Guild Wars 2

The Background:
So, I’ve been cheating on my engineer. The rumors, unfortunately, are true. Am I to blame? Is it the engineer’s fault? Those are questions for another day and time. I’m here to talk about how we can make this thing work.

I won’t get into how it came about, but I’ve been seeing an elementalist. She has been my everything: a staff-wielding, combo-field generating giant. Her boons last long and her heals are fierce. And I have enjoyed climbing to ever-higher fractal levels with her very much. I don’t mean to start a comparison of the two, and I certainly don’t mean for us to sit here and bicker about class balance. I just want to provide some context for the discussion that I want to have.

The Here and Now:
I have returned to my engineer mostly for the purposes of farming twice the amount of daily chests out of fractal tiers. It isn’t the best reason to play a particular class, but it is something that I want to do. I also am looking for every opportunity to fall back in love with the class. The only problem is that, after playing an elementalist, I’m not entirely sure I know how I want to play an engineer. At this point you’ll probably be getting ready to point me to the build thread, but this is different. I’m not looking for a run-of-the-mill PvE build; I’m looking for the build that you run and find to be effective at the agony-producing levels (10+) of fractals.

I used to play a cookie-cutter grenade/elixir gun build with power/toughness/vitality armors, and berserker jewelry. Doing what I did with that build, however, I won’t even be approaching the usefulness of my elementalist. So, I decided to shop around for builds and now I reworked myself to be a bomb/healing/blasting engineer using roughly this build:

http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mcMzM9molNoMMlNoMa0xGaczkqmsM

I have a spreadsheet of intended gear that roughly include pistol/shield, AC precision/vit/healing armors and berserker jewelry, giving me the following rough stats: Attack: 2,892, Crit Chance: 44%, Armor: 2,280, Healing: 615, and 19,322 Health. I’m having second-thoughts concerning this build, however, for two very big reasons.

1) Agony and survivability. A good deal of time should be spent up in the fray dropping bombs. This is potentially going to make it very difficult for me to make sure I get out of the way of things quickly and will definitely end up in me being hit a whole lot with skill arcs and radii. I’ve taken the build into some explorables and I’ve even found myself getting knocked around a good bit there too. That doesn’t bode well for level 10+ fractal dungeons using this build. Granted, I wasn’t geared out with my intended gear for the test runs, but I don’t think the difference will be that vast. This is in stark contrast to my elementalist, with whom I can enjoy almost limitless amounts of freedom around the battlefield and can quickly get myself out of a tight situation most of the time with an insane amount of burst healing.

2) Clunkiness. I love a very active character, and it’s why I have loved playing on my elementalist. But it can’t feel clunky. Want to know what I mean by clunky? The following combo:

Switch into bomb kit, drop Big ol’ Bomb, use Fire Bomb (#2), drop a Healing Turret, destroy Healing Turret, switch to pistol/shield and hit #4 twice for Magnetic Inversion.

If you do this quickly enough and in proper time, it essentially creates a fire combo field (Fire Bomb), and allows you to blast it several times (Big ol’ Bomb, Destroy Healing Turret, Magnetic Inversion) for group might stacks. Sure, it’s a good number of might stacks (3 per blast), but it is torture in how clunky it is to pull off. And while you’re doing all that, you’re very likely completely oblivious to everything else going on in the battlefield. Potentially losing battlefield awareness is totally not cool and totally unacceptable for me.

Another example of clunkiness? Our healing turret creates a water field that is so fleeting that you could have easily reached 80 without even realizing it existed. Blast finishing water fields is such a great source of group healing though, and I absolutely love doing this on my elementalist. But trying to string together Big Ol’ bomb, Turret Destruction, and Magnetic Inversion in order to get repeated blasts on the momentary Healing Turret water field is a pain.

Your Turn:
I think I’ve provided enough context here. So the question is, what do you guys do in the high level fractals and what do you find effective? I’m specifically interested in builds, gear and skill uses/combos that you use for high level fractals, and not just PvE in general, or how you enjoy the engineer class. I’m not really looking for a “I find turrets fun” kind of response, basically.

I would be especially interested in checking out any blasting/healing/booning general support builds (similar to a combo-field/staff elementalist) that you guys might be running out there. Although I’m interested in pretty much all builds that can be very effective at the high fractal levels.

What say ye?

Cause you’re using Healing Bombs and Elixir Gun I assume you have some Healing Power on your gear so you could give [Kit Refinement] a try, every 20 seconds you create a Super Elixir when you equip the Elixir Gun.
[Backpack Regenerator] doesn’t profit from Healing Power so I wouldn’t use it in a this build.

“I used to play a cookie-cutter grenade/elixir gun build with power/toughness/vitality armors, and berserker jewelry. Doing what I did with that build, however, I won’t even be approaching the usefulness of my elementalist. So, I decided to shop around for builds and now I reworked myself to be a bomb/healing/blasting engineer using roughly this build:”

Well, bearing in mind, my time is 95% wvw, so my fractal experience is non-existent.
You say cookie cutter grenade/elixir with knights gear, and zerker jewel.

Not sure how cookie cutter that is. Most are just grenades+2 elixirs, and full zerkers.
Soft, but the raw damage is supreme. 30/0/0/30/10. grenadier/10% damage/acid coated 20%cdr/409/hgh, static discharge.
that offers a few things.
1. supreme damage. and vul stacking. your damage is unmatched, and the 24 stacks of vul you apply increase everyone elses as well.
2.hgh/409. Aoe cleansing and aoe might. Elixir H and Elixir B throws base buffs are unreliable. but not awful. regen or prot on H is a good 60% of a strong defensive buff.
U or R. U is a 75% chance of a wall, to block or reflect. the stealth, lame. but at least an ethereal field. R is by FAR the best res. Aoe periodic cleanse for 6s. And rez on allies(and self) without having to stop what you are doing.
You are practically immune to conditions, with 7 options to remove.
B on self is a large damage boost.

Support.
EG+2 elixirs. Clerics gear.
EG scales pretty well with power. Not grenade crazy high. but well. And has fantastic buffs/debuffs. (do not use fumigate, ever) Kit refinement of course.
Ton of healing, cleansing, and moderate damage.

attempts to use 2 kits at once, I find odd. traits simply do not encourage it.

Engineer who just did level 28 last night here.

I’m not taking the immense time to explain what to do. If you wanna kitten yourself and try to be needlessly complex (which is funny because I’m swapping kits every other attack) just for a few might stacks, that’s your issue. Elementalists are far better for that. You should be focusing on playing to your class’ strengths and utilizing the weapons that are good. I’ll sum it up briefly (my loadout, and skill choices):

30/10/0/0/30. Traits: 6% chance of bleeds, 10% more explosion damage, grenadier, 50% chance of swiftness on crit, refined kits, 20% cooldown reduction on toolkit, 50% more endurance regen.

Rifle, medkit, elixir gun, grenade kit, toolkit, supply crate.

You’ll do more ranged direct damage than anyone in the game – and a heap of condition damage on top of it to boot.

http://imageshack.us/a/img5/755/gw960j.jpg

((Yes the skills in the image are different. This might be crazy but you change skills depending on situation – since engineer is ready for every situation based on his skillset.))

Kamahl.3621:

Engineer who just did level 28 last night here.

I’m not taking the immense time to explain what to do. If you wanna kitten yourself and try to be needlessly complex (which is funny because I’m swapping kits every other attack) just for a few might stacks, that’s your issue. Elementalists are far better for that. You should be focusing on playing to your class’ strengths and utilizing the weapons that are good. I’ll sum it up briefly (my loadout, and skill choices):

30/10/0/0/30. Traits: 6% chance of bleeds, 10% more explosion damage, grenadier, 50% chance of swiftness on crit, refined kits, 20% cooldown reduction on toolkit, 50% more endurance regen.

Rifle, medkit, elixir gun, grenade kit, toolkit, supply crate.

You’ll do more ranged direct damage than anyone in the game – and a heap of condition damage on top of it to boot.

http://imageshack.us/a/img5/755/gw960j.jpg

((Yes the skills in the image are different. This might be crazy but you change skills depending on situation – since engineer is ready for every situation based on his skillset.))

and what gear do you use?

Good question. Full berserker. My rings at the moment are an infused all-stats ring (Lunaria, Circle of the Moon), and Vine of the Pale Tree (berserker stats, but with vitality instead of precision on the gem).

Ideally the rings would be an ascended, infused Red Ring of Death and a Crystalline Band. But you take what you can get to fight agony – if it gets worse I could use my infused Mellagan’s Whorl (it’s so crap I’m not going to list the stats).

I’m at level 31 of FotM and run a build very similar to yours op.
Instead of protective shield (that is not very useful in pve imo) I take energized armor for extra damage.
Instead of reinforced shield (I spent much more times on kits than pistol/shield) I take Elite supplies.

Also I have 0 in tools and 10 more in explosives for short fuse (more smoke bombs).
Instead of elixir B I take elixir R for stun break and revival (you can even use it for self revival!) or you can try kit refinement too for extra super elixirs.

My gear is soldier for armor and cleric for trinkets. The extra 800 healing power really makes a difference, especially on super elixir, that thing brings people to full health in just a few seconds.

The only problem I have with this build is the minimal damage on range. Melee is no problem since bombs have massive base damage.

I actually play the healing bomb build and other than having issues with mobs that run around , mobs that are anti melee and being unable to heal casters and myself at the same time I find the class strong and effective. People will see you as invaluable as a guardian.

I will tell you I’m very bored with it. Once you’ve done the combos you describe a bunch you can pull them off regularly but outside of that its spamming 1 on bomb kit waiting for cooldowns. I never felt this way on P/P but I doubt I was contributing much then either.

One of my minor breakthrough in optimizing engi is I retain the classic glass cannon grenadier build, but I take in kit refinement and grab an elixir gun and basically swap elix → super elix for healing goodness . Its decent heal but I barely lost any of my dps as a tradeoff!

I use this build (may need to copy/paste): http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQJAqelspSXnwSiF17ICoC1noH53jRZfewWtFEC

For armor I use full exotic power/vitality/toughness, two superior monk runes, two superior water runes, and two major water runes. This paired with the 30% boon duration from the alchemy line gives me +70% boon duration, you can get another 20% from food, but there’s better food to be had. For accessories I use soldier’s spineguard with the exotic emerald gem, and exotic power/toughness/precision rings, etc.

Fury is up a good amount of the time, usually near full time if you have a warrior present. I also use omnomberry pie for the 66% chance to steal 300ish HP on crit (it has no internal CD).

A big misconception about grenades is the range. Just because you have 1,500 range does not mean you should ever be standing that far away, minus certain encounters like the tentacles on the jade maw, the legendary dredge mining suit, etc.
Grenades are at their most effective in melee range because it increases accuracy to near 100% and reduces the travel time of the grenade to almost nothing.

I’ve tried a lot of builds, and this, in my opinion, is one of the most potent engineer has for almost any occasion. Grenades offer excellent short, mid, and long range damage, as well as a good amount of control through chill and blind. The high amount of projectiles per second also makes them your primary source of healing from the pie.

I’m at fractal 26 now having used this build for the majority of that, and it hasn’t steered me wrong. I’ve yet to see a ring drop/forge an ascended back item, so agony is still an issue for me, but probably wouldn’t be for people more fortunate with drops.

@ UserNameDeluxe:
wouldn’t the II or III in explo be a better alternative since your CSC seems low in that build? is the fury you get enough?
or is the burn still better? I didn’t do the math so even with crit it would be great to know. Thanks.

Grenades are not bombs or mines.
That said, 5% damage when end is not full is probably the best.
I dodge pretty frequently.. My bar is rarely completely full.

Never “really” mathed out the bleed chance, but with shrapnel already giving a fairly high bleed count, hitting 25 stacks in a 5 man pve encounter is pretty easy even without it.

Not a fan of the burn due to single target issues. And not stacking as with above.

Didn’t notice, does cond damage even get magnified by the ice elem debuff as well?

This is the build I use: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcQQFAUlspSYX3SiF1LJyoCfGIF6FgJqwj95hcNfQIA;T0AA2ynEOJdS9kyJqkMJJSymkLJZSDLA

Edit: Here’s a guildhead link since the other one can be wonky: http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mzMM9cz0MvlaMMvlaMxG0aaMcqmVMm8kir7070m7kuZ70V7ofD70m8ofv

I feel like its a fairly typical build.

Its not as support driven or “bomby” as you might want but it works for me. I use Superior runes of the pack. (I was using mesmer but basically pack runes do everything I wanted from those runes with added bonuses.) I often find myself switching weapons. Sometimes its P/S for bosses that spawn lots of adds or that have an ability I really want to reflect and/or block. rifle is mostly for single target fights and high mobility fights where overcharged and Jump shot come in handy. For rings and accessories I use Power/Tough/Precision, and armor is Power/Tough/Vitality.

My support mostly comes from Elixir gun. I really like the double Super Elixir from Kit refinement. (The grenade ability isn’t that bad either) Super Elixir typically takes care of any conditions that need removing, however I often switch my load-out around a bit: swapping elixir R for Elixir C (extra condition removal) or Elixir B (Swiftness and lots of other good stuff), however elixir R stays on for most situations as the stun break is fantastic along with the toss which is probably one of our best support abilities.

Sometimes I switch to bombs and change the grenadier trait to Enhanced Performance and extra damage to short fuse. I find this set up especially useful for kiting the Mining Suit or Ice elemental in the Dredge instance, which for some reason I usually am that guy…

The man reason I run this build is that I feel that its very adaptable: Need more swiftness? You have a few ways to do that in speedy kits or infused precision. Need more condition removal? Set up with elixir C, even though I feel like R’s toss and super elixir typically do the trick. For Kiting you have bombs, damage you have grenades, and so on.

Like I said I don’t feel like this build is typically creative or off the beaten path, however it works for me. Hope that helps.

Pistol Pistol[Grenade/Bomb/Flame] as necessary. Cleaning 409, Elixer U and B. I’ve had no problems and rarely die. Dodge the agony attacks, and you’re golden. Kite and use skill 5 for certain boss mechanics. Love engineer in fractals because of versatility to adapt.

Level 14 fractals here.

I’m running something like that cookie-cutter build you mentioned. 30 explosives, 10 inventions, 10 alchemy, 20 tools. My armor is power / toughness / vitality with runes of Melandru, while my jewelry is berserkers.

That’s also my WvW build, and I could switch it up. But until I get to a point where Fractals is a challenge or I have a regular party that wants to work out roles it is unnecessary.

Rifle, med kit, nades, elixir gun, and elixir U or R depending on the fight.

Elixir U is great, not for the haste, but for the reflect / smoke barriers on the toolbelt skill. The invis field isn’t too great, but it has randomly saved mine or a teammate’s kitten

Agony is easily outhealable, and if you can get your mates to stack up, with Kit Refinement you’ll keep everyone up.

As the post above mentioned, grenades are super at close range as well – not necessarily in the mob’s face, but 300-600 (out of melee range).

If you don’t want to use grenades at all and use the elixir gun mainly, what’s a good build for that? At least 10 tools, but does the elixir gun scale better off of condition damage or power? And is investing in inventions for the bonus to healing a worthwhile thing to consider, or just go for traits that are helpful?

Raito.2471:

If you don’t want to use grenades at all and use the elixir gun mainly, what’s a good build for that? At least 10 tools, but does the elixir gun scale better off of condition damage or power? And is investing in inventions for the bonus to healing a worthwhile thing to consider, or just go for traits that are helpful?

Elixir gun doesn’t scale well with anything.
You can’t make much stacks of bleed and your poison has short duration/long cd.
The most damaging abilities (elixir F and acid bomb) hit for less damage than a bomb/grenade auto attack.
You use Elixir gun for a good aoe heal, 2 aoe condition removals, the regen buff and the perma weakness in auto attack, not for damage.
About healing is up to you, but super elixir scales superb with healing power. The fact that every pulse increases it’s healing really makes a difference.

Redamz.5038:

Raito.2471:

If you don’t want to use grenades at all and use the elixir gun mainly, what’s a good build for that? At least 10 tools, but does the elixir gun scale better off of condition damage or power? And is investing in inventions for the bonus to healing a worthwhile thing to consider, or just go for traits that are helpful?

Elixir gun doesn’t scale well with anything.
You can’t make much stacks of bleed and your poison has short duration/long cd.
The most damaging abilities (elixir F and acid bomb) hit for less damage than a bomb/grenade auto attack.
You use Elixir gun for a good aoe heal, 2 aoe condition removals, the regen buff and the perma weakness in auto attack, not for damage.
About healing is up to you, but super elixir scales superb with healing power. The fact that every pulse increases it’s healing really makes a difference.

EG scales very well with power.

Scales less then bomb or grenade. Well, Duh.. Everything scales less then grenades.
F and acid bomb scale very well.
for a kit that does give such healing, and debuffs, that it scales so well is very impressive.

the 15% damage trait forces you to choose between it and 409/hgh, which is a bit meh.