Guild Wars 2

I’ve been playing quite a bit with the standard HGH p/p build and find it to be extremely effective. Pretty good survivability and crazy pressure with stacks of might and corruption. However, I miss juggling between kits – I just found that to be super fun. HGH is fun because of how successful you can be with it but I definitely prefer the kit playstyle.

Ahh, sounds like you are talking about wvw while I am talking mainly about s/t pvp. Good luck with the hammer build

You may know better than I – but I would think guardians are better for being tanky and holding the point while the hammer warrior is good for team fighting by locking kill targets down with cc while also contributing some damage.

Jonwar.9205:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/warrior/Defektive-s-PvP-Hammer-Build-SkillCap-Edition-1/first

Still viable, completely non-frenzy dependent. Give it a try, it’s fairly mobile and really shines in group fights.

His longbow build (already posted) was also not very frenzy dependent. I personally have a hard time with it as I’ve always got the urge to be in the middle of the fight smashing, and my definition of running away is getting far enough to heal and getting right back into it.

I was playing his hammer build with Frenzy (he does in some of his videos too) and feel like that was really nice for landing hammer #5 which is really the biggest damage ability. Not sure what to replace it with right now – I feel like the build already has plenty of CC… it’s a really fun build (imo). Gotta take my opinion with a grain of salt because I would categorize myself as a casual player not really a pro and I don’t do high level tpvp (yet).

I was actually playing your hammer build but with frenzy instead of bulls charge (I saw you doing the same in some of your videos) – mainly because I was playing mostly solo and needed some extra damage. Definitely not worth taking now. That build is a blast though :P

What about your hammer build?

Safe to assume you posted about this in the game bugs forum?

hackks.3687:

@ Leadfoot: Lots of boon/might duration. HGH already gives you 30% boon duration from investing 30pts in Alchemy. 2x Rune of Hoelbrak (20% Might Duration), Rune of Fire (20% Might Duration), Rune of Strength (20% Might Duration) will keep your Might stacks up for quite a while.

Using a Sigil of Battle and liberally swapping between Grenades and your weapon (IMO Hair Trigger and Short Fuse are a must have for either HGH build) will aid considerably in generating those might stacks along with using your Elixirs naturally through combat.

I was running 4 hoelbrak and 2 strength and perhaps not swapping between grenades and p/p that frequently. I guess that would be why? Seems like a huge difference though… is the extra 20% might duration actually better than occassionally getting might when hit (the 4th hoelbrak rune)?

Sorry to derail a bit but how do you get 25 stacks of might? We are talking spvp here right? I was messing with the HGH condition build yesterday and never really got more than 11 stacks and averaged around 7-8 I think. Admittedly, I’m new at the playstyle so this could just be a l2 kitten ue – but just having a hard time seeing how you get that many stacks?

I was watching some videos on his twitch channel last night, he was running a pretty standard HGH p/p build. I believe the video was fairly recent.

Calvin.5380:

Where can I find this build? I’ve tried to search, but wasn’t successful. Sorry, I’m nearly blind.

Here’s one version:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQJAqalspyXHxSdF17ICoC5loHPGlNZfewWpFEC;ToAAzCpoCyEkIIbQugkBNWYKC

The runes and amulet can vary I think. Some people take the trait enhanced performance (might on heal) instead of short fuse (grenade cooldown)

Thanks for the replies guys – does anybody have any input on a kit-based p/p build? Does it make any sense at all? I was just starting to get reasonably proficient at using kits with the 100nade build when this nerf hit and really like hte kit playstyle so am looking for a viable alternative to 100nades that uses kits. KR seems pretty pointless to take now although I have not personally tried the new variation yet. I love speedy kits though.

I mostly do spvp/solo join tpvp but am starting to play with my guild and would like to have a viable engineer build as an option in addition to my thief, warrior (rip), and necro builds.

daydream.2938:

30/10/0/30/0

Rabid amulet. and something with +20% might on it for runes, i recommended rune of might. sigil of superior battle and corruption.

The trees.
Explosives. v, viii, xi
firearms. vi
alchemy: II, x, xi.

use elixir h, s, b. And grenade kit. Toss exliris cleanses you, as well as consumption. all grant might which gradually builds up. you can easily hit 18+might stacks on any duration fight.

Also yes, this build has been veted for high end spvp play. It is a good build.

Like this right?

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQJAqalspyXHxSdF17ICoC5loHPGlNZfewWpFEC;ToAAzCpoCyEkIIbQugkBNEZuA

Are there any streams/videos of this build being played? I’m having a hard time conceptualizing how to be effective with this kind of build – are you proactively tossing elixirs to build up might? How does the grenade kit fit in?

I really loved the kit playstyle of 100nades (regardless of its viability – I played it mostly for fun and to learn the engineer playstyle) – is there a p/p condition or power build that still uses kits – especially grenades and tool kit which I really like though I do like medkit a lot too. Love speedy kits – rip KR.

nerfed the weakest class and buffed the strongest class… wtf?!?!

It definitely varies server to server. I switched servers before it cost $ the first server was totally dead nobody doing DEs or anything. I switched to another story and there were lots of people around… ymmv

I don’t know.. when it happens it does seem to be sending me back towards the guy I previously had targeted and not in the direction of where I clicked to drop the target. At least in my case.

Ethics.4519:

I’m not exactly sure what you’re asking for. You can either hold ctrl and click the target, which seems like what you’re doing. If you already have the mob targeted, you can just hit ctrl+t (not sure if that’s default or not) to mark it, without clicking again.

I see, select the target by clicking them and then hit the bound button to mark them… yes I was doing it by holding ctrl and clicking them. Thanks!

Artaz.3819:

Two other possibilities,

(1) lag between client/server, you deselect a target, hit the utility button and the server believes you are still targeting your original. I have never seen this behavior though. Other players have claimed it though.

(2) Camera angle/object selected. On several occasions, if a target is deselected by using the click on target function to deselect (not ESC) and on a seemingly benign area (like a wall nearby is selected), you will sometimes leap towards that clicked spot (sometimes even sideways and not towards the original target). This tends to happen far more frequently in enclosed areas (and for me this has happened more times than I can count in Eternal Battlegrounds, Stonemist Castle in those hallways to the Lord’s room).

Note, I use Bull’s Charge (not Savage Leap often) but the symptoms seem eerily similar.

Yeah, probably client server lag – I see my target clear up at the top of teh window and then hit #2 and go flying towards the guy i had targeted a second ago… lag makes the most sense to me.

Your number 2 does not explain it for me as I know I lept backwards instead of towards the area of ground I clicked on – definitely thinking lag.

I have auto target disabled and have for quite a while.

Sometimes when I need to gtfo I will click on the ground, deselecting my target, and then savage leap – I’m noticing that sometimes if I hit savage leap too quickly after deselecting it will STILL jump towards my previous target – is that a bug? Anybody else notice this?

I have played warrior, thief, necro, and engineer (i rarely leave the mists). I say engineer – very unique class. Switching kits is a lot of fun in my opinion. Throwing grenades around me likey.

Hi, do you always have to click on an enemy in order to call target on them regardless of what you have it keybound to, e.g. if you bind it to G you have to old down G and click the target to call target on them? The default is CTRL-T but I always just hold down CTRL and click the target to target them… but this is awkward and slow.

How do you all bind this? I would love to bind it to middle mouse button but it seems that it only works if i hit middle mouse and left mouse to select the enemy. Learn meh!!!

I always used Golradaer’s version of the 100b build:

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fIEQNAR8ejgOxuxQ2QMxBAjCjA68gKmaSpYu6A;TwAg0CnoqxUjoGbNuak1swYQxGiJGA

Good mobility and good 100b burst. Note the use of mending for condition removal. You are definitely vulernable to conditions in a 100b build – there’s no way around that without gimping the dmg of the build which is really the focus.

I haven’t played 100b build in a while though, I have been thoroughly enjoying Defektives hammer build.

Not sure it’s quite that simple because while the KR grenade barrage is OP the medkit KR is certainly NOT – so I don’t think just moving the trait to GM is sufficient.

Hi, is there any intention to fix this bug? Started playing the engineer and am finding I need more keys to bind!!

I tend to agree with devs that kit refinement grenade barrage is a bit OP for a adept trait (same with Mug). However, I think engineer burst is about on par with 100b as far as setup and execution – backstab burst is still king though as it is a lot harder to avoid in general (sure if you see the thief coming and nothing else is going on you should be able to dodge the telegraphed cnd/steal).

I feel like the pvp system is just kind of immature and the game was released with the understanding that pvp was “beta” and now we are all waiting for improvements/refinements. I think the downed state is kind of cool, at first I hated it – it adds a new dimension to the game play that is unique (from my experience). I would agree that downed state suffers from some balance issues but not that bad. I agree with you that the combat system is interesting – I like it a lot – and I feel like if we are patient we will see pvp get a lot better over time. I just hope they manage to staff up their pvp team a bit more so that we can see more frequent updates. So far their mentality for updating, especially around profession balancing, has been measured as opposed to wow where they would swing the nerf/buff bats wildly creating and destroying fotm builds in a single patch. I like anets approach a lot better – the only problem with it is that usually with small tweaks you get them more often – so far that has not really been the case.

Anastasis.7258:

Khalifahaze.6045:

Forgot to say in the video, for the master spite trait you can swap spiteful marks for chill of death. Hits pretty hard since they changed it last patch.

Just some quick questions.
1. How do you against people with condition cleanser.

2. What are you going to do when you already drop your well after immobilized and they remove your immobilized then escape your combo? That’s the only combo that d/d power nerco have… and next combo = 40sec after.

I also played a lot of power nerco build before and I also did the same build, same utility as you did. Well… the thing is not about your controlling skill, is about the enemy you against with are smart or stupid. The only problem for power nerco is too easy to escape their burst combo.

Tarcis Rhapsodos

I play a power necro with wells sometimes and this is definitely an issue so I’m interested in hearing about this too.

haha, sorry but thief complaining about 100b warrior is kind of amusing. Both have extremely effective burst that can be hard to avoid if you are distracted. But 100b warrior is way easier to avoid than thief backstab burst imo. Telegraphed bull charge + rooted warrior during 100b as opposed to thief vanishes from range (you may not see him) cnd/steal simultaneous into bas venom root + backstab – all in about 2seconds. I don’t think either are unbalanced though, at least not by much (I think heartseeker spam is kind of lame) because they both sacrifice quite a bit.

FASTCAR.7831:

Does anyone over 14-15 say " u mad bro?"
I bet not one of these nub troll younglings even has an 80 or has ever wvw.
That would be a good reason why not ONE video yet

O BTW, I timed how long my flag regen buff lasts each , about 2:15 or so

This is rather ironic – “u mad bro” is 14-15 year old material but “nub troll younglings” is very mature and completely legit – haha!

I’ve watched a bunch of your videos and really liked them – I’m more into spvp than wvw but still you really do a good job of showing how to play an engineer. I would definitely watch instructional videos if you made them. However, I think you need to decide based on whether you would enjoy making them because really, that is what counts and what will lend towards the videos being really good. I’m sure there are tons of people who would watch them. Have you ever watched rainythiefs videos on youtube? He made a bunch of instructional pvp thief videos that are fantastic.

I finally got a chance to mess around with this build yesterday and had a lot of fun. I was surprised at how survivable I was without a shield. Part of it was properly using savage leap to gtfo when things got crazy but warhorn#4 and 5 were also very useful for staying alive.

Also, I had tried to play hammer previously and always had a really hard time landing the slow swinging control abilities but think that leg specialist is extremely important – hammer #3 is the perfect setup because its so much easier to land.

The first page says to use bull’s charge but I used frenzy instead (which I see you also used in some of your videos). Frenzy hammer #5, auto, #4, auto is pretty deadly.

Anyways, really enjoyed the build and need to find a better key for sheathing my weapon. Quite a different playstyle than typical GS builds.

I have played Golradaer’s Spartan build which uses both – axe/mace & sword/shield. It’s a pretty fun build but lacks the mobility of the greatsword.

Dude, it’s not just banners maan!!! I am in the middle of a zerg spamming my F key for the loots next thing you know i’m picking some carrots and getting pwnd by a thief!!!!

Yeah I definitely already have auto-targetting off (as well as that option that makes you bump into other players) … didn’t realize the click on terrain would detarget though. Good to know – thx guys

I notice another little trick you pull in your videos where you are running away from people when you are near dead and using the camera to watch them behind you and then dodging backwards towards them. Is that just strictly to discombobulate them (omg I love that word)? I only watched some of one of those long videos but it’s pretty impressive how many times you only had a couple hundred health left, managed to escape and elude, get your heal off, go back and pwn face… awesome.

I am still using double click direction key for dodging which I think is really bad… I need to find a comfortable key for that…

Hah, I remember last week or sometime around then I looked at the scoreboard in hot join and saw you on the other team and new I was in for a rough ride. Pretty sure you were playing this build and consistently beating the kitten out of me. I bet I’m featured in one of those long hot join videos you have on your twitch channel /embarrassed

Videos are a blast to watch, you are very effective with the build – I love the looks of it but I’m not sure I’m skilled enough to play it effectively.

Question, you are really good at dropping target and using savage leap to get out of sticky situations… how do you do that? Half the time I forget to detarget and end up leaping right at the guy I want to escape from lol. AFAIK the only way to drop target is to spam ESC button which seems to be inconsistent and I often end up with the main menu up on my screen… is there actually a bind for it? I know I should probably just look but I’m bored with work and wanted to bump this wonderful thread anyways :P

EDIT: I checked the wiki and do not see a drop target button:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Controls

curious how you are managing it.

Davinci.8027:

There needs to be a non-ranked solo queue as well, imo. But hotjoin needs to go because it doesn’t teach players how to tPvP. People leave hotjoin and start doing tournaments with 0 idea of what to do (rotations, focus fire, peeling, etc)

Another proposition could be a guide for each class to which a few top players could contribute their builds and suggestions and help new players integrate into the system more easily.

I disagree for a few reasons:
1) Hot join is a good solution for new players that need to learn the combat system in pvp
2) Hot join is a good place for players to test out new builds and learn rotations and muscle memory
3) People who want to learn tpvp strategy will still learn something from hot join – they will not get the same experience as actual tpvp but it is not completely wasted.
4) Some people are casual players and want to jump in and fight and not worry so much about the strategy – you could argue that this mentality is wrong and that those players should find another game – not sure if I’d agree with that…

milo.6942:

Malcastus.6240:

Arenas are the most boring thing in existance. No real means of using the surroundings, being limited to a small space is just annoying and mindnumbingly monotone.

i don’t get how ppl like you think. do you find combat to be boring?

It’s just different strokes for different folks. Diversity of game modes is definitely a good thing for this – but at the same time it has some severe implications on balancing the professions. I can imagine that is part of the reason why we only have conquest and no duels.

Mesmers are a pain if you are new – don’t let the clones run at you and explode, use AOE to kill the clones, spot the real mesmer by looking for him backpedaling/dodging/or has a lot of boons on him (clones do/have none of those). “That guy” sounds like either a bunker (impossible to kill a good one by yourself) or a 100b warrior (roots with very predictable bulls charge and then uses “one hundred blades” on you to do a ton of dmg).

Like Emphatic Fighter said, a lot of it is learning what the other classes do so you can spot them and then have the experience to know how to counter them (or ignore them).

Also, all professions/builds have pros and cons and they all have a set of other professions/builds that are simply very good at winning against you. No such thing as a single build good against everything (except maybe a d/d ele)

This just happened to me tonight – I was fighting near beach on raid of the capricorn when I got feared and it feared me all the way through the water to the ruins where the sharks finally killed me. Was wondering wtf happened so I guess this is a bug? I hope it’s a random bug and not an exploit because that is pretty messed up >.<

Given the lack of defenses though, it probably only really works well in an organized team setting and not so much in hot join/individual queue?

It seems like OP didn’t look at the combat log to see what killed him or didn’t attempt to understand it… in either case, how can we even be sure it was the necro that actually did all the damage no offense, but it’s impossible to tell what happened with the lack of info here.

I got nuked by a necro last night on my warrior – it was Hanzo (a prominent necro poster) and I’m like how in the world did he stack those bleeds so fasst?!?! then I realized there was another necro with him there too lol

Yeah I find it kind of hilarious/ironic/extremely frustrating that everyone was complaining about dd ele and how strong they were at various aspects and instead of anykind of meaningful nerf they got a map pretty much PERFECT for them

I can see this map being fun in organized team play but for solo queuers and hot join it’s pretty bad imo.

Ayestes.1273:

With a Rampager Amulet it isn’t that survivable no. The only thing it has is Toss Elixir S, Elixir S, couple Blinds, and sorta some Snares. Rampager undeniably does more damage then a Rabid focused variant, but Rabid gains a lot more survivability then it does in terms of damage loss though. In the end though, Rampager does what the build tries to accomplish better and Rabid still isn’t going to make you a tank by any means.

The damage though, is extremely high. Extremely high Burning uptime, 6+ Bleeding stacks uptime, Confusion, Poison, Retaliation, and moderate Direct Damage output all create a lot of damage when added together. The bursty portion if it can be applied in under two “globals” as well. The damage are very resistant to most condition removal and all conditions can be reapplied with ease. HGH boosts the damage to what would be considered extremely high.

Is it OP? Probably not, but it’s certainly competitive and probably the most viable build we have in tPvP right now.

For more survivability equip rabid (toughness) or carrion (vitality) and a shield? Is that reasonable?

What si the bursty portion that can be applied in 2 globals?

Ahh ok, I was looking at (and messing with against target dummy) the newER build in the recent post wihch doesn’t have the might duration runes – I was only able to get up to 14 stacks using elixirs on cooldown (obviously no access to automatic B on 75% health) – I guess that woudl account for the difference?

Sorry another noob post but with these HGH/battle builds I’m not sure I understand how you can reach 25 stacks of might reliably? Is this using elixirs on cooldown even if you don’t need their actual effect?

Bump – seems like a pretty major issue to me!!

Ostricheggs.3742:

Edit: NewER condi build

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQJAqalspSXHxSfF17ICoC5loHPGlNZfewWPIEC;ToAAzCpo+y8l4L7XuvkfNWYKC

Best one I’ve found so far. This crosses into the realm of ridiculous. I’ve seen 155 bleed ticks with this build. Absolutely OP. Seriously, this is dumb. Good enough survivability, INSANE damage, ridiculous cleaves and general condi-output

“NewER” ? Is this build supposed to have Elixir R? Do you like this new one better than “your favorite” in taht same post? Noob engineer looking to try something other than 100nades :P

OH I get it New errr as in more new?

My two cents as someone who just really has scraped the surface with engineer (have mostly played thief, necro, warrior so far) – they are pretty cool and interesting in general – the kit mechanic is very unique and can make for a lot of dynamic gameplay – a lot of options. If you played ranger in gw1 and are looking to try something new I think engineer is worth taking a look at.

Really, to decide on what class you want to play long-term, the only way to figure that out is to play them all, get a feel for their playstyles, and only you can decide because everyone likes different things – I don’t think there is a right or wrong answer. Of course, a different question to ask is what is viable in high-end pvp or wvw or fractal dungeons or something like that- which is a different story – obviously all professions/build have their strengths and weaknesses depending on what you are looking to do with them.

Also, I would honestly ignore SilverWFs comments because they just sound like a lot of kitten to me without a lot of objective comments on the matter. No offense dude but you come across as straight up whiny and it’s not helpful to anyone.

DDog and Kardiamonds posts seem a lot more objective and based on experience instead of feelings – better.

Vuh.1328:

Kardiamond.6952:

I didn’t try my 100nade build since patch.

Is this confirmed?

100nade still works perfectly fine.. now with slightly better prybar :p

Why is this true? Do you just have to micromanage better to make sure the KR is off cooldown before popping the burst? Seems like magnet pull → kr barrage is going to be difficult because it means you’ll have to be sitting in the tool kit for 10s which doesn’t have any ranged abilities – I’m new to engineer so I’m probably missing something.

Do you guys think axe is going to be viable now with the extra #2 damage? You can stack vuln easier with the #1 buff but I am worried that #2 is too easily evaded especially considering only the last two ticks really do significant damage. Thoughts? I really like the kiting ability of axe (especially coupled with #5 focus) and love to couple it with a heavy DS build.

EDIT: I should mention that the focus of my question is pvp/wvw.