Guild Wars 2

Hi people,

I’m very new to the game and I’ve been running a dual pistol engineer. I am simply dying all the time. I tried pistol/shield and rifle but they actually seemed worse.

I’m not running to places far too high level for me, it just seems that whenever I am fighting more than one mob that’s it. Deadtown. I’m kiting mobs but end up getting cornered or aggroing multiple others. My personal quest arc is getting silly as I’m just stuck on one of the basic ones as I’m up against 5 mobs.

I would appreciate some constructive advice (preferrably not “ur doing it wrong!!!”) because I know I’m doing it wrong and want to improve.

I really like the idea of an engineer but I’m finding myself considering going for a guardian or something because I’m going to throw my pc out the window if this continues!

Thanks,

Bite

I don’t have any problem soloing this way. Either Flash/Frost Grenades, or Gluebomb (Glue Gun on Pistol 2) to slow them down.

Mobs that will get you are multiples with snares and shooters.

Get a healing ring of some sort down and circle kite them in the ring.

I’m not saying this is the most effective source of damage, but since Pistol builds have a lot of AOE I overaggro a lot.

Hello!

Can you explain a little what tactic you use when you fight? I’ve played engineer to level 80, I started out my first levels going dual-pistols but later switched to grenades. When you use pistols you want to go heavy in condition damage. Have you updated your gear? What utilities are you using? Elexir B is usually a nice pick since it gives you swiftness, fury and might, increasing you damage and allows for more easy kiting.

And maybe pistols is not for you. Try the grenades or the flamethrower, maybe it fits you better? Hope this helped!

Hi,

Thanks for the responses. My main tactic is just kiting around with my dual pistols trying to inflict as many conditions as possible. At first this was effective but I have recently found myself dying a lot.

I am interested in trying out grenades as I haven’t really got my head around them yet. What do you suggest as a tactic for them? Do you go round with the nade kit active the whole time or do you switch into it when SHTF?

Also I was thinking of using the med kit to help prevent death. Is it as useful as elixirs?

Thanks

Hi there, I’m still level 48 but I hardly ever die in open world PvE. I focused my traits and gear on burst damage, that means I try to deal the most amount of damage as fast as possible, also some kiting to avoid being hit. Usually mobs are dead before they reach me, for this I find the rifle is the best weapon.

My utilities are Healing Turret, Rocket Turret, Personal Battering Ram, Elixir U.

I open with rifle’s net shot that pins the mob in place, followed by Rocke Turret’s secondary and Battering Ram’s secondary that cripples the target. Then Blunderbuss and Battering Ram primary. By this time the mobs mostly as good as dead, if not my net shot is ready to pin it down again and finish it off.

I try to never pull more then two mobs but if I accidentally do it I’ll immediately deploy the Rocket Turret cuz one or two mobs will usually go for it and get off my back. Also always try to focus on one at a time, trying to kill them all at once won’t work. As soon as one is gone it’s one less mob to worry about.

When I’m surrounded by two or more I use the Rifle’s Jump Shot followed by Overcharged Shot. It’s a great AOE damage and gets you out of pack while immobilizing one foe.

Well, that’s all I can think of for now. In dungeons it’s a completely different beast tho.

Hi Bite,

It’s no big deal to have a bit of trouble. When you are kiting, try to do so in a big circle rather than willy nilly all over the place, this should limit the amount of ground you cover and somewhat mitigate the numbers of other mobs you pull in. Also, you might find it helpful to add some crowd control skills to your arsenal… be it knockdowns or nets or what have you… the engineer is readily one of the easiest professions for controlling entire crowds of enemies. Also… think about line of sight, you can use the terrain to slow the mobs down and control their ability to attack. A little bit of spacial/situational awareness can increase your survivability by quite a bit.

Make sure you are good at dodging and know when to… find a good rotation for your skills and understand their effects. In particular, I pay attention to my combo fields and finishers as this allows me to stack on nice buffs with very little effort. Such as dropping the big ole bomb and then setting down bomb kit #2 which creates a fire combo field. The big ole bomb has a longer fuse so it has to go down first, but it is a combo finisher and has a nice blast radius and knockdown… when it goes off it will combo to stack the might buff on you. Smoke bomb can be used the same way. Healing turret creates a water field (which can push regeneration out to all friendlies around you including yourself)… and flame thrower creates a fire field. There are others, but you get the basic idea… creating combos with yourself takes a little practice but is well worth it.

If you need more help than that… you can try tossing down a turret to take some of the aggro off you… thumper is very good drawing mob aggro so you can pick them off. But pretty much any turret will do, thumper just has high health so it will hold them “longest” and by longest I mean after about level 25 that means a couple seconds at best… I was excited about turrets but they stop being worthwhile around lvl 25 or so… they simply start getting one shotted by everything, which makes them mostly useless for anything other than an emergency aggro dump and a well timed explosion. Unfortunately I find plenty of other skills to put in my slots that have more useability for me.

Oh… and since you are running dual pistols don’t be bashful with your #5… glueshot is kind of a weak hold as holds go… but it will slow their movement down for a few moments and allow you set up the next pitfall. For my money, I like the pistol shield combo better… #4 gives you projectile reflection and a knockdown/blast finisher… and #5 gives you a stun that can be thrown through a crowd to stun everything it touches.

Hope all that helps… remember the engineer is all about tactics and flexibility, if you Leeroy everything, you’ll die.

Try getting swiftness on crit from the firearms tree and vigor from swiftness from the alchemy tree. They both work fantasticly together and you’ll be able to dodge roll twice as much.
Alternatively, if your kit heavy, swiftness on kit equipping can be used instead of the one from firearms.

OP, I know your pain, in my first 10-15 levels of play I must have died at least 20 times in just regular outdoor fights, not even DEs, while I tried to get the hang of coordinating everything.

If you are struggling to fight one or two critters out in the open world with rifle or pistol, I wouldn’t suggest grenades in general to fix this, as it is IMHO even trickier to target and fire them off competently while kiting around. I’m just barely starting to get the hang of it, I usually use grenades in DEs where a bunch of foes may be fighting other people so I can stand relatively still and throw them. What could be handy is swapping to it for Smoke grenade when you have several foes on you to buy yourself some breathing room.

What I found works well for me if I"m fighting one foe with Rifle is open up with autoattack. As they run close, when they are just out of melee range hit them with the net. Fire Blunderbuss (#3), it does more damage at close range, back to autoattack 1. As they get free of the net, use #4 to knock both them and you back (be aware of whats behind you! Usually that way is clear of critters, since you came from there). Pick up with autoattack, net, blunderbuss again and they will generally be dead as they reach you. This is also a good way to start learning telegraph signals of big attacks to practice dodging, since you just have one guy to focus on and they are usually close to you when they are attacking.

I think P/S has similar tactics, either way, work on getting the hang of one consistent way of fighting things then start branching out once you have that mastered by touch (without having to look at the keyboard).

Practice doing controlled circle kiting in small circles, facing the right way so you could shoot things, in spots that don’t have foes. I have probably put close to an hour into that at different points, while waiting for something on the market or friends to arrive, and am still only fair at it.

P/P is probably the most offensive and least defensive of the three weapon sets, I dropped it early on for Rifle until I could get good enough at “active defense” to start moving back to a more offensive weapon set. I don’t anticipate that being before level 80, if then.

Oh, one other thing, look for armor and jewelry on the Trading Post that has Vitality and Toughness. That can make a big difference in your survivability, and you can buy it cheaper then you could craft it even if you learn the right crafting profession.

“If you are struggling to fight one or two critters out in the open world with rifle or pistol, I wouldn’t suggest grenades in general to fix this, as it is IMHO even trickier to target and fire them off competently while kiting around.”

My mileage varies, I use the ‘Fast Ground Cast’ option, which casts ground based aoe directly at the cursor. (kinda like smart casting in LoL) Consequently, casting grenades while kiting only gets tricky if they -aren’t- on your rear. (then it’s a case of fighting the camera and an enemy)

One problem with this option is that it removes the ground markers, so it’s harder to get a feel for range.

Try using a build like this.

http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mcMM9cz0mlNGMmlNGMa0xx0czVqosb

It’s very easy to handle a dozen mobs in certain situations as long as you use good kitting and situational awareness.

I run dual pistols as well. I’m not a fan of the rifle unless I’m doing PVP. Bluewanders’ advice is spot on.

A lot of the trouble new players have with GW2 is realizing that there is no best setup for every situation. Have a plan of action for every battle you foresee. However, that being said, I do have a general setup I have used for 90% of PVE with success:
-Dual pistols, stat focus on condition damage, shield if I know the mobs are more melee-focused (make good use of the pushback and stun)
-Elixir H for the stat boost
-Elixir B for swiftness
-Elixir U/Grenade Kit for a quick burn or groups
-Net Turret/Bomb Kit/Rocket Turret depending on what I’m fighting

Spec Firearms for the increased gun range, Explosions for the bleed chance, and Alchemy for longer duration/reduced CD on elixirs.

Single targets shouldn’t give you much trouble unless they’re strong/elite. Normal mobs will die before they can get to you if you start at max range. For groups, net turret/Glue Shot and grenade kit will work wonders. As said earlier, try to kite in a circular pattern so you don’t accidentally grab more mobs.

@OP

I have leveled to 80 The Eng can be a pain to learn. I use the healing elixir but around 40 bit the bullet at started using the Med Kit. Boy did I die early and often until I learned how to use it. All this said is you should be able to take on 3+ mobs but once again it depends on the mob. For example I am gear for mobility, if I get to many crowd controls from mobs like chill and cripple, I am dead.

You may also need to know when to use a skill and some skills are a little bit misleading. For example the static shield. the tooltip states “Electrify your shield, preparing to throw it at foes. If you are hit, the shield discharges, stunning your nearby attacker”. this leads many to believe that it will stun anyone that hits the shield. However it will block all range attack for 2 secs ( i wish it was longer) and never stun one of them but if you are hit it melee with it active it will stun then and drop the shield. So the tool tip should state that it will block range attack for 2 secs or 1 melee attack with the melee attacker getting stunned. Also its animation is you hiding behind your shield with your auto attack off. this may lead you to believe that you cannot move when the shield is active. In practice, whether it is a bug or not,You can use static shield move and use other skills like reactivating you auto attack.

All this said my basic pistol and pistol tactic is engage them from make range, then slow them down with glue shot. This is where I will use elixir B or U , I like the both for different reason. Sometime I will go with the rifle turret for the tool belt skill and to be able to drop something to get me more time to heal myself or dis-engage.

All this knowledge just comes with time and with it you will live more and more. This forums is good at giving you tips and trick regardless of your build. Pretty much I only die now to a bad pull, bad spawn, lack of paying attention, or in a dungeon (Many of them are brutal and unforgiving if not all)

Aoe spec is the way to go for pve. I take on groups of 4-5 mobs regularly, sometimes with a veteran too, and rarely die.

Pistol/shield, bomb kit, slick shoes. The key is chaining your aoe blinds(pistol 3 bomb 4) with your aoe knockdowns(shield 4, slick shoes, BoB). Save dodge for when blinds/knockdowns are on cooldown. Open with pistol from range to gather mobs then switch to bomb kit when they are all grouped up.

Keep them aoe CC’ed/blinded, drop bombs in their face. If executed properly 3-4 mobs are easy and you come out of the fight at 90%+ health because they are constantly blinded or knocked down.

If things go poorly CC and use slick shoes toolbelt to sprint away and reset the fight.

Make sure you have the bomb traits and decent vit/toughness, glass cannon not recommended.

Fantastic for for DEs too.

I’m level 22 right now and I seem to be having the same problem but under different circumstances. I am currently equipping a rifle but I’ve spent most of the time leveling up using p/p. I’ve tried P/D as well but it wasn’t as fun (playwise) for me. Anyway on to the problem:

The problem I have is with range mobs. I know – strange, right? For some reason, I just seem so ineffective against them. I can manage 1 ranged mob fine but add in another melee, or worse, another range mob, and I’m good as downed. Using P/D didn’t help that much in this situation as the incoming damage was simply too great to out damage them first. The worse mobs are the Golems that seem to do this barrage of attacks that take more than 700HP.

I am equipped with lvl 20 Masterwork level Rifle with + power, and I also bring along a pistol and shield with + vit. It seems to not matter what utilities I bring since all of them are situational and just when I thought I’d have the right set to run with, a situation comes up that my utility skills are useless against. Right now I’m just bringing flamethrower, rifle turret, and elixir S (because what the heck, I keep dying anyway so might as well bring that 60 second panic button for quick escapes).

Turrets would have been a nice distraction if they weren’t so unweildy and die so easily. I have to keep remembering to put them down and pick them up, and then there are those annoying situations wherein I’m just looting but I accidentally pick them up because, no surprise here, ANet’s brilliant design was to put looting and action button in 1 key.

Just to be able to survive enough not to get annoyed to the point of quitting playing, I’ve specced into Alchemy for that added life and chose the trait that automatically makes you invulnerable for 3 seconds when you hit 25% life.

I think one more thing I have to add here is that I’m usually fighting mobs 2-3 levels higher than I am because I’ve ran out of hearts at my appropriate level to do (in fact I’ve finished the level 24 hearts as well in the 15-25 area of asura/sylvari – I forget the name).

So, any tips in dealing with multiple range mobs?

@ pyronix

Keep in mind that rifle is melee so with ranged mobs you want to take the fight to melee were you’ll do more damage and kill them faster.

To get into melee you need to be able to close the distance while taking damage. So using gear with + power / toughness or + power / vitality, and getting a protection trait from alchemy or inventions will help you a lot.

Melee need to be a bit more tanky than ranged.

As far as the golems go there is a little bit of arm movement they do before the machine gun skill. If you watch for it you can dodge it and cut their damage down.

Don’t forget to use crowd control as well. When you get close you can use bomb kit and drop a smoke bomb to blind for 3 seconds and then use the knock back bomb to give another 1-2 seconds of control. That way you can take multiple enemies out of the fight for a short time.

But it’s better not to fight mobs more than 1-2 levels above you. Do not forget you can go to the other starting zones to level as well. You get ranked down to match the area so you’ll still get good xp.

A few levels means a lot in terms of stats early on in this game.

I really don’t think this is an issue with his build or gear… I’ve heard these stories from many new players of all different classes. It’s always the lack of dodge timing and proper skill usage that is causing them to die.

Almost every weapon and kit the engineer uses has a snare, slow, stun, or knockback. I’ll go ahead and list a few.

Rifle
Net Shot – Immobilize foes with a net shot.
Overcharged Shot -Fire a blast so strong it launches your foe as you fall backward and cures immobilized, crippled, and chilled.

Offhand Pistol
Glue Shot – Coat the target area with a glue puddle that immobilizes foes on impact, then cripples foes that remain within.

Shield
Magnetic Shield – Create a magnetic field that reflects projectiles and can be released to push back foes.
Magnetic Inversion – Release the magnetic field to push back nearby foes.
Static Shield – Electrify your shield, preparing to throw it at foes. If you are hit, the shield discharges, stunning your nearby attacker.
Throw Shield – Throw your charged shield. Dazes foes it hits on the way out and back.

Bomb kit
Glue Bomb – Set a timed charge that creates a puddle of glue, immobilizing and crippling nearby foes.

Elixir Gun
Elixir F – Fire a bouncing glob of Elixir F that cripples foes and grants swiftness to you and allies.
Acid Bomb Elixir – Leap backward, spraying an acidic elixir on the ground that damages nearby foes.

Flame Thrower
Air Blast – Push back foes and projectiles with a hot air blast.

Grenade kit
Freeze Grenade – Throw a grenade that chills enemies with a frigid blast.

Tool kit
Box of Nails – Scatter nails that bleed and cripple foes.
Gear Shield – Block attacks.

Utilities
Rocket Boots – Fly backward, damaging foes with your rocket exhaust. Cures immobilized, crippled, and chilled.

Slick Shoes – Spray oil behind you, knocking down foes. If underwater, foes entering the field are blinded.

Throw Mine – Throw out a remote-controlled land mine that damages, knocks back, and removes a boon from nearby foes.

Net Turret – Build a net turret that immobilizes nearby foes.

Thumper Turret – Build a high-health thumper turret that damages nearby foes. (knockback)

Elixir S – Drink Elixir S to shrink yourself, recover from stun, and evade attacks.

As you can see, you have more than enough ways to keep your distance and avoid damage. This doesn’t even take traits into account which will increase effectiveness exponentially. Also, there are many other abilities I probably missed which add to your survivability and damage. For example the elixir gun’s auto attack applies weakness which reduces their effective damage by 50%. Skill descriptions are not written in some secret code, it’s all quite simple. Just read and try them.

The other thing new players need to learn is dodging. This is arguably the most important part of combat in the entire game. And yes, I’ve heard the responses to this many times as well. “But I do dodge! all the time!” It is illogical to be dying if you are properly dodging. Dodge makes you invincible for that 1 second, you literally can’t take damage (except from dots, but those have to be applied by an attack in the first place). You must watch enemy animation and dodge at the moment of attack. I highly recommend turning off double tap dodge. I find it unreliable. Bind dodge to an easy to reach button (I chose E).

Dodging is important, but with rifle builds can be really squishy early on if you focus on power / precision gear and do no stack any vit. / toughness.

The protection traits and bit of toughness or vit. make a huge difference, especially with timing your dodges.

Don’t forget that when fighting multiple mobs you are not going to have enough dodges to avoid everything.

Hi guys,

Thanks for all the help! Lots of advice to get me going.

So last night I decided to run with vit and tough gear, continuing with p/p, kiting around, elixir B and popping down a thumper if things got really hairy.

This has turned out to be pretty fun for me! I know it might not be the best way to play but it seems to suit my style and I am no longer constantly dying, which is definitely a plus.

Also practising my kiting skills has helped a lot so I may experiment with nades or bombs in the future, but right now I’m finally enjoying my engi!

Thanks again,

Bite

Experiment, respec at the trainer every now and then, there are actually several different ways of making an engineer very survivable as noted above.

Consider a Razer Naga or Logitech G600. They can take a couple of weeks just to get used to them somewhat.

Good advice here and all I can do is add my leveling up experience for pve. I found that turrets helped a lot against many mobs, they are like other classes pets. Lay them down early and mobs aggro on them, then you can start shooting away. I preferred going Captain America with p/s. I liked Invention trait tree early on but have played with moving trait points around. I now never run around without 30 points in Alchemy.

Knowing how/when to use dodge is very important, although this doesn’t mean you can’t sometimes outright tank mobs. I mapped dodge to my G600 mouse button. Also learn when to run away, keep an eye out before a fight for an exit route. Especially since there are so many bugs still in the game, like the instant respawns. No point fighting there unless your using it to your advantage to farm crafting mats.

When it comes to Elite skills, Supply Crate is one of the best for survivability. In the water Elixir X is also killer.

Use the bomb kit, thats all you will ever need for leveling up

I had some footage lying around, so I put together a quick video with an example of how I kite with my Engineer. I hope it’ll help you out. The Engineer is a great PvE class, and once you learn how to kite properly, you’ll be soloing champions and large groups of mobs.

You’ll always struggle more with ranged mobs until you get yourself some good gear, so don’t worry about it. Avoid fighting more than 2 or 3 unless your level is higher than theirs.
Always target ranged mobs first. You can kite melee mobs, so they’re no threat to you, get rid of rangers and mages first.

This can be done with any Engineer loadout, but P/P works the best. Against fast mobs like Wolves and Risen you’ll still take damage, but far less than if you walked backwards or stood still. Against your average slow mobs, you’ll take no damage at all.

Get the Power Shoes trait (Inventions line) if your build allows it. +10% movement speed makes kiting even easier.

Bitesize,

As a newer person to Engineer, I can understand where you’re coming from. I also use dual pistols and try to kite mobs. The main problem I found was during the pistol cool down period. Even with reducing my recast timers through the Firearms trait line, there was a dead space of auto attacking in between all of my real pistol attacks. It was during this lull in dps that I was getting overwhelmed.

My personal solution was to add the Grenade kit into the mix. Pistols are my normal form of attacks. I’ll start manually firing my auto attack until I can see that I’m in range. Then I’ll fire off Pistol #2, Pistol #3, and Pistol #4 as they’re closing into melee range. Instead of trying to kite away, I hit the button to switch to my Grenade kit. Aiming directly at my feet, I then fire off every single Grenade non-auto attack available to me. Once those are all cast, I weapon switch to drop the Grenades. By this time, your Pistols should be ready to cast another round of special attacks. Rinse and repeat.

If you end up using a Kit as a back up weapon for when your Pistols are recharging, I’d suggest that you pick up the Speedy Kits trait (Tools – 10 pts). Being able to spam all of your Kit attacks while under a Quickness effect really does make a noticeable change. I’m able to create a spike of AoE dps much faster now that I added that trait to my character.

Bitesize.2539
Also practising my kiting skills has helped a lot so I may experiment with nades or bombs in the future, but right now I’m finally enjoying my engi!

Glad it was helpful, I’ve still got a lot to learn along those lines but found it worked best to start with something simple, like how to move while keeping facing for autoattacking, and add in dodging, and add in kits, and add in other weapons and so on as I got the hang of the basic stuff. Then you have a repertoire which lets you start experimenting with alternative builds.