Guild Wars 2

I’m currently running 0/30/0/30/10,got FT,Elixir U,Elixir B as my utlities,so it’s pretty much alchemist build with FT juggernaut.I’m using rifle and I’m quite happy with my dmg,but is there any better build like bombs,grenades,or turrets perhaps?Note that I focus basicly on dungeons.

grenade instead of FT, and 30 in explosives. With 10% explosion damage, vul on explosions, and grenadier.
That will increase your damage by 300%. Literally. 3 times as much damage minimum.
Rifle secondary is fine. 30 alch for hgh, and 409 I assume is great. 10 tools great.
B stacks that might, and gives fury. great. U has the haste, and nice projectile blocks. While R is also really good, for res, cond removal. Being able to get allies up without stopping what you are doing is great.

Hey, I was looking for a nice dungeon/pve build for an engineer, I’m not an engineer my self but my girl friend, can you make a quick link to check the traits of the one you are talking about, cheers =)

If you want the highest DPS, I’d advise something like 30/10/0/0/30, grenadier setup, running bomb kit and toolkit as your other utilities, and a rifle as your primary weapon.

When able to, run up – use all 3 toolbelt skills (if you want to keep them still and they’re not a boss mob, avoid using Big Ol’ Bomb), blunderbuss, jump shot, swap to bomb kit and drop fire bomb and concussion bomb (unless the mob spends a long time not using abilities), then swap to tool kit and hit them in the face with a prybar. Then return to grenading.

If you want some more survival instead of a smidgen more burst, replace bomb kit with elixir gun. Double super elixirs are pretty great, especially the regeneration on the toolbelt skill (and 28s cooldown due to 30 in tools). That, and the damage lost isn’t much if you use Acid Bomb. Also Gear Shield is sick-nasty.

Well she want to do nice damage without being a glass canon I guess grenadier as you say, can you be a little more specific about gear and traits please=), as I’m not an engineer my self =)

Thank you!.

Casia is the expert on all things engineer.

Casia, would not 30 in fireams be better than 30 in alchemy presuming that one is not averse to a glass cannon? I would think 30/20/0/0/20 with explosive powder and grenadier from explosives; precise sights from firearms; and static discharge or kit refinement from tools. I have been running a similar build with rifle as weapon and grenades and bombs as utilities. However, I am considering adding the elixir gun for additional healing and condition removal (beyond that provided by med kit).

Also, I should note that this is from a PVE (DE, solo) perspective with an interest in maximizing damage output.

Precise sights is useless, as you hit 24 vul pretty easy with grenades. If you use food, or runes for +cond duration its even easier.
the crit and cond damage from 30 firearms is ok. but hgh gives a ton of might and thus power and cond. The boon duration as well.
If you want glass cannon elixirs, take +20% duration, 20% cdr, and hgh.
Elixir B on self use will give 15s of fury, on 32s CD. without any extra +boon duration runes/food.

You can mix runes. +20% might duration fire, +20% might duration strength.
Stacks for 59s might duration from elixir b.
+20% fury duration on rage
water and monk are 10% all boons each at 2 piece.

20% duration trait, 20% cdr, and 30 points in alch
Strength 2 piece, +water, and +monk makes my elixir B= 18s ret, fury, swiftness. 101s of mightx2.

I have not mathed it out admittedly, but I kindof expect that high duration of fury, and might to out damage the small gains from firearms raw stats.

Conversely, the massive utility gained from 409 cleansing is so worth it.

Casia.4281:

Precise sights is useless, as you hit 24 vul pretty easy with grenades. If you use food, or runes for +cond duration its even easier.
the crit and cond damage from 30 firearms is ok. but hgh gives a ton of might and thus power and cond. The boon duration as well.
If you want glass cannon elixirs, take +20% duration, 20% cdr, and hgh.
Elixir B on self use will give 15s of fury, on 32s CD. without any extra +boon duration runes/food.

You can mix runes. +20% might duration fire, +20% might duration strength.
Stacks for 59s might duration from elixir b.
+20% fury duration on rage
water and monk are 10% all boons each at 2 piece.

20% duration trait, 20% cdr, and 30 points in alch
Strength 2 piece, +water, and +monk makes my elixir B= 18s ret, fury, swiftness. 101s of mightx2.

I have not mathed it out admittedly, but I kindof expect that high duration of fury, and might to out damage the small gains from firearms raw stats.

Conversely, the massive utility gained from 409 cleansing is so worth it.

Casia, you (of course) were correct. I specced into alchemy as saw a dramatic increase in damage. A few questions remain.

First, aside from food, runes, etc., you implied that it is easy to stack vulnerability with grenades without precise sights. How can this be accomplished?

Second, I presume that I would want enhance performance over explosive powder. However, this raises the question of whether it would be better to take elixir H or the med kit for healing utility. With HGH, and without supporting food or runes, I can keep ~4 stacks of might up at all times with elixir H vs. ~6 with med kit. The downside is that I have to activate med kit every 10s and lose the random buff associated with elixir H. However, the med kit would provide access to condition removal, which I would lack if I take potent elixirs over 409.

This brings up another point. Potent elixirs is bugged both positively and negatively. It is great for stacking might with elixir B and terrible in that it ignores most of the other elixirs and elixir gun. The build still benefits from having the trait, but it would be nice to know your thoughts about it.

Finally, would you still suggest using rifle as weapon, or does it really make any difference since only grenades would be optimized through traits?

25 points in explosives, gives you 6.5s of vul per grenade, per throw.
This includes grenade barrage and its 8 grenades.

I do run, 20% cooldown, 409, hgh. I really like 409 cleansing. 20% boon duration food.
and if I was pve’ing, probably run 60% might, or 20% might/20% boon duration runes.

A fully buffed elixir H is pretty good. 20s cd. The throw has a 33% chance of rgen, 33% chance of protection. Either one will “save” your butt or an allies in need. It also aoe stacks might, and/or cleanses with hgh/409. And 240 radius. the self use is the sameish. heal+33% of regen or 33% prot. 66% chance of a strong defensive boon.
If you are traited alch, there is little reason not to use Elixir H. Its much much better the it is by default.

No “elixir” trait works with elixir gun.

since this is pve, I would find very little reason to actually not use grenades like 100% of the time. (a few bosses like to run around alot, where you might want to swap for them.) Rifle does scale far better then pistols though.

enhanced vs 10%. Have not done the math. 10% is direct damage only.
Elixir H is 20s cd. so the 10s, cooldown on enchance means little.
105power/105 cond. 20s duration with 30% alch, no extra boon or might duration.

I would expect 10% damage to be much more.

Is the grenade kit really that far out in front of a fully traited flamethrower in terms of DPS? Are Juggernaught and Deadly Mixture and the potential for burns beaten down that badly?

yes, the math has been posted already. Flamethrower is the worse of the kits when it comes to scaling.

Got a link to that math?

Nevermind, I found it.

Actually I am not so sure that I agree with the assessment that FT is entirely outclassed post-patch given the numbers presented in that thread when traits are taken into account; mostly because it seems like grenades are taken into account considering grenadier in the subsequent discussion but Flamethrower ignores the obligatory might and Deadly Mixture.

But, as crazy as it sounds, the grenade kit is a more reliable hitter.

well every weapon gets a damage boost just about. rifle 10%, bombs, mines, grenades 10% (grenadier on TOP of that..)

Deadly mixtures 15% isn’t that fantastic to outmatch rifles 10%.

the might is nice of course. but caps at 25. And the ft traits in alch, mean you cant really get that deadly mixture AND hgh. or 409. so you say, deadly mixture and juggernaut.
Well I have hgh with grenades, which gives me like 10 stack of might as well.

8 stacks of might with 20% boon, 20% might, and 30%, base with juggernaut.

Casia.4281:

well every weapon gets a damage boost just about. rifle 10%, bombs, mines, grenades 10% (grenadier on TOP of that..)

Deadly mixtures 15% isn’t that fantastic to outmatch rifles 10%.

the might is nice of course. but caps at 25. And the ft traits in alch, mean you cant really get that deadly mixture AND hgh. or 409. so you say, deadly mixture and juggernaut.
Well I have hgh with grenades, which gives me like 10 stack of might as well.

8 stacks of might with 20% boon, 20% might, and 30%, base with juggernaut.

Yeah, and I agree you could do that with grenades so they scale better. I’m just saying grenades are also awkward, slow, error prone, and don’t always hit for their full damage.

Grenades are something you have to train with to become good at. Once you’ve got it down you’ll never go back to that FT. Well, not unless they give us a reason to. FT is a buggy, hard to reliably hit with, underperforming kit. I honestly cannot think of a situation I’d use it in…ever.

The best way to use the flamethrower for a direct damage build is to rock the #2 attack’s explosion which hits extremely hard, especially when it crits. This means you need to be the proper distance, as the blast only hits at a very specific range, but with juggernaut traited you’ll be getting continuous stacks of might as the fight goes on. And if you want to rifle some, switch to flamethrower and #2, then switch back, then that’s fine (and fun), too.

Flame Jet is kind of weak and scales poorly, it’s true, but if you’re otherwise walking with a rifle and grenade aiming just isn’t viable for the encounter, then flamethrower still makes an excellent AoE burn.

There’s prominent issues with HGH/grenadier builds – one, they’re sacrificing the 20-30 points of potential critical damage, and in turn, they lose the sick-nasty “10% more damage while endurance is full” trait. A second is the ~2-3 seconds spent every now and then forfeiting potential DPS in exchange for chugging / chucking elixirs. A third is the double-edged sword of running HGH and 409 – you’ll want to spam your elixirs for more might, but you’ll also want to save it for those condition-flooded moments. It’s a situation where you’re literally debating hanging onto a elixir skill for just one stack of might each, over the potential of hanging to both cleanse something and get a might stack.

When we say FT is the weakest, we mean it.
Its weaker then rifle, pistol, elixir gun, bombs, toolkit, etc.

So, when you say, hey short range targeted aoe. uh. rifle has blunderbuss, and leap. pistol has aoe hit on every hit(weaker then FT without coated bullets), static shot and blowtorch, EG has acid bomb, and F..

NickDollahZ.5348:

yes, the math has been posted already. Flamethrower is the worse of the kits when it comes to scaling.

Man this is disappointing… Love this game and but really wish that ANet could get some of these bugs worked out. NOTHING looks quite as cool as an eng mowing down the masses with a flamethrower, but grenades it is.

Casia.4281:

grenade instead of FT, and 30 in explosives. With 10% explosion damage, vul on explosions, and grenadier.
That will increase your damage by 300%. Literally. 3 times as much damage minimum.

Casia.4281:

When we say FT is the weakest, we mean it.
Its weaker then rifle, pistol, elixir gun, bombs, toolkit, etc.

Glad this post was made, I was shocked by what I read, but greatly informed.

I expected noticeable differences, but I had no idea the differences in damage output were this enormous.

Time to retrait and see if I like the change in playstyle.

So in the end u guys recommend to take something like 30 in explosives with grenadier 20 in firearms to get rifle dmg and incrsd range and 20 in alchemy?And this is the best Pve DPS build?

I really never see this get mentioned, so I guess I’ll be the one to say. I truly believe that unless ANet changes the Vulnerability on each Grenade explosion, there will never be a better spec for Engineers. Stacking 15 permanent stacks of Vulnerability on bosses in dungeons is a 15% overall DPS increase for your entire party, not just you. What can an Engineer ever do to top that? There is absolutely no way that an Engineer will do 60% more damage than the other 4 members in the party, unless ANet feels comfortable making Engis ridiculously OP. So.. yeah. Grenades are here forever. =/

AlietteFaye.7316:

I really never see this get mentioned, so I guess I’ll be the one to say. I truly believe that unless ANet changes the Vulnerability on each Grenade explosion, there will never be a better spec for Engineers. Stacking 15 permanent stacks of Vulnerability on bosses in dungeons is a 15% overall DPS increase for your entire party, not just you. What can an Engineer ever do to top that? There is absolutely no way that an Engineer will do 60% more damage than the other 4 members in the party, unless ANet feels comfortable making Engis ridiculously OP. So.. yeah. Grenades are here forever. =/

Yeah, I have said it a number of times. its a trifecta.
Grenades themselves have a very high skill coeff. .5 per.
When we say, rifle 1 is .65, and pistol 1 is .35 even at x2=.7 Grenades are 1 without grenadier.
FT is .5 per .8s. 1.5 skill coeff over 2.5s cast. (at .8s/cast, rifle/pistol and grenades all attack 3 times. 2.4s)

Weapon damage and traits of course matter. FT could be +15% for deadly, pistol I mentioned x2 already. rifle +10%. Rifle also gets that weapon damage that is 19% higher then weapon kits. Effecting making it +19% on top of that .65 skill, and +10% trait. Pistols have 30dps average more then kits as well.

So, even without grenadier, and steelpacked, grenades are stacked. they have a 10% trait too.

But then we add each. Grenadier. another grenade. This is a 50% damage increase with 1 trait. Way beyond deadly mixtures 15%, rifles 10%, and grenades even already get 10% trait. So now, we have an effective 1.65 skill coeff per .8s, compared to FT’s .575, pistol’s .364×2, rifle’s .85. after weapon damage, and traits are added.
The fact that its not just damage though, even makes it better. 3 bleeds on shrapnel, longer duration on blind, poison, chill.

Steel packed. vul on explosion. every one. 8 vul stacks with grenade barrage, 3 every .8s with regular grenade throws. 6.5s duration per, without additional +boon.
6.5s duration at .8s attack speed means 8 throws per full duration. 8 throwsx3 stacks is 24 stacks of vul by yourself in 6.5seconds. +24% damage for everyone on target .
IF you add that 24% into the skill coeff, then 2 skill coeff per .8s.
I am not kidding when I say grenades do 3-4 times as much damage as flamethrower.

Flamethrower is 2.5s cast, with 10 hits. 10 hits/.8s=3.3 hits per .8s attack.
Grenade is also 3 hits per .8s. So grenades will proc sharpeshooter just as much. And with steelpacked will proc hit vul cap even without 50% chance for vul on crits…