It’s already consensus that Engineer is one of the weakest professions for dungeons:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/Dungeon-usefulness-list/first
What do you think would happen if the Engineer’s strongest options would get nerfed without the other kits getting buffed way above the current level of Grenade Kit/Bomb Kit?
The main strength of an Engineer is that with Grenade Kit/Bomb Kit he can inflict 20+ stacks of Vulnerability and generate 9-15 stacks of Might. If your team doesn’t need the 20+ stacks of Vulnerability (e.g. because there is already a Blind Exposure Guardian and two 30/25 Axe/Mace Warriors in your party) you mainly use Bomb Kit #1 and only use Grenade Kit for #2-#5, or maybe even replace it with a different utility skill.
Leveling tips:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/Updated-Engineer-Leveling-Guide/first#post2970327
More general information:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/Engineer-PvE-little-help/first#post2992442
Dungeon usefulness list:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/Dungeon-usefulness-list/first#post3114211
I run full Berserker and boost my condition damage with Might stacks and possibly Banner of Strength.
If you want to mix run Berserker armor if your trinkets will stay exotic, or Berserker trinkets if they will be ascended.
Fitting a function to the respective curves shows that a thief with 57% crit hitting one target once every second will go from around 0.218/s to 0.113/s, a decrease of around half.
Assuming this and that the numbers in this thread are correct said Thief with Assassin’s Signet and two other Signets, 15 points in Trickery and using every Signet and Steal on recharge has slightly more initiative after the patch due to the passive 0.250 increase (if I haven’t miscalculated).
Yes, but keep in mind that many Sigils have internal cooldowns.
E.g. Sigil of Earth has a 2 second cooldown, meaning you’ll get at most 5 stacks of Bleeding plus condition duration out of it.
The utility skills of an Engineer are so good you’ll properly only use the racial skills once to test them and then switch back to your regular skills. The regular elite skills are somewhat lacking, so if you still thinking about switching your race you should look at what elite skills each race provides.
In hindsight I wished I’ve made my Engineer a Norn, Become the Snow Leopard is awesome to escape from a zerg in WvW or explore a map in PvE.
Nobody argues that an Engineer won’t be useful to a party; the point is that, given you have the choice between every profession, you would hardly ever pick an Engineer. That’s why people rank Engineer very low on a dungeon usefulness list.
I’ve tried Vigorous Scepter, it doesn’t seem to give its boost if you’re holding a conjured weapon…
If it would I wouldn’t mind losing Renewing Stamina.
What do you think?
After the direct damage of Grenade Kit was nerfed I played it with condition damage for several months but eventually switched back to power. Reason was the non-existing synergy with your teammates and that some other professions’ power builds also inflict Bleeding (and conditions in general) which cuts into your damage.
However because you can get an exotic Rabid armor with karma and masterwork trinkets costs only a few silver you can give it a try.
Not saying it’s supposed to satisfy their claim, but we still have permanent Vigor. In many cases Infused Precision is actually the better trait.
Infused Precision is only better if you have not a single kit equipped.
Speedy Kits gives you Swiftness also out of combat (very good in open PvE), you can be certain to have Swiftness and Vigor permanently (Infused Precision has only a 50% chance on crit to grant Swiftness, with few points in Alchemy you almost certainly have short down times), and it gives you Vigor exactly when you need it (swap kits during a dodge roll, then you hardly lose an auto attack).
Given it a night to respite Speedy Kits might still be better after the nerf; OOC Swiftness is just so good in open PvE, and it opens up Armor Mods, which will be buffed, and Adrenal Implant, which will be stronger because Speedy Kits will be weaker.
If Modified Ammunition wouldn’t get such a massive buff 30 points in Tools would properly still be better.
(edited by DesertRose.2031)
I’m just not seeing Modified Ammunition making Firearms worth a 30 point dump. Even from a PvE DPS perspective it doesn’t seem worthwhile.
For minmaxers Firearms might offer the highest amount of damage (5% from Target the Maimed, ~5% crit chance from Target the Weak and >4% from Modified Ammunition); Tools only offers 10% from Enduring Damage, and I’m not sure if the shorter recharge for Tool Belt skills is enough to compensate the higher base damage of Firearms.
For noobs like me Firearms would offer the highest amount of Vigor uptime because Speedy Kits will only enable to to keep up Vigor ~55% of the time.
(edited by DesertRose.2031)
Hmm. For bombs, though, I would think that you’d need a touch more survivability than pure zerker as you’d be forced into melee the entire time and engies don’t seem to have the damage mitigation of the other classes.
Regardless of your weapon choice you’ll be in melee range the majority of the time anyway; unless you’re fighting from an extreme range, like 1.5k, being in range usually increases the likelihood to die and hampers or endangers your group. So, stay in melee, for your own safety and for the success of your group.
In my experience defensive stats hardly help you to survive in dungeons, what keeps you alive is Vigor; Engineers can keep up Vigor permanently with Speedy Kits and Invigorating Speed or Infused Precision and Invigoration Speed (likely the only choice after the next patch).
And I can think of a few encounters where ranged is still often used. With a bomb build do you use the rifle in those encounters or is the build compatible with ’nades when necessary?
You could put 5 more points in Explosives to be able to switch to grenades if needed.
With the buff to Modified Ammunition and the nerf to Speedy Kits 25+/30 will properly become the new meta.
This might contain useful information:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/Dungeon-usefulness-list/first#post3114211
Dunno how long you were gone but Grenade Kit’s direct damage was heavily nerfed about a year or so ago and since then it’s either Grenade Kit for support or Bomb Kit for raw damage.
Aside from 30 points into Explosives for Grenade Kit or 25 points for Bomb Kit you are rather flexible where to put your remaining points; many players put 10 points in Alchemy and Tools to have an easy access to Swiftness and Vigor.
My gear choices:
For solo PvE:
Soldier armor with Melandru runes and Berserker trinkets.
Not every time you want to use a condition remove or a stunbreaker when you’re struck by one but reducing their duration of them by 25% is nice. The Vitality and Toughness from the Soldier armor boosts durability a bit.
For dungeons:
Berserker armor with Scholar runes and Berserker trinkets.
Scholar is perfect for Bomb Kit and good for Grenade Kit, and is good to perfect for almost any group constellation. Boon/Might duration runes might be better for some group constellations but I don’t want to buy and carry an extra set of armor just for that.
For WvW:
Rabid armor with Undead runes and Rabid trinkets.
I run a condition grenade build in WvW so Rabid was the best (and cheap) choice back then. Nowadays Dire might be a better choice.
(edited by DesertRose.2031)
With runes that increase boon/Might duration and Sigil of Battle and Strength.
Of course it still does damage and can be used as a blast finisher in a fire field, but Grenade Kit Engineers don’t have fire fields by default and do not take Deadly Mixture or Fireforged Trigger.
The damage difference between utilizing a still untraited versus having its cooldown reduced by 20% and its damage increased by 15% is pretty staggering.
Not bringing Bomb Kit when you main Grenade Kit makes about as much sense as not bringing Elixir Gun when you main Flamethrower; should we now likewise assume that a Flamethrower Engineer won’t have Elixir Gun?
The difference between an attack that does much more damage but takes only slightly longer to execute and increases the damage by your whole group by up to 4-6% is also pretty staggering.
You have to remember that GK Engineers don’t take Fireforged Trigger or Deadly Mixture, so you’re not going to get out of Acid Bomb what an FT Engineer does. So even if you did include Elixir Gun skills, I don’t think they would contribute much.
Never mind the fact that GK Engineers don’t have a fire field themselves to actually use it in.
Assuming the mobs/boss doesn’t move (quite common in dungeons) Elixir Gun #4 hits as hard as four untraited bomb auto attacks and usually gives either 3 stacks of Might or AoE healing.
I doubt you’ll get to the damage level of an appropriately geared Ele but with Bomb Kit you should get close to the damage of a Guardian, surpass the Mesmer in terms of AoE DPS, single target DPS depends on how many phantasms the Mesmer can keep up. My knowledge of Necro is limited but afaik the Engineer surpasses him in terms of direct damage but loses to him in terms of condition damage.
I usually run Grenade Kit, Bomb Kit, Elixir Gun and Healing Turret, and while the damage isn’t top-notch compared to most other professions the survivability is insane; very few enemies without Unshakable are actually able to touch me, and many champions can be soloed.
Regarding dungeons:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/Dungeon-usefulness-list/first#post3114211
The strength of an Engineer is how much support and utility he can bring along.
E.g. with my grenade Engineer build I bring roughly 24 stacks of Vulnerability, a fast recharging fire field, 4 blast finisher with fairly short recharge, fast recharging water field, ability to almost perma-blind for ~25 seconds (usually between 1-3 attacks go through), group-wide condition remove and a little bit of group healing (this has gotten weaker relatively with today’s update).
The weakness is that there’s pretty much always a profession that fits better into a group; however there are also always professions that would fit worse into a group than an Engineer.
Infamous Darkness ranking looks quite accurate but keep in mind that the difference between 3-7 is hardly noticeable.
(edited by DesertRose.2031)
Burning scales rather badly with condition damage, and besides Burning a FT Engineer hardly ever gets above 4 stacks of Bleeding unless he uses condition duration food, Sigil of Earth or the like. That means each point of Condition Damage increases your damage by 0.45.
Not sure if the values in the wiki are correct but according to it every damage skill of the Flamethrower scales better with Power than that.
The additional procs of bombs also trigger Steel-Packed Powder.
Which is very nice because if you run Grenade Kit you can drop Bomb Kit #2 and actually increasing your stacks of Vulnerability.
A build like this build seems to fit your wishes the best:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/Medic-Engineer-solo-roaming-WvW/first#post2862346
However it’s more of a WvW build; in PvE you generally don’t “tank”, you evade the big hits of mobs/bosses with either reflection, Aegis, Blind, etc.
In dungeons I run this:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQJAqelIqiY3zyuF17IyoHdGAAAiKkffe8WpFEC-jQxAYtAm8KiGbxtIas6aMlLRUNA-e
It gives you 20+ stacks of Vulnerability, ~19 stacks of Bleed, a lot of Blind, between 9-15 stacks of Might for the entire group, up to 5-6k group-wide healing every ~20 seconds and group-wide condition remove but its direct damage is below average.
Therefor I slightly change the build when I’m up against structures or otherwise enemies immune to conditions:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQJAqelIqiY3zyuF17IyoHdGAAAiKkffeIXtFEC-jQxAYtAm8KiGbxtIas6aMlLRUNA-e
Then you mainly use the auto attack of the Bomb Kit and switch only to the Grenade Kit for #2-#5, if beneficial.
In open PvE I change to Soldier armor with Melandru runes.
For condition damage I’ve run this for a long time:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQJAqelIqiY3zyuF17IyoCdmoH5nlpffeIXtFEC-jQxAYtAmDLiGb1sIasaGMVKRUNA-e
30 points in Alchemy instead of Tools because conditions don’t crit and thus don’t benefit from crit damage, and Alchemy increases your boon duration and thus Might duration, which increases condition damage.
However there might be better builds for condition damage.
Why is celestial that good or that bad. I’m now working on celestial set
Celestial gear is “good” because it gives every possible stat, which means you can run every build with it somewhat well. Alternative gear clusters your inventory, you forget it in your bank, or you forget to equip it; with Celestial gear all this doesn’t happen.
Celestial gear is bad because gear suited to the build you’re currently running will give you greater benefits.
There is a reason that everyone suggest zerker gear for grenades.
The reason why everyone suggests Berserker gear is because direct damage > condition damage in PvE.
Flamethrower is a Power weapon, thus you mainly want gear that increases your Power, Precision and Crit Damage.
Thus full Berserker or Soldier armor and Berserker trinkets are your best bets.
Don’t get Celestial gear unless you never ever intend to get another gear set ever again.
Anyways OP, here’s what I’d do. Use your karma for exotic rabid trinkets.(Dwayna, i think). Buy rabid armor with your remaining karma. Buy berserker ascended accessories with your laurels. Then using your tears/badges, buy soldier/berserker. You’ll end up with LOTS of different builds you can run, just from those 2 sets of gear.
+1
This way you’ll very cheaply end up with power gear (Soldier/Berserker armor with Berserker trinkets) and condition gear (full Rabid) and with those you can run most builds.
Crit damage and thus Berserker gets the most from Exotic to Ascended so you should get Ascended Berserker trinkets first.
Strictly DPS wise these numbers are from my personal testing. Done in the mists for a ‘sterile’ environment. All done with Zerker setup to simply compare DPS levels.
30/10/0/0/30 Grenades w/SD runs around ~3100 DPS
0/30/0/30/10 FT/HGH ~2100 DPS
0/30/0/20/20 FT w/EG4 and SD ~2670 DPS
*10/30/0/20/10 FT w/EG4 and SD ~3050DPS
For better comparison you should also add a GK build with a comparable survivability to the two middle ones, e.g. 30/0/0/10/30. Also, include EG #4 into your rotation for grenades.
Desertrose, Im not entirely sure I follow your math there. Are you taking into consideration flame jet is a 2.57 cast? and the tooltip basically flat out lies to you?
When do the tool tips don’t lie to you?
I’ve assumed you can use two Flame Jets and one Flame Blast every 6 seconds.
For PvE do the calculation for 4 auto attacks (1 full chain + the first attack), Dagger #5 and Dagger #1. That’s the ideal damage rotation.
Pistol #4 gives you some burst (condition) damage and somewhat useful to kill mobs a little faster. Together with the snare/slow of Pistol #5 that’s why Pistol/Pistol is used by condition Engineers in WvW and PvP.
In PvE condition damage is rather bad for anything but solo content for various reasons so many Engineers don’t run condition damage, and without condition damage Pistol/Shield or Rifle are better options.
For an Engineer the shield is not only a defensive tool.
Shield #4 is a blast finisher, if you combine that with a fire field, e.g. Bomb Kit #2, you give yourself and your allies 3 stacks of Might. More information about combos:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Combo
Shield #4 also reflects projectiles which can be very useful against certain enemies; e.g. Young Karkas are already half-dead if you reflect their projectile spam attack. As mentioned above you can also blast it and push back foes, thus interrupting them.
Shield #5 stuns your attacker and can be thrown to interrupt your enemies. Unlike the tooltip says it’s not discharged when a melee hits you, that was changed a few months ago and the tooltip wasn’t updated.
An Engineer has the ability to rapidly switch between his different weapon sets; the advantage of this is that you have a wider array of choices which skill to use next than other professions but the disadvantage that you have to make use of it to achieve the best performance.
Maybe some useful tips about Engineer:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/Engineer-PvE-little-help/first#post2992442
30/0/0/10/10 is a very solid base for any PvE Grenade Kit Engineer build:
http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQJAqOlIqiY3zyudEZUhOTUh87zj3KtgQA-e
Pistol/Shield for Blind, Block and blast finisher or Rifle for raw damage.
Helpful further information:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/Engineer-PvE-little-help/first#post2992442
Flamethrower is good for events with multiple mobile foes and lots of other people around. The “Defeat x foes” Halloween events are a somewhat good example for those kind of events.
Grenades and bombs nay miss due to the small delay before they hit or the foes are already dead; Flamethrower #1 hits pretty much instantly. Because they are so many other people around you can hide behind them and thus avoid being downed so you can continue to tag foes and enjoy exp/loot. Just never use Flamethrower #3 during those events, it does nothing but hamper the other players.
For solo and group PvE content it’s sadly inferior compared to the Grenade Kit or the Bomb Kit in damage, survivability and support, in other words: Never use it if you care for efficiency.
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In WvW and PvP #3 and #5 are very useful utility and thus sometimes used there.
A guild mate of mine had ran a similar build a year or so ago, and together with an AH Guardian they could tank most bosses in low-level dungeons and fractals.
However in high-level it’s often either dodge-or-die, and not having permanent Vigor in those cases makes you squashier than most Berserker Engineers with it.
It should give you all benefits of an attunement for 5 more seconds after you switched to another.
However, it has been bugged for as long as I can remember and only gives you some the the 5 points traits in the other trait lines for 5 more seconds.
You guys are almost funny.
It recharges either all Venoms, Signets, Traps, Tricks or Deceptions; it doesn’t matter if you have them equipped. E.g. if you have only Signets equipped there’s an 80% chance it doesn’t have any effect (as it either recharges Venoms, Traps, Tricks or Deceptions, and you have none equipped) or it recharges all of your Signets.
The more damage when wielding a bundle is from the time when Steal gave you a bundle instead of a skill.
It’s really stupid to have this mechanic on the primary attack of the weapon. What’s funny are the people who come up with the idea of removing the autoattack on the weapon. This class already has a large enough handicap when it comes to damage… why would you make it worse by slowing down your attack chain? ANet appologists all around. There’s no reason for the leap. It looks great, it’s just not functional…
Huh? What are you trying to say? Sword auto attack is the best auto attack the Ranger has, it’s “just” awkwardly to use.
Not seeing where anyone asked you to explain anything off topic.
Here:
(…) i don’t know how you come to this numbers. So tell me, I would really like to see it!
The viability of a build is also defined by how it performs compared to the alternatives one profession has.
You guys define what kind of environment you want to have around here. I’m just one person. And I’ve tried to be as helpful as possible getting people to construct their FT builds properly. If I can’t get that through to players who want to wield the FT because you all are too busy arguing about how much damage each kit does, I’m just going to stop posting here.
The “elitists” wouldn’t be bothered if the Flamethrower advocates wouldn’t spread misleading/false statements.
If one hears “comparable damage” most people will think about something between 90-95%, not 70-80%, so expect someone will point that out.
If one says “FT/EG offers more support” expect that someone will point out that’s only because you’ve just compared a complete build with one with an empty healing skill, two empty utility skills and an empty elite skill.
Or how about not getting so worked up if someone posts objective facts.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Altruistic_Healing
70 healing at every application to every player. For instance, Empower on the staff has an 1800 heal from the skill as you channel 10 might into nearby enemies. AH then can add an additional 4200 healing if you are in a group of 5+. That is 6000 healing and 10 might for 5 friends every 20s.
AH only heals the Guardian himself, not his allies. That’s why it’s seen as a selfish trait and not deemed good.
There is no boss in named dungeons that takes longer than 95 seconds to kill for a competent group, with the possible exception of Lupicus.
But couldn’t it happen that the banner(s) aren’t up for ~20 seconds exactly at the time when you’re in the next fight? Couldn’t it be that having the banner(s) up the entire time even for trash mobs outperforms the x% personal damage increase?
His advice for weapons, armor and food are good; you may want to use a Staff instead of a Greatsword until you gain permanent Swiftness from other sources.
However as soon as you get to level 40 put 15 points in Radiance and 5 points in Virtues.
The OP asked for the viability of this build which I answered. Then someone asked me to further explain my statement, which I did.
Don’t ask questions you don’t like the answer of, guys.
Grenade Kit is a very solid option for both solo and group PvE; the usual trait distribution is 30/0/0/10/10 so you get Grenadier and permanent Swiftness and Vigor. The remaining 20 points can go where ever you like.
For solo PvE 20 points into Alchemy for the Backpack Regenerator are a good investment.
So assuming:
- best case for grenades and bombs and worst case for FT/EG
So, hitting with every single strike of Flamethrower #1 and hitting every foe both with the projectile and the explosion of Flamethrower #2 is worst case for FT/EG?
Interesting, what’s the best case then?
it’s pve. all these numbers are unnecessary unless it’s your goal to clear SE P1 in record time. play what you like. it’ll work i promise you.
Sure, in PvE you can pretty much run everything you want and somehow get by.
Just don’t be surprised if you get kicked out of your dungeon group if you say you run Flamethrower.