Guild Wars 2

Hello I have a level 80 Thief, Warrior, and Elementalist. The fun for me in this game comes from leveling and I was looking towards engineer next. I know they have a lot of swapping involved but I main ele so that seems fun to me. I see alot of people in fractals and dungeons using flamethrower the whole time so im wondering if it is truly effective? If I were to use flamethrower what stats in gear do i want, Condi? If not what would you guys say is the safest/fastest way of general leveling/doing dungeons. (I usually level to 35 then repeat dungeons for levels with guild) Starter tips on what to trait for a build would be cool too.
P.S. Please no QQ engineer sucks in this thread

I did level with the grenade kit, Rifle and Elixir’s!
Which for me worked great, since it gave a good a mount of AoE (Useful in WvsW, dungeon’s and solo, cause I’m all about the AoE).
If you want to do a lot of dungeons I prefer Grenade kit and Elixir kit, in two of my utility slots, for a mix of support and AoE damage, and I did stick with Knight’s and berserker gear.
But if you wanna go with the flamethrower, the hot option atm. seems to be going with a might stacking HGH build, so I gues two trait setups (One with grenade and rifle, and one with flamethrower, where you easy could use an elixir gun to), could e something like this:

Rifle/Grenade/Elixir build (Get gear with Power/precision on)
http://www.gw2db.com/skills/calc/engineer#14|0|2729|253|4700|2454|4065|30|1422|1417|1885|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|30|1470|1033|1785|10|1883|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|

Flamethrower build (Condtion damage, Power and Precision):
http://www.gw2db.com/skills/calc/engineer#10|10|2729|4682|2454|6383|4065|10|1422|0|0|30|2266|1881|2265|0|0|0|0|30|1470|1473|1785|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|

That’s at least two general idea’s of build that can dish out some decent damage!

If you’ve already played an Ele you should be at home with how Engineers work. Rather than being super mobile and squishy though, you’re more of a stationary fighter with a lot of self-sustain. I recommend leveling with a pistol or rifle alchemy build. Put points into explosions, alchemy and firearms and it should carry you easily through most of the game’s pve content. Once you get enough trait points to start experimenting, you have a loooot of freedom in what you build.

Wow thanks alot. I bookmarked both of those builds. I think i’m gonna gear towards the flamethrower one at start, unless it is really bad until i get the Juggernaut trait? +1’d btw, very helpful.

No problem! I haven’t played much with flamethrower much before I hit level 80, so not sure how it is before juggernaut, but I think it will be fine. Only thing to keep an eye out for is skill 1 have some problem with missing if you move around a lot while shooting!

If you can line up Fire Grab, Drake’s Breath and Lightning Whip as an Elementalist you should be right at home using the flamethrower.

Lifelike.5862:

If you’ve already played an Ele you should be at home with how Engineers work. Rather than being super mobile and squishy though, you’re more of a stationary fighter with a lot of self-sustain. I recommend leveling with a pistol or rifle alchemy build. Put points into explosions, alchemy and firearms and it should carry you easily through most of the game’s pve content. Once you get enough trait points to start experimenting, you have a loooot of freedom in what you build.

I DISAGREE !!
FAR from stationary
Alchemy – Invigorating speed 10pts
Tools – speedy kits
Whenever you equip a kit you gain Swiftness AND vigor for 5 seconds With no cooldown on kits means you have perma swiftness and vigor (1 skill used and 20 points spent- well worth it)
This combo is far more effective than the 30 points spent on the grandmaster trait Adrenal implant
The only thing that should be stationary about engi’s are their turrets
mobility is the key

BurnWeed.5902:

Lifelike.5862:

If you’ve already played an Ele you should be at home with how Engineers work. Rather than being super mobile and squishy though, you’re more of a stationary fighter with a lot of self-sustain. I recommend leveling with a pistol or rifle alchemy build. Put points into explosions, alchemy and firearms and it should carry you easily through most of the game’s pve content. Once you get enough trait points to start experimenting, you have a loooot of freedom in what you build.

I DISAGREE !!
FAR from stationary
Alchemy – Invigorating speed 10pts
Tools – speedy kits
Whenever you equip a kit you gain Swiftness AND vigor for 5 seconds With no cooldown on kits means you have perma swiftness and vigor (1 skill used and 20 points spent- well worth it)
This combo is far more effective than the 30 points spent on the grandmaster trait Adrenal implant
The only thing that should be stationary about engi’s are their turrets
mobility is the key

Well, you’re talking about movement through movespeed enhancing moves such as swiftness. I’m talking about mobility through mobility skills. Ele’s are all over the place, they have gap closers, teleports, multiple movespeed enhancers, and their DPS is woven into movement. Engineers typically either stand in one spot and shoot, kite while shooting via movement enhancement, or get up close and personal to melee with bombs or toolkit.

Engie movement is more defensive, focussed on kiting and making it hard for opponents to follow. Ele is more agressive, with a focus on pushing forward towards the opponent or escaping in a flash.

Permaswiftness isn’t that great really. Lots of classes can achieve it, including necromancers and warriors.

Permaswiftness isn’t that great really. Lots of classes can achieve it, including necromancers and warriors.?
What proffessions can get perma swiftness AND perma vigor with 20 trait points and 1 skill AND its caused by equipping/de-equiping ANY kit not some kitten useless skill/weapon

The OP has allready said that they’ve had other proffessions and find fun in levelling, so i’m presuming that they’ve allready explored most of the map, so speed is very helpful when going between skill points/ hearts

For starters I recommend leveling with rifle, grenades suck imo before you get grenadier trait at 60.

FT is ok but I wouldnt use it as main weapon until you get proper traits but it has nice utility. Bombs are pretty ok all the way if you like that playstyle.

10 firearms for rifle skills cdr, 10elixir for elixir cdr if you like them more than kit or turret and tools 10 for speedy kits/it refinement/static discharge. You really dont need anything else up 80 to be honest, rest are just helpful..

I would say to get grenades asap for underwater PvE. Rifle is also good, I levelled with pistols and managed to aoe alot of mobs, but I also pulled alot of adds with piercing and the pistol #3. Low lv weps are cheap so try them all, see how you get on

First thing you should get is 10 in tools for discharge.

Kits auto level. So are stronger leveling, then they are at max level. where they stop leveling at 80, and seem to be based on rare level gear, not exotic.
Additionally, at any given time your rifle/pistols are probably under your character level.

1. The flamethrower is not a particularly good kit right now, except for specific encounters. Don’t use it all the time. When you do use it, it seems like most people recommend letting it freeze enemies to help support you when you do end up 1v1 with it.
2. Most builds go 30 into alchemy right now, the Alchemy traits are good. Your first 5 points should definitely go there for Hidden Flask. It’s a really good minor trait accessible early. Lots of people like to go 10 into tools first for “Speedy Kits”, but this is somewhat overrated in my opinion. Hidden flask and Elixir B together mean you can get a lot of swiftness anyways.
3. The only turrets worth leveling with are thumper and flame. The flame turret is useful for blind tanking.
4. Early on, the rifle is your best bet. You probably know by now condition builds are not great while leveling.
5. Even later on, engineer weapons scale best when you mix more power and less condition damage unless you go for very specific bleed stacking builds, in which case crit is the way to go.
6. For some reason the popular geometric scaling of crit% + precision doesn’t seem to work so well with engineers. Probably because of their slow rate of fire for big hits coupled with very very small hits on their more rapid weapons (e.g., a flamethrower run will hit for MUCH less than other fast weapons like Longbow’s rapid-fire, so it’s not as great a payout).
7. Adjust your expectations as Anet fixes the class. You will not outperform your Ele. But engineer gameplay will make you better at your ele by helping you practice fast keywork.

Random thoughts to OP.

There are some stuff very unique to the Engineer that you should try out. Quite a few of them are similar to Elementalists so it should be easy for you to figure out.

• Static Discharge (tier 1 trait) + Toolbelt skills
• Kit Refinement (tier 1 trait) + kits
• Combo fields and finishers
• Switching to Med-kit and triggering on-heal rune effects

Some stuff that ought to be clarified (IMHO):

• Some toolbelt skills are awesome. There are many instances where you would choose a utility skill simply because you want the toolbelt skill.
• Rifle damage comes in bursts at melee range (jump shot needs to hit twice).
• Grenades for leveling… sucks because it takes a grandmaster trait before it shines
• Ah the flamethrower… since I’m trying flamethrower/HGH now, let me write a bit about it.

Some people are trying to use the flame thrower as their primary DPS option. I have personally given up on it but I am using it to stack 7 x might (grandmaster trait) and then I switch to other stuff to burst. The knockback, blind, (and fireblast if you trait kit refinement) are very nice too. It’s a really good deal for a single utility slot, it just doesn’t do a lot of damage in a real combat situation (including misses). However it’s really fun to flame through walls.

@Lifelike Yeah i’m used to the weird hitboxes similar to firegrab

@BurnWeed Wow that sounds great having swiftness so easy with simple kit swapping

@Crows thanks for the tips

@Casia Sounds great, i’ll aim for discharge first.

@KirinDave A lot of people have said flamethrower hits as hard as a regular weapon set, why is it not good? Just curious. And my first 80 was Ele back when everyone qq’ed about them, i leveled with scepter dagger before D\D got buffed so i’m not worried in that department xD

@HenryAu So if i use a rifle i have to pretty much be in melee range and face tank trash mobs?

Re: Rifle.

No, you don’t want to face tank trash mobs… you’ll die, LOL. The idea is dash in, burst with your rifle skills, get back out to medium range. Rinse and repeat.

Edit: (If vs 1 target, should always net-shot first.) Rifle 3 takes a bit of time before it shoots, so I normally press it while running towards my target(s) and it ends up firing when I get into melee range. Then immediately I do rifle 5 so I launch and land at the same place. (I use that quick AoE option thing so AoEs immediately lands at my mouse cursor.) Then I dodge roll out right after I land.

well some people have a hard time hitting with the flames.

I don’t use flamethrower cuz I have no points invested in it and flamethrower doesn’t have any utility to speak of.

permaswiftness is always nice. Get it. If nothing else you can run across zones faster.

I use toolkit for damage and the cripple. If melee combat is a bad idea because you’re fighting a hard enemy or group of enemies, there’s a ridiculously good AoE cripple, box of nails in toolkit. You can use the cripple and kite the enemy around while you shoot it.

Lifelike.5862:

Permaswiftness isn’t that great really. Lots of classes can achieve it, including necromancers and warriors.

I don’t think you quite understand. This is perma-swiftness without using any cooldowns, other than GCD. If you have medkit active, throwing in a Stimulant will allow you to boost this to max.

In order for a Necro to get this kind of swiftness, you need to have a utility slot dedicated to Spectral Walk. Same goes for warriors and banners.

@op I find ft effective when you have a combination of power and condition damage. If you want to level up fast, definitely do dungeons and crafting, whatever you can because compared to other classes, it seems slightly slower to level up an engineer =_=? You probably find it easier to use ft or bomb kit in the early levels, I feel like nades, since the nerf, is no long viable until you get grenadier trait.
But don’t take my advice, experiment! try all sorts of build! go wild o!
When I started out, I went through so many builds and I’m still changing every now and then.