Guild Wars 2

I dont play an engineer, but im very interested in trying the class out for wvw. The issue im having is finding builds/threads about wvw zergs.

There is a lot of information on spvp, roaming and some on tower defense with grenades. A few months back a great video of diving into zergs using bombs.

So short of going months back through the thread could you help by sharing wvw zerg builds? Pros/cons

I don’t think that WvW has changed much as far as strategy goes. There’s a few builds I’ve run in zergs as an engi, and it is roughly the same as builds I run by myself.

The best zerg build is, IMO, the HGH or might stacking Grenadier. Load yourself up with things that stack might like the Superior Sigil of Battle, x2 Superior Runes of Altruism, Enhance Performance, HGH, and then follow it up with +might duration runes. By yourself you can load 25 stacks of might onto yourself, sustaining at around 20-25 stacks. This means you have anywhere from 700 to 875 extra power and malice on you.

With that much might, nearly any stat combination is beast. The best damage is probably rampager, but berserker is a close second. Personally I run a bizarre mix of rabid, carrion, and rampager to capitalize on the build’s ability to both a substantial amount of direct damage and condition damage, while being somewhat durable to boot. Those grenades at 1500 range hit hard, and your enemies can’t just tough them out and march forward. I’ve managed to hold back an entire zerg once just because I started spamming grenades on a bridge, and none of them wanted to run into the line of fire.

The biggest advantage is that this build works outside of zergs, too. an HGH grenadier is a force to be reckoned with, whether you are by yourself, in a small team, or in a large team. The biggest disadvantages are usually build specific: zerker or rampager die to ambush, shaman and soldier’s can’t finish the fight, and any mixture between the two ends up with a strange mixture of both being vulnerable to ambush and being unable to finish a fight. There is one universal disadvantage, and that is boon hate. Many classes can remove the might, however S/D thieves are especially deadly. If they steal your might (and likewise all of the other boons you are running), then the fight becomes nearly impossible to win.

For more organized zergs, there’s always the support build option. Engineers have access to water fields, light fields, fire fields, and a lot of blast finishers. This means that engineers have the option to apply a lot of AoE heals, might, and retaliation if need be. The build for this is slightly more complicated, and there is no real right way to do it, but one way would be the following

Weapons: Pistol/Shield
Utilities:
Healing Turret
Bomb Kit
Thumper Turret
Elixir Gun
Supply Crate

This gives you access to all 3 of those fields, and also gives you access to 6 blast finishers. That’s more than you need, since light fields are capped at 5 blast finishers. Then, you build for boon duration and whatever it is you want to do (tank? conditions? dirct damage?), and go for it. Then, when a field commander sends out the call to pull back, gather up, heal at the gate, build siege, or whatever, you just prep the blast finishers, drop down the respective field needed, and then explode them all to give players a bunch of boons.

The advantages to this build are that the mass buffs can really turn the tide in your favor. By firing off 5 blast finishers, you give everyone 15 stacks of might, or 15 x boon duration seconds or retaliation, or AoE healing for 8K to 10K damage. The disadvantages are a little more severe, however. If you have an uncooperative group, your buffs will mean little. If you don’t have a group at all, then the support engi is easy pickings. The build itself only offers minor offensive prowess on the field, having to result to the bomb kit for skirmishes. If you are willing to sacrifice a field or a blast finisher or two, it is possible to use other weapons, though. Utilities aren’t set in stone.

Ah, another thread has reminded me of the static discharge build. I tend to forget that those exist, mostly because I don’t like them that much. But anyway:

Static Discharge builds can be decent in zergs due to their bouncing attacks. Invest 15-20 points in tools to get Static Discharge and Inertial Converter, and then fill your utility bar with skills that have a low cooldown. Usually something along the lines of

Med Kit
Rifle Turret
Battering Ram/Utility Goggles
Tool Kit
Supply Crate

Or so, depending on what you want to use. Static Discharge builds are usually power builds (what with the 20% crit damage from tools), and make great use of the Rifle’s high control and mobility alongside of it’s decent auto attack range. I’d recommend getting Rifled Barrels from the firearms trait, so the Rifle’s auto attack will hit at 1200 range. Then, you can combine the control and the toolbelt skills to lay down surprisingly quick bursts of bouncing damage, as well as steady offensive damage.

Strengths of this build include its high mobility, high control, good utility, and chaining damage. It is one of the best ways to make a power build. Weaknesses are utility specific, but a big one I see is the lack of condition removal. Elixirs don’t do well in static discharge builds, and the selection of stun breakers is also somewhat low. You’ll end up having to constrain a static discharge build somehow, to accommodate for stuns and conditions. This includes things like going into various trees to get protection injection and stabilized armor, or using healing turret instead of med kit, or using Melandru Runes and Lemongrass Soup.

I sometimes run power / toughness (in traits) build with healing bombs and healing turret. It’s mostly good in guild zergs with ts. Armor – power + mixed toughness, vitality, healing power and condi damage. + Superior Sigil of Life in pistol or shield.

Not only guardians and elementalists can be healing machines.

Let me preface this by saying that in WvW you NEED survivability stats. Let me second that by saying Engineer also sucks with sentinel’s gear (Vit/tough/pow). The thing about WvW zergs is that if you die, everyone who tagged you and went down gets back up. So while your berzerker/rampager gear may see more bags, you’re doing the enemy zerg a huge favor by being squishy. Above all I’m in love with this new celestial gear, but that’s not immediately viable for most. Therefore you’ll probably want to go with Rabid or Carrion depending on your build. I would suggest Rabid as toughness is worth more bang for your buck and precision is extremely synergetic with engineers. With that being said lets get into specifics.

Flamethrower: Not really viable as a zerging main weapon. The 1 ability only hits 3 people and is bad. I can understand the 2-5 abilities being useful but in zergs you’re going to have guardian buffs giving you burn on hit and burn stacks duration not intensity. IMO the bomb kit can do everything this kit does but better (Bomb 2=FT4, Bomb4=FT5, Big Ol’ Bomb = FT3, bombs = FT 2)

Elixir Gun: No. Just no. The 5 ability is just going to get in the way of water field/blast finishers to give aoe heals. The 4 ability is alright, but while zerging you don’t want to be launching yourself away from the zerg, that’s a death sentence. The 3 ability’s condition wipe is the only viable thing about this for wvw.

Healing Turret: Always use this. Always. It effects your teammates and they can blast finish it. Plus you can big ol’ bomb>turret/overcharge>bomb explodes>[other blast finsihers]>explode turret for massive aoe heals.

With that being said there’s many viable builds out there. These are just the big tips I have.

My personal build:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcIQJAqelIq6d3zSiF1LJyoCdGoCAmIF5n+95hc1WQIA-j0xAoehQqCA9BM5XEN2qWR0YV1ER1qbMhAUMHA-w

Few things:
Low on health? Stand back with your healing turret up and nade.
In the zerg? Swap between using the 2-5 nades and 2-5 bombs to get the most for your money. Also make sure to shoot your pistol 2/3.
Don’t get caught up on the gear too much, use Rabid+engineer runes(or something similar) if you want a quick replacement to what I have.
Don’t like rocket boots? – Elixir S – I prefer rocket boots because of the blast finisher/shorter CD – I use elixir S typically to GTFO when I’m almost dead and rocket boots does that equally as well with a shorter CD. Elixir S def. has it’s uses in smaller areas though. Also only use rocket boots when you have swiftness (which you should always have because of speedy kits)
Try using backpack regenerator instead of protection injection, experiment.
Trying to get inside a tower/keep? – swap alchemy 1 for alchemy 4 and swap a kit so you have elixir s/rocket boots. That will give you 2 uses of elixir S and a huge leap forward.
DODGE – Dodging means you don’t die and rez them, it also means that attack got wasted. You have invigorating speed for a reason