Guild Wars 2

Bombs have always been a great option instead of ft for wide aoe in pve, until the range-bug-patch. So they will be a situational kit again for pve power builds. They are a must for condi builds in pve too.

As for pvp, they sure have good contesting power, but I’m not sure if you should take them now (again). Yet they are for sure not a no go in the pvp scene.

btw they forgot to give the glue bomb 60 range. glue bomb always had 240 and 300 traited. right now it’s still “small”. :/

The icd of 5 sec ruins this trait completly – lower it to a clean 10% but remove the icd and it would be a great trait imo. Right now it’s worthless.

Glue bomb still misses 60 range, since it was always 240 and 300 traited …

I’m sorry I forgot to mention that I’m talking about PvE – to prevent any confusion.

I take IP for the burn dura, rather than it’s burn proc every 10 sec. If it was only the fire proc I’d probably stick to MA. Haven’t done the math yet, but 500 single target dps? hehe – cute.

This said, I even think sharpnel is better than IP without burn dura. Would it be the same dps increase I’d definitly stick to the mortar just for the utility it provides, especially with those other garbage elites we have. My main problem with this trait is the duration. It lasts over 20 second and it’s only one stack. So the last couple of procs will be huge overkills. I’d rather like to have 2 stacks for half of the duration.

As for PvP and WvW the cripple proc aswell the alternative elites make this trait way more attractive than traiting mortar. Long lasting bleeding ticks on single trait are also very strong there since they prevent enemies from getting ooc, may block another condi cleanse aswell giving “sight” on targets behind walls.

Bombs: Increased the radius of bomb skills with a radius of 180 to 240. This change includes bombs created by the traits Evasive Powder Keg and Autodefense Bomb Dispenser.

Almost fixed them ANet, almost fixed them … Glue Bomb had 240 range pre 23. patch and when traited it had even 300 range. So please add those 60 range to this skill too, that’d be great.

Yea I was running balthazar without nades but with FT, bombs and rocket boots OR flame turret for their toolbelt etc. But with the 100% cap the “normal” condi nade engi with 5x nightmare runes is just better. Well, love the high bleeding ticks too, but sharpnel still seems a bit underwhelming …

Mesmer still sux at aoe, but is by far the strongest champ destroyer in open world content. Mesmer also shines in silverwastes rather than in orr or fgs.

Yea it’s nothing really important for the duellist unless you’re playing a condi build, then it makes sense to place the fields that he might proc some confusion, or even better burn with allied fire fields. But since he’s proccing anyway just 1-2 finishers per salve it’s rather unsignificant.

Afaik downed players cannot get invuln.

So do I. Even though bunker down does not require the kittenty med kit.

So the tooltip bugs, nothing else – thank you, Knox. Apparently only I’m wasting 24% condi dura atm :< Well, gonna change that then! ^^

Greez

Ranger Runes do NOT work with Mesmer at the moment.

PvE options are these two:

• assassin armor + berserker weapons, accessoires and trinkets + eagle runes
• assassin armor, weapons and accessoires + berserker trinkets + scholar runes

The 2nd one is slightly better but yea it’s the 90% thing again. So it’s personal preference.

Shattermes have a super strength wich is their surprise attack, so if they are invis, stay on your toolkit and if you see the mirror blade, use your block (mirror blade is unblockable i know, but it’s the innitiate of their burst shatter). After that they are revealed and are vulnerable. A shattermes has most of the time no condi cleanse and a good junk of those will force them to retreat or fight in the dangerzone. As power (marauder~) engi it’s hard to counterattack, since they are full of stunbreaker and are slippery like an eal. Not sure what to do as power aswell. :/

I know that, but that’s not the problem: The problem is that the hero panel stops the condi cap at 100%, the tooltip however calculates the duration with 124% and says 16.75 sec, the target burns only 15 sec instead of 16.75 sec wich would be correct with the 100% cap, yet friends told me that it should be able to go over 100% with traits (not pistole trait → inc. poweder is what i mean here) wich would be correct with the tooltip wich is somehow wrong again – WAAAAHHHHH is it now buggy or not?!

I’m confused… Friends told me that the condi dura limit is 100% for a condition, but since the 23. patch it can go beyond that with traits. So i tried this out with going full burn dura:

I’ve got 91% condi duration for burn without traits. Blowtorch (pistol 4#) has a 5sec dura base. It goes up to 9.5 sec with that. Ok. Now I add 50% dura for pistols and I’ve got 14.25 sec. Still everything ok.

But when I add the 33% from inc. powder, the hero panel says 100% condi duration instead of 124%. Yet the tooltip of blowtorch says 16.75 sec, so the tooltip calculates with 124%. But then when I use the skill on a mob, it gets burned for only 15 sec wich would be correct with 100% burn dura.

So … bugs everywhere???

If you need money, silverwastes is definitly NOT the right place to go. Not even for brain afk farmers.

MH seems pretty underwhelming and not the reason at all to take the scepter. I don’t even bother about this trait even if I’m using a scepter. Overwriting phantasms can be prevented all the time by recharging mantras, resummoning phants and using CI. Staying on scepter for the whole time will never be a good idea.

To make MH viable, it should rather add something special to the scepter, rather than just increase some raw stats. Like “while whielding a scepter, phantasms deal increased damage”. Now that’d be nasty and perfectly fits to the illusion line! The scepter also symbolizes the “ruler” of the phantasm army. Owww that change would be great, … yea but just dreams

We definitly get something special, and no – not minions at all. If you look at the preview carefully you see how the drones are “attached” to us. I doubt they will be targetable, they rather be some mechnized thing in mantra style… oh … there we have it :P Fancy animation mantras

I expected piercing pistol attacks to become baseline, oh well … now this. Slightly jealous.

Apparently Nullfield get great love from ppl who use it in duels, right? PvE it’s not taken often, aswell in WvW it’s underwhelming against a zerg. Yet in duels in WvW or PvP it seems to be “ok” or in some builds even “great”, like when combined with super speed, resistance or used as a combo field. Even though, it seems lackluster to me, when I look at the whole picture.

I agree 100% with you. I also wouldn’t say that it’s op to have invuln after the block until the riposte. Same goes for scepter 2#. Also counterblades attack and projectile speed are indeed awful.

In some scenarios, scepter is indeed optimal (better than having sword only), even in PvE.

You can use the scepter as a ranged option by replacing the aa with mantra of pain and to use a 2nd single target phantasm (iswordie + iduellie).

The scepter’s skill Confusing Images is also our strongest weapon skill, better single target dps than Blurred Frenzy or sword aa in general. It is therfore possible to use the scepter as a weapon you swap to when you resummon phantasms and / or recharge your mantra of pain, or when you must get away from an enemy in general (like weakness fields of the arch diviner in fotm).

What you also can do is use sword/pistol and scepter/sword then start with a duellist and swap to scepter vefore getting in combat (duellists first bullet hits), then summon two swordsmen and burst with confusing images. You should now have almost full fencers stacks since you wear an offhand sword and your two phantasms (sword) attacked 1-2 times. Then swap to sword mainhand and stay there until the encounter ends. You can also apply vuln by sword 4 before swapping, careful with defiance though.

But most ppl don’t think so far and call it a stupid or bad weapon. But boy I love to have another block when I anyway can’t stay melee for a moment without losing dps.

greez!

Blades of Sabatine.5639:

Rather than getting rid or my ranger runes, I simply took out the sixth rune and replace it with Rune of infiltration. This gives me a flat 2% damage on any mobs under 50% HP.

This might not be the best set up, but a 2% is a lot when you think of it. Also when fighting bosses. In most cases everyone initial bust damage is at the start and can quickly take the boss HP down to 50%, thereafter, your runes now kick in to further add your dps.

You should check out eagle runes.

Sinister is not a pure condition dmg set. Either you underestimate the power part of “condi” engi, or I overestimate it. But yea … hmmm … it would be pretty interesting how much of the dmg is condi and how much power, with sinister AND rabid.

Haralin.1473:

Engi is the stepchild of A-Net they dont care about engis, i bet engi will also be the last class anounced with the elite Spec and it will be buggy and useless.

what a completly stupid comment …

Don’t forget that there are other professions too – i mainly know the mes and engi bugs and mes has some messed up stuff wich is more important than our bugs. idk about the other professions but only seeing 1/8 of the whole story and complaining about it like this is just childish and not constructive. i say myself that these bugs have been here for too long already, but i also have no clue on what else they are working currently.

• Pulling mobs together so everyone can beat them up more efficient and tell me how much damage they deal, while I just smile back at them.
• Interrupting key skills of enemies to disable them and nullify the threat they want to be.
• Reflecting projectiles to protect my allies and throw back damage for ultra high crits.
• Never dying thx to countless options to escape, block and protect.
• Porting my whole party around to get things done faster.
• And most important: Being constantly very stressed with swaping weapons and retraiting all the time.

A pain in the butt class to play, but I love it and it’s so much fun if you master it. But it requires some knowledge, skill and good reaction.

Drones won’t be minions – they are stuck to your body, won’t be targetable and give you a “buff”. Trust me ;3

It’s only the highest dps after 14 sec. That’s all. Playing condi is pure damage without the possibility to swap utilities without getting a huge hole in your dps rota. That’s what power / zerk engi doesn’t suffer from. You have more skills who deal much damage than condi. Condi requires like 1 skill per kit and will get outdamaged immediately if you have to take mines, elixier gun, elixier u, s, etc.

It’s great for those 14sec+ brain afk bossfights, but it’s not for higher fotm or the jungle (unless husks ofc). Sinister gear should always be your second gear, not your main gear.

Game changer skills shouldn’t be spammable. A long cd on a skill who changes the situation completly in your favor IS a game changer. It’s not a skill you should be able to pull in every encounter!

I think all of those changes would make it kinda … very strong I’m happy with point 2, maybe point 1 too for a fast rip. Or better a tick ever 0.5 sec?

Invuln, reflect, absorb and block (even aegis) can destroy (or reflect) any piercing projectiles aslong as they arent unblockable. If they are, only invuln can destroy them.

Don’t even start to let them think the bomb kit is “fine”. It’s not, they told us the range trait will be baseline and until they fix that, I barely see a reason to use bombs. Bombs were they way of dealing wide damage, grenades are more focused on a point. It also happens so often that mobs enter the smoke bomb and hit me since the radius is too small and de blind intervall too high to get them blinded in time. The whole kit is broken and pretty much garbage at the moment. And by now, after nearly 2 months, it starts to annoy me big times! T_T

not so happy greez – Ziggy

SlyDevil.3952:

if you have 5 condis, is it a 10% multiplier or a 10.4%?

According to the iWarlock (mesmer staff phantasm) who gets 10% per condition, it should be 1.02*1.02*1.02*1.02*1.02=10.4% yes.

I think Robert Gee forgets what type of skill this is – it’s an elite! Not a utility or weapon skill!

Elite skills are supposed to be game changers. Maybe ANet / Mr. Gee should think the other way around: Is it really fair to counter an 90 sec cd elite with just 1 stack stability and a simple dodge roll? I still think this skill is too weak. But the goal shouldn’t be a “stabi = useless / no stabi = freewin” skill. Lowering the cd to 60 will probably be the best solution.

Extreme.8350:

the actual strongest one is swordman this is troll post

depends on condi stacks

The main problem of the mantras is just that you never want to have 1 or 2 stacks left, you always feel forced to use them all to recharge them. The cd is the problem. The cd that is always the same, regardless if you spammed all 3 mantras or if you just used the last one.

I bet he still can’t beat the open world champion killer: iWarlock

However, I really love this xD Phantasmal Moa – Elite Phantasm xD Priceless!

Knox.8462:

Xyonon.3987:

We got plenty of better options

Well there’s the issue there. Nullfield is good, but it has very strong competition. Mesmers are spoiled in terms of having good utility skills.

So … let’s remove or nerf those “better options” or shall we rather change Nullfield to become a skill that has it’s time to shine too? I’m exactly trying to do this to the Nullfield. To change it to become more unique and a better option in certain situations.

What you are saying is like “A is fine, but B, C, D, E, F and G are better … let’s change everything but A!” Just an empty statement without the ambition to find a better solution.

Embolism.8106:

I think the main problem with Mesmer utility (in PvP) is that we’re locked into Portal, which leaves us with two free slots; and one of those slots is generally locked down by Blink or maybe Decoy, leaving us with one free slot for ??? (usually Blink + Decoy).

I agree. But why is that? Is it because we deal not enough damage with a tankier build? Why do not zerker builds work on other professions but us? Would we need blink and decoy, if we could run a support build, if we would be less squishy? Maybe this changes with the chronomancer, but when it does, nullfield would rather be replaced with a well then, don’t you think?

You may have misread “Modified Ammunation”. It increases your direct damage by 2% per unique condition on your target. Since every single mob you encounter will definitly have vuln and bleed on it, and most likely ~3 random other conditions too, you will deal 10% more dmg to those with this trait.

+what Peutrifectus said.

No. I’m fine with 32 skills with the metabuild, tyvm.

It would be UNACCAPTABLE to not fix the bomb kit! 180ø is much too small and if you’d see the current radius with it’s animation, you’d agree immediately! It’s the biggest flaw the engineer has right now and too much time has passed since 23th of july! I can NEVER be happy with those bombs right now!

If it comes to condi mes I trust A. White the most.

When I played the HoT beta, the mobs in the jungle move much more and are rather “unstackable” since they dodge, jump, shadowstep, run away, etc much more, so torment could be a better way to deal with them than with the current mobs we face.

It may be wise to have a defensive condition outfit for some encounters there. Especially when there will be more high toughness mobs like the husks, or enemies you really have to backup often wich would support staff play in general.

All the options

Mikkel.8427:

I think nullfield is still great…

This statement lacks – can you tell me WHY you think it’s “still” great? We got plenty of better options, even without leaving a terrible combo field for our allies.

Distortion / Invulnerability will always destroy any projectiles that hit the caracter.
This status (it’s not a boon and can not be boonstripped from you) will prevent any direct damage to happen to you, it will prevent conditions to be applied to you but not the current ones damaging you, and it will prevent you from getting damaged by retaliation, but not from fall dmg or lava. It also prevents phantasms to be cast on you.

Evade (and Blur like on sword 2) will allow you to destory most projectiles if they’d hit you. Only a few specific will still come through (like Mai Thrin and Horrik’s cannon balls) You will evade the dmg, but not the projectile in that case. Except for some exceptions, you will be able to “bodyblock” allies when you evade a projectile.

Block will block projectiles aswell. You will be able to prevent aoe’s to happen if they’d hit you directly. Yet there are unblockable projectiles, who will ignore you and just fly right through you. You will still be in the block animation from your block skill, so you can block a blockable skill later.

Reflection will reflect / Absorb will absorb all projectiles except for those who are unblockable.

You can bodyblock with ANY of them, just make sure the projectile hits you directly. You can prevent the aoe of a projectile completly if it hits you.

For example a fireball hitting you while you block, will destroy it, keeping your allies save. If the fireball hits the ground next to you, you block the damage, but all your allies still get hit.

If an enemy cleaves, you can not bodyblock for them.

Sry for the wall’o’text, but I hope I could help

Mender’s purity bug is since the mantra cd “fix”.

To have no cd was a bug since they didn’t mention this change anywhere. But it was the “fixiest” bug ever. sad they touched it

Another option would be a redesign:

This idea was in multiple minds and I still think it would be worth a try: When mantras would charge themselves over time. When you are out of combat and swap in a mantra, it will have 3 charges. Then after that, each mantra will get 1 stack after a mantra specific CD. Lets say considering cast time, cd and balance:

Healing mantra: a charge every 5± sec.
Dazing mantra: a charge every 8± sec.
Stability mantra: a charge every 8± sec.
Condi cleanse mantra: a charge every 8± sec.
Mantra of pain: a charge every 3± sec.

I’d enjoy these kind of mantras. Sure some traits would have to be adjusted, but I’d say it will make them very very smooth to play with.

sunnypsyop.3025:

My Magnet + Grenade Barrage + Prybar combo is cancelling Barrage.

can you post your build please?

Nowdays I only use nullfield very very rarely, to strip some boons from dredges in fotm, not for condi cleanse since we have better and more flexible condi clease options. But the boon strip adventage has lost it’s luster over time…

We have the option to boonstrip on shatter, combined with persona, np. With chrono this becomes even better since we may also shatter phantasms then. It also removes the boons much faster. Or out auto with quickness is like a pulsing nullfield – another thing that gets even easier with chrono.

(for TL;DR ppl:) I just think the nullfield should get some more power, more NULLIFICATION. In my huble opinion, the nullfield should tick twice as fast and prevent new boons to be applied to enemies / new conditions to be applied to allies. I don’t think this would be op, it would just give it a reason for it’s CD and duration. Just a bit more impact than all the other options we have who have very low or no cd.

toughts?

Nina.4317:

The best solution:

Show Spoiler

hide spoiler

The Cd matra recharge must be in proportion to the mantra stacks left.

If you don’t have hamonious mantra, after using your first stack of heal, the cd recharge should go down till, 5s left..

I came up with this some time ago – like when a mantra has 20 sec cd, you use 1 of 3 charges, the cd starts to lower until 13.3 sec (it lowers until 1/3), 2nd charge lowers it to 6.6 sec and obviously afer using the last charge you have to wait at least those 6.6 sec to reach 0.

With this method, you got a CD for ALL 2 or 3 stacks of mantras, so with this harmonious mantras would also give you a CDR per mantra charge. I think this is the best solution, but not the easiest. Either way, idc wich solution it will be, I just hope they do something for the mantras.

too bad torment and confusion suck in pve – only burn and barely bleed works as a good dps source, wich both, we can’t apply good enough to outdamage power in the slightest ways. alsow while playing condi your reflection dmg sux. but it is fun once in a while.

Yea, we always accept out fate as “the buggiest class ingame” – remeber back when warden didn’t attack for 6 months? – hehe what a time …