Guild Wars 2

Okay, I tried. I really did.

I tried to make a balanced engie that did a decent amount of damage while retaining survivability and healing. Apparently I suck at building. I tried for hours in the mists trying different combos and I just couldn’t get it right.

So I ask you, dear forum, you gentlemen and ladies who have so clearly spent more time with this than I… What is the best dungeon-running, general PvE build for the Engineer that you know of? I want to be a help to the team (heals/support!), but I also don’t want to be a dead weight in terms of damage.

Help. Please. I don’t want to spend another minute mixing and matching runes and amulets in the mists…

I am by no means an expert on builds (so I’ll take any advice). I built this totally on my own, just feeling out what works well for me. I do very well in dungeons, and never feel like I’m bringing my group down. I doubt you will find this build listed anywhere because I just made it on my own as I played. What I currently am using is the following:

1-5 Rifle with +5% damage
6 Healing Turret
7 Flamethrower*
8 Toolkit*
9 Elixir R
10 Supply Crate

Rifle: I like the utility and damage of the rifle. Piercing auto-attack, immobilize, short-range high AOE damage, knockback with cure immobilize, cripple, and chill, and the super fun jump shot with it’s leap finisher. In only one case do I use pistol/shield – the harpy fractal on the platforms.

Healing Turret: Good self-heal on a decent cd. You time this up with it’s regen field to explode it and heal your team. You get the timing right and over the course of two key presses (or mouse clicks) you get a self heal, self regen, team heal, team regen, and a blast finisher. Toolbelt is yet another AOE regen.

Flamethrower: Used to get hated on a lot, but I’ve always loved it. Nice AOE, #2 is nice when you get a feel for the range, reflect + AOE knockback (dredge get off my downed friend!), fire field, AOE blind that is usable whilst stunned. Also Incendiary Ammo works with piercing rifle shots, setting whatever you hit on fire.

Toolkit: Amazing kit here. Autoattack does ok melee damage (at least it’s multi-target), but the real reason I use this kit is for the 2-5. #2 is thief caltrops with a shorter duration and shorter cd. It stacks – STACKS – bleed and cripple for a nice damage/utility combo. Useful for when you’re being chased by those un-ccable enemies and just good extra AOE damage. #3 solid melee damage with confusion. Plus the awesomeness factor of hitting someone with a prybar. #4 BLOCK ALL THE THINGS! This comes in handy more than you realize at first. Just one of these uses is bridging that annoying gap when you are about to die, but your heal is still a few seconds away. #5 is good for pulling those annoying ranged mobs to your melee friends, or pulling them away from your downed friend. Also good for trolling guardians (for best results, send them chasing after your enemy with Flamethrower 3, once they get there, pull the enemy back with Toolkit 5, once they run back to you, send the enemy away again with Rifle 4). The toolbelt ability here is Throw Wrench. This is a piercing attack that hits everyone in a line hard – and TWICE. Goes well with Incendiary Ammo and Static Discharge (seen later).

Elixir R: If I were to sing the praises of Elixir R, and tell of the countless times it has saved myself or my group in a dungeon, I would run out of room. So let me just say that you will use this. A lot. It’s an instant stunbreak and full endurance refill, but the toolbelt ability is the best part: Ground targeted ranged AOE condition removal and player revive. For when you really want your friend to live, but just can’t be bothered to walk over to him. Super useful on the fire shaman fight, and other times when stopping to revive someone is just not gonna work.

Traits:
20: 4, 5
30: 2, 5, 9
0:
0:
20: 2, 6

Here’s my thinking behind each of the traits. Some please tell me if I’m wrong, or missing a good opportunity elsewhere:

Empowering Adrenaline: Since my adrenaline is rarely full, this seems like a really good damage boost.
Incendiary Powder: Extra damage on crit, I crit quite a bit!
Sitting Duck: I feel like this one gets overlooked a lot; 8 second 5xvuln on a 10 second cd (rifle 2). Makes my team better.
Precise Sights: Vuln on half your crits. Makes my team better.
Rifle Mod: +10% damage to rifle. Seems like a no-brainer.
Static Discharge: Nice damage when it works. I say ‘when it works’ because it doesn’t seem to hit anything when I use my turret toolbelt ability, and only seems to work sometimes when I activate Incendiary Ammo. If anyone has any insight into this, I’d appreciate it.
Speedy Kits: One day I tried Speedy Kits. Now I can’t make a build without it. You Speedy Kit addicts know what I’m talking about.

Stat focus on power/precision/crit damage with gear.

7 Flamethrower and 8 Toolkit are used most of the time, but are swapped out sometimes for any of the following, based on the encounter:
Grenade Kit for harpy fractal – also use pistol/shield on this for the added reflect
Elixir C for heavy condition encounters/jungle fractal cripple removal
Elixir U for burning down the fire shaman’s bubble

9 Elixir R always stays. It’s just too amazing.

Hope this provided some insight into how I run my dungeons. I’ve never felt like I was holding a team back – in fact, there are several times I know they wouldn’t have succeeded without me.

That’s my support build for fractals level 20+

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcMQJAqelIq6ZX3ShF17IxoCfO0jCLY1K6RltsjB;TIAjNmNA

I use cleric armor and weapons, rune of altruism and a mixture of cleric and soldier trinkets.

I usually use a 30/10/0/30/0 granade:http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcQQJAqalspSXnwSiF17ICoC1noH53jNZfe8WtFEC;TgAg1Cso6y4lwLXXjKmZA
or a might stacking Flamethrower build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcQQJAqalspSXnwSrF17IBoHAGv3V0jH34J/pAbB;TgAg1Cso6y4lwLXXjKmZA.
In both build I use pow/prec/cond damage armor and celestial jewel, 2+2+2 boon duration rune, and in both case i switch to cleansing formula 409 when needed.

Amos.8760:

Thank you for writing all that up! It’s great to get some explanation when reading someone else’s build. Even if I don’t end up going that route, I really appreciate the effort. Question though:

How do you survive? It seems like with your trait distribution on top of stacking pow/prec./crit gear you’re pretty much a glass cannon. I’ve run a glass cannon build and I just constantly get downed and die, and that’s just in overworld PvE!

Is it a L2P thing, or is there a trick?

Moex.8472:

That’s my support build for fractals level 20+

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcMQJAqelIq6ZX3ShF17IxoCfO0jCLY1K6RltsjB;TIAjNmNA

I use cleric armor and weapons, rune of altruism and a mixture of cleric and soldier trinkets.

Holy crap, you use that for Fractals? That’s incredibly close to my current build. Maybe I’m not as terrible as I thought I was =D.

Atamaz.4195:

I usually use a 30/10/0/30/0 granade:http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcQQJAqalspSXnwSiF17ICoC1noH53jNZfe8WtFEC;TgAg1Cso6y4lwLXXjKmZA
or a might stacking Flamethrower build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcQQJAqalspSXnwSrF17IBoHAGv3V0jH34J/pAbB;TgAg1Cso6y4lwLXXjKmZA.
In both build I use pow/prec/cond damage armor and celestial jewel, 2+2+2 boon duration rune, and in both case i switch to cleansing formula 409 when needed.

I’ve seen similar builds. The Flamethrower one is just too limiting, imo. I like to keep my versatility.

But thank you for the links, much appreciated.

Time Glitch.2460:

I’ve seen similar builds. The Flamethrower one is just too limiting, imo. I like to keep my versatility.

I understand the need of versatility because is one of the reason I’m still playing engi, but, elixir gun even after the buff to kits do very poor damage, the bleed are nice but expecially on boss weakness is useless, I mean because of unshackable boss has 50% weakness reduced duration it mean that the weakness form EG last half second; EG#2 is nice to kite things, EG#3 remove condition on others but not on you while cleansing formula 409 remove condition on up to 5 target in the area, EG#4 is nice to make distance and EG#5 scale poorly with healing(1k healing improve from 150/tic to ~250/tic) and targets need to stay in the area for the time, not really possible in many situation. For bombs I just don’t like to stay in melee range(in dungeon/fractal) expecially because elixir infused bomb heal is really low and the range of bombs is still small even with the trait.
With that I don’t mean DON’T USE THAT, but that i feel a little more safe mid range, I wound feel even better far away if we’d have a ranged weapon aside from grenades that need us to invest 30 trait in a line.

Time Glitch.2460:

Thank you for writing all that up! It’s great to get some explanation when reading someone else’s build. Even if I don’t end up going that route, I really appreciate the effort. Question though:

How do you survive? It seems like with your trait distribution on top of stacking pow/prec./crit gear you’re pretty much a glass cannon. I’ve run a glass cannon build and I just constantly get downed and die, and that’s just in overworld PvE!

Is it a L2P thing, or is there a trick?

To be quite honest with you, I rarely get downed or defeated unless it’s a wipe. I’m usually the last 1-2 standing. The other day, and thief and I finished the last 25% of the lava shaman with three of our team defeated. It’s all about knowing when and how to use your utilities. Knockbacks, pulls, reflect, condition removal, immobilize, cripple, etc. My style of engineer requires quite a bit of situation awareness.

I’m not sure I’d go so far as to say l2p, but I think it definitely comes with practice. My engineer was my first character and my only serious character (have some low-level alts but just can’t get in to them). I think my build is good for dungeons that you already know how to do, and may not be good for learning fights. I run this build in fractals because I know what to avoid from bosses. Sure, I could get 2-shot by fire shaman’s Dive ability, but it doesn’t happen because I stay out of it’s range.

Sometimes I even get bored enough on fights that I start venturing into things I normally wouldn’t do – like on the Svanir boss I like to dodge roll straight at him, Box of Nails right on him, prybar him in the back of the head, blunderbuss, overcharged shot away from him, net him, swap to flamethrower and flame blast him, throw down my fire field, and then rifle attack til I do it all over again. Trying to figure out when I can sneak in melee range for those prybar attacks is a lot of fun.

I guess the short answer to your question is that pure avoidance and forethought is my damage mitigation, and it’s served me well so far!

Moex.8472:

That’s my support build for fractals level 20+

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcMQJAqelIq6ZX3ShF17IxoCfO0jCLY1K6RltsjB;TIAjNmNA

I use cleric armor and weapons, rune of altruism and a mixture of cleric and soldier trinkets.

Holy crap, you use that for Fractals? That’s incredibly close to my current build. Maybe I’m not as terrible as I thought I was =D.

Well my team usually got warrior, guardian, necro and sometimes thief. My focus is to buff them and heal them constantly and help a bit with dmg. I use healing turret with the runes, it gives 3 stacks of might then switch to bomb and blast with shield for another 3 stacks of might. I keep using bombs for dmg and when they are on cds I switch to pistol/shield use Poison Dart Volley and Static Shot then switch back quickly to bombs and auto attack with them for heals.

I switch to Elixr Gun for 2 stacks of Super Elixr when ready and use shield’s blast for retaliation. I throw supply crate when we need even more heals and shout on Teamspeak BANDAGES!!!!! lol. Elixr R for emergency revive or under pressure

Almost 75% of the time I am the last one standing in my team and help them reviving to keep us going.

High level fractals is more about survivability not dmg

Amos.8760:

Precise Sights: Vuln on half your crits. Makes my team better.

Not critiquing the entire build, but I will say this – pick another trait. That one’s bad, and you could be doing better with a different one. It’s a 2s duration, and arguably as bad as ranger’s Sharpened Edges trait (chance of a 1s bleed on crit, unspecified chance).

Moex.8472:

Moex.8472:

That’s my support build for fractals level 20+

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcMQJAqelIq6ZX3ShF17IxoCfO0jCLY1K6RltsjB;TIAjNmNA

I use cleric armor and weapons, rune of altruism and a mixture of cleric and soldier trinkets.

Holy crap, you use that for Fractals? That’s incredibly close to my current build. Maybe I’m not as terrible as I thought I was =D.

Well my team usually got warrior, guardian, necro and sometimes thief. My focus is to buff them and heal them constantly and help a bit with dmg. I use healing turret with the runes, it gives 3 stacks of might then switch to bomb and blast with shield for another 3 stacks of might. I keep using bombs for dmg and when they are on cds I switch to pistol/shield use Poison Dart Volley and Static Shot then switch back quickly to bombs and auto attack with them for heals.

I switch to Elixr Gun for 2 stacks of Super Elixr when ready and use shield’s blast for retaliation. I throw supply crate when we need even more heals and shout on Teamspeak BANDAGES!!!!! lol. Elixr R for emergency revive or under pressure

Almost 75% of the time I am the last one standing in my team and help them reviving to keep us going.

High level fractals is more about survivability not dmg

When I posted my current build on Reddit (The one simliar to yours), ALL I got was “Your not damage enough. PvE is all about damage. Your build is terrible and you are terrible”. Well, not the last part but close enough.

Good to know someone can run tanky/heals and not totally fail at Fractals.

Amos.8760:

Time Glitch.2460:

Thank you for writing all that up! It’s great to get some explanation when reading someone else’s build. Even if I don’t end up going that route, I really appreciate the effort. Question though:

How do you survive? It seems like with your trait distribution on top of stacking pow/prec./crit gear you’re pretty much a glass cannon. I’ve run a glass cannon build and I just constantly get downed and die, and that’s just in overworld PvE!

Is it a L2P thing, or is there a trick?

To be quite honest with you, I rarely get downed or defeated unless it’s a wipe. I’m usually the last 1-2 standing. The other day, and thief and I finished the last 25% of the lava shaman with three of our team defeated. It’s all about knowing when and how to use your utilities. Knockbacks, pulls, reflect, condition removal, immobilize, cripple, etc. My style of engineer requires quite a bit of situation awareness.

I’m not sure I’d go so far as to say l2p, but I think it definitely comes with practice. My engineer was my first character and my only serious character (have some low-level alts but just can’t get in to them). I think my build is good for dungeons that you already know how to do, and may not be good for learning fights. I run this build in fractals because I know what to avoid from bosses. Sure, I could get 2-shot by fire shaman’s Dive ability, but it doesn’t happen because I stay out of it’s range.

Sometimes I even get bored enough on fights that I start venturing into things I normally wouldn’t do – like on the Svanir boss I like to dodge roll straight at him, Box of Nails right on him, prybar him in the back of the head, blunderbuss, overcharged shot away from him, net him, swap to flamethrower and flame blast him, throw down my fire field, and then rifle attack til I do it all over again. Trying to figure out when I can sneak in melee range for those prybar attacks is a lot of fun.

I guess the short answer to your question is that pure avoidance and forethought is my damage mitigation, and it’s served me well so far!

I’m not so quick on my fingers, but on my current build I am slowly learning how to keep mobs at range and keep everything out of my hair. Like you said, it just takes time.

If I’m ever in the need of a good damage build yours sounds like it fits the bill. I’m definitely saving it, and thank you again for sharing/explaining.

I am only reaching lv 10 fractals now, but I have been running a slighty modified tankcat build. Honestly it works pretty well.

Tannim.1247:

I am only reaching lv 10 fractals now, but I have been running a slighty modified tankcat build. Honestly it works pretty well.

Did quite a bit of research into the Tankcat build. I think I want to run it in WvW for sure!

Kamahl.3621:

Amos.8760:

Precise Sights: Vuln on half your crits. Makes my team better.

Not critiquing the entire build, but I will say this – pick another trait. That one’s bad, and you could be doing better with a different one. It’s a 2s duration, and arguably as bad as ranger’s Sharpened Edges trait (chance of a 1s bleed on crit, unspecified chance).

Thanks for the help – I didn’t realize it was only 2s. The tooltips could really use some details…

Í had a healing build that can take a lot of damage. Built for wvw turtles specifically but great in pve too. I left it because I do not like to stay stationary for so long.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcQQJAqelIqqb3zSiF1LJyoCfWIF4nhJqg+95hc1WQIA
combining this with full cleric set you have a good amount of healing.
regen with healing turret
periodic water fields
2 super elixir with kit refinement
bomb heals when needed

You can reach 1000heal/s aoe. Great for support and survival but too stationary to get all heals at the same time.

20+ Fractals: Grenade/EG = clerics gear – rune of altruism
Went back to Grenades from Flamethrower as I felt restricted, love it though and thinking about going back as a few Engies in my guild are diggin’ it…But I feel ‘safer’ with my current setup, with grenadier I could stay back and check out where everyone is at in my group for support. When I feel brave, I get up and personal knowing when I got them dodges from elixir R xD

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQJAqelIqiYX3ShF1LJyoCfGoCAmIFVml95x81WQIA;TIAjCmiA

Build isn’t mine, found it on these forums…forgot who it was, but she ran Precision/Toughness/Condition I believe, in high level fractuals. Pretty solid in WvW when I switch my gear to P/V/T or berserkers when I want to go glasscannon :s

@Moex.8472 – build looks really interesting…might try it tomorrow since we basically have the same gear! ^-^

alot of good builds and ideas here. Personally, I run 30/20/0/0/20 grenade/EG/elixer R, rune of altruism and kit refinement. Everything is 1200+ range, which is defensive in and of itself. I do like to run in and unload drop a super elixer for the melee’s and acid leap back out. Also the vulnerablity from grenades is great support.

I’ve noticed that Engineers were just not meant to take damage. Our defense is in damage mitigation through CC’s. Which also lets us spec for more damage while not losing as much survivability as other classes.

Healing builds are just not that great because the actual healing output is way to low to justify such a large damage dps decrease. Elementalists are also far more efficient as supporters.

1500 range grenades are by far the best thing engineers can bring to dungeons. The risk vs. reward for the other kits is generally not worth it.

Option 1 tanky condition damage
— Rabid precision, toughness, condition damage
— 30, 10, 0, 20, 10
+Higher survivability
- Can get high bleed and vuln stacks, but condition damage has questionable effectiveness

Option 2 GC Zerker
— power, precision, crit damage
— 30, 10, 0, 0, 30
+ Extremely high dps even on grenade 1 (now that weapon stats factor in) and still good vuln stacks
+ Tool kit also has gigantic damage for meele situations since auto attacks and #3 can crit for 5k on bosses
+ Rifle also has high dps, especially on 3 and 5 but also has good boss control with 2/4
- Very squishy which means defensive cooldowns such as elixir s, toolkit 4, blind grenade, chill grenade and net shot must be used effectively and range must be maintained

I am torn between the two since I don’t like playing GC, but precision and crit damage are vitally important for the engineer to be effective as a dps. Knight or soldier gear is very lackluster. Condition damage synergizes better with toughness for the engi, but it isn’t that that great in dungeons.