Guild Wars 2

yes, fully traited grenades are very high dps.
But you have to worry about travel time, lag, finger cramping, etc.

Lyuben.2613

OP, please include the tip about using toolbelts without a kit. Its a big deal.

What do you mean by this?

Aralyae.7254

Lovely information, but one thing that strikes me as odd, you mention that the standard grenade does ‘mediocre damage at best’. As a pretty heavy grenade user, I would dispute that, I find that it deals a fairly heavy amount of damage, (considering you can hit your target of course!) From my brief observations, each grenade does about the same damage as a single rifle shot hit. Two grenades with base traits, and three possible with the grenadier trait, the damage adds up fairly quickly! Not to mention, the firing rate is about the same for both.
Though to be perfectly honest, I’m not sure about once you start getting higher level rifles, since you sadly can’t upgrade your grenades, as I’m only ~75 at the moment. With fairly standard weaponry, standard grenades have a much high dps (assuming you’re accurate). If I’m wrong, or maybe just using rifle wrong, I would love information disputing otherwise! Anything to make me more effective.

Remember, Aralyae, that this is a guide which is focused on the Engineer within structured PvP.

When you use Grenades, you can’t get a sigil of air proc while attacking your target. Additionally, if you ever try to use Grenades legitimately against a skilled opponent 1 on 1, you won’t land a single one. It’s far too easy to strafe, dodge, and juke the nades they throw at you while returning unavoidable damage.

Grenades in PvP are useful for Grenade Barrage and long-range bombardment of points with team support. In 1v1 fights, swapping to the GKit for a quick chill, blind, or poison isn’t a bad idea. But if you use it as your main weapon, you’re missing out on Sigil of Air burst and a lot of “unavoidable” damage that you get from the rifle.

Also remember here – you’re comparing the Rifle’s Autoattack to the Grenade Kit’s Autoattack. The rifle gets its damage from Blunderbuss and Jump Shot combos. Grenade Kit gets it from its autoattack, vuln stacks, and Grenade Barrage. I’ve fought plenty of Grenade Engineers in PvP and killed them all since they can’t land a single nade if you move unpredictably. Grenades are phenomenal in PvE and WvW since there are often stationary, clumped up targets. But in sPvP? Anyone competent will be able to take you out. It’s just not practical except in the most specific of situations.

Basically, if you’re testing these weapons in a vacuum against stationary targets, the Grenade Kit will win, because it is a PvE tool. Try spending a match in sPvP using Grenades as your main weapon, specced for grenades, then use Rifle as your main weapon, specced for rifle. You’re going to get better results with the rifle (if you know how to use its skillset) almost every time. Also, you have to spend 30 traits to get the Grenade Kit close to being viable, whereas the Rifle or Pistols are always useful.

Tallman.5193:

Lyuben.2613

OP, please include the tip about using toolbelts without a kit. Its a big deal.

What do you mean by this?

I mean of course, that it is a net loss for engineers to use toolbelt F1-F4 skills with a kit equipped.

If you use a toolbelt with a kit equipped, your sigils and weapon stats and weapon strength is not applied to the toolbelt skill.

If you use it with a weapon like rifle/pistol, then you do.

For example, my grenade barrage does more damage, triggers ‘go for the eyes’ and my sigil, simply because I use it without a kit equipped.

Using toolbelts with kits is a net loss for your performance, for no gain.

I use the sigil of air for example, and I trigger it from grenade barrage. But I don’t trigger it, if I have a kit equipped.

Tallman.5193:

Words

Ahh, right in my sleep addled brain I missed the part about this being in structured pvp. shortly after I made that post I ran around in sPvP for a while and, other than underwater, promptly got my face kicked in on any 1 on 1 fight when using grenades for the crazy unpredictability of movement going on.

I see you mentioned the Healing Turret self-combo, just thought I’d point out that the Flame Turret can pull that trick too. The only catch is that an enemy has to be nearby before it’ll deploy the smoke cloud, but that tends to be the best time for mass stealth anyway.

Tallman.5193:

Lyuben.2613

OP, please include the tip about using toolbelts without a kit. Its a big deal.

What do you mean by this?

Aralyae.7254

Lovely information, but one thing that strikes me as odd, you mention that the standard grenade does ‘mediocre damage at best’. As a pretty heavy grenade user, I would dispute that, I find that it deals a fairly heavy amount of damage, (considering you can hit your target of course!) From my brief observations, each grenade does about the same damage as a single rifle shot hit. Two grenades with base traits, and three possible with the grenadier trait, the damage adds up fairly quickly! Not to mention, the firing rate is about the same for both.
Though to be perfectly honest, I’m not sure about once you start getting higher level rifles, since you sadly can’t upgrade your grenades, as I’m only ~75 at the moment. With fairly standard weaponry, standard grenades have a much high dps (assuming you’re accurate). If I’m wrong, or maybe just using rifle wrong, I would love information disputing otherwise! Anything to make me more effective.

Remember, Aralyae, that this is a guide which is focused on the Engineer within structured PvP.

When you use Grenades, you can’t get a sigil of air proc while attacking your target. Additionally, if you ever try to use Grenades legitimately against a skilled opponent 1 on 1, you won’t land a single one. It’s far too easy to strafe, dodge, and juke the nades they throw at you while returning unavoidable damage.

Grenades in PvP are useful for Grenade Barrage and long-range bombardment of points with team support. In 1v1 fights, swapping to the GKit for a quick chill, blind, or poison isn’t a bad idea. But if you use it as your main weapon, you’re missing out on Sigil of Air burst and a lot of “unavoidable” damage that you get from the rifle.

Also remember here – you’re comparing the Rifle’s Autoattack to the Grenade Kit’s Autoattack. The rifle gets its damage from Blunderbuss and Jump Shot combos. Grenade Kit gets it from its autoattack, vuln stacks, and Grenade Barrage. I’ve fought plenty of Grenade Engineers in PvP and killed them all since they can’t land a single nade if you move unpredictably. Grenades are phenomenal in PvE and WvW since there are often stationary, clumped up targets. But in sPvP? Anyone competent will be able to take you out. It’s just not practical except in the most specific of situations.

Basically, if you’re testing these weapons in a vacuum against stationary targets, the Grenade Kit will win, because it is a PvE tool. Try spending a match in sPvP using Grenades as your main weapon, specced for grenades, then use Rifle as your main weapon, specced for rifle. You’re going to get better results with the rifle (if you know how to use its skillset) almost every time. Also, you have to spend 30 traits to get the Grenade Kit close to being viable, whereas the Rifle or Pistols are always useful.

grenades don’t somehow remove your other weapons skills. there is no cooldown, and little delay.
Net shot, supply drop, and blunderbuss all line up grenade hits just fine. nevermind other options like slick shoes. Which I admittedly don’t recommend.

30 in grenade gives you the insanely powerful grenadier trait, vul on explosions trait. (granted the 5-20 traits not as good). And +30% duration conds, and +300 power.
that +duration on shrapnel bleeds, which is FAR stronger when its 3 at 15s duration. then its 2 at 12s duration. the blind, chill, and poison are all all longer. As well as nets immobalize.
While firearms gives crit, which is nice, and +condition damage, which is fairly weak for rifle/grenades.
You get 5 point sharpshooter either way. 5% direct damage to bleeding targets vs 3 stacks of 6.5s of vul with every grenade attack. not even close.
There isnt even a 30 point rifle trait in firearms. granted there are a good 4-5 teir 1 and 2 traits that are good, and 3 points lets you pick 3, and 20 lets you pick 2.

grenades do way more damage then rifle. While rifle itself is mainly CC based. Net, leap. blowout. It can be used to set up grenade damage. Missing with grenades is the same as dodging them. aim better. engi is already a fast fingers profession.

Casia.4281

grenades don’t somehow remove your other weapons skills. there is no cooldown, and little delay.
Net shot, supply drop, and blunderbuss all line up grenade hits just fine. nevermind other options like slick shoes. Which I admittedly don’t recommend.
30 in grenade gives you the insanely powerful grenadier trait, vul on explosions trait. (granted the 5-20 traits not as good). And +30% duration conds, and +300 power.
that +duration on shrapnel bleeds, which is FAR stronger when its 3 at 15s duration. then its 2 at 12s duration. the blind, chill, and poison are all all longer. As well as nets immobalize.
While firearms gives crit, which is nice, and +condition damage, which is fairly weak for rifle/grenades.
You get 5 point sharpshooter either way. 5% direct damage to bleeding targets vs 3 stacks of 6.5s of vul with every grenade attack. not even close.
There isnt even a 30 point rifle trait in firearms. granted there are a good 4-5 teir 1 and 2 traits that are good, and 3 points lets you pick 3, and 20 lets you pick 2.
grenades do way more damage then rifle. While rifle itself is mainly CC based. Net, leap. blowout. It can be used to set up grenade damage. Missing with grenades is the same as dodging them. aim better. engi is already a fast fingers profession.

Net Shot may line up one grenade toss if you net shot/grenade kit/grenade toss. Swapping to the gkit causes a global cooldown, which causes you to miss out on some extra dps. Supply drop can line up one grenade toss as well. Blunderbuss cannot line up grenade shots as it is a pure damage skill.

Grenadier and Steel-Packed Explosives are solid traits, yes. The rest of your argument is on the stats awarded by each tree, which is easily remedied by rune, amulet, or jewel choice.

Grenades do comparable damage to the Rifle in sPvP. They deal more damage than the Rifle when you are able to land consecutive grenade hits in a row and able to stack vulnerability as well as land all three grenades. This will not happen against a good player. Grenade builds aren’t weak or unviable, but they rely on Grenade Barrage (with your weapon out, mind you, for the sigil procs) and the occasional grenade (chill, poison field, etc) with the option of long-range bombardment if you have a team contesting the point.

Grenades are simply not viable as your sole weapon in sPvP. Swapping out to your Rifle for a Net Shot before switching back to your Gkit is not a very good strategy either, honestly.

What rank are you? How many tournaments have you won? If you’ve found a way to make a solely-grenade kit sPvP engineer viable, I’d love to see it. In my experience, Grenades are a powerful niche tool that complement your main weaponset, and nothing more. They are extremely powerful in PvE and WvW, but this is the role they play in sPvP.

Once again, if you have found a way to use them as your sole weapon, I’d love to see it!

PS: The only reason I’m contesting the Grenade Kit in sPvP so much is because Engineers are attempting to bring it over from PvE and WvW where it reigns king. I see Grenade Engineers all the time (just like we saw a lot of Flamethrower Engineers in the first couple days of release). I consistently beat them using only the Rifle and CC’ing them while strafing or dodging their Grenade shots and moving in unpredictable patterns. I have yet to fight a Grenade Engineer that uses them in a non-gimmicky, Grenade-only-focus way. Rifle, Pistols, Pistol/Shield… these aren’t as flashy as Grenade Kit, but they are more effective in all but very specific situations. Kits are meant to be used as tools – a quick swap, drop a couple abilities, then back to our bread-and-butter weaponsets. Even with traits such as Grenadier and Juggernaut, they are not viable as pure weapons in sPvP due to the absence of sigils and the fact that your sacrificing your true weaponset.

Do be sure to include the tip about using toolbelt skills without a kit, it makes a large difference in PvP and a huge one in PvE.

Lyuben.2613:

Do be sure to include the tip about using toolbelt skills without a kit, it makes a large difference in PvP and a huge one in PvE.

I will I promise! I’m looking for a good place to incorporate it.

its worth noting that super elixir from elixir gun stacks with itself, so if you have kit refinement and switch to it and then cast super elixir you get double healing. you mention that you can have it up 100% of the time which makes it sound like they dont stack.

AlphaDuck.7592

its worth noting that super elixir from elixir gun stacks with itself, so if you have kit refinement and switch to it and then cast super elixir you get double healing. you mention that you can have it up 100% of the time which makes it sound like they dont stack.

Hm. I didn’t intend for it to sound that way. Duly noted, I’ll change it. Thanks for the feedback!

By double healing, are you suggesting that it stacks with intensity and not duration?

Super elixir isn’t regen. its a pulse heal. Its not a boon. So yes it stacks.

Tallman.5193:

Casia.4281

grenades don’t somehow remove your other weapons skills. there is no cooldown, and little delay.
Net shot, supply drop, and blunderbuss all line up grenade hits just fine. nevermind other options like slick shoes. Which I admittedly don’t recommend.
30 in grenade gives you the insanely powerful grenadier trait, vul on explosions trait. (granted the 5-20 traits not as good). And +30% duration conds, and +300 power.
that +duration on shrapnel bleeds, which is FAR stronger when its 3 at 15s duration. then its 2 at 12s duration. the blind, chill, and poison are all all longer. As well as nets immobalize.
While firearms gives crit, which is nice, and +condition damage, which is fairly weak for rifle/grenades.
You get 5 point sharpshooter either way. 5% direct damage to bleeding targets vs 3 stacks of 6.5s of vul with every grenade attack. not even close.
There isnt even a 30 point rifle trait in firearms. granted there are a good 4-5 teir 1 and 2 traits that are good, and 3 points lets you pick 3, and 20 lets you pick 2.
grenades do way more damage then rifle. While rifle itself is mainly CC based. Net, leap. blowout. It can be used to set up grenade damage. Missing with grenades is the same as dodging them. aim better. engi is already a fast fingers profession.

Grenades are simply not viable as your sole weapon in sPvP. Swapping out to your Rifle for a Net Shot before switching back to your Gkit is not a very good strategy either, honestly.

What rank are you? How many tournaments have you won? If you’ve found a way to make a solely-grenade kit sPvP engineer viable, I’d love to see it. In my experience, Grenades are a powerful niche tool that complement your main weaponset, and nothing more. They are extremely powerful in PvE and WvW, but this is the role they play in sPvP.

Once again, if you have found a way to use them as your sole weapon, I’d love to see it!

Was going to let it go as it was just so silly. But man, rereading this. Lol.

Read the first thing I stated.
If you are using any kit as you sole weapon, you are doing it wrong. Kits are engi’s weapon swapping. just like any rogue using only daggers, and not swapping to pistols/bow etc. Or an elementalist sitting in 1 attunement. WRONG.

using rifles CC, or a few of the other gadgets, or an allied players CC to set up grenades provably much higher damage works very well, in every facet of pvp.

haha. “what rank” What more relevant. reading comprehension, or rank?

You seemed to claim that you only used Rifle for CC to set up grenade shots, which I think is a poor strategy. You’re losing a global cooldown swapping into grenades every time you try to “set these up”. Maybe as an opener thats okay, but with the shortness of Net Shot’s cooldown, it’s not really practical to be twisting between weaponsets that much.

Additionally, I don’t appreciate you editing my response in the quote. You edited out about half of my post, including your error which claims that Blunderbuss lines up Grenades (which is, in fact, not true).

If you really want to discuss the viability of grenade-focused builds in PvP, Casia, send me a message. I’m not going to clutter up a community guide with bickering.

Rifle scales with power, grenades scale with power. why would I not use rifle damage as well? And grenades have about no hard CC. Of course you aren’t going to sit in them and only them. however, rifle does have CC as well, and as mentioned, other CC can be applied from utility and elites.
When your opponent is locked down, grenades are the highest burst damage engies can apply. Period. Quickness? grenades. This is fact. (ok, maybe flamethrower…)

This loosing a global thing is absurd. do you think other professions do not weapon swap? do you think 1 auto attack is that powerful at all?

Blunderbuss was obviously a mis-referance to overcharged shot. I’m surprised you hadn’t noticed I just swapped the name, and felt you needed to even bring it up. I thought it should go without saying…

It is a team game, grenade as a focus would be a team spec I would agree. They are hard to use when you have a heartseeker thief spamming on you, no doubt. Although that aoe blind..

Grenades in PvP I use, but not really as a main thing. Maybe not even secondary. Probably a tertiary thing.

I use it mainly for the grenade barrage when I have my rifle equipped. Lots and lots of damage.

When I do use it though, is usually when someone is unaware, and at very short range, and then I open with a freeze grenade. But I never linger too far on the grenades. They are simply too hard to use in hectic combat.

I will say though… a single engineer in the ruins with the help of sharks, can hold off 4 players in the ruins of that water map. Grenades underwater are pretty much primary. I never use my harpoon gun. Its damage is 25% that of my grenades.

When Super Elixir first impacts it removes a condition, this stays true for the Super Elixir from the “Kit Refinement” trait too.
Very yummy!

I for some reason cannot see the guide past flash grenades, Is there still editing issues or am I viewing it wrong?

Riojin.2649

I for some reason cannot see the guide past flash grenades, Is there still editing issues or am I viewing it wrong?

No you’re not reading it wrong, I’ve just been so busy lately that I’ve been having trouble coming back to this guide. Between University being in full swing, my time writing for Guild Wars Insider, and my time playing on VexX’s competitive team, I haven’t been able to find much time to finish this off. I still intend on finishing it off, mind you – I’ve just got some more pressing obligations at the moment. Hang tight – I apologize for the delay, I recognize how long this has been drawn out.

Tallman.5193:

Swapping to the gkit causes a global cooldown, which causes you to miss out on some extra dps. Supply drop can line up one grenade toss as well.

I realize this statement was made a while ago, but I’m sure there are many people like myself that are combing the forums looking for a piece of information. Swapping kits does not cause a GCD. It causes a cooldown on swapping that kit that is shorter than the time to cast 1 grenade. This means that as long as you actually CAST something once you swap to the kit, you are not out any dps time. You can also swap kits while casting to save some time.

This is great for showing different strategies and which ones you like to use, but do you think you could add on your own opinion on the effectiveness of each skill and kit (maybe showing cons along with the pros you already listed) and how they best fit into certain strategies? Maybe compare skills and how effective they are in each situation? That would be much appreciated. Otherwise, great job. As an Engineer for a while, I feel like the essential skills were represented well.

great guide. great insights. well done!

after the update there is no pvp with engineer. The only viable build might be the condition/alchemy build( doesnt do as much dmg as any other class, but it’s the closest), but if i got ArenaNet’s thinking right, they will nerf it too soon, cause they want to delete this class by making it unplayable in comparison to others.

And no, not a hate post, thats just a sad truth. Every single time when i join a tournament group and they see my profession, they’re saying “sorry, we’re looking for some real class like thief or warr”.

Wanna pvp, reroll thief.

Iarkrad.8415:

great guide. great insights. well done!

What is skill #7 in your skill bar in this photo?

Entaurrus Silver.3820:

Iarkrad.8415:

great guide. great insights. well done!

What is skill #7 in your skill bar in this photo?

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Technobabble

Technobabble

Daze target foe.

Daze: 2 s
Range: 1,200

coglin.1496:

Entaurrus Silver.3820:

Iarkrad.8415:

great guide. great insights. well done!

What is skill #7 in your skill bar in this photo?

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Technobabble

Technobabble

Daze target foe.

Daze: 2 s
Range: 1,200

I used technobabble for inturrupting the high dps karka opening move. It’s toolbelt is confusing speech, which is a respectable confusion AoE.
Edit: I used technobabble for karka before i rage quitted the kittin-ing event. End point: Asura are great for engineer condition builds.
I run a condition engineer.

Hey guys, I was asked to place a guide that I wrote on the guru forums in this thread. At first I didn’t want to (because it might take away from the OP’s guide / discussion), but then I thought that maybe some people wanted to see a different angle.

Anyways here ya go: http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/74468-art-of-the-spanner-a-comprehensive-engineer-guide/

what elite skills would engis here say is the best?

From what I’ve seen, Supply Crate seems to be used the most.

i bought the mortal elite skill complete waste of 30 sp imo

Amazing guide OP. Great job on helping new players!

Papaganoosh (SPvP Officer, The Unnamed EU)

http://www.the-unnamed.com/spvpapp – recruiting skilled players for TPvP

Crisvok.9307:

what elite skills would engis here say is the best?

Depends on race:
Human – Hounds of Balthazar
Charr – Warband Support

Other races or at sPVP – Supply Crate, sure.

Mortar can be useful at the very rare situations at WWW- you’ll deploy it at the wall and your allies (withoud good range AOE) can use it.

Never underestimate the Supply Crate, it’s a good stun if landed right; the turrets apply burn damage which is handy if you’re condition based and it contains a net turret which can heavily cripple your foes for you, on top of this, regeneration, supplies, to outlast the ennemy.

I’ve played Engineer since day one and I’ll probably only play that because this class was everything I looked for, tons of variations in builds, goofy and unpredictable mechanics, solid.

It may not be ultra top notch in PvP compared to a stealth Thief, a Guardian or a bunker Elementalist, but you get to feel the epicness of your moves when pulling someone with your magnet to hit him with the pry bar before blasting him away with an overcharged shot, or blocking/stunning a melee opponent with your Static Shield to get you to kick him in the face with your Rocket Boots’ toolbelt attack.

I wouldn’t mind Anet to stop with the nonsense nerfs though, there are far worse things to worry about than us being (omagaaaaad) able to deal decent damage.

I play the game for two weeks now, but I gotta admit.. I love my Engineer!

There’s something I want to add that new players might want to learn about pistols which is not mentioned in this thread. With the trait coated bullets, it’s possible to deal extra damage with Explosive Shot on an enemy by making use of the environment. Lets say you shoot an enemy standing a few feet from a wall/tree/anything that can be called an obstruction, and it pierces him and that bullet hits the wall. The initial shot hurts him (dmg), bullet pierces, and then hits the wall (explodes), and that explosion hits the player next to it. This can also be done when you’re atop of something shooting the enemy below you — the bullet pierces and explodes on the ground. You too can make use of this on slopes as well… as long as you understand the concept well you will always be wanting to look for a situation where your Explosive Shots can deal that extra damage.