Guild Wars 2

@Urthona.3198: Very true, all of it. But there are situations and places, aswell as races where naked bodies would just fit in. Slaves, harpies, demons, risen etc. There are many things in the game where a naked chest would fit in much more.

Why would a female demon wear something to cover up her chest? Is she a prude demon or something?

And it’s not uncommon within the young crowd to actually play games where nudity is very precent. For instance Warhammer, Daemonettes of Slaneesh, naked demons, and harpies in Warhammer both old and new are naked. There are other tabletop games, cant remember the name, but they had greatsword wielding barbarian chicks with a wolfskin on their back, something covering their private parts and a bare chest.

Did it kitten up any of us gamers? Nope.

What was disturbing in Warhammer was the Great Unclean one, it had giant manboobs!

There are already pretty defined roles, you just need to find a spec that does what you want.

You also claim there is no need for a mesmer or necro in groups… What?

Necro is a very nice damage dealer, signle and AoE, while at the same time an awesome debuffer/cleanser. All this while keeping very high survivability. They have 2 reliable weakness AoE debuffs.

Mesmer deals wonderful damage, has good survivability, even if full dps. Got a multitude of group friendly goodies in the form of debuffs, combo fields and reflects. They also have the best haste ingame. Massive burst damage.

GW2 has better and more interesting mechanics than any trinity game, and the bonus is no trinity.

CoRtex.2157:

the problem with this is, that I wouldn’t like to see kids to grow up as pervert-RP’ers humping eachother in the game instead of actually learning how to play the game. Also from just reading your post, i think you are a pervert. (btw anyone can fake their age)

I dont know how you got pervert from what he wrote. Is there something wrong with enjoying the vision of the human body? It’s ancient morals that puts that fix idea in peoples minds, that somehow the natural state of the human body is something filthy and sinful.

It’s better to teach kids early on that there is nothing wrong with the human body, that its perfectly normal to enjoy watching it and be attracted by it. Aslong as it’s censored from most media, there will always be the ancient closeminded view on it. And most people that enjoy looking upon a naked body are seen as perverts.

@Weindrasi.3805: The reason women are seen as sex objects is due to the morals of history, Eve and all that. The same deal for those Bewb people, its fun to them because its a “forbidden” topic. Just like giggly girls and weewees. It’s deep within the mind of people, because it’s just drone morals, nothing more, something thats no longer a religious idea, now it’s just twisted morals.

Oatmeal.1895:

SneakyErvin.3056:

Censorship is kitten backwards in most games. Big cudos to Anet if there is actually nudity in this game, because there is no need or purpose with censoring it.

Most games that censor nudity are highly violent games or games where your type of attacks are probably the most sadistic and cruel ways to kill someone.

-snip-

Your second statement is just not true for the most part. I would say, probably 98% of all games that have nudity in them only have breasts or buttocks. If I had to scale them, I would say a mans kitten and a woman’s kitten are more “vulgar” then breasts. And I am just using this for arguement’s sake, because games that do have nudity in them, for the most part, only have breasts.

But back to your statement. Take Age of Conan for example. You can find bare chests in that game, and it is one of the most violent MMO’s out there. Here’s a shameless bump of a video I did a long time ago showing what the Assassin class can do in AoC:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_rhLUUDSbg

You will literally slit your enemies throats and see buckets of blood spill out. Another move you slip behind your foe and stab your dagger into the back of there SKULL! Leaving it there for a second, then yanking it out just as he begins to fall.

Another game, and this one is old, is Duke Nukem: Time to Kill. However, with this game the only nudity I think is in the intro movie in the strip bar. But the game itself you could blow enemies limbs, heads off etc!

I dont see how my statement is false? I did say “most games that censor nudity are highly violent games”. I’m confused about what is false with it and what in your post says anything differently? I never said that all violent games have censored nudity or that all games with censored nudity are violent. I also never mentioned anything about either breasts or genitals.

I’m just stating the hypocrisy of censor laws.

IMO nothing should be censored. If it is already a game/movie with high violence, censoring nudity is pure hypocrisy. It’s just skin and flesh, a body.

I also dont think nudity would be an issue, not even among the immature bewbz crowd. Because it wouldnt be anything special, it would just be a natural part of the game.

ThiBash.5634:

The main thing that the ‘pro-nudity’ posters have failed to adress is what it would ADD to the game.

Because it will take up artist time to make anything decent, but it wouldn’t add to the gameplay at all.

Granted, you might have had an argument if Anet actively removed nudity…but in a game that never had any nudity, can you really claim not adding it is censorship? If anything, you could argue that modelling underwear takes a lot less time and resources than sculpting private parts.

So there’s no real reason to add it, and there’s no censorship because you can’t censor what was never there to begin with.

There is a reason for it to exsist and be added. For those people dead set on a theme, be it a paint dipped celtic “berserker” theme or an african tribal warrior/jungle warrior theme, it should be there. Or for the ERP people… but that is another subject.

The line for me goes at explicit sexuality, that does not belong in games. If you want that go watch hentai or porn. Mostly because there is no real private housing and such where you can close the door.

An enrage timer would be utterly stupid since the game isnt based around the trinity (i.e 1 tank, 1 healer, x dps). Adding an enrage timer would effectivly force a group to take dps, it would be like the trinity but the other way around. People would be dead set on fielding 5 top dps in their groups and no support or tanks.

Or they add an enrage timer that doesnt start soon enough at which point it makes no difference anyhow.

Only way an enrage time would work would be if its not based around x amount of time. Instead it should be based around x amounts of fails vs a certain ability. Like say, if you fail to break the earth shield say 4 times during the grawl boss fight he would enrage for 20 or 30 sec i.e each sacrificed prisoner would give him 1 enrage buff and at 4 he enrages. This would make the boss less forgiving, currently he only heals up.

Svanir boss would have something similar, for each person hit by the falling roof he would get one stack, at 5 stacks he would enrage or something. Same deal with power suit or something, each successful bombs adds a stack.

This could work for pretty much every boss, except the old dungeon bosses really need a revamp with some mechanics that are close to unavoidable.

Each fractal boss has some form of ability that could be tied to enrage, but a pure timer would be awful.

Censorship is kitten backwards in most games. Big cudos to Anet if there is actually nudity in this game, because there is no need or purpose with censoring it.

Most games that censor nudity are highly violent games or games where your type of attacks are probably the most sadistic and cruel ways to kill someone.

One prime example is the ability to actually burn people to death, with either flamethrowers or magical flames. The most painful way to end your life. Then we have explosive bullets, electric attacks or dropping blocks of ice on people. Followed by bombs, grenades, arrows and thrown axes. And of course your regular chopping, clomping and bashing someone to pulp. Oh and dont forget the ranger pets, its not so bad having a bear bashing your skull in or a wolf/lynx ripping your entrails out and feeding on them while you are watching.

Nudity is deffinently worse and can harm people for the rest of their life…

I’m against censorship across the board. If someone is mentally unstable in the first place, censoring out something in a game or movie wont do much to change it. There will always be something ticking their mind into doing something awful. Violence and sex is everywhere, most commonly on the news. It doesnt go a day without seeing dead bodies from a conflict in a foreign land on the news or hear about someone that got kitten <the word that got censored here is the one where females are encouraged to yell “Fire!” if it happens to them instead of yelling “help!” and the actual word>.

It’s also all over the newspapers. Enough food for a wicked mind.

Zoralink.9836:

…“high health” rather than “boss”?

Just something I’ve noticed after doing various dungeons, fractals, and world events.

Any time something is intended as a ‘boss’ fight, rather than making them have interesting mechanics, high damage, or some other such thing, the simplest thing that ArenaNet has done is smash the 0 key on the keyboard until they have obnoxiously high amounts of health. This just makes bosses tedious to fight, rather than fun or interesting. Bosses typically have one or two mechanics to learn, at most, then you know the fight inside and out, yet the fight can continue for up to ten minutes simply because they have so much health. It’s not fun. It’s not challenging. It’s annoying.

Why did they choose this as a design philosophy? It makes the PvE side of the game incredibly frustrating.

Name another MMO where bosses dont have huge health pools and repetative mechanics? It’s no different than any other MMO.

You complain about the bosses not having high damage attacks and in a later post you say you havent delved into explore mode much and you get your impression from fractals.

Which leads me to believe you havent done many fractals either. Most of the fractal bosses have attacks that will severly damage you if they hit.

1 Shot bosses:

Dredge
Grawl
Cliffside
Swamp
Ascalon
Solid Ocean

Then the other bosses you will want to dodge and move away from anyways because they deal high damage.

Then when it comes to regular dungeons we have the ones mentioned in another post along with alpha.

I dont see it any different in other MMOs. WoW and ToR had the same deal, minus the part where you take care of yourself and rely on a healer and tank instead. I find GW2 much more fun and dynamic. I was bored to death with PvE before playing GW2, which reignited the flame in me.

Dredge fractal is easy, only place that gets annoying is the cage if people dont do it right.

To make it easy do this.

1. When you enter the fractal gather 4 people at the first gate, 1 people runs up to the first switch.
2. When first gate opens all 4 people kill the 2 vets at the cage door, while the top guy runs down to first gate.
3. When vets are dead, 1 out of the 4 runs up to the second switch and runs back down as soon as the 4 others of the group are right inside the cage.
4. Kill all dredge in the cage before standing on the two switches.
5. Stand on switches, have one guy ready to attack the mobs that spawns at the cogwheel and have one guy on the cogwheel. Guy that flipped second switch will probably have adds unless he has some stealth to drop aggro on his way to the cage. He should help at switches or to clear around cogwheel.
6. Door opened, continue.

Most importanly is step 2 and 3, it makes it much much smoother.

Fractals, dungeons, alts, dragons, WvW, sPvP and so on. Trying out new weapon combos that I havent really tried earlier. Found a few nice ones so far that I’ve kept as a main setup.

There is always something to do.

Not sure what your point is. Are you saying the guy who wanted soldier gear didnt bother equipping anything at all in the trinket slots or?

There are plenty of option for filler trinkets until you get the right ones, that would serve the purpose quite well.

Anyways, running full non-MF exo on my toons, everthing is based on spec and what I want to preform best at while in dungeons. Running 1 UW weapon per toon except on my mesmer (for extra phantasm when starting a fight), of course UW is exo aswell.

I’m not sure where people are getting numbers from claiming that it does indeed proc, because it shouldnt.

It gives a +60% chance to bleed targets on crit. This means that if you have no traits that give you a %chance to bleed (like engi and necro traits) you will get nothing out of the sigil. You must be able to proc a bleed in the first place for this to work.

EnRohbi.2187:

SneakyErvin.3056:

Currently my mesmer deals around 3k MW crits, 8-9k crits for iWarlock and iZerker with a 30/30/0/0/10 spec.

What I see from this is that you are unaffected by the renerf to Shattered Strength because you are not even using it. And the GCD doesn’t affect you because you don’t have iPersona either.

It’s really easy to claim that people shouldn’t complain about a nerf when it does not affect yourself whatsoever.

It also proves there are other builds that work just as well as exploited or overbuffed specs. This isnt anything new what Anet is doing. They are doing what every other company has done since the dawn of MMOs, they fix exploits. Its not their fault if you have started to rely on an exploited form of skill use.

I’m sure they will change the GCD into something else, that doesnt effect iPersona so you can buttonmash your way in the future.

It’s also 0.25 sec we are talking about, it shouldnt effect you unless you really mash your buttons like crazy.

Boa Cinderella.1298:

@juno, Dante, velmeister

Thank you for your statements.

@SneakyErvyn

You would honestly tell us here its hard to run through Fractals, if you would have me as a teammate … listening to my comments in TS3 ;-) Let’s say from time to time i try that frac. Now i got lvl (3) – but i really don’t see why I’m forced to in view of these ascended items. That game is big and I really prefer to spend time at other aspects to get max. Stats.

And that Backpack is really hard to work for. That’s amazing and annoying. Did I choose the right game? Look, im no 7/24 Player and have to do other jobs and earn some moey.

I just want to max. all Equip within some months and then have fun with playing WvW and many nice PvE Areas, maybe look for some nice Skins. Why does ArenaNet think they have to keep me in game while not allowing me to craft max stats items? They want me to work permanently and hard for it? Is ist a colourful manifold game or a stupid grinding-pot?

Im still offline and waiting for NEWS from ArenaNet when the problem ist fixed.

Boa

Actually no I wouldnt call them hard, not even if grouped with you. Since it wouldnt make any difference for me whos in my group. I also wouldnt be bothered by whatever you say on TS, because I never really use VoiP for things like fractals. If I do use it, its because I wanna chatter with some friends about other things.

The back piece is the easiest thing to work for, you can run fractal 2 and get it almost as fast as running fractal 10+. You would need 1 extra run for each ten runs you do or something.

You also say you want max stats within a few months, well fractals doesnt even take that long to obtain max gear from.

As I said, 45 mins per run after level 10, thats 20 days you need to do a daily, unless you are lucky and get 1 or 2 rings you want while running fractals. During that time you will have the back aswell. Plus you get more gold in one fractal than you get from 1 hour of farming, alot more.

I have an 80 guardian, 80 necro and 80 memser.

I find scepter useful on all of them actually. By far my favorite weapon both necro and guardian. It’s ok on mesmer if you combine the skills right. iDuelist+scepter#2 is a nice combo with alot of damage. However I have ditched both scepter and pistol and gone for a staff+GS weapon setup. I far prefer the staff to any other weapon currently, since it has a nice clone spawning pace along with one of the most hard hitting phantasms in the arsenal. Plus it brings nice combo fields for my iZerker. And since my spec is balance between phantasms and shatters it works really well, my phantasms deal great damage and I can pop full shatters when I want to.

For guardian its one of my favorite weapons. It brings nice damage, dont let the pop-up numbers from Sc#2 fool you, it hits for as much as any other (x times) ability, it just doesnt look like it since it doesnt calculate total damage, so the numbers look small. I combine my scepter with a torch, it makes quite a beefy ranged build and up close its terrifying. Teleport to your enemy, Sc#3, #2 and Torch#5, can pop torch#4 before the jump for a big initial hit.

For necro scepter is just the weapon to go for in a coni build, along with a dagger in offhand and a staff in second setup.

@Digiowl: Focus isnt really worth it, the vulnerability stack is low and most likely another class will build it up on its own. The chill from the focus is also not worth it, because you already have 2 chills in your weapon setup. Dagger 4 and 5 are just much more useful. 4 blinds and removes 1 condi per enemy hit (up to 3), 5 inflicts bleeding and weakness, its just a very lovely debuff.

The setup with scepter+dagger/staff gives you 2 chills, alot of bleeding options, 2 condi removals (1 for your group), regeneration that can be up 100% of the time, 1 weakness, 1 fear, 1 blind. Add utilities on that and you can get another bleed which you can double stack with dagger/staff#4, another weakness aswell as a condition spreader.

Guilds arent server based. So your guild perks should stay as they are even if memebers switch to new servers.

@Talrune.5130: As you said, you arent 80 yet. Still you complain about Anet not releasing content fast enough? What?

Almost no MMO release pre-max level content after release, except is a few odd cases or when they want to revamp the world.

GW2 has gotten alot of updates when it comes to max level content and more work is being done for jan and feb patches. There is more than enough content to level 3 characters to 80 and seeing new content for atleast 50% of your leveling time on each toon.

The game has had enough permamnet updates for a 4 month old game in addition to its seasonal events. I think so far they’ve done quite a good job.

I play alot (too much actually) and I still havent gotten bored, I have 4 80s and I’m about to start leveling my ranger again and get his last 60 levels. I was a tad bummed out right before fractals were released but now I cant get enough of them or the game.

Just remember, skritts roll down hill. Also remember, it’s easy to be knee deep in skritt, unless you’re an asura when its more like swimming in skritt.

The question is also how many bleed stacks you manage to get on your target.

If you can get enough stacks your damage will be good. But then again it’s sustained damage with no chance of critting.

5 stacks of 121 damage = 605/s
1 Poison = 241/s
1 Burn= 720/s

Thats 1566/s aslong as you keep those stacks up, thats 15000 damage over 10 sec. Something a direct damage spec can burst in 2 seconds.

juno.1840:

SneakyErvin.3056:

It’s not hard to get ascended gear, it doesnt even take much time to get it. 7-8 hours for a ring after lvl 10. Getting nice gold in the proccess. 45 mins of your gametime per day. Thats not asking much from the players.

I currently do dailies with 4 toons, they all have 15 AR besides my mesmer who sits at 10 since hes missing his cloak. I have around 10 leftover rings in bank (hope they add so you can toss 4 in the MF for a random new one). Saving up for my next toon now while getting relics for my mesmers cloak.

This is a “point of view” opinion. Consider that you had to get to rank 10 fractals before the gear drops. I’ve had a single ring drop after reaching rank 10 fractals. I’m now at rank 14 fractals still with that one ring (and this includes grinding rank 10 for a couple weeks — all pre-token patch). Now you can get a ring with 10 tokens — but you must run an “even” fractal rank so you cannot progress rank unless you do two fractal runs a day (even followed by odd).

So yep it’s definitely possible, but “easy” is relative.

In January we should have an “unlock” of fractal ranks based upon the highest achiever in the team — but if you read the “fine print” you’ll see that the reward is based upon your base fractal level. So if I have a toon at fractal level 5 and I go on a level 10 run, I’ll get loot based upon level 5 (so no chance for a ring drop). It’s a wierd limitation — do the same work, get a lesser reward (although you can argue that at rank 5 you did less work to begin with because you didn’t “grind” your way to rank 10). Still a punishment for players with alts who know how to play fractals but have to deal with an antiquated gating system.

As you said, a point of view.

I dont mind how the system will work in the end of jan. It will be an even experience across the board. It’s just there to help low difficulty fractal runners get a group quicker. There is no reason to allow them to skip ahead and get a chance at rings from the start.

This coming system is perfect for friends or guilds who want to get members up in the levels while at the same time doing their daily runs and so on. It also helps alts get up in levels, since if you sit at 10-15 AR, you can join a 1-20 group or even higher. Your options would be greater and your time spent lfg would be much less.

Howver I fear that we will see many leeches, claiming to have AR then dying to agony in seconds. There should be a way to inspect some part of a players stats. Or they should limit groups to 1-9, 10-19, 20-29 and so on. This would remove a big part of the no-AR problem.

Trinity more or less gives you set rules of what you must have in a group. You cant complete a dungeon in most trinity games with just dps specs.

Here are no set roles, you can complete a dungeon, no matter which one with a full dps group, its also much faster with a full dps group if people know their classes and the game mechanics. You dont tank in this game in the old fashioned way, everyone pulls their part to help the whole group survive, through debuffing the enemy or cleansing your groupmates. Putting up combo fields and whatnot helps a ton.

Any character can go down the more tanky route, if they want to take some more hits before dying. You just need to spec and gear in the right way.

This is why it brings out a smile on my face whenever people yell a for “tank (guardian/warrior)” in lfg. It’s just one of those groups I wouldnt want to join, because they dont grasp the concept of the game, they think its just another WoW. They would probably yell their lungs out if they die and blame the “tank” for not holding aggro.

It’s not hard to get ascended gear, it doesnt even take much time to get it. 7-8 hours for a ring after lvl 10. Getting nice gold in the proccess. 45 mins of your gametime per day. Thats not asking much from the players.

I currently do dailies with 4 toons, they all have 15 AR besides my mesmer who sits at 10 since hes missing his cloak. I have around 10 leftover rings in bank (hope they add so you can toss 4 in the MF for a random new one). Saving up for my next toon now while getting relics for my mesmers cloak.

I cant believe the people in this thread yelling about mesmers having poor damage and claiming phanstasm are pets.

People spec badly so the class must have poor damage. It’s better to learn to spec right in the first place for what you wanna achieve.

Currently my mesmer deals around 3k MW crits, 8-9k crits for iWarlock and iZerker with a 30/30/0/0/10 spec. It also comes with great damage buffs for my group, like massive stacks of vulnerability aswell as haste. The damage from phantasms along with the WM instaganks anyone it touches pretty much. Staff2+Mirror+daze shatter, followed by a iLock+iZerker+GS2+MW and you have a downed whatever.

The group I run with in fractal (on my engi (2 engi, 1 war, 1 guard, 1 mesmer)) usually takes down the power suit after the second cauldron is dropped on him, thanks to our lovely mesmer. 10 sec haste is fun. On a bad run he dies at the third.

And regarding phantasms, no they are not pets or summons, they are offensive spells, ment for dealing damage. None of them stick to your group, their prime directive is to inflict damage. They have passive defensive abilites, but they are gone after each kill.

They are your outstretched grasping hand.

But then again plasmacutter.2709, you said rampagers gear and you’re amazed you deal low damage? Maybe you should try berserker gear and spec so your shatters and phantasms actually deal damage?

All primary phantasmal attacks are based on your attack, zerkers WW, duelists pew pew pew, locks bolt and so on. The only part of a phanstasm thats based on your condition damage would be the bleed proc and confusion some of them inflict.

Staff and even scepter are better for a power+crit spec than for a condition spec. The phantasms just deal that much damage.

I dont see the problem fellow memsers have with the shatter GCD. It’s there to prevent an exploit and rightly so. 0.25sec is nothing. It’s less than it takes you to create a new batch of illusions for another shatter.

It was never ment to work as it did, it was a bug getting exploited so it needed a fix.

Tulisin.6945:

Rainu.6871:

BS build, is good in open world pve and while leveling but is horrible in dungeons. .

It really isn’t. Effectively used BS build works better in dungeons than it does in open world PvE or while leveling. The burst single-target damage lends itself better to dungeon combat than elsewhere. Ineffectively used BS build is terrible everywhere, you just can’t get away with it in dungeons. It isn’t the mechanics in this case, it is the player.

SneakyErvin

t depends what you already have in group, most other professions can apply the debuffs a thief can

It is easy to say this off hand, but thieves are truly unmatched in their ability to easily and consistently apply blind, weakness, poison, and cripple. Nobody cares or really considers it a major thief asset because those conditions aren’t very useful in party-based PvE and just killing someone is far better than trying to debuff them in PvP.

But the thing is, appying them over and over to have any lasting impression drains your ini, which means you deal only auto attack damage.

Necro for instance applies weakness and bleed at the same time and has another utility for weakness, both being AoE. Guardians can spam AoE blind over and over, while dealing damage and buffing their groups damage through burn.

And weakness is one of the best conditions in PvE, it can be what decides if a groupmember is staying up or getting downed.

Other classes just have an easier time applying those debuffs without giving up their damage. And for cripple you might aswell bring a necro, they chill and DoT up the target at the same time.

It’s just all easier and safer with other classes doing the job a theif can do, because its comes as a passive thing woven into their other abilites mostly. Not saying thieves are bad or that I wont group with them, but why take the biscuit when you can have a cake?

I never kick people due to their class, however, whenever I get a thief in group I worry they might be a liability. There are too many bad apples among the thieves.

It depends what you already have in group, most other professions can apply the debuffs a thief can, but most come with more utility in addition to that, or are more resilient and some both.

Dantos.1065:

SneakyErvin.3056:

Chickenshoes.6250:

Grenades and elixir U mostly

If he’s not doing that, his role in fractals is to step out of the way to let a real class take care of it.

Way to have no clue about other sides of the class…

SD/Rifle spec is great. Bursty burst on demand aswell as a kittenload of control for boss fights. Sustained damage compared to any other dps specced class. Some healing utility through medkit medpacks, extra fury buff (self or group memebers) and a tiny condition remover. High dodge rate, some block and pulls and such when needed.

I especially like it since I’m a charr, Instead of goggles, I use hidden pistol, the toolbar is wonderful! Jump in with rifle 5, blunderbuss, hidden pistol back jump out, double hidden pistol toolbelt burst/pretend i’m a thief =D.

Finally an engineer that makes sense! I run the same kinda setup, except I dont have hidden pistol since I’m asura. But the same idea is there. I run in at times before using rifle 5 to get off that upwards kaboom aswell as the landing one. Up towards 13k crits on that double whammy. Get off a blunderbuss crit on that and its another 6k. After that its jump back out, and throw a wrench.

I’m currently pondering about skipping goggles and going for ram, the toolbelt ram skill hits for alot.

Chickenshoes.6250:

Grenades and elixir U mostly

If he’s not doing that, his role in fractals is to step out of the way to let a real class take care of it.

Way to have no clue about other sides of the class…

SD/Rifle spec is great. Bursty burst on demand aswell as a kittenload of control for boss fights. Sustained damage compared to any other dps specced class. Some healing utility through medkit medpacks, extra fury buff (self or group memebers) and a tiny condition remover. High dodge rate, some block and pulls and such when needed.

Eviator.9746:

SneakyErvin, you have helped me. Based upon your post I have taken it upon myself to learn about Defiant, and am now on board with engi’s awesome CC. Thanks!

You mentioned “snare”. This is not the right name for whatever it is you are referring to. Are you talking about the Net Turret?

Snare = cripple and chill in this game, anything that hinders movement speed. Nets are immobilizing abilities. Usually refered to as roots.

And yeah, test your rifle net and skills with cripple on some defiant bosses and see the wonders of engi CCs.

Ejiofor.4801:

Now I understand the problem this would have with Med Kit. I have a solution for this. Once Med Kit is swapped in, 1 is the Big Heal, followed by the same two smaller healing med bags, with the condition remover and the Swiftness/Might potion after.

Uhm, no thank you, medkit works great as it is, I dont want to have to equip it before being able to use its big heal.

If a freely customizable F1-F4 option would see light it should only be F2-F4, F1 should stay as it is to not overpower the heals. Imsgine healing turret with medkit F1 skill, with reseting heal at 25%HP and reseting toolbelt skills at 25%HP…

The other F buttons would be viable options though. However, I would probably only switch out 1 utility skill, which would be my rifle turret, since goggles and toolkit are just so nice.

As some have said here and as I have said in many other engineer threads. Go with Static Discharge spec, (10/30/0/0/30 is my spec), use medkit, toolkit, goggles, rifle turret and supply crate as elite, unless you have a better one from racials.

Along with this, obtain berserker or valkyrie gear, might be hard to get at your level, but keep it in mind for lvl 80 atleast. As you level grab power+prec and power+vit items, whatever rocks your boat. I prefer a bit of health points, staying around 40-45% crit chance is enough.

The spec isnt about survivability, if you do need that “oh kitten” button, toolkit skill #4 is there, an amazing block on low CD. The spec is about killing stuff fast, while surviving though dodging and controling your player through immobilize (rifle#2), KB/KD (rifle#4) and snares (traited toolkit toolbelt skill).

During a 10 second period your enemy is allowed to move at normal speed for roughly 2 seconds. Unless they blow stability (some bosses have it, most mobs dont, some players have it), at which point you dodge around, jumpshot away from them and all until their stability ends.

The only class annoying to battle with this spec are BS thieves, since they open up on you with such high damage right ontop of you.

I run a 1h spec on my guardian, dps focused. I use 1h+shield and scepter+torch.

The blind from sword along with the blind from your virtue (which resets on every kill, not just killing blows) is an amazing combo. If you run with a good group that deals nice aoe damage you will have blind ready to cast non-stop. Your group will take little damage in return.

The single target dps on sword is good.

I run with meditations traited to be instant cast, heal and with reduced cd. It’s ideal to port straight into a bunch set them ablaze, blind them with virtue, wait a little and blind them with sword, dodge back pull out scepter+torch, skill 2 followed by 5 and a smite condition, usually followed by another virtue during the fire breath.

The spec has alot of instant skills that you can cast while channeling other things. I wouldnt trade it for a GS.

I’m at 50%sih crit chance (trait included) 108% crit damage 3000 Attack and 17000HP.

0/30/30/10/0

We already pretty much have two sets of weapons. Weapon+toolbelt skills.

Atleast we get to customize our 4 toolbelt slots to fit our style of play. Weapon skills are static, not all of them fit in with the spec (see thief daggers). Same goes for elementalists, not all of the weapons skills they get under each attunement fit with their spec.

Atleast we have rifle which is desiged for direct damage and pistols designed for conditions. Both with a few utility weapon skills attatched to them. After that you streamline your spec with utility skills and their added toolbelt skills.

We also get kits, which is the same as weapons. We still get toolbelt skills from them even if we equip them, so we have it better than most classes. We have no weapon swap cd either. So you can effectivly have 20 different weapon skills as an engineer plus 3 offensive toolbelt skills. Make that 25 if you count the medkit too.

We do deal great damage if specced and geared for it, just like every other profession. Other professions deal with the same dilemma, go all out dps or stay in the middle, or perhaps go all out defense.

We have very viable damage options, both in melee range if thats your cup of tea and from range.

And regarding CC, we can CC everything in game, except unstoppable enemies. Immobilize works EVEN if the CC resist has stacks. 8 second CD on your rifles net is godly, combine it with one of our snares and its even better.

With the immob followed by a snare, the boss will only move towards people at normal speed for 2-3 seconds during a 10 second interval. Giving the person who has aggro an easier time to move around. It’s very valueble vs melee bosses or bosses with some form of leap/charge. Have a guardian in the group and you have one more immob on a far longer CD.

I honestly dont know what kind of specs people are playing since you complain about damage and everything else. I love my engi, my favorite character I think. He deals great damage and still has good survivability.

To me it sounds like you want to be able to do everything well with one spec. Thats now how it works, for any of the profession.

You also waste your utility if you try and use the elixirs for you group. Equip your medkit and you wont have to mess around with tossing elixirs. Just place medpacks on the group that people can pick up, they heal for more than your elixir regens and do it in one big gulp.

If you wanna spread reliable regen then use healing turret and elixir gun as utility, both having a healing mist toolbelt skills that applies regen.

@Isslair: Here is a spec if you want one for damage.

Explosives 10: V
Firearms 30: IV, VI, IX
Tools 30: II, VIII, XII

Heal: Medkit
Utility: Utility Goggles, Tool kit, Rifle Turret (Grenades under water).
Elite: Supply Crate

Armor: Exo Berserker with Beryl Orbs
Accessories: Exo Valkyrie+Karka with Exquisit Beryl Orbs
Neck: Exo Valkyrie with Exquisit Beryl Orb
Rings: Red Ring of Death, Crystalline Band
Weapon: Berserker Rifle with Superior Sigil of Blood

45% Crit chance, 3400 Attack, 107% Crit damage, 17300HP.

If you dont want the firearms rifle skill CD reduction you can go with vulnerability proc on crits. But as I said earlier, the 8 sec immob is godly together with the snare from throw wrench. You can exchange the gear for pure berserker if you dont want the health, its a player choise. Rifle 3+5 deals alot of damage both to single targets and packs, rifle 1 deals good sustained damage aswell, on par with any other professions auto-attack.

I very rarely die, unless I kitten up in a boss fight or fall of ledges and such.

Great how the pro-trinity people compare a WoW raid to GW2 5 mans… Yeah ok…

5man vs 5man, GW2 is more exciting. WoW 5mans were dull, too easy and not very dynamic. Stand in one spot, dps, stand in one spot, tank, stand in one spot, heal… boring.

Hello. I reported this in-game aswell but thought I’d post it here too to see if more people experience this issue.

While running the “Ascalon” fractal the day before yesterday I noticed that this trait wasnt working. It was not spawning clones when I dodged. I thought it was due to me using a staff and the 2 somehow conflicting with eachother. I didnt give it more thought since it was my last fractal for that run.

I ended up in Ascalon again today, this time with Sc/P+GS. I experienced the same exact issue, no clones spawned on dodge in there. After that we get swamp and underwater ruins aswell as solid ocean fractal. It worked as it should in all of them.

Would be nice if this got fixed and it would be nice to know if others are experiencing this issue in Ascalon aswell as maybe other places. So far Ascalon has been the only place this issue has occured for more.

yvesbeaumont.3291:

so shouldn’t they change that? it’s quite misleading and useless.

How is it misleading and useless? It says illusion damage increased by 15%, whats misleading or useless about it?

Illusion = clones and phantasms i.e your 3 pink dots above the weaponskills.

Love it how people want trinity. When what really matter is people refusing to learn the system they have.

This system works much better than the trinity, however, if you dont learn to dodge, block, blind, daze, LoS and so on you are kitten out of luck. But thats not a problem with the games combat system, thats a problem with you.

If you enjoy standing there, with no risk of getting aggro while your tank stands there with the encounter and the healer keeps him up, then clearly this isnt the game designed for you. There are plenty of other options out there, people bought this game because it had no trinity and it works.

The abscence of the trinity has solved alot of issues that resides within the trinity concept. Like group finding, no need for healers or tanks, friends being able to group with friends no matter what professions they play. There is always room for whatever profession is looking since there are no designated spots for tank+heals.

You can tune groups for optimal preformance, but its far from needed.

Xavori.3768:

Okay, having played all 8 classes to level 80…

8) Engineer. There is just no way to get around the fact that a class that doesn’t excel at anything is the worst. They can sorta tank with a pistol/shield build except they don’t have enough tricks to hold aggro and keep themselves alive while doing it. They can sorta DPS with grenades except that grenades have been nerfed so far down as to make them one of the most mediocre AoE attacks in the game (but oh, hey, you get sigils now &eyeroll&) They can sorta support with the elixir gun and healing turret and/or kit, but guardians are much better at boons and elementalists are much better at healing.

Have you even tried a crit heavy rifle chain lightning spec? It’s a pure dps spec that does it very well. You have great sustained dps, godly burst, that also deals nice AoE damage.

Know where to place yourself and your wrench along with rifles passive pierce will rack up nice AoE numbers. Add SD on that and you have a killing machine going. If you arent completely handicapped you will also have jump shot followed by blunderbuss followed by a dodge. Jump shot if used right will crit for 13k, the attack is also AoE, add a well aimed blunder on that which can crits for 7k or more then finish off with a minor bomb on the dodge. You already unloaded SD with your toolbelt skills and gotten off some rifle shots, that 3k crits on SD and 2k on rifle shots. 1 wrench crit is around 3.5k, and if you place yourself right and the next one crits its another 3.5k. This is very probable with the right gear setup to go with your skills.

In WvW its even more fun, because you blow up a player in a few sec.

Sure there is no real passive survivability with the spec, so you rely on your dodge. But dont tell me that engineers dont have the option to specialize. And you always have TK#4 when you need it, both in PvE and PvP, its the best block in the game.

@Mesmer discussion: Please stop saying mesmers are bad at anything, PvE or PvP. Its only because you arent good with them. They are great at whatever they do if you know what you are doing.

The dynamic combat we have in this game reflect combat much better than any trinity can.

Example: Moria sequence in the LotR movie. How many of the heroes stand still and face tank the troll? How many of the heroes use the sorroundings to their advantage and try to dodge the troll?

Do you seriously think a hit from a 500 Ton dragon would just be something to shake off when in a plate armor? No you would probably more look like the empty coke can that got run over by the buss.

The system with dodging just makes more sense and gives the game more of a live feeling. Sure blocking a swipe here and there from the dragon is ok, but standing there and taking a beating face to face while getting healed. That logic leads me to think healers could actually get ground meat back on its feet.

For me personally the list would be like this.

Best:

1. Engineer, Guardian, Mesmer, Necro, Ranger, Warrior
2. Thief (havent played it much besides sPvP)
8. Elementalist (I just dont like the way the class is built)

Engineer: Many people claim Engineers have no damage, no this, no that. While they shine at whatever they do if specced and geared for it. If you want to deal damage, then you can spec for it, if you want a more tanky sustained damage build at close range then you can do just that. The only spec that has taken a blunt hit to the head with a nerfbat would be grenades. Engineers also have massive control. Going pure damage you will do massive amounts of damage, you wont throw around group buffs, but you will control the targets, even bosses. You have some debuffs and some healing for your group in the form of medpacks you can put on the ground, aswell as condition cleansing.

Memser: Also another ranged class with great damage, both in PvP and PvE. Here it is also a matter of knowing your spec and picking the right gear. Personally I run a build balanced between shatter damage and phantasm damage. Mesmers have great utility. Some of it being straight up godly on bosses.

Guardia: Has great damage. Utility and help towards your group depends on specs. They get everything from blinds to buffs depending on spec. I run a 1h spec, sword+shield and scepter+torch, great damage with both sets. Lots of blinds, constantly buffing my team with fire attacks. My utility is a bit selfing as I run a meditation self heal spec, so only my 3rd+my elite skill have real group utility, but the elite is godly when needed, a lifesaver.

Necro: Also nice, great DoT damage, aswell as alot of debuffs and condition removals for you and your team. Amazing AoE DoT damage. They can also take a decent beating before going down if you go with toughness. I have no idea really about their non-condition specs as I’ve been condition specced on my necro since beta. The only thing necros lack is some form of extra endurance regen (dodge juice). Amazing elite skill for saving your group if you pull too many mobs (plague+auto attack on skill2 and every mobs goes blind each second).

Ranger: Nice damage, nice group buffs, pets (that actually work now). Longest range in game with their Longbow (1500 yards, enginner grenades can reach as far, but have long travel time). Good mid ranged and melee options aswell.

Warrior: Can be specced for massive damage or for soaking it up/supporting your group. Shout heals are lifesavers for your group. I play in a group with an amazing tanky warrior that runs a nice shout setup. Stay close to him and never die. Warriors also have nice ranged option with rifle and longbow (I prefer Longbow). Highest base healthpool along with necros.

Thief: Great damage both from range and melee, downside is their range is only 900 yards and cant be upgrades like other classes. Can spec for sick opening burst with daggers. Lowest base healthpool in game along with elementalists. Can spec for 100% crit chance when stealthed, so if you build for a heavy stealth spec centered around backstabbing you can ditch crit for vitality if you want more survival.

Elementalist: Not sure what to say, This profession is just not for me, not in PvP atleast. I might roll one for PvE support. It’s not a bad class, but it doesnt fit my playstyle one bit. They are great to have in groups when played by people who know how to play them. I’ve never been a mage class kinda guy, not in any game. I always go with the other caster classes.

And regarding all of the classes above, even if you run a full dps spec you will have great defense through endurance regen on all classes except necro. On the necro you should mix dodge along with your deathshroud form to avoid heavy hits. Even if specced for conditions, deathshroud is a lifesaver even if its damage is low. Pop in before an attack hit, pop a fear and stay in form if it looks like you are about to get hit. Dont drain it too much, better to be able to pop in again when the CD on it is reset (15sec).

Also, never listen to negative nancys when it comes to discussions if classes are good or bad. If they dont give good reasons that seem impartial, dont bother taking their advice. There are pros and cons with all classes, there are no real OP or UP classes, it all depends on if they fit the players style or not.

Happy new year! And welcome to the game.

Static Discharge Rifle spec.

Explosives 10: V
Firearms 30: IV, VI, IX
Tools 30: II, VIII, XII

Heal: Medkit
Utility: Utility Goggles, Tool kit, Rifle Turret (Grenades under water).
Elite: Supply Crate

Armor: Exo Berserker with Beryl Orbs
Accessories: Exo Valkyrie+Karka with Exquisit Beryl Orbs
Neck: Exo Valkyrie with Exquisit Beryl Orb
Rings: Red Ring of Death, Crystalline Band
Weapon: Berserker Rifle with Superior Sigil of Blood

45% Crit chance, 3400 Attack, 107% Crit damage, 17300HP.

It brings huge burst, pretty nice survivability (alot of dodge and tool kit block), nice control (roots, snares and pulls), acceptable swiftness, great fury.

Reason I went with beryl orbs in my armor is because it gives me what I wanted for the spec, I far prefer beryl orbs/ruby orbs over divinity runes. Scholar would be nice, but I decided on not going under 17k HP and scholar is just too kitten expensive in my meaning. I think staying between 40-50% crit chance is just enough, it gives a crit in 1/2 attacks.

I used to run with Air sigil in rifle, but I prefer Blood, it can proc each 2 seconds, does damage and gives me a bit of health. It’s still a thing I’m experimenting with, might go back to air.

Skipping in regular dungeons is ok, you get nothing worth it in them, not even on bosses.

Skipping in fractals is a whole different story. Loadstones, Cores, Exotics (account bound and not), rares, T5, T6 mats and so on. In non-skipping runs I make an avarage of 5g and it takes about 5 minutes longer than skipping, if even that. Skipping on the other hand might give as little as 50s on a run.

Phuriocity.9218:

I love all the people in here going crazy about your proposed static discharge change.

His list is an attempt to streamline traits and open more viable build paths. As it stands now, if you’re using a rifle, you’re using an SD build, with very very few exceptions. Giving SD a 5sec internal CD wouldn’t even seriously hinder it. I’d say more of a 3sec CD though, 5 is a little long and would negate the idea of using Suprise Shot for an SD build, since at 5sec internal CD 4 20sec toolbelt skills would be able to keep it going consistently.

I love your proposed Scope change. It would essentially turn Overcharged Shot into Killshot, which should have been an Engi move in the first place as far as I’m concerned.

I dont think you fully understand how SD builds work. It is the bread and butter of the spec. With a CD on SD the spec wouldnt be smooth at all. The spec is not about sustained damage from SD.

It plays much like a rogue class, it deals alot of opening damage in the beginning of the fights, its a semi-fragile spec but lacks the stealth of thieves to avoid damage/suprise your target. After the initial burst, its about control. If they add a CD on SD they effectily add a CD on every toolbelt skill F2-F4, because using them without SD being ready you would waste alot of damage. The spec would be very unsmooth. Too many toolbelt skills would be locked up and not used even if you had too, like ram/tool kit TB skill for the cripple.

SD builds would be mindnumbingly easy to take down.

I think SD is very fine as it is, its already easy to avoid the burst, but its there when you need it, when you get the drop on a target or burst people down in a group fight.

Goggles TB skill would be very out of sync with the rest of the TB skills if a CD is added.

I think the people that want to see a nerf are just bitter because its not the spec they want to play as engi. Fine then dont play that spec. Ask for buffs to the other specs, thats whats needed, not nerfs.

And creating more options for more viable builds does not mean nerfing old builds and forcing people into the new ones. It means adding more, otherwise you are back to square one, only with another build type instead of the old and not more.

Sorry OP, but the static discharge “idea” is just plain bad. No idea how you include that in a dream list, unless you are refering to nightmares…

Red Falcon.8257:

SneakyErvin.3056:

Wait what? No ranged and no way to stay in range for guardian? Are we even playing the same profession/game.

1h sword (gap closer), meditations (healing/burning gap closer, healing/damaging condition removal, scepter+torch (immobilize, high sustained damage, burst, burning). Along with that they still keep high staying power compared to any other damage oriented spec.

I doubt we’re playing against remotely similarly skilled people.

Gap closers won’t keep the gap closed, any person with a brain will just open the gaps immediately.
Immob from scepter is something that again anyone with a couple brain cells will remove immediately.
Sure, Guardian has a lot of staying power but anyone with a brain will just stay away from you successfully and kite you to death.

Similary skilled as what? Myself or you? I dont know how skilled you are, but I assume I play with equally skilled people compared to me and I have no issues. If you play against equally skilled people as you then the problem isnt the class.

You have many 1200 ranged skills and gap closers. As easy as it is for them to clear roots and all, it is for you to remove any condition you want pretty much. A few utilities allow you to do that in addition to healing yourself and closing the gap.

You can rock a very high damage spec for guardians and still keep above avarage survivability. If you have issues keeping the gap closed there is always the retaliation specs for you. Just because the gap isnt closed doesnt mean you cant hurt the enemy plenty from range just as they do to you.

Guardians also have a multitude of defensive abilities backe din with offense, asking for a gap closer is like a thief asking for more base HP and more armor.

Path 2 is easy, path 3 is much harder when he gets the high damage earth cone AoE. Path 2 dragon tooth is easy to avoid, you just strafe the whole fight and only dodge the big red circles.

Your mentalists should use blink (gets you out of crystals)
Guardian should use the meditation that teleports you/burns foes (target boss and teleport if you get crystalized.
Thief can shadowstep (maybe even with bow) aswell as steal.
Ranger I’m not sure about.

That would leave you with one memeber you need to break out.

The concept of swearing is an old religious idea of morals within a certain belief system. Prior to the widespreading of this system, so called swearing was just everyday language. When the influence of this religion became greater, swearing turned into something bad, connected to sinning and work of the dark one.

This has later on become everyday morals for most people, even those that dont follow that belief system.

Personally I couldnt care less about what words someone else use, it doesnt hurt me, it doesnt look like they are uneducated, it just looks like they speak their mind.

There is a profanity filter for those that dont want to see profanity, use it.

Another little idea for safer trading between players.

If someone is willing to sell you say… 250 ectos or any other crafting mat. Tell them to mail it to you in stacks of 5/10/25. That way you wont lose much if the other party tries to actually scam you. If they refuse chances are its a scam.