Guild Wars 2

I’m revisiting guild wars 2 after not playing for almost 3 years. I was too confused trying to relearn my old level 80 guardian so I made a new engineer. So far I’m loving class even though I’m only level 27.

My question is about comparing the rifle skills and the flamethrower kit skills. I find both skill sets to be really fun but I’m having a hard time figuring out which set does more damage. Is one of them clearly better or are they about on par with each other?

In general, as an Engineer, you’ll want to be switching into and out ofall of your kits to do the most damage. I’m not sure which is better if you’re just camping one of the two, though.

Yeah, counter-intuitively, for a class that has no actual weapon-swap, engie plays best when you’re swapping constantly. You want at least one kit, and to be rotating through the best skills across all your kits and your gun.

So you’d do something like net shot, swap to flamthrower, napalm, (Immobile enemy is stuck in the fire field) fire blast, swap to gun, do the leap attack and knockback shot, swap back to flamethrower, fire blast again, etc. (Not the actual tested rotation you want to use, but as an example)

If you’re insisting on making it a one or the other thing, they’re probably about even. One is likely to be better than the other for given specific situations and enemies, but in general, they’re even-ish.

Small piece of advice, the flamethrower autoattack is a good way to kill yourself against foes with retaliation. All 10 of those separate hits will proc retaliation. So be careful with that. 1

Its a little disappointing to hear that the most efficient way is constantly switching between the kits. I did my fair share of hardcore min-maxing in my WoW days and I’m looking for a relaxed laid back experience without a crazy amount of micro.

Would I be kicked from parties if I’m just using one or the other or do people generally not care? Aka how seriously would I be hindering myself by not rotating between them?

CaptainBBQ.9045:

Its a little disappointing to hear that the most efficient way is constantly switching between the kits. I did my fair share of hardcore min-maxing in my WoW days and I’m looking for a relaxed laid back experience without a crazy amount of micro.

Would I be kicked from parties if I’m just using one or the other or do people generally not care? Aka how seriously would I be hindering myself by not rotating between them?

Its not as overwhelming as it seems, you pick up on it quickly, or at least, most do.

CaptainBBQ.9045:

Its a little disappointing to hear that the most efficient way is constantly switching between the kits. I did my fair share of hardcore min-maxing in my WoW days and I’m looking for a relaxed laid back experience without a crazy amount of micro.

Would I be kicked from parties if I’m just using one or the other or do people generally not care? Aka how seriously would I be hindering myself by not rotating between them?

Very, very, very few people would be paying enough attention to your rotation to actually notice either way honestly. The kind of people that would kick you for having a non-optimal rotation are NOT the people you’d want to play with in the first place for a “relaxed” experience.

However, Engineer IS designed as one of the classes that’s meant to juggle a lot of skills. Even without kits, you have the toolbelt mechanic which gives you waaaaay more F skills to deal with than any other class. You wouldn’t be handicapping yourself quite as badly as say… a mesmer that doesn’t use phantasms OR shatters, but outside of niche builds, it’s practically ignoring your class mechanic.

The explosives-kits (Bomb or Grenades) are probably the most camp-friendly, in terms of DPS, assuming you’re traited properly for them. (Mostly just because they’re all damage though. The other kits have more situational utility skills)

Also, to get extra DPS out of a build that isn’t rotating through kits, you might want to try the traits, “Static Discharge” or “HGH”. SD is a solid damage boost to power-builds if you’re decently invested in the tools line and have low-cooldown toolbelt skills, and HGH gives you extra might stacks to boost your damage, and if you go all the way down the achemy line for it, you can take deadly mixture to boost your flamethrower if that’s what you like useing.

A might stacking build centered around the flamethrower that uses elixirs for support might be up your alley. You’ll STILL want to slowly learn when it’s a good idea to swap to your gun, but you wouldn’t be ‘useless’ if you didn’t.

Though you won’t be getting most of those traits for a while anyways, except static discharge. Most of the kit swapping stuff comes more into play at higher levels anyway once you have your skills and traits and sigils that benefit from it. While leveling, Your gun alongside any “melee replacement” kit (Flamethrower, Bomb or Tool kit) should get you through most spots.

CaptainBBQ.9045:

Its a little disappointing to hear that the most efficient way is constantly switching between the kits. I did my fair share of hardcore min-maxing in my WoW days and I’m looking for a relaxed laid back experience without a crazy amount of micro.

Would I be kicked from parties if I’m just using one or the other or do people generally not care? Aka how seriously would I be hindering myself by not rotating between them?

Well, Grenade spam is about 60-70% of the full rotation damage (with trait, so not a consideration till 80). Bomb Kit it’ll be a bit more self sufficient as far as damage goes, but you’ll still likely be looking at <70% of your capacity.

Unfortunately Engineer is one of the most active profession (unfortunate for you that is if you wanted a more laid back style, many of us love it )

That said, outside of PVE and serious PVP, welp, who cares. Play how you want to. Just accept what you’re giving up and if you can’t, well, there are other profession though pretty much all of them optimize at a more active style. For PVE if you want to camp a single weapon and have a more laid back play Warrior GS is about as good as it gets. Ele Staff is often overexaggerated as a lazy option but even that you do some very active initial bursts to see quite a bit of extra power.

That said, once you get used to things it all comes pretty easy.

Oh, and to add something, most engineers run the trait “Speedy Kits”

It lets you upkeep permanent swiftness, but you have to swap your kit every 10 seconds to do so. (You get 10 seconds of swift on equipping a kit)

What ends up happening, is that trait trains you get you into the habit of swapping kits constantly, so you’re not even really thinking about it anymore. On paper it sounds kind of irritating to be doing, but the convenience of constant swiftness more than offsets that.

From the sounds of it I’m playing the wrong class. I really like using a rifle but it seems this class gets really complex later on. The wiki says that warrior and engineer are the only two classes that can use rifles. How does a warrior’s rifle capabilities compare to an engineer’s? Are rifle warriors viable? How are they in terms of complexity?

CaptainBBQ.9045:

From the sounds of it I’m playing the wrong class. I really like using a rifle but it seems this class gets really complex later on. The wiki says that warrior and engineer are the only two classes that can use rifles. How does a warrior’s rifle capabilities compare to an engineer’s? Are rifle warriors viable? How are they in terms of complexity?

rifle warrior is good for WvW gimmick builds and nothing else. it pales in comparison to the longbow in every regard. generally people will think you are a troll if you use warrior rifle.

CaptainBBQ.9045:

Its a little disappointing to hear that the most efficient way is constantly switching between the kits. I did my fair share of hardcore min-maxing in my WoW days and I’m looking for a relaxed laid back experience without a crazy amount of micro.

Would I be kicked from parties if I’m just using one or the other or do people generally not care? Aka how seriously would I be hindering myself by not rotating between them?

Play Warrior.

Some professions are just far more micro intensive than others, and Engineers i’d say are the most micro intensive of all professions.

Darn.

For me, theme is really important when I’m playing this sort of game. I really like the theme of blasting about with a rifle. I tend to leave my competitive side to card games. If rifle warriors are as trolly as choovanski makes them out to be then I’ll probably just keep playing my engineer the way I have been. I have no interest in micro managing kits but all the other classes don’t really appeal to me thematically. Intense micro is partially why I stopped playing Starcraft 2 haha.

Engineer has three builds without kit swapping, HGH, turret, and static discharge (one kit). All three are pvp builds and have big weaknesses. For pve builds will be 2kit minimum and reward swapping. Healing turret, engineer’s best heal requires a three button press combo for the maximum heal, and can even be scaled up to 4+ if you want to argument the heal even further. It’s not a class to play if you don’t want to press a lot of buttons.

Warrior is much more relaxed, but unfortunately the rifle is poor. The damage is low, and the utility is almost nonexistent. It’s only saving grace is killshot, which only really sees use in wvw. It’s an awful weapon for dungeons, and you will be more than likely told not to use it. Pvp doesn’t allow for stats as high as wvw so killshot is not that great there, plus you no longer have the advantage of mobility + range + open field. I really wish warrior rifle did more damage, but it just doesn’t.

You can play engineer without kit swapping, but you will underperform heavily, especially in pvp. That’s not saying don’t do it, but it’s like playing a stealthless thief. I would suggest trying kits out if you do decide to persevere with engineer, it’s actually really fun when you get the hang of it. You have a huge amount of skills at your disposal, and they are all useful.

CaptainBBQ.9045:

Darn.

For me, theme is really important when I’m playing this sort of game. I really like the theme of blasting about with a rifle. I tend to leave my competitive side to card games. If rifle warriors are as trolly as choovanski makes them out to be then I’ll probably just keep playing my engineer the way I have been. I have no interest in micro managing kits but all the other classes don’t really appeal to me thematically. Intense micro is partially why I stopped playing Starcraft 2 haha.

Honestly, stick with the class. There is the meta build top end dps rotation which is quite involved but in most average groups you’ll be looking throwing out might or vulnerability. Run Rifle with Static Discharge and fast cooldown toolbelt skills. If your group has good might and vulnerability this will do pretty good. Grenades are super strong and IMHO fun to play. If you just switch between Grenades and Rifle you’ll be fine. I was overwhelmed at first but if you level getting to know each kit you’ll be fine at 80. Engi is easily my favorite class in the game.

CaptainBBQ.9045:

Darn.

For me, theme is really important when I’m playing this sort of game. I really like the theme of blasting about with a rifle. I tend to leave my competitive side to card games. If rifle warriors are as trolly as choovanski makes them out to be then I’ll probably just keep playing my engineer the way I have been. I have no interest in micro managing kits but all the other classes don’t really appeal to me thematically. Intense micro is partially why I stopped playing Starcraft 2 haha.

The micro is nowhere near as intense as Starcraft, if that makes you feel any better.

Also, word on the street is that thieves will get Rifles as their new weapon in the expansion. The thief Elite spec might appeal to you if this turns out to be the case. If the new weaponset sucks there’ll be an uproar, so it’s pretty likely all the new weapons for the elite specs in general, rifle included, will at least be decent.

So you may or may not want to experiment with thieves and keep an eye out for the thief elite specialization announcement.

Also, engineers are getting a skill and trait rework to begin with (That is, before the expansion comes out, so these are base class changes), so we may actually see more viable builds that are less kit-centric in the future. So if you’re enjoying what you’re doing so far, don’t get discouraged before you even really get started.

Has arena net done a skill and trait rework before in the past? If so, did they basically do a gut and rebuild or was it just simple number tweaks? It would be cool if it was a deep gut because I found a lot of the skills weren’t very exciting when looking through them in my level process.

CaptainBBQ.9045:

Has arena net done a skill and trait rework before in the past? If so, did they basically do a gut and rebuild or was it just simple number tweaks? It would be cool if it was a deep gut because I found a lot of the skills weren’t very exciting when looking through them in my level process.

They’ve messed with the trait system before, but the upcoming new specialization system is a total rework of the whole thing from the ground up.

Every class is getting tweaks and changes, but Engineer in particular is getting a major overhaul. The medkit is having it’s skills changed, the mortar is becoming a kit (Like a grenade launcher type weapon you can walk around with) and many of the actual traits are being reworked, replaced or merged. The entire inventions trait line is getting nuked and rewriten pretty much from scratch. The toolbelt is getting an additional f5 skill which is taken from your chosen elite. Not all the changes have been finalized or announced yet. Basically they want to bring up some of the underused engie skills up to par with the things everyone uses all the time.

The firearms should actually be getting a few functional upgrades through the new traits. One of the devs said that they intend to add a trait that makes the Pistol #1 skill count as an explosion (Which means it triggers secondary traits like bleeding from shrapnel) so rifle may get some boosts too.

i have found that if you build it just right, you CAN make the flamethrower your 90% weapon, that said, i personally find it rather boring to just stand there and face tank groups while melting them after a bit. my flamethrower build in exotic gear runs 2600+ power and 3200+ armor , with buffs it gets kinda crazy high numbers, but the gameplay is still the exact same…hit me up ingame if you want details