Gilj

I get people asking me for the specifics fairly often, and I don't think anyone's actually made a thread for what "the" grenade build is, so I wrote this:

Why run grenades?
Pros:
- Best damage option for engineers, bar none.  In fact, in terms of overall damage across all classes, grenades is pretty high on the tier list.
- Safe and easy.  You attack from 1500 range, it's not going to get much easier than that.
- Excellent group support.  With Steel-Packed Powder, grenades give the best vulnerability stacking in the game from a single character, with a consistent 19.5 stacks with no special runes or gear.  This alone significantly boosts your party's DPS output.  Using blast finishers in fire fields, you can also maintain high stacks of might on your entire party, which, again, boosts DPS output substantially.

Cons:
- Reliant on conditions for optimal damage.  Stacks to 25 bleed easily, so you will conflict with any other condition damage dealers in your party.
- No auto-attack.  You have to constantly keep the cursor on your target and mash skills to maintain damage, which is a pretty big turn-off for some people. (Try turning on Fast-Cast Ground Targeting in Options, it helps a lot)

The quick version:
If you don't want to read this whole thing, this is what I run:
http://gw2skills.net...4tSLIE;TIAjMmEA

Full rampager gear with zerker jewels (Exquisite Ruby Jewels), 2x Superior Lyssa, 2x Superior Mad King, 2x Superior Monk runes.  Also, Giver's pistol + shield combo for the extra +20% condition duration.

As for your specific, detailed options:

Gear:
You can run:
- Full berserker gear.  Gives primarily direct damage, which is better in general (no cap, extra damage against low-armor targets, benefits from vulnerability, works on objects that cannot be conditioned), but lower total output than the other two options.
- Rampager gear with berserker jewels: Best damage output, but a lot of it comes from conditions, which aren't as good as direct damage for the reasons listed above.
- Rabid gear: Full condition damage.  Almost as high as rampager damage output, but all your damage comes from conditions.  On the plus side, however, you get a bunch of toughness, which makes you substantially harder to kill.
- Giver's weapons: Each Giver's weapon gives +10% condition duration, whether it's 1h or 2h.  That means pistols and shields each give +10% condition duration, and it stacks.  You will lose a bit of damage, but the extra +20% condition duration substantially increases your total vulnerability stacks and makes it much easier to cap bleeds, among other things.  More of a preference thing than anything else.

Runes:
Again, several options:
- Bleed duration: Krait, Centaur, and Afflicted Runes all increase bleeding duration by 15% at two runes each.  Good for maximizing raw bleed output.
- General condition duration: Lyssa and Mad King both give general condition duration at 2x.  I personally prefer this over bleed duration since it'll also affect the duration of your vulnerability, chill, and immobilize applications.  Note that Major and Superior runes apply their effects independently, so you can go Superior Lyssa x2, Superior Mad King x2, Major Mad King x2 for +27% condition duration.
- General boon duration: Monk, Water, and (major) Sanctuary Runes all give general boon duration.  Good for improving your uptime on Swiftness, Regeneration and Vigor and your total Might stacks.
- Might duration: Hoelbrak, Strength, Fire, and Pirate runes all increase Might duration.  Better than general boon duration if all you care about is raw might stacking.
- Altruism: 6x Altruism gives you Might and Fury every 15s by switching to Medkit (which itself has no ICD).  I'm not a huge fan of this option since it forces you to take Medkit, but it's good if you want the group fury.

Weapons and Sigils:
In general, P/P or P/S is best for a grenade build since you won't actually be using those weapons normally, and you want the extra sigil.  In general, /S is better than /P, since you get two blocks, two CCs, and a blast finisher.  /P is primarily for quick zone clearing by stacking a burst of burn on a mob.

Your options for sigils are:
- Earth: Increases your total bleed stacks.  I'm not a big fan of this since it's actually only about 3 extra stacks total, but it's an option if you feel you're not getting enough bleed.
- Strength: I prefer this over Earth.  Strength has a lower proc rate but shorter internal cooldown, which favors the grenade kit's high attack speed, and it'll improve your damage across the board.
- Battle: Gives more total might stacks than Strength, but can be a pain since you have to remember to unequip your kit every nine seconds to get the effect.  Also, Strength actually gives more total Might when you're hitting multiple targets with your grenades.
- Force: 5% extra direct damage.  Safe bet, but not as good for grenades since it won't affect your condition damage.  I'd only run with this if you're regularly running in groups that can stack 25 might on you without Strength.
- Accuracy: Not as much raw damage increase as Force, but makes your damage output more consistent and slightly improves your chance to proc Sharpshooter and your other sigil.
- Bloodlust/Perception/Corruption: Not a huge fan of stacking sigils, but these are an alternative to Force or Accuracy if you're in a zone where you can kill lots of weak mobs quickly.

Traits:
The most important part.  You basically have three options here: (Traits left blank are mostly optional, so put whatever you want in their place.)

Raw DPS variant:
http://gw2skills.net...0DADAAgPPer0CCB
Just like the name suggests, raw DPS and not much else.

Balanced variant:
http://gw2skills.net...6Tki8zy 84tSLIE
Sacrifices a bit of DPS in exchange for getting constant vigor and Backpack Regenerator, plus a bit of extra health and boon duration.  You don't actually lose that much damage due to the extra might stacks you get from the extra boon duration, so this is the variant I prefer.

HGH variant:
http://gw2skills.net...0jHDymsPPer0CCB
You don't actually get as much might from HGH as you'd think (more on this below) but it does enable you to take elxiris, if that's what you prefer.  It's an option regardless.

Utilities:
Heal skill: Healing Turret is the default here; fast recharge, AOE regen and condition removal, and can be detonated in its own water field for extra healing.  You can take Med Kit instead for the Swiftness/Fury buff, or if you're using Altruism Runes.  Obviously, take Elixir H if you're using HGH, but otherwise stay away from it.

Grenade Kit: Obviously.

Supply Drop: Mostly just because the other two elites kinda suck.

For the last two utility slots, your options are:
- Bomb Kit: Bomb Kit is really good because it has a spammable fire field (Fire Bomb), which can be used with blast finishers to maintain high stacks of might.  It's almost as good as HGH without the trait investments.  The blast finishers you can use are: Big Ol' Bomb (drop it right before or after the Fire Bomb), any turret detonation (Rifle is best because of low CD), Throw Mine, Magnetic Inversion, Acid Bomb.  You can also do the same with Smoke Bomb for group stealth stacking.
- Rifle Turret: Rifle Turret is the best turret for DPS, and also serves as a fast-recharging blast finisher for might stacking.
- Net Turret: The high-uptime immobilize on this turret is really good against certain bosses, such as Mossman or Archdiviner, who move around a lot and lessen the effectiveness of AOE.
- Throw Mine: Serves primarily as a fast-recharging blast finisher for might stacking, especially with Speedy Gadgets traited.  The toolbelt skill also gives a good burst of damage and vulnerability stacks when used right on top of the target.
- Elixir Gun: Gives group regen (Healing Mist and Super Elixir), condition removal (Super Elixir) and a blast finisher (Acid Bomb).  Good range of utility, but I'm not a big fan of it since the Acid Bomb can be annoying to time to get the blast finisher before the Fire Bomb ends, but after the Big Ol' Bomb explodes.  Get it down, though, and it's a good utility to have when it won't send you flying off a cliff.
- Elixirs: Mostly for use with HGH builds.  The amount of might you get from two elixirs actually isn't that much more than what you'd get from blast finishers, and they're not AOE, but you get the benefit of the elixirs themselves, obviously.

Playstyle:
That's about it, actually.  Playing the build itself isn't actually that complicated, just stand back and throw grenades on cooldown, and get your blast finisher rotation down so you can do it quickly and consistently without cutting into your grenade time too much.

Heres mine:





the actual build is my Bleed build:




1g-1.5g / hour

http://au.ign.com/ar...or-guild-wars-2

These details seem pretty new to me:

Quote

https://www.guildwar...2-for-mac-beta/

This is the announcement I have been waiting for Arenanet following in Blizzard and Valve's footsteps.

Characters of different races and Professions sometimes say different things when you get a boon, fall on low health etc.

I've played Asura Necromancer myself and I'm now curious to see what lines the other Races/Professions say!
I'm probably making an Alt sometime and the lines will probably play a role in which race I pick.
Here are some of the lines I've heard.

Asura, any Profession:
"I've already beaten you, you just don't know it yet!" (Entering combat)
-Some other combat line I can't remember now for some reason-
"Why won't anyone... help me?" (Low health/downed)
"Help... I don't have long..." (Low health/downed)
"I was getting tired of laying around!" (Revived)
"It's about time!" (Revived)

Boons/conditions:
"Accelerate!" (Swiftness)
"The thrill of speed!" (Swiftness) ...I'm not sure about this line. Quickness?
"Initiating feedback loop!" (Retaliation)
"I feel six feet tall!" (Might?)
"Infuriating!" (Fury?)
"Body heat..diminishing." (Chilled)
"I'm hemorrhaging!" (Bleed)
"High toxicity!" (Poisoned)
"I feel exposed!" (Vulnerability)

Asura Necromancer:
"I've made life! ...of a sort." (Summoning Minion)
"Each more hideous than the last!" (Summoning Minion)
"Now there's a good monstrosity!" (Summoning Minion)
"Arise, my brainless, arise!" (Summoning Minion)
"I should work on making those last longer." (A minion dies)
"I suppose I can make an another one."
"I will miss you always... You nameless thing."

Asura Elementalist:
"Feel (fear?) my turbulence!" (Air Attunement) ...lol

Human lines:
"I could outrun a centaur!" (Swiftness) Yeah everybody knows this one.
"Urge to kill raising!" (Fury?)
"I dare you, hit me!" (Retaliation)
"Go ahead and hit me, I'll just hit back! (Retaliation?) Could be a Norn line.

Human Necro:
"It started as a corpse, and now it's a corpse again." (Minion dies)

I think that Necromancers of all races say these:
"I am death incarnate!" (Entering Death Shroud)
"I have become death!" (Entering Death Shroud)

Also all Elementalists seem to say things when switching attunements but I dunno the lines.

Other lines:
"And you thought I was just a pretty face!" (???) maybe a female-only human or Sylvari line?
"This rose has thorns!" (???) maybe when a female Sylvari enters combat?

"I could move mountains!" (Might?) Dunno if it's a Human or Norn line.

I'm sure there are others I've heard and forgotten.
So, tell me yours!

Soon™

wait.... wrong company.

So...someone who did nothing but grind to 80 as fast as possible, and who seems to do nothing but grind in every game, is complaining about this game being a grind-fest?

Sorry, but I seem to have misplaced my sympathy.

Just a paraphrase of a conversation I had with a friend who is level 80. Do you agree with him?

MeLvL40: Dude! your lvl 80 already?

HimLvL80: Yup, easy peasy.

MeLvL40: What do you think of the game?

HimLvL80: It wont last long

MeLvL40: Why do you say that?

HimLvL80: They lied

MeLvL40: About what?

HimLvL80: Grind. They said they were anti grind but grind is all there will be to do

MeLvL40: Whoa.. what about dungeons, crafting, WvW, Legendaries etc..

HimLvL80: Grind, grind, grind, grind...  you do each dungeon 4 times then pick one if you want that specific armor and grind it. No need to ever do the others again. Crafting hehe.. fancy cover for grind. WvW? right like you can get in? If its this hard to get in now when half the population is playing PvE what do you think it will be like when everyone is 80?

MeLvL40: Well that leaves Legendaries but I will give you the grind argument on those.. you could start an alt.

HimLvL80: So now my progression is based on starting over and repeating the content?

MeLvL40: Storyline will be new

HimLvL80: Ya, didnt a major MMO based on personal storyline just flop?

MeLvL40:  You mean SWToR? hehe. So your not having fun?

HimLvL80: I am having a blast.. but it wont last

MeLvL40: You still have SPvP and Orr you havent done.

HimLvL80: SPvP is a mini-game, but I will do some after Orr. In a month we will go back to pandaland.. in two most non-casuals will move on to something new.

MeLvL40: Well you still have Orr

HimLvL80: ... if thats all I have it better be freaking amazing.


Just curious if this is his personal bias or actually reflects the hardcore communities opinion.

Lettuce onto the game servers so we can try your method.

LOL! Just got this in my mailbox:

"Log in Three Days Early and Play - Guild Wars 2 Headstart has Started!"

LMAO!

Prokofiova, on 25 August 2012 - 11:44 AM, said:

Anyone else feeling the same? Not wanting to progress knowing it will get deleted, doing things over and over again. it's not a matter of, "don't play then'', I want to play, I still have an eagerness to play. Just realizing what I do will get deleted or not have the newness factor.

Hoping this feeling doesn't carry over to launch.

There are people, like me, who are sick of the "gear grinds" in other games. I'm tired of being required to run through dungeons over and over, just so I can have good enough gear to move on to the next set of dungeons. I'm sick of missing out on content in a game because I don't have the gear to survive the high end zones. I'm sick of PvP where a new person gets taken down in one shot because they can't stand up to the guy full of uber gear.

In GW2 people are on a more-or-less equal level, so we can concentrate on skill instead of gear. I'll be able to survive in the difficult dungeons. If someone takes me down in PvP it'll be because they were more skilled, not because they had better gear. And, to me, that makes a huge difference.

The_Kaizz, on 06 August 2012 - 04:14 PM, said:

Which is great.

No game was created with the intention to make players say, "look how hard I have worked!". Classic MMOs were created to keep people playing (and thus paying) longer. When players found themselves doing content that was not fun just to get a better item, they rationalized it into believing it's a status symbol. And really, the beauty of the quote above is that it's an exact reproduction of what happens in classic MMOs. Getting those items isn't hard; earning them isn't a matter of skin, it's a matter of being willing to suffer through content that isn't fun. Little wonder that so much of the "value" in them comes from the idea that "if you want it, you will have to suffer as much as I did!".

GW2 isn't trying to make players suffer. It's trying to be fun (like any good game, for the records). So no, hopefully there won't be anything in the game to make people say "I really hate what I'm doing, but I'll continue to do it anyway". ArenaNet respects their players more than that.

Today we have an interesting post written by Neato on tips & tricks you might not have known about during your first BWE play-through.

I found a few that some may have not noticed and figured I'd share them with the rest of you, and everyone else can add their own too!

I'm sure you've heard the complaint... "We can use skills even if we aren't in range and there's no way of knowing if we're out of range!"
But I learned that's wrong. I actually thought this too, and thought they should make the skills turn red or have a red bar over them when out of range, that is... until I discovered that they already do. It's the number. If you're in range, the skill number is white, if you're out of range it's red. Here's a visual example, watch skill #4 and F1, F2, F3:



Next, the complaint... "If I finish off a monster and have skills queued then they'll auto target the next mob and possibly agro something I had no intention of agroing!"
Well, this one's true. But there's a few workarounds...

1) In Options, just disable Auto Targeting. Now, for your game to not have become suddenly incredibly difficult... you need to go into Options -> Control Options and set Targeting Foe - Nearest to a hotkey you can easily use. For those familiar with GW, you may want to use C as the hotkey. From now on, you'll have to target manually using C (or clicking), but if you finish something off you won't start attacking something else (unless it's in your line of fire).

2) This method is a little harder in some ways and easier in others, but it's just a different way of going about it. Rather than disabling auto targeting, instead we want to set a hotkey in Options -> Control Options. The option is Targeting: Hold Lock (locks the auto-target while held down). So, you can set this to something like say... Shift, and then when you're about to kill something you hold down Shift (or whatever hotkey you chose), and it won't select a new target once your current one is dead. All you have to do is let off the "hold lock" key you designated to begin auto targeting again. Overall, the best all around solution I think. Very useful.

Next... "Where's the Guild Panel?!"
There's no button at the top left for it, so it's a little hard to find. But there's a hotkey set for it, just hit "G".

Next... "How do I sheath/unsheath my weapons?"
This one's easy, there's a hotkey for it but it isn't set. So you gotta go in there and set it. It's called Action: Stow/Draw Weapons, and there you go!

Next... "Chat is too transparent and too small, I never even notice it's there, and there's no tabs or anything! I have to keep using these stupid slash commands to switch chat channels. They had a good thing with GW and shouldn't have changed it."
I feel your pain. I thought this too, for the longest time... That is, until I figured out that it wasn't the case.You should see this down at the bottom left hand corner of your screen:



Click that little icon next to [Guild], which for you will probably be [Local]. Show/Hide Chat Panel. Then, it'll come up. I have mine resized, but it should look like this...



And here's what all that junk is...

#1 Show/Hide Chat Panel (toggle)
#2 Where you type.
#3 Area where text appears.
#4 Settings

• You can change the size of the font displayed in the chat panel here.
  
• You can also change the profanity filter to various levels.
  
• You can also enable timestamps or channel tags.

#5 Tab settings

• Click another tab so it's active to edit its settings.

#6 Close tab.
#7 Add new tab.
#8 Drag this to resize the chat panel.

Next... "The towns are too freakin' huge! I get completely lost, and having to run all over the place is a major pain in the butt!"
Indeed it was, until I discovered I could use waypoints in town at no charge. Hit M to pull up your map. There are 3 levels. Above ground, ground level, and under ground. You can click each of the levels to show a different map. Wherever you need to go, just find a waypoint near there and use that to fast travel to that location rather than getting lost or running all over the place trying to find it. This proves very very useful...

That's all I've got for now... feel free to add your own!

Updates! - May 04, 2012

"I hate having to find X weapon for Y class, I end up having to play with some weapon I don't want for so long!"
Well if you have a little bit of money (something in the range of 50 or so copper) then you can head to your "home." For instance for human noble, this would be in the Salma District - the place you have your party. If you go there at another time, you have your own personal instance. It has all sorts of merchants in there. You can find an armorsmith and weaponsmith as well. Oh and there's a dye npc as well. He'll take your colorful seeds and take a day to convert them to random dyes. If you have plant food then he'll do it instantly.

"Having to hit F and click each item individually to loot them is so annoying! They need some kind of auto loot."
There is an auto-loot system actually - it's in Options. You still have to hit F, but it'll automatically pick up everything for you so you don't have to click each individual thing. It can still be somewhat annoying if there's an NPC near you since there is no dedicated loot button and you'll tend to "interact" with the NPC a lot by mistake, but it's worlds easier than clicking each item individually.

"OMG I have this stack of X and I can't split it!"
Try alt+clicking and dragging the stack to open the split dialog panel.
Thanks Umbradomo for this tip!

"I've tried to mail items to my alt but it says that I can't send stuff to myself!"
At this time mail to other characters on your account can't be done, but...... Your bank is account wide so you can put items and cash in there and any character on your account can access them. This is great for the times you get a nice weapon you can use but an alt may be able to.
Thanks Umbradomo for this tip!

"I wish there was an easier way to sell things..."
You can sell things at the trading post from anywhere by right clicking the item and going to sell at trading post. You only need to head to the trading post to buy things, and collect what your items sold for.
Thanks Enenion for this tip!

"I wish there was an easier way to aim these ground target skills..."
There is, actually. There's a fast-cast ground target option and it'll automatically cast them for you without having to aim. But, that's not all... There are four ways to cast ground target skills:

• Press hotkey, aim ground reticle, cast by pressing left mouse button.
  
  
• Press hotkey, aim ground reticle, cast by pressing hotkey again.
  
  
• Aim at ground with mouse cursor first, rapidly tap hotkey twice to simulate fast cast. This retains the ability to aim with reticle (tap once instead of twice), or cancel the cast with right mouse button, when needed.
  
  
• Enable fastcast ground targeting option in menus, aim at ground with mouse cursor first and tap hotkey once to cast instantly. No ground reticle will ever appear, no second chance to retract or hold the cast if a situation changed.

Thanks Trei and highteqz for this tip!

"I wish there was some kind of crafting material storage..."
There is, actually. And not only that, but you can right click on crafting materials to add them to your collection and they'll be transported to your bank instantly.
Thanks to Linfang for this tip!

"I wish there was a way to easily swim up and down..."
You can swim directly up by pressing the spacebar and directly down by assigning a key to that action in the options menu (it has no hotkey by default).
Thanks to Enyth for this tip!

Updates! - May 05, 2012

New! "What do all these area of effect circles on the ground mean..?"
Red circles on the ground have a bad effect on you, blue circles have a beneficial effect on you and white circles have no effect.
Thanks to Lanka for this tip!

New! "This PvP armor looks so boring!"
You can spend the glory you earned from PvPing to purchase new looks. These glory merchants will sell you rank 1 vanity PvP armor at 1500 glory and items costs around 500-1000 glory each.
Thanks to Lanka for this tip!

New! "I wish I could add markers to the map..."
You can add your own markers (waypoints) to the map, by using Alt + left mouse!
Thanks to Lanka for this tip!

New! "I've seen some people linking things in chat. How do they do that?"
Shift+click an item/waypoint/point of interest will allow you to link it into the chat log. Doing so with a waypoint for example, will allow anyone that clicks on it through the chat log to pull up the map showing them its location and allowing them to travel there if they have unlocked it.
Thanks to Lanka for this tip!

New! "How do I join PvP with a friend?"
Right click their name (Party list, guild list, etc.) and select, "Join Friend in PvP". You can also go to the PvP Channel NPC by the LA Portal, any channel which contains a Friend will have an icon beside it.
Thanks to Dastion for this tip!

Thanks guys, keep them coming!