Guild Wars 2

So like many of you, I have doubts that celestial will continue to be the pvp amulet of choice for most engineer builds. The biggest reason for this is the movement of incendiary powder to firearms, which is a traitline that lacks for the cele rifle build overall, with the exception of the GM trait in question. I will be looking at the engineer traitlines in general and seeing what they offer to make a celestial build viable.

Explosives is needed for grenades to be “good”, or at least it will be when the grenadier bug is removed. You really need both explosives and firearms to have good hybrid damage output, leaving only one tree for sustain/utility. Furthermore shrapnel is needed in order for grenades to have good condition pressure.

Firearms gives incendiary power, a trait that is fine, but the rest of the traitline has some issues. For celestial, the on bleed crits won’t be proccing enough to really be useful. The rifle cooldown trait is okay, but the cooldowns weren’t really high to begin with.. and the fact that a rifle trait is in the condi line at all is a bit odd. Heavy armor exploit has synergy with alchemy, but wihtout alchemy, the adept slot offers very little.

Alchemy offers boonspam, regeneration, some condi cleanse depending on your utilities. It has some very nice traits, but overall I think its usefulness is too dependent on what utilities you take. You won’t be able to get huge use out of it without taking elixer gun and perhaps another elixer, which means you lose access to other kits and utilities that give the engi its strength in teamfights. It does offer a fair amount of sustain to any build, though.

Inventions is a great trait line for any build as well. It offers a lot of healing and mecha legs, and bunker down are really nice traits.

Tools is more critiscized, mainly for its lackluster minor traits and a couple useless options, but lock on, streamlined kits, adrenal implant, static dishcarge, and power wrench all provide utility on various builds. Its a utility line, but right now it seems a bit difficult to really go into it when sustain and damage from the other traitlines is much more important.

So to run celestial successfully you need to have direct damage pressure, condition damage pressure, and sustain through healing. Explosions, firearms, and inventions is the clearest way to fulfill this, but it suffers without the boonspam from alchemy and is forced to forgo a doom sigil to run intelligence/energy. Inventions without alchemy is likewise as problematic for your sustain as explosives without firearms is for your damage, it simply lacks. In the past these two problems didn’t exist because didn’t need anything in inventions in its older state, all the direct and condi damage traits we needed were in explosives, and we had the freedom to take the traits for sustain and utility that we needed from alchemy and tools. Now we cannot do this, being limited to 3 specializations that are vastly different from their prior states.

So lets looks at the recent ESL match to see how the engineers involved have adapted to this fact. Some of the builds I noticed were:

A cele rifle build that focused on HGH for mightstacking. He took explosives, inventions, and alchemy. This build has great 1v1 potential and the mightstacking and intelligence sigil kept his damage high, but having to lose slick shoes and tool kit for e-gun and elixer b hurt his teamfighting ability in my opinion. Was the might stacking worth it to lose these other tools that give engi’s a spot in many teams? It has lots of condi cleanse but no vigor, and he ran battle/intelligence over battle/energy, which may have hurt his sustain, and this build seems more vulnerable to boonstrip from mesmers than a similar build on elementalist would be. It also quite obviously lacks burning to take advantage of the might.

Another ran a marauder tools/alchemy/explosives set up that didn’t use static discharge. This lets you use tool kit and has really high physical damage and only slight sustain.

The other one I remember, this one from one of the few EU matches I watched opted for a soldiers set up using, once again explosives, inventions, and alchemy, with grenades slick shoes and tool kit. This build is a lot tankier than the maruader set up but has lower damage. Intelligence sigils (and energy) are used to make up for kitten crit chance and no vigor. I’d say the biggest downside to this build though is the inability to get much mileage out of bunker down, since the reliance on energy sigils might as well make that 2 second ICD a 9 second one instead, although fury from the alchemy GM helps it out with that to an extent.

So what do you guys think about celestial for engineer? Do you think soldiers or marauders is better? And what do you think about the fact that all of these 3 tourney engi builds ran the exact same three specialization lines, although with minor differences in the traits they used?

Honestly after this weekend my confidence in our position has shaken considerably. My last real attempt at Celestial is Firearms/Inventions/Alchemy with FT/EG HGH. I’m going to give this a couple days and if things don’t work out I may just shelve Celestial until they balance things out a bit, or see what other people are running. Right now it just feels too weak and too vulnerable.

I’m trying to avoid using grenades due to the Barrage bug, but it may not be helped.

Phineas Poe.3018:

Honestly after this weekend my confidence in our position has shaken considerably. My last real attempt at Celestial is Firearms/Inventions/Alchemy with FT/EG HGH. I’m going to give this a couple days and if things don’t work out I may just shelve Celestial until they balance things out a bit, or see what other people are running. Right now it just feels too weak and too vulnerable.

I’m trying to avoid using grenades due to the Barrage bug, but it may not be helped.

That’s a good idea to avoid Grenades. Barrage bug is one thing, but 1-5 on grenades pierce and will give unrealistic damage numbers too, 33-100% more dmg per throw depending how it lands, which can also proc things. Something tells me, though, after this gets fixed, Grenades won’t be super potent, but I could be wrong.

Right. I’ll probably settle with grenades in the end, but I don’t want to get comfortable seeing numbers that aren’t staying and building around it.

I actually had quite a lot of success with HGH.

With the buff of the amulets, high risk/reward are way too better then hybrid/condi builds. Guardian started using Carrion condi builds for stacking burning.

I started using a condi build Carrion amulet and Balthazar Rune with P/P, Healing turret, Nades/Bombs, Tool Kit, EG, Mortar kit with a decent success. The problem is that asctually, a good Guard can stack burning more and better then an engi

Since the 06/23 Patch and condition damage scaling nerf, might stacking through HGH and Juggernaut just moved from offensively efficient to very good (thanks also to Pinpoint Distribution). Plus it became sustain viable thanks to the addition of stability.
Not only Celestial is not good anymore for Engineer, it’s also getting less and less used by might Stacking Eles.
Good Engi builds right now are using Marauder.

Honestly anything with Vital seems a must.
We are not making that much use of the condition damage now that the other classes are actually using condis as burst.
So I don’t know, I am afraid that the grenade bug is the only reason marauder is working for some. But we can’t be in the thick of the fight anymore, camping nades or something seems best with any amu.

kinetic battery will allow for double barrage, so zerker 100nades will live on after the bug is fixed.

zerker amulet & wurm runes seem to be the way to go. Tools, Explosives/Firearms, Inventions.

In my opinion celestial engineer is a fraction of it’s former self. You have to consider for a moment just what we lost with this patch. We lost +30% condition duration, 300 power and incendiary powder, strong long range grenades all being in the same line. Firearms, was not used in the vast majority of builds, allowing us to go into both tools, and alchemy to pick up really good traits, either prot injection, or vigor, speedy kits and power wrench.

Celestial engineer got quite a lot of passive damage off of incendiary powder pre-patch, it was passive damage that really did a lot for the build. Something else to consider is the fact that, pre-patch there were not many condition burst builds, whereas now they are everywhere, and engineer still suffers from the same issue we have suffered since the launch of the game. Poor condition removal outside of elixir based builds.

Grenade barrage at the moment still makes celestial somewhat viable, but it still feels weaker to me than it did pre-patch due to the lack of condi-removal and the shift of the meta to be oriented towards burn based burst builds. Once grenade barrage is fixed it will be even worse, as you will lack the burst required to kill people.

Right now I’m seeing mesmers that can literally stun you ever couple of seconds, and then burst you from 100-0 with a well timed shatter. Not to mention the absurd amount of stealth they have. Guardians and eles are now stacking burns up to 8 stacks, thats 6k dmg per second on top of every other condition. Not only can they do this, but they can actively and passively remove 2-3x as many conditions as we can. So goodluck winning a 1 v 1 against them if they are on an equal skill level. Necros can now transfer back conditions via plague signet PASSIVELY…. something has to give…. this patch has been one of the most frustrating for me to date.

With that being said, I can run around with a zerker build and 1 shot people via a bug, and lead people to the conclusion that engineers are very overpowered, but that is simply not true outside of grenade barrage.

Like I said in an earlier post, I hope someone much smarter than me comes up with a more viable build, because at the moment I am not impressed with any of the combinations I have come up with. I have tried meta battles double kit condi, and celestial, and they are both far weaker than they were pre-patch.

Overall I feel like the trait lines do not synergize as well as they did before, being pigeon holed into taking inventions and alchemy just to have any decent survival really limits any amount of damage output you can hope to have. Because at that point you are then forced to take either explosives or firearms. And either way you are weaker than you were pre-patch.

Just wanted to add my 2 cents about new build that poped up.

Last night i’ve tried the Five Gauges marauder explo/alch/tools and its amazing.

It really shines in team fights. Great set up for your teams burst, lots of rezzing potential as well as safe-stomping (despite it’s a glassy build I had more succesful rezzes than runing pre pach cele).
Of course you can’t eat a shatter or a backstab like cele, but you have 2x elixir S on a 48sec cd for almost 8sec of invul. as well as 6sec of stealth (sometimes 12sec if you get lucky on kinetic battery), prot injection, reactive lenses and you can even moa defensively. Oh and rampage(50% of the time ofc.) your team fight decider.

And damage. Even without taking bugged grenadier you can still one-two shot someore form a stealth magnet barrage. The near perma fury helps too.

All in all it feels like you are playing a SD build but less squishy and more usefull with the rezzes, stomps and aoe pressure.

Dentrius.1274:

Just wanted to add my 2 cents about new build that poped up.

Last night i’ve tried the Five Gauges marauder explo/alch/tools and its amazing.

It really shines in team fights. Great set up for your teams burst, lots of rezzing potential as well as safe-stomping (despite it’s a glassy build I had more succesful rezzes than runing pre pach cele).
Of course you can’t eat a shatter or a backstab like cele, but you have 2x elixir S on a 48sec cd for almost 8sec of invul. as well as 6sec of stealth (sometimes 12sec if you get lucky on kinetic battery), prot injection, reactive lenses and you can even moa defensively. Oh and rampage(50% of the time ofc.) your team fight decider.

And damage. Even without taking bugged grenadier you can still one-two shot someore form a stealth magnet barrage. The near perma fury helps too.

All in all it feels like you are playing a SD build but less squishy and more usefull with the rezzes, stomps and aoe pressure.

I definitely like Marauder with Grenade Kit the best outside of the Celestial FT/EG HGH spec I was trying yesterday. Also agreed on Kinetic Charge. I love that trait.

They just need to fix it so that Detonate Healing Turret doesn’t proc it.

Been working on a cele rifle build and so far this one has had quite a bit of success.
http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-Z70;2cPVg0l6JRFx0;9;4jkl;0238157157;4Sk0;3CoF2CoF20o

Reasoning:
In truth you don’t need grenadier for grenades to be helpful. (unless you decide to abuse the bug) The velocity increase is irrelevant as a majority of the time you will be throwing them at your feet when you slick shoes someone or when you get close to an opponent and because you deal quite a bit of direct damage with the build (partially due to getting might stacks from hoelbrak runes and battle sigs) you don’t need the damage modifiers in explosives so then you have freedom to take firearms, inventions, and alchemy giving you a ton of sustain for your cele ammy to buff up. Condi damage is taken care of as well because with the might you will have you will still deal high damage on conditions and you can still stack them fairly well. Bleeds are highly effective in this build due to the fact that you have 10% increased crit chance on close up targets so slick shoes and a full nade rotation should stack a ton of condis with blunderbuss and toolkit. Tanking condis isn’t an issue either really as your heal in combination with alchemy and inventions gives a ton of options for condi removal. Give it a try and hopefully it works out. As I said, it worked for me but my case may not be the same as everyone else.

Celestial rifle engi has become lackluster choice for WvWvW as well. Except for the bugged grenade kit (which will be fixed soon?) the DPS feels clearly lower or you must sacrifice survivability. Now engineer needs to select between these:
- defenses
- dps
- range

You can have max 2 from above list in 1 build and only mortar kit works past 1000 range and it is very difficult to hit mobile targets at long range with it. Other than that I am actually quite happy with mortar as it offers so much for combo fields + 100% projective finisher + blast finisher from F5.

Rifled barrels trait was supposed to become baseline, but it seems it didn’t make this patch. Grenade range nerf from 1500 to 900 was massive. So basically engineer is pigeon holed to be a medium range support/skirmisher. This massive range nerf forces almost every viable engineer build to equip toolkit (for the 1200 pull and shield). So basically the healing turret and toolkit and both must choices for any viable engineer.

Engineer has always had good condition application and CC, but the CC from rifle is single target and net shot is easy to kite from range. Engineer never had superb mobility (compared to thieves or GS warriors). And I would rank engi sustain below bunker guardian and elementalist. Thieves, rangers and mesmers have much more evades than engineer has. I really don’t understand why the engineer range needed to be nerfed so hard. EG and rifle should get their 1200 range back and there should be a trait (explosives major) to give 1500 range back to grenades.

Condition cleansing has always been engineer’s achilles’ heel and the patch didn’t change this much. Lots of CC will also trump most engineers with ease.

Before the patch hit, many players were raging “oh engi will be so OP”. Now it looks that engi will be in the bottom tiers in tpvp if there wouldn’t be the grenade barrage and grenades piercing bug. And once the grenade kit related bugs are fixed, engineers will be lower tier.

I am currently testing Firearms instead of Explosives with my HGHertz spec, I will update the build based on how effective I find it.

Of course I will also need to wait till the grenade bug fix to see it’s full potential but so far the spec has worked very well for me in queues.

I think the issue here is, there is so much power creep on some of the other classes that celestial Engineer WITHOUT it’s power creep seems lackluster. With how strong it is now, it would of fit perfectly fine pre-patch, just everything else is so ridiculous right now it seems meh.

I am trying condition build with rabid and mortar. Combining hgh from alchemy , explosive power traits from mortar and tools in my opinion you can create some good builds . i am trying something like this
http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-ZRR;2Z-ku0l6FQ-x0;9;4ilm;0236036236;4SZ0;3H7W3H7W32C
I am not sure about sigils but it seems to me strong . Remember that you have 2 blast on mortar elite and kinetic battery , it can be quite strong but i have to get confident to it . I am not sure that celestial wil be the way. I think there will be 3 different kind of builds for engi : bunker rifle based on inventions, alchemy and explosive with soldier ( hgh with mortar even here can give good damage ) or something like that , condition based on rabid and hgh plus mortar for damage and power based on nades ( or bombs ..) with maradeur or berserker and perhaps Sd. What i see out of service now is the shield for the power of burning ( with shield you need ip ) and for the long cd … but it is a personal opinion

Dentrius.1274:

Just wanted to add my 2 cents about new build that poped up.

Last night i’ve tried the Five Gauges marauder explo/alch/tools and its amazing.

It really shines in team fights. Great set up for your teams burst, lots of rezzing potential as well as safe-stomping (despite it’s a glassy build I had more succesful rezzes than runing pre pach cele).
Of course you can’t eat a shatter or a backstab like cele, but you have 2x elixir S on a 48sec cd for almost 8sec of invul. as well as 6sec of stealth (sometimes 12sec if you get lucky on kinetic battery), prot injection, reactive lenses and you can even moa defensively. Oh and rampage(50% of the time ofc.) your team fight decider.

And damage. Even without taking bugged grenadier you can still one-two shot someore form a stealth magnet barrage. The near perma fury helps too.

All in all it feels like you are playing a SD build but less squishy and more usefull with the rezzes, stomps and aoe pressure.

What is this said build? Can you provide a link?

Cele is donezo! Your offensive pressure is all but gone in exchange for increased sustain from the Inventions tree (but not really enough to matter when it counts)! Or you could keep your offensive pressure but lose all mobility which defeats the purpose of the roaming nature of the build! Also the Speedy Kits/Invigorating Speed combo is gone! Condi builds are in the same boat! Finally, the age of power Engi is here! Somewhere in Canada, Chaith is pooping himself with joy! Nobody likes power Engis more than him!

Wahoo! Bye frands!

ellesee.8297:

Cele is donezo! Your offensive pressure is all but gone in exchange for increased sustain from the Inventions tree (but not really enough to matter when it counts)! Or you could keep your offensive pressure but lose all mobility which defeats the purpose of the roaming nature of the build! Also the Speedy Kits/Invigorating Speed combo is gone! Condi builds are in the same boat! Finally, the age of power Engi is here! Somewhere in Canada, Chaith is pooping himself with joy! Nobody likes power Engis more than him!

Wahoo! Bye frands!

Haha.

I do really like the current Engineer build that I’ve arrived at. It’s an expert teamfight carry, and using Moa Toss, it’s really anti-Rampage warrior, Necro, even Stoneheart Ele, which means it’s simply a huge counter pick. Huge cleave, utility (nullify Death Shroud, Stone Heart, Rampage), great combat medic with a transform, double invuln & many stealths.

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-Z70;2cPVg0u53Ukw0;9;4ilm;0037146136;4IN0;3F-03F-03a0d

Edit: It is only a consolation though, Celestial Engineer was near the top of the food chain, and it’s absolutely eclipsed by 1v1 focused Eles and Necros so hard that building to 1v1 Eles is quite foolish and will land your team in the dumpster.

To find a build that excels, purity of purpose has to be won back, and the next best thing to being a 1v1 force to be reckoned with is to migrate is towards being the strongest teamfighter possible.

So at the moment, I feel like Engineer has very little viable build diversity. The most un-flexible it’s ever been, but maybe I will rethink that as the meta settles further.

Chaith.8256:

Haha.

I do really like the current Engineer build that I’ve arrived at. It’s an expert teamfight carry, and using Moa Toss, it’s really anti-Rampage warrior, Necro, even Stoneheart Ele, which means it’s simply a huge counter pick. Huge cleave, utility (nullify Death Shroud, Stone Heart, Rampage), great combat medic with a transform, double invuln & many stealth.

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-Z70;2cPVg0u53Ukw0;9;4ilm;0037146136;4IN0;3F-03F-03a0d

I notice you’re not running Backpack Generator. I was wondering myself if the trait was really worth taking any longer due to how strong condition damage is these days.

My only concern is that it might lock you into invulnerability with burning damage still ticking on you; do you find this to be a problem often? Or is this something you deal with anyway simply to get around mesmer burst?

Also, what would you say are your toughest match-ups 1v1 with this spec? And have you given up on Celestial with Incendiary Powder moved to Firearms?

Phineas Poe.3018:

Chaith.8256:

Haha.

I do really like the current Engineer build that I’ve arrived at. It’s an expert teamfight carry, and using Moa Toss, it’s really anti-Rampage warrior, Necro, even Stoneheart Ele, which means it’s simply a huge counter pick. Huge cleave, utility (nullify Death Shroud, Stone Heart, Rampage), great combat medic with a transform, double invuln & many stealth.

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-Z70;2cPVg0u53Ukw0;9;4ilm;0037146136;4IN0;3F-03F-03a0d

I notice you’re not running Backpack Generator. I was wondering myself if the trait was really worth taking any longer due to how strong condition damage is these days.

My only concern is that it might lock you into invulnerability with burning damage still ticking on you; do you find this to be a problem often? Or is this something you deal with anyway simply to get around mesmer burst?

Also, what would you say are your toughest match-ups 1v1 with this spec?

Backpack Regenerator previously applied an invisible 10 second buff that had 100% uptime by switching kits regularly. Now, Backpack Regenerator does exactly as described, only having uptime when your kits have uptime. So cut the 114 healing or whatever by 35-40%, and see if you still care about it on a Marauder build. It’s great in E-Gun Cele builds.

Next point, don’t 1v1 any duel oriented professions. Absolutely no Cele Eles, Necros, Non-Power Rangers. It’s devastatingly average at 1v1s and there are many exceptional 1v1 builds.

If you want to 1v1 delete your Engi or pray to Grouch. I mean, Cele Engi beats lots of things, but just can’t hang with the real 1v1 Cele professions anymore.

Chaith.8256:

Next point, don’t 1v1 any duel oriented professions. Absolutely no Cele Eles, Necros, Non-Power Rangers. It’s devastatingly average at 1v1s and there are many exceptional 1v1 builds.

If you want to 1v1 delete your Engi or pray to Grouch. I mean, Cele Engi beats lots of things, but just can’t hang with the real 1v1 Cele professions anymore.

Confirms some of my own fears. I have a pretty awful time against necros and eles right now. Have you tried anything not using the Grenade Kit yet?

I’ve found I’ve had mixed results with the Bomb Kit and with FT/EG HGH, but found FT/EG very effective in sustained team fights. Given what you just said about engineer veering more toward that role, I was wondering if you’ve dabbled with it or any alternatives at all.

Phineas Poe.3018:

Chaith.8256:

Next point, don’t 1v1 any duel oriented professions. Absolutely no Cele Eles, Necros, Non-Power Rangers. It’s devastatingly average at 1v1s and there are many exceptional 1v1 builds.

If you want to 1v1 delete your Engi or pray to Grouch. I mean, Cele Engi beats lots of things, but just can’t hang with the real 1v1 Cele professions anymore.

Confirms some of my own fears. I have a pretty awful time against necros and eles right now. Have you tried anything not using the Grenade Kit yet?

I’ve found I’ve had mixed results with the Bomb Kit and with FT/EG HGH, but found FT/EG very effective in sustained team fights. Given what you just said about engineer veering more toward that role, I was wondering if you’ve dabbled with it or any alternatives at all.

Not yet have I explored all the teamfight builds, due to my scepticism of many other things being able get around high focus fire, while still dealing extreme pressure and offering high utility.

If there could be a Bomb/Ft/E-Gun that wouldn’t fall over to focus fire, and could still carry with damage, I’d be open to maining it. But really, if you’re not blocking for 3 seconds, proccing Prot Injection, invuln for 7.5 seconds and stealthing for 6-12 seconds, you’re just really dead from my experience.

Good to know. Thanks for the insight.

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-Z70;2cPVg0f63U-x0;9;4ijm;0037248237;4hk0;3oHAhoHAha0Z

I’ve been running this with Cele Engi to quite some success.

Twigifire.8379:

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-Z70;2cPVg0f63U-x0;9;4ijm;0037248237;4hk0;3oHAhoHAha0Z

I’ve been running this with Cele Engi to quite some success.

That’s in the same vein of what I arrived at for a Celestial Engi, patch day #1 too.

Then I saw Fire D/D / Fire D/F Cele Eles and I knew that the Engi counterpart was obsolete.

I think HGH is in good shape to make a comeback with the trait change and it pairs very well with a cele amulet.

Cele is still a really good option for engis imo. As long as you still run slickshoes and mortar, you can achieve almost the same results as pre patch. It just got alot harder to play this build now. In teamfights it performs about the same as you still have the same CC and heal as before.

The one thing where the build will struggle tho is the 1v1s against eles/necros etc but you can still win those when you use slickshoes after you baited the CDs that would get your enemy out of them.

Chaith.8256:

ellesee.8297:

Cele is donezo! Your offensive pressure is all but gone in exchange for increased sustain from the Inventions tree (but not really enough to matter when it counts)! Or you could keep your offensive pressure but lose all mobility which defeats the purpose of the roaming nature of the build! Also the Speedy Kits/Invigorating Speed combo is gone! Condi builds are in the same boat! Finally, the age of power Engi is here! Somewhere in Canada, Chaith is pooping himself with joy! Nobody likes power Engis more than him!

Wahoo! Bye frands!

Haha.

I do really like the current Engineer build that I’ve arrived at. It’s an expert teamfight carry, and using Moa Toss, it’s really anti-Rampage warrior, Necro, even Stoneheart Ele, which means it’s simply a huge counter pick. Huge cleave, utility (nullify Death Shroud, Stone Heart, Rampage), great combat medic with a transform, double invuln & many stealths.

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-Z70;2cPVg0u53Ukw0;9;4ilm;0037146136;4IN0;3F-03F-03a0d

Edit: It is only a consolation though, Celestial Engineer was near the top of the food chain, and it’s absolutely eclipsed by 1v1 focused Eles and Necros so hard that building to 1v1 Eles is quite foolish and will land your team in the dumpster.

To find a build that excels, purity of purpose has to be won back, and the next best thing to being a 1v1 force to be reckoned with is to migrate is towards being the strongest teamfighter possible.

So at the moment, I feel like Engineer has very little viable build diversity. The most un-flexible it’s ever been, but maybe I will rethink that as the meta settles further.

Just wondering, why do you choose reactive lenses over static discharge or power wrench? And yeah I do agree that this is probably the best engi build right now simply because the traits are so different now than what they used to be that the old builds really can’t apply. Right now damage is important and I’m honestly really surprised by how easy it is to survive in such a glass build because of all the invulns and stealth and whatnot. How do you think it will be when the grenadier trait gets fixed?

And you use your toss elixir x to force eles out of earth attunement too? I find that really interesting as it only really seems like a staff support ele trait and when I play it I can’t really camp earth too much or I’d lose out on healing.

Chaith.8256:

ellesee.8297:

Cele is donezo! Your offensive pressure is all but gone in exchange for increased sustain from the Inventions tree (but not really enough to matter when it counts)! Or you could keep your offensive pressure but lose all mobility which defeats the purpose of the roaming nature of the build! Also the Speedy Kits/Invigorating Speed combo is gone! Condi builds are in the same boat! Finally, the age of power Engi is here! Somewhere in Canada, Chaith is pooping himself with joy! Nobody likes power Engis more than him!

Wahoo! Bye frands!

Haha.

I do really like the current Engineer build that I’ve arrived at. It’s an expert teamfight carry, and using Moa Toss, it’s really anti-Rampage warrior, Necro, even Stoneheart Ele, which means it’s simply a huge counter pick. Huge cleave, utility (nullify Death Shroud, Stone Heart, Rampage), great combat medic with a transform, double invuln & many stealths.

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-Z70;2cPVg0u53Ukw0;9;4ilm;0037146136;4IN0;3F-03F-03a0d

Edit: It is only a consolation though, Celestial Engineer was near the top of the food chain, and it’s absolutely eclipsed by 1v1 focused Eles and Necros so hard that building to 1v1 Eles is quite foolish and will land your team in the dumpster.

To find a build that excels, purity of purpose has to be won back, and the next best thing to being a 1v1 force to be reckoned with is to migrate is towards being the strongest teamfighter possible.

So at the moment, I feel like Engineer has very little viable build diversity. The most un-flexible it’s ever been, but maybe I will rethink that as the meta settles further.

After spending tonight tinkering with FT/EG, I’ve honestly come to the conclusion that a build needs both Tool Kit and Elixir S to be effective right now with how much burst damage is out there.

I find this very frustrating, because it’s just a change or two away from being competitive with the Grenade Kit. I’ll try and come back to it after ArenaNet has adjusted some values.

The Bomb Kit might be more successful, and with burning and confusion it more reliably stacks conditions to make use of Celestial, but I have a feeling I’ll see similar results.

Phineas Poe.3018:

After spending tonight tinkering with FT/EG, I’ve honestly come to the conclusion that a build needs both Tool Kit and Elixir S to be effective right now with how much burst damage is out there.

I find this very frustrating, because it’s just a change or two away from being competitive with the Grenade Kit. I’ll try and come back to it after ArenaNet has adjusted some values.

The Bomb Kit might be more successful, and with burning and confusion it more reliably stacks conditions to make use of Celestial, but I have a feeling I’ll see similar results.

Found that same problem with needing s and gear shield to survive, mind you once all this zerker situation settles abit more.and anet does some balance the we might be able to drop one, also i found the problem with bomb kit is you have no way to tank in bomb range and you get wreaked long befor you dish out the same damage with bombs.

I have to partially disagree here. I have been running celestial Engi for a bit now in queues and it works perfectly fine with HGH.

Thing is, in ESL/WTS tiers of play it might not be viable in Cele form, but as far as I am concerned it is more than capable of holding it’s own and providing great team support in queues, which is all 90% of us ever play.

That said, there are 1v1’s to avoid on it, such as Celestial necros, as they rip your might off of you, and to be frank your damage is nowhere near enough without relying on HGH. Cele Ele’s (Focus is significantly harder though) can be beaten despite the ridiculous burn, but I am not sure if I have just been outplaying them till now.

My point is, I agree it isn’t anywhere near as viable as pre-patch, and the power creepy of other classes is making it look lackluster, but you can still run it in Queues if you like, as I have, with great success so far.

I think this just depends what your MMR is at. I’m not a professional level player at all; I’m a PvX player that dabbles in every area of the game, but I have been playing the game since launch and done a pretty fair job of it, so I am regularly tossed into matches against tournament-grade players. This is what I’ve found:

FT/EG with its stability and Firearm’s better non-GK sustained damage (High Caliber is huge for Pry Bar and Jump Shot) means longer lasting fights are preferential; I handle necromancers, warriors, rangers, and elementalists pretty well with it, actually. But I’ve found that it gets countered hard by any type of burst damage or focus fire. I mean really, think about it: Juggernaut doesn’t have its additional toughness any longer, and the Elixir Gun offers Super Elixir and nothing else.

My only real defense against mesmer/thief burst is dropping Flash Shell for blinds or blasting Poison Shell for weakness, which is usually enough to hold them off for 4-5 seconds where they then reset and go again. It’s just a stopgap, not a counter.

Gear Shield is by and far the best block skill in the game, and it’s on a cooldown shorter Steal, meaning you can often rely on it to be there when it needs to be; it’s why we’ve often been for so long such a strong counter against thieves, nevermind all the AoE we have.

Elixir S is, in my opinion, our only real protection against mesmers. With how many stunlock builds are floating around, you really just can’t expect them to let you drop your Elixir Shell and Orbital Strike/Flame Blast/Acid Bomb/Jump Shot/Magnetic Inversion/Whatever it uninterrupted. You need something that’s going to give you as close to a reset as possible, and Toss Elixir S with HGH has long enough of a duration that makes it somewhat viable; the Elixir Gun is a team support kit by design. And while it was really good for a few months there due to how strong Acid Bomb and Super Elixir are with Celestial in 1v1 situations, I think the ground has more than been made up by Berserker amulets being reintroduced coinciding the Celestial amulet’s nerf.

Anyone who plays a lot more PvP than I is more than welcome to refute any of these statements, but this is just what it feels like to me right now. The only way I think one could find a middle ground with Celestial is running either the Flamethrower by itself or the Bomb Kit with Tool Kit and Elixir S … but neither of these kits individually cover the utility, range, or damage of the Grenade Kit—just as Chaith said above.

It’s tough right now. I see where ArenaNet wants the engineer, where we have to choose between burst and sustain, but sustain builds end up relying on the same skills that make burst specs viable, leaving sustain builds somewhat lackluster.

Phineas Poe.3018:

I think this just depends what your MMR is at. I’m not a professional level player at all; I’m a PvX player that dabbles in every area of the game, but I have been playing the game since launch and done a pretty fair job of it, so I am regularly tossed into matches against tournament-grade players. This is what I’ve found:

The thing is, I think there is much merit to what you say but the MMR seems to be all over the place depending on who you team with also.

Mine cant be that bad if I have queued against Abjured, Sir Koroshi and other regular pvpers that would be too long to mention.

And yet, sometimes I am fighting keyboard turners who click skills…

That said, it could all be down to my skill vs others, but people who have tried my build or at least seen it on the forum have had positive results so far.

I honestly think other things are just OP so we seem lackluster on celestial.

So after a week I think its pretty obvious that Engineers are in a bad spot. We got basically nothing from this patch powerlevel wise while everyone else got huge buffs. Being forced into Nades/TK/Elixer S just to survive is not fun at all.

ANet messed up really hard for Engi this patch. I guess its time to move on to another profession for awhile until Engineer gets some love or the broken professions are toned down. Also why has it been a week and there are no major bug fixes or burning nerfs?

displacedTitan.6897:

So after a week I think its pretty obvious that Engineers are in a bad spot. We got basically nothing from this patch powerlevel wise while everyone else got huge buffs. Being forced into Nades/TK/Elixer S just to survive is not fun at all.

ANet messed up really hard for Engi this patch. I guess its time to move on to another profession for awhile until Engineer gets some love or the broken professions are toned down. Also why has it been a week and there are no major bug fixes or burning nerfs?

They need more than one week of feedback to make the most informed decisions. A lot of things definitely need adjustment, but I wouldn’t expect something until the end of this week at the earliest.

Remember that this a B2P title, and that they’re working on the expansion. But they have acknowledged there are problems: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Things-we-know/first

My guild killed Tequatl with 14:11 remaining on the clock yesterday with 50 of us on guardians. This patch balance is a huge shake-up with obvious problems. They’ll get fixed, but only on a timeline that doesn’t impact the expansion’s own.

So I’ve pretty much given up on Celestial for now. I found quite a lot of success running this: http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-ZRR;2cP-9-l6cQ-x0;9;4jkl;0038157156;4Rw0;35NV05NV01X

Carrion might sound like a silly choice when paired with Incendiary Powder, but Pry Bar greatly benefits from the 900 power and Intelligence is really all you need to maintain the IP procs. I might actually go back and reuse these same traits with the Flamethrower tomorrow for Flame Blast + Pry Bar for burst with Intelligence and swapping out the Bomb Kit since bombs are kinda meh with 180 radius right now. I found myself generally jumping into Bomb Kit just for group fights and because Smoke Bomb followed up with Flash Shell is horrifyingly good blind coverage.

Since burning is so strong I actually open with Blowtorch from stealth and then Pry Bar after. Even Celementalists were having a pretty tough time with this build, but it’s really a mixed bag right now in terms of skill level so it’s hard to say for sure if it’s more effective than grenades.

Thoughts?

Phineas Poe.3018:

Thoughts?

Looks like a really good condi build for PvP.

Here are some things to consider

• Mortar having little synergy with Condition builds, supply crate I would argue is better.

• The nerfed Backpack Regenerator still seems weak compared to Self-Regulating Defenses, being affected by HgH.

• Running Bunker Down and Elixir S is almost impossible m8. You will get revealed from stealth so many times and die horribly.

• You’re using a trait that gives you Condition Damage based on your PRECISION, so, equip Rabid.

• Having to run Energy Sigil, that is pretty suck. Geomancy will boost your pressure tremendously. If you go rabid you get another free sigil, like Doom! Which currently is broken and applies like 14s poisons.

Try this:

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-ZRR;2cP-9-u53UFx0;9;4jml;0038136146;4T-1;35NV05NV02C

Pinpoint Distribution was kind of a placeholder trait, honestly, since I couldn’t think of anything else to run.

Agreed on Tools and lack of Inventions synergy, though. I’ve actually swapped to it since posting this with an identical trait selection.

Thanks for the suggestions. I’ll keep messing with it. One thing to mention: I just like using the Mortar Kit since it offers good poison application and Flash Shell neutralizes a lot of burst damage; I tend to jump between it, Supply Crate, and Elixir X depending on the team comp.

Okay, I think I’ve found something that actually works. And oddly enough, it was Stronghold that really got me going back to trying Celestial. I’m using a build from a guildie (Noodl.8034) that I’ve modified slightly.

I cannot guarantee its mileage in Conquest, but I’ve literally lost maybe three matches and won 20+ after converting to this build, usually in tandem with a D/D ele or necromancer in the offensive lane as well as enemy hero ganks/steals (primarily with Rampage). Provided, I’ve only ran this build with teams, so I’m not sure how it’ll go with solo queuing. But I think people should give it a shot.

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-Z70;2cPVg0l6gTkw0;9;4ijl;0037148056;4IN0;3IBl3IBl30T