Guild Wars 2

So, like many, I’ve found renewed interest in World vs. World following this week’s update and have spent a great deal of time playing on Sea of Sorrows. Overall, I’ve found a lot of success playing scrapper, following both pugmanders and open raid guild groups, and roaming with guildies. But one thing I’ve noticed is that we engineers aren’t really much in demand, and are often thrown into the gutter of raid group with other leftovers like thieves and druids. This post isn’t to complain about that in any way. After all, it is what it is; but I did want to talk about how we should properly build around these circumstances with regard to armor stats, sigils, utilities—everything.

As such, it’s pretty rare that you’re in a raid group with a guardian and revenant, with those slots better saved for elementalists and necromancers. So I built my setup under the assumption that (1) I wouldn’t be given stability by anyone and that (2) I wouldn’t be given resistance by anyone. This is what I came up with: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vdAQFASncoClchtbBWXB0ehlJjKc7SmwS8ZKgAg+vz79G-TlhFABSq+jAXAAAeAArs/AVK/4TJ4mhAAWVJDAxEA-w

To address point one, I’ve opted to take Elixir B. This gives me three stacks of stability every 20 seconds, pretty much fulfilling the role of a poor man’s Stand Your Ground. If I do happen to be graced the opportunity to be grouped with a guardian, I swap out Elixir B for Elixir S. It’s also worth nothing that Perfectly Weighted does grant an additional stack of stability, and is generally used as a non-targeted leap-in skill at the start of engagements.

To address point two, I’ve chosen to run Adaptive Armor with Runes of Hoelbrak. Condition duration reduction food also helps. Swapping runes is pretty expensive outside of owning a set of legendary armor, but if you do happen to run with Heralds regularly and get a good dose of resistance, I’d maybe consider taking something else.

Beyond that, I’d really like some advice and guidance. I haven’t played WvW seriously since Sanctum of Rall died out several years ago, and a lot has changed over the years with regard to ourselves as well as other classes.

Ive been running this with a great deal of success.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vdAQFASncoClch1XBGpCEqilJjS8ZKgAIc7Smwi+tr7+G-T1BGABcv/QZ6AA4BAkwFAYKlgEp8LQ1fCAgAwNDECo8EA-w

You can drop some zerker for more tank if ya want but ive tryed this with a 50/50 of celestial and soldiers and honestly when there is alot of enemys higher stats dont save you your utilitys saves you, Elixir Gun imo is a big waste in WvW since fights are alot more mobile and its quite slow to get the job done for condi clearing and if youve been nailed with conditions suddenly chances are Auto elixir S is going to pop before you can remove them and recover with EG.

When im in larger groups with this build i focus on being well ahead of the pack since its really easy to zerg dive and survive with your utilitys so you can open into an enemy pack really easy and try and split them or take some attention for your team mates to get an advantage, the other thing is my build is lacking condi clears compared to yours but its also got a kitten ton of lifesteal and other healing going on and that will stop any light damaging condition application in its tracks and if you get condi burst your build still aint going to save ya from that.

anyway more on the game play essentially its all about engaging packs with thunderclap→rocketcharge→electrowhirl→ and then shockshield/block/invlun/dodge away so you can stealth up and rinse and repeat use your other utilitys accordingly like balwark gyros on openings to minimise incoming damage (also when it blows up you get super speed which will give ya some healing and some mobility to stay on enemys or fallback) use tk for box of nails when your falling back and since you can still hit like a truck you can easily magnet people away from there zerg and zerker them down relatively easy, rocket charges CD puts it in the perfect spot to cycle between using it with thunderclap and reconstruction field meaning everytime you use it your either going to get healing from the water field or healing from procing the shocking speed trait not to mention the healing that will come from Blood/leeching/omnom pies/bunker down.

well hope this helps.

First of all, thanks for sharing your build. I agree with you that the healing procs probably make Berserker pretty viable, and I’d be willing to try that out. I’ve began with Celestial largely because it fits the play style I’m interested in at the moment, but also because I’m pretty rusty and can at times be bad with my positioning.

To just respond to what you said, however:

ukuni.8745:

Elixir Gun imo is a big waste in WvW since fights are alot more mobile and its quite slow to get the job done for condi clearing and if youve been nailed with conditions suddenly chances are Auto elixir S is going to pop before you can remove them and recover with EG.

Elixir Gun isn’t taken for myself but entirely for Fumigate to support the rest of the raid. Acid Bomb is also a pretty remarkable skill, both in the fact that its damage is unblockable and that it’s a decent gap creator if caught out of position. And if I’m being completely honest, between Tarragon Bread, Hoelbrak, and Adaptive Armor … not to mention having 21K HP, condi damage isn’t that much a threat unless I stray pretty far from the eles.

Not sure how it got there, but Sigil of Disruption is also a mistake. I’ve updated the OP to better reflect my sigil uses. I do use Sigil of Blood, as it scales with Healing Power.

The build is a bog standard hammer scrapper with expected stats and skills, thats fine enough.

The problem IMO is that as a “gutter group self sustain build” (I prefer to call it super bombad elite flanker commando instead, but whatever floats your boat) you arent actually offering anything special at all, even for a WvW trash class. With this particular setup you could be replaced with literally any backline or frontline and they would perform better.

It sort of suffer a fatal flaw. The mortar is the only thing that keeps it afloat as a zerger (elixir gun alone isnt good enough for that) as it balances out the melee hammer, but at the same time that prevents you from taking the sneak gyro which is critical as it can allow your gutter group friends to cut like a knife into the enemy backline – its literally what give the scrapper a purpose in a zerg thats not replaced by stock frontliners and backliners. But of course if you do take the sneak gyro on that particular build… you have very weak range.

I would also argue that you need elixir r in the current zerg meta, there are few other skills that can keep up against even just one epidemic and well, the enemy zerg probably bring 20 of them.

Bulwark gyro is debatable, but again if you get into the enemy backline proper, that reflect is incredibly disruptive and can cover other flankers.

Switch Self Regulating Defenses for Inversion Enzyme. SRD is garbage and will kill you more often than not simply because you can’t condi clear. I also would switch Tool Kit for Elixir S. My build is basically the old HGH build with a Hammer. I also use Sneak Gyro and Elixir H (again HgH). I get why you are using Mortar Kit though. When I run into heavy ranged groups or solo Rangers I switch Elixir S to Bulwark for the reflect on the toolbelt.

Superior Rune of Leadership.

Tyaen.5148:

Switch Self Regulating Defenses for Inversion Enzyme. SRD is garbage and will kill you more often than not simply because you can’t condi clear. I also would switch Tool Kit for Elixir S. My build is basically the old HGH build with a Hammer. I also use Sneak Gyro and Elixir H (again HgH). I get why you are using Mortar Kit though. When I run into heavy ranged groups or solo Rangers I switch Elixir S to Bulwark for the reflect on the toolbelt.

Superior Rune of Leadership.

I don’t really have problems with Self-Regulating Defenses. I have also changed my build a bit: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vdAQFASncoClchtbBGYB0ehlJjS8ZGvAY8Dqg4jeuz7AH-T1xHQBfTHAAeAAMUJY42fgeq/8Plf57CAQKgiUpB-w

If you don’t want to deal with Magnanimous Oil you can run Wanderer amulet and weapon instead. Helpful if you have Juggernaut to swap stats around.

Build here

I’ve been playing Engineer in WvW for quite some time and have adjusted my build to suit multiple roles.

It has high condition cleanse, perma-x2 Stability, perma-18 Might, high Fury and Quickness uptime, high Healing Power + x2 blast (Flamethrower #2 → HT blast = near full heal), high durability, very capable of frontline, high melee range damage, very strong Burn burst (4k+ per tick) and easy to play.

It functions nicely as a mid – frontliner in zergs and as a res/stompbot in small scale. Because of it’s perma-Stability and high durability, it is very easy to secure kills and save downed players as well as locking people down with CC’s and consistent damage.

Honestly my favorite part about it though is just that it’s very good at tagging and bagging in zergs. Retaliation can be a problem but not so much so that I’m constantly killing myself. I tend to hang back on the first push so the real frontliners can soften them up a bit and clear some of their defences. After that, I’ll push through and spam FT and get tons of bags.

The only major down sides of this build is that 1v1, it’s very easy to kite and it can be tricky to maintain damage on people if they’re constantly stepping out of your Flame Jet. It is more than capable of killing people quickly but it requires a bit of maneuvering.