Guild Wars 2

Is a grenade build viable setup for a engineer right now or has the grenades been nerfed too much?

I’d like to make a engineer but i dont like either of the rifle or pistol setups. Are using only kits a viable way to play?

Well, there’s literally no viability without some sort of kit.

Grenade build is very viable!

Yes. It is viable.

How does it compare to the other kits?

Scora.5246:

How does it compare to the other kits?

Currently it’s pretty much the best kit we have available. It delivers the longest range (yup, you can throw grenades farther than you can shoot with your rifle,) while also delivering some of the best direct damage, and with traits, also delivers quite a lot of bleeding condition damage.

Grenade kit has the most long-term damage compared to any other kit. This doesn’t mean you can’t run other kits – they slaughtered the grenade auto, but now it hits almost as hard as it did back in october through careful sigil usage. The bomb kit has the only auto that hits harder, but then you can consider ‘Do I like 3 stacks of vuln and 3 chances of 15s bleeds on my attacks?’ and the answer becomes pretty obvious. It also has the best boss-control (chilled isn’t reduced on any mobs in the game I can think of), which only becomes better if you choose for the CDR trait over damage. To put it in perspective:

My grenade auto attacks can hit anywhere from 1.2k (no crits) to 4.5k on a given mob in 0.85 seconds.

On the other end of the spectrum of kits, we have the flamethrower, which can do 1.2k (no crits) to ~3k + burning over 2.25 seconds through it’s auto, and it’s only good damage ability (The 2) requires you set it up somehow with a root, or by it being a stationary boss, otherwise it whiffs and you just wasted some potential damage.

There’s also tool kit (prybar, throw wrench), and elixir gun (elixir F, acid bomb) that bring some decent damage to the table, but their autos are a bit iffy (wrench is awesome, but slow – at least it cripples every hit with a trait!).

Edit: After some actual usage in a dungeon for a bit, I tweaked my flamethrower numbers. Turns out I was being overly generous.

Kamahl.3621:

Grenade kit has the most long-term damage compared to any other kit. This doesn’t mean you can’t run other kits – they slaughtered the grenade auto, but now it hits almost as hard as it did back in october through careful sigil usage. The bomb kit has the only auto that hits harder, but then you can consider ‘Do I like 3 stacks of vuln and 3 chances of 15s bleeds on my attacks?’ and the answer becomes pretty obvious. It also has the best boss-control (chilled isn’t reduced on any mobs in the game I can think of), which only becomes better if you choose for the CDR trait over damage. To put it in perspective:

My grenade auto attacks can hit anywhere from 1.2k (no crits) to 4.5k on a given mob in 0.85 seconds.

On the other end of the spectrum of kits, we have the flamethrower, which can do 2k (no crits) to ~5k + burning over 2.25 seconds through it’s auto, and it’s only good damage ability (The 2) requires you set it up somehow with a root, or by it being a stationary boss, otherwise it whiffs and you just wasted some potential damage.

There’s also tool kit (prybar, throw wrench), and elixir gun (elixir F, acid bomb) that bring some decent damage to the table, but their autos are a bit iffy (wrench is awesome, but slow – at least it cripples every hit with a trait!).

You also become one of the best supports/controls in the game, delivering anywhere between 12-25% more damage for your teammates, through your unending vulnerability applications. It’s VERY noticable.

Is there any traits or abilities that are “must have”?

Scora.5246:

Is there any traits or abilities that are “must have”?

I’d say grenadier and kit refinement. Double super elixirs are ridiculously good. Right now the best heal is a tossup between medkit and healing turret – detonating healing turret ~0.25 seconds after laying it results in a very nice heal, or just picking it up for a decent heal every 15 seconds. With 30 points in tools, medkit also has a 15 second heal, but also 3 medkits to drop, a reliable condition removal ability, and fury/swiftness (this is the big reason medkit is awesome). If you run grenades, I encourage shrapnel – it procs a 15 second bleed, and it’s 3 chances per grenade attack. For your other grenading trait, either 10% more damage or 20% CDR is good – they both have their pros and cons. No one will complain when you’re chilling bosses that much more often.

Guild Wars 2 Forum Code of Conduct

) Read the forum before asking a question. There’s a good chance your question has already been answered.

) Use the search function before posting. This will focus the discussion and facilitate a response.

) Avoid frivolous and duplicate postings.

That being said. There are very recent and extensive discussion on this topic. Perhaps you should do a small search and/or recent page once over before making yet another thread on it please. Making thread, after thread, after thread, causes it to be more and more difficult for people trying to do searches, and it would benefit you as the OP to have excess to much more information on this.

Coglin mate, chill out. We’re all friends here. This thread has already surpassed the other recent grenade threads in terms of information (excluding the 100nades thread, but that’s about a specific build and has become a rage-fest).

To Scora. It is as Rika and kamahl have said, the grenade kit has evened out as a well damaging kit in the recent patch. It has always been a very useful kit because of it’s range and utility in terms of crowd control (through it’s long chill), and now it works well with condition builds through its shrapnel trait.

This is all in terms of PvE. In WvW and PvP it is best to run grenades if you are a very able player, and most of the time you’ll want to use them at point blank range so as to not miss. In PvP specifically, you might want to look into bombs as opposed to grenades, as the skill requirement for them is much lower.

I am unclear how the 100 nades discussion has anything to do with what I was suggesting.

Scrolling back and doing a visual search of the last 5 pages reveals 11+ grenade discussions (average of about 5 seconds to scan a page of titles) , with the word grenade in the title. I would think those would be helpful to the OP.

Sorry if in my attempt to assist the OP and point out that it makes it difficult to find such threads of use when folks violate the code of conduct to frivolously duplicate the subject further.

Your assumption that by doing so, that I was in any manner, in a state of agitation, is certainly an incorrect one.

Sorry mate. My mistake :p

Anyway, I’ve taken some initiative from what coglin’s said and looked through the grenade threads in the last few pages to filter out some good ones. So that if anyone wants to find those threads they may look no further than this thread.

~Grenades still broke after patch; Not a very informative one, mostly flame bait, but has a little information on grenades post January patch.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/Grenades-Still-Broke-After-Patch/first#post1310468

~is grenade kit still viable; From before the January patch. It has some information, even if it gets a little side tracked from the start.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/is-grenade-kit-still-viable/first#post1307725

~Darth Nader build; Its a build. Had little feedback and the Op ended up with more questions than answers. Maybe people could help him out?
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/Darth-Nader-build/first#post1349441

~Five Gauge’s 100nade guide; Infamous build, a lot of feed back.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/Five-Gauge-s-100nade-Guide

There were others, but they had no content and were just flamed on. If I missed a good one feel free to add to the list

Kamahl.3621:

Grenade kit has the most long-term damage compared to any other kit. This doesn’t mean you can’t run other kits – they slaughtered the grenade auto, but now it hits almost as hard as it did back in october through careful sigil usage.

Which sigil are you using and what do you mean with careful usage? My engineer is on his way to lvl 80 and I will have to decide how to gear him up so I am very thankful for ideas.

Arpheus.6918:

Which sigil are you using and what do you mean with careful usage? My engineer is on his way to lvl 80 and I will have to decide how to gear him up so I am very thankful for ideas.

I suppose I didn’t include all the details – I also should have said ‘with my rifle’s stats now included’ as well. But, I typically run a superior sigil of precision rifle until I hit 25 stacks, then swap to a rifle with a superior sigil of flame. It’s taking advantage of a but I’ll admit, but I see no reason to not do it if Anet is fine with warriors doing so much damage with a few key presses. I’m also constantly juggling kits – swapping to tool kit to use prybar, swapping to elixir gun to use elixir F and acid bomb, and back to rifle before using throw wrench, grenade barrage, blunderbuss, and jump shot (not necessarily in this order, just listing off the skills I use). Make sure you have your rifle out when you barrage / throw wrench, as they do higher damage given the rifle has a higher base value than a kit. I’d use pistol/x for 2 sigils, except the pistol has no good damage abilities in a power build, and net shot is the best spammable root in the game.

Alot of good information, thank you all
I just started up a new engineer and recently unlocked the grenade kit. Now i know you probably need some traits to make it as good as people say but right now the damage feels almost non existant, my 4 levels lower pistols do way more damage. Or is that the problem?

Is there a certain point where grenades becomes powerful?

Kamahl.3621:

Grenade kit has the most long-term damage compared to any other kit. This doesn’t mean you can’t run other kits – they slaughtered the grenade auto, but now it hits almost as hard as it did back in october through careful sigil usage.

I don’t think so !!
The strongest kit is bomb not grenade ( even when traited )
I got both + mine. http://tinyurl.com/ap5uwkp
I use grenade till I reach the melee range then switch to bomb.
Against melee zergs ( even 10000 foes ) , bomb is the best kit specially with speedy kits and power shoes traits .

The Demonic Spirit.3157:

Kamahl.3621:

Grenade kit has the most long-term damage compared to any other kit. This doesn’t mean you can’t run other kits – they slaughtered the grenade auto, but now it hits almost as hard as it did back in october through careful sigil usage.

I don’t think so !!
The strongest kit is bomb not grenade ( even when traited )
I got both + mine. http://tinyurl.com/ap5uwkp
I use grenade till I reach the melee range then switch to bomb.
Against melee zergs ( even 10000 foes ) , bomb is the best kit specially with speedy kits and power shoes traits .

After checking your build, I’m not sure how you escape when things go wrong after diving into the enemy zerg. But I agree, if you’re looking at raw damage Bomb Kit is stronger than Grenade kit.

Thanks for the info Kamahl. On my ranger main I do the same thing. I have a berserker stats bow with the sigil for precision stacks and as soon as I reached 25 stacks I switch to the 2nd bow with the sigil of fire.

The Demonic Spirit.3157:

I don’t think so !!
The strongest kit is bomb not grenade ( even when traited )
I got both + mine. http://tinyurl.com/ap5uwkp
I use grenade till I reach the melee range then switch to bomb.
Against melee zergs ( even 10000 foes ) , bomb is the best kit specially with speedy kits and power shoes traits .

I’ll still vouch for 3 vuln stacks and 3 chances for shrapnel as opposed to one, and grenade kit having 2 more high-damage abilities than Bomb kit (Bomb kit has BoB and the auto attack, the other abilities do very little non-condition damage, and BoB is debatable since it scatters the enemies for your follow-up attacks to whiff). Shrapnel Grenade does a very large chunk of damage on a 5 second cooldown, and freeze grenade does just slightly less (albeit on a 20s cd). That, and grenade barrage is just.. it’s god-tier amongst god-tiers for that packet of damage every 21 seconds. 8 vuln, 8 shots at shrapnel, often 15-16k damage within a half second throw for PvE dungeons.