Looking for WvW zerg builds

Looking for WvW zerg builds

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Posted by: Cyferwolf.1089

Cyferwolf.1089

tl;dr Looking for some new builds for engi for running with a 20-40 man organized zerg.
I know it’s not what we’re best at, but engi is what I like to play, and that’s how my guild tends to run.

The wall’o’text explanation

I’m getting a little frustrated lately with my engineer. I love the class, but WvW, which is a big part of why I play, has become an increasingly frustrating experience. My guild typically runs as a 20-40 man zerg, routinely taking on bigger zergs. The general idea is to hit their tail and take them out, healing as we run. Basic stuff, but I feel like I’m having more and more trouble keeping up.

Part of the problem is the lack of stability. We don’t have a useful, sure stability that lasts long enough to be wort a kitten except for elixir X, and that takes away all our stuff.

Additionally, retaliation is becoming an ever worse problem. If I want to do plenty of damage to the other zerg balls I take flamethrower or grenades or piercing pistols, but that means I’m getting hit by absolute crap tons of retaliation every time I try to do anything.

I’ve played with a number of builds, and generally build for heavy tank, but it seems like I’m just dying more and more and I feel like I’m far less able to contribute to my team than I used to be. It’s really dampened my enthusiasm for playing the game, and left me feeling fairly depressed about the whole situation.

I’m trying to see if some fresh ideas can help me out, cause I keep coming back to the same few builds that work ok but leave me feeling either useless or dying incredibly fast. Does anyone have some good builds and advice for running with a zerg as an engi?

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Posted by: zaragoz.6351

zaragoz.6351

Have you considered running apothecary with healing bombs and EG. You won’t be demolishing people with your dps, but if you equip healing turret you will bring a water field, fire field, smoke field, and light field to the party as well as be healing everyone while doing it. Not to mention if you take backpack regenerator you will be hard as hell to kill just because of Regen. Hell atm you can even equip perplexity runes and pray for tornado to bust up enemy zergs :P
Its more of a support thing, but you will most surely be helping out your team.

Ferguson’s Crossing
Zaragoz[SS] – 80 engineer

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Posted by: Kalan.9705

Kalan.9705

I have very similar experience and conclusions to you in high tier WvW and ZvZ.

Other classes offer my team more, engy water fields are just too short duration for 1 example.
Retaliation in wvw.
Lack of stability in wvw.
Kits falling behind power curve vs. ascended weapons.
I run healing bombs sometime but it’s just too unfocused compared to guardian, necro, warrior, ele, mesmer who can really specialise on a task and or offer something unique and necessary.
Lack of utility on mainhand weapon based engineers – e.g. sd rifle needs every util slot to work making it quite 1 dimensional, equally P/P HGH condi needs every slot a potion and is still subpar to someone with 25 might stacks whilst being very 1 dimensional (plus HGH is ultra-annoying to run in any wvw lag).

After a year of engy main I’m finally caving and redirecting my playtime to a new class. Engy was never very well suited to ZvZ anyways and with the new changes even far less so. Worth considering alts, if you see well populated wvw.

Doubtless some clowns will tell you it’s a L2P issue, but ignore them, and make up your own mind.

(edited by Kalan.9705)

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Posted by: Cyferwolf.1089

Cyferwolf.1089

Retaliation in wvw.
Lack of stability in wvw.
Kits falling behind power curve vs. ascended weapons.
Lack of utility on mainhand weapon based engineers – e.g. sd rifle needs every util slot to work making it quite 1 dimensional, equally P/P HGH condi needs every slot a potion and is still subpar to someone with 25 might stacks whilst being very 1 dimensional (plus HGH is ultra-annoying to run in any wvw lag).

After a year of engy main I’m finally caving and redirecting my playtime to a new class. Engy was never very well suited to ZvZ anyways and with the new changes even far less so. Worth considering alts, if you see well populated wvw.

I have alts to play, (ele, necro, etc.) but they interest me far less than the engi, and it hurts to walk away from a character that I really enjoyed playing for so long. I understand that we’re facing some serious issues, but I’m really looking for people’s experiments in finding ways to address those issues, rather than abandoning the class.

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Posted by: Cyferwolf.1089

Cyferwolf.1089

Have you considered running apothecary with healing bombs and EG. You won’t be demolishing people with your dps, but if you equip healing turret you will bring a water field, fire field, smoke field, and light field to the party as well as be healing everyone while doing it. Not to mention if you take backpack regenerator you will be hard as hell to kill just because of Regen. Hell atm you can even equip perplexity runes and pray for tornado to bust up enemy zergs :P
Its more of a support thing, but you will most surely be helping out your team.

I may try something like that. The timing of the bombs will be a pain to sort out, but it seems like it would give me something useful to do while not exposing me to massive retaliation. Thanks for the suggestion.

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Posted by: Kalan.9705

Kalan.9705

Retaliation in wvw.
Lack of stability in wvw.
Kits falling behind power curve vs. ascended weapons.
Lack of utility on mainhand weapon based engineers – e.g. sd rifle needs every util slot to work making it quite 1 dimensional, equally P/P HGH condi needs every slot a potion and is still subpar to someone with 25 might stacks whilst being very 1 dimensional (plus HGH is ultra-annoying to run in any wvw lag).

After a year of engy main I’m finally caving and redirecting my playtime to a new class. Engy was never very well suited to ZvZ anyways and with the new changes even far less so. Worth considering alts, if you see well populated wvw.

I have alts to play, (ele, necro, etc.) but they interest me far less than the engi, and it hurts to walk away from a character that I really enjoyed playing for so long. I understand that we’re facing some serious issues, but I’m really looking for people’s experiments in finding ways to address those issues, rather than abandoning the class.

I totally understand the prospect of regearing an alt with several wvw sets is horrible, it does make me consider looking for another game.

Try a really tanky healing bomber build, if your co-ordinated enough with your guild group you can often get away without speedy kits as long as you never fall behind your team. Try 10 0 30 30 0. Heal turret, Elixir gun, rocket boots, bomb kit.

Char bound WvW ranks and having all my wvw ranks stuck on my engy make me seriously upset with the completely wilful wrongheaded attitude of the wvw devs who hear the calls for accountwide wxp and reply “No! F—- you, grind more, we ’re doing the opposite of what you want”

(edited by Kalan.9705)

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Posted by: Kurieg.4158

Kurieg.4158

I’ve had fun with variations of http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQJAqalIqyaX3ynF8LJxoCdOUB7DSRdvroH6vxWG-jUxAYrAmALiGbFsIasqaAV5iqDAKA-w

The protections on being disabled help a lot imo.

The Bomb Kit is optional; can also swap in Rocket Boots for trouble or Tool Kit because Magnet is fun (and for trouble with Gear Shield).

The passive regen in a kit plus the 2x Regeneration fields helps with Retaliation problems. Fair amount of AOE Heal help + AOE condition removal with WT and Elixir Gun #3/5. Flame Blast, Air Blast, and Smoke Vent as often as possible.

Elixir X whenever for great fun imo. Can also use Supply Drop.

I feel like a combo of some damage, fair amount of AOE disruption, and support.

Crafty [CR]
Yak’s Bend
Ir Regardless – Engineer

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Posted by: Decklan.7540

Decklan.7540

Healing and bomb kit is definitely more suitable for smaller team roaming. You will be frustrated walking into melee range to unload your bombs only to be CC’d to death because you have almost zero ways to provide stability to yourself. Hopefully you have some smart guardians with you at all times.

You’re best bet with zerging as an engineer is to just say screw it and have fun. It’s a harsh truth but we truly suffer in large zerg settings. Medium armor has always had this problem though, but even trap rangers and stealth-stomp thieves are finding a niche roll in zergs now.

I hope and pray for the devs to stop focusing so much on spvp and small-man roam where the engineer shines, and start to address its glaring weaknesses in large scale battles. Maybe they could change and buff turrets in such a way that they would be the go-to build for zerg battles but incredibly weak in small-team or 1v1 situations. That would keep our power-curve at the same level, while giving us an option to go when we want to zerg.

I think every profession out there has a capable zerg spec:
Warrior: Hammer – Mace/Shield stun train.
Guardian: Almost every build lol.
Ranger: Longbow and Traps (unblockable, low cooldown, can easily toss into the zerg)
Thief: Perma-stealth thief is incredibly useful at stomping and double downing opponents, they just have to be wise and avoid the AOE.
Engineer: Umm, maybe grenades if no-one has retaliation or projectile reflect? Good luck with that.
Mesmer: Feedback
Elementalist: Master of AOE, including the amazingly useful lightning stun aoe.
Necro: Unblockable marks spec with epidemic and boon destroyer.

So you see, every profession can really spec to their go-to zerg build, while the engineer I feel doesn’t have such an option. What should we do? Go grenades? Retaliation obliterates you in that case, so does projectile reflect. Flamethrower? Same situation minus the projectile reflect. P/P HGH? This is more of a 1v1 small roam build. Static discharge? Same situation. Bomb kit? Sure if you want to go into melee range and die to the CC train. I just don’t see many, if any, options for the engineer in this situation. It’s pretty much why I solely havoc squad with my engineer (10 man) and is probably the same reason why some of the more well-respected engineers like Mask, Koroshi, and Yishi also stick to small-team and solo roam as well.

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Posted by: Tyaen.5148

Tyaen.5148

I could see a case for a Perplexity engineer using Accelerant Packed Turrets and Deployable turrets to spread confusion. I tried it out the week the runes were released and had success, however it’s just not my style.

A server mate and I theory crafty a really tanky version of that build but I haven’t played it.

Tyyaen – Engineer (80) [SS]
http://camelotunchained.com/v3/

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Posted by: surama.5167

surama.5167

Im [CA] member, one of the top WvW guilds of Blackgate, and my main is engineer. I read the many whinnig and im sad. Engi is one of the most OP classes.
I cant share my full build, but can give few tips:
Use flamethrower/mines. Mines removes boons, then burn all enemy to ash.
You have 73% damage reduction when disabled if you well traited and combines with food.
Use Elixir X.
I have 3400 attack, 30% crit chance, 34% crit damage, 3200 armor and 25 000 HP.
So, this underpowered?
Good luck to to create for your own build

(edited by surama.5167)

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Posted by: Kasama.8941

Kasama.8941

It sounds to me like the problem is how you approach gameplay with your Engineer. If you don’t have any stability, then you shouldn’t be running in the middle of the zerg. Retaliation is really not that big of a problem. I have never been dealt more then maybe 25% of my health, by retaliation. On any profession. If retaliation is hitting you, stop dealing damage, and change targets.

Generally, medium armor professions aren’t made for big zerg support. They are a small group classes by default. However, that doesn’t mean they don’t belong in a zerg, it simply just means their role is different. Medium armor professions work best on the outer area of a fight, meaning you shouldn’t be running around in the middle, next to the Warrior and Guardian, spamming AoE skills all over. Your advantage as a medium armor profession, lies in your ability to move very quickly, and take out small groups of players in 3v1 fights. So once you see a zerg running towards you, run to the side, fire in on the zerg with your AoE, and then focus on taking out foes deviating from the zerg. If you get focus fired by two or three players, then try to lure them away, and keep their attention on you. Playing this way should give you a lot more success, as you’re then playing to the strength of the Engineer.

80 Ranger | 80 Mesmer | 80 Thief | 80 Guardian | 40 Engineer
“The learned is happy, nature to explore. The fool is happy, that he knows no more.”
-Alexander Pope

(edited by Kasama.8941)

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Posted by: Kalan.9705

Kalan.9705

It sounds to me like the problem is how you approach gameplay with your Engineer. If you don’t have any stability, then you shouldn’t be running in the middle of the zerg. Retaliation is really not that big of a problem. I have never been dealt more then maybe 25% of my health, by retaliation. On any profession. If retaliation is hitting you, stop dealing damage, and change targets.

Generally, medium armor professions aren’t made for big zerg support. They are a small group classes by default. However, that doesn’t mean they don’t belong in a zerg, it simply just means their role is different. Medium armor professions work best on the outer area of a fight, meaning you shouldn’t be running around in the middle, next to the Warrior and Guardian, spamming AoE skills all over. Your advantage as a medium armor profession, lies in your ability to move very quickly, and take out small groups of players in 3v1 fights. So once you see a zerg running towards you, run to the side, fire in on the zerg with your AoE, and then focus on taking out foes deviating from the zerg. If you get focus fired by two or three players, then try to lure them away, and keep their attention on you. Playing this way should give you a lot more success, as you’re then playing to the strength of the Engineer.

I know you’re trying to be helpful, but I think you might need to be more familiar with what happens when two sets of grenades finish limping through the sky and fall on a group that now has retaliation.
More familiar with the range , damage and retaliation hits from using FT.

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Posted by: Tyaen.5148

Tyaen.5148

It sounds to me like the problem is how you approach gameplay with your Engineer. If you don’t have any stability, then you shouldn’t be running in the middle of the zerg. Retaliation is really not that big of a problem. I have never been dealt more then maybe 25% of my health, by retaliation. On any profession. If retaliation is hitting you, stop dealing damage, and change targets.

Generally, medium armor professions aren’t made for big zerg support. They are a small group classes by default. However, that doesn’t mean they don’t belong in a zerg, it simply just means their role is different. Medium armor professions work best on the outer area of a fight, meaning you shouldn’t be running around in the middle, next to the Warrior and Guardian, spamming AoE skills all over. Your advantage as a medium armor profession, lies in your ability to move very quickly, and take out small groups of players in 3v1 fights. So once you see a zerg running towards you, run to the side, fire in on the zerg with your AoE, and then focus on taking out foes deviating from the zerg. If you get focus fired by two or three players, then try to lure them away, and keep their attention on you. Playing this way should give you a lot more success, as you’re then playing to the strength of the Engineer.

I have a big problem with the way people think zerg play works. You’re right in that you shouldn’t be crashing into the melee ball. however the nature of almost every zerg ball is to crash the melee trains into each other and the ranged to line out behind those melee trains. Engi’s and thieves are most effective flanking and getting behind the melee train to the back line and taking down as many back line enemy as possible. The great thing about engi’s is the mobility you can trait for which allows you to flank, harass and get back to safety when you need to reset.

Either you will kill the back line ranged support, or you take their attention off you melee train to allow the train to do more work. It’s especially helpful if you focus any Elementalist’s first. If you are really lucky, the enemy runs an organized melee train, but the ranged group is less organized.

Tyyaen – Engineer (80) [SS]
http://camelotunchained.com/v3/

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Posted by: ikiturso.4026

ikiturso.4026

This should be sticky – stickied to anet devs forhead! Engineer is so far off from others in organized gameplay. I tried healbombs too but as was mentioned they become uselss because of 0 ways to get stability. Retaliation issue has been on since start and nothing has been done. Other classes get fixes all time but engineers base mecanics are still in alpaha beta level. (How can you get more dmg from your own attacks than deal to enemy! That’s just very low level dev work! admit it ANet and fix it!)

Hopefully hammer and maybe mace would bring more variations to obtain combo fields in future.

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Posted by: Deniara Devious.3948

Deniara Devious.3948

While many other professions have specific standard builds for organized large groups e.g. hammer + sword/warhorn warrior, engineer is just an optional part. Many top teams in EU, who are doing guild vs guild, do not accept engineers, unless they are truly exceptional. If you don’t believe me, just look at the guild recruitment posts. Warriors are the most common profession and most guild want to recruit even more warriors, because Arenanet keeps buffing the warrior.

Like others have already commented: retaliation (and also confusion) hurts engineer more than any other profession, the lack of stability, many CC skills being single target and so on.

I have played engineer against couple of pretty good guilds in guild vs guild matches. One of the main tasks of an engineer in such setting is to take away pressure from your ranged team, mainly your staff elementalists. Staff elementalists are often using zerker armor and thus enemy thieves are targeting them. The situation changes when engineers get into picture and the enemy thieves are usually targeting engineers as their 1st target. Thieves and even rangers can do the sniping role better than the engineer, thus the best EU teams use these other 2 melee professions in the task of sniping enemy low armor targets. The zerg engineer should have a lot of sustainability and durability on its own as it generally cannot rely on its team mates for heals and condition removal. It needs to avoid the melee train and flank on the rears and sides. It should harass the enemy staff casters (necromancers + elementalists) as they often don’t have any stability and will be easy to stun, launch, knock etc. The most important task is: revive control. Traited grenades have amazing range and you can throw them at any direction, while moving and kiting the enemy. The downed enemy opponents will be rained with grenades and against an roughly equal opponent this can decide the game for you.

Some top teams have 2 condition spamming engineers if they go extremely condition heavy. Then they usually have 5-6 necromancers. Thus necros are the main condition output.

But the bottom line is: engineer is the least common profession in top guild-vs-guild teams for a good reason.

Deniara / Ayna – I want the original WvWvW maps back – Desolation [EU]

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Posted by: NevirSayDie.6235

NevirSayDie.6235

I’m no master of zerg vs. zerg combat, but I can give a couple of helpful pieces of information here.

Don’t use flamethrower for AoE—each fifth of a second actually has a 3-target cap like melee cleave. In other words, if you flamethrower into 30 people, you may hit all 30, but for 10% actual damage, and you’ll receive 30 hits of retal in return. Flamethrower has its uses, but it’s not much of an AoE weapon except for #2.

Grenade 5 + supply crate + grenade 2 and 4 is devastating. Barrage is the only grenade skill that will kill you with retal; the others can hurt but will usually not deal more than a couple thousand damage to you. Piercing pistol shots is not worth it imo since it only really affects skills 1 and 2. I run a condition build, but I no longer put any points into firearms. The bottom line is that you don’t need the condition damage or the precision, and while there are some nice traits and of course juggernaut, I don’t think they’re worth giving up the things you could have, such as—

Protection on stun and 20% damage reduction on stun. You can get another 20% with food if you want. To my knowledge, no other profession can achieve anything like that.

In my limited experience diving into zergs, I’ve found blinds, blocks, escapes, -condi duration, and damage reduction traits to be very effective. Again, I’m not an expert, but I think we have some good tools at our disposal.

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Posted by: ikiturso.4026

ikiturso.4026

damage redcution on stun is useless too. If you get 2 w or guardian on you it doesnt matter what u do = 100% death we have 0 ways to counter good timed CC. Even on tanky pants build hp melts like snow in sunlight and ofcourse 0 stability makes the things even more great for us. Engineer is in deep kitten. Anyone else thinks different is guardian.

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Posted by: WhiteAndMilky.2514

WhiteAndMilky.2514

damage redcution on stun is useless too. If you get 2 w or guardian on you it doesnt matter what u do = 100% death we have 0 ways to counter good timed CC. Even on tanky pants build hp melts like snow in sunlight and ofcourse 0 stability makes the things even more great for us. Engineer is in deep kitten. Anyone else thinks different is guardian.

Elixir gun toolbelt has a stun breaker. No issue dealing with stun oriented builds. With melandru runes, a stun breaker, and gear shield, you can ruin peoples combos pretty quick. Big ole bomb is also great to disrupt stun builds as is smoke bomb. You have stability on elixir X if you need it, but with melandru, 20% reduced while stunned, protection when cc’d, condi reduction food, and transmute minor trait, you can move around just fine. and you mitigate 53% of damage done to you while cc’d. You also have gear shield, static shield, and magnetic shield. This isn’t even mentioning the healing and regen you are doing… Combo that with acid bomb, glue bomb, box of nails, and you’ve got a good escape.

0 ways to counter well timed CC? Not only is that incorrect, but you can always dodge roll….. sigil of energy for an extra evade every 10 seconds. Stamina to snowball. People are creatures of habit, and are quite predictable once you know what build they are running, often you can figure it out before they even make contact with you.

I think differently, and I haven’t played guardian in wvw in over 6 months, it’s too boring.

I play all the things 80. Pew Pew Pew. Killin joor commanders.
4 Warriors, 3 Rangers, 3 Mesmers, 2 Engineers, 2 Guardians, and Necro, Thf, Ele
-Beastygate Beast Milk, OG BG Veteran Native

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Posted by: elithrar.7143

elithrar.7143

Im [CA] member, one of the top WvW guilds of Blackgate, and my main is engineer. I read the many whinnig and im sad. Engi is one of the most OP classes.
I cant share my full build, but can give few tips:
Use flamethrower/mines. Mines removes boons, then burn all enemy to ash.
You have 73% damage reduction when disabled if you well traited and combines with food.
Use Elixir X.
I have 3400 attack, 30% crit chance, 34% crit damage, 3200 armor and 25 000 HP.
So, this underpowered?
Good luck to to create for your own build

Good build advice, but at the same time one has to assume that your FT recommendation is for small-group (< 20) fights rather than ZvZ. Flamethrower suffers the same problem as grenades vs. Retal, except you have to get even closer to use FT.

For ZvZ I usually run GK/BK and either Boots or EG. I skirt around the edges with grenades, elixir gun spam and then dropping water fields on our > 15 – 20 man group (we don’t run with bigger groups than that).

I eat a lot of damage from grenades—ignoring barrage—and whilst it won’t kill me in one hit, if you add that + other incoming AoE damage + some direct damage, you’re taking a lot of “extra” unavoidable damage that you have to heal off.

If grenades simply returned one target’s Ret damage rather than targets (plural) ret damage, it’d be much better (or if it was just hard capped to a % of outgoing damage).

PS: I’m sure we could all submit ideas for fixing Ret. I really don’t care about the specifics, as long as it’s better than now.

[TKG] Mollify

(edited by elithrar.7143)

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Posted by: Kasama.8941

Kasama.8941

I know you’re trying to be helpful, but I think you might need to be more familiar with what happens when two sets of grenades finish limping through the sky and fall on a group that now has retaliation.
More familiar with the range , damage and retaliation hits from using FT.

I use Barrage and piercing arrows on zergs, with my Ranger, all the time, and often see over ten different retaliation numbers pop up. Still, I only ever lose around 25% of my health, at the most. I also read Ranger players complain about retaliation all the time, but I just don’t recognise this problem when playing. I’ve never come close to being downed because of it.

I have a big problem with the way people think zerg play works. You’re right in that you shouldn’t be crashing into the melee ball. however the nature of almost every zerg ball is to crash the melee trains into each other and the ranged to line out behind those melee trains. Engi’s and thieves are most effective flanking and getting behind the melee train to the back line and taking down as many back line enemy as possible. The great thing about engi’s is the mobility you can trait for which allows you to flank, harass and get back to safety when you need to reset.

Either you will kill the back line ranged support, or you take their attention off you melee train to allow the train to do more work. It’s especially helpful if you focus any Elementalist’s first. If you are really lucky, the enemy runs an organized melee train, but the ranged group is less organized.

Yeah, exactly. Many don’t see it, but there is a meta when it comes to armor. The light armor professions excels at casting down AoE fields, and those are what the medium armor professions are basically made to take out, in WvW, while the heavy armor professions run rampage in the middle. That’s not to say it’s how the game always works, as it is possible to make both medium and light armored bunker builds, or heavy armored burst builds. But there definitely is a playstyle that falls more natural to each armor type. And playing to that, makes it easier to get good results.

80 Ranger | 80 Mesmer | 80 Thief | 80 Guardian | 40 Engineer
“The learned is happy, nature to explore. The fool is happy, that he knows no more.”
-Alexander Pope

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Posted by: JudgeD.5673

JudgeD.5673

Well OP might try p/s bunker. I’ve had good success with it in zerg fights. I run pvt gear with earth runes, some knights trinkets, etc. I use elixirs, Rocket Boots, FT (though I’ve thought about trying E-gun), Tool Kit, and Supply Crate. Since, I started using this, I’ve found I tend to survive in zerg fights for quite a while, usually being one of the last to fall ( or get away) in a wipe (the exception being, getting caught by an enemy hammer train without stability). Retal is not an issue for me.
And while pistol is usually thought of as cond only, the #3 skill is handy for throwing blinds around in open field fights. A good bit of blocking/stuns + Elixir B (mostly used for the retal) also helps. Granted, you won’t rake in the lootbags doing this, but you won’t go down easy either. It’s possible to troll towers as well though you would likely need either Elixir X or full Lyssa runes for stability, since we are vulnerable to CCs. (Trolling towers can also be done with stealth, though I’ve yet to see a thread on that.)

The Robertsons – Julie, Lyana, Adrian, and Lewis
CrSy/LaWz
Tarnished Coast Server (formerly of Kaineng)

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Posted by: Kimbald.2697

Kimbald.2697

when it comes to zergs, we always hit the same 2 weaknesses of this profession:

1. the way retaliation punishes fast attack speed, or multiple hits, way more than slow bigger hits. Even if the slower hits do way more damage… retaliation still punishes the small fast hits.
Two of our better zerg options suffer from this: grenades as ranged, and Juggernaut Flamethrower wich seems ’designed for this as a trait-kit combo.

2. the way stability is spread out among professions.
Some have tons, but than engineers have next to none.
I can live with some builds having more than others… but an entire profession having none except some debatable elites?
Stability by itself is also a bit too strong to my liking.
Why can’t it act like aegis and blind: be removed when the first cc fails?

Every build that looks good on paper for zerging, hits one or both of these obstacles.
Grenadier, Juggernaut flamethrower as mentioned.. but also healing bombs, tanky tool kit builds, etc…

Engineers suffer from these, but I don’t consider it ‘engineer’ issues as such.
I believe retalition and stability both need to be reworked somewhat.

Wiggely, wobbely and other wombaty wabbity creatures…

(edited by Kimbald.2697)

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Posted by: Kimbald.2697

Kimbald.2697

Well OP might try p/s bunker. I’ve had good success with it in zerg fights. I run pvt gear with earth runes, some knights trinkets, etc. I use elixirs, Rocket Boots, FT (though I’ve thought about trying E-gun), Tool Kit, and Supply Crate. Since, I started using this, I’ve found I tend to survive in zerg fights for quite a while, usually being one of the last to fall ( or get away) in a wipe (the exception being, getting caught by an enemy hammer train without stability). Retal is not an issue for me.
And while pistol is usually thought of as cond only, the #3 skill is handy for throwing blinds around in open field fights. A good bit of blocking/stuns + Elixir B (mostly used for the retal) also helps. Granted, you won’t rake in the lootbags doing this, but you won’t go down easy either. It’s possible to troll towers as well though you would likely need either Elixir X or full Lyssa runes for stability, since we are vulnerable to CCs. (Trolling towers can also be done with stealth, though I’ve yet to see a thread on that.)

I’m not arguing with anything you say, it indeed seems to work as you describe.
But I ask this question when playing a simular playstyle:

what the heck am I contributing to MY group here?
What damage am I doing, what support am I offering?
What am I bringing, other than simply staying alive?
What am I bringing that another build of another profession couldn’t do as well… on top of doing better damage and better support?

Wiggely, wobbely and other wombaty wabbity creatures…

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Posted by: VIVorcha.7853

VIVorcha.7853

If you expect your class to give something exceptional, like Mesmers do with their portal, you’re going to be disappointed. Engineers have nothing special to offer to team play.

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Posted by: Kasama.8941

Kasama.8941

If you expect your class to give something exceptional, like Mesmers do with their portal, you’re going to be disappointed. Engineers have nothing special to offer to team play.

I’m always puzzled as to why people on the forum keeps striving for this. The majority of professions have nothing special to offer a group, based on skills alone. And the players who plays the professions that do, rarely take advantage of these singular skills anyway. What you do as a player has far more value, then the skills your professions has.

80 Ranger | 80 Mesmer | 80 Thief | 80 Guardian | 40 Engineer
“The learned is happy, nature to explore. The fool is happy, that he knows no more.”
-Alexander Pope

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Posted by: Conan.8046

Conan.8046

In a zerg it hardly matters…just spam grenades or heals and that’s all you can do.

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Posted by: Brew Pinch.5731

Brew Pinch.5731

Engineer is the best class in the game in my opinion.

As far as WvW builds go, as with any class you build toughness and defense first.

So:

  • All toughness stats (Knights/Cavalier/Rabid)
  • Picking up ample condition cleanse allows you to totally ignore vitality (the worst stat in the game). Engineers have a plethora of cleanse available to them which is great.
  • Build to maximise boon generation and uptime, boons make a big difference.

Fortunately, engineer excels at defense, so this is how you would want to build the class regardless.

Always remember, zerker gear is for PvE. Pure DPS builds are bad in general and TERRIBLE in ZvZ.

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Posted by: Hvaran.6327

Hvaran.6327

already love this thread)got 1200 hours on engi and tons of experiments with z v z

always trying to sort out something new and better.

For the beggining.

The main problem of the class is that is complicated. And what goes out of it is that more then 50% of engis don’t know how to play their class at all. When half of the nation are fools – they are nation of fools.

(who thekittenmakes might stacking build in z v z?! Are u kidding me?)

surama.5167 – 73%, i know that number too) All engineers must know it aswell)

It’s like can’t avoind some confrontation?! Take it like a man and say “Come on me Bro” to CC.

Handarand – Handacooon – Handa Panda – Handa Genie

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Posted by: Dasboba.1652

Dasboba.1652

My guild runs a typical guardian/necro/ele/war melee train. Nothing fancy, just in your face fighting. I tried to come up with a spec to stay on pin, but realized quickly that the other 4 classes can do everything better, and I wouldn’t like playing the engineer that way. So instead, when I do run my engy, I focus on long ranged cc/conditions, and backline healing/buffing/protection for my ranged dps classes, and lastly mopping up single down enemies. With the way my guild runs though, we ususally don’t have a ton of ranged dps. Thus, usually I just bring my power necro for melee train dps, and break out the engy when the havoc group needs another. I do think the engineer is the best class in the game, and my favorite to play. However, in my guild’s big group play, I’m more of an asset on my necro. With condition nerfs incoming, I doubt the situation will improve much.

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Posted by: Tyaen.5148

Tyaen.5148

I ran a rifle power vuln stacking build for about 4 days this week that worked really well in support of large group play.

Tyyaen – Engineer (80) [SS]
http://camelotunchained.com/v3/

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Posted by: Obscure One.4357

Obscure One.4357

Use loads of protection in giant ZvZvZ fights.

Go with full Rabid (or Carrion) armor and trinkets. Snag Protection Injection, Protective Shield, and Runes of the Forge. Knock the dust off that old flamethrower you used to level, pick up Incendiary Powder, Napalm Specialist, Fire forged Trigger, Juggernaut, and just toss those last 10 points wherever you’d like.

In fights that large all that matters is maximizing your tags and not dying, the above build does exactly that.

You could honestly just go 30/30/0/0/10 be naked and spam grenades, use healing turret, elixir gun, elixir B, and supply crate and do just fine in a giant fight. Skill lag will favor you every time. No worries if you die, GW2 doesn’t penalize nudists.

Circumventing profanity filters one kitten at a time.