Guild Wars 2

Takarazuka.3025:

Do you have specific things you are looking at for answers or just some more general overviews of powermancers in other dungeons? Even though I do not run them myself, I talk to a lot of people who run various power builds so I have a handle on it at least and know about how things work. Hopefully, soon, I can start running more stuff… I haven’t been able to play much the past few days so keep missing out on runs that people are doing for other dungeons in guilds I am in. I only pug a dungeon through gw2lfg.com once I have run it at least once and know what I am doing.

First off, apologies for butchering your username.

And, no, it’s not that I have specific questions regarding your Power build in a specific scenario. I was simply utterly disappointed that, of all the dungeon you could have brought on as an example of viability and usefulness for your build, you bring up COF P1. Of course, this was without the crucial context SOMEBODY forgot to mention. (Welcome back)

I myself run with a “semi-static” guild group and we care about personal and group performance. When we decide to bring any of our characters to a dungeon, the very first question we ask ourselves and each other is “What can this profession and build bring to the party?” This way we push our builds harder, find ways that our particular profession can make a dungeon or encounter that much easier. Warrior? Pure unmitigated glory in damage. Guardian? God-like support. Mesmer? Swiss Army Knife. Elementalist? Heals, cleanses and permanent 25 stacks of Might.

Necromancer?

I know we Power builds can hold our own in terms of burst damage. But our defining moment comes when we are able to maintain our DPS while, at the same time, provide game-changing party utility. For example, a Guardian can go full Berserker gear, yet is still able to provide just as much party support through her Shouts and Consecrations.

Dontain made a video demonstration of stacking Bleed duration:

Thanks for the great episode. That tip on Epidemic is a real game changer for me.

On the topic of Fear and Terror, Fear is the only “hard” CC that is affected by Condition Duration and is actually a Condition itself (whereas others like Blowout, Pull, Knockdown, Stun and Daze are not). When used on a Defiant Champion or Legendary mob, unless they are outright immune, the Fear Condition will still be applied, hence dealing damage from Terror. On a Condition Damage build, it’s not hard to slip into Death Shroud, insta-cast Doom, slip out of Death Shroud and continue your regular rotation. With Master of Terror, you only need +10% Condition duration and Rare Veggie Pizza to get an extra second of Fear.

Overall I think Takaruza has some good points, but his absolute lack of input regarding a Power Necro is dungeons other than COF P1 really bugged me. Yes, I get that Power Necros can do well in the easiest and most brain-dead dungeon in the game, but what about places like CM, SE, Arah or even Fractals? COF P1 is just a silly DPS run, while there are many dungeons that greatly benefit with the correct utilities; what can a Necro bring to a party in such cases? It would have been really great if he could have provided some insights in those. Unfortunately, as he admits, he doesn’t do anything other than COF P1…

Rising Dusk.2408:

There really needs to be some overarching optimization post with math that supports all of this. I don’t care much for the back-and-forth that constantly happens where one or the other is always better in someone else’s eye.

Let’s get a bottom-line with a graph of the optimization, if possible.

I have some thoughts about the min/maxing of condition dps and net damage that one would need to keep in mind when doing this math.

• Keep in mind that changing runes would negate the 6th bonus on the Rune of the Undead, which adds a significant bonus to condition damage. 1844 Toughness or around there is typical using ascended gear and Rabid stats, which means Undead runes add 92 condition damage.
• Keep in mind that condition damage boosts all condition damage, not just bleed. Runes for bleed duration do nothing to help the damage on poison.
• Some variants with different assumptions would be nice, like 100% condition uptime (never removed), 50% uptime (condition removed when 50% done), etc.
• Assume that all condition boosters in-game work.
• Some other stuff I likely am not thinking about.

This would be more useful than word-of-mouth confirmations.

Using this build as a reference, we can do two things:

1. Maximise Condition Damage – 6/6 Runes of the Undead (2151 Condition Damage; 150 Bleed/(StackSecond), 295 Poison/Second)
2. Maximise Condition Duration – 2x Lyssa, 2x Krait, 2x Afflicted (1926 Condition Damage; 139 Bleed/(StackSecond), 273 Poison/Second)

So let us set some parameters to simplify our evaluation:

1. PVE (to allow relevant food buffs)
2. No cleanses
3. Single target
4. Single Necromancer attacking with optimum rotation
5. Maximum Corruption stacks

Then we are left with one variable:

1. Average Bleed stacks (taking into consideration Superior Sigil of Earth and Barbed Precision)

Note: We’re not concerned with Poison because the Poison duration is exactly the same on both builds (Putrid Grasp: 3.46s vs 3.66s), therefore we know that the difference in DPS is 22.

We know from Nemesis’ video that build #2 can maintain 23-25 stacks of Bleed. Question is how many can build #1 get to?

Somebody on the Mesmer forums posted up a spreadsheet earlier this year showing that a 10% increase in Confusion Duration is equivalent to about 300 Condition Damage. This is based on WvW numbers using an overall average 1.4 attacks per second.

LiquidLeopard.9823:

Leo G, that’s my point though, why not a necro to do this, or a thief to do this or an ele to do this. You cannot take just any team and do any dungeon (all the trash, full run no skipping things). Maybe it’s the caliber of people I’m playing with, but I consider myself at least as good as if not slightly better than average as are most players I play with, and we just can’t complete certain fights, while doing fine on others.

Yes, there it is in bold. You can proclaim to have whatever l33t skillz0r, or what have you, but you’re just one of five players in the dungeon. Even one extremely unskilled player is enough to screw up an entire dungeon run. Your dungeon party maybe be made of the most OP flavour-of-the-month professions, but without competent hands driving the characters, they’ll never fare any better.

Creld.8702:

In pve/wvw, you can stack runes (lich, nightmare, lyssa, and mad king) and food (rare veggie pizza) for a total of +50% condition damage duration. In addition, you get 1% for every point in the explosives trait line, for a total max of about 80% (as a support build you’ll probably only hit 60%, no need to go that deep into explosives).

Also, always try copy/pasting any link that says “bad link,” usually it just the forums being weird.

2x Mad King, 2x Lyssa and Rare Veggie Pizza gives +60% Condition duration (bugs aside). Going 4/6 Mad King also gives +15% Bleed duration.

LiquidWolf.3879:

Necro
Hunter
Hunter
Mesmer
Mesmer

5 sources of long-duration AOE condition removal (1 Well of Power, 2 Healing Spring, 2 Null Field) and you’re complaining that you can’t handle the Burn?

2 sources of party-wide 50% damage reduction (Phantasmal Defender) and you say Rock Cone is unmanageable?

You don’t even need to dodge its red rings of death.

How were your party members positioned? What weapons were they using? And I’m not even bothering to ask about Traits and builds because a) it doesn’t matter and b) if all five of you were condition damage build, stop trolling.

Chances of success is very, very slim for Guild Bounties. You can probably eke it through with Guild Trek Tier 1, but that requires 80 Merits, i.e. requiring you to complete some Guild Bounties first.

If your dungeon group doesn’t already have one, then my vote is for the Mesmer. Don’t get me wrong, the Guardian is godly and I really love mine, but a Mesmer’s like a swiss army knife in any dungeon run. Into the Void groups enemies up against a wall for AOE and melee cleaves, Time Warp is good for DPS or emergency revives, you can start thinking in Portals, Feedback reflects projectiles, Staff is great for run sections, etc etc etc.

My thought behind choosing all Condition Duration runes was to improve the number of stacks of all conditions, not just bleeds. The problem I see with your set of runes is on Bleeds, you are over the 100% Cap, 15(rune) +15(rune) +10(rune) +30(traits) +40(food) for a total of 110% on bleeds, while under the cap on all other conditions, while only at 90% for all other conditions, burning, confusion, poison, chill.

90% for all Burn and Poison is already enough to maintain 100% uptime, assuming correct rotations. For example, Fire Bomb and Blowtorch, at 90% Burn duration stacks to 17.1s, whereas the cooldown of Fire Bomb without Short Fuse is 10s. Similarly, the condition duration Poison Dart at 90% Poison duration is 19s for a skill with a base 10s cooldown. Therefore, only condition that really benefits from the full 100% bonus duration is Bleed.

Even then, it remains a question whether your overall DPS would improve with more Condition Damage as opposed to Condition Duration.

Runes seem off. I’d suggest 2x Krait (15% Bleed Duration), 2x Affliction (15% Bleed Duration) and 2x Mad King (10% Condition Duration). Otherwise you can consider 6x Undead to capitalise on your Toughness (bonus Condition Damage equal to 5% Toughness).

For utilities, I’m using Grenade Kit, Bomb Kit and Tool Kit, with Kit Refinement. Fire Bomb and Smoke Bomb pulse once per second and each pulse is considered an explosion, triggering things like Shrapnel and Steel-packed Powder, as well as on-hit effects. Bomb Kit and Tool Kit also allow me to combo Concussion Bomb into Pry Bar into Static Shot for 12-14 stacks of Confusion on a single target.

Creld.8702:

Impact heal is 40 health for every 100 healing power, pulse is 1:1 total, 1/10th per tick, according to some quick testing in HotM. PvE number could differ, but shouldn’t.

Impact: 700+(.4*healing power)
Pulse: 2040+(1*healing power)
Pulse tick: 204+(.1*healing power)

Those numbers look like one before the Feb 26 patch.

Super Elixir: Increased impact base healing as well as scaling with healing power by 100%. Increased base heal multiplier by 50% and healing power scaling by 100%.

Cursory inspection of methodology:
You mentioned that the numbers above were based on your FRAPS recording. At what distance were you throwing the grenades from?

Khisanth.2948:

“2 rangers, 2 engineers, 1 necro” doesn’t really tell us anything. What were their weapon sets? Kits? Pets? Utilities? Traits? I don’t expect anyone to completely respec their trait for each dungeon but even within whatever you have allocated there could be better ones for a particular encounter, even if it isn’t the optimal for the build.

This. Team 1 was probably fully direct-damage. What about Team 2? Were you applying the same tactics?

This brings to mind a certain video from September:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hh5zjK7ITpQ

Wonder how those eles are doing now…

No guildmates, and you are not allowed to give advice to the group, you are seeing how good THEY are not how good YOU are.

Why such a restriction on yourself? Why not provide them advice to better overcome a situation?

If 50% fail or quit, and 25% struggle but finish, and 25% breeze through, you may legitimately be able to say the average player is terrible, but you can’t say the average player gets through dungeons easily. If 60% breeze through, 25% struggle but finish, and 15% fail, you may be able to argue the average player can easily do the dungeons, though I still suspect a large fraction of players, maybe over half, have never even tried a dungeon because they have heard it is too hard so that may still be too optimistic.

All these numbers… May I ask for your source?

The only example of one currently in-game but not well known is Malrona. She seems to have a hidden mechanic that allows players to significantly increase their damage against her if they are already suffering from her Poison. Using this mechanic, you can then reflect her Venom Blast to deal… well, I’ll let the screenshot below speak for itself.

Neo-AC
Graveling knockdowns are crazy.

Caudecus Manor
Done with tanky (Guardian) and glass cannon (Engineer) characters. Difficulty is generally fine but as above, people always try to come up with some hare-brained scheme to skip mobs and many PUGs fail. My only complaint is Turmaine (the last boss of Path 2). I understand his mechanics, i.e. bring copious amounts of condition removal and avoid AOE, but his move speed Plague Form really needs a second look.

Twilight Arbor
Twilight Knights are still a bleeding nightmare, but the rest is generally fine, especially after they retuned the Leurent encounter (Forward/Up). The only path I absolutely dislike is Forward/Forward where you have to face Nightmare Tree Fyonna’s endless wave of spiders.

Sorrow’s Embrace
My guild’s new AC. P1 and P3 are fast and the tokens can be used for Soldier and Knight gear. P2 is just so odd because it stretches across so many large encounter-filled rooms.

Citadel of Flame
New P2 is fine and the gate-opening event is actually more fun now. This is one path you’ll never find glass cannons.

New P3 is much better now, although the bomb-run portion still takes 10-20 minutes for some to complete.

Crucible of Eternity
Now this dungeon I like. Thanks to the value of Charged Cores and difficulty of Subject Alpha, the risk reward for this dungeon is spot on.

Honor of the Waves
Bosses are just too beefy and have very uninteresting mechanics, especially the Twins. In any other game I would have set them as the final boss encounter, instead of as severely padded mini-bosses.

Ruined City of Arah
I love Arah. I still think Simin and Risen Illusionists need to be retuned, but in general, Arah is a fun dungeon. Again, ANet puts the good end-boss fights in the middle and anti-climatic boss fights at the end (see Wraith at end of P3 and Bloodstone Shard at the end of P4).

So much rage.

The change to AC EM wasn’t to outright increase their difficulty, but to make the fights more interesting, considering how many of us have been complaining about the dull dungeon designs of GW2 compared to, say, WoW. However, the change to gravelings created an unintended consequence: multiple CCs from every thrash pack plus boss adds caused a severe spike in difficulty, especially for a dungeon tuned for level 35.

Now, to clarify: dull dungeon design does not equate to easy dungeon design.

Take for example the change to Ghost Eater (AC P2).

Pre-change, Ghost Eater was a tank-and-spank. You literally did not need to dodge anything, nor use the traps laid by Detha. The toughest part was actually the trash mobs prior to the encounter. Dull design.

Post change, they introduced the new Traps and the mechanic actually involving them. Your party had to assign people to alternate between Lifting and Pulling the slimes (previously thrash mobs nobody batted an eyelid for) and avoiding the boss’ devastating attacks until it changes phase. Interesting design.

To the OP, may I ask what kind of sample are you using to define the “average” player? Because I myself run dungeons with many of what I consider as “average”, including guild mates who play 5 hours a week, and they do fine once they get used to a particular mechanic.

Sub-80 characters always complain Explorable mode dungeons are “too hard” and proclaim that only 80s with full exotics can complete them with ease. I always challenge this statement by asking for their equipment and utilities. More often than not, people gear out their sub-80 characters in a mismatch of gear stats, e.g. a longbow Ranger with Condition Damage and Healing, or a Condition Necro with Critical Damage and Magic Find. 9 times out of 10, a Mesmer or Guardian complaining CM EM is impossible didn’t even equip Feedback or Wall of Reflection. Story Mode is where you can bump around blindly and see the pretty cutscences; in Explorable Mode, prepare accordingly.

Static Shot, Static Shield + Throw Shield

This part doesn’t make sense. Why Disable a target immediately after Blinding and (more importantly) applying 2+ stacks of Confusion?

Did you have a particular profession in mind? These forums also have guide write-ups that are worth reading.

Looking at your methodology again (for nth time), I think it’s rather flawed because it assumes the same stat set and Traits are optimal for all three cases (FT, Rifle and Bomb). For example, the Trait setup does not make Explosive Powder available, implying it is not used for calculation.

EDIT: Misread calculations.

bewhatever.2390:

I do not have first hand information here. Anecdotally the lowest level missions take about 15 people, which I translate as 10 capable people, but unachievable by 4 or 5.

But it’s still too early for either of us to outright say that the lowest tier is not achievable with x number of players. Let us reserve judgement until then.

bewhatever.2390:

My game time is a large fraction of the time I get to spend with these 3 other people. I have made a choice to spend it that way, and despite there being lots of other wonderful people in GW2 there is a RL reason for spending it with these 3.

Yes, but you still can choose to hang out with your three friends just as much in a bigger guild, no?

bewhatever.2390:

I say all this to clarify my final point: financially, a game is better off cancelling an expansion pack if it will alienate and drive away more $$ of revenue than the $$ from the expansion and $$ from players staying who would otherwise have become bored and left. GW2’s last 4 content patches have each alienated significant groups of players. This means the process is out of control.

But you don’t have concrete proof that these new content, which you include Shadow of the Mad King and Wintersday, alienated “significant groups” of players. All we have are sporadic outcry from vocal forum goers, with positive counterpoints. Are one side’s opinions more valid than the other?

Seeto, did you include the new bonus 10% damage Flame Jet gets on Burning targets?

Kyran Foxfire.4139:

Wow, there are dozens of them! I thought the ugly sweater and the like were jokes until I /wiki’d it. Some of these are understandable, but I cannot say I understand the effort put into taking it to such an extent.

Because it’s easier to dream up of another silly currency than work out a balanced way of using existing currency for new items. More specifically, they don’t want players to complete new content or obtain new items too quickly by using their existing stockpile of bibbobs.

Daigle.8497:

I honestly don’t see why the elixir gun is never used for its Tranquilizer dart. It’s not a bad attack. Sure, the DPS is low, but it’s one of the best single-target attrition moves in the game.

Everyone looks at its low damage, but it’s got a 4 second bleed AND a 1 second weakness, which is spammable. If you’ve got +100% condi duration, you can keep weakness up on ANYTHING, including champs, and build it up. What other skill can boast a base uncleansable perma weakness?

The problem is this: Weakness is terrible in PVE. Silver and below mobs are better served taken down with sheer brute force, while Champion and higher mobs have Defiant and reduces Weakness duration by half.

Even in Arah and high-level Fractals, a majority of damage is avoided through positioning and dodging, as per GW2’s combat philosophy. All Weakness does is provide the party a random amount of cushion to miss dodges. Keyword: random.

It’s about equality of opportunity (not equality of outcomes, I’m not looking for, what were they called, welfare epics).

I fail to see how the system literally prevents your 4-man guild the opportunity of obtaining and completing the guild missions, especially the lower-tier missions. Yes, you will gain access to these much slower than bigger guilds, but that’s normal and acceptable in my books.

I also do not understand why small guild like to portray themselves as utter xenophobes when asked to become part of bigger guilds. Dilution? Fear of adolescent children? Commitment? Are these really your complaints?

But Guild Missions isn’t the topic of this post, just an example, is it?

Hypotheses 1: It’s the “bean counters’ fault”.
I don’t think these push for new content is due to attrition. NCSoft and ANet are companies who both have past experiences with MMOs, so it’s likely they will recognise that the sharp drop in active players is absolutely normal and expected, especially for a game without subscriptions.

However, the business model of Guild Wars 2 plays on two income sources: game (and expansion) purchase and micro-transactions. With the MMO scene so crowded with competitors, ANet has to be ready to provide a steady stream of new content and goals for players to keep them interested. Failure to do so leads to player boredom and dip in activity. While this has less effect on game sales, it affects Gem sales.

Does this mean that ANet should focus their resource on content creation, from art to coding, over bug fixes? As a gamer, I’d say “NO”. As a business owner, “Yes” (Besides game-breaking bugs, new players don’t care for them; existing players are tolerant towards bugs and are constantly interested in new content anyway). As an exhibit engineer, “Let’s slow down content for a bit and spend the next 2 months head down on bug fixes.”

Hypotheses 2: It’s the lead developer’s fault.
It’s easy as peas for consumers to point the blame at the leader, as it is easy for the leader to point the blame to others. It’s a silly game, especially as we, outsiders, do not fully understand the company’s culture or its interaction with stakeholders.

Is ArenaNet better off with developers on the live team, or redirecting those resources elsewhere and not doing further damage to the game and its player community?

The division between the community is always a conflict between the haves and have-nots. There are those who have thousands upon thousands of gold, there are those who have never seen one. There are those in full Exotics, there are those who are stuck in Greens. There are Dungeon Masters, there are those who struggle in COF P1. There are those with 35 AR, there are those with none. There are those who have a guild with a fantastic community, there are those who are alone.

There are those who could afford to buy this game, and those that could not.

The moment ANet overextends and tries to accommodate for absolutely everybody is when they will fail, as evidenced by history. Unintended consequences are usually unpredictable by the development team, just as some bugs and imbalances always slip by the most vigilant testers. I know this for a fact because I design and create interactive exhibits for the public. No amount of internal testing will match the mysterious power of a child’s ten fingers to destroy a program ten engineers could not. The only correct response is to /facepalm and get working on a fix.

Currencies of Guild Wars 2:

1. Experience
2. Skill Points
3. Traits
4. Coin (copper, silver, gold)
5. Karma
6. Glory
7. Supply
8. Gems
9. Influence
10. Ascalonian Tear
11. Seal of Beetletun
12. Deadly Bloom
13. Manifesto of the Moletariate
14. Flame Legion Charr Carving
15. Symbol of Koda
16. Knowledge Crystal
17. Shard of Zhaitan
18. Badge of Honour
19. Captains’ Council Commendation
20. Candy Corn
21. Ugly Sock
22. Ugly Hat
23. Ugly Sweater
24. Fractal Relic
25. Pristine Fractal Relic
26. Laurel
27. Guild Commendation
28. Guild Merit
29. Pact Victory Token
30. Karka Shell

And soon to add:

1. World Experience

ANet, stop.

Your formula is correct according to what you posted. I assume you are seeing different numbers?

The problem I’m seeing is that it seems to take me twice as long to kill an appropriate level creature as it does for others.

This is less to do with the quality of gear you have (assuming you have at least level 80 throughout), but more of attribute set afforded by the equipment you have. So if your equipment’s attribute bonuses are not focused or does not directly benefit the damage output of your weapon or build (e.g. Toughness, Healing Power, etc.), the rate of which you defeat an enemy will of course be much slower than others who are better equipped.

In regards to high-level equipment like Exotics, the cheapest way to obtain them is by running Explorable Mode Dungeons and collect the relevant tokens you need for your items. For your ranger, I would suggest Citadel of Flame (aka COF) and Crucible of Eternity (COE) to get equipment that give you Power, Precision and Critical Damage. Backpiece, accessories and rings that give similar attributes can be crafted or bought from the Black Lion Trading Post (aka TP), or if you have the requisite Laurels, the Laurel Vendor will reward you with Ascended quality trinkets.

However, your character’s attributes are not the be-all-end-all that determines how well you contribute to your party’s progress through a dungeon or fractal. Your own knowledge of a profession’s capabilities will be the core of what separates you from the chaff.

I have never taken a Ranger of my own to level 80, but here are a few things I always look for from party members of the profession:

1. Knowing when to set your character’s pet on Aggressive and Passive and when to stow the pet.

2. Knowing when to use the Longbow, and when the Shortbow is superior for damage (i.e. Rapid Fire and Barrage with Longbow before switching to Shortbow’s autoattack when fighting in close quarters; where able, reposition to maximum range with the Longbow)

3. Healing Spring plxkthxbai

4. Doing your best to switch pets before they are Downed.

Moocattle.5463:

Literal Combo of my stealthy engy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_z-bIGc3JYI
~13s stealth on a smaller cool-down then a thief’s shadow refuge (can get it down to 25s). Can switch out rocket boots for elixir gun and use acid bomb instead, but I like having a stun breaker on for most things. It’s nice for skipping mobs in dungeons when needed.

The skills are all pretty good, and have decent survivability. Works nice with my tanky condition pistol build as you can sneak right in the middle of enemies and spam bombs all day, and if you get notice just shield up and run away. Sure I’m not quite a thief but I have scared many souls in PvP with suddenly mines and explosions, the detonate mine field is surprisingly bursty too. You don’t have to play condition, I sometimes switch to gc and whip out grenades when I’m still stealthed to deal some nice burst damage.

You can also use the same blast finisher rotation on the fire bomb for loads of might.

I really like this combo. If set up before hand, it’s much faster than waiting for Shadow Refuge, and can probably last longer if the rest of the party has blast finishers, too. Incidentally, does this stack with Shadow Refuge?

Direksone.3867:

Use F1 ability (forgot its name) from my medkit and then right after use my Magnetic Inversion Shield ability to create a blast finisher for a small splash..

Did you mean Healing Turret instead of Medkit? How’s your timing for that? I seem to miss the combo field more often than not.

Thinking of reviving my Engineer after being stuck in stasis and mule duty for the past months. Throughout my reading of the forums, I’ve gathered that the Engineer’s strengths is her ability to combine skills from various kits and weapons to create some fun combos.

What are your favourite combos that you use? What does it achieve? What do you need to make it work?

Rezzet.3614:

Ojimaru.8970:

Rezzet.3614:

Flamethrower is useless in WvW if you are attacked by a mesmer you are insta dead since the phantasms will have perma retaliation wich means Retaliation x3 x10 hits if you hit all at same time + confusion.

Strawman argument.

1. You are setting a scene where 3 Phantasms (not Clones) are standing stationary, and clumped together. In WvW.

2. You are setting a scenario where 3 Phantasms (not Clones) won’t die within the third or fifth hit of the Flame Jet. Probably with a level 10 Engineer versus a Mesmer with Signet of Illusion, Illusionary Defender, lots of Power and Toughness and other such conditions.

and you are assuming Every engineer runs a DPS build or FT only build.

phantasms dont need a ridiculously large hp pool to deliver the massive retaliation damage either and what if the engineer has to defend a gat there will be several phatasms at the gate clumped flamethrower is a short medium range weapon wich makes it easy to get confusion too.

If my Engineer (or any other character) has to defend a gate, I’d get on a siege weapon or group up for a push.

Even if you think you can be brave/stupid and go blazing with a Flamethrower, you will fare no better than a Guardian standing in front of a gate with a Staff, eating the same Retaliation and AOEs. Does that make Guardian Staff useless in WvW?

And suddenly you want to bring in Confusion…

1) I’m assuming you’re referring to the NPC Armoursmith and Weaponsmith. In design they are meant to provide cheap access to at-level weapons and armour while leveling, or for those of us who just need that Torch for a Blast finisher before stowing it.

2) Minor runes and sigils were likely meant for low-level characters, providing some nice bonuses. You had a chance to salvage them from Masterwork-quality items with the correct salvage kits.

That was likely the intention. In practice, both look silly and pointless to veteran players, and possibly fooling the newer players.

Salvage the Whites, feed the Minor Runes to Zommorros.

Yes, the video does a poor job showing what your build can do, nor do I see you effectively using the build to its full advantage is a group fight. With your Boon Duration (from Alchemy), you’d have done your team a great service by grouping up and Toss Elixir B and H. How about Toss Elixir U? Maybe you do normally, maybe you don’t; the video shows none of that.

Worst of all, this build relies on RNG, when a Guardian can output just about the same Boons on demand.

Rezzet.3614:

Flamethrower is useless in WvW if you are attacked by a mesmer you are insta dead since the phantasms will have perma retaliation wich means Retaliation x3 x10 hits if you hit all at same time + confusion.

Strawman argument.

1. You are setting a scene where 3 Phantasms (not Clones) are standing stationary, and clumped together. In WvW.

2. You are setting a scenario where 3 Phantasms (not Clones) won’t die within the third or fifth hit of the Flame Jet. Probably with a level 10 Engineer versus a Mesmer with Signet of Illusion, Illusionary Defender, lots of Power and Toughness and other such conditions.

Vuh.1328:

Kite.2510:

I found Teldo. He is not as good

Say what?
Perhaps you should have specified that you were looking for PvE oriented material.
There are very very veeeeeeeeery few engineers out there who are better/more experianced than teldo when it comes to tPvP. Even fewer if you want videos/stream.

But yes he don’t really explains his builds

No idea what you and Lebannen are squabbling about, but “good” in this context was used in comparison with Dontain and WoodenPotatoes, hence implies that he thinks Teldoo is not as much a personality as the former two.

Frankly, due to the many quirks and misunderstanding surrounding the Engineer, there are scant few who will bother making consistent videos or streams of this profession, most especially in PVE.

Finally, no, asking people to stop making cool videos of their builds is a terrible idea. Community-created content is the lifeblood of any media these days; the lack thereof only suggests an uninterested community. The more cool videos people make, the more people will be interested in this profession. Yes, there will be cookie cutters that cling to some build or the other, but a start is a start.

Yes, the problem with the Engineer is indeed the player base. We either have clueless players or good players who lord it over the rest, the latter offering only vague advice hidden behind thick veils of condescension.

Esplen.3940:

Keep in mind: Running 2 sigils of bloodlust bugs and gives you 2 stacks but only the stats of 1 stack, thereby decreasing the effectiveness of the sigil by 50% as it can’t reach full effect.

Also, sigil of blood has a 5 second internal cooldown as opposed to the 2 second cooldown stated in the tooltip.

Sigil of Blood is just a terrible waste when you can chug an Omnomberry Ghost to gain life steal with zero cooldown.

downwithdragons.8291:

I remember when gw2 was going through development and the whole dungeon scaling was discussed. I thought it was a GREAT concept, helping to prevent dungeons from going obsolete and allowing for faster party formations for low and high level characters.

Its really backfired, leading to all dungeons becoming level 80-only playgrounds.

I think this is a perfect example of a good mechanic implimented by a creative development team that ended up being twisted and broken by the player base.

What ANet has given us is choice. It’s not their fault we choose to run with 80s-only groups, or whatever ridiculous personal requirements.

They destroyed the 3 Burrows that spawn on the ‘left’ side of the room. See Strife’s guide:

Temple of Grenth Karma Vendor sells Exotic PTV Back, Amulet, Accessories and Rings for 42k Karma each.

The two Ascended Rings are Lost Seal of Usoku and Royal Signet of Doric. Ascended PTV amulets are available from the Laurel Vendor

Consider changing the Sigil on your Torch to any of the following:

Sigil of Smoldering (if 10% Burn duration is enough to make the breakpoint of a full second)
Sigil of Corruption (for more damage)
Sigil of Accuracy/Precision (for higher critical chance and therefore more procs)

digiowl.9620:

I found myself zeroing in on one of the new prices, a combo banner. Are we talking a long term combo field of some kind? Perhaps similar to warrior banners in that they can be repositioned?

I’m guessing banners that provide the bonuses of multiple guild banners, e.g. Magic Find + Gold Find banner, or Experience + Karma banner, or one banner that gives all guild buffs.

Me Kill You.9035:

Never played WoW, never done a raid. Based on what people say I imagine it would be like a dungeon but on a much bigger scale, and a reason to do something on a big scale with a guild that isn’t WvW? Sounds pretty fun. Reminds me of Urgoz/The Deep from gw1 which took a large team (12) and required good teamwork and coordination for a nice payoff.

I think it is stupid to condemn a new system in a game based on the fact that it could have new gear/skins only obtainable through it. You cannot get Fractal skins without running fractals, you can NOT get dungeon skins unless you DO the dungeon.

There are many examples of this in gw2 already, so how would adding another really hurt? I personally don’t know how much I would participate, maybe a lot maybe not much at all, but I would not be sad to have the option.

In this context, a ‘raid’ is a dungeon/challenge requiring 10-40 players. This is significantly more difficult than a regular 5-man dungeon because the level of coordination within PUGs severely decline with the number of players. This means that unless the content is made to be as brain-dead easy as the current dungeons, only coordinated guild groups can clear the content. People who are stuck in small guilds, or don’t have guilds, or just can’t find it in themselves to interact with other people in an MMO will be locked out of this content and therefore feel cheated.

The one key aspect overlooked by most posters is the ‘social pressure’ inherent in raid groups. Let’s take for example a 10-man progression raid content that you know will take a stable group with good teamwork to clear. You sign on with a group that sets one specific time of the day of the week to attempt this raid. Then because 9/10 of those players suddenly want to increase the frequency to 2, 3 or maybe 5 raids a week, or even extend raiding hours, but you cannot/will not commit. What then? Well, you’ll soon find yourself out of a raid team, or you match their required commitment.

ANet also did nothing to help when they introduced the Ascended tier months after release, along with Agony. When all they had touted and all we had believed until then was that Exotic was where it stopped (in terms of stats), this new tier with higher stats and content that had stat gating (Agony Resistance) seemed like nothing more than the gear treadmill all over again, despite ANet’s own manifesto.

noone will trust the pugs

Here’s the bulletin: nobody trusts PUGs.

While I understand the frustration, it’d be more helpful to be able to see the personal Fractal level of each player prior to entering the Asura Gate, and let people decide for themselves whether they want to carry.

This…

The only difference would be player skill/experience. Which isn’t necessarily tied to level. I see loads of lvl 80’s who are terrible at dungeons and plenty lvl 35’s who are new to the game or alts that do a much better job.

contradicts with this…

I would still recommend certain level requirements for dungeons just to ensure the person has played on that character/profession long enough that they aren’t completely clueless.

Within the dungeon a window pops up allowing you to adjust your stats on each gear piece before you can continue and have access/set up all traits, regardless of level. That way it doesn’t matter which level someone is their gear doesn’t make a difference as you get the same choices no matter what level.

I have two issues with this idea.

This adds an extremely needless layer of complexity to a dungeon run. Before you begin, everybody will be clamouring and spouting numbers as if they didn’t just adjust their stats to maximum Magic Find. Worse still are the new players who are immediately submerged amidst all this.

Secondly, this doesn’t solve the level/gear elitism, just enhances it. First and foremost, you have to understand that this ‘elitism’ is spawned from speedrunners, not ‘regular’ players progressing through content. Speedrunners are free to seek out those of similar mindsets, just as the rest are welcome to do the same. Choice, or the illusion thereof.

ANet has no official stance, per se. You are allowed to sell via mail, but do so at your own risk. I’ve had a friend scammed out of 500g by an unscrupulous individual. He received no compensation and the culprit was seen playing the same scam for several weeks after.

Nirvana.8659:

Ojimaru.8970:

When going for Support, or Bomb builds in general, I very much prefer using a Shield for the extra Blast finisher.

Geared in Cleric’s or Apothecary’s, each Bomb is estimated to heal for 340 hp, Super Elixir gives 334 hp/s and Regeneration heals for 379 hp/s. If you swap out Radiation Field for Elixir R and Static Discharge for Kit Refinement, a full combo provides the group

3 Conditions removed per second (Super Elixir, Kit Refinement (Elixir Gun) and Toss Elixir R)
About 1,048 hp/s excluding Bombs (Super Elixir, Kit Refinement (Elixir Gun) and Regeneration)
20s of Retaliation (Detonate Healing Turret, Big Ol’ Bomb, Magnetic Inversion and Supply Crate inside Light field)
20% Revive per second

Hello.
That was the kind of discussion i was looking for.
Can you give me more information about:
-how much healing power do you need to make elixir F provide 334 hp regen/s?
-do i need to go full cleric also as jewel upgrade (orbs)?
-if i have to go full cleric to have all that regen, do i have any chance of defend my self in aWvW 1 vs 1 fight?

I dream a full support setup, with heaing turret+elixier gun+kit refiniment+elixier R, but i also would like to be able to survive during a fight … or at least make my enemy give up on me cause due to my regen/toughtness i would be hard to kill.
Sorry for my english.
Regards.

To give a little basis for my numbers:

Armour
Exotic Cleric’s, Magi’s or Apothecary gives 315 Healing Power

Trinkets
1 x Magi’s Spineguard
1 x Sapphire Orichalcum Amulet
2 x Sapphire Orichalcum Earring
2 x Sapphire Orichalcum Ring

Total gives 358 Healing Power

Weapons
Cleric’s, Magi’s or Apothecary’s Pistol and Shield gives 180 Healing Power

Upgrades
12 x Exquisite Sapphire Jewels give 300 Healing Power
Superior Sigil of Life at 25 stacks give 250 Healing Power
Bowl of Saffron-Mango Ice Cream gives 123 Healing Power

Traits
30 in Inventions for Elixir-infused Bombs gives 300 Healing Power

Total
1,826 Healing Power