Guild Wars 2

hey guys im sorry if this is a relatively simple question but i am fairly new to engineer (loving it so far) and have a question to ask

i am interested in a medium ground build between survivability and dps. and something i can use in wvw and pvp (hard i know) so i have been making a build that basically allows me to switch grenade kit (for wvw) with bomb kit (for pvp/pve) at will.

my problem lies in the fact that i absolutely love elixir guns #5, especially combined with kit refinement. it seems to boost my survivability considerably and is great for support

my question is that while i have bombs or grenades for aoe, i want to use my main for single target regular damage. however i see nothing that would benefit me using my main hand over the elixir gun. (and i really love using pistols or rifle)

so unless i put points into presicion, is the bonus to power alone enough to use the main hand over all the conditions of the elixir gun?

TLDR why use rifle/pistol over elixir gun skills when not traited specifically for rifle/pistol?

sorry for long post im really curious about this

ElixirGun has no DPS at all~

What trait spec are you running?

It sounds like your running 2 kit (elixir gun) (bomb / grenade) if your using bomb / grenade then I am assuming your doing 30 explosives, and to have kit refinement 10 tools.

Are you doing an elixir setup? 30 0 0 30 10?

Kits such as bomb, grenade, and elixir gun do a good job of replacing rifle / pistol when your in power or condition builds. But even if your using a kit for the dps / utility there are still reason to swap back to rifle, p/p, or p/s.

The rifle gives nice utility in net shot + overchanged shot. CC that elixir gun / grenade does not have. Blunderbuss will also do nice burst and condition damage in power specs.

P/S gives you can on demand blind + confusion stack and a ranged poison debuff, that works well with fumigate on the elixir gun. The shield also gives you 2 fantastic defense tools in the 3 second block + aoe KD blast finisher, and the 3 second block + Stun.

They both work well with elixir gun, grenade kit, and bomb kit.

P/P is nice since it gives a long duration burn for an extra or extended condition from blow torch.

With some setups rifle may work out better than P/S or P/S depending on your stack mix, but regardless of whether or not you spend most of your time in grenade, elixir gun, or bomb kit the main weapons will bring something you can use often, if not situation-ally.

Personally I have found going a condition build with rifle – bomb kit – elixir to be great in WvW. If you charge in with rifle and use blunderbuss, switch to grenade for the fire / confusions bombs, and then to elixir gun for fumigate you can get all of the damaging conditions up very quickly, with the added support of having condition removal from fumigate and the kit refinement combo field.

Krisstina.7238:

ElixirGun has no DPS at all~

That’s a fairly inaccurate statement, considering four out of five of the Elixir Gun’s abilities deal damage.

OP, I use the Elixir Gun to great effect on single target fights where I need more survivability than the rifle alone can give me. That being said, the strength of a Kit Engineer lies in constantly swapping kits to get access to the abilities you need. For instance, the Elixir Gun’s Acid Bomb is fairly powerful, but it works best if you can keep the target in the area of effect, which can be done by using the rifle’s Net Shot.

To answer your question: You should also use the rifle/pistol because it grants you access to abilities that synergize with the Elixir Gun’s abilities.

Mazra.1625:

Krisstina.7238:

ElixirGun has no DPS at all~

That’s a fairly inaccurate statement, considering four out of five of the Elixir Gun’s abilities deal damage.

OP, I use the Elixir Gun to great effect on single target fights where I need more survivability than the rifle alone can give me. That being said, the strength of a Kit Engineer lies in constantly swapping kits to get access to the abilities you need. For instance, the Elixir Gun’s Acid Bomb is fairly powerful, but it works best if you can keep the target in the area of effect, which can be done by using the rifle’s Net Shot.

To answer your question: You should also use the rifle/pistol because it grants you access to abilities that synergize with the Elixir Gun’s abilities.

Those “Better than nothing” ability doesnt make ElixirGun a viable main weapon. If that was what OP trying to do.

Krisstina.7238:

ElixirGun has no DPS at all~

That’s not exactly right.

For condition damage spec’s the 1 skill, and fumigate are pretty good if your pair them with something else. Like bomb kit, or pistol.

For power builds the 2 skill, and the 4 skill actually hit fairly hard as well.It’s not odd to see the 4 skill crit above 2k per tick.

The only thing that stops elixir gun from being a full time dps weapon is that the #1 skill is somewhat weak for dps. It does not stack bleeds as well as grenade kit, nor does it scale with power well enough to be competitive with other 1200 range ST dps options.

But the weakness is great.

Elixir gun has got dps just its not very high!!
It’s use is more for support

1. remove conditions and heal (with kit refinement u could be perma’d light field)
2. effectively a dodge
3. poison and INvulnerability and cures conditions on others
4. Cripples and swiftness
5. bleeds (longer duration than pistols) and causes weakness (50% incoming damage)
   kits and sigils is the element here. if u cause any condition damage with a kit and swap to a main weapon the conditions you have created will be altered to reflect the change in stats. in simple terms (if your condition built) cause a condition with a kit then swap to con damage weapons you will do more damage. Until they change the sigils (and the scaling?) then i would say that swapping out to m/h weapon would be more beneficial
   Kit refinement is awesome perma light field for curing conditions- or double strength for the extra healing. i’m in the process of thrashing out the beast trait set up for my playstyle (kit swapping loon that cant keep anything in my hands for more than 3 secs lol)and prefered skills (f/t & e/g) but a good combo is Tools #4 & #6 and alchemy #1 if u use kits a lot. perma swift, vigor and light field >retaliation/cure condition is nice

For math behind EGs abilities and usefulness of effects, refer to this thread:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/Question-about-elixir-gun-build

thanks for the quick replies!

as for questions, the reasons i am asking is because i do not want to use the elixir as a main, simply for the heal and support when need be.

and also because i am not planning on speccing far into pow/prec (which could very well be the problem)

i was looking at something like this:

http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mcM9oMvlNMMvlNMaa0xGVmMaqmo

i love absolutely love speedy kits, and think the bonus might would be excellent for support in a group, which leaves me with vert few options left.

i have the 10 in power so that when using bombs i could switch the trait to increased range for bombs.

is this build horrible? or am i pretty much dooming myself to horrible damage no matter whether i use main or elixir lol

It’s not a bad build but personally I would just go full on support.

30 inventions, 20 alchemy, 20 tools.

You give up HGH for might stacking but with only 2 elixirs in the build it’s not that great. You gain better + healing, as much power as you would get from 10 in explosives and healing from your bombs.

I think you could still get good damage from the build if you went for condition damage gear. Like carrion or one of the dungeon sets with + healing, condi damage, and toughness.

With P/P or P/S and bomb kit you could do a lot of damage with burning, confusion, and poison. While being tanky, with tons of support tools.

But you’ll definitely want the vigor trait in alchemy in your build with speedy kits. It will give you permanent vigor which is massive survivability.

If you want to dps but have support options.

You can do a 30 0 30 0 10 or a 30 0 0 30 10 build. Even in a dps build kit refinement + elixir gun and elixir R are enough to have fantastic support tools, and you really only need 10 points in tools for that. So you can explosives / inventions or explosives / alchemy and be fine.

@Karast

ty for the reply

the full support/healing bombs build was actually the first thing i felt like doing when starting an engineer, however my other toon is a healing shouts warrior, and i definately want something that is not similar lol

so i was hoping that even the meager 2 elixir with the hgh was still enough of a “party helper” cause im that kinda player

i fully agree on the vigor tho

possibly 30/0/0/20/20 ? using kit refinement with elixir and just the regular elixirs on their own for support?

hard to find a middle ground i know

yeah, saying elixir gun is low damage is just flat out wrong. It does more damage then flamethrower. Arguably more then pistol as well.

There was a better thread I think then that one linked. I info dumped a bit. but I dont even see me talking about coeffs, etc. must have been a different thread.

It scales very well with direct damage first. Do not make the cond damage mistake.
There is a problem of the +15% damage trait vs other good alch traits. You can’t get 15% damage on eg/ft, AND both 409 and HGH. only 2 of the 3.

range. amusingly, its the highest damage/longest range weapon. 2 offensive 1200 range abilities. 1 support.

Fumigate is terrible.
Acid bomb is very high damage. Scales at .809/tick over 5s. or 6 ticks. on a target that doesnt move. yikes. Example, dropped this on some seige golems attacking our keep a few weeks ago. 2300, 2300, 2300, 2300, 2300, 2300. yeap. haha first tick application is also, INSTANT. Its not like a dot which ticks at the end of a full second. Which is why its 6 ticks over 5 seconds.

Elixir F scales at .715. 4 targets bouncing. Very high for a bouncing move as well.

Burst potential at point blank is nice then. 1500 ish elixir F, 2500 bombs.

Main problem is the kit damage problem. 969. Its noticeably lower then an exotic rifle. And doesn’t have grenades completely broken power scaling, to compensate.

Acid bombs pathing needs work. It will get you killed more then you like, when it fails to make you leap back. It needs to break chill,immo,cripple, and evade you.

Rifle offers a KB which is huge in any pvp endevour, to set up attacks, or interrupt stomps.
Rifle 1 will also deal more raw damage then eg 1. Again, rifle base scaling off that 1205 exotic just beats a kits scaling. But then again, weakness.

Pistol offers nice CC options in addition to EG. Blind, confuse. with poff a root. with shield, a KB, block, and daze. P/S+EG is really really hard to kill.

I’ve always got my elixir gun on my utility bar. The amount of group support it gives + 5-20 seconds of weakness on any target is just too good to give up.

I switch over to my Pistol/shield for more conditions or when i want to utilise combo fields.