Guild Wars 2

.

.

-- Intro --

Hola!

Engineer here. Been trying to do some farming in Orr, and kinda sucking at it, tbh.

Normally I use grenades - I’ve gotten pretty good at predicting placement, so, the accuracy is OK even on fully mobile targets... problem is that one throw generally isn’t enough to actually tag a mob; and the grenades spend such a painfully long time floating through the air that by the time the second throw reaches the target; it’s already dead.

Tried pistols, per recommendation of the engineer forum. Traited pistols are great, in that they are essentially small railguns that will nail everything in the line of fire, BUT the damage they do is just bad... need to shoot a mob in the face 4+ times in order to get credit for the kill, and like the grenade problem, the zerg of other players have generally killed the mob by then, which means no loot for me.

Best luck I’ve had so far is with the flamethrower; one full blast of the auto attack (~2 sec channel) is generally enough to get a tag, and being a cone AoE, I can hit groups and successfully tag *most* of them... but... flamethrower seems to seriously piss mobs off; as soon as I start firing, I get focus fired and either spend the rest of the fight dodging and kiting (and not tagging) or die and hope the players around me are nice enough sacrifice their own tags to res me... which sometimes happens, and sometimes doesn’t. Traited flamethrower is probably the engineer’s ’tankiest’ build

-- Tl;dr --

Aaaanywho, I’m thinkin it’s time to make an alt (not just for farming, but because I’m an altoholic and won’t be satisfied until I have maxed one of each class) so if I’m going to take the time to level a new toon, I might as well make one that can be an effective mule for my main...

So the question is: Is there a ’best’ class for tagging as many mobs as possible, which has the surviveability to not die as soon as said aoe tagging begins; and that said surviveability is passive enough that I can continue tagging new mobs as the fight progresses (not spend all my time dodging like a spider monkey that’s been cross-trained in parkour and ninja)?

If there isn’t a ’best’ class, which would you say rank the highest? (if you have a specific build in mind, please feel free to share it!)

Muchas gracias, amigos!

Engineer is supposed to be one of the best class for tagging with grenades. Other than the tool bet skill with decent damage, you have an AoE auto attack.

Problem is, probably you are at a wrong place. If you are farming in Cursed Shore or wherever lots of AoE people are doing the same thing, everyone would be complaining unable to tag because it is simply overpopulated. Swamps of mobs dying in a few seconds are not supposed to be the objective of the events. It is kind of design flaw to let such thing happen. Players are supposed to spread across the map, not everyone at one location for easy farm.

Well I certainly can’t comment on what class is the best, because I haven’t played them all. But I can say I’ve never had any problems “tagging” on either my ranger or guardian, and that’s not even my focus while I’m fighting. All the ranger really needs is the longbow aoe and a shortbow with pierce and you’ll hit plenty of stuff. As for the guardian, the greatsword leap of faith and whatever the spin aoe is called work well together, as the first puts you right on top of everything, and the second hits them. The greatsword normal attacks also have plenty of potential to just smack lots of things nearby.

I would imagine ele probably has some nice aoe’s that would tag well, but I can’t speak on that from experience.

I think engineer is the worst at tagging personally. Pretty much every other class has decent AE. I play a Thief main and I have no problem tagging things with sword, dagger storm, traps, or shortbow. On my engineer alt I have definitely noticed how hard it it’s to tag things before they die or I do.

For Engineer and grenades, make sure you have the trait to make ‘splosions bigger. Other classes I’ve had AoE success with: 1) D/D Elementalist with Burning Speed to the middle of the pack, then Ring of Fire and get out of dodge; Necromancer with either Staff Marks with enlarged area traited and/or wells with increased area trait; and warrior with off-hand Axe; use skill 5, move through everything and profit.

The rangers good with longbow 5th skill Barrage . But a Neco is 3x better with 4 marks and 3 wells if you don’t tag everyone then you must be dead. The biggest problem with with a playing a Neco is you never have enough backpack space .It not uncommon to have to sell off 2-3 times during the larger events. Then on top of all that he still has a his Flesh golem to keep the killing up well he’s away ! Most pets like a ranger pet would have followed him to town but once the flesh golem start fight there know stopping him.Truth is he just does what ever he want its very common to look back and find him fighting with another player.

Honestly if you’re having issues with grenades/bomb kit as an Engineer then yes, it’s where you’re at and not the class. I’ve played everything but Guardian and Engineer is the easiest to “tag” stuff. The person I play with as my Mesmer the most plays Engineer and he gets two times the loot I do with the same drop rate as I have and I work HARD trying to get those enemies tagged with my 1-handed sword’s AoE.

Necromancer’s 2-handed staff IS great for tagging, but in the same way that Engineer’s grenade kit is. It’s the same mechanic. I’ve felt such sadness seeing how it took so long to place my marks as Necro that the enemies have already passed them by. LOL So it’d be the same situation. Ranger may be a better bet with a long-bow+short-bow, but I am in full agreement with the poster Hologramx. A suggestion: don’t follow a zerg if you can help it, try and get a five-man karma farm party instead and try and keep away from the giant karma zerg groups.

IndigoSundown.5419:

For Engineer and grenades, make sure you have the trait to make ‘splosions bigger. Other classes I’ve had AoE success with: 1) D/D Elementalist with Burning Speed to the middle of the pack, then Ring of Fire and get out of dodge; Necromancer with either Staff Marks with enlarged area traited and/or wells with increased area trait; and warrior with off-hand Axe; use skill 5, move through everything and profit.

I believe you’re referring to “Forceful Explosives” which, alas, does not effect grenades; only bombs and mines.

@ everyone else-
thanks for the tips! sounds like I’ve been doing it wrong by following the zerg; will try to operate in smaller groups… i’ll do the alt thing later :P