Guild Wars 2

Arantheal, I even picked up a few things with that post… Very comprehensive.

Arctic, PvE wise, a lot of dungeon groups like to see people in Zerker gear and running builds that do good DPS. Might and Vulnerability stacking is important and looked to. Grenade Kit is strong in PvE. You can build FT to be OK dps but you never really want to camp a single kit or weapon unless your group is relying on you to apply Vulnerability with Grenades, even then you can throw an occasional Jump Shot or similar into the mix.

Not sure if anyone has mentioned this yet but traits that increase our damage by X% really do a lot of heavy lifting. Fiery Wrath, Symbolic Power, Radiant Power, Elusive Power (sort of), Power of the Virtuous, Unscathed Contender, etc… You can see the biggest gains here regardless of weapon for the most part.

I’d highly suggest trying everything as you level up. Try all the weapons, get to understand how they work and what they do. Try every skill. You’ll write some off but then come back later and realize how effective they are. I’ve been playin since launch and am still learning new applications for different stuff.

At 80 a lot of people running dungeons are looking for others running ‘DPS’ or Berserkers gear and running a build that pushes good dps. You’re going to feel squishy until you realize how powerful reflects, blinds and Protection are. Get really good at dodging, practice the timing.

Altruistic Healing can be frowned upon in PvE. Even if you’re geared dps you’re losing a ton of damage. Instead look to ‘heal on crit’ food if needed like Omnomberry Pie and similar. AH is ok in WvW but I’d caution using it other places, its very effective but no optimal in PvE.

I consider playing Engi to its best is the top of the skill curve in this game if you’re using multiple kits. We gain versatility at the cost of pushing more buttons for similar effects as other less versatile classes.

I was struggling with Engi leveling back at launch until I discovered Bombs, Static Discharge and Speedy Kits.

Rifle or any power based kit with Static Discharge and low CD Toolbelt abilities works great. Bombs work great.

Whatever you run look at all your available options within your build, try to cycle through your big hitters. If you run Bombs switch to Rifle for 3 n 5 (launch and land on your target for double damage with 5) then right back to bombs. Engi’s are sorta unique as we don’t have a weapon swap CD. Lots of times I run TK just to swap in for its number 3 attack, and It’s Toolbelt is pretty high if the return swing hits. Same with FT 2/2 and EG4. If you wanna get the most personal damage out of the class never just camp one kit or weapon.

Kinda depends on group makeup doesn’kitten Grenades are high but Vulnerability plays a big part in that. Vulnerability taken out of the equation Bombs, Tool Kit, Rifle n FT all start looking a lot better. SD always increased my numbers. Adding in a Rifle or Flame Turret also increased my numbers.

With everything I tested 6/6/0/0/2 always came out higher personal DPS as would be expected with 6/2/0/0/6 being only a bit behind. Rifle/Nades/EG or TK/Flame Turret/ SD with Rampagers clocked the highest personal sustained DPS for me but Zerker will be better in most PvE settings.

For personal DPS never camp one kit or weapon. Always cycle to the highest damage ability that’s off cooldown asap, Nades 2n4, Rifle 3n5, EG4, FT2/2 etc.. Pick skills that have low CD n higher damage toolbelts if you run SD, Rifle Turret, Grenades, TK, PBR, Mines, etc…

Biggest part though is adjusting to your group. If it needs Vulnerability then go Grenades, if not then some options open up. That’s what I love about Engi, you can be quite valuable to a group with Vulnerability and sometimes you get the option to just mess around and DPS.

ZeftheWicked.3076:

isn’t tool kit’s wrench auto pretty decent damage?

From my testing TK auto is pretty good if you take Vulnerability stacks out of the equation.

For PvE…

Phantasms and Illusions need to be immune to aoe damage.

-and-

Shatter needs a damage boost or a DOT effect or resetting Illusion skills on detonation. I believe they could make it viable.

I’d love to see shatter as an option in PvE.

When I tested 6/6/0/0/2 Mantra spam GSword max range was ~9% lower then S/S or S/P each with a single phantasm on the field. The gap remained about the same with two and three phantasms on the field also. This was done w/o might/vulnerabilty stacking so I don’t know how they each scale up. MoP spam was a DPS increase even with a recharge in the ‘rotation’ with GS. It was a wash with S/X.

Thaddeus.4891:

Bloodgruve.6038:

DPS wise, S/P is very strong. It out does a majority of other classes and builds with exception to staff Ele’s, some Warrior builds and D/D Backstab thief, maybe a few others that I’m not aware of.
GL

Easy to check out. Over 30 seconds you can do around 9 Pistol Whip (8 with keeping you initiative over 6, and a last one to finish the sequence) and 3 auto-attack chain.

With a 25 stack of might, fury, might etc. (No ranger). That’s around 12.3k of dps, which put it behind Thief D/D, Ele Staff, Ele S/X LH and Engineer. I’m not sure the exact dps of the ranger after the last buff, but it seem to around the same as S/P.

Not bad at all. It’s a better choice than D/D when you attack 3 targets or more. But against a boss? That’s around a 20% lost in dps versus a D/D build. Significant since the longest fight in most situation are bosses.

I agree with you. But what I was saying even if you choose to run S/P you’re still doing better then usually half your party if you’re not multi Warrior and Ele. And it has much better utility then D/D. I’m usually not one to accept a DPS loss like that but in this case I really enjoy S/P because even on bosses blinds can be very helpful.

I came back about a month ago. Out of all my old classes S/P thief feels really strong. I sometimes run 5/6/0/3/0 over the meta depending on my connection and group makeup. Black Powder is crazy in a dungeon for melee and all the stacking that goes on. If a group is struggling I’ll just start spamming it and the damage mitigation for everyone just goes up through the roof. I only use Pistol Whip when I need to survive or recover HP. Pistol Whip is only a very slight DPS improvement over your auto attack.

DPS wise, S/P is very strong. It out does a majority of other classes and builds with exception to staff Ele’s, some Warrior builds and D/D Backstab thief, maybe a few others that I’m not aware of.

GL

You generally don’t want to rely on conditions to do your main damage in PvE if you want kill things quickly. Condi is especially bad on world bosses because they can easily be overwritten or pushed back. It looks like this may change though in the new xpack. I’ve run Pistol/Shield before with Bombkit and Flamethrower but only for the blast on the shield and a bit of utility.

To do decent ‘dps’ you wanna hit as many high damaging abilities as you can as often as you can. FT can be decent if you compliment the damage with other weapons/kits/traits. Static Discharge w/low cooldown toolbelts help to add ‘dps’. FT2 is good burst. Bombs are good. EG4 is great if the target is stationary. Grenades 2, 4 n toolbelt. Rifle 3 n kitten hard. Etc..

Key to engi is to cycle through the hard hitters because we don’t really have a weapon swap cooldown. Never just camp a weapon or kit in PvE if you want to do the best you can.

Scootabuser.4915:

Bloodgruve.6038:

I did some testing last night. Best I could get with P/P was about ~80% ‘dps’ of what S/P could do.

Closer to 71%

How do you calculate/determine your dps values?

DeceiverX.8361:

Spamming unload with actual trait investment will do fairly well in terms of DPS numbers. Only D/D and S/P can beat it as long as you don’t waste your time on ricochet or trait into SA :P

I did some testing last night. Best I could get with P/P was about ~80% ‘dps’ of what S/P could do. Both tested with 5/6/0/0/3 with traits optimized for each loadout. With ricochet it dropped to ~75%. S/D n D/Dwill beat it too, don’t have numbers on D/P or P/D.

That being said P/P isn’t much lower then some other classes average ‘dps’ but you almost exclusively hit Unload and Auto for average single target ‘dps’ which seems a bit lacking. It’s a viable and fun build but other weapons bring more utility and dps to the table. This is all from a PvE prospective too so take it for what it’s worth. Also I was looking at sustained damage. If you unload on Unload it obviously puts out decent damage in a short time.

Brother Grimm.5176:

If you still have all that karma, buy a bunch of Orrian Jewelry Boxes….

Forgot about those, tyvm I’m sitting on 3 mil or so…

I made a big mistake with my Laurels. Cashed them out on the Obsidian Shards when I had more then enough karma to cover them five times over, misread the requirements :/ I’ve historically been bad at making cash even without buying extra stuff. I have a feeling that I’ll be buying gems before I’m done.

I also still need map completion… That will come shortly.

Thanks for the input!

Doggie.3184:

PP is better for pure damage than SB~ when traited properly it does pretty heavy damage~ it’s like a ranged Pistol Whip. The difference is Vital Shot and Body Shot are still awful skills and PP is garbage utility-wise so you go full ini to use Unload forever and you will outDPS melee in a pretty sustained manner.

Did they buff P/P within the last 6 months? Last tests I ran had P/P at about 75% ‘dps’ of what S/P did. It performed worse then most other equally optimized ‘melee’ builds, not only vs. thief but other classes as well. What trait build did you use? Do you have comparable numbers and how did you get them? I’d like to run my tests again, it’s been a while.

Blood~

I didn’t expect you guys to take that ‘dumb game’ comment seriously. To clarify, GW2 is a great game and I spend a lot of time here. I have left a lot of friends that I’ve been gaming with since 99’ to play this particular game.

Hey GW2’rs

So after playing this game since launch with, a couple of breaks, I finally got my first precursor. I’m working towards Bolt and I’m to the point where I really only need the t6 mats and Lodestones. What is the best way to acquire these?

Any input is appreciated.

Blood~

*edit- ‘dumb’ was removed to avoid confusion.

I did some extensive dps testing a while back. P/P did quite poorly unfortunatly :/ Learn to love Shortbow, it really does have a great toolbox but it’s damage is worse then P/P so you’ll want S/P, S/D, D/D or even D/P to do damage. D/D and S/D had quite good numbers IIRC.

I’ve heard P/P is doable in WvW n PvP but that’s second hand.

I’d love it if ANET gave us a decent P/P buff.

Engi takes a higher level of skill IMHO to master. You are constantly swapping kits and weapon in combat to make use of your highest damaging skills. They’re unique as there is virtually no cooldown on kit swaps so you can hit your high damage abilities on any kit/weap as soon as they come off cooldown, not waiting for a weapon swap CD to get to um.

So much versatility here though. If you choose Engi be ready to learn what each kit does and practice a lot. If you get good it’s very rewarding.

Only thing I don’t like about the class is that in a lot of cases it takes more button pushes to achieve what other classes can much easier, but Engi is very versatile so that’s the tradeoff.

I’m not too familiar with that part of Living Story, been a long time. But have you tried a Phantasm build?

For single target damage the sword and pistol Phantasms are very nice. For AoE GSword and Focus are where it’s at. I struggled with leveling my mesmer till I started using phantasms.

Try Sword/Sword//GSword. Get Illusionists Celerity, Blade Training and GSword Training traits asap. This will cut down the cooldown for your phantasms quite a bit. Signet of the Ether heal can be used to reset you Phantasms skills so you can have 3 phantasms up and doing damage shortly after you start the fight. For non elite mobs you prolly just need 1. Multiple mobs on a single pull, spread out your phantasms across the pack so they don’t all pop when one mob goes down.

Start by hitting the target with some damage before you drop a phantasm on them, this will make the target go after you instead of killing your phantasm right away.

Shatter has nice burst damage but poor sustain. Phantasms are where we get good sustained damage from. If you can keep 1 on the board you’re doing good, if you can keep 3 up you’re doing quite good damage. Let them do the work for you.

Try Static Discharge trait with FT and Rifle. FT and Rifle are short range/melee weapons really. You have some good damage abilities with them though.

Some tips, let FT2 roll through the target then detonate it for lotsa damage. Rifle 3 and 5 do a lot of damage, make sure you both launch and land on the target with 5. The Throw Mine toolbelt skill drops a bunch of small mines, throw and detonate immediately for good point blank aoe damage, try to get them all to hit the target.

Don’t camp FT, cycle back to rifle when 3 and/or 5 when they are off cooldown then come back to FT. Will help maximize your damage output.

Work to 0/6/0/4/4 Rifle w/ Healing Turret, FT, Throw Mine, Rifle Turret and Supply Crate. This ain’t the lvl cap meta but it’s fun to run around with. Practice stacking might with fire fields n turrets.

GL out there

I run around camping FT in open world PvE sometimes just for the fun of it, what’s better then a big flame thrower??

DPS wise, FT isn’t terrible if you couple it with Rifle 3n5 on cooldown and Static Discharge. It throws a good fire field for might stacks. It doesn’t supply a lot of Vulnerability like Grenades though. I wouldn’t mind running dungeons with an FT engi as long as I saw him hitting Rifle and Static Discharge a lot. You’d prolly get kicked from ‘meta’ groups though.

For open world PvE though, just play anything that is fun. Options are what I love about GW2. I hope they do something with Conditions in PvE, I’m so disappointed in how bad they are currently.

Try a 0/6/0/4/4 FT build. Static Discharge is important to kill things quickly in open world.

P/P could prolly be fine with Static Discharge too if you don’t gear full condition.

P/P will kill stuff slowly, conditions in PvE are pretty slow. If you don’t like kit swapping though you prolly don’t wanna run an engineer, you lose so much w/o them. This may change with mobile turrets n what not in the future.

You could try FT with Static Discharge trait and low cd toolbelt skills like Rifle Turret, Tool Kit, Personal Battering Ram, Rocket Boots and similar.

Bomb Kit is another option, you can kite mobs almost perfectly with bombs. Take Speedy Kits trait n just run around in a circle and the mobs will run right over exploding bombs.

If you really wanna run conditions with P/P then Elixir Gun may be an option too. Acid Bomb does a ton of damage, couple it with Net Turret and Rocket Boots for a root and more burning.

Whatever you do though don’t neglect Power on your gear.

If you wanna play Engi you’ll want to learn to love kits. To master Engi you’ll need to be swapping kits and weapons constantly to take advantage of the almost 0 ‘swap’ cd that kits give you, it allows you to hit your highest damaging abilities almost all the time.

• I feel Mesmer is lacking in PvE sustainable damage.
  1. I’d like to see a single Phantasm ‘pet’ that is much harder to kill n doesn’t pop when your target dies, while still being able to summon 2 more ‘fragile’ phantasm/clones.
  2. I’d love to see a shatter build that gives higher sustained damage.

• I’d like to see Shatter damage (in PvE) increased.

• I would stop playing Mesmer if phantasms got harder to keep alive. I want good PvE DPS. Also, if reflects or ports get serious nerfs It’d be hard to stick with the class.

*General reasons I’ve lost some faith in devs;
1. Most all PvE is a Zerker stack fest. Needs more diversity.
2. Conditions really really suck in PvE they need to be viable.

• One wish; a 0 skill that gives us a sturdy Phantasm pet that doesn’t pop when your target dies.

To maximize DPS with Rampagers use Grenades/Tool Kit/Flame Turret w/Rifle. 6/2/0/0/6. You have to cycle through all your highest damage abilities as soon as they are off cooldown. Rifle 3n5, Grenades 124, TK3 and use your Tool Belt skills with Static Discharge trait. I tested this on a stationary/static target and it performed equally to zerker gear. This won’t hold true in dungeons or most other environments though, things will die fast and you may have to compete with other condition appliers but you should still pull your own weight if you are good at cycling abilities. Bombs can be substituted for Grenades, you’ll lose some Vulnerability stacking but will gain fire fields for Might stacking. Switch Flame Turret with another source for Burning like Rocket Boots or FT.

Again, key to Engi DPS is cycling through all your top damaging abilities. Never just sit there in Grenade Kit or Rifle alone. Its tough at first but with practice it gets easier.

For dungeon runs and conditions you want less duration and more damage, things will die quickly and you’ll waste the duration stat. Zerker/Assassin gear will perform better though.

For open world PvE play anything you want that’s fun. Conditions still suck though on any group event. I run around camping Flame Thrower simply for the fun of it when others aren’t counting on me

So there is no progression past Drytop?

Much appreciated. I got to Drytop but couldn’t find my way past the zone. Do I need to purchase the living story updates to progress to Silverwastes?

TYVM

Hey GW2’rs,

I put a lot of time into the game but moved away from it about 9 months ago. About the time where the big arena thing was going on in Divinities Reach and not long after Ascended armor was introduced. I’m interested playing more but I have a few questions.

1. There are new areas open since I last played consisntantly. I’ve logged in and explored the newer desert zone (forget the name) but didn’t figure out how to move past it. Are there any resources that outline the new content from patches that I could work through? Any info here would be great too, basically need to re-familiarize myself with the game and find what I’ve missed.

2. I’m mostly interested in PvE dungeon content but also enjoy WvW and open world PvE and I’m looking for a guild that has an active community with the same interests. Suggestions welcome

3. What are the important activities to look at currently? I’ve got ascended weapons but no armor.

4. What seems to be the main hub, is it still LA?

Liewec.2896:

gotta agree with bloodgruve, my mouse only has 2 additional buttons, but the Nostromo has EVERYTHING else covered without the need to be a finger contortionist.
makes gaming so much better than using a keyboard and trying to stretch to distant keys

I actually upgraded from a 2 button mouse to the G600 specifically for Engineer to work with my setup. I needed 3 buttons but I got an extra 12 just in case.

dereck.8354:

I bought the logitech G600 yesterday. Thank you for the tip bloodgruve. It’ll arrive in a few days.

It will take a bit to get the feel for it. Its wider n taller then normal and has a third ‘click’ along with all the thumb buttons. Don’t get frustrated with it though, take time to learn it. The default speed really threw me for a loop to, thought I’d made a mistake buying it until I dialed in the correct tracking speed. I had to run at a higher DPI.

When you get used to that check out the Nostromo too. The directional pad puts all movement on your thumb and mouse look leaving open 2 to 3 extra fingers to do other stuff easier like hitting buttons that kill things other then strafing or turning.

Hope it works for ya. I like to think this setup mitigates a bit for my lack of skill

dereck.8354:

Oh man, this razor is not a mouse, is a spaceship. LOL.

I grew up with console games, I firmly believe a d-pad is a necessary part of gaming.

Not needed but…

I would quit gaming if I didn’t have these,

Logitech g600
and
Razer Nostromo

Keybind how you want, over 31 buttons and ways to multiply that up. I love the directional pad, game how gaming was meant to be done, forget WASD. I have dodge, jump and ‘shift’ keyed to the mouse so I can easily trigger my toolbelts and maintain mobility. I highly suggest this setup to anyone gaming. It takes a bit to get used to but once you’ve got it its great. Been working this setup for 14 years across many games. If you want to look at this more closely I’d be happy to share my setup and experiences.

Best investment I’ve made other then a quality gaming chair

Blood~

I personally like hobosacks.

I would like to see an option to toggle the graphics if anything. Give bomb and grenade kits some better ‘weapon’ graphics, FT, EG and TK are easily seen. That way opponents can see a weapon and players can keep their hobosacks if they want.

IMHO
Blood~

Top center of screen you should have a few pvp build button options. everything is in there.

My best was with 6/6/0/0/2 grenades with Rampagers amulet and Scholar runes. Rifle, Med Pak, Grenades, Tool Kit and Rifle Turret IIRC. Grenades are your main damage but try to cycle into Rifle 3 n 5, TK3 and Rifle Turret overload. Static Discharge helps bring the number up. Thief and ele can pull over 4k DPS in this scenario. I usually consider anything that pulls 3.5k DPS acceptable. Rampagers Grenades took me a bit over 4k dps with confusion calculated in. With setups other then grenades n bombs SD will help kick up the DPS. Flame Turret and EG4 seem to do well also.

Again though, I only use this to rank different builds, it’s not super accurate in PvE especially with groups, boons and conditions taken into consideration.

Blood~

OP asked about P/P. With Pistol zerker isn’t gonna give you decent numbers, you need condi. Rampagers will give you higher numbers. Carrion Dire and Rabid will be lower damage output unless you need the survivability. I’ll test these and Celestial to see what comes out ahead for curiosity sake.

insanemaniac.2456:

so basically rampagers is better when shrapnel grenades’ bonkers scaling has enough time to stack up 15 bleeds.

edit: and also disregarding survivability, which is fine for pve but not for pvp

IIrc I was testing with lower bleed stacks and I think I had to add in some confusion as the golem never triggers it. But I only added in damage at a rate of one attack per 5 sec of confusion.. Been a while.

Way I see it If you spend 1min+ on a boss you’ll come out even or ahead, depending on group makeup. Trash is trash and usually goes down quickly in most groups but anything that doesn’t go down quickly puts you ahead also. It’s squishy but effective in PvE, not for use in PvP Just an alternative option.

rogerwilko.6895

Hi, I’m back to the game after 1 year~ish.
Back in the day I was able to test builds and gear in HOTM.
Is there something similar today?

The Indestructible Golem in the HOTM has 80K hp that resets. You can determine your DPS by timing your kill. HP/Sec to kill = DPS. Obviously values will be a bit different then PvE as some skills are different in the Mists but I use it to give an overall relative DPS rank from one build to another. Everything should be weighed vs what you’d see in a group in terms of Might stacks, Vulnerability, etc…

Grenades w/Rampagers is the best I’ve seen. If you run in a group that can stack Vulnerability with out your help then grenades lose 10 to 15% effecive dps which can put it below other builds. Also if you have another condi guy in group rampagers loses potency too. Grenades if you take away your Vuln stacks aren’t really that great. In the long run though, if you gear for DPS there are a lot of builds that come very close.

Ultimately, run what you have fun with if you’re mindful of your dps output.

Blood~

Indestructable golem. 240K hp(3x full hp bars) timed average over six trials, calculated DPS. Been a while since I ran all the tests but IIRC condi is decreased in the mists too. I tried celestial which wasn’t real high but I can’t recall if I gave it a full trial. May have to repeat it.

Basically my findings were Grenades Rampagers>Zerker Grenades/Bombs>other zerker based builds with SD support. Rampagers wasn’t too far ahead of Zerker so I feel they are about equal in effective dps unless you take Rampagers against any large open world events then Zerker wins out easy as condi gets overwritten, falls off or gets pushed back.

IDK, I tested all of them and Rampagers comes out ahead with Grenades.

For Fractals/Dungeons obviously Zerker is one of the best but if you wanna try something a bit different Rampagers works well with Grenade builds and prolly decently with P/P. I’m not a fan of condi in PvE but if you have the highest condi in the group the damage can stick.

I have a Rampagers set, Zerker set and Knights set. Tend to use Rifle mostly with power based builds but will run P/S when I’m wearing my Rampagers.

The most damage either comes from Grenades, Bombs or cycling other kits with weapons. No cooldown on kit swaps allows you to hit your high damage abilities without waiting for swap cooldown which means you’re juggling kits/weaps constantly. Very fun and challenging to max, I’d argue that this playstyle is the most challenging of any class due to trying to hit cooldowns across multiple kits/weaps. Unfortunatly with all this work Ele and Thief can come out ahead on dps a bit but Engi brings a heck of a lot to the table in terms of utility, boons and conditions. With the right build you can throw tons of might and vulnerability. Super fun and challenging to play well.

Blood~

rogerwilko.6895:

PvE (dungeons) wise:

What Good options except Grenades (I dislike the lobbing) and Bombs (I find the idea of planting bombs that only damage the baddies silly) are there?

1). In the past one could make a rifle discharge build work (kinda). Is that gone?

2). What about Power + Condi Mix? Say Elixir gun + P/P? Would that come close to grenade spamming?

3). What about FT for Single Target? What kind of numbers do you guys see?

I did extensive DPS testing about 6 months ago and retested recently.

1. Rifle/SD is viable. Med Pack/TK/Rilfe Turret/PBR gives you good burst and sustained damage. Lower then ele/thief but still what I’d consider good.

2. Rampagers Grenades is the highest DPS I saw. P/P EG is quite a bit lower. Condi in PvE is generally sub par though as it is easily overwritten or pushed back. It’s good on grenades as it’s supplemented by good DD also. I’ll run rampagers with Grenades but otherwise stick to full power builds for anything else.

3. FT can be competitive but not if you camp it. To max Engi dps you need to cycle through all your kits/weaps and hit the higher damage abilities on cooldown. FT 2, Rifle 3 n 5, EG 4, TK 3, etc… Grenades and Bombs are the two kits that you can more or less camp, others you need to cycle to be competitive. Rifle/FT/EG/Rifle Turret with a 0/6/0/4/4 SD is pretty good if you can hit your Rifle 3n5 and EG4 in on cooldown. EG4 hits hard but TK3 and it’s toolbelt are just about as good with an SD build. If you don’t cycle to your hard hitting abilities you’re wasting a lot of potential. Hardest but funnest builds have me switching kits/weaps continuously during fights.

Blood~

Hammer in PvE isn’t the best. It’s light field on auto attacks usually covers fire fields which hinders the ability to stack might for faster runs. Hammer is very good in WvW if you run at the front of a zerg.

If you like PvE better go GS, if you like PvE and run consistently with a might stacking warrior then go Hammer. If you like WvW zerg stuff go Hammer, if you like small group or solo roaming I’d think GS.

Unless they changed something since I last tested 5/5/0/0/4 Hammer with symbols and spirit weapons did competitive damage while supplying Protection. Still run into the fire field/might stacking issue though. But if I had Juggernaut then I wouldn’t feel as bad about running hammer in a dungeon.

Blood~

Before I took a break I enjoyed running hammer with a symbol build and Knights/Valks and boon duration runes. Also ran a Mace/Focus//Scepter/Torch Meditation zerky build that pushed good damage but felt more like what i though a guardian should feel like.

Hammer presents a field problem but I’d welcome a good hammer guard in some PUGs.

I love TK, for those reasons you stated.

Not a big fan of Bombs for a moving zerg TBH but I guess we are zerg/zerg clashing a lot and running through them so that’s something to think about.

I just like to run EB with FT so you get more out of Deadly Mixture and fireforged. 2 blasts with lower CD and more damage from 2 traits isn’t bad.

I’ll look at a BK/TK/Thumper setup.

Input is appreciated.

Blood~

Hmm, IDK, I wouldn’t be surprised… Use at your own risk then?

Guess I won’t be converting my NES Advantage over then.

To maximize your damage output as an engineer in PvE you have to look at your weapon and all kits you’re using, cycling through everything to hit the big damage abilities like Rifle 3 n 5, EG 4, FT 2/2, TK 3, etc… Engi’s are unique in that we don’t have a long cooldown on weapon/kit swap like other classes have on weapon swaps which allows us to cycle through harder hitting abilities faster. This generally means you’re not in one kit or weapon for more then a few seconds.

On open world pve zerg stuff that dies quickly FT 1 n 2 work very well. On targets that stick around for a long time like dragons you can push a lot more damage if you cycle through a few kits n your weapon.

Bombs and Grenades are generally higher damage then other setups. Static Discharge coupled with low cooldown Tool Belt abilities can really help your DPS also. Grenades can be traited to give a lot of Vulnerability which is very nice for dungeon runs. Zerker gear and glassy builds are almost expected in dungeon runs now.

I tend to stay away from condition damage builds in PvE as yours are easily overwritten. Great for PvP/WvW though.

Wolfineer posted a great handbook just recently. I highly suggest you check it out.

Whatever you build though, most important is staying on your feet. Only go as glassy as you can manage.

I recently returned and was pleasantly surprised with the iWarden fix and Mantra buff as I played both of those before my hiatus. I really enjoy my Mesmer especially for PvE now.

Hey Engi’s,

Recently returned to the game and am running with an organized zerg. Not sure really what to build though.

Been running a FT Juggernaut Blast build that seems to support well and has decent survivability but I’m not sure if there is something better to look at. Usually have a Guard, Necro and Ele in group with me.

Input and improvements are appreciated.

Blood~

OP, I’ve heard that there are some programable game pads n keyboards out there that let you hold down a button like a ‘turbo’ repeater. May help…

Thanks for the responses.

I hopped back into wvw and had some fun this weekend.

Are they really not adding any more dungeon content? Are they working on an xpack or something?

Thanks much

Blood~