Guild Wars 2

Thanks guys. I was following advice from a build I saw somewhere for leveling, but maybe I just hate scepter+focus. That whole playstyle just felt weird to me. I’ll try to switch back to a greatsword/sword+torch or something.

Mercurias.1826:

Just curious what folks are planning to run. S/P gives a close range burn and a movement rebuff, while Sword/Shield gives blocks, KB, and Daze on huge timers.

I was personally going to run Sword/Shield with Spectrum Shield and Photon Wall for some added damage nullification rather than make the mistakes I did going into HoT and getting eaten alive by the sudden increase in difficulty. Elixir a Gun was going to get the last slot for condition cleansing.

What about you all?

I just responded to the `Tanking as a Holosmith` thread and I love the idea of that, so probably sword/shield.

I have a question for you though: I just came back to the game after years away. I’m diving into the content I missed and I’m getting wrecked. What would you have done differently if you were doing that content again?

I love the idea of it. Any particular reason you went with the Tools line? Alchemy seems like it might be a nice complement, even without any elixirs on the bar.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vdAQJAsenEID1IjFJDWIDcJjFDDTMd8BGQ91wf4QMMAMO2LA-e

Also, some thoughts on the Holosmith traits:

Light Density Amplifier is perfect.
Crystal Configuration: Zephyr and Inventions: Mecha Legs… while not the same, seem to have a bit of excessive overlap with the movement impairment stuff.
Crystal Configuration: Eclipse might be a better option—or at least, better for situations where more defense and stability is important.

Enhanced Capacity Storage Unit might be better to give some offense to the build, but both of the other options (Thermal Release Valve or Photonic Blasting Module) seem like they could be really good options as well. PBM seems like it would pair well with the increased Heat Gen of Light Density Amplifier, while TRV might be a better choice with the Tools line and the Vigor/Endurance regen stuff it offers.

Both seem like good options, but with wildly different playstyles. One would focus on dodging as much as possible to control heat and keep it at a certain level. The other is more of a generate-heat-as-fast-as-possible, explode, repeat thing.

Like I said, I love the idea.

Well, at the moment I’m just soloing open world quest content. It just feels… dull? Slow? I could do slow, but I don’t even feel tough.

I just can’t seem to enjoy Guardian.

I just came back to the game after last playing in 2013. I was an Engi main, but my poor broken fingers coupled with the overwhelming changes prompted me to make a new character. I love the whole Paladin thing, so I thought I’d make a Guardian.

I just don’t like it. I used some scrolls to boost me up to 20 or 30, but it doesn’t seem to make a big difference. I’m not knocking your class, and I recognize that it might just not be a good fit, but I really want to like Guardian!

I guess I expected a tough melee tank/support kind of thing. Like a Paladin from D&D, WoW, etc. I know GW2 doesn’t have the holy trinity, but something just isn’t clicking and I really want it to click.

I hate scepter, it feels so wimpy. Like I’m trying to attack with a bubble wand, so maybe that’s part of the problem. I’ll gladly take advice or suggestions. Thanks.

Fixed it: started the download, then stopped it. Moved the entire folder from where it was trying to install on the C: to where I wanted it. Then I started up the game .exe (not the installer exe) and the download resumed in the new location.

So my wife and I are coming back to GW2 after a couple years away. Neither of us have the game installed on our systems currently, though we did in the past. I downloaded the 64-bit client, put it on my F: drive and ran it. (My C: drive does not have enough room.)

Boom. HD out of space. Same issue on my wife’s system. It keeps trying to download the game to C:\Program Files\Guild Wars 2.

I do not have the option of choosing the install location when I click ‘Install’ on the client.
How can I fix this?

Thanks.

Skewjo.9243:

I like this build a lot! May try it out tonight since I’m done with finals ^^.

Since you’re using power and not condition damage I recommend the rifle over pistol shield. Reasons: Net shot would be great for catching up to people, the knockback+netshot will freeze someone right around FT max range, and burst from jump shot is awesome. Also shield 4 makes you stand still and shield 5’s cd is too long IMO.
Also I don’t believe sigil of superior force stacks if used in both weapons(it might, you should double check). I would use sigil of battle for might stacks instead. With your amount of toughness I think a stun break is over rated. Very nice build.

It’s a bit hard to comment on the build for WvW without seeing the whole gear picture… gw2buildcraft (I think that’s the name) let’s you set all that stuff up.

Skewjo is absolutely correct that Force will not stack with itself. I’d suggest you have two sets of weapons, if you can afford it: one set with double Bloodlust (to build up to 25 stacks twice as fast) and another set with Battle/Force to swap into when you’ve hit 25.

I’d suggest you stick with Power as your primary; after that, it’s up to you, and how you want to play in WvW. If I’m in a zerg, I haven’t noticed that more defensive stats significantly contribute to my survival. When I run FT in a zerg I run a really offensive stackes set up: primarily Berserker gear.

Traits: I see what you’re going for, I think, and it’s similar to what I run when I’m using FT. I focus a bit more on Might stacking with HGH, though. With that in mind, I run Fast-Acting Elixirs instead of Invigorating Speed, and I run with 2/2/2 Fire/Strength/Hoelbrak runes or 2/2/2 Monk/Sup. Water/Major Water for the Might or Boon duration increase.

Weapons: I agree that Rifle would be a great supplement to any Power based build, but not if you stay in FT the majority of the time. That’s one of those circumstances where the “Rifle = Power, Pistol = Condition” rule doesn’t hold: if you’re in a kit most of the time, run P/P or P/S. Two sigils is nice. I run P/S with FT also. Don’t forget that shield 4 isn’t just a reflect, it’s also a blast finisher. (Coupled with FT 4 you stack even more Might.) Shield 5 isn’t just a melee stun, you can also launch it Captain America style for a ranged daze and a thousand cool points.

Now, all of that being said, if you are really reluctant to sacrifice any of your toughness I’d say that your build looks solid. Get out there and burn some faces.

Rezzet.3614:

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

You are very much mistaken, I’m afraid. Nades are incredibly dangerous at close range; arguably, more dangerous “face to face” than they are at 1500 range.

I will absolutely agree that nades are absurdly easy to avoid, but the ease of avoidance is a function of distance from the engineer. At 1500 range you don’t even have to dodge, you can just slowly step out of the way. However, at close range, especially if a clever Engineer opens (at close range) with Freeze Grenade or Glue Shot, they are a very real threat.

Now, we can disagree about the validity of this assessment, but I’d like to point out that the dominant Engi tPvP build right now is a condition-HGH grenade build.

As for them not being useful against multiple people… well, there are three problems with that claim. First, it is only true if you’re fighting ranged people that spread out. If that’s the case, you’re in trouble regardless of what you’re running. Second, it is untrue when facing people that are clustered (e.g., people trying to melee you). Finally, it hinges on the assumption that strong single-target damage/builds are not suited for multiple enemy fights, a claim that is hard to defend in any context.

I’m not suggesting that grenades are the only good build, but I am saying that I find it surprising that they could be viewed as ineffective in WvW. Building around grenades is one of the only Engi styles I know of that remains very effective in both long-range and short-range, as well as large-scale and small-scale, encounters.

Raijinn.9065:

I’m just so done with the fact that they nerf certain abilities just because they are too popular.

Your conclusion does not follow; perhaps there is a correlation between popularity and nerfs, but the same can be said of any class in almost any game. That doesn’t mean that something is nerfed because it’s popular. Instead, it’s far more likely that something is popular because it is disproportionately powerful. Or, perhaps, popularity calls attention to something that is over-performing, or performing in an unintended way.

I can’t help but feel that the people that complain the loudest—in particular, those that complain about having multiple builds nerfed—are the ones that are actively chasing fotm stuff. Then that stuff gets nerfed because it’s OP. Well, duh.

Look, without a doubt Engi still has some issues, but so do most of the other classes. Some are in better shape, some are in worse, and it really depends on what facet of the game you’re talking about. Main thing I’d like to see is more (competitive) build options; I’m talking about the Engi here, but I think that point holds for every class.

But it’s not true that you can’t do anything during those three seconds. You can reposition, you can line of sight, your Endurance is refilling, and your other skills are coming off their cooldowns. Even if it’s completely untraited it’s still a stun break and three seconds of invulnerability; traited, it’s only better.

Before, you could pop Elixir S, use Elixir H (1s), drop Supply Crate (1s), and still eek out a Freeze Grenade (0.5s). All while being completely immune to damage. That’s over the top, and I’m having a hard time understanding how anyone could claim otherwise. If traited, some builds had two 3s windows like this in a very short span of time. That’s just crazy.

Not being able to heal up while tiny is probably the worst part about the nerf. Based on the change, however, I think ANet didn’t want it, or Mist Form, to fill the roles they were filling. It seems they want them to be purely defensive ‘run-away’ or ‘buy a few seconds for a cooldown to come up’ skills.

We can disagree with that decision—though, I don’t—and with each other, but the hyperbolic wailing is completely out of proportion to the actual change.

Elixir S/Toss Elixir S is still a valuable skill. If you don’t trait Alchemy…well, all the elixirs are going to be less desirable than if you do. Still, Elixir S is a stun break and a time-buy, it’s just no longer a Win-button. That’s fair.

As has been stated above, Endure Pain and Elixir S are not the same thing. Besides, the logic that this stuff should be the same across classes is flawed. Balanced does not mean homogenized.

The Elixir S/Mistform change is fine, and claiming that it ruined any particular build is hyperbole.

More melodramatic teeth-gnashing.

Engi has some issues, but no more so than they did before the patch. The change to Elixir S was completely justifiable and it’s really not that big a deal. Adapt.

Melodrama Rating: 11 (The double-post, caps, and punctuation abuse cranked it up to 11.)

I can’t tell if this is a troll or not. Anyway, no, the nerf to Elixir S really did not break “engineer mechanics.” It does force people to use Elixir S in a different way—for example, defensively to gain some space or to allow time for dodge/heal to cooldown instead of aggressively—but it didn’t break anything.

If your entire build/gameplay was built around one little utility skill, chances are it wasn’t balanced. Besides, they gave Mist Form the same treatment.

Adapt. It’s not the end of the world.

More patch day histrionics from the Engi section. Also, I don’t think those “facts” are actually facts.

This wasn’t a bad patch for us. As stated above, it opens up some possibilities. We’ll have to see just how much, but it didn’t obliterate any build(s) and it gave us a nice tweak and a couple fixes. Yea, a couple nerfs—but they were completely justified.

Not much to see here. Back to blowing things up.

Yes, people on the forums are prone to hysterics. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t a germ of truth to some of the concerns.

The Engineers that didn’t just roll up to take advantage of the latest fotm will cobble some new build(s) together and soldier on. However, before HGH became popular Engi was viewed by most decent PvPers with a mixture of apathy and derision, and not without some merit. Even 100nades didn’t really give a decent player cause for concern, it just put us in the same camp as Warriors. “Watch out for that gimmick burst, then dismantle.”

If they obliterate HGH like they obliterated Kit Refinement, there goes the fotm P/P condi nades build, and, peripherally, any other Might stacking build. Which, as I’ve asked (with absolute sincerity) leaves us with what? What PvP roamer builds are we left with? What do we uniquely bring to the table in a 5 man tPvP team if not the ability to apply significant pressure and unsettle the current bunker-heavy meta?

I’d love to have that conversation, instead of the hysterics and counter-hysterics.

We’re having one of those tangential conversations, again. That is, some people are talking about Engineers and balance in a certain context, while other people are talking about Engineers and balance and a different context. Neither group—for the most part—is openly identifying the context that their comments are relevant in, so we end up with a Venn diagram with two circles that don’t actually overlap at all, but are tangent at a single point.

We’re having the illusion of a conversation here.

Here’s the thing: I mean no disrespect to anyone, but WvW is not the ideal context to talk about balance or optimal builds. WvW is a very broad umbrella that encompasses zerg battles, small skirmishes, and a variety of other playstyles that are not under controlled conditions. You might find yourself in a 1v4 fight and emerge victorious because all of your opponents are up-scaled. Or 1v3 against actual level 80s but your gear is substantially better.

These are all factors that exist in WvW, and it’s not possible to know when they do and do not apply. In short, there are many, many builds that are “viable” in WvW.

In tPvP, on the other hand, everyone is on a level playing field (as far as stats and level are concerned). So, when people complain that a nerf to the current fotm P/P condition/nade HGH build is going to hurt Engineers, if they’re talking about tPvP, they might be absolutely correct. That’s not to say that it’s our only build—Engi bunker is still pretty good—but as far as I’ve been able to determine it’s one of very few builds that survive the crucible of higher ranked tPvP. Nerf it if you must, but fix our bugs and buff some stuff so we have some builds, aside from bunker, that we can run and not just be viewed as easy meat.

Raptured.9307:

What you have right now is beyond decent. I guess devs are trying to make it decent and bring out other decent possibilities

I didn’t say HGH was decent; in fact, I’m avoiding this entire silly debate about whether it’s OP or not OP or… whatever. I’m kind of confused about why something like this would pop up on the chopping block so quickly, when Ele—correct me if I’m wrong—seems to be almost universally viewed as OP, and has been for quite some time. But I supposed that’s a different discussion altogether.

If the quote in my previous post is accurate, then this build is getting nerfed and the dev’s alleged comments can be interpreted two ways:

1) HGH is getting nerfed and no buffs are presently coming to the Engi, or
2) HGH is getting nerfed and ANet thinks Engi’s are otherwise “fine.”

1 leaves us in a bit of a fix for the foreseeable future, because, as I asked in my previous post, what decent build(s) do we have left?

2 is what bothers me, because this might just be the case.

Again, I’m not really interested in discussing whether the build is OP or not… that line of discussion has been tapped, I think. I am interested in the state and future of the Engi.

Honest question I’d like non-Engineers to answer:

Before this build became popular, what was your reaction to encountering an Engineer in tPvP? Did you approach prepared for a good fight, or at all doubting the certainty of victory? Something tells me that, for most people being honest, the answer is ,“No.” I think Engineer was widely viewed as an easy kill. Nerfing (and to be clear, I mean the obliteration of the build, not simply toning it down; this assumption is based on previous Engi nerf history) HGH might just take us back to that status.

Which is why I’m asking, sincerely, what other good build(s) do we have? And, to qualify that, I mean good builds that are on par with other classes and competitive in tPvP.

waka.9826:

I talked to Hammon in game who is a dev and he said HGH is getting nerfed. Gadgets are not being worked on at the moment and basically nothing else lol.

Can’t tell if serious.

If so, where does that leave us? What decent build(s) do we have left that we can take into tPvP?

Elixir U, upon activation, frequently does nothing except trigger the full cooldown. It doesn’t seem to matter whether I’m moving, standing still, or attacking.

Yea, Elixir U, upon activation, frequently does absolutely nothing except trigger the full cooldown. It doesn’t seem to matter what I’m doing.

On-Kill stacking sigils are a must for me. +250 is just too kitten good to ignore. I run with two sets of pistols: carrion/giver, both of Corruption, then Carrion/Giver of Strength/Force. I hit max stacks twice as fast, and there is little disincentive to take risks as a result. If I go down, well, swap back to double Corruption and build ‘em back up. I haven’t noticed that I draw more aggro as a result… just being red is usually sufficient.

dinominator.9862:

An engineer is someone who uses whatever he’s got to make the best of the situation. He’s handed lemons and finds a way to make lemonade.

(I had to!)

Noooo….

An Engineer is someone who, upon being handed lemons, makes a weak electrochemical battery.

Or someone who makes a combustible lemon grenade.

Phineas Poe.3018:

Maullus, I think you’re right to point out that we’re being very vague in our description of what we use it with, and could very easily be arguing the same points in the end yet are just currently on different pages.
…

And all the other stuff Phineas said. I agree compeletely; thanks for saving me the trouble of saying it, and I won’t belabor any of the points you explained so well by repeating them.

I will address one thing though, which is this boogeyman of “I got kicked from a group for being an Engineer!” This is rule #1 of MMOs, and it’s even more true in GW2 than it has been in any other game.

Rule 1
Don’t be kitten

Corollary to Rule 1
Don’t run with derps.

A group of people that insists on having four warriors and a mesmer is a group of fools trying to optimize a trivial problem.

Engineer is good and getting better. If that isn’t your experience then you’re probably playing the wrong class.

After reading the notes—turret buffs and +100% turret healing rate on toolkit skills— I had visions of the TF2 Engineer in my head. Turret traits and Power Wrench, Healing Turret, Tool Kit, and a couple other utility turrets. I only tested it out against some PvE mobs for a bit but I was still underwhelmed. The damage was not too great, they were still not that tough, and—most disappointing of all—healing them by smacking was still incredibly slow.

Obviously, this doesn’t even touch on the mobility and cooldown issues. All said and done, I’m still skeptical about turrets. Need to test a bit more to be certain, though, and I would love to hear some other opinions.

“Viable” gets so abused.

People are talking at cross-purposes: Are we discussing FT in PvP? Dungeons? WvW? All of them?

I can’t say much about PvP; I’ve tried FT a few times and I can never get it to work well for me—but I recognize that it’s a matter of playstyle and preference, not a failing of the kit. Which seems to be the root of the Engi problem: a lot of people seem be upset that the Engi isn’t what they think it should be, rather than acknowledging that, perhaps, one of the seven other classes might suit them better.

This forum is full of histronics and in short supply of empirical data to support all the wailing and gnashing of teeth. Regarding dungeons, what kind of numbers are we talking about when we say “good damage?” And when we say “dungeons” are we talking about the same thing? Or has that come to mean CoFp1 speedruns (herpaderpderpgogogo!)? Let’s define what we’re talking about so, maybe, we can have an actual discussion.

Thanks very much for the replies. I very much appreciate all the help—it’s given me quite a bit to think about, and I hope to be able to put some of it into practice.

This is by no means meant to imply that I’ve had enough; by all means, keep the advice coming. Just wanted to drop a quick note of appreciation.

Punkins.2087:

Original thread stuff

This is not at all what I expected when I clicked on the thread, and I am pleasantly surprised!

I agree completely, and it’s nice to hear those thoughts echoed back by another Engineer-lover. Favorite class, no contest, and it’s all I play anymore. Not only do I agree with you, but I’ll go one step further and voice the opinion of someone that also plays Engi in dungeons/fractals and WvW: this class is great. I sincerely hope ANet doesn’t dumb the class down to appease the complainers.

To the folks saying, the game “has to appeal to a lot more than one person” and “not everyone has the time … some just want to enjoy the game” I offer this advice: play another class.

I don’t mean that in a snide way, either. You may love the concept of the Engineer, but if you don’t love the playstyle that doesn’t mean Engineer is bad or broken. (Just like my enjoyment of the class doesn’t mean it’s perfect.) It might just mean that the class isn’t right for you. I started GW2 absolutely certain that Warrior was my class. I tried countless builds and approaches but nothing was quite right. Finally, I accepted the class just wasn’t for me. I picked up Engineer (for the third time) and something clicked. It’s all I’ve played since.

Anyway, I’ve drastically cut back on the amount of reading/posting I do here because of all the whining. It’s hard to find any discussions of substance, or even any positive/fun threads. So, thanks for this, Punkins. And hey, if you feel like it, shoot me a PM. I’d love to hear your thoughts on FT in sPvP/tPvP, as I’ve never been able to work it into a build that feels effective… and I love talking shop.

Yo!

So, after 500+ sPvP matches as an Engineer I finally ran my first few tPvP matches last night. A guildmate asked if I wanted to run some tPvP and we scrounged up a few other guildmates (I’m rank 26, they were all below rank 10, most lower than 5) and gave it a shot.

We had an absolute blast. We won our first game, got spanked in our second, and lost by less than 10 points in the third. Again, we had a lot of fun.

Now I’m trying to learn a bit more about the dynamics of tPvP: common strategies, useful tricks, and assorted relevant miscellania. I just sifted through the first 10 pages of this forum and found… well, nothing helpful. I did see the sticky of people willing to help, but I’m honestly not even sure what specific questions to ask. What are common starting strategies? How do people split their teams? How do teams adapt to map-specific variables? (Chieftain/Svanir, Lords, trebs, buffs, ball, etc.) I’m just trying to get a good grip on the basic stuff for now.

I realize I could find watch some matches, but I feel like that’s a bit more of an intermediate step. I can see what those players are doing, but I may not necessarily get the rationale behind it. It’s kind of like watching someone do math—I may get a bit, but not nearly as much as I would if I study the ideas and practice on my own.

I’d appreciate any help the community is willing to provide. Thanks.

Ha! Now that is a turret.

Every time I see one of the Charr vehicles I think, “That should be my elite.”

Hold on, something isn’t quite right…

Penguin.5197:

I would say batman would be part engie/warrior, even without his gadgets he still knows how to fight. I think we are more like iron man, without tech brains we are screwed.

…fixed it.

In other words…

The humble Engi manages to walk with titans through wit and grit.

Engi (work/time).

Hey, thanks. I must have had my eyes crossed when I looked at the build calculator for question 4.

Lunar Corporation.5720:

Yes thankfully traiting for Grenades is pretty straight forward… 30/30/0/0/10 is THE option going for condi damage from grenades and using carrion or rabid gear/trinkets/upgrades. Another option is 30/10/0/0/30 (my personal favorite with the grenades) which is THE straight damage build, equipping Berzerker/rampage armor. Rampage is pretty good accross the board for either spec, but you do lose some of the damage. Those are THE builds for grenades. I would suggest you try what you like most about grenades. I’ve seen people go all into condi duration but little into condi damage, that is really effective too Makes things like Freeze Grenade and poison really deadly.

One more tip for you is use a rifle if you’re using grenades. Your kit scales with your weapon power, where rifle deals a lot more damage than the dual pistols.

I think you’re quite mistaken about a couple things. I don’t mean that in a… rude way.

Kits do not scale with weapon damage. Weapon stats and weapon sigils carry over to kits, but the actual weapon damage does not scale. At level 80, grenades will do a certain amount of damage regardless of what weapons you’re using, affected only by stats. As such, Rifle vs. Pistols doesn’t really matter that much. A direct damage build would probably work better with a rifle, but only because rifle scales better with power. A condition build would probably work better with P/P or P/S, but only because pistols are more of a condition weapon. Unless you plan on sitting in a kit 100% of the time choosing a weapon that compliments your stats is just common sense.

Also, and this is more subjective, but I disagree with the builds you listed being “THE” grenade builds. HGH grenade builds (30/10/0/30/0), both for direct damage and for condition damage, are arguably the most potent grenade builds out there. 100nades is very popular, but I wouldn’t get too attached to it at this point; State of the Game suggests they’ll be nerfing that build come the 26th.

Zerker gear for direct damage follows the usual advice: use zerker, except where you feel you need a bit more survivability, then grab something with toughness and/or vitality.

Gear for condition damage… beats me. I’m still trying to figure that out. Rabid seems to be the most popular, with Carrion being used to supplement vitality, and occasionally a bit of Rampager thrown in for good measure. When Giver’s weapons are fixed a lot of Condition builds might grab those instead.

A few questions!

1) The two builds in the original post are not quite the same. What’s the significance of the differences?

2) How does this compare/contrast with a Condition-Grenade build? (The typical 30/10/0/30/0 build.) I haven’t really tried any condition builds at 80, so it’s a bit of a blindspot for me—still, I really, really want to get Quip and I’m trying to find a good build to support/justify that decision. I’ve been running Condi Nades in sPvP and it’s quite effective.

3) Does anyone run with this build in sPvP or, more importantly, tPvP? How does it measure up? I would think the focus would have to shift away from Confusion, at least.

4) No +condition duration except the +30% from Alchemy. I don’t think that is enough to bump any of out conditions up to another damage tick. Is that because the focus is on Confusion?

5) Any thoughts on how an Asura would best squeeze Pain Inverter in? Or if it’s even worth it?

Trying to work all this condition stuff out. Thanks.

Phineas Poe.3018:

Where people come off saying the Engineer is busted is beyond me, but I feel the internet more commonly pulls out the negativity of people rather than their positivity. I just hope that somehow ANet is able to look past all the negativity.

It’s nice to see some positive stuff in the Engi forum. I’ve all but stopped posting because of all the hyperbolic whining. Love my Engi as much as—if not more than—any other MMO character I’ve ever played. I’ve played nearly 600 sPvP matches as an Engi, and logged quite a few hours in WvW and PvE dungeons/fractals. Engi isn’t perfect, and the amount of time some of these bugs have survived is silly, but Engi is still awesome.

Sure, we’re getting nerfed. It also sounds like we’re getting some buffs and fixes. People crying about this is bizarre. It’s like they’ve never played an MMO before.

I’m curious—and condition builds are a bit of a blind spot for me—why is there no mention of Rampager gear?

I can understand why Carrion isn’t mentioned, as it has no Precision. I get that. But a condition based grenade build seems like it would double-dip with Power/Precision/Condition Damage. I don’t know that I’d go all Rampager, but Rampager/Rabid gear/trinkets, or vice versa, seems like it would be a pretty solid approach.

Again, I’m just curious; I’d love to hear a good explanation for why Rampager/Rabid would not be a wise approach compared to an alternative.

I’ve tried quite a few condition builds—not least because I could then justify working on getting Quip, the 2nd best legendary in the game—but they never really stuck. I kept going back to Rifle. Well, I might be late to the party, but I finally broke down and gave Condition Nades a try in sPvP and it’s both fun and effective. Thing is, I’m kind of clueless about how to approach condition builds.

Now I’m wondering how people fare with it in WvW and, to a lesser extent, in PvE. I’d be interested in hearing thoughts on how it performs, how to optimize its performance in WvW, and especially how people tend to gear for it in WvW.

A new Engi! Let’s start with a brief, but growing, list of important facts:

1) Engi class is best class.
1a) Asura engi is best engi.
2) Yak flag is best flag.
3) If gods didn’t want us to blow everything up, everything wouldn’t be so explodeable.

Now, that out of the way, I have to chime in on the “Go Static Discharge” suggestion. Built properly, it is good (direct) damage, pretty straightforward, and it will ease you into kit-swapping in a way that many other builds won’t.

What follows is some detailed advice. Grain of salt not included.

10 in Tools with Static Discharge (II). You can always swap Speedy Kits (VI) in when you’re traveling just for convenience. Then I’d suggest 10 in Firearms with Hair Trigger (VI). The reduced cooldown is great; more control from Net and Overcharged shots, more damage from Blunderbuss and Jump Shot. After that, I’d start dumping points in Explosives, mostly for the Power boost, but Empowering Adrenaline (IV) or Incendiary Powder (V) are nice little damage boosts. This will take you up to 40, when you get you open up Master traits.

Run with Med Kit, Tool Kit, Rifle Turret, and Personal Battering Ram. For your Elite skill, take either Crate or the racial elite of your choice. The corresponding toolbelt skills are on short cooldowns. Use Drop Stimulant before a fight, burn those toolbelt attacks followed by Jump Shot, Blunderbuss, and Prybar… you’ll get the job done. (Almost) anything that’s not dead after that you can control with Net, Overcharged Shot, and PBR.

Know when to swap to Toolkit for the shield—that shield will save your life more times than you can count. Caltrops can give you a little breathing room if the enemy numbers get out of control. You can also drop the turret, overcharge it, then blow it up and still use the toolbelt skill.

Gear for Power/Precision, and later for Power/Precision/Crit Damage. You’re going to put the “glass” in glass cannon—a skritt fart could knock you down—but if you use your control abilities, gear shield, heal, and Med Kit smart you’ll be a lot tougher than the build otherwise suggests.

Keep your gear up to date, of course. Carry two rifles: one with Bloodlust, one with a damage sigil. I suggest Air.

Edit: I should mention that this is a blueprint. Don’t hesitate to swap utilities based on a situation; I’ve pulled out Net Turret many times when I found myself fighting a melee-based Champion because that extra control really came in handy. In condition heavy places, swap in Elixir C. You’ll lose a bit of damage from the toolbelt skill, but that’s the price you pay.

Once you hit 40, you can either drop 20 in Tools or Precision first—it doesn’t matter too much which order you do, as you’ll just go into the other tree after that. Again, once you’ve maxed Tools and Precision go ahead and drop the extra points into Power. Rifle Mod (IX) in Firearms, Speedy Kits (VI) or Power Wrench (VIII) in Tools.

Repeat at 60, though the traits are buyer’s choice. At this point, you’ll probably be comfortable enough with your character to tweak things to your own satisfaction, or perhaps even comfortable enough to switch out of a Static Discharge and swap to a different build entirely.

blutstein.2468:

yeah you’re right, but never the less its the perfect declaration of arrogance

No more so than a doctor’s diploma hanging on the wall of his office. We don’t have a metric for player skill or experience, but “amount of time/matches played as an Engineer” can be informative. I’m inclined to give more weight to the thoughts and opinions of someone with that much Engi under their belt than I am to someone who has spent more time theorycrafting than playing.

Anyway, I’m in the I’m-not-sure-V/T-is-worth-the-damage-loss camp. Whatever works for you, right? Regardless, I don’t know why I never even thought about ruby orbs for my Zerker gear. So hung up on Runes, I guess. Thanks for the heads-up.

zugly.9035:

I think if you are a FT engineer, as I am testing this build recently, I am almost 99% sure that the best is to go for sigil of Strength specially if you take the HGH trait from alchemy.

I was testing my new build yesterday in heart of the mist and depends on how many mobs you have, it can be really quick (was testing it on dummies, maybe will be dead if testing it on real mobs), to reach 20+ stack of might, which is by far more power than 25 stack of bloodlust sigil.

P.S: still need to test it on real mobs or in instance. probably tonight

Careful; the question isn’t “Are 20+ stacks of Might better than 250 power?” Clearly, the answer is “Yes!” Of those stacks, at most 5 of them will come from Sigil of Strength, assuming you crit every 2 seconds without fail. In other words, Sigil of Strength will range from 0 to 5 stacks of Might, depending entirely upon how often you crit on 2s intervals. 5 stacks of Might is still only 175 Power at level 80. Refreshing the duration of Might from Strength will not refresh the duration of Might from HGH, or from any other source.

However, Strength and Bloodlust are not mutually exclusive, and if you want to run a FT build with P/P or P/S—or swap out rifles—you can reach 20+ Might in addition to 25 stacks of Bloodlust. If you’ve got 25 stacks and 20+ Might, you’ll range from 950 to 1125 Power on top of whatever you’ve got from other sources. That’s… substantial.

Now, if I recall correctly, FT damage scaling is pretty poor, and most good FT builds take advantage of crit-proc stuff, especially food. I don’t have the skill coefficient on hand, but I’ll take a look later to see just how much that Power actually affects the output of FT.

Just to be clear, you can’t run Sigil of Perception and Sigil of Bloodlust. I’m not sure if that’s what you were suggesting, but the two won’t stack. In that case, you can have either Perception or Bloodlust, and Strength.

For what it’s worth, Bloodlust gives +250 Power at 25 stacks. Strength will give you, at most, 175 Power—that is, 5 stacks of Might—if you crit every 2s without fail.

However, because Perception and Bloodlust don’t stack the question, then, becomes Perception vs Bloodlust. From a strictly direct damage point of view Bloodlust will always be superior to Perception, at least within the range of 150% crit damage (base crit damage) to 200% crit damage (+50% crit damage on gear). I can’t recall what the max possible is in sPvP, and I haven’t looked at the numbers greater than that for WvW/PvE.

Once you start factoring in on-crit effects from traits, sigils, food, and other sources… well, things get very difficult to model. I’d say you can either run Bloodlust/Accuracy if you need the extra crit, or Bloodlust/(Some On-Crit effect) if you don’t need the extra crit chance. Perception, at 25 stacks, gives about 12% crit chance… if you’re absolutely married to that, you can throw Strength on the other weapon/shield for some free Might when that extra 12% makes itself worthwhile.

Poizie.5187:

running a ramp/rabid cond FT build atm and its stupid powerful in small fights…with fury i have 100% crit chance and have won every 1v1 and some 2-3v1’s

Would you mind elaborating on this? I’m curious how you run it, since the only conditions inherent to FT are a 1s burn at the end of a 2.25s channel on FT1, and the burn from FT4. Bleed/Burn on crit traits/sigils? Swapping between Pistol and FT?

What I mean is, how do you gear? If you’re primarily Berserker stats, do you go 100% berserker gear, or do you find it more effective to run with berserker stats on most of your gear, and something a bit more defensive (PVT or something) on your accessories?

I’ve tried testing it out a bit in sPvP, but I think this is one thing that doesn’t translate to the Mists very well.

So, what stats are you running with, and have you tried both approaches at level 80? It’s a bit… cost prohibitive. If you respond, also mention what facet of the game you’re talking about. WvW and dungeons would be the main two, I think.

cottage.3274:

the point is that as fun as playing engineer is, even with all the bugs,bad traits,fail mechanics,poor skill design ect,the fact (yes fact!) is we get outperform in every role in every platform the game offers by other professions.

Emphasis mine.

I don’t think that word means what you think it means.

I see a lot of hyperbole in these discussions, but I don’t see a lot of substantive evidence. Let’s turn to our good friend, modus tollens, and hear what he has to say:

• If the Engineer is inferior to all other classes, then no one will team up with Engineers for tPvP.
• Some people team up with Engineers for tPvP.
• Therefore, the Engineer is not inferior to all other classes.

This doesn’t even address the fact that popular perception and reality are not necessarily the same thing. Some people will certainly buy the hype and say, “Oh, Engi sucks, we don’t want you on our tPvP/dungeon/WvW/group-hug team.” Okie doke. No real loss; I’m always a little bit irrationally afraid that such a level of stupidity just might be contagious, so parting ways really works out best for everyone.

This forum gives such a skewed view of… well, everything…but of the Engineer in particular. Clinging to the belief that Engineers are hopelessly bargled, despite a growing body of evidence that they are not (anecdotal as well as quantifiable) is very strange.

Zonzai.2341:

@Aznhaxx

We’ve pretty much already gone over it. The engineer is very fun. And you can make an engineer work for you in certain situations (100nades in WvW) but a well-built equally played character of another profession is still superior, regardless of how much effort you put into building your engineer. I don’t know what you could disagree with. It’s not really a matter of opinion.

Except, it is a matter of opinion.

Statements like “…a well-built equally played character of another profession is still superior” are sweeping—and inaccurate—generalizations that depend entirely upon how you choose to define “superior.” Without a clear definition, the statement doesn’t have much meaning.

This community has a serious problem conflating “Engi has some problems that could be improved upon” with “Engi is broken and is inferior to every other class in every way!”

Engi is fun (which most people don’t disagree with), and can be effective in every facet of this game. The class has issues, certainly, but they’re slowly being addressed. We’re not in a bad place, and we’re getting better.

Folks have already mentioned most of the many options we have, but don’t forget the Smoke Bomb + Magnetic Shield/Inversion blast finisher for a few seconds of AoE stealth. It’s not very long, but you could use Magnetic Inversion and Detonate Turret to stack it a bit.

Kamahl.3621:

Oh, and ditch the force sigil. If you’ve 30 points in firearms, and you’re using force over something like sigil of fire / air, you just picked up whatever weapon you had and took a screenshot. The might sigil isnt’ bad but you’ll get more damage from even an accuracy sigil if you’re going full berserker (106%+ crit damage, which would translate to a ~6-7% damage increase, more than force is giving you).

It’s not absolutely true that Accuracy yields more damage than Force. Depending on how much +Crit Damage gear you have, there will be a critical chance % below which the additional 5% from Accuracy will result in a higher expected value, and above which the +5% damage from Force pulls ahead. The more +Crit Damage gear you have, the higher that critical chance % is, but even with +50% crit damage (for 200% crit damage total), that critical value is only 50% chance to crit. Anything above that, 5% damage is worth more than 5% crit.

I haven’t looked at on-crit sigils and how they affect the expected value, yet. The PvP’er in me says they’re worth the burst when they proc, though I’m very curious about what the math would say about it, especially with the internal cooldown.

Maullus

Elixir-Infused Bomb Heal = 0.1x + 145.6

Where x is Healing Power, and the character is level 80.

I couldn’t test this out anywhere but the Heart of the Mists, and I’m not saying it is a perfect model, but it appears to be accurate to within 1% for a level 80 character, within a range of healing power from 300 to 1400. I encourage folks to test it out beyond that range and see if it holds.

A few things I did notice:
1) The healing from Elixir-Infused bombs appears to be completely independent from the damage of those bombs.
2) The healing from Elixir-Infused bombs appears to be completely independent from the type of bomb used.
3) The healing from Elixir-Infused bombs is constant for a given x; that is, if you have x Healing Power, your heals from EIB will always be y amount, with no variation or range.

Hope that helps. Let me know if the model holds outside those conditions. Two things I’d like to test (but can’t, just yet):

1) For a level 80 character with Healing Power in excess of 1400, does the model hold?
2) For a non-level 80 character, would the following formula hold:

EIB Heal = 0.1x + 1.82y

Where x is Healing Power and y is level.

If you’re feeling inquisitive, check those out and let me know!

Edit: It occurs to me I didn’t give any actual data.

Healing Power :: EIB Heal
300 :: 176
465 :: 193
1109 :: 257
1223 :: 268
1388 :: 285

So, 165 Healing Power yields approximately 17 additional healing.

From this thread way back:
Elixir infused bombs formula