Guild Wars 2

Elementalist has been my ‘main’ for two years now. I have full ascended armour, trinkets, weapons and three legendaries. I also have 100% map exploration. So I’ve kind of come to a stand still when it comes to progress for the moment.

I was thinking of levelling up an Engi and working on some ascended for it. The reason I was thinking of Engi was for the complexity of kit swapping. I get rather bored with professions like Warrior.

Is engineer a good choice? I mainly run Fractals/Dungeons and some PvP. What type of build should I aim for, I like the look of P/P but it seems to be for condi spec.

For Fractals/Dungeons obviously Zerker is one of the best but if you wanna try something a bit different Rampagers works well with Grenade builds and prolly decently with P/P. I’m not a fan of condi in PvE but if you have the highest condi in the group the damage can stick.

I have a Rampagers set, Zerker set and Knights set. Tend to use Rifle mostly with power based builds but will run P/S when I’m wearing my Rampagers.

The most damage either comes from Grenades, Bombs or cycling other kits with weapons. No cooldown on kit swaps allows you to hit your high damage abilities without waiting for swap cooldown which means you’re juggling kits/weaps constantly. Very fun and challenging to max, I’d argue that this playstyle is the most challenging of any class due to trying to hit cooldowns across multiple kits/weaps. Unfortunatly with all this work Ele and Thief can come out ahead on dps a bit but Engi brings a heck of a lot to the table in terms of utility, boons and conditions. With the right build you can throw tons of might and vulnerability. Super fun and challenging to play well.

Blood~

please dont go rampager. please dont recommend rampager. assassin, rabid, and celestial are strictly better in every situation where you would consider rampager due to either better synergy or a bigger stat pool.

if you have any rampager gear equipped, when you replace it you will feel less weak.

IDK, I tested all of them and Rampagers comes out ahead with Grenades.

what were your test conditions

Indestructable golem. 240K hp(3x full hp bars) timed average over six trials, calculated DPS. Been a while since I ran all the tests but IIRC condi is decreased in the mists too. I tried celestial which wasn’t real high but I can’t recall if I gave it a full trial. May have to repeat it.

Basically my findings were Grenades Rampagers>Zerker Grenades/Bombs>other zerker based builds with SD support. Rampagers wasn’t too far ahead of Zerker so I feel they are about equal in effective dps unless you take Rampagers against any large open world events then Zerker wins out easy as condi gets overwritten, falls off or gets pushed back.

Ive played engi for a year and then moved on to my ele.
I’ve realized that these are the only 2 prof i can possibly enjoy playing.

For pvp/wvw – condi P/S is awesome
Preplexity runes with dire/celestial set, Bomb and Tool kits, with rocket boots
You can change it offcourse, thats just my personal favourite.

Bloodgruve.6038:

Indestructable golem. 240K hp(3x full hp bars) timed average over six trials, calculated DPS. Been a while since I ran all the tests but IIRC condi is decreased in the mists too. I tried celestial which wasn’t real high but I can’t recall if I gave it a full trial. May have to repeat it.

Basically my findings were Grenades Rampagers>Zerker Grenades/Bombs>other zerker based builds with SD support. Rampagers wasn’t too far ahead of Zerker so I feel they are about equal in effective dps unless you take Rampagers against any large open world events then Zerker wins out easy as condi gets overwritten, falls off or gets pushed back.

so basically rampagers is better when shrapnel grenades’ bonkers scaling has enough time to stack up 15 bleeds.

edit: and also disregarding survivability, which is fine for pve but not for pvp

Once you’re level 80 follow this:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/Best-PvE-build-for-engineer-and-investment/first#post4260538
As you’ve already played the game extensively you can properly directly switch to exotic gear, though.

For leveling, use Bomb Kit, Speedy Kits and Explosives trait line. Choose Power, Power/Precision, Power/Precision/Ferocity as your gear.

For dungeons/fractals, you’ll most likely going to use a 6/6 Power build with either Grenade Kit, Bomb Kit or both as your main weapon.

Bloodgruve.6038:

Indestructable golem. 240K hp(3x full hp bars) timed average over six trials, calculated DPS.

Hi, I’m back to the game after 1 year~ish.
Back in the day I was able to test builds and gear in HOTM.
Is there something similar today?

My first main character also was an elementalist, in pvp I also play a shatter mesmer and engineer.

Engineers can tweak their utility skills and change their effectiveness and playstyle tremendously. They simply have a larger pool of options compared to an elementalist, in the end dagger dagger skills no matter what trait/utility/gear set up will remain the same. However if I decide to pick an elixer gun over the toolkit my options will change ALOT.

insanemaniac.2456:

so basically rampagers is better when shrapnel grenades’ bonkers scaling has enough time to stack up 15 bleeds.

edit: and also disregarding survivability, which is fine for pve but not for pvp

IIrc I was testing with lower bleed stacks and I think I had to add in some confusion as the golem never triggers it. But I only added in damage at a rate of one attack per 5 sec of confusion.. Been a while.

Way I see it If you spend 1min+ on a boss you’ll come out even or ahead, depending on group makeup. Trash is trash and usually goes down quickly in most groups but anything that doesn’t go down quickly puts you ahead also. It’s squishy but effective in PvE, not for use in PvP Just an alternative option.

rogerwilko.6895

Hi, I’m back to the game after 1 year~ish.
Back in the day I was able to test builds and gear in HOTM.
Is there something similar today?

The Indestructible Golem in the HOTM has 80K hp that resets. You can determine your DPS by timing your kill. HP/Sec to kill = DPS. Obviously values will be a bit different then PvE as some skills are different in the Mists but I use it to give an overall relative DPS rank from one build to another. Everything should be weighed vs what you’d see in a group in terms of Might stacks, Vulnerability, etc…

Grenades w/Rampagers is the best I’ve seen. If you run in a group that can stack Vulnerability with out your help then grenades lose 10 to 15% effecive dps which can put it below other builds. Also if you have another condi guy in group rampagers loses potency too. Grenades if you take away your Vuln stacks aren’t really that great. In the long run though, if you gear for DPS there are a lot of builds that come very close.

Ultimately, run what you have fun with if you’re mindful of your dps output.

Blood~

Bloodgruve.6038:

insanemaniac.2456:

so basically rampagers is better when shrapnel grenades’ bonkers scaling has enough time to stack up 15 bleeds.

edit: and also disregarding survivability, which is fine for pve but not for pvp

IIrc I was testing with lower bleed stacks and I think I had to add in some confusion as the golem never triggers it. But I only added in damage at a rate of one attack per 5 sec of confusion.. Been a while.

Way I see it If you spend 1min+ on a boss you’ll come out even or ahead, depending on group makeup. Trash is trash and usually goes down quickly in most groups but anything that doesn’t go down quickly puts you ahead also. It’s squishy but effective in PvE, not for use in PvP Just an alternative option.

i would think trash will go down slower since youre depending on sustained damage instead of burst… like bronze mobs would survive a burst rotation from a rampager (or at least make you use another skill or 3) where a zerker/sin would just have it dead. and thats where you lose some time, cuz it takes time to stack up the huge sustained dps from shrapnel nades. but burst dps has short enough cds that it produces nearly optimal sustained dps.

also recall champs/legendaries take 50% condi damage. is that golem a champ?

idk, i just personally think rampager and cavalier are trap stat combos, and it isnt exactly baseless. a couple others too, but at least no ones even considers those anyways.

OP asked about P/P. With Pistol zerker isn’t gonna give you decent numbers, you need condi. Rampagers will give you higher numbers. Carrion Dire and Rabid will be lower damage output unless you need the survivability. I’ll test these and Celestial to see what comes out ahead for curiosity sake.

Bloodgruve.6038:

OP asked about P/P. With Pistol zerker isn’t gonna give you decent numbers, you need condi. Rampagers will give you higher numbers. Carrion Dire and Rabid will be lower damage output unless you need the survivability. I’ll test these and Celestial to see what comes out ahead for curiosity sake.

whoops missed that… in fractals/dungeons, zerk/sin p/s with coated bullets does good numbers when you can twist multiple mobs into grouping up, the shield is there for the blast. rifle is better burst. wouldnt go p/p, just has less utility.

in pvp all 3 weapon sets are fine, getting good at what you like is more important than what you use. but yes a condi build will do better with pistol(s), and power for rifle.

Bloodgruve.6038:

The Indestructible Golem in the HOTM has 80K hp that resets.

Found it, and ran a few tests (and not happy with the results!).

What can I do in terms of gear? Should I use the white items from the vendor or no gear? In the past I was able to buy amulets from the pvp vendor and do a bit of testing with a new char /class.
What are the option now?
thx!

Top center of screen you should have a few pvp build button options. everything is in there.

My best was with 6/6/0/0/2 grenades with Rampagers amulet and Scholar runes. Rifle, Med Pak, Grenades, Tool Kit and Rifle Turret IIRC. Grenades are your main damage but try to cycle into Rifle 3 n 5, TK3 and Rifle Turret overload. Static Discharge helps bring the number up. Thief and ele can pull over 4k DPS in this scenario. I usually consider anything that pulls 3.5k DPS acceptable. Rampagers Grenades took me a bit over 4k dps with confusion calculated in. With setups other then grenades n bombs SD will help kick up the DPS. Flame Turret and EG4 seem to do well also.

Again though, I only use this to rank different builds, it’s not super accurate in PvE especially with groups, boons and conditions taken into consideration.

Blood~