Guild Wars 2

Both my Father-in-law and Mother-in-law are playing gw2. I would consider them to be relatively casual players. Most of their time will be spent in open world PvE doing exploration and events. They may one day try out a dungeon or two, but they will probably never step into sPvP or WvW. The good news is that they’ve both been playing for 3+ months now and know the basic game mechanics.

So with all of that said, they have rerolled as Ele and Engi and are asking me for advice.

I don’t know of a good casual friendly engineer setup, and I know very little about the ele, I’m seeking your advice. Obviously I’m seeking advice on Engi stuff here, but I will also cross-post something similar in the Ele forum. Advice on either is welcome.

What sort of build, weapons and equipment stats should they be working toward? And remember that they will likely spend a lot of time leveling the characters, so level a build that only shines at level 80 won’t be very helpful.

I really appreciate the help!

I would recommend a bomb build for the engi and a staff build for the ele. The engineer can tank and the ele can stay at range and out of trouble.

It’s not hard to tank as a bomb engineer because of smoke bomb. It’s a very simple build to play and there’s a lot of flexibility with traits. Forceful explosions is the only really necessary trait (adept from explosives traitline).

The other utilities could be elixirs or turrets. Traits could be anything that looks fun, although I’d probably recommend 30 points in alchemy and 3 elixirs eventually.

Having kit refinement mixed with elixir gun gives the engineer an extra heal every 10 seconds. The engineer generally likes precision/power then toughness/vitality.

If going with grenades/bombs and riffle than more power over precision. If using dual pistols or pistol/shield with other kits then precision over power.

dual pistols you want a mix of condition damage and duration. Work on damage first because you need a lot of duration to get even 1s higher on P1 bleeds.

I have not wasted any points in turrets, I never use them because I jump around too much.

I have been leveling with pistol shield and the EG in PvE and can take a good amount of mobs before I get overwhelmed. working with 20 in firearms and 20 in inventions for the 20% less CD for both weapons. Also, 10 points in gadgets for the kit refinement is a pretty standard beginning.

What it comes down to is preference. Have both of them fill out all of their weapon skills and use all of the skills that look interesting to them. This also applies to the skills they will be getting with skill points.

I started with using a lot of elixirs, and now don’t have any. I don’t like the RNG or the fact that I have to aim them for others to get the effects. I am too busy running around to waste time on it.

If you want to tank here is my tanking build.

I find tank build’s are still not needed but I run this from time to time in pugs as it opens up a little more room for error. The 10 in Fire Arms traits could be moved to another 10 in Tools but I find my self using bombs the majority of the time. Don’t forget that you have a fair amount of utility when using just your pistol/shield as well as a blast finisher.

Skills used: Med Kit/Bomb Kit/Elixer Gun/Elixer R/Supply Crate

Med Kit: If you do not run med kit then you WILL need to use different runes and different food. The primary purpose of this kit is condition removal via food, fury via runes, and fury via medkit5. Most of your healing is from your tool belt skill in addition to EG tool belt regen.

Elixer Gun: If you can not manage the internal cool down on Kit Refinement you WILL want to drop this skill and the trait points placed in tools in place of something else that suits your play style better. In this situation you would also want to replace some of the Clerics gear with Knights gear. I would recommend a lot of practice with EG as the heal and condition removal are very strong. There is a blast finisher here but keep in mind that using it takes you out of melee meaning you are no longer healing your melee so you may need to adjust with super elixer(s).

Bomb Kit: Decent damage + healing + combo fields +CC. This also brings stealth to your party via blast finisher + smoke bomb. Don’t use Big Ol’ Bomb if its going to mess up your groups AoE on trash.

Elixer R: This slot is the most subject to change but I find being able to to toss this to rez and controlling mobs while it gets them up is very strong and allows you to maintain some damage. Another option would be Elixer U for the super speed in conjunction with stealth for a speedy rez.

Supply Crate: Place it where the heals are more accessible/needed. Its more important than the stun considering you could just immobilize or knock back or both with bombs. Don’t forget that it is also a blast finisher though.

Game Play: Dodge liberally for damage reduction + damage + heals. You have perma-vigor AND Elixer R. Bombs do not HAVE to be dropped as damage and can serve the purpose of just healing things(although I wouldn’t recommend it). I carry a second pistol to build up bloodlust stacks as well although this is not shown in the link.

Again, I almost never run this build unless the pug I’m with is just rough. It sounds like it is what you are looking for though.

This build does work well while leveling. The order you take traits in are just personal preference really. Bombs and weapons are flexible while leveling as well. I’d recommend trying everything out.

Enjoy,

-Crunkmagnet

I really didn’t see any troubles for the ordinary PvE (even not dungeons) - it all can be done even non-traited, naked and with #1 skill of the any weapon.
So do not warry about that - just kill the mobs, do the events, complete hearts, etc.

Crunkmagnet.3908:

If you want to tank here is my tanking build.

I find tank build’s are still not needed but I run this from time to time in pugs as it opens up a little more room for error. The 10 in Fire Arms traits could be moved to another 10 in Tools but I find my self using bombs the majority of the time. Don’t forget that you have a fair amount of utility when using just your pistol/shield as well as a blast finisher.

Skills used: Med Kit/Bomb Kit/Elixer Gun/Elixer R/Supply Crate

Med Kit: If you do not run med kit then you WILL need to use different runes and different food. The primary purpose of this kit is condition removal via food, fury via runes, and fury via medkit5. Most of your healing is from your tool belt skill in addition to EG tool belt regen.

Elixer Gun: If you can not manage the internal cool down on Kit Refinement you WILL want to drop this skill and the trait points placed in tools in place of something else that suits your play style better. In this situation you would also want to replace some of the Clerics gear with Knights gear. I would recommend a lot of practice with EG as the heal and condition removal are very strong. There is a blast finisher here but keep in mind that using it takes you out of melee meaning you are no longer healing your melee so you may need to adjust with super elixer(s).

Bomb Kit: Decent damage + healing + combo fields +CC. This also brings stealth to your party via blast finisher + smoke bomb. Don’t use Big Ol’ Bomb if its going to mess up your groups AoE on trash.

Elixer R: This slot is the most subject to change but I find being able to to toss this to rez and controlling mobs while it gets them up is very strong and allows you to maintain some damage. Another option would be Elixer U for the super speed in conjunction with stealth for a speedy rez.

Supply Crate: Place it where the heals are more accessible/needed. Its more important than the stun considering you could just immobilize or knock back or both with bombs. Don’t forget that it is also a blast finisher though.

Game Play: Dodge liberally for damage reduction + damage + heals. You have perma-vigor AND Elixer R. Bombs do not HAVE to be dropped as damage and can serve the purpose of just healing things(although I wouldn’t recommend it). I carry a second pistol to build up bloodlust stacks as well although this is not shown in the link.

Again, I almost never run this build unless the pug I’m with is just rough. It sounds like it is what you are looking for though.

This build does work well while leveling. The order you take traits in are just personal preference really. Bombs and weapons are flexible while leveling as well. I’d recommend trying everything out.

Enjoy,

-Crunkmagnet

I’ve never ran a cleric bomb build. Just for curiosity, how much heal/bomb does 1.1k healing power do? Coz at 400+ (~500), I’m managing 200+/heal only.

I don’t run that gear set often enough to know off the top of my head. I want to say its ~300/bomb give or take a little depending on how much more damage i wanna do. Keep in mind that’s at least 2 bombs per second.

Gotta say, I just switched to a heal bomber build, and I’m liking it quite a lot.

I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it for leveling to 60 though because much of the survivability depends on investment in Inventions (toughness) and having Elixir-Infused Bombs. I’d probably recommend a Static Discharge power build to get there.