Can I perform well in PVE without grenades?

Can I perform well in PVE without grenades?

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Posted by: fourhim.3584

fourhim.3584

My 80 Charr Engineer has had a strange life. I leveled him to 80 about 6 months ago, so certain that I had a greta build planned for him that would make him nigh “indestructible”. I was going to go the bomb healer route with full Cleric gear.

The result was “meh”. First of all, it wasn’t the “indestructible” mode that I thought it would be, as I still had to stay mobile to stay alive. Second of all, the damage was not as impressive as I had “theorized” either.

Then I went the rifle + static discharge route, I think with Assassin’s gear and several quick cooldown toolbelt skills? This did seem to do more damage, but was pretty fragile. And when I looked at Engineer recently, static discharge seems to be gone?

One of my first favorites, and the main reason I picked Engineer at all, was the cool animation and attacks of the flamethrower, but six months ago it did lackluster damage. This seems to be better now, if I read correctly. What about Flamethrower with full Rampager’s gear for PVE/Dungeons? I keep hearing about Engineers being masters of conditions, but I’m not sure how it works or what Runes to use.

Thanks very much for your advice, as I would like to use my Engineer more than I do now.

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Posted by: fourhim.3584

fourhim.3584

Oh. Forgot to mention why I hate(d) grenades, and it is the having to aim them every time. Not sure if they improved that or not. Until they get some kind of better auto-attack, I’m just not interested in them. Thanks again.

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Posted by: ellesee.8297

ellesee.8297

Hello frands! Vee Wee here, #1 Engi NA and world first rank 80!

Well of course you can! Bombs are a good choice! You can also run the Flamethrower now that it got buffed! Vee Wee even sometimes runs a wrench build in high end PvE! Run what you enjoy playing!

Wahoo! Bye frands!

#1 Engi NA and world first rank 80!
#1 Frandliest person NA!
http://www.twitch.tv/Livskis

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Posted by: Allie.4925

Allie.4925

In my experience, if you’re going for damage, any build with grenades is the best build for engineer. Its got the highest damage output in terms of both power and condition, provided you use them right. It’s also the easiest to trait for. For both power and condition.

That being said, I can’t stand them myself. Not only do I have to deal with the ground targeting, which sucks, but it’s so slow. I mean, it takes like 3 seconds before the grenades hit your target if you stand a bit back. I just don’t have fun dealing with grenades, no matter how good they are. But I’ll admit they’re the best for dungeons.

In my opinion tho, screw the numbers, go with what you think is fun.

Personally, I’ve used SD a lot, because while it doesn’t do as much damage as the grenades, its still a powerful build. And fun, because its hard to stay alive. And it still exists, but you don’t see it as often anymore because of it lacking survivability, and lots of people don’t like that. I’m still experiencing other engies calling me noob because I play SD, but honestly, its not their business.

I play a game because I want to have fun. I have fun with SD, so I play SD. I don’t have fun with grenades, so I don’t use them.

So, if you want to try the flamethrower, try it. If someone whines about it, tell them to kitten off and mind their own business.

(edited by Allie.4925)

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Posted by: Lumines.3916

Lumines.3916

Pooping bombs are so much more fun.

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Posted by: Sebrent.3625

Sebrent.3625

Run around in circles with mobs chasing you while you drop bombs … Engineer OP! (j/k!) :-p

Christian. Husband. Father. Friend. Developer. Gamer.
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Posted by: ShadowPuppet.3746

ShadowPuppet.3746

Nothing wrong with including ft in a rotation, but I would avoid camping ft in dungeons. Even with the recent buff to flame jet it’s still not going to do as much damage as our other options. BK, FT, and EG using 6/6/0/0/2 or 6/6/0/2/0 is certainly more than passable. A simple rotation for might stacking and damage against a boss would be something like B.o.B, firefield (from either ft or bk), flame blast, acid bomb w/animation cancel, jump shot, blunderbuss and then back into bk for auto until skills are on cooldown again. As with most pve dungeon runs you want to go as glassy as you can so long as you can survive, which means if you know the encounters well using zerker or assassin gear and zerker trinkets (if ascended). This is of course from the standpoint of a group that is also running similar setups since in order for glass builds to work everyone really needs to be running the same thing so the baddies die before you do heh.

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Posted by: Raiff.6742

Raiff.6742

If you like healing, you may also want to go with an Elixer Gun build. Use Carrion gear, take the Vitality bonus to damage, use turrets. Turrets get a lot of hell, but truly I have come to love them. Healing turret + Elixer gun is non-stop healing for you and your party. High mobility, and in most fights, constant damage with turrets of tool belt related skills. Hust my point of view though.

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Posted by: robertul.3679

robertul.3679

Between rifle 3 and 5, flamethrower 2 and sometimes 4, toolbelt kills, elixir gun 4…you really don’t spend that much time using grenades. You should use grenade 2 and 4 on cooldown and sneak a few autoattacks here and there but mostly you really won’t autoattack that much.
All this can be overwhelming but the good thing is most of your skills do enough damage so even using everything on cooldown is fine unless you are the designated might stacker.

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Posted by: Xae Isareth.1364

Xae Isareth.1364

Firstly, conditions don’t work very well in group PvE because they still havn’t found a solution for the stack limit. I think they gave up.

Bombs are probably better than grenades with a very incompetent group as the advantage grenades had was it contributed more to group DPS through vulnerability whilst bombs gave you better personal DPS. So if your group is terrible (and I mean really bad), bombs might be better as they won’t be making much use out of the extra vul.

FT camping isn’t ideal but it does have its advantages.
-It has a bigger hit area. It tags mobs like a boss in events. DPS isn’t a thing in event farms so FT is quite the king in there. It also means depending on the spread of mobs, you might end up doing more overall DPS.
-It doesn’t suffer as much from travel time and spread as grenades, and requires less effort to use (you don’t need to aim), so in frantic ranged fights with a lot of enemy movement, you might be better off.

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Posted by: Xae Isareth.1364

Xae Isareth.1364

By bigger hit area I meant it hits in a cone instead of a small area at the target.

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Posted by: DesertRose.2031

DesertRose.2031

If you don’t want to spam Grenade Kit #1 non-stop you can bring Bomb Kit as well and only use Grenade Kit #2, Grenade Kit #4 and Grenade Barrage, and otherwise use Bomb Kit #1 as your auto attack.
If you do not want to use grenades at all switch Grenade Kit with Bomb Kit.

Unless you have another Vulnerability stacker in your party you’ll perform a little worse than a grenade spamming Engineer, but not enough that it’s noticeable in most PUGs.

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Posted by: Xyonon.3987

Xyonon.3987

Run whatever you enjoy. You should just have fun ingame But if you are one of those who have fun by being utmost efficient, you will need grenades. They have a huge passive damage, best vuln stack, burst, utility, range.

Ziggs Ironeye – Engineer | Madame Le Blanc – Mesmer | Mentor (PvE) | EU
“Mentoring engineers / mesmers and showing you what you can do with your fantastic class!
Just pm me for my advice! Always eager to help!”

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Posted by: coglin.1867

coglin.1867

Run whatever you enjoy. You should just have fun ingame But if you are one of those who have fun by being utmost efficient, you will need grenades. They have a huge passive damage, best vuln stack, burst, utility, range.

Actually, if you target utmost efficiency, you will need grenades. The bomb kit out damages the grenade kit.

A video on what weak PvPer’s and WvWer’s want.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6q3em9s5I4c

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Posted by: Xyonon.3987

Xyonon.3987

Run whatever you enjoy. You should just have fun ingame But if you are one of those who have fun by being utmost efficient, you will need grenades. They have a huge passive damage, best vuln stack, burst, utility, range.

Actually, if you target utmost efficiency, you will need grenades. The bomb kit out damages the grenade kit.

I guess you wanted to say “you will not need greandes” right? ^^

Well you are right, for yourself the bomb kit will outdamage the grenade kit slightly. But still keep in mind that only bomb 1 outdamages grenade 1. Grenade 2 and 4 and especially the toolbelt out damages all the bomb 1. But that’s just for your visual appearence, the numbers YOU see.

If you would see how much damage the others will deal more, because of the additional vulnerability stacks the grenade kit grants, you will see, the grenade kit outdamages the bomb kit by dealing passive damage.

I have to add that I allways swap to grenade kit for 2 and 4 (or 3), but I stop using grenade 1 when enemies are about to die. For trashmobs I totally miss out grenade 1, yet still swap for 2 and 4 (or 3). Vulnerability that has been applied at the end is worthless. So the bomb kit gets stronger in the end of a fight.

greez Ziggy

Ziggs Ironeye – Engineer | Madame Le Blanc – Mesmer | Mentor (PvE) | EU
“Mentoring engineers / mesmers and showing you what you can do with your fantastic class!
Just pm me for my advice! Always eager to help!”

(edited by Xyonon.3987)

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Posted by: Guanglai Kangyi.4318

Guanglai Kangyi.4318

Firstly, conditions don’t work very well in group PvE because they still havn’t found a solution for the stack limit. I think they gave up.

Bombs are probably better than grenades with a very incompetent group as the advantage grenades had was it contributed more to group DPS through vulnerability whilst bombs gave you better personal DPS. So if your group is terrible (and I mean really bad), bombs might be better as they won’t be making much use out of the extra vul.

FT camping isn’t ideal but it does have its advantages.
-It has a bigger hit area. It tags mobs like a boss in events. DPS isn’t a thing in event farms so FT is quite the king in there. It also means depending on the spread of mobs, you might end up doing more overall DPS.
-It doesn’t suffer as much from travel time and spread as grenades, and requires less effort to use (you don’t need to aim), so in frantic ranged fights with a lot of enemy movement, you might be better off.

Grenade will give you better personal DPS because of the vuln stacking. It’ll only lose if you are already capped on conditions without the grenades.

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Posted by: Xyonon.3987

Xyonon.3987

Grenade will give you better personal DPS because of the vuln stacking. It’ll only lose if you are already capped on conditions without the grenades.

Nope. Only grenade 2# and 4# will. Bomb 1 deals about 30% more damage then Grenade 1 and has a wider AoE if enemies aren’t stacking perfectly. Also when mobs are about to die, or when we are talking about trash mobs, new vuln doesn’t matter anymore.

Ziggs Ironeye – Engineer | Madame Le Blanc – Mesmer | Mentor (PvE) | EU
“Mentoring engineers / mesmers and showing you what you can do with your fantastic class!
Just pm me for my advice! Always eager to help!”

(edited by Xyonon.3987)

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Posted by: Guanglai Kangyi.4318

Guanglai Kangyi.4318

You’re forgetting that the grenades stack bleed and that the grenades will also benefit from about 15 more stacks of vulnerability Bomb 1 does more damage than Grenade 1 assuming you already have max vuln stacks but when you’re talking about solo damage, grenade wins.

I’d also like to note that the OP didn’t specify whether he’s doing dungeons or regular open-world. In regular open-world FT actually beats both grenades and bombs now.

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Posted by: dancingmonkey.4902

dancingmonkey.4902

All of that is true. But how often in PvE is the vulnerability stacks not maxed out?

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Posted by: Xyonon.3987

Xyonon.3987

Sharpnel has a 15% chance to stack 15 sec of bleed. That’s like 800 damage every 2nd AA. With grenades thats like +400 damage per AA, for bombs rather +130. And even if you think about the Sharpshooter trait, the difference is much lower than the 30% the bombs deal more damage than grenades, especially when you got some might stacks, since bleeding scales terrible compared to direct damage skills.

The point is: grenades only deal higher passive damage due vulnerability. Yet against trashmobs or mobs who are about to die, vulnerability won’t matter that much, since it needs time to “deal damage”.

I suggest to use both, grenades and bombs, but if I had to choose, I’d say grenates are better in general.

But FT beating grenades and bombs in open world? Yea, i guess that’s right. But only if you keep 2# on CD and only if there are 1-3 enemies.

Ziggs Ironeye – Engineer | Madame Le Blanc – Mesmer | Mentor (PvE) | EU
“Mentoring engineers / mesmers and showing you what you can do with your fantastic class!
Just pm me for my advice! Always eager to help!”

(edited by Xyonon.3987)

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Posted by: dancingmonkey.4902

dancingmonkey.4902

When you figured up the damage of shrapnel in relation to bombs, where you including the fact that it can proc on every pulse of fire bomb, smoke bomb, and glue bomb?

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Posted by: Xyonon.3987

Xyonon.3987

Only fire bomb and smoke bomb. But nevermind that – I used simple math. If you want me to do exact math, I also can do that. But right now I gtg, see ya

Ziggs Ironeye – Engineer | Madame Le Blanc – Mesmer | Mentor (PvE) | EU
“Mentoring engineers / mesmers and showing you what you can do with your fantastic class!
Just pm me for my advice! Always eager to help!”

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Posted by: Guanglai Kangyi.4318

Guanglai Kangyi.4318

Vulnerability doesn’t need time to deal damage, once it’s stacked it’s stacked, and any ramp-up time is offset by the fact that bombs also have ramp-up time and it’s much slower since they don’t have access to Grenade Barrage. And if you’re factoring in Fire Bomb and Smoke Bomb ticks the overall damage on bombs is even lower since those are both weaker than the bomb auto.

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Posted by: Xyonon.3987

Xyonon.3987

Ok I’ll explain it a bit further for you

  • Vulnerability does only deal damage on it’s own. It only deals damage passive and if it’s already there when other sources inflict direct damage. Therefore you need time to stack it, but that time doesn’t exist if a mob is about to die or if it’s a trashmob that dies within a few seconds. The damage you deal with grenades + passive damage will not be higher than the damage of bomb 1# in those cases.
  • Bombs have higher attack speed than grenades, 16% actually and deal 26% more damage. If you include the bleed, you could say “let’s ignore the higher attack speed of the grenades then”. So 1/4 higher damage from bomb 1.
  • Fire Bomb deals along with the 10 sec of burning also 4 times the listed damage over 3 seconds. This damage alone is only 10% lower than grenade #1 and hits even 1 more time (vuln). The burning damage is 3280-5467 depending on might stacks (0-875 condi dmg). Even a few ticks of fire and you already outdamaged the grenade 1# with it.

I don’t tell you to stay on bombs, no way! Allways go for grenades for the burst skill, like barrage, sharpnel and freeze. Also use the AA if enemies are Elite + (maybe even Vet, depends on KS). But DO NOT USE grenade 1# if you are facing trashmobs or if enemies are about to die. Look at my fantastic paint skills! They will explain what I mean:

Greez Ziggy I hope I could explain it now ^^

Attachments:

Ziggs Ironeye – Engineer | Madame Le Blanc – Mesmer | Mentor (PvE) | EU
“Mentoring engineers / mesmers and showing you what you can do with your fantastic class!
Just pm me for my advice! Always eager to help!”

(edited by Xyonon.3987)

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Posted by: Guanglai Kangyi.4318

Guanglai Kangyi.4318

Uh you can’t just arbitrarily substitute bleed for attack speed and call that conclusive math.

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Posted by: Wyrden.4713

Wyrden.4713

maths for tool kit aa pls!

just my ytb channel

FeintFate~

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Posted by: oxtred.7658

oxtred.7658

ft aa is probably the best, since you can deal unlimited millions of damage.

If you’re on EU and need help to get into dungeons, pm me.

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Posted by: Xyonon.3987

Xyonon.3987

Uh you can’t just arbitrarily substitute bleed for attack speed and call that conclusive math.

You can calculate the 16% damage of the bombs, yet you cannot calculate the condition damage of the bleed. Once you hit the 25 stacks, your long lasting bleed get’s replaced by other bleeds, even if they are just a few sec. Also bleeding damage vanishes once the enemy died. This supports my “use bombs on low HP” theory even further. Also keep in mind that bombs are also able to proc bleed (15%), fire bomb (60%) even better than grenades (45%). So yes – it’s conclusive math, yet not perfect, I admit.

However I guess you get the point now. If not, I cannot help you anymore :|

greez Ziggy

Ziggs Ironeye – Engineer | Madame Le Blanc – Mesmer | Mentor (PvE) | EU
“Mentoring engineers / mesmers and showing you what you can do with your fantastic class!
Just pm me for my advice! Always eager to help!”

(edited by Xyonon.3987)

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Posted by: kyubi.3620

kyubi.3620

As insulting as some might call it turret build actualy works very well for non serious pve purpose. As long as your leveling or doing regular dungeons you can run a turret build but I highly subjest going for FT bomb or nade the moment you jump into fractals

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