Guild Wars 2

I need some tips on how to deal more damage. I feel like I don’t do a lot of damage, not because of the weapons, but the way I’m using them. I’m used to using a thief where I am usually up close and personal, dodging a lot and moving around, because I get downed easily. It has come to a point where I’m doing more dodging than fighting, because I’m used to moving around quickly with dagger/pistol as a thief, which is a much faster weapon set than grenades and pistol/shield which are significantly slower than a thief’s attacks. I’m not planning on switching any of my weapons, I like pistol/shield and the grenades, and I have only been killed once so far, meanwhile with my other characters I die at least once an hour. I also plan on running a condition build later on, since all of my characters besides engineer and elementalist are running power builds or will be.

My main problems are;
·I miss half of my grenade hits on enemies, so I end up doing no damage.
·My healing turret acts weird and I have to spam the icon to get the extra heal on it.
·I always use my shield ability 5 at the wrong time.
·I move around WAY too much, because of some overprotective instinct I have, and even though I can take down up to 5 enemies at a time without losing much health, it’ll take me 5 minutes to beat them up. Is there a way to minimize my taken damage and still deal good amounts of damage, or do I have do just deal with it?

are you 80? is this pve?

just keep practicing with nades. youre doing healing turret right, always pick it up or explode it too.

No, this is not a level 80 character, made it about 2 days ago. This is also in pve, some people are surprisingly easy to hit with grenades, (if they use melee) they just go around a circle at the same distance and I can hit them easily.
And I thought exploding did nothing to helps healing?

Keep practicing. It’s just the fact that its unfamiliar territory and you don’t have the muscle memory to heal with healing turret, land grenades, prybar, various combos.

Focus on repeatedly landing abilities, time every ability as if it was your elite, and only work on increasing your actions per minute once you feel better about your accuracy.

Timiok.1048:

And I thought exploding did nothing to helps healing?

Here’s what you do:

Double tap ‘Drop healing Turret’. The double tap is so you immediately queue the overcharged ability – it will instantly do the Cleansing Burst, and then you can detonate it using the toolbelt to blast an additional heal, if you’d like to support your allies or burst heal yourself.

Timiok.1048:

And I thought exploding did nothing to helps healing?

exploding it in its water field gets you some extra hp from the combo. however my point is more along the lines of.. leaving it out is a bad idea because youre lengthening its cd by doing so. its a very common mistake.

try bombs. nades get 50% more damage from a grandmaster trait.

try using power/precision gear to level and change to a condi build at 80, you will have a much easier time of things.

Timiok.1048:

No, this is not a level 80 character, made it about 2 days ago. This is also in pve, some people are surprisingly easy to hit with grenades, (if they use melee) they just go around a circle at the same distance and I can hit them easily.
And I thought exploding did nothing to helps healing?

ehh, not 80 = just keep levelling up til you’re 80, then go for some big time upgrades in gear.

I had a guy in a dungeon at level 75 complaining about not enough DPS…yet 80 opens up a whole new world of possibilities.

I agree with The Tee Why on the long run.

But at the moment you could make use of buffs.

You can try to gain some might – Elixier B would be the easiest choise for that, and the very first traid of the alchemy tree will also work. Later you could go for the Juggernaut-trait.

If you feel up to it, you can use combo`s of the bomb-kit, shield and the heal turret to stack might, but that might be a bit confusing in the begining. If you don`t know how to stack might, feel free to pm me ingame and I will explain the details.

Just use bomb kit with power/precision/ferocity gear when levelling.
It has solid aoe damage, survivability and swiftness (with speedy kits).
Grenades come into play at level 80 when you can finally pick up grenadier.

higher tier players in pvp are known to run zerker ammy instead of cele.

FrownyClown.8402:

higher tier players in pvp are known to run zerker ammy instead of cele.

Nope. Zerker Engi is very sub-optimal for high tier PvP, Cele currently is optimal under more circumstances.

Hey, if you are on the EU servers, you may pm me ingame and I help you out directly with some live explanations and “lessions” how you can improve your playstyle. Telling you about your kits, combo fields, how they really work, how your damage becomes Nr. 2 in aoe and Nr. 3 in single target of all classes etc etc etc.

Just pm me – Ziggs Ironeye

Nades are very bad until you reach lvl 80 and get the grenadier trait.

Bomb auto attack and rifle 3 and 5 is the simplest and highest damage you can get at your level.

Leveling is a bit of an uphill battle for the Engineer since most of their utility is hidden and gated behind skill A LOT more than most classes.

You are welcome to PM in-game for some suggestions.

Look towards Flamethrower for simplest sustained damage in PvE.

Yea they cover it up pretty much – for solo leveling, Flamethrower, Bombs, Elixier gun (advanced knowledge), Mine (+ Toolbelt), and ofc a rifle hit quite hard.

Timiok.1048:

My main problems are;
·I miss half of my grenade hits on enemies, so I end up doing no damage.

In PvE if enemies are moving, it’s really hard to predict where they will move sometimes. They’ll just completely turn around or start moving for no reason. Your best bet is to lead in with some sort of snare first. You said you’re pistol shield. You might want to try Rifle or Pistol Pistol for the snares on them. I personally like rifle for blunderbuss, jump shot and the two lockdowns on it. Very good for power damage.

Timiok.1048:

·My healing turret acts weird and I have to spam the icon to get the extra heal on it.

Yep! Spamming it is how you get the heal off. Try to get good at choosing to either pick it up for the shorter recharge or blasting for the extra heal. Lots of condis? Pick it up. Lots of damage done to you? Blast it.

Timiok.1048:

·I always use my shield ability 5 at the wrong time.

It’s just practice. In PvE, I wouldn’t even suggest taking it. If you learn to position yourself correctly and dodge big moves, it’s not even necessary.

Timiok.1048:

·I move around WAY too much, because of some overprotective instinct I have, and even though I can take down up to 5 enemies at a time without losing much health, it’ll take me 5 minutes to beat them up. Is there a way to minimize my taken damage and still deal good amounts of damage, or do I have do just deal with it?

No such thing with grenades. You can be facing the opposite direction of enemies and still throw your grenades BACKWARDS to hit them. If the enemies are chasing you, throw grenades at your feet (literally your feet) and by the time enemies catch up, they’ll be pretty much where the grenades are landing. You can defeat any melee enemy with no ranged attacks or engage skills like this. Even works in PvP!

You also have to realize that if you aren’t max level and aren’t maxing out your gear constantly, you’ll fall behind in PvE. Just a few levels behind enemies can really slow things down. It’s totally normal. Just keep working to level 80, get that max gear and coast from there on out. If anything take it as a challenge! I’ve gotten away with beating some personal story missions up to 12 levels behind the recommendation!

If you don’t like being behind in damage, just do some open world stuff that’s your level (Generally events) and level up a bit. The less you worry about leveling and more you worry about just exploring, the more fun it’ll be.

Also, fun exercise to master your grenades: Try running straight ahead in some location and throwing your grenades at all the objects you can see without needing to turn around. You can do this by either binding look behind to some key or using left click-drag. There’s some option (chaith, wtf is it) called autocamera I think? It lets you drag the camera around and keep it there so you can effectively throw grenades backwards.

IMO Wolfineer has one of the best sites for Engineer resources out there. http://www.wolfineer.com I guarantee if you digest everything on his site and watch a few vids of his on YT, you’ll have no problem putting out great dps. Any suggestions I or anyone will tell you will be on that site.

I’m leveling an Engi atm, and believe (as another poster suggested) that going Zerker gear with Rifle for leveling is the way to go. When you hit 80 and have access to all the traits, then you can find out the Engie’s full potential. That’s when you can shine. It’s such a cool profession. There’s a good amount of viable builds atm. Find what suits you and go for it.

But stick with it, and if you’re good with it, you can fill about any role in any part of the game. A good Engie can give me problems on my thief in WvW and PVP. So I started leveling one to learn it, and now I’m in love. GL HF…

Timiok.1048:

No, this is not a level 80 character, made it about 2 days ago. This is also in pve, some people are surprisingly easy to hit with grenades, (if they use melee) they just go around a circle at the same distance and I can hit them easily.
And I thought exploding did nothing to helps healing?

You can’t hit people in pve!
Also wolfineer guides aren’t good for pve because he does only wvw. Check dulfy for a pve engi guide.

http://www.wolfineer.com/pve/ Wolfineer’s PVE page… Dulfy is a good resource usually, but if I remember correctly, it’s not that in depth when it comes to builds. Kinda bleh, unless it’s changed in the last couple months…

But since the OP said people are surprisingly easy to hit with nades, I assumed he meant PVP or WvW.

JDjitsu.7895:

http://www.wolfineer.com/pve/ Wolfineer’s PVE page… Dulfy is a good resource usually, but if I remember correctly, it’s not that in depth when it comes to builds. Kinda bleh, unless it’s changed in the last couple months…

But since the OP said people are surprisingly easy to hit with nades, I assumed he meant PVP or WvW.

Apologies, I did mean to say that people are easy to hit in wvw/spvp.
Also, you guys make it seem easy to level characters, I play my thief all the time,and he is still level 60(ish). What am I doing wrong?

For Engi leveling Flame Turret is a secret tipp.

Timiok.1048:

JDjitsu.7895:

http://www.wolfineer.com/pve/ Wolfineer’s PVE page… Dulfy is a good resource usually, but if I remember correctly, it’s not that in depth when it comes to builds. Kinda bleh, unless it’s changed in the last couple months…

But since the OP said people are surprisingly easy to hit with nades, I assumed he meant PVP or WvW.

Apologies, I did mean to say that people are easy to hit in wvw/spvp.
Also, you guys make it seem easy to level characters, I play my thief all the time,and he is still level 60(ish). What am I doing wrong?

levelling is hell, i skip it by playing on fun toons instead and using level 20 scrolls and a royal kittenton of tomes of knowledge

if only i could get tomes from playing how i want instead of… primarily pvp.

Timiok.1048:

JDjitsu.7895:

http://www.wolfineer.com/pve/ Wolfineer’s PVE page… Dulfy is a good resource usually, but if I remember correctly, it’s not that in depth when it comes to builds. Kinda bleh, unless it’s changed in the last couple months…

But since the OP said people are surprisingly easy to hit with nades, I assumed he meant PVP or WvW.

Apologies, I did mean to say that people are easy to hit in wvw/spvp.
Also, you guys make it seem easy to level characters, I play my thief all the time,and he is still level 60(ish). What am I doing wrong?

Welp, you play spvp only, for starters.
I guess you’re fine on your thief, since you know it already, but playing a new class, without any expirience from PvE how it works, earns you nothing mutch, and toom-farming is painfully slow.

Tipps to make it easier for you:
- read the wiki about engi. the entirety of it.
I did it, many people here did it as well, I believe.

- test stuff in PvE
Run circles on the maps (doing map-completion in that process doesn’t hurt) and try out the combos you’ve learned about from us, the wiki or other guides. Once they start to feel familiar, and you get confident to pull them off in stress as well, jump into pvp, wreck people, farm tooms and level up.

- never give up
The engineer can be frustrating from time to time, especially if you try out new kit-combos and recognize that the gameplay is so different from your previous builds that you’re back at the beginning again. Getting over exactly these moments is the only thing that splits a pro from a scrub. They keep trying and eventually master all aspects.

and a tip for general leveling:
crafting is the fastest, yet most expensive way to 80 (can be done in 1 day from 1-80)
second best option is eotm blobbing, which nullifies any learning-experience, but is a good way to farm wxp and badges, therefore giving you a headstart into wvw once you’re 80
3rd best option is map-completion and personal story.
it is the natural way to level up anyways, and mobs are perfect training dummies to try out what you’ve read about.

Arantheal.7396:

Timiok.1048:

JDjitsu.7895:

http://www.wolfineer.com/pve/ Wolfineer’s PVE page… Dulfy is a good resource usually, but if I remember correctly, it’s not that in depth when it comes to builds. Kinda bleh, unless it’s changed in the last couple months…

But since the OP said people are surprisingly easy to hit with nades, I assumed he meant PVP or WvW.

Apologies, I did mean to say that people are easy to hit in wvw/spvp.
Also, you guys make it seem easy to level characters, I play my thief all the time,and he is still level 60(ish). What am I doing wrong?

Welp, you play spvp only, for starters.
I guess you’re fine on your thief, since you know it already, but playing a new class, without any expirience from PvE how it works, earns you nothing mutch, and toom-farming is painfully slow.

Tipps to make it easier for you:
- read the wiki about engi. the entirety of it.
I did it, many people here did it as well, I believe.

- test stuff in PvE
Run circles on the maps (doing map-completion in that process doesn’t hurt) and try out the combos you’ve learned about from us, the wiki or other guides. Once they start to feel familiar, and you get confident to pull them off in stress as well, jump into pvp, wreck people, farm tooms and level up.

- never give up
The engineer can be frustrating from time to time, especially if you try out new kit-combos and recognize that the gameplay is so different from your previous builds that you’re back at the beginning again. Getting over exactly these moments is the only thing that splits a pro from a scrub. They keep trying and eventually master all aspects.

and a tip for general leveling:
crafting is the fastest, yet most expensive way to 80 (can be done in 1 day from 1-80)
second best option is eotm blobbing, which nullifies any learning-experience, but is a good way to farm wxp and badges, therefore giving you a headstart into wvw once you’re 80
3rd best option is map-completion and personal story.
it is the natural way to level up anyways, and mobs are perfect training dummies to try out what you’ve read about.

Yes to this. Also, dungeons and champ trains at higher levels. You can also do a dungeon with a lvl 80 toon and switch to the lowby when last boss is about burned down, or ask the ppl in your party to not skip the cinematic at the end…GOt a guildy who swears by that method. But in all honesty, the above poster’s #3 option is the way to level if you want to really learn the class, especially if you’re new to the game. I myself go EOTM during peak times with food/util buffs and any type of xp buff. Then during non peak times I do personal story/champs/events and such. I wouldn’t worry about gear but every 10-15 levels, especially going from major to superior on sigils/runes and the like. GL HF!

Don’t use grenades while leveling. Stick to bombs. Grenades require a number of traits to be good that you don’t have yet.

They feel weak because they are weak without Grenadier and Steel Packed Powder.