Guild Wars 2

From release until about 8 months ago I was a pretty regular player, focused primarily on my Engineer. My hatred for the hobosack was so great that I primarily played either turrets, elixirs, gadgets, or some mix in between.

A lot of time has passed since I last played, and I’m pretty out of the loop, so I figured I would ask: are there any decent no kit builds for pvp and pve atm? How are turrets, gadgets and elixirs currently looking?

Are you thinking WvW? Dungeons? PvE, PvP?

For PvP/WvW: Static Discharge

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fdAQJAqalUUp+qlXx6KseNCbhA6ObyIyjJ/YkAA-TJhAABws/AAnAAufAApVGAA

Looks weird, but it was on meta-battle in the testing-stage recently. I’ve run it myself and kinda liked it.
a double-pistol no kit-build for PvP that focuses on high burning uptime and utility from the elixirs (stealth, secured stomps, projectile block/reflect, quickness, a.s.o.)
it can be altered to drop napalm specialist and get cleaning formula 409 instead, but one thing that makes it work is the high crit-chance, so the 6 points in fire-arms are kinda mandatory.
Else potent elixirs could be switched directly for 409, which also would make Elixir H a valid option as healing skill.
The big trade-off is the missing perma-swiftness, but the double elixir B will at least cover most of that. I guess it would be viable to drop the increased range for infused precision to at least get some reliable in-combat mobility…

Anyways, the idea is to stealth, drink elixir B upon arrival to a point, get quickness from elixir U, and then use pistol #3 + #2 + #4 in short succession and stacking bleed with the quickness-enhanced AA. The condi-burst is actually somewhat impressive for just pistols, and toss U helps a great deal against peeling.
Still you rather want to stay off point and peel enemies, while just going in for a Elixir S stomp/rezz.

I have mixed feelings about this build, especially because of the missing swiftness, but in the few matches I’ve run it, it was surprisingly successful.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fdAQFAUnUISbX23F2UBrXGJvgG9VOSNBd+CwCEVAB-TJBFwACuAAI3foaZAAPAAA

I’m having a lot of success with this build. I made a thread about it. I called it “the no kit, no condi removal engineer”. I won’t go over too heavily how it plays, just read my other thread, but its basically a counter roaming for thieves and mesmers. Hang back, and only run in for the kill. Also, your heal is a last resort, use rocket boosts often to gain the positional advantage. You will die fast if you are not in the right spot. But catching a d/p thief leaping through a smoke field with reveal or preventing a shadowrefuge save with reveal are big plays in team fights. Don’t run off alone, unless you know you can handle enemy roamers (not likely against good teams as they will travel in groups).

Good luck, and have fun playing the shotgun ninja.

Arrantheal, I tried your build and enjoyed it a lot. I made one change and ditched Rifled barrels for improved precision to get that in combat speed. I didn’t miss the range much as I tended to be in people’s faces to land my long duration burn. Slow speed between points wasn’t as bad as I thought (I’ve been doing mostly speedy kits cele or SD Zerk builds) and I would occasionally burn an elixir B when running from home to far.

Welp, it was not “my” build since it was copied from metabattle.com, but nice to hear you found something that you enjoy.^^

Sins.4782:

For PvP/WvW: Static Discharge

How is this a no-hobosack build?

In any case, I did make one similar to Lobo, which is http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fdAQFAUnUISfX25FeZBrXGJvgG9RqymD5/6HIDwCA-TVCBABGt/QkKBrRHRXKjwSpjEXQAAOBA4o+TAPIASBExyI-w

I made it this way because I wanted an all gadget build that used all the gadget traits (all two of them, yippee……). It doesn’t use SD, but you can probably swap that out for leg mods if you want it (I do that sometimes).

In comparison to lobo’s, mine doesn’t really generate swiftness, but I go for the passive move speed. This also gives access to the healing recharge, which means it’s possible to pop off two successive A.E.D.s if you time them correctly. Either the enemy will not stop attacking you, allowing you two burst heals, or you can make them think you’re vulnerable after they let the first expire and pop the second one to get the heal off. It’s a big gimmick that is quite unreliable, but it can be pretty cool when it works.

The mine offers additional CC to the build as well as boon stripping, which can be quite useful. In particular, you can chain it with rifle CCs to have quite a long CC chain. It’s also incredibly useful for knocking people out of things like shadow refuge, or dropping at your feet to counter backstab thieves or shatter mesmers. If running with SD, the mine field can be used point blank for some extreme damage.

Furthermore, the slick shoes adds more CC, and you can use the super speed→rocket boots combo to GTFO of lots of different things. It’s a powerful disengagement combo… well, when it works. You can even use slick shoes during it to spread a long trail of oil.

Other than that, you could always use a cookie-cutter turret build. As much as people complain about them, they can be quite effective in PvP under the proper circumstances. Just don’t rely on going to far with it in higher level play… I only really use it in hotjoins, where people get super peeved about turret builds. The one I use is http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fdAQFAUlUUpqqVWx2KseNCdBF6V0hXI6GekR/pAA-TJxHABPXG4k9HM4CAAwDAAA, but you can make quite a few different variations of it (lately I’ve been using rifle turret instead of flame turret).

Here’s an unusual experimental build I made and tried out a bit which does not use kits – disclaimer: it does have a medkit, but I don’t really count that…

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fdAQJAqalsTpAr9dx+KseRCbBNqwEymeRQuhQ8xIGAA-T1SEABPcCAkR9nQ2fQEtAppDIQlgAYiBIlYWpkohHAwUKHEDQfA-w
This build is a one-trick-pony that does PBAoE condi bombing by equipping medkit while in combat to simultaneously trigger runes of balthazar and sigils of geomancy and hydromancy. The medkit should not be equipped except for this effect, and it generally doesn’t need to be. The effect actually looks really cool, and you’ll damage, burn, bleed, and chill nearby enemies. Never mind the fact that grenades can pretty much do this with far less trait/gear commitment, and at 1500 range…

Coated bullets is used strictly because this is a WvW bulid, and that trait can be useful situationally for firing into zergs, but otherwise I wouldn’t recommend it.

It’s a pretty nifty build and you could definitely catch some people off guard, but there are better ways to get the job done.