Guild Wars 2

I only do PvE dungeons, haven’t got into WvW yet and not really interested in s/PvP. My main is engineer but I’ve checked out other classes and recently I’ve been working on a guardian alt. My concern is, when I look at other classes I instantly miss my engineer kits, but I can’t ignore something which I find superior in the attack options for other classes, which is the purpose of a specific weapon set.

Just by playing my ranger I can tell straight away what that a shortbow is good at stacking bleeds and that a sword is good if you go with power. On the guardian I know when to use greatsword and when I need a hammer. I don’t have much of the same luck knowing what I can use on the engineer.

Sometimes I just feel like there wasn’t much thought put into our kits and mainhand weapon attacks. I can’t seem to find what a lot of them are good for and only use select few coupled with the better planned out kits. I run three kits (which isn’t that great of an idea) which are bomb kit, grenade kit, and elixir gun. This is because I don’t use our main hand weapons at all. Right now I only use pistol/shield for its #4 blast finisher (for my bombs) and elixir gun for its double super elixir. I used to use rifle before I used bomb kit and I only ever used #1 and #2 in very specific situations.

Bomb kit is great at what it’s for (I only wish our healing skills scaled better/ weren’t bugged) and seems like it was actually planned out and designed properly. Grenades are all right if you spec into them, although they only damage slightly more than bombs and don’t give you as much survivability (the range is wasted in most PvE).

Basically what I’m wondering is what the following weapons particularly effective at in PvE:

Pistol/Pistol – I never use it, I find that the shield is better coupled with bomb kit

Pistol/Shield – Again, I only use #4

Rifle – Only use #1 and #2 against single targets

Elixir gun – Super Elixir only.

Rifle’s got the best mobility and control out of the three weapon choices of the Engineer – Rifle Jump and Overcharge both move the Engineer, with Net Shot and Overcharge either moving the enemy or preventing them from moving. Bonus: Rifle is best for Jumping Puzzles, due to the Rifle Jump.

Pistol/Pistol is good for damage, it seems like – better, for me at least, than the Rifle. It might not scale as well, but the amount of damaging attacks, with more AoE effects, is greater, as well as the amount of conditions dealt. On top of that, having two Sigils available can be wonderful. This is what I’m currently using.

P/S: Never used it much. Reflect bubble with some knockback on release was pretty nice, as well as the counter-or-throw attack, though.

Elixir Gun: Elixir F deals decentish damage with an added cripple-swiftness combo, Fumigate’s good for removing conditions from party members, and that poison splatter thing is a decent escape technique.

Rifle is highly useful in low level areas. but after level 20ish it just didn’t do enough.

Pistol / Pistol I never really use. The AE effects are not mys tyle I guess.

Pistol / Shield is my standard setup. gives you decent damage and good defensive moves.

Elixir Gun is my standard weapon of ranged choice. Great debuffs. Same damage output as my pistol. Sometimes more. I can escape, heal, cleanse, and debuff people.

Bomb Kit is my second standard close range kit. Blow up anything that runs into melee range of me.

I was wondering the same thing myself.

I got to around level 12 using basically only grenades, and P/S mostly for the shield. The grenades did pretty decent damage but were hard to aim while circle strafing and it seemed like the weapons were all fairly useless. I’ve pretty much given up on my engineer.

It seems you guys are in the same boat us Necros are in

Levian.6742:

I was wondering the same thing myself.

I got to around level 12 using basically only grenades, and P/S mostly for the shield. The grenades did pretty decent damage but were hard to aim while circle strafing and it seemed like the weapons were all fairly useless. I’ve pretty much given up on my engineer.

It seems you guys are in the same boat us Necros are in

Started playing Right after the lost shores patch and loved the grenades since the first moment I got them, leveled all the way with them. Since the nerf though… I can only stand to keep them if I trait for grenadier, and even then I’ve been having more fun pulling off combo fields with the bomb kit. If you’re going for a grenadier engineer, try out bomb kit and see if you like it (read, pull off combos with BoB). I got depressed last time I ran grenades without grenadier and vulnerability stacking.

Anymras.5729:

Rifle’s got the best mobility and control out of the three weapon choices of the Engineer – Rifle Jump and Overcharge both move the Engineer, with Net Shot and Overcharge either moving the enemy or preventing them from moving. Bonus: Rifle is best for Jumping Puzzles, due to the Rifle Jump.

Yeah, but we already have so many CC skills. I understand that rifle gives you a lot of control against single targets (Even though I think #4 and #5 are terrible), but is pistol traited for longer range and pierce seriously our only option then for a long range weapon comparable to grenades? I’ve been meaning to replace grenades, but it seems like the only comparable alternative relies on going 30 into firearms. Meanwhile the buffs I get from explosives are shared between grenades and bomb kit. Is there another weapon combination that would synergize with bombs as well as grenades does?

Anymras.5729:

Elixir Gun: Elixir F deals decentish damage with an added cripple-swiftness combo, Fumigate’s good for removing conditions from party members, and that poison splatter thing is a decent escape technique.

Do you gear for condition damage? Does condition damage make pistol & elixir gun as good as rifle/grenades/bombs?

I’m kind of at the point where either I switch my builds or I take a break from the engi until we get tweaked again.
:(

Pistols do have a multiple-target, immobilize-and-cripple attack, and if you put a few points into Firearms, it’ll even inflict more cripple or a few stacks of Vulnerability. That might help with bombs – or at least keep enemies from getting out of the way. Points in Explosives increase the duration, as well, which is always good.

Grenades are pretty much the best weapon available to the Engineer, even after the nerf of Grenade, with their main/only non-nerf ‘issue’ being the ground-targeting – at least, in my experience.

I’m actually traited for Power and geared for tanking (working on getting a whole set of +Toughness/Vitality gear). My perspective on how much damage things do might be off-kilter, of course – I don’t remember the last time I used the Elixir Gun, so it’s just “Well, it was okay last time I used it.”