Guild Wars 2

First of all I was running dungeons always (till spec update) on my ranger and elem. Sadly I found hard time joining on my ranger.. Elem, even if I can stack to 18 might.. I found not fun to play (for now). Condis are eating my little elem alive..

Since I like challenges I thought engie would be good one to start with. I wanna engie to become my main character from now. I know a lot of lessons before me, but I’m open person (plus I always liked a design of engie).

Till spec update I was running following build (found on GW forum)
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vdAQFAUlUUhatY1Vw+Kw6FL3FV4EWhZGYDGhBg4B1D5AA-TRBBABA8AA84CAUz+D5pDIT1fAA-e
I was happy with it, I was even running 20+ fractals on this. Stacking might in a little selfish way.. Why knight armour.. Because I’m still practising dodging (yes even after 2 years in GW) and I feel safer with additional toughness. IF knight armour is good I would be glad about it.. (reason? full knight asc armour..)

I wrote here cause I hope some pro and friendly engies might give me few good hits. And what to improve in my current build or how to change it
What I care about is damage and survivability mostly (since I run most of time with my though/heal guard bf).

Please lets keep it mentor – student, no rage topic, thanks

(ps. sorry for my english)

FT as source of dps is worst choice you should consider some other build for dungs.

^
Pretty much this, you might want to consider grenades (or bombs) instead of FlameThrower as your primary source of damage.

The cookie cutter dungeon engi build makes full use of Nade/FT/EG or Nade/Bombs/EG depending on situations.

What Krag said is right.

About survivability. Not sure the exact number but full zerker on engineer I have like 16k hp or so with scholar runes so its pretty easy to stay up. EG gives you a blast finisher and some (light field might mess with might stacks so use with discretion) group support. FT gives you a fire field and another blast. Nades vulnerability and decent dps. Bombs blast and fire field.

Imho engineer is one of the better classes you can run with that is not “meta”. My guard is squishier but has about the same support just much more straight forward dps. We do fine in melee and at range and our healing turret (for when zerkers slip up) is one of the best heals for those who rely on scholar runes. It is my favorite class to dungeon with because I know I can do any run engineer.

Hmm ok I see.

You are not using any elixirs? I ll try to run with berk armour then. All my amulets etc are berk too. Which traits you recommend to take? And (since I saw it few times) is ability to give allies le stealth is must to know?

Biggest problem for me (with grenades) is ground targeting.. but I guess I ll just need to learn it

Thanks for your answers!

If you have a mouse with extra buttons I highly suggest going to options turning fast ground targetting on so it just throws where you press the skill, then personally I love having the 1 on my mouse, just a little squeeze and they go flying. It’s not bad once you’re used to it. The rapid kit swapping is the hardest part of playing engi well.

If you want to keep some toughness, look at picking up captain’s jewellery, it’s like knight’s but has precision main stat. If you have precision as a stat on all your armour, take a strength sigil over battle for much higher personal might. If you want to camp 1 kit for dmg choose grenades.

In firearms drop juggernaut for modified ammo. And I’d suggest swapping either inventions or alchemy for Explosives to get high vuln stacking with a grenade kit.

Stealth isn’t a required combo to know, it’s just very handy and allows you to replace thieves in a party if ppl request one, as well as allowing easier trash skips for you. Even if you don’t know how to blast stealth off a smoke bomb, it’s an excellent choice to use against trash mobs if you stop to kill some, mortar 4 also is great if you don’t bring bomb kit.

As a side note, I bound my auto attack to A and have ground targetting with range finder turned on, so i just tap A and it throws grenades wherever my mouse is. Plus other random binds like W,R,shift,B for my other attack skills.

I would consider using elixir U instead S (you can switch to S while skipping), as it will be long quickness, and optional projectile destoy / reflect (it can never be wrong).
Also… you are quite slow, so maybe mecha legs could be an answer.

I like FT, but some can consider using it as no DPS and selfish weapon.

Flamethrower hits 0.88 coefficients/second, whereas grenades hit 0.99 on just auto attacks. And grenades can stack 3 vuln per skill use plus bleed if you take shrapnel, and extra vuln if you take heavy armour exploit. It has higher damage if you’re camping, and boosts party damage by more as long as you trait for explosives(which is pretty much assumed in pve, because dmg boosts are amazing). In terms of the ability to cleave, grenades have better aoe, whereas flamethrower shoots in just the straight line, and requires you to face a target.

FT is way more fun. But it is subpar compared to nades or bombs. Never use FT alone, mix it with some other thing, like Elixir Gun.

The flamethrower is a solid DPS weapon now that burning stacks in intensity. It is also a much more interesting weapon than grenades.

Grenade damage is overrated. The full duration of a grenade #1 throw is ~1 second. It is only the activation time that is 1/2 second.

@Jerus
That’s really handy info and tbh I was planning to buy some better mouse. Swaping is not a problem for me, I’m used to play elem ^^

@SlyDevil
I noted all what you said. And yeah I felt FT isn’t as strong as I thought but still Flame Blast is nice. It’s just matter of getting used to new ground targeting with grenades and all should go more smooth I guess.
I might know how to do stealth but.. my fingers aren’t used to quick dropping blast into field yet.. (might stacking on elem took some time to learn too, but now I’m doing it auto )
Till new mouse I ll try your idea of binding and targeting. Thanks alot!!

@NiBlack
Yeah.. I had a feeling (when searching engie forum) I might be mistaken taking S into dungeons.. Oh tell me about my speed.. I hate it, but saw only 1 trait for fast running (which I consider little waste to take). But if most of you ll recommend it, I might try it too of course!

@Ardid
I ll take grenades for sure (after so many recommendations )

Thanks again guys. Support from you is amazing~! (:

Fergus.4208:

The flamethrower is a solid DPS weapon now that burning stacks in intensity. It is also a much more interesting weapon than grenades.

Grenade damage is overrated. The full duration of a grenade #1 throw is ~1 second. It is only the activation time that is 1/2 second.

Ah you see, I really like FT (saw my old build?). But so many people tell me, to at least try out grenades. I ll compare damage in some high fractals with friends (so nobody ll be angry cause engie’s experimenting).

Easy stealth rotation, with Siege Rounds traited (GM explosions) and Short Fuse(explosions master) you can lay your healing turret(just deploy don’t activate), then do Big Ol Bomb (bomb toolbelt) then Orbital (Mortar Toolbelt) then drop your smoke bomb (bomb kit) followed by detonating your Healing turret as soon as your smoke bomb goes off (should be the same time as big ol bomb and orbital’s first strike goes off), then swap flamethrower and flame blast.

5 blasts all easily doable in a couple seconds. Likewise you can also equip a shield and not use healing turret or flame blast. And can toss thumper turret in the third slot for another blast… lots of options what I put above is just what I’ve been doing recently as aside from bomb swap it’s all I generally need to change (short fuse trait I usually leave traited when I’m the stealth/blind guy).

Engi is a great choice for dungeon farming, we became true DPS monsters with the last patch. This is what i usually run in dungeons: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vdAQFAUlsTh2tYJWwkLQ7FLQIzIA3+7T+C45pB-T1BFABCcBAQS5Xa6AqZ/BAeAAFq+zVKBDAgAMxJGAm4En4En4Eb6SciTciTMA-w

Last traitline is up to you, i usually run tools for the swiftness, SD and AI. But alchemie for buffed acid bomb wont be bad either. Then i would run medkit for swiftness if your team isnt stacking it.

What makes us a dps monster now are the new traitlines in firearms. With the runes(runes of rage might be a great choice too) and traits you easily have perma fury, plus high caliber and hematic focus will be active in each usual dungeon situation, so your crit chance is like permanent 95%(!!!). My Grenade Barrage alone usually does >20k dmg.

Im playing engi since release and i tried lots of stuff, but nades are simply mandatory if you wanna go full dps. Camping flamethrower results in laughable damage compared to nades(i tried all kinds of armor sets, full/mixed sinister as well), and bombs(besides smoke bomb) are pretty much useless in a zerk build and the new mortar already catches up on that.
Toolkit isnt really needed, im just so used to it and in 90% of my pug´s im getting LOTS of aggro(guess because of the many hits nades do), so a block is pretty welcome in certain situations.

I really recommend to try the crit chance firearms traits in full zerk, i promise you wont be disappointed.

sorry to hijack the thread but i’m curious, what would you guys take into dungeons: a ranger, an engi or a thief?

Considering it’s an Engi thread I’d assume most people would answer Engi

That said, if you’re looking to optimize Thief is generally the better choice for the “role”. That role being Stealth.

Engi can also take a damage spot which is where it’d compete with ranger as well, in that case honestly either one is solid. Spotter/Frost Spirit from ranger, and vuln production from Engi, both contributing to the team, though Engi has higher personal dps assuming the player in question can handle the rotation. Thief is also great damage but I believe Engi edges them out now, and for sure on multiple targets.

So I guess depends on what spot you’re trying to fill. Engi can contribute might and vuln pretty darn well all while optimizing damage. They can fill in and do most stealth stuff (pathing is a bit tougher to pull off or even not possible). And of course Engi has a ton of utility outside the base build. Ranger is basically group support with some vuln production included in that, then decent damage and a bit of utility. Thief is sort of a more specialized Engi in this sense, you have better stealth, good projectile defense and a lot of tricks, but you don’t have the might/vuln production levels, basically less well rounded but better at the core functions, outside DPS which is solid on both engi and thief.

@Jeru – I assumed most people would say engi and then hopefully give a reason. I’m looking at moving away from Ranger quite possibly unless Druid completely blows my mind. I’ve been working on Ele a bit but its so much squishier than ranger that it’ll take some getting used to. Rangers group support is pretty horrific and Engi seems to be able to do that well while keeping the damage up there. Also LB didn’t get any love so the best dps would be full melee, going full melee you lose 5 stacks of vuln every 9s.

This patch hurt pretty badly.

I have an 80 thief as well but I haven’t run Engi or Thief in real PVE at all, EOTM and PVP leveling with a bit of story thrown in.

I actually like the current LB with ranger, if you pick up quick draw. You can swap rapid fire → barrage → Rapid fire, that every 30s, you get like 1 or 2 auto attacks in there too usually before it changes, maybe a couple extra if you had quickness going (which with pet swap is pretty plentiful on ranger).

Overall though my advice. if you like playing your keyboard like a piano, go engi. if you don’t, go thief. Thief is a bit more simplistic when it comes to general play, it only gets a bit more complicated when you start to do some of the more tricky stuff with teleport to skip faster. (check out arah p2 records thief point of view on the after lupi run).

Right now I’m actually struggling to execute my “perfect” theoretical condi rotation. I’ve got the power one down pretty well but god sometimes engi stuff is nuts. To give you an idea, every 8s I need to swap to bomb kit to drop a firebomb, every 5s grenade for shrapnel, every 15s pistols for blowtorch/static shot. On top of that I try to slip in a flame blast every 8-9s with the fire bomb, grenade barrage every 22s, and fill in the rest with poison/freeze/normal grenade. It may not seem that tough, but it’s giving me a headache, so far I can only get it down right for the first 22s then I get lost.

Power isn’t much different. If you’re not ready to rotate at that level, well engi DPS drops fast, nade spamming for example is only like 60-70% of the damage you do in a full rotation, so where full rotation is capable of like 17.5kdps you’re looking at like 12k or less without hitting your acid bomb/flame blasts on cooldown.

Thief however is basically just 1115111151111511115111121112111211121112 and you’re basically maximizing (some more subtle tweaks depending on stuff, but yeah). So it’s much easier to play at a high level.

Ahh, to add, to get most of our utility we have to drop something. Vuln/Might comes with the rotation, you can get more might but drop in damage with some changes. You can get reflects but on a long cooldown or sacrificing a lot of damage (fortified turrets). Immob is pretty strong but again requires sacrifices to optimize. We don’t have everything all the time, that’s where tweaking the base build comes in, still a solid profession still good damage, but you lose a notable amount to gain certain support options.

that’s the kind of info I was really looking for, I just took a look at the DnT video that shows the engi rotation after the patch and it looks incredibly complicated lol. I think i may try out thief for a bit!

sword is our top dps weapon set so LB should only really get used for the RF burst like you mentioned. max dps since the patch would be s/a+gs on swap for maul. maul still drops a decent amount of vuln but no where near what we had.

Yeah, I’m doing a GS+ LB build because I can’t stand ranger sword auto

Prophet.1584:

sorry to hijack the thread but i’m curious, what would you guys take into dungeons: a ranger, an engi or a thief?

From my experience Engi > Ranger > Teef. But met good ranger is even more rare than good engi

Rozbuska.5263:

From my experience Engi > Ranger > Teef. But met good ranger is even more rare than good engi

Good Rangers and Engis are rarely found

Stalker strelok.9304:

Rozbuska.5263:

From my experience Engi > Ranger > Teef. But met good ranger is even more rare than good engi

Good Rangers and Engis are rarely found

Naw it’s more like not a lot of people main them.

There’s a few good rangers, i like to think i’m one of them, but I really want to be of more use in dungeons and stuff. warrior and gaurdian bore me, hitting things with a big stick gets tiring after a while. Engi rotation is insane, i may need a new mouse before I tackle that one full time. thief and ele are super squishy but then you’re choosing between AOE type damage or single target damage for the most part. mesmer has decent dps and utility but i’m expecting a hard nerf on them, the damage is ridiculous.

Prophet.1584:

There’s a few good rangers, i like to think i’m one of them, but I really want to be of more use in dungeons and stuff. warrior and gaurdian bore me, hitting things with a big stick gets tiring after a while. Engi rotation is insane, i may need a new mouse before I tackle that one full time. thief and ele are super squishy but then you’re choosing between AOE type damage or single target damage for the most part. mesmer has decent dps and utility but i’m expecting a hard nerf on them, the damage is ridiculous.

Naw there are great rangers out there. its just ranger lacks a lot of the utility other classes are just given even in pure dps specs. It is kind of bs but Anet has left it that way a long time.

I agree with your break down. With he exception of necromancer I have geared each class for dungeons and pretty much that was my experience as well.

I think rangers will be inline for a buff but I have no clue when it will come or how extensive it will be.

Hey guys I just wanted to really thanks you. You’ re truly the best community (with some exceptions but like everywhere..)

I tested ground targeting and I’m shocked. How is it possible I was never using it.. My engie on mortar/ grenades + elixir U was owning (events in Orr and WvW(there I little modified build but I guess you know why)). Suitability is ok but I still need to test berk armor. Even my friends (necro and warri) were shocked how grenade barrage is powerful.
I’m during learning how to stealth but everything before me I guess.

Thanks again for support and builds guys~ -hug-

Another big thing is to use “free camera”(dont know the exact name at the moment), its an option that will increase your control a lot. This will allow you to run forward while throwing nades and other stuff at your back.

Also deactivate melee assistance, so you can drop your acid bombs and stuff right into the enemy character model. Auto target of course as well, basically just turn all that assistance off and you will get the max control of your character.

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vdAQFAUlsTh2tYJWwkLQ7FLQIzIA3+7T+C45pB-T1BFABCcBAQS5Xa6AqZ/BAeAAFq+zVKBDAgAMxJGAm4En4En4Eb6SciTciTMA-w

For the most part in dungeons the best defense is a good offense. Because if you go down when something dies you will ralley and most bosses have a couple of attack worth worrying about, and you can dodge roll those. So things like stability trait on the flamethrower are just not that great especially since now lots of people have aoe stability in dungeons.

For max damage you want a couple things 1. zerker/assassins gear 2.tons of might 3.vulnerability 4.As many hard hitting abilities as you can fit into a single build and rotation.

Engis have bad autos on all weapons and kits across the board and while some utilities can be very helpful in situations they really don’t add to your dps. Kits and traits that randomly do damage will max our your dps. Using the build i linked and the explination i give below is your best bet for engi in dungeon.

blasting in a fire field will grant you and nearby allies might. you have a 10s fire field on flamethrower 4 and many blast finishers. They are 1.Orbital strike(F5) 2.healing turret explosion 3.Flame blast(FT2) 4. Acid bomb(EG4). You can use this to get 18 might before a fight and easily sustain 15 might and higher by yourself. Your might stacking rotation is 1.Orbital Strike 2. put FT4 right under Orbital Strike. 3. douple tap flameblast in the fire field. 4. drop and blow up heal turret in field. 5. acid bomb in field (pressing swap weapons immediatly after using this skill cancels the leap part but leaves blast and damage) 5. Flame blast once more. You contribute alot to applying vuln because all of your explosion apply 1 stack.

You don’t really need a perfect dps rotation you only need to know what skills to use and just use them whenever they are off cd. In no particular order they are
Rifle 3 and 5, Elixer gun 4, Flamethrower 2, Grenade 2 and 4, Orbital strkie, Grenade Barrage, and incidiary ammo. You should only expierince a few seconds here and there when all of those are on cd fill in this time with grenade kit autos because they are your best auto.

@Mister Fluffkin
Sounds very helpful, friends told me tho that it ll make my life hell when playing other characters than engie. Is that true?

@blastingmnktpoo
Hey, thanks so much you wrote how to stack might on engie It’s funny I ran from elem stacking might to even harder engie stacking might…
As for berk/assasin I never felt good with that armour. Ok I can feel incredible power but 1 little mistake, one I don’t know lag or me beeing dumb and I’m downed. I know dungeons re not same as pvp but some vit or though wouldn’t hurt anybody I guess.. Let’s take SE p3 for example. Running thru bridge. Mostly I’m the only one who stays alive. I guess I’m just not lucky with my squads..
It’s true tho I never run real Arah (not given for free by my friend, and I heard it’s hard when not done fast) and I don’t know how my power/fero/though build would do there (prec is not a problem due to fury stacks).
I ll give it a try of course but I was never a fan of berk due to his “not much space left for mistakes” issue.

Vesenya.4239:

Sounds very helpful, friends told me tho that it ll make my life hell when playing other characters than engie. Is that true?

I ll give it a try of course but I was never a fan of berk due to his “not much space left for mistakes” issue.

Run knight’s instead, you can also blend in captain accessories, it’s the next best armour set for damage, and it gives you some toughness for when you aren’t used to tells/lag kills you.

Free camera is great on all classes, you tap your right mouse button if you need to reset it, it also allows you to use ‘about face’ and make all of your withdrawal skills go forwards instead.(Burning retreat, withdrawal, roll for iniative, staff 2 on a mesmer than I can’t remember the name of)

Zerk gear isn’t the best if you’re not able to handle it well. But, there are 2 ways to get to that point. Either diving head first so you really feel your mistakes, I like that in the sense I feel I learn faster that way because there is more of a sense of urgency, but it can get frustrating. The other of course being bulking up a bit and learning the tells paying attention to when you get hit and striving for perfection, when you feel you’re nearly there you switch it up. This is nice because it’s less frustrating, but has the additional cost of spending money on 2 sets of gear, though if you WvW and such you might be able to just use it there, or salvage what you can out of it.

In either case though, as you get better at recognizing the tells and avoiding them you find you simply don’t need to be concerned with any passive defense (vit/toughness) because it’s going unused.

That’s my 2cents on it, Sly’s setup is solid should help a bit, and you could even go Rabid if you wanted to mess with condi.