Guild Wars 2

New to the engineer class and I don´t like the grenadier playstyle. I want to use rifle and turrets in pve and no kits.

Is it possible to play this way or are turrets just too weak in pve?

Engineer couldn’t be any farther then what you envisioned it to be.

Turrets do not scale with any power/weapon strength, meaning the numbers you see on them for raw damage is what you get. Even assuming they take 95% less damage, they still do diddly for damage.

In PvE, the meta is using as many kits as possible bar the med kit, so your setup will be something like FT Grenades and either bomb kit or EGun depending on your stat setup, finished off with Mortar Kit for orbital strike.

Then, you just hit all the buttons. For example, streamlined kits —--> Mortar gun for the throw gunk to synergize with modified ammo —->Egun —-> Acid bomb —-> FT —-> flameblast into napalm wall —-> Grenades #2, #4 and #5 back to rifle and Blunderbuss —-> jumpshot and repeat it over and over until the boss is dead. Didn’t even count the toolbelts in this rotation, which you have to use as well (Grenade Barrage, Orbital Strike and Incendiary Ammo)

You don’t even use auto attacks much, and if you do its the grenades.

You basically just mash every button that has a high number and do nothing else. That is the state of Engineer, and while it may change for Raids I doubt it will change for dungeons or fractals.

I don’t like it either. Turrets need to scale with Power or they will continue to be a joke.

Nah sinister condi is better. As of right now, turrets are really squishy, and will die almost instantly. Hopefully that will change with HoT.

Sadly turrets have little viable use in PVE open or dungeon, they have way too large cooldowns and do little damage, although apparently there is a fix coming soon for the damage they take.

However. depending on the level you play at, you could run only one kit in a static discharge build. Its DPS isn’t sustained, but it has wicked burst.

http://wolfineer.com/static-discharge-burster/

Something along those lines, use Scholar runes. Higher in fractals it may not be viable, but basic dungeons and especially open world its real fun, may also work well with the incoming scrapper.

Other than that, and again especially for open world, play how you want

Ricky Rouse.1583:

You basically just mash every button that has a high number and do nothing else. That is the state of Engineer, and while it may change for Raids I doubt it will change for dungeons or fractals.

and then after a while you realize you can thread in blinds, chills/cripples, and ccs at good times and double the survival rate of your group by just thinking while you play instead of mindlessly memorizing your cds and facerolling your piano.

u always so mad bro, take a chill pill

insanemaniac.2456:

Ricky Rouse.1583:

You basically just mash every button that has a high number and do nothing else. That is the state of Engineer, and while it may change for Raids I doubt it will change for dungeons or fractals.

and then after a while you realize you can thread in blinds, chills/cripples, and ccs at good times and double the survival rate of your group by just thinking while you play instead of mindlessly memorizing your cds and facerolling your piano.

u always so mad bro, take a chill pill

Oh no, I understand entirely how good blinds/chills are, the problem being all you have to do is unload the endothermic/phospho shells in the mortar kit, and it accomplishes that job anyways. Chill grenades are also a given, because they deal more damage then standard grenades so are a part of your regular rotation.

But CC? You aren’t taking Supply Crate, and most of your CC is knockbacks, which is a HUGE No-No. Where is the CC coming from, pray tell?

I can’t wait to hear another one of your fantastic arguments in the vein of “U MAD DOE” /s

Ricky Rouse.1583:

Engineer couldn’t be any farther then what you envisioned it to be.

Turrets do not scale with any power/weapon strength, meaning the numbers you see on them for raw damage is what you get. Even assuming they take 95% less damage, they still do diddly for damage.

In PvE, the meta is using as many kits as possible bar the med kit, so your setup will be something like FT Grenades and either bomb kit or EGun depending on your stat setup, finished off with Mortar Kit for orbital strike.

Then, you just hit all the buttons. For example, streamlined kits —--> Mortar gun for the throw gunk to synergize with modified ammo —->Egun —-> Acid bomb —-> FT —-> flameblast into napalm wall —-> Grenades #2, #4 and #5 back to rifle and Blunderbuss —-> jumpshot and repeat it over and over until the boss is dead. Didn’t even count the toolbelts in this rotation, which you have to use as well (Grenade Barrage, Orbital Strike and Incendiary Ammo)

You don’t even use auto attacks much, and if you do its the grenades.

You basically just mash every button that has a high number and do nothing else. That is the state of Engineer, and while it may change for Raids I doubt it will change for dungeons or fractals.

I don’t like it either. Turrets need to scale with Power or they will continue to be a joke.

What you described sounds exactly like what the OP has a problem with and then some.

Grenades are the only kit you actually get to use as a kit, everything else you pop into for 1-2 skill uses as part of some longer skill combination, or 1-2 skills in response to enemy conditions, buffs, or control.

If you want to make a mono-kit build or even a non-kit build, too bad, even though the mechanics are there the balance team has taken away the ability for any kit to stand on its own except grenades. We’re basically elementalists now.

I actually summed it up best in a discussion on elementalist conjures which have a similar but more egregious problem to our kits.

Conncept.7638:

Even if they managed to make five skills with equal output to where you don’t just pop and drop every conjure for one or two skill uses. You simply cannot simultaneously balance a class to have the same output with 10 and 25 skills unless there is some greater degree of control over how they can combine those skills. There is a reason that any deckbuilding game’s competitive format limits the cardpool you can build from and how many cards you can build with.

The engineer is proving this even better than us. Kits are constantly dumped on by the developers, forcing engineers in to multikit builds because if the kits were powerful enough to stand on their own, they would be overpowered when used in concert. So the developers choices were to make multi-kit mandatory from a balance standpoint, make mono-kit required by mechanics, or create additional mechanics to accommodate both – probably the best option that third, but something we all know they aren’t willing to put in the work for this far in to development.

And the same thing applies to our conjures, except in reverse, Engineers have a standard of ten skills and can’ build up’, we have a standard of twenty and can ‘build down’; and that just can’t work without major changes to the system controlling how we build up and down.

Ricky Rouse.1583:

insanemaniac.2456:

Ricky Rouse.1583:

You basically just mash every button that has a high number and do nothing else. That is the state of Engineer, and while it may change for Raids I doubt it will change for dungeons or fractals.

and then after a while you realize you can thread in blinds, chills/cripples, and ccs at good times and double the survival rate of your group by just thinking while you play instead of mindlessly memorizing your cds and facerolling your piano.

u always so mad bro, take a chill pill

Oh no, I understand entirely how good blinds/chills are, the problem being all you have to do is unload the endothermic/phospho shells in the mortar kit, and it accomplishes that job anyways. Chill grenades are also a given, because they deal more damage then standard grenades so are a part of your regular rotation.

But CC? You aren’t taking Supply Crate, and most of your CC is knockbacks, which is a HUGE No-No. Where is the CC coming from, pray tell?

I can’t wait to hear another one of your fantastic arguments in the vein of “U MAD DOE” /s

rifle 4, bob, air blast, magnet, mine, healing turret

knowing when to use them and when not to will make you twice as useful. you can literally do map completion, dungeoneer, and be fractal level 50 without paying attention to ccs, but you wont be farming fractals as an engi without making them easier by using those skills properly.

Ricky Rouse.1583:

Engineer couldn’t be any farther then what you envisioned it to be.

Turrets do not scale with any power/weapon strength, meaning the numbers you see on them for raw damage is what you get. Even assuming they take 95% less damage, they still do diddly for damage.

In PvE, the meta is using as many kits as possible bar the med kit, so your setup will be something like FT Grenades and either bomb kit or EGun depending on your stat setup, finished off with Mortar Kit for orbital strike.

Then, you just hit all the buttons. For example, streamlined kits —--> Mortar gun for the throw gunk to synergize with modified ammo —->Egun —-> Acid bomb —-> FT —-> flameblast into napalm wall —-> Grenades #2, #4 and #5 back to rifle and Blunderbuss —-> jumpshot and repeat it over and over until the boss is dead. Didn’t even count the toolbelts in this rotation, which you have to use as well (Grenade Barrage, Orbital Strike and Incendiary Ammo)

You don’t even use auto attacks much, and if you do its the grenades.

You basically just mash every button that has a high number and do nothing else. That is the state of Engineer, and while it may change for Raids I doubt it will change for dungeons or fractals.

I don’t like it either. Turrets need to scale with Power or they will continue to be a joke.

That is just the optimal rotation for damage.

You are not required to play that way. Playing optimally is never really ‘fun’ it is functional.

This applies to all classes.

guess I won´t be playing engi then and will stick to my thief.

I´m lvl 30 now and just hate the playstyle and don´t find it fun at all. Being basically a melee ele with a 45 second dps rotation just to keep up with other classes just isn´t for me.

I think if the engi was more like a long range sniper class I´d enjoy it a lot more.

Good luck to you guys. Engi just isn´t my thing.

ChrizZcE.5981:

guess I won´t be playing engi then and will stick to my thief.

I´m lvl 30 now and just hate the playstyle and don´t find it fun at all. Being basically a melee ele with a 45 second dps rotation just to keep up with other classes just isn´t for me.

I think if the engi was more like a long range sniper class I´d enjoy it a lot more.

Good luck to you guys. Engi just isn´t my thing.

Keep up? Sir, Engie DPS far exceeds most others.

If you merely want to keep up, just use rifle and one of the damage kits.

all you need to do to keep up is afk bomb 1 spam lol

ChrizZcE.5981:

guess I won´t be playing engi then and will stick to my thief.

I´m lvl 30 now and just hate the playstyle and don´t find it fun at all. Being basically a melee ele with a 45 second dps rotation just to keep up with other classes just isn´t for me.

I think if the engi was more like a long range sniper class I´d enjoy it a lot more.

Good luck to you guys. Engi just isn´t my thing.

Engineer is capable of the highest DPS in the game, it just takes some time to build up with the rotation. This will be critical when raids launch, where we’ll need sustained damage over the burst damage we currently see a lot of.

insanemaniac.2456:

Ricky Rouse.1583:

insanemaniac.2456:

Ricky Rouse.1583:

You basically just mash every button that has a high number and do nothing else. That is the state of Engineer, and while it may change for Raids I doubt it will change for dungeons or fractals.

and then after a while you realize you can thread in blinds, chills/cripples, and ccs at good times and double the survival rate of your group by just thinking while you play instead of mindlessly memorizing your cds and facerolling your piano.

u always so mad bro, take a chill pill

Oh no, I understand entirely how good blinds/chills are, the problem being all you have to do is unload the endothermic/phospho shells in the mortar kit, and it accomplishes that job anyways. Chill grenades are also a given, because they deal more damage then standard grenades so are a part of your regular rotation.

But CC? You aren’t taking Supply Crate, and most of your CC is knockbacks, which is a HUGE No-No. Where is the CC coming from, pray tell?

I can’t wait to hear another one of your fantastic arguments in the vein of “U MAD DOE” /s

rifle 4, bob, air blast, magnet, mine, healing turret

knowing when to use them and when not to will make you twice as useful. you can literally do map completion, dungeoneer, and be fractal level 50 without paying attention to ccs, but you wont be farming fractals as an engi without making them easier by using those skills properly.

You can make an argument for magnet on block bosses, but the rest, as I said, are DETRIMENTS

People complain all the time about how a Ranger messed everything up when he uses his longbow knockback. People are going to despise you just as well when you use BoB, Air Blast, and Rifle 4 to interrupt the boss instead of getting someone with an actual stun to do it.

Displacing a boss out of AoE is a terrible idea. Hard stuns will always be better as lifesaving CC then knockbacks. Never use knockbacks for hard CC unless its Mai Trin and you need to get her into the lightning circle.

In pve I play CC and might. Rifle and FT + anything else I felt like using that day.
Inmobilize, push and launch creatures, burn them all, jump around, attack them through pillars, walls and stairs…
I could easily add thumper or net turret to this playstyle. Just focus more on having fun than in being “optimal”.

lorddarkflare.9186:

Ricky Rouse.1583:

Engineer couldn’t be any farther then what you envisioned it to be.

Turrets do not scale with any power/weapon strength, meaning the numbers you see on them for raw damage is what you get. Even assuming they take 95% less damage, they still do diddly for damage.

In PvE, the meta is using as many kits as possible bar the med kit, so your setup will be something like FT Grenades and either bomb kit or EGun depending on your stat setup, finished off with Mortar Kit for orbital strike.

Then, you just hit all the buttons. For example, streamlined kits —--> Mortar gun for the throw gunk to synergize with modified ammo —->Egun —-> Acid bomb —-> FT —-> flameblast into napalm wall —-> Grenades #2, #4 and #5 back to rifle and Blunderbuss —-> jumpshot and repeat it over and over until the boss is dead. Didn’t even count the toolbelts in this rotation, which you have to use as well (Grenade Barrage, Orbital Strike and Incendiary Ammo)

You don’t even use auto attacks much, and if you do its the grenades.

You basically just mash every button that has a high number and do nothing else. That is the state of Engineer, and while it may change for Raids I doubt it will change for dungeons or fractals.

I don’t like it either. Turrets need to scale with Power or they will continue to be a joke.

That is just the optimal rotation for damage.

You are not required to play that way. Playing optimally is never really ‘fun’ it is functional.

This applies to all classes.

He said he wanted to go kitless and use turrets.

Going full turrets is so terrible in current content that you might as well kick the guy and run with a bearbow full soldiers ranger. It isn’t so much “not optimal” as it is “entirely useless”.

And the state of the Engineer is the exact opposite of kitless.

Ricky Rouse.1583:

You can make an argument for magnet on block bosses, but the rest, as I said, are DETRIMENTS

People complain all the time about how a Ranger messed everything up when he uses his longbow knockback. People are going to despise you just as well when you use BoB, Air Blast, and Rifle 4 to interrupt the boss instead of getting someone with an actual stun to do it.

Displacing a boss out of AoE is a terrible idea. Hard stuns will always be better as lifesaving CC then knockbacks. Never use knockbacks for hard CC unless its Mai Trin and you need to get her into the lightning circle.

theyre detrimental when youre bad. im not bad, so people dont complain when i use these things, cuz i dont use them badly. and yet i use them constantly — especially the blasts, because i maintain ~15 party might without sacrificing dps.

Ricky Rouse.1583:

insanemaniac.2456:

Ricky Rouse.1583:

insanemaniac.2456:

Ricky Rouse.1583:

You basically just mash every button that has a high number and do nothing else. That is the state of Engineer, and while it may change for Raids I doubt it will change for dungeons or fractals.

and then after a while you realize you can thread in blinds, chills/cripples, and ccs at good times and double the survival rate of your group by just thinking while you play instead of mindlessly memorizing your cds and facerolling your piano.

u always so mad bro, take a chill pill

Oh no, I understand entirely how good blinds/chills are, the problem being all you have to do is unload the endothermic/phospho shells in the mortar kit, and it accomplishes that job anyways. Chill grenades are also a given, because they deal more damage then standard grenades so are a part of your regular rotation.

But CC? You aren’t taking Supply Crate, and most of your CC is knockbacks, which is a HUGE No-No. Where is the CC coming from, pray tell?

I can’t wait to hear another one of your fantastic arguments in the vein of “U MAD DOE” /s

rifle 4, bob, air blast, magnet, mine, healing turret

knowing when to use them and when not to will make you twice as useful. you can literally do map completion, dungeoneer, and be fractal level 50 without paying attention to ccs, but you wont be farming fractals as an engi without making them easier by using those skills properly.

You can make an argument for magnet on block bosses, but the rest, as I said, are DETRIMENTS

People complain all the time about how a Ranger messed everything up when he uses his longbow knockback. People are going to despise you just as well when you use BoB, Air Blast, and Rifle 4 to interrupt the boss instead of getting someone with an actual stun to do it.

Displacing a boss out of AoE is a terrible idea. Hard stuns will always be better as lifesaving CC then knockbacks. Never use knockbacks for hard CC unless its Mai Trin and you need to get her into the lightning circle.

A few things you forgot about some of those skills:
-Rifle 4 removes cripple, chill, and immobilize
-Air blast adds a stack of burning for 4 seconds to a target with burning, and can reflect projectiles if timed properly
-Throw mine is a blast finisher, and removes a boon. Its tool belt also removes a boon, per mine.

Ricky Rouse.1583:

lorddarkflare.9186:

Ricky Rouse.1583:

Engineer couldn’t be any farther then what you envisioned it to be.

Turrets do not scale with any power/weapon strength, meaning the numbers you see on them for raw damage is what you get. Even assuming they take 95% less damage, they still do diddly for damage.

In PvE, the meta is using as many kits as possible bar the med kit, so your setup will be something like FT Grenades and either bomb kit or EGun depending on your stat setup, finished off with Mortar Kit for orbital strike.

Then, you just hit all the buttons. For example, streamlined kits —--> Mortar gun for the throw gunk to synergize with modified ammo —->Egun —-> Acid bomb —-> FT —-> flameblast into napalm wall —-> Grenades #2, #4 and #5 back to rifle and Blunderbuss —-> jumpshot and repeat it over and over until the boss is dead. Didn’t even count the toolbelts in this rotation, which you have to use as well (Grenade Barrage, Orbital Strike and Incendiary Ammo)

You don’t even use auto attacks much, and if you do its the grenades.

You basically just mash every button that has a high number and do nothing else. That is the state of Engineer, and while it may change for Raids I doubt it will change for dungeons or fractals.

I don’t like it either. Turrets need to scale with Power or they will continue to be a joke.

That is just the optimal rotation for damage.

You are not required to play that way. Playing optimally is never really ‘fun’ it is functional.

This applies to all classes.

He said he wanted to go kitless and use turrets.

Going full turrets is so terrible in current content that you might as well kick the guy and run with a bearbow full soldiers ranger. It isn’t so much “not optimal” as it is “entirely useless”.

And the state of the Engineer is the exact opposite of kitless.

I was challenging your ‘spam all the things on all the kits’ narrative.

There are a ton of ways to play the class if you just want to have fun.

If you want to maximize your contribution, there is a specific way you have to play.

Engies are no more or less restricted than Thieves or Warriors or Rangers or etc.

insanemaniac.2456:

Ricky Rouse.1583:

You can make an argument for magnet on block bosses, but the rest, as I said, are DETRIMENTS

People complain all the time about how a Ranger messed everything up when he uses his longbow knockback. People are going to despise you just as well when you use BoB, Air Blast, and Rifle 4 to interrupt the boss instead of getting someone with an actual stun to do it.

Displacing a boss out of AoE is a terrible idea. Hard stuns will always be better as lifesaving CC then knockbacks. Never use knockbacks for hard CC unless its Mai Trin and you need to get her into the lightning circle.

theyre detrimental when youre bad. im not bad, so people dont complain when i use these things, cuz i dont use them badly. and yet i use them constantly — especially the blasts, because i maintain ~15 party might without sacrificing dps.

In fact, you can play CC very well without obstructing your party. Push and launch aren’t as braindead as daze or stun, but they aren’t hard either: you just need to be aware of what your allies are doing, and use the envirorment in your favor. Keeping enemies flat against the wall is a favorite of mine, very useful in the Vinewrath lanes, as is “guiding” astray mobs inside beautiful AoE circles.

CC needs you to be more alert than pure damage, but is much more fun.

I dunno about you but my rotation is a little diff and IMO is better in group fights. Healing turret bomb kit grenade kit ft mortar. I don’t really see the point of elixir gun just being used as a blast finisher/dmg source with 1 skill the 4th one. My rotation goes somewhat, before fight or enemies getting there, healing turret big ol bomb napalm ft2 orbital strike ft2 that would give my team 18 stacks of might from the get go. Grenade spam. Once healing turret goes off cool down, healing turret big ol Bomb (roughly the same cd time) bomb kit fire field, ft2 inside detonate turret. Boom another 9 might. Rinse and repeat add in rifle skills whoever off cooldown. 18 might with 9 might upkeep every 20 secs or so. That IMO is the highest group support/dps rotation. If we don’t have a might stacker already this will work great, if we do have a might stacker it will also help upkeep 25 might almost permanently. IMO engi is how you play it and what you do in diff situations, what you described is just a dps rotation. Engi is so much more than that. For instance if your team is in really bad shape you could blast water fields instead of fire or blast mortar poison field for the aoe weakness. It’s really versatile. Or you could just play sinister engi to answer your question. If engi is so mundane as how you described it to be than I’m sorry but you’re not really playing your engi right. I run my above mentioned rotation in fractals 50 Everyday with pugs and friends alike, it works out pretty well, at the end of the day it’s how you want to play the class @OP if you wanna use turrets if you can somehow find a way to make it work for you than use it lol