Guild Wars 2

I mostly PvE, occasionally WvW. I’ve been thinking of rolling a Engi but I have very limited experience playing it (leveled one to ~20, liked the things I could do with grenades but it became extremely tedious having to press one and click on target EVERY time, ended up deleting him).

Looking around, it seems like pistol/pistol HGH condi builds are the most popular (or at least I found the most information about HGH builds as opposed to the others), and before jumping into making a new toon, spending another 10 hours on him and deciding I don’t like it, I think it might be a good idea to investigate first! So I was wondering about the following things:

1. AoE or Mob control Capabilities?
Most of PvE is about dealing with mobs and it gives me great satisfaction taking on 4-5 targets and wiping them out! How does the HGH build fare against mobs?

2. Dungeon viability?
When I am not fruitlessly running around trying to get map completion (I level a toon to 80, get ~45% map completion, get bored and roll a new toon, I have toon ADD!) I’m running dungeons. In my experience I rarely see any engineers in any pugs. Not sure if it is just a small sample size on my part or people generally don’t roll with engi’s in dungeons.

3. Diminishing returns of condition toons
Related to running dungeons, if there are more than one toon running a condi build in a party both toons have their effectivity reduced due to the various condition caps. Is it possible to run a hybrid condi/burst engi like you can with a necro? I hear HGH builds can rack up 25 might stacks like nothing, so in theory that should augment burst attacks too, but I have no idea.

4. What to do until you get to level 60 to unlock HGH?
Since the HGH isnt available until you unlock grandmaster traits, what is the most effective or quickest “leveling build” until I can unlock it?

Any advise is highly appreciated, thank you all in advance!

1.
HGH is about boon/might stacking for lots of damage, and if you using, ’nades, bombs, or FT, yeah that is a lot of aoe damage and does great vs mobs.

2.
Unfortunately it is not that great in dungeons, because the content allows players to stack in one spot and and share boons with little effort. You will be better suited to design for combo-blasting fire fields so that everyone in your group is getting might and not just you (Bomb kit is good for this). Basically, you and everyone else in your group should always have 25 might stacks even without HGH.

3.
Yes, HGH is by nature hybrid, because might is boosting both raw power and condition damage, and grenade damage stacks well with both. It so happens that the PvP meta favors condition builds, so that’s how PvP HGH engies roll. Going power/prec is a great alternative for PvE.

4.
You also need level 60 to unlock grenadier master trait, which is the only point at which grenades are usable, so do not go ‘nades. If you are leveling in PvE I recommend bombs, as even just the auto-attack does really solid aoe damage. The traits don’t really matter much after that, although I would go for Forceful Explosives and Short Fuse in the power line.

If you’re gonna use grandes, make sure you activate fast ground targeting on options, you will love it

and, HGH is very very simple and boring, spams elixirs, get might and spam pistol skills on cool, so you might not like it if you’re looking for more complex plays

Oh and also.. unless you run nades, your dmg ( burning, poison) will overlap with most classes and HGH don’t tend to put out high bleeds count so your damage might be very low unless you get lucky with ’em burns or bring nades

For leveling, make sure you have 10 points on tools and get speedy kits for perms swiftness, and then go 30 on explosives so u can get granadier, I’d recommend running Nades, Bomb Kit and Exlir gun, DPS is pretty insane on both condi/power builds (a little more insane on power tho)

Oh and stay away from Flame thrower unless you use it got the animation or utility, if you try to use it as a main dmg source(using auto attack) you will be very disappointed of the numbers.. cool animation tho

HGH Grenadier = my fingers hurt, need lvl 70 (both Grenadier and HGH), wouldn’t recommend it to anyone. You chug Elixirs all the time to maintain as many stacks of might as possible, while rotating through your grenades and pistol cooldowns.

With level 20 you can play Bomber (you only need large bomb radius for it to work). Big’ol’Bomb, smoke and glue bombs – they give you some control. Add FT for even more control (another blind, cone push back). Equip shield too. You end up with some nice control abilities, combo fields as well as combo finishers. Really useful and versatile Engie

Damage on Grenades (traited, without HGH) is better than Bombs, but I prefer the later for their combo fields. Either way try to boost up your Condition Damage. Both Grenades and Bombs scale with power well.

My play style
Most of the time I run Pistol + Shield with Healing Turret, Bomb Kit, Flame Thrower and Rocket Boots in PVE. 10 in Tools for perma Swiftness (helps in travelling) and at least 20 in Explosives line (bomb radius, bomb cooldown, extra 10 points for Incendiary Ammo). Rest is up to you.

• PvE
  FT on low level zones (DE, doing hearts, trash mobs) performs really well – you kill stuff with one to two channels. Later on you start to use FT for utility it gives. Pull up to 5 mobs, static shot, and bomb them (SS blinds, smoke bomb helps you mitigate their damage even further, finally if they are not dead PBAoE blind from FT). Unless with a friend or two, I don’t bother combo-ing my fields (except for Healing in emergency). Learn to always pick up your Healing Turret after overcharge.

• World bosses
  Ranged autoattack works most of the time. When extra healing / condi removal might be needed – remove whatever you think will be least useful and take Elixir Gun.

• Temples
  Elixir Gun is useful here again, autoattack to keep Lyssa or Dwayna weakened + small heal. Remember you have AoE heal through Healing Turret (and blast finishers). As soon as you pick up your Healing Turret the water field disappears.

• Dungeons
  Easy ones, just like PvE (especially if a lot of skipping is involved, Rocket Boots <3). Harder ones – Elixir Gun again (show your party what great support you can give). When in melee you’ll be using boms, offloading pistol on cooldowns. If you need range, take EG (better autoattack than pistol). Try to inform your team of fire field and need for blast finishers (AoE might stacks).

Honorable mentions

• CM p(forgot which one, the one you need to destroy the gate): if you don’t have a thief in party (you can sneak in stealth and drop explosives near the gate), use bombs and full turrets. Drop turrets, smoke bomb, blast shield, blast turrets. AoE stealth just like shadow refugee.

• Arah p4 or, how to make an impact on Simin: You need to have 30 in Explosives (shrapnel, grenades cooldown, grenadier) and be the guy that sits on south spark spawn (in case you haven’t tried it yet, you have two runners: north that gets 3 sparks, and south that gets 2 sparks – e.g. YOU, as well as 3 DPSers on Simin). With 1500 range you can easily reach her while being close to sparks when they pop. Change to Riffle for better power scaling. With Condition Duration food you end up with a lot of stacks of bleeding and 25 stacks of vulnerability (that’s extra 25% incoming damage for each of the other 3 guys).

PvP / WvW
Look for Teldo’s node fighter build, PvE section uses part of this build. You can also use his full PvP build for all of the above.

I’m personally not terribly impressed with HGH but do run it sometimes.

1. For PvE Zerker Static Discharge and Rifle seem to work quite well. Decent AoE but HGH Grenades work quite well also, very good aoe damage. WvW I run Rabid Grenades and Gadgets.

2. I love this class for Dungeons. If you know what you’re getting into we have a build for it. Damage output is quite good also, at very least comparable to my thief and mesmer.

3. PvP I’m all over the place but am sorta liking a HGH Flamethrower build for point control. HGH is sorta counterproductive as you’re using your elixirs for Might instead of their actual effect when you need it. HGH/Grenades is a powerful but difficult to master build, pays off big once you get real good at it though. I run Zerker or Knights with it and let the might boost conditions.

4. Try a Static Discharge with low cooldown toolbelt options. Rifle is good for leveling. Bombs are good for leveling also. Lvl 20 give SD, 40 go bombs or SD or just Rifle, 60 opens up a lot for most builds.

Like others have said, don’t mess with grenades till 60. They also have a high learning curve so you’re gonna be less effective starting out. This is most evident in WvW/PvP as its harder to predict where your target will be, PvE is relatively easy. Turn fast ground targeting on your game options.

I’m still learning all the little tricks so I may be missing something but I haven’t been able to max Might stacks alone with HGH. Maybe I’m missing something though, just my experiences so far.

Blood