Guild Wars 2

Hello, this is a build I posted on guru almost 2 weeks ago and I decided it was time to share this on the official forums as well. Here is the link to that forum which includes discussion on variants among other things:

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/83597-an-engineer-build-for-anything-and-everything-pve/

My Engineer build guide for anything and everything PvE

After over 700 hours on the engineer which included getting map completion, story completion, the Dungeon Master title, semi-regularly running 30-40+ fractals, and more recently working towards the legendary rifle(with some help from alts), my build has changed several times over the months. There are many ways to build an engineer and I am going to show you my current build which has given me the most success and variants on it should you desire.

The Build:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQJAqel0pqbHxSeF1LJyoCdGYBiZkfW2nHvVaBhA-jADBYLIYNBksAhEBgSAM/pIasFhDRr6Ks6aYKXER1WdAGxMa1BBsI-e
Changed format so that it works on the official forums

Part 1: Traits:

30/5/0/25/10

Yes as you can already tell this build utilizes grenades. The grenade kit is the best DPS option that engineers have and a build that can work in every area of PvE should be doing the most damage it possibly can. If you aren’t a fan of the nades (perhaps if you enjoy not having carpal tunnel syndrome or the constant button mashing just bores you) I understand and there are many alternatives that can be used very effectively in certain situations. This build in my opinion from personal experience works everywhere. The traits are the only thing you can’t change without leaving the dungeon or fractal and as such will be the first thing talked about. This particular setup holds the possibility for trait swap variants that I will talk about later in this section.

Explosives:

• II: Shrapnel – 15% to cause bleed on every single grenade thrown (3 per skill cast)
  Mainly for bleed stacking and I don’t care for the other 5 especially after the incendiary powder nerf

• VIII: Short Fuse – Reduces recharge on bombs and grenades by 20%
  Can be swapped for X-Enhance Performance for more might stacks if you feel inclined

• XI: Grenadier – Extra grenade thrown with each skill and 25% more range
  Self explanatory for a build that uses grenades

Firearms:

• Sharpshooter Minor trait: 30% chance to cause a 3 second bleed on critical hit, same use as Shrapnel but the 50 precision and condition damage is also nice.

Alchemy:

• I: Invigorating Speed – Whenever you gain swiftness you gain 5 seconds of vigor(5 sec cooldown)
  The first half to permanent swiftness and vigor which is excellent for damage mitigation wearing glass cannon gear in higher level fractals

• IX: Backpack Regenerator – Regeneration while a kit is equipped (not the boon)
  A constant 125 health gain while using a kit is very useful given the amount of time spent in a kit using this build. Can be swapped for X-Cleaning Formula 409 for added condition removal, but only if you take at least 2 elixirs including B for the quick toolbelt.

• Energy Conversion Matrix 25 Minor trait: 1% damage per unique boon on you

With boon spamming guardians and warriors, perma swiftness and vigor in combat, regen from the EG toolbelt skill or even altruism runes, ECM is one of our best traits. Whether in a pug or an organized guild group this trait shines.

Tools:

• VI: Speedy Kits – Gain swiftness for 5 seconds whenever you equip a kit(5 second cooldown)
  This how you maintain permanent swiftness and vigor at all times in or out of combat. As long as you remember to swap kits every ~5 seconds you gain both these buffs as well as other boons that I will talk about later.

Alternatives:

30/5/0/10/25

Thanks to the June 26th patch, we have a reason to go farther in tools for scope. The added crit chance from scope with crit damage in the trait line has excellent synergy. Enduring damage is helpful if you aren’t dodging all the time and since scope forces you to fight further away this can work. Inertial converter also works very nicely in this build due to a last ditch heal/reflect and new stun break from EG. There is one specific situation that prevents me from using this setup all the time(high level grawl fractal), but anywhere else I would recommend this setup if you specialize for pure direct damage.

Part 2: Utilities:

Heal Skill: Med Kit

• After extensive use with all 3 heals, I have settled on the use of med kit. It is the one I feel most comfortable with. The swiftness and fury on 5 is a nice offensive boost with ECM and added crit chance as well. It has the highest healing of the three by itself (not counting blast finishers in the healing turrets water field) as well as a condition removal on a 15 second recharge.
• It is a selfish heal however unless you are dropping packs for your allies which is not convenient or worth the effort imo.That is where healing turret comes in. You can coordinate with your teammates to stand by you or run to your turret to quickly cleanse conditions or execute blast finishers. If that is more your playstyle then healing turret is probably better for you.
• For me however, I am either dodging like crazy with perma vigor in chaotic fights or sitting as far back as possible utilizing the maximum range of grenades. This makes med kit my heal of choice, when on the move quickly swapping in to drop any of the skills while also getting a natural health tick from Backpack Regenerator. As I will be using altruism runes to spam boons on myself and allies Med Kit becomes the might stackers secret weapon with a ~1 second internal cooldown on the “6” button.

Grenade Kit:

• It has been debated and mentioned many times and I’ll say it again, this is the best DPS option that engineers have hands down. 3 Explosions on every button press that stacks vulnerability is extremely useful not just to you but your entire team. Not to mention the traited chance for bleed, aoe bleed, chill, blind, and poison. All of this can be used from a range of 1500 for added convenience. Simple, but effective.
• Due to some number crunching and testing with more condition damage focused gear and traits you can expect a slightly higher DPS in general from grenades than with full berserker gear. This will be discussed further in the gear section.
• Another important note; just because the range on grenades is extremely generous does not mean you have to be as far away as possible. In some cases where stacking is needed or you are better off in melee range, grenades are still your number one option.
• The main drag to grenades at range damage wise is the travel time. At maximum range one skill of nades can take almost 3 seconds to reach your target area, and this can affect your condition stacking in between barrages decreasing your party’s overall damage. Also, if your enemy is mobile, 3 seconds is plenty of time to avoid your strike severely limiting your damage output and perhaps wasting a skill with a semi lengthy cooldown.
• Now there are some bosses where you really don’t want to be in close proximity to obviously, but on other mobs or bosses where you can survive in flamethrower range or closer, you should be in those ranges spamming your abilities for maximum damage output and condition duration.

Elixir Gun:

• A utility I’ve taken for 3 skills really. The (new stun breaking) toolbelt; an aoe regeneration buff for your allies and more damage thanks to ECM. Super elixir for the heal and light field. Acid bomb for the blast finisher/escape which also does some solid damage. A kit I rarely put into my normal rotation but I’ve gotten used to having the tool belt at all times. That and an extra heal insurance policy when I truly need it is why this skill is on my bar 80% of the time.

Elixir U:

• Gives a 6 second quickness for faster attacks and more DPS in a pinch even after the quickness nerf. The random negative effect from thieves or wars isn’t a huge factor most of the time. But that is not why this skill my third most used utility. One, I like having at least one stun break for emergencies. Two, the toolbelt skill is a ground targeted thief smokescreen(projectile absorption) or a guardian wall(projectile reflection). There are so many uses for projectile mitigation/reflection in higher level content that this skill is almost a must have in fractals regardless of team composition.

Elite Skill: Supply crate

An obvious choice. A 2 second stun and blast finisher that also drops several turrets and med packs is much more useful than an elixir that forces you to play in semi-melee range with ripped off skills from other classes. It does grant stability though which is an interesting touch.

Don’t even get me started on that other elite that forces you to remain stationary and is outranged and outdamaged by our main kit’s auto attack.

Part 3: Honorable Mentions:

Bomb Kit:

• A solid choice if you know you’ll be in melee range. Both the fire field and smoke field can be put to good use for might stacking and stealth respectively. The blast finisher toolbelt sounds nice to have but in reality it ends up knocking trash or silvers out of an aoe a teammate was setting up or out of a melee fighter’s cleave range.

Elixir B:

• A good skill to compliment this build with added might and other boons due to ECM. This is a solid option for condition removal if you prefer Cleaning Formula 409, but I feel I can manage without the combination of these two, and that the build is better off for it damage and survivability wise.

Elixir R:

• A full restore of your endurance on a 30 second recharge. Excellent for trash runs especially in Arah. Considering we have so few options for running, you should throw on this skill if you feel like you need that one extra dodge. (June 26th)The loss of stun break is a sizable hit to lots of engineer builds, but for my purposes, it got a slight nerf and buff. I get my stun break from U anyways and the endurance refill is on a shorter cooldown. For running, I may have to use another skill slot for breaking stun, but for those few situations I will live with the change.

• The toolbelt is also interesting for group support as it is a light field for condition removal and a pulse revive. If you know you are about to go down, a quick, well-timed click of the mouse can revive yourself with a little luck even in tougher content.

Elixir S:

• A 3 second invulnerability skill and stun break. Great escape from certain sticky situations you may find yourself in. Targeted by the maw and you just got smacked by a tentacle? Elixir S. Trapped in lupicus’s bubble with no endurance? Elixir S. Wailing on the harpies and your reflect just went down? Elixir S right before you fly off the fractal platform.

Throw Mine:

• A very underrated skill in our PvE arsenal. An untraited 18 second cooldown blast finisher that is also an unblockable aoe boon strip and launch. It sometimes suffers from the same problem as Big Ol’ Bomb with the launch as said above but everything else about this skill is amazing for certain situations where a boon strip or blast finisher is needed. The tool belt skill is also good for fighting in melee range due to the extra 5 explosions causing vulnerability.

Part 4 Gear:

Armor:

For this build which revolves around maximizing your total damage you have a handful of great options.

My personal choice which I believe to be the most consistent and versatile in all areas is Full Rampager Armor with Berserker ascended trinkets. For those of you who might not know what these titles are I will explain:

• Rampager: Precision primary, power, condition damage Berserker: Power primary, precision, critical damage

• The combination of these two sets brings the best of both worlds damage wise. Rampager gear increases our critical chance to help proc conditions as well as increase both direct damage(power) and condition damage(obvious). Berserker is purely an increase to our direct damage output. The reason for this is that the grenade kit is our greatest form of direct DPS and also puts out substantial condition DPS.

• The weapon stats will be Giver’s (Condition duration primary, precision, vitality)stats to increase our condition duration which is hugely important to maintaining vulnerability on targets.

Other options include fully going one way or the other, with rampager trinkets, or berserker armor. These options work perfectly well as the raw damage numbers are very similar.

• If you don’t feel comfortable walking into higher level content without any toughness or vitality there are defensive variants that you can take.
  Rabid: (Condition damage primary, precision, toughness)
  or Carrion: (Condition damage primary, power, vitality)

With these armor sets I would definitely advise taking zerker trinkets as to not hurt your DPS too much from taking more survivable gear.

Side Note: Vitality and toughness matter less and less as you go higher in fractals and you will rely on smart dodging(with permanent vigor) and reflects to mitigate most of the damage sent your way.

Runes:

The runes that I will be using are for heavy might-stacking and added boon duration to keep these stacks as high as possible. 4 Altruism runes and 2 Water runes. This allows me to place might on my allies as well without the use of blast finishers.

Other combinations that work well are:

• 2 Hoelbrak/2 Fire/2 Strength for just might duration. ECM and the swiftness/vigor makes general boon duration much more useful for my build, but if you’ve been running these runes on your current armor set there’s no immediate reason to switch.

• 6/6 Runes of the Scholar, Divinity, or 6 ruby orbs. These runes/orbs will increase your direct damage output and not much else. They are solid choices, especially the ruby orbs if you don’t have the gold for more expensive runes.

• Any condition-focused runes such as Lyssa, Mad King, Krait, or even Runes of the Undead would work to an extent with one of the more defensive armor sets.

Part 5 Weapons:

I fell in love with the rifle from day 1 with the engineer and it remains a very useful weapon. It scales with power and does more direct damage than the pistol. It has an excellent control skill for specific moments and should be in your inventory at the very least.(Maybe for the end of the dredge fractal perhaps…)

However with the extra sigil and the blast finisher, I’ve found that Pistol/Shield is the best choice for this build. When using this build you will be in a kit 90% of the time and two sigils will always be better than one.

If you don’t care for the extra defense or don’t have enough gold to buy a whole new giver’s weapon dual pistols will work just as well. Just keep in mind you won’t have the extra block or the blast finisher.

I will still be working towards the Predator but its use will probably be contained to WvW and certain PvE situations.

Sigils:

For my build I will be using a Superior Sigil of Battle and a Superior Sigil of Peril. This provides the build with more might stacking for yourself and vulnerability duration to help your entire team.

Other Sigils that can work:

• Sigil of Strength for might stacking as an alternative to Battle. Battle is more useful if you swap kits or weapons constantly and holds a higher might ceiling. Strength is more consistent and allows you to be less attentive to switching.

• Sigil of Force or Sigil of Bloodlust for pure direct damage output. Bloodlust will give you more damage at 25 stacks than force. Personally I don’t care for kill-stacking sigils on a glass cannon build as the squishyness is pretty high. As usual, if you can keep the stacks high knock yourself out.

• Sigil of Earth or Agony if you like stacking lots of bleed. Personally I’ve never used or seen a need for these sigils especially on this build as there is already too much bleed imo. I recommend one of the other options but if you already have one of these they aren’t bad choices.

• Sigil of Blood can be another good choice if you value the life steal and extra healing.

• Sigils of Purity, Nullification and Generosity are also interesting options if the others don’t suit you. Removing conditions and boons without using specific skills can be a huge blessing in certain situations or variants of the build.

Also, if you are running pistol/anything and feel like taking the best of both worlds you can mix and match a little. Just be aware that certain kinds of sigils don’t work together such as 2 on-crit sigils or 2 of the same sigil. On-switch sigils share a cooldown with on-crit sigils as well so keep that in mind.

Part 6 Food/Consumables:

A small section that has surprised me in my testing playtime. There are 2 different items that would work very well with my build and I thought I should mention them.

• Chocolate Omnomberry Cream: I loved using magic find food and this consumable fits that mold. It also adds 20% boon duration to further help the might-stacking capabilities of the build.

• Rare Veggie Pizza: Extra condition damage and a whopping 40% general condition duration which allows the build to hit 100% Vulnerability Duration which is extremely helpful. As this is being posted during the Dragon Bash event, Koi Cakes give the exact same benefits at a fraction of the cost of the pizzas. Buy them while you can.

Conclusion:

Lots of playtime with pugs and guildies alike have brought me to this build. As a disclaimer; not everyone will enjoy playing this build. Regardless, I can tell you without a doubt that this build can be used anywhere in PvE with relative success. It provides the highest DPS an engineer can dish out with the right amount of group support and flexibility as needed. If you are a new level 80 engineer, or even if you’ve had a level 80 one since september, this is a great starting point even without the ascended gear.

I plan to make a companion fractal guide to this build in the future, detailing certain moments where different skills excel and specific spots that require a little more attention.

Thanks for reading if you made it this far and I hope that this guide if nothing else, gave you something to think about when building your engineer. Cheers !

Any questions/comments/concerns? Feel free to reply down below or send me a PM.

I will try this out tonight. Thanks!

Hello, I must be missing something obvious. I’m new to Engineer. How are you creating so many vulnerability stacks without taking the Precise Sights trait? Where is your vulnerability from?

placeboing.3896:

Hello, I must be missing something obvious. I’m new to Engineer. How are you creating so many vulnerability stacks without taking the Precise Sights trait? Where is your vulnerability from?

From the 3rd minor trait in the explosive line called steel packed powder. every explosion causes vulnerabilty.

even after the nerf id still go with it, too each to max bleeds then it becomes a wasted trait

interessting. Could you tell me, how you make use of combofield, since you mentioned heavy might stacking???
As far as I know you have got the shield and Acid bomb. Whats your rotation of making use of combo fields?
And isnt the 5 sec speed buff from speedy kits affected by your + Boonduration?

I’ve been running a similar build to this just recently, but without condition damage and I still haven’t switched to pistol/shield, though I know I should. Similarly, I also haven’t made the switch to glass cannon equipment yet since the constant kit-swapping still distracts me from dodging.

Do you really feel that the condition damage adds a lot to the build? I find it hard to justify it myself, but I guess pistol might tip the scales on that once I switch. Do you use it often? I only really see myself using it for the burn—and maybe the confusion if someone ambushes me in WvW when I’m doing puzzles.

lol this is pretty much the build I made up on the spot goin back to engineers last night for dungeoning while being rushed by a pug group.. The reasons are all theret oo ~

Assassin.7890:

interessting. Could you tell me, how you make use of combofield, since you mentioned heavy might stacking???
As far as I know you have got the shield and Acid bomb. Whats your rotation of making use of combo fields?
And isnt the 5 sec speed buff from speedy kits affected by your + Boonduration?

The bomb 2 provides a fire field. If a blast finisher is used inside the radius of the bomb shortly after detonation(shield 4, acid bomb, etc.) 3 stacks of might will be granted to every ally including yourself in the immediate vicinity.

However, the might stacking in my build isn’t primarily from using fire finishers, it is from my altruism runes and my sigil of battle and constantly swapping back to med kit every few seconds or so in combat. With " X – Enhanced Performance" instead of “VIII – Short Fuse” this can be increased further. I can start a fight with 9 stacks and maintain around 18+ regardless of your team composition.

You could increase your party might stacks by quickly swapping to bomb kit dropping the fire bombs and possibly getting 2 blast finishers off in addition to the swapping. But the moments spent switching and the precision timing it takes to pull off more than a few blasts in the middle of a fight isn’t worth it to me. Throw mine could be placed in advance but then the utilities will be different..

Main thing is, for certain fights where you won’t need a stun break/reflect or extra healing, you could swap out for bomb kit to help stack might on your teammates.

And yes, boon duration effects the speedy kits swiftness and the invigorating speed vigor increasing both to ~7.5 seconds of each every 5 seconds.

Weirwynn.2390:

I’ve been running a similar build to this just recently, but without condition damage and I still haven’t switched to pistol/shield, though I know I should. Similarly, I also haven’t made the switch to glass cannon equipment yet since the constant kit-swapping still distracts me from dodging.

Do you really feel that the condition damage adds a lot to the build? I find it hard to justify it myself, but I guess pistol might tip the scales on that once I switch. Do you use it often? I only really see myself using it for the burn—and maybe the confusion if someone ambushes me in WvW when I’m doing puzzles.

I was hoping for a question like this. I used to run a full berserker armor set with ruby orbs for this exact build but after some testing with the rampager’s set I could clearly see a difference in some fights.

If you take a look at the guru link at the top of the build, that forum discusses the condition damage changes to this build very nicely, and one of those posters was kind enough to do some number crunching comparing different sets of gear.

I’ve discussed it in the build above that the important part are the stats and sigils of the weapons, not the weapons themselves. Your bread and butter will be grenade kit almost exclusively if you are using the build properly, making quick swaps for certain skills and boons from med kit. To that end, Pistol/anything is the best option for the extra stats/sigil, just don’t get rid of your rifle because it is still useful in certain situations.

One of the changes I made personally while using this build was buying a mouse with programmable side buttons making the regular swaps back and forth slightly faster and easier. Obviously, not everyone will be able to do this. Without this I would recommend binding the dodge key to a button closer to your pinky finger or possibly even click to swap kits in between grenade strikes.

@Lord Reks

I appreciate your answer, please tell me what you mean with ‘short fuse’
And since this setup is primarly for PvE content, how do you build for WvW?
I think the lack of condition cleanse, not enough dmg mitigation and full GC spec isn’t even worth a try in WvW. So how do you build up for that ?

Assassin.7890:

@Lord Reks

I appreciate your answer, please tell me what you mean with ‘short fuse’
And since this setup is primarly for PvE content, how do you build for WvW?
I think the lack of condition cleanse, not enough dmg mitigation and full GC spec isn’t even worth a try in WvW. So how do you build up for that ?

“Short fuse” as it says in the build is a 20 point explosives major trait that decreases cooldown of bombs and grenades by 20%.

This build is a PvE only build and wasn’t made for WvW. I am not near as experienced in this area of the game on my engineer but when I do take him into dubs I have a burst rifle build that I am crafting currently. That build uses glass cannon gear as well and it fits well with my guildmates that I run with in a squad/zerg etc.

If you did want to run a grenade setup similar to this in WvW , I think the easiest change would be the gear, selecting a high condition damage armor set with defensive stats on top of that such as rabid or carrion would be ideal. As well as changing the trinkets to help stay alive for zerging or 2v1s. More condition removal is an option in the utilities and traits additionally. Note that these gear sets are included as secondary choices in my PvE build, they just don’t put out near as much damage as needed for higher level PvE content.

Lord Reks.8421:

I was hoping for a question like this. I used to run a full berserker armor set with ruby orbs for this exact build but after some testing with the rampager’s set I could clearly see a difference in some fights.

If you take a look at the guru link at the top of the build, that forum discusses the condition damage changes to this build very nicely, and one of those posters was kind enough to do some number crunching comparing different sets of gear.

I’ve discussed it in the build above that the important part are the stats and sigils of the weapons, not the weapons themselves. Your bread and butter will be grenade kit almost exclusively if you are using the build properly, making quick swaps for certain skills and boons from med kit. To that end, Pistol/anything is the best option for the extra stats/sigil, just don’t get rid of your rifle because it is still useful in certain situations.

One of the changes I made personally while using this build was buying a mouse with programmable side buttons making the regular swaps back and forth slightly faster and easier. Obviously, not everyone will be able to do this. Without this I would recommend binding the dodge key to a button closer to your pinky finger or possibly even click to swap kits in between grenade strikes.

I realized during the day that pistol/shield doesn’t even have blowtorch, so yeah, definitely not enough to swap to it for attacks. I’ll take a look at that stats thread, thanks.

As for keys, I have “1” on a mouse button I can hit with my index finger (2/3/4/5 on thumb), which works wonders. Heal is on Q, and 7/8/9 are on E/R/T, so swapping for might, vigor and swiftness is a quick QE for me. Dodge is on the mouse, next to my “1” key. I think it works well, personally.

Weirwynn.2390:

Lord Reks.8421:

I was hoping for a question like this. I used to run a full berserker armor set with ruby orbs for this exact build but after some testing with the rampager’s set I could clearly see a difference in some fights.

If you take a look at the guru link at the top of the build, that forum discusses the condition damage changes to this build very nicely, and one of those posters was kind enough to do some number crunching comparing different sets of gear.

I’ve discussed it in the build above that the important part are the stats and sigils of the weapons, not the weapons themselves. Your bread and butter will be grenade kit almost exclusively if you are using the build properly, making quick swaps for certain skills and boons from med kit. To that end, Pistol/anything is the best option for the extra stats/sigil, just don’t get rid of your rifle because it is still useful in certain situations.

One of the changes I made personally while using this build was buying a mouse with programmable side buttons making the regular swaps back and forth slightly faster and easier. Obviously, not everyone will be able to do this. Without this I would recommend binding the dodge key to a button closer to your pinky finger or possibly even click to swap kits in between grenade strikes.

I realized during the day that pistol/shield doesn’t even have blowtorch, so yeah, definitely not enough to swap to it for attacks. I’ll take a look at that stats thread, thanks.

As for keys, I have “1” on a mouse button I can hit with my index finger (2/3/4/5 on thumb), which works wonders. Heal is on Q, and 7/8/9 are on E/R/T, so swapping for might, vigor and swiftness is a quick QE for me. Dodge is on the mouse, next to my “1” key. I think it works well, personally.

That does sound like a great setup. For the amount of time spamming 1, having that separate button on your mouse does wonders with fast cast ground targeting.

This build is now updated as of the June 26th patch. A little late but it is now done.

Thanks for sharing your build. The tips about the armor, weapon and rune-combinations were really usefull for me.

Even thought I don’t share your believing that staying in grenades as much as possible is the highest DPS engineers can offer at this current stage.

Not only has it ‘s direct damage from the 1st skill (lets not call it AA) been reduced but also the spread of EVERY grenade skills is way higher then before. This fits in what I’ve been observing for underwater grenade spread a half year ago.

I’ve been running with a grenade / sd zerker build in the past and even against moving targets it was way more accurate then now. Currently when you have moving targets most of the time only a single grenade hits sometimes two but most of the time the third just vanishs.

Not speaking of grenade barrage – that one is even worse then before. They increased the spread of grenades when moving . Which might be ok for Zergs and coordinated Group-Play but not for situations where high mobility is required and where you can’t lead your target.

Also Sigil of Battle and Sigil of Strength currently DO NOT share the same internal cooldown. I’ve tested it last night at the Heart of the Mists.

Crit Might -> Weaponswap = 4 Stacks of Might and up

I’m currently testing 30/30/0/10/0 and 30/20/0/20 with Enhanched Performance instead of Grenadier. Precise Sight (50% chance for Swiftness & Vigor), Infused Precision, and Piercing Bullets. 12 Stacks of Might on Weapon Swap is nice, and you could even get it higher with FT (even thought I hate that kit) but I’m currently not sure if i’d like to take an additional Bleed or Might on Crit as a second DMG buff.