Good to know

[HnRkLnXqZ.1870]

This is going to be a listing thread, where we can post our tips & tricks. Our class is rather complex and has a lot of hidden synergies and useful features. Of course there is the wiki and all the streamers and guide-writers, but I'm sure we make a nice list. Share your knowledge and experience. Hopefully we learn a couple of new things as well ^^.

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MECHANIST 

WVW
If you run boon-support (2-2-2), alacrity affects stationary siege weapons like catapults and flame-rams in WvW. While you are controlling the siege, your utility-skills are locked. But your Mech skills are still functional. So you can apply group alacrity via F2 and F3. If you are at a gate, let your golem hit it. That way you can get even more alacrity.

If you are running a combat build and happen to end up controlling siege, you do not have to swap out of it to change your build. Just open your traits and manually click on the icons. Can do that while attacking, as long as you are not in combat.

Even if your Mech attacks the gate, you will not enter combat-mode.

NORMAL

The Medizooka from the United Legions Waystation (IBS Mastery) works excellent with the Mech. Especially if you run boon-support, the bot will keep fighting and buffing allies while you are up in the air. I know the Medizooka is one of the weird things, a lot of people completely ignore, but it is not as bad as you might think. 


ENGINEER

Toolbelt skills do not have a shared cooldown. If you run a build that has F5 with the elite-toolbelt, you can swap to the Supply Crate. Drop the bandages. Swap to your real skill and enter combat. This method is pretty neat in arena-fights, where you have multiple phases with breaks in between. Works for all skills.

Slick Shoes is one of the few skills in this game that can interrupt evasion. If you are annoyed by the griffon mobs in LW4, you can use this to quickly dispose of them.

If you run Explosives, you can stack 2 explosion skill triggers. Just dodge and then do a skill with an explosion effect. This comes in handy when you are running Explosive Temper to get the your stacks up to maximum. It is also a neat damage boost.

It is possible to trigger multiple combo-fields with a single blast-finisher. You need a very good aiming and have to position yourselves/blastfinisher right on the outer border of one field.

There exist toolbelt versions for racial skills. A very cool option is the Sylvari: Grasping Vines, which grants you a 2 sec block skill. The human utility skills result in AoE cleanses. Hidden Pistol from Charr results in dual-pistol unload. There is very limited use of these skills.

Rocket Boots under water do not share their cooldown with the utility skill in the land skill-bar. If you run them in both skill-bars, it gets even weirder. 

HOLOSMITH

If you run PBM (Photonic Blast Module), you can utilize the heat-tiers of utility and sword-skills easily. Just heat up to 52 heat or more and leave the Photon Forge. I use this in combination with an FT build for farming. Especially the massive AoE pull from Hard Light Arena is very useful for farming events with tons of mobs.


SCRAPPER

If you happen to be the Superspeed buffer for an NPC or a golem in WvW, you can boost your output with the Med Kit. The heal skill has significantly shorter cooldown than the Medic Gyro and can be reduced even more if you run Tools. In WvW our Superspeed only lasts 3 seconds.

It is possible, but very difficult to time, to revive full dead people with the Function Gyro. If you see a downed ally and realize you cannot prevent their death, you have to cast the gyro slightly before they die.

Sometimes it is even worth to cast the Function Gyro for a player inside pulsing AoE. You need a little experience to see this, but you can do it to outlast the damage field. Then resurrect the player normally.

If possible, cast Defense Field (Bulwark Gyro toolbelt) above your Function Gyro to protect it from projectiles and CC. 

When you are doing races with transformations, e. g. Guild Races or the Dolyak Race in the Labyrinthine Cliffs. Buff yourselves with Swiftness and Superspeed. We just need to put out blast-finishers in a Lightning Field (Hammer 5, Function Gyro, Bulwark Gyro) to spam area Swiftness. Especially with the Guild Races, some of the animal movement-skills actually work with Superspeed. If you use it with the Quaggan transformation, you become a hyperspeed torpedo.

Edited January 12, 2023 by HnRkLnXqZ.1870

[shion.2084]

In the free for all pvp arena, the hammer 2 skill does not reflect or block projectiles.

[Limbo.4087]

Charrzoka has only 5 seconds to cooldown if you enter the holo forge

[shion.2084]

Rocket Jump when targeting a ranger will sometimes retarget for second and third jump to the rangers pet.

[Ghos.1326]

On 1/6/2023 at 12:39 PM, shion.2084 said:

In the free for all pvp arena, the hammer 2 skill does not reflect or block projectiles.

Indeed. Sadge

[Ghos.1326]

You can use the "swap weapon" key to quick swap out of a kit. This works well when using skills like acid bomb in elixir gun to cancel the leap, or when using hammer 3 to cancel the skill in general (after swapping into a kit after using the skill).

As well, however, grenade kit is the only kit right now in the game that doesn't have a 1s cd if you swap weapon key out of it, allowing you to go immediately back into the kit if you back out of it with said key.

[HnRkLnXqZ.1870]

HOLOSMITH
When you are using Sword, the Refraction Cutter above 50 % heat can be utilized to maximize damage output:
a.) If you run with the Flame Thrower Kit, you activate the Incendiary Ammo toolbelt skill. Each of the blades will count as a separate hit. So you can put all three burn-stacks instantly on the target.
b.) If you run the Explosives traitline, activate Refraction Cutter after dodging. That way the whole skill has Explosive Entrance, which is applied to the main-strike + the three blades. This means 4x2 = 8 strikes with a single button press. If you run stuff like Explosive Temper, you get 4 stacks with this trick.
Both can be combined to squeeze even more damage out of this attack.

ENGINEER
RUNES with bonuses that activate upon 'using an elite skill' work with the Mortar Kit. Both for equipping and swapping out of it. The only thing you have to keep in mind is the cooldown of the rune-effect.

Engineer has a regular weapon-swap, but it only works out of combat. That way we can take advantage of the On Kill sigils, such as Superior Sigil of Bloodlust. We equip another weapon in the 2nd slot with such a sigil and collect stacks. Then we swap to our main-weapon and use it in combat. As both weapons belong to the same gear-template, we keep the bonus of the sigil stacks.
Note: If you enter water, the stacks will reset. To prevent this, you have to use the same On Kill sigil on your underwater weapon. 

On Weaponswap sigils work for us, but not with our two weapon-sets. Instead, they activate upon kit-swap. What counts as weaponswap/kitswap for the sigil?
- Flamethrower Kit, Med Kit, Bomb Kit, Grenade Kit, Tool Kit, Elixir Gun & Mortar Kit
-  Photon Forge
- Entering and leaving water

On Healing effects like the Grenadier trait in Explosives or certain rune bonuses work differently with the Med Kit. Instead of the equip, they trigger with its toolbelt skill.

Hitting a target from behind or side effects can be triggered with AoE fields. Engineer has access to those via Mortar Kit, Bomb Kit, Grenade Kit and other skills. 

MECHANIST
Using Medkit on Mechanist leaves you without a proper healing-ability, as the F1 is replaced with a Mech skill. On Healing effects do not trigger with the Mech skill either.

Overclock Signet (Elite) can be used to summon the Mech, after it was destroyed and bypass the repair timer. However this only works when it left the screen completely. If the signet is activated when the Mech is still on screen (even flying out), it will be wasted.

Crash Down = summoning the Mech is a powerful AoE crowd control skill. Mechanist players often tell me, they have no CCs equipped. They just have to dismiss and call the Mech again.

If you are not running a meta-build, you can reduce the cooldown of the F1-F3 Mech skills by running the Tools traitline. It reduces recharge by 15 %, no matter what effects you pick. Although the tooltip is not changed, this affects the Crash Down cooldown when the Mech is in repair mode. If you run in on the boon/support mode (2-2-2), the sustain is significantly increased. If you want the Mech to tank for you in Open World or story content, this can be useful.

Edited January 12, 2023 by HnRkLnXqZ.1870

[Koensol.5860]

Here's some tricks/tips I found out that might be good to know:

 

- If you use a whirl finisher into a light or water combo field, it creates a projectile. For light its a cleansing projectile and for water it applies regen. These projectiles can be used on allies and normally won't apply to yourself. So what you do is you use this whirlfinisher when standing pointblank to your opponent. In that case the projectile will be destroyed 'on top of you' and you will actually receive the effect yourself. So on scrapper you can use shredder gyro into mortar 4 at point blank and you will receive repeated cleansing. 

 

- When using streamlined kits trait from tools, if you swap to elixirgun when it is up, you will drop a trail of puddles behind you that will root the opponent for 1 second. The thing is, EACH individual puddle that is dropped will apply the root. So there's ways you can exploit this into a much longer root duration. For example:

You jump on top of someone and activate elixirgun for the root proc. Then you use acid bomb to throw yourself backwards, creating a trail of root puddles between you and your opponent. Then swap to toolkit and use magnet to pull your opponent to you, through the entire trail of puddles. As a result your opponent is now rooted for multiple seconds, depending on how many puddles he got pulled through. If someone teleports on youby himself, you can also use a knockback to throw him through a couple puddles for the same effect.

 

- If you throw down elixir R's toolbelt skill (pulsing ground targetted ress) on yourself right before you die, the skill will stay active and will act as a self ress. The pulses are quite strong so you'll be ressed quite fast.

 

- Thumper turret, when overcharged, will launch someone. However, and this isn't shown on the tooltip, after a small delay it will launch your opponent again for a second time. 

 

- If you ever use moa (toss elixir X) in pvp, make sure to first use rifle 3 root before you moa them. This makes sure they cannot use the moa 2 skill to leap out of melee range. Apart from using the moa 5 skill for a short evade, they are 100% completely helpless.

 

- This one's probably a bug, but when you want to leave holo's photon forge to gain the effects of traits 'solar focussing lense' or 'prismatic converter' , you need to actually leave forge by pressing f5 again. If you leave forge by swapping to a kit, you will not receive the effect. 

 

- You can use throw elixir S to make downed allies invisible. So when an enemy is stomping your teammate, use throw elixir S to deny his stomp. You can take this opportunity to drop additional CC on the body or to start handressing your teammate. You can also use elixir S to ress while being invulnerable. 

[shion.2084]

You can use other skills after triggering Hammer 2.   You don't have to wait for the animation to finish.  So use Hammer 2, and also say auto attack or something for extra damage.

[shion.2084]

Flame thrower AA, and fumigate on E gun I think,  shoot through walls, and pillars, and the like (important for PvP where opponents think they are putting a column between you and them, surprise!).

Grenades don't seem to get reflected, but can be blocked.

You can affect people who have reflect with a  mortar if you land it outside the reflect and the AOE overlaps them.

Shredder gyro is a fun way to proc the courage sigil.

[Dediggefedde.4961]

- Dismounting in-fight also counts as weapon swap and triggers corresponding sigils immediatelly.

- WVW: Hitting a breakable wall with auto-attack will cause its chain skills and trigger its support effects. Examples:
  Stacking might on hammer
  Giving alacrity/barrier on mace to catapults

-MDF shares the heal pulses of Elixir gun-5 and mortar-5, amplifying the effects

- You can cancel hammer-3 by switching to a kit and then the weapon-switch button.

- On power builds, energy-sigil is often a dps increase over bursting/impact thanks to explosive entrance.

Edited January 31, 2023 by Dediggefedde.4961

[shion.2084]

19 hours ago, Dediggefedde.4961 said:

 

- On power builds, energy-sigil is often a dps increase over bursting/impact thanks to explosive entrance.

But you have to spend the time dodge rolling to get explosive entrance.  Is it still better than simply having hit all that time?

[Dediggefedde.4961]

True, I neglected the auto attack you could be doing while dodging.

But I come from a WvW background, so you don't get perfect rotation.

Most of the time, you don't get any rotation at all done.^^

You dodge anyway, and then the additional damage by explosive entrance exceeds the percentage from the sigil.

Outside PvE it also has the benefit of adding additional AoE bursts instead of a continuous increase. Those will more likely cause downed enemies. There is also the upside of having more evades, which is also very nice outside PvE.

[Dawdler.8521]

On 1/6/2023 at 2:27 PM, HnRkLnXqZ.1870 said:

Rocket Boots under water do not share their cooldown with the utility skill in the land skill-bar. If you run them in both skill-bars, it gets even weirder. 

Didnt they fix this "issue" late last year? Previously the skills where completely independant (ie you could get 4 rocket boot charges back to back if you did 2+2) but I am pretty sure they now are the same and share cd. (at least in WvW)

Edited February 3, 2023 by Dawdler.8521

[HnRkLnXqZ.1870]

On 2/3/2023 at 9:37 AM, Dawdler.8521 said:

Didnt they fix this "issue" late last year? Previously the skills where completely independant (ie you could get 4 rocket boot charges back to back if you did 2+2) but I am pretty sure they now are the same and share cd. (at least in WvW)

Imo it would be the best to go through the whole skill with a developer 1:1 in live gameplay. It is rather wonky to say the least.

The following functionality applies to PVE
2+2 is not possible indeed. What I have on my Scrapper is the following:
- LAND Utility 7 Shredder Gyro
- UNDERWATER Utility 7 Rocket Boots

When I go underwater, I can use 1 or 2 charges of Rocket Boots. The moment I reach land again, Shredder Gyro is fully functional without any cooldown. When Rocket Boots are equipped in both skill-bars, they share their cooldown.

The following functionality applies to WvW
- LAND utility 7 Shredder Gyro
- UNDERWATER Utility 7 Rocket Boots

Again, I can use 1 or 2 charges of Rocket Boots. The moment I reach land again, Shredder Gyro is fully functional without any cooldown.

When Rocket Boots are equipped in both skill-bars ...

- When you use 1 charge underwater and hit the land, the whole skill is on cooldown. No charges left.
- When you re-enter water and leave it again, that one remaining charge is useable on land again.

EDIT: How things should normally work?
If you use a skill in the underwater bar, the skill in the same slot on the land bar will be on cooldown. And vice versa. 

I've reported it a while ago. But it is a gadget skill and it involves underwater = nobody cares. I'll probably submit another report, as this post is actually more detailed than my last report. But my hopes of seeing this taken care of properly are rather low.

Edited February 5, 2023 by HnRkLnXqZ.1870
tested right before making this post