Guild Wars 2

Lol that would be awesome. I’m pretty sure it does not exist yet. Feel free to organize some event on the sort and get back to us!

ognid.6312:

The biggest issue I have with key binding is switching from a main to an alt that doesn’t follow the same format. Running a warrior and then switching to an elementalist can be confusing. Don’t know if the order would help much in that case though.

True. When I play my thief I’d prefer to have my weapon skills near, while when I play my engi I want to have accessible kits. But alternative binding seems more practical than moving skills around. This is not GW1, skills are tied to the weapon, so it would be confusing. Even moving the skills inside the same weapon set would be annoying: I’m one of the few people who actually likes to watch tournaments on twitch, and I like to know which abilities are used!

Ashen.2907:

A word of advice:

Do not look upon money spent in the gem store as a, “donation.” I can assure you that Anet/NCSoft does not see it that way.

If there is something that you want from the gem store, or if you want to convert real money into gold, then go ahead and buy some gems. Otherwise hold on to your money.

kitten right. You buy things because you want them. Don’t expect anything in return in addition of your cool looking skins!

Lord Kuru.3685:

Sorel.4870:

Man, don’t be so negative! Of course we’re a little worried that our favorite game mode might be changed for the worst! But that’s a real problem on the WvW forum: people complain that devs never do anything for WvW, and when they do they get insulted. That’s not the way you’re gonna get anything new.

People want changes that are designed specifically to improve WvW.

This change is clearly not designed for WvW. That it affects WvW is simply a side effect of what they want for PvP/PvE.

It is nearly impossible to balance the number of stacks of stability properly for WvW play… not that they will even bother. They will balance for 5v5, which is why this has potential to be disastrous.

Answered to that in a similar thread. Five stacks in PvP will change nothing. It’s a WvW change.

Hamster.4861:

Dont. Use. Peasant. Siege.

it hits like a wet noodle. Superior or bust.

WvW is a rich man’s world. Preach!

Lord Kuru.3685:

Whatever reason they decided to change stability — likely they need some new gimmicks for the revenant and the resistance boon — they will not balance it with WvW in mind. Their intention is always to balance first for PvP.

If you see in the video that it’s badly balanced for PvP, it simply means they are terrible at balance — which is not far-fetched because they’ve shown themselves to be very poor at it.

Yes, the balance in GW2 is usually around spvp, because you want to balance primarily for a game mode in which the teams are the same size and the gear does not matter. But in my opinion your views on this matter are delusional. GW2’s balance is better than most MMO’s, especially now, so I don’t know where this “they don’t know how to balance” comes from. Sure, you wouldn’t know still you obviously have never played pvp in your life. I just explained how having five stacks on stab on you in pvp was a guaranteed full duration stab, did you read or just quoted it for the lulz? So yeah, for once, this is a WvW balance change! Next time, instead of complaining on the forums on issues you have no idea about, play the game!

Fluffball.8307:

tichorum.2415:

I never wrote “engie skills”. But yes, I have played it before.

Woosh.

You listed engi skills as the best in the game for every category. I assume you main an engi.

Well, the best utility in the game is a kit. Most engineers rely on at least one kit, and Tool Kit is perhaps the strongest, so nothing weird here. Healing Turret is good, again partly because of the engineer’s mechanics (the tool belt skill), but also because of the AoE water field, two condi cleanse, and the fact that you can adapt the way you play it depending on your foes or your build (pick up against heavy condis, blast against power damage or for cc when traited, just standing if you play turrets), so why not. And supply crate is good also. I main thief, but even I realize that some of these skills are strong. When you think about it, engis rely mainly on utility skills, so it seems appropriate they get the best in the game.

zone.1073:

In games like League of Legends, it’s not out of the ordinary to be matched with/against an ultra famous, ultra skilled LCS player like Bjergsen in solo queue. The difference, however, is that it would just be Bjergsen, and not his entire LCS team posse. The solo queue system would never allow that to happen, and balances itself out.

The fact that in gw2 a premade team of ultra skilled players can get together to crush pugs in queue is asinine. Perhaps for the individal pug it may not happen frequently, but that premade team will go on crushing pug team after pug team continuously, negatively affecting perhaps hundreds of players’ experiences and impressions with the game.

Were they the Abjured? It seems to be some of Nos friends, but I don’t recognize any of their names (sometimes top players give names like “Densheeneer”, so that we know who they are). Anyway, congratulations on winning against them. LoL’s player base is larger. This match was good: would you prefer to have premades like theirs matched against my five-man guild team, in which I’m the only dragon rank? But again, in my experience, being matched against a premade when queuing solo doesn’t happen often, and I’m sure you can imagine that a lot of players exaggerate the number of times this happens to them because they don’t want to acknowledge they were outplayed. I think the thread I linked earlier was a good illustration. I’m not Justin though: I can not tell if your sentiment or others’ is ill informed, but I can at least make you aware of some of the bad coping mechanisms of the human mind.

ACs are supposed to put pressure on zergs, it’s a siege fight! Omega golems can be painful at times, but I guess having the money to bring the right tools is a part of war! And when you kill one you can really here the gold coins dropping on the floor.

Just let us salvage our armors! You can do it with dungeons tokens, why not with badges! And while we’re at it, why does EotM gets so much of these. I do like EotM, which is imo one of the best-looking map in the game, and I love that you can kill people there. But it tore my heart apart to see that the armor I got by playing WvW on my first character from lvl 30 to 80 on Eternal Battlegroung, spending mountains of gold on armor repair (yup, that was still a thing, it was early 2014), and getting to know my commanders, how to fight properly, when to build siege and when to abandon a tower, this glorious armor I bought when I just turned 80 was now obtainable by any PvE grinder in less than a day!

Kaiser.9873:

I’m not so sure the change to stability is a good thing. Worst case scenario is that melee/guardian essentially goes away. This is really bad for all the players that have invested tons of time/gold/affection into their melee/guardian characters.

Honestly, stability wasn’t/isn’t a problem even in zerg fights. Timely boon stripping was an essential tool when facing opposing groups. Often the best group at boon stripping was the winner. This change will make good boon stripping less important, and dropping tons of CCs the be-all-end-all.

Even in best case scenarios this change will turn a good number of players off to WvW. Many will simply migrate to ranged classes leaving melee in an even larger hole. Very much need to see more on this, and especially more on how they will mitigate the damage this will do to the guardian class before I cast final judgement.

Man, don’t be so negative! Of course we’re a little worried that our favorite game mode might be changed for the worst! But that’s a real problem on the WvW forum: people complain that devs never do anything for WvW, and when they do they get insulted. That’s not the way you’re gonna get anything new.

The devs’ idea is really good this time: a zerg jumping into another zerg just mindlessly following a blue dorito (or yellow, or purple, you know what I mean…) in perma stab is not fun. Sure, GWEN might not still be a thing after the change. But I believe your guardian will still be useful, and you could even like playing him even more! Think about it, you won’t have to pop SYG when your commander tells you too, but you could decide whether every guardian pops it at the same time or one after the other, depending on how you expect the other zerg to act. That’s some Sun Tzu kitten right there! I don’t do zerg fights anymore, but with the patch I might give it another try!

Now think about all these thieves, mesmers, rangers, and engineers who would love to join the zerg meta. This could be the patch they finally will. If we don’t have revenant-only zergs, that is.

Ballads.2509:

3 years Later we get to Beta a change to stability……

Well better late than never, right?

Lord Kuru.3685:

I don’t think there is “WvW design.” The devs design for PvP and for PvE open world. However that affects WvW gameplay is however that affects WvW gameplay.

As for stability nerf, it’s going to be bad. Looking at past history, we can extrapolate that:

1. It will be balanced for PvP, and so unbalanced for WvW — particularly bigger vs smaller fights.
2. Even if they attempt to balance for WvW (by splitting the behavior of stability in PvP and WvW), they will fail on the first try and it will be 6 months until the next balance patch.
3. And in that next patch, they will try to fix the problem by nerfing other skills — CCs — for example, instead of directly addressing the problem…. creating even more problems.

Do you even pvp bro? You might be misinformed. You could see on PoI that the revenant got 5 stacks of stability out of a really short CD skill. In spvp, no one will waste 5 cc abilities just to get rid of a stab. They’ll just strip it with a thief, mesmer or necro.

So it appears to be a WvW balance change! I’ll remain cautious, but that could be a very good change. It won’t hurt spvp, but in WvW we could see zerg fights being more skill based, and more inclusive. What will you do with your guardians? Stack up to 25 stacks before pushing, preparing for hard cc? Or progressively burn through your stabs one guardian at a time, for a longer duration at the risk of being burst cced?

Some new builds might enter the zerg meta, the infamous GWEN. Venom share thief, to rip off the enemies’ stab with elite venom. Mesmers, to drop them chaos storms on the zerg and daze everyone. Necro fear walls! Slick Shoes engis! The days of spamming one, blindingly following the tag, my-blob-is-bigger-so-I-win are maybe finally over? Real pvp in WvW, can you imagine? Communication will be more important than ever, and the best guilds will finally be taken seriously by these spvp snobs! What a time to be alive.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Another quick question:

1. How often do you think you’ll utilize the new system? For example, lets say a warrior gains 3 stacks of stability for 12s. Are their any builds were you as a solo player would attempt to remove all 3 stacks to get a CC off?

To me, this nerf seems like it balances out team play while only minorly touching small engagements. I mean, lets say you use 3 skills to remove that stability. You might be saving yourself about 1-9 seconds that the enemy would have stability, but you also have to waste 3 CCs to do this. Even on a headshot thief, that’s 12 initiative (4/5 of your total initiative on a standard DP thief!). Is there any time where you see removing stability stacks as useful in small engagements?

No. Lockdown mesmer would strip it, without using cc. The rest couldn’t. It’s a WvW and PvE change imo.

zone.1073:

On the same subject, I just got out a match between 5 pugs and Noscoc’s team from Abjured. What a coincidence.

Here it is. I’m playing leeloo, the necro they keep focusing no and referring to on teamspeak:

http://youtu.be/7iy2t2GhLK8

Well, what are you complaining about? It looked like a fun and balanced match on their point of view at least. Shouldn’t it be what you want from the match making?

Mireles Lore.5942:

I am on a huge lose streak on soloq too. I am coming up on 10 losses in a row playing over the last two days. I used to float around 55% win ratio until this crap match making. It seems the systems wants to keep you around a 50% win ratio and expects you to carry your whole team if you are higher. If I get a few points higher, I am matched with really bad people until I drop below 50% to between 48-49. Then I can play with players that don’t double stack home at start, chase people across the map, fight off point, or cap points and leave them to be imminently re-caped by the enemy . Until that is until I get around 51% win ratio. Then the cycle starts again. This isn’t fun.

I’m sorry, what did you expect exactly? If you were winning 80% of the time in soloq, then I’d say the match making would be pretty bad. Your MMR gets higher, so you get matched against better players, and can’t be carried by your team anymore, sometimes having to carry it even. So it’s normal that you loose at some point. You can be the best soloq player there is, you still don’t decide who is on your team and who is on theirs. If you think that’s not fun, get a team. You won’t win every time, but at least you’ll know who you fight alongside with.

Fluffball.8307:

It’s often the guys with the lowest scores that are contributing the most. For example if you and an ally are capping a point… don’t. Leave and let him have the points. If you’re playing selfishly, it’s almost a 4v5 and you’ll lose consistently.

Yes, that’s horrible. Like I’m capping a node and this thief comes and double capping with me. A THIEF! I’m like, don’t you have something better do do? And that kind of people is thereafter convinced they are the best and complain on the forums they get bad team mates. /shrug

uberkingkong.8041:

People enjoy my posts because they the kittening truth, aint no kitten kissing in my posts.

Preach! I agree with you like 50% of the time, but you’re not afraid to express your opinion, I’ll give you that^^.

I’m sure they are not top players, because they have jobs, but I think they do play. I wonder if you can work on GW2 and not play the game? I mean, you don’t have to play during your free time if you don’t want to, right? That must be so awkward for the person who doesn’t have an account at the coffee break!^^

Terrorsquad.2349:

The Gates Assassin.9827:

I have a few questions for everyone about this topic:

1. Are there any builds in particular that you are worried about besides Slick Shoes and Diversion?
2. According to This video, stability will be stacking in stacks, rather than duration. This potentially means that if you put up two stabilities that last 10s each, you’ll just have 2 stacks of 10s of stability. Builds like warriors running Balanced Stance and Last Stand would possibly not get 20s of stability if gained at the same time. Do you like this system better?
3. Overall, do you think any potential positives outweigh the potential negatives?

1. Hammer on Warrior, Spirit Guard (knockdown and push back from Spirits every few seconds), Terrormancer, p/s Engineer, Staff Ele, Mace/shield warrior, d/d ele air 3,…. Can go on really
2. I do not like that system because simply it’s a huge nerf to builds/skills needed in this meta, let me show:

- This way of Stability: immune to any CC for 8seconds with cd of 40s
- New way of Stability: immune to any CC ONCE for 8 seconds with cd of 40s

Do you see the very big problem? It’s a really huge nerf and have no clue why they would make it so.

There are more CC’s in the game (and its meta) than actual stability sources..
Instead of nerfing stability like this, they should give MORE stability sources to every class
3. Yes, WvW might be more organized now and PvE a little harder

Watch PoI. I know we’re not used to do that as pvp players, but you’re ill informed. A 8s stability will likely convert into 5 to 8 stacks, so it won’t change anything for us really (again this is speculation, we don’t know everything yet). I’m excited to see how it will play out in WvW. I might get back into blobvblob, who knows?

TainoFuerte.8136:

Meh. My second or third match after I logged in today was against a premade and we got kitten d. Logged out. It’s really not that hard to realize why the PvP playerbase is small. Anet are just very skilled at bad decisions.

I’m not saying it never happens. I’m saying that the frequency of these events is greatly exaggerated by some delusional sore soloq losers. Yes, the player base is small, that’s why we must be the most accurate we can in sharing our experiences. Now that the number of players in a team is such a strong MM factor, my matches in full premade are a lot more unfair (either 500-100 or 100-500 is not a rare thing) than my soloq matches. I’d much prefer to have a more balanced experience. Maybe you only queue solo, but some of us like to team up, and not only in full premade. Sure we don’t complain on the forum as much, it doesn’t mean our interests must not be taken into account.

Xyonon.3987:

Yup, my bad, missed the last part! :<

The pistol is totally fine then, but make sure to go dual pistol and not pistol shield if you play condi, otherwise you will lack too much of damage.

As for skills I suggest you take utilities like the bomb kit, tool kit and rocket boots. Make sure to trait for speedy kits as fast as possible, after that go for bomb radius and burn on crit.

Focus on stats “condition damage > precision”

Here you go:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fdAQJAqalUUpkr9ZxvLseJCbhMqxfsRAA-TRwCAAwDAAA-e

Basically what he said. Although, I leveled a second engineer the other day (heck why not, best profession in the game imo!), and I coudn’t get speedy kits until I was lvl 40. Fourty! That’s insane! Fortunately I had some tomes of knoledge but my! Those poor new players!

You can’t go wrong with berzerker. You could use it on a thief or a ranger you might create, also.

Celestial armors are time-gated, so it could be worth it to craft an ascended set since you’re not in a hurry anyway. Works well in WvW, and I think the total number of additional stats you gain is bigger.

Rabid is an excellent choice if you want to roam in WvW, and you can switch runes for a few silvers and play a condi ranger.

I have no opinion on knight, since I prefer to play with a sigil of intelligence, but why not.

xDudisx.5914:

Mesmer F3 will apply daze 3 times. If it removes 3 stab stacks it will be op.

Hardly, considering that in meta shatter builds it strips boons! You already lose your stability when eating a full shatter. Similarly, if the thief runs bountiful theft (so if he chooses not to specialize), he can rip the stability off! So the only problematic professions already have ways to remove stab (same goes for perma fear necro).

I have tons of different exotic armor sets on my 4 main characters, and it’s much better than always feeling forced to go with the ascended one.

Ascended is not needed. Buy the exotic armoe you like, save youe laurels for ascended rings and amulet, and wait for the next WvW season for your trinkets. In the mean time, buy exotic trinkets in Orr for karma. The difference is hardly noticeable.

You can easily tell in HotM for example, if someone is looking at your face: they just stand right next to you for 30s, then go away. Always flattering.

But EotN didn’t add any new peofession, correct? It’s the case this time, so maybe they’ll do a commercial gesture by offering this new slot.

Henrik.7560:

TBH theres more,

- Overcharged shot; 3s CC on a very short cooldown,
- Magnet; the fact it functions at a 1500 range is bullkitten, even 1200 pull on a short cd is still too powerful,
- Gear Shield; CD can be reduced to 20 seconds, that’s rediculous, should be 30s like warriors get.
- Thumper Turret; way too much HP considering it also can launch twice every 30s,
- Invigorating speed, yep this is for sure rediculous, they can perma vigor quite easily.

Teach me how to have perma vigor, you’re obviously a better engineer that I am. There is a 10s ICD on the 2s vigor this trait gives, which is a lot less than what eles, warriors and thieves even can achiebe. The tool kit block could be 1s shorter to promote skillful play, I’ll give you that. Overcharged shot is strong, but it also cc the engineer, so even if it’s hard to predict (9 out of 10 times you just have to dodge when the engi switches to rifle though), you can still react by stun breaking rapidly and damaging the engi while he’s down. And reflects do wonder against that skill. Elesee is right, rifle wouldn’t be viable without it. Engineers only have 3 weapon sets, let’s keep them viable shall we?

robertul.3679:

Sorel.4870:

CuRtoKy.8576:

Rule #9000: Run a non meta build when you don’t even know how to pvp to begin with. Auto win

Well… For example when you play engi, it’s better to get used to pvp using a p/s rabid build instead of the meta cele one. Or playing a PU mesmer istead of a shatter mesmer. You see the idea.

Except p/s rabid is pretty meta.

I wouldn’t argue against this. I don’t know why everyone complains about cele engi while it’s not better than p/s or p/p. I think people just don’t like cc.

Aomine.5012:

The Gates Assassin.9827:

I have a few questions for everyone about this topic:

1. Are there any builds in particular that you are worried about besides Slick Shoes and Diversion?
2. According to This video, stability will be stacking in stacks, rather than duration. This potentially means that if you put up two stabilities that last 10s each, you’ll just have 2 stacks of 10s of stability. Builds like warriors running Balanced Stance and Last Stand would possibly not get 20s of stability if gained at the same time. Do you like this system better?
3. Overall, do you think any potential positives outweigh the potential negatives?

1. Static field, Earth wall, Thief daze spam, Fractal aetherblade.
2 Probably just 10 secs
3. Positive: my engineer will be even stronger. Used to be hard countered by stability heavy class.
Negative: generally some harder pve content and WvW maybe.

Don’t run in and out of AoE stuns! But yeah, maybe thief daze spam could be annoying, but he would waste at least 5s and all his initiative to do zero damage, so it wouldn’t be worth it.

I think you’re right. That’s a good example of a fine pve/wvw balance change that won’t affect us too much.

Swim.6830:

We should have a thread with the top 10 most useless skills too.

Please start it! The problem is, I never play necro or guardian, and they might have a ton of useless skills I don’t know. But we’ll try.

CuRtoKy.8576:

Rule #9000: Run a non meta build when you don’t even know how to pvp to begin with. Auto win

Well… For example when you play engi, it’s better to get used to pvp using a p/s rabid build instead of the meta cele one. Or playing a PU mesmer istead of a shatter mesmer. You see the idea.

Yup, the staff does have stats. In this thread you can find the case I referenced, and one is even worse: a player pretending being constantly matched against premades, while in fact it was 4 times out of 173!

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/Recent-matchmaking-issues/first

Now, if you want real arguments: why should Anet cater to the needs of solo players more than to those who want to queue with one or two friends? The current MM has jts flaws, but it is the most fun I’ve ever had duo queuing or tri queuing. You think you’re matched against premades now? You should have played with a friend in the old system.

xDudisx.5914:

I see the new stab been a problem against slick shoes and mesmer daze. Those skills will need to be nerfed.

Not really. You would have to not run in and out off it, that’s all. Slick shoes have a small AoE, and Chaos Storm can daze you 3 times at the very maximum.

Rule #13: Be sure to always fight for the Ferocity buff. Send at least 2-4 players.

Interesting thread! In order not to bother everyone, I’ll give only 5 of each. I play mainly thief, engineer, mesmer and warrior.

Utilties:
1) Tool Kit (esp block and magnet)
2) Portal
3) Blink
4) Berserker stance
5) Judge’s Intervention

Heals:
1) Withdraw
2) Healing turret
3) Consume conditions
4) Warrior’s healing signet
5) Shelter

Elites:
1) Supply crate
2) Battle Standard
3) Entangle
4) Spirit of Nature
5) Moa Morph

You didn’t mention weapon skills, but Infiltrator’s arrow for the win!

I agree that stomps and rez are rare these days, but mainly because there are a lot of cele eles and their insave cleaving abilities, and less bunker guardians and their stability. Your idea gas value I think, but would the timer be on the person who cced, or got cced? Because chain cc in party requires coordination and should be rewarded.

For now, the balance is really good, so maybe this kind of huge changes should be avoided. But HoT will change all that, so maybe Anet will make bald changes luke that then.

As I said elsewhere, stability will likely not really get nerfed inspvp. Why should I waste 5cc on someone’s stabilty instead of letting it wear off or strip it? But it will defintely affect WvW zergvzerg fights. Maybe that was the idea?

Everybody calm down. If you’ve seen the revenant video, he got 5 stacks of stability of a really short CD, short duration skill. I can see the current stabilities giving between 3 and 10 stacks (the latter for lich and such). So boon stripping will still be much more reliable in spvp, unless you run 5 times into a ring of warden. I don’t think this “nerf” will affect us all that much. Maybe it can give some interesting rez/stomp plays, but in 1v1 and 2v2 no way.

I’m much more interested in seeing how it will play out in WvW: no more runnint into each other with our stability up: a few fear walls and earthshakers, and the entire zerg is controled. That would be fun, wouldn’kitten If my assumptions are correct, I might like this change.

You know you’re not forced to play the LS in the right order right? If you don’t feel like killing this boss, play “Echoes of the past”. I think that’s the episode that follows the one you’re currently in. Lots of lore stuff, if you’re into that (I was not, and I bought GW1 after this awesome chapter!), a the beginning of the carapace armor, which is one of the best looking armor in the game imo, while being really accessible.

cmud.5689:

thehipone.6812:

Tired of totally lopsided Team[player name] vs. Team [Guild Name]

Fact is, no algorithm is going to compensate for the coordination and potential voice coms on one side and not the other. Let’s stop pretending it can.

This 100×. It happens so often its not even funny. I am so tired of these stomps that inevitable happen once you see you are not against actual solo players but a coordinated team. It makes the whole match futile. A team q should exists.

It rarely happens. There are dozens of threads where one player starts by complaining he’s always matched against premades, while in reality it’s 3 out of 70 games, and it’s like 311 against 11111. They even made the size of team a stronger criteria in MM, and now queuing in full premade in ranked usually unbalanced matches: either you lose hard against a top team, or you stomp a team of noobs.

The thing is, there were two types of solo players in the old system. The one who played soloq, and the ones who went solo in teamq. The latter had more mechanical skill, more map awareness and better team play. These players are now matched against old soloq players, and they naturally outplay them. The old soloq was a noob queue, good riddance.

Yeah, Dwayna forbids you actually have to fight in WvW! If you don’t like spending ages to get to your commander and getting killed, play a build that runs fast and can escape. Every profession has one, at the possible exception of necromancer and guardian.

My pvp and wow main is an asuran engineer. I recently created a female human engineer (I’m a male, but I already have three human males on the three armor types, that’s why). And it almost made me regret I haven’t chosen human in the first place! Here are the compared advantages between the two races.

Asura: funny animations, that matches the profession. It feels like you’re running extra fast. Not human, so more fantasy-like.

Human: armor looks better on them, especially headgear and back pieces. I prefer their dodge animation. Bigger Hobosacks! (could be a downside for some).

The best you can do is probably create one of each race, go to HotM, test animations for every kit and weapon (asuran rifle animations are hilarious, while human pistol animation will make you feel like a fearless cowboy), and try out armors using the bank wardrobe.

SobeSoul.6910:

I think it’s an esport in its infancy. Whether it emerges or fails to become a full fledged #esport really depends on whether or not if there’s a massive influx of players via the expansion coming into the spvp scene and making it truly competitive.

The gameplay itself has its own “big plays” as you call it already. Look at some of the portaling top tier mesmers do in the ESLs or how team fights can turn around quickly.

This is very true. I watched the EU WTS qualifications, and TCG made some of the more amazing moves I have ever seen in GW2. Helseth is an excellent chess player IRL, and you can tell by how he uses his portal to brutally put pressure on the other side of the battleground to shake an apparently desperate situation, much like how Capablanca plays chess. Unfortunately, particularly in NA, most teams prefer to play safer tactics.

Nephrite.6954:

He lost a few rounds at the beginning when I was using my p/d cheese build but quickly caught up to my tactics and beat me continuously the few rounds afterwards after that I proceeded with changing different builds against him … In the end he still countered me in every way till I got on my engi. We were both equally skilled, we’re not the best but we get the job done when we’re in ranked.

By noobs I meant new players, and you obviously aren’t, so it’s normal for you to lose on a power-based build.

As of the p/d cheese build, the problem could simply be that he’s used to his build and you are not. Especially if you never play d/d or s/d, you won’t be used to landing CnDs. If you really want to beat him one day (we all have that one friend who destroys us on our favorite profession, making us rage!), p/d is still your best bet. One more advice: play carrion and not rabid. Vitality is superior to toughness against conditions, and your stealthed attack on pistol deals great power damage as well.

ellesee.8297:

I’d say there’s more build diversity in PvE than PvP! In PvP if you run a sub-optimal build, you will lose! In PvE if you run a sub-optimal build, you can still win because PvE is lolez! You can literally go into the hardest PvE dungeon with a condition Necromancer wearing full Cleric gear and still beat it! #PvEsports!

Wahoo! Bye frands!

Very true. But I also think engineer is the profession which has the most viable “builds” in pvp, so to speak. Sure HGH builds, SD builds and pretty much anything without IP and Backpack Regenerator is a big no-no, but after that you have the choice:

Celestial: FT instead of toolkit. I’ve seen a top player on twitch play that, don’t remember if it was backpack or blackjack (their name are too similar!). Small traits and rune tweaks.

Rabid: p/s or p/p. Bombs or grenades (which also means different traits). A lot of very good choices for the rune and sigils (your choices in the matter were an inspiration for me, Vee Wee). You can also play bombs, nades and no tool kit, or all three.

Both: Slick Shoes, Elixir S or EG.

Yes, that’s mainly utilities, but taking for example bombs over grenades completely changes the play style. Now compare it to the only two (and a half) viable builds on a thief, and laugh.

This is video was posted a few days ago by an excellent player. Watch it and you’ll know why engineer is a beast in WvW.

insanemaniac.2456:

if you think youll want to solo roam, engi is the clear choice and dont use necro. necro has no escapes.

That’s true. Engineer has leaps and perm swiftness. But that’s not really what matters really. Every profession can roam, what makes engineer unique?

You don’t see many engineers in WvW. They are not part of GWEN (for guardian, warrior, elementalist, necromancer, the professions played in large scale combats), and they are not popular roamers like thieves, mesmers and rangers. But they should be.

Solo roaming on an engineer is an amazing feeling, especially when outnumbered (which let’s be honest, is most of the time). Other professions can disengage even better, like thieves or warriors, but engineer has the funniest escapes. Just picture it, you are throwing grenades or bombs behind you, blocking with your gear shield, your vigor uptime allowing to do multiple dodge rolls, and completely escape when all hope seemed lost by leaping into one of your water fields! You run so fast, cast so many skills, dodge so much and can make such a good use of line of sight, that the engineer gameplay in WvW really FEELS like you’re fighting for your life, a feeling you don’t get when you play necro and basically eat most of the attacks relying on your big double health pool. And all that you have in addition to be really, really effective. Even when kiting, you do a lot of damage, so if you’re losing, you can just kite for a while and it will probably turn the odds in your favor.

The only advantage I see in choosing necro, is spoiling the joy of the lucky ones who picked engineer by rolfstomping them (they are your strongest hard-counter).

That would be broken. We now have, in WvW, a holy trinity of our own, and it’s the most balanced it’s ever been:

Rocket Boots, Elixir Gun and Slick Shoes.

Slick Shoes gives you a stun breaker but an ok kiting utility (Slick Shoes or Super Speed). Sure Slick Shoes are amazing against 2-3 opponents, but you can’t escape from the zerg with it.

Rocket Boots gives you an AMAZING kiting ability, by removing movement-impairing conditions and launching you forward, very far away from the angry mob. However, it does not give you a stun-breaker (immob breaker though).

Elixir Gun is a middle ground: a bit longer CD stun breaker, a leap backward (so you have to press about face) that does not cure condis, has a slower animation and does not go as far.

I run the three utilities, and I think it’s a really good thing that you can run three different utilities on the same build without one being blatantly better than the others. To each their own.

Wow guys, show some support! Long post incoming.

Why should you definitely run an engineer?

1) Viability. Don’t worry, in pvp, in WvW and pve, you can do anything and people will always welcome you, except maybe in organized blobvblob in wvw.

2) Build diversity. Some core traits are important and you pretty much have to take them, and running at least one kit is preferable, but from there you’re free! Our three weapon sets are good and feel different! Don’t like nades? Go bombs! Or flamethrower even! Don’t like Elixir Gun? Slick Shoes, Rocket Boots, Elixir S are all great choices! There are many runes, many armor stats, many sigils that you can experience with to get the engineering experience YOU will like the most.

3) Fun, eye-appealing animations. Not to flashy (mesmer), not too noisy (elementalist), never annoying (ranger). Except for maybe thief, the engineer’s animations are the coolest in the game. You’ll love throwing slow grenade at 1500 range in wvw, jumping on your foes, be knocked-back by your own rifle, make your screen disappear under your fire bomb explosion.

4) The kits. Some hate them (see the long thread on this subforum), but some of us think they actually look good! You’re fixing your party’s problems with the tools you brought to the job, with style.

5) The fast paced combat and constant progression. No CD on kits, which mean you’re always casting something! you’ll never be like 111111111 on your staff like you used to! And the really amazing part is that you’re constantly discovering new combos, new kiting techniques, new way to fight different opponents. Each fight is different on an engi, even if you run the same build.

6) The small community. In pvp lately, you can see lots of engis, because of the current meta. But I can assure you that in pve and wvw, you won’t encounter many! Surprise your opponents, and impress your friends with your cool-looking engineer.

7) Jumping Puzzles. If you’re into them but don’t like to fall 59 times at the same spot, this profession is for you.

8) Rocket Boots

Just do it already, what are you waiting for!