Guild Wars 2

Are Engineers even given a look still in raids or have they gone the way of the dodo?
I see people asking for and having heaps of Reapers but nary a one Engi.
Was keen to give the class a go again but don’t want to waste the time if they are the new red-headed step-child (no offense to any red heads).
From what I have seen posted its seems to be a mix, some swear on em and others say they are a waste. But isn’t that pretty much true of any class?
And yea, would go Condi of course as I doubt power even gets a thought when it comes to raiding.
I play PVE and run around doing dailies, Metas and the like and then of course a raid if I can get one. I have a fully asc Condi Reaper but am looking for something with a bit more of a challenge, which brought me to Engineer.

It is true that people do not want Engineers as much as some other classes. I’d put them in the lower middle range. You’ll find plenty to play but you won’t be the golden boy. Getting in is very doable though so don’t be discouraged.

DGraves.3720:

It is true that people do not want Engineers as much as some other classes. I’d put them in the lower middle range. You’ll find plenty to play but you won’t be the golden boy. Getting in is very doable though so don’t be discouraged.

Thanks for that! Yea, not worried about being the be all-end-all dps’er but as long as I can get a nod, then the rest is on me.

After playing both Reaper and Engineer, I gotta tell you, Engi feels like it’s more DPS by far.

That said, Epidemic goes a really long way and Reapers have much more survivability than Engineers. Reaper is probably the only class I have been able to mindlessly solo pretty much everything on.

engi has highest sustain dps (condi wise), but the reason they try to mix reaper in is because of epidemic. Engi itself is good on certain raid bosses but bad on others which is why many ppl do not want them in the certain raid.
~quaggan

Engineers are by no way weak or useless to a raid, they just don’t bring something unique to a group at the moment.
You take warriors for there ability to cap a groups mights and unique damage buffs (empower allies and banners), druids for unique damage buffs (glyph of empowerment, grace of the land, sun/frost spirit) and off- or fullhealing, mesmers for quickness and alacrity (and reflects when needed), daredevils for having the highest single target dps, tempests for highest damage against big hitboxes (and their ability to easily clear things on range with lava font (orbs at gorseval, shard at xera)), necros for their add clearing ability thorugh epedemic, revenants for boon duration buff. Guardians aren’t that much looked for too, but they still do high damage (at about the same level of an engineer) while bringing either reflects (wall of reflection), near permanent protection (hammer) or additional damage vs big hit boxes (scepter).

Which leaves engineer as a solid damage dealer, but without some unique feature other than being the highest condition based dps. And that’s something you only need for a small part of vale guardian fight.

Long story short: There’s nothing wrong with bringing an engineer to a raid. It’s a solid class with high damage (and fun to play).
But you will rarely find a group looking explicitly for an engineer (and when you do it will be for vg exclusively).

PS: Power engineer does about the same damage as condition engineer nowadays, on par with dagger/warhorn tempests or scepter guardians vs. big hit box bosses. Sadly, that doesn’t change their missing “unique feature” problem…

Edit: that should not have been a seperate post sigh

Pinpoint Distribution → Grant 150 condition damage to nearby allies. Make that change and see how it plays out?

Delete useless shredder gyro.

Add:
Augment gyro: Gives 150 Power/Condition Damage to nearby allies. Last 20s. 30s CD
Power Burst (Toolbelt): Applies Fury (10s) and Quickness (3s) to nearby allies. kitten CD

Engi fixed for fractals and raids.

UBcktieDL.5318:

Delete useless shredder gyro.

Add:
Augment gyro: Gives 150 Power/Condition Damage to nearby allies. Last 20s. 30s CD
Power Burst (Toolbelt): Applies Fury (10s) and Quickness (3s) to nearby allies. kitten CD

Engi fixed for fractals and raids.

Not sure just that is enough to make up for the damage loss we have by going Scrapper.

Even if we had utilities made on purpose for group content, it probably wouldn’t help much. They still have to compete with kits.
It would have to be something that’s really strong in a group setting, but much less worthwhile when alone, so that it doesn’t immediatly get nerfed to the floor due to pvp.

Well, in this particular case, a depowered banner of strength – as it’s weaker in both effect and duration – doesn’t seem particularly worthwhile.

Jerus.4350:

Pinpoint Distribution -> Grant 150 condition damage to nearby allies. Make that change and see how it plays out?

I’d prefer 150 expertise now that it is a stat.

But on the other hand I am not a huge fan of profession specific party wide buffs (which clutters our buff bar) or debuff (which have no counterplay in pvp), especially when they are not tide to a support line.
I think generic, non stackable buffs would be better, and them being on a support line or an elite spec line. Even better if they would use the boon system.
I find things like PSEA (25might + banners + empower allies) too powerful to allow diversity.

Ranael.6423:

Jerus.4350:

Pinpoint Distribution -> Grant 150 condition damage to nearby allies. Make that change and see how it plays out?

I’d prefer 150 expertise now that it is a stat.

But on the other hand I am not a huge fan of profession specific party wide buffs (which clutters our buff bar) or debuff (which have no counterplay in pvp), especially when they are not tide to a support line.
I think generic, non stackable buffs would be better, and them being on a support line or an elite spec line. Even better if they would use the boon system.
I find things like PSEA (25might + banners + empower allies) too powerful to allow diversity.

Yes, these types of buffs are very problematic, but they’re in the game, and it’s pretty much bullkitten that they won’t give Engi’s one because of the problem they cause, but they just gave Rev 2 (ferocity and 50% boon duration). Is it surprising that you have at least 1 of every profession that gives these in raids? Honestly a condi damage or expertise aura probably wouldn’t be enough to get Engi’s a stable spot in raids, but it’d help.

And, yes PS warrior is strait stupid, when it first released my friends and I were convinced it was going to see a nice big nerfstick (1s icd like Guardians version) but, it wasn’t and we’ve been taking PS warriors ever since. 25 might, 170 prec, 170 fero, 170 condi damage, and 320 power, yeah… you’d be stupid not to (to be fair 170 to all those stats is 75% up time without alacrity) all while doing not bad damage, at least on mesmer it makes sense they do no damage but give great support. .

Jerus.4350:

Ranael.6423:

Jerus.4350:

Pinpoint Distribution -> Grant 150 condition damage to nearby allies. Make that change and see how it plays out?

I’d prefer 150 expertise now that it is a stat.

But on the other hand I am not a huge fan of profession specific party wide buffs (which clutters our buff bar) or debuff (which have no counterplay in pvp), especially when they are not tide to a support line.
I think generic, non stackable buffs would be better, and them being on a support line or an elite spec line. Even better if they would use the boon system.
I find things like PSEA (25might + banners + empower allies) too powerful to allow diversity.

Yes, these types of buffs are very problematic, but they’re in the game, and it’s pretty much bullkitten that they won’t give Engi’s one because of the problem they cause, but they just gave Rev 2 (ferocity and 50% boon duration). Is it surprising that you have at least 1 of every profession that gives these in raids? Honestly a condi damage or expertise aura probably wouldn’t be enough to get Engi’s a stable spot in raids, but it’d help.

And, yes PS warrior is strait stupid, when it first released my friends and I were convinced it was going to see a nice big nerfstick (1s icd like Guardians version) but, it wasn’t and we’ve been taking PS warriors ever since. 25 might, 170 prec, 170 fero, 170 condi damage, and 320 power, yeah… you’d be stupid not to (to be fair 170 to all those stats is 75% up time without alacrity) all while doing not bad damage, at least on mesmer it makes sense they do no damage but give great support. .

How about adding synergy with other classes.

For example

Make pistol 1 an explosion that hits up to 5 targets within a close range, lets say 180.

Pinpoint Distribution would be changed to :
(2 second cool down ) Pistol attacks cause all conditions on target to be extended by 1 second.

Medical Dispersion Field
A percentage of healing that you receive is applied to nearby allies.
Healing : 33%
Radius : 360

This way instead of spamming grenade 1 as filler, we could mix it up with pistol 1. Pistol 1 would be useful because it would do 1 second worth of damage of all the conditions on the target, which would both encourage you to do a full rotation, but also encourage people to take both an engi and a necro.

Medical Dispersion Field would allow the Engi to be a healing beacon of sort that synergizes well with a Druid or healing Tempest basically either allowing the primary healer to go a bit more damage build or simply providing an extra bit of healing power to the healer.

Best of all this wouldn’t require any new buff icons or animations to be created, it would only require some number manipulation, so it shouldn’t have too much overhead.

Ging.6485:

Jerus.4350:

Ranael.6423:

Jerus.4350:

Pinpoint Distribution -> Grant 150 condition damage to nearby allies. Make that change and see how it plays out?

I’d prefer 150 expertise now that it is a stat.

But on the other hand I am not a huge fan of profession specific party wide buffs (which clutters our buff bar) or debuff (which have no counterplay in pvp), especially when they are not tide to a support line.
I think generic, non stackable buffs would be better, and them being on a support line or an elite spec line. Even better if they would use the boon system.
I find things like PSEA (25might + banners + empower allies) too powerful to allow diversity.

Yes, these types of buffs are very problematic, but they’re in the game, and it’s pretty much bullkitten that they won’t give Engi’s one because of the problem they cause, but they just gave Rev 2 (ferocity and 50% boon duration). Is it surprising that you have at least 1 of every profession that gives these in raids? Honestly a condi damage or expertise aura probably wouldn’t be enough to get Engi’s a stable spot in raids, but it’d help.

And, yes PS warrior is strait stupid, when it first released my friends and I were convinced it was going to see a nice big nerfstick (1s icd like Guardians version) but, it wasn’t and we’ve been taking PS warriors ever since. 25 might, 170 prec, 170 fero, 170 condi damage, and 320 power, yeah… you’d be stupid not to (to be fair 170 to all those stats is 75% up time without alacrity) all while doing not bad damage, at least on mesmer it makes sense they do no damage but give great support. .

How about adding synergy with other classes.

For example

Make pistol 1 an explosion that hits up to 5 targets within a close range, lets say 180.

Pinpoint Distribution would be changed to :
(2 second cool down ) Pistol attacks cause all conditions on target to be extended by 1 second.

Medical Dispersion Field
A percentage of healing that you receive is applied to nearby allies.
Healing : 33%
Radius : 360

This way instead of spamming grenade 1 as filler, we could mix it up with pistol 1. Pistol 1 would be useful because it would do 1 second worth of damage of all the conditions on the target, which would both encourage you to do a full rotation, but also encourage people to take both an engi and a necro.

Medical Dispersion Field would allow the Engi to be a healing beacon of sort that synergizes well with a Druid or healing Tempest basically either allowing the primary healer to go a bit more damage build or simply providing an extra bit of healing power to the healer.

That’d be nice, and I actually misread the Medical Dispersion Field that way initially and was excited, but like everything that major overhaul did for healing, it ended up being left behind. (Remember heal skills would be blasts that was a possibility, which might have actually made medkit good?)

Jerus.4350:

Ging.6485:

Jerus.4350:

Ranael.6423:

Jerus.4350:

Pinpoint Distribution -> Grant 150 condition damage to nearby allies. Make that change and see how it plays out?

I’d prefer 150 expertise now that it is a stat.

But on the other hand I am not a huge fan of profession specific party wide buffs (which clutters our buff bar) or debuff (which have no counterplay in pvp), especially when they are not tide to a support line.
I think generic, non stackable buffs would be better, and them being on a support line or an elite spec line. Even better if they would use the boon system.
I find things like PSEA (25might + banners + empower allies) too powerful to allow diversity.

Yes, these types of buffs are very problematic, but they’re in the game, and it’s pretty much bullkitten that they won’t give Engi’s one because of the problem they cause, but they just gave Rev 2 (ferocity and 50% boon duration). Is it surprising that you have at least 1 of every profession that gives these in raids? Honestly a condi damage or expertise aura probably wouldn’t be enough to get Engi’s a stable spot in raids, but it’d help.

And, yes PS warrior is strait stupid, when it first released my friends and I were convinced it was going to see a nice big nerfstick (1s icd like Guardians version) but, it wasn’t and we’ve been taking PS warriors ever since. 25 might, 170 prec, 170 fero, 170 condi damage, and 320 power, yeah… you’d be stupid not to (to be fair 170 to all those stats is 75% up time without alacrity) all while doing not bad damage, at least on mesmer it makes sense they do no damage but give great support. .

How about adding synergy with other classes.

For example

Make pistol 1 an explosion that hits up to 5 targets within a close range, lets say 180.

Pinpoint Distribution would be changed to :
(2 second cool down ) Pistol attacks cause all conditions on target to be extended by 1 second.

Medical Dispersion Field
A percentage of healing that you receive is applied to nearby allies.
Healing : 33%
Radius : 360

This way instead of spamming grenade 1 as filler, we could mix it up with pistol 1. Pistol 1 would be useful because it would do 1 second worth of damage of all the conditions on the target, which would both encourage you to do a full rotation, but also encourage people to take both an engi and a necro.

Medical Dispersion Field would allow the Engi to be a healing beacon of sort that synergizes well with a Druid or healing Tempest basically either allowing the primary healer to go a bit more damage build or simply providing an extra bit of healing power to the healer.

That’d be nice, and I actually misread the Medical Dispersion Field that way initially and was excited, but like everything that major overhaul did for healing, it ended up being left behind. (Remember heal skills would be blasts that was a possibility, which might have actually made medkit good?)

Yeah. My point is though, Engi has a bunch of talents that could be made extremely useful in a group environment, but for some reason are left as very selfish traits. I think the changes I suggest primarily buff the engi only in a group environment, meaning solo play stayed in the same area.

We could be a very effective condi damage / support class without stealing the Necros spotlight. We could synergize with a necro, instead of how it is now where Necros synergize with each other so well that it’s just a kitten.

Heya!

Engi is great for raids, no doubt, but requires some extra work to be worth the pick. Pugs normally don’t really like them because of the average player will not be doing this additional work.

Or simply because they think Engi is bad. :P

Today’s full clear with my guild, I’ve been playing Engi on every single encounter and had a specific reason to be at each one of ‘em. This said, our guild want’s an elite standard and we do not want to use “useless dps loss professions” anywhere.

Everywhere add the general Engi abilities like:

• dps
• cc
• water fields + blasts
• condi cleanse

but being more specific:

Vale Guardian (Condi Scrapper)

• condi dmg for Red Guardian
• seeker control
• aoe swiftness & superspeed and greenfields (less travel time = more dps)
• protection & engi sustain to tank Red Guardian
• emergency Function Gyro (not a real reason for speedclear, but definitly for pugs)

Gorseval (Condi Engineer)
We split the whole team in 2 groups for the adds, NW and NE, then they move to SW and SE. This way we safe time by only having to move once and have more dps time than travel time. Meanwhile I keep both south spirits in place with Shrapnel and glue … lot’s of glue >:3

• blinding adds, prevent kicks

Sabetha (Condi Engineer)
A stationary easy target like Sabby grants us to deal high dps, on par with Ele / Thief, but also …

• blind Thugs (during flamewall or for the connon guys to prevent deadly kicks)
• bursting Karde (recieves bonus damage from conditions, only true threat in the whole fight)
• range for last phase (double druid in melee)

Slothasor (Power Engineer)
The Engi should do a Shroom since he’s not as high dps as an Ele, but still not bad at all, not least thanks to the frostbows.

• wide 5 target cleave
• blind unblockable Slublings
• Elixier Gun as emergency anti-fear

Trio (Power Engi)
Bosses have small hitboxes, so our dps is higher than Ele without Alacrity or let’s say at least on par with Ele, especially thanks to all those adds permanently proccing Takedown Round. Thief would be as good but lacks …

• wide 5 target cleave
• blind
• aoe sustain
• 1500 range to pull mobs from cage to Zane
• best mokittenuty EVER!

Matthias (Power Scrapper)

• Bulwark Gyro & protection & emergency water fields + blasts -> scholar bonus
• backup reflect
• aoe swiftness & superspeed (less travel time = more dps and less deaths)
• emergency Function Gyro
• ego block & stability

Escort (Condi Engi)

• no Warg will ever reach the first building … >:3
  after 2-3 Wargs help the team:
• blind

Keep Construct (Power Engi)

• great burst damage (after ego burst there’s also the Frost Bow ;D)
• Magnet Pull and Overcharged Shot + Chrono Pull will move the Orb directly from 3 to 4 and to 5. Saves more time than more dps form another Ele would.
• block for jump
• sustain for orb catch phase
• mobility for split

Xera (Power Engi)
Instead of Necros, we pick an Engi to blind the adds before or after they got pulled to render them completly useless. There won’t be any condi cleanse required but for Xeras blurred frenzy for the tank, and even for that the healing turret is good.

• wide 5 target cleave
• knockback for orbs into rifts
• emergency burst multiple shards with wide aoe and bomb aa

Maybe I forgot some stuff but in general, there are plenty of things you can do for every single encounter. You just have to do those things and you’ll be a solid pick for your team.

Just makes sure you really know your rotation, so you won’t mess up and have noticable less dps than the alternatives.

We don’t have an easy life, but I doubt any of us Engineers ever picked this profession to have an easy life to begin with, aye? ;3

Greez!
- Ziggy

Do you use your medic gyro’s detonation as a source of super speed on VG?

THANKS Xyonon!!!!
That’s just the sort of info I was after. I was going to ask which was best, power or condi, but you broke it down very nicely.
And thanks for all the other replys, its all great info! Time to go make good use of my Engi and see if I can shine!

Oh and real quick…..Xyonon, do you have any sort of guide/youtube etc. in regards to rotations/priorities/builds and what to use when, all that fun stuff?

And to the general Engi public….whats “best” for just messing around solo open world, metas, maps etc.? Condi or power?

Power Scrapper is pretty great for messing around, on demand block and stability can be quite handy as well as reflect uptime and easy might if you want to just 1111 a little. I run condi too and it’s nice with so many blinds on hand.. Can’t go wrong with either you just adjust your playstyle a bit.

Xyonon.3987:

-cut-

It’s nice to be able to do those things, but they still don’t make us a valuable addition to a raid group.
The problem isn’t what we can do as a single group member. Because there are ten of such in a raid group.
The things you mentioned can easily be done or shared between other classes – there are ten people in a raid group, after all – and they can do those things in addition to what they can uniquely do.

And there is nothing worthwhile for a group situation that we can uniquely do. We had an insanely strong CC, back then, one strong enough to be considered something we could solely do. It got nerfed to the floor. Since they wanted everyone to contribute doing so (yet anyone else having things they can only do seems fine).
Sure, we do have things like bulwark gyro that could take that role, in theory. But while it can be used in a group, it wasn’t made to work in a group. Unlike a banner, whose utility is proportional to the number of people affected, bulwark gyro protects always for the same amount of damage, be it defending one or five people. While still being balanced over its protection of a single character, due to pvp. It’s probably the only buff ingame that gets weaker in proportion to the amount of people that get affected by it. And that’s why it just isn’t good for a raid. The toolbelt is nice, though.

Heya!

Krag.6210:

Do you use your medic gyro’s detonation as a source of super speed on VG?

Yes. Even after the cast time has been introduced, you will normally be affected by it’s super speed even on the run.

Also try to blast the lightning fields for aoe swiftness. It’s very easy to stack a minute swiftness for everyone at Red Guardian, after you defeated it. The Medic Gyros detonation should be the finishing blow to it’s defiance bar, then (both) engis blast their Flamethrower #2, Big Ol’ Bomb and if you can Orbital Strike into that. Each blast grants 10s swiftness.

Joxer.6024:

Oh and real quick…..Xyonon, do you have any sort of guide/youtube etc. in regards to rotations/priorities/builds and what to use when, all that fun stuff?

Currently this will be valuable for you I guess.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/4vzplt/engineerscrapper_updated_skill_priority_list_for/

There is no spreadsheet for Condi Scrapper or Power Engi yet, but I’m working on that ^^ It’s a lot of work

Joxer.6024:

And to the general Engi public….whats “best” for just messing around solo open world, metas, maps etc.? Condi or power?

The allround best build for open world in my opinion is this one:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vdAQFASncoC1ahlXBubB0ehl7ii+2j9cXsg2wcAcBjwAA-TxRBAB4pDgS1fW4CAAwDA4Klf8v/gZKBBA-e

• Strength Runes (now that they are so cheap) are a great option aswell, or simply stay with your Raid Scholar set if you don’t want to change too much.
• Awesome might, fury, quickness, protection, swiftness, regen, stability, oh what the heck EVERYTHING uptime.
• Plenty of condi cleanse, blinds, cc, finishers and reflection … plenty of everything. :P

It’s basicly an allrounder build with one of the highest solo dps numbers. You sure can do a solo hero point train with it. :P

Jerus.4350:

Power Scrapper is pretty great for messing around, on demand block and stability can be quite handy as well as reflect uptime and easy might if you want to just 1111 a little. I run condi too and it’s nice with so many blinds on hand.. Can’t go wrong with either you just adjust your playstyle a bit.

Sums it up perfectly! I almost always play power in open world, but if I do Silverwastes, boy those Husks cry so hard if you play condi, especially the Copper boss! :’D Mag-ni-fi-cent!

Manuhell.2759:

-cut-

You wouldn’t take a Druid solely for it’s buffs, neither a Warrior. They both have to contribute to the total party dps in order to be solid picks. What I want to say is that we aren’t valuable due ot our abilities alone, but we are more valuable compared to alternatives who are basicly the same as us, but just without those little bonus things.

We, as either as power or condi in-/dependend of Alacrity, are on Ele / Thief dps level against small hitboxes. Maybe not on paper, but what matters is in practice.

For example every single aura tic will rip a Thief / Ele from it’s Scholar bonus for a few sec, unless they have Protection (or a Bulwark Gyro → supports team dps in that case), at least until they got healed again. Auras tic per 3 sec. Engis have enough HP to prevent this or simply are condi who don’t care at all.

There are also traits like Takedown Round, who’s dps contribution gets doubled if adds are present or Modified Ammo who sometimes boosts beyond the assumed 8 conditions in raids.

Then there’s the time you spend on range. Matthias for example forces you into ranged combat from time to time. And if you can’t block strips your Scholar bonus aswell.

What about the dps loss of being kicked? Losing Scholar in the same moment aswell? Getting attacked by any add and losing Scholar bonus. Maybe even forcing someone to use his own heal, all those little things can sum up.

In the end, the Raids are doable with many different “max efficiency” compositions. The differences between two comps may be so small that RN-Jesus has more impact on the outcome than the professions itself. The problem is that good professions are often determined by their usage in records. But just because another profession hasn’t been used yet doesn’t mean that they are a bad pick. If RN-Jesus smiles upon me and we get the best crits and spawns at lets say Xera, and are able to setup a record run while we used an Engi, everyone would lose their mind.

I don’t say “Hey guys, Engis are sooo gud, everyone should have one in it’s party!”, but I say that we are just as good as any other top tier dps profession, if we invest a bit more efforts to support the whole team.
About them large hitboxes? Fancy tactics or swap to Ele I say :P

Greez!
- Ziggy

Just wanted to pop in and say thanks for the tip on Condi Scrapper, pretty nice deal. Now to just remember not to hit f1 after double tapping my heal skill >.<

Hehe yea, I normally go with 312 as Condi Scrapper at VG. I will also do a spreadsheet for Condi Scrapper vs Condi Engi to see the real dps differences. Wahoo

Xyonon.3987:

Hehe yea, I normally go with 312 as Condi Scrapper at VG. I will also do a spreadsheet for Condi Scrapper vs Condi Engi to see the real dps differences. Wahoo

I imagine not much of a DPS loss. And yeah, that’s what I went with, all you had to do was say scrapper engi and superspeed for greens and it all clicked and makes perfect sense, I like it. Ran fractals in it last night just for fun and it was pretty nice.

Curious… have you tried a healing engi build? That’s kind of a project I want to work on, at least see what it can do. I’m looking at it and I just can’t imagine it coming anywhere close to the other more powerful options but I haven’t actually tried it in a setting that would be a good measure.

“Hehe yea, I normally go with 312 as Condi Scrapper at VG”
Wait…what!? Condi Scrapper?? What did I miss? Do share please, I am intrigued as I am always keen for something not of the “norm”!
And thanks heaps Xyonon!

Joxer.6024:

“Hehe yea, I normally go with 312 as Condi Scrapper at VG”
Wait…what!? Condi Scrapper?? What did I miss? Do share please, I am intrigued as I am always keen for something not of the “norm”!
And thanks heaps Xyonon!

It’s just a condi engi with Scrapper instead of Tools, you trade a little dps for the utility of gyros.

Krag.6210:

Joxer.6024:

“Hehe yea, I normally go with 312 as Condi Scrapper at VG”
Wait…what!? Condi Scrapper?? What did I miss? Do share please, I am intrigued as I am always keen for something not of the “norm”!
And thanks heaps Xyonon!

It’s just a condi engi with Scrapper instead of Tools, you trade a little dps for the utility of gyros.

Ah, no using Hammer or anything? Still condi gear? I thought perhaps more use of elixir gun and such for condi. Ok, thanks for that!

Jerus.4350:

Xyonon.3987:

Hehe yea, I normally go with 312 as Condi Scrapper at VG. I will also do a spreadsheet for Condi Scrapper vs Condi Engi to see the real dps differences. Wahoo

I imagine not much of a DPS loss. And yeah, that’s what I went with, all you had to do was say scrapper engi and superspeed for greens and it all clicked and makes perfect sense, I like it. Ran fractals in it last night just for fun and it was pretty nice.

You will lose 10% power damage with full endurance, wich is ~25% of your damage at VG due to it’s low armor, so +2.5% dmg with full endurance. But that’s only with 100% uptime and you dodge anyway to get a 2nd Incendiary with the Kinetic Battery if you run tools, so forget about it
Static Discharges deal around 2k to VG, but the only SD that auto aims on range is the one from Big Ol’ Bomb. All others will most likely miss on ranged.
Streamlined Kits’ Mortar Gunk is quite the dps incrrease normally, but this one is rather hard to trigger while on the run to green fields anyway.

You’ll probably lose something between 0-500 dps. Imo, totally justifies the usage of Scrapper against VG.

Btw, the protection from the Medic Gyro reduces the damage of the greed field you get while standing inside of it. It’s also very important to use after the split phase when the first breakbar happens during the first green field.

Jerus.4350:

Curious… have you tried a healing engi build? That’s kind of a project I want to work on, at least see what it can do. I’m looking at it and I just can’t imagine it coming anywhere close to the other more powerful options but I haven’t actually tried it in a setting that would be a good measure.

Rumors tell there has been a healing Ziggy a looong time ago, started when bombs were able to aoe heal … :P

Seriously tough, yea I even did Raids with him and the healing is quite good. You can drop the Mortar or Elixier Gun heal fields and then swap to the Med Kit, they will trigger the trait “+33% heal while using Med Kit”. So does regeneration and all that stuff. This is the build I used:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vdAQJAqensTBtoiFpCubB0ehFDjSc/ChNgOxf8LPMAuv8D-TxxGQBk7BA0G9ADZ/BAcCAUk6PeUJYtU+JKA/C-e

The problem is rather that you are a slot, purely dedicated to heal, unable to do anything else really good. Well maybe CC and grant a bit mobility, but that’s about it. Druids still deal damage, Chronos still buff. I can’t see any other healers in a serious situation right now. But if you ask if it works – yes, absolutely.

Xyonon.3987:

You wouldn’t take a Druid solely for it’s buffs, neither a Warrior. They both have to contribute to the total party dps in order to be solid picks. What I want to say is that we aren’t valuable due ot our abilities alone, but we are more valuable compared to alternatives who are basicly the same as us, but just without those little bonus things.

But that’s what i was saying – those classes provide dps and do things they can solely do. And that’s why they’re picked. Cause no one else could take their place.
No one other than warriors has banners (or PS either). No one but a chronomancer can provide alacrity. Only druid get spirits coupled with really good group healing abilities.
Even thieves get to apply venoms to the party, they just don’t happen to be useful enough, yet. Necro have a limited niche with epidemics, compared to the examples above. And we had an even smaller niche with slick shoes, back when they were still situationally useful.

The only thing we’ve got like that now is bulwark gyro, but as i said above, it just wasn’t done to work in a group situation (as unlike those other utilities, its effect doesn’t scale with the group).
And then there are all the trait-party wide buffs. Those help, too. And we got nothing like that.

Sure, we may be not the only ones in such a situation, but that doesn’t help much.

We, as either as power or condi in-/dependend of Alacrity, are on Ele / Thief dps level against small hitboxes. Maybe not on paper, but what matters is in practice.

I can agree, but in practice, we are one of the hardest professions to get results with. And one where theorycrafting and practice can differ the most. Take napalm, for example. On paper it is one of our most damaging skills. In practice a couple steps are enough to avoid all of it. It works if the enemy stays perfectly still for 10s, but how many bosses will actually do that, when their mechanics are involved?

For example every single aura tic will rip a Thief / Ele from it’s Scholar bonus for a few sec, unless they have Protection (or a Bulwark Gyro -> supports team dps in that case), at least until they got healed again. Auras tic per 3 sec. Engis have enough HP to prevent this or simply are condi who don’t care at all.

There are also traits like Takedown Round, who’s dps contribution gets doubled if adds are present or Modified Ammo who sometimes boosts beyond the assumed 8 conditions in raids.

Then there’s the time you spend on range. Matthias for example forces you into ranged combat from time to time. And if you can’t block strips your Scholar bonus aswell.

What about the dps loss of being kicked? Losing Scholar in the same moment aswell? Getting attacked by any add and losing Scholar bonus. Maybe even forcing someone to use his own heal, all those little things can sum up.

It’s the same for us. What if they move just after we casted napalm, what if we had to move afar and can’t put a fire bomb on the boss during that timeframe. A group can find means to apply protection to their members, but if the mechanics require the boss to move, there isn’t much to do about it. Sure, having a large amount of skills we’ll likely have something to cast either way, but straying from the “perfect rotation” will still lower our theoretical dps. It’s especially important for us due to the sheer amount of skills we’ve got, and our dps depends on chaining a large part of them as much as possible.

Xyonon.3987:

In the end, the Raids are doable with many different “max efficiency” compositions. The differences between two comps may be so small that RN-Jesus has more impact on the outcome than the professions itself. The problem is that good professions are often determined by their usage in records. But just because another profession hasn’t been used yet doesn’t mean that they are a bad pick. If RN-Jesus smiles upon me and we get the best crits and spawns at lets say Xera, and are able to setup a record run while we used an Engi, everyone would lose their mind.

Well, people obviously try making things easier for the raid group to succeed. Taking classes that can stack unique bonuses or that can constantly apply boons to a group is a way to do so, provided they can also deal appropriate damage. But we lack those tools to start with.
We can rely on our damage – then again, depending on the circumstances – and we do have some other supportive abilities. But it isn’t we’re the only ones who got them.
Sure, we aren’t necessarily a bad pick. But i wouldn’t say we’re a good one either. And people that want to make their raid easier won’t pick the average one, they’ll just go for the option that makes things easier.

Xyonon.3987:

I don’t say “Hey guys, Engis are sooo gud, everyone should have one in it’s party!”, but I say that we are just as good as any other top tier dps profession, if we invest a bit more efforts to support the whole team.
About them large hitboxes? Fancy tactics or swap to Ele I say :P

---

Greez!
- Ziggy

And that’s wrong, imho. A raid is made by 10 players. Every (base) class could potentially have a spot, yet while some classes have guaranteed spots, it’s deemed better having several multiples of the same classes than taking an engineer (or some other class – we aren’t alone in that regard). There is a large disparity, and not much is being done about it.
(and again, mostly is due to a pvp-based balancing, imho)

Dang Manuhell….so whats the answer?
I am so over the boring Rev rotation (cant even call it that) and also for getting the blame if cc fails on VG. Hello!!! I am not the only cc folks!
But am keen to try a class that’s engaging yet can get a nod into raids. Was hoping Engi would offer that but dang it all if it seems to be the same junk as with DH. Yea, we can do it, but the masses don’t want it. Hopefully something will swing the right way.

Xyonon.3987:

Jerus.4350:

Xyonon.3987:

Hehe yea, I normally go with 312 as Condi Scrapper at VG. I will also do a spreadsheet for Condi Scrapper vs Condi Engi to see the real dps differences. Wahoo

I imagine not much of a DPS loss. And yeah, that’s what I went with, all you had to do was say scrapper engi and superspeed for greens and it all clicked and makes perfect sense, I like it. Ran fractals in it last night just for fun and it was pretty nice.

You will lose 10% power damage with full endurance, wich is ~25% of your damage at VG due to it’s low armor, so +2.5% dmg with full endurance. But that’s only with 100% uptime and you dodge anyway to get a 2nd Incendiary with the Kinetic Battery if you run tools, so forget about it
Static Discharges deal around 2k to VG, but the only SD that auto aims on range is the one from Big Ol’ Bomb. All others will most likely miss on ranged.
Streamlined Kits’ Mortar Gunk is quite the dps incrrease normally, but this one is rather hard to trigger while on the run to green fields anyway.

You’ll probably lose something between 0-500 dps. Imo, totally justifies the usage of Scrapper against VG.

Btw, the protection from the Medic Gyro reduces the damage of the greed field you get while standing inside of it. It’s also very important to use after the split phase when the first breakbar happens during the first green field.

Jerus.4350:

Curious… have you tried a healing engi build? That’s kind of a project I want to work on, at least see what it can do. I’m looking at it and I just can’t imagine it coming anywhere close to the other more powerful options but I haven’t actually tried it in a setting that would be a good measure.

Rumors tell there has been a healing Ziggy a looong time ago, started when bombs were able to aoe heal … :P

Seriously tough, yea I even did Raids with him and the healing is quite good. You can drop the Mortar or Elixier Gun heal fields and then swap to the Med Kit, they will trigger the trait “+33% heal while using Med Kit”. So does regeneration and all that stuff. This is the build I used:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vdAQJAqensTBtoiFpCubB0ehFDjSc/ChNgOxf8LPMAuv8D-TxxGQBk7BA0G9ADZ/BAcCAUk6PeUJYtU+JKA/C-e

The problem is rather that you are a slot, purely dedicated to heal, unable to do anything else really good. Well maybe CC and grant a bit mobility, but that’s about it. Druids still deal damage, Chronos still buff. I can’t see any other healers in a serious situation right now. But if you ask if it works – yes, absolutely.

Nice. And, yeah, that’s the trouble with medkit, 0 damage but having to stick in it for the bonus and skill use. I was actually thinking that just the gyro heal would be better, 1k+ off the bat with the ‘20% to others’ trait and then pulses from the gyro (detonate early if you don’t need it so recharge starts).

I was also using FT for more blast heals, and last night I was trying out thumper turret thinking it might be worth a 3X blast burst, but ehh. Anyways, thanks for the comments.

This discussion makes me so happy… but also so sad.
Happy because there are plenty of things that engineer can do and the more you think about it, the more you find new usage.
Sad because I am forbidden to use my engi in my guild unless we go on VG, because “engi do no damage” “engi are not in the strat vids of [KING]” “there is no space for engi in the group” “better have 2 PS and 2 Rev in the group because else we can’t have enough might and fury” “Necros are better condi dealer than engi” “If you don’t take FT you won’t make enough condi damage”…. yes I’m crying now…

Ranael.6423:

This discussion makes me so happy… but also so sad.
Happy because there are plenty of things that engineer can do and the more you think about it, the more you find new usage.
Sad because I am forbidden to use my engi in my guild unless we go on VG, because “engi do no damage” “engi are not in the strat vids of [KING]” “there is no space for engi in the group” “better have 2 PS and 2 Rev in the group because else we can’t have enough might and fury” “Necros are better condi dealer than engi” “If you don’t take FT you won’t make enough condi damage”…. yes I’m crying now…

You nailed it!! I just did Vg on Engi and tried some of things suggested here and must say gyro for heals when doing green circles rocks! Prot and heals on the run, very nice.
But yea, everything you mentioned is so true….and sad.

Tell your guild to shut up, link them the damage rankings that shows us at just slightly behind the other options. Link them to this thread that describes solid uses for Engi. Pugging lately I’ve snuck my Engi in any time I was able. A lot of the time we end up talking and someone learns something about Engi.

The thing that really bugs me though is when a group wants necros but the necros don’t organize Epidemic bouncing. Kills the entire reason necros get the nod, but who cares because the template is being followed.

Jerus.4350:

The thing that really bugs me though is when a group wants necros but the necros don’t organize Epidemic bouncing. Kills the entire reason necros get the nod, but who cares because the template is being followed.

Necro is used over Engy for 2 main reasons.

1 – Condition management. They can pull condis off the group and then send them back to the boss which significantly reduces the damage the group is taking with a minimal level of effort.

2 – Ease of use – A poorly played necro does almost as much damage as a good necro. A poorly played engy does a fraction of the DPS of a good engy. Without any real feedback tools, it is hard to tell the difference between the good players and the poor ones.

Knox.8962:

Jerus.4350:

The thing that really bugs me though is when a group wants necros but the necros don’t organize Epidemic bouncing. Kills the entire reason necros get the nod, but who cares because the template is being followed.

Necro is used over Engy for 2 main reasons.

1 – Condition management. They can pull condis off the group and then send them back to the boss which significantly reduces the damage the group is taking with a minimal level of effort.

2 – Ease of use – A poorly played necro does almost as much damage as a good necro. A poorly played engy does a fraction of the DPS of a good engy. Without any real feedback tools, it is hard to tell the difference between the good players and the poor ones.

Wing2 it makes complete sense, i mean necro is amazing. But, wing1… yeah… but point 2 does stand strong. Last engi pug I saw was a “healer condi” using rampagers exotics >.<, I mean not knwoing the rotation is one thing but god giving us a bad name!

Abosuletly. I mean it makes total sense for the average pug leader to not want Engis since the chance of them failing is much higher than the alternatives.

I think if we had this one specific group buff / target debuff we would immediately be a solid pick. But those are just dreams …

Xyonon.3987:

I think if we had this one specific group buff / target debuff we would immediately be a solid pick. But those are just dreams …

Well class specific debuffs are still option to explore in GW2, so it is possible that Engi will get these in next spec. Especially since we cry for some team wide support (the problem with vulnerability is that it is very common, and with 10 people group you really don’t need special person to stack vunerability… also I hate nades), that we don’t get any I have high hope for next spec.

Well if they would reintroduce the old buff every champ+ had we may have a chance. Vulnerability is not a condition anymore – it’s “baseline” :|

Engi will be refused from the vast majority of raids out there pug raids, guild raids etc, their rotation is very skill dependent and requires very low latency to adequately pull off to do competitive dps the stars rarely align for most people. Despite the high level of complexity the engi dps rotation has, you are not rewarded for that complexity in any way you end up with inferior damage and utility.

Other classes quite frankly can do what engi can but better with lower risk factors and higher reliability. Engis bring nothing unique to the table currently.

I main engi and I’ve started working on another class that I don’t even enjoy remotely as much just so I can get a chance to experience raid content with decent groups.

We uniquely bring control and blind paired with 2nd highest dps against small hitboxes (or 3rd against large). As we all know, control is especially great for VG or escort, but here I see some more potential is to work with blind and pushes/pulls.

I find it more comfortable to have an Engi at Xera instead of Necro(s). Instead of the common pugs setups 2 Eles 2 Necs / 3 Eles 1 Nec / 4 Eles I’d rather use 2 Eles 1 Eng 1 Thief or something similiar. The only threat at Xera are adds inside of shard aoes. Neither Xera, not the mechanics themselves are a bigger issue if you ask me.

Or at KC you can save plenty of time with an Engi pulling and pushing the Orb from 3 to 4 to 5, regardless of the lower dps you’ll do (altough engi burst is quite fine, especially with a Frost Bow), you will save more time than with another Ele.

I don’t say Engi is awesome, not at all, unfortunately we currently are in a pretty sinister position. But we can fill some niches to be acceptable in a party. Yet I still think we need help and major buffs, especially in 2 specific points:

• we need an unique buff / debuff that is useful for the team, but not stackable
• the scrapper traitline needs damage in terms of a modifier to compete with tools and to make up for the recent hammer nerfs who had their roots from pvp in the first place

I’d better ask here instead of strting a new thread.
I’ m new to class(not game) and i really try to find an answer but with no luck.
Between power hammer build and condi, i know condi is better in sustain damage, but is power hammer(or rifle) build so bad to bring in a team?
I m talking for a full berserker ascended armor.
I recently swap from guardian to engi and i used to play as raw power dmg build.

Thanks in advance

If you’re talking like the raid dps lists Core Power Engi is about the same as Core Condi Engi, you’re just often asked for condi due to needing them, and some utility benefiting from longer duration on condi’s. As for general play, both work great as well but I’m not sure on exact comparison, I want to say condi is slightly better though (talking when Vuln/Might isn’t guarenteed), and Scrapper may be good in that situation as well with it’s quickness trait, but I haven’t really tested.

Anyways, yeah we are pretty close between Power and Condi, it’s all about the exact situation on which one is preferable.

Thank you very much

Power and Condi Engi have about the same dps if performed nicely. Condi will require more Alacrity to get more damage though, but has longer lasting immobilizes, cripples, chills and blinds wich might be handy in specific situations. A very important thing about Power Engi is, that the damage gets significantly higher if adds are present to proc Takedown Round. So for Sabetha for example, power will be definitly stronger than condi.

Then i ll craft 2 sets of asc armor

Seteruss.4058:

I’d better ask here instead of strting a new thread.
I’ m new to class(not game) and i really try to find an answer but with no luck.
Between power hammer build and condi, i know condi is better in sustain damage, but is power hammer(or rifle) build so bad to bring in a team?
I m talking for a full berserker ascended armor.
I recently swap from guardian to engi and i used to play as raw power dmg build.

Thanks in advance

personally i find hammer dps lacking, its fun to use, works in pvp, and wvw, but in pve its just lacking. Probably because of the scrapper traitline making the engineer dps lower since most of the traits dont increase any dps at all, and you would have to use scrapper to wield the hammer.

If you wanna go condi just use p/p and use nades,bombs,ft,mortar…If you wanna use power personally i have enjoyed using zerk static discharge for 4 years now, its the first build i ever used in open world pve when the game 1st came out, and its still a working build unless your doing raids then obviously the dps will be lacking compared to viper condi engi, power was never engineer forte even before vipers gear, i’ve tried using bomb auto atk dps for years with zerk gear and its just not the same dps as other power dps classes. But the condi build has some good synergy so it works well.

Actually power Static Discharge builds are very solid. Right below D/W Ele. Condi is better in general, but power is solid.

Power spikes in damage heavily if adds are present thanks to takedown round. Power is also not in need of Alacrity like Condi or Tempest. If you do a 10m golem down to 6m, you can get 29k dps with realistic buffs.