Guild Wars 2

lol don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying Necro’s aren’t lacking in a few areas. I’m just simply offering a build I use and enjoy. someone else had mentioned might stacking on a necro and asked for thoughts. voila!

edit: I should mention that the build does handle being focused rather well, so long as you’re smart with your CDs.

Elvahaduken.3609:

@ Hackks,
Why would any competitive team bring a necromancer when they could bring an engi.
EVERYTHING a necromancer can do other classes can do better. You saying that it’s just different doesn’t really justify it being so much more worse than other class’ builds.

Currently from all teams i’ve seen no one runs a necro other than the all same class tourny, Teldoo has said on stream that necromancers need buffs, in a game they need to be babysat to be effective. You use the term viable, why take a necro over another class that can do exactly what they do but better? if you was in a competitive game surely you’d want ALL advantages and not to kitten yourself because you want to feel like a special snowflake.

the guys reply might be sarcastic but what he says is pretty much fact :S sad as it is.

also btw, how long does it take to fill your life force bar to full, even with soul marks, marks have a high cd (lol who burns all marks just to gain LF) then wait for someone to nuke you and see how fast your LF runs out.
edit: would be nice to add critters to pvp arena xD hate starting with 0 LF

Sorry for the late reply, I think most of this was answered already but I’ll reply your Necro specific questions.

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=;0_-3-0-kHkH0m33KVJ0;9;4JJ9-J45-58-1;329-S-k8S;1CoV3Hgk11Zb

This is the link to the build I was referencing. It’s still my go-to Necro build, even though I mostly play my engi these days.

IMO Soul Marks is as indispensable to Staff Necros as Greater Marks. It turns your staff into a LF generating machine. Between Dagger #1, Focus #4, Staff, and 20pts into Soul Reaping which expands the LF pool and gives you Last Gasp, you will never want for LF (other than the start of the match) which is crucial since the build relies somewhat heavily on DS. A little tip for getting your LF started before the match begins is after the 10sec countdown starts summon your Flesh Golem and then switch your elite to either Lich or Plague Form, whichever you prefer. This will “kill” your Golem and give you the LF for it. Not much but enough you can atleast jump into DS and Doom someone or eat a Backstab with it.

Zzod.5791:

Stof.9584:

I don’t believe we need more testing to find a viable build, simple theorycrafting wipes most of the table immediately based on factors such as cooldowns, low damage, low survivability and low mobility.

Recently I tried running a Hybrid Power/Condi build. The idea is not to rely on close range, but still deal direct damage close to that of a pure Power build, while sustaining through Condition cleanse.

Much like HGH Engineer, it relies on might stacking to reach acceptable DPS, but it lacks the spammability of Grenades and with S/D thieves spam it is basically suicidal. Blood Is Power + Might duration runes + Life Blast allow you to have constant 10+ Might stacks, though, if you do it right.

Denshee has a similar build on his Twitch page, though I think it’s a bit outdated.

I think it has potential and it’s rather fun to play! Perhaps someone can make suggestions for my Hybrid Power/Condi build?

Yeah, I have messed around with this too. I would run it with 30 30 10 with scepter/focus and staff with 2 x lyssa, 2 x strength, 2 x fire runes with a rabid amulet. Its decent, but HGH engi outshines it completely in every category.

I ran a might stacking build a few months ago (still do when I dust off my Necro) with staff + dagger/focus (I’m not a fan scepter) with a 20/20/10/0/20 build with 2x Fire 2x Strength 2x Hoelbrak, Carrion Amulet/Rampagers Jewel, 2 Sigil of Battle, and Sigil of Minor Accuracy. Utils were Spectral Walk, BiP, and Well of Suffering, with Lich Form elite (sometimes Flesh Golem when yoloqueuing). I had a lot of fun with the build, and had no problems roaming, 1v1ing, providing damage support, and destroying team fights. It might not have quite the sustained damage output of an HGH engi but it has faster might stacking and a much bigger/devastating aoe bomb that can cover an entire point and will kill anything that eats the full combo. In fact I liked this build so much I thought Engis were foolish for thinking HGH was effective. Like I said, it doesn’t have quite the sustained output but can pack a bigger punch and offer a bit more group utility than HGH-condis offers.

Here’s a link to the build if anyone is interested in the particulars: http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=;0_-3-0-kHkH0m33KVJ0;9;4JJ9-J45-58-1;329-S-k8S;1CoV3Hgk11Zb

Shinra.1376:

broken, if I whooped your kitten once, I shouldn’t have to worry about you getting back up.

Reality Check: in GW2 just because you bursted someone into downed state does not mean you’ve won.

Maxing out your burst damage and unloading your CDs on an opponent doesn’t require much skill. That’s just appropriating stats and hitting the buttons in the right order. Knowing when, where, and who to stomp/revive is crucial to winning every fight larger than 1v1 in this game.

IMO, the biggest problem the Necro has is that it is almost completely obliged to fight whenever engaged and when it does it has minimal means to sustain itself. It does have an obscenely high HP pool but recovering or sustaining that HP isn’t all that feasible or available. It has minimal mobility and extremely limited escapability by design. And that’s fine, until you realize that fighting under those circumstances requires sustainability, and the primary source of sustainability in PvP comes from boon production which is where Necro’s are extremely deficient. They have no access to vigor, limited access to regen, life stealing skills and traits have no scaling but are located in the +Healing and HP tree, no access to water fields, some access to protection, minimal (almost zero) access to stability, and no access to aegis. Combined with their inordinate amount of lengthy cast times, essentially turns Necros into a glorified pinata or punching bag for any class with a few CC skills.

They can still lay waste to entire groups when they have a group properly supporting them, but it’s too much of a chore and too inflexible for a team comp IMO.

Login.5102:

Lol yeah its way more effective then HGH. That vuln factors in way more then the condi engis bring to the table with p/p nades.

I have seen way to many tpvp vids of might stacking necros owning it. And theres way to many top teams who bring a necro.

O wait there’s not 1.

It’s not more effective. It’s just different. And the reasons why Engis are percieved as more desirable in a group comp than a Necro has nothing to do with HGH or might stacking. I won’t acknowledge the rest of that sarcastic whining other than to say that’s it typical of Necro posters and the biggest reason why I can’t even glance in that forum anymore.

To stick to the point, every class can stack might in some way that’s beneficial. Just because it’s not the popular fotm build doesn’t mean it’s not viable. I ran the above stated might stacking necro build for months with a huge amount of success before I came back to playing my engi, and I thought people were ridiculous for running HGH builds when it took so much time and maintenance to see a result. After a while, I tried it again and saw that it wasn’t inferior to my necro’s way of might stacking, just different.

but I get the impression you’re not interested in learning, so I’ll just leave it at that.

Login.5102:

Maskaganda.2043:

^
you’re right, I find it funny that some complain about hgh while I can get 25 stacks of might on my necromancer without really sacrificing much. 1 adept trait, 1 utility, 1 sigil vs 1 grandmaster trait, 2 utilities and a heal, 1 sigil and appropriate runes. go figure :p

also, correcting something said above, sigil of battle and sigil of strength share cooldowns. it’s not a good idea to use them together.

Lol not.

First of alL, any good necro knows spamming life blast is never good because of how life force degeneration works. You are supposed to pop in and out of ds.

Not only that necros start matches with 0 life force.

As an HGH engi, I run around with 20 stacks alllll game boy

HGH takes far longer to stack might than a Necro. BiP + sigil of battle + Reapers Might is an extraordinarily fast way to stack might. Generating LF is not difficult either. Take staff + Soul Marks, with dagger/focus and you can generate LF quickly, and the 20pts in Soul Reaping combined with an already large HP pool will give you a large enough LF pool to generate 3-4 high damage LB hits before you reach 50% LF.

How is this different from HGH – the might stacking actually comes through combat and active attack skills rather than defensive/non-attack skills. It generates faster – 16 to 20 stacks of within the first 10 sec of a fight – and it doesn’t require blowing CDs in advance of or in between fights to maintain, requiring less maintenance for uptime. Not to mention it’s easy to incorporate Vuln stacking into the build as well making it possible to stack 20+ stacks of might on yourself while stacking 20+ stacks of Vuln on your target, making for as much as ~40% increase in direct damage.

Avoiding shatters requires far more active player response than it does to create them. I mean, an aoe damage skill that hits for 2-3k per hit AND chases it’s target? c’mon…

if there was one thing I would change about Mesmers it would be to require them to actually aim their skills. No more auto-homing, auto-facing, or fire and forget lolAI attacks from 1200 range for 4-6k damage.

There isn’t a single skill shot on the class and the game is basically doing 75% of the work for them. All you have to do is watch your positioning and then hit the same skill combos over and over. It’s more like spectating than playing. /yawn

Punkins.2087:

hackks.3687:

Walorx.5129:

So… How exactly does one use the flamethrower properly in tournament play?

Walorx.5129:

just drop the kits and pickup HGH.. /faceroll pubs and get smashed by good players because you bring nothing but damage to the table.

edited for clarity.
(sorry couldn’t resist <3)

edited for clarity.
(sorry couldn’t resist)

you’re not doing it right.

-1

Walorx.5129:

So… How exactly does one use the flamethrower properly in tournament play?

Walorx.5129:

just drop the kits and pickup HGH

edited for clarity.
(sorry couldn’t resist <3)

you can’t interrupt Ele’s attunement switching. just like weapon swapping, if it’s off CD you can swap weapons while stunned/dazed/etc.

Thief’s Steal is instant cast, so no interrupting that either.

Necro’s DS #4 (not necessarily an f4 but a class mechanic skill none the less) is probably the most commonly interrupted skill in the game. #2 Dark Path can be interrupted as well I believe and DS #1 can be interrupted as well. Pretty much everything the Necro does gets interrupted. Poor guys have cast times on everything, and almost no stability and zero invulns to speak of.

Engi’s Tool Belt skills with cast times can be interrupted, such as Grenade Barrage, Big ol bomb, Bandage Self, Rocket Kick, etc., though most people would be hard pressed to recognize the animations for anything other than Bandage Self with it’s 1 sec cast time.

jportell.2197:

Marginal condition damage? Correct me if I am wrong but don’t YOU brag about how much damage it does because of the might stacks. And didn’t YOU admit that this build was OP? OP=NEEDS A NERF… Plain and simple.

it was nerfed in the last patch. uptime on incendiary powder was drastically reduced, and the obvious Elixir S nerf. if you knew about the build as much as you claim to you’d know that.

in fact it’s been nerfed a little further for the time being since Sigil ofMinor Corruption is borked after the last patch.

I was playing around with Melandru runes and rocket boots the other day. the 30% reduced stun duration helps but it’s kinda lame to require a 6pc rune set just to make a skill tolerable.

making RB a 900 range leap fits right into the current game design so shouldn’t be too earth shattering to change it. I’ve been pushing this suggestion since they buffed signets and nerfed elixir S. woulda been nice to get with the last patch. oh wells…

jportell.2197:

Okay so lets look at some numbers here… <snip>

LOL

Your ‘numbers’ are way off. But thanks again for another shining example of why you still don’t know what you’re talking about with HGH engis.

edit: is this really turning into a Mesmer vs Engi kitten contest? Because I know who wins that one most of the time. Hint: it’s not the Engi.

jportell.2197:

hackks.3687:

jportell.2197:

hackks.3687:

jportell.2197:

It is also the best way to stack might OUT of combat. You can prep those 10-15 stacks a minute before even getting into combat. And the shattered strength nerf may have not been intended but once again ANET over reached and nerfed it down too hard. Same thing that happened with the recent confusion nerf (destroying any confusion mesmer viability.) Any other class that stacks might that high loses out on survivability (this build does not high, access to regen/swiftness for escapes/and protection (RNG DEPENDANT) makes this build able to to maintain high might stacks with better survivability than any other class that would make an effort to stack might that high.

A warrior can’t pop his Might Stacks out of combat? A guardian can’t throw up their Might Stacks out of combat? An Ele can’t throw down their Might Stacks out of combat? A Necro can’t hit Blood is Power for an instant 10 stacks out of combat?

And now we’re calling game wide mechanic changes such as the Confusion nerf a “mesmer nerf” like they were the only ones utilizing it? lol

And what survivability? Elixirs cleanse a single condition. Elixir S is a shadow of it’s former self after the nerf. An HGH Engi has no means of separating himself from an opponet – no CC other than Supply Crate (3min CD) and a 1 sec aoe immob on a 20+ sec CD. It’s not like they have 20% or better invuln uptime, reliable stealth, leaps, ports, Stun, Daze all on obscenely low CDs like another profession that comes to mind. Engi’s dump 30 pts into a non-offensive trait line, some survivability comes from that, as it should, but they are nothing close to being unkillable for it.

You have a very skewed notion of balance, and no idea what you’re talking about with might stacking.

Guardian and warriors might doesn’t last nearly as long or stack nearly as high. And might is not as important a boon to guardians as others. And you have 7 guaranteed condition cleanses in this build. That really helps with survivability compared to a tourney built mesmer that usually can bring none thanks to the team requirements of portal and IOL that leaves them with either a stun break or a condi cleanse because they condi cleanse is so terrible they take the stunbreak.

If Guardian and Warrior were invested in the same +boon duration tree and threw on the appropriate might duration runes, then yes they would last just as long. If might isn’t as important to them in their particular build, then obviously they’re not built to perform the same roll as the HGH engi and therefore would make little sense to compare them.

Oh my, 7 single condition cleanses. Have you never been standing near a guardian or Ele when they got corrupted and hit with epidemic? 7 single condition cleanses isn’t exact an efficient way to deal with that.

And I can’t believe you’re doing it again. Complaining about conditions in a build that has no condition cleansing. To put it simply: that’s your own fault.

Not really ANET intended for mesmers to have lower condi cleanse BECAUSE we have better escape skills… We would kill to have guaranteed condition cleanses. But this thread is more about might stacking and the issues with that specifically this build.
Also if mesmers go into might stacking they most likely take hoelbrak runes all the way to 6 because they much less reliable ways to deal with conditions otherwise.

You can’t actually say that. That’s what you’d like to presume because it fits your argument at this moment. Until ANet comes out and says “Mesmers shouldn’t cleanse because they can escape”, then you can’t actually say it as a truth.

Speaking of truth, if Mesmers aren’t supposed to be able to cleanse then why do they have things like Null Field, or Arcane Thievery, or traits like Mender’s Purity or Shattered Conditions?

Oh, but we’ve been down this path before haven’t we? Where people start listing the Mesmer’s available means for cleansing conditions by investing into a trait line that isn’t all about face-rolling your way through opponents, similar to how this notorious Engi build works, and then you’ll tell us why those skills aren’t even viable because you have to take IoL and Portal because any deviation from the easy mode set before you that is Shatter or Phanta Mesmer is basically equivalent to nerfing yourself.

You know what, I think you owe me some thanks. I just saved you from having to write your next 3 or 4 posts. You’re welcome.

loper.9034:

hackks.3687:

Huh?

You still have to take a bunker guardian in your team if you want to play competitively.

Stealth still has no counter whatsoever – aoe spam does not count, it’s a silly workaround that does not benefit overall game play.

AI is still far too prevalent and impacting to heavily on PvP game play.

Class balance has whittled most professions down to a single, and in many cases “cheesy”, competitive build.

Balanced? I don’t know what the kitten your talking about.

Actually, I’ve played with many teams that use a bunker engineer or bunker necromancer. I do play competitively in tpvp quite often actually. Bunker warriors are also a possible option with the update. It’s not limited at all. You could also do well with a bunker elementalist. I’m not sure what planet you’re on, but bunker guardian is the least viable considering how slow they are how easy it is too block the hammer.

As for one build for each class, I disagree on that point as well. There is a viable hgh engi, bunker engineer(two different options for this build as well), the minion necromancer, the power necromancer, the condi necro, phantasm mes, shatter mesmer, condi ranger, pet ranger, bunker guardian, semi-bunk guard, power warrior, bunker warrior, cantrip ele(this is the only build I can think for this class), d/d thief, p/d thief, and that is all the builds I can think of for the classes, but as you can see, there are plenty of options. Perhaps, elementalists actually have it the worst build options wise.

Stealth has a counter. When you see someone stealth, wave your sword around and and you will hit them. It is not that difficult. Perhaps there are still some changes needed, but you are not looking at the facts. Go play some tournaments. Learn about the different viable builds. There are far more than you think.

lol I don’t even know where to start. Did you really just say Bunker Guardian isn’t viable? And out of all those builds you listed, would you say their representation within competitive play is equally split? Spamming Auto Attack is a counter to stealth? Really? That’s the most intelligent active game play we can come up with for a counter to stealth? This is an acceptable ideal for competitive game play?

Go play some tournaments? I’m r50 with more than 3500 tourney matches. How many more should I play before I can fairly say, “I’ve got some experience in tPvP”?

You know what, let’s just say I’ve got some different ideas of what ideal competitive play should be like in this game and leave it at that.

jportell.2197:

hackks.3687:

jportell.2197:

It is also the best way to stack might OUT of combat. You can prep those 10-15 stacks a minute before even getting into combat. And the shattered strength nerf may have not been intended but once again ANET over reached and nerfed it down too hard. Same thing that happened with the recent confusion nerf (destroying any confusion mesmer viability.) Any other class that stacks might that high loses out on survivability (this build does not high, access to regen/swiftness for escapes/and protection (RNG DEPENDANT) makes this build able to to maintain high might stacks with better survivability than any other class that would make an effort to stack might that high.

A warrior can’t pop his Might Stacks out of combat? A guardian can’t throw up their Might Stacks out of combat? An Ele can’t throw down their Might Stacks out of combat? A Necro can’t hit Blood is Power for an instant 10 stacks out of combat?

And now we’re calling game wide mechanic changes such as the Confusion nerf a “mesmer nerf” like they were the only ones utilizing it? lol

And what survivability? Elixirs cleanse a single condition. Elixir S is a shadow of it’s former self after the nerf. An HGH Engi has no means of separating himself from an opponet – no CC other than Supply Crate (3min CD) and a 1 sec aoe immob on a 20+ sec CD. It’s not like they have 20% or better invuln uptime, reliable stealth, leaps, ports, Stun, Daze all on obscenely low CDs like another profession that comes to mind. Engi’s dump 30 pts into a non-offensive trait line, some survivability comes from that, as it should, but they are nothing close to being unkillable for it.

You have a very skewed notion of balance, and no idea what you’re talking about with might stacking.

Guardian and warriors might doesn’t last nearly as long or stack nearly as high. And might is not as important a boon to guardians as others. And you have 7 guaranteed condition cleanses in this build. That really helps with survivability compared to a tourney built mesmer that usually can bring none thanks to the team requirements of portal and IOL that leaves them with either a stun break or a condi cleanse because they condi cleanse is so terrible they take the stunbreak.

If Guardian and Warrior were invested in the same +boon duration tree and threw on the appropriate might duration runes, then yes they would last just as long. If might isn’t as important to them in their particular build, then obviously they’re not built to perform the same roll as the HGH engi and therefore would make little sense to compare them.

Oh my, 7 single condition cleanses. Have you never been standing near a guardian or Ele when they got corrupted and hit with epidemic? 7 single condition cleanses isn’t exact an efficient way to deal with that.

And I can’t believe you’re doing it again. Complaining about conditions in a build that has no condition cleansing. To put it simply: that’s your own fault.

Huh?

You still have to take a bunker guardian in your team if you want to play competitively.

Stealth still has no counter whatsoever – aoe spam does not count, it’s a silly workaround that does not benefit overall game play.

AI is still far too prevalent and impacting to heavily on PvP game play.

Class balance has whittled most professions down to a single, and in many cases “cheesy”, competitive build.

Balanced? I don’t know what the kitten your talking about.

jportell.2197:

It is also the best way to stack might OUT of combat. You can prep those 10-15 stacks a minute before even getting into combat. And the shattered strength nerf may have not been intended but once again ANET over reached and nerfed it down too hard. Same thing that happened with the recent confusion nerf (destroying any confusion mesmer viability.) Any other class that stacks might that high loses out on survivability (this build does not high, access to regen/swiftness for escapes/and protection (RNG DEPENDANT) makes this build able to to maintain high might stacks with better survivability than any other class that would make an effort to stack might that high.

A warrior can’t pop his Might Stacks out of combat? A guardian can’t throw up their Might Stacks out of combat? An Ele can’t throw down their Might Stacks out of combat? A Necro can’t hit Blood is Power for an instant 10 stacks out of combat?

And now we’re calling game wide mechanic changes such as the Confusion nerf a “mesmer nerf” like they were the only ones utilizing it? lol

And what survivability? Elixirs cleanse a single condition. Elixir S is a shadow of it’s former self after the nerf. An HGH Engi has no means of separating himself from an opponet – no CC other than Supply Crate (3min CD) and a 1 sec aoe immob on a 20+ sec CD. It’s not like they have 20% or better invuln uptime, reliable stealth, leaps, ports, Stun, Daze all on obscenely low CDs like another profession that comes to mind. Engi’s dump 30 pts into a non-offensive trait line, some survivability comes from that, as it should, but they are nothing close to being unkillable for it.

You have a very skewed notion of balance, and no idea what you’re talking about with might stacking.

jportell.2197:

miriforst.1290:

jportell.2197:

Lopez.7369:

Kwll.1468:

Buffs, in general, need to have shorter durations. You should not be able to get any buff to last more then about 15-20 seconds imo and that shuld be with buff duration stacking.

I agree. It will take broader changes to accomplish, but this particular aspect of the game seems out of whack to me. Stability, fury, swiftness, and might are way too accessible nowadays, and it’s leading to a less skillful, dynamic game.

Other classes have had their base boon duration toned down in PvP guardian for instance Save yourselves boons only last 5 seconds…. Compare that to how long the duration for might is on HGH.

*Hint*Maybe because its because it does more than just grant might*hint*

Oh or wait maybe you are actually spamming it on recharge for might hoping for 25 stacks o might on your bunker guardian whom you constantly brag about being unkillable by anyone but a hgh?

That actually explains a lot.

Like really a lot.

Kind of like how mesmer shattered strength used to grant more than one stack or how ele evasive arcana was a blast finisher in all attunements. And I bring up my guard because of the insane Condi removal the build has. This HGH build is not only a high Condi damage build but still high power thanks to 30pts in that trait line plus full uptime on usually more than 15stacks of might.

why do you keep bringing up Shattered Strength like it wasn’t unintentionally over buffed? ANet even said it wasn’t intended, therefor it’s not a ‘nerf’ when they changed it again – that’s called a ‘fix’. If you’d like to know what nerfing is really like I suggest you visit the Engineer section of the patch notes from any patch since the game’s release.

As for the rest of you complainers, give it a rest already. Virtually any class can might stack, and virtually all of them do it faster than Engis. This idea that Engi’s run around with perma 25 stacks of Might is farcical to say the least. 10-15 is normal on any class I’ve played with a Might Stacking build and all of them get over 20 stacks at their peak. Might is meant to stack. It even has a limit on how high! Just because you choose not to utilize something or because it doesn’t fit nice and neat into your FOTM Glass Cannon or Unkillable Bunker cheeseball build does not make it OP.

And stop referring to it as just “HGH”. HGH is only a trait and it’s utilized in a variety of builds. It’s also the slowest possible way to stack might – hence why it needs a ton of Might Duration. I mean kitten, if your going to complain about something at least do it intelligently and show that you have some idea of what your talking about and how it works. The build you all seem to be referring to is the HGH-condi/nades build and it has been nerfed, and it’s also somewhat broken at the moment in PvP since Sigil of Minor Corruption is borked at the moment.

Go do some homework before talking about things you don’t understand.

jportell.2197:

except a single blurred frenzy never hits for 10-14k ever… Mesmer burst is a series of steps not just aoe spam… sorry mate.

you just reminded me that block skills don’t do damage. we’ll have to compensate for that too. maybe they should reflect all damage without requiring traits.

I say we try it for week or two. see how the ‘meta’ develops and all…

p.s. BF + 2x Shatter will easily hit for 10k damage. Add in an iDuelist or iZerker and, well you get the idea. That also reminds – I need to work a turret into my combo.

I propose we leave blurred frenzy as is and instead of nerfing it, let’s just reduce all channeled block skills to 10sec and allow players to continue attacking while blocking.

I mean, how awesome would it be if I could block every attack while I Grenade Barrage + Jumpshot someone!!!! I mean that’s easily 10-14k damage right there, and I really don’t see why I should have to take damage while I do it since Mesmer’s don’t have to. And don’t forget Warriors(!), this kind of change could be the buff they’ve been looking for! Droppin’ burst skills while blocking! kitten yeah!

Zenith.7301:

Interpret Interrupt.3824:

jportell.2197:

Blackhat.4016:

jportell.2197:

And how many really high damage skills do mesmers have that don’t require a target? How many utility skills offer us invulnerability? How many movement skills do we have inour wweapons? How about for escaping a fight? Even necros can out run us or catch us… What about evades on our weapons as far as weapon movement goes we have 2 that’s it

This… doesn’t make a 2 second invulnerability on a 10 second CD less OP. If you think other skills need a buff that’s fine but this thread is not about the other skills.

It doesn’t make all other classes skills for avoiding damage while still being able to do high damage and deal with conditions better than us any less annoying to us. Blurred frenzy only does high damage in shatter builds and it is the only reliable damage mitigation we have in weapon sets… Both blocks that we have available only block ONE attack while other classes that have them block them for a set duration on matter what. Other classes have better weapon evasion than us. And if they bite off more than they can chew they can run away much easier. And to the person that said “Anything I said is now discredited” A necro with signet of locust is hard to catch especially for mesmers and especially since phantasmal berserker still does not freaking work… I’m sick of my class get nerfed over and over and over just because kittenes cannot L2P. I would loveee to have the damage mitigation that other classes get that mesmers are severely lacking but I deal with what I got. (FYI i’m not defending blurred frenzy because I use sword… haven’t touched it in months.) Objectively speaking other classes match our damage mitigation with their skill and put out high damage still. Blurred frenzy also only does high damage in shatter builds… in other builds (immortal and such) blurred frenzy damage is terrible.

Lol at the l2p claim. No one cares about the blurred frenzy damage.

Two problems with the skill:

1) it auto faces the target and tracks the target. You cannot walk through blurred frenzy and mitigate the damage.

2) 2 seconds of evade. Key word here EVADE. Which means unlike block skills that you claim about every other class which are not evades btw.
Advantages of being an evade:
1) Unblockable items do not hit through it. I.E. warrior new signet, unblockable marks, ground fields etc.
2) it is effectively a dodge, like whirlwind. However before you go on whirlwind 8sec traited cd remember that whirlwind does not track the player automatically. And the evade is only 1 second. Effective up time 12.5%

The mesmer also has lower armor base value, less HP, his skill damage outside shatter cycles are vastly inferior to warrior autos+skill damage spike (mesmer gets shatter — warrior gets eviscerate, whirlwind, 100b and his autoattacks on both greatsword and axe hit like a truck).

It’s kind of silly to compare classes.

You nerf blurred frenzy, and you nerf mesmer viability. He will be squishier than a thief in team fights since he doesn’t have a wealth of teleports or active defense utilities like the eler or massive heals or condi removal.

so what you’re saying is, without BF allowing Mesmers to deal damage with impunity they’d have to play the game like everybody else?

bummer…. (lol)

Mauricio.1932:

MiniAchilles.4617:

Because they are two different pets, why would they share a health pool…?

You did not understand my point.

apparently everyone did, except for me.

Logically speaking it would follow that, like other AI elements in PvP, if the ranger is still in combat after swapping out a near-dead pet, that the pet should retain it’s previous HP level once being summoned back, since most pets don’t regenerate health at all unless traited, and certainly don’t do so until out of combat. This would allow for actual counter-play to the pet reliant builds and force rangers to actually use the pet wisely and keep him it on a shorter leash rather than just set it to attack and forget about it. Rangers already have the means to keep up their pets, now they just need a reason to do so.

In my experience queues pop instantly and still end up with mismatches as terrible as 3x <10’s, 1x <20, and me 49 against a full 40+ premade. It wasn’t exactly an isolated incident either, because it happened 4 matches in a row after that. There’s really just no good reason for that to happen. Ever.

For starters, pitting Premades against Pugs and then rating them based on the outcome is laughable. Those are two entirely different levels of game play. But to not restrict the matchmaking by tiers of experience, either ranks or matches played, makes no sense at all, and strikes me as something that should be integral to the match making process. Without it there is simply no way to “protect the new player experience”, which is a fundamental point of having the MMR in the first place, as well as protect the competitive integrity of ranked matches, the other fundamental point of the MMR.

Ranked matches are a bit of joke at the moment though, and the leader boards are just a complete farce. This issue really needs to move to the front of ANet’s queue for “what to address next”.

Kimbald.2697:

You know, when all is said and done about Elixir S, the main thing they failed to do this patch is:

when nerfing Elixir S, they should have buffed the gadgets. ..
Those have stunbreakers but they need work.
The devs even ADMITTED the gadgets need improvement.

This was the time to improve them: when they nerfed Elixir S somewhat in utility.

Not doing this at this moment was a bad call. Engineers can’t be hearing ‘later’ on everything.
Gadgets should have happened now.

Than we would have lost some, but gained some for other builds… engineers need more of that.
Things like Healing Turret to open up more options.
Gadgets were perfect for this patch.

+1

Exactly this.

it would be pretty cool to have required templates for servers. I’d make an engi only free-for-all with nothing but tool kits, med kits, and slick shoes.

excellent question

Nilix.2170:

hackks.3687:

1)when I used Elixir S it was to avoid burst, and/or heal, AND gain separation by switching to my kit so I could drop blinds/chills/cripples/Supply Crate/etc. No other can class do anything even remotely like this

2)If Elixir S wasn’t OP, please by all means tell me what other class could pop an invuln stun break and then be able to swap weapons, use said weapon skills, in addition to all utilities and the elite skill. And not to mention have it a on CD under 60sec.

1) Mesmers can confuse, teleport, use illusions for misdirection, and distort while burstshattering you down. While the strength of confusion and their burst has been lessened, they still hold the ability to do this and it is still completely capable of killing you. Elixir S, however, has only maintained the ability to secure a kill. The Warrior’s Endure Pain neglects incoming attacks for five seconds. While it can be CC’d, they can still use all their other skills, like one to gain stability which would completely circumventing their one downside. No other class can do this. But that doesn’t make it OP. Comparing us to other classes means nothing though, because they are all meant to be different. Although, this must speak volumes to how strong Engineers are perceived, in general. We have to handicap ourselves because our consistent damage is so far advanced than other classes that, if we ever feel like saving ourselves, we have to literally call Time Out for 3s to run away or stab someone in the chest.

2)Endure Pain. Oh, under 60s CD? Well, Mist Form used to. But I wouldn’t use that skill anymore either.

Mesmers aren’t using a stun break to become Invulnerable. It’s hilariously built into their weapons and class mechanics. I won’t argue that Mesmers aren’t purely ridiculous and more so now with the invuln nerfs, but they seem to be ANet’s baby and the exception to every rule. My only hope is that the consistent buffs they’ve been getting are just prelude to a severe nerf.

Endure Pain is not as great as everyone would like to make it out to be. They still take condition damage, can still be CC’d, and maybe the worst part of all, they still have to be Warriors. There’s a good deal of counter play there which was not present with Elixir S + kits.

As far as I remember, Mist Form was on a 90sec CD without the trait, and still over 60 with the trait. It was also nerfed the same as Elixir S even though they couldn’t use weapon skills like Engis were capable of. That should be a good indication that ANet didn’t want this type of game play to exist. Though it really does beg the question of “what’s the deal with mesmers then?”

that ridiculous UI timer is the only thing that really irked me about this last patch. All it serves is to tell us how often we can’t make use of it, like we needed some kind of reminder that “hey, this trait is still useless with that 20sec GCD”

they already redesigned the skills. it’s time to remove the GCD and give it back it’s parity with Elemental Attunements.

CriSPeH.8512:

^
I also don’t see what this “allowed to use kits while invulnerable bs is”?

After popping Elixir S you had a choice;
Switch back into a kit because Elixir S switches you out of it and possible get off a grand total of 2 skills, in WvW and any skilllag you will be lucky to use 1.
or
Use your Heal.

Everyone claiming tht you can just use your kits while invincible the whole time is very misleading.

The same could be said for Static Shield. Did you know you can pop that and switch to another kit and get a skill off while under the protection of your shield!
I guess the Shield will be the next thing nerfed because of this great OPness.

OP gets tossed around so much you all don’t even know the meaning of the word anymore and neither do the Devs.

when I used Elixir S it was to avoid burst, and/or heal, AND gain separation by switching to my kit so I could drop blinds/chills/cripples/Supply Crate/etc. No other can class do anything even remotely like this

yes, it hurts now that we can’t secure a heal with it and that we don’t have much of an alternative to fulfill that. you can toss S and hope for stability or that they don’t drop aoe everywhere on when you stealth. there is also minimal means to secure separation from a threat, and using S now to do will only get you killed immediately after. It’s still incredibly strong for avoiding burst, just have to start considering it’s situational uses differently.

As far as I’ve been aware swapping/stowing a kit (i.e. not using a weapon swap key but the actual utility key) will not interrupt casts. starting a new cast while in the middle of the cast however, will interrupt the previous cast. Glue Shot still seems a bit wonky with this.

If Elixir S wasn’t OP, please by all means tell me what other class could pop an invuln stun break and then be able to swap weapons, use said weapon skills, in addition to all utilities and the elite skill. And not to mention have it a on CD under 60sec.

It was simply too strong. Hence why builds could suffice with a single stun break on their skill bar and hardly lose an ounce of survivability. What we’re experiencing now is the steep drop off in alternatives to this once uber potent skill. It no longer serves the same purpose, and there really isn’t anything to fill in where’s uses have diminished.

Downed state doesn’t really have anything to do with Elixir S and the nerf to it was completely reasonable. Being allowed to use kits while invulnerable was hilariously OP, and a lot of fun, but without question deserving of a nerf. Same as mist form.

The problem it created for Engis is relevant though. A “mid range skirmisher” with minimal mobility skills and means to gain separation is definitely problematic. Ele’s didn’t feel this as much as Engis because their remaining cantrips, Armor of Earth and Lightning Flash, still offer them a means to both secure a cast and gain separation from a threat.

Hence my plea to buff gadgets. Making Rocket Boots into a ground targeted, 900 range, stun break movement skill without the self stun would give non-bunker Engis a chance to recover their position. Which is what Elixir S offered previously though only through the means of using CC/conditions via kits while invulnerable – which was simply a broken solution to an existing problem.

Rocket Boots just needs to function similar to Mesmer’s Blink and Ele’s Lightning flash, just with an animation rather than instant teleport. Remove the stun, make it ground targeted and 600 or 900 range, call it good.

Karl should know better than to argue with Engi’s without conclusive physical evidence. These crazy kitteners will not be denied the truth.

Conclusion: Nerf Engis, Buff Karl

the condi removal and group aoe healing is a major improvement to the heal turret. it has definitely made it a niche healing skill though, best used for larger team fights, which makes the notion of having the overcharge available every 15sec on CD a bit of a farce. There’s absolutely no way that turret will survive on point for the entire duration of the overcharge CD. Blowing it up before the end of the water field will still be the most effective and efficient way to use it.

my suspicion is that the spike heal potential for coordinated teams will go through the roof, and filling the time between with super elixir and fumigate will make Ele’s pre nerf aoe healing/cleansing look like child’s play.

CriSPeH.8512:

This would really be a really nice thing to do now since ALL Signets just got a 100% stat increase.

We get no increase to any passive stats.

indeed. sort of the whole point behind the thread.

as others have mentioned it would be nice to have something more interesting in regards to the passive buffs than just mere stat boosts.

rocket boots would be the only skill I’d label as needing some actual redesign. making it a ground targeted movement skill and losing the self KD would be more appropriate IMO.

lunyboy.8672:

Primarily because they are balancing these classes now for a sPvP e-sport, and not listening to the PvE and WvW players as much, and these players with the highest skill ability are more likely to complain about what THEY consider to be game imbalancing factors without looking at the broader picture, like how to survive in Arah, or how a mid-statted Engie would contribute less to a party in any higher level fractal.

Or for that matter, how many Engies are playing their game.

If there had been a real effort to keep PvEers happy, this gap between sPvP and PvE would be much wider by now, and things like bleed caps and conditions in general would have been reworked to not be COMPLETELY USELESS in any end-game PvE content.

In an effort to prevent min-maxing and make the game “fun,” they have succeeded in letting the people who min-max anyway to dictate the nerfs for their associated classes.

This is where the Engineer is left out in the cold, because they were an after-thought, without the benefit of a focused set of professional abilities, s/he borrows from other classes, mostly with kitten versions of others abilities. Every OTHER profession has at least one pillar they can lean on for basic builds, something they can fall back on and be productive if they run with that in green armor and trinkets.

This is why the other professions, for the most part, are seeing buffs now, as the dev team goes back to those profession mission statements and says, “what is the professions primary mechanic, and what attention does it need?”

They go to the Engineers, and without actually paying attention to what they are looking for in their builds, they “balance” them based on the peaks, without looking seriously at the valleys. In this patch, we had a nerf of two of our only truly useful bunker skills, Elixir S (as you said) and the stealth on root trait. They also nerfed our healing turret, while pretending to buff it if you are able to keep it alive. Which is what we have been complaining about on ALL TURRETS SINCE DAY 1. They don’t scale with our builds, don’t crit, don’t move(that’s fine), don’t receive buffs, or heals or any other benefits from our actual builds except condition damage/duration on Flame turret (I haven’t tested this recently). With the exception of the guardians spirit weapons (which got a buff this patch) they are the most useless pet mechanic in the game, hands down.

And the Engies are back on this forum as well as countless others confused as to why HGH didn’t get nerfed (or an SD cool-down which I completely expected), because we all expected that, but the bunkers among us can’t believe that Elixir S got the hammer. We don’t have the heals to sustain a bunker build without using S the way we have, and this will be reflected in play and engineer population.

This is an issue with selection effects as much as anything else, if any ANet employee is reading this, please consider actually data-mining information on who is running which skills, traits, food, runes, and sigils on their builds and the success or failure of those individual skills against how many engineers you have lost because people considered them unplayable. Also consider the average skill of your player base when making this decisions in the future, don’t just cater to the OEs among us.

they are balancing for each WvW, PvE, and PvP

get your facts straight

google.3709:

yah confussion was a big one, but also retal damage was cut in half as well at least. and tbh personally, im loving the new IP, 5.2s burning so 50% up time and with FT 100% up time pretty much

You do realize that the uptime on this proc was nerfed substantially, right? By like 20 – 60%?

edit: nvm they beat me to it

wait, so this class is OP 1v1 but that’s balanced because it’s a team game therefore you have a team to kill them with?

what???

Manuhell.2759:

The problem with balancing them is that we’ve got kits competing for those slots too. Either they give them effects on par with an entire kit and with relatively low cooldowns, or they aren’t worth it.
And as things stand now, many aren’t worth it.

mmm I don’t think anything can ever compete with kits when it comes to prioritizing utility slots. the absence of weapon swapping sort of demands at least one in most cases. I’d put it more along the lines of competing with elixirs – elixir S in particular.

not changing them into signets per se. just a sort of a signet equivalent for engis. same skills with some minor improvements, reduced cool downs (like under :30), and a passive effect. that’s sort of what I was thinking

Mostly it was just an idea born of frustration when I heard the devs say “nothing going on with gadgets at the moment”, after hearing about signet improvements. doesn’t seem like such a big stretch, and could possibly go a long ways for engis.

just a thought.

Just thinking about these upcoming buffs to signets some other classes are getting, and then hearing there’s nothing yet for Gadgets, had me wondering “why not just make Gadgets more like Signets?”

Gadgets could use a buff and the CD reduction that signets might be getting could be a good start. And with the nerf to elixir S coming, we could use some more options for disengaging a fight. Rocket Boots and Slick Shoes would be ideal with the right tweaks, and maybe adding a passive effect like signets would make them worthwhile enough to include in a build?

Thoughts?

Rezz.8019:

Your “job” is not just to stand and guard a point. Your job is to win the game. To achieve that you have to think outside of the box and try different tactics instead of /afk on the shrine. Your team is most likely losing because of you. No offense meant.

wow. just wow.

there is some seriously astounding bullkitten coming out of this thread

uberkingkong.8041:

Laserbolt.6731:

That seems to be the trend for my guardian. The random teams I am assigned to lose much more than they win. I do my job and hold points. But the opposing teams just take more points (other than mine, until several finally come together and take me).

Since the leaderboards list your team rating, not your personal rating, and your “team” is always a different, randomly assigned set of players who cannot coordinate with real-time voice communications, often with a couple of players who do nothing to help effectively…

…eventually your rating will be the average rating of a random team against the average premade team. And I would guess that is a 0 to 5% percentile.

I would hope when they create a solo queue they let us random folks “start over”.

I disagree, those rank 40 you are fighting could also be people that hotjoin glory farm.
I’ve played well over 200 solo que matches, I only see a 5% chance of facing a premade, and not all premades are actually good.

What you make it sound like is, the other team caps near, then caps center sooner or later, than destroys you at far because they ‘overwhelm me’ is not what a bunker should be saying, bunkers want to be ‘overwhelmed’. And if your a bunker crying about 1v2, 1v3, 1vx your just plain sad.

As the other guy said about solo que, the only constant is you, and if your not holding your weight or carrying more than what you should be, your not going to be seeing that many wins.

Last night I saw this Mesmer playing, r57 playing with the ranks 30s and all I gotta say is he rocked my team at the trebuchet and he rocked us with trebuchet hits, then at 389 team score to our 210 he switched to a warrior (I guess he trying to get his legionarre title) and he won the game, he basically carried twice the load, shouldn’t even been in that game, and everyone was solo que in that game because the previous game he was on my team. We tried to take him out individually but he rocked each and every one of us, we eventually toke out the treb and treb was back up in mere seconds, which made it mere waste of time trying to fight him. That 57 guy alone made our team lose hope in winning.

After seeing how that guy rocked our worlds, solo que is all about skill, blaming others and whining isn’t going to get you anywhere. The only real factor that you can have a bunch of loses is from bad luck with afk/no shows/ early leavers.

Edit: people on the leaderboard are actually good, I wouldn’t say solo que will make you lose your ranking up until 600, then its probably all premades.

There are some people on this leaderboard that I see solo que a lot, and whenever I face them, I lose and if I recall most of them play Mesmer. One guy I can say is A P O L L O if you face that guy or see him in solo que, your gonna lose, I don’t remember who that Mesmer dude that changes to warrior at end is though hes very good.

your team lost because of one player? not really sure you should be criticizing anyone about their game play, let alone drafting arguments about how to win as a pug.

Something else you should know: Bunkers hold points to buy time for their team. If the rest of their team isn’t taking advantage of that time, then it’s hardly the bunker’s fault for playing his part while his team didn’t.

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

on-crit procs are a no no when using a sigil of battle.

for you two knuckleheads with reading and comprehension problems, notice that he said 3rd pistol, not 3rd and 4th, and that he was swapping the corruption pistol, not both.

Check condi duration first and see if there’s a chance of getting an extra burn tick from adding 10% to the duration. If not, +5% crit for more Incendiary Powder and Sharp Shooter procs would be my choice.

I don’t understand this thread. what’s going on in here?

tPvP viable builds shouldn’t be used?

PvE is hard?

huh???

So I’m curious. This HGH-condi build has only been popular for a month or so and only after a number of Engi buids were annihilated by the Kit Refinement over-nerf (and make no mistake it was an over-nerf), even though the build option has been available for months. Obviously, the last patch took a lot of builds off the table (something that stands as ‘at odds’ with previous ANet statements of wanting to create more build variety) across a handful of classes.

Something that hasn’t changed though is the prevalence of Bunker Guards, D/D Ele’s, Shatter Mesmers, as well as the return of one-shot Thieves (granted they don’t really have a choice if they want to bring anything tangible to a group). These builds have been around and at the forefront of the meta for months(!!!) now. Yet, anytime we have one build that comes along and gives them a run for their money, making them actually think about what they’re doing rather than just letting muscle memory carry them from target to target, match to match, and the first thought from the community is…. ‘nerf it’?

So what I’m curious about is this: Are we so complacent and settled on dealing with what we largely consider to be the staples of PvP viability (i.e. the aforementioned builds/classes) that whenever something infringes or impinges on their viability or success rate we have to call for it to be nerfed?

And if it is nerfed after only a single month of being popular from players griping on the forums without understanding it, and while also in the grip of a sizable meta shift, isn’t that a very distinct statement from ANet as to what classes/builds they would prefer everyone play competitively? – edit: and to take it one step further, wouldn’t that also be entirely at odds with their statements towards build variety and viability?

jportell.2197:

hackks.3687:

you have got be kidding me…

you run a cheesy wtfbbq face-roll build that invests every trait point into power, precision, and crit damage and for some reason that means “you don’t have access to condition cleansing”? And then you call a condition build OP?

Just stop posting. Please.

See the thing here is every other class can run a cheesy omg faceroll build but still have some conditon removal IN THEIR HEAL SKILL! And even when fully hunkered down a mesmer is worse with condi removal than most
Others because even the minor trait that removes with heal skills only removes ONE! So in a TEAM fight warriors will be better off against an HGH than even a full bunker mes

which builds are these uber face-roll-spend-every-point-in-offensive-trait-lines yet-still-have-reliable-cleansing-builds again?

You’re telling me you can’t find 10 pts from somewhere for Mender’s Purity? You can’t find a utility slot for Null Field or Arcane Thievery? There’s absolutely zero wiggle room in Mesmer’s build viability to afford using the right tools for the job? Clearly shatter needs a hardy nerf then as mesmers are far too dependent on it, so that ANET can best decide how the rest of the skills can be buffed to adequacy.

Make a note Devs! Mesmers are too dependent on Shatter! Sounds like Warriors and Haste all over again to me! Let’s nip this in the bud sooner rather than later!