Guild Wars 2

tl;dr

I have been browsing the forums a lot and have noticed a good deal of complaints coming from fellow tinkering minds about the state of the Engineer in tournament play and sPvP in general. Two main points I notice is a desire for a more “rifle-like” rifle than the current shotgun mechanic, as well as an emphasis on grenade/bomb bunker builds that seems to be the evolution of the Engineer’s meta. I am here to show you, my explosion-loving, elixir-drinking, mechanics of destruction a new way to play the the profession we all know and love.

I am going to preface this post right away by stating that this build is not solely my creation (in fact my first impression of it was from twitch.tv), yet I see many people either not using it properly or not at all.

Traits

• Explosives
  10 Points: V. Incendiary Powder
  This talent seems to be the bread and butter of nearly all Engineer builds out there. The profession itself comes with a great deal of conditions and it seems only natural to add the one that gains the largest benefit from condition damage and power. This build will garner you around 50% crit chance, so you have around a 20% chance of applying the burn effect each time you shoot.

• Firearms
  10 Points: III. Infused Precision
  This talent alone is pretty powerful; 25% chance per shot to gain 33% movement speed is very helpful in escaping from thieves, guardians, warriors, and any number of other pesky melee classes that want to get up in our face. Also handy to chase down a fleeing opponent. This talent will synergizes amazingly well with the Invigorating Speed from the Alchemy tree which we get to soon.
  20 Points: VI. Hair Trigger
  Pretty straight-forward, less time between cooldowns for your rifle attacks. Always helpful to have a faster immobilize/stun/knock back. For the number geeks out there that brings Net Shot from a 10s to an 8s CD, Blunderbuss from a 10s to an 8s CD, Overcharged Shot from a 15s to a 12s CD, and Jump Shot from a 20s to a 16s CD.
  30 Points: IX. Rifle Mod
  10% more damage for every attack. There was much rejoicing….

• Alchemy
  10 Points: I. Invigorating Speed
  Now is where things get interesting. Every swiftness=vigor. In essence, that means near constant energy regen for lots and lots of evades. The 25% chance to gain swiftness from our Firearms talents practically guarantees you to have Vigor stacks so long as you are just getting potshots off at people. This becomes so invaluable when attempting to grab points from bunkers whose knock backs just become a very satisfying Evaded on the screen. In my experience there really was not a point in which I did not have the stack of Vigor or swiftness when I play, since if my rifle shots are not garnering the buffs, swapping to Med Kit combined with Speedy Kits guarantees it.

• Tools
  10 Points: II. Static Discharge
  So simple and vague in its wording, so deadly in its execution. The spell description does not do justice to the raw damage threshold this trait grants us. For every use of the tool belt we shoot out a bolt of lightning that hits the target and 2 nearest enemies for 1.2-1.5k damage. Instantly. No cooldowns. Essentially, you could pop every one of your tool belt skills at the same time and launch 4 chain lightnings for 6k damage in less than a second. You will essentially be spamming every one of your tool belt skills for this effect, which is perfect since 5 points in Tools grants 10% endurance every time you use your tool belt (along with the Vigor buff, are you seeing where we are heading?)
  20 Points VI. Speedy Kits
  Infinite swiftness. There I said it. Infinite movement speed increases. Simply place Med Kit on your bar and you will never go back to another trait again.

Utilities and Weapon

• Rifle
  I hope it was pretty obvious from the talents that this will be a rifle-focused build. There are so many things to love about it: immobilize, knock-back, best power-damage ratio (behind grenades) for Engineers, and of course the mini stun. Then just throw on some awesome burst attacks. Oh yea, and every shot pierces. How is this ok? I don’t care cause I love it.
  The most important thing you want to remember about this weapon though is it is your most powerful tool at control. Net shot have gone to waste too many times on an evading target or Overcharged Shot rendered ineffective by a blocking Guardian. Time your attacks. Count the number of evades your opponent has done then strike with reckless abandon. Keep them on the defensive and control their every move. Wait for the stun from Overcharged Shot before landing the immobilize then Jump Shot onto them. We may have shorter cool-downs, but you should never blow one for the fun of it.

• Med Kit
  I feel this is probably one of our most underrated and most powerful heals. What we must remember is that the primary heal comes from the tool-belt, not the actual heal itself (which means it will proc the chain lightning effect, however only on targets within a 10 yard range). The kit itself grants us additional heals, the infinite swiftness (and vigor) I mentioned earlier, condition removal, and lastly Fury. 20% crit chance is amazing for gaining more swiftness, applying more burns and bleeds, and just all around more damage on the guy at the other end of our barrel. Don’t be shy about using this spell; whip it out mid-fight, toss down some packs to heal up then jump right back into the action.

• Rocket Boots
  What? You may be asking yourself this very question. Yet I encourage you to stay awhile and listen. While it may seem like Rocket Boots is counter-productive, you trade one stun for another, I owe this spell my life from more Hundred Bladesing, Pistol-Whipping, Blurred Frenzying 13-year-olds than I care to count. The ability to instantly blast away from certain death is invaluable when you get jumped by any class. Yet this benefit also has its downsides. I have found myself blown back a couple feet and then quickly slashed down by my own stun when the spell clips on an invisible rock. The cooldown, 30s, I feel is fairly reasonable for how powerful of an escape mechanic this is. I will caution you in advance to not blow this spell on the first person to look at you sideways. You regret that decision the second his friend shows up and stuns you to death.
  The toolbelt skill, as with all others, will proc the chain lightning effect, as well as doing a decent amount of damage and applying a burning effect. I warn you that the range on the attack is not very far, you are incapable of canceling the charge animation, and will look very stupid when you fall short of the ninja kick to the face you were looking for. Rather, mix this spell into your Blunderbuss-Jump Shot combo and then quickly get out.

• Rifle Turret
  Another oddity it seems. Stay fast, friends, for remember that our damage output comes from the chain lightning effect of our tool-belt skills. Rifle Turret’s “Suprise Shot” is currently the lowest CD of all the tool-belt skills at 10s. The spell itself will do its normal 1-1.3k damage in addition to proccing the damage from Static Discharge. Additionally, once you place the turret detonating it will proc the chain lightning effect on the nearest target, but will not reset the cool down of Surprise Shot meaning you can instantly cast it after blowing up the turret for around 4k damage from that single combo.

• Utility Goggles
  Fury, stun break, and immunity to blindness. That is a lot to gain from a single utility. Combine that with our Med Kit’s Fury buff, you can run around with only about 10s of non-Fury if you really put your mind to it. Additionally adding this utility we are up to 2 stun breakers, which means it is very simple to deal with any type of warrior/thief burst build. Unless its’ a backstab thief, in which case go put some tea on the kettle while you wait for your spawn timer.
  The tool belt skill will, for the 10th time, proc the chain lightning effect, while additionally applying 10 stacks of Vulnerability instantly. Come on, who couldn’t love that.

• Supply Drop
  Cause that’s the only ult Engineers have. End of story.

Runes and Sigil and Amulet

• As for runes and sigil, grab 6 Runes of the Ogre for the rock dog and damage and Sigil of Superior Earth to basically guarantee a bleed stack for every crit. Also make sure to pick up the Berserker’s Amulet, but put the Rampager’s Jewel in it to combine the precision, condition, and vitality with the baseline stats of the amulet. Always a fun choice.

Thanks for reading this far if you have. I really hope this helps out some struggling Engineer brothers out there. If you want I will post of a video of some normal and tournament play with this build to give you an idea of the damage output/control methods I use.

I like the idea! I’m a big fun of rifle and always make sure to have reduced CDs for key abilities on it, also, with 10 points in tool and spamming your Surprise shot you’ll restore 10% of your endurance in addition to shoot the lighting bolt. Gogo dodges go! Gonna give it a try, defintely! (would be better if, since vigor doubles your endurance regen, using toolbelt under its effect would make 20% of endurance regenerated, but this would be too OP i think)

Playing Static Discharge build since 1 week after release;

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQFAUl0pqdX8STF1LJxoHkmzdGki82XRFy/nCsF;ToAg0CnowxgjAHLOOck4Ms4YB

Dont use Rocketboots, you don’t want to knockback yourself and the toolbelt skill is also not very good as you only have 300 condition dmg.

Better use the Battering Ram instead!
> 2 Knockbacks (Rifle, Ram) are OP as hell and you can easily land your Jump Shot when enemy is laying on the ground.
Plus, the toolbelt skill gives a nice cripple and does a LOT of direct dmg even without Static discharge!

I’m no fan of Ogre runes as you don’t want to get hit much so. Better use Eagle or Divinity Runes. I prefer Eagle rune for add. 5% dmg when target is below 50% – which is after the first burst.

Furthermore I don’t think you need 2 Swiftness from III Trait in Firearms AND perma-swiftning from VI Trait in Tools. Its smart to use your medkits anyway while your toolbelt skills recharge and you can heal yourself up.

The Fire Sigil is far superior to Air Sigil and Earth (you don’t have condition dmg!) so better use this one.
Fire does a little less single Target Damage than Air Sigil, but it’s AOE and Air is not.
You can try yourself at the big Group of Golems in Heart of the Mist with a violet/steady weapon.

The only thing that is discussable is Trait X in Firearms. Personally I think its very good to have a 5 Sec blind every 10 secs but you can also switch back to +10% dmg on rifle.

Hope I could help you :-)

i like it and wil try it. Does anyone also recommend this in PvE?

its pretty much the same build I use, with the 10 points in alchemy swapped to tools. I use it with tool kit in place of the utility goggles for a bit more burst dps and utility options.

It’s nice in spvp and WvW. Dps is a bit lower than grenade in a sustained fight but for short bursty encounters I find it to be competitive.

For pve it’s ok, but for a lot of dungeons you do not want to be melee, and with this build a lot of dps comes from being melee. Grenade / FT / Pistol builds tend to do much better since most pve fights are sustained fights. But you can midigate this by using grenade kit in place of tool kit, or swapping in rocket turret for rocket boots and using smart positioning to keep it safe.

You’d be surprised the amount of dps rocket turret provides thanks to the constant burning from it + your crits.

as for runes I think centaur runes are a bit better than orges.

The swiftness on heal is AoE and it can easily take the place of speedy kits to free up room for kit refinement, or speedy gadget if your going to be using 2 gadgets in a build.

When I use a related build, I always want the tool kit, for the throw wrench, which does ridiculous damage and a cripple on its own, but has a 15s tool belt cool down for static discharge.

So do you guys just run this with zerker’s armor? I have been trying it, and while i can throw a whallop down and control mellee fairly easily with the net shot/double knockback , ranged just seems to eat me alive. I switched to this after playing P/P condition/toughness so perhaps I’m doing it wrong. Always open to suggestions.

Thanks.

I don’t like running berzerkers at all.

I tried it numerous times. I kind of got away with it when doing a grenade / elixir build thanks to the extra vitality from alchemy.

I normally run it with Valkyrie gear and a sometimes few pieces of carrion mixed in. ((I have found I like to be a bit more hybrid in my dps. It opens up more options)) I do not miss the crit that much to be honest. Since with fury from either goggles, or perhaps runes, or allies, or medkit. You can still get a lot of crit, 40%-50% easy.

I use the mostly centaur rune set for the swiftness on heal and extra power. This lets me drop speedy kits for kit refinement or power wrenches.

You can also use speed runes to get a ton more vitality and the added 7% speed boost that is great for staying alive.

Pack and Citadel runes sets are also good for dps boons like fury / might. Pack gives good swiftness as well.

For me survival is more about positioning and dodging, than stacking toughness.

With perma swiftness ((+ vigor in some builds)) and a 22K+ hp pool you’ve got a lot of survivability, add in the block on tool kit, tons of cripples, net shot, overcharged shot, and a self knock or stun break, you have a lot of tools to save yourself.

I found that in situations where I die with this setup, I die with heavy toughness, or heavy alchemy traiting, as well.

Not much you can do when you get rolled over by large groups.

Although if you have rocket boots doing overcharged – rocket boots – elixir X ((right after you hit rocket boots)) can sometimes get elixir X off before the knock down granting you stability and the ability to charge out of there!

You gotta get the full 900 range though to get elixir X off. Doing it off a keep or cliff works best for this.

For ranged you really have to push in on them, which can be hard to do. Once you get in melee to them blunderbuss + a double knock back and a jumpshot is enough to kill most anyone.

But you have to pick your fights since you do not have a great range closer.

Net turret helps a bit. But you still want to start the fight on your own terms. Net shot and throw wrench are really easy to dodge at range, making it hard to close in from 1200-900 to where your most effective sub ~600.

If I am solo roaming I pick objectives or areas where people can’t ranged me from ledges or not have as much room to kite so I can box them in better.

I kind of wish magnet had a better range like scorpion wire on thief so it could be an anti kiter tool. Even though its 600 the long cast means to hit someone moving away from you, you need to be ~400 to get it off. 400 is pretty much already melee.

I just tried this build out, and I have to say, I love it. I’ve been a little weary of playing lots of PvP on my engineer, because I liked bunkering, but I couldn’t progress that much; bunkering naturally doesn’t reward players that well. But now, I can rank up my glory with this build, then switch to bunkering for tournaments. Bravo. I love it

Yup it’s my favorite build out of the dozens I’ve tried. It keeps me on the engi even when I try to play my warrior or thief.

I also keep finding ways to tweak and adjust it.

Like running juggernaut + FT and stacking might with swapping + detonating healing + rifle turrets before a fight ((easy 11 might stacks!))

Or running rocket turret to deployable turrets to give me air support on Spvp maps.
((rocket turret can really kitten a D/D thief or GS warrior when it’s place sneaky like))

Activate rocket – overcharged shot – net short – (rocket hits) jump shot – blunderbuss – (swap tool kit) – pry bar – smack – block – (swap rifle) net shot – blunder buss – overcharged shot

That and it keeps perma burning up!

To be honest it is the only build I have ever worked multiple turrets or gadgets into where I didn’t feel I wasn’t screwing myself over by not having traited elixirs.

I can really see it becoming an extremely strong build with a few of the bug fixes we all hoping for.

My God…. OP almost described my build down to the last trait and skill.
Almost.

Yes, I can attest through constant use that this build works very well for a very simple and easy to use build (there isn’t much micro-management, just point and shoot).

How does this build deal with crippling effects? Cripple seems to be the #1 thing that ends up getting me killed.

Denim Samurai.2379:

How does this build deal with crippling effects? Cripple seems to be the #1 thing that ends up getting me killed.

Rifle #4

I run a similae build

10 (burn proc)
30 (range, damage, cd reduction)
0
0
30 (discharge, gadget cd reduction, end regen), Planning on going speedy kits since I use med kit.

Weapon: Rifle
Utility: Goggles, Ram, Rifle Turret
Elite: Supply

Pretty funny to snipe groups with this. Builds like this are refreshing, I wish more people would explore their options rather than constraining themselves to the meta or forcing their view upon a profession (rifle is pretty devastating when used properly).

Discharge scales with power. Not sure if it was mentioned at all. Skimmed, and didn’t see it.

I’m not sure on the coefficient. And yep hits hard. I’ve called it op before. and leveling with it heavily probably was a good part of how I overlooked how bad condition damage was.

Quite like the ability, though it’s buggy as all get out.

See below:
To really illustrate the randomness of this compare the trait’s effects between these skills:

Surprise Shot\Rifle Turret
- Strikes the target in parallel to the bullet fired, out to 1200 range. no bounces to targets outside of 900 range.

Any Healing Tool Belt Skill (including Elixir Rifle tool belt heal)
- Bloody random. Can miss target even if they are at Point Blank distance dead in front (I’ve watched it literally, fire off tangentially when normally it would just splat at your feet a pace and a half in front of you). Bounces normally IF it makes contact at short distance.

Launch Personal Battering Ram\Personal Battering Ram
- Fires accurately at point of ram projectile (slower moving) making contact with target. Has a 1200 range even though LPBR has only a 900 range, and fires when it hollers ‘Out of Range’ then strikes, for no bounces past initial target.

Mine Field\Throw Mine
- fires a perfectly accurate bolt at highlighted target on deploying the field and fires another wildly INaccurate shot on detonating the mine field

Big Ole Bomb\Bomb Kit
- Perfectly accurate to targeted object within 1200 range, though near max range no longer bounces to targets OUT of range (intended? total travel distance may be variable)

Any Elixir Tosses\Elixir Abilities
(Elixir B can have the bolt pass THROUGH a target dummy, doing nothing, though it seems to travel, generally along the path of the thrown elixir)

Analyze\Utility Goggles
- accurate to any target within range (instant application of the effect, so cannot say if the trigger is on ‘contact’ or activation here as they are synonymous)

Grenade Barrage\Grenade Kit
- Near as I can tell, totally inaccurate, akin to the elixir tosses. If it strikes a target it’s blind chance, though it does seem to travel out a distance rather than just splat at your feet.

Incendiary Ammo\Flamethrower Kit
- Totally inaccurate shot.

From the above I can glean:

- Will not ‘bounce’ to targets past 900 range
- accuracy and firing characteristics are hella random
- for targeted aoe the bolt seems to aim where your cursor is, just with no intention of making contact with targets AT that location.
- for PBAoE or self target items, totally messed, splatting at your feet more often that not.
- Deployables, like mine field or Big ole Bomb, perfect accuracy versus target

Passed this on to the fellow maintaining the engineer bug list, but this is just insanely inconsistent behaviour and dramatically reduces the fun factor of this tool in our tool kit (pun intended?).

Hello, I’m new to the game with no character over 25 yet, so I wanted to adapt a static charge build for PvE but ofc could be making rookie mistakes. Could some people look over my idea and tell me if I’m overlooking something important?

It takes healbomber and gives it SD for more offense, since bombers have an acceptable toolbelt skill that’s also a blast finisher. Since we have to have rifle turret anyway, why not blow it up too?

Key ideas:

• The permaswift/vigor combo
• Heal Bombing/Static D
• Heal/Tough add some power
• Combo: 4 blast finishers, 3 projectile finishers (1 AoE, 2 are static discharge skills), 1 fire and 1 smoke field.
• Defense: 2 shield blocks, 1 projectile reflect, nails and glue bomb, daze, launch, blowback.
• Can be adapted to elixir gun/kit refinement instead of toolkit if more support is desired.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQJAqel0pyUH5ynF1LJyIFkGnF6hEaYqloC53nCyFA;T8AA1ysEYJxSllCLqaM1IqxWjrGZNDIOEMJA

Perceived weaknesses:

• Low condition removal, middling HP.
• No stun breakers (not as important in PvE?)
• Few boons
• No weapon perks
• Crit damage locked behind low-precision build (hey, do SD and bombs even crit?)

P.S. Might Field Combo:
Turret, Surprise, (nails magnet if needed), Pistol Blind, BoB, Fire Bomb, Det Turret in between Fire Bomb and BoB dets, Surprise (was reset by det turret), Throw Wrench.

That gives you 4 discharges(2 with 6 stacks of might), 2 explosions and a launch. I’ve tested it without SD or toolkit because I just hit 20 today.

I don’t see any reason why it shouldn’t work, which probably means it’s totally borked somewhere. Could someone more familiar with the game tell me if it’s sound?

Just wanted to add regarding the weakness vs ranged here…

Try elixir U toolbelt, very useful with a 2/3 chances of casting smoke screen or Reflect wall. While those are up, you can focus at melting your opponent/s with ranged attacks.

This build rules. Thanks for the info.

This seems like the only other viable build outside of any grenade build. =/ This is a great build. I’m sure Anet will destroy in the next patch.

Eleazyair.5716:

This seems like the only other viable build outside of any grenade build. =/ This is a great build. I’m sure Anet will destroy in the next patch.

This is a horribly misinforming claim to make. There are very many viable builds.

Depends what you find as viable.

coglin.1496:

Eleazyair.5716:

This seems like the only other viable build outside of any grenade build. =/ This is a great build. I’m sure Anet will destroy in the next patch.

This is a horribly misinforming claim to make. There are very many viable builds.

If your environment is PvE outside of dungeon, there are many viable builds.

If your environment is PvE dungeons, most of the viable builds are healing and condition removal. This is what engineers do best, next to CC. But in dungeons, the applicability of knockback CC (engineer’s most plentiful) is greatly limited.

If your environment is WvW, I am not sure even this build is really viable. Its burst potential is much less than other ranged classes, and basically what people want you to do is make the ramparts a scary place while your team rams the gates; a directive incompatible with this build.

If your environment is sPvP, there are several other viable support builds, but it’s sort of questionable of you SHOULD do this.

Unless you mean by viable, "Via the Dunning-Kruger effect, I do what I want!

I started trying this out the other night. It’s kinda awesome actually, slows me down in Orr big time but i can usually switch it out in time enough to do some heavy AOE damage in an Orr event. (have to turn off speedy kits in my build.)

KirinDave.6451:

coglin.1496:

Eleazyair.5716:

This seems like the only other viable build outside of any grenade build. =/ This is a great build. I’m sure Anet will destroy in the next patch.

This is a horribly misinforming claim to make. There are very many viable builds.

If your environment is PvE outside of dungeon, there are many viable builds.

If your environment is PvE dungeons, most of the viable builds are healing and condition removal. This is what engineers do best, next to CC. But in dungeons, the applicability of knockback CC (engineer’s most plentiful) is greatly limited.

If your environment is WvW, I am not sure even this build is really viable. Its burst potential is much less than other ranged classes, and basically what people want you to do is make the ramparts a scary place while your team rams the gates; a directive incompatible with this build.

If your environment is sPvP, there are several other viable support builds, but it’s sort of questionable of you SHOULD do this.

Unless you mean by viable, "Via the Dunning-Kruger effect, I do what I want!

It’s extremely viable in WvW if you do not do the “turtle blob” “auto-attack wall with gtaoe” play style.

If you stay mobile and are part of an organized guild doing hit and run tactics it is a fantastic burst build.

I run a 0 30 0 10 30 build with rifle – healing turret – tool kit – elixir gun – rifle turret – supply drop.

It works well for mid – close range burst AoE with a lot of group utility from EG and lots of aoe healing, condition removal, retribution, swiftness, and CC.

I’ll put a video up later this week of some guild roaming once it’s put together. It has a 10-13 man group taking on zergs. There is some nice footage of both a grenade / support engi and a tool belt / support engi.

Both bring different things to the table.

You’d be surprised about how effective EG is when put into a power / lightning spec.

The damage from EG is fantastic, and it adds a nice dynamic to rifle play.

Burst with tool belts at mid-range. Hit with rifle at melee. Hit with EG 2/3 then acid bomb to escape. Hit with tool belts again from mid-range to finish with the acid bomb / poison up.

Really loving lightning for WvW so far. I think I’m going to give it a try using pistol/shield instead of my rifle in my berserker exotics to see how that works out. Any advice?

Karast.1927:

It’s extremely viable in WvW if you do not do the “turtle blob” “auto-attack wall with gtaoe” play style.

If you stay mobile and are part of an organized guild doing hit and run tactics it is a fantastic burst build.

I’d argue there are classes that can do this much better. The only thing I think Engineers can do better in this is sustain haste for a lot longer. The burst is inferior to what other people bring to the table, and when Thief & Mesmer are on the table it’s really hard to argue with their harassment potential.

I really wish Engineer had some better stealth options. That’d really help.

I run a 0 30 0 10 30 build with rifle – healing turret – tool kit – elixir gun – rifle turret – supply drop.

It works well for mid – close range burst AoE with a lot of group utility from EG and lots of aoe healing, condition removal, retribution, swiftness, and CC.

I’ll put a video up later this week of some guild roaming once it’s put together. It has a 10-13 man group taking on zergs. There is some nice footage of both a grenade / support engi and a tool belt / support engi.

In a larger group like 10+ I can definitely see it working. In small scale tactics I think it’d be outshone. Basically your goal is to find people low on health and add to their burst, but most every ranged class can do this passably (even necro!).

I’ve seen 5 man groups stall zergs at choke points, and rarely is an engineer an integral part of that.

Karast.1927:

Both bring different things to the table.

You’d be surprised about how effective EG is when put into a power / lightning spec.

The damage from EG is fantastic, and it adds a nice dynamic to rifle play.

Compared to the rest of the Engineer’s options, I agree! This is probably the only real burst spec left that is not trivially countered by seeing a red circle on the ground and moving out of it.

Compared to other classes, blowing 3-4 cooldowns for 5k-7k of burst and giving up substantial CC to do this is not that attractive. And you give up the offhand pistol moves for the big damage, which is a shame because pistol 5 is one of the better tools for stalling large groups of people. The rifle’s control is great, but only for 1 or two targets.

Actually I lead the initial push and provide a lot of the front loaded damage and CC.

Thieves and mesmer are ridiculous on the damage, and many are currently exploiting portal / aoe stealth for the bugged culling it causes but we avoid that.

What Engi can do when you push in is (with stability from guardian) is drop supply crate and then do a jump shot – blunderbuss onto the front line. ((zerglings typically do not dodge or counter the jumpshot, especially if they are in a kittenerg)) Then you can either use throw wrench or grenade barrage depending on build for more dps. By pushing in first you take a lot of enemy focus. Using elixir S or the elixir S trait from alchemy keeps you alive. When you shrink you swap to EG and use fumigate / acid bomb as you pull back leaving a light combo field behind.

A lot of enemies will still have you targeted as the rest of your team cut in. With the light field down for healing / condition removal.

You’ll also have downed a few with the burst rotation with rifle / EG and you can follow up with some DD from rifle and AoE from tool belts with static discharge.

A thief or mesmer cannot compare really in being able to front line for a group like this. Nor do they have the same level of survivability without abusing stealth bugs or portal.

When you build a group that’s not portal bombing or using the culling bug, Engi’s can play a bigger part in your burst dps.

When we run without our front line engi’s, we lose a lot of burst AoE, which you need to down players fast.

Grenade build engi’s, and ele’s are good for cleaning up with the constant AoE damage they provide. But the burst AoE from jump shot – blunderbuss and static discharge makes a huge difference.

Basically the engi’s provide the front loaded burst to down players, then we swap to more support roles with EG and rifle. Healing, removing conditions, and keeping enemies off our more back line professions like mesmers, and ele’s until we have our rotation off CD to push in again.

But it’s not odd for me to get 15-20 people hitting me while I evade with elixir S, and then swap into tool kit for 3s of block. Tying up the dps / CC of 20 people for 7s is massive.

It plays off a lot of engineers strong points and takes advantage of the zerg mentality to turn weaknesses into strengths. A smart player never get hits by jump shot. Zerg players don’t play smart and tend to charge ahead. Thus making jump shot much more effective than it normally is. You also capitalize on the strength of elixir S, elixir guns movement skills, and the great block / aoe cripples from tool kit.

It’s taken a while to get the build working right, and I tweak it a lot, but for the front line melee role I think it is a good mix of dps, survivability, and utility.

Just want to give a recommendation for this type of build.

Since fractals released I have gone full support to force people through them, but this was a lot fun to run.

That’s a really great insight on how to close on a minizerg and do some nice burst damage during a brief invincible period. I was wondering how to make my build survive long enough to get in range for the bombs, and using rifle/Self-regulating defenses seems to be the answer.

In your experience, would Protective Shield or Cloaking Device be better in small-group combat?

I like protective shield over cloaking device. My issue with cloaking device is your still immobilized even though your stealth-ed. Unless if you have overcharged shot ready to break it your still going to be immobilized.

With protective shield at the start of a fight or if a thief bursts you from stealth it will always proc right away, giving you protection for the initial push before you use elixir S.

Sounds fun. I linked this page and will try this build(s) this weekend.

My personal take on the chain lightning build (as one of the few that is respectable imho and fun to play even in it’s bug ridden state):

http://gw2.luna-atra.fr/skills_tool/?lang=en&code=3ek6g0drnde2dthfr05up0aa6acalarkakj

It’s a pistol/shield build that with a single trait can switch to pistol/pistol pretty readily and still be pretty resilient.

Additionally, it’s fluid enough that while I run with Rocket Boots and Personal Battering Ram (both of which reliably target things with chain lighting), I rotate a number of abilities in my number 8 slot as needed situationally. Usually Elixir gun for the extra heals, as i run with toughness/healing power that both convert into Power at 5 and 10%.

I gear with Healing/Toughness gear and it’s worked very well for survivability and damage output, though I need better runes. Critical chance at 34% (44% when they are under 50% health, and spiking to 54% when you use the medkit boost entering fight) is very workable to trigger all the bleeds and vulnerabilities for extra damage rate as well

Perhaps not optimized, but I still experiment and I naturally gravitate to flexible over one trick pony as a rule. Thanks to the healing factors it’s also a solid team build when you use the Elixir Rifle toolbelt skill and/or number 5 AOE field.

The key to the chain lightning build is knowing which abilities actually WORK with it, as outlined in my bug list on the trait. You CAN get the Medkit heal and ER mist to hit a target but you have to be facing and RIGHT on top of your targets or group of targets allowing your healing to do aoe damage, a very nice benefit.

I used a similar build on my engineer but I take the toolkit always, Throw wrench does great damage, especially if you net shot your opponent ensuring that your wrench will hit both times. Not to mention box of nails and gear shield are great escape tools.

Is this build better with P/Sh or Rifle?

If anyone’s still looking for a good Static build for PvE and/or WvW, this is the build I use in both types of gameplay:

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQFAUl0pyUHxSyF17IyIFdGpBShe5XfeMftFEC;TgAA1UbZ2SsldL3WytGUA

For most open world PvE, I wear full Berserker gear with Superior Runes of the Wurm. For higher level fractals and WvW, I wear Soldier’s armor (Power/Toughness/Vitality) with an even mix of Valkyrie and Knight’s jewels. Armor runeset is Superior Runes of the Fighter (I got them for a tanky flamethrower build, and they work well enough here). In both cases, I have a Superior Sigil of Air on the rifle. Remember, all your survivability comes from your gear, since the build doesn’t have any by itself.

I like this build because of its versatility. I have fully specced Grenadier capabilities when I need them. It’s a good build for land or water combat, AoE or single target, close range or long range, stationary or moving. As linked, the toolbelts for Rifle Turret and Tool Kit put out a respectable amount of reliable damage, but I can always change them up for WvW, where I sometimes ditch Tool Kit for Elixir Gun. Grenade Barrage, especially, does a hilarious amount of damage provided you’re holding your rifle when you activate it.

This is a great build….I’m only 45 points into it, but it has made this class so much more fun. And thanks to the detailed write-up given me a much better understanding of the class. I use the traits…though I switch around on the skills. I still think elixir gun skill using the acid backstep is better than the rocket boots. At least for control, plus the added debuffs for your team when switching.

I’ve tries P/P and P/S over and over and I still go back to Rifle most of the time. If the shield skills had a faster reload…but jeez…might as well leave 4 & 5 unequipped as use a shield.

What type of armour set would best suite this build? I was thinking more for PvE at the moment. Maybe CoF Power/Prec armour?

Eleazyair.5716:

What type of armour set would best suite this build? I was thinking more for PvE at the moment. Maybe CoF Power/Prec armour?

Depends what you want to get out of the build. For outright damage, Berserker’s gear is the best choice (Power/Precision/Critical Damage). You can get it crafted or from dungeons. However, your build plus your gear give you zero survivability in this case. The minute anything serious looks at you sideways, you’ll be headed to the nearest waypoint.

You’ll have to strike whatever balance between damage and survivability you feel comfortable with. When I’m running around the world, not doing anything serious, I wear berserker’s armor socketed with Superior Runes of the Wurm, berserker rifle socketed with Superior Sigil of Air, and valkyrie jewels (Power/Vitality/Critical Dmg). For dungeon content and WvW, I switch to Soldier’s gear (Power/Toughness/Vitality) with Superior Runes of the Fighter, Soldier’s rifle with Superior Sigil of Air, and a 50/50 mix of valkyrie and knight (Power/Precision/Toughness) jewels. Soldier’s gear can be gotten from some dungeons, from Karma gear (except pants and weapon), and from WvW. The jewels are crafted.

If anyone is interested in seeing some videos of this build, google “Teldo Power Rifle” on youtube. It’s a classic build, and I found Teldo’s videos to be pretty good.

I run this build with scholar runes, elixir s, toolkit, and utility goggles and it’s alot of fun to play. Theres many ways to combo, whether it’s with net shot+analyze+throw wrench, or overcharge shot+utility goggle+jumpshot, or a mix/match of the two.

With the new buffs to toolkit, another thing I’ve been doing is comboing with the magnet. You can use box of nails, pull someone into the nails field from 1200 range, then switch to rifle to do your standard burst. It’s quite nasty if your opponent doesn’t have access to stability.

The thing I love about this build is that the cooldowns are all pretty short, and you almost always have combo option available. Elixir S, throw Elixir S, Box of Nails, and the Toolkit 4 block gives you some pretty good escape options.

The big drawback to this build is that it sucks in most 1v1’s. Pretty much any class with stability/some way to escape your CC’s will crush you. Unless you run elixir C or something, condition builds will destroy you also. If you’re going to 1v1 someone with this build you almost always have to find some way to even the odds, like finding a cliff or something to clip off some of their HP with your autoattacks/net shot first before engaging, otherwise you will probably get facerolled.

Heres a vid i made a few weeks ago on this very build. If you want to see it in action have a look.

Also, anyone saying Rocket Boots has no use in sPvP… don’t listen.