Guild Wars 2

Hey guys.
So recently, i decided to make an Engi alt, just for fun, and to make a long story short, it became my main as soon as i realized how incredibly kick kitten and satisfying the gameplay of this class is.

For a month or so, i was playing as a hammer scrapper with zerker gear, but i always kept hearing how condi is the way to go not only for raids, but also higher level fractals, so after finishing my berserker ascended armor, i converted it to viper. Additionally, i leveled up as a condi p/p build, and it was fun, so it wasn’t like i was going in blindly, basing it all on the data i found on the internet.

And it is. The damage is great, this “minigame” of switching your kits around to combo conditions together, and simply wielding two pistols feels good – it fits the class fantasy really well.

However, i found myself getting downed a whole, whole lot more than on my hammer build.
Hammer Scrapper seems to have a bunch more tools to continuously put out pressure on mobs while mitigating their damage in one way or another. Rocket Charge has a brief evade, Shock Shield obviously blocks everything during its cast, Electro Whirl reflects projectiles, Thunderclap stuns, Rocket Charge + Thunderclap stuns even more, and on top of that i have my dodges.

While on Condi, i feel as if i have to choose between surviving something or outputting its trademark DPS. I feel as if my dodges are the only defense mechanism that do not break my rotation momentum.
And now, when the (more or less) accurate DPS rankings came out, and it turned out that Power Engi does technically the same DPS as Condi, i seem to contemplate going back to the big ol’ Fix’r Upper, with its survivability aspects stacked against p/p.

Well, this was longer than i intended, so
TL;DR: Is this an l2p issue? Am i missing something? Or condi really is much squishier than power?

No its not a l2p issue and yes hammer has more utility for staying alive condi has its blind on 3 in pp and immo/cripple on 5 but that’s about it also has bomb kit with a smoke field and p/ps 5 skill as its 5 skill. Both specs are stupidly close in dps play w/e one you want its nice to have both to be flexible though.

The condi is useful for higher level fractals because of the amount of toughness the bosses have. And that’s the case regardless of profession. Assuming you are using the meta condi grenadier build for fractals, Some of the field/blast combos will be able to help mitigate damage. Grenade has blind on 3 and chill on 4, all your explosions do cripple with the shrapnel trait, so kiting becomes very important. Bomb 4 and 5 also have blind and cripple respectively. Flamethrower has knockback and blind, and mortar has chill and blind. So you have lots of blind, and cripple, with some chill thrown in, and in most cases, you can slip them into your rotation with very minimal dps loss.

bearshaman.3421:

The condi is useful for higher level fractals because of the amount of toughness the bosses have. And that’s the case regardless of profession. Assuming you are using the meta condi grenadier build for fractals, Some of the field/blast combos will be able to help mitigate damage. Grenade has blind on 3 and chill on 4, all your explosions do cripple with the shrapnel trait, so kiting becomes very important. Bomb 4 and 5 also have blind and cripple respectively. Flamethrower has knockback and blind, and mortar has chill and blind. So you have lots of blind, and cripple, with some chill thrown in, and in most cases, you can slip them into your rotation with very minimal dps loss.

Like he said you got mortar with chill , blind for such a long time + a waterfield.

p/p with blind and cripple + immo

bomb with cripple and immo aswell blind

grenades chill + blind

flamethrower also got blind and knockback + a blast ,which can be used for reducing dmg by 50 % or for healing around 1,4 k health .

Streamlined kits also grants you some speed and immo and a pull bomb o/ every 20 seconds o/

it just depends on timing , but i also have those problems aswell ,because those enemies hit me sometimes at such bad position or if they are too upscaled , then they start to hurt alot. ^^’

Greetings

Chazz

Since I use P/P primarily on my Scrapper (with the occassional Flamethrower use here-and-there), I’ve been using Carrion stat armor, due to all the condis that pop up, especially with certain choices in the Firearms spec. I’ve been doing relatively well but, then again, I am primarily a PvE’r. So, in my experience, a condi build for Engi works fine. Granted, I do get downed in HoT if I am not careful. I’d probably go for full Zerker if I ever plan on using Hammer often. But a condi build is best for pistol use, IMO.

Pistols are condi weapons plain and simple.

Personally, when running PvE with a viper/sinister I run Firearms with raid traiting, elixirs 2-3-1 (I think) and Scrapper with 3/1/2. Utilities go Medic Gyro, FT (mostly for toolbelt), Bulwark, and Elixir Gun. Elite is stealth gyro.
Doing the above gives several protection sources, as well as the damage sink of the Bulwark, good condi clear from the elixir gun, and disengage off the stealth gyro. It also gives in-combat sustain from the scrapper traits.
In a situation where I know there won’t be conditions, I’ll drop Elixirs for Explosives and swap EW to Grenade Kit, and if I’m running with actual supports I’ll drop into full raid loadout with bomb kit over Bulwark.

If you’re not worried about raiding and want a really good statset for PvE soloing, I would recommend rabid with similar switches to above.

SolarDragon.7063:

Pistols are condi weapons plain and simple.

Personally, when running PvE with a viper/sinister I run Firearms with raid traiting, elixirs 2-3-1 (I think) and Scrapper with 3/1/2. Utilities go Medic Gyro, FT (mostly for toolbelt), Bulwark, and Elixir Gun. Elite is stealth gyro.
Doing the above gives several protection sources, as well as the damage sink of the Bulwark, good condi clear from the elixir gun, and disengage off the stealth gyro. It also gives in-combat sustain from the scrapper traits.
In a situation where I know there won’t be conditions, I’ll drop Elixirs for Explosives and swap EW to Grenade Kit, and if I’m running with actual supports I’ll drop into full raid loadout with bomb kit over Bulwark.

If you’re not worried about raiding and want a really good statset for PvE soloing, I would recommend rabid with similar switches to above.

Seriously, with replacing so many kits with none condi damage kits, you’d be better off with a power Scrapper using hammer auto attack only.

If you want to play condi and swap a kit out, its the FT you should abandon, NOT the grenade kit or the bomb kit. If you keep using the HT you don’t need an EG for condi cleanse and you can go for HT, Nades, Bombs, Bulwark (or any other required utility) and any elite skill you like.