Guild Wars 2

Im going to start seriously playing my engi at some point soon, and I have been reading up on optimal gear setups. Apparently Zerker trinkets and Assassin gear are the best mix, but I was just curious as to why Engi benefits particularly more from assassin over the normal zerker that is standard on most other classes (I play warrior necro and ele typically)

Define “seriously”?

Is this for PvE or WvW roaming or WvW zerging?

Because the PvE meta is build around procing as much as possible with your nades. There is two main things that you get from procing with the pve meta build.

1) Vulnerability : The engineer is the best at stacking that. Against regular mobs that’s not a big deal, but bosses with unshakabel decease vulnerability duration by half, which mean that most group won’t be able to cap it at 25 stacks. Two way around that, either an organized group or a engineer that can keep between 10-20 stack by himself depending on his build and if he’s good or not with his rotation. That’s a huge boost of dmg for him and for the whole team.
2) Bleeding. That’s sound weird, why bother about bleeding on a power build? That make no sense at all. But still, 20-25% of your dmg will come from condition (mostly bleeding).

Keep in mind that the difference between both is not that high. In zerker you will hit harder, but give less vulnerability, so in the end you will do a bit less dps. But the difference in dps is not a big deal, you will mostly notice the difference in the number of stack of vulnerability that you can keep up against a boss.

^^ What Thad said. Also, according to our good friends over at DnT apparently Engi DPS ignoring the “on crit” benefits even gains from assassin gear. We have low crit chance compared to some other professions so it really helps. Tack on the “on crit” stuff and even reflects and yeah benefits from Assassins gear aren’t lacking.

^What Thaddeus said.

In a short sentence: The damage the team deals more with your additional vuln stacks on bosses via assassin gear is higher than the personal damage loss for not going zerker.

This is also because “low” power builds scale better with might than those who have high power.

Try get a 63-73% crit chance.

or go full berserker with ranger runes and a mini.

wich will be useless after the fix

Wait so Firearms V doesnt have an internal cooldown?

Thaddeus.4891:

Because the PvE meta is build around procing as much as possible with your nades. There is two main things that you get from procing with the pve meta build.

1) Vulnerability : The engineer is the best at stacking that. Against regular mobs that’s not a big deal, but bosses with unshakabel decease vulnerability duration by half, which mean that most group won’t be able to cap it at 25 stacks. Two way around that, either an organized group or a engineer that can keep between 10-20 stack by himself depending on his build and if he’s good or not with his rotation. That’s a huge boost of dmg for him and for the whole team.
2) Bleeding. That’s sound weird, why bother about bleeding on a power build? That make no sense at all. But still, 20-25% of your dmg will come from condition (mostly bleeding).

Keep in mind that the difference between both is not that high. In zerker you will hit harder, but give less vulnerability, so in the end you will do a bit less dps. But the difference in dps is not a big deal, you will mostly notice the difference in the number of stack of vulnerability that you can keep up against a boss.

So basically the Assassin meta relies on the fact that you are using nades? I run bomb/EG/random as I disilike nades. So would it then be suboptimal for me? I do take traits that proc off crits, like burning…. My thought had always been this is an only if you run gernades thing…

Incidnetally to keep my crit up, I ususally run with the elixir that grants might and fury… so I do have around 74+ crit chance when chugging.

IIRC DNT’s math showed that it wasn’t just for the “on crit” aspects but also higher pure damage… but that was running the meta nades/eg/ft rotation, not bombs. So it may differ.

shion.2084:

So basically the Assassin meta relies on the fact that you are using nades? I run bomb/EG/random as I disilike nades. So would it then be suboptimal for me? I do take traits that proc off crits, like burning…. My thought had always been this is an only if you run gernades thing…

I didn’t do the math for a non nade build and never saw trust worthy number for non nades build. After all ppl that take time to that kind of stuff try to do it for optimal setup. So I can’t tell you if you are better with assassins or zerker for your build.

My instinct tell me that Zerker will be better for you (I could be wrong on that), but keep in mind that whatever setup or profession you are using the difference between Assassins and Zerker is ALWAYS pretty small. You can either go zerker gear or assassins gear and still do pretty decent.

Thaddeus.4891:

shion.2084:

So basically the Assassin meta relies on the fact that you are using nades? I run bomb/EG/random as I disilike nades. So would it then be suboptimal for me? I do take traits that proc off crits, like burning…. My thought had always been this is an only if you run gernades thing…

I didn’t do the math for a non nade build and never saw trust worthy number for non nades build. After all ppl that take time to that kind of stuff try to do it for optimal setup. So I can’t tell you if you are better with assassins or zerker for your build.

My instinct tell me that Zerker will be better for you (I could be wrong on that), but keep in mind that whatever setup or profession you are using the difference between Assassins and Zerker is ALWAYS pretty small. You can either go zerker gear or assassins gear and still do pretty decent.

Cool, it’s not like I’m cutting edge anyway but yeah I’d always sort of suspected the Assassins is better thing would somewhat depend on what kind of engi you were using, espescially if the reason given was based on crit chance when that could be made up for with other utility skills

tboneking.2531:

Wait so Firearms V doesnt have an internal cooldown?

Correct.

Coupled with the fact Steel-packed Explosives means you apply vulnerability with every grenade that hits, once you get the crit rate high enough it won’t be uncommon to go from 0 vuln to a dozen or more stacks with just a couple of tosses + the toolbelt skill.

Thaddeus.4891:

shion.2084:

So basically the Assassin meta relies on the fact that you are using nades? I run bomb/EG/random as I disilike nades. So would it then be suboptimal for me? I do take traits that proc off crits, like burning…. My thought had always been this is an only if you run gernades thing…

I didn’t do the math for a non nade build and never saw trust worthy number for non nades build. After all ppl that take time to that kind of stuff try to do it for optimal setup. So I can’t tell you if you are better with assassins or zerker for your build.

My instinct tell me that Zerker will be better for you (I could be wrong on that), but keep in mind that whatever setup or profession you are using the difference between Assassins and Zerker is ALWAYS pretty small. You can either go zerker gear or assassins gear and still do pretty decent.

Nope. Nope, nope, nope, nope. For Engineers – a class in contest for arguably the lowest base DPS that has to really push it to keep up with everybody else, that ~73% crit chance from a set of full Assassin’s gear makes the best difference possible.

Rather than doing a piddly ~1.6k in full Zerker with my rifle auto attack, in Assassin’s gear I grant that my auto attack drops to ~1.45k… but not really. I’ll get chains of 8 criticals in a row that each slug for 2.2-2.7k. In Zerker, you won’t get chains that go for long – you’ll get chains, but it’ll only be one or two crits then a dryspell.

Should be noted I don’t tend to use food all that much. Very few times I do use food and other assorted buffs to really hone in on a solid 90%+ crit chance…

Only for my Mesmer friend to tell me over Skype that she’kittenting for 2.9k+ with her Greatsword’s auto-attack without even knowing what food, buffs or build she’s using (Zerker). Sigh.

Regardless – Engineers’ DPS is flipped a little in the meta. Zerker’s a great set, but you’ll see a MUCH better difference going into Assassin than you would otherwise. Plus all of the on crit procs you can recieve.

The current build that I’m faffing about with:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fdAQFAUlUUpErdexLLkfNSbBB6IOi2KqM+5CEgjC-ThSEABOpkIPdAA8AAG4CAQzCCGpczVlg3o+zJ7HIg5uAAIATciBAJxAA-e

Yo, Kusumura!

Your post really made me wonder if you are serious about what you’re talking, or if you’re just joking around with what you said. Since the first part is just wrong and the 2nd part made more sense, I guess you indeed are serious. Let me help / infrom you a bit about the Engineer.

The engineer has the 2nd HIGHEST aoe dps / 3rd highest single target dps of all classes in gw2. The none passive damage dps of the engi is around 14’000 in a good party. If you calculate the vulnerability stacks he maintains on bosses, adding the damage the others deal more because of him to his damage dealt, the engi gets up to 22’500 damage per second. The engi also has almost only 5 target skills wich makes him superior against many targets, where other classes mostly cleave or use their none aa abilities on a long cd to hit 5 targets. Against single target, mostly champs or legis, the vuln stacking is superior compared to other classes. Engi alone can maintain 15 stacks vuln on them (even though champ or legis reduce the vuln dura by 50%). “a class in contest for arguably the lowest base DPS” is really silly – silly

Piddly 1.6k aa in full zerk means you have a terrible party, no might and vulnerability at all. Good buffed aa hits for 5k, yet you should not use the rifle aa unless there are 20 targets in a row :P … like caudecus in that barn where the rifle dudes shoot at you. The grenade aa deals anyway way more damage, 50%, and stacks more vuln.
Besides – your friend (mesmer) gs auto attack takes 1.4 sec to do, rifle aa needs 0.84 sec. Rifle has a much stronger aa, also penetrates infinite targets, mes GS only 3.

You only should get 73% crit chance since fury and warrior banner grant you 27% crit chance. Never go over 100%, unless you knwo your enemies are above lv80.

Zerk or kitten gear isn’t a huge difference as you call it. If you are insecure, just go full zerk, especially when you are new. The goal is 63-73% crit chance, but full zerk is totally fine. The personal skill level makes a bigger difference than those little stats.

Btw for your traits, take precise sights over rifle mod. Rifle mod is good, but 10% dmg for 2 of your skills in your rotation aren’t worth the passive damage of all the vuln stacks you can do.

I hope all this was interesting and informative for you

greez Ziggy

Kusumura.8642:

Nope. Nope, nope, nope, nope. For Engineers – a class in contest for arguably the lowest base DPS that has to really push it to keep up with everybody else

Engineer dps in PvE is 3rd best right now. So you clearly don’t know what you are talking about.

The reason why assassins give you more overall dps is because of bleeding and vulnerability. Your direct dmg is higher in zerker than assassins, but the additional bleeding and vulnerability with assassins compensate for that.

Wow your build is weird.
1) You are playing alone right? Because 73% of crit chance + sigil of perception will give you 88%. Fury alone will get you over 100% and you will lose stats, a banner of discpline or spotter will be completely waste so I hope you are playing alone or maybe you just distrust all pugs.
2) Sigil of Air and Sigil of perception. Not a great mix.
3) Rune of the Eagle? That’s a terrible choice of runes.
4) Why a ring with Precision, Toughness, Power as stats?
5) Why slicks shoes and mines? Is this a pvp or pve build?
6) Ya precise sight is one of the most important trait for a nade PvE engineer with grenadier, don’t know why you don’t have it.

I’m still using Berserker, personally. In an ideal dungeon comp you’re going to be already near 100% as it is when you’ve got a ranger, elementalist, and/or warrior in your group. And while there are many situations where having an Assassin set may be more useful, there are a number of situations where Assassin is literally a waste of time.

I’m a player with all classes to level 80, and it’s a considerable expense getting them all geared out. To me, I’d rather have a Berserker armor set that’s good everywhere rather than having to craft both an Assassin and Berserker set because a boss is either immune to conditions or there’s too many people around to where my individual contribution of vulnerability doesn’t matter.

So if you’re someone who is leveling or has already leveled multiple characters, understand that Assassin isn’t always the best stat for PvE content, and that for things like Wurm you’re going to end up investing in a Berserker set anyway. So I guess it’s also important to ask yourself if you’re going to be using your engineer only in dungeons, and not going to branch out into any other content ever.

I would much rather argue your best investment would be to use a legendary weapon (if you have one) on your engineer and merely swap Predator’s stats from Berserker to Assassin as needed. This is what I do, as it saves me precious inventory space (as I already carry around enough armor sets as it is for solo and zerg WvW) as well as raw gold I can use to gear ascended on other characters on my account.

Plus, if we really want to get specific here, the ideal dungeon comp currently doesn’t involve engineers, and is usually 2x ele + thief + guard + whatever. That whatever can be engineers at times, but I’ll often times take other classes over it because of the above issues with vulnerability. It’s just not all that important a lot of the time when you’re slaughtering bosses in 5 seconds, either.

Just my two cents.

You are mostly right Phineas Poe. It depend for which content you prefer to optimize. If you want to do mostly dungeon or solo stuff then assassins will be the best choice. If you prefer do world boss and big zerg event, then zerker will be better for you.

But Phineas if you get to 100% with berserker gear in a party that’s because you took precision in a place that wasn’t ideal (not saying its bad, just not ideal).

Beserker gear on the meta should get you to 89% fully buffed (spotter+discpline+fury).
With Assassins armor fully buffed that go to 93%.

But of course if you get crit chance from food, utilities, sigils or runes, then it will be different and you could reach 100% critical chance with zerker gear.

Thaddeus.4891:

Beserker gear on the meta should get you to 89% fully buffed (spotter+discpline+fury).
With Assassins armor fully buffed that go to 93%.

That’s not a huge difference, and I consider 89% close enough to 100% to not worry about it. I mean, has anyone been actually been able to visually notice a difference in speed clearing wearing Assassin over Berserker? Because taking a second elementalist over an engineer for an extra ice bow has very clear and obvious advantages at several points in a dungeon train.

Not trying to diminish the desires of min/maxers, but at the end of the day you kinda gotta ask what all of this is for, especially when what you’re recommending involves veteran engineer players investing even more gold into their characters.

Phineas Poe.3018:

That’s not a huge difference, and I consider 89% close enough to 100% to not worry about it. I mean, has anyone been actually been able to visually notice a difference in speed clearing wearing Assassin over Berserker? Because taking a second elementalist over an engineer for an extra ice bow has very clear and obvious advantages at several points in a dungeon train.

Not trying to diminish the desires of min/maxers, but at the end of the day you kinda gotta ask what all of this is for, especially when what you’re recommending involves veteran engineer players investing even more gold into their characters.

I don’t get what you try to add to the discussion here. OP asked why the meta build use assassins and we answered. I won’t gonna tell him re roll a Elementalist for the Ice Bow, I won’t gonna tell him that zerker is better even if assassins and zerker is close. What you are saying is right, its not a big difference between assassins and zerker and I specifically said that at several time during this post.

Assassins gear is actually less costly than zerker (Vicious claw cost less than powerful blood), but the difference is very little so i don’t get why my advice would ‘’involves veteran engineer players investing even more gold into their characters’’.

Thaddeus.4891:

Phineas Poe.3018:

That’s not a huge difference, and I consider 89% close enough to 100% to not worry about it. I mean, has anyone been actually been able to visually notice a difference in speed clearing wearing Assassin over Berserker? Because taking a second elementalist over an engineer for an extra ice bow has very clear and obvious advantages at several points in a dungeon train.

Not trying to diminish the desires of min/maxers, but at the end of the day you kinda gotta ask what all of this is for, especially when what you’re recommending involves veteran engineer players investing even more gold into their characters.

I don’t get what you try to add to the discussion here. OP asked why the meta build use assassins and we answered. I won’t gonna tell him re roll a Elementalist for the Ice Bow, I won’t gonna tell him that zerker is better even if assassins and zerker is close. What you are saying is right, its not a big difference between assassins and zerker and I specifically said that at several time during this post.

Assassins gear is actually less costly than zerker (Vicious claw cost less than powerful blood), but the difference is very little so i don’t get why my advice would ‘’involves veteran engineer players investing even more gold into their characters’’.

You’re still going to want a Berserker set for when bosses are immune to conditions, and for general PvE outside of instances where stacking vulnerability isn’t a priority. So if someone is going to go through the time and expense to acquire a second set of ascended armor, they should be aware of its drawbacks and the fact that Berserker is actually 100% useful 100% of the time. When bosses are structured and cannot be crit, such as Tequatl, Berserker is still best-in-slot because you’re still wearing gear with power as the main stat.

All of these statements should be even more carefully considered when you have to imagine the specialization we’re getting in Heart of Thorns likely pushes engineers away from using the grenade kit.

He’s asking why engineers use Assassin over Berserker, and I’m saying the reasons for it aren’t justified at what expense is required to obtain it. I suppose you could settle for exotic Assassin armor, but that would sound awfully hypocritical to pick and choose when min/maxing is important.

Phineas Poe.3018:

You’re still going to want a Berserker set for when bosses are immune to conditions, and for general PvE outside of instances where stacking vulnerability isn’t a priority. So if someone is going to go through the time and expense to acquire a second set of ascended armor, they should be aware of its drawbacks and the fact that Berserker is actually 100% useful 100% of the time.

He’s asking why engineers use Assassin over Berserker, and I’m saying the reasons for it aren’t justified at what expense is required to obtain it.

You would want a Beserker set only if you want to optimized for zerg events or world bosses. Otherwise assassins will only be a little less dmg on those, but it will still do the job.

Just as Assassins is optimal in dungeon and solo, but zerker will only do a little less dmg, but it wil still the job done.

You seem to think that assassins is horrible in certain situation compare to zerker but its not. Both set will only have a small difference and will both work in all situation. If you want to optimized for dungeon and solo use assassins, if you prefer world boss and zerg, then Zerker will be better.

Thaddeus.4891:

You seem to think that assassins is horrible in certain situation compare to zerker but its not. Both set will only have a small difference and will both work in all situation. If you want to optimized for dungeon and solo use assassins, if you prefer world boss and zerg, then Zerker will be better.

It’s not a question of preference. Guild Wars 2’s end-game content involves a mix of instanced and open world content. One set is good everywhere. The other is not. I don’t see the debate to be had here, especially when the OP says he plays a necromancer and never specified that he was only looking at running dungeons, so I don’t see the need to limit our scope to them.

But even if we did limit the conversation of dungeons, you equate a critical hit increase of 4% as something significant, but when you consider most bosses die in 30 seconds or less in this game, that means you’re generally seeing 100 grenades tossed in a boss fight or less. Getting a few extra crits in that time span is not a significant damage increase and—especially when considering Precise Sights is only a 50% chance, you’re seeing a negligible increase in vulnerability stacks. It also presupposes on the idea that engineers are the sole contributor to vulnerability stacks, or that you need Assassin to reliably hit 25 stacks on bosses, which is just patently false.

I mean let’s be serious here: Grenade Barrage + Jump Shot is really all you need to do to hit 25 vulnerability stacks as a group, because other classes also contribute to vulnerability stacks. So it’s not like switching to Assassin is needed to maintain 25 stacks, especially when Guanglai did the math over two years ago establishing that you could maintain 25 stacks against Defiance back before Assassin was even in the game.

Has anyone actually sat down and recorded runs with Berserker vs. Assassin and has seen an obvious difference? Or is this just something people drew up in some theorycraft session, saw the “advantages” on paper, and everyone kinda just went along with it? It’s not like we’ve ever been guilty of this before. /s

. . . How do you maintain 25 vuln stacks? I mean I can hit it when I line up Barrage and nades, but very quickly I drop down and can only maintain ~10-20 depending on what point of my rotation I’m in (strait nades it’s like 15-20). And, this is with Precise sights and assassin gear. I need help with about 5 stacks and to not deviate from grenade much at all if I want to keep 25 stacks 100% of the time.

As far as the “on paper” thing, again, I’m quite sure I remember having this conversation with Nike back when they were first starting to push the Engi stuff and see waht they could do with it. I was under the assumption that Assassin was for the “on crit” stuff, and he was telling me that it was actually a strait DPS increase in their calculations. I was surprised but it doesn’t not make sense. If you’re not maxing out on crits then more crits will be a DPS increase, depending on how the formula works it may turn out better to get more crits than to just increase the base levels. My guess is that when you have more hits your crit damage becomes a larger portion than when you hit slowly? I haven’t figured out all the math but that’s the only real difference I can think of when looking purely at the damage.

Again, iirc, he said the ‘on crit’ was just fluff and only strengthened the purpose for Assassin gear.

Phineas Poe.3018:

Guild Wars 2’s end-game content involves a mix of instanced and open world content. One set is good everywhere. The other is not.

That statement is just wrong. Both bezerker and assassins is good everywhere. Assassins is better in certain situation and bezerker is better in other situation.

Phineas Poe.3018:

So it’s not like switching to Assassin is needed to maintain 25 stacks, especially when Guanglai did the math over two years ago establishing that you could maintain 25 stacks against Defiance back before Assassin was even in the game.

I can reach 100% critical chance by myself without assassins gear. I can get to 25 stacks of vulnerability without assassins gear. That’s not the point, the point is assassins allow you to reach your max dps in a dungeon settings.

Phineas Poe.3018:

Has anyone actually sat down and recorded runs with Berserker vs. Assassin and has seen an obvious difference? Or is this just something people drew up in some theorycraft session, saw the “advantages” on paper, and everyone kinda just went along with it? It’s not like we’ve ever been guilty of this before. /s

Yes they did exactly that. You can ask DEKeyz2Chaos from DnT if you want more information.

Jerus.4350:

. . . How do you maintain 25 vuln stacks? I mean I can hit it when I line up Barrage and nades, but very quickly I drop down and can only maintain ~10-20 depending on what point of my rotation I’m in (strait nades it’s like 15-20). And, this is with Precise sights and assassin gear. I need help with about 5 stacks and to not deviate from grenade much at all if I want to keep 25 stacks 100% of the time.

If you are ready to sacrifice your damage you can reach that. Sigil of Peril increase your vulnerability duration, sigil of frailty give more vulnerability. You can auto-attack and do barrage only to maximize vulnerability on crit. You can have condition duration runes. Giver’s weapons also increase condition duration. And on top of that the usual food.

You can easily get constant 25 stacks of vulnerability, that doesn’t mean that its a good idea or a good balance.

• Zerk or Azza (if i write it with s it gets cencored …) won’t make a huge difference. kitten is better in general, zerk is better against structures.
• The goal is to hit 100% crit chance in a pt with banner and fury. I do not count in a rangers spotter.
• Mine is gread pve skill that should be taken over elixier gun if you only need damage
• Assassin means crit means vuln means more passive damage – this is what you live for
• you maintain 25 stacks vuln on trash / 15 stacks vuln on champs or higher with 40% condi duration bufffood. It’s better for engi to get 40% condi duration instead of the casual power&precision bufffood, due his increased passive damage.
• the “best” team comp – lel, it depends on what you are doing. If you don’t need reflection you won’t need guard. If it’s only a little reflection engi can do the job but will deal overall almost double active + passive damage than a guard would do.

You should play with this tool a bit: http://gw2dps.david-reess.de/
One says magic happens if you add an engineer ;3

hrm. strange.

seem to remember mathing out zerker vs assassins before quiting and finding zerker still better.
Also could have sworn I was maintaining 20-21 stacks of vul without vul on crit, alone.

Casia.4281:

hrm. strange.

seem to remember mathing out zerker vs assassins before quiting and finding zerker still better.
Also could have sworn I was maintaining 20-21 stacks of vul without vul on crit, alone.

If you calculate your direct dmg only yes zerker will be better. The advantage of assassins is that it will give more bleeding and vulnerability. The the lost in base direct dmg is less than the gain in bleeding and boost of direct dmg from the additional vulnerability stack.

And can you sworn is was on boss with unkhakable? Because that decrease by 50% vulnerability duration.

you aren’t capping vul and bleed without assassins?

It’s mainly because of the passive damage of vuln stacks, the bleed can be useless sometimes, depending on your allies. You can also simply take another 5% dmg modifier there, but calculations have shown that is rarely matters.

And yea, we talk about on bosses (!). 20 stacks vuln are easy reachable on elite trash even without bufffood. But bosses are a different story: most other classes struggle at 5 stacks, engi maintains 15 stacks and with some spikes with barrage or mine field up to 25 for the moment.

You won’t cap vuln nor bleed only by yourself on champs or higher tier enemies.

Casia.4281:

you aren’t capping vul and bleed without assassins?

You can, but that will hurt your overall dmg. For exemple, I could take a sigil of accuracy and rune of the ranger to get a good amount of additional precision and have a zerker gear. But assassins with scholar rune and damage modifier sigil will give you better overal dps.

Again and like other said. There is a difference between capping vulnerability on elite and capping it on unshakable bosses.

Jerus.4350:

How do you maintain 25 vuln stacks? I mean I can hit it when I line up Barrage and nades, but very quickly I drop down and can only maintain ~10-20 depending on what point of my rotation I’m in (strait nades it’s like 15-20). And, this is with Precise sights and assassin gear. I need help with about 5 stacks and to not deviate from grenade much at all if I want to keep 25 stacks 100% of the time.

I meant as a group, but let’s talk honestly for a second here about our (and others’) contributions.

Outside of stacking might (which is fairly unusual in combat since most stuff dies after 20 to 30 seconds), the current engineer DPS rotation involves swapping to the flamethrower to Flame Blast. If you’re good with your timing, you only lose about a second to do this, meaning you really only lose a single volley—maybe two due to latency. The grenade volley speed is roughly 1 second per toss, and because Flame Blast has a 6 second cooldown, that means you’re slotting one Shrapnel Grenade and five “auto attacks” in between each Flame Blast.

In essence, every 6 seconds you’re stacking 18 stacks of vulnerability from Steel Packed Powder. And because you’re tossing 18 grenades total, if 70-90% of them crit and proc Precise Sights at a 50% chance, that means you’re stacking, in total, 25 stacks of vulnerability.

tl;dr, an engineer can self-stack 25 vulnerability on their own against trash.

Now, obviously, everyone knows this. It’s nothing new. The question is against bosses with Defiance and the 50% duration reduction but there’s a few things to keep in mind here:

1. We are not the only class with a passive vuln on hit/crit trait. Warriors, thieves, guardian, and elementalist—the four main dungeon classes in GW2—each have their own methods of stacking vulnerability. Warriors have Rending Strikes. Thieves have Sundering Strikes. Elementalists have Weak Spot. Guardians have both Symbolic and Blind Exposure. You’re telling me that between those four classes you don’t think they can manage to pick up the other 25 vulnerability stacks required to maintain the cap against Defiance? My experiences playing this game the past two years running dungeons for literally thousands of hours leads me to think otherwise. (Assuming that 25 vuln on Defiance = 50 normal vuln stacks.)

2. Capping out vulnerability isn’t even a priority to burn through content. I mentioned Jump Shot and Grenade Barrage because it’s often more important to front-load vulnerability stacks for the ice bows. Sustained vulnerability thus is not really all that important (and is similarly why engineers are not actually a part of the dungeon meta). This is also consequently why I think a 4% crit chance is nothing to write home about.

3. Glyph of Storms.

Jerus.4350:

As far as the “on paper” thing, again, I’m quite sure I remember having this conversation with Nike back when they were first starting to push the Engi stuff and see waht they could do with it. I was under the assumption that Assassin was for the “on crit” stuff, and he was telling me that it was actually a strait DPS increase in their calculations. I was surprised but it doesn’t not make sense. If you’re not maxing out on crits then more crits will be a DPS increase, depending on how the formula works it may turn out better to get more crits than to just increase the base levels. My guess is that when you have more hits your crit damage becomes a larger portion than when you hit slowly? I haven’t figured out all the math but that’s the only real difference I can think of when looking purely at the damage.

Again, iirc, he said the ‘on crit’ was just fluff and only strengthened the purpose for Assassin gear.

This is interesting. If it really does come down to a definitive damage increase to mix in Assassin then I’ll have to try that. I assume it’s because of the extra bleed stacks from Sharpshooter?

Xyonon.3987:

the “best” team comp – lel, it depends on what you are doing. If you don’t need reflection you won’t need guard. If it’s only a little reflection engi can do the job but will deal overall almost double active + passive damage than a guard would do.

That’s when you just take another elementalist. Or a mesmer.

Yeah it was a while ago but I’d love to see DnT confirm/deny it. Either way I’m happy with my Assassin gear and doubt it matters all that much.

As for Vuln stacking, you’re right, lots of group additions that SHOULD happen. I PUG A LOT and well… many don’t do that. I don’t see warriors swapping axe/mace and throwing their vuln in much, which honestly that alone + me would likely be 25 maintained. Toss in Rending strikes and surely enough. But, I often find myself being the only one stacking vuln outside of maybe a LB Ranger >.< Thief/War have very little tradeoffs for their vuln on crit and probably should have them, but Ele there are quite a few builds that are lacking it. Staff builds and some trickier Scepter builds won’t have it, which is often what is run by my more organized groups. Glyph of storms is amazing, but there is opportunity cost there as well that if you can avoid is nice.

So all that said, personally I often appreciate the extra vuln stacks. The only time I don’t worry about it is in my Double Engi Fractal groups where I even take off precise sights and we’re still solid

Kusumura.8642:

Nope. Nope, nope, nope, nope. For Engineers – a class in contest for arguably the lowest base DPS that has to really push it to keep up with everybody else, that ~73% crit chance from a set of full Assassin’s gear makes the best difference possible.

Rather than doing a piddly ~1.6k in full Zerker with my rifle auto attack, in Assassin’s gear I grant that my auto attack drops to ~1.45k… but not really. I’ll get chains of 8 criticals in a row that each slug for 2.2-2.7k. In Zerker, you won’t get chains that go for long – you’ll get chains, but it’ll only be one or two crits then a dryspell.

Only for my Mesmer friend to tell me over Skype that she’kittenting for 2.9k+ with her Greatsword’s auto-attack without even knowing what food, buffs or build she’s using (Zerker). Sigh.

I don’t think anyone corrected you on this.
they noted engi dps is good, but not directly countering your incorrect mesmer greatsword vs engi rifle claim.

The problem is mesmer greatsword 1 is a listed 1.5s channel. The actual time might be closer to 2s, as most channel skills do have cooldowns longer then the list.
1200 range, 3 target max. and does max damage at 900+, but much less damage closer.
Engineer rifle 1 is .8 attack speed. 5 targets, 1000 range.

Untraited. there are also more rifle traits then gs traits.

your engi is dealing significantly more damage with the rifle then mesmer gs.
mindrack, shatter, and pzerker are great though.
for referance, engi rifle does more dps then war rifle too.

About that assassin gear and having to carry around different armors.
You can just get an assassin ascended weapon (or a legendary) and the two assassin accessories from CM and Arah collections.
That’ll give you about the same as full assassin armor.

Krag.6210:

About that assassin gear and having to carry around different armors.
You can just get an assassin ascended weapon (or a legendary) and the two assassin accessories from CM and Arah collections.
That’ll give you about the same as full assassin armor.

But not the same as Full assassin armor + weapon Which I believe is the meta… not sure on the trinkets though, if they’ve been considered or not, personally I still use zerker as I just.. well do, they have my AR in thema lready anyways

Casia.4281:

hrm. strange.

seem to remember mathing out zerker vs assassins before quiting and finding zerker still better.
Also could have sworn I was maintaining 20-21 stacks of vul without vul on crit, alone.

If I recall properly, Assassins is better on calc if you assume 25 stcks of might.

Xyonon.3987:

It’s mainly because of the passive damage of vuln stacks, the bleed can be useless sometimes, depending on your allies. You can also simply take another 5% dmg modifier there, but calculations have shown that is rarely matters.

And yea, we talk about on bosses (!). 20 stacks vuln are easy reachable on elite trash even without bufffood. But bosses are a different story: most other classes struggle at 5 stacks, engi maintains 15 stacks and with some spikes with barrage or mine field up to 25 for the moment.

You won’t cap vuln nor bleed only by yourself on champs or higher tier enemies.

The problem is that (except high level fractals) sustained vuln cap is not needed. Bursts of vuln cap ate more than enough. I really think glyph of storm and ice bow shouldnt be on the same class.

Ryn.6459:

Xyonon.3987:

It’s mainly because of the passive damage of vuln stacks, the bleed can be useless sometimes, depending on your allies. You can also simply take another 5% dmg modifier there, but calculations have shown that is rarely matters.

And yea, we talk about on bosses (!). 20 stacks vuln are easy reachable on elite trash even without bufffood. But bosses are a different story: most other classes struggle at 5 stacks, engi maintains 15 stacks and with some spikes with barrage or mine field up to 25 for the moment.

You won’t cap vuln nor bleed only by yourself on champs or higher tier enemies.

The problem is that (except high level fractals) sustained vuln cap is not needed. Bursts of vuln cap ate more than enough. I really think glyph of storm and ice bow shouldnt be on the same class.

Using glyph of the storm results into a huge personal dps drop cuz you either lack of an arcane skill to proc your passive or you miss the signet. Both bad choices. Missing frost bow is out of the question.

Sustained vuln is good everywhere, there are plenty of champs and legis to kill in every dungeon and even low lv fotm. More crit chance also increases faster vuln stacking wich results into more damage right at the beginning. Some people underestimate vulnerability. Each vuln stack is almost comparable with a might stack on your whole team.

Xyonon.3987:

Some people underestimate vulnerability. Each vuln stack is almost comparable with a might stack on your whole team.

No one is underestimating the importance of vulnerability. I’m simply saying you can hit 25 vuln stacks against Defiance without Assassin gear, and that choice users in this thread overestimate an engineer’s importance and/or contributions to stacking vulnerability.

I agree that Glyph of Storms is generally a niche skill, but there’s a reason why most dungeon speed clear record kills—when not needing a mesmer or guardian—have three elementalists and not two elementalists and an engineer: we simply aren’t needed to hit 25 vulnerability when it matters, and it’s important to establish that the difference between full Berserker and Assassin armor + Berserker weapons/jewelry is a 4% crit chance difference. And upping your crit chance by +4% over the course of 30 volleys (or 90 grenades) is only 3.6 additional crits (89% vs 93% = 80.1 vs 83.7). That means, over 30 seconds, you’re only getting an additional 1-2 procs of Precise Sights, neither of which are sustained. You lose more than that swapping to your flamethrower and using Flame Blast. Should we stop doing that too?

That’s the difference we’re literally talking about here, bolded for emphasis. If everyone is simply doing their job and playing to their effective strengths, Berserker is in every way just as good as Assassin is—and is still useful at Tequatl, Wurm, and in the Silverwastes. You’re not capping out vulnerability because you’re wearing Assassin armor; you’re capping out vulnerability because the current meta has everyone traiting into it.

Ryn.6459:

Bursts of vuln cap are more than enough.

This guy gets it.

Aye, Engi is the sustained vuln…sustained vuln is not what you use for speed clears. It is GREAT for casual runs though.

And, there are a few niche situations where I think Engi may be used in speed runs… I’m trying to figure them all out and see if I can get them to work. Basically sometimes it’s overkill to have 3 Ele’s and Warrior Banner simply isn’t conducive to the situation either because of the fast kills. In those situations you also have the warrior bursting the vuln with On My Mark and Axe2/mace4. Engi should be able to substitute, the downside is of course that you lose out on that warhorn, but you should have a bit more burst with the engi than the warrior in those situations… we’ll see what happens with that one, might toss out the idea because of that last bit.

But, Yes, Engi is a great addition in a more casual setting, a speedy casual tour there’s no reason Engi can’t be a great addition. In an attempt at a record run, it’s tough to find a niche for them to fill where someone else wouldn’t still do it better.

Again though, I’d love to see the math people from DnT chiming in to confirm/deny the idea of Assassin actually being higher damage for us. And, in the end probably isn’t a big difference either way.

As for Ele vuln though, often they aren’t traiting for vuln in optimal damage setups. If they use Scepter they may want LH instead of GoS, or maybe they’re utilizing GoS for that amazing Sandstorm blind field. Ele’s pretty insane and lots of reasons you may not get much vuln out of them, not saying this as a counter to any arguments but simply as a thing that happens.

just use effective power. Without might zerk an kitten are even. With full might kitten wins.

I recall a similar thing from frifox on mesmers. In an organized groups zerker.geatnis better.

So in a nutshell:
Run with either Assassins or Zerker gear and with Zerker trinkets – is that right?

Assassin.7890:

So in a nutshell:
Run with either Assassins or Zerker gear and with Zerker trinkets – is that right?

Yes. In the end they will both pretty similar in term of dps and if you run as a casual you won’t even notice the difference. If you later want to optimize even more, then it will depend what you are doing and with which other profession you are doing it.

Vulnerability is more important than might because it’s harder to come by and sustain and it also stacks multiplicatively with other percentage modifiers.
With the recent might nerf berserker might be better than assassin anyway. The difference wasn’t so large. Assassin brings your damage to more consistent values since you get more crits. It also procs more vuln and bleeds.