Guild Wars 2

Lamps.8014:

but this is now looking impossible to craft at all if u didn’t complete the meta ach from the four winds for the daily mining in home instance or grind it during dragon bash

Stacks of quartz can be had from the Trading Post for between ~3 and 4 gold per stack.

Nope. All of my efforts toward crafting Ascended weapons have been for my Warrior and my Mesmer. My Engineer, while my favorite character to play, is lowest on my priority list for the reasons you’ve already elucidated (plus the annoying fact that Givers’ stats aren’t available, which is the reason that I’ve got the materials to craft the Flameseeker Prophecies in the bank but still haven’t put it together yet).

The only reason I’d prioritize my Engineer in my Ascended weapon crafting would be if it were my only toon with which I was comfortable participating in high-level Fractals, as those infusion slots actually start to matter there.

Somehow couldn’t find this thread/question while digging through the Crafting forums and reposted the same question… but then found it with a Google search :-\

Back to the front page with you! This is need-to-know stuff with Season 1 about to hit the WvWvW game.

Add to the mix that the additional Crit Damage from Berserker gear (that you’re sacrificing for Condition Damage with Rampager’s) scales directly with your crit chance, and your crit chance is going to be darned near 100% in a proper Berserker loadout with a group that supplies perma-Fury, Banner of Discipline, and possibly Spotter as well, which ends up being what pushes Berserker stats over the top in organized group PvE content.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/PvE-Dungeon-Speedrun-Zerk-Build/first

This is a great dungeon build that I’m frankly amazed isn’t permanently stuck to the first page of our forums (I take that as a testament to our versatility, though, because we have, by far, the most build-flexibility in selecting “viable” options).

Personally, though, I use the world’s most bland, boring, and stereotypical 30/0/0/30/10 HGH Grenad-‘neer build, mostly because it’s familiar, simple, effective, and flexible. I keep two sets of Rampager’s armors in my pack (one with the typical 2xSuperior Runes of Altruism, 2xSuperior Runes of Fire, and 2xSuperior Runes of Strength; affectionately, the Might Stacking loadout; and one with 6xSuperior Runes of the Scholar). I also have two sets of Berserker’s armors, with the same rune loadouts on them. I use Rampager’s Might-stacking kit for open world PvE and event farming, Berserker’s Might-stacking for world bosses that don’t appreciate conditions, Berserker’s + Scholar’s for organized dungeons in groups wherein I’m guaranteed 25 Might stacks without the additional duration because of my team, and Rampager’s + Scholars for solo farming (that you can frankly do naked, really). Trinkets are the industry standard Ascended-quality Berserker stat setup.

Weapons are almost always (Exotic) Givers’ pistol+shield (that condition duration and all of the extra Vulnerability stacks it nets you in a long fight is far too valuable to lose out on by moving into an Ascended weapon, where the Giver’s stats aren’t available, given that our kits’ damage is independent of our weapons’ attack strength). I keep one shield with a Superior Sigil of Bloodlust for power stacks, and one shield with a Superior Sigil of Force (or Night, or whatever-slaying you want to run for the dungeon you’re focusing on farming, if you are), and a Superior Sigil of Strength (or Battle) in the pistol.

Rare Veggie Pizza is the food of choice for stacking up all that delicious Vulnerability with a build like this, though if you’re in an organized group that has Vulnerability and Might stacking covered without the additional condition duration, the various Butternut Squash soups are your friends. Slayer potions over sharpening stones/oils (as the build(s) I use don’t really focus too heavily on crit procs).

Edit: Just realized I linked a rifle build like a big ol’ kitten . That build can be tweaked for pistol+shield easily enough, though; you’d just lose out on the juicy Blunderbuss+melee-range Jump Shot burst.

(What the heck, ANet? D*rp is considered profanity? Seriously?)

For a “straightforward” build for (dungeon) PvE, you can’t get much easier or effective than a Static-Discharging Power Bomb-‘gineer build, the intricacies of which are outlined here (It’s not my work, but it’s very effective in dungeons):

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/PvE-Dungeon-Speedrun-Zerk-Build/first

Zerker-DPS, blast finishers and fire fields for Might-stacking, and all the usual loveliness that accompanies the stereotypical dungeon PvE meta build these days.

About your build, eh… Turrets are far too underwhelming in PvE content to justify investing that many points in their existence. I wouldn’t do it for PvP or WvW, either, but those are neither my forte’, so I’ll let the more experienced and competitive ‘neers speak to those (I run tanky, almost trollish builds a la Nisha the Medicat for WvW, because I just don’t take it seriously at all, and giving opponents prybars to the face amuses me).

And on the subject of Ascended weapons and Engineers… I wouldn’t be in a hurry to move into one. In PvE, our weapons are mostly just stat-sticks, and the strength of their attack power doesn’t translate to our damaging kits. Those are fixed at the Exotic-equivalent attack power of 929 and don’t scale up with an Ascended weapon equipped. All you get from an Ascended weapon is the additional stats. The final nail in the coffin, in my opinion, is that the Givers’ stats that we love so dearly in PvE (for additional Vulnerability stacking capabilities) aren’t available on Ascended weapons (yet; and possibly never will be). Long story short, don’t worry too terribly much about Ascended weapons for PvE. Exotic Givers’ weapons are amazing for us.

Absolutely! Pistol-shield is pretty much the go-to “meta” loadout for the PvE Engineer ever since last winter, when we finally got access to sigils with our weapon kits!

Two sigils and access to a total of 20% additional condition duration with two Givers’ weapons makes us shine as the Might-stacking, Vulnerability-spamming monsters that we have the potential to be in PvE (given a dungeon-oriented Bomb Kit or Grenade Kit build, that I’m unsure whether you’re interested in using).

The unfortunate response to the question “[W]hat does a dual pistol [E]ngineer bring to the table in 5 man groups?” is a cautious “Not as much as a pistol-shield Engineer.”, at least in terms of the current PvE mindset, where the definition of PvE-that-matters is basically dungeon “speed” runs and 40+ FOTM.

In those types of content, the types of utility that matter (without even addressing DPS, widely regarded as the most important pseudo-utility anyone can bring into that content) are, for the most part, Might-stacking, Fury, Vulnerability-stacking, active defense (such as blocks and near permanent Vigor, Protection, Aegis, and, to a lesser extent, Blind), and projectile reflection/blocking. I’m sure there are some important things I’m overlooking in that quick run-down, but it’s pretty close.

By electing to run an off-hand pistol over a shield, you’re trading a projectile reflect with an attached blast finisher (for Might stacks or healing to your group) and an active block with a wonderfully short cooldown and a built-in potential for a piercing line of dazing interrupts to get an utterly underwhelming burn with less-than-stellar up-front damage and an AoE root+snare, neither of which are of too terribly much use on “fights that matter”.

It’s a weapon set that I can honestly say I’d like to be able to love, but the utility of the shield skills is just too amazing to pass up on, unless ANet decides to give the pistol’s off-hand a blast finisher and a Blind-pulsing smoke field (cough Thieves’ pistol 5, that I’d utterly jump for joy to have access to without having to slot the Flamethrower just to get a toned-down version of).

Just my .02, but it’s not a weapon set that anyone’s going to be excited to see. That said, run with it if you like, especially if you’re not all about “hardcore” PvE. Nothing in the PvE universe is so difficult that being a tad inefficient in any area is going to absolutely bar completing anything, just realize that you’re going probably going to hear some griping from the elitist crowd. After all, how are you going to complete anything if you dislike playing the way you’re “supposed” to so much that you decide not to play at all? XD

Ledddawe.8964:

well i found runes for tokens from dungeon is there any other way to get them ?runes of noble

There is not; no.

Father Grimm.8467:

Let me toss out an example of a recent play session that was very frustrating: Diessa Plateau, in the area with ghost trebuchets, cannons, and Ascalonians that pop and repop like mad. I tried using D/D in there and was consistently assailed by enemies at range, melee, and AEs from the local machines.

Even when I’d clear a melee mob or two, my health was constantly being burst down by mages, archers, or the local artillery.

Without trying to derail your thread at all, that particular area isn’t hard for you because you’re an Elementalist; that spot (The Grenditch Ruins, specifically) just stinks for aggro and sheer annoyance factor. Even when I bring my 80s there (an Engineer, Warrior, and Mesmer) for the jumping puzzle, it’s a headache.

Knifte.2439:

Patch notes say:

“Steel Packed Powder:: Fixed a bug so that the vulnerability condition will be applied when is equipped on the grenade skill and not the Reserve Mines trait.”

So what does this mean?

No vuln stacks on nades?

It’s truly a poorly constructed sentence. I read its meaning to be such that Steel Packed Powder is intended to cause explosions from grenades (and bombs, one can only assume) to apply Vulnerability stacks, but that, perhaps, the Reserve Mines trait’s mines may also have been inheriting Vulnerability stacking ability from the trait, and that bug is being fixed.

It’s the only actually logical conclusion I can glean from that obtuse hodgepodge of words.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

RIP warriors. That Empower Allies nerf really screws them.

That one’s pretty darned painful, indeed.

hydeaut.1758:

I guess here is the answer:

Karl McLain.5604:

The damage from conjures and other weaponry of the like had an unintended increase from the patch on September 3 as a side effect from another change, so this fix was just to correct that bug. It’s not to say we’re against increasing ele conjured weapon potential in the future.

Cheers!
-Karl

I would say this goes against what they told about scaling of kits according to the rarest weapon-type available:

Patch Notes Janury 28

World Polish – Other
General

•Bundles from player skills (engineer kits, elementalist conjured weapons, warrior banners) now have base damage that is consistent with the highest rarity weapons available at the level of the player.

But probably they didn´t really mean it the way they wrote it . .

Thank you for digging up that quote. I looked for it for almost an hour on the web thinking that it had come from a developer livestream or interview, and had no success; eventually, I gave up. It never dawned on me to dig through the update notes.

wondergod.2498:

Simple answer is no it is not on the radar. They only time we are even looked at is when one of the popular classes has trouble killing us in PvP, then we get a nerf.

I hate to be the harbinger of potentially bad news… but uh… the ‘elite’ PvP classes are having difficulty killing us right now; or so I’ve been told/read/heard/watched.

We’re one of the condition spam classes, and ArenaNet has specifically said those are due for “shaving down” with the next balance patch.

Read about it here

Swizzle.7982:

I don’t understand why anyone would want a melee weapon on the engi, could someone explain it?

I mean we have the tool kit, it sucks, would a hammer be much better? And if it would because of better skills why not just redo the tool kit skills.

I don’t really understand what function it would serve that isn’t already done by thieves, warriors or guardians and isn’t done better by them.

Do what, now? Engineers don’t melee and the tool kit ‘sucks’? O_o And here I’ve been having a tremendously smashing good time making things explode and melt in melee range with the tool kit and bombs.

Engineers melee quite effectively, thank you very much; and I for one would absolutely love a dedicated melee weapon set to go along with this playstyle. While firing shotgun-style attacks at mobs in melee range certainly works, and there’s not too much about which to complain with the rifle in general, a hammer would feel so much more natural.

Smigge.2037:

I was tinkering with the standard sd grenade build, and I was wondering if a bomb build would work? You can stack confusion pretty well with the pistol, bomb kit, and pry bar, lots of cripples and roots, and 3 blast finishers for the fire field. Let me know what you think.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQJAqel0p6ZnpSyF17IxIFkuzgUYXA/5hcbbaB-TQAg0CnMiYaB

First, I really want to advocate the use of the rifle with this build. While I’m a hardcore pistol+shield wielder (I’m addicted to the extra stun(s), the projectile reflect, the blast finisher, and the long block), in a power-stacking build like this, the rifle’s extra burst from melee range Jump Shot + Blunderbuss absolutely shine. And despite it’s seeming lack of utility, the rifle still packs one of (in my opinion) the best disengages in the game in the form of Overcharged Shot. That said, of course run what you like. Most of a build like this’s damage is really going to come from Bomb Kit ‘1’ spam under full Might Stacks, Bloodlust, and Fury, so not having those two skills to use on cooldown isn’t a make-or-break thing (PvP is, of course, another story, where you absolutely NEED that bit of extra burst potential).

As for runes, the two major contenders are going to be the usual 2xStrength, 2xFire, 2xHoelbrak or 4xAltruism, 2xStrength/Fire/Hoelbrak/Water. My personal preference with this build would be Altruism + Water, and to switch Short Fuse (Explosives VIII) for Enhance Performance (Explosives X). With a Superior Sigil of Battle, this will give you up to 9 Might stacks just for switching into your MedKit for a single global cooldown. Given all that, I’d top off the Might stacking potential with boon duration food.

A lot of this has been more thoroughly discussed and theorycrafted than I feel compelled to repeat here if you care to give it a read.

Good luck, and happy bombing!!

Addendum: I realize that replacing Short Fuse in your build is going to reduce your available fire fields by 20%. I recommend always carrying a stack of Fire Elemental Powders to make up for it. Those elementals can dish out some respectable DPS, and they’re veritable fire field pinatas.

Hughes Aleut.6587:

I’m Curious, does Salvaging Crafted Exotics produce no Dark Matter?
Which type of Exotic items did you guys Salvage?

In crafting my way to 450 Artifice, Weaponsmithing, and Huntsman in the last two days, I ended up with a slew of exotic level 80 crafted weapons. It was upwards of 40, though now I wish I’d kept the specific numbers for this post.

Salvaging all of those (entirely crafted level 80 exotics) with a Mystic Salvage Kit yielded 14 Dark Matter for me. Salvaging crafted exotics definitely has the potential to yield Dark Matter.

However, salvaging around a dozen level 76-79 dropped exotics, also with a Mystic Salvage Kit, did not yield any. It’s not nearly a large enough sample, but it is suggestive. It may also be worthy of mention that all of the exotic drops were armor, whereas all of the crafted exotics were weapons. Perhaps only exotic weapons can yield Dark Matter?

Seras.5702:

Can’t believe we still haven’t gotten a red response on this yet

Apparently these forums aren’t sufficiently visible. Anyone want to go post in the bug reports forums about how equipping a bundle with a legendary equipped reduces your attack power?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/Submit-Profession-Bugs-to-the-Game-Bugs-Forum XD

Or maybe we should all just start tweeting our complaints (err… constructive and positive feedback and insightful inquiries, I mean!!) to @ArenaNet.

joffmonk.1285:

i think that’s why they hotfixed this, they realized engineer’s wouldn’t need to grind the crafting to obtain an ascended item damage to get the same damage equivalent.

you will probably find in 2-3 weeks when the crafting of ascended weapons becomes more common and everyone is running around with them then they will increase the damage again.

the problem is if they don’t hard code kits to scale with equipped weapons then this will continue to have every time there are item upgrades available.

This is what I expect as well, really; I’d just like to hear an official response to that effect so I know what’s coming and can plan and prepare for it.

VIVorcha.7853:

Considering kits forgo the benefits of weapons, I’m surprised they don’t have MORE damage.

I don’t know exactly what that means. Kits no longer deprive you of access to the stat increases or sigils on your weapons.

See https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/updates/Game-Update-Notes-December-14-2012

The only thing that bundles—specifically, the Engineer kits, Elementalist summoned weapons, and Warrior banners (apparently)—do not inherit from your equipped weapons is the base damage statistic, as they have their own hard-coded inherent damage statistic (currently fixed at the exotic weapon damage equivalent of, I think, 969).

I couldn’t have said this much better myself. What gives, ArenaNet? For how long are our kits (as well as the Elementalists’ summoned weapon bundles) intended to lag behind the power curve onto which classes who can actually wield their legendaries and ascended weapons are quickly jumping?

Yes, I realize that the damage scaling in certain bundles presents problematic concerns when their base damage numbers are simply increased to ascended levels. I observed an admittedly startling jump on certain grenade skills’ damage numbers when the base damage numbers were changed with Tuesday’s patch, and I’m certainly not lobbying to have those kinds of numbers back.

What I know I want—and what I think would go a long way toward quelling all the Grenad-‘neers, Flame-gineers, Bomb-gineers, and legendary-toting Engineers’ concerns—is merely a brief explanation as to why, yet again (we had this same concern and these same questions and this same discussion a year ago about weapon stats and sigils affecting our kits, remember?) those of us who use kits to be effective don’t seem to have been invited to the ‘cool kids’ party’ where the ascended damage levels are being done. Even a simple indication as to when, if ever, kits are going to be brought up to snuff would be sufficient. Pretty please, with a cherry on top? Just let us know that this is on your radars.

Almost positive our kits were brought in line with the Ascended weapons’ stats with this patch. I’m seeing higher numbers from grenade attacks with the same build and gear (exotic Berserker armor + exotic Berserker pistol/shield + ascended/exotic Berserker-stat trinkets) against PvE mobs in Frostgorge Sound.

Also, character panel Attack Power stat with no kit equipped, no food buff(s), no Might stacks, and no Bloodlust: 3293. Same conditions, but with Grenade Kit equipped: 3341. Same 3341 Attack Power on the character panel with the Bomb Kit, Tool Kit, Flamethrower, and Elixir Gun.

I’ve no way to test whether turret damage was brought in line, as I’ve never used them, and thus have no numbers to which to compare.

In short: Initial — and by far mostly anecdotal — observations suggest that yes, our kits are now at Ascended damage levels (but I could very easily be mistaken).

All of these ideas are infinitely better than where the trait currently stands. I’d be exceptionally pleased if it added a passive buff like Elementalists’ Air trait line’s Master trait, Inscription, or even if it passively buffed by a tiny margin the skills in our various kits.

Before it was gutted, this was an utterly amazing trait, but the changes to it left it almost worthless (I only say ‘almost’ because who doesn’t love a little extra Super Speed on occasion?). Something definitely needs to be changed with it to make it useful/viable in any way, shape, or form. I’m not a developer, so I can’t claim to know what that might be in order to achieve ‘balance’, but I’m +1’ing all of these suggestions in hope of bringing some much-needed attention to this (again).

Durzlla.6295:

McWolfy.5924:

i think normal pets will never work properly. we need something else. example invulnerable pets whats not dealing or receiving damage, just buff us or the party passively and do some effect for f2

That’s not a pet,

We have those already; they’re called Spirits XD

So, by way of update, my issues with this problem are seemingly gone after having removed all of the Windows USB drivers and allowing them to be reinstalled, then updating each of them manually. I also uninstalled the mouse in question’s driver, purged all of the Logitech driver software from my machine and cleaned references to it from my Windows registry, then installed the latest Logitech software 8.50 (08.26.13)

After a reboot, I’m no longer noticing the incessant stuttering and focus-loss at all, even during crowded and intense events.

Lopez.7369:

After months of not having this problem, it’s back. I have both options for clicking to interact turned off.

Confirmed here, too.

Windows 7 Home Premium
Logitech G700 (issue persists whether USB-cabled or wireless , and across all polling rates from 125 hz to 1000 hz)
– Driver: 5.33.10.0

The issue seemed to have been resolved last year, but as of the past week, it’s back with a vengeance.

By the by: This issue isn’t necessarily entirely on ArenaNet’s end; I’ve noticed (and reported) identical behavior in BioWare’s Star Wars: The Old Republic as well as Turbine’s The Lord of the Rings Online, but far more sporadically, and only ever for brief moments.

BAMBOO.9430:

Lightsbane.9012:

last but not least, it is a great class that requires a significant amount of understanding of the game to truly master. this is not the case of 6/8 of the rest of the classes.

Kinda curious what the other class is that your referring to

I’m willing to bet dollars to donuts that he means the Elementalist—the other class that requires you to be able to play the keyboard like a professional pianist to attain any measure of success! XD

Just a guess.

Oxstar.7643:

Question, the trait that makes turret blow up on destruction, do they count as a toolbelt skill and would hence proc static discharge?

If you manually detonate them, yes; but as with all untargeted/ground-targeted toolbelt skills, the bolt from the Static Discharge trait, when triggered, flies in a straight line away from your current camera position. This usually results in it simply hitting the ground a short distance from your feet rather than hitting a target.

If they detonate as a result of taking damage, then no, you will not get a static proc from their destruction.

Rangers should have Kuraii’s Barrage. Anet, make this happen, please.

I, too, suffer these same issues. The recent patch (on 10/01/12, I believe) had my mouse working well for about 12 hours… then the issues started again.

Logitech G700 and generic wired three-button mouse and standard old Logitech wireless three-button mouse. All display the same behavior despite having had their drivers removed and the latest software reinstalled.

It’s funny; I was pondering this very thing this afternoon. I would love to be able to run pistol + warhorn in a PvE ranged DPS + group support build.