Guild Wars 2

Hi all, I’ve read through the forum and I’m a bit confused about building a decent engineer toon using the rifle as the mail weapon.

I am at level 8 and at this point I noticed:

- potions are the easiest to use, however they don’t fit with the thematic of iron legion charr (I’d be more inclined towards gadgets, etc)

- turrets are ok-ish (too fragile), but I have a minion-master necro which is like mobile turret build => I don’t want to use turrets.

- grenades kit is ok => a little underpowered and in pve the range benefit is null because I’m always in melee range. I wonder if mines would be more appropriate for aoe damage.

- the medic kit if very very confusing and hard to use when on the run/kiting (but I like it for the F1 heal and the speed buff outside combat).

1. So, is it viable to have a build based on rifle (main damage source), spec’ed in precision for additional crit daamge?
2. What would be the utilities for a rifle build? Remember, I’d rather not use potions or turrets.
3. How is the survivability of such a class? And how can I improve it (what should I buff between toughness, vit, healing power?)

Thank you in advance for all the suggestions.

- med kit: when running, if you put down something, you use it immediatley. You run through it and use it, no need to stop or anything. Just keep going and put them down and you’ll use all.

- grenades: best aoe BUT bit weak without the grandmaster grenadier trait.
Still wort it though for questing and such.
Grenades work in melee range, a LOT better than mines.
You can chill AND blind the opponents in melee, which will make them hit a lot less hard.
Grenades in melee is like using bomb kit, just with more button presses

- have you tried bombs yet? Pretty easy to use in melee range with several mobs on you.

- rifle: GREAT control weapon, lots of damage up close.
No other advice than : use it, get used to it.
Try out pistol and shield too, or 2 pistols… but give each version enough time to learn.
Rifle has the best control with net shot on such a low cooldown, and the jump can be used to escape as well.

- try tool kit with the rifle.
You suddenly are playing a whole new game.
Not sure when it becomes available though.
Tool kit gives you a lot of defensive options too, so great for survivability.

- aside the toolkit, I personally love the flamethrower for control while questing.

- if you use rifle, tool kit or flamethrower maybe, bombs or even grenades to some extend: get mostly power as offensive stat. Precision after that. Get condition as it comes,don’t go looking for it (it’s more a thing for pistols).

- healing power isn’t great, toughness and vitality are what you need for defensive stats.

- Gadgets? They are for fun.
Try out the mines, the rocket boots (but that’s a bit like rifle #4 but with an extra stunbreaker), the slick shoes for a great escape… etc.
No rules, just find what you think is the most fun.

1) I personally don’t recommend the rifle until you have some decent +power gear.
Normally it’s a good choice to pick the static discharge trait in tools.

2)Utilities that compliment static discharge are:
rifle turret (never deploy for longer than the toolbelt cd)
toolkit
goggles
personal battering ram

Utilities that work great with the rifle regardless of static discharge:
flamethrower
elixir gun (leap forward with jump shot and leap back with acid bomb)
bomb kit
rocket boots (for the toolbelt)
…

3)The survivability of the engineer comes from blocking, dodging, kiting and blinding.
Blocks can be found on the toolkit & shield, dodging becomes easier because of easy vigor acces and other endurance regeneration in tools; kiting is done with immobilizes and knocbacks and blinding can be found in traits, pistol, grenades and smoke fields.

The engineer also has very decent survivability traits: protection, invisibility, heal cd reset, …

The rifle isn’t bad but it’s basically a single target weapon and a lot of PVE you will have groups or multiples on you. Nothing wrong with using the rifle to start a fight and when at higher levels with better traits and gear the rifle does pretty decent against single enemies. For leveling I would suggest trying bombs for a while. Just run around in circles and let the things chasing you get hit by the bombs. I personally like the flamethrower although there are some engis that don’t care for it. Grenades are ok but they are an acquired taste and without a lot of trait points in explosives I just don’t care for them much.

Overall, the rifle is just fine for solo encounters or you can use the CC abilities to keep the adds off of you while you burn things down one at a time but that requires changing targets during fights often. The rifle is good but when you have more than 2 things on you I’d opt for a kit.

@Kimbald & Clip: I can’t wait to get my hands on the flamethrower then.
Normally, even in PvE I like to have a good range of utilities such as stun break, an escape skill and an additional regen/heal/condition removal.

Rifle is great for single target so I’d benefit from something AoE. I understand grenades are very popular, but I have the same playstyle on my staff necro (with 4 marks and minion bombs) so I’m looking for something different. I tried the mines and they complement the rifle nicely with the knockback. Plus they don’t change my weapon skills so I can still use my rifle while kiting (btw, kiting with grenades is a lot harder since I play on a laptop).

So from what you guys are telling me I’m going to try out the:
goggles – stun break
rocket boots or slick shoes – escape skill
flamethrower – extra aoe ??

Neat trick if you use the flamethrower:

1. you can swap to any kit when stunned, always.

2. you can use Flamethrower #5 the blind, when stunned.

So if no stunbreaker: swap to flamethrower and hit #5: at least they will miss their next attack even if they stunned you.

If you use runes that work on healing skill (like chill, aoe burn, aoe regen, etc…):
use med kit when stunned. It’s a kit as well… so can be used when stunned and it procs it effect
Sigils on weapon swap: work as well on kit swaps now… and you’re in combat after all.

Once you get kit refinement this becomes real fun.
Stunned?
Med kit for some effect, elixir gun for regen field, tool kit for crippling nails, grenades, a bomb, an aoe burn and than flamethrower #5 blind…
Heck, stuns never last long enough to do it all

@Mike.T – thanks for the suggestion but I’d rather not use grenades (ground targeted skills are extra work for me). Spamming them is a nightmare.

@Kimbald – these are some great tips. I will look for medic kit synergies with runes/sigils. I think I will test both the flamethrower and the ‘throw mine’ combos.

I looked over the trait lines and I think I will test a pure rifle build (with high crit. chance) combined with 3 gadgets and maybe a charr racial elite.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcIQFAUl0pqd37ylFq9IyoHc2EuZhUYf3HIF5lfB;T4AA2yrEQJtS9lyLqiMFJKyWkrIZRjSORA (copy-paste link)

The build looks something like this: 0/20/20/0/30; around 3000 attack & 52% crit chance and ~2500 armor with ~ 24000 HP. I’m not sure if the build editor calculates these things correctly. Condition removal is done on critical hit during fights, and with the med kit during retreat.

The build might suck, but I’m willing to give it a try. The motivation is to use the rifle as the main weapon since only engie and warriors can use it (and I’m not making a warrior any time soon).

I would say try using net turret too when you use your rifle. Net Shot from rifle, plus net turrets utility, plus the turret itself means you can be pretty safe from melee mobs when leveling up.

Maybe having the tool kit can help you kill faster too. Something along the lines of magnet pull —> pry bar —> blunderbuss —> jump shot —>overcharged shot.

Plus the tool kit fits with the iron legion charr theme

@Penguin. – I don’t have much experience with engineer, but just looking at wiki, I think some specialized engie skills are pretty bad unless you trait them heavily. I tried using a turret at low level but it died pretty fast almost every time I used it. (except when I was part of a pve zerg and I wasn’t targetted). I’ll give it a try though, as I still have plenty of skills to unlock.

As a comparison, a necro minion master is also fairly week without a full trait on minions. Then, if used in large quantities they become great.

The tool kit might be a good melee swap weapon, but again, I won’t have traits for it because they’re all invested in gadgets and rifle. However, the flamthrower is traited in the line with the rifle and might be my melee alternative.

Thanks for the suggestions

Silver Chopper.4506:

@Mike.T – thanks for the suggestion but I’d rather not use grenades (ground targeted skills are extra work for me). Spamming them is a nightmare.

To clarify I didn’t suggest grenades. I suggested for PVE bombs and flamethrower. I said I didn’t care for grenades all that much.

I like the build posted above especially the 30 in the bottom line and the medkit as your heal. Smart move.

For the most part kits don’t benefit in a HUGE way from our traits. You will notice some scaling but it’s nothing too amazing IMO.

Silver Chopper.4506:

@Penguin. – I don’t have much experience with engineer, but just looking at wiki, I think some specialized engie skills are pretty bad unless you trait them heavily. I tried using a turret at low level but it died pretty fast almost every time I used it. (except when I was part of a pve zerg and I wasn’t targetted). I’ll give it a try though, as I still have plenty of skills to unlock.

As a comparison, a necro minion master is also fairly week without a full trait on minions. Then, if used in large quantities they become great.

The tool kit might be a good melee swap weapon, but again, I won’t have traits for it because they’re all invested in gadgets and rifle. However, the flamthrower is traited in the line with the rifle and might be my melee alternative.

Thanks for the suggestions

I don’t think you have to trait to use the net turret effectively, as it is utility and not a damage skill. Plus its more for the tool belt skill you want it, which imo synergizes well with rifles net. And it also has a 30 second cd, one of the lowest for turrets which means you can pick it up if you had placed it down and you’ll be able to use it again soon.

And for the toolkit…there isn’t a huge impact that traits do for it. A trait to lower cd, one to cause a small cripple..nothing big you would miss out on.

Good points. The turret works well for up to three targets. However, I found that facing more than 4 targets I need to pull out some more serious melee-range aoe. I will consider bombs and the flamethrower.

Making good use of your toolbelt skills is important.

Grenades for example as noted, are pretty weak atm, until you get the 30 point trait at level 60. that said however, the grenade toolbelt skill, grenade barrage is INCREDIBLY powerful. the highest single damage skill we have. Especially when leveling, where you are killing a pack of npcs every 15s or so. you can basically then use barrage to nearly 1 shot ever other pack.

Toolkits Throw wrench is very good for this as well. you might run with that, just for throw wrench and never actually swap to the kit itself.

Rocket boots.
Rifle turret also both have really good toolbelt skills.

(Flamethower is pretty bad by itself, but the fact its toolbelt skill is SO bad, pretty much seals its fate. )

Casia.4281:

Making good use of your toolbelt skills is important.

Grenades for example as noted, are pretty weak atm, until you get the 30 point trait at level 60. that said however, the grenade toolbelt skill, grenade barrage is INCREDIBLY powerful. the highest single damage skill we have. Especially when leveling, where you are killing a pack of npcs every 15s or so. you can basically then use barrage to nearly 1 shot ever other pack.

Toolkits Throw wrench is very good for this as well. you might run with that, just for throw wrench and never actually swap to the kit itself.

Rocket boots.
Rifle turret also both have really good toolbelt skills.

(Flamethower is pretty bad by itself, but the fact its toolbelt skill is SO bad, pretty much seals its fate. )

The flamethrower…bad? It’s tb skilll….‘SO bad’?

No, and no. The flamethrower does decent damage, but where it shines is once again control. The knockback and aoe blind are fantastic skills, as is the addition of burning to your autos. With a cond damage build, the toolbelt skill for flamethrower is worth over 10k damage by itself. The aoe knockback/blind will save you from many sticky situations

On a parenthesis to what’s being discussed here, I just want to point out that the engineer is the most difficult class I had to level up so far. (granted, I haven’t tried ele or mesmer).

It is a lot of fun, I’ll give it that, but just compared to other classes I had been struggling in a number of situations (solo vs. some veterans or multiple mob respawns).
However, this is my personal opinion and I’m not the class balance expert.

Atlanis.6597:

Casia.4281:

Making good use of your toolbelt skills is important.

Grenades for example as noted, are pretty weak atm, until you get the 30 point trait at level 60. that said however, the grenade toolbelt skill, grenade barrage is INCREDIBLY powerful. the highest single damage skill we have. Especially when leveling, where you are killing a pack of npcs every 15s or so. you can basically then use barrage to nearly 1 shot ever other pack.

Toolkits Throw wrench is very good for this as well. you might run with that, just for throw wrench and never actually swap to the kit itself.

Rocket boots.
Rifle turret also both have really good toolbelt skills.

(Flamethower is pretty bad by itself, but the fact its toolbelt skill is SO bad, pretty much seals its fate. )

The flamethrower…bad? It’s tb skilll….‘SO bad’?

No, and no. The flamethrower does decent damage, but where it shines is once again control. The knockback and aoe blind are fantastic skills, as is the addition of burning to your autos. With a cond damage build, the toolbelt skill for flamethrower is worth over 10k damage by itself. The aoe knockback/blind will save you from many sticky situations

But thats not suppose to be the point. Its a weaponkit, it should pull its weigth as a weapon.
Its knockback is quite nice, and thats why most people use it. Not for its damage, which is bugged and pitiful. The blind is not very good considering its very lengthy cooldown.

I think Arenanet doesnt know what to do anymore. If a kit is adequate as a weapon, then why use utility skills? If they arent, then it becomes a rather bland profession with just 2 weapons and a bunch of contrived mechanics where you get several utility skills in 1 slot, but they are inferior.

As for the tb skill. Its not exactly amazing. From the top of my head, what are we looking at here? 1min cd for 6seconds of burning? Assuming the attacks actually hit, and assuming it wasnt in a terribly bugged state where it consumes charges without giving the burning. Its hardly good, even if it worked perfectly.

I am as serious as a person can possibly be.

If you want to play a ranged class with a rifle, roll a warrior. You will save yourself a lot of time and gold.

Yes, I know it sounds odd, but warriors are great with the rifle. I have had kill shots crit for 16k…roll an asura, hide in the middle of a group in wvwvw and 1 shot shatter mesmers or engineers or thieves if your kill shot goes off.

I don’t have time to read through this thread, but I’ll give you this build I literally just leveled to 80 with and had a blast doing it.

http://www.gw2build.com/builds/simulator.php#1.4.8.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.80.97.99.93.102.3.2.6.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.271.0.0.287.291.0.0.0.0.10.20

I ran glass cannon for a while, but for leveling I prefer switching to Knights gear when it’s available. I only put in the necessary traits, from there you can put 10 more in tools for toolkit upgrade, and put some points in firearms for rifle bonuses.

Make deliberate use of Toolkit 2 (box of nails) to kite and you can get mobs in small concentrated groups to wreck with Static Discharge, your toolbelt skills, and rifle 3+5. With rifle 4, throw mine and magnet you have lots of positioning control.

It’s not the most effective build out there, but it works and it’s tons of fun.

Silver Chopper.4506:

On a parenthesis to what’s being discussed here, I just want to point out that the engineer is the most difficult class I had to level up so far. (granted, I haven’t tried ele or mesmer).

It is a lot of fun, I’ll give it that, but just compared to other classes I had been struggling in a number of situations (solo vs. some veterans or multiple mob respawns).
However, this is my personal opinion and I’m not the class balance expert.

Also going to add, if you want easy leveling, you’re not going to beat grenades+tool kit for the 2 aoe slows and constant aoe grenade damage. I can kite 10+ mobs in circles and kill them in seconds with grenades.

For veterans, all you need is net turret and tool kit, plus whatever else you want (usually grenades). You can keep them away from you 100% of the time with proper management of cripples/snares. I solo’d a champion troll and shark yesterday for kittens and giggles, never getting touched by the troll. (It took ~20 minutes, but it was worth it.)

Terrahero.9358:

Atlanis.6597:

Casia.4281:

Making good use of your toolbelt skills is important.

Grenades for example as noted, are pretty weak atm, until you get the 30 point trait at level 60. that said however, the grenade toolbelt skill, grenade barrage is INCREDIBLY powerful. the highest single damage skill we have. Especially when leveling, where you are killing a pack of npcs every 15s or so. you can basically then use barrage to nearly 1 shot ever other pack.

Toolkits Throw wrench is very good for this as well. you might run with that, just for throw wrench and never actually swap to the kit itself.

Rocket boots.
Rifle turret also both have really good toolbelt skills.

(Flamethower is pretty bad by itself, but the fact its toolbelt skill is SO bad, pretty much seals its fate. )

The flamethrower…bad? It’s tb skilll….‘SO bad’?

No, and no. The flamethrower does decent damage, but where it shines is once again control. The knockback and aoe blind are fantastic skills, as is the addition of burning to your autos. With a cond damage build, the toolbelt skill for flamethrower is worth over 10k damage by itself. The aoe knockback/blind will save you from many sticky situations

But thats not suppose to be the point. Its a weaponkit, it should pull its weigth as a weapon.
Its knockback is quite nice, and thats why most people use it. Not for its damage, which is bugged and pitiful. The blind is not very good considering its very lengthy cooldown.

I think Arenanet doesnt know what to do anymore. If a kit is adequate as a weapon, then why use utility skills? If they arent, then it becomes a rather bland profession with just 2 weapons and a bunch of contrived mechanics where you get several utility skills in 1 slot, but they are inferior.

As for the tb skill. Its not exactly amazing. From the top of my head, what are we looking at here? 1min cd for 6seconds of burning? Assuming the attacks actually hit, and assuming it wasnt in a terribly bugged state where it consumes charges without giving the burning. Its hardly good, even if it worked perfectly.

If you read my other posts, I’ve discussed how the weapon kits don’t live up to real weapons. They won’t ever live up to that. That said, they’re extremely powerful as utility skills. The toolbelt skill for ft only consumes the incorrect number of charges if you use a multi-shot ability a la pistol 2 or ft 1. Using rifle, pistol or eg 1 works fine.

The flamethrower isn’t bad. It’s got a lot of utility. It’s got a fire field, a good (if buggy and hard to land) nuke, good aoe, aoe knockback and blind. No, it doesn’t live up to some weapons. However, it outclasses most utility skills from other professions. It is exactly that: a utility skill. Nothing more.

Kimbald.2697:

- Gadgets? They are for fun.
Try out the mines, the rocket boots (but that’s a bit like rifle #4 but with an extra stunbreaker), the slick shoes for a great escape… etc.

As a Charr, whatever you do don’t waste your time with the Rocket Boots, use the racial Hidden Pistol instead. Not only does Hidden Pistol do almost the same thing as Rocket Boots but without CC-ing yourself, the toolbelt skill is far and away better.

People defending flamethower. just lol.

@binidj, Phuriocity – thanks for the tips. I meant to ask about ‘Hidden pistol’. Too bad it is not a stun breaker. Even in PvE that becomes very useful when you get knocked down. I’ll try the goggles and the hidden pistol (and drop the throw mine for now because I don’t like the toolbelt skill it has). The third utility will be either a toolkit or bombkit.
Again, thanks all for the suggestions.

@Raideen – that is a sad state of affairs. The reason I made an engineer was for the use of rifles cause they have cool skins.