Guild Wars 2

I’m thoroughly frustrated with the engineer. Heal nerf before the start of the year completely screwed over my Juggernaut build. The flamethrower has never been super strong, but is consistent in fighting groups. Now I’m running into the flamethrower randomly stowing during fights. The freeze in Bitterfrost from elementals I have to reequip the flamethrower even though stability knocks off the freeze. Also when certain buffs tick off, the flamethrower will unequip at weird intervals.

Tell me about it, idk what to do now either, tried tons of changes but nothing fits even remotely close to the flamethrower power build I ran for the whole last year.
There is NO sPvP Amulet with Condition, Toughness and Power. Instead, there are ONLY condition amulets which have PRECISION on it…. since when is precision needed for a condition build !? Anet, please open your brain!

Hammer → Power
Bombs → Power
Nades → Power
Wrench → Power
Mortar → Power
Flamethrower → was perfectly fine with flameblast being power based. Juggernaught and all scrapper traits harmonized with that power based version, allowing to spec into tanky stats. But now ? I either go condition and my toughness/vitality drops from 21k to 14k and I’m doing about the same dmg as before, or I’ll just tickle the enemies and have my 21k+ hp and 3k toughness.

Going condition forces the use of the (unreliable as bunny!!) pistol 3 and 4, and then I am allowed to use flamethrower which hopefully fires 2,5 seconds to apply another burn. I can slot the trait that gives 33% duration on burning and every sec a crit that burns as well. Loosing juggernaught due to that. But what other kit besides this is worth using as condition engi ?

Legit Prep In.5893:

Tell me about it, idk what to do now either, tried tons of changes but nothing fits even remotely close to the flamethrower power build I ran for the whole last year.
There is NO sPvP Amulet with Condition, Toughness and Power. Instead, there are ONLY condition amulets which have PRECISION on it…. since when is precision needed for a condition build !? Anet, please open your brain!

Err…. Incendiary Powder activates off of critical hits dude.

Egrimm Van Horstmann.7921:

I’m thoroughly frustrated with the engineer. Heal nerf before the start of the year completely screwed over my Juggernaut build. The flamethrower has never been super strong, but is consistent in fighting groups. Now I’m running into the flamethrower randomly stowing during fights. The freeze in Bitterfrost from elementals I have to reequip the flamethrower even though stability knocks off the freeze. Also when certain buffs tick off, the flamethrower will unequip at weird intervals.

Is it definitely weird intervals? Because I noticed that if you hold the button for your kit for too long or even mildly brush past it, it will swap to that weapon or drop the kit. So it may just be that.

Incendiary Powder ? That procs only every 10 seconds and can get cleansed instantly worst case… I’d rather stay with juggernaught and perma stability + might stacking. But that makes no sense on a condition flamethrower anymore.

There was a time when the kits swapped back after a fixed amount of time , but I have not yet seen that …I’ll keep an eye open I guess

The Bitterfrost Iceblock debuff switches you out of your kit because it is technically an environmental package with the breakout skill on 1. The game doesn’t “remember” that you were on FT and instead swaps you back to your real weapons.
Same is true for Bloodstone Fenn where you equip the aerial skills whenever you glide. Whenever you pick a bundle up you have to re equip any kit you had in hand.

Legit Prep In.5893:

Tell me about it, idk what to do now either, tried tons of changes but nothing fits even remotely close to the flamethrower power build I ran for the whole last year.
There is NO sPvP Amulet with Condition, Toughness and Power. Instead, there are ONLY condition amulets which have PRECISION on it…. since when is precision needed for a condition build !? Anet, please open your brain!

Hammer -> Power
Bombs -> Power
Nades -> Power
Wrench -> Power
Mortar -> Power
Flamethrower -> was perfectly fine with flameblast being power based. Juggernaught and all scrapper traits harmonized with that power based version, allowing to spec into tanky stats. But now ? I either go condition and my toughness/vitality drops from 21k to 14k and I’m doing about the same dmg as before, or I’ll just tickle the enemies and have my 21k+ hp and 3k toughness.

Going condition forces the use of the (unreliable as bunny!!) pistol 3 and 4, and then I am allowed to use flamethrower which hopefully fires 2,5 seconds to apply another burn. I can slot the trait that gives 33% duration on burning and every sec a crit that burns as well. Loosing juggernaught due to that. But what other kit besides this is worth using as condition engi ?

Engineers often use precision for Condition builds because of the firearms trait line and its procing on crits.

Legit Prep In.5893:

Incendiary Powder ? That procs only every 10 seconds and can get cleansed instantly worst case… I’d rather stay with juggernaught and perma stability + might stacking. But that makes no sense on a condition flamethrower anymore.

There was a time when the kits swapped back after a fixed amount of time , but I have not yet seen that …I’ll keep an eye open I guess

Do not underestimate IP. With Hoelbrack you can hold 20 stacks of might easily with FT and its fire blast. So with exlix B you get stability, which means that actually the IP is far more effective in some circumstances than juggernaut. At 20 stacks of might its damage is decent, and it forces people to waste cleanses cause they don’t know how effective your burn is at a glance. In addition you reapply burn with AA with flame blast and with the fire wall thingee. So pretty much constant burn. My PVE engi uses flame legion runes to get the damage bonus on burn (plus they were free from running dungeon).

But IP is underestimatedly good in PvP. With firearms you get bleed and vuln stacks on crit. pluse extra crit chance when bleeding, and with it burn too.

A great use of IP is to let someone attack into your shock shield, then hit it while SS is up. They take vuln, burn, bleed and sig of air / sig of blood procs Plus you’re blocking.

I would actually say that for PvP IP is in general a far better trait than jug.

Dirame.8521:

I’m thoroughly frustrated with the engineer. Heal nerf before the start of the year completely screwed over my Juggernaut build. The flamethrower has never been super strong, but is consistent in fighting groups. Now I’m running into the flamethrower randomly stowing during fights. The freeze in Bitterfrost from elementals I have to reequip the flamethrower even though stability knocks off the freeze. Also when certain buffs tick off, the flamethrower will unequip at weird intervals.

Is it definitely weird intervals? Because I noticed that if you hold the button for your kit for too long or even mildly brush past it, it will swap to that weapon or drop the kit. So it may just be that.[/quote]

No I’m not brushing the button for the kit. I have a six button mouse so I don’t use the 7-0 stuff unless I actually click it. It also unequips when gliding in Bloodstone Fen and if you hit a ley line in Lake Doric, but I think that has to do with the skills changing, problem is that I can’t use glide to pursue or in combat in those zones without dumping the flamethrower and losing stability. Second there are actually buffs that when they tick off actually force my engineer to revert to main weapon. This seems to happen at random as I haven’t narrowed down which buff is doing it. And this effect happens anywhere in Tyria.

Legit Prep In.5893:

Tell me about it, idk what to do now either, tried tons of changes but nothing fits even remotely close to the flamethrower power build I ran for the whole last year.
There is NO sPvP Amulet with Condition, Toughness and Power. Instead, there are ONLY condition amulets which have PRECISION on it…. since when is precision needed for a condition build !? Anet, please open your brain!

Hammer -> Power
Bombs -> Power
Nades -> Power
Wrench -> Power
Mortar -> Power
Flamethrower -> was perfectly fine with flameblast being power based. Juggernaught and all scrapper traits harmonized with that power based version, allowing to spec into tanky stats. But now ? I either go condition and my toughness/vitality drops from 21k to 14k and I’m doing about the same dmg as before, or I’ll just tickle the enemies and have my 21k+ hp and 3k toughness.

Going condition forces the use of the (unreliable as bunny!!) pistol 3 and 4, and then I am allowed to use flamethrower which hopefully fires 2,5 seconds to apply another burn. I can slot the trait that gives 33% duration on burning and every sec a crit that burns as well. Loosing juggernaught due to that. But what other kit besides this is worth using as condition engi ?

Seems to me that if your assessment is accurate, the exercise to repurpose FT renders it a less than ideal weapon for PVP … which is questionable in the first place considering most people disliked the effects that retal has on the FT user to being with.

In light of that, I don’t see the changes as that big a loss for the profession, especially since the changes made to FT make it much more suitable as a PVE or even a WvW weapon. In fact, coupled with the fact that blasting light fields is not retal anymore and is condi removal, this weapon is an excellent choice for certain operations in WvW.

The weapon itself was an excellent candidate as a condition weapon, even before the changes. Crit procing bleeds from traits and Earth along with might stacking is quite a thing to behold and now it has multiple sources of burning, it’s a no brainer as a hybrid build. It’s a weapon that can be used to really good effect for various build configurations; that’s it’s strength.