Guild Wars 2

FYI I’ve been gone since July of last year. Are grenades still required for max dps regardless of if scrapper? In Raids and Pve? If so how close do other options come and are they acceptably viable? I personally found grenades to be unexciting and dull so rather curious on the current state of things before I jump into buying the expansion and playing again.

nades are everything. theres no escaping it

You can go without nades, but for optimal dps they are required sadly. I play engi without nades for open world and mesmer for tryhard content

why so much hate for nades ? i find them fun and really really strong …

PierPiero.9142:

why so much hate for nades ? i find them fun and really really strong …

No hate. It’s just a dislike of the play style associated grenades it’s a personal preference thing. They’re strong and very effective but so much so they still seem to overshadow all the other options/kits the class has available.

From game launch up until July of last year I used them extensively but I could not stand the mindless grenade tossing anymore when we could possibly be doing so many other things. It was more acceptable in PvP however even then 80% of the time you could get away with just running in circles and throwing them at your feet until you hit the top 5% of the pvp player base and it was a fun strategic thing at that point and enjoyed using them in those circumstances but for pve/wvw it was quite literally boring with grenades.

edit: words

In PvE I have been enjoying a (questionable) Flamethrower Viper build, with the Scrapper line equipped for the gyros. I particularly enjoy the synergy between the “gain might/stability with flamethrower” trait with both the “gain might when you have stability” and “gain 3 sec quickness when over 10 stacks of might” (both of those scrapper traits). So I have permanent stability and permanent ~12 stacks of Might (without strength runes!) When I have a flamethrower equipped.

By-the-numbers, grenade setups are probably stronger, but seeing 10k burn ticks and 6k damage per FT cycle doesn’t feel weak.

At the end of the day, especially in PvE, maximizing your DPS output should take a backseat to playing a class and style that you enjoy. I don’t know anyone who plays a build like I do, and I’m ok with that, because Viper Flamethrower with Gyros is just too freaking fun for me to give up.

To answer your question, no matter the build, you must take Grenade Kit to maximize dps. Doubt that will ever change sadly.

kits are the core mechanic of engineer since 3 years. If you don’t like them perhaps you have to play other classes Nades are the stronger kit as dps …in general , for me , nades, toolkit and eg are the best things Engineer has

the fact that kits are required to make nearly every build… viable, I guess thats the word I use, is the only thing that keeps engi from being my main. Its not that I dont like kits, I hate that I NEED to use them when engi has so many other things I love

Azure.8670:

the fact that kits are required to make nearly every build… viable, I guess thats the word I use, is the only thing that keeps engi from being my main. Its not that I dont like kits, I hate that I NEED to use them when engi has so many other things I love

Perhaps it is not the right profession for you. Kits are something like attunements for elementalist… one of the core mechanics and they give engineer the ability to play without weapon swapping. If you don’t like them , imho, it is not the right class for you. It is like as elementalist, hating attunement swapping…

Azure.8670:

the fact that kits are required to make nearly every build… viable, I guess thats the word I use, is the only thing that keeps engi from being my main. Its not that I dont like kits, I hate that I NEED to use them when engi has so many other things I love

lets see other classes camp 1 weapon for dayz and succeed at everything, hmm?

Azure.8670:

nades are everything. theres no escaping it

If you’re min maxing nades should be there but there are plenty of powerful builds without them. I don’t use them in pvp and I barely use them in WvW. In PvE Raids are the only thing that probably require them. Hammer is a powerful weapon if using scrapper.

Professor Marvel.7584:

In PvE I have been enjoying a (questionable) Flamethrower Viper build, with the Scrapper line equipped for the gyros. I particularly enjoy the synergy between the “gain might/stability with flamethrower” trait with both the “gain might when you have stability” and “gain 3 sec quickness when over 10 stacks of might” (both of those scrapper traits). So I have permanent stability and permanent ~12 stacks of Might (without strength runes!) When I have a flamethrower equipped.

By-the-numbers, grenade setups are probably stronger, but seeing 10k burn ticks and 6k damage per FT cycle doesn’t feel weak.

At the end of the day, especially in PvE, maximizing your DPS output should take a backseat to playing a class and style that you enjoy. I don’t know anyone who plays a build like I do, and I’m ok with that, because Viper Flamethrower with Gyros is just too freaking fun for me to give up.

It would be nice to see how a Viper-equipped, might-stacking, boon-duration, FT-camping, Scrapper build compares to nades … alas, we will never get those numbers. I hear what you’re saying: I easily get 25 might stacks, perma-stab, as well as procing swiftness, fury, vigor and now QUICKNESS while maintaining reasonable conditions on multiple foes.

I know it’s not ‘sexy’, but camping FT has so many possibilities but I doubt anyone is brave enough to try them.

PierPiero.9142:

kits are the core mechanic of engineer since 3 years. If you don’t like them perhaps you have to play other classes Nades are the stronger kit as dps …in general , for me , nades, toolkit and eg are the best things Engineer has

I never said I had any problem with kits. I said I personally found grenades boring in most, not all circumstances(PvP). The smart thing to do would be to balance the other kits and weapons to be truly competitive options and the kit choices left to play style preference instead of dictating a part of your play style based around 1 overly dominant kit out of the plethora of options available to the class.

I do find it unlikely to change at this point in the game though given their track record with previous engineer balancing passes.

It should be noted that elixir gun is in the PvP meta not grenades. They have also just improved toolkit so it may see more use.

ft > grenades

morrolan.9608:

It should be noted that elixir gun is in the PvP meta not grenades. They have also just improved toolkit so it may see more use.

That’s actually good to know. However in PvP there has almost always been a variety of viable options though. My concerns are mainly stemming from the apparent lack of options from a min/max standpoint for raids/pve post expansion. I came here to inquire about this before purchasing the expansion and playing again. At the very least it seems like it may be interesting for pvp.

In PvE raids, you need nades. Yet FT will probably soon leave the meta and bombs’ll be back.

Azure.8670:

the fact that kits are required to make nearly every build… optimal, I guess thats the word I use, is the only thing that keeps engi from being my main. Its not that I dont like kits, I hate that I NEED to use them only in raid when engi has so many other things I love

Fixed that for you

insanemaniac.2456:

lets see other classes camp 1 weapon for dayz and succeed at everything, hmm?

Other classes get two weapons by default, though. Or four attunements.
If we don’t go for kits, that “1 weapon” is all we have, along with the utilities and toolbelt (and even then, it isn’t like we’re the only class with additional F-skills, yet we are the only one with a single weapon set). Thus we should work well using that single weapon and whatever utility is available – be them kits or not.
If they ever meant for kits to be that important, they should have made those the core mechanic. That would have essentially made us a sort of an elementalist-knockoff. And probably would have brought some better balancing, too.
Instead we’re designed in some other way, while still being balanced like we were some elementalist-knockoff, and we have to rely on kit to do anything well.

I use grenades ofc, but also scrapper hammer. It’s pretty strong and has some nice synergies like depleting break bars with skill 5 and skill 3, or if you need a heal, place a water field with healing turret or mortar 5 and smash it with skill 3 for a massive 3x area heal.

Manuhell.2759:

insanemaniac.2456:

lets see other classes camp 1 weapon for dayz and succeed at everything, hmm?

Other classes get two weapons by default, though. Or four attunements.
If we don’t go for kits, that “1 weapon” is all we have, along with the utilities and toolbelt (and even then, it isn’t like we’re the only class with additional F-skills, yet we are the only one with a single weapon set). Thus we should work well using that single weapon and whatever utility is available – be them kits or not.
If they ever meant for kits to be that important, they should have made those the core mechanic. That would have essentially made us a sort of an elementalist-knockoff. And probably would have brought some better balancing, too.
Instead we’re designed in some other way, while still being balanced like we were some elementalist-knockoff, and we have to rely on kit to do anything well.

incidentally, if you play ele and then swap your f_ hotkeys with your utility hotkeys, then engi will most likely fit you like a glove. and vice versa. unless you havent gotten yourself used to using kits.

engi isnt actually designed in some other way. the 2 are very similar. the most major difference is that all of eles kits are entirely tied to their weapon and very static, while engis attunements are modular and self contained and even optional.

literally the only reason i dont play ele as much as engi is because the games support for bindable hotkeys is actually extremely lacking. hotkeys are account bound, and since i picked up engi first, im used to that certain style and in order to play ele i would end up changing my hotkeys every time i change toon in order to feel actually comfortable.

Grenades were never required for max DPS.

DGraves.3720:

Grenades were never required for max DPS.

In pve? Please explain this one

Azure.8670:

DGraves.3720:

Grenades were never required for max DPS.

In pve? Please explain this one

I’d best not. Let’s presume I said nothing. That’s just a fight waiting to happen.

DGraves.3720:

Azure.8670:

DGraves.3720:

Grenades were never required for max DPS.

In pve? Please explain this one

I’d best not. Let’s presume I said nothing. That’s just a fight waiting to happen.

I’m at work bored and the worms are chewing at the seal of the can. Let’s get it on

DGraves.3720:

Azure.8670:

DGraves.3720:

Grenades were never required for max DPS.

In pve? Please explain this one

I’d best not. Let’s presume I said nothing. That’s just a fight waiting to happen.

No fighting. If you’ve got legit math showing a build without nades performing dps equal to or greater than nades build then by all means do share.

DGraves.3720:

Azure.8670:

DGraves.3720:

Grenades were never required for max DPS.

In pve? Please explain this one

I’d best not. Let’s presume I said nothing. That’s just a fight waiting to happen.

If you have proof of your claim and the math to back it up I find it hard to imagine there will be any fighting , quite the opposite. People will welcome it greatly. Scrutiny of how the results are calculated? Sure. Fighting, no.

It actually requires no real in-depth math, just a simple observation; the rifle can beat the grenade kit in DPS. So we need to give 1 “condition” for this though and that is that all strikes hit, this is moreso for the grenade kit actually than the rifle since people have to manually aim the grenades and don’t the rifle.

Considering only AA and taking traits related to both specifically grenade base from gw2wiki is .33 with rifle base as .65. Okay, rifle attack speed according to the wiki is .84 in the notes and according to the wiki and for practical purposes I’ll just 1s as the launch time between grenades since that has been debatable that it is .5s since as long as I could remember (not including aiming time). I’m doing this specifically because tooltip on both sort of lies but rifle would drop to .75s (which would instantly make rifle win) so there has to be some give and take.

Okay, so with that as set up there’s no real “math” to this, grenades get +17% since they are explosions for 10% and apply vulnerability for 7%. Rifle gets a 10% aspd boost and 20% faster cooldown. So .84 *.9 is .756. With this set we can do the following:

60/.756 = “attacks per minute”

60/1 = “attacks per minute”

So 79 attacks for the rifle and 60 attacks for the grenades again not including the time to aim or the efficiency of auto-attacking and automatic repetition. Multiply these by the coefficients, grenades will get 1.16 (rounded) for their total and rifle will get its .65.

79 * .65 = 51.35
60 * 1.16 =69.6

The first thing anyone wants to do is say “you just proved yourself wrong!” but this is where the kicker comes in; the autoattack on rifle alone is only 18 points (raised to whatever power and precision, etc.) difference but furthermore the main attacks of the rifle, 3 – 5 have much higher coefficients.

The number of bleeds required to equate one hip fire by coefficient alone is about 11 so without 11 stacks of bleed being applied at one time the condition effects are not sufficient to overcome rifle AA, grenades do not have burning, the highest coefficient on a grenade is 1.5 but the cooldowns are much longer on grenades for the most part.

It gets boring from here on out because the PvP outlook is even worse but the PvE outlook basically doesn’t really support grenades because taking condition duration inherently weakens direct damage and for all rights and purposes without anything else just looking at the coefficient is sufficient to decipher which is worth more. Because DoTs have natural crests and maxes and take time to achieve those crests and maxes it is impossible to compare true DPS until the crest is reached but that takes, if one used Shrapnels ability timer and 100% duration, at least 25s to begin measure which means that in that 25s you have “DPS lag” in which direct damage of the rifle completely outplays the DoT condition which, if one takes Viper’s again forces a hit to the power and thus a lowering of true damage output.

In short a Beserker/Assassin rifle build can’t actually be outdone by a B/A grenadier alone. Grenades on their own do not have high enough coefficients to be “BiS” damage choices, do not apply enough conditions reliably in order to be “BiS” hassle / condition damage, and worse yet take up a slot on your really awesome slot bar which could be used for something else.

And again this is presuming you never miss the grenades and have a perfect aim time of 0s. It isn’t even realistic; if we presumed the average player hit with 90% accuracy against moving targets of slow speed and large hit box (don’t get me started on smaller or quicker) the DPS drop results in 62.64 AA and that isn’t considering a missed or redirected special attack in the rotation.

Going further rifle gives you movement options and grenades do not. The blind and the chill have their places but movement options, ability to immobilize, constant and aim assisted damage regardless of the movement of the enemy, and various skills that can easily compensate or are outright better give more utility as well.

This is depressing me. I used to play conditioneer with grenades. >_< Oh what a fool I was. I have never seen the mathematics or examples that showed that there was a truly tangible difference in correct rotation between using grenades specifically and anything else.

Pistols have quicker cooldown and more consistent condition application, Elixir Gun is it’s own class of weapon and shouldn’t be compared to anything else because that isn’t how it works (but people do it anyway), bomb and wrench completely outclass it but they are close quarters and thus should but bomb specifically in damage and wrench in utility, flamethrower is stupidly synergetic now and needs no explanation, and that’s about it.

My conclusion is simple: Bombs are not the worst but they definitely aren’t the best for dealing damage. They used to hold some real sway back when trait lines gave stats because their line was +300 power / +30? (I forget) critical damage but the original grenade kit didn’t even throw three, it threw two, and … eh, a history lesson for another day, but there was a reason why that line was so critical and where this all came from in the modern era I have no idea.

Basically if it stands still the whole time, you don’t have to aim, and you can just press 1 … use mortar. It hits for .8 base and gets the 10% boost, is an explosion, attacks faster, has a wider hit area (meaning lower aim time w/o trait), applies vulnerability, and actually does attack as quickly as it’s tooltip says. It also does everything but apply bleed that grenades do.

But I think and play a little differently than most others. My mantra and guiding concepts probably differ heavily from yours. I consider “more” than the perfect rotation or the idiot enemy who just takes it like a champ while you pummel it.

dont base your claim on autos, autos suck. =/

insanemaniac.2456:

dont base your claim on autos, autos suck. =/

I had to. Autoattack is the most readily available attack. If I had based it off of, say, Shrapnel Grenade that would have greatly tilted this in the favor of even a pistol because pistols apply more bleeds in the 6 seconds (5s cooldown + 1second activation) cooldown. You cannot compare non-auto-attack bases (which is one of the reasons why I said “I do my math way differently than you guys do yours” ) because if you were to compare it to say pistol’s “Poison Dart Volley” since poison stacks intensity now, you would again start to find that grenades fall far, far behind and the kit itself doesn’t have as many damaging conditions as just basic pistol.

You absolutely must not do it that way since contained therein the time in which one Poison Dart Volley goes off 2 Shrapnel Grenades go off, 6 bleeds, 5 stacks of poison, but what fills those gaps? If we use auto-attack we also eliminate the “lost time” problem.

Wahooo!

Full buffed realistic damages of the ’nade kit and the rifle on a zerk spec are like this:

Rifle
Hip Shot: 7056 damage per second
(5777 power / 150 condi / 0.84s cast time)
Blunderbuss: 19960 damage per invested second cast time
(14215 power / 2551 condi / 0.84s cast time)
Jump Shot: 14733 damage per invested second cast time
(21799 power / 300 condi / 1.50s cast time)

Grenade Kit
Grenade: 8192 damage per second
(7742 power / 450 condi / 1.00s cast time)
Shrapnel Grenade: 17873 damage per invested second cast time
(12920 power / 4953 condi / 1.00s cast time)
Freeze Grenade: 12203 damage per invested second cast time
(11753 power / 450 condi / 1.00s cast time)
Poison Grenade: 15256 damage per invested second cast time
(11753 power / 3503 condi / 1.00s cast time)
Grenade Barrage: 28924 damage per invested second cast time
(28024 power / 900 condi / 1.00s cast time)

Thiese are the numbers of the max dps build, so yes the rifle would deal slightly more damage with more AS. But the difference is minor and I say the grenade kit is indeed required for optimal max dps. There is NO way around them.

Btw, you mustn’t compare purely a single attack in one sec. This is stupid and should even make sense to an ettin :P You have to compare full rotations until all skills are ready again and then break it down to the damage per second. To compare auto attacks on the engi is even a bigger tabu, since IF you use an auto, it should either be bomb or hammer, because those two are the only ones with more than 10k (no quickness) dps.

Greez!
- Ziggy

Xyonon.3987:

Wahooo!

Full buffed realistic damages of the ’nade kit and the rifle on a zerk spec are like this:

---

Rifle
Hip Shot: 7056 damage per second
(5777 power / 150 condi / 0.84s cast time)
Blunderbuss: 19960 damage per invested second cast time
(14215 power / 2551 condi / 0.84s cast time)
Jump Shot: 14733 damage per invested second cast time
(21799 power / 300 condi / 1.50s cast time)

Grenade Kit
Grenade: 8192 damage per second
(7742 power / 450 condi / 1.00s cast time)
Shrapnel Grenade: 17873 damage per invested second cast time
(12920 power / 4953 condi / 1.00s cast time)
Freeze Grenade: 12203 damage per invested second cast time
(11753 power / 450 condi / 1.00s cast time)
Poison Grenade: 15256 damage per invested second cast time
(11753 power / 3503 condi / 1.00s cast time)
Grenade Barrage: 28924 damage per invested second cast time
(28024 power / 900 condi / 1.00s cast time)

---

Thiese are the numbers of the max dps build, so yes the rifle would deal slightly more damage with more AS. But the difference is minor and I say the grenade kit is indeed required for optimal max dps. There is NO way around them.

Btw, you mustn’t compare purely a single attack in one sec. This is stupid and should even make sense to an ettin :P You have to compare full rotations until all skills are ready again and then break it down to the damage per second. To compare auto attacks on the engi is even a bigger tabu, since IF you use an auto, it should either be bomb or hammer, because those two are the only ones with more than 10k (no quickness) dps.

Greez!
- Ziggy

These are “vacuum” numbers. They aren’t realistic. For instance “what’s the crit. rate?” and “Is the Engineer alone?” and “Where are the buffs coming from?”

The problem with posting these numbers is two fold:

1. They presume isolated instances. The “Lost Time” problem is basically the idea that the optimal rotation for different strategies involving different skills shifts because of the cooldown on those skills. Comparing a skill with 8s cooldown to one with 5s becomes complex because people isolate the attack to produce what I call “PWM” or “Perfect World Mathematics” which involves basically a stasis in which the moves are the only things that trigger in that time.

2. It’s algebraically wrong. First question is whether or not we can terminate variables? We can terminate might for instance because 875 is added to both damage equations netting an effect of 0. There is absolutely no point to greater than half of those numbers. Critical damage (ferocity) has no value because it’s net zero as it can be applied equally and is. Critical chance is generally averaged in PWM so it’s worthless too because it’s a base factor whether 100 or 50 or 20%. The values are not simplified which inflate them and make them very hard to read for those who aren’t versed enough to know to terminate them to find the real values (despite having found the coefficients this way).

The only things to take into consideration are A ) attack rate, B ) coefficient base ( which you can actually take and add with condition effects for a unified base since they are applied at the same time and are easily solvable), and trait values.

PWM ignores player error, realistic sources for boons and debuffs, implicit costs and optimization, and tends to add in false values, temporary values, and “crest” values (where instead of looking at something on the whole looks at something in a moment and expanding that moment out to the whole) as the norm.

A quick example, if you have a 6s bleed how many seconds does it take to hit the crest? 7. 1 second to apply the first, 6s to apply the next 6, and in the 7th second snapshot you have the crest of these bleeds, or the “max”, but general math I’ve seen done actually goes about this backwards by calculating out the whole bleed and applying it then dividing it which doesn’t capture an accurate wave behavior between applications, dodges, weapon swapping, alternative moves, etc.

But let me stop here. I really don’t want to get into this again. Basically those numbers are hyper-inflated junk in my opinion.

PierPiero.9142:

why so much hate for nades ? i find them fun and really really strong …

Because it’s literally been the only maximum DPS option since the game came out over three years ago?

My warrior has changed quite a bit over the years—from greatsword, to axe/mace, back to greatsword, to longbow. The same could be said of my guardian, who used to almost exclusive use greatsword, then mixed in scepter and sword for dungeon clears, used hammer in high end fractals, and so on.

It’s very healthy (and I think essential) that meta builds change over time; where certain weapons/builds fall out of favor, ArenaNet has always managed to make other options viable or eliminate those they felt have made the game sterile and boring.

Even beyond that, most of my professions have had their utilities shift significantly over the years, and on my guardian I find myself regularly jumping between different consecrations, shouts, traps, and signets depending on the boss fight.

For engineer? Maybe I’ll slap on Slick Shoes if the raid needs additional CC, but triple-kit rotations have pretty much always been ran, with the Bomb Kit and Flamethrower alternating spots over the years based on some random skill that by some miracle does fractionally more damage than spamming Shrapnel Grenade.

The engineer got the barest, uninspired trait overhaul in the expansion. Kit DPS is still best over all, even though most veterans like myself have grown beyond tired of the “Grenade Kit meta” and never wanted it in the first place. Literally the only thing that changed is that we got access to three grandmaster traits, which ended up only further favoring Grenade Kit builds.

When Guild Wars 2 first launched there was tons of potential for the FT/EG combo to fit nicely into fractal runs just as much as the guardian hammer does, and still to this day it baffles me that a 1200 range weapon does more damage than both of our melee kits do (Tool Kit, Bomb Kit).

I put up with it for years, even writing guides for builds I begrudgingly hated putting together after our myriad of suggestions and literally thousands of words written in suggestion to ArenaNet to create bosses/instances where the FT, bombs, the wrench, or even the Elixir Gun to precedence over spamming grenades were not only completely ignored but handed down nerfs to said builds while keeping the Grenade Kit where it’s at. Sure, the GK has gotten its share of nerfs, too, but nothing enough to give incentive in taking anything else.

I thought raids would finally be the space for the engineer’s build diversity seen in PvP to finally take root, but I was sorely disappointed. I’ve since left the PvE guild I helped manage for over two years since pretty much nothing about the state of the game there impresses me, and I’m stuck running brokenly OP Scrapper builds with so much sustain an effing rubber tree could 1v1 7 of the 9 professions in the game easily.

Guild Wars 2 is in a very rough state right now, and the fact that the Grenade Kit after an entire specialization overhaul and a fifty dollar price tag is still the backbone to our PvE build is seriously pathetic.

So yeah, I hate it. And if they honestly don’t figure out a better solution by the time Black Desert drops I think I’ll peace out ’til the next expansion.

Wahooo indeed!

DGraves.3720:

Xyonon.3987:

Wahooo!

lot’s of stuff, scroll up.

Greez!
- Ziggy

These are “vacuum” numbers. They aren’t realistic. For instance “what’s the crit. rate?” and “Is the Engineer alone?” and “Where are the buffs coming from?”

Not realistic? These numbers are made to be realistic – they are based on the raid environment. Every power engineer has 100% crit chance, the engineer is not alone, obviously, he has 9 allies and the buffs come from them. Those are not “vacuum numbers” as you describe them.

DGraves.3720:

The problem with posting these numbers is two fold:

1. They presume isolated instances. The “Lost Time” problem is basically the idea that the optimal rotation for different strategies involving different skills shifts because of the cooldown on those skills. Comparing a skill with 8s cooldown to one with 5s becomes complex because people isolate the attack to produce what I call “PWM” or “Perfect World Mathematics” which involves basically a stasis in which the moves are the only things that trigger in that time.

That’s what you get if you measure the dps of skills with CD yes. But I did not do this. I’m well aware about this and I used the term “damage per invested second cast time” to exactly annihilate this “Lost Time” as you call it. It doesn’t matter when you use the skill, if it has been off cd for a few sec or if you perfectly throw it on 0, the priority to use that skill / the damage per invested second cast time stays the same.

DGraves.3720:

2. It’s algebraically wrong. First question is whether or not we can terminate variables? We can terminate might for instance because 875 is added to both damage equations netting an effect of 0. There is absolutely no point to greater than half of those numbers. Critical damage (ferocity) has no value because it’s net zero as it can be applied equally and is. Critical chance is generally averaged in PWM so it’s worthless too because it’s a base factor whether 100 or 50 or 20%. The values are not simplified which inflate them and make them very hard to read for those who aren’t versed enough to know to terminate them to find the real values (despite having found the coefficients this way).

Might is 750 power and condition damage since about 1-2 years, but that aside:
Condition damage and power damage do not scale the same. Power damage does increase by the same % as the power of the engineer increases. This is not the case with condition damage due base damage values normal attacks do not have. For example a power skill deals 0 damage with 0 power, a condi skill still has a base damage with 0 condition damage. So it makes a difference if you have might or not, also there are different bonuses like empower allies wich only grants power. So you want to have full buffed realistic values to get correct results.

About crits – every single power profession aims for 100% crit chance and therefore has a 100% chance to apply the full ferocity aka crit damage in raids (! in fotm there might be enemeis with higher levels than 80 wich messes up everything, yet not in raids !). I agree that the dps may be different each time if you don’t have 100% crit chance (if you use a not optimized build), but even then we calculate the average in the long term, after using 1000000 times a skill. Those are values, you can’t disagree with.

DGraves.3720:

The only things to take into consideration are A ) attack rate, B ) coefficient base ( which you can actually take and add with condition effects for a unified base since they are applied at the same time and are easily solvable), and trait values.

As mentioned above – no – you need full buffed values to get the correct upscaling of the power and the condi part of each skill, since they don’t scale the same.

DGraves.3720:

PWM ignores player error, realistic sources for boons and debuffs, implicit costs and optimization, and tends to add in false values, temporary values, and “crest” values (where instead of looking at something on the whole looks at something in a moment and expanding that moment out to the whole) as the norm.

A quick example, if you have a 6s bleed how many seconds does it take to hit the crest? 7. 1 second to apply the first, 6s to apply the next 6, and in the 7th second snapshot you have the crest of these bleeds, or the “max”, but general math I’ve seen done actually goes about this backwards by calculating out the whole bleed and applying it then dividing it which doesn’t capture an accurate wave behavior between applications, dodges, weapon swapping, alternative moves, etc.

If you have a 6s bleed or a 12s bleed or a 20 years bleed, it doesn’t matter. All that matters is A) the invested cast time and that the target stays alive for the duration. It doesn’t matter if a skill is instant or not. You mustn’t calculate the damage per second of a skill, it only matters how much damage you get by investing a cast time.

The dps isn’t determed by the highest tic you can do, nor by the skills you may be able to stack together and see them tic as high and impressive as possible. It’s about to use those with the highest ratio of damage per invested bla bla as often as possible. Yet I do not see your point in breaking down my numbers with arguments like movement and skill, as it was purely to show that the rifle clearly is obsolete compared to the nade, especially auto attack wise.

DGraves.3720:

But let me stop here. I really don’t want to get into this again. Basically those numbers are hyper-inflated junk in my opinion.

Those numbers are plain and simple realistic damage outputs in raids with a decent party. You can disagree to approve them, you can disagree to acknowledge them, but you cannot disagree with math itself.

Greez!
- Ziggy ;3

Phineas Poe.3018:

PierPiero.9142:

stuff

a whole lot more stuff

What if I told you:

• if you seek max dps, you may want to kill your darlings
• i question or rather doubt that FT is max dps anymore due quickness; skill 2 takes too long unless used on max range wich is out of range for the 10% crit chance modi; barely worth casting imo
• you could therefore swap FT with bomb
• bomb auto hit deals as much damage as nade #4 (bomb #2 like nade #5)
• nades have only been used for skill #2 and it’s toolbelt
• skill #2 indeed deals a high amount of damage and that very often
• i play with the idea of swapping nades with drumroll THE MINE
• mine field deals about the same damage per invested sec cast time as barrage, but has 7s less CD; maybe makes up for the shrapnell nade dmg, not sure tough :S

Just my current idea, worth trying, gonna tell ya the results if I’m certain ‘bout them. But if you REALLY REALLY hate nades, it’s probably the best you could do.

Greez!
- Ziggy

you gotta be inside a thing to use mine field, and even then its a crapshoot as to whether all of them hit. just keep that in mind. no forceful explosives on it any more really hurts.

DGraves.3720:

These are “vacuum” numbers. They aren’t realistic. For instance “what’s the crit. rate?” and “Is the Engineer alone?” and “Where are the buffs coming from?”

Well you are partially right. But where you are wrong is about ‘’is the engineer alone and buffs’‘. The only place where these numbers are worth something is in raid, maybe in fractal. Outside of that, the general population of the game doesn’t really give a crap. We used to look at solo numbers because solo dungeon run were a thing, but not anymore. Calculating and testing build, rotation, etc is a long and exhausting so we only talk about the situation where it matter and for now it’s full buffed group.

Now if you talk about vaccum numbers as mathematical numbers that doesn’t take into account the imperfect rotation, dodge and down time of a fight then you are right. But there is Jaxnx to help you with that. Anyway, you comparing the auto-attack of grenade and rifle (I almost never use auto-attack on my condi rotation) is as useless as compare each skill in a vaccum like you said.

But true enough someone playing solo could do more dps with rifle than nades just by the fact that nade can be a little hard to hit all the time when you don’t concentrate.

Xyonon.3987:

What if I told you:

• if you seek max dps, you may want to kill your darlings
• i question or rather doubt that FT is max dps anymore due quickness; skill 2 takes too long unless used on max range wich is out of range for the 10% crit chance modi; barely worth casting imo
• you could therefore swap FT with bomb
• bomb auto hit deals as much damage as nade #4 (bomb #2 like nade #5)
• nades have only been used for skill #2 and it’s toolbelt
• skill #2 indeed deals a high amount of damage and that very often
• i play with the idea of swapping nades with drumroll THE MINE
• mine field deals about the same damage per invested sec cast time as barrage, but has 7s less CD; maybe makes up for the shrapnell nade dmg, not sure tough :S

So I haven’t raided in like two months so a few things might’ve changed but…

1. You don’t take the FT for Flame Blast. You take it for Napalm and Incendiary Ammo. I only use Flame Blast to combo fields.

2. Why swap? You take both. The Bomb Kit is used as well (primarily) for Fire Bomb.

3. Bomb auto does not stack bleed stacks as quickly as the Grenade Kit. Its power advantage is nullified over the course of a raid boss when mashing grenades 90% of the time gives you significantly higher damage through bleeds and power. The only time you’re not mashing grenades is when Blowtorch, Fire Bomb, Napalm, or Incendiary Ammo is off cooldown. The numbers have been done. You’re welcome to pester Brazil for them.

4. I really don’t understand how in the current PvE meta, in terms of raid comp or strategy, how Throw Mine has any practical application.

Xyonon.3987:

Not realistic? These numbers are made to be realistic – they are based on the raid environment. Every power engineer has 100% crit chance, the engineer is not alone, obviously, he has 9 allies and the buffs come from them. Those are not “vacuum numbers” as you describe them.

Actually that is a vacuum. It’s a “perfect team” scenario. This is/was the problem with many numbers in the past regarding obscenely high “DPS” claims where people would not test the characters and their potential by themselves. Instead they would put them in scenario X against enemy Y with party Z. This isn’t to say it’s bad to consider the situation that way but what happened historically is people would get kicked out of groups for not being build A or class B or role C specifically because these only work when it is in the vacuum.

To be blunt, if I rolled dice and randomly chose my party members would I necessarily get the same output? Am I guaranteed this particular set-up? And if I do not get it what happens to my Engineer? Is he bringing enough of his own utility or are we doomed because we were dependent on some critical element?

Again, it isn’t bad to create optimal teams and such, but the effectiveness of a build can only be assessed outside of a vacuum; if it is within a specific scenario it may be next to worthless for content that isn’t that specific scenario. I’ve seen that too with quite a number of claimed to be amazing builds. But that was a long time ago…

The problem with posting these numbers is two fold:

1. They presume isolated instances. The “Lost Time” problem is basically the idea that the optimal rotation for different strategies involving different skills shifts because of the cooldown on those skills. Comparing a skill with 8s cooldown to one with 5s becomes complex because people isolate the attack to produce what I call “PWM” or “Perfect World Mathematics” which involves basically a stasis in which the moves are the only things that trigger in that time.

That’s what you get if you measure the dps of skills with CD yes. But I did not do this. I’m well aware about this and I used the term “damage per invested second cast time” to exactly annihilate this “Lost Time” as you call it. It doesn’t matter when you use the skill, if it has been off cd for a few sec or if you perfectly throw it on 0, the priority to use that skill / the damage per invested second cast time stays the same.

This explanation just got too long on my part as to why that is a bad method. In essence you shouldn’t average and project time compressed values especially when not considering equivalency in frequency. The error arises during the space between; BiS moves may for instance enhance the outcome of the next iteration.

Let’s say you lay a fire field and grant yourself might just before the next iteration of the item you are measuring. This is a direct shift of that attack which drastically changes the outcome when compared to another attack that cannot blast finish might. The first iteration is not equivalent to the second which may not be equivalent to the third, etc. so the compressed measurement and projection is simply inaccurate.

DGraves.3720:

2. It’s algebraically wrong. First question is whether or not we can terminate variables? We can terminate might for instance because 875 is added to both damage equations netting an effect of 0. There is absolutely no point to greater than half of those numbers. Critical damage (ferocity) has no value because it’s net zero as it can be applied equally and is. Critical chance is generally averaged in PWM so it’s worthless too because it’s a base factor whether 100 or 50 or 20%. The values are not simplified which inflate them and make them very hard to read for those who aren’t versed enough to know to terminate them to find the real values (despite having found the coefficients this way).

Might is 750 power and condition damage since about 1-2 years, but that aside:
Condition damage and power damage do not scale the same. Power damage does increase by the same % as the power of the engineer increases. This is not the case with condition damage due base damage values normal attacks do not have. For example a power skill deals 0 damage with 0 power, a condi skill still has a base damage with 0 condition damage. So it makes a difference if you have might or not, also there are different bonuses like empower allies wich only grants power. So you want to have full buffed realistic values to get correct results.

Since there is a natural base there is a net effect of zero. The fact that there is a natural base is not equivalent to the bases being equal themselves. For instance if you naturally have 10 HP and 5 MP does that mean that adding 50 to each changes things drastically? No. The percentage value does shift kitten experiences the greater shift despite being lower than 60 but that is captured in this game as the coefficient.

You could consider “natural base” in two ways, 1. Completely decked out but without temporary effects or 2. Real base stats. Either works. However when using temporary effects just like the problem above the shift in iteration whether it be from expiration or compounding of the boon causes drastic effects over the time where it is absent whether that be in the beginning working up to the captured moment or towards the end or due to an unexpected death of a party member, etc.

You want to terminate as many erroneous variables as possible. For instance if your FT Juggernaught you would claim the might as it is part of the build but only after “full stacks” and start from there, you would not start the moment you acquired the might, because that means strikes 1 and 2 will be less than 3 and 4 and 5 and 6 etkittenil full stacks; this is rarely if ever accounted for in averaging or stages of application.

This gets too long to go further. As for the might thing being 750, thanks for the update; I should read the tooltips more often.

About crits – every single power profession aims for 100% crit chance and therefore has a 100% chance to apply the full ferocity aka crit damage in raids (! in fotm there might be enemeis with higher levels than 80 wich messes up everything, yet not in raids !). I agree that the dps may be different each time if you don’t have 100% crit chance (if you use a not optimized build), but even then we calculate the average in the long term, after using 1000000 times a skill. Those are values, you can’t disagree with.

Actually the entire reason why I disagree with those values is because you calculate them over huge amounts of iterations! Those are values you can disagree with. As stated before iteration 1 and 2 change when conditions change right? Since conditions are not always universally the same the expression and projection of averages under certain conditions will always be inaccurate. To be frank let’s say that a skill does 25 more damage with every 5 stacks of might. So at 25 it does 125 more.

If it takes 25s for this character to get 25 stacks when we project out those iterations 24 don’t actually fall in line. So you say “whatever 25 is nothing”, but often it’s obviously much higher than 25 but 25 × 1,000,000 is … well, 25,000,000. But at least 24s, including the first second, is missing. That could, and often is, a downshift of several million in just this simplified version alone.

Don’t even get me started on fury downtime (though thanks to the Rev. I can stop calculating for that <3) or being out of range or missing a proc or someone dying anything like that. This is why DPS tends to overstate the real numbers; the averages are taken over X iterations with full variables not without full variables. If you took off the might you wouldn’t have the shift and could likely gauge accurately what is going on.

Algebra: Remove Dependencies. Terminate Unnecessary Variables. Find X.

DGraves.3720:

The only things to take into consideration are A ) attack rate, B ) coefficient base ( which you can actually take and add with condition effects for a unified base since they are applied at the same time and are easily solvable), and trait values.

As mentioned above – no – you need full buffed values to get the correct upscaling of the power and the condi part of each skill, since they don’t scale the same.

No, because you tend to overstate and thus over project perfect scenarios. Doing 1,001 perfect runs and 101 ugly imperfect ones due to human error might produce totally different results if you still account for the 101 as perfect runs ( over projection ) in your calculations. Everyone would think that stupid. But then you do it with base level iterations.

If you have a 6s bleed or a 12s bleed or a 20 years bleed, it doesn’t matter. All that matters is A) the invested cast time and that the target stays alive for the duration. It doesn’t matter if a skill is instant or not. You mustn’t calculate the damage per second of a skill, it only matters how much damage you get by investing a cast time.

Actually the main problem is that DPS presumes A ) the target is alive (Invincible Target for Averaging) and B ) crest values. It does matter. A lot. If you take crested values and use that as your capture for averaging you will get drastically different results than if you do not. When stacking intensity when you frame your iterations is absolutely imperative; if a build has a bleed cap of say 12 at 100 each projected over a minute that is 72,000. If you take the same build and account for each bleed as a step it is 100 + 200 + 300 + 400 + 500 + 600 + 700 + 800 + 900 + 1000 +1100 + 1200 × 48 which is 64,200. So yeah, it matters, a lot. It’s a difference of 7,800.

The dps isn’t determed by the highest tic you can do, nor by the skills you may be able to stack together and see them tic as high and impressive as possible. It’s about to use those with the highest ratio of damage per invested bla bla as often as possible. Yet I do not see your point in breaking down my numbers with arguments like movement and skill, as it was purely to show that the rifle clearly is obsolete compared to the nade, especially auto attack wise.

The DPS is determined by the highest tic you do with the highest ratio of damage invested per bla bla bla. The DPS of a direct damage move without might wouldn’t change if that were not true. But it does change. Because that isn’t true. The problem with not considering real-time variables and calculating DPS off of perfect iterations is that they are perfect (read as: not exactly the human standard) iterations elongated out over thousands of perfect iterations giving falsely high values.

DPS requires constancy. Adding in elements that are guaranteed to not be constant is equivalent to just throwing yourself off on purpose and calling it a day. I like perfect math just as much as anyone else; watching world records and their actions is quite inspiring but at the same time it’s not the average player who is taking this build thinking “I DO X DPS!” without realizing that they just don’t do anywhere near it whether it be skill or situation. For instance the difference between 24 and 25 stacks of might over millions of iterations is huge. It is not tiny. Even by scale of the numbers the graphs would begin to look different at just a few minute shifts. 22 to 25 for instance might look insanely different.

Those numbers are plain and simple realistic damage outputs in raids with a decent party. You can disagree to approve them, you can disagree to acknowledge them, but you cannot disagree with math itself.

Greez!
- Ziggy ;3

Actually I cannot disapprove of the damage outputs but I can disagree with the mathematical logic behind it. It’s the other way around. The values are data, there’s no point to disagreeing with raw data, but the method of projection? No way. To be honest the projected methods are more complicated than necessary. It’s really easy to just look at your toon in whatever armor you chose to deck them out in at the static values and measure it’s effectiveness. You get to be pleasantly surprised when you get 25 stacks of might instead of being overwhelmingly disappointed when you have 20 and no quickness because your something or another dieded.

Now I will return to my den of “Letting this go” and conclude with this:

TL;DR: I think you’re right. I concede to your clear and accurate representation of life.

Well you are partially right. But where you are wrong is about ‘’is the engineer alone and buffs’‘. The only place where these numbers are worth something is in raid, maybe in fractal. Outside of that, the general population of the game doesn’t really give a crap. We used to look at solo numbers because solo dungeon run were a thing, but not anymore. Calculating and testing build, rotation, etc is a long and exhausting so we only talk about the situation where it matter and for now it’s full buffed group.

This is alright, not a problem, but if you are doing this you have to define the variables (group) in order for it to work. Obviously 9 necromancers + 1 engineer is going to have different results. Since you are doing the math for a dedicated instance in a dedicated scenario you are only producing results based on that scenario. As for “no one cares” … That isn’t accurate. Perhaps “no one that matters to me” but you find a lot of average joes reading a lot of guides and wanting to do whatever content to the best of their ability.

I understand you don’t have a responsibility to them but simply posing “This is the best” when it is actually “This is the best under these circumstances” is a totally different message.

As for it being long and exhausting … Maybe it’s just how I do it with others… Nevermind.

Now if you talk about vaccum numbers as mathematical numbers that doesn’t take into account the imperfect rotation, dodge and down time of a fight then you are right. But there is Jaxnx to help you with that. Anyway, you comparing the auto-attack of grenade and rifle (I almost never use auto-attack on my condi rotation) is as useless as compare each skill in a vaccum like you said.

But true enough someone playing solo could do more dps with rifle than nades just by the fact that nade can be a little hard to hit all the time when you don’t concentrate.

But this is my point. Saying a weapon was “required” at one time for max anything just isn’t true when taken out of the vacuum depending on what you were doing and where you were doing it. I guess you could say that I know many players who got sucked into “this is the best, it does this much” when in reality it only did that much under certain conditions and otherwise was just crap.

But I like pugs. Keeps you guessing.

Phineas Poe.3018:

Xyonon.3987:

-snip-

So I haven’t raided in like two months so a few things might’ve changed but…

1. You don’t take the FT for Flame Blast. You take it for Napalm and Incendiary Ammo. I only use Flame Blast to combo fields.

2. Why swap? You take both. The Bomb Kit is used as well (primarily) for Fire Bomb.

3. Bomb auto does not stack bleed stacks as quickly as the Grenade Kit. Its power advantage is nullified over the course of a raid boss when mashing grenades 90% of the time gives you significantly higher damage through bleeds and power. The only time you’re not mashing grenades is when Blowtorch, Fire Bomb, Napalm, or Incendiary Ammo is off cooldown. The numbers have been done. You’re welcome to pester Brazil for them.

4. I really don’t understand how in the current PvE meta, in terms of raid comp or strategy, how Throw Mine has any practical application.

I think it makes a lot more sense to you if I tell you that I was talking about power scrapper :P my bad. ^^’’

The mine has no place in a condi build indeed. But condi got rekt with the last patch and power once again dominates in max dps builds. Especially in raids with those low armor targets all over the place.

So the mine field would be pure damage and yes I agree that probably one of the 5 mines will miss against small scaled enemies like insanemaniac.2456 mentioned. No problem for Gorsy tough. The mine itself would be a small cc, handy against all bosses. Knockback is even better for VG, even tough there I’d take Blasty for the super speed and engi heal.

greez!

Xyonon.3987:

The mine has no place in a condi build indeed. But condi got rekt with the last patch and power once again dominates in max dps builds. Especially in raids with those low armor targets all over the place.

how so?

quickness affects condi as much as power. and you can keep a rev or something nearby for swiftness, especially in raids. thats the only thing tying condi to tools or inventions.

applied force is really good for any dps build. like, really really good.

i mean i assume this is what youre talking about, that power builds have an easier time abandoning tools/inventions for scrapper because of heavy armor exploit?

Xyonon.3987:

The mine has no place in a condi build indeed. But condi got rekt with the last patch and power once again dominates in max dps builds. Especially in raids with those low armor targets all over the place.

How has condi engi been nerfed? I didn’t see anything in the balance patch touching the core traits/skills.

Sorry I’m late to return to this conversation. Anyways, not sure why rifle and grenades are being compared, you take both, same with other kits. Think the thing to consider is, what utility that you don’t already take can replace grenade kit and provide the same or greater dps?

Lastly, hitting your target with grenades should not be an issue for anyone anymore with the snap ground targeting.

I’ve been away for awhile, but as I play the Engi, I almost never auto attack.

That said, I decided to compare the base values of the autos (that is, the damage with no additional stats or traits at level 80), then divided them by their total duration to get base DPS.

Hammer Auto: 382
Rifle Auto: 326
Flame Jet: 346 + burn
Grenade Auto: 351
Bomb Auto: 528

From a power standpoint, it seems like the best option is to camp bomb kit when not using other skills. The issue is, however, that the period of time for which “other skills” are not being used is very short. My standard rotations look something like this:

Switch to bomb kit, fire bomb -> big ole bomb -> orbital strike
Swap to elixir gun, acid bomb mid-air cancel into glob shot
Swap to Hammer, Thunderclasp -> Shock Shield -> Rocket Charge
Swap to Grenade kit Shrapnel Grenade -> Frost Grenade -> Barrage -> Poison Grenade

Continue cycling highest DPS skills and interspersing healing, blocks, blast finishers, and whatever utilities I need. Maybe I’ll get a few generic bombs off, but I’m too busy playing Mozart to really auto. This rotation isn’t optimized in any way, as fights are usually too chaotic to really “sustain” anything.

To that end, the question is this: does the grenade add enough damage over other utilities to justify its use? The auto is already beaten out, but looking at the other skills…

Grenade Barrage: 798
Shrapnel Grenade: 585 + bleeds
Freeze Grenade: 534
Poison Grenade: 534 + Poison

Flame Blast + Detonate: 888 over unknown amount of time (1 second? 0.75 seconds?)
Elixir U: 50% auto damage for 6 seconds (792 if using bombs)
Mine Field: 930

Now, the hard part about interpreting these numbers is that we have to consider them in comparison to the bomb auto, which is 528. Though the grenade kit has a quite a few higher damage skills, they aren’t much better than just using the bomb kit. For example, when comparing the freeze grenade to bomb auto, the grenade only gives you 6 extra damage points: a mere 1% increase over the auto every 20 seconds. That’s… not really worth much. Shrapnel and poison grenade add condi damage, which makes them worthwhile in max might circumstances. It is hard to say, but in a decent “max might” situation where bombs can easily hit for 8k, the extra condi damage is equal to about 2k, making shrapnel and poison hit for about 11k and 10k respectively, which is a 25% bonus every 6 and 25 seconds. So… 690 and 660 roughly for comparison.

So grenades definitely beat out Elixir U. Comparing to the flamethrower kit (I’m going to assume a 0.75 seconds, or a point blank use), Flame Blast + Detonate adds 1,184 damage every 6 seconds, which is quite massive. If we’re taking the difference in bomb kit damage, this is 656 additional DPS every 6 seconds. To compare, Grenade kit will add 164, 134, 270, and 6 damage over the bomb auto, totaling to 574 when combining every skill grenade kit offers.

This doesn’t tell the whole story. Not by a long shot. The important thing to consider is recharge. Flame Blast adds 656 every 6 seconds, so this is an additional tooltip DPS of 109. Shrapnel Grenade has a 5 second recharge, so that adds. 32.8 additional DPS. Taking other skills and their recharges into account, the grenade kit adds a total of 49.26 additional DPS. If we assume flame blast has a 1 second activation time, then the total additional DPS of flame burst is 60.

What this means is the entire grenade kits contribution to offense is beaten out by flame burst alone. This… can be argued. Shrapnel adds an additional 5% onto grenade damage in max might situations. The innate damage boost to explosives, while not meaningfully affecting the ratio between grenades and bombs, changes the ratio between flame blast and bombs. Assuming explosive powder, the relative damage increase over bombs for flame blast becomes 51, which can technically be less than grenades (which would have to be recalculated, since their condi components don’t receive the benefit of explosive powder).

Throw Napalm and Incendiary Ammo onto the mix, and I’m not sure that Grenade Kit beats out Flamethrower. So, in conclusion, I would say that grenades are far from necessary. First, because I’m fairly certain that the flamethrower does more damage in ideal conditions. Second, because the grenade kit lacks any real useful utility, so it is the first to go when you need something like additional blocks or reflects or rezzes or something. Though grenades are nice for hammer scrappers, as they provide a ranged offense.

Again though, a comparrison between flamethrower and grenades is wasted, seeing as how we take both anyways.

Not sure why you guys keep trying to reinvent the wheel here. The numbers have been done. Raids have been cleared. Builds have been tested.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

I’ve been away for awhile, but as I play the Engi, I almost never auto attack.

That said, I decided to compare the base values of the autos (that is, the damage with no additional stats or traits at level 80), then divided them by their total duration to get base DPS.

Hammer Auto: 382
Rifle Auto: 326
Flame Jet: 346 + burn
Grenade Auto: 351
Bomb Auto: 528

From a power standpoint, it seems like the best option is to camp bomb kit when not using other skills. The issue is, however, that the period of time for which “other skills” are not being used is very short. My standard rotations look something like this:

There are two things wrong with your evaluation here. Number one:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

That said, I decided to compare the base values of the autos

Looking at things from a baseline perspective is pointless when traits are significant damage modifiers. Obviously the bomb kit auto does more power damage than anything else; it has a 125% power coefficient and is arguably one of the strongest auto attacks in the entire game across all professions.

But when you take into consideration Sharpshooter and Shrapnel it gets completely edged out. Against bosses like Gorseval where you’re just going ham the entire time your bleed stacks will commonly climb over 9K—and a lot of that is thanks to those two traits. And this is why the second error you made is so significantly egregious:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

From a power standpoint

Unless something has changed, our maximum DPS spec is still Viper’s and the grenade kit best procs all of our on-crit/hit condi traits. Bleed stacking is like 25-30% of our overall damage output, and is one of the few consistent and easily testable/observable aspects of the condition build.

I am not trying to tell you guys that you have to play a condition engineer in raids, but there’s a reason why raid groups like mine downed the Vale Guardian day one while people were screwing around with power rifle builds hitting enrage timers at 40%.

You may choose not to run the grenade kit, and that’s a fine choice. But grenades are still required for maximum DPS, and yes a lot of us are quite sick of it but know what it takes to clear content like that … which is unfortunately why I only play this game roughly an hour a week queuing PvP and don’t raid anymore.

i dont think he was talking condi, considering that obviously other good options dont exist for condi builds. but ft/eg/nade power build could potentially be only marginally better than ft/eg/bomb or something. and if the difference is marginal… well, bombs arent ground targeted.

Wahoo! Took me a while since I’ve last been here in this thread, let’s clean up!

insanemaniac.2456:

Xyonon.3987:

The mine has no place in a condi build indeed. But condi got rekt with the last patch and power once again dominates in max dps builds. Especially in raids with those low armor targets all over the place.

how so?

quickness affects condi as much as power. and you can keep a rev or something nearby for swiftness, especially in raids. thats the only thing tying condi to tools or inventions.

applied force is really good for any dps build. like, really really good.

i mean i assume this is what youre talking about, that power builds have an easier time abandoning tools/inventions for scrapper because of heavy armor exploit?

Phineas Poe.3018:

Xyonon.3987:

-same quote-

How has condi engi been nerfed? I didn’t see anything in the balance patch touching the core traits/skills.

The reason for this is the Chronomancer. Quickness uptime and effectivity equals pre patch values, yet alacrity on the other hand has overall been nerfed. This means CD based playstyles took a hit, whereas auto attacking playstyles stayed the same. Or rather, power engi became stronger in comparison to the condi engi.

You have 50% more attack speed and (down from 40%) 25% less CD. You will definitly be using more autos now.

Full buffed aa dps of power engi is 12k for bomb or 9k for hammer, whereas condi has crappy 6.5k nade autos as the best option.

As Blood Red Arachnid.2493 already mentioned – with wich I totally agree with – bomb auto is so strong that I too consider it to be a kit worth using again.

FT is rather useless for pure damage since hot, due the delay time of flame blast until you can use it a 2nd time for the max damage wich makes it worth using in the first place. Even double tab takes too long already. You can only use flame blast efficient with quickness, if you are max range and it explodes by itself. But then you were out of range for the 10% crit chance before and after this attack.

I suggest to use Nade, Bomb and EG now. Gonna make some calcs soon and will give them to you once I’m finished.

Btw, Blood Red Arachnid.2493, here are the full buffed dps numbers of your mentioned autos on a power build:

Bomb: 11843
Hammer: 8997
Grenade: 8192
Flame Jet: 8034
Rifle: 7056

Those numbers include sharpshooter and all traits wich affect the autos in the meta build. This means rifle attack speed is NOT included.

Shaogin.2679:

Again though, a comparrison between flamethrower and grenades is wasted, seeing as how we take both anyways.

I suggest to use Nade, Bomb and EG now. This means FT would be gone. This is why a comparison between those kits was important.

@ Phineas Poe.3018 : your big last post i haven’t yet read – I will shortly do so, but first my maties need me for a raid

Greez!
- Ziggs Ironeye