Guild Wars 2

I’ve been playing engineer for a few months now and have been playing around with different builds and play styles. So far all of them have involved 30 points in explosives.

I liked my condition damage build that was 30/30/0/0/10 but didn’t have as much survivability as I would have liked.

‘Big’ crits from a ’zerker build was alright but I died almost instantly.

I’m really liking the survivability I have with my 30/0/20/20/0 soldiers build I have now.

Through it all, though, I miss the condition damage build. I was thinking about going with a 10/25/20/15/0 (http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/engineer/?2.1|a.1h.h5.a.1b.h1b|0.0.0.0.0.0|1b.719.1b.719.1b.719.1b.719.1b.719.1b.719|4x.0.2x.d12.3x.0.2x.e12.3x.0.2w.0|a5.p56.k19.f4.0|45.e|0.0.0.0.0|e) build mostly for WvW.

Would grenades still be useful even though I’m just throwing 2 instead of three? I’ll have almost no power so all of my damage would come from conditions.

untraited grenades in WvW?

perhaps to aoe the walls a bit, mostly to scare them away.
But for real damage and fighting? I don’t think so.
My opinion is that you are gimping yourself with them.

Coated bullets could be an idea for your build: the piercing pistol shots aren’t the same ranged aoe as grenades, but they still are good.

Try it of course, don’t take my word for it.
But my answer: no, I don’t consider untraited grenades worth using.
I could be wrong here. Actually: I hope I’m wrong… No kit should be only usable when spending a grandmaster trait on it.

Grenades are only useful as a utility without the grenadier trait applied. Blind, Chills, and poison field are still useful, albeit the latter two are 50% less effective.

For that particular build or set up, I would recommend against using grenades. I would also recommend using giver’s weapons, and maybe runes of the nightmare for more condition duration. You’ll lose some raw damage, but that’ll give a total of a 40% boost in condition duration, which is far more useful. Use super or rare veggie pizzas to get 80% condition duration with everything, and then you can do some really nasty stuff with confusion and burning.

Untraited grenades aren’t that awful, and you really only lose 33% effectiveness (2 grenades is 66% of 3 grenades…)

However, as others said, they’re probably not worth the slot untraited unless you just really need to be able to throw something at a wall. The huge advantage of grenades as a condition weapon is that every grenade inflicts vulnerability with steel-packed powder, so the damaging conditions are harder to remove.

NevirSayDie.6235:

Untraited grenades aren’t that awful, and you really only lose 33% effectiveness (2 grenades is 66% of 3 grenades…)

However, as others said, they’re probably not worth the slot untraited unless you just really need to be able to throw something at a wall. The huge advantage of grenades as a condition weapon is that every grenade inflicts vulnerability with steel-packed powder, so the damaging conditions are harder to remove.

this also means you need to go 25 points in Explosives line, or no vulnerability at all.
That little talent just before grenadier is also rahter important in a grenade build.

So going 25 points, but not 30…?

The difference between 20 points or 25/30 in Explosives is much more than 33% I fear.
That vulnerability helps every other damage dealer on that target as well. Multiple targets in the case of grenades.

Kimbald.2697:

NevirSayDie.6235:

Untraited grenades aren’t that awful, and you really only lose 33% effectiveness (2 grenades is 66% of 3 grenades…)

However, as others said, they’re probably not worth the slot untraited unless you just really need to be able to throw something at a wall. The huge advantage of grenades as a condition weapon is that every grenade inflicts vulnerability with steel-packed powder, so the damaging conditions are harder to remove.

this also means you need to go 25 points in Explosives line, or no vulnerability at all.
That little talent just before grenadier is also rahter important in a grenade build.

So going 25 points, but not 30…?

The difference between 20 points or 25/30 in Explosives is much more than 33% I fear.
That vulnerability helps every other damage dealer on that target as well. Multiple targets in the case of grenades.

Umm, I would never recommend to anyone to put only 25 points in explosives. My point was that even though you only lose 33% direct damage/chill duration/whatever from only having 10 in explosives, you lose the vulnerability. And that makes the grenades not worth the slot, since they are untraited.

NevirSayDie.6235:

…as others said, they’re probably not worth the slot untraited…

…The huge advantage of grenades as a condition weapon is that every grenade inflicts vulnerability with steel-packed powder…