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Posted by: Nerifes.4931

Nerifes.4931

Hi, my engi is currently decked out in full Zerk Ascended gear. I have Sinister Trinkets and access to the Viper insignia’s and was wondering, is it worth to go Condi Engi for PvE/Raids? Or should I stick to Power Engi?

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Posted by: Xyonon.3987

Xyonon.3987

Wahoo!!

Both, Condi and Power, have their usage in raids.


Vale Guardian
Condi is great for the red add at Vale Guardian, but if you already have 2 condi professions at VG, go power and you’ll deal around 30% more damage to VG himself.


Gorseval
For Gorseval condi is great if you have your 3 kits or if you have to slow an add on your own for a long time. If you have slick shoes and you have the first add to be taken care of, power is the way to go, since condi engi loses a ton of damage if he misses a kit due no viable auto attack.


Sabetha
As for Sabby it doesn’t really matter what you do – do what you like more. I’m not completly done with my tests yet, but what I know is that the dps greatly depends on your Mesmer. The Mesmer should provide perma quickness, no question. Then there is the possibility and squad team that you’ll either have 50%~ or 100% alacrity uptime. If you have 50%, power is most likely stronger, if you have 100% condi probably will be.


A good main engi should always carry both setups with him. Short said – condi for high armor and ideally max dps and power for low armor, damage and utility.

Greez!
- Ziggy

Ziggs Ironeye – Engineer | Madame Le Blanc – Mesmer | Mentor (PvE) | EU
“Mentoring engineers / mesmers and showing you what you can do with your fantastic class!
Just pm me for my advice! Always eager to help!”

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Posted by: Nerifes.4931

Nerifes.4931

Wahoo!!

Both, Condi and Power, have their usage in raids.


Vale Guardian
Condi is great for the red add at Vale Guardian, but if you already have 2 condi professions at VG, go power and you’ll deal around 30% more damage to VG himself.


Gorseval
For Gorseval condi is great if you have your 3 kits or if you have to slow an add on your own for a long time. If you have slick shoes and you have the first add to be taken care of, power is the way to go, since condi engi loses a ton of damage if he misses a kit due no viable auto attack.


Sabetha
As for Sabby it doesn’t really matter what you do – do what you like more. I’m not completly done with my tests yet, but what I know is that the dps greatly depends on your Mesmer. The Mesmer should provide perma quickness, no question. Then there is the possibility and squad team that you’ll either have 50%~ or 100% alacrity uptime. If you have 50%, power is most likely stronger, if you have 100% condi probably will be.


A good main engi should always carry both setups with him. Short said – condi for high armor and ideally max dps and power for low armor, damage and utility.

Greez!
- Ziggy

Wow thank you for the informative response. It seems like Power is honest a sweet spot right now and that Condition needs a little more study before I invest into the full armor and weapons for Vipers.

[TV] Jade Quarry

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Posted by: Xyonon.3987

Xyonon.3987

Truth is they are pretty even, but engis are often wanted as condi for the red add at VG and pugs normally don’t know anything else about engi. So just try to get 2 exotic sets, one power and one condi. At least you should aim for it

Ziggs Ironeye – Engineer | Madame Le Blanc – Mesmer | Mentor (PvE) | EU
“Mentoring engineers / mesmers and showing you what you can do with your fantastic class!
Just pm me for my advice! Always eager to help!”

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Posted by: David.5974

David.5974

At VG every pug want condi engie(kicking seekers and condi at red guard) but power tank scrapper is pretty nice too. Your group loose dps yea(but at VG it’s not nessesary) but you bring god-moded tank and heavy cc with slick shoes(if your party/guild doesnt have enough cc for 5.phase)

Myself-I love more condi then power. Power build I use on VG as tank(condi work too but seekers etc and if you not trust your healer, this is better choice).

“Doctor suggest me, to stop play with engi because my fingers are broken.
So.. I start play scrapper. "

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Posted by: insanemaniac.2456

insanemaniac.2456

quite frankly, do not bring slick shoes to vg. his break bar is on a 30 sec cd, while slick shoes is 45. its perfect for gorseval though.

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Posted by: Dinosaurs.8674

Dinosaurs.8674

Power engi isn’t bad for raids really in terms of DPS, but the standard condi build is just more useful in every fight.

VG: condi needed for red guardian; ranged DPS extremely valuable for lightning team; bomb kit 5 useful for seeker control

Gorseval: Bomb Kit 5 super useful if you need to CC a spirit during split (and you probably do). Big ol bomb more helpful for soloing break bar than flamethrower 3.

Sabetha: Engineer’s only role here is kiting napalm, which is pretty bad with a hammer.

Also I am extremely suspicious of Xyonon saying that power engineer does 30% more damage than condi against VG. I haven’t done DPS calc testing with hammer engi to back it up, but I know about how much damage condi engi does. And if power engi really deals 30% more than that, then engineer is the best DPS class in the game, lol.

In my experience playing power engi in raids the DPS is about even for VG since he has low toughness and moves a lot. Condi is better DPS for gors and sab because they have higher toughness.

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Posted by: Xyonon.3987

Xyonon.3987

Wahoo!


At VG every pug want condi engie(kicking seekers and condi at red guard) but power tank scrapper is pretty nice too. Your group loose dps yea(but at VG it’s not nessesary) but you bring god-moded tank and heavy cc with slick shoes(if your party/guild doesnt have enough cc for 5.phase)

Myself-I love more condi then power. Power build I use on VG as tank(condi work too but seekers etc and if you not trust your healer, this is better choice).

I’d never take a tank Engi. Sure, better than no tank, but Mes / Rev do the job much better with less damage loss for the PT (wich you said).

Regardless of power or condi, you have enough CC with the common Engi skills like air blast and big old bomb, power even offers more like space for blasty or simply thunderclap into rocket charge.

You onlyn need 2 condis, the 3rd Engi should go power for more damage. I agree that you don’t “need” the dps at VG, but hey, you didn’t “need” to be zerker in dungeons / fotm either, yet we always recommended to do so, for max efficienty / speed.


quite frankly, do not bring slick shoes to vg. his break bar is on a 30 sec cd, while slick shoes is 45. its perfect for gorseval though.

While you have to think about 25% CDR from Mes, I agree that slick shoes are a Gorseval only thing.


Power engi isn’t bad for raids really in terms of DPS, but the standard condi build is just more useful in every fight.

Quite the opposite. Power Scrapper has much more utility than condi Engi ever could dream of. If you want to achieve this with a condi build, you’ll have to swap kits or weapons and lose so much damage that you’d be better as power in the first place.

VG: condi needed for red guardian; ranged DPS extremely valuable for lightning team; bomb kit 5 useful for seeker control

Condi is ONLY needed for Red Guardian. A power Scrapper offers higher ranged DpS, more mobility and can use FT and/or Bomb Kit aswell, yet in my expirience other skills like Blast Gyro come in handy aswell, especially for it’s high movement boost and heal for the other Scrappers.

Gorseval: Bomb Kit 5 super useful if you need to CC a spirit during split (and you probably do). Big ol bomb more helpful for soloing break bar than flamethrower 3.

Both, condi and power Engi use the same utilities in that fight: Grenade Kit, Bomb Kit and Slick Shoes. Difference is, power Scrapper has a viable high dps auto attack. The condi Engi cannot compete with that when he misses a Kit. The damage falls rapidly down and he’ll be forced to throw crappy 10k DpS grenade autos while the power Scrapper uses 18k bombs. Also: Shock Shield / Rocket Charge for evade damage, Thunderclap for CC, protection for … well it’s protection man!

Sabetha: Engineer’s only role here is kiting napalm, which is pretty bad with a hammer.

Kiting Napalm? You mean Sabbys ranged attacks??? That’s the Druid’s job, not the Engi’s. Also, the main reason to bring an Engi for Sabby is blind for rendering Thugs harmless. Sometimes the Thugs also spawn at the Druid and won’t join your party at Sabby / can’t be pulled cuz OOR → then you can / have to use the Mortar blind so the Druid is safe. Engi is also much safer than Ele as a backup cannon killer, or has (power) great burst for turrets. Engi also has some healing / protection output for allies to stay alive, especially for Necro minions.

There is MUCH MORE than just “kiting Napalm”, wich is not even his job.

Also I am extremely suspicious of Xyonon saying that power engineer does 30% more damage than condi against VG. I haven’t done DPS calc testing with hammer engi to back it up, but I know about how much damage condi engi does. And if power engi really deals 30% more than that, then engineer is the best DPS class in the game, lol.

Every mob in the Raids have 2597 armor. The only exceptions are the Red Guardian with 1’375’223 armor and Vale Guardian with low 1910 armor. This means (2597/1910=) that you’ll deal 35.97% more damage with POWER attacks than you normally would. So yea, I’m pretty certain that’s the case then.

The potential maximum a Power Scrapper can achieve against Vale Guardian, in an unrealistic, perfect, no mistake world, is 35k DpS. More realistic → 30k. That’s because of the low armor, nothing special. Even Mesmer can get to 20k there.

In my experience playing power engi in raids the DPS is about even for VG since he has low toughness and moves a lot. Condi is better DPS for gors and sab because they have higher toughness.

This was definitly the case in the old days, but since the rise of the Chrono and thus Quickness aswell the fall of Alacrity since last patch, auto attacks are much more common now and that’s where condi Engi stinks. Power Scrapper autos are 80% stronger than condi Engis. I don’t say that power >>>> condi, no way. I say that there are more things to consider than just movement and the old calculations.

VG → low armor, power wins.
Gorsy → Slick Shoes, power wins.
Sabby → expect them to be even, yet with 2 Mes (100% alacrity) I bet condi is slightly ahead of power.


Opinions?

Greez!
- Ziggy

Ziggs Ironeye – Engineer | Madame Le Blanc – Mesmer | Mentor (PvE) | EU
“Mentoring engineers / mesmers and showing you what you can do with your fantastic class!
Just pm me for my advice! Always eager to help!”

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Posted by: David.5974

David.5974

Can you post your raid power build?

“Doctor suggest me, to stop play with engi because my fingers are broken.
So.. I start play scrapper. "

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Posted by: Dinosaurs.8674

Dinosaurs.8674

Sorry but I just don’t believe a lot of the stuff you are saying about power vs condi. First of all, there is no way the optimal DPS setup for a power engineer includes bomb kit. The only power oriented skill on the whole kit is the autoattack, which is a better auto than everything else you have, but losing either flamethrower or elixer gun has got to be worse. Acid bomb is one of the highest damage skills engineer has and the cooldown is only 15s, and flameblast is very high dps on a 6s cooldown. There are so many skills on power engi that are better than autoattack that it is used only sparingly, even without alacrity – you can say autoattacks are “more common” since the alacrity nerf but they are still extremely rare. Flame Blast, Electro Whirl, and Shrapnel Grenade are all better than autoattack and their cooldowns are 6s, 6s, 5s. Just with those three skills you can fill up most of the time. I guess if you have perma quickness and no alacrity then you might need to AA a lot, but as it stands AA usage is pretty minimal on engineer of any kind. So why would you bother with bomb kit? I can see taking it on gorseval if you need to CC a spirit but it’s likely a dps loss over egun or flamethrower.

Second of all, power engi does not deal anywhere near the ranged damage of condi engi. Sure you can hit grenade barrage and orbital strike, but you can’t hit acid bomb or electro whirl, rocket charge puts you in melee range, and flame blast requires you to wait way too long for the detonation to make it worth it. If you are taking bomb kit as you suggest then it is obviously just as bad. Condi engineer only loses fire bomb from its high DPS skills at range. If you go too far you will also lose blowtorch, but you also get pretty good damage from grenades, pistol skills, and mortar kit 2.

Third, there is nothing wrong with having engi kite napalm. Saying it is “Druid’s job” as if there is no other way to run the raid is ridiculous. I’m not going to say that engineer is the best napalm kiter because it isn’t at all, but having a necro or engi do it lets the druid focus entirely on healing and ensures that grace of the land is maxed out all the time. Really though there isn’t much reason to bring engineer to this fight in general over tempest or thief. They both deal better damage and have blinks for cannon running. Blind isn’t anywhere near as useful as you suggest if your chrono just pulls in the bandits before flame walls come, or if your team just doesn’t position themselves stupidly. Thief has a spammable ranged blind in any case, so I still don’t see the advantage of engineer. I don’t know why you would have to blind something to keep your kiting druid safe, they can just heal themselves or move out of the way.

I don’t know where you are getting the idea that engineer is a “safer” cannon runner than elementalist. Eles have blink which lets them avoid pretty much every bit of damage on the way to a cannon, and they get protection from overloads and have plenty of their own heals with auras. And sure engineer is good for killing turrets but you know what else is? Ele and thief.

Fourth, your calculation only shows that a power build will do 35% more damage against vale guardian than against gors and sab. It says nothing about doing that much more damage than a condi build. It is certainly possible that power engi does more damage overall than condi engi in that fight, but I really doubt it is by that much.

Finally, saying that power engi has better utility than condi is ridiculous. Standard power build (nades, egun, FT) has no glue bomb or glue shot against seekers, only the less useful glob shot. Your bomb kit power build (which I’m assuming replaces egun) is a little better, but it still has less seeker control, and is worse against VG in general because 1.) condi is highly desirable in that fight, and 2.) ranged damage is highly desirable in that fight. Against gorseval you again don’t have glue shot which is bad against spirits, and sure you have more hard CC on hammer but it doesnt matter because slick shoes solos the breakbar anyway. Against sab I would say that power is better assuming you are not kiting napalm because it kills turrets and cannons faster, but as I said before I think that’s bad in general compared to ele or thief.

David if you’re looking for a power build, here you go. This would be a typical build for raids. You can take no scope over pinpoint distribution if you won’t be getting fury from your squad. You will be crit capped assuming you are under the effects of fury, banner of precision, and spotter.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vdAQFASlUUhSsY7WwWLQ7FLjI13psKtC9XmlhJYtcLBAA-ThRBABXt/o8zMlg4pDAgHAAlq/8wFAgUADMGA-e

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Posted by: Xyonon.3987

Xyonon.3987

Heya,

Well then I’ll try explain you everything then!


there is no way the optimal DPS setup for a power engineer includes bomb kit. The only power oriented skill on the whole kit is the autoattack…

Big Ol’ Bomb and the Fire Bomb both are a dps increase compared to the Bomb auto. BOB has a Damage-per-invested-Second-Cast-Time of 38.5k, FB has a DpiSCT of 21k, the autohit 18k.


…which is a better auto than everything else you have, but losing either flamethrower or elixer gun has got to be worse. Acid bomb is one of the highest damage skills engineer has and the cooldown is only 15s…

Acid bomb has a DipSCT of 31.5k and is indeed high, so you still pick it. The problem with it tough is that it’s not affected by quickness since it’s a movement skill. It’s less of a “godly” skill nowdays than it was before. If you don’t have any quickness, it’s still the strongest skill we have.


…and flameblast is very high dps on a 6s cooldown.

Not anymore. The problem with that skill is that you are forced to wait. You have to wait until the projectile passes trough the enemy and then push again to make it explode. And that whole process takes too long for 18.5k damage. Quickness is the problem here. You make it unaffected by quickness unless you are so far away that you could just shoot the kitten thing and make it explode on max range by itself, but even then the DpiSCT is only 23k. It’s low CD would force you to move back and forth all the time wich is in many scenarios not good, especially because you lose 10% crit chance over 240 range. If you explode it manualy in that time you’d attacked twice with a bomb auto, already done 36k damage. Quickness it the doombringer of this skill.


There are so many skills on power engi that are better than autoattack that it is used only sparingly, even without alacrity – you can say autoattacks are “more common” since the alacrity nerf but they are still extremely rare. Flame Blast, Electro Whirl, and Shrapnel Grenade are all better than autoattack and their cooldowns are 6s, 6s, 5s. Just with those three skills you can fill up most of the time. I guess if you have perma quickness and no alacrity then you might need to AA a lot, but as it stands AA usage is pretty minimal on engineer of any kind. So why would you bother with bomb kit? I can see taking it on gorseval if you need to CC a spirit but it’s likely a dps loss over egun or flamethrower.

With 100% quickness AND alacrity, you are forced to aa at least twice after each rotation except for the big bang when all your 25s CD’s are ready again. You can now either chose to use a 13.5k hammer auto hit, a 12.5k nade auto hit or a 18k bomb auto hit. I’ve done the math and you lose in the long term if you try to rotate without bomb kit. However if you are rather unskilled and not fast enough with using your skills, then you will auto attack less, because you do less in general.


Second of all, power engi does not deal anywhere near the ranged damage of condi engi. Sure you can hit grenade barrage and orbital strike, but you can’t hit acid bomb or electro whirl, rocket charge puts you in melee range, and flame blast requires you to wait way too long for the detonation to make it worth it. If you are taking bomb kit as you suggest then it is obviously just as bad. Condi engineer only loses fire bomb from its high DPS skills at range. If you go too far you will also lose blowtorch, but you also get pretty good damage from grenades, pistol skills, and mortar kit 2.

Power Engi has a stronger Orbital Strike, Grenade Barrage and a stronger Grenade auto hit, wich makes up for most of the damage. Then he has access to Thunderclap and is able to swap kits without a problem (where Condi struggles). He has access to skills like Throw Wrench and Launch Personal Battering Ram wich both deal as much damage as Shrapnel Grenade or Orbital Strike.

Condi Engi on the other hand only has Incendiary Ammo and a stronger Shrapnel Nade and slightly better Poison Nade aswell a weakened Blowtorch (600range still better than nade auto tough).

Math proves that power engi deals more ranged only dps than condi. It’s not like you couldn’t swap kits if you know what you’re up to against. Like for Sabby it’s no problem for a power engi to swap the EG for the toolkit, since Prybar is an insanely strong power skill aswell and Throw Wrench a great ranged attack. EG is not really required since it’s damage part is unaffected by Quickness.


Fourth, your calculation only shows that a power build will do 35% more damage against vale guardian than against gors and sab. It says nothing about doing that much more damage than a condi build. It is certainly possible that power engi does more damage overall than condi engi in that fight, but I really doubt it is by that much.

I’ll release everything once I’m completly done – you’ll be surprised!


Finally, saying that power engi has better utility than condi is ridiculous. Standard power build (nades, egun, FT) has no glue bomb or glue shot against seekers, only the less useful glob shot. Your bomb kit power build (which I’m assuming replaces egun) is a little better, but it still has less seeker control, and is worse against VG in general because 1.) condi is highly desirable in that fight, and 2.) ranged damage is highly desirable in that fight. Against gorseval you again don’t have glue shot which is bad against spirits, and sure you have more hard CC on hammer but it doesnt matter because slick shoes solos the breakbar anyway. Against sab I would say that power is better assuming you are not kiting napalm because it kills turrets and cannons faster, but as I said before I think that’s bad in general compared to ele or thief.

“Standard power build” never really existed. What the power engi can do what the condi can’t is swap skills according to the situation without a big or any dps loss.

Condi is everything but highly desirable. If there was no red add, you would kick any condi immediately! You only want 2 condis since 3 will deal less overall damage to VG, PS war’s might is the “3rd condi”. However, these two condis are still engis who will take care of most of the seeker problems since their damage sucks against VG anyway.

Power Seeker control can still be done with FT, Bomb Kit, Personal Battering Ram or Blast Gyro, last one even brings superior mobility on the table. Just pick 2 of em + Nades.

About ranged dps, well yea we know that one – espeically against VG with a 35% dmg boost. Btw – if you do not break VG for max dps, you want protection → scrapper → medic gyro. There’s no rev in the green fields.

Against Gorsy you don’t need any immobilizes at all. You still got chill and bomb immobilize for hard times, but in the end wars and rev can take care of everything on their own. You can help destroy orbs on the other hand tough …

Ahh Slick shoes! The one skill that reduces the Power Engi dps by like 5% and condi by 25%. Condis don’t like to have 2 kits, so don’t force them to. However if you won’t play with Slick Shoes, pick Condi over Power for sure! High armor Gorsy.

For Sabby it’s imo play what you want to play. I like the utility and burst damage more important, so I’ll play power. Also better for kiting and helps keeping up scholar with protection.


Can you post your raid power build?

David if you’re looking for a power build, here you go. This would be a typical build for raids. You can take no scope over pinpoint distribution if you won’t be getting fury from your squad. You will be crit capped assuming you are under the effects of fury, banner of precision, and spotter.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vdAQFASlUUhSsY7WwWLQ7FLjI13psKtC9XmlhJYtcLBAA-ThRBABXt/o8zMlg4pDAgHAAlq/8wFAgUADMGA-e

Even if I hate Superior Sigil of Air, it’s the best for Engi since he’ll be at 100% crit chance with full zerk already. If you are rushing I recommend bloodlust tough.

As for the build itself I’m running mainly this:

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vdAQFASncoClYh9ZBubB0ehlRki+LzywEsWulA47UWlWB-ThRBABXt/o8DPdAPcBAA4BAYmSQKV/hUADsMC-e

I swap sometimes to Toolkit, Personal Battering Ram, Blast Gyro, Slick Shoes and for the events in between sometiems Bulwark Gyro, Purge Gyro and / or Sneak Gyro.


Greez!
- Ziggy

Ziggs Ironeye – Engineer | Madame Le Blanc – Mesmer | Mentor (PvE) | EU
“Mentoring engineers / mesmers and showing you what you can do with your fantastic class!
Just pm me for my advice! Always eager to help!”

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Posted by: DGraves.3720

DGraves.3720

Wow. This is serious.