Guild Wars 2

For 10 silver, add me in game, I’ll toss that to you tonight.

The second, Illusion Army, is based on buffing your illusions and letting them fight for you. It is strong in Dynamic Event leveling where the zerg tends to kill mobs faster than the Clone Bomb build can ramp up its damage. It also has strong single-target direct damage so you don’t have to worry about about the condition stack cap on DE boss fights.

Illusion Army

This leveling build is more direct-damage oriented and is based on taking all traits (and signet) that buff illusions and letting them fight for you. The idea is similar to the level 80 Phantasm PvE builds, but also viable from low levels since it depends only on Adept and Master traits.

In a nutshell, select Adept and Master traits that either 1) reduce illusion spawn cooldown, 2) buff illusion survivability (health), or 3) buff illusion damage.

Cooldown reduction and survivability traits take precedence over damage, b/c at lower levels your illusions tend to be squishy, and dead illusions do zero damage no matter how buffed their dmg may be. But otherwise feel free to play with the order of trait acquisition, this is just one suggestion:

Greatsword + Sword/Sword Version

15: 0/0/0/0/5
25: 0/10/0/0/5*
35: 0/10/0/10/5
40: 0/10/0/10/10**
50: 0/20/0/10/10
60: 10/20/0/10/10
70: 20/20/0/10/10
80: 20/20/0/10/20

Alternate Staff + Sword/Sword Version

60: 0/20/10/10/10
70: 0/20/20/10/10
80: 10/20/20/10/10

• At low levels it’s generally better to focus on reducing illusion spawning cooldowns than increasing illusion damage, at least prior to getting Deceptive Evasion, but feel free to experiment with using Phantasmal Fury here instead of Blade Training.

• 3% more damage per illusion applies to both player damage and illusion damage.

• Again, Sigil of Bloodlust in 2H weapons and Sigil of Bloodlust + Sigil of Force in 1H weapons as you level.

• If your illusions are dying faster than your weapon cooldowns can produce them, add one or both Phantasm utility skills. If not, feel free to use those two utility slots for something else you prefer, like condition removal and teleport.

Playstyle: The name of the game is to reduce cd on Illusion spawning from Greatsword (GS) or Staff and Sword/Sword (S/S) weapon sets as much as possible, as well as getting Clone-on-Dodge, then buffing the health and damage of the Illusions, particuarly the Phantasms, as much as possible.

Weapons: Initiate fights at range with GS or Staff, try to keep multiple Phantasms up, let them fight the mob while you kite and dps it from range. If it gets close, swap to S/S for melee range, burn it down with Blurred Frenzy (Sword #2), avoid damage with Illusionary Ripost (Sword #4).

Keep as many phantasms and clones up as possible, let them do all the fighting for you, and don’t Shatter them unless you’re about to die and they’re close enough to give you Diversion or Distortion and let you get away.

Alternately, use Sword/Focus. A fun trick with S/F is to start casting Focus’s Phantasmal Warden (#5), and while casting it, also cast Sword’s Clone (#3), which leaps out and cripples the target and holds it in place till the Focus Phantasm finishes casting.

Then use the #3 secondary cast to swap places with the clone and Blurred Frenzy while the Phantasmal Warden does Blurred Frenzy at the same time. Can do a lot of damage to single or packs of mobs with that combo.

This build is more offensive, less defensive than the one above, and may not be able to solo Champions and tough Veterans as well as the condition build, but is better at Dynamic Event farming and dungeon leveling.

First, don’t use a Level 80 build to level to 80. That may work for some classes, but not for mesmers. Many Mesmer level 80 builds (particularly Shatter builds) depend largely on Grandmaster traits you can’t get till level 60 at the earliest, which defeats the point of a leveling build. What you want is a leveling build that is effective with Adept and Master traits only.

The first, Clone Cripple Bomb, is based on ramping the damage of the bouncing Staff autoattack with boon stacking, and AoE CC and condition application when clones are killed or overwritten. It is strong for solo’ing lots of trash mobs, handling accidental overpulls (especially useful in caves and enclosed areas with fast-spawning mobs and nowhere to run if you accidentally pull too many at once). It is also very good at solo’ing Champion mobs (if you have the patience for epic 20-30m battles of attrition).

Clone Cripple Bomb

15: 0/0/0/0/5
25: 10/0/0/0/5
35: 10/0/10/0/5
40: 10/0/10/0/10
50: 10/0/10/0/20
60: 10/0/20/0/20
70: 10/10/20/0/20
80: 10/20/20/0/20

Use Sigil of Bloodlust in 2H weapons and Sigil of Bloodlust + Sigil of Force in 1H weapons as you level. (Staff #1 does strong direct damage once you’ve built up Fury and a few stacks of Might).

Playstyle: Keep as many clones up as possible, fill in the gaps with phantasms. When clones are are killed by mobs or overwritten by other clones/phantasms, they explode and apply Cripple and another random condition to all nearby mobs. Keep Cripple on the mobs as much as possible, and kite them while Staff #1 and the other conditions kill them.

Stack conditions and boons with bouncing Staff #1 autoattack, #4 Chaos Armor, and #5 Chaos Storm. Casting #2 Phase Retreat inside Chaos Storm is a combo finisher that gives you a second Chaos Armor.

Don’t Shatter – Shatter does not apply Cripple or the random condition. Only shatter if you’re about to die and need Distortion (F4) or Diversion (F3) to escape.

Primary Weapon: Staff. Most importantly, your Staff #1 autoattack will stack Fury and Might on you, and Chaos Armor and Chaos Storm will stack other random boons on you, increasing the damage of everything else you’re doing. Damage starts low, but ramps up quickly as boons stack on you.

Counterintuitively, despite its 1200 range, Staff is a close-quarters weapon. The closer you are to your target/s the faster the Staff #1 attack will bounce, so the faster the boons and conditions build on you and the target. Between Staff #1, #4 Chaos Armor, and #5 Chaos Storm the range of defensive boons and conditions that go up make you nearly invincible – Aegis, Blind, Protection, Weakness, Regeneration, Confusion, Swiftness, Cripple, Poison, Chilled, Daze.

Secondary Weapon: Secondary and any healing/utility/elite skills I didn’t specify are up to you. I usually went with Greatsword (GS) b/c its Phantasm does Cripple + more AoE damage, but Sword/Sword (lowest illusion cd of all options), Scepter (with its clone factory autoattack), Focus (runspeed), Pistol (strong ranged dps phantasm) are all interesting as well. Torch gives you an instant stealth to get out of trouble, but its phantasm is a little weak prior to 80 with full condition damage gear.

You can singlehandedly take out groups of mobs, handle accidental overpulls, and even solo non-ranged Champion mobs by Cripple-kiting them.

Gear: Focus on Power. Prior to 60, any combination of Power/Prec, Power/Toughness, Power/Vitality 2-stat gear. At 60, upgrade to 3-stat gear: Power/Vitality/Toughness, Power/Prec/Toughness. Despite all the conditions, much of the damage comes from Staff #1’s’ direct damage component, so Power gear works well for this.

Weaknesses: The one thing this build is weak at, at any level, is in zergs. Like big DE’s or WvW zergs. Things either die before you can ramp up your boons and damage, or the boss will quickly reach the condition stack cap.

When someone applies a 26th stack of that condition, the oldest stack is removed to make way for the new one. This happens so fast and frequently in a zerg that your conditions sometimes don’t run their full duration before being replaced, hurting your dps.

So just keep in mind if you want to level via big DE’s with zergs, and have a hard time tagging mobs and getting drops with this build, you may need a more direct-damage oriented build, similar to the next one below. However, given that most players are now 80 and the lower pre-80 leveling zones are sparsely populated, a strong solo build is optimal.

If you want something PvE focused I’d give mine a go. It carries all the flexibility that an engineer should have. It also relies on an understanding of how important it is to change your utilities from fight to fight and from group to group as an engineer. Let me know if you have any questions at all. The build is thorough and I use it at fractal 40+. I have Elixer R selected in the build but I typically run Elixer U in its place for the standard. Like i said, it does change very frequently though.

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/engineer/?2.0|4.1g.h1h|0.0.0.0.0.0|1g.77.1g.77.1g.79.1g.79.1g.7d.1g.7d|1g.67.1g.67.1g.67.1g.67.1g.67.1g.67|0.0.u58b.u28b.a4|39.7|2b.2e.2g.2i.2y|e

Rezzet.3614:

Crunkmagnet.3908:

Rezzet.3614:

Phineas Poe.3018:

Rezzet.3614:

our only viable build so far is x/30/x/30/x x= optional

Are you suggesting that Grenadier is not a viable build? Or that Elixir-Infused Bombs is not a viable bunker spec in PvP?

you must be fighting disabled or AFK people if you can down them with nades in face to face combat.

Grenadier is Conditional mainly for lobbing nades down walls wich might get you killed if a mesmer pulls you or Static discharge build wich is still Conditional as you’re 90% likely required to immobilize the oblivion out of your enemy before barraging them.

as for why it lacks viability because in wvw you ll 70% of the time be attacked by multiple targets nades are focused on a single spot.

now bombs sure are nice on a bunker build but someone who knows what a bomb is and Kites will simply shrug away your build and obliterate you with condition damage wich ignores armor,best part they wont even need to do it from your bomb range again making the said build useless.

You’re speaking in ideals.

whats that supposed to mean?

Idealy you’d never get hit by grenades or bombs. That’s not realistic.

Rezzet.3614:

Phineas Poe.3018:

Rezzet.3614:

our only viable build so far is x/30/x/30/x x= optional

Are you suggesting that Grenadier is not a viable build? Or that Elixir-Infused Bombs is not a viable bunker spec in PvP?

you must be fighting disabled or AFK people if you can down them with nades in face to face combat.

Grenadier is Conditional mainly for lobbing nades down walls wich might get you killed if a mesmer pulls you or Static discharge build wich is still Conditional as you’re 90% likely required to immobilize the oblivion out of your enemy before barraging them.

as for why it lacks viability because in wvw you ll 70% of the time be attacked by multiple targets nades are focused on a single spot.

now bombs sure are nice on a bunker build but someone who knows what a bomb is and Kites will simply shrug away your build and obliterate you with condition damage wich ignores armor,best part they wont even need to do it from your bomb range again making the said build useless.

You’re speaking in ideals.

Skewjo.9243:

I’ve seen my harpoon gun #2 have a cd of 4 seconds and hit for 11k. Is this real life?
I remember doing this recently, but sometimes I have a 12 second cooldown and sometimes a 4. Either way, if you can get a 4 second cd on an attack that hits for min 6k to max 11k. I think it would be worth switching out of grenade kit for a moment :P

Also what is the complaint with the harpoon gun? I like it quite a bit in the ways of style, damage, and control. jus’ sayin

In PvE it functions fine. everything is to easy to avoid in PvP though.

Just look at the traits, see which ones you may like to build around, make sure they work, look for more traits with synergy, gear accordingly. Engineer is very flexible, you’re play style is going to have a bigger effect on the spec you should play.

The only thing I wouldn’t recommend is turrets because of the large number of wasted stats that go along with using them. Turrets can’t crit so taking them as a utility eliminates the need for crit chance/damage in favor of tanky/support builds.

Rampager is definitely useful, not what I’d go for in a solo setting though. Same for berserk. =P

Turrets*

FTFY

I plan to.

I may be starting up a podcast with SOAC (interview pending) and this will be a good way to get some attention on it. =P

If any of you would like I can add you in game and we can make it a joint effort. Obviously, credit would go to the man with the plan for each part. The podcast would also want guests and this would be a good opportunity for players that have ideas and are successful to reach out to the community.

I’ll see what I can do.

Keep in mind that 25 stacks of might is still only considered 1 boon.

So, do we just want to see bosses or what?

Challenge accepted.

Advent Leader.1083:

No, I meant how are general traits considered in the damage formula? Do they have a specific priority, with regards to each other?

Can you provide me an example? I don’t think I understand what you want to know.

Kamahl.3621:

Crunkmagnet.3908:

1 – When underwater the grenade kit will take the highest damage from ANY of your equipped weapons. Rifle/Pistol/Offhand included.

Wrong, go check. Take off your harpoon gun underwater, watch as your damage drops. Sigil & bonus stats are fairly prominent. Then take off your rifle, and watch how the damage stays the exact same.

I’ll double check it. I may have misinterpreted that last patch that effected grenades.

Advent Leader.1083:

Part of the discussion goes to trait interaction. Can anyone confirm how trait bonuses are applied in the damage calculation formula?

Once the trait is functional this will be easy to figure out. Trait interaction can not currently be taken into consideration as the trait, even with no variables, does not work properly.

Grenix.1576:

So Scope doesnt add 10% crit chance at all? It adds a bonus of 10% from your current crit chance? Would make some sort of sense why it will never be 100% crit chance.
10% bonus of 90% crit chance is 9% so 99% crit chance.. Kind of confusing, badly epxlained trait. Also kinda useless in most situations, but still would be good if they could make this work. Maybe give a buff scope when standing still, and showing it in the UI bar would be good!

They really need to just scrap the trait entirely. I believe I had some luck when I did my testing and RNG gave the illusion of a working trait. It does not appear to be working after further tests. If they want something like scope they should look into something like the Demon Hunter’s SharpShoot passive from diablo 3.

Vargaz.1957:

killshot should’ve been engies not warriors. wtf are warriors doing at 1500 range?!? prolly the metrosexual kind with UGG boots and a backpack that can only fit an iPhone….

Killshot REALLY doesn’t fit the engi style… We’re combat engineers, not snipers.

Kamahl.3621:

2 things.

1 – a harpoon gun does impact your damage. Stats from your harpoon gun, as well as sigil, carry over to your grenade kit.

2 – The 2, 4, and 5 skill on harpoon gun are simply amazing. If you’re not using these underwater, you’re a bad engineer. Pop ’em, then go back to grenade or bomb kit.

1 – When underwater the grenade kit will take the highest damage from ANY of your equipped weapons. Rifle/Pistol/Offhand included.

2 – Most engineers understand there are advantages to swapping temporarily to gain a little more damage/utility. I assumed I wouldn’t need to state this. Also, I’d be careful that you don’t lose to many grenade attacks by doing that swap. You don’t want to give up numerous stacks of vulnerability/bleed that add up to a significant amount of damage.

emikochan.8504:

Crunkmagnet.3908:

Grenades > Harpoon gun makes this almost irreverent. So much so that I refuse to even spend my money on a harpoon gun because of the fact that it has no effect on grenade damage.

I’ve not really tried grenades underwater (or at all tbh), are they better even if you aren’t grenade spec?

I would say yes just due to the utility they provide. I’ve never compared the damage without grenade spec though.

As an engineer, I find this to be a buff.

StarNightz.8496:

Shouldnt engineers have skill like snipe? Like you do more damage if a person holds that skill longer? Like in one of the human heart quest u get to train with soldiers and one of them is rifle training and u get to hold ur shot until release. Do you guys think this is good idea for enginners? Plz share your opinions with me

I can’t say I agree. Engineers are based around combat engineering. This seems like it would go against that idea to me.

Grenades > Harpoon gun makes this almost irreverent. So much so that I refuse to even spend my money on a harpoon gun because of the fact that it has no effect on grenade damage.

Eviator.9746:

AsmallChicken.9634:

I wasn’t paying attention to the exact statistics when using Aim for the Weak with 89% crit chance (99% when the trait activates) as I was just looking to see if Scope would push me up to 100% (which it didn’t).

When I bumped my crit to 90%, Aim for the Weak and shooting at a >50% golem a couple hundred times, I definitely got all crits. So I can safely say Aim for the Weak is working as intended. Scope is however not.

Thanks for the clarification. That does seem like the optimal test as it dispells experimental bias concerning the difference between Scope being additive and multiplicative.

I can agree with that and after testing this my self it looks like there are two possibilities. The most likely being that scope does not function properly. The next possibility being that something causes a trait to function improperly beyond 100% crit. Any thoughts on how we can test this? I’m not at home right now so I don’t have access to my computer.

Blacky Sheaperd.8690:

ok. so you know what we do?

we make 30 different “FIX SCOPE” threads in the engi forum, plaster the front page with them.

If that doesn’t get Anets attention to how much the engi community wants this useless trait fixed, nothing will.

Seriously, this is one of the worst cases of developers ignoring glaring development issues i have ever seen in a game.

if they still refuse to listen to the community, just say kitten it and uninstall the game.

this is a matter of principle people!

I’d call it a matter of priority more than principal. The game had and has bigger problems than the Scope trait.

Kalan.9705:

Most of the ‘protect the poor delicate devs’ fan boys only hold that ego stroking leet pose until the first patch comes that hits their own build, then they generally disappear never to be heard from again, possibly with a big flouncy tantrum before they go.

Nice, inaccurate, generalization there, bud. Applying common sense to game mechanics/changes and adjusting to a changing game doesn’t make somebody a fan-boy. It makes them adaptable and that is a strong trait for anybody to have.

Nilix.2170:

Gizmoitus.7241:

Stop using it as a get out of jail free heal.

What of the Self-Regulating Defenses users who now have to deal with being put in a 3 second condition damage prison when their life falls under 25%?

Adjust with more HP or drop the trait. Conditions beat toughness but HP beats conditions. 25% of 15000 vs 25% of 18000 is still almost 1k difference in hp. It may not be a large difference but it can be that small amount that lets you slip away.

Chaba.5410:

As much as it hurts, I would suggest not using points in the precision trait line to bump up critical. The reason is because the bug could possibly be caused by a bad interaction between traits. For example, other NERF members have found weird behavior with rifle weapon skills when using Rifled Barrels versus when not. There is the minor trait Target the Weak which is also supposed to bump up the critical chance, making tests against the golems in the mists a bit difficult to pull off when the golem goes under 50% health.

I fully agree. Thanks for the input! I will say that I run 10 in Firearms(percision tree) though. There are way to many uses there for just 10 points. Also, the synergy of the stats gained in any crit based build are very strong.

Bas.7406:

Crunkmagnet.3908:

I’m waiting to hear back from you. =)

Check your email mate. I sent it a few times I will pm you our reply here as well. I appreciate your persistence.

Just got the e-mail. I’ll shoot ya a response ASAP. Thanks!

I’m waiting to hear back from you. =)

Ha, I’m glad to see somebody that thinks so much like myself. May I add you to my in game friends? I enjoy playing with positive players. =P

Kamahl.3621:

530 hits performed, 273 critical hits. 51.5% resultant with a 50% chance.Not testing any more, tired of it. Scope doesn’t work. Most of my gear taken off in HotM (since it had eagle runes), 1 point put into firearms so I’d hit 50%.

Basically the same problem I ran into. that’s only 3.5% off of what it should be and could be cause by RNG just like my 1% was. We really need a larger number of people to test using the same method. If RNG swings low (we would be examples) there would be high swings as well(over 55%).

The other thought I had that may be a possibility and would make ours accurate is that the base 4% crit chance may not be increased. That would look more like:

46% + 4.6% = 50.6% + 4%(the base) comes out to 54.6%

I feel this is very unlikely but it would mean that i was only .6% low on my test.

EDIT: I’m ignoring the possibility of the trait functioning differently in a PvP “environment.”

AsmallChicken.9634:

Crunkmagnet.3908:

AsmallChicken.9634:

Crunkmagnet.3908:

From the tests I just ran it appears to be working but is poorly worded.

It doesn’t ADD 10% to your crit chance.

Fury: 20% critical hit chance INCREASE. Stacks in duration.

Scope: GAIN 10% [more] critical hit chance while standing still.

My test was run without fury at a crit chance of 50%. After activating scope in traits and standing still and running 10 tests of 100 attacks each my average came out to be 54%. Assuming there is a margin of error for RNG, this would be accurate.

If I have fury(i did not) and it applies before the boon you would have ~75% with fury. If it applies after the boon you would have about ~77%. 2% difference is to small to test for due the the margin of error created by RNG.

People have gotten their crit rate to 91% without scope. They put on Scope and regardless of how it is worded you would expect a 100% crit rate. But nope there still is a significant no crit chance.

91% without scope and WITH fury. I stated that my test was run without it. That would result in 71% crit chance. Assuming scope applies before fury that would put you at a 98.1% crit chance. Please take the entirety of the post into consideration before responding.

EDIT: Math error.

71% + 7.1% = 78.1%
78.1% + 20% = 98.1%

The fire arms minor trait target the weak would put you over 100% crit when the targets under 50% if scope worked even with the way you think it works.

I just tested it and I was still getting non crits when the target was under 50% health with 89% crit rate. Scope does not work period.

Edit: Do you have 25 points in Firearms? Maybe thats why you are seeing higher numbers than expected since you gain 10% crit when the mobs at half health.

I only run 10 in Firearms.

nakoda.4213:

the main point is that the mobs dont move and neither do you, and you can use weapons with flat damage so you can even test your damage numbers while you are at it.

two birds; one stone.

god i hate being ignorant.

Again… was not a damage test… The fact that something may be moving also does not change your crit chance in any way… If I’m standing still, I’m not moving…

Lord Aargadon.4135:

Crunkmagnet.3908:

Lord Aargadon.4135:

You should be testing and posting results in both, and maybe even WvW, just make sure you’re fighting mobs of same level for the PvE portion.

Is there any point to this thread besides bashing Karl, as we already know Scope is broken.

Because WvW is a pvp environment I highly doubt any player is going to be still enough to ever make use of scope, I’m not going to bother testing there for that reason.

I still don’t see why people believe that this test would need to be run in the mists. A test of critical hit chance is not a test of damage(even though they are related to each other). If necessary I can describe the way I run my test but, again, it really isn’t an important part for purpose of testing crit chance. As long as I have 50% crit chance where I was testing, which I did, the rest of the work is accurate.

The point is traits do not always function the same between Pvp Pve and WvW, and you do realize there are other players that you can party with on other servers to test and lvl 80 mobs in WvW?

I’m going to make this as clear as possible… Scope in ANY PvP environment is a terrible trait (and it’s really not good in PvE either). I am not (in any fashion) concerned with how the trait may or may not function in sPvP or WvW for that reason. I am not a play tester, I enjoy playing my games. I thought I was giving something to the community by testing this while actually playing the game and enjoying myself. So far all I’ve received is trash dumping out of peoples mouths that lack the ability to think for themselves(if at all). I’ve provided PvE related information and a way to test this trait. Use YOUR OWN BRAIN to go wherever you please and replicate the test yourself so that you can get a better understanding of what YOU want to know about the trait.

Lord Aargadon.4135:

You should be testing and posting results in both, and maybe even WvW, just make sure you’re fighting mobs of same level for the PvE portion.

Is there any point to this thread besides bashing Karl, as we already know Scope is broken.

Because WvW is a pvp environment I highly doubt any player is going to be still enough to ever make use of scope, I’m not going to bother testing there for that reason.

I still don’t see why people believe that this test would need to be run in the mists. A test of critical hit chance is not a test of damage(even though they are related to each other). If necessary I can describe the way I run my test but, again, it really isn’t an important part for purpose of testing crit chance. As long as I have 50% crit chance where I was testing, which I did, the rest of the work is accurate.

NevirSayDie.6235:

Crunkmagnet.3908:

NevirSayDie.6235:

Crunkmagnet.3908:

From the tests I just ran it appears to be working but is poorly worded.

It doesn’t ADD 10% to your crit chance.

Fury: 20% critical hit chance INCREASE. Stacks in duration.

Scope: GAIN 10% [more] critical hit chance while standing still.

My test was run without fury at a crit chance of 50%. After activating scope in traits and standing still and running 10 tests of 100 attacks each my average came out to be 54%. Assuming there is a margin of error for RNG, this would be accurate.

If I have fury(i did not) and it applies before the boon you would have ~75% with fury. If it applies after the boon you would have about ~77%. 2% difference is to small to test for due the the margin of error created by RNG.

4% is still a pretty tight margin. I’d recommend taking all precision and bumping your base crit chance up to about 70%. Then run tests and see if the total is closer to 70% or 77%. Thanks for testing, though—as you can see I don’t have the patience for it.

A agree that it is tight. I’m short on gold at the moment though so the testing I can do is limited.

Heart of the mists?

My testing was done on PvE mobs. If I can farm while I test why not do it? =P

NevirSayDie.6235:

Crunkmagnet.3908:

From the tests I just ran it appears to be working but is poorly worded.

It doesn’t ADD 10% to your crit chance.

Fury: 20% critical hit chance INCREASE. Stacks in duration.

Scope: GAIN 10% [more] critical hit chance while standing still.

My test was run without fury at a crit chance of 50%. After activating scope in traits and standing still and running 10 tests of 100 attacks each my average came out to be 54%. Assuming there is a margin of error for RNG, this would be accurate.

If I have fury(i did not) and it applies before the boon you would have ~75% with fury. If it applies after the boon you would have about ~77%. 2% difference is to small to test for due the the margin of error created by RNG.

4% is still a pretty tight margin. I’d recommend taking all precision and bumping your base crit chance up to about 70%. Then run tests and see if the total is closer to 70% or 77%. Thanks for testing, though—as you can see I don’t have the patience for it.

A agree that it is tight. I’m short on gold at the moment though so the testing I can do is limited.

AsmallChicken.9634:

Crunkmagnet.3908:

From the tests I just ran it appears to be working but is poorly worded.

It doesn’t ADD 10% to your crit chance.

Fury: 20% critical hit chance INCREASE. Stacks in duration.

Scope: GAIN 10% [more] critical hit chance while standing still.

My test was run without fury at a crit chance of 50%. After activating scope in traits and standing still and running 10 tests of 100 attacks each my average came out to be 54%. Assuming there is a margin of error for RNG, this would be accurate.

If I have fury(i did not) and it applies before the boon you would have ~75% with fury. If it applies after the boon you would have about ~77%. 2% difference is to small to test for due the the margin of error created by RNG.

People have gotten their crit rate to 91% without scope. They put on Scope and regardless of how it is worded you would expect a 100% crit rate. But nope there still is a significant no crit chance.

91% without scope and WITH fury. I stated that my test was run without it. That would result in 71% crit chance. Assuming scope applies before fury that would put you at a 98.1% crit chance. Please take the entirety of the post into consideration before responding.

EDIT: Math error.

71% + 7.1% = 78.1%
78.1% + 20% = 98.1%

From the tests I just ran it appears to be working but is poorly worded.

It doesn’t ADD 10% to your crit chance.

Fury: 20% critical hit chance INCREASE. Stacks in duration.

Scope: GAIN 10% [more] critical hit chance while standing still.

My test was run without fury at a crit chance of 50%. After activating scope in traits and standing still and running 10 tests of 100 attacks each my average came out to be 54%. Assuming there is a margin of error for RNG, this would be accurate.

If I have fury(i did not) and it applies before the boon you would have ~75% with fury. If it applies after the boon you would have about ~77%. 2% difference is to small to test for due the the margin of error created by RNG.

I don’t run that gear set often enough to know off the top of my head. I want to say its ~300/bomb give or take a little depending on how much more damage i wanna do. Keep in mind that’s at least 2 bombs per second.

Kimbald.2697:

SilverWF.4789:

Kimbald.2697:

As much as I dislike the nerf to Kit refinemnt, let’s not forget this patch was mostly buffs to kits.
And a few fixes we waited for…

The sky isn’t falling.
It’s just that the devs changed their minds about engineers again it seems.
Versatility? Many kits? Instant kit swapping? One kit? Wait on kit refinement internal cooldown before swapping?
Make up your minds already

Yup, sure, they are ruined Flamethrower for the WvW/PvE, but it’s OK for the sPvPer – they didn’t see anything around.

How did they nerf FT for WvW?
Aside the Kit refinement mess, I don’t see anything about the FT that is now worse in WvW…
I can agree that it’s maybe not good enough yet, but surely it didn’t get worse than before, let alone ‘ruined’?

I hardly play spvp and I’m basically in WvW most of my playing time. What changes am I missing here?
(again, aside Kit refinement which I hate as a change).

He is probably talking about the nerf to Omnomberry Pie/Ghost.

If you want to tank/support here is my tanking build.

Make sure you go to the link as this is where most of the info will be found.

I find tank build’s are still not needed but I run this from time to time in pugs as it opens up a little more room for error. The 10 in Fire Arms traits could be moved to another 10 in Tools but I find my self using bombs the majority of the time. Don’t forget that you have a fair amount of utility when using just your pistol/shield as well as a blast finisher.

Skills used: Med Kit/Bomb Kit/Elixer Gun/Elixer R/Supply Crate

Med Kit: If you do not run med kit then you WILL need to use different runes and different food. The primary purpose of this kit is condition removal via food, fury via runes, and fury via medkit5. Most of your healing is from your tool belt skill in addition to EG tool belt regen.

Elixer Gun: If you can not manage the internal cool down on Kit Refinement you WILL want to drop this skill and the trait points placed in tools in place of something else that suits your play style better. In this situation you would also want to replace some of the Clerics gear with Knights gear. I would recommend a lot of practice with EG as the heal and condition removal are very strong. There is a blast finisher here but keep in mind that using it takes you out of melee meaning you are no longer healing your melee so you may need to adjust with super elixer(s).

Bomb Kit: Decent damage + healing + combo fields +CC. This also brings stealth to your party via blast finisher + smoke bomb. Don’t use Big Ol’ Bomb if its going to mess up your groups AoE on trash.

Elixer R: This slot is the most subject to change but I find being able to to toss this to rez and controlling mobs while it gets them up is very strong and allows you to maintain some damage. Another option would be Elixer U for the super speed in conjunction with stealth for a speedy rez.

Supply Crate: Place it where the heals are more accessible/needed. Its more important than the stun considering you could just immobilize or knock back or both with bombs. Don’t forget that it is also a blast finisher though.

Game Play: Dodge liberally for damage reduction + damage + heals. You have perma-vigor AND Elixer R. Bombs do not HAVE to be dropped as damage and can serve the purpose of just healing things(although I wouldn’t recommend it). I carry a second pistol to build up bloodlust stacks as well although this is not shown in the link.

Again, I almost never run this build unless the pug I’m with is just rough. It sounds like it is what you are looking for though.

This build does work well while leveling. The order you take traits in are just personal preference really. Bombs and weapons are flexible while leveling as well. I’d recommend trying everything out.

Enjoy,

-Crunkmagnet

It’s not written very well. I would suggest seeking bug fixes before being concerned with our elites not being good enough.

If you want to tank here is my tanking build.

I find tank build’s are still not needed but I run this from time to time in pugs as it opens up a little more room for error. The 10 in Fire Arms traits could be moved to another 10 in Tools but I find my self using bombs the majority of the time. Don’t forget that you have a fair amount of utility when using just your pistol/shield as well as a blast finisher.

Skills used: Med Kit/Bomb Kit/Elixer Gun/Elixer R/Supply Crate

Med Kit: If you do not run med kit then you WILL need to use different runes and different food. The primary purpose of this kit is condition removal via food, fury via runes, and fury via medkit5. Most of your healing is from your tool belt skill in addition to EG tool belt regen.

Elixer Gun: If you can not manage the internal cool down on Kit Refinement you WILL want to drop this skill and the trait points placed in tools in place of something else that suits your play style better. In this situation you would also want to replace some of the Clerics gear with Knights gear. I would recommend a lot of practice with EG as the heal and condition removal are very strong. There is a blast finisher here but keep in mind that using it takes you out of melee meaning you are no longer healing your melee so you may need to adjust with super elixer(s).

Bomb Kit: Decent damage + healing + combo fields +CC. This also brings stealth to your party via blast finisher + smoke bomb. Don’t use Big Ol’ Bomb if its going to mess up your groups AoE on trash.

Elixer R: This slot is the most subject to change but I find being able to to toss this to rez and controlling mobs while it gets them up is very strong and allows you to maintain some damage. Another option would be Elixer U for the super speed in conjunction with stealth for a speedy rez.

Supply Crate: Place it where the heals are more accessible/needed. Its more important than the stun considering you could just immobilize or knock back or both with bombs. Don’t forget that it is also a blast finisher though.

Game Play: Dodge liberally for damage reduction + damage + heals. You have perma-vigor AND Elixer R. Bombs do not HAVE to be dropped as damage and can serve the purpose of just healing things(although I wouldn’t recommend it). I carry a second pistol to build up bloodlust stacks as well although this is not shown in the link.

Again, I almost never run this build unless the pug I’m with is just rough. It sounds like it is what you are looking for though.

This build does work well while leveling. The order you take traits in are just personal preference really. Bombs and weapons are flexible while leveling as well. I’d recommend trying everything out.

Enjoy,

-Crunkmagnet

Ferum Flamebender.5910:

You might want to use the tankCAT build. Just give it a search in the forums.

I’m fairly certain the tankcat build is PvP oriented and much less effective in PvE.

If you want to tank here is my tanking build.

I find tank build’s are still not needed but I run this from time to time in pugs as it opens up a little more room for error. The 10 in Fire Arms traits could be moved to another 10 in Tools but I find my self using bombs the majority of the time. Don’t forget that you have a fair amount of utility when using just your pistol/shield as well as a blast finisher.

Skills used: Med Kit/Bomb Kit/Elixer Gun/Elixer R/Supply Crate

Med Kit: If you do not run med kit then you WILL need to use different runes and different food. The primary purpose of this kit is condition removal via food, fury via runes, and fury via medkit5. Most of your healing is from your tool belt skill in addition to EG tool belt regen.

Elixer Gun: If you can not manage the internal cool down on Kit Refinement you WILL want to drop this skill and the trait points placed in tools in place of something else that suits your play style better. In this situation you would also want to replace some of the Clerics gear with Knights gear. I would recommend a lot of practice with EG as the heal and condition removal are very strong. There is a blast finisher here but keep in mind that using it takes you out of melee meaning you are no longer healing your melee so you may need to adjust with super elixer(s).

Bomb Kit: Decent damage + healing + combo fields +CC. This also brings stealth to your party via blast finisher + smoke bomb. Don’t use Big Ol’ Bomb if its going to mess up your groups AoE on trash.

Elixer R: This slot is the most subject to change but I find being able to to toss this to rez and controlling mobs while it gets them up is very strong and allows you to maintain some damage. Another option would be Elixer U for the super speed in conjunction with stealth for a speedy rez.

Supply Crate: Place it where the heals are more accessible/needed. Its more important than the stun considering you could just immobilize or knock back or both with bombs. Don’t forget that it is also a blast finisher though.

Game Play: Dodge liberally for damage reduction + damage + heals. You have perma-vigor AND Elixer R. Bombs do not HAVE to be dropped as damage and can serve the purpose of just healing things(although I wouldn’t recommend it). I carry a second pistol to build up bloodlust stacks as well although this is not shown in the link.

Again, I almost never run this build unless the pug I’m with is just rough. It sounds like it is what you are looking for though.

Enjoy,

-Crunkmagnet