Guild Wars 2

I’m only rank 16, but so far I’ve only seen one Engineer using a flamethrower. What gives?

I recently put together a flamethrower based build that applies copious amounts of burning with lots of toughness & survivability by way of utilities. I’ve tried running grenades, and the generic static discharge build, and they’re OK, but I’m having a lot more fun and success with the flamethrower thus far. There’s no burst to speak of, but with all the toughness and burn damage being pumped out over time this is an excellent build for fighting on nodes. The Infused Precision and Invigorating Speed combo ensures high vigor up-time without taking your FT off and momentarily loosing out on the benefits of the Juggernaut trait like you would if you were using Speedy Kits. Since I have a kit on 95% of the time the regen from Backpack Regenerator was a must.

Here’s the link:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQFAUlIqya38SfF1LJRoCFG0j6fX8KSR+t8nCsF-TgAAzCpICTJjTGTYSes8A

dec 10th comes ur build will be toast =\

The idea is not bad. But the FT is just too weak to be the main weapon. Only the last hit of FT#1 makes your target burn and it is very easy to evade. Additionally the December patch hits your build like a truck.

Flamethower is alright, it’s just bomb/nade are so much better.

FT #1 should apply burning with the first hit, not with the last one. It makes less damage as Rifle #1 even with all traits and it is hard to hit someome with that. FT#1 is just terrible.

Lupanic.6502:

The idea is not bad. But the FT is just too weak to be the main weapon. Only the last hit of FT#1 makes your target burn and it is very easy to evade. Additionally the December patch hits your build like a truck.

Yeah, it’s unfortunate but the december 10th patch will certainly neuter it. FT is only there to take advantage of the Juggernaut trait. Most of the damage comes from the Incediary Powder trait – I believe this has a chance to trigger on any of the FT 1 critical hits right? The whole idea is to have a 100% burning damage uptime with this build, the perma-swiftness and slickshoes gives me the ability to stay on the enemy and spam my 1 skill applying burns relentlessly. The rifle comes in handy for foes who are at a range giving me an immobilize and a leap as well as a knockback to keep them under presure. If they’re particularly evasive (thiefs or warriors) I can use the FT toolbelt along with the rifle auto to range and burn them from a distance. The only class that I seem to have a hard time killing are tanky Guardians – but they can’t really kill me either so it cancels out.

I was fooling around on a flamethrower hgh build yesterday in spvp and it did surprisingly well, but then again, it is spvp. It was very good at rezzing and stomping people with elixir b and s toolbelt skills plus the the knockbacks from shield and flamthrower.

My setup was 10/20/10/30/0 running juggernaut and hgh for might stacks. I tried to fit vigor into the build, but just couldn’t have it permanently up with this build because I find the condition clearing and reduced cooldown on elixirs more important. I used sigil of energy and runes of lyssa to help counter this. All in all, it turned out better than I expected it to be, as I was just fooling around, but quite fun in the end.

Of course, the IP change will affect this, as I also use it. I think the elixirs trait works with this build however, and boon stripping shouldn’t be underestimated against certain classes.

Nobody uses flamethrower for it’s 1 skill. Condi engineers use it for the short CD blast (3 skill) and the instandt blind (5 skil). Power engis will additionally use the 2 skill for quick burst damage. The 1 skill does not apply enough burning and does not do enough physical damage so no one really uses it. You don’t see many people uses it because these skills all happen very quickly so it’s hard to catch the actual flamethrower being out.

i use flamethrower in spvp, but I mainly have it for the 3 – it’s a knockback and very useful on my bunker build with bombs, tool kit and condi/prec/toughness

I also use the 4 if I have the time and 5 to prevent thieves from backstabbing me/elemantalists from using their updraft + burning speed combo (only bad stun breaks for engis unfortunately) or I use the 5 for stomping if my smoke bomb isn’t up yet

But as much as I have seen ft-builds are not as viable as condi p/s builds