty of utility.

If Immob was perfectly fine and no one saw it as wrong, why is it every time I see the Ooze immob thing referenced in a group it’s termed as an “exploit” or “bug”?

In the groups I run with or Pugs I’ve joined it’s viewed on par with pulling Mossman into the water.

I completely agree, thing is in the old ruleset and system, you’d lose your record every 6 months not every week when you stretch the rules

I honestly think you’re doing a great job, thing is people don’t seem to like the rules to be under such scrutiny. You’re clarifying it all to create a real ruleset, and people don’t seem to want that. They want the vagueness without having to admit to it being vague. People are kittening weird like that

ibf4 “the old ruleset was completely clear and not vague at all, that’s why we never questioned things that people are questioning now!”

Not as thorough as Desade, but basically for Abom, you can pre gather rifles, just duck behind the corner. Solo just the first corner works, in a group you gotta go a bit further around the second corner.

Gather half a dozen or even a dozen rifles, the pull abom over. Dance his normal swipe, it’s a long enough animation you can easily walk through him or circle to the back, when he starts to jump dodge and you’ll avoid that AE, when you see him shrug his shouclers you walk away and pick up a rifle, soon as he gets big hit him with the rifle then go back in, rinse and repeat till dead.

Really a pretty easy fight once you get the intricacies of him down. Dance dance, dodge, dance dance, walk away pick up rifle and shoot, dance dance dance, dodge, dance dance….

OK I had to do that, but seriously, acid bomb getting Condi, well it’s unnecessary, a field damage of fire when you’re complaining about bomb’s condi focus? You’d be pigeon holeing yourself into the same thing.

I’m in FULL support of adjusting the other skills to have a more condi basis that’s more conducive to the PVP environment, but leave the strengths for power alone.

Make kits versatile. In a condi build you utilize Fumigate, Elixir F, and Tranq Dart, while in Power you drop your acid bomb.

No need to ruin power builds to create condi builds.

Give Battering Ram some strong condi effect maybe? Make Gadgets a condi thing. Remove the silly turret change and simply move them more towards an active role, wher their base attack is weak damage, but their activates are quicker with some different pressure. Give P/P a stand alone strength worth using.

I don’t know, there’s a lot of options without completely destroying power builds.

ellesee.8297:

Jerus.4350:

I like your thinking but again, the idea of losing EG’s Acid Bomb in power builds just rubs me the wrong way. The drop/quick cancel is much of the fun of running that rotation. Without it the PVE power build would become much more dull.

I understand the issues with PVP, but killing the fun of PVE for it… sorry but no thanks.

PvE has been killing the fun of PvP since launch! You’ll survive!

Wahoo! Bye frands!

PVP has been killing the fun of PVE since launch! You’ll survive!

Wahoo! Bye frands!

Wethospu, whether people approve of the results of the voting or not, I think they provided a great service. It highlighted the issues with the whole system. How fickle and hypocritical it was/is. How split the community is on different rulings. I really hope you don’t resign if people want to just go back to the old ruleset, frankly it was more simple, open to interpretation but in that allowed some wiggle room. There is something to note there. You may not keep your record but you wouldn’t lose it for month because the discussion only happened rarely. I’m sure that was nice for people.

Personally as I said before, I wish people would drift to a more open ruleset where they could really showcase what is possible instead of confining themselves to setting records within a system of simply “doing it better” in a lot of cases. But as I said before, that’s my desire as a spectator and not a guy doing the work, so I understand if people don’t want that.

I like your thinking but again, the idea of losing EG’s Acid Bomb in power builds just rubs me the wrong way. The drop/quick cancel is much of the fun of running that rotation. Without it the PVE power build would become much more dull.

I understand the issues with PVP, but killing the fun of PVE for it… sorry but no thanks.

I’d rather just get the option to change my cursor color without having to use 3rd party programs

I honestly like ground targetting in that you have to do a bit more. I’m a fan of having to be more active in play. I understand the hindrance, I’ve thrown my WoR in the wrong spot on my guard a couple times and facpalmed, but I do support the change. I just hate when I lose my cursor in all the haze.

UKADAM.3910:

If i go with will strenght runes to replace my scholar will i lose damage or gain?

Depends, you’re looking at about 10% from the ferocity loss and % damage loss. Though if you’re not maintaining the 10% bonus on scholar that drops quick. If you’re not maintaining might your strength benefits go up quick. It’s really a scale that varies.

If you’re not maintaining max might but decent might, strength gets better
If you’re not maintaining health, strength gets better
If you’re doing fine on both scholar has the potential to be ~10% better.

I have to say I agree with spoj, as a spectator I want to see what people can do. I know DnT did a run where they finished Arah2 without actually “finishing” the dungeon, just killing Brie. It just seemed kinda lame to me, showing the flaws with the idea of the unrestricted ruleset. Now had they split up, had someone soloing or duoing Lupi while they completed the other bosses and got a fully complete run, well, that’d actually be pretty darn cool. Truly the full complete run as fast as possible.

As it is with restricted, things are a bit dull. Some paths have some cool tricks, others are just going really fast through a strait forward situation. It has it’s merits and I don’t want to detract from them, but every time someone does something neat it comes under question.

At this point I can’t help but think that there should be “tournament rules” reverted back to what they were before all this voting, pretty strait forward stuff. And a “speed run” ruleset of pretty much "must get the completion chest of the dungeon, timer ends on boss kill, last part to nullify those pesky delayed completion situations.

Lets see what you all can really do, and have a ruleset for competition that’s a bit more limited such that it doesn’t become “if you fail this jump you lose.” Of course hacking, glitching out of the map, and TP items become troublesome so I’d take those out of the full speed run ruleset.

But, that’s just my spectator wish.

If you’re in an organized group consider hoelbrak, when you recover in a group and empower makes your might all that much longer while still getting some benefit from condi duration reduction and a more offensive stat set.

Totally, on one hand I want a legendary armor set so I can swap stats, on the other hand, without swapping runes it’s kinda pointless. Really wish they’d enable that in some way.

can you place feedback on the wall anymore? I noticed it needs a target now… I swear I treid to play mesmer and half my abilities end up with red messages flashing across my screen >.<