Guild Wars 2

Curious if anyone has used a rifle build with any moderate success in WvW? Not looking to be the king of all, but looking for a small change from scrapper hammer engi. I prefer power, otherwise id just roll condi.

Could rifle be decent in small grp / havok?

Any suggestions?

Running with rifle, you are almost defenseless compared to hammer. Hammer has reflect for ranged attack (+big damage and whirl finisher), block for meele and reflect, amazing leap for both running away and chasing (also potential self-heal or share superspeed), long ranged AoE stun with decent damage for both offensive and defensive purposes. Also does decent damage and autoattack pumps you with mights.

Rifle has one leap (some self heal), but cast and landing time make it clumsy and does almost no difference compared to normal walk. Net Shot is unreliable, it misses more often than hits (despite getting projectile speed increase), can be used only for chasing (if someone chases you, you’d need to turn around to stop them). Overcharged Shot knocks you down, so you need either stability (elixir B ) or Tools traitline to make it less harmful, also, can be reflected, so you risk getting knocked down twice. Autoattack has low damage.

But Blunderbuss is a nice skill.

As for build suggestions, you could try high boon duration gear, Alchemy line with HGH (obligatory for any WvW/PvP build coz of condi cleanse), Scrapper line for Mass Momentum and Applied Force, Elixir B, Elixir U. High Quickness uptime makes Rifle’s auto-attack damage almost decent.

Before I bought HoT, I used to run fully celestial Engineer with Traveler Runes, Firearms (Incendiary Powder), Alchemy, Tools. Healing Turret, Elixir B, Elixir U, Elixir S/C, Mortar/Elixir X.

Once I met a guy with exactly the same build, but he ran Healing Turret, Tool Kit, Elixir Gun, Grenade Kit.

I actually just use the generic inventions/alchemy/scrapper with a rifle in place of hammer without perfectly weighted of course. Final Salvo is great as you can use overcharged shot without knocking yourself down and also gives you the superspeed needed to actually do functional kiting. It also has synergy with mass momentum and rapid regeneration; either has its advantages and disadvantages.

For utilities I take Bulwark Gyro, Elixir Gun, and something else (most likely purge or sometimes tool kit. )

The main thing is that you aren’t kited as easily and jump shot is a pretty good surprise. Of course, it’s pretty crappy that good damage requires you to get close anyways, sort of negating the whole ranged weapon weapon thing. You will probably stalemate against bunkers as a result.

The downside of course is you lose blocks and leap finishers.

Rifle isn’t bad by any means, 3 attacks synergize with each other and Jump Shot is pretty potent, however there are not many that do run it anymore as it doesnt offer the same balance of DPS/Utility as the hammer. You have an immob and CC and a (blast?) finisher on Rifle with some range, but hammer you get might stacking on AA, Reflect and whirl finisher on 2, Leap/Evade on 3, 10 stack vauln/block on 4, Field/Stun/Vuln on 5 so every attack had a useful effect.

Damage wise, AA on Hammer is more than 2x stronger (despite might stacking), self finisher (5 for field and 3/2 for finisher) which can provide more CC than rifle.

Imo only plus to rifle are the range (although 2 hammer attacks are 1000 range) and the #3-#5 abilities have smaller CD than hammer.

Kinda like on a p/p engi build (condi) questioning if you should take shield or off hand pistol. Shield will work, but pistol is a better/stronger weapon for the build.

Samug.6512:

…amazing leap for both running away and chasing

Rocket Charge is pretty crappy for running away/chasing, it is one of the slowest movement skills in the game, compare it to druid staff 3 for example (let alone any of the blinks in the game), it is just clunky, you can’t even use it take advantage of terrain jumping from high point to another like you can with most leaps (warrior sword 2, f2 on DH, even rifle 5 on engy is much better in that respect and so on).

zinkz.7045:

Samug.6512:

…amazing leap for both running away and chasing

Rocket Charge is pretty crappy for running away/chasing, it is one of the slowest movement skills in the game, compare it to druid staff 3 for example (let alone any of the blinks in the game), it is just clunky, you can’t even use it take advantage of terrain jumping from high point to another like you can with most leaps (warrior sword 2, f2 on DH, even rifle 5 on engy is much better in that respect and so on).

If you cancel last hit with kit equip→ weapon swap, rocket charge is better by all means.

I used yesterday night something like this for fun . Not OP but fun … it is a “kill or be killed” build … hot builds are better but i won many 1 vs 1 with this ( probably i found terrible players )
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vdAQFAUlUUhaqYjXwvLw6FLVGk4yCQ4H/Q6HbY+K2XB-TJBXABAs/QzXAANLDQ8DAAA

BoonBoi’s build is ok, but it corners you into straight elixers. I haven’t played it enough to try swapping any other utilities in. I’m in the same place where hammer is nice, but getting meh. I found it’s best off to just slot a kit with some range, i.e. grenades or mortar.

Samug.6512:

zinkz.7045:

Samug.6512:

…amazing leap for both running away and chasing

Rocket Charge is pretty crappy for running away/chasing, it is one of the slowest movement skills in the game, compare it to druid staff 3 for example (let alone any of the blinks in the game), it is just clunky, you can’t even use it take advantage of terrain jumping from high point to another like you can with most leaps (warrior sword 2, f2 on DH, even rifle 5 on engy is much better in that respect and so on).

If you cancel last hit with kit equip-> weapon swap, rocket charge is better by all means.

Erm, I know to animation cancel the end of rocket charge (really who doesn’t?), everything I stated was including animation cancelling the end of it, it is one of the slowest movement skills in the game so is weak for chasing/running away, you still can’t use it to leap from point to another like you can with many movement skills or Z axis like you can with the blinks.

Rocket charge is an excellent skill when your opponent is bringing the fight to you or you are fighting in some sort of confined space like a point in PvP, but as a movement skill for chasing down or running away in WvW it is pretty weak, which is why most classes roaming builds don’t have much trouble disengaging a hammer scrapper when roaming and one of the reasons why you don’t see many scrappers roam.

I used to run rifle for a long time in wvw. The range on auto is nice, but it leaves you so vulnerable it’s not worth it. To do real damage, you need to put yourself in melee range, and you have no defense.

• Hip Shot is all right. The damage could be a bit better, but it works
• Net shot is still tough to land, and it doesn’t do much when it does land. Single-target short immob? meh. Now, if that immob’d like even half an Ancient Seeds, then it’d be powerful.
• Blunderbuss is good
• Overcharged Shot will get you killed more often than not. If it hits reflect, you’re dead. If it hits an on-cc trait like Last Stand, you’re probably dead. If a druid shoots you while you’re knocked back from your own attack, it procs Ancient Seeds, and you’re dead because now you can’t clear it with Overcharged Shot. Etc. Etc. It used to be a very powerful attack and basically THE reason you would choose rifle, but there’s just way too much defense out there since HoT power creep. It’s not worth the risk any more.
  Jump Shot doesn’t evade, so you’re going to hit cc + damge when you use it to engage. It is nice for repositioning though, and has some niche gap-crossing ability.

I switched to Pistol/Pistol condi because it’s better for 1vX roaming fights. On rifle, other players are going to take advantage of your lack of defense and your self-cc from Overcharged Shot. I find condi helps to keep up the pressure against multiple players while still having range.

you want sustain. sustain and burst, yes it’s possible.

I got my Champion Genius title in PvP with an oldschool Static Discharge build that used Rifle. I’ve used it in WvW with some success as well but, because condition builds are more prevalent, and because most people are running damage reduction foods or pumping out a ton of heals/other sources of damage reduction, it can be rough to play.

The benefit of the Static Discharge build is that the damage comes so suddenly, most players won’t have time to react (it is akin to shatter Mesmer burst in that I can literally 100 – 0 anyone that isn’t running some kind of defensive food/gear) It also does plenty enough damage to bring people down to critical health even if they’re tanky. Of course, this also means you die to a stiff breeze and will probably have terrible condition removal unless you want to sacrifice Toolkit/Elixir S. Which you probably shouldn’t in a burst focused build.

I sometimes use Rifle with my tanky Juggernaut build, though Hammer synergizes with it’s traits and utilities far better, there are some match ups where Rifle is a better choice. Primarily against Thieves, Rangers and Necromancers. It lets me keep the pressure on the first two and lets me kite the third one.

Hammer is pretty much all around better but Rifle can be a smarter choice in some situations like I’ve mentioned above. If you want to use it, you should. Don’t worry about optimal, play what’s most fun to you. If it’s dying that you’re worried about, practice makes perfect!

Also, rifle is incredibly fun if you have an opportunity to use environment. High cliffs on Desert Borderlands, some places on Alpine – I scored at least 20-30 kills with Overcharged Shot camping at middle Air Shrine at Air Keep in Desert Border (stealth → wait for good placement → Overcharged Shot/Magnet).

Sometimes fun is spoiled by traits that proc upon CC tho.

With any questions like this one I strongly suggest that you look up Freakshow’s excellent videos on Engineers and their roles in WvW.

Looking at the different scales of content you can say that Rifle has always been around in the solo-small scales but has always had more fun potential builds than strong allround builds akin to that of Longbow Rangers (Druids) or Rifle Warriors (Berserkers). That is also a fairly good benchmark because, utilities aside, Rifle is, arguably, a stronger option on Warriors and even there it is mostly a gimmick with some fun potential. The base values of Rifle damage is simply too low and/or hard to balance. All in all, it exists but exists as something fun more so than competetive.

For medium- or guild sized play I’d say that most high-end GvG guilds have probably experimented with it by now. It has certainly not made it into the meta here either but there are some interesting implications for Rifles at this scale. In most GvG scenarios Scrappers tend to make choices between uptime of gyros and damage pressure on primaries. The Rifle is interesting because it lifts a good chunk of that burden, in theory. In practise, the guilds and players who experiment with this are so apt at positioning and making the aforementioned choices that Hammer firmly remains in meta. In any case, Rifle does have its strongest conceptual appeal here.

For larger scale gameplay I guess you can take what works in what has already been mentioned and apply it to havoc-scenarios, but as with any havoc-scenario it usually involves you taking the initiative to organize a havoc party to make it work. Commanders will usually not see that appeal and the stealth support that is so important at small-medium scale is usually not that situationally appealing once you scale up (as losing the odd player in downstate is not as impactful).

In the end, Rifle builds are marginal but can be fun as long as you make them work (and can build with friends around them).

Rifle is far from optimal. Compared to hammer rifle lacks both utility and defense, which are more often needed than DPS in WvWvW setting.

However I personally have over 3000 hours as core engi in WvWvW using both medkit and rifle. My build is very risky for solo roaming, but can solo towers and upgraded camps with ease and solo a keep if you have crazily long time (probably defenders will notice you). My build works very well for zerging: tons of ranged DPS, AoE, fields and 3 unblockable AoE attacks. But positioning is super important. One small mistake and you are toast. My build has zero blocking, zero reflects, zero stability, zero invulnerability.

In summer 2017 I might finally have time to do some videos, maybe even streaming.

I only ran rifle. Fared far better against nearly everything than with hammer. And a yes to your last question, but only from personal experience.