Guild Wars 2

I was disappointed with no free character slot as well.

They know that people will be looking to buy character slots to try out a revenant, so that’s likely the motivation behind not doing so.

They’re putting new stuff into the game, it’d be nice to also be given the means by which to try it out via a free character slot.

Then of course there’s the GW1 precedent… Maybe it shouldn’t really apply here since it’s a different game, but they couldn’t have expected people to just be fine with no free character slot, could they?

I can’t answer that for you, but there’s no point in not filing a support case for it.

Best case scenario, you get refunds. Worst case scenario, nothing happens.

Basically it’s like this:

1. Want expansion? Pay $50.

2. Also want extra goodies and a character slot? Pay $75.

3. Also want 4000 gems discounted to 50% of the price? Pay $100.

Don’t even worry about the core game nonsense. Basically, you’re buying the expansion. If you don’t have the core game, then they are just giving you that for free so you can still play with everyone else as the expansion by itself is not a usable product. If you already have the base game, then you’re just buying the expansion.

I too share some concerns that the content may be a little light, but it’s more than just extra PvE story missions they’re putting in there. We haven’t quite seen everything that’s going in yet.

Yeah you can now do dueling in there too with your friends. Definitely a nice inclusion.

I’m not really sure the arena will facilitate GvGs that well. It looks like it might be a bit small, and I believe you must have HoT to use them.

In my case, I’ve already decided that I’ve seen enough to want to buy the expansion. So rather than wait until release, I’ll just buy it now and get the bonuses.

Even if it is disappointing, I’ll still want to buy it anyways. If it is that disappointing, I’d want to see it first hand.

Besides, I pre-purchased GW2 original, and I was more than happy with the game I received (that’s actually an understatement). As such, I’ve some trust built up with ANet for which I’m willing to accept that risk. Maybe that makes me a sucker, but oh well. At the end of the day I don’t buy too many video games to begin with, so it’s not going to break the bank.

Besides, you need to consider how MMOs work. They are not a product that is simply sold once and then it’s done with. They need to retain players. With a single player game (i.e. Assassin’s Creed), it’s easier to get away with a crappily made game because you already bought more or less everything they were trying to sell, with the exception of maybe some DLC. They effectively get their money, and then they run away with it.

So while pre-orders can potentially incentivize some developers to push out unfinished/poorly made games, I believe it would be a particularly fatal approach if done in conjunction with an MMO. Just look at something like vanilla FFXIV and see how that worked out for them.

That’s really good to hear they’re going to try and reconcile the disparity between large and small guilds. I have a two person guild, but we can’t really do anything special with it since it’s virtually impossible for us to earn merits at any reasonable rate. I was worried small guilds like that would get left in the dust again, but it seems like they’re specifically aiming to not make that the case.

I don’t care if it takes longer to get everything/do things, I’ve always just wanted to be able to do it.

The funny thing is that invigorated bulwark actually synergizes better with the focus than it does with the mace. Note it says “while wielding a mace”, so the focus blocks should proc the healing boost as well.

I’ll probably end up using the revive trait though, I ran them both before and now they’re condensed into one.

Ugh, I need to take 66606 for my medi build… gargh.

Maybe I’ll go crazy and try some 66600 monstrosity.

Consecrations and spirit weapons are the only available options at the moment.

I would opt for spirit weapon since it summons a shield to shield you.

However, it would actually be nice if there was a proper spirit weapon healing skill (like if the bow was changed to be a heal skill and a new utility replaced it).

It doesn’t fit a consecration that well because it doesn’t do what consecrations do. That is, it doesn’t provide some kind of AoE supportive effect around the guardian. Wall of reflection, sanctuary, hallowed ground, and purging flames all cause some kind of ground effect with a field that can be used. Shelter just doesn’t do that.

Since they couldn’t properly fit it into a category without drastically changing the functionality, I believe that’s why they’ve left it, especially since it’s still in a Good Spot™.

The only way it’ll ever be classified as one of those skills is if it properly represents the functionality of those utility lines. OR at least that was the implication Grouch gave in that post.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Tarkan.5609:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Yamsandjams.3267:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Yamsandjams.3267:

Now if they could just remove that kitten auto-smokescreen from the deceptions trait, it would possibly be an appropriate alternative to shadow’s embrace for specialized builds.

Why, you a plan to go down often? Else this added auto-smoke can be ignored.

It’s just an annoyance.

If I gave you some food and served it with a pile of crap, would you eat the crap too? I’m not sure about you (and I won’t judge either way), but I’d rather the pile of crap just not be around my food at all. I don’t care if it’s a free extra I get with the meal, I just don’t want it there.

Bad analogy.

Basically, if you open the door, you’ll get tarred and feathered — so don’t open the door.

In other words, don’t allow yourself to go down — play smart.

But why should you be punished even more when you’re down already?
Smoke screen is just totally useless when down because all it does it blind a bit and block projectiles – something that helps you way less than some stealth when down for example.
The same thing could hve been sai about Last Refuge:
“Play smart. Dont let anyone get you to 25% health and you won’t have a problem with it.”

That was actually the idea behind Last Refuge but smokescreen on down is not as bad.

I fail to see how could you say that smokescreen is a punishment. It’s like a bullet proof vest — even though it stops projectile, you’re still vulnerable against stabbing — but I don’t believe the vest to be a form of punishment.

It’s a punishment because it provides an indication to enemies where you are if you go down while you’re in stealth.

If you go down while you’re not in stealth, then you’re correct. It does you no harm. In fact, an ally can even blast it to conceal you.

However, if you go down while you’re still stealthed, it let’s the enemy know that you were downed and where exactly you are. This prevents you from potentially rallying yourself up while you are still stealthed, and can make it harder for other stealthed allies to help you out since the enemy would be able to find you that much more easily.

Not to mention you have to lose shadow’s embrace to get this, which just helps you not go down in the first place, but that’s a whole separate matter.

Strategist.6132:

Are.1326:

Strategist.6132:

Is this really true? I mean right now I can spam Rifle and Elixer gun without hitting anybody and still get the projectile finisher effect. You’re sure it’s ground targetted btw? I didn’t see it in the video but I might have missed it.

As solori said, yes it is ground targeted.
And the projectile finisher effects you get is just the indication that the projectile did combo, not that it hit and applied it’s effect.
They might make it so the projectile effect happens in an AoE around the impact, but that is stretching our expectations.

So if I understand correctly: I can use “Throw Wrench” in a light field and it doesn’t remove a condition if it doesn’t hit a player, even though the indicator shows up?

Or did you only mean that it has to hit an enemy to apply effects such as poison, chill and stuff?

From the wiki:

Wiki:

Projectile finishers with a light field only cleanse conditions from the character launching the projectile if that person is within melee range of target. Otherwise, only those in the path of the projectile after it enters the light field are cleansed.

So if you want to clean things off yourself, you have to be in melee range of an enemy. But you can still use it to clean allies so long as you can get the comboed projectile to move through them.

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

Grenades work now in pirate ship wvw meta. I’m not sure mortar will. 900 range nades will DEFINITELY NOT fill pirate ship meta role. At best it will be a downed finisher, or skirmish weapon. So I really hope they don’t make damage of mortar lackluster.

Seems like it should hit decently hard, though maybe not as hard as grenades. But it also has utility things built into it… it’s more like a multipurpose kit rather than something built for direct damage.

Plus it has a baby skyhammer. Grenade kit doesn’t have a baby skyhammer.

Tor.1365:

On a side note: acid-bomb is now classes as an Elixir and thus affected by HGH +20% duration, so drop it on downs to cause them extended pain

When have they stated that? There have always been skills on the elixir gun that were labelled as elixirs, but did not count as elixirs for the purposes of traits. They did count as elixirs in the beta versions, but that was removed at release. They just never cleaned up the tool tips.

The mortar elixir round will be the first ability that features that sort of cross-traiting.

Unless of course they came out and announced such a change to the elixir gun skills, but if they have, I haven’t seen it.

I do like your use of elixir B though, that would be another good choice in my freebie slot due to the extra stability. Although the zerg should already be setup to take care of that (i.e. guardians).

The tool kit is also highly useful for the pull. If you can suck an enemy member of the zerg out of position, they can be turned into easy fodder. Also can rip people off walls if they decide to get a bit aggressive.

Yours should definitely be better on the offensive side of things though. I’d likely make similar changes to mine as far as traits go if I wanted to do that too.

Although I’m not really sold on the choice of HGH, I don’t think you have enough elixir-related abilities to justify it. If what you say about elixir gun is true, then I could definitely see it working, but otherwise I think the extra stims could be more useful.

You wish for this, but you fail to understand…

Doing such a thing will means your damage will be lowered by 30%.

That won’t be happening… unless they’ve been sipping THAT kind of Kool-Aid over at the ANet office.

All people would do it run back and forth over it to stack up a bunch of swiftness, and then run around with it. This was how it was like in the betas, and that’s why they made it work the way it does now.

Of course, it would be nice if it would remember if you has already crossed it, and thus only give you one stack of swiftness per line, but I don’t think they’re setup to do that properly in their code.

Signet of inspiration got the buff though, so now there is a dedicated movespeed option for mesmers. It’s a brave new world.

tobascodagama.2961:

It’s ok, it’s a new skill with a new kind of effect, so misunderstandings are, uh, understandable. Using two Portals back to back is still pretty strong, even if it’s not as strong as having them open simultaneously.

Also, imagine: Portal Entre -> Mimic -> Blink -> Blink -> Portal Exeunt.

Or: F5 (save) -> Portal Entre -> Mimic -> Blink -> Blink -> Portal Exeunt -> F5 (revert) -> Use Portal -> Portal Entre -> Mimic -> Blink -> Blink -> Portal Exeunt.

Mm yes, I suppose that combo would work. Should be quite nifty for porting golems around. Could even do a port into a keep from the adjacent supply camp pretty much.

On the old borderlands, at any rate.

Warlord.9074:

This thread is already a wall of text. Can’t even talk about builds like this.

THAT’S a wall of text? I guess you must be a bit new to Internet forums, eh? XD

That’s probably along the sames lines that I’ll be doing for my trap build, although I run it with s/d instead of shortbow.

Nature magic is another possibility to consider instead of beast mastery. This can provide you additional regen for the damage reduction proc, and you can take evasive purity to help with condition cleansing. Protective ward is also a very nice defensive skill.

However, the beast mastery line has some very interesting things, especially with the taunt from the pet. Using that, you can forcibly pull people into your traps, so there’s some great synergy there. You might want to consider using something like an eagle with a spammable F2 so that you could proc is as often as possible (maybe swap for the drake?).

What skills were you primarily thinking of comboing with quick draw? Splitblade and poison volley? I can see that working out nicely, although the shortbow cooldown reduction wouldn’t be a bad idea either.

I think it looks pretty good though, I’ll likely be running something similar.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Yamsandjams.3267:

Now if they could just remove that kitten auto-smokescreen from the deceptions trait, it would possibly be an appropriate alternative to shadow’s embrace for specialized builds.

Why, you a plan to go down often? Else this added auto-smoke can be ignored.

It’s just an annoyance.

If I gave you some food and served it with a pile of crap, would you eat the crap too? I’m not sure about you (and I won’t judge either way), but I’d rather the pile of crap just not be around my food at all. I don’t care if it’s a free extra I get with the meal, I just don’t want it there.

Fluffball.8307:

Maliken.5630:

Do you get the healing when you PLACE the trap and the waterfield at the triggering?
Or does the initial healing only works when triggering the trap?

Triggering. It was mentioned you could place it while you were at full health (like on a PvP point) and wait for someone to come smack you before you trigger it.

Yep, that way you could set it as some kind of fall back measure, and then have it again when it comes back off cooldown.

So there will now be a bit of delay before you can heal yourself due to the arming time, but you can utilize it in a way that could potentially make it more effective from a defensive perspective.

Personally, I think it could give rangers a much stronger use in zergs. Say you had like 5 rangers plant their healing springs before an engagement. Then the zerg can retreat back to them, automatically get the water fields to spawn, blast them as needed as well as get healed and clean condis, then go back in. Eles could then save their water fields for mid-engagement, or when you didn’t have time to set up the healing springs.

Oddly enough, healing spring will also synergize excellently with trapper runes. Since it doesn’t deal damage, it’s a guaranteed stealth. Although we’re still not sure if the runes trigger on trap placement or on trap arming.

I’m also thinking of doing a 60606 build, but I might end up switching it to GS/Hammer… haven’t quite decided yet. I’ll possibly do Mace+shield/Hammer, but then my mobility would be quite poopy.

Basically it means that if you want to be auto-revealed frequently, you now have to opt into it instead of having it rammed down your throat. A very positive change for the SA line.

Now if they could just remove that kitten auto-smokescreen from the deceptions trait, it would possibly be an appropriate alternative to shadow’s embrace for specialized builds.

Lokheit.7943:

IMO Thieves Guild AND Hide in Shadows becomming Deception skills is HUGE and makes the 20% trait totally woth it. I never needed the remove conditions trait in the first place and didn’t have a problem with my stealth builds without it.

The smokescreen is a big positive considering you’re harder to interrupt and only some area projectiles will hit you (plus you can teleport away from that “target” if you want).

Yes, the trait does work well with HiS and the guild elite, but it’s some very potent condition clearing you’re getting rid of for that. A lot of thieves will also run shadow’s rejuvenation, so the extra healing from more frequent HiS is not as important. The guild will still have a fairly long cooldown as it is.

If you’re going up against a power spec, then yes, shadow’s embrace is probably not going to be a better choice over the deceptions trait. But as soon as you hit someone that can apply very frequent conditions, not having that trait can easily mean your death. Mind you, it looks like they’ve maybe changed HiS to remove all damaging conditions instead of just poison, bleed, and burning.

I’ll still give the deceptions trait a try and see if I can get it to work, but shadow’s embrace is just way to valuable, particularly for thieves that don’t run full deceptions (i.e. withdraw, signets).

Even then, I just want that kitten auto-smokescreen deleted. If I’m already dead, it’s not going to be that useful. If it popped on like 25% health or something, then I’d be fine with it. In fact, I’d be really happy to have it around. But they might as well just change that part of the trait to “reveal yourself when you’re downed”.

You may find the following to be of interest:

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/39zgic/june_23rd_specialization_changes_official/cs8b1vd

I’m thinking of doing a hammer/mace+shield build now, although that would suck some real stanky butt for mobility…

Mind you I’d spec it a bit more into tankiness than raw damage. Would be some potent CC though.

I’m not yet sure how I’ll adjust my skullcracker build, but I’ll likely keep it with greatsword and try to fit unsuspecting foe in there somehow.

They didn’t mention frenzy specifically, but they did indicate that all those quickness-type skills are having the negative effects removed. So frenzy should no longer make you take extra damage. Can’t say if it will have any other changes to it.

Will need official confirmation to know for sure though.

Jaetara.4075:

I don’t get why they changed the range of this trait, it is already weak and it won’t linger anymore… Don’t tell me about the grand master soothing power, no one will use that.

I’ll use it

I’m glad it’s only down to 600 though, 300 would be virtually unusable.

It doesn’t matter if THEY JUST STAND AROUND STARING AT THE GRASS WHILE YOU’RE GETTING YOU BUTT SMACKED.

Sorry, I promised myself I wouldn’t get angry at those STUPID LITTLE MINIONS WHO ARE PROBABLY JUST LAUGHING AT ME WHILE THEY WATCH ME GET STOMPED.

Ahem… well, between this and signet builds I’ll hopefully be able to find some thing comfortable as my standard necro build.

I still say make it a spirit weapon skill… I mean, it makes a shield, after all.

Grouch’s implied that it would need to be reworked to fit a category well, so I think the main reason they didn’t adjust it is that they just couldn’t figure out what to do with it and didn’t want to screw with the current state of things too badly.

I mean, just look at consume conditions for necromancer. The same thing would happen to shelter if it was categorized as something.

Chiemi.3781:

Don’t forget mimic for double use of any of those

Well, you can only use mimic on a utility skill, not a weapon, heal, or elite skill, so only decoy or veil really applies.

What I’m thinking of now is… 5 mesmsers, all traited with PU, basically cycling decoy and mass invis in succession to stay in perma stealth as they run through WvW. Then they find some roamer, and unload a bunch of iZerkers from stealth, using the chronomancer’s kitten to put more out there… I mean just think of 10+ iZerkers instantly descending onto some poor dumb shmoe chasing after a yak… and the whole time the mesmers are entirely in stealth.

My bad, that’s what I get for 1:00 AM foruming.

I thought perhaps they had suggested something about rifle mod being baseline in the older broadcast, but I might be misremembering.

The only thing that will really cause me any grief is having to replace gear. I’ve got 16 characters, each of which have at least two gear sets for builds, some have 3 or more…

Ugh. Luckily the majority of it should transfer over fine, but there’s a good chunk of it that doesn’t seem like it’ll fit anymore.

Mind you that doesn’t really apply in sPvP, perhaps this was the wrong thread to express this.

mistsim.2748:

ah I see your guys’ point. but the cripple is still very useful for the other 3 traps.

Well, technically not the spike trap either because the spike trap will now cause a knockdown. So the cripple will at least partially expire while they’re still getting off the floor.

Of course it won’t knock them down if they have stability, so it could be possibly useful then.

Yep, that’s what I’m thinking of doing with my build, dom/duel/chaos, with more or less the exact same trait choices.

I was running a shatter build using manipulations already, but then they throw that 10 second mass invis out there, and I was like O_O.

However, bountiful disillusionment is still worth considering as well for a shatter build.

I typically don’t run my particular build with a torch though (prefer pistol), but a 10 second AoE stealth is no joke.

Then with the new mimic one could even do double decoy for 12 seconds… though that would mean giving up blink or arcane thievery (does one really need a blink with access to 22 seconds of stealth from which they can summon iZerkers?).

mistsim.2748:

chill increases cooldowns while cripple only slows movement, so it’s not redundant. cripple is there to keep the opponent on the trap’s field i believe. that way, the pulsing condis stack more effectively. look at the chill duration, it’s nasty and the trap is on a very short CD. i think it could basically turn a teamfight around.

The point is that the cripple has virtually no effect since the person is going to be chilled anyways. The movement speed reductions don’t stack, chill will simply take priority since it is stronger.

The only thing it’s technically useful as is a cover or “bonus” condition, so say if an engineer with alchemy points runs into the trap, they’ll only resist one of the chill or cripple, not both.

Still, next to no one would opt to apply cripple to someone when they’re already chilled. It just wastes the cripple.

Hopefully they swap it with terror so people can take either MoC or PoC with terror and just ignore lingering curse.

First off, base stats are being moved up to 1000 instead of the 912 or whatever they are currently.

Secondly, all numeric values on gear will be boosted so that they will essentially make up for the amount of stats you lost that were previously granted by the trait lines. In fact, I think they mentioned that you’d have slightly overall high stat totals after the patch.

As such, the stats you have now will be largely based off your gear. So if you had full berserker gear but had 300 toughness from your trait line choices, you’ll now have only your base 1000 toughness after the patch since none of your gear will have toughness on it. However, your gear will have higher stats, it will just be power, precision, and ferocity that will go up.

I believe all corruptions will inflict additional confusion, seeing as how they’ll be confused as to why the developers made their skills worse than before.

Sadrien.3470:

Icebow is no longer being nerfed, hurray ! Now lets just hope tornado becomes instant like plague

I don’t even understand why the reversed their nerf decision, and then turn around and buff it… I thought they didn’t want it to be a “use #4 and toss” deal.

But oh wells.

Knighthonor.4061:

How are banners nerfed? I keep hearing that.

The trait for banners appears to only have the regen tickling and not any of the other features, and it was relocated to the discipline line for some reason.

It’s possible a lot of stuff was just moved off to the baseline, but we don’t know for sure yet.

Regardless, some regen tickling is pretty boring stuff for that spot.

Arantheal.7396:

Rifle mod is there, but renamed into “skilled marksman”:
“You attack 10% faster with rifle or harpoon gun and those skills recharge 20% faster.”
Basically it’s hair-trigger and rifle-mod combined, but instead of a plain dmg-boost, will suffer more from retal.

Also, pistol is no longer able to profit from reduced cd’s, but its applied condis will last 50% longer. Since the AA is technically a explosion now, and pierces per default, we have to see how that turns out.

Rifle mod was the trait that boosted rifled damage by a flat 10%. You’re thinking of rifled barrels, which is the recharge trait.

I don’t think the pistol auto-attack is considered an explosion, that would be way too broken with the stuff that triggers off of it. It would essentially be infinite blast finishers.

EDIT: Or wait, they might’ve changed that blast finisher trait to only be the dodge bomb, so maybe it is an explosion on the auto-attack. Been too many changes going around to keep track of.

Are.1326:

You might be underestimating the effectivness of Mortars long water field when traited for durration. Or I might be underestimating it when it’s not traited… But you get my point.

Supply drop can also be a quite nice Elite. The toolbelt is 6 medkits on 50 sec cooldown, and the supplycrate itself can be overcharged like healing turret once it lands for condi removal and AoE heal, then detonated for 3! blasts in the waterfield.

Still, traited waterfield from Mortar is probably better for WvW zerg.

The main reason I didn’t opt for supply drop is the length of the cooldown. 120 seconds for three blast finishers is effectively one blast finisher every 40 seconds, which is what orbital stirke provides you. However, you can utilize kinetic charge to make this two blast finishers every 40 seconds. Using supply crate for nothing more than the blast finishers seems like a giant waste to me, and the turrets are never going to survive large battles.

In comparison, you can generate a water field every 20 seconds that provides some impact healing and will (read, should) cure a condition.

However, the tool belt skill for the supply crate could have nice synergy with kinetic charge. That would make a lot of med packs on the floor. However, it does mean not synergyzing it with one of your other skills, such as bandage self, so there’s still an opportunity cost there. Also, from experience, people have a knack of completely avoiding med packs on the floor.

The mortar is also a way for you to contribute to damage from long range, so you don’t have to be “useless”. I suppose you could always opt to use the grenade kit instead and stick with the good old box, but the grenade kit lost it’s poison field which is now on the mortar, meaning the latter is a better option for keeping enemies poisoned in an AoE for longer.

I still don’t think supply crate is a terrible option though, it’s always been the go-to elite. But if nothing else, the mortar will just annoy the commanders more, and that makes me happy… for some reason.

I’m not sure why they didn’t make medical dispersion field linked to your healing skill. The way they described it, you can take a tiny heal from someone’s shout or something, and it’ll pop the MDF’s ICD before you can even do anything with it. It’s going to be a nightmare to actually control it with all the little heals going off everywhere.

It’s essentially the same problem that kit refinement has always had, so… I guess it’s just gonna be stuck this way.

This is the first time we’ve seen a mechanic that will forcibly remove someone from stealth. The other “stealth counter”, like Sic ’Em! and Analyze, were only means of preventing someone from entering stealth, not actually removing them from stealth.

As such, I’m not really sure how this is going to play out.

However, do keep in mind that an engineer must spec for it, this doesn’t come free. Taking this also means not taking speedy kits, so it’s quite possible the engineer will be slower and thus you might be able to retreat from them more effectively if they happen to reveal you.

It does also have an ICD of 20 seconds. Yes, they can take utility googles to extend that up to a maximum of 18 seconds of revealing, but now they had to lock out one of their utility skills, and they can’t do something else like refresh a stun break or a healing ability. However, not everyone may opt to do that.

If it turns out to be too powerful, I’m sure they’ll kick it back into the ground it came from. Say, at the very least, reduce the lock on reveal duration so that the thief can still opt to pop another cooldown or something in order to go back into stealth almost immediately. I dunno.

cocowoushi.7150:

So is Inspiring battle standard not going to include a banners range increase? Sucks they would get rid of that skill; I know people always picked it if you were going to run a banner heavy set. Used way more than the damage when summoning banner skill.

Also Quick Breathing is listed as something completely different from what they said in the stream.

I tihnk the AoE boost is now baseline, but I can’t be 100% sure. No idea if the cooldown reduction is baseline.

As for the quick breathing thing, I think the notes are typoed.

Now about the gear…

Weapons: Pistol shield is mostly just to get the shield. Having that lets you get protection onto your zerg, and also gives you more frequent blasts as well as more defensive options. The pistol will also now pierce by default, so you can be more effective at applying conditions to multiple members of the enemy zergs with your standard weapon attacks. In particular, more poison and some pseudo-AoE blind can always be useful.

Runes: Runes of the water give you better boon duration and healing output, so it’s hard not to take them. You also get some additional protection for yourself against conditions. Other options will work here too, like monk runes or runes of the grove. Even forge runes if you want to push the condi and protection angle a bit more.

Sigils: The sigils are mostly for support too. Renewal works well since you can swap in and out of your kits pretty much whenever you want, and life just helps you build up stronger heals. They aren’t the only options that will work though.

Stats: For gear stats, there should be some variety to choose from. Cleric’s should work decently, although this build doesn’t have a lot of damage to work with in general. Magi’s could be potentially quite useful, especially if wanting to use bunker down. This might leave toughness a bit low though, but it does allow for on-crit sigils to be more of a possibility. Zealot’s could also be useful if you wanted to have a stronger damage focus without completely losing the supportive aspect. Apothecary’s should also fare decently, as you should be able to get around 900 condition damage while having a good array of conditions to use on the enemies. Even nomad’s could work if you want to be purely defensive, although the heals wouldn’t be as potent.

So what are some things it’s missing…

Well, the explosives line has some nice traits that would work with this build. In particular, we could spec into the grenade kit and take that in the empty utility slot for more damage output, and that would also allow us to spread vulnerability around to the enemy zerg. Or we could spec into the bomb kit instead. However, we could also take thermobaric detonation for additional blast finishers, or spec into siege rounds for more effective use of the mortar fields and an additional blast finisher.

However, I felt the build it was better as 00666. In explosives, you have to choose between thermobaric and siege rounds, so you’d always have to be giving up something. Additionally, the other traits don’t really play into the supportive role. It might be possible to drop the tools line and go into explosives for a bit more of a damage option in the build (that is, 60660), but then it’s becoming a bit more of a hybrid.

Well I think that’s all I can think about this build for now. If you actually read all of that stuff, thanks and feel free to let me know just how bad it is and how you would make it better.

Now what about the utility choices…

1. Med Kit: This is mostly to keep the zerg constantly “shoomed” up. We’d use this to keep the heals constantly rolling in over time, which is the point of the build, and bandage self provides a low cooldown method of sustain and AoE condi clears. You can also drop your packs out for some setup before a clash, although I think it might be a bit tougher for large zergs to really utilize that properly.

2. Tool Kit: Standard WvW choice. Pull people around, block attacks, throw cripple fields, give them the occasional pop, has a guaranteed projectile finisher that can hit twice. Not much to say there.

3. Elixir Gun: Serves as a potent condition muncher from the traited fumigate. Super elixir can also work nicely, especially comboed with throw wrench, although you don’t want to have it conflict with water field blasting. Also provides a means of condition damage output if you want to go the condi route.

4. Mortar: Allows you to assault the enemy zerg from long range, fighting people on walls and such. Perhaps it’ll also be good for shooting some ACs if they’re in the right spot. You can help keep poison and chill on the enemies, and provide a heal and a water field for your zerg on a relatively short cooldown, which you can then blast. Not only that, but the water shot is also supposed to be considered an elixir for trait purposes, so it will synergize with some alchemy line traits, namely removing an additional condition. It can also be good with the lock on trait since you can spam AoEs and find the enemy zerg that went through a veil, that mesmer that mass invised, or that thief that went into a refuge.

5. ???: I don’t know what to use for the last utility. It’s a bit of a freebie. I was thinking of slick shoes since it would eat away at the enemy’s stability and give you another stun breaker and a means to help you get back into position if you get caught out somewhere. Rocket boots is always nice for mobility and getting out of places you don’t want to be. However, elixir S is another good option, especially since you can remove another condition with it. Otherwise, there’s always the good old grenade or bomb kits.

So what the hell is this thing? Well it’s supposed to provide some support options to the zerg, particularly through AoE healing, blast finishers, condition clears and boon applications, while being able to assault the enemy zerg from long range. Additionally, it’s designed to be fairly survivable as to not be a simply rally bot.

Why those traits? Well, it works like so…

Inventions:

Minors: Helps provide AoE condi cleanses and regen. Synergizes well with the low cooldown on the bandage self healing skill, or the med kit swap if it happens to trigger from that.

1. Over Shield: This gives protection to the zerg, so they die less. Additionally, extra boons on the zerg will help improve the “shooming” output of the med kit, so that’s good. Furthermore, reduction on the shield skill cooldowns means better survivability and another blast finisher that can be used more frequently.

2. Soothing Detonation: Pretty obvious choice here. Additional healing output during water field blasting will be helpful. It also looks like this will occur on other fields as well, so it could be handy for some mid-battle AoE healing.

3. Medical Dispersion Field: Further healing output into the zerg. I’m not 100% sure about this trait. The way they described it seemed like it might make it hard to actually utilize properly, since you’d have to specifically time your big heals. Bunker down might be a better option if the engineer slotted magi or zealot’s gear since the higher precision would cause more med kits to drop, and the mines might actually be useful if they’re the boon stripping variety (although I don’t think they are). However, it might be a little hard for the zerg to effectively pick up the med kits, but as long as they drop in the general blob it should at least heal someone.

Alchemy:

Minors: Some self-protection from conditions, but also a nice buff to boon duration that synergizes nicely with the med kit and some of the other skills.

1. Health Insurance: Obvious choice. We’re using med kit, this maximizes med kit’s outgoing “shoom”.

2. Inversion Enzyme: A very cool trait. The elixir gun is already great at eating condis off a zerg, and this will just make it even better. Not only that, but it also synergizes with the med kit so that you can follow up with some more potent “shooming” afterwards.

3. Stimulant Supplier: More little healy packs into the zerg every 10 or so seconds. I feel that iron blooded is also a good option since it will help you survive longer, and you don’t want to be a rally bot. I think either will be an appropriate option for this spot.

Tools:

Minors: Some vigour and further tool belt recharge reduction is good. The damage increase also helps you be a bit more offensive without giving up defensive options.

1. Power Wrench: Fairly standard choice. Reduced tool belt cooldowns give you better shield uptime, and you can pull more enemies out of position with the magnet. You get a bit of extra damage to, so it might be good if you need to cleave with the zerg in melee. I feel reactive lenses might also be a decent option in this spot since it’s an auto-stun break, although it’s hard to pass up lower tool kit cooldowns.

2. Lock On: It might seem like an odd choice, but zerg fighting in WvW does feature a lot of running through veils and stuff. Being able to assault the veil with your mortar from range and revealing an enemy zerg member can help you stay appraised of their position. It’s also useful for hunting down mesmers during a keep sweep, or giving thieves assaulting the back line less of an opportunity to strike freely. I felt streamlined skits wouldn’t be the best option since the rest of the zerg will be giving you swiftness anyways, and the extra damage from takedown round is not really what this build is about.

3. Kinetic Charge: It should be possible to do some interesting things with this. In particular, you can double up on bandage self, giving you more powerful self-sustain and also keep the zerg better healed. It can also be used to refresh a stun break from regenerating mist, or get an extra blast finisher out of orbital strike.

Was hoping to get some ratings on how crappy this build is, on a scale of 1-10. As long as the crappiness is 4 or lower I think I should be good with it.

I’m going through the preliminary process of converting my current WvW zerg support build into a new one given the things we saw today (or yesterday, I guess). I have a tendency toward gimmick or theme builds, although I generally like them to be somewhat effective.

Anywho, thought I’d put it out there as food for thought. I’ve been needing something fresh to go around WvW with and annoy the commanders since I’m not running an ele instead.

The build:

00666

Inventions:
Over Shield
Soothing Detonation
Medical Dispersion Field (Bunker Down?)

Alchemy:
Health Insurance
Inversion Enzyme
Stimulant Supplier (Iron Blooded?)

Tools:
Power Wrench (Reactive Lenses?)
Lock On (Streamlined Kits?)
Kinetic Charge

Skills:

Heal: Med Kit
U1: Tool Kit
U2: Elixir Gun
U3: ???
Elite: Mortar

Gear:

Weapons: Pistol+Shield
Stats: Some combination of cleric’s, magi’s, or apothecary’s, possibly zealot’s or even nomad’s
Runes: Water
Sigils: Life + renewal, possibly benevolence, water, leeching, or energy

Oh god, this is what we have come to? Signet builds? The most misfit-like category of skills necro has (though corruptions were a close second) is going to be the new go-to standard?

Sigh, fine. I’ll jump on the ship. If it sinks then it’ll save me the trouble of drowning in sorrow.