Guild Wars 2

Stx.4857:

Stillshade.7634:

Stx.4857:

MonMalthias.4763:

Thief just isn’t fun to play against; and the first step to make it so is to make Stealth interact more with the other classes.

Okay, but see this is just an opinion. I personally think thieves are fun to play against, because they are so kitten squishy. Yes it sucks when they escape, but that is part of their class… they are shady kittens.

Every class has mechanics that are not fun to fight against. I find it very unfun that Guardians can chain aegis with immunities, blinds, dodges, and negate tons of my attacks. I find it very unfun that Warriors can stun and knock me down every few seconds. I find it very unfun that Engineers can fart out bombs and grenades every few seconds and kill me without even targetting me as long as I try to contest a point.

Except all those mechanics can be countered and played against. Stealth cannot be countered which is the topic of this post and that stands true.

Blatantly false statement. You can counter Shadow Refuge, you can counter cloak and dagger, you can counter black powder>Heartseeker spam.

The only ways a thief can stealth with no way to stop him is with blinding powder(40 sec cd), or with a trait that auto stealths. If you are referring to these methods as having no counters, then I would also argue that many other professions have no counters to their defense mechanisms because you cannot prevent them from casting them.

Sometimes you just cant stop a thief from stealthing, sometimes you just cant stop a Guardian from healing to full, life sucks.

This has been discussed and those are only soft counters. There is nothing that truly works against stealth except mindless aoe which is unreliable.

There is nothing more fun then stealthing behind a mesmer and then ccing them to death.

Engineer has more viable roaming builds than any class that I am aware.

Zacchary.6183:

MonMalthias.4763:

stuff

And mesmers and their confusion (sometimes daze) spam was not fun to play against… until I played one. Then they were very fun to fight.

Likewise with every profession (including thief), you will have more fun fighting them by learning about them through firsthand experience.

But the “Thief needs stealth to survive” argument is still valid.

First off, our best line is Shadow Arts because most of the profession’s damage mitigation is in it. Every stealth based trait in SA, save Hidden Assassin, either directly or indirectly affects survivability. You could not get the same level of survivability from Acrobatics because it does not give as much access to healing and condition removal.

Secondly, evades can fail. Most of our evades which come from our weapon skills do not last the entire animation. Add to the fact that they are highly telegraphed, evasion skills are not enough.

So to put it into perspective: thieves, with their naturally low health and armor, poor healing, lack of defensive boons, competitive condition cleanse and general damage mitigation thieves have to rely on timed evades and the target/visual break of stealth to avoid damage (damage avoidance).

Thieves can’t cleanse damaging conditions or heal as well as other professions. So to survive on one, they must avoid getting hit by any attack as much as they possibly can. Otherwise, the conditions will melt them and the direct damage will make them explode.

There is nothing difficult or challenging about using stealth.
No one is saying get rid of stealth it could be a fun mechanic if it worked better with other parts of the game.
All skills are televised, that is a large part of the game. Complaining that people can see your skills and can then act accordingly is not a valid complaint.
Thieves have decent condition removal.
A build is as squishy as you want it to be.

There are plenty of things wrong with turrets and honestly I would love to see them fixed but am terrified the effect that could have on healing turret which I believe is working fine.

With that being said, the cd starting on detonation is terrible and counteracts the point of turrets. Although accelerant packed turrets already promotes this and is a viable option to some extent.

Overcharge works, but the effect could be improved and made more reliable. I never drop a turret without immediately overcharging it because if i don’t it will not happen.

Detonation works well but the fact that it covers up the toolkit which is the defining trait of an engi makes keeping a turret out incredibly counter intuitive.

Engineers already have relatively miserable condition cleanse so for a build to do condition damage almost exclusively might be stopped by this trait, but it is by no means easy to spec into and doesn’t allow for amazing sustained survivability since it procs at 25% health.

Stx.4857:

MonMalthias.4763:

Thief just isn’t fun to play against; and the first step to make it so is to make Stealth interact more with the other classes.

Okay, but see this is just an opinion. I personally think thieves are fun to play against, because they are so kitten squishy. Yes it sucks when they escape, but that is part of their class… they are shady kittens.

Every class has mechanics that are not fun to fight against. I find it very unfun that Guardians can chain aegis with immunities, blinds, dodges, and negate tons of my attacks. I find it very unfun that Warriors can stun and knock me down every few seconds. I find it very unfun that Engineers can fart out bombs and grenades every few seconds and kill me without even targetting me as long as I try to contest a point.

Except all those mechanics can be countered and played against. Stealth cannot be countered which is the topic of this post and that stands true.

In all honesty stealth is game breaking for its ability to break target which no other skills can do.

Elixir R is relatively useless but I don’t believe there is anything wrong with it. Personally I believe Elixir H is the one that needs work because while boons are nice the fact that they are random makes it a very unreliable heal.

I’m new to thief and have a hard time leveling, gonna be honest my main strategy is to charge at things head on and gain all the aggro, which isn’t working on thief…
What I really want is some of the important weapon combos and traits pointed out that could be a big help while leveling.

It has been mentioned that thieves are great at running away when things aren’t going their way and countered that almost all classes have fantastic escape abilities.
kitten that kitten.
The only class that has anywhere near as much escape abilities as thief is the mesmer and it isn’t even close.
I frequently solo roam and the most disappointing thing I have frequently encountered is outskilling a thief that then runs out of my range and ability to catch which then tails me until their friend arrives.
I have used stealth escapes and they are awesome but they are in no way fair. To be able to leave a fight at nearly any time with the fantastic mobility they have leaves it impossible for me to catch them.

Tl;dr I hate thieves nerf them please QQ

I run something similar except I focus more heavily on cc and use blast finishers for might. I can confirm that elixir S is still awesome, it has it’s shortcomings but the toolbelt stealth and the might and condition cleanse from you build make it awesome.
As for backpack regenerator, it is fantastic and my 2nd favorite trait in that line after protection injection, but since you are running elixirs I don’t think you should switch out any of the elixir traits for anything.
Lastly, I really have no clue what armor set works well with this kinda build, but if you have tested it yet do you think it needs more survivability or damage?

I agree with both Blood and Arch 100% especially on the shield because it is awesome. But I just want to add, don’t get too attached to a build or armor set if you aren’t 100% sure its what you wanna go with. This advice is fantastic for what you wanna do so by all means listen to them, but take time to experiment and look at different builds because there are plenty of builds that work on engi for every different scenario but you just have to find the one that’s right for you.

I personally like the flamethrower, and I agree with that it is pretty bad overall but I still use it as a utility kit, making the 5 skill a smoke field would give it better utility and usefulness which would allow for extra stealth possibilities as well. Add that and burning per hit to flame jet and it just might become widely viable for once.

I am tired of taking flak for using the flamethrower in serious gameplay.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Bloodgruve.6038:

GK, I would respectfully ask, how have you validated your calculated DPS values? I’ve seen your spreadsheet, its impressive and you have a lot going on, but what can you say for its accuracy?

I personally don’t get the opportunity, nor do most people I would suspect, to run in an organized group that makes these numbers possible.

Appreciated,

Blood~

I’m sure the spreadsheet is correct since the formula’s pretty simple and hard to mess up and it’s the same formula I use for all classes. If the grenade number is inflated it’s similarly inflated for warriors, etc.

I’ve also run in organized groups and with full buffs I typically hit between 2 to 2.5k per regular grenade and around 3.5k per Shrapnel. That’s per grenade so if a normal volley is 6k, the Shrapnel is about 1k. So every five seconds you throw 4 regular volleys + 1 Shrapnel = 6000 × 4000 + 10,000 = 34000 over 5 seconds, which is about 7k give or take. Bleed ticks for about 100 each with 30 in Firearms + 25 Might stacks so you get about 100 per bleed x 25 = 2500. So that’s 9.5k and I run support spec with Giver’s weapons and Traveler’s Runes. Switch Giver’s to Zerker and Traveler’s to Scholar and 10.5k is easy.

So what that basically boils down to is that it adds up both mathematically and anecdotally.

Per grenade? I haven’t been following this thread very closely so i kinda missed whatever spreadsheet has been mentioned and I wanna see that. Also can you get me a screenshot of that combat log if you haven’t provided one already?

Tom.8029:

When a thief uses stealth, you have a few options:
1) Use something that protects yourself.
2) Use something that punishes the thief for hitting you.
3) Anticipate a strike while they’re in stealth and dodge.
4) Use an AoE that damages the thief and stand in it.

For example, I’m an elementalist and one thing I like to do is use Shocking Aura. The moment they attack, they get revealed and they get stunned for hitting me, allowing me to attack.

Like this guy said, as an engineer I drop a knockback mine.

As an engineer that abuses stealth as much as I possibly can I am against this nerf to stealth. But I completely agree that it would be fair for combat damage to cause a reveal.

+1
all the yes

Was fighting champion corrupted wolfmaster and threw my shield at his whirling defense which threw it back at me so I used my shield reflect which sent my shield back at him and this time it hit and interrupted him. I tried it again and the same thing happened.

I’m not sure why but when I first read the title the first thing I thought of was condition cleanse…

Did anyone else get really exited as a new engi when they saw mortar as an elite skill and hoped for something with awesome range and damage?
Because I feel betrayed and I have for a long time. Now we all know there are many problems with this skill, but shouldn’t the range on it be at least 2000?

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Honestly, the fact that a Rifle/Bomb setup does exactly the same DPS as a grenade/pistol setup but loses out on might and vuln and is stuck at melee range clearly indicates the problem more than anything.

wut…

Have we called troll yet? Because if not I call troll.

This is awesome.

Like I said before the build is pretty solid so your runes and sigils are fine it really just comes down to personal preference with the runes. I don’t have any experience with runes of the water but they look like they should work great, I’d just suggest looking up the amount the extra healing it gives is and how well it scales. If you decide you don’t like runes of the water then you could try dolyak for the extra regen which would stack on top of the backpack regenerator, or melandru for the reduced stun and condition durations.

Grenades work well in wvw for almost any situation. Speedy kits is fantastic. And elixir gun is great in group combat for healing condition cleanse, aoe poison, and weakness on the auto attack.
If you just play around with the traits points and abilities you should find what you are looking for.
If you are looking for good mobility then rocket boots, nades, and elixir gun will work fine. You could also try slick shoes because the tool belt skill gives ridiculous speed in combat even while crippled.

True, but there is a time and a place for everything like control builds with a little more survivability. I understand it can’t do as much damage as nades or bombs but it still has its place right?

My point is I don’t like anyone to discredit any build for any reason. Yes it is possible to make a bad build but good builds come out of people experimenting.
And in other news detonating turrets was fixed to no longer trigger sd XD
Also sorry I’m being a little silly, I’m a little bit drunk and tired, and I understand why you would say no turrets, but why no double pistol?

Xyonon.3987:

Just DON’T go for a flamethrower, double pistol or turret build in PvE …

I strongly resent that good sir.

Doctor Beetus runs a turret sd build.

Corrupt boon against an hgh engi…
gg

Yeah the grenade takes a bit of getting used to with well timed stealth and stability but with tougher armor sets works great in solo roaming. But if you are already planning to run with a group the sd build will work wonders. You will be able to insta down some players. You just have to avoid being targeted which means sticking back a little.
You also seem to know your kitten so you shouldn’t have too hard a time with whatever build you choose.

Rifles, bombs, and nades scale fantastically with power and there are plenty of builds out there that capitalize on that.

I enjoy engineer immensely because to win I have to press a lot of buttons in quick succession at the right time. Playing this class sometimes feels like playing a piano.

There are so many builds you could use effectively in dungeons and pve so imma post my silly kinda tanky cc ft build.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcMQFAUlIqaZn1SZF1LJyoCdGIF51dJSh+ZZfUQXPIA-jUyAYfASEQyrIasVuwW6CSFMaq6Irrx0wCpA-w

You can play around with the armor sets and run it with more zerkers or more knights or soldiers depending on what you want.
You can also swap throw mine for bomb kit.
This build focuses around blasting fire and water fields with its impressive 6 blast finishers.

Edit: I run this in fractals with soldiers armor and it has enough survivability and damage to keep me happy and enough might stacking and water blasting to keep the group happy.

What do you want to do in wvw?

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fcMQJAqelIqic3zyuF1LJyoCdGoC6lIFYm+95hcxWRIA-jkCBYgAYhgEEAkFgZoFRjtsuIasqaRWXDTDLp6YAA-w
And yes I know I’m running runes of perplexity, but they work so I’m not changing them.

You’ve got the right idea but honestly switching around your armor traits and abilities just a little could go a long way.

For abilities I understand not wanting to use 3 kits and I agree rocket boots are fantastic but you really should change out medkit for healing turret because the blast finisher and condition cleanse do wonders for survival.
I would also strongly recommend changing out elixir b for elixir gun because as it has already been said elixir gun offers some great utility abilities as well as another condition cleanse with healing.

For your traits your points look fine for what you want to do the only big change I would strongly recommend is changing fast-acting elixirs to protection injection because it is one of the best possible traits for survival in wvw.

And for armor I would recommend getting rid of any condition damage armor. Just split it between clerics and soldiers for a decent amount of survival mixed with healing.

Tl;dr
Healing turret and elixer gun. Protection Injection. No condition armor.

You’ve got a perfectly fine glass cannon sd build right there. There can be some variations to the traits and abilities but for the most part that is personal preference so there isn’t anything wrong with that build.

For grenades if you wanna go glass cannon I’m assuming you are looking for power and an hgh grenade build isn’t bad at all.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcIQFAUlspSXHxSfF17ICoC6loHPGlNZfeMfPIEC-jUCBYfAkFAJPFRjtyJalOBpCKs6aYKXER1WzDZGA-w

The sd build will have guaranteed higher burst damage but the hgh grenade build has better condi removal and range, with the added bonus of stealth and stability which gives it more versatility in some situations.

There are plenty of good armor combinations for conditions, though I’d recommend celestial if you wanna be able to switch between builds with one armor set.

Can you imagine how awesome an engi would be with hammer stuns.
But as far as I know there has been no talk from the devs to give engis hammers and theres a good chance it won’t happen, but an engi can hope.

What traits do you plan on running, and do you want to go for condition damage or power?

Why can’t Elixir H give protection, swiftness, and regen instead of one at random?

No one comes here to complain that engis are op

Why hasn’t this been addressed yet? This has been a big deal for a lot of people since launch and this thread is incredibly visible.

When I ran wvw raiding with a guild as an engineer they used both power and condition grenadiers

power build
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQJAqelIq6dHxy5F1LJyoCdWIFSohJqQl95x8xWQIA-j0yAYsASQAILgEBkEYR0YbDFRjVXjpKFkVnJ1bEZ/hQqQAlXAA-w

condition build
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQJAqelIq6dHxy5F1LJyoCdWoCFmIFYm+95xbxWQIA-jUCB4MBkWAgsAkIAJFqIasl1FRjVXDTliIq2HgIqWIgyLAA-w

these builds are made for group combat and don’t have very good sustainability but can pump out decent pressure, they also have plenty of room for playing around with different armors, traits, and abilities.

I’m just imagining a thumper turret working exactly the same but with legs.
“Go Cripply Go, get that warrior!”
and with the overcharge and detonation…
that sounds fantastic

The targeting on flame blast could be tweaked a bit, it doesn’t detonate on contact with a wall or the ground and will go right through, it also doesn’t aoe in front of you if you have no one targeted which makes it a requirement to have a target with that skill.
Making smoke vent no only aoe blind but stun break would be nice.
Air Blast could use a slight range increase.
And if flame jet caused burning on each hit instead of just on the last attack it would be much better.

And for all kits it would be nice if the base damage was increased to ascended.

Arantheal, he was actually replying to me and trying to give helpful criticism which is what I asked for in the original post.

I’d appreciate it if you stopped trying to tear everyone down and instead posted helpful criticism and relative information.

Slick shoes can be fantastic even just for the tool kit Super Speed because it double movement speed even in combat regardless of chill or cripple. Though if it is a choice between slick shoes and rocket boost it is a difficult choice which mostly depends on your play style. Though they also work fantastic together on one build giving terrific mobility for wvw.

http://www.guildwars2hub.com/guides/professions/engineer-build-guide-hghtoolkit
that one isn’t

You don’t think the might and fire field are a worthwhile tradeoff?

That was pretty awesome