Guild Wars 2

Hello,i’m having a really weird issue with the engineer:
I’ve tried all the professions in pvp and closed the spread to just a few,just to then pick the engineer.
I’m level 18 by now and i’ve done a good amount of PvP with him…however…
It’s strange,i feel like i really lack damage 8except when using the bomb kit) and survivability…Even tho i had no issues in PvP.
An example?
I’ve been doing the skill challenge near thaumanova’s reactor,with 3+ levels of advantage and all abilities ready,plus,food and almost the best gear i could equip (as i always do 100% completition i’ve lots of crafting materials).
The 3 fire elementals shoot me an AoE,i dodge out taking barely no damage,shoot back with grenades and grenades toolbelt,keep attacking for some time and almost kill the 2 minor elementals.
Then,the veteran one attacks me,once,with a quick attack,dealing me HUGE damage (i even had thoughness and vitality gear,wth) and by the time i use my heal the other two elementals drop me,luckily conditions kill them and i am rallied,i heal and keep fighting.
On the next attack the elemental drops me to <10% hp and burn kills me. WTF?
I could understand if i was using any other gear,or a scholar,or not dodging and stuff like that…but i’ve been using thoughness gear,with two vitality pieces and a healing food,i’ve dodged the most dangerous attacks and handled well my usual combo.

While someone would then say “you’re definetly doing something wrong”,i can disagree as:
1) I’ve NO ISSUES with all other professions. (from eles,thieves,mesmers to warrior and guardians)
2) I’ve been doing really well in sPvP,using a 4 kits build yet being able to chain off abilities,even not having much experience with the engineer. (wich means: handling backstab thieves,cleansing conditions,chaining fields and finishers and that kind of stuff)

So what is going on?
I’ve also noticed that the weapons’ damage is much lower than other professions’…wich is weird,only the bomb kit is on par.
I can understand the Engineer’s weapon do less damage because they’re ranged (i’m talking about #1 here,taking in account full conditions applied too) but i’d then except a damage drop-off,with higher base damage…or just more consistent damage.
Same applies to FT’s #1,it’s really crap in PvE!

So here’s my question: Has the engineer been nerfed in PvE or something like that?
Because the profession performs MUCH better in PvP…

“Only level 18” is your issue. Is your gear up to par? What level gear do you have? – Try turrets for leveling as well, rifle turret is great for PvE IMO.

DadMcFatherton.6781:

“Only level 18” is your issue. Is your gear up to par? What level gear do you have? – Try turrets for leveling as well, rifle turret is great for PvE IMO.

feet gear is 9,all other is 16-17. From armor to weapons. I use copper rings and earrings with +power and + condition (2 and 2).
I’ve been running around with many setups but i seem to prefer Turrets in sPvP than PvE..weird! x)
Btw,about the example fight,i had the grenade kit and the battering ram (i love the ram -).
P.s. I also find strange how,even with a thief,i can survive better than with my engineer.
I’ve also tried mesmer and ele,both seemed MUCH MUCH more survivable :x
I mean,everyone says mesmer’s levelling is slow and hard,compared to the engi,it’s been a blast…kitten is happening? XD

Grenade kit is hardly worth using until you can trait for it, possibly try a combination of ft/eg and rocket boots. Try taking medkit as your heal as well, this way when combined with the eg you also have two condition cleanses on relatively short cooldowns to get rid of the burn. The added mobility between acid bomb, rocket boots and jump shot on rifle should be more than enough. If you find yourself in a spot where that much movement is a hindrance like around cliff edges and the like, try taking toolkit and pistol shield for the extra blocks. That being said, engi is a lot like mesmer in that it is very trait dependent and early on it is in my opinion considerably weaker than some other professions but it greatly improves once you can fill out your trait trees some. Personally for pve, I almost always advocate damage stats over survival stats because the survival stats rarely will keep you alive against anything that matters (meaning anything that can one shot you in zerker gear will also one shot you in toughness gear) so being able to kill faster is actually a better defense. Of course I just now realized that at level 18 you won’t have access most likely to all of those kits but I am not going to retype it all because it is still pretty sound advice in my opinion for once you can get to those kits. Engineer weapons, such as the rifle or pistol tend to not do very good damage on their own, and usually only become viable to use solely once you can get the traits to support them such as a rifle sd burst build or a pistol hgh condition build, by viable I mean killing things in a timely efficient manner. Best advice may be to simply try and come back to the reactor after you have leveled a bit more and have more traits and tools at your disposal.

ShadowPuppet.3746:

Grenade kit is hardly worth using until you can trait for it, possibly try a combination of ft/eg and rocket boots. Try taking medkit as your heal as well, this way when combined with the eg you also have two condition cleanses on relatively short cooldowns to get rid of the burn. The added mobility between acid bomb, rocket boots and jump shot on rifle should be more than enough. If you find yourself in a spot where that much movement is a hindrance like around cliff edges and the like, try taking toolkit and pistol shield for the extra blocks. That being said, engi is a lot like mesmer in that it is very trait dependent and early on it is in my opinion considerably weaker than some other professions but it greatly improves once you can fill out your trait trees some. Personally for pve, I almost always advocate damage stats over survival stats because the survival stats rarely will keep you alive against anything that matters (meaning anything that can one shot you in zerker gear will also one shot you in toughness gear) so being able to kill faster is actually a better defense. Of course I just now realized that at level 18 you won’t have access most likely to all of those kits but I am not going to retype it all because it is still pretty sound advice in my opinion for once you can get to those kits. Engineer weapons, such as the rifle or pistol tend to not do very good damage on their own, and usually only become viable to use solely once you can get the traits to support them such as a rifle sd burst build or a pistol hgh condition build, by viable I mean killing things in a timely efficient manner. Best advice may be to simply try and come back to the reactor after you have leveled a bit more and have more traits and tools at your disposal.

Actually i’m already over-levelled,it’s be a shame if i’d need more levels to clear it.
And i find it funny how people complain about mesmer’s first 30 levels while engineer’s are MUCH harder.
I’ll dump the thoughness/vitality for power/condition damage and i’ll stick to bomb kit for a while.
P.s. i’ve already the medikit with me for the extra heals and the swiftness.

I agree, I never had any issues to speak of leveling my mesmer, having those clones and phantasms to soak up hits really helps a lot. Just don’t get discouraged, I promise that engi is more than capable in a pve environment, but it does take thinking a bit differently about it than in pvp. There are combinations which can be done in pve that it would be unlikely you would be able to pull off effectively in a pvp scenario since pve ai is basically as dumb as a box of rocks. One of my favorites is with the much maligned ft, you can use it to throw down it’s fire field (one of the longest lasting in the game) switch to the eg, cripple a mob then acid bomb away while standing in the fire field then immediately switch back to the ft for napalm blast, rocket boots back into the fire field stacking might from both blast finishers, people will say yeah big deal you stacked 6 stacks of might, but it also can save you from being hit with a big melee attack hence saving your dodges and still doing decent damage because acid bomb hits pretty hard in power builds. Obviously in pvp something like that would not be as effective because what player is going to just stand in the fire field/acid bomb. I primarily run a ft/eg build in pve and I rarely use the ft auto for anything other than applying a bleed that procs from a trait that in turn causes more damage to a bleeding target. But this style of play is really dependent on having the cooldown trait for ft/eg to make the skills recharge fast enough to make it worthwhile. The specific build for pve that allows a good amount of damage for something like what I described is 0/25/0/20/25, which gives increased damage to bleeding targets and more damage when endurance is full, which with being able to stay so mobile using eg/rocket boots/ jumpshot plus the aoe blind from the ft smokescreen happens more often than not. Just get used to the idea that engi is actually really not much of a ranged class and be comfortable fighting in mid/close, even with grenades that have a super long range when traited it’s often better to stay a bit closer with them when solo since flight time is so long on them at distance. Wow sorry for the tangent, haven’t had my coffee yet lol!

Ty for the tips,your fire field combo would work in PvP too IF you swap weapon while using acid bomb: this will stop you,thus making it faster
Btw,from my point of view,an engineer should be a melee specialist,i love getting up close and personal.
(indeed i love bunker and sustain builds!)
I’m the kind of guy that plays the thief as a tank…lol.

Use a Bomb Kit, go for as much Power as you can on your gear, accessories can be condition damage.

There are so many builds you can run at 80, some match your thief tank style. Toolkit is nice, hits hard, has a block and a pull. Static Discharge is nice at 20, adds a good amount of damage output if you skill for short duration toolbelt skills like Rifle Turret, Tool Kit and Personal Battering Ram. I consider Rifle almost a melee weapon as its two big damage abilities are better close range. At 80 I run Rifle/SD or Grenades/Gadgets or FT/HGH (which you will prolly like the most). All do quite well, I feel that zerker builds rival any other DPS builds from other classes, lotsa viable builds.

Blood~

ButterOfDeath.2873:

Ty for the tips,your fire field combo would work in PvP too IF you swap weapon while using acid bomb: this will stop you,thus making it faster
Btw,from my point of view,an engineer should be a melee specialist,i love getting up close and personal.
(indeed i love bunker and sustain builds!)
I’m the kind of guy that plays the thief as a tank…lol.

Yeah, sometimes I use the animation cancel if I actually don’t want the distance, but part of what I use it for as in the example given is to specifically create the distance between myself and the target to save on having to use a dodge to avoid a melee attack, but not really losing much in terms of damage or time since it can basically be executed in about a second (never really checked the actual time to perform this, just throwing a guess). It does help now also having eg toolbelt skill as a stunbreak, but it sees limited use in that for pve anyhow. As for playing classes in non traditional ways, I too often like to try and buck the trend, when people say something is not viable it is usually a sign for me to try it and see how much success I can have with it. Sadly though after many hours of experimenting, in pve because of poor design, doing damage really is the absolute most effective way to deal with just about any encounter, especially so in dungeons because there is nothing that simply can’t be overpowered with throwing as much possible damage at it, there are no mechanics that force people to use crowd control or support really since those two points are pretty much a afterthought in dungeon design for this game. Brute force rules the day in pve.

When leveling at low levels i used the thumper turret a lot to tank for me along with grenades and rifle. Try going for burst gear along with the protection traits. I don’t ever remember having any real problems with my engineer. However the thumper because less useful the higher level you are but by that time you will be able to survive with out it.

Also in case you have not seen it, I will direct you to this thread https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/PvE-Dungeon-Speedrun-Zerk-Build/first#post2560024, it gives a pretty clear example of the kind of damage a engineer is capable of given specific group composition and situations.

Hooooly crap! 7k damage surprise shot?
Imagine how a backstab (if the engineer had it) would perform…kitten

A thief in that team comp (25 might 25 vuln) would probably hit upwards of 30k with a backstab, once the boss was below a certain health threshold. I think more impressive though than looking at a 7k surprise shot is that he basically did a 40k+ burst using blunderbuss, b.o.b and jumpshot, remember he timed that so the damage from bob goes off with other hard hitting skills, and 8k autoattacks that are a full 360 aoe not just a cleave is absolutely insane. Having never played a warrior for any length of time I can’t really personally compare the damage but I have a hard time believing that they really do much more damage than that, other than they can burst faster due to how low their cd on 100b is but I doubt their auto is hitting that hard so it may end up as a wash, I guess the point was to show that engi can put out some really crazy numbers in pve when built for damage.

I’ve actually been having no trouble at all with my engineer. At level 20 now and it’s been a breeze. I haven’t really looked into the class at all, just sort of going with the flow, but I’ve been using the flamethrower a lot along with a Thumper Turret. At the moment I’m using a pistol and shield. I have died a lot less on my engineer than on while leveling my warrior or mesmer and it’s been a ton of fun!

I find the Thumper Turret actually works much better at absorbing hits from mobs than phantasms and clones on my mesmer when I was leveling. Perhaps it’s been fixed now, but I hated the first 40ish levels of my mesmer because none of the mobs would react to phantasms and clones.

I levelled my engineer largely with Rifle and Bombs; eventually switching over to Pistol Shield when I got to 60 for Grenadier. Levelling after that was a breeze.

Engineer’s time to kill in PvE is relatively high, but using Rifle and Bombs should make it easier as they require relatively few traits to be effective, and have good Power scaling, which is really all you need until you’re level 80.

The only traits that I view as top priority for Engineer are Speedy Kits (10 points tools) and Invigorating Speed (10 points Alchemy). After that, just beeline towards whatever other trait will boost your current build. For Rifle and Bombs, the next traitlines I used were 10 into Firearms and Explosives.

For levelling purposes, aim for some kind of kit first. I actually don’t recommend Grenade kit because as good as it is in PvP and WvW when traited, untraited it just isn’t competitive with untraited bomb kit or untraited Rifle for damage; especially so after that 33% nerf.

I did use Flamethrower for a while but found that for all the smoke, there was no fire, so to speak, in the FT kit. Granted, this was before you could detonate Flame Blast and the buffs to FT1 getting bonus damage from Burning foes. I still don’t use it because I simply find its PvE time to kill excessive compared to just manning up and going into PBAoE range with bombs and toolkit. It’s pretty good for tagging mobs in Orr, but since I don’t farm Orr anymore, there’s not much point to it. And since I find zerging up in WvW to be underhanded and unmanning, there’s also little point using it to tag players.

Going further, at mid-levels (30-50), I hit upon Static Discharge and for a while I ran SD with Bomb kit. It still boasts one of the lower TTK for a mid-level build. Use Rifle with Rifle Turret, Bomb Kit, Either Med kit or Healing Turret, and some other utility. Even before the buffs to Surprise Shot’s damage AND cooldown, SD with Bombs still dealt damage worth respect.

At 60+, there is little left but to just go with Grenadier. I don’t think I’ve ever run with a dungeon group that did not appreciate the 19+ Vulnerability stacks on a boss, coupled with nigh perma weakness from Elixir Gun. If you’re quick enough, you can weave in Tranquilizer dart shots between your Grenade Kit auto-attack without losing Vulnerability stacks, but it’s no longer worth it since the Weakness duration for Tranquilizer dart was nerfed into the ground.

I also fully recommend just taking one day to try to melee things to death with the Toolkit. Toolkit, just like Bomb Kit, is one of those kits that don’t really need traits to do their job fully and I cleared Frostgorge Sound largely hitting things to death with the Wrench. It wasn’t the fastest map clear, but I’ll be kitten ed if it did not teach me melee spacing and Prybar windups. It’s also a lesser known open secret that Gear Shield is a superior block to Warrior’s Shield block.

Hmm, engineer is my first class. I leveled a ranger, and I’m currently leveling an elementalist and a guardian. I can say definitely that engineers are weaker to use in lower levels when doing PvE since having all your traits available are what make an engineer powerful. I think it’s just an unintentionally higher learning curve if you start out in PvE. But that higher learning curve is what makes top level engineers so amazing to watch. You have to think more about your decisions since you don’t have a greatsword that’ll auto-dodge on the third hit or you don’t have a skill that will give u invulnerability while you use other skills. We’re kind of forced to put a good plan together and have great reactionary tactics like shield #5 or throwing down a res potion before we get mauled. I think that forces us to get crafty and think things through.

When I was leveling my ranger, having the default drake was better than any turret or combo I could come up with. I didn’t even have to swap weapons away from shortbow until I tried soloing champs. Our downed options will do NOTHING against a pvp champ or a vet with enough adds. But man oh man, that pet heal! I will say though that getting used to toolbelt skills make using the F1-F4 keys much easier on other classes.

ButterOfDeath.2873:

So here’s my question: Has the engineer been nerfed in PvE or something like that?

Did you try running Static Discharge with the Rifle?

It’s a very effective low level build. Kits don’t get stronger until later, when more traits are available.

The search tool is seriously broken. Try searching in this forum:
- Leveling = 0 hits
- PvE = 1 hit! (That’s the first time I’ve ever seen it return a hit.)

Lets face it, Engs have a high skill floor making them weak even in the hands of average players. Engs take much longer to learn than other classes and until mastered they’re slow killers (and even many seemingly sensible Eng builds are still slow killers). The forced ground targetting and lack of auto attack on our strongest kit (grenades) doesn’t help either.

I may just give one single important hint:

9 /10 of my attacks are not autoattack. Engineer auto attacks are middle /low damage. Only bomb auto-attack is worth it. Just fill your time with skills apart from auto-attack and youa re on the right track.

Forestnator.6298:

I may just give one single important hint:

9 /10 of my attacks are not autoattack. Engineer auto attacks are middle /low damage. Only bomb auto-attack is worth it. Just fill your time with skills apart from auto-attack and youa re on the right track.

And how many kits are you using for that purpose?
Kits that, i should add, aren’t our class mechanic – cause that is the toolbelt – and so shouldn’t be assumed as a baseline regarding our balance.

The toolbelt is your class-specific skill. Kits are absolutely a class mechanic and absolutely should be considered as part of your balance as it contributes to an engineers potential ability, whether you personally use it or not.

Engineers rely heavily on their traits to allow them to dish out damage, honestly. Things like Shrapnel, Grenadier, Explosive Powder, Steel Packed Powder, Target the Weak, Juggernaut, and HGH are all strong damage traits, and Engineers have to be balanced accordingly as they can have access to any of these at level 80. It does start off feeling very weak at the lower levels, but when you edge towards level 80, you’ll have a lot more options opened up to you.

Kirschwasser.3972:

The toolbelt is your class-specific skill. Kits are absolutely a class mechanic and absolutely should be considered as part of your balance as it contributes to an engineers potential ability, whether you personally use it or not.

To be correct, the toolbelt is the “primary profession mechanic”.
“Primary” is the keyword, here.
You must balance taking the toolbelt in consideration. The engineer always has that.
But you cannot balance taking for granted that engineers will always use kits. Cause those are optional.
And when you balance taking for granted that one can use a particular set of skills, you are actually forcing them to using that set of skills. That is exactly what is happening with engineers and kits.
We have already got penalities on our main weapon because of kits – both in dps and in the lack of a second weapon slot.
But both of them are given in account on something that we can choose to use, rather than something the class has by default.
An elementalist will always have his four attunements; thus he has got a single weapon slot to compensate for it.
An engineer has got a single weapon slot and a reduced dps on the main weapon whether he uses kits or not, thus he’s actually hurting himself if he doesn’t use kits.

I will concede that we should have a second weapon slot that gets locked out if we take kits, but that could be tricky to implement without potential exploits, I’d think.

Funny how experiences are different for players. My mesmer was a challenging bore from 25 to about 40, but on my engi I only had trouble pre-20, then it really took off – not post-40 mesmer, but few things are.

From 20-40 on my engi I ran mostly pistols with Healing Turret, FT, Rocket Boots, and either Bomb kit, EG, or a turret for the last slot depending on the situation. Bomb #4 then BOB after a few seconds was especially helpful. So was planting a turret, Flame was my choice for the AOE and blind field, then kiting around it with FT/pistols.

When I didn’t need to be mobile, I dropped the boots for flame turret and bomb kit. Chaining the blindness bomb withe flame trurret blind, Napalm, then spamming bombs into a BOB when the last blindness wore off was brilliant for most PVE situations.

Engineers need traits to deal damage. Once at level 80, Engies honestly do some rather insane DPS provided you use the right spec (usually Grenades). But until you get good traits, you do indeed do pretty subpar damage.

In PVE, a condition build is viable?

I recently got my engi to 80 :P. Here are some advices i can give.

*Try to upgrade your armor to your level. Easier if you are leatherworker. Carrion is more fitting if you want burning+confusion to hit more with defense, zerker is more fitting if you want bomb+tool kit damage amongst craftable gears.
*Use pistols for confusion, offhand your preference.
*Use bomb kit confusion skill+ pry bar skill on your tool kit for insane confusion damage even if you are power focused.
*Use Med Kit or elixir C for burning removal, it really hits insane on your first levels and as an engi you don’t have easy access to condition removal.
*Burning trait on power trait line is quite amazing to have some real nice burning damage. Just need to get to level 20.

I agree my necro was a lot easier than engineer on leveling, i didn’t even have to upgrade my gear.
If you have more power from your gear, you will see weak mobs going down so fast it’s going to make you enjoy the class far more.
Once you have access to more traits you will also see a considerable increase in your dps, especially with the grenade trait.

Hope these help.

Just some advice while leveling, BOMB KIT nuf said. At any level if anything is killing you its a skill issue. The idea behind bombs is go kite crazy! For ranged mobs (like fire elys) use los (line of sight) and kite them around a pillar or rock. I can solo Champions (even ranged most times) and group events.

Also the fact that your lvl 18 if a factor. Being level 80 with gear and lvl capped down to 18-20 makes you BOSS so if you find something you just cant do, move on and come back later it will still be there.

Manuhell.2759:

An engineer has got a single weapon slot and a reduced dps on the main weapon whether he uses kits or not, thus he’s actually hurting himself if he doesn’t use kits.

And yet Static Discharge is one of the highest damage builds across all classes in the game and uses zero kits.

As I already said in another thread:

Forestnator.6298:

I did more then 100k kills with my engineer , mainly not zerging but in small groups or solo. So here are my 2 cents:

Engineer has no special strength. He has the best sustain range dps. But that’s a point which is not needed that hard in wvw, expecially because necros marks are unblockable.

But here are the engineers strength in my opinion:

- engineers comes close to have no weak spott if played well. Yes, it is not that easy to play engineer well. But if, then you are able to counter anything while giving the enemie very less weakspotts.

- engineers are perfect for split tactics: Usually commander split zergs into things like. range – melee or glasscannon – tanky/CC. But this is justnot how the meta should go. If u need a good split in zerg fights you could easily say: engineers, split up please, flank xyz. Because if 10-20 engineers group up, they can almost simulate a whole zerg in functionality. They got everything important to act like a zerg excluding mesmer portals. Nothing will reach 100% in efficiency but about 80%. This is a definitly ignored smooth tactic which could finally integrate the enginer in the wvw meta.

Phineas Poe.3018:

Manuhell.2759:

An engineer has got a single weapon slot and a reduced dps on the main weapon whether he uses kits or not, thus he’s actually hurting himself if he doesn’t use kits.

And yet Static Discharge is one of the highest damage builds across all classes in the game and uses zero kits.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/updates/Game-Update-Notes-December-14-2012/999247
Third post, Class balance philosophies

Engineer
The Engineer is a highly versatile class. While it doesn’t have the long range capabilities of the Ranger, or the melee capabilities of the Warrior or Guardian, they are comfortable at medium ranges in most fights. They have a lot of control, and use their boons to keep themselves (and allies) alive in a fight. They can use different kits based on the situation, but this extreme versatility comes at a cost in damage on their main hand weapons.

I would suppose devs know how they balance more than you.
So, yeah, we are hurting ourself if we aren’t using kits – it is clearly written there we are paying a price anyway.

… So then use a kit.

If you know the design intends for you to use something and you’re stubbornly not using it because you don’t feel like it, then you’re stubbornly choosing to be bad and demanding that it make you good.

This is like going onto a first person shooter and deciding to only use the knife, then complaining that you’re not doing as well as the people with sniper rifles and machine guns.

Kirschwasser.3972:

… So then use a kit.

Then give me a kit for free, instead of making me spend an utility slot on top of having already paid two prices.

If you know the design intends for you to use something and you’re stubbornly not using it because you don’t feel like it, then you’re stubbornly choosing to be bad and demanding that it make you good.

And what i’m criticizing is exactly that design choice, for the reasons mentioned above – we’re forced to pay a price for something that may even not use.
Either that price should be optional – as in, balance the kits themselves.
Or give us a kit for free – so that we get what we’ve paid for in any case.

Kirschwasser.3972:

This is like going onto a first person shooter and deciding to only use the knife, then complaining that you’re not doing as well as the people with sniper rifles and machine guns.

More like, you will hit for less damage with your pistol because you can eventually use a knife (assuming you don’t get something else instead).

Well no. The knife is balanced against the fact that you -can- wield a pistol. The reason that kits aren’t given for free is because they give a toolbelt skill (which are generally very useful on their own) and because there ARE viable non-kit builds. Just because your main-hand weapon DPS suffers for a non-kit build doesn’t mean that it’s unviable. You have other skills to equip that may be able to narrow the gap.

But at the end of the day, if you wan tto achieve certain results, you have to choose certain options. If you want the most efficient damage, you have to choose a kit.

However, to put some points on your side of the argument, I do question why it’s necessary to kitten Engineer weapon damage because they have versatility. I’m fine with Grenade Kit being the best DPS solution for Engineers, I just wonder why that can’t be true AND the mainhand weapon can’t do full damage.

Either way, plenty of Engineer builds focus on pistol attacks and whatnot, so it’s not like their weapons are worthless.

Kirschwasser.3972:

Well no. The knife is balanced against the fact that you -can- wield a pistol. The reason that kits aren’t given for free is because they give a toolbelt skill (which are generally very useful on their own) and because there ARE viable non-kit builds.

Every skill we’ve got has a toolbelt – that is, our true primary class mechanic. Beside that…how many non-kit builds have you ever actually seen used, though? The only one i can think of is the static discharge one – and just because of the lower cooldowns of the toolbelts than for the actual skills – and only because kits don’t really have means of burst damage (and that’s right, cause that would make them really overpowered).

Kirschwasser.3972:

Just because your main-hand weapon DPS suffers for a non-kit build doesn’t mean that it’s unviable. You have other skills to equip that may be able to narrow the gap.

Except that, for the most part, they don’t deal in the damage department. They are, as the name itself says, utilities. Sure, an hgh build may give you some nice stacks of might and even fury, but you still are limited by the lack of attacks. And since by design we have a single weapon with reduced dps…either we get kits or we end to use the autoattack of the main weapon for most of the time.

Kirschwasser.3972:

But at the end of the day, if you wan tto achieve certain results, you have to choose certain options. If you want the most efficient damage, you have to choose a kit.

And the whole game is balanced toward doing that efficient damage – you aren’t actually supposed to tank enemies anyway, by design choice (no trinity). Even if we want to support allies, our utilities don’t give a lot of means to do that (aside from the elixir gun – that is, another kit). Even the elixirs have got quite a measle effect on allies, after all. And using those to buff us up it is quite useless if we then lack the attacks to use them with.
Turrets have a whole lot of problems by themselves, but beside that…they still have to rely on a kit if we actually want to repair them. Not that it is much needed, seeing as they often crumble even before we can think about that, but still…
Gadgets instead are very situational utilities. There are situation where they can help, and they will be good in doing so (mainly for defensive purposes). Still…you can’t avoid an enemy forever, and the low dps will make the fight quite longer.

Kirschwasser.3972:

However, to put some points on your side of the argument, I do question why it’s necessary to kitten Engineer weapon damage because they have versatility. I’m fine with Grenade Kit being the best DPS solution for Engineers, I just wonder why that can’t be true AND the mainhand weapon can’t do full damage.

My problem with kits is that they are balanced as if they were the primary mechanic (the one every member of that class will ever have) even if they aren’t one.
Due of the single weapon slot, we’ll inevitably use our weapon skills before they can be cyclically recharged; on top of it there is the lack of dps.
That means that either we get kits, or we’re stuck with the (weak) autoattack for most of the time.

Kirschwasser.3972:

Either way, plenty of Engineer builds focus on pistol attacks and whatnot, so it’s not like their weapons are worthless.

More often than not, those builds are focused on spamming anything on the enemy and overwhelm him with conditions, though. By also using kits – our pistols alone wouldn’t be enough (the only heavy damaging condition there is burning, after all). Poison Dart Volley misses far too much to rely on it for damage purposes instead…

Manuhell.2759:

Phineas Poe.3018:

And yet Static Discharge is one of the highest damage builds across all classes in the game and uses zero kits.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/updates/Game-Update-Notes-December-14-2012/999247
Third post, Class balance philosophies

Engineer
The Engineer is a highly versatile class. While it doesn’t have the long range capabilities of the Ranger, or the melee capabilities of the Warrior or Guardian, they are comfortable at medium ranges in most fights. They have a lot of control, and use their boons to keep themselves (and allies) alive in a fight. They can use different kits based on the situation, but this extreme versatility comes at a cost in damage on their main hand weapons.

I would suppose devs know how they balance more than you.
So, yeah, we are hurting ourself if we aren’t using kits – it is clearly written there we are paying a price anyway.

I don’t understand how this refutes anything that I said.

Static Discharge is a viable build that requires zero kits to be effective.

Just because their write-up on how they envision the Engineer says otherwise doesn’t change that fact. And Engineers do have the long-range capabilities of the Ranger with the Grenade Kit, so I question taking this paragraph as gospel in the first place.

Phineas Poe.3018:

I don’t understand how this refutes anything that I said.

Static Discharge is a viable build that requires zero kits to be effective.

A single build out of everything else. And whose whole mechanic is “get the toolbelt skills with the fastest recharge and spam all of them together”. Heh, the utilities themselves don’t even matter at all, you even slot a turret to never use it, basically – cause the toolbelt is all that matters.

Phineas Poe.3018:

Just because their write-up on how they envision the Engineer says otherwise doesn’t change that fact. And Engineers do have the long-range capabilities of the Ranger with the Grenade Kit, so I question taking this paragraph as gospel in the first place.

Sure, and we even have the melee capabilities of the warrior cause we have the tool kit, obviously. There are absolutely no differences between our grenades and ranger’s attacks. Guess what, we also have got the support capabilities of a guardian, cause we can eventually reflect projectiles and heal allies and cleanse conditions. There is absolutely no differences.
Yes, i’m being sarcastic. A single (grandmaster traited) kit doesn’t give us the same long-range capabilities of the ranger. Especially when said kit is prone to miss at longer ranges due to grenades’ dispersion.

Grenades are a billion times better than ranger longbow. The only thing the longbow has over nades is a 3s stealth (and an autoattack).

Manuhell.2759:

Phineas Poe.3018:

I don’t understand how this refutes anything that I said.

Static Discharge is a viable build that requires zero kits to be effective.

A single build out of everything else. And whose whole mechanic is “get the toolbelt skills with the fastest recharge and spam all of them together”. Heh, the utilities themselves don’t even matter at all, you even slot a turret to never use it, basically – cause the toolbelt is all that matters.

I’d say you’re significantly oversimplifying things, but you’d probably just argue about that too, anyway. If you got a bone to pick about how the Static Discharge build is played then that’s an issue you gotta iron out yourself. Point is, the build exists.

Manuhell.2759:

A single (grandmaster traited) kit doesn’t give us the same long-range capabilities of the ranger.

I’m pretty sure it does, actually. Unless you’ve come across a different definition for “long range,” I’m pretty sure the Grenade Kit is equal to the Ranger Longbow in shot yardage, and isn’t tethered to shooting from 1000+ range for maximum damage, either.

Phineas Poe.3018:

I’d say you’re significantly oversimplifying things, but you’d probably just argue about that too, anyway. If you got a bone to pick about how the Static Discharge build is played then that’s an issue you gotta iron out yourself. Point is, the build exists.

Oh, so a single build that doesn’t use kits despite all i’ve said before and doing it only because it fully depends on toolbelt recharge times and not in the utilities themselves means all is fine and well, oh silly me.

Phineas Poe.3018:

I’m pretty sure it does, actually. Unless you’ve come across a different definition for “long range,” I’m pretty sure the Grenade Kit is equal to the Ranger Longbow in shot yardage, and isn’t tethered to shooting from 1000+ range for maximum damage, either.

Guess we have different concepts for “long range capabilities”, me, you and the devs.
They can shoot up to 1800 when traited anyway (but that may be a bug). And use pets to make the enemies stay at that range. And if after this the enemy comes near…well, they just have to switch weapons to fight in melee range. And guess what, they aren’t even using utilities to do that.
Still, if we talk about utilities, they can also set traps beforehand to cripple the enemy and fight at the proper range. Traps that work quite better than a mine with a terrible radius for that matter, i may add. Muddy terrain also works definitely better than our glue shot, even with a lower recharge. And if needed, there is still Entangle.
They can fight at long range, and maintain that range. And despite what you say, we don’t have those same capabilities.

Manuhell.2759:

Phineas Poe.3018:

I’d say you’re significantly oversimplifying things, but you’d probably just argue about that too, anyway. If you got a bone to pick about how the Static Discharge build is played then that’s an issue you gotta iron out yourself. Point is, the build exists.

Oh, so a single build that doesn’t use kits despite all i’ve said before and doing it only because it fully depends on toolbelt recharge times and not in the utilities themselves means all is fine and well, oh silly me.

Yes. Silly you.

SeuRafinha.5924:

In PVE, a condition build is viable?

Short answer: No.

Long answer: You can do a lot of solo PvE with a condition build, but you’ll lose out as soon as you get into group situation unless you are the only condition build there. (After 6 months determinedly working with condition builds, I’ve finally accepted that power builds are just that much more useful. Now have to shelve all the condition gear I’ve bought – in the hope that it will prove valuable one day – and buy a whole new set of power gear.)