Guild Wars 2

Love the class but for harder content which seems to be coming real soon, why would you want an engineer? From what I’ve read they have high ranged dps? How are they for support? Mostly for dungeons but pvp is nice to talk about too.

I need to point out that I’m the type of player who enjoys min maxing and will generally gravitate toward the highest dps builds or best support builds. Fun is great but I love performing well just as much.

Some questions. Are grenades the highest dps? Are there any good turret builds for dungeons? Is the wrench useful for anything? What is the best situation to use a flame thrower?

I love my engineer. After playing multiple classes and several to 80 this is my favorite. Been power leveling him to 20 today and I’m hoping to hit 80 before the update. Since I’m trying to level fast with only minimal crafting, should I stick with dual pistols and grenades or is there some other faster build?

I can’t say much in the way of leveling, since it’s been forever since I got my Engie to 80, and my skill loadout has changed much since then, but from my experience in dungeons, turrets are mostly useless, save probably the healing turret. Most of the turrets tend to die in one or two hits from anything in a dungeon and tend to attract a lot of agro as well. Although, if you get the trait that causes turrets to do damage and knockback when they explode, they’re helpful as a free Big Ol’ Bomb.

Grenades are, as far as I can tell, our best option DPS-wise, especially once you get the Grenadier trait, which causes you to throw a third grenade and throw them further (from 1200 to 1500), causing them to be our longest ranged attack. However, as with any kit, you need to get proficient at switching between your kit and your main weapon, as you lose any of the stat bonuses, as well as the sigils, that your main weapons give you when you’re using a kit. As a sidenote, grenades are really good at destroying structures (such as the graveling burrows in AC).

The wrench is just about useless. It has a pull, nails (which work like caltrops), a shield, and a strong toolbelt skill, but frankly, it could easily be replaced by another utility skill without losing much at all.

The flamethrower is pretty good if you plan on going melee range, or if you ever think you’re going to be the one taking most of the damage, as there’s a trait that gives you +200 toughness and stacks of might whenever you have the flamethrower out.

Also, in my opinion, Elixir R is a must have when you’re in a dungeon. The stun breaker and the endurance refill from the main skill is nice, but the Toss Elixir R is why I bring it whenever I go into a dungeon. Not only does it cure a condition when it first hits a person, but it also creates a light field and pulses every second, with each pulse giving a downed person 20% of their downed health. It’s a great revive, especially if you get it on someone right after they go down, as they’re almost instantly up again. Plus it can be used to get yourself back up if you throw it at your feet right before you go down.

I can’t say much about PvP, since I haven’t done much of it myself, but those are my thoughts on Engineers in dungeons. I hope they’re helpful, and if I’ve messed something up, one of you other Engineers out there feel free to correct me.

I’ve found that the engineer is best off not focusing on just DPS or Support but with being a hybrid of the two. Example would be the FT/EG build I use when I go dungeon diving. 0/30/0/30/10 nets you all the useful traits for both kits along with HGH so you can continue to up Juggernaut (GM Firearm trait) stacks of might. It also gives you Kit Refinement, which allows you to activate a Super Elixir on activation. If you drop a second Super Elixir on top you can give a fairly decent large AoE heal that lasts for 10 seconds. Throw in the effects from Elixir H and B’s toolbelt skills and Healing Mist you can help your party while still dishing out decent DPS.

TrickSmartly.7391:

Are grenades the highest dps?

Yes but it’s situational. They’re usually best against large mobs and slow/static targets unless you’re good at predicting where your target is going to be when the grenades actually hit. They don’t hit for much (for be usually around 300-400) but if all three hit your target + the bleeds/poison (and burn if you’ve taken Incendiary Powder) you’ll do a fair amount of damage. Also the range of 1500 (with grenadier) means you can go full DPS and stay far enough away to avoid most things or at least give you enough time to react.

Personally though I favour either using Rifle using a 10/30/0/30/0 build using HGH to stack might that’ll last a fair amount of time or using the flamethrower kit with a 0/30/0/30/10 build. Slightly less DPS than grenades but more reliable, more so if your target is moving a lot.

TrickSmartly.7391:

Are there any good turret builds for dungeons?

I’ve tried using turrets in dungeons and they’re effectively dead weight. They die far too quickly and have too higher recharge rate, even with taking every turret trait. Hopefully this will be addressed when we get the content update next week.

TrickSmartly.7391:

Is the wrench useful for anything?

PvE its already but it really shines in PvP/WvW. It’s a bag of tricks that gives us some more ways to either escape or snare fleeing targets with Throw Wrench (if you’ve taken Power Wrench). It also gives us another skill that reliably dumps confusions onto your target.

TrickSmartly.7391:

What is the best situation to use a flame thrower?

Anywhere that you need a reliable AoE attack but don’t want to fiddle around with having to manually target grenades or you don’t want to use grenades. Since it pairs so very nicely with the elixir gun, I use it for DPS then the elixir gun for support.

For leveling I mostly stuck with the grenade, bomb or elixir gun kits. FT can be used but without juggernaut it feels a little lackluster. I found that by putting at least 10 points into Alchemy and netting Fast-Acting Elixirs I survived a whole lot more (thanks to shorter recharge elixir H and Bs) than I did using either the healing turret or the medkit.

TrickSmartly.7391:

Mostly for dungeons but pvp is nice to talk about too.

I have laid off the PVE aspect. Although I could explain why I like them so much, I’d rather focus on pvp at this moment.

sPVP – I like to run multiple builds, but the main reason I enjoy my engineer is because he’s diverse. I have the ability to DPS with Grenades and Bombs. I can control situations on the field on the fly. We have the ability to knock people off of builds/cliffs, cripple foes running through a passage with grenades or bomb kit. But now I must go AFK i’ll come back to finish up the post in a bit….. =)

A note about the flame thrower that I don’t see mentioned: I take the flame thrower along for the incendiary ammo tool belt skill and for the #3 knock back. If you have someone downed in a group fight, I switch to the flamethrower and throw the fire wall on them to degen them a bit and to keep potential rezzers away. It’s also worth mentioning that I run a rifle-power build.

I bring my engineer for pure support.

Constant weakness on ANY enemy.
High condition removal on teammates.
2x super elixir + healing mist aoe healing light fields.
Excellent and easy kiting through infused precision + invigorating speed.
Area of effect 6 stacks of might for 20 seconds every 30 seconds.
Entire group stealth for 10-12 seconds (this is better group stealth than even a theif can provide, as you’re not restricted to one location, and it’s on a low cooldown of 40 seconds)
High uptime on cripple.
Line of sight the occasional stationary boss or group of enemies with mortar.
Set up projectile reflecting or blocking walls with elixir u.
AOE revive field with elixir r.
Blinds, dazes, knockbacks, poisons.

I love my support engineer.

With my Engineer, my group usually relies on me to tank the enemies while bursting them down really quickly. I’ve changed my build from a power/prec/cond build to basically a wall of kevlar and dragonskin. i don’t play support as engineer but i end up doing so unintentionally, i’ll find a group in wvwvw, run with them, and refer to my first sentence. i run no kits, unless mortar counts, sometimes i swap out my hidden pistol for the ‘nade kits when i’m hitting a tower(again, only if my mortar isn’t pumping lead out) i run rifle and i’m usually able to stay in the thick of a fight for longer than anyone else. I’m running 3k armor right now and hoping to up it by at least another 500.
maybe ‘tank’ counts as support?

I run Dual Pistol with Elixir B(the one that gives buffs), Elixir H(sometimes Turret), Elixir U(quickness), Elixir Gun, Supply Crate.

I only switch to Elixir Gun for the heal, and occasionally the jump back, excellent when low on Stamina.

This allows me to heal 2 areas at a time, usually on the melee at front lines feet, and near myself with the tool belt skill.

I am 10 Explosives, 30 Firearms, 30 Elixirs. Picking up Incend Powder, Range, CD, Pierce, and Elixirs change based on what I am doing, if I know its a lot of conditions then I do Immune to conditions, invun at 25% health(saved me countless times), decreased CD, increased duration, all depends on what I am doing.

I have had very good luck with this build in every path of AC, CM, TA, currently working on other dungeons but have not fully finished them, the worst time I have had so far is Subject Alpha in CoE path 3, I need more Vigor for that one and no way to slot it.

Using it to its full effect means a lot of postioning so you are able to hit multiple targets with Piercing Bullets.

Lastly I use all crafted Exotics, Carrion armor with Power Vitality and Condition damage, then Coral for Power Percision and Condition damage, my weaposn are from CM and AC and need to find ones with Condition damage just havnt gotten to it.

I do pretty good as P/P condition spec with elixir support (0/30/10/30/0) and Formula 409. I bring 4 Elixirs (H, U, B, S) with Supply Crate. This gives me a crapload of group utility:

1. Throwing Elixir H and B will grant an AOE boon and clear a condition in AOE.

2. U will create one of 3 fields (Guardian reflect Wall, Mesmer stealth wall, or thief smoke wall) which can combo into remove condition, confusion or blindness. All great combinations while in a group.

3. Elixir S I swap around a lot. Usually the S is great because it offers supreme survivability in most cases. Not only do you get a 3s invuln (like Mist Form) but also you get Stability or Stealth in AOE format from the elixir throw. Sometimes I put R in this (such as if it’s a fight that requires a lot of mobility).

I also like the spec cause I can swap traits around and (minus the power/precision gear) be relatively decent with a Flamethrower build.

And here lies the enigma of human nature. We want to be at our best if we understand our role, however the game has made an attempt to break the holy trinity of MMORPGs I have so far 3 lvl80’s, 1 very close (75), 2 at 60+, and 3 others (yes I have 9 I love to play to my moods), that being said every profession has a similar thread.

The time will come when we realise we have to work together, not just in a dungeon but with our builds, communicate and I know this is going to sound bad, … compromise too.

Alas on saying that one thing that I feel would make more people happy and less time consuming is if we can change our trait distribution in PVE / dungeons easily and therefore utilities etc, without cost, either in a non contested area or out of combat.

I love mine too. I’ll reserve judgement until after the new patch to see where they are heading with this profession.

As it stands now tho, they have serious targeting issues and damage output issues with explosives. (similar to the problems most eles face) They have nerfed the heck out of everything but burn damage, and if you trait into burn damage you lose a ton of damage enhancement.

Right now the only viable dps output for pve is a Rifle/pistol/pistol pots or turret spec. Anything else is useless honestly.

Healing needs some work for this class as well because they have nerfed that on the engineer to almost nothing compared to the other classes that heal.

It’s sad really they had a great class but due to an oversight on keeping pvp balanced they made it almost useless in pve.

If i wanted to be a rifle only fighter I would have rolled a warrior.

the only use ive found for flamethrower is defending a gate in wvw. 1 goes thru the gate. you can be a really nasty addition to a defense (use omnom ghost/pie), especially if the red names on the other side dont use retaliation (use ghost popper + precision, stack chill or 20 might pretty easy). i dont really use it aside from that.

in dungeons i spam grenades from afar mostly. for dungeon point defense (like AC1 w/ the room where you guard the npcs and masses of gravelings + burrows) ill swap out flamethrower for thumper turret and drop it next to the npc. its a pretty good fire-and-forget that means youre doing something w/ the utility slot while spamming 1 1 1 1 1 in grenades.

also in wvw, 25 explosives grants you a vuln-on-explosions trait thats extraordinarily helpful in quickly downing a buffed supply camp supervisor when you have a zerg mindlessly autoing it (…grenade spam again).

rifle in general is really really good against anything melee (especially pve) cuz you can kite and cc lock enemies.

and i dont think anyone has said this yet but runes of the centaur + med kit = aoe perma swiftness, and synergizes nicely w/ 5 firearms and pow/prec gear

i am 30/30/0/0/10, rifle, zerker jewelry, zerker/knight armor

tigirius.9014:

Right now the only viable dps output for pve is a Rifle/pistol/pistol pots or turret spec. Anything else is useless honestly.

wut

grenades are by far the highest dps for engis. if you are bad at targeting that’s your fault. it is awkward admittedly but it shouldn’t lower your dps in most situations.

uuu some nice strategies with the engineer here! i’ll add mine too..

for the past while i’ve been running a rifle charrgineer (it makes sense, really it does) with 30 in firearms, 20 in explosives and 20 in alchemy allowing me to go head to head with any non-unstoppable melee mobs nearly all the time. infused precision, invigorating speed and plenty pf precision allows me to be a dodging, netting and blasting machine! as utilities i bring along elixir H, B, hidden pistol, ’nade kit and supply drop giving me 2 nice burst skills on my toolbelt (hidden pistols and grenade barrage) to unload on anyone i blast, net and pin down… gotta love the engi ^____^