Guild Wars 2

Wow. This is going to take a while to unpack. If I don’t quote something, it’s because I agree.

Barabbas.8715:

Second of all, there is being beaten by a boss and then there is being beaten by a boss 100+ times even after you memorize her pattern and have the perfect build/gear because she has cheap mechanics like those orbs and bad camera making it hard to see the red circles on the ground.

If a strategy you are doing isn’t working because you mess up a lot, it’s not the strategy’s fault. You need to design a strategy that you can handle. For example, I know there is a better start to Liadri than what I do, but I don’t nail it every time like I do my current strategy. Sure, it’s a bit longer, but it’s consistent. Same thing goes for part 2. Taking time to kill some of the visions is a waste of time, but I do it because it lets me focus on one less thing. Part of strategy is making sure of components of the strategy are doable by the person doing it.

Most people aren’t masochists like you are and can recognize the difference between challenging and frustrating. But you are right, if someone enjoys hours and hours of failure (due to cheap mechanics) and having to spend mondo dosh on more clockwork sprockets/tickets then Liadri is the best boss in the game.

I don’t mean to be rude, but you have to understand how a hardcore player works. I REALLY enjoy figuring out how to do something that might well be impossible. I’m working on Liadri with 6 gambits. I have no idea if it’s even possible, but that’s why I love it! Also remember that this is optional content. You never have to kill Liadri if you don’t want to. Part of an achievement is that it’s…and achievement? If it was simple, it’d be stupid.

The way the camera was positioned when I was strafe kiting Liadri I could only see one thing, the opposite side of the arena. I couldn’t see Liadri or her clones as I fired at them off screen, I couldn’t see where the heck I was going and only managed to avoid the shadow blasts by memory.

I partially agree. For part 2, I disagree. You should never be anywhere near the walls for part 2. For Part 1, my strategy involves smushing my camera right up against it. Honestly, this didn’t bother me as much as most people, but I agree it should have been a cylinder arena instead.

There is no feasible way to go after those orbs proactively. Even if by some miracle you can see all of them spawn the fact that you have to continuously move in a set pattern to avoid the shadow blasts makes it practically impossible to get to them in time without dying.

So you’re a warrior? Why no longbow 3 attack? You can even trait it to 1,200 range, which is more than enough. As soon as you hear the sound, you have to look and fire. It takes a lot of skill. You are lucky, you get to have stability! Engis have to just take it and stun break.

When I beat Liadri I didn’t feel excited or like a kitten, I was just glad it was FINALLY over. I didn’t feel like some 1337 hardcore gamer who needs to brag on the forums about it, I felt like drinking myself into unconsciousness. And that’s exactly what I did that night.

Those of us who have a problem with the Liadri battle aren’t calling it crap because it’s too hard, we’re concerned with the cheap mechanics and the fact that it simply isn’t fun.

Fun is a subjective term. It’s completely dependent on the person talking. Liadri is, to me, the most fun thing in the game currently. To you, it’s not.

Also, Liadri was not designated as “hardcore” content as you like to call it, she’s just another part of the Guantlet. If there was some sort of hardmode specifically designed for masochists who like to die over and over again, I’m sure most people would be fine with that. But as it stands, Liadri is a massive difficulty increase out of nowhere and you can’t truly complete the Guantlet unless you beat her, which is frustrating to many.

Semantics. Would it have been better if she was in her own tier? Would it really change much? She’s the final boss. Final bosses take a while.

You have to remember that there needs to be hardcore content, even if the majority of the game is casual. Eventually, players are going to beat everything, and if all of the content remains at the same difficulty, it gets stale. Hardcore content is something for those of us who have mastered everything and want to feel like a noob again. Mastery sucks.

Nilkemia.8507:

We’ve already got a few dungeon bosses (Alpha, Lupicus, the Spider Queen, the Nightmare Tree’s Fyonna mode, etc.) that punish you for making mistakes. Any fight with a champion solo punishes you for making mistakes (The Champion Risen Abomination comes to mind particularly, but this does more or less apply to any champion.) This fight goes beyond that. “Punish” doesn’t even feel like a strong enough word for this.

What you’ve basically said, is that for content to be hard, it has to kill you off in cheap ways, be utterly unfair, frustrate people and discourage them from playing it and/or bringing out the worst in them in the process if they continue. They should basically expect to die however many times to figure out the patterns, like I Wanna Be The Guy, or any those other painfully hard games. Hard does not equal fun. And if it isn’t fun, I don’t think it should continue to spread here.

YOU don’t think it’s fun because YOU don’t like hardcore content. It’s extremely clear from your post. I, along with other hardcore players, enjoy being beaten by a boss. If I beat something on the first try, it’s pretty boring. I like failing, because it means there’s something I can improve on. Of course, this arena has some issues (retryability issues), but when you’re in the fight, there’s isn’t much I’d improve. The only failing of this arena is Quality of Life improvements, not boss improvements. For those who enjoy being beaten, Liadri is a god send in a game with otherwise almost no challenge at all.

when 2-3 clones walk over a light patch and only 1-2 die meaning I cant pick up the orb/s because clones are unblockable
thats me being punished for?
when an orb spawns and pulls me into clones/AoE
thats me being punished for?
The difficulty jump for this fight is frustrating and while some may manage this after an hr or 2 the rest are going to feel like they are hitting a brick wall.
Theres challenging fights that make you feel good when you win and then theres this where your just glad you dont have to do it again. This isnt fun.

So for the first part where you said clones are unblockable, that’s just false. I use that as a major strategy in defeating her with multiple gambits. You’re being punished for not proactively getting the orbs down as soon as they go up. If you can’t get them, rethink your strategy.

As for the second part, I’ve never had a better moment in this game than when I beat her for the first time. That was until I got the 8 orbs achievement. It’s fine to be casual, but don’t call content kitten because YOU don’t like hardcore content. I don’t complain that the bosses down below are not hardcore enough because I get that it’s casual content.

Necessary things:

• Snare. Crippled, Chilled. Spam it on the dog and his master if it’s AoE.
• CC. Use it on the dog as much as possible. Use launches as the meat goes in the air. Use Knock backs as an emergency measure.
• Swiftness. Make sure it’s perma.

Strat

• Watch the master constantly. As soon as he throws something, you should already be moving towards it. The dog doesn’t start moving for meat until it hits the ground.
• Keep either crippled or chilled on the dog CONSTANTLY.
• Get the dog down as fast as possible. If there is no meat to be had, you should be wailing on that dog.
• Make sure the dog dies first. If the master dies first, no achievement. Don’t ask why, no one knows.
• If you have AoE stuns/launches/dazes, use them on the master and dog at the same time. A stunned master can’t throw meat. Don’t waste damage on the master unless it’s also hitting the dog.
• Make the dog your pet. Stay close to him, but in front. If the dog is snared constantly and you are near him, you’ll always make it to the meat first, even if it lands right on him.

Sometimes you get super unlucky and it lands at the dogs feet, but the chances are generally very low as he randomly throws it around the entire arena.

Stop complaining and figure out a strategy. It might be hard for that “mutt” to pick up the meat if you throw him around a bit.

Nilkemia.8507:

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Nilkemia.8507:

(In before “It’s not luck based, Lrn2play noob!”)

I disagree, the whole fight is frustration, both phases.

That’s pretty much the big killer for me. It wasn’t fun or fair. Just blatantly designed to kill you off in cheap ways.

Welcome to hardcore content. This was the best boss I’ve fought in GW2. If this was frustrating for you, avoid hardcore content in the future.

So content has to involve one-hit kills, gimmicky invulnerability, and the very environment working against you to be considered hardcore? I would think there are ways to make something hard without those cheap old tricks. There’s another reason stuff like this shouldn’t continue.

Thanks for the advice, but I already took the hint and throw away all the tickets from now on, since I can’t sell them or give them to someone else, which doesn’t make sense.

Yes. For something to be hard, it has to actually punish you for making mistakes. If the AoE Circles did 5k damage, the fight would be trivial and you wouldn’t have to know a thing about them. Because they instantly kill you, you have to fully understand them. In fact, because everything instantly kills you, you have to know about everything in the fight if you want to stand a chance. It’s hardcore content. Practice and learn it or go back to the pits below.

Nilkemia.8507:

(In before “It’s not luck based, Lrn2play noob!”)

I disagree, the whole fight is frustration, both phases.

That’s pretty much the big killer for me. It wasn’t fun or fair. Just blatantly designed to kill you off in cheap ways.

Welcome to hardcore content. This was the best boss I’ve fought in GW2. If this was frustrating for you, avoid hardcore content in the future.

People are saying this battle is all about luck and that it’s too hard. This is false. Every class has the ability to do this fight. Yes. All of them.

If you do the fight right, you never need to dodge. Ever.

The RNG of This Fight

There are only two things that are random in this fight:

• The Pull Orb – You really need to listen up for this. Get that down fast or prepare your stunbreaker/blocks/dodges.
• Liadri’s first attack after part 1 – She either dives at your face (dodge it) or spins (murder her!)

Small Note

The arena you do this in matters. Some arenas have slightly different placement of the white circles and spawn locations. For the most part, it’s close, but generally you want to choose the same arena every time.

Ability Checklist:

• Vigor, blocks, evades, invulnerabilities all help. Sigil of Energy and Runes of the adventurer really help. These are not necessary for success
• Condition removal. This boss will cripple and weaken you for part 2, so condition removal is a must.
• Ranged Damage. Trying to melee this boss is just making it harder on yourself.
• Snare. If Liadri gets close to you for phase two, you will take a lot of damage. Also, the visions will creep up on you if you don’t snare them.
• Swiftness. This really helps with Part 2 and escaping visions.

Phase 1

If you have pull skills

• Destroy the pull orb.
• Run to the first white circle. Pull the first vision that pops up into the circle. Throw the orb at Liadri.
• Run to the second white circle. Dodge around until the visions get there. If the visions ball up on you, either guide them away or block kill them. To block kill them, use anything that will make their attack miss, be blocked or evaded to kill them.
• Destroy the pull orb.
• Run to the third white circle and throw the orb in. Same strategy as last time for too many visions at once.

If you don’t have pull skills

• Destroy the pull orb.
• Run to the first white circle. Dodge around until the vision goes into the circle. The AoE may spawn on you, but just dodge roll through it.
• Run to the second white circle. Dodge around until the visions get there. If the visions ball up on you, either guide them away or block kill them. To block kill them, use anything that will make their attack miss, be blocked or evaded to kill them.
• Destroy the pull orb.
• Run to the third white circle and throw the orb in. Same strategy as last time for too many visions at once.

Once you have mastered part 1, it’s time for the fun part

Part 2

The most important thing to know about this part is the pattern of the AoE circles. It’s a bow tie shape that switches between two variations of it. Watch another person do Liadri to have a good visual example. The key weakness of this is that if you stay closer to the center, you hardly have to walk far at all to be in the next safe zone.

Keep this in mind: You must be in the safe zone BEFORE the AoE circles pop up to have enough time to get any good amount of damage on Liadri out. If you have to dodge into the safe zone, just try to catch up and forget about damage.

On to the strategy:

• When the third orb hits Liadri, she will either attack with the whip (Diving at you) or spin in circles. If she spins, THIS IS THE TIME TO ATTACK!
• Run to the fourth white circle. The AoE circles will not start on this location.
• Run in small circles near the center of the arena. The camera will be better here and you will not have to run as far. If the visions creep up to much, whip out a block, evade or blind and let them kill themselves.

Here’s a video showing me not only completing Liadri, but also doing it with multiple gambits. This can be done on ANY class.

Video

Here’s the challenge:

• Defeat Liadri with as many gambits as possible.
• You may pick any combination of gambits you want.
• You may use any class you want.
• You may use as many consumables as you want.
• You may use any arena you want (There is a difference).
• You may not use any exploits or bugs to do this (Players joining your arena, crowd favorite disappearing, left over buffs from Chomper, etc etc).
• If two players complete her with 6 gambits, the winner is whoever beat her faster.
• In order for proof to be accepted, you must video the attempt. I suggest doing this in a low pop version of the map to reduce lag.

Winner gets the glory of being one of the few or only to beat her with X gambits. I’ll post links to videos with at least one gambit here.

Let me start us off:

Liadri with 3 Gambits (No Endurance, Crippled, Crowd Favorite) – Raine Avina

It took forever, but I got it! Using the utilities I have on in the picture.

Hehe I actually really enjoyed watching this. I was reeeeaaally hoping you’d get the kill at the end xD

Narcarsis.5739:

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Speed has three things that make it up:

• Reaction Speed – How long it takes you to realize something is happening that requires a reaction.
• Decision Speed – How long it takes you to decide what you want to do about it.
• Action Speed – How long it takes you to do the action required.

That game pretty much eliminates Decision and Action speed all together. It also simplified Reaction speed by making the stimuli expected. Guild Wars 2 requires that you know exactly what skill you need to use against that stimuli and most skills will have a cast time. You also have to move your finger to the button required. There’s ways to reduce it, but really, anything less than 3/4 is nigh impossible to react to effectively, let alone interrupt.

Disagreed. As said above me you learn how people play, what they do in reaction to X, when they heal, etc. You anticipate and prepare for it, and the game turns into clicking sheep. All of my targets in this game are sheep.

Then interrupt my healing turret. 1/2 second cast shouldn’t be too hard to nab.

They’re busy. Christ guys. They’re making an MMO. You make an MMO and post on the forums and tell me how easy it is. They’ve openly stated that they read the forums and sometimes even print out forum posts for meetings. They can’t reply to every single forum post, especially when it’s going to hyper analyzed and trash talked.

Speed has three things that make it up:

• Reaction Speed – How long it takes you to realize something is happening that requires a reaction.
• Decision Speed – How long it takes you to decide what you want to do about it.
• Action Speed – How long it takes you to do the action required.

That game pretty much eliminates Decision and Action speed all together. It also simplified Reaction speed by making the stimuli expected. Guild Wars 2 requires that you know exactly what skill you need to use against that stimuli and most skills will have a cast time. You also have to move your finger to the button required. There’s ways to reduce it, but really, anything less than 3/4 is nigh impossible to react to effectively, let alone interrupt.

Lookin for a team to play with fairly regularly. I can play most nights until about midnight with my current work schedule. Please at least be 35+ish.

IGN: Raine Avina
Main Profession: Engineer (Champion)
Alternate Professions: Thief, Necromancer, Mesmer
Account name: TheGatesAssassin.9827
Practice Availablity: 7pm-midnight everynight
Current PvP rank (Not Leaderboard): 40
Level of Desire: Active Tournament Play
NA or EU: NA

IGN: Raine Avina. I usually go by Raine or Gates.
Main Profession: Engineer
Alternate Professions: Thief, Necromancer, Mesmer, Warrior
Account name: TheGatesAssassin.9827
Practice Availablity: 7PM-12PM EST. Might change when school year starts. (10PM-Whenever)
Current PvP rank : 40
Level of Desire: Active Tournament Play
NA or EU: NA

PBR is a launch, meaning you cannot stun break out of it until you hit the ground. Air blast is a knockback, which you can stun break out of.

All PBR needs to be viable is a more useful toolbelt ability and a slightly longer range on PBR.

I can’t believe this is hard for people to understand. Necromancers have access to Terror and Burning. Burning is the second most powerful condition in the game, next to terror. The fact that with one instant cast skill (Doom), they can apply both, is crazy. Engineers cannot do this. Again:

In one instant skill, they can apply CC and huge damage. Then can then follow this up with more fear and AoE torment.

You can’t compare skill across classes, even if they are exact copies of each other. You prove how little you know about balancing when you do this.

In short: That trait isn’t OP on it’s own. It’s OP because it has terror in the same class.

For WvW, condition damage and bomb kit are not a good idea. Things are going to be dying FAST, so you won’t get to tick too much. Bomb kit is designed for damage where the enemy needs to be in a certain area OR the enemy won’t move. Neither of those occur in WvW very often.

The same thing for condition applies in PvE. Things die too fast.

Two of your traits convert stats into power, so go power! Also, backpack regenerator is nice, but protection injection is just too good to pass up. I also suggest taking speedy kits over blood injection. You’ll be really slow without it.

Aether McLoud.1975:

Short answer: No.

Long Answer: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Short response: ^

Long response: ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ OMG OMG OMG ^^^^^^^^^^^

Scope- The damage increase isn’t very high to warrant wasting a trait slot on this. Plus with the insane amount of gap closers, stability, and things of that nature keeping someone beyond 600 is hard to do.

This one I use a lot in PvE/WvW just because grenades can be used at a range greater than 600 a lot there.

Elixir X- With the randomness, lack of utility for in teamfights while in the transformation, and the cooldown causes this skill to not be as viable compared to Supply Crate

This in conjunction with Big Ol’ Bomb can be a lot of fun. Also Tornado and juggernaut can be really effective if you don’t stay in the full duration. Timing is everything with this elite.

Elite Supplies- The elites just aren’t that good to warrant getting this trait. Supply Drop is already good without it while the other elites each have their own problems.

The real reason to use this is the fact that it gives a ton more bandages for supply crate, making it a good bunker trait. I think the buffs to Elixir X and Mortar need to be improved.

Mines- This one seems really weird. It is a gadget, yet it has some traits in the explosive line. The problem is that this doesn’t have much synergy to the explosive things, hence why I never use it. It also doesn’t offer a whole lot of utility. It does explode, but I usually have to manual detonate it. It doesn’t do an insane amount of damage, and can easily be countered. The other choices for CC are much better. It’s toolbelt skill is eh too.

It really is a weird one. It doesn’t work like a mine at all. However, it’s the engineers only good choice for boon removal. I take it on bunkers sometimes so I can actually push guardians off.

Turrets- They die very quickly in teamfights, susceptible to AoE, some have a small range, long Cooldowns, and somewhat useless toolbelt skills. In PvE/WvW those turrets are going to be destroyed/on CD a lot. This means I will be relying on my toolbelt skills. The toolbelt skills simply don’t offer enough utility compared to my other choices to warrant using them. They are some that are very specilized too (thumper, net, flame, etc).

Net Turret is mah baby, and rocket is great as well. However, you’ll never use these effectively in the mid battle of PvP. Only side points if you use deployable turrets to put them in odd places. WvW, you can throw them up on walls to destroy siege which is nice. PvE…lol no.

snaplemouton.1294:

How am I supposed to beat CND rogue with a necro?

Sneeze.

When the skill and effort put in less than the result.

• If you put in a ton of skill and get a ton of result, it’s balanced.
• If you put in little skill and get little result, it’s balanced.
• If you put in a ton of skill and get little result, it’s underpowered.
• If you put in little skill and get a ton of result, it’s overpowered.

I have one thing to say:

30/20/0/0/20

Stop whining, you’re still OP.

Penguin.5197:

You would figure they would have reworked it by now considering its current state, but then think about what they did for it during Junes super balance patch….they reduced the cd on ice mortar from 30 to 20. Its cds are not the reason that people don’t use it, its problems are much bigger that cannot be fixed by just lowering cd. Its then when I realized anet is oblivious to why mortar sucks and/or just dont give a crap about it.

Engies have made a few posts about it since the game released and not much has changed, when it comes to mortar it just feels like were talking to a wall about our problems. I wouldnt hold my breath for any siginificant changes or even bug fixes for it soon.

There are a LOT more problems with the engineer that have been fixed. That giant update really helped engis and took a ton of work on their part. I mean, they made gadgets useful! They can’t focus on small things that aren’t affecting the game right now. Yeah, it’d be great if it was fixed, but there’s a lot of other things to focus on that are more pressing:

• Defiant
• Necromancers in PvP
• Warriors in PvE
• Warriors in PvP
• Spirit Rangers in PvP

The list goes on and on. Until they do another mega patch, I don’t want them working on Mortar. The list of bugs and things to fix is too huge for them to spend time on it, especially since the only places it is good is limited anyways.

For PvE, I always go Power and Crit damage. If you go conditions, other players will overlap their conditions and overwrite them. Damage is always damage and cannot be overwritten. I suggest either Soldiers stuff (Power, toughness, Vitality) if you aren’t super brave and Berserkers (Power Precision Crit damage) if you are brave.

I’m not interested but thanks for the offer.

Vajra.3914:

Napalm specialist doesn’t work too, we should include it since it’s a GM trait…

Yes it does? I tested it myself.

EDIT: It’s working as intended, but the tool tip is highly missleading.

Toss Elixir H
I’m not sure about the Vigor, it is a defensive boon, but different from Protection and Regeneration. I would just have it grant Protection or Regeneration.

I say make it a straight up heal. Something like 1k would be nice.

• Never use mortar. I could write a novel about all the bugs in that skill.
• Super Speed states that it doubles speed, it actually sets your speed to out of combat swiftness speed.
• Forceful Explosives works, but doesn’t update tool tips. It’s fine to use.
• Rifle Turret Overcharge is bugged and makes it go slower. Don’t use the skill for now.

That’s really it for important bugs (That I can think of). Most skills are actually fixed right now, just need tool tip updating.

nakoda.4213:

( S )hrink
( R )evive
( B )oost
( H )eal
( C )leanse
( U )______?
( X )mute (ie: transform)

I’ve never been able to figure out U.

Imma vote for

( U )seless

LMAO! So true! But the real one is utility (Gain a utility skill from another profession). Also Elixir B can be Elixir B(oon) and Elixir R can be Elixir R(estore) (Restore your endurance)

Brtwrst.9312:

Dojo.1867:

Every grenade hits is a ridiculous assumption.

It is when you fight moving single targets outside of melee range yes.

But against a stationary target, groups of enemies or when you 1v1 a champion Mob (that has no evasion) its not that unrealistic – its just difficult to pull off.

But this is one of the inherent weaknesses of grenades and its the reason why they are not really useful in PvP. sadly.
For example against Mai in the Aetherblade Dungeon i don’t even bother trying to use the Grenade kit (or Shrapnel for that matter). I just use pistol/shield with incendiary ammo.

I think a lot of PvP engis are quoting thusly: “?????????????????”

At 500 Condition damage:

1 Shrapnel = 675 damage (over 10s, not 12s, because of incendiary powders recharge)

1 Incendiary Powder = 1812 damage

If you can get Shrapnel on 3 times, you out damage Incendiary Powder at 500 condition damage.

Every 20 hits, you should get 3 bleeding stacks from shrapnel (15/100 is the chance, reduced to 3/20ths). Thus, if you have 20 times, there is a good chance you will out damage Shrapnel.

To get twenty hits with grenades, you’d have to throw:

1 Grenade barrage = 8/20
4 more grenades = 20/20

There is a half second after cast with grenades, meaning you can throw grenades 10 times over 10s. In total, you can throw 1 grenade barrage and 9 normal throws. Assuming all of these hit, you can hit a target 1 * 8 + 9 * 3 times or 8 + 27 = 35 times.

Unfortunately, these bleeding ticks will mostly overlap into incendiary powders next tick of damage. It’s really the build up time on single targets that kills this trait. However, with enough AoE, that 35 hits turns into 70, and 105, etc etc. More than enough hits to make this trait very useful.

Chaith.8256:

Necro, Engi, Ranger vs. Guardian, Ele, Mesmer, Thief, Warrior

Do we even need to ask who would win that 3v5? One word: Epidemic

A lot of people debate if 5v5 death match would be a good game mode for GW2 and I want to find out.

I’ve created an arena called:

The Proof – Deathmatch 5v5 NO Cap points (Search Raine Avina)

Settings:

• Ready Button
• Go to 25 points
• 5v5
• Fight at the Orb
• 120 second respawn time

So, in essence, if your entire team dies, the other team will have scored 25 points and the match will end. If it turns out that the 5v5s are fun to to do, great! It means the proof goes to those who said 5v5 would be fun. If not, then the proof goes to those who said it wouldn’t. I have a hunch it’ll be alright because of 25v25 being a thing (GvG).

Suggestions:

• Bring team fight builds. Bunkers aren’t going to do anything. Think about what you did in GW1 RA.
• Bring res skills. 5v5 I expect people to go down pretty quick.
• Don’t res the dead, only the downed.

S Tier (OP)

Nothing.

A Tier (Great)

Mesmer – Use to be S tier, but with some nerfs these have felt more in line.
Guardian – Always been here. Always will.
Necro – Its 1v1 ability has gone up and same with it’s power in team fights. Sure it’s hard to stay alive, but it should be that way with all that power.
Engi – High skill cap, but kitten can this thing be useful. Lots of conditions and CC.

B Tier (Decent)

Thief – Still glassy as kitten and not very much in battle sustain. That does NOT make this class bad. There is no better class to hit back points with and if you are smart, you can kill anything.
Ranger – The Nerfs to BM made this a bit either to kill than normal. I’m not 100% sure if this is the right place for rangers, but we’ll see.

C Tier (Bad)

Warrior – I still dominate the living crap out of warriors in both team fights and 1v1. Every. Single. Time.

Phineas Poe.3018:

I dunno.

With certain builds Napalm Specialist was very powerful pre-patch, especially for bunker builds that slapped like a wet fish for direct damage. With the new Rocket Boots animation, they’re finally worth using—which has a toolbelt which applies 5 seconds of burning.

So between Blowtorch, Incendiary Ammo, and Rocket Kick, people have to cleanse 3 times to get rid of my burns, which last quite a while otherwise. Remember that your chance for badges is dependent on damage done to targets, and if you’re a bunker FT in full Soldier, spamming Flame Jet isn’t always enough. The extra few seconds of burning has definitely made a difference in tags.

And I was messing around with it in sPvP the other day, and while it may be better to roll 30 Inventions with the buff to Stabilized Armor to use alongside Protective Shield/Energized Armor/Cloaking Device/Reinforced Shield, I don’t think Napalm Specialist is a terrible option to boost your damage.

Time will tell, but it’s a trait people took pre-patch and used effectively, and it’s only gotten stronger.

It was a trait taken because Juggernaut was a grandmaster and there wasn’t much in that line to take. Those 10 points in firearms could be so much better used in another line.

There’s an easy way to test this:

1) Log into the game.
2) Put on a kit.
3) kittenin’ Use it.

Sometimes I into the up for a little bit.

I realize that didn’t mean anything, but it seemed fitting with the topic of this post.

I love teaching new engis stuff

In game name: Raine Avina
What class do you main: I main Engineer
What class(es) do you play as your secondary/tertiary: Mesmer and Thief.
Are you applying as a teacher, or a student: Teacher
How many hours on your class do you have: Bout a thousand.
How many builds have you theory crafted: Everything. Seriously. Tell me your spread and I’ll tell you your build. Every utility, every trait, I’ve tried it.
Would you consider yourself a good contributor to your community: Definitely. I love teaching people.
Are you friendly/helpful: I’ve taught for about 7 years now.
Would you be willing to prove your skill/knowledge ingame: COME AT ME BRO. As a side note, I do everything in the game. Explore, dungeons, world bosses, jumping puzzles, sPvP, tPvP, WvW roaming and groups. Hell, I even RP.

ENGIS UNITE!

It’s a bad trait. At most you could have fun with super long 40 second burns, but it’ll be cleansed easily by most classes. I’m sure the next giant patch will fix it.

GW1 Interruption

• It has a casting bar, so it was a lot easier to do.
• Most skills had at least a 3/4 casting time and every class has SOMETHING to interrupt.
• Interrupt skills rewarded you for interrupting VERY well. Power Drain basically refilled your energy. Psychic Distraction kittened up the day of the person you interrupted. Power Block was just…Wow.

GW2 Interruption

• There is no casting bar, so only very obvious animations will be interrupted.
• Most skills in this game have very SHORT casting times. Exceptions are elites, heal skills and some powerful skills.
• The current traits for interruption do this:

Halting Strike – 750 and scales with power. So for the most berserkery berserker this is about 1/13th of their health.
Bountiful Interruption – 5 seconds of might and 5 seconds of another random boon. Very small reward.
Chaotic Interruption – Immobilize your target when you interrupt them and randomly apply blind, cripple, or chill.
Furious Interruption – Gain 3 seconds of quickness when you interrupt a foe. This effect can only occur once every 15 seconds.
Illusion of Vulnerability – Inflict 5 seconds of vulnerability when you interrupt a foe.

We can’t take all of these. It leads to a very gimmicky build that doesn’t have much utility other than interruption.

As we can see, none of these are a good reward for interrupting a foe, especially when it’s so difficult in this game. I think these would be interesting changes:

Halting Strike – Deals 1.7k damage (Tool Tip) and scales with power. 15 second recharge.
Bountiful Interruption – Three stacks of might for 20 seconds and a random boon for 10 seconds. 10 second recharge.
Chaotic Interruption – Immobilize your target for 3s (Up from 1s) when you interrupt them and randomly apply blind, cripple, or chill.
Furious Interruption – Gain 6 seconds of quickness when you interrupt a foe. This effect can only occur once every 15 seconds.
Illusion of Vulnerability – Inflict 7 seconds of 10 stacks of vulnerability when you interrupt a foe.

I don’t think we’ll be getting a casting bar because part of the design of this game is to make you look at your enemy, not the UI. However, if getting interrupts is highly rewarded, this playstyle would become more popular.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

The pistol’s auto attack does 118 base damage with a 2 second bleed for about 85 damage. If we are to assume a full condition build (around 1600 condition damage, full bleed duration), we’d get 122 damage per tick and 4 ticks, coming to 488 bleeding damage per auto attack. If we are to “go insane” with this and assume max might, this will give us 2450 malice, 165 damage per tick, and a total of 660 damage per auto attack.

Yes. With one stack. 165 damage per tick per stack. For every nearby person to that target, you get another stack. In zergs, you can stack up 25 bleed every auto attack instantly. 25 * 165 = 4125 AOE and it can damage infinite foes.

Think about it. If you hit the first person, all nearby foes bleed. It pierces and hits another foe. Now all foes around that foe bleed. Because the second foe was close to the first foe, they both have 2 stacks of bleeding. In WvW, it’s not uncommon to have 40+ people stacked up super tight. 5 * 40 = 200 stacks of bleeding across 40 people.

I would also like to mention: This is one engineer. Imagine a zerg of these.

It looks like it ranges quiet a bit. Gaining 400 armor at 3k armor is only ~13% less damage and gaining 400 armor at 2k armor is about 20% less damage.

Crazy. I really wish they made this system a bit less complicated.

A perfect mix of a skilled warrior, lucky dodges and a thief who screwed up.

Forum post worthy? ehh….

I can solve for the percentage pretty easily, but I can’t figure out a way to solve for the bonus armor. I want to be able to say

“What amount of extra armor gives me 50% less damage?”

In the end, you’re pretty much spot on. 200 Armor is about 10% less damage. 400 is exactly 20% less damage. I realize I basically have the answer through trial and error, but I was hoping to make a program that can solve the above question. Kinda annoyed me that I couldn’t isolate X and figure it out.

EDIT:

Holy kitten a drunk guy just owned me on this. Yeah. That’s a much simpler way to do this.

Wait… so does this mean the more armor you have, the less effective 400 extra armor would be?

EDIT AGAIN:

Wait…This totally ignores power. That makes no sense.

I’ll make this simple:

1) If explosive shot bleeding was AoE, Coated Bullets would be crazy powerful on balled up targets. The first explosion grants 1 stack of bleeding. The second would be 2. This goes on for an infinite amount of targets. That’s why it doesn’t spread the AoE Bleed. Yes, they should update the text to make that clear.

2) Comparing cross classes is a terrible idea. Mechanics work differently for different professions and drawbacks are placed in different locations on the class. Sure, thief has an amazing auto attack, but their ability to take hits is kitten compared to engi. We also have much higher health. Not to mention we have WAY more skills on one build than thief. You really cannot compare individual things like that.

3) Pistol in PvP is by far one of the best weapons we have. Pistol 2 is really all about getting poison on there so healing is worse. You need one shot to do this. You’re also ignoring the glory that is pistol 3. I’m not even going to get into pistol 4 and 5.

Coated Bullets might make an Explosive shot such as this way stronger compared to what we have now. As Arachnid said, thats 25 stacks of bleed in one shot from an auto-attack in the perfectly aligned and exploited situation. I thought positioning was to be rewarded in this game.

World vs World, man. World vs World.

I’ve been stuck on this for about an hour and a half now.

Here’s what I’m trying to do:

I want to calculate how much extra armor you need to give yourself a certain percentage of less damage

This is the damage formula for direct damage:

Damage done = (weapon damage) * Power * (skill-specific coefficient) / (target’s Armor)

Weapon damage we can set to an average of 1000.

Power we can set to a base of 2000 (Fairly normal for power builds)

Skill-Specific Coefficient we’ll assume it’s the same skill each time and to make it easy, we’ll say the coefficient is 1.

Target armor we’ll set to 2000 for simplicity’s sake.

Really, we can turn this entire thing into one small compact formula, assuming all things stay the same:

Damage done = Offensive numbers / Armor

Now, we want a percentage change, so we need to divide this number by damage done as if the armor was X higher.

Damage done with higher armor = Offensive numbers / (armor + x)

X is the bonus armor we need to get the percentage of less damage we want.

For the percentage, we combine them:

(Offensive numbers / Armor)
/
(Offensive numbers / Armor + X)
=
(Decimal version of percentage)

Isolating X has given me:

X = (Armor/Percentage) – armor

Multiplying this by 100 should be the right answer.

Should

Why am I stupid and getting ridiculous answers? I’m pretty sure that 1799900.0 is FAR from the added toughness I need for 10 percent less damage taken.

EDIT: I fixed up some mistakes, but I’m getting -1800 now. It could possibly mean you need 200 armor?

EDIT AGAIN: Doesn’t work. Adding higher percentages results in needing less additional armor, so that’s clearly false.

Uhhhh, Grenade Barrage?

I hear this guy loves death blossom.

Ingame name: Raine Avina
Main Class / Potential Classes (Incase team requires): Engineer with Mesmer alt
Region: NA (EST)
Practice Times: Generally at night time (8pm+), but I log on during the day as well.
Experience: I generally do PvP every day and tPvP multiple times per week with friends.
Other (Anything else that you would like to add):
I’m not looking for a phone book of players. I’m looking for a dedicated team where I actually know more about their build than “He’s a bunker”.