Guild Wars 2

I read the forums now and then, and lately I’ve seen lots of complaining and cries for help in PvP. It’s true the engineer isn’t in the best place right now, but that just means it’s time to get creative. I’m no professional, but I enjoy making new builds and they usually work well for me.

Here is the build:
http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQJAqal0picnwynF1bJxIFfW0hKgfQFyroC6/jC5mWA;TgAgyCuo0yolQLrWOtkaB

Overview:

At first glance, there are 3 major distinctions of this build:

1. Pistol/Pistol
2. Toolkit
3. No Crit Chance

A closer look shows I’m using carrion amulet as opposed to the standard rabid for condition damage builds. Also, I did not take ANY grandmaster traits. I’ll get into the reasons for all of this later.

Rational:

I keep seeing relatively standard builds (bunker, standard discharge, “teldo”) and often humourous attempts at using the toolkit (I’m looking at you, TANKCAT). After the buff to magnet, I think we’ve all wanted to use the toolkit; pulling someone from 1200 range, even with a long cast time, is pretty satisfying. Having given it a try, I feel safe saying toolkit is ONLY useful for its 3-5 abilities, and those are all very situational. Its autoattack is clunky and #2’s cast time is far too long.

For these reasons, the toolkit absolutely fails as a main-weapon replacement kit (an example would be grenade kit). With the buff to magnet, it’s best suited as a set-up for damage (pulling into your team, BoB or other bombs). The problem is the pull and knockdown do not last long enough for you to switch to the bomb kit etc. and guarantee a hit. It has to be used in conjunction with a snare/cripple.

I’d argue that the bomb kit is our most useful PvP kit despite the nerf to smoke bomb. However, its melee range requirement usually necessitates use of a shield stun/immobilize to land hits. This build uses pull and cripple instead of these to bring opponents into melee range and keep them there. Kit refinement, throw wrench, glue bomb, and glue shot, all of which have reduced cooldowns in this build, all grant aoe cripples. Kit refinement lays down a fairly long lasting cripple field just by switching to the toolkit, which combos nicely with an immediate pull.

An example combo/chain would be:

Switch to toolkit>Pull>Prybar>Concussion Bomb>Fire Bomb

As I previously noted, this build doesn’t have almost any crit chance. Many condition builds make use of the several talents that grant automatic conditions on crit (burning, vulnerability, bleeding). That’s fine and all, but I’ve always had two major problems with this setup. The first is that conditions don’t benefit from crit. You’re stacking a stat that doesn’t improve your major source of damage apart from increased frequency of short duration conditions. That brings me to my second problem: how often we attack. Given the ability to constantly switch kits and use skills suited for the right situation, good engineers will be attacking less, but more effectively. This conflicts with the chance for conditions on crit. traits in a pistol/shield/bomb build (pvp standard). The flamethrower (hard to aim), grenades (hard to aim) and pistol 2 are possible exceptions to this issue, however.

Doing away with crit chance gives us power, which significantly improves prybar, bomb and pistol damage. Without the burn on crit talent though, we lack a reliable source of burning (highest damage condition) in a typical pistol/shield build. Luckily, offhand pistol gives a short cd, high damage aoe burn.

Elixir R is arguably our best stun breaker. It provides us with two dodges (invaluable) and a self/AOE rez (invaluable in the current meta). The nerf to its toolbelt ability hurt, but since this build make use of the toolkit and two of the major traits in the Tools line, it’s not a big deal. Tools’ 15 point minor trait recharges all your toolbelt abilities at 25%, allowing you to use Toss Elixir R twice in a single fight.

With a 3 second toolkit block, numerous cripples, short cd blinds, two self rezzes, large health pool and ability to put ~20 points into Alchemy/Inventions, this build has decent survival while maintaining high damage.

Drawbacks:

This build lacks swiftness, which it only gets through medkit #5. With the abundance of cripples, however, I haven’t found this to be a problem.

Mediocre condition removal. Medkit 4 and Toss Elixir R provide the only means of removing conditions, but this can be sufficient sometimes.

Interrupts. Only BoB, magnet, and your elite can interrupt a cast, which can be annoying. You can severely deter casting, however, but stacking confusion via a static shot, pull, prybar, concussion bomb combo (10 stacks of confusion).

Some of these problems can be addressed by moving the points in Inventions and Alchemy around. The only core talents are those in Explosives, Firearms and Tools.

In conclusion, I’ve found this build to be a suitable alternative to many of the standard builds currently out there. It utilizes the toolkit, and offers lots of room for improvisation. I hope this has been helpful for some, and I welcome any thoughts/questions.

~Oppen

I’m getting a bad link message.

Forgot to mention that, sorry. In order to view the build, you’ll have to copy and paste the link into your address bar.

still broken when copy/pasted

Works for me : /

Alternate link:

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-VRR;2sPFw0s5V1Fx0;9;4J999J27-5;05;05;037;7cV19cV191FK

(still need to copy and paste)

Might i suggest everyone use the [ url ] tags as this website doesn’t seem to keep the link together in a format that browsers recognize without a constant copy paste.

Not a good one imo.

I’ve tried using things like this it just doesn’t make for a good build because there are very good master abilities one cannot live without in either the explosives tier or the firearms tier. I’ve modified mine slightly for pve but you’ll see.

Also if you choose alchemy or toolkits you have to have certain things from the smaller unalterable abilities like “Transmute” the ability to change incoming conds into boons.

Just leaves out alot.

This is the general build.

Of course while running around in Orr for pve I generally take ten points out of scope and put them in Inventions because it definitely helps to be cloaked when one of those kittens web you smack you with a shovel or try to pull you towards them.

Also, if you are a Charr might I suggest replacing the Goggles or Elixir B with a Hidden Pistol trait, that trait rocks on an engineer’s toolbelt.

I would agree with you; my pvp build certainly isn’t meant for pve.

In addition, I stated there are 20 points (currently allocated in Inventions + Alchemy) in my build that could be placed elsewhere depending on personal preference. It is my opinion that they are best suited where I’ve put them, as there are no grandmaster traits that suit this build especially.