Guild Wars 2

Just thought I’d pipe in, Google’s comment is pretty spot on. Comments like

Malvagite.3254:

Acid Bomb is 6 ticks of 277 base damage if the mob stays in the field so it does from 300-1700 over a 5 second period….

Display some of the front-ended ignorance that results when people don’t test things. I’ve seen Acid Bomb crit for easily over 2k, and given it’s 6 ticks, that can add up pretty fast. It works wonders at melting mobs you can reliably keep still (net shot is a good option here), and it only gets better when you learn how to play. Just fighting a mob in melee, acid bomb’ing, and weapon swapping immediately as the launch begins? They’re fighting on your acidic turf, which you promptly follow up with jump shot and blunderbuss and the like – especially since acid bomb hits harder with your rifle out rather than a kit.

We have gap closers. What is Magnet and Jump Shot? I admit they’re not as HURRAGH as Guardian’s Leap of Faith or Blinding Blade, or Warrior’s Rush, but they do exist.

However, with that said, glue bomb could use some love. Perhaps for 5 seconds it applies a 0.5 second immobilize every second? Like the super frustrating oozes in the Shaman fight.

To be quite honest, “We have plans for it” is equating to a sort of Valve Time-esque thing. The fact that previewing items on the Trade Post is being labeled as a feature for February’s update is a little sad. They have plans for every good idea it seems, but they won’t be implemented for a loooong time. Scavenger hunt, custom maps, new zones (Southsun has potential – but it needs to actually have content in it!), harder content, dungeon revamp, WvW tweaks – several things that have been in the works for quite some time (I realize some much longer than others, the hunt isn’t even in the design phase apparently), but we just have to realize as a playerbase that when Anet says ’It’s coming’, that could easily mean 6+ months from now.

They said back in November/December that the first few updates within 2013 would be like an expansion pack – January added a signpost smashing simulator and a whirlwind dodging event. Hopefully February will make me look stupid! Polymock arenas, new PvP format, new PvE zone, new dungeon, something! The only permanent content they’ve added was FotM – which was amazing for 20 levels, but after that it becomes grinding, tedious, and RNG to get the only reward currently (higher stats and FRACTAL WEAPONS EFF YEAH). I will say though, that Halloween and Christmas were god-tier events with how they were implemented, except maybe Toypocalypse (that was a flop). No comment on Karka Lagfest 2012.

plasmacutter.2709:

Try tossing grenades at “range” in wvw or spvp — see how well that works against anyone who is not AFK.

LOL @ comparing nade damage to kill shot.

Btw, please meet thief cluster bombs.

You mean one of the slowest traveling damage methods in the game? That bugs your attack while waiting for it to land? And using it in melee is pointless because you’re a thief and at that point should swap to your S/x set? The only good thing about cluster bomb is the no-cooldown blast finisher that you’ll crank off every time you see a fire field. Kill Shot is a 3.5 second channel, you want to call that good DPS? Used for sniping in WvW and a 1500 range pull in PvE. Assuming someone doesn’t see the super tell of a warrior getting down on one knee and channeling for 3 and a half whole seconds.

And grenades are perfectly fine given their high damage in sPvP / WvW formats – if you want to make it land, learn to use a rifle. This isn’t Starcraft or Dwarf Fortress, it’s not hard to figure out, but given how many threads I see pop up about engineer and how to use them, it seems that maybe I’m wrong in that regard.

plasmacutter.2709:

The grenade kit has good damage to effort return?

Maybe 5 months ago, not now.

If they want to return the damage to what it was, sure, but they’re not.

Anything that does not apply a cripple or chill should be target-based at this point.

Try any other class’ ranged options. Nothing even compares to Grenade Kit at range. It really did need a nerf, although the travel time somewhat irks me with PvP purposes at such large distances. If you want to go into melee, you can make the difference between yourself and a warrior quite hastily with point blank grenade barrages, prybar, blunderbuss, both portions of jump shot, throw wrench, elixir F, and acid bomb. The difference in ranged damage is blatantly clear in the Jade Maw fight, when one grenade engineer will take down a tentacle while a ranger, guardian, and warrior pewpew down another – and the engineer finishes first.

Kodiak.3281:

You list a lot of blast finishers but no fire field.

Bomb kit has a blast finisher in Big Ol’ Bomb, and a fire field in Fire Bomb. The typical combo goes: Big Ol’ Bomb -> Fire Bomb -> Rifle Turret/Throw Mine -> Healing Turret -> Shield #4 double tap -> Detonate Healing & Detonate Rifle / Mine. Bang, 12 stacks. At least it was when I was testing, worked great. But until I can do condition damage, it’s merely a “I can do this” instead of “I do this”. Until then I’d rather just juggle all the very hard hitting raw abilities engineer has between his kits.

I’d prefer it as it is. If people don’t wanna play a class with such a high skill ceiling, they shouldn’t be engineers. Starting to get a little sick of the most rewarding kit (in terms of ranged damage output to the aiming required) being ‘too hard to use’ for players supposedly, when I’ve been using it nonstop since I hit level 60 within a few days of launch. Grenades are the only weapon with a skillshot auto attack in the game, and I’d like to keep at least one option present with such a method.

If you don’t like pushing the same button over and over, I’d hate to see you play an FPS.

waka.9826:

It’s just way too much of a hassle to do the damage with it, you will just end up on a suicide mission going in range with that if you are trying to deal damage with bomb kit (which also implies you are fairly glassy).

Being in melee for brief moments is rarely an issue, except in particular situations – Lupicus (at least as an engineer), high-end fractal bosses, uh.. Kohler? I can’t think of a ton. But for most, my kitmaster engineer is in melee, using prybar and acid bomb and jump shot and etc. With larger bomb radii, it’s not too hard to deal solid damage and stay at a close, but not too close range. I won’t pretend I like bomb kit though – again, for the damage output, the lack of range on it is awful. I was hoping we’d get more grandmaster traits – one for each kit. One that makes bombs have range and instantly detonate upon landing, one that makes elixir gun do.. something creative, etcetera.

Bomb kit is our hardest hitting raw damage over time weapon. At least from the auto attack.

However it only has 2 raw abilities and one scatters mobs. Grenade Kit has the advantage of hitting 3 times per ability (meaning 3 vuln / 3 shots at shrapnel), and has 3 non-auto abilities that do very strong damage. BoB scatters mobs and trolls your group. I do feel Bomb Kit could hit a bit harder though, given the damage increase compared to grenade kit is minimal at best.

Kodiak.3281:

snipsnipsnip

Now hold up – I’m not going to even pretend for a moment engineers are good at boon sharing (they’re the worst in the game at it, bar what I’m about to say), but they can easily crank out 12 might stacks while putting out some serious condition damage (read: there’s also access to static shot and concussion bomb, but I don’t like confusion in PvE). I’ve already tested and got screenshots up in other threads of maintaining 25 bleed stacks purely off grenade kits. This includes poison, perma-burning (3 second duration, 3 second cooldown), excessive amounts of vulnerability, and no pizza. Is this cool as heck? Yeah, it is. I won’t use it though until they do something about the bleed cap, because right now it prohibits builds like the one I’m suggesting, and burning would have to wait 20 seconds for the guardian’s party-wide application before mine starts to ring out.

But, yeah, the point I was making is that it’s easy for an engineer to crank out those might stacks in such a build – while I only require the one utility slot to deal most of my damage, it frees up the others for some combos. Bomb kit = fire field + 1 blast finisher, Healing Turret and [Rifle Turret / Throw Mine] = 2 more blast finishers, and the shield’s 4 = a 4th blast finisher. 12 stacks of might, 30 second cooldown, 22 second duration (10 points in alchemy ‘cause.. I didn’t know where else to put them given it’s a condition build!). Yeah, it’s hard to compete with an ele’s aura perma fury, and I do enjoy having one ele on my team to share it. But in all fairness one warrior can crank out almost 90 seconds worth of fury between Battle Standard and FGJ. I’ll actually run this condi-nades build once they make conditions viable in PvE.

tl;dr Engineer can do suitable damage and maintain 12 stacks of party-wide might with 66% uptime. I know other classes can do it better, but not maintain that kind of damage (not with the way their traits end up landing).

If you don’t wanna use kits, you’re never gonna have an outstanding engineer build. Grenade kit is nearly a must-have for any hard hitting build, while bomb kit can serve as a serious deterrent against thieves and warriors. Elixir Gun has a few tricks but I don’t encourage it for PvP purposes – and flamethrower is more of a bunker engineer’s kit than a damage. Tool kit is outstanding – but primarily for all the options it brings. Some people will advocate pistols and pots – this is a mediocre attrition build that focuses on wearing down people over time, and it is not that great.

If you want some solid sPvP builds, consider something like HGH rifle/grenades. 30/0/0/30/10, might stacking runes (or perhaps boon stacking, it’s up to personal opinion), Superior Sigil of Battle, Elixir H/B/S, and grenade kit. The general idea (and amazing synergy) of grenades and rifle in PvP is that you can follow up net shot and/or overcharged shot with a flurry of grenades, whether it be freeze + shrapnel, or barrage and jump shot, or something that just plain hits hard! And when they get low, and you’re unsure about landing skillshots? Just pewpew them with your rifle, that thing hits hard!

nakoda.4213:

step 1: apply incendiary ammo toolbelt skill (3sec burn next 3 attacks)
step 2: fire rifle #2 (5 shots, one second)
step 3: take a screen shot of burn debuff tooltip.

if it says 7-8 seconds and not three, I will stand corrected.

So hard to test this in-game yourself, huh? Fine, I’ll bite. Took me a colossal 4 minutes. 12 seconds because I have 30 points in explosives and 20% longer burns. 3 * 1.5 * 3 = 13.5 second duration, and this was before poison dart volley’s channel was even finished. So about 1.5 seconds after I started. Tadaa. If Incendiary Powder had proc’d, we’d be looking at a 15 second burn.

Crate is a very strong PvP elite. It’s pretty awful in PvE though, but the other two options are way worse there. If Elixir X became some sort of super-boon potion, rather than a Mr. Hyde-esque ability, I think it’d see a lot more use. As it currently stands, I only use crate when I need: A stun, a heal, or an unreliable root. Imagine if Elixir X was like Rampage as One? And by that I mean it buffed us, not.. the class’ only reliable stability.

Lantz.7240:

I just found out a new reason to hate. Fast acting elixirs doesn’t affect thrown elixirs or the elixir gun. I kind of understand the gun but thrown? So lame.

Because then we’d have 2 methods of reducing some skill cooldowns. Nobody should be allowed to do that. Except mesmers.

It’s simply a serious flaw in the current system. QPs are, as people have stated, easily grindable within a solid group – you will curbstomp the minimal competition. Rank is even more grindable, as it is only a testament to your endurance and not capabilities. GW1 had the same kind of discrimination, and it was somewhat irksome – if you wanted to get into Hero’s Ascent for the latter part of the game’s life, you were SOL – R6 or higher only please. I got bored about 10 points from becoming R3 (I never really enjoyed HA, I took the halls once and after that I just lost interest – but I certainly saw the appeal back then).

However, at least in GW1, you couldn’t get rank points without winning. In GW2, you can punch Svanir and cap points and rank up just as quickly (if not faster) than those actually fighting to win.

Blacklight.2871:

Thanks for clearing that up. Makes a lot more sense now.

NO! See myself and Seetoo for how it’d work! It’s misinformation like this that puts untalented engineers into your FotM 38 runs.

OMG! First its the unsubstantiated claims that FT does good damage (melee kit doing HALF melee damage). Now it’s “burn doesn’t stack duration”.

STOP SPREADING MISINFORMATION!!

The bomb kit hits pretty hard – but I do admit, compared to other classes, it should hit a good deal harder, given it’s a delayed point blank AoE.

Like Forty Seven Ninjas.6982:

I’m fairly confused on why ANet didn’t do a % return of damage like in GW1’s retaliation.

50/50 GWAMM here – GW1 had retaliation? All I remember are effects like Pain Inverter. Regardless, yeah, a %-based return would be much more logical, the current system savagely punishes engineers more than other classes (grenades, flamethrower if you so choose, double taps on pistol, etc).

waka.9826:

Too bad our mines and flames hurt less than pool noodles.

Actually Minefield, when traited for larger radii, is one of our hardest hitting burst skills, right next to grenade barrage. Without the larger radii trait most of them miss.. that, and the one second cast time. And the explosive traits are all pretty good, so giving up something like shrapnel is a bit of a kick in the groin. :C

I won’t argue about crappy flames though. They are indeed the crappiest.

nakoda.4213:

burning is not damage over time, it is direct damage per tick. the condition “Burning” does not behave in the same manner as FT#1 Flame Jet.

Flame jet is a scaling DD attack that increases dmg for every tick applied, and each tick is independently targetted.

“Burning” is a per-pulse DD condition that requires a full pulse to apply its damage and is target dependent. There is no 25% burn condition application, it is all or nothing.

also, we aren’t godforged npc’s, we behave differently.

Again, you’re wrong. Burning applies its damage every 1 second it is active. You can add duration to a previously existing burn and it will apply another tick once the 1 second mark has been passed. This isn’t with regards to duration remaining, it’s with regards to how long the condition has been applied. You’re right – we aren’t Godforged Hellstorms. But the burning they apply, and the burning we apply, work the exact same. Crazy huh?

Killyox.3950:

Kamahl.3621:

People are assuming burn on every tick would be OP.

What if it was a 0.25 second burn on every tick?

Would result in no burn because it needs to be 1 full sec. Same with +condition duration, you need to gain full new ticks otherwise it is useless (with exception to control condis like immobilize, cripple or only one dmg condi, confusion that benefits from all +dur)

bleed burn need + full ticks

You’re correct about condition duration needing to hit a whole new second to apply an extra tick of damage. You’re incorrect about it not dealing damage though – the flamethrower does 5 ticks per second, that’s a hit every 0.2 seconds. 0.25 > 0.2, so the burning would stay on as long as you’re channeling, guaranteeing 2 ticks if you hit most of them. This is the same way the Godforged Flamethrowers in CoF work – they apply several small ticks of burning that add up fairly quick.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

• enemies can gain new abilities

Unless you mean in the context of more veterans spawning, this is not true. Or, if it is, I haven’t in any of my numerous adventures of levelling to 80 and time spent on my engineer in many, many, maaaany dynamic events (about 3500 / 5000 for the achievement, and I’ve farmed orr only a fraction compared to my compatriots). Unless you mean more mobs being upgraded to veteran status, in which case it’s true – but mobs haven’t ever gained more abilities in my experience when they’re the same “tier”. It’s one thing to note the difference between veteran and regular mobs, as they always gain one or two new abilities (Some are more noticeable than others – veteran risen acting more like their dungeon / elite versions).

nakoda.4213:

it only stacks duration

That’s the entire point of the suggestion. They stand in the channel, they get a 2.5s burn on a 2.25s cast. With the toolbelt it’d make up for the time something isn’t burning between channels. So, 2 ticks of burning damage if they take the entire blast, with leeway for 2 misses.

Goloith.6349:

What do Pure condition builds have huh?

Just P/P.

In PvE, grenades can maintain 22+ stacks of bleeding, and can hit 25 with regular frequency. 30/30/x/x/x can beastmode condition damage, and swapping to rifle for blunderbuss does a lot more condition damage (even if short-lived) than several pistol autos will. Instead of running 10% more explosion damage in the first trait line, you run incendiary powder. And, yes, this does far more damage over time of the condition variety than pistol/pistol. It’s actually a little depressing that the engineer’s best damage build, both condition and raw, is grenades. And those stacks are pre-pizza.

But for PvP, yeah, pistols are your only decent option.

Edit: I just wanted to make a screenshot proving this claim, as I’m also gonna be using this with regards to removing the bleed cap limit (in PvE) in my future endeavors. I’m also using P/S in the screenshots for an extra sigil, I was testing out different setups – sigil of battle + earth, sigil of battle + agony, etcetera, merely trying to figure out the highest damage combination (going so far as to try out HGH grenade conditions, but I can’t break 14 stacks of might and 15 bleeds at the same time with all might runes, or 10 might 20 bleeds with bleed runes).

People are assuming burn on every tick would be OP.

What if it was a 0.25 second burn on every tick?

I’ll keep this post short, since the big ones get skimmed over:

For PvE, engineers need more than one viable build. People hate grenades (I don’t but whatever). Grenades are your best option for damage, bar none.

For PvP engineers are somewhat fine.

Kits are, generally, in a good spot. Flamethrower needs PvE viability improved, and a few abilities need buffing (fumigate, box of nails, etc).

Buggy traits and god-awful utilities also limit build viability. Remove elixir RNG. Make toolbelt utilities on par or greater than the original utility (Elixir R – good example. Toss Elixir B – bad example). Gadgets need a serious buff in both departments, passive effects while on your bar would be outstanding, giving engineers a signet-like effect.

Pannonica.5378:

“… that take literally 5% of the time those P/P vids to achieve kills”

If you’re a child that wants the cookies from the cookie jar nau, you might want to run 100nades, because it gets the job done in 1% of the time those P/P vids to achieve kills (or deaths).

Fun fact: It only takes 1 trait to turn a grenadier into 100 nades, and that same trait makes super elixir an incredibly strong support option. You’d be a pretty bad engineer not to take kit refinement when you’re packing elixir gun and grenade kit. Tool kit’s extra no-cast box of nails is nice but.. I’m not gonna sugar coat it. You’re undermining the abuse potential with the child analogy – while a P/P can take a good while to produce a kill, the other setup can instantly gib any player in 1200 range with the magnet combo, so long as they don’t produce some invuln effect (or stunbreak during the magnet pull – stunbreaking during the immobilize will do nothing unless it’s an effect like rocket boots), every 21 seconds. If you wait for the kit refined barrage too, that’s a super-guaranteed kill every 30 seconds (it’s honestly overkill if the point blank barrage is doing 12-16k damage accounting for the crit chance, before you end up popping overcharged shot into a shrapnel + freeze grenade for another 5-9k damage).

Khisanth.2948:

I’ve had this happen with Elementalist, Warrior, Engineer, Mesmer, Ranger, and Guardian. Nothing special about hammer warrior. Judging from forums posts, some people just spam their whole bar on cooldown …

I was simply stating with regards to hammer warrior, as it’s in the title. This is the exact reason I don’t bring Big Ol’ Bomb on my engineer, or I only pop Shield of Absorption when I need a quick heal and want to scatter the mobs (when they don’t have to be killed / we’re skipping), or etcetera.

I’m not fond of hammer warrior in my dungeons because they spend a lot of time doing less damage and knocking mobs out of allied AoE effects, and overall just trolling you. Ever have someone knockback a mob when you use an effect like Grenade Barrage (21 second cooldown), and watch it miss entirely as a result? It’s not like lava font with a low cooldown, it’s just plain annoying.

Hah, hah, hah. You’re assuming guild missions won’t be raids.

Typically you only need 1 person to run the drake/spider one. Those two are quick and easy. The farther ones you two-man: Guardians can absorb nearby conditions, warriors have ‘Shake it Off!’ and banners (pick one up, use the swiftness boost on the orb carrier, boom running), not to mention a warhorn can remove cripples. Engineers can use double super elixirs and toss elixir C to help you keep moving, etcetera. I will say this – learn which walls you can and can’t jump over. Sometimes you get screwed and the Bloomhunger roots you while climbing a wall, and you don’t have a teammate nearby to help you out (although you should, admittedly).

In all fairness, you can’t MF exotic minipets either.

…Of course there’s only 5 minipets that can come back out from forging 4 of them, but still, just thought I’d throw that out there. I’m aware there’s a ton of different runes, so the odds of getting the one you put in are much less.

Creld.8702:

Damage: The big numbers. Burst, sustained, or condition. Warrior trumps Hundred ’nades with hundred blades in PvE, PvP is determined by the set up, but, as long as both hit completely, warrior still tends to win out in the end.
For sustained damage, engies can try FT or rifle builds

I read your ‘be polite’ part, so I will. This information is incorrect on a painful level (the flamethrower portion). With regards to PvE, grenades on engineer can have some very strong ranged sustain. When coupled alongside blunderbuss, jump shot, prybar, and acid bomb, the engineer’s proximity sustain becomes absurdly high. I encourage you to go try a 4 kit setup (medkit, grenade kit, elixir gun, tool kit) with berserker gear in a 30/10/0/0/30 setup. Your damage over time will be comparable to an equally kitted HB warrior – except you’ll also have heal fields, blinds, chill, poison, blocks, and condition removal. Warrior will have a banner and FGJ. Banners are great but you only need 1 warrior to bring all 3 useful ones.

Daigle.8497:

Three sources of Fury.

Goggles do something here.

Hahah, sorry. I forgot that skill existed after I dropped it in the static discharge build for Rawket Bewts (faster, more damaging toolbelt, wonky-but-works-stunbreak). Gadgets need a serious overhaul, I liked the suggestion of ‘Passive buffs like signets’.

The only thing that irritates me is their clear statement that ‘There will not be any tier beyond ascended in 2013 ’. While on one hand, a long term vertical progression could be neat? It’s also, if that long term, complete bullkitten. So this RRoD and Crystalline Band, and Distinguished Circle of Logic, and the 250 ecto backpieces, they’ll eventually be nill? That’s cool, thanks Anet. Given their profuse defecation on the manifesto in soooo many departments (I’m trying to avoid ranting here), I won’t act one bit surprised when they implement yet another tier of gear.

On the more optimistic side, hopefully they’ll add a hard mode to dungeons (a la GW1) that incorporates agony, and a new title to go with it, and new super rare weapon skin drops, or recipes, or something! (Nah j/k incoming easter gem store minis)

Non engy, thief, necro, or ranger. I know it seems hypocritical (Given I’m a jawesome engineer), but most PUG engineers you find will be using flamethrower and pistols. Thief damage is severely limited in what it can do, and their group support is pretty much nil (Their shortbow is very nice though if someone else has a fire field to bring along – drop a ring of fire on the mobs, let the thief go point blank and pop off 3-4 blast finishers, hnnngh). Necros have nodamage bar condition setup, and even then engineers do it better for PvE (SURPRISE, it uses grenades just like raw damage builds). Rangers have nodamage and nosupport, except that 15 second water field. Spirits need a serious buff, they’re not even a shadow of what they were in GW1. I suppose this could extend to all classes though – if I see a mace warrior or.. uh.. uh.. okay every guardian weapon is pretty much good except torch. Or a staff ele! I’m just gonna have that same expression of discontent I have with a flamethrower engineer, that can be summed up as ‘learn your class’.

Ostricheggs.3742:

snip

Thanks a ton mate. While the ranger advice falls within what I’ve experienced, and leaves me a bit disappointed, I’ll just try auto’ing mesmers down for a bit – I appreciate the response, and hopefully it’ll help me out in my own endeavors. Again, I haven’t sPvP’d since mesmers were able to do a 6-7x shatter (I heard it was somewhat fixed), but when I hop back into it, I’ll try the few changes between my build and yours and hopefully see some fruitful results.

Killyox.3950:

20s CD, 14s CD if you pick it up, med kit has 14s only with 30 in tools

I’d like to clarify this – Bandage Self is 15 seconds, and Healing Turret is 14 seconds. I know 20 * 0.7 = 14, but, look at Anet, not me, as to why it doesn’t work right. I still prefer medkit, but that’s because the fury/swiftness puts it a good bit ahead imho. It’s one of two sources of fury for the engineer (please don’t count elixir B and toss elixir B as two), and it’s just one part of many for the engineer. I also prefer medkit in sPvP if I’m running points in tools – after a tough fight on a point, it’s a great idea to just start making one spot loaded with antidotes and medpacks for you to remember if a tough fight breaks out on that point. However, with an HGH / 409 / Elixir CDR setup, I’d probably consider the healing elixir over either. But, as Killy stated, with no traits, it’s pretty hard to beat smart usage of the medturret – making it explode is also a decent stunbreaker if you choose to leave it up (camp beside it, OH NOES BULL RUSH HUNDRED BL-boom, get wrecked!).

gimmethegepgun.1284:

Longer answer: Yes. The December 14 update made it so you get the effect of sigils while holding a kit.
Which also prompted them to nerf the 1 skill by 30%, because that OBVIOUSLY totally isn’t overkill…

To be fair, the weapon stats from weapons (January update), alongside sigils, has actually brought grenades back up almost from that 30% – with shrapnel and freeze grenade far exceeding their old damage values.

Tobkilla.4612:

Why is that? Doesn’t the lightning strike benefit from power as well?

Let’s say you can do 13k in 5 seconds. Adding fire/air to that will tack on another 1-2k. Adding a sigil of battle will give you an ~8% damage increase (assuming six stacks, given 250 power via bloodlust increases my grenade damage by about 10.5%). 8% of 13k is about another 1k, so at this damage point, air/fire wins out.

Now let’s say you’re doing absurd amounts of damage – you’re juggling blunderbuss, prybar, jump shot, elixir F, shrapnel grenade, etc. Probably 20-22k every 5 seconds as a rough average, spiking at 30k-ish frontloaded (grenade barrage + other stuff in that first period of time), pre-conditions. Air/fire is still a flat, static increase – bumping us up 1-2k every 5. An 8% increase on our coefficients however (this isn’t always true – sometimes it’s more, sometimes it’s less, but I’ve found it a good average across engineer skills for 210 power) is about 1.6k gain. I’m sure you get it by now – but if you’re in situations a lot where you just auto attack from a distance, I’d go with fire/air, like WvW. If you’re in PvE, where you can freely juggle all those abilities and utterly decimate mobs in dungeons, Sigil of Battle.

Depends on your runeset honestly and playstyle. If you have points on alchemy, and swap kits a lot, it’ll be hard to beat sigil of battle – however, sigil of air/fire are very potent.. but admittedly, the larger your DPS is pre-sigil, the less appealing fire/air is and the more appealing battle/force is. If you’re running berserker stats, accuracy gives more benefit than force – but battle gives more than force by a small chunk if you’re keeping up 6 stacks. To be honest, for WvW purposes I’d go with fire/air, but for PvE purposes I’d probably go with battle, since in those situations you can far more safely land prybar/acid bomb/etc, while in WvW it’s a far more ‘I want them dead now’ situation, so bursty sigils would be more appropriate than ones that take 10 seconds to wind up to full power.

Terrahero.9358:

I did and YOU are the one who is dead wrong. I was in Orr when the game went down for a patch, and when i got back its shortly after when i noticed that i wasnt removing all conditions anymore.
I was standing at lone post writing the bug report. And i reported the issue on the forum in one of the big bug threads we had going on at that time.

Nope, you’re wrong. I’ve been using medkit since launch, it only removes one condition, it always has since the second or third BWE. I never used the elixir heal past level 10 ‘cause it was bad, and I’ve only recently begun to consider using the turret since it doesn’t apply level 1 regen anymore. If you were in Orr, there’s a huge chance you were running around with other players, and “Shake it Off!” or “Save Yourselves!” was going off, or traited warrior warhorn, or something. The engineer has no abilities that remove more than 1 condition except Elixir C (this is pre-traiting, so don’t bring 409 into this) and Cleansing Burst (healing turret). Everything else takes off one condition at a time on the engineer.

Ralloff.7359:

I got two.
One of the Sylvari Personal story missions is based off of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.
Someone mentioned dredge chests as a borderlands reference, but the boss in Sorrows Embrace is likely a reference to the final boss in Borderlands. Both are named the Destroyer of Worlds and both come out of an icy cave. Reinforced by the whole borderlands chest thing.

Destroyer of X was a major thing back in GW1. We’ll probably see a lot more of it when the Primordus expansion rolls around.

Tyaen.5148:

This is completely false. There are several builds that are great in WvW and don’t use grenades. I haven’t run a grenade build since the first month of release.

P/P Elixir build is my personal favorite, followed by a tank build.

Fact – grenades apply conditions better than pistols, bar confusion, which is what Prybar is for. Pistol is one of the worst weapons in the game for engineer to choose, and the only reason you should ever consider it is to gain access to a shield, or maybe blowtorch (although there are better utilities to apply burn). I could make a pick and choose montage of my WvW exploits that take literally 5% of the time those P/P vids to achieve kills – magnet/netshot/faceroll. P/P is an attrition build that only works on those without decent sustain, and to be quite frank, you’d go screaming with far more damage if you just ran rifle instead of pistols for your build. The only thing of note on pistol is the confusion – other than that, the damage is pitiful.

You wanna say grenades miss? They do, at long ranges during skirmishes. That’s what magnet is for. And net shot. And overcharged shot. So you won’t miss the freeze grenade, barrage, and shrapnel grenade. If things get hazy, you have the thinking man’s safety – Gear Shield. I won’t say elixir S isn’t great, it ensures stomps and saves lives. I drop elixir gun for it while WvWing more often than not. But to call a build that takes forever to achieve a kill in a skirmish scenario is not decent – not when, by comparison, someone with the same traits can achieve a kill time of 2-3 seconds (this isn’t even considering hundred ‘nades) by using better skills (read: kits). I’d sooner advocate static discharge than P&P. Heck, I actually could advocate HGH Rifle – between sigil of battle, some boon / might duration increases, HGH, and just using elixir B and your heal elixir’s toss, you can maintain 18-22 stacks during a fight (although half of those are from sigil of battle, admittedly, but still!).

tl;dr – there’s a skill floor, and a skill attic, and P&P is barely pushing your skill kitchen sink. The engineer really cranks off damage-wise once you start reaching the skill cookie jar.

Nnnnno. If you don’t wanna use kits/grenades, engineer isn’t for you. Pretty much any viable build for Engineer involves grenades (raw damage and condition damage), and non-damage builds are kind of.. why are you in WvW if you’re not there to gib people? Grenades are a great siege/defense tool, to boot, and Magnet (followed by a Net Shot, and even then running past them and using Overcharged Shot) is usually a kill.

Edit: I didn’t say static discharge ’cause that uses toolkit, which is a kit, and I would heartily encourage anyone using it to learn how to gear shield, prybar, and magnet appropriately in WvW.

I can promise your unwarranted paranoia is doing the engineering class no good. It has only removed one condition since launch, I promise. During the first or second BWE it removed 3 conditions, but since then it has been only 1.

It’s not bias when I’ve tested a fully kitted out thief, warrior, guardian, necro, and engineer on how quickly I can slay certain punching bag event bosses solo. Try looking through the engineer’s kit abilities, and try realizing that there’s no cooldown to weapon swapping – juggling prybar and blunderbuss and the like seriously brings the hammer down. Jump Shot hits harder than a backstab while also providing vulnerability. Engineer literally has six abilities with < 15 second cooldowns that hit harder than a <25% heartseeker: Throw Wrench, Shrapnel Grenade, Elixir F, Acid Bomb, Blunderbuss, Prybar. It wasn’t even close, and it’s easy to measure too – go do some PvE testing yourself and maybe you’ll learn. Alpha Drake in Bloodtide Coast is a great method, as there’s even a bar on how much health the fisherman has. As long as no player intervenes (which did take a few trials with some classes, it mostly depends on time of day), and you avoid the super-forecasted eat attack, you can easily get a clear damage-over-time value here.

And stop babbling about stacking 25 might, you’re not even hitting that in your video. The fact you’re saying you can drop a Fire Elemental beforehand shows you’re just digging – the summon doesn’t even make a fire field until it has an enemy nearby, and dropping + using plant banner on the fields would take up precious time once the boss turns red. Go try testing some classes that aren’t thief, and maybe you’ll see. Until then, feel free to keep self-promoting an underperforming class. Even in the vid you’re auto attacking for pretty weak amounts (by comparison to warrior) on the first boss, despite your smart traiting. It’s not to say that thief is bad, but I’ve tested the speed with the piles of CoF tokens I have laying around for raw damage over time across my 80 alts, and while thief can be impressive in the short term, he’s somewhat lackluster in the sustain department.

JJBigs.8456:

No amount of cripple, heals, chilled is going to save the team from ADD’s.

This is the kind of engineering thought that makes people think we’re bad. I’m going to get to work on a video to prove otherwise, as I’m getting a bit sick of uncreative / pessimistic / bad players saying they’re bad. Chilling the cluster of oozes will make them unable to hit kiting players. Blinding them will also do the same thing. An engineer has no issue whatsoever surviving the adds – if you get rooted, pop gear shield and chug down some medpacks or blow your healing turret, whichever one you run will work here. It only takes one second. Not to mention if someone goes down, and pings a target, it only takes a small bit of movement to get in position to kill their rallying target. Fyi, jump shot can be used for more than damage – getting away from an ooze mob, or jumping into one for a double grenade barrage nuke, then back out with acid bomb, can often clear out a good chunk of their health, or kill them entirely – if not, you’ve still got blunderbuss and throw wrench to finish the job.

What kills me is, as a highly talented engineer, 5 engineers could work stupidly well. All it takes is grenade kits and rifles. Everyone net shots him for permaroot (2.5s duration, 8s cooldown – permarooted). Grenade spam ensures 25 vuln, barrages hitting stupidly hard, even add in some skills like prybar and acid bomb, and bosses will positively crumble. But nah, 4 war / 1 mes gogogo.

Edit: I’d also like to say that thieves don’t do more sustained than warriors. I’ve done a grand deal of testing – the only time a thief can is sub-25%, at that point they’ll start to pick up in a dagger/X set. And the thing is, that’s not sustained if they’re having to wait every few seconds to heartseeker or pistol whip, while the in-between damage is laughable. The warrior’s autos (axe or GS) hit far harder than the thief’s autos, either in a 20/30/0/10/10 or 20/30/0/0/20 setup (the former being for banner users). In fact, I’ve proven twice now that engineers can outdamage thief sustain in melee, and if a warrior can still out-DPS me when they know their class, I know for certain a thief can’t (it’s not really sustain when you do joke damage while waiting for pistol whip, is it? Especially with whip’s cast time).

@Salo: I’ll just encourage you to use GW2LFG and advertise as an engineer. Look on the engineer forum for a build I’ve advocated several times – 30/10/0/0/30, all the kits, and you’ll be doing more ranged damage, cc, and utility than any other class trying it’s hardest (and you can compete with warriors in damage – although I’ll admit, if the mob is against a wall, whirlwind attack will put them ahead by a little bit more, and at that point it’s overall a ~15% difference). Freezes, heals, cripples, and most importantly of all, raw damage. This is the build the other engineer and I run and advocate – and perhaps if more players start using it, engineer will be seen in a more favorable light. We treat flamethrower engineers worse than anything, I’ll admit – at least if they won’t change up after we request them to stop using that kit.