Guild Wars 2

What you’re asking for is basically impossible. There will always be an objectively best option, and because traits and skills can’t be changed after a game starts, you tend to build around what’s to be expected.

Besides, this is the best meta we’ve had in years. What is your barometer or baseline of acceptance? Every class is viable in PvP, and classes run quite different builds between PvP, WvW, and even between raids, fractals, and dungeons. The game has never had more build and class diversity.

Barring population problems, this is the best Guild Wars 2 has been since 2013.

Just to add something else, GW2 in its current state is far more balanced than any other PvP MMO I’ve played recently. WoW is littered with completely garbage specializations, BDO has no semblance of balance, and ArcheAge is nothing but mageball trash can gameplay.

Elite specs still need some shaving, but I agree that this is the best meta we’ve had in a long time. I just wish scrapper brought more to the team than just being a res bot.

David.5974:

Well, just try to outnumber your enemy as much as you can. Scrapper is good far spotter. You should never loose any 1v1. Difference between us and tempest is, that we can kill intruder. I don’t tell my trics, but you are able to decap point with tempest in 30sec solo.

For example: your druid has 1v2 on far. So you run on far, get ready your fun gyro (often you arrive to rezz your mate) then fight continue.

Try to be in heavy fights as much as you can.

I agree that we belong in heavy fights, but i really couldn’t disagree more with the rest of what you said.

We have no on command swiftness unless we blast our healing skill into a lightning field, we have no teleports or gap closers (Rocket Charge is clunky af and hardly moves much faster than normal run speed), nor do we even have the spike potential necessary to quickly decap and win far points, so why do you think this is something we excel at?

If a druid is 1v2 at far, not only would a rev, thief, or mesmer be far quicker to assist them and rotate back to a larger team fight, they’d also contribute much more damage than a scrapper does. Staggering kills and respawns is such an integral aspect of even being able to hold far points, and scrapper just slaps like a wet noodle and drags out 1v1 and 2v2 fights to the point where the very classes I just mentioned above do exactly what we’re talking about and kill either me in a 1v2 situation or kill off my teammate and then create a 1v3 situation.

So while you’re right (and I said this myself) that scrapper can 1v1 anybody, we don’t have the toolset to do it properly. Engineer this season just feels like a hand me down elementalist, fulfilling a lot of the same responsibilities of condi cleansing and AoE healing, though with much less personal survivability.

I usually just make a point to pick a DPS on my team (usually the necro) and just banana ride them the whole game with my Elixir Gun and Mortar Kit. The only problem with this strategy is that you’re then only as good as your DPS, which makes it almost impossible to “carry” games.

Ok I Did It.2854:

Actually its easy to lose 9+ in a row, its impossible to be in 2 places at once, in order for me to win I require my other team mates to be able to hold a point and god forbid kill the other team, sure I lose some I win some fights, but when im watching guards on my team die in 3 seconds, i have no chance.

I’ll give you two suggestions:

First, maybe it would be a good idea to adjust your build so that you’re more capable of “carrying” team fights, whether that’s in the support or damage spectrum. As a scrapper I don’t do a lot of damage, but intelligent use of Fumigate, Super Elixir, and Elixir Shell provides a ton of healing and condition removal for my team and helps keep them alive. It doesn’t have to be much to make a difference.

I’ll still lose games if I have bad teammates, but I have lost games for my team as well through a bad decision or poor mechanical performance, and that’s what my greater point was re: the nine game losing streak.

You cannot seriously think there was nothing you could have done differently to change the result of any one of those nine plus losses, and you’re being incredibly dishonest with yourself if you believe it’s “impossible” for you to do more for your team than you’re already doing; everyone has room for improvement, including you. Try not to forget that. Treat every death as a mistake and try to set goals for yourself with regard to offense and defense ticks. It’ll give you a measure-able goal to work toward and will better allow you to reflect on your own skill progression as a player.

Second, I suggest staggering your queue times to avoid repeated games with the same players. Taking breaks is healthy for both your body and your mind, but it also helps prevent you from being thrown into games with constantly the same people. If I lose two games in a row with a similar roster, I usually take a break for three to five minutes and re-enter the queue. And if I’m still losing games, (especially if it reaches three to four games in a row) I always make a point to take a step back and consider what I could be doing differently. Sometimes even something as simple as changing a utility skill or rune set can make a huge difference in my performance and give me what I need to combat the people I’m facing for a given day.

Don’t just mash your ranked arena queue button the moment you re-enter Heart of the Mists, running the same build, with and against the same players, and think something is magically going to change. That is the very definition of insanity.

Just position your progress based on yourself, and your own contributions. You can’t control your teammates, and in the long run you’ll just poison the well regarding PvP and what you ultimately get out of it. While your friend is in the wrong to AFK matches for ascended gear, there’s a more appropriate salient point to consider: this season is particularly rewarding, and I have legendaries I want to make. Nevermore and Astralaria won’t pay for themselves, and if I can make some of the gold through PvP, I’ll spam games regardless.

Just take each match as a learning experience, and try not to worry so much about your rating with like six weeks left to play in the season.

I’m going to have a moment of honesty here: after 100+ games this season in Platinum, fluctuating between 1800 and 1650 all season long, I have no idea what my role is in this meta or how to crack beyond the top #150 on the leaderboard.

I am a self-defined PvX player, dabbling a bit in all the game modes, but with the launch of the fifth season I have put more emphasis on PvP. I have over three thousand matches played on my account, mostly on my engineer—and almost exclusively consisting of matches played before Heart of Thorns came out.

Like many, I quit in the middle of season one, disgusted by the 2x rev 2x chrono meta. I came back in short bouts in season two and three, but not enough to still get a firm understanding of the scrapper and its role in the meta. As such, season five is my first real effort trying to be competitive in Heart of Thorns PvP, and I have to admit that despite my games played on the engineer, I’m at a serious loss understanding who I’m supposed to beat 1v1 and where I’m actually supposed to be.

Pre-Heart of Thorns, engineer had two counters: (1) conditions and (2) boon corruption. This made condi mesmers and signet necromancers our primary arch-nemeses for many years. With the addition of the scrapper tree, however, I’m not entirely sure that’s the case anymore. Purge Gyro and Adaptive Armor cancels out most condition spam, and most necromancers aren’t running signets or scepter anymore in platinum. This has put me in the precarious situation in which I’m not exactly sure what I’m supposed to win and lose against, or when I’m supposed to circle back home to defend it.

This problem is only further exacerbated by the fact that scrapper in its current role just doesn’t dish out very much damage to effectively 1v1. Even with a Marauder amulet, dragonhunters and revenants just outclass our spike damage outside of chugging Elixir X in my experience, which gives me the impression that those classes are far better suited for those situations. Not only does scrapper not deal an impressive amount of damage, but the spec itself is pretty slow with no real gap closers; despite what I said above about our vague (but optimistic) 1v1 potential, engineer feels like the absolute worst class to defend home with for that reason. We’re easily among the slowest classes in the game right now, which means an engineer being forced to rotate back and forth to defend home spends more time traveling and less time team-fighting (vs. say a thief, revenant, mesmer, or even guardian).

So I’ve really tried my hardest to help win team fights through the Function Gyro, Fumigate, and Elixir X … but I can’t help but feel like the damage problem still persists. And because our sustain isn’t anywhere near the level of a bunker elementalist, scrapper just feels like it’s in this awkward position where we just don’t excel at anything.

I have risen and fallen from Plat 1 and Plat 2 all season long, hitting around #150 on the leaderboard at best and falling into Gold 3 for a few hours at worst. I am about to leave to go on vacation sitting at a humbling ~1650. I have no illusions of being a pro player or even sniffing the top 50, but I don’t feel like I’m losing games constantly because of poor mechanics or rotations but simply because I’m playing the engineer, and I would like to know what I can do to push back into the top 250 and potentially the top 100 when I return to the game in January as someone that primarily solo-queues.

I was very optimistic about our role in the meta at the start of this season, but after 100+ games in platinum I feel like I’m at a loss regarding what I should be doing. I have tinkered my build to the nth degree to bring some kind of edge, but nothing I produce ever matches the damage output of a necro or guardian or the sustain of the elementalist.

Ok I Did It.2854:

This is nearly pointless for me now, im 7-0 today and dropped so far down I probably wont beable to recover this, every match up ive had, ive had someone either AFK or just run around with there buddy, I cant get a decent match up at all, and my rating is getting slaughtered, the season is all but over before its begun, this is stupid.

It makes be beyond livid if I have 4 players of other team ganking me, and my team is sitting in the corner playing lets all sit on point and pray.

Its crap like this that makes people not want to play PvP at all, why bother if im trying to play a match that 4 others players on my team don’t give a crap about, where the hell is my incentive to play anymore, just so I can sit and get a streak of losses, where is the fun in that,

Rating needs to be tweaked so that it takes into fact your personal contribution to the game, that way the players who don’t care, or who afk, or who just feed the kills, get their rating slaughtered and drop down so low we don’t see them again, as it stands PvP is pointless and no fun, its only catering for those who want to AFK farm ascended crap.

EDIT 9-0 now, I cant handle these, have no clue players no more, gg anet, happy holidays, i guess its time to AFK my way to ascended gear (even though I don’t need it), as apparently getting a decent match up is out of the question, maybe next time those who have no interest in playing wont beable to ruin it for others.

While losing 2-3 games straight can be the fault of poor matchmaking, it takes some remarkable hubris to look at a 9-game losing streak and not take any ownership of the result.

If you’re losing that many games in a row, it may be important to consider if the problem is just your teammates.

Etaoin.4362:

Samug.6512:

Name me a build that has been in meta of other class with 0 use of weapon swap.

Anything involving elementalist/tempest.

Sorry, had to do it.

And revenant. On mine I used to only swap to staff for break bars in PvE.

PierPiero.9142:

Dawdler.8521:

PierPiero.9142:

People think that mender ele is only a healer but with 2k power and 30% crit it has also a decent damage for an healer (if u add a sigil of accuracy you crit 1/3 of time which is quite good now ) . you are an healer but you can also win 1 vs 1 … it is much better than old cleric in this and it is less boring .

Hence why it’s not called a healer but rather bunker/dps. The old cele ele also had the privilege of being in a tier that was literally outside all other PvP tiers when it came to class balance.

Yes but now i find mender ele stronger than mender scrapper for soloing . the huge difference of ele is the AOE of overload , something that scrapper really misses and that helps a lot in teamfight . With arcane shield cd at 40 sec , earth focus 5 every 30 secs , blind from earth 2 , blind for air 4 , gale, chill and water 4 you have really good defensive options too …comparable with scrapper (bulkgyro hammer and automatic elixi S ) . Scrapper can has great stealth access that helps you surviving but with that you don’t cap and ele is more team oriented ( i find air 4 great for example to protect people on point from ranger, warriors or guardian with longbow)

For the record, I wasn’t talking about Mender scrapper specifically but scrapper vs. elementalist in general.

I don’t think Mender is all that viable in higher tier glicko simply because people actually play rev and thief incredibly well in Plat 2 and above. Unless you opt for Adaptive Armor or something like Melandru runes, running baseline toughness on scrapper this season is kinda rough imo. Your blocks and dodges have to be absolutely on point, especially now that gyros don’t daze people in their tracks.

I think only Marauder and Paladin are the viable choices in higher tiers. As far as runes, I consistently swap between Melandru and Scrapper. Leadership is still decent, but with Elixir X’s long CD it’s not quite as useful outside of the boon duration.

If someone’s intention is to simply AFK their matches to the end of the Byzantium box, the rate in which players gain pips through losses is so slow they’d be better off just running fractals or AB multi-mapping.

The PvP community just isn’t large enough to support split queues.

The better alternative is to simply keep ranked arena solo/duo only and have automated tournaments for groups.

vove.2768:

Anet doesn’t know how to make good rewards for playing.

I’ve made over 300 gold since this season started. What are you talking about?

PierPiero.9142:

It is sad but i find easier to win with an ele in team than with a scrapper ( at the same skill level obviously )

You’re not wrong. Engi is competitive, but it’s not ideal.

I won’t deny that this season has been an absolute struggle for me. I am constantly fluctuating between 1800 and 1750, but this is probably just where I belong.

Thanks.6859:

Played 200 season 5 games now I won 108 Think that should put me on gold 2nd teir this is bs

If you’re winning less than 60% of the games you’re playing, you’re probably exactly where you belong.

Vagrant.7206:

And scrapper isn’t super competitive either, just kinda tanky.

I disagree, given that there’s a number of engineer mains in the top 20. Scrapper can get you some good mileage this season. It’s not as FOTM as dragonhunter and elementalist are, but it’s still a very solid profession.

The MetaBattle build is just not accurate.

Ivantreil.3092:

Or maybe it does, bieng so dpendant to kits seems quite unhealthy for the class, name me a build that has been in the meta with 0 use of kits.

Zero, but that’s neither here nor there. The problem isn’t the use of kits but the overuse of them—and Scrapper actually solved that problem. The only kit I use in PvP is the Elixir Gun.

Core engi doesn’t need a redesign. Other classes just need to be brought down.

That the only thing keeping engineer viable in PvP and WvW is having to take all three defensive trees shows how weak the other trees are. In PvE condi ranger even outdamages us despite a simpler rotation and having far superior survivability.

We don’t need even more power creep. We just need elite specs further scaled back.

I think it’s pretty well established at this point that queue times are much shorter than previous seasons. Ideally this is a good thing, and something ArenaNet should actively push. But is it possible that queue times are too short, and the matchmaker is too shallow?

We see numerous threads popping up regarding class stacking being a problem. I’ve experienced it myself. I played four games in a row last night with multiple necromancers and no elementalists, only to get absolutely trashed by the overwhelming spike damage on the other team that—by design of their build—they couldn’t handle. Losing a few games isn’t a particularly big deal, but losing 50 rating over 4 games with an arguably unwinnable comp didn’t feel particularly good.

I’m not referring to my games last night as a small sample but a singular data point represented in a broader trend. Just the other day I was thrown into a game against two top 10 players with three thieves on my team. I don’t recall how long my queue time was for that given match, and we ended up winning it regardless, but I’ve had enough queue pops under a minute to wonder if the matchmaker couldn’t be a bit more selective.

Rukia.9860:

In every competitive game I’ve played if you make it to a certain rating you get your reward / achievement / mount / skin / title / whatever with no limit, because regardless, it takes skill to reach that level. Why the kitten would you even put a limit is beyond my brain to comprehend.

I like to be competitive but I do have a life & a job. I just wanna play a few matches after work. Meanwhile randomdbag#3243 is using 3 different accounts with a friend to take up more spots on the miniscule top 250 ladder all day. Cool beans, bro.

Cool beans indeed. Two things I want to say here.

Firstly, we all have lives, wives, and a job, friend. None of these things will keep you out of the top 250. The problem, while egregious in the top 10 to 25, is not enough to edge you out of the leaderboard entirely. I was sitting at #120 this afternoon despite (1) not really playing this game much over over the past year and only coming back around Thanksgiving (and still being kinda bad at PvP in this game in general anyway), (2) solo-queuing 70% of my games, and (3) exclusively playing the engineer, a class that would hardly be considered “thriving” right now.

The PvP community just isn’t that large, and the number of people actually doing this to the point where it’s an actual problem could be counted on one hand. That at multiple points this week I’ve sniffed the top #100 despite the above conditions says enough about the state of NA’s competitiveness in 2016. There’s plenty of open positions to compete for, and pro league players farming on five accounts, while crappy and kind of petty, won’t impact your chances of getting a title no one will probably ever stop in their tracks in the middle of their Auric Basin multi-mapping route to admire.

Secondly, PvP does offer rewards, achievements, skins, and titles without limitations. You can farm your champion titles in unranked “rated” matches and you can get 5/6ths of an ascended armor set entirely for free even with a sub-1k glicko rating. This has been the most rewarding PvP has ever been, and it has been successful at drawing in numerous players from my guild (unfortunately most likely to the detriment of those around them) that have never PvP’d before but are now hooked for that reason. As a returning player from WoW: Legion, Black Desert, and ArcheAge, not only does GW2 have the best reward paradigm as far as competitive PvP is concerned compared to all other MMOs on the market, it actually gives gear that’s useful outside of it (unlike the Versatility gear WoW consistently throws at you every week). For years I wavered one foot in and one foot out of this game following the closure of LS1 and the ending of the WvW tournaments. I’ve never held a firmer conviction of this game’s future than I do now, and a lot of that is ironically based on exactly what you’re complaining about.

The only limitations that currently exist are the leaderboard titles, but what exactly is the alternative? What more of a hand-out, “thanks for playing” consolation prize do you need than a system that rewards you close to 15 gold an hour with the Candy Corn Gobbler and a free set of ascended armor? Jesus.

There has to be some sense of exclusivity still, even if it results in some career “four time legendary” Stronghold-queuers being kittened off that they’re not actually as good as they thought they were.

Evan Lesh.3295:

Our amazing UI artist has already made a pass on these and they are much more distinguishable and bright.

I’m not so sure. Gold and platinum look very similar to one another. Ruby, diamond, and legendary were much easier to differentiate in that red, white, and black are much easier to distinguish than the very dull gold and platinum colors that were chosen.

I don’t oppose the new look, but keeping the roman numerals to identify each icon would’ve also been nice.

Cynz.9437:

Moxi.5861:

for someone that has “WTS Boston winner” in his signature you shouldnt complain about facing good players LOL

His complain is not that he is facing good players, his complain is that teams are put together with huge skill gaps, e.g. 1 team has 4 ESL players and 1 potato where other team has 1 ESL player and 4 potatoes. The outcome is pretty obvious. Idk why he thinks it is new, when it has been like this for years,if you played solo.

It’s the same complaints made every season.

It’s just this time around you don’t have the frustration of facing premades on top of everything else.

It’s overall a good move in the right direction, but the flat MMR reset wasn’t in my opinion the right way to go about it. You have people in the 1.7k and 1.6k brackets that have no idea what they’re doing or how to play their class.

Gwaihir.1745:

Hammer has a 1200 leap. You have superspeed. I fail to see the problem.

Because of aftercasts, Rocket Charge is actually no faster than just running forward. I’d argue it’s actually slower, because the third leap has an aftercast as well.

You also only really have super speed if you’re running Final Salvo. I personally think Adaptive Armor is better for 1v2 situations, as you’re not reliant on standing in place/in a specific area to gain defensive measures.

I have a G600.

G9 G10 G11 G13 and G14 are my toolbelt skills.

G12 is dodge, and G15 is an alternate press for my auto-attack for the same reasons you mentioned. I usually only use it with the grenade kit.

lvis.3824:

Well you mean Scrapper with Hammer tbh, not engineer in general

I think it’s pretty well understood at this point that if you want to be competitive you have to run HoT specializations.

Mender’s fares well vs. most classes solo; I actually tend to find other engineers running Paladin/Marauder give me the most trouble.

I think engineer is in a very solid state, being useful in both team fighting and 1v1s. Much more optimistic than I was in the off-season.

Elixir Gun is taken because of the area retal, condi cleanse, and weakness it spreads. It’s the best all-around kit, and it also comes with a stun breaker.

As for those that kite you, it’s one of the reasons I just take the Mortar Kit. Endothermic Shell and a 1500 range AoE attack is super valuable in team fights, and you can leap through it for frost armor.

This is the build I’ve been mostly running: http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vdAQFASnUUBdpitbBGpC0ehlJjS8ZKgAIc7Smwi+vr79G-TJBFABAcBA6vMQL7PQwDAAA

Against thief/guardian heavy teams I swap out Mender for Paladin.

Is there a reason why the Blunderbuss change is PvP-only?

Condition engineer is mentally straining and carpal tunnel inducing. As someone with over 3,000 hours on the class, I just cannot tolerate raiding on it for hours on end, especially when the same measure of DPS can be achieved with far less effort on pretty much any other profession.

Buffing the rifle would make power engineer an actual competitive choice for raids and fractals, and would certainly make the profession far more enjoyable to play in PvE. Please reconsider this being a PvP-only change.

My Predator has been collecting dust for over a year now, and it pains me to think that in our requests to have less emphasis on kits in our Heart of Thorns elite specialization that we’ve never been more reliant on them—and that Scrapper isn’t even being used in PvE.

Are there long-term plans to make Scrapper an actual competitive choice for PvE now that you’re splitting skill balance between game modes? I’ve been playing variants of Grenade Kit engineer builds since 2012. Please give us something new to play.

Wildfang.3271:

Well, to be fair while I do think d/d cele elementalist was pretty much ridiculous, nothing can really top the awfulness that is called bunker mesmer meta during S1. A good one can prevent point capping for a good while and I remembered that the pro league games mainly came down to which team can cap a point for a while.

Season one was the first time I saw games regularly going the full fifteen minutes. Alongside the 50/50 matchmaking, it made season one such a gigantic grind that by the time I reached diamond I was absolutely fed up with it and stopped playing.

I’d say it was easily the lowest point in the game’s life on the PvP side of things, and when Black Desert came out it wasn’t a difficult choice to make regarding which game to play.

I understand it’s very easy to improve on that situation, as it’s pretty tough to go further downhill than that—so I understand saying things are in “a better state than before” isn’t saying a lot.

I do, however, think that the current meta at the moment is far superior to most we’ve experienced. I don’t particularly enjoy seeing every condition in the game chipping away at my health bar when I’m stuck in a game vs. 2 necromancers and a mesmer, especially when my team is full of thieves and guardians who’d rather duel off-point, but this off-season has been more tolerable than most, and I anticipate that with the solo/duo queue and MMR system for season five will make matchmaking far more consistent and fair.

At the end of the day it just comes down to whether or not you enjoy the actual gamplay of Heart of Thorns PvP, and I totally understand that for many players they prefer what we had before.

Ithilwen.1529:

Multiple matches tonight. Two Duos vs all randoms. This is no bettter than team vs randoms.

Keep in mind unranked is a pretty uncontrolled, random environment—especially leading up to the final days of pre-season.

One match I’ll be put up vs. pro-league players and the next I’ll be matched up vs. keyboard turners. There are a lot of weekend warriors and PvE players coming into PvP now with the announcement that you can obtain ascended armor in season five. You’re just as likely to bump into a premade/duo of fresh players as you are experienced ones.

Blackari.2051:

“The game seems healthy enough, balanced enough, "
Did you actually play in the last month or so ? … how could yu think that this cancer meta is “balanced” ? where conditions for noobs burst more than power spike builds ?

In my experience, the only time condi is an actual problem is when I’m stuck on a team with three guardians.

You raise some fair points about engi, but I have to stop and respond to a couple things you said.

BlackBeard.2873:

Then, because everyone had all these “mitigate all damage skills” they had to remove amulets that have toughness (that were NEVER a problem) because they became a problem when everyone could heal for way more, block forever, and only rarely take hits. This means any spec that can’t boast a ton of blocks, evades, invulns, etc. can’t even play the game.

You’re not wrong, but I think you’re improperly viewing the balancing situation.

Toughness and healing power amulets have always been a problem. They’ve just been able to balance stuff like cele rifle engi, bunker guardian, and d/d elementalist in the past without threatening PvE viability; the trees that made bunker guardian and d/d elementalist overpowered weren’t commonly chosen in PvE, so they had free reign to balance stuff out as they needed to.

But as I’m sure you know, that changed when Heart of Thorns came out. Every class (minus the engineer) used their elite specialization in both PvE and PvP, which put the balance team in a precarious situation. Nerfing builds in PvP would have a direct effect in PvE viability, which meant ArenaNet’s PvP team was forced to balance the game not through adjusting skills but by adding and removing amulets.

So it’s not that HoT made amulets a problem; it’s just that adding and removing amulets was the only way to balance PvP without making chronomancer useless in PvE. We’ve already seen that type of treatment hit the revenant, and you can see what kind of backlash they’ve received since.

Now that they’re (finally) willing to balance PvP and PvE separately, I would be very surprised if most of your concerns regarding the HoT power creep evaporate over the next few months.

BlackBeard.2873:

Finally, HoT’s power-creep killed build diversity. Pre-HoT, Off-meta builds were maybe 5-10% worse than meta builds, but could make up that difference more easily with the element of surprise. Post-HoT, off meta builds are like 25-40% weaker than meta-builds with the elite spec, and can’t make up the difference against players that play well. This makes the game boring and interactions in fights predictable, killing fun for a large portion of players (esp. those who enjoy creativity more than just winning at all costs).

I disagree so, so much with this statement. There have always been meta builds. Off-meta builds have to some extent been “viable” from time to time, but there have been so many godly builds over the years (e.g., anything running celestial amulet) that completely trashed off-meta builds.

For all complaints of post-HoT diversity, people have been complaining about balance and class stacking since the early months of this game’s life. And nothing in the game’s current state comes close to the complete stupidity of d/d cele elementalist. The PvP meta revolved entirely around one class for over a year.

Sins.4782:

I tried to queue up for a ranked match on NA last night and had to leave it after sitting for over 30 minutes in queue. If you’re getting better times, please, by all means, share them with me. Also, balance in this game is still leagues from anything I would consider ‘healthy’. Elite specs are all still considerable upgrades from core, and real build diversity is still nonexistent.

You do realize it’s still the off-season, right?

shion.2084:

Phineas Poe.3018:

Rolisteel.1375:

100% damage avoiding skills ( also high mobility 100% damage avoiding ) have to be nerfed to give damage mitigation instead 30% 50% etc. and balance the damage of the classes/builds from there.

Thats what required for fun fights. Atm all we face in every match is invu invu, block block block, evadee evadee, 00000, dodge dodge + high mobility teleports etc spamm.

Its OP lazy mechanic that carry bad/good players alot that can have 100% damage avoiding while also have high burst damage output. Block/evade spam builds have always existed.

While also not fun to fight against almost every match full of damage avoiding spam.

i eat the burst as they are attacking while also avoiding damage lol.

We had “bunker meta” before, we have now “100% damage avoiding tanky burst meta”

How is this any different from engineers having perma vigor with double Elixir S (utility+trait) and Tool Kit builds pre-HoT?

In fact, blinds and smoke fields were across the board substantially stronger in the past compared to how they are today.

Well
1) I can’t get nuked by an engi using elixir S to mitigate incoming damage.
2) In fact if I’ve hit them with condis, they might die while in it.
3) In a 1v1 if I’m an engi and they are and we are contesting point, it is to my advantage for them to go into elix S, as my cooldowns start ticking and I can actively use healing.

I feel like you missed the point of the question.

Rolisteel.1375:

100% damage avoiding skills ( also high mobility 100% damage avoiding ) have to be nerfed to give damage mitigation instead 30% 50% etc. and balance the damage of the classes/builds from there.

Thats what required for fun fights. Atm all we face in every match is invu invu, block block block, evadee evadee, 00000, dodge dodge + high mobility teleports etc spamm.

Its OP lazy mechanic that carry bad/good players alot that can have 100% damage avoiding while also have high burst damage output. Block/evade spam builds have always existed.

While also not fun to fight against almost every match full of damage avoiding spam.

i eat the burst as they are attacking while also avoiding damage lol.

We had “bunker meta” before, we have now “100% damage avoiding tanky burst meta”

How is this any different from engineers having perma vigor with double Elixir S (utility+trait) and Tool Kit builds pre-HoT?

In fact, blinds and smoke fields were across the board substantially stronger in the past compared to how they are today.

Crinn.7864:

Phineas Poe.3018:

People around here like to complain that Heart of Thorns doubled-down on passives

What’s really funny is when you realize that all the passives people complain about are all core traits that existed long before HoT.

heck if it wasn’t for the new profession mechanic on each elite spec, I’m not even sure classes would use their elite specs. The traits on elite specs are so mediocre most of the time.

Well, I’m not going to deny that Heart of Thorns doubled-down on passives. Heart of Thorns also didn’t just add the new specialization trait lines. They went back and re-did a lot of the core trait lines, making a lot of traits baseline that were previously uncompetitive choices for their tiers, creating new, better ones in their place. The best example of this is something like the old Grenadier, with the Grenade Kit now having three grenades per throw by default.

So while I don’t run Scrapper in PvE, it is distinctively a Heart of Thorns thing that I do like 25k DPS on an Explosives/Firearms/Tools build that’s identical to what I’ve been running for years, which used to do nothing close to that. The power creep is a very real thing, though I’m not utterly convinced that’s automatically a bad thing. I don’t see Heart of Thorns as a different Guild Wars 2 so much as more Guild Wars 2.

My point is just that Guild Wars 2 has always been a game built around passives, and in ways far easier to maintain. At least a Scrapper has to give up certain utilities to make use of Rapid Regeneration and Final Salvo, and at least you have to be mindful of the field you’re standing in before you Rocket Charge back 25% of your HP. Before I would just brainlessly swap into kits for Backpack Regenerator.

Azukas.1426:

While PvP is better than bunker hell from HoTS release its still abysmal to what it was/could be

I think it’s a fair point that Guild Wars 2 could be a better game, but I’m not sure pre-HoT GW2 is necessarily a model to imitate. You think the current state of affairs is abysmal and I respect that, but I’d argue that PvP was in its categorically worst state from the moment the Celestial amulet was added, and only upon its removal has the game since improved.

People around here like to complain that Heart of Thorns doubled-down on passives and boons and made the game more convoluted, but the truth of the matter is that Guild Wars 2 has always been a game riddled with passives, and necromancer at many times crept in the meta precisely to counter builds just absolutely swimming in bullkitten.

I used to be able to maintain close to 25 stacks of might, perma swiftness, vigor, and regeneration. All by just consuming elixirs on CD and swapping kits. What you desire from the past has never existed, and the truth of the matter is that Guild Wars 2 has been in much worse states than it currently is in.

Scrapper might be pretty easy to play, but so was 100nades, FT/TK condi, Cele rifle, and PPHGH. There wasn’t a single point in time where the best engineer build was its most challenging to master. And that is the case for most professions in this game.

PierPiero.9142:

I played paladin for 4 seasons. Now it seems to me that mender is better. I have not real big problem against thieves . i find much easier with mender to fight condi spammer . The only dangerous things that i find now are power mesmer. A strong power mesmer can be really hard especially if it attacks you and you are not ready .

Well, no one is going to deny that Mender fares better vs. condi than Paladin does; the gains of 1050 healing power vs. 560 toughness is obvious, given that toughness does nothing against condition damage.

I’m still not convinced it’s an overall better choice, however. Mender is more survivable in a condi meta, but is that what we’re in right now? The only classes I really see going condi right now are warrior, necro, and mesmer. Warrior can be easily countered by just running the Mortar Kit and dropping blind and chill fields everywhere. Necromancer can be easily countered with Toss Elixir X. The only class I really struggle vs. condi against is mesmer; and if Paladin does just fine against 8 of 9 professions in the game, and if Menders doesn’t, is it really objectively a better choice?

If I’m queued into a game vs. two mesmers, I’ll absolutely swap to Mender. If I’m also queued into a game with no tempest or druid on my team, I’ll also consider Mender+Water. Other than that, however, I’m still preferential to Paladin amulet. In solo queue situations, it’s generally better to go the more selfish/1v1 route, especially when our support build ends up being incredibly squishy to spike damage unlike druid/tempest historically are.

I quit this game in the beginning of 2016, absolutely disgusted by the most egregious bunker meta ever conceived in the HoT launch. I came back for like a few weeks in the middle of May/June, only to quit again when it felt like ranked PvP dissolved into premades trashing solo-queuers.

As it stands, the game is better balanced than it was at HoT launch, and we’re getting the return of solo/duo-queue in season five. What is the doom and gloom about? I just don’t understand.

While this last point is anecdotal, my queue times are short. There’s more people in my guild PvPing than before. And there’s a lot of new names I’ve seen, even at a time when we’re weeks into the off-season with no clear announcement for when season five starts.

The game seems healthy enough, balanced enough, and has good changes coming in the pipeline. Even as an engineer main, a class people say is absolutely mediocre/bad right now, I manage to win 1v1s against most professions.

And while I’m pretty experienced playing this game for over four years with a few thousand games under my belt, I am pretty kitten rusty having played BDO and WoW over the past year. I would hardly consider myself an ESL level player in any remote sense even when playing at my best. I feel my experience since coming back a couple weeks ago would be fairly standard, and not an outlier or unrealistic data point to extrapolate toward a larger conclusion.

So why is this forum on fire? Is there something I’m missing?

Sazdek.6830:

I suppose I really don’t get how the game can have this many players but so few theorycrafters and build makers. Is it a fault of anet for making very few possible viable builds for all the classes? Is it our fault for being lazy? Who the hell knows.

The answer to your question is both simple and complex. The simple answer is: this game isn’t hard. The more complex answer is: this game just hasn’t changed much mechanically over its life span. I would think the former is kind of obvious, but the latter might require some exposition on my part. I know this thread is about PvP builds, but I think the status quo is best represented by how GW2 has handled its PvE metagame.

When Guild Wars 2 came out in 2012, I was an avid theorycrafter. I was blown away by the ability to change skills at will outside of combat, and while the talent point system was pretty cumbersome to use, it was very cheap to reset your talents as needed. It made Guild Wars 2, similar to its predecessor, a pretty fun game to theorycraft.

Unfortunately, it became kind of obvious early on that the Grenade Kit was the by-and-large best option for the engineer. And this hasn’t really changed over the past four years; if anything, the meta has only further reinforced the GK as a necessary utility slot, and has by extension compartmentalized a pretty diversifiable class like the engineer into a singular role of stacking vulnerability.

We had a few months in time when we were also brought to dungeons and fractals for might stacking, but now pretty much anybody can do it and there’s no point to care about it.

So as a theorycrafter, I had little left to do. I made an FT/EG build. I made a Bomb Kit build. I made a static discharge build. But in the end none of them compared to the GK, and in meaningful content it just felt ridiculous running anything else. So I, and many other theorycrafters and guide-writers, just stopped. There was nothing to theorize or talk about, except to make recommendations to improve the other kits.

We made multiple suggestions to make the FT, BK, and EG better. Some of them, like Flame Blast becoming a blast finisher, were eventually added years later. Most of them were ignored. Eventually I got bored of the game and quit to play ArcheAge, like many people.

I still come back to this game occasionally, and I did when Heart of Thorns was announced and released, but even with the new expansion nothing really changed. I’m still spamming grenades on my engineer, even if the rotation calls for a more complex playstyle. As you can imagine I eventually got bored again and quit. I’ve since spent my time working through my Steam backlog I’ve neglected over the past few years while playing Black Desert and even a stint with World of Warcraft: Legion.

The truth of the matter is that the meta has barely changed over four-plus years to warrant any serious re-examination, and that there have been no mechanical changes to Guild Wars 2 that functionally affect the engineer profession in any significant way. There is no theorycraft community because there simply isn’t a need for one.

We’ve known from day one what the “best” build was, and it revolved around grenades. The engineer has always revolved around it, and will likely forever revolve around it.

Ardid.7203:

Some scrapper builds in Metabattle still mention gyros applying daze. This doesn’t affect such builds in any major way, but is worth taking on account.

This is the only balance change engineers have gotten in literally over six months?

Ardid.7203:

There has been some recent “balance”, so the MB builds ARE a bit outdated. Just not enough to make any relevant change to most builds.

Could you be more specific?

Ivantreil.3092:

Sadly yes…..

Core engi is still good to run, but nothing comparable to scrapper hammer, this is still our bes build

Hm. Shame.

Okay thanks.

I quit playing this game in the beginning months of the year after frustrations over the competitive progression systems and being farmed by premades. Heard about solo/duo-only queue for season five, and I reinstalled immediately.

I’m reviewing MetaBattle builds and tbh it hasn’t changed much since I last played in the beginning weeks of season two or three. Is this accurate? Is stacking gyros with the hammer still our best build?

Alex Shatter.7956:

I just made an engineer after playing zerker elementalist for about 4 months. I chose condition engineer because it was something my elementalist couldn’t outshine it in, since I’m pretty sure power ele takes a big dump on power engineer.

If there are things like burnzerker, thief, and tempest running around, what advantages does power engineer bring to the table? Being a recent addition to the community, I was surprised there was a debate. I had always assumed engineers and necromancers huddled together as the condition champions.

It doesn’t bring any advantages, but condi is really only required in one fight: the Vale Guardian. Beyond that it just comes down to which deals more DPS.

I still personally think condi is the better option because of the synergy with Epidemic. To that end the engineer’s contributions in a raid group increase exponentially for every necromancer in the raid group. Those things are hard to really pin down and test versus whacking a 4 mil HP golem for a few minutes, though … and at the end of the day it just comes down to the eye test and personal preference.

If you’re getting successful kills with a power engi, I don’t see the issue. But the greater question raised in this thread asking if the condi engi is “worth it?” I’d say absolutely yes it is, and because of the utility condi engi brings to Vale Guardian (and other future raid bosses that will likely repeat the mechanic in some fashion) everyone that mains engineer should get their Viper gear in order first.

Sismis.5390:

When Gw2 went live it had over 100+ servers to pick from.What about now?You have 51 servers,what does that say?

If you’re referring to WvW servers, it’s the same amount today as they had at launch.

Soon.5240:

All things considered, you might be able to get around 1,000 to 1,200 heal out of detonating a Gyro.

He said he’s not running any super speed. That means no Final Salvo.

No.

/15char

Paladin + Air/Fire sigils with Hoelbrak runes.

I swap between Purge Gyro and Bulwark depending on enemy team comp. Everything else is pretty much the same as last season, except Blast Gyro over Slick Shoes.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vdAQFASnUUBdpitbBuoCkfhlJjKc7SmwS8ZKgAg+vr7+G-TJBFABCcBAaZ/h/LDAwDAAA

Truthfully I think engineer is in a very good spot. With Purge Gyro I can 1v1 condi war and mes pretty OK, but the season is only a couple days old and I might’ve been fighting bad players.

I’ve dabbled with Marauder but I don’t like it as much in 1v1 situations; Paladin also allows you to outlast 1v2s long enough for someone to +1.

Xyonon.3987:

1. Not quite – the damage difference is minimap if you’re NOT going to maintain all conditions for MA, if you are power surely wins. Keep an eye on the condi bar for the next week or something, you’ll have more conditions than you think. But again that depends a bit on your team, not the least on your chronos and yourself.

Minimal? Maxed out Mod Ammo is a 26% damage increase.

You’ll maintain a fair amount of conditions on most bosses, yes. Likely 6-8: vulnerability, cripple, bleeding, blind, torment, burning, and poison for starters. But coming into this thread proclaiming that power engi does 33k personal dps under the assumption that you’ll have permanent fear, immobilized, or slow on mobs is just absurd. You’re throwing around “spreadsheet dps.” If anything, something far worse than it.

Xyonon.3987:

2. You also seem to hype epidemic a lot. I can understand people who take necro for the whole 2nd wing, but they’re more of a babysitter profession. They are only really important at Matt, everywhere else I’d rather have Eles instead.

And Sloth, Bandit Trio, Sabetha, Gorseval…

I’m not overrating Epidemic. You’re underrating it.

Like I said before, if people want to run power and they’re downing bosses with it—by all means have fun with it. But don’t come into threads with spreadsheet numbers without situating all the additional context that makes condi engi worth bringing, and in most cases preferential.

Xyonon.3987:

As Lalainnia mentioned, the dps difference is so minimal, that you basicly can play whichever you like, wich is wonderful for a profession.

The difference is minimal if:

1. You’re assuming you’re going to maintain all conditions on a boss for Mod Ammo, which never happens.

2. You ignore the damage gains your party gets by stacking burning for Epidemic.

I read your post. You admitted both of these points are true. That’s why I said I’m not going to repeat myself. People need to confirm these two facts for themselves and decide if power engi is really the right move. What you do beyond that is your own business, but there’s a reason people are 5-8 manning raid content with condi engi and you don’t see any with power engi: it pairs incredibly well with condi necro and allows you to maximize your power damage with other professions like ele and thief.

DC’d from my first match and got thrown back into the lobby. DC’d again while standing in Heart of the Mists.

I’ll wait for a fix before I try playing again.