Guild Wars 2

For kitten$ and giggles I started a necro over the weekend. Got it to 31. I still love my engineer the best.

I have fun in wvw using FT + p/s and a tankish (formula 409, juggernaut, faster elixir recharge, and backpack regenerator) build (compared to my previous full zerk grenades at least…), +sigil of nullification. Largely using CC, blind, and FT 2/pistol for dmg.
Elixir R for 4x dodge escapes when I overextend into the enemy hordes to pop air blast / shield 4 (check for stability 1st though), elixir B for swiftness/retal/fury/lower cooldown elixir.

I meant to turn it into a troll build with accelerant packed net/thumper turret for additional CC in place of elixirs, but never got around to it. I couldn’t get used to the new healing turret…

LOL OP said “no grenades” and it turns into a wall of text about grenades.

Deniara Devious.3948:

timidobserver.7925:

Crazy engy is going to die a horrible death due to lack of stability. The lack of stability is what makes me wary of any bomb build in a zerg. With the utility slot nerf to elixir S, using bombs in WvW is even less appealing.

Indeed. But I guess different tiers, EU and NA, have different meta. Here in EU tier #1 the melee train used to be meta. Thus a lot of hammer warriors and also guardians. You needed to time your dive into enemy zerg very well in order to come out alive (go in at wrong moment and you get hammered into mushy squish). But I was using grenade kit for that. I still dive into enemy zergs, even as a commander. I find it a bit safer, because the meta uses a bit less knockdown + stability now. More PuGs, less organized tightly packed teams. But there is a lot thieves (also in zergs). You can even have double thief team looking for weak victims in middle of a zerg fights. Elixir S nerf hit so bad I had to scrap that skill. Elixir S is pretty much a recipe of getting downed in WvWvW, because you cannot heal or stow any kits during that 3 s. I wish some engineer trait or utility (e.g. a gadget) would give stability as stability is so sorely needed also for many dungeons and pve play as well. Engineer condition removal is solely dependent on elixirs and cleaning formula 409. Medkit drop antidote is not that efficient condition removal as you need to walk over it and WvWvW fights tend to have tons of immobilize (e.g. warriors use leg specialist trait).

Overall the recent patch reduced engineer survivability in WvWvW and the confusion nerf hit some builds really badly.

Yup. Pretty much if you are wvwing in a zerg you should be chucking grenades. Mask’s build also still works even though the confusion nerf hit it hard.

Bombs, not so much unless you have a shout/hammer guardian friend and are specced into boon duration so that you can take advantage of stability when he uses it.

Eh, flamethrower gets an honorable mention. With juggernaut you can get really really tanky. Though, in the end you are only really good at tagging enemies, but you can only hit 3 people at a time.

It’s tough to run an Engi with all the nerfs being tossed our way, with no buffs in sight. I’ve resigned myself to a P/S, Gear Shield build and focused on conditions to stay relevant on the battlefield. The incredibly unfortunate part of it all is if you want to be effective in WvW you either use grenades (which I don’t like to use myself) or you simply bunker up. Turrets are too weak to be effective, elixir builds took a nerf with Elixir S, the Elixir gun doesn’t provide enough of anything to make a difference in zerg combat, mines have almost always been a bad skill choice, and bomb builds can’t defend from the top of a tower/keep/castle wall. Hence, Rifled Barrels, Piercing Bullets, and spam 1-3 to get loot bags. Use the Gear Shield magnet to pull a target into your zerg, and the AoE cripple to slow it’s retreat. Use the shield skills to interrupt and mitigate incoming damage and the Gear Shield block in combination to stay vertical long enough to escape ambushes. Despite the nerf to Elixir S it’s still effective to break stuns and with the trait that automatically casts it, you can be very unkillable for a short time if you chain the gear shield Block and elixir S in with the automatic elixir S proc.

Unfortunately this play style is complex, doesn’t always work out, and really doesn’t measure up against just dumping points in power and precision, going full zerk gear, and spamming nades… Eventually I see such heavy nerfs put into Engineer it will become the Paragon class of GW2…

1: Stand on Wall
2: Throw grenades at Zerg
3: ???
4: Profit.

Bring your friends.

TheMightyAltroll.3485:

1: Stand on Wall
2: Throw grenades at Zerg
3: ???
4: Profit.

Bring your friends.

The unfortunate truth…

…one skill to rule them all is the result of a sad and pathetic class implementation….great concept, great design, epic failure on the delivery.

Versus Zergs Granades>all

Bombs: You need to go very close, you will die instantly.
Elixir: Cause to near no damage and have a medium range.
Flamethrower: I thing if you make bunker+ little of condition charac. can work, but with medium range and only 3 people per attack is hard.
Tools: It’s good, but for 1v1.

Obscure One.4357:

TheMightyAltroll.3485:

1: Stand on Wall
2: Throw grenades at Zerg
3: ???
4: Profit.

Bring your friends.

The unfortunate truth…

…one skill to rule them all is the result of a sad and pathetic class implementation….great concept, great design, epic failure on the delivery.

The worst thing is, they’ll nerf grenades until they are as bad as they other kit/weapon, instead of bring them up to Grenade Kit’s level.

timidobserver.7925:

Deniara Devious.3948:

timidobserver.7925:

Crazy engy is going to die a horrible death due to lack of stability. The lack of stability is what makes me wary of any bomb build in a zerg. With the utility slot nerf to elixir S, using bombs in WvW is even less appealing.

Indeed. But I guess different tiers, EU and NA, have different meta. Here in EU tier #1 the melee train used to be meta. Thus a lot of hammer warriors and also guardians. You needed to time your dive into enemy zerg very well in order to come out alive (go in at wrong moment and you get hammered into mushy squish). But I was using grenade kit for that. I still dive into enemy zergs, even as a commander. I find it a bit safer, because the meta uses a bit less knockdown + stability now. More PuGs, less organized tightly packed teams. But there is a lot thieves (also in zergs). You can even have double thief team looking for weak victims in middle of a zerg fights. Elixir S nerf hit so bad I had to scrap that skill. Elixir S is pretty much a recipe of getting downed in WvWvW, because you cannot heal or stow any kits during that 3 s. I wish some engineer trait or utility (e.g. a gadget) would give stability as stability is so sorely needed also for many dungeons and pve play as well. Engineer condition removal is solely dependent on elixirs and cleaning formula 409. Medkit drop antidote is not that efficient condition removal as you need to walk over it and WvWvW fights tend to have tons of immobilize (e.g. warriors use leg specialist trait).

Overall the recent patch reduced engineer survivability in WvWvW and the confusion nerf hit some builds really badly.

Yup. Pretty much if you are wvwing in a zerg you should be chucking grenades. Mask’s build also still works even though the confusion nerf hit it hard.

Bombs, not so much unless you have a shout/hammer guardian friend and are specced into boon duration so that you can take advantage of stability when he uses it.

Eh, flamethrower gets an honorable mention. With juggernaut you can get really really tanky. Though, in the end you are only really good at tagging enemies, but you can only hit 3 people at a time.

Interesting perspectives, but that hasn’t matched my experience so far. Only one time did someone have a clue that the rampaging knucklehead with the flame thrower in the mob of 20+ bodies charging into the Lord room was about to BoB them to kingdom come and knocked me back out. Too late as my BoB still did it’s work just as my butt hit the ramp. The onrushing horde mopped up. Now I just BoB and THEN roast ‘em, cause it’s nigh impossible to tell which one is the Engi with that many bodies crammed together. Meh….it’s all fun.

I will agree though, unless you take Firearms 4 to increase pistol/rifle range, wall huggers will need to swap to grenade kit and work on their carpel tunnel to be effective. But I tend not to wall hug….. ;-)

digitalfodder.5086:

I can just about function in a zerg, by running around placing bombs as zerg meets zerg but its so disconnected from fighting anything. Can’t use flamethrower as other peoples retaliation does more damage to me than i can to them. I don’t have a reliable source of stability, i get thrown around like a dirty condom.
I can provide a little bit of support, nothing compared to other classes and just don’t get any badges.

Being an engineer sucks hard in WvW. What am I doing wrong? …. im sure ill get “use grenades!” but tghat seems to be the answer to every question on the engineer, i dislike using them.

Anet, please but some imagination into the engineer. feels like such a second thought.

Yes, Engineers are useless at the WvW and we all can say “THX” for that to ANET.

I’m sure there a lot of post about, “no, they are great”, but this posts from the solo-roamers, who able to kill only 1-2 enemy noobs. But they didn’t know that this is NOT WvW.

SilverWF.4789:

Yes, Engineers are useless at the WvW and we all can say “THX” for that to ANET.

I’m sure there a lot of post about, “no, they are great”, but this posts from the solo-roamers, who able to kill only 1-2 4-5 enemy noobs. But they didn’t know that this is NOT WvW.