Guild Wars 2

KirinDave.6451:

Just fyi, in many cases the pistol still scales better with power than with condition damage. So the main reason to go condition is as a bumper for your power or for cases where you’re doing conditions with a kit a lot.

This.

It’s an oft-repeated fallacy that power does not help pistols and that they are pure condition damage weapons. Power DOES help pistols, arguably more than condition damage. Casia and some others have shown the maths in other threads.

FWIW I run full bunker P/S with bomb kit, healing turret, elixir R/C and use Power/tough/vit gear.

Previous poster was correct, bomb kit is awesome but you’ll have to switch to your main weapon often when fighting kiting, ranged classes.

Bomb kit excels vs. both thieves and mesmers.

As mentioned before, CC is the key to getting your bombs to land. Melee is generally no problem, but against a good kiting ranged class you are going to have to switch and use ranged weapons or other kits while not in range for your bombs.

I use bombs extensively, applications in pve/spvp are pretty well known.

WvW bombs however can be tricky and limited at times, but they do have their strengths:

*Great when being chased. Group of enemies on your tail? Swiftness(you should have speedy kits in WvW) and drop a trail of bombs behind you to slow them or make them eat lots of damage

*Choke points with a melee scrum

*This is my fave, for sieges or zerg v. zerg, I call it the zerg-buster build. It’s basically a bunker modified for WvW…super tanky, p/s, protection traits, invis on immob, swift kits, vigor on swift, elixir S (and/or slick shoes), and of course bomb kit. This build is designed for charging into enemy lines, creating chaos and retreat, and making it out alive. Sample version would go stability(elixir S toolbelt/friendly guardian) >swiftness (charge enemy zerg) > pistol 3(aoe blind) >activate shield 5 block> reach enemy zerg> activate any combo of the following aoe: BoB, smoke bomb, glue bomb, supply drop, slick shoes >shield 4 reflect/knockdown > gtfo -elixir S or slick shoes + swift+ dodge to escape back to your lines while healing and cleansing conditions. Throw as many dodges into the rotation as you can, you will be attracting lots of attention and nullifying kitten tons of damage (by chaining block, reflect, blind, dodge, elixir S)

All of that aoe knockback, stun, and blind generally freaks out the zerg and their natural inclination is to move back, or else a bunch of them overextend into your lines in a (usually) futile attempt to kill you for your cheeky audacity. It’s best when you have supporting team following you, but I’ve charged into group of 30-40 solo and made it out alive, and even against a zerg like that I caused the lines to shift and encouraged my side to push forward behind me.

You want to gear/trait tanky for most bomb builds, no question.

From 11/15 Engineer patch notes:

~Elixir S: This skill is now improved by the Alchemy trait Fast-Acting Elixirs.

Sorry aNet, not working. Tooltip now says 48 seconds(what it should be) but actual cooldown is STILL 60 seconds.

Try pairing p/s with bomb kit, you can take on 5 mobs at a time without many problems. The key is the blinds…use pistol #3 at range and use bomb#4 in melee. The bomb blind constantly reapplies itself inside the circle until it expires (and you can shoot thru it with the pistol to apply ranged blinds as well). Drop bombs on their face in between blinds – if bomb blind expires and you are taking dmg use shield or BOB to knock them down/reflect/block until blinds are back up!

You will often come out of fights v. multiple mobs at or near 100% health if you chain your aoe blinds and aoe dmg properly, it’s really effective at killing in bunches and you’ll rarely ever die.

Yep, engi bunker with bombs/shield/CC is a super-fun playstyle….nothing beats pinballing your opponents around with explosions and knockbacks, and kits add depth and complexity to keep things interesting.

Aoe spec is the way to go for pve. I take on groups of 4-5 mobs regularly, sometimes with a veteran too, and rarely die.

Pistol/shield, bomb kit, slick shoes. The key is chaining your aoe blinds(pistol 3 bomb 4) with your aoe knockdowns(shield 4, slick shoes, BoB). Save dodge for when blinds/knockdowns are on cooldown. Open with pistol from range to gather mobs then switch to bomb kit when they are all grouped up.

Keep them aoe CC’ed/blinded, drop bombs in their face. If executed properly 3-4 mobs are easy and you come out of the fight at 90%+ health because they are constantly blinded or knocked down.

If things go poorly CC and use slick shoes toolbelt to sprint away and reset the fight.

Make sure you have the bomb traits and decent vit/toughness, glass cannon not recommended.

Fantastic for for DEs too.