Guild Wars 2

Bunker meta engi doesn’t have the same access to might, it doesn’t have elixrs to get it through HGH as conveniently, it doesn’t run the bottom scrapper mastery trait to get it through stability, it doesn’t have a fire field to blast.

When I fight meta scrappers they seldom have more than 7 – 8 stacks. In fact they have to choose a rune in order to make up for this deficiency which pigeon holes them, its actually taking something outside their class that even gives them the bit they have.

oh yeah and you would eliminate our class mechanic, if your giving a decent one then fine, but I didn’t see that part.

While I find my hammer 2 indespensible, while running the reflect you can’t do anything else. So using it up against a ranged attack measn you can’t close range. As well it has a cast time, making it much less effective then it sounds… you either have to pop it proactively, meaning your opponent waits it out, or you get hit by faster casting attacks.

Without this the ranged druid long bow pew pewer would instead of holding me down to 30% of my health or so while I try to team fight be able to kill me with me not really having much to say about it.

Now if you add in the bulwark defense, then it basically shuts down ranged attackers… I personally find it annoying too, as I can’t use my mortar fields. So I gotsta run up and FT auto attack, or stand real close like and use hammer. Then when it comes down…. I acid bomb away (since my defenses are ususally used up by that point) and use my mortar.

If you want to be ranged you should try to build to not be only ranged, have the ability to switch in and out. This is viable for an engi I’m not sure about the other classes.

It would at least be better if the discharge went after who ever you current highlighted target was, regardless of which type of toolbelt skill you used…. actually doing damage would be an added bonus.

Hunter.4783:

shion.2084:

last week I ran into a guardian which consistently wiped the floor with me 1 v 1. I’d thought that I was a hard counter, used my usual tricks…. there’s at least one guy out there who’s ahead of the game on the DH front. I still haven’t worked out how he beat me over and over.

Most DH’s don’t present a problem, this guy was worlds ahead of me. So I believe there is untapped potential in the class for some.

Sounds like you got hugely outplayed mate.

Notice how you said last week and not…every day.

That tells you that unless there is a considerable skill difference, the DH is toast.

I see there every single match up with my ele, or necro. Most DH are complete garbage, but that’s not because I am better. In fact, I’m a complete nub in ele yet the class carried me to diamond with like a 80% win rate, simply because every single game that I faced a DH or 2, I already knew how it was going to end.

I too have been killed by DH…probably like twice in my last 2 weeks. Now compare that to every single mace/shield war that are a nightmare…

Likely got out played, but there’s room out there to do that with this class is my point. It’s possible there are folks out there who are doing just fine with this class, this guy knew what he was doing.

you could try my undead runes / knight condi build ellesee for fun!

how do you guys even use static discharge, as long as I’m over head view, the thing fires into the bloody ground every time it procs….. At least I actively trigger the flame thower ball of fire so can aim it with my screen… but its an annoying perspective to be in.

last week I ran into a guardian which consistently wiped the floor with me 1 v 1. I’d thought that I was a hard counter, used my usual tricks…. there’s at least one guy out there who’s ahead of the game on the DH front. I still haven’t worked out how he beat me over and over.

Most DH’s don’t present a problem, this guy was worlds ahead of me. So I believe there is untapped potential in the class for some.

very good point, intelligence is what I used when mercenaries was still around…

Chaith.8256:

First power build that use Firearms condition traits and Flamethrower. Seems very confused. If you’re looking to hybridize, using the bottom adept & master trait in Firearms and going Sage amulet will work better

Thank you for considering.

With sages I’d lack crit ability. Sure I could get 10% on close range, but that wouldn’t be enough to really make use of what firearms can do. In addition I don’t really need the fury because of elixr B and the extended boon duration.

My sigil of blood would be less effective without a decent crit rate. Lastly when I go into a fight I have a fairly decent fury duration, my opponent will be bleeding, so my crit rate is 80 some odd percent. This makes for a lot of damage even with no ferocity.

Thoughness gives me a bonus to power over sages (Scrapper mastery trait). I also feel I’m a bit more able to take a burst from an opponent with the toughness and when adaptive armour kicks in this just ups my power more.

I also play this build in and out so I couldn’t count on the range conditional 10%, when I use mortar currently I have a chance to apply bleed, vulnerability, Burning from IP, and crit most of the time.

Its a decent opener if their ele doesn’t have the wind field thing running. If they do have it running I use thunderclap jump around a bit, whirl some, block,down a flame wall for area control on point, blast with ball O fire, giving allies might and doing a lot of damage, acid bomb away and then open wiht mortar fields. Tends to work reasonably well and I can do decent vulnerability stacking.

Goosekilla.2796:

I actually hadn’t noticed that you aren’t using juggernaut (I use my phone, and when I go to the trait tab it has a little popup that kind of covers the top GM selection). Saw all the other traits and flamethrower and figured it was another “spam FT auto” juggernaut build. This is more interesting… I’ll have to try it to be fair here. Firearms master 1 is an interesting choice… I see Chaith’s point, but on the other hand you already have quite high crit chance, you don’t take bunker down, don’t have ferocity, and you do have some toughness so it doesn’t seem unbelievable to me that you might get more out of the extra condi damage. Have you tried with knights amulet? It might be a good potential alternative with the additional toughness. A trade-off, of course, but probably at least worth trying (if you stick with firearms master 1). Although going that far, it almost isn’t right to call it a power build anymore (even though that is the main damage, it definitely looks heavily augmented by conditions).

Actually I have used knights as well, its how I eased myself into paladins. I find I’ve got about as much surviveability in paladins as I did in knights and a bit more oomph in my hits.

The damage is a bit hybrid and you’ll ususally have 20 might on you or so due to leadership, this means both your condi and your direct damage are effective.

Firearms is actually very useful because of the condi damage increase, the bleed and vulnerability addition, the crit chance increase because of bleed, and IP is nice to apply every 10 seconds and actually does enough to not be ingored when your might is up (which it always is). It looks a hot mess but plays much better than it looks.

Edit: oooh I will consider the other alchemy trait for vigor, I like the protection because of my added boon duration…. but you make a good point.

Oh I’ve been doing well enough with it ranked… you’d be surprised what the support aspects of it can do. Where do you figure it falls short?

This is doing remarkably well for me lately… All comes down to the ridiculous boon duration extention. Any tweak thoughts I could try out?

What I like about it… surviveability is great so long as I don’t plant myself. I can play lazy, the boon duration means I’m running with very high levels of might most of the time. Less work to keep up high levels of might. The condi is not insignficant once might brings it up to the 700+ level.

Good group help, I can CC with flame thrower, provide tons of boons, use cleanse from EG. In skrimishes when I need to get my cooldowns back up my mortar is usally good to go again, so I can keep switching from frontline to back line and be effective.

I actually have almost enough stability with the elix B toolbelt and the stability on doge trait.

This build is really working for me and great fun to play. It lets me analyze a classes weakensses and probably have something to do to them.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vdAQFASlcThatY7Ww6KQ7FLsFFdzf8JvYHVFPBYIWiBAA-TJBGABpv/QCXAAAeAA7XGAA

Thanks Guys! So adaptive armour it is then! the 20% condi damage reduction is nice for surviveability.

Incidentally… when you have adaptive armour and your toughness increases, so two would things that gain a % based on toughness (eg. undead runes or your power due to the bottom master trait of scrapper)?

Finally, since your all being very helpful, if you use sigil of leeching and you swap weapons, it says “your next attack steals health”. What if that attack doesn’t hit anything? What if it is blocked? I guess this question also applies to the FT tool belt skill, which I know holds untill you hit something, but I’m not sure if its wasted on an evaded attack or block.

I have a build that keeps 4.5 sec of quickness every 10 seconds… what things should you be using (or not using) when you have quickness on? For instance will your hammer 2 block time decrease if you have quickness on? Should you be trying to AA with the ususally slow hammer? What if you need to heal?

Thoughts or tips?

If he hasn’t seen very many good ones, then why not ask if others have noticed the same thing? At least he took the effort to go and video his point. And having an excellent druid smoke him doesn’t really prove things one way or another does it? So what would be the point, he’s already admitted that good ones exist out there.

It could be that this class just has a high skill floor to be effective. Its not weak when used properly but very suseptible to being used improperly. Theif is the one most like that in my opinion.

It’s fine to have chosen ranger to demonstrate your point that you find rangers consistently easier to beat than the other classes. In the last season I found many necros easy to beat because so many people were flocking to the new flavour of the month that there were tons of bad ones….

UmbraNoctis.1907:

shion.2084:

My numbers show over 10k of potential damage in a single hit, not counting the hit and whatever it does by itself. Plus I’m not adding might. and I showed the build. So by claiming 10K + you haven’t actually, when just considering total potential damage, supported your claim.

You showed a build that has close to zero dmg outside from IP procs and IA (long cd). Yes, if you are lucky and everything procs at once and the target doesn’t cleanse you can deal 10k+ dmg over 8 seconds with a single hit (no burst). So what? Without further dmg your enemy might be able outheal this, and this is even without cleanses …

I’m too lazy to make some screenshots of 10k+ burst, but it is definitely possible (with luck of course) for some power builds and you can easily test it yourself against target golems if you want. Those builds won’t be very strong in actual PvP at higher skill levels for several reasons, but they can work just as well as your condi build. So in the end those numbers are pretty meaningless and prove nothing.

They prove 2 things, that the original poster was incorrect in their assertion regarding the single hit argument, and that it isn’t particularly relevant and thus their point contingent on this argument either.

Which is exactly what I was intending to show.

QED

UmbraNoctis.1907:

shion.2084:

Now show me what a reasonable power build that could actually play ranked can do in a single hit if they get lucky… and remember I haven’t added might, or any of the actual damage from the hit itself, or any of the conditions that hit would directly apply ie. napalm setting on fire for 6 additional seconds.

Pretty much any power build will do more dmg than your condi scrapper build, which is as “reasonable” as signet burst thief or zerk gunflame warrior or valk melee ranger – all builds which can hit for 10k+ in one single hit, with overall much higher dmg output.

(Btw IP is one of the condi traits i hate the most, because i think it is too much dmg for being an unavoidable proc – but overall condi engi/scrapper is far from being op and clearly subpar to power scrapper).

My numbers show over 10k of potential damage in a single hit, not counting the hit and whatever it does by itself. Plus I’m not adding might. and I showed the build. So by claiming 10K + you haven’t actually, when just considering total potential damage, supported your claim.

My point wasn’t whether a condi or power scrapper was better but to address the comment about how a power in one hit could apply vastly more damage and a condi would have to hit multiple times to build up conditions to eventually do what a single hit could from a power build.

Now why do you think a power scrapper is necessarily better than someone who hybrids or does condi. I run both and I find actually the condi is vastly better against certain classes (ele bunkers), and has situational advantages depending on play style.

messiah.1908:

so many foolish statement are flying around by probably ppl who dont understand

i try to make it simple

direct dmg – 1 hit can cause great dmg if crit and good dmg if not crit.

so watch if you got weakness, blind , if enemy block, evade, and got dodge before you burst him. also predict your timing so you can do combo and smash button and AA to finish him

condi dmg – 1 hit CANT cause great dmg if crit either good dmg if not crit.

so need to land several hit to stack up several conditions so cleanse wont be easy. count the number of cleanse enemy have ,watch out of blind, if enemy block (in some cases), evade, and got dodge before you burst him. also predict your timing so you can do combo and smash button and AA to stack conditions

condition ignore armor but also got condi cleanse to negate the dmg. direct dmg doesnt has cleanse if it hit only healing same as for condition. this is the reason why condi ignore armor.

so learn the necro rotation, memser shatter rotation and warrior head stun rotation.

both are involving pressing buttons. but smart player will press them in order at the right time and kill you in 7 sec while not smart player will take 1 min to do the same job

see attached 7 sec killing ele . is he smashing buttons ? am i ?
https://youtu.be/Gm4RcxJ-ikM?t=34

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vdAQFASlcTh2tYtWw6KQ7FLsFFYIWiBgYHVFPBdzP8PPA-TJhAwAAeAAw2fYzFAgcZA

In 1 hit, regardless of what I use, I could technically apply

poison 8 sec (1020 damage DoT) – doom sig, 2 stacks burn (3,741 damage DoT) – FT toolbelt, bleed (damage 464 DoT) firearms trait, vulnerability, burn (5237 damage DoT) – IP,

And this is at 0 MIGHT ! an engi with alchemy and elixrs is never running at 0 might. I will only be caught dead at less than 10.

I am not counting anything to do with the actual skill itself. And I have avoided other condition procing sigils aside from doom.

Now if I hit you with thunderclap you also have more vuln and are stunned on top of it. or my posion mortar field, or my napalm attack or my poison EG, or chill mortar… whatever have you.

So sure my crit might not do much damage…. but while your dazed from thunder clap your not going to be having much fun. And that’s just my opener.

Realistically I’m not going to proc all of it on first hit, but by the second or third you’ll have it all and much more because… stacking.

Now show me what a reasonable power build that could actually play ranked can do in a single hit if they get lucky… and remember I haven’t added might, or any of the actual damage from the hit itself, or any of the conditions that hit would directly apply ie. napalm setting on fire for 6 additional seconds.

AtomsOrSystems.9420:

drcraig.9403:

AtomsOrSystems.9420:

Condi Cleanse=Condi Damage Mitigation.
Toughness=Direct Damage Mitigation.
Healing=General Damage Mitigation

Yes, unfortunately you can run out of cleanse. That = no mitigation. Condi builds don’t run out of condis.

Yes, a condi build that ran out of condis would be a pretty sorry build.

However, toughness doesn’t stop all direct damage. I’m not clear what kind of damage mitigation you’re looking for, here. Do you want condition clears that can stop all condition damage?

Oh I can run out of burns and poisons and have my heavy condi hitters go to cooldown…..

Ven Zehn.6573:

Yea, I understand the need for defenses on 1 weap set due to the lack of weap swapping, but do you really not think it’s overtuned?
I’ve played scrapper a bit, though honestly, not as much as my other classes, and I find it notably easier to play with, and to deal with the various types of things we might run into.
I’m trying to not take things out of context, but can only do so much without creating a wall of text:)

Well I can kill a scrapper with my scrapper who has hammer. When they go to reflect I switch to FT and EG poison spray. So its not overtuned against another engi. I can’t speak well about how other classes deal with it, but I can tell you how I do. And though I do use hammer, its not hammer i use to kill an engi using hammer defenses… if that makes sense.

I use AOE and avoid directly aiming at the engi. So you can also land a mortar and get them with AOE overlapping the area they are in if I aim appropriately (not hit their field but land to side of it). I can get them with a wall of fire. Alternatively I bait the reflect with regular mortar shell. Wait for it to end and then hit them with poison and chill and blind. I can bait the reflect with the EG auto attack. I can run up to a whirling one and use my block. Then my block beats their whirl and causes them damage but I take none. I could also thunder clap I guess which AOE should get them maybe… can’t recall.

As a class I take a vialbe short range and projectile ange weapon options and apply appropriately, baiting as needed. It helps that I inherrently understand the weaknesses of the class I’m fighting… it hurts they know mine.

Silverkey.2078:

shion.2084:

Hmmm, as far as what you need to make conditions effective you are over generalizing. For instance for an engineer to be most effective they ideally want to take something like firearms that applies vuln and bleeed, and burn on crit. AND gives crit bonuses when bleeding. Which means you want to critically hit. Which means you probably want precision.

I am not over generalizing but rather over simplifying. Yes, there are traits on most classes which give a condition on crit. Those need to be taken into account in the balance. My maths are just an illustration, you would need a little more work to balance all possible builds.

Generalizing in that you are performing the fallacy of hasty generalization attributing characteristics which affect one class to those of all classes in an effort to argue your point. It may be the case that only the condition trait is required for a given class to be effective, however that doesn’t mean that all classes share that attribute.

Logical Form:

Sample S is taken from population P.

Sample S is a very small part of population P.

Conclusion C is drawn from sample S.

There is really no need to argue the semantics between generalization and simplification as we were kind of both saying the same thing… but since you decided to take the opportunity to correct me, I will say that it may also be simplification but I was quite right in calling it a generalization.

Ven Zehn.6573:

My only issue against scrapper is the defensive abilities of Hammer:

From 1 weap set, they get:
A full block ability on a 20s cooldown (that also does damage), a reflect on a 6s cooldown and an AoE daze
Combined with gyros, it gets out of control, since they have melee pressure, and solid anti-range abilities.
If it was a scrapper with a rifle on the other hand, they get dealt with easily enough.

Warrior’s shield is on a 25s cooldown, and only reflects if traited. Closest thing I can think of to compare to Scrapper Hammer.

I think its a matter of trying to compare out of context. You make a big point of mentioning from only one weapon set, but an engi only has one. If they effectively want more they must use up their skill slots.

A engi has no resistance, and engi has no invuln that they can do damage while using. I assume warrior naturally have better armour than engi’s. All these things would have to be taken into consideration. The comparison taken out of context is not a particularly interesting one. I bet one of the classes can teleport more frequently than another, should they then be balanced for duration?

An engi cannot take a hit, they rely on mitigating and avoiding them. The hammer is key to them being a “scrapper” and being able to fight on point. They are designed at their very core to be squishier and so need the tricks and gimmicks to keep them going.

Lol, I actually don’t run gyro either, I switch between my rabid condi build I posted in the engi forum, and a quickness leadership based build with a bit of condi from the firearms trait line and pinpoint, paired with knights or paladin depending on how I’m feeling. Either way I never use S, I don’t use HT, nor purge… however hammer is key to me having a chance in hell. There is no way I could survive any point contention without being able to block ranged at key moments, or defend with block against a warrior burst. I have very little health and a slip and its over, without the hammer 2 and 4 I would have to convert to entirely ranged and not be a scrapper at all. I actually find the rotating block is chanllenging to use as a reflect because of the cast time. Folks who know what they are doing can hit you anyway, because you must either be predictive and whirl in anticipation, or eat a shot or two first before it comes into play.

Fat Disgrace.4275:

Chill necro was op and nerfed. Cele was op and nerfed. Turret engie was op and nerfed. The list goes on, basically it’s going to get to the point where everything is going useless because people keep complaining.

Just a little digression…

Turret engi was actually not an OP build, it was too effective a build against moderate to poor players and very very easy to use. A team working as a team could trivially deal with it.

It was suboptimal even at that time, to a non turret engi build. You probably did not see any competitive league people running it, because it would never get above middling grade of play.

It was nerfed because it trolled the masses and was ridiculously easy to run. Too much reward at low level play for to little investment of effort, but not an OP build in any seriously competitive scene, in fact completely non-viable.

Chaith.8256:

shion.2084:

The block is directional and doesn’t save them from standing in my wall of fire or in my mortar fields or if I run through them and about face.

While I agree with your post, the Hammer #4 block is omni-directional

Oh wow, I always tried to aim it at people… maybe that’s just where the damage is applied then… hadn’t realized.

Father Busho.2796:

The problem of a scrapper is, hammer defensive skills are actually the hardest hitting ones….. Both projectile blocks hit like a truck for their defensive purposes…

They do both allow counterplay however. The reflect takes cast time. so when I notice the reflect I cancel my attack and swithc to FT AA to apply burn OR drop a poison mortar at my feet. The block is directional and doesn’t save them from standing in my wall of fire or in my mortar fields or if I run through them and about face. Both only do serious damage very short range, and a scrapper can’t stay short range long and survive.

Ghazan.9213:

Ahh right then. So according to engi mains on this thread the counter to scrapper is rev, necro, warrior, mes, power and Condi. Just about everything counters their scrapper according to them.

We are usually good against guards and theives. I am “close enough” to rev and warrior that I feel skill makes the difference. If you miss a defense against one of them they will put you down fast. You basically have to wait them out and retaliate and NOT stand toe to toe. A necro can really hose my build bad, and a good mes… well when I realize I’m up against a good one I run. Eles can keep me to a total draw if they are bunker, and cause me no end of grief group skirmish if they’re the stun sort. Which class do you main?

Agemnon.4608:

An engi relies on mobility they cannot tank like an ele etc.

I’ve seen them tank better than ele and you have to take all defensive resources into account. If ele wants to get their extra reflect they’ll need to swap to earth putting the previous attunement on cooldown, use a skill that typically should be reserved for cleanse, wait for an overload that a thief has all the time in the world to interrupt, and use Aftershock. That’s a lot of reflects but the cooldowns are reasonable. Then you have swirling winds that just destroys projectiles.

I’ve been maining druid and tempest (both Mender’s) for the past few seasons with some rev and thief thrown in (usually power Shiro but switches to Mallyx for the resistance against certain comps) and have come to terms with how tempest isn’t an ideal duelist but keep seeing scrappers survive for quite awhile in 2v2’s. I mostly win with rev and stalemate with druid and tempest but won just once with druid in a 1v1 against scrapper in ranked play (won that duel in Emerald last season and even that was some work, stopped progress in Ruby) and maybe 3 with revenant.

Mallyx rev seems like the best bet between confusion and torment spam and boon stripping but isn’t how I usually play though.

How can the engi tank? The bulwark gyro goes down ridiculously fast in group engagements (its got a nice reflect that can buy you some time so that part is still useful). Blocking will stop physical damage but doesn’t stop the well your standing in from eating you alive, and CC can focus you down relatively instantly. If you go potion S you still take all your condi damage and can’t cleanse, plus you no longer contest the point. I can’t see an engineer doing a decent job of tanking in any serious skirmish. You could help with thunderclap and some CC from your gyros dieing really quick I suppose, but you won’t be standing on point long soaking up the hits. Your better applying CC from a distance. the engi thrives on in and out, on not being in the same place and running for it while trying to shoot back over your shoulder. Tanking is just not its thing. Maybe if I went total healing amulet but I’d not have the group support that the other classes have and I have no invuln or resistance or much stability. my elixirs cand rid condies but you’d best not be in a field that reapplies, and with gyro builds not so many condi cleanses anymore.

I think the kit would be too effective if they made the toolbelt much better. I mean I’d love it to be better but the elite is probably in a good balance spot right now. Plus orbital has a surprising intimidation factor and plenty of time for yourteam to setup a water field under neath it where everyone can run in and do some blasts for group heal. In the better pugs I do, I tell them that I will place water under the orbital, and whoever needs the heal has time to move in to there, I then also add other blast finishers.

Stilgar.6437:

shion.2084:

I find the worst case 1 v 1 wise for a scrapper is a good mesmer. Ele’s are more effecitve on point I think because of their lighting strikes and stun spams and projectile denial. I’m always more worried in a group fight when I see they have a good ele helping then a scrapper. Scrappers just can’t bunker they need to run about and avoid being pinned.

i actually think mesmer is one of the easier matchups. At least in my experience playing marauder with gyros and EG.
Point blank range blast gyro when they block with shield really messes em up, lots of cleave for illusions, reflect dome when they swap to staff, enough stability to deal with their CC, hammer 4 if they manage to get a burst off and my condi clears always seem sufficient to deal with whatever they can throw at me. Power shatter seems even easier.

Dont think i lost to a mesmer 1v1 since the season started. Necros and warriors give me a lot more trouble

Try my condi build against warriors. The decently high toughness… oodles of condi remove and constant barrage of condis is reasonably effective at taking warriors down. You have to kite away their initial opening however and never stand toe to toe unless you got your damaging block up.

Ah the good mesmers I play never enter this point blank range you speak of Their clones seem to however

Seiroxena.6350:

Resistance is fine as it is. Is resistance a problem to you ? Then use your boonstrip abilities and remove it on the target. Resistance is up again ? Then L2P.

Really Resistance is fine as it is. Just use boon strip and L2P

Ah right, and every class’ reasonably competitive meta has boon strip… our bad, the answer is so obvious.

Hmmm, as far as what you need to make conditions effective you are over generalizing. For instance for an engineer to be most effective they ideally want to take something like firearms that applies vuln and bleeed, and burn on crit. AND gives crit bonuses when bleeding. Which means you want to critically hit. Which means you probably want precision.

To the OP, no it would not be balanced. An engi relies on mobility they cannot tank like an ele etc. So the only way they survive is by moving about and active defence. Engi’s aren’t the top rated class in the meta anymore anyway (third tier now). So doing that would not balance things, unless the world were only thieves and engis

When I play engi, I have a nasty time against a good mesmer if I’m trying to cap a point against one. Warriors are a 50/50 and I believe come down to skill. I have limited stability access, so if they get me with the stun I go down in an instant. Elementalists can bunker me for ever 1 v 1 if they are good, plus the lighting bolts and area CC basically means I can’t toe to toe with them. A necro can insta kill me because I run leadership these days and have a gazillion boons up.. and well you know what necros can do. Most Guardians I can take unless their very good or in pairs. I can kill other engis… roughly 60% I meet. my non-meta build gives me an advantage against them. Revenants I have to kite forever I can kill them roughly half the time… you have to be really good at getting your active defences right. And theives I kill most of the time.

So in summary their are some classes Ihave to really watch for, and some I have an advantage against. Out of interes which class does the OP main?

Just think about your suggestion, how would they both balance the games with elites factored in and without? For sure the core mode would see one class ridiculously unbalanced, and they couldn’t fix it because doing so would screw up the with elite game.
Essentially given what a hard time they have blanacing with elite’s in (which involves altering non-elite traits to compensate for what elite’s do) you’d have to have an entirely separate set of skill definititions for Core. I think this should be done for PVE vs. PVP for really obvious reasons, but I can’t ever see wanting to relearn what all my skills do when I have a core fight vs a elite pvp match.

He means in downed state.

Scrappers can really be astounding rez bots with elix R Druids in general though are more useful if thier strategic about their teleport.

I find the worst case 1 v 1 wise for a scrapper is a good mesmer. Ele’s are more effecitve on point I think because of their lighting strikes and stun spams and projectile denial. I’m always more worried in a group fight when I see they have a good ele helping then a scrapper. Scrappers just can’t bunker they need to run about and avoid being pinned.

Try this for a primer…. if its still active. Should be Teldo’s healing turret guide (which is closely related to water fields.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhFB8GhChAw

I’ve been hammered by good guardians before. Especially in pairs….

Oh also make sure your utilities have access to a couple of stun breaks when starting off and that you can reliably get stability for when you need it. This will make you feel far less squishy. So elix B is a way to get stability…. or juggernaut … both are fairly easy to make use of. The most convenient stun break comes from EG.

Remember … an engineer is only stationary when he’s dead Engineers are squishy, and you have to pay much more attention to when you use your defenses, dodges, healing turret, reflects etc to stay alive. If you are used to a different class part of your feeling regarding squishiness will be because you can’t in fact tank things. Eventually you’ll get to the point where you can dungeon full zerk, but it takes a bit. When I’m feeling off my full damage game I throw in the trait line with kits in addition to my firearms and elixirs (when I do PVE I rifle). You dont have to alch/exp/firearms right off the bat.

And if your not really familiar with it… you really really need to learn how to make use of the water fields, combo’d with leaps and blasts that you have available.

Which class has the most access to viable continuously applied CC (against a solo and an area in case the two answers differ). I’ve noted a number of premades that run in groups of 3 or 4 and can continuously spam it to my great agitation. But rather than cry nerf I’d like to understand who the likely culprits are. The warrior one is the red box, so that I can easily identify. I suspect the ele is my main bane, but I’d like tips from the pros who use this synergistic tactic on how it works.

When I see this tactic I basically conceed point and lob mortar from a distance (but eles can make this ineffective too). I have thunderclap but its effects aren’t enough to make a serious break in the mojo. There are just some really strong shock and awe premades out there that cause no end of havoc to puggers.

In a way the image also conveys the idea that class balance is a lot better than it use to be (with the exception of 1 class…. which is still played a lot non pro)

Will give tools a shot tonight, and make up for might loss with Jug. See how that does for me. Feel I will miss the IP though.

I actually avoid exlix S because I find it unhelpful to not be able to know when it will trigger, and if a condi burst is what put me down I’m a dead man. Also in 1v1 I seldom lose but can go sub 25% at this time I’d rather not be giving up point cap and giving them time to get their stuff off cool down. I pretty much continuously have condis applying and want to keep sustained pressure and S interupts that. For the group scenarios where they all choose me for the trarget and they don’t apply condis… it would be amazing I grant you.

Well maybe if I try the purge gyro I can give up on Alchemy. But with such a low vitality I really fear conditions… and with the condi warriors out there….. shudder. I find the protection injection is useful for pesky theives and surviving their surprise bursts. IF I’m immediately down a lot in health I can pop the current elix H and then get protection stacking with the injection. Any thoughts on rocket shoes for the mobility and the burn?

“hat is the problem with the Juggernaut? It is a common and nowadays even kinda stereotype engineer-trait. But the reason for this is simple, it works. Even if you do not use the Mass Momentum (Scrapper), you get a good ammount of might stacks and a permanent single stability stack. Especially the stability, although it is only one tiny little stack, makes a huge difference and you a hard to catch player, even if you have no speedboosts at all. Also might-stacks improve both direct and condition damage.”

Another good point. I like IP because burn duration, and the ability to initially apply a bunch of stacks when combined with FT tool belt and the flame wall that I drop on folks when they’re stunned. Additionally that every 10 second application comes up handy in more drawn out 1 v 1 context where I don’t find my lack of stability an issue and the extra damage forces them to burn a cleanse (at which point I spread out my burning). Now I could get might from Jug… but I have so many elixirs and might application from HGH that I seldom really make use of it. The real appeal of Jug to me would be the stability, but I find you have to modify your play style to camp flame a bit to get good use of that and I am constantly rotating so find in practical terms it doesn’t work that well for my style.

Wow thank you for the feedback…. so to chunk this up a bit… you write

“Firearms (minor)
Let’s check your arms again. You have a hammer (melee range). You have a flamethrower (the farest skills have a maximum range of 600). And you have an elexir gun (with a range set between 450 and 900 – which is not much). In the first tier of Firearms, you have the trait “High Caliber”. That increases your ciritical hit chance by 10% as long as you are within a range of 240 to your target. Especially if you want to keep the hammer, I would go for that trait. Also the flamethrower usually forces players to nearly melee their targets. Your earth-sigil on the hammer only activates when you land a critical hit. So while using the hammer or flamethrower, your cirt-chance should be as high as possible. Even if you consider changing your weapon to pistols or rifle, I would stick to that trait. None of the pistol conditions will be any better with a 50% increase of the duration. Two are only for deception purpose, which require a duration of 0.1 seconds to be effective – in terms of cc”

But Heavy Armour gives me access to swift which combines with my regen, and swift helps me get in and out and generally has combat boosting that isn’t just reflected in stats. When an opponent is bleeding and I have fury from elix B I’m looking at 80% crit rate I think? Even without the range one… plus vuln application and effectiveness synergy with my off point opening mortar barage with the heavy armour exploit. It’s a tough choice.