Guild Wars 2

Elixir Gun:

• (Healing Mist: Stunbreak and a bit of healing. You can use this to break the Self KB of Overcharged Shot to speed up a spike rotation at the cost of well, your only stunbreak.)
• Tranquilizer Dart: Will see little use in this build. Less damage than Hip Shot, no pierce. Can be useful against power builds but those will most likely run with -duration food and this build has no +duration so weaknes will probably fade before they hit you. To put it simply: go for the damage, unless you really really need a fraction of a second weaknes on a foe.
• Elixir F: Personally I rarely use it. It’s flight quality is quite lacking thus the hit rate is low. Can be useful for the criple.
• Fumigate: Use this for damage “through” walls, to proc sigils (high hit rate), to poison heals or removing conditions from allies in XvsX.
• Acid Bomb: Mobility, damage and blast finisher. Try to utilise more than one of these at one time. Cancel the jump shortly before landing to get back to running more smoothly. Bind turn around to a key, I have it on X. So you can X – Jump to move “forward”. Also useable to jump over gaps.
• Super Elixir: Cond remove, a bit healing and light field. Hit enemies near you with one of your projectile finishers for more condition remove!

Supply Crate:
When things go wrong or you want to add a little more CC to a CC chain. Destroyed Turrets will also deal damage and knockback, so throwing this in a bigger group can be quite disruptive. In small encounters try to pick up the medipacks when you’re low and place yourself next to a turret when the enemy is a cleaving melee attacker. Mind that thieves can use these turrets for CnD-ing.

Traits

Explosives: 2

• (Evasive Powder Keg): Can do some nice damage when you dodge in melee.
• Accelerant-Packed Turrets: This makes Rifle as well as Healing turret quite dangerous to be around for enemies. The damage is solid, mind it can’t crit but also will not counter attacks on yourself. The KB is amazing for kiting melees or chaining a CC with Magnet.

Firearms: 2

• (Sharpshooter): Can add a little damage but isn’t really worth mentioning in a power build
• Hair trigger: CD reduction for rifle.

Inventions: 4

• (Low Health Response System): Not a essential part of the build, but when you get a heal with Automated Medical Response off this will add some more healing over time.
• Energized Armor: More damage – universally useful. You might want to swap this with Stabilized Armor, Claoking Device or Protective Shield depending on the situation.
• (Automated Medical Response): Strong but situational and difficult / impossible to make use of in some situations. You basically have to know that you’re going to go low because you won’t have much HP left when this triggers. Be ready to stunbreak and immediately cast HT when your health drops.
• Power Shoes: Speeeeeeeed.

Alchemy: 0

• -

Tools: 6

• (Adrenaline Pump): Usually doesn’t get much attention but it’s a nice endurance generator that works “backstage”.
• Static Discharge: Static Discharge. It fires a bouncing bolt to your target when you use a targeted toolbelt skill. Other toolbelt skills (like Detonate Turret) will fire a bolt towards the center of the screen/in the direction your character is facing.
• (Inertial Converter): Reloads TB skills. Goes hand in hand with Automated Medical Response when you go low during a stun.
• Power Wrench: Less CD on Tool Kit skills plus a criple on Throw Wrench and the Smack-Chain. However, don’t try to heal your turrets. I know you love them but you have to let them go.
• (Enduring Damage): Adds some damage sometimes. Won’t be active long in intense fights but it’s always good for a strong opening strike.
• Adrenal Implant: for more dodging.

Runes & Sigils

• Runes: Runes of the Pack. They have a good amount of offensive stats (main power +125 prec) and will add a moderate Fury uptime which this build lacks otherwise. Undeniable strength runes would be strong too, but having no base boon duration and prefering other sigils makes me stick with Pack (and also the price). So… For the pack! You also get that howling wolf on proc. He’ll strike fear into the hearts of your enemies.

• Sigils: I run Air and Blood at the moment. They add good dps and some sustain. You can also get a Rifle with Purity+Generosity against cond users, Fire+Hydromancy/Force/Geomancer for camp capping or something differently mixed. The patch is still new and my choice is just based on my intuition.

Introduction

Hey, Sil here, some might already know me. After doing some videos and due to the increasing amount of people asking me about details of my build, well, there’s me attempting to write a guide. So let’s start this.
Oh and here’s the link already for the impatient ones: http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vcAQFAUlUUpkr1UxdLseRiM6BpJabWIFS49BqQe9pAdB-zEyAYLAKEQCsIasVyioxqXwUuLqW/C4NwIFwSKjA-w
And here are some videos: https://www.youtube.com/user/Algeyr/videos
The build focuses on CC and damge. Control the fight and you win. Loose control and die. Hit your kitten , dodge their kitten . Make enemies your pin ball. (Disclaimer: not so funny as this might sound in fights vs. ranged opponents)
Mind the build probably isn’t something fitting for new and/or lesser experienced players since it lacks passive defenses. I won’t stop anybody from trying it though

So here comes the boring part. You know, these walls of text that only describe things you think you already know. Skills, traits… Like you wouldn’t already know their effects… Well, skipping at own risk – there might be some useful information. It’s basically the base for what comes afterwards (or sometimes later, when I get myself motivated to write about “special” tactics vs. certain builds).

Weapon

Rifle. Pretty obvious, is it not?

• Hip Shot: your classic ranged attack to keep some sustain damage. Pierces.
• Net Shot: good immobilizer, tends to get stuck in uneven terrain and won’t hit much at max range. Works better at close to medium range
• Blunderbuss: Good damage in melee. If you’re fighting a kiter, also use it at higher ranges (400-500) if you aren’t about to spike. It’s faster cast and more damage than Hip Shot. Also a good skill to use through walls/pillars when someone wants to use LOS.
• Overcharged Shot: Your enemies’ boon and bane. It can backfire when you don’t hit but it will put your foe in an unpleasant position when you do.
• Jump Shot: Mobility and high damage. Can be used to jump over gaps where your enemies can’t follow (e.g. at the north of BL ruins you can jump over the water)

Utilities

Healing Turret (+Regenerating Mist):
Strong heal with water field and cond remove. Feel free to use finishers like Jump Shot, Acid Bomb or turret detonations with it. Double tap 6 and detonate the turret or pick it up for healing. Throw it least one other finishers in there or detonating isn’t worth it (overall healing/sec – wise) – can still be good to use it without other finishers to get the damage and Knockback though.

Tool Kit:

• (Throw Wrench: Damage, Criple, Vulnerability. Try to make it hit on both ways. 100% Projectile finisher. Gets stuck in walls. Can pass over stairs / little hills and hit things this way even without direct line of sight (useful when you knocked someone over a edge). Probably misses when an enemy’s kiting sideways)
• Smack (Chain): Attack that cleaves on the first two hits, 3rd hits hard but has an enormous cast time. Use this to criple foes in melee when everything else is on CD.
• Box of Nails: You can cast it before a pull, when something’s stealthing around or when you want to let someone behind. Now with 25% less cast time!
• Pry Bar: High damage single target attack. That’s it, basically.
• Gear Shield: “Block” “block” “block”… “block” “block” “block”.
• Magnet: Long cast – high range pull. Although the range is 1200, pulling enemies over 900 units(?) away probably won’t put them into melee range. Remember that. Also, cancel the cast with the weapon swap key when you see an enemy dodging for reduced CD.

Rifle Turret:
Although it’s own damage isn’t gigantic, with overcharge a few hundred damage/sec and some vulnerability stacks can add up. However, you’ll want to use this skill for the detonation (KB, finisher or both) most of the time. Overcharged shots are projectile finishers again since the latest patch.

• Surprise Shot: Amazing TB skill for a SD build. Good damage, instant (you don’t have to face target), with SD proc 2 attacks that can proc sigils, get rid of Aegis/Blinds or just add oomph to a spike. Also a 100% projectile finisher.

On your build:
Should work.
However:
I wouldn’t go for Cleansing Formula. Better IS for vigor (which will help at dodging all attacks, DD or cond). Also Melandru might not be the best rune choice for an offensive build. Also: Leg Mods? Not saying it’s bad but you’re focusing too much on countering conditions imo, crippling your build in other areas. Against immob/chill you have OS.

Sigil of force adds more overall damage than accuracy, even more so since the crit nerf. On crit sigils like Air might be an even better damage booster.

Might include some inspirations: https://www.youtube.com/user/Algeyr/videos

Roaming videos #9 and #10 online!

Engis are a strong area denial/control class. That’s what they’re designed as. And that control over your enemies’ positions is key to capping/decapping a point is logical.
A Guardian bunker has good support. Hambow war bruiser can actually turn out to be pretty dangerous. Engi bunker, well, engi bunker has less support and is less effective in a team fight, it’s “additional ability” is position control.
Imo a bunker is meant to survive (at least for quite some time) against a single player. That’s just fair as he’s speccing to last long. The whole “bunker-problem” in sPvP is that it’s not about who wins a fight on a point (=who kills his foe) but about who stands there for a longer time. Not being able to kill someone isn’t a proper drawback like anywhere else.
With decap engi there’s a bunker who “out-CCs” anyone else while staying alive. The result: incredible effective in a certain situation but quite useless in all others. With conquest there’s a game mode that is too much about too little points (imo), making this certain situation present and deciding.

So the best solution imo would be to fix/rethink conquest mode mechanics. Point sizes(!), decap/cap mechanisms and speed, point gain distribution between capping and holding points and killing enemies.

Concerning direct nerfs (which are more likely to happen because lesser work), I’d personally prefer the so often mentionend AR nerf/rework. Number 2 being lowering KB distances (maybe sPvP only?), that would leave KBs as tools to intercept skills/rotations and to setup damage, while lowering their viability as position control tools (which is the problematic part in sPvP). From my perspective, these changes should be able to bring down decap enough while not hurting other builds too much. (see mouby’s post).

Yamsandjams.3267:

I’ve never understood how those work. You’ve got a 75% win rate across 20 games, yet are ranked lower than someone with a 71% win rate from over 1000 games.

Then someone with 55% win rate from over 1000 games is rated lower than you.

Also, someone with a 94% win rate across 17 games is rated lower than you, but someone with a 91% win rate across 12 games is rated higher than you.

Then to top it off, someone with the exact same win rate as you (75%) is rated lower, the only difference being that they have played 80 games.

I’m just confused as to what exactly is being achieved on these boards… I’m guessing they just use some kind of hidden numbers, but that’s silly.

I’s not simply about W/L. It’s all about a hidden rating (calculated with glicko?) I’d say. When you win a few times with little total games that value probably skyrockets, since you highly exceed the performance expectation of the system. The higher the value of your opponents is compared to your’s, the faster you rise. You could even see this in WvW at some points, where low ranked servers fought vs kitten servers and got an enormous increase in rating even when not even winning the MU.
What I can tell is that I’ve with and against players who’s names I saw in the upper quarter of the leaderboards. 1-2 wins in that “environment” could explain the sudden jump to the top. Maybe also the score you had on your losses (or the enemy on your wins) is a factor (as in WvW). These things just aren’t shown on the leaderboards. You could check the sPvP forums, guess there’s much more information (or speculation^^) about it.

johnsonade.9547:

Congrats on the placings! It’s weird when you see an engi you know is good but you never know how they stack up against the best players. This right here proves you’re a force to be reckoned with. I hope your ISP issues get ironed out so ArenaNet can notice how good you are.

Not that this rank matters much anyway, but thanks for your words. May try some more sPvP when the league starts, since I’m expecting a lot of blobbing :/

A bit OT, sry, but I did some solo queue matches yesterday. Thought I’d check if I’d made it into the leaderboards with this build. Well, I think I did so :D
Now I get all this “All is vain” stuff…

sPvP leaderboards definately have a higher entertainmaint value than WvW’s.

A bit of a shameful bump but after looking at threads from other people making vids I have to say that I really appreciate all the positive feedback (and the lack of flaming etc.).

I may not reply to everyone individually but know that the comments / likes / all the props on the forum, youtube or in the game do their job keeping me motivated – thanks!

The only one letting me down is my ISP as my ping often gets unbearable at peak times. That often doesn’t allow for proper and watchworthy play, it also is more frustrating than fun. So during the week I don’t get much footage. I’ll try to keep uploading one video a week though (probably on the WE). Shouldn’t be a problem at least for now, as I have still some stuff left from past matchups.

Also, in case I would feel like writing a guide, what’d be “must have” content for you? Might gather some ideas and write something down over the time.

One of the most effective things you can do imo is making proper use of supply traps and burning supplies. These things hurt karma trains and zergs hard. Keep track of a zerg and when they’re about to resup at a camp, get there, buy the doly guard upgrade and place a trap on the supply pile. Get the next “respawning” 10 supply. Leave and let the zerg cap the camp while you try to get behind them safely. Place another supply trap were they’re about to go (camp exit or at next objective). Gratulation! You just denied them up to 300 supply. This will definately lengthen their next capture attempt and buy you a lot of time to call for reinforcements or build defensives. It’s more fun to see a zerg hitting a gate and giving up because they can’t build siege than just cycle-capping camps

flow.6043:

To be fair, a basilisk stun or the boons from rage signet are fairly weak compared to the pressure the supply crate adds to a 1v1.

Tbh, it really depends on what you’re fighting and how people handle it. It’s not like crate is undodgeable, it has a pretty obvious animation. Turrets may be annoying, but if you aren’t executing a CC chain at the very moment there’s nothing that stops people from getting distance to them. They’re also destroyed pretty easily and without cond damage (for flame turret) there isn’t much pressure coming form the crate once it landed. What is left is often just a CC that is potentially punishing and a “heal” that has a second cast time and requires you to walk over specific locations for a few sec… and that’s on a 180sec CD. What makes crate strong a strong elite overall is imo: the range (many people don’t expect a CC incoming from 1200r) and the AoE (as it will multiple people). However, in a duel most likely you’ll have 100% of your enemy’s attention and the AoE part only helps against petting zoos.
As already said, yes, it can give you an edge over an enemy in a fight but so can many other elites with lesser CD.

On signet and venom: maybe a flawed comparison due to runes being involved but with lyssa both skills will become extremely effective moves. And even without, venom is good for setting up bursts and signet of rage has no distinct deciding effect on it’s own but the overall damage increase with might and fury might make the difference between an enemy lying on the ground or him surviving, healing up again and killing you.

Even the elite with the lowest CD can make a the difference.

insanemaniac.2456:

tbh sil, in like a year of wandering wvw… i could count on 1 hand the number of times i needed to actively decide to stop using grenades because my opponent was avoiding them. maybe thats just me.

Do you count traditional or binary with your hand? :P
Not saying they are useless, just that depending on enemy and situation their efficiency can drop below a level where I’d prefer a different utility on my bar. Even if it happened to you few times, these moments make you realize the shortcomings of nades.
Telling from my experience, the better you and esp. your opponents are, the worse explosives get. They’re still great anti-melee and zoning tools, but for me the belief of them being superior to anything else faded many months ago as I got more experience and more and more enemies weren’t just running in the nades I threw behind me. They are good at something, other utilities are good at something else. They’ll not be useless but they aren’t a must have either.

Yamsandjams.3267:

Those OP stairs…

Do you ever feel dirty when dropping the box on someone in a 1v1? I always do… makes me just not drop it sometimes even though I know it’s a good idea.

Guess you’re refering to the ele duels.
During the outtake match vs S/F I started using it after 5-10min I think, he used his elementar too and they kinda canceled each other out. After that we just continued using them.
When you can’t get a fast and deadly CC combo off due to Supply Crate it’s actually not that amazing. In longer fights crate has a proper drawback: its long CD. So I actually think it’s just fair to use it. Of course only when your opponent also makes use of his elite. Problem imo is that many people frown upon crate in 1on1s so they forbid it and as a result they maybe never learn to counter it. Over time other elites grant you at least comparable tools and the other engi elites… well, they are pretty suboptimal and/or very situational. Yes, crate can be game deciding. But so can be other elites (even if not in such a obvious way).
Still I’m usually trying to keep my crate of CD for emergencies (esp. while roaming, where anything can happen). However, if it ensures a fast kill in a moment you expect more enemies to be coming I’ll use it. Depends on the situation. Sometimes you just have to drop it because it fit’s so well on the enemies’ heads
Also, sometimes I think I’ll do a fight without elite and then comes a thief/war with lyssa and/or a ranger with RaO who’s elites + the following stability render all my CC useless, possibly resulting in me getting quite some problems (esp. in 1vsX) as my defense lacks without CC. Then I’m angry at myself for letting a good moment to drop crate pass just because I wanted to be “too skilled” to use it.

So yes, I still have this feeling that keeps me from just using it but I try to overcome it

RyanThomas.4182:

What gear do you use in WvW? Is it just full berserker? Or do you have some cavalier/valkyrie in there too?

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vcAQFAUlUUpkr1UxdLseRiM6BpJabWIFS49BqQe9pAdB-zEyAYLAKEQCsIasVyioxqXwUuLqW/C4NwIFwSKjA-w

My latest funny moments:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iw1W40rlH6c
The last 3of them are my favorites (well, not necessarily the 3rd^^)

One I can only tell about:
2 trebs attacking our north east bay wall from the snowy plateau at the south west of garrison. Zerg passing by the sentry, I retreat into the ruins, cap the north west one, build the cannon, destroy the trebs with it just as they notice what’kittenting them and come to kill me → zergs doesn’t get into bay.

LUST.7241:

Stabilized Armor:

• Current: Damage Reduced by 20% when knocked down or stunned
• Idea: Damage Reduced by 20% when knocked down or stunned and grants stability for 5s (45-second cooldown)

Stabilized Armor is fine imo. It has a lower damage reduction than PI, but it has no down time.

Energized Armor:

• Current: Gain power based on toughness (7%)
• Idea: Gain power based on toughness and vitality (10%)

A small buff wouldn’t hurt but it is useful as it is now for power specs investing into inventions.

Inventions 15 Passive

• Current: Heal skills recharge when struck below the health threshold (25% hp, 90-second cooldown)
• Idea: 30-second cooldown on the recharge

No, just no. AMR is strong, it’d be broken with 30s CD. While I agree that it often is hard to make use out of it, since you go down before getting a chance to heal, it would be far too efficient for tanky builds, as they’re less exposed at 25% health. A way to make it both more reliable for glassier specs and less efficient for tanky specs would be to change it into “Gain defiant stance when you’re struck below the health threshold (25% health)” x seconds, no initial heal, 60-90sec CD. It would also create counter-play (not doing heavy damage for it’s duration) and would backfire for engis also taking AR (since the enemy can choose to bring you over the threshold again).

Alchemy 5 Passive

• Current: Drink an Elixir B when struck below the health threshold (75%, 90s Cooldown)
• Idea: Hidden Flask also contains a minor heal amount and grants Protection or Stability or Lower Hidden Flask Cooldown

It’s fine imo. Maybe reduce the CD to 75s or 60s but I wouldn’t do anything more for it. Mind it’s a tier 1 minor trait.

Alchemy 15 Passive

• Current: Incoming conditions have a chance to convert into boons
• Idea: Incoming conditions have a chance to convert into boons, applied conditions duration is reduced, and condition damage taken is reduced

I’d like a simple cond duration reduction from, let’s say 10%. Theoretically in line with the old version (8% chance to transmute incoming conds) but no rng.

Inventions 5 Passive

• Current: Gain regeneration when you are struck while below the health threshold (25% HP, Regen for 13s)
• Idea: Regen is stronger and faster

Currently it’s very situational. It rewards you for getting up again after droppping below 25% (which again is easier to make use out of for tankier specs) with it’s HoT but doesn’t help at all in that urgent need of recovery. I’d raise the health threshold and give it a higher CD (e.g. 50% health 20s CD) or completely change the functionality.

Smoke Vent

• Current: Vent Smoke from your flamethrower, blinding nearby foes (20-second cooldown, 180 radius)
• Idea: Vent smoke from your flamethrower, blinding nearby foes and revealing hidden foes (20-second cooldown, 360 radius, range 300)

Situational hardcounters=bad. I’d much rather like to see a 1-2sec smoke field added to it (no additional blinds). Radius should stay.

Napalm

• Current: Burn foes with a wall of napalm at the target location
• Idea: Foes that are in the field are not only burned, but are either blinded, confused, or Dazed

It’s fine for might stacking and dropping it on a downed foe. Maybe increase it’s width a bit to make it more useful as offensive tool, but simply adding more conditions and rng is always a bad idea imo.

Magnetic Shield

• Current: Create a magnetic field that reflect projectiles and can be released to push back foes (30-second cooldown, 180 radius, 300 knockback)
• Idea: Being able to move and have this on

Shield is good as it is. It more or less has 4 skills and 2 types of finishers. It offers CC, defensive and utility. I would be careful with buffing it.

Rocket Boots

• Current: Fly forward, damaging foes with your rocket exhaust. Cures immobilized, crippled, and chilled.
• Idea: Leaves a smoke trail that blinds or dazes enemies (5s trail duration)

Again I’ve to say that Rocket Boots are not one of the things that necessarily need buffing. It’s a pretty good gap creator already, additional functions might overtone it. As for rocket kick: The animation could be fixed like other jumps far back in the past, to not be stuck at the end of the cast.

Slick Shoes/Super Speed

• Current: [Slick Shoes] Spray oil behind you, knocking down foes (60-second cooldown, 3 second duration). [Super Speed] Run at double speed (45-cooldown)
• Idea: Shorter cooldown or longer duration

Are you thinking of Slick shoes or super speed? Slick shoes is often hard to land properly but if you do so it’s deadly. Down to 50sec CD max imo. The CD of super speed is fine, maybe 40sec to begin with or an criple/chill/immob remove (that might turn out to be too powerful though).

Texts shaved bc of message length.

coglin.1867:

No bombs/grenades here and looks like no scrub he is fighting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ubn_Dnq9irE

You have yet to put forward any evidence other then “because I said so”. We offer you video evidence and you scoff at it with lame excuses and straw man theories.

Besides, you go on to say “at my level” as some sideways justification. We are not speaking in strictly sPvP terms. As well, I do not know what level your at, but I am willing to bet I can provide you videos of players who are well above your level using builds successful without bombs/nades.

Really feeling honored to find out a video used in such an argument is one of my own ones

ellesee.8297:

welp like i said i could use some triple gadget rifle SD build, then stream and highlight me wrecking the uplevels and the baddies that are so prevalent in wvw and hotjoins. but to beat people in solo or team queues at my rank without bombs/grenades or to beat that really good roamer that you find once in a while in wvw, lol not a chance. i’d have to roll a bunker for tpvp and even then engi bunkers are subpar because of their lack of stability. and i’d just outright lose in wvwvw. i wouldn’t trust any gameplay footage unless it’s an entire recording. obviously they just highlight their good plays and leave out the many times they drop.

Basically, yes. You can make nearly any build look good. I don’t know how much experience you have, but when you’ve played a lot you usually you can judge pretty fast if an opponent has an idea of how to play the game or not and also who’s at an advantage because of build etc.

On WvW roaming:
It’s funny that you say you can’t kill a good roamer without nades/bombs. I found those to lack effiency especially against players who are agile, fast to react and know how to properly position themselves. Imo nades/bombs are good for killing/kiting “clumsy” melee specs (even in 1vsX) as those suffer from predictable movement patterns since they have to chase you to get you down. However, things get difficult when you have thieves, mesmers and to a lesser extent even eles porting/jumping around, kiting you or wars with semi-slow immunity, cond/dmg immunities and a lot of cc in melee range or anything with high ranged attacks that dodges pull.
Against skilled players with a build that incorporates a ranged option using bombs not for stealth or might combos is often a waste of time. As well as grenades at high range, since enemies will avoid them by sidestepping or jump/port while there’s a barrage in the air.
I used grenades a lot in the past (nearly a year I think) and they do very well as long your foe moves predictable and has little mobility options. So either lesser experienced players or certain builds. They keep up pressure superior to my current build in case the enemy eats a lot of nades. However, the better your enemies are the lesser nades and/or bombs will hit. In my most engaging fight everything boils down to reacting well and fast plus having a flawless timing. Bombs and nades (at range) suffer from a “delay” that good players will abuse to a frustrating degree. You’ll just have a bad time abusing the little timeframes a good player gives you to land an attack when your attacks only hit after 1sec.
For reference you might want to have a look at me fighting Wolfineer (which is probably considered to be a decent player by many):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-WaPRck9EA
(Telling from memory) He was mentioning that nades aren’t very efficient vs. me. And imo my spec is not even one of those with great combat mobility. Of course you’ll occasionally hit and barrage is a strong spike skill, but the question is if that’s worth all the trait points and the utility slot.

sPvP is a totally different story. Here you’ve got a game mode that by design forces people to get into specific, often small areas. Explosives benefit a lot from that. Capture points bind your foes to the area you assault, the alternative being leaving (-> loosing) the point. Points are like heaven for all the area damage/denial tools engis have (see decap engi). Also, sPvP maps lack the big open spaces WvW maps have so there’s less room which isn’t affected by your explosions

tl;dr:
imho

• Clumsy enemy/enemies with predictable movement patterns (mostly melees and/or lesser experienced players): explosives good due to great pressure.
• Ranged opponent(s), high mobility builds, players with good positioning: explosives not so good due to low hit rate.

New duel video: D/D Elementalist
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ubn_Dnq9irE

With music this time. Though this will hopefully be a temporary solution for recordings with bugged audio tracks ( I have plenty of those now since I recorded a lot before a checked them… well, playing > yt’ing for me, sry )

There’s also a new roaming outtakes / special scenes video incoming (~2hrs) so stay tuned!

Edit: Roaming #8:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iw1W40rlH6c

Yamsandjams.3267:

Hmm interesting, I’ve never seen and SD build with EG before. If only you could fit deadly mixture in there for +15% damage in EG…

Now you have me thinking of some weird hybrid damage SD build focused on the EG instead of the rifle…

If only elixir F hit more reliably.

Were you blind folded when you watched my videos and commented on my thread?

@OP: You could have a look at my signature, running a “not so glassy” SD build for roaming and occasional spvp pretty successfully.

Stumbled across this episode recently and I had to notice that it discribes ANet’s communication on upcoming releases perfectly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inePC0E_atg
(Big Stuff!)
Don’t take it as offensive please, it’s just funny.

I’m from Piken and I guess a lot of us would prefer playing in silver league. Gold blobbing was unbearable (however, kudos to viz for doing a great job at the ppt game) so I took a vacation on FSP during league 1.

It’s the system that is flawed. If you’re slightly above or under the “break point” for the brackets, the league basically cuts off half of the most balanced fights. That’s crap imo. Why would you do such a thing and then even give rewards for “performance”?

Let me quote my post from half a year(!) ago:

Silinsar.6298:

DevonCarver.5370:

I can’t comment at this time as we haven’t finalized anything. In addition, you should look at it this way, if people flee lower league servers to get into the top leagues, it opens the opportunity for people to move to those lower leagues and finish 1st or 2nd, rather than being in the top league and finishing 6th or 7th. The rewards for finishing 2nd in the Bronze League will be markedly better than the rewards for finishing 6th in the Gold league.

So basically the servers on the lower end of their league get punished for not having done worse which would have got them on #1-2 in the lower league? If that is true, you will create an incentive for players to do worse to get better rewards.
Originally wanted to write more about this, but I guess it would not have been constructive. Just let me tell you that I am very disappointed with this design decision. We already know which servers do best point-wise. This system seems to favor 3 servers over 4 others, not based on their performance, but on their current overall rank. (1-3 good , 4-7 bad , 8-10 good , 11-14 bad and so on).

I just hope the income of all the transfers will benefit the wvw server infrastructure.

(Forgive the wrong rank numbers, I didn’t know exactly what the bracket size was going to be back then, thought 7 would be the total size of a bracket, 4-7 etc. being the last ranks)

See the bold part. One didn’t have to be a genius to guess what’s going to happen. Seems like ANet’s doing the same mistake again. Why not just implement an meta achievement without a new season which just inhibits balanced matchups (again)?

Current matchup gives me an aweful lot of fights I’d like to upload (thanks gunnar and to a lesser extent deso). Long story short: I’ve too much scenes and raw footage to cut/upload to get it done anytime in the near future and during the week there are probably more coming (1st world roamer problems…).

So to narrow it down a bit: what would you like to see next? A roaming or a duel video?

Edit: after looking through my choas of recordings from this WE I’ve bad news… sound often bugged (who knows why) and some appearently didn’t save correctly. Well, there’s enough stuff left, but be prepared for a “vid with totally not matching music” premiere. I hope I’ll get one done tomorrow after work.

New one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onOG96Fy5jI

Some action with my newfound roaming buddies. Video includes zerg poking and backcapping bay with 3(-1) players. Not the most challenging fights but some people like this stuff and we had fun too
Sped up the boring parts: Waiting for the buff to fade (x10) and the fight with the lord (x3). Original video length is about 15min.
Thankfully there were raid(s) distracting the hostile forces.

New videos:

- vs. War(s) and Mesmer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmxeCjSInOk

- vs. Perplexity Engi, Mesmer(s) and a Warrior chase:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Is4AxaeW3k (sorry for the missing sound @ encounter #1)

- 1on1 with War and that Mesmer again:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-BxaQHaWZY

New one(s):

Duels vs. a power ranger:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrJqNG3PkIQ

Currently uploading, a “mirror” fight vs another power engineer (nade spec):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-WaPRck9EA
Should be up in 1-2h

kubetz.3058:

I loved how that Champion Magus just logged off when you got both of them downed.

That fight was quite fun, wasn’t sure if I’d be able to win as I got pretty low on HP in some situations.

Yamsandjams.3267:

Have you ever tried dropping rifle turret down in from of a downed engg or warrior and using it to shield yourself from their interrupt? Haven’t had a chance to try it like that, but I’m curious if it will actually work reliably.

I tried it in the past with HT and at least warrior hammer just flew over the turret (yet you read so many complaints about that enormous turret hitbox…). I’ve got to try it again to make sure it doesn’t work at all, but in the past I didn’t have success with it.

edit: after a short test in the heart of the mists I can tell you the engi’s and warrior’s projectiles just fly through the turret, everything hits.

Two new videos online:

Guard and Mesmer 1on1’s:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9C9dsRkoBH4

More guards and a 1vs2 against s/d ele and sd engi:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNibdG91Okg

Next to come is probably a OS duel session against a moment of clarity power ranger.

http://pastebin.com/dmACCzwx

Assuming this is real…
Massive buff for KR inc. Imo some effects are going to be ridiculous… 50% uptime on super speed, perma fire shield (gear as tanky as possible + get retal and deal up to 1k dps with some might as long as the enemy keeps attacking you… new skillful playstyle under way), yet another condition for nade builds (we like cond builds getting even more conds, don’t we?). 4 out of 10 second projectile reflect will possibly make a hard counter for builds relying on projectiles (though conds might keep HT in slot for the many engis).

Anyway, let’s start the theorycrafting, let me be your guide: http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/

cheese.4739:

For those arguing that, since traited swapping of attunements can proc various effects, they should be counted as skills more than weapon swaps and so be affected by chill, here are some traits that proc on weapon swap:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Versatile_Rage
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Versatile_Power
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Tail_Wind
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Furious_Grip
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Quick_Pockets
Should Warriors who go into the Discipline tree have their weapon swaps affected by chill? What about Rangers who go into Skirmishing?

In case you’re refering to my post:

I never said that other classes can’t proc effects on weapon swaps. I just think ele is better at it. Without fleshing it out further, the main difference probably is:

An ele can choose different swaps with different procs. They have the ability to activate what is the best in a given situation, maximizing the impact of different effects.

Classes with regular weapon swaps can only choose to proc or not to proc their weapon swap trait effect(s) by swapping weapons. It’s not choosing what is useful but evaluating if it’s useful. They are stuck with the given effects even if they don’t help them at all in their current situation.

I hope you see the difference.

cheese.4739:

Weapon swaps shouldn’t be affected by chill, and attunements are the Elementalist’s weapon swap mechanic.

It’s not as easy as that, see my post above.

Kyon.9735:

Elementalist skills usually have long casting/channeling time outside of Scepter Air Attunement. Elementalist playstyle is all about chaining your skills from different attunements to deal massive damage unlike most other classes that needs to click 1 button to deal massive damage.

I’m aware of ele’s playstyle. It’s my second-most played character with over 400 hours playtime. Nothing spectacular but enough time to know how certain things work.

Kyon.9735:

If they make it cancel skills on swap, they might as well delete Elementalist from the game because it will prevent elementalists from chaining skills. Imagine a scepter elementalist cast Dragon’s Tooth or Phoenix. He has to wait for Dragon’s Tooth to hit or Phoenix to come back before he can do anything else which is absurd. Almost all elementalist skills have delayed effect (especially staff) and this will break the class completely.

You are mistaking something. Weapon swapping just cancels skills currently casting, it doesn’t make (delayed) effects of already casted skills disappear. You would be able to swap right after the cast of dragon’s tooth/phoenix is finished, not after the effects completed. Combos that would no longer be able to execute would include something like casting churning earth and then switching to air to get shock aura to stun attacking enemies. Or casting ER and switching to earth midcast for traited stability.

Kyon.9735:

To be honest I don’t understand why people are against removing the effect of chill on attunement swap. Attunement swapping doesn’t remove the effects of chill (unless you invest at least 20 trait points) which means your skills will still have higher cool down.

I’m not necessarily arguing against the removal of the chill effect on attunement swaps. I’m pointing out flaws / possible drawbacks and backfires of the argument “It’s a weapon swap, so it shouldn’t be affected by chill.” (simplified)

Imo, from a pure mechanical point of view, there are two options:

• It’s a weapon swap -> not effected by chill/conf, doesn’t trigger SoR, interrupts casts.
• It’s a instant skill of a profession mechanic that alternates your skillbar -> Allows seamless combos, “weapon swapping” (including activating certain effects) midcast and triggers SoR but is also affected by chill/confusion.

Anything else would be a special treatment of a skill/weapon swap.

If you want chill to not effect attunement swaps that’s a legit and probably reasonable request. However, don’t argue with how weapon swap on other professons work or that it is a bug/a mistake when you don’t want to have the drawbacks of an actual weapon swap. Call it what it would be: a buff and a quality of life enhancement for eles. Not being required because the mechanic is flawed/inconsistent but because chill is too strong against eles (to be discussed) from a balance-point of view.

As an ele I’d probably prefer keeping the mechanics as they are over being interrupted on attunement swap but not having chill effect it. In fact, my reason for posting here was the fear of ANet listening to the players (yes, I’m that optimistic) and making it act like a weapon swap without considering the drawbacks with one of them being cast interruption (yes, I’m that realistic).

I’m curious what you think about attunement swaps canceling casts, Mbelch. Because if attunements become “real” weapon swaps, they’ll most likely become self-interrupts too.

Imo the whole decap spec is a game mode / conquest design problem. Conquest just makes tanky CC easy to abuse.

Well, since they most likely won’t change conquest mechanics or edit maps, before pulling of another kit refinement they could just nerf knockback/launch distances (in sPvP only, or even only on point). The good thing about that would be that it’d allow to keep current mechanics, skill and trait functions and since it’s “only” about numbers, they can tweak them to a extent at which they think it is fine, without completely devaluating knockbacks as CC options. They wouldn’t even have to destroy the whole build (even though it’s hated by many), they could just tone it down.

AR is a different and controversial topic on it’s own.

Be careful what you ask for, making attunement swaps act like weapon swaps will most likely make them interrupt casts (just like weapon swaps do). If not, other classes will probably cry out because eles would get the good things of it being a usual swap without the downsides.

Another thing eventually worth mentioning is that attunement swaps, can proc more distinct effects/skills than weapon swaps on any other classes. Water attunement can become a healing/condition removal skill, earth attunement a slow/damage reduction skill, air attunement a damage/mobility skill and fire a (rather crappy) AoE damage skill.

It’s kind of complicated. Imo attunements are both – skills and weapon swap. Traited the swaps alone can become pretty strong skills which should be able to be counter played with the appropriate options, including chill.
On the other hand, I agree that it’s unfair that eles weapon-swap function of the attunements is also affected by skill cast counters.

Right now I’d say both options – treating attunement swaps like skills and treating them like weapon swaps – feel right in one way and wrong in the other.

Some roaming action again: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdAZmQsJMa8

Going to focus less on video making/uploading and more playing (and hopefully getting more quality fights) in the next days. However, due to high ping and lags I had nothing better to do today anyway. You might enjoy some scenes,

cheers,
Sil

To all the critics: the starter backback + Exterminator Rifle skin (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Exterminator) = fake flame thrower kit (well, kind of), imba deception

Aegael.6938:

I’ve never had trouble against necromancers, though, since you can easily exploit their weakness to CC.

Are the points in toughness mainly for the comeback potential at 25% hp? I really like vitality for the free fury which Engineer sorely lacks, and Transmute is really great too. Backpack regenerator and protection on CC are also really strong compared to +80 power from the inventions tree.

You quoted flow, but since it’s about my build, let me answer:

@your question: Yes, partially

On the attributes:

• Vitality: I have enough HP, at least I feel so most of the time. With -cond duration food health is about 16k, adding guard stacks that makes 18,5k life. So I’m not really in need of vitality, as I usually survive initial spikes.
• Boon duration: pretty much useless in this build.

• Toughness combined with the (little) bonus healing power really adds up in longer fights, which are usually the more challenging ones.

On the traits:

• PI: I usually don’t really have that much problems with (CC->) power spikes. Many can be avoided, some can get prevented with a pre-casted turret and it’s KB and I still have a stunbreak. Also, having a higher default armor = more overall damage reduction, not depending on a trait proc. Protection injection is good but situational and only really needed in builds with no stunbreak.

• Backback regenerator: true, a very good trait for sustain

• Energized armor: for my gear it offers about 100 power -> ~200 effective power -> ~5% average damage increase, not too shabby

• Power shoes: this is kind of mandatory as I don’t have reliable perma-swiftness access.

• The first minor traits in each line are rarely game changing. And even though I know it’s a very specific case: duels with necros have taught me that they love the predictable proc of hidden flask to turn around the boons. Pack runes are kind of a replacement for the hidden flask proc and random, so at least they aren’t predictable (well, neither for the enemy nor for me)

• Transmute isn’t bad but again situational. It can be really good, it can be negligible. I did not feel it making much difference in fights vs cond spammers. Irony is though that it works really well vs my initial immobilize

• Automated medical response is basically a second chance and a potential CC setup, since traited HT also knocks back. It’s a tide-turner and I love that.

Also, if I’d move my traits from inventions to alchemy, I had to get speedy kits, probably replacing Adrenal Implant and getting Invigorating speed to keep a higher endurance regeneration. When using a energy sigil both endurance regeneration sources will proc at the same time, rendering the vigor granted partially useless. Consistent endurance regeneration > focused regeneration in a moment you’re less likely to get the most out of it, imo. Also both speed and endurance regeneration then would be susceptible to boon hate.

Hm, what’s left to say? In the end I don’t think there’s much of a difference in efficiency. Maybe you wonder why I’m so fixated on boonhate: bad experiences. I’m trying to tune my build more against the encounters I struggle with, not the ones I win most of the time. The rest of my reasoning is probably personal preference, long-term patch euphoria and a chronic byob (“bring your own build”) infection (alchemy is a bit overused, isn´t it? ).

From an engi main ele twink point of view: Ele isn’t is bad as many seem to think (at least in WvW). There were gross over-nerfs (RTL, which made ele unappealing for roaming) but e.g. some of the first drastic sustain nerfs (SoR, Cleansing Wave/Evasive arcana) didn’t even apply to WvW. Also, so far eles were able to evade the overall vigor nerf, so I’d count that as an indirect buff. The arcane change did make 30 points in the traitline a little less mandatory. I’m glad ANet is careful with buffs, but they are changing the wrong things imo. They need some capability against initial burst, and a re-adjustment to their mobility, their recovery options/active defenses are already pretty good. I dislike that “evade while you are executing a strong attack so your opponent has less counterplay options” approach.

I tried to use it as some of the effects have potential but they’re too situational. Also out of combat proc… why does it proc out of combat unlike sigils? If it wouldn’t you could at least get perma swiftnes OOC with speedy kits without keeping kit refinement on CD.
Also, as already mentionend, global CD is a real turn-off. Bad enough that we can’t supress the activation of the skills anymore with jumps (these wonderful times…).

Rest in peace, Kit Refinement. sheds a tear

It’s actually pretty consistent through the whole game:
Weapon swap/dropping environmental weapons/kits: cancels any channeled skill / casts
Using instant skills (like kits): executing the skill without interrupting current channels / casts (with some exceptions, like Blinding Power afaik).

New one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIXOY28ztJs (also added to the OP).
Not really hard fights and wrong record settings for the last clip so that one has no sound, unfortunately :/ Hope you’ll enjoy watching it anyway.

Oh and @ Maska, we actually dueled once, not sure if you remember it. Couldn’t tell you which build I used, was some time ago but surely in my power era. As far as I remember win/loss was pretty even.

kubetz.3058:

Liked the roaming video a lot. You are playing your build very well.

Thanks.

kubetz.3058:

If you are planning to put all your videos into this topic I would recommend linking all the posts with your newest videos in the OP so it is easy to find and people won’t have to scroll and search for your posts.

Sounds reasonable, going to do that. I don’t really want to spam new topics with video links.

Aegael.6938:

I use a very similar build, but I run in the vitality traitline instead, I wonder if you’ve tried that? I also take Elixir S instead of EGun, EGun is typically very useful in-fight, but once it comes time to secure stomps on downed enemies I’ll basically just lose every single time in a 1vX if the opponents aren’t braindead.

I don’t like Elixir S for several reasons / I like EGun better.

1. You can’t stunbreak offensively (breaking the self KB of overcharged) since you “daze” yourself and can’t execute your spike afterwards.
2. For a save stomp you have to keep Elixir S ready, meaning you have to fight a 1vsX without stunbreak(s).
3. Stealth as opener can still be used when casted pre fight.
4. Stunbreak on Egun auto-recharges on 25% due to inertial converter
5. CD of Healing Mist with 30 in tools is just 31sec, compared to Elixir S’ 60sec.
6. Less utility: you lose mobility(+AoE damage)/cond cleanse/overall a bit healing/the option to poison when taking Elixir S

I’d could stomp better with Elixir S, no doubt, but I’d have much more problems getting enemies downed while surviving in the first place. 1vs2 is usually not a problem since you can pressure downed/ressing enemies pretty good with SD, your AoE skills and your CC’s. When the ressing opponent has stability/invulverability you can still launch the downed foe with OS.
1vs3+ brings me back to the aforementioned points. If they aren’t braindead you’ll want a stunbreak and any kiting tools you can get to survive. Also, when 2-3 enemies are ressing a downed one they can do the job before the finishing move is executed (depending on the position of all combatants of course).

Next videos are going to be a few less challenging ruin fights and more Thief duels (a pretty skilled D/D one this time).

New one’s out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEOx0xjkaDg

About the fights:
1. Should have stayed on the thief / the pull from the ai thief kind of ruined my initiation though. Afterwards it’d probably have been a good idea to take on the engi first as he added, but 3+ with Bronze guys surely becomes problematic. Screwed up the escape too, still a nice fight imo, shows the kiting capability vs melees of the build well.

2. Unfortunately the engi stayed in the camp, but I managed to lure the ranger out. Was able to kill him before he’s getting back to the camp as his stabi faded. Didn’t want to to fight the incoming group so I chose the safe route back to spawn

3. Moved in the camp at the start as I’m usually not really comfortable fighting two ranged condition opponents. Defending it went quite well until more enemies kept dropping in, well, cake happens.

4. Thankfully it stopped at two enemies. GS mesmers aren’t really my favorite enemies (esp. in open field) as they can basically just outrange me. Having a Thief head shotting me didn’t make it any easier.

5. The ele was always good for an easy kill, but had to heal up the guard to prevent him rallying. Decided to play it safe as there were more incoming and I had to rebuff food. Also again foe(s) outranging me.

I usually wait until I see a dodge animation, sometimes I’m a little too late to interrupt it then. I used to interrupt it more often, but it happens that your enemy just doesn’t dodge (either because he times it bad or he thinks you might interrupt it, mind games ftw) and then you lose a precious chance of a CC chain/spike. Normally the CD of magnet is faster to come back than a good opportunity to pull, so the risk of probably waiting to long for the interrupt is worth it imo. Also I often start now by just applying pressure through auto attacks / Surprise Shot. A pull somewhere infight has usually a higher success rate because by that time the enemy has more to worry about than doing a perfect Magnet dodge (at the very end of the animation, so it get’s hard to cancel as reaction to the dodge). Best example of what I mean is probably 2:20, there I got it done, spotted the dodge just in time and managed to cancel Magnet fast enough (and successfully pulled a few secs later).

I also tried to do so in the first duel, and at the one at 3:04 as I was blinded mid-animation but I was too slow/ping was a little to high (surely the latter :P).

Build is
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQFAUlIqicnpyuF1LJyoHkmotZhUIh3HoC51nC0FA-TkAg0CnISSlkLJTSyksJNCB
sPvP version since I’m to lazy to add the PvE gear. Feel free to optimize the stats to your liking. For inventions 10 you can also use a defensive trait, I run Energized Armor by default as more damage is universally useful.
Using pack runes over ogre because their addtion to effective power is comparable to ogre’s and the proc adds even more damage (plus is also buffing allies if you have some). And they’re also cheaper (at least they were when I got my gear).
Sigils I use are Fire, Leeching, Energy, and Generosity depending on what I’m doing/fighting.

Edit: Roaming vid currently uploading, not the most epic fights but some realistic roaming action, should be up in 6-7 hours (yeah, my connection is that great).

Guide:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/Guide-WvW-SD-Control-Build-Roaming/first#post3935536

List:

• OS duels with Thief: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LeNiSs7IaRI
• Roaming: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEOx0xjkaDg
• Fights/Kills in the ruins: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIXOY28ztJs
• Roaming #2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdAZmQsJMa8
• Roaming #3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9C9dsRkoBH4
• Roaming #4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNibdG91Okg
• Duels vs Power Ranger: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrJqNG3PkIQ
• Duels vs Power Engineer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-WaPRck9EA
• Roaming #5: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmxeCjSInOk
• Roaming #6: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Is4AxaeW3k
• Roaming #7: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-BxaQHaWZY
• Keep Capture: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onOG96Fy5jI
• Duels vs. D/D Ele: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ubn_Dnq9irE
• Roaming #8: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iw1W40rlH6c
• Roaming #9: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeK-cFkOKrs
• Roaming #10: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcqT_n-_AGA
• Duels vs Ham/Sw+Sh war: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0nhivZmfHc
• some OS duels: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKJmglwqqGI

Original post:

Hey,

I decided to start making videos of my Engineer play. So here’s one of me first serious attempts doing so:

Met a nice Thief willing to duel me in OS after he made me eat grass in the borderlands. We got some nice fights, despite some minor lag inbetween they were really enjoyable. I hope you like it.

I will try to get more footage recorded in the future, if you have any preferences or want to see anything in particular you can tell me, can’t promise to fulfill your wishes but I might go for it

About me:
My main activities ingame are solo roaming, some sPvP with occasional tPvP (solo queue) and looking people willing to do some duel action. Guess I’m not the best sPvP’er so I’ll probably stick WvW encounters.

Coming from condition builds, since half a year I mainly play hybrid or power specs, the latter usually offensive but not complete glass. The build in the video I have been using for about 2 months. I like it for being a bit more resilent offensive SD spec with nice CC/utility, but less “instagib” potential.

I’ll be thankful for (almost) any feedback here or in the video comment section.

Till then,
Sil / Keo

tl;dr: there’s a video. You can watch it. Probably more coming.

In general you need strong CD’s to really turn the tides in a combat and if you want to overwhelm your enemies with a sudden action or change in your play you’d probably like to spec for a GC, which is quite a difficult and nonforgiving playstyle. At the beginning you’d likely have more success with tanky (cond) specs.

If you’re looking for something extraordinary I’d suggest Engi, Mesmer and Ele and to a lesser extent Ranger and Thief.

Engis have a lot of “weird” utility skills, can pull of complex combos due to kit swaps and have the defensive CDs, procs and CC’s to turn a fight.

Mesmers have a unique playstyle due to their interaction with clones and phants, have very good active defenses (ports, stealth, invulns) and can pull off deadly shut down-combos. They also have unique utility skills like Portal.

Ele is overall very versatile, suffers a bit from it’s low base defense but get’s an good amount of skills, combos and strong traits to cover that up (once you learn to manage them). It’s probably more “supporty” by default (/due to popular trait choices, which also effect your allies)

Ranger has a Pet. That is good and bad at the same time. Pets are often clunky, but can be pretty versatile and well-managed they really add to the outcome of a fight. Ranger also have active defenses on weapon skills and can perform some strong CC+damage combos with their pets when built for it.

Thief is actually a bad “tide-turner” in the middle of a fight (imo) but it’s excellent at disengaging, target switching, choosing fights and striking at the right time. Built for GC Thiefs can kill you quite fast while being very slippery. However, their playstyle is more one-dimensional than that of the other classes mentioned.

Cynz.9437:

i honestly don’t understand how they managed to make engi pull work 100% of the time (unless target dodges) […]

I’d like to join you in that dream world (a secret test server maybe?) where Magnet actually works reliably. It may hit all the time, but the pull effect itself is a different story:

There are “not at all”-pulls, “half way”-pulls, “lol, he’s getting pulled up in the air”-pulls (sometimes including fall damage for even more lols), “he gets pulled, but his character’s still displayed at it’s old location”(or the other way round)-pulls, “Ok, he gets pulled, but then he’ll port back to where he was”-pulls and “How about even more rubberbanding between 2-3 different locations?”-pulls. To be fair, of course there’s also the occasionally “Heureka, it actually worked!”-pull.

I can only guess that scorpion wire suffers from all the above amusements plus being a clunky projectile that likely misses moving targets and get’s obstructed easily. Sounds like an awesome skill

To add at least a bit constructiveness to this vent post: Telling from my experience pulls (every pull skill in the game) are very prone to high latency (be it caused by one of the interacting players or the current server workload) and slightest terrain height differences / tiniest obstacles in the way. Avoid using them when the circumstances aren’t “perfect”.
As far as I can tell ping hasn’t been that good recently (update, many people playing, even read about ddos attacks) so that might make it work even worse than usually.

Deselect target and check if you stepped in some ranger’s dog’s excrements.

jlneedham.8219:

Treborlavok.3504:

Tid bit of advice on SD builds and wvw in general, never go full glass. Being able to be in wvw and getting the full effect(stats) of armor/weps/food/oil you can greatly increase your survivability or severely hamper it if you do or so not spec full glass. Full glass and you’ll never be able to take more than 1v1. Hybrid and you can take 2v1 or more depending on your targets builds/prof/skill level…

Also you actually don’t need to go into firearms to have an extremely powerful/sustainable SD build. Keep in mind that we have minimal stun breaks/stability/condi cure so we have to spec Into defense to not be an easy bag. It all comes down to personal preference in the end but just wanted to add some food for thought.

This is exactly what ive been racking my brain over for the past 24 hours. Although I love the SD build im full zerker atm which makes me very squishy. Id like to rework my build a little for more sustain but keep the SD aspect of it. Is there a way still achieve high SD crit numbers but have decent tough and vitality as well? I currently have 3 exotic suits. apothecary, cleric, and zerker. the utility skills id like to use are rocketboots which I love for the mobility, toolkit for defense as well as offense, and eilixir S for both defense stealth as well as offensive stealth positioning. I know these utilities are optimal for SD procs bc they don’t necessarily have low toolbelt cds, but id like to try and make it work. I also love bombs and nades but might be killing my defense too much by taking either one of them. So would a mix of my current suits work for this or should I go for another suit all together. not sure on a trait set up for this yet either, as long as I have 30 in tools and 10 in alchemy the rest is trivial to me. any advice would be greatly appreciated and thanks.

10 alch what for? You could give this a try: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQFAUlIqic37SfF17IyoHk2ntZhUIh3HIF5lfB-jUyAYMA6DQ6TZNBKIWOZ0YbDA6aMl7iq1vASBwkyI-w

You aren’t extreme squishy, still have some power/crit chance, can super speed-rocket jump every 20 sec (or change kit refinement for power wrench) and change the first major inventions trait for more defensive utility.

For the new year: http://www.gw2wvw.net/node/39
(in case you missed it, match up forums will be shutted down https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/Upcoming-Forum-Changes-to-WvW-Match-ups-Sub-forum/first#post3393146)

Spread the word, would be nice to keep the matchup talks going.

In short:
1. Yes.
2. Hit your s***, dodge their s***. Of course I mean skills.
3. Yes.

@1:
One example: power nades, like 30/10/0/10+/10+, take any utilities in addition to grenade kit that you feel confortable with. Build pure zerker, knight/zerker, mix with soldier etc., make sure it’s as defensive as you need it and as offensive as possible.
Another option might be rifle hgh (maybe also with nades?). However, better ask a hgh player about such a build.
As a control/support build Rifle+FT+EG might work, I would build that one more durable and run it in a group.
Rifle in a cond nade build is also fun, you’ll have less conditions from your weapon, but more control to make you grenades hit.
You can really try anything and see what works out for you.

@2:
I guess you have problem with stealth? Spam aoe, turn around the whole time following a movement pattern that makes it hard to get behind you, get your back towards a wall and/or use mobility skills when they want to hit a backstab so they’ll have to burn up initiative to catch up in time and stealth might end before they are in range.

Vs P/X better get yourself an obstacle to kite around, retreat when they are surprising you, P/X thiefs aren’t that good at chasing.
Vs X/D dodge CnD. Get away from NPC’s/mobs the thief could use for CnD or kill them. Avoid using turrets/detonate them as soon as the thief begins to use CnD on them (a nice way to let them burn some initiative btw).
Vs S/X keep an eye on their #2 “anchor” (little circle) and the duration of the buff
S/D is a bit tricky, when they are good they’ll dodge most of your attacks. Create a spvp thief and learn the evasion time frames. CC them when they use an attack without evasion (rifle #4).
Vs SB… well, SB alone usually doesn’t kill you, most of the time thiefs use it for escaping, which is something that is hard to counter when they aren’t careless. If a thief tries to slowly kill you in a ranged attrition fight, use LOS.

@3:
Sure. It adds mobility, burst and control to your skillbar. Basically everything you want in a power roaming build. It’s less effective in large encounters though, P/S offers more defense vs. multiple targets (block+stun, aoe KB, multi-target blind).

gesho.9468:

im not gaming pro, but which other pvp would you point superior to gw2?

Bloodline Champions.