Guild Wars 2

Hey there fellow Engineers!

I´ve tried several different builds with my engineer, from bomb builds to pistol cond builds, none really made me happy.
So after trying the flamethrower tank build a few games i added elixir gun to the mix. They both have traits involving both of them so it felt natural to me, and boy was i home. The support from EG and CC, Combofield, 200 Toughness / Might from FT made me a happy camper. But i had a hard time with the third utility slot. Tried alot of different elixirs but none fell to my liking. Then out of curiosity i tried the toolkit. Oh boy, the toolkit brought exactly waht i needed to the table. A slow, a block, a " Get over here " move and some spike damage while in melee range, on top of that the toolbelt skill is pretty awesome for some extra damage.

The thing that makes this build so fantastic is the trait that casts a spell when equipping a kit. AoE burn with the FT, Super elixir with EG and a free AoE snare for the TK ( The one that throws nails on the ground ).

With all this i run Shield / Pistol, with traited 20% CD reduc on both and toughness with shield. And i take the elixir heal for the added boon and traited 20 sec CD, the throw elixir give me the edge on the support side. I´ve been fiddling with med kit though, its a very good kit aswell.

So all in all i get several knockbacks, slows, aoe heals / cond remover ( 100% uptime or stack for more heals ) 2 blocks ( This is awesome! ) AoE damage on points, conditions and debuffs, heal reduction on enemies, 2 combofields ( Fire / Light ), AoE regen, some spike damage, super good survivability ( 3 people have a hard time to take you down. 1v1 is almost allways a win for me ) and some pretty good support.

This specc do take some time getting used to but the reward is so huge when you swap kits using key abilities defending a point helping allies and killing foes.

Went up against a good bunker guardian the other day, and it was a stalemate. We couldnt kill eachother. And it was fantastic to actually outplay what most people believe to be the best bunker in the game with a class that have " Underpowered kits ".
I CC´ed him enough to actually take the point in the end, and he ran off!

TL;DR

Kits work wonders together, dont get stuck on just 1 of them! Use them together for great results!

Happy hunting

Engineer and Elementalist are the two professions it takes most skill to be good at, and therefor many people complain about them and how weak they are. This is a partly true view of the situation only. I’m one of those who’s not very happy about the current state of Engineer because it is limiting in a way I don’t like. I simply don’t like the Grenade Kit or the Bomb Kit, I rolled an Engineer to have a medium to long range profession using Guns.

A good Guardian will let you kill yourself so to say, reflecting your damage. Not being able to kill a Guardian isn’t very impressive, not getting killed by one isn’t either. Not meaning to be all negative here, but a combo of self-heals and buffs with low dps would be exactly what you would need to stale a Grd.

Cause while your build is suited to confuse anyone and has lot’s of utility, I can’t see how you come out favorable on any side. You’r explaining something that looks like a 0-30-20-10-10 build and I could start by asking; what stats do you focus on with this? Toughness, Vitality and Healing Power sounds like your thing, which would result in less then 2000 attack damage, no more Condition except what you get from the Firearms traits.

What I would encourage you to try out is to slot the Kit you need the most in the situation you’re getting into, don’t spend all your utility on slotting all the Kit’s. Traiting from FT and EG would suggest switching in the one most suited There And Then. Slotting Pistols with no Condi Damage is a waste of time. Condi damage with FT is the same. They don’t go together. Using Tool Kit without any Turrets also seems strange.

Or, even better; Don’t bother listening to me if you’re having fun anyway. But your build seems sort of “private”, and your ability to beat other players in any PvP situation isn’t because your build is any good, it’s because you have found your niche with the Engi and this build. Coming here with a l2p message because you’re good is not the way to encourage people…

“Engineer and Elementalist are the two professions it takes most skill to be good at”

Really? I disagree.

According to Arenanet, it was: Necromancer>Elementalist>Mesmer>Engineer>Others

And I tend to agree with that. Engineers don’t have anything overtly challenging about them. All elementalists have 4 sets of weapons, but an engineer can have as few as 1, or as many as 4. No one forces you to do more than you are capable of, you do as much as you choose.

The challenge of the engineer is simply picking the right build, but gameplay isn’t inherently difficult. Its all abilities on cooldown, with no deeper mechanics.

Hey Baro Sorry if the post came across as a l2p sort of thing, wasnt ment to. It´s like you say, there´s a steep learning curve to the engineer class. But what i wanted to say was that you can be effective in pvp with a build that as you say is " private ".

http://gw2skills.net/editor/en/?fcAQJAqelspicn1yuF1LJxoCfOkiCbYQPybdvroCPG;TsAA2CooqxUjoGbNuak1MK4UwsAA

Thats the build. As you say it may seem spread out, but i take CD reduct in all my skills so i allways have them ready when i need them.
The damage of the pistol aint that bad actually without + Cond damage, and it puts some debuffs on the enemy. The trait that reduces the CD on Pistol can be swapped ( and i do from time to time ) for the Vuln on crit trait. But that requires Med kit for the +20% crit chance

But this build wasnt made to do damage, it was made as a point holder survivability build. And it does the job there and back, with added support, debuffs and minor heals.

Regarding the toolkit without turrets, its not used for turret heals, its used for CC and block. That block with 20 sec CD is a lifesaver, coupled with shields block and its golden in any situation. Spreading those nails over a point over run with enemies is great, spreading bleeds and slowing the down.

Its true that i dont win every 1v1, but i sure as hell wont die. Even if they bring a friend or two i can keep them occupied long enough for friends to arrive. A true tank!

Now, the build aint set in stone, i switch traits and gear runes constantly. But this is the way i like it for now It does what it does, tanks great! But what wont change in my build is the kits, they are simply too awesome in my mind

Actually thats true Lyuben, the only thing that makes engineer harder than say a warlock in WoW is that you dont have all skills out on your hotbar and its harder to remember when stuff cools off. When i played WoW i filled my bars to the brim with macros and abilities, that´s more to keep track of than engineers skills in total

And regarding my build not focusing on one kit is simply because i use all my kits in any given situation! Thats for sPvP though, i´m level 3 PvE Havnt really done the PvE side of GW2 yet :p

Drac -

I appreciate this thread, because I play my engi the exact opposite from you. That is one of the things I enjoy so much about this class, there are a ton of different options, and it is really quite flexible to a number of different play styles.

Like I said, I play radically different, sticking with Rifle & Elixirs in sPvP, if only because, I don’t feel like I can switch through kits that quickly. So I am wondering, how do you handle kit switching and such? Do you have your keyboard re-binded? Do you switch directly from kit to kit, or do you go back to weapon first? I ask because I have a ranger alt, that has weapon switch (so jealous of by the way…) that I bound to a side button on my mouse. I have been trying kits a bit more (not very successfully mind you lol) and find myself hitting that weapon switch button, which takes me back to my main weapon, before entering into another kit.

So I guess here is the heart of my question… how did you make switching between kits comfortable, given that normally they are bound to 6, 7, 8 keys which I can’t reach comfortably on my keyboard?

Brutus, if you don’t have a mouse with enough buttons to rebind to, you can use Shift+ a key that’s easy to reach for you. I do it with my toolbelt abilities, and keep everything else close to my hand. You can also use Q, E, R.

You should always use a rifle for point defender build. Blow them off the point, root them, cap it. Can also couple it with hidden ram to blow them off again. And Big Ol’ Bomb. And then net turret too. Pistol/shield has a 20s minor knockback, but it’s not a 2s knockdown like the rifle is. And you lose a potential root if you go /shield, but the shield is pretty awesome anyway.

According to Arenanet, it was: Necromancer>Elementalist>Mesmer>Engineer>Others

.. Necromancer? What’s difficult about a necromancer? Granted I’ve only played one to 20 or so, but it was pretty straightforward ..

Death Shroud I suppose.

Ask Jon Peters. He said it.

Hm. I just used it as a “Oh hey, lots of guys, guess I’ll press F1, use skill 5, and F1 again”… or if I was gonna die, it’s a good “oh kitten” move.

But I guess I don’t get a full feel for a profession only at 20.

Regarding key bindings i use a mouse with 2 extra buttons, which i use for 1-4 abilities (mb3 and mb4 and shift+mb3 and shift+ mb4) heal is on E and utilities are on 1-4. Toolbelt is on Shift+1-4

Oh, and regarding the shield i like having a blast finisher for my combo fields on the knockback. I will try som variation with the rifle ( i love how it plays ) though

For some further testing im going to try a bomb kit build instead of FT, see what it brings. Man i love the engineer! I´m thinking tool kit/bomb kit/The ram or Slick shoes (No idea how they are actually named) for maximum CC/Survivability.

And brutus, keep at it! My first year of WoW i played without key-binds But some keys thats close to " WASD " and shift + them is a good place to start!

Happy hunting

Lyuben.2613:

According to Arenanet, it was: Necromancer>Elementalist>Mesmer>Engineer>Others

Lyuben, where did you get that list? I remember Jon Peters stating that he personally thought necros were the most difficult, but to my knowledge no ranking has ever been issued by Arenanet.

Source please.

It was from someone snipping him talking in /map during the betas.

I’ll look for an image.

Edit: Found it.

http://i.imgur.com/w0mKZ.jpg

Lyuben.2613:

It was from someone snipping him talking in /map during the betas.

I’ll look for an image.

Edit: Found it.

http://i.imgur.com/w0mKZ.jpg

Ouch. Disappointing when you consider how strong mesmers seem to be. I wonder what will happen when people learn to play them.

I was hoping to play one of the most difficult classes. I typically quad kit, but it still bruises the ego to know that I’m playing only an “average” difficulty class.