Guild Wars 2

Raf.1078:

@ KirinDave, re: traits

Speedy kits though…nothing like a quick strategic retreat or fast zone traverse…spamming medi-kit n toolkit.

Speedy Kits is so overrated for leveling. It’s fine, but once I get where I am going I turn it off. And I certainly think there are better traits to pick up first. If you have to retreat in PvE and you can’t do it by just running, it’s unlikely swiftness will make a difference anyways. A far better solution is to snare.

Kardiamond.6952:

I know all of this, and even wrote it in my thread. I’m not underestimating this bug, as it can be a really difficult bug to solve. I’m personnaly an indy-kind game developper, and I hate the AI part! But it also surprise me that a bug like this, made is way to release

Realtime A* isn’t happening.

But then you can appreciate why super-hard-to-fix bugs seldom get confirmed. Sometimes the right call is to say, “We can’t fix this.” That kind of call infuriates players. Better to not have that conversation in public, sadly.\

And I am not sure why people are so obsessed with minion pathing. Only a few of them really matter. I’ve had a great time with my necro and I seldom use minions at all.

Hi. I’m a software engineer with a decade of experience in the field. While I am not a game developer, I’ve done plenty of work with distributed (a.k.a., cloud) realtime services and some work with geodata. I know a thing or two about systems like ANet’s real-time synchronized environments (albeit not at the time and accuracy resolution they maintain).

In general; pathfinding and player-assist AI are not easy problems to fix. They require low-latency, time-critical computations. A lot of things can affect it depending on ANet’s implementation. Given the pivotal importance of LoS in GW2’s PvP and WvW sub-games, changes have to be made very carefully. You can see nerfs everywhere to make sure LoS is a valid defense (most notably the recent mesmer changes).

You probably don’t care about that, though. You want a bugfix. Just be aware that minion AI bugfixes are much more work for humans than, say, the Evasive Arcana changes. There are a limited number of humans on staff, and many classes currently have problems. So don’t feel like it’s personal or ANet specifically hates the necromancer; they’re juggling a lot of concerns at once with limited resources.

What you should do is put down the engineer for awhile and play another class you have not tried. Not only will this make you a better GW2 player, but it will help keep the game fresh.

It looks like the next patch is focusing on rebalancing, and we’ve seen red posts in most forums noting scaling coefficients, balance concerns, trait positions being off (swapping some stuff around), and rounding errors borking some traits. So buy some time to see what they do to the class over the Wintersday patch.

The idea that you have to play ONE character to 80 before branching out is a strange meme. There’s so much low-level content to see.

mavet.3047:

@Raf, I never said I couldn’t make an engineer work – the issue is why should I even have to do that due to the “devs” ineptitudes? It should automatically work as shown in the nice little propaganda movies we were shown before we bought the game.

By and large, it does work. Engineer’s problems are not so much in class design right now as in scaling constants. Some kits and skills have very low co-efficients which drives engineer players to use kits that are not neglected thusly. It would also help in general if classes relying on AI minions (Engineer and Necormancer) respected your target and pathing more.

The fundamental design of the engineers is sound, but it seems to always have been meant to be a high APM class with a reactive playstyle. If that is not your game, then there are several other classes to try.

But I’m from an older generation of gamer where I ACTUALLY EXPECT to get my money’s worth and not have to “make” a toon work with bubble gum and string….

Don’t even play this card, kiddo. Classic games kick you square in the tailbone and demand appreciation for it. Next you’re going to tell me you remember “the good old days” of “Mario 64.”

GW2 is in a very good state given its age. WoW and DAoC were much worse, balance-wise.

I think that Engineers, like some other classes (e.g., Mesmer) have a really rough time pre-L40 because of the pivotal nature of their grandmaster traits. Because of this, a lot of advice on L80 farming gear doesn’t scale well down to pre-40s levels. So early on you need to have a bit more technique, and Engineer is not a low APM class.

My technique for leveling was different and I wanted to offer it, because I seldom see it done. It works early on and scales.

There are 2 variants, but both rely on flame and thumper turrets and pistol+shield (pistol+pistol will work fine too, shield is just such a magnificently versatile offhand). Use pistol and build for power and condition damage. The general technique is straightforward: rely on 1 turret per fight, and draw as many ads in as you can. Drop your turret and stand on it as enemies charge.

The flame turret can blind when you use its active ability, and that creates a smoke field that can also blind enemies struck by pistol shots. Its burn damage is a nice complement to your condition and power based DPS. The blinding helps offset the general squishiness (as does shield use).

The thumper turret is usable as an off-tank and CC assistant. Try to keep your pulls smaller when the thumper turret is out.

For facing down vets, you drop both turrets.

And remember to intelligently use your pistol 3 skill! It is a bouncing, long-duration AoE blind, and can be used to greatly improve your survivability when paired with other forms of CC. Use shield knockbacks and combo field blinds to keep the enemies from overwhelming. It’s not unlike thief blind tanking, if you’ve ever tried that.

Another secret to leveling that everyone should know is Sigils of Corruption and Sigils of Bloodlust. These are perfect for leveling and massively boost your stats very quickly. If you have watched a fellow low-level player absolutely melt a group of mobs and said, “I wonder how they do that. Maybe their class is OP?” the answer is probably Minor Sigils of Bloodlust.

As for traits as you go, it’s meaningless for this build except for stat points. With the exception of Explosives 1 and perhaps a few Tools traits, you’ll find very little that really helps early on.

emikochan.8504:

every mmo is like this for at least a year, can’t expect anything more :p

Do people even remember what year 1 of WoW was like? It was pretty cool to have pets start attacking their owners and mages unashamedly one-shotting everything in sight with no way to counter.

ANet is actually doing pretty well overall.

nerva.7940:

common sense. wvw isnt really pvp.

There are 3 modes to this game. You should call out what mode you’re talking about to be clear. You say, “common sense” but it is obvious that many people have addressed you from WvW and PvE perspectives. Favor clarity over pride when communicating.

Zoke.2147:

Dude if you want to be completely content with it or see no problems, feel free to keep your head in the sand,

No one is saying they’re happy with the state of Minion AI, or are happy with the lack of some grandstanding grandmaster traits. But I think what people are saying is that Necromancer is eminently playable and very interesting and only stands to get better as other kinds get worked out.

This is not, “Keeping [one’s] head in the sand.”

Zoke.2147:

Holy kitten they can consume conditions? WHO CARES? woop their heal removes conditions, ele’s heal remove all conditions too, Guardians can loose 2 every 10 seconds making them virtually immune to the weak condition output a necro has, what good is a 30 second bleed if it never lasts more than 5 seconds.

My time as a necro is limited, but I can say with confidence you’re doing something wrong if that is your assessment of the situation. For example, have you actually tried Ether Renewal? Vastly inferior to Consume Conditions.

Feel free to see no problems with necro’s, I will continue thanking every single necro I see for the free kill.

If you think that Necromancers have a lock on bugs and design issues you are not paying attention. Mesmers got hit with a nerfhammer and now are riddled with damage bugs. Elementalists got their wings clipped with the EA changes and everyone knew it had to be changed. Engineers are in desperate need of a rework because many of their mechanics seem poorly considered (you think minions are bad? Try turrets!). Rangers are still frustrated with lackluster damage. And if you’re main-ing thief, I am sure you can list at least 5 things that hold the class back in its current design.

So: relax. Necromancer is not the worst off of the bunch, and no one is pretending they don’t need soem dev love. But the extremism you’re resorting two only makes the devs less likely to listen to you. And remember that this game is actually 3 games in one; PvE, PvP, and Wv3. Getting every class balanced in every field will take time.

Softspoken.2410:

I’ll admit I’ve been a bit ambivalent about this trait before now because it has a long cooldown attached, but I suppose that it is a really good way to cancel a disable. The fear could interrupt a CC chain, unless they have stability. Which if you follow up with your own stunbreak, fear, and CC, could be an unexpected reversal.

As someone on the receiving end of this trait in Wv3, I can tell you it is nightmarish for burst elementalists. An elementalist can blow cooldowns to basically down anyone if they choose to, but it relies on Ride The Lightning to Updraft or Earthquake to Lightning Flash, triggering a really big damage upgrade for Flame Grab (youtube has crits over 16k on that last hit). The fear ruins that and puts the openers on cooldown and has Air Attunement on a long cooldown; you can’t even run away.

My thief similarly hates that treatment, although it’s not quite so bad. Staff Necros can quickly follow it up with marks, so usually when you find someone with this trait you just run away and find an easier taerget.

So for what it’s worth, this trait makes fighting necros even harder for burst builds (and they’re already hard to fight because of DS).

sorrow.2364:

Nope, it hasn’t been fixed. Right now I feel that skill more likely of a malus rather than an utility.

I am not sure what the bug conditions are there, but I can assure you last night it was working for my new necro’s AC run. I was removing burning and bleeding on multiple occasions. I know it worked because my friend noticed his burns being cleared early.

So if there is a bug there, it’s not consistent.

lettucemode.3789:

sorrow.2364:

Necros can’t actually AoE clean conditions, or they can’t clean conditions better than other professions.
The AoE condition removals of Necros are Putrid Mark and Well of Power (excluding the Lich skill).

Uh…I think you forgot about Plague Signet, which passively AoE cleanses conditions from your teammates, at which point you can either eat them for a boost to healing, send them back to an enemy three different ways, or convert them into boons.

I am not too skilled with Necro yet but I was sort of quietly wondering this myself. I can only assume this is a PvPer’s omission since in terms of passive PvE group play it can be incredibly good.

Dispari.3980:

KirinDave.6451:

Can’t you just rotate the skill slot and recast?

Not that this is anything but clunky, especially in PvP.

If you wait on the recharge every time, yes.

It triggers the cooldown if the minion was still out? I was pretty sure last night I was running around leveling my necro doing this and it wasn’t. Is my entire life a lie?

sorrow.2364:

Null Field is actually a better version than Well of Power, which is on a 60s recharge and converts just one condition per pulse.

Null field strips conditions, it doesn’t convert them. It’s a great skill, don’t get me wrong. It’s just relatively short and part of a whole build.

sorrow.2364:

The fact that none use Phantasmal Disenchanter doesn’t mean that it is quite good when comparing it to skills of another profession. You have to take into account the environment.

I am. It’s a terrible skill. If you have not used it, you should try it in a dungeon or pvp environment and see what I mean. You basically have no idea if it will actually help the person who needs help. Also, those bounce skills need a GM trait to really come into their own.

sorrow.2364:

I didn’t understand why you say that other professions have to sacrifice other aspects in order to do good conditions removal why Necros don’t. I mean, I don’t think that Elementalists have to sacrifice something in order to have their huge conditions removal capability, Mesmers also.

Elementalists give up a lot of damage potential to be able to do consistent condition removal for allies. Their popular PvP builds are much more about boon stacking.

Mesmers, I am not sure what besides Null Field you’d expect to see a Mesmer routinely take that’d do really well in this. Null field is great because it does what it does AND is a combo field.

I just want to make it crystal-clear what I am saying: Necros can build a decent amount of condition mitigation into their builds with relatively little cost. There are better single skills out there in the GW2 universe, but they often have only vague synergy with a whole build.

Can’t you just rotate the skill slot and recast?

Not that this is anything but clunky, especially in PvP.

> Mesmers, on the other hand, have way better conditions/boon manipulation.
Just take a look at skills like Null Field, Phantasmal Disenchanter and Arcane Thievery.

I’m new to necro but I’ve got a fair sum of experience with the other classes mentioned so far. So let me just address this..

Null field is fantastic, but has an unfun cooldown and in PvP no one will play in it (a subtle downside of most glamour fields: they are huge and obvious). No one takes Phantasmal Disenchanter because it is terrible compared to other phantasms (even post-patch). Arcane Thievery is not bad, but is more about boon theft than condition removal (Dear Auramentalists, <3 you).

Another good example of “better” condition removal is Engineers, so let’s talk about that. The Elixir Kit setups you see out there are great at sustained condition removal (and healing due to a bug, don’t expect that to remain the way it is), but when they do they sacrifice a lot of damage potential (i.e., fumigate might as well not be doing any damage) and offense for purging. So what they do is try to keep light fields up for combo and juggle back and forth between that and other more-damaging kits (probably elixir bombs in a pure support build, but maybe grenades). But without sustaining constant offensive output their actual dps takes a nosedive unless they’re crazily condition focused, in which case their dps will be shot anyways (grenades scale brokenly but travel slow and miss easily, so constant lobbing is essential to dps).

Necros get a lot of ways to manipulate conditions that do not preclude them doing other things, whereas a many other classes do condition removal as a “sacrifice” for “support.” In PvE, you can run a condition heavy dungeon and do a good job of condition removal while still doing great doing damage and adding control.

I still don’t see how this is a meaningful thing for WvW. It’s quite easy to counter by an invading force with half a brain. You’re almost always going to be more effective using a staff from the walls. Meanwhile Engineers are flamethrowing through gates…

If the argument is, “I cannot die because I am doing this” then that’s fair. But it’s not really impacting game balance because your efforts are ultimately meaningless to a force sufficient to take a keep. So it’s not clear why anyone would actually care that you are doing this.

I mean, there are tons of weird tricks people can do in WvW to never die.

So. Yes, maybe this should be nerfed. Would you prefer the limited developer resources ANet has spend their time doing that or rebalancing Elementalist traits so that they’re more appealing? Or fixing Necro pets? Or fixing lame pathing errors for teleports and pulls? Or one of a thousand other more important things?

Yes, it is goofy. Everyone agrees. Everyone also agrees that it’s not gamebreaking. Why are there 4 pages on this subject?

Drozac.4268:

Don’t make a ele if you mind pressing a million keys a second. All ppl do is get it nerfed cause they cant not play their other classes good enough. I have one and tried every single build suggested cause I got killed in WvW a lot. But you have to press so many buttons for a good combo and other classes just press one skill to get the same dmg output. In the long run it’s a awesome class, but it’s really life or death with this class nothing in between

Engineers are coughing uncontrollably right now and turning bright red trying to suppress laughter.

Elementalist is not a low APM class, but some Engineer builds will easily exceed it due to the fast cooldowns and instant nature of their toolbelt mechanic in addition to needing to rapidly swap kits for desired effects.

Blaine Tog.8304:

(Also, the reason negative claims are so difficult to prove in the real world is because of the vast scope of reality. The only way someone can prove unicorns absolutely don’t exist is if they could somehow check everything in existence simultaneously. In a video game, the scope is much reduced and this sort of search becomes far more possible.)

The degree of complexity in casual interaction between humans over a network with a computer program that may or may not have bugs is plenty of complexity.

crusnx.3725:

actually you cant since AoE has 5 man hit limit… ele and engi will just get stomped by stampede…

Per application, yes. That does not stop groups from doing some pretty amazing things. What you do is stop the lead, which stops their precious blue arrow, which confuses the heck out of people. Buying a 30-60 seconds as a zerg regains its momentum can be the difference between having enough resources to hold a fortress and break the opponent’s momentum or being unable to help.

To indefinitely hold a gap and not just stall it, you need more than a few people tossing chills, you need arrow carts and ballista and some frontliners. But I’ve been part of 10-man groups that have stalled unorganized zergs because unorganized zergs are, by and large, populated by under-leveled, under-geared, and under-organized groups.

Sorry for the off-topic. I am just pointing out there is more to staff elementalists and post-nerf grenade engineers than tower loitering.

boozer.7815:

Staff can be used situationally well in sPvP and tPvP, but not as a primary build really. In Wv3 Staff builds rule the roost mostly because of the Keep/Tower humping that is what everyone spends 90% of their time doing.

I am not informed enough to disagree, but I submit that my (former) guild loves using staff elementals in small group zerg disruption. 2 5-man teams can easily disrupt 30-40 people if the geography is used correctly. 1 Ele and 1 Engi can hold a bridge for a long time when spec’d correctly. A chokepoint can be held indefinitely against disorganized rushes with a skilled 5 man team backed by an arrow cart and ballista. Staff eles are instrumental in this because of the importance of ice fields and chilling combined with big hits from long range aoe.

Again, situational.

Honestly, I sort of wonder what everyone has a problem with. Elementalists having a nice escape in ONE specific situation in one specific game mode? A trick which reeks of desperation and has questionable utility?

Would you take that over the Mesmer’s downed mode abilities? I wouldn’t.

Blaine Tog.8304:

Of course. I’m not telling him to shut up or anything. I’m merely pointing out that if he’s trying to say “I do well, so Eles are fine,” then his logic is no better than someone who says “I do poorly, so Ele’s are underpowered.”

Just an aside: this is not true.

It is not really the same complaint. If someone says, “I do well, therefore elementalists do not need fundamental changes” then offer proof of them doing well, that’s a positive claim towards the possibility that elementalists do well. Saying, “I do not do well, therefore elementalists cannot do well” is offering a negative claim. Saying, “Elementalists generally do not do well” is vague in the extreme, but would require a lot of data to assert and we’re seeing a paucity of actual objective data in this thread.

It’s substantially harder to prove a negative claim in the real world, bordering on impossible unless you can demonstrate outright contradictions. And the criterion for what is broken and what is acceptable is even more muddied right now, especially given how many classes have serious design or scaling issues they are struggling with.

In other words, it’s Layne’s Law all over again. Both sides are talking past each other because they have different criterion using the same word “fine”.

magnafides.8136:

Creslin, if you have to be a D/D Ele to be as effective as other classes, something is wrong. I have used S/D primarily, and some staff too, and it’s weak no matter how often I switch attunements or stack might.

Well if the argument is that one of your weapon sets does a lot better in PvP than others, then you’re in good company. Very few classes can use any weapon in any situation. Several classes have modes/kits/tricks that are actually counterproductive in some contexts.

Is that the case for Elementalist? I am looking for a new main and evaluating Necro and Ele, and most of my experience with friends in PvE content is seeing them use staff or scepter builds in PvE and D/D in PvP.

Casia.4281:

well every weapon gets a damage boost just about. rifle 10%, bombs, mines, grenades 10% (grenadier on TOP of that..)

Deadly mixtures 15% isn’t that fantastic to outmatch rifles 10%.

the might is nice of course. but caps at 25. And the ft traits in alch, mean you cant really get that deadly mixture AND hgh. or 409. so you say, deadly mixture and juggernaut.
Well I have hgh with grenades, which gives me like 10 stack of might as well.

8 stacks of might with 20% boon, 20% might, and 30%, base with juggernaut.

Yeah, and I agree you could do that with grenades so they scale better. I’m just saying grenades are also awkward, slow, error prone, and don’t always hit for their full damage.

Got a link to that math?

Nevermind, I found it.

Actually I am not so sure that I agree with the assessment that FT is entirely outclassed post-patch given the numbers presented in that thread when traits are taken into account; mostly because it seems like grenades are taken into account considering grenadier in the subsequent discussion but Flamethrower ignores the obligatory might and Deadly Mixture.

But, as crazy as it sounds, the grenade kit is a more reliable hitter.

Is the grenade kit really that far out in front of a fully traited flamethrower in terms of DPS? Are Juggernaught and Deadly Mixture and the potential for burns beaten down that badly?

He says solider in the first post. It’s tempting to put condition damage on this build, but the idea is that most of the damage will come from other glass cannons not understanding what’s happening and smashing their face on your god-like retaliating physique.

I bet there is a condition-heavy damage variant for WvW, which would help a lot against other condition-based builds, which on paper stand to dominate the build as written because they don’t have to break their teeth trying to grind it down.

When traited for, the toolkit is pretty absurdly good in world PvE. It’s a staple of a good kiting build; you can keep using caltrops and prybar to basically kite forever and get extra blocks without having to use dual pistols for the area slow.

And even without a lot of power stacking it hits like a train, which is great against those slower pve ranged mobs.

Would this build benefit from dropping 10 from Alchemy and putting it into Tools for Armor Mod in exchange for Cleaning Formula 409?

If your main goal is to burn people as they break themselves against your retaliation, then having retaliation pop up as they start their attack reactively could be great. Given the 75% mark elixir B and glass cannon’s love of high crit, you might not even need Elixir B on your bar in that case, instead opting for R to give you more dodges, stunbreak, and revival or an Elixir C to help shore up your performance against condition builds.

hackks.3687:

KirinDave.6451:

Yukishiro.8792:

engi have generally amazing ones for example.

If you would like to see a community of players even more irritable, confused, and annoyed than the necromancers then the Engineers are where you should go. Their best pvp burst got nerfed, their trait lines are awfully muddled and one line is almost entirely neglected because the only thing worse than minions are turret utilities.

Elementalists are similarly generally pretty mad that 30 in arcane seems utterly mandatory. Don’t believe me, go ask.

Mesmers, though, I agree with. That class goes from extremely frustrating to extremely interesting within the span of about 30 trait points.

So don’t feel too bad.

Do you actually play an Engi?

Yukishiro.8792:

Uh I play an Engi. You are rather clueless. Engis have a lot of bugs, and some design issues, but Engi traits are pretty awesome. Certainly way better than necro ones.

Like I said, I can name like 8-10 awesome Engi traits off the top of my head that change how the class plays quite dramatically. Necro traits in contrast tend to be “+10% more this” and “+5% more that.”

because Yuki does. and so do I. and I agree with Yuki

Yes, I have a L80 engineer partially decked out for the tools-based burst spec. I play a lot of WvW and some PvE, but no real sPvP.

I don’t want to drag another thread off topic discussing minutiae, but I’d be happy to PM you about it. Long-story-short, the engineer might get some really interesting traits like Juggernaut, but that doesn’t save the class from being ultimately frustrating outside of a support role that I think many other classes can play equally well.

If a trait is mechanically powerful but no one wants it due to bugs in its use, then is it “interesting”? I’d argue Jagged Horrors is “interesting” under that criterion.

The necro traits may not be as game-changing, but I sort of like that. It’s very frustrating to be required to be >= L60 to actually see skills perform before you know if you will like a class, and sPvP is not the sum of my experience so I have to grind. You can tell if you’ll like playing Necro pretty early, and their power curve is pretty linear as opposed to a friggin stair step.

Yukishiro.8792:

engi have generally amazing ones for example.

If you would like to see a community of players even more irritable, confused, and annoyed than the necromancers then the Engineers are where you should go. Their best pvp burst got nerfed, their trait lines are awfully muddled and one line is almost entirely neglected because the only thing worse than minions are turret utilities. They’re left wondering what, if anything, they should be doing in PvP and PvE, as the dream of a multi-role engineer is (charitably) difficult to fulfill without being underwhelming in all things.

Elementalists are similarly generally pretty mad that 30 in arcane seems utterly mandatory. Don’t believe me, go ask.

Mesmers, though, I agree with. That class goes from extremely frustrating to extremely interesting within the span of about 30 trait points.

So don’t feel too bad.

Dredlord.8076:

KirinDave.6451:

Dredlord.8076:

get a clue buddy, reread the whole thread so all those reasons are fresh in your mind and move on.

It was pretty cool how you didn’t actually address what I said.

that’s because it has already been said in this thread, were you too lazy to scroll up? or are you just trolling now?

reread my quote here, this time try not to be butthurt, take the advice and be learner for once…

I did. You were wrong about the axe before, you’re still wrong about it now. With this trait and vulnerability and bleed generation with a reasonable crit rate, you’ll exceed the effectiveness of the warrior trait within 2 auto-attacks in the worst case. It’s not exactly the grim scenario you insist on painting where every player has a condition curing fairy floating after them.

This is not “difficult.” This is not “hard.” This is not “good luck waiting for 6 more conditions.” This is trivial, the matter of 1.5-2.25 seconds.

And that’s just one way of many. For a power spec.

Dredlord.8076:

no no and no they are not even close to about even

The really fun part of talking to you: you do not even have enough respect for this audience to punctuate your stream-of-consciousness ramblings. It’s like Timecube.com-guy-explains necromancer only with more fake math.

Could you please take the extra 20 seconds on a post to make it readable? Look at what you just wrote and ask yourself, “Should anyone take me seriously?” I’m not committing a genetic fallacy or ad hominem here, I’m begging you for the sake of the conversation to just type like a human.

Watch now as I do my best to read what you wrong. Hope I got it right…

Dredlord.8076:

bleed is the most common condition so if something is bleeding you get 10% damage

that means when switching targets to assist a friendly chances are its bleeding and you get the 10% bonus.

what are the chances your target will have 6+ conditions on them?
next you’ll be telling us you only switch targets after epidemic….

I’m not sure what we’re arguing here for anymore… My argument is that target the weak is a nice, solid damage boost for Necro in team scenarios, and the Zerg is not really a team scenario.

Last time I checked the trait, it worked on individual conditions and not stacks of different conditions. So a natural response is to use this with the Axe. Something I’m sure I’ve seen done to me by the horde of WvW gankomancers who just run up out of nowhere with that kitten axe. Having 5 vulnerability and 2-3 bleed against a necro with that trait while they are switching to dagger-dagger and dropping wells is pretty scary.

Dredlord.8076:

someone just cleansed all their conditions? no prob they gonna be bleeding again in a second or 2 = 10%. necro? have fun building up 6+ conditions again

Well with that Axe+Earth I just described, it’s usually the work of about 1.5-2.25 seconds with a 50% crit, and can be even less depending on other traits.

But, small unit play has a lot less random condition cleansing going on. You seem to think it happens constantly. If that’s the case, then all condition builds are useless, conditions are useless, and necromancers with condition builds should stay out of WvW. Now, conventional wisdom suggests that’s not true but you’re welcome to that opinion.

Dredlord.8076:

the only time its going to be better is on a long boss fight and the only builds that are speccing up that high are condition builds looking for cond dur on the GM trait making the extra damage that applies to direct damage only pretty underwhelming.

A lot of people like running hybrid condition+powermancers, and they pull it off to some degree. It’s a sweet gig if you can afford the gear.

Dredlord.8076:

no you just arent paying attention most likely, even running with a zerg in WvW i rarely see more than 6 conditions on anything for more than a second.

things like fear or blind are gone the next second

Running with a zerg is hardly the alpha or omega of WvW. There is no such thing as a significant contribution for you when you’re running with 40+ people in a pack; everything except another zerg or being utterly outplayed can stop you. You are there to provide 1/40th of the damage output of the zerg and no one cares how much that number is.

The very opposite situation is the case when defending a fort from a zerg, or choke points, or when you get into that fun situation where a coordinated group tries to stall or disperse a zerg.

Dredlord.8076:

yeahhhhh…….I think I’ll just take the 10% for one bleed if I had the choice

I actually think they’re about even.

What I see is a lot of people who haven’t looked at other forums or perhaps played other classes past L30.

You want to see unhappy people? Go talk to Engineers outside of sPvP. I myself have decided to devote time to necro because at least this class is fun. A lot of people also forget how brutally unforgiving Mesmer and Thief can be. Go just roll a thief and jump in sPvP with no practice and see what happens.

DreamyAbaddon.3265:

Angewaire.6319:

Extremly powerfull Ya say Dreamy? Explain me then why there is SO FEW engii builds over the internet GW2 sites?
Why there is SO FEW engiiners every PvP match i played, every RvR i ve saw so far?
i can’t say its useless class- it’s just low in everything compared to other dps classes/builds.

Because majority of players I have seen dont know how Engineer works.
Actually, most dont really know the combat system or mechanics by much from what I see in both PvP and PvE.

I sPvP with Engineer a lot before. And PvEd ever so much before no adays.

I have tons of Stratagies using engineer. I use tons of utility skills and weapons for different possible situations. I enjoy getting in depth with all my classes and learn it’s full capabilities. Engineer is no exception.

I played: Engineer, Elementalist, Ranger, Warrior, and Mesmer.

I dont read up “Builds” online to play my class. I work on my own and experiment and challenge myself in combat to learn what works and what doesnt depending on those different possible situations.

Its a skill based game. And that’s the way I like it. =)

I am on BP, and I WvW fairly often. I’d love to talk to you about it (unless you are in TRI, in which case we already have!)

Poizie.5187:

you cant compare condition builds with crit/power builds….engineers have very high burst with abilities that have smaller cooldowns then other classes….going static discharge its pretty easy to do 15-25k damage in 1 second to someone who isnt defensive.

I have watched many, many highlight reels of that build trying to understand how it works. I have never seen anyone approach 25k burst. 15k is the upper end of what I’ve seen from people bragging. I’d have to see it to believe it. That’s WITH the turret pop damage.

Most of the time those big numbers come from WvW where you’re seeing people in exotics vs under-80 glass cannon builds. The competing glass cannons you see in WvW generally have some mechanism besides toughness/vitality to deal with incoming damage and thus are not so scary.

And using that build basically reduces the Engineer to a bad parody of the Ranger class; there are only a few utilities that work well with static discharge. You’re rocking the personal battering ram, toolkit and rifle turret to get that reliability, and you’ll probably never drop the rifle turret except to explode it. About the trickiest thing that build can do is drop nails then use the magnet.

“Anyway,i really like condition damage…however i’ve a big issue with the necromancer: If i don’t take minions with me i feel too squishy,and i’ve a very limited set of skills to use.”

Early on, you use a dagger+warhorn build with wells and lifesteal aggressively (with lots of power & heal and reasonable crit it hits like a truck. Use DS to give your heals time to recharge. The amount of damage this build can drop if it has to in an AoE against mobs is pretty stunning, and the dagger auto-attack spam does great damage.

My engineer is my furthest along but my least favorite character. I just do not understand what it’s supposed to do. The idea that it can do many things at once is a weird statement, since the challenging play often happens in groups and you get your bases covered anyways.

If you like conditions, support, but still would like to have some high power potential please do consider Necromancer as well. Their dagger power builds are loads of fun in world PvE and they are a huge boon in dungeons.

On mesmer, you should play it further. Around level 40 the class really picks up in terms of PvE. Of all my characters, I am the most confident I could handle an infinite steady stream of adds with the mesmer; they’re just unkillable in PvE if played right unless the incoming damage can 1 shot you.

I’m not sure why AngryBuu would say that given that you have an almost textbook glass cannon static discharge build. The only real deviation is dropping Infused Precision in favor of Rifled Barrels. So ignore him, especially since he then goes on to describe something that can only possibly work with a high toughness build and calls it a “glass cannon.”

As it stands, given that you’ve gone for Adrenal, do you really need that 10 points for Invigorating speed? Self-Regulating Defenses might give you the surviability you need to bring your toolbelt skills off cooldown for another round of burst.

But yes, that build is demolished when it meets up against a condition heavy build that can successfully kite it. That is expected and not unusual. In sPvP it’s a speedy roamer build that is not meant to bust bunkers but to backcap and scare off other roamers. And I still have yet to hear how that build is supposed to deal with thieves.

Originally I thought Engineers were fine for PvE, a little broken for sPvP, and pretty much useless outside a zerg for WvW (my favorite play). After doing a bit of work a Necromancer past the usual 10 levels, I am sort of shocked. Dungeon runs are easier with necromancer, power-builds scream through world PvE and handle ads handily, and there are 3 viable builds post-november-patch I can use for all of them. In WvW, Necromancers are incredibly good at both small and large scale confrontation. In sPvP, they’re one of the two textbook bunker builds and have really interesting roamer builds. About the only thing they’re bad at is really big world bosses, but they can re-spec to be useful in a support role for those anyways.

And then I go back to my engineer who I did all this with before and say, “That is not right. That is broken.” I used to think this was just a matter of perception. The people I rolled with were Elementalists and Warriors and those classes are very good. But then I started to realize as I played other off-brand classes that it may not actually be me, it may be the engineer. It is not that I ignore condition damage–it’s that engineers are not very good at that. It’s not that I hate turrets–it’s that turrets are actually worse than the still-buggy necromancer minions. It’s not that haven’t carefully studied the trait lines for the engineer–its that it is a very awkward trait design.

Engineers seem to specialize in the odd things no one else does. For example, a lot of story mode dungeon content is much easier for engineers who know what utilities and traits to swap for. And if dungeons were a bigger part of the game I think you’d see more recognition for that.

Maybe I am just not good enough to play the engineer. Maybe I just want something from the class (a unique, powerful, fun play style that evokes that that “Data” feel from The Goonies or maybe an analytical, reactive play style?) that it cannot deliver right now. But even the famously broken necromancer feels so much easier for what I want to do, I find myself being much more eager to log into it.

NevirSayDie.6235:

I should probably just leave threads like this..I guess it just bothers me that my favorite profession is getting misrepresented:

—statements like “other professions use power/crit builds and kill mobs before my damage-over-time skills have even hardly done anything…” (Well…yes, you get the point.)

A lot of people like the pistol because the shield is very very good, and the pistol is much better against crowds. The Rifle has fairly good burst, but requires you to close distance with the target. Often we’d prefer to dps without being in the middle of an enemy group.

But it’s true that in PvE or some types of sPvP engagements the rifle can have some reasonable burst. It’s too bad it’s so limited and slow. Even if you hit your 5 right after 4, sometimes due to lag or the cosmos failing to align you still miss.

Is everyone using pistol/elixir builds or something? Engineers have great power options and way better cc than eles.

Engineer has better knockbacks and downs. Not all CC.

ManCaptain.3154:

skill 1 is crap against stompers since they take no damage from Confusion.

It’s a PVE utility. In that context, it’s one of the best.

ManCaptain.3154:

skill 2 does work against multiple stompers but that’s about it. The clone is useless against stompers because it spams confusion and as a clone it only deals about 30 per attack. The clone is useless as a distractions as it always appears first and real mesmer always has a red arrow over his head.

It still fools a lot of people, and also picks up a lot of autotarget hate. If you think this skill is not the best stomp defense in the game than your metric for success is way off. It’s a teleport, a decoy, and a stealth all in one. It’s incredibly good.

ManCaptain.3154:

skill 3 deals nice damage, but unless you waste time you can always stomp the mesmer before this one comes up.

It can help down an opponent in a close fight, and then you end up with a downed-vs-downed scenario in a 1v1. It’s better in sPvP, to be sure.

ManCaptain.3154:

Against a mesmer I just go for the stomp, he disappears, his clone appears, I wait about 0.5 sec more, the real mesmer appears, go to him and stomp before he can summon his phantasm. GG.

If the mesmer is all alone, this will work. If not, they’ll do it at the last possible instant and you’ll probably be under fire from teammates. Like the guardian skill, this is a 100% stomp defeater and can stop multiple people. In a team engagement that’s often enough to not be sent back to a waypoint.

Karast.1927:

It’s extremely viable in WvW if you do not do the “turtle blob” “auto-attack wall with gtaoe” play style.

If you stay mobile and are part of an organized guild doing hit and run tactics it is a fantastic burst build.

I’d argue there are classes that can do this much better. The only thing I think Engineers can do better in this is sustain haste for a lot longer. The burst is inferior to what other people bring to the table, and when Thief & Mesmer are on the table it’s really hard to argue with their harassment potential.

I really wish Engineer had some better stealth options. That’d really help.

I run a 0 30 0 10 30 build with rifle – healing turret – tool kit – elixir gun – rifle turret – supply drop.

It works well for mid – close range burst AoE with a lot of group utility from EG and lots of aoe healing, condition removal, retribution, swiftness, and CC.

I’ll put a video up later this week of some guild roaming once it’s put together. It has a 10-13 man group taking on zergs. There is some nice footage of both a grenade / support engi and a tool belt / support engi.

In a larger group like 10+ I can definitely see it working. In small scale tactics I think it’d be outshone. Basically your goal is to find people low on health and add to their burst, but most every ranged class can do this passably (even necro!).

I’ve seen 5 man groups stall zergs at choke points, and rarely is an engineer an integral part of that.

Karast.1927:

Both bring different things to the table.

You’d be surprised about how effective EG is when put into a power / lightning spec.

The damage from EG is fantastic, and it adds a nice dynamic to rifle play.

Compared to the rest of the Engineer’s options, I agree! This is probably the only real burst spec left that is not trivially countered by seeing a red circle on the ground and moving out of it.

Compared to other classes, blowing 3-4 cooldowns for 5k-7k of burst and giving up substantial CC to do this is not that attractive. And you give up the offhand pistol moves for the big damage, which is a shame because pistol 5 is one of the better tools for stalling large groups of people. The rifle’s control is great, but only for 1 or two targets.

If it’s any consolation for you PvP folks, you’re a hard counter to nearly every Engineer build. They simply cannot compare to your ranged DPS with pet and unless they are constantly interrupting their attacks they cannot match your speed w/out a stream of critical hits which they can only get by using said inferior dps.

I think a lot of classes that play in WvW feel pretty useless right now. Even with the (very big) damage nerf Mesmers still look good; Thieves don’t have much to complain about, but everyone else is sort of left feeling like they’re there to sort of throng with the zerg and get killed byt he other two classes.

Don’t lose heart. Just remember it could be worse!

You could be engineers in PvP.

I keep seeing mesmers and thieves come up here as the metric of comparison and they probably shouldn’t.

Mesmers are easily the class with the best downed toolkit, period. Their 1 is great in PvE and their 2 and 3 are absurdly good in PvP/WvW. If anything, they should come down rather than everyone rising to match them. Thieves are only slightly worse off than Mesmer, but way ahead of most everyone else.

As for elementalists, mist form is such a mixed bag. It really only saves you in a small handful of situations.

coglin.1496:

KirinDave.6451:

I’ve never met an Elementalist who thinks Engineer is a better class.

How many folks do you know with both at 80?

I bet several of the posters here telling them to pick elementalist have not leveled both to max. Just a hunch.

I know plenty of people with 80 engineers and 80 elementalists; a by-product of being in a WvW guild. Most say Engineer is a healing class right now and its damage potential has been on the decline. It’s also far from the best tanky class.

Honestly? I’m contemplating what to play right now. I’m about to set aside my engineer until they’ve worked out the kinks. Is there really a point mashing my face into the limitations of the class over and over?

I wish more people would do this rather than double-down on their commitment to a class that has always been problematic. Player-hours/month is a valuable metric for Anet to see exactly how desirable and fun classes are to play.

coglin.1496:

Eleazyair.5716:

This seems like the only other viable build outside of any grenade build. =/ This is a great build. I’m sure Anet will destroy in the next patch.

This is a horribly misinforming claim to make. There are very many viable builds.

If your environment is PvE outside of dungeon, there are many viable builds.

If your environment is PvE dungeons, most of the viable builds are healing and condition removal. This is what engineers do best, next to CC. But in dungeons, the applicability of knockback CC (engineer’s most plentiful) is greatly limited.

If your environment is WvW, I am not sure even this build is really viable. Its burst potential is much less than other ranged classes, and basically what people want you to do is make the ramparts a scary place while your team rams the gates; a directive incompatible with this build.

If your environment is sPvP, there are several other viable support builds, but it’s sort of questionable of you SHOULD do this.

Unless you mean by viable, "Via the Dunning-Kruger effect, I do what I want!