Guild Wars 2

Thanks for the tests Kak. Very good. Coglin do you have links for your videos or threads that you mention?

I never really had a problem with conditions at all. My personal stance was they can keep them as is or nerf them. This last page and a half swayed me to the side that condition builds are fine and condition damage is fine.

If you take a condition weapon set and make it power usually it still kills faster then condi. Just looking at the condition weapons I never played power necro with staff but I would think even there it would kill faster.

I know a P/D power thief will definitely kill faster then a P/D condi thief.

A scepter mesmer will kill faster if is power then conditions because mirror images does more then blurred frenzy but when you see scepter you think condition.

I can’t even make a case for Mesmer staff because Warlock can hit for over 10k damage easy in a power build lol. Even mage is better as power then condi.

It really is simple and there in front of my eyes all this time and I have 7 classes at 80 and play power and condi on all of them except certain ones stay either or. If you got hit with 10 power attacks or 10 condition attacks the 10 power attacks would kill you everytime faster. So condition damage is basically attrition because you will always die slower to a condi build no matter what.

If you make conditions less effective then it becomes Power zerk vs Power bunker builds. Power bunker builds will when that fight every time condition builds keep the power bunkers in check. Everything keeps zerk in check but the user gets the reward of quick kills.

This really swayed my personal opinion it really mental. When you look it even if you set up a condition class for max damage like dire you still will kill slower everytime.

unleashed.8679:

You have to hit your opponent with both damage types to apply your damage. Conditions wont do magically damage, just because you are in fight without hitting your enemy. The only difference is that conditions don’t apply their damage at once so when you receive damage, even if you are dodging etc. means you got hit earlier and you would have lost a lot of health from a equivalent direct damage attack.

Conditions have a mental advantage over direct damage burst, because the damage is rising. People first think they wont receive much damage so they forget about their defense until it is too late. And because conditions still deal damage while dodging/blocking most people think it is useless to do so against condi builds (which is not true) you will block new damage dealt to you, the old ones still remain same like direct damage.

Conditions are just sneaky and not as obvious as direct damage is.

Think of the most notorious weapon sets for condition builds change just a few traits and run it as power and that weapon set will kill faster as power every single time. Grenades, Necro staff, Pistol/dagger, Scepter for Mesmer etc.

People don’t usually run those as power because they aren’t the best at power but power will always kill faster.

Really I can’t think at this time any weapon in the entire game that would kill faster as condition damage then as power is there even one?

Tal.2709:

Full dire items and weapons, sigils are sigil of earth and sigil of bursting.
PVE build.

I think meta PvE is like 30/30/0/0/10 or that last 10 you can move around grenades with shrapnel. You run zerker though. I think thats meta engineer pve at least what I saw in one of DnT Nikes videos.

In PvE conditions are supplement damage not main source because of how condition damage works overwriting and stack caps.

Hmm in my honest opinion GW2 balance isn’t that bad. I am not a fan of 1v1 balance it probably would be very very difficult to balance.

If you balance something for 1v1 then it becomes even stronger in group play. I see what your concept is (i never played runescape) but I think that sounds alot more rock v scissors v paper. Which shows up more so in GW2 in a duel but when the numbers get to about 5 or so Rock v Scissors v Paper becomes much less of a influence.

My main issue with complaints is people say things like balance it for 1v1 then make it change when the numbers get higher. What is that? It’s a dumb suggestion because that doesn’t even make sense. All of a sudden traits and skills scaling means more load on server more lag in WvW. Then whats the radius etc. I just hate whines that people make as if programming is magic and you can do anything you want. Triple A titles ship with bugs and issues and that is millions on millions development money.

Also my other big gripe with balance whines is you can tell when someone doesn’t have perspective of other classes and builds. I won’t ever comment much on Ranger because I will never make one. I now have 7 classes at 80 and as much as people complain about thieves and stealth imo the only problem I have is D/P perma stealth play everything else is fine imo.

There is no one build for each class to rule them all if there was everyone would play those builds hence they want there cake and eat it too. People don’t like to accept the fact that even in guilds wars where you can overcome Rock v Scissors with good play in most cases people just don’t like to lose.

Everytime I play one of my 7 characters I put on a different hat basically.

I’m on my Warrior I hate P/D condi thieves

I’m on my thief running power I hate pu condi mesmers Im running condi thief I hate pu power mesmers.

I’m on my mesmer running PU I hate necros because I can’t get away with no condi removal like most PU builds have except torch.

I’m on my new engi I hate stun warriors, because you have no stun breakers usually in bombs condi engi builds.

etc.etc.etc… Everyone has mains but if you have another class people should really step away from there mains and hop on one of their other classes for a bit then put that hat on. Everyone says eles are bad blah blah blah but then you hop on a guardan fight a Ele and it is one of the most frustrating fights you can have.

Sorry I ranted.

I can get behind this a different color though in the end all marks are bad tbh so you it’s not like you would chose to hit the red mark instead of the blue mark if they where different colors.

What could work as a middle ground is marks stay the same and the necromancer gets a glow depending on mark cast like a aura. Green is the kind of a thematic color for necros’s though but I could see like the necro going red, bright orange, yellow, green could possibly not take to much away from the theme.

Are many of you using sigil of torment on your condi setups maybe earth?

Yea I havent played offhand pistol much I might give it a try. I watched a few wolfineer, prozap, teldo vids. Actually alot of vids I like to do my research it’s enjoyable.

Pistol main hand seems more like it is using the bleeds as a cover more then dps. Any other class the bleeds provide a larger chunk of dps which I noticed is different on engi unless you have grenades with shrapnel the bleeds seem to be pretty good.

Thanks for the replies the read has been helpful. Engineer forums seem pretty good so and this class is really pushing my Ele to be my favorite it is alot of fun. More freedom and more fluid flowing game play.

eleshazar.6902:

I’ve heard rumor that a certain lead balance dev plays a 5 signet warrior….. If this is true, it all makes sense.

I don’t know about signets but there is a screen shot of him with 5 signets. This was prior to the Healing signet buff and everyone lol’d him I believe this was when he was testing.

Roaming is no holds barred no rules. Alot of people like to put 1v1’s and Roaming together but that just isn’t the case.

Roamer builds are generally the same not always.

Quick and dirty not exhaustive list of some of the current popular roamer builds are:

Thief – Lyssa runes are popular on all the thief builds out side of condition build which usually has perplexity on it.

10/30/30/0/0 with D/P and another weapon set. The complained about Perma stealth build with hidden killer trait.

10/0/30/0/30 S/D or S/P as the main set.

10/30/0/30 rare this is more s/tPvP meta. S/P or S/D as the main set

10/0/30/0/30 – P/D condition build

10/0/0/30/30 – Evade build with S/D

Necro – 30/20/x/x/x last 20 can be anywhere condition damage based build

Mesmer – x/20/30/x/x last 20 can be anywhere usually its 20 in domination, this is popular Prismatic Understanding build (PU) can be conditions (usually called blackwater) or direct damage or even hybrid.

Engineer 30/x/x/x/x I am new to engineer so I am not familiar with all their builds yet but this is the condition build usually 30/10/0/20/10 with pistol/shield bombs or grenades. I am not familiar with power builds on engineer yet as mine is only 1 week at 80.

Guardian – 0/0/10/30/30 Healway bunker build
0/5/30/30/5 Altruistic healing dps with Sword/Focus and GS or Hammer.
0/x/30/x/x – Mediation Guardian the rest of the points can be anywhere but usually it stays around 0/5/30/30/5 is popular for mediations also.

Warrior – 0/20/30/0/20 or 0/20/20/0/30 Hammer or Sword or Axe. There is a few dps type shout builds out there or condition builds but I don’t know that. Bow is popular now cause people think they are playing sPvP and the enemy will stand in the fire. Mace,shield, hammer, longbow, axe, sword can all be used in power.

The condition warrior build is popular but I don’t know cause I don’t run condi on my warrior.

Elementalist – x/x/x/20/30 Dagger/Dagger Standard cantrip based ele build either bunker or burst.

0/30/x/10/30 seems to be the popular S/D or S/F build now

I don’t know anything about rangers. These above builds are just what you are more likely to run into on each of those classes when your out roaming.

There are no rules so you can be 1v2’d then 3 more show up to kill you. Key things are mobility, stun breakers, and condition removal if you can fit those in your build all of them or at the minimum stun breakers. Traveler runes are viable for mesmer and very popular as they can fit in a direct damage power or condition build.

It fun alot of ego driven people roam though so be prepared for party invites and duel challenges. I just don’t even bother anymore cause I usually can guess the conversation depending on the scenario.

Most Roamers respect duels if they see you 1v1. Alot of roamers come back for revenge kills. Alot of roamers builds are setup for 1v1’s usually.

There are some small man groups that don’t care and will run you over with 5 people kind of rare but it happens.

Some roamers jump up and down because you failed to kill them Warriors, Thieves, and Mesmers do this alot.

It’s fun just don’t let the ego get you. Alot of people like to try and tease and troll built more to run away then actually kill solo they want you to chase again Warriors, Thieves, and Mesmers are classes that you might find do this more often then other classes.

ThiBash.5634:

phaeris.7604:

As I stood there getting hit by a mesmer greatsword auto from 1200 away noting it it for 600-1k a tick I thought, arn’t eles meant to be the true casters of this game?

My fireballs easily surpass that, critting for as much as 1400. Also, unlike the greatsword, they don’t get weaker at short ranged.

And finally, our auto attacks are only filler skills for our dps. For mesmers, it’s pretty much all their dps. Most staff eles will constantly use their #2 (which in my case do 3-4k damage crits) skills and only resort to auto attacks when they have to.

Yea got a staff casting Fire autos definitely beats a mesmer with staff and auto’s by far. It’s also more then 1200 range on fire auto I would say its about 1500.

When I think caster I think staff. But as far as Mesmer and greatsword go I out damage that with fireball which also has a little aoe radius to it hitting more then 1 person. Might need to move some points and grab some real damage on staff. I like 20/30/0/10/10 on Staff either 30 fire or 30 air. Easily outdamage greatsword auto attack but it is easier to dodge at range.

Rickster.8752:

oZii.2864:

Lordrosicky.5813:

oZii.2864:

Lordrosicky.5813:

Berzerker stance is honestly the biggest problem. All builds rely on conditions to some extent. Even if its just blinds and cripple or weakness and chill. Berzerker stance gives around a 15% up time in full condition immunity WITH significant upside of generating adrenaline. Which for a warrior acts as a huge heal with adrenal health AND helps they to cleanse conditions via cleansing ire.

The fact is that the skill was usuable and balanced at around 4 second duration. But they buffed it to the sky because they don’t understand anything

Correction is that they wanted to it be 4 seconds and the PLAYERS wanted it to be longer since they still didn’t feel it was worth it to take. I can get the State of the Game where Chaplin says exactly this if you really want a source.

Then it is an example of them listening to badies as usual. An increase would of been fine to 5/6 seconds.

This balance forum was the worst idea ever because it is full of terrible ideas from terrible players.

I think it went from 4 then 6 before they went with 8. Who are the badies and who aren’t and how do you pick the goodies from the badies based on the forums? SOTG was s/tPvP based and the players on the show where some of the top players in Queues and tournaments at the time.

A very popular “pro” player now is why Ele healing got nerfed in s/tPvP because they said “Ele heals to much”. Check it SOTG from April 2013.

Yes SoTG having influence over balance was a really good thing. And at the time ele healing 100% needed nerfing. That is what they needed to do as well as make steps in the direction of build diversity. But instead they buffed EVERYTHING to the sky. Which made no sense. It is a sign of the absurd and game ruining power creep that ele healing needs to go back to being OP for them to survive. As clear an indication as was needed.

The person who said nerf ele healing was correct. If they had followed that logic of reducing spam and nerfing OP stuff then the game would be way more fun and less cheesey right now. You can’t point out a good change and call it bad just because it didn’t work as intended because they kittened up the game in every other way

I disagree that they where correct let me put it into context. Which was that the devs would rather bring the other classes up instead of nerfing this is what they said.

You didn’t have warriors who had sustain now they do. Thieves where as good at boon stripping 30 trickery wasn’t a thing. There was no dhuumfire, spirit rangers etc,etc,etc.

Ele healing was never OP there just wasn’t a class to check it/match it. Enter current warrior, 30 trickery thieves, dhuumfire necros, spirit rangers because traps where the thing then.

If you really think just reverting Ele healing to “OP” as you put it is enough to give Ele a spot on a team I don’t know what to tell you. It was RTL and Mist form use with Ether renewal aswell as a bug on Signet of Restoration that made it proc to much(fixed in the patch that nerfed confusion in WvW/PvE).

The mist form change with Ether I agree with because they did it with Elixir S to engis in that same patch. Signet of restoration was bugged with evasive arcana, that’s why S/D ele’s could get away with using it almost as good as D/D eles.

Ele’s healing was bugged with SOR and Evasive Arcana + RTL going 1500 range + Ether renewal combined with Mist form. You really think Signet of Restoration in it’s current form in PvE/WvW is OP if they where to allow eles to use it in sPvP?

It was Mist form + Ether and the SOR with evasive arcana bug, RTL 1500 range bug.

Lordrosicky.5813:

oZii.2864:

Lordrosicky.5813:

Berzerker stance is honestly the biggest problem. All builds rely on conditions to some extent. Even if its just blinds and cripple or weakness and chill. Berzerker stance gives around a 15% up time in full condition immunity WITH significant upside of generating adrenaline. Which for a warrior acts as a huge heal with adrenal health AND helps they to cleanse conditions via cleansing ire.

The fact is that the skill was usuable and balanced at around 4 second duration. But they buffed it to the sky because they don’t understand anything

Correction is that they wanted to it be 4 seconds and the PLAYERS wanted it to be longer since they still didn’t feel it was worth it to take. I can get the State of the Game where Chaplin says exactly this if you really want a source.

Then it is an example of them listening to badies as usual. An increase would of been fine to 5/6 seconds.

This balance forum was the worst idea ever because it is full of terrible ideas from terrible players.

I think it went from 4 then 6 before they went with 8. Who are the badies and who aren’t and how do you pick the goodies from the badies based on the forums? SOTG was s/tPvP based and the players on the show where some of the top players in Queues and tournaments at the time.

A very popular “pro” player now is why Ele healing got nerfed in s/tPvP because they said “Ele heals to much”. Check it SOTG from April 2013.

Lordrosicky.5813:

Berzerker stance is honestly the biggest problem. All builds rely on conditions to some extent. Even if its just blinds and cripple or weakness and chill. Berzerker stance gives around a 15% up time in full condition immunity WITH significant upside of generating adrenaline. Which for a warrior acts as a huge heal with adrenal health AND helps they to cleanse conditions via cleansing ire.

The fact is that the skill was usuable and balanced at around 4 second duration. But they buffed it to the sky because they don’t understand anything

Correction is that they wanted to it be 4 seconds and the PLAYERS wanted it to be longer since they still didn’t feel it was worth it to take. I can get the State of the Game where Chaplin says exactly this if you really want a source.

Variable damage like someone else said earlier I think is the core of this issue with condition damage.

If you are fighting 2 power builds generally you are prepared to handle 2 power builds. If you are fighting 1 power and 1 condition build then you are suddenly much weaker because you are stretched then.

Say I am on my Warrior with a standard 0/20/30/0/20 build. If I come across 2 power enemies then I can hang in there for a little bit. If I come across 1 power 1 condition then suddenly I am much weaker especially if the condition build has good poison uptime.

Any roamer in WvW worth his salt will mouse over the foods if they have a chance to. Now if I see 2 thieves that are power and I am on my warrior I might test them out then disengage to see if I can stretch them and then engage again. If one of those thieves is P/D condition 30 trickery then the fight is much different 1 being that his damage is coming from range. Suddenly cleansing ire and dogged march became a little more imporant.

I think the issue some people have is that if condition damage is nerfed enough then obviously they can get away with speccing less to deal with it and more towards dealing with power. Condition damage builds stretch the direct damage builds then.

I personally see both sides of the argument I have a engi that I just leveled to 80 and love it. I also have a Necro and I main elementalist. I don’t have a problem with condition builds in how it is implemented in the game. I do think 1 or maybe 2 cleanse utilities for all the professions could either use a small reduction in its cd or a extra condition removed not all their utilities I feel 1 would be enough.

I’m new on Engi(love it alot though) I main Elementalist. Am I correct in my assumption that the majority of the engineers conditions damage is from incendiary powder?

I have 7 classes at 80 to include a necro now I’ll say in my opinion you want dhuumfire(basically incendiary amor for necro) because the dps it has but the condi pressure is still pretty good. Here on engi it feels more like incendiary ammo makes up alot of the damage and essentially you are playing to keep it covered.

I really like Engi alot though I figured I would since I main Ele BUT I will say they are nothing alike even though people compare them so often.

phaeris.7604:

Are you finding issues with toughness? Because honestly whether i’m 2400 or 3000, my survivability seems the same. I’m finding a bigger damage output just works better all round.

You find you sweet spot that you are comfortable with then pump into damage or whatever your main choice is.

It should be about 2.4k to give you enough reactionary time from a typical 10/30/30/0/0 thief backstab build. With that said my personal point is 2.6k.

You also must be bringing scary damage to put them on the defensive.

Bigger damage is much better. I use to run the -40% condition duration food for a while on my Ele then I stopped and go dps. The best thing to do for necros(which is mostly why you run it) is to dps them down.

Kind of bunkerish fighting. That thief fight was killing me he didn’t get the memo about the icd on perplex runes they added, running condi with sword dagger+dagger/dagger.

Dat 19k hp though but crits look decent some valks in there for sure.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

McFribble.2349:

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

BlackBeard.2873:

Actually, thieves need major nerfs, while eles only need minor buffs.

All they need is a 30-40second cool down on Backstab. The skill hits for WAY to much for it not to have a cool down, well i guess the 4 second delay on being able to use stealth again is a minor cool down. But for a skill that can hit up to 16k+ It needs to be at least 30-40seconds.

A skill that requires the player to be positioned behind his target, within stealth, and needs to be traited to assure a crit, is hardly in need of a ridiculously long cool down, let alone 30-40 (more than some heavy duty utility skills in this game). I know everyone has been on the thief hate train since this games release, but lets not “fix” something by breaking it. Actively nerfing a skill into uselessness is NOT how one fixes a game, no matter how much YOU dislike it.

Like stealth is hard to get, they can perma stealth with ease in most builds. So that means nothing. Oh so hard to get behind someone when they dont know you are there because you have perma stealthed up to them…Oh wait.

They are on the “hate train” because it has SO many broken mechanics that mean that its an easy class to play:

Stealth: Broken
Burst damage: Broken
Initiative: Broken. Plus a failed experiment by Anet.

Perma Stealth: Broken
Perma Evade: Broken.

when you spend like 90% of your time in stealth. It says a lot
when you spend most of the fighting spamming evades/dodges. It says a lot.

Thing about perma evade thief builds like with s/d or even s/p for that matter is that they aren’t actively trying to evade anything. They are hoping you spam your big stuff and they get lucky and evade it. If you use a little patience let them blow their initiative then open on them. S/P thieves want you to try and attack them while they evade otherwise you can move out of it. S/D thieves usually auto attack chain then flanking strike to evade in for a much safer CnD.

Evade spam isn’t really a problem imo on thieves its annoying but you just have to throttle back just a little you would do the same to any class.

D/p is well very annoying to fight especially when the person is nothing but backstab damage waiting for you to make a mistake and they get lucky crits.

Loco.4561:

I get a lot of people calling me a “perplex noob”, these are normally groups of players 2+ who “try” to gank me and fail, then blame it on perplex runes. The truth is, as stated that the perplex runeset gives me the best condition build at present for my shield engi, since I roam solo or in duo’s the extra damage from conditions can cause BAD players problems.

The decent players and decent roamers, can still kill me and quite easily as I found out last night after duelling a really good full zerker thief. I did not call him a “stealth spamming noob”. His stealth + burst was too much for me, I couldn’t lay any real conditionson him because he was so hard to pin down, it was a good build used by a good player.

I can use my burn set, but that limits my condition output and I’m terrible with power build on engi :P

I agree if your conditions builds for any class your goal is to overload their cleanses and kill them. That is what perplexity does. If you are running shield and not running perplexity for some kind of honor or the sake of being different then you are basically running Lyssa runes without taking the 6 pieces, strength without taking the 6 piece, melandru with out taking the 6 piece.

Power builds aren’t running only 5/6 and people aren’t ending their condi clears 1 second faster for honor. 30 shadow arts thieves aren’t coming out of stealth faster so they have 1 might stack less to be “fair”, mesmers, aren’t coming out of stealth so they missed a protection proc to be “fair” and warriors aren’t using another heal to be “fair”. These are parts of common roamer builds I don’t see a reason not to run perplexity if it is the best for your build. It would be like a condi Engi not running incendiary powder for the sake of being “fair”.

I think the rune was really strong and could agree with it getting toned down but now I don’t see it as such. I think perplexity was the test subject for rune changes, to go along with noble, tormenting, before that your only choice was pretty much undead or just stack durations using 2/2/2. Those newer runes don’t follow rules of release runes.

Like the tormenting sigil not having a shared ICD and we all know that is coming soon.

That will happen to any class because it is 8 professions and 5 roles. There will always be a best. Top meta is Engineers over Necromancers now go figure right? Engi’s didn’t get any new significant buffs but Necro’s got some nerfs now the Engi fills the role better then the Necro. The engi was always on the heels of Necro for condition pressure.

The warrior or thief was always on the heels of Elementalist after nerfs to Ele and buffs to Warriors and Thief being unique with mobility and stealth access seemingly on demand this knocked the Elementalist out of it’s role.

Ele isn’t terrible it just isn’t better at any role then another class. Your role have certain tasks you MUST be able to do. If you can’t do those tasks better then the Thief, Warrior, Guardian. Why take you if the goal is to win.

This issue of roles sadly won’t be solved until there are new game modes in s/tPvP.

pmnt.4067:

azerte.4365:

Well guess what they’re here and thieves aren’t the only one who have access to them, even eles can deal 12k dmg. So i’d say learn to live with them.

I knew it was too subtle, but I mentioned thief, warrior and ele in my post, but that’s not even the point. The point is, that one-shots – regardless of class – are not a “deal with it” issue, but an alarm sign of broken balance.

And sorry, I can’t take anyone who defends one-shot mechanics seriously in a balance discussion.

If you built to 1 shot then you probably can also get 1 shot. You can’t really one shot anyone unless they went glassy which I am sure they factored in their decision to go glassy. When bunker soldier builds are getting one shotted then we have a problem.

Pistol whip in WvW is w/e plenty of room to move out of the way. I look at PW thieves as easy kills even with sleight of hand. Always make me chuckle when I see a PW thief spamming it in WvW. The only class I have that feels remotely threatened by pistol whip spam is my thief cause it has like 2.1k armor. It’s a threat in WvW if you don’t have anything up or you get caught by surprise with low health.

In sPvP is different because of the point fighting

We are talking about sustain here not a burst heal. 8% on a sustain heal isn’t nothing. No matter how you slice the pie if the warrior was always disengaging 2 minutes after receiving pressure he will have to engage earlier. Poison and burst damage will be more effective in either killing or forcing the warrior to disengage.

TooBz.3065:

Honestly, I wonder how much is it that ele’s need a buff and how much is it that no one in this forum shares or discusses builds. If you look at other forums all the other classes combine collective experience to maximize their collective success.

Here everyone is secretive and wants to keep what they know to themselves. There may be a build out there that’s competitive but only one guys knows it. Or maybe no one knows it, but three guys each have a piece.

To be fair build combinations aren’t really all that different. We don’t really give to much spotlight to rehashes. Which is something I do like about the Ele forums.

Mesmer forums are filled with 20/20/30/x/x builds change a trait but keep prismatic understanding maybe change the rune or run a different sigil and give it a fancy name.

If you come here and post a x/x/x/20/30 D/D build you didnt do anything different tbh because a simple understanding of damage will tell you that you didn’t. Ele forums will tell you that you didn’t do much different and your thread will die.

a x/x/20/30 build in full zerker wont do as much damage as a 30/30/x/x zerker, I don’t care what traits you took in the 20 water/30 arcana.

The secretive part of peoples builds is gear. Trait choices are easy to spot and you just figure out a rough estimate of gear watching any youtube video of that person.

There is very little damage reduction difference between 2560 armor and 2620 armor. HP levels are personal preference. So that leaves power and crit chance w/ crit damage. Not much difference between 50 crit damage and 60 crit damage that is going to make you viable or not viable.

Healing power scales decently on ele but if the base is already high why put points toward healing power when you already are putting 50 trait points and 500 stat points not toward offense? The base build has alot to do with what you can do with it but gear can only let you do so much. 0/0/10/30/30 guardian builds are worse then a ele build if you try to make it dps. You must move trait points or take many different traits to make a significant impact on a build on the player end.

In the end 30 air fresh air S/D builds, 20 water, 30 arcana d/d builds don’t have much difference and if you are hung up on the stats you are pinching pennies.

We need meaningful buffs to help with survivability so Ele’s are more comfortable not relying on water and arcana so much. Though water is all about condition removal and any decent build for all classes takes condition management traits.

Bran.7425:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

urdriel.8496:

The next WvW map will be 100% underwater, we will rule there.

Along with the necros.

Truthfully, it’s tough for the Ranger CDI to go anywhere, because what the Ranger actually needs isn’t clear. Active condition cleansing is a start, but other than that…what?

The Elementalist CDI will be much more clear: making Water Magic less mandatory and making glyphs more attractive. Necro CDI as well: better sustain and answers (though not necessarily resistance) to heavy CC. Rangers…it’s not clear just what they actually need.

You doubt the power of the RTL whining, sir.

Yup it’s going to be alot of RTL revert requests and buff base HP(which doesn’t do anything except make the class more forgiving to mistakes) my 16.5k hp and 2.6k elementalist is more attrition then my 22khp and 2.7 armor necromancer because it can mitigate damage much better and good sustained sources.

Anyway Ele is my main class so I’ll see how it goes but I think RTL and HP buff’s and then more posts backing those ideas up to follow.

I have been playing engineer alot lately as I am new to 80 on it and it did open my eyes to possibly how giving the options to ele is better overall and more freedom. Part of the “high skill cap” on Ele is that it is restricted by attunement cooldowns. I think getting to a base 10-12 seconds would do alot of the class.

Carighan.6758:

As such, this player feedback we’re giving here, it only tells the devs where to look.
Not what to do.

.

This ^^ it is where to look not what to do.

lazycalm.5186:

What do you most often use to interrupt as an engineer, for the perplexity runes to be viable?

Shield off-hand still both, magnet and supply crate are the usuals.

Perplexity runes are the best condition damage runes for DPS that is why they are viable especially if you can get the interrupts. I know people call them OP but I think the other options aren’t as good. There is hardly a dps difference between runes of scavenging and undead the life steal on heal puts it in scavenging. Any condition damage main stat rune is close the 6 piece on both of those is very small difference from other runes.

If perplexity didn’t runes didn’t have a 6 piece proc it still would be the best condition damage runes for dps with noble coming in second if you have reasonable access to might. No 6 piece bonus would just make the dps loss going with scavenging not as big a deal. Basically alot of necro don’t run them because they don’t have good interrupt access engi with shied does though.

Simply with made up numbers

Scavenging gave you – 110 bleed, 720 burning, 250 poison

Perplexity gave you – 105 bleed, 705 burning, 245 poinson, 4 piece proc 400 per skill use.

That is why it’s good a way to get an addition damaging condition. I know people call them OP but I just call it using the best condition rune for any shield engi.

The other condition damage runes aren’t very good or I guess I could say not very creative. If your not running off hand shield then it isn’t that big a deal running another rune.

Roamers mostly hate if you run perplexity on engineer or thief is there really honor among roamers? I don’t know warriors are rocking healing signet and not surge cause of honor. Thieves are D/P hidden killer builds stealth spamming it up, Mesmer’s are PUing/stealthing it up, Necros are terrormancers, Thieves are P/d Condi etc.

Your already running conditions any other roamer that doesn’t run conditions ever is probably not going to like you anyway.

You just lose the shield defense bonus that comes with all shields the rest of the stats stay the same if you swap to kit. So you just lose 61 armor for level 80 exotic shield when you swap to kit.

insanemaniac thanks I will keep this in mind

insanemaniac.2456:

wouldnt take apothecary, but settlers yes… toughness main stat

I was wondering about those 2 stat combos. I went with rabid apothecary ring and accessory and backpiece. 1 rabid accessory and ring and dire/rabid ammulet.

I thought about settler’s armor since you need toughness to make healing worth it but I felt like the condition dps would be to low so I just went with dire armor settlers weapons. Having looked at some of the numbers though I don’t know if a large investment is worth it for healing power unless it is medkit.

My issue with dire is that the HP is so high and that you wont get back to it once you start taking damage. I think rabid helm coat legs with dire on the 3 minor pieces might be better.

I’m new to engineer main elementalist(though engineer is alot of fun and could end up my main) but I do my research on the web when I make a new class.

Wolfineer has alot of hp in his videos but rarely gets back to full and most other videos I seen it is the same for other engineers. Though that bit of extra hp might give you more time to decide to disengage or not. This is in reference to WvW.

I sat around 17.7 for a bit but bumped it up to 19k which I think is just right so far. I’m still learning Engi so this is just my early observations based on the information I looked at so far. Elixir gun scales at 100% and the bandages at 50% of healing power along with healing turret at 50% but I don’t know if that is worth it. Condition damage builds have always been odd to me and I felt like you can skimp on it a bit as long as you overload with multiple conditions well.

ShadowNinja.1238:

When I went I also found an amazing thief and an amazing guardian… S+D/P+D or D+P (not sure) thief and I think GS/S+F guardian… Yeah i kept losing to them a lot and enjoying some good duels when Odinzu and some other trolls from his guild EP started killing them for no reason and they left leaving nobody in the arena…. Maguuma server is really good duelists from what I’ve seen.

The thief sounds like Amonatory if he is from SoS BLNT guild.

babazhook.6805:

>>Applying your damage is easier with a condition build then a direct damage build since there is only one way to stop the damage once it’s applied and that’s through cleansing

This statement is not logical. ONCE damage is applied via a direct damage attack I have already taken the damage in a single strike. The only way I can gain the health back is disengage from battle or heal.

Condition damage is DOT meaning the direct damage is much lower. You can not compare damage after the fact that Conditions apply and ignore the upfront damage already taken from a direct damage attack.

If my direct damage Heartseeker did 6k in damage and my condition type attack did 400 in direct damage and needs to be stacked to 8 more stacks and NOT cleansed for the next 6 seconds to even come close to that heartseeker , how can you conclude the Condition damage was easier to apply?

The autoattack direct damage of ranged weapons tends to be low when compared to melee weapons . The autoattack of a person specced for power over conditions on a a weapon set do much more direct damage with their autoattack.

If one is designed as a melee type fighter and allows an enemy to fight and remain at range then one deserves to lose the fight every time. It does not matter if that person at range is a condition spec or a direct damage spec.

The condition fight doesn’t usually care about his direct damage numbers but what his bleeds are ticking for. Just like when I’m on my ele and I use ring of earth I don’t care what my bleeds are ticking for because I’m not conditions.

DOT builds and the players that play those builds made a decided choice to play DOT. They don’t care that they can’t backstab for 9k.

Sure condition builds do direct damage but for most that is a formality and part of the game. The main form of damage from condition builds is the damage conditions. That person doesn’t care what their marks are hitting for or how much they enfeebling blood does for direct damage.

Sure on paper yada yada I get that and it is correct. The fact is though that condition builds the good ones have good auto attacks usually applying bleeds which is the main form of damage, followed by cover conditions some of which are additional damage depending on class/build.

You as a condition player don’t care all that much bout your direct damage. You care about bleed ticks, burns, poison, etc. The white damage might aswell not even be there.

runeblade.7514:

P Fun Daddy.1208:

You also appear to not be playing against good players. Any player worth his stuff knows that in a team fight elementalists are at the top of the list of who to focus first. This happens to such a degree that oftentimes you end up with a thief dedicated to killing you before you can do any damage, which is really easy unless you go full-on bunker and then you aren’t threatening anyway.

I played against a rq46 guardian and rq 42 thief in a duel and won.

So does that mean they are not skilled?

It’s a guardian and a thief those are winnable especially the guardian only med/zerk guardian should give you a though time on your ele but still very winnable.

The soft CC that people say doesn’t do much for ele does alot when your fighting a guardian. I main ele and that is the most frustrating thing when I fight a Ele on my guard is the soft CC I can’t stay on target.

Anyway are we talking about duels or actually a s/tPvP comp designed to win. If it is the latter it is 5 roles 8 professions the other professions fill those roles better then a Ele can that is why they are called weak because they aren’t a must have to achieve victory.

It’s not impossible as a D/D Ele to kill a P/D thief but it is a hard fight. No D/D ele in their right mind will use ether renewal against a P/D perp thief at least not fighting a decent one.

This sits in the realm of melee vs ranged which is why D/D ele vs necro is a very hard fight you need to get into melee for damage same happens in P/D perp vs D/D Ele. It’s not impossible but it isn’t a easy fight for D/D ele by any means. If you are patient and abuse body shot when needed as P/D you shouldn’t lose to tbh.

Hey Amon

unleashed.8679:

oZii.2864:

Applying your damage is easier with a condition build then a direct damage build since there is only one way to stop the damage once it’s applied and that’s through cleansing.

What is that for an argument?
You got hit and still can counter it makes condition more powerful then direct damage, where you get hit and you eat all that damage. There is no button that heals you for the direct damage you received during the last 5 seconds (That’s what cleanses theoretically do).

Conditions have the same way of preventing the damage as direct damage (dodge, block, blind, stealth, stuns, …) There are skills that make you immune to damage (some for conditions/direct damage only and some for both). Just because the conditions continue to tick, does not mean that those things have no effect. The damage you may receive during a dodge role was applied earlier and if you would stop that as well it would be like a heal to previous dealt direct damage (same as above).

A large part of your damage is from auto attacks in a condition build and usually ranged.

There really is no consequence in missing with a auto attack because it has no cooldown and short cast time. Take a terrormancer who can put alot of pressure on you just from scepter auto attacks also proccing dhuumfire while at range.

Really how many melee condition builds do you see out there? S/S LB warriors are the only ones that come to my mind as truly melee with application.

I would put my list

1. P/D perplexity Thief w/ 30 trickery
2. Hambow
3. PU condition mesmer
4. Terrormancer
5. S/D Thief w/ 30 trickery

I don’t really have anymore after those. I feel these are the only builds that have a fair chance to beat any other dueling build where it isn’t a uphill battle

I just don’t see S/P thieves with 30 trick aslong as your not impatient and blowing important skills on the evade frames of pistol whip I just don’t see how it is strong in dueling.

The S/D 30 trickery I would move over terrormancer if it has lyssa runes. Hambow over PU mesmer just because it can out regen and dump the conditions easy on a PU mesmer but that would probably be a long fight.

S/D 30 trickery will dump all over a P/D condition thief though but I feel the fight is close to even. I don’t know Engi’s that well but bomb kit engi I am not sure where I would put it but it is very strong.

Zelyhn.8069:

I just tested myself and my results differ.

1) First test. In the mysts, to be in combat.
I find that swiftness makes my BS go slightly further.

2) In Rata Sum, central hub, The floor is is made of hexagons of 120 range (if I am correct).
Normal BS moves me 480 units forward (sometimes a little less, like 400).
With swiftness I reach 600 units.

Testing it yourself means your playing again! Welcome back buddy!

Sorry for the off topic

Lets imagine this is a fighting game and we did a tiered list.

In my opinion the only S-Tier for 1v1 dueling is a P/D condition thief with perplexity runes. That doesn’t guarantee a win but it is imo the only build that has a fair chance to beat everything on your list. You don’t have it mentioned which is odd since it is one of the main builds you find people dueling on in the sanctum.

So let’s add P/D perplexity to your list now you have to look at all the builds and see how they matchup against each other. There is no official 1v1 dueling ranking that is tracked the best you could do is assume you where playing all those builds against each other yourself.

So you would use your skill level to determine which is the apex in a 1v1, anything using conditions from your list automatically puts necro and a p/d thief over all the condition builds. P/D over Necro because it is the one condition build that can can survive 1 or more condition transfers from a necro since it can drop target with stealth long enough and avoid the necro laying his own conditions on top after transfer.

So for me the top build is P/D perplexity thief it has all the advantages of stealth and enough condition pressure to kill.

Really though your list isn’t fact and there is no way to say with 100% certainty because you can’t track rankings.

If this was a fighting game like SF with hours of dueling footage, matches recorded and world rankings for dueling many tournaments, you could make a better call as to what is the top build. Example would be Daigo considered the top Street Fighter player in the world has many times won the world championship with Ryu so it is safe to assume Ryu is S – tier or A+ or Sagat back in SFIV vanilla is considered S tier.

It is very hard to apply a list like this to Guild Wars 2 as fact because well you could if you wanted make a build that won’t die and essentially stalemate a fight against anyone build in the game.

For fun though sure I disagree with your list as I stated my opinion is P/D perplexity condition thief is the build that has the best chance to win against anything out there.

Ele’s base duration on bleeds is already long anyway and you can sneeze and apply burning on someone. You can also increase burning by an additional 25% via trait.

Deep cuts isn’t OP bleeding is usually one of the first to get cleaned since you keep refreshing it in queue it stays in it’s position so if it isn’t cleansed immediately it usually is the next one.

Any condition player worth his salt knows that it is all about cover conditions anyway.

Take a warrior run deep cuts on a condition build don’t stack anything else and just try to kill people with bleeds see how well that goes.

Both cygnus an coglin have good points and both are right.

Coglins math supports the damage output on a spreadsheet.

Cygnus is correct when it comes to PvP I won’t say condition builds are OP that part I don’t agree with. What makes condition builds effective is ease of application.

Applying your damage is easier with a condition build then a direct damage build since there is only one way to stop the damage once it’s applied and that’s through cleansing.

Once the DOT is applied it is working no matter what happens until it is cleansed or run its course. Now the direct damage has to keep being applied. TTK favors direct damage but you rely more on key attacks.

Any good condition build out there has a condition applying auto attack usually bleeds and it also usually has ranged.

There is a reason conditions thieves roll with P/D instead of D/D death blossom spam.

Without rehashing what has been said many times in many threads. A condition build has a much easier time applying the damage then power builds and usually has the option of maintaining pressure through ranged auto attacks that is why they are so effective.

HAHAHA that thief in your Roaming video part 2 was sooo thirsty LOLz.

He wanted to kill you so bad but couldn’t do it by himself lol. That’s my favorite type of enemy.

Just checked your channel there are some good commentaries there.

It’s not all D/D every weapon set is represented in his videos, I hope the ele community gives support to your video series and channel.

Great video its not to long not to short and good commentary. Maybe up the volume on your voice just a tad but not to much.

Also good example of blowing the necro up with damage before he has time to do his damage no -condition duration food or melandru needed just DEEPS.

Good video for the elementalist community looking forward to more.

A PU mesmer is just a standard phantasm spec that sacrificed damage for defense

All the people complaining just fight a 10/30/0/30 mesmer it’s the same thing except alot less damage. PU is annoying to fight against I agree but I don’t call it broken because it doesn’t scare you except a GS mesmer who gets izerk off. Other then that they don’t have scary burst just sustained.

A 10/30/0/30 mesmer could kill you much faster but they would be much weaker in a outnumbered fight.

PU doesn’t need to be nerfed it’s effective if you decide to stay and fight it sure but that’s your choice but you can still win. The only other type of mesmer out there is a shatter but there has always been phantasm based memser builds since release and PU is no exception. It sacrifices damage for survivability.

If that mesmer respecced to 10/30/0/30 he doesn’t need extra stealth or prot uptime because his phantasms would hit a whole lot harder. If he was conditions he would have more bleed procs with higher crit chance still can get the cripple on death which is the strongest of the 2 death traits imo and hybrid it for more direct damage, still can grab duelist discipline and if he likes get shattered conditions.

PU is a weaker version of any standard phantasm spec. It’s annoying but not overpowered. If you died to the pu mesmer with 30 chaos 1v1 you would have died 1v1 if he had at least 10 domination and 25 dueling but much much faster.

insanemaniac.2456:

nerf pizza
see where we stand

Play s/tPvP and you can see where you stand without pizza. sPvP already has issues with conditions so with or without pizza must not matter much.

Lightning is correct and this doesn’t matter what class you play the only one I say that can lockhorns with necro over a more extended period is a warrior.

You blow up the necro with damage that is why s/x is much better at fighting a necro then d/d because d/d has to go through marks where as the s/x might not have to.

Condition builds are attrition even if a necro can kill in 10 seconds it is a few skills that did that.

Example on my necro would be optimal

F1,3,2,5,

Weapon swap to staff

5,3,2,1

f1,4

Anything left finish it off with scepter auto attacks.

That should be enough to kill someone finish off with just looking at that is not exactly burst. You can do this fast but it also requires a afk person with nothing ready to escape or cleanse.

On my necro I have never found myself seeing Eles as a threat but the ones that have been the most dangerous are fresh air S/x eles.

Roaming falls into group roaming and solo roaming.

Is group roaming better with condition builds or power? I would say group power is far better then group conditions. This is represented by the fact ingame that you are far more likely to come across 5 power builds then 5 condition builds as I have only seen a 5+ man condition group like 1 time all P/D thieves.

You will have mix and match on most occasions though.

That leaves solo roaming or 1vX scenarios. You come across 1v2 scenario running your power build and a 1v2 will be more probable to pull out if it is vs 2 power builds but if it is a mix of power+condition build then it is harder to pull off since you are dealing with 2 forms of main damage.

Now if you are winning 1v2’s then you are probably beating players that aren’t equally skilled or you Rock vs 2 scissors. That aside 1v2’s just aren’t possible with good skilled players.

You running your best solo roaming build designed to kill and come across any other class+build grouped with a staff bunker guardian designed to do nothing but support and heal basically bodyguard for the damage dealer you should lose everytime no matter what your running.

Roamers run roamer builds I roam most times but the ferocity change won’t do much. If you where going to lose to the condition build now you would have lost to it after.

Standard 30 spite dhuumfire condition build necros it is no contest. Neco>Ele.

The thing with 30 spite condition necros is that they are usually squishy. I run 30 in death magic so I sit at 2.8k armor the key is to burn through deathshroud asap. The problem that people have is they run -condition duration food which is essentially deciding to tank vs damage. So you are locked in a attrition fight with a attrition designed class. Ele’s can play attrition and you can draw a condition necro in clerics for lulz.

The best way to kill a condition necro on any class is to do it as fast as possible.

Generally speaking though a necro especially with focus(which is what I run) will crush a ele knocking off vital boons with spinal shivers every 16-20 seconds, That one skill gives me 9 seconds of chill ripping 3 boons it’s so good I sacrifice a condition transfer for it.

Necromancers and guardians are kind of polar opposites both can counter each other. Necromancers manipulates boons guardian makes boons and can from conditions. Elementalist relies on boons heavily so he gets eaten up by necro.

Assassin.7890:

watched them all!
But I would like to see some gameplay with lets say S/D, D/F, S/F.
There are many build guides with alternative weapon combinations but no one uses these to roam in WvW these days.
I am just asking because almost every roaming video contains cantrips and D/D.
While it may be just reality that this is the most viable combination, I as a unexperienced WvW player would love to see how peopls utilize our other weapons.

Anyone challenge accepted???
xD

S/F or D/F are few and far between. A frew S/D vids out there. There was a old riot s/d video with a ton of views that hit right before fresh air trait came. Other then that D/D and staff vids is what you see the most, I honestly couldn’t tell you why except for maybe because D/D handles more situatins better.

I think everyone that has been playing the game for a long time maining ele has used the other combos but if D/D is usually the go to that means that S/x D/F, S/F need something. Or maybe they don’t since D/D might get limelight for videos but in s/tPvP d/d is on the bottom of the totem pole.

I agree with Pawstruck while this topic is excellent I feel that your glass door posts starts to change course away from profession balance and more to the general development of Guild Wars 2.

Perception and feedback. The ele community is split on what our power level is and you also have 3 different game modes.

Each game mode has different roles but PvE is usually just DPS.

WvW – Roaming, Zerging, GvG’s. Roaming depends on your role and if we are talking group or solo.

s/tPvP- 5 roles 8 professions.

Now for s/tPvP how do you make it so that all 8 professions are viable and there is no clearcut 5 best? You also want to keep each classes identity and avoid homogenization.

The undeniable fact is that Ele build diversity is lacking. To get that we have to be “OK” with moving points around.

I’m not dismissing PvE but the 5 roles there are dps you can either pump out the damage or not. The warrior is just easy/safer to run round in full zerker and be effective.

Hannoy? is that you? You look like someone I know.

Just watched your newest video another good one, good music.