Guild Wars 2

I’m a bit confused about how often I should be using my weapon as an engineer given how many kits we have

In PVE I use this build: https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Scrapper_-_Power_Grenadier

My most powerful abilities are on kits and tool belt, so clearly I should be using those as often as I can. But how often am I switching to hammer and actually hitting people with it vs using kit abilities?

In PVP I use: https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Scrapper_-_Power_Hammer

Same question as above, although its much less clear how often I should be using elixir gun vs swinging my hammer

It tells you from your own link
… for instance…

Usage

DPS Rotation

Engineer has a lot of skills, the DPS rotation depends heavily on your alacrity uptime. Though the general idea of a good engineer rotation can be boiled down to using your highest damaging skills off cooldown.

Priority Skills

Orbital Strike
Grenade Barrage
Acid Bomb
Flame Blast
Electro-whirl
Thunderclap
Rocket Charge
Shock Shield
Shrapnel Grenade
Freeze Grenade
Poison Grenade
Use these skills whenever they recharge.

ah I missed that, thanks

what about for PVP?

It’s not like you have a basic rotation in pvp, since every skill you use is based on the actions your opponent is doing. For example if you get attacked by projectiles you try to reflect them by using your reflect utility or hammer 2. If someone is far away you might use hammer 3.

PvP relies on experience and practice. You need to decide which skill is the most useful in a specific sutiuation. Still there are some basic tactics for burst or heal.

Hammer is your main source of dmg along with elixier gun 4. Your gyros are used to reduce dmg or clean conditions on you. So activate them as soon as it is necessary. I wouldn’t use stealth gyro as elite, elixier x is more useful in my opinion.
Hammer: 2, 3 for dmg and 4 to block heavy attacks while doing a lot of dmg. Hammer 5 is used to stun.
Elixier Gun: 2 is cripple and swiftness to chase your opponent, 3 to inflict poison and reduce their healing, 4 to deal dmg and blast finisher in water or light field (condi clean), 5 is small heal.
Utility: 1 heal, 2 reflect projectiles, 3 stun break and heal, 4 aoe poison, 5 aoe moa.

As you see there is no real rotation since the variety of skills is so wide spread. You can cc, block, reflect, encounter pretty much everything while your hammer skills deal a ton of dmg.
Engineer requires a lot of practice and knowledge of the game!

Rigid.2938:

I wouldn’t use stealth gyro as elite, elixier x is more useful in my opinion.

I’ll play Devil’s Advocate on this one. The awesomeness of poking at someone with stealth gyro up just to be restealthed again a few seconds later is amazing. I can’t even count the number of times people have gotten frustrated and just left a point because they were too dumb to just kill the gyro. xD

Pip Squeak.3418:

Rigid.2938:

I wouldn’t use stealth gyro as elite, elixier x is more useful in my opinion.

I’ll play Devil’s Advocate on this one. The awesomeness of poking at someone with stealth gyro up just to be restealthed again a few seconds later is amazing. I can’t even count the number of times people have gotten frustrated and just left a point because they were too dumb to just kill the gyro. xD

Of course this is personal choice. Though I’d say in silver rank people will take down the gyro quite fast. Sometimes it also depends on your team and the opponent team. Does your team need aoe stealth at some point or is aoe moa + heavy aoe cc more useful against the opponent team? It really depends

I have never been below gold and there are plenty of bads that don’t kill gyros, even there.