Guild Wars 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YeD5yRL2i3Q&feature=youtu.be
(watch in HD)

First things first…

This is a WvW Build!

This build is not about seeing big numbers popping up everywhere you go.

Like the tankcat build its purpose is to distract and annoy the kitten out of the enemy. You will still be able to kite like a pro and keep a bunch of enemies with tunnel vision chasing you across the map.

But unlike the tankcat build you will want to spend most of your time in the middle of the enemy zerg (though you could do that with the original tankcat, its just not as much fun without the bombkit).
Picking up the bombkit does not only give u the almighty Big Ol’ Bomb, you will gain another source of confusion, immobilize and two wonderful combo fields.

When “diving into the zerg” you’ll have the enemy think:
“awww so cute, that little broken profession engi going all suicidal <3” …
They will see your health drop and keep focussing on you as an easy kill. What they DON’T know is that you still have 1 block and 3 invulns off cooldown and are about to blow them up within the next second.

They will mistake you for a thief, when you use your smoke bomb to get some area stealth going or when u get immobilized in the middle of their zerg.
They will mistake you for an ele when you suddenly become mist from your runes of vampirism.

Sounds like fun? As a fellow and proud engineer I am telling you – It really is.
Check out the video and leave feedback & suggestions!
I’ve been trying out different traits, runes and sigils myself so if u have any other favorites, let me know!

Please keep in mind this is my very first video and I don’t always play to perfection. I am not here to prove you otherwise.

I also failed to come up with a fitting name for this build, any ideas are welcome.
(I always feel like a terrorist when running this build, but I thought some people might be offended by that name, meh :S)

Cheers <3

Edit: Grah, just a few minutes after I posted this being all nervous about what the engi community will think of this build & video, I realized a PvP video with a VERY similar setup has been released here
I guess that makes this post more of a playstyle suggestion. At least this shows the setup is indeed awesome enough to be used by multiple people already!

Great vid! I was using something pretty similar some time ago, great fun
Also, how do you like automated response? Never tried it for too long since it doesn’t remove condition applied before reaching 25% health

how much health do you steal with the runes i still think scholar would be most beneficial or something like that.

Could you list the music?

That is indeed a similar build to my troll build, and it’s a blast of fun to watch!!! It’s great entertainment to play as when you work with your guild group, and you actually fell useful when you soak up as much damage as you do!
I’m interested in knowing how much life you do steal? and if the mist form is really worth it? Anyhow, it’s a blast to watch, and you get a big + for the music! it were great haha

Good video, and very usefull build for unlocking stall situations on huge zergs.
I hope bombs won’t get hurt by incoming aoe nerfs, even if it’s very likely to happen.

Greetins from a fellow engineer in RoF

Great video! Very nice commentary and game-play. Engineer is the most rare profession in WvWvW and high level pve. So it is great to see the underdog used effectively. I also use engineer in WvWvW against enemy zergs in sort of kamikaze hit & run style, but I use grenades. They do less damage, but offer more distance and are great at siege (attacking enemy walls or defending the walls).

In the video I didn’t see your enemies using much snares (immobilize, cripple, chill, pull, stun). My WvWvW experience comes from the top euro tiers, where the enemy sadly outnumbers us in so huge amounts that our server Blacktide has been dropping like stone. We always have the (useless) outmanned buff. Our side might have 3 to 10 people and they have 20 to 50. There enemy teams often use multiple snares against you. Yes, one stun break, block or elixir S won’t be enough. I have often been chased down for more than 20 seconds, when my defenses are already going down, sometimes even for minutes. The 33% speed boost won’t help as the thieves can spam short range teleport and heartseeker to close the gap and d/d eles are using ride the lighting and warriors using signet of rage + greatsword moves. Then the enemy front runner group finally catches you. While I am strong in 1-vs-1, I cannot win 1-vs-5. But the enemy zerg then needed to spend a lot of players to kill me. I get a good kill rate with this and I can imagine the poster’s build would work greatly if there is roughly equal forces and you can retreat back to your own zerg and the enemy would use less snares.

Deniara

PS. I still elixir gun is the funniest weapon to dispatch enemies in WvWvW. I know that weapon kit sucks, but it is so quirky with its operation and sounds. If you can kill with it, it just shows that some of the players in WvWvW, despite playing on the winning side, are really bad.

Thanks for the kind words and feedback already!

JackWest.8974:

Great vid! I was using something pretty similar some time ago, great fun
Also, how do you like automated response? Never tried it for too long since it doesn’t remove condition applied before reaching 25% health

The last trait in the elixir line is the one I’ve definitely exchanged most often!
I decided to run with automated response, since conditions are really the only thing I gotta worry about and watch constantly…
The problem with automated response is that it apparently has an unlisted CD of about 60 seconds and that u have no way of telling how much it really saves your kitten
I WISH this trait would give me a buff icon whenever activated :/

Rezzet.3614:

how much health do you steal with the runes i still think scholar would be most beneficial or something like that.

I use thoses runes primarily for the (6) effect, the mist form on 10% health. I haven’t really paid attention to the life steal yet (have been using runes of grenth until a few days ago, some parts of the video are still with those runes).
I could imagine the life steal not really cutting it since I’m not attacking stuff 24/7 but am spending the same amount time running around, dodging and blocking so I guess I often gain a life steal but then dont use it before the effect wears off.
I’ll pay attention to the amount I steal from now on!

I’ve heard some ppl say mist form from those runes sucks but it really has saved me multiple times already. It only works when you have both toughness and vit, though. If you are only a little bit too squishy someone might take your last 10% of health from you without the runes being able to trigger.

Sadly there one very annoying issue with the mist form, using Elixir S just a millisecond too early (= when mist form is still up) will cancel Elixir S once the mist form wears off.

Runes of Scholar isn’t really something I’d consider since my crit chance is pretty much non existent outside of fury.
I’m never above 90% health either xD They would be great for a grenade build, though.
I personally prefer runes that provide some utility! Like the grenth runes already mentioned, once I get tired of Vampirism, Ill go back to those.
They give additional cond dmg, too which really benefits this build.
(Dear Devs, please give us Cond/Vit/Tough gear, I’d choose that over power any day!)

Cempa.5619:

Could you list the music?

:D
Bee Gees – Stayin’ Alive (obviously xD)
Lemaitre – Time to Realize

/dance
Nice fun build, sweet music <3

Deniara Devious.3948:

Great video! Very nice commentary and game-play. Engineer is the most rare profession in WvWvW and high level pve. So it is great to see the underdog used effectively. I also use engineer in WvWvW against enemy zergs in sort of kamikaze hit & run style, but I use grenades. They do less damage, but offer more distance and are great at siege (attacking enemy walls or defending the walls).

In the video I didn’t see your enemies using much snares (immobilize, cripple, chill, pull, stun). My WvWvW experience comes from the top euro tiers, where the enemy sadly outnumbers us in so huge amounts that our server Blacktide has been dropping like stone. We always have the (useless) outmanned buff. Our side might have 3 to 10 people and they have 20 to 50. There enemy teams often use multiple snares against you. Yes, one stun break, block or elixir S won’t be enough.

I used to run a very similar grenade tactic earlier!
Grenades really are awesome for destroying siege and getting people off a wall.
I still miss them when we are PVDooring, since Im pretty much useless there (With this build I’ll usually just stand there like an idiot try find someone (preferably a commander) and pull him off the wall)

Or I’ll be scouting and try to catch the enemy zerg on their way to us and give our own zerg some time.

Ring of Fire is low tier but we still face some pretty organized guilds that can give this build a harder time than shown in the video. (It was mostly PUGs against PUGs for now)
Too much CC can definitely become a problem. Not so much in stationary fights but when kiting. But like you said, even if u die at some point, u kept them busy for much longer than u should be able too

Protection Injection (Protection on CC) is probably a better trait choice in fights against CC heavy classes.

Some things you might want to try that I’ve found helps a lot is using backpack regenerator and mango pies. Thats 200 natural health regen per second right there. The 30 inventions trait for bomb explosions heal allies also helps a lot but you’re not always in the radius for it. My spec is different but the results are much the same for when I use it in spvp. Engineers are rare in themselves for wvw and those not entirely dependent on toolkit are rarer still so nobody has any idea how to deal with you. Toughness bomb builds really do that one thing of tying up a bunch of people dealing with you that everyone else gets a chance to push. If I had an set of tough gear I’d use it for bombing runs but i’m all rampagers so i’m stuck with a flamethrower. Not the same survivability but nothing scares zerglings more than fire in the face.

Desterion.6407:

If I had an set of tough gear I’d use it for bombing runs but i’m all rampagers so i’m stuck with a flamethrower. Not the same survivability but nothing scares zerglings more than fire in the face.

Hah, one should never underestimate the psychological effects of animations like that one from flamethrower. I actually noticed the same holds true for grenades.
I tried a full healing build once in wvw and besides for some very low cond dmg I really wasnt an actual threat.
But I realized people on walls would still back off and be busy evading once I start throwing my medriocre nades at them. The power of the red circle!

About the mango pies, I have used them before when trying the original tankcat. I had more cond removal due to HGH and didn’t need the cond removal food that desperately.
But without HGH (and enough elixirs to make it worthwhile) I feel like I don’t really have a choice when it comes to food…

Speaking of cond removal:
I’ve watched my video again paying close attention to how often I crit and its actually not THAT bad, at least at the beginning of a fight after I dropped my the stimulant.
So the Sigil of Generosity might be an option for additional cond removal.

Diving into zergs and bombing them? I’d call this build the Dive Bomber.
(Might I suggest swapping out Cloaking Device for Explosive Descent to really earn the name?)

I loved the video. I agree that this profession is big on fun, but still needs help.

Also, you have a very soothing voice. Please make more videos.

Edited for one more question about Rune of Vampirism: How long does mist form last?

You will see mist form activate at about 3:22 (indicated by a buff icon), I’d say its about 3 secs.

And thanks for the name suggestion (I like it!) and the positive feedback!
I might be starting to work on a video running the same build in a more organized group scenario with my guild. And maybe instead of having all those very short example sequences a few longer fights.

Fun Fact: I once went to the mists to test a “Dive Grenadier”, full glass cannon and with kit refinement and Explosive Descent for triply barrage
I’d jump off some cliff and into the golems, trying to trigger all barrages at once.
I was a bit disappointed back then as I realized at least one of those barrages (not sure if it was kit refinement or falling dmg one) was only about half as strong.

But still, imagine doing that in wvw where u have another tanky engi luring a group to a cliff, immobilizing them and then a second engi is waiting on top of that cliff ready to jump down, where both engis will unload all the burst they have
Super situational but I guess that could be fun as well xD

Excellent Video.

It’s always exciting for me when I see what other people are doing with the wide array of powers at our disposal.

Which leads me to believe it’s not the class that’s versatile, it’s the PLAYER

Flaunz.5273:

You will see mist form activate at about 3:22 (indicated by a buff icon), I’d say its about 3 secs.

And thanks for the name suggestion (I like it!) and the positive feedback!
I might be starting to work on a video running the same build in a more organized group scenario with my guild. And maybe instead of having all those very short example sequences a few longer fights.

Fun Fact: I once went to the mists to test a “Dive Grenadier”, full glass cannon and with kit refinement and Explosive Descent for triply barrage
I’d jump off some cliff and into the golems, trying to trigger all barrages at once.
I was a bit disappointed back then as I realized at least one of those barrages (not sure if it was kit refinement or falling dmg one) was only about half as strong.

But still, imagine doing that in wvw where u have another tanky engi luring a group to a cliff, immobilizing them and then a second engi is waiting on top of that cliff ready to jump down, where both engis will unload all the burst they have
Super situational but I guess that could be fun as well xD

Thanks for answering my question, Flaunz. (also—glad you like the name suggestion)

That death from above trap with the two Engineers is a great visual. I want to see it done with 10 Engineers. It would be like deadly lemmings. When the devs give you lemons, make lemming’nades, I guess.

Keep on sharing those videos and thoughts. There’s a lot of attention on sPvP so we need people like you who are working on ideas for WvW play.

Doing some testing with Rocket Boots atm!
If this skill only worked properly…
Imagine laying down a smoke bomb and then shooting yourself into the zerg while stealthed (or out of it, if the need should arise).
How much better can it get, really?

Flaunz.5273:

Doing some testing with Rocket Boots atm!
If this skill only worked properly…
Imagine laying down a smoke bomb and then shooting yourself into the zerg while stealthed (or out of it, if the need should arise).
How much better can it get, really?

I like that combo a lot, but I feel like the duration of the stealth buff is too short. You spend too much of it getting up off the ground. Because of that it’s probably better for offense than defense. With practice though it might be good for escapes if a convenient piece of cover is nearby. I wish we had macros in this game. I’d love to be able to macro the boots with the about face key.

Flaunz.5273:

Ring of Fire is low tier but we still face some pretty organized guilds that can give this build a harder time than shown in the video. (It was mostly PUGs against PUGs for now)
Too much CC can definitely become a problem. Not so much in stationary fights but when kiting. But like you said, even if u die at some point, u kept them busy for much longer than u should be able too

Protection Injection (Protection on CC) is probably a better trait choice in fights against CC heavy classes.

I believe you that the lower tiers also have organized guilds. Blacktide and Ring of Fire might soon be in the same tier, so I might soon see you on the enemy side. I just hope our server would get the players to WvWvW. We are always outmanned, which makes winning very difficult. Make no doubt, Blacktide is still a very high population server. We got a lot of skilled, experienced players. Just our guild alone has over 330 members, at least 5 commanders in our guild (maybe more?), a lot of people many level 80 characters and with ascended / full exotic gear. I am myself poor with level 80 green + some mixed exotics.

I would love to fight against some enemy engineers. Now with circa 1000 kills in WvWvW, I have only 3 times seen an enemy engineer. And usually the enemy engineer was so squishy it just died in seconds! Thief seems by far the most common profession, elementalists, guardians, mesmers and rangers coming after that. Yes, I think warriors are no longer that common in WvWvW, probably because thief does the burst damage better and has an easy escape (stealth). But I don’t have the statistics, just my own observations, so please correct if I am wrong.

I usually have a 1:15 kill rate with engineer. Meaning 15 enemy invader kills per own death. Tier #1, #2… #4, doesn’t matter. I don’t run on a power crit (berserker) gear, so I do pretty lousy damage, around 200 points with grenades. But the fact is, most enemy players (especially the French servers) run full glass cannons with paper armor and low health. So they die fast, especially using 2-3 snares (immobilize, cripple + freeze) on them first. I am not claiming they are all bad players. The French players are often very good at organizing big zergs, quickly bringing defense to help their towers which are under attack and they are the masters of using siege weapons. Combine that with 24h/7 coverage, you can see why Visunah Square keeps winning euro tier #1. They might be weak on 1-vs-1 or any fair open fight, but that doesn’t matter.

Last night 10 men enemy group was chasing me down for over a minute (I was just dodging, running with speedy kits, using Elixir S, also tossing it over myself for few seconds of stability and blindly throwing freezing grenade after myself). Finally they got me down. I hope each of them got a bonus Badge of Honor as otherwise it wasn’t very effective fight.

Deniara
Ayna Micro is my engineer

Deniara, was just about to say “hey! we DID end up in the same matchup now” and then I see you signature
I’ve been cheating on my engi for a couple of days now (have been playing Mesmer a bit) but reading all those replies again makes me want to go back to engi NOW!

That’s great that you’ve lowered your expectations to “annoying” people and therefore found engineer’s niche in wvw.

Maybe if more people took your build, we could chain-aggravate other players into dropping out of the game and playing canasta instead.

There’s nothing wrong with engineer that can’t be fixed by lowering your expectations enough.

I really appreciate your highly constructive reply!
Maybe if more people shared your eye-opening attitude, the few remaining persistent engineers who still seemed to find joy in that hopeless profession (against all odds) will finally realize they were only deceiving themselves.

Ewww.

This thread is about sharing a build that, within the engineer’s contraints (yes, certain aspects of this class need some GOOD lovin’ and that day may never come) provides the most enjoyable playstyle for me. Chances are, it might do the trick for others, too.
You not being one of them fills me with consternation.

For your own sake, I hope you went back to playing canasta.

I’m glad to be of service to your WvW teammates who are out there doing constructive things that might actually help them win.

Found this thread linked from another thread. I really like the build. One of the first ones I want to try “out of the box” and not tweak anything. Except that condition damage sigil. After giving it a shot I will try to tweak it a bit for sPvP.

As for the health steal, I don’t believe it expires so you don’t have to worry about using it up fast. I use the Runes of Vampirism + Sigil of Blood in my PvE build and I just love it. So much healing without having to do anything. Too bad this build doesn’t have higher crit chance for those sigils, but that’s not taking anything away from it because it looks awesome.

Im running 10/0/20/20/20 so very close to your build. I’m hesitant to run vampirism because of the repair bug that stops it working and I heard the invulnerable doesn’t always go off too. Have you noticed any of these? Im running guardian runes for teh lolz of setting people on fire when you run through them not the most practical but heck.

I found the bomb kit makes you more of a target and the big red circles seem to scare/put off smaler groups of inv compared to tankcat. Im the main control/distraction of our guild squad running distraction for our cannon guild dps and it works great. What food do you guys/girls use? I can never decide over the -40% condition or power/vit

The repair bug is easily fixed by removing all your armor after you revive, then re equipping it. Takes about 5 seconds while you’re running back from that rally point in WvW, and in sPvP I don’t think the bug would occur. The mist itself won’t occur if you’re taken from >10% to death in 1 hit I think, that’s what’s happened in my experience. That’s why it’s good with a build where you are slowly being killed and not super squishy. It’s easy to think it doesn’t work because 10% health the way GW2 displays it in that circle looks very, very small.

EDIT: I think the 4-piece bug also occurs in sPvP. The bug is related to going down, not having armor damaged. You can go down in PvE and it will stop working even if nothing is damaged.

I also played the build in sPvP tonight. So fun! I’m thinking about what tweaks to make for 1v1, but as long as you run to the cap point you force them to (a) engage you at range (and you can live plenty long enough to take the point) or (b) contest the point with you and your bombs. Or just Magnet them to take the choice away Very fun so far.

Just wanted to reply on this build.. it’s been the most fun I’ve had in WvW.. surviability with that condition bomb aspect has really made this fun. Not sure I’m sold on Vampirism runes, but I’m trying it out.. I’m running a mix of melandru’s and grenth’s armor.. with Coral/ruby jewelry.. I’m conisdering a more condition damage oriented rune set. Thanks for the build.. love it

I run a build similar to this and it is very fun! run to the middle of the zerg and BOOM! I sometimes remove the bombs and run slick shoes, running into the zerg knocking everyone down with slick shoes is awesome then running away with the tb 50% speed buff (i use different traits though) But I still find the bombs the most fun, combo fields galore!

been running this build for a month now. high healing power with heal bombs gives me 200 AoE heal to nearby allies and regeneration while using a kit helps me last that crucial second longer. 1k dmg a bomb with trait for larger radius and 10% more damage.

I used mine instead of the wrench though. 20/0/30/20/0

thieves are dead with this build. also go pistol/pistol for added damage / confusion , burning , and poison . Rifle is only good for the immobi and leap.

and dont forget, this build is also invincible in PvE.

Stasis.5630:

I found the bomb kit makes you more of a target and the big red circles seem to scare/put off smaler groups of inv compared to tankcat. Im the main control/distraction of our guild squad running distraction for our cannon guild dps and it works great. What food do you guys/girls use? I can never decide over the -40% condition or power/vit

I am using -40% condition now (used to run with remove condition on heal food earlier) since condition removal is the one thing that build really lacks!

Really nice to hear all that positive feedback and see people running similar builds!

Haha, Good video.

I’d lie if i say i run some like this, but there are similarities.
Nothing beats the good ol’ bomb fun factor.

I think one the best parts of this build is the big target you become by dropping those bombs. You can likely soak up much more damage than any of your teammates, so let the whole team focus on you all they want. More time and space for your teammates.

If you don’t like to be a target this definitely isn’t the build for you. This build is made to take major abuse and to be a major distraction. And I love it

Great video!
Looks like a very fun build.
I would recommend trying Elixir X out, thats my tool for zerg harrassment right now. If you get the brute you can stomp/rez even if you are focused or use the dash skill to gain alot of ground because it will still work even if targets are out of range, the Tornado can be awesome depending on where you use it, if you are lucky you can knock some ppl off cliffs and with Elixir S at 20% traitif you get focused it will kick in and cancel the tornado and allow you to get away.
So not gonna see big numbers but its still pretty fun.

P.S. If you really want ppl to mistake you for a Thief/Ele then you should prolly take off your gigantic Engineer Backpack

I use a similar build:
http://tinyurl.com/cpnxkoj

my build has less health but more toughness and a nice amount of healing power to benefit from med kit and elixier infused bombs.

I dont have speedy kits and invigorating speed but I usually dont have have any movement & stamina issues with Sigil of Energy, “Drop Stimulant”, “Hidden Flask” Trait & “Power Shoes” Trait.

Rezzet.3614:

how much health do you steal with the runes i still think scholar would be most beneficial or something like that.

the life steal heals for 975 health

Great vid, thanks for sharing. Groovy music!

Have you looked at the runes of the guardian for a bit of extra damage? The 6th rune gives burn on block, considering how much you block, it may be something to look into.

My favorite engineer! Love seeing her play her engineer more than me playing with mine! Well it doesn’t help having her in my guild but whenever i see her online i just log my thief and follow her in zergs!
She makes the best distraction while i go stabby-stabby behind their backs

Well … engineer is one the class … if not the class that you can play in different ways.
that’s why I always keep an eye on the different build threads.

Really interesting tanking build, and nice video and music !

Yesterday i was in WvW when I crossed a Zerg of enemies (more than 20 of them), it took them a while to take me down.
I was running with 3.35K armor and 23K HP (with no food). It was really fun having all a zerg attention on you while your friendly zerg is attacking elsewhere.

Flaunz.5273:

Deniara, was just about to say “hey! we DID end up in the same matchup now” and then I see you signature
I’ve been cheating on my engi for a couple of days now (have been playing Mesmer a bit) but reading all those replies again makes me want to go back to engi NOW!

Probably not. I have never played against [ICON] or Ring of Fire. Blacktide WvWvW was so dead, so I changed to Desolation before the free server transfers ran out. Quite a lot of good players from Blacktide migrated to Desolation and I think we will still see more people coming to our very highly populated server. Before you call me a traitor for leaving Blacktide: It was not fun to be completely alone in the Borderlands or just see one other human player on your side. Impossible odds. Now I heard Blacktide is trying to get their WvWvW activity up and I really hope the best for them. I still sometimes do some pve stuff with my Blacktide friends.

Despite the high population Desolation is outnumbered this week in WvWvW, especially in the Borderlands. 5-10 us alone with Visunah Square and Elona Reach zergs of 15-20 both attacking us at same time. Yes, both of them want to kill us so bad. Strangely I don’t see VS or ER attacking each other, but that might be just my point of view. I wish the outmanned buff would actually do something useful, like give more health and thoughness to the outmanned world structures, NPCs and players. Now trying to fight two different zergs at same time, both having more people than your side, is indeed challenging. Last night I got only 40 enemy invader kills, while dying 10 times. Really bad statistics.

Anycase keep the good engineer fights going on. We are still the rarest profession in the game!

Great video and build! Can’t wait to try it out.

Flaunz.5273:

Thanks for the kind words and feedback already!

JackWest.8974:

Great vid! I was using something pretty similar some time ago, great fun
Also, how do you like automated response? Never tried it for too long since it doesn’t remove condition applied before reaching 25% health

The last trait in the elixir line is the one I’ve definitely exchanged most often!
I decided to run with automated response, since conditions are really the only thing I gotta worry about and watch constantly…
The problem with automated response is that it apparently has an unlisted CD of about 60 seconds and that u have no way of telling how much it really saves your kitten
I WISH this trait would give me a buff icon whenever activated :/

Rezzet.3614:

how much health do you steal with the runes i still think scholar would be most beneficial or something like that.

I use thoses runes primarily for the (6) effect, the mist form on 10% health. I haven’t really paid attention to the life steal yet (have been using runes of grenth until a few days ago, some parts of the video are still with those runes).
I could imagine the life steal not really cutting it since I’m not attacking stuff 24/7 but am spending the same amount time running around, dodging and blocking so I guess I often gain a life steal but then dont use it before the effect wears off.
I’ll pay attention to the amount I steal from now on!

I’ve heard some ppl say mist form from those runes sucks but it really has saved me multiple times already. It only works when you have both toughness and vit, though. If you are only a little bit too squishy someone might take your last 10% of health from you without the runes being able to trigger.

Sadly there one very annoying issue with the mist form, using Elixir S just a millisecond too early (= when mist form is still up) will cancel Elixir S once the mist form wears off.

Runes of Scholar isn’t really something I’d consider since my crit chance is pretty much non existent outside of fury.
I’m never above 90% health either xD They would be great for a grenade build, though.
I personally prefer runes that provide some utility! Like the grenth runes already mentioned, once I get tired of Vampirism, Ill go back to those.
They give additional cond dmg, too which really benefits this build.
(Dear Devs, please give us Cond/Vit/Tough gear, I’d choose that over power any day!)

Cempa.5619:

Could you list the music?

:D
Bee Gees – Stayin’ Alive (obviously xD)
Lemaitre – Time to Realize

Loved the video and decided to roll an engineer just because of it. I finally got to lvl 80 and still don’t have my full gear up but I already love it. Came here to mention Runes of Grenth but I guess you already know about them. Runes of Vampirism are bugged so I don’t want to handle the hassle.

The great thing about the runes of grenth is that with a rare veggie pizza, you inflict chill for 5.1 seconds. So the chill effects from runes of grenth and superior sigil of hydromancy gives 10.2 seconds of chill every 10 seconds. You actually can mantain perma-chill if an enemy stays close to you in a fight.

I’m also running Protection Injection instead of Automated Response. Haven’t tried Automated Response yet, but PI has been working quite well for me. Such a great trait.

I already have full exotic soldier armor and weapons. For trinkets, I decided to run exotic Rabid with Chrysocola jewels slotted. I can get the exotic rabid trinkets from Orr karma vendors now. What do you run with?