Guild Wars 2

Hello fellow Engineer friends. This is my 1st guide i have written in along time so i will try and space it so you can skip to the important parts.
With that out the way lets get to the important part. talking about myself

My wvw experience

I have been playing Guild wars two for almost 4 years. I have spent most that time in wvw and not long after starting, played as a roamer. I started as a ranger, then mesmer, then guard and then engineer. once i started playing engi i have spent 95% of my time playing the class. Before hot i played a glass SD rifle engi and post hot have played around with a few builds but mained a semi meta hammer build untill 4 months ago or so when i started using the bases of this build

The Build and Variations

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vdAQFAUnUUBlchtoCGYBEqilKjScZCgyj+tr78ecDigGA-TFCBQBA4BAwv9Huk6OYR53ZUC+QVCo4FAAf6ACAgAczbGAczbezbezbWKgMHZB-w

This is the build i use most of the time. To summarise i would call it a cc/combo build with high boon duration and damage reduction. The main variation i will make is swapping mass momentum for rapped regeneration depending on if im solo, in a party or getting focused alot and need more sustain. This is really a personal choice of sustain vs offence and i use both 50/50.
You could also swap Self regulating defence for Backpack regeneration. this is another personal preference as i know alot of people do not like the traited invul as it can interrupt important skills. I personally normally take Self-regulating defence.
The last change is more for duels. If your opponent doesn’t have any condi pressure that need to be clensed you can swap Elixir C for something like nades, rocket boots, Personal battering ram, Elixir U, slick shoes,Throw mine. Really there are alot of good choices if you are able to drop your condi clear

Build Breakdown. The defensive side

In this part i will break down the defensive traits and skills and how they work together.
Lets start with boon duration.This build boast a base 67.33% boon duration and 7/9 seconds of 99.3% boon duration(that gets rounded up to 100%). This is achieved with 1 commanders rifle, 1 wanderers chest piece Durability runes, mussels gnashblade food and the minor trait Alchemical Tinctures. This gets you 67.33% duration with the other 33% coming from sigil of concentration.
The damage reduction comes from a high protection uptime that is proced by protection injection, Recovery matrix, rune of durability and converting vulnerability via elixir C and the minor trait transmute.
With the high protection uptime(that provides 33% damage reduction) we also have the mussels gnashblade food that gives +10%(making it 43%) and the trait iron blooded that gives +2% per boon. you will have a high uptime of protection, swiftness and regeneration. adding a reliable base of 6%(making it 49%), with the potential to
9 boons giving you +18%. But the uptime and procing of the other boons are not as constant so lets just say 50% damage reduction.
For condition management you have the heal turret and elixir C. not much more to say on this
And as a minor synergy if you take Rapid regeneration you get perma swiftness regen and semi decent superspeed uptime with tool kit swap,Bypass coating and Final salvo.

Build Breakdown. The ofensive side

Now for the fun part. Before i break down the traits and skills ill summarise the offensive play style. As i said before this is a cc/combo heavy build. your win condition is to time your lockdown combo for u to unload your damage and/or for your team to capitalise on damaging the CCed enemy. The combo varies but normally goes like this.

Blast gyro in melee range or blast gyro+net shot at close range. you want this to hit.
As the opponent gets launched you want to use throw wrench as you close the distance. once u get in melee range you want to use overcharge shot(with no knockback with stab from blast gyro+final salvo).on the 2nd knockback you want to use blunderbuss. try not 2 be greedy with trying to get super close.once you get close to melee range you finish off with a jumpshot on there still down body.
If you have landed all that with them not using stunbreak or stab they will normaly roll out of being cc, you can then magnet+pry bar.

This is just a base combo like to use and like most non hammer engi builds u get a bit of freedom as to how you want to combo. Procing passive stun brakes with magnet is a good strategy. And using blast gyro at a longer range then pulling enemy into gyro can be pretty satisfying. And remember you can knockback down people being revived, a blast gyro or overcharge shot on a down player is a amazing stall as your party cleaves

A quick breakdown of the offensive skills and traits if you cant tell. Final salvo+blast gyro will give you stab you can use to overcharge shot with no knockback. If u take mass momentum it will also proc might as long as you have stabilty. And i feel like i should mention blast gyro and overcharge shot both have 15 second cooldowns, making managing cooldowns easy

The strengths and weakness

Overall this build has decent staying power with the damage reduction and decent damage potential with high damage combo. 1v1 there are classes you should be able to dominate while there are a few that are are hard match, with 1 class+trait that will counter you pretty much 100%(no one will win)
As you can guess, your prime targets are classes with low stun breaks and stability. revs and necros are going to be your main strong matchups. Thief, mesmer, elementalist, engeneer and guards are a semi balanced matchup depending on build used and player skill. a good thief can be a hard fight(even though you have a semi advantage vs thief) and a acro evade thief is normally hard as they have a super high evade uptime.
A good power mesmer is also a hardish match. condi mesmer is annoying but you should have enough condi clear for there bomb(amusing there the 10% of condi mesmers that dont roll there face over the keyboard) guards can have a semi decent stability and block uptime as can elementalist and engineer.
Your bad matchups are going to be druids, wars and anything with higher then average sustain(cele ele, bunker scrapper ect). These are not bad matchups you are going to lose. they are bad as they can out sustain your spike with healing and avoiding damage.

The hard counter is a war with rousing resilience. you cant reliably cc them as you feed there rousing resilience that heals them for breaking out of cc. Even without rousing resilience adrenal regeneration can make it a draw if you dont avoid the burst( or they have a longbow to proc adrenal on themself)

With that being said please keep in mind that most time player skill overcomes build disadvantage

Closing

Thank you for reading, hope you enjoy this build if you use it. It reminds me of playing engi before hot and hammer. Using skills and combos on the fly depending on your situation. Instead of hammer, that is ok in medium number fights but has a huge weakness of losing nearly all DPS if your enemy decides to flank around you.
And if you use this for duels please swap out sneak gyro for something like supply crate. dont be that guy that duels with sneak gyro, its like dueling with a mesmer that uses moa

And a special thanks to bob who helped me min/max this build. and without his permission ill shamelessly plug his youtube channel
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrgi7iO_2RIWPnXSjnozosg

Thanks for sharing, Ocelot. This looks like you put a ton of work into this.

I always loved the wombo combos you could pull off with rifle, BoB, magnet ect. I’d actually like to try your combo with Blast gyro inserted in for the CC and Stab. I might actually give it a go tonight.

thanks for sharing! very helpful.
long live rifle engi

This is the first time I have even the slightest impulse to try a build without flamethrower.
GREAT WORK!

Rifle Engi is the best!

you got a gameplay video of you using the build in different situations?

Holesale.2640:

you got a gameplay video of you using the build in different situations?

Until i get a better computer i dont think i could handle recording as well as running the game. When i do ill try recording some footage

I used this build for a few days and threw together and video no expert gameplay by any stretch but it shows what the build can do in action!

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vdAQFAUnUUBlchtbBuoCEqilJjieur7+W8ZOgAY8DqgIA-TFCFAB1s/g66AA4BAgv6PCcBAUSZGfKBRSpRAAEgbezAwRP6RP6RPa38m38m38mlBoYMA-w

More details in video description

Nice video. but really its not my build besides the gyro stab overcharge shot combo. Assuming the build you posted is meant to have durability runes like you say. it has less damage and less damage reduction. with damage reduction being the main thing to make this build tanky and the choice of armour,weapon,trinket setup to get the most out of it.

im sure i outlined it in the guide but the damage reduction carrys the defensive side (43% min avg) and the gear food set up (one wanders chest,one commanders weapon, food,trait,sigil) max your boon duration.turning recovery matrix pot from 5 seconds to 10 seconds of prot. and only needing two gear with boon duration u can play around with the rest(i go all zerk trinkets and valk for left over armour)

Not hating on your variation though, just pointing out some variations in both

Thanks really i just used what gear i had on hand at the time. id like to try the armor setup you have, the damage reduction seems interesting.