Guild Wars 2

TurkeyJ.3740:

The tool kit auto attack damage and mechanics (especailly traited) is in line with other professsions. The tool kit and the engineer in general, however, just doesn’t have the utility needed to stay in melee (gap closer, multiple attacks in-weapon, in-weapon cc, heavy armor, etc). That being said, the oppurtunity will present itself occassionaly to do an attack chain and I’m usually happy with the results.

This is sort of what I was getting at. If it had better internal synergy to work as a melee kit, the auto-attack would be more useful. Prybar is easy to use and switch out of, and is quite often used after a magnet pull, and gear shield is defensive.

If they replaced the next-to-useless box of nails with something more useful (i.e. leap attack, counterattack), then there’d probably be more point in utilizing it in melee.

Either that or speed up the animation for box of nails, or increase the duration or something. One of the things that makes it so underwhelming is that it has quite a significant cast time for something very weak. I can understand that it shouldn’t be as powerful as caltrops, but it’s so weak compared to caltrops it’s like it doesn’t even exist.

I also don’t think it’s worth completely neglecting the vulnerability applied by the auto-attack chain, it’s still a useful condition. Maybe they could up the amount of stacks it applies though…

The last part of the chain (Thwack) can hit for quite a bit though… I have nothing nothing invested in direct damage (power), but this attack can still hit for 750-850ish without criting. That’s not on an HGH build either.

Why does poison dart volley shoot in some kind of useless pseudo-cone fashion? Why, why, why, why, why can’t it just shoot them all at the targeted enemy?

Why doesn’t explosive shot apply its bleeds in the AoE like it says on the tooltip?

Mesmers have been stealing boons from the beginning, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen any complaints about that. Specifically, arcane thievery, which they can then distribute to allies with signet of inspiration.

Conversely, if mesmers were given these abilities in this patch, people would be doom-and-gloom about them as well.

“Oh, but mesmers never run those abilities, so it doesn’t matter like it will for thieves and warriors.”

How many warriors go 30 into discipline and elect to take the boon hate trait instead of a variety of other helpful traits in that line (i.e. Burst Mastery, Signet Mastery, Mobile Strikes)?

How many thieves use sword dagger as their primary weapon set? Do they feel it’s worth getting the boon hate and giving up attacks like backstab, headshot, or infiltrator’s arrow to get this?

If this has more than a somewhat moderate effect on the guardian meta, I’d be surprised.

PistolWhip.2697:

Really? How?

/15 chars

You said you were confused…

aydenunited.5729:

Well… at least we still have our SD build. XD

Yep.

Although that mention about the bug fixes next patch worries me a bit in this regard. They said they’re going to look at adding a lot of internal cooldowns to traits that don’t have any at the moment. I wouldn’t be surprised in SD is one of the first on the chopping block.

So it could end up being simply glass instead of a glass-canon, but I guess there’s no point in being doom-and-gloom at the moment.

Don’t worry OP, you’ll only be taking half damage now.

ens.9854:

You also need to realize that if you interrupted a shelter, the guardian is 100% screwed because it goes on full cooldown, not the 4s CD interrupted heals normally go on.

…

That said, it has taken me the better part of my first 40 ranks on thief to get really comfortable interrupting heals with steal… an instant shadow stepping daze. Although shelter has a pretty obvious animation when it goes off, I think MOST warriors will be hard pressed to react in time (trigger signet, find an available interrupt, use it) to do much about it, leading them to blow signet late and waste it. If it were me, I’d just use signet when I saw them low and start hitting interrupts in anticipation.

Why would the heal suddenly go on a full cooldown? I expect it will function as interrupted skills normally do and receive the 3 or 4 second cooldown, whatever that number happens to be.

I also think the last point you mentioned is how a lot of other people will use it. If a guardian gets low, you can pop your signet and start whipping out hammer CCs. That way, they can’t pop up an on-demand aegis or a heal like shelter to protect themselves when they’re on the ropes.

timidobserver.7925:

Lanny.6987:

Cloaking device breaks target while protection doesn’t. 3 seconds of protection let’s you live (maybe) for 3 seconds while you are being beat on. 3 seconds of not being beat on while you are locked down anyway is amazingly nice. I ran Protective Shield for a week of daily WvW and missed Cloaking Device right away. Stuck with it just to make sure but it never got better (for me).

Issue being, cloaking device has a large cooldown. On the other hand, the protection can be up pretty much indefinitely if you are into boon duration and your being disabled fairly regularly.

I think you’re a bit misinformed.

Cloaking device has no cooldown whatsoever at the moment (I expect that they’ll look at adding one in the future).

The protective shield trait being talked about is a 3 second protection when hit by a critical attack and has a 20 second cooldown, so it’s not possible to have a near indefinite uptime of protection through that trait alone.

I think you have it mixed up with protection injection, which is a 3 second protection triggered on being disabled on a 5 second cooldown. This is on the alchemy line and is thus not mutually exclusive with cloaking device.

Builds like Mask’s don’t really have room for the protection injection trait without giving up something else very valuable though, so it comes to down to picking between protective shield and cloaking device as the major trait for 10 points in inventions.

Manuhell.2759:

Seems like taking this trait – and you can’t avoid it if you go for that line – could give quite a bunch of problems, if they are really changing the skill. If so, maybe they should change this minor trait entirely. Dunno if they thought about that. Still, can’t do much. Between this and the boon hate, our minor traits are getting kinda screwed…cause they seem to hurt us instead of helping.

I wonder why they didn’t nerf Endure Pain as well, by the way.
Oh, right, warriors…

Endure Pain doesn’t function in the same manner. You can still have conditions applied to you, and you can still be CC’ed. Elixir S makes everything ineffective against you, meaning it can be a guaranteed escape, whereas endure pain can just be a delay of the inevitable.

Kimbald.2697:

Czar Peter.7961:

ikiturso.4026:

expect if elixir engi face thief or warrior that engi becomes useless haha

Nope, I crush thieves and warriors in PvP with my flamethrower elixir engineer. Turrets really are useless though. I wouldn’t use turrets in WvW if they were invulnerable.

How can you know?
You haven’t played against thieves and warriors with the boonhate yet, so what are you on about?
You crush them with an elixir build in an imaginary ptr you are playing in your head?
In that made up ptr their boonhate doesn’t hurt your elixir boons?

He was referring to the announced changed, just like the rest of the thread was discussing.
What you do NOW to thieves and warriors isn’t the question. It’s what they will be able to do if you have boons after the next patch (thieves untraited, warriors traited).

Although this means that warriors will also have to invest 30 into discipline, possibly giving up other nice traits like defy pain. It also means thieves need to use sword and dagger, thus giving up another weapon set like shortbow, pistol/dagger, dagger/dagger, or whatnot. The last time I fought a sword/dagger thief 1v1 was… I think I maybe ran into one in WvW two months back. Otherwise they’re usually just harassing people with their teleporting.

aufdermaur.1290:

hey there, sorry for not knowing that, but where did you guys get those informations and upcoming patchnotes from?would love to take a look at it.thanks

From The State of The Game thing the do every month or so before the patch is released. The previous one should be viewable at http://www.twitch.tv/guildwars2guru/b/396007412

Xhyros.1340:

Guardian mace hits 1 on last hit. Thief and necro dagger only hit 1. Ranger’s sword 2nd chain skill only hits 1.

This is true. The way the toolkit works is pretty consistent with other profession’s attacks, particularly with the mace attacks from warrior and guardian. It is effectively our mace.

I think one of the main reasons people don’t use it that much is because they don’t want to sit in the toolkit. Once you’ve used magnet and prybar, you’re often best just switching out to something else. You can whip out gear shield is there when you need it, and the nails don’t do much other than pose a minor inconvenience to your opponents, so I don’t really think people feel it’s beneficial to sit in the auto-attack with the toolkit when they could be using their other skills.

The combo is also really slow, although it can put out decent damage.

Ferum Flamebender.5910:

This thread confuses me O.o? what’s it about?
Can anyone explain?

Warriors are getting a new trait that allows them to do an additional 3% damage to a target based on the number of boon types they have on. It’s a grandmaster tier trait in the discipline line.

The title of this thread is referencing the hidden flask minor trait that engineers receive with five points in alchemy. It automatically drinks elixir B when you’re reduced to 75% health, which applies four different boons (might, fury, swiftness and retaliation).

As such, having that automatic use of elixir B occur means that a warrior who is using that trait will gain 12% damage against you since you will now have four different boons on.

The title was likely selected due to the fact that engineers have no control over the effects received from hidden flask, and are thus naturally exposed to such a warrior trait.

caporal moktahr.3408:

Regarding the signet of might change : considering that blocking is not widely spread among professions : (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Block) , and considering that there are many other ways for us to miss : blind, evade, dodge, invulnerability (+ stability if we consider that landing an ineffective CC is effectively having it nullyfied ).
I think the signet active won’t help us in landing our attacks properly in most combat situations wich was I think the purpose of the skill’s active.

Furthermore : it has been mentioned that some signet passives will be buffed like banners were -> +180 power from the signet of might’s passive really does’nt make you want to get rid of it.

Which is what they stated their overall goal with the signets was. The +180 (if they decide to double it) power from signet of might will be useful in all situations, whereas the unblockable attacks will only be useful in certain situations. It’s a fairly powerful thing to be able to do, but you have to use it for a specific situation.

The example given in SotG was using it to counter a guardian using shelter. However, you have to recognize that the guardian is going to heal, set up your positioning so you can properly land your interrupt, and then actually execute it. Right now, we’re all just speculating about possibilities on paper, but it will not be so easy in practice.

I predict there will be a lot of people who just keep the signet up the whole time, or people will pop it and use up all the charges without really capitalizing on what it’s supposed to be used for.

One side nerf of the signet of might deal is that it won’t sync well with the berserker’s might trait anymore. Not sure if people really used that trait though, but there was a nice bit of synergy between the two that will no longer be present.

A zhaitan-sized quaggan.

You can also be CC’ed out of the blocking portion of mimic as well… at least you should be able to, haven’t actually tested it.

I used to like mimic a lot, but I only liked it for the blocking/reflect. It just has a very awkward design, and the echo ability is not very useful. You will often just absorb an auto-attack that is just underwhelming. I’ve also just been CC’ed out of it trying to absorb a projectile, and the whole thing just ends up being a liability. You also can’t do anything else while it’s up, similar to how the prestige ability on the torch used to work. IMO, mimic definitely needs some work, and echo is just a slap in the face to the GW1 equivalent.

The best use I had of it once was in a fight with an engg. I ran up to them with it on, and they completely unloaded their rifle attacks into me after hitting me with an auto-attack, first immobilizing themself, then bleeding themselves, and finally blasting themselves back with their own attacks. Then I killed them while they was recovering.

I was thinking it’d be neat to absorb a warrior rifle kill shot and shoot that back with echo, but I’ve never had that happen.

My mesmer gets more powerful when it gets downed in water.

TheGuy.3568:

Honestly I ma still kitten over the fact that we still have no passive condition removal or a change to shake it off.

What makes me giggle is S/D thief immobilizing and the ripping the regen hey just proced because of Dogged March lol.

Well, dogged march is actually a form of passive condition removal… well, pseudo-removal through duration decrease.

Soooo… same time, same place next month?

daweed.6520:

Irony aside i don’t see why we have to suffer every time some other class needs to be nerfed. If confusion mesmers are the problem…nerf the traits that make the build..not EVERY confusion skill across the board.

I think that’s a fair point, although my statments about why they made the adjustment are just speculation. They probably felt it was necessary across the board, and not just on mesmers.

What I’m curious about is it will affect the confusion damage on the NPCs as well as the players… I don’t really see why it would need to do less damage to the WvW NPCs, so hopefully it won’t. Not sure how it goes down in sPvP with Svanir and the Chieftan.

ikiturso.4026:

Yes mesmers got nerf there but whats the purpose of tool kit now? use auto? 500 dmg with slowest dps in game?

The auto-attack is actually a melee attack. People complain about not having a melee attack, but that is one right there (although it technically uses a utility slot). It also hits decently hard, but I think it could use some beefing up.

The nails aren’t that great, so we’ll ignore those…

But you’ve got your shield and magnet. The buffing of those two skills is what made toolkit relevant in the first place. Before the buffs to those skills, it was rarely used for anything.

Then there’s the toss wrench… nothing too impressive, but it has it’s place.

If you’re just using the kit for prybar, I’m not sure you were really making the best investment. It’s always been the usability of the kit that made me like it. It’s not like prybar will be useless either. Still good direct damage. It’s not like confusion doesn’t do any damage whatsoever now, although it will still probably affect a good number of builds (my build included). The same applies to you though, you won’t be hurt as much by confusion either, so you’re less likely to die through the same means.

Builds like SD builds commonly use toolkit as well, so you’ll probably still see it being used on them. I’ll likely still be using toolkit in WvW as well despite the nerfs to confusion damage. Besides, it’s only the really noobish or absentminded players that destroy themselves with confusion. Most competent players will have some method of handling it, so they were probably not taking a ton of damage from it in the first place.

Depending on what happens with healing turret, I might actually play around with the repairing aspect… not holding my breath on that though.

I’m actually a bit excited to see what healing turret will be now. As the guy in SotG commented, I think it will need to be tougher than it is, but it might actually be a useful thing for assaulting or defending towers. Will just require some strategic positioning so it’s not completely open to attacks.

It will also make turret traits like metal plating and auto-tool installation more valuable. I might actually bother to repair something with the toolkit for a change.

A water field is a good deal as well. Now it won’t only be rangers and eles that can lay down a water field for zerg blast finisher mass heals.

I might look at a build that uses it if it ends up being good enough… the confusion and retaliation damage hits will probably weaken my current build too much.

As for fights in the field, I don’t really know. I’m pretty sure an ele will still be able to pretty much 1 shot it without any real opportunity cost… seems like it will be more of a zreg support thing. We always have elixirs for roaming.

Chaba.5410:

I get sad when my mortar dies before I even get a chance to fire it off and I have to wait that long, long cooldown for another one. I mean, you know, because I’m up on a wall and I can’t hit kitten without getting close to the edge.

Shouldn’t you be happy? Now you can stop wasting time on the mortar and do some things that may be slightly more useful.

This will be much harsher on mesmers than it will on us, so it’s actually kind of good for us since it means we’ll probably stand a bit better chance against confusion-based mesmers.

As for group battles, mesmers can do a lot of AoE confusion, so I imagine the nerf to confusion damage in WvW was likely to handle that case. Now you will need two mesmers to cause a zerg to rip itself to shreds rather than just one.

penatbater.4710:

How about a trait that, on crit, gives you a chance to inflict cripple? I think the aoe slow will be too powerful.

There already exists something like that with hammer and chill, although it has a very long cooldown… I think they should change that trait to shorter chill duration with a much shorter cooldown… like 2 second chill, 10 sec cooldown or something. It also only works with hammer… would be nice to see it on all weapons.

There’s gap closers on sword and greatsword.

There’s also a variety of snares on things, such as greatsword, hammer, and scepter.

Bane signet has a nice knockdown

Lline of warding can block people from getting away, especially in choke points.

Hammer has ring of warding to either block people from moving through or keeping them inside.

I dunno, I think there’s already a variety of options for “movement hate”.

There is also a downside to those ultramobile professions zipping around. The have to waste cooldowns or initiative (RTL is getting a nerf to make this more cumbersome on eles) that they might need if they end up running into other people while escaping. They also don’t get to kill you if they run away, which means you can keep your point capped or whatnot.

I still use the scepter on my support guardian. The immobilize can be pretty useful, and smite lets you attack people on walls. It’s maybe not that great for open field combat, but I don’t believe that everything needs to be great for every situation. I can see how it would not be very appealing if you are offensive spec’ced though.

I will concede that the low HP pool of the guardian does not conform with the archetype that the profession is based on. But that was mostly a game balance decision. Giving guardians a high base HP would be insane as it is now.

It is maybe a bit of a misnomer because it implies a defense-oriented profession, but the guardian can actually spec a number of different ways. I still think they are defense-oriented (make some of the best bunkers in the game currently), but it’s not all they can do. That’s the nice thing about GW2, you aren’t locked into roles. You maybe just have the wrong set of skills and traits selected if you want to be more defensive… I mean, you went 30 into radiance, although I don’t believe that’s a typical choice for most defensive guardians.

That said, it’s just a name. They could have called the profession “Hairdresser”, but the name of it doesn’t matter as far as the actual implementation. So it may be called “Guardian”, but it’s what you make of it. Nothing to get too bent out of shape over, I would think.

foofad.5162:

It’s gonna be a huge kick in the nuts for a lot of people. Kill Shot/Eviscerate, unblockable. Think about that for a second. You get down to 1/3rd health, Shelter expecting to block a big hit and make it worthwhile, and instead you get hit with Eviscerate and killed outright. And they’re getting a Burst cooldown reduction trait combined with.. something else I forgot. Pretty big game changer.

You still have dodge, don’t forget about dodge. That’s usually the primary counter to eviscerate and killshot since they have a noticeable wind up.

A shield bash → eviscerate combo would be deadly though. I kind of like it though, keeps guardians on their toes. My fraudulent guardian might not be able to succeed anymore with some of these changes.

Cameirus.8407:

Boonhate is possibly the most stupid idea Anet have come up with yet.
I shoudl not be penalised for using my abilities to buff myself or a group.

What next? when I put conditions on an enemy they start healing?

Actually, your last point is an already existing mechanic in the game. For instance, thieves have a trait which gives them regeneration when they have enough bleed stacks added onto them.

GW1 had a variety of equivalents to boon hate, so I kind of like seeing that come back somewhat. I think it’s a better change than just directly nerfing the guardian. It’s not like everyone and their brother will be using the boon hate stuff as well.

Eliteseraph.4970:

OP forgot to mention, and I didn’t see it anywhere else in the thread(forgive me if I missed it)

Necromancer Corrupt Boon is also going to be unblockable.

Will have to try and read the necro and dodge the attack, although that is much more easily said than done.

I don’t really know that it’s that problematic though… necros can already do this, they’ll just have a slightly easier time of doing it on guardians.

My warrior doesn’t go 30 into discipline, so you won’t have to be as afraid of him (he sucks anyways).

The signet of might change might actually be one of the more problematic ones if you rely on a lot of blocking, although that means the warrior won’t have access to other utilities… but interrupting shelter with a shield bash into eviscerate could be pretty punishing.

Olba.5376:

Yamsandjams.3267:

Bearhugger.4326:

I don’t really like the new Signet of Might. Warrior survivability is not so hot, and they’re going to add even more stuff that bypass Shield Stance. Great…

The other buffs sound kind of cool though.

It actually scares me a bit on my engg since I make frequent use of the toolkit. Using the signet of might active to bypass gear shield and land something like backbreaker… that can be pretty powerful.

Conversely, this could be pretty good for my hammer warrior.

Mmm, killing vapor form eles…

Though I wonder, they said “unblockable”, which leaves me to wonder if it could simply be countered with Blind.

I imagine it will still be countered with blind, but it will hopefully not expend one of the three unblockable “charges” that you get, thus you don’t end up losing the charge, you just end up having your attempted attack thwarted.

As for vapor form… that makes eles invulnerable, so signet of might shouldn’t allow you to do anything to them.

I wonder how this will interact with aegis though… it will go through the aegis, but will it pop the aegis? I’m guessing it probably wouldn’t since that’d be a bit unfair, but we’ll see.

It shouldn’t interrupt anything. Think about stomping. Using elixir S mid-stomp won’t interrupt the stomp, so it shouldn’t interrupt your heal if you’re in the middle of casting it.

Although it can proc just before you use your heal and then you’ll have to wait to heal, possibly dying to conditions.

I see this as a reasonable change though, especially since eles got the same. Being able to switch into a kit and attack people never really made much sense in the first place.

As for eles, I don’t think people actually use that mist form trait that applies conditions to people since it means sacrificing other traits in the water magic line. Their mist form will maybe still be more powerful since they can swap to water attunement for a heal/cleanse, whereas we can’t do anything. The main reason for the ele change was due to it’s combo with ether renewal… we could maybe do something slightly similar with medkit, but not really. So I think the elixir S change was just done as a matter of fairness more than anything else.

Now if they made our #2 down skill into elixir S to be just like eles, I’m sure people would not have too many complaints XD

Bearhugger.4326:

I don’t really like the new Signet of Might. Warrior survivability is not so hot, and they’re going to add even more stuff that bypass Shield Stance. Great…

The other buffs sound kind of cool though.

It actually scares me a bit on my engg since I make frequent use of the toolkit. Using the signet of might active to bypass gear shield and land something like backbreaker… that can be pretty powerful.

Conversely, this could be pretty good for my hammer warrior.

Hopefully the 3 charges from signet of might won’t get expended on stupid stuff, like waving your weapon around in the air or whatnot… it’ll hopefully only expend them on successful hits.

BurrTheKing.8571:

I would rather we lost the bleeding effect so we could use rifle as a sustained DPS weapon with burst capabilities. I don’t see a lot of use for the bleed and I feel it limits the builds we have available with it.

How does it limit the build possibilities? As mentioned above, you can have a direct damage and condition damage variant of it due to the nature of the auto-attack. Taking away the bleed would make it much less effective for use with condition damage, thus limiting the number of builds that could make effective use of the rifle.

Gizmoitus.7241:

I just know I won’t be taking toolkit anymore, Box o Nails just isn’t good enough to warrant it lol!

That skill definitely needs some love… Either longer duration or a wider radius, or maybe fast cast time. It’s so unusable the way it is now… I mainly just use it when running away, but it’s not particularly effective at that either (elixir gun KR is better).

I don’t think the confusion damage nerf is a reason not to take toolkit. It’ll just be putting out the same numbers in sPvP is all. Plus it still has high direct damage with prybar, plus the 3 second shield and our pull skill… Man, I must’ve magneted over a thousand people in WvW by now.

Some of these might be outdated… There’s videos on the forums for them, but I can’t be bothered to dig for them.

1. http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQFAUlIqic3zSfF1LJxoCdGkC76XRKqMl/oQusF;TgAg0Cno4ywlgLbNOukcB

This build focuses on dealing burst damage with the bomb kit. The main combo is big ol’ bomb -> magnet -> jump shot -> (big ol’ bomb explodes) -> toss wrench/blunderbuss/prybar/&c to kill them or further CC with overcharged shot and net shot if needed. I’ve experimented with this one for a bit, but haven’t really given it the old college try.

2. http://www.gw2db.com/skills/calc/engineer#14|0|2729|2454|253|4052|4065|30|2273|1789|1885|10|1866|0|0|0|0|0|0|30|1470|1033|1785|0|0|0|0|0|0|1|28034|0|21055|21055|49967|49967|49973|25790|48789|0|0|0|0|

Fairly standard routine with HGH here. Build up might stacks and administer damage with grenades. I find the rifle can put out decent damage with this build as well, so don’t underestimate it. The CC can be used to lock them down for your grenade tosses. The empowering adrenaline and enhance performance traits are swappable with incendiary powder, explosive powder, and short fuse depending on your personal preference. I’ve used this one a fair bit in sPvP/tPvP, and it is one of my preferred builds for that format.

3. http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fcEQFAUl0pqdH5STF17IxoHkuzbGMD763vHYLA;ToAg0Cno4ywlgLLXOukcNoYSA

Fairly standard static discharge-based build. Fits the glass canon archetype. You’re probably off better finding a video demonstrating a similar build in order to see how it works properly… mostly just spamming toolbelt skills while CCing and damaging the opponent as normal.

The confusion and retaliation changes will definitely hit defensive-minded builds. One of the main ways I dealt with d/d eles in WvW was using confusion, but now that will only be half as effective.

Keep in mind that this also helps us out too though. We won’t get hurt as much from retaliation or confusion as well (good news for FT users, for sure).

Maybe the defensive builds will get some other tradeoff (my fingers are crossed for super elixir buff, but I think it’s unlikely). But this set of changes might finally make me decide to start running a p/p roamer instead of my current spec.

As someone who mains a pistol engg, be thankful of your rifle auto-attack… be very, very thankful.

I’ve been doing a hammer/longbow build for awhile… 30/0/30/0/10. It’s main focus is the hammer, and I use the longbow more for utility and situations where I need ranged attacks. Also gives me a combo field.

I’ve seen some longbow + rifle builds before that seemed pretty cool, although I think people might find that boring. I don’t know what that build looked like though.

Daecollo.9578:

Sil.4560:

Didn’t they nerf Healing Signet in a past patch, or was that only the way it worked when downscaled? I agree it could use some help, although I’ll probably still stick with Healing Surge since it gives adrenaline.

Well it was healing for about the same amount it did at 80, but at 80 its healing is poor as heck.

Yeah, that modification was basically because healing signet was overpowered at low levels.

They initially said that “all signet passives are doubled”, but then they seemed to imply later that they’d be treating the signets on a case-by-case basis instead of a common across-the-board modification. As such, it’s possible healing signet will see some improvements, either in the passive or in the active. We’ll have to wait and see.

Yaki.9563:

I find it highly unlikely that it will stack additively.

Even if it doesn’t, you could even use it as a replacement for something like Melandru runes to help with condition management… mind you, the trait would only be for movement impairing conditions. That way, you can use a different rune set while still getting that good condition duration reduction on at least some conditions.

It sounds like a kind of trait that I would take though. My warrior is just terrible with condition management without rearranging my utilities.

Penguin.5197:

Oh you know, me and my engie guild, we were planning on getting them and proudly displaying how awesome we are. But then it hit us. We are engies. As soon as we swap into a kit they’ll be gone.

Oh woe is us

Please tell me they won’t just disappear on equipping a kit :/

Probably be same issue with having a shield holstered too.

Amadeus.5687:

^ Maskaganda is right! It’s the same for all healing skill, the poision effect will trigger on the heal, thne it’s removed! the Thief heal that removes burning, poison and bleeding, and the necromancer one that remove all condition would be insane strong if they removed the posion first!

Actually, the necromancer’s Consume Conditions and thief’s Hide in Shadows healing skills do cleanse the poison before the heal applies, meaning the healing from those skills are unaffected by the healing reduction. That is partly the reason a lot of people run them, particularly in sPvP.

I believe the reason elixir H does not have this capability is because the condition cleanse is handled through a trait effect rather than being inherent in the skill. That’s why I found it odd that it would not treat confusion in the same manner, but I haven’t gone and tested this. Maybe I’ll find some motivation to go test with the drakes in southsun, but that’s not likely (I’m lazy, sue me).

AlietteFaye.7316:

hackks.3687:

OP said “HGH build” which means only 10 in firearms. It’s not pure condi build. He also said “3rd pistol”, not “second set of pistols”. It also means that the pistol that won’t be getting swapped will have a sigil of battle in it. er go: he shouldn’t be using any on-crit sigils or he’ll kitten up is might stacking thereby kittening up his damage output just for an unreliable RNG proc.

give this a read
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Sigil

Thank you for covering why I wouldn’t be using on-crit sigils.

What? None of that made any sense… what part of “HGH build” means only 10 in firearms? That only implies 30 in alchemy. There’s plenty of HGH builds with 30 in alchemy and 30 in firearms. A lot of the p/p roamer varieties use that trait distribution.

The OP also says nothing about using a sigil of battle in his other pistol. Obviously you don’t want to have conflicting cooldowns, but it hasn’t been established what sigil is in his other pistol. He’s simply expressed curiosity about proc-on-crit ones.

Luckily it appears I was interpreting the OP correctly…

ionic.2106:

Actually I am doing 0/30/10/30/0 with rabid armor and condition damage runes. So i am doing pure condition damage. Doesn’t the procc come from crit chance not crit damage? I will have very high crit chance but very little crit damage. So should I add trinkets with crit damage or even pistols with crit damage on them? I will also be using toolkit and elixirs.

You’re correct in saying that the proc comes from crit chance and not crit damage. Investing in crit chance would be good for your build since it means additional condition procs from your traits and whatever sigils you might end up using if you choose to use any (i.e. sigil of earth).

Crit damage will still be helpful, but not at the expense of crit chance/precision. Crit damage is often a better investment if you are primarily focusing on direct damage since it only affects the direct damage done on critical hits. Crit damage will not add anything to condition damage, so if you are going to be focusing primarily on condition damage you can safely avoid investing in crit damage.

As some of the other posters have implied though, you may be better off going with a sigil that provides might stacks if you are going for might duration runes (i.e. sigil of battle). This would mean not using a proc-on-crit sigil though.

Condition duration is another thing you can look at investing in (i.e. Giver’s pistol, rare veggie pizza) if you haven’t looked at that yet.

Seras.5702:

Yamsandjams.3267:

Just FYI to those wondering, here is the pull skill in beta that is being referenced: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Backdraft

It also added 5s of burning. That’s nice. Air Blast is only 2s.

But it didn’t pull very far. According to wiki it had a 600 range and a 35 pull? That’s more or less an interupt and not much of a gap closer. FT auto-attack has a 425 range. Which means the original Backdraft wouldn’t even pull the target to within attack range. For it to be useful it’d need a 200 pull imo.

If you watch the videos in the link, you will see that the pull actually pulls from quite a distance… looks like from the full 600 range. The tooltip is a beta tooltip, so it’s possibly just erroneous.

Phineas Poe.3018:

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

I don’t understand. Engineer is probably the best class in the game currently. Either that or Guardian, but it’s definitely up there. Sustained DPS, burst DPS, survivability, support, mobility; they’re top tier in pretty much every category and they don’t even have to work for it. They’re like the easiest class to play and the strongest.

And you want buffs.

Okay.

100% agreed on most everything, but Engineer is definitely not the easiest class to play. A Static Discharge burst rotation:

Utility Goggles -> Analyze -> Surprise Shot -> Jump Shot -> Lay Mine Field -> Blunderbuss -> Detonate Mine Field -> Overcharged Shot -> Surprise Shot again -> Whatever

A Greatsword Warrior burst rotation:

100 Blades

Don’t make this post on the warrior forum XD

Lanny.6987:

Cloaking device breaks target while protection doesn’t. 3 seconds of protection let’s you live (maybe) for 3 seconds while you are being beat on. 3 seconds of not being beat on while you are locked down anyway is amazingly nice. I ran Protective Shield for a week of daily WvW and missed Cloaking Device right away. Stuck with it just to make sure but it never got better (for me).

I pretty much agree with this, although the effect does diminish when you are fighting large groups, or enemies that can do a lot of AoE damage. They’ll still be able to pinpoint where you are when you’re stealthed because they know you are also immobilized (unless they’re not that familiar with engg), so it’s possible that it may not be effective against some people.

However, if you’re fast you can cleanse the immobilize and get a short time of stealthed mobility, which can help you get out of a pinch. Also, I believe if the immobilize is converted by Transmute, you won’t suffer the immobilize but still gain the stealth effect, which can be handy. The stealth also stacks, so if you get hit by two immobilizes at once, you get 2 stacks of the stealth buff. Cloaking device also has no cooldown, making it effective against chain immobilizes.

Protective shield is still a strong choice. However, since this build relies more on active defense (i.e. dodging, avoiding, kiting, blinding) than passive defense (damage reduction, blocking, high regeneration), cloaking device can be a more useful choice.

In the end, I think it just ends up being personal preference for the most part, but there’s probably situations where protective shield would help more than cloaking device (i.e. the enemy has no immobilization skills).

AsmallChicken.9634:

I miss the old flamethrower with the old Juggernaut.

I believe it was called the “stomper” instead of “flamethrower”.

AlietteFaye.7316:

Yamsandjams.3267:

AlietteFaye.7316:

Sigil of Air or Sigil of Fire are the only choices I’d recommend.

They’re good choices, although arguably not the best choices with a condition damage focused build as described. If he has a decent amount of power, then perhaps these could be better choices, but I’d generally use these two sigils on a rifle build as opposed to pistols.

This is true. But I personally wouldn’t be using On Crit sigils for a Condition build, so I just recommended what’s best for On Crit sigils.

Why not? Something like sigil of earth will allow you to apply extra bleeds. A lot of condition builds will also have a lot of points in firearms, meaning they have a natural higher precision and thus more crit-proc opportunities, especially if they are elixir-based.

It also has a 2 second cooldown compared to 5, and 60% chance per crit compared to 30%. With some condition duration boosting, this can easily result in 5+ extra stacks of bleed on someone during the course of a battle.

I can maybe see a case if you didn’t go far into firearms, but most p/p build will.

The advantage of not having a pull skill is not having to experience an “obstructed” or “out of range” message when they easily withing 600 range units. You also will not have to experience the pull not actually pulling people due to some little rumple in the terrain, or having it glitch out and not display the position of the pulled character correctly, causing you to waste attacks.

The other advantage is not having threads pop up about how the memser pull is better than the other pulls when it comes to ledges.