Guild Wars 2

Hey guy,
I have been playing with the engineer for a while now and really love the flamethrower. While I know a build with one may not be the best possible I really enjoy using it so I would like to try to make the best build possible with it.

What I have worked out so far is that I am using a full set of Berserker’s Emblazoned armor, have 30 in firearms, 30 in alchemy, and 10 in explosives. Currently I have Precise Sights, Fireforged Trigger, Juggernaut, Incendiary Powder, Fast-Acting Elixirs, Deadly Mixture, and HGH active. Skills I have been switching between recently but the main ones I like are the healing turret, flamethrower (obviously), Elixir B, Elixir C and Elixir X.

Right now I am using a basic rifle but plan to switch to a shield and pistol because I want to experiment with the shield. Additionally I would like to avoid changing my armor insignias because of the cost unless some other set will make a HUGE difference.

Currently I have no sigils or runes.

I understand that maximizing the effectiveness of the flamethrower deals with increasing condition damage and getting many stacks of might, but I am unsure of the best way to do this. I am up to tweaking some of my traits and skills and what not so throw out whatever.

With all this said, what do any of you think would be the best way to go about maximizing the damage output and survivability of the build framework I have already established?

Thanks.

pve or pvp?

nakoda.4213:

pve or pvp?

Prett much PvE. I really dont have plans to do PvP but may try out WvW at some point.

Been using the 10,30,0,30,0 build for a while now, since they tweaked kit refinement to make it near enough useless. Rune wise I’m using Superior 2xFire, 2xHoelbrek and 2xStrength. This gives me 30% Boon duration from the Alchemy trait line and another 60% might duration from the runes. I can typically keep my might stacked at 15 out of combat and at around 20-25 in. Currently the armour I use is PVT with a mixture of Knights/Berserker and Valkyrie accessories but then I use the build in WvW.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQFAUlspSXnvSrF17IxoCdG0DAX37K6xjp8kB-jwxAUGgkXR0Yrcht0FtKYQ01YKXioaA-e <-flamethrower/elixir might stacking build.

- can put 10 in tools into explosives for the burning trait. i just happen to like swiftness on demand and hope there’s an ele or guardian in the party to provide extra burning.
- you can also swap formula 409 for deadly mixture and elixir s for elixir c. personally i’ll trade the damage for both the access to invulnerability/stun breaker and condi removal but it’s up to you. or if you have nice friends, you could take dealy mixtures and elixir s and rely on teammates to cure conditions.
- sigil of strength isn’t needed. i could maintain 20-25 stacks without it and you definitely won’t need it with any warriors in the party. you could opt for blood or fire instead.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQFAUlIqyUX7SrF17IxIFkuzgeA46eXRKqcjB-jwxAUGgkXR0Yrcht0FtKYQ01YKXioaA-e <- static discharge/flamethrower build. blow up your two turrets over FT skill 4 for more might stacks.

some of the builds that i’ve tried with success. i don’t like pistol/shield because that’s a condition weapon. with 30 in firearms you can also trait for pure rifle damage for fights where you need to stay at range or underwater

Interesting combinations. Is it safe to say that increasing condition duration would be almost pointless since the flamethrower applies them some rapidly, and I would be better off trying to increase might and condition damage? The only benefit I could think of from increasing condition duration is getting larger stacks of vulnerability with precise sights

Also, does anyone think there is any effectiveness in using 6x Superior runes of altruism with the healing turret as support for my group and increasing the survivability of myself (plus a 15% increase in boon, mainly might, duration)? Or maybe something like 6x Rune of the undead for lots of condition damage (though I don’t know if runes that would help increase might would cause a higher damage output than just a straight increase to condition damage.

Otherwise I do like the idea of 2x Fire, Hoelbrak, and Strength.

You just need enough +cond duration to keep burning rolling for the +10% damage buff of FT autoattack. If you are geared berserker then you aren’t dealing much cond damage so stacking any cond dmg stats is useless. Might helps cond dmg, but also straight dmg too so that’s quite useful.

Seras.5702:

You just need enough +cond duration to keep burning rolling for the +10% damage buff of FT autoattack. If you are geared berserker then you aren’t dealing much cond damage so stacking any cond dmg stats is useless. Might helps cond dmg, but also straight dmg too so that’s quite useful.

So do you think the 2X, Hoelbrak, Strength, and Fire runes that give the increased %60 percent might duration and power bonuses is the most practical set.

if you are going for a might stacking set, yes.

nakoda.4213:

if you are going for a might stacking set, yes.

Ok. Any ideas on sigils? Or should I just pick ones with good bonuses that I like.

Chris Regian.3048:

nakoda.4213:

if you are going for a might stacking set, yes.

Ok. Any ideas on sigils? Or should I just pick ones with good bonuses that I like.

Strength or Battle are the usual suspects.

Since I didn’t see anything the same I thought I would share a p/s FT build that I’ve used variations of in PvE and pvp. Now I use some celestial stuff in the build as it can take advantage of all the stats to some extent and I’m not sure what i would swap them for. Probably just berserker stuff for more damage. I came up with this when I was trying to find something I liked that didn’t revolve around might stacking with HGH. Points are 20/30/0/20/0

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/engineer/?2.3|a.1g.h2.e.1g.h1h|0.0.0.0.0.0|1g.a7.1g.a7.1g.a7.1g.a7.1g.a7.1g.a7|411.0.211.0.311.0.211.0.1c.67.1c.67|k5a.u58b.0.k67.0|39.1|2d.2i.2v.2w.30|e

I’m sure the slot skills are debatable. I like med pack because it lets you maintain 12 stacks of might with ease (no HGH chugging down your utility skills, no 2x runes of holebrak, fire, strength needed). You can get another 3 stacks from shield 4 and if you decide to swap out med pack for healing turret for more group healing and con removal you can get another 3 stacks from blowing it up too. Start with a sigil of bloodlust and change it to sigil of force once you hit your 25 stacks.

I definitely like the sigil of strength, but I dont know if I will be switching in and out of the flamethower enough to utilize the sigil of battle. Does anyone have an opinion on whether the power boost of sigil of bloodlust or the slight crit chance increase (since the flamethrower can crit easily already and I am using berserker gear for increased crit damage) from sigil of accuracy would be better?

Hello, are there any videos/info about the DPS output of a FT build in PvE ? (Arah / CoF / Fractals)
Thank you.

usually people take accuracy/force on their offhand because those sigils don’t have any cooldowns to share with other sigils. with such high crit you get from full berserker gear already, it would probably be more useful to get something like blood for extra survivability/damage or fire for extra aoe damage over the 5% crit chance. if you run pistol + pistol/shield you could have something like strength in one hand and accuracy in the other.
if you want to take it further with the bloodlust sigil you can use it until you reach 25 stacks, then swap out that weapon for another with a different sigil. bloodlust/corruption become quite useless at 25 stacks.

i am a big fan of mixing things like an on swap sigil (like battle or geomancy or hydromancy for some chilly fun) with duration sigils that match like bleed or chll duration.

turns kit swapping in to a weapon itself.

with the FT you also have access to on crit sigils that do dmg such as Fire and Air or even Leeching or Purification. Strength is also an excellent all round choice.

When taking an on crit sigil, you cannot use on swap because they share cooldowns, so then definitely a sigil of accuracy would be helpful.

If your crit% < 50%
then use accuracy (because you want your crit % to hover at or just above 50%)
else
use force (because who doesn’t like an extra 5 dmg every 100?)

Chris Regian.3048:

I definitely like the sigil of strength, but I dont know if I will be switching in and out of the flamethower enough to utilize the sigil of battle. Does anyone have an opinion on whether the power boost of sigil of bloodlust or the slight crit chance increase (since the flamethrower can crit easily already and I am using berserker gear for increased crit damage) from sigil of accuracy would be better?

Bloodlust > Force > Perception > Accuracy

Accuracy is really only useful if you’re trying for on-crit effects like Empowering Might. As a DPS option it’s pretty much the worst choice.

Bloodlust adds more damage through Power than Force’s 5% increase; the same with Perception and Accuracy for Precision.

I recommend investing in two shields, one of which has Force and the other has Bloodlust. If you’re killing enough stuff with maximum potency Bloodlust is easy to achieve, use that one. If you’re not, like running CoF, use Force.

Phineas Poe.3018:

Chris Regian.3048:

I definitely like the sigil of strength, but I dont know if I will be switching in and out of the flamethower enough to utilize the sigil of battle. Does anyone have an opinion on whether the power boost of sigil of bloodlust or the slight crit chance increase (since the flamethrower can crit easily already and I am using berserker gear for increased crit damage) from sigil of accuracy would be better?

Bloodlust > Force > Perception > Accuracy

Accuracy is really only useful if you’re trying for on-crit effects like Empowering Might. As a DPS option it’s pretty much the worst choice.

Bloodlust adds more damage through Power than Force’s 5% increase; the same with Perception and Accuracy for Precision.

I recommend investing in two shields, one of which has Force and the other has Bloodlust. If you’re killing enough stuff with maximum potency Bloodlust is easy to achieve, use that one. If you’re not, like running CoF, use Force.

A decent bit of what I went for already came from the guide you have in your PM lol. I will go with bloodlust then and try out another shield too.

Chris Regian.3048:

I definitely like the sigil of strength, but I dont know if I will be switching in and out of the flamethower enough to utilize the sigil of battle. Does anyone have an opinion on whether the power boost of sigil of bloodlust or the slight crit chance increase (since the flamethrower can crit easily already and I am using berserker gear for increased crit damage) from sigil of accuracy would be better?

Honestly if you are playing to your full potential you should be switching kits/weapons often enough to keep battle up pretty much constantly. With sigil of battle, 2x runes of altruism, enhanced performance and med kit you can gain 9 stacks of might every time you switch to med kit to drop stimulant, it is very powerful. I suppose with two sets of might duration runes and 20 in alchemy you could stack might to 24ish with just one swap to med kit then swap back every 10 seconds not bad opportunity cost for the gain.

I mentioned bloodlust and force in my post because they are the best option in pretty much every case, I think that in the rare case that you have a lot of +crit damage and low crit you might actually get more damage out of a sigil of accuracy (say if you had a lot of valkyrie or cavalier armor that raised crit damage without boosting your crit chance).

Phineas Poe already answered, so check his signature
http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/72009-a-comprehensive-look-at-the-flamethrower-and-elixir-gun/

Well I didn’t see it anywhere in his initial updated post or anywhere in the first 4 or 5 pages of posts that seemed to get more off topic and a bit trolltastic. Maybe somewhere in that thread he talks about why it is superior to put 10 more in alchemy instead of 10 more in explosives but I didn’t see the discussion. The 100 power and 10% condition duration seem just as good if not better than the 100 vit and 10% boon duration to me. You might need to slot elixir C to have enough condition removal when 409 is gone but the trade for extra stacks of might seems fair…but that isn’t talked about in any of his alternatives in that link.

Skitza.4069:

Well I didn’t see it anywhere in his initial updated post or anywhere in the first 4 or 5 pages of posts that seemed to get more off topic and a bit trolltastic. Maybe somewhere in that thread he talks about why it is superior to put 10 more in alchemy instead of 10 more in explosives but I didn’t see the discussion. The 100 power and 10% condition duration seem just as good if not better than the 100 vit and 10% boon duration to me. You might need to slot elixir C to have enough condition removal when 409 is gone but the trade for extra stacks of might seems fair…but that isn’t talked about in any of his alternatives in that link.

Two reasons:

The first is that more Boon Duration = More Might

1 stack of Might is 35 Power, 35 Condition Damage. Let’s say you’re running 6 Runes of Altruism with 30 Alchemy. That’s 45% Boon Duration.

Juggernaut applies 1 stack of Might every 3 seconds each that last for 15 seconds. With base Boon Duration that’s 5 total stacks. With 45% Boon Duration that’s 7 sustained stacks of Might. With 35% Boon Duration that’s 6 sustained stacks of Might. You’re actually not gaining 100 Power with 10 points in Explosives. You’re actually only gaining 65.

And Condition Duration? For what? Flamethrower Engineers have access to more than plenty Burning applications to permanently sustain it with only 10 points in Explosives. Another 10% isn’t enough to get an extra stack of Bleed from Sharpshooter either, so you gain nothing there. And 10% increased duration of Vulnerability against bosses? You will hardly notice.

The second reason, which compounds on the first one, is that Energy Conversion Matrix gives you a flat 1% boost in damage for every Boon you have. You may think that isn’t a whole lot; 1% is hardly noticeable.

But the difference between 2000 Power and 2100 Power in the output of your damage, when applied to a skill co-efficient, is usually around a 1% difference in damage. And actually: many times less.

If you’re running Infused Precision and Invigorating Speed, on top of Might and Fury, that’s a flat 4% increase in your damage which will significantly outperform an extra 100 Power in your build.

The whole advantage to running 20 Explosives is actually not about the Power and Condition Duration at all: It’s Enhance Performance giving you 3 extra stacks of Might. But I don’t know about you, but when I’m feeling serious about my Might stacking I can get to 19 stacks of Might all by myself.

99% of the time, the other 6 stacks of Might are granted by someone else. We are, after all, not the only class that can stack Might.

As for condi removal, I recommend Cleaning Formula 409 to start but I haven’t used it in weeks. Not since I swapped to the Healing Turret in dungeons.

Phineas Poe.3018:

Skitza.4069:

Well I didn’t see it anywhere in his initial updated post or anywhere in the first 4 or 5 pages of posts that seemed to get more off topic and a bit trolltastic. Maybe somewhere in that thread he talks about why it is superior to put 10 more in alchemy instead of 10 more in explosives but I didn’t see the discussion. The 100 power and 10% condition duration seem just as good if not better than the 100 vit and 10% boon duration to me. You might need to slot elixir C to have enough condition removal when 409 is gone but the trade for extra stacks of might seems fair…but that isn’t talked about in any of his alternatives in that link.

Two reasons:

The first is that more Boon Duration = More Might

1 stack of Might is 35 Power, 35 Condition Damage. Let’s say you’re running 6 Runes of Altruism with 30 Alchemy. That’s 45% Boon Duration.

Juggernaut applies 1 stack of Might every 3 seconds each that last for 15 seconds. With base Boon Duration that’s 5 total stacks. With 45% Boon Duration that’s 7 sustained stacks of Might. With 35% Boon Duration that’s 6 sustained stacks of Might. You’re actually not gaining 100 Power with 10 points in Explosives. You’re actually only gaining 65.

And Condition Duration? For what? Flamethrower Engineers have access to more than plenty Burning applications to permanently sustain it with only 10 points in Explosives. Another 10% isn’t enough to get an extra stack of Bleed from Sharpshooter either, so you gain nothing there. And 10% increased duration of Vulnerability against bosses? You will hardly notice.

The second reason, which compounds on the first one, is that Energy Conversion Matrix gives you a flat 1% boost in damage for every Boon you have. You may think that isn’t a whole lot; 1% is hardly noticeable.

But the difference between 2000 Power and 2100 Power in the output of your damage, when applied to a skill co-efficient, is usually around a 1% difference in damage. And actually: many times less.

If you’re running Infused Precision and Invigorating Speed, on top of Might and Fury, that’s a flat 4% increase in your damage which will significantly outperform an extra 100 Power in your build.

The whole advantage to running 20 Explosives is actually not about the Power and Condition Duration at all: It’s Enhance Performance giving you 3 extra stacks of Might. But I don’t know about you, but when I’m feeling serious about my Might stacking I can get to 19 stacks of Might all by myself.

99% of the time, the other 6 stacks of Might are granted by someone else. We are, after all, not the only class that can stack Might.

As for condi removal, I recommend Cleaning Formula 409 to start but I haven’t used it in weeks. Not since I swapped to the Healing Turret in dungeons.

Now this is more like it. Real discussion and some good points I would say most of my disagreement comes from play styles and situations I suppose, I rarely find myself having another 6 stacks of might from another class so enhanced performance is invaluable and I really enjoy the knee shot trait (you can apply it so quickly with net shot or net turret) so getting an extra second out of its duration from that 10% is nice but other than that you are right it doesn’t extend much. I can see how in an optimized group the 10 in explosives is less helpful and more dead weight but in the situations I am usually in they aren’t.

Energy conversion matrix is nice boost that I hadn’t considered fully and I can see how keeping it at a pretty steady 4% is doable. I will ask what you think of empowering adrenaline though. I don’t currently run the invigorating speed/infused precision combination so I find myself fighting with my endurance bar recharging pretty frequently and the flat 5% damage boost is nice. I’ve used this skill a lot lately in a tanky bomb build I run and it seems to do really well but I haven’t actually tried it with my FT yet. I’ve got around 6-7k kills in wvw and the majority of them can be attributed to my trust FT so I am always looking for new takes on how to baptize my enemies with fire. Thanks for the reply

Oh and as an aside healing turret is hard to beat for group play and I like the changes they made to it. I was a little miffed about the loss of initial healing at first but it grows on you…although sometimes I wonder how my builds would be different if 409 effected gadgets instead of potions but that is a thought for another thread.

re: empowering adrenaline;

yet, that 5% boost is only when it is full, and not recharging.

one of the issues we have as engineers are a surplus of abilities that are situation dependent, like scope, and empowering adrenaline, etc.

energy conversion matrix, like juggernaut, deadly mixture, and speedy kits, are all passively granted abilities that enhance us simply by being there.

we have enough work to do managing cooldowns and kits never mind having to also worry about having a full energy bar, especially so since dodging is actually one of our main methods of avoiding conditions with many of our available build options

nakoda.4213:

re: empowering adrenaline;

yet, that 5% boost is only when it is full, and not recharging.

one of the issues we have as engineers are a surplus of abilities that are situation dependent, like scope, and empowering adrenaline, etc.

energy conversion matrix, like juggernaut, deadly mixture, and speedy kits, are all passively granted abilities that enhance us simply by being there.

we have enough work to do managing cooldowns and kits never mind having to also worry about having a full energy bar, especially so since dodging is actually one of our main methods of avoiding conditions with many of our available build options

Are you sure you aren’t thinking of Stabilized armor? It fits your tanky 0/30/20/20/0 spec better. I’ve considered taking both just so I wouldn’t have to worry if my endurance was empty or full but honestly the bonuses seem a bit backwards to me, I’m more likely to want the 5% less damage after a dodge and the 5% more damage when I don’t have to dodge but can just stand my ground and attack.

edit: Realized you were talking about enduring damage in the tools line, I haven’t put 30 in tools in so long I had forgot it existed

No, you were right the first tine, I was confusing enduring damage with empowered adrenaline.

either way, I still prefer passive traits that are actually passive and not semi-RNG situational.

as for enduring damage, id forgotten about it too. I haven’t used tools since I was level 60 in pve.

ellesee.8297:

usually people take accuracy/force on their offhand because those sigils don’t have any cooldowns to share with other sigils. with such high crit you get from full berserker gear already, it would probably be more useful to get something like blood for extra survivability/damage or fire for extra aoe damage over the 5% crit chance. if you run pistol + pistol/shield you could have something like strength in one hand and accuracy in the other.
if you want to take it further with the bloodlust sigil you can use it until you reach 25 stacks, then swap out that weapon for another with a different sigil. bloodlust/corruption become quite useless at 25 stacks.

Does the bloodlust effect stay while its unequipped?

Phineas Poe.3018:

Skitza.4069:

Well I didn’t see it anywhere in his initial updated post or anywhere in the first 4 or 5 pages of posts that seemed to get more off topic and a bit trolltastic. Maybe somewhere in that thread he talks about why it is superior to put 10 more in alchemy instead of 10 more in explosives but I didn’t see the discussion. The 100 power and 10% condition duration seem just as good if not better than the 100 vit and 10% boon duration to me. You might need to slot elixir C to have enough condition removal when 409 is gone but the trade for extra stacks of might seems fair…but that isn’t talked about in any of his alternatives in that link.

Two reasons:

The first is that more Boon Duration = More Might

1 stack of Might is 35 Power, 35 Condition Damage. Let’s say you’re running 6 Runes of Altruism with 30 Alchemy. That’s 45% Boon Duration.

Juggernaut applies 1 stack of Might every 3 seconds each that last for 15 seconds. With base Boon Duration that’s 5 total stacks. With 45% Boon Duration that’s 7 sustained stacks of Might. With 35% Boon Duration that’s 6 sustained stacks of Might. You’re actually not gaining 100 Power with 10 points in Explosives. You’re actually only gaining 65.

And Condition Duration? For what? Flamethrower Engineers have access to more than plenty Burning applications to permanently sustain it with only 10 points in Explosives. Another 10% isn’t enough to get an extra stack of Bleed from Sharpshooter either, so you gain nothing there. And 10% increased duration of Vulnerability against bosses? You will hardly notice.

The second reason, which compounds on the first one, is that Energy Conversion Matrix gives you a flat 1% boost in damage for every Boon you have. You may think that isn’t a whole lot; 1% is hardly noticeable.

But the difference between 2000 Power and 2100 Power in the output of your damage, when applied to a skill co-efficient, is usually around a 1% difference in damage. And actually: many times less.

If you’re running Infused Precision and Invigorating Speed, on top of Might and Fury, that’s a flat 4% increase in your damage which will significantly outperform an extra 100 Power in your build.

The whole advantage to running 20 Explosives is actually not about the Power and Condition Duration at all: It’s Enhance Performance giving you 3 extra stacks of Might. But I don’t know about you, but when I’m feeling serious about my Might stacking I can get to 19 stacks of Might all by myself.

99% of the time, the other 6 stacks of Might are granted by someone else. We are, after all, not the only class that can stack Might.

As for condi removal, I recommend Cleaning Formula 409 to start but I haven’t used it in weeks. Not since I swapped to the Healing Turret in dungeons.

Also, based on what you are saying Cleaning Formula 409 is a Grandmaster skill, but on the wiki it is listed as a master skill. Did they patch it so that it is a master because they felt that having it active along with one of the other master traits was too powerful?

409 is trait IX (or X?) of the alchemy tree. it must be actively slotted for the effect to work.

nakoda.4213:

409 is trait IX (or X?) of the alchemy tree. it must be actively slotted for the effect to work.

I know that, but early someone was mentioning having 409 active along with another master trait, but 409 is a master trait so how could you have both active at once?

EDIT:
Ah I actually was just looking at the traits and did not realize that you can have trait effects from previous tiers activated in a higher tier (i.e. 409 is a master trait effect but you can have it selected in the grandmaster slot).

Chris Regian.3048:

nakoda.4213:

409 is trait IX (or X?) of the alchemy tree. it must be actively slotted for the effect to work.

I know that, but early someone was mentioning having 409 active along with another master trait, but 409 is a master trait so how could you have both active at once?

EDIT:
Ah I actually was just looking at the traits and did not realize that you can have trait effects from previous tiers activated in a higher tier (i.e. 409 is a master trait effect but you can have it selected in the grandmaster slot).

ya that.

despite the disgustingly simplistic meta of this game, trait complexity is satisfyingly high. there is so much to consider when playing with your traits.

while engi suffer from a problematic amount of trait bloat in the minor trait (5/15/25 pt) range, many of our major traits (10/20/30) are actually spread out quite well.

and, as much as people would like to ignore it, a 30 Firearms 20 Alchemy with 20 points left over for whatever you want build (Fireforged Trigger, Juggernaut, and Deadly Mixture – everything else personal and optional) actually avoids much of the bloat.

we might under perform on the dps side of things, but our trait allocations as FT users are among the most solid and balanced in the game.

PEE ESS
every one of our builds has a template like this, and you will find that the more effective the build is, the less wiggle room there is for customization. HGH-Nades, for example .. minimum 60 points already spoken for, but packs a wallop.

((it’s our minor traits that hold us back, not our major ones… yes some of our major traits are useless, like acidic elixirs, but this is a problem in all professions, not just ours))