Guild Wars 2

So, I’m still pretty hung up on the gimmicky Minegineer build in my sig, but I’d like to make it as WvW viable as possible. I’ve done plenty of WvW but I never tried to actually make by build something worth having in a large force. I also never bothered with min/maxing stats. I’m still not willing to put forth the effort to get Ascended armor/weapons but I’d like to get as close to helpful as possible.

Here’s what i have so far, please tear it to shreds and tell me how awful it is.

Hey :-)

I main engineer, and in WvW, the versatility really comes out.

First of all, i still find the toolkit you have in your build already very useful. The shield allows you to run unharmed through pretty big groups of enemies at times (like when you need to get into a besieged tower) or allows you to retreat to a safe distance, and the magnet allows you to pull in people for free lootbags.
In a large force? You’ll definitely want to go for grenades, in my opinion. With the grenadier trait, you’ll have an amazing 1500 range, more than almost any other attack in the game. The kit itself does awesome AOE damage. I run my PvE zerk build, making for some insane damage from a safe distance. The poison and bleed grenades are a nice effect to throw into enemy zergs for the DOT (which keeps people in combat, too), and you can stack weakness on them too. The 1500 range frost grenades help you to catch people running away from the front of your zerg.
To these two, i usually add rocket boots. Speedy kits keeps my swiftness up, and rocket boots allow me to catch up to any point in the zerg i want to. It allows you to pull in/freeze more enemies for free loot bags, and makes for a great getaway/positioning help when your zerg gets flanked.

Healing skill is healing turret for maximum healing to nearby allies. I usually run a pistol and shield here, because the shield allows me to proc the f1 water field with a blast finisher for more heal, and gives me another 1.5s or so of block.

Hi!
I main engi and have two very different wvw builds. One is a tank that stays on tag and is build around the aoe effects of bombs. The other is a rifle SD roamer. I also roam with the tank just to troll the 2 spamming thieves.

Here’s the tank: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fdEQJAqelUUpPrlcxdLseRiaBNqzE6bkxAIyQmlPFBA-TVSFABUfCAAw8XvHQgw0TEz+Dip+TpKBBT5nyPIASBUk0I-w
Bomb heals, backpack regen, stabilized armor, protection injection, and saffron bread mean that you stay alive even without stability. Also, I swap between e gun and rocket boots depending on the situation. The aoe blinds, fire fields/blasts, water fields/blasts, aoe cripples, and aoe immobilizes make a huge difference in large-scale battles.
Also, if you want to roam with this build, keep rocket boots, swap melandru for perplex, et voila! Max troll specs roamer. So long as you avoid condi-bombs.

If you want to back-line, take rabid gear, grenades, grenadier trait and stay close enough to hit enemies, but far enough to stay out of their range. Be aware that with grenades into an enemy zerg, you are extremely susceptible to death by retaliation. You can die without being attacked if you’re just spamming and not paying attention.

All engi builds are just a framework and are useless if you don’t use the appropriate skill at the right time. Knowing when the burst is coming so you can gear shield, using interrupts against your opponent’s heal to keep them defensive, picking up the heal turret vs. blowing it up, etc. can make the difference in a fight of any scale, be it 1v1, 3v1, or z v z, no matter the build.
Hope this helps! Feel free to question any decision I’ve made/make fun of the stupidity of my choices! I’m ok with that. I’ve changed both my engis’ builds so many times that I’m currently broke due to armor/rune costs.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fdAQFAUlUUpkr9ZxyKseNicBN6rMmnIqH+5AUgfC-T1BBwAYV+B4BAwT9Hh7PkSHAjLAwZlgEBwvAA-w

My min-max of your build.
Thumper is a better stunbreaker than googles and on a shorter cd in this case. why is it better? because a melee-train will try to chain-stun you and this 1 second of stability is enough to switch to toolkit and get #4 going to avoid further stuns.
Also, now you like stuns. Because then you drop a additional smokebomb, enhancing your blind-spammability that you already got from the bombkit. And the bombkit you got because it performs better than throw mine. The AA is hitting like a truck on up to 5 opponents and the smokebomb + gluebomb are awesome for delaying huge numbers of people, and the firefield aids well for in-combat thumper-chains to not only knock everything around, but actually giving you and 4 others 6 stacks of might (2 blasts in one thumper, 3 with the toolbelt (that you should only use when stunned)), which are 210 more power and condi-power.
Suggestion: put your low-cd BoB into as much firefields as you can possibly get, and use toolkit #5 to mix an unlucky ele or ranger in as well.
Also min-maxed your runes, sigils and equip for less condi/stun-duration and more survivability. also the oil aids nicely for gaining crit-chance.
Add in a bit of fury from your warri-pals and you will become the dps/blind-spam powerhouse in your group.

I know its merely the same from your original build, and yes, you miss out on the boon-stripping. But on the other hand, every halfways decently organized zerg should bring a nullfield anyways.

whatever you do, change the cav armor
knight, zerk, rabid, dire, settler, apothecary, soldier, cleric… it doesnt really matter which you choose as long as the stats synergize with your traits, runes and playstyle, but cavalier has been trash tier for engi since the ferocity changes (it was good before that since trinkets were way over budget for crit damage). we dont have guaranteed crits, unlike thief, ranger, and warrior.

if you want to stick with a 100mines gimmicky build, its gonna be better for roaming/ganking than it will be in a large group. youll want either bombs, nades, or ft (not so much ft) for better sustained damage. the converse is true for healing turret — its better sustained hps than aed, but if you go all out gimmicky and say… double proc aed for 2×13k hp, you can prolly win a 1v1-2 easily. but healing turret is wayyyyyyy better in a large group setting.

shrapnel right there as it is in your build is utter crap and you can do better than filler with those last 2 points. more tools gets you the toolbelt reset + cdr + something interesting. alchemy gets you prot injection or invigorating swiftness. inventions… no nvm never go 2 in inventions. 0 or power shoes or healy bombs, nothing else.

pack runes always smell like filler. melandru are nice, but you have a stunbreak and as long as you keep one on your bar you dont really need melandru and you can pick a dps option. you dont have might stacking in your build, but maybe if you switch bloodlust for battle you can get a bit more consistency and pick strength or hoelbrak instead of pack. or maybe something weird like privateer, air, evasion, ogre, infiltration, etc. i dont really know cuz i just run strength in pve and melandru in wvw and dont wanna make another set just to kitten around with wacky runes.

So this post will be fairy short compared to the others, but this is my guide to any good roaming build: (I actually run a throw mine build myself with tool kit and elixir s)
But you will need:

-Endurance regeneration bonus:
This will help greatly to sustain a fight and help to avoid more of the opponents big hits. This can be from just 50% endurance regeneration, or invigorating speed with speedy kits.

-Escape:
You need something to allow you to abort a fight and outrun/getaway if multiple enemies appear. This can be achieved through elixir s, rocket boots, elixir gun, slick shoes (although I don’t recommend slick shoes as it can easily be avoided, and will slow you down from combat)

-Movement Speed Bonus:
This is somewhat same with the escape, but also for hunting down people. This is best achieved through speedy kits, or rocket boots can be used as a substitute.

-Stun Break:
I like to think you need at least one in a 1vX fight at least since you simply don’t have enough dodges or blocks. The best of these are elixir s, elixir gun, utility goggles, potentially thumper turret.

-Survivability:
Just something to run cooldowns down to heal or get your burst back. Can easily be achieved through picking one of the Escape skills to get away for a bit, and also through toolkit, or using a shield. Armour Mods is another great one, and Go for the eyes trait can also add some good survivability.

-Damage:
You obviously NEED this for solo roaming if you want to ever achieve something. You need something that will hit hard, or apply a lot of condi dmg. Explosives are normally the best way to do this, or running rifle turret with static discharge. Bomb kit, Grenade Kit, or Mines are all great, Flamethrower also.

-Gear:
I find this as a personal preference, but either- celestial, zerk, knight/zerk mix, rabid, rabid/dire, rampager/celestial mix.

Traits are just work around to add decent bonuses to whatever you pick. Clearly you’ll want to grab the stun break which will work best with your build and has the most potential, same with escape, etc, etc.

Relevant to your throw mine build, I run my own one for roaming, with tool kit, elixir s, and throw mine. Works well for appearing, bursting, surviving, escaping, CC, etc. Problem is that elixir s has a long cooldown but the invisibility is great, especially with it being recharged at 25% health.

Feel free to ignore the above if you have beliefs otherwise. This is just my guide when I want to make a good solo roaming build.

P.S. I revoke my initial comment. This is quite a long post.

Try this one in the backline: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/external?l=http%3A%2F%2Fgw2skills.net%2Feditor%2F%3FfdAQJAqelUUpEr1XxvLseRSaBNq0AqXIyQulP3gA8UA-TRyCwAAeAAo0DgV53lTAwN1fKcgA0v%2FwYlgz1QQKAYWDA-e

Does nasty hybrid damage by taking advantage of your party’s might stacking and has two escapes for kiting. If you aren’t a scrub like me, you could take more aggressive traits and utilities if you wanted!