Guild Wars 2

Hi all!
I’m here in order to ask you which build could be better for a PVE (and fractal) engineer… I would know if it could be better the condition one beside the DPS one, and which type of stats I would need to use.
I’m in a big doubt because I got a full zojja ascended medium set and I don’t know what to do right now.
Thanks all!

Mainly, wait. Zerker still deals good damage, and conditions are on the chopping block.

Unless you run enough dungeons to consider restatting and losing your runes twice within a month a decent trade for the slightly faster runs you enjoy in the meantime.

Condis still cant compete with power builds specialy in places where you burst bosses in few secs.

Rozbuska.5263:

Condis still cant compete with power builds specialy in places where you burst bosses in few secs.

Have you tested it? Yourself? Like for hours? Not just made some 5 minute build, grab some semi good gear, go to pug and say “nah it’s not that good” since you wanted to hear that?

I’d say yes, power builds are still better. But that’s only because I’ve expirienced the might of power builds with the new patch so far. I’m on it, testing condi soon. But first I’m calculating the best equip and runes in excel, wich takes always like 4 hours before I start playing ingame.

I’ve just opened a thread where you can find the best equip for power Engi in PvE. Nothing about a build though, but for your ascended armor, assassin is the way to go!

-> https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/Best-Equipment-Power-PvE

Power is still the way to go in PvE. I’ve been running both my usual power gear and sinister after the patch and no doubt power is more useful in dungeons and bursty fractals. Sinister is by no menans a bad choice atm since you can get huge amount of condis applied within few seconds on P/P build.

And with condis being toned down soon it’s safer to just stay on power since that won’t be touched.

Totally agree with Taku, built myself today a full asc sinister equip (yea I’m mad …) and it’s pretty much useless for dungeons and fotm, yet it is very nice for solo and open world, bosses with a huge hp pool. But power is ok too for those, so: Go full Zerk.

Xyonon.3987:

Rozbuska.5263:

Condis still cant compete with power builds specialy in places where you burst bosses in few secs.

Have you tested it? Yourself? Like for hours? Not just made some 5 minute build, grab some semi good gear, go to pug and say “nah it’s not that good” since you wanted to hear that?

I’d say yes, power builds are still better. But that’s only because I’ve expirienced the might of power builds with the new patch so far. I’m on it, testing condi soon. But first I’m calculating the best equip and runes in excel, wich takes always like 4 hours before I start playing ingame.

---

I’ve just opened a thread where you can find the best equip for power Engi in PvE. Nothing about a build though, but for your ascended armor, assassin is the way to go!

-> https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/Best-Equipment-Power-PvE

I made full asc Sinister gear and use this build what I theorycrafted and tested for few hours before:
http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-_;4Z;09-m5gT-x0;9;4ijl;0057038156;4833;3oIExoIExX0kjxQ0;4odo8pdp8qdqd051Wc7B1;4VW-N7V-NV05NV05N;9;9;9;9-V6s5a
Yes you can sometime see some really nice tics like 8k burnings (even 12k once) 5k bleeds ect but it takes time to stack up and there are just this short spikes overall condi dps on engi is not that high as ppl think. In long fights Sinister build comming little bit closer to equality but still cant copete with Zerk.
Definetly not worth in dungs where bosses live few secs tops. Atm power build with properly managed Kinetic Battery have somewhere about 18.1k dps

//Edit: Assassion/Zerk mix is no longer necessary thx to new crit traits we will definetly go full Zerk

Zerk or Assassin. With Zerk if you get the close range crit trait and/or Accuracy Sigil you make up the loss. Assassin can sit at 70% without concern though, meaning ~98% with banner/fury leaving you an open sigil for Night/Strength/Energy/Peril/Air, whatever you like.

Condi looks like fun, glad to hear you’re screwing with P/P Taku, I just started a 3rd Engi to build into my Sinister Engi and he looks freakin kitten with Pistol/Pistol, so regardless I plan on having some fun with that even if Power is the winner with it’s amazing burst.

But, as far as empirical data goes right now, I think it’s all going to be very skewed with all the bugs right now. Extra nades for us, ridiculous symbol stacking for guardians, just not the same experiences we’d see without this stuff. So unless you’re properly isolating yourself from such obvious and huge variables, any kind of experience you have isn’t really worth worrying about.

Rozbuska.5263:

Xyonon.3987:

Rozbuska.5263:

Condis still cant compete with power builds specialy in places where you burst bosses in few secs.

Have you tested it? Yourself? Like for hours? Not just made some 5 minute build, grab some semi good gear, go to pug and say “nah it’s not that good” since you wanted to hear that?

I’d say yes, power builds are still better. But that’s only because I’ve expirienced the might of power builds with the new patch so far. I’m on it, testing condi soon. But first I’m calculating the best equip and runes in excel, wich takes always like 4 hours before I start playing ingame.

---

I’ve just opened a thread where you can find the best equip for power Engi in PvE. Nothing about a build though, but for your ascended armor, assassin is the way to go!

-> https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/Best-Equipment-Power-PvE

I made full asc Sinister gear and use this build what I theorycrafted and tested for few hours before:
http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-_;4Z;09-m5gT-x0;9;4ijl;0057038156;4833;3oIExoIExX0kjxQ0;4odo8pdp8qdqd051Wc7B1;4VW-N7V-NV05NV05N;9;9;9;9-V6s5a
Yes you can sometime see some really nice tics like 8k burnings (even 12k once) 5k bleeds ect but it takes time to stack up and there are just this short spikes overall condi dps on engi is not that high as ppl think. In long fights Sinister build comming little bit closer to equality but still cant copete with Zerk.
Definetly not worth in dungs where bosses live few secs tops. Atm power build with properly managed Kinetic Battery have somewhere about 18.1k dps

//Edit: Assassion/Zerk mix is no longer necessary thx to new crit traits we will definetly go full Zerk

Thanks, yes that’s what I expirienced aswell. I used the flame turret for its toolbelt over the EG tough. But overall, yea, the spike is nice but it’s lackluster. Got some nice calc sheets done last night.

Zerk is the way to go yes

Jerus.4350:

Zerk or Assassin. With Zerk if you get the close range crit trait and/or Accuracy Sigil you make up the loss. Assassin can sit at 70% without concern though, meaning ~98% with banner/fury leaving you an open sigil for Night/Strength/Energy/Peril/Air, whatever you like.

This is a nice thought, but the only thing worth is a sigil of night. Strength is useless due max stacks anyway, energy is just … well we got vigor anyway and air is just terrible in pve.

Xyonon.3987:

Jerus.4350:

Zerk or Assassin. With Zerk if you get the close range crit trait and/or Accuracy Sigil you make up the loss. Assassin can sit at 70% without concern though, meaning ~98% with banner/fury leaving you an open sigil for Night/Strength/Energy/Peril/Air, whatever you like.

This is a nice thought, but the only thing worth is a sigil of night. Strength is useless due max stacks anyway, energy is just … well we got vigor anyway and air is just terrible in pve.

Air isn’t that bad, Vigor got nerfed and requires alchemy to get perma up time, though adrenal does the same thing now. Strength is often useless, but I find it quite nice in PUGs, I can prestack quite a bit of might, but I can’t maintain that through a slow fight… so maybe not worth it as much but I know I used to value it quite a bit with PUGs before all this broken damage. And, there’s also the specific bane sigils if you’re a min/max crazy person. And, Peril is nice for vuln stacking, though I’m not sure I’d ever use it, but I know some default to Frailty for their basic setups (when it’s not night, might is covered, no need for endurance, etc) so I figured I’d mention peril because it’s better for us.

For meta, yeah I imagine Zerk would be optimal, but I still value my crits, and I don’t play in meta compositions all that often so I like my options on sigils while keeping my crit chance high.

Yea there aren’t only “perfect” players out there. Adapting your equip according to your own and the skill of the players next to you is an excellent idea and I can only support this decision. It’s useless for example to tell a 1000 AP player to use scholar runes at any cost.

But don’t stick on it forever, you might change

I am not a spreadsheet theory crafter and just wanted to play around with how much burning I could possibly get on a target and made this build
http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-_;4Z-Vv0c;01-x0;9;4ijm;0257038036;40O1;3jxqQjxqQX0kjxQ0;4odo8pdp8qdqd051Wc7B1;4VW-N7V-NV05NV05N;9;9;9;9-V6-7o
Unlike the build by Rozbuska I didn’t go with all conditions and focused my runes and abilities as much as possible on getting burning on a target. Now I heard complaints in the PvP thread that guardians can get 7-8 stacks of burning on a target, this build gets 15-20 stacks of burning near constant on whatever target I choose. With most of the skills also being either a line or AOE skill I tend to get 8-10 stacks on anything near them as well. I tried this a few runs in fotm and while its true that on most trash mobs you have difficulty getting to 15-20 stacks its nearly a moot point, by stack 8 the ticks are enough that mobs are just melting. They die too quickly to get any more stacks on them.

The downsides of this build are that its not nearly as effective if you can’t get close to your bosses or mobs, at range you can’t use fire bombs and getting stacks of burning above 7 can be a real problem. It also doesn’t work that well for World Bosses other than triple trouble partially due to the same reason. However in most dungeons I feel that this might be able to out DPS a zerker build and can certainly burst.

Xyonon.3987:

Yea there aren’t only “perfect” players out there. Adapting your equip according to your own and the skill of the players next to you is an excellent idea and I can only support this decision. It’s useless for example to tell a 1000 AP player to use scholar runes at any cost.

But don’t stick on it forever, you might change

;b

The real downside Whines is the whole AE thing, you can burst a single trash mob decently with Incendiaries/blowtorch, but your AE stuff has a 4s ramp up (firebomb → Throw Napalm) all while not doing much damage. That said, that’s kinda the build I was looking at using for my sinister guy, though I was thinking still pulling out Nades over Flame Turret, maybe if I could actually use the turret, but just Throw Napalm doesn’t seem worth it with that longer reuse. My thought, stack up the burning, then fall back on bleed and rotate.

That’s what I’ve been using. P/P with explosives, firearms and tools with obvious condi traits in them. (Although tools is mainly for QoL as the other 2 lines suck anyway for PvE.)

It’s good for applying a dozen burns on a boss then up keeping about 7 burn stacks and lots of bleeds/poison. It is going to lose some of its effectiveness as soon as grenadier gets nerfed but should still remain as a decent dps output for longer fights or against mobs that have high toughness/spam protection.

Aye, it’s kinda funny that I can just grab a trait in Tools for 50% endurance regen or I have to get the old combo and it’s the same… has anyone looked into whether or not they stack? not that it’d be a good idea to have tools and alchemy but just curious.

Jerus.4350:

The real downside Whines is the whole AE thing, you can burst a single trash mob decently with Incendiaries/blowtorch, but your AE stuff has a 4s ramp up (firebomb -> Throw Napalm) all while not doing much damage. That said, that’s kinda the build I was looking at using for my sinister guy, though I was thinking still pulling out Nades over Flame Turret, maybe if I could actually use the turret, but just Throw Napalm doesn’t seem worth it with that longer reuse. My thought, stack up the burning, then fall back on bleed and rotate.

I just continue to stack the burning, Typical rotation is Firebomb→Blowtorch→throw Napalm→Napalm→Incendary Ammo→Flame Jet→FireBomb→Flame Jet→Blowtorch→Flame Jet x2 Repeat

I can get a minimum of 10 stacks of burning continuous on my target and typically get around 15. at 6-8k ticks I am doing a fair amount of damage without mashing a billion buttons and getting carpal tunnel.

Whinis.8179:

Jerus.4350:

The real downside Whines is the whole AE thing, you can burst a single trash mob decently with Incendiaries/blowtorch, but your AE stuff has a 4s ramp up (firebomb -> Throw Napalm) all while not doing much damage. That said, that’s kinda the build I was looking at using for my sinister guy, though I was thinking still pulling out Nades over Flame Turret, maybe if I could actually use the turret, but just Throw Napalm doesn’t seem worth it with that longer reuse. My thought, stack up the burning, then fall back on bleed and rotate.

I just continue to stack the burning, Typical rotation is Firebomb->Blowtorch->throw Napalm->Napalm->Incendary Ammo->Flame Jet->FireBomb->Flame Jet->Blowtorch->Flame Jet x2 Repeat

I can get a minimum of 10 stacks of burning continuous on my target and typically get around 15. at 6-8k ticks I am doing a fair amount of damage without mashing a billion buttons and getting carpal tunnel.

Well you mashing lots of buttons anyway and you have half of power dps:-)

Rozbuska.5263:

Whinis.8179:

Jerus.4350:

The real downside Whines is the whole AE thing, you can burst a single trash mob decently with Incendiaries/blowtorch, but your AE stuff has a 4s ramp up (firebomb -> Throw Napalm) all while not doing much damage. That said, that’s kinda the build I was looking at using for my sinister guy, though I was thinking still pulling out Nades over Flame Turret, maybe if I could actually use the turret, but just Throw Napalm doesn’t seem worth it with that longer reuse. My thought, stack up the burning, then fall back on bleed and rotate.

I just continue to stack the burning, Typical rotation is Firebomb->Blowtorch->throw Napalm->Napalm->Incendary Ammo->Flame Jet->FireBomb->Flame Jet->Blowtorch->Flame Jet x2 Repeat

I can get a minimum of 10 stacks of burning continuous on my target and typically get around 15. at 6-8k ticks I am doing a fair amount of damage without mashing a billion buttons and getting carpal tunnel.

Well you mashing lots of buttons anyway and you have half of power dps:-)

After having run a zerker build in the previous build, I appear to be getting more dps and don’t have half of the spam 1 that I had with grenades. Remember that I am getting 6-8k ticks per second using just burning. Not sure what the FT itself is hitting for nor the bleeding and other conditions are throwing out, however I find it difficult to see I am getting half the dps.

So I tried to send you a PM Ziggy, but Anet is making me wait 2 days due to “spam prevention policies” since i’m a new user.

i LOVE that you use math (and good math) for theorycraft. Do you have a STEM background? I just picked up GW2 and after trying all classes Engi and Mesmer were the most appealing and they just happen to be your specialties. So I decided you are my new sensei. :p Plz teach me the ways. My engi is lvl 22 atm. Been messing around with all the kits but haven’t found any reliable info on the best leveling build and stats to look for. Any suggestions sensei? How about mesmer? That one confuses me even more. Someone told me go GS +sword/focus. Do you agree? What kinda build and stats do you think I should go for?

Really appreciate any input and your data is amazing :p Keep up the good work.

For leveling traits work different now.

Get yourself the Med Kit for swiftness on 4, get yourself nades for… nades. And grenadier trait. With that you can just destroy, and you can get it at lvl 22 (I’m leveling my 3rd engi right now )

and, yeah GS+sword/focus is generally best for leveling/open world roaming.

And, yeah I’m not him, but felt like I’d chime in since I’m working on a new engi right now (lvl 26?) and things have changed a LOT since most people leveled up.

fsswim.5610:

So I tried to send you a PM Ziggy, but Anet is making me wait 2 days due to “spam prevention policies” since i’m a new user.

i LOVE that you use math (and good math) for theorycraft. Do you have a STEM background? I just picked up GW2 and after trying all classes Engi and Mesmer were the most appealing and they just happen to be your specialties. So I decided you are my new sensei. :p Plz teach me the ways. My engi is lvl 22 atm. Been messing around with all the kits but haven’t found any reliable info on the best leveling build and stats to look for. Any suggestions sensei? How about mesmer? That one confuses me even more. Someone told me go GS +sword/focus. Do you agree? What kinda build and stats do you think I should go for?

Really appreciate any input and your data is amazing :p Keep up the good work.

Jerus (last post) is pretty accurate and correct, just wanted to add a few things:

Yea I’m a mesmer and engi main and even tough I’ve been teaching only engis so far, I’ll probably start with mes aswell. You can pm me ingame (Xyonon.3987) and if you are EU servers, we can even play together and I can show you all the complicated stuff better.

For leveling the engi I’d say med kit for speed is a good start until you get a trait that gives you perma swiftness. Since it has been a while since I’ve leveled my engi I’m not sure how much effort you need to get those traits and if others are more important. But in the end at 80 you have them all anyway :P
Grenades and bombs are very important and I suggest you use a rifle for leveling.

About the mesmer, I’m leveling one again myself since they have been the WORST to level in the old days. He’s now 20~ and I have to say, the last patch changed a lot of things (positive)! Mesmer deals great damage now and I suggest you don’t use the greatsword anymore to level. It’s damage reduces if targets get closer and the scepter skill 3# burst is now darn strong (got buffed).
So better go for sword + focus and scepter + sword. Trait all your points into duelling. Unlock the following skills if you can:

• Signet of the Ether (great for leveling but you’ll probably replace it with Mantra of Recovery when you get more expirienced)
• Mantra of Pain (quite good and becomes really strong with some traits)
• Blink (everyone loves ports)
• Mimic (everyone still loves ports … and a 2nd one … or a 2nd one of whateveryouwantmetobe)
• Feedback (THE mesmer skill!)
• Portal (THE OTHER mesmer skill!)
• Mirror Images (helps you for leveling to deal greater damage with shatter skills, mainly F1)

I can show you more ingame, I hope you are on the EU servers aswell Otherwise we can’t play together.

Wahoo! greez
Ziggs Ironeye / Madame Le Blanc

By 20ish you can get one line up to master level, so you can either go Explosions and get grenadier (which currently just blows everything up right quick), or go Tools and grab speedy kit. Until 45 you only get one trait line, but limited to master level or there about after you train into your kits. (nades is the third kit).

So yeah it’s a choice 2/3 swiftness up time but can blow things up right quick, or slightly slower kill times but 100% swiftness. Either seems a good option (i’ve trained through both and overall I don’t really see one as better than the other right now, I kinda liked the extra damage for when I’m attacking a bunch of stuff).

Whinis.8179:

Rozbuska.5263:

Whinis.8179:

Jerus.4350:

The real downside Whines is the whole AE thing, you can burst a single trash mob decently with Incendiaries/blowtorch, but your AE stuff has a 4s ramp up (firebomb -> Throw Napalm) all while not doing much damage. That said, that’s kinda the build I was looking at using for my sinister guy, though I was thinking still pulling out Nades over Flame Turret, maybe if I could actually use the turret, but just Throw Napalm doesn’t seem worth it with that longer reuse. My thought, stack up the burning, then fall back on bleed and rotate.

I just continue to stack the burning, Typical rotation is Firebomb->Blowtorch->throw Napalm->Napalm->Incendary Ammo->Flame Jet->FireBomb->Flame Jet->Blowtorch->Flame Jet x2 Repeat

I can get a minimum of 10 stacks of burning continuous on my target and typically get around 15. at 6-8k ticks I am doing a fair amount of damage without mashing a billion buttons and getting carpal tunnel.

Well you mashing lots of buttons anyway and you have half of power dps:-)

After having run a zerker build in the previous build, I appear to be getting more dps and don’t have half of the spam 1 that I had with grenades. Remember that I am getting 6-8k ticks per second using just burning. Not sure what the FT itself is hitting for nor the bleeding and other conditions are throwing out, however I find it difficult to see I am getting half the dps.

power engi is 17.6k~ dps in groups atm. and that is without bugged grenadier.

I’m on a MURICAN server sensei ;(
So i got my engy kit training up to bombs. Currently i have Med kit, FT, Nades, Elixir gun, tool kit and bombs unlocked. Started going down explosives for Core Specs and got to Granedier.

So i keep going down the Explosives path? Should I stack power or condition damage? I wasnt sure so i got toughness/vitality. So far i’ve been using my rifle to pull 4 or 5 mobs, bunch them up, drop a healing turret and spam bombs. Should i stack power and go nades instead? or condition damage? or both? :p

Btw Jerus, were you talking about “Streamlined Kits” in the “Tools” specialization? The one that gives you swiftness whenever you equip a kit? Is it really beneficial to have +33% move speed?

I geared my mesmer with sword/focus and scepter/sword as you suggested. Would i open with scepter 3 for mega damage then 5 for phantasm, then switch to sword/ and 3, 2, 5? Should i just to power for leet dps?

Much of standard leveling is moving around. So, yes, 33% movmeent speed is key. That said with medkit4 you have 2/3 upkeep time, which personally I find “enough”, it’s nice to be able to have the 100% but, when you find yourself taking out half a dozen enemies at once, well, that extra damage from the explosion line is quite nice.

Power is the way to go, personally my 3rd engi is going to be a condi guy, maybe not strictly but I’m having fun playing with it. But, you’ll do better sticking to Power based damage (power/prec/ferocity). With grenadier trait your grenade barrage will destroy most enemies, maybe follow up with shrapnel grenade and freeze grenade, won’t likly need more, but if you do toss a flame blast, maybe drop napalm before it, and if you go with Elixir Gun you can drop an acid bomb then “weapon swap” to cancel the jump back, good practice for later as it’s part of the optimal rotation.

Bombs are good, you can drop the 4 for blinds which is very nice, especially against multiple enemies. Be careful about using the toolbelt Big Ol Bomb as it throws them all away which is detrimental if you’re laying down AE damage.

For now you can likely do a grenade barrage upon coming up against them, then either Napalm → Flame Blast → Freeze grenade → Shrapnel greande or just drop the whole FT part. That seems to be destroying most things I come across aside from veterans which I swap it up and get acid bomb in there and Jump Shot/ Blunderbuss would be recommended.

PS. Murica F yeah, come to save the mother f’in day’eah.

Engi: ^what Jerus said. Speed is great for open world quality of life. Focus on Power > Precision > Ferocity. (You later get 2 and then 3 stats per equipment).

Mes: Focus on the same stats. Lv 80 equipment is slightly different, but until then, Power > Precision > Ferocity is the way to go.
For mobs: Use scepter phantasm and scepter #3 and normally that should kill a mob alone. Then swap and use sword and it’s phantasm for the next one. If you have many many mobs as enemies, you could use your greatsword instead of the scepter and sword offhand for its aoe phantasm and gs (greatsword) #3. But after that swap to the sword since it cleaves (3 targets). Keep in mind that scepter #3 also can hit up to 5 targets if you target the one behind the others and the rest stands in between.

Sad you are on US :<

Edit: Wait I just read some stuff about being able to gues o.o Never noticed this and thought it’s only EU guests other EU servers etc. What server are you on??? :O

HOLYCRAP you can swap weapons after hitting 4 on Elixir gun to negate the leap backwards! WHAT KINDA SORCERY IS THIS??
I’m on crystal desert

Yes, I have an old fancy picture for this :>

Always try to interrupt this skill for using it in melee as a high dps skill. It’s one of our best!

Unfortunately EU and US cannot play together :< If somone can proof different, I’d be happy :< But you can still add me and pm me ingame if you got a question Anytime ^.^

LOL, i’m in the “meh” category :\ ty Jerus and Sensei for all the tips. My mesmer feels stronger already.