Guild Wars 2

Hello Engis,

I’m here because I’m looking for help with a build for spvp. I’ve found that my main of necromancer tends to be super weak against heavy melee teams, and I’m stubborn and don’t switch classes, but I’m thinking that is a mistake on my end. I’m not particularly great with most other classes, but I seem to do well with my engineer. So I’m posting for these questions…

1.) In your experience, is engineer OK against heavy melee teams (warrs/medi guards)
2.) Are 2-kit, condi p/s builds viable in upper tier soloQ? I don’t want to play turrets, but I’ve heard a lot about celestial rifle/knockback builds, too, so I’m wondering what is best.
3.) Not as much a question as much as a request, but if you’re willing, I’d love to see some other builds to see where my choices stand, or where I could improve.

Thanks for reading!

1. Depends a lot on build you’re using. Celestial tends to be better vs the usual war/medi guard due to the condi defenses those builds have, but a rabid condi build can be very effective against a war if you can disengage during Berserker’s Stance and re-engage afterwards. Medi Guard is a pretty bad matchup for condi engis though, especially if they’re using the variant with virtue of resolve traited to remove conditions.

2. Yes, they are. P/S, rabid builds with 2-3 kits are great in solo Q’s. Most take something similar to 6/0/0/6/2 with either nade/toolkit/x, bomb/toolkit/x, or nade/bomb/x. They’re great for 1v1s and 2v2s, especially on side nodes, but they kinda get countered by builds with high condition defense, and strong condi builds with better removal (that’s an engi as a whole weakness though). The celestial rifle build usually takes nades/toolkit/elixir s, and trades a lot of toughness for the ability to burst and deal with enemies that have high condition defense. You deal a lot of both direct and condition damage, but can die very fast if spiked, so you’ll need to be careful about using your block/invuln and getting out of fights when the pressure gets too high.

3. Besides the rabid p/s and celestial builds mentioned before (which actually have a lot of variants, and very different playstyles simply by choosing one kit or utility over another, for example nade/toolkit/elixir gun may seem similar to nade/bomb/elixir gun, but they play very differently), there are also p/p condition builds with more damage from conditions but less survivability, HGH builds that usually take 1 kit and 2 elixirs and rely on might stacking, static discharge builds for high range/burst damage, FT builds (usually use rifle and either 2 other kits or HGH + 2 elixirs) for funsies, the boring turret bunker builds you mentioned (or a fun build with 2 kits and 1 turret), non-turret bunker builds (that still suck vs condition/CC specs), and trolly decap specs (these still exist). Not all are useful in as many scenarios as the usual rabid p/s or celestial rifle builds, but if you understand the strengths and weaknesses of your spec and play well you can do a whole lot better than most people expect.

TL;DR: Lots of run-on sentences

To get a good idea of viable Engineer builds out there right now and how to play them, check out metabattle.com. Most of the builds that were mentioned are on that website along with the variations, and they are rated on how effective they are.

Shaogin.2679:

To get a good idea of viable Engineer builds out there right now and how to play them, check out metabattle.com. Most of the builds that were mentioned are on that website along with the variations, and they are rated on how effective they are.

I wouldn’t run the inventions variant on celestial rifle though.

Shaogin.2679:

To get a good idea of viable Engineer builds out there right now and how to play them, check out metabattle.com. Most of the builds that were mentioned are on that website along with the variations, and they are rated on how effective they are.

Hey I did check out metabattle, it was actually very helpful. Maybe I’m thinking of a different website, but it seems to have improved a lot? Either way, engineer had the most builds of any profession; maybe that’s why I felt the need to ask! Thanks all!

P/s rabid with Balthazar runes, geomancy/doom sigils with a spread of 6/2/0/4/2 is what I’ve been running with great success. I generally run toolkit/nades but will bomb/nades if I don’t need the extra defense of toolkit.