I’ve been running this for ages. It’s a good WvW build. Rocket boots have good burn and escape. Lots of condi removal with the EG and Mortar Kit.
Dire weapons and armor give it plenty of Toughness and Condi. So do the Runes of the Undead.
One thing to do is not rotate so much when in combat – especially if you find yourself in a one-on-one fight. Just keep peppering the other guy with Pistol 1 and -also – don’t discount the value of Elixer Gun 1 with it’s Bleed and Fumble. Fumble is much underrated imho.
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I enjoy my Rev as a PvE Alt, but….
…. the fact that Anet has Torment on the mace – a weapon where you stand face to face against your enemy- pretty much says everything.
My main toon since the 3 day Head Start was an Asuran Engi. I had +4,000 hours on the little fella, but when the Scrapper was introduced into the game, I was so disappointed with the animations that I deleted (sniff) my long time little buddy and rolled a human Engi. Since then, I’ve not rolled anything but Humans (and one Norn).
I’m currently leveling an Asura Elementalist (level 5) since I do love the clownish antics of their animations. But, I’m noticing the same thing that led me to delete the Engi.
Melee and close ranged animations of Asurans are poorly done (imho). I found myself swinging my hammer at air way to often with the Scrapper, and it gets even worse in the thick of battle with all the blurred AOE animations of others. I can’t see what’s going on.
So a lot of what condi is coming from is the ticks that get in befor you can reacte with a clear. Humans have a reaction time to hit there keys and even longer of a time for that key to tell the game your using this skill.
I think a lot of people, in the heat of battle, see that all of a sudden they have 4 condi’s on them and then they PANIC and expend a cleanse. Some of those condi’s may only be doing trivial damage.
I know that when I’m running a condi build, I try and spam the opposition with junk condi FIRST in hopes that they will panic and use a cleanse – and then I hit them a second time with the big stuff.
It’s been ages since anyone died from “burst” condi damage – I’m thinking back to when Perplexity Runes were way op, but that was, what, 3 years ago?
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The thing to note is that all of the boss’s attacks steal health;
Lol, and my Necro was stealing the leecher health! It only took me about 5 minutes to figure out that I wasn’t getting anywhere….
Luckily, when I logged out and then back in (without Minions) I was able to pick up where I left off.
Had a similar problem when running my Necro with 2 minions. I agree, it really is just inexcusable, bad game design.
Use Krait runes 100%. With the right trait lines and krait runes, your headbutt will deal a ton of damage.
Build here: http://xtremetheory.com/wvw-roaming-condi-warrior/
There are even game play videos and skill rotation for reference there.
I looked over your build and have some questions. Why don’t you choose Shield Master, Sundering Mace, Heat the Soul and Peak Performance?
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I’m a Mesmer in a guild that likes to help people with portals for the Daily Jump Puzzle. We both advertise ports, and like to talk with those we help. Also, we guide new players on how to reach jump puzzles, show them that they are part of an Achievement, etc.
But too often we are suppressed for “excessive” chats.
Anet, can you please liberalize your policy with regards to chatting?
As some one who runs a P/P Condi Engi, I hope they DO leave Pistols alone – based on their track record of Engi changes…..
Nah… It will sell regardless if there is anything for WvW or not because the big chunk of the players of this game are the PvE players.
You are overestimating the importance of WvW… If it was really important, it would have received more attention in the last 4 years. The fact that most of the attention it received was only recently just prove that.
And, I’ll add, Anet deliberately neglected WvW to try and funnel people to the 3rd-Party $ponsored sPvP.
Anet is actively and purposefully trying to drive build diversity from the game – across ALL professions. They are “all in” on third-party sponsered, eSport PvP as their main revenue generating vehicle. And while there is absolutely nothing wrong with this, those of us who do not define our end game around PvP are constantly being bombarded with changes that can only be explained via PvP.
As a 4k+ hour Engi myself, it’s sad to see how the most versatile, “jack-of-all-trades and master of none” and “always the right tool for the right job” profession has been made so one dimensional.
When is the last time that any serious theory-crafting thread has been seen on the Engi forums?
Anet knows exactly what they are doing by neglecting what the non-PvP community really wants.
We really need to see a separation – once again – of PvP from the rest of the game…..
I’ve fallen so far behind in understanding anything that is going on in this game anymore (and I’ve got 6,200 hours in the game). It seems that Anet is doing little more than releasing “lists” of “achievements” that we need to “do” for some “reason” (usually a skin or a do dad).
The dozen currencies, shovel, keys, acids, stabilizing devices, ley line sensors, etc., etc., etc. is getting old.
My Mesmer was atop the Drytop Diving Goggle platform, helping port people up so that they can get the diving achievement. I like helping people. It forms a big part of my gaming experience. And then….
….I was transported by some utterly stupid game mechanic (a rift ?) to an entirely different map.
ANET THIS NEEDS TO STOP! DON’T FORCE ME TO PLAY THE WAY YOU WANT ME TO! WHAT NEXT? ARE YOU GOING TO PULL ME OUT OF WvW WHILE CAPPING A TOWER?
This is totally inexcusable and needs to be change NOW.
I’d be fine with even less cooldown reduction as an excuse to get rid of pistol 4’s awful hitbox.
Too true, regarding Blowtorch….
I even have outgoing and incoming damage on my tabs.
Sweet. I never thought of that. Thanks.
Same here. Can get to the Character selection screen, but that’s it.
I’m not a great Mes, but that line has a lot of good group support traits. Cleansing, Boon Sharing, Healing, etc.
I wonder if they have stats on what weapons people use in pvp. If they looked, they’d probably see that no one – ABSOLUTELY NO ONE, uses shield in pvp ever. They’d find that pistol sees a small amount of play, and rifle is farther behind that. Maybe.. just maybe this is indicative of a balance/meta problem in the game.
I hate the boring warrior-like hammer playstyle, but I have to admit, it’s just better for pvp right now by a long shot.
IMHO, the reason Anet introduced Specializations, that are tied to Skills, and reduced the Trait Lines from 5 to 3, was to make their revenue, generating esport sPvP easier to balance. The less people run unique builds, and the more that professions are pigeon-holed in to One Build, the easier it is to balance PvP.
This worked fine when PvP and PvE/WvW were mutually exclusive. But now, those who do not really participate in PvP are left scratching their heads over the changes that Anet continues to make to the Professions.
For example, why did Anet make it impossible for a P/P or P/S Engi use the Gyro’s without taking the Scrapper Trait line?
Shoehorning the Engi into Specializations is harder on our Profession than most any other. We’ve always been the Jack-of-all-Trades, and Master-of-None. No longer.
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The solution for catas is pretty simple, make the catas take splash from their own shots. That should solve things regarding this particular piece of siege.
That’s an interesting idea.
A couple of years ago, Anet introduced the Megaserver. This helped to kill “server pride” , such as it was anyway.
Also, the year long (was it longer ?) destruction of Lions Arch didn’t help things either.
I remember in the very early days of the game going into Lion’s Arch and trying to recruit people to come into WvW and help. This is no longer really possible.
I made the OP after having just made a counter-clockwise run thru the DBL (Tier 4) with about 8 other members of my guild. We encountered only about 2 people running solo. No one was at the Keeps/Camps. This was about 7:30 PST. And we had been on numerous other maps engaged in fights earlier in the evening.
I was incorrect in assuming that this applied to all Red DBL’s across all Tiers.
Mag is DBL this week and leading. So much for that theory.
You might be right. I just checked the Millineum web site, and 3 of the 4 Reds are leading. I’m on HoD and Red is behind by quite a bit. Even though last week was only a 1/2 week, I was surprised to see Red finish last.
I’m not Obsessive Compulsive when it comes to Runes or Sigils. On my P/P Dire Engi, I use Agony and Smoldering. They are both cheap. And for armor, I use Runes of the Undead.. I can easily get 75% Condi duration for both Bleeding and Burning (EG, Rocket Boots, Tool Kit) used in WvW.
2000 Condi and 2000 Toughness can both take-it and dish-it-out. It’s a good balance, imho.
I think we are going to see, over time, that those “gifted” with a week of the DBL are always going to come in third.
Why is it assigned to the weakest positioned Server, and not the strongest?
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Honestly, with the amount people whine about wvw I’m surprised Anet hasn’t told us all to go kitten ourselves by now.
Pay attention. They did.
Anet sold us on a commitment to WvW as part of the HoT expansion. But, by their own admission, they utterly failed to deliver. The product they sold us was, BY THEIR OWN ADMISSION, not even Beta-ready. They have admitted to this.
Anet’s position on WvW falls somewhere between:
1) maps for scared-of-their-own-shadow PvE wanna-be’s, and
2) a waiting room for the third-party sponsored (i.e. revenue generating), eSport, sPvP.
Anet wanted WvW to fail in the exact same way that they wanted Dungeons to fail.
But once they realize how many people were leaving the game, due to their neglect of WvW, they did an about-face.
Unfortunately for us, however, since they’ve not give WvW a single thought since the release of the game, they’ve resorted to “polls” to do their thinking for them.
I’ve too have noticed a delay and/or a self-interrupt due to a perceived delay or lag on Sword 2 myself. I’m new to Mes (300 hours vs. 4,000+ hours on Engi), and sometimes, in the heat of battle, the 1/2 second listed in the description seems longer, and I may “self-interrupt”.
I realize there is some L2P on my part, but I hate hitting Sword 3 – which pushes me backwards – and then hitting Sword 2 and fanning the air. Both Sword skills lock you into an animation which is not necessary.
The question should be, “Why is there ANY delay whatsoever?” on such a basic skill?
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I love the levelling experience, and even now, the levelling experience still counts for a hell of a lot of your playtime in GW2. GW2 was never originally designed to be a game that made you want to get to L80 ASAP. There is lots to enjoy whilst levelling up and you can make the game as hard or as easy as you want simply by straying into higher level zones if you feel up to it. Unfortunately players come into this game thinking that anything under max level is not worth their time, and that’s so sad to see.
People too easily forget that the game starts at L1, not L80. These days most players seem intent on getting to L80 instantly and skipping a load of great open world content. Well that’s my view anyway.
I don’t get instantly bored of my alts when they hit L80 however, but I do still love to level up a new alt.
I love this post. I’ve been playing since the Head Start, and I can remember leveling my first Toon and thinking, “Oh, no. I don’t want to get to Level 80!”
I was having too much fun leveling.
I’ve only ever Tome leveled one Toon (a Thief) and ended up deleting it. I like the RPG elements of the game. But then again, I’m also someone who has played Elder Scrolls and Gothic games many, many hours….
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OP,
You aren’t the only one who feels the way you do. I could have written your post myself (except I can’t even to get myself as motivated as you did to finish the HoT story). I only dabbled in LS1 and LS2, never completing either. I swear, I just blank out when the story dialog starts. Don’t know who any of the NPC are – and don’t care.
My end game is WvW, but I’ve leveled many toons just because I enjoy the openness and freedom of the core maps. I like getting that green, level 23 sword drop.
The stories nowdays are just ways to funnel us to the latest theme park map.
yet yb had 1 que Tuesday – dbbl….
Lol,
I’m on HoD and I WAS sleeping in YB BL. I was waiting on a 32 queue to get into EBG.
Just left my toon sleeping – in enemy territory – in the DBL, and then afk’d to fix dinner.
Yup.
She was still sleeping when I returned.
A small part of my soul dies each time I enter into the DBL….
Weakness (EG 1’s skill) means that 50% of your opponents shots will glance off of you for reduced damage. Try standing in front of some Veteran on a level 80 map and only hit him with EG1. You might be surprised at how little damage he actually does to you.
EG1 is one of my favorite ways in WvW of finishing off some poor pudknocker who’s exhausted his cleanses and heals and is trying to run away. The darts also track and do good bleed damage.
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@Soon
I’ve never really been one to skip fights, as there’s no particular class I consider to be unkillable. The nerfs have made things significantly harder against certain builds, but it’s still doable.
I hear you, but the hammer Scrapper is just not a very mobile build. I’m not saying that any class is un-killable by a Scrapper, but Anet just did not make us very mobile or ranged. In my experience, most roamers in WvW that I meet while I’m roaming are the mobile professions. I roam a great deal on my Dire P/P Engi. EG, Rocket Boots, Tool Kit (for pulls) and do fine.
When we all complained about wanting harder content (myself included) why did anet interpret that as being we need more difficult GROUP CONTENT.
Preach, brother.
Kiting is a problem for a Hammer build against something like a Ranger, who can shoot from the other side of the map. You won’t die, but it will take more time than I care to spend chasing him. Hammer is great for zerging, great for camp flipping, tower flipping and small havoc groups. But as a solo roamer, you might just want to skip some fights.
Remember, Scrapper was designed, like all Specializations across all professions, for sPvP. So too have been all the changes made by Anet. WvW wasn’t even thought about when they were created.
So wouldn’t you need to add to this discussion the Firearms Trait “Sharpshooter” which has a 33% chance to apply Bleed for 4 sec. How does this factor into the Earth Sigil’s performance?
My Dire P/P Condi Engi has only a 15% add to Crit Chance. The Earth Sigil only proc’s (60% of the time) on Criticals — so I’d go with Burst. And Burst applies across all Condi.
Personally, I run with Smoldering and Agony Runes on my P/P build.
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In mmorpgs, characters are ‘collectors’, ‘carriers’, ‘compounders’, ‘contributors’ and ‘conquerors’.
When making new content one should acknowledge that this is what characters are, and offer that which keeps such entities engaged.
I’m in a hurry right now, so I’ll throw at a quick and dirty example of new content.
1. Grubs are taking over the world! Find matriarch grubs scattered across the land and kill them for ‘gunk’.
2. Bring the gunk to areas with special mushrooms, and use the gunk on the mushroom to make it grow.
3. Use the grown mushrooms to access new areas with special flowers that can be picked.
4. Combine the picked flowers with gunk to grow ‘flower parasol’ items.
5. Flower parasol items bestow characters with different abilities depending on the colour of the parasol.
6. Find the different ways of changing their colours!
7. Red parasols can allow gliding. Green parasols shield small animals from acid rain. Blue parasols are edible and taste like candy.
8. Be celebrated by all children and small animals for helping to bring about a world free of grubs and safe for picnics.
Unfortunately, Anet has pretty much abandoned the RPG elements of an MMORPG in favor or mini games and lather, rinse repeat meta-maps.
Casual and Hardcore are very vague terms. Could you perhaps provide your definitions for them, OP? Before we can discuss this topic, we first need to establish the boundaries of the discussion.
I believe the OP is commenting on this:
“My complaint is that everything released since HoT has focused tremendously on group play. "
Can someone who can logically and rationally and objectively do this, PM me and explain what the problem is for engineers? I will say I’m a PVE only player (maybe WvW I am becoming more interested in that too), so if it’s only pvp issues, don’t bother. But I want to understand why this is such a bad patch for us. Aside from a few nerfs (shock shield, some hammer skills, etc) I thought this was a good patch for us. And hammer was incredibly strong anyway.
This patch in a nutshell : We had our arm broken and were given a lollipop.
This is an example of a completely useless response. Thanks for demonstrating what I am not looking for.
So far, the issue in my opinion is in terms of PvE. In a game where it’s all about the uniqueness of your class, and what your class can bring to your group (whether it be PvE, PvP or WvW really), the engineer brings nothing of note to anything.
The engineer is a very typical, Jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none class. As was its intention when it was created. However, it being so creates a problem. Why bring something that is sub-par to anything else, unless you’re required to? And furthermore, why bring something that has a very high skill-cap, for little to no reward, when you can bring something that is relatively easy and risk-free, for more reward?
This was our main concern before this patch, and our dream was that they would do something, ANYTHING to fix it. Instead we get the standard: “We’re still evaluating it”, which basically means, “We’re not sure what to do, so here’s some random, yet sort of pointless changes to make it seem like we’re doing something”.
Edit: Like the change to A.E.D. Yes, it was crap before the patch. If they presented a change that made it viable, that would be great, but it’s still garbage, so the change they presented was in-short, pointless.
I agree with your response, in general, but it overlooks what I see to be a bigger problem with the direction the game is taking: namely the introduction of Specializations (and the restriction of Trait Lines to 3) – which is/was an attempt by Anet to reduce build diversity throughout all Professions so as to simplify PvP balancing.
No other profession has been as impacted by the introduction of Specializations as Engineers. Build/theory-crafting has all but disappeared from the Engi. And this is what used to make the Engineer so special.
eSports strikes again. ANET for those of us who don’t PvP, please quit nerfing us.
why did they return these kittenty maps in the first place?
they look bad and they are bad.
At this point, I don’t know if you are new, trolling or both.
The DBL’s were empty. The numbers participating in WvW plummeted. They were not popular and were driving people away from the game. They were little more than PvE maps.
Had the numbers been great, then Anet would have never replaced DBL’s with the ABL’s.
Now do you get it?
People defending Towers and Keeps?
I DEMAND that Anet put an end to this immediately!
Edit: Let me temper my response by adding that it would be nice if we actually got rewards for defending. I think it’s fun to defend Garri against an onslaught. But after 20 minutes, there is very little to show for it.
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The reason so many people prefer ABL’s over DBL’s is because you can play solo/havoc/roam/scout on the ABL’s. The map doesn’t force you into a single play style (Zerg Train).
More than any other profession, it seems that Mesmer’s get “stuck in combat” for extended periods of time, even when there is no apparent combat taking place. I don’t see that I have any active Illusion, and even Shattering doesn’t help.
Is this common? Any suggestions? I’m not saying that the problem is chronic, but it is annoying.
It’s unfair to the people who don’t know better.
You, yet again, ducked my question. HOW IS IT UNFAIR??????
So some people are essentially doing all the work, while everyone else benefits.
It’s just unfair.
But how EXACTLY is it unfair? How EXACTLY does it hinder your advancement/enjoyment of the game, or give someone else a leg-up over you?
If someone gets home from work, and can only spend 30 minutes in the game before fixing dinner for the kids, should he abstain from entering a meta-map mid way to completion in order to avoid offending your definition of right or wrong?
Vayne, what are your now? 32k Points Earned? Still doing 40+ hours a week in the game?
Edit: Let me add: If Anet handed out free Legendaries or Ascended armor it wouldn’t bother me in the slightness. In no way would it prevent me from enjoying the game. You sound like someone who needs others to fail in order for you to feel good about your “success”.
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A general rule that applies to leveling all professions is to try and keep your Armor and Weapon levels near your character level. If you are level 18, then your Armor and Weapons should be around level 15 or so. The stats are much less important (Power, Precision, etc.) at lower levels than the Armor value.
Also, gather EVERYTHING that you come across, and salvage armor and weapons that you don’t use and be sure and save the materials.
As noted above, the Engi does tend to require Kit rotation.
The problem with player driven maps, a problem Anet was trying to get away from, is the problem of people just going from map to map that’s ready to pop, leeching, while a couple of people do the events on those maps, to progress the meta.
The Silverwastes maps are a perfect example. A few people who don’t know sit on a map and play it, until it’s about to pop and then everyone jumps in and cleans up the rewards..
While what you say is, no doubt, true. How does this negatively affect your experience of the gameplay in anyway? Why should you care if someone “jumps in a cleans up the rewards” ? And how is this leeching? If the chests were limited in number and “first come first serve”, then you would have a point – but they are not. Anet specifically designed event drops to be available to all. You seem to just want to see others “punished” for not playing as many hours as you do.
I don’t care a bit if someone joins late. I don’t cry over it.