Guild Wars 2

I am a fan of the grenade kit in theory. I am not a fan of diving 30 into the explode tree, especially when the Adept and Master minor traits are so… well… useless?

I have done some reading on Grenadier, but most of the threads are pretty old. I know folks don’t like rehashing these discussions all the time, but can Grenade Kit still be useful even if you don’t got for that trait?

Sure, any kit is still useful even when you’re not traited for it. Though to say that the explosives trait line is useless for grenade is well…. silly.

Personally, I get a lot out of that trait line:
30% condition duration (good regardless if you’re built for conditions or not)
15% chance for explosions to cause bleed
20% cooldown reduction for both grenade AND bomb kit (and since I use bomb in my setup, the trait becomes twice as beneficial)
Vulnerability on explosions make 20+ vulnerability stacks a breeze with grenades, which boosts party dps significantly

As far as the grenadier trait itself, I’d consider it invaluable if you plan to mainly use grenades. The 1500 range and that extra grenade make a huge difference. Personally I think that 30 in explosives is a must for any grenade build. I can understand wanting to put those points elsewhere but you miss out on a lot of perks by not having it. Where else were you planning to put those points?

Sorry, I mean that Evasive Power Keg and Reserve Mines are useless, not the trait line itself when it comes to grenades specifically.

I personally, currently, run this build (don’t have all of this gear quite yet, but this in the plan):
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQJAqelspqb3zSeF1LJxoCdGMj6CYRKyfj/UgtA-jAyAIMhQKDIRIIJ/ioxWNLiGrqmIqWdjZ6LiWNA-e

Pretty straight forward stacking conditions and bursting fields while also providing strong healing and condition removal support. Plus, a few quick trait swaps and my FT because useful as well. It seems to put me in the most “versatile” place, but… parties and such demand a certain level of performance that my condition stacking loses as the size of the group increases.

ANYWAY! That said, I just keep seeing videos and reading strategies for Engis that revolve around using grenades. And I like the concept of the skill, but yes… I dunno… kits like EG are still respectable without FFT or DM, but GK seems to more or less “require” that GM trait in all the things I see. Plus, I am not a fan of losing all my BK fields.

I dunno… probably suffering from some class wanderlust as nothing but the EG really has grabbed my attention.

I haven’t looked much at celestial builds for engie, but I understand what you’re going for.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQJAqalIq6ZX3SiF1LJyoCdGIF1XeJqQ+95xblWQIA-jgCBIMBkWAgqAM/pIaslgBp8JaVRhVXDT5iIq2wrIa1RBARA-e

This is the build I’ve been running with for a while. Hybrid rampager/zerker gear so that you’re not suffering in either area. For dps I cycle through pistols, bomb kit and grenade kit to stack conditions, for autoattacking and waiting for stuff to come off cooldown, I use grenade kit. Provides stacks of bleeding, minutes of poison, sustainable burning, with occasional confusion. The other skills can also provide immob/cripple and blind if necessary. I also take EG due to its fantastic utility, with group healing, condition removal, and escape ability. With my condition duration I am also able to use its autoattack to sustain weakness on bosses, which sacrifices my dps in order to help the rest of the party stay alive by reducing boss damage by 25%. I rarely have to do it, but it’s proven to be very useful when I need to. The kits also provide plenty of combo fields for your party to use. The toolbelt skills are very solid as well, providing a water field, AoE launch + blast finish, AoE regeneration, and grenade barrage that can hit very, very hard. Due to the armor setup the build is indeed quite squishy; however this can be circumvented with superior ranged attacks(although occasional close in to use bomb skills). Vigor on swiftness allows for reliable dodging, which shouldn’t be a problem when you’re good distance away. I am very happy with the build, as it provides great damage along with being very versatile with its utility.

Perhaps you can find what you are looking for in the build, and tweak it as necessary.

Do you need Shrapnel and Sharpshooter? Do they stack? Cause… if so… I guess that is that is a lot of bleed in a really short amount of time. I might still stick with incendiary powder cause I less than three fire. XD

Thanks for sharing.

The bleed is a large portion of the dps, but you don’t need them. They do stack though, quite wonderfully so. But yes you can go for incendiary powder if you prefer burning instead. It’s a good option to swap to if you have another condition build in the party that wants to hog all the bleeding.

Incendiary powder is single target, shrapnel is not. Unless of course they changed that I and I didn’t notice.

Yes, that is also worth noting. Shrapnel also doesn’t require you to crit, which is also nice.

Is Grenadier required for Grenade Kit?

Yes. It’s +50% damage.

burning for 4 sec with a 10 sec cd and 20% cd reduction what’s so terrible about that? not to mention you can go hybrid condi/power and have 2900 attack without gearing for it.

Why use Grenades without Grenadier?

Honestly, I think they should just balance the Grenade kit so that it shoots 3 grenades by default, then make a completely new grandmaster trait.

Grenadier isn’t required for Grenade Kit as long as you are using Grenade Kit purely as a utility kit just like Elixir Gun. You still get a nice AOE Blind and Freeze and Poison field which can then be blasted for AOE Weakness, so GK isn’t toothless untraited, it’s just that it’s almost pure utility.

That being said, if you’re running Grenade kit, why not Grenadier? Not only do you get +50% damage and a much larger AOE to your attacks, but you also stack Vulnerability 50% faster.

I will agree that Reserve Mines is probably one of the worst Minor traits in the game, but it really is nothing compared to Acidic Elixirs, which is in the same trait line and takes up a Major slot and is literally wasting 1 potentially great Major trait possibility.

@Kain Francois:
I wouldn’t be averse to a remake of the Grenade Kit so that it has 3 grenades by default, as long as one of the primary routes of Engineer’s damage does not get nerfed. 33% damage nerf across the kit was quite a lot already – and it affected untraited Grenades also, making Grenadier even more mandatory. Until Engineer mainhand weapons are strong enough to stand on their own – I’m holding out for Hammer to be the end of Engineer’s Hybrid Tax – I feel that any remake of the Grenade Kit or Grenadier will likely result in an overall nerf – just as the “remake” of Kit Refinement killed off the only Kit-agnostic trait for Engineers.