Guild Wars 2

Pun intended!
Just got my full Cleric set and I’m running a perma regeneration + Elixir-Infused Bombs and I gotta say this build is SOOO good and fun.
It is so easy for engies to keep 100% regeneration (I actually have more than 100%. If I spam all my healing spells, I can stack it to 1 minute really fast).
I decided to try it out because I used to run a Juggernaut build, but it wasn’t really quite fit for group PvE, because it lacked health sustainability, so I often had to retreat and used my Elixir Gun for ranged combat (and sick bleeding! Holy moly, it stacks bleed so fast) until I was ready to head for the vanguard again.
Then I realized I liked the utility and supporting aspects of the engineer more than the damage dealing, then I started fiddling with some builds at the PvP arenas, until I found the holy bomber! Despite having my bottom ravaged by Rangers, I came to some interesting conclusions:
-Bombs have amazing base damage. Just get a bit of power and you’ll forget you’re not a DPS build.
-If you have high toughness, your healing can get your EHP to astronomical levels (not counting other active healing skills, you can easily get 700+ Health per second from regeneration and bombs, also NOT including backpack regenerator).
-Even though you are almost melee, you can reduce the damage taken by kiting while you DPS.
-In PvP. Long range enemies with good kiting potential are your bane. Kiting in general reduces your DPS significantly. Doesn’t matter as much for PvE, because the AI doesn’t give a rat’s about dodging AoE.
-Also in PvP, If the enemies don’t have enough control to pin you down, you can run in the middle of four of them and just run away. If they chase, there’s a bomb field waiting.

So here I am! I’d like some advice, to further improve and optimize my build (I’m and engineer, after all!):

Explosives: 20 Points. Major traits are Forceful Explosives and Short Fuse.
Inventions: 30 Points. Major traits are Energized Armor (considering Cloaking Device and Protective Shield), Power Shoes and obviously Elixir Infused Bombs.
Alchemy: 20 Points. Major traits are Fast Acting Elixirs and Cleaning Formula 409 (Considering Backpack Regenerator).

I considered Tools, but I have no precision for Crit Damage and Tool Belt skills, albeit good, aren’t the focus of the build. Swift Kits are nice, but I already have Power Shoes and not many traits synch well with the build.

I use Superior Runes of Water (considering Monk), Cleric armor and my trinkets are a mishmash. I’m thinking about getting some Shaman stuff to get my base HP up, so I don’t get destroyed by really heavy burst and condition damage.

My utility skills (so far) are Healing Turret, Bomb Kit, Elixir B, Elixir Gun and Supply Crate.
I’m considering either dropping Elixir Gun for Elixir C (more self Condition Removal and Boons converted (so I can make use of my Boon Duration Increase)) or keeping the gun and dropping 409 for Backpack Regenerator and Elixir B for C (even more HoTs, I already have cleansing from Water Rune and the fumes can remove it for my team. Also Super Elixir is such an amazing heal and give the OP light Field (which I can easily trigger with a Blast Finisher for area Retaliation or even more condition removal with a Physical Projectile). The downside is that I don’t get reliable Boons (permanent Might and high upkeep time Fury, Retaliation and Swiftness from Elixir B ) for me and a random buff for my team.
Another point in favor of the Regenerator is that I don’t use Elixir H (no, seriously, this Turret is godlike. Just don’t drop and forget it. Drop, use you Cleansing burst if you need, then detonate it for the damages and to have Regenerating Mist available It has the same cooldown of Elixir H TRAITED for 20% cooldown reduction).
[Note, this is for PvE.]

Any help is very much welcome!
Thanks in advance!

Why Formula 409 while you have only 1 elixir?

Lupanic.6502:

Why Formula 409 while you have only 1 elixir?

That’s why I think there’s something wrong. It was for an extra condition removal.
But I’m starting to guess it might seem redundant when I already have Water runes and Elixir Gun to remove conditions.
Or should I drop the gun to get one more elixir?

I highly recommend you grab 2 Monk runes and use 4 Water/2 Monk. It’ll maximize your rune-based boon duration while still granting you the healing bonuses from using a Water set. Therefore you won’t have to worry about renewing your regen quite as much.

Personally, I don’t use Engineer in sPVP because I’m not skilled enough. I stick to my Warrior and Mesmer, because I’ve practiced with them more.

I’ve fiddled with the traits of the Engie A LOT over the past week. I’ve experimented with every available trait combo, but so far my favorite is the flamethrower. I think my latent pyromania is revealing itself.

My PVE Engineer build is 0/30{V, VIII, IX}/0/30{I, IX, X}/10{VI} (a Flamethrower-based build with Elixir support). I use PVT armor with Sapphire (PTH) trinkets. My runes are 2 Monk, 2 Water, 2 Speed. My sigils are Fire and Bloodlust. Weapons are pistol/shield, for the tiny bit of extra toughness. Utilities: Elixir S, Elixir B, Flamethrower. Healing skill is Elixir H, but you can also use Medkit if you want. Elite is whatever you want (I like Supply Crate, personally).

Breakdown of the traits:
Firearms: 30 points.
{V} Precise Sights – You can choose this or {III} Infused Precision. I highly recommend Precise Sights though because the vulnerability really helps considering that this is not necessarily a DPS build.
{VIII} Fireforged Trigger – It was either this or {VII} Napalm Specialist. I chose shorter flamethrower cooldowns over 20% increased burn duration. It’s up to you.
{XI} Juggernaut – This is the core of a flamethrower build. No matter what your other traits are, you NEED THIS. It’s self-explanatory. If you’re not using this for a flamethrower build, you’re not doing it right.

Alchemy: 30 points.
{I} Invigorating Speed – Combined with Speedy Kits from the Tools trait line, this means you have on-demand swiftness AND vigor. Yes please.
{IX} Backpack Regenerator – Makes you even harder to kill than you already are. And when you get regen (which happens often enough through your Elixir H utility and toolbelt skills), you have dual sources of regen to allow you to soak up even more damage (when you FINALLY run out of endurance).
{X} Cleaning Formula 409 – Assuming you use 2 utility elixirs and 1 healing elixir, that means you have 3 self-cleanses and 3 AOE cleanses for group support. Yes please.

Tools: 10 points.
{IV} Speedy Kits – On demand swiftness. Considering kits don’t have cooldowns other than the one-second swap time (time in between putting your kit away and pulling out your normal weapon set or another kit), swapping kits while you travel means you can have infinite swiftness without using a cooldown ability. Again, combined with Invigorating Speed, it means you also have an incredible amount of vigor, too. Awesome sauce.

It’s a very tough and mobile build (because you have on-demand swiftness/vigor) and, like with my pure-Cleric Guardian, is hard as hell to kill unless I get run over by a Champion/Legendary boss in Orr or something. Great AOE damage and when I’m hunting in Orr, I hit almost everything in front of me. Makes it really easy to get kill credit on nearly everything even in huge chaotic group battles. I’ve had tons of fun with this build in general AOE and dungeons. You can stay alive (very important), support the group with buffs and cleanses, and get around quickly. It’s only real weakness is that it’s short range and lacks heavy burst damage. But you can’t have everything, right?

Cleyran Knight.8291:

Pun intended!
Just got my full Cleric set and I’m running a perma regeneration + Elixir-Infused Bombs and I gotta say this build is SOOO good and fun.
Thanks in advance!

While I’m all for Engineer PVE support builds, I’d like you to mention what content you’ve done with it. I’m only looking for builds that’ll get me through higher level fractals and made a post on Guru about bombs myself on which people kind of convinced me healing bombs is not really worth it because you’ll either be healing full health allies or when the burst hits don’t have enough healing to make up for it. So please convince me

RuBarBz.4972:

Cleyran Knight.8291:

Pun intended!
Just got my full Cleric set and I’m running a perma regeneration + Elixir-Infused Bombs and I gotta say this build is SOOO good and fun.
Thanks in advance!

While I’m all for Engineer PVE support builds, I’d like you to mention what content you’ve done with it. I’m only looking for builds that’ll get me through higher level fractals and made a post on Guru about bombs myself on which people kind of convinced me healing bombs is not really worth it because you’ll either be healing full health allies or when the burst hits don’t have enough healing to make up for it. So please convince me :)

My guess is that if you’re ONLY able to play each class for their utmost high end content potential, the engineer is nothing more than a grenade spammer with 25 stacks of might and if you want to do anything else to help the team, just log out of your engi and go play a Guardian.

But if you’re open minded to the versatility of professions like the engineer and the necromancer, have in mind that when using this build you should consider the bombs “collateral healing” for the melee members your group. When the kitten hits the fan, you have Healing Turret, Regenerating Mist, Healing Mist and Super Elixir (which has a very high healing coefficient) . You’re not supposed to be running around your party bombing them. The power from the cleric armor is there for a reason. And bombs have very high base damage to compensate for their unreliability (which is not a problem against dumb PvE monsters). Also, if you can keep the aggro to yourself, you will never be “wasting” the healing potential of the bombs because you can use them to sustain yourself while you tank.

Cleyran Knight.8291:

Pun intended!

My guess is that if you’re ONLY able to play each class for their utmost high end content potential, the engineer is nothing more than a grenade spammer with 25 stacks of might and if you want to do anything else to help the team, just log out of your engi and go play a Guardian.

But if you’re open minded to the versatility of professions like the engineer and the necromancer, have in mind that when using this build you should consider the bombs “collateral healing” for the melee members your group.

So, ladies and gentlemen, do we have a guy who appears to be a thinly veiled hired poster? 3 posts but decent knowledge of the game. And of course a post from a looking-through-rose-tinted-glasses perspective. AND a mediocre pun? “Open minded to the versatility of professions”, really? You even admit that the engi (and necro) don’t cut it at high end content besides one viable and tendonitis-inducing build. Being fun and versatile as a class in an MMO does not mean it should not be balanced to the level of other classes.

As to the post itself: KR not giving the elixir S proc means no constant regen and double cleanse that we could put in almost any build in times of yore. So in order to be even helping a group (besides the standard blast/combo finishers that every dps build has and should be aware of) we have to go full cleric, with bombs. Which is quite a useless build. Every other build would have helped the group much better. Even a grenade build that has healing turret.

If stuff die faster, the group takes less damage. The melee stack having a 700hps battery is not a good trade off for a 5th member who adds a ton of damage. (And don’t get me started on a comparison with guardians/eles that want to support, wearing the appropriate gear). So don’t try to sell that exceptionally new and innovative build (/sarcasm off) as something useful. It is fun and it can be marginally usefull for topping people up and that’s it.

I love my heal bomb engie. Been using the forceful bombs, reinforced shield, protective shield, protection injection, superior rune of the grove (x5) + some other superior rune of healing (+25) and potent elixirs (though I’m probably gonna switch to cleaning formula 409 after reading some of these posts). I use a cleric set of armor.

Today, I found out that after +500 healing you get diminishing returns (I have more than that). I thought about changing it up for dungeons/pve, but… No, I don’t want to. I love my engie just the way she is. She out lasts in tough situations. And I don’t have any problem doing damage. (This is the only character that I have so far that’s done over 200k overkill – same gear/traits).

I wish there were more players that would believe me when I tell them I can take a beating, heal, and put out damage – all of which really well. The only real downside (if any) is there’s no flashy moves – you’re just putting down bombs.

I’m glad there are others. Still, I believe this is one of the best kept secrets of GW2.

Hey Cleyran Knight.8291,

I run a build extremely similar even though it is for Spvp.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQFAUl0p6ZnwyuF17ISoHS49pWieofUml9pgcB;TkAgzCmo6x0joHbPuek9MaA

I would like to suggest moving to medkit. Using 6 water runes or 6 runes of the flock allows you to heal yourself and everyone around you for ~1100. This heal can happen every 10 seconds just by switching to the medkit. I also like to drop bandages for myself that heal for ~1500. This also gives you a way to get swiftness OOC as well as fury, and another condition removal.

You were also considering dropping Formula 409, but I believe the elixir gun 5(the healing light field thingy) is considered an elixir and will remove a condition – I’m not sure if this is from 409 or another trait that I missed.. (The EG 4 is considered an elixir but WILL NOT remove a condition.

You were also considering more vitality gear that you could get by dropping 10 points in explosives and putting 10 more into Alchemy. This will also allow you to pickup backpack regenerator. I don’t feel the cooldown for bombs is that necessary considering this is a power based spec and all the bombs with cooldowns are condi damage based. Also with medkit and elixir guns you shouldn’t need to worry about bomb cooldowns.

As far as sigil goes I’m a little confused as well. If healing gets diminishing returns heal stacking from sigil of superior life may be out the window. With as much kit switching as we are doing sigil of superior energy for some extra dodges may be the way to go.

Also I see you’re using fast acting elixirs but only using one elixir, and you have no stun break. I have subbed elixir B for elixir R for a stun break, a revive, and another light field. A long range revive in PVE is always awesome. You can now drop the fast acting elixirs for
A. Protection injection for PVP
B. Self regulating defenses (I guess this would be PVP too :/ lol)

Skewjo.9243:

You were also considering dropping Formula 409, but I believe the elixir gun 5(the healing light field thingy) is considered an elixir and will remove a condition – I’m not sure if this is from 409 or another trait that I missed.. (The EG 4 is considered an elixir but WILL NOT remove a condition.

This is part of what Super Elixir does, not anything to do with 409 or any other trait. It’s not on the tooltip for some reason so I can see the confusion, but none of the Elixir Gun skills are considered “elixirs” (even though they’re named as such… again confusing).

I agree on the Sigil of Life though… drop that and get a weapon swap sigil.