Guild Wars 2

Hi guys,

While eventually I will get into raiding, I really love exploring maps solo and thus trying to take on most (if not all mobs) solo.

Some things I like about Engineer:

- The general theme (Love the bombs, grenades, flamethrower, hammer weapon, etc..)
- Love the fact that swapping kits has no internal cooldown like attunements do for Ele as it makes it alot more fun to just swap in and out of kits depending on what I want to do.
- The versatility to build both a condition engineer (haven’t gotten viper yet) and a power berserker engineer (still looking for optimal build).

However, I’m now looking for some feedback on how good Engineer is for soloing tougher content in general (champion hero points, certain dungeon paths or fractals, etc..).

I was wondering if any engineers here are willing to share their experience & knowledge on this subject? Would it be a solid choice for me? The other class I was looking at was thief (as it has many dodges and high self sustained dps).

Thanks in advance

Arguably the best solo class is actually necro as it can cycle shroud and back and gain life while in shroud with the correct traits.

However, my experience with engineer is that if you run something like a Rabid P/S scrapper you can outsustain almost any champ in the game, while still doing average amounts of damage. Hybridise with Vipers and you can output significantly more damage, at the cost of being vulnerable to high burst champs. A Viper/Rampager build is too squishy to solo many HoT champs (at least in my experience), but will do fine for map roaming, and is the meta stat build for raiding with, which may help you get easier access to runs.

I am not gonna assume that you are max level on engi yet, so I’ll leave out scrapper in my assessment of the class. Engi is strong at all ranges (even out to 1500 with mortar kit). You can use turrets to boost survivability and dps for hero points and other things you want to solo. With the toolbelt and the kits you have the most variety of skills at your disposal in the game. You also have widest combination of combos in the game, whether for buffing or conditioning or auras.

That said, unless you use turrets which sometimes draw aggro, you are solo, and the swapping of kits/just remembering all your skills can be a bit daunting when the pressure is on. But it is a great profession.

If you are looking for a class that is easy to solo the open world and map complete with, necro and ranger are top of the list, for the sole reason that they have pets that tend to draw enemies to them and away from you. Mesmer is the most challenging for that (unless you’re really, really good at managing the illusions, since they die with the target).

Wahoo and heya!

In the last few days I’ve had tons of pm’s with the very same topic. And in short:
Yes – Engineer is probably the best soloer there is.

However (big however!) the Engineer surely isn’t the easiest.

For open world I suggest to go for this Flame Thrower build:

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vdAQFASncoC1ahlXBubB0ehl7iCcBjwAg+2j9cXsg2wcA-TBSBABLcBA4f/BAeQAXp8DPdEUcABoU9HzUCSKgAHDA-e

It’ll grant you perma 25 stacks might, aswell a high up to permanent fury, swiftness, regeneration, vigor, protection, stability and quickness uptime. So basicly – EVERYTHING!

The build works like this:

• You mainly camp the Flame Thrower, use 1 as auto attack, 2+4 for dps increase, 3+5 for utility / cc. (make sure skill 2 passes trough the enemy before you blow it up, to deal more damage).

• You want to switch to the hammer for the dps increasing skills like 2,4 and 5 (3 is only a dps increase when you don’t have quickness since it’s unaffected by quickness) but don’t waste them since for example 5+3 together are a break bar shredder, a water field +3 heals you up for 2600, or skill 4 simply for the block, 2 simply for the reflect.

• You only gain stability and might (aswell quickness) during the time you are on the FT (flame thrower), but you can swap back to the FT while performing a hammer attack. This means, right after you pressed let’s say skill 3 on the hammer, you can swap immediately back to the FT without interrupting the original skill. Also looks funny

• The elixier gun 4 is a massive dps increase and the strongest skill you have (dps wise). You know how to interrupt the jump? If not, let me know.

• Elixier U is like your personal little Time Warp with a reflect / absorb wall. This is comes very handy, since in HoT projectiles are fairly common.

I used Leadership Runes, but they are rather hard / annoying to get, Strength Runes work just fine aswell. You’ll have higher stats and a bit more might stacks but way less other boons uptime, still a fantastic choice! You also don’t have to use bufffood in open world ofc. It’s just nice to have while soloing hero point trains.

Don’t use those runes in teamplay tough, so it’s only viable as a 2nd armor set. You might want to get yourself 2 exotic power armors because of this. You don’t need an ascended power armor anywhere, since exotic to power only gives you +20 power, +14 precision and +14 ferocity. That’s like 1% damage increase :’D Only if you are filthy rich or want ot minmax, get an ascended power armor. In teams use Scholar runes.

If you have trouble with some Hero Points, swap elixier U for Bulwark Gyro or anything else you might find more useful in this specific situation. For example I’ve been driven to the edge and modified this build much more survivability oriented for soloing the Mushroom Queen in TD:

If you have any questions, just ask

Greez!
- Ziggy

Engineers are hands down the best solo class. They can easily take care of themselves in way too many ways, all effective, each capable of meeting the playstyle needs of the player and many so seamless you can swiftly go from one to the other based on whim.

From experience there are many, many ways to work with them and experimentation is rarely met with disappointment.

Engi is a solid choice. IMO one of the more fun classes to play. I play condi engi and it’s way more fun then zerker builds. As for soloing content, just about every class can do so but Engi is definitely one of the easier ones to do it with.

a good 4 kit engi in a mix of rabid/viper/trailblazer can solo just about anything while maintaining high dps and not being squishy like a power engi has to be, but a necro in the same gear will need to put about 1/4 of the effort into doing the same thing.

Look, I play only engi because I can solo everything. 1st week in hot content(which include tough HP champs) was really challange and big fun. I was usually run classic-rifle, nades, ft, eg. After I reach hard champs I improvize and switch traits, put some turrets into my utility bar, use condi etc. For each champ different build. So for me – yea, engi is great for open world. If you want farm use rifle+nades and riffle turret for suprise shot and you will burst enemies in few sec. You can switch into scrappy if you can’t face enemy.

Necro should be easier a lot, but I think smash somebody with wrench and cover by gear sheild while you doping yourself into angry rampager is much more fun :-)