Guild Wars 2

I’m currently running a condition P/P build and while it works wonders in solo PvE and PvP of all kinds, it is HORRIBLE for events. I can’t put out enough raw damage in Orr for some of the more populated events (like Plinx) to get credit for kills. Even if I start shooting from beginning to end 0_o

Soooo I started thinking that maybe I should consider a power build… but only if it isn’t terrible. So, has anyone managed to pull this off? Power P/P?

I am currently running full exotic berserker gear with ruby orb and berserker accessories. a 30-20-0-0-20 build with elixer b, elixer u and grenade kit.

I am by far the definition of a glass cannon, and I still can’t kill anything before they move. The grenade spec is great against people who stand still, but the flight time and target reticle make it difficult to pull off. Rifle is bursty (for an engineer, my crits are on par with a warriors auto attack no crit) but no real sustained damage. I would say a DP condition build would be better…but that is what you are running.

For me, it comes down to this. Engineers have a million ways to gear, spec, play…but they all result in the same terrible outcome. The class just is not on par with others for damage or survivability.

It seems grenade spec against stationary targets and building to be a “healer” are the only real options. Unless you use mechanical hacks for auto attacking on bombs or something.

Do what everyone else is doing. Roll a warrior. There is a reason the engineer is the least played class, and its not because they dont look cool or enticing..its because they… plainly put, suck.

When I started doing the math of abilities, I gave up on p/p and swapped to rifle/grenades.

That said, I have toyed with the idea of doing p/p as a power/crit. For one, I like the flow of p/p moves. Its fun to play.
Math says it should be pretty viable.

2 hit reliably on coated bullets p1. giving .324×2 aoe. x3 on triple hits. More then that I am not sure even works, as never could clearly tell if it was happening.
.9s cast thus, .65 scaling aoe direct damage. rifle is .59. grenades… much much more. (but they are kindof op)
The direct bleed is direct hits only of course, piercing, but not aoe on explosion.
This is very important in this choice. The aoe only scales with direct damage, not cond. 2s direct bleed. .05/s scaling. .1 cond scaling.

PDV scales at .37/hit. 5 hits. 2second duration. Lower then war volley for sure. but still decent. 1.85power .1×10s scaling. 1cond.

Statics .37/hit direct. Not amazing. 2-4 stacks of confuse will likely do more in a fairly even power to cond ratio. But is also dependent on your target using skills. if they don’t attack, they dont take any damage.

Blowtorch .915 or .305 and 6s/2s of burn. .25×6 scaling. 1.5scaling full duration burn

PDV is 1.85power scaling every 8s, for 2s. +1cond
P1 at .65 +.1cond every .9s, is 1.3power scaling for 1.8s. (of note, if p1 is hitting 3times per target, pdv is a dps loss.)
Blowtorchs is .915 power +1.5cond every 12s. Burn makes even 3 hits of p1 do less overall, while p1 would technically burst more.

Pistols I feel work better with a power/crit then cond build in fact yes. Conditions gain a damage value innately from level. Free damage. Might also gives +conditions.

So, focus first on crit %, that will give both condition procs and scale your power. (which also comes free from might. ) Then focus on gaining power.

This then leads to the question.
Zerkers or rampagers. power/crit/crit damage. or power/crit/cond damage.
that I do not know.
spvp options are fairly limited. Ideally, I would want like, 500power, 700prec, 200tough, 200 cond, 10% crit damage. something like that.

Runes? a recent topic discussed condition duration. And I was surprised at how effective it was. PDV has nearly a 100% uptime without any. 6s duration on burn is fairly long. I don’t feel trying to achieve 100% duration on burns is a good idea. A target can only have 1 burn on it, from every source. if you have 100% duration burns, no one elses burns will do any damage. Wasted. poison has the same problem technically.
Longer duration confuse is always good. longer immoblize/cripple/blind.
You need 50% to get p1’s direct bleed to 3s. a huge boost in direct damage dps. Increasing the cond coeff per shot from .1 to .15. sounds low taken like that.
But consider over the course of 12s blow torch, the burn is 1.5 cond.
12s of p1 is 13 shots. .1 per shotx13=1.3 that single target bleed is almost doing as much as the burn. Granted 13 shots is only p1. pdv taking 2s would mean 11 shots, blowtorch would take 1 shot. 10 shots.
Pve/wvw food can give +40% duration by itself. HUGE.

I do mostly wvw and love the grenades on keeps and towers.

i run 30 explosives, 30 tools and 10 in firearms.

although i dont really like fighting with grenades on the open field, i can burst pretty good with rifle net shot, jump shot the f ability with grenades and usually hit anywhere above 5k, hit one guy for 8k once and then i just run around spamming nades if they dont die

30 / 0 / 0 / 10 / 30

Permaswiftness + permavigor = hard as kitten to kill

Bomb kit (for smoke/sticky), rocket boots (combo blast finisher for smoke escape, or smoke gap closer), and grenade kit (main damage)

Dodging is better damage mitigation than toughness and vitality combined. Unless you are manning siege gear.

1v1. No problem, well-timed dodges and grenades wrecks in 1v1 situations. Net shot, 2 knockbacks, 2 sources of blind, smoke+rocket = stealth + distance.

High skill cap for sure. I’d say most people would simply be unable to play this build due to its high skill involved and use of a massive number of skills to make it work well.

^ since editing is broken:

Burst damage is about 30k damage in ~3 seconds.

In groups, you provide massive aoe damage. Perma swiftness lets you travel, I tend to play scout and/or yak assassin. Perma 150% endurance regen = massive amount dodges. I can outrun pretty much ANYTHING due to the endurance regen and perma swiftness. Add that to the smoke bomb + rocket boots for a 900 distance stealth jump… and you really can’t be caught.

emoleas.4309:

30 / 0 / 0 / 10 / 30

Permaswiftness + permavigor = hard as kitten to kill

Bomb kit (for smoke/sticky), rocket boots (combo blast finisher for smoke escape, or smoke gap closer), and grenade kit (main damage)

Dodging is better damage mitigation than toughness and vitality combined. Unless you are manning siege gear.

1v1. No problem, well-timed dodges and grenades wrecks in 1v1 situations. Net shot, 2 knockbacks, 2 sources of blind, smoke+rocket = stealth + distance.

High skill cap for sure. I’d say most people would simply be unable to play this build due to its high skill involved and use of a massive number of skills to make it work well.

This really has nothing to do with what the OP is asking. It would be great if people could stop derailing topics.

It has been tried and does not work well. Due to the way scaling works on pistols a power build will get you no where unfortunately. The problem as a whole has to due with major issues with condition stacking limitations and poor condition scaling in small groups, small events, and solo. It’s not evident as much as it is in large scale combat and WvW.

Alternatively a rifle & grenade build will score you enough damage to get proper credit during events. If you don’t mind getting in melee range Bomb kit does great as well but as with grenades timing is a big factor since there is a delay in detonation.

People are cautious with grenade builds due to the mechanics of it however grenades can also work perfectly on moving targets its you just have to get use to time-to-land on the grenades and predict movement most people and mobs will always move in a very linear predictable manner. There is an option in preferences that will instantly cast ground-targeted abilities based on wherever your mouse cursor is at that particular time it’s a very useful option if you choose to go that route. Another little tip is middle mouse click for #1 ability in conjunction with the prefence option makes life easy w/grenades.

I wish Pistols were better off at higher level but until they decide to rework how conditions stacking and scaling works as a whole it will not be viable in large scale events with a lot of people and given the scale of development required to do that it will probably not happen any time soon.

I disagree. I already talked about it. but will again.
Pistols scale with power fine. Sure they aren’t grenades.. but nothing is.
.324 isn’t great that is true. But it is aoe. and with coated bullets. 2 or 3 hits.
.65 or .972 is quite high. And it has a bleed attached to it. +5% to bleeding target was not included. but will be there too.
Sharpshooter is nice. but its actual dps is fairly low.

Static shot is really really strong. 900 or 1000 range. Direct damage bouncing. Confuse x2 or x4. And blind. take your pick. every part of it is a really effective ability.

Elixir gun pairs with pistols well. Scales with power even better. offers long range, more conditions, and healing.
The weakness is no kb/stun/etc with p or eg. You might want ram or slick shoes in spvp to interrupt stomps.

Not to get me wrong. I think coated bullets needs work. it only effects 2 skills. and really only 1 well. I don’t know why p1 was nerfed. Its GARBAGE without abusing the coated bullet x2 max range bug. It is a bug, and its the only thing that does make it viable.
+ range trait is a mixed bag too. again, only effects 2 skills really. PDV needs to be close to not miss, so might as well not gain from it. 1 and 3 for pistols. to make the most of that max range bug on p1, you kindof want shorter range…
EG gains a ton from the +range though. from 900 to 1200, on 3 skills.

I do pretty well with P/P in Orr. I actually use 2 Rare Traveler’s Orrian Pistol of Traveler. Traits are 0/30/0/20/20. Remember, Crit>Power. I have 20 in alchemy to prolong the duration of Fury and Swiftness.

I’ve been thinking about it ever since being disappointed by P/P pure conditions. Something like 10/30/0/30/0 with H, FT, B and one other elixir. Take Juggernaut and HGH. Pair with Rampager’s with some Carrion’s to suit your survivability needs. Seems like it could be really strong.

Thanks for the replies everyone! I definitely think I might give this a try and see how it works out.

One thing I didn’t comment on was, there is a disparage between pistols and rifles.

I don’t know why this is. You might think faster attack. but they do not.
Exotic pistol 1025 max. exotic rifle 1205 max. (kits 969)
So when I say p1 is .324, and rifle 1 is .599..
I really mean,
p1 is .324*1024=331.74
r1 is .599*1205=722

So, look at that. when I said, p1 double hitting is .65. .65 is higher scaling then .599.
But its .65 of 1024, while rifle is .599 of 1205, and .599 or 1205 is higher.
This is of course a huge problem for kits as well. Except grenades which have so a huge raw skill coeff, that its irrelevant.

As I said, I can find no balance reason for 1handers to be just straight up weaker then 2 handers. But they are.
This is of course compounded by costing 70-100% more.
2 sigils, double token cost, double gold cost.
Imagine building 2 legendary pistols.

2 sigils is the only place, 2 1 handers beats out 2 handers.

Yeah, I feel that I kill things faster with P/P than with a rifle, when having Power+Precision stats.

Casia.4281:

Its GARBAGE without abusing the coated bullet x2 max range bug. It is a bug, and its the only thing that does make it viable.

What bug are you referring to?

“I wish Pistols were better off at higher level but until they decide to rework how conditions stacking and scaling works as a whole it will not be viable in large scale events with a lot of people and given the scale of development required to do that it will probably not happen any time soon.”

What is your definition of viable? I’m running the Plinx chain every night and get loads of tags. I’m running P/P, full Knight’s exotic armor, Carrion pistols, extended pistol range, coated bullets, and the only MF buff I’m using are the 26% peach tarts. I’m probably getting 20-30 drops per chain, including the gladiator events. Dual pistols are perfectly fine in large group events.

The bomb kit is a bloody riot! i especially love the toolkit ability for it. once you have downed a player you can just give them a “candle” and walk away slowly like an action movie and watch the explosion in the background and their body fly

Pannonica.5378:

Casia.4281:

Its GARBAGE without abusing the coated bullet x2 max range bug. It is a bug, and its the only thing that does make it viable.

What bug are you referring to?

If you hit a target with coated bullets while standing at max range, you will hit it twice every time.
Now, maybe they can’t fix it, and that is why p1 was nerfed. I don’t know. Thats pretty bad design though if p1 is useless, until you get 30 in firearms to get a trait that makes it viable.. Its weird. coated bullets increases p1’s damage 200 or 300%. And needs to, in order to make it slight underpowered instead of horribly useless.

Needs work.

I have yet to see anything from Anet declaring it is a bug. I have seem them on many threads discussing the skill. It is very likely it is not a bug at all, but a side benefit from the trait, based on how the skill works.

I have recently been running a high crit, high crit damage p/s build. Don’t really wanna give all the details, but it has been incredibly effective in open skirmish fights. I don’t think I’ll ever go back, I love it.