Guild Wars 2

Hello, i’m really thinking about making an engineer right now. My thief is fun but the spec I use is condition based and i’m looking for something else.

I heard grenade spec is the fotm but I dislike that it has no auto attack ankitten ot that much into spamming. I know turrets aren’t great, but I was thinking of picking a semi turret spec because I like the mechanic. I was wondering if pvt gear would do well on an Engineer, or even a mix of zerker/pvt. I’m not sure if most specs are condi or not.

I’m not set in stone about my spec yet, I just know I hate carpal tunnel and I already have a condition based class. Looking for some advice from veteran Engineers:)

Most engineer builds are condition oriented. We have loads of conditions that we can apply and reapply. Personally, I’d run berserker thief and use condition engineer.

In a nutshell, check:
For PVT / berserker engineer – Riffle + static discharge.
For condition engineer – PP HGH + grenadier, PP HGH + tool kit, or PS + multiple kits.

Ravak.8912:

Most engineer builds are condition oriented. We have loads of conditions that we can apply and reapply. Personally, I’d run berserker thief and use condition engineer.

In a nutshell, check:
For PVT / berserker engineer – Riffle + static discharge.
For condition engineer – PP HGH + grenadier, PP HGH + tool kit, or PS + multiple kits.

I can see PVT but a zerker engineer? I dunno… I can’t imagine that working out too well.

I was wondering if pvt gear would do well on an Engineer, or even a mix of zerker/pvt.

Berserker as a mix (as OP asked), not full gear. In my opinion any berserker gear in WvW will still do you more harm than good (although one engineer friend of mine mixes some in his SD build with good success).

Hmm all right, maybe I should check out condi specs then. I’m just reluctant to try it since this game is built around burst specs. There are only 2 condi sets, one has power and one has precision, they just don’t scale well.

And what about turrets, are those condi as well?

Forget turrets.

Hmm if turrets really are that bad I’m reluctant to even spend 25g on an extra char slot for an engineer. I can see why there are so few around. I dislike the idea of grenade spamming 1 (from what i’ve heard).

If u miss an character slot, delete your thief and create an engineer. Just my 2 serious cent.

From what you heard… its much more then just spamming #1 with grenades. Actually #1 on grenades is not that strong. Anyway, there are still bombs which hit hard. But also not that easy to play. Make sure u are ready to play something less simple then thief.

Um, berserker Engi deal fantastic damage. Either with grenades or SD build. Even FT and ToolKit benefit most from full zerker gear. Grenades and Bombs are unique in that they have access to many conditions and apply them well, but also hit hard. They can be built as either zerker or condition.

I just use my pistols and an elixir gun and do just fine in PvE and WvW. I don’t find grenades or stacking might with elixirs fun for me.

Zerker’s can work just fine with or without static discharge. Toolkit scales very well with power (because its our only melee weapon). Flamer scales terribly (just the auto attack).
Grenades scale decently, bombs scale better, both can be difficult to land on the opponent. I wouldn’t knock grenades until you try em, honestly the only time I use the auto-attack is to pull mobs from 1500 range, or to stack vulnerablility on bosses, or scare ppl away from the edge of a tower in WvW. I’ve been Engi main since beta, and I keep coming back to nades because there so kitten useful. You can trait them for direct or condition damage very well. I’ve tried just about every possible build for engineer and nothing beats grenade kit for usefulness.

That being said, a set of Rabid gear for conditions, and Zerker’s (with some knight or cavaliers thrown in) for power builds is a good place to start. Of course building for boon or might duration can also work well either way. Boon management is a part of being an engi.
http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/engineer/?2.0|4.1g.h1h|0.0.0.0.0.0|1g.a7.1g.a7.1g.a7.1g.a7.1g.71i.1g.71i|2v.0.21k.0.31k.0.1i.67.1i.67.1i.67|u5ab.a5.0.0.u68c|39.1|2d.2f.2x.2p.0|e
This is a power build I’ve been running recently, the gear works well in a standard static discharge build too

Ok ignoring the troll forestnator, thank all of you for your replies, especially Linc!

I might just spork the gold (as soon as the gem price drops a little).
I’m still not sure what spec I’ll play, but I don’t really know that much about engineers yet. I will just try out some specs, what I am interested in though, if the gear suits the possible builds well. I find a lot of builds lacking the proper gear sets that would be best for them.

Also, I haven’t ever tried zerker outside of spvp, which I don’t like. Can I expect a zerker engineer to have 12k hp and drop like a fly? And how does rabid set work out, since it’s a weird mess of stats. Does the condi+crit combo work at all?

I’d love more info that would make me excited about being an engineer, I’ve seen less than 5% of the playerbase is engi.

Turret conditions will scale with your Condition Damage, other stats does not though. Three major problems with turrets in WvW are: immobility (WvW being too dynamic), terrible AI (targeting flies and UFOs instead of your enemies), and very low health pool (any AoE sneeze will break them). As such they are not widely used.

Having said that, they are often overlooked in small scale fights, not really sure if they are that useful to give up one utility slot. They are pretty good in duels (net turret can mess your enemy up), and next to useless in zerg fights.

The most useful turret is Healing Turret though, which gives you two water fields, heals you (~2.5k), heals your allies (overcharge, ~2.5k), gives regeneratino, and can be exploded for self-combo (giving you another AoE heal, ~2k).

I just switched from seeker grenade/rifle engi to p/p with wrench or nades(whatever I’m preferring) with full rabid gear and I’m loving it and am much tanker and can still kill people, especially when they are stunned or dem stacks of confusion…also using more condition food for engi helps a lot

So how does rabid gear work, I just can’t see precision working with a condi build. Care to explain?

Yocairo.4257:

So how does rabid gear work, I just can’t see precision working with a condi build. Care to explain?

tanking with the flamethrower or looking to dps with elixir gun, for example.

I wear rabid gear and precision is great for condition builds. Stick a sigil of earth and a sigil of accuracy in your weapons and your pistol autoattack can stack 5-6 stacks of bleed easily. These are some traits that I use with my crit:

Incendiary Powder-100% chance to inflict burning for 4 seconds on critical hits. This effect can only trigger once every 10 seconds.

Sharpshooter-30% chance to cause bleeding for 3 seconds on critical hits.

Target the Weak-10% increased critical-hit chance against foes with less than 50% health.

Coated Bullets – Pistol shots pierce.

Coated bullets when firing at a single target along a wall or max range can double crit. Even better when firing into a group because each target hit will cause an explosion that hits everything around it and those explosions can crit.

Yocairo.4257:

Ok ignoring the troll forestnator, thank all of you for your replies, especially Linc!

I might just spork the gold (as soon as the gem price drops a little).
I’m still not sure what spec I’ll play, but I don’t really know that much about engineers yet. I will just try out some specs, what I am interested in though, if the gear suits the possible builds well. I find a lot of builds lacking the proper gear sets that would be best for them.

Also, I haven’t ever tried zerker outside of spvp, which I don’t like. Can I expect a zerker engineer to have 12k hp and drop like a fly? And how does rabid set work out, since it’s a weird mess of stats. Does the condi+crit combo work at all?

I’d love more info that would make me excited about being an engineer, I’ve seen less than 5% of the playerbase is engi.

Don’t forget that using an HgH build requires that you go full into the +vitality tree.

Engineers don’t have amazing base vitality, but you will be benefitting from that 30%, regardless of whether you try something with power or conditions.

The reason precision is often thrown into engi condition builds is due to the fact that we have so many on crit traits and effects, which can be further supplemented by sigils and even foods. There are also quite a few attacks that hit multiple times, increasing the chance to proc crit effects, such as flame jet, fumigate, grenade explosions (x3), bouncing static shots, poison volley, etc.

Kokocabana has a nice list there, but there are others:

Precise Sights: 50% chance to cause vulnerability for 3 seconds.

Infused Precision: 50% chance to gain 5 seconds of swiftness, cooldown of 5 seconds.
Edit: I feel I should mention Invigorating Speed: When you gain swiftness, you also gain 5 seconds of vigor. (Cooldown: 5 seconds) Works well with Infused Precision for obvious reasons.

Go For The Eyes: Critical hits with the rifle have a 50% chance to inflict blindness for 5 seconds. This effect cannot trigger more than once every 10 seconds. (not that you should be using rifle for a condition build).

Alright thanks, I’m guessing i’ll have to get used to the fact engi’s roll condi and crit without crit dmg^^

I’m still a little indecisive though. I made a thread on warrior forums as well, aand might on necro too. I ruled out warrior already for certain reasons.

Now I’m really curious to know how necro would compare to engi, since most of those play an aoe condi spec. Mainly from a wvw standpoint, but every detail counts.
Are necro’s with the well spec/staff/x viable in anything but zergs? Not sure if it’s right to ask in Engi, but then again it involves both classes. Thanks

It’d be fun to know what you intend to do with the engi. I find bunker/semi-bunker specs with the engi most fun to play. My engi has a mix of PVT/knight gear, and as weapons I often use some mix of rifle, flamethrower, bombs or tool kit. Engi has tons of control conditions, pushbacks, etc. and outlasting/controlling enemies in spvp/WVW works for me. And it actually does some nice damage too.

I used to play a lot of grenades, but I prefer the control from the other kits, and used grenades more for forcing enemies to move at 1500 range. Personally, I find HGH (especially with elixir H & B) with grenades awful to play.

I don’t know about turrets for damage, but they are very good in smaller scale fights. Net turret and healing turret are excellent, add exploding turrets trait for pushbacks. I’m considering trying rocket turret now that it shoots fast, but the toolbelt ability seems terrible and the CD is pretty high once it is destroyed. Maybe the damage and knockdown make up for it.

My first toon was an engineer, didn’t get into it so I deleted it for a thief which was then my first 80. I’d highly suggest running direct damage with thief over condition. Conditions are best solo or small group and not good in ‘dragon raids’. Thief’s capability to apply Bleed is great but its on par with their direct damage.

That being said I’ve recently seen the light and come back to Engineer. Made the mistake of hopping into sPvP with him at lvl 5 and got my but kicked for a while till I figured a few things out. Now, I just love the versatility and options you can have with this class. Zerker is viable, I’m running a Static Discharge burst build in sPvP and it’s quite good if you stick to small fights, may not be ideal in WvW less you pick your fights carefully. Its also a plus that this is a lesser played class and a majority of the people out there just don’t know how to deal with us, that’s the reason I came back.

As I’m only mid 40’s on my Engi I’m trying to figure it all out also. Why don’t we use more Rampagers?

TY
Blood~

I think we don’t use more rampagers because there is no survivability stats in it. It’s like our version of berserker gear. I run rabid on my armor and weapons and carrion on my trinkets. This provides max condition damage and rounds out my power, precision, vitality, and toughness.

Forestnator.6298:

Forget turrets.

I have played a full turret spec since day 1 of headstart and likely don’t see myself changing that any time soon. With the exception of Dragons and some champion bosses that spawn invulnerable NPCs, my turrets have served me EXCEPTIONALLY well. Especially in WvW roaming, where out of a couple hundred 1v1 fights I can count the number I’ve lost on my hands.

Turrets with supply crate are, for me, the most amazing spec of any class in the game.

I’ve got 6 sets of armour for my engineer, depending on what build I want to run.

For DPS I tend to run Valkyrie with Emerald Orbs/PVT with might duration runes and a mix or Ruby and Emerald accessories. The valk set I use mostly for SD builds or when I have an odd notion to run with the FT without HGH. PVT is mostly used for when I’m might stacking with HGH but focusing on damage rather than condition damage, such as using the flamethrower or grenades.

Condition is Rabid with 2 sup lyssa and mad king for the condition duration + two rabid crests, along with a mix of rabid and carrion accessories.

For support I run either Cleric, if there are better condition damage dealers in a group than myself or I’m running turrets, or Apothecary, if I’m running around with the elixir gun and using the conditions from the bomb/grenade kit.

I also have a set of MF gear just for lulzs.

Yocairo.4257:

Alright thanks, I’m guessing i’ll have to get used to the fact engi’s roll condi and crit without crit dmg^^

I’m still a little indecisive though. I made a thread on warrior forums as well, aand might on necro too. I ruled out warrior already for certain reasons.

Now I’m really curious to know how necro would compare to engi, since most of those play an aoe condi spec. Mainly from a wvw standpoint, but every detail counts.
Are necro’s with the well spec/staff/x viable in anything but zergs? Not sure if it’s right to ask in Engi, but then again it involves both classes. Thanks

My main is a necro though I’ve been leveling an engineer lately since I want to try a condition spec with something else.

Necros are very good as condition build but are superior as power builds. Shroud is almost useless to a condition necro but with power it all makes sense, your lifeblasts hit like a truck and life transfer 6-7k aoe (+goes through walls!) at 600 range. Lich elite is sick single target damage.

Much easier to go full berserker with a necro than eng since you’re tanky by default.

Bloodgruve.6038:

I’d highly suggest running direct damage with thief over condition. Conditions are best solo or small group and not good in ‘dragon raids’. Thief’s capability to apply Bleed is great but its on par with their direct damage.

Sorry mate, I don’t like melee thief that much, that’s why I switched to p/d.

Anyway, I appreciate all the great info this thread has offered me so far. I will be making an Engi tonight and play him some more tomorrow. It seems like they use a mix of all stats, which is odd but might work. I’m also wondering what HGH is, something with grenade in it^^?

btw, turret guy-I’d love some more in depth info about your playstyle as you seem to be the only one running it at all.

Turrets are hard to use, weak, cooldowns are extremely long even if you pick them up, they take two times as many button presses to do the same things that other classes do in 1 sometimes they take three (healturret + overload + explode heals) they take two to simply put them in overload mode (which is the only time they come in handy honestly they should just make them overload all the time when dropped or at the very least make this a ui option or a trait.) and unlike the rangers or the necros our pets are stationary, we don’t even get an option for wheels.

I wouldn’t use them myself. The only time I’ve ever used toolkit or a turret has been with the burst electricity rifle build where I wakittenting the toolbelt for extra damage.

Sounds like this patch is going to make me a liar… they are giving necros a very powerful condition ability in shroud…