Guild Wars 2

So on a bomb/egun/nade build what is the real point of 20pts in apthocary?

What You Get

1) A very weak regeneration at 120 or under hps (Certainly useful but enough for 20 skill pt investment?)
2) Good, but is it necessary, minor trait that converts 1 condition to a boon every 15 seconds?
3) A little vitality which I could make up
4) 20% boon duration that really doesn’t do much for a 3 kit build. Helpful but not as important as if I was might stacking off more than a fire combo+

What I Could Get
20 more pts in firearms
1) Target weak and maim would be great damage boosts
2) Traits would likely focus on increased range and piercing pistol shots (will that cause more confusion bouncing or not???)
3) More precision is always good for condition procs on all the explosion and firearm traits and minors.

20 pts in inventions
1) Big focus is on the toughness and HP. (Healing scales up HT pretty poorly)
2) I like the idea of having my healing turret reload when I am weak. That gives me the ability to not save a heal and have a BIG one when I need it most.
3) Traits are not as synergestic. Might take shield toughness and something else defensive.
4) Option doesn’t improve damage but definitely helps with surviving

20 pts in Tools
1) I really like reducing my F1-F4 skills recharge timers
2) Minors are great for a 3 kit engie
3) Not feeling in any way that this is better than firearms for damage.

Ok. Explain why a weak always on regen beats any of these options? What am I missing? Every build seems to have BR. I must be missing something or is there really an argument that the 20 pts could be spent better elsewhere?

So, am I a heretic in thinking the BR may be over commitment for under performance?

Nades/TK/EG builds are condition builds
condition-builds almost always take toughness with them
toughness increases your effective healthpoints
therefore getting 200 more vitality drastically increases your survivability.
and also increases the actual amount of effective healing you get.

but we’re talking PvP / WvW here, right?
regarding PvE, condi-builds are inferior anyways, cause – hands down – one Conditionmancer in the group is enough. (tough Nades have some great effects here, and also scale nicely with power)

edit:
consider the following as equip:
Condi-dmg + Toughness + healing-power (settler)

I don’t think many people put 20 into alchemy just for backpack regenerator. Thing is, alchemy adept traits are really good and after 10 points you’re only 10 points away from BR. Now, BR isn’t really a significant trait, but condi engies are really tanky and survivable and that 100+ hps adds quite a bit of healing over a (long) fight.
Say you’re in a small scale fight that has lasted for 1 min, 50 secs of that time you’ve been in kit. That means during that minute BR alone has healed you for (117*50=)5850hp. That’s about as much as one HT heal.

backpack regenerator is amazing. combined with protection injection, lots of toughness, eg 5, and permanent regen you have tons of sustain. putting 20 into firearms over alchemy makes you incredibly easy to kill even if you go full dire.

backpack regen 117 + regen 130 + eg 5 204 = 451 health per second. that’s warrior caliber regen.

ellesee.8297:

backpack regenerator is amazing. combined with protection injection, lots of toughness, eg 5, and permanent regen you have tons of sustain. putting 20 into firearms over alchemy makes you incredibly easy to kill even if you go full dire.

backpack regen 117 + regen 130 + eg 5 204 = 451 health per second. that’s warrior caliber regen.

I was gonna point out warriors heal until I saw your second statment. I think that actually proves backpack regen is subpar if you need a lot of healing sources just to equal the passive heal from warriors. But then again warriors are crazy.

healing signet is way overpowered but keep in mind backpack regen will always be up and regen will always be up most of the time. eg 5 will be up 50% of the time. so assuming you run eg, your regen will be greater than an overpowered passive 50% of the time and slightly less for the other half. that’s ok in my book. plus, unlike warriors we have access to burst heal so yea i’d say we are doing ok sustain wise.

Even without BR, there’s still at least enough decent traits in elixirs to fill 2 slots.

Often times I will run invigorating speed with protection injection. Even though invigorating speed was nerfed, you can still have high vigor uptime, and protection injection can be a lifesaver in some situations. Otherwise, blood injection would provide you with a bit of extra damage, or acidic coating could be taken to help counter thieves and warriors. There’s also self-regulating defenses, but that one hasn’t been quite as popular lately.

And the transmute minor trait is still quite useful, especially since people do blow things like immobilizes and fears on it when beginning their offence.

As said though, it just puts more regen on already existing regen for more powerful sustain. I wouldn’t say it’s necessary, but it’s just a good option since these sorts of builds are often used for node holding in sPvP or just for defensive purposes in general. There’s definitely ways to tweak it to suit other purposes though.

Penguin.5197:

ellesee.8297:

backpack regenerator is amazing. combined with protection injection, lots of toughness, eg 5, and permanent regen you have tons of sustain. putting 20 into firearms over alchemy makes you incredibly easy to kill even if you go full dire.

backpack regen 117 + regen 130 + eg 5 204 = 451 health per second. that’s warrior caliber regen.

I was gonna point out warriors heal until I saw your second statment. I think that actually proves backpack regen is subpar if you need a lot of healing sources just to equal the passive heal from warriors. But then again warriors are crazy.

Except Warriors cannot use their active heal without sacrificing the passive heal for 16-20 seconds whereas Engineers can use their active heal while also keeping their passive healing.

Then again, if a warrior needs to pop the active on that signet he is way over his head. The passive match the HPS of most healing skills.

As for Backpack Regenerator, Dunno. i would say it is junk in PVE, but i can see it make a difference in small scale PVP.

Just a little bit maths from me (HP = healing power, all values without delays after CD, all values per second)

Healing turret:

336+0,07 x HP (pick up)
318+0,06 x HP (blow up)

Med Kit:

Drop Bandages: 250+0,125 x HP (312,5 + 0,156 x HP with Packaged Stimulants)
Bandage Self: 246 ( ’+ 3,5 per point in tools) + 0,05 (+ 0,01 per point in tools)

At all: 496 ( ’+ 3,5 per point in tools; + 62,5 with Packaged Stimulants) + 0,175 x HP (+0,01 per point in tools; +0,031 with Packaged Stimulants)

Elixir H:

222,4+0,04 x HP
278+0,05 x HP (with Fast-Acting Elixirs)

So far the main healing skills (excluding A.E.D because it is not spamable and very bad in sustain healing)
As I always told, Elixir H is the worst and not worth outside of HGH builds. Med Kit allows an excellent self heal (superior, even to all other classes, just compare to “OP” warrior signet lol)

Now back to topic: the secondary heals:

Elixir Infused Bombs: 170,6 +0,18 x HP (spamming Bombs all the time, note that invariably spamming bombs may decrease your usefulness)

Super-Elixir: 137+ 0,07 x HP (171,25 +0,09 x HP with Fireforged Trigger)(note : you have to stay in the field the hole time for this values)

Regeneration boon: 130 + 0,125 x HP (note: not every build may constantly grants regeneration boon, so this value may decrease depending on your build)

Backpack Regenerator: 117 +0,05 x HP

Comparing secondary heals with main heals shows up secondary heals are generally worth it. They may add up betweeen 1/4 – 1/2 of the main heals each which is definitly worth regarding them. Regarding Backpack Regenerator it seems like BR is the weakest one. But BR does not need any requirements (using a kit, okay got me) while Super Elixir requires to stay in circle for 10 seconds, Elixir infused bombs requires to spam bombs and regeneration boon needs a specific build to keep it up constantly. So those values will come down a little bit for sure in practise. Means BR may look a bit weak but it isn’t. It is a solid choice for secondary healing.

ty for the input forestnator.
nice to have some sheets at hand for what already felt right^^

I guess the real question then becomes does secondary healing outperform secondary damage especially when you can get more “on crit” conditions by moving points from the secondary healing line to say firearms?

Playing more with BR, I think it is helping. Having been a ranger for so long, I’m pretty risk adverse and quite good at healing (squish goes the ranger).

How do engineers get their long regeneration boon? Mine don’t last very long when outside of a field (e.g. HT). Fortunately the field is pretty big (unlike super elixir). Love all the pulse heals we get though! Healing Mist is my stun break and Regen Mist is great but short. In fact, all our regen is short and a problem when you want to flee and regen at same time. Thoughts?

First of all, doe we speak about removing all 20 points from alchemie? Because then we also lose our vigor which is preaty engineers defense: dodging. Also Hidden Elixir B is a nice damage booster.

Btw; Engineer is weak in condition removes outside of HGH. Removing those points in alchemie also removes one source of condition remove.

Let’s regard your purposed alternatives: Target the weak is nice but most competitive engineer builds are about conditions. Engineer has not much proc on crit effects. Bleeding? This trait gives between 1-3 bleeds depending on your crit chance. Idc if my bleed on crit is around 0,2 less or something like that. Piercing shot pistols is a kitten trait. Only pistol #1 and #2 profit from this. And pistol #1 should anyway not be used. Definitly not worth in any competitiv build.

Inventions: AMR is great. Thats all to say here. Nothing good in this trait line imo. Definitly less surviveability then Alchemie imo.

Tools: Idk. I used to play with 15 points in tools in pvp. Nothing more to get there imo.

Typically would go only to 10 in alchemy.

In firearms, the real value is the increase in crit chance. Target the weak assisting the baseline improvement of points in the line.

Would have done trigger and increased range. I find the range extremely useful as well as anything that allows me to use my secondary heals and escapes more (e gun).

I suppose that is too much to give up for 1 condition “change to boon” every 15 seconds and a nice passive pulse heal.

Still, sitting at only 44% crit chance seems low given all the “on crit” effects we have.
Hmmmmmmm.