Guild Wars 2

I recently discovered that after quite a many attempts to try other classes that I just love my engineer way too much to quit, so I’ve been back and recently came up with a build that from a quick little test seems to run quite some nice damage.

http://tinyurl.com/c4dsuyn

The build focuses on getting criticals with the flamethrower to trigger conditions while keeping long might stacks up to ensure a significant damage output.

The Major Traits of Incediary Powder and Precise Sights give chances for vulnerability and burn on crits while the minor trait Sharpshooter gives chance for bleeds.

I augment the flamethrower with Juggernaut, Fireforged Trigger, and Deadly Mixture since it will be the main damage dealer and condition dealer.

Elixirs also get augmented through Fast Acting Elixirs and HGH so that they are up more often and help intensify my damage.

Sigils of Superior Strength go on my weapons… though I’m not sure if those work for kits? I know they didn’t in the past but if anyone could inform me on if that’s been changed recently that would be wonderful. If they do help kits that’s chances for more might stacks on crits.

Runes are a bit more interesting:
2x Superior Rune of Hoelbrak
2x Superior Rune of Strength
2x Superior Rune of the Fire

All of these add up for 60% increased Might duration. Without using any elixirs at all this lets me hover around 10 Might stacks just from Juggernaut alone, using my elixirs frequently can get upward of 20 Might stacks with constant use.

I had a hard time choosing amulets and jewels but settled on Rampager’s for the significant precision bonus with also giving a minor boost to power and vitality and a medium boost to condition damage.

I’d love to hear thoughts on this setup, from any perspective be it PvE, PvP, or WvW. I haven’t gotten to do much real testing with it but it seems like a solid idea.

cleansing formula 409 is at least 33% of the reason why HgH is so good – dropping it seems like a really bad idea

overall build just has no condition remove at all soooo….. meh

I also felt that HgH for might stacking + power builds was never worth it because you lose a lot of crit dmg% which is pretty darn good for berserker builds – in fact i can get the same damage with crit dmg% and bersi amulett that i can get with around 15 stacks might + bersi without crit dmg %

Also sigils for might on crit are pretty bad. Back when i tested them they would only give me 1 stack of might with a ridiculous internal CD (even though it says 2 sec cd in the wiki) and the might duration is also really bad on these sigils.

Personally i`d choose battle over sigil of strength any day even with juggernaut. Just make sure not to spam kit swaps like an idiot

I would also pick berserkers amulett and rifle. Pistol isnt all that good aside from the poison and the 2 sigils.

RaynStargaze.6510:

*snip*Pistol isnt all that good aside from the poison and the 2 sigils.

If we’re talking about wvw the pistols are amazing, especially with coated bullets. You can tag every single red name with very little effort. Blowtorch is one of the strongest burn abilities in the game.

More on topic: I would suggest keeping 30 in alchemy and obviously 30 in Firearms. In terms of pvp (wvw or spvp) I find 10 points in Inventions is pretty much the sweet spot. Since you will get immobilized a lot and being stealthed on immob is invaluable.

^i dont wvw and i usually speak from a pvp perspective unless stated otherwise

As for the burn – i agree its very good! but

The burn from pistol is not as important if you have FT + rampagers/berserker to proc incendiairy powder. Then again he doesnt have 2/6 Lyssa runes to get the 3rd tick from the powder burn. (edit: not to mention the burns you get from FT)

overall – and i dont think i can express this well enough – i dont like the build because its this weird hybrid thing that doesnt really excel at anything its just all meh and not very well though out imo.

I run 0/30/10/30/0 with 4 elixirs, supply crate, two pistols along with full (6x)Str runes and do just fine. Then again that engineer pretty much never leaves wvw so the build may not be as viable elsewhere.

I use a different engineer for kits/pve/etc.

Really nice Critchance – that might work well with all the conditions you apply.
But as some already mentioned: you need a viable condition removal. Maybe think about Elixir C / S for more survivability or condition removal. That might be the way to go.
I am not sure whether they fixed the runes, but I would use these, that give might on weapon swap. But 8 ticks from FT #1 your chance to apply burning and bleed is quite good with 86% Crt chance.
One quick question to ya all:
I have a hard time to hit stuff with blowtorch, how do you handle this skill? Potentially it is awesome, but it misses a lot…
Kind regards

Assassin.7890:

One quick question to ya all:
I have a hard time to hit stuff with blowtorch, how do you handle this skill? Potentially it is awesome, but it misses a lot…
Kind regards

face directly to the target – with camera and character

dont move at all or only move forward while using the skill – for the love of god dont strafe!

^reduces the misses but doesnt remove them entirely

Hmm… so would it be best just to drop the crit gimmick to givemy build a bit more focus? It seemed too good to pass up with the amount of crits that can be pumped out of a flamethrower but it seems it’s detracting from other areas a bit too much. Maybe I could consider refocusing stats to be a bit more tanky… trying to go for the condition damage did spread my stats out a lot.

Also what different runes and sigils should I consider over what I have now? Would general boon duration be a better idea over exclusively Might?

Would it be best to get rid of Deadly Mixture for Cleansing Formula 409 (although I’m really reluctant to) or will Elixir C be sufficient?

Mostly I still want to go with the combo of Juggernaut and HGH but I’m seeing that the crit stacking is a bit too detracting to thrown in on top.

I was thinking about the same might build but I have some general question:
1) i have grenth armor set and caduceus manor armor set. So can I change their rune with hoel, str and fire? If not, where you put on these runes?
2) I never tried pvp and wvw and I’m doing dungeons and just started with fractals. Do I need more defense with trinkets? I die a lot, maybe because I’m not really good at the moment. Can someone explain if healing power+backpack regen is useful? Can’t understand how can you survive with only 500 vit and 200 tough from ft.
I was thinking about less prec,pow for healing.
3) About sigil: I read that two sigil with cd doesn’t work together well. Example sigil of battle+sigil of strength: swap=gain 3 might but sigil of strength goes on cd with sigil of battle… I have also seen that using two sigil of battle doesn’t give 6 might xD which couple of sigil do you suggest?
4) How much damage can you deal in cursed shore? with ft usually i do 200*10=2000 damage with 1 skill. I need comparison cause I’m new in this game xD

borbottone.6241:

I was thinking about the same might build but I have some general question:
1) i have grenth armor set and caduceus manor armor set. So can I change their rune with hoel, str and fire? If not, where you put on these runes?

To apply new runes to a piece of armor just double click the rune and then on the piece of armor (or right click on the armor and then choose the rue you want to apply)

borbottone.6241:

2) I never tried pvp and wvw and I’m doing dungeons and just started with fractals. Do I need more defense with trinkets? I die a lot, maybe because I’m not really good at the moment.

You generally shouldnt die in PvE even with full berserker gear unless you`re running really high level fractals maybe. Dodge moar!

borbottone.6241:

Can someone explain if healing power+backpack regen is useful?

^google: name of the backpack regen trait + gw2 + wiki

Short: no! in fact healing power is almost always bad on almost all classes. (and btw backpack regen is not affected by healing power and is a terrible trait to begin with!)

I ran a similar build the past few days. I had the same problem that I didnt trait the cleansing formula and thus had no or not enough condition removal.
That worked out thanks to a Sigil of Purity.

The build seemed very solid for me, especially since it was very easy to swap in an elixir gun for support if needed.

but then I got to thinking: what about gadgets (which can remove some conditions and stun, too)? and I moved on, experimenting, tinkering. Somehow the flamethrower got lost under my workbench in the process. XD

RaynStargaze.6510:

borbottone.6241:

I was thinking about the same might build but I have some general question:
1) i have grenth armor set and caduceus manor armor set. So can I change their rune with hoel, str and fire? If not, where you put on these runes?

To apply new runes to a piece of armor just double click the rune and then on the piece of armor (or right click on the armor and then choose the rue you want to apply)

I thought that you can’t change runes on karmavendor armor… Are you sure I can? I haven’t tried it yet because i’m thinking about usefullness of magic find on CM set so I don’t want to try putting new runes before being sure that I don’t need noble rune anymore

borbottone.6241:

2) I never tried pvp and wvw and I’m doing dungeons and just started with fractals. Do I need more defense with trinkets? I die a lot, maybe because I’m not really good at the moment.

You generally shouldnt die in PvE even with full berserker gear unless you`re running really high level fractals maybe. Dodge moar!
ok maybe I have to improve myself.

borbottone.6241:

Can someone explain if healing power+backpack regen is useful?

^google: name of the backpack regen trait + gw2 + wiki

Short: no! in fact healing power is almost always bad on almost all classes. (and btw backpack regen is not affected by healing power and is a terrible trait to begin with!)
Ty I understand that maybe I should balance prec cond damage and vit and tough

http://tinyurl.com/cd82u77

What are some thoughts on this tweaked up variant? I kept Deadly Mixtures mostly because I’m more often in PvE content where you can get away a bit more without good condition removal but I can always switch it to Cleansing Formula 409 on the fly should I ever need it.

I refocused my stats to be more of a bruiser with decent power and survivability, to take advantage of Juggernaut further boosting my toughness. I’m still not entirely sure on my runes though… Rune of the Engineer seemed like a good option for the bit of toughness boost as well as the kit damage boost since this build will generally stay in the flamethrower a lot. Or do I want to go for Boon duration instead? Is this a more suitably focused build?

RaynStargaze.6510:

Assassin.7890:

One quick question to ya all:
I have a hard time to hit stuff with blowtorch, how do you handle this skill? Potentially it is awesome, but it misses a lot…
Kind regards

face directly to the target – with camera and character

dont move at all or only move forward while using the skill – for the love of god dont strafe!

^reduces the misses but doesnt remove them entirely

feel free to strafe. example: strafe the point ring and fire inwards.

there is nothing wrong with strafing and the ft. all that nonsense was fixed ages ago.