Guild Wars 2

I’ve only just recently (within the last 2 weeks) hit 80 on my Engineer. I played a Guardian since launch and fell out of love with them. If you knew me personally, you’d know I hate alts and usually stick with the same character in a game until the end.

I rolled Engineer because the mechanics seemed very different, refreshing and fun. Now that I’m 80, I’ve been tearing through the internet looking for builds that suit my play style. I guess I’d break it down like this:

sPVP: 0% (I just haven’t gotten into it even though I’m a PVP oriented player in the past)
Wv3: 20% (It’s low because I wasn’t happy with Guardian)
PVE/Misc: 80% (Hmmm)

Now, I would like these numbers to change. I’m not bad at PVP. In fact, I’m quite confident in what I can do. I guess I’m looking for that almighty sweet spot of 50/50 in terms of PVE and Wv3.

I found an HGH build online that someone used for sPVP and it looked fun so I copied that (gear, traits, runes, sigils etc). It’s fun. Problem is, I’ve been a Guardian for so long I can’t tell if it’s good.

What I’ve done gear wise is I’ve gone Condition/Vitalty/Power on 5 pieces and Condition/Precision/Power on one piece. My runes are 2 Lyssa’s, 2 Strength, 2 Fire to eek out as much might duration as possible from Elixirs. With weapons I went Condition/Vitality/Power as well because the ones I really wanted were unattainable at the time. On those I have Corruption and Battle (more Might).

Trinkets are a bit messed up right now as I’m currently in the middle of replacing them with ascended pieces of which I have two. Precision/Power/Condition for my accessory slots. Precision/Power/Toughness for my Amulet. Condition/Toughness/Precision on my rings.

Now, I feel as if my Toughness stat is low. It’s in the low 1000’s and my idea was to get Toughness on my rings so I’d have 4 pieces (including back) with toughness on them. I felt as if it’d be a decent balance. The Accessory slots would stay P/C/P.

30/0/0/30/10

I went this route because I felt a reliable swiftness in Wv3 (hell, even PVE) is too important…so I nabbed Speedy Kits in Tools.

Alchemy (30): II: Fast Acting Elixirs V: Blood Injection XI: HGH
Explosives (30): II. Shrapnel VIII. Short Fuse XI: Grenadier
Tools (10): VI. Speedy Kits

I run P/P.

Elixir H
Elixir B
XXXX – I swap this skill in and out a lot depending on what I’m doing
Grenade Kit
Supply Crate

The XXXX portion I can never make a decision on. I’d love to run Tool Kit but then my get out of jail free card in Elixir S would be missing. I usually put Flamethrower here for PVE – although I’m not certain FT does me any good with this particular trait/gear set up.

A little help in direction please.

for condition build your missing a very important 5 points in firearms, this will get you ALOT of bleed stacks from flinging 3x grenades with each attack, also cleansing formual 409 is way more useful than blood injection, for switness elixer H and B may be enough or you can swap to medkit and drop a stim then switch back to elixer H if out of combat. For a condition build the condition damage is a little low as is toughness. I would definitly look at switching to some rabid gear. Also rune choices are decent, but getting overall boon duration is usually better, I believe its recommended to take 4x runes of altruism, and 2x monk or water.

In my opinion HGH condition nades is not good anymore in WvW, there have been changes to some of the best elixers (i.e. removal of stunbreak from elixer R, elixer S is basically a self daze), as well clogging up your utility bar with elixers in not very efficient use of all the tools the engi has access to. Also the meta has changed to directly counter it, any thief, mesmer, or necro will eat your boons for breakfast. And any other class will laugh as your conditions fall off from stacking -duration. All while you hit them for piddly direct damage.

So what do you advise? SOME Rabid or ALL Rabid? No nades? Then what? I’ve experimented but can’t seem to come to some sort of a decision.

Typical P/P HGH Grenades is 30(V, VIII, XI)/10(VI)/0/30(II, X, XI)/0 + H/B/Nades/S. You sacrifice the Speedy Kits for: Bleed on crit, 20% recharge redux on Pistols, 100 precision, and 100 cond dmg.

I nabbed Rabid gear. Just can’t decide on the runes. Altruism and Monk/Water seem weak on Engineer. It’s something I’d use on Guardian it seems.

That seems solid to me, Sagramor, but if what Linc says is true then that meta has left the station.

I got full Rabid gear (trinkets are all the same right now) and I only gain 10 condition dmg. I lose a ton in attack but gain toughness. Seems like a wash to me.

Iconik.8712:

That seems solid to me, Sagramor, but if what Linc says is true then that meta has left the station.

You already bought the gear, so give it a shot. I personally don’t play Grenade HGH because that much ground targeting makes the game not fun anymore. I play the toolkit version of P/P HGH. It’s essentially the same gear, and trait resets are cheap so you could always try that.

I’m pretty good with nades to be quite honest, but I spend my time 50/50 ’tween nades and pistols. I went 4 Altruism/2 Water. Full Rabid. Going Condition/Precision/Power/ on accessories. Condition/Precision/Toughness on both rings and Precision/Power/Toughness on Ammy.

Pistols are still Condition/Power/Vitality.

This solid?