Guild Wars 2

Brutal Augus.5917:

Chainspell.5697:

Haha even with old spotter and spirit I still get kicked when a guard puts up his lfg in wvw. So when are the Guardian nerfs going to happen?

Why would they nerf the guardian? Its actually very balanced. As someone who plays all classes (Yes, even ranger), I have no problems killing them 1v1 as long as I make sure of a few things:

1. I watch their skill animations so that I know when to dodge and avoid the handful of bursts they have(really aren’t that many).

2. I watch their boons so that I do not begin my burst while retaliation is up.

The guardian doesn’t need nerfing. Most guardians are forced to primarily focus on toughness/armor because of how slow they are, but at the end of the day, Its slow, easy to avoid and kite, and NOT op.

game isn’t balanced around 1v1s. guardian is “op” (using that term loosely) because of everything it brings to a team/group. there’s a reason guardians are present in any successful group in this game.

EvilSardine.9635:

Aberrant.6749:

But again… wvw, so who cares.

Many people do. In fact, many more people play WvW than PvP since PvP is pretty stale. There’s around 500 people who are playing PvP at the moment compared to many thousands in WvW.

since when are balthazar runes engies a problem in wvw? or 800-900 dmg per second from a burn “massive” damage. if you really play an sd engie you get more than that from autoattacking alone.

I still don’t think PU condi mesmer is any good. There’s just too many people caring too much about 1v1s and forget 1v1s are filled with hard counters. PU condi mesmer gets hardcountered itself.

In small groups they are mostly useless and can be safely ignored the majority of the time. Thankfully, most players in wvw haven’t yet found how strong other kinds of mesmers can be.

Hvaran.6327:

from what i c, that red damage got increased significtly.

Before even if u had 3k power the ret would be not more then 280-290, right now i’m rarely getting those numbers but all retaliations hits 300+. They really ninja increased the scale to almost back what it was long time ago.

what he said. retaliation is hitting harder than before this latest patch, but still not quite as hard as pve/pre-wvw nerf.

stomping works but you need to let go of the camera button (mouse2). it’s been a weird morning: “I got the stomp! nop, sorry, was still right clicking!” .
think the look bhind button also messes it up.

(really needs a hotfix)

I’d trade my engies mortar for any of the necro elites.

the game isn’t balanced for 1v1s.
if you are fighting anything in this game and do not use all tools available to you because of some misguided sense of honor or fairplay, thats when you’re a noob :p

ukuni said what I was thinking when reading the thread. what matters most is how easy, how often and how many conditions you apply.

dire is a fairly useless set for wvw engies in my opinion. sure, you’ll have that extra passive tankiness but your damage output will be very low. also, any decent group you find will just completely negate your condition damage.

rabid is viable and so is carrion, celestial or any mix of the above.
you can always try dire with a sigil of inteligence but I’m not really a fan of giving up a sigil when engie is already limited to two.

Grenix.1576:

Elixers are weak imo. Too slow casting/animation time. 1 sec for throwing a potion on the ground? rlly? Guardians can spam 6 skills in 1 sec why do we need to be nerfed with slow animations and cating times.. Really if you like elixer engineer, try playing shout guardian. You wont roll back to engie.

I play them both. you can’t really compare them, their roles are vey different.

regarding wvw, engie is the least played class according to the poll at gw2wvw.net

personally, I like playing my engie solo or in groups up to 3 guys especially because it hardcounters the most popular roaming class/builds like thieves, warriors or pu mesms.

in groups of 3-5 I rarely play my engie anymore since I’m usually needed in something else. puting it in another way, you don’t really need an engie for a 5 man group while being successfull without guardian, warrior, ele or necro is near impossible. I do have an engie build for a 5 man group that works well but I can only play it if everything else is in place within the group.

this is even truer for larger scales, you’ll rarely see a guild group running any engies at all.

I don’t think this is an issue with how the engie plays or is balanced, it’s more of a problem with how some classes work when acess to 25 might, protection, stability and fury becomes nearly trivial.

Grok.6714:

Maskaganda.2043:

Deli.1302:

Znark.3984:

Hello,

first of all, i have to say that i only played on Kodash so i cant really tell about other servers.

Kodash is overpopulated roamingwise. VERY overpopulated. My guild (running 1-5 players) has trouble to find any roaming fights these days. And if so, there is a big chance of other Kodashies attacking the enemies, which makes an outnumbered fight (in the beginning) very boring, as it just turns to a steamroll.
No offense, many players just get bored and want to fight something i guess.
All in all i wouldn´t recommend going on Kodash anymore, it should be much more entertaining to play against them.

My guild is now thinking of leaving Kodash to play against Kodash more often, so we would have more fights.

So please tell us about the situation on your new EU-Server

Greets
Znark

PS: Sorry for kitten the English language once again

Why would you leave when Kodash is rank 3 and will fight Gandara and Desolation very often. Gandara and Desolation have huge roaming population. Even SFR has a lot of roamers.

deso and sfr have no small scale roaming guilds that I can think of. I seriously can’t remember a single one in either of those servers. maybe they do exist but I’ve never seen them.

Owwww, AR, Five … there’s more but pointing out your ignorance is more entertaining than educating you.

I’ve never seen them. or any others really. point stands that if you want to fight sfr and deso to face some small scale roaming guilds you are in for a disappointment, servers like kodash, ar and rs have alot more of those.

and you can’t "point out ignorance " when I claim it on the very post you quote. I admit it, I’m very ignorant about deso and sfrs small scale guilds. we only faced sfr for the first time this week tho, so may be we just had bad luck.

Deli.1302:

Znark.3984:

Hello,

first of all, i have to say that i only played on Kodash so i cant really tell about other servers.

Kodash is overpopulated roamingwise. VERY overpopulated. My guild (running 1-5 players) has trouble to find any roaming fights these days. And if so, there is a big chance of other Kodashies attacking the enemies, which makes an outnumbered fight (in the beginning) very boring, as it just turns to a steamroll.
No offense, many players just get bored and want to fight something i guess.
All in all i wouldn´t recommend going on Kodash anymore, it should be much more entertaining to play against them.

My guild is now thinking of leaving Kodash to play against Kodash more often, so we would have more fights.

So please tell us about the situation on your new EU-Server

Greets
Znark

PS: Sorry for kitten the English language once again

Why would you leave when Kodash is rank 3 and will fight Gandara and Desolation very often. Gandara and Desolation have huge roaming population. Even SFR has a lot of roamers.

deso and sfr have no small scale roaming guilds that I can think of. I seriously can’t remember a single one in either of those servers. maybe they do exist but I’ve never seen them.

Yamsandjams.3267:

I’m hoping they’ll remove the damage off acidic elixirs so you ckittene it in conjunction with elixir S. It’s a nerf that would actually be a buff. I don’t see that happening though.

that thing is so broken I almost forgot it existed!

I just expect a couple of turret nerfs, it’s hard to justify changing anything else.

Xillllix.3485:

Hi,

The meta has shifted completely toward condition damage, entire guilds are running cnd dmg only builds.

is this about gw2?

Blood injection isnt bad by itself, it’s a reasonable trait. But since you are going with elixirs and 6 points in alchemy (therefore getting +30% boon duration) you’ll get a significant higher boost from HGH than b.i.. and to maximize HGH (and 409) you’ll need fast acting elixirs so you ckittene elixirs more often which is a better choice than having them last longer.

now, Im not sure you are aware that elixir gun skills don’t count as elixirs and you won’t get HGH might or 409 cleanses out of them.

also, most elixir builds use 3 elixirs and a kit rather than 2, elixir S being the usual 3rd choice for an elixir. For pve you might be ok dropping 409 for potent elixirs or blood injection if you prefer and using elixir C instead of S for a full cleanse every 30 seconds. double elixir should still work tho.

as for gear, celestial works pretty great with hgh and most engie builds in general.

edit : took me a while to figure out why I couldnt use “can” + “use” together in a sentence without getting censored with a random “kitten”. forum censorbot is more imaginative than I am.

is this for pvp/wvw/pve?
if for wvw/spvp you can follow link in my sig for some ideas.

you should ditch blood injection and potent elixirs for hgh and 409. you don’t have any cleanses with the build you linked and 409 would help you greatly while hgh would allow you to generate alot of might stacks while still having the defensive setup you like.

water, strength or aristocracy runes are also better choices than krait. an engineer without shrapnel can’t really stack that many bleeds. there’s also travelers, nightmare, scavenger, all of which should be ok.

can’t really help you more without knowing what you want to do with your engie tho :p

I’m just about to get my 1000th tower defense achievement now after almost 2 years, for 5 ap. To complete the achievement I only need 499010 more tower defenses. planning on being world first ultimate defender by mid 3012.

increases direct damage only. percentage damage modifiers don’t affect conditions.

Cant really comment about gvg guilds, I don’t really enjoy playing in such large groups and most of them are unimpressive when fighting in smaller groups.

as for good small scale guilds:
rookie crew from kodash
virtual masters from riverside
inglorious pasta and crow from gandara
evo and escg from augury

I might be forgetting some, but it’s not like there’s alot of them around. crow is the only english speaking one out of those I think.

there’s nothing stopping you from going hybrid!

Jaytee.9513:

Remember what people were saying about Class balance? Gw2 is not meant to be played 1v1……….

Its why people tend to group up because certain classes are OP in 1v1 and ANET refuses to address these imbalances.

People who cry against zerging probably play cheese builds, without counter play in 1v1 battles……..

roaming is not 1v1, roaming is not dueling.

Aza.2105:

8k dodge roll? What?

water attunement + dodge roll. 2x 3900~, once for attuning to water, once for dodging. considering about 1k healing power, benevolence stacks, monk runes and aquatic benevolence as I have on my ele.

maybe I expressed myself wrong, I dont think ele can outperform a guardian in support. guardian is a much better choice for support overall. my 5 man group almost always runs 2 support guards and very rarely a support ele because of it.

but when it comes down to pure outgoing healing, the new trait just puts eles in another league from my experience. it’s not about the number of skills it has available to heal, just how they work: going into water and then doging will give allies some 8k hp +525~ hps without wasting a single skill. and if someone is in need of a burst heal? drop one of two water fields and blast away.

Aza.2105:

Maskaganda.2043:

Aza.2105:

Maskaganda.2043:

Im pretty sure you can’t outheal a staff ele with the new water gm trait. add in some benevolence sigil and monk runes and you’re looking at 40%+ outgoing heals.

between soothing mist and regen alone my ele does over 500hps to others. attuning to water and dodging does some 8k heal and its doable every 10 seconds. geyser does about 1900 per tick, 3 ticks. and then there’s both water fields, blastable by both you and your allies.

However, healing by itself is pretty meaningless, at least in wvw. You need to bring something else to the group besides healing alone. A guardian will be capable of having great healing while providing everything you need in a group with the exception of fury; no other support class/build gets close to that, especially in regards to stability.

Guardian’s healing breeze out does every ally heal elementalist has in its entire skill set. I’ll say this again, ele is not even close to the amount of healing guardian can do. The only time they have a advantage is at range since guardian isn’t a ranged class.

I’m unconviced by that. Geyser alone has half the cooldown and is a water field. In a group situation that water field will heal for a whole lot more than the slight difference in the ammount directly healed between geyser and healing breeze. Besides, shelter is pretty much mandatory for a guardian.

Shelter is not mandatory, its a option.

When you factor in water fields then that is not elementalist healing, who ever does the blast is considered the healer not the elementalist.

I think its a bit far fetched to believe that elementalist is even close to guardian’s healing ability. Elementalist heals are pretty much limited to their weapon sets and a few limited trait options. While guardian has healing on weapon sets, traits and utilities.

You can view a comprehensive list of guardian healing here:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0As5Q5haUqZ8edHJPaGhRNk9BN2VWaWw4QzByamtXNXc&usp=sharing#gid=0

You can also view the ally healing.

the elementalist can blast the water field too but you can’t consider things in a vacuum. just because the green numbers don’t come from the ele when others blast, the ele is still the source of the water field. stuff gets healed because the ele did something.

You don’t need to tell me about guardian traits and skills. I play both my guardian and ele as support with very similar gear setups, the ele massively outheals the guardian, trust me, it really isn’t a competition; I could just autoattack with staff water 1 for 900+ aoe hp every 3/4 sec; not that I do it often, but its a possibility when needed.

BUT I rarely get to play the ele as guardian is a superior choice most of the times (in a 5 man wvw group) ; as I said before, by itself healing doesn’t mean much, you need to bring some more stuff to the group. And while the ele brings some nice fields, aoe, cleanses, cc and some boons… stab and protection from a guard plus the innate tankiness of heavy armor makes it a way better choice generally.

Aza.2105:

Maskaganda.2043:

Im pretty sure you can’t outheal a staff ele with the new water gm trait. add in some benevolence sigil and monk runes and you’re looking at 40%+ outgoing heals.

between soothing mist and regen alone my ele does over 500hps to others. attuning to water and dodging does some 8k heal and its doable every 10 seconds. geyser does about 1900 per tick, 3 ticks. and then there’s both water fields, blastable by both you and your allies.

However, healing by itself is pretty meaningless, at least in wvw. You need to bring something else to the group besides healing alone. A guardian will be capable of having great healing while providing everything you need in a group with the exception of fury; no other support class/build gets close to that, especially in regards to stability.

Guardian’s healing breeze out does every ally heal elementalist has in its entire skill set. I’ll say this again, ele is not even close to the amount of healing guardian can do. The only time they have a advantage is at range since guardian isn’t a ranged class.

I’m unconviced by that. Geyser alone has half the cooldown and is a water field. In a group situation that water field will heal for a whole lot more than the slight difference in the ammount directly healed between an aquatic benevolence geyser and healing breeze. Besides, shelter is pretty much mandatory for a (wvw) guardian.

warriorjrd.8695:

Maskaganda.2043:

Im pretty sure you can’t outheal a staff ele with the new water gm trait. add in some benevolence sigil and monk runes and you’re looking at 40%+ outgoing heals.

between soothing mist and regen alone my ele does over 500hps to others. attuning to water and dodging does some 8k heal and its doable every 10 seconds. geyser does about 1900 per tick, 3 ticks. and then there’s both water fields, blastable by both you and your allies.

However, healing by itself is pretty meaningless, at least in wvw. You need to bring something else to the group besides healing alone. A guardian will be capable of having great healing while providing everything you need in a group with the exception of fury; no other support class/build gets close to that, especially in regards to stability.

Eles bring much more than just healing, they bring AOE damage and CC, arguably more CC than a guardian depending on what weapon the guard takes.

I know they do, didn’t mean to imply otherwise :p but the high uptimes on stability and protection from a guardian are just invaluable and unmatched making them a better choice overall. not to mention the heavy armor makes them much tankier too.

in theory you could go 4 in earth but then you’d have to give up 2 in arcane :\

Im pretty sure you can’t outheal a staff ele with the new water gm trait. add in some benevolence sigil and monk runes and you’re looking at 40%+ outgoing heals.

between soothing mist and regen alone my ele does over 500hps to others. attuning to water and dodging does some 8k heal and its doable every 10 seconds. geyser does about 1900 per tick, 3 ticks. and then there’s both water fields, blastable by both you and your allies.

However, healing by itself is pretty meaningless, at least in wvw. You need to bring something else to the group besides healing alone. A guardian will be capable of having great healing while providing everything you need in a group with the exception of fury; no other support class/build gets close to that, especially in regards to stability.

Trajan.4953:

I love how every one of your “answers” is designed to have negative repercussions.

The problem with people who think like you is that they don’t see WvW in a big picture, “Zergs” represent armies, that is how war works, armies fight armies, calling them “zergs” and trying to denigrate people for partaking is both selfish and ridiculous based on the way the game is set up.

this is a game tho, not war. games are meant to be fun. wars? not that much.

as for myself, I’d rather lose fights a thousand times while heavily outmanned but having fun and getting a challenge than going around breaking down undefended keep doors in groups of 30+ with no opposition in sight.

Far from me to tell others how to play the game tho, killing zergers is 90% of my wvw fun afterall. up to the point where they group up to such massive numbers nothing can be done about it, cap everything in sight and port away to repeat somewhere else.

battle is better than strength overall, I think the main difference is that it is more reliable (you dont need to crit) and you don’t even need to hit, you can get those might stacks even when just kiting around, as long as you’re in combat.

Geomancy is also a better choice than earth. more reliable, more bursty, more controlable. and yes earth does work with sharpshooter, you get two different chances to bleed wich may or may not happen at the same time.

Personally I use battle and corruption or battle and tormenting. tormenting is a great choice because it adds a nearly permanent condition which makes cleansing harder, even if the damage is neglegible.

energy is also a good choice, tho defensive.

(I assumed you were talking about wvw/spvp, honestly I have no idea for pve)

Dredd Spirit Caller.4082:

pwoer + cond duration????
if i run conditions i run cond dmg + cond duration and not power

theres such a thing as hybrid builds. there’s also power builds that get alot of use out of 40% duration food.

isnt there one with 40% condi duration and lifesteal on crit?
also one with boon duration and toughness which should be good for some builds.

kRAVen.4195:

Toughest 5 man fights imo are 2 guardian and an ele (important that they stay within 300 rangeof each other at all times), cheese condi thief for cheese and refuge, and either pu mesmer for cheese and mass invis or warrior for annoyance and cc.

a pu mesmer and a condi thief in a 5 man group? why would anyone want that? a condi thief with venom share can be interesting but other than that those are both utterly useless builds to have in a group.

Straegen.2938:

Lert.6287:

I’d agree with Maskaganda about 2 guardians and one warrior, but disagree that engi doesn’t have place in such setup. Cleric ele fits, mesmer as well, another warrior or engi – all of them fit to fill 2 places left.

This setup was extremely powerful prior to the explosion of condi bunkers in skirmish fighting. Now heavies in skirmish are still hard to kill but either lack the alpha strike condis bring or are brittle by comparison.

We used to run a similar setup but have switched almost entirely to conditioning with the exception of a hammer warrior. Load up condis and watch it all melt. If they do manage to clear it, repeat the process. Epidemic being up every 15s with call targeting is so good it feels like cheating. Everyone on the team is heavy bunker AND outputs great damage. Getting near our anchor applies enough passive conditions from the group to drop most players. We pull back when we are on cool down to reset fights when necessary. Only the necro needs cover fire for the reset.

Try it and tell me I am wrong.

tried it and moved on from it almost a year ago. actually, my group was goofing around yesterday and we went with a condi heavy/epidemic setup like the one you described and had to change back to power after a couple of fights since it was just too bad compared to what we run nowadays.

it’s nowhere near as effective as a power setup, times to kill are too high, any groups with capable support will shrug off your conditions like they don’t even exist and if you bring no “heavies” you have no reliable stability. you’ll either get swallowed up by a bigger group and cc’d to death or kite away doing some damage but not really killing any faster than they ress. you’ll also be very dependant on one skill, epidemic.
don’t get me wrong, it can work somewhat, it’s just not as effective in most situations, epecially if you’re facing more organized players.

@ op: a few typical party setups for us
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUumySSbag8

in my experience any decent 5 man team must have 2 guardians, without those the lack of stability and sustain will generally kill you, especially when facing much bigger numbers. guardians also bring the aoe pulls which, when well coordinated, can wipe other groups really fast.

you’ll generally need a warrior too, for the aoe stuns, cleave damage and the all important banner ress and fury.

that leaves 2 slots open, at least one of them (and ideally two) for aoe damage like a well necro, shatter mesmer or d/d (or s/d) ele.

sadly I dont think engies have any room in a good 5 man team. neither do rangers. thieves might be a good option at times but single target burst is second to coordinated aoe spikes.

a corruption necro or venom share thief as the 5th can also work, but that doesn’t mean you should build your team around conditions. that doesnt work anymore.

as a small goup roamer who sometimes drops supply traps to try and make zergs less likely to follow me/us with 30+ guys:

-mobility trap/barbed wire: after a player steps on it, a barbed wire fence pops from the ground giving him a 3% movement speed debuff. every next players adds 3% to the debuff. so the 5th player would have 15% movement speed penalty, the 10th would have 30% and the 20th would have 60%. capped at 66% penalty, debuff lasts 10 seconds and is unaffected by condition removal or condition duration. trap persists for 10 seconds after acivation, this timer is reset whenever someone new steps on it

-anti ress trap. casts a debuff that causes downed players to take 50% longer to revive and stomped players get sent back to the nearest uncontested waypoint. can only be triggered if more than 5 players pass through it in a short (5 seconds?) time. instant ress skills like warbanner only refill some of the downed players health instead of full ress.

-reverse portal trap. works like an unavoidable spectral recall/mandatory portal. after being triggered a debuff shows up on the players. 10 seconds later players get sent to the original trap location.

Jackums.3496:

Maskaganda.2043:

you seem to be stuck in a 1v1 mentality in a team game.

that being said, pu mesms and condi thieves are very easily countered in 1v1s as well -depending on class, build and skill level- and in a group both are utterly useless.

Did you read the title of the thread you’re replying to? Take note of the word; roaming. Ie. The thing that typically involves solo or small group play.

That being said, no. In 1v1s and small skirmishes, those specs are king, putting into consideration everything that makes an effective roaming build, including mobility and ability to disengage, and damage output and sustainability.

This topic isn’t about zerging.

did I say anything at all about zerging? I don’t zerg and never did, very rarely do I run with more than 5 guys and never ran with more than 10. roaming is all I do, with 8 different classes. roaming isn’t about 1v1. thats unchallenging.

lately I play less solo and more in small groups (5 or less) because you know, I have friends. Conditions are rarely an issue. chain ccs worry me alot more than conditions. biggest reason why any successful 5 man group is pretty much forced to run with 2 guards. almost anyone can cleanse in aoe, but aoe stability and protection is a whole other thing.

the game isn’t balanced around 1v1s. it shouldn’t be. it won’t be. and I’m telling you this while winning the vast majority of 1v1s with a build that barely anyone plays. a p/d dire thief is a free kill for my (hybrid) engie and so are pu mesmers. and I’m pretty screwed when I find a competent necro, be it power, hybrid or cd. it’s just the way it goes.

but add a couple of players on each side who can cover your weaknesses while you cover theirs and you’ll laugh at those mostly useless builds. Hell, I run my zerker shatter mesmer with 0 active condition removal when in a group and that’s never what kills me.

and yes, any small roaming group (3-5 guys) which takes a condie pu mesmer or a non-venom share p/d thief is just gimping itself in most situations. for situations other than those (1v1, 2v2) there’s still plenty of easy counters to those 2 builds you seem to have so much trouble with.

Jackums.3496:

Radakill.3469:

Your right, rank 383 but Ive never roamed, I just hang around the WP’s and listen to chat, its a great way to level up.

With that said, I admit I did not specify the types of condition builds I was referring too, I thought I had clarified that with the follow up post. Guess you missed it.

I agree with you when it comes to DD condition inhibitor builds. DOT builds have a more limited use, especially in roaming and open area situations. They are somewhat effective in siege offense or defense, but in a good ol fashioned brawl, give me DD any day. Burst will almost always prevail there due to much better overall DPS with inhibitors.

As to the thief builds your talking in absolutes here and most of this is rhetorical. ANY thief build with the right traits can drop into stealth and cleanse or heal. I do it all the time with my d/d build, without having to WS to s/p. About the only thing I need s/p for is the SS, otherwise in most situations its a waste of init. The thief inhibitors are not of much use as their base time is so low, any extended time percent wont make much of a difference.

This post did nothing to refute my point. You said you were unclear in your initial statement, then you went on to pick at my wording of Thief specs when you know the general builds I was referring to. Where exactly is the counter-argument to the fact that 80% of the most effective roaming builds right now are condition-based?

P/D Perplex Thief, PU Condi Mesmer, S/S Condi Warrior, Perplex Condi Engineer.

What power specs can compete? SA Thief, and… PU Power Mesmer. And PU Power Mesmers still have weak condition cleanse and inferior survivability. Meaning you’re essentially left with a single power build in the top five roaming specs, and it will still generally end in a stalemate if it doesn’t outright lose, because the condition specs listed all have great disengage ability and bunker-like stats to mitigate burst.

you seem to be stuck in a 1v1 mentality in a team game.

that being said, pu mesms and condi thieves are very easily countered in 1v1s as well -depending on class, build and skill level- and in a group both are utterly useless.

I rarely use it since I normally don’t need to but elixir C isnt that bad, especially for a duel. its a one click full cleanse, if you are fighting a p/d thief chances are you are going to get confusion stacks on you, either from the steal trait or from projectile finishers through throw gunk.
having a one click full cleanse is a pretty big deal. other cleanses I’m aware of on engineer will always require more than one move and proc confusion more than once, exception being 409 elixirs and elixir C. thieves are not terrormancers, they won’t fear you while you have 8 condies on you, a stunbreak is -generally- irrelevant while fighting p/d thieves.
also, converting confusion into retal (or just having it from other sources) makes sneak attack very punishing on the thief.

ah the joys of having fights that don’t need to happen on a small cap point!

Ritt.3069:

In s/tPvP, having more than 1-2 condi bunkers is disastrous for your team. Yet, in WvW roaming they destroy pretty much any spec out there. How come?

having ANY “condition bunker” is very bad for your team in wvw as well. in a 3-5 man team if you have someone playing a tanky spec that only deals condition damage, he is utterly useless for the group, unless it’s a corrupt+epi necro or a venom share thief. if you go tanky you need to have a reason for it, like group healing/boons/cc/cleanses/converts.
the only reason you can have a couple of them in spvp its because they just need to stand on a point and do kitten all but stand on it spaming, a useless thing to do in wvw.

the best part about threads like this is that there’s this idea that dire+conditions is the ultimate thing for roamers, which makes more players go for it and be absolute free kills in wvw. but it doesnt even matter, because in a 1v1 they’ll last for slightly longer giving them the ilusion of being better than before.

also, as someone who plays an elementalist now and then, drop the signet, use ether renewal?

To me, the greatest imbalance in this game is access to stability and stability granting stunbreaks, more so in wvw.
The fact that GWEN is still the way to go for any group over 5 players and that guardians are so necessary everywhere is, imo, largely due to that.

Now the thing is we already have 2 stunbreaks on elixirs (nothing cantrips, shouts or survival skills don’t have) and to remake toss b into a stunbreak it would have to be an instant cast with 0 travel time (maybe something like elixir gun toolbelt). Also, Elixir B, the utility skill, is already pretty good.
Elixir R had it’s stunbreak removed which was a shame since, even tho it didnt give stability, fit that role of denying further cc after a stun with the extra 2 dodges.

A good candidate would be elixir C since the toss is almost useless. turning it into something like:
toss elixir C. converts one random condition into 3 seconds of stability, stunbreak. increased cooldown to something like 60 seconds.

would likely not be op, give elixir C some viability (current its close to none) and maybe not break spvp too much. last thing we need is to give some bunkerish engie builds stability and a full cleanse :p

either way, I wish all classes had some stability stunbreaks available since this game lacks any sort of diminishing returns on cc.

If you are solo roaming and all you meet are groups of 2-3-4-5 I don’t see whats the big deal. its way better than finding 25+guild groups everywhere. Solo roaming was never about 1v1s, not only isn’t the game balanced for those, most of the players you’ll find alone are easy, unchallenging kills.
You might be confusing solo roaming with dueling.

roaming in a small group is just as rewarding and just as fun as roaming solo for me, with the added benefit of being able to play classes and specs that do not work solo and being able to take down otherwise impossible odds.

it works as it says.
what might get you confused is that it only converts one condition, not the full stack.

So let’s say you get a prybar to the face, instead of 5 stacks of confusion you get 4 stacks of confusion and a short duration retaliation boon. instead of 2 bleeds you get 1 bleed and regen.

in wvw I haven’t really seen any more engies than usual. way more mesmers than before tho.

I find them to be just about the easiest kills in wvw. especially the ones using dire. I do however use elixirs, something the op doesnt seem to like.

one of this days I dueled Laela Blackbird, a great thief and all around cool guy (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdml5a8i5Fc). he was saying how unbeatable he was in 1v1 with his p/d dire build. he changed his mind after seeing how hopeless it was vs my build :p he even stopped using p/d + dire completely for a while after that.

I have a few clips recorded of me fighting p/d condi thieves , they usually last longer than normal, dunno if anyone is interested in seeing those fights.

edit: Im not trying to brag or anything, 1v1s in most cases are just down to what builds are being used.

something like warhammer online’s praag or age of conan’s old tarantia would be pretty cool.

Straegen.2938:

Condi removal in small scale fights is quickly saturated by the ability of many builds to apply conditions. The “just use cleanses” argument simply doesn’t work in small scale fights. I run a strong condi removal/reduction warrior and some condi bunker builds light me up with no chance of keeping them clear. Two decently played condi-bunkers are virtually impossible to tank.

how is that different from cc? if I’m fighting two decently played heavy cc classes I’ll quickly get chain stunned. my stunbreaks won’t save me forever. only 3 of my 8 classes/builds have decent stability on stunbreaks, I can’t ask anyone else to cast a stunbreak for me (afaik only guardian has a trait like that) like I would if I had conditions and needed a cleanse.
I can say the exact same thing about 2 decently played bursty classes.

this is a group game, it’s not balanced around 1v1s or 1vX. if you’re running any group bigger than 2 guys and you are being overwhelmed by conditions and no one in your group helps you cleanse or remove the condition spamers of your back, your group is badly balanced, not really that good and probably deserves to lose, especially if you are, as you say, playing a warrior with strong condi removal/reduction.

bob.8632:

He was probably only mistaken about the “auto attack” comment (also possible the burn was stacked/stacking), the duration’s are easily achieved.

probably only mistaken about the most important part of his statement then :p