Guild Wars 2

They didn’t reduce pet damage by 50%. The total damage reduction was more in the area of 20%.

Beastmaster builds are obviously not as strong as they once were but are still viable because they still work reasonably well within the condition/bunker focused metagame that currently dominates solo roaming.

If you want to ride the current bandwagon for small-scale WvW, though, go with your warrior. Currently nobody can really handle the stun-spamming, high regen builds that are all the rage with that class.

For most builds, replacing Signet of the Hunt with a more useful utility skill gives a bigger performance boost than replacing Traveler’s runes with any other rune set.

Even if you don’t count the movement speed bonus, Traveler’s runes aren’t terrible. Signet of the Hunt, on the other hand, would be virtually unused if not for the movement speed bonus, as the only other things it’s good for are making very short video clips of huge Maul crits and reminiscing about the time when it allowed jaguars and ravens to burst people respectably.

As mentioned above, Traveler’s Runes can be huge in trap builds because they let you carry an entire extra trap without losing movement speed. You’re not going to get that from an alternate rune set.

Hell, even if you don’t actively use the freed up utility slot, just put Signet of Stone there instead and leave it on passive like you do now with Signet of the Hunt. The combination of Traveler’s Runes plus 180 toughness beats out most any other rune sets plus Signet of the Hunt.

Traveler’s runes just seem like an extremely good deal for rangers.

You may dress like a bowl of soggy Froot Loops, but your mechanical skills are excellent.

TeamBattleAxe.3901:

http://youtu.be/1z-d9vGO52E

-El Taquito Bandito, Best Fireworks Thief NA

By the rockets’ red glare, that was wonderful.

The only encounter I’ve had so far with that Bags guild is seeing a few of them (along with members of Rise, Hmmm and DUI) among the 20 or so SBI players spawn-camping about half a dozen IOJ players in the NSP BL tonight. They spent almost half an hour trying to lure the IOJ players out of range of the legendary guards so they could zerg them.

I’m sure they’re pretty talented duelists using the most up-to-date solo roaming builds since most of them were quite difficult to bring down, but it didn’t really leave a great impression of any of the guilds involved to see them invest so much time and effort into trying to flank outnumbered opponents just outside their spawn point.

nagymbear.5280:

Sic’em was mainly utilized by beastmaster builds, and those with perma regen already could deal with thieves in the first place.

Well, I often “deal with” thieves in my beastmaster build by just stalemating with them since I cannot prevent them from escaping or resetting the fight as many times as they feel like. It’s a frustrating and time-consuming exercise in waiting/hoping for the thief to make a mistake.

Using Sic ‘em to reduce the thief’s condition removal and initiative regen could make an actual kill significantly more likely.

The problem I have with it is that Sic ’em is still really not very good against any other enemy for a variety of reasons.

So the basic argument you’re making is that autoattacks and skills with short cooldowns should generally do less damage and players should be forced to make more intelligent use of their longer cooldowns to achieve high damage.

I see the merit in this argument but it also concerns me that this would move the game in a direction of greater burst and could significantly devalue more defensive builds. After all, if the key to staying alive is seeing your enemy’s telegraphed burst combo and avoiding it outright, what’s the value of defensive stats like toughness or healing power? Could this potentially lead to a situation where everyone wears berserker gear and just goes for all-in alpha strike builds?

Terrahero.9358:

Okay, seriously now. Some people are really commited to this “114”.

But what does 114 mean? Its a number without any perspective. 114 positive changes over the course of about 380days.

But, how many negative changes? Nerfs, broken skills. And how would 114 positive changes compare to other professions?

Without any kind of source of comparison, or perspective, its a rather meaningless number. That in and of itself does not defeat the strong feeling people have that Engineers have been getting neglected.

What does it mean? It means the assertion that the engineer is “the class they left behind” (which, you might note, is the title of this thread) is ridiculous.

Do you really need “comparison or perspective” on a list of 114 positive changes to accept that Arenanet has obviously been working to improve the overall state of the engineer since the game launched? If you go comb through the patch archives yourself and find that maybe elementalists got even more fixes is that somehow going to validate the original argument that Arenanet ignores engineer issues?

If you have a “strong feeling” that you’re being neglected by a development team that has been improving your character at a rate of nearly 10 positive changes a month, there is a name for that: confirmation bias.

imaginary.6241:

Stice.5204:

… No nerfs …

You obviously didn’t play engineer right? Or why did you leave out such big nerfs (!) as the insaneley – multiple times – reduced damage for grenades #1 skill? Or the nerf of the Flamethrowers damage? Or the nerf of the pistol attackspeed? Or the longer shield cooldowns. No speaking about the way grenades behave now (randomly) ?!?

You just cut a two-word sentence fragment off the end of my gigantic post, took it utterly out of context, and then used it as a launch pad for a 6-paragraph rant full of superfluous punctuation expressing how shocked and upset you are at the totally ignorant opinion you’re pretending I hold.

Have you considered a career in politics?

It’d be tempting to use the reliable Toss Elixir S + Rocket Boots combo for elusiveness in WvW, but then I’d be limited to only one kit so that would require some thinking.

I will probably still never use turrets. Extra hitpoints and smarter targeting will certainly help them, but I don’t care for the playstyle they promote even if it were stronger.

Ok, here’s your list:

Bug fixes: 35

Grenade Barrage underwater
Kit Stowing bug
Grenadier underwater
Short Fuse with Grenadier
Fixed having to double click Elixir X
Elixir S with Fast Acting Elixirs
Grenade Barrage works with Grenadier
Fumigate made cancellable
Rocket Turret can detonate underwater
Hair Trigger didn’t work with some pistol skills
Reinforced Shield reduces cooldown of Static Shield
Speedy Gadgets works with Throw Mine
Toss Elixir S no longer removes transforms
Deployable Turrets works with all turrets
Super Elixir works underwater
Packaged Stimulants fixed to not increase cooldowns
Forceful Explosives works with Evasive Powder Keg
Fireforged Trigger works with all Elixir Gun skills
Throw Mine resets properly if it times out
Automated Response works against attackers with over 100% condition duration
Deployable Turrets doesn’t increase Flame Turret cooldown
Fixed issues with mines detonating at the wrong time
Steel Packed Powder works with turret detonations
Short Fuse works with all skills underwater
Inertial Converter works with all skills underwater
Rocket Kick range corrected
Harpoon Turret works with Deployable Turrets
Fire Bomb and Smoke Bomb don’t cancel if you jump
Metal Plating and Autotool Installation always work
Jump Shot works with Rifled Barrels
Grenade Kit doesn’t remove itself after 6 minutes
Elixir C removes torment
Elite Supplies doesn’t increase Mortar cooldown
Toss Elixir U works with Acidic Elixirs
Rifled Barrels works with the Elixir Gun underwater

Cooldown reductions: 18

Mine Field
Toss Elixir C underwater
Rocket Turret
Net Attack
Flame Turret
Throw Napalm
Cleansing Burst
Regenerating Mist
Elixir U
Elixir X
Harpoon
Rumble
Personal Battering Ram
Launch Personal Battering Ram
Analyze
Rocket
Launch Ice Mortar
Autodefense Bomb Dispenser

Damage increases: 7

Rifle Turret overcharge
Thumper Turret overcharge
Thumper Turret base attack damage increase and also cripples
Rumble
Rifle Turret base attack
Surprise Shot
Harpoon

Other Buffs: 42

Throw Mine made unblockable
Big Ol’ Bomb made blast finisher
Elixir X works with Potent Elixirs
Mortar works with Rifled Turret Barrels
Gear Shield duration increased
Magnet range increased
Net Turret overcharge projectile speed increased
Grenade skills projectile speed increased
Power Wrench reduces Tool Kit cooldowns
Elixir B might duration increased
Projectile finishers added to all harpoon gun skills
Direct damage added to Flash Grenade and Poison Grenade
Bleed added to Retreating Grapple
Burn added to Timed Charge
Projectile finisher added to Grappling Line
Power Shoes effect increased to 25%
Always Prepared also increases downed damage
Sitting Duck applies vulnerability
Shrapnel activation chance increased to 15%
Acid Bomb made a blast finisher
Super Elixir healing increased
Manual detonation added for Flame Blast
Air Blast increases burn duration
Flame Jet deals extra damage to burning targets
Pry Bar inflicts more confusion for longer duration
Tool Kit turret healing abilities doubled in strength
Elixir U made instant cast and breaks stuns
Net Turret health increased
Flame Turret attack arc increased
Grenade Kit skills no longer require line of sight
Healing Turret radius increased
Throw Napalm burn duration increased
Super Speed breaks stun
Backpack Regenerator scales with healing power
Knee Shot and Sitting Duck merged
Juggernaut reduced to master
Coated Bullets reduced to master
Fireforged Trigger reduced to adept
Elite Supplies improves Mortar range and effects all Mortar cooldowns
Packaged Stimulants improves Med Kit skill healing and duration by 25%
Leg Mods no longer requires a kit equipped
Acidic Elixirs now removes boons

QoL upgrades and skill revamps that were general buffs: 12

Stowing and equiping kits in mid air allowed
Kit autoattacks enabled
Sigils work with kits
Kits upgraded to exotic base damage
Juggernaut revamped
Stabilized Armor revamped
Acidic Coating revamped
Jump Shot revamped
Modified Ammunition added
Rocket Boots revamped
Rampage revamped (effects engineers via Elixir X)
Armor Mods revamped

No nerfs, no tooltip fixes. 114 actual improvements to the engineer profession.

Terrahero.9358:

Maybe that list would be considerably shorter if the duplicated were removed. for example they added a projectile finisher to the Harpoongun abilities, two patches in a row.

And tooltip fixes, those make up a lot aswell.

Dont forget about the stuff that was fixed, but reeeaaallly shouldve been fixed before the game even went live.

Did you cross out all the nerfs already? I hope you did, those would make up the majority of the bulletpoints.

And lets not forget all the redundant changes like “we added a range indicator to Box o Nails”.

I specifically said in my post I didn’t count any of those things.

There have been 114 beneficial changes to the engineer, in the form of either bug fixes or buffs, since the game went live.

So the strategy is to just spread out and hope that the enemies choose to kill someone else first before eventually succumbing to ranged attacks?

That sounds like the “strategy” of a bunch of players each trying to use each other as bait to improve their own personal chances.

Cribbage.2056:

Every MMO seems to get to this – some classes get no attention from the devs for years and years. It seems like the Engineer is becoming one of those.

Really?

Do you realize how many times the engineer has been improved with either a bug fix or a straight up buff?

I was going to make a list for you copied and pasted from the patch notes archived on the wiki but I couldn’t because it was 114 entries long and had too many characters for a post on this forum.

114 times since the game launched engineers have been improved by either a bug fix or a straight-up buff. And I didn’t count tooltip fixes, either. That’s all actual changes to engineer skills or traits. I also didn’t count skills that got revamped but not necessarily buffed, like Elixir U and Napalm Specialist.

Sure, some of them weren’t important (who really cares if Inertial Converter works with toss elixir skills underwater?) and some weren’t adequate to really make skills useful (Thumper Turret still sucks even after buffing the base skill and the toolbelt skill twice each) but they still happened. And some of the changes were pretty huge, like letting sigils work with kits and revamping Jump Shot and Rocket Boots. This “class they left behind” has been receiving beneficial changes at a rate of almost 10 per month since the game launched.

Now obviously, as an engineer player I’ve got my own list of pet peeves that I wish Arenanet would get to faster, but claiming that they have somehow been neglecting the engineer class is absurd.

A potential problem with this is that most of the staves in the game look delicate and ornamental and it would look a bit silly to bash an enemy over the head with one, but other than that, sure why not?

If Anet actually does open up all weapons to all professions the engineer would get more new skills than anyone else because we currently have the smallest weapon selection. They’d also have to come up with a lot of odd stuff like scepter skills for thieves and rifle skills for necromancers.

What kind of thematically appropriate thing is an engineer supposed to do with an axe?

Indoles.1467:

I just want to point out some things to some people that obviously know nothing about thieves and stealth.

Uh, sure. Go ahead.

<list of skills and traits involving stealth.>

Some of these traits are core to how some more common thief builds function (d/p thieves will be heavily impacted by this).

We know. Everyone who isn’t a d/p thief hates fighting them because of their incredibly frustrating mechanics. Whether or not they’re actually overpowered is a matter of debate, but there’s really no debating that they’re annoying. Introducing some counterplay to them is a good idea.

Does this mean a thief can’t just simple run and reset? No, but if they run, what’s stopping you from doing the same?

Desire. If the thief is running away to reset the fight, it’s because he’s losing. If he’s losing, we’d like to keep the current fight instead of reseting it. Unfortunately, it’s very difficult to keep a thief from escaping, even if they don’t use stealth in the process.

The gist of your post that sticking a revealed debuff on the thief not only removes their ability to turn invisible but also shuts off some of their best offensive and defensive abilities is very true, though, and well worth considering. It will actually allow us an opportunity to seize momentum and force the thief onto a defensive footing, which is something that is currently very difficult to do when fighting a thief as a ranger.

If they’re changing ranger weapon skills, they might opt to bump up the base damage or power scaling coefficients on some skills to make power builds more appealing and competitive. I’d love that.

They might also give us more weapon skills that interact with our pets the way skills like Winter’s Bite and Hilt Bash currently do. That could be nice. Maybe something like your pet’s next attack after Crippling Talon lands inflicts torment or hitting with Swoop causes your pet to shadow step to the target. I wouldn’t complain about that.

Of course, they might instead mean they’re going to nerf some of our weapons, but I honestly don’t see that as very likely. The only thing even debatably overpowered about ranger weapons is the large number of evade skills compared to other classes, but it’s rare to see anyone complain about it.

Xsorus.2507:

There will also be # changes to some of the Ranger weapons.

This is the only line Rangers should be talking about.

Because this is the line that’s going to be the one screwing us most likely in the end.

There’s nothing to say about it, though. It’s extremely vague. I don’t even know which weapons they’d want to change.

This seems like a good way to take a skill that nobody uses and make it more appealing. It’s a unique but non-mandatory function so it doesn’t directly obsolete any skills that we currently have but it’s still an intriguing option. I like it. Also, I think stealth is too strong in this game and needs more counters than just guessing with AoE when your opponent turns invisible, which is currently all we can do.

They should fix the bugs with Sic ’em that make it drop, though.

Xovian.8572:

The problem with stealth detection unlike all the other games listing stealth revealers is that no class has perma stealth in GW2. Thieves can maintain it for quite awhile, but it is by no means perm. That’s a huge overlook for people complaining about it.

I’ve never played another game like this that gave anywhere near as many opportunities to turn invisible in the middle of a fight as GW2 does.

For instance, DAoC had permanent stealth, but the only way to enter stealth in combat was the Vanish ability, which had a 15 minute cooldown and disarmed you for 30 seconds when used, meaning it was completely useless as anything but an escape tool.

In-combat stealth in GW2 is extremely powerful by MMORPG standards.

Helly.2597:

Nikkinella.8254:

How about putting in a kill counter? Guaranteed rare or exotic or ascended item for every 10 people I kill. This would be great for roamers and siege monkeys alike.

That would be beyond insane. I know I have gotten over 50 kills in a single fight before that lasted 3 minutes, 5 rares or exotics in 3 minutes thats a bit of an overkill. Do I think rewards could be increased? Sure, but I also remember when we got nothing when it came to rewards and I count my blessings.

Would that really be so insane? Fights like that in WvW aren’t very common or predictable. On the other hand, the Frozen Maw event in Wayfarer Foothills spawn every couple hours, takes less than 3 minutes to complete, guarantees a rare item once per day plus a champion bag and a large chest, all of which can contain rare or exotic items and high-end crafting materials, and is extremely easy if more than half a dozen people show up. It’s also one of more than a dozen similar events that are tracked by a number of websites so you can efficiently hop around and farm them every day.

It might be out of line for WvW to offer a nice reward on every 10th kill, but it certainly could be a lot more rewarding than it currently is and still be less lucrative than website-assisted world boss farming.

There really is a problem with current matchmaking. I play on Fort Aspenwood and we haven’t had a balanced matchup since Anet broke up the established tiers that used to exist.

Since then, we’ve had matches where we get hopelessly hammered and can’t even defend our own borderlands while completely abandoning every other map, and we’ve had other matchups where we’re the ones being the overwhelming bully and I end up leaving WvW sometimes because there’s nothing left to capture. (I play a lot at non-primetime hours so these effects are even more exaggerated for me.)

WvW was more fun a few months ago when we were just fighting Tarnished Coast and Dragonbrand every single matchup because at least it was a pretty fair fight against them at all hours of the day.

Why did Anet even add stealth disruptor traps to the game if they’re going to be far too expensive to counter annoying thieves?

Using a 30/30/x/x/x signet build with a maximum crit damage setup absolutely does allow you to hit for over 8000 with the longbow autoattack after signet activations (as well as Maul for 10,000 and full channel Rapid Fire for 12,000) on low-toughness targets, especially uplevels in WvW. It’s a very high damage build.

So why don’t you see tons of berserker/valkyrie longbow signet rangers in WvW? Well, the build has unusually low survivability even for a glass cannon build so it can very quickly become frustrating to play. It’s really only suitable for zerg surfing where you can consistently keep allies between you and the enemies.

Istaf.1953:

Stice.5204:

If you want a game type that more heavily emphasizes skill, you’re in luck because GW2 is one of the few MMORPG’s to even have one: it’s called sPvP.

To be honest sPvP, in my opinion, is boring and I don’t see why WvW players not wanting the snowball effect the buff will have means they should go there instead.

I am opposed to the snowball effect and generally disapprove of how WvW matchmaking is handled, I just don’t see how denigrating the “skill” of people who roam around in large groups gets us anywhere. They aren’t playing to impress you with their skills so they really don’t care.

WvW shouldn’t put a premium on individual skill, that’s what sPvP is for. However, WvW should promote more organizational and strategic complexity for large teams by encouraging multiple medium sized forces instead of a single giant blob.

Malachi.1836:

Numbers are not skill, hitting a wall when people sleep isnt skill, and sitting on siege isn’t skill.

Small groups actually fighting against even odds and relatively balanced fights are skill based.

I don’t really understand why you’re throwing around “skill” as the highest ideal of WvW. People who roam around in large groups aren’t doing it to impress you. They’re doing it because it’s a well-rewarded activity in a game that, like most MMORPG’s, is all about pursuing incremental rewards as part of a large playerbase. They don’t care whether or not you approve of the skillfulness of their reward pursuit.

If you want a game type that more heavily emphasizes skill, you’re in luck because GW2 is one of the few MMORPG’s to even have one: it’s called sPvP.

How about starting with the fact that I have opened about 200 WvW rank up chests between my various characters and have received a grand total of 1 exotic and 0 ascended items from them and yet hopping around to various waypoints and autoattacking world bosses at near zero risk will usually yield an exotic item about every 25 kills or so?

You could increase rewards for defending by simply increasing rewards for killing enemy players, since defending logically implies fighting off enemy players. That would be less subject to abuse than increasing the rewards for the current “defend” events where you can get full participation credit by using 2 supply to repair a section of outer wall while the enemy is already beating on the inner door.

WvW in general should be more rewarding to try and even out the wealth disparities for players who spend most of their time there, and making it even more lucrative to attack and capture objectives would just incentivize trading, so why not shift more rewards to actual PvP combat?

I realize there is still potential for abuse with players simply trading kills back and forth, but at least it would encourage battles and that seems like the right direction to move WvW.

Zylonite.5913:

Is it possible to acquire an ascended weapon just by playing WvW then? Not just the RNG chest, but the actual crafting materials etc….

Yes, it would be possible. All the tier 7 crafting materials are available from capturing supply camps, towers and keeps. You won’t make dragonite ore or bloodstone dust at even 1/10 the rate of someone who goes waypoint-hopping to autoattack world bosses and champions but at least they exist.

The biggest problem would be getting enough tier 6 material (especially ectoplasm) to craft up to 500 skill in the first place as those aren’t realistically available in WvW except via the trading post.

Straegen.2938:

ilr.9675:

OP’s right about stealth though.

Name ONE game where Developers have ever gotten Stealth perfectly balanced.

….A single player game was all you could come up with, wasn’t <—> it??
I rest my case…

Depends on how “balance” is defined. We do not know the stats from WvW so only ANet likely knows how deadly stealth really is. IMO AoE classes are likely going to dominate DPS and K/D ratios. I doubt thieves rank in the top 3 of DPS or kill stats.

The real problem with stealth isn’t about whether you can tweak the stats on the various classes to achieve some form of statistical balance, it’s that stealth is an extremely frustrating mechanic to fight against in a PvP game. Stealth has almost no counterplay in most games because characters who have it can simply avoid or escape most fights that put them at a disadvantage, and yet maintain an easy position to leap into any fight where the odds are in their favor. It gives any character much lower risks when pursuing high rewards.

People hate thieves in GW2 for the same reason. It’s not that the thief is necessarily the strongest PvP class in the game, it’s that a properly-played thief can engineer the outcome of almost any encounter as either a successful kill or a successful escape, and that makes them very frustrating to fight regardless of how powerful they actually are in combat.

nothing.7941:

listen to your moist passionate fans.

I don’t think any of us quite that passionate, dude.

Online polls are really not good evidence to cite in an argument because they do not represent a random sample. The responders are self-selected and will consist entirely of people who have a strong opinion and wish to voice it, but that doesn’t mean they actually represent a majority (or even a large minority.)

Stick to logical arguments or comparisons similar systems, not extremely flawed polls.

Neeho.3859:

What is wrong with the idea of getting WvW gear in WVW without having to go to PvE?

SPvP players never have to step foot out of sPvP. PvE players never have to leave their PvE zones to get their gear.

Well, technically PvE players do have to go to the WvW maps to get their Gifts of Exploration to make legendary weapons, but that’s a pretty modest time investment compared to the amount of time a WvW player has to spend in PvE to get reasonable access to crafting materials, consumables and equipment that are useful in WvW.

Dual.8953:

Worse. If it’s not designed for max capacity it run a high risk of things breaking down completely when filled to capacity.

I think the much, much bigger risk is things breaking down completely when one side of the three-way matchup is filled to capacity but the other two are well below that level. That’s a common enough sight in the current WvW matchups that I really think it should be factored into the design.

I also don’t understand why they’re so reluctant to increase the rewards for killing enemy players in WvW.

I can make a hundred dragonite ore and bloodstone dust in an hour just by checking the world event timers at any of several websites and waypoint-hopping around the world to autoattack world bosses. I’ll also get a guaranteed rare item from each plus multiple salvageable items and substantial amounts of karma and coin. This is very predictable and easy, so I can do it every day if I feel like it.

On the other hand, an hour spent representing my server against human enemies in WvW will yield somewhere between zero and maybe 25% of that if I luck into a real hotstreak (which, unlike the daily world boss farm, is not predictable or manufacturable.)

Mooodster.3470:

i also believe that anet designs the maps to be full not around half empty maps so in a situation where all 3 servers have a queue on the map this will bring a new lvl of depth to the fights

If that’s the case then their design is severely flawed. How many servers have a large enough active WvW population to come anywhere near filling all 4 maps? My server is one of the larger ones in North America and we only have entrance queues for a few hours a day during the first three days or so of each matchup.

I’d guess we spend less than 10% of each weekly matchup with our maps filled, so Anet probably shouldn’t be making major design changes based only on that situation.

It is true they told us we could expect a return of an orb-like mechanic in the future, but that generally seemed to imply it would only return after both major problems of the orb mechanic were solved.

The two major problems with orbs is that they were cheater-bait and that they made it even more difficult for overmatched servers to try and fight back. Replacing the stealable orbs with static capture points in the middle of the map solves the first problem but does not address the second one.

Ever since Arenanet changed how matchmaking works my server (Fort Aspenwood) hasn’t had a single competitive matchup. We’ve had a weeks where we were completely overmatched and got dropped down to under 50 ppt at certain times of the day and we’ve had other weeks where the opposite happened and we sit at over 500 most of the time, but there has not been a properly competitive matchup since Anet broke up the established “tiers” that used to exist.

This means that, at any time since the matchmaking change, the addition of a capturable stat buff to the borderlands maps would have been a disaster. The team with 500+ PPT would obviously own the buff in all three maps just like they own almost everything else and their players, who are already winning most of their fights thanks to overwhelming numerical advantages, would become even harder to fight, even if you managed to isolate a smaller group of them.

We already know the upcoming league seasons for North America are going to match servers against each other that are as much as 12 places apart on the ranking table. Those servers are already going to be at an extreme disadvantage during the week due to numbers alone. Now they’ll be severely outnumbered and facing the stat equivalent of wearing masterwork gear against enemies in exotics.

The difference between the ascended items top-end players have and the exotic items any new player can get in a few days of playtime is still pretty small. Obviously adding ascended weapons to the game has widened the gap, but it’s still not that noticeable.

Stacking sigils are really just kind of annoying. I don’t like carrying around multiple weapons or having to go grind krait or coyotes for a few minutes at the start of a run just to get a stat boost that disappears the moment a superior force catches me. I’ve heard Anet is considering making stacks disappear if you unequip the weapon with the sigil and I’m all for it because removing that nuisance would only make my play experience more enjoyable.

Applied Fortitude and Guard Leech are strong enough to make an impact on small-scale skirmishes. A couple players with an extra 2500 hitpoints will have more impact than a couple players with ascended weapons. They are also the only things you can spend points on that aren’t siege related, which makes them the upgrade of choice for people who prefer skirmish warfare and gives them something meaningful to pursue. Players who participate more in large-scale fights over objectives often find some of the siege-related masteries equally valuable, though. If you’re trying to maximize PPT you’d probably prefer your teammates have things like Arrow Cart Mastery and Catapult Mastery.

There is certainly a problem that the per-character nature of WvW ranks actively discourages players from playing more than one character. It’s nice that my two main characters that I made the day the game launched just had their first birthdays and Arenanet gave me two scrolls of experience to help me level alts….but those alts would start out at WvW rank 1, months away from having the useful bonuses my main characters already enjoy. I think I’ll probably never use those scrolls.

For world completion my main priorities were good movement for all the traveling and easy-to-use AoE for grinding heart completion.

Therefore I went with a Juggernaut Flamethrower build with Speedy Kits and Rocket Boots. Probably not the absolute most efficient build, but world completion is not very challenging so I’d rather just have a build I can zone out while playing.

A simple HGH Toolkit build still works very well for small-scale WvW. It’s relatively easy to play and produces solid results.

There are numerous variants of it but the one I use is this: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQJAqalspyXnuSyF1LJxoCdGki8qXRPeMln8nCsF-jUCBINBkWAkyAIFqIasFhTjtMMIaGYqUER1eEFRrWKAYmGB-w

The nice thing about it is that you can convert it into a power-based zerg-surfing Juggernaut build by just changing your equipped items and traits with no need to visit a trainer, like so: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQJAqelIqyXn1SyF1LJxoCdGki8eXRPyv+d8nCsF-jUCB4OBkgAkyAI7pIasFhTjtMMI6FYqSER1eDFRrWGA9xA-w

Basically, a core trait point distribution of 20 Firearms and 30 Alchemy is really flexible and allows you to make multiple completely different builds to suit the current situation.

A 3-kit build is probably the strongest engineer build for PvP and small scale fighting right now but is also probably the hardest build in the entire game to play well so you’d have to put a lot of time and effort into learning to maximize it. It can be done with a similar point distribution to the above, with generally the Elixir Gun, Tool Kit and either the Bomb Kit or Grenade Kit as the third utility slot.

Edit: If you want some good demonstration videos of what engineers can do in small-scale WvW, here are some much better players than me:

Amadeus on an Elixir Gun/Flamethrower support build: http://www.youtube.com/watch?list=UUS6UxiZCdtLH0RnIwLW34Iw&feature=player_detailpage&v=NSs0PlKm-mY

Maskaganda on an HGH Toolkit build: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=6cmgYIXdnik

Yishis on a 3-kit build: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQd53qlCvo8&feature=player_detailpage

Kimbald.2697:

Juggernaut should effect Elixir Gun too, that would make the swapping so much less punishing.
And it’s not like Elixir Gun can’t use a serious boost as it is!

I’d like to see the Elixir Gun get boosted a bit because I’ve always liked it and currently it’s the only kit that can’t really be a good primary weapon.

On the other hand, it does still clobber most of our non-kit utility skill options once you’ve gone to the considerable trouble of really learning how to use it so maybe it is balanced about how it’s supposed to be. The number of useful features it already packs is impressive, and its only real problem is that only Acid Bomb does high damage.

At any rate, the EG/FT build is absolutely viable for dungeons, especially if you’re using the real definition of the word “viable.” Just don’t use the Flamethrower autoattack on anything with retaliation. (It’s not like you ever really have to autoattack much with a multikit build anyway.)

For us non-asura, combining this with a trap build as Chokolata suggested above seems to work really nice. Replace Quick Draw and Moment of Clarity with Trapper’s Expertise and Trap Potency, then use Flame Trap as your third utility skill. You get extra condition pressure to make up for the fewer interrupts and shorter dazes.

The entire point of a solo queue is that you get to do what you want and are largely unaffected by the opinions or preferences of other players.

Terrahero.9358:

IP was better before. It alone could keep up perma-burn all by itself. Then it was nerfed to the current incarnation. Why? No one knows, no one complained about Engineers.

Come on, everyone knows there was a problem with an adept trait that could passively add nearly full uptime on the highest DPS condition to whatever other build you were using. We’d all like to see some buffs for our favorite class but it’s obvious they couldn’t balance engineer condition builds around the original IP in the long run.

Originally I thought that the point of the heal was mainly to help provide staying power for your pet. Then I found out our other two heals also heal the pet, so I stopped using Heal as One and have not bothered with it since. This occurred….about an hour after the game launched, I think?

I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone run back into Entangle after escaping it. I didn’t even realize you could.

jcbroe.4329:

In that same thread, in the screenshot, its quoted as having some “big QoL changes on oct 1.”

Well, that could almost be interpreted as good news for rangers, because god knows we’ve got more outstanding QoL issues than most of the other classes combined.

Yeah, I saw the stats on the new Rune of the Traveler and immediately bought a set of 6 before the price skyrocketed. Being able to just replace Signet of the Hunt with an above-average rune set is like getting a 4th utility skill slot in WvW. Now I just have to decide which of my armor sets to put them in. Maybe it’s time for just a full celestial set?

It’s so nice that they even have 10% condition duration, so now you can hit the +50% with a koi cake for an extra tick on most conditions without having to put 10 points in Marksmanship.

It does seem like spirits probably just got nerfed because of sPvP balance concerns.

I’d be willing to bet that sPvP is less popular than PvE or WvW, though, and spirits have never been very powerful or popular in either of those areas, so weakening them just seems baffling to most players.

I guess I don’t really care because, as someone who never plays sPvP, I rarely used spirits and think if anything they needed a buff. Now I’ll just continue not using them. It’s still frustrating to see sPvP concerns driving balance decisions for the more popular game types, though.