Guild Wars 2

Hello everyone,
Here is the build I am currently using in PVE for dungeons: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vcAQJAqelUUpdr9ZxELseNiA6R9BYjooC53nHvVaBhA-zgCBYLgYNAUGgEBAJPFRjtEcIaVRhVtATViIq2boIa1kCAmhRA-e

It is a carbon copy of Nike for DnT’s dungeon engineer build from this video: http://www.twitch.tv/nike_dnt/c/3380073

I really like it, and I feel very useful in dungeons. But I am always looking to improve myself, so i was wondering if you guys could give me any advice you think might be useful.

I pretty much always run bomb kit and grenade kit, and put down fire fields for might as much as possible. I swap out the elixir gun for whatever feels more useful, depending on the situation. Other than that, I mostly use grenades, and I am sure to keep all my conditions up all the time, I swap to pistol/shield only to apply confusion when it’s up, or to use my reflect when necessary. My only real difficulty, is when the group want’s to stack for certain bosses, most of my survive-ability is my dodging, which is sometimes difficult when stacking because of AOE fields.

Thank you.

not a fan of that build. you don’t need to take on vuln stacking all by yourself. other classes can apply vuln too. you’re basically running no runes. plus you don’t have permanent swiftness outside of combat. i’d go insane without permanent swiftness.

but i suppose if you wanted to go that route, the 3rd and 4th mad king runes are pointless. bleed duration? why? i’d run 2 pirate runes to add some time to your might stacking.

Very similar to the build I run, but I use 30/30/0/0/10, might duration runes and a sigil of battle instead.

yeah i think id go speedy kits.

maybe sitting duck over infused precision. but as long as you go zerk p/s, you arent gonna have any good firearms traits. at least rifle can go rifle mod and a synergistic adept.

switch to explosive powder or might-on-heal (explo 20).

bad sigils, battle or energy or force/night or bloodlust or really anything besides crit (cuz 100% is cap) and strength (battle is strictly better).

pick a rune set to go all in on. 4 mad king + 2 lyssa = NO. preferably a power or crit rune like scholar if its in your budget. or ruby orbs if not.

Ronin.5038:

Very similar to the build I run, but I use 30/30/0/0/10, might duration runes and a sigil of battle instead.

this

Stacking vulnerability is a MUST HAVE for every engineer out there. We are the best vuln. stackers and we manage to keep up the 25 stacks at boss fights, other classes may go for more damage if we are around. The main damage comes from vulnerability, definitly 10-15 stacks are just from us. You may calculate the passive damage yourself now.

We also should buff our party with might and since we work with finishers rather than direct skills like guard, might dura affects us even more. The base dura of a might finisher is 20sec, with rune of strenght (espeically after april 15th patch) we become the best might buffers ingame (while still keep the damage high, ofc a buff traited guard grants more).

Thank you all very much for your advice. I’m going to try the runes of battle, and see if I like it better.

Which kit do you all think is better to bring for stacking might: the bomb kit or the Flamethrower? I like the bomb kit because it comes with another blast finisher, and the fire field only has an 8 seccond cooldown. But the flamethrower’s fire field lasts longer, which makes it easier for the group to blast it.

bomb kit has an autoattack, ft might as well not (in dungeons)

just tell your group to expect it

In general bomb kit since it really deals damage (the ft doesnt ._.). Also many fire fields are better in general, since your allies can buff too if you lay them down. However a long one with a longer cd results into overstacking of everyone.

Xyonon.3987:

Ronin.5038:

Very similar to the build I run, but I use 30/30/0/0/10, might duration runes and a sigil of battle instead.

this

Stacking vulnerability is a MUST HAVE for every engineer out there. We are the best vuln. stackers and we manage to keep up the 25 stacks at boss fights, other classes may go for more damage if we are around. The main damage comes from vulnerability, definitly 10-15 stacks are just from us. You may calculate the passive damage yourself now.

We also should buff our party with might and since we work with finishers rather than direct skills like guard, might dura affects us even more. The base dura of a might finisher is 20sec, with rune of strenght (espeically after april 15th patch) we become the best might buffers ingame (while still keep the damage high, ofc a buff traited guard grants more).

what? ele supplies more might and more damage. hell, if you’re using FGS, 30/30/10 build does vuln as well.

Afaik is the ele not able to stack as much might as the engineer. The ele (mainly staff in dungeons) is able to grant a fire field every few seconds, blasting with 3 finishers, granting 9 stacks might. The engi is able to grant up to 18 stacks but takes more effort.

The damage is also pretty even, but I also feel like my ele deals a bit more active damage, however lacks in cc and debuffs while dealing damage nor got good passive damage. The fire field (2) of the ele deals less damage than bomb spamming, however the ele is able to do aa’s with a 3 man hit wich result in higher dps, however against 5~targets they are pretty even. But we have to keep in mind that a bomb 1 spamming engi isn’t that useful, calculating the time he also uses to buff and use smoke bomb or glue etc. leaves him a bit behind. But the passive damage from vulnerability makes it up agian.

Vulnerability wise the ele lacks for sure. His basics and skills hit hard but not often wich results into a poor vuln proccing. True FGS will stack pretty good, but only when you got it and if you aren’t going for cof p1 it’s not all about boss hopping. Think about fotm. The engi can keep up the same vulnerability all the time just with grenades and a bomb 2 and 4.

In the end I think the engi and ele are pretty even, I like both of em in my team. However random engis most of the time use grenades only or a FT… Then I wish I’d had a (2nd) ele

sceptre/dagger is better when you are the only ele in the party, precisely because it can stack just as much might with the might combo (up to 18 if you use churning earth, or comet in focus offhand). ele also provides a lot of fury uptime.

engi damage does not even compare to ele damage, especially not with the fire staff build, which is among the highest DPS in the game. sadly, even though I am enjoying engi, the fact remains that it’s a crap class compared to the ele.

Not sure why short fuse instead of explosive powder. You spend most of your time autoattacking. Even incendiary powder might work given you do quite a bit of condition damage and burn stacks in duration so it should scale nicely with condition duration you already have capped.
Elixir gun is quite useless. Only 1 useful skill(fumigate) and it’s weird to use. You can cure conditions with heal turret but it’s not really your job and you lose every single dps by swapping to elixir gun. Just..don’t.
I’d use rifle turret for longer fights and thumper turret(3 blasts ftw) on shorter ones. Overcharge, blast, rumble. It’s kinda tricky to land all your blasts especially that turrets die to mob hits. But then if you want an easy class play warrior. Remember thumper overcharge launches foes so it might ruin stacked mobs. But then so does big ol’ bomb.

guanlongwucaii.3162:

sceptre/dagger is better when you are the only ele in the party, precisely because it can stack just as much might with the might combo (up to 18 if you use churning earth, or comet in focus offhand). ele also provides a lot of fury uptime.

I’m curious where this thread turned into an elementalist vs. engineer discussion. Can you refrain from continuing this? We all know what elementalists bring to parties. We’re here to talk about what an engineer can best bring to his party.

Thanks.

Seamus McPlatofart.7269:

Which kit do you all think is better to bring for stacking might: the bomb kit or the Flamethrower? I like the bomb kit because it comes with another blast finisher, and the fire field only has an 8 seccond cooldown. But the flamethrower’s fire field lasts longer, which makes it easier for the group to blast it.

Napalm may last longer, but it’s a narrower field. Fire Bomb is significantly easier to blast with, and it refreshes more quickly allowing low CD blast finishers like Acid Bomb to be used more frequently.

The other thing about it is that with Modified Ammo you should always be conscious about condition application as an engineer. Fire Bomb can permanently burn clusters of mobs that stand in its field. Napalm? Not so much.

The bomb kit also, as you said, has its own blast finisher in Big Ol’ Bomb. So no matter how many blast finishers you slot in your build with the flamethrower, the bomb kit will always have that one extra. I’d be careful where you use it mid-combat though. It does CC mobs, and if you’re not careful you it can be detrimental to your group’s attempts at stacking. Just be mindful of where you place it, and make sure if you’re fighting trash that the explosion will push them toward the wall/corner rather than away from it.

guanlongwucaii.3162:

sceptre/dagger is better when you are the only ele in the party, precisely because it can stack just as much might with the might combo (up to 18 if you use churning earth, or comet in focus offhand). ele also provides a lot of fury uptime.

engi damage does not even compare to ele damage, especially not with the fire staff build, which is among the highest DPS in the game. sadly, even though I am enjoying engi, the fact remains that it’s a crap class compared to the ele.

The min/maxer in you is not letting you enjoy the Profession for what it is. I have a powerful Staff Elementalist, and it is my most powerful character bar none. The squishiest too to be sure. That Engineer can’t match that much firepower doesn’t mean that it’s a “crap Profession”, because then all other Professions would also be “crap”. There comes a point in which we should play Professions for what they are, and not just think DPS DPS DPS is all that matters (not that Engineer DPS is bad, but it won’t match that of the aforementioned fire staff Elementalist, quite obviously.)

It’s OK to min/max, but I honestly believe that if it gets in the way of your fun, it’s actually a hindrance to your playing experience. IF only min/maxing DPS is fun for you, then you should consider ignoring most Professions as well as only playing the most powerful direct damage builds of the few Professions that are the most powerful DPS wise (but please don’t tell others they must play the way you play.)

The Engineer is a very unique Profession, which is quite enjoyable and able to fulfill many roles. Now I love my Elementalist, and as diverse as they can be, they are (of course) no Engineers-I don’t consider Engineers worse, but just a different way to play GW2.

robertul.3679:

Elixir gun is quite useless. Only 1 useful skill(fumigate) and it’s weird to use. You can cure conditions with heal turret but it’s not really your job and you lose every single dps by swapping to elixir gun. Just..don’t.

I couldn’t disagree more.

Fumigate is a very useful skill, but it’s not really weird to use. You aim at allies and watch the conditions melt off them. What’s so hard to understand? Even untraited it’s easily one of the best condition removal skills in the game, removing 5 conditions off allies with a 12 second cooldown.

Acid bomb is one of the best scaling power attacks we have as engineers and elevates your overall DPS rotating to your elixir gun and using it versus auto-attacking with the bomb kit or grenade kit.

Super elixir also cleanses a condition and regenerates health (and stacks on top of the regeneration boon), though it requires ideal timing to use given its long duration light field.

The elixir gun is also the only kit we have access to that comes with a stun-breaker.

I don’t understand how someone could run high level fractals and not take the elixir gun.

Star Ace.5207:

Now I love my Elementalist, and as diverse as they can be, they are (of course) no Engineers-I don’t consider Engineers worse, but just a different way to play GW2.

More importantly, what’s the problem with taking both an elementalist and an engineer to a group?

An elementalist does nothing but benefit from having an engineer in the group. It lightens the load on might stacking, allowing them to run the staff over scepter/dagger. It also allows elementalists to just sit in fire all day and not concern themselves with AoE healing or condition removal as the engineer has that covered as well.

And while I am more than aware that an elementalist dishes out the best DPS in the game with Lava Font and the FGS (I have one myself), that best DPS does nothing but improve with a grenade engineer maintaining 25 vulnerability against mobs that you fight. Some of my fastest FOTM 50 runs have come from that very scenario.

I’m going to once again ask that you guys sweep this conversation under the rug. There’s really nothing to benefit from this, and it’s definitively off-topic from the purpose of this thread.

Phineas Poe.3018:

robertul.3679:

Elixir gun is quite useless. Only 1 useful skill(fumigate) and it’s weird to use. You can cure conditions with heal turret but it’s not really your job and you lose every single dps by swapping to elixir gun. Just..don’t.

I couldn’t disagree more.

Fumigate is a very useful skill, but it’s not really weird to use. You aim at allies and watch the conditions melt off them. What’s so hard to understand? Even untraited it’s easily one of the best condition removal skills in the game, removing 5 conditions off allies with a 12 second cooldown.

Acid bomb is one of the best scaling power attacks we have as engineers and elevates your overall DPS rotating to your elixir gun and using it versus auto-attacking with the bomb kit or grenade kit.

Super elixir also cleanses a condition and regenerates health (and stacks on top of the regeneration boon), though it requires ideal timing to use given its long duration light field.

The elixir gun is also the only kit we have access to that comes with a stun-breaker.

I don’t understand how someone could run high level fractals and not take the elixir gun.

Pretty much this.
In my opinion, acid bomb beats thumper turret and sure beats rifle turret for combat blast finishers. The aoe damage is also a big plus.
It surprises me how many pug engineers don’t use elixir gun at all. They typically prefer to camp grenade kit or even worse, flamethrower/pistol/rifle.

Why would you want to remove multiple conditions in fractals? They really aren’t that prevalent there anyway besides aetherblades. Or in pve in general except arah and small parts of other dungeons like AC.
If the coefficient for acid bomb is per hit(6 hits) it might be a dps gain but the animation is quite long and it sends you flying away if you don’t position yourself carefully. It’s also only 1 blast finisher. Thumper turret has 3.
Super elixir’s regeneration is kinda bad unless you run healing power. With healing power it scales pretty well, at least from the wiki description.
Camping grenade kit except doing a might stack rotation with bomb kit is what engi is supposed to do given the amazing vulnerability it stacks. That’s the major(only?) selling point of engineer in pve dungeons. Kit swapping takes a bit of time so keep that in mind. Thumper turret gives 6 more might stacks which are way more valuable than 3 more conditions removed except very niche situations.
Also I have a feeling fumigate isn’t really a dps gain. Assuming your group has a guardian/mesmer for reflects, they both can handle conditions better than engi. You can chip in with 2 removed every 15s if necessary.
Stunbreakers are overrated in pve. They’re just a nice perk to skills not specific reason to take them.

Thumper Turret’s blast finishers have way too high a cooldown to be useful. Sure, it’s 3 blasts, but if you can only use those once every 3, 4, or 5 fights, another utility would be more useful.

robertul.3679:

If the coefficient for acid bomb is per hit(6 hits) it might be a dps gain but the animation is quite long and it sends you flying away if you don’t position yourself carefully. It’s also only 1 blast finisher. Thumper turret has 3.

you can cancel the flying away part with like weapon swap or drop kit or something

i dont really use eg in dungeons, mostly cuz i like toss R

eg is great. stunbreak, extra condi clear, team condi clear which actually is pretty useful in fractals and any dungeon. elixir f can hit pretty hard if it chains and gives another condition for modified ammo. you get a blast finisher too. i always try to have elixir gun in pve. my standard build uses elixir r, elixir gun, and grenade kit. usually i’m just chucking grenades but if the team needs help i have a bunch of tools at my disposal.

robertul.3679:

Why would you want to remove multiple conditions in fractals? They really aren’t that prevalent there anyway besides aetherblades. Or in pve in general except arah and small parts of other dungeons like AC.
If the coefficient for acid bomb is per hit(6 hits) it might be a dps gain but the animation is quite long and it sends you flying away if you don’t position yourself carefully. It’s also only 1 blast finisher. Thumper turret has 3.
Super elixir’s regeneration is kinda bad unless you run healing power. With healing power it scales pretty well, at least from the wiki description.
Camping grenade kit except doing a might stack rotation with bomb kit is what engi is supposed to do given the amazing vulnerability it stacks. That’s the major(only?) selling point of engineer in pve dungeons. Kit swapping takes a bit of time so keep that in mind. Thumper turret gives 6 more might stacks which are way more valuable than 3 more conditions removed except very niche situations.
Also I have a feeling fumigate isn’t really a dps gain. Assuming your group has a guardian/mesmer for reflects, they both can handle conditions better than engi. You can chip in with 2 removed every 15s if necessary.
Stunbreakers are overrated in pve. They’re just a nice perk to skills not specific reason to take them.

Super Elixir gives back over 2.7K health with 0 healing power with a 20 second cooldown. For a utility skill that’s relatively top tier support, and in the right situation can be super beneficial to keeping your group alive. Compared to something like Healing Rain which, while it offers a water field, only gives back 1560 base and has a 45 second cooldown.

And it’s true the thumper turret does offer more blast finishers in one slot. I find it pretty fantastic for stacking stealth and use it quite a lot for that. But for regular might maintenance, there are better options and you should be using skills that refresh easily. Acid Bomb has a 15 second cooldown while might stacks last 20 seconds. It’s permanent, just like the healing turret. All together, my current build stacks 12 might for my party, which is more than enough for one person of five to contribute.

I also find your statement of stunbreakers being “overrated” kind of weird. If it keeps you from getting downed, then how is it overrated? I suppose it ultimately depends on the dungeon path or the fractal level, but Healing Mist has saved me from getting downed more than enough times for it to stay on my bar in most fractals and dungeons.

Personally, not a huge fan of Nike’s build.

As someone who runs daily fotm 50s, lupi solo/duo on engi, etc. I feel that our strengths are better captured by 30/15/0/0/25. Healing turret, nades, bombs, rifle turret. Either p/s or rifle depending on the dungeon/fractal, I have no additional endurance gain through food or vigor, and if you can dodge properly, your damage is obscene. 8k bomb1 is tasty. The nades with 30 condi dura and firearms trait 5 still allow you to stack tons of vuln, and it is expected that the remainder will come from party members – which in my case is a given.

This is played full glass, everything ascended, with scholar runes and generally force + X sigil, depending on the situation. I will probably include an energy one post patch just to improve uptime on tools 25.

How exactly do you solo lupus without energy sigils and vigor?
Not even considering that bombs are terrible for vuln stacks.