Guild Wars 2

Bomb kit can also be a good way to go for low levels. The bombs hit rather hard, and the mobs will generally stand in them when being hit. You can put points into the explosives line to make the bombs even better. However, you might want to try and be a bit more tanky if you go with the bomb kit since you’ll be in melee range for the most part.

I had the same sort of problem when leveling my engineer, but it can get better once you start to unlock utility slots, and get better gear and traits. If nothing else, just try switching to the rifle

Any build link for this?

Doesn’t sit well on the hip when holstered either, although I’m perhaps a bit picky in that regard.

You will need to provide more information. In general, I would say 20 defence because you get access to things like cleansing ire and last stand, although you’re now comparing a major trait to a minor trait. It also gives you adrenal health instead of determined revival, although ironically the latter makes you less squishy under certain conditions while the former gives you better sustain.

Oddly enough, the auto-smoke bomb trait from grandmaster in explosives would also help in this scenario. These stun lock builds can have problems against bomber engineers since you can elect to continually kite while delivering damage or debilitating conditions. If you want to try and counter that build specifically, you could always ditch grenades and go with slick shoes. Dropping the oil can be a real annoyance for them, forcing them to use a stability skill to avoid it, and super speed can get you right out of trouble and then some if you get hit with the CC combo, then going back to running around with the bombs.

I hate to say it, but… Razer Naga. Offloading all the skill functionality to the mouse means I can always keep the left hand on WASD.

As for the specific key bindings, #1-10 on the keyboard are #1-10 on the mouse, 11 is weapon swap, and 12 is dodge. The mouse wheel is also used for targetting, with target nearest bound to the click, and the tab targetting trigged by shift+mouse wheel click. I tried using the other middle mouse buttons for things but they weren’t in a position that was ideal for responsiveness, so I reserve them for unimportant things. I use the tool belt skills by holding shift and then 1-4 on the mouse. It is not a hassle to use shift because my left hand is always on WAS. The only time my hand comes off of WASD during action is to interact with F or auto-run with R.

Puandro.3245:

Callahan.3180:

Cygnus.6903:

Equip mace/shield and GS. You can face Chuck Norris with it and stand a chance. If you also equip Healing Signet, win.

Noo… I’ll remain one of the underdogs who refuses to conform to the cookie cutting latter

Then dont conplain about a build when you have options to fight it on better ground. I do agree D/P is cheesy as hell in WvW but using stuns on him is a good counter a long with berserkers stance. Range weapons are better than melee weapons too but depends on your class.

Actually, the m/s + gs build can have problems against d/p. They will just pop a black powder at your feet, and since all your attacks save 1 are melee, you won’t be able to hit them. 100bing through it is also not very ineffective. You can possibly pop berkserkers stance to have an 8 second attack window, but that just means they use their shadowstep and go back to black powder.

If the thieve gets overzealous you might be able to punish them. But they can otherwise just sit in their black powder. Luckily this means they will have to leave their black powder if you choose to stand back as well, but they can just backstab and black powder again.

A longbow would likely be much more useful against a d/p thief, although I haven’t used one in quite some time.

EDIT: Also, that was a really nice move you did with earthshaker → stagger blow to knock them out of the refuge. If your crippling wave had come out a split second earlier, you probably would’ve killed the first thief.

I still think black powder is really lame for the stomp guarantee. You can do similar things with other classes, but you often have to spend a cooldown to do so (i.e. engg flamethrower). The BP ends up basically being for free.

I still prefer hoelbrak to melandru, but the latter would be better if you want to have a more defensive build (i.e. one of those s/wh + hammer builds). I don’t really think soldier’s will be worth it unless you want to go for the frequent shouting.

I have also run a permutation of this build very frequently in sPvP. It can be quite strong, but it can be countered. Some fights I can do quite well, other fights I can do quite poorly. It depends on the team comp.

Additionally, I have over 10k achievement points and 6 level 80s, so my opinion must be more valid than the OPs.

Since I don’t agree with him, this thread can therefore be concluded.

I like using the Ascalonian Leather armor with a p/s build. Not steampunk or anything, but it has an actual helmet instead of some kind of mask or hood, and it gives more of a soldier look than a lot of the other medium armors. It doesn’t look as good with p/p or rifle, I think the shield just bring something out in it that isn’t their without the shield.

I think the rifle turret will gain the proper rate of fire if you overcharge it immediately after deploying it… I seem to remember this being the case, but I haven’t checked it in awhile.

Your problems are likely not only that the engg is p/s, but that they have particular trait or utilities that also make things a problem. Do you notice if they tend to run any particular utilities? It’s likely that they wouldn’t be able to kill you very fast with their main hand pistol, so one of the main reason you might be losing is the utilities and traits rather than the weapon set.

Depending on how the engg is specced, they may have very strong or only mediocre condition removal. However, if you spec heavily into bleeds, those bleeds can be removed by a single condition removal. As such, one way you can try to get a leg up is to try incorporate cover conditions into your build so that it’s tougher for the engineer to remove the bleeds directly. You should be able to get torment and poison pretty easily, although this may mean making build adjustments to compensate. I’m not sure it’s really possible to apply conditions en masse with a thief like a necro can, but engineers can sometimes have difficulty with this since they only have a few specific options for complete condition cleanses. Also, if they’re using the automated response trait, then it’s going to be extremely tough for you to kill them if you’re fully invested into conditions. I wouldn’t underestimate caltrops either. Engineers won’t be able to block it, so if you can keep them in a small area, they might walk all over them while you continue to shoot them.

I’ve found that p/d thieves tend to play in some kind of defensive fashion. That is, they’ll generally not push the offensive, playing a very patient game based on precise timing and a deliberate routine. The problem with fighting a p/s engg is that they often have a similar fighting style, especially if they have utilities like toolkit or elixir gun.

What do you have as an alternate weapon set? Some engineer specs can be very boon based, so if you use something like s/d you can take away some valuable boons from the engineer, such as protection, regeneration, and retaliation, which will help you kill them. The static shield ability will definitely give you some problems in that regard, but if you can manage to get them to waste it on your pistol attacks, then you’ll have a good opening for some s/d action.

One trick you can do is pop shadow refuge early in the fight, right next to the engineer. P/s engineers will commonly try to pop you out with their magnetic shield, even if you’re in no danger of dying. As such, you can use this to have them waste their magnetic shield, meaning they will not be able to use it to reflect your attacks for the next while.

Additionally, you can get the gunk item steal from engineers. This is very valuable for a p/d or p/p thief since it counts as an ethereal field. Projectiles through the junk will be able to apply confusion stacks, so using your sneak attack through the gunk field can cause some confusion for additional damage, as well as helping to cover your bleeds.

I’ve had thieves say they have similar problems against p/s engineers, even the d/d or d/p thieves. Might want to see what thieves say about countering.

Just make sure no one is standing in your smoke field, or it will instantly reveal you when it blows up.

I think it may also mean that you only have 1.5 seconds to decide if you want to throw the shield, although the block will last up to 2 seconds if you don’t throw the shield. Something like that. Haven’t really tested it though.

The tooltip is a bit odd in this regard though. Would just make sense to have it list a 2 second cast time. If you look at something like shield stance, it lists a 3 second cast time for a 3 second block.

I’m trying to move away from signets, but I’ve been getting some good mileage out of this. Probably not a great choice for glassy builds, but if you’ve got some durability it can end up having the highest healing potential. You’ll need some other way to mitigate conditions though, unless you’re willing to rely solely on runes, traits, and consumables for that.

IMO, the flamethrower should see the return of the backdraft ability, possibly as a follow up or starter to air blast. It doesn’t even have to be as powerful as the one in beta, but it gave it a nice little combo that you could use pretty easily.

kokocabana.8153:

The trials seem to all about bursty dps. As a condition engineer, I can’t keep up with the amount of enemies spawning. I’ve been able to finish T3 solo, but that involved a lot of luck and kiting,

You will need to deaggro the mobs by swimming into the water near where the first plunderer spawns. You don’t have to swim too far out, just far enough to break aggro so you get out of combat and regen. Hopefully you won’t need to do this while all the plunderer’s a running about.

Remember that you have a bit of buffer room with the plunderers too. You can have up to 4 get their bags in, so if you have to let one score to deaggro mobs, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. I found that if I was able to keep them from scoring before the 3 min mark that I generally had enough buffer left to handle it until the end.

Also, if you’re pulling the plunderer on the right hand side that has that short distance run to the loot, you can do it from the right hand side of the rock, in the water. Sometimes this will cause the plunderer to path around the back of the rock and significantly increase the distance he has to run to the score point, allowing you to easily kill him while positioning yourself back towards the other plunderers.

Debbysaurus.4016:

@Yamsandjams.3267
you’re completely missing the point.
its about team co-ordination and personal accomplishment of being able to complete this without any bug’s glitches of lame tactics.

That is what I was implying. The mini-game was not well designed and did not play as intended. If they had this sort of foresight they probably would’ve redid things before they released it.

LightOfTheMoon.4261:

Thank you for the answers.
I guess the next patch means after the price hike, so I don’t have my hopes up any longer . A cost of 5 tickets is simply too much for one skin.

5 tickets would take forever to get, and be very expensive. I opened about 30 chests since I had keys stocked up for awhile, and got 4 scraps, so not even 10% of the way there. Would need over 300 total keys to get 5 tickets at my current rate.

Celestina.2894:

Psychol.5783:

I know this mini game will be available forever but these skins will be available as a reward too?

I’d imagine so, but I have yet to hear any yes or no on it.

I don’t think they’ll be available forever, likely just as part of this event. So if you really want one, now is a good time to buy it. They can only get more and more expensive as the supply dwindles post-event (although possibly a kitteneaper at first if there’s a initial sales dump).

Did this solo yesterday, much easier than with a party. Don’t let the descriptions and advertisements about needing a party fool you.

This was much easier to do solo than with a group. Given that the advertisements for this say “you should make sure to bring a strong party for tiers 3 and 4”, it really just misleads you.

Maybe if actually killing the mobs was a viable option and the plunderers didn’t all come from the same side, then going in with a party would be doable and also necessary, but that’s just not the case as it stands.

Hopefully, future mini-events will be designed better.

I did it with a condi grenade build yesterday, with toolkit for a pull and block. Something like this:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcEQJAqalspSXHxSyF17ICoC5loHPGlNZfewWpFEC-jkCB4MBBrBkWAg+AhEBMFqIasFhFRjVJTQWfDTHLpCBsYNA-w

I tried doing it with a static discharge build earlier, but it just wasn’t working out.

The nice thing with the condi grenades is that the conditions would just burn them down while the ran to the loot, so I could get focused on the next plunderer while the first one was still dying.

Sagramor.7395:

Polearms would be nice too. But definitely odd that the weapon pictured in the class artwork doesn’t exist in the game.

There is a pitchfork, although I think it’s a trident.

Gmtsai.6349:

IMO, skull crack is over-estimated, and it only can pressure a bad player that didn’t get used to it. (Nerco who did not bring any stun-breakers or thief who spam their shadow-step for no reason.)

You don’t always have your stun breaker up. If you use it for something, then you can’t use it for something else. This sort of warrior can usually build it’s adrenaline up fairly quickly, so you can be hit by a skull crack every 10 seconds or so. If you don’t make the proper reads against this kind of build, you can end up eating the 100b.

Some stun breakers don’t offer immunity or movement either. I’ve used this before to do shield bash on a guardian, put in some filler auto-attacks, and then I hit him with skull crack the moment he used save yourself. Then he took the 100b because he had already expended other defensive utility due to fighting earlier.

All your saying is that the person who makes the better plays will win, which is a fairly general rule of thumb.

IMO the biggest disadvantage to this sort of build is that it has no ranged capabilities. That’s why I like to use warrior’s sprint on it. It makes it hard for node control in sPvP as well if your enemy decides to just sit outside, so it’s probably better to use it as a node attacker instead of defender, especially since your allies can capitalized on your long CCs with their own burst.

The thief is a hard counter against itself underwater.

In any case, they’ve done a bit of balancing for underwater combat. However, I think this post really refers to downed state issues, which they have barely addressed at all, both on land and underwater.

They’ve already indicated they want to implement some sort of “finishing” mechanism underwater, they just aren’t sure what that will be yet.

But yes, I don’t think anyone will argue that the pet rez rangers have underwater isn’t completely ridiculous (well some might, but they are just wrong).

Vanthian.9267:

Black Teagan.9215:

I hope the nerf it, thiefs have rly no chance against this and they are already weak.

Very funny day when a Thief complains about being weak when they have some of the cheapest builds around. You don’t even have to try as a Thief to kill a Warrior. Just use your Black Powder and stand in it. You have basically just destroyed the effectiveness of this build with one skill.

Although the warrior can just back up and then they have to come out of their black powder. So they’ll HS out, use the backstab, drop another black powder, and the warrior will back up again. If the warrior gets a stun in, the thief has to use a stun breaker… basically, it’s a drawn out battle between the two that relies on someone making more mistakes than the other.

But I do agree, d/p thief can be a bit more problematic with this build due to no real ranged attacks (though the GS toss can sometimes hit a bit hard).

Yeah, for dungeon scenarios hammer can hold you back a bit since the CC doesn’t get you the same mileage. However, it can help strip down defiant stacks, which can be good in its own right.

For general PvE though you can almost always run anything, so hammer can work well. It can also have pretty high damage in an AoE, although it comes out a bit slow.

A build I commonly use is as follows:

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fIMQJASUjkOxu1OGPMxBC0DtwltYe8Di8fVB7A-jkxAorhoRFGiW2rIasVwioxqsxUvER1yAwMGA-w

I don’t really think it’s that great a build, but it’s fairly durable and has both ranged and melee capabilities. The naturally high power gives you significant base damage so you can easily hit for over 1k on your auto-attacks with the hammer, one of which is in an AoE. Signet of rage can give you fury to help you crit for even more. It’s designed mostly to sit on adrenaline and benefit from the passives, although popping it for the AoE stun is available when needed. It got a nice boost when they buffed stomp. I use a modified version of this for WvW.

One of the main disadvantages is that it’s fairly slow, although this is less important in PvE. Signet of rage can be popped to help mitigate this. It also doesn’t have terrific burst potential, focusing more on sustained damage rather than bursts. The CC chains can be very useful in WvW though, especially if you have someone with you that does high spike damage, or you’re able to force someone to the edge of the cliff. Dolyak signet can also be popped if you need help securing a stomp. This build can do fairly well in dungeons too since it doesn’t keel over from a few scratches and provides some AoE and CC potential, but I don’t think it’s optimal for that scenario. It also has next to no defence against conditions, although you can put in dogged march and cleansing ire to help that out. I usually rely on the hoelbrak runes with lemongrass poultry soup to help protect against conditions. It might be worth looking at signet of stamina as well.

I haven’t played around with this much with the last patch, but I’ve been wanting to see if I can move away from signets.

In any case, hopefully this gives you some idea to start with and you can make a better build from it that suits your playstyle more.

Viparix.8476:

Very nice build, I’m surely gonna try this out. What gear do you suggest with this build? Full beserker to raise up those crits or Valkyrie/Rabid for some more defense?

I’m thinking of swapping up Elixer R for Elixer C and then take the trait Backpack Regenerator instead of 409, so I have some more passive defense opposed to active defense.

Elixir R was probably put in there when it was still a stun breaker, I’m guessing. You could possibly swap it with something like elixir gun, which would provide extra healing, a stun breaker, and a blast finisher (although you only have a light field for self-blasting).

Maiden England.3491:

lol it only works on unaware players. either ones that are looking at someone else in a zerg, or one you just happen to catch off guard. in 1v1s and small fights people almost ALWAYS dodge it right when they notice so they dont get pulled.

You can actually use that to your favour. If you force them to dodge your magnet, that’s a dodge they can’t use against a blowtorch, net shot, prybar, &c. Granted magnet can be good for a combo set up, but if your build is completely reliant on it, then you’ll have to use it more carefully. A good way to ensure it lands is to force them to use up their dodges before attempting a magnet pull, or anticipating the use of their heal skill and ripping them out of it.

Vanthian.9267:

IDarko.4709:

I’m pretty sure weapon skills are not supposed to be stunbreakers.

Tell that to Thief and Mesmer. Mesmer have a semi stun breaker on staff on a 10 second cool down, while Thief has a similar skill as well on no cool down (just cost 1 or 2 initiative). They are semi stun breakers because they don’t actually break the stun but they teleport the Thief/Mesmer at least 900 units away, which effectively ruins what you are trying to set up.

Infiltrator’s strike used to be an actual stun breaker, but that’s why they removed it.

As for the shield, if your opponent stops attacking you for three seconds, then the shield block is accomplishing it’s job: keeping you alive longer. If you die after those three seconds, then all you did was delay the inevitable. Giving this ability stun break properties would mean it would require a significantly longer cooldown or shorter block duration.

As for stability… I don’t really think it needs that. One of the main way to counter such a skills is to use an unblockable CC like magnet, line of warding, or reaper’s mark. Giving it stability would remove these possibilities, and would even allow the stability to extend beyond the block duration unless they specifically coded it that way. I guess it would be a somewhat reasonable way of making it stronger though, not that I think it needs to be stronger.

Daecollo.9578:

Yamsandjams.3267:

Daecollo.9578:

It is a lot harder.. with spammable melee blinds, condition pressure, being in the fray, everything you deal with by being melee and ignore at ranged.

You also get the benefits of cleaving attacks, more overall damage, and traits like cleansing ire to build adrenaline when hit. Maybe there’s a case for having more adrenaline built for melee hits instead of ranged hits as an additional reward for being in melee, but I don’t think splitting the proposed functionality of such a trait is the better way to go about it.

You also have to deal with Cripple/Chill/Immobilize.

Essentially, everyone does. You seem to be talking from a primarily ZvZ perspective, which throws a lot of balance out the window. PvE and sPvP can be a very different case where the ranged warrior can’t just sit back behind a throng of people not being directly attacked since the frontlines are both going at each other.

I would also point out that ranged warriors need to worry about reflect walls and projectile reflect traits, projectile absorbtion, line of sight issues, strafing, and no option for a second sigil in an offhand. It’s not like they don’t have their own problems to worry about that melees don’t.

Daecollo.9578:

It is a lot harder.. with spammable melee blinds, condition pressure, being in the fray, everything you deal with by being melee and ignore at ranged.

You also get the benefits of cleaving attacks, more overall damage, and traits like cleansing ire to build adrenaline when hit. Maybe there’s a case for having more adrenaline built for melee hits instead of ranged hits as an additional reward for being in melee, but I don’t think splitting the proposed functionality of such a trait is the better way to go about it.

Skamlic.8041:

Yamsandjams.3267:

Heh, guess your warrior is much different than my warrior. Ranged or melee, I nearly always have aggro.

I wasn’t speaking from my experience, but from official source. :P

Right, but those are only factors. As far as I understand, if you are doing more damage or have more toughness than someone in melee, you can outstrip the importance of proximity.

Additionally, you can still use a ranged weapon from close proximity. Sometimes you want to do this to avoid AoEs, use shorter ranged abilities on the weapon, benefit from ally abilities (i.e. timewarp) or stay in close for when you swap to melee.

So to conclude that ranged warriors have an inherently easier time surviving due to virtue of being ranged is using a lot of assumptions.

Daecollo.9578:

Yamsandjams.3267:

Skamlic.8041:

Yamsandjams.3267:

No, I think the sustain is the same, it’s just that you kite at range and not in melee. Even still, ranged warriors will need to remove conditions as well. Remember that melee warriors are already getting the compensation for this through more overall damage in their weapon abilities.

If they did add an “on-spend” component to this, it should apply across the board, not if you just have a melee weapon equipped. Imagine if they did that with Cleansing Ire, it wouldn’t make sense.

It has to do with the way aggro works in this game (distance and toughness). Usually melee warriors and guardians get most of the aggro. As a ranged warrior you get a lot less hit and your own healing skill is usually enough.

Heh, guess your warrior is much different than my warrior. Ranged or melee, I nearly always have aggro.

Daecollo.9578:

Yamsandjams.3267:

Skamlic.8041:

Yamsandjams.3267:

You want to make a less useful trait for ranged-based warriors? Why?

Because there are problems with sustain in melee, not range.

No, I think the sustain is the same, it’s just that you kite at range and not in melee. Even still, ranged warriors will need to remove conditions as well. Remember that melee warriors are already getting the compensation for this through more overall damage in their weapon abilities.

If they did add an “on-spend” component to this, it should apply across the board, not if you just have a melee weapon equipped. Imagine if they did that with Cleansing Ire, it wouldn’t make sense.

Then they need to add an internal cool-down on furious and other strike gaining abilities so they effect melee/ranged the same.

Otherwise ranged classes would heal for 2-3x more then melee classes. Why would that make sense?

You’d have to give more concrete proof to illustrate that. One does not gain better healing by virtue of being ranged. Remember that burst skills themselves have a cooldown, so it’s not like you’d pop it off every second. Even melee builds can pop a burst on-demand, so the healing provided by the skill would be equal in that regard.

Alternatively you can just not have an on-spend portion to adrenal health, which would be simpler.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/warrior/Combustive-shot-and-adrenaline-granting/first#post2082822

Yes, everyone knows that, but the burst itself still has a cooldown. Melee builds can build it in the exact same way (i.e. sword/axe, mace/greatsword). Plus the rifle doesn’t have combustive shot, and last I checked that was a ranged weapon, so… yeah.

Skamlic.8041:

Yamsandjams.3267:

No, I think the sustain is the same, it’s just that you kite at range and not in melee. Even still, ranged warriors will need to remove conditions as well. Remember that melee warriors are already getting the compensation for this through more overall damage in their weapon abilities.

If they did add an “on-spend” component to this, it should apply across the board, not if you just have a melee weapon equipped. Imagine if they did that with Cleansing Ire, it wouldn’t make sense.

It has to do with the way aggro works in this game (distance and toughness). Usually melee warriors and guardians get most of the aggro. As a ranged warrior you get a lot less hit and your own healing skill is usually enough.

Heh, guess your warrior is much different than my warrior. Ranged or melee, I nearly always have aggro.

Daecollo.9578:

Yamsandjams.3267:

Skamlic.8041:

Yamsandjams.3267:

You want to make a less useful trait for ranged-based warriors? Why?

Because there are problems with sustain in melee, not range.

No, I think the sustain is the same, it’s just that you kite at range and not in melee. Even still, ranged warriors will need to remove conditions as well. Remember that melee warriors are already getting the compensation for this through more overall damage in their weapon abilities.

If they did add an “on-spend” component to this, it should apply across the board, not if you just have a melee weapon equipped. Imagine if they did that with Cleansing Ire, it wouldn’t make sense.

Then they need to add an internal cool-down on furious and other strike gaining abilities so they effect melee/ranged the same.

Otherwise ranged classes would heal for 2-3x more then melee classes. Why would that make sense?

You’d have to give more concrete proof to illustrate that. One does not gain better healing by virtue of being ranged. Remember that burst skills themselves have a cooldown, so it’s not like you’d pop it off every second. Even melee builds can pop a burst on-demand, so the healing provided by the skill would be equal in that regard.

Alternatively you can just not have an on-spend portion to adrenal health, which would be simpler.

Skamlic.8041:

Yamsandjams.3267:

You want to make a less useful trait for ranged-based warriors? Why?

Because there are problems with sustain in melee, not range.

No, I think the sustain is the same, it’s just that you kite at range and not in melee. Even still, ranged warriors will need to remove conditions as well. Remember that melee warriors are already getting the compensation for this through more overall damage in their weapon abilities.

If they did add an “on-spend” component to this, it should apply across the board, not if you just have a melee weapon equipped. Imagine if they did that with Cleansing Ire, it wouldn’t make sense.

Daecollo.9578:

Adrenal Health
Gain health when you gain a strike of adrenaline. Gain health for every bar of adrenaline spent with a melee weapon.

That was my idea originally.

You want to make a less useful trait for ranged-based warriors? Why?

You don’t HAVE to have the berserker’s might and heightened focus traits in order to take adrenal health. The main thing that would benefit this trait is being able to build your adrenaline up fast, which can be accelerated by multi-hitting abilities, traits like furious, or utilities like berseker’s stance or signet of rage.

In fact, berserker’s might and heightened focus are both offensively inclined traits, yet the original complaint highlights defensive builds, so I don’t know what sense that makes. It’s a case of not being allowed to have your cake and eat it too.

I run a build with both berserker’s might and adrenal health, and I forego heightened focus. It means I crit less, but I designed the build to not rely on crits, and it can make up for those crits by way of gaining fury through signet of rage (although I kind of want to test out the new rampage).

The only real change I think adrenal health needs is that it should grant a health tick every second instead of every three seconds. I’m not saying the HP/second should be increased, but it should be parceled out in individual increments. 120 HP/second is better than 360 HP/3 seconds.

Edwin.4329:

Fair enough! Haven’t taken my engineer into WvW, so I’m just toying with ideas at the moment. The problem with the engineer is that there’s too much to pick from!
Grenade/elixir build for power:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcQQJAqelspiYnvSdF17IyoCdmoHPm+BZfeIXpFEC-jQyAYrAiuQYDBM5VEN22QR0Y12YKXA9bS1wRGA-e

With such a build, you won’t get a lot of mileage out of forceful explosives. That only applies to bombs and mines, and the only bombs and mines you have is the one you get from dodging and the ones you get from being at 25% health. You’d probably be better off picking a different trait.

Also, condition damage is not irrelevant in WvW. It’s effects may be undermined by significant direct damage during ZvZ, but you can have very effective condition damage builds for engineer. A lot of the well known solo roamers frequently run condition builds. Some will also use bomb kit, although I don’t have a lot of experience with it.

One of the healing/condition builds I’ve been using is a modified version of one that was posted by Amadeus (I think) awhile back. It’s as follows:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcEQJAqelIq6dn1yuF1bJxoCdOkiCbYQFqrIF5X/fKwWA-jwxAIOhQqBIFKI5xioxWdLiGremIqWdjJFAErBA-e

It’s designed to be able to apply conditions with decent strength (especially burning) a provide good AoE healing for use in WvW groups. It’s also fairly durable with some escape mechanisms, and the amount of healing it can put it can give it a great deal of sustain. It also has a average amount of condition removals. The trick with it is to maximize the healing potential by blasting in the water field generated by the healing turret overcharge and toolbelt skills.

The original build that was posted focused more on high burning and protection uptime, but I modified it for additional healing and using the shield. The original one is as follows:

http://tinyurl.com/muvgj55

You can find a video demo of it here: http://youtu.be/NSs0PlKm-mY

Hopefully those can give you some ideas.

Kanto.1659:

I consider 600 years mid range. Rifle is 900 (untraited).

Rifle is 1000, pistol is 900. That is, of course, referring to the auto-attack only since the other skills can have different ranges.

I’m not 100% sure for magnet, but it is possible to counter some pulls with a movement skill. If you are pulled during the skill animation, you are generally just pulled a tiny bit, and your dodge is negated. As such, some of the magnet failures you are seeing may be because the pull occurred during such a movement skill (i.e. savage leap, heartseeker, monarch strike, rocket boots, &c.).

Magnet is actually in a better position since it does not rely on projectile contact. Scorpion wire and spectral grasp are even more unreliable. Their ability to fix this is probably somewhat limited by the engine they use though as it appears to be linked to terrain collision/line of sight. So at least we don’t have to deal with that.

FYI, if the target does bounce in the air, they can still be hit as if they were standing in the place they hovered above, so it’s not like they’re immune to melee or anything. I think they can also take fall damage as a result, so it can be good if they go really high… haven’t had this happen in awhile though, so I can’t say for sure.

I’ve run an SD rifle build in PvE before. It can be used in dungeons as well (i.e. CoF P1), but you do need to be careful as such a build is quite glassy. Soloing champions or large groups might also be difficult if you get overwhelmed.

The particular build I use is as follows: http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQFAUl0pqdH5STF17IxoHkuzbG0D7mX/+pAbB-j0xAYrgQUCCRAM5VEN2ibR0Y11YKXioapAiYMA-w

It’s fairly tweakable to personal preference as well.

I have no idea what he’s talking about.

You probably equipped a weapon with a sigil of geomancy in it. It’s effect is that it causes this ring on weapon swap during combat, so every kit swap during a fight will make this ring pop up (with a 10 second cooldown or whatever).

Just examine your weapons to see what they’re using.

Acidic elixirs is also relatively low damage. They made it better in a recent update with boon removal, so I’d use it for that instead of trying to milk damage from it. The damage is just a side benefit.

Durzlla.6295:

Anymras.5729:

Rangers have the same trait as an Adept Minor trait. They spend 5 points and get it without having to choose it, we spend 30 and have to blow a Grandmaster on it.

It’s little things like that, that make it seem like they ran short of ideas when it came to us.

Rangers also have nothing in terms of control compared to engis and same goes for defensive abilities, so there’s also that…

That’s granted, but I still think that should be the 15 point trait for rangers, not 5. That’s quite a bit of reward for dipping into the tree casually.

In any case, going for adrenal implant can be a good choice if you want to go that high in tools. If all you’re looking for is the endurance regen, then you might as well get invigorating speed (assuming you already went 10 into tools). However, you will miss out on enduring damage, which can be good in certain builds, and you’ll also miss out on additional damage on tool belt recharge. The bonuses you get from points in elixirs might not be worth it depending on your build. This also relies on you using kits, which can be very important since that will strongly define your build.

One such build I use with adrenal implant is a cookie-cutter static discharge build: http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQFAUl0pqdH5STF17IxoHkuzbG0D7mX/+pAbB-j0xAYrgQUCCRAM5VEN2ibR0Y11YKXioapAiYMA-w

As you can see, there’s no point in me building points into elixirs because I don’t have many boons that I’m attempting to maintain, and the extra vitality will do diddly squat. It’s better that I have the crit damage and toolbelt recharge for more damage output. In this case, adrenal implant helps out because I can build my endurance up faster without having to rely on vigor, meaning I can benefit from enduring damage more often.

The hidden flask from elixirs would also not be that useful because I will either die to fast to gain the benefit from it, or I will be escaping/healing during most of the time those boons are active on me. Not to mention 1 stack of might is not worth the crit damage and cooldown reduction, I already have easy access to fury, I have perma swiftness, and the retaliation will be useless.

I don’t think it’s as relevant for most builds (it’s not that common to go 30 points into tools), but it can be useful. However, scope, power wrench, speedy gadgets, and even kit refinement would be better choices in some scenarios compared to adrenal implant. I just like taking it so that it’s not as punishing when I have to dodge.

ArcTheFallen.7682:

I’m just trying to figure out what would make up for our huge lack of sustain.

Well, there was some talk of how the heal skills were to have their cooldowns reduced, and it was actually part of the unofficial patch notes that were leaked. They also mentioned they were looking at skills like healing surge in that people find it odd how you need adrenaline to get better healing but have to heal to get the adrenaline.

If they simply reduced the cooldowns, that would make some ground on better sustain, but I guess they are just not prepared to do that yet. The devs will always have more data than any of us do, but there’s been so many instances where having 5 seconds less on my healing skill cooldown would have changed the course of the fight drastically.

Well, you can take both shrug it off and lung capacity if you invest the 30 points into the tree. Only grandmaster traits are truly exclusive in that regard.

Also, I don’t believe lung capacity shortens the recharge of shrug it off, if that is what you were implying. A bit hard to tell. In any case, shrug it off will be more useful for people who don’t take or spec into shouts but would still like at least one use of shake it off ever 30 seconds, whereas lung capacity is only really useful if you take shouts in the first place. Shrug it off never struck me as something designed for people speced into shouts, although you can always just take both.

I think the devs do want to make it so that the trait choices do have some level of competition with each other, so that you will always have to manage trade offs instead of having a clearly superior option in every single case.

Also, the guardian is not completely free of such conflicts or stat oddities. For instance, the honor line features a minor trait sequence that is designed around crits proc’ing vigor, but the tree doesn’t boost your precision. In the same tree, there are two master traits called writ of the merciful and writ of persistence, which cause symbols to heal allies and last longer, respectively. This is an even starker conflict than the shrug it off vs. lung capacity example you quoted. Another such conflict is in the virtue line where a guardian would have to choose between consecrated ground and master of consecrations if they decided to specialize in such utilities.

Other professions have such conflicts too, it’s not exclusive to the warrior. Why they decided to make each choice is only know to the devs, we can only speculate based on what is implemented unless they go out of their way to make a statement.

As for the revival traits, a lot people seem to have a problem with them, but they can be useful. I kind of wish they had given those to guardians instead since the guardian fits the support archetype better, but that’s just because my guardian is used as a revive bot and I’d rather they be more effective at reviving.

A decent showing. It kind of cut off abruptly at the end in the middle of a fight. Also, you should post your build in the post and in the description in case anyone is interested. Unless of course you’re one of those people that don’t like sharing builds, but then you shouldn’t do video demos anyways.

I’ve been a bit hesitant converting to this build in WvW because I always try to break away from the mold even if it isn’t as effective, but I’ve had fun with it in sPvP.

I laughed when you followed up skull crack with pommel bash though. It’s a very noobish thing that I do all the time, and haven’t quite worked it out of my system yet. Glad to see I’m not the only one with that occasional problem though.

Do you prefer using the signet or endure pain?