Guild Wars 2

Generally (though not always) zones access others that are the next step in leveling. Getting to SSC from Caledon or even Sparkfly would be pointless really. What lvl 14 is going to want to get there? And what 80 is going to run to SSC from the Grove thru Caledon? I understand Calcifire’s want to be able to see it from afar (Morgan’s Spiral). It shouldn’t exist as an other-dimensional-island.

It was added after launch and isn’t complete yet. As such, and given this new SSC-centered storyline, there might be some great things coming. Perhaps an expansion to the zone or a new one.

Is the radius referring to how large the radius of the explosion is or what the radius in degrees the turret has? In other words, if I drop the turret while facing north, and an enemy approaches from directly behind, will it turn to face it? A 240 degree arc would be 120 degrees in both directions from facing straight forward. So basically the turret can peer over its shoulder but spin around to check its behind.

Regnum.7102:

By the way… am I the only one who thinks the engineer should have the same shooting animation with the rifle as warriors? I hate watching myself shooting from the hip at long range xD

There have been numerous threads dedicated to just that point.

Engineer have great damage output, a lot of variety, good team support, and high survivability. You don’t see many in dungeons because 1) they’re not easy to play and 2) they have a negative stigma attached to them. Trust me, they’re completely worth playing. More fun than any other profession too. Right now, HGH Grenade builds are popular for dungeons, allowing huge might stacking and long range aoe. It’s effective but I find it a little too boring personally. I use flamethrower and elixir gun in dungeons, opting to deal large amounts of aoe damage at closer range, stack might, and support my party with healing and boons.

For leveling, just about everything works well. Bombs will melt a lot of enemies at once. Gather em up, drop drop drop drop dead. And since most mobs will run at you bombs are easy to use. They’re much harder to use well in PvP and even dungeons. ToolKit also hits hard and has nice utility, but it’s a single target weapon for the most part. We have access to a lot of aoe (flamethrower, bombs, grenades, pistols) so we can drop clusters just as fast as one. Pistols are primarily condition based weapons while rifle is for straight damage. Having said that, rifle has a lot of control too. Experiment with what’s fun to use and then search the forums for a build around that. As I said, just about everything works for leveling. And Engi are very versatile and incredibly fun.

Can you use an on-swap sigil and an on-crit sigil without them sharing cooldowns?

foofad.5162:

Because it would be overpowered. Two handed weapons have a much higher innate damage range than one handed weapons. That’s the short version.

But sigils don’t modify individual weapons. They modify your total stats. Are you saying that the inability to equip 2 sigils is offset by allowing 2h weps to deal more damage than 1h weps?
If so, that makes sense.

The Dream is becoming reality! Panic! Run! Scram! The end is nigh!

Generally, I’ve found each profession has one good elite. I main an Engi and I completely agree with Wiser (although I do use my asura golems for fun in open world). My ranger only ever uses RaO. Guardian I only used the virtue recharge elite.

I’d love to have either more elites that aren’t so situational or more elites designed around the various builds and playstyles of each profession.

I think you’ll be more effective focusing on either FT or ‘nades. By traiting for both you’re hampering yourself by not making either as strong as they could be.

Your 2nd trait idea looks good but if you’re going to only put 10 into Invention that trait isn’t going to do much, especially if you don’t gear with lots of toughness. You’ll be better off putting those 10pts into Explosives and picking up Incendiary Ammo or whatever it’s called (burn on crit). It’ll deal more damage in the long run with FT. Plus the stats for that line will be better for damage. If you’re going into Inv for defense, pick another trait.

Also, it’s elixir. I wouldn’t have said anything but you typed the word 7 times in your initial post.

Gear alone will not keep you alive. True, with full Rampager gear you’ve got no added survivability stats. But that only means your playstyle has to be altered. If you’re planning on speccing for condition damage you’re going to have to account for slower kills. If you want to gear PVT you can facetank a little more, but not completely. All in all, no matter your gear, your playstyle needs to complement it. Use elixirs (stun breaks), use shield (block, knockback, blast finisher), use toolkit (cripple, bleed, confuse, gear shield), use net turret (immob). Find out where your current build is lacking and adjust. Could be as simple as a couple traits, in which case you don’t need new gear either. Or at least not all new PVT gear. Throw a few pieces in.

These couple threads about FT and gear are really opening my eyes to how to build effectively. Thanks to you and nakoda (et al) for shedding some light on things.

I always specced cond dmg as I leveled with FT. Worked great. But that’s leveling. I find that as I stack more and more pow/prec gear I’m killing stuff faster. I’m slowly realizing that cond dmg isn’t as important to the FT as I initially thought. It’s good to have some imo, since there’s a lot of condition potential from using FT, but it doesn’t have the punch pow/prec does.

Very nice Linc. I’ll grab a Sup Battle Sigil tonight & try that out. And swapping from Juggernaut/FT to MedKit and back is mad fast. I won’t lose a stack of Might in the time it takes for that swap/swap.

And you don’t notice all the lost potential power/prec/crit dmg from altruism runes that you could get from 6 rage runes for instance? I guess I never thought to look into healing power runes since I didn’t think the group might/fury would be better than a potential 100 power & 100 precision. I guess it would be though. I can make up for those stats with accessories, but the rune effects are unique. Another piece of info to log away. Thanks.

Fair point.

I’ve never been one to crunch the numbers in games. I accept your facts if you’ve done the math. It’s a shame though, because I’d rather have a complex damage system (direct damage, crit procs, rolling conditions, damage boosts based on burns, etc) than “run Zerk.” I don’t play warrior cuz they’re boring. I like the idea of skill/trait synergy. I think my bias is just to avoid being let down.

Phineas Poe.3018:

The Healing Turret is most competitive in the fact that it grants 2 conditions removed every 20 seconds or so compared to the Med Kit’s 1 every 20 … and the Water field with coordination could outperform the Med Kit.

That said, proccing Area Heals is ultimately just as “active” if not more than the Med Kit, and Blast finishers are few unless you’re using gadgets which are the least played style these days. Maybe things will change in the future, but I’ll stick with the Med Kit for now for self-healing/buffs and the Healing Turret when the group needs the added support.

Excellent work. +1’d.

I’ve been experimenting with bring a shield into dungeons (I always ran P/P) just for the blast finisher in conjunction with Healing Turret. Drop, overcharge, Shield blast, detonate = large aoe heal bomb + condition removal. It’s just tough to do during a mobile fight. You’re right that with group cooperation HT can seriously outperform anything else.

Thanks for the Altruism Rune advice. I’ll look into it. Like I said, I’m not very rune savvy. Not needing to trait for Enhanced Performance means I can throw some points into Tools for CD reduction on my goggle F1.

I have been thinking of switching to MedKit, based on this thread. Too hard to manage the Healing Turret without it dying and keeping it in range to be useful. However, based on the thread, drop-OC-detonate/pick up nets better healing over time anyway. So I’m going to try that. The idea though was to be able to hit 6 as often as possible, dropping the turret & overcharging it on CD for constant might stacks & water fields. But with it not surviving long, MedKit might be more reliable, and quicker to just pop into and out of the kit for Altruism procs.

Kimbald.2697:

one thing about the med kit though: since it is a kit, any healing aside the bandage self big heal, also takes you out of combat. You are not doing anything except healing.
Your enemy is not stopped or damaged in any way as long as you remain in that kit.

only your toolbelt skills and runes could change that.

For instance a traited tool kit would give you a crippling throw wrench to slow opponents with.
Runes of grenth will proc a chill when you swap to the Med Kit, effectively lowering the damage any melee can do to you, as well as limiting their movement.
Lots of examples.

Med kit healing also takes longer to use: dropping bandages and running over them takes a few seconds to get them all.

Med Kit is a slightly different way of fighting. Perhaps that is why it is allowed to be the biggest self-heal.

All true. But there are a number of procs that can be triggered on-heal. In the case of the medkit, that means every time we swap to the kit. So the proc is limited only by the sigil/trait/rune’s own ICD. This gives the medkit another strength in my book.

I take the Enhanced Performance trait, which procs 3 stacks of might every time I heal, on a 10s ICD. In conjunction with Juggernaut, that let’s me stack might very effectively without having to trait 30 into Alchemy for HGH. [Healing Turret with its new reduced CDs can do this quite effectively too now.]

I’m a member of the FT-is-both-condition-and-power-weapon club. It does only apply 1 condition (burn) and stacking it only adds duration. However, FT deals more damage to burning foes, so keeping the burns rolling increases the straight damage. Also, its #5 skill is a blind. That’s 2 conditions that benefit from +condition duration. It fires very fast, offering multiple crit chances, which makes it ideal for stacking precision & +crit damage. And with such frequent crits, it synergizes well with bleed-on-crit type sigils and traits like Incendiary Powder, Precise Sights, and Sharpshooter. And if you’re able to stack bleeds this way, they’ll benefit from +condition damage. Which also benefits those burns we talked about stacking. And burning is the highest damage condition in the game.

So let’s recap. FT benefits from:
+ condition duration
+ condition damage
precision
+ crit damage

This is why I run a combo or Berserker/Rampager gear with FT. They all add to its effectiveness.

Hey I’m with you Wreknar. I recently rebuilt my FT engi and it’s the first time ever I haven’t had Speedy Kits traited. I can proc swiftness mid-combat. But without that on-demand swiftness it’s a pain doing any out of combat running. My only option is MedKit, drop #5.

I really thought Phineas or nakoda would chime in here. They’re big proponents of the FT.

Phineas Poe.3018:

Seras.5702:

And burning is the highest damage condition in the game.

I don’t know why people say this.

…..

You only chose to focus on one thing I said and completely ignored all the other points I made.

…FT deals more damage to burning foes, so keeping the burns rolling increases the straight damage. Also, its #5 skill is a blind. That’s 2 conditions that benefit from +condition duration. It fires very fast, offering multiple crit chances, which makes it ideal for stacking precision & +crit damage. And with such frequent crits, it synergizes well with bleed-on-crit type sigils and traits like Incendiary Powder, Precise Sights, and Sharpshooter. And if you’re able to stack bleeds this way, they’ll benefit from +condition damage….

I’m talking about the utility of having crits proc conditions (bleeds) that do stack and benefit from condition stats. Not to mention the #5 blind having a longer duration. And considering the FT’s lack of range, if you get caught without swiftness and out of range, it’s nice to have bleeds and burns rolling.

Personal Note: I roll with EG & pistol/shield, which means I can toss out poison, blind, confusion, and (ocassionally) retaliation, all of which benefit from the condition stats. These skills aren’t straight damage like FT#2, but cutting a healing enemy’s healing by 30% is mad helpful.

So looking at the updated graphs it seems like you can pour all the traits you want into elixirs to boost Elixir H, but MedKit (completely untraited) is still the best for straight healing. Throw some points into the Tools tree and you can greatly reduce its F1 CD, making it even better. Not to mention, it’s a kit. Which means no CD swapping into & out of it, granting weapon swap & on-healing procs very often.

So if you want party wide healing, grab the turret. Self healing, grab the kit. Elixir H is really only good for HGH and for less clunky, straightforward mechanics.

Wreknar.5076:

While I agree with the notion that fun and unikittenfects are great, they tend to make balancing a nightmare. Two seconds of double-time speed is overpowered and useless at the same time. It has the potential to open up space from a swiftness buffed thief, but the end result will be the same, the thief will just catch back up on the third second.

So what about the 2s burst, followed by a few seconds (4-8s) of standard swiftness? This will give you the burst and then let you maintain distance. Not to mention that an on-demand swiftness skill would be useful.

Thanks for your diligence Nilix. I don’t want to be the guy who rains on parades, as I do really appreciate the effort you’re putting into this. I just want to make sure I’m understanding all the info properly. Hence my questions & poking. Not to mention I think your data will finally put an end to the oft-debated topic of “the best healing skill,” no matter how situational that answer is.

I’m a member of the FT-is-both-condition-and-power-weapon club. It does only apply 1 condition (burn) and stacking it only adds duration. However, FT deals more damage to burning foes, so keeping the burns rolling increases the straight damage. Also, its #5 skill is a blind. That’s 2 conditions that benefit from +condition duration. It fires very fast, offering multiple crit chances, which makes it ideal for stacking precision & +crit damage. And with such frequent crits, it synergizes well with bleed-on-crit type sigils and traits like Incendiary Powder, Precise Sights, and Sharpshooter. And if you’re able to stack bleeds this way, they’ll benefit from +condition damage. Which also benefits those burns we talked about stacking. And burning is the highest damage condition in the game.

So let’s recap. FT benefits from:
+ condition duration
+ condition damage
precision
+ crit damage

This is why I run a combo or Berserker/Rampager gear with FT. They all add to its effectiveness.

One other notable issue. According to the wiki, Potent Elixirs does not increase the duration of boons created by elixirs, only the duration of the elixir itself. Which means Elixir U will last longer but Elixir H has no duration so the trait has no affect on it. Common misconception. So that trait is wasted completely with respect to this discussion. The trait is designed to work with pretty much all the other elixirs except healing.

I just rolled an Ele so I’m quite green still, but it sounds like the same argument we have in the Engi forums about elixirs being the only reliable stun breakers and that our gadgets need some of that love too. Spread it around so we’re not forced into a certain build.

I main an Engi and love it because it offers so much variety and it’s dynamic in combat. Which is why I just rolled an Ele, because they seem to require an equal level of skill and dynamics while offering variety. Fingers crossed.

Under Web.2497:

statistics show that 15% of a mmo population farm, if farming is not seen as viable then that is 15% of the population lost. No wonder gw2 is failing

80% of all statistics are made up on the spot. And GW2 failing is total supposition.

If they made gems cheaper or increased the gem:gold exchange ratio significantly, everyone would do it and then your 400g would be worth a lot less because everyone would have money. I feel for you OP, losing 465g sucks. It’s waaay more than I have. But I find that I don’t actually need a ton of gold unless I were shooting for a Legendary (which btw, are supposed to take months to acquire). I make enough running a couple dungeons to buy the gear I need. Getting exotics is easy, getting dungeons gear isn’t gold-based…I’m struggling to find why anyone would feel the need to have 400g again just to have it.

There will be new ways to earn laurels. Also, you can attain some ascended gear from running fractals. And I like dailies/monthlies as they are now, account shared. Let’s me bang out my daily on a sub-80 alt to earn some quick XP. If they were player-based, everyone would 1) complain that people with 1 dedicated main had a disadvantage and 2) would cause people to feel “forced” into running dailies with all their characters.

Certain things add to the gameplay while others detract. Imo, player housing would detract from GW2. I don’t want a house to decorate. If I wanted that, I’d play The Sims. Guild halls on the other hand can add to the gameplay, depending of course on its design. A common guild-only gathering place is a strategic boon for prepping for bounties, treks, etc. Also, guild halls can act like they did in GW as a small PvP arena. Also, guild halls could be the place for friendly 1v1 dueling and for planting guild banners so that members can use them. They can have a gold-sink built in via banks, TPs, repairs, guild merchant, etc to be bought to unlock.

nakoda.4213:

this is why everyone ought to roll asura and join together with a massive Golem assault on Lion’s Arch.

^ signed & supported. Golems ftw!

“it’s like he’s trying to talk to me, i know it!” – Nemo’s dad

I got 2 on my new warrior between level 1-10. RNG is a fickle dame.

Well that sucks. I find that a lot of our skills & kits act very strangely with other mechanics. Maybe it’s because the coding for them was sort of MacGyvered from existing skill mechanics without fully accounting for the differences our kits and such bring. Supply Crate is just dropping a bunch of our non-elite items (medkits, turrets) at once and calling it elite. Which it is, but I’m thinking the game code reads it as a bunch of non-elites instead of 1 elite. All supposition of course.

I think we should hold our rifles like this lol:

This is great Nilix!

Out of curiosity…

Did you use MedKit’s F1 on cooldown only or include the medkits on cooldown too?

Did you use the Healing Turret’s F1 when picked up?

Did you use Elixir H’s F1 throw on cooldown too?

Our toolbelt makes healing more complicated than any other profession. Just trying to figure out how you did it.

Anyone else have any critique? I really thought a FT build without elixirs would garner some discussion.

20/30/0/20/0

20 – V, X
30 – III, VIII, XI
0
20 – VI, VII
0

P/S
Healing Turret / FT / EG / Goggles / Supply Crate
Mix of Rampager & Berserker gear with some Vit & Tou & HP on accessories

After experimenting with various other build ideas (‘nades, bombs) I’ve come back to the FT for dungeons. I’m thinking high crit chance for procs and use of Super Elixir and Healing Turret for party-wide support. Also, wanted to avoid the over-used HGH and reliance on elixirs.

I’m at a loss for Runes & Sigils. Ideas? Thoughts on the build?

Some great ideas here. I especially like…

Silinsar.6298:

Utility Goggles:
- Toolbelt: Analyze a foe, applying vulnerability and weakness. Weaknesss: 8sec.
Gives it another use out of bursts (burst counter, Dodge denial) while not increasing the raw burst power.
- Utility: I like your idea of revealing foes, but I’d like to see it keeping it’s current functionality. Also, the flamewar would get crucial if it would destealth whole zergs. Maybe just make it additionally apply the Revealed debuff (3sec) on up to five targets within 900 range.

Rocket Boots:
- Toolbelt: Fix the animation so that it can be casted while moving and you are no longer immobilized at the end of the animation.
- Utility: Leap backwards while evading attacks and damaging foes with your rocket exhaust. Cures immobilized, crippled, and chilled.
Just to remove that self stun and make sure that no CCs interfere your leap.

Throw Mine:
- Toolbelt: Explosion radius: 180, Proximity radius: 90. Add the boon removal function of the ability to the tooltip. Maybe lower the cast time.
- Utility: […] removes a total of five boons, up to three from any foe struck. Explosion radius: 210, Proximity radius: 90
This should make it more useful as a boonhate skill in small encounters while not overpowering its already strong (thanks to TB skill) AoE boon remove.

They all need some love. Most importantly a cooldown reduction across the board. Goggles need something to differentiate it from Elixir B. Shoes don’t come close to Elixir S & R in terms of usefulness. PBR self-cc is just ridiculous. What’s the point, especially with rifle equipped. It needs to be reworked heavily.

NickDollahZ.5348:

…..just have traits that generally effect engineer skills.

I’m surprised there aren’t more general kit traits. We’ve got a couple “on swap” effects and Backpack Regenerator…

Thanks. That’s going to be fun with Juggernaut.

I say, scrap the whole elite and give us something unique. We’re engineers, not scavengers. We build stuff. So why are we borrowing other professions’ elites? Give us a steam-powered-mech-suit transformation or a Mr.-Hyde-crazy-scientist tonic or something with unique models and skills. The necro lich is so awesome looking and completely unique. Can we has something like that??

Phineas Poe.3018:

Seras.5702:

Being a fairly new 80 who is still gearing exotics, I’m often a bit overwhelmed by all the gear choices, stat allocation, prefixes, runes, sigils, etc. I like being able to change things up when I want some variety, so right now I’m shooting for Rampagers gear with a little Berserker gear thrown in, and then using my accessories for survivability (Soldier/Cleric/Sentinel). Not sure if this is the most effective way to go. As for Runes, I haven’t a clue. Right now I’m just using what comes on the gear as I acquire it until I know what’s best.

Rampager is not very appealing unless you’re focusing on Bleed stacking. Any Poison or Burning damage you apply to your target will simply be overwritten by someone wearing Rabid gear.

For the Bomb Kit, I think you should focus on Power and Critical Damage.

So far, I’m going about 1/2 Rampagers 1/2 Berserkers. I need some condition damage and I also want the extra precision from Rampagers for all the on-crit procs, especially since grenades & FT offer so many crit chances.

If I’m not stacking any toughness, vitality, or healing on my armor & weps, how much do I need to pick up from my accessories? So far I’ve got a Karka Shell and ascended Syzygy, plus some other masterwork stuff. I figure for build-bouncing they’re both really well rounded for that. Should I be picking up Cleric, Shaman, or Soldiers stuff exclusively or just a couple pieces?

Agree with lunyboy about not putting too much into Alchemy.

I like the consolidation of things like Deadly Mixtures and the turret traits.

I like Overdrive.

Obviously, things like Scope need to be tweaked and turned on.

Baclavaman.9054:

Here are mines:

Necro, Guardian and Warrior.

They are kinda easy to figure out but with the color layout its really making them shine.
For the necro since i called him “Nurgle” ( god of death , decay, pestilence, fear, etc) i tried to give it a rotten template…

Your necro is amazing! It’s not easy for me, what armor and dyes are those?! It’s the best non-hot-human-girl light armor wearer I’ve seen.

Invoker.5462:

3) The best way to kill things in Spve is with bombs. Bombs kill things so fast that it makes no sense to try any other toolkit in pve, i can kill a group of 20 mobs my level in about 8 seconds with bombs, not possible with any other toolkit

….

6) sometimes i just wana get on and kill stuff, but with the engi its so dull. I walk up, plant 5 bombs, kill, repeat. bombs would have a more lasting, immersive effect if ragdolls were more prevalent

Bombs might be the best way to round up & kill fast in open world PvE, but it’s not the only good way. Switch it up. Try grenades or flamethrower. Or try to gather as many mobs as you can with bombkit, test your limits.

The engineer is the most fun profession in the game because it has so much versatility.

As for an option to change your race & profession: it’ll never happen. Your race determines your early personal story and identity. Anet has already said they won’t offer this option in the future. And I’m gonna put myself out there and say that no MMO ever has offered a paid profession change. Secondary professions sure, but not what defines you. You’re gonna have to reroll, sry. But hey, that means you can try a new race and new profession.