Guild Wars 2

Talking about a traditional 3-kit rabid 6/2/0/4/2 build for WvW roaming, using either a sigil of battle or strength (possibly both.) Does this seem like a good idea, or am I barking up the wrong tree here? I know the current suggestion is typically something like Balth or Antitoxin but I had enough seals laying around from the dungeon and the runes looked interesting.

Also, as a secondary question, is offhand pistol viable for WvW? Not running anything that procs off interupts so shield feels like kind of a waste in WvW.

They’re certainly useful, but mostly for longer fights. Might building has a long ramp-up time unless you’re constantly proccing sigil of strength, so they’re more useful in larger fights, or against very tanky targets.

Pistol offhand can certainly be used, but it’s not too useful if you’re already got 2 or more sources of burning. It’s best, again, when you have multiple targets you can hit with its burning. Be aware that you will have a serious drop in survivability compared to shield though. I would not recommend it unless your only source of burning is incendiary powder and you have low +burning duration.

Don’t think those runes fit in a 3-kit rabid build but more in a p/p hgh. Lost popularity since elixir-r got its stun break removed, but you’ll be able to play a boon fight against a necromancer :P

Slapped something together. No need for speedy kits, just Drop Stimulant while traveling.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fdAQJAqalcTpdrVXxALseNyahAyOjEdSR/YgBA-TFSLABHoHwGlfleCAAQDBHq/g1+Dx+AACSJIpAKXaE-w

P/P has all the conds you’ll need but you’ll have to stack ‘on critical’ and boons to apply enough pressure. Shield is useful for its stun and working together blasting water fields while fighting larger groups, but require more kits and a healing turret.

I have a rabid set with those runes and 3 kits, it works very nicely. 25 stacks of might, my burn gets 960 per tick is pretty crazy, it is a great build

Yes they work very well.

http://youtu.be/Qx96chY48wI?list=UUsHOFAItMtDUtFbitlK_7Gg

Hello frands! Vee Wee here, #1 Engi NA and world first rank 80!

They are ok runes! Unfortunately there are much better alternatives now ever since the Incendiary Powder nerf! Before you could take both Incendiary Powder and Enhance Performance together! Enhance Performance + Aristocracy Runes + Sigil of Battle = HGH caliber might stacking without sacrificing utility slots and survivability going HGH!

Balthazar runes aren’t that good either because you can reach the cap of 100% condi duration without it! Vee Wee personally uses Adventurer but also recommends Scavenging, Antitoxin, Perplexity, or Nightmare!

Offhand pistol is good if you don’t run any burning outside Incendiary Powder! Burning is our strongest condition so it’s good to have multiple forms of it!

Hope that helped! Wahoo! Bye frands!

Thanks for the helpful opinions, guys! I think I’ll drop the runes but I’m going to stick with offhand pistol.

I tend to have a set of gear with each of the runes Vee Wee mentioned.
Increasingly, I am liking Adventurer (which I never would have put on had she not mentioned it). With invigorating speed, energy sigil and adventurer you are looking at a rather insane number of dodges. Dodges help in big and small fights.

But, on the other hand, if you wind up in a zerg and you know there is a reasonable chance of being “backline”, I often opt for a more offensive set. Here you have choices but overall, I do like runes of undead (in this situation more than any other) because you can keep stacking condition damage (stacking sigil, battle sigil or bursting if lazy, etc) and get some rather incredible ticks. The issue with Perplexity, Krait, Scavaging etc is that they benefit you and damage A player where undead will increase damage to all players hit by your conditions.

I see a lot of antitoxin runes, but frankly if you are running them you really want to switch to almost an “anti-stun” build and probably move points to toolkit to get leg mods etc. Then you will want to take -condition food which hampers your +condition duration need. Fair tradeoff, but I often find instead of going antitoxin and staying with conditions it is time to make a power build. By themselves, antitoxin really don’t provide enough of a -condition duration impact (for me) to justify just using them as anything but a platform for more -condition food, traits etc. I have them. I use them, but too often it is too large of a sacrifice.

When roaming, Perplexity, Balthazar, Krait or any of the “big boost” to a single condition are very useful on the offensive side. Perplexity is perhaps the best because it has an easy way (interrupt) for an engineer to stack quite a few stacks on a single target. Krait allows for lots of bleeding and your bleeding is often AE focused plus what it does to your crate (while one trick) is quite amazing.

I know the argument that you can reach 100% condition duration without runes that target a specific condition. True, but at a high cost. You will get 70% just getting to grenadier and eating +40% duration bonus. Nightmare runes which impact ALL conditions add +15% (if you can stand to PvE for them). Now you are at 85%. That last 15% really matters. You could get a weapon sigil (but our sigil slots are precious) etc.

Another reason I have found Balthazar often better is because -40% condition damage is well better than -24%. With the Balthazar runes, you can really afford to take negative condition duration food versus plus duration food OR in a guild raid you can switch depending on the flow much easier. It is that ability to switch with a single button (eating the different food) that makes them quite interesting in wvw to me.

Scavaging are great 1v1 or in small gank groups because of the net damage/heal that life steal brings. But that health won’t come close to a dodge. Adventurer always seems to win out since trying it. If you just want the extra damage, well undead is more condition damage as typically your toughness is a lot higher.

In short,

Adventurer is best all around
Undead is min/max condition damage and good when you can otherwise protect yourself in a zerg
Perplexity is king of roaming because of the “flash” effect of adding lots of confusion stacks from combos that interrupt, your pistol and your confusion bomb.
Antitoxin allows you to switch builds to be very stun resistant (great for using bombs)
Krait brings out a LOT of increased damage on bleed stacks
Balthazar can protect your biggest condition (fire) and allow you to switch between -condition duration and +condition duration food as the fights ebb and flow.
Scavaging does a bit of healing and keeps much (not all) of the condition damage increase of undead. (Kinda meh except in pvp or solo roaming).