Guild Wars 2

Have been messing around with builds for 2 days now since I started playing Engi again, and after some testings I’ve kinda decided to go back to the old elixir/hgh build. Although I haven’t really played it outside sPvP/tPvP, I wanna use it for WvW now (solo and zerg).

I’ve checked some recent builds, I know people are testing new stuff but the old HGH build doesn’t seem as popular anymore, so I wonder if there was some major changes to it that I’ve missed?

Anyway… I was going ask for runes.. I’m using rabid gear so, would it be better to go for boon duration runes or condition runes?

With HGH builds, you’ll want either more might or might duration. More might = more malice, so generally they are superior to condition runes.

There’s a few ways I’ve seen it done, and there’s a lot of variety because there isn’t a “right” way to do it. For a low maintenance might build, some people do this:

x4 superior runes of altruism, x2 might duration increasing runes
20/x/x/30/x/x
Sigil of Superior Battle

Require utility: Med kit
Required Trait: Enhance Performance

Sigil of Battle, Enhance Performance, and Runes of Altruism all proc at the same time whenever you flip to the med kit. This comes to 9 stacks of might on a single skill. They all have varying durations, but with 65% might duration you’ll get the following:

Altruism: 16.5 seconds
Sigil of Battle: 33 seconds
Enhance Performance: 24.75 seconds

So you’ll get anywhere from 18 to max stacks of might, but it’ll take 20 seconds of combat to get there. Things become a bit complicated from there, since Altruism has a 15 second cooldown instead of 10, and the Sigil only works while in combat. But you can spam the med kit outside of battle to get 15 or so stacks of might out of combat, which is really good when WvW roaming. Probably the biggest advantage to this is that there is no build dedication beyond what I listed above, an even then the 30 points in Alchemy aren’t necessary. So, you can run elixirs, kits, gadgets, turrets, whatever your heart desires.

There are a couple of other builds that use Juggernaut to get might. They usually go with the above sigil and runes, but instead have 20 in Firearms to get Juggernaut. With 65% duration this amounts to 8 stacks of might by just sitting in the Flamthrower. At 35% duration this is 6 stacks of might. This can be used in supplement with everything, whether using HGH or enhance Performance, or both.

In my personal build, I just use x6 runes of strength, along with Enhance Performance and HGH and Sigil of Battle, with Elixir H, Grenade Kit, Elixir B, then some other elixir. I only hit 20 stacks of might in general, however I have higher starting power and an additional 5% increase in damage with all of that might. The additional 140 power is equivalent to 4 stacks, so to scale sit around at 24 stacks of might in regards to power. If the 5% worked (I still hear it is bugged), this comes to a full 25, but it gives me room for 5 more actual stacks of might.

I’m also running a mix of mostly carrion, with rabid and rampager thrown in, so what I do might not be applicable to your case. So yeah… no one way to do it.

EDIT: Oh yeah, the change. More boon hate was introduced, so in sPVP a lot of people who stack might just find a thief has stolen it. In the interest of having as much utility as possible, people are running might stacking builds with as few elixirs as possible, since most of our utility is in kits.

I’m currently running 10/20/10/30 (I could move 10 points from firearms to explosives).
Gear: Rabid and Coral trinkets
Weapon: P/P
Heal: Elixir X
Utilities: Elixir B, Elixir S and Tool Kit

Runes of perplexity.
Runes were actually a left over from a previous build I’ve tested. But I’ve found that they still work nicely with the Tool Kit, since Magnet (#5) will cause an interrupt more often than not, so that’s still an easy 12 stacks of confusion. I actually kinda like the build, I think it’s a little bit different from the others. But in the end it comes down to whether I’ll consider stacking more confusion is going to be more worth than an overall increase in condition damage (through more might stacking).

At the moment, I’m thinking of going as you said with the altruism, remove HGH and put vigor on swiftness instead. Use med kit, keep Elixir B and S and use them for utility and condition removal through Cleaning Formula 409. I’ve personally always felt that HGH didn’t go well with Cleaning Formula. The first one requires you to spam elixirs and toss elixirs while the other wants you to use them more strategically.

Edit: Btw, I’m actually thinking of going just with 2 runes of altruism and then something else.. For example 2 hoelbrak and 2 strenght, that’s 40% might duration instead if 15% boon and 20% might duration.

HGH is still very strong. The only problem is the lack of usefull stun breaker right now and the new meta: Necros rule the battlefield with such ease, my 2 years old little brother just random pressed some buttons with necro and killed someone. In other words: forget any OP build/class so far: necro is just superior to any of them – easy as hell to dominate everyone. Excluding warriors with the new berserker stance. And back to the lack of stun breaker… which we do need against warriors.

Nekros + boons = …
Warriros + perma stun + no stun breaker= …

paleeshi.1924:

Edit: Btw, I’m actually thinking of going just with 2 runes of altruism and then something else.. For example 2 hoelbrak and 2 strenght, that’s 40% might duration instead if 15% boon and 20% might duration.

And this my friend will be a big mistake.

2 Altruism, 2 Hoelbrak, 2 Strength gives you 40% Might duration
4 Altruism, 2 Hoelbrak gives you 35% Might duration and 15% to other boons duration

Remember, Might is a boon, and the 15% from Altruism stacks with the 20% from Hoelbrak.

You are giving up 15% to ALL boons (hello Elixir B) for a measly 5% more Might duration. Absolutely not worth at all, believe me.

@shouzama: you’re right, 15% is more beneficial.

Anyway, I think this isn’t going to work for me after all =/ Cause I want to use grenades and rocket boots. And healing turret goes better with the rocket boots. So there is no room for elixir build, nor might stacking for that matter I guess.. And I’m not going anywhere without Elixir S! So it’s back to runes again.

Here is the build I’ve come up with for now:

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/engineer/?2.0|a.1o.h15.a.1o.h1h|0.0.0.0.0.0|1b.716.1b.716.1b.716.1b.716.1b.716.1b.711|2w.0.2w.0.3w.0.2w.0.3w.0.2w.0|u58b.k36.0.k16.0|2s.d|2c.2f.2j.2m.30|e

With additional 25 stacks from sigil of corruption it should put me at 1910 condition damage without any might stacks. Should get a little bit of boost from upcoming ascended weapons as well. I think it should work :P

paleeshi.1924:

Here is the build I’ve come up with for now:

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/engineer/?2.0|a.1o.h15.a.1o.h1h|0.0.0.0.0.0|1b.716.1b.716.1b.716.1b.716.1b.716.1b.711|2w.0.2w.0.3w.0.2w.0.3w.0.2w.0|u58b.k36.0.k16.0|2s.d|2c.2f.2j.2m.30|e

With additional 25 stacks from sigil of corruption it should put me at 1910 condition damage without any might stacks. Should get a little bit of boost from upcoming ascended weapons as well. I think it should work :P

A few things. The icd on blood will interfere with battle. in fact any cd on sigils will effect the cd on the other sigil. Blood is notoriously bad as a sigil and should not be used. If i were you would take the 10 points out of fire arms and put it into tools for speedy kits. It will be more consistent than infused precision and better for the times you’ll have to run. An off hand shield would likely work better with this build due to having healing turret. I would opt in Super Veggie Pizza in for truffle food. In WvW (and most other places for that matter) condi duration > extra condi damage.

TheGuy.3568:

A few things. The icd on blood will interfere with battle. in fact any cd on sigils will effect the cd on the other sigil. Blood is notoriously bad as a sigil and should not be used.

I personally don’t think that extra 450 heal is bad :P Though I didn’t know it would interfere with other CDs. The only other useful sigil I can come up with without any CD would be either bleed or burn duration by 10%

If i were you would take the 10 points out of fire arms and put it into tools for speedy kits. It will be more consistent than infused precision and better for the times you’ll have to run.

The reason why I went into firearms was cause I felt I would benefit from some extra precision and condition damage, trying to push the condition damage as high as possible considering that this isn’t a very high might stacking build. I’m still debating though with the other option. I was hoping that tossing and regular elixir s + rocket boots would be enough to get away.

paleeshi.1924:

TheGuy.3568:

A few things. The icd on blood will interfere with battle. in fact any cd on sigils will effect the cd on the other sigil. Blood is notoriously bad as a sigil and should not be used.

I personally don’t think that extra 450 heal is bad :P Though I didn’t know it would interfere with other CDs. The only other useful sigil I can come up with without any CD would be either bleed or burn duration by 10%

If i were you would take the 10 points out of fire arms and put it into tools for speedy kits. It will be more consistent than infused precision and better for the times you’ll have to run.

The reason why I went into firearms was cause I felt I would benefit from some extra precision and condition damage, trying to push the condition damage as high as possible considering that this isn’t a very high might stacking build. I’m still debating though with the other option. I was hoping that tossing and regular elixir s + rocket boots would be enough to get away.

The 450 heal isn’t all that noticeable and you are running a condition spec so there are simply more useful sigils. Bleed is fine and if you were HgH 5% damage would be fine also.

Pushing condi damage like that will be good for one thing burns. In any other case you are going to lean toward condition duration so that 100 precision and condi damage wont amount to much. the reason is simple. In WvW many players run builds based around melandru and condition management. Your condition aren’t usually on long enough to do a great deal of damage. In builds that try to reduce condition duration the main counter is simply increasing condition duration. This will also net you more DPS to conditions that stack. The basic logic is this. The next stack is worth more than the increase in each tick. On that same note you might want to invest in giver’s weapons instead.

You got options as far as hightailing it. What you have is fine so that is more about your playstyle.