Guild Wars 2

I am totally burned out from crunching numbers and playing with my build recently that I sat down to tackle rune selection and am just scratching my head. Thoughts would be appreciated.

Requisite Info:

• Wearing All Celestial Gear (well… soon…)
• Build (10/20/0/20/15) is focused on conditions and blast finishers (HT, EG, BK, Elix U)
• Current runes focus on Condi duration (Mad King & Lyssa), but I have leveled cooking to 400 so pizzas & salads easily get me to a number I feel good about
• Also have Giver weapons (might consider changing those too)

A cursory search and review of the forums seems to indicate that boon duration is favored heavily by Engineers regardless of spec (and Water and Monk if you want to go all the way). Otherwise, it seems that rubies are another favored one.

Personally, here is where I am:

• All Divinity – Puts me at a pretty snazzy 45% crit and +75% crit damage, but jebus is it expensive.
• 4 Altruism – Gives me the handy might stack and boon boost. With traits that is 35%. Is the extra 3-4 seconds on most boons worth it?
• 4 Lyssa – Pick up condition duration and precision and a random boon when I heal.

Am I off my rocker — my brain muddled by just… blech — or am I on the right path?

So what is your main weapon? P/P, P/S, Rifle? Which weapon(s) you prefer has a TREMENDOUS impact on your play style — which in turn can guide your selection of armor and runes.

Sorry… addle-minded…

P/S

I run P/S and focus on Condition Damage wearing Carrion Armor with Superior Rune of the Undead. Most of my trait selections are in in the Inventions and Alchemy line. I have over 26k health and can take a tremendous amount of damage.

The ability to last a long time allows for the Conditions to do their damage. I may not kill fast in WvW, but I can tag many enemy and provide a great deal of support in battle.

This is sort of the anti-Zerker build.

I would say that P/P or P/S should focus on durability and conditions and you should armor up appropriately.

Here is the thing, for me, that is interesting. If I go full carrion with undead and rabid with my spec, I look like this:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQJAqOIJGfozgUU38KSR+1/nCsF-jgxAYtASWAJCApwioxWNLiGrOmIqGA-e

If I go full Celestial w/ divinity I look like this:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQJAqOIJGfozgUU38KSR+1/nCsF-jgxAYtASWAJCAJ/ioxW1KiGrqmIqGA-e

Differences:
+192 Power
+75 Precision
+25 Toughness
+192 Vitality
+3% Crit Chance
+25 Armor
+1900 HP
-761 Condition Damage
+60% Crit Damage
+38% Magic Find (Soon to be useless)
+ 416 Healing Power

So, the loss on condition is obviously the most egregious offender, but for me, it seems like I might be making that up in survival and healing. Not to mention my direct damage is a little stronger and when I crit it will hurt more.

And with that… * brain lets out a tremendous fart *

I’ll check back in the morning. XD

If you went celestial I’d recommend going rifle since your conditions won’t be hitting hard and trying to combo high damage attacks with p/s can be rather poor I’ve been running some quite similar lately with conditions as support and I take are rifle for solo and p/s for team fights in team fights I try to focus more on tanking and aoe cc training with shield bob and ft #3 when I’m solo the rifle offers a lot more burst potential with the kits because it has a lot more control as well as a lot more damage, for your rune choice I’d take lyssa or melandru for the extra condition removal you can also run grenith with hydromancy which will give you some excellent aoe chilling which combos well with aoe conditions from bomb kit and also offers a.great way to kite/escape from foes by stacking immo cripple and chilling with bomb kit and then eg #4 away, anyway give a few things a test and get back to us id like to know how a celestial engineer goes in www

Okay, I lied. Forgot to do my daily so I got back on.

Quick note on rifle… the fact that you loose a sigil really bugs me. Additionally, the shield adds so much survival with 4 => 4 => 5 => 5 knockback & stun combo and 4/4 blast finish.

I’ll look at Grenth and Melandru.

Thanks.

Soon.5240:

I run P/S and focus on Condition Damage wearing Carrion Armor with Superior Rune of the Undead. Most of my trait selections are in in the Inventions and Alchemy line. I have over 26k health and can take a tremendous amount of damage.

The ability to last a long time allows for the Conditions to do their damage. I may not kill fast in WvW, but I can tag many enemy and provide a great deal of support in battle.

This is sort of the anti-Zerker build.

I would say that P/P or P/S should focus on durability and conditions and you should armor up appropriately.

That’s kind of what I’m doing right now. Runes of the Undead are not only dirt cheap, but super effective. An alternative to them if you would rather stack health instead are runes of the necromancer (although forgoing toughness for more hp usually isn’t a good idea unless you have alternate sources of toughness/armor, ect)

“An alternative to them if you would rather stack health instead are runes of the necromancer (although forgoing toughness for more hp usually isn’t a good idea unless you have alternate sources of toughness/armor, ect)”

That’s what I find too. Carrion is PVC, so the added Toughness AND Condition Damage with Runes of the Undead balance out nicely.

And yes, Runes of the Undead are the hidden gem of the game. I think I’ll go stock up on them now, before their price goes up….

Some fresh ideas:

Way higher Condition Duration with Buffood (+90%), Higher Base Power, Higher Condition Damage, more Bleed stacks, more Vulnerability stacks.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQJAqel0piY3zSyF17ICoH1HgxXiKkffe8WpFEC-jAyAYtASWAJRAJ/ioxWNLiGrqmIqWXjZwLiWtQALGDA-e

Usages:

• General PvE
• Dungeons & Group-Play (for example paired with Warriors with high Mightstacking -> 3671 Attack, 1850 Condition Dmg)
• WvW not tested (and is lacking a little bit @ roaming and condition removal)

Positive Sides:

• Higher Base Power
• Higher Condition Damage
• Higher Condition Duration (Longer blinds, confusion, posion, weakness, cripple, imobilize)
• Higher Damage over Time (does not only rely on Might stacking or high Burst DMG alone)
• More Bleed Stacks
• More Vulnerability Stacks
• Even more Crits & Conditions applied with Pistol when using Piercing Bullets

Negative Sides:

• You can only clean all conditions all 15s (you might consider using a Sigil of Purity or even better Generosity)
• You don’t have perma swiftness out of combat (roaming, you could take rocket boots and / or EG to speed it up)
• Shorter Boon Duration
• Generation of Might isn’t as Easy (requires combofields and skill combinations)
• At little bit less Thoughtness and Vitality (thought using shield block and toolkit shield is way enought for most situations concerning high direct damage from multiple locations)
• No Burn unless you’re taking 2 pistols (Incendiary Powder only triggers on a single target , the 10s (=19s as we have +90% cd) bleed stacks from Sharpnel are better for longer fights, higher base condition damage and is applied on multiple enemies easily)
• Less Critdmg (thought not really that much of a difference)

As for the Skill rotation you’ll want to make sure that you’re keeping Pistol 2 & 3 Cooldown on as many enemys you can hit in a line, then go into Grenades Bleed em, Blind em, Freeze em, Posion em, Bleed em, Go into Bomb Kit, Glue em, Blind em, Confuse em, Lay out Big Ol’ Bomb, quickly lay out Fire Bomb, Switch to P/S, Trigger Shield #4 twice for the Blast Finisher @ Firefield (6 Might stacks + Launch with Big Ol’ Bomb), Pistol 2 & 3 and repeat … but that ’s only an advice as it depends on the situation and you might need to use Shield #5, Toolkit #4 & #5 from situation to situation inbetween. Tumper Turret, Elexir Gun and Mines are usefull as well.

The above isn’t as easy to play and focuses more on base-stats, switching and ideal situations but shines when played correctly (theoretically at least). Also some people don’t like grenades and hate switching forth and back so this might be ok for the lazy ones staying in Flamethrower (about 90% of the time):

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQJAqekBskEhKYfQKA8dF94xUeyfKsWA-jACBUGA0HgJfFRjtIcIaVXhVVjIqWXDzkrIa1CBYeBA-e

Not going into detail about this one. You basically Facetank, remove Conditions, stack Might, stack Boons, strip Boons. Well ~2.75k Armor and -20% & -33% Proctection. Damage is so lala and you ’re slow, Vigor generation is almost non-existant (that ’s why we take the Sigil of Energy) but you ’re a nice support and can sleep enemies to death. Might be better for the inexperienced players as well.

Edit:

Hm, seems like I need do to some testing what ‘s the best balance of condition and boon duration for me as well. I’m currently running 90/50 with food.

Edit 2:

Pistol #2 is kinda … bugged with Piercing Bullets it ’kitten detection is really odd so it might be ok to remove 10 points from the firearms tree and invest them in Potions for more boon duration + Usefull removals or even put them in Tools for SD / Swiftness out of Combat and additional +10% Critdmg.

Something like this:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQJAqel0piY3zSyF1LJyoCkGIF1HgJqQ+95xblWQIA-jAyAYtASWAJRAJ/ioxWNLiGrqmIqWXjZwLiWtQALGDA-e

Edit 3:

There were some skills missing due to a calculator bug @ first build.

I don’t think you should be using Celestial gear at all if you want to do decent condition damage. Hybrids are great and all, but Celestial really gives you hardly anything in condition damage so it doesn’t sound like it would fit your needs.

In fact I have been running hybrid lately (1550 power, 1100 condition damage, 50% crit) and love it, I didn’t at all think I would. I had been running a ton of pure condition damage (~2000) before this but I just feel conditions have too many weaknesses to dedicate your build to completely. With my current hybrid build I am not hitting like a wet noodle against environmental objects and bosses that cleans conditions often, but I also have bleeds that tick at 100 with no might stacks.

So with that said, I’m totally in favor of spreading around your damage stats a bit, but again I don’t think Celestial is the way to do it if you want any decent amount of condition damage.

EDIT: I like what Imaginary posted above me. I would prefer just a bit more condition damage myself, but using those runes definitely help out the loss of condition damage one would normally have with full Celestial. Did they ever fix Giver’s gear? I remember the condition duration not working before.

Yes Giver ‘s Gear is working as intended right now (just tested it). Also just replacing the weapons with Rampager ones gives you the same condition damage you’re running plus an extra 240 of power (and 3% less critchance). But keep in mind that I always include the Bufffood in my Builds. :-)

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQJAqel0piY3zSyF17ICoH1HgxXiKkffe8WpFEC-jAyAIsASWAJRAJ/ioxWNLiGrqmIqWXjZwLiWtQALGDA-e

I assume you mean Giver’s, if so that’s great thanks for checking it out.

Errr yes Giver’s to late here right now … need to sleep. x)

Since I started this mess, I better at least mention what I am currently doing:

Still have two more pieces of Celestial to craft
Pistol switched to Rampager
Shield is still Giver
Full stack of Undead runes (with all that lingering toughness it is essentially a free trait)
Rabid back piece
Went 25 in Arms for the 50 prec and cond, mostly. Though hopefully the 5% helps too.

This puts me just shy of 1000 condition damage, 1500 power, and 50% crit without food or oil. That said, I still have 21k HP and 2500 armor, so I can take a licking. The healing power addition isn’t making things go bananas, but Super Poition’s impact is nearly 1k, so that’s swell.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQJAqelIqqb3zSeF1LJx4DdGMj6mXRKyv+/UgtA-jAyAIMAsGIZBkIAk8LiGb1sIasqaioa1NmQALmAA-e

The only glaring thing missing here is condition management on myself. EG helps, especially if I can park in that light field and plunk away, but on the whole, if I have to be on the move, I am probably in trouble.

I wish I like grenades more. I do. Let me rephrase, I wish I could like grenades without having to go 30 explode to make them useful. That said, BoB and BK have been good to me. The smoke bomb burst to stealth, is especially annoying to folks in WvW since I can det with my shield or the EG. It’s made for some clever escapes. =P I also put Elixir U away the other day for TK. Man, I forgot just how hard that can hit… but I don’t know if I am ready for 3 kits full time. XD

I’ll keep messing around and mention anything of note.

Well, I can somehow understand your feelings. Seems like their spread pattern is somewhat … really … random lately. I’ve opened a seperate thread for that here:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/BUG-Grenades-Hit-Detection-faulty/first#post2505374

Might try your build out as well. As I found myself using bombs more lately. Thought I’m using it for PvE and yours is more like focused for WvW / PvP. Right?

Actually, the other is true. I am mostly a PvE player. I am only dipping my toe into WvW when I can. Unfortunately, my server is taking a beating right now, so WvW is pretty maddening. I haven’t even waded into the sPvP stuff yet.

That said, easy might and stealth blasts are super handy. I will generally use the stealth to shake aggro, and the party loves might, so a win there. The other nice thing is that since fields tend to pile up on the mob and tank, dropping the BoB and then EG4 away let’s me quickly burst twice. Generally these are water or light so the tanks appreciate the ret or healing.

I know the class can do some pretty respectable DPS with Rifle/SD, but that is boring to me. XD

Just wanted to update you with that one:

Celestial gear is usefull for heavy Mightstacking as well. I ’am currently running a variant of it and get like 25 Stacks of Might after ~5-10 Seconds in Fight. 9-15 are usually just from switching in and out of Medikit. You get around 13 Stacks right when the fight starts.

Yes the initial Condition Damage is low but you are able to keep the stacks at 15-25 most of the time even in really long fights which results in arround constant ~1200-1450 Condition Damage at all time.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQJAqel0piYHwSdF17ICoC1noH5nlNZfe8WPIEC-jgCBIMBkyAkEBI5rIasFhTjt6KIqaK16aYKXBygrIa1CB8YBA-e

The Downside is that you only can take one Kit with you and have longer cooldowns on Grenades #3 to #5. Your main damage will come from #1 and #2, and maybe Pistols. Thought one could try to change to P/P or even Rifle for Trashmobs.

Even though it feels kinda overpowered I miss my other kits and their utility.

How do you feel about the focus on to much Condition damage with your recent build? Even with Grenades and heavily specced for it in addition to a high condition duration I’m only be able to apply ~10-15 Stacks of Bleed which usually vanish really quick (even with 90% duration).

Even when I add the burning it ’s but only for a single target on a 10s Cooldown. Is it any better with EG / your build? I feel like focusing to much on it makes to much for a loss for Trashmobs aside from fighting Champions or really hard Veterans.

digitalruse.9085:

-snip-

• All Divinity – Puts me at a pretty snazzy 45% crit and +75% crit damage, but jebus is it expensive.
• 4 Altruism – Gives me the handy might stack and boon boost. With traits that is 35%. Is the extra 3-4 seconds on most boons worth it?
• 4 Lyssa – Pick up condition duration and precision and a random boon when I heal.

Am I off my rocker — my brain muddled by just… blech — or am I on the right path?

I’m actually against the Celestial and Divinity stat spread concepts, but it’s more personal preference than anything else; I’d rather be a bit more specialized in attributes and leave the generalizing to my skills and play style.

That being said there are a few ways to make Celestial stats and Divinity runes work well, and that’s going to be primarily in your high crit dmg Static Discharge builds. Celestial gear’s strong suit is that it has the highest crit damage of all gear options, and thus makes it the optimal choice for a spec.

As for Altruism and Lyssa, I love them both and use them both in a variety of builds, as both have excellent synergy with Med Kit rotations, and I’m a Med-Kit-Junkie. For Altruism, the main attractions here are the +15% boon duration, the 3 Might stacks, and Fury. The Healing power is kinda, meh as it scales the poorest of all attributes in the game. To capitalize on using it on a Med-Kit rotation, you’ll want to have base stats at 20/-/-/10/10, for Enhance Performance, Invigorating Speed, and Speedy Kits. Since you’ll have a +25% boon duration with the runes and the Alch trait line, you’ll be able to perma-swift, perma-vigor, and perma-fury (Drop Stimulant).

Now with Lyssa runes you gain Precision, my favorite attribute for Engineers, a random boon on your Med-Kit rotation, and a condition clear on Elite skill activation. This can be optimal with just a base of -/-/-/10/- just to use Fast Acting Elixirs to reduce the cool down of Elixir X to 84 seconds. Now many protest the skill for it’s RNG, but once you get used to the forms, it rapidly becomes an amazing skill for any Engineer especially when it’s coupled with a condition clear that grants every boon, it’s basically GODMODE for 5 seconds (not including % increases to boon duration) and just really awesome for the seconds to follow. When used on an CF409 and HGH build these are very strong rune options, but they’re so useful for so many builds for their Precision boost and condition clear that I dare say these could be considered a “general purpose” rune set.

Hope that helps!

digitalruse.9085:

Here is the thing, for me, that is interesting. If I go full carrion with undead and rabid with my spec, I look like this:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQJAqOIJGfozgUU38KSR+1/nCsF-jgxAYtASWAJCApwioxWNLiGrOmIqGA-e

If I go full Celestial w/ divinity I look like this:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQJAqOIJGfozgUU38KSR+1/nCsF-jgxAYtASWAJCAJ/ioxW1KiGrqmIqGA-e

Differences:
+192 Power
+75 Precision
+25 Toughness
+192 Vitality
+3% Crit Chance
+25 Armor
+1900 HP
-761 Condition Damage
+60% Crit Damage
+38% Magic Find (Soon to be useless)
+ 416 Healing Power

So, the loss on condition is obviously the most egregious offender, but for me, it seems like I might be making that up in survival and healing. Not to mention my direct damage is a little stronger and when I crit it will hurt more.

And with that… * brain lets out a tremendous fart *

I’ll check back in the morning. XD

This seems to me more something for a rifle/bomb/pwr build.

Thank you btw.