Guild Wars 2

Hello, GW2 Engineer (sPvP) community.

*Update, March 2nd – Thanks to Neglekt/Zodian @tvEsportsGaming on YouTube, a full video guide for 100nade is available from top to bottom. +1 to him, be sure to like and subscribe.

As one of a few sPvP ‘career engineers’, it had taken me just until recent months to discover the amazing burst potential of kit refinement, static discharge, and grenade barrage combined, to which I affectionately named and spread the “100nade” title that it is referred to today. It’s a joke reference to the role that 100b warriors play in this game.

This is nothing but a new spin on a pre-launch discovery to which most Engineers have dismissed as ‘not worth it’, or ‘too inaccurate’. However, I’ve been using it to great degrees of success in tournament play, both free and paid. Immediately, it provoked a lot of curiosity as to how exactly Engineers were pulling these kinds of bursts. This guide will include video examples and written explanations so you can 100nade with the best of them.

The Build:

http://tinyurl.com/apzoda7

Explosives:

Explosives V: Incendiary Powder: 33% Chance to burn for 2 seconds on crit.
- Based on preference, you may opt for exploit weakness, or empowering adrenaline – whatever you feel is going to assist make your pressure the greatest.

Explosives VII: Explosive Powder: Improves damage from explosions by 10%.
-This is a firm trait, there’s nothing wrong with, or anything better than doing 10% more damage on your burst.

Explosives XI: Grenadier: You throw grenades 25% farther, and you throw an extra grenade with each skill.
- This is a firm trait as well. Grenadier increases the grenade payload on barrage (and kit refinement barrage) from 6 to 8. This trait greatly increases your sustained ranged damage, which is key as well. You can not destroy an enemy trebuchet from the courtyard wall without the increased range on this trait.

Alchemy:

Alchemy I: Invigorating speed: When you gain swiftness, you gain 5 seconds of vigor.
- This is a trait that synergizes with speedy kits to buff your perma swiftness to include perma vigor. It synergizes with the 25pt tools minor, “enduring damage” to activate a 10% damage bonus when endurance is full, by keeping this trait active for longer.

Tools:

Tools II: Static Discharge: Discharge a bolt of lightning when you use a toolbelt skill:
- This trait is a useful increase to the burst in which this build focuses on. Another 1.9k aoe bounce on grenade barrage is key to maximizing burst potential. Great for the throw wrench ability, which hits like an absolute truck vs squishies.

Tools IV: Kit Refinement: Equipping a kit creates an attack or spell.
- This trait is what the entire burst combo is built around. Kit refinement creates a grenade barrage effect when triggered with an approximate 20s cooldown. This barrage is exactly equal to the toolbelt grenade barrage skill in damage. The downside to this trait is that the grenade barrage shoots in a 360* fan, and only will all 8 grenades strike the target if you are positioned INSIDE the enemy model when activated. The extra box of nails is awesome too. Hard trait to skip!

-Tools VI: Speedy Kits: Gain swiftness for 5 seconds when equipping a kit.
-Self explanatory, synergizes with invigorating speed to make you as slippery and mobile as possible.

The Tactics

1v1 (Or only being focused by one enemy)
The combos in which 100nade players need to pull off in 1v1 situations are quite flexible.

Approach #1: – (Unsuspecting enemy)
-Fire rifle 1 auto attacks as you close the gap until about 400 distance.
-Net Shot
-Walk inside enemy model, and grenade barrage at feet.
-Swap to grenade kit for second barrage
-Overcharged shot
-Throw wrench, (static discharge)
-Unload grenade kit (on corpse)

Approach #2 – (Head on confrontation)
-Magnet from 1200 range
-Pry bar face
-Quickly switch to rifle and overcharged shot before magnet yank wears off.
-Throw wrench, (static discharge)
-Net shot before overcharged shot knockdown wears off.
-Walk inside enemy model, and grenade barrage at feet.
-Swap to grenade kit for second barrage
-Unload grenade kit (on corpse)

These tactics are demonstrated against free tournament pugs for illustrative purposes:
http://www.twitch.tv/chaithh/c/1840661

Landing bursts on competent enemies who know what you’re capable of are significantly harder. Often in paids, enemy teams have the fear of God in them for what your burst can do to them, and this forces them to be ultra defensive. Give these ultra defensive, max range guys a taste of what rifle 1 spam can do.

Teamfight Approach
Get to a safe vantage point and unload grenades on the point. Your grenade1 skill is great sustained damage. Aim for downed enemies, because you can’t miss. This is not hard, like, at all. 111112111114111115111111.
http://www.twitch.tv/chaithh/c/1842321

Advanced Tactics

Elixir S enables you to do some amazing things. Lets start with the toss elixir S abilities.

Engineer ‘Shadow Refuge’ revive
-Toss elixir S at your feet when your ally is being stealth-executed. 50% of the time, it works everytime!
http://www.twitch.tv/chaithh/c/1842489

Engineer ‘Shark Attack’
-Toss elixir S at your feet for stealth before you come into line of sight with an enemy. Net shot the enemy from stealth, and position yourself while the enemy has no clue what’s coming.
http://www.twitch.tv/chaithh/c/1897273 New
http://www.twitch.tv/chaithh/c/1858542

Engineer ‘Juggernaut Attack’
-If indeed you proc stability instead of invisibility, this enables a better combo than you would be able to access normally. Magnet the enemy to you quickly, prybar face, overcharged shot, net shot, but since you had stability you were immune to your self knockback, allowing you to position your 100nade before the enemy recovers from the knockdown.
http://www.twitch.tv/chaithh/c/1858500
http://www.twitch.tv/chaithh/c/1858514

Tips and Tricks:

Target reviving and stomping enemies! And don’t forget to body beat the crap out of them. This build can make up to a pile of 3 corpses if you are an opportunist.
http://www.twitch.tv/chaithh/c/1858533

Neutraling Clocktower like a boss. Magnet the target into the gutter, then leap onto the point. CC chain him as he tries to recover.
http://www.twitch.tv/chaithh/c/1858538

Paid Tourney Gameplay- New

http://www.twitch.tv/chaithh/c/1905449 (This video is a vision of what a ‘good day’ looks like in the world of an 100nade engi.)

http://www.twitch.tv/chaithh/c/1942053 (This, too.)

http://www.twitch.tv/chaithh/c/1905589 (This video is a good tutorial of how to play home node defender on those rare occasions.)

Warning, these next three highlights showcase extreme immaturity (mostly mine) – I hope the comedy is appreciated.

http://www.twitch.tv/chaithh/c/1906081

http://www.twitch.tv/chaithh/c/1905697

http://www.twitch.tv/chaithh/c/1907784

That’s all for now, folks. I am still learning things everyday about this wonderful class, and I hope that you all have as much fun using an Engineer as I do.

-Five Gauge Chaith

I’m impressed that he was able to find a grenade build this powerful. I hope the devs don’t use this as an excuse for a nerf.

Very Very good build guide, one of the best and more accurate guides overall actually.
I’m not a big fan of this build, i’ve been trying a slightly different version of it and as you said, good players that learnt (the hard way) what you can do hardly get caught a second time, even due to the difficult nature of the burst itself (a little lag or bad connection and there’s no way to get inside the enemy model).
However it still keeps some very good utilities and a lot of burst blocking skills which is great and makes it actually pretty playable even in glass cannon gear.
The skill cap for this build is very high, and the difference between good and bad players is something you see the very first moment you meet one, which is good.
i’ve been practicing for the past few days and as soon as i mastered it i had very good duels, even against the most fearsome classes/build.
Also for some reasons, it seems that in spvp it does = or even more damage than in wvw, even with huge crit damage, probably that’s due to the much better latency.
Good job.

Hey Five Gauge,

I learn a lot by watching your video, and I’m happy you finally posted about the 100 nade build. Some players still think it’s a gimmick build, but I think you are the proof this build is solid.

I usually, after net shotting someone, I jump shot them to set up my combo. But the issue is it take longer and kinda give out my combo. I see you are “walking” in people, don’t you have an issue with collision? I can’t see your video right now. But half the time when I walk inside people, I collid with them and cant enter their body (sound weird).

And what do you think about slick shoes over Elixir S? I think we lose some option, especially rez/finishing in mini-me, but I can escape mostly anyone when using it. So If I miss my 100 nade combo, and l’m losing the fight, I can usually run to reset the fight.

Since you are not using the 10 trait to cast Elixir S at 25% hp, what do you do vs bursting Thief? How do you counter them?

Thank you!

Kardiamond.6952:

I usually, after net shotting someone, I jump shot them to set up my combo. But the issue is it take longer and kinda give out my combo. I see you are “walking” in people, don’t you have an issue with collision? I can’t see your video right now. But half the time when I walk inside people, I collid with them and cant enter their body (sound weird).

Go to “Options” and turn off “Melee Target Assistance” or whatever it’s actually called.

Kardiamond.6952:

Since you are not using the 10 trait to cast Elixir S at 25% hp, what do you do vs bursting Thief? How do you counter them?

Tool Kit 4’s Block, Elixir S, and Blind Grenades can all do wonders against a Thieves’ burst. Kiting around with Boxes of Nails on the ground can also do the job. Personally I think the free Elixir S at 25% HP is pretty much already too late, as that’s deep under Heartseeker execution range. You have to make sure you never go below 50% HP.

Maullus.1273:

Kardiamond.6952:

I usually, after net shotting someone, I jump shot them to set up my combo. But the issue is it take longer and kinda give out my combo. I see you are “walking” in people, don’t you have an issue with collision? I can’t see your video right now. But half the time when I walk inside people, I collid with them and cant enter their body (sound weird).

Go to “Options” and turn off “Melee Target Assistance” or whatever it’s actually called.

You mean that collision is caused by melee target asistance?

You mean my 100 nade build can just be twice as effective by unchecking this? :P

I find the 1 sec you need to switch to ether Gear shield or Grenade is a lot when facing a thief. But yeah, elixir S is prolly the answer.

I have a hard time playign a too generic build, that’s why I’m trying to push Slick shoe in that build!

So you finally found one of the builds ive been using since the toolkit buff..
Its terrible now though due to grenade nerfs – already designed better builds than this kitten

gz i guess there were enough other ppl who figured this is good
Maybe this will make ppl realize how horrible SD builds really are – ohh wait lol

oh yeah and how kittenty pistols have always been..

Thanks for the extremely helpful guide, it’s nice there was video examples for everything. I’ve been thinking about trying this build, but it’s going to require a huge change in my playstyle to pull off, as I usually play tankier builds, but this guide will certainly help! Thanks again man!

RaynStargaze.6510:

So you finally found one of the builds ive been using since the toolkit buff..
Its terrible now though due to grenade nerfs – already designed better builds than this kitten

gz i guess there were enough other ppl who figured this is good
Maybe this will make ppl realize how horrible SD builds really are – ohh wait lol

oh yeah and how kittenty pistols have always been..

Well thanks for your contribution to the competitive Engineer sPvP scene. Nawwwwwt.

Hate to be the one to inform you, but the increases to magnet, gear shield. and 10% grenade reduction took place at the same time on November 15th. Was it a terrible or great discovery for you? Haha. Theorycrafting cool builds happens for everyone at different times. What really matters is if you can turn it into something that works!

Combo’ing someone with several decently strong abilities inside a second doesn’t make that a bad idea because the damage of those abilities were reduced by 10%, and projectile speed upped by 10% in the November 15th patch. In this build, static discharge is taken because it’s essentially free damage – nothing is built around it as a main source of damage.

Kardiamond.6952:

Hey Five Gauge,

I learn a lot by watching your video, and I’m happy you finally posted about the 100 nade build. Some players still think it’s a gimmick build, but I think you are the proof this build is solid.

I usually, after net shotting someone, I jump shot them to set up my combo. But the issue is it take longer and kinda give out my combo. I see you are “walking” in people, don’t you have an issue with collision? I can’t see your video right now. But half the time when I walk inside people, I collid with them and cant enter their body (sound weird).

And what do you think about slick shoes over Elixir S? I think we lose some option, especially rez/finishing in mini-me, but I can escape mostly anyone when using it. So If I miss my 100 nade combo, and l’m losing the fight, I can usually run to reset the fight.

Since you are not using the 10 trait to cast Elixir S at 25% hp, what do you do vs bursting Thief? How do you counter them?

Thank you!

Taking slick shoes over elixir S would leave me a bit too vulnerable to basilisk venom, bulls rush, updraft combos that are inevitably followed up by backstab & hs, 100b, and burning speed, respectively.

I haven’t tested slick shoes extensively, but I feel it would be most valuable used offensively while you are IN their model anyways, rather than defensively. I’d assume this would guarantee your combo’s success! I think that elixir S opens up way more avenues of success, though.

How I fight glass cannon backstab thieves is to pop Elixir S the absolute first millisecond after he steals to me. There have been extremely rare times where I’ve been instantly killed by a 6.3k steal and a 13.5k backstab. Most times if the thief catches you offguard, pop elixir S as soon as you can – if you eat the backstab, you still have many opportunities to turn the fight around with 25%-70% health.

Nine out of ten times the thief is tunnel vision spamming dagger 1 or 2 on you while you are invulnerable, waiting to gib you as soon as it falls off. Keep your character turned away from him, maybe even run a few feet to convince him you’re going to run. While you have one second left of elixir S, drop your elite on yourself, stunning the thief for two seconds.

Elixir S falls off, and almost in all cases the thief refuses to shadowstep / breakstun because he smells blood, and feels you are going to run. Whip your character around, line up your burst, and insta-kill the thief.

If he does manage to counter that burst with lighting reflexes of steel, (or you mess up), throw up your gear block and run around eating all of the medkits that your supply crate dropped. Use your heal, and be ready to Rifle4 the thief when he pops. Magnet him to you if he’s too far, and get the rifle4 knockback on him. The thieves chances of beating you are now abysmal, so just hip shot and throw wrench / blunderbuss him to death.

Hope that helps you deal with thieves.

Devs can’t nerf this build, because if they would, they would have to delete engineer from pvp overall.

This is (besides the static discharge variation), one of the very few ( if not the only one), viable builds for tournament play, 90% of the engineers use it atm, give engineer the last grip to viability in pvp. Without it, everyone, who’s left playing engineer would reroll.

Condition builds suck hardcore atm ( average engineer bleed – 112, average necro bleed – 132, average engineer stacks – 7-8, average necro stacks 11-13), so it feels like the only choice atm.

Teldo is playing this, and ever since he started experimenting, most of the other players just switched to this build.

Xplosiv.1503:

Devs can’t nerf this build, because if they would, they would have to delete engineer from pvp overall.

This is (besides the static discharge variation), one of the very few ( if not the only one), viable builds for tournament play, 90% of the engineers use it atm, give engineer the last grip to viability in pvp. Without it, everyone, who’s left playing engineer would reroll.

Condition builds suck hardcore atm ( average engineer bleed – 112, average necro bleed – 132, average engineer stacks – 7-8, average necro stacks 11-13), so it feels like the only choice atm.

Teldo is playing this, and ever since he started experimenting, most of the other players just switched to this build.

I think that multiple kit condi builds are still in a good place. With geomancy, and shrapnel grenades on a 4s cd, perhaps double box of nails, there’s a lot of bleeding that can be done. Doing between 4-12 maximum stacks of confusion is quite significant, as well as significant burning.

I’d agree that offensive multi-kit condi builds are greatly underestimated. Can drop Bunker builds as fast if not faster then even Trap Rangers and Condi Necros.

Thanks for the answer guys!

@Chaith

I often use slick shoes as offence, and yes it’s really useful.

But overall, I think you are right and Elixir S has way more utility.

And what about Bleed over burn? I didn’t do any hard check up, but when I carpet bomb a node and I have to grenade spam 2-3 people, The bleed on explosion traits seem to be more efficient then the burn with ICD.

Incendiary Powder seems to be more about single target damage. It does damage faster but doesn’t last long.

Shrapnel seems to be more for group encounter. No ICD, and 15% proc on every grenade. The bleed hold on for 15 seconde, so they stack well on people.

I still think I might be gimping myself a bit more by using shrapnel, but I lover the AoE bleed!

Kardiamond.6952:

Thanks for the answer guys!

@Chaith

I often use slick shoes as offence, and yes it’s really useful.

But overall, I think you are right and Elixir S has way more utility.

And what about Bleed over burn? I didn’t do any hard check up, but when I carpet bomb a node and I have to grenade spam 2-3 people, The bleed on explosion traits seem to be more efficient then the burn with ICD.

Incendiary Powder seems to be more about single target damage. It does damage faster but doesn’t last long.

Shrapnel seems to be more for group encounter. No ICD, and 15% proc on every grenade. The bleed hold on for 15 seconde, so they stack well on people.

I still think I might be gimping myself a bit more by using shrapnel, but I lover the AoE bleed!

It really depends on what situation you are finding yourself in most. I personally feel that if you’re just spamming grenades into a crowd exclusively for at least 50% of your combat encounters, shrapnel will pull ahead.

Incendiary powder for my build ticks for 343 – it ticks twice per proc, making that basically instant gratification additional 686 damage to burst. This procs off of every single ability, rifle hip shots, wrench, everything. 33% chance on crit.

Shrapnel for my build ticks for 46 – it ticks 15 times per application, if not removed. So that’s 690 damage over 15 seconds. It really lasts for a long duration, which is nice. The trouble is applying it – applied on explosions only, and a low chance at that.

So shrapnel scales with the # of targets you are hitting with grenades. If you feel like you are hitting many targets with grenades at range all the time, then take it. If you are finding yourself in smaller 1-2 v 1-2 battles and you’re not spamming grenades at least half the time, then take incendiary powder to increase your burst across the board.

A couple weeks ago I ran into you in a free tourney.

I was running a variation of the build and when you noticed, you said something in map chat about it. I thought you were giving me crap about my build but then you ended up hitting me with the Grenade combo while I wasn’t paying enough attention to my surroundings (you opened with Magnet).

I had never been happier getting killed in sPvP.

Since you’ve done many tournaments with this build, I wanted to ask you something. Do you think the higher burst from Static Discharge is better than putting points into Firearms for Rifle Mod (more sustained damage).

Static Discharge seems to make classes that are already easy for me to fight even easier or it makes no difference (Thief). But the classes that are hard to fight don’t appear to become any easier. Could you tell me about some of your experiences and more difficult match-ups? Well-played Guardians and Elementalists, in particular, seem to give me the most trouble.

gkaare.8576:

A couple weeks ago I ran into you in a free tourney.

I was running a variation of the build and when you noticed, you said something in map chat about it. I thought you were giving me crap about my build but then you ended up hitting me with the Grenade combo while I wasn’t paying enough attention to my surroundings (you opened with Magnet).

I had never been happier getting killed in sPvP.

Since you’ve done many tournaments with this build, I wanted to ask you something. Do you think the higher burst from Static Discharge is better than putting points into Firearms for Rifle Mod (more sustained damage).

Static Discharge seems to make classes that are already easy for me to fight even easier or it makes no difference (Thief). But the classes that are hard to fight don’t appear to become any easier. Could you tell me about some of your experiences and more difficult match-ups? Well-played Guardians and Elementalists, in particular, seem to give me the most trouble.

Rifle Mod is a minimum 20pt investment in firearms. I love tools because a 14s cd heal and 21s combo is pretty amazing, not to mention it’s packed with critical damage. I can incorporate the 10% increased damage 25pt tools minor to my sustained grenade spam / hip shot spam as well, it just takes some playstyle adjustment to not waste a dodge on frivolous things before initiating the combo. This by itself replaces rifle mod for me, and works for my initial monster burst, too.

I find firearms completely lacking for the 100nade playstyle. Most of the time your burst is used on an opponent over 50% hp, so you won’t make use of the 15pt trait in firearms either.

Bunker guardians are somewhat of a challenge to hit with barrages, because they have two defensive cooldowns that you have to account for – shelter, and renewed focus. Make sure they’re down before netting. Do not engage one alone, as they can just wait for your damage and then nullify it.

The only way to counter persistent D/D or S/D eles is to global them. If you fail to do this, they will just kill you with sustained damage. Force or juke mist form and wait till protection from earth attunement is down. If they’re running a vitality amulet, or triple cantrips, then you’ll have to severely outplay them to win.

I use a very similar build for PvE and WvW. The main difference is swapping 10 points of Alchemy for 10 points of Invention solely for the half falling damage trait. Useful not just for surviving the fall but it gives you an extra grenade attack when pouncing on someone below.

I’ve also been running with the Elixir Gun (for the toolbelt heal and AoE condition removal), but I’m going to give Elixir S a try this afternoon.

@Dlechesnut

I heard the grenade from falling traits share the same cooldown then grnade from kit refinement.

Since you are using it, is it right?

Kardiamond.6952:

@Dlechesnut

I heard the grenade from falling traits share the same cooldown then grnade from kit refinement.

Since you are using it, is it right?

I heard similarly. I think 3 grenade barrages would be a little silly, haha.

I mostly use it for the .5 falling damage anyway.
That’s almost essential for running with a group in WvW.

Specterryu Quipter.8412:

I’m impressed that he was able to find a grenade build this powerful. I hope the devs don’t use this as an excuse for a nerf.

nah more than likely they will use this as an excuse as to why they don’t buff anything else on the engineer.

“see the damage output is there with grenades so engineers are fine”

because apparently if you’re an engineer every other kit/weapon is just fluff except grenades.

Khallis.5708:

Specterryu Quipter.8412:

I’m impressed that he was able to find a grenade build this powerful. I hope the devs don’t use this as an excuse for a nerf.

nah more than likely they will use this as an excuse as to why they don’t buff anything else on the engineer.

“see the damage output is there with grenades so engineers are fine”

because apparently if you’re an engineer every other kit/weapon is just fluff except grenades.

But those Thwack crits for 4k! Haha. In terms of sustained use, grenades are the only kit that is viable. All other kits, you use the proper skill shots and then swap it out.

Grackleflint.4956:

This build is unreal. My Glory gains in sPvP have gone through the roof. I used to play a bunker build, but bunkering—while nice—doesn’t get you the best glory per time invested by a long shot. Also—nobody comes when you call “inc Waterfall,” etc.
Once I learned to adjust to have a few less “oh kitten” buttons on my hotbar, I started seeing “Bodge Cogswell is on a rampage” pop up on my screen. It feels really good.
Thanks for sharing this VERY detailed guide with the community. I know it’s old news to a lot of Engineer players, but it was new to me.

I’m glad you made good use of it! Bunkering always falls short for grabbing glory unless you can guarantee every fight takes place on your node.

I could see you used Divinity runes in the build. I’m leveling an engineer (71 atm) but what other runes could you suggest as an alternative aside Divinity that would work just as great?

Gonna give 100nades a try then condition after although I’ll be using it in wvw rather than in the mists.

Theoretically Scholar 5/6 and 1/6 Divinity is strongest. 6/6 Ogre is a little behind that. Of course 6/6 Scholar tops all of that if you are over 90% Health.

Divinity’s great! In a 5 Scholar setup, 1 divinity, you’re getting 10% crit damage, 175 power, and 10 precision, 10 toughness, 10 vitality, 10 condi dmg, 10 healing.

6 Divinity, you’re getting 12% crit dmg, 60 power, 60 precision, 60 toughness, 60 vitality, 60 condi damage, 60 healing.

How I rationalize taking Divinity (may be a slight stretch) is that I consider the 60 power, precision, condi dmg, and high 12% crit dmg to be in the ballpark of equal to the offensive power of 5 scholar, 1 divinity. The extra 50 toughness, vitality, and healing over the other set is the free bonus that I pick divinity for.

Hi there five gauge, watched a few of the videos on twitch and it really got me thinking, Just what’s your keyboard set up for the grenade swap and grenade barrage tool belt skill? (plus runnin around and all that) TY!

Lunar Corporation.5720:

Hi there five gauge, watched a few of the videos on twitch and it really got me thinking, Just what’s your keyboard set up for the grenade swap and grenade barrage tool belt skill? TY!

Hi Lunar,

My setup is ZXCV for my toolkit, so, X is the barrage, and QER for utilities, so, Q is my grenade kit.

And using WASD, Im assuming? So if you are hitting barrage and then swap for the burst AFTER immobilize, where are your normal skills to hit netshot for the immobilize? It’s usually a big reach for me between SZXC for movement, QWERT for wep skills, 12345 for skills (kit swap) and F1-4 for the toolbelts. But obviously that wouldn’t be a good set up for this combo.

Just guessing is this 2-X-Q for you? Netshot-Barrage-swap combo?

I tried your build and really liked it.

I also watched Teldo from Team Paradigm, and he is using this variation: http://tinyurl.com/b5lum4e

In teamfights he often just uses the rifle instead of the grenade kit. Can you explain to me why you prefer what you are doing? I can’t see which one of the builds is better, so is it just a matter of taste?

The reason the Rifle is used over the Nades in most situations is the accuracy and therefore reliability. Success with anything but the Freeze Nades is iffy due to the small radius.

Azadoras.2790:

Teldo often just uses the rifle instead of the grenade kit. Can you explain to me why you prefer what you are doing?

Wall of text inc

It comes down to playstyle. It also depends on how often your team is downing people! Grenades are godly when used on a downed opponent – it’s like a necro dropping a load of wells. They scale based on how many downed opponents you encounter. The EU meta which Teldo plays in has more emphasis on longevity and attrition, I’m sure he sees less burst victims to ensure they get eradicated. In a teamfight that you’re not seeing a lot of downed enemies, spamming hip shot could be more sustained than lobbing nades vs many mobile targets. I find blunderbuss and jump shot to be questionable unless you’re picking off one controlled enemy.

Spamming hipshot from 1200 range should not happen for ‘most’ of a teamfight if your goal is to make sure a teamfight is in your side’s favour. Try magnet-ing a necro on a ledge and overcharge shotting him even further out of position, then delivering high burst! At this point, your goal is to body beat the hell out of this necro and run the potential of cleaving multiple people trying to get him up with grenades.

This is about traiting firearms though, not necessarily how often you fire a hip shot. There are other ways to buff your rifle without traiting firearms, that I feel, give you much more for your investment – enduring damage 25pt tools trait, and hidden flask 5pt alchemy, passive tool trait gains, static discharge, perma vigor, I’m looking at you.

Rifled barrels is a great trait – the only trait in the entirety of Firearms that excites me, along with hair trigger to set up my combo more often. Most of the gains from firearms I find are too passive and aren’t going to make you a rockstar.

I’ll do pros and cons for 20 pts firearms, as opposed to 10 alchemy, and 10 tools.
Pros:
Better sustained critical chance, through the 200 precision (9%). (This is nice)
Better bleeds/poisons/burn, through the 200 condi damage. (So-so)
Better bleed application, through applying bleed on crit. (Not bad! Might help disguise your netshot so it does not get removed every once and a while.)
Better range on rifle. (Not bad! – 1200 range hip shots will allow you to be 200 distance safer for some % of the time.)
10% Increased crit chance on sub 50% health enemies. (Not bad!)

Cons:
-The 9% critical chance, or 200 precision is mitigated by the 11s of fury you get at 75% hp through alchemy. While we’re on the topic of hidden flask – you’re getting retal for 11s, which almost always translates into a couple thousand damage (your high power makes it tick for 360ish). The stack of might is just gravy. This is a ridiculously awesome 5 pt trait you’d miss out on.
-The 200 condi damage you get for traiting firearms is really bad considering you are missing out on 10% critical damage, 10% reduction to healing and burst (2s and 3s reduction in CD for your heal and combos respectively), 100 vitality, and 10% boon duration. (10% boon duration is awesome for speedy kits so vigor and swiftness never fall off)
-5pt firearms minor – applying a 3s bleed on 30% of crits is just not going to be pulling any noticeable numbers.
-Rifled barrels isn’t going to be useful for anytime you’re combo-ing an enemy at close range, in range of your throw wrench, or using grenades. That’s a lot of downtime.
-10% increased crit chance while under 50% hp is not taking effect when you are skipping that part with your immense burst, lol.
-Rifle mod like rifled barrels is only useful when you have your rifle out. The 25pt minor in tools when endurance is full applies to all your abilities, even your huge burst. This will not be active as you dodgeroll away after landing your burst, but by the time you reposition, your vigor will have it active again when are lobbing nades / hip shooting.
-You miss out on doubling your endurance regeneration, also the synergy with the 25pt tools trait from doing so.
-Missing static discharge! This is free damage, in short range AOE just like the barrage is. Occasionally your 100nade combo will release 2 discharges (bug perhaps?) Each bounce hits about 30% harder than a single grenade in your barrage. For simplicity’s sake, we’ll say it’s equal, and only one discharge ever happens. If you have 16 nades in a combo, then bouncing a discharge off a pet/ally and back makes it like you threw 18 grenades – as 12.5% increase to single target burst, and of course more splash damage to account for. Discharge is cool for racking up that throw wrench damage, too.

TLDR:
Firearms makes you passively crit a little more, which you need to spam hip shot a lot to keep your traits active, whereas 10 tools and 10 alchemy makes you a more bursty, more survivable rockstar.

WoW, thanks a lot for this detailed explanation!

I was trying different builds based on 100nade build concept. I realized tool trait does not reduce any toolbelt skill recharge rate. Is this a new bug, I did not see it in bug compilation thread. I remember this working just a few days ago

lepri.6504:

I was trying different builds based on 100nade build concept. I realized tool trait does not reduce any toolbelt skill recharge rate. Is this a new bug, I did not see it in bug compilation thread. I remember this working just a few days ago

It does, but it does not affect the tooltip.

Load 30 pts into tools, use your medkit f1 and use a skill with a 15s cd such as overcharged shot.

The medkit f1 comes off cooldown just before, confirming a 14s recharge (the proper 30%).

lepri.6504:

I was trying different builds based on 100nade build concept. I realized tool trait does not reduce any toolbelt skill recharge rate. Is this a new bug, I did not see it in bug compilation thread. I remember this working just a few days ago

It actually is in the compilation thread! And as Five Gauge said, it doesn’t show the reduced recharge but it does actually reduce the recharge.

Also keep in mind that the Tools trait line doesn’t reduce the recharge of skills, it increases the recharge rate. So do not expect a 30% recharge reduction if you put 30 points into Tools.

Anyone running this in WvW? If so, how are you gearing? (Stats on gear, jewelry, gems—runes and sigils used?) Going full glass cannon with zerker, or trying to strike a balance? I was thinking, perhaps:

Power/Precision/Crit damage gear
Power/Vitality/Toughess jewelry
Power/Crit damage/Vitality jewels in the jewelry

I’ve been running with full Power/Precision/Crit damage. Just not sure if the loss of damage would be worth the health/armor gains, so I’d love to hear some first-hand accounts.

ty for reply on alternative runes!

I just got my engi to 80 today but gonna wait for the patch to see how viable this build will be after the aoe nerf. To those running it already keep us informed how it’s affected the playstyle. Ty!

Maullus.1273:

Anyone running this in WvW? If so, how are you gearing? (Stats on gear, jewelry, gems—runes and sigils used?).

I normally play TankCAT, or FlameCAT. However, a fellow Engineer told me about the 100nades…

I have had good success with this build in WvW, and was literally amazed when I burst down a D/D Ele so fast. Cornered a Thief, ran the rotation, and it was like butter hitting a hot skillet(was especially gratifying after he dropped Shadow Refuge right when I was doing the Grenade Barrage+Swap Grenade Kit PBAoE). Didn’t even have to FINISH HIM!(though I still popped Elixir S for TINY DUNK)

I use the following for my build:

Superior Runes of the Dolyak(went broke getting them for the TankCAT build), with a mixture of Orrian Karma gear consisting of:

Precision/Toughness/Crit Damage/Power

For my Rifle, I went with a Superior Sigil of Geomancy. Adds extra Bleed for 7 seconds, which I like(and the effect looks awesome combined with the WTF Grenade Barrage).

Jewelry is a combo of Emerald Orichalcum/Ruby Orichalcum Berserker’s with Crests of the Soldier, Rabid, and Ruby Orbs.

I have long tried to find a build that provides good survivability with above average damage for WvW. TankCAT was fun(and still is), FlameCAT is nuts (BURN BABY BURN!),but with the Runes I have, I call it the NadeCAT, and it is GLORIOUS.

I run pure glass cannon in wvw with 100nades. I bombhug everything that moves. Yaks, random mobs, trebs and other annoying seige, kitteny thieves, enemy commanders, worker boys ANYTHING…even the rabbits hahaha. Its like Ejiofor says “Butter hitting a hot skillet” I switched elixer s for net turret because ppl just never seem to bother with it and it lets me get ppl to pop their globals. They get scared when in a net these days. Generally I wait to pick out unsuspecting foes from groups or if I feel like it I will just sit back and spam rifle 1 or nades. Oh and as an asuran I seem to run into Norn Guardians alot and they are attracted to nades like flies to poop. Everytime i see one runnin at me im literally yelling “COME AT ME BRO” at my screen and laugh as they are forced to take a seat within a split second. Hell ill sometimes bombhug a downed opponent just because.

Did anyone use this build with health stealing omnomberry pies. That can help a bit about survivability

@Lepri

I am using it with pies in WvW, but it’s not has good as flametrower. :P But still owrth using it.

This build is kitten in WvW, and you can survive a lot by using toolkit gear and nails, jump shot to escape, exlixir s and toolbelt, supply drop.

I can usually outrun most people, except thosd warrior jumper and thief and some ele.

tried it out since its close to my build. im mostly wvw. hated it. cant stand kit refinement. the box of nails on toolkit is the only freebie that doesnt annoy the kitten out of me. medkit and grenade kit freebies are stupid. and it doesnt work in the air and underwater.

promptly changed back to 30/10/0/0/25, 5 more in either firearms or alchemy (either way doesnt matter).

maybe if i had a dedicated small group to run with, it wouldnt be so bad. but the point of a grenadier glass cannon is to scare the hell out of people from 1500 range, not 0.

Chaith.8256:

Hello, GW2 Engineer (sPvP) community.

insanemaniac.2456:

im wvw. hated it.

This tends to happen. It’s made with zero consideration for WvW in mind. Don’t you need that little thing that reduces fall damage by 50% as well? Best of luck.

how is this a new build?
I never realized how insanely fotm players can be.. haha.

Good writeup though!
Tools in general is a huge increase in burst potential for any build. Crit damage is inherently overpowered. ( a much larger, bad game design issue)

@Casia

Well did you really read his post? He said this was not a new build.

@Chaith

Don’t listen to InsaneManic, he prolly can’t pull the combo correctly.

I use it all the time in WvW, and it’s as strong as sPvP. When in a zerg, you use your 1500 grenade to carpet fire the place. From time to time, you pull someone with toolkit and combo him.

When roaming, you fight like sPvP.

I don’t see how it’s bad.

shouldnt be too hard: Magnet pull,weapon switch,Net Shot(unless you have the net turret net shot on toolbelt), swap to grenades and while at it hit the tool belt skill for max damage.