Guild Wars 2

It’s pretty convoluted, honestly.
Explosive powder gives its benefit unconditionally, but does nothing for condition damage.
Enhance performance affects both damage types, but takes time to build up, assuming you don’t run around using your heal whenever you can to maintain stacks (and its benefits can also be stripped/stolen/converted, etc).
Short fuse affects both, but requires you to use skills as soon as they come off cool down or it becomes (more) lossy.

It’s a cop-out answer, but I really think it depends on the situation. Personally, I just use enhance performance because it benefits both damage types and the upkeep is easy between fights since I’m using speedy kits anyway.

Also as per your shrapnel grenade + sharpshooter capping bleed stacks alone question, no I don’t they would with that build. I manage it with +100% condition duration in PVE, but that probably doesn’t help you much.

Halcyon.7352:

Out of curiosity OP… were you here last month when they nerfed KR?

That was probably the biggest outcry of nerf QQ I’ve ever seen, and yes, I was one of them.

Then again, I don’t browse the other profession forums nearly as much as these.

In my opinion, the kit refinement “adjustment” was the worst nerf engineer has suffered, including beta. The development team handled it terribly, and I think people have a right to be upset about it.

Kamahl.3621:

flamethrower auto attack now does 5% more damage per tick for every previous hit in the same attack chain without a miss.

That only works out to like 270 more damage per chain on a single target (assuming 105 dmg on the first hit, 10 hits, unless I’m way wrong), could be cool if it the effect stacked vs. multiple targets, though.

I thought elixirs were better than gadgets because elixirs actually get trait support and can be augmented to do interesting and useful things.

Also, yes. Rocket boots should be like jump shot, except with 1,200 range and either burn on knock enemies down on landing.

I would:
a.) make elixirs more powerful on their own, i.e. elixir B would a near direct analog to “for great justice!”, except single target.

b.) give some kind of trait support to gadgets (they have one trait currently, and it’s a lame 20% recast reduction trait), and give them functionality worth a utility slot.

c.) remove turrets completely and add a new utility skill line. “improvised weapons” or something, maybe.

and of course d.) complete overhaul of traits, i.e. traits that augment explosions would affect explosive shot, elixir traits would affect super elixir etc. broken or otherwise completely useless traits (scope, adrenal implant, etc.) would be removed and replaced with something interesting. 20% recast reduction traits would be removed or merged into other traits, trait that increase range and damage (i.e. rifle damage +10%) would be merged as well, making room for stuff that’s exciting.

edit: also I believe the 20% recast reduction traits should be merged into other traits for every single class, or made more powerful. they’re obvious filler and unimaginative. take superior aria and pure of voice on guardian for example; they lower shout recasts by 20% and make shouts convert one condition to a boon, respectively. pure of voice will never, ever be used without superior aria. merging them into one trait (-20% shout cool down, shouts convert one condition to a boon) would create a very powerful trait, and allow for new (hopefully interesting and unique) trait to replace superior aria. near as I can tell, every single class suffers from the lame 20% recast reduction traits somewhere. conversely, there are already some good traits that include both the recast reduction and another aspect that modifies functionality, i.e. power wrench and forceful great sword.

not really, no. it’s a provably worse effect for a larger trait investment than other options. there’s no argument for adrenal implant.

think about that.

rifle turret: long range direct damage, the hip shot debate could end once and for all
thumper turret: melee kit that actually does damage and has CC to it
net turret: throw nets and junk at enemies
rocket turret: you get a rocket launcher.
flame turret: i didn’t think this far ahead.
healing turret: really, no idea for this one.

you guys
srsly

turrets would stop being bad because they wouldn’t exist anymore, and we would get interesting new kits

The video is of an interesting consumable item called “Frost Gun”.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajGwIXNZPOU

I think, with a similar skill set, it would make a very cool kit for Engineer.

I was thinking they should just merge the -20% minion recast rate and protection of the horde. 20% faster recast on minions and 20 toughness per minion on one trait would be neato, and it would free up the minor death magic trait.

Edit: Also I think making reanimator major trait, decreasing the ICD to 15 seconds, and allowing two to be up would make it worth taking. They honestly don’t contribute a whole lot, so I don’t see how having two up some of the time would be over powered.

I actually used that while leveling in fireheart rise instead of the actual grenade kit. real talk. It lasts for quite a while, and even goes with you through waypoints in that zone if I remember correctly.

Think about it. How awesome would it be if each necromancer weapon had unique death shroud skills to accompany them? The death shroud skills wouldn’t just be the same old thing no matter what, but rather an extension of the style of the weapon you’re using. For instance, dagger main hand could change the primary attack of death shroud to be a powerful melee range cleave attack, and so on.

I think something like this would add a good deal of depth to weapon choice, as well as make death shroud more interesting than just F1 > 3 for fear exit, or F1 to absorb burst > exit. However, I think this would make people feel obligated to use it to take advantage of the skills which might be a bad thing, I don’t know.

Sorry if this has come up on the forums before, it just popped into my head.

I actually just did fractal 20 w/ throw mine, instead of elixir R (because screw everyone else) and it’s pretty cool. The extra blast finisher is nice, CD matches with FT#4 almost perfectly. The tool belt skill is pretty inconsistent, but if you get lucky it’s pretty decent damage on a low recast. Being able to remove things like protect/25 might stacks/etc is awesome, too. Only real issue is some enemies have boons that are ~3sec duration that are reapplied constantly.

Retaliation destroys flamethrower. The toy ventari in the grove wintersday dungeon, where there are usually 3+ of them with retaliation clumped up? I just swapped to pistol and ran around pretending to be doing something while everyone else killed them. Engineer doesn’t have a real way of stripping boons apart from that one sigil either.

This is the build I’ve been using for a while now (pre-grenade nerf, because spamming got tiresome) and it’s pretty legit. I use this build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQJAqel0pSXnwSrF17IxoCdG0j6X37K6R+bMlB;TgAquMeJ8yGkrLZQDMmQA with knight’s gear, amulet, earrings, and lunaria/solaria ascended rings since they’re what I have.
One of the main things about this build that’s very important is removing poison, because if you let yourself stay poisoned you ruin your hp/second, which is why I think 30 in alchemy is near mandatory so you can keep deadly mixture and cleaning formula, as well as constant vigor up time.
I dislike backpack regenerator, because while otherwise pretty good, you run the risk of overhealing while using it with this build, and I believe that condition removal is much more important.
You maintain high fury up time with dropped stimulant from medkit and elixir B, as well as auto-elixir B at 75% hp when applicable which helps a lot.

Also, combo fields are pretty important for this. Flamethrower 4 > shield 4 is AoE might, can drop supply crate as well for a second combo, also helps to inform/remind party members; you can help supply a large amount of might to your party since flamethrower 4 skill is up very often. Hammer guardians are great for this if you can convince them to work with you rather than spamming mighty blow into symbols.

Orion the Cursed.1206:

Destroyer.1306:

Orion the Cursed.1206:

However if Power doesn’t scale up my damage… maybe i should rethink?

What did you mean by this? I thought that’s exactly what power does. Did I miss something?

Someone on this forum told me kit damage is only affected by Level. He complained that everyones (grenade to grenade/bomb to bomb/FT to FT/TK to TK) base damage is the same at lvl 80. Is that true? Nobody contradicted him at the time so i assumed its true

It’s a half-truth. Kit damage does scale with level, and doesn’t get the stats or damage from your equipped weapon(s). Their damage does scale with the stats off of your armor, trinkets, food, etc.

I use this build (may need to copy/paste): http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQJAqelspSXnwSiF17ICoC1noH53jRZfewWtFEC

For armor I use full exotic power/vitality/toughness, two superior monk runes, two superior water runes, and two major water runes. This paired with the 30% boon duration from the alchemy line gives me +70% boon duration, you can get another 20% from food, but there’s better food to be had. For accessories I use soldier’s spineguard with the exotic emerald gem, and exotic power/toughness/precision rings, etc.

Fury is up a good amount of the time, usually near full time if you have a warrior present. I also use omnomberry pie for the 66% chance to steal 300ish HP on crit (it has no internal CD).

A big misconception about grenades is the range. Just because you have 1,500 range does not mean you should ever be standing that far away, minus certain encounters like the tentacles on the jade maw, the legendary dredge mining suit, etc.
Grenades are at their most effective in melee range because it increases accuracy to near 100% and reduces the travel time of the grenade to almost nothing.

I’ve tried a lot of builds, and this, in my opinion, is one of the most potent engineer has for almost any occasion. Grenades offer excellent short, mid, and long range damage, as well as a good amount of control through chill and blind. The high amount of projectiles per second also makes them your primary source of healing from the pie.

I’m at fractal 26 now having used this build for the majority of that, and it hasn’t steered me wrong. I’ve yet to see a ring drop/forge an ascended back item, so agony is still an issue for me, but probably wouldn’t be for people more fortunate with drops.

I spent $30 on gems last month for mystic forge tokens/etc, and $40 just now for keys.
I probably would’ve spent at least $20 next month, but not now.
After this debacle I can say with 100% certainty they won’t see another dime out of me for gems.