Guild Wars 2

I liked using a rifle build before the patch because I really dislike the kits (especially the ones with manual targetting). The rifle build I was running got absolutely dismantled this patch and I haven’t been able to find a way to make it work. If playing engineer means getting pigeon holed into the grenade kit then I might just play another class.

Has anybody been able to figure out how to make a rifle build work now?

Enjoying bugged bad barrage(100nades is back lol)

I don’t know what any of those are lol

Enjoying Juggernaut Perma-Stab + rifle 4 for Knockback negation :

http://intothemists.com/guides/5465-25_hp_juggernaut

running a p/p burn build atm.

what was your rifle build? my sd rifle build should have been still effective. I just wanted to play with conditions for a while.

Casia.4281:

running a p/p burn build atm.

what was your rifle build? my sd rifle build should have been still effective. I just wanted to play with conditions for a while.

It revolved around two traits that aren’t around anymore. Those ones in the inventions tree that converted 7% toughness to power and 10% healing to power. Then I wore power/toughness/healing armor for a ton of power. The rest of my traits were all the rifle ones. The only kit I used was the grenade one solely for the toolbelt thing (I hated the actual kit).

Now that those two toughness and healing traits are gone I’m at a loss of what to do. I was contemplating switching to rifle warrior but their forum people said it was a garbage build.

I switched over to another build. There is nothing for rifle even in the firearms line that says “pick me for rifle!” Except for that one master trait. And when you get to the grandmasters you got one for ft, one for conditions and one for burning. I guess you could take modified ammo to pve boss events, otherwise its kind of a bad trait. I wouldve loved to see a gm for non condi builds there

CaptainBBQ.9045:

Casia.4281:

running a p/p burn build atm.

what was your rifle build? my sd rifle build should have been still effective. I just wanted to play with conditions for a while.

It revolved around two traits that aren’t around anymore. Those ones in the inventions tree that converted 7% toughness to power and 10% healing to power. Then I wore power/toughness/healing armor for a ton of power. The rest of my traits were all the rifle ones. The only kit I used was the grenade one solely for the toolbelt thing (I hated the actual kit).

Now that those two toughness and healing traits are gone I’m at a loss of what to do. I was contemplating switching to rifle warrior but their forum people said it was a garbage build.

Interesting. well, consider.

I ran sd rifle as well. this was my build.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fdAQFAUlcTpkr1UxxLseNCdBN6w0loA6FUhv+pAA-TJBMgA1lBGWYwZHAglBAA
Ran standard zerker/assassins gear. (mostly, have a couple odd pieces. 4 stat ring, celestial ring.)

sigil of air/force
pack runes.

this is pve. Variant a bit in spvp.

2288 power, 60% crit, and 220% crit damage from 1045 ferocity. +300 cond damage.

Also not a fan of kits, but it should be noted prybar is big dps and should be swapped to. smack/whack/thwack is higher dps then hipshot too. even before the 10% rifle mod loss/nerf. shield and magnet core/key in spvp of course.

what you should notice though is 10 in explosives gave me 100 power before, and 300 ferocity, 300cond damage, and 300 prec.

A current build.
http://dulfy.net/gw2traits#build=AgEB1ALoBVg~
20% crit from traits in melee.

My in game stats with zerker gear and the celestial ring.
2480 power, 2028 prec 48%, 211% crit damage.

I gained 200 power as you can see. a 9% dps gain.

Mortar is quite strong. lots of combo fields. for your leap shot, orbital strike.

Skilled Marksman is better than it looks, Plus Juggernaut is really worth the shot, if I may say. Give it a try in PvP, you’ll see.

Casia.4281:

CaptainBBQ.9045:

Casia.4281:

running a p/p burn build atm.

what was your rifle build? my sd rifle build should have been still effective. I just wanted to play with conditions for a while.

It revolved around two traits that aren’t around anymore. Those ones in the inventions tree that converted 7% toughness to power and 10% healing to power. Then I wore power/toughness/healing armor for a ton of power. The rest of my traits were all the rifle ones. The only kit I used was the grenade one solely for the toolbelt thing (I hated the actual kit).

Now that those two toughness and healing traits are gone I’m at a loss of what to do. I was contemplating switching to rifle warrior but their forum people said it was a garbage build.

Interesting. well, consider.

I ran sd rifle as well. this was my build.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fdAQFAUlcTpkr1UxxLseNCdBN6w0loA6FUhv+pAA-TJBMgA1lBGWYwZHAglBAA
Ran standard zerker/assassins gear. (mostly, have a couple odd pieces. 4 stat ring, celestial ring.)

sigil of air/force
pack runes.

this is pve. Variant a bit in spvp.

2288 power, 60% crit, and 220% crit damage from 1045 ferocity. +300 cond damage.

Also not a fan of kits, but it should be noted prybar is big dps and should be swapped to. smack/whack/thwack is higher dps then hipshot too. even before the 10% rifle mod loss/nerf. shield and magnet core/key in spvp of course.

what you should notice though is 10 in explosives gave me 100 power before, and 300 ferocity, 300cond damage, and 300 prec.

A current build.
http://dulfy.net/gw2traits#build=AgEB1ALoBVg~
20% crit from traits in melee.

My in game stats with zerker gear and the celestial ring.
2480 power, 2028 prec 48%, 211% crit damage.

I gained 200 power as you can see. a 9% dps gain.

Mortar is quite strong. lots of combo fields. for your leap shot, orbital strike.

The biggest thing that turns me off using the mortar kit is the constant manual targeting. Its annoyingly clunky to have to designate a location for every single auto attack. I don’t really know what you mean by combo fields? What are those?

Aidan Eighthrain.8612:

Skilled Marksman is better than it looks, Plus Juggernaut is really worth the shot, if I may say. Give it a try in PvP, you’ll see.

I used a flamethrower for a while with juggernaut but its really mind numbingly boring compared to the rifle leaping around and stuff. Not really into PvP at all, I still don’t really know entirely what I’m doing in this game and PvP is too stressful.

You can use both at the same time and have good results in about any mode (PVE, WvW or PvP).

ah, see thats the point with mortar.

the combo fields are the aoe fields that it drops.
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Combo

Orbital strike is a blast combo. with seige rounds it hits and blasts twice. with kinetic charge, you can make it strike 4 times.

Mortar 2 is aoe poison field. (this is aoe weakness on blast.) also weakness on jumpshot leap.
mortar 3 is an ice field. (aoe frost aura. meh) leap-frost aura too. meh.
mortar 4 is a light field… actually this is mostly good just for the pulsing blind. (aoe ret on blast. meh.)
mortar 5 is aoe water field. (and an aoe heal itself.) oh boy, this is a good one. blast combo is aoe heal. so, seige round orbital strike then mortar 5. 3 aoe heals in like 2 seconds. healing on leap as well.

Big heals, lots of situation uses, and orbital strike itself is good dps.

now, where it really gets great is if you swap kits/skills, or play with allies.
Fire and Smoke. bomb kit has both. flamethrower has 2 fire options.
fire field+blast=aoe might. 6 stacks with siege rounds.
smoke field=aoe stealth.
Real easy access to 2 blasts for stacking might before and in a fight, as well as aoe stealthing through dungeons.

note, blowing turrets is also a blast combo, with the explosive trait.

The whole combo blast area stuff seems hella confusing. I just want to use a rifle :S

Casia.4281:

now, where it really gets great is if you swap kits/skills, or play with allies.
Fire and Smoke. bomb kit has both. flamethrower has 2 fire options.

Swapping kits is way too much micro for me. I quit Starcraft 2 for a reason lol. Once a game requires that much micro managing it becomes so much less fun for me.

Here’s what I’m using for just running around open world. I call it my “Too lazy to even kit swap for Swiftness” Static Discharge build.

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-Z;4sPkq0l6oR-x0;9;4ikm;0246157056;9;9;0kr0I

Run up to a guy, hit analyse first, then suprise shot/throw wrench, the unload all your rifle burst skills, then finish off anything still standing with your double-tap Orbital Strike. Invention traits will make sure you can keep fighting against anything still alive after you’ve put everything on cooldown. Don’t drop the rifle turret unless you need the blast from detonating it, swap to tool kit or mortar only when you need it’s unique attributes (for tool kit, that’s a melee weapon, extra burst with Pry Bar, and a block, for mortar, it’s AoE field goodness when you’ve picked a fight with more than you can normally take on) I have Med kit so I have the option to double heal via kinetic charge, though you might find healing turret a better alternative against mobs that use a lot of conditions.

Won’t win you many friends if you take it for a dungeon, but for any open world PvE roaming/world boss circuit, it’s solid and doesn’t require you to do too much to make it work.

Foefaller.1082:

Won’t win you many friends if you take it for a dungeon, but for any open world PvE roaming/world boss circuit, it’s solid and doesn’t require you to do too much to make it work.

Ah I’ll probably be looking to do dungeon, i dunno. I’ve only done map completion and a few pvp things for dailies. I haven’t tried dungeons yet but I would like to so I guess I’ll be looking for something that wouldn’t get me booted from groups.

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-Z70;2cPVg0l6cQ-x0;9;4ikm;0036157246;4Rs0;3CoF2CoF20n

This has been my most effective build post-patch.

Phineas Poe.3018:

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-Z70;2cPVg0l6cQ-x0;9;4ikm;0036157246;9;1CoF2CoF20V

This has been my most effective build post-patch.

Could you care to explain it more detail? And what sigils do you use? It looks interesting, however I have had a very hard time dropping firearms in my celestial builds, and since explosions is mandatory to have proper grenades It gives me a case of 3 traitline syndrome where I wish I could take every specialization but I can’t.

It does make sense though, explosions is damage, inventions is sustain, and tools is utility.

Meanwhile firearms is more damage, especaily via cond (and the rifle cooldowns), and alchemy is mightstacking/boon spam, but requires elixer gun to be really worth it in my opinion, but the sustain (like backpack regen) and amount of boons it offers seems powerful.

Granted I haven’t really tried kinetic charge or mortar kit yet, I can’t really seem to wrap my head around how to use the mortar efficiently.

nearlight.3064:

Could you care to explain it more detail? And what sigils do you use?

Oh, haha. Sorry. I’ve edited the link.

I run Sigil of Intelligence paired with either Generosity, Doom, or Leeching depending on the team comp I’m facing. I haven’t really figured that all out yet, truthfully.

nearlight.3064:

It looks interesting, however I have had a very hard time dropping firearms in my celestial builds, and since explosions is mandatory to have proper grenades It gives me a case of 3 traitline syndrome where I wish I could take every specialization but I can’t.

I had the same problem. It was very difficult to divorce myself from Incendiary Powder; it’s a trait I’ve taken for as long as I can remember in PvP. But somehow the build just works without it—and without vigor, for that matter.

The main problem is that I just wasn’t really impressed with what High Caliber and Skilled Marksman did for my damage. Compared to getting off two Grenade Barrages with Kinetic Charge, or using two Orbital Strikes in two different combo fields, it felt like I was getting less gains traiting for Firearms over Tools—especially when Orbital Strike is traited for two blast finishers; it gives me in one instance 5 seconds of AoE weakness, and shortly afterward a good 2-3K HP returned through blasting my water field.

Bunker Down is, truthfully, in my view, absolutely overpowered. The medpack heals for like 500 health in Celestial, making it far better than Backpack Regenerator with additional damage to go with it. Losing out on Protection Injection hurts, especially against mesmers, but that’s kind of where Lock On comes in. I’ve learned to take a more proactive approach against them, and have found myself more successful because of it than when I traited into Alchemy for more passive sustains. If I get baited into their stunlock I use Elixir S and readjust.

nearlight.3064:

Granted I haven’t really tried kinetic charge or mortar kit yet, I can’t really seem to wrap my head around how to use the mortar efficiently.

I use Mortar for gap pressure from 1000 to 1500 range, and to combo fields with Orbital Strike. My favorites right now are F5ing Poison Gas and Elixir Shell. Five seconds of weakness really hurts mesmer shatter, and between the passive heal and the blast heals, Elixir Shell with Orbital Strike in Celestial heals for over 5K HP. Flash Shell’s light field isn’t getting a lot of use since no one really is using that many whirl and projectile finishers right now (really I just use Throw Wrench in it if anything during team fights), but the blind duration and radius with a one second pulse rate is a serious game changer against necromancers.

It’s not the easiest build to play, but I find myself surviving most 1v1 encounters effectively, with the team-fighting potential still the same as it was pre-patch; it’s good. Maybe not the best out there, but it works for me and my play style. Glass cannon builds were never really my thing.

Iam running a HGH / sd Build , you can change the eg trait for backpack regenerator.
Its rly fun atm .

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-Z;4cPkq0l6gTkw0;9;4lkm;0136157047;4SB0;3qObSqObSm-kr0;6GcG7HcH7JbJ62o-G-2i;9;9;9;9;9;9;14k8W

Phineas Poe.3018:

nearlight.3064:

Could you care to explain it more detail? And what sigils do you use?

Oh, haha. Sorry. I’ve edited the link.

I run Sigil of Intelligence paired with either Generosity, Doom, or Leeching depending on the team comp I’m facing. I haven’t really figured that all out yet, truthfully.

nearlight.3064:

It looks interesting, however I have had a very hard time dropping firearms in my celestial builds, and since explosions is mandatory to have proper grenades It gives me a case of 3 traitline syndrome where I wish I could take every specialization but I can’t.

I had the same problem. It was very difficult to divorce myself from Incendiary Powder; it’s a trait I’ve taken for as long as I can remember in PvP. But somehow the build just works without it—and without vigor, for that matter.

The main problem is that I just wasn’t really impressed with what High Caliber and Skilled Marksman did for my damage. Compared to getting off two Grenade Barrages with Kinetic Charge, or using two Orbital Strikes in two different combo fields, it felt like I was getting less gains traiting for Firearms over Tools—especially when Orbital Strike is traited for two blast finishers; it gives me in one instance 5 seconds of AoE weakness, and shortly afterward a good 2-3K HP returned through blasting my water field.

Bunker Down is, truthfully, in my view, absolutely overpowered. The medpack heals for like 500 health in Celestial, making it far better than Backpack Regenerator with additional damage to go with it. Losing out on Protection Injection hurts, especially against mesmers, but that’s kind of where Lock On comes in. I’ve learned to take a more proactive approach against them, and have found myself more successful because of it than when I traited into Alchemy for more passive sustains. If I get baited into their stunlock I use Elixir S and readjust.

nearlight.3064:

Granted I haven’t really tried kinetic charge or mortar kit yet, I can’t really seem to wrap my head around how to use the mortar efficiently.

I use Mortar for gap pressure from 1000 to 1500 range, and to combo fields with Orbital Strike. My favorites right now are F5ing Poison Gas and Elixir Shell. Five seconds of weakness really hurts mesmer shatter, and between the passive heal and the blast heals, Elixir Shell with Orbital Strike in Celestial heals for over 5K HP. Flash Shell’s light field isn’t getting a lot of use since no one really is using that many whirl and projectile finishers right now (really I just use Throw Wrench in it if anything during team fights), but the blind duration and radius with a one second pulse rate is a serious game changer against necromancers.

It’s not the easiest build to play, but I find myself surviving most 1v1 encounters effectively, with the team-fighting potential still the same as it was pre-patch; it’s good. Maybe not the best out there, but it works for me and my play style. Glass cannon builds were never really my thing.

Thanks for the info! Yeah intelligence seems mandatory again since alchemy mightstacking still causes you to give up too much of everything else. I’ll try this build and see but I feel like I’d need energy sigil to make up for the lack of vigor, but maybe thats just me not spending dodges wisely.

Yes, be very careful with your dodges since wasteful dodging kind of makes Kinetic Battery worthless.

I switched away from rifle. It seems to me that most players are getting up before i do after overcharged shot.

Static discharge rifle/tool kit build. Ridiculous burst damage, great survival.

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-Z70;2V2lq0l6cQFx0;9;4jkm;0247157038;4IN0;3JF04JF045O

The rifle is better than ever. Heavy armour exploit has no recharge?

Phineas Poe.3018:

Yes, be very careful with your dodges since wasteful dodging kind of makes Kinetic Battery worthless.

I tried out a variant of your build all night tonight with my guild team and it wrecked face!

I just ran energy/intelligence vamp runes and shrapnel over siege rounds since I felt like I needed the supply crate more than the mortar.

I feel like I may stop using kinetic battery if grenade barrage ever gets fixed, and use adrenal implant instead or take alchemy for more sustain.. but lock on is awsome for screwing over all the mesmers and thieves I fought.

rowdin.4708:

The rifle is better than ever. Heavy armour exploit has no recharge?

it never did? you could have taken precise sights long ago.

Swiftness on crit had kitten cd/duration.

I mentioned what I’m playing with in the ‘found your build’ thread (Firearms, Tools, Inventions). Have not decided yet if I’ll go through the effort of switching to Dire or Celestial armor/Rifle from Zerk.

My own setup was not centered around static discharge or grenades (they were too stressful on the wrists), so it made transitioning easier. I also did not intend (at the time) to visit WvW with the build. Working just fine in PvE though, perhaps dungeons as well. Will see.

I changed my Ascended zerker to sinister and i’m loving running condi hybrid with nade kit and rifle.. sometimes shield and pistol! Though I wish I could get ascended Giver’s weapons.

nearlight.3064:

Phineas Poe.3018:

Yes, be very careful with your dodges since wasteful dodging kind of makes Kinetic Battery worthless.

I tried out a variant of your build all night tonight with my guild team and it wrecked face!

I just ran energy/intelligence vamp runes and shrapnel over siege rounds since I felt like I needed the supply crate more than the mortar.

I feel like I may stop using kinetic battery if grenade barrage ever gets fixed, and use adrenal implant instead or take alchemy for more sustain.. but lock on is awsome for screwing over all the mesmers and thieves I fought.

Honestly, I like Kinetic Battery more for extra blast finishers from Orbital Strike than anything. I tend use Grenade Barrage off cooldown, so it’s rarely ready to go when it procs.

Been running a hybrid tanky type build in pvp will upload vids soon.

Game mode?
Kits are an integral part of the engineer but you can run anything in PvE.

I also enjoy the run and gun style of rifle. No kit swapping and minimal laying of green awkward AoE circles. I use SD, Aim Assisted Rocket, and Takedown Round to compliment a rotation of rifle AA, Blunderbuss, Jump Shot, Thwack, and Orbital Strike. Its for fun, not DPS.

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-Z;4sPkq0R-3U-x0;9;4ijm;0236247056;9;9;0kr0y