Guild Wars 2

Hi!

I decided to try a 4/4/0/0/6 gadgeteer rifle build that puts bleed/burning conditions on crit and gives me fury/might boons on gadget use. I mixed and matched gear to give me roughly 17.7k health, 1723 power, nearly constant 60%-80% crit chance (traits/some gadgets), 189% crit damage, 527 condition damage and 2453 armor. Are these numbers acceptable for non-formal PvE and WvW? Am I somewhere decent in terms of the attribute numbers? The purpose is to be somewhat hybrid, so that I can do decent power based damage with the crits themselves, and decent condition damage whenever those crits proc the on-hits. Am I being ridiculous? please help!!

http://de.gw2skills.net/editor/
please use this build-planner, hit “get quick link” on the bottom and post the resulting link from the orange box here.

I’ll look into it if you do this.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fdAQFAUnUISbX23FmYBrXGhtgG9YeatB5GKxHPQAA-TljDwAVuAA82f4wDAImKCHViIT9moKHKpDghSwBmEAYCqgJmzKJIqEKAwBATHAA-w

There you go, and thanks! Btw, you’re gonna find a really screwed up mix of gear in there which was my dumb attempt at balancing cuz I thought I was strong independant noob who don’t need no man and went ahead and purchased the gear I thought I needed. At least you’ll get a general sense of what I was trying to go for though, hopefully

Some quick notes (too tired for a full review):

PvE
There are 3 things that matter in PvE: damage output and to a much lesser extent survivability and mobility. With more experience, most of your survivability will come from dodging and positioning. Mobility in this build is good, be it for dungeons or open world exploring.
Damage however is pretty low. If you want to use Grenades, the Grenadeer trait is mandatory otherwise get Bombs.

WvW
Besides the soft cc breaks from Rifle #4 and Rocket Boots, this build has 0 condition cleans. This combined with low sustain (heal with the longest cooldown, no reg) will turn you into a free kill for any condi specced class.
This build has no functional role in Zerg fights (low ranged damage, no survival in close combat). For roaming you have good mobility but lack the firepower to put your opponent under pressure.

Gear
Unless your budget is very limited, Runes of Rage are not a good option. Ferocity is a bad stat to stack, power or condition damage (depending on build) are better. If you cannot afford Runes of Strength, Ogre or Hoelbrak are good options.
Sigil of Rage is a bad choice, small benefit, long cooldown, random unreliable behaviour. A Might stacking sigil (Battle or Strength) will give you a higher damage increase.

In my opinion the Gadgeteer trait is much too weak for a Grandmaster. The boon’s durations are too short and an Engineer has much better access to most of them via other skills/traits. If you want to build around it, because it’s fun, you certainly can in PvE as the requirements are pretty low there, but you will not use the full potential of the engineer class. In WvW this trait is a handicap.

all of the above, plus I’d recommend you to use celestial gear

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fdAQJAqalUUptr9dxELseNSaBNyzkGQuhQ85GEgnC-TlSAAB7p+jeKNo4EAklyg80DolSM8M/BwDAIWlg9s/AhAesGA-w

You will stack bleeding like crazy, have 2 stunbreakers, and even kept your leap (EG #4). This build also allows for quick vulnerability and poison-stacking while maintaining all the condi-cleanse you need.

For convenience at using nades on high range, you have increased capabilities of crippling your enemy whenever you wish via multiple skills, and pistol #5 also got enhanced by the trait sitting duck.
Mobility, soft-cc, and condi-spamming, while still maintaining 195% crit dmg and moderate power / crit-chance. Not much to wish more for.

However, celestial gear is kinda hard to obtain (visit the wiki for the recipes), therefore I’ve made a alternative, purely condi-focused gear-mix, that still provides you need to run this utility / trait setup.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fdAQJAqalUUptrtbxELseRSaBNq0AyNECRFyP3gA8UA-T1RAwAz0DgRJIgHAgQ1focCAzf92fIqyPCB8YNA-w

I can only speak for pve here.

1st thing is that gadgets are kind of lacklustre, even when traited into. Only real use is RB for open world and ram for a S/D.
2nd is that grenades without grenadier is also a rather poor performer.
3rd is that you’re lacking good aoe skills for fights against more than 1 opponent, traited grenades and bombs in particular.

Here’s what I use
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fdMQJAqelUUpdrlYxPLseNSaBNq0A6M8i6+5GEgnC-TBiFwADegAf0DMa/BjK/AoEkxJCQm6PX0QEA4AgpDECQxGA-e
Interesting thing with this build is that is has both good power and condition damage, so if you’re looking for a hybrid, this is a very good setup for open world and dungeons.

Last thing is that your a newbie so you’re likely not rolling in the gold to buy expensive gear. An alternative to strength/hoelbrak runes is aristocracy runes from CM. Doing your daily for t6 bags and guild missions along with dungeon runs (even story mode AC, CM and TA if you’re not confident enough for exp) will help you collect gold.

Thank you all SO VERY MUCH for your input, I’ll digest it all and work on it!

In my opinion it’s probably best not using Gadgeteer at all. The boon durations are really poor.

If I was going for a Hybrid I’d probably play something like this.
Stats seem to be very good in all areas, maybe lacking in toughness a little. Though, you get plenty of Swiftness and some good mobility with the selected utilities and ofcourse Rifle.

Ok, I think I managed to apply the grand majority of the suggestions here, while still keeping in tune with the play style that I find most fitting to my taste, pretty please take a look: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fdAQFAUlUUptr9dxELseRCbBFqmCyNUCRtxPfgAkUA-TVSEABIcBAI4BAk0+DkqE8F1fcS5AAm8+QHAQK5CAcAw0BA-w

Hidden Flask is your only source for swiftness – not enough to make Invigorating Speed work. You need Speedy Kits or Infused Precision.
Take a look at these 2 options:

• almost permanent speed & vigor while fighting
• permanent speed

Is it viable to run without swiftness altogether? Cuz I could also use a different trait in alchemy altogether or even elsewhere? Also, can I assume then that the rest of the build is decent now?

Some form of faster traveling, be it swiftness or a 25% passive bonus (runes/traits) is very comfortable in open world PvE.

In PvP it’s mandatory.

In case you meant Vigor – it’s perfectly possible. There are other ways to regain endurance fast and in PvE proper positioning will help you more than constant dodge rolling. However, for a beginner high Vigor uptime is helpful and very forgiving.

Your gear has a nice mixture of offensive/defensive stats that will make it easy for a new engie to “get into” the class. It is not the max dmg gear but a nice place to start. Imo engies are the class that can make best use from a condi/power mixture, celestial gear is great for this (but expensive & time consuming to get).

Once you get better at avoiding damage in PvE, you may want to start replacing the Knight’s pieces with Berserker’s.
If you find a way of fitting more might stacks in your build (Strength Runes, fire field blasting etc.) replacing the Carrion pieces with Berserker’s will net you even more damage (power scales best in PvE) while maintaining significant condition damage.

For WvW I’m a big fan of celestial gear (run a full set of ascended myself) which is the most flexible and gives a great balance between damage and defense.

THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH!!! Mork vom Ork!!!!