Guild Wars 2

Hey all,

I’m getting tired of running the standard gyro hammer build in PvP (seriously…it’s been two years and this is still where we are at? It’s quite pathetic).

I feel like whenever I spec enough damage, I lose out on too much survivability. And because condition application and CC is so high, it makes it insanely hard to survive against other popular builds.

Any thoughts?

You’ve pretty much summed up the state of engineer at the moment. For conquest pvp there is really nothing else to run that’ll impact the game anywhere near as much. It depends how seriously you’re taking pvp and how far you want to climb the ladder.

kitten it.

I really hate the way Anet has balanced the classes. It’s not okay to be pigeon-holed into ONE build.

I really hope the next set of elite specs don’t add more of the same crap.

We don’t even know that they understand what’s wrong with the class.

But the Hammer build is the offensive build. Are you asking if there are alternative offensive builds?

I mean you don’t have fun singlehandedly dragging 2 or 3 people to their home node and surviving so your team can keep 2 points at all times?

Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great build. It’s great for surviving, bunking and supporting.

But I want something with some murder potential. Understandably, such a build would be weaker to focus fire, but we need some kitten variety.

There is a build, but it’s very much a glass cannon. It’s worthless against any necro with half a brain, and it’s more fragile (and less mobile) than D/P thieves.

https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Engineer_-_Flamethrower_Condi

You can do some really nasty condi damage before enemies even realize what’s going on. If you swap out elixir S with purge gyro and use sneak gyro as your elite skill, you can survive a fair bit of time. But that’s only if you’re really lucky — hammer engis and necros will ruin your day, and other condi builds can be really dangerous. D/P thieves will wreck your day if they sneak up on you.

Engineer is in a really tough spot right now. Scrapper hammer (which is really just a power tank) is the only viable build for most PvP combat. Rifle and pistol need some upgrades in PvP to make them more viable.

i am playing in gold with 2 different build , one condition pistol pistol and other with bomb and rifle and elixirs. it is a different way of play but after the nerf to sigil i can say it is viable . The great advantage of scrapper is that in 1 vs 1 you can hold the point.. with other builds, even if you win the fight usually you are not decapped. I find for example fire turret really good in condition builds … The real problem is that if you want to last a bit you need alchemy and invention so it is hard for example to take toolkit with i love really much

Eastcorn.5901:

But I want something with some murder potential.

Then I suggest you play WvW, rather than sPvP, if you’re looking to strictly get kills. In sPvP, a scrapper is best at disrupting the enemy, because the name of the game is point capture and objectives, not who gets the most kills (aka team death match). The class I can kill with the most is the Reaper, but even if you get 15 kills, it means diddly squat if your team can’t hold points.

So you have to ask yourself the question- what is more fun: killing as many enemies as possible, or winning the game?

Is the role of damage-dealer in team-fights not a valid role? It is for other PvP games.

What is the point in having so many options to build a character if you can only build them to take one role?

This “one role for each class” type of thinking is what led to stagnation for PvP. Building an entire team based around high-risk damage (with mobility-support builds to match) should just as well be a viable strategy as building a team around durability and defensive posture.

GW2 has too much of the latter strategy. The abundance of boon application and passive durability rewards it generously. I only hope the next set of elite specs promotes more offensive play.

Eastcorn.5901:

GW2 has too much of the latter strategy. The abundance of boon application and passive durability rewards it generously. I only hope the next set of elite specs promotes more offensive play.

Oh hun, were you around when engineer turrets were king? Back then I would’ve definitely agreed with you. Now… not so much.

We actually see a variety of builds right now. Some are high-risk, high-reward (IE ele, thief), others are durable and tough (engineer). The problem is that there’s very little diversity in these builds right now. When I say thief, I automatically assume D/P, because that’s the standard. Same for engineer and the hammer. We could really use more diversity.

Engi turrets were a completely different beast. The problem there was that turrets could not be critically struck or hit by conditions. Overall access to strong AoE skills and sustain was lower, so as an engineer you could pick the tankiest amulet (back then Anet’s PvP philosophy did not prohibit amulets such as Cleric’s, Soldier’s or Sentinel’s) and rely on Rifle CC to lock up enemies. Offensive output and defensive sustain was lower amongst all classes, which didn’t help. The problem was less to do with boon application, though general tankiness was a problem in the sense that those super defensive amulets existed.

Turret engineer wasn’t king, however. It was fairly easily countered by coordination. A turret engineer on one point meant that he could not easily move to another (since turret cooldowns were much higher at the time), making the old “just hold two points” strategy very effective. A turret engineer on one point meant it was 5v4 on the others. If they had 2 turret engineers, you could steam-roll the one that had fewer supporting allies; turret engineer could only hold his own 1v3 against particularly unskilled opponents. Turret engineer also only had the ability to condi-cleanse through healing turret.

Source: me. I played PvP a lot around that time and dominated against turret engineers by not playing to their advantage.

But, I will say that the fact turret engineer COULD exist in that state for as long as it did was stupidity. It was NOT fun to fight against, and that level of area denial shouldn’t be in the game. Not as bad as the Bunker Meta, at least.

Try metabattle flamethrower condi. Take scrapper variant. Always open your combat from stealth. This build is extremely strong against revs, solo necros (stealth – inci ammo → blow torch → FT 3 → elixir s to prevent condis send back) and others can feel pain too but there is problem… You can’t spam condi cleanse , heals, invuln like others. For example tempest smashing 6-10 skills and you apply zero condi dmg… And tempest can be dumb for sure… I was trying using combos (more stealth-play from smoke field) but you don’t have enough time to manage this. In unranked you can enjoy great games but in ranked you should take power hammer scrappy.

Eastcorn.5901:

Is the role of damage-dealer in team-fights not a valid role? It is for other PvP games.

In a competitive sense, no. Other classes are more efficient at dealing damage than the engineer, thus they are selected first over the engineer.

What is the point in having so many options to build a character if you can only build them to take one role?

That is a good question and one we can speculate about but can only be answered by Anet devs.

This “one role for each class” type of thinking is what led to stagnation for PvP. Building an entire team based around high-risk damage (with mobility-support builds to match) should just as well be a viable strategy as building a team around durability and defensive posture.

I agree. This game was built on “Play how you want”. Theoretically this is true, but practically not.

Example- a thief can theoretically not use a shortbow in sPvP or WvW. But practically they lose almost all of their mobility and will die because they do not have that weapon. A similar example can be made with the engineer and its kits or the elixir traitline.

I only hope the next set of elite specs promotes more offensive play.

That’s what HoT did funnily enough. I honestly wouldn’t worry too much about future metas though, just worry about current ones. Metas will always change and evolve in spite of what the devs give us.

True that.

I guess I can have still fun being a bunker butt. I know Anet has been slowly removing passivity, but the amounts of it still in the game is still annoying.

Balance and build diversity are equally important for a game like GW2, otherwise why even bother with builds; might as well be like Overwatch where you select your class and are stuck with your pre-defined kit.

Every class should have one ‘offense’ role, and one ‘defense/support’ role, at least. Now that I look at the patch notes, I think it is kind of happening.

Revenant as a DPS is good, so Anet buffed their support/bunker options.
Reaper is good as a condition/boonrip DPS, so Anet buffed their bruiser ability.

Neither change will make the latter playstyles as viable as the former, but it looks like things are trending in the right direction.

But it is when we see notes with nothing for the engineer, or when we see things like “might stacks on phantasms” for mesmer (seriously wtf…), that I question if the Devs understand where they are going. I guess patience is required, but it’s hard to be patient when your primary builds haven’t changed in well over a year.