Guild Wars 2

Before I start, I should say that I’m writing this as someone who isn’t that experienced on Engineer, but has seen what they’re capable of in terms of decapping far and wanted a go for myself.

I am doing this as much as a learning experience for myself as for the benefit of others, as such I encourage discussion of other choices that I do or do not mention below. When doing so please bear in mind that this for a solo decapper whose sole role is to run to the enemy point and contest it for as long as possible, without receiving aid other than in exceptional circumstances. It can also be used to hold home, but stays away from team fights.

While this build has not quite broken into the meta at the highest tier, at everything below ESL it can be very effective. It either accomplishes capping far point or at least keeping it neutral, or it pulls away enemies from team fights, giving your team an advantage. In either case, it normally reduces the pressure on homepoint too.

Build Link

Contents

1. Weapon Choice
2. Utilities
3. Kit Skills
4. Traits
5. Equipment, Combos and Tips

1. Weapon Choice
Pistol/Pistol
Despite the immobilise, this isn’t really an option. There is far more utility in terms of keeping a point contested and survival on the other two sets.

Pistol/Shield
I would love to say that this is a viable option. By far my favourite set on the Engineer, the bouncing blind has excellent utility, the long poison helps with pressure. There is also a knockback and a block to boot.

Rifle
While the rifle seemingly lacks some survivability, it offers a lot of invaluable control when attempting to contest a node. Here’s a brief breakdown.

1 Hip Shot
Standard auto attack, you won’t get much use out of this

2 Net Shot
This is the main reason this weapon is taken over Pistol/Shield. A ten second cooldown on a 2 second Immobilise is excellent, and can be easily combo’d with knockbacks for instantly neutralising points if you time it right. It has a long range, meaning its also very useful for slowing down enemies trying to escape or get to a capture point ahead of you. It is a slow projectile though, and easily dodged, best used in conjunction with knockbacks.

3 Blunderbuss
Another one you won’t get much use for. For the most part, this build puts out no pressure, use it if you’ve got nothing else to use, but as you’ll learn that’s pretty much never the case. It can be useful against thieves that you actually are trying to kill though.

4 Overcharged Shot
This knockback has a reasonably short range. It takes some getting used to if you havent used the rifle before. Even though it knocks back quite a long distance, its best to wait until your opponent is on the edge of the cap point, taking account of the direction your facing. By doing that you can ensure that you stay on the point when knocked back and start capping. This knockback will only hit one target, regardless of how many enemies are infront of you.

5 Jump Shot
This really has two purposes in this spec, mobility and as a leap finisher. I’ll get onto the combos later, but in mobility terms, I suggest you familiarise yourself with this tip for most effective use of this skill.

2. Utilities
Heal
Given that the elixir is untraited, it is generally a poor choice, with far more utility and survivability provided by the other two options. I won’t be considering it for the purposes of this discussion

Med Kit
A heal on the toolbelt, 3 dropped bandages and one condition clear every 15 seconds.

Healing Turret
The healing turret has two water fields, provides regeneration, and the ability to clear two conditions every 15 seconds. The detonation is a blast finisher.

For me, the med kit would be the better choice if I was speccing further into the tools line, due to the 15 point minor traits in tools and the reduced recharge on the toolbelt heal. The 15 point minor in inventions, which I currently take, is useless with the kit.

Personally, I find the med kit too fiddly to use, as you spend far too long in it to maximise the healing potential, distracting you from other cooldowns which are already quite difficult to manage.

I also find the water field on the healing turret very valuable. However, I’d love to hear if anyone has used a 20 points in the tools line build instead and taken packaged stimulants instead, which increases the healing from bandages and reduces the cooldown on the amulet, while allowing them to be ground targeted. Its something I’m considering. Another important note is that the med kit heal is more susceptible to interrupts.

Slot Skills
Most of the choices here are going to be kits, which really require a longer guide to look at the usefulness of them. That’ll be in the next section of this guide. Here I’ll outline the choices for the build, what I use and why. It’s very important to get a good balance of skills to be able to deal with a variety of different classes, but I’d welcome discussion about this section particularly below. There are a lot of utilities that could be argued to be useful, so please bear with me!

Skills I’m going to rule out because of a lack of utility here are Grenade Kit, Rifle Turret, Flame Turret, Rocket Turret, Rocket Boots, Elixir U, Elixir B (stab duration not worth it imo), Personal Battering Ram, Utility Goggles (too long CD, toolbelt useless), Elixir R (too long CD on toolbelt, utility not that useful).

Leaving Elixir Gun, Tool Kit, Bomb Kit and Flamethrower as kits. Elixir S, Elixir C, Slick Shoes, Net Turret, Thumper Turret as other choices. If I were to discuss anymore, I’d be here all day.

I’ll leave the kit choices for the latter section of the guide, but I’ll discuss the other utilities here:

Elixir S seemingly has a lot of utility. A stun break, a stealth, invulnerability. There is a huge problem though in that stealth and invulners prevent point capture. For me this is not a viable choice.

Elixir C is an excellent choice for dealing with condition classes. The ability to have a safeguard once you drop below 25% health and auto immune response activates is truly excellent. The combination of the two make you unkillable by condi classes if you use them correctly.

While the net turret has its uses, it actually does little for survivability once the point is capped. I currently mostly take Flamethrower and the Rifle, which provide more than enough knockbacks for capping the point without the immobis here. The same follows for slick shoes, useful, but not useful enough, despite the stun breaker.

The thumper turret though has more utility with a blast finish/stunbreak/insta stability combo on the toolbelt. This is definitely an option worth looking at.

Elite Skill
There are two choices here, the supply crate or Elixir X. The supply crate is undoubtedly better for survivability, but Elixir X offers stability regardless of the transformation and is your best chance of neutralising a point with multiple enemies on it. Both choices are viable to some extent, but the clutch neutralises offered by Elixir X make it the best choice in my book. Again, if taking packaged stimulants the sustain from supply crate might offer a lot more, worth a try!

Kits
Bomb Kit
In terms of things useful for the far point assault engineer, this kit offers an AoE knockback on a relatively short cooldown, an AoE blind and an AoE immobilise. The pressure from the fire and concussion bomb is very low, and barely worth mentioning, though the concussion bomb may dissuade some players from attacking. They do have their uses against thieves.

Tool Kit
The shortest cooldown in the game coupled with a 1200 range pull, an AoE crippling field and another source of confusion on this kit. The toolbelt skill is a guaranteed physical projectile, which when used in melee range can provide combo finisher effects for the Engi.

Flamethrower
A relatively useless toolbelt skill, coupled with the napalm ball and flame wall may make this kit seem underwhelming. However, it provides an excellent short cooldown knockback and an insta cast blind which is excellent in clutch situations.

Elixir Gun
This kit really shines in this build. A stun break on the toolbelt is an excellent addition. The healing from Super Elixir is very noticeable, especially when the kit cooldown is traited, and is a light field. There is a blast finisher which helps with mobility, a swiftness/cripple to help keep the gap from melee classes and a source of weakness on the auto attack.

Given all these choices, I find that the best balance is struck using an Elixir Gun, with Elixir C and a Flamethrower. I would consider swapping Bomb Kit for the flamethrower if it werent for the insta cast blind and the fact that the Big Ol’ Bomb is too easy to spot. Given a shorter cooldown I would also consider the inclusion of the Thumper Turret, but Elixir C is too useful as the main counter to condition specs. The Elixir Gun and Flamethrower can be traited to together have 20% reduced cooldown and I believe provide an excellent balance of survivability and point denial.

Will finish this tomorrow

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