Guild Wars 2

I’m lvling a norn engineer with grenade kit as main weapon. I like the double damage and AoE, but not sure if a build like this could work. So that’s where you come in.

I think grandmaster explosives is obvious to get the grenadier trait, but don’t know what else could work. Grenades can inflict a lot of conditions, so firearms perhaps?
I’m also using mines for utility, because they’re awesome and easy to knock your foes of their feet when aproaching.
I’m currently using healing turret and rocket turret, although I’m not sure if I’ll keep them. Don’t have an elite skill yet, but it will most likely be the supply drop, since the other elites are fairly useless and the norn-elites don’t fit in with the class.
I’m mostly walking around with the grenade kit, but keeping dual pistols for secondary.

Help me out, tips and insights go here!

Yes thankfully traiting for Grenades is pretty straight forward… 30/30/0/0/10 is THE option going for condi damage from grenades and using carrion or rabid gear/trinkets/upgrades. Another option is 30/10/0/0/30 (my personal favorite with the grenades) which is THE straight damage build, equipping Berzerker/rampage armor. Rampage is pretty good accross the board for either spec, but you do lose some of the damage. Those are THE builds for grenades. I would suggest you try what you like most about grenades. I’ve seen people go all into condi duration but little into condi damage, that is really effective too Makes things like Freeze Grenade and poison really deadly.

One more tip for you is use a rifle if you’re using grenades. Your kit scales with your weapon power, where rifle deals a lot more damage than the dual pistols.

Lunar Corporation.5720:

Yes thankfully traiting for Grenades is pretty straight forward… 30/30/0/0/10 is THE option going for condi damage from grenades and using carrion or rabid gear/trinkets/upgrades. Another option is 30/10/0/0/30 (my personal favorite with the grenades) which is THE straight damage build, equipping Berzerker/rampage armor. Rampage is pretty good accross the board for either spec, but you do lose some of the damage. Those are THE builds for grenades. I would suggest you try what you like most about grenades. I’ve seen people go all into condi duration but little into condi damage, that is really effective too Makes things like Freeze Grenade and poison really deadly.

One more tip for you is use a rifle if you’re using grenades. Your kit scales with your weapon power, where rifle deals a lot more damage than the dual pistols.

I think you’re quite mistaken about a couple things. I don’t mean that in a… rude way.

Kits do not scale with weapon damage. Weapon stats and weapon sigils carry over to kits, but the actual weapon damage does not scale. At level 80, grenades will do a certain amount of damage regardless of what weapons you’re using, affected only by stats. As such, Rifle vs. Pistols doesn’t really matter that much. A direct damage build would probably work better with a rifle, but only because rifle scales better with power. A condition build would probably work better with P/P or P/S, but only because pistols are more of a condition weapon. Unless you plan on sitting in a kit 100% of the time choosing a weapon that compliments your stats is just common sense.

Also, and this is more subjective, but I disagree with the builds you listed being “THE” grenade builds. HGH grenade builds (30/10/0/30/0), both for direct damage and for condition damage, are arguably the most potent grenade builds out there. 100nades is very popular, but I wouldn’t get too attached to it at this point; State of the Game suggests they’ll be nerfing that build come the 26th.

Zerker gear for direct damage follows the usual advice: use zerker, except where you feel you need a bit more survivability, then grab something with toughness and/or vitality.

Gear for condition damage… beats me. I’m still trying to figure that out. Rabid seems to be the most popular, with Carrion being used to supplement vitality, and occasionally a bit of Rampager thrown in for good measure. When Giver’s weapons are fixed a lot of Condition builds might grab those instead.

Well, op can vow for what ever they like most about Grenade kit.

but those are THE builds for condition damage and direct damage with grenade kit. No two ways about it.

Bellyboomer says they want to stick in the kit more than the weapon, so I guess it wouldn’t matter, just go for the stats that work out for your build. Thanks for the correction, weapon STATS affect kits.

EG 30/30/0/0/10, you want to choose weapon(s) with top condition damage stats (rabid, carrion)
30/10/0/0/30, you want to chooseweapon(s) with top damage with +crit per cent (berzerker).

and likewise, you want to choose same armor stats and trinkets. GL!

1 more thing @maullus … a zerker is a zerker is a zerker w/e utilities you prefer. condi is condi is condi, though of course some utilities work more for either spec.
HGH is our boon (might) spec. if you want to rely on boons for your power (attack, stat, damage…?), go for it, there are a lot of great traits down the alchemy tree. It’s an option.

personally im a big fan of 30/0/0/10/30 or 30/10/0/10/20, speedy kits is perma swiftness AND vigor

there just arent traits i like in firearms. the 15 minor is good, rifled barrels is always useful, but the rest are for other builds. and 30 in tools.. meh. never liked kit refinement except in special situations for the super elixir. would you want anything besides static discharge, speedy kits, and kit refinement… the other traits arent so good for grenades.