Guild Wars 2

So I just hit 80 on my Engineer (first and only character other than sub-level 5 alts). Some quick information:

-My build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQJAqelIqqb3zSyF1LJxoCdO0jCbY1KSRlt8nCyF-w

-I bought all level 80 Shaman yellow gear with Engineer runes and spent all of the 5G I earned whilst leveling.

Basically, my goal in this game is purely WvW (and to try to look cool). My questions:

1) With so many gear compositions, how do people even play around with builds without doing massive amounts of PvE? I am broke just buying my first set…

2) If I am forced into dungeons, I assume my spec would be considered terrible due to having a “hybrid” focus?

3) I am on Blackgate, and I did my last 2 levels in the Eternal Battleground. It was a ridiculous zerg-fest. Do the other 3 battlegrounds typically have more small group and solo encounters?

4) What is the best way to gear for PvP? DAOC (pre-TOA) will always be king here. I got to level 50, paid a crafter to make me decent gear and an enchanter to put buffs on it. It didn’t break the bank and I never needed to worry about gear again (until TOA that is). I could focus on PvP and not the gear grind. I assume gear is going to be a grind in this game?

5) Can I do all this and look like the Engineer from the character creation screen? I loved that armor and haven’t found it in-game yet. I assume if I do obtain that set I can transmog my PvP gear…

Basically I just want to play an all-around Engineer that can win some 1v1s and supply some decent support in WvW, and not have to always worry about gear if I decide to change specs. I am afraid I am not going to like the answer here as what I am picking up on it seems like this game is very grindy. Which is disappointing for PvP focused players.

1) You can try out builds in spvp before you build them in pve/wvw
2) Just avoid elitist groups. Though for the most part condition damage tends to hinder more than help in dungeons :/
3) Higher populated servers tend to have lots of zergs no matter what bl it is.
4) Not really, you can do fine with exotics in this game, you don’t NEED ascended though its nice to have
5) That is temple (Karma) armor

Thanks for the reply. I went broke buying one set of yellow gear (I believe Exotics are orange). Is there a steady supply of gold as part of WvW activities?

I assume it is grind gold…then go to TC for Exotics? I haven’t look into details on the value of leveling up crafting. I played around with crafting some and got the leather armor profession up to around 250ish.

first, congrats on hitting level 80!

Second, trying my best to help with a couple questions!
first, wvw depends on a lot of factors: server tier (no clue what blackgate is, sorry), time of day, time of week, whos winning or losing, etc as to how many people are on. It wont always be a zergfest and there’s usually opportunities for solo players and groups, (ex: backcapping supply camps, ganking players and dolyaks, and taking unmanned towers.)

Next! I would recommend you get yourself a set of Orrian Temple gear. Orrain armor is Exotic, and costs only karma. Chug your karma bottles from dailies if you haven’t already and grab yourself a few pieces. This is an excellent guide for obtaining it: http://dulfy.net/2012/09/08/gw2-templegod-karma-armor-sets/

You want to get Rabid gear (Condition Damage, Precision, Toughness). Rabid gear is a great combination of damage and survivability, and can be used on a variety of builds that focus on condition damage. Rabid Gear builds fall a little short in dungeons, but in PvP and WvW they can be absolutely devastating (Be careful though, not all the gear sold at each temple has the same stat combinations.)

Best part about the Temple gear? It has the armor skin you want from character creation! No need to even worry about transmutation stones!

regarding builds, as an engineer you can get by with most builds with just two sets of armor, one knight/berserker/soldier set for direct damage builds, and one rabid/carrion set for condition damage builds.

Other things. You wont be forced into dungeons. You can do them if you enjoy them and want to do them. Its your choice. If you don’t like the dungeons there’s other things to do.

Ways to make money. WvW can give decent money but its nothing fantastic. Sell your loot bags on Trading post and that will give you a decent income. Otherwise, exploring and running event chains in cursed shore is a pretty good income source. (Plus event chains will help you get the karma you need to complete your armor set.) Make sure to mine and cut every resourse node. Sell your mats on the trading post. Some dungeons are good for making money but that takes a group, time, and gear.

Anyways, good luck, and have fun c:

I forgot to mention, wvw has exotic armor too on the cheap. They got knight, carrion,cleric, etc armor for less than 1g per piece plus a few badges of honor. If you aren’t in a hurry, that would probably be the best way to get em for you.

(The npcs named armor masters have them)

Penguin.5197:

I forgot to mention, wvw has exotic armor too on the cheap. They got knight, carrion,cleric, etc armor for less than 1g per piece plus a few badges of honor. If you aren’t in a hurry, that would probably be the best way to get em for you.

(The npcs named armor masters have them)

If you’re doing a lot of WvW, this is actually a great way to buy gear. You’ll need about four stacks of 250 badges, as well as some gold (less than 10, I think), but it’s level 80 exotic stuff. I’ve geared at least 4 characters with my WvW badges this way. It might seem like a lot, but if you do WvW regularly (especially with an organized guild) and do the jumping puzzles now and then for extra badges, you’ll wrack them up fairly quickly.

The downside is that they only have certain stat combinations available, but both carrion and rabid are very popular for engineer builds. They also have berserker’s and soldier’s which are common too. They also don’t have weapons, so you will have to get those yourself, although you can probably find one with the stats you want on the trading post for a few gold at most.

Just make sure you buy the level 80 exotic gear and not the level 70 stuff (level 80 costs badges and gold, level 70 only costs badges).

Runes and sigils you’ll also need to get yourself, depending on what you want. If you have a black lion salvage kit, you might try buying an item off the trading post that contains the sigil/rune you want for less than the actual sale price of the sigil/rune and salvage it out. Just be careful if you’re not using a black lion salvage kit because you might end up losing the sigil/rune (black lion salvage has 100% upgrade component retrieval chance).

All your accessories can be acquired via other means if you go for ascended stuff, which is stronger than exotic accessories anyways. You can do Fractals of the Mists for the rings and back, spend laurels on the amulet, and guild missions for the earrings. If you don’t have a guild for missions, it might not be a bad idea to see if one is around. I think you can also get the earrings with laurels and ectos, but they’re much more expensive that way than doing the guild missions. You should also note that you can buy rings and amulets from the WvW vendor, which replaces some of the laurel cost with WvW badges, so it’s good if you have a lot of badges and not so many laurels.

As for the weapon, armor, and back skins, that’s cosmetic stuff that will end up costing you the most money, but that’s luxury stuff you can get later. As mentioned above, the temple armor has the character creation skin, so you can just buy that for the 200k karma it costs and transmute it onto the other exotic gear you buy, meaning you can get the armor look you want without spending any gold at all. Dyes, weapons, and back skins are a different story.

Tsyras.5274:

1) With so many gear compositions, how do people even play around with builds without doing massive amounts of PvE? I am broke just buying my first set…

2) If I am forced into dungeons, I assume my spec would be considered terrible due to having a “hybrid” focus?

3) I am on Blackgate, and I did my last 2 levels in the Eternal Battleground. It was a ridiculous zerg-fest. Do the other 3 battlegrounds typically have more small group and solo encounters?

4) What is the best way to gear for PvP? DAOC (pre-TOA) will always be king here. I got to level 50, paid a crafter to make me decent gear and an enchanter to put buffs on it. It didn’t break the bank and I never needed to worry about gear again (until TOA that is). I could focus on PvP and not the gear grind. I assume gear is going to be a grind in this game?

5) Can I do all this and look like the Engineer from the character creation screen? I loved that armor and haven’t found it in-game yet. I assume if I do obtain that set I can transmog my PvP gear…

Basically I just want to play an all-around Engineer that can win some 1v1s and supply some decent support in WvW, and not have to always worry about gear if I decide to change specs. I am afraid I am not going to like the answer here as what I am picking up on it seems like this game is very grindy. Which is disappointing for PvP focused players.

1. you can test most build in the heart of the mists before committing to them in pve (though there are a few skill/stat differences; the basics are the same); dungeons are probably the best way to gear; but yeh… quite a big time investment (especially if the prefix you’re looking for is only from underpopulated dungeons)

2. most dungeons are raw DPS tests; sadly shaman doesnt really fit with that; hybrids can work fine; but you need decent power/crit rate/crit damage to be useful – also; you lack a stunbreaker and your cleanses arent easily accessible (both of which can be very important in certain encounters)

3… in my experience the BLs have a lower population than EB; but its still a bit of a zerg v zerg scenario

4. spvp gives you free gear to respec at will; the only progression is cosmetic (unlocking new skins every 10 ranks)… in wvw youd have to go through the usual pve regear methods (dungeon/buying/crafting/getting lucky)

5. armour sets shown on the character creation screen are obtainable; they’re often either a crafted set (for example; every race warr wears barbaric armour – an armoursmith set) or a cultural set (such as… i believe every guardian is wearing a cult set)… though theres a few anomalies; such as sylvari thief; which if i recall correctly is wearing AC armour
- if you mention what race your engi is then i could tell you what set they wear on char creation and where to obtain it

Who says he’s human? :P well 80% chance anyway…

vinceftw.5086:

Who says he’s human? :P well 80% chance anyway…

i see less human engis than any other race (even salads)
edit
because i have absolutely nothing better to do and a spare char slot…

charr: cultural – idk enough about charr cultural to know what tier; i think its t1 though
human: temple
norn: temple
asura: t2 cultural
sylvari: mix (low level gloves, OoW coat, AC shoulders... rest doesnt really matter)

edit2
added links
was t1 charr
was AC shoulders not http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Outlaw_armor

^ Yeah that’s true. I think engineer is the profession with the least humans and the most asura Mine is asura, but all my toons are.

mines asura too… and my necro… my warrior and my thief… little guys rule.

Just woke up and about to head to work. Will read through this info on my lunch break.

Thanks for all the replies. Nice to see a community that helps people (similar to EVE Online).

Also, I noticed some question about my race…for my 5 slots I have planned to do one of each race…and my Engineer…is human. :0

Edit: Human Engineer, Asura Necro, Sylvari Elementalist, Charr Warrior (maybe Guardian), Norn ?? (can’t decide what to play as a Norn)

You shold have done Charr Engineer, Norn Warrior/Guardian and Human ??

Why? Well Charr Engineer i feel is the best matchup for Engineer and late game Heavy armored Norns look SO AWESOME especialy those whit Arah or Cultural T3 armor!!

Also you shold try Mesmer or Thief becase they are SO POWERFUL in PvP (Thats where Human comes in) Trust me you wont regret trying one of those out.
And yes ive played all Profesions so i know a bit, but ofc this is My Opinion only.

Have a nice day

Perkan.6482:

Heavy armored Norns look SO AWESOME especialy those whit Arah or Cultural T3 armor!!*

except they take up half the screen, annoying party members… such as… me

Perkan.6482:

Also you shold try Mesmer or Thief becase they are SO POWERFUL in PvP (Thats where Human comes in) Trust me you wont regret trying one of those out.
And yes ive played all Profesions so i know a bit, but ofc this is My Opinion only.

When I was reading about the game I had picked the Engineer before I even knew about how powerful any class was. I loved the theme (and I am an Engineer irl).

The second class I had picked was the Mesmer. The third was the Thief. When I saw how powerful they were I removed them from my list. I like to play classes with a high skill cap (and not ones viewed as super powerful). My alt I have started leveling is an Ele because I feel like they are similar to Engineers in having to manage many abilities.

So I have been playing around and think I have made up a build I like. Has anyone else used something similar?

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQJAqelIqSYHxSyF1LJyoCdWIFFmhJqQ+95xblWQIA-j0xA4MhQ6DIVIIpwioxWTLiGrKlIq2jQEVDA-w

I obviously can’t afford everything yet, but it is a mixture of Rabid and Carrion. I did buy 4/6 Whispering Karma pieces (which seem similar to these attributes).

My goal with this build is to be all-around. 1v1, PvE, WvW, etc.

Tsyras.5274:

So I have been playing around and think I have made up a build I like. Has anyone else used something similar?

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQJAqelIqSYHxSyF1LJyoCdWIFFmhJqQ+95xblWQIA-j0xA4MhQ6DIVIIpwioxWTLiGrKlIq2jQEVDA-w

I obviously can’t afford everything yet, but it is a mixture of Rabid and Carrion. I did buy 4/6 Whispering Karma pieces (which seem similar to these attributes).

My goal with this build is to be all-around. 1v1, PvE, WvW, etc.

I think you could manage fairly well with that. Using the shield can sometimes have the issue of lowering your damage output too much, but I think your gear and traits have enough offensive points to make up for that.

A lot of grenade focused builds will use the HGH trait from 30 points in alchemy. This will allow you to build a lot of might stacks by yourself, which will give you a significant damage boost. You should still be able to do a decent amount of damage, but other engineer builds will out damage the one you’ve linked. Those builds aren’t necessarily glass canons either. It makes HGH a very valuable trait for many situations, although it won’t make you a god or anything like that. This can really maximize the potential from the grenade kit, which is why it is often used in those builds.

If you are set on not using HGH, you might want to consider a few things:

1. Sigil of force will only affect direct damage. The pistol has fairly mediocre direct damage, although the grenade kit and toolkit can put out high direct damage. However, you’ve invested a lot in condition damage with your gear, so it might be better taking something along those lines. In particular, it’s a good idea to use something like a sigil of corruption, which will allow you to gain stat boosts. A lot of people will have a weapon with sigil of corruption in it, then swap it out for a different weapon with a different sigil once they have maximum corruption stacks. This allows them to gain the full benefit of sigil of corruption while also benefiting from a new sigil on their 3rd weapon. If you’re gearing up on a budget, then I would suggest trying to get a sigil of corruption and just running around with that, not worrying about swapping it out at max stacks. They are a bit expensive though, so if you don’t want to shell too much out, sigil of force is a sigil that can never do you any harm to bring around.

2. It looks like this build will be doing a lot of damage from the grenade kit and spend a lot of time in it. This means that your shield will not be out, meaning you will not benefit from the toughness bonus that reinforced shield gives you. You will still benefit from the cooldowns for when you use the skills, but you might want to play around with the cloaking device trait as an alternative. This can be very handy in fights, especially since it’s rather common for opponents to open up with an immobilize.

3. Consider taking 10 out of inventions and putting 10 more in alchemy. This will allow you to take traits like self-regulating defenses, protection injection, and backpack regenerator. These will likely work well in your build since, and all provide a level of defensive utility. You will lose the inventions 15 point minor trait, which is a good one, but it might be something you could try toying around with.

4. Also consider taking 10 out of inventions and put 10 in tools. This can give you the power wrench trait, which helps boost the toolkit. The toolkit is highly useful in WvW, and can be quite powerful, so it’s not a bad idea to give it a boost. You will also get the 15 point minor trait which will recharge your toolbelt skills. This can be very handy with elixir R since you can recharge your toss elixir R ability without waiting for the full cooldown. In fact, this actually allows you use toss elixir R twice in the same spot if you use it first before going under 25% health. Doing this can allow you to essentially insta-rez if you get downed in your elixir Rs, and can be a very strong tactic in 1v1 scenarios.

In any case, I think you’ll be able to mange just fine with this build. I’ve never used the runes of the engineer before because they’re a bit boring, but they’re not bad and probably not that expensive.

Yamsandjams.3267:

I think you could manage fairly well with that. Using the shield can sometimes have the issue of lowering your damage output too much, but I think your gear and traits have enough offensive points to make up for that.

A lot of grenade focused builds will use the HGH trait from 30 points in alchemy. This will allow you to build a lot of might stacks by yourself, which will give you a significant damage boost. You should still be able to do a decent amount of damage, but other engineer builds will out damage the one you’ve linked. Those builds aren’t necessarily glass canons either. It makes HGH a very valuable trait for many situations, although it won’t make you a god or anything like that. This can really maximize the potential from the grenade kit, which is why it is often used in those builds.

If you are set on not using HGH, you might want to consider a few things:

1. Sigil of force will only affect direct damage. The pistol has fairly mediocre direct damage, although the grenade kit and toolkit can put out high direct damage. However, you’ve invested a lot in condition damage with your gear, so it might be better taking something along those lines. In particular, it’s a good idea to use something like a sigil of corruption, which will allow you to gain stat boosts. A lot of people will have a weapon with sigil of corruption in it, then swap it out for a different weapon with a different sigil once they have maximum corruption stacks. This allows them to gain the full benefit of sigil of corruption while also benefiting from a new sigil on their 3rd weapon. If you’re gearing up on a budget, then I would suggest trying to get a sigil of corruption and just running around with that, not worrying about swapping it out at max stacks. They are a bit expensive though, so if you don’t want to shell too much out, sigil of force is a sigil that can never do you any harm to bring around.

2. It looks like this build will be doing a lot of damage from the grenade kit and spend a lot of time in it. This means that your shield will not be out, meaning you will not benefit from the toughness bonus that reinforced shield gives you. You will still benefit from the cooldowns for when you use the skills, but you might want to play around with the cloaking device trait as an alternative. This can be very handy in fights, especially since it’s rather common for opponents to open up with an immobilize.

3. Consider taking 10 out of inventions and putting 10 more in alchemy. This will allow you to take traits like self-regulating defenses, protection injection, and backpack regenerator. These will likely work well in your build since, and all provide a level of defensive utility. You will lose the inventions 15 point minor trait, which is a good one, but it might be something you could try toying around with.

4. Also consider taking 10 out of inventions and put 10 in tools. This can give you the power wrench trait, which helps boost the toolkit. The toolkit is highly useful in WvW, and can be quite powerful, so it’s not a bad idea to give it a boost. You will also get the 15 point minor trait which will recharge your toolbelt skills. This can be very handy with elixir R since you can recharge your toss elixir R ability without waiting for the full cooldown. In fact, this actually allows you use toss elixir R twice in the same spot if you use it first before going under 25% health. Doing this can allow you to essentially insta-rez if you get downed in your elixir Rs, and can be a very strong tactic in 1v1 scenarios.

In any case, I think you’ll be able to mange just fine with this build. I’ve never used the runes of the engineer before because they’re a bit boring, but they’re not bad and probably not that expensive.

Thanks for the very detailed reply.

1) I only had Sigil of Force until I learned more about sigils. I believe if I put another weapon swap sigil in my main hand it will share an internal CD with my offhand? I wasn’t going to use the same weapon swap sigil in each, but wasn’t sure regardless.

2) I played around a lot with those bottom 3 trait lines. I had considered 30/0/15/10/15. I really like the medical response talent. I would like Backpack Regenerator, but I feel like the extra heal at 25% is probably more powerful.

3) I do like the cloaking device idea. I may have to try that. I knew about the 90 Toughness, but took the trait anyway due to the shield cooldowns.

I believe everyone is getting a trait overhaul at the end of the month. I will probably just tweak this one for now. It seems like most Engineers are HGH, and I like to be different.