Guild Wars 2

Anyone else finding it almost impossible to get badges in WvWvW when on an engineer with Flamethrower?

I’ve noticed that i don’t earn many badges i run a bunker front line engi with bombkit nadekit and toolkit, so ya know its not like i don’t hit alot of targets and my damage is quite impressive for a bunker build, in a 5-6 hour roaming session i only managed to accumulate about 20 badges, i get on my necro for about 30 mins last night and get about the same amount just killing a few people camping the spawn, it’s not something that annoys me because I’ve already got bulk amount of gear but it would be handy to know how badges are awarded

dunno guys how you playing on wvw, but im making 250+ badges in 4-5 hours with my guild everyday.

lotus, thanks for the assistants on that. constructive

judgement.9842:

lotus, thanks for the assistants on that. constructive

to get loot bag and then from it badges etc you need to hit ppl for minimum damage. Loot bags have like 80% to spawn after kill. So more ppl you hit and kill with minimum damage, the more bags you will get.

i dont understand, what problems with that you have. FT sucks hard now, since its nerfed, and retail killing you even faster than on granades. Also maybe you hitting only like 5 ppl (since aoe from it is capped on 5), and you see stacking damage, and you imagine that you hit whole zerg. Really its hard to help some1 who saying that have problems with loot on wvw.

I tend to miss bags as I never stay still. Too often a bag drops while I’m dodging and I don’t get back to pick it up.
I’ve missed a lot of WvW drops that way. It’s even worse when it’s a rare-chest that drops – they need to fix that.

Why u try to get badges with an utility kit?!?!

Zenguy.6421:

I tend to miss bags as I never stay still. Too often a bag drops while I’m dodging and I don’t get back to pick it up.
I’ve missed a lot of WvW drops that way. It’s even worse when it’s a rare-chest that drops – they need to fix that.

This is like “rule of war”. If you win battle, then you will be able to get drop from enemy. Picking drops when you playing in organized group, and with that focusing in fight, is like you are here for drops, insted of good fights. Go play PvE. Loot Bag system, is very well, and dont need any changes here.

Just won a ZvZ about 20v30 something like that. Tornado in them, then pistol shots with pierce. After it was over I had 2 bags.
Bad luck, eh?

LotuS.4378:

Loot Bag system, is very well, and dont need any changes here.

no… no it isnt
its detrimental to team play having someone (or yourself) run around picking up loot in the middle of a fight; but its also hard to begrudge them that; because its a failure of a system

-also; why is this in engi forums? seems more wvw orientated?

judgement.9842:

Anyone else finding it almost impossible to get badges in WvWvW when on an engineer with Flamethrower?

Are you having difficulty hitting targets, staying alive, or what?

I put it here as it only seems to be me in guild having trouble, getting bags. Even when I kill people not in a zerg situation the Chance of bags are low and getting badges in those bags is close to 1:20.

Thanks for all the comments, looks like I need. Different wvwvw set up, maybe.

You need ground target AoE, and high damage. The more foes you hit, the more bags have a chance of dropping, and the higher damage you deal, the higher chance there is for a bag to drop from a foe. It’s as simple as that. So either you don’t deal damage to enough foes, or the damage you deal is too low.

judgement.9842:

lotus, thanks for the assistants on that. constructive

Don’t be a kitten. All you did was say “I’m not getting many badges, anyone else?” And he said “I’m getting plenty here”.

He answered your question.

I too get plenty of badges and I run a support bomb build like the first response – except I’m not afraid to charge into the zerg dropping bombs.

FT is also up close – if you want lots of bags with the FT you probably need to be tanky enough to be a front line pusher.

I did say on an engineer with flamethrower.

Also that is where I am heading with the build but getti g badges for armour is hard.

I main my FT/EG engi for WvW, and I have no real issues with claiming loot.

I will say that, due to the short range, I often have to keep moving to tag targets, thus resulting in a long trail of loot bags that I leave behind if I’m not quick enough on spamming F.

Being able to tag so many targets so very effortlessly outweighs the problem of having to double back for bags in my eyes.

Was able to get ~150 badges in just 3-4 hours, in a dead heat in EB one night.

Build in sig if curious.

Thanks gonna look now.

Almost exactly the same build except u run swiftness and i run vunrability and you run 409 and I run HGH might swap them round and see how they do.

Also you run P/S and I run P/P

I switch traits and skills depending on what I need to do. I prefer shield for the block/daze and blast finisher, and my utils are usually a free slot, FT and EG. I prefer using swiftness on crit to help keep me mobile without having to resort to Elixir B in my free slot.

I much prefer having condi removal on my elixirs, as I usually roll with Elixir H when I go into combat, Medkit while out of. Much more mobile than Heal turret, as there can be potentially a very long delay before that Cleansing Burst gets out.

Personally using Blood and Force sigils, with omnomberry ghosts to help keep me healed over time.

Don’t underestimate the power of the Elixir gun if you’re using similar traits: The auto hits nearly as hard as rifle, and can also bleed/burn weakness and vuln. #2 hits for more damage than a flameblast pass-through (not the detonate) and cripples. Quite useful stacking poison on fleeing foes, and the 5x condition removal on allies every 9 seconds is honestly quite possibly my favorite feature. Low CD blast as well.

This applies to your MH pistol too – the poison is incredibly useful, and the instant leaping blind is never a bad thing. Just don’t auto with pistol.

judgement.9842:

Anyone else finding it almost impossible to get badges in WvWvW when on an engineer with Flamethrower?

No, in fact I run a FT build in WvW to get more badges. Just Leeroy in tag everyone, and run to the back of your zerg via EG acid drop.

Halcyon.7352:

Don’t underestimate the power of the Elixir gun if you’re using similar traits: The auto hits nearly as hard as rifle…

Not really, even if you trait for it, counting bleeds, it is still an almost 20% drop in power and more importantly, it does not pierce.

For loot bags, as the others here have said, it is most important to spread the damage around, tagging as many opponents as possible and at providing a bit of support for the zerg helps as well.

We can look at the advantages of each weapon and kit with associated traits, but lets be clear about the fact that each is really good at one or two things, and maybe not so good at others, so we can’t just claim superiority by way of the auto attacks straight damage.

Pistols: #1 excellent small AoE that bleeds, #2 poison volley good for slowing heals and damage over time, useful only at shorter ranges even when traited, #3 bouncing, blinding, confusing static shot – amazing, use it every time it is off cool down when opponents are standing together.

Pistol Offhand: Even better for Condition damage builds, the #4 blowtorch is good at short range, with good burn duration even when not traited into Explosives, and with IP can keep up a perma-burn, #5 is good for both rooting and crippling, but the wiki says to “lead your target” this is the understatement of the week.

If you are using pistols, esp 2 of them, consider shortening recharge times and increasing range, but ABOVE ALL “Pistols Pierce” because even if you are doing low damage, this will get you 5 tags in a bunch instead of 1 or 2 (that little AoE works decently). Use any sigil set you like with these, as long as one doesn’t have a cool down, I like fire, but it is expensive, so if you are in conditions, earth is useful, as is corruption. But there are several that might be fun to try, I am testing a few on swaps in the mists, like doom and intelligence to see how they work with multi-proc skills like pistol 1 (does the poison apply to all targets? Is the time split? Does every grenade crit, even on barrage?)

Rifle: I don’t use it much, but it pierces without traits, has a good range, a root, a knockback and a super-fun (if not useful) AoE that is quite a bit of damage. Not super useful for tagging a lot of opponents unless they are clumped up, but works nicely with a sup sigil of fire for a serious AoE blast. (I am not entirely sure, but it seem the Sup Sigil of fire proc can hit 4 extra targets outside the 5-target limit for the piercing pistol, this needs to be tested further).

You can trait for range and recharge on the rifle, as well as blind on crit chance, which is useful in ZvZ combat.

Flamethrower: This I cannot recommend in WvW at all, simply because the Retaliation proc is HIGHER damage than the FT auto attack. Which means that you would simply be killing yourself faster the more opponents you tag (3 at a time, btw) if they have a reasonable Retal source. The knockback ( and projectile reflections) is amazing for trolling, and if you lay the napalm at a doorway, you can tag almost everyone who doesn’t dodge-roll through it. The AoE blind is super nice for melee combat, and to blind stompees.

Elixir Gun: I love this thing, despite the lower damage than the rifle, it is considerably higher than the pistol when traited and has utility that is unmatched in the other kits, the #1 applies weakness as well as bleeds which is good vs small groups, the cripple + high damage #2 also has a chance of granting swiftness to allies (even turrets >.<) the Fumigate #3 is OK for combat, better for removing conditions on allies, the #4 is a blast finisher, a jump back for a quick escape from melee range and an AoE pulse high damage skill. Maybe one of my favorite Engie skills, really. The #5 is an AoE heal, condition remover and light field… all in one. I agree that the EG is amazing, but not because the auto damage is as good as the rifle, because it has direct AND condition damage, utility, and support all rolled into a nice neat little package. I WISH Juggernaut applied to it… I would never, ever leave that kit. It will tag OK, not great because there is only the Fumigate for multi target, and the acid bomb for AoE. Paired with a sup sigil of fire for the much needed AoE, or Hydromancy for on swap AoE procs, or Ice for ranged chill.

Continued

Tool Kit: I almost always roll with this when roaming, and what it lacks in support, it makes up for in trolltastic utility, the block is necessary for those “oh crap” moments, the magnet singles out problematic opponents for pull and pound action, even off of towers. The box of nails is slow to cast, but leaves an OK trail of crippled, bleeding pursuers, and the #3 Pry Bar is in competition with Acid Bomb for favorite skills, high damage, stacks of confusion, it cleaves, what’s not to love? For groups, this is not great. It can protect you for a few seconds, pull out single targets, and cripple only a handful if they are silly enough to be right on top of you when they see you cast it.

Bomb Kit: It is fantastic damage, good conditions and Melee range. So unless you want to be knee deep in the zerg for tagging, use at your own risk. Other posters are more than welcome to disagree and do a skill-by-skill for everyone’s benefit.

Grenade Kit: This is the one I use, simply because it is the godfather of tagging, traited it is tied for the farthest range in the game (1500), has amazingly big AoE range (especially the chill grenades… omg) can get onto towers, into doorways and is no longer LoS for targeting. Low damage, you get lots of tags, high damage, you get lots of tags, pair it with Sigil of Fire (which AoE range is the same as the chill grenade for reference), for AoE an arrow cart would be jealous of. Be careful of targets with retaliation, and while this kit has the same issue as far as multi-hits are concerned, you can always use the poison grenade to lay a field ahead of your opponent, since it is a short duration pulsing AoE.

Honorable mentions: Static Discharge, a bouncing reasonably high damage skill with extra procs, excellent for bursty builds or even condition application (believe it or not – it can trigger burns, bleeds etc.) under the right circumstances.

Sorry for the wall of text, these are mostly just my opinions, feel free to disagree civilly and correct me or add your own opinions/ideas.

lunyboy.8672:

Flamethrower: This I cannot recommend in WvW at all, simply because the Retaliation proc is HIGHER damage than the FT auto attack. Which means that you would simply be killing yourself faster the more opponents you tag (3 at a time, btw) if they have a reasonable Retal source.

I disagree. I primarily use the FT in zergs and Retaliation is almost never an issue.

A lot of Guardians will frontload a bunch of Retaliation early on in a fight, but once two zergs collide into each other it’s total BS. Skill lag. Frame rate. Culling to where you see nothing but name plates. I may get tagged with some Retaliation, but it’s really no worse than it is when I’m rolling on my own Guardian piling through an enemy zerg with my Staff.

“Stand Your Ground” only affects five players anyway.

I’ve seen Engineers over-extend themselves in a fight, stand on Wells, etc. etc. and then complain that Retaliation killed them. Retaliation didn’t kill you. It likely contributed, but it’s hardly the sole cause.

Play smart, trait into Inventions to give yourself more consistent Protection, get a proper insignia and runeset for WvW, and you’ll find that the FT Engineer survives just fine, Retaliation or otherwise.

Or you can stand in the back and use the Grenade Kit. Both are viable. But invest in some real WvW gear and you’ll love your Flamethrower and its badge vacuum capability.

ive got a newb toon with inventory full of badges lol

lunyboy.8672:

Halcyon.7352:

Don’t underestimate the power of the Elixir gun if you’re using similar traits: The auto hits nearly as hard as rifle…

Not really, even if you trait for it, counting bleeds, it is still an almost 20% drop in power and more importantly, it does not pierce.

It’s not like the rest of the kit is lacking in AoE. And besides, times where you’ll be auto-ing should be few and far between, really.

Phineas Poe.3018:

lunyboy.8672:

Flamethrower: This I cannot recommend in WvW at all, simply because the Retaliation proc is HIGHER damage than the FT auto attack. Which means that you would simply be killing yourself faster the more opponents you tag (3 at a time, btw) if they have a reasonable Retal source.

I disagree. I primarily use the FT in zergs and Retaliation is almost never an issue.

A lot of Guardians will frontload a bunch of Retaliation early on in a fight, but once two zergs collide into each other it’s total BS. Skill lag. Frame rate. Culling to where you see nothing but name plates. I may get tagged with some Retaliation, but it’s really no worse than it is when I’m rolling on my own Guardian piling through an enemy zerg with my Staff.

“Stand Your Ground” only affects five players anyway.

I’ve seen Engineers over-extend themselves in a fight, stand on Wells, etc. etc. and then complain that Retaliation killed them. Retaliation didn’t kill you. It likely contributed, but it’s hardly the sole cause.

Play smart, trait into Inventions to give yourself more consistent Protection, get a proper insignia and runeset for WvW, and you’ll find that the FT Engineer survives just fine, Retaliation or otherwise.

Or you can stand in the back and use the Grenade Kit. Both are viable. But invest in some real WvW gear and you’ll love your Flamethrower and its badge vacuum capability.

Indeed, I’ve hardly noticed the effects of retaliation with flamer, smart mesmers aside. Engineer isn’t exactly lacking in ways to recuperate from the damage either.

I’ve felt the effect of retal much more drastically on even single targets in PvE, post WvW retaliation nerf.

As Phineas has said, just play smart.

Grenades are indeed an amazing kit, but it’s one thing to tag multiple dumb AI in PvE versus players in WvW. No matter how much practice or skill you have with the grenades, many of them are going to miss, or worse, be reflected, which just personally irks me.

Thanks for all the great posts, I swapped in swiftness and noticed a good difference in combat which made the world of difference when 20 of us went up against the blob. A lot more mobile.

Now that I have also increased my tough and vit retaliation isn’t too bad.

I personally don’t use grenades unless in keep defense as Hal said above when groups are moving about a lot I find it hard to hit them.

Oh yeah, 134 badges last night, so looks like it was my play style that was the problem.

Many thanks again for the comments, will keep this post bookmarked for info.

I have a warrior, guardian, and engineer all level 80. I find it much easier to get badges/wxp on the warrior and guardian. The guardian, in particular, is very good at badges. I’ve gotten a whole stack of 250 or more in a day sometimes.

I’d imagine that the best way to get badges on an engi is grenade spamming, but I hate grenades so yeh. If your playing against servers with decent zergs, they are going to be stacking and running in a tight group regularly, so grenading their stack should be pretty productive. Given the range on grenades, you should be tag most enemies. Put on a sigil of fire to get even more tags.

I found with FT the issue you hit is that you do not get as many tags due to the mid ranged abilities and just the way FT functions when at it’s max range, also if you push in hard you take nasty retal hits.

If your key on sticking with FT I would advise a more tanky gear setup if your not already doing so. Knights or invaders, and maybe augmenting your build with another ranged option.

Rifle / tool kit are nice to have in FT builds, as is static discharge since it gives you a bit more range to get tags, and with tool kit and the block it’s nice survivability if you wanna push in.

Throw wrench is great for tags as well.

I personally use a SD melee healing build with rifle / healing turret / tool kit / rifle turret / tumper turret / supply crate. Something like 0 30 10 0 30. It works really well for badges in both guild and solo play.

I think the key if you just want badges though is to be a bit more ranged and hug the edges of the fight. If you punching in the middle, your going to lose badges without support, since you wont have time to pickup bags as you go unless if you win the fight and completely wipe them. Outside of guild teams those kinds of fights are somewhat rare in the open field.

I have already started down the invader route with my armour. And it already seems to be making a difference, I am usually in the think of it, and when it gets too much I will skirt round the edges of the mass aoe laid down by the opposition.

judgement.9842:

I have already started down the invader route with my armour. And it already seems to be making a difference, I am usually in the think of it, and when it gets too much I will skirt round the edges of the mass aoe laid down by the opposition.

You’ll see a big difference in survivability if you get your toughness and vitality both to the 2k mark.

I typically run 1.6k toughness, but I tend to always have a bit of group cover.

consumable food and the new karka potions (from the 4/4 event vendor) from southsun can really help as well in the short term to boost toughness / suvivability.

With the potion + toughness food you can get an extra 250. It makes a huge difference.

timidobserver.7925:

I have a warrior, guardian, and engineer all level 80. I find it much easier to get badges/wxp on the warrior and guardian. The guardian, in particular, is very good at badges. I’ve gotten a whole stack of 250 or more in a day sometimes.

I’d imagine that the best way to get badges on an engi is grenade spamming, but I hate grenades so yeh. If your playing against servers with decent zergs, they are going to be stacking and running in a tight group regularly, so grenading their stack should be pretty productive. Given the range on grenades, you should be tag most enemies. Put on a sigil of fire to get even more tags.

You find it easier to get badges on a Warrior than an Engineer?

I’m curious what build you’re using on your War. I find using mine in WvW to be a total waste of time.

You get badges about 20% of the kills. So 1000 kills should give you about 200 badges.
This was from sample size of few thousand, few months ago.

If they have changed that, its been increased not decreased. So if you get much less than 1:5 ratio on badge:kill you are not looting properly.

Huntch feelings from people won’t tell much of the actual truth. You should rather check the numbers in this case.

Karast.1927:

I found with FT the issue you hit is that you do not get as many tags due to the mid ranged abilities and just the way FT functions when at it’s max range, also if you push in hard you take nasty retal hits.

If your key on sticking with FT I would advise a more tanky gear setup if your not already doing so. Knights or invaders, and maybe augmenting your build with another ranged option.

You’ll want to mix Soldiers in with Knights gear. Retaliation ignores armor so knights gear, while not useless, would not help when it comes to retaliation. I’m sitting at 21k health and 3k toughness, not counting jug, with a 40% crit, I hardly even notice retaliation.

Problem is with the kit and it’s short range/low damage per auto-attack and tagging of players. Second problem is that fact that bags from bodies are not auto-looted to your inventory. The second is the more pressing issue which affects everyone, the first is that engineers with flamethrowers just can’t tag anything really.

Specterryu Quipter.8412:

Karast.1927:

I found with FT the issue you hit is that you do not get as many tags due to the mid ranged abilities and just the way FT functions when at it’s max range, also if you push in hard you take nasty retal hits.

If your key on sticking with FT I would advise a more tanky gear setup if your not already doing so. Knights or invaders, and maybe augmenting your build with another ranged option.

You’ll want to mix Soldiers in with Knights gear. Retaliation ignores armor so knights gear, while not useless, would not help when it comes to retaliation. I’m sitting at 21k health and 3k toughness, not counting jug, with a 40% crit, I hardly even notice retaliation.

Definitely agreed on Soldier/Knight gear. I can totally half-kitten my setup and just stay in my usual 10/30/0/30/0 trait setup and still survive OK so long as I’m wearing my Soldier stuff.

This is what I do when I’m serious about my WvWing. You could also go 0/30/10/30/0 for Condition Immunity at 25%. Your call, but Omnom Compote and full Soldier gear is required.

Basic gist is full Soldier (all armor can be bought with Karma from various Orr vendors—Run AC/HotW a bunch of times for Pistol and Shield) with Azurite Orbs, perma Vigor/Swiftness, and utilizing both traits that give us a bunch of Protection. Rune of the Forge + Sigil of Fire = Lots of AoE tagging beyond just Flame Jet. Use Gear Shield and Static Shield when you feel like you’re in too deep and need to back off. Magnetic Inversion inside your Water fields, though Med Kit can be used instead if you need help catching up to a zerg. Since the heals for Med Kit are on the toolbelt and “weapon” skills, you can swap to HT when approaching the zerg without fumbling with any cooldowns.

It’s largely inspired by one of nakoda’s sPvP variants. It emphasizes defense over offense. 3300 Armor in the FT, 3200 Armor in your P/S, 24K HP overall and always.

Elixir B can be swapped out for a stunbreaker if you think you need it, though I try to stick close to the Guardians in my guild for Stability. Elixir U is really the only thing I otherwise often use, and that’s more for Toss Elixir U blocking projectiles when fleeing than the elixir itself.

Hope this helps with the construction of your build, but the FT is really an amazing badge vacuum when specced for tankiness. I’d say it’s almost as durable as a Guardian is, and with significantly more mobility. I will admit, though: My Guardian is my main WvW character. The Staff is just too powerful in tagging players while also providing exceptional utility. Wall of Reflection + Line of Warding is just too much fun to use.

Edit: Fixed the link. I do use Juggernaut when wielding the FT, not Coated Bullets.

Phineas Poe.3018:

timidobserver.7925:

I have a warrior, guardian, and engineer all level 80. I find it much easier to get badges/wxp on the warrior and guardian. The guardian, in particular, is very good at badges. I’ve gotten a whole stack of 250 or more in a day sometimes.

I’d imagine that the best way to get badges on an engi is grenade spamming, but I hate grenades so yeh. If your playing against servers with decent zergs, they are going to be stacking and running in a tight group regularly, so grenading their stack should be pretty productive. Given the range on grenades, you should be tag most enemies. Put on a sigil of fire to get even more tags.

You find it easier to get badges on a Warrior than an Engineer?

I’m curious what build you’re using on your War. I find using mine in WvW to be a total waste of time.

It depends on what you do on your warrior. Are you running around trying to solo people in berserker gear or are you running with a large group in soldier gear? If you are running around doing small man stuff in berserker gear, then yeh you’d get more bags with a thief. If you are in a big group, you should be a bag machine. I usually run a leg specialist hammer warrior with a fairly large zerg that has a number of other warriors doing the same thing. The commander of my guild is a front line commander, so if I move with him as he leads us through the enemy zerg I am going to tag everything that dies.

Badges are all about surviving the entire encounter and hitting every enemy there. I find surviving in a really large zerg to be easier on my warrior. The engi’s lack of consistent stability makes them very unappealing for zerging to me. Yes Engis can survive, but it primarily consists of avoidance and putting themselves in a state that they can’t attack effectively from like Elixir S or Gear Shield. The ridiculous amount of retaliation and confusion damage that an engi running grenades or FT can take also makes it unappealing for zerging. With a warrior my health pool is up toward 30k, which makes retal and confusion meaningless to me, and the hammer’s rate of attack doesn’t really trigger a ton of confusion or retal damage anyway.

timidobserver.7925:

Badges are all about surviving the entire encounter and hitting every enemy there. I find surviving in a really large zerg to be easier on my warrior. The engi’s lack of consistent stability makes them very unappealing for zerging to me.

You think the Warrior Hammer is a better tagging weapon than the Flamethrower? Because the setup I linked definitely has no trouble living through zergs. It has no Stability but you have pretty much permanent Vigor, Swiftness, and Protection. No offense to anyone I play with that may be reading this thread, but I also walk away with more bags than just about anyone. Only Staff Guardians in full Soldier/Azurite gear outperform my bag rate.

I’ve tried everything on my Warrior. Greatsword, Hammer, Axe/Axe. Nothing has matched the tagging potential of the Flamethrower or Guardian Staff. The only thing my Warrior is exceptional at is map completion using Whirlwind Attack and Savage Leap.

We’re fighting against Tarnished Coast and Sea of Sorrows this week (GG ANet, putting the #1 NA server against the #7 NA server) and map completion is honestly the only reason I used him this past weekend.

I love my Warrior in dungeons, but in sPvP and WvW I seriously hate it.

Phineas Poe.3018:

timidobserver.7925:

Badges are all about surviving the entire encounter and hitting every enemy there. I find surviving in a really large zerg to be easier on my warrior. The engi’s lack of consistent stability makes them very unappealing for zerging to me.

You think the Warrior Hammer is a better tagging weapon than the Flamethrower? Because the setup I linked definitely has no trouble living through zergs. It has no Stability but you have pretty much permanent Vigor, Swiftness, and Protection. No offense to anyone I play with that may be reading this thread, but I also walk away with more bags than just about anyone. Only Staff Guardians in full Soldier/Azurite gear outperform my bag rate.

I’ve tried everything on my Warrior. Greatsword, Hammer, Axe/Axe. Nothing has matched the tagging potential of the Flamethrower or Guardian Staff. The only thing my Warrior is exceptional at is map completion using Whirlwind Attack and Savage Leap.

We’re fighting against Tarnished Coast and Sea of Sorrows this week (GG ANet, putting the #1 NA server against the #7 NA server) and map completion is honestly the only reason I used him this past weekend.

I love my Warrior in dungeons, but in sPvP and WvW I seriously hate it.

Ah, you play on SoR, then yeh you can pretty much run whatever you want to run. With the size of the zergs that SoR has been bringing at us, you could all be wearing no gear lol. I play on TC btw. Im usually running with the TSL zerg. The math that says that SoS should be in our matchup definitely failed. The main issue that TC has is coverage with SoR is coverage. When we do manage to take stuff, it is a given that the 60-80 night time zerg is going to take it back once the prime time crew logs out.

Anyway, yeh I find my warrior to be much more effective in all aspects of WvW Zerg combat including picking up bags. I just don’t feel like im bringing that much to the group on my engi, and on top of that I don’t get as many tags as I’d like with the engi. Don’t get me wrong, the engi isn’t bad, but I just hate zerging him if the people we are fighting are giving any challenge at all. Stability is king in zerg combat IMO.

All of that said, my guardian reigns superior in badge farming. It’s pretty ridiculous how many bags a guardian can pick up if your zerg is frequently wiping people.

judgement.9842:

I have already started down the invader route with my armour. And it already seems to be making a difference, I am usually in the think of it, and when it gets too much I will skirt round the edges of the mass aoe laid down by the opposition.

Yep! I love that I can choose to be aggressive and throw myself into the thick of things, and have enough defensive abilities to stay alive to pull back when I need to be.

Great synergy with the EG, as you can provide quite a lot of condition removal support, and a bit of healing while waiting on cooldowns. (Just don’t be dumb about overriding critical water fields and such).

Glad you’ve found the swiftness helpful.

timidobserver.7925:

All of that said, my guardian reigns superior in badge farming. It’s pretty ridiculous how many bags a guardian can pick up if your zerg is frequently wiping people.

Totally. Wave of Wrath is OP.

grenades all the way.

Against unorganised groups you cant generally stand a long way off (preferably at an elevation) and drop grenades on a zerg, hitting loads of people and watch a nice circle of loot bags develop around you.

The arc on the grenades lets you drop them ontop of walls, making them a really good attacking weapon when assaulting towers. and you can throw them off walls and not have to stand on the edge like some other classes do to aoe, so you are less likely tobe pulled off.

Does anyone have a grenade build they run in wvwvw they would be kind enough to share?

Use grenades. With Grenadier. You upto 15 targets with a single attack, any attack. Possibly more with the poison grenade, which lingers and can affect even more enemies if they walk through it.
The single-best badge farming weapon in the game. Nothing can compete.

I always get plenty of badges using the grenade kit. The FT is capped at 3 targets per attack, so thats quite a difference.
There are many builds that work with the grenade kit, the most popular is the HGH i believe. But if you just want to farm badges and run with zergs, any old power/crit build with 30explosives will net you plenty of long-range firepower.

Used to run a Rifle build with grenade kit, toolkit and Elixir S. Plenty of long-range firepower, some (close)range CC, and some escape abilities. Could run pretty zerker heavy if i was with a zerg because i could stay away from the heat of the battle most of the time.
Not the best build, but its straigthforward and gets the job done.

judgement.9842:

Does anyone have a grenade build they run in wvwvw they would be kind enough to share?

I’m using this right now:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQJAqelIqqbHxShF1LJyoCdGoC1nIF5Xl95hc1WQIA

30/10/0/20/10
Explosives:
II – Explosions can cause bleeding(could be swapped out for larger explosions if you want)
VIII – 20% reduction in grenade cooldowns
XI – +25% grenade range, +1 grenade thrown

Firearms:
III – 50% chance for swiftness on critical

Alchemy:
I – Gain Vigor when you gain swiftness
IV – Drink elixir S at 25% health

Tools:
VI – Speedy kits (because not having perma swiftness in wvwvw is painful!)

Not claiming its ideal, but it works for me. I run condition dmg/toughness gear, either rabid or apothecary, with runes of undead, givers weapons. Put as much vitality on accessories as you think you need.

Swap out elixir gun in you want, I find it useful, but its easily replaceable (lots seam to like toolkits). Between perma vigor, perma swiftness, your 1500 range and the amount of healing you can put out with healing turret waterfields +Blasts, you have a lot of survival, and elixir S at low health can get you out of trouble on a fairly regular basis.

Build is not really meant for roaming or small fights, its for running wiht a group and tagging a lot of enemies.

FT is absolutly best for farming badges in big fights ofc for solo roam its sux but you need some decent commander what know how to rush into enemies.
Trick is use FT but forget about some high damage output or FT traits. Its all about survive as long as possible and hit as many targets and possible for that is FT best
I use this build:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcIQJAqel0pyaH5SfF1LJxoHdW0bOUhCDqQ9FpQ/WG-jQyAo8ASOAIMg58ioxW7GiWBMsKbM1LRUtBvIa1CB0fBA-e
Decend damage (2-3k flames), extreme survability, perma protection, perma swiftness, passive vigor, regen and proc healings from crits, and kills. With food you get about 2k heal for every dead enemy and 1k from crit (yes you have only obout 20% crit chance but FT has too many hits in short time so you everytime got proc even with low chance)
I usualy farm about 250 badges/hour if there are good fights and almost never die:-) Only weaknes of build (and whole engi in big fights) is lack of stability.

judgement.9842:

Does anyone have a grenade build they run in wvwvw they would be kind enough to share?

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQJAqelIqiYH5SfF1LJyoCdWoC4nIF5nl95Bb1WQIA-j0yAYLE0FIGDgEBQEApCIJwioxW1KiGr2GT7GZVsQqMAMLA-w

This is the build I run for zerg busting (my guild runs an organized group of 8-10)

I run precision stacks so crit chance with those added in is 50%

Right now FT is pretty usless in WvW. The point for Engi in organized group at the moment is to put as many CC/Condi as he can, since meta changed. FT is not providing that much DMG as you guys think, burning 1 sec without condi, is dmg for 200 if im sure. Reta is hitting like a truck FT users, and even if you have sigil of restoraction, it will not help you that much if you meet another organized team. Maybe for some low tier like 6+ its a fun running with FT, but in for example T3 its kinda usless, and basiclly giving nothing to your team. 0 CC, DMG is to low for current meta, when Guardians, and Warriors (this one specially runing with 4k armor). Same thing is for necros, whos back to high lvl meta WvW with condi DMG.

And for badges again. CC on targets is not providing any Badges (mean slows etc). You need to tick at least i think like 500+ dmg to get a loot. So anyway, dont think that, as a Engi you will get that much loot as Guardians, Warriors or Necros. If you will get like 50% loot badges from every fight, its mean you doing it right.

Think a lot of people are saying very similar things about ft. I will have to try out grenades. Will get some rabid gear of the T P and give it a try, but continue to complete my invader set then look at a rabid set for nades.

Think I will look at a grenade conditional build.

Again many thanks all for the assistance.