Guild Wars 2

I enjoy my engineer, and I do not want to go the rifle route. I enjoy the utility of Pistol/Shield, but since that does not do much damage, I try to rely on my abilities.

He is 35 now, and when I try to solo something it takes me three times as long to kill something than my husbands guardian or warrior. His characters chop them up in seconds. His warrior is geared vitality.

I feel while the utilities and gadgets are fun, they hit like a wet noodle. I am 10 Explosives and 10 Alchemy, and my hard hitter is the Bomb Kits. If I am soloing melee monsters then its a breeze. I lay bombs and they fruitlessly chase. If I am duoing with him, I am stuck using my pistol or just messing around because the monster is all over the place chasing him or me, making my bombs ineffective. The monsters die a fraction of the time it takes me, letting me drop maybe one or two bombs that may hit.

The elixirs are neat but I don’t find it right that a class has to rely on a self buff to be effective.

The engineer is fun but so far I’ve seen people being pidgeonholed into rifle and a cookie cutter spec to do well. I’m aware of the combos.

Also, I am gearing Power for more direct damage.

I think p/p have a rather nice dps paired with hairtrigger trait in firearms. Way higher than rifles in most pve scenarios.
Though I never cared about being #1 dps anyways.

Use grenade and/or bomb abilities for your primary source of DPS.

Engineer mainweapons are used for utility generally.

Although at lower levels p/p #4 and #3 will do fair amounts of damage

Just tried grenades, they do half the damage of bombs. After playing the other classes, I can tell Engineers need more options for damage.

Bomb – 320 damage
Grenade – 130 damage
Pistol – 80 damage

Since there isn’t a trinity, I was aiming for damage on my Engineer since I do not do group activities. Trying to find a solution because I really don’t want him to collect dust.

Engineers have a few grandmaster traits (top tier, you won’t get access to them until level 60) that can help dps greatly; namely “Grenadier” for grenades and “Coated Bullets” for pistols.
Although how much Coated Bullets helps depends greatly on the situation; on large groups the dps increase can be significant, if you’re at max range it helps (even on single targets you will get a double hit with your auto-attack), single target close to medium range it does little to nothing.

Consider going p/p though; #4 is the biggest dps you’ll get from a pistol (close range anyhow) and especially in PvE you won’t lose much by dropping the shield imo.
Personally I also really like the Elixir Gun because of the 1200 range it gives (when traited), reasonable single target dps and constant debuffing/healing.

In most situations you won’t get close to a warrior’s dps no matter what you do however, especially PvE (where his big moves shouldn’t miss).

I’d say #2 on pistol is the best dps at close range, in PvE at least. With power+precision it deals huge amounts of damage.

Jen.8964:

Since there isn’t a trinity, I was aiming for damage on my Engineer since I do not do group activities. Trying to find a solution because I really don’t want him to collect dust.

+10000000000000000

Anet stated this at the beginning of the game in the class descriptions “no trinity”.
The biggest fail description if applied to our class.

But,i must admit,if you want to do some dmg,at lvl 80 you can still use glass cannon rifle build,or brainless granade build,that seems most of the engineers enjoy.

We are the only class that can throw things (counting on the only arms power) at 1500 range……………..better than our MECHANIC rifle,turrets,gadgets,other kits.

If you don’t like granade,or glass cannon rifle at lvl 80…well it sucks to be you,relay on support engineer,or change class,till Anet game designers wake up and make some meeting focused on this class.

Ofc,till Anet remember they also have a class called “Engineer” you must wait other priority like:
1-other class fixes because engineer is the less played class,so they care less
2-new map / feature incomings
3- new bugfixes related with the new maps/feature incomings
4- old bugfixes related to the old maps/feature
5- another round of fixes / balance review of all the classes except the engineer
6- IN THE END , if they have time,and if Maya profecy doesn’t become true,MAY be they will look at the engineer.

Possible ETA for the engineer review : August 2013 ,for the anniversary of the game,if the world is still here.

I spec’d into firearms with pistols. It performs better if you pull more than one enemy and shoot through them. You want to rack up conditions. Sure warriors are better at direct damage but when you start applying vulnerability half the time when you crit later on in firearms your damage is great. You’re not feeling that because engineers really lack burst damage like a warrior or guardian. Instead of downing an enemy instantly I more run around not getting struck.

These tips have been useful, so I must wait later on to get more bang?

I’m hoping it helps.

Thank you, heres hoping for a solution for Engineers “damage”.

DJLab.1760:

I spec’d into firearms with pistols. It performs better if you pull more than one enemy and shoot through them. You want to rack up conditions. Sure warriors are better at direct damage but when you start applying vulnerability half the time when you crit later on in firearms your damage is great. You’re not feeling that because engineers really lack burst damage like a warrior or guardian. Instead of downing an enemy instantly I more run around not getting struck.

I’m masterful at kiting. It’s just a letdown when I kite for what seems to be too long compared to the rest of the classes.

http://www.gw2build.com/builds/simulator.php#1.4.6.0.20.0.0.0.0.0.79.88.87.95.0.0.0.0.229.0.0.245.248.251.0.0.0.272.277.281.0.0.0.10.30.0.30.0

I use this build for trash mobs and non boss fights very high AoE Damage with flamethrower while elixirs coupled with Juggernaut im averaging about 10-14 stacks of might with 82% crit chance while under fury 92% crit chance if i have fury and the mob is below 50% hp

http://www.gw2build.com/builds/simulator.php#1.4.6.0.20.0.0.0.0.0.79.88.87.98.0.0.0.0.229.0.0.245.246.252.0.0.0.272.275.281.0.0.0.10.30.0.30.0

I use this build for bosses or gold mobs very high single target condition damage with good backup AoE if boss has adds. With the goggles and elixir b you should only have 6secs downtime without fury and if you go 2 fury runes on amour you should be able to keep fury up through the whole fight or most of it. Analyze also makes boss fights much easier for the whole party.

Both builds bring high damage with buffing support for allies through thrown elixirs granting might. If you end up in a heavy condition fight switch 5% vitality buff to the thrown or consumed elixir removing conditions

These are mainly dungeon and event builds.

Engineers are not very good untill lv 60 and access to grand master traits

IMO at 80 Engineers are the most versatile and very fun and unique.
also IMO Engineers are very good boss killers and there dps can easily compete with any other class at 80

At 80 with pistol shield full condition toughness precision gear and elixir build I can pretty much 1v1 any class. I’m now using elixir gun too for support. I can get around 1800+ condition damage with 25 attacks of condition damage sigil. Bleeds tick for about 130 and burns do a lot, you have mass survivability just not great burst.

“I’m masterful at kiting. It’s just a letdown when I kite for what seems to be too long compared to the rest of the classes.”

Engineers will always take longer to kill when kiting cuz it takes time to set up conditions but when they get set up you start tick for very high amounts of damage in ac explore my ticks are 38-43 3-5 times a second sometimes more ticks and thats just the bleeding from explosive shot.

Spam bombs n mines to win.

Well, we are just no dps class. It might Anet gives us a buff, but other engineers think we are overpowered an think we will be nerfed! Who knows?

Ferum Flamebender.5910:

Well, we are just no dps class. It might Anet gives us a buff, but other engineers think we are overpowered an think we will be nerfed! Who knows?

For one this class is very very unique compared to any mmo i have played or heard about and will take some time for the community to respect it. NO dps though is not true when specced right the dps is very high with party buffs making a good engineer highly useful.

Alot of our skills are broken but our class is not broken.

The problem with Engi isn’t that we can’t DPS, because we can. The cookie cutter nadegineers are proof of that.

In my opinion the problem is that we have SO many options and so few of them seem viable. In some cases because the traits that are supposed to effect them don’t, or in other cases simply because things are skewed or designed poorly. I’m hoping that this months update is going to address some of the pre-beta bugs we’ve had. If not, hey I’ve got a war on the back burner just like 90% of the rest of the players of this game. Greatsword and Sigils at the ready. >.>

Pistol engineers don’t really show their full strength until they getting the piercing shot… if you hit a clump of enemies with explosive shot using that, you do a lot more damage the more you hit with the main shot.

Every weapon scales better with power/crit/crit damage.

Nades are overpowered, so don’t really judge by them purely.
Rifle does well. Elixir gun does really well actually. It is our highest damage, long range option, direct target. and does good melee damage as well.

Rifle beats out other engi options due to using rifle weapon damage. which is 1205.
That means it will deal much more then pistol, or weapon kits innately.
Pistol1 is terrible, unless you have coated bullets. then you can effectively double and triple its damage on fairly frequent basis. which is still less then grenades..

FT is the worst. needs major work.

Haki.6138:

Ferum Flamebender.5910:

Well, we are just no dps class. It might Anet gives us a buff, but other engineers think we are overpowered an think we will be nerfed! Who knows?

For one this class is very very unique compared to any mmo i have played or heard about and will take some time for the community to respect it. NO dps though is not true when specced right the dps is very high with party buffs making a good engineer highly useful.

Alot of our skills are broken but our class is not broken.

Imho, (opinion!) our dps is nothing compared to a thief or warrior.

well, there is the thing that pistols are more of a condition damage build, due to the fact of being able to stack high bleeds, and also if you build it right being able to stack even higher bleeds and burns as well, i will say blowtorch is GREAT dps as well as poison volley, the charged bullet thing, is also great dps, but only if you actually spec right, and also someone said it before, that the main weapons of the engineer are used more for utility, look at rifle = cc and distance maker, pistol = pressure and kiting the main damage comes from a side effect of the weapons i would say, if you are going to build straight power i would just use the rifle and like a grenade kit but if you really want to use pistol shield i would build a tankier build to take advantage of the shield and for more survivability, because the one pistol is not going to do much, you get a tiny bit of pressure in poison/bleeds and a little bit of cc in the blindness.

on my engineer i use pistol pistol and im at about 1.1k condition damage, while being traited for it, and my conditions do a considerable ammount of damage, where as if i went straight power the main point of the pistol pistol would be trashed because the auto attack doesent hit that high in comparasen to the rifle or even some of the kits to be worth while to spec full power.

and some people that compare our dps to other classes are missing out on all the other things the engineer has to offer, like tons, i mean TONS of utility, for any situation you could be in the middle of a dungeon and change from your normal abilities to have condition removal on every elixir+elixir toss….even though warriors can do that already it still is not up to the par that engineers can do it.

I don’t understand why people say that pistol is for condition damage.
Sure Rifle has higher base damage, but with p/p you have 4 damage abilities that you can use everytime they’re off cooldown and they don’t break AA. And they all apply a lot of conditions.
With rifle #3 engi needs to be in melee, #4 is very situational and actually disrupts engi more than it disrupts enemy lowering our dps, and #5 also is melee range and disrupts our attacks. So rifle engineer actually left to use 2 out of 5 skills to deal damage reliably and he still needs to be at close range.

Isslair.4908:

I don’t understand why people say that pistol is for condition damage.
Sure Rifle has higher base damage, but with p/p you have 4 damage abilities that you can use everytime they’re off cooldown and they don’t break AA. And they all apply a lot of conditions.
With rifle #3 engi needs to be in melee, #4 is very situational and actually disrupts engi more than it disrupts enemy lowering our dps, and #5 also is melee range and disrupts our attacks. So rifle engineer actually left to use 2 out of 5 skills to deal damage reliably and he still needs to be at close range.

sorry but i didnt understand that, as i just said and many have said before me, engineers are utility, masters of the craft, not frontline soldiers….

For PVE and WvW I promise you you can make a P/S build that is fun, tanky, and has terrific damage output – and I’m not talking condition stacking. I’m talking 60% crit chance, 75% crit damage type build..with P/S instead of rifle. No nades either. Near perma protection upkeep, tons of AOE damage, etc.

I don’t wanna give away my build but just stick with it, if you think outside the box you will stumble upon something great with this profession.

Also small tip. Run a stacking sigil over a damage or crit increase sigil, the stacks you gain DO effect stats while in kits.

i run flam/lightning on my pistol pistol combo

Except grenades are the most damaging ability in the game currently. At level 80 you can range between 1100 damage per grenade (3 grenades per toss, 3/4th second CD) to 1800 damage per grenade for a grand total of 5400~ damage per throw. This is a lot of damage.

You’re going through leveling pains. I suggest trying rifle and bomb kit for leveling, using rifle to pull mobs and bomb to deal with them when they get close.

hey Velron, what kind of high dmg build do you have with the shield?
I am leveling up now, and love the shield! I want to keep a good amount of dmg while keeping my very fun/useful shield. I just love having a block then a knock back/knock down.

Well, this is definitely making me feel better.

I wish the PvP in Guild Wars 2 was engaging to me. I just don’t feel the “Oh kitten! We’re going to lose!” or “Oh no! I’m going to die!”. It just feels so casual it doesnt matter what happens.

It is good to know the shield has viability in WvW, I will strat into that.

I’ll keep leveling him

Isslair.4908:

I don’t understand why people say that pistol is for condition damage.
Sure Rifle has higher base damage, but with p/p you have 4 damage abilities that you can use everytime they’re off cooldown and they don’t break AA. And they all apply a lot of conditions.
With rifle #3 engi needs to be in melee, #4 is very situational and actually disrupts engi more than it disrupts enemy lowering our dps, and #5 also is melee range and disrupts our attacks. So rifle engineer actually left to use 2 out of 5 skills to deal damage reliably and he still needs to be at close range.

Yeah, theres some truth there. P/p has way more fun, abilities I feel. some of those conditions are very good indeed.
First, you are absolutely right. All weapons scale better with power/crit then conditions. The “ignore” power for p and eg idea is completely wrong.

But the math. exotic pistol is 1025. Exotic rifle 1205. Lets say 2000power vs 2000 armor+tough, for easy math. aka 2000/2000=1.
p1 is .324, rifle 1 is .599.
They both have .8 attack speeds.
.324*1025=332.
.599*1205=721.
Rifle has a +10% to all damage trait. Pistol has coated bullets.
pistol hitting twice due to coated bullets pierce and explode=332×2=664
rifle with 10%=721*10%=794.
Rifle does more damage in1 shot, then p1 does with coated bullets giving a double hit.
Coated can triple hit of course. but that is fairly rare. not something that can be done to 1 target. And even the double hit, is not 100% of the time on a target. So, R1 under normal situations does WAY more damage.

PDV is good mid range ability for pistol. its a 900 or 1050 range, but will miss at that range. so effective is more like 600. It also gains from coated bullets, but due to the spread, very poorly. most targets will only get 1-2 hits from the spread, aside from the main target. .37 scalingx5 over 2s 1.85 is quite good. but again, pistol max damage hurts it a bit. 1896 or 948/s. note, if you are triple hitting with p1, p1 is more damage then pdv.
Static shot. long range. completely effective at the 900 or 1050 range. Good to note, as you stated, rifle has 1 ranged ability, rest is melee. .37×4 scaling. And confuse, which does have the potential for high cond damage. +blind. Fantastic skill all around.
Blowtorch. .915. but again, with pistol 938. A real problem when you compare it to blunderbus/overcharged shot.

So rifle now, that higher base damage will make a huge variance.
first, note, rifle has a knockdown. Statics blind wont stop stomps. And overcharged cleanses cond cc. immo, chill, cripple.

Rifle 3. blunderbuss. 1.45 scaling on a 1205 damage rifle. 1747 +4 stacks of bleed. +10% =1922 +4 stacks of bleed for4s. A point blank blunderbuss will do like 4-5k damage with crit, and then 2k in bleeds over 4s. Its hard to argue with that much burst, and damage.
Jump shot will be like 10k. but really, so awkward, not even sure anyone uses it. ha

This kindof thing is why I talk about FT needing massive buffs. its base 969 kit damage, can not keep up with rifles 1205 exotic damage. thats 24% variance right there.
FT is 1.43 over 2.5s. scaling at 969 =1387
Rifle at 2.4s(3shots) is 2163
Seems silly rifle dealing more damage then FT in melee no? Then when you add leap/blunder it just gets out of control.

I have no explanation why weapon types have a variance honestly.
Pistols and rifles have the same attack speed. so why do they just inherently scale less?

Aw man. I wrote a rant on why grenadier was ridiculously op, and it got eaten by the forum.
Short version.
+1 grenade is not just a 50% damage boost from going from 2 to 3.

Vul on explosions. all of them. this was clearly not designed with grenadier in mind. Op with grenades in general.
But vulx3 EVERY attack is nutz. 6.5s duration with base duration.
Here let me explain. grenade barrage. 8 grenades with grenadier.
6-8 stacks of vul, (some miss)
But every attack is +3. .8s attack speed. 6.5s duration. 8 attacks in 6.5s. 8×3. 24 stacks of vul. by yourself. in 6.5s. not even counting the afor mentioned barrage 8 stacks.
Barrage itself doesnt even hit all at once. first hits for lets say 500.next hits for 5001%, next for 500+2% Last is 500+7%.
See how silly that is?

2 to 3. As mentioned with vul. 3 stacks every throw vs 2.
frost grenade. 2s chill per. a 4s chill, is now 6s.
Poison same thing.
Shrapnel. .502 per scaling. AND 12s bleed. 3 12s bleeds with grenadier. 15s with +30% duration. 12 stacks of bleed with shrapnel alone. crazy.
Sharpshooter. 33% chance to bleed per crit. Well. 3 hits per .8s.
flamethrower is lauded for having 10 hits over 2.5s. yeah. well 3 hits per .8s is 9 per 2.4. And do I need to mention barrages 8 hits in .8s again?

tldr;

But I would second the post above, to the extent that anyone who is saying engineers have poor damage (at least in PvE/leveling) has simply never played properly with grenades. Grenades do obscene amounts of damage (and decent damage even without the final grenadier trait) and you can kite groups of mobs endlessly if you time your evades and frost grenades right.

Yeah, okay, we don’t hit like hundred blades, but: 1. grenades are ranged, meaning we don’t have to get hit to use them, and 2. stop comparing engineers to warriors, the classes are completely different and have their own ups and downs.

I’d also like to say that, granted, I specced into flamethrower rather than grenades at 80 because I was tired of giving myself carpel tunnel even more rapidly than usual, and I find my damage, while not as high as with grenades, is quite tolerable considering my survivability and utility.

Casia.4281:

Isslair.4908:

I don’t understand why people say that pistol is for condition damage. … close range.

Yeah, theres some truth … .8s again?

if i remember correctly, grenades dont count as explosions, so the vulnerability thing would not come in to play, also in your math, you completley ignored the fact that pistol 1 stacks bleeds, which is also another thing that makes coated bullets so good, in certain situations like group fights, in single target dps it is not that great as youve said, but in larger scale situations it shines way past any kind of aoe the rifle can do.

and you seem to miss the fact that we are not a ranged class, we are along side the soldiers but we do not count as the soldiers, we are sort of the battlefield medic if you will, almost all of our main damage output outside of grenades and mortars is close range, so complaining about the range is irrelevant.

something anet has even said before was positioning is key, they put the fact that we can intercept bullets and projectiles for our allies, as well as enemies for strategic purposes, it makes us more tedious to play versus other classes that blow everything up, we require thinking to do our aoe, outside of spamming grenades like every other engineer.

also the flame thrower is not a straight damage kit, unlike the grenades, its a more controlly kit than a dammage kit, as with the rifle is more controlly than pistols are IMHO, but still the FT damage is pretty weak.

as to the rocket jump, i use that and overcharged all the time, rocket jump is really nice for getting in places and blunderbussing or for getting away from persistant pursuers, or you could be kiting around and completley fake your opponent and jump behind him, and then from there its just more controll and kiting.

the thing i think lots of people get caught up is that they want to play a dps class, not a support or controll class, when the engineer is really a support/controll class :/ like someone said before we are not going to do as much damage as hundred blades or for that matter shudder heartseeker shudder but we can controll till our eyes turn blue of boredom

Grenades absolutely count as explosions.

Ferum Flamebender.5910:

Imho, (opinion!) our dps is nothing compared to a thief or warrior.

Are you a super hero sidekick? Do you aid Captain Obvious is his mis-adventures? It doesn’t make a lot of sense to take the two highest damage classes in the game and point out that they out damage us.

P/S is spectacular with max condition damage. Tough/Prec/Cond damage armor with runes that work with it are spectacular. Stack it with jewelry that has condition damage on it.

One key thing Casia always forgets to point out is the factor at which toughness negates the damage they are posting. The damage numbers Casia post will not traslate factually in game at all. Try it, you will see. None of the numbers in the post above will relate in game due to this fact among at least one more. I point that out because I hate seeing the OP walk away mis-informed. Most of the damage formulas posted on the wiki tend to be inaccurate also.

What level is your engineer? You mention his Guardian is 35 but never mention your level in relation to that.

Scribbles.3974:

Casia.4281:

Isslair.4908:

I don’t understand why people say that pistol is for condition damage. … close range.

Yeah, theres some truth … .8s again?

if i remember correctly, grenades dont count as explosions, so the vulnerability thing would not come in to play, also in your math, you completley ignored the fact that pistol 1 stacks bleeds, which is also another thing that makes coated bullets so good, in certain situations like group fights, in single target dps it is not that great as youve said, but in larger scale situations it shines way past any kind of aoe the rifle can do.

and you seem to miss the fact that we are not a ranged class, we are along side the soldiers but we do not count as the soldiers, we are sort of the battlefield medic if you will, almost all of our main damage output outside of grenades and mortars is close range, so complaining about the range is irrelevant.

something anet has even said before was positioning is key, they put the fact that we can intercept bullets and projectiles for our allies, as well as enemies for strategic purposes, it makes us more tedious to play versus other classes that blow everything up, we require thinking to do our aoe, outside of spamming grenades like every other engineer.

also the flame thrower is not a straight damage kit, unlike the grenades, its a more controlly kit than a dammage kit, as with the rifle is more controlly than pistols are IMHO, but still the FT damage is pretty weak.

as to the rocket jump, i use that and overcharged all the time, rocket jump is really nice for getting in places and blunderbussing or for getting away from persistant pursuers, or you could be kiting around and completley fake your opponent and jump behind him, and then from there its just more controll and kiting.

the thing i think lots of people get caught up is that they want to play a dps class, not a support or controll class, when the engineer is really a support/controll class :/ like someone said before we are not going to do as much damage as hundred blades or for that matter shudder heartseeker shudder but we can controll till our eyes turn blue of boredom

Oh, they do apply all those stacks of vul.

P1 bleed is single target. only the direct hit gets that bleed. Coated bullets does not increase that. only the aoe hit increases with coated bullets.
sharpshooter trait is aoe chance. But applies to everything as well, including grenades.
Rifle pierces too. Its then a linear aoe. And while melee, its also aoe on blunderbuss, overcharge, and leap.

Engi has some decent control options. Still not sure I would say they have that as an advantage over others though. Mesmer has that in spades. Knockdowns, interrupts, blinds, daze, confuse, reflects, etc.

Ferum Flamebender.5910:

Haki.6138:

Ferum Flamebender.5910:

Well, we are just no dps class. It might Anet gives us a buff, but other engineers think we are overpowered an think we will be nerfed! Who knows?

For one this class is very very unique compared to any mmo i have played or heard about and will take some time for the community to respect it. NO dps though is not true when specced right the dps is very high with party buffs making a good engineer highly useful.

Alot of our skills are broken but our class is not broken.

Imho, (opinion!) our dps is nothing compared to a thief or warrior.

one i didn’t compare it to a thief or warrior and if your going to compare it to mainly melee focused classes that makes no since because if your a melee dps generally you pull more dps but risk dying more often. You talk like we have no damage what so ever and we are the worst dps out there which is false if you want to pull damage as a engineer you go condition damage. can your warrior or thief get 15 stacks of might by himself? If you don’t like engineer don’t play it.

Casia.4281:

Scribbles.3974:

Casia.4281:

Isslair.4908:

I don’t understand why people say that pistol is for condition damage. … close range.

Yeah, theres some truth … .8s again?

if i remember correctly, grenades dont count as explosions, so the vulnerability thing would not come in to play, also in your math, you completley ignored the fact that pistol 1 stacks bleeds, which is also another thing that makes coated bullets so good, in certain situations like group fights, in single target dps it is not that great as youve said, but in larger scale situations it shines way past any kind of aoe the rifle can do.

and you seem to miss the fact that we are not a ranged class, we are along side the soldiers but we do not count as the soldiers, we are sort of the battlefield medic if you will, almost all of our main damage output outside of grenades and mortars is close range, so complaining about the range is irrelevant.

something anet has even said before was positioning is key, they put the fact that we can intercept bullets and projectiles for our allies, as well as enemies for strategic purposes, it makes us more tedious to play versus other classes that blow everything up, we require thinking to do our aoe, outside of spamming grenades like every other engineer.

also the flame thrower is not a straight damage kit, unlike the grenades, its a more controlly kit than a dammage kit, as with the rifle is more controlly than pistols are IMHO, but still the FT damage is pretty weak.

as to the rocket jump, i use that and overcharged all the time, rocket jump is really nice for getting in places and blunderbussing or for getting away from persistant pursuers, or you could be kiting around and completley fake your opponent and jump behind him, and then from there its just more controll and kiting.

the thing i think lots of people get caught up is that they want to play a dps class, not a support or controll class, when the engineer is really a support/controll class :/ like someone said before we are not going to do as much damage as hundred blades or for that matter shudder heartseeker shudder but we can controll till our eyes turn blue of boredom

Oh, they do apply all those stacks of vul.

i see, cause when i used them and tried that they didnt apply stacks before, do they not count for the heal?

Scribbles.3974:

Casia.4281:

Scribbles.3974:

Casia.4281:

Isslair.4908:

I don’t understand why people say that pistol is for condition damage. … close range.

Yeah, theres some truth … .8s again?

if i remember correctly, grenades dont count as explosions, so the vulnerability thing would not come in to play, also in your math, you completley ignored the fact that pistol 1 stacks bleeds, which is also another thing that makes coated bullets so good, in certain situations like group fights, in single target dps it is not that great as youve said, but in larger scale situations it shines way past any kind of aoe the rifle can do.

and you seem to miss the fact that we are not a ranged class, we are along side the soldiers but we do not count as the soldiers, we are sort of the battlefield medic if you will, almost all of our main damage output outside of grenades and mortars is close range, so complaining about the range is irrelevant.

something anet has even said before was positioning is key, they put the fact that we can intercept bullets and projectiles for our allies, as well as enemies for strategic purposes, it makes us more tedious to play versus other classes that blow everything up, we require thinking to do our aoe, outside of spamming grenades like every other engineer.

also the flame thrower is not a straight damage kit, unlike the grenades, its a more controlly kit than a dammage kit, as with the rifle is more controlly than pistols are IMHO, but still the FT damage is pretty weak.

as to the rocket jump, i use that and overcharged all the time, rocket jump is really nice for getting in places and blunderbussing or for getting away from persistant pursuers, or you could be kiting around and completley fake your opponent and jump behind him, and then from there its just more controll and kiting.

the thing i think lots of people get caught up is that they want to play a dps class, not a support or controll class, when the engineer is really a support/controll class :/ like someone said before we are not going to do as much damage as hundred blades or for that matter shudder heartseeker shudder but we can controll till our eyes turn blue of boredom

Oh, they do apply all those stacks of vul.

i see, cause when i used them and tried that they didnt apply stacks before, do they not count for the heal?

The inventions trait? that is bombs only.

Haki.6138:

Ferum Flamebender.5910:

Haki.6138:

Ferum Flamebender.5910:

Well, we are just no dps class. It might Anet gives us a buff, but other engineers think we are overpowered an think we will be nerfed! Who knows?

For one this class is very very unique compared to any mmo i have played or heard about and will take some time for the community to respect it. NO dps though is not true when specced right the dps is very high with party buffs making a good engineer highly useful.

Alot of our skills are broken but our class is not broken.

Imho, (opinion!) our dps is nothing compared to a thief or warrior.

one i didn’t compare it to a thief or warrior. You talk like we have no damage what so ever and we are the worst dps out there which is false. If you don’t like engineer don’t play it.

I never said you compared it too a warrior or a thief. I compare it to a warrior or a thief. I just think (again, opinion!) we are just not as well balanced in relation to the other classes. You may state that instead of high dps (I rechecked my post and never said: engineers are worst at dps) we have versitality. Gw2 was to be a ballanced game, which means everyone should be able to go up against everyone (I’m not taking skill here in account), but who is versitality going to help me when getting burned down by a thief? We need more balance.

I am just saying the engineer class is unfinished in the way of bug fixes.

I love the class and therefore have to be a critic in order to improve it.

Varqov.6984:

hey Velron, what kind of high dmg build do you have with the shield?
I am leveling up now, and love the shield! I want to keep a good amount of dmg while keeping my very fun/useful shield. I just love having a block then a knock back/knock down.

I don’t want to give the whole thing away…but it uses maxed firearms and tools line. Sigil of fire on the pistol helps add DD, static discharge + throw wrench is a big part of the DD burst the build has.

I consider it a hybrid, even with only 300 condi damage the bleeding, poison, confusion, burning all ticking away on top of fairly good burst while being tanky (thanks to a particular armor/ rune/1 trait synergy setup) is pretty friggin awesome.

I love the shield, I made the build bc I was bored being rifle/nades like every other Engi, as well as playing that setup since launch.

coglin.1496:

Grenades absolutely count as explosions.

Ferum Flamebender.5910:

Imho, (opinion!) our dps is nothing compared to a thief or warrior.

Are you a super hero sidekick? Do you aid Captain Obvious is his mis-adventures? It doesn’t make a lot of sense to take the two highest damage classes in the game and point out that they out damage us.

P/S is spectacular with max condition damage. Tough/Prec/Cond damage armor with runes that work with it are spectacular. Stack it with jewelry that has condition damage on it.

One key thing Casia always forgets to point out is the factor at which toughness negates the damage they are posting. The damage numbers Casia post will not traslate factually in game at all. Try it, you will see. None of the numbers in the post above will relate in game due to this fact among at least one more. I point that out because I hate seeing the OP walk away mis-informed. Most of the damage formulas posted on the wiki tend to be inaccurate also.

What level is your engineer? You mention his Guardian is 35 but never mention your level in relation to that.

You don’t have to get kitteny.
Why doesn’t it make a lot of sense to compare a class to two other classes in the same game? And again I think our opinions differ about what is spectacular. I hear people say ‘grenades are amazing’ they suck in pvp. I hear people saying ‘rifle 12k crit build’ I do not know how to get 12k crits (that may be, because I do not know how) I asked several times to send me that build. Where are those powerfull builds?
I hear people say ‘we have kits and therefore just 3 wep sets’. Kits are not a fair comparissment to weapons, we sacrifice a skillslot.
In hear people saying ‘we work with guns, we are a ranged class’. I need to get close with every weapon set to use my 5 weapons skills properly.

And still a bunch of people think we are good. I think we are not.
You can throw all the math at me you have, but it will not convince me.
I’m just going to wait and see what arenanet will bring.

Ferum Flamebender.5910:

Haki.6138:

Ferum Flamebender.5910:

Haki.6138:

Ferum Flamebender.5910:

Well, we are just no dps class. It might Anet gives us a buff, but other engineers think we are overpowered an think we will be nerfed! Who knows?

For one this class is very very unique compared to any mmo i have played or heard about and will take some time for the community to respect it. NO dps though is not true when specced right the dps is very high with party buffs making a good engineer highly useful.

Alot of our skills are broken but our class is not broken.

Imho, (opinion!) our dps is nothing compared to a thief or warrior.

one i didn’t compare it to a thief or warrior. You talk like we have no damage what so ever and we are the worst dps out there which is false. If you don’t like engineer don’t play it.

I never said you compared it too a warrior or a thief. I compare it to a warrior or a thief. I just think (again, opinion!) we are just not as well balanced in relation to the other classes. You may state that instead of high dps (I rechecked my post and never said: engineers are worst at dps) we have versitality. Gw2 was to be a ballanced game, which means everyone should be able to go up against everyone (I’m not taking skill here in account), but who is versitality going to help me when getting burned down by a thief? We need more balance.

I am just saying the engineer class is unfinished in the way of bug fixes.

I love the class and therefore have to be a critic in order to improve it.

http://www.gw2build.com/builds/simulator.php#1.4.6.0.20.0.0.0.0.0.79.88.87.89.102.0.0.0.0.0.0.244.246.252.256.0.0.274.272.281.0.0.0.0.30.10.30.0

if your having trouble with thief try elixir s and the trait that does elixir s at 25% hp and if you spec into alchemy with the vit you should have enough to survive the massive burst heal while your a mini. (dont run much pvp love dungeons too much) but that always worked well for me when i ran pvp. Sometimes i switch fast acting elixirs for cleansing formula.

My engineer is 35. His Warrior is 38.

I figure I have the leveling blues, I’ll keep going and then look again.

Something to consider leveling then.
Kits are always up to date.

When I say at level 80, kits are only 969, while exotic pistol/rifle is much higher, well that is exotic gear vs level 80 kits.
Level 35, you dont have exotic gear. you have blue/mastercraft probabably.
And its probably not level 35. nor 36, 37, etc.
Your kit however, will always be your max level.
So kits will probably be stronger then your weapons when leveling.

Also, obviously, you wont have grenadier. Or coated bullets.
bombs have most of their power early. EG probably would do well too early.

I actually leveled pistols.

Ferum Flamebender.5910:

Why doesn’t it make a lot of sense to compare a class to two other classes in the same game?

Because your not comparing them. Your comparing their burst damage output to what ever build you rn in engineer. I question if you have a 80 thief or warrior.

Ferum Flamebender.5910:

Kits are not a fair comparissment to weapons, we sacrifice a skillslot.

Clearly the devs disagree with you.

Ferum Flamebender.5910:

In hear people saying ‘we work with guns, we are a ranged class’. I need to get close with every weapon set to use my 5 weapons skills properly.

So what? No one claimed the 5 skill was universally ranged across all weapons. I would be willing to wager you consider the Warrior rifle ranged, yet its #5 skill has a 130 range.

Ferum Flamebender.5910:

And still a bunch of people think we are good. I think we are not.
You can throw all the math at me you have, but it will not convince me.
I’m just going to wait and see what arenanet will bring.

I have no desire to convince you of anything. I do not have any idea why you think I would care to waste my time to do so. You opinion does not effect my gameplay or success with the class.

Ferum Flamebender.5910:

You don’t have to get kitteny.
Why doesn’t it make a lot of sense to compare a class to two other classes in the same game? And again I think our opinions differ about what is spectacular. I hear people say ‘grenades are amazing’ they suck in pvp. I hear people saying ‘rifle 12k crit build’ I do not know how to get 12k crits (that may be, because I do not know how) I asked several times to send me that build. Where are those powerfull builds?
I hear people say ‘we have kits and therefore just 3 wep sets’. Kits are not a fair comparissment to weapons, we sacrifice a skillslot.
In hear people saying ‘we work with guns, we are a ranged class’. I need to get close with every weapon set to use my 5 weapons skills properly.

And still a bunch of people think we are good. I think we are not.
You can throw all the math at me you have, but it will not convince me.
I’m just going to wait and see what arenanet will bring.

hrm. going to quote here, and respond to both this and coglins.

grenades are pretty great in pvp and pve. They dont have much utility, so you need to pair that with utility from other sources. either weapon swaps, utility skills, or teammates.
Raw damage, they are king.
12k rifle crits. Rifle has some good burst options. Leap, and blunderbuss are the two big ones. I can imagine blunderbuss hitting 5k with the right gear. leap 2-3k jump, and 6-7k land. build isnt difficult. 10% damage, get some firearms, tools for crit damage, and explosives for power. Gear for power/crit/crit damage. Add some food/sharpening stone, power/crit damage, orb buff, guild buff. People do tend to forget how large consumables and various buffs in wvw are. 150 3 orbs to every stat. guild buffs +40. Runes. dunno. power or divinity.

weapons vs kits. weapon swaps have 2. they have cooldowns on swap.
Engi CAN have more then 1 kit. (Although due to traits, and the power of elixirs, I find it hard to justify, atm) toolbelt gives us a skill to replace the slot lost. 1.5s cd on swap, due to animation.

Ranged… yeah too many melee skills. its a a problem. Especially with gadgets and turrets I think. rifle/pistol both being fairly melee is weird too. Esp since pistol, with is technically shorter range is more functional at long range..
Elixir gun is actually pretty good at range though. better then rifle.
he didnt say the #5 skill. he said the 5 skills

I dont really see the versatility for engi honestly. I think the only thing we preform well is carpet bombing with grenades.
Bunker builds are ok in spvp, but really not especially unique or versatile. My toughness/heal elem can sit on a point all day too. So can my thief, breaking CC all day long. Dropping into stealth.
Memser have tons of really varied builds.
GS long range. Phantasms. glamour builds, shatter builds, confuse builds, staff builds, melee damage, melee tank builds..

A lot of you guys are discussing some serious lvl 80 engineer stuff, but she is talking about leveling up at level 35!

First off, pistols have a lot of condition damage so the firearms trait line will help add a lot of damage. If you are leveling up with your husband, you probably don’t need to worry as much about defense. Especially since you said he spec’d vitality already. I did all explosives and firearms traits leveling, with a little bit in exilirs for the boost at 75% health. The trait at the bottom for swiftness on kit equip is also pretty nice when you are running around.

Another important point is your kit weapons will always match your current level, so while leveling are often quite a bit more powerful than whatever pistol you happen to have equipped. I was often running around with some random lower level pistol (and armor, and jewels) at that level if I didn’t randomly get a better drop. Upgrading when you level that fast is pointless. So kits are absolutely great for maintaining weapon power while leveling.

Having played mostly engineer, but also quite a while on warrior, my thoughts are that it is pretty straightforward to set up those massive burst down combos on warrior, and it’s a bit harder on engineer. If you keep at it and learn the class more, you will figure out what you like to do, and can have a lot of fun doing it. For me, I unfortunately got bored with warrior even though it was easy to play. When the options are "swing sword’ and “swing sword more” its hard to keep interested. So try to just enjoy the game play without worrying about numbers. Throw some nades, drop a turret, blast them with fire, drink some strange liquid, or drop some bombs. These are all pretty fun things to do !

Shajin.5492:

A lot of you guys are discussing some serious lvl 80 engineer stuff, but she is talking about leveling up at level 35!

-snip-

Having played mostly engineer, but also quite a while on warrior, my thoughts are that it is pretty straightforward to set up those massive burst down combos on warrior, and it’s a bit harder on engineer. If you keep at it and learn the class more, you will figure out what you like to do, and can have a lot of fun doing it. For me, I unfortunately got bored with warrior even though it was easy to play. When the options are "swing sword’ and “swing sword more” its hard to keep interested. So try to just enjoy the game play without worrying about numbers. Throw some nades, drop a turret, blast them with fire, drink some strange liquid, or drop some bombs. These are all pretty fun things to do !

Fantastic way to look at it, and I agree wholeheartedly. The engineer may not have as much ready raw dmg as say a warrior or thief but it does have a ton of flexibility and ways to do it. As for me personally I pretty much only run with rifle/ft or rifle/eg (yes I know nades will do more dmg when traited for them but I enjoy the control aspects) I don’t find it particularly slow though the combos used to really burst down a enemy are definitely a little trickier to setup than other classes especially with flame blasts range requirement but once you do figure out the rotation that is able to get you into range for it you can really begin to smash enemies down fast. I usually start with the rifle 5 3 4 combo which puts me in perfect range for the flame blast, if the mob isn’t dead by then which it usually is then I can quickly switch back to rifle net shot and use the flame toolbelt kit to add burning and just let the rifle aa finish off that last sliver of life left. Against multiple targets that I get clustered up I just drop a supply crate if available and pop my haste and elixir b and the toolbelt ft skill and just burn them down with ft aa and then bust out the smores. Always take out ranged targets first since melee will run to you it makes it much easier to get the mobs grouped up. I know this style is not for everyone but I like the close quarters combat feel of it, to the op as long as you are enjoying the playstyle that works for you that is what is most important, you will never see the numbers from one skill like that of a 100 blades or backstab but if you like pulling off combos of skills then engi is a great class.

There have already been a lot of helpful (and not) comments above, so I’ll try to hit some things that often get overlooked:

Grenades: yes, hands down the best pure dps; roughly equal to rifle or bombs until level 60, way better after:
—The tooltip for grenades shows the damage of one grenade. Without the grenadier trait, each skill throws two grenades, or double the tooltip damage; with the grenadier trait, three grenades.

—Each grenade applies a stack of vulnerability, and each grenade can proc the burn/bleed on crit (although the internal cooldowns prevent that from being overpowered).

—You can throw grenades behind yourself while running forward.

Utility/support builds:

—Turrets are not affected by your stats. In other words, you can have stats full of toughness and vitality and your turrets will hit just as hard as being full power/prec/crit. This makes them bad for dps builds, good for support builds.

—Super elixer removes a condition (not noted on tooltip) and the elixer gun AA applies weakness. Nice.

—Most blinds in game (pistol, bomb kit, grenade kit, flamethrower). They are all aoe/multiple target, too.

—Most immobilizations in game (rifle, off-hand pistol, bomb kit, net turret, net turret toolbelt, supply drop).

tl;dr? There are lots of fun quirks to the engineer that make them as powerful as other professions. True, other professions don’t have to rely on fun quirks, but I think it’s great.

My engineer is only level 18, and I feel the same way Jen does. Even grenades don’t seem as effective as other classes’ abilities. I’ve leveled several classes and all of them seemed to gain a lot in effectiveness at ~ level 62 when you can equip gear with 3 stats. Objectively, that is not that long to wait, but subjectively, it can feel like a long time to go with feeling you are behind the curve.