Guild Wars 2

So the veteran karka mobs have a Retaliation effect that stacks in duration, frequently (in my experience at least) lasting the entire fight. Does anyone know how the karka acquire their stacks of Retaliation? I’m more interested in finding a way around the boon than a solution that involves hiring a Necromancer to follow me around.

At the moment, unless I’m playing a Guardian, the Retaliation is downing me more than anything else.

Even though it’s voiced by my favourite VO artist, it gets annoying after the eleventy-fifth time … even for me.

Who is this actor by the way?

I would enthusiastically pay for a Canthan expansion … not to mention an Elonan one too. Happy to wait for it but it seems a terrible shame to leave so fertile a source of stories to rot.

Too many L2P comments for me to single out but clearly you aren’t paying attention … I’ll try to bullet point for you … with a little added information since you seem intent on there NOT being a bug.

• Ran dungeon twice.
• 4 out of 5 players the same in both runs.
• Guild group with voice comms in both runs.
• All reasonably-geared level 80s on both runs.

First run was a challenging fight but we got through both phases in one go.
Second run there were fireball ground-effects over 80% of the floor (think Nightmare Vines in TA explorable) and we wiped continuously.

Yesterday there was a guild run (with a few of the originals but, alas, not me) and it was apparently back to being pretty easy for an organised group.

If I hadn’t experienced both “versions” of the encounter I may be as sceptical as some of the people in this thread. I think there is (or was) a bug in the encounter that only manifested for some people but made the fight almost impossible in some circumstances.

KyoHanakaze.8145:

I completed it on my first try with very few deaths in my entire party…it is among the easiest instances in the game, IMO.

I would have said the same after the first time I did it on Tuesday, however I went at it again on Wednesday (with mostly the same group) and we couldn’t get past the double-boss fight.

Has the boss encounter been adjusted? Yesterday (30 April) we ran it for the first time and had a blast from beginning to end. The twin bosses were challenging but fun and we got through the encounter in one go. Today (1 May) we went in with 4 of the same players (albeit with different characters) and had to give up because we couldn’t even get one of the bosses down, despite repeated attempts to do so, and it simply got too late to continue.

First team was 3 Guardians, 1 Necromancer and a Ranger; Second team was 1 Guardian, 1 Necromancer, 2 Engineers and a Warrior.

As I say, 4 of the 5 were the same people so competency levels were unchanged, yet all of us agreed that the encounter had become much harder. Were we imagining this? Or are Engineers really that much of a liability on bosses?

I too loved the dungeon from beginning to end. The look of the place was fantastic, the mechanics were innovative and fun, and the fights were challenging without being frustrating. The loot table was nicely unusual too.

Congratulations on a job well done … just a shame it’s only temporary.

Well I can’t see any of us being willing to fight alongside the smoke-lickers, especially given the recent troubles in Diessa Plateau. So I say we crush the Flame Legion first, learn the portal technique for ourselves and then maybe think about replacing the Asura gates … before sabotaging the behavioural inhibitors on the golems … very fond of that idea.

7/10 The first name appears to be a combination of “pet” and “tush” which it probably isn’t … but that’s what leaps out. Like the surname though … very Blood Legion. =)

Sarku Kinslayer, a warrior of the Ash Legion.
Got his name because reasonshe killed his sire in the Personal Story … I was so bowled over by that in Beta that I wanted to recreate and commemorate it when the game went live and Sarku was created for real.

/signed I have always been astounded that a workaround for colour-blind players wasn’t present from launch.

On my server (Piken Square) the Abomination event at the end of Plinx is frequently left because it is such a pain to complete, given the tiny amount of space that the fight has to take place in before the mob goes invulnerable. I’m not saying that it can’t be done, just that it is such a funless fight that many people seem not to bother … and I can’t say I blame them.

1. Coated Bullets
2. Incendiary Powder
3. Self-Regulating Defenses

These are for world PvE not dungeons or PvP.

As Entropy said (far better than I could, and using an engineering metaphor too)

Entropy.4732:

Playing an Engineer (to stick with the car metaphor) is like driving a beat up, oil spluttering, rust-bucket jalopy that coughs gears and hisses steam … it’s a super fun, rewarding class. But you really gotta like driving a rust bucket.

Engineer is broken in so many ways, but working your way around those is somehow part of the fun of the profession, and it is fun, more fun than I have with any other of my characters. If you are just looking to dominate, then don’t bother … really, unless you’re prepared to put a lot of time into learning some fairly specific builds you are never going to dominate.

All that being said, the way in which I play my other professions has been vastly improved by playing an Engineer so I’d recommend it even if only as a training aid.

Zen.2450:

It can be tough, but can be done. I just soloed one the other day.

Did you even read my post? The smaller the number of people doing it, the easier the encounter is … because you don’t have anyone who doesn’t know (or doesn’t care) about the mechanics turning up and capping Frenzy. As champion fights go, this one is trivial to do solo (assuming you’re bored enough to kite it for that long) or with small numbers.

Having tried several professions, my favourite for event farming is Engineer with dual pistols, and the Coated Bullets and Speedy Kits traits.

Human: Say where’s the outhouse?
Asura: We don’t have outhouses, we have waterclosets.
Human: Like latrines?
Asura: No, they all flow into the same sewer system and that all goes out to sea.
Human: That’s more than I needed to know.
Asura: Hey you asked, just don’t ask me if anything lives down there.
Human: You got a deal.

/signed … I miss the musical plooping noise.

Surely there’s a happy medium to be found between the pre and post Wintersday levels? Admittedly the sound was a bit too intrusive after Wintersday but at the moment there really might as well not be any sound at all.

Cody Crichton.7516:

There have been concerns in this thread that the sounds are gone in their entirety, but internal testing has shown that this is not the case. While they are quieter now, they are audible at default volume levels except during intense combat, and the impact sounds for the weapon are also intact.

I hate to be the one to point this out Cody but it’s a sword, pretty much the only time you draw it is during “intense combat” at which point you can maybe hear a background purr if you’re really listening for it, as I was when I thought the sound had been removed entirely.

The sound levels of the weapon need to be raised a bit so that it is audible (but not overpowering) during “intense combat” otherwise the only time we can hear it is by brandishing it outside of combat … which seems pretty odd to me … unless I’m doing gardening.

Is there a Ranger near you? There’s a bug that can cause pet “footsteps” to be extremely loud in exactly the style that you are describing.

It’s a public event, chances of this mob not building frenzy is inversely proportionate to the number of people taking part. Pre-patch this fight was irritating enough (although I did it a few times with just two or three people, no stacks of Frenzy and it was a breeze) but now with the added “death roll” it’s just insanely annoying. The frequent rolls into invulnerability are also infuriating.

Frankly I don’t see how this adds to the Plinx story, so I’m not sure why it’s connected to that chain. I reckon that if it were disconnected from Plinx it’s an encounter that would only very rarely be bothered with.

Simple solution, drop the “death roll” mechanic entirely, the fight still won’t be fun (building Frenzy in a public event is never going to be pretty) but it’ll be less irritating than it is now.

I laugh at the “learn to play” brigade who see the words “too hard” and then don’t bother to read the rest of the post.

However the post does make one assumption that I’m not sure is strictly accurate; notably that “Story Mode” = “Training Mode.” By that point in the game I’d say you are pretty much beyond the need for “training” in the sense of having an easy dungeon experience to ease you into Explorables. That being said, I’d say the encounter is particularly harsh, particularly the blasted “Hunter’s Call” and, given that it’s not content that gets repeated in the same way as explorable paths, could probably do with being toned down a bit.

Errant Venture it’s worth remembering that not everyone plays a Warrior.

coglin.1496:

Lmoa. Try to hundred blades me in WvW or PvP and your death is certain. As was already stated, some of you talk about another profession out of pure ignorance.

Sure in PvE warriors are OP a bit. But 100 blades roots you. If I dodge, it will miss me altogether, and you are rooted and at the mercy of my bombs.

I really hate to do this to you but … 100 Blades does not immobilise the warrior using it it’s a common myth I’ve heard bandied around but it’s just not true. When warriors talk of being “rooted” what they mean is that 100 blades stops if you move while using it. It’s on a really quick cooldown though so that’s not a huge deal.

Markus.9217:

Serious you have no clue wat your talking about. Its hilarious to see a warrior jump you pops his 100b and gets confused while you simply vanish. or you block him and hes stunned for 2 seconds or you confuse him. even when someone hit you for 99% of your life he cant finish it cause you simply auto refresh healing and get auto evade.

Any melee Warrior worth their salt will already have you stunned and immobilised before they hit 100 blades … and that’s just off the top of my head without even thinking about it. Remember we are talking about like-for-like skill here, it doesn’t matter if you can beat someone who doesn’t play their profession as well as you play yours.

Shortbow Ranger is insanely boring to play.

In terms of farming I haven’t found a better than a Coated Bullets pistol-wielder for tagging mobs for events.

I was feeling pretty good about the damage I was putting out yesterday, then a Warrior unloaded 100-blades on the trash pack I was targeting and one-shotted it.

I love this class, it’s huge amounts of fun … but in terms of ability to damage or support it doesn’t compare favourably with other classes when played with the same level of skill.

• Give a mechanic to remote-detonate turrets that doesn’t lock their toolbelt slots down.
• Negate (or significantly reduce) cooldown on turret if it is picked up rather than detonated.
• Have Elixir Gun #5 (Super Elixir) deploy a Water field rather than a Light field.

I’m not really sure what you said there … genuinely, I couldn’t make sense of it beyond “It’s annoying and made the game in my opinion less fun.” So although I can’t talk to the first part of your post, I heartily disagree with the second part; I’m really enjoying the recent update so far.

• Charr make most sense in lore.

• Charr have the best racial skill synergy with the Engineer profession.

• Charr look awesome … though you do need to spend a bit of time finding armours that don’t clip.

[img]https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-KjQdLpMhSkQ/UQfzmOaw3wI/AAAAAAAAApI/qrmSs21gkbE/s902/gw001.jpg[/img]

ETA: I have no idea why the image isn’t displaying.

I don’t do fractals (partly because I don’t enjoy them, partly because few others in my guild seem to be interested in doing them) so laurels are likely to be my only access to Ascended gear at the moment. Frankly, taking just over a month to get a new piece of gear doesn’t bother me in the slightest; for those complaining that it is so much faster in Fractals then why are you even considering acquiring them via laurels?

People fear change.

Although the Combo achievement appears to be broken at the moment (I completed it fairly quickly while doing a few events but it seemed to be pretty random) the others are quite fun, and are getting me out of the daily circuit rut that I’d got into over the past couple of months.

• Events – no difference.
• Gathering – no difference
• Kill Variety – no difference
• Underwater Kills – not exactly difficult. If you’re really rubbish at underwater combat go to a 1-15 area and kill underwater mobs there.
• Crafting – this prompted me to get a bit of a move-on on neglected skills but honestly, if your argument is that you can’t afford to refine 10 Copper Ingots then I feel sorry for you … what is it that you’re doing with the proceeds of the gathering achievement exactly?
• Combo Kills – as mentioned this needs to be looked at. While achievable, it’s pretty broken in its current form.
• Revive Allies – given that this works on NPCs it’s frankly trivial. If you can’t think of anywhere that NPCs die, then you probably need to pay attention to your surroundings a bit more.
• Dodge Attacks – find a mob with a decent “tell” and then get your timing right … I actually found this quite good training. Gives an incentive for not skipping that Lt. Kholer encounter too; though I never do because it’s fun!

I look forward to seeing what subsequent days will bring to the mix.

My engineer is so bad it feels as though he made the wrong gnome/goblin choice.

Broken on Piken Square too, not sure why there isn’t a weekly “reboot” as a short-term fix for the many, many broken events.

One thing the profession isn’t great at is producing big numbers, so if that’s what you’re after then you’ve probably made the right decision in shelving your Engineer. However, spend a while on this forum and you’ll see that Engineers are actually not in a bad place when it comes to WvWvW, there are a couple of builds in particular that, when used well, seem to be extremely effective, even in spite of the bugs that plague the profession.

Engineer needs thought, planning, attention to skill synergy, and decent timing but if you’re prepared to put in the work then it seems to pay off. Glass cannon is not a build likely to pay off in PvP unless you’re very smart with your utilities and toolbelt.

ETA:

rizzo.1079:

Magnetron.5823:

Spended hours on it, and 150-200g on gear

150-200g? Did you buy one set of each armor or something? You can gear up with all exotics for less than 20g.

Good point, spending that amount of gold on gearing is, frankly, unnecessary. One thing you can’t do with an Engineer is buy success.

I used to do really well in dungeons but recently I’ve felt like a fifth wheel, this is probably down to my build but I don’t really want to re-trait every time I want to go into a dungeon. The nail in my particular dungeon coffin was when they “fixed” Super Elixir such that I’m now pretty good at condition removal (though not as good as a Guardian) but my healing is barely noticeable.

The thing is that the build I have works incredibly well “above ground” and is an absolute blast. It’s what’s keeping me with my Engineer really, because it really is crazy amounts of fun to run around the landscape with him getting into and out of scrapes that would leave my other characters a bloody smear on a wall somewhere. Mind you, learning to kite is something of a must, otherwise you’ll probably spend more time at waypoints than would normally be considered “fun”.

It’s been two weeks now since the event to retake Penitent Camp stalled on the Piken Square server. I know that bug reports have been filed but every day when I go back the event is still at 75% completion, waves of risen keep coming but the camp never gets any closer to being finished. It’s great for people who want to farm mob drops, low risk and high reward and all that … but a bit frustrating for those of us wanting to do the events. Of course this also blocks the entire chain from Penitent on through, none of the events or chains are active that are connected to the Penitent sequence.

I didn’t think the WoW version could be improved upon … how wrong I was. Sterling job.

Only an Engineer? Don’t you have a Warrior alt you could bring?

An excellent summary, thanks for your work setting this down.

I’ll keep playing Engineer till it’s not fun any more, then I’ll stop.

Unfortunately with the nerfs to various bits and pieces (not grenades, I’ve never used them as I don’t want to risk aggravating my RSI) the areas in which I am having fun as an Engineer are becoming fewer and fewer.

My engineer is so bad he uses his toolbelt to keep his turrets in one piece.

The only bright side (and it’s not very bright at all for a whole bunch of you) is that the nerf will just affect ground-targeted effects rather than, say, ALL of our pistol skills. Doesn’t look like a good day for grenade engineers or well necromancers though.

This nerf does seem disproportionately targeted to hit the most popular Engineer damage build though. I guess time will tell.

Zonzai.2341:

I rolled a necro. It’s supposedly the second worst class in the game. It’s amazing how much better it is than the engineer though…

I have a Necromancer too and love him to bits, almost as much as I love my Engineer. When discussing things like “best” and “worst” I think it’s probably worthwhile talking about specific areas where that is true. For example my pistols Engineer can out-farm any of my other characters hands-down … there’s just no comparison; my Warrior can put out a ridiculous amount of burst damage; and my Necromancer is incredibly tanky. So if we’re talking about “best” and “worst” then specifics are useful because I honestly don’t believe there’s such a thing as a universally “best” or “worst” class. This is not to say that Engineers and Necromancers don’t need some (a lot of) love to fix the broken parts of the professions … just that to have a dialogue about these things we need to be clear.

Please stop trying to have a serious conversation, you’re distracting me from making up outrageous nerfs. =)

Sporadicus.1028:

In this game only the engineer experiences RNG normally (there is RNG with procs, but that’s something everyone experiences).

Mesmers have a fair bit of RNG in the boons they gain/give. While I agree that there’s a debate to be had about RNG skills, let’s not kid ourselves that ours is the only profession that has this mechanic.

Walorx.5129:

This is probably a stupid question, but what is that currency? o-o

New currency (not yet launched) based on achievement points I believe. Wonder what the exchange rate will be.

Only an engineer would think a landmine on a stick would make a great codpiece.

We were already able to join our friends on the same region in dungeons (except Flavour of the Month when last I tried) so really what we’re seeing is a situation that is largely unchanged from the current … other than server transfers between regions will now cost money.

I call Emperor’s New Clothes.

jay.4132:

Has any one seen the movie Harry Potter?

A film famous for its portrayal of Engineers.

FiftyTwoBears.5482:

“Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger” – Daft Punk

Possibly a more appropriate video to accompany this would be:

http://youtu.be/K2cYWfq--Nw

Which accurately demonstrates the dexterity needed to compete with another profession’s auto-attack … I exaggerate for comic effect.

Looking at the consensus of this forum, I’d say that Engineer is doing reasonably well in WvWvW and world PvE but quite poorly in sPvP and Dungeons.

While there are examples of individuals who report the exact opposite of one or all of the above, the majority appear to reflect it as generally accurate.