Guild Wars 2

Acandis.3250:

cymerdown.4103:

As examples, can you go x/x/x/30/30 as a support shatter build with illusionary persona? Nope, no Deceptive Evasion. Can you go 30/x/x/x/30 confounding suggestions with imbued diversion? Nope, no Deceptive Evasion.

kitten man… If only mesmers had other ways of conjuring illusions than Deceptive Evasion…

Not to mention, there are other good traits besides IP. One of the big mesmer builds right now doesn’t even use IP (30/20/0/0/20). Drop the points in Illusion and go elsewhere and have a blast.

cymerdown.4103:

As examples, can you go x/x/x/30/30 as a support shatter build with illusionary persona? Nope, no Deceptive Evasion. Can you go 30/x/x/x/30 confounding suggestions with imbued diversion? Nope, no Deceptive Evasion.

I am very happy about these facts. Confounding + Deceptive + IP would be scary as hell.

Edward.7362:

The Gates Assassin: Yeah, that’s what I figured. He used the cluster bomb to add to spike.
I also suspect that he used some sort of stun (poison?) or perhaps some root. I think I tried to use dodge as it’s my usual reflex against suddenly appearing rogues but I am not 100% sure so I didn’t mention it earlier. Nonetheless as I stated before I am not interested in exploring how or why it is okay for him to kill me that fast (not in this topic anyway). It is quite obvious I was outplayed, I can live with that (actually I expected to be outplayed).
What I don’t think is okay is that he can pull that off. (Although kudos to him for using all resources he had at his disposal. Provided he didn’t cheat ofc.)

It seems that the PvP community here is happy with the state of the game and hateful towards anybody suggesting otherwise. I don’t like how my attempt to point out that something in this game is not fun – as the term “game” should imply – and it turned out to be a rich soil for overzealous personal attacks and claims that I am a liar.

Sad, sad…

You’re not going to enjoy fighting every class and build in the game. When you face a thief, you have to be fast. I LOVE fighting thieves. It’s like a dance of death. On the other side, I generally don’t like fighting heavy AI based builds. That doesn’t mean it should be gone from the game. Some players love those builds where they are the master of their army and some players love taking out that army. There’s been a lot of arguments over the PU build which relies heavily on confusing the opponent and using phantasms + stealth. Some find it lame to fight, others don’t.

What really matters is two things:

1. Power output to skill required ratio
2. Counterplay

How easy was the combo he did? Not very easy. Is it the hardest thing to pull off, no, but it’s sure as hell not easy.

How much could you have done about it? If you see a thief, you need to get your cooldowns ready. It’s VERY hard for a thief to come out of no where without wasting shadow refuge now. I believe you also said that clusterbomb critted for 5k. That’s damage that you do when you’re facing another berzerker, so I’m guessing you didn’t go very much into defense or tactics. When you go full glass, you risk getting shattered. That thief had the same risk you did.

That’s just prep wise. As I’m sure you’ve read, you can see this stuff coming if you watch carefully. Skilled thieves will do this a lot. They are masters of coming at the WORST time and nuking you. If you see a thief coming, they’ve already done something wrong

Malchior.5042:

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Wolf.5816:

I always liked copying other classes. Mimicking is a great tactic to use against an opponent, I wish using Elixir X just gave you a random Ultimate from the entire list. Lower Elixir X’s Cooldown and That would be fun and a balanced way to make this Ultimate more appealing than Supply Crate. Because you would have the potential to get an incredibly powerful Ultimate like Thief’s Guild or Moa Form on an engineer would be potent for sure but you also have the chance to get detrimental Ultimates as well.

I know this is not the fix any Engineer is looking for, and honestly I wouldn’t so much consider this a fix by normal standards but it would definitely make Elixir X much more fun, Without ultimately changing its mechanic.

The problem with Elixir X is that it’s TOO random. More randomness won’t help. What if you really need to knock a guy off a point and instead you get Glyph of Elementals? How would that even work? What if you try to get a transform, but you don’t have a target and it turns out to give you Moa Morph?

As a short solution, they could make rampager better at knocking multiple people off a point. Then Tornado and Rampager can solve the same problem: too many people on mah dam point.

I think Wolf’s got the right idea. Imagine if you could have access to Glyph of Elementals or Moa Morph, but it didn’t happen immediately?

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Symbols_of_Inspiration

Without the “disabling” portion, I’ve always viewed Elixir X as the Larceny skills or Symbols of Inspiration from GW 1. With that in mind, I would prefer one of these two options -

1. Elixir X pulls from a much larger pool of elites across all classes (probably 6-8 skills total). Here’s the difference. Activating Elixir X doesn’t activate the new elite. It replaces Elixir X on the skillbar with that of the elite, to be activated whenever the player wishes! There may need to be a time-limit on it – captured elite has to be used within 30 seconds before Elixir loses effect and reverts to Elixir X. The other key component is that Elixir X would not begin its individual recharge until after the stored elite was completely finished. This gives Elixir X a more high risk/high reward aspect because it’s a shot in the dark which elite you’ll get, but those with the ability to adapt and find setups to make each captured elite useful, they’ll be rewarded greatly! Think of it sorta like the last “kit” at an Engineer’s disposal.

2. Elixir X has to have a target to be activated. The target is then scanned and either the elite skill of the specific target is copied to the Engineer’s bar or the profession of the target is used to select a copied skill from the pool of available skills. Now, the Engineer has some aspect of control with regards to what to receive from Elixir X. I would expect this copied skill to be stored on the bar, much like version 1, but have a much shorter window of activation time (10-15 seconds).

Both of these versions would reward smart play with whatever elite is given, instead of just 2 elites highly focused on pure CC.

Toss Elixir X? Copy the elite of target foe? What if you copy an engineer also using Elixir X xD. This isn’t a terrible suggestion if it has gives the player the knowledge of what they will be getting. Could also be that whatever you hit, you get an elite based on their profession. Something like:

Mesmer: Mass Invis
Guardian: Tome of Wrath
Elementalist: Tornado
Necromancer: Lich Form
Engineer: Supply Crate
Thief: Thieves Guild
Warrior: Rampage
Ranger: Rampage as One

This comes very close in mechanic to the thief steal.

cymerdown.4103:

The Gates Assassin.9827:

I think this is only really necessary for Packaged Stimulants and med kit underwater. Part of the design of med kit is that you only get the amazing bonuses (best healing, condi removal, fury and swiftness) if you can grab them. Not to mention the heal is tied to the toolbelt, making it great for builds with Tools traited

Med Kit doesn’t get used right now because you can’t self cleanse immobilize and dropping the items takes too long for the benefits given. Making the antidote cleanse 2 conditions might be too much help for the kit when combined with the change to Scope, I’d want to test that a bit.

If you add in the trait listed below (remove condition on toolbelt ability), you don’t need this.

cymerdown.4103:

The Gates Assassin.9827:

I don’t get what Duration was reduced to 30 seconds means, but the cast time reduction is welcomed.

Oh, it means the maximum amount of time the item will stay before it despawns.

Ah. Fair enough change.

cymerdown.4103:

The Gates Assassin.9827:

What is the real reason…

The real reason is for the self res, but it’s too strong for both, honestly. Downed state begins at 65%, so at 17% per tick you’re looking at a 3 second res at most, the same time as it takes to stomp. Sometimes you’re lucky and the first pulse happens as soon as you drop, making it about 2 seconds. And if you get the double R, it’s almost an instant rally. This isn’t a healthy thing for 1v1 matchups, especially when you already have excellent 1v1 potential and the 2nd best 1v1 elite in the game. I understand there is Poison and knockbacks for counterplay, but honestly, it just resses for too much for a non-elite ability with that short of a casting time.

If the time is the issue, make this pulse every 2 seconds instead. Then it would take 4 seconds, giving players a bit more time. I also think that if this had a 3/4-1s cast time, it would be WAY more fair.

cymerdown.4103:

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Inventions is the worst line engineers have, and this is 20 points into it. Unless you make this a 5 point minor, this is a huge and annoying nerf. I also think if you remove the net turret from the elite, nerfing the stun duration is just adding insult to injury.

I wouldn’t call it a huge nerf, I would call it a reasonable one. Supply Crate is the 2nd most powerful 1v1 elite in the game, partly due to the really long CC if you get hit by the stun. Changing out the turret raises the DPS but reduces the CC, which I think is the right way to go. Lowering the stun duration I think is necessary in order to reduce the cooldown of the skill, which was the other goal of mine.

If this was to go in, I would at least put Elite Supplies as an adept trait. It’s not that good anyways. 20 into inventions is just ridiculous.

cymerdown.4103:

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Definitely would be popular on SD builds, as it would give another 6 condi clears per minute. REALLY powerful with Cleaning Formula 409 Maybe make it like 15 seconds or so.

That’s not really that much, and anything less than 1 condition per 10 seconds is extremely underwhelming, especially for a Master tier trait. See: Purity. I’m not worried that it would be too good with Cleaning Formula 409, since if you’re taking both of those traits, you’re basically making a bunker build, in which case you are going to need the extra cleanses, since Engineer bunker condition removal isn’t good enough yet.

But this is an engineer trait, not a guardian trait. It’s also in a line that is primarily offensive, so a defensive trait in there would be really popular. Most engineers also take Healing turret (6-8 condi removals per minute) and transmute (4 prevented per minute). With this trait added in, that’s 16-18 per minute. Not half bad. Especially since it fits right into your normal rotations.

cymerdown.4103:

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Overall, I see a lot of buffs to the Static Discharge builds.

No, static discharge can’t afford the DPS loss of taking that trait.

? It’s in the same line that static discharge builds go into. I could easily see people running 20/20/0/0/30 if they wanna go full glassy or something more like 10/10/0/20/30 for something more defensive.

sunnypsyop.3025:

The Gates Assassin.9827:

A full redesign, requiring new art, animation and coding is extremely unlikely.

You’re right, it’s unlikely. But they never bothered to give us a unique elite in the first place… I always prefer to offer up the best-case scenario as a suggestion rather than starting off by bargaining with a “no” I haven’t heard yet. ;3

If the past is any indication of the types of changes they like, it’s better to give them something actionable rather than mystical.

sunnypsyop.3025:

I’d approve of just about any change that could be made to Elixir X (some great suggestions here already), as long as that change included a removal of the RNG from the only RNG elite there is. An idea I haven’t seen talked about much yet is to create a super elixir kit out of the elite — give the Engineer a set of tossable elixirs in a new bar, like Tome of Wrath, Tome of Courage, and Lich Form perhaps?

Glad to see this issue is getting some attention here…

A full redesign, requiring new art, animation and coding is extremely unlikely. I really think the only doable solution is to make Rampager have an effect that is closer to tornado:

Kick – Now can hit up to 5 targets. Raise recharge to 12. Increase aftercast to .5s.
Dash – Now can hit up to 5 targets. Knocks back foes 200 range. Raise recharge to 12.
Throw Boulder – Now can hit up to 5 targets in that area. Raise recharge to 15.
Seismic Leap – Launches foes. Raise recharge to 25.

Lower damage on all skills by 20%.

Wolf.5816:

I always liked copying other classes. Mimicking is a great tactic to use against an opponent, I wish using Elixir X just gave you a random Ultimate from the entire list. Lower Elixir X’s Cooldown and That would be fun and a balanced way to make this Ultimate more appealing than Supply Crate. Because you would have the potential to get an incredibly powerful Ultimate like Thief’s Guild or Moa Form on an engineer would be potent for sure but you also have the chance to get detrimental Ultimates as well.

I know this is not the fix any Engineer is looking for, and honestly I wouldn’t so much consider this a fix by normal standards but it would definitely make Elixir X much more fun, Without ultimately changing its mechanic.

The problem with Elixir X is that it’s TOO random. More randomness won’t help. What if you really need to knock a guy off a point and instead you get Glyph of Elementals? How would that even work? What if you try to get a transform, but you don’t have a target and it turns out to give you Moa Morph?

As a short solution, they could make rampager better at knocking multiple people off a point. Then Tornado and Rampager can solve the same problem: too many people on mah dam point.

cymerdown.4103:

Engineer
Poison Grenade — Poison clouds now last for 3 seconds, down from 5 seconds, and deal 3 seconds of Poison per pulse, down from 5 seconds.

Agreed

Concussion Bomb — The radius was reduced to 120, down from 180.

Okay? I never really found this that strong.

All Med Kit Items — Now are immediately picked up if dropped near an ally. Previously, the player had to move to pick up the item, even if it had been dropped or thrown close to them.

I think this is only really necessary for Packaged Stimulants and med kit underwater. Part of the design of med kit is that you only get the amazing bonuses (best healing, condi removal, fury and swiftness) if you can grab them. Not to mention the heal is tied to the toolbelt, making it great for builds with Tools traited.

Drop Bandages — Reduced casting time to 0.25 seconds, down from 0.5 seconds. Duration was reduced to 30 seconds.

I don’t get what Duration was reduced to 30 seconds means, but the cast time reduction is welcomed.

Elixir R — Now instant cast and breaks stun. The cooldown was increased to 45 seconds, up from 30 seconds.

Toss Elixir R — Now revives 12% per pulse, down from 17%.

What is the real reason you are nerfing this? Is it because of the self res or because of the team utility? Because you’re nerfing both and I don’t think that’s quite fair for how often this actually makes a save (50% of the time in my experience). Simply out damaging the pulse is enough to get through this. A probably stronger nerf would be to hit Inertial Converter by raising the threshold to 50%, so you can’t time this on yourself unless you are REALLY getting bursted by a team. No more double reses. I also think raising the cast time to 1s would be fair too. Give teams a chance to interrupt it.

Analyse — This toolbelt skill has been redesigned. It now called “Deploy Detector”.
Deploy Detector
Deploy a detector that applies vulnerability and reveals stealthed enemies within the area.
Casting Time: 0.5 seconds
Recharge: 60 seconds
Range: 900
Radius: 300
Duration: 5 seconds
Revealed: 4 seconds
Vulnerability(5): 8 seconds

Now that’s something to test 0.0 That could be really really strong against things like PU and when people are ressing in team fights.

Launch Personal Battering Ram — This skill has been redesigned. It now knocks down any foes it hits for 2 seconds, does not cripple, and has had its cooldown increased to 45 seconds.

Love it. I might actually go PBR if this happens.

Supply Crate — Now drops a Rifle Turret instead of a Net Turret. The stun duration was lowered to 1s from 2s, and the cooldown was reduced to 150 seconds from 180 seconds.

Elite Supplies — Now adds a Net Turret to Supply Crate instead of a Rifle Turret.

Inventions is the worst line engineers have, and this is 20 points into it. Unless you make this a 5 point minor, this is a huge and annoying nerf. I also think if you remove the net turret from the elite, nerfing the stun duration is just adding insult to injury.

Automated Response — Now reduces incoming condition duration by 100%, rather than granting complete immunity.

Still completely inactive pure immunity. At most you’ll get like 10-30% condition duration which isn’t even worth mentioning. The tricky part about this is if you do anything less than 100% but a nicer threshold, This kitten will break the game. Maybe “Drinking elixirs grants condition immunity?” 3s duration.

Scope — This trait has been redesigned. It is now called, “Antidote Pouch”, and reads, “Using a toolbelt skill removes 1 condition. (CD: 10 seconds)”

Definitely would be popular on SD builds, as it would give another 6 condi clears per minute. REALLY powerful with Cleaning Formula 409 Maybe make it like 15 seconds or so.

Overall, I see a lot of buffs to the Static Discharge builds.

Funny thing about this is if you even sneezed that thief would have died. Anything that can burst that hard dies to a poke.

That was also an extremely good thief. He’s basically doing a perfect combo, using the travel time of cluster bomb to get an amazingly strong and well timed spike. What he did wasn’t simple. You got outplayed. Hard.

DuranArgith.1354:

By 4 secs of complete immunity I meant having both endure pain AND berserker stance activated. Work on your reading comprehension.

Using both together is a total waste. It basically guarantees that you will die afterwards as you’ve basically blown all of your defensive cooldowns.

Maybe you don’t talk a lot in hot joins, but I hardly ever shut up. Half the time I’m about to get stomped I yell “Noooooooo!” I’ve called so many players rude for suddenly attacking me. You start to meet a lot more people the more vocal you are. I’ve met quite a few friends in 1v1 arenas, hot joins and even solo queues.

zrmncr.6471:

I had so many afkers / leavers recently I started leaving/afking too since there is no system to prevent this behavior AND those matches are just a waste of time. For example no matchmaking that prevents 3 thieves or 2 thiefs 2 eles on the same team.

Kind of a kitten move there. There’s nothing in this game that says a team of 2+ thieves is going to lose. Sure, you can’t hold as well, but you make up for that with more spike damage and mobility. Also, there’s a system in place to stop leavers, it’s called Dishonorable. They just made it stricter.

BlackDevil.9268:

Actually, some ppl can be extremely good at playing ranged classes but horrible at melee, so that statement is not 100% correct.
I rather find shatter underpowered and PU balanced if we look at the whole game. PU is only usefull in roaming, shatter can be used anywhere, but in most cases not worth using.

What? Shatter is incredibly useful. Portal + Boon Removal + Lots of Vuln + AoE Dazes + Lots of stomps + Chaotic battlefield? Hell yeah, I’ll take that on my team.

I hear sarcasm and bad spelin/gremmer make your point strong.

/irony

Sooo how is perma 33% faster for 10 points in a good line worse than perma 25% for 20 points in a bad line?

Agony.3542:

Idk if I correctly understood what your problem is…
It is highly unlikely that someone would join a party in the lfg tool just to change the description, isn’kitten I mean they could just make their own lfg post. (= the person that ends up in your group didn’t want to be there either)
It is more likely that your group, aswell as the seller/exploit teacher/whatever group got ninja’d by some BHB-Whiteknight-Wannabebatman who does not like seeing these posts in the lfg tool.

If a party of two joins a group and they start the dungeon (Aka, the party of two is the instance owner), they now own the group and have the ability to kick everyone else out of the party at the end and sell runs. That really can’t be allowed. It’s not “Oops I joined the wrong type of group, lemme change it to fit my playstyle.”

Qaelyn.7612:

phaeris.7604:

Honestly though….it’s boring. I can see why people play it, they don’t have the ability to do well with high risk, high return burst classes. It’s the go to spec for them.

You know, it would be nice if people could at least entertain the possibility that some folks actually prefer this playstyle. I’ll freely admit that it’s easier than a shatter build, but since everyone flatly states a good shatter player is stronger, I would invest the time to learn it if I enjoyed that style.

I don’t.

I was attracted to the mesmer because it is the only class I’ve ever seen in an MMO that is somewhat similar to the illusionist specialty wizard in D&D. I like the idea of a character that deceives, confuses and confounds his opponents, frustrating them into making mistakes and turning their offense around on them. The PU/phantasm build I run allows me to do that.

In contrast, shatter builds IMO just turn illusions into yet another way of damage delivery. Every one I’ve tried has been fairly “in your face” about how the opponent is fought, and while still involving more misdirection than something like a warrior, I found it much less interesting to play. Challenging, perhaps, but not my thing, because it’s not in keeping with how I envision the class.

If they nerf PU or whatever I’m not going to just start playing shatter. I’ll find a way to adapt, or play something else.

That’s extremely fair, but I’d rather getting that illusive playstyle to be effective was difficult. You make it sound really fun and interesting, but it is undoubtedly facerolly right now. The implementation is kind of poor for a competitive game.

Phaeton.9582:

It should just be condi immunity to dps conditions IMO

I think it should be the opposite. I think it should block out crippled, chilled, immobilized and blind. To me, this should be MUHAHAHA YOU CANT STOP ME not MUHAHAH YOU CANT KILL ME!

Penguin.5197:

#1: Does okay damage but nothing rifle can match and useless without power. The only time I do prefer it is when I know a thief/mes is near me invisible and I need a chain attack to smack em.

#2: At one time used to be worth the long cast time but became horrid when its bleed/cripple duration was halved. Easily the worst tool kit skill.

#3: The almighty pry bar works wonders in both power and condition builds. Speaking against it is sacrilege.

#4: Awesome block is awesome.

#5: Good range, can be used to interrupt, or pull back fleeing opponents or even both at the same time. Its obvious animation leaves room for counter play though.

Overall I think the tool kit’s pros outweight its cons. 3/5 useful skills and one mediocre skill is not shabby at all. I just wish #2 would be underfed though.

I still think Box Of Nails has a lot of good uses in PvP and WvW. It’s a great escape and on point snare.

At least both options don’t suck now. It’s just sometimes it gives you a hammer to eat your food and sometimes it gives you a fork to shove in a nail.

Amir.1570:

Mesmers who cry about Warriors “taking less skill” are BAD PLAYERS who are all mechanics and have zero logic. Those classes are both brainless and I do agree that Warrior is the better class when you are good at this game.

However, to say Warrior is more brainless than Mesmer when those two classes spam invulnerability while cleaving is ignorant. Plain ignorant.

Say that again when a thief is eating you for breakfast with 7k heartseekers and 9-11k backstabs.

This would be awesome, but it would take a while to implement and it would get in the way of other things like PvP rewards, gear unification and w/e else they’re working on. Don’t expect this for a while.

Wyrden.4713:

lmao the guy who started this topic actuall buffs mesmer insanely by giving them easier access for some traits gives them the possibility to adept multiple more builds instead nerfing them , thats hilarious.

I think to nerf mesmers we should move Illusionary Persona to adept and make illusions invulnerable. That’ll show em.

- Move Desperate Decoy to grandmaster tier.

Desperate Decoy should be moved to a tier below adept where it’s never used again. Why on earth would that be a grand master trait? If deceptive evasion moved down to adept tier, you would have 30/10/0/0/30 mesmers going around stunning the crap out of everyone and still be a shatter build. Blade training does not need to go up as it’s not OP in the slightest!

Mesmers deals insane condition and raw damage, also enter stealth and blur all time. This have no counter!

You can kill the clones? You can dodge the clones until the mesmer comes out of stealth and wreck them because they’ve wasted all of their cooldowns. To get max stealth they have to blow their torch, Mass invis and decoy. That’s a lot of stuff to be wasting. During that time, they can’t go for an attack on you or they get revealed. For the PU build, you can just ignore them! They do nothing to hold a point so you can cap it while they’re trying to be all sneaky. Just keep blowing up the phantasms, wait for the stealthing to stop and then go for the kill.

Mesmers are also extremely low armor and very glassy. Get one good shot on them and they go down fast.

It’s clear you don’t know mesmer very well >_<.

Warjin.8942:

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Warjin.8942:

Artaniss.5279:

Hey guys, just coming back after a long long time a way, and I wanted to know how the eng class is now, and how are they in pve and pvp? Did their survivability get better? What are the pros and cons now of engineer class? Thanks…

In pvp , It’s hard mode, look at it this way, if you lose to any class and they have less then 50% health left, you really won as this class has the highest skill cap, don’t let anyone tell you different.

I’m going to tell you different. A skilled engineer can beat any build if they build correctly. They might lose the point and it might take a bit of time for some builds, but there’s always a way.

Yes but how much harder did you have to try in order to win as compared to any other class? I know first hand because I play many classes and the Eng is by far the hardest to play to achieve the same results, I have to try 10 times harder on my Eng to gain the same results is my point.

And I have to try way harder to be successful on my thief. Know why? It’s not my main class and I’m not as good with it. I also have to adapt to what targets I normally go for. My engineer can take out certain builds better than my thief and visa versa. I wreck things on my engineer because I know the swaps by heart and I know how to fight with it.

Qaelyn.7612:

LOL. Anyone who believes this thread title doesn’t spend enough time in the solo queue. Or lately, the team queue for that matter.

It’s all in how you play it. I’m sure a team of full thieves could find a way to beat a team of all guardians if the guardians are crap-tastic.

What serious tPvPer goes anymore than 10 into firearms or 20 into tools? The traits in firearms are awful and the damage/sustain you lose getting modified ammunition is totally not worth it in PvP. 30/0/0/20/20 or 30/0/0/30/10 for life. At least for power builds.

Warjin.8942:

Artaniss.5279:

Hey guys, just coming back after a long long time a way, and I wanted to know how the eng class is now, and how are they in pve and pvp? Did their survivability get better? What are the pros and cons now of engineer class? Thanks…

In pvp , It’s hard mode, look at it this way, if you lose to any class and they have less then 50% health left, you really won as this class has the highest skill cap, don’t let anyone tell you different.

I’m going to tell you different. A skilled engineer can beat any build if they build correctly. They might lose the point and it might take a bit of time for some builds, but there’s always a way.

GW2 is:

1. Team Skill
2. Team Build
3. Individual Build
4. Individual Skill
5. Luck

in that order.

Engineers are fantastic in every single game mode and they have a variety of builds for everything. Condi? Bunker? DPS? Burst? Roaming? We have it all still. We’re getting stronger and stronger by the patch and the only things left untouched are:

1. Turrets
2. A couple gadgets
3. Traits for certain build types (Flamethrower pure Juggernaut DPS, Gadget Traits, Good Turret traits, a decent reason to go 30 in firearms/inventions in PvP especially).

Thief is a higher skill cap profession. You can be really effective with a thief in PvE, especially with niche things like stealth, perma blind, interrupt spamming and venom sharing. A thief can bust out some crazy numbers with Pistol Whip, Heartseeker or shortbow spamming. It’s hard. They aren’t less effective than warriors, it’s just harder.

Valentin.2073:

a team of spirit rangers with one power necro having fun and winning in team arena. you can get away of having more than 1 spirit ranger sometimes. :P

Everyone there is super low ranked. That’s like saying I won a fight against a five year old by running him over with my car.

Qaelyn.7612:

Then you may do well with one of the stun/lockdown builds. But don’t buy into the “PU is useless in PvP line” as it is not true, at least, not for typical players (I can’t speak for the higher levels).

You’re not training yourself to be good tho. PU is pretty passive play. It’s better to suck for a bit while you learn the ropes than to trick yourself into thinking you’re good with an OP build. In the end, it will be nerfed and you’ll be right back where you started. I highly suggest watching pro mesmers play and learning all the tricks. If you’d like, I can post some of the tricks in that build that really make it shine.

SallyStitches.4096:

So maybe I should revisit PU and Bountiful Interruption?

Try 30/20/0/0/20 (Greatsword/Staff, Lyssa runes, Dual Energy sigils). It has a butt load of stuns and boon removal. Confounding Suggestions for the 30, normal shatter stuff elsewhere. Portal, Blink, Mantra of Distraction, Mass Invis, Signet of Ether. (Props to Helseth for this one). I find it really counters necromancers and warriors as warriors can’t keep up with you and necromancers can’t get a god kitten thing off with all those stuns. Great mobility as you can just place a portal, outnumber them at mid and port back to outnumber them again. In fact, a hilarious way to troll them is to go to far, drop a portal, and then go mid xD. They either leave someone there or they lose the point. Either way, it’s an outnumbered battle or a lost point.

PU is also a very passive spec that doesn’t do much besides stay a point. It doesn’t hold it very well with all those stealths. It really helps to learn a much harder build that in the end will allow you to do more.

SallyStitches.4096:

Thank you, very helpful! I’ll talk to my team and work on new builds, if necessary. I’m still experimenting with builds myself, too.

Best advice I can give is that there should never be silence on vent if everything is going right. If it is silent, figure out what is going on that is making it so silent. Information is king, so keep on asking for it so you KNOW that you are making the right decision. As soon as you know you aren’t, figure out what will fix that and get to inacting it. Builds with multiple tanky-bunkery people thrive on inaction. Don’t be inactive.

SallyStitches.4096:

If it’s one, no problem, but lately it’s been 2-3 per match. :/ My team can’t keep them all busy while holding points. It’s such a hard build to counter, it seems.

Bring your home point bunker into the fight too then. They probably will be playing a two point strategy and if you can get back home quickly, it would really help if you can bring him in. Keep tallies of how many enemies are at each point and as soon as you can’t account for all 5, send home point bunker back home. Luckily, warriors make counting really easy.

Remember that what makes a warrior OP is the fact that they have regen and stability (among other things). So count them! Bring poison and boon removal! Keep applying it until it dies. The more counters you bring, the easier it is. A single thief can be HELL for a warrior in a team fight.

Being a caller for your team means you need as much information as possible coming at you so you can make the right decision. As soon as something isn’t working, figure out what would counter it and get that plan in motion as quickly as possible. Builds with multiple tanky-bunkery people thrive on inaction. Don’t be inactive.

Look to their weaknesses. A hambow warrior has no mobility on their weapons. Thus, the best way to beat them is to outnumber them and out run them to other points. Make sure you team build has:

1. Boon removal – Stability is a kitten and removing it is key to getting decaps on warriors. That’s what makes bountiful thief, necromancers and shatter mesmers so useful on teams.
2. Mobility – Thieves, mesmers, engineers, elementalists…they can all collapse on a point really quickly, especially on khylo. 3v2, you can easily take out a warrior and stomp him.
3. Stomp Securing – Engineers, mesmers and thieves are brilliant at this. Just taking Elixir S on an engineer pretty much guarantees a stomp on these guys. No clutch guardian bubble is going to stop you.

Most of all, never fight them fair! Ever! If you spend too much time fighting them, they’ll just hold the point forever. Luckily, once you get that point, it’s very hard for them to take it back. They generally only have 1 skill that pushes them back and it’s definitely not enough to take a point. Stick a guardian or another warrior on that point once it’s yours and you’ll out score them in no time.

As with any combat situation, “Know thy enemy”. If you know the weaknesses and strengths of both you and your enemy, you cannot lose. Make sure that somewhere on your team there exists a counter to something. If you build too much in one department for your team build, then you are playing rock paper scissors.

Every team build should be able to do this:

1. Bunk Home
2. Bunk Mid
3. Secure Stomps (Elixir S, Stability from others, Mass Invis, Specialty stomps of certain classes [Shadow Stop on thief, Portal stomp on mesmer])
4. Stop Stomps (Stealth, boon removal, Interrupts)
5. Secure Reses (Guardian bubble, Banner, Elixir R, Elixir S, Mass invis)
6. Peel for allies (S/D Thieves, D/P Thieves, Hammer Warriors etc)
7. Shutdown (Heavy CC builds, heavy pressure builds)
8. Move between points quickly (Roaming, Portals, Shadow Trap, Quick moving classes)

Every player doesn’t need to do all of these, but a good team build covers all of this and more.

I also suggest practicing against them in 1v1 servers. It is very possible to beat these builds. Just face off against them and understand how they work. Play them a bit! There’s no better way to understand how to beat something than to play it!

I think the reason you got some hate is because you were in a 1v1 server. In normal PvP, your opponents can do much more against you. They can leave the point. They can push you off the point. They can let you run off because you stealth a lot.

In a 1v1 server, it’s about learning your build and mastering your profession. If you bring a super easy build into there that’s mostly passive stuff, people get annoyed because you’re basically just going in there to wipe people. PU and Phantasm are widely thought of as 1v1 only builds and have a very small place in tPvP.

Try going back into those servers and run something that requires a bit more skill such as a shatter mesmer or that Power Lock build that has been a bit more popular lately (30/20/0/0/20). If you win, it will be because you were more skillful and you can really hone your talent as a mesmer. Phantasm and PU are far too simple to use in those areas.

Honestly, this just seems like a newbie mistake. Ignore the haters and just use those builds in regular hotjoin. For a 1v1 server, look up Shatter (20/20/0/0/30) and Power Lock (30/20/0/0/20). Power Lock uses Confounding Suggestions if that helps. If you want to know them, PM me and I can spell them out a bit more, although they are pretty common builds.

Our team is two engineers, a necromancer, a thief and a mesmer/warrior. We win against high ranked teams all the time (definitely not super high tier just yet). Skill is the deciding factor. It’s just sometimes you need a bit more skill to overcome certain comps. Sure, you can have 2 warriors 2 guardians and a spirit ranger for a team, but those teams have weaknesses that you can exploit with your team comp. Fighting a team like that at mid is going to be hell, but splitting those guys up on three points with LOTS of roaming if the fight is going no where, will almost guarantee a victory. People put too much emphasis on personal ability. The team leader is the most important part of a team. If everyone is listening, you can make up for faulty builds and player skill any day. …At least versus most teams.

Forestnator.6298:

The Gates Assassin.9827:

If your group is that bad, you shouldn’t have gotten all the way to dredge with them. Leave early while you still can.

For me good players are those who can even carry those really bad ones. So if your attitude is to leave – well for me you aren’t a good player then. Bad allies happen in pug groups. Deal with it.

Back to topic: for me stealth works well even with bad pugs.
I just say: " guys come close to me I stealth. Don’t leave circle until it ends"

This always worked for me. Sometimes not for the first try but at the latest at the second try.

Your ability to teach new players has no barring on you being a good player or not. And yes, stealth works even with newbies, but some are just awful at everything and if they are so bad that they can’t even follow directions, that should be apparent from an earlier fractal.

Arantheal.7396:

nope.
sounds easy in theory, but randoms destroy this concept by randomly pulling something that coincidently throws a sonic blast in your direction, and therefore locks you down IC while you were in the middle of swapping.
works fine for me alone in the second cage, but the 3rd is nothing else than living hell where everything that can go wrong, will go wrong. Which just happened 30min ago.

You are right, your method works, but not if you actually deal with incontrollable values, which humans are.
For all that matters, I’ll never swap again my whole skill-set just for a single situation, that relies this much on coordination.

If your group is that bad, you shouldn’t have gotten all the way to dredge with them. Leave early while you still can.

yolosmurf.8052:

The Gates Assassin.9827:

NECROMANCER

If you are condi, make sure that you blind them after unloading a bunch of condis. If you don’t want those conditions coming back for you, blind them!

Im not sure to how many of necros condi reflects that applies to but i remember putrid mark being mentioned in the patch notes a few months ago being changed so that it will now condi flip the blind instead of missing.

Not sure if that works for the other flips as well need to check.

Found it:

“Putrid Mark: This ability will now transfer blind to enemies it strikes, instead of missing.”

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/updates/Game-Update-Notes-June-25th-2013

june 25th

Ow. My soul.

I do not understand this design choice >_<

Treborlavok.3504:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQFAUlIqicnpy2F17IxoHkW0bGki863PKobbB-TkAg0CvIqRxljLDXSuscNKA
That’s my pvp version of it.

I used to run 30 in firearms but I like more cc. So that’s why I personally opted for more cc in the explosives line pairs with my 2 turrets.

I’m also taking pointers from roaming solo in wvw. Cc is king. :-P but for group play I’d go 30 firearms for mod ammo to get the biggest punch possible.

Forget about speedy kits and vigor on swiftness. You honestly don’t need it. With 30 in tools take adrenal imp and enjoy. You’re better off taking the 10 from alchemy and going I to either explosives for more offense or inventions for defense.

This build is great at facing squishy classes 1v1 and if you get the jump on people, it’s amazing, but the thing is, in a team fight, I’d go for you right away. You have no traited defense that’s worth while and you really only have 3 skills that keep you alive (Healing Turret, Gear Block and Utility Goggles). Box of Nails and Magnet are sort of defensive, but they won’t keep you alive very well in a team fight.

The thing is, this has comparable burst to a thief, but a thief can teleport in and stealth a lot more. They also can carry a short bow and nuke the crap out of a point from a far until the point is open. You do have a piercing weapon and Surprise shot which becomes AoE with SD, but shortbow out classes that easily.

Furthermore, a thief or other comparable burst builds generally have a lot more mobility. This literally has no mobility at all.

It’s not that it’s completely unviable and can’t work, it’s just I know as a caller, I’d go for you the moment I saw you. I think you would really benefit from putting some points into Alchemy and dropping points in Firearms. Maybe put on a a sigil of accuracy instead of force to make up for the lost precision. That or change your runes to something with precision (Lyssa, Eagle etc). I would say that Utility Goggles would be a good source for it, but it’s not a good idea to go into most battles stunbreakerless and without good defensive traits vs CC. Maybe try out Med Kit?

There’s also not that much condition removal here either. Healing Turret is great, but in some situations you really need some more to stay alive. Having only one outlet means that someone will wait for you to waste that then load you up with conditions.

You also can’t stomp very well with this build. No smoke field, Elixir S, Toss Elixir S…Really all you have is the Gear Block Stomp which isn’t that amazing (All tho bad kitten.

I’d probably run something more like this if I was going SD:

Build

NECROMANCER

A necromancer’s worst nightmare is CC and blind. If you can continuously keep pressure on them while maintaining either blind or some sort of CC, they’ll never be able to kill you and slowly die in the process. If you are condi, make sure that you blind them after unloading a bunch of condis. If you don’t want those conditions coming back for you, blind them! Also pay attention if they waste their transfers. Once those transfers are gone, this is some delicious meat.

MESMER

Target (ctrl + T) the real one. Try to make them waste a few of their “get of out jail free” cards before going for a full on spike. At least make them waste blink or w/e stun breaker they brought. Staff is the tough thing to stop because the psuedo stun breaker is on such a low cooldown. I generally just try to keep the pressure on the clones and mesmer with nades, watch for illusions and dodge the initial burst and go for the spike when I think they’ve wasted everything.

It also depends on what kind of mesmer you are facing. Power Lock or Shatter? You can win if you are skillful. Phantasm or PU? Just leave.

ELEMENTALIST

It’s all about avoiding that burst. It’s kind of like fighting a mesmer. Avoid the burst, make them waste their “get out of jail free cards” and then spike them. Difference with ele is their get out of jail free cards are on 60+ second cool downs.

Treborlavok.3504:

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Treborlavok.3504:

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Forestnator.6298:

A serious PvP build without grenades or bombs is not possible.

A serious damage tPvP build without grenades or bombs is not possible.

My bunker doesn’t use grenades or bombs. SD builds don’t use grenades or bombs, but they aren’t tPvP ready generally.

Just because you can’t make/use a SD build well doesn’t mean someone else can’t either. I’ll take my SD build over anything else any day.

Best of luck in high end tPvP.

I understand your argument, believe me. But you can’t say it’s totally unviable. Given the proper trait setup and utility selection you can easily be a far point contester.

Or spec for more dmg and control and go for a mid or close point keeper.

Our utilities make a world of a difference in our role choices and we have some good options for traits to help. Compared to other classes glassy specs and that’s also saying you’re going full GC which you don’t have to to compete which is another nice thing about engi.

Show me a build or this is like an argument about if a unicorn would make a good beat boxer.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQFAUnIEV3akL+ug9akY0DSL6MHSB+FMIF6tvA-ToAg0CsIiRFjLGTMyYsxMo4QB
Here is the same build from above with no Bomb/Andes as OP requested. 3 targeted static discharges.
If you spec into the explosive lines then bomb/nade becomes a must. The line is very specific. Explosive is not the be all end all for power. Note that in my 2 builds power and crit hit are the stars. Some might call them crit builds.
Bottom line, however, Stat and Scaling equal build more than just the trait line. And all these one line answer guys are wrong.
The PVP meta now is a game of poker: of not showing one’s hand and misdirection. Having a build is not enough. If I see a condi using bomb/nade I know my game plan. If I see a DD ele or thf I know my game plan. The goal is to have a build and use it to disrupt their game plan . Just my observation.

That is what we call a one time pony. I once faced off against a team of ALL minion masters. We got absolutely crushed because we didn’t know how to adapt to the situation. We were a new team so we just couldn’t handle anything but 1-4 strategy. Three months later, we’re getting good and we face a REAL version of a full MM team (before it was some extremely low ranks in our guild). We still had that initial “WTF do we do” phase, but we eventually got that we had to avoid them and put our best pairings together to defeat them. Those kinds of builds might trick you once, but any good player will figure you out and destroy you. The reason certain builds are in the meta aren’t just because they are easy, but because they can do a LOT of stuff.

Furthermore, you have three skills that have cast times for an SD build in your toolbelt. This means you’ll be getting off one SD at a time. Not much of a spike there. Even as pressure, it really doesn’t compete as you don’t have very much power and not many skills that deal damage consistently. Your defense is also extremely lacking as your heal is on a 40 second cooldown without the trait, you lack any sort of protection and your elite isn’t very good (extremely buggy). Your stun breaker isn’t very good either considering your defense.

I don’t run this very often, but this is probably closer to what most people run for this kind of build. Some might dip more into the firearms line:

This

I really do miss those. Those, and the Guild Wars 1 style daily/monthly tournaments.

I once faced an asuran spirit ranger who was named Storm Spirit with an accent on the i. The pet was named the same. I died out of rage.

I could not agree with this more. I think the biggest problem in PvP is that the main counter to AI (AoE) is actually countering AoE! Because I can only hit 5 targets with AoE, taking allies actually protects you an your party from AoE! It’s so backwards! They should raise the target limit to 10.

Arantheal.7396:

the mess comes from the fact that not a single one of these skills is used by me in fractals.
Elixier H, Nades, elixier U, elixier B.
tough the HT is there, I would have to rebuild my complete fractal build for one single part of a random fractal that may not even occur…
HgH condi-build btw

All you need to do is swap your skills for one part. You don’t even attack during the parts that require this stealth.

…Also condi in PvE?

Treborlavok.3504:

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Forestnator.6298:

A serious PvP build without grenades or bombs is not possible.

A serious damage tPvP build without grenades or bombs is not possible.

My bunker doesn’t use grenades or bombs. SD builds don’t use grenades or bombs, but they aren’t tPvP ready generally.

Just because you can’t make/use a SD build well doesn’t mean someone else can’t either. I’ll take my SD build over anything else any day.

Best of luck in high end tPvP.