Guild Wars 2

Hey guys, trying to finally settle on a class to take to 80. I really like the “adventurer” feel of the engineer class, but I’m not a huge fan of the grenade kit. How is the damage with a rifle, can it compete with other classes? Any info would be greatly appreciated!

Engineers can do more than just throw grenades. My advice would be to make one and head over to the heart of the mists - experiment with as many builds as you want on the target dummies; when you find one that feels ’right’ try assume actual PvP with it. If that goes ok, start leveling and recreate that build as you go.

Sounds good, thanks for the advice.

I recently got my Engineer to 80 (after first getting Mesmer to 80), and honestly in my opinion, right now you HAVE to like either grenades or mines or preferably both.

If you can’t stand grenades, but do fine with mines, I feel you’ll be fine and have a pleasant time. But if you can’t stand both grenades AND mines, I wouldn’t recommend it. Turrets are too weak and unwieldy, we can’t switch weapons, flamethrower doesn’t work quite right (weird misses that should be hits, and #2 ability is wonky at best).

You could try some builds, find one that seems right. But frankly I feel without mines and grenades you’re kittening your progress too severely. It’s like leveling Thief. You can level easy with D/D, or you can level painfully with P/P. There’s no “right” way. It’s just one will be fast and enjoyable, and the other will be slow and frustrating.

As the guy above me said, you will severely limit your potential as an engineer if you don’t like Grenades or Bombs. I think he means bombs, as mines is another thing.

Of course you can run many builds without it, but to get at least a little close to the burst damage potential of the other classes you have to run explosives at the moment. I ran a condition build from 1-67, after that I switched to rifle with grenades and a heavy power+crit build. Leveled much faster with no problems after that.

I have to agree with the above poster.

While Engineers do have a tool for almost every job (Yes, even a melee kit), if you’re looking for the generally best way to deal damage, Grenades are going to be what you find yourself stumbling back to. All other kits are mostly situational (Bombs, Elixir Gun, Tool Kit), whereas Grenades you can get away with in almost any situation.

You will find that in WvW, Grenades are absolutely amazing at controlling your enemies lines and where they are able to move. The range of the Grenades is phenomenal for this.

sPvP, things are different, but you will see some successful use of Grenades.

Just like Sabbathius said, you can play an Engineer however you’d like and do well, but Grenades are arguably our best kit in terms of damage with added CC and conditions.

If you’re looking to avoid using Kits, run a Pistol/Pistol condition build. It is very effective in PvE if you kite monsters in circles, and you don’t even need to be fully geared for it either.
I used P/P with Elixirs to level from 1-80 on my Engineer, and I continue to use the same build to melt face in WvWvW.

If you like the rifle but you don’t like the grenade kit, you still have some good options. I’m a grenadier myself, so I can’t give you the fine details, but I’ve seen some very effective rifle engineers who use kits, toolbelt skills and traits to backup their rifle damage.

I don’t like grenades or bombs. XD
So far in PvE I am doing fine. Handling content that is usually 4-5 levels above character level. I’m using pistol/shield, rocket boots, grasping vines, elixir gun. Or turrets and Take Root. My character is Sylvari, btw. I don’t think grenades or bombs are mandatory.