Guild Wars 2

Hi there!

I just created my first engineer yesterday and I must admit that I like it a lot so far, it seems to be a very versatile and pretty confusing so far too (and that comes from a person who mains an ele). The, I think it’s called, toolkits (f1, f2 etc.) are still something that I’m trying to figure out, let’s hope that it doesn’t take me too long.

Anyway, straight to my question – I checked a few thread around here, just a quick look, and to me it seems as if the general, and recommended, build for PvE is using grenades? Is that so or there are some other viable options out there as well? The though of settling for only 1 way of playing just makes me feel kind of discouraged considering how much stuff engi could do.

Thanks in advance!

winter

no, people usually use bombs for levelling

really, if youre going to use your engi for serious pve, you need to use at least 1 of bombs or grenades because they just do more damage. same thing as like… you wont find an ele in a dungeon without fgs.

but for just fooling around, tons of stuff is viable, and no class is more fun than engi, so you should try things out and have fun.

if you find the toolbelt confusing, youre still at the stage of learning where you need to limit yourself to pushing only about 1/2 of your buttons so you dont get overwhelmed.

Grenades are pretty weak when untraited. Means – there is a trait wich grants you 300 range and 1 grenade for grenade skills, wich is 50% more damage. Without it, the damage is semigood. As insanemaniac said: Bombs are the way to go when leveling.

About the toolbelt, it’s simle. F1 resembels the healing skill, F2-F4 the utilities. So each skill you got has in fact 2 skills. You won’t see them when unlocking them sadly, only when you equip them. Like elixier R wich recovers your stamina, doesn’t sound that awesome, yet it’s toolbelt revives allies and npcs.

In the end you will have all the skills and just check the toolbelts too

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/Good-PvE-leveling-build-1/first#post4197492

I had loads of fun leveling up my engineer. Here’s the gist of what I did:

Unlock forceful explosives first and play bomberman running in circles exploding things.
Unlock juggernaut as soon as you can and melt people with the flamethrower (yeah yeah, I know, there will be some DPS lost and whatnot but who cares, it was fun as hell)

Hope that helped

Truly, you can PvE with just about any build as an engineer.

That being said, a few kits are rather difficult to learn on. Grenades just takes time to learn to land and 50% of the damage potential comes from a grandmaster trait. I tend to suggest not taking this one first.

Between bombs and a pistol or rifle you have a pretty good start. Drop and run around. Remember, you have a smoke bomb that pulses blind.

Turrets work initially but the play style changes with traits dramatically so I tend not to encourage learning bad habits early in PvE.

FT is a second kit that really makes PvE at mid-levels much easier. The Juggernaut trait is very strong in mid-levels. However, you won’t likely use the FT for very long or when you reach level 80. The DPS is rather low relative to other options.

I tend to suggest:

1) Bomb Kit
2) Pistol/Shield (and really learn how much defense you can get from those shield skills)
3) Get Elixir Gun (the auto attack is almost perma weakness on a mob and you have great utility to learn to play with).

Master switching out of those 2 kits and the weapon first. Best if you have a multi-button mouse, otherwise, consider mapping say r,f,v, and t to be your kits and weapon swap.
Learn to use the Toolbelt skills well. BoB will be heavily used later as an 80.
Engies make fields and blast them (a few leaps too). Learning to might yourself and invis (fire bomb and smoke bomb) and blast your own healing turret mist will really be time well spent learning the class.