Guild Wars 2

By the way Xyonon. Your unbuffed table is without might, no vuln and no cond damage?
Just wondering wether you have the data with selfbuffing stuff

Xyonon.3987:

I mainly go fotm and often it’s not wise to throw away your endurance for a damage boost. Forceful is for everywhere where mobs often spread or you need the bigger aoe’s for either applying conditions more safetly (like ascalon fotm where warriors often rush into your untraited smoke bomb and hit before a new blind is applied) or for outranging none fire fields for combat might stacks. Everywhere else: yea EA.

Empowering Adrenaline isn’t taken so that you intentionally dodge to proc it. It’s taken because it’s a larger damage increase than any other option in any content where you’re forced to dodge. It’s actually very wise to take into fractals because you are regularly dodging there.

Xyonon.3987:

3. Two reasons to take kitten here. First: More early stacks = faster more passive damage for the team.

If you want fast stacks, Fumigate + Jump Shot + Grenade Barrage does this. You don’t need to change traits.

Xyonon.3987:

You’re mixing a ton of stuff up here. The “toughest boss fight” in the game requires any way different gear you want your utmost efficiency. I don’t even take this as a valid argument sry.

Because structural mobs like Wurm and Tequatl cannot be crit, you want gear that maximizes power. Berserker maximizes power. You wear Soldier if you’re bad at dodging at Teq/Wurm.

But the main point I was making is that non-crittable mobs are relatively common in PvE, especially in end-game content, and you were passing off the issue of non-crit mobs way too casually as though it isn’t a factor.

Xyonon.3987:

No, I’m not going to have a ranger, ele, warrior in every dungeon group, you’re right. Yet I’m gonna have at least 2 of those 3 in my pt. Besides, even unbuffed it’s just 1% wich is laughtable to argue about.

No, what’s laughable is that you guys are intentionally changing up the meta, telling people to invest in another stat set that’s actually worse than Berserker. We’ve been wearing Berserker gear for two years; now you’re saying that people should switch to Assassin: why? Where is the major advantage? And don’t pull out your chart again; explain this madness.

Xyonon.3987:

This is nothing about theorycrafting – I’ve always been more reality oriented than theory. Stuff like “scholar is better in pugs than X” or as you may say “1% more damage with zerk is better than kitten with more crits” is theory crafting.

When you attach a laundry list of preexisting conditions so that Assassin pulls ahead, you are theorycrafting. Why should someone invest in a set that’s only marginally better in the best of groups? Why should someone invest in a set that’s useless against anything that isn’t crittable?

Regardless of how common or uncommon these two scenarios are, I just cannot understand how or why someone should reasonably shift their gear from Berserker to Assassin when Berserker not only works perfectly fine in any group but actually outperforms Assassin in fights where DPS sometimes matters most.

If I am defending a turret at Tequatl, I am in my Berserker gear because those mobs can be crit. And after battery phases I join up with the zerg to DPS. If I were in Assassin gear I would be doing a lot less damage.

Xyonon.3987:

Oh and I have no idea why or where you would have trouble with a decent war, ele, ranger, engi + mes / guard team in fotm 50.

I didn’t say you’d have trouble. I said it wouldn’t really work out, because you always want at least two of the three between a guardian, mesmer, and thief. You could run engi, ele, ranger, and war through FOTM 50, but it wouldn’t be an optimal group.

Ryn.6459:

By the way Xyonon. Your unbuffed table is without might, no vuln and no cond damage?
Just wondering wether you have the data with selfbuffing stuff

Unbuffed is without might, vuln doesn’t matter either buffed or not, since it’s a modifier and applies same to any build (power oriented!). Conditions are ignored.

Phineas Poe.3018:

Xyonon.3987:

I mainly go fotm and often it’s not wise to throw away your endurance for a damage boost. Forceful is for everywhere where mobs often spread or you need the bigger aoe’s for either applying conditions more safetly (like ascalon fotm where warriors often rush into your untraited smoke bomb and hit before a new blind is applied) or for outranging none fire fields for combat might stacks. Everywhere else: yea EA.

Empowering Adrenaline isn’t taken so that you intentionally dodge to proc it. It’s taken because it’s a larger damage increase than any other option in any content where you’re forced to dodge. It’s actually very wise to take into fractals because you are regularly dodging there.

Ah now I see your point. So there’s no reason for sharpnel since you can dodge even if you don’t have to and where you have to you will anyway.

Phineas Poe.3018:

Xyonon.3987:

3. Two reasons to take kitten here. First: More early stacks = faster more passive damage for the team.

If you want fast stacks, Fumigate + Jump Shot + Grenade Barrage does this. You don’t need to change traits.

Who said anything about changing traits? It’s about @ssa vs zerk. If you want to stack fast you won’t use jump shot, nor fumigate – especially NOT fumigate since it deals no damage and should be ready for utility. You seem to forget about “Steel-Packed Powder”. Explosives cause long lasting vuln stacks. So you could say grenades are as good as jump shot. But no – now here “Precise Sights” kick in. Grenades hit 3 times and therefore trigger PS more often than everything else. And that’s the reason why to take @ssa here – to maintain high amounts of vuln via grenade spam.

Phineas Poe.3018:

Xyonon.3987:

You’re mixing a ton of stuff up here. The “toughest boss fight” in the game requires any way different gear you want your utmost efficiency. I don’t even take this as a valid argument sry.

Because structural mobs like Wurm and Tequatl cannot be crit, you want gear that maximizes power. Berserker maximizes power. You wear Soldier if you’re bad at dodging at Teq/Wurm.

But the main point I was making is that non-crittable mobs are relatively common in PvE, especially in end-game content, and you were passing off the issue of non-crit mobs way too casually as though it isn’t a factor.

You wear soldier if you can afford it. IF you want to be obtimal you can have an @ssa and a soldier gear. Otherwise you just go for zerk and do both jobs good enough.

Phineas Poe.3018:

Xyonon.3987:

No, I’m not going to have a ranger, ele, warrior in every dungeon group, you’re right. Yet I’m gonna have at least 2 of those 3 in my pt. Besides, even unbuffed it’s just 1% wich is laughtable to argue about.

No, what’s laughable is that you guys are intentionally changing up the meta, telling people to invest in another stat set that’s actually worse than Berserker. We’ve been wearing Berserker gear for two years; now you’re saying that people should switch to Assassin: why? Where is the major advantage? And don’t pull out your chart again; explain this madness.

You have been wearing it for two years because @ssa didn’t exist back in those days. Also @ssa is situational and more effective in dungeons and fotm if I think about it combined with your arguments. The meta is the meta for dungeons and not open world or story or such stuff. I’m not the first one who supports @ssa gear, even Wolfineer uses for his “Dungeoneer build” @ssa and zerk. I won’t repeat the whole story again, but in short: grenade, vuln on crit, passive damage.

Phineas Poe.3018:

Xyonon.3987:

This is nothing about theorycrafting – I’ve always been more reality oriented than theory. Stuff like “scholar is better in pugs than X” or as you may say “1% more damage with zerk is better than kitten with more crits” is theory crafting.

When you attach a laundry list of preexisting conditions so that Assassin pulls ahead, you are theorycrafting. Why should someone invest in a set that’s only marginally better in the best of groups? Why should someone invest in a set that’s useless against anything that isn’t crittable?

Regardless of how common or uncommon these two scenarios are, I just cannot understand how or why someone should reasonably shift their gear from Berserker to Assassin when Berserker not only works perfectly fine in any group but actually outperforms Assassin in fights where DPS sometimes matters most.

If I am defending a turret at Tequatl, I am in my Berserker gear because those mobs can be crit. And after battery phases I join up with the zerg to DPS. If I were in Assassin gear I would be doing a lot less damage.

You know that @ssa engi means zerk or @ssa weapons, @ssa armor and zerk accessoires? It’s not even close to useless against anything that isn’t critable. Its still power oriented and it’s still the main stat. You only focus too on more crits for the team.

Everything works perfectly fine in GW2, that’s the problem. This is why some ppl get bored and start being elitisms. When you start keeping different gears and in my case you even build legies to swap stats… Elitism is a disease XD

Phineas Poe.3018:

Xyonon.3987:

Oh and I have no idea why or where you would have trouble with a decent war, ele, ranger, engi + mes / guard team in fotm 50.

I didn’t say you’d have trouble. I said it wouldn’t really work out, because you always want at least two of the three between a guardian, mesmer, and thief. You could run engi, ele, ranger, and war through FOTM 50, but it wouldn’t be an optimal group.

Why the hell would you need a thief so bad?! Everything he can do an engi also can … Same goes for guard / mes. They are both reflection kittenes. Everything else are buffslaves like war or ranger and highest dps comes from ele.

Xyonon.3987:

Why the hell would you need a thief so bad?! Everything he can do an engi also can … Same goes for guard / mes. They are both reflection kittenes. Everything else are buffslaves like war or ranger and highest dps comes from ele.

engi can do it but thief does it better.

i cant fully complete some skips cuz smoke bomb is a long cd and i dont have sr. but its only a few things that you can work around, stealth is often a crutch for bad dodging skillz.

Xyonon.3987:

Who said anything about changing traits? It’s about @ssa vs zerk. If you want to stack fast you won’t use jump shot, nor fumigate – especially NOT fumigate since it deals no damage and should be ready for utility. You seem to forget about “Steel-Packed Powder”. Explosives cause long lasting vuln stacks. So you could say grenades are as good as jump shot. But no – now here “Precise Sights” kick in. Grenades hit 3 times and therefore trigger PS more often than everything else. And that’s the reason why to take @ssa here – to maintain high amounts of vuln via grenade spam.

I think you’re confusing yourself here. I was talking about why Precise Sights is a bad trait. You can get 25 vulnerable immediately without it. If you’re obsessed about frontload damage run Throw Mine over the Elixir Gun and use Mine Field.

Xyonon.3987:

You know that @ssa engi means zerk or @ssa weapons, @ssa armor and zerk accessoires? It’s not even close to useless against anything that isn’t critable. Its still power oriented and it’s still the main stat. You only focus too on more crits for the team.

Assassin’s main stat is precision, not power.

Xyonon.3987:

Why the hell would you need a thief so bad?! Everything he can do an engi also can … Same goes for guard / mes. They are both reflection kittenes. Everything else are buffslaves like war or ranger and highest dps comes from ele.

Thief better for blind and stealth, mesmer better at reflects.

Pistol 5 may stop the mobs for a few secs. Rifle 3 and 5 will kill the trash mobs, and death is the longest cc in the game. Cripple and immob aren’t useful on trash mobs as they won’t dodge out of the ball you created by LOSing or pulling them with guard gs 5 or mesmer pull ( or ele earth shield but.. meh). If your goal is Ai manipulation, just pop a smoke bomb. Mobs won’t hit you. In pve, movment impairing conditions have 2 goals: proccing related traits like predator’s onslaught, and keeping a boss in place. For the 2nd case, rifle is still superior.
Pistol do have a faster attack speed than rifle. But grenades are better than both for that.

Hello OP. There is almost 0 comprehension about how pve dungeons work in this thread so imma shed some light on the whole thing.

First of all. Not taking precise sights is ultimate noob. Vulnerability is the major selling point of engineer in organized dungeons. Even if your dps is quite high, as an engineer you have no place in any party without precise sights. It is simply too good and there is no other trait to take instead anyway.

Some lesser skilled/knowledgeable individuals might say that you cap vuln on thrash without the trait. It is true. However the most important part of a dungeon run besides running around fast is killing bosses fast. Bosses have Unshakable which cuts your vuln in half. You simply require the trait for the boss fights.

Secondly, sigils and runes. You want scholar runes. Strength are a viable alternative but quite worse since your might stacking is lacking compared to an elementalist. Strength/battle sigils are generally not good in team fights. You want force+x most of the time. X being obviously night/slaying/frailty. You can take force+battle for day dungeons if you don’t feel like investing in yet another weapon instead of frailty, but it becomes useless in a decent party. In CoE for example night+undead are closer to ideal but you are cluttering the inventory at this point.

Third. Sin vs Zerk. The difference is quite small but try to sneak a few sin pieces here and there since it benefits the vuln generation and adds a bit of bleed damage.

Fourth. Other traits. Rifle mod vs hair trigger depends on the duration of the fight. So does short fuse vs exploside powder. The longer the fight is the more you benefit from cooldown reduction and the shorter it is the more you benefit from increased damage. Keep in mind that cooldown reduction favors better rotations while the damage increase is just a flat increase. Shrapnel vs empowering adrenaline. Same thing. Shrapnel shines in longer fights.

Have a nice day!

robertul.3679:

First of all. Not taking precise sights is ultimate noob. Vulnerability is the major selling point of engineer in organized dungeons. Even if your dps is quite high, as an engineer you have no place in any party without precise sights. It is simply too good and there is no other trait to take instead anyway.

Some lesser skilled/knowledgeable individuals might say that you cap vuln on thrash without the trait. It is true. However the most important part of a dungeon run besides running around fast is killing bosses fast. Bosses have Unshakable which cuts your vuln in half. You simply require the trait for the boss fights.

hilarious
i was wondering if you would show up

Ryn.6459:

you sir still have a lot to learn

And frankly, you just hit 80 and claim that you know almost eveything? lol

I never said I knew everything. Nor have I claimed i have the best build ever. I’m quite sure most of you have done all the calculations I really don’t feel like doing. All I was trying to say is that it works well enough. Sure, it’s not an efficient meatgrinder, but it is definitely still playable.

I’m from a time when people played games to just have fun, not turn it into a full time job. The reason I just hit 80 is twofold. First, as I said I took quite a long break from the game. I came back to it about a week ago, and I took my engineer from 25 to 80 in that time. I have a full time job so I can only play a few hours a night and on weekends.

Games are supposed to be fun, and I often enjoy trying to find unorthodox playstyles to see what I can do with a class. That is the second reason it took me a while to hit 80. I was in the beta, but I tested out all the classes as I went to find the one I liked best. And instead of reading guides to tell me how to play, I experimented on my own to see what I could do.

I’m one of those people that doesn’t really focus on gear, but on learning the ins and outs of how the class works. Yes, I could just load up on might, stack vuln, and try to kill things as fast as possible. Sure. You can do that. But if you don’t put yourself in situations where you can’t just brute force your way through and learn how to handle them when pure damage just won’t cut it, you will not learn the tactical aspect of the class.

I don’t play for speed runs. I don’t play to farm. I play because it’s fun. If it turns into work, I’m not interested.

Also, saying that vulnerability and taking down bosses fast is required is silly.

It’s not required. It’s faster, but it is in no way required.

If the only way you can survive is to try and kill something as fast as possible before it gets a chance to stomp your face, I wouldn’t call that knowing how to play, in my opinion.

Always the same response. Sigh.
Fun is subjective. We are all here for fun.
I propose you a test. Go to thr mists and tell me how fast you kill the indestructible golem 3 times on a row. And then try it with the meta.build. You will realize how big the fifference is.
The meta build also has a lot of on crit effects is that is yout thing
And it needs a lot of apm. Is fun.
What is not fun is to spend 2hours instead of 15 min to do a dungeon.

Edit: just saw the 2nd post. Fyi, zerker gear needs more skill than facetank. And is more rewarding. Maybe one day you will.try it.

Now is up to you. I dont have anything else to say to you.

Have fun

How fast I kill something is not important to me.

I enjoy challenge. If I’m going to be doing the equivalent of W+M1 through dungeons, I’ll go play Team Fortress.

My idea of fun is, “Oh, hey look a giant champion undead group event. Let’s see if I can solo it.” or going into a dungeon with just two people to see just how far we can go. For me, it’s not about just standing around mashing buttons. I want to feel like I’m being tested.

5 npc enemies 6 levels higher than me? Sure.

I reached the first temple in Orr at level 59. That is what is fun to me. It’s not for everyone, sure. But give me the crappiest weapons in the game, I don’t care. If it can be done, even if it takes 4 hours to do it, I’ll go for it.

That’s just how I do things.

We also. The difference that we do content with active defenses. A missed dodge and you are dead. Trust me, is more challanging, and more fun.

Edit: this is silly. Probably you still dont know who lupi is. And we are spoling OP post.

Ryn.6459:

We also. The difference that we do content with active defenses. A missed dodge and you are dead. Trust me, is more challanging, and more fun.

That’s one thing I like about my build. It’s ability to avoid getting hit is incredibly high. Basically, if I get hit by something I could have avoided, I kittened up. It’s also why I prefer the A.E.D. as my heal.

I guess I’m just tired of going into games like this and wanting to have fun with the community only to hit a wall of elitists that are like, “WTF you don’t even have legendary gear and you’re not using the standard build everyone else that plays your class is using. GTFO, noob.” without even a second thought. A community game is meant to be fun, especially with other people. The elitist attitude of a lot of people just bothers me. I enjoy pugs in a dungeon because it’s something new every time. I don’t care what classes join in or what they do. I know what I can do, and I’ve set myself to not require a specific set of individuals with specific skillsets to be successful.

We may not be efficient, but as long as everyone is having fun, to me it was time well spent, be it 15 minutes or 2 hours.

Toybox, its ok to play how you want. There is a lot of viable build (everything is viable anyway) for every profession and ppl can play these build and have fun. Its ok.

But when you write stuff like : ‘’The engineer has never been a DPS class and trying to foce it to be one seems to just kitten it’s potential in my opinion.’’

Engineer have the 3rd best dps of all profession so that’s not really true. And second, the goal of every profession in PvE is to bring as much DPS as possible while also bring what specific support each profession can do (stealth for thief, dmg mitigation for guardian, offensive support for warrior). For each profession, it’s the best balance between those 2 that become meta build.

Or when you write stuff like : ‘’Sadly, too many people seem too focused on damage output and not on what you can actually accomplish with your skills when utilized properly.’’ Again. DPS is one huge part of the game in PvE and again its a balance between the two. It make no sense to sacrifice DPS for more support when its not necessary and it doesn’t make sense to sacrifice support when you need it and your party get kill.

Of when you write stuff like : ‘’There’s nothing wrong with punching out DPS as an engineer, it just seems like a waste when it’s capable of so much more.’’

The nice thing about this game is that there is way to bring a really huge amount of support while sacrificing almost nothing in term of dps. 6/6/0/0/2 engineer still have access to a huge diversity of field, blast and support. Sacrificing some dps for some support when you need it, is ok. But going further and you get into those viable build that you can play if you want, but are not great build.

Eh. I guess I’m just not pro enough for this forum, and this is just going to turn into a fight I’m not interested in, so I’ll just admit I’m wrong and take my leave.

Toybox.2940:

Eh. I guess I’m just not pro enough for this forum, and this is just going to turn into a fight I’m not interested in, so I’ll just admit I’m wrong and take my leave.

Dude, you can’t go around admitting that you are wrong. This is the Internet, for goodness’ sake!

Snakebyte.2804:

Toybox.2940:

Eh. I guess I’m just not pro enough for this forum, and this is just going to turn into a fight I’m not interested in, so I’ll just admit I’m wrong and take my leave.

Dude, you can’t go around admitting that you are wrong. This is the Internet, for goodness’ sake!

I’m just old fashioned in that way. I don’t sit around reading guides or doing things the way everyone else wants me to do them, so there’s not much to discuss.

I was under the impression this thread was just for discussing playstyles and general PvE. But since I don’t know who “Lupi” is, my information is apparently invalid. Which is fine. It was my mistake. I misinterpreted the point of the thread.

The lupi thing is as saying you still have a lot to learn. Which is good. Unfortunatly many many people play less and less cause has done evrything in this game.
For instance my goal for this christmas is ti learn to solo lupi.

Oh by the way, is quite offensive to claim that we are only following guides.

Toybox.2940:

Snakebyte.2804:

Toybox.2940:

Eh. I guess I’m just not pro enough for this forum, and this is just going to turn into a fight I’m not interested in, so I’ll just admit I’m wrong and take my leave.

Dude, you can’t go around admitting that you are wrong. This is the Internet, for goodness’ sake!

I’m just old fashioned in that way. I don’t sit around reading guides or doing things the way everyone else wants me to do them, so there’s not much to discuss.

I was under the impression this thread was just for discussing playstyles and general PvE. But since I don’t know who “Lupi” is, my information is apparently invalid. Which is fine. It was my mistake. I misinterpreted the point of the thread.

What we, as toxic elitists, are trying to avoid, is misinformation for newcomers. The people here are trying their best to teach you and every inexperienced players how the game works, how you can have fun, and how it’s different from other games. No one is denying your playstyle, but we, or at least I am denying its effectiveness in high end pve, and its support abilities. We’re indeed discussing with you, and you’re the one ending the discussion, ranting about elitism and such. If we were truly elitists, we would only talk between elite players. I and others gave you advices and opinions about your build, how some things felt out of place, how we personally see it working; that’s the point of a discussion.

So don’t come and say we’re not discussing. We are. We all want to make sure other players avoid the mistake we pretty much all did at the start of the game when no one was here to tell us what to do, when anchor guardian and condi necros were a thing.

Lupi is the nickname of giganticus lupicus, one of the best bosses in all gw2 found in arah, considered a high level dungeon for what it’s worth. It shows really well the importance of active defense and it’s a fun boss full of mechanics, it’s also the typical exemple when talking about dungeon bosses.
Anyway, you have to understand we’re not against you, we’re trying to help. If you have any question, all the people on this forum will answer it.

Who is Lupi? Lupi Fiasco, obviously. Also I readily admit to only following guides.

Part of the reason I don’t do high level dungeons is because the people that run them are pushy and damanding. So more or less I’ve had to learn how to solo everything because it’s the only way I can get anything done.

If i can’t solo it, or do it with average players, I tend to avoid it just to avoid the people that take these games way too seriously.

I miss end game content, and yes, it sucks. But it’s not worth the frustration of dealing with those types of people.

When I get to that stage I will adjust as needed. I appreciate the advice, sure. But I’m not the type to change my whole build on heresay. When I get a chance I’ll see what happens. If it doesn’t work, I’ll make adjustments as nessicary.

At this point though, the vibe I’m getting is “Your build is bad, and you should feel bad.” so I’ll accept that and go be bad elsewhere if that is what will defuse the situation.

Phineas Poe.3018:

Assassin’s main stat is precision, not power.

Yea – but since your accessories are still zerk, you’ll still have power as main stat. That’s what I meant.

Phineas Poe.3018:

Thief better for blind and stealth, mesmer better at reflects.

Yea, thief can do it better. But even engi has nades and bombs and even ft for blinds wich last long enough to deal with the crowd. More is always better I agree, but with an engi you kill faster the targets who’s attacks the thief still blinds. About stealth – when do you need a longer stealth than 20 sec? Rarely in my expirience (still talkin’ ’bout fotm!).

Of course a mesmer is better at reflects than the engi, yet you don’t need (literally NEED!) a mesmer AND a guard. In fotm they both do pretty much the same things. One of them is enough to do a good run, even 50. But yea, I rather kick the ranger for a mes AND guard.

Phineas Poe.3018:

I think you’re confusing yourself here. I was talking about why Precise Sights is a bad trait. You can get 25 vulnerable immediately without it. If you’re obsessed about frontload damage run Throw Mine over the Elixir Gun and use Mine Field.

Mine fields has a long cast time and requires forceful explosives to work good, since the spread is much bigger than the actual radius of each mine (except for big fat bosses). I could quote myself again, but I won’t. Aslong as you are using grenades to stack might, PS is a must have trait.

Phineas Poe.3018:

I was talking about why Precise Sights is a bad trait.

. . . “watches at you shocked” . . . leave! “truns around runs away crying”
just joking but seriously – it’s one of those wow engi traits.

robertul.3679:

Hello OP. There is almost 0 comprehension about how pve dungeons work in this thread so imma shed some light on the whole thing.

wall’o’text

Have a nice day!

Thank you for your appearance <3

btw everyone – chill – we are here at the engi forums, we are polite and friendly and helpful Wruaa whooo!

I dont understand this kind of attitud to be honest.
Let me tell you an old story.
I was running Twilight Arbor forward with some pug. There is an skip which can be challenging for some people. It was easy for me cause I was on my warrior. A typical tactic is to use stealth. Funny thing we had an engi who was wishing for a thief. So I offered to teach him how to stack stealth with his bomb kit… He refused.
For instance, I would be so glad if someone was willing to correct my English so I can improve and be a better at forum wars…

Ryn.6459:

I dont understand this kind of attitud to be honest.
Let me tell you an old story.
I was running Twilight Arbor forward with some pug. There is an skip which can be challenging for some people. It was easy for me cause I was on my warrior. A typical tactic is to use stealth. Funny thing we had an engi who was wishing for a thief. So I offered to teach him how to stack stealth with his bomb kit… He refused.
For instance, I would be so glad if someone was willing to correct my English so I can improve and be a better at forum wars…

I’m willing to take advice if it’s useful, yes. However most of what I’ve seen suggested doesn’t make a lot of sense to me unless your only goal is to farm. I see no survivability in the suggestions I’ve seen. In 5 man structured dugeon runs, I can definitely see how it would be effective. But I don’t do those. At best I have like 3 friends I know that fan run dungeons and only one of them is likely to build “meta”. So my view on it is this: If you’re the only one left and you can’t survive, your build isn’t effective to me.

All of these might and vuln stacks are nice, yes. But when you’re the only one standing against 4 elites, what do you plan to do? That’s the part I don’t get.

Ok, so I think I know where you got lost. You assume meta players are worse than you. And you assume than playing berserker or assassin make soloing impossible.

So, here’s the thing: In the situation you described, I would kill those elites. Simple as that. Playing with offensive gear makes things harder, but far from impossible.

A quick comment on other assumption: We don’t follow guides, we make them. The strats you see and the builds you see are created by the high level pve guilds.

oxtred.7658:

Ok, so I think I know where you got lost. You assume meta players are worse than you. And you assume than playing berserker or assassin make soloing impossible.

So, here’s the thing: In the situation you described, I would kill those elites. Simple as that. Playing with offensive gear makes things harder, but far from impossible.

A quick comment on other assumption: We don’t follow guides, we make them. The strats you see and the builds you see are created by the high level pve guilds.

I don’t think they are worse. I just do not see the survivablity factor. If you can show it to me I would be more than happy to take it into consideration. I just don’t see it. Killing things quickly is fine. But when it doesn’t work, what’s the backup plan?

It just seems like you’re putting all your eggs in one basket. Maybe I’m wrong, and if I am I will be more than happy to admit it. I just haven’t seen anything that indicates otherwise.

Yep, you’re wrong. I’m soloing and duoing dungeons everyday with a lot of classes, all of them being berserker or assassin and engi included. The key point in your argumentation is survivability. That’s fine if you need some breath via gear, but when you’ll gain more experience, you will be able to survive without vitality and toughness from gear. At that point, you won’t need it anymore, and getting offensive gear will be a given. It’s not only about killing things quickly: it’s about killing things before your active defense runs out. What it means is, even if i’m soloing naked, I’ll still kill the mobs. In the case of engi, i’ll chain blinds with nades/bombs/ft, blocks with toolkit/shield offhand, reflects with elixir u,and/or dodges with 100% vigor uptime. With all of that, there’s no point investing in vitality or toughness. If i get hit, that’s my mistake. You said that yourself, I think, but since you’re still not confident about your abilities ( wich is again perfectly fine) you don’t get the meta philosophy.

You’re right about one point, we can’t afford to make a mistake like you. But that’s where we’re having fun. Hope this helps understanding the meta and the posts directed to you before.

Edit because i can post once every 10 minutes: It goes for build as well. For instance, a berserker shoutheal warrior isn’t meta. What we refer to “berserker meta” is in fact “all the builds based on getting all the support possible without loosing too much dps via the stacking of a lot of damage multipliers and the use of berserker and assassin gear to further boost the damage output, but with team support abilities when it’s needed”. But berserker meta is faster to write.

oxtred.7658:

Yep, you’re wrong. I’m soloing and duoing dungeons everyday with a lot of classes, all of them being berserker or assassin and engi included. The key point in your argumentation is survivability. That’s fine if you need some breath via gear, but when you’ll gain more experience, you will be able to survive without vitality and toughness from gear. At that point, you won’t need it anymore, and getting offensive gear will be a given. It’s not only about killing things quickly: it’s about killing things before your active defense runs out. What it means is, even if i’m soloing naked, I’ll still kill the mobs. In the case of engi, i’ll chain blinds with nades/bombs/ft, blocks with toolkit/shield offhand, reflects with elixir u,and/or dodges with 100% vigor uptime. With all of that, there’s no point investing in vitality or toughness. If i get hit, that’s my mistake. You said that yourself, I think, but since you’re still not confident about your abilities ( wich is again perfectly fine) you don’t get the meta philosophy.

You’re right about one point, we can’t afford to make a mistake like you. But that’s where we’re having fun. Hope this helps understanding the meta and the posts directed to you before.

I run full assassin gear. I don’t use Vitality or Toughness.

I answered in my previous post and will do the same for this one if you feel like going on with this discussion.

oxtred.7658:

I answered in my previous post and will do the same for this one if you feel like going on with this discussion.

I don’t quite get what you’re saying. You thought I was stacking HP and defense and just taking things to the face?

I don’t use active defenses because I usually haven’t found much of a use for them. I’d be willing to try it out at some point, but I guess I never considered using them as a major part of the build.

No, what i said is active defense is the meta, and I explained you why, that’s all.

oxtred.7658:

No, what i said is active defense is the meta, and I explained you why, that’s all.

Hmm. Maybe I just need to see it in action. Are there any videos or something showing how it works in game?

You could watch a lupi solo video for instance. Or a speedrun at gwscr.com, but those are quite fast and it’s hard to know what’s going on if you’re not used to. Any kind of solo video is slow enough.

Hm… I watched one. What it seems to me is that he’s using the smoke bomb, shields and dodges to avoid the attacks when they come in. Not sure what the crowbar is for in the toolkit because I’ve rarely bothered to use it, but I’m assuming it has something to do with defense as well.

It makes more sense now, though most of these engineers seem to be standing still. But it’s working against the bosses at least. I’ll watch a couple doing a solo dungeon to see what they do against mobs.

Mobs are about the same except you can use blinds and, for a lot of them, reflects. It works the same though.

oxtred.7658:

Mobs are about the same except you can use blinds and, for a lot of them, reflects. It works the same though.

I can see that. I might try out the shield as I can see how the reflect can be useful.

My mindset as far as survival was to actually move out of the way of attacks instead of just negating them. I assumed the cooldown on the reflects and bombs was going to make them ineffective at being a reliable source of defense. I’ll have to mess with it myself and see.

Well, soft cc is nice to have, but 1) you have enough with grenade 4 and 2) completely negating an attack is better. At least in the current meta.

oxtred.7658:

Well, soft cc is nice to have, but 1) you have enough with grenade 4 and 2) completely negating an attack is better. At least in the current meta.

I bounce around a LOT more than most of the videos I see here. The survivablity is there, it’s just more about inflicting status on the enemy than actually getting out of the way. I use the #4 skill on the elixer gun, rocket boots and dodges almost constantly. The bomb toolbelt skill, glue bomb and glue shot is also a mainstay of my fighting style. I don’t really use stealth or blocking more than I simply attempt to dodge everything that comes at me.

The style I’ve been watching is much slower paced than what I do, but it is rather effective from what I’ve seen.

Problem is you can’t do that in a group, because you’ll move mobs too much for the melee players (= everyone). Using rocket boots break the ball of mobs, so it’s counterproductive.

oxtred.7658:

Problem is you can’t do that in a group, because you’ll move mobs too much for the melee players (= everyone). Using rocket boots break the ball of mobs, so it’s counterproductive.

That’s understandable. I’m used to soloing most things either due to party wipes or just having no one else around. Though, I’ve found that in most dungeons, the melee characters seem to hold the attention of most things, though a well placed powder keg can throw off a group that is about to down a warrior.

This video is a bit old and the record for Lupicus solo is with a condition damage spec, but this is close to the meta build, using full berserker.

http://youtu.be/7GX-lYH9zrg

As you can see, Dom uses active defense and good rotations to stay alive and deal DPS.

Xyonon.3987:

just joking but seriously – it’s one of those wow engi traits.

I was being hyperbolic.

Precise Sights is a great trait under many situations, and I’m pretty sure it’s slotted on every guide I’ve ever written. But with the right group composition you can maintain 20+ vulnerability without it easily—even against bosses. Stacks are absolutely saturated in any group that has an engi + ele + war.

The reason why I’ve changed my mind about Precise Sights is because the meta has shifted from bombs to the flamethrower as your fire field option.

Napalm lasts 30 seconds. Might stacks last 20. Conundrum.

And to be completely 100% honest, I value maintained might stacks a lot more than capping out vulnerability against bosses. And without Fireforged Trigger that isn’t possible with the flamethrower unless you’re wearing Strength runes.

But even if you’re wearing Strength runes, because Napalm has a shorter cooldown than your might stacks, and because you’re using blast finishers that are on shorter cooldowns than your might stacks, you’re substantially elevating your engineer’s capabilities to stack might using Fireforged Trigger over Precise Sights.

So basically: if you’re wearing Scholar runes and you’re using the FT as your fire field, you need to swap out of Precise Sights.

Xyonon.3987:

About stealth – when do you need a longer stealth than 20 sec? Rarely in my expirience (still talkin’ ’bout fotm!).

Well, I don’t just do FOTM all day, so I don’t think I’ll limit my responses to it.

Having a thief is essential to any smooth runs of TA, CM, or Arah—and probably several other individual paths I’m not remembering off the top of my head. The truth of the matter is: there are very few situations where you really want 4 DPS + 1 Utility, especially if that means you’re having to choose between a thief, mesmer, or guardian as your final slot for Arah.

That just never happens. No one ever takes it that far. And regardless of how good you are at FOTM, I couldn’t imagine anyone ever taking a warrior over a mesmer even if there’s a guardian in the party at level 50. That just doesn’t happen.

My final two cents on this discussion.

So I experimented with some stuff. I have to say that the shield is much more effective than an offhand pistol, so I will have to admit that I’m hooked.

The toolkit is also really nice. I always overlooked it because I assumed it was mainly for turret builds, which I don’t use. I’ve retraited also to put these new things into effect, though I’m still getting accustomed to incorporating active defense into my playstyle instead if focusing on dodging.

Grenades… well. I see the potential here. And I’m not gonna lie, they are tempting. But the ranged targeting is just too much for me, to be honest. I’m not used to worrying too much on where my cursor is positioned, and added to trying to learn a new build, it’s getting me killed more than it’s worth. Once I get accustomed to the changes, I may give it another go but as for now my current setup is the Bomb Kit, Tool Kit, and the elixer gun.

As for healing… I’m still torn between the A.E.D. and the healing turret. I like the AoE benifits of the turret, but the A.E.D. is such a fantastic healing gadget that I have a hard time parting with it. The turret just doesn’t provide as much healing and I’m not used to it. Currently when I solo I run the A.E.D., but in groups I use the turret.

Toybox, hit healing turret, hit it again to lay the water field, hit your f1 to detonate and blast, then swap to another blast finisher, or two, or three, or four!

Can even do things like Big Ol’ Bomb → lay HT → Lay water field → Detonate → Shield4 & detonate → Elixer Gun → 4/swap cancel with the setup you said you have. I haven’t played in a week or two so may have the numbers off but IIRC it was 3k for initial HT then 1.3k for each blast, so with that rotation y ou’d have 4 blasts for a total of around 8k healing with 5.2k of those being blasts, that’s full assassin/zerk gear.

HT is very very much worth using. Not long ago I was posting the same thing as you but then once I got use to the power of HT there was no going back.

Grenades are very worthwhile as well, but they do take some getting use to.

Yeah. I played with the grenades and I do like how they handle, but I found myself either missing a lot or focusing so much on grenade positioning that I ignored my other skills and got my butt handed to me because I wasn’t paying attention to other things. They are very powerful and viable, but right now I’ve already switched to a new weapon, completely restructured my traits and swapped out one of my kits for one I’m not used to using so I figure I should get that down first before trying to wrangle grenades as well.

The blast thing is new to me as well and I’m not used to stacking attacks like that. Heavy spike damage has never been my forte and right now the most complex combo I’ve been doing is using the Big ‘ol Bomb, then chucking my wrench to lay two stacks of Vulnerability before it goes off. I’m still new to this playstyle. I’m even having trouble keeping up constant Swiftness since I changed from Swiftness on Crit to Speedy Kits.

It was my first night with it so I’ll need a bit more time to get into more complex things.

Also, I remapped my keybinds for my engineer for easier kit swapping and was wondering if anyone had any suggestions on that. I have a Razer gaming mouse, so I switched it over to Num Pad and rebound 1-6 to the number pad. Having my kits at 7, 8 and 9 was a pain so I set up my kits like so: Tool Kit is Q, Bomb Kit is E, Elixer Gun is F and Supply Drop is T. Since I’m using the number pad for my 1-6 abilities (which I trigger from the mouse keypad), I remapped my toolbelt skills to the normal 1-4 so they are easier to reach.

Has anyone else reorganized their keybinds to make kit swapping easier? If so, what did you do?

dancing around in your kits effectively is definitely one of the more tryhard things you can do in this game