Guild Wars 2

This is the build that I have been using for quite some time now. I developed it months back in response to all the d/d thieves that were prevalent in WvW.

It is far from revolutionary, but it works for me and I still play it with success.

So feel free to pick it apart. All constructive criticism is welcomed and will be responded to.

Armor:

All Soldier’s (Power / Vitality / Toughness)
6/6 rune of the centaur

Trinkets: All Berzerker’s

When I get home I’ll enter the stats with food buffs.

Weapon: Rifle. I’m currently using sigil of force (5% damage), but a good argument can be made to use sigil of accuracy (5% crit) or Bloodlust/Perception or Energy.

Traits:

Explosives: 0

Firearms: 20 Trait VI (Hair trigger 20% reduction on cooldown for rifle) & IX (Rifle Mod 10% damage for rifle).

Inventions: 20 Trait I (Protective shield – 3 seconds of protection when crit w/ 20 second cooldown) & then I swap between a couple of traits for the second slot.

The three I like:
Trait II Explosive descent (50% less falling damage & grenade barrage) – Can be a real life saver as well as having some offensive utility when roaming in high terrain areas of WvW.

Trait VI Cloaking device (invisible when immobilized).

Trait V: 5% of toughness converted to Power if you want a little more damage.

I usually swap between Cloak and Descent depending on where I am on the map. If I’m running with a zerg I may just opt for additional damage from Trait V.

Alchemy: Trait II (Fast Acting Elixirs 20% recharge); Trait VI (Projection Injection 3 secs of Protection when disabled w/ 5 second cooldown.)

Last trait is a toss-up as there are a few that I love.

Trait IV: – Self-regulating defenses gives you an extra Elixir S. Really nice to re-set a fight especially against burst thieves.
Trait X: cleaning formula 409 consuming elixirs removes conditions (really nice against poison/bleed thieves. Coupled with antidote in med-pack and you have a ton of readily available condition removal.
Trait I: Invigorating speed (5 secs of vigor with swiftness – triggers when you hit medpack or elixir B. Also note if you choose this you may want to consider sigil of energy if you are going for a dodge build).

Utilities:

Medpack
Elixir B (13 seconds of retaliation blows up a thief) You also get another Elixir B at 75% health from the minor trait. So you are talking about 26 seconds of retaliation right there, and there is only a 19 second window where you won’t have retaliation before elixir B becomes available again off cool-down. Toolbelt skill gives you extra condition removal on a 20 second cooldown and a RNG buff.

This leads me to my next utility:

Elixir S.: Stun break and 3 seconds of immunity. That coupled with the toolbelt skill as shown by Tankcat you can finish anything. I used to run slick shoes. The knock down from Oil slick is amazing especially for thieves that are behind you, plus there is a blind component, and double speed ignores all snares. I REALLY miss slick shoes, but Elixir S has a shorter cooldown (48 seconds v 60), and also removes conditions when coupled with 409, as well as allowing you to finish downed targets from the toolbelt (invis/stability).

Elixir U: 5 seconds of quickness + RNG self-debuff. I believe that it is still a little bugged as you may only get 3 seconds of quickness in certain instances (48 second cooldown). Regardless this is the bread and butter for your burst damage. The build really doesn’t work without it as you just won’t be able to finish anything.

Supply crate: I know that this is an elixir build, but supply crate’s stun and net turret own thieves.

So there it is.

This build does not do the most damage (see 100’nades), nor is it the tankiest (see Tankcat), but it is one version of the engineer that I often run and enjoy.

I like it. I find tanky rifle builds excellent at dueling thieves in PvP—haven’t tried it much in WvW.

If you can squeeze toolkit or flamethrower in, I think you’ll find them very effective vs thieves as well. The toughest thing about thieves is downing them before they run away, and magnet is good for that. Not to mention gear shield and prybar. Flamethrower doesn’t really deal damage, but the blind is nice and the pushback can keep a stealthed thief from rezzing someone.

Yeah I like the rifle as well for the cc on short cooldown. You can really frustrate mele classes. I just have never liked the feel of the pistol/shield. But that is a personal play-style thing.

…and thanks for the comment!

OK here are the stats with artisan maintenance oil and plate of steak and asparagus. I also use the Bear, Snow Leopard, Wolf, and Raven offerings for 4% additional damage.

Attack 3,197
Crit: 43% (63% with fury)
Crit Damage: 45%
Armor: 2,404
Health: 20,322
Raw stats:
Power: 2,228
Precision: 1,731
Vit: 1,440

If you are in WvW running in a zerg than PVT gear is invalueable.

Have you ever been running with a good zerg where the commander actually has everyone run through as a grp staying in a nice big beehive taking down everyone around you, but then you are dead on the ground waiting to get revived by the survivors?
Thats because you are specc’d for sPvP.

You do no damage when you are dead on the ground and you will NEVER out damage your zerg.
In a zerg you just need to stay alive and try to contribute and all that extra crit% and dmg wont really matter when you are taking things down as a large team.
So tankier builds are always better for WvW unless you are just hoping to run into 1-2 ppl all the time.

tl;dr – PVT gear keeps you alive so you can keeping tagging enemies and get more loot bags.

Lol P/V/T. Everyone in my guild is super carebear about WvW and they all run P/V/T because they heard it was good. Heard. How much does P/V/T gear help against getting demolished by enemy poke? Very little. And enemy poke is the only reason I die in WvW ever. P/V/T gear is for certain classes/roles and for people who have no personal skill (e.g. most WvW population).

@Cripseph

Man nothing again you, but I hate that style of playing.

Just stack in a bunch, spam your AoE and wait for the bags.

If people like it, good. But I think this kind of gameplay just drive players skills to the ground.

I’m a roamer, and I won’t take any pride in killing a zerg players 1on1. When a player overextend from a zerg, you know it will be an easy fight.

They don’t dodge, they spam the same skill, they keyboard turn. They rarely heal.

Sorry I got myself into a random rant, but I’m not a fan.

As such, I don’t think you can judge a build because he uses Berserker gear. I think he has a very interresting build. He might also not run in a zerg like you. Berserker are a good option in WvW, if you know how to use your defensive cooldown and your dodge.

Good player something seems to be tanky even in berserker, only because they know when to dodge, block, use LoS.

@ManCaptain – I love how you stated your guild has no personal skill. You are the best troll ever. I would say the people with no personal skill are the ones who need to spec full GC so they can try to instaburst unsuspecting ppl down.

@Kardiamond – I agree it was much more fun to roam around in smaller groups to find little battles, but it also sucks roaming around and getting caught by 30 ppl.

I wasn’t judging anyones build or saying that PVT is the only way to go. I was just trying to point out that in my experience when I started running with a large Raid grp (and they do alot more than stand and spam) I found switching out for some PVT gear really helped me stay alive when charging though siege and AoE. Since you are attacking ppl as a group you don’t NEED to do as much damage to them so the loss of crit isn’t noticed.

If you are caught alone or in a smaller grp you will be at a disadvantage but if you are good enough you will still do alright it will just take longer.

I don’t think there is anything wrong with his build and if you are only going to be roaming around in WvW or in small grps than PVT Gear probally isn’t the way to go.

In the top tiers of WvW Zerg fighting is how things get captured, during peak hours its rare to run into small grps of ppl when roaming around so whether you like it or not ZERG vs ZERG fighting is where all the action is in WvW.

And when you have 30v30 along with lag and culling the strategies good zergs use to stay alive is to move as a grp and yes spam while moving as a grp. If it is an even match you can spend a good amount of time circling and dodging and in the end the ones with better survivability will be the ones reviving everyone who spent more on damage.

To be clear if you are specifically going to stay away from zerg fighting then the carry over sPvP builds all work great.

If you are going to run as a zerg than PVT.

How does this build perform in PvE dungeons?

Actually, the Rifle alone is already good weapon to brutally interrupt the Thieves. From Berserker or Soldier, both versions work. The problem on the zerker style is that you pretty much depend of the engage, which means mind games for the most part, and the problem on the soldier style is that you don’t really get to catch that Thief if he ever decides to flee.

CriSPeH.8512:

@ManCaptain – I love how you stated your guild has no personal skill. You are the best troll ever. I would say the people with no personal skill are the ones who need to spec full GC so they can try to instaburst unsuspecting ppl down.

Wasn’t trolling. Out of 40 man zerg only 5 people have serious spvp experience, and thus most the them lose focus and run around like headless chickens if enemy melee manages to break through and get to them. A lot of them don’t even slot any stunbreakers so bull’s charge+hundred blades (or any CC combo) ruins them. People with good spvp experience don’t get their jimmies rustled by some melee guy with more damage and armor than them trying to run a train on them.

So they get into the idea that they need to be more tanky to survive that burst. Their solution? P/V/T gear. For all classes/builds. Which lets them survive 10 seconds longer in that situation. That is stupid, since if you have good dodge control and some vigor/invul, you can survive pretty much any enemy burst.

What actually happens is that poke from enemy team (retal damage, meteor storms, condition spam like nades, damage and bleeds from arrow carts) outpaces selfheals of players and before groups even engage a lot of people in the group are at half health or lower. Toughness helps (but doesn’t work vs conditions and retal). Vitality doesn’t help. What helps is healers and instead of that people started slotting P/V/T on everyone. Which is dumb. I slot CD/T/crit with just enough CD/V/P so I don’t get bursted down by thieves when roaming. The only real danger to that build is getting worn down by retal procs and arrow carts. One healer and it would be fine.

Unless you’re doing frontline work, you don’t need P/V/T. For most people P/V/T is just slower death when losing and when winning it doesn’t help them at all.

Since you are attacking ppl as a group you don’t NEED to do as much damage to them so the loss of crit isn’t noticed.

Crit isn’t for the damage (if you’re not running crit damage % increase gear/trait line, it doesn’t add that much over adding more power). Crit is there for on crit trait procs and on crit sigil procs and most importantly (since a LOT of people use this in wvw) on crit food procs. And p/v/t doesn’t help there either.

Kardiamond.6952:

Good player something seems to be tanky even in berserker, only because they know when to dodge, block, use LoS.

Which is exactly what I’m trying to tell people, but nope… gotta get that huge HP pool, can’t be bothered playing 100 spvp matches to learn to dodge enemy combos.

Thank you all for your kind and thoughtful responses.

I used to run full Berserker’s and although the damage increase is substantial, I was getting crushed by steal/C&D/BS combos. As soon as I switched to P/V/T for my armor I was easily able to survive the first burst and could reset the fight. I still use zerker’s for my trinkets and rifle.

I’ve considered trying out valk for the extra crit damage, as well as going to precision/crit damage food.

This build was specifically designed to counter all of the D/D glass cannon thieves that were EVERYWHERE a couple of months ago.

I wouldn’t run this for pve. I use a grenadier build against mobs.

Ironically, this build just got a little buff:

Elixir U: Quickness is now consistent at 5 seconds.

I switched my build up over the weekend, and really enjoyed the results.

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-V70;2sPkq0u53UFx0;9;5J-JT;158;235-17B;66Rk06Rk0d

It is sort of a combo between static discharge 100nades, and tankcat.

I went 30 into tools, picked up adrenal implement for perma vigor and 10% more damage when endurance full. Coupled with rifle mod and you have 20% increase to damage.

With food I currently have 81% crit damage, and 42% crit before fury, and 52% crit when target is under 50% health (target the weak).

I was hitting for well over 2K with throw wrench each way, without factoring in the additional damage from static discharge. I still had just under 20K hit points, and had enough toughness from P/V/T armor that I didn’t feel too squishy. Gear shield, elixir S, and another elixir S from self-regulating defenses allowed me to reset almost every single 1v1 I had, and I only died over the weekend if facing insurmountable odds.

I was also surprised to see how much damage I was able to do with surprise shot from the toolbelt on a (I wanna say) 7 3/4 second cool-down.

I was seeing some big crits of 5k with blunderbus and jump shot. People were clearly panicking by the up front damage. Auto attack hits for around 1.5 -1.7Kish.

Prybar is just amazing as well.

I’m still using all berserker trinkets and 6/6 rune of the cent for added power, and perma switftness from med-kit.

Thanks to all the previous builds that I have borrowed from.