Guild Wars 2

Some things you should add to your guide:

Toolkit: Great kit all around, Prybar does very nice damage plus adds a condition, you also have a block skill which is pretty handy when you lack endurance regen and the Magnet is also pretty good to position mobs, Toolbelt skill does average damage but works well with static discharge.

Throw Mine: Strips boons and is also a blast finisher, deals insane damage with the toolbelt skill, usually hits between 15-25k damage and it’s only a 20s cooldown. The toolbelt skills is also a two steps thing (deploy→detonate) so it’s 20% endurance back.
Superior to Rifle Turret imo.

Krag.6210:

usually hits between 15-25k damage

vid or screenshot or it didnt happen.

pza.8024:

Krag.6210:

usually hits between 15-25k damage

vid or screenshot or it didnt happen.

It’s really quite possible, actually. I don’t use Throw Mine myself, but I do have Reserve Mines, which basically does Mine Field at 25% HP. The skill itself actually bugged out and kept detonating over and over again (about to post a thread about it). They each did about 3.5K; click the picture below to see.

These numbers were from wearing a mix of ascended and exotic Celestial/Traveler armor. Ascended Berserker jewelry with the Predator. With Scholar and Zerker gear, I think 25K is more than possible on certain targets.

pza.8024:

Krag.6210:

usually hits between 15-25k damage

vid or screenshot or it didnt happen.

Here you go, more than 15k with 1 mine missing and another one not critting, and it was nowhere near the optimal conditions, I’m just buffed with 10% crit dmg and some precision and these mobs die too fast to stack vulns or more conditions on them, and only 8 might stacks.

Krag.6210:

Some things you should add to your guide:

Toolkit: Great kit all around, Prybar does very nice damage plus adds a condition, you also have a block skill which is pretty handy when you lack endurance regen and the Magnet is also pretty good to position mobs, Toolbelt skill does average damage but works well with static discharge.

I thought I had the Tool Kit there already, but I guess I didn’t. It shall be added. Thanks for notifying. However…

Krag.6210:

Throw Mine: Strips boons and is also a blast finisher, deals insane damage with the toolbelt skill, usually hits between 15-25k damage and it’s only a 20s cooldown. The toolbelt skills is also a two steps thing (deploy->detonate) so it’s 20% endurance back.
Superior to Rifle Turret imo.

I dislike Mine Field as it has a 1-second cast time. Not every mine will always hit your target either, especially if they’re much smaller. Many times I find I’d have just done equal damage just spamming bombs.

If they made a point to reduce the skill’s spread I’d find it more useful, but overall I think the tool belt skill is useful only for boon stripping.

OP updated, including some new skill calcs and better utility skill breakdown.

Merry Christmas.

Today’s a great day, broke my bomb auto and mine field record in the same fight with this build.

thanks for the screenshots. i had in mind they each hit for like 500… or 1000 with zerkers gear

Nice bomb damage there.

Updated part 4 a little bit. Added a tidbit about ideal choice of food.

Cheers.

You really shouldn’t be calling a rifle/bomb build “meta” or “dungeoneer”. Not without some important qualifiers anyway.

It’s decent for blowing through open-world content though I guess.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

You really shouldn’t be calling a rifle/bomb build “meta” or “dungeoneer”. Not without some important qualifiers anyway.

It’s decent for blowing through open-world content though I guess.

You’re more then welcome to use grenades with this trait distribution.

You’d have to switch a lot around, and I think it’s generally accepted that 30/30/0/10/0 works better for dungeons in practice.

Then put 10 in Alchemy instead of Tools. That’s the first trait split I advertised writing this guide, but went ahead and shifted 10 to Tools because I was surviving without vigor just fine. I don’t see the controversy.

I’ve ran 10 Tools in FOTM 49, Arah, CoE, and killing Tequatl. I don’t know what you mean about this being a world event build, or that 10 Alchemy is necessary for dungeons.

So I’m 6 days in using this build, using bombs as my only kit. I will swap in others if needed of course. I run 10 in tools for SD. I have had no issues with loss of vigor and I usually only do fractals or paths. So I will have to disagree with your claim of being for open word.

Phineas Poe.3018:

Then put 10 in Alchemy instead of Tools. That’s the first trait split I advertised writing this guide, but went ahead and shifted 10 to Tools because I was surviving without vigor just fine. I don’t see the controversy.

I’ve ran 10 Tools in FOTM 49, Arah, CoE, and killing Tequatl. I don’t know what you mean about this being a world event build, or that 10 Alchemy is necessary for dungeons.

You should probably post the actual meta spread for grenades then and make a note on the Alchemy vs. Tools thing. I think the actual traits you have selected in the link are screwed up, you have rifle selected as your main weapon and random stuff like Explosive Powder and Hair Trigger selected.

They’re not screwed up. I just linked the bomb kit allocation as it’s the one I use in most dungeon groups. I’m not going to write up a whole new calculator just to swap out two traits. That’s the purpose of the detailed OP, which you clearly didn’t read.

Besides, there’s nothing random about any traits chosen. 240 radius makes a difference. It allows you to attack bosses effectively outside melee range that would otherwise injure you. A great example of this is Ginva The Butcher in path one of Honor of the Waves. Where guardians and warriors are forced out of melee during his Whirling Defense, I keep bombing away.

It’s also supremely effective in areas like Crucible of Eternity. When fighting the Mark Golem boss, I can stand between him and the protection turret, destroying both. You can, in fact, destroy the cleansing turret too if you stand in the right spot, which helps maintain Modified Ammo buffs.

Unless you can explain to me that there’s a better trait to take to elevate the bomb kit, I don’t see why not to take Short Fuse and Explosive Powder in conjunction with it. And I said in the OP to swap one out for Grenadier if taking the grenade kit. I guess I forgot to say to take Shrapnel over Forceful Explosives too, but that will be added now.

There’s nothing random about choosing Hair Trigger either. Since it takes 1-2 seconds between swapping to your rifle and general skill animation, reducing Net Shot’s cooldown to 8 seconds makes it so that firing off the skill times perfectly with the internal cooldown of Sitting Duck (10 seconds).

OP has been updated with stealth/might stack rotations. You can find them both in part 5.

Enjoy.

Just a small remark regarding the stealth stack rotation: from my experience Thump will only activate, if the turret is active. For this it (and the engineer) needs to have been in combat at least once (it will keep firing indefinitely after) or a target to attack (in approx. 600 units range) which might be close enough to draw aggro.
However, any damage dealt (and our stealth blast finishers have plenty) will result in the revealed debuff ruining your stealth so some careful planning is needed to get all 3 blasts.

Also, the blast finishers from blowing up turrets and Rumble are centered on the engineer, Detonate and Thump are centered on the mine/turret.

Hm. It seems you’re right about the thumper turret. I’ll fix the rotation accordingly.

You can still get to 15 seconds without it though, since even with the overcharge not working there’s 5 other blast finishers in the rotation (Detonate, Rocket Boots, Rumble, and Big Ol’ Bomb). And this is all, of course, not taking under consideration that there will be other people in your party blasting the smoke field.

Oddly enough, the blast finisher does proc if you pick up the turret while it is overcharged.

Phineas Poe.3018:

Hm. It seems you’re right about the thumper turret. I’ll fix the rotation accordingly.

You can still get to 15 seconds without it though, since even with the overcharge not working there’s 5 other blast finishers in the rotation (Detonate, Rocket Boots, Rumble, and Big Ol’ Bomb). And this is all, of course, not taking under consideration that there will be other people in your party blasting the smoke field.

Oddly enough, the blast finisher does proc if you pick up the turret while it is overcharged.

Stealth is capped at 5 stacks. You need the thief +1 second to stealth trait to get to 15s on blast.

Uhh … yeah. 5 stacks from 5 blast finishers that provide 3 seconds each.

Now it’s true that you will waste a few seconds blasting everything, but that’s inevitable. The best stealth coverage is actually to use Toss Elixir S as your third utility and to drop it when everyone is stacked. As it applies 5 seconds of stealth, it is better than a blast finisher—so you’ll actually see 14/15 seconds left when you start moving as a group.

Toss Elixir S is also affected by Potent Elixirs, in case anyone was curious.

Actually, scratch that. I just tested it again.

If the turret is in overcharged state when detonated, it applies both blast finishers.

Try it yourself.

Confirmed. Could be another turret bug, but actually in our favor for a change.
It is kind of sad, that their best PvE utility is getting blown up…

Edit: no matter how much I try, I can’t get stealth from blast finishers to go above 13 seconds. It may be possible to get ~18 seconds of stealth if the group moves in a tight formation and you throw Elixir S after the first blast stack has expired.

Keep in mind that the game counts 0 as a second, so you’re really getting 14 seconds when it says 13.

Also it does take time to blast everything, so that time is lost. That’s why detonating turrets is best, because you can fire them all off in a second or two.

Added a few more details, and included a breakdown for a 10 Alchemy variant.

I don’t think this build is changing much in the way of today’s patch, and this now has pretty much all the information I believe it needs, so expect no real big updates for a while.

Hey Phineas, just wanted to thank you for this extremely detailed breakdown of this ‘meta’ build. Also I would propose a sticky, as I’ve redirected many people here before.

Having played warrior, guard, and mes in the past simply because nobody wanted and engi in there dungeon group, it feels really good now that I don’t get insta-kicked just for being and engineer. There really is no better profession for combined utility and damage.

My Highly Classified Build’s stats seem better:

(Exotic Armor and Weapon)

Power 2467
Precision 2014
Toughness 916
Vitality 916

Critical Damage 107%

Condition Damage 300
Condition Duration 10%
Redacted 28JAN2014
Redacted 28JAN2014

Critical Chance 66.29%

Damage % 54.08%
Condition Damage % 0%
Armor 1980
Health 15082
Endurance Regeneration 0%
Agony Resistance 30
Redacted 28JAN2014
Farming and Leveling
Redacted 28JAN2014
Damage & Survivability

Effective Power 7755.7

Effective Health (EHP) 16265
Damage Reduction 7.27%
Reference Armor 1836

Krag.6210:

Today’s a great day, broke my bomb auto and mine field record in the same fight with this build.

meh

Where would we be without a banner warrior in our party hey?

Fall.8475:

My Highly Classified Build’s stats seem better:

(Exotic Armor and Weapon)

Power 2467
Precision 2014
Toughness 916
Vitality 916

Critical Damage 107%

Condition Damage 300
Condition Duration 10%
Healing Power 0
Boon Duration 0%

Critical Chance 66.29%

Damage % 54.08%
Condition Damage % 0%
Armor 1980
Health 15082
Endurance Regeneration 0%
Agony Resistance 30
Tool Belt Recharge Rate 30%
Farming and Leveling
Bonus Experience 20%
Damage & Survivability

Effective Power 7755.7

Effective Health (EHP) 16265
Damage Reduction 7.27%
Reference Armor 1836

If by “highly classified build” you mean you’re not going to tell us, what is the point of this post? A neener-neener? I-know-something-you-don’t-know?

Great topic, PP. Keep up the good work. I enjoy reading your thoughts on the Engineer, helps me add things to my own builds or use certain parts of yours the way I want to.

Adamantium.3682:

Fall.8475:

My Highly Classified Build’s stats seem better:

random b***

If by “highly classified build” you mean you’re not going to tell us, what is the point of this post? A neener-neener? I-know-something-you-don’t-know?

Great topic, PP. Keep up the good work. I enjoy reading your thoughts on the Engineer, helps me add things to my own builds or use certain parts of yours the way I want to.

easy to tell how the ‘highly classified’ build looks like if you take a look at his stats: 10/30/0/0/30 with SD probably.

But its still a complete mystery whats he purposed with his bland post…

blutstein.2468:

Adamantium.3682:

Fall.8475:

My Highly Classified Build’s stats seem better:

random b***

If by “highly classified build” you mean you’re not going to tell us, what is the point of this post? A neener-neener? I-know-something-you-don’t-know?

Great topic, PP. Keep up the good work. I enjoy reading your thoughts on the Engineer, helps me add things to my own builds or use certain parts of yours the way I want to.

easy to tell how the ‘highly classified’ build looks like if you take a look at his stats: 10/30/0/0/30 with SD probably.

But its still a complete mystery whats he purposed with his bland post…

Because there were players keep asking my build in-game. I though I should leaks “some” information after 1.5 years. Would it be better if I continue to keep silence, posting nothing at all and left everyone continue living in an engineer trial and error illusion? Guess no one likes puzzles.

Also complete disclosure of the information would give me more liabilities then benefits. Examples are: A-net Nerfs (They already nerf one of my skills) and PvP countermeasures.

Fall.8475:

blutstein.2468:

Adamantium.3682:

Fall.8475:

My Highly Classified Build’s stats seem better:

random b***

If by “highly classified build” you mean you’re not going to tell us, what is the point of this post? A neener-neener? I-know-something-you-don’t-know?

Great topic, PP. Keep up the good work. I enjoy reading your thoughts on the Engineer, helps me add things to my own builds or use certain parts of yours the way I want to.

easy to tell how the ‘highly classified’ build looks like if you take a look at his stats: 10/30/0/0/30 with SD probably.

But its still a complete mystery whats he purposed with his bland post…

Because there were players keep asking my build in-game. I though I should leaks “some” information after 1.5 years. Would it be better if I continue to keep silence, posting nothing at all and left everyone continue living in an engineer trial and error illusion? Guess no one likes puzzles.

Also complete disclosure of the information would give me more liabilities then benefits. Examples are: A-net Nerfs (They already nerf one of my skills) and PvP countermeasures.

This…. this is good stuff.

Make no mistake about it ladies and gentlemen, this guy is very important!

Fall.8475:

My Highly Classified Build’s stats seem better.

Pass. I’ll take 200 Power, +10% bomb damage, and vulnerability stacking over 20% critical damage and 10% extra damage with full endurance. Especially since critical damage is about to get nerfed. Vulnerability is a party-wide damage gain, and 10/30/0/0/30 does an absolutely terrible job of maintaining it. It’s easily the number one thing we contribute best in groups at the moment, and you’re not building around it.

@Phineas Poe you may do that… but then you will not find yourself having to answer whispers about your awesome build. Pros and cons man, pros and cons…

Fall.8475:

blutstein.2468:

Adamantium.3682:

Fall.8475:

My Highly Classified Build’s stats seem better:

random b***

If by “highly classified build” you mean you’re not going to tell us, what is the point of this post? A neener-neener? I-know-something-you-don’t-know?

Great topic, PP. Keep up the good work. I enjoy reading your thoughts on the Engineer, helps me add things to my own builds or use certain parts of yours the way I want to.

easy to tell how the ‘highly classified’ build looks like if you take a look at his stats: 10/30/0/0/30 with SD probably.

But its still a complete mystery whats he purposed with his bland post…

Because there were players keep asking my build in-game. I though I should leaks “some” information after 1.5 years. Would it be better if I continue to keep silence, posting nothing at all and left everyone continue living in an engineer trial and error illusion? Guess no one likes puzzles.

Also complete disclosure of the information would give me more liabilities then benefits. Examples are: A-net Nerfs (They already nerf one of my skills) and PvP countermeasures.

No need for justifying your pretty standard build, sir. We already got you, you can go back on your wooden throne of engineering.

for some funny reason i never actualy tought of the enginer that way.

kyubi.3620:

for some funny reason i never actualy tought of the enginer that way.

Because up until a couple months ago, 30 Firearms wasn’t a good trait setup unless you ran the flamethrower. It’s also not very good to run 30 Tools over 30 Explosives because you’re missing out on some very key traits. It’s not that Tools is bad, but you should always place greater importance over +damage traits over +critical damage traits.

They’re a larger boost in damage, especially since vulnerability affects the whole party.

Phineas Poe.3018:

Fall.8475:

My Highly Classified Build’s stats seem better.

Pass. I’ll take 200 Power, +10% bomb damage, and vulnerability stacking over 20% critical damage and 10% extra damage with full endurance. Especially since critical damage is about to get nerfed. Vulnerability is a party-wide damage gain, and 10/30/0/0/30 does an absolutely terrible job of maintaining it. It’s easily the number one thing we contribute best in groups at the moment, and you’re not building around it.

I think I have some similar stuff you listed above.

17 stacks of Vulnerability
5 stacks of Confusion
10% more crit if 600
10% damage if full
10% damage if not full

Here is an update stats matching your build. (Updated weapon from Exotic to Ascended. No Boons)

Effective Power 8276.18
Effective Health (EHP) 16265
Damage Reduction 7.27%
Reference Armor 1836
Critical Chance 63.48%
Damage % 61.78%
Critical Damage 118%

Also I think using bombs requires close range. In zerk gear will require lots of dodging.

Fall.8475:

Phineas Poe.3018:

Fall.8475:

My Highly Classified Build’s stats seem better.

Pass. I’ll take 200 Power, +10% bomb damage, and vulnerability stacking over 20% critical damage and 10% extra damage with full endurance. Especially since critical damage is about to get nerfed. Vulnerability is a party-wide damage gain, and 10/30/0/0/30 does an absolutely terrible job of maintaining it. It’s easily the number one thing we contribute best in groups at the moment, and you’re not building around it.

I think I have some similar stuff you listed above.

17 stacks of Vulnerability
5 stacks of Confusion
10% more crit if 600
10% damage if full
10% damage if not full

Here is an update stats matching your build. (Updated weapon from Exotic to Ascended. No Boons)

Effective Power 8276.18
Effective Health (EHP) 16265
Damage Reduction 7.27%
Reference Armor 1836
Critical Chance 63.48%
Damage % 61.78%
Critical Damage 118%

hell, what do you want with posting your numbers? its simply a fact that a x/30/x/x/30 build doesn’t contribute to your group like 30/30/x/x/x
I love my SD Build, but its rather selfish.

Fall.8475:

Also I think using bombs requires close range. In zerk gear will require lots of dodging.

with forceful explosives you can bomb outside melee range.

Fall.8475:

Also I think using bombs requires close range. In zerk gear will require lots of dodging.

What are you using instead?

Phineas Poe.3018:

Fall.8475:

Also I think using bombs requires close range. In zerk gear will require lots of dodging.

What are you using instead?

I’ve found that if in a well balanced group Zerk is fine since you have a lot of well balanced support and damage so you’re not taking a ton of damage. But I keep a set of Knights with me in case of a PUG that doesn’t have the same balance. You trade damage slightly for extra survivability.

Alternatively you can go the hybrid route if the rest of your group isn’t posting much condi damage and run something like rampagers. Like I said admittedly zerker is much better damage output if you can stay alive, but being dead means you DPS is 0 so when in doubt run gear that will keep you alive.

If you’re not a fan of full Berserker, Celestial is a good alternative as I outlined in the OP. My ascended armor set is Celestial.

Phineas Poe.3018:

If you’re not a fan of full Berserker, Celestial is a good alternative as I outlined in the OP. My ascended armor set is Celestial.

I will probably go with that for my ascended gear when I get around to crafting it.

Llanowar.1603:

Phineas Poe.3018:

If you’re not a fan of full Berserker, Celestial is a good alternative as I outlined in the OP. My ascended armor set is Celestial.

I will probably go with that for my ascended gear when I get around to crafting it.

It’s the only sensible choice. Berserker is great for dungeons, but it doesn’t have much place in WvW or at Tequatl. The extra defensive stats are also helpful in high level fractals. Sometimes that extra bit of healing power makes the difference between an ally going down or not from my healing turret.

If you’re going to invest that much gold into something, it should be for gear that’s viable 100% of the time, and isn’t conditionally useful by how much DPS the group is doing on the whole.

It doesn’t help that ArenaNet is ninja-nerfing (or buffing?) dungeon paths as well. The most recent patch buffed the Troll in HOTW p1. Now he’s pretty much the same as the AC Troll, and in one hit downs Berserker builds. I actually had to swap into my Celestial gear for that one.

I primarily bumped this thread to give notice that I’ll be updating this post over the next couple weeks according to the feature patch. Once we get a list of all full trait changes, I’ll get it out there so we can discuss before the patch hits.

Thanks all for reading and helping contribute to making this build what it is.

I am now curious about the celestial change that is coming:

Celestial gear, which provides a moderate boost to all stats rather than a significant bonus to a few stats, will be hit harder by these changes compared to other gear, since it provided relatively high critical damage values compared to other stats given out. To compensate, we’re increasing the overall effectiveness of Celestial gear by improving all stats by 6% of their current values.

The number crunchers can figure it out im very sure of that soon, but Id like your thoughts Phineas Poe. This thread has been a great read through & given my great thoughts to my choices in skills/gear. Keep up the good fight!

Celestial armor will give you 10% critical damage. Berserker armor will give 15% critical damage. I think it’s safe to say Celestial armor is still a great option if not the best for Engineers.

Updated point distribution (6/6/0/X/X) as well as a few typos. Haven’t really had the opportunity to mess around with the new rune sets much, so I’m sticking with Berserker + Scholar for now.

Strength runes are what I currently have my eye on.

Thank you for the guide Poe! What do you recommend for runes/sigils since the feature patch? I was thinking Scholar runes and Force/?? in the Rifle.

Phew! Sorry! It’s been a long week at work. I’ve finally updated this guide to post-feature.

The biggest change: Just run 2 Tools all the time now. Now that the rifle has a second slot, you can run Energy with it.

I’ve also added a “carry” variant for fractals to make use of the new Fortified Turrets trait. I used it a few times teaching guildies low-level FOTM for both harpy and grawl. It’s the bee’s knees.

Give them a spin and let me know what you guys think!

Excellent guide, I learned a lot!