Guild Wars 2

The rotation is harder, the gear more expensive, it’s not optimal for open world pve stuff. After the dps numbers showing that power hammer does equal damage, do you feel condi engi is worth it?

I think P/P Condi is very much worth it.

Condi bypasses Defiance Bars, and this helps alot in HoT maps when you are with a group of people who are not aware of how to break it, or do not do so in a well coordinated manner.

One thing to do is not rotate so much. People scoff at Pistol 1 – but maintaining 10 stacks of bleed is fairly easy. EG 1’s fumble is also more valuable than people give credit.

And Burn is in a crazy place right now. With Pistol Blow Torch (I have 13 3/4 sec duration on a 12 sec CD for 15,767 damage) Rocket Kick (9 1/4s : 10,916, 15s CD) and Incendiary Powder (7 1/4s : 5,660, 10s CD!) – without rotation, just sitting in P/P, I can average 4,000 per tick with ease. Plus EG provides good Condi Removal and Fields and Finishers for support.

I think it is not viable . I played condi engi since 2012. I played a lot scrapper in various form. Now, bored from scrapper, i tried condi mesmer . If you go pistol pistol … it can works , ok but is suboptimal becose you have not any defense. Take mesmer for example : i play scepter , shield / staff condition ( scepter has been buffed nowdays ) . Scepter has a block every 4.5 seconds or blind + shield , staff have a great skill of evasion staff (2). You have good condi damage and also you can easily avoid damage . Engineer with pistol pistol does not have it. You can have it taking toolkit with power wrench , but you are, in my opinion, less strong that power scrapper . Against a scrapper on the same level you lose. IF you play scrapper condi, with p/p you have to give up to power wrench or to alchemy , in any case you are quite easy to take down .
I understood the difference trying condi mesmer

RabbitUp.8294:

The rotation is harder, the gear more expensive, it’s not optimal for open world pve stuff. After the dps numbers showing that power hammer does equal damage, do you feel condi engi is worth it?

Where did you see that power hammer dps can match condi engi dps?
Legit curious, as I’d be interested in playing this if true (coming from a non-engi player).

In pvp, P/P it’s not longer viable.

In WvW maybe it’ still a thing, but still people has too much condi immunity and condi removal

In PvE it’s great, but only in High level fracals, Raids or Dungeon With bosses with a lot of health. For the open world it’s the same. Against trash mobs it’s a waste. Berserker gear works better.

And of course the main problem is that you are forced o pick 3 specific traits. Explosives, Tools and Firearms. No Scrapper and no difensive trait

Arewn.2368:

RabbitUp.8294:

The rotation is harder, the gear more expensive, it’s not optimal for open world pve stuff. After the dps numbers showing that power hammer does equal damage, do you feel condi engi is worth it?

Where did you see that power hammer dps can match condi engi dps?
Legit curious, as I’d be interested in playing this if true (coming from a non-engi player).

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/DPS-testing-numbers/
https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/4fnnfo/dps_comparison/

Tristan.5280:

In WvW maybe it’ still a thing, but still people has too much condi immunity and condi removal

Give it a try, you’d be surprised. I find that for roaming it is still the best option, because hammer can be kited too easily.

You have a point, in wvw, pistol/shield is my go-to weapon setup. But I’m focusing on pve here, and high-fractal/raid situations, as well as the occasional open-world HoT content.

Tristan.5280:

In pvp, P/P it’s not longer viable.

In WvW maybe it’ still a thing, but still people has too much condi immunity and condi removal

In PvE it’s great, but only in High level fracals, Raids or Dungeon With bosses with a lot of health. For the open world it’s the same. Against trash mobs it’s a waste. Berserker gear works better.

And of course the main problem is that you are forced o pick 3 specific traits. Explosives, Tools and Firearms. No Scrapper and no difensive trait

You should not need defensive traits in PvE as an Engineer.

Wahooo!

RabbitUp.8294:

The rotation is harder, the gear more expensive, it’s not optimal for open world pve stuff. After the dps numbers showing that power hammer does equal damage, do you feel condi engi is worth it?

I agree that the rotation is harder but if you really love the Engi, I can only sincerely recommend to have both – a condi AND a power gear.

There are plenty of situations where power or condi is stronger than the other. A good Engi should learn and own both playstyles and then be able to benefit from the diversity other professions don’t have.

Power Engi rocks at:

• open world exploring
• jungle hero points
• dungeons
• low level fractals (low armor)
• raids (in general better)

Condi Engi rocks at:

• silver wastes (husks in general – they have almost 10’000 armor!)
• high level fractals (50+ / high armor, highest dps)
• red guardian (raids)
• solo taking two spirits at gorse (raids)

Soon.5240:

I think P/P Condi is very much worth it.

Condi bypasses Defiance Bars, and this helps alot in HoT maps when you are with a group of people who are not aware of how to break it, or do not do so in a well coordinated manner.

One thing to do is not rotate so much. People scoff at Pistol 1 – but maintaining 10 stacks of bleed is fairly easy. EG 1’s fumble is also more valuable than people give credit.

And Burn is in a crazy place right now. With Pistol Blow Torch (I have 13 3/4 sec duration on a 12 sec CD for 15,767 damage) Rocket Kick (9 1/4s : 10,916, 15s CD) and Incendiary Powder (7 1/4s : 5,660, 10s CD!) – without rotation, just sitting in P/P, I can average 4,000 per tick with ease. Plus EG provides good Condi Removal and Fields and Finishers for support.

How does condi “bypass” defiance bars? Both – condi and power – are affected by a broken defiance bar with damage increasing results. The only thing condi does bypass is if a mob has high armor if it’s not broken. So it’s only bypassing armor, wich in general in open world is rather low that you don’t really gain something in the long run. Sure there are exceptions like husks, beetles or some shrooms.

(I’m creating a full armor list of all maguuma mobs, but it takes a lot of time. If you want some more information, just go ahead and ask)

Very good tip there – don’t swap for nothing. The worst thing you can do as an engi in general is “not attack”. As stupid and simple as it sounds thats something many engi’s I’ve mentored have done:

Never wait for a skill, always attack with at least grenade #1! (as condi)

Another tip is to not be afraid of changing your build / skills. Flame turret is way better for trash than the flame thrower due to it’s toolbelt and blind, the toolkit is amazing for dangerious opponens and a good pick over the FT in general if the enemy moves around a lot. Rocket boots are amazing in open world exploring and still have a very strong attack with a tiny aoe.

Also don’t be scared of using scrapper instead of tools. Test your combinations with gyros. I suggest to play around with scrapper 312 and the medic gyro at for example vale guardian. Amazing.

Arewn.2368:

Where did you see that power hammer dps can match condi engi dps?
Legit curious, as I’d be interested in playing this if true (coming from a non-engi player).

Take it from a theory crafting addicted and well expirienced pve engi: First of all it matters a lot what you encounter aswell. It depends on how much the enemy moves, how often he attacks and most of all how high the armor is.

A power engi will never beat a condi engi against enemies with 3000+ armor. For example in fractals mobs have between 3300 and 4500 armor (level 50+!).

However at the normal raid boss armor value of 2600 or the most of the time even lower open world or dungeon mobs, power engi will deal more damage, especially when enemies have a low hp pool.

If we compare in raid enviorments and the normal armor of 2600, the engi will deal the highest damage as Vanilla Rifle Engi, then comes Hammer Scrapper and slightly behind P/P Engi and then P/P Scrapper. However this is ONLY for pure dps and does not take into account other capabilities like you need it for red guardian or when you have necros to benefit from burn stacks.

My dps benchmark dps numbers on a 4m HP golem so far:

• Vanilla Rifle Engi: 33k
• Hammer Scrapper: 31.5k
• P/P Engi: 29.5k
• P/P Scrapper: 29k

Edit: Phineas Poe pointed that one out: Modified Ammo makes those results a bit kitteny – take that in mind and consider all factors of your enviorment in a real combat for both specs.

If anyone has any questions, go ahead But for now – it’s 4 am here – good night!

Wahoo and Greez!
- Ziggy

First of all, power engi only matches condi engi with Modified Ammo completely maxed out with all conditions maintained on the golem. This is literally not possible in a raid environment, and doesn’t even happen during large scale events like Tequatl with 100+ people.

Second of all, condi engi is a huge aspect to necro’s epidemic dealing maximum damage. Engineers have significantly greater access to burning than necromancers do, which means dropping the condi engi for a power engi actually hurts the necro’s damage as well.

I get it if you don’t want to play condi. It’s a pain in the rear to perfect and it’s pretty cumbersome overall. And while it may seem like power competes with condi engi, the golem isn’t really the best measurement of damage output because it assumes perfect conditions and doesn’t take into account things like epidemic that greatly improve not just your DPS but the DPS of others.

Play power if you want outside of Vale Guardian, but understand that the golem is an unrealistic testing environment when you’re relying on things like Mod Ammo that scale your damage based on how many conditions are on the boss. I would personally only go power if there’s already a condi engi in the raid group to bolster epidemic.

Heya

Phineas Poe.3018:

First of all, power engi only matches condi engi with Modified Ammo completely maxed out with all conditions maintained on the golem. This is literally not possible in a raid environment, and doesn’t even happen during large scale events like Tequatl with 100+ people.

Could it be metaphoric impossible? :P Jokes aside – I agree, the conditions sure are never constantly maxxed out, but depending on your team comp it’s around 8 conditions on average. There are currently 13 conditions so yea, you could reduce the damage by ~10% of the power results.
However those tests have been made with perfect condi food but for power I could get those 10% condi duration for a bit more damage from serval skills. After all Engi on full zerk still has 1126 condi damage wich adds quite some numbers.

If we talk about real enviorment you also should take into consideration movement of enemies, armor, condi cleanses and most of all – Alacrity.
Those numbers were made with 100% Alacrity wich is easily achievable with a duo Chrono comp (wich I highly prefer), but many parties only run one Chrono and due to a higher Quickness:Alacrity ratio and the lowest possible damage defined trough auto attacks, the lower the Alacrity uptime, the better power Engi becomes compared to condi Engi.

Phineas Poe.3018:

Second of all, condi engi is a huge aspect to necro’s epidemic dealing maximum damage. Engineers have significantly greater access to burning than necromancers do, which means dropping the condi engi for a power engi actually hurts the necro’s damage as well.

Kinda mentioned that:

Xyonon.3987:

… However this is ONLY for pure dps and does not take into account other capabilities like you need it for red guardian or when you have necros to benefit from burn stacks.

Phineas Poe.3018:

I get it if you don’t want to play condi. It’s a pain in the rear to perfect and it’s pretty cumbersome overall. And while it may seem like power competes with condi engi, the golem isn’t really the best measurement of damage output because it assumes perfect conditions and doesn’t take into account things like epidemic that greatly improve not just your DPS but the DPS of others.

Oh I do like to play condi! I do like to play power aswell. I even played heal engi! … once … dark times, dark times … but fun times! Anyway, but what I like the most is efficiency. To play the most useful spec in the given situation. That’s what my goal as a main Engineer is.

Yea the golem isn’t able to read passive damage, but I don’t expect that tbh. We just have to think in team dps, not in personal dps. Remember back when you had to tell warriors to PLEASE you banners? Those didn’t get that so fast

Phineas Poe.3018:

Play power if you want outside of Vale Guardian, but understand that the golem is an unrealistic testing environment when you’re relying on things like Mod Ammo that scale your damage based on how many conditions are on the boss. I would personally only go power if there’s already a condi engi in the raid group to bolster epidemic.

There are plenty of reasons why to play power or condi but it doesn’t only depend on the boss, it also depends on the allies. I mean why would you bother playing condi at Vale if there already are condis there? If there are no Necros, what then? And so on.

Yea the golem is not relying on things like MA, I probably should’ve tested it with 8 condis for numbers to compare. I mean sure all buffs are stupid too, but at least you can scale them away evenly between power and condi, you’re right about that. Still wanna point out Alacrity here too.

Greez!

Sorry but I’m not going to respond to your wall of text point by point to restate what I’ve already said.

Power engi doesn’t really offer anything to a raid a condi engi doesn’t already do, and it is hamstrung by certain conditions being met to even compete with condi whereas condi only gets stronger the more meta-compliant your raid group is.

In truth a combo of power staff ele and condi engi+necro is far superior to any scenario that involves a power engineer, and to defend the choice with “33k” damage being advertised in this thread boils down to neglecting reality.

Play power if you want out of laziness, but don’t try and justify it as a superior build.

It’s kinda funny that ppl look at spreadsheets and assume they will play perfectly like a dummy test. If anything the fact that power eng and condi eng are so close to each other means engs should be crazy happy period, because you can essentially play w/e and not feel iffy about it at all. So yes it’s worth it to play condi eng and it’s worth it to play power eng.

it is really simple imho. In pve everything works so it works condi engineer and power engineer. In spvp instead there is a huge difference between that and power scrapper is much easier and effective to play that condi engineer

@Phineas Poe
Noone forces you to respond, but I’d appreciate it if you’d read it at least. I don’t mind if you don’t want to learn more about your profession, but I suggest you’d give it a honest try. There are plenty of reasons to go power instead of condi and vice versa. But enough already, the rest is up to you.

As Lalainnia mentioned, the dps difference is so minimal, that you basicly can play whichever you like, wich is wonderful for a profession. Some just prefer A or B and don’t bother with the other, but for me it’s both and I pick the best in each situation.

Xyonon.3987:

As Lalainnia mentioned, the dps difference is so minimal, that you basicly can play whichever you like, wich is wonderful for a profession.

The difference is minimal if:

1. You’re assuming you’re going to maintain all conditions on a boss for Mod Ammo, which never happens.

2. You ignore the damage gains your party gets by stacking burning for Epidemic.

I read your post. You admitted both of these points are true. That’s why I said I’m not going to repeat myself. People need to confirm these two facts for themselves and decide if power engi is really the right move. What you do beyond that is your own business, but there’s a reason people are 5-8 manning raid content with condi engi and you don’t see any with power engi: it pairs incredibly well with condi necro and allows you to maximize your power damage with other professions like ele and thief.

1. Not quite – the damage difference is minimap if you’re NOT going to maintain all conditions for MA, if you are power surely wins. Keep an eye on the condi bar for the next week or something, you’ll have more conditions than you think. But again that depends a bit on your team, not the least on your chronos and yourself.

2. You also seem to hype epidemic a lot. I can understand people who take necro for the whole 2nd wing, but they’re more of a babysitter profession. They are only really important at Matt, everywhere else I’d rather have Eles instead.

Phineas Poe.3018:

there’s a reason people are 5-8 manning raid content with condi engi and you don’t see any with power engi

That argument is pretty unfounded… The reason why you don’t see power engis in 5-8 manning raid content is because noone did it yet, nothing more and nothing less.

The only thing you’re repeating is “Necro + condi Engi = good” wich is true, yes. But that has nothing to do with playing power in different situations instead of condi. I also don’t see how it allows you to “maximize your power damage with other professions” o.ô

Power Engi is like a D/W Ele in terms of dps, slightly lower, but with way more utility.

Xyonon.3987:

1. Not quite – the damage difference is minimap if you’re NOT going to maintain all conditions for MA, if you are power surely wins. Keep an eye on the condi bar for the next week or something, you’ll have more conditions than you think. But again that depends a bit on your team, not the least on your chronos and yourself.

Minimal? Maxed out Mod Ammo is a 26% damage increase.

You’ll maintain a fair amount of conditions on most bosses, yes. Likely 6-8: vulnerability, cripple, bleeding, blind, torment, burning, and poison for starters. But coming into this thread proclaiming that power engi does 33k personal dps under the assumption that you’ll have permanent fear, immobilized, or slow on mobs is just absurd. You’re throwing around “spreadsheet dps.” If anything, something far worse than it.

Xyonon.3987:

2. You also seem to hype epidemic a lot. I can understand people who take necro for the whole 2nd wing, but they’re more of a babysitter profession. They are only really important at Matt, everywhere else I’d rather have Eles instead.

And Sloth, Bandit Trio, Sabetha, Gorseval…

I’m not overrating Epidemic. You’re underrating it.

Like I said before, if people want to run power and they’re downing bosses with it—by all means have fun with it. But don’t come into threads with spreadsheet numbers without situating all the additional context that makes condi engi worth bringing, and in most cases preferential.

Heya!

Even more dude! MA is a multiplier with itself, so it’s 1.02^condition! A maxed out MA is even 29.36%. (luv this trait <3)

My numbers were with 13 conditions wich is absurd yes. But WITH those conditions power deals much more damage than condi, without they are even. If you now reduce those conditions from 13 to 8 (17.17%), you can recalculate my numbers easily.

Around 10% of power Engis damage is condi, so lets first subtract that, then multiply each power number I posted by 1.1717 and divide them by 1.2936, add the condi again and then you get this:

13 Conditions

• Vanilla Rifle Engi: 33k
• Hammer Scrapper: 31.5k
• P/P Engi: 29.5k
• P/P Scrapper: 29k

8 Conditions

• Vanilla Rifle Engi: 30k (30.20)
• Hammer Scrapper: 29k (28.83)
• P/P Engi: 29.5k
• P/P Scrapper: 29k

Btw – if your Chrono isn’t gonna sustain perma slow on a single target, you should probably take a word with him…

One rota lasts 65s, TW causes 11s slow, 4x Well of Action 12s. That’s already 23s. The shield phantasms cause 6s slow every 7.5s, wich is 80% uptime. So 10s too much slow per rota.

Sloth -> Ele deals more damage to Sloth, good Chronos pull the Slubs to Sloth and regular cleave does the job of Epidemic. I like the EG and longer blinds (SR-trait) here, wich is rather a power Scrapper thing

Bandit Trio -> Epidemic is very very strong here, I agree, but Eles can metaphoric (now this is the correct usage of that word) take out the trash too. Power Scrapper is superior in terms of longer blinds, aoe dps trough bombs, reflect and the best profession to do the mortars / saboteurs via blast gyro or rocket turret while not even being there.

Sabetha -> Chrono pull, done. Ele / Thief / Engi deals more damage than Necro until you reach the end of the fight.

Gorseval -> Chrono pull, cleave, done. Ele masterrace in this fight, you won’t get anything near the DpS an Ele will have with the right comp.

It’s not that Epidemic would be bad, Epidemic is awesome and I also love my Necro for that. But there are just better options than the Necro in most of those fights, especially wing 1, or in the case of Trio – just even options.

For Matthias on ther other hand, Necro is mandatory, but Epidemic isn’t if you have an Ele. But I’d rather prefer a condi Scrapper that survives a bit more, has stability and super speed, aswell protection, causes bruning and let a Necro use Epidemic on the ice fields.

Greez!

Mobility is another factor, with condi being a lot more reliant on stationary fields to deliver their damage. Against moving targets, power is a clear winner.

Not quite – you can easily swap out FT for the toolkit, especially if you need a bit more survivability like Mat. That drops your dps in a realistic setup by about 5%, not more.

Xyonon.3987:

Not quite – you can easily swap out FT for the toolkit, especially if you need a bit more survivability like Mat. That drops your dps in a realistic setup by about 5%, not more.

You might want to redo the math on the 5% claim.

Novuake.2691:

Xyonon.3987:

Not quite – you can easily swap out FT for the toolkit, especially if you need a bit more survivability like Mat. That drops your dps in a realistic setup by about 5%, not more.

You might want to redo the math on the 5% claim.

I did it on the 4m golem, can do the math to it too tough, but tomorrow.
Anyway, even if I messed up a bit with the FT rota, unlike a raid boss, the golem didn’t attack to proc confusion either.

Try it yourself on the golem and share the results

The gear is more expensive? Rapid equipment is cheap though.

Is p/s condi engineer no longer good? I used to play it all the time and I loved it, did it get nerfed?

TheBandit.7031:

The gear is more expensive? Rapid equipment is cheap though.

Is p/s condi engineer no longer good? I used to play it all the time and I loved it, did it get nerfed?

Current meta build for condi is almost all viper’s with a bit of sinister. Since viper’s is one of the new stat combos it can get very expensive to make, though the increased drop rate of black diamonds has put a huge dent in the cost (current cost is 25s, I paid about 3.5g when I made my set).

P/S condi hasn’t been used in pve for a long time because Blowtorch (pistol 4) is by far the best condi skill on engineer (if not in the whole game lol).

I just made an engineer after playing zerker elementalist for about 4 months. I chose condition engineer because it was something my elementalist couldn’t outshine it in, since I’m pretty sure power ele takes a big dump on power engineer.

If there are things like burnzerker, thief, and tempest running around, what advantages does power engineer bring to the table? Being a recent addition to the community, I was surprised there was a debate. I had always assumed engineers and necromancers huddled together as the condition champions.

Alex Shatter.7956:

I just made an engineer after playing zerker elementalist for about 4 months. I chose condition engineer because it was something my elementalist couldn’t outshine it in, since I’m pretty sure power ele takes a big dump on power engineer.

If there are things like burnzerker, thief, and tempest running around, what advantages does power engineer bring to the table? Being a recent addition to the community, I was surprised there was a debate. I had always assumed engineers and necromancers huddled together as the condition champions.

It doesn’t bring any advantages, but condi is really only required in one fight: the Vale Guardian. Beyond that it just comes down to which deals more DPS.

I still personally think condi is the better option because of the synergy with Epidemic. To that end the engineer’s contributions in a raid group increase exponentially for every necromancer in the raid group. Those things are hard to really pin down and test versus whacking a 4 mil HP golem for a few minutes, though … and at the end of the day it just comes down to the eye test and personal preference.

If you’re getting successful kills with a power engi, I don’t see the issue. But the greater question raised in this thread asking if the condi engi is “worth it?” I’d say absolutely yes it is, and because of the utility condi engi brings to Vale Guardian (and other future raid bosses that will likely repeat the mechanic in some fashion) everyone that mains engineer should get their Viper gear in order first.

^what Phineas said