Guild Wars 2

One thing to keep in mind is Bloodthirst doesn’t affect the damage Life Siphoning does, only the healing portion is increased.

Anyway, I was thinking about Life Siphoning and came up with the following ideas:

Damage to scale off either Power or Condition Damage (Which ever gives the highest boost will be used)

0.5 * Level + (0.03 * Power)

0.5 * Level + (0.035 * Condition Damage)

While the heal scales off Healing Power:

0.5 * Level + (0.04 * Healing Power)

This would mean that with full Power set up (Full Soldiers + Soldiers Crests on weapons + Ascended + Food + Sharpening Stone + 25 Bloodlust stacks + 25 stacks of Might + 30/0/25/15/0) it would deal up to 158 damage per proc.

With a full Condition damage set up (Full Carrion/Rabid + Rabid Crests on weapons + Ascended + Food + Tuning Crystal + 25 Corruption stacks + 25 stacks of Might + 0/30/0/15/0) it would deal up to 141 damage per proc.

With full Clerics gear (Clerics Crests on weapons + Food) it would heal up to 101 health per proc.

I’d also change the traits slightly to reflect the higher damage/healing it can do:

Vampiric being changed to a Master Major Trait requiring a Major slot and at least 20 points into the Blood Magic Trait Line.

Something like Mark of Evasion replacing Vampiric as the Master Minor Trait (Most other classes get a small effect on dodge as a Minor trait, I think a slightly lesser Mark of Blood with a 10 second cooldown would qualify)

Bloodthirst becoming “Increases the healing provided by Siphon Health by 50% when you’re under 25% health”

Vampiric Precision becoming Vampiric Embrace “10% Chance to Siphon Life when hit. 2 second cooldown”

This should mean that Life Siphoning would be a viable way to go in a build without becoming too powerful (Can only gear for either the Damage or the healing, not able to max both) as it would at best do about 350 DPS (Full PVT exotics on Dagger #1) sustained but wouldn’t heal very much, 150 HPS in the same gear (Regen in the same gear does 170 HPS) this is provided you can stay in melee long enough to keep getting the full effect of Dagger autos off, anything less dramatically reduces the DPS and HPS it provides.

My level 35 Norn Necro.

Using T1 Cultural (Legs, gloves and Shoes (Not shown)
T2 Cultural (Chest)
Vigil (Shoulders)
Also Demon Masque starting item.

Dyes are:
Light = Blue Ice
Trim = Antique Gold
Base = Scarlet for Shoulders and legs, Evening Red for Chest, Hands and Shoes.

Hmm… I’ve filled up the 250 slots in the collections tab of my bank, I’ve sold a stack of 250 and 3 of my characters have stacks of 100-250 in their bags of Sticks of Butter.

If anything, I’d like them to reduce the drop rate of sticks of butter.

Cooking can’t be compared to other crafting skills since there are major differences between them:

• Cooking has a warning saying it is tougher to do than other crafting skills.
• Cooking is a net loss of money since you can’t vendor or salvage anything that’s made.
• A lot of cooking ingredients comes from loot bags instead of salvageable materials and resource nodes.

This does mean that by the time you’ve leveled up a character to level 80, you’ll often have a tonne of cooking supplies that can be used on another character you make but does make it a lot tougher to level up with the skill for the first time.

I use Healing Turret.

Med Kit is very powerful and if you go into tools the cooldown on the tool belt heal becomes pretty short. You can also use it to get perma swiftness via Speedy Kits even if you’re not using offensive kits.

Elixir H is good if you’ve got into Alchemy and are focused around elixirs (HGH and 409 being very beneficial to Elixir H)

I prefer the Healing Turret though, as picking it up reduces it’s cooldown with no need for traits, it also provides regen and allows multiple water fields (When it heals it has a very short water field that it can be detonated in. It’s tool belt skills provides a Water field, which I detonate Rifle Turret in for extra healing)

Prism.5649:

Now if you take lore out of the question, I do think it would be pretty cool to introduce scythes to the game because as long as you don’t think about the usefulness of the weapon too much it looks really awesome.

I’ve read many a debate about the usefulness of Scythes in actual combat (Including the fights where peasants used them as make-shift weapons, Warscythes (Which are essentially halberds) etc)

I’ve even designed a few scythes myself in order to try and see if one could theoretically be used as an actual weapon and came up with the idea of essentially a Battle Axe with a single double edged blade at the end using arcing horizontal swings (As opposed to Axes downward cleaves) as a way to hit an opponent in the sides and from behind (Where armour tends to be weaker – Hence vulnerability in my suggested attacks) would be a functional way to fight, as long as you can keep distance mind (Close range would get you slaughtered, but it’s similar for Battle Axes)

As far as scythes go for combat with current classes:

Not all classes need to use dark magic with them, some could rely purely on the steel they hold and their skills in combat to cause deep bleeding cuts and open vulnerable areas in armour (Warrior and to a lesser extent Thief)

Some classes can use it purely as a focus for magic, using it natural arc as a basis for large area spells as opposed to a single target precision tool (Elementalist and to a lesser extent Necro)

Some could use it as a way to reap peoples souls, damaging their very essence and taking command over Life of Death (Necro and Guardian – Guardians could take people’s souls to be redeemed, they could use the scythes power over life and death to engrave poweful supportive Symbols into the ground etc)

There are many possibilities other than the “Hit things and steal their souls” which I’m using as a basis for these Necro abilities.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Oddly, my first question is this:

Who else would get the scythe?

Guardians would be a good choice due to Dervishes.

Of course Warriors would also have the option due to being masters of arms.

There could also be a case where thieves could get a scythe though very unlikely, it’d give them a 2 handed melee weapon that also allows them to use more “Dark” skills (Shadow Refuge is a Dark field, this could be extended into more shadowy/dark based weapon skills)

I like the single arm sleeve, I’m a fan of asymmetry in armour designs.

I do wish that the sleeve didn’t interfere with gloves though, as it is at the moment the right hand glove will always be a small glove, even when using gauntlet style gloves.

Yes, yes, this probably has been suggested before, but I’d like to put together a move set that could be utilized if scythes are added to Necro’s.

What role would a scythe take?
Looking at weapon choices Necros lack:

• An AoE weapon for Power Builds (Staff leans more towards Conditions)
• A 2 handed melee weapon
• A melee weapon with cleave

These points make Scythes look like a promising addition to the Necro repertoire this along with the fact that a staple mechanic of the class is to REAP the LIFE FORCE out of enemies both during combat and once killing which can be likened to the mythos of Death using a scythe to reap souls, does make the class seem like an ideal platform to use scythes!

Onto the skills then:

1. Chain:
   Swipe – Swipe at your foe. 200 damage.
   Slice – Slice at your foe gaining life force. 210 damage 1% life force per enemy hit.
   Slash – Slash at all nearby foes, gaining life force and causing vulnerability. 250 damage, 2% life force per enemy hit, 1 stack of vulnerability for 5 seconds.
2. Dark Beginnings – Strike nearby targets with shadow scythes inflicting vulnerability. 2×350 damage, 2 stacks of vulnerability for 10 seconds, 10 second cooldown.
3. Dark Rift – Teleport to targeted foe causing chill in the area. 250 damage, Chill for 4 seconds. 20 second cooldown, 600 range.
4. Reapers Doom – Strike your target and cause cripple. 350 damage, Cripple for 4 seconds. 25 second cooldown.
5. Reap! – Pull nearby foes to you, inflict vulnerability and gain life force. 500 damage, 2 stacks of vulnerability for 10 seconds, 5% life force per target hit, 600 range, 30 second cooldown.

The damage and conditions could be adjusted, I was just using some values I feel would be appropriate based off of other 2 handed weapon skill sets (Greatswords mostly). I think I got the main points into this, the skills show that fighting multiples is beneficial whilst it also has tools to get into and to stay in melee range which would help with Power builds (People have used Axes due to the difficulties of staying close enough to do damage with main hand dagger)

My main concern is (Aside from Scythes being brought into the game) is how it’s Life Force generation compares, especially when the burst Axe/Focus can generate and the sustained capable from Dagger/X and Staff.

I’ve seen a few people use 0/20/0/20/30 Build to good effect.

I personally used a 0/20/0/30/20 Build with Might on Dodge food for higher survivability (Either Assassins Reward or Pain Response as the 30 trait from Acro) and some Might stacks that last a bit longer (10% extra boon duration from the extra 10 Acro)

It went very well when leveling as I could keep 20+ Stacks of Bleed up on most things (25 Stacks when I could steal the Scale that gives a few stacks of Bleed or when I could use my Racial Skill for an extra 3 stacks)

I could also survive long enough for the Bleeds to do their thing since I had the additional healing coming in.

Taril.8619:

Well, when it comes down to it:
SB > HS in terms of speed (No needing to stand still for a second when starting a chain of IA’s)
HS > SB in terms of Init usage (Uses the same amount per movement but HS favours the slower regen of init that comes from passives such as the default regen + Regen trait + regen signet)
HS > SB when under speed enhancing effects (Swiftness, Signet of Shadows) as it increases the distance HS goes while reducing the effect of SB (By the time the arrow has flown there with the additional speed it actually moves you less than the max range)
SB > HS when NPC’s are nearby as HS will put you in combat if you hit one.
SB > HS if you have auto-target on as there’s definitive control over it.
SB > HS for burst movement (Can do all 1800 range possible with 12 init in 2 quick casts rather than needing the 4 HS)
SB > HS for direction changing (HS likes to just go forwards, while SB can be placed)
HS > SB if you’re not good at hitting the max range with ground locations abilities.

I posted this into another thread that asked about it.

Corruption = Up to 250 Condition damage
25 stacks of Might = 875 Power and 875 Condition damage
Battle = Up to 210 Power and 210 Condition damage (With no Boon duration)

If you’re going Condition Damage I’d assume that you’d be using P/P which does mean you can and probably should use both…

Question:

If you put a cap on crit damage achievable (Some suggestions of 60% or 5% per piece of armour in this thread) then what stop everyone and their cat hitting the cap with glass cannon gear and then using the REST of their gearslots to put in tanky stats?

As doing this would mean that Glass Cannons would be doing max damage without having to lose out on defences (They’d remove the Glass out of the “Glass Cannon” while your capping of the Crit bonus is removing the Cannon)

zachzak.3185:

Andrax.4576:

Finally finished building my Mesmers armor and weapons.

Could Anyone tell me these gloves?

Also if you could, what are the dye colors you used? i like how they look

They would appear to be the Heavenly Bracers from the Hall of Monuments.

Unsure on exactly what dyes are used as I don’t know how they react to that specific set of gloves…

Ehhh… I was thinking about what I’d do to make a Sniper Kit Elite skill, including aspects of what the Engineer profession is about – Versatility, Support etc.

I came up with an idea to have a #5 ability that alters how the 1-4 abilities function:

So my ideas

5 – Swaps the current loaded ammunition. Armour Piercing – Hollow Point – Charged. The skill has no cooldown (Doesn’t reset ability cooldowns) and swaps to the next ammo (AP > HP > C > AP > HP > C etc)

4 – Active Defence (1 second cast) [800 – 1200 range]
Armour Piercing – Places a wall of reflective steel down that reflect projectiles.
Hollow Point – Throw down a wall of Caltrops that applies Cripple and Bleeding to foes that pass through it.
Charged – Places a static field down that stun foes that pass over it (Lightning Field)

3 – Burst fire (2 second channel) [800 – 1000 range]
Armour Piercing – Fire 4 shots into the target that cause moderate damage and pierce – also pushes you back (No knockdown)
Hollow Point – Fire 4 shots into the target that cause low damage but apply 2 stacks of bleed – also pushes you back (No knockdown)
Charged – Fire 4 shots into the target that cause low damage but apply Vulnerability, Blindness and a chance for Daze to enemies they bounce to – also pushes you back (No knockdown)

2 – Snipe (3 second cast) [1500-1800 range]
Armour Piercing – High damage and extra critical chance pierces the target.
Hollow Point – Moderate damage and causes 4-5 stacks of bleed.
Charged – Moderate damage but causes Daze and Blindness on targets it bounces to.

1 – Quick Shot (1/2 second cast) [1200-1500 range]
Armour Piercing – Provides moderate damage and pierces the target.
Hollow Point – Provides low damage but creates a stack of bleed on the target (5-6 seconds)
Charged – Provides moderate damage and bounces between targets.

Sort of having Armour Piercing providing a high burst damage and some limited AoE, Hollow Point being available to use in Condition Builds while Charged ammo being a controlling support ammunition with the ability to swap between them to get certain effects for some skills.

Goloith.6349:

Does sigil of force increase condition damage?

No, percentage damage increases (From Sigils, Runes or Traits) don’t affect Conditions.

Goloith.6349:

If it doesn’t I suppose the sigil of accuracy is the way to go (after you got your 25 stacks of condition or precision)

I guess that depends on your setup and other Sigil.

After getting the 25 stacks of whatever you have several choices to go -

Proc Sigils –
Fire
Air
Battle (If using a kit)
Strength
Earth
Geomancy (If using a kit)
Rage

Non-Proc Sigils -
Accuracy
Force (Even if it doesn’t affect conditions, all skills do at least some direct damage)
Smouldering (Only useful if it would provide an additional tick when combined with other sources)
Agony (Only useful if it would provide an additional tick when combined with other sources)

Then of course there is also the option of putting an Orb in your off-hand instead, which could provide some extra stats.

I’ve tried working the coefficient out and I believe it is something like 3.36.

Meaning that a completely naked Kill Shot would have the formula:

1095.5 * 916 * 3.36 / 2600 = 1296 which is what the tooltip would say for a level 3 adrenaline hit if it wasn’t bugged and didn’t take into account weapon damage.

While I don’t know the coefficient for it the way to get the most damage out of it is via:

More Power
More Critical Damage
More Critical Chance

So essentially Zerker gear.

I will try figuring out the coefficient at some point…

So, I’m getting a bit bored with the air of negativity that resides around Engineers, what with the complaints that the class is “Half finished” or that it is “Terrible and lacks damage” I wanted to try and get some positivity out there whilst also being constructive.

A good way to achieve this is for Engie players (Whom have spent a lot of time with the profession and will have usually tried out many builds) to state what their top 3 favourite traits are (Out of all 60 Major and 15 Minor) and why they are their favourite. This can help with designing changes to the more lackluster traits to make them not only viable but also enjoyable.

I’ll start with my 3 favourites:

• Static Discharge – It affects a core mechanic of the class meaning it can fit into multiple builds or even be a main focus of a build. It enhances abilities yet they don’t feel artificially weakened to make the trait feel necessary for usage (See: Turrets)

• Incendiary Powder – A very powerful “On crit” trait that offers something completely unique, as no other class can provide Burning on crit (Not even through Sigils) this improves both high crit and also condition builds thus making it semi-versatile.

• Adrenaline Pump – A very nice trait (Aside from the bug that prevents if from working with Turret tool belt skills) as it would provide a lot of Endurance to a Tool Belt focused build while also allowing burst Endurance for builds that don’t use the tool belt skills as often.

The highest the Rifle #2 can theoretically go is 4 second duration (Requiring 100% condition duration to achieve)

30% condition duration from Explosives trait line, 10% from 2x Superior Lyssa runes, 10% from either 2x Mad King runes or 4x Nightmare, 40% from Rare Veggie Pizza = 90% duration increase.

These would result in a 3.8 second immobilize from Rifle #2 and a 5.7 second immobilize from Net Turret tool belt skill.

Condition Duration has no effect on Knock-down and would not effect Rifle #4.

Accuracy and Force sigils do work together.

The lack of a change on the Hero panel is likely a display issue (Other things are not displayed there such as Rune bonuses)

Sigil of Force will work on off-hand pistol to increase all Direct Damage you deal by 5% (Percentage modifiers don’t affect condition damage though).

Sigils on off-hand weapons work exactly the same as main hand ones the only difference is if a proc from the main hand and off-hand occurs at the same time the main hand one will take precedent.

DanH.5879:

i “mug” ppl for more than 5k, i think your calculations are wrong mate.

Mug calculation:
(With full Zerker gear and Ascended stuff allowing for 110% crit damage on a 10/30/30/0/0 glass cannon build)

981 * 2200 * (1.5*3.15) / 1000 = 10197.496 (Rounded to 10,197)

This doesn’t include outside effects such as Bloodlust, First Strike (10% more damage), any Might stacks from stealthing or armour used by players.

With the same gear a backstab in the same build would do:

981 * 2200 * (2.405*3.15) / 1000 = 16349.98365 (Rounded to 16,350)

Which would allow for 5k Mug hits and 10k Backstab hit even on players with armour

For the Personal Battering Ram, I’d probably just lower the cooldown on it… Something like 30 seconds base (24 when traited) maybe even 25 seconds (20 when traited)

I’ve been using the Ram a lot lately, and the only thing that keeps me from using the Utility part often is the really long cooldown on it…

Resonance.4216:

If you can’t tell the difference between your attacks and your bleed/burn/poison damage, then this game is too advanced for your level.

I can tell the difference, I’d just like to have it colour coded so that it is easier, especially when you’ve got high Condition Damage and have Burning, Poison and multiple stacks of Bleeds going on multiple targets so all you see is a big clump of numbers overlapping each other.

Resonance.4216:

Boomerang skills are meant to provide bonuses to you when they return. Therefore, cast them in a way that doesn’t clip with the environment.

The thing is, a lot of the time they come into contact with a pebble on the ground or fights take place in completely enclosed areas or on a slight incline and then these skills have their damage reduced by half.

1) Improvements/changes to the scrolling combat text -

• Allow “Multi-hit” abilities to show the damage of each individual hit by the side of the large number showing the total.
• Colour coded condition damage, to be able to easily tell how much specific conditions are doing in a fight.
• Allow size changing of numbers shown (Both for damage dealt and damage taken)

2) Adjust “Boomerang” skills such as Bladetrail, Path of Scars and Throw Wrench so that if they meet a wall or edge of a cliff like structure they return rather than disappearing into the ether… [Note – Disregard if this will cause issues with enemies that are stood against a wall that would cause these abilities to hit much more than the 2 hits they should do]

3) Auto-deposit collectables option to put any collectables that are looted directly into the bank’s collectable storage (It would also solve the issue with Mini’s due to getting them out of the bank shouldn’t be classed as “Looting” them)

4) Add a small personal bank that is unique to characters that can have Soulbound items deposited into it.

Hmm… I could probably guess which would be the most popular disabled traits:

Reanimator – The thing is pretty useless and aggro’s things, also very low into the tree so is unavoidable.

Last Refuge – Often procs mid CnD so thieves get revealed debuff rather than the stealth they needed.

Reckless Dodge – Prevents actions until the attack it causes has been dealt (Essentially a 1-1.5 second daze on the warrior in exchange for a short range hit, which when you normally dodge AWAY from someone…)

These ones would probably get turned off by most even if it provided no benefit to do so (Other than having these often detrimental traits not being active)

Then there are other traits that’d get turned off in order to max out stats (15% Crit damage, 15% boon duration, 15% condition duration?)

Instead, being able to choose from a small pool would probably be best (As well as allowing builds to be made utilizing the 5/15/25 traits as a finishing point in a line more often)

Dutchares.6084:

Most classes dont have quickness

Actually, most classes have Quickness, but only 3 have traits that provide it (Theif, Ranger and Warrior).

Thief – Haste (4 seconds) and Critical Haste (2 Seconds)
Ranger – Quickening Zephyr (4 seconds) and Zephyr’s Speed (2 seconds)
Warrior – Frenzy (4 seconds) and Last Chance (4 seconds)
Mesmer – Time Warp (10 second field, provides 11 seconds of Quickness)
Guardian – Zealot’s Fervor (3 seconds)
Engineer – Elixir U (5 seconds)

As it stands, Engineers get the highest duration to cooldown ratio of a skill (Especially as they can reduce the cooldown of the skill by 20%) but it’s riskier to use than others as the downside of using it is random which disallows setting it up.

JazzAnarchy.2783:

I’m a little confused, because you say things like “Engineers have no such trait [quickness]” when you can gain swiftness everytime you switch to a kit.

Quickness =/= Swiftness.
Swiftness = 33% movement speed increase.
Quickness = All actions are performed 100% faster.

ExTribble.7108:

They don’t want lvl 80’s hampering lower level players, i.e. killing mobs spawned in a DE so fast that lower leveled players can’t get any credit for participation.

Though that does still happen, even when it’s something like a level 20 going to a level 15 place, if they have up to date gear then things die very quickly (At level players usually can’t even get a hit in).

ceg.2587:

it would be great that if you are in a zone which is 10 lvls less than yours, only veteran to bosses will attack you automaticlly.

But that’d just make Map Completion trivial, since you’d not have to worry about anything in your way which makes the reward for doing it (Exotics in the higher level zones, items for legendaries from 100% completion etc) just a free gift since all you’d really have actually try for is the level 80 zones rather than putting in some effort for ALL zones.

Tyaen.5148:

You should be carrying a third weapon, and once you get your 25 stacks switching out to a different sigil anyway.

As far as I’m aware 2 stacking Sigils will not work together (Even when swapping out, or at least Corruption + Bloodlust don’t) and using other Sigils will interfere with cooldowns of procs unless I go for one of the condition duration runes (Which are pretty useless unless they take you to a point where you gain an additional tick, which since most Engie conditions are 2 second base duration would mean 50% and 100% for extra ticks)

Tyaen.5148:

Taril.8619:

I could theoretically also go for Dual Corruption or Dual Bloodlust to get the stacks twice as fast…

Are you saying if you kill a single mob you are getting 2 stacks?

Yes, you get 2 stacks if you have the same stacking sigil on 2 weapons. One of the reasons why a few people carry around 2 weapons with their intended stacking sigil on to get the stacks really quick and then swap back.

Well the Condition Damage from Adventure runes totals 183:

Burning – 46 damage per tick
Bleeding – 9 damage per tick per stack
Poison – 18 damage per tick
Confusion – 27 damage per tick per stack

I’ve recently swapped my food around to the 40% condition duration (Combined with Explosives trait lines 10% gets to 50% total duration bonus) which allows me to have Poison and Burning up 100% of the time as well as 4-5 stacks of bleeding which adds up to a lot of DPS (The runes condition damage providing ~109 DPS alone).

The runes also provide 50 Power (Not quite up to the 120 Power from Ruby Orbs but it is something)

Then I have to weigh the 12% critical damage and 84 precision against the Endurance refill when I use a heal skill (Which considering I’m glass cannon with 15k HP and no additional toughness with this setup would literally be a life saver)

Though it is possible to go full Zerker and try to blow things up in the initial burst with huge direct damage….

If it’s possible, I’d like to keep to a plan of mostly DD with some half decent CD on the side (For things with high toughness, Protection boons, Weakness conditions the CD will be very effective)

Been thinking about Sigils some more whilst exploding stuff:
Earth vs Strength – Stats = 300 CD from traits, 183 CD from Runes, 70 CD from Food (553 total) + 10% condition duration from traits, 40% condition duration from Food (50% total)

Earth = 60% proc chance, 2 second cooldown – 1 bleed for 5 seconds base (7.5 seconds with buffs) so the bleed will do 71 damage per tick (7 ticks = 497 damage per proc)

Strength = 30% proc chance, 2 second cooldown – 1 stack of might for 10 seconds (35 Power and Condition damage)
Burning increase – 9 per tick (Over 10 seconds will be 90 damage per proc)
Bleeding increase – 2 per tick (Over 10 seconds will be 20 damage per proc per stack – 5 stacks rolling would be 100 damage per proc)
Poison increase – 4 per tick (Over 10 seconds will be 40 damage per proc)
Confusion increase – 5 per tick per stack

Due to Might buffing conditions retroactively it means that the Might proc will do on average (Assuming I maintain conditions) 230 condition damage (Discounting Confusion as that will have 37% uptime if used on cooldown rather than saved for opportunistic times) but will also increase DD by a small amount (I’ll take Lanny’s 1% figure for it)

If I can get a feel for 1% of my direct damage I should be able to gauge the benefit of the Might over the additional bleed.

As it looks for the moment adding in additional Condition Duration makes Earth the superior sigil (At least for single targets, the Strength will have an equal effect on all targets and will pretty much guarantee 5 stacks when it can proc off any target hit and will stack on me rather than on the specific mob)

What I’d give for a tool that gave a damage breakdown as well as a sufficient dummy(s) to attack to test these things…

I could recommend some traits:

Explosives 10 – chance for burning on crit (33% chance for 2 second burn)
Alchemy 10 – 5 seconds of Vigor when gaining Swiftness

Grabbing some Shaman (Toughness/Condition Damage/Healing Power) or Carrion (Condition Damage/Power/Vitality) gear could help increase condition damage and tankiness (Though it’s still good to have some precision for a decent crit chance)

Here’s something I put together based off your current stats and utilities:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQJAqal0pyXn1yuF1LJxoCdG0j8WX8KSR+b8nCsF;T4AAzyrEcJtS1liLqvMFJKy+l7L5XjKmEA

Features:
About 1.7k Condition damage
About 2.8k Toughness
52% crit chance
19k health
50% extra burn duration (10% from Explosives line, 20% from Firearms trait, 20% from runes)

A good thing to try if you’re wanting to test out builds is to go to the Mists and having a look at how they play and such (Useful for checking out different stats, runes and any utilities and elites you may not have unlocked)

It’s what I did when I started my newest Engie, went into the Mists, messed around with various builds and ended up finding a combination of traits and utilities that just clicked for me.

Then while leveling up, a certain amount of refinement was done to truly make the build (Some refinement is still going on, as evidenced by my thread I started when I was wondering about Sigils)

While I could list off a number of builds that are effective for leveling, Engineer is a class with enough playstyles that it is beneficial to test things out for yourself

Well, it depends on what you want.

Perma-swiftness is very nice especially for WvWvW.

Whilst Kit Refinement would provide additional damage and healing
(http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Kit_Refinement)

To be honest, I’d say that the Speedy Kits would be more beneficial for WvWvW and sPvP whilst Kit Refinement being more beneficial for PvE

That said, since it’s just a trait you can freely swap between them when out of combat.

Goloith.6349:

Still going to put my weight behind the Rifle. It offers very comparable damage damage and it is really the “Alpha” damage that hurts people.

I’m aware of that, but I decided I didn’t want to use a rifle for a few reasons:

1) I’ve been playing a GS/Rifle Warrior and didn’t want to play another rifle user too much. (One of my first Engineers was also a Rifle engie)

2) I didn’t like how the skills work against each other (#3 and #5 preferring melee range to maximise damage whilst #2 and #4 actively work against things being close)

3) P/P is more active with multiple skills to use that have short cooldowns (Aside from Glue shot…) thus making it funner for me.

4) Dual pistols look amazing (Even when taking into account the scarcity of good pistol skins and the silliness that comes from an off-hand pistol not doing much a lot of the time (I don’t know why Engie off hand weapon skills couldn’t be dual skills, considering they can only have 1 main hand weapon…))

Goloith.6349:

It’s one of the reason two-handers in WoW were far superior than two 1-handers because the enemy had a hard time adjusting to large chunks of life being taken away verses a steady stream by two 1-handers.

That was mostly due to the damage modifiers that allowed skills (Since for a lot of the time the same skills where used for both 2H and 1H weapons, only recently have more skills become unique to each style and those that aren’t have different modifiers depending on what is being wielded) to become so much more powerful when using a 2H weapon. A good example of this is Warriors and their Heroic Strike that does X% of main hand weapon damage (Which is often 1.5-2 times higher for 2H weapons than for 1H)

On Topic:
I’ve been looking at damage formulas for things (I can’t seem to find the formula for Sigil of Fire, only that it uses a coefficient of 1)

With full Zerker gear, Adventure runes and 30 points into Firearms (483 CD) as my base

Burning – 328 + (0.25 * Condition damage) – 449 Damage per tick
Bleeding – 43 + (0.05 * Condition damage) – 67 Damage per tick per stack
Poison – 84 + (0.1 * Condition damage) – 132 Damage per tick
Confusion – 130 + (0.15 * Condition damage) – 202 Damage per tick per stack

3/4/5 Might stacks would increase damage by:
Burning – 26 (5.7%)/35 (7.7%)/44 (9.7%) per tick
Bleeding – 5 (7.8%)/7 (10.4%)/9 (13%) per tick per stack
Poison – 11 (8.3%)/14 (10.6%)/18 (13.6%) per tick
Confusion – 16 (7.9%)/21 (10.3%)/26 (12.8%) per tick per stack

Full stacks of corruption (250 CD) would increase damage by:
Burning – 63 (14%) per tick
Bleeding – 13 (19.4%) per tick per stack
Poison – 25 (18.9%) per tick
Confusion – 38 (18.8%) per tick per stack

Which does show that Condition damage is extremely effective percentage wise. Though with lack of DPS meters and such it’s very hard to determine what percentage of my overall damage comes from conditions (Since 250 CD wouldn’t be a 17% increase to DPS, only a percentage of damage would be effected by it and even then there’s stacks of Bleeding/Confusion as well as Burning + Poison uptime to consider)

But these numbers do support a decision of Earth and Corruption Sigils (Due to each proc of Earth will do a bleed of 335 (Base)/400 (25 stacks of corruption) and will happen up to 2 times per Sigil of Fire proc (5 second cooldown vs 2 second cooldown)) or even a Strength and Corruption combination.

That is until I can find the information to calculate an average damage increase from Bloodlust and Fire sigils…

My level 29 Engie.

Makes me realise a few things:

There are very few fingerless gloves in-game.

I really want weapon dyes.

It’s hard to get on top of a mountain when there are so many invisible walls preventing photo opportunities…

Their gapclosers only work in a straight line (You can exploit that by strafing)

Their gapclosers are also affected by movement speed (Cripple and Chill will reduce how far they go to the point of making the gapclosers useless)

They have no real way to stop damage taken other than building for toughness (Reducing their damage output) so apply damage to them and they won’t be able to evade/block/heal it up very easily.

kamandi.4798:

Please post what you would have liked to have known when you first rolled a Thief!

What I’d have liked to know when starting a thief is: When facing higher level opponents, Bleeding is unaffected by glancing blows. Would have made early levels so much easier for me…

kamandi.4798:

What I want to know is…

1. What is the basic burst rotation? Blossom-backstab(3x)-heartseeker?

Basic burst rotation is Cloak and Dagger > Backstab until 50% and then Heartseeker spam.
Death Blossom is only used for condition builds (Or AoE, when doing large scale events and you don’t want to swap to a shortbow)

kamandi.4798:

2. Best ways to use stealth—from what I see my HEAL gives the best stealth—WTF?

Best ways to use stealth are – Quickly entering stealth for Backstabs, losing aggro when running away from things and once Shadow Refuge is picked up (Tier 3 Utility skill) stealthing through areas (Shadow Refuge provides a long duration stealth)
Also – Shadow Refuge on top of a place of power skill point = can get the skill point without tackling any nearby enemies.

kamandi.4798:

3. What is the best trait tree STARTING OUT?

Early levels favour Deadly Arts for the power.
Mid levels favour Critical Strikes for the crit and initiative (Opportunist 15 point minor trait)
Later levels depends on what style of play you prefer (Condition build, Stealth backstab build, Dodge builds etc)

Just did some testing in Mists:
3000 Power
49% Crit Chance
50% Crit Damage
483 Condition Damage

Could only test the Proc Sigils (Dummies don’t give stacks and screw killing the tougher mobs 25 times per test…)

Sigil of Fire – Is good on single targets and grouped up clumps of enemies (Which is the ideal type of fighting for this build with the multiple bounce attacks and cone poison)

Sigil of Earth – About average on single targets, better than Fire on targets that are spread about and more consistent with the low crit chance.

Sigil of Strength – With these stats seems to be the best for single targets and multiples IF, and only IF, you can continuously fight without interruption (Stacks will drop off pretty quickly if you get knocked down or have to get to another group of enemies)

It’s likely these results will change depending on what stacking sigil is used but this insight has narrowed choices down to:

Fire + Bloodlust – Best burst
Earth + Corruption – More consistent damage also allows lower crit chance without too much of a loss
Strength + Bloodlust – Possible best direct damage to be achieved
Strength + Corruption – Possible for best condition damage to be achieved

Bearing in mind that RNG does have a large factor over these results (Of course the Stacking Sigils and actual NPC’s whom have decent health pools will have big effects as well)

Lanny.6987:

Of the sigils you’ve listed to my eye the one that seems sub-par is Strength. Wiki lists a 2 sec internal cooldown and it’s 30% on crit. Napkin math has me believing it might fire about 1 in 7 so you are likely only to see 3 procs in 10s. Using just a sigil of Force would give you 5% more damage so its hard to see Strength as a win.

Strength has the possibility of being good due to 1 stack of Might at level 80 giving both 35 Power and 35 Condition Damage. When my weapon set and build provides both Direct Damage (Tool Belt skills, Static Discharge, weapon hits) and conditions (Weapon abilities, on crit traits) whilst other Sigils provide an either or decision since they affect only one damage type. Depending on Crit chance it could get up some nice numbers (3-5 stacks should be possible due to the amount of hits done which would be 105-175 Power and Condition damage, about half of a stacking sigil which can combine further with a stacking sigil)

Rilke Cadmus.6829:

Personally, I like to go with Perception + Air ( the Fire + Bloodlust combo for people who are poor like me) Then switch to an Earth pistol once you have 250 precision. You get an extra lightning strike (or flame burst if you have the fire sigil) and bleeding double stacked at least every other hit. I know this isn’t optimal, but it costs a good 10g less than some of the other combos like Fire and Bloodlust.

The issue with that is that you end up with 2 proc sigils, which conflict (When one is triggered the other one won’t be able to proc in its cooldown which is 5 seconds for Fire/Air and 2 seconds for Earth)

Similar to the conflict between Corruption + Bloodlust (My ideal setup for a lot of the time) in which only one will work and it being based off which one is alphabetically first (Bloodlust)

I could theoretically also go for Dual Corruption or Dual Bloodlust to get the stacks twice as fast…

I’m using a Static Discharge build that is going primarily Power/Crit (Yes I know that Rifle may be better for that kind of build, but from my testing while leveling and in the Mists P/P does superior damage even with a lack of Condition Damage)

10 V
30 IV, VI, XII
0
0
30 II, VIII, XII (Yes I’m aware that I’ll be really slow without Speedy Kits, but I don’t like Kits or Kit Swapping)

Healing Turret | Rifle Turret/Tool Kit/Personal Battering Ram

Planning to use Runes of the Adventure (Condition Damage primary and Power secondary, Regain 100% of endurance on using heal skill on a 10 second cooldown) will likely use either full Zerker or Zerker/Rabid combination for gear.

Okay, that’s the build part done now for what I think are reasonable Sigil setups for such a build:

Fire + Corruption (Lots of fire procs, some Condition Damage would be very beneficial)

Fire + Bloodlust (More damage is good damage)

Strength + Corruption (Might = Both Direct and Condition damage)

Strength + Bloodlust (Favouring Direct damage with Might allowing for slight increase in condition damage)

Earth + Corruption (More condition damage and conditions have synergy)

Earth + Bloodlust (More conditions and more damage, I doubt it’d be much good though)

Delofakitten.4231:

Now only if this really were invulnerability. It’s close, but blocks are channeled and mean you can’t do other effects while it’s going. So it’s close, but not quite invulnerability.

There lavra, you can feel better now. = )

Though Guardians only have their invulnerability whilst channeling it as well…

NPC poison in the most part is fine, if annoying (Most of the time it’s short duration stuff, unless you’ve got multiples stacking it in which case the easiest answer is to not pull as many)

The issue mostly comes from the Risen Hyleks whom with one ability can generate 45+ seconds of poison (It’s their burst fire attack, not completely dodgable but most of it can)

This is a stupid length for a condition provided by a single common enemy (Get multiple Risen Hyleks on you and I wouldn’t be surprised if you ended up with something stupid like 5 min duration) especially since they are risen and have a habit of making 2-3 mobs spawn before you’ve killed the first one (Even if it only takes 3.25 seconds to kill them… Sigh)

1) You say to make kits F1-F4. There are 5 kits (6 including the heal kit, but we can ignore that for this discussion I guess) 3 weapon kits (Flamethrower, Elixir Gun and Tool Kit) and 2 device kits (Bomb Kit and Grenade Kit)

2) I think at this point a lot of engineers are used to the extra utilities and the loss of the 2 heal abilities and 6 utility abilities would be devastating for a lot of builds.

3) Not having tool belt skills would require a brand new class stat (It’d probably be something like a reduced cooldown on kit swapping to be boring and even more wannabe elementalist)

4) A few builds rely heavily on the tool belt skills (I know the Engie build I have the most fun with uses tool belt skills more than my weapon skills) while others still utilize them (Even if the primary choice of utility is for the utility, the toolbelt skills can come in handy)

Sigils would depend on what you’re after:

Strength + Battle would be good for Might Stacks (Especially with boon duration runes and such)

Fire + Bloodlust with Energy on off-set would be good for raw damage output with additional endurance support.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fIAQJARUjkOZvJP6OMxBAjiiA6ogKmUPazu7A;T4Ag0ynEOJdS9kyJqaM1IqxWjrGZNLLGWA

20 V, IX
20 V, X
0
0
30 V, VI, VII

GS/Rifle Fire/Fire
Zerker Orbs + Zerker gear is my current build. If things get a bit tough I’ll consider swapping out to some Valkyrie stuff for some extra toughness.

My current build is about maximizing crit damage (Otherwise I’d probably put some points from Discipline into Defence for more survivability)

As far as I know (Not accounting for Vulnerability effecting team members) GS does more DPS than Axe IF you don’t have to interrupt a HB (Due to dodging something or needing to heal)

Axe does more consistent damage and allows movement during it’s highest damage rotation (#1 > #1 > #1)

This assumes differing builds based off of the weapons (For example Arms 20 for Might on crit with GS whereas an Axe build is less likely to put points into Arms)

Though this is purely based off of; my time leveling, some messing around with builds in the Mists and this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WOonDJfRDk

Sigil of Fire.

The stun doesn’t last very long (0.5 seconds) and won’t benefit from Impact and Sigil of Fire does more damage than Sigil of Air even on a single target.

Yes there is, but it requires a lot of effort…

30 into acrobatics provides:
2 seconds of swiftness on dodge (5 point trait)
4 seconds of swiftness on kill (10 point trait)
30% boon duration (30 points)

30 into trickery provides:
10 second shorter cooldown on Steal
10 seconds swiftness on Steal (10 point trait)
15 seconds vigor on steal (20 point trait)

If loaded up with 2x Air, Pack and Speed runes you’ll have 90% extra swiftness duration (60% from runes and 30% from Acrobatics line)

Dodging will provide 2.6 seconds of swiftness (Without runes) and 3.8 with runes.
A kill will provide 5.2 seconds of swiftness without runes and 7.6 with runes
Steal will provide 13 seconds of swiftness without runes and 19 with runes along with 19.5 seconds of vigor.

With Vigor from steal, the regen back when dodging trait (15 Acro) and some endurance regen food it should be possible to keep dodging to get swiftness.