Guild Wars 2

I had epic battles in Alterac valley, that went on for literally days.
It took us hours, for real, just to get the first giant elemental of the central graveyard. Us on one side, them on the other, and both trying to push through while interrupting the marsh of the other.

I logged out , went to sleep and joined the same battle with the same people still there, or there again.

This is an epic story too, of a time in a game that is long gone and only those who were there would understand the meaning of what I describe.

This epic story is completely irrelevant to anything relevant.
And so is the OP’s story.

Who are you calling kids, kid?

Mandra Madador.1709:

Mélanie Corolleur.2831:

Thank you all for your reports regarding this issue. Our teams are currently working on this issue as a priority. We will update you on that matter as soon as possible.

In the meantime, we’d like to thank you all for your patience and understanding.

^-THIS. Do something else in the mean time, there is more to gw2 than pvp.

I’m guessing most replies to this got reported and removed, because I think they must have been nasty…

This game advertised as a major pvp game, and in the end provided rahter limited forms of pvp.
Of those forms, the biggest one is bugged like there is no tomorrow because of this.

The bug results in players losing the only reward they can get for pvp: glory and ranking points.

Yet you feel the need to defend the game beyond reason and simply state that the pvp’ers should go do something else… for days…

This game gives a lvl 1 FULL pvp acces, ever wondered why it does that?
Maybe because it considers pvp as one of it’s biggest trumps?

We all know there is more to GW2 than pvp, we’re not as stupid that we missed the option where that lvl1 can actually go level to 80. We know it’s there, but thanks for telling us…

If every second or third Dynamic Event would cause people to leave the game and lose all reward for it upon coming back, would you tell all the peopele in pve to go pvp and stop complaining?

nldixon.8514:

sPvP and tPvP are pretty much a losing proposition until this is fixed. Staring at a loading screen until the game finishes or until you time out or ALT-F4ing every time you die is pretty boring.

aside it being boring, and frustrating because it takes you out of the game, the first thing I think when it happens is:

dam, losing my points again… another total game worth of points wasted!

Points aren’t everything, but they are about the only incentive this game’s pvp has, fun factor aside (which is always THE incentive of a game).

1. A build with so much confusing and distracting abilites, as mesmers are designed, should do way less damage. Or better: it should do it’s damage way more slowly.
After all: you’re already fighting all the gimmicky things they do.

2. MOA, just like any other ‘stun’ or disable, should be able to be broken. Especially seeing the duration.
10 seconds in this game is basically the same as killing the player, or his partner.
I’m amazed there is nothing that breaks this cc.

These 2 are the main issues I see.

The stability alone makes it worth considering.

But it need swork… loads of work.

If you take into account the blast radius of #2 and the distance at which it explodes, you can find that sweetpsot where #1 still connects and #2 still blasts from the back of your target, hitting it full damage.

In theory these two abilities merge well.

Now good luck getting that sweetspot in a hectic dungeon or worse: pvp fight…

note: several replies on my toughness remark: I was thinking out loud and by now I see the use of it in the flamthrower.
I stand corrected, or better: I didn’t see the point and now I do.

Very good thread indeed, extremely usefull post.

Reported this for a sticky, I find it that good and accurate.

One major flaw with conditions for an engineer, in my view, is that the traits to add conditon damage work on crit.
They should work on simple ‘chance on attack’ and not ‘chance on crit’.

Transform us into something fitting an engineer I would say.
Be it a some ‘robot’ or some rampaging tank.
Or that abomination from a mad scientist… just do something fitting.

My own favourite:
Make it a one man band where every instrument and jingle does something… Silly as it goes, fun is a factor for this profession.

Very important: never ever remove the stability from it, currently that’s one of the main reasons it’s even remotely usefull!

Just get rid of the copy paste.

I agree on the points in the list.
The cast bar moslty is what makes it impossible to get it out at all.
Personally I need elixir S slotted or traited at 25% just to be able to do the double casting of elixir X.

Point 6: On the heal: give the transformation it’s own heal. That way the dev’s can pick a heal that fits wihtout having to balance all possible heals (like how do you balance med kit with it).

I completelty agree with that OP: I have no idea what you’re doing either…

On a more serious note:

As a starting out engineer myself, I have been very active on these forums with rather specific questions. Just to shed some light on things that are indeed not so clear at first.

In ‘that other game’ I played a hunter since Vanilla, a survival hunter in pvp. People who played that other game should know that playing a survival hunter since the start means that I’m weird, and full of tricks

Why do I mention this?
Well, because that playstyle is what drew me to the engineer, more than the ranger wich appears the logical choice after playing hunter.

I’m used to fighting with ‘traps’ and having loads and loads of keybinds with all sorts of gimmicky half working abilities.
Guess what: feels just like an engineer!

This said: it is overwhelming at times and I’m trying to find my own style and build in it.

Just like the unusual choices I made for my hunter, I make my engineer builds rather defensive and utterly crammed with every fun trick I can find in the kits.

Currently I remain stubborn and I actually run with 4 (yes FOUR) kits.
Life could be easier if I didn’t, and I sure have a loooong learning curve ahead.
But that’s how I like it: be a ‘cracker jack box’ stuffed with surprises instead and maybe one candy if you’re lucky. A Jack of all trades.
No other profession in this game can give me the fun of the engineer. Even though I think the mesmer is one of the most original ideas GW1 ever had… Just a shame they are a bit too strong now, otherwise they are a brilliant design too.
Still: engineer first for me.

A good tip is to start with very straight foward builds, who happen to be the strongest builds too.
Power-crit rifle build, grneadier (allthough the aiming takes practice indeed), those type of builds…
Just as you are doing now. But take them as learning curves, not necessarily as your ‘end’ build. Swap builds so you’re forced to learn another aspect. Incorporate 1 kit each time and make it a habit of using it.
Learn how those work and steadily build up.

There good builds in the sticky, and several youtube video’s too.
Optics, who is active on these forums as well, has plenty of video’s on different builds. Defenitely worth checking out.

And have fun, just that: have fun.

Brutus Tarsi.1283:

StevoSupremo.4037:

One important this to note is that on top of the 20% gadget recharge (10 pt trait), the 15 point minor trait in Tools recharges your toolbelt skills at 25% health. This is REALLY good with the medkit (recharges the burst heal), but is also great with burst gadget builds (using PBR/Rifle Turret shot/Grenade Barrage/Throw Wrench/Goggle analysis thing/etc.), as all of your burst refreshes at 25% health and you can hit them with a whole new wave. Pretty powerful trait. Now if only they would make the 50% endurance regen a minor trait since its a 5 point minor for rangers and a 30 POINT MAJOR for us…

So the gadget cooldown works on the Toolbelt skill as well? See, this is why I play an engineer… lol

initial converter (minor trait at 15 Tools):The toolbelt recharge at 25% health works on all tool belt skills (so the ‘bandage self’ from med kit, the burn from flamethrower, the regeneration from elixir gun, the analyze from goggles, etc).
When your health drops to 25% you can use all of these again. Simple and incredibly strong I think.

Speedy Gadgets: The gadget cooldown works only on the gadgets, not on thier tool belt skills that come along with those gadgets.
Gadget cooldown will give shorter cooldown on goggles for example, but not on analyze.

Toolbelt recharge rate (engineer icon): Analyze will have a shorter cooldown because of the trait line bonus that reduces your tool belt cooldown.
Bandage self will have a shorter cooldown, etc.
Bug: the cooldown IS shorter but the tooltip doesn’t say so. To test: use it and watch the timer, it will start at a lower number than the original one in the tooltip. Depending on how many points you spend in the Tools Traits of course. Going from 5% to 30% shorter cooldown.

If you take Speedy gadgets for 20 points in Tools Traits (you can at 10 alsready, but for the sake of argument), than both gadget and tool belt will have 20% reduction on cd. But for different reasons…

Why isn’t this hotfixed yet?

This happens every 5 or 6 matches or so.
We’re looking at thousands of glory and ranking points by now, for active pvp’ers!

It can easily happen 5 to 10 times on long days of pvp, multiple this by all the days it has been going on…
I wasn’t even exagerating with my ‘thousands’ for some’.

For me it will be between 1000 and 2000 somewhere, since I can’t tell what bonuses I would or would not have gotten.

And that’s just the points lost.
The effect on the gaming fun is much more devastating.

Found something on toughness, going to armor, going to damage numbers, which are given:

armor = defense + toughness (which you used for your example of comparing it to 3 shields apparantly)

seems a simple division:

weapon damage x power (x bonuses to damage) / armor

So those 200 toughness is like the opponent has 200 power less, plain and simple.
Not too shabby for a free bonus.

GankSinatra.2653:

Kimbald.2697:

Something else I don’t get:

Juggernaut gives might, ok that’s usefull since it carries over after swapping out the kit, as well as increasing the flamethrowers damage.

But it also gives toughness.
Toughness suggests we try to take hits when using the flamethrower.

Toughness so you can survive longer to get those Might stacks.
Also its an on demand 200 toughness. You can change kits while CC’d even, and can be used if your stun break is on cooldown. Swap to it while an ele knocks you back and a Dragons Tooth is above you. During 100b. Grab it while trying to get line of sight when mobility cooldowns are used, to reduce aoe damage from a busy point.

I mean a shield gives you what, 60 armor? That means equipping a flamethrower is like wearing three shields at once. I think the trait works quite well and is epic.

Using it when stunned makes all the difference of course.
Especially since the blind from the flamethrower works when stunned too…

And I think I’m also underestimating toughness as a stat I guess.
I can’t really figure out how much those 200 by itself mitigate. Off to the wiki again I guess, allthough I think those kind of numbers aren’t givin in this game, right?

I wasn’t saying the toughness was useless by the way, just odd
The whole flamethrower design does run all directions…
One thing I would like is that the point at wich FT 2 explodes wasn’t just on the very outer edge of where FT1 can still hit.
More often than not you find yourself either too close for both, or too far.

XelNigma.6315:

Last I recall the Tool trait tree that suppose to reduce tool belt cooldown doesnt work.
Not sure if thats changed or not.

It works, but the listed timer doesn’t change on the tooltip.

If you use a tool belt skill and look at the big displayed timer that appears, you’ll see that it starts on 16 instead of 20 for example.

Tooltip bugged, but luckily the trait line bonus works.

GankSinatra.2653

insert lots of tips.

Thanks for that.
Will add it to my list of practice idea’s.

Oh, and hurray for someone finally saying the tool kit is usefull

the 5 points in alchemy work for me. Always getting it.
Didn’t know there was a bug for some, or is there?

Have you used it on an Asura?

Biggest disappointment ever: you look a bit different but you are not becoming a giant.
A Norn getting bigger is ok, but an Asura should get HUGE!

Nice idea on the throwing, maybe they should change the tooltip

‘removes all skills from the action bars of your allies, and replaces them by icons and tooltips they have no clue about what they do.
Oh, and if we forgot to mention: we even made that part random too… for those who cought on the first time.’

It would be like giving engineers aoe MOA… but on their own team.

You seem more reasonable than your initial post and title suggested, so not going to be too cross here myself either.

I think you should just accept that some will ask for changes you don’t see the need for.
It’s their right to do so, even if those are total overhauls of basic mechanics.

Of course there is the argument of having picked a profession as it is. But that doesn’t mean that you have to take every aspect of that profession for granted.

Especially for engineers I would say: the kits really go all directions, so I can understand people suggesting very big changes to this or that kit for example. While still loving the rest of the stuff they do use for their playstyle…

I did react rather strong, but at least now that we both cleared the smoke we might actually get a constructive thread

Klinch.2964:

I don’t know if blind or aegis would stop moa. But the cast time is so long that you could easily do the following: DODGE, DAZE, KNOCK-DOWN.

Many stronger skills have longer cast times to balance out the skills effectiveness.

If you get hit by moa with a 5 second cast time, I laugh at you whether you are on my team or not.

Not following this entirely.
Just for clarification: are you saying MOA has a long cast time?
Otr are you saying it should have one?

MOA takes someone out of the fight for the duration: either by that player dying or by that player running away.
It is, in effect, nothing but a 10 second stun that you can’t break…

It should be countered by something.
I already used my dodges pre-emptively for that thief remember (think that was the strategy, right…)

It all depends on what those changes are, and how good the original ideas were.

I just gave the rifle as an example, persoanlly I don’t care.

Of course professions shouldn’t be rebuild entirely just because of player demands, but don’t think all is designed perfectly either…

The OP’s post has 2 sections:

1. he loves his engineer.
This part is great, and yes: it’s feedback too. positive feedback is just as important as negative feedback.

2. he tells other they shouldn’t play an engineer when they want important changes made.
Here is where he insults critical minds.
In a game like this, very BIG changes are often made. This is not just because the developpers changed their mind on their own. It is just as much a result of players reporting mechanics that don’t work well in real situations.

There is no need for the OP to put the emphasis of his post on part 2… he could hav emade a wonderfull post just by stating part 1.

Loki: 5% of your toughness as power will not even result to 100 power in a more defensive build.

It’s not there to make it worth for damage builds I think, just like the 5% vitality as conditional, it is there to give bunker builds something in return as damage.

Your toughness isn’t going to be 2000, your armor might be that or higher, but to get your toughness to 2000 you need to sacrifice almost all else I fear.

The way I see it, from my limited experience, is that it’s only worth taking if you take that trait line for the toughness anyhow.

Or if you have 5 points left and already took the regeneration at 25% for example. In that scenario the 5 points invested in that 5% trait will benefit you more than the 50 power from taking a trait there.

In all other cases just take the explosives trait line for more benefit.

Malhavoc Adhamar.3675:

I’ve been finding that the flamethrower is proving to be a fairly decent counter to mesmer clones. Not only is the AoE fairly reliable but you’ll remove the threat of a clone spam fairly quickly and catch the mesmer themselves. Currently I’m using a 0/30/20/20/0 build. Pretty much a standard FT/EG build but gives me plenty of survivability against the mesmer and their clones.

As much as I’d like to use Grenades and Bombs, I find they were just dealing with the clones while the mesmer was moving out of range and beaming me to death. At least with the FT I can either beat the mesmer or at least remove the clone threat for long enough to force the mesmer to retreat.

I was using the flamethrower as well, amongst other kits. But I wasn’t doing it right.
Your post, as well as several other reactions here are showing me more and better options to use the skills at my disposal.

I’m trying to do it all without bombs or grenades first, moslty focusing on playing better next time.

The reason for this thread is parlty answered so far: it seems there are indeed engineers handeling the same situations without grenades or bombs. So at least I’m learning something here, usefull for my own build(s).

Thanks for that, to all the replies so far.

Great you love your engineer.

But rahter weak that you can not grasp the concept of liking something and still wanting to change details about it.

Yes: someone can love an engineer but think several abilities of the flamethrower need to be redesigned.

Yes: someone can love an engineer and still want the rifle to be more long ranged than short ranged use.

etc etc.

Loving something while taking everything for granted, and even getting angry at the thought of change, is no sign of true devotion.
It’s a sign of having a narrow mind to me…

Don’t get me wrong: I really like that you love the engineer with every aspect as it is.
No sarcasm here. It’s great when somebody just loves it, no questions asked.

But did you really have to write a post insulting the more critical minds amongst us?

I really like the engineer so far.
But no: I don’t think everything is perfect.
And by all means NO: I don’t think I should ever in my life accept everything as it is, just because it happens to be like that.

Forums are for feedback.
Feedback involves giving ideas on what you see as possible improvements.
A critical mind is a sign of intelligence and insight, you might want to keep that in mind yourself.

On my build as engineer, or how I percieve my role in a group:

the example i gave were from battles where it was just us 3 or 4 all the time, so anything else than burst had little to no use.

And no: I wasn’t burst build…
I’m more support but with a strong bite still, and close to bunker survival.

I don’t think it was my build failing so much. As I said: I got them below 50% as it was.
I truely believe I either missed the aoe of bombs or grenades, and also: I didn’t know how to fight them yet. That last bit is of course crucial in such a 1v1 situation.

The title refers to the most important question: regardless of a fixed role (it’s spvp not tpvp after all), can an engineer survive without bombs or grenades?
I see very few without either of these…

@ Ashes: Very good advice on the movement of clones, thanks for that.
I do realise focusing on the adds of a player is usually not a good strategy, but in this case I just didn’t survive them.

Mesmers seem to be pretty good at ranged just by themselves, which is annoying if you’re swarmed with the clones. Well: they manage to stay at range good enough so far.
My usual fight against them end in me being kited by the Mesmer while being eaten by the clones. I guess that’s how the mesmer should do it, so I’m indeed for ways of changing my playstyle against them.

Very often if I cc the mesmer and got to him, I cc’ed myself by standing still too… and the clones got to me

My guess was that I was doing it wrong and should have killed the clones first, but maybe that’s not a good option either from what I read.

I’ll try to get the clones of me, with knockbacks and the like, and try to slow the mesmer and do as much damage to him as I can I guess.

small note: I played a hunter in WoW for 8 years I guess, so I have a good notion of the balance between pet and player, and what hurts him and what not.
Whoever targeted my pet in WoW, died pretty soon after.
But mesmers sort of feel like the OP Beastmaster hunters in WoW right now: the pet (or adds) do so much damage you can’t ignore them fully either…

I find a ranger pet immensely weaker than a mesmers clones, so the comparison there doesn’t work.

That could work.

But something as simple as ONE short cast bar would be ok too… yes, it can even be that simple.

Needing another skill slot just to be able to use your elite skill… and even than it can fail.

There is something very very wrong with this.

Not that it’s a bad idea how you solve, but of all things an elite skill shouldn’t need a back up slot just to be be usable at all.

I’ve been trying out the elixir X to see what it could do against thiefs for example, or other heavy stunning builds.

While transformed you gain stability after all, and have loads of health while doing a lot of aoe cc and damage (in either form).
Sounds like a thief counter to me… hence I tried it in spvp this evening.

With reduced cooldown on elixirs, and since the cd starts on drinking and not when the transformation is oover… you can get the cd to about 96 second or so I think.
Which is acceptable, much more than the 180 seconds of the supply crate.

Ok, so when drinking that elixir X, you get a cast bar showing the drinking… and than you get ANOTHER cast bar showing the transformation I guess!

I tried this in spvp, not a SINGLE time did I manage to use my ‘elite’ spell, simply because of these 2 cast bars.

This small feature alone ruins the elixir X in pvp.

I already gathered supply crate was the only way to go, but I feel like testing and questioning every little detail of this profession.

Having elite skills that you can’t even START is beyond stupid, as a mechanic.

My issue isn’t so much that I can’t damage the player, but more that i can’t survive the summoned adds of all sorts.

Mesmer phantasms hit extremely hard.

So my defenses seem useless, my cc is useless, so I only see the option of maybe aoe’ing them.

That’s why I ask, not for the pue damage, but for the simple fact I can’t win against a prof with adds if I don’t have very strong aoe.

I might be wrong here, but I can’t see how I could have beaten that mesmer as long as his phantasms basically ignored all my healing and defenses and just dps’ed me down.

only stealth an engineer can have is from combo fields.

Look those up in the wiki and you’ll see a good list of possibilities, some open to an engineer (some not).

Mostly here it’s a smoke field where you use a blast or leap finisher in, if I’m not mistaken.

I just did several extremely low populated spvp matches, with every time just 2 or 3 people in the whole game, both sides together. Sometimes we had 4 but that was rare.

1 of them was a mesmer and every time we faced each other, i fought his summoned ads more than him.
I could get him below 50% but by than I got slaughtered by the clones…

I have high armor, decent health and good damage.
You can’t dodge them forever, for that they attack with too many if you include the mesmer himself. Slowing them only goes so far.

I had no grenades or bombs equipped and I was wondering if aoe is the only way to survive such an encounter.

It got me thinking besides mesmers too: thief clones, necro zoo, basically every prof with a lot of helpers to summon.

How do you deal with that without bombs or grenades?

The mesmer beat me every time, while I read all the complaints they got nerfed.

I’m sure I’m missing something here.
But wihtout very strong aoe, all my defenses count for absolutely nothing here.

my defensive stats: 2.770 armor
22.833 health

Using a shield, famethrower, elixir gun, tool kit
More tricks than I can imagine, yet nothing to save me from summoned npc’s…

Coolest intro ever!

Real great video, and fun to watch fighting.

Not doing spvp for long, so I wonder if it’s worth buying gold chests or better wait.

i checked out several medium armor sets, and I don’t fancy much of it…

Mostly I’m interested in the hats you can get at higher rankings, maybe a chest piece or two.

I actually don’t know if it is worth saving up or not, I don’t see many spectacular things as engineer…

I found the armor models, but I can’t find the shield models so far/ Maybe I’m looking in the wrong place.
A cool pistol and shield, a great rifle… could be worth waiting for.

edit: silly me: the locker has preview on the items you don’t have yet as well… nm

I use a lot of kits in my builds, if these suddenly get a cooldown added, I totally lose the playstyle of my engineer…
This is personal of course.

Hence the above suggestion: keep things as they are, just add the working sigil we already use.

One much simpler solution could be:

let the weapon sigils work when using the kit, without any other change…

Or let at least weapon swapping sigils work when swapping out of a kit to your weapons.

Either of these, or both since that wouldn’t too strong seeing weapon swapping sigils have internal cooldowns anyhow.

I don’t need other changes than that.
Keep the toolbelt skills, keep the instant swapping, keep everything.
Just let your main weapon sigils keep on working while using a kit.

Something else I don’t get:

Juggernaut gives might, ok that’s usefull since it carries over after swapping out the kit, as well as increasing the flamethrowers damage.

But it also gives toughness.
Toughness suggests we try to take hits when using the flamethrower.
When moslty when someone comes for us, we knock them back, blast them, torch them, blind them if close again… and than we either run or swap out the kit for something else.

I don’t know what good the flamethrower is for me once I used the knockback and the blind, in terms of defense.

It’s a weird design this flamethorwer:

it’s not ranged, but outranges itself… (2 outranges 1 as I said above), even the knockback from 3 outranges 1.

It’s not conditional damage, but not everything scales on power either (napalm doesn’t…)

It’s cc yes, but limited since napalm basically scares no one and the blind is used too fast and on melee only.

So it’s not the best defense either…

And not a real support aside the knockback, since the blind will only help you or anyone really really close to you.
While the fire field is too narrow for others to take full advantage of most of the time.

Don’t get me wrong: I like the flametrower, but I have serious questions about the compatibility of the skills together. They seem almost randomly thrown together.
Like making a fire field… but not a single finisher in it?

I find more logic in the tool kit than in this kit.

Optics.3289:

Kimbald.2697:

You’re crazy.

Crazy? :P

as a compliment, for experimenting so much with different builds. I quite like your video’s (but don(t think I’ve seen them all).

This video in particular the damage numbers are borderline insane at times.

The thing with the tool kit is: since it scales on power so much, it’s more of a defensive thing for power builds in my eyes, and not really as an extra defense for bunker builds…

Aside the obvious pairing with turrets of course, which they not only heal, but also the toolkit has many ways of keeping your target CLOSE to the turrets as well.

I think napalm should immobilize a second or two and than cripple.
This would increase the uptime of the burns when people run over it, and it would make for a REAL boundary that enemies think twice about crossing to get to you.

What I hate myself is that the 2 ability explodes at a distance where the 1 ability is out of reach…

And yes: smoke vent needs a bigger radius and longer duration.
Or at least add confusion to it.
The 3 skill of main hand pistol beats this 20 sec cd anyday, in any way.

milo.6942:

Well, I usually do defend a point for a bit. I consider it practice for tourneys. Not the greatest thing for glory gain, but I’m still getting something out of it.

I can respect that fully.
It is indeed great practice.

But seeing the possible numbers of players in spvp, that will more often get you stomped by 3 or more, than it will lead to fights where you stand a chance alone.
Much would be different if spvp was also 5v5 instead of the possible 8v8.

I’m not arguing your playstyle by the way. On the contrary: it sounds like how I prefer playing.
I’m arguing against the point system, not rewarding this very playstyle.

milo.6942:

While you guys are zerging, I run round the back and neut+cap your point for faster glory. thx mate

so do we all at times, but the point is that you don’t defend it after.
You, just like the rest of us mortals simply runs of and either joins the zerg if you meet them killing players, or play the mini running game and go for the non contested points the enemy captured.

I do what you describe all day in spvp, and indeed it rewards me more points than fighting. Fightng only beats this… if I join a zerg from point to point.

Defending a point you took would only result in you being overrun in seconds for absolutely no points gained.
That is the main issue with the point system.

Every one runs around from point to point, and it’s only worth fighting if you know you have the advantage (either by burst or by number of players with you).

It was a joke about 1v1 capture point maps…

Have you done that, by accident of low queing numbers?

I have, with a mesmer of all profs and me on an engineer… it’s hilarious!

If I had one of my usual swiftness builds, he didn’t stand a chance
But I didn’t, for some reason, and he won…

I’ve seen quite a lot of builds from Optics his video’s. Going from bust like this to elixir gun and the likes.

So I think we should discuss the build more han the player on this one.
He’s just showing that it is possible to make a glass canon this strong.

Optics, I have a little question for you: have you looked back on the tool kit yet? I know you didn’t think much of it at earlier video’s.

I found it rather good in a power build, especially to pull light armor casters to you and smack-what them to death.
Kit refinement givesyou instant nails all around for crippling, and if traited you cripple them forever, even with your ranged toolbelt skill throw wrench.

It’s also decent defense if a melee locks you down, with a block and a hard hitting skill that adds confusion.

Sort of a thing to go to once your rifle cooldowns are used and you’re sitting on top of them.
Usually one would think of bombs or grenades after the rifle, I found the tool kit to be effective too. Not too mention: something different for a change (grenades and bombs are proven winners in builds).

Just asking this here, because I’m currently testing the kit and it’s fun for me.

If they’ll make 1v1 they better create a few new maps for spvvp, because capture point maps with 1v1 are funny (been in those late at night…)

New maps and battle systems are needed anyhow.
I support this idea, but I wouldn’t let it involve the normal ranking, I would create a seperate system for it, also giving acces to gear and so on (might even be the same gear).

Basically we’re asking for either duels, or more in the line of the OP: arena’s that could be played with 1v1.
No reason to also give it acces to bigger groups (2v2, 3v3).

What I would like even more are maps contstructed like the current ones, but without capture points, where you have to go commando style through the map to fight each other.
Things like that.

Anet is more than creative enough, but for some reason they went the rather easy route with their pvp formats.
(WvW is different and big, even though it’s far from perfect it still is epic).

The point system doesn’t need to be simpler, it needs to be more complex.

For example: get steady points for when you stand on a defended point.
Granted, this IS in the favour of bots, but it gets better:
once enemy players are getting near, you get increased points for each 5 seconds (or whatever small ammount of time) you can keep the point.
You might even get a ‘dying’ bonus that is multiplied by the number of players killing you.

Killing a player away from a point, gives you points but less than now.

Helping to kill a player gives less points, the more players thre are to help you. Anything between 15 on a 1v1 at a point, down to 5 if you basically zerged a player at a point.

Points for killing players are given in the same amount if you did supporting actions instead of the bulk of the damage (if that support went on most of the fighting).

These are just random ideas, but they would lesten the zerging by a large ammount, and they could also reduce the usage of pure burst builds in spvp.

And some things just need bigger rewards: trebuchets used on players or points should give more, that sort of thing.
Also: what’s the deal with getting 5 points for volunteering to swap? 15 or 20 would be more appropriate.

The dev’s can come up with better mechanics, I just feel like they didn’t test it all enough.
spvp does feel a bit too much like beta to me. Especially with just the 1 type of battle to play.

Having only capture point maps also increases the usage of certain mechanics in bigger pugs (so zerging…) as well as it promotes certain builds in larger groups (since there is no use defending right now).

And why are spvp battles 8v8 which is bound to lead to zerging, while tpvp are 5 which is bound to lead to coordinating on the existing maps?
This too plays a role in the way spvp point allocation goes the wrong way.
Just force spvp pugs to work together better, instead of allowing them to zerg without any communication at all. The very number of players involved sometimes simply promotes this.

That’s one interesting build Ganksinatra.

I love the use of the stealth.
Going to practice that and see if I can incorporate some of it in my own testing builds.
I wouldn’t have figured it could be that usefull, but you explain very clear how it can be used to your advantage. Real cool.

By the way: check out Optics latest video for insane burst damage, it’s fun to watch the numbers

Aside being the best support kit, I also consider it a real good kiting kit.

And it’s not even a conditonal damage only kit, it can hit surprisingly hard on power builds.

The only thing I would change is make the smoke a long ranged thing too. It’s there for support, and it’s on a long ranged kiting kit… so something more in the lines of a launched smoke cloud.

Oh, and one toher thing: if an ability lists as ‘elixir’ I expect it to work on elixir traits!

You’re crazy.

I never liked glass canons a lot, but that’s personal of course.

Engineers appeal to me for the versatility, being the perfect all-rounder.
But this of course just adds to the versatility: the fact you can build a bursting critmachine on a power trip just as well…

Sprawl.3891:

balancing around the 1 percent elite players will result in problems because you will have the elite players finding something not over powered and all the lower level players will be getting owned and get discouraged and quit the game.

welcome to why mmos dont make good esports. you dont cater to the masses and they quit thus no spectator interest

the point of my lenghty post was somewhat that the current balancing IS around high ranked players.

To counter the simple to execute burst you see ‘normal’ players use, you need the knowledge, experience and reactions of a much higher ranked player.

The one is simpler to do than the other.

My solution: keep the burst if you must (I never liked burst in pvp) but make it as difficult to pull of as it is to defend against it.

Good players can set up burst, avarage players should only be skilled enough to set up average burst… make it require fast reactions and chaining of skills, just like the defense against it requires.