Guild Wars 2

Hi, kinda new to Engi and recently hit 80 and roaming about with significantly less success than my Mesmer and Necro. Obviously the lack of experience plays a part, but would love some suggestions on possible improvements. But overall I’m looking to still have fun and there are a few things that a lot of other Engi’s appear to use that I have no interest in:

- Only interested in P/P, no Rifle or Shield
- Can’t stand Grenades
- Enjoy Elixir Gun, but OK with going without it solo
- Bomb kit is decent
- Enjoy the Tool Kit
- Prefer at least one escape/stun breaker, often using Elixir S
- Celestial gear not an option
- I have used the Speedy Kits/Invigorating Speed for Swiftness and Vigor, but I often find it obnoxious to have to do this for speed (often run Power Shoes/Energy Sigil)
- Won’t cheese on Perplexity

Currently running this build more often than others: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fdAQJAqalUUpPrlcx+KseRCbBFyZcRQtBR2xq8xGEAA

Suggestions?

Well, if you’re going to go so deep into inventions for power shoes and taking bombs, maybe try elixir infused bombs to annoy people by being really hard to kill while you watch your enemy burn to death?

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fdAQJAqalUUpPrlcx+KseNiaBF6bsxAIyQmlPGhCA-TVyHABIp8hIlQD8AA4d/hBVrQRVVA4EAYmegnUCSKAYmDA-w

Hoyo

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fdAQJAqalUUpdrlcxPLseRiaBF6bsxAAqPIqu8xIUAA-TFSFABA8AA0TJoUK1wZ/hGV/5JlFwpHQhTAQAAEgdWnBwRP6RP6RPa7cn/8n7cnlCAmhRA-w
that one should be okay for you.
If it`s not possible to stay close to an opponent use pistol 2,3,4,5 or EG auto attack.
You can switch EG into slickshoes or Elixier S.
Is that one fine for you ? or anything you dislike about it ?

Hello frands! Vee Wee here, retired #1 Engi NA and world first rank 80!

If there is one piece of advice I could give to other Engis, it would be to never ever place points into the Inventions tree! It is by far the worst trait line that Engineers have, and in Vee Wee’s opinion one of the worst trait lines out of every single class! Take Speedy Kits! You’ll never outrun anything with just Power Shoes and outrunning things is how you stay alive if you find yourself overwhelmed! For WvW it’s good to have more mobility than permanent swiftness! Take Elixir Gun or Rocket Boots instead of Elixir S! Elixir Gun has the added benefit of a stunbreak and the leap skill is on a shorter cooldown! On the other hand Acid Bomb will most likely place you into combat slowing your move speed if someone chasing you steps in the lingering AoE! Rocket Boots will launch you forward a greater distance and breaks off all movement impairing effects and has an additional burn, which is your strongest condition but there is no stunbreak, which is mitigated in combat by Protection Injection!

Without Grenade Kit you’ll be really gimping yourself at range but I guess we can work around that! For starters, you’ll want to get 30 into Explosives! The extra 10% condi duration is essential! Also since your main and really only source of really damaging conditions is Bomb Kit so you’ll want to take Short Fuse to lower the cooldown of your bombs! Make sure to spam Fragmentation Shot/Tranquilizer Dart at range! It’s a really weak auto attack but a very reliable way to proc Incendiary Powder!

For gear Vee Wee personally uses Adventurer Runes with Sigil of Energy! This way, Vee Wee only has to spend 20 into Alchemy and get both Protection Injection and Backpack Regenerator without fearing a lack of dodge rolls! You’ll also want to take Geomancy Sigil! Without the Grenade Kit, you’ll be sorely lacking in bleeds so yeah! Also Geomancy is miles better than Earth Sigil for Engineers! A gr8 combo Vee Wee uses is Magnet > Prybar > swap to pistols for Geomancy proc, Static Shot! They’ll have 7 stacks of confusion, blind, bleeds, and burning from Incendiary Powder on them after this combo and they will probably use a dodge roll after! Usually everybody dodge rolls immediately after getting hit by Magnet! If you don’t like Geomancy, you can use Sigil of Tormenting! It adds another, semi damaging condition that can cover your burns from being cleansed and it’s AoE!

You can also use Nightmare Runes to try to reach 100% condi duration! It is a bit expensive keeping up with the food buffs though! You also said you’d rather use P/P, but honestly P/P is only really good if you’re lacking in burns! With Bomb Kit you have plenty of burn uptime so Vee Wee has to recommend using the offhand shield! Plus you can blast your fire bomb for might or smoke bomb for stealth, which can really save your life!

So all together, Vee Wee would recommend something like this!
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fdAQJAqelUUpPrlcxdLseRSaBNq0AqQIyRulPPhAcAA-T1hHABFp8jn9HA4EA0megFV/JgHAAUKBJFAMLrA-w

If you’re really against Speedy Kits, Vee Wee would recommend this!
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fdAQJAqelUUpPrlcxdLseNSaBByQMCROyt85JEgDA-T1hHABFp8Dt9HA4EA0megFV/JgHAAUKBJFAMLrA-w

Traveler Runes are way better than the Inventions Tree and the extra 10 points into Firearms somewhat negates the condition damage loss! And you gain more range for Pistol/Elixir Gun to spread Incendiary Powder around! Or you can swap out Rifled Barrels for Infused Precision and grab Invigorating Speed instead of Protection Injection! You could replace Energy Sigil with something like Tormenting or Doom! Poison is amazing! You’ll definitely want to run Elixir Gun though for the stunbreak if you’re not running Protection Injection! There are just so many possibilities!

Hope that helped! Wahoo! Bye frands!

^Watch this, it might change your mind about not wanting shield. Anywho, the build in the vid pretty much has everything you asked for, but of course you still might want to switch some things around

Points in the “invention” line are actually very solid and beneficial in WvW. More so in some situations in others. I suggest to the OP to disregard comments suggesting otherwise. Particularly from the those with limited WvW experience. Obviously, I suggest building how you like.

It is beyond my, why anyone actually believes toughness, increased movement speed, and protection are bad for WvW, but apparently it is being spoken out against here.

I’d have to agree with with Wee on taking traveler’s over power shoes especially if you have no interest in heal bombs but since they are pricey, it made me put aside the suggestion. Wee is also right that 25% movement speed doesn’t save you from anything and burst mobility is better— 25% is more of a QOL thing than anything else. I don’t have the same disdain for inventions because heal bombs are nice and the first set of adept traits is nice, but in this case where you just want it for movement speed, travelers is a more flexible choice. You could get much more elsewhere. The inventions minor traits are kinda meh aside from the middle one and the way I look at it 6/4/0/4/0 with traveler is better and the spread out stat spread for traveler is usable for engineers as well.

I wouldn’t call the worst trait tree around, but it is very specialized and can be hard to work with.

Hello frands! Vee Wee here, retired #1 Engi NA and world first rank 80!

Vee Wee has all the WvW tournament titles and is like rank ~250! It’s not the highest but it’s hardly “limited WvW experience!”

Anyway we’ve had this discussion before! The Engineer hsa two defensive trait lines: Alchemy and Inventions! Alchemy is miles ahead of Inventions in overall usefulness! Taking Inventions over Alchemy is just foolish and taking both just gimps your offensive power! This is why Inventions is bad!

Spending 20 points to get Power Shoes is just a waste of points! You can spend half the amount to get Speedy Kits which gives more movement speed (which is more useful in WvW anyway) and you can spend the other half in Alchemy for vigor for dodges, which is the single most important thing in GW2 combat! The trait that gives protection in Inventions also literally has 4x the cooldown for the same boon duration! It is beyond me why anyone would waste points into the Inventions tree! I expect you’ll just ignore this though and the next time I post about the Inventions tree, you’ll interject and hilariously tell me how good the trait line is!

Hope that helped! Wahoo! Bye frands!

Personally with my engi condi builds I like to run 6/0/0/6/2. I get protection injection, backpack regenerator and invigorating speed. I use doom and geomancy on my weapons for that extra poison uptime.

To me I don’t think inventions is necessarily a bad traitline, it does have some interesting traits. I just find that Alchemy tends to be all-around better. Protection Injection is amazing, Backpack Regenerator and Invigorating are all amazing too. Transmute I think is one of the best minor traits in the game period, and condition removal for most builds is the achilles heal of an Engi. Alchemy just gives you everything that you need defensively. Condition Removal, Vigor, Protection, Regeneration, etc. Plus it indirectly helps with your offense in terms of might stacking due to the extra boon duration, I think this is a major bonus. 30% boon duration + runes of strength make it very easy to attain up to 20+ stacks.

To me there is no point taking Power shoes when you can just take Speedy Kits. You could also run Runes of the Pack if you have problem with incombat speed.

Thanks for all the suggestions and video’s, they are very helpful. Currently trying something that is very similar to a few suggestions here: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fdAQJAqalUUpdrlcxPLseRSaBNq0AqRIyRulPPhDEAA-TFiHABxpEMJla9u/Ahq/AwDAwIlFnpHIgTAQAAEgdWnBwRP6RP6RPa7cn/8n7cnlCAmhRA-w

-I am willing to go into Speedy Kits over Power Shoes. The main thing I didn’t like was using two traits for Speed/Vigor, but I’ve been trying just Energy Sigil alone and it seems to be somewhat sufficient.

-P/P is a dealbreaker for me. I know P/S is more effective, but I like the aesthetics of P/P as one of the main reasons I rolled an Engi. If that desire makes others suggest more defensive traits elsewhere, I’m fine with testing them.

-I have like 5 sets of Travelers on my other two 80s, and am trying to avoid them on toons that can get away without it. I have been running Antitoxin Runes, and think they are a decent setup here.

-Currently rolling Energy/Geomancy on swap. All of my toons are condition based, and I was never a huge fan of Geomancy as I always seem to be at a ranged distance when it procs. But I’ll try to give it a fair shake here.

-My two toughest decisions were:

EG vs Rocket Boots- I like the EG well enough and enjoy messing around with it. The lack of a stun breaker with RB equipped was a big deal for me too. Using EG also caused me to move towards the +range trait on EG/Pisols rather than the Pistol CD reduction. From reading other threads that just seems to be a personal preference thing.

-The final trait I debated between Short Fuse, Invigorating Speed, and Power Wrench. Will probably just dabble in all three and see how it works out.

i would recomend you to use shield over pistol . I am a huge fan of pistol pistol but i find it more effective with nades ( glueshot and nades synergies really well for me ) . Instead with bomb shield is unvaluable for the combo’s you can setup . (fire field, smoke field ..) . I’d use something like Vee Wee suggested to you but with a really important ( for me ) change : i would trade hair trigger for rifle barrels : having a longer range on pistol and eg, without nades for me is almost mandatory in wvw

Apoth isn’t too hot without elixir infused bombs. The only other thing that scales well with heal power is regen, which it does well, but not that big. There’s also backpack re generator which scales fairly mediocre. You’d probably be better off with more rabid or rabid+dire.

Rest of the stuff looks fine; Personally I would prefer Invigorating Speed over Prot Injection, since the later only works against power builds.