Guild Wars 2

To be fair, gw1 had a stricted meta as well. It offered thousands of skills to choose from, but to be honest everyone played the same. Each monk ran exactly the same build, any axe war was frenzy eviscerate, mesmer pblock and so on. Anyway, i agree gw1 diversity felt much better and its truly getting more and more boring since hot release.
But gw1 build diversity came by teamcomps(balanced, split, spike etc.), something gw2 completly lacks in because of random teams. Premades have to fight randoms, for me easily the worst discission anet ever made and the main reason for the non existing competetive scene.

Sure we got pro league teams who fight competetive and i enjoy to follow their tourneys(good esport!), but gw2 completly lacks in low and medium skilled teams. It feels like 80% of the low/medium skilled players do solo or 2/3 queue.

We finally need a premade only ladder plus monthly tourneys like in gw1, otherwise gw2 will never be competetive for the non-pro teams. Release guild ladders to earn qualification points, best 32-64 teams qualify for the monthly championship. Then people will start creating teams/esport and lots of pvps problems will solve by itself. And of course keep a solo ladder for casuals, we need those 2 in coexistence!

PierPiero.9142:

Mister Fluffkin.7358:

I agree with OP, the hammer kind of destroyed engis identity. I play engi since day 1 and always loved the play style with kit swapping, rifle CC´s to set up bursts, nades and big explosions.

And while hammer is fun as well, it feels like were forced into running hammer. Hammer adds so much that it became mandatory. Theres simply no need for offensive kits anymore, just pick the best tools(CC, boons) to improve your “hammerisation” plus elixiers for condi remove and youre fine.

Before HoT, we built around offensive kits, now we build around hammer.

I don’t agree with u. Hammer is strong , ok , but now, with power wrench , it is quite easy to create good builds without scrapper/hammer, using power rifle or condi pistol pistol. Obviuosly hammer is easier to play. But rifle build or condi build now can be really strong ( a great part for condi build is new mercenary amulet )

Well, toolkit is fine and always has been fine, but power wrench really isnt that kind of a big improvement. Most times it decreases your survivability by taking tools instead of inventions/alchemy so its usually preferable to run toolkit without powerwrench. Sadly…

And mercenary amulet is basically a carrion amulet, how does this improve our p/p builds that much?

I agree with OP, the hammer kind of destroyed engis identity. I play engi since day 1 and always loved the play style with kit swapping, rifle CC´s to set up bursts, nades and big explosions.

And while hammer is fun as well, it feels like were forced into running hammer. Hammer adds so much that it became mandatory. Theres simply no need for offensive kits anymore, just pick the best tools(CC, boons) to improve your “hammerisation” plus elixiers for condi remove and youre fine.

Before HoT, we built around offensive kits, now we build around hammer.

Its a superbad idea to trigger on activation. The update focused on removing extreme bunkers, this would result in bunkers tougher than ever before, while running berserkers amulet, lol.

Yesterday i played like 10 matches(90% legendaries on both sides) and it truely felt like hotjoin. Maybe because all the pve archievement hunters already smurfed into legendary and now just try to complete their left archievements and play classes they arent familar with? I dont now, but this was the worst play experience in a long time. Bunkers got 1on1´ed in seconds, triple deaths while rezzing in full aoe fire, multiple(!) people stomping instead of cleaving, people zerging enemy nodes like lemmings while the other 2 nodes get constantly decapped undefended/outnumbered. It looked like these guys barely played more than 100 matches.

So i thought about this:
Wouldnt it improve the matchmaking/quality of matches a lot if you could drop pips, tiers AND divisions(maybe with a tougher requirement like loosing 5 matches in a row @ 0 pips or smth like this) straight from division 1?
Whats the use of division 1-3 if it only goes forward? It feels like the 3 divisions left simply arent enough to seperate the players skillwise. I know anet wants to attract as many players as possible, but this seems to be the wrong way. Actually you could completly get rid of the division system and unlock the wings with a reward path and the quality of matches would be the same.

Rickster.8752:

Your point? You want to sit in a queue for 7 years waiting for a meta vs meta set up?

BTW you know you can reroll right?

Haha, a great matchup indeed. :P Im the necro on that screen and our matchup(duo queue with ranger) took exactly 15 seconds. 0o
Dont know why, we asked us as well why the queue was that short.

Serophous.9085:

Terrorsquad.4802:

WuGzaGenius.5684:

Its a mmorporno. Its not even on scale with runescape! How can something like that compare to Gw2?

Because it atleast has an esport scene in Korea, Japan and China.
Not just 300 viewers on twitch falling asleep, but over tens of thousands live supporters in e-sports arenas in Korea watching top players battling it out in live tournaments for much higher prize-pool than this game will ever give in the total life-span of its scene.

https://youtu.be/byMfnUqlZ2E?t=619

You do know that in Korea, Video game playing is pretty much on par as a national sport for them. So…duh their gonna have a massive amount of viewers for any of their esports? I mean, the best Starcraft players come from there…

The animations look like they´re missing 3/4 frames, is this some pre-alpha version? I remember streetfighter on my Super NES had a better look… 0o

Looks solid to begin with. Nothing near to max efficience but i would recommend to try things on your own if you wanna go more deeply into engineer. Try nades is my recommendation, they´re superstrong for both condi and powerbuilds.

Anyway its obvious you made thoughts about your build, so keep it that way. Otherwise check metabattle.com for the most efficient builds.

Long time ago Anet put obstacles at the outer nodes to prevent decap builds. Any descent player will use them against you.

This forum is a joke. “Anet, i have lost a match and lost a pip, your matchmaking is broken!” What do you guys expect? Gaining pips for loosing matches so every pve monkey is legendary soon? Sure the matchmaking isnt perfect, but this one is completly legit. Of course you will progress very slowly, youre rank 35 and propably dont even know how this game mode works. Simply get better and stop whining…

Getting into ruby is just a matter of time, of course the noobs will reach ruby as well and most already did.
A change for loosing ranks in all divisions would be a good step into a skillbased ladder system.

Those are propably some of the strongest utilities in gw2, why buff them? I say they´re fine as they are.

I would welcome a seperate soloQ too, but people on the forums act like theres no chance against a premade. I dont think ive lost more matches against premades as against random teams while playing solo/duo. Surely the advantages of a premade will grow in division 4+, but its really not that noticeable in the lower divisions. Everything above is obviously made for teams, but what do you expect? Random teams in proleague??? Whoever takes pvp serious will join a team anyway…

Another good ressource: http://qqmore.net/

Dont focus too much on builds and stuff, the most important part about beeing a benefit for your team is rotations, positioning, kiting and stuff like that. Get a build on metabattle, practice the use of it but focus on learning rotations/the game mode. Watch the minimap, dont run into fights you cant win(i.e. you vs. 2 on a node that is theirs), learn when to disengage, fight for your life! A dead player usually puts your team into a bad position, so try everything to avoid it. Lots of new players fight till they either drop or kill, dont do this!

Works exactly like described: Only with blast finishers. For testing just watch the combat log, it shows your healing as well.

Anyone ever tried if the function gyro triggers the rune? And if so, who gets the bonuses? My char, the gyro, both or each of both that rezzes?

Did you tried it before crying at the forums? Its completly useless because any moving target outside melee range will be missed with this option enabled. Its obviously made for pve.

The autoattack isnt really worth the casttime and its usually picked for the other 4 skills, plus the toolbelt skill hits very hard in a condi setup. Better simply ignore the AA. It has some little uses against opponents behind structures, but in the big picture its crap.

Exactly what zinkz.7045 says.

And RA has never been a “skillfull gamemode” in gw1. Hell, it was random… Queue till a good group comp comes and farm those 25 victories. Thats what its been basically about.
Its been fun and a nice way of passing the time while waiting for gvg, but this was nothing like serious gameplay. Team Arena was a thing, too bad they removed it…

And “a dead player in GW2 sPvP has no meaning at all”??? Creating majorites through kills and rotations is what gw2 is all about… Whats worse than dieing?

With the release of gw2 i was thinking the same, continued to play gw1(my guild still plays the monthly gvg tournaments, lol) and stuff. But after lots of time i started to enjoy conquest. It really needs some time to get used to and to fully understand the gameplay, but for me its the best game mode for gw2 without a doubt. I would never wanna exchange it with deathmatch.
And honestly its pretty similar to gw1 gvg, compared to playing a split build.

I guess you never tried it on your own, then you would see its not that great. Also tough to take down? Cant agree.
Plus i think adaptive armor is pretty much overrated. Im playing perfectly weighted since a while and cant feel any difference in sustain. Scrappers sustain doesnt come from adaptive armor, its majorally the reflects, blocks and evades.

Sorry OP, but this is complete nonsense. Any single gw1 character skillbar was written in stone, copyright by meta. The team comp made your build, no one brought it by himself. “Bring your own build(b.y.o.b)” is what you mean, gvg players sometimes did this for fun, but this was completly unserious and disadvantaged against any organized team and most times won by supercrazy split actions and creating chaos everwhere.

The gw1 meta wasnt about single player bars, it was about 5-6 good running teambuilds for each gamemode. Like “What do we play today? Balanced, split or spike?”. Then the choosen teambuild and your position determined your personal skillbar. A shockaxe warrior, p-block mesmer, protmonk or a flagrunner always looked exactly the same.
Except, and thats the big difference, you played any highly specialized team comp like crazy hex-/condiovers, iway, rspike or stuff like this, which had completly other skillbars than the usual meta ones. But those builds were countered by good splits easily, so youve always been disadvantaged against any good balanced, and thats why those builds were only played in tombs and not in gvg.

GW2 instead brings much more options for each individual player, but less for the team comps. I see at least 3-4 personal builds for each class that, depending on the team comp, can be somehow viable.

A games balance will never be “choose randomly between your traits and utilities and your build is as good as everyones else one”, and thats why there is a meta in every game: The best synergizing traits, utilities and equip for a certain role. But that doesnt mean that anything else is disadvantaged per se. You just cant expect to randomly throw anything in and have a good build.

grenades by far

Bunker Guard for me. Everytime a teammate gets spiked or even downed i feel guilty for not having preprotected him. Its quite hard to see with the pace of gw2 combat. Prot monk in gw1 was way easier, even tho its been considered the most skillfull job(besides p-block). But maybe im just way too self-critically for that role. :P

Anyway, i think bunker guard is one of the hardest in terms of “perfect play” and makes me feel bad more often than other roles.^^

Swagatron.8065:

Mister Fluffkin.7358:

Couldnt try Scrapper so far because i dont bought HoT yet, but OP´s numbers seem pretty inaccurate on the paper.

Sure HGH is able able to stack a good amount of might, but you guys calculating things like its perma 25 stacks? Maybe on a immobile golem where you use all elixirs off cooldown, autoattacking the crap out of it?
No sigill of battle, no mass momentum, no juggernaut, no fire fields, simply HGH and hoelbrak. This wont give you perma 25 stacks of might! More like an average of 10-12 stacks…

This doesnt mean scrapper is fine or doesnt need to be toned down a little, but these kind of threads cant be taken seriously. Completly exaggerating and anyone who ever played HGH knows these numbers arent real. You know, things have cooldowns in GW, beeing able to stack some might or using super speed for heal doesnt mean its permanent maximized!

I’m not calculating the extra 470hp/s from super speed into the numbers. I am using the perma swiftness which is there along with the regeneration boon and backpack regenratot. I am also using perma 20-25 might. You can keep about 17-20 might stacks just rolling around then you factor in Hoelbrak might and auto elixir B adding in more might and you’re now at 20-25. Sure, you have to spam your Acid Bomb a bit but with your 6 elixirs in this build its really not hard to maintain high might stacks. Also, due to the tankiness if you want to spam to keep 25 up, you can go ahead and do that. Your regen, protection, and armor will keep you alive! Sure, players aren’t immobile golems, but they do have to sit on the node with you. LUCKILY your elixirs are AoE so its as if they are standing still! I encourage you to throw on HGH, these utilities, and try it yourself.

I’m sorry you find this thread can’t be taken seriously. I have attempted to post accurate numbers. Maybe you just need more experience on engi to keep track of your cds so you can get might stacks this high?

I didn’t even mention you can have permanent retal if you like.

Why do opponents have to sit on point with you??? Maybe youre fighting opponents with brains like golems, because only noobs will try to keep a node at all costs. Especially versus a melee class. So better dont talk about game experience… 0o

Anyway, apart from that i said this build is really strong and might need a little nerf. Thats why each 2nd scrapper played it. But your numbers are just plain wrong. Its simply false to calculate perma 25 stacks of might for this build and its sounds like you never played this build at all. So how could i take this nerf op thread serious?

Couldnt try Scrapper so far because i dont bought HoT yet, but OP´s numbers seem pretty inaccurate on the paper.

Sure HGH is able able to stack a good amount of might, but you guys calculating things like its perma 25 stacks? Maybe on a immobile golem where you use all elixirs off cooldown, autoattacking the crap out of it?
No sigill of battle, no mass momentum, no juggernaut, no fire fields, simply HGH and hoelbrak. This wont give you perma 25 stacks of might! More like an average of 10-12 stacks…

This doesnt mean scrapper is fine or doesnt need to be toned down a little, but these kind of threads cant be taken seriously. Completly exaggerating and anyone who ever played HGH knows these numbers arent real. You know, things have cooldowns in GW, beeing able to stack some might or using super speed for heal doesnt mean its permanent maximized!

I believe the elite spec will transform our turrets into invulnerable, overchargeable drones, bound to the addressed fuel ressource system. I hope not, because i wanna see lots of new kits instead of turret crap, but thats what i actually expect.

Honestly, a build without any kit will always be disadvantaged compared to kitbuilds. The only build thats kind of “viable” without kits is SD, and even the SD build gets much stronger if you run toolkit.
A p/p build with 3 elixiers is a joke to fight against for any descent opponent, i dont know why people recommend it in here. Its like playing another class without a second weapon set → Bullkitten. You may kill some newcomers with it, but you will get completely wrecked when you face the usual meta builds.

I agree its less fun to play since the last big patch, but i think it could – and propably will – get worse. This is just the foretaste of the expansion.

Well, i agree marauder can be very strong, depending on your team comp. But other classes usually fullfill that role better. But i like to play marauder as well from time to time.

FT/TK instead isnt very strong in my point of view. Its good in 1on1 and in bad MMR where people dont know how to handle it, you can often completly wreck your opponents. But in teamfights against any half descent team/teamcomp, it usually gets completly nullified by aoe cleanses. Theres simply nothing left if your burn gets cleaned, its pretty much a gimmick build.

Teamfight is where soldier shines and excels with good sustained aoe damage. Bursts aint that hard but solid, and the build offers lots of ways to land them. And elixir s and x offer good teamfight utility as well. I think its by far the best allround build we can run at the moment, but thats just my opinion.

Elixir S is the main reason for taking elixirs. With HGH and tools traitline you get your “Toss S” on a 32 sec. cooldown, which is incredibly usefull in lots of situations(disengaging, preventing stomps, stealth bursts). This alone is worth traiting elixirs. I personally prefer playing kits because its more fun to me, but in the current meta, i simply cant live without it.
All the other stuff elixirs offer is replaceable by kits in my point of view, but if you already trait for elixirs, its usually wise to put in some more of them. Oh, and the might of course is pretty usefull, specially nowadays, where meta kinda forces us to play a very defensive amulet(soldier).

This isnt the common FT condibuild, its a much worsens version. The common FT build is made for condibursting the opponent with burning and you simply removed the strongest traitline for condibusting with FT, tools. Taking tools instead of inventions will improve your very best FT skill(IA) by far with the lower cooldown on toolbelt skills and Kinetic Battery. This is like the hamstring of this build which you cut by taking inventions.
Also youre missing a stunbreak, which is a nogo for any pvp format.

For pve i would always run nades, its the only way to go if youre looking to maximize your damage. Without nades you completly miss the sustained damage between your hard hitters(and the vulnerability stacking of course), which will always result in much worse damage than with nades.

You propably run geomancy runes, so weapons switch triggers the rune(3 stacks of bleed), which crits and triggers incendiary powder(burning) + a source of vulnerability(heavy armor exploit or sigil of frailty i.e.).

Another big thing is to use “free camera”(dont know the exact name at the moment), its an option that will increase your control a lot. This will allow you to run forward while throwing nades and other stuff at your back.

Also deactivate melee assistance, so you can drop your acid bombs and stuff right into the enemy character model. Auto target of course as well, basically just turn all that assistance off and you will get the max control of your character.

Agree, its no fun to play at the moment. A former elitist class got dumbed down to the fullest… You cant hit em because youre either blinded or stunned and while their skills are on cooldown they´re stealthed till they can burst you another time.
Without any stealth they propably would be balanced, but this is a joke atm. And im quite fine in dodging shatters and tracking the real one btw.

I got a group of friends im playing with since release, but most of us are going to take a break for the first time ever till this is fixed! Guess this documents the actual state of balance quite well. We fought through every meta, no matter how bad it was, but this one is the worst by far. Mesmers and rampage everywhere, i call it the stun meta. LoL

Engi is a great choice for dungeon farming, we became true DPS monsters with the last patch. This is what i usually run in dungeons: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vdAQFAUlsTh2tYJWwkLQ7FLQIzIA3+7T+C45pB-T1BFABCcBAQS5Xa6AqZ/BAeAAFq+zVKBDAgAMxJGAm4En4En4Eb6SciTciTMA-w

Last traitline is up to you, i usually run tools for the swiftness, SD and AI. But alchemie for buffed acid bomb wont be bad either. Then i would run medkit for swiftness if your team isnt stacking it.

What makes us a dps monster now are the new traitlines in firearms. With the runes(runes of rage might be a great choice too) and traits you easily have perma fury, plus high caliber and hematic focus will be active in each usual dungeon situation, so your crit chance is like permanent 95%(!!!). My Grenade Barrage alone usually does >20k dmg.

Im playing engi since release and i tried lots of stuff, but nades are simply mandatory if you wanna go full dps. Camping flamethrower results in laughable damage compared to nades(i tried all kinds of armor sets, full/mixed sinister as well), and bombs(besides smoke bomb) are pretty much useless in a zerk build and the new mortar already catches up on that.
Toolkit isnt really needed, im just so used to it and in 90% of my pug´s im getting LOTS of aggro(guess because of the many hits nades do), so a block is pretty welcome in certain situations.

I really recommend to try the crit chance firearms traits in full zerk, i promise you wont be disappointed.

Did i missed something or do you really run 1 single(and passive) condi remove? 0o
At least switch for runes of the soldier if you wanna use a 5 shouts build, it obviously cries for it. Anyway, i think this is a very weak build at all.

Since last patch, every kit except grenade kit is kinda bugged. Prepatch you could swap into kit -> swap to weapon with “switch weapon” key -> immediatly swap back into the kit. Since patch this only works with grenade kit, each other kit gets a cooldown of 1 sec. now. Why???

Please fix this soon Anet, it totally screws up the gameplay if your char isnt swapping weapons exactly the way you press your keyboard buttons.

Works now, thx a lot Ray!

Maybe it helps you fixing the issue: i was automatically in queue when i could quit with 28 min queue time.

Still stuck on stronghold.

Im stuck as well

Gryph.8237:

I doubt You will hear whining from classes facing a Necro. I doubt you will hear. Omg that Necro is wrecking, or omg necros are top tier now, or omg I can’t beat a Necro. Most likely you will continue to say, necros, free kill, or focus the Necro somit become a 3 v 2. He can defend, or look, the Necro kills himself!!!

Descent people dont said this about engi as well. Its a pretty good class, no doubt, but its not completly over the top. Well, rangers could get some more love in my opinion, but i find all others to be on a very usefull level.
Maybe the biggest plus on engi side is that they´re handy in most team comps, so its a very good class for random teams. 4-5 celestial classes usually do better than 4-5 berserks, but that doesnt make them imba. In a premade team, it looks much different and all classes can do good in the right teamcomp.

And btw, in the big picture of the expansion(with all changes to condis and stuff), i can absolutly think of condi necros becoming a thing. For me, they look pretty neat on the paper, and condi transfers will be even better IF the meta will see more use of condis.

Your criticism is completly overdrawn. Essence of your posts: “OMG, some dev posted in engies subforum, its the evidence they prefer engi class in terms of balance”, just hear yourself talking…

Whats wrong about engis perma swiftness, it has been on engi since forever? Sure its handy, but engi has never been strong because of the best mobility. Just wait for the update, im quite sure the cheese and whine about some other classes will be much stronger than about engi.

Kindergarten…

I disagree. GvG was completly based on teambuilds with a front-/mid-/backline and rezz skills. How do you wanna flag run without a backline? Also the respawn timer would totally screw up, landing the first kill would win you the teamfight in 99% of the fights because of majority.
Without a backline, it would end up in splits all over the map, basically what conquest forces you to do. I dont care if its a capture node or a lord room to split up for.

I loved GvG as well and played it from release till the end, but it absolutly would not fit for GW2. Also i dont think stronghold is any more complex than GvG. Matching 2 random teams in GvG would be dramatically more chaotic than any random stronghold match could ever be. Either way, i agree with what op said about UI and stuff. Also, i think Stronghold is quite similar to Fort Aspenwood, adepted for GW2 combat system. Even tho it will be much more casual than conquest(Aspenwood was very casual as well), i think it has potential and will give us a great variety.
Its just some incredible fail from anet to put it into the same queue as conquest, i hope they will revise it.

Pretty sure the tooltip at least say so.

Basically, you should have the same amount of players the opponent have on each node. Whenever you kill them, you´re getting “wildcards” for outnumbering them elsewhere. Thats the basic strategy behind conquest mode, not zerging.

Jelzouki.4128:

Ladies and gentlemen, Vee Wee!

Someone who has claimed to have quit playing this game on multiple forum post, but is somehow still deemed suitable to weigh in on a game he/she doesn’t even play.

And five gauge shreks lots of power necros, may be he didn’t want to engage because it was a part of his strategy??? Like seriously? Every zerker class has random procs. Jesus I hate every single post that comes out of this dudes brain.

A bit drastically, but i kinda agree. There are lots of posts by VeeWee, always pointing at “this game sucks”. A friendly hello, but obviously a very negative person behind. This is the gw2 board, we like this game! So why you always bother us with your thoughts about a game you dont like/play? Enjoy your life VeeWee, do something you like!

I dont like courtyard because its just boring and does not fit for the combat system of gw2. Its based on watching your enemy, but in a 5 man zergcluster, its extremly hard to see anything important. So most times you end up in spamming your skills, which feels pretty similar to pve.

Furthermore, the respawns massivly suck. Whoever gets the first kill usually dominates the fight in a 5on4, quickly in a 5on3 for the rest of the match.
Maybe the gamemode could be fun if it would be roundbased: respawn when 1 team whiped, best of 3 rounds win. But in the actual setting, its strictly boring and usually ends up in farm them or get farmed. I actually remember 1 cool match on courtyard(2 very defensive/supportive teams against each other), the rest was a braindead massacre of 1 team.

Trevor Boyer.6524:

@ Mister Fluffkin

I do want to point out again though, about the GW1 reference: That reference was targeted around RA play, which was like what Solo Que used to be. There is a huge audience for this type of casual gaming but GW2 is missing this element. I know that arena-net was not intending for something like TS3 to be mandatory but it just ended up happening that way due to the design of all the game modes.

The reason why Solo Ques are important is because it does not reward voice chat and offers a more casual game mode for those days when you’d rather listen to mp3s than other people talking.

Well ok, i was corresponding to GvG/HA.
I think comparing team communication in gw1 random arena and gw2 pvp isnt fair at all. Of course gw1 random arena has been without ts, because it was fully random. Gw2 isnt, so premades of course use voice chat.

And while its of course usefull to be on voicechat, i think the advantage isnt that huge at all. As someone else already said, its mostly the better team comp of a premade that brings the advantage, not the voicechat so much. The usual random team comp looks like 3+ berserks, thats the main reason randoms loose to premades.
I think the minimap is a great tool to compensate voicechat. Its much more worse in most other games.

Im 34 years old and it totally depends on my mood if i want to play solo or in ts3. Most of the time i play with guildies, so with ts3 of course. But sometimes i like to play solo, hearing music and stuff so i play alone.

I dont think your age has anything to do with it, and i completly disagree to your GW1 reference. Voice communication has been so much more mandatory for GW1 pvp due to the spikey nature of GW1. No TS meant kick, without any exception. Even the most casual groups used TS. In GW2 instead, you find plenty of groups to join without TS.

I would recommend to change to another class if you dont like kits. And dont get me wrong, play whatever you like, i dont care. But if you hate weapon swaps, engineer will be the worst pick you can do.

Either way, i agree SD is the best way to go if it should work without kits.