Guild Wars 2

Just came back about a week or 2 ago after a few month break and found that my old grenade spec was now worthless. I always used the flamethrower before and set out to make a new build centered on it. It’s intended to survive as part of the group while maintaining consistent control, condition damage and escape abilities against multiple enemies. I’ve been testing it out for a few days in wvw and with solo farming and explorable dungeons.
http://en.gw2codex.com/build/23139-pve-wvw-flamethrower-engy

The toolkit gets subbed out occasionally(blasphemy) for something else like elixir U, elixir gun etc. I’ve found with kit refinement you can double down on super elixir every 20 seconds really helping to heal yourself and your allies. I also switch around some of the traits depending on the situation. Kit refinement going to Speedy Kits or a few others going to fit needs. With this build I work precision/condition gear with others mixed in and have a 100% burning uptime on anything i’m using #1 on. With 1000 condition damage and the might stacks up I do 100/tick on the bleeds on a little over 600/tick on burning. With a sigil of air the damage really starts of add up.

One of the things I really love about this build is that it terrifies thieves. You pop elixir S right as they start and you can blow all their points and they can’t hide from a randomly spraying flamethrower. Thieves that rush in trying to abuse the stealth and culling issues find themselves downed by the consistent damage the FT puts out.

I also like to play this somewhat like a tf2 pyro, so it’s more of a honey badger build. You can single handedly keep people off the door of a keep/tower with the sustainability and self-healing. Zergs and large groups will always scatter as well when you start charging and put the fear of god into them with fire spraying everywhere, even if you’re not actually hitting them. I use the rifle as a harass and control because I really hate the letting people get away thing, particularly thieves. Another thing I like to do is save toss elixir S as an extra escape. Nothing baffles pursuers more when you throw down junk to cripple people from toolkit then stealth for 4 seconds.

This also works very well with the elixir gun which personally I’ve liked better using than the tool kit most of the time. You can get the #1 shot on people for awhile and build up that weakness and bleed on them. It makes you win a good number of fights as well when the enemy can’t dodge and often hits for half. Without the big damage shots either they don’t always see it’s coming till they’ve got a lot of bleeding and have no endurance left to get away. In dungeons the double down on the healing circle is invaluable to keeping yourself and your group alive.

While not being focused in one area of having any kind of burst damage I’ve found that I can constantly find a niche or role to work with and still do respectable and steady damage over time. The sheer number of escape abilities and survivability with the elixir gun equipped is pretty staggering as well. I suggest this for the engineer who thinks that there is always something that they could be doing to help and effect the battle.

What kind of armor/runes do you use in this build? The editor you linked to only shows traits and skills. I’ve been wanting to use a FT-using Engineer build and figure the traits listed in this will be nice, but armor (and stat priority) and runes will go a long way too.

Been running my own flamethrower engi build, it is a bit different from this one. I will say if done right it is a great build for pve and WvW. Only draw back I find is in smaller fights where you can get focused it gets a lot harder, of course this is a learn to play issue that I am working on.

It’s an interesting take on a kit-based FT build, rather than the standard HGH might stacking builds.

My concern is that this build would seriously lack damage output. Seems almost a waste to sit in the FT kit, when you could be hopping between the Toolkit and Rifle, probably dealing more damage while opening up that utility slot.

-Travail.

Rhinzual.7861:

What kind of armor/runes do you use in this build? The editor you linked to only shows traits and skills. I’ve been wanting to use a FT-using Engineer build and figure the traits listed in this will be nice, but armor (and stat priority) and runes will go a long way too.

For armor I’ve got the 400 badge invader’s vest, and the rest are all rare/exotic rampager set. All the trinkets are also rampagers and everything has condition gems slotted in. For the weapon I use a rune of air. The invader vest is a little more tanky with power/tough/vit so that increases my survivability.

Dyroth.5063:

Been running my own flamethrower engi build, it is a bit different from this one. I will say if done right it is a great build for pve and WvW. Only draw back I find is in smaller fights where you can get focused it gets a lot harder, of course this is a learn to play issue that I am working on.

The biggest issue is control. The elixir gun which i’ve use now instead of the toolkit is much better paired with the FT. With the trait setup it puts a 3s weakness on the target and you can spam some cripples and use lots of control abilities. Airblast on FT, and the rifle has 2 good controls. In smaller fights the elixir gun weakness debuff is absolutely vital. It will turn that mean hulking warrior into a kitten for you. Using supply drop defensively and as a decoy I find works best and elixir S and toss elixir S are great to use to help keep you alive.

Travail.7390:

It’s an interesting take on a kit-based FT build, rather than the standard HGH might stacking builds.

My concern is that this build would seriously lack damage output. Seems almost a waste to sit in the FT kit, when you could be hopping between the Toolkit and Rifle, probably dealing more damage while opening up that utility slot.

-Travail.

I use the rifle for harass and control. The toolkit has good burst damage sure, but the flamethrower is great. Throw some weakness on the guy before the range closes with an elixir gun and then pull out the flamethrower. I typically do about 1400-1800 with a burst on the #1 on FT. The strength of the flamethrower is also when you stack condition damage. Bleeding does 100/tick and will go off in multiple stacks because of the FT mechanics hitting many times for small damage. Each one of the little hits has a chance to proc the on critical chance stuff. Sigil of air will almost always go off right when it’s off cooldown and you can keep a 100% uptime burn that I do 600/tick with. So say on average you’ve got burn up and 2 stacks of bleed. It’s 2 seconds per #1 cycle it’l put you roughly about 1500-1800 per second per target.

You will not see huge burst damage numbers with this build like you might with a toolkit. However, this is hard sustained dps and will hit multiple targets over a wide area doing the same damage. Every target in your area of effect boosts your dps. If you’re confident in escaping you can ambush people during larger fights from a side and really start burning them. It’s also not intended to be a straight use only flamethrower. A good engineer uses every tool and skill available to them. Wearing somebody down by putting 20s of weakness on them while you keep them at range then going in will make it easy. Believe it or not as well, the #1 on the elixir gun when you stack condition high does more damage than the rifle #1 with bleeds and applies weakness to boot. This build is for debuffing, some healing and dealing area damage. Single target damage will be a bit lower than a full single target toolkit build but if theres more than 1 enemy to hit then it shines. Particularly if you’re defending a door and people think they can put a ram up. As for might stacking, with juggernaught and boon duration with FT out I sit at a consistent 6 stacks of might.