Guild Wars 2

Cele is good on necro now, but dhuumfire is outclassed by death perception even on celestial. When reaper comes out I think dhuumfire will be good if you trade curses for reaper.

I think its an okay build, but you’re not going to be all that great in larger (more than 2-3 oponents) fights due to all the cross cleanse by eles/guardians/mantra mes that are on most “good” teams.

I think mesmer a bit too strong. I run mantra shatter so I’m more stunlock/support than outright burst, but the PU burst builds seem a bit enraging to most players if they can’t remain calm..

although I’ve beaten PU burst while running mantra, so maybe I’m just awesome, idk.

Is the title a danganronpa reference?

And I’m pretty sure the June 23rd patch wasn’t the Most Awful, Most Tragic, Worst, Most Despair-Inducing Incident in the History of Mankind.

Yeah I’ve noticed this. I think its partially why mesmers have been moving to mantra builds that take harmonious mantras over deceptive evasion, because they don’t have enough dodges anymore to both dodge attacks and generate clones for massive bursts, so its more efficient to use mantra of distraction with more charges and power block damage to compensate.

Toxsa.2701:

nearlight.3064:

Well celestial engi is pretty much dead right now, and so is non-zerker warrior, leaving eles and ironically necros as the best cele classes right now.

I’m glad that mesmer is good because it really was unviable for a long time because of thieves. Condition ranger has seen some very limited use but I do believe it can work.

What? Condition ranger? You kidding?

They’re one of the weakest condition spammer among all the condition specs right now because of the lack of burning source (torch is useless, trap waste precious utility slot for survival, since ranger’s weapon, unlike Ele, got NONE built in survival skills), plus don’t dream of beating god-mode Ele (which abjure is running 2 now) with that pitiful condition spec that doesn’t even has much burning at all. (Sun spirit? Gl using that limited space, easily killlable piece of kitten in high end pvp)

Abjure will never take a ranger, that’s for sure. Even after so many lessons Anet still decide to nerf ranger. I am really curious to meet this person who’s in charge of ranger’s balance in person and ask him many logical questions.

Well my team (in lower tier tourneys) has a condition ranger, and we do fine enough when we play together. I think he does the genyen survival build? I’d honestly rather have him play that than the power ranger builds since it seems to do really well in smaller fights.

I don’t play ranger but I’d say condi ranger is one of the best 1v1 builds and skirmish builds that isn’t completely useless in larger fights like condi memser or necro. And yeah the survival based builds seem much better than traps and spirits right now.

It may not be optimal, but it works for him and our team is satisfied with it so I don’t feel that its necessary to berate him for not playing ele.

Well celestial engi is pretty much dead right now, and so is non-zerker warrior, leaving eles and ironically necros as the best cele classes right now.

I’m glad that mesmer is good because it really was unviable for a long time because of thieves. Condition ranger has seen some very limited use but I do believe it can work.

I play mantra mesmer, a very powerful build with a bit less burst than the torch PU burst builds you guys seem so sad about.

Basically don’t try to 1v1 a mesmer unless you have >60% life force. Life force, especially on a power necro is how you sway 1v1s in your favor. It won’t be easy, just know that if your autoattack gets interrpted, like life blast, you don’t have to worry about powerblock putting it on a high cooldown. So yeah, stick to high damage autoattacks and short, fast casted immobs and marks most of the time.

Mesmer only needs a slight shave. I think it only needs a slight PU nerf and confoudning suggestions having a slight raise in ICD, and making it per target. Other than that its totally fine, as the powerblock nerf has already been sufficient in making its damage output reasonable.

Vee Wee, I would go as far to suggest that incendiary powder be moved back to explosives. I would swap its place with shrapnel (by moving it to firearms) and make it so shrapnel applys to more than just explosives and gives like a 20-33% boost in bleed damage.

Having incendiary powder as a GM in explosives, and moving around short fuse and other traits like you suggest would help a lot with not just condi engi, but celestial rifle engi, as we all know that the build is pretty much dead without incendiary powder since its dependent on explosives for nade damage and whatnot, and with the current traitlines, its impossible to have all of the condi pressure, direct, damage, and sustain that you need all in one build.

Well the main problem with phantasm build in my opinion is that they are a 1v1 focused build, like most AI (or condition) based builds. Sure they’ll be able to win most 1v1s, but when it comes to teamfights, their damage will be very low because AoE and cleave will kill all of the phantasms, so they’ll probably only get off 1 attack at the max.

Basically this post was just an awareness announcement based on what I’ve been seeing in pvp these days. I don’t really play necro that much anymore tbh.

And I don’t really find the signet builds to be my cup of tea.

In pvp I often see well necromancers with a marauder set up laying their wells on top of one another. That is stupid since it makes it so easy to just walk out of the wells.

I learned this when I played a well necro in WvW. Make the wells overlap only a little bit and use it to put pressure on nodes and put pressure and area denial on downed enemies or enemies trying to cleave or stomp an ally or rez a friend. Putting your wells on top of eachother, without any form of CC, just makes their impact much less.

When storm shout casted the last ESL he said that backpack’s success as mesmer, an alternative class for him was partially due to the current state of mesmer being like the former state of shoutbow. It’s so good that only average players can still be very effective for their team.

I’m very happy with the changes because we actually have some build diversity now. For the first time ever, mesmers in top tier pvp have been giving up deceptive evasion to play mantra builds that have almost as much damage as a pure illusions build but much more support.

I made howler last year exclusively for my necromancer. At the time it was worth it because I was in a WvW guild where power well necro was a veritable god.

Fast forward to today, I only play pvp. I rarely play necromancer anymore, because it is truly bad compared to the other classes I play. The condition builds do no damage in teamfights and the well builds are easy to lock down and focus fire, a huge liability. The Cele build is probably the best in that regard, but it’d just not my cup of tea.

I don’t truly regret making howler. The Ele elite spec is probably getting warhorn, and I am fortunate to have some SAB trib mode skins, ley lime skins, tormented skins, the Marjory weapons, the gemstone fan focus, and the fractal GS. I don’t feel any need or desire to make more legendaries because I am satisfied with what I have and I will continue to make minor purchases. It was a fun experience making howler though, and for that I will always smile, even if it’s shelfed on my necromancer for the rest of eternity.

Stone heart won’t help you if you’re moa’ed, which is something I heard a top pvp streamer say the other day. Most eles are running fire over earth from what I’ve seen.

So right now I’m having a blast playing a mantra shatter build, which is dom/duel/inspiration with the mantra heal and daze mantra.

It is a very powerful build, with much more team support, but slightly less burst than a traditional shatter build. It is also very study since it has extra heals and condi clears and damage reduction from inspiration.

It is notable for using harmonious mantras over deceptive evasion, being perhaps the only good pvp build for mesmer that doesn’t use DE. It uses stunlock rather than than dodge-shattering to guarantee burst damage. Since it already doesn’t use DE, it made me think of how it could be using chronomancy over dueling.

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-Rg-Z;1ZUk3147cVV71;9;4SV;1038146;7INl6T;1hoHAhoHAa0V

This is the base build that I’m thinking of. The build calc doesn’t have elite specs yet, but for the 3rd line, being chrono, I will probably slot delayed reactions, illusionary reversion, and either chronophantasma or seize the moment.

So lets look at compare the possible future chrono mantra-shatter build with the current dueling one.

Pros: (good things about chrono)
-25% movement speed and -33% movement condi reduction, so you can use vamp or pack over travelers without being very slow.
-Alacrity to help manage cooldowns, as the dueling build has no CD reduction from illusions.
-Better clone generation that doesn’t use endurance as a resource (no wasted dodges).
-Slow on interrupt is strong in a build that has 4-5 sources of interrupts.
-Quickness on shatter is probably very powerful, and chronophantasma could be useful too depending on the details of its implementation.
-Continuum Shift could be strong, and could let you burn thorugh mantra charges and then use f5 to reset your mantra of distraction charges and health instantly.
-The elite well looks like it could be powerful CC (meaning lots of powerblock and delayed reactions procs).

Cons: (things lost from dueling)
-No Harmonious Mantras. This is arguably the largest loss, since with fewer mantra charges, you will have to spend more time charging mantras in the first place. That means the extra amount of times spent charging should compensate for the lack of the 3rd heal mantra charge through more healing from readying the mantras more often, but not having an extra on demand stun or cleanse could be problematic.
-The loss of vigor, but vigor is meh now since the nerf, and I have an energy sigil on staff. Also you won’t be dodging to generate clones for bursts, meaning you can use your dodges to dodge attacks instead of deal damage.
-Loss of near-permanent fury uptime and phantasmal fury. This means a bit less damage overall.
-No blind on shatter. This is a minor loss since the blind is close range and staff/GS probably won’t be shattering in someones face all the time.

What do you guys think about this tradeoff? I also considered exhanging inspiration for chronomancy, but that would involve losing a great deal of support and personal sustain and condi cleanses for you and your team.

Yeah, tbh I only really see a celestial mace/axe revenant being all that good, since I doubt the ventari stance with the tablet thingy and the staff will really be competitive with support guardians..

The hammer weapon looks absolutely horrid.

Do people need a char slot open to create a revenant for this beta? Or is there a temporary one for them? I didn’t prepruchase yet due to a lack of info on release date and stuff like that, but once we get the full base revenant available I may change my mind.

The necro community is raging over the loss of chilling darkness while bemoaning the fact that we weren’t nerfed.

The only thing I really think that needs to be nerfed for mesmer is confounding suggestions buy adding a 10s per target ICD.

Nivik.2961:

I love the DD ele. I’ve also got a thing for the air magic line. I keep seeing Earth Water Arcana as the #1 spec for DD. Is there a spec just as effective that uses AIR or should I just run the traditional E-W-A

That’s wrong.

If you watched the ESL tournaments to see what top players are actually running, you’d notice that Fire/Water/Arcana is the “#1 Spec” for D/D and D/F based on what teams are winning.

This is simply because fire gives you tons of damage and easy might stacking, with some blind to help mitigate damage. Earth can work for D/D (its best for staff tbh) but its damage is far lower and its sustain isn’t much higher. Top teams will actually use moa morph to get around stone heart rezzes and whatnot, which has been indicated several times by top streamers. Air is honestly only worth it for zerker elementalist builds. The extra critical based damage doesn’t sync well with celestial specs because they are all about having high sustained damage rather than burst damage.

bhagwad.4281:

Any strategy in an unbalanced zero sum game involves risk. Here, a “rational decision” does not mean taking no risks. It means taking informed risks. And those informed risks often include engaging in 1v1s.

How dare you bring game theory into video games!

Anet has like 20 people working for them right now. Your ideas are good, but I really doubt they have the manpower to put them into reality.

Yes OP I agree so much! Yesterday I was playing staff/GS mantra shatter mes against a sword/t/GS mes with PU that tried to predictably burst me out of stealth. Well somehow it didn’t go very well for him since I was able to recharge mantras during that fight and burst him down rather easily. But yeah, stealth bursts have gotten so predicatable that I need not fear them anymore.

I think the new system is wonderful for mesmer, elementalist, and necromancer, but absolutely positively HORRID for the engineer.

Just want to say, Vee Wee is right, condi necro is literally a condi bomber spec and it always has been. You can’t stack bleeds like a shortbow ranger flanking auto, so you need to rely on terror, SoS and corrupt boon to spike opponents.

I’ve literally only ran into like 2 or 3 power rangers that really impressed me, which is a far lower proportion than the amount of players on other classes that have really impressed me.

If you play D/D or D/F the trick to “offensive rotations” is to build might as efficently as possible, which means maximizing fire field blasts and leaps to get tons of might and fire auras (which can be traited to give more might). So that means fire field, earth, blast by rolling/magnetic leap, 4 skill, water for frozen burst.

Other than that use air autos a lot, don’t sit in water/earth too long, and use drake’s breath/burning speed as much as you can.

If you really want to play a signet build on any class, I suggest playing necromancer. Their new signet trait makes signets stack might, and corrupt boons, on top of the crazy condi-bomb/transfers some of the signets can do naturally.

I’d be fine if the mantra of recovery had its CD slightly increased. With the inspiration traits, the mantras make dom/duel/insp staff/GS mesmer with mantra heal and daze mantra the most sustainy burst class I’ve ever played. Like I have so much healing and condi cleanse that I won’t die unless I get focused outright by multiple people, and with all the teleports (even with no stealth), I can escape pretty easily.

I don’t think its broken since it is counterable, but it is really strong, and good positioning is needed, as with anything else.

OP I agree that your overall point is correct, in that its stupid complaining about condi necros or condi rangers or condi mesmers (notice a theme here?) for being very strong 1v1, because so many people think those builds are overpowered in general because they can’t win 1v1s against them… however its abundantly clear that those 3 builds, as well as most other 1v1 or condition focused builds absolutely suck in team fights with 0 pressure. Burn guardian is kind of an outlier in that regard, but only because its burn stacking is kind of broken to be honest, and even then, against a dedicated team comp that has AoE condi cleanses just from doing normal skills (a fundamental part of playing bunker guard, the old shoutbow, or any cele ele build, and now even mantra shatter mes).

Most of these 1v1 oriented builds can’t contribute well in teamfights because they are often dependent on condition damage and decent defenses to wear oponents down while being tanky, having lots of regen, or boons/stealth/ports. Condition damage has been proven to be lackluster against teams that have at least 1 ele/guard, as in teamfights their damage can’t really go through to its full extent. Meanwhile AI focused builds like MM necro or PU mes, simply get wrecked by cleave and AoE in teamfights, meaning they can’t contribute because their personal DPS is low compared to their AI+personal DPS.

Still its important to point out that most of the meta builds of the game mode are meta builds because they are both capable, if not broken, in 1v1s, and have the damage, support, and control needed to be useful in teamfights. For example, D/D (or D/F ele) is one of the best 1v1 builds in the game since they can overwhelm most oponents with might stacks. They only really fall to good mesmers/corruption necros that can remove boons very easily. And we know they’re great in teamfights because they can tank a point to an extent, heal/sustain their team and cleanse it, all while dealing good physical and condition damage. Bunker guards conversely won’t be killing anyone in a 1v1, but they can at least prevent a point from being decapped 1v1 until a teammate can arrive to easily finish the fight.

tl;dr 1v1 focused builds suck at teamfights, so don’t play them 1v1 unless your class somehow has an advantage. Play a good build that is both useful 1v1 and in teamfights.

I just hope they don’t nerf inspiration, besides the lazy fix to healing prism they already added. With the mantra heals and the shatter cleanses/heals, it the most sustainable burst build I’ve ever played. It has its weaknesses for sure, but because of all the healing and condi removal, and the raw burst damage, its very hard to take out unless I get outright focused by multiple people, which in my mind is balanced well.

At first I thought illusions would be ideal, but it really doesn’t give you all that much besides shatter cooldowns, some might stacking, and some torch cleanse.. and inspiration (with mantra heal and stun mantra) completely outdoes the pledge and lets you take staff over sword/torch if thats your style. And Chaos has obviously great GMs in PU and CI, which are very powerful in their own right, but the traits in the adept/master tiers aren’t as useful in my opinion as the ones in inspiration, especially with the chaotic dampening nerf.

Staff isnt that bad in solo queue. It pulls it’s weight more than most builds in the game in a teamfight and it can generally hold a point 1v1. To be honest we don’t have a proper solo queue in the game anymore so you can’t say that it’s a bad solo queue build, just because if a pug group goes up against a full premade with voice comms, they’ll be disadvantaged no matter what builds are involved.

I’d much rather have a staff Ele on a solo queu team than any cheese condi stealth roamer wvw build, power ranger, MM necro, or even most warrior builds since the shoutbow nerf.

I thought this thread would be about how condition builds in general are useless in team fights because teams passively cleanse eachother doing normal attack rotations so that you’d need like 3 or 4 dedicated condition builds to be able to outdo their cleanse!

I mean the burn builds kinda counter that right now, just because burning does so much damage and is so easy to stack on guardian, but it can still be cross cleansed and necro can’t compete with thay anyway.

Condition builds will never be competitive with zerk dps in teamfights, but they pay for this by generally being sturdy and damaging enough to win most 1v1s, which don’t always happen in conquest pvp.

Silverkey.2078:

And yet, mesmers are still not that common in high tier competitive play.

Did you watch ESL last week? Pretty much every team on stream besides radioactive and the abjured had a mesmer. The general team comp was mesmer, thief, ele, bunker guard/2nd ele, and then one wild card that was generally either an engi or a zerker war.

Sure there weren’t any in the finals on NA, but those are the best teams NA, who are really tight knit groups with no mesmer mains, but it’s ignorant to say that mesmer isn’t common right now when the facts I presented to you are indisputable. And I bet if you watch the tourney today you’ll see tons of memsers. I can think of 5 or 6 on good teams in NA, and 3 or 4 in EU, which I don’t even follow as much.

Darksteel.8412:

condi ranger is stupendously overpowered just watched some fights….condi ranger lvl2 284 ap (no guild) capable of going 1v3 without any trouble (including rank 80 players) more then once….in fact continuously, just spams condis and perma dodges 24/7.

Condi rangers: nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf and nerf, the cleansing doesn’t stand a chance vs this cheap spammery nerf

Condi rangers are balanced like most condi specs on necro, engi, mes, by being generally unkillable and overpowered in 1v1s but absolute poop in team fights since conditions don’t do anything when your team can’t stack them as well as your enemy tram can passively AoE cleanse eachother.

I think you’re being a bit too critical of staff builds in pvp. I run D/D, D/F, and Staff Cele builds and they all work very well in many different scenarios. I do agree that dagger builds are a bit more flexible to a variety of sitautions, since you can both carry team fights and overwhelm the enemy with might stacks in a 1v1.

Sraff isn’t as bad of a 1v1 build as you say it is. You shouldn’t be assaulting an occupied point alone as a staff ele, but if you get on it, you have enough sustain and tabkiness to keep it from being decapped until a teammate arrives. If you chain your CC and damage skills together you can win 1v1s with enought time against squishy enemies that lack boon hate. Overall the only build I’m really scared of 1v1 as a staff ele is shatter mesmer, just due to their boom removal and spike damage, nothing else is really as problematic to deal with when defending a point. Power necros have boon removal too which makes them only troublesome if their life force level is high, but that’s how they imbalance 1v1s. Power Rangers are slightly problematic but the magnetic aura kills them. Any thief that has to go on point to take me down gets wrecked by AoEs, so only ranged burst builds are a huge problem.

Meanwhile the things staff Ele can do in team fights is really really fun to play with. So while dagger builds are a bit more intuitive and straightforward to succeed with staff shouldn’t be counted out. I mean radioactive and apex have all been succesful in major tournaments using staff eles on their teams.

@oZii the main flaw in your argument comparing earth to arcane for the survivability it brings is that elemental shielding simply cannot apply protection as often or as efficiently as elemental attunement can, nor does it apply protection to allies unless you take poweful auras, which will probably mean you have comparatively poor group condition removal since you won’t have cleansing water (or AoE regen to proc it for allies). Not to mention, you’ll have 10% less boon duration, but that is comparatively minor.

The main strength of the celestial elementalist has been its ability to provide excellent, almost passive group support through normal rotations, while being tanky, capable in most 1v1 matchups, and having the damage and conditon removal in either cleave/AoE to succeed. Without arcana, that group support level is a fair bit lower. You can get around it with aura share and cleansing wave, but its not comparable in my opinion because of all the things you have to give up to make it work.

The reason why I’m not playing engi as much anymore is because the cele rifle build has been gutted. Its nothing but a shadow of its former self, because of the traitline changes and some lacklustre trait choices in general, you can’t have everything you need in one build to make cele rifle nades/toolkit/slick shoes work like it did before the patch.

Thats because you need both explosives and firearms to have decent physical damage and condition pressure because of incendiary powder being moved, without both of those your damage is too low. If you take both of those trees then your sustain will be limited because you’ll only be able to take alchemy or inventions, and both are really needed to have enough sustain to warrant cele in the first place.

Sure you can go alch/inventions/explos with HGH, e-gun, and elixer b to might stack to make up for the low damage, but you’re utterly outclassed by what a fire/water/arcane d/f or d/d ele can do, and losing tool kit and elixer s or slick shoes makes you easy to focus fire in teamfights so its completely not worth it in anyway.

Power zerk/marauder engi is better now since you can take alchemy traits and elixer s and tool kit to not get focused and disengage with invlun and stealth, but its just not the same as the cele rifle build used to be…

Yeah in my opinion earth is only really viable on staff builds and D/D builds that want to be the primary point holder for their team.

Also with only 10% boon duration from arcane, is 100% uptime on protection with elemental shielding (and soothing ice) even possible anymore? And is that worth losing the extra might stacking from a fire/water/arc build? I guess that will depend on your role in the team.

SrebX.6498:

Do you think this can perform as well with a more defensive set up, like using earth line instead of arcane?

No…. arcane is mandatory on all celetial builds, as is water.

You could go earth/water/arcane, which is honestly better on cele staff and d/d. D/F is best using fire/water/arcane for the extra mightstacking from the extra fire aura and the earth/air skills make stone heart and rock solid feel like overkill for it. On staff though you need earth/water/arcane since you need rock solid and stone heart to cover ether renewal and to rez people, since cele staff is a supder duper ultra rez build.

In pvp I often play cele staff ele with mercy runes and arcane revival, using rock solid and stone heart to get lots of rezzed really easily. It carries hard because I can keep glass cannon pugs that die on point alive through rezzes so they can continually do damage, thus winning teamfights!

The only thing that really can threaten this build is being focused by a shatter mesmser, most other non bugged things in the meta don’t have the damage and boon removal to really kill me, although power rangers and zerker warriors can do a number on me if they focus me instead of teammates, but its easy to peel out from them if I take too much damage. Mesmer is by far the most dangerous, since thieves don’t really have the boon removal to pose as much of a threat, and the AoE node control kittens with them more.

I’m kind of surprised too. I see a lot of power builds that take reactive lenses instead just for the fury, blind immunity, and being harder to lock down, along with alchemy traits that have a similar purpose.

Yeah and this is kind of the central problem of bombs to begin with, they encourage poor positioning in team fights. They have great area denial and node pressure in smaller fights, but in a team fight barreling onto the point with them can get you killed pretty quickly from cleave alone, so grenades have always seemed like a more versatile option, because they aren’t limited by positioning due to their range.

Still I’d like to see the bugs fixed too.

ritzick.7629:

nearlight.3064:

Yeah nerf the ability to create huge long lasting burn stacks with one player. 15 stacks from a guardian is simply too much.

And.. what most people don’t realize is that condition specs, on any class, won’t be viable in organized competitive matches, because eles/guardians have so much aoe cleanse that condition builds become useless in teamfights. It could only be viable if you had a full comp of condition classes backing it up, since the only way to get around the cleanse is to outdo it with tons of conditions from everyone… however the obvious caveat to that is that condition dps specs generally have poor sustain, with the only exception of settler ranger, so its just easier to bring celestial elementalists and bunker guards for sustain, and zerker/mara or soldiers every other damage role in teamfights, just be cause its easier to to not have your damage instantly nullified by group cleanses of eachother, which was the defining hallmark of the celestial engi/ele/war meta, which has evolved into a cele ele/shoutgaurd meta.

Go to any well known pvp streamer, and they’ll tell you the same thing, condition builds suck at high levels of play against organized comps.

I like how you say competive builds because WE ALL play competitively. What a joke, so the casual players of this game are just suppose to bite the bullet known as condi damage just because “condi isn’t broken in organized fashion…”. I feel like this is what arenanet was thinking when designed this new system. It’s honestly disgusting. Conditions are so broken and attempting to justify by mentioning how its not broken in competitive play only strengths the arguments that it’s out of control. You have to have a group of 5 people communicating with each other to handle it, seem like it’s under control, you’re right.

Maybe my view is a little bit stilted since I often queue with my guild when I play, but still condition builds are only really viable in low tier play, with the exception of burn spam builds on guard/ele/engi that have many other glaring weaknesses that make them unviable. Burn guard is the only one that can really do damage in teamfights enough to scare an organized team, and even then they can work around it with communication.

If you queue up in ranked you will often end up facing against 5 man premade teams, and as your MMR increases the organization of their comps will only get better. And even if you just soloque in unranked there will be often be eles and guards and whatnot that will just remove conditions AoE of their own accord without even planning it through their offensive and defensive skill rotations. In an organized group cleanse happens so frequently just by doing normal skill rotations that condition builds can’t keep up.

If you think that organized groups have to work together just to deal with condis, you are kitten wrong. They care about rotations and movement across the map, and their cleanses happen passively as they cross heal and support eachother and themselves.

If you nerf the burning, most of your lower tier condi meta concerns will disappear. Thats the only condi nerf I really agree with. Kill the burning.

Condition builds will always be strong in 1v1 on any class against any class, except when facing cele eles or any necro build with signets. Thats it. If you know can’t beat something 1v1, don’t attempt to do it, since its generally pointless for you. Just know in that in an actual teamfight their damage pressure will be very low, as will their sustain, so in my opinion its balanced. Know what your build can do and know what they’re build can and can’t do, then you will understand.

Your assumption for engineers is a little off. Most rifle engineers use the CC and some burst skills from the rifle in conjunction with the skills from kits, especially tool kit. The skills flow together in ways that make it ignorant to assume that only the rifle or only the kits on their own are effective.

Also in the hidden arcana about chronomancer or one of those articles they said they originally intended to make a spec using rifle for the mesmer, but they weren’t able to get something creative to work with their goals of creating a time mage using a rifle, so they used shield instead since it looked sort of like a clock to them.

Grimreaper.5370:

nearlight.3064:

Grimreaper.5370:

nearlight.3064:

If you do D/F ele with the fire traits the extra fire aura can easily get you over 20 stacks of might on your own.

Still if you just have two eles sitting at 25 might, which is even easier with a bunker guard that still won’t be enough to kill other eles and bunker guards in a reasonable timeframe. Hence shatter mesmer, the ultimate +1.

Edit: Also to +1 add zerk rampage warriors and marauder elixer x RNG Engis, THE NEW META!

Man I have to agree with the shatter Mesmer remark! I’ve done so well holding a point with my ele vs maybe 1 or 2 other decent damage dealers until a shatter Mesmer decides to roll through and basically insta gib me. Everyone should have a shatter Mesmer on their team.

Also if a d/d or d/f ele is taking the fire trait line their defense is significantly diminished since they’ll more than likely be dropping either the water or earth trait line. Blinding Ashes isn’t usually very effective in a real spvp match so don’t anyone even go there.

They’ll take fire, water, and arcane. Earth really isn’t ideal for d/d or d/f because it offers only marginally increased defense but no damage. Its taken for staff builds that are rez focused and for some d/d builds that want to fulfill a more bunkerish role for their team. Fire offers a lot more damage simply because the might stacking is alot better. With earth d/d you’re usually at 10-15 stacks most of the time, with fire and d/f, you’ll generally have 20-25 stacks. It also makes celestial HGH engi look like gutter trash by comparision.

Blinding Ashes isn’t as bad as it seems. Blind is good and powerful damage mitigation, especially when fighting necros and warriors, which in the past have been very good against ele 1v1. It may seem weak, but thats because you only really proc it when you’re in fire, but every bit of damage mitigation helps, and there aren’t any better traits to take in the GM tier in my opinion.

If you don’t think d/f should take the earth line you are well misinformed on how insanely strong that trait line can be combined with focus. Earth is MORE ideal for focus off hand users than water. Also I didn’t say blinding ashes was bad, I use blinding ashes trait when I think I’ll be doing a lot of 1v1 in an spvp match. (When I fight pubs because they’re usually bad) You know nothing john snow, persisting flames is a great fire GM trait too, amazing for team play.

Might stacking with the fire trait line at hand is not the main culprit of too much damage coming out of d/d or d/f. Here are some factors you should rather look into.

1.) 150 additional power ontop of another 150(when in fire, totaling 300 power when in fire) is being given to people who take the fire line which was not intended. its a bug.

2.) Burning isn’t balanced as of now.

Both of these things are due for a change soon, no need to worry any further.

If D/F was so great with earth traits then how many D/F eles in the ESL ran earth/water/arcane instead of fire/water/arcane? Oh wait, none, if my memory serves correct. All the earth/water/arcane eles were staff or d/d. I’m sure it works fine though, and overall it doesn’t really matter. The traits honestly define roles for the ele better than the weaponsets do. So you have to ask yourself what is better for your team comp? More damage? Or the ability to more effectively tank a point? Thats the only choice you really have to make, the choice between d/f and d/d is more negligable. Still cele staff should always take earth.

And no sane elementalist will ever give up water to take earth. We all know that a celestial ele without water and arcane, is a dead elementalist.

I do agree that the burning/free power is a little bit over the top though, although the burning issue is honestly more problematic on guardians imo. At least they’ve gutted it on celestial engi.

Yeah nerf the ability to create huge long lasting burn stacks with one player. 15 stacks from a guardian is simply too much.

And.. what most people don’t realize is that condition specs, on any class, won’t be viable in organized competitive matches, because eles/guardians have so much aoe cleanse that condition builds become useless in teamfights. It could only be viable if you had a full comp of condition classes backing it up, since the only way to get around the cleanse is to outdo it with tons of conditions from everyone… however the obvious caveat to that is that condition dps specs generally have poor sustain, with the only exception of settler ranger, so its just easier to bring celestial elementalists and bunker guards for sustain, and zerker/mara or soldiers every other damage role in teamfights, just be cause its easier to to not have your damage instantly nullified by group cleanses of eachother, which was the defining hallmark of the celestial engi/ele/war meta, which has evolved into a cele ele/shoutgaurd meta.

Go to any well known pvp streamer, and they’ll tell you the same thing, condition builds suck at high levels of play against organized comps.

Grimreaper.5370:

nearlight.3064:

If you do D/F ele with the fire traits the extra fire aura can easily get you over 20 stacks of might on your own.

Still if you just have two eles sitting at 25 might, which is even easier with a bunker guard that still won’t be enough to kill other eles and bunker guards in a reasonable timeframe. Hence shatter mesmer, the ultimate +1.

Edit: Also to +1 add zerk rampage warriors and marauder elixer x RNG Engis, THE NEW META!

Man I have to agree with the shatter Mesmer remark! I’ve done so well holding a point with my ele vs maybe 1 or 2 other decent damage dealers until a shatter Mesmer decides to roll through and basically insta gib me. Everyone should have a shatter Mesmer on their team.

Also if a d/d or d/f ele is taking the fire trait line their defense is significantly diminished since they’ll more than likely be dropping either the water or earth trait line. Blinding Ashes isn’t usually very effective in a real spvp match so don’t anyone even go there.

They’ll take fire, water, and arcane. Earth really isn’t ideal for d/d or d/f because it offers only marginally increased defense but no damage. Its taken for staff builds that are rez focused and for some d/d builds that want to fulfill a more bunkerish role for their team. Fire offers a lot more damage simply because the might stacking is alot better. With earth d/d you’re usually at 10-15 stacks most of the time, with fire and d/f, you’ll generally have 20-25 stacks. It also makes celestial HGH engi look like gutter trash by comparision.

Blinding Ashes isn’t as bad as it seems. Blind is good and powerful damage mitigation, especially when fighting necros and warriors, which in the past have been very good against ele 1v1. It may seem weak, but thats because you only really proc it when you’re in fire, but every bit of damage mitigation helps, and there aren’t any better traits to take in the GM tier in my opinion.

Chaith.8256:

ellesee.8297:

Cele is donezo! Your offensive pressure is all but gone in exchange for increased sustain from the Inventions tree (but not really enough to matter when it counts)! Or you could keep your offensive pressure but lose all mobility which defeats the purpose of the roaming nature of the build! Also the Speedy Kits/Invigorating Speed combo is gone! Condi builds are in the same boat! Finally, the age of power Engi is here! Somewhere in Canada, Chaith is pooping himself with joy! Nobody likes power Engis more than him!

Wahoo! Bye frands!

Haha.

I do really like the current Engineer build that I’ve arrived at. It’s an expert teamfight carry, and using Moa Toss, it’s really anti-Rampage warrior, Necro, even Stoneheart Ele, which means it’s simply a huge counter pick. Huge cleave, utility (nullify Death Shroud, Stone Heart, Rampage), great combat medic with a transform, double invuln & many stealths.

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-Z70;2cPVg0u53Ukw0;9;4ilm;0037146136;4IN0;3F-03F-03a0d

Edit: It is only a consolation though, Celestial Engineer was near the top of the food chain, and it’s absolutely eclipsed by 1v1 focused Eles and Necros so hard that building to 1v1 Eles is quite foolish and will land your team in the dumpster.

To find a build that excels, purity of purpose has to be won back, and the next best thing to being a 1v1 force to be reckoned with is to migrate is towards being the strongest teamfighter possible.

So at the moment, I feel like Engineer has very little viable build diversity. The most un-flexible it’s ever been, but maybe I will rethink that as the meta settles further.

Chaith.8256:

ellesee.8297:

Cele is donezo! Your offensive pressure is all but gone in exchange for increased sustain from the Inventions tree (but not really enough to matter when it counts)! Or you could keep your offensive pressure but lose all mobility which defeats the purpose of the roaming nature of the build! Also the Speedy Kits/Invigorating Speed combo is gone! Condi builds are in the same boat! Finally, the age of power Engi is here! Somewhere in Canada, Chaith is pooping himself with joy! Nobody likes power Engis more than him!

Wahoo! Bye frands!

Haha.

I do really like the current Engineer build that I’ve arrived at. It’s an expert teamfight carry, and using Moa Toss, it’s really anti-Rampage warrior, Necro, even Stoneheart Ele, which means it’s simply a huge counter pick. Huge cleave, utility (nullify Death Shroud, Stone Heart, Rampage), great combat medic with a transform, double invuln & many stealths.

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-Z70;2cPVg0u53Ukw0;9;4ilm;0037146136;4IN0;3F-03F-03a0d

Edit: It is only a consolation though, Celestial Engineer was near the top of the food chain, and it’s absolutely eclipsed by 1v1 focused Eles and Necros so hard that building to 1v1 Eles is quite foolish and will land your team in the dumpster.

To find a build that excels, purity of purpose has to be won back, and the next best thing to being a 1v1 force to be reckoned with is to migrate is towards being the strongest teamfighter possible.

So at the moment, I feel like Engineer has very little viable build diversity. The most un-flexible it’s ever been, but maybe I will rethink that as the meta settles further.

Just wondering, why do you choose reactive lenses over static discharge or power wrench? And yeah I do agree that this is probably the best engi build right now simply because the traits are so different now than what they used to be that the old builds really can’t apply. Right now damage is important and I’m honestly really surprised by how easy it is to survive in such a glass build because of all the invulns and stealth and whatnot. How do you think it will be when the grenadier trait gets fixed?

And you use your toss elixir x to force eles out of earth attunement too? I find that really interesting as it only really seems like a staff support ele trait and when I play it I can’t really camp earth too much or I’d lose out on healing.