Guild Wars 2

I think this has been asked here somewhere but cant find so if it has feel free to point me the right way.
Or go ahead and give you input either way.
Looking for more of a general all-around gameplay/fun damage dealing point of view. I am on the fence at the moment but am still levelling and trying to get a feel for which is “better” option. Have ran condi in raids on my Asura (levelling Char) and for a pure power type class I have my Thief which rocks but am trying out different ways of doing stuffs.
Thanks and sorry if this has been asked (I just know it has)

Well found a few posts but so far its all about the PVP, WvW and that. Is that mostly because as had been mentioned pretty much anything goes in PVE?
Oh wait….may have found one!

I play asura engie as my main. My playstyle is, first and mostly, about having fun in open world.

I have found I don’t enjoy pure damage as much as AoE tagging, permaswiftness and good CC: travelling fast across the map, tagging lots of mobs, going in and out of combat, pushing foes against walls, or launching them into active AoEs from other people, interrupting monsters just in time to save a few partners from a big swing, and then jumping in the middle to blast the fields is really satisfiying.

But this can be done in a lot of ways, and changing builds on the fly while in Open World is piece of cake, so, in the end, there are just a few things I keep fixed: Rifle, Flamethrower, Healing Turret, streamlined kits. Everything else change every day depending on circumstances and mood.

I always keep a full set of ascended engie weapons in the inventory, just in case, and I have 2 sets of ascended mid armor: celestial and viper. So far I’ve found my solo playstyle works way better with celestial, but I try to practice with the viper so I can improve with time, and to play better whenever I have to join a more structured party (were the cele sustain becomes redundant).

Take a flamethrower press 1 and go make some tea. Hands down the most chill build out there.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vdAQFASncoC1ahFpCepCsehl7iSsg+hQke1j9cHcBjwAA-TVROwAjU+RUHgMlggV/Bw+DAA-w

Pride.1734:

Take a flamethrower press 1 and go make some tea.

Lol, or coffee!! But I love it! Will have to give a hammer another look into. Was trying to stay ranged but ya never know, it looks different so I’m keen to give it a go!
Thanks for the reply!

Pretty much what Pride said. There are quite a few variation of the FT build, I personally focus on more damage going with this:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vdAQFASncoC1ahlXBubB0ehl7ii+2j9cHcBjwAQsg2wcA-TxRBABXp8jS1foZ/BzUCuwFAAPdAA8AAAA-e

Condi has about the same damage on high hp targets but lacks survivability, utility and flexibility in terms of utility skills. And against trash mobs, conditions in general are worse than direct damage.

Joxer.6024:

Pride.1734:

Take a flamethrower press 1 and go make some tea.

Lol, or coffee!! But I love it! Will have to give a hammer another look into. Was trying to stay ranged but ya never know, it looks different so I’m keen to give it a go!
Thanks for the reply!

Hammer is a lot more fun than the other engi weapons in pve. Even though you’re melee you’re not any less survivable than with the ranged weapons, because the hammer skills have a lot of defensive utility. Hammer 2 is a whirl finisher + reflect, 3 is a double leap finisher and mobility skill (don’t forget you can unselect enemies to just go straight ahead), 4 is a block, and 5 is an aoe stun + lightning field. If you use your skills intelligently you are very hard to take down as a hammer engineer.

If you aren’t totally sick of P/P condi, that’s a very strong pve build as well. While it doesn’t have the finishers or cc that hammer does, it does have a kittenload of aoe blinds which as it turns out is just as good.

Sorry, but “defensive” in pve = boring. IMO, hammer is way more fun than pistols, but rifle is the winner anyway.

I mostly roll with power builds because lately a lot of PvE content requires hard CC. FT + Rifle combo pretty much blows away most break bars in a single rotation when mobs are not scaled up. It’s also fun to throw trash mobs around with all that CC (I wish Anet would allow us to CC mobs off cliffs). Power also tends to scale better when mobs are exposed, dealing massive DPS compared to condition damage, which usually remains at 1x damage boost during such moments (bug?). There’s also a lot of engineer traits that synergize with power builds, whereas conditions only have 3 important traits to take from firearms, leaving the rest to whatever.

I’ll sometimes play conditions just to try something different. Burn damage alone can easily get 2x power damage when fully stacked on a mob, but it does require quite a bit of maintenance to upkeep. I tend to focus less on the beauty of the game and more on the rotations, which dulls the gameplay for me.

Finally, there’s a mix play style that I haven’t tried yet. Viper offers both condi + power (less ferocity). I don’t have a full viper set yet, but the boost to rifle net shot so that you can get up to 4 seconds of imob (@ 50% uptime) is absolute troll in WvW.

I play condi in open world, I’m really used to it now and it’s fun just throwing a couple skills on a mob then running to the next one while the previous one dies from tics

Nate.8146:

I mostly roll with power builds because lately a lot of PvE content requires hard CC. FT + Rifle combo pretty much blows away most break bars in a single rotation when mobs are not scaled up. It’s also fun to throw trash mobs around with all that CC (I wish Anet would allow us to CC mobs off cliffs). Power also tends to scale better when mobs are exposed, dealing massive DPS compared to condition damage, which usually remains at 1x damage boost during such moments (bug?). There’s also a lot of engineer traits that synergize with power builds, whereas conditions only have 3 important traits to take from firearms, leaving the rest to whatever.

I’ll sometimes play conditions just to try something different. Burn damage alone can easily get 2x power damage when fully stacked on a mob, but it does require quite a bit of maintenance to upkeep. I tend to focus less on the beauty of the game and more on the rotations, which dulls the gameplay for me.

Finally, there’s a mix play style that I haven’t tried yet. Viper offers both condi + power (less ferocity). I don’t have a full viper set yet, but the boost to rifle net shot so that you can get up to 4 seconds of imob (@ 50% uptime) is absolute troll in WvW.

What power build do you run with?
I am trying out hammer but still prefer to be ranged mostly. If I wanna own up close I have a Thief for that so yea, Hammer may take some getting used to or if I find a good rifle build that’s sweet as well.
Thanks to all you guys for your input!!

Krag.6210:

I play condi in open world, I’m really used to it now and it’s fun just throwing a couple skills on a mob then running to the next one while the previous one dies from tics

Yea, been playing Condi like forever but am keen to try something else for a change. I like my Engi and I fight hard for raid spots and am curious about the power builds being on par dps wise. If not I can always roll Condi again cuz yea, it owned for sure!

Joxer.6024:

Krag.6210:

I play condi in open world, I’m really used to it now and it’s fun just throwing a couple skills on a mob then running to the next one while the previous one dies from tics

Yea, been playing Condi like forever but am keen to try something else for a change. I like my Engi and I fight hard for raid spots and am curious about the power builds being on par dps wise. If not I can always roll Condi again cuz yea, it owned for sure!

Power engi is better for most of the raid stuff, condi raid only really became a thing because of early VG kills that spammed condi engis even though it’s not even an optimal fight for them with all the movement and downtime.

I mostly use this for overland PvE:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vdAQFAUlUUh+uYfWwkLQ7FLdG03svduBDexb441DQ3B-TxRBQBUS9nrs/o8AP6AIjSsH8AAGpSQAcBACAcAc+5BgzP/8zP/8m+8zXf9zLFgNysA-e

The combo of riffle, rocket boots, super speed and swiftness makes traveling super nice and easy. Mortar and bomb fields make AoE blinds and debuffs easy, the AoE chill is quite nice on the new destroyers. Against champions and elites you have great break-bar dmg and can get away easy with your mobility in case you need some room for breath. Great healing and might stacking with lots of blasts and water and fire fields.
The idea is mostly to be very mobile and kill things before the blind fields wears off.
Use the bomb auto-attack as your base AoE dmg and burst with blunderbuss+jumpshot+rocket kick+prybar+throw wrench.
For breakbars, try to get the magnetic bomb + BoB + Overcharged Shot. This will finish most breakbars, you can add magnet, glue bomb, net shot, and freeze shell before the main combo if you need some more. When you stun the champ/elite, go with your burst combo (try to pre-cast Orbital Strike before Overcharged Shot), the burst dmg on a stunned champ/elite is amazing.

I find this the most fun overland pve build for my engi. It has great potential and can do quick work of multiple enemies or single powerful foes. Lots of utility, mobility and all that.

For Power engi on dungeons there are a few changes you would make from this, as buffs are provided by others in the group so you can focus even more on dmg.

I changed all my ascended berserker gear to vipers 1 week ago, and I really regret it
I guess I like this condi build better when fighting bosses and such, but there is not that much time you spend on bosses compared to trash if you don’t do much raiding.

Maybe should try good ol’ rifle again that i have not used since some months before HoT came out. If i dont like it, i’ll go with hammer again.

Too bad i picked a ascended pistol from my weapon chest reward in fractals

I find hammer boring as hell. I find playing condi with pistols, bombs, nades and ft much more fun. The overall damage is really good i use ( explosive, firearms tools) and with viper you have also good damage (bombs and nades hit hard)

PierPiero.9142:

I find hammer boring as hell. I find playing condi with pistols, bombs, nades and ft much more fun. The overall damage is really good i use ( explosive, firearms tools) and with viper you have also good damage (bombs and nades hit hard)

Same, tends to be a bit slow to me. I do like condi as well but was/am intrigued going power. Question though, wouldn’t Viper be good for both since the power and condi damage is the same, on the armor? And rifle does have bleeds…..just a thought?

On PvE I play viper rifle often. Its really ok if you like to tag multiple foes while the previous are still dying. I still prefer my celestial set, though. Less fragile, more fun.

Ardid.7203:

On PvE I play viper rifle often. Its really ok if you like to tag multiple foes while the previous are still dying. I still prefer my celestial set, though. Less fragile, more fun.

What build you using?
Right now I am bouncing between Rifle and P/P as the hammer is just not feeling right. I do love the breakbarness of rifle 4! But with 2 skills kinda putting us out of combat for a bit (4 & 5) I am leaning towards P/P as the winner……

Joxer.6024:

What power build do you run with?

As far as stats go, my armor is always celestial and I swap my accessories between celestial or zerk depending on the content I’m doing. Celestial is good all-around survivability for new content, and zerk is something I use for fights I know more about and have higher survival confidence.

Here’s the template build I start with.

1. Firearms specialization, Elixir Gun, and Mortar are the only things that never change in all my builds. I consider those a staple in any engineer build.
2. Nice fluidic combo with this setup: FT Air Blast (on breakbar only), FT Napalm, Rifle 3, 4 (on breakbar only), 5 (fire aura), Elixir Gun Acid Bomb (might), FT Flame Blast (+might). If I’m with a zerg, I’ll detonate the healing turret for another stack of might.
3. FT + Bunker Down is a guaranteed spawn of mines + med kit every 2 seconds. I love when those mines stack and then lure the mob into it.
4. If I roll with grenades, I’ll replace inventions or scrapper with explosives to maximize their potential. I mainly use grenades to stack vulnerability to help move combat along faster.
5. With a zerg, survivability is typically not an issue. I may use the Firearms Modified Ammunition trait + swap Scrapper for Tools to get an additional damage boost.

Joxer.6024:

Ardid.7203:

On PvE I play viper rifle often. Its really ok if you like to tag multiple foes while the previous are still dying. I still prefer my celestial set, though. Less fragile, more fun.

What build you using?
Right now I am bouncing between Rifle and P/P as the hammer is just not feeling right. I do love the breakbarness of rifle 4! But with 2 skills kinda putting us out of combat for a bit (4 & 5) I am leaning towards P/P as the winner……

Pistols bore me to death because of poor CC and lack of interesting animations.

I typically run Rifle, Flamethrower & Healing Turret + Juggernaut and Streamlined Kits, with Strenght runes on Celestial armor to maximize might, and Berserker weapon. Everything else varies, but more often than not, I’m running all kits just to have more options. EGun acid bomb, Grenade Barrage and Orbital strike are usual skills on my “rotation” (If you can call it that..).

Quick question for anyone.
Did some dps “tests” on the golem and with P/P condi the dps was higher than with rifle and power. Is that more because its a single static boss with high HP and therefore the dots are ticking away? I believe it was Xyonon who mentioned that power shines on open world/trash more so than condi due to that reason? Condi is great for bosses it seems but overall dps is higher with rifle?
Just some thoughts….

condi is better for high health targets due to condi taking time for its full damage to elapse, but realistically it’s 6 of one and half a dozen of the other for those targets.
power is best for lower health targets cause the burst can bring them down before condi has even had a chance to get through half its damage potential

Condi doesn’t essentaly deal more damage than power on high health targets either. It shines against husks due to high armor though. But power and condi are both pretty equal when it comes to solo dps.

Whether power or condi is stronger heavily depends on the balance between attacks speed and cooldown, or short: Quickness uptime. You can basicly say: The more Quickness you have, the better power becomes due to the natrually weak auto attacks of condi Engi. If you don’t spec Scrapper, you won’t have Quickness at all, except from Elixier U. So condi will start to become better.

But as I said, both condi and power are almost equal in terms of dps. I personally prefer power due to having more defensive abilities aswell. It also wouldn’t hurst to use the Tool Kit or Rocket Boots as condi btw. The dps loss isn’t really big, aslong as you keep nades and bombs in your kit.

Joxer.6024:

power shines on open world/trash more so than condi

Generally yes. If you have time to stack your condis and let them sit, the DoT will exceed what you output with just raw power. That’s by design of this game. If someone were to graph the DoT between power and conditions, you’ll see power starts off strong, but conditions eventually catch up and then surpass raw power. The only exception to this is that most exposed bosses only increase power damage output and not condition damage output (ex: Tequatl, HoT bosses). In those cases, power damage blows condition out of the water by a massive amount. On the flipside, certain mobs and bosses benefit more with condition damage because of their mobility (making them harder to melee or focus attack) or due to high toughness. In those cases, conditions win.