Guild Wars 2

Hi all, I started an engineer not too long ago (and game for that matter). I am loving the elixir gun kit because it has great support abilities which I like since I am going towards a more PvE build.

But I was wondering what stats should I be looking for, condition damage or power? I’m guessing it is condition damage because the syringes causes bleed and the fumigate causes poison damage(?)

Also for my traits I am putting the full 30 points into alchemy and inventions and the rest into firearms.

I am also going pistol & shield combo too if that helps clarifies things. Any tips or comments will be appreciated, thanks!

Definately go with condition damage.
Also pick up kit refinement from the tools traitline.
If you’re going to put 30 points into alchemy, remember that traits that effect elixirs do not effect any elixir skills on the elixir gun.

Ronin.5038:

Definately go with condition damage.
Also pick up kit refinement from the tools traitline.
If you’re going to put 30 points into alchemy, remember that traits that effect elixirs do not effect any elixir skills on the elixir gun.

ah ok, that’s good to know, condition it is then ;D

Just curious, since condition is good, is it worth putting the full 30 points into Firearms trait line instead of inventions or alchemy? Also, for the kit refinement, when it says “equipping a kit creates an attack or spell” is like an auto-attack/auto-spell cast some-sort, or does it give me an extra skill to use on my skill bar?
thanks!

Kit refinement auto-casts a specific spell for each kit; for EG it’s super elixir which is pretty great (so when you equip it, it automatically drops a super elixir on your location. It does have a cooldown which differs from kit to kit, about 10 seconds for EG iirc).
If you want to be supporty (and even if you don’t imo) this is a great trait to pair with EG.

About condition damage: because of how it stacks (2 condition oriented people attacking one target will probably overlap dps, 3 most certainly will; effectively “wasting” damage) and because of it’s poor scaling (especially compared to the synergy between power + precision + crit damage increase) I would advise against building for it.
If it happens to overlap with some of the traits you want? Great.
But gearing for power/precision/+crit will simply yield much better damage in most situations (especially for jewels you just get so much more, to the extent that I’m afraid rubies are going to get nerfed some day).

I put 30 points into firearms as it’ll boost your condition damage by 300 + give you 300 precision which comes down to somewhere around 13% crit chance.

Conditions can’t crit, but there are traits such as sharpshooter that have a chance to apply bleed on crit + the two traits infused precision and invigorating speed will inprove your survivability a bunch.

While glass cannon builds will outdo you through damage, if you build for conditions you can also build tanky by picking up condition damage/precision/toughness gear from Orr karma vendors.

You can also go to the mists to test builds out for free if you’re not sure which path to take.

@snafoo: seems like kit refinement is a must and it does sound great too when it drops a super elixir, I welcome additional support stuff

@ronin: i see, so I don’t really need to spec full 30 points into inventions since I can get toughness from gear, but I will also lose out on the +healing, is it a huge noticeable difference or is it just tiny? Would healing/precision/vitality armor pieces make up for it?

My goal is to be tanky, can heal/support, and do some damage via DoT’s. I feel like I can only choose 2 of these while sacrificing one. Or I could lower my overall efficiency and have equal amounts of the 3 but be weaker. oh the decisions xD

OrangeMint.7980:

@snafoo: seems like kit refinement is a must and it does sound great too when it drops a super elixir, I welcome additional support stuff

@ronin: i see, so I don’t really need to spec full 30 points into inventions since I can get toughness from gear, but I will also lose out on the +healing, is it a huge noticeable difference or is it just tiny? Would healing/precision/vitality armor pieces make up for it?

My goal is to be tanky, can heal/support, and do some damage via DoT’s. I feel like I can only choose 2 of these while sacrificing one. Or I could lower my overall efficiency and have equal amounts of the 3 but be weaker. oh the decisions xD

I wouldn’t bother with any +healing gear. You can still have decent aoe healing through both super elixirs, toolbelt healing mist and backpack regenerator. It’s about 450 hp/sec for allies and 550 hp/sec for you.

Build I use for EG:

Elixir H, Elixir B, FT, EG, Supply Create

30 into firearms:- Rifled Barrel, Fireforged Trigger, Precise Sights (or if you want to use the FT as well then take sub Rifled Barrel for Juggernaut)
20 into alchemy as a minimum:- Fast Acting Elixirs. Deadly Mixture.

The remaining 20 all depends on what you want to focus more on. I usually either go with topping alchemy to 30 for HGH or 10 into Explosives for Incendiary Powder. In either case I put 10 into Tools for Kit Refinement. You could put the 20 into Inventions but the increase healing doesn’t make that great a difference (Around 20 extra healing from Super Elixir per 100 points of healing I noticed)

Since they synergize well together I also run with the FT using the EG mostly for Super Elixir and Acid Bomb. It also allows me to get more overall damage from the EG due to the might that Juggernaut stacks (typically around 6-7 stacks with 20 in Alchemy).

Gear wise I’ve mainly used Carrion (Con, Pow, Vit), with undead runes, and a mixture of knight and berserker jewellery. It gives a decent all rounder along with toolbelt elixirs for added support.

I don’t know why anyone would recommend +cond damage for elixir gun.
EG1. yes a fantastic 5s bleed. low/medium raw direct damage scaling.
EG2. no cond damage at all. Very high direct damage scaling.
EG3. 5s poison, on 3s duration channel. 10s cd. Terrible cond and terrible dd scaling. Seriously, dont use fumigate, unless you really need to cleanse someone, and dont have 409 or super elixir up.
EG4. no cond damage at all. Very high direct damage scaling.
EG5. heal.
Toolbelt. heal.
Kit refine heal.

So, you have basically 1 ability that scales with condition damage. Granted its your AA, so it adds up.
But you have 3 abilities that scale with direct damage. 2 of which, very highly.

Casia.4281:

I don’t know why anyone would recommend +cond damage for elixir gun..

What is there not to understand? 3/5 abilities apply conditions.

Casia.4281:

Seriously, dont use fumigate,

What I do not understand is how you can seriously tell someone not to use a skill that does 5 stacks of poison damage, lowers opponents healing, gives 5 stacks of vulnerability, and is AoE.

coglin.1496:

Casia.4281:

I don’t know why anyone would recommend +cond damage for elixir gun..

What is there not to understand? 3/5 abilities apply conditions.

You mean 2/5 abilities apply conditions, not 3/5.
O do you mean the crippling from EG2?
That doesn’t scale with condition damage. ._.

And Fumigate honestly scales so badly with condition damage, its better to swap to another AoE; and the remove condition part is so random.
Though I like to Fumigate on an area where a thief supposedly is hidden, but thats just me running without grenades and totally situational.

To apply 5 stacks of anything with Fumigate, you’d have to hit with all 5 ticks, which is seldom the case in a dynamic fight.. at least in my experience in WvW.

He’s going pistol/shield. That’s why i said to go condition damage.

@ronin: ah i see, that’s very good to know because as I was looking through the invention trait line, a lot of the stuff was ‘meh’ but if it gave me awesome healing power I would’ve sucked it up and went full 30 points. But this is not the case, so no spending 30 points xD

@Malhavoc Adhamar: thanks! Wow I am liking your build, just testing it out right now and it is a very solid build for support mix of good damage, healing, and tankiness. The HGH skill is great, might for 20 seconds? yes please! So I think I will do: 30 fire power, 30 alchemy, and 10 tools. I never realized the alchemy line could be so awesome, i swear I read all the trait line so many times, I guessed I must have skimmed it or something lol.

Yeah. Alch is pretty much the best engi line.
Too many good traits to even take at once. Probably the only line you really have a choice at any given time.

EG alch does force you to though.
H.G.H is fantastic. at +30% duration just by going alch. and +20% food. Possibly even runes..
+50% duration on might from hgh. (regen, fury, ret, etc from Elixir H, B, etc.. as well)
So, not even 20s. its 30seconds of might.
Generally, then you stack up. H heal, and throw, B, and R.
B will then give 2 stacks of might on use. 1 itself, and 1 from hgh. AND, the base use Elixir B at 75% hp, also gives 2 stacks of might.
having 8-9 stacks of might at all times from hgh pretty much.

and if you could have -20% cooldowns, and +20% longer elixirs.. Crazy up time on those buffs.
The problem is of course, well thats your 3 traits.hgh, +duration, and -cd.
What about 409? what about +15% eg damage? (or any of the other really good ones, aka automated defense)
Seriously, too many really good traits in alch.
409 is AMAZING. if you have not used it before. Makes all your elixirs cleanse aoe. Again, if you use H, B, and R. that is 1 cleanse automatic at 75% life. 3 self use instant cleanses. 3 aoe throw cleanses. one of which will pulse cleansing. I would find it hard to justify any engi build without 409. That said, EG does have super elixir.. I would have to put much more playtime to really advise on if 409 can be skipped with super elixir cleansing.
HgH. already stated how good hgh was. in an elixir build you are forced to choose it or the 15% damage I feel. Again, honestly can’t say.. HgH will give might to others on throw. Might is cond and power. And buff EG damage, as well as pistol or rifle on swap.
15% eg is just EG. That said, I did mention Eg is mostly direct damage. so increasing that by 15% will be a large boost to its damage. 5 stacks of might is 175power/cond.

+duration generally the first chosen to be dropped. it doesnt even work on several elixirs.
-cooldown a given usually since its t1.

A note if you were not aware. +damage traits. Such as that +15% eg, or +5% to bleeding targets. Vulnerability 1-25% damage increase. Only apply to direct damage. Not conditions.

Seriously fumigate is terrible.
3second cast for those 5second poison, 5stacks of vul, at that short range, terrible damage.
PDV is 2s cast, 3times as much damage, 10second poison.
The only reason to use it, is if you go rifle instead of pistols, and REALLY need to apply poison. Not that I can think of a reason why you would..

Pistols and EG.
Do go together well.
P/p+eg has a large flaw if you do that. No knockback. They can’t interrupt a stomp. something to consider.
you said p/s though, so will have reflect/kb. good deal. and said pve, not spvp.

Pistol1 scales much better with power then cond. especially aoe with coated bullets.
EG1 does more damage then p1, by a large amount… unless p1 is triple hitting with coated bullets. (double hitting is probably pretty close.)

EG is our sniper rifle, and strong melee too.
no really. the +range trait brings it from 900 to 1200. rifle has 1 and only 1 1200 range skill.
EG has 2 long rang damaging skills. and 1200 range super elixir is crazy how far it heals.

Also, EG skills that say they are elixirs are not.

@Casia: That was a fantastic read! I really appreciate you explaining in detail I didn’t know about 409 also cleansing allies conditions too, I thought it was just the player only, I am going to have to consider this, I was set on deadly mixture…lol I am so conflicted now! I’ll most likely go with 409 because it has such great potential for dungeons and group play.

yea, I was messing around with fumigate today ankittenpt getting this weird feeling every time I use it. I wish it had longer range, but that would make it op (maybe) xD but the debuff is great though, but I don’t think it’ll fit my play-style much because it kind of requires me to go near melee range which puts me in danger. I get what you mean, the trade-off is not so great, and other classes can apply the vulnerability debuff. Also since fumigate does cure conditions, it totally gets outclassed by 409 which does a much better job and at a very far distance.

When you mention ‘Pistol1’, does that mean 1 pistol equipped? Also when you say ‘EG1’ are you talking about the first trait slot unlocked?
Since most of the Elixir gun and flame thrower kit have a ‘flat’ damage component to them, it is better to go for Power stat? Even though the skills do have DoT’s on them, long-term wise it out-shines condition overall? This is for PvE of course, I will probably try PvP but not at the moment.

pistol1 is explosive shot. p1 is just much shorter.
Guess calling it ES would work.

yeah, I find power/crit outshines cond 9/10 times.
And if you take hgh. you get free cond.
You want power to scale off that firearms crit

so sick of grenades.
I’m actually doing this right now.
Pretty major wvw guild.
Sadly, 90-100 online. I am the only engi still playing engi.
25+ mesmers. lol.

Anyway. Felt pretty good about it really. it was working pretty well.
Still not a fan of shield. I swapped back to blowtorch/glue.

and deadly was nice. but I do feel hgh was winning over it.

I favour Deadly Mixture over 409 these days and thats simply because of Super Elixir. Super Elixir also removes conditions so if you’ve got Kit Refinement then you’ll remove one condition on switching into the EG and another one with using Super Elixir. The bonus is that it also a reasonably large AoE so you’ll most likely get a few other people as well.

Even when I’m running with rifles or pistols I tend to take 20% increase in duration because I’m usually using Elixir C as a HGH trigger. Still if you’re sPvPing/WvWing/ in a condition heavy area such as Twilight Arbor then 409 is something to consider taking.

Fumigate is a great support skill.
I use it for cleaning conditions off others.
Other than that, i don’t use it for damage dealing.

@Casia: Ah ok, I actually like that naming system better because it corresponds to the skill number, instead of a bunch of random abbreviations for skills.

-Just curious, what combination of stats on exotic armors should I be shooting for on a elixir gun kit user? I want to be a bit beefy and considered getting power/toughness/vitality, would I be losing out on a lot of damage if I do not go with power/precision/condition? My main focus is still support and being able to take hits.

Also, what was said earlier in this thread, that condition damage does not stack from different players. For example: player1 does a bleed skill of 130/5sec. And Player2 does a bleed skill of 200/5sec. Lets say player1 hits the monster first then player2 hits, will player2’s bleed override player1 then?
If this is the case, then I should just stick with power because I don’t want to compete with another class that is more dps oriented, especially when I am going supportive, might as well let them dish out the DoT’s and I can back-up with raw damage. Also, for elixir gun, the EG1 skill, it does bleed and weakens. I’m pretty sure other classes have stronger bleeds than this, so if they use their skills with bleeds will the ‘weakened’ status stay, but EG! bleed will go away?

Get the condition damage/toughness/precision gear from karma vendors in Orr.
Bleed stacks up to a max of 25 so you’ll get the full bleed damage unless your fighting a dragon or another very large group event.
What damage conditions don’t stack are poison and burn.

@Ronin: Ah I see, when you say bleed stacks to 25, this means that every player that has a bleed skill they will add together? For example: player1 does 100/5sec, player2 does 200/5sec, and player3 does 300/5sec. These will all get stacked together up until 25? This is cool if it does, that way I don’t have to feel too useless when doing some damage xD

So the poison and burn conditions are like the scenario in my previous post, they will get overrided to whoever condition is strongest? I guess this is ok since I won’t be doing too much fire damage anyways…But I do see it’s usefulness though in that if one player has to retreat to heal, I can apply a poison a burn to help out even though damage is lower, it’ll keep the damage flowing.

If I get condition/toughness/precision on armor pieces, should I gem for power then, just to have some balance of raw damage? Or should I just pretty go pure condition damage on the gems?

hrm. tranq seems to be 3s bleed in pve an wvw, an 4s in spvp. anyone else notice this?

I’ve been playing with my berserker/CoF gear. Very effective for the most part.
Might want to swap some stats for a bit more tough/vit though. its a little soft for acid bombs, and blow torches. If you are doing pve though, probably fine to just go raw damage.
pistol/eg does kindof use everything. divinity, etc wouldn’t be bad either.
200 tough is good. ruby gems, in defensive ammy/earing is a good idea.
Rampager armor, power/crit/cond on your armor. ruby rings with ruby orbs.
power/tough/vit ammy/earrings with ruby orbs. Might be the ideal.
Runes. divinity would be nice. I am running Centaur atm. which is crazy op in wvw. perma aoe swiftness. lol. also gives power and +swiftness duration, and +15% bleed duration. Although +15% means nothing to 2 and 3s durations. Although, its 15%, and veggie pizzas 40%, would be 55% and give a 3 pistol bleed duration.
If you take h.g.h, the +20% might duration runes are pretty great as well.

You said you want to be tanky, but yeah. power scales at something like twice as much as toughness. if you got power/tough, now you are lacking crit. I dont think there is a power/crit/tough? and even then, you would be missing crit damage.. Regardless, stacking tough isn’t a good idea, as tough just isn’t that strong. Get enough to stay alive through any burst, long enough to heal, or using dodge/stuns/blinds etc. you have MANY cc, and avoidance options, that all circumvent the need for hard mitigation.
Static shots blind. Weaken. shields knockback, shields stun/block/daze. supply drop stun. dodge.

Absolutely do NOT use the tough/prec/cond gear. feel like a broken record. And people are not listening, or reading the math.
First, yes prec is very good. Esp if you take h.g.h and are getting both free power and free cond.
EG1’s bleed is single target. its 3s in pve. .05/s. .15s scaling. each shot=.15 of cond damage. EG1’s base hit is .380 per shot. .38 is higher then .15.
Then EG2 scales ALOT. .715×4. its bouncing. possibly 1.4 on a target. power/crit, etc.

P1 same. the bleed is direct hit only. the targets hit by the aoe do not bleed.
the double hit does not bleedx2 either. P1 and its aoe is almost entirely power/crit.
PDV is about even direct and poison.
Static depends. if the target attacks and does not cleanse, yes the confuse will be more. if they dont attack, then its ok damage, but not as much as elixir F.
Shield is pure power/crit. If you went p/p blowtorch is good direct, but even more cond yes.

Direct damage just scales better plain and simple as well. even if the abilities themselves didn’t have a bias to power/crit, which they do. People see a condition damage on a skill, and think, omg I need +cond. NO. you dont.
Condition damage is a nice extra effect on top of your raw hit. It is a portion, but not the mainstay. Stop trying to focus on it.

Each cond is separate. the weaken is not tied to bleed.

In short orangemint, if 3 of the people in your group are heavy bleed stackers. They will hit the 25 cap on monsters by themselves i imagine. Condition damage really is not want you want with a support build. You will get more benfit from power but really if your going after anything it might be “condition duration” which means longer weakens, poison, vuln. Interesting thing to add, poison is a weaker damage condition than others. This is because of the utility it provides of lowering the healing amount of the thing your attacking. On certain monsters with self heals or regens applying poison is good for slowing down its health regain. So you want longer lasting poison, not higher damage poison in most cases. Anyway this is all assuming your goal is support so you can be useful to a group.

realized my own post doesnt really make sense. In short, condition damage is not ideal. Power is better, if you want anything to effect your conditions you can go after sigil/runes that increase condition duration for longer debuffs.

@Casia: haha alright, I believe you ;D But on a serious note, I was thinking about condition vs. power, and I feel power is just more beneficial. The scaling is really bad with the condition damage then, quite unfortunate really, maybe they’ll buff it someday and then I’ll go pure condition xD I was watching my damage numbers on the dummies and the DoT’s are pretty tiny compared to the bigger numbers that raw damage is popping out, the condition damage is pretty much that extra gravy. Other classes such as necros’ have stronger condition damage?

@Zinwrath: I really like that suggestion about increasing duration of debuffs, I didn’t even think about that This so fits perfectly with the support role I want to do and makes lots of sense because you want to assist players and keeping monsters weak.

@orangemint. Ironicly necromancers actually do less condition damage than many prof’s. This is highly due to their lack of access to the condition “burning” which is the highest damage scaling condition in the game. Just naturally hits really hard and gets a lot of benefit from condition damage. They are however masters of conditions. In that they get more access to ones like “chill, weaken, cripple even blind” than most profs. They also get really powerful abilitys that just stack a whole lot of conditions on a person at once, spread enemy conditions to other players or turn all the enemys boons into conditions! But damage wise, engineer actually probably has the potential to do more condition damage as we get LOTS of access to not just burning, but confuse. Another condition necros get no direct access to.

Some are better then others.
Confuse has the potential to stack pretty well. Depends on if you target is attacking, and how many stacks you apply.
Bleed is very low per tick.
But you have duration and stacking. So bleed can be good, and can be bad.
2s bleed is bad. EG1’s 4s in spvp is pretty good really. 5s sharpshooter good.
Shrapnel’s 12 is kindof long actually. Good in pve, not so much in pvp. But is also x3 per cast.
Burns have potential as well. with poison and burn there is a mix between strong and too long. In pve, the danger is too many players applying it. PDV has 100% poison up time. So you and only you can apply it. or if someone else has a higher cond damage value, they apply it, and you don’t. 1 person out of 5 in a dungeon, or 50 vs dragons, etc..
Npcs rarely cleanse at least. Vs a player, you have cleansing. which makes long duration conditions an issue. A +100% duration burns are pretty much pointless for example. On paper the damage is very high. but in reality, who is going to let a burn sit on them for 20 seconds? In pve, same problem as mentioned with poison, only 1 person at a time. if you have a very long duration, then someone elses damage is not being applied. So the total damage being applied to the target is not increased.
25stacks of confuse I have never seen. confuse is very good.
25 stacks of bleed. happens. My grenades engi can do 12-20 by myself. (depending on sharpshooter procs.)

I feel I need to correct my power scaling statement which was partially unfair.
I said "EG1’s base hit is .380 per shot. .38 is higher then .15. " .15 being the 3s bleed, without duration.
This is unfair, because .380 is the skill power coeff. but not including weapon damage or armor/toughness into the equation.
.38*969 weapon kit*power/armortoughness=damage.
Cond scaling is basically flat. 400 cond, at .05/tick will increase your bleed 20 per tick for 3seconds.
400 power though. Depends on weapon, skill, power into your targets armor.
916 base power at 80. armor tends to range from 2600(heavy golem and tooltip), to 1900 (light armor/glass cannon)
129.7 hit vs 2600armor.. 177 vs 1900 armor.
+400 power.
200.5 hit vs 2600armor. 274 vs 1900 armor.
+ 70.3damage, or .176 of 400 power. and 97damage .24 of 400 power.
So, not really .38. .176 at 2600 armor, and .24 at 1900 armor.
but that does then scale up more. +5% vs bleeding, +15% if you have deadly mixture. crit damage increase the effectiveness of crit chance, by 2% per 1%. Crit chance increases the average damage by .5% per 1%.
Meaning. 10% crit chance increases your average damage by 5%. 10% crit damage, would increase that by 20%, or give make that 10% crit chance increase your average damage by 6%.
So the gap is smaller then I suggested. Although, even .176 getting 70% crit rate, with +30% crit damage(.274), and 10% vul, and 5% to bleeding. (.316) back up to .316 due to crit and % damage increases.

30 in firearms gives 300 prec, and 300 cond damage.
If you take h.g.h, 5-9stacks of might during most fights. And pve, team fighting, you will likely get more might stacks from other sources. pushing 10-15stacks.
5-9 is 175-315 power and condition damage.
So you should have without any condition gear, 475-615 condition damage during most combat.
You are getting free power from might here as well. If you do not have h.g.h, you have free cond, and crit chance from firearms. (as well has 10% crit damage, from tools.) So what you really need is power to scale off that crit and crit damage. If you do have h.g.h. you have a bit of each already. so just keep going. power/crit

Stats are not valued equally on all sources. crit damage is really cheap on ruby orbs. Ruby orbs are pretty much a given to socket into your jewelery.

Ronin.5038:

Get the condition damage/toughness/precision gear from karma vendors in Orr.
Bleed stacks up to a max of 25 so you’ll get the full bleed damage unless your fighting a dragon or another very large group event.
What damage conditions don’t stack are poison and burn.

Actually, if if you have a full set of that gear you mention, and cond damage on the jewelry, odds are very good that no matter how many people are there, your damage will always be applied, because it puts the top condition damage first, then works down from there. When your at the top of the list on condition damage stat, so is your applied damage through conditions.

coglin.1496:

Ronin.5038:

Get the condition damage/toughness/precision gear from karma vendors in Orr.
Bleed stacks up to a max of 25 so you’ll get the full bleed damage unless your fighting a dragon or another very large group event.
What damage conditions don’t stack are poison and burn.

Actually, if if you have a full set of that gear you mention, and cond damage on the jewelry, odds are very good that no matter how many people are there, your damage will always be applied, because it puts the top condition damage first, then works down from there. When your at the top of the list on condition damage stat, so is your applied damage through conditions.

Not to mention, that most people do the power setup, so chances are pretty good and in your favor if you have a lot of condition damage focus, since most people see it as inferior. It can still be viable at least and it’s not quite as horrible as everyone tries to make it seem, at least as engineers we have access to 4 damaging types and aren’t dependent on large bleed stacks, like some of the other condition spec classes. This gives us a little more room.

I’m back to grenades.
one too many acid bombs refusing to cast.
Acid bomb, doesnt break CC like overcharged shot.
Odd geometry. CC. sometimes just randomly refusing to cast.
Got me killed one too many times.