Guild Wars 2

I’m thinking of starting Fractals back up in order to earn some Ascended Items for my Engineer, which I main. I’ve given it a run a few times in the past, mainly on my Necromancer.

My question is:
When looking for a Group on either Fractals Of The Mists or Dungeons for fast daily runs, are Boon/Burst/Crit Engineers looked down upon compared to other classes? Obviously I don’t want Smart-kitten to come along and say “HUEHUEHUE, ’Zerker Warriors are obviously better, kittentard!” because that seems to be the answer for most things at the moment; I’m kinda asking for a comparison between Engineer to Necromancer, Thief, Elementalist (not D/D, I know the answer for that ;D) and Ranger, and I’m talking in general-feel free to mention Specific Builds only if you’ve tried/experienced the Build.

(Tried to keep it as simple as possible)

Oh, and btw:
~> MERRY CHRISTMAS <~

I can only recall being looked down upon once, and that was by some foolish elitist Mesmer that thought having 3 engineers in a pug casual low level fractal run was a bad idea.
In all, i think a well played/built engineer is an incredible asset to the team.
Easy, fast and permanent 25 stacks of aoe vulnerability, ample blinds, anti projectile walls, one of the best team condition removals in game (EG #3, healing turret) and group might stacking, just to name a few of the things that make engineer credit to team.
The only class i can compare it to out of that list is ranger, and i personally feel that my engineer is easier, safer, less frustrating and overall provides more to the team.

Merry Christmas!

Engi is good for FotM, can stealth, AoE dmg, blind, heal, boons. But most ppl don’t know how good engi is so they always kick engi out of their party.

More likely most people have met FT engis and therefore got disgusted by our class^^
Just open your own groups and search specifically for what you need…

SE p1 f.e. profits much from having missile reflection /destruction, so I ask for this directly. I don’t care what classes join, as long as they can do the job.

Archaeopteryx.7409:

I’m thinking of starting Fractals back up in order to earn some Ascended Items for my Engineer, which I main. I’ve given it a run a few times in the past, mainly on my Necromancer.

My question is:
When looking for a Group on either Fractals Of The Mists or Dungeons for fast daily runs, are Boon/Burst/Crit Engineers looked down upon compared to other classes? Obviously I don’t want Smart-kitten to come along and say “HUEHUEHUE, ’Zerker Warriors are obviously better, kittentard!” because that seems to be the answer for most things at the moment; I’m kinda asking for a comparison between Engineer to Necromancer, Thief, Elementalist (not D/D, I know the answer for that ;D) and Ranger, and I’m talking in general-feel free to mention Specific Builds only if you’ve tried/experienced the Build.

(Tried to keep it as simple as possible)

Oh, and btw:
~> MERRY CHRISTMAS <~

I only have experience with Warrior, Engineer, Elementalist, Thief and Mesmer in those areas.

The two things you need to do in dungeons is do lots of damage and not die. Bonus points if you can keep people alive. Engineers are amazing at all three. The best damage you’ll get from engineer are the following:

1. Grenade Kit
2. Rocket Turret (That toolbelt hits like a truck)
3. Elixir Gun (Acid Bomb ticks for like 2k on crit)
4. Flamethrower (Skill 2 can easily hit for 7k)

What’s great about Elixir Gun, is it allows you to also support your party with heavy condition removal and some regen. Furthermore, Healing Turret is a staple skill for engineers and offers amazing support (Removes 2 conditions every 15-20 seconds AND heals for 2-3k).

So engineers are amzing.

Thief on the other hand generally has some trouble dealing high AoE damage like the other classes. I haven’t done much testing with Sword/Pistol (Pistol Whip), but it could be a very strong avenue of damage as Pistol Whip is an evade. They do VERY well with support. Certain difficult enemies become a LOT easier when you place Black Powder on them. You can also stick to shortbow and continuously put down choking gas + clustbomb to keep everything weak and damage. They’re also great for skipping content in high end areas. A thief in dredge fractal is practically a must have. Problem with thief is that you, as expected, are one shot away from going down most of the time. Stick to range and only go melee if the fight is easy enough for you.

Elementalist is a tough one. They are EXTREMELY glassy, even more so than thieves as thieves at least have good ways to disengage and blind a lot. That said, Elementalists have access to the highest DPS in the game for some encounters. Just between Fiery Greatsword and Frost Bow, you can bust out AMAZING damage. I personally love going D/D on elementalist because I love it in PvP, but staff can dish out some crazy AoE damage from a safe distance. Certain sections REALLY benefit from having an elementalist. Stationary boss? Feiry Greatsword (FGS) makes short work of it. Lots of balled up enemies? Staff fire skills are great for taking that down.

Their support is amazing too. They have a lot of healing and support skills built into their weapon sets. If you build the right way, you can give your party crazy good support via boons, aura, fields and healing.

Ranger? kitten if I know man. That class is so janky xD.

All in all, I think each can be extremely useful in every way. Thief probably has the lowest damage of all of them (surprisingly) but they have their own little niche. Keep in mind however, engineers can do stealth as well (Via blast finishers) but are much tankier. As an engineer main, I think engineer is the strongest with thief and elementalist being great for their niches.

A Engineer can be good, but most engineer´s can´t.

engy bunker with bomb/nade/EG and swicth skill for run stealth or wathever needed
carrion equip and cleric accessories P/S with swap sigil of might and heal
condition spammer and heal/boon at the same time

for fractal i run mesmer and engy
but a group without engy or guardian for high lvl fractal it’s hard to end

Arantheal.7396:

More likely most people have met FT engis and therefore got disgusted by our class^^
Just open your own groups and search specifically for what you need…

SE p1 f.e. profits much from having missile reflection /destruction, so I ask for this directly. I don’t care what classes join, as long as they can do the job.

Whats wrong with FT engis?

Viral.2968:

Arantheal.7396:

More likely most people have met FT engis and therefore got disgusted by our class^^
Just open your own groups and search specifically for what you need…

SE p1 f.e. profits much from having missile reflection /destruction, so I ask for this directly. I don’t care what classes join, as long as they can do the job.

Whats wrong with FT engis?

The damage is garbo. And since the dungeon meta revolves around stacking as much damage as you can and just faceroll through content, subpar dps is looked down upon. This is also why condis are looked down upon too.

Bomb Kit Engi is one of the best classes to take for FOTM. Having a smoke field is so huge in Dredge. And with Modified Ammo, it’s probably the best AoE DPS in the game right now that isn’t a conjured weapon.

Phineas Poe.3018:

Bomb Kit Engi is one of the best classes to take for FOTM. Having a smoke field is so huge in Dredge. And with Modified Ammo, it’s probably the best AoE DPS in the game right now that isn’t a conjured weapon.

I was actually just about to suggest the same thing. Particularly after someone listed damage kits and didn’t list the best damage we have. I have been addicted to bombs since beta. I mean, what’s not to love about dropping a big powder keg like Big Ol’ Bomb? For that matter, how can you nor love a skill simply because it is called Big Ol’ Bomb.

>Having a smoke field is so huge in Dredge.
p1 you mean? cause dredge in general are immune to blind

Arantheal.7396:

>Having a smoke field is so huge in Dredge.
p1 you mean? cause dredge in general are immune to blind

It’s used for stealth.

Phineas Poe.3018:

Arantheal.7396:

>Having a smoke field is so huge in Dredge.
p1 you mean? cause dredge in general are immune to blind

It’s used for stealth.

I assume you’ve never ran it with randoms then.
organizing them to actually blast something will cost you the last nerve…
If I could not laugh about the sorry picture most pugs deliver, I’d have rage-quited 2 days after became 80 the first time^^

Arantheal.7396:

Phineas Poe.3018:

Arantheal.7396:

>Having a smoke field is so huge in Dredge.
p1 you mean? cause dredge in general are immune to blind

It’s used for stealth.

I assume you’ve never ran it with randoms then.
organizing them to actually blast something will cost you the last nerve…
If I could not laugh about the sorry picture most pugs deliver, I’d have rage-quited 2 days after became 80 the first time^^

I don’t pug FOTM. Join a larger guild.

We will sometimes take a random fifth, but that’s the extent of it.

I have been running fractals since a little after the fractured update. My engine is fractal lvl 20 now. I usually pug them as my guild isn’t big on them and have no issues or complaints. I recently started using Phineas’s metarific build and pretty much only using bombs. Still no issues just more DPS

Arantheal.7396:

Phineas Poe.3018:

Arantheal.7396:

>Having a smoke field is so huge in Dredge.
p1 you mean? cause dredge in general are immune to blind

It’s used for stealth.

I assume you’ve never ran it with randoms then.
organizing them to actually blast something will cost you the last nerve…
If I could not laugh about the sorry picture most pugs deliver, I’d have rage-quited 2 days after became 80 the first time^^

You don’t need them to blast it, you can do it yourself. Stealth caps at 5 stacks (10s) anyway so all you need to do is drop 5 blast finishers on the Smoke Bomb at the same time. Big Bomb > Smoke Bomb > Detonate 3 turrets > Magnetic Inversion is usually good enough.

If they’re too dumb to stand close enough for the blast to affect them that’s another thing entirely.

I’m aware that I could blast-cap it myself… but that would leave me with a skill mess-that i can’t swap in time while running to the lever and managing to survive. I guess, I have simply to wait for my guildies to awake from their christmas-inactivity^^

What skill mess?

1. Drop Healing Turret and Rifle Turret
2. Drop Big Ol’ Bomb → Smoke Bomb
3. Swap to Elixir Gun → Acid Bomb
4. Detonate turrets

Magical 12 seconds of stealth. You can even use Rocket Boots instead of Rifle Turret and give yourself a 900 range advantage. Or use Magnetic Inversion (shield) instead of Acid Bomb. We have so many blast finishers to choose from, and all on skills that you should be using already.

All it takes is one more blast finisher among the 4 other people in your party to get the final 3 seconds of stealth.

the mess comes from the fact that not a single one of these skills is used by me in fractals.
Elixier H, Nades, elixier U, elixier B.
tough the HT is there, I would have to rebuild my complete fractal build for one single part of a random fractal that may not even occur…
HgH condi-build btw

Arantheal.7396:

the mess comes from the fact that not a single one of these skills is used by me in fractals.
Elixier H, Nades, elixier U, elixier B.
tough the HT is there, I would have to rebuild my complete fractal build for one single part of a random fractal that may not even occur…
HgH condi-build btw

All you need to do is swap your skills for one part. You don’t even attack during the parts that require this stealth.

…Also condi in PvE?

Yes, condi in PvE, especially in fractals.
you may loose “some” dps, but the fact that you can take Vitality and Toughness with you, without having to worry about an additional dps loss, really pays off.
And since I’m mostly the only condi-build sitting in this niche, I don’t get disturbed with over-writing / nulling other condis. And in case we get the maw as boss-map, I always have a spare zerker-equip with me and swap toolkit in.

Arantheal.7396:

the mess comes from the fact that not a single one of these skills is used by me in fractals.
Elixier H, Nades, elixier U, elixier B.
tough the HT is there, I would have to rebuild my complete fractal build for one single part of a random fractal that may not even occur…
HgH condi-build btw

You don’t have to run with the build I talked about to do what I said.

You can swap skill just for the stealth run in Dredge and swap back.

nope.
sounds easy in theory, but randoms destroy this concept by randomly pulling something that coincidently throws a sonic blast in your direction, and therefore locks you down IC while you were in the middle of swapping.
works fine for me alone in the second cage, but the 3rd is nothing else than living hell where everything that can go wrong, will go wrong. Which just happened 30min ago.

You are right, your method works, but not if you actually deal with incontrollable values, which humans are.
For all that matters, I’ll never swap again my whole skill-set just for a single situation, that relies this much on coordination.

some time i make solo the wall part in dredge path
stealth and run
bomb kit, rocket boots, elixir S
engy = factotum

Arantheal.7396:

nope.
sounds easy in theory, but randoms destroy this concept by randomly pulling something that coincidently throws a sonic blast in your direction, and therefore locks you down IC while you were in the middle of swapping.
works fine for me alone in the second cage, but the 3rd is nothing else than living hell where everything that can go wrong, will go wrong. Which just happened 30min ago.

You are right, your method works, but not if you actually deal with incontrollable values, which humans are.
For all that matters, I’ll never swap again my whole skill-set just for a single situation, that relies this much on coordination.

If your group is that bad, you shouldn’t have gotten all the way to dredge with them. Leave early while you still can.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

If your group is that bad, you shouldn’t have gotten all the way to dredge with them. Leave early while you still can.

For me good players are those who can even carry those really bad ones. So if your attitude is to leave – well for me you aren’t a good player then. Bad allies happen in pug groups. Deal with it.

Back to topic: for me stealth works well even with bad pugs.
I just say: " guys come close to me I stealth. Don’t leave circle until it ends"

This always worked for me. Sometimes not for the first try but at the latest at the second try.

Forestnator.6298:

The Gates Assassin.9827:

If your group is that bad, you shouldn’t have gotten all the way to dredge with them. Leave early while you still can.

For me good players are those who can even carry those really bad ones. So if your attitude is to leave – well for me you aren’t a good player then. Bad allies happen in pug groups. Deal with it.

Back to topic: for me stealth works well even with bad pugs.
I just say: " guys come close to me I stealth. Don’t leave circle until it ends"

This always worked for me. Sometimes not for the first try but at the latest at the second try.

Your ability to teach new players has no barring on you being a good player or not. And yes, stealth works even with newbies, but some are just awful at everything and if they are so bad that they can’t even follow directions, that should be apparent from an earlier fractal.

Arantheal.7396:

nope.
You are right, your method works, but not if you actually deal with incontrollable values, which humans are.
For all that matters, I’ll never swap again my whole skill-set just for a single situation, that relies this much on coordination.

If you wipe, you go again. And if you’re unwilling to swap around skills to best suit each situation—even your whole bar—you’re not really playing the engineer to its fullest potential.

If you want to play it safe with pugs, be my guest. But I think you owe it to yourself and others pushing pugs into learning more advanced mechanics and tactics, and giving yourself the opportunity to display to them how good the engineer actually is.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Forestnator.6298:

The Gates Assassin.9827:

If your group is that bad, you shouldn’t have gotten all the way to dredge with them. Leave early while you still can.

For me good players are those who can even carry those really bad ones. So if your attitude is to leave – well for me you aren’t a good player then. Bad allies happen in pug groups. Deal with it.

Back to topic: for me stealth works well even with bad pugs.
I just say: " guys come close to me I stealth. Don’t leave circle until it ends"

This always worked for me. Sometimes not for the first try but at the latest at the second try.

Your ability to teach new players has no barring on you being a good player or not. And yes, stealth works even with newbies, but some are just awful at everything and if they are so bad that they can’t even follow directions, that should be apparent from an earlier fractal.

You tend to find they get kicked mid-way in a “good” group ;D

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Your ability to teach new players has no barring on you being a good player or not. And yes, stealth works even with newbies, but some are just awful at everything and if they are so bad that they can’t even follow directions, that should be apparent from an earlier fractal.

You are wrong good Sir. Your ability to handle bad players in your team is also an indicator of how good you are. Playing with good mates – that is easy. Winning easy games – not have to be good for that. Not only true for gw2, good players, or let’s say excellent players do also have success with bad players or in the aspect of PvP they also win with bad players more often then others.

If you are just hiding with your good guildies and deny any bad party – then sorry mate, then you are not a good – okay let’s say excellent player.

Forestnator.6298:

If you are just hiding with your good guildies and deny any bad party – then sorry mate, then you are not a good – okay let’s say excellent player.

Someone can have a brilliant mind but be a bad teacher, or simply not want to teach.

Phineas Poe.3018:

Forestnator.6298:

If you are just hiding with your good guildies and deny any bad party – then sorry mate, then you are not a good – okay let’s say excellent player.

Someone can have a brilliant mind but be a bad teacher, or simply not want to teach.

He can have a brilliant mind but mind is not the only value which is going into “beeing good” or not.

Anyway it has less to do with teaching, more with carrying people. If you are superior you are also able to carry bad players. This requires much more skill then achiving good results with other good players.

Forestnator.6298:

Anyway it has less to do with teaching, more with carrying people. If you are superior you are also able to carry bad players. This requires much more skill then achiving good results with other good players.

Sorry, but I have my limits.

I do not pug FOTM, but I do not discriminate who I take from my guild. I literally just ask who wants to tag along with me, and I take the first four people to respond in Teamspeak or ‘x’ up in guild. If, during our dungeon run (I usually do SE, HotW, TA, and CoF in one sitting/group; AC and CoE if I have time) someone has to leave, I just repeat the process until it fills. It isn’t pugging random players, but it is still pugging in a lot of respects—just with players I can hold accountable for their actions.

If any of my guildies happen to not know or understand the content, I am more than willing to teach them. I enjoy teaching players content they’re unfamiliar with. It’s half the reason I still play this game. I enjoy the satisfaction of recruiting newer players into the guild—even those that just started the game and in Queensdale—watching them develop into master FOTM runners. So understand me when I say that I am totally on-board with you in relation that the best players are more than willing to sit through sub-optimal groups. But only if it’s to teach someone something.

I made a point to revise the rhetoric of this conversation discussing “experience” versus “inexperience” rather than “good” versus “bad.” A player can still be inexperienced with certain content but be a good learner and listen well. But if a player is refusing to listen, they’re out.

I just have zero patience for players who are unwilling to learn the content. As someone who works as a teacher for a living, I have no remorse flunking students who do not put in the effort. I used to feel bad about it, but sometimes people need to learn to help themselves.

I do lvl 36 daily, sometimes with a pugs and sometimes with my guild.

In terms of group DPS, my celestial engineer does more dps than my zerker warrior.
My engineer can keep up 25 stacks of vuln/bleed (1500 p/t) and 90 seconds of poison which is great for not resetting the boss.

My DPS rotation (firebomb, bob, barrage, bleed nade, freeze nade, blunderbluss, jumpshot, prybar) also does more direct dmg than my GS warrior does in the same time.

Also some bosses require range DPS, where nades do at least twice the dmg than done by a rifle warrior.

To start of I will say I’m playing an support ele on fractals and I’m running high levels also on it (personal lvl 40, but did a lvl 49 yesterday because that was the best fitting lvl I could find at that moment). I tend to run with pug groups, in general the thing I will look for is a good group setup. This means that I will ensure that I have the right utility in the group. This also comes down I do not tend to take more as 1 of every profession in a favorable situation. Looking toward the engi, they have some great utility, they have a few projectile reflects/blocks, with the right build they are very strong point holders, they can indeed aoe stealth, they have quite some fields (this however gets me cursing sometimes when they are placing unnecessary blinding bombs, since I use allot of blasts also on my ele to support) and they have one of the strongest elites in the game with the supply box. And not to forget the huge amount of cc and blast finishers they can use. So like with all other professions, depending on the setup I think engineers can be a great addition to a group.

and some other point I did read down the line. People claim you need to be good with engi to be addition, that is with every profession, this is basely why I do not like gaurd, mes, 3 war zerker groups, they tend to use troll tactics that make me die more as just do LEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEROY JEEEEEEEEEEEEEEENKINS into the kitten.

Something else I did read was about carrying. In the base the possibilities to carry in guild wars 2 are limited and very depending on the build you are using.