Guild Wars 2

I’ve recently returned to the game after a lengthy hiatus and decided to finally try an Engineer. My interest is mainly WvW and since my old guild scattered I’ve been zerging a lot. I tried a healing bomb/support engineer, but as it turns out, bombs just isn’t my thing. Grenades are amazing though, and I’ve been thinking about switching to a more offensive build. But now I need some advice.

The cornerstones of my theorycrafted build are:

1) Grenadier.
2) Power-based.
3) Infused Precision + Invigorating Speed with high crit chance for near perma-vigor.
4) Either Power Boots or Speedy Kits for out-of-combat run speed. Infused Precision should cover in-combat run speed without Power Boots or Kit switching.

This leaves me with either 30/10/20/10/0 (Power Boots and more survivability) or 30/10/0/10/20 (Speedy kits and Static Discharge). Build example:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcEQFAUlIqiYH5SfFfNJyIFkWnBqQ9JqQ+95B91WQIA-j0xAYOAiAQ2rIasNjioxqWwUnER1+kioVDA-w

Gear is basically just enough survivability to avoid getting one-shotted by thieves, and rest damage. Very much open for suggestions, but obviously no ascended gear on a fresh level 80.

Now for my questions:

1) Which is the preferred healing skill these days? According to wiki, Med Kit #4 only heals one condition despite the vague tooltip. Healing Turret (with immediate burst and detonation) heals two and is quite a bit stronger (with blast), but is difficult to time right with skill lag in zergs.

2) I’m really quite fond of Reaper as an elite (dogs are arguably better, but goes down too fast in enemy AoE), but virtually every other build I’ve seen uses Supply Crate instead. Is Supply Crate that strong of an elite, or is it just that every other elite is kinda crap? Because I haven’t had much success with Supply Crate myself.

3) Grenade kit is mandatory, and Elixir S is a decent enough getaway skill. Last slot is open – Tool Kit is just a filler. Elixir C is an option since I’m a bit concerned about conditions, but Tool Kit #4 and #5 looks very useful (I’ve read that Magnet is kinda buggy, though).

first things first:
1. healing-turret (if picked up) has the highest hps (and 50% of it is aoe-healing) and cleans 2 conditions. also yes, Medkit #4 only heals one condition. Learned that recently

2. if traited with explosive towers, supply-crate become the best anti-zerg tool available. 1 stun on up to 5 targets and the 3/4 following explosions can knockback up to 15/20 targets.

3. don’t use elixier S. It lasts too shortly and conditions keep ticking. While in a zerg, or only reliable getaway is rocketboots (which cleans chill / cripple and immobilize as well). And yes, the toolkit block is a nice-to-have, but the magnet only pulls a single target, crowbar only hits one as well, and with nothing left than group-cripple, it looses its worth in zergs. Since you don’t have elixir S’s stunbreaker anymore, I’d recommend choosing Elixir-gun or googles, depending on what you prefer: more dmg or more group-support.

btw, power-boots got buffed.
they give 25% movement-speed OOC as well now.

You may keep invigorating speed and predision infusion, but the kit-swapping is not a must if you have this trait.

Thank you!

1) Gotcha. Healing Turrent it is, then.

2) So the idea is to use it offensively? That never even occured to me, and Accelerant-packed Turrets is easy enough to swap in (Exploit Weakness is mostly a filler, too).

3) Well, it’s 3 secs of invulnerability + 5s invisibility. I need to test Rocket Boots more – it just seems dangerous to me to rely on an escape skill which is easily countered by a teleport, leap or pull.

Perhaps my wording was a bit unclear, but yes, I’m aware of this. Speedy Kits or Power Boots for OOC speed, Infused Precision for IC speed with or without Power Boots. I won’t be doing much kit switching in combat since I find grenades too hard to aim in close range even with fast targeting.

it’s true that rocketboots leave you vulnerable, but to escape the burning-point of a zerg, there is nothing better available. even stealth won’t help you much if they zerg-bomb the area with aoe’s. Also the additional mobility is awesome to get out, re-arrange yourself and throw some explosive stuff from a save distance.

Hm. Following the reasoning in your previous reply about Tool Kit being somewhat situational and easily replaced by another skill, there’s really nothing stopping me from running Grenade Kit, Rocket Boots and Elixir S. At least until I get my bearings.

Welp, I feel kinda naked without bombkit…
not only brings it the highest dps, its blind and immobilize/cripple put up some serious support for the zerg. Like you I don’t like the grenades targeting in close combat, and if you’re not running in a pretty good organized zerg / group, there won’t be a second line for ranged people. Grenades are my situational extra-chill and blind, or range-dps if our lines are about to shatter (and I hat to trigger Rocketboots) but mainly I stay on Bombkit while jumping shot and Blunderbus are on CD…
It’s a kinda risky balance since you would give up on a stunbreaker for bombkit. Depending on the weeks matchup and the to expecting zergs, I drop nades and take EG + runes of the Pack with me, or go full bomb-nade with runes of melandru.

I got 2 sets of PVT-Berserker-Hybrid on me, so it’s just equip-swapping once a week.

Agreed, it is our highest DPS, with great AoE and utility as well. But it is melee, and my experience is contrary to yours – without running with an organized group and coordinated melee, ‘nades are easier – and much safer – to use than bombs. It’s mainly a matter of playstyle, I guess.

Anyways, last question for you: have you had much experience with Slick Shoes? It seems like an excellent complement to Rocket Boots (to replace Elixir S). Tool belt skill has a stun breaker, and for all intents and purposes nullifies movement impairing conditions for 5s. The active skill brings a knockdown which should help in escapes. Apparently Super Speed effects out-of-combat Rocket Boot jump distance as well for unparallelled mobility.

the problem with slick-shoes is its high cooldown, both on the BE and main.
It can be a pain in the kitten for thieves, to destroy their skill-times, but even then you get nothing but a kitten option for once per fight. since rocketboots clean all kinds of movement-cc, I’d always choose them above slick-shoes.
Then again, it worked quite well for me to rip zergs appart with them (just like a individual shaped guardian-line), but I gave up on slick-shoes a long time ago, since guardians are far better than the engi to put down this kind of CC.
I rather focus on blowing up enemy-zergs backline.
made an post about this on the end of this thread.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/Role-of-engineers-in-wvw/first#post3415173

Slick shoes can be fantastic even just for the tool kit Super Speed because it double movement speed even in combat regardless of chill or cripple. Though if it is a choice between slick shoes and rocket boost it is a difficult choice which mostly depends on your play style. Though they also work fantastic together on one build giving terrific mobility for wvw.

I ended up running both Rocket Boots and Slick Shoes. (Final build here: http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fcEQFAUlIqiY37y5F1LJyIFkWnBqQ9JqQ+95Bd1WQIA-j0xAYOAiAQ2rIasNjioxqWwUnER1+kioVDA-w )

Arantheal, you were absolutely right about Rocket Boots. As an escape skill, it’s invaluable – much more useful than Elixir S. (And it doesn’t hurt that Belt skill has a very short CD for more SD fun.)

Slick Shoes works very well too, except I need to learn to save the stun break for a Super Speed + Rocket Boots chain. Slick Shoes seems to surprise everyone – not sure if it’s because it’s an uncommon utility or because all the AoE covers it up really well.

I don’t miss Bomb kit at all, survivability is good and all in all I feel very happy with the build.