Guild Wars 2

So to preface this, I’ve HAD an engi since fall 2012. And honestly, I have never been able to wrap my head around the playstyle.
I ground to 80, I’ve tried a variety of specs and playstyles, and it’s never natural or fun for me. I just don’t seem to like the gadgets much.
But I like turrets less, as a note.

What I’d like is a spec that’s fun for playing solo PvE at 80, so I can participate in maps in a fairly casual way. When I’m home, I’m working, or wrangling a toddler who demands my attention. Which means I simply don’t have the time or focus to PvP or dungeon like I used to. /sigh
/endpreface

I like the trait Power Shoes. With a mesmer main, I adore having a static, permanent speed boost like that, as I do with all my other 80s that have signets to do the same. I kind of don’t like having to pop a hobosack on and off to speed up, you know?
That said.
Is it even remotely viable?
Is Inventions? I’ve noticed almost every spec posted avoids it like the plague.

So question 1 – Power shoes? Never?
Question 2 – Inventions ever?
Question 3 – is it possible to get a solo PvE farming/fun build that isn’t squishy, does reasonable damage, and relies on a single kit/weapon much of the time? (FT maybe? Rifle?) Any character I get to play is played with toddler asleep on my lap, so lots of keymashing is fairly implausible lest it wake him.
Thanks for any advice you can give me!

I wouldn’t run powershoes you could grab other traits that are a lot better such as stealth on imm or 20% damage reduction on cc

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fdAQFAUlUUpPrFYx+KseNiaBF6ouxAIyuklPGhDA-TxRBwAXV+db/Ba6AGq+jmLAAgHAgZlgCCYcA-e

/shrug

It’s something I’ve swapped into for some strange situations (or well a small variation from it).

I think it’d fit your goals well, just walk around throwing bombs down, utilize the sticky bomb and smoke bomb they are great defensive tools, and the burning on your fire bomb is a nice addition.

It won’t be a very optimal setup but it’ll more than get the job done while being quite forgiving. 200+ healing back every second (add on some 16copper blackberry pies and you get even more + regen from healing turret, etc). And the gear and a few traits keep your damage reasonable.

Now you can change up the gear if you want and find this still too squishy, but you have a lot of defensive tools in it, energy sigil so if you do drop the kit momentarily and put it back on you get that extra dodge. Blinds. Elixir S as an “ohh kitten” button, plenty of defensive options.

And that said Elixir S/C are just options I might look into if I were you but Turrets would work jsut fine tossed in here, generally speaking though farming is a lot of moving around making turret’s whole staying in one spot thing kind of a waste IMO.

hope that helps

Nobody runs Power Shoes because you need to go 4 points into the worst trait line the Engineer has to get 25% move speed when you can just spend 2 points into the Tools line to get a permanent 33% additional move speed! Simple math!

Wahoo! Bye frands!

Thanks all! I appreciate the suggestions and explanations about Inventions trait line

What about the engi do you like? I mean if it’s solely just the one trait perhaps, engi just isn’t your style.

I am not meaning to troll or anything, just wanting to help out. To me since it was announced the idea of turrets, and the ‘goonie style’ gadgets is what got me to play and main engi. Of course I switch around and do alchemy some, but why play the class if there is no interest in the mechanics.

Play around with it and see if you like it.
I use 20 in inventions all the time, both for power shoes and turret recharge and it works beautifully for my build.
I never understood why people are so against it and always go for the classic vigor + swiftness combo, imo it is very subpar to inventions line.

you can simply play the standard cele rifle build with 4 in inventions instead of tools, I would suggest an Energy sigil though.

I beg to differ with all of you who say powwers shoes or the invetions tree is worthless. This game is what you make of it, so is the engineer. If you know what kinds of situations you want to put yourself in then you can build ur Engine aound that.
All the meta builds are ofcourse good for a reason, or several reasons and they might perform slightly better than other builds but that doesnt mean you shouldnt use the traits and skills that you like.
Every now and then I run completely messed up builds in wvw, Everything from full turret builds with all turret traits to weird knock down builds, jsut for fun.
The thing is, If i know what situation I wanna be in, and which one I cannot handle with the build, then the builds works fine.

i run this in dry top

you miss a lot of damage from sacrificing mod ammo, but its open world pve and you do a lot of damage already so its barely noticable except at like teq (where you dont need fall damage or swiftness much anyways).

I can’t help but feel a lot of you didn’t read the whole post.

Any character I get to play is played with toddler asleep on my lap, so lots of keymashing is fairly implausible lest it wake him.

I mean if I had that going on I surely wouldn’t want to be swapping kits constantly either. Now engi might not be the best option with that in mind but you can surely do it with a lot of different options, sub optimal, of course, but take that into mind.

Also,

What I’d like is a spec that’s fun for playing solo PvE at 80, so I can participate in maps in a fairly casual way. When I’m home, I’m working, or wrangling a toddler who demands my attention. Which means I simply don’t have the time or focus to PvP or dungeon like I used to

Cele rifle engi as a casual PVE build? Really? The build where you swap your kits regularly to get your big hitters in focusing a lot on control effects… what?

Again, Casual PVE in open world with a sleeping toddler on their lap that they don’t want to wake.

As a T1 server commander, I can tell you that anyone who claims the trait line is useless, is clearly misguided and not here to help. I often use power shoes, but the elixir infused bombs can be very useful. One of my favorite skills in this trait line, is stabilized armor. When combined with protection injection trait, you literally take 53% less damage when CCed. That is a massive increase in survivability when the stability is stripped. Power shoes is certainly handy when you cannot be bothered with wasting points in the tools line.

I run power shoes like 90% of the time, cause unlike speedy kits, i don’t have to think about it. Its like traveler’s on my mesmer.

I usually go 0/6/4/4/0 with Healing Turret/FT/EG/choice, taking kit relevant traits. I use mostly zerker gear with a few soldiers pieces to taste. Fire/Air sigils, which proc off cooldown due to the rapid hits from FT #1. I can spend most of my time in FT, which does lots of damage due to might stacks, Mod ammo (+2-26%), +15% from deadly mixture, +5% while bleeding, and +10% while burning. You also get 3-4 low cooldown blast finishers, stunbreak, condition cleanse, and juggernaut + inventions makes you reasonably beefy.

Its great for tagging mobs and you can decently DPS champions and bosses too.