Guild Wars 2

Hello there to all you engi players,

I main engi, and i love playing the class – i almost exclusively run engi in PvE. i have.. two questions i’m sat with though.

First, is the elixir gun kit… i see many people and many builds run this, yet it’s use eludes me… in PvE i’m almost always running power, which makes the elixir gun’s damage pretty much completely irrelevant to what i can put out with the grenades/bombs/flamethrower, and in the current meta, applying weakness and cripple to enemies seems fairly useless. So, why do people seem to run this kit so often?

Now, my biggest current issue.. for a large majority of the time, i run around with a single kit, complemented by usually two elixirs for their various utility effects. This kit is usually either the grenade kit or the flamethrower, along with a rifle most of the time, traited 6/0/0/6/2 in the fairly standard grenadier/HGH build, along with one of my favorite traits in the game, speedy kits.

I would often like to use a two-kit build though, either because i’d like to have my shield skills, or simply to have the extra kit.. but this is where it confounds me.
Take Silverwastes – running the Silverwastes, i’ve found myself loving a Grenades/Flamethrower/Rocket boots setup. Rocket boots are -brilliant- for mobility, and FT has a nicely damaging autoattack once i rattle off the rest of my rotation. However, i have no idea how to trait myself for this. Keeping Grenadier seems a logical choice, since it’s practically needed to keep the grenade kit relevant, but after that, i’m not sure. I’d like to keep Speedy Kits, but after that do i take the 15% FT damage increase from Deadly mixture in a 6/2/0/4/2 build, or do i go for the extra might provided by Juggernaught in 6/4/0/2/2? Or is there an even better option?

A second situation is my bomb, usually dungeon running kit – grenade kit + bomb kit. I love my healing turret, so i like to keep that.. it just heals so much more, and AoE too, than elixir H. But then, that final slot… traiting for elixirs just for the one elixir i can carry seems silly. I obviously keep the grenadier trait, as well as going for static discharge or speedy kits in the last line most of the time up until now, but where do the rest of my traits go? And what utility skills are nice to run in the last slot then?

All advice is appreciated, however small :-)

Personally, if I’m running Flamethrower, I am NOT using grenades at all. None of the traits align just right, and it’s better to not take the 5th and 6th traits in the power line.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fdAQFAUlUUpWrtbxvLseRSdBNqoAyAUARekY8x+VTA

This is what I sort of run (It’s not exact, I’m not online just now), trait-wise, if I’m using Flamethrower. The traits that reduce FT cooldown and increase FT damage also affect the elixir gun the same.

If you’re gonna run grenadier, use grenades and bombs. If you’re gonna run Flamethrower, run juggernaut and Ft improvements. I don’t see much of a reason to use both the FT and grenades at the same time.

Well, i use them in a combo usually because FT is seriously the only decent target-locking autoattack i’ve found. The grenades have much less capability for hitting non-clumped up targets together, and the power scaling on the pistol, rifle and elixir gun just plain sucks. Plus, low-cooldown blast, fire field and push is always nice.
Buut if i just run rifle-FT i find myself having a pretty short array with a rotation of only 5 skills or so – rifle 3 and 5, FT 2 and 4, and then just autoattacking till any of them come back off CD. But i suppose it is indeed not the best combo.

I still don’t understand though… why the elixir gun? What does it do? It has pretty much no power scaling on the autoattack nor it’s only really damaging skill, and condi damage is sadly just not meta.. nor is much healing, really. Everyone seems to want damage.

Also, what traits do you use when running nades/bombs?

Spyritdragon.6048:

I still don’t understand though... why the elixir gun? What does it do? It has pretty much no power scaling on the autoattack nor it’s only really damaging skill, and condi damage is sadly just not meta.. nor is much healing, really. Everyone seems to want damage.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Acid_Bomb
Blast finisher, a LOT of (unblockable) dmg against non-moving enemies (like every stack-in-the-corner boss), and you can cancel the leap, so you’ll not even move..
Special uses like OP condi-cleanse for your allies while putting nice amount of poison to cancel passive-regens (#3), or some healing and condi removal for whatever reason from #5. And it has a breakstun if you need it for whatever reason
Yes, it’s an utility kit, maybe not the optimal for dps-rotation and it’s not a "main-kit", but it’s a decent/great kit.

Spyritdragon.6048:

Well, i use them in a combo usually because FT is seriously the only decent target-locking autoattack i’ve found. The grenades have much less capability for hitting non-clumped up targets together, and the power scaling on the pistol, rifle and elixir gun just plain sucks. Plus, low-cooldown blast, fire field and push is always nice.
Buut if i just run rifle-FT i find myself having a pretty short array with a rotation of only 5 skills or so – rifle 3 and 5, FT 2 and 4, and then just autoattacking till any of them come back off CD. But i suppose it is indeed not the best combo.

I still don’t understand though… why the elixir gun? What does it do? It has pretty much no power scaling on the autoattack nor it’s only really damaging skill, and condi damage is sadly just not meta.. nor is much healing, really. Everyone seems to want damage.

Also, what traits do you use when running nades/bombs?

Something like this is what I’ll use with grenades/bombs: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fdAQFAUlUUpEr9ZxqKseNSaBNq0A6M+i6+5GEgnC

The flame turret is there for the free fire field tool belt skill for might stacking with the Big Ol’ Bomb. and other blast finishers.

In terms of the elixir gun, your goal isn’t to stack as much power as you can. FT/EG is more of a condition/might/support build. I can often find myself getting 15-25 stacks of area might easy using the flamethrower, and when I need to support my team I can switch to the elixir gun for condition removal (3), an area heal (5), a toolbelt area regen, an additional blast finisher (4), and a bit of swiftness (2). You would generally sit in flamethrower and only switch out when you need to move far away or your team is taking too much damage.

Edit: I forgot that part; I also use the flame turret with the flamethrower/elixir gun for the extra, more reliable fire field that can be used at range. This can be swapped out for the bomb kit, if you want instead, since the fire bomb is on a 10 sec CD at most, but it’s melee range only.