Guild Wars 2

Hi I am learning how to play a celest rifle engineer. I could not really find a guide stating what the role is and how to help the team more. Are you supposed to pressure a point or hold a point or skirmish? Any tips will be appreciated. So far I am liking it as I follow some combos from the youtube videos. Thank you.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/Engineer-PVP-guide-by-Backpack

Engineer PvP guide by backpack should cover all your questions

I went through backpack’s video twice, it shows how to do skill rotation and how to deal with certain classes. The role is in the aspect of point holding or assaulting a point and whether it is necessary to pair up with another class or solo?

You should be adapting to the needs of your team. 1up small fights to finish them quickly, even out large fights, peel for allies, and focus squishies down. If you can safely decap a node without risking your team losing a teamfight, do so. If the enemy is stupid enough, let them 1v1 you on a point you own.

When facing less bursty combos you can hold 1v2 on a point you own until help arrives, but some combos you will be unable to take the pressure from, and will either have to escape the fight or die on node if escape is not possible.

You should CC enemies that are attempting to stomp or res whenever possible, and apply heavy AoE pressure on corpses when not possible. If you are running elixir s, stomp enemies in larger teamfights. Res allies if possible, but do not attempt to res under heavy pressure.

If you are under pressure on a point with an ally that can fight on point, kite off point and attempt to break LoS, heal up, then move back. Similarly, if the other player on the point needs to move off of it, move onto the point so he/she can do so. You have the ability to pressure a (smaller) point from far off, do so if possible, then pick off low hp targets with CC and burst.

You are most effective in smaller fights and 1v1s, but can still provide good pressure and spike in larger team fights. Just don’t attempt to stand on small points like clocktower on khylo in 4v4/5v5 situations if at all possible.

Remember that you are faster than many builds, so you should leave fights that are already won and move on to the next fight, leaving an ally that can stomp the remaining downed enemies safely to fully capture the point. Just don’t attempt to leave any berserker players or low health players to do this.

Preferably, you should always be moving between and winning fights, and not sitting on a point with no enemies around, but if the enemy has good/multiple thieves or other very mobile professions that are proficient at decapping, you may need to do so.

Do not attempt to hold 1v3 for any amount of time. Do not run into any lost fights unless absolutely necessary. You are not helping by turning a 2v4 into a 3v4, or a 3v5 into a 4v5, and are of better use elsewhere. Do not fight 1v1s on points the enemy holds, unless you are facing a spec that you know you can force off point quickly for the decap, like a mesmer or thief.

TL;DR: Do lots of stuff.

Edit: Formatting

A million thanks I read every word of it. Very informative and useful. Although I know basic skill combos I still do not know what is the most effective way to play it and the main role. What you posted helped me alot. Thank you again. If anyone have more tips to add in, feel free to.

Also, dealing with scepter/dagger ele will be helpful too, thanks.

I’m assuming you mean the scepter/focus fresh air build? As far as I know, no one uses s/d in pvp.

You will have trouble with s/f eles though. A significant amount of your damage comes from projectiles, which they can nullify for ~8s total with swirling winds and magnetic wave, and kitten invulnerability on obsidian flesh. It isn’t a good matchup for celestial engi, and if they’re good and start out with all their major defensive skills off cooldown, chances are you’re going to lose. If you can burst them while they don’t have obsidian flesh, though, you shouldn’t have much trouble taking them down. When they put up swirling winds you’ll want to hit them with prybar and blunderbuss if possible. Try to watch their dodges, then set up a combo with magnet. If you have supply crate available, you can use it while they have swirling or magnetic wave up, then burst. The fight is a lot easier if you’re using Slick Shoes, as you can use overcharged shot followed by super speed to do a lot of damage or force them to use obsidian flesh or armor of earth. If possible, use Grenade Barrage inside their model while they’re immobilized or CC’d for huge damage.

As when fighting any fresh air ele, be wary of their gale + dragon’s tooth combo, and expect them to use phoenix when they try to get close to you quickly in fire. You can deny a lot of pressure by breaking line of sight, but if it means losing the point you’re fighting on, don’t do this unless you absolutely need it. When they’re in water or earth and at decent range away from you, you can strafe left to right repeatedly to cause their autoattacks to miss, denying them the crit necessary to recharge air attunement.

Thanks for taking the time to write the explanation. It does help me understand how to fight scepter ele alot. Because I did tried to do magnet and hit him but didnt land, the fight went downhill there with him ranging me and that god kitten rock dropped on my head when I ran out of dodges and block.

Will bear these valuable advice in mind when I play next time. Thank you again.

Sins, thanks for the valuable tips on rotations in general. Choosing the next fight feels like my worst skill atm — if I leave home to help mid we get backcapped, if I stay we end up crushed at mid. Whatever decision I make, it feels like the wrong one. Maybe I need to work on rezzing less, and running away from losing fights more

jolllly.1320:

Sins, thanks for the valuable tips on rotations in general. Choosing the next fight feels like my worst skill atm — if I leave home to help mid we get backcapped, if I stay we end up crushed at mid. Whatever decision I make, it feels like the wrong one. Maybe I need to work on rezzing less, and running away from losing fights more

Pay attention to the minimap and the kills display! How many enemy team members can you see! If all 5, then there’s no reason for you to be idle at home ever! Pay attention to who gets stomped on the enemy team! Is it a Thief! They will maybe try to backcap! Is it a bunker Guardian! They probably won’t try to backcap! Also know the respawn timer! It’s 15 seconds! Incoming respawns affect whether or not you should push far! But also know that in any game, bad players will not play rationally! Vee Wee has seen players do crayzee things!

Wahoo! Bye frands!

ArrDee.2573:

Pay attention to the minimap and the kills display! How many enemy team members can you see! If all 5, then there’s no reason for you to be idle at home ever! Pay attention to who gets stomped on the enemy team! Is it a Thief! They will maybe try to backcap! Is it a bunker Guardian! They probably won’t try to backcap! Also know the respawn timer! It’s 15 seconds! Incoming respawns affect whether or not you should push far! But also know that in any game, bad players will not play rationally! Vee Wee has seen players do crayzee things!

Wahoo! Bye frands!

Also fantastic advice. Situational awareness is huge and something I need to work on (vs going into high-adrenaline panic mode and falling back on irrational head-to-wall behaviors). Mastering this is likely what separates the meh players from the great ones. Thanks, frand.

(and also telepathic abilities in soloQ

You have a few skills that can go through projectile denial. Blunderbuss(goes through walls too), jump shot, box of nails(weak but nice cover condi and good blind removal should you ever need it), poison grenade, pry bar. I feel I’m missing something but whatever!

There are 2 mistakes you can do against s/f fresh air. Eat gale(happens more often than you expect and if you see a dragon tooth you must stunbreak or you are dead) and overcharge shot into their magnetic wave. They usually aren’t a huge problem 1v1 because you can tank the swirling duration. It lasts like 6s and your toolkit is 3s so just be careful with the gale. Oh and phoenix hits super hard too.

Try to bait a dodge with a fake magnet(cast it and interrupt). This applies to any encounter. Depending on your timing you can cancel at the last moment. They have no choice but to dodge because they risk magnet prybar overcharge netshot etc. combo chain which hurts. If they use stability(stupid idea) it’s even better because they just burned a very important cooldown for nothing. Oh and against other engis go magnet the moment you see them use toolkit block. It either forces them to dodge breaking the block or eating it which also breaks the block. This is assuming they used it because they needed some defense and not just randomly. It really cripples their sustain.

A big mistake that every engi does to a certain extent is spam stuff. Because you always have a good skill ready you feel tempted to use them all. It’s ok if you do just don’t waste key abilities.
Overcharge shot for example is one of your strongest skills. Being a launch it works on downed people too. It has no counterplay unless they expect you to do it(99% of the players will go to melee, swap to rifle and press 4 so as long as you avoid doing that you land it). Depending on how much the enemy focuses on the rez, you either poison grenade first or overcharge. If you see a bunch of people running to revive(usually if it’s their bunker or whatever they have that can tank the node pressure) try to overcharge as fast as possible and then poison.
A very important thing is cleave. You have very strong aoe capabilities with the grenades and if you have somebody on your team that can stomp safely(say ele using armor of earth or whatever) it’s better to just pressure the downed guy. Unless as mentioned above they really want to revive and then just launching away is better but poison afterwards.

I know I insist a lot on the rez/stomp thing but it’s game changing. If they fail to rez they most likely taken a lot of damage/wasted cooldowns so they are disadvantaged both defensively and in numbers.

Rotating into losing fights is bad but if you run with randoms it might be worth it if you can keep the node neutral. Most of the players have this “I gotta win that node I just died on!” attitude(mostly mid) so they will likely go there on respawn. Keeping it uncapped may help you a lot more than running to cap another node and lose it 10s later in a 3v1 while your team goes to the previous node and tries to 2v1 a tanky guy or whatever. You will get exploded and the tanky guy+1 or 2 of his team can stall the node long enough to get the cap you just tried to push(by another one) and then the capper will just outnumber your team badly. It happens a lot in unorganized groups.