Guild Wars 2

Don’t forget that GW has a BIG advantage over WoW when it comes to pugging dungeons:

in WoW dungeons were so dam easy, especially when leveling in heirlooms, that it all had to be rushed to the maximum. People didn’t like waiting for buffs or anything anymore. Tanks pulled half the dungeon before realising the healer was picking up quests at the start…

In GW2 dungeons aren’t as easy, which means even pugs would have to communicate or at least work together better.

This means that a system like WoW’s LFG would not necessarily lead to the same impatient asocial runs that became the standard in WoW.

It could start with a LFG tool bound to the server, but where you don’t have to be in the map chat of a big capital to see.
It can’t be a global channel of course, or it would be cluttered with stupidity in no time

Most map chat below max level is pretty much dead. If someone asks a question, I still see that question as last line hours later…
So in order to be free to go out in the world, a LFG tool would help a lot to still form groups.

Not having a LFG tool binds you to the cities, contrary to what some claim.

Not that there are wars between guilds in Guild WARS…
There were in GW1, not in GW2.

Whenever I mentioned there weren’t many players around while leveling, people told me to swap servers.

Whenever I said WvW was a frustrating zerg, people told me to swap servers.

Whenever I said it was hard to find pvp groups, people told me to swap servers.

Now everybody is saying what a wonderfull server community GW2 has, and how a LFG system would ruin that.

Both features are based on the same idea: get together across servers.
If one is such a helpfull feature of the game, than how can the other be the downfall of it?

GOSU.9574:

No thanks. WoW players need to figure out this isn’t WoW. You bought a PvP game.

I bought a pvp game with only capture point mode?

In an 8v8 zerg mode that completely ruins any incentive for strategic gameplay, or in a 5v5 mode where premades are allowed to fight pugs?

WvW is a great addition, but dam is it zerging too…

This game is not a pvp game. It needs a ton of work before it can be called that.
At this point it can’t even be an E-sport, and the dev’s know…

GW2 players need to figure out another game can have good features too, even WoW. This doesn’t mean players liking these features should ‘go back to WoW’. They are simply trying to make GW2 the best game it can be by bringing in new ideas.

Something else about pvp armor, THE incentive for pvp in this game:

it might look god in Heart of the Mists.
In battles it gets drowned in blue or red color and harldy is distinguishable except maybe a hat or two.

Outside of the Mists you can’t even wear it…

While in pvp you can’t wear your pve looks you worked hard for.

If it’s all about looks, at least let the looks be used more.

In pvp your only reward is better looking armor.

Very few pieces are actually ‘better looking’.
Most are more of the same and could be considered rather plain.

I find very few armor sets truely creative.
It’s nice that leather looks like leather and not like plate with lightning effects… but still. They could have done better than this.

I see this one argument in many threads, when people complain about lack of features in this game:
‘They will introduce better stuff later…’
Well: they should be carefull with that strategy, if it’s really a strategy and not just a fanboys excuse… If people get bored with the initial game, than GW2 won’t save itself with expansions.

Many fanboys risk getting what they seem to want: a game only for their elite few, where they shifted out all the WoW players, all the MMO hoppers, al the… basically just everybody except for them.
And then they have a low populated game that lacks funding. But they have stood by it, they are the only true GW2 players, aren’t they?

If anything, the LFD (or LFG) system in WoW allowed you to go out in the world again…
When ‘manually’ looking for a group you needed to be in the cities where trade chat was the only way to really find people.
With LFD you can be anywhere.

Not that there was much to do ‘in the world’ in WoW, but with LFD you could at least be fishing while waiting, in the old system you were forced to be in a city for the channels.

People get itchy when they see the word ‘WoW’ and immediately go all defensive.

Anet is smart enough to improve upon the concept of LFD without copying WoW mindlessly.

Many things in GW2 feel unfinished for me, this is just one of them.

Thing is: there is no ‘pvp’ in 8v8 spvp… not in the challenging way.
There is only zerging and being zerged.

I don’t mind having a bracket where it’s more about ‘do whatever you want’ but it should still give good fights.
Spvp doesn’t. It gives uneven fights only.

But if queuing alone for free tournies, you end up in pugs fighting premades… and get slaughtered and kicked out after round 1.

Premades and pugs need a clear seperation, even besides the paid tournaments.

Spvp needs work… LOTS of work.

For starters: where is the logic in making spvp 8v8 and tpvp 5v5?
Make spvp 5v5 too and suddenly you’re playing a different game where defending might become a valid option.
This would keep a lot of the pugs out of tournament mode as well.

Just got the field to work, I wasn’t paying attention to the white cirkle enough. Was more going by the smoke, which means you’re late…

Thanks for the tips, just made the turret that little more usefull for me

Never getting a combo out of that.
Are you sure it’s a water field?

Testing it now and can’t make it work.

Could well be me, just saying I can’t trigger it for now.

Check the central page on combo fields Chupa, the sentence i quoted is there.
It clearly states the one doing the finisher is what counts.
By itself a stupid mechanic, because usually the one doing a water field will have higher + healing stats I think. Not as a rule, but for the most part I guess that would be the case.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Combo

halfway the page, just above the graph with al the combo’s.

Blast finisher in a water field (that’s what the turret’s toolbelt skill gives) heals everybody scaling on the healing power of the one doing the blasting.

For the leap finisher it scales even better but of course only for the leaper himself.

From the Wiki:

Blast Finisher, at level 80, heals for 1320 + 0.2 * (Healing power)
Leap Finisher, at level 80, heals for 1300 + 0.5 * (Healing power)

Also, and to answer your question:

When applicable, the stats of the character that activated the finisher are used to calculate the combo effects. This is most relevant to combos that inflict damaging conditions, as well as the healing effects of Water Fields.

edit: re-read my first sentence, thought I had it wrong, wrote it different… but edited it back because the sentence made sense after all:)

Magnet needs a longer range too.
In the end I want to pull a ranged usually, not the melee who’s coming for me anyhow…

In Capricorn map, when someone stands on the edge of the beach point, you can’t even pull them of.
Not to mention it takes so long to cast they simply move back…
And they always see you, since you’re standing so close to the edge.

Only good thing is that you can cast it while moving, so if you strafe left and right while channeling, they might think you’re doing something else.
Most people won’t expect a pull from a moving player.

Very informative, thanks for that.
I was just testing out what + healing did myself, you made things a lot more easy for me

Good point, but I already had high toughness so for my particular build it didn’t change much.
Still 300 toughness more than my soldier’s amulet, so I should calculate those too indeed.

For some builds this will make an even bigger damage reduction.
It has to be taken into account yes.

My conclusion for a support build running with + healing gear is: use bombs and the healing you can trait in 30 inventions, instead of grenades.

Also include the trait ‘Kit refinement’ in Tools.

Use an elixir gun: swap to it to get the free super elixir, and put another over it.
Use the tool belt skill from elixir gun for group regeneration.

But immediately swap to bombs and keep dropping them.

In the build you might take 25 in Explosives to reach vulnerability on explosions.
As well as increased bomb radius, and more damage from explosions.
These will greatly help in your support role, by also debuffing the mobs.

As said you would need 30 Inventions and 10 Tools for Kit refinement.
Leaving you only with 15 points to chose.
You could still take grenadier for ranged dps of course, no harm in doing that as well.

I wouldn’t take any ‘on crit’ traits though, since you’ll have very little crit I fear.
Aside the + healing I would go for power if anything, to strenghten your dps.

Yup, same here: not a single build, in any thread, actually shows used skills. They all have 70 unused skill points.

Maybe just list every trait you took Cempa, and every skill slot you included.

Further on the bombs:

I lost 6500 health by swapping my amulets, I had 22.5 k first and only 16 after using shamen’s amulet.
This will vary from build to build obviously.

For me, to make up for that 6500 health, I need to plant about 100 bombs of which each did 64 more healing.

A bomb takes 1/2 seconds.
So that’s 50 seconds of bombing.
Important note: the bombs heal if there is a target hit or not, you can bomb heal while being nuked by a ranged who’s nowhere near the bomb radius.

Now: will I really be able to live 50 seconds longer just to make it worth losing my bigger health pool in order to get more + healing?

pvp is very fast in this game, so I doubt + healing is worth the loss of other stats in many cases.
But that’s for each build to be decided seperately.
If you get other traits working on + healing, like the mentioned super elixir, we are talking a very high regenrating build that only very high amounts of base health can make up for.
(my example only compared with the bomb healing and no other)

Just tested the bombs:

to get the healin from bombs trait, you always end up with a minimum of + 300 healing since you went 30 in Inventions.

Each bomb than heals you and your allies for 176 per explosion.

After equipping a Shamen’s Amulet I got a total of 944 healing (300 + 644 from amulet and jewel)

Now each bomb did 240 healing.
So that’s 64 more per bomb.

644 more + healing gave 64 more health per bomb, pretty straight forward 10/1 scaling again.

Ronin.5038:

You forgot the initial placement heal from super elixir (i think 300 or so with 0 +healing) and the fact that 2 super elixirs placed on each other will give you healing from both of them. I’m also fairly certain that super elixir does scale with +healing

In pvp gear I get 140 healing per tick of super elixir, when no + healing at all.

At 300 or 345 + healing, which I reach in a few of my test builds, I get 170 healing per tick.

I think it averages down to 10 healing per 100 + healing stat for the super elixir.
While that is nice, it’s actually not that strong as a stat scaling.

Sadly other regeneration that is not ‘regeneration’ boon, doesn’t scale with + healing.
Like the healing from the runes (Dolyak wasit, not sure anymore) or the regeneration you trait when equipping a kit.
Those don’t scale with + healing.
If these did, it would open more options for a crazy regeneration build.

Not sure on the bomb healing, will test that in a little bit

To counter a thief you need to be a well experienced player, with a high skill level.

To burst as a thief you can be a rather inexperienced player with a low skill level.

This is where the issue lies.

If balance is intended for the highest skill level only, than thief burst should require high skill level to execute as well.

For example: instead of being able to spam the same buttons, make it that you need to combine several, than weapon swap and make sure you get the right combo’s after that… all to end with the same burst they can do easily now.

To burst as a thief should be made just as complex as what it takes to counter a thief.

If the only argument to defend an ability is:

‘you can dodge it’

than you know there is something wrong, since it proofs there is no other counter for it in the game.

Everything can be dodged. A 10 second cc in a fast combat game, should have a real counter.

I see the same argument with thief discussions: just ‘pre-dodge’… which again proves there is something wrong with what follows after the ‘just dodge’ part.

Small note: mesmers saying you are bad when you let yourself be MOA’ed, and than go on to say that you can run… How bad of a mesmer can you be if you can’t catch a MOA bird running? Or cap a point in the meantime?
10 seconds of normal speed running… what mesmer has issues with that?

Still practising.

In melee range I use the toolkit and the bomb kit, which I traited for healing.
Sometimes I use the tool kit with a flamethrower instead of bombs. Than I trait juggernaut instead of the healing bombs.

At range I mostly support and weaken my target.
Elixir gun and pistol and shield are my most used options.

I’m not experienced enough to say if this all works or not.
One thing I do know: I’m a cracker Jack box of surprises.

The fun of the engineer profession is that is is open to so many interpretations.

Some people use a gun, some elixirs and nothing else. And that’s very effective and probabbly lots of fun for them.
Personally I use a pistol and shield, an elixir gun, a tool kit, a bomb kit and a med kit…
Sometimes I take another build and use a flame thrower… but the bottom line is: I always use kits. As many as I can get away with.

No one would lose anything, people going for the kill would still get the same points.

If you would try to play a support role in spvp, you would notice what we talk about.
A supporter ends up with very very low points, compared to all the dps’ers out there.

As for the rewards: at least let use use the looks we unlock in pvp, also in pve…
Because of the coloring in pvp (which I think can be done way better than just turning everyone blue or red), you basically get to look good in Heart of the Mists.

That is very very poor as a reward.
I I unlock cool looking gear, I want to use it all the time. Without having it drwoned in a color that makes nothing stand out anymore.

You get 10 points for a skirmisher, right?

You get 10 points for a cap, that I’m sure of.

So the best result you get from killing anyone in sight, preferably those alone, and than rush the nearest point aand abandon it again.

It’s the system promoting what players tend to do anyhow: gank the weakest around.

Skirmish should be 5 points max, or even just 3 or so.
Capture should be 15 at least.

Defending a point should reward points for all the time you fight and hold them of before dying.
If I hold of a point for 30 seconds, or for a minute, before dying, my team gets resource points… but I get nothing. In tpvp this means something, you helped your team win. But in spvp this means absoltutley nothing, it’s just wasting your time.
Spvp point system is seriously flawed.

Even for a pug system it should reward playing the objectives, and not reward ganking and zerging. Heck, it even rewards NOT defending, even when you can…

Don’t like this.

The whole benefit of being an engineer is that you can use more than one kit, and still not suffer more than a second swapping cooldown on each swap…

I understand your point, but personally I don’t like the suggestion.

All I want is either:
1. let sigils of main weapon work on all kits you equip
or lesser but still decent:
2. let weapon swap sigils work when swapping out a kit, back to your weapons again.

Either one should work, at best both should…

As for the utility slots: the kits make up by having 5 new abilities on top of their tool belt skill too.
Only thing the kits lack is a stun breaker, at least one kit should have one (and no: not the strongest like grenades or bombs). Tool kit would seem most fitting in my opinion.

Anyhow: understand your point, but not for me please

I agree with this so much.
Utterly weird they made the point system in pvp as it is. It’s like it suddenly wasn’t Anet anymore but they just copied some standard point system without giving it any thought at all.

And of course in pve it’s the same: less rewards for support on DE’s indeed.

Sure, they don’t want ‘healers’, fair enough.
But whatever you do as support while doing damage too, that support bit should be rewarded just the same.

Spvp is turning into a burst dps only game: just run with the pack, tag everything and kill fast.
Forget support, forget defense, just zerg and keep moving with the others and dps… only dps.

Every time I pick ‘play now’ as a new rank 11 player in spvp, I end up with fights like 1v1, 1v2, 2v3… if were really lucky we get like 6 or 7 players total!

I can’t believe the small bunch of us are the only new low ranked players in the entire game.

The system needs better merging because this is scaring new people away from pvp.

The ‘play now’ button is there inviting new players to use that.
It ends up throwing them in the most boring unbalanced fights ever.

I have no idea what the issue is with this ‘play now’ button, but as it works now it’s totally messing up the fights new players get thrown in.

It’s like new pvp’ers are forced to roll with the big teams, handpicking servers where they end up the most inexperienced of the group each time.
This is actually better than what the ‘join now’ button does, while this button seems designed to help new players.

Worst of all: if you would join a 1v1 or 2 where they would not try to kill you and cap 3 points… it could actually be a glory gold mine if we just ran around all the time.
But that too shows how much work the system needs: not fighting would give more than fighting.

This, and on the other side the lonely events while leveling these days… not good to draw new players in, really not.

Arvin.3124:

The other rune I use is on-weapon swap aoe freeze I think. As far as I know these do work? I must say I have trouble seeing them proc because it is supposedly only when you´re in combat.

sorry, they simply don’t.
You don’t swap weapons as an engineer, just NEVER.

You use a kit like a bundle it seems, so that’s not a weapon swap.

But at the same time you don’t get the normal sigils working when using a kit, even though you didn’t swap weapons out…

We lose on both ends, because of this ’it’s a bundle’ crap!

In WoW nothing took aggro more than a moonkin.
Why?
Because of the size…

In zergs it’s true that the smaller one has a slight advantage, but massive zerg fights have their own rules, like combine aoe so they ALL get hurt.
I can live with the small differences there.

It’s another issue when you can’t see the animations well enough on small characters, in small fights…

I’ve said it before: why not just add named cast bars?
As an interface toggle, use it or don’t use it…

Just add it all…

Variety is the spice of life, and that goes for pvp too.

I would like arena-like environments (not too small please), but also capture the flag and other forms.
Duels is something that many would want too it seems.
Arenanet has the creativity, but for some reason they are holding it of.

I hope they are not holding it of just to sell more expansions later, because I fear the population in pvp too might not survive that too well.
It’s one thing that the game is easy to ome back too, and just as easy to start pvp on. But once a reputation is broken, it’s nearly impossible to fix that. And at that point it hardly matters if that reputation was warranted or not… public opinion is an unforgiving animal.

For a game advertising on pvp I find the current capture point only games incredibly one-sided. Even if they are very well created as surroundings.
That is one of the biggest disapointments for me.
I had hoped for tons of different pvp play. I’m still hoping…

Parakeet.6083:

Use the energy gain on weapon swap, this lets you dodge like 2 times as much making you even more of a bunker since you are totally avoiding huge amounts of damage.

engineers never swap weapons, so the weapon swap sigils simply never work for them.
Swapping out of a kit to your weapon simply doesn’t count as weapon swap.
Stupid, but that’s how it is for now.

Do the stat on kill sigils actually work when you kill a player with a kit equipped?

No idea myself, would have to test that.
Just asking since I really think they would go so far to not let those work either…

I’ll take a break when I want to, that’s what a BTP game is for.

Untill that time, I would like the product I paid for to be working as intended.

Testing it now on the profession test npc’, and I don’t see any green number popping up that could this heal.

I’m afraid it’s truely allies only.

Any idea if it only heals your allies, as the tooltip says?
Would be nice if it healed yourself too…

Some tooltips say ‘allies’ when they mean you too (like the heals from bombs as 30 trait, or several elixirs) and some say allies when they mean ‘not you…’.

You’re right Yukishiro, the only sigils I consider real good for damage builds that use a lot of kits grenades, flamethrower, etc) are the ones simply adding damage or 5% crit or so.
When you do use a weapon, it at least suddenly becomes stronger without anything having to proc.

Sadly there are no defense multipliers like this for sigils.

Thanks Gilgamesh, I’ll go for the toughness I guess.
Since it’s a more balanced bunker build, I’ll keep my hp ok but sacrifice my crit for it.
Think I’ll end up at 24% crit, which still is ok’ish. But not spectacular.

What are your defensive stats and traits Gilgamesh?
I’m tinkering with more defensive builds myself at the moment.
Not sure how good toughness is for us, for example. Should I reach for 2,500 or so? Or is vitality more the thing?

Yukishiro.8792:

You could just use the 30% AOE heal on ability activate. The heal is pretty poor (300ish points IIRC) but depending on how low your crit is it might be better than the 60% remove boon on crit.

the thing with that sigil of superior water is that it’s on a 10 sec cooldown.
But at least it’s 30% ‘in general’ and not on crit, so good call but potentially rather weak because of the 10 sec cooldown.

Especially as engineer: we are often using kits so the woindow to get that 10 sec cooldown in, is getting rather small.

Gilgamesh.2561:

Kimbald the 60% to Remove Boon is exactly what I’ve been using, but I still wish there were something more. I just wish weapon-swapping sigils worked for kits (on a 10-second CD, of course).

we get the short end of the stick on both ends…

weapon swapping sigils don’t work, because we don’t swap ‘weaposn’
but when we use a kit our weapon sigil stops working because… we swapped out our weapon?

I know it’s because it’s technically a ‘bundle’ but that’s not a justification for it, easliy changed I would think.

For the same reasons I’m considering the 60% sigils on crit. Yes: still on crit but at least you might get something.

Removing a boon or a possible condition is a very small chance of doing something helpfull.

The steal health one seems fitting, but 30% chance on a low crit rate… meeeh.

What’s engineery and what’s not, is open for interpretation.

I could live with a more mad professor approach in the lines of elixirs, but just as well with a more mechanical or gadget approach, or an explosives approach.

Seeing as it’s called ‘elixir’ X it might as well go further in that direction, I don’t mind.
As long as they do something with it, just ‘something’.
Anything worthy of the label ‘engineer’ elite skill.

shalmont.2539:

have any of you been polymorphed in world of warcraft?

probably not.

I have, plenty of time.
What is your point?

It broke on damage, and you could trinket out of it.
Trinket on cooldown? Well, at least you couldn’t take damage or it broke.

I don’t see the comparison with MOA on these 2 vital points.

Tolore: something you might want to add:

if a conditon is removed, it is only 1 condition at a time BUT it does remove the full stack of that specific condition.

So basically a condition removal removes a (random) type of conditions on you.

This is also important if you’re building for condition damage: try to work with several conditos, not just bleed or just burn.
And try to throw in non damage conditions as well (cripple etc). Not just because they help but also because I think the game system has no priority list on what is removed first.

I think spvp has issues indeed.

This could be for the same reasons as the OP, if only I would understand what the OP is saying.

For now I’ll keep it at: I don’t think spvp is finished yet, and it feels like playing a pvp beta still.
And who knows: maybe this aligns with what the OP says by accident.
If not: ignore my reply.

Pyrial.2917:

Listen, all of us clowns who are complaining about this need to realize that A-Net doesn’t half a— it. They’re only going to release a fix for this “when it’s ready”…This means having someone go through lines and lines of code to make sure everything works as intended. Then it has to go through the localization process, oh wait…

that’s what they claim indeed, and they did have that reputation.

Yet for GW2 I feel like I’m playing a pvp beta… I really do.

Not trying to be a smart kitten here, they didn’t live up to their good reputation for the pvp of this game. There’s lots of work to be done I fear.
Granted, they implemented some great stuff! But it’s not enough… mostly that: it lacks variety.

This terrible bug just adds to that general feeling.

Not sure how sarcastic you are being, but as it happens you do strike a good point there.

This bug can’t be easy to fix, but it is here at a terrible time for the game.
GW2’s reputation as a great pvp game can’t take much more blows I’m afraid. In the general opinion I mean, my own opinion isn’t that important in the end.