Guild Wars 2

This is a build concept I’ve been thinking about for a damage (condition) / support build for a while. I’m going to post it here and see what commentary i can get.

Weapon: Rifle of Perception
Armor: Apothecary’s, 2 Krait runes, 2 Afflicted runes, 2 Altruism runes
Healing Skill: Elixir H
Utility Skills: Elixer B, Elixir R, Elixir Gun
Elite Skill: Supply Crate
Traits
Explosives: 10 (Incendiary Power)
Firearms: 15 (Refiled Barrels)
Inventions: 15 (Protective Shield)
Alchemy: 20 (Invigorating Speed, Self-Regulating Defenses)
Tools: 10 (Speedy Kits)

Explanation
This is, first and foremost, a incomplete build. That is why i am posting it here, for commentary and ideas for how to improve it. My general idea is, for offense, this build would combine the rifles’ crowd and positional skills (and blunderbuss!) with the Elixir gun’s damaging skills to deal damage while staying on the move. This would be further assisted by the quirky combination of Invigorating speed and Speedy kits, which would allow permanent swiftness and vigor. Fury from hidden flask, Elixir B, Maintenance oil/other assorted precision consumables & a Sigil of precision would keep critical triggers for the Incendiary Power & Sharpshooter viable. Combined with the runes and blunderbuss, the Engineer would be able to keep a respectable (but not excellent) number of bleeds going with any hope. The key to this build is it’s survivability, it receives 3 seconds of invincibility and free healing skill recharge when it reaches 25% health. It also possesses 2 AoE heals for supporting it’s party, two throw elixirs (not including R) for additional support, and a solid self heal. Perma swiftness and vigor would keep it on the move always. I’ve done more then a few fractals levels with my engineer, and i can say from experience that a little defense and some fancy dodging can go a long way for keeping yourself alive, even when everyone else wipes. So, yeah, that is just about it. The two remaining aspects, Elixir R and Supply Crate, are overpowered in their own right and should go in every respectable PvE Engineer build.

Discuss.

First let me say I guess that is a pve build so…

As it is right now Elixir-gun still needs the kit refinement, BUT it’s just not suited for condition damage due to the lack of flamethrower, same goes for procs so let’s say this, you’ll only use the EG for its utility (acid bomb and heals), for the rest… go static discharge, imo it’s the only way, else you won’t do enough damage in any way trust me.

My suggestions for the eqs would be:

Rifle (perfect for static discharge with the edge given by its utility, which the pistol would otherwise lack)

Knight/Magi stats (or maybe Cleric/knight)

You’ll end up with 30 points in tools so it’s wise to get some precision after all, just not procs, value precision (for eqs) over power due to the cr.dmg given by the traits.

Obviously your utilities will be:

-healing turret (best healing skill in game)
-EG
-rifle turret (for best static discharge)
-elixir of choice (most likely elixir R, thanks to the extra edge given by “inertial converter” minor trait)

Condition builds are crap. They work in wvw because condi builds in wvw are about OP confusion and then decent burning damage. Bleeds are weak in PvE and often outperformed by berserker gear sustained damage.

If you do conditions in pve you will be dragging your group down. Berserker/Knight is king there.

You bring elixir in pve for the weakness autoattack and most importantly the much improved super elixir healing field that you can blast with acid bomb on plus the build removing condis from the group from elixir skills and elixir throwing.

I honestly don’t see why the elixir gun is never used for its Tranquilizer dart. It’s not a bad attack. Sure, the DPS is low, but it’s one of the best single-target attrition moves in the game.

Everyone looks at its low damage, but it’s got a 4 second bleed AND a 1 second weakness, which is spammable. If you’ve got +100% condi duration, you can keep weakness up on ANYTHING, including champs, and build it up. What other skill can boast a base uncleansable perma weakness?

Daigle.8497:

I honestly don’t see why the elixir gun is never used for its Tranquilizer dart. It’s not a bad attack. Sure, the DPS is low, but it’s one of the best single-target attrition moves in the game.

Everyone looks at its low damage, but it’s got a 4 second bleed AND a 1 second weakness, which is spammable. If you’ve got +100% condi duration, you can keep weakness up on ANYTHING, including champs, and build it up. What other skill can boast a base uncleansable perma weakness?

The problem is this: Weakness is terrible in PVE. Silver and below mobs are better served taken down with sheer brute force, while Champion and higher mobs have Defiant and reduces Weakness duration by half.

Even in Arah and high-level Fractals, a majority of damage is avoided through positioning and dodging, as per GW2’s combat philosophy. All Weakness does is provide the party a random amount of cushion to miss dodges. Keyword: random.

Daigle.8497:

I honestly don’t see why the elixir gun is never used for its Tranquilizer dart. It’s not a bad attack. Sure, the DPS is low, but it’s one of the best single-target attrition moves in the game.

Everyone looks at its low damage, but it’s got a 4 second bleed AND a 1 second weakness, which is spammable. If you’ve got +100% condi duration, you can keep weakness up on ANYTHING, including champs, and build it up. What other skill can boast a base uncleansable perma weakness?

FYI, the 3rd part of the warrior’s mace autoattack chain applies weakness, and winter’s bite on the ranger’s main hand throwing axe can keep up permanent weakness as the cooldown is the same duration as the condition application.

There’s also some traits that can apply it without having to rely on using a specific weapon set:
Thief – Lotus Poison (when poisoning foes)
Elementalist – Arcane Precision (chance upon critical hit with an air skill)
Mesmer – Debilitating Dissipation (chance on clone death)
Necromancer- Withering Precision (25% chance on critical hit)

Considering that weakness is also easily applied through combo field blasts and leaps through poison fields, there isn’t exactly a shortage of the weakness condition around in most parties if you happen to want it.

Stick with Rifled Barrels in the Firearms tree if you’re going with elixir gun.
The trait has a hidden advantage, it’ll change Elixir Guns Tranq Dart to apply a 3 second weakness instead of 1 while only losing 1 second of bleed.
This will allow you to keep perm weakness up on creatures with defiant.

Even without Defiant, there seems to be no real middle ground between attacks that are so weak you don’t need weakness, and attacks that are so strong that you’re much better off dodging/blocking them.

Weakness is useful on paper especially when combined with healing, but the mechanics of GW2 just don’t really work that way. You’re always better off with DPS. A mob that’s alive half as long also only deals half its damage. That doesn’t make the elixir gun a bad kit, but it definitely makes it bad as your main kit that you’d spam the auto attack of.

Advantages of the elixir gun, as listed in OP:

- Deal damage on the move. But FT can do this also, and does more damage.

- Speedy Kits + Invigorating Speed. But this also works with FT.

- “Two” AoE heals. Actually more in this build since the elixir gun alone contributes two (Super Elixir on #5 and Healing Mist on your toolbelt). The elixir gun is pretty good for this.

So based on the OP’s priorities, it’s actually only the healing that’s better. Damage is much worse. In addition to that, FT works better with crit triggers.

Things not listed in OP:

- Weakness and bleed from EG #1. See above, only good on paper but there are no situations to match in game.

- Awesome condition removal with EG #3 and EG #5. (FT needs Kit Refinement to remove conditions, other kits can’t do it at all.)

- New blast finisher on EG #4 that also does decent damage on stationary enemies. That’s actually a really good skill now, but it has a cooldown of 15s, so you’d not stay in EG for this. It’d be more like blast some combo field, put down a Super Elixir, then switch to something that actually does damage.

In summary, I just wouldn’t bring the elixir gun for damage, at all. For dealing damage while on the move, I’d really suggest looking into the flame thrower. It doesn’t have the best reputation, but it allows for a similar playing style as the elixir gun except it does a lot more damage. You can still keep the elixir gun around. There are at least two traits that affect both that you could consider getting, and the elixir gun is a support beast especially now with the added blast finisher. The flame thrower would also allow you to put in more power and crit if you find that condition damage isn’t working out well enough, which might well be the case depending on how/where you play.

I’ve had some good success with a hybrid power/condition build using FT and EG in open world PvE (although I prefer pistol/shield over rifle for this purpose). Solo survivability is great, tagging is great now too with FT (seems like a huge improvement on #1 with the latest patch, combined with other tagging related changes on the mob/event side of things). I’ve also found the utility useful for certain dungeons while I easily kept up with the damage of a random group. But it will never compete damage-wise with a berserker build, and I would not want to bring this kind of build to a group that expects to speed through explorables or fractals.

Note that being the last man standing in a dungeon can be a little annoying now as your group won’t be able to join you again until you get out of combat. I agree with that change, but I still see it as a huge nerf to survivability. A group of berserker characters that gets it right on the second try is now much better than a group that’s slowed down because all the high dps characters are dead (before the change, you could at least aim to be the guy that kept the mob from resetting while the dps chars run back). For that reason I’d suggest that support builds use more traits that help keeping everybody alive, and less that only help keeping yourself alive. For example, Self-Regulating Defenses can keep you alive for three more seconds once every 90 seconds. Investing those ten trait points into Kit Refinement instead would give you 4.5 extra Super Elixirs during the same time for AoE heal and condition removal.

@Ojimaru
Why is the cushion random, and A safety net every so often isn’t a bad thing, is it?

An HP buffer isn’t unwelcome, especially for those that find themselves out of position and out of endurance. I find quite often that glancing blows mean the difference between a down and low health. Kitten happens, but that’s why Elixir gun is more of a support weapon in nature. As long as you’ve got single-target lockdown, you’re essentially buffing the entire team.

@Icewyrm
Touche.
I’m just nitpicking now, but…
The examples you listed aren’t quite as good as the weakness on the tranquilizer dart for a few reasons, although they ARE better for others.

The warrior needs to be in melee range for 2.5 seconds to apply 5 seconds of weakness, while the ranger needs his pet to be alive to actually weaken it. The engineer’s disadvantage is that it needs to consistently weaken it, due to the fire rate and short base duration, but can do it at a safe distance of at least 900.

Also, I believe that the thief’s version is the best method of weakness, as the chances for that are not horrifically low, and that poison fields are quite class restricted in nature. (unless you take grenades.) Again, cooldown and melee-range problems.

just my 0.02c

@Damny
A mob that’s alive half as long does deal only half its damage, over time. Agreed.

Elixir gun does deal subpar damage, but I’ll say that, for simplicity’s sake, it deals 50%, and it’s traited for extra duration.

You’re fighting the same creature, 1v1. You have your weakness uptime. It lives twice as long, dealing half its damage throughout the fight.

Deals the same amount of damage as the first scenario, right?

Lets scale up with 2v1, one of which is using an elixir gun, keeping up perma-weakness.
Your party’s DPS is about 75% of what it should be, right? Boss lives about 33% longer than it should have, BUT only deals 67% of its damage.

Now… scale for a full party: 5v1, with 1 elixir gun. Party’s DPS is 90% of what it should be. Boss lives for about 11% longer, but it deals 55% of its damage.

It’s a simple model, omitting quite a lot of variables, but with an application to a boss fight, you’ve essentially doubled everyone’s health pool, for a generally small increase in time taken.

And… at this point, I realized I started this rant for a PvE build. Great.

Uh… Acid bomb is a really really good power-scaling skill, mostly because a large number of mobs are either stationary by design, move very little, or hold still once they find a target. It basically rips things apart, given enough power. This is even before the unblockability and blast combo aspect of it even comes into play.

I still believe that E-gun is a solid weapon, and you shouldn’t write off its damage.

Daigle.8497:

Elixir gun does deal subpar damage, but I’ll say that, for simplicity’s sake, it deals 50%, and it’s traited for extra duration.

It’s more like 10%-20%. I do use the elixir gun a lot and as much as I like it, the damage just isn’t there.

You’re fighting the same creature, 1v1. You have your weakness uptime. It lives twice as long, dealing half its damage throughout the fight.

Deals the same amount of damage as the first scenario, right?

Assuming 50%, which is too high, and that the creature never ever crits because weakness only halves damage of non-critical hits. Even then, you still get half as many kills in the same time. So you would not want to use this against a creature that’s no real danger to you.

It’s a simple model, omitting quite a lot of variables, but with an application to a boss fight, you’ve essentially doubled everyone’s health pool, for a generally small increase in time taken.

Yes. My point was exactly that, in fact. I wrote I wouldn’t use it for damage, but did argue for supporting the party more if you want to be tanky. The elixir gun is great for support all around. It just doesn’t really kill things. If you want to do both, you’re much better off with any other kit. Don’t stay in EG if your party doesn’t need the weakness.

You’ll want another kit anyway because your entire argument about bosses completely ignores everything else you’ll encounter on the way.

There is almost NO way that the Elixir gun deals only 10%-20% damage. Tranq dart is on par with pistols, and it has a longer bleed, as well as more stacks of it, with the same firing rate.

Of course, I’m not arguing TO use tranquilizer dart on something you can just blast away, but just showing the thought process.

In essence, we’re just agreeing with each other on the major points.

There’s no reason to use FT instead of bomb or grenade kit anyways. So EG should never be competing with FT — if you’re limiting toolkits and EG has to compete with something in PvE, it’s either grenades or bombs.

The devs seem to go in the direction now of using a single kit.

Persoanlly i still think kits are best when constantly swapped.

I wouldn’t use ‘just the Elixir Gun’ on bosses, instead i would use it for the obvious healing and cleansing moments, but also to weaken the boss when you have a window for that.
As he moves in for example: eg #4 out of there and weaken him a bit, than swap to something else.

Go back to the kit when the best cooldowns are… of cooldown again

I think EG is awesome in pve, but I would never use just EG. I would couple it with other kits all the time.

That’s my playstyle, not saying it’s what YOU should do.

Zenith.7301:

There’s no reason to use FT instead of bomb or grenade kit anyways. So EG should never be competing with FT — if you’re limiting toolkits and EG has to compete with something in PvE, it’s either grenades or bombs.

The reason I brought up FT is because the movement style is similar to EG and that was explicitly mentioned in the OP. Additionally, there’s some trait synergy between EG and FT.

Daigle.8497:

There is almost NO way that the Elixir gun deals only 10%-20% damage. Tranq dart is on par with pistols, and it has a longer bleed, as well as more stacks of it, with the same firing rate.

Tranq Dart is actually slower than pistol #1, and also doesn’t do AoE damage like pistol #1 does.

Damage is one way to tackle Dungeons certainly, but if you are actually having troubles with progression in some situations it’s not a bad idea to have a Support with you. Constant Super Elixir uptime, effective Regen uptime, Bomb healing, and Weakness uptime can make things much more easy to survive. Especially now that some of the Omnom abuse has been removed, you can’t just pure glass cannon your way through everything as easily as before. I mean it’s still possible, but it’s not the only answer anymore.

If I were to run a Support build, it’d probably be a Bomb Kit and Elixir Gun combo with Kit Refinement. You’d make yourself nearly unkillable and try to keep your allies up as well. Guardians or Ele’s may be able to do this better though, but I’ve actually never done this myself so what do I know.

Also to anyone who thinks a condi build does less damage then a direct damage build is only partially right. It’s not because condi’s do less damage, it’s because of the way the damage output is capped. If you are in situations where you aren’t damage capped then condi’s will do more damage then direct damage even though those numbers look incredibly flashy. However, random bleeds and burns from even the non condi builds kind of ruin this as a possibility in most groups.

The current firing rate of pistols, rifles and the tranquilizer dart are the same.

damny.9342:

Daigle.8497:

There is almost NO way that the Elixir gun deals only 10%-20% damage. Tranq dart is on par with pistols, and it has a longer bleed, as well as more stacks of it, with the same firing rate.

Tranq Dart is actually slower than pistol #1, and also doesn’t do AoE damage like pistol #1 does.

Indeed, Tranquilizer Dart has a longer cast time but the cooldown animation is much longer on Explosive Shot. They end up firing at very similar rates.