I feel that engineers are vulnerable to damage, especially in WvW, so I want to create an engineer that focuses on ranged attacks.
Rifles and off-hand pistols are more effective at close range, so I use pistol and shield.
The ironic thing here is that the grenade kit is also most effective at close ranged combat, as is the bomb kit (though the latter is self-explanatory). If you’re doing zerg fights or fighting around a keep or something, then you’ll probably get some good mileage out of it that way, but in any smaller scale fights, trying to stay at max range and lob grenades is not going to be effective in a lot of cases. Thieves and warriors will just close in, and rangers will have superior firepower while being able to avoid the slow lobs. That’s not to say you shouldn’t use grenades, I’m just saying that you might find that camping in grenade kit and tossing them around will work in every situation.
If you’re going to run this build in WvW, I would suggest slotting tool kit instead of bomb kit. I’ve only seen a small number of people make truly effective use of the bomb kit in WvW (myself not included), and there’s so much mileage the tool kit can give you in both large scale and small scale combat. The bomb kit can still be very useful if you’re solo capping a supply camp, but for actual roaming or zerging, the tool kit just offers so much that the bomb kit can’t. I mean, you can chase people with the bomb kit, and you already have grenades to handle ranged pressure situations as well as to toss at pursuers.
I wouldn’t slot rifle out either. Even main hand pistol is better at closer range because of poison dart volley’s conical spread pattern. Rifle not only has longer range than the pistol, but it’s auto-attack is actual fairly damaging. Not only that, but the attack pierces by default, making it inherently more valuable in large group fights compare to the pistol’s piddly auto-attack AoE explosion. You’ll definitely be getting more mileage out of the rifle auto-attack than on the pistol. The addition CC the rifle brings is also highly valuable, allowing you to get people off of you, prevent them from escaping (i.e. net shot), or allowing you to set up certain skill combos (i.e. overcharged shot into grenade barrage). If you’re fighting a ranged opponent, you’re going to have to get close to maximize your damage anyhow, as that’s just how engineer works. If you’re fighting a melee opponent, you can work on pegging them with auto-attacks or grenade volleys until they close in, then hurt them with the high-damaging, short range stuff.
Of course, using the shield can be helpful in a lot of situations too, but if you slot tool kit instead of bombs, it can handle a lot of the same situations while still giving you a more useful auto-attack.
As far as the stats go, I probably wouldn’t go full zerk. Knight’s can help balance out your durability while still having some nice offensive stats, or perhaps some cavalier’s.
Also, as other’s said, drop that scope trait. It won’t really end up being that useful. Personally, I’d either drop it into firearms for hair trigger, or inventions for cloaking device or protective shield. You could also drop it into alchemy and pick up protection injection, which might be a good idea since you have no stun breaker. Though if you swapped bomb kit for elixir gun or elixir S, that could help solve that issue.
I’d also ditch shrapnel and pick up either empowering adrenaline or exploit weakness. The latter can be a bit more helpful in small-scale or solo roaming, though empowering adrenaline is definitely much more beneficial in larger scale combat. Shrapnel isn’t going to amount to much damage in a power build, and you’ll be forced to camp in grenade kit to really get any sort of mileage out of it. It’s much more effective in a condi-focused build.
Although if you did want to take more of a condition focus, I find that a combination of carrion and rabid has usually worked well for me. Though it’s sometimes not the best to sustain with in drawn out combat, it is better at surviving spike damage. Dire will work too, although carrion is more damage.
If I were to tweak this, I’d maybe go with one of the following:
Power: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fdAQFAUlUUpErlcxvLseRCbBNqxAqNIyNWlP/wAkUA-TxRBwARUCWU53O1fIu/gmLAAgHAgKdEAA-e
Condi: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fdAQJAqelUUpErlcxvLseRCbBNqxAqNIyNWlP/wAkUA-TRyHAB7s/AFaIqQPARKxGR9n6UCCwJAoIlH/+AAAA-e
Something along those lines, at any rate. I guess I’m taking more of a WvW-centric look at this thing, as that’s what I usually design my builds for.
