Guild Wars 2

Hello fellow engineers!

I thought of a new build last night and I would like to hear your thoughts on it
First of, the link:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQJAqelIqyU37SrF17IxIFdm0geA46eXRKyfjB-TsAg0CnIyRFkLITOSds6My4YxsAA

It’s a 0-30-0-20-20 berserker build.
Flamethrower mixed with static discharge!!
Thats why the name is FIRESTORM

Let’s first get some facts out that support this build:

The flamethrower is a berserker weapon, not a condition weapon.
Burn has horrible scaling off condition damage and stacks in duration but has a strong base damage people without condition damage can use. Don’t get me wrong here, the burn in this build is just added damage as a condition on itself.
The main purpose of burn in this build is to keep up the prerequisite of the +10% dmg in flamejet.
This build stacks burn on the target in numerous ways to keep the target burning 100% of the fight.
We do this through:

- Final tick on Flamejet
- Incendiary ammo toolbelt skill of flamethrower
- Rocket Kick
- Napalm
- Surprise shot through fire field (100% projectile finisher)

Your job is to stay in flamethrower as much as possible to benefit from juggernaut and the high frequency auto attack with sigil of strength. The lower cooldown on the spells making Flame Blast a 4,75second cooldown adds to your pressure.

20 points in Tools add to your critical damage potential and lower the toolbelt cooldowns into being able to be pretty much spammed while the 30 points in firefarms and 20 in alchemy add the staple flamethrower traits (Fireforged Trigger, Juggernaut, Deadly Mixture).

With static discharge in Tools, low cooldown toolbelt skills turn into bouncing nukes which are very nice in a berserker build. This is where rifle turret and rocket boot comes into play.

With the flamethrower being a short to medium range weapon, rocket boot is a viable option to use as a 16 second cooldown static discharge dispenser while also functioning as an escape button/stunbreaker when things get too hot for the short range and applying serious ammounts of burn for flamejet’s 10% prerequisite.

Surprise Shot is an 8 second cooldown projectile finisher static discharge long range shot. Shooting this through napalm will add burn on the target while nuking it hard because of static discharge and berserker scaling. Deploying and detonating the turret inside your water field for aoe heal or inside napalm for aoe might adds to its uses.

Im not sure on the runes yet.
Currently running with 2 hoelbrak 2 fire and 2 strength fo +60% might duration but Ruby Orbs might be viable (or even better) as well.

What do you guys think of this build?

ps. Healing turret can be exchanged for Medkit to be more mobile in solo play and to benefit from the 15 tools trait resetting your main heal in clutch moments if you prefer. Personally I prefer blowing up a rifle turret in the waterfield of healing turret (or blow them both up for a double aoe heal).

that is pretty much the “crit dmg” FT spec. looks like fun to play!

if you take medkit, i would swap out speedy kits for speedy gadgets, personally.

Oh yeah it’s loads of fun to play.
About speedy kits, it’s there for mobility between fights AND to keep having acces to vigor in case you have to dodge a lot thanks to invigorating speed in alchemy

Sigil of Battle > Sigil of strength – remember the 2 seconds cooldown on strength makes this sigil giving u 4-5 additional Might stacks while Battle gives u 6-9.

Battle demands me to keep juggling the kit which is something this build tries to avoid doing though.

Swap out and in. Perfectly timed with casting heal turret for example u even will not lose any time. Or u like to avoid beeing more powerful?

I run a similar build, i have one question have you found a way to deal with retaliation, as it seems to kill these builds in a fraction of time..

Hey there. I spent over 50% of my time trying to make the FT Work. I spent money on various sets and runes. Although I reached 5000 damage with a full berserk er build + might stacking I finally understood that the damage output isn’t the highest of all kits. In fact is mediocre. Nakooda here helped a lot in understanding why the Grenades are greater. Although I have always hated the way they aim, I have to admit they are the supreme Kit (condition damage or not). But this doesn’t mean the Flamethrower can’t be very strong. Especially mixed with a static discharge should wreak havoc! I will take your build spet by step. Please put these in practice and tell me your feedback.

1) Choose rifle over Pistol
The Engineer pistol has very low direct damage and it is a condition applier weapon. The rifle is a direct output and works best with a zerker set. It also offers control options such as stun and knock back. Hell you can even “rocket jump” toward enemies or retreat from them. So combine it with the flamethrower abilities and versatility will never end.

[Sigils]
There are two I recommend. Either pick sigil of superior fire, or sigil of superior air. The first one releases a flame blast every 6 seconds, just like the #2 FT skill. This means you will constantly explode enemies. The Sigil of air is a higher damage to a single foe. Still i recommend fire in PVE/Dungeon, air is usually in PVP. Your call.

Runes
Why struggle to stack might if you don’t use Alchemy / HGH and Elixirs. You don’t want to worry about a few stacks of might, you want to be certain on your damage. Ofcourse you will choose Ruby Orbs over anything else.

Traits
It’s almost perfect for the build you described. However prepare to be shocked. You may want to try and give up “Juggernaut”. For a few might stacks and 200 toughness you could maybe choose something else that’s much more suitable for you. Juggernaut used to give stability but it got nerfd. So you wanted endurance regen? Here it is the alternative:

1) Add Tools XII: Adrenal implant (50% faster endurance regen). This als gives +10% tool belt skill recharge. Is it logical for a SD build?
Now you don’t need “invigorating speed” anymore. Choose something else from Alchemy. Maybe protection injection? It’s up to you.

Awaiting your feedback.

About the rune choises. How to compare between say Ruby Orbs an might duration runes. It works out that Might, boon, condition duration x% increases the average stack sizes by the same x%.
So you want to go to simple combat (in the mists for example) and check without might runes or boon duration traits, how many might stacks you get with juggernaught and say Battle.
Which should be 5+6 with good swapping (you can get that to something like 5+7.5 with perfect optimisation, but lets be honest, it is going to be closer to 5+5 in actual game play) (btw got the same 11 stacks average with Strength sigil (50% crit, constant aoe), with zero hassle, so I won’t blame anyone going for it with FT)

You can get 3x 25 power + 3x 20% Might duration (with the base of 11 stacks).
That is average gain of 6.6 stacks from runes. Averaging total of 19.8 stacks.
( Go test in mists, berserker amulet, sigil of strength, and trait setup posted above, aoe dummies -> 19/20 stacks swapping)
- 306 Power and 231 Condition damage from runes

Then Ruby Orbs is 120 Power, 84 Precision, 12% crit damage. What this is depends on your base stats ofc but using sPvP berserker setup and adding some hypothetical food and extra stats. I’m getting it to be equal of about 290 Power.

So might duration runes seems to win out with a small margin for error here.
I’ve always had a rule that if you go above 10stacks unduration boosted solo, then concider % runes. Add some fire+shield/turret blasts in there and it’s definetly worth it in a group, aslong as u remember there is no 26. Drop the sigil for fire in that case.

If you’re going to be maining FT, Juggernaut is a must. No question. 200 free toughness just for being in the kit is huge, especially at the mid-range FT requires. Also, the might from Jugg, in synergy with any +boon duration (20% from his 20 Alchemy), stacks pretty high. 1 trait for ~7 stacks of might & 200 toughness. That’s like another 2 pieces of gear. Add to that 2 Sup Runes of Altruism and you’ve got an easy way to stack about 10 might with almost no effort.

JubeiTM.5763:

Hey there. I spent over 50% of my time trying to make the FT Work. I spent money on various sets and runes. Although I reached 5000 damage with a full berserk er build + might stacking I finally understood that the damage output isn’t the highest of all kits. In fact is mediocre. Nakooda here helped a lot in understanding why the Grenades are greater. Although I have always hated the way they aim, I have to admit they are the supreme Kit (condition damage or not). But this doesn’t mean the Flamethrower can’t be very strong. Especially mixed with a static discharge should wreak havoc! I will take your build spet by step. Please put these in practice and tell me your feedback.

1) Choose rifle over Pistol
The Engineer pistol has very low direct damage and it is a condition applier weapon. The rifle is a direct output and works best with a zerker set. It also offers control options such as stun and knock back. Hell you can even “rocket jump” toward enemies or retreat from them. So combine it with the flamethrower abilities and versatility will never end.

[Sigils]
There are two I recommend. Either pick sigil of superior fire, or sigil of superior air. The first one releases a flame blast every 6 seconds, just like the #2 FT skill. This means you will constantly explode enemies. The Sigil of air is a higher damage to a single foe. Still i recommend fire in PVE/Dungeon, air is usually in PVP. Your call.

Runes
Why struggle to stack might if you don’t use Alchemy / HGH and Elixirs. You don’t want to worry about a few stacks of might, you want to be certain on your damage. Ofcourse you will choose Ruby Orbs over anything else.

Traits
It’s almost perfect for the build you described. However prepare to be shocked. You may want to try and give up “Juggernaut”. For a few might stacks and 200 toughness you could maybe choose something else that’s much more suitable for you. Juggernaut used to give stability but it got nerfd. So you wanted endurance regen? Here it is the alternative:

1) Add Tools XII: Adrenal implant (50% faster endurance regen). This als gives +10% tool belt skill recharge. Is it logical for a SD build?
Now you don’t need “invigorating speed” anymore. Choose something else from Alchemy. Maybe protection injection? It’s up to you.

Awaiting your feedback.

Adrenal Implant gives 50% Endurance Regeneration.

Vigor gives 100% Endurance Regeneration.

Do you really think this trait is worth the point investment? If you’re going to go into Tools, put 25 in for Enduring Damage (10% damage increase when Endurance is full). Don’t go the full 30.

I’ll also have to disagree about Juggernaut. 200 Toughness is pretty significant, and 5+ stacks of Might is 175 Power. If you have points in Alchemy which adds to your Boon Duration, it’s 7 stacks for 245. It’s like a free stack of Bloodlust just sitting in your Flamethrower for 15 seconds. If you’re going to stay in it anyway, why not take this?

Finally: In choosing the Rifle versus the Pistol, you have to be mindful that by choosing the Pistol you have two sigils to work with versus one. I don’t think the decision is anywhere near as clear-cut as you suggest. There are many advantages to running with the Pistol, regardless of whether or not you use Power or Condition Damage in your gear.

Phineas Poe.3018:

Finally: In choosing the Rifle versus the Pistol, you have to be mindful that by choosing the Pistol you have two sigils to work with versus one. I don’t think the decision is anywhere near as clear-cut as you suggest. There are many advantages to running with the Pistol, regardless of whether or not you use Power or Condition Damage in your gear.

Hence my current dilemma. Do I keep using the P/S that I’ve always used or switch to rifle? Sigils, control, redundancy, finishers, conditions…they all play a part.

If you like superior damage and control, pick rifle.

If you’re going to just stick in one kit like a braindead vegetable, go pistol/shield. At least then you can swap to your main weapon for some defensive ‘oh crap’ buttons. If they gave us another mainhand weapon, I might not advocate rifle so hard, but until pistol is tweaked for the sake of making the mainhand option decent in PvE, newp. Nope. Nope nope nope nope nope. You’re in berserker gear, so the answer should be quite obvious. Especially since our best sigil options don’t stack (well, you could argue they do, but you can swap out of a stack weapon once it’s maxed out).

Why not take out 10 points in tools and apply it to alchemy XI? swap healing turrets out for Elixir H and using fast acting elixirs. this way you have nice steady roll of 40 second ( not including the might duration from runes) toss elixir H bam 20 secs of might.

Edit
even better getting rid of the rifle turret and replace it with yet ANOTHER elixir

Seras.5702:

Phineas Poe.3018:

Finally: In choosing the Rifle versus the Pistol, you have to be mindful that by choosing the Pistol you have two sigils to work with versus one. I don’t think the decision is anywhere near as clear-cut as you suggest. There are many advantages to running with the Pistol, regardless of whether or not you use Power or Condition Damage in your gear.

Hence my current dilemma. Do I keep using the P/S that I’ve always used or switch to rifle? Sigils, control, redundancy, finishers, conditions…they all play a part.

Don’t take the pistol in a damage build. Pistols are for condition damage builds. Good players won’t advise you otherwise An extra sigil will never make up for the loss of a good control weapon and damage.

Well, maybe you shouldn’t wait for the end of this debate. Take all the opinions as choices. Guild Wars 2 is very complex and each of us speak from his own play style perspective. Go ahead and try it yourself but please come back to share your opinion.

BaronSolace.6831:

Edit
even better getting rid of the rifle turret and replace it with yet ANOTHER elixir

I think you didn’t understand that this thread was about Static Discharge build and NOT the classic HGH + Flamethrower. He needs the ranges toolbelt skills for direct strike at opponents, throwing elixirs are bugged with S.D. Didn’t he say in the first post that he uses the surprise shot as a projectile finisher?

JubeiTM.5763:

BaronSolace.6831:

Edit
even better getting rid of the rifle turret and replace it with yet ANOTHER elixir

I think you didn’t understand that this thread was about Static Discharge build and NOT the classic HGH + Flamethrower. He needs the ranges toolbelt skills for direct strike at opponents, throwing elixirs are bugged with S.D. Didn’t he say in the first post that he uses the surprise shot as a projectile finisher?

Correct, elixirs wouldn’t work in this build because they fail at S.D and they dont projectile burn either.

About the pistol/shield vs rifle:
The rifle is a stronger dps weapon than pistol, granted. BUT. It still does less damage than the traited FT. To top it off, staying outside of FT will lose me juggernaut toughness, juggernaut might stacks and the high frequency sigil proccing.
Then there’s the double sigil benefit as well and the fact the shield gives me defensive options the rifle just doesnt give and i don’t have room for in my utilties either.

PS. Juggernaut is worth 9 stacks of might with these runes, 9!!! Very important trait in this build as u can see

JubeiTM.5763:

An extra sigil will never make up for the loss of a good control weapon and damage.

Oh, but it really does.

The Shield gives you another Blast finisher to apply 3 more stacks of Might to your party. That’s 105 Power to everybody. For 20 seconds. Your Shield can also AoE knockback (versus Overcharged Shot’s conical) and can Stun/Interrupt. From range. Twice.

With Berserker gear, Poison Dart Volley can do 4K+ damage and Poison is a very significant utility condition that should be applied as much as possible regardless of whether you’re geared for Condition Damage or not.

Diminishing regenerative health skills on bosses actually does a lot more than what you’ll get switching to Blunderbuss. But I’m a bad player and give bad advice and play like a brain dead vegetable, apparently.

Phineas Poe.3018:

JubeiTM.5763:

An extra sigil will never make up for the loss of a good control weapon and damage.

Oh, but it really does.

The Shield gives you another Blast finisher to apply 3 more stacks of Might to your party. That’s 105 Power to everybody. For 20 seconds.

With Berserker gear, Poison Dart Volley can do 4K+ damage and Poison is a very significant utility condition that should be applied as much as possible regardless of whether you’re geared for Condition Damage or not.

Diminishing regenerative health skills on bosses actually does a lot more than what you’ll get switching to Blunderbuss. But I’m a bad player and give bad advice and play like a brain dead vegetable.

And there’s that
So many benefits in using P/S and trying to stay inside FT for as long as possible that I start forgetting to mention stuf!! Ty for that

Vyxion.6358:

So many benefits in using P/S and trying to stay inside FT for as long as possible that I start forgetting to mention stuf!! Ty for that

Yeah, that point is crucial.

Use Poison Dart Volley and swap back. Use Static Shield, throwing it, and then swap back. Use Magnetic Shield -> Magnetic Inversion in your Napalm and swap back.

Now the Rifle is not a bad option if you really care that much about the 2 second Immobilization on a 10 second cooldown, but if I really need that much Immobilization I’ll just drop my Supply Crate and be done with it. Net Turret for free while still getting Daze out of Static Shield and the PBAoE knockback out of Magnetic Inversion.

Just don’t drop your Supply Crate in the middle of a Necro Well or else you’re really being a brain dead vegetable. I also can’t really think of that many situations where I go, “Oh man, we died because we didn’t hold him in place.”

Though I guess that’s what you invite Guardians for.

i think that is one of the differences in pvp and pve, as well.

the rifle and net turret as a combo with the FT is, essentially, infinite and unlimited single target control; i always have a net or a knock back or whatever ready when I need it.

but in pve (which I haven’t done much of since I hit 80), i would much rather have a shield than the rifle because I would be surrounding myself with baddies while farming.

(i am not, in any fashion, suggesting that the p/s is useless in pvp with the FT.)

Phineas Poe.3018:

With Berserker gear, Poison Dart Volley can do 4K+ damage and Poison is a very significant utility condition that should be applied as much as possible regardless of whether you’re geared for Condition Damage or not.

Very good information, but you are missing out a few points.

1) The Rifle range is 1000, the Pistol is 900.

2) The poison dart is 4000 damage every 13 seconds (sctual shot+recharge) with only 2 seconds of Poison (Here you go. ). The rifle is 2000 damage every 0.75 Seconds. The Rifle shots pierce. This being said, with a Berserker build a rifle does three times the damage.

3) In PVE/Dungeon hitting a single target with a pistol isn’t worth it. It would maybe with piercing shots but that would change the whole thread idea. The rifle Jump Shot on the other hand has a radius blast and you can quickly evade using Overcharged Shot. It goes brilliant against a group of enemies hitting each of them with 8000 damage.

4) I agree on bosses the poison reduce the health Regen but it can easily be compensated with the rifle’s better damage.

PS: Nobody called you a vegetable. You are a fellow engineer and I thank you for your good statements.

Vyxion.6358:

PS. Juggernaut is worth 9 stacks of might with these runes, 9!!! Very important trait in this build as u can see

So you are suggesting runes of Might Stacking in stead of Ruby Orbs. Ok, but things will change. The static discharge crits incredibly well with a full berserker – over 3000 damage. With lower precision and lower critical damage It won’t be viable.

Might Stacking runes in stead of Ruby Orbs? Well sounds good as 9 stacks of Might is + 315 Power and Condition damage. This way the Pistol is getting the better of it. But if we follow this path we should give up the Tool Kits and go HGH and stack over 20 Might. We just created a totally different build with a different play stile.

JubeiTM.5763:

2) The poison dart is 4000 damage every 13 seconds (sctual shot+recharge) with only 2 seconds of Poison (Here you go. ). The rifle is 2000 damage every 0.75 Seconds. The Rifle shots pierce. This being said, with a Berserker build a rifle does three times the damage.

You do realize its 2s per dart right? At 5 darts that’s 10s of reduced healing, not 2. ~75% uptime is pretty kitten good for both bosses and pvp.

Gaiawolf.8261:

JubeiTM.5763:

2) The poison dart is 4000 damage every 13 seconds (sctual shot+recharge) with only 2 seconds of Poison (Here you go. ). The rifle is 2000 damage every 0.75 Seconds. The Rifle shots pierce. This being said, with a Berserker build a rifle does three times the damage.

You do realize its 2s per dart right? At 5 darts that’s 10s of reduced healing, not 2. ~75% uptime is pretty kitten good for both bosses and pvp.

No I did not know that, I had it wrong.
If this is the case, hitting all 5 darts you constantly keep the enemy on poison. An yes, this makes it viable indeed! Thanks for clearing that out.

JubeiTM.5763:

Gaiawolf.8261:

JubeiTM.5763:

2) The poison dart is 4000 damage every 13 seconds (sctual shot+recharge) with only 2 seconds of Poison (Here you go. ). The rifle is 2000 damage every 0.75 Seconds. The Rifle shots pierce. This being said, with a Berserker build a rifle does three times the damage.

You do realize its 2s per dart right? At 5 darts that’s 10s of reduced healing, not 2. ~75% uptime is pretty kitten good for both bosses and pvp.

No I did not know that, I had it wrong.
If this is the case, hitting all 5 darts you constantly keep the enemy on poison. An yes, this makes it viable indeed! Thanks for clearing that out.

Not to mention that staying in rifle for auto-attack isn’t an option in this build. FT is the kit you want to stay in for toughness & might, so Poison Dart can be swapped to & back out quickly without losing the Juggernaut benefit for long.

Seras.5702:

Not to mention that staying in rifle for auto-attack isn’t an option in this build. FT is the kit you want to stay in for toughness & might, so Poison Dart can be swapped to & back out quickly without losing the Juggernaut benefit for long.

Yeah! Poison the enemy, burn for 10 seconds (of course applying all the FT Skills in a rotation) and repeat.

JubeiTM.5763:

1) The Rifle range is 1000, the Pistol is 900.

Why does this matter?

JubeiTM.5763:

2) The poison dart is 4000 damage every 13 seconds (sctual shot+recharge) with only 2 seconds of Poison (Here you go. ). The rifle is 2000 damage every 0.75 Seconds. The Rifle shots pierce. This being said, with a Berserker build a rifle does three times the damage.

This is the second time in two days I’ve seen someone claim this.

The Rifle does not do 2,000 damage every .75 seconds; that would put it on pace with the Grenade Kit if it did. It doesn’t, and it’s not.

The Bomb Kit is the hardest hitting auto-attack skill Engineers have and it doesn’t even hit non-crit for 2K damage, even with 30 points in Explosives and Tools. In full Berserker gear.

And Poison Dart Volley does 10 seconds of Poison, not 2. It’s 2 seconds per shot.

JubeiTM.5763:

3) In PVE/Dungeon hitting a single target with a pistol isn’t worth it. It would maybe with piercing shots but that would change the whole thread idea. The rifle Jump Shot on the other hand has a radius blast and you can quickly evade using Overcharged Shot. It goes brilliant against a group of enemies hitting each of them with 8000 damage.

Overcharged Shot does not hit for 8000 damage or anywhere near close to it. Where are you getting these numbers? If your Flame Jet isn’t even clearing over 3K damage, your Overcharged Shot shouldn’t be either—the base damage value to Flame Jet is actually much higher than Overcharged Shot’s. Look at it yourself.

More importantly, you’re misunderstanding my argument. I’m not suggesting anyone stand there and auto-attack with the Pistol. You should be swapping to your Rifle/Pistol/Shield momentarily to use whatever skills you need and then swap back to your Flamethrower.

You should almost never be auto attacking with either the Rifle or the Pistol. If you need to fight from range, use the Elixir Gun and spam Tranquilizer Dart. It does more damage than both Hip Shot and Explosive Shot, and additionally applies Weakness to every target you hit with it.

JubeiTM.5763:

4) I agree on bosses the poison reduce the health Regen but it can easily be compensated with the rifle’s better damage.

No. Just no.

Phineas Poe.3018:

You should almost never be auto attacking with either the Rifle or the Pistol. If you need to fight from range, use the Elixir Gun and spam Tranquilizer Dart. It does more damage than both Hip Shot and Explosive Shot, and additionally applies Weakness to every target you hit with it.

I think people discount the value of EG’s autoattack way too often. It is more effective at stacking bleeds than pistol auto, applies weakness as you said, and hits fairly hard considering it’s in a kit designed for support. I love the EG.

Players discount the value of many things.

Even if the rifle shot 50% harder than pistol or FT (which it doesnt, the FT beats the rifle hands down in this build), poison still wins because it lowers the target’s healing capacity by 30%. This can basically be seen as a GROUPWIDE 30% dmg increase. And I think we all know there’s nothing the rifle does to compete against that on a boss. Wanted to get that out first

The EG does have a good auto attack yeah, it’s not part of my build’s standard setup though but when i know the encounter is heavy on retaliate (and nobody to strip or steal it is in the group) U could swap the FT for the EG and switch the juggernaut trait out for something that boosts the EG better. Because let’s face it, FT vs Retaliation is suicide. Mind you, i would then still not be using the rifle.

The DMG numbers posted for rifle are way off, the rifle does NOT do 2k dps. Not like it matters though, this build doesn’t want to stay out of FT for any serious periods of time anyhow because it would lose on might stacks, high frequency crit proccing and toughness.

I find the range on rifle a moot point by the way. Why would i care about the +100 range of rifle against pistol when I already feel safe within 600 range of the FT? Does not compute.

And yeah players discount many things. That’s why I decided to make a build of my own. This one And show the power of the underdog kit flamethrower!

If I were you I would replace a couple of things first in your build :

1) Replace your Pistol/Shield and take a Rifle instead. Like others have said before, those aren’t power weapons and you will suffer a lot against retaliation ennemies and players so you need a good back up weapon in case you can’t use your Flamethrower, you also get a Leap Finisher on a lower cooldown (compared to your blast Finisher) with your Rifle allowing you to jump in your Napalm for a Fireshield, thats extra burning and might each time your are stucked by an attack.

2) Replace Rifle Turret with Net Turret, you basicaly have 0 roots or snares, those are the most powerfull abilities against boss fights and Pvp, if you get ennemies attention you always want a way to keep them at the right distance while you fry them alive with Flamejet.

3) Replace Precise Sight (V) by Sitting Duck (II) with your now improved acces to root skills you will stack vulnerability way faster, longer and efficiently while having acces to powerfull crowdcontrol abilities.

4) Take Med Kit instead of Healing Turret, it has a better synergy with your build because you have a lot of Toolbelt reduction for your Bandage Self, not to mention it will resset CD at 25% of your health (remember inertial Converter?) not to mention you get Drop Stimulant to get acces to Fury boon . Get a Sigil of Battle on your weapon set and you get 3 extra Stacks of Might for 36sec (+80% duration), 6sec of swiftness and 6sec of Vigor while you are dropping bandages and antidotes for yourself wich will take around 5sec time to setup, just enough to resset global CD, equip back your Flamethrower and get some Swiftness and Vigor as an extra.

Follow these steps and you keep a pretty similar build but instead you get :
+ A more flexible secondary weapon
+ More Might Stacking
+ More Vulnerability Stacking
+ A lot more Sustain
+ A lot more Crow Control
- You loose a Single Block and Reflect (both have terrible CD by the way)
- You loose Poison
- You still have almost no condition removal tools

Hoping this will help!

Ambrecombe.4398:

If I were you I would replace a couple of things first in your build :

1) Replace your Pistol/Shield and take a Rifle instead. Like others have said before, those aren’t power weapons and you will suffer a lot against retaliation ennemies and players so you need a good back up weapon in case you can’t use your Flamethrower, you also get a Leap Finisher on a lower cooldown (compared to your blast Finisher) with your Rifle allowing you to jump in your Napalm for a Fireshield, thats extra burning and might each time your are stucked by an attack.

2) Replace Rifle Turret with Net Turret, you basicaly have 0 roots or snares, those are the most powerfull abilities against boss fights and Pvp, if you get ennemies attention you always want a way to keep them at the right distance while you fry them alive with Flamejet.

3) Replace Precise Sight (V) by Sitting Duck (II) with your now improved acces to root skills you will stack vulnerability way faster, longer and efficiently while having acces to powerfull crowdcontrol abilities.

4) Take Med Kit instead of Healing Turret, it has a better synergy with your build because you have a lot of Toolbelt reduction for your Bandage Self, not to mention it will resset CD at 25% of your health (remember inertial Converter?) not to mention you get Drop Stimulant to get acces to Fury boon . Get a Sigil of Battle on your weapon set and you get 3 extra Stacks of Might for 36sec (+80% duration), 6sec of swiftness and 6sec of Vigor while you are dropping bandages and antidotes for yourself wich will take around 5sec time to setup, just enough to resset global CD, equip back your Flamethrower and get some Swiftness and Vigor as an extra.

Follow these steps and you keep a pretty similar build but instead you get :
+ A more flexible secondary weapon
+ More Might Stacking
+ More Vulnerability Stacking
+ A lot more Sustain
+ A lot more Crow Control
- You loose a Single Block and Reflect (both have terrible CD by the way)
- You loose Poison
- You still have almost no condition removal tools

Hoping this will help!

1: Don’t make us repeat the pistol/shield vs rifle argument. Please read earlier arguments on that Also, retaliation enemies in pve are few, we can swap out FT for EG when thats needed but thats only needed when the enemy has retaliation AND your group has no ways of removing that. Doesn’t happen often so we’re not dealing with that in the basic setup.
2: It’s a PVE build, don’t need that much snaring in pve and net turret has a too long cooldown on toolbelt use for S.D.
3: Since we’re not taking rifle or net turret, no.
4: I already mentioned you can take med kit for solo play, but in dungeons the healing turret just simply is a better benefit to the team. (Yes i remember the initial converter, healing turret still better in group play).

to your summing up:
- The rifle is actually less flexible, see above arguments.
- You want to use longer cd toolbelts and stay outside FT for longer periods of time (rifle use and medkit use), no, ur might stacks will be lower.
- You would be able to apply vulnerability in burst quicker but in sustain it would be lower than precise sights during FT.
- Healing turret has stronger heals and better condition removal + it’s AOE. No, your sustain would suffer.
- You would have more snare options sure but not more CC as a whole, knockback on shield4, double daze on shield 5, blind on pistol 3. I guess u forgot about those. And more defense too on P/S! reflect and blocking…
- I Lose a lot more than a single block and reflect, read up earlier comments.
- Poison is pretty big in pve and the burst hits over 4000 so its not just poison application either…
- I Don’t know if u saw the changes on healing turret but its pretty good for condition removal now.

Don’t get me wrong.
I appreciate you putting time in coming up with your post but the changes would not benefit this build. Some of the changes even completely contradict the very idea of this build.

Comparatively how is the DPS relative to a bomb or grenadier build?

@ Vyxion.6358

This was great! Overall this was a very constructive and helpful post as I see it many improved their knowledge on certain things including me.

Do you have a final decision on your runes?

JubeiTM.5763:

@ Vyxion.6358

This was great! Overall this was a very constructive and helpful post as I see it many improved their knowledge on certain things including me.

Do you have a final decision on your runes?

That’s what the forums are for right? xD You’re welcome
About the runes, I think I’m sticking to the might duration runes.

@Disastro: Grenadier Rampager HGH probably still does more dps, but the difference should be small and the playstyle IMO is no fun. But this game has no DPS meter so I can’t tell you the real difference. All I can tell you is that my build packs a LOT of dps and you shouldn’t be worried about the difference.

Ok then you won’t have a high Crit chance nor a high crit damage. Will you keep trying with Tools/Static Discharge or go Alchemy HGH?

I’m on 80% critdmg and 51% critchance, how is that not high? I’m staying with S.D.
Don’t see how you think 5 or so extra might stacks are going to beat what I’m using. Because you would be throwing all the added damage from my S.D. stuff out of the build (and critdmg from the traitline mind you) for a bit of extra might stacks. No way that would work better (and let’s be fair, HGH is dull as it gets, no fun imo).

Vyxion.6358:

I’m on 80% critdmg and 51% critchance, how is that not high? I’m staying with S.D.
Don’t see how you think 5 or so extra might stacks are going to beat what I’m using. Because you would be throwing all the added damage from my S.D. stuff out of the build (and critdmg from the traitline mind you) for a bit of extra might stacks. No way that would work better (and let’s be fair, HGH is dull as it gets, no fun imo).

ahh, fellow levitican, it is good to have you in our ranks.

Phineas Poe.3018:

You should almost never be auto attacking with either the Rifle or the Pistol. If you need to fight from range, use the Elixir Gun and spam Tranquilizer Dart. It does more damage than both Hip Shot and Explosive Shot, and additionally applies Weakness to every target you hit with it.

I would very much like to see your math on this.

According to information about the skill coefficients, the rifle’s Hip Shot is .65 vs. the Tranquilizer Dart’s .4 coefficient in addition to the weapon damage on rifle having a higher average of 1095 vs. 969 for pistol.

Source: http://pvx.gw2buildcraft.com/Damage_Calculations
This is not an official source, but a place where testing has been done to calculate these coefficients.

Now the above source calculates the activation times at .33 for TD and .8 for hip shot, while the “official wiki” puts them both at .75. I am not sure which is correct without testing in the mists, but that would mean that on a berserker build, the Direct Damage of the power * crit damage (averaged for 100 shots) would scale the Hip Shot WELL out of range of the Tranquilizer darts overall damage, even if you include the bleeds at a base of 42 (0 CD rounded down).

If the buildcraft activation times are correct, then TD would definitely be on par with Hip Shot, but remember weapon damage is a multiplier, and that is over 100 more points, or ~10% increase. This would be really fascinating for sheer DPS, and make me wish, yet again, that the Juggernaut trait applied to Elixir Gun as well.

Any stacked might will inch the EG closer as a ratio to the Rifle’s #1, because the condition damage + power increase will disproportionately affect the combo weapon over the single source.

If we are discussing the wider implications of the EG over rifle, I am a HUGE fan of the weakness+utilities of it and roll with it in dungeons (with power/zerk stats) very regularly, and even with some bugs, it is one of the best utilities in the game. (Yes. I run a zerker/support build)

I would love to be proven wrong about this, and we would need to calculate damage based on equal gear/stats as described in this thread, and have one with an average 6-9 stacks of might and one without. Calculate 100 shots of each, with critical hits and then test them officially for Rate of Fire in the mists, just to be sure. All bleeds would have to be subject to the strange ticking that means a .5 second addendum to duration creates a 50% of a tick. (It might even be pertinent to test them naked in LA vs target dummy so to not be affected by the pve/pvp splits)

Vyxion.6358:

That’s what the forums are for right? xD You’re welcome
About the runes, I think I’m sticking to the might duration runes.

Do you hit 25 stacks of might constantly? I’ve been running with this build with Ruby Orbs as I have a ton of them, but wasn’t too sure if it would be worth the investment to get the might duration runes.

That said, I’ve been having a lot of fun with this build, and it brings some pretty good burst dps with Flame Blast + SD. It sure brought back the life into FT for me.

Spart.6578:

Vyxion.6358:

That’s what the forums are for right? xD You’re welcome
About the runes, I think I’m sticking to the might duration runes.

Do you hit 25 stacks of might constantly? I’ve been running with this build with Ruby Orbs as I have a ton of them, but wasn’t too sure if it would be worth the investment to get the might duration runes.

That said, I’ve been having a lot of fun with this build, and it brings some pretty good burst dps with Flame Blast + SD. It sure brought back the life into FT for me.

25 stacks consistently by myself? No but I get pretty close. In my opinion one should not aim to keep up 25 stacks 100% of the time because that can only be achieved by wasting stacks over the 25cap in order to never call below 25 and that is a waste of resources. I do however get really close to that and every now and then actually tap that 25. I definitly recommend the might stacking rune combo mentioned earlier.

And you’re welcome for the build Glad you think the FT is fun again. Did the same for me actually! That’s why i wanted to share it.

To Lunyboy:
Activation time of pistol and rifle are DEFINITELY a lot slower than what the tooltip says it should be. It therefor doesn’t do nearly as much dps as you would think from the tooltip and dmg multiplier algorithms. It’s just slower and therefor dealing less dps.
Add to that the fact the EG auto attack does more than just deal long range dmg, it would still have been my go to long range weapon even IF the rifle shot faster. But it doesn’t so it’s a no-brainer to me.

I realized hoe much I miss the FT. I constantly like to change builds and sets… but this is getting really annoying. Arena net didn’t implement a template possibility so I decided to build a second Engineer. It’s the biggest and fattest Norn model available and he will rule the dungeon tunnels with A ridiculously huge Flamethrower. The Charr will remain on SD.

JubeiTM.5763:

I realized hoe much I miss the FT. I constantly like to change builds and sets… but this is getting really annoying. Arena net didn’t implement a template possibility so I decided to build a second Engineer. It’s the biggest and fattest Norn model available and he will rule the dungeon tunnels with A ridiculously huge Flamethrower. The Charr will remain on SD.

Flamethrower users unite!

From what I can tell both the EG and the rifle have approximately the same attack speed – 11 attacks every 10 seconds or so, or 0.9 per second.

I hit for around double the direct damage with my rifle on autoattack over eg on crit.

The damage difference would be equalised somewhat by the bleeds – eg keeps up around 5-6 bleeds adding a few hundred (around 45 per bleed stack with current setup) extra direct damage per second. This difference is further be lessened against high armor targets.

Personally I mainly use the rifle in situations where I’m fighting a dangerous mobile enemy at long range and prefer to keep all slots free for survival or utility skills. Net shot is often useful in these particular situations (usually boss fights of some kind) . In this situation I think EG would probably lose out a bit more than usual due to the reduced duration of conditions on bosses.

On OP build, I guess it isn’t worthwhile bringing incendiary powder? Since it only procs on one target now and again I suppose it isn’t worth the investment now post nerf.

lunyboy.8672:

Now the above source calculates the activation times at .33 for TD

Well, that’s definitely wrong.

Hip Shot and Tranquilizer Dart have roughly the same exact activation time.

As to the Rifle versus the Elixir Gun when at range:

Damage is calculated by taking Weapon Damage and multiplying that by a percentage of the player’s Power (depending on the skill) and dividing the result by the target’s Armor value.

Let’s say that Hip Shot’s coefficient is 65% and Tranquilizer Dart’s is 40%. It’s probably the most accurate guess and I don’t really feel like taking the time to make certain it’s 100% precise, because the point can be made with these numbers.

My Engineer, with a 10/30/0/30/0 setup, in Berserker gear minus a Celestial amulet has 1985 Power and 354 Condition Damage.

Non-crit, my Hip Shot, against a target of 2600 Armor, will then do 597 damage.
Non-crit, my Tranq Dart, against a target of the same 2600 Armor, will do 295 damage.

You might say “wtf,” but the Elixir Gun also applies Bleeding damage. With 354 Condition Damage, this rounds out to 60 damage per second per stack. With only 5 stacks of Bleed, which is relatively easy to sustain on the target, you will more than cover the damage difference of Hip Shot.

More importantly: the Rifle’s most powerful skills—Blunderbuss and Jump Shot—must be done from close range: 400 range or less, to be exact. But this whole conversation was about if you’re being forced to fight at range, where then these skills are useless to you.

Elixir F, however, has a range of 900. It also scales by 75% of your Power value, so it does a pretty considerable amount of damage and will jump around to hit multiple targets (including an enemy, an ally, and then back to your enemy). You will simultaneously be applying both Cripple and Weakness (through Tranq Dart) while still having access to the supportive utility of the kit like Super Elixir and Fumigate removing conditions while dealing the same if not more damage.

Therefore,

Tranquilizer Dart + Elixir F > Hip Shot

Phineas Poe.3018:

lunyboy.8672:

Now the above source calculates the activation times at .33 for TD

Well, that’s definitely wrong.

Hip Shot and Tranquilizer Dart have roughly the same exact activation time.

As to the Rifle versus the Elixir Gun when at range:

Damage is calculated by taking Weapon Damage and multiplying that by a percentage of the player’s Power (depending on the skill) and dividing the result by the target’s Armor value.

Let’s say that Hip Shot’s coefficient is 65% and Tranquilizer Dart’s is 40%. It’s probably the most accurate guess and I don’t really feel like taking the time to make certain it’s 100% precise, because the point can be made with these numbers.

My Engineer, with a 10/30/0/30/0 setup, in Berserker gear minus a Celestial amulet has 1985 Power and 354 Condition Damage.

Non-crit, my Hip Shot, against a target of 2600 Armor, will then do 597 damage.
Non-crit, my Tranq Dart, against a target of the same 2600 Armor, will do 295 damage.

You might say “wtf,” but the Elixir Gun also applies Bleeding damage. With 354 Condition Damage, this rounds out to 60 damage per second per stack. With only 5 stacks of Bleed, which is relatively easy to sustain on the target, you will more than cover the damage difference of Hip Shot.

More importantly: the Rifle’s most powerful skills—Blunderbuss and Jump Shot—must be done from close range: 400 range or less, to be exact. But this whole conversation was about if you’re being forced to fight at range, where then these skills are useless to you.

Elixir F, however, has a range of 900. It also scales by 75% of your Power value, so it does a pretty considerable amount of damage and will jump around to hit multiple targets (including an enemy, an ally, and then back to your enemy). You will simultaneously be applying both Cripple and Weakness (through Tranq Dart) while still having access to the supportive utility of the kit like Super Elixir and Fumigate removing conditions while dealing the same if not more damage.

Therefore,

Tranquilizer Dart + Elixir F > Hip Shot

This guy knows his stuf! Glad to have you on my side on this one, couldn’t have said it better myself

PS. and ofcourse EG adds utility like weakness as well where rifle on that range (because the hypothesis in this scenario is being pushed to far range) doesn’t really do anything except auto attack.

Vyxion.6358:

This guy knows his stuf! Glad to have you on my side on this one, couldn’t have said it better myself

He’s also writing it in a situation that would exemplify an auto attack designed to cripple (figuratively) a single target over a raw damage attack.

Since they have the same speed, let’s just look at it like this:
5 seconds of bleeding (we’ll say 5 since reasonable condition duration extension, etc) – 60 damage per second, that’s 300 damage. So they’re about on par.

Except that’s discounting critical hits, which can more than double the damage of any given crit. So, ~2.6x the power scaling with typical berserker gear, begins to put a considerable difference on such damage output. Not saying his numbers are wrong, but I am saying there’s a bit of intentional misrepresentation going on.

Kamahl.3621:

Vyxion.6358:

This guy knows his stuf! Glad to have you on my side on this one, couldn’t have said it better myself

He’s also writing it in a situation that would exemplify an auto attack designed to cripple (figuratively) a single target over a raw damage attack.

Since they have the same speed, let’s just look at it like this:
5 seconds of bleeding (we’ll say 5 since reasonable condition duration extension, etc) – 60 damage per second, that’s 300 damage. So they’re about on par.

Except that’s discounting critical hits, which can more than double the damage of any given crit. So, ~2.6x the power scaling with typical berserker gear, begins to put a considerable difference on such damage output. Not saying his numbers are wrong, but I am saying there’s a bit of intentional misrepresentation going on.

Why do u quote only the first part of my post while the second part was in fact a lot more important ? :O

Kamahl.3621:

Vyxion.6358:

This guy knows his stuf! Glad to have you on my side on this one, couldn’t have said it better myself

He’s also writing it in a situation that would exemplify an auto attack designed to cripple (figuratively) a single target over a raw damage attack.

Since they have the same speed, let’s just look at it like this:
5 seconds of bleeding (we’ll say 5 since reasonable condition duration extension, etc) – 60 damage per second, that’s 300 damage. So they’re about on par.

Except that’s discounting critical hits, which can more than double the damage of any given crit. So, ~2.6x the power scaling with typical berserker gear, begins to put a considerable difference on such damage output. Not saying his numbers are wrong, but I am saying there’s a bit of intentional misrepresentation going on.

Exactly this. OP was talking about a crit build, which is what the rifle is made for. In my post I clearly differentiate and discuss how crits vs condition build would compare with each weapon.

If you are running Rabid armor or something even less likely to crit, like Apothecary, then EG will have it ALL OVER the rifle. But with decent crit potential, hip shot will do more DPS in any reasonable power/crit damage build easily.

What’s more, it’s an auto attack. However, if you would like to show me numbers where condition damage would overtake critical damage in this build in calculated DPS, including things like Rabid gear vs. Rampager vs. Berserker, I would be happy to have that discussion and we can show our work.

And once again, I reiterate that I use both depending on the situation, and am quite sure about my math on this, whether you think those coefficients are wrong or not. I would be more than happy to test and report anything we have discussed here, if only for future users of both weapons to be sure which would be more useful by situation.