Guild Wars 2

Hello everyone, i’m a new player who decided to run a full condition damage bomb/grenade build on my Asura engineer. Being my first and main toon, my intent is to have a versatile, heavy condition damage character, cuz i intend to use it in WvW and Dungeons/FoTM. Well i would be glad to have suggestions and opinions from others players, so here’s the link of my current build/gear:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fdAQJAqalUUpPrlYxdLseNSaBB6Rci6Kqv85GEgnC-TxxCABA8gAsU9H82fALlfHfCByTPxYKBDAgAMxSMIxJmJOxJOxJOxm4En4En4ELFAMLAA-e

I would like to thank you in advance for any advice and opinion you’ll give me, see you in game!

Versatile builds tend to not work at all in every game mode. Condition damage is subpar in group settings, due to the easily reached condition cap in pve. For a WwW builds, that’s really offensive: you lack at least protection injection. You also lack a crucial trait in explosives, incendiary powder, wich allows you to maintain high burning uptime as your best way of pressure. Scavenging runes aren’t bad per say, but there’s better options ( see: balthazar runes, perplexcheesy runes). Modified ammos is a good trait for direct damage specs, but multipliers doesn’t affect conditions, and your low power/critical chance/ ferocity combo makes little use of multipliers.

tl;dr:
-don’t use that in group dungeons
-take incendiary powder
-move 2 points out of firearms to either tools or alchemy
-that’s personal opinion but i feel like your health is quite high ( about 22k in www) without that much toughness, maybe lower your vitality a bit, otherwise your heal will feel too small.

Good luck.

youd probably be better off with perplexity cancer… and incendiary powder over short fuse

oxtred.7658:

Versatile builds tend to not work at all in every game mode. Condition damage is subpar in group settings, due to the easily reached condition cap in pve. For a WwW builds, that’s really offensive: you lack at least protection injection. You also lack a crucial trait in explosives, incendiary powder, wich allows you to maintain high burning uptime as your best way of pressure. Scavenging runes aren’t bad per say, but there’s better options ( see: balthazar runes, perplexcheesy runes). Modified ammos is a good trait for direct damage specs, but multipliers doesn’t affect conditions, and your low power/critical chance/ ferocity combo makes little use of multipliers.

tl;dr:
-don’t use that in group dungeons
-take incendiary powder
-move 2 points out of firearms to either tools or alchemy
-that’s personal opinion but i feel like your health is quite high ( about 22k in www) without that much toughness, maybe lower your vitality a bit, otherwise your heal will feel too small.

Good luck.

By following your suggestions, i made some changes to my traits and runes. I also added a shield for some more protection and blast. Howewer, i can’t change the armor due the fact i’ve already crafted the whole ascended and i don’t want to waste it, so i need to work around this Carrion. Here’s the changes i made:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fdAQJAqelUUpPrlYxdLseRCbBNqxAqOIys0xPfgAkUA-TxxCABA8gAsU9nT2fALlfHfCByTPxYKBDAgAMxSMIxJmJOxJOxJOxm4En4En4ELFAMrBA-e
And a little more question: i noticed that i lost the 7% condi bonus by changing the runes, is that a big deal or i can just ignore it?
I would be glad to receive an advice on this new setup

Last thing about traits: Since you have speedky kits, you should take invigorating speed in alchemy. Raw vitality isn’t better than a nearly 100% uptime on vigor, it’s really important in pvp and a good QoL trait in pve.

The loss of the 7% condi bonus isn’t that big of a deal since you’re gaining more burning uptime, and it will yields more dps than a raw stat boost. This applies to sigils as well. Sigil of bursting is nice, but I think using battle/energy/geomancy depending on your needs will give you more results.

If you want to do pve dungeons, buying a full exotic set of berserker armor/weapons/trinkets will help your teammates more than a condi setup, except maybe on protection heavy trash mobs (=dredges). And even then, berserker does work.

Have fun.

Updated setup with permanent burning:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fdAQJAqelUUpPrlYxdLseRCbBNqxAqOIys0xPfgAkUA-TxBBABA8gA6U9n/2f4LlfOfCBAUPhaKBDAgAMxSMIxJmJOxJOxJOxm4En4En4ELFAMLAA-e
Seems to do his job now

If you are not taking the bomb radius trait, the value of your bomb kit greatly diminishes both for pve and wvw, if you mainly want it for burning a flame thrower could be more versatile

Hmm granades are good with trait, but the condi dmg from granades isnt that good imo.
Blind + freeze deals 0 dmg. Other then that poison and bleed are ok, but i think you might be better of power builds on granades.

Grenix.1576:

Hmm granades are good with trait, but the condi dmg from granades isnt that good imo.
Blind + freeze deals 0 dmg. Other then that poison and bleed are ok, but i think you might be better of power builds on granades.

the bit about stacking ~15 bleeds with just shrapnel nades is where the condi damage comes from. blind and freeze are just covers.

Susulemon.3204:

If you are not taking the bomb radius trait, the value of your bomb kit greatly diminishes both for pve and wvw, if you mainly want it for burning a flame thrower could be more versatile

Hi Susulemon, thank you for your comment, you made a good point. My intent by choosing Incendiary powder trait (along with Sigil of accuracy) in place of bomb radius is to add permanent burning to others conditions that i usually apply (bleeding and vulnerability mainly). By calculations i made, my actual critical rate (33% without oil) in addiction with burning duration per single hit (6 sec. without cake) should be enough to provide me constant burning. Hoping i’m not wrong, this should be a good dps improvement.

Not only is burning a dps gain, but since it will proc on crit and not on a single ability, your ennemy can’t reliably dodge it.