Guild Wars 2

Fair warning: This ain’t your grandma’s burst build.

Static discharge is a great burst, but if you’re looking for true deletion, throw mine is the way to go. Take Forceful Explosives and Explosive Powder and drop a minefield on someone who’s immobilized and they will explode. Mix that in with Surprise Shot and Analyze and you can literally 100 → 0 some builds. This build takes a ton of skill and isn’t really something you want to 1v1 with, but I’ve definitely done it before. Trick is to not tunnel vision on going for the deletion, but instead let them make mistakes and blow cooldowns off of your crazy strong autos.

Generally, the build is something like 6/6/0/0/2.

Morwath.9817:

Nevets Crimsonwing.5271:

Justin ODell.9517:

This is the part of the reasoning behind locking profession. The other is to avoid Build Wars 2 and lower the amount secret knowledge that only experienced players know.

…

Indeed ‘…’. @Justin the best way to avoid ‘build wars’ would be to hide display whos in enemy team before it starts, so you could just adjust your own setup by picking synergies in your team and counter class stacking. If you hide whos in enemy team, people won’t be able to pick ‘counters’ and ‘build wars’ won’t happen.

That’s a really cool idea. You’ll really have to be on your game and careful if that’s the case.

Oh crap I’m dumb. I forgot the picture:

We tried to carry as much as possible, but we basically just stalled mid point and eventually just got triple capped. Lost about 250ish to 500.

This occurred at 12:07 PM PST on 1/7/2015. The warrior and I were duo queueing in unranked arenas.

I hardly ever play necromancer and am still pretty new to it. The warrior is also fairly new to warrior.

How did this happen?

I got skyhammer three times tonight because 1 person voted for it.

+1

When you use the heal skill, just keep spamming. There’s a tiny window of time when you first put it down to hit the 6 skill again to make it instantly activate.

tamzooka.5637:

You know, I can’t really figure out why foefire is number 1. I don’t mind the map, but I don’t really ever consider it to be my favorite. Maybe because home and far points are relatively easily accessible?

Temple/Kyhlo are my 2 faves. Forest and Foefire are just ok

Are you a thief, mesmer or ranger?

Anastasis.7258:

Chaith.8256:

Anastasis.7258:

Zerker Engi’s power stats pretty much same as celestial, are we playing the same game? If re-balance power stats on your class happened, which will balance the damage on celestial engi and you also still have decent burst if you decided to go berserker engi.

I’m not sayin’ you’re wrong but..

Static Discharge:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fdAQFAEIhugG5UCDobwCqgoW4nCAA-TJBFwACuAA12foaZAAPAAA

2133 Power

Cele Rifle with 10 Might Stacks:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fdAQFAEGhtgG5YijI3YV+cECQSB-TJBHwAAuAAGeAAl2fAZZAA

2189 Power.

Nerfing power coefficients = equally affecting Berserker and Cele builds, you gotta look beyond the amulet for a second.

My only point that you don’t really understand the full implications of what you’re suggesting. Any Engi who plays static discharge will be like: “Anet WTF, I already sucked, thanks.” I don’t think they’d be like, “o well at least I can still do a decent burst,” like you say. Lmao.

Don’t get me wrong, I agree with most of your changes and end-game. But I think you should go back to the drawing boards on coefficient rebalancing

If you read then you should know I did not put any numbers on the suggestions. And also I don’t think it’s right to balance the game according to the none-meta builds. If I was like you then I wouldn’t suggest the adrenaline nerf in the past because all other warrior builds suck balls, especially rifle killshot. If you really want to talk about none-meta build, then I have way more options to discuss here with you. But yea maybe you are right and maybe I’m wrong, but most likely I believe those suggestions will have more positive impacts than negative impacts. Nothing will be perfect.

Except the way adrenaline worked before was stupid. The way pry bar works right now isn’t stupid. Cele stats are stupid, and that’s the point. Just nerf what is obviously the problem and work you way down. Nerfing Pry bar is too much.

My Guess:

1. Foefire
2. Forest
3. Temple
4. Kyhlo
5. Courtyard
6. Spirit Watch
7. Skyhammer

Ropechef.6192:

Anastasis.7258:

Necromancer
1. Add obvious animation to Dark Path.
2.Add Different animation to Staff Mark skills.

Based on that.
you have no idea what you are talking about.

reading the rest. I am going to assume that you play either a Ranger, Guardian or Thief. And although I agree with you more or less that they are in a “OK” spot. Are you trying to nerf the rest of the classes into oblivion?

Animations that are actually different and readable isn’t crazy at all. The changes to those classes get rid of the bull kitten that makes them the best in the game and squanders the builds that are great but harder to use.

infantrydiv.1620:

Clearly, turrets need wheels.

Give spirit weapons and minions wheels too! I know they move…but still. It’d be cool!

(It’d also give more reason to why those kitten spirits move like they have a jet engine inside them)

Aaron.2413:

Jack of all trades, master of none

There is a real power to knowing exactly what your enemy will probably do though.

Because certain classes and runes allow you to basically cheat on this map. Runes of the Traveler, Super Speed, Guardian Focus 5 and Arcane Shield are all super unfair. With Rocket Boots + Super speed I can run the orb in less than 20s.

Sorel.4870:

Guys! The thread was supposed to be about standard character models. If you wish to complain about matchmaking and soloq, there are at least 10 threads to do so.

About standard character models, I think wanting them in every queue is something the “try-hard esports crowd” would want, but what about the casuals? Guild Wars 2 pvp is so cool it feels like a MOBA, but let’s not forget that it is in fact a RPG. I spent time giving my characters their cool, unique looks, and I’d want my opponents to notice them. Hell, if I make an autumn-themed sylvari elementalist, I don’t want people thinking she’s just another bimbo from Divinity’s Reach!

Yeah, but if you’re a 2 foot tall asura, I don’t want to see it. It ruins the gameplay in a pretty major way for me. I can’t even do ranked queue cuz it’s in such a super high competitive state that I need a full good team to even have fun. There’s no good PvP for me right now honestly.

insanemaniac.2456:

Rickster.8752:

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Rickster.8752:

…Stop trying to force us into what YOU think is good for us, like getting rid of solo queue so “they will form teams”. It is stupid.

…To try and “make us form teams”?

So I agree, minus that over the top language, but are those real quotes?

Not direct quotes but the hear say is that this is the reason.

maybe you should look up some direct quotes then

stop perpetuating hearsay

…? Nothing he says in that post has anything to do with standard models. The words standard and model don’t even show up on the entire page.

Rickster.8752:

…Stop trying to force us into what YOU think is good for us, like getting rid of solo queue so “they will form teams”. It is stupid.

…To try and “make us form teams”?

So I agree, minus that over the top language, but are those real quotes?

@Chaith, I don’t have much time till work so I’m just going to quickly respond. I definitely side with what Vee Wee said earlier which is that the problem with celestial isn’t just the stats. Burning and hard to stop sustain are inherent issues with the classes. Cele just makes it so that all of the many skills that these builds have are working at a very strong level. The solution to simply nerf cele amulet is definitely wrong. The only way we’ll know if it is necessary is if the easy BS on these builds is gone.

And I think the Engineer’s damage on Rifle requires the player to really watch out for bursts, as opposed to wearing people down with strong Incendiary Powders.

When I play something more tanky like DD or cele nades, this is true. For bursters, it’s definitely not. I cannot allow ANYTHING to hit me, even auto attacks. I’ve done a lot of 1v1s where it was me on power nades vs condi nades and the only way to win that is to avoid literally everything, especially auto attacks. Yes, this is condi nades in this example, but cele nades isn’t much different in terms of needing to avoid that burn.

Invest your character into doing clutch moments of burst, miss that, and yes you’re going to be #rekt. This is the age old tanky vs. Berserker argument. As with this argument, sustain power obviously does make your build more forgiving than one that doesn’t. You’re not wrong on that point. Survivability skill is only one dimension of mechanical skill though.

The issue with sustained damage I see is that the damage is just a tiny bit over where it should be to be balanced. If you dip more into survivability, you should lose and equal amount of DPS, but in the case of condis, I don’t think that’s what happens. Instead, because condis only need one stat, it’s like the game considers it as you not really gaining that much more damage, when really you are.

Firebird.8324:

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Chaith.8256:

Question to people that hate the Cele bruiser meta. Why? Can anyone please articulate their thoughts on the toxicity of Cele bruisers for the enjoyment of the game.

I didn’t read the rest of this post, but screw it. Here’s my reasons why I hate this meta:

1. It Minimalizes Working Builds – No one plays bunker guardian. Why? Did it get weaker? No. We just gained the ability to have builds that work in pretty much every situation. The teamwork factor that comes with proper rotations is gone. It’s just about matching numbers and being a better cele. There are no “jobs” anymore. I don’t make a build with the intend of a single goal like bursting, support or bunkering, I make a build with the intent of being able to do everything.
2. Certain aspects of play are gone – Rotating the right stuff to the right place has turned into just matching numbers. Watching out for bursts is pretty much gone. It’s just outsustain right now. You might go for a focus fire, but that’s not really the same thing. Stomps are also pretty rare now, especially in team fights. No bunker guardian made it so players are pretty much only going for DPS outs, even against things like warriors! DPSing out a target isn’t really that interesting to me. The play of trying to maintain DPS so you can get a stomp off is a lot more interesting.
3. Mobility isn’t a counter – These comps play on all three points. They’re pretty kitten fast too unless you’re taking a necromancer. Thief, ele and engi are all really fast.
4. They’re really hard to duel against – It’s not about getting a good burst off, it’s about getting multiple bursts off while not letting them even get one. If I want to kill a cele engi on power nades, I’ve found that I need anywhere from 2-4 really good bursts to get them down. In a row. They really only need to maintain pressure via burning and occasionally get a few hits in.
5. It DOES take less skill – Is the skill ceiling still high? Yes. There are a lot of things you can do with cele engi and ele to make yourself the best in the world. But the punishment for kittening those things up is WAY lower than most builds. On burst builds, kittening up, having bad positioning or focusing the wrong guy could equal death. Don’t even get me started on 100 mines and other like yolo builds.
6. Burning On Cele is Dumb – This goes a bit beyond cele, but I think it’s a big reason why it works. Engineer has incendiary powder which is really hard to avoid. Ele has drake’s breath which requires two dodges to fully avoid and burns you for eternity (12s on a 6s recharge). Combustive Shot burns everyone. If you miss with this, uninstall GW2.
7. Sustain is really hard to stop – For warrior, it’s healing signet which they never use and traits that regen them. For engineer, it’s a 1/2 cast time skill, backpack regenerator and transmute. For ele, it’s a dodge in water, small healing on all casts, regeneration and two skills you can actually interrupt. The only real good counter is poison, but they remove it so much that you need a crazy amount of poison to do it!
8. Games going to Timer – Because there’s three decaps almost all the time, it’s boring to play and watch. I vastly prefer the super active fights where doing something wrong can spell death, not a slight loss in health. I want people to be making PLAYS, not just trying to stall the game/fights. “OH SNAP HE JUST GOT THE BURST OFF AND HE GOES DOWN” instead of “OH SNAP HE JUST GOT THE BURST OFF AND I THINK IF HE CAN GET LIKE 4 MORE IN THE NEXT 10 SECONDS WE MIGHT SEE SOMEONE DIE”.
9. In the ideal game, every build is equally viable – Cele is a meta right now. People want to play their style of builds and not be worse off for it.
   
   The concept of a build being able to do everything is broken. It’s called “Holes in Roles”. There are no decently enough sized holes in these builds.

You put into words the thoughts of many, nice Post.

I always found it weird that posts where people are in a flame war get like a billion times more responses than ones that are well written and correct. Two people commented on my post so far xD

Chaith.8256:

Question to people that hate the Cele bruiser meta. Why? Can anyone please articulate their thoughts on the toxicity of Cele bruisers for the enjoyment of the game.

I didn’t read the rest of this post, but screw it. Here’s my reasons why I hate this meta:

1. It Minimalizes Working Builds – No one plays bunker guardian. Why? Did it get weaker? No. We just gained the ability to have builds that work in pretty much every situation. The teamwork factor that comes with proper rotations is gone. It’s just about matching numbers and being a better cele. There are no “jobs” anymore. I don’t make a build with the intend of a single goal like bursting, support or bunkering, I make a build with the intent of being able to do everything.
2. Certain aspects of play are gone – Rotating the right stuff to the right place has turned into just matching numbers. Watching out for bursts is pretty much gone. It’s just outsustain right now. You might go for a focus fire, but that’s not really the same thing. Stomps are also pretty rare now, especially in team fights. No bunker guardian made it so players are pretty much only going for DPS outs, even against things like warriors! DPSing out a target isn’t really that interesting to me. The play of trying to maintain DPS so you can get a stomp off is a lot more interesting.
3. Mobility isn’t a counter – These comps play on all three points. They’re pretty kitten fast too unless you’re taking a necromancer. Thief, ele and engi are all really fast.
4. They’re really hard to duel against – It’s not about getting a good burst off, it’s about getting multiple bursts off while not letting them even get one. If I want to kill a cele engi on power nades, I’ve found that I need anywhere from 2-4 really good bursts to get them down. In a row. They really only need to maintain pressure via burning and occasionally get a few hits in.
5. It DOES take less skill – Is the skill ceiling still high? Yes. There are a lot of things you can do with cele engi and ele to make yourself the best in the world. But the punishment for kittening those things up is WAY lower than most builds. On burst builds, kittening up, having bad positioning or focusing the wrong guy could equal death. Don’t even get me started on 100 mines and other like yolo builds.
6. Burning On Cele is Dumb – This goes a bit beyond cele, but I think it’s a big reason why it works. Engineer has incendiary powder which is really hard to avoid. Ele has drake’s breath which requires two dodges to fully avoid and burns you for eternity (12s on a 6s recharge). Combustive Shot burns everyone. If you miss with this, uninstall GW2.
7. Sustain is really hard to stop – For warrior, it’s healing signet which they never use and traits that regen them. For engineer, it’s a 1/2 cast time skill, backpack regenerator and transmute. For ele, it’s a dodge in water, small healing on all casts, regeneration and two skills you can actually interrupt. The only real good counter is poison, but they remove it so much that you need a crazy amount of poison to do it!
8. Games going to Timer – Because there’s three decaps almost all the time, it’s boring to play and watch. I vastly prefer the super active fights where doing something wrong can spell death, not a slight loss in health. I want people to be making PLAYS, not just trying to stall the game/fights. “OH SNAP HE JUST GOT THE BURST OFF AND HE GOES DOWN” instead of “OH SNAP HE JUST GOT THE BURST OFF AND I THINK IF HE CAN GET LIKE 4 MORE IN THE NEXT 10 SECONDS WE MIGHT SEE SOMEONE DIE”.
9. In the ideal game, every build is equally viable – Cele is a meta right now. People want to play their style of builds and not be worse off for it.
   
   The concept of a build being able to do everything is broken. It’s called “Holes in Roles”. There are no decently enough sized holes in these builds.

Thieves are orange,
Engineers are yellow,
Wait engineers are yellow?
Why are engineers yellow?

BlueDragon.7054:

Chaith.8256:

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Elementalist – Cleric’s, Magi, Celestial
Guardian – Cleric’s, Magi, Soldier, Settler’s
Engineer – Cleric’s
Ranger – Celestial, Settler’s
Necromancer – Celestial, Cleric’s, Settler’s
Thief – None
Warrior – Celestial, Magi, Knight’s, Cleric’s, Settler’s, Soldier’s

Be careful. A bunker res thief is some OP BS in 3v3. You might wanna ban soldier’s on thief. I could see a dream comp of Res Thief, DD ele and burster just wiping the floor with everyone.

Lol, for real?

Theorycrafting a ‘res thief’ build, all I can see are traits to stealth allies when you start to revive, and grant regen when you stealth allies.

Why would you build for such a marginal bonus to reviving when Shadow Refuge pretty much does all the things that a ‘res thief’ can?

You forgot 50% less damage while in stealth + mercy runes + regen. If the other team hasnt good condition damage probably they wouldn t be able to prevent the ressing.

It’s some serious BS xD. Can’t stomp, can’t DPS out, thief is constantly losing conditions while in stealth. They keep immobing you with shortbow stealth attacks. Really the only counter is CC.

Elementalist – Cleric’s, Magi, Celestial
Guardian – Cleric’s, Magi, Soldier, Settler’s
Engineer – Cleric’s
Ranger – Celestial, Settler’s
Necromancer – Celestial, Cleric’s, Settler’s
Thief – None
Warrior – Celestial, Magi, Knight’s, Cleric’s, Settler’s, Soldier’s

Be careful. A bunker res thief is some OP BS in 3v3. You might wanna ban soldier’s on thief. I could see a dream comp of Res Thief, DD ele and burster just wiping the floor with everyone.

Most of the matches I’ve had on courtyard have had huge comebacks…until this 5 minute timer started. This timer basically says whoever wins the first fight wins the entire game.

Chaith.8256:

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Humps Helseth’s leg for 4 straight matches.

Shakes hand afterwards.

What are you getting at? Were you expecting a bigger ‘climax’ instead of a handshake?

Ayyyyy

Humps Helseth’s leg for 4 straight matches.

Shakes hand afterwards.

Super off topic. Point is, Standard Models in Unranked Queue please. I have no interest in Ranked Queue.

Now that unranked queue is in, I have almost no desire to go into Ranked queue.

1. I can team up in unranked, just like ranked.
2. My team is more chilled in unranked because it doesn’t matter as much.
3. The matches come up WAY faster (literally 10x faster at some points based on average queue).

The only reason I hate unranked queue is right now is because I can’t use standard models. I don’t need to go over the reasons why I like standard models. We know them all. That’s why the option exists. But why doesn’t this option exist in Unranked? Common reasons are:

1. Unranked isn’t as hardcore – So what? Does that mean I should enjoy the game mode LESS because of that? It’s not on by default! It’s a player option!
2. I want you to see my pretty armor – I don’t care for your pretty armor, especially when it’s on an asura (refraining from using the word rat). Again, it’s my choice to have it on!
3. Armor is the prestige of this game – You can show it off to me in PvE, WvW, Hot Join and heart of the mists. Keep it out of my games. Not to mention, armor is hardly the prestige of this game anymore. There are very very very few armors in the game that are considered “Hard to get” and “Prestigious”.
4. It’s an incentive to play Ranked Queue – Leaderboards, fighting harder teams and better rewards is the reason to play ranked queue, not fair matches.

So, please. PLEASE. Can we have standard models in at least unranked queue?

Seriously. I’m so tired of having to fight on a stupid point. Can Courtyard get it’s own queue eventually so I can just queue for that rather than having a high change of playing on conquest? I’m super tired of conquest. Close matches on Courtyard have been some of the funnest matches I’ve had in a really long time. More TDM maps please!

Now that Ranked and Unranked Queue has multiple game modes, there’s a lot of necessity to swap your build before a fight to optimize for that map. I was trying to think of the best comp that utilizes the same 5 professions without needing to swap (thus avoiding dishonor). How does this sound?

1. Thief
2. Engineer
3. Elementalist
4. Elementalist
5. Mesmer

Kylho/Forest/Foefire/Temple

Normal boring old conquest.

1. Thief – > D/P or S/D
2. Engineer -> Cele nades
3. Elementalist -> DD
4. Elementalist – > DD
5. Mesmer -> Shatter

Spirit Watch

Engineer runs the orb 10+ times in one match, eles help hold home and orb area. Thief decaps what he can and mesmer rotates as needed.

1. Thief – S/D or D/P. Play decap. Go to any point they don’t have and take it. As long as your team has one point, you should be just fine.
2. Engineer – Orb Runner. Rocket Boots/Slick Shoes with soldiers amulet. Take Power shoes and all defensive skills. Melandru’s runes with Leg Mods. You run the orb non-stop. Are they going to cap it? Go get the orb. Are there people at the orb? Keep trying to cap it until you get it. Orb orb orb. All day. My record is 11 orbs in one game. Beat it.
3. Elementalist – > DD or Cele Staff (Good for preventing caps of the orb for long periods of time)
4. Elementalist – > S/F (For swirling Winds at the orb)
5. Mesmer – > Shatter

Skyhammer

Eles hold mid. Engi and thief troll on side points. Mesmer screws with people on the cannon. Swap as needed.

1. Thief -> D/P or S/D. Yank people down with Scorpion wire. Jump around with the engineer and get those stealth pulls while he has fun on point.
2. Engineer – > Decap pusher. Flamethrower/toolkit/Mine is a good combo. Go full defense. You go to any cap that isn’t yours and take it.
3. Elementalist – > DD with Lightning Hammer. Camp point B.
4. Elementalist – > DD with Lightning Hammer. Camp point B.
5. Mesmer – > Focus pull mesmer. Hold the cannon and stealth a lot. Fire on points that need it.

Courtyard

Key is to stealth bomb at the start, play in the choke points for easy escapes and the nades, don’t attack when downed.

1. Thief – > Bunker Res thief. 0/0/6/4/4. Bring resilience of shadows and mercy runes. No one on your team should attack while downed. When someone does go down, throw down any stealth you have and res them. Bring D/P and Shortbow for the high uptime on stealth. At the start of the match, shadow refuge everyone and spike something down. During the fight when everyone is up, spam your shortbow stealth attack for 2s immobs every 4s. Poison everything.
2. Engineer – > Nades of any kind. Despite what people think, spamming these in Courtyards tight corridors is really strong. Bring elixir S. Be Careful. Reserve mines will reveal you if you go down. Try not to die near them.
3. Elementalist – > DD. Support is extremely helpful and eles are really hard to kill in these 5v5s.
4. Elementalist – > DD.
5. Mesmer – > Shatter. Stay back and play defensive. Fight from ranged until you have a good opening. You are the easiest target on the team.

Mercy Runes. Everyone running mercy runes.

This was my first match of the day. Two thieves? This happened at 11:45 AM PST patch day when a lot of players seemed to be on trying the system. I thought this system was suppose to prevent that? Some more info:

1. We duo queued
2. I was a thief
3. Friend was a mesmer
4. We both play our classes at a high level.
5. We got into queue on the first try.
6. It was BOTH of our first matches in the new system.

Justin ODell.9517:

uberkingkong.8041:

Ya think I found my MMR sweetspot?

Redacting your screenshots is good practice from a privacy standpoint, but it makes it a lot harder to confirm and diagnose your matchmaking issue.

Speculating, and assuming this is solo arena from the RP reward, it looks like you were hit by the critical flaw in the current matchmaking.

The current matchmaking was designed for tournaments, not one off games, so it works by forming teams and then matches them against other teams. Jumper X and Sushijr’s team likely had a high MMR forcing them to wait in the queue for a longer amount of time. This kicked in the fail-safes that slowly widened the range of rosters we tried matched against them. Even worse, if there were no other high MMR players, their team would be filled with lower MMR players, lowering their mean MMR, dropping the range even further. Your team was the first that fit the now expanded (and possibly lower) search range. Since it was solo arena, and assuming this sshot is after the change, it tried to shuffle the players between the teams. Unfortunately, no matter how you shuffle that deck, one team will always get 3 players from the higher team. Often that doesn’t matter, but for high MMR teams that have been waiting, it can matter a lot. If the sshot is from before that change, you were just SoL.

Lucky for us all, after Dec 2nd, we’ll be using the new servers and matchmaking which doesn’t work like this at all. I can’t begin to say how happy this makes me. Seeing so many having a hard time because of MM has been a driving force over the last year.

Also, lucky for me, after Dec 2nd, I’ll have much better tools that will let me see your match history, and a lot more, so I can stop speculating and start knowing.

How exactly will the Dec 2nd patch help this specific problem? If there are only 3 top tier players on, won’t it still just expand the search until you hit terrible players?

That’s a lot of burning.

bethekey.8314:

I do apologize if I come off as smug, but after hearing “your build is not viable” so many times after consistently winning (with every form of the build) and being ranked as one of the top engineers with it, I am starting to question other people’s concept of viable. Especially when I see those same people fail to make full and creative use of all of the skills available to them.

I just wanna jump on this point, because no one seems to get this.

Chaith is in the Abjured and his competition is the Absurd and maybe a few other teams. “Viable” is a very different word for him. Viable is about being viable against anyone of any skill level in a highly competitive arena even with a few mistakes made AND that there no other build that could do these roles better. Viable to most people is “Can this kill people in Solo, Team or Hot join? K. Viable.” As said by Helseth: “Mesmer isn’t viable. I am viable”. Anthem of the slightly not viable build.

Yeah, I’ve played a build that was 4/6/0/0/4 berserker 100 mines (utility goggles, mine, rifle turret with static discharge) build and dominated in tPvP before. But I would never ever ever ever EVER EVER take that into a tournament. Ever. Idc how many times I’ve killed high ranking players with that build. I don’t care about the many times I’ve team wiped people. It’s not viable in tournaments. When people are actually trying with full teams, it’s easy to jump on me and take me down. A good player can make bad builds viable against a lot of players. That doesn’t mean it’s viable.

It’s fun playing what you want, but don’t get upset if someone calls it not viable. They aren’t calling you an idiot for running it. They aren’t calling you a bad player either. Have you tried condi engi? That kitten is VIABLE. Like wow. It’s so incredibly easy to run. When I’m tired, I run condi engi to steam roll people. I’m not calling the player super good and smart for running it. It’s just a really viable build.

Also, if you truly are a “top engi”, get into a tournament team and prove it. Team Queue is almost meaningless nowadays. Could be random people. Could be lag spikes. Could be AFKers. Could be people testing something new. Could even be people not even trying. Happens all the time. Tournaments is when everyone is REALLY trying to win. That’s when you know where you stand.

I watched your mini guide. The build’s wonky, but you play it well. Refer to the quote from above. The build listed seems to be old, but assuming the skills are the same, I kinda side with Chaith here. That build could be replaced by a better build. You can probably get kills with it, sure, but that doesn’t make it viable.

I am fully against character swapping of any kind, even before the match has started. If you wanna edit a few choice skills, fine. But you shouldn’t be able to swap your team comp. It creates a culture of countercomping rather than trying to create a team build that is good at facing anything. Further, it makes people not learn how to deal with certain other builds and instead teaches them to just swap from rock to scissors whenever they see paper.

Evan Lesh.3295:

Deified.7520:

…

There are certainly people who only want to play PvP competitively, and never care about PvE rewards. We are still working on systems that make those players feel rewarded, but right now all of our prestige rewards come from LAN tournaments. Reward tracks are geared more towards the larger audience.

I really like the idea of NPCs walking around to show off the armor. I certainly noticed that in Silverwastes.

I feel like there’s a mid ground that doesn’t get rewarded though. I don’t care about PvE rewards and I don’t have a dedicated enough team to get high end PvP prestige rewards. At this point, I literally throw my reward chests away without opening them. I wish there were automated tournaments that we could just jump into and try just off the cuff, rather than sign up for one that’s happening weeks from now and has all this set up. I don’t have the time to be setting up teams, practicing and creating space in my schedule to go to full on multi-week tournaments that we’ll probably lose.

1. Why do you think that Radioactive (Super Burst Comp) did so well up until the point that they faced Abjured/Absurd (Bruisers)?
2. How much counting down of recharges do you do in PvP? Like if an engineer uses their heal skill, are you counting down from 20 in your head?
3. How do you deal with super mobile teams (Like TCG) as a bruiser team (Like Abjured) on Forest of Niflhel? How do you deal with super bruiser teams (Like Abjured) on Legacy of the Foefire as a super mobile team (Like TCG)?
4. If your entire team wipes on Temple of the Silent Storm and the enemy team traps you in base, how do you get back and break the lock in?
5. What’s your opinion on proccing abilities such as Incendiary Powder, Sigil of Doom/Air/Fire/Blood/Geomancy or Rune of Balthazar/Nightmare? Some people see it as necessary pressure and some see it as not having enough counterplay.
6. Do you think the 5 bruiser team is overpowered at a high level of play? What about lower levels of play?
7. What is a player spec you wish were viable at high tier play but just isn’t? What’s a team spec you wish was viable at high tier but just isn’t?
8. What do you think about skills with insane cooldowns, but overpowered effects such as Lich Form or War Banner?
9. How does Helseth plan to survive against a team with so many condis?
10. Sizer vs Toker. Who’s gonna die more?
11. Helseth vs OE. Who’s gonna boast/brag more?
12. Denshee vs Phantaram. Who’s gonna…do everything more?
13. How much of your fighting strategy is straight up mind games? Any examples?

MonMalthias.4763:

What’s needed here is a clear definition of the role GK is to play, which in my opinion should be Mid-Long range. (500-1400).

That’s entirely the skill of grenade kit though. It’s not challenging to far cast grenades on point. What is challenging is to get into melee range, get off some close range nades for a spike and get out. Besides, isn’t it obvious that if an engineer has grenade kit and is in melee range that they might use nades to get you away from them? It’s part of their defense. If grenades sucked in melee range, engineers would be eaten alive and have no damage to show for it.

Also, I don’t like the idea of a clusterbomb effect on grenades. Clusterbomb is pretty clunky and only really works because you can use the auto attack and poison while that slow kitten skill is working it’s way over. A kit of clusterbombs would feel really weird.

Chaith.8256:

I’d say if a patch came out that:

1.) Reduced Battle Sigil from 3 stacks of might, to 2. (Edit: In PvP)

2.) Reduced Drake’s Breath from 3 seconds burning per tick, to 2 seconds.

3.) Altered Lightning Whip so it can’t be made into attacking faster than intended.

4.) Reduced the damage of Shrapnel and Freeze Grenades by 15% in PvP.

5.) Undo the recent change of making Frozen Burst (D/D Water 3) into a blast finisher.

We’d pretty much see all of the Celestial builds brought in line without neutering the possibility for Celestial stats on any of the other 6 professions.

Nerfing grenade damage just shoves engineers into a condi/celestial box. As an engineer who really doesn’t like playing either of those, I’d probably just drop the class or stick with the outlier builds like 100 mines. Power on engineer is already considered weak in tPvP. We don’t need to make it worse. Change #4 to a rework on incendiary powder and I think you have a much better set of changes. I definitely agree with the ele changes and the sigil of battle change.

Not to mention, why would a grenade kit be pushed out of a power role thematically and instead pushed into a condi role instead? Who hears “GRENADE!” and thinks “Oh, slow death time”. I never understood why a class that is based around explosions and firearms would dominate the condi scene alongside necromancers. It would also still have grenade barrage, which is 100% a power engineer’s weapon, not condi. It wouldn’t make any sense to nerf the damage of grenades.

Chaith.8256:

bethekey.8314:

Chaith.8256

A reasonable shave would be to reduce the conditions, but that messes with the Rabid builds directly, hitting them even harder, in fact. Shrugs. A shave to the power damage of grenades in PvP would be smarter.

Explain this? It’s not like every engineer meta has been primarily strong condition damage combined with either power (hgh) or defense (rabid with backpack regen/shield/toolkit). 100 nades was an unintended game mechanic gimmick.

The fact is that grenades and bombs are our damage kits. Excluding static discharge, power builds rely on grenades just as much as condition builds do.

Yeah .. I really think that Berserker/Power Engineer is PvP obsolete. It’s too inefficient because there is no damage focused kit Engineer has that’s focused on pure power damage. With Celestial amulet to complement the way conditions are inseparable from the PvP oriented weapon sets and traits, it’s…. way too comparable of damage as when building purely for power.

But I do want relatively viable options to complement most amulet types. So I’m aware that nerfing the power component of Grenades would hurt people that wear Berserker amulets and use Hybrid weapon sets that everyone’s forced to run.

I’m not really sure, man.

I don’t agree. The problem of celestial engineers did not exist until the patch where celestial and strength runes came into play. Fix what caused the issue, don’t nerf what was fine before. Power nades and SD 100 mines are some of my favorite builds to play for engineer, far and away more fun than celestial or condi. The application of conditions needs to be more skillful. That’s all. We don’t need to nerf power builds on engineer (god that’s a weird sentence to have to say). Nerf IP, Strength runes and some of the sigils. Leave the rest of the fair engi stuff alone.

GOSU.9574:

You got 5 slots. FIVE.

Unless you plan to start using XIII skills, you do not have to “pick” a class.

Make a class. Play PvP. Don’t like the class? Delete, make another class. Play PvP.

Rinse. Repeat. Profit.

You only need 1 character slot to PvP any and all classes.

There are 10 grandmasters, 20 utility skills and multiple weapon sets PER class. There are a crap ton of runes, sigils and amulets to choose from. How in the hell does he know if he’s really tried out the class or just randomly put together a 3/0/4/3/4 thief with a cavalier amulet because it seemed like a good idea and got the wrong idea of the class? Saying “Figure it out” to a new player in this game, especially for PvP, is a recipe for disaster.

Why Power? Why not something like:

1. Condi Damage/Precision
2. Condi Damage Precision/Condi Duration

Power seems kinda useless in this without much crit damage. I mean, maybe you could run 6 into a crit damage line to get it to a semi-respectable level, but I just don’t see this as that much more damage. It seems like a yolo-celestial style build with a condi focus. Might try it if it ever makes it into PvP.

tanztante.6532:

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Sizer.5632:

Great idea, except for the fact that it wouldnt do a thing to classes not based on autos. So basically all those thieves running fire/air sigils would move to doing it on s/f eles.

+1 to this problem needing to be addressed
-1 to this particular idea

S/F ele is straight up stupid and OP vs anything that’s berserker. The build itself needs to die. Unless there’s some other build with this complete lack of counterplay, I think this holds up for every other build in the game.

srsly, what are u even talking about? sf ele is a 1shot enemy for mesmer/teef combo, even for teef alone. it’s all about the pentiums baby

What crap S/F Eles are you talking about? Any good SF ele knows how to burst a thief. Most of your health can be gone in one shot with no animations. Berserker classes can’t survive on luck vs classes with no counterplay, especially when blind isn’t a viable option to reduce damage. Maybe S/D can handle it better, but even top rank players have said “I run S/F ele because the only way to beat something with as little counterplay as a S/D thief is with something with even less counterplay”. Not to mention mist form + obsidian flesh + lightning flash is a great way to survive against mesmer thief combo.

Sizer.5632:

Great idea, except for the fact that it wouldnt do a thing to classes not based on autos. So basically all those thieves running fire/air sigils would move to doing it on s/f eles.

+1 to this problem needing to be addressed
-1 to this particular idea

S/F ele is straight up stupid and OP vs anything that’s berserker. The build itself needs to die. Unless there’s some other build with this complete lack of counterplay, I think this holds up for every other build in the game.

This actually sounds pretty good. The only thing I can think of is proccing these off of really easy to hit skills such as pistol engi skills, but even then if you keep distance you can just dodge it and they won’t necessarily proc.

+1 definitely. Great and elegant solution to a huge issue.

Chaith.8256:

insanemaniac.2456:

The Gates Assassin.9827:

If you’re talking about walking away from a target, of course it will fizzle. You aren’t facing them.

thats exactly what this thread is about. too easy to fizzle.

It’s more about the frontal cone being too fickle at close range. You think you’re facing a guy, but if he’s like, 10 or 2 o’clock instead of 12 o’clock, the facing is incorrect.

In reality, anything between 9 and 3 o’clock should be proper frontal facing.

It’s almost like the Engineer’s field of vision is starting at the tip of the Engineer’s Rifle, as opposed to the middle of the Engineer hitbox.

You think you’re facing an enemy properly.. the enemy is in front of you, but your Rifle can’t see it, basically.

A bit of a more gracious field of vision for the facing requirements would be ideal.

Now that’s an explanation. I can’t say I run into this that often, but I can understand how it could occur.

That said, it’s a rifle, not a sword. it shouldn’t be able to hit people to the left of you, only in front. I mean, if there’s evidence that there are some edge angles where it’s looks like it should have gone through but didn’t, that’s a different story, but conal firing sounds about right to me.

insanemaniac.2456:

The Gates Assassin.9827:

If you’re talking about walking away from a target, of course it will fizzle. You aren’t facing them.

thats exactly what this thread is about. too easy to fizzle.

So you’re upset that guns don’t shoot backwards?

insanemaniac.2456:

The Gates Assassin.9827:

If you want something to be done about it, there needs to be a reproducable way to have it happen. Otherwise, it could be chalked up to lag or just a misunderstanding. Not to mention a bug like that would be a nightmare to find/fix with so little info to go on.

it is reproducible, walk away from your target and push 2, 3, or 4 on rifle while holding a movement key. we dont like the self interrupt functionality, which is put there to keep the skill from going on full cd for a “guaranteed” failure. it isnt a glitch, its working as intended… it just kinda sucks.

I just tried this on a golem. I held “S” and hit 2, 3 and 4. They all worked fine.

If you’re talking about walking away from a target, of course it will fizzle. You aren’t facing them.

Like I said, there needs to be a clear reproducable way to do this or nothing will change. Personally, I use rifle for all engi builds and I never notice this. Any time it goes on that recharge I know I wasn’t facing the right way or I accidentally hit a movement key. Just hit S to stop moving completely and then hit the skill you want.

If you want something to be done about it, there needs to be a reproducable way to have it happen. Otherwise, it could be chalked up to lag or just a misunderstanding. Not to mention a bug like that would be a nightmare to find/fix with so little info to go on.

Harbinger.8637:

I like Spirit Watch, all they need to do is make the orb have special skills (lock out profession skills) like they did with the Orb of Power in WvW. It was already in the game so it wouldn’t be that hard to add.

Power Bolt- Release a burst of energy to damage your target.
Orb Strike- Hit your enemy with the Orb, stunning them.
Throw Orb- Throw the Orb towards your target, blinding targets that it passes through. It bursts, dazing enemies, and returns to you.
Radiant Armor- Grant Retaliation to nearby allies.

It would be kinda cool if it played like the Arah path where you can toss the orb to each other, only now enemy team members could intercept it!