Better stuff from chests is usually soulbound… that isn’t anything new.
Drop loot isn’t.
Meh. I could not possibly care less about conjures. I’ve used the frost bow… once. Because I was in a PUG with some clueless people who couldn’t figure out how to stick together and concentrate fire as a group. Ctrl + T is useless if no one bothers to assist. So I had to up my aoe DPS to save repair costs.
“Are we there yet?”
“No”
“Are we there yet?”
“NO”
“Are we there yet?”
“Sit down and shut up. We will get there when we get there.”
Most skills have a small red bar that appears when they are in range on the icon… I haven’t used portal in a long time, but for some reason I remember that working after I laid my portal down.
I would check myself… but my original mesmer suffered a tragic smelting incident… and my new one is only level 16.
I run staff as main, and am not particularly happy with sword/focus.
With the staff I am always moving and often queueing attacks. I find it too awkward to break that habit when switching to sword, so I always wind up interrupting Sword 2. Sword 3 doesn’t have enough range to engage hostile melee enemies with before they start running toward you. Focus 4 is fantastic of course. Illusory Warden is pretty good if it’s not being attacked and its target stays still. Sword 1 is very lackluster compared to Staff 1. And when you get down to it, I just don’t really want to be in melee with this character.
I haven’t tried scepter in a while and might have to, despite popular opinion being against it. But I’d certainly welcome being able to play Pistol/Focus.
Sword 3 is a leap finisher…. use it in mid to melee range in a field to proc auras like chaos armor and root the subject to take the brunt of your sword #2 plus shatters… don’t think of it as a gap closer, think of it as a way to hold someone still while you nuke them.
I’ve been playing a lot of WvW… and I think it needs some changes.
1) Remove the jumping puzzle. Half our force in the puzzle when we are getting pounded is just ridiculous… especially when people who want to defend are being forced to queue. Not to mention the people doing the puzzles spam the team and map chat with QQ about griefers and the like in the puzzle (or begging for a mesmer to come in and portal them to the chest)… making it hard sometimes to catch communication about the changing conditions of the field. Or make the jumping puzzle a neutral zone…
At the very least give the puzzle players their own chat channel so that those of us actually contributing to the fight can turn that nonsense off and see the important communications instead of a hundred complaints about campers in the puzzle.
2) You have a Commander mechanic… now make a Scout mechanic… and remove the ability for people to lay on the ground dead watching everything for 20 minutes. They are dead… black their screen and make them respawn. A dead soldier isn’t a scout. Make another mechanic that gives people the ability to move around the map quickly with some stealth/camouflage abilities, and a mechanic to mark things they see on the map. And make them have to use the map to their advantage… if they get too close to enemy AI or PCs as well as members of their own server… they lose their ability to stealth. It would be nice to see some mechanic that allows the scout to set up small “ambush” buffs and debuffs of some sort. Some sort of mechanic that will allow the scout to slow enemy movement some and buff interceptors. Also… make it an intelligent design… it would simply be abused if the guy could use it on a single roamer then come out of stealth and kill him… make the ambush zones only work on groups of 5 or more… and make sure he cannot set it up within a certain proximity to friendlies or foes… it would be something set up preemptively, and last for a short time. Not something dropped on a bunch of peoples heads before unstealthing.
3) Rework the outmanned mechanic. And scale AI keep defenders in line with the number of members from a server logged in to WvW. Right now if there aren’t many players logged in to WvW (or they are all off doing the stupid puzzle while you are getting your face stomped in) it becomes a waste of time and money to try to defend anything. How about some kind of mechanic that gives a buff to the AI when PCs have the outmanned buff going on AND there are very few defenders in their vicinity? That way… it becomes worthwhile for one or two defenders to run all the way to try to defend a keep. The zerg will still take it, and you will still die a bloody death if you don’t evacuate in time… but at least being up on the walls wouldn’t be a 2 second event.
4) Find some way to make the zerg mentality less appealing. I realize this should mostly be on commanders to collect information and disseminate orders… but smaller tactical units should have some incentive to move away from the zerg. It would be nice to see some commanders that have more in their toolbox than 100 gold, a desire to have their icon show up in lions arch, and giant crowds of people standing around auto attacking. If there is some incentive for moving in smaller more tactical teams, players will start to use it. Really… to all you commanders out there… if all you know how to do is zerg… turn your commander icon off.
Also… make the icon work only in WvW… there’s no need to see commander symbols outside the battlefield.
5) Shorten the afk kick time… and expand it to include chatters. Someone standing in the keep for 30 minutes chatting about how much he likes chicken is a worthless resource. If he isn’t “actively” contributing to the war effort (or at least actively playing)… boot him back to Lions Arch so he can keep up with the latest gossip there and let the person next in the queue in.
That’s about it for now. I’ve given my thoughts…. I won’t be back to read any replies… not interested in “discussing”… just interested in dropping a couple rough half baked ideas in the suggestion box.
I think part of the problem is there are only two classes who really “need” to learn anything about combo fields as they level… elementalist and engineer. And a lot of engineers manage to just spam grenades and never figure them out either.
So when you aren’t working in an organized group with a battle plan, no one makes use of any tactics that could maximize a support toon to his fullest. I often try to teach my partners about combo fields and finishers… it is amazing how much more useful I become when they start paying attention to them and using them. A water field in staff when you only have 1 distance blast finisher is kind of lackluster… but when the whole party sees it go up and triggers their blast finishers suddenly you have an entire party refresh.
My best advice to you is learn to communicate with your party… even if it’s a PUG… and explain/develop some simple tactics you can use in the heat of battle.
Also… remain flexible… as an elementalist only interested in healing you are useless… but an elementalist interested in tossing down support of every kind in his toolkit is a massive help to his party. Especially when you learn WHEN to provide that support and where, on the fly.
The aura 30 point golem feels tankier than the earth elemental and has some decent range damage…. but I find a lot more utility in our standard elemental… for instance the water elemental creates a water field you can use with a finisher for extra healing. Pay attention to their attacks and you can figure out how to incorporate them as something more than just a “dumb” (as in you have no control over) source of damage and an aggro dump.
Instead of crying for a nerf after one fight… why not learn to work with your partner more effectively and learn from the mistakes you made during the fight… study your opponent and develop a strategy.
Inflexibility leads to impotence in any type of player versus player activity.
The outcome of 1 fight is not statistically significant enough to warrant a nerf…
I’m pretty sure the vigil medium armor isn’t a trenchcoat either.
And I agree… some more and varied medium armor skins would be nice.
Actually… to tell the truth I like the idea of an offhand torch…
How about a number 4 ability called:
Chaos of War
Gound Targeted confusion and creates an etheral field.
And a number 5 ability called:
Hounds of War
Your engineer will chase his own tail lobbing projectiles as he spins. Whirling Finisher.
:D
I suppose that last one could be called “Torch Dance”…. but that isn’t as amusing.
I’m starting to get more than a little irked with the bugs in this game. Oola’s lab used to work just fine… now I can’t complete the map because she simply isn’t there.
That sigil that steals health on weapon swap. And steal hp on crit. It adds up and they do dmg. Test it on mist before you use it tho.
Why would you use a sigil that has a weapon swap effect? Elementalists don’t have weapon swapping… unless there is something I don’t know about….
Edit: Yeah… so I read the post above yours again where he mentions that attunement counts as a weapon swap. I need to read more carefully. But great thing to know nonetheless.
Yeah… I discovered that myself running around in wvw today. Looking at earlier threads I see where people were asserting that they never exit with less than half health. Anet must have “fixed” that when they changed the downed state. Now if you can’t rally after the first one you are almost certain to die.
Engineers playing the piano to kill stuff? Certainly not in GW2 (unless you reaaaaaaally wanted to). Bomb Kit and Grenade kit is basically spam 1 and drop multiple mobs at once (specially true when you get grenadier) with ease on top of having perma vigor and swiftness. Even elixir gun gives you a move set which makes you almost impossible to kill while pretty much staying out of range of many strong attacks the majority of the time.
I don’t like grenades… I enjoy being mobile and relying on toolbelt and gadgets with pistol and shield specced for condition damage. I very much play piano. I used to use bomb kit but only for fields they provide (still do sometimes) I run a mix of kits and elixer these days… it’s more complicated but a lot more fun. “Spam” anything is a complete turnoff to me… and I consider it to be the lowest common denominator in base gameplay. Elixer gun isn’t something you use on crowds of mobs… but it is absolute beast on veterans and champs… and I always carry it. But this isn’t the engineer forum…
I never said anything was hard… I said it takes a long time to accomplish the same tasks. I am thoroughly enjoying my elementalist, and have made it my new main over my engineer… but I am still learning. I’ve only been playing an ele for a week… and I’m only level 40. Hell… I still haven’t caught up on the bug list (coming from an engineer the bugs over here don’t seem half as crippling at times, but that probably has more to do with me not being optimal on my ele and not being in the “harder” sections of the game yet, as well as having unlocked few trait points.)
What I said was I get aggravated when there are times that I am placed in stark contrast to others who get more/better results with a lot less work. I team up to do map completions with a buddy who runs a warrior… and it gets aggravating to be told I suck because it takes me longer to kill things in more complicated ways. Even though I thoroughly enjoy it…
I also don’t think the guy realizes just how much he benefits from my presence on both characters I’m constantly laying down fields and finishing them around him. I think he has never really needed to learn anything about game mechanics like combo fields as a warrior. He constantly says things like “I can’t believe how much damage I was doing to that champ! I didn’t even need you back there… I didn’t even have to heal. You do provide a little extra dps that helps get me through the bigger fights, though.”
Yeah dude… you were awesome back there.
I know you didn’t notice all my fields… or how closely I monitor your health… I know you have no idea where that fire aura came from, or those extra stacks of might… or the retaliation when things start getting hairy… and that’s all ok, play like you want to… just stop telling me that I suck when it takes me more than 20 seconds to kill something.
I’ve been playing engineer since I purchased the game, and just recently started playing an elementalist. They have a lot of in common really… high utility/support capable and versatility, with a sincere inability to finish any fight without playing keyboard piano. I would often become aggravated when I would hit an area where there are 3 or 4 mobs, usually in a tight corridor, that turns into an intense fight for my life… i know I can win…. eventually…. but often it takes so long to take them down that the first of them I picked off start respawning and joining the fight as the last of them are going down. Throw in a veteran or two and it can quickly turn into the eternal battleground….
And then….
A warrior walks through… pushes three buttons and downs them all on his way to casually mine an ore node.
Well aren’t you dramatic.
They didn’t troll the userbase… they gave you lots of content to enjoy. Skins and such are supposed to be spice, not meat.
XiaMae… pretty sure you are wrong. The timer is actually variable, because it follows the progress of the person in front from what i can tell, and the puzzle resets when the last one falls. I’ve timed it more than once, it rarely runs for the exact same amount of time. And when I know I am the last one to fall, it always immediately starts a new round as soon as I get back to the gate.
I had a blast with it. Looking forward to more. I do not believe that all content should be nerfed to be completable by everyone… I suck at PVP, and I think it would be an awful idea if they started applying handicaps to other players just so I could “win”… I also haven’t built the proper reflexes yet for the dungeons, that’s on me to learn and get better, not on the company to make it easier so I don’t have to. Leeroy dies, in case you never watched the vid.
I’ve done it with 3 different asuran characters. Engineer, Elementalist, and Warrior. Took me probably 20 or 30 dry runs before I found a decent path… hardest was developing a feel for getting through the first part with the camera issues and larger characters.. but it is perfectly possible.
I have three characters. All of them asura. I’ve completed the tower with all of them more than once. I’ve never rolled any other race.
Yeah, it’s annoying that I can’t see my character. I mentioned it in another thread. But you don’t need to see your character if you have a feel for the center of the screen. Timed jumping puzzles are about reflexes and muscle memory. If you can’t get past the first initial cluster with any character, it is probably because you aren’t taking the right path. Try starting a few runs with the intention of failing and fall behind the pack so that you can study the jumps you need to make in the small window you have, then develop a strategy and use it. You don’t need to be able to see your character to develop a feel for how he moves through his environment.
I’ve been noticing small changes in the game all the time.
Anyone bothered to cruise by the Priory Dig site lately? I just happened to pass by it just a little while ago…
The jumping puzzle is a blast… I am enjoying it very much.
My only critique: charr and norns block my view of my character… I can’t see when i need to jump. Couldn’t we have some kind of queue for smaller races like asura?
(edited by bluewanders.5297)
Wait… So then if you have Kit Refinement, could you just keep rapidly producing the blast over and over by spamming Med Kit?
No… kit refinement has a cool down of something like 10 or 15 seconds during which switching to any kit does not produce the effect.
Turn on the in-game clock and have it show server time. Problem solved.
Level up or run with players who can help protect you.
More whining? I’m shocked. You opened chests when you opened them… knowing what was in them. Any change made 1 minute after that entitles you to nothing.
How many people here haven’t bothered to read dev comments? All of the halloween content hasn’t even started yet… it’s not like what we’ve seen so far is everything. Try reading once in a while… the mad kings kingdom hasn’t even opened up yet. The best content of the event isn’t going to start until the 28th.
As for the chests… oh well. Live and learn.
I don’t know why I bother to log into the forums… the vocal majority seem to be the least informed and the most presumptuous.
the second pistol fires when you use the 4 and 5 abilities…
So I have noticed that I can rez NPCs, Guildmates, and Party members by throwing Elixer R when they go down… but other players that I have not actually formed a party with do not benefit at all. I’ve tried this in 5 seperate events today, I can’t use Elixer R to rez other pcs that haven’t formed a group with me.
Is this by design or is this a bug?
Hi Bite,
It’s no big deal to have a bit of trouble. When you are kiting, try to do so in a big circle rather than willy nilly all over the place, this should limit the amount of ground you cover and somewhat mitigate the numbers of other mobs you pull in. Also, you might find it helpful to add some crowd control skills to your arsenal… be it knockdowns or nets or what have you… the engineer is readily one of the easiest professions for controlling entire crowds of enemies. Also… think about line of sight, you can use the terrain to slow the mobs down and control their ability to attack. A little bit of spacial/situational awareness can increase your survivability by quite a bit.
Make sure you are good at dodging and know when to… find a good rotation for your skills and understand their effects. In particular, I pay attention to my combo fields and finishers as this allows me to stack on nice buffs with very little effort. Such as dropping the big ole bomb and then setting down bomb kit #2 which creates a fire combo field. The big ole bomb has a longer fuse so it has to go down first, but it is a combo finisher and has a nice blast radius and knockdown… when it goes off it will combo to stack the might buff on you. Smoke bomb can be used the same way. Healing turret creates a water field (which can push regeneration out to all friendlies around you including yourself)… and flame thrower creates a fire field. There are others, but you get the basic idea… creating combos with yourself takes a little practice but is well worth it.
If you need more help than that… you can try tossing down a turret to take some of the aggro off you… thumper is very good drawing mob aggro so you can pick them off. But pretty much any turret will do, thumper just has high health so it will hold them “longest” and by longest I mean after about level 25 that means a couple seconds at best… I was excited about turrets but they stop being worthwhile around lvl 25 or so… they simply start getting one shotted by everything, which makes them mostly useless for anything other than an emergency aggro dump and a well timed explosion. Unfortunately I find plenty of other skills to put in my slots that have more useability for me.
Oh… and since you are running dual pistols don’t be bashful with your #5… glueshot is kind of a weak hold as holds go… but it will slow their movement down for a few moments and allow you set up the next pitfall. For my money, I like the pistol shield combo better… #4 gives you projectile reflection and a knockdown/blast finisher… and #5 gives you a stun that can be thrown through a crowd to stun everything it touches.
Hope all that helps… remember the engineer is all about tactics and flexibility, if you Leeroy everything, you’ll die.