Guild Wars 2

Ok hear me out bros and girls.
When an engineer wants to use a bursty build, we generally choose 30/30 in the first 2 traitlines. for grenadier and modified ammunition.
That being said, the Critical damage line is all the way down in tools.
So an engineer has to either give up grenade kit (Best kit that scales with power) or give up modified ammunition just to be able to get more crit damage out of the tools tree.

I honestly wouldnt be complaining about this if it were the same for other classes, but its not. Guardian, Warrior, Thief, and Elementalist (the only classes I play other then engi) all have crit damage in the same traitlines used to make bursty builds. Seriously, I’ve yet to see a serious build that goes 30 into tools. Im not sure if this has been mentioned before, but it is a serious drawback to engineers using any kind of bursty power builds.

Honestly, I’d never go 30 power for a burst build. We can have a better burst with SD and 30 in tools.

But you do have to go atleast 20 into firearms to get rifle dmg boost and skill cd. Modified ammo is a toss up and depends on your group make up. If you have heavy condi in your group then you’d probably get more from mod ammo. If not then you can go offensive/defensive with explosives or you can go more defensive with inventions/alchemy.

That’s the best part about the engi is we actually have multiple viable builds for each core build. Just experiment.

You will still get quite a bit of condition damage on a power build which will more than make up for the issue you mention.

It’s actually the Bomb Kit that scales best with power, so you could theoretically make a build with 10/30/0/0/30. In my opinion though the effect of major/minor traits is much more important than 20% crit damage.

And there are some SD burst builds that use 30 points in tools.

a buddy of mine plays 10/30/0/0/30 and uses nades just for nade barrage, even though it is weaker then it could be the fact that its hitting so hard in combination with other skills is what makes it work, remember everything is good in theory but in reality everything changes.

Bombsaway.7198:

You will still get quite a bit of condition damage on a power build which will more than make up for the issue you mention.

I know, you can get a minimum of a 6% dmg boost at all times. But personally I go for more cc over more dmg in my build.

Was just mentioning options

I agree that our trait bonuses are hard to make work. I really can’t see crit damage builds working too well in PvP. It can do in WvW where you have access to more +crit damage and therefore no need to rely on trait bonuses.

In PvP, effective use of precision seems to be more about getting bleed and burn procs than getting large extra direct damage. Don’t forget, a crit is 150% of a normal hit, with no +crit dam at all. Adding 30% from traits is not a huge difference proportionally.

Cribbage.2056:

I agree that our trait bonuses are hard to make work. I really can’t see crit damage builds working too well in PvP. It can do in WvW where you have access to more +crit damage and therefore no need to rely on trait bonuses.

In PvP, effective use of precision seems to be more about getting bleed and burn procs than getting large extra direct damage. Don’t forget, a crit is 150% of a normal hit, with no +crit dam at all. Adding 30% from traits is not a huge difference proportionally.

well in pvp, yes were limited in the amount of crit dmg we can achieve. But you can still get 55-62% crit dmg in pvp and can get some pretty big hits. With a good build you can crit constantly with your rifle 1 for 1.5-2k+.

30/0/0/10/30 is the best burst build I’ve ran, static discharge is okay, but I feel grenades are superior. You can get around 120% crit damage with full ascended in WvW so a toolkit pull/grenade barrage/blunderbuss combo can hit for over 18k… then overcharged shot, and shrapnel and its pretty much gg. I don’t think its necessary at all to go into the firearms tree as I feel that you get more burst from the crit damage tree. 10% damage bonus on full endurance is sweet.

Maiden England.3491:

Ok hear me out bros and girls.
When an engineer wants to use a bursty build, we generally choose 30/30 in the first 2 traitlines. for grenadier and modified ammunition.
That being said, the Critical damage line is all the way down in tools.
So an engineer has to either give up grenade kit (Best kit that scales with power) or give up modified ammunition just to be able to get more crit damage out of the tools tree.

I honestly wouldnt be complaining about this if it were the same for other classes, but its not. Guardian, Warrior, Thief, and Elementalist (the only classes I play other then engi) all have crit damage in the same traitlines used to make bursty builds. Seriously, I’ve yet to see a serious build that goes 30 into tools. Im not sure if this has been mentioned before, but it is a serious drawback to engineers using any kind of bursty power builds.

Mod Ammo would actually be pretty bad for burst builds, as it takes some time to ramp up as you stack conditions. It’s a sustained damage trait.

And the bomb kit and flamethrower both scale with power a lot better than the grenade kit does.

Phineas Poe.3018:

Maiden England.3491:

Ok hear me out bros and girls.
When an engineer wants to use a bursty build, we generally choose 30/30 in the first 2 traitlines. for grenadier and modified ammunition.
That being said, the Critical damage line is all the way down in tools.
So an engineer has to either give up grenade kit (Best kit that scales with power) or give up modified ammunition just to be able to get more crit damage out of the tools tree.

I honestly wouldnt be complaining about this if it were the same for other classes, but its not. Guardian, Warrior, Thief, and Elementalist (the only classes I play other then engi) all have crit damage in the same traitlines used to make bursty builds. Seriously, I’ve yet to see a serious build that goes 30 into tools. Im not sure if this has been mentioned before, but it is a serious drawback to engineers using any kind of bursty power builds.

Mod Ammo would actually be pretty bad for burst builds, as it takes some time to ramp up as you stack conditions. It’s a sustained damage trait.

And the bomb kit and flamethrower both scale with power a lot better than the grenade kit does.

ive actually experienced an overall decrease in damage without modified ammunition, not only from the lesser precision, but just raw damage. if you ever use grenade kit in the fight, modified ammunition is automatically worth it.

Sure, it’s a loss of overall damage going without it. But if burst damage was your objective, I wouldn’t look at condition-based builds or even the grenade kit. I’d look at skills like Flame Blast, Pry Bar, Blunderbuss, and Jump Shot—skills that scale over 150% your power value. The only skill that fits this description on the GK is Shrapnel Grenade, and that requires Grenadier (55% each).

You say you haven’t seen any “serious” builds that use 30 Tools, but with the buff to Armor Mod it’s actually fairly OK. Burst builds on the whole I think are pretty gimmicky regardless of what class you’re playing. Unless you’re a thief, they’re all hotjoin hero builds.

well there are plenty of not “gimmicky” burst builds for guardian and ele as well. plus im primarily a WvW player, so i didnt put too much thought into pvp when i made this thread

Phineas Poe.3018:

Maiden England.3491:

Ok hear me out bros and girls.
When an engineer wants to use a bursty build, we generally choose 30/30 in the first 2 traitlines. for grenadier and modified ammunition.
That being said, the Critical damage line is all the way down in tools.
So an engineer has to either give up grenade kit (Best kit that scales with power) or give up modified ammunition just to be able to get more crit damage out of the tools tree.

I honestly wouldnt be complaining about this if it were the same for other classes, but its not. Guardian, Warrior, Thief, and Elementalist (the only classes I play other then engi) all have crit damage in the same traitlines used to make bursty builds. Seriously, I’ve yet to see a serious build that goes 30 into tools. Im not sure if this has been mentioned before, but it is a serious drawback to engineers using any kind of bursty power builds.

And the bomb kit and flamethrower both scale with power a lot better than the grenade kit does.

Bomb kit (only the #1) definantly scales better than GK. I would not say the same with FT. Sure the FT #1 scales at 1.5 of your power, however that is over a 2.5 s channel. GK #1 (#2 and 4 scale even better) scales at .33. However since you toss three grenades (bc who seriously used grenades w/o grenadier), if you get all of them to hit you get the full benefit of power out of each toss. Take into account you can toss a little more than 2 grenade volleys per FT 1 channel, and you only really need to hit 4/6 grenades to outdo FT.

if you want max damage you go:

30=II/VII/IX
15=whatever you want
0
0
25=II/IX or II/VI or VI/IX whatever you’re more comfortable with

now

why this build full power =grenadier+10% damage

firearms for precision but more than that you can choose rifle range or rifle cooldown reduct or sitting duck traits i usually go with sitting duck and exploit weakness when roaming or cd reduction and exploit weakness whats the point in extra range if i cant cc my targetsand the master minor=10% crit rate on targets with 50% hp or less

Tools=crit damage+toolbelt cd reduction that alone is pretty darn helpful
depending on situation you will want to trade Scope for speedy kits oh and the grandmaster minor = extra 10% damage when at full endurance

with assasin gear you get pretty much 100% crit rate

you’ll destroy groups as long you dont run to the front lines

What serious tPvPer goes anymore than 10 into firearms or 20 into tools? The traits in firearms are awful and the damage/sustain you lose getting modified ammunition is totally not worth it in PvP. 30/0/0/20/20 or 30/0/0/30/10 for life. At least for power builds.

30 into tools is good for SD. The other 30 can be put into explosives for grenades or firearms for rifle. But putting 30 into both firearms and explosives is foolish for PvP.

AsmallChicken.9634:

Bomb kit (only the #1) definantly scales better than GK. I would not say the same with FT. Sure the FT #1 scales at 1.5 of your power, however that is over a 2.5 s channel. GK #1 (#2 and 4 scale even better) scales at .33. However since you toss three grenades (bc who seriously used grenades w/o grenadier), if you get all of them to hit you get the full benefit of power out of each toss. Take into account you can toss a little more than 2 grenade volleys per FT 1 channel, and you only really need to hit 4/6 grenades to outdo FT.

I didn’t really have Flame Jet in mind when making that statement. It scales by 150% of your power value, but it has a lengthy case time.

I was talking about Flame Blast. The napalm ball’s damage scales by 75% of your power, but when you detonate it, that explosion scales by 175% of your power.

If we’re going to talk about best power scaling attacks, GK still is the best kit.

Grenade Barrage scales at .375 of your power x7 which brings its total power scaling to 2.625, which is the best power scaling attack the Engi has. This is provided that all the grenades hit which granted is hard to do.

For the absolute maximum burst damage an Engi can do, it involves Bomb Kit and Elixer X. What you want to do is drop Big Ol’ Bomb and then immediately use Elixer X This will massively boost your power which should take effect as soon as your BOB goes off. The damage you get is very ridiculous, reaching up to 20k damage. Of course this combo is pretty impracticable, but very lulzworthy if you get it to work.

i wouldnt use bomb kit/flamethrower instead of grenade kit since they both only have 1 skill that actually hit reasonably (BK Autoattack & FT #2). With grenades i can hit for 1k per grenade with auto attack. #2 + #4 hit even harder as well as apply conditions.

Guard’s crit damage boosts are in the toughness tree, not ideal either. I’d love to have crit dmg in Firearms but its workable without IMHO. Had some great runs with 10/30/0/0/30 Rifle/SD burst but I don’t run much PvP lately. I actually like it this way, promotes build diversity.

Blood~

Bloodgruve.6038:

Guard’s crit damage boosts are in the toughness tree, not ideal either. I’d love to have crit dmg in Firearms but its workable without IMHO. Had some great runs with 10/30/0/0/30 Rifle/SD burst but I don’t run much PvP lately. I actually like it this way, promotes build diversity.

Blood~

yes it is actually very ideal for the most standard guardian burst build — guardian meditation builds. even if its not a burst build, almost every guardian build goes 30 into valor for either AH or MF. guardian is a prime example of crit damage being in the ideal tree.

10/30/0/0/30 is the best burst build i have played, its gimmicky but kitten its effective.

Using Bomb Kit and Tool Kit you drop BoB then Magnet Pull your helpless idiot into the blast, you should still have time to switch back to rifle, Blunderbuss them in the face and land a Jump Shot just as BoB tears them apart. I find that WAY more effective then nades for burst.

I agree with the OP that our traits don’t really sync well but you have to consider we are a hybrid class so it kind of makes seance. I really think Grenadier needs to be a Master lever trait I dare say we could move IP to Grand Master and give it a small buff.

Maiden England.3491:

Ok hear me out bros and girls.
When an engineer wants to use a bursty build, we generally choose 30/30 in the first 2 traitlines. for grenadier and modified ammunition.
That being said, the Critical damage line is all the way down in tools.
So an engineer has to either give up grenade kit (Best kit that scales with power) or give up modified ammunition just to be able to get more crit damage out of the tools tree.

I honestly wouldnt be complaining about this if it were the same for other classes, but its not. Guardian, Warrior, Thief, and Elementalist (the only classes I play other then engi) all have crit damage in the same traitlines used to make bursty builds. Seriously, I’ve yet to see a serious build that goes 30 into tools. Im not sure if this has been mentioned before, but it is a serious drawback to engineers using any kind of bursty power builds.

30 in the second traitline isn’t too good IMO. You’d be better of wit a toolkit/nade burst build. Something like 30/0/0/20/20 toolkit, nade kit, rocket boots (or slick shoes). Watch five guage use this build and 100-0 people if they dont have their stunbreaks left.

I use 30 30 0 0 10. I use rifle 2 immobilize then use grenades, i find extra grenade more effective than static discharge. 30 to second line is important because we get extra 2% damage per cond on target. I can’t find so useful traits at the last line although having extra crit damage is good.

This has been a problem since launch, looks like they ignored it too. sigh.

Maiden England.3491:

Ok hear me out bros and girls.
When an engineer wants to use a bursty build, we generally choose 30/30 in the first 2 traitlines. for grenadier and modified ammunition.
That being said, the Critical damage line is all the way down in tools.
So an engineer has to either give up grenade kit (Best kit that scales with power) or give up modified ammunition just to be able to get more crit damage out of the tools tree.

I honestly wouldnt be complaining about this if it were the same for other classes, but its not. Guardian, Warrior, Thief, and Elementalist (the only classes I play other then engi) all have crit damage in the same traitlines used to make bursty builds. Seriously, I’ve yet to see a serious build that goes 30 into tools. Im not sure if this has been mentioned before, but it is a serious drawback to engineers using any kind of bursty power builds.

Well to be honest in WVW considering running full zerk you can get up to 120% crit damage 30 tools pretty much gives the best bursty builds possible. Modified ammunition is ONLY worth it if you have several conditions stacked up on an opponent, which as a rifle engi is not really that easy. Even using sitting duck thats what 3 condi’s 6% dmg? Whereas you can pick up 30% crit damage from the last trait line, as well as static discharge, speedy kits the 25 pt trait that is 10% dmg overall when end is full.

If I run a burst build I run 30/0/0/10/30 with the majority of the burst coming from toolkit pull grenade barrage. If you land this with full zerk it will insta kill other glass cannon classes, and take about 50% off of ANYONE. the downside is you die fast.

There is really no need to go 30 in one of the first two trees to do burst damage. A 0/10/0/30/30 or even a 0/0/10/30/30 build can do a lot of damage. Obviously from the stats alone putting points into the trees with power/precision will make you do even more damage but you can just as easily spec into alchemy/tools and put on more zerker gear while still retaining a lot of health + defensive traits, while some other glass cannon classes that only spec offensive trees run around with 11k hp and insta die if their burst rotation doesnt go off flawlessly.

Grenades arent the only way to play an engy especially a power one.

Bloodgruve.6038:

Guardian stuff..

hide spoiler

Maiden England.3491:

yes it is actually very ideal for the most standard guardian burst build — guardian meditation builds. even if its not a burst build, almost every guardian build goes 30 into valor for either AH or MF. guardian is a prime example of crit damage being in the ideal tree.

In a guardian burst build I would love Fiery Wrath, Radiant Power and Power of the Virtuous. I give up PotV for Meditations and Crit Dmg. Same situation as Engineer, you lose % damage increase’s or Grenadier for Crit Dmg. I might argue that Crit Dmg and Enduring Damage in the same tree are nice together depending on your situation.

In PvE I rarely run Valor on my Guard, AH isn’t needed and Med’s are nice but other stuff is nicer IMHO. Gimme my Power/Crit/Crit Dmg in Zeal, Radiance n Virtues and I’d be happy. In PvP I run Engi or Mesmer :P

pve builds are of no concern to me. as a guy said in another thread “You can do a dungeon run naked if you wanted”

Sizer for aoe damage at range, while maintaining access to poison and good power scaling grenades bring a lot of bang for their buck while also giving you the highest burst damage ability we have in grenade barrage, as well as giving us access to more power via the power tree and more condi duration making our chills and immobilizes better as well. So while they may not be mandatory they are sure as hell one of our best options. A grenade barrage while being 30/0/0/10/30 can hit for upwards of 8-10k on lightly armored targets, that to me is great. Outside of things like elixir x BOB nothing else we have hits that hard with one ability. Granted you have to be standing right on top of your opponent to land it, but hey everything has a price.

Of course grenade kit is a great build I dont doubt that, but its not the only one. Jump shot can easily hit 10k+, Ive gotten 8k ones before and I barely have 50 crit damage. In a roaming setup both can work, as fights get larger grenades are probably a much better choice. Though rifle builds are a lot less boring than trying to make grenades land, but thats more of a personal choice so hopefully the OP finds a build that works (someone had a good thread about this kind of thing a few weeks ago btw, I think it was chaith but im sure you can find it if you look back a few pages).

Didn’t someone calc the power scaling difference between bombs and grenades and bombs were only like 5% better than 3 grenades?

Now consider the fact that one is pretty much max range and one requires you to sit inbetween them with berserker stats and we have a winner for PvP atleast.

Bombs are not really ideal for a burst build. The hardest hitting skill (BoB) is very easy to see, gives your enemy plenty of time to get outside the blast radius and has a skill coefficient of “only” 2.25 (compare Grenade Barrage 3.0/3.5, Mine Field 3.5).

Sustained (area) damage is where the Bomb Kit shines: Bomb #1 hits 25% harder than Grenade #1 with Grenadeer. And you don’t have to spend 30 points in Explosives.

Mork vom Ork.2598:

Bombs are not really ideal for a burst build. The hardest hitting skill (BoB) is very easy to see, gives your enemy plenty of time to get outside the blast radius and has a skill coefficient of “only” 2.25 (compare Grenade Barrage 3.0/3.5, Mine Field 3.5).

Sustained (area) damage is where the Bomb Kit shines: Bomb #1 hits 25% harder than Grenade #1 with Grenadeer. And you don’t have to spend 30 points in Explosives.

Ill have to respectfully disagree with you there. Of course BoB is easy to dodge but its the latency in the skill that makes it so powerful. You can now time a nasty burst combo with BoB to create insane burst damage in a matter of 1-2 sec.

Through use of skills like Magnet Pull, Overcharge Shot, Net Shot, Slick Shoes, Net Turret, Glue Bomb, ect, ect ,ect you set up a lockdown/burst combo preventing the enemy from escaping BoB and any other damage.

Just throwing out Barrage and doing a little “spike” damage is definitely not a burst combo. On a good day i can do 30k+ in about 2 sec while keeping you CCd, and if you dodge/block my first CC i have others… so your still dead.

Bombs are KING of burst F-A-C-T (lol)

If I can lock down my enemy to land “BoB and any other damage”, I can also lock him down to hit Freeze (now he moves at only 33% speed), Barrage and Shrapnel. These 3 skills do more damage than a BoB – Blunderbuss – Jump Shot combo (and you can still follow up with the rifle skills).

If your enemy dodges/blocks Magnet (easy done unless he’s fighting someone else or afk) your BoB just poofs and is on cooldown.

BoB is so unreliable. and its not worth using bomb kit for just the auto attack. I almost always use bomb kit when running a condition build, cant say the same about burst though.

Going to agree with everyone else here who have said BoB is unreliable. Not only that, but having to be that CLOSE in full zerker is going to have a bad bad outcome.

Mork vom Ork.2598:

If I can lock down my enemy to land “BoB and any other damage”, I can also lock him down to hit Freeze (now he moves at only 33% speed), Barrage and Shrapnel. These 3 skills do more damage than a BoB – Blunderbuss – Jump Shot combo (and you can still follow up with the rifle skills).

If your enemy dodges/blocks Magnet (easy done unless he’s fighting someone else or afk) your BoB just poofs and is on cooldown.

I will agree that having to be in melee range while in full zerker is not the best idea, however your #s simply don’t ad up freeze, barrage, shrapnel does not do anywhere close to the same damage as BoB, crowbar, blunderbuss, jumpshot. Your talking a difference of 10k + in my experience.

I would run bombs over almost any other build for 1v1, for group play I usually run something else.

First, you’re comparing a 4 skill combo that uses rifle and two kit’s major damage dealers with a 3 skill combo from just one kit. If you add Jump Shot or Pry Bar to the 3 grenades, BoB is behind on damage again.

Second, the BoB combo is nice and if you can catch an unexperienced/unaware opponent on the wrong foot it’s almost certainly a down. But it’s a one trick pony, and if your Magnet does not connect (block, evade, uneven ground, lag), BoB is going to poof, with the best part of your damage on cooldown for at least 23 seconds.

This is my experience from WvW on what happens if you happen to Magnet an experienced player (meaning he did not see/ignore the obvious beams):

Warrior: gains stability from Last Stand and is not pulled
Elementalist: goes into Mist Form or Lightning Flash away
Thief: Blinding Powder + evade
Engineer: Elixir S or Gear Shield/Static Shield
Ranger: you pull the pet instead
Mesmer: blinks away
Necro: goes into Death Shroud
Guardian: pops stability and blinds you

Engineer: Elixir S or Gear Shield/Static Shield

fyi. pull negates blocks and actually removes them.

My experience with experienced players and magnet is simply this: Experienced player dodges, and saves his other anti-cc abilities and damage mitigation abilities for something a little less telegraphed.

But I’m on board with you Mork I have never hit as hard with a BoB as I have with a shrapnel + grenade barrage both of which are a good bit easier to hit and do not require you to be in melee range, so if you do miss, you can always run.

Btw I like the bomb kit and in spvp I think the bomb kit is the kittens especially when running rabid amulet. I also think the bomb kit is our best damage kit for pve when wearing full zerkers.

However I do not think the bombkit is as good as the grenade kit when wearing full zerker armor in wvw or spvp simply because any smart opponent is just going to stay out of range of the bombs, and also because a full zerker engineer is SOOO squishy and has so little defence that trying to get into melee with a bombkit is just a horrible thing to try and pull off.

To those of you who can hats off and enjoy it, you are among the few. Enjoy your repair costs in wvw

zaragoz.6351:

Engineer: Elixir S or Gear Shield/Static Shield

fyi. pull negates blocks and actually removes them.
…

I was listing what happens after the pull is successful. Experienced players know there is a burst incoming.

Mork vom Ork.2598:

First, you’re comparing a 4 skill combo that uses rifle and two kit’s major damage dealers with a 3 skill combo from just one kit. If you add Jump Shot or Pry Bar to the 3 grenades, BoB is behind on damage again.

The beauty of the 4 skill combo is that you can keep them locked down and you can actually get all 4 skills off, working crowbar and rifle combos into a Barrage is odd feeling for me. Also I don’t open with magnet pull all the time, I have Slick Shoes on my bar so I have many options to start the combo. an added bonus that you overlooked to BoB is the knock back itself.

If I do open with Magnet Pull and you stunbreak, dodge, block ect ill just follow up with Overcharge Shot + Slick Shoes tool belt to break my own knock back and close the gap. If you get out of Overcharge Shot ill still be on you because of the speed buff from Slick Shoes and ill run a little circle around you creating a KD bubble. If all that fails (and it wont) I still have Net Shot, Supply Drop, and Detonate Turret (healing Turret) as a backup.

I don’t drop BoB until your in my CC chain and then my chain ends with one final Knock Back. Better yet all of this is on a relatively short CD. Bombs also add a Blind field and Stealth to my build for WvW roaming. In zerg fights Bombs are great for tagging and in sPvP the build is amazing for area denial.

Honestly to each his own but to state that Bombs ate somehow inferior to nades for anything accept conditions is not really true, regardless of hype.

btw this is my build
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQFAUlIq6ZH5y5F1LJxoHde0ZGki67XRFy/nCyF-j0BBYfA0yAZnFRjtMsIasabYqYER1mcFRrWKgRFGB-w

Maiden England.3491:

Bloodgruve.6038:

Guard’s crit damage boosts are in the toughness tree, not ideal either. I’d love to have crit dmg in Firearms but its workable without IMHO. Had some great runs with 10/30/0/0/30 Rifle/SD burst but I don’t run much PvP lately. I actually like it this way, promotes build diversity.

Blood~

yes it is actually very ideal for the most standard guardian burst build — guardian meditation builds. even if its not a burst build, almost every guardian build goes 30 into valor for either AH or MF. guardian is a prime example of crit damage being in the ideal tree.

Every class has their weaknesses. Perhaps it is better to look at the bigger picture. For example, guardians have condition duration and condition damage in their damage trees. But at the same time they only have one condition (burn). I don’t think any guardian who plays this game has focused on conditions either. With this example I also think engineers shouldn’t be heavily focused on critical damage.

if you are fast it is possible to pull enemy into fire bomb + 2 (3 with switch) turret explosion + jump shot + bob.
That is pretty much the only combo with which you can kill heavy training dummy in single-two second burst