Guild Wars 2

As Toolbox is saying speced they are great… unspeced they are going to be nothing more then a bit of utility.

There are interesting ways to spec them that are not really obvious. Of course there are the a handful of grandamaster traits… and the stuff in inventions.

My favorite way to use them though is to take Accel Packed Turrets + throw turret. I have no intention of leaving them out to do dmg. I use them as thrown knockbacks / blast finishers. If it wasn’t for out tool belt I wouldn’t bother. Most of the turrets though have nice tool belt skills. (rifle is instant cast burst… flame is a fire combo field… thumper is a blast as well as a stun break… rocket turret tool belt is high dmg.) I love the flame turret for its general utility speced like that… I can toss it and activate the aoe blind… and then detonate for a knockback interupt… + gives me a fire field with out having to use bomb kit, and the turret can help me stealth if needed. Its a great utility turret I find.

The new reflect trait can also be a great option…. if you roll the deployment of 2-3 turrets you can stand in a reflect field for a good amount of the time.

I know it took me a long time to find any love for them. I am still not a fan of dropping things and bunkering down… I can’t stand any of our other heals anymore, I’m attached to the heal turret and its water field. You can also use the flame turret to gain stealth which when you manage to pull it off at just the right time, is an engi high.

What I like to do is run Celestrial jewelry. I have been running a Celestrial back piece + rings + amulet.

I keep 3 or 4 different exotic trinkets and exotic armor sets and just swap them out for different builds. (so 4 ascended peices… with the 2 trinkets / armor / weapons changing depending on the build)

I decided I wasn’t going to bother trying to craft ascended gear for my engi. I love to many different builds and I am not crafting 20 sets. (Guess I might craft some weapons soon though) I don’t ever feel like I’m out classed in anyway running that way. That way I can swap out between power / condi / and super tank armour and change the 2 trinkets. I have found it gives me just enough of the little things to be nice to have off the ascended laural am / rings.

Its been awhile since I leveled… I would assume a rifle would be the best weapon to use while leveling. It gives you more over all dmg, no need to wait for condi to rack up. It also gives you the net shot CC. If your new notice net shot has no cast time. That means it doesn’t eat a firing cycle. So you can net shot at any time and keep firing away for dmg. If I remember when I leveled I used a rifle turret for a long time, the tool belt skill surprise shot is also a zero cast time skill. That means you can engage a critter… and burst them pretty well for a low level toon, with surprise shot / net shot to CC and hold them for the last few hits. Blunderbuss and jump shot at point blank range anything that manages to get close enough. (Rifle 4 is also an interupt… so if you pull a vet or something after your opening rotation wait for its attack animation and use 4… to interupt it and if your net is back up you can rinse and repeat until its dead)

As others have said later… Pistol is the engi condi weapon… you see pistol / shield on most engis in both PvP and PvE. With kits doing most of the dmg work. You won’t find as many people using rifle…. mostly its a power weapon. It can however make a good surprise burst weapon (even on a condi build)… Sometimes when running a typical condi heavy WvW build I will load a Rifle with a sigils of intelligence and doom on it. If you find your self in a 1v1 it makes a great surprise super burst… switch out of your kit procing the Intel sigils and jumpshot / blunderbuss on top of someones head. Even with heavy condi gear on it can rack up some heavy dmg.

I use the heal turret in pretty much every build. I only really leave it out if I am bunkering.
If I am roaming around solo or with a small group… I’ll drop it overcharge it to activate the field and condi removal… and then detonate it while the field is still up for some more healing. The detonation will combo field the turrets own water field.

We have a water field from heal turret. I like it light myself. Fits the jack of all trades feel of the engi imo. Light fields are still the main stay of the guard. Elixir 5 works well giving us a little cross over. I really love that about my engi. I can change around a few skills and throw out almost any field somehow. I think Dark air and ether are the only fields we really can’t work into our builds.

I have been playing around with a elixix gun / fort turret build.
Its far from idea for might stacking. Been semi useful in wvw… haven’t played it long enough to say really one way or the other if its great. Did work well in a few smallish zerg style fights last night. Running rifle/fire/heal turrets… and then spread there drop out close to the front of the zerg. Dropping the light field in between and blasting it myself… and sure a few other people likely blased it as well. (no one complained) we seemed to roll over a few zergs that clearly had the numbers. Not saying the build turned the tide or something… had a good group. Still seemed to be a viable option for front line zerging.

I have no sympathy for people that get undercut.

Work the market properly and sell your drops properly and you will never have an issue.

I under cut all the time… I don’t often do it by 1c… I do it by 10-20c on small stuff I’m worried might get undercut… and go up for larger. Point is leave a gap and your stuff will move.

When I do undercut by 1c… its because I KNOW the product will move. The odd time I remove something that sat there for a day and relist. Its really not an issue.

From the release notes.
“Grandmaster trait tier will now unlock at level 80.”

Really don’t think you can earn that one till you hit level 80.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fdAQFAUlUUpmqdZxkLseNCbBNy4EEQmiS85IEgWD-T1BFABIp8DhHAAJ7PkmOAAuAAFq+zVKBJFQELjA-w

Pure glass… you didn’t say you wanted to live if things went sideways.

Knock em back gain quickness…. do a weapon swap to proc the sigil of intelligence… and Jump shot / Blunderbuss in there face all auto crit. Use the Surprise shot with the SD… swap to tool kit and Pry bar in the face. Then chuck the rifle turret at them… and blow it up instantly for the dmg / knockback + SD.

I guess if there not dead yet… gear shield and run through them… then drop the tool belt mines if they follow you blow them up when they are close enough to a few of them… and hope you pull 3-4 boons off them.

Every class should have the option for a signet… as well as a trait that provides run speed.
The only class that would be the exception would be the engi… they don’t have signets at all. They do have a 25% trait though. I would say in the engis class they should swap Energized Armor (+power based on tuff) from V with power shoes VIII. (this would push one dmg boost up a rung in trade for easier access to the speed buff, outside of bunker builds. )

By doing that every class has access to the same options…. a signet to trade some utility for speed… or traits. Either way it can be made a build choice. Instead of locking a handful of classes into 2-3 rune sets.

The aegis you gain off of throw mine is pretty nice. The skill is also a pretty low cool down knockback interupt.
The tool belt skill can rip up to 5 boons as well, also on a very low cool down.

I played around with it for awhile… and did like it in PvP. It did feel painful to be taking a grand to only really gain 1 aegis every 18s.

I was using rifle turret + throw mine + tool kit… with SD + throw turrets + gadgateer. Then making sure to have knockback on turret explosions.

Its perhaps not the most optimal pvp setup… but it is fun. Using tool kit pull + Mine field to rip boons…. then throw mine to grab an aegis + knock back. Rifle turret just becomes about Surpirse shot and the SD….. when SS is on cool down I would throw the turret at people when the cool down on SS was at 2-3s… then Explode it right away knocking them back… and using SS right after. It makes for a nice SD burst.

Like I say not the most optimal but all the knock backs where fun and the aegis did seem to work well when timed with binds and knockbacks. 1v1 I wasn’t taking much dmg at all if I timed things right… and it was pretty good at disrupting small 2 man teams.

One other thing I found… I was using rifle for awhile with intelligence runes on it in combo. It was sort of nice to throw the mine and knock someone down. While in tool kit… then swapping to rifle to proc the runes… and jumpshot blunderbuss in there face. Often the aegis would save be from there interupt attempt.

Ranger is pretty underwhelming for the most part. One of the perks for having a ranger out there I guess. From an RP point of view makes sense though. All the wolves and canines felines and the like should be able to sniff us out.

Fair enough. was wondering if it would be worth putting the effort into craft a full set. Sounds good. I’ll exotic it up then and perhaps slowly replace with ascended, instead of worrying to much about it.

First off I will admit to being pretty new to the mes. I have one of everything else, I leveled the mes long ago and sort of forgot about it.

Been having fun with it in sPvP today… I have been running something like this build here. This build is a WvW variation I am thinking about. Only real question I guess… is what is the general thought on using a good amount of Celestrial gear on a mes. Looking at the stats I am thinking it should be a good mix… with my build and play style which pretty much revolves around countering and laying on the confusion.

Any thoughts or tips are appreciated.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNAW7flsnpRtlpxNNcrNitxY6OuoC0NUZDYYA-TVSHABpt/QdKBXU9nJ0NwlJGYUi1kyDAuIAB/EACAgAwMn5RTmlCYRpRA-w

Osicat.4139:

Sometimes I forget who of the clones are my caracter and panic mashing al buttons and not untill everything is dead and my clone despawn can I find myself again.

/Osicat

lol that is pretty funny.

In all serious though.. I leveled a mes a long time back and forgot about it completely until recently. Its the last class I am taking the time to really learn and kit out. From what I see it is the ultimate counter class.

So to fight them… simply don’t. They are mostly waiting for you to make a mistake… so buy time and pull them into a group of friends / npcs, or at least a spot where they won’t be able to escape any AOE you can throw down while they are cloaked up.

Condi mes will want to hang around you to get the burn on you off torch 4… which makes them easy to predict. If you get blinded when they stealth it means they used torch 4 so start laying your aoe right where you are.

I think you should look up the terms nerf, fix and exploit. lol

I think both of these are not bad… but sharpening stone is saved by being able to trait it for free. imo Still giving it perhaps a one boon strip 1-3 might not be to bad. A strip on all 5 might be much. The engi gets 5 boon strips on the mine field but getting all 5 to hit is very hard. 5 on SS would be almost 100% hit so might be a bit op. 1-3.

MT could use a faster animation… really not so bad a skill though.

I guess that is part of my frustration with the pistol. Pve wise when you do get a large group it is pretty powerful now. For an auto attack its one of the best. The lower the number of targets though and the skill just becomes so bad. Against a single target with Nades I can stack 9-12 bleeds within 2 throws. Not to mention that often times the same target has 20-25 stacks of vuln on them if you take Firarms V.

That is powerful vs single targets as well as groups… it just makes the pistol seem so meh. Really with the very short bleed duration on the pistol… I can’t see it being over powered if a larger explosion radius would give it a bit more direct dmg.

Really thinking about it I would say they should likely change it around completely… making the pierce simply do dmg… and have the shatter add the bleed stack. Could we stack bleeds fast sure… but the pistol bleed duration would keep it from becoming OP imo. I mean compare it to nades where Explosives 2 adds 15+s bleeds… meaning that when you land 3 or 4 good nade hits bleed stacks are sticking around. With the pistol auto attack even if someone decked out in Krait runes ect I don’t see the pistol stacks lasting more then 3 or 4 ticks of dmg at most.

Yes the down state… makes me feel like Gandalf whispering in something ear… save me.

Wait…. lol

I mentioned the warriors bar as a way of describing a mechanic that existed in Lotro.

In lotro the Ranger had a Focus bar… it was honestly very much like the warrior bar. In that you filled it with attacks which let you pull off better abilites.

Yes I know that the warrior does encompass some of that play style. The ranger in Lotro was much different then a warrior though. They had stealth, they setup traps… they also had the focus bar. They where a much more tactical class to play then a raging sword swinger. (Lotro had that class to it was simply the Champion)

I am not completely against the idea of pets either… I am just not sure it should have been a class defining mechanic.

The way I described it with weapons imparting F1-F4 skills that you could use when you built “focus” (things like hide in plain sight “actual in combat stealth” Traps ect)… the could have rolled pets into that system. They could have for instance been attached to a warhorn Which would give you F3 attack and F4 Recall. The warhorn could have had no dmg on it at all and been 2 pure buff skills. This would have offset the added dps gained by the pet calls. It also would have let us quickly swap from a pet weapon to a petless wepaon. Quickly going for instance from a Axe Warhorn (mid range pet dmg)… to perhaps a Sword / Dagger with tricks and stealth attacked.

Perhaps it would have been a night mare to try and balance… and we would have always been OP or Under powered.

Not to mention some very useful sigil boosts in this patch. There are plenty of reasons to trade the dmg buff for 3 auto crits every 9s ect.

What it comes down to… is engi is fairly underplayed. When an engi gets beat they often know what happened because I think in general anyway. We are more likely to have more alts. lol

Most people don’t understand the engi class because they have never played one for themselves.

Our condi builds are pretty fast though… and I think part of what makes them feel so powerful is that we can stack a full 25 stack of Vuln on someone with a couple good RNG roles on the first couple nade hits.

I agree Kimbald, right now it is pretty much something to take if you want to do things different or pve without wrecking your wrist. lol

As wexess says it is possible to light things up at 900 range or against another obeject and get the 2 hit on the main dmg now. Its nice and it rewards some good positioning, which is one of the reasons I enjoy using it.

What I would propose would split the dmg in 2… allowing for a possible 4 hits of direct dmg… which wouldn’t do to much to the overall dmg. I guess a slighly higher chance to proc sigils and traits, however most of those have an internal cool down anyway so there shouldn’t be much in the way of unforeseen dmg multiplications.

However by allowing the 2 explosives traits to effect half the dmg you allow for a slighly bigger hit box for possible dmg bonuses.

Right now its a high skill trait that you can if your really smart or a bit lucky get a very nice dmg boost out of… still its hardly the highest dmg option in our wheel house.

As someone who likes to splay with builds every day I play I just love the idea of giving the “condi” weapon a solid Direct dmg synergy.

I like the trait don’t get me wrong. I often use it… I would just love for it to synergize better. Most people don’t often consider putting points in the power line and using the weapon that is more aimed at a condi build. I think it would be cool if a combo of traits there could make going 4 and perhaps even 6 (with out nades) into power.

I think we have the best class to hybrid on… I would just like the pistol to have an option that helps that along just a little bit more.

Just wanted to drop my suggestion for making this trait, and the pistol a bit better.

I like coated bullets for PvE… the way the bullet has a small aoe bleed makes for a great mob tagging weapon.

Really though it is still a pretty weak weapon overall… even with the pierce.

My suggestion is to make a small change to Pistol 1 skill to make Explosives Traits III and VII work with the pistol.

The pistol now does X dmg and Y bleed with a Radius of 120. What if Anet changed pistol 1 to do X dmg… with a split dmg number with 50% being direct dmg and 50% being explosive dmg with the pistol radius that causes 1 bleed stack as it does now.

At that point they could allow Explosives IX to boost the 50% explosion dmg on the auto attack… and for Explosives III to increase the radius of the explosion dmg from 120 to 180.

I doubt a change like that would be overpowered or even really have people trading in nades in PvE… still I think it could add some flavor and a reason to auto attack with the pistol more often.

Lotro got the rangers very right. I really wish GW2 had done the class more like that.

I played my lotro ranger just so I could see the animation when something got in my face and I would punch them and then fire an arrow into them point blank.

Really ranger should have been pet less… the pets are goofy. They won’t ever go back on that now of course. The class should have been a trapper / Stealth class. We should have had a bar like the warriors adrenaline bar, that would have charged up for our F1-F4. They could have swapped the F skills around based on the weapon slotted, with 3 levels just like warriors bar. That way we could have weapons give us the F1 skill line up with 2 handers haveing unique 1-4s… and single hand weapons imparting 2. Ranged weapons could have been traps and support skills… melee could have been Stealth and tricks like muddy t. Our 7-9 skills could have focused more on spirits / runes / perhaps even some glyphs. Leaving our survival / trap type skills as a class mechanic.

Turrets are not the only option… there are full turret builds… and turret explodo builds… and builds with no turrets at all like the HGH elixar builds. Many many engies find little value in turrets, and that won’t change even with the bug fixes and new traits.

Turret bunker is only one option… even with in turrets you can have turret condi heavy builds and turret direct dmg heavy builds.

Engi is often described as a jack of all trades class… and more then the others it is true.

Turrets are popular right now because 2 of the 5 new traits are great turret traits. They also fixed a few bugs that have made them work quite a bit better. Also a lot of people looking for new builds anyway as HGH was pretty popular, but with the change to runes you can’t get that +75% boon duration from spec and runes anymore.

If you are level 80 now you can spin the engi traits around and find we have a ton of very viable builds. IMO engi is a great hybrid of pure dmg and condi application… with fantastic access to CC through turrets and gadgets.

Hmmm I was thinking something like that myself last night for a no turret no elixar might stack build…

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vcAQFAUnUISbX2lF2aBrXGJG9g0cGAgUA47KSBmbMA-zkxAYLgkXR0YrgFRjVtgpKJiq9IFRrGA-w

Putting Gadgeteer in that last spot. I was using the holbrek runes and was getting to 25 stacks of might with out much trouble… strength runes would get you there faster… I like the -20 condition on holbrek though.

I wanted to try out the improved A.E.D. as well… eh so so. It grants retaliation for a very short time when you activate it. Which is nice… but protection or would have made ti more useable… or if they added 2 condis cleared or something. The tool belt skill on it though is very cool. With 6 in tools its a 23s cooldown 1s stun, granted the range is only 180… still nice when you can land it.

Analyze isn’t quite as quick as Surprise shot… I also found with it and I Ammo tool belts you have to make sure your camera is sort of up a bit to make sure the SD goes off and hits. (have noticed that for a long time… tool belts like heals and stuff that don’t fire on a target you have to make sure your looking well up to get the SD to hit… hopefuly Anet looks at that at some point)

Overall it was fun… the lack of condi clear means I would likely stick with the heal turret… but AED is “almost” usable. If it cleared all conditions if you took lethal dmg it would be 100% usable but it doesn’t from what I have seen, so you end up dead anyway. At least heal turret has a good chance to knock the worst of the condis on you.

Your right about FT being another good option though… the way I had mine setup… I still had knockback off Throw mine every 14s.. air blast every 12s and overload shot every 15s. Giving me a knock back every 4 or 5s… and then of course when people got close you have Smoke vent to blind… and it was hard to hit the stun on static shock, I did manage to get one ele with a AED Tool belt shock and hit him with a mine field boon rip almost at the same time… it was glorious but honestly likely pure luck and I don’t think he was expecting it… if lots of people catch on to throw mine I can see better players learning to stay out of our grills. lol

Alekero.4679:

Well i was playing as rifle engi with bereserker stuff…and now its gone xD
I was loving it really but now (after patch) i realized that im dying very fast, before killing an enemy. Yeah maybe its good idea to nerf some zerkers but i started to play with rifle since early access and dont give a hood to condi. builds…and it was really good for rifles to wear a zerker gear.
Well same old dance at all…ty anet!

Zerker still rains… and I love my Rifle Engi more after this patch.

I find my surviability is up. Strip your build down and rethink a bit might be in order.

Try out the new throw turret + gadgeteer trait. It applies an aegis to you every time you throw it. Its a great knockback anyway… and the tool belt skill (minefield) will now strip up to 5 boons.

I also never went a full 30(6 now I guess) into tools before… so honestly I replaced most of the Crit dmg I lost in the nerf anyway. With the added aegis and making good use of the knock back to interupt I am really really loving it.

To the OP… Its the first couple days after a major game change that nerfed a bunch of stuff and changed a lot more. Lots of people are going to have to strip there builds down and rethink… and people seem to hate to have to do that in MMOs. I love it myself… and this patch has been great… I love my engi more then before I think they got the best new trait line up. I don’t think any class got ruined though… I haven’t worked my way through all my alts yet but I suspect I am going to find fun builds with all of them.

Take a look at the Gadgruptor build I posted earlier today.

Not sure elixir x is ever a good idea. The throw mine though if you trait the new Gadgeteer trait is awsome. It applies aegis to you when you throw it. Combo that with the knock back and its really fun. That build is fun for controling one target in a pvp… or throwing a constant stream of knockbacks into pve swarms or pvp zergs.

You could change it up and use a med kit… you could do something like keep the rocket boots and run the rfile turret for the fast tool kit spike. (this would give you 2 nice fast tool belt skills to proc SD on )

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vcAQFAUlsTpmqdZxvLseRiM6BnRaAQIFS49BqQe9pAdB-z0BBYLAEHAJPFRjtwqIasqaBRlET5SqGA-w

Just remember that swapping to your med kit is like swapping to a weapon.

So what I would do would be keep the sigil of intelligence / Doom or Hyrdro combo…. use the rifle for all your dmg… but swap to med kit every 10s or so and drop med kit 4 or 5… and then swap back… for 3 insta crits… so take your rifle auto fire off… and use those 3 charges for blunderbuss and jump shot.

Not sure you are understanding why they are where they are. Its not about leveling. Game balance is aimed at everyone being at 80. Many classes are not all that balanced vs one another until end game. End game balanace is the issue. Really do you think it would be a good idea for people to be able to slot 5 grand masters and 5 and 2 masters ? That is what your idea would allow….

Which is why sinzer is saying if that happened they would have to nerf the heck out of the traits… they would all have to be = in power to tier 2.

The design right now works fine… everyone can have a max of 2 Grand master and 2 master traits up at one time. (the masters having to be from the same line as the grand masters you choose). This allows Anet to balance the possible builds. Does it mean some builds are not possible like the one you mentioned in your op, of course its not possible because it wouldn’t be balanced very well.

sinzer is also right that if you do want more options… the way there is the way anet is already going. By adding more high level traits so you can have more possible builds.

There are many traits that are balanced by requiring you to put 6 points into that line. Its by design and the game would be completely unbalanced with out it.

Some traits like 20% of X or Y weapon types cool downs are at master rank for balance issues. Forcing choices.

Its a basic balance thing. With out it… everyone would simply slot 2-3 traits that boost there main weapon… and 2-3 of the grand master traits. The game would be completely unbalanced and super power creeped.

I mean would it be good for your build… of course.. You do realize you would have to fight things like… Engi Full Spec granades / Full spec Turret bunker right ?

Would love to see a video on the condi version. So far I have just played around with my power gear and making that work…. Its been so fun I haven’t really thought about that condi armour in my invsi bag. lol

I’ll have to force myself to think about it the next day or so and go through all the new rune/sigil combos… would be cool to see what you come up with.

After playing around with the new traits… this is my favorite new build so far.
The idea being maximum disruption and CC annoyance on the move.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vcAQFAUlUUpmqdZxkLseRiM6BpxYAQIFS49BqQe9pAdB-z0BBYLAEHAJPFRjtwqIasqaBRlET5SqGA-w

I left the last trait on Tools empty on the planner gadgeteer is the skill there.

Here are some of the build highlights and why I chose what I have.
- 15s recharge on Mine field tool belt skill… can remove up to 5 boons.
- Throw mine 900 meter range knockback that applies Aegis(6s)
- Rifle turret 900 meter range throw for explosion knockback.
- 8s Surprise shot and 15s Throw Wrench with static discharge burst
- Running Intelligence and Hydromancer (and sometimes doom) sigils. Allows you to setup Jumpshot blunderbuss Surprise shot super Auto Crit Combo. While also applying poison to stop healing / or Chill.
- Guard Runes… not the obvious choice. However the burn on block synergizes well with the Aegis applications… and in a situation where you are getting focused hitting Tool kits gear shield allows you to spread some dmg, and you can still pop surprise shot while blocking.

Cons
- Lots of blast finishers however no fire field of your own to stack might on. Of course teaming up with a fire field dropper can make for a good group might stack. Still 5 blasts is lower then some of the new turret heavy builds.
- Very active playstyle, with out the tricks you are pretty squishy.
- Ideal fighting range 100-600 meters… only 1200 meter option is the magnet pull. Need to get in close all the time. (After playing granades for a long time it takes some getting used to)

Play style Tips.
- Swapping your kit in and out to gain Sigil of Intelligence and Doom procs every 10s… remember that you can channel a tool kit skill and switch back to your rifle. So if your in rifle you can swap to tool kit hit your shield and swap back as you continue to move and get ready for a dmg burst combo. I also use this sometimes for tool kit 2 the box of nails… this way they are dropped slighly behind as I will get in close and pop things like Blunderbuss and then dodge back leaving a mine and perhaps pulling something into the nails.
- Spreading out the knock backs. Throw mine (18s), Rifle turret (20s), Overcharge Shot (12s) can be staggered for an aimed knockback every 7-8s. You don’t have to wait for a target to get close just throw it at them… the closer in the better to ensure they are in range of the knock back. You can also hit them with net shot to make them easier to hit. If you are only facing one target as crazy as it sounds you have another knockback with the heal turret… which is also 900 meter range. You still gain the instant heal from it if you explode it right away… and at 20s its not that bad an option.
- Mine field is a 1s channel… so practice where you need to start a channel to place a field at a targets feet as you run to it.
- Surprise shot is Instant and it doesn’t interrupt channels at all. So remember to use it while your blocking or channeling mine field / box of nails

That’s about it… I have tweaked this 20 different ways so far… there are lots of other great Rune options and slight variations on the spec that are also very effective depending on the situation. Nice to be able to make little tweaks out of combat now.

Discovered another fun trait to mix into the build. Tools 5. Deployable turrets. Gives you a 900 range throw Rifle turret to explode for the knock back and dmg. Comboed with throw mine its 2 low cool down 900 range knock back skills.

No doubt this patch has made our class a lot of fun. (I hope the novelty doesn’t wear off anyway). lol

Almost forgot as well… one other advantage of the throw mine Gadgeteer build. Mine field rips up to 5 boons… every 15s… and Aegis/Acidic coating combo (as long as you time things right) means you can run right up into peoples faces mostly and Rip some boons, Pretty reliably. I start channeling Mine field as I’m on my way to my target, if you do it right they all drop right at there feet its hillarious. Boom boons are goon… then Drop the rifle turret and explode it, you can feel the hate.

For dmg I guess the sustain on bombs are better… but I love the burst on tool kit rifle with intelligence sigil. You do some CC with the rfile… then hit tool kit as you run up with the boon rip… and use the first Auto crit charge for Pry bar… then swap back to rifle and jump shot blunderbuss all auto crit. Its pretty evil… and of course throw in the surprise shot / SD hit. (thats when I explode the mine field after I use my auto crits… more then a few times people have popped there boon skills to deal with the dmg… and boom the buffs are gone lol)

I have been running gadgeteer and throw mine…. Sickest change of all the classes in this patch. Run up to someone rip there boons… knock them back… and then just drive them insane until there respawning. (up to 5 boons ripped every 15s on a gadgeteer build… and aegis ya every 14-18s depending on the spec)

I am running rifle and heal turret though… I could really care less about the dmg on the rifle turret… I run it for Surprise shot and 76 and a 20s high dmg knock back and blast finisher.

Looks fun. Engi got the best traits out of this deal no doubt. A couple really great ones.

I notice in your play video you had your surprise shot off cool down for long periods of time there. You should have been popping that more for the instant burst. Looks like it was a blast though…. pun intended. lol

I have been running something oddly like your build since the patch, using the Gadgeteer trait instead.

I know different trait and I am using tool kit as well.. the game play is pretty close though … perhaps a bit more active with gadget.

I have been running … 2 0 4 2 6
Accel Turrets of course
Energized Armour (for some more powa) – Power Shoes (with just the rifle turret really for dmg and wanting to be popping Surprise shot all the time I don’t care if people kill it and get knocked back)
Acidic coating (I tend to get in melee more with the tool kit)
Static Discharge – Power Wrench – and Gadgeteer

Heal turret for heal
Rifle Turret – Throw Mine – Tool kit

This only uses the one Gadget but the throw mine is another knock back that you can be much more active with throwing it in fields and at people… and it grants you Aegis with gadgeteer. With some wise use of tool belt shield / your insta Aegis every 18s + acidic coating. I have found it to be pretty survivable as long as you don’t make major mistakes.

Running Rifle with Sigiles of Energy and Intelligence (take the rifle auto off and use the kit swap to blase blunderbust and jump shot in someones face its an evil auto crit roll)

Gives me a lot of the knock back power…. the cripple of the wrench. Then when the time is right I swap kits… get an intelligence proc and Jump shot Blunder Surprise shot.

Explosives – S overload blows. The 20s lockout kills it completely. 3s of quickness is hard to build around and really not needed on the engi if you want burst slot a rifle turret.

Firearms – Bunker down not sure it offers us much more dmg then we already had in that line but its something new I guess.

Inventions and Alchemy – as others have said are both pretty fun… and I guess the bunker players should be pretty happy.

Tools – Gageteer my personal fav of the new ones. For nothing more then Aegis on the throw mine.

I have been running 0 4 0 4 6 – with a speced out Rifle (cool down/dmg) – (Acidic coating – Back back regen) – (SD – Speed Gad – Gageteer).
Healing turret – Rifle Turret – Throw Mine – Tool Kit.
Sigil of Intelligence is AWSOME for engi now.

Rifle 4 throw mine and magnet pull give you a good spread of interupts… and back and forthing tool kit and rifle every 9-10s gives you 3 auto crits. I took my rifle off auto so when I swap I make sure to hit my boombers first… Jump shot blunderbuss auto crit in the face is pretty awsome. S Shot and Throw wrench are both great burst skills. The throw mine gives you a 14s interupt/knockback and an aegis. Combine that with the Acid Coating blind and I have been playing engi melee. One built I always wanted to work. lo

I had a couple toons that did the rune mix for 45% … it was broken I know that. I’m not going to QQ about them fixing it. Quite the opposite. Thank you Anet for being proper game developers.

I agree 30% in most games I have played is where damage really starts to ramp. That’s because most developers consider damage cycles when they are balancing there gear stats. Meaning that defensive style gear vs offensive gear isn’t majorly different in terms of actual sustained DPS over longer periods. Meaning that over say 1-2 min an offensive set would only really be 5-10% more overall DPS. The difference would be in a “Spike” dmg with the offensive sets in general providing much higher waves of dmg that are not possible to sustain over long periods. Games that are designed with that in mind in terms of both skills and gear… imo tend to be much deeper and more fun overall. Support classes at that point matter in that they help those spike builds both sustain themselves and in most games the support classes also have ways to increase the frequency or extend the duration of those dmg cycles from the dmg classes. Anet has tried that but imo mainly failed… why are things like Spotter on a ranger in there Power Line for example. The design in many ways doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.

Overkillengine.6084:

Meh; just transfer/consume the bleed stacks.

Exactly. I always thought the down side was a plues. Pop em and transfer… added conditions to dagger and staff 4.

They should have just fixed it and set it up like a regular MMO. Leave the Critical Severity stat alone… and fix the real issue. The Critical chance stat. Precision is the real issue. Really how many other MMOs can you play where having 100% crit chance is even possible never mind semi normal. Any game that allows players to have Critical hit numbers north of 50% is broken. Crit hit should be 10-20% and 30% max fully kitted and traited and consumabled up.

At that point there would be no issues with the severity stat.

Chrispy.5641:

Liewec.2896:

as the title says,
when trying to play as ranger there are just too many traits that seem like they should be combined.
……
(april 15th) Read the winds: Your arrows move twice as fast.
…….

How is a trait that doesn’t exist in the game yet Mandatory?

What do you mean… my s-d/gs ranger is going to slot this pronto.

Manuhell.2759:

And since when celestials gave such an advantage? Yet they’re getting heavily mauled by the change…

The crit dmg is down sure, its down on any gear that had it. The celestrial is the only set that is getting a buff on pure stats. So I am not sure I would consider it a nerf on them myself. The toon I run celestrial on doesn’t run them for the crit dmg… it was nice don’t get me wrong. I just think with the stat bump its not likely going to effect me much.

Nerf isn’t a bad word. Sometimes the most logical decision for a game developer is to back something up rather then push 99 other things forward.

If you play an MMO and you find that X or Y is parsing you a good advantage over other options. You can expect it will be adjusted. The only way a developer really fails is if they leave it long enough for people to consider it not broken. Perhaps they did in fact fail there.

It would indeed make the trait like the engi granader trait.

That’t not really a good thing. One thing I hate about my engi is being shoe horned into grenades and going 30 in that line all the time. I know there are plenty of other good builds… but for dmg on an engi nades are pretty much the best practice.

Then again its not like anyone using a longbow now on a ranger would go less then 30 in that line very often anyway I guess. Still at least its an option now.

I guess Anet also seems to want to kill off hybrid stuff as much as possible… so your idea has a lot of merit from that angle.

RyuDragnier.9476:

Husanak.3769:

The point isn’t to take every steal trait you can. Steal is our class mechanic. Consider what weapon set you are running… what utilities you are using, even what heal skill you are using. You can even look at rune sets… like say perplexity, where a low cool down long range interupt makes sense. Use the traits to allow your steal to complement your build… trying to select multiple steal triats is not really the best idea.

For instance… if you are gaining stealth with a Dagger offhand… having another stealth on your steal is redundant. No reason you can’t just Dagger 5 when you steal.

Actually, having another stealth on steal isn’t redundant, it saves initiative. Need stealth? Save the initiative, steal from the enemy. You saved 6 ini AND you’re in stealth + got something to use. Why waste 6 initiative on a CnD when you can Steal and get it for free?

It really depends how you are building was my point. If you don’t have a lot of options for entering stealth in your build… or even more expensive ones like Dagger/Pistol 2 skill combos then I agree stealth on steal is a great option.

If you have a offhand dagger though… myself I would rather blind when ever I cloak and dagger… as well as cure a condition.

Your point is valid though… redundant may be a strong word. If you are going to run the off hand dagger though… ya healing condition removal and the safety of a blind whenever you stealth I find makes more sense in general.

The point isn’t to take every steal trait you can. Steal is our class mechanic. Consider what weapon set you are running… what utilities you are using, even what heal skill you are using. You can even look at rune sets… like say perplexity, where a low cool down long range interupt makes sense. Use the traits to allow your steal to complement your build… trying to select multiple steal triats is not really the best idea.

For instance… if you are gaining stealth with a Dagger offhand… having another stealth on your steal is redundant. No reason you can’t just Dagger 5 when you steal.

The longbow auto is powerful sure if he is keeping you at 1500 range. The closer you get to him the more suck that auto gets. Next time stealth up and get in close and perhaps put some cloths on.

Also if he is setup right and hit a longbow 3 on you first you likely had a nice stack of vulnerability on you.