Guild Wars 2

The exoflood has commenced.

Mordremoth is pleased

Arantheal.7396:

it was amazing to see how much the AI is actually jumping your kitten if you have the highest toughness values in the area.

I honestly think the AI just likes to target engineers. Having played this game for almost 3 years now, I swear it’s just too convenient to always be targeted out of a zerg. Take the Bell-Ringer in EoTM. Countless times I’ve seen him ignore the zerg as he tried to catch me while I run around a pillar or hide behind some stairs. Not that I mind it anymore though. Being targeted like that all the time has made me a better player and I don’t mind solo’ing champions.

As for the OP, you have access to plenty of healing. I run the same setup of mortar, elixir gun, and healing turret. As I’ve been in thick zerg fights, which is arguably more dangerous than most PvE fights, and those three have often kept me alive on their own. No need for combo finishers, except for healing turret which is free if you blow it up. PvE is a much easier environment because there’s ways for engineers to exploit the AI. For example, melee units need to chase you, so if you know you’re going into a tough fight, switch to bomb kit and kite them. Or use endothermic shell + net shot + elixir F to slow them down while you keep your distance. Take advantage of the flash shell as well. It’s a very useful blind AOE that buys you time to run into the middle of a mob and burst them down.

It would have been a different story if the developers added a new kit in this expansion, but instead they invested company resources to create a new line of non-kit related skills. We now have elixirs, gadgets, turrets, and gyros to chose from on a very limited skill bar. Opening up dual primary weapons for non-kit builds would help to wedge engineers to try other builds without significantly impacting combat performance and survivability. I for one would welcome a Hammer & Rifle combination, mixed with gyros and even turrets. I’d get more value out of the game too since I’m no longer locked down to kit requirements.

In any case, I’m sure this topic crossed the developers’ minds numerous times both before and after release of GW2. They have their reasons for not doing it, so it’s not something I’m going to hold my breath on. Gyros, like gadgets, turrets, and some elixirs, are just gimmicks to me. Without any changes to encourage build diversity, my standard loadout will continue to reign.

I think the more important thing is to prepare your gear for the new specializations (if you’re into that sort of thing). As I main an engineer, that will be my first to unlock. I just got my warrior’s weapon smithing level to 500 last night to craft a new ascended hammer. Fully upgraded and ready for action when my engineer comes calling.

Following that, I’m not sure who would be next on my list. I have decked out necro, ranger, and warrior. I don’t play them much, so I’ll just work on them when I feel like taking a break from my engineer. I will say this though. I’ve never quite liked the mesmer profession, but the new chronomancer specialization looks cool and I’m looking forward to seeing how that plays out in WvW.

As others have brought up EotM moments, I thought I would bring up this.

I’d have to say anything to do with jumping puzzles. Especially Mad King’s Clock Tower, which will soon be returning. Many people love/hate swiftness to do their jumps, but often I see others cast AOE swiftness in the middle of their jump when another player isn’t expecting it, so they overshoot or run right off the platform. The trash talk that comes immediately after always makes me laugh.

Horsing around with friends on jumping puzzles is pretty funny too. Like using the mystery forest tonic to turn yourself into a large pineapple to cover up the platform. My friends and I have a good laugh when we fall to our doom because we can’t see what we’re doing.

As dancingmonkey said, it depends on what you’re aiming for. I prefer to fight with zergs, so my loadout is going to better accommodate that (meaning no gadgets for me). When I want to fight from a distance, I don’t use any condi at all. Orbital strike with siege rounds, kinetic battery, zerk wep + jewlery and celestial armor does very good damage with good survivability. Even if I screw up the kinetic battery use, the two orbital strikes is often enough to give my zerg headway. Very useful when trying to push against an enemy zerg that setup AC defense.

When I use conditions, it’s with full celestial and two pistols with bombs (larger zergs) or FT (smaller zergs/roaming teams). The blowtorch is an absolute must as it adds a lot of pressure on a pretty fast cool down. Combined with incendiary powder and incendiary ammo, anyone who doesn’t have condi cleanse is in for a world of pain. Fire and concussion bombs are great room cleaners for when you’re fighting a zerg in a tight area like a tower or lord’s room. Fire damage is much better than confusion now, but when toons get stuck in fast combat animations without canceling them, the confusion becomes quite deadly (ie: 100b warriors).

Elixir S is also pretty useful and I often keep it in my skills. It’s quite useless IMO in roaming or small scale fights, but in zerg fights it has saved my bacon more than once. It has allowed me to continue the fight in what otherwise would have been my downfall. For that reason, I often maintain Elixir S and EG (condi cleanse + extra heal) on my skill belt 100% of the time.

Bish.8627:

I don’t think I could survive open PVE without run speed.

True, the boredom of running place to place would kill you

The nice thing about the engineer is you can play around with all kinds of builds to keep the game refreshing. Hammer today, rifle tomorrow, carpet bomber Tuesdays, Go Go Gadget Fridays, etc. Do whatever entertains you!

My build for the day:
http://de.gw2skills.net/editor/?vdAQFAUlUUhSuY7Ww+KQ7FLTGk4zOQA+Oeyb+4Hef8B-TFSBABBu/QjKBHV9nrU+hoGC80BswFEAgHEQAAEgbezAbezM0hO0hO0h2NH6NH6NvZA-w

The easiest reason why I didn’t preorder the game is because there’s no preorder bonus As for buying it after release, there’s two main reasons I’m going to hold off.

1. There’s to many other good games out there today + new ones coming out soon. It’s difficult to spend time in GW2 when there’s just so much great variety out there.

2. Using living story as a historic metric, any new release from Anet is met with huge popularity. With popularity comes overly populated areas and lag. The Modrem Invasion event not long ago was absolutely crazy. There was no enjoyment, it was just a grunt rush to tag mobs before they melted. I played the event once and never returned. I fully expect HoT to be similar upon release, so it makes sense to wait a few months to let the hype die down before playing and actually enjoying the content.

The Druid is not a profession, it’s just an extra weapon + skills that, like all other skills for all other classes, are situational and serve some purposes better than others. I know it’s “new” and tempting to convince yourself that you will min-max your toon to be “100% Druid”, but that’s not going to be the case. As I main an engineer, I never go full out kits or elixirs because that does more harm to my build than good. Likewise for my Ranger, I’ll probably only equip the staff as a secondary weapon for range since I more often prefer to use swords and offhand weapons. The avatar is something I would take advantage of, like the Necro, when the situation calls for it. Specifically, the barrier that converts projectiles into healing missiles is a pretty neat game mechanic from Anet and serves as my contribution for lack of reflection. Other than that, I’ll still be doing the damage I’ve always been doing.

Personally I would use Rabid over Sinister for a purely condition based build as you will have better modifiers for your condi damage, thus wrecking havoc with your burns and confusion. If you do ever move over to WvW too, it would add the needed survivability.

Personally though, I like to have range and bomb from a safe distance, so zerker gear works better for me. I do on average 2 – 4K damage on Teq during the 1st stage, and about 13K on subsequent stages. When mixed with Elixir U and 9s of quickness, the damage output greatly surpasses any condition damage I ever did on him (I’m not even sure if condi damage scales when he’s weak?). Range is also great against other world bosses like Golem, Jormag, Megadestroyer, and to a lesser degree all the other bosses / temple bosses if you want to play it safer, however most range skills lack any useful condition damage so they’re more suited for power builds.

I don’t mind the concept of the orbital strike skill, I just wish Anet would have chosen a different presentation for it. It would have been more exciting to see a red smoke grenade go off and hear shells raining in to bomb the area, like using the PvE mortars from the Charr. The laser beam and little “bzzzt” sound it makes is just not that exciting.

I haven’t played elementalist much, but I remember being annoyed with how they were locked to a single weapon. Various weapons require a different play styles and I found myself going back and forth to the hero screen to swap equipment. Engineer at least is quite limited when it comes to primary weapon choices so it’s not as bad.

I see the engineer as the only class in the game that has sustained ranged AOE, which is why I love him. Previously that title went to grenades, but post-patch it goes to the mortar. We can just spam those attacks and hit large groups of people and from a relatively safe distance. We don’t have to wait long cool down times that other classes have to in order to trigger their AOE. As a bonus, we can also target the ground. This means we don’t have to deal with the targeting system and struggle to mouse select a player in a zerg fight. Just carpet bomb the whole group and let the 6 divines sort em out.

For the past two years I’ve been using full celestial with runes of the traveler because it offered a nice balance between power, condition, and survivability. Something the engineer excelled from given the profession’s skill set. However, since the last patch Anet really opened the door for possibilities.

1. Healing is no longer a useful trait for me anymore because elixir infused bombs have been replaced with bunker down. And while that’s an OK trait, it does require you run into the medkit, which not often will be possible give the hectic conditions in a zerg fight. So one less reason to promote the celestial benefits.

2. Mecha Legs is actually worthwhile. Not only do you get the speed boost, but reduction from conditions that slow you down as well. Incentive to no longer depend on traveler runes for the speed boost. It almost screams essential trait.

3. Prior to the patch, bleed stacks and confusion was my bread and butter for condition damage. Poison was more about utility and burn was ok, but always secondary in my mind. With their ability to stack now, it gives them a more central role in offensive conditions. I’d even say more central than bleeds to those that have access to a lot of burns.

4. Condition duration feels really good on the engineer. The firearms traitline will net you 33% more time with bleeds and burn, plus 50% more uptime with your pistols. If you combine that with rare veggie pizza and runes of Balthazar, you’re pretty much a walking furnace. I’m not all that crazy about the flame thrower, but its toolbet skill incendiary ammo just adds fuel to the fire. I was doing more burn damage with my celestial gear than my physical damage, which surprised me.

And now with the ability to convert ascended gear, I’m starting to wonder if it’s time to hang the celestial gear in the closet and jump into the min/max game. So I’m just playing around with purely focused builds to maximize one offensive characteristic of the engineer and play a more heavy weapons role in bombing the enemy from a distance. Mokittenefinitely prefers a more power centric toon given that it only has one damaging condition (poison), which is nothing to praise about. However, getting up close with the pistol and incendiary ammo really shakes things up, more so than a power centric build IMO. And there’s something about the engineer than screams conditions. Just so much there it would feel like a waste not to use them.

So I thought I would start a discussion with the community and see what you prefer. Are you pro power, pro condition, or just run a balanced setup?

I posted it as an issue a long time ago. Not all grenades register a hit and often it looks like the grenades don’t have any collision detection with the object. You need to target the ground right in front of it and let the aoe register the dmg. It’s also similar to the flame thrower not registering any damage. You need to cycle to another weapon and back to the FT for the damage to register again. A bit annoying, but it’s definitely been in the game for quite some time.

Cuz Elixir X now transform enemies in an area to Moas. Let the lawl games begin!

What exactly is killing you? Pretty much anything except turrets will do fine in Silverwastes, but grenades will definitely kill the fastest. If the Mordrem cast grasping vines on you, just stand above the target and you won’t get hit. Otherwise keep moving and avoid any charged attacks. If you do happen to get knocked down, use a stun breaker to get our of harms way, but don’t use it while the teragriff is still charging (has a large AOE zone). If finger dancing with grenades is a kittenallenging, you can always go with elixir infused bombs and just run in a circle. The AI is not that smart and will just soak up the damage until it’s dead.

My general purpose build: http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fdAQFAUlUUpErtbx+KseRSaBFqpCqXIysslP3gA8UA-T1BBABAcBBEc/BzU+loOCHVCSq6PB8gACAgAczbGYzbmhO0hO0hO0uuNH6NH6NDA-w

Necro was my first toon on GW2 and I enjoyed it quite a lot. Minions were fun, marks and wells awesome, love the corruption line and being able to convert boons into conditions. Partner up with mesmers and put a target on someone to fill him up with confusion. Then cast epidemic and watch 5 people melt. Wells and marks also make you a rich lich in WvW. I also love the Spectral Walk for doing hard jumping puzzles. It’s basically your reset button if you screw up. And it’s fun to /dance with the lich form over the corpses of your dead foes

Though I haven’t played my necro much mainly because I didn’t like his survivability. Once I engage in combat, it’s pretty much a commitment. Nowadays I main an engineer and I just love his versatility and ranged AOE spam. But every now and then I like to go back to my necro to try something different.

No need for wikis. Just tried it in-game and toss elixir S was bumped from 5s to 6s with potent elixirs. So assuming no actual duration cap on stealth (I think the most I’ve ever seen was 14 sec), then yeah, 5 stacks at 6s would be a nice 30s stealth.

I don’t think you could ever buff gadgets to the point where someone would consider them over kits. We lack dual weapon wielding and that automatically requires you equip one kit just to cycle through a rotation.

As for incendiary powder, I think you’re overestimating its value. It hits only one target and it has a 10s cooldown. In zerg fights, it has negligible overall effect in comparison to someone who goes grenadier with 10% dmg buff to explosions or short fuse to spam out poison, blindness, and chill more often, which is better for overall team play. More important than incendiary powder is putting 6 points into power, which gives you a 30% increase in condition duration. Stack that with food buffs and other runes, it helps make your conditions last longer and provide an easier fight for you and your team mates.

It might be different for people that prefer pure PvP or roaming in WvW, but when I team play it’s all about contribution and I get the most bang for my buck in the primary stat bonuses and major traits like grenadier. Those are the two big sellers, most of the minor and major skills are just putting the cherry on top, but by no means dictate build orientation. So I don’t think it needs to be adjusted per say, you just got to pick the most suitable bonuses to your play style amongst the choices you’re given.

For the past couple months, I’ve been noticing situations where my flamethrower would stop registering any damage. I’ll see the flame jet, I’ll hear the sounds, auto attack will continue to attack after each animation, but no damage numbers appear on the enemy, no health is lost, and I won’t receive any drops due to lack of contribution in the kill. This will continue to go on until I change my weapon and use another attack skill, such as blunderbuss with my riffle. That seems to wake up the engine to start registering damage again. Or for some mobs like Karkas that evade. Prior to their evasion I won’t land any hits. Once they evade that seems to wake up the engine as I’ll start to see “evade” popup, followed by numbers once the evasion expires.

Grenades tend to have this problem as well, although usually only one grenade will register a hit where the other two do not. For example, I may throw my grenades at a gate in WvW. Sometimes I don’t see anything, other times I only see one grenade hit and the other two do not. Or during a world boss event, I’ll see one or two damage counters rather than all 3, even at a point blank toss.

In most cases that I can recall, there’s a lot of players nearby. Initial attacks will register fine, but as the seconds pass I’ll begin to notice the hits no longer register. My ping averages 120 and I have a 15Mbps downstream / 512 Mbps upstream connection. Bandwidth monitoring shows GW2 uses anywhere from 35 – 50 KB/s downstream and 1KB/s upstream during zerg activities, which is well within my limits. My FPS typically averages 50 – 60, with dips to 37 in larger scale fights and sometimes 20 for a short time doing some world bosses like Maw. But those rates climb back up once your dynamic FPS adjustment kicks in. Either way, the issue happens whether I’m at 60 fps or 20.

I personally have not see any direct change. Zerg fights are often messy and I couldn’t tell if someone’s stability stacks expired before his countdown, but the general gameplay still feels the same. For smaller scale fights, immob is king and stability doesn’t do jack to protect against that anyway.

The skill lag has been around for years. Although this latest update has affected it more, it’s probably more to due with load balancing being shared with HoT beta testers.

As others have said though, huge zerg fights are the direct cause of the problem. Unfortunately, there’s nothing you can do about that. The map population is designed to keep the queues to a minimum and have enough people to populate the map. When that population decides to converge on a spot however, the amount of stress on the system increases significantly. And I’m not so sure it’s just server related. Even fighting solo in PvE, on numerous high end systems I’ve seen the game simulation slow down when various activities transpire, like some sort of lockstep algorithm is being used. So I’m not quick to discount the possibility that the old GW engine might have a potential role in the problems.

I wouldn’t say engis are weak against CC or condis. At least I’ve never had any problem cleansing myself or breaking out of a stun. I don’t care much for stability (prefer stun breaks so-as not to affect my build), but if I need some stability then I’ll just pop an elixir X for 15-20s of stability or toss elixir b for 6s of stability. Perhaps the worse when it comes to CC is the aetherblades and although they can be a nuisance, I’ve never felt underwhelmed from them even without stability and taking on a group of them in EotM. From my experience, it’s all about position and how aggressive or defensive you are. Keeping my distance and flanking is the best strategy for my engineer. If someone gets close, I have enough CC to play pinata with my opponent. And if he pops stability, we play cat and mouse for 7 seconds and then I return the favour.

As for the new map, I dunno yet. I’m pretty sure there’ll be strengths and weaknesses for all classes in certain areas by the sounds of it. I think it’s going to be really exciting with all the different areas and unique effects. As an engineer, we have lots of cool skills at our disposal that might prove fun with the new map. Motor with 100% stability uptime might prove useful. A well timed concussion barrage could spell doom for an aggressive group treading on a thin line. Or popping an elixir X and getting lucky with a tornado could be enough to troll with in areas where there’s not enough ground to stand on. Though, I’m really curious how the new stability rules might affect those skills. Like if a tornado only has 5 stacks of stability and a zerg manages to knock it all out, does that mean your tornado can now be CC’d? Or that you can be pulled off your mortar? Will be interesting to see what Anet does there.

Turret damage does increase with your power stat, but it does not increase with might. I don’t have bloodlust on me, but I would assume it doesn’t affect it as well. As for force, I don’t know. I do have that sigil equipped, but whether or not that 5% increase is actually honoured and not bugged only anet programmers know

It would be nice if game devs would stop treating their gamers as imbeciles and actually show us detailed spreadsheet information regarding stats and boosts. Dunno why they try so hard to cover that up and make us second guess.

I envision this to be something similar to Orr (perhaps in size as well). A straightforward progression that lets you get deeper into their new zone as you improve your masteries. Once you unlock the waypoints though, it’s just a matter of deciding which content you want to partake in. I think the experience is going to be very similar to Silverwastes and Dry Top. New twists on game play to change the way we progress. Lots of people are likely going to be rushing and farming certain things to progress to the next stage. Once that’s expired, it will boil down to resuming temple / world boss type fights to keep people returning, or some sort of special zone farming. Basing this of course on the current trend in GW2.

Overall though, I welcome this paid expansion. I’ve clocked 2K hours in the current game and all for the admission of a single price. There’s nothing from their own store that I couldn’t buy with gold earned from regular play. I see this expansion as a valid excuse to help fund Anet and hopefully see more expansions and content in the future, especially since GW2 is a fun game and worth the continued development. Notwithstanding they’re going to continue development post ship, so it’s a win-win.

Bomb kit aoe dmg + lots of healing + traits can be swapped to boost turrets. Great for PvE and all world bosses. Bomb kit setup can also work for WvW, but you need to roll with people that don’t cower at the sight of a zerg. You are committed once SHTF.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fdAQFAUlUUpPrtbx+KseNSaBF6pOjBIysslPOhAA-T1BBABAcBBEc/BzU+loOCHVCSq6PB8gACAgAczbGYzbmhO0hO0hO0uuNH6NH6NDA-w. Turret setup is lazy mode for world bosses. Just change all toughness traits to boost turrets. Almost every world boss you can AFK and let turrets do the work for you.

Take 4 pnts out of toughness and put 2 pnts into power for grenadier trait, change forceful explosives to shrapnel, and put remaining 2 pnts into firearms for precise shots. Now your engineer is a long range artillery that also stacks a lot of bleeds and vulnerability. I like this setup the most for WvW because it has reach and great suppression.

My favourite all-around build: http://de.gw2skills.net/editor/?fdAQFAUlUUpPrtbx+KseNSaBF6pOjBIysslPOhAA-T1BBABAcBBEc/BzU+loOCHVCSq6PB8gACAgAczbGYzbmhO0hO0hO0uuNH6NH6NDA-w

I just don’t die and I still deal a good amount of damage (bombs are pretty good damage dealers). I never feel like battles drag on or that swapping gear to get a couple extra stats elsewhere is going to make a big enough impact. Best part too is I don’t fear mobs with this build. I’ve solo’d quite a few bosses and groups of mobs that are known for cheesy tactics like stunning or knockdowns. I’ll often charge in first to a champion fight where I see most others sit back and wait for others. For money making, I’ll switch some stats around to buff the FT for tagging more mobs. For extreme scenarios where safety is more important, I’ll tweak the stats a little to buff grenades. Those are the 3 main kits I’ll cycle between depending on the situation. Gear wise however, celestial has never failed me.

I have full ascended celestial set for my engineer with traveller runes and I swear by them. I’ve been using it for over a year and I have no intention of ever making another set. I often single handily take on tough mobs or champions where most people sit around and wait for others. The average stat boost the set brings makes you a lot more survivable while still dishing out good dps.

Although I did go PvT with Dolyak runes on my warrior, mainly because I wanted something tough as nails and show boat. At roughly 4K toughness and 30K health, plus all his healing abilities, he’s pretty hard to kill. It depends on your loadout too, but there may not be much benefit from the added condition damage that celestial will offer you. There are battles where condition is preferable to physical dmg though (ex: living story, battle for lions arch) and so having that on hand is useful. You will feel the benefits from healing, power, toughness, ferocity, and precision. Since ascended is costly, time gated, and more so with celestial because of the added charged quartz time gating, it is IMO a worth while effort. Once you make it, gear wars 2 can once again become guild wars 2 With any other set, you’ll come across situations where you wish you had something else and once again commence the grind.

I don’t mind the style. It goes really well with my engineer, but I do find the material way to oily looking. It’s like I took a swim with the outfit on and just got out of the water. Especially at night, the moonlight just gleams off it. They need to get rid of that shininess and make it look more matte, more leather like.

Superior Rune of Patch (6/6)
(1): -10% damage output.
(2): +5 second cooldown.
(3): Increase cast time by ¼ second.
(4): 20% chance to randomly nerf skill.
(5): -15% boon duration
(6): Fix skill facts to display the correct values.

In my opinion, playing around Amber has been the absolute most fun. Chest farming only happens between events and the new robo back pack makes it a really funny side quest (“faster.. faster!”). That aside, when the invasion starts, having so many people there creates a really challenging and thrilling experience. So many champions, elites, and mobs spawn. It’s just a major war zone and when the bombs drop, it really counts for something. And when a legendary mob drops in, ohh man it’s so good. So much action.

This IMO is far better than splitting people up and dealing only with a handful of lower scaled trash mobs that require no effort to take on. If anything, I’d like to see Anet move more in that direction. More action!

Bloodstone dust sounds like it could be used to make drugs :P Whole new meaning to “cooking”

As always, use the right tool for the job

FT is good in PvE for farming. It provides enough damage to register for loot drops and its near continuous jet stream allows for more tagging. Strangely, it also seems to do a lot more damage to certain mobs than other setups. It also provides amazing group support. Now that Flame Blast is a blast finisher, combined with other skills you can give your group 12 stacks of might within a single Napalm, or just 6 stacks with using Flame Blast twice.

The only drawback is in the recent patch sometimes the FT damage numbers don’t show up. The skill’s auto attack is still going, but you can’t tell if you’re actually hitting the target. Sometimes swapping weapons will help fix it. Those of us who played with engies since the beginning recall a time when the FT jet would miss targets, so it’s annoying that problem has returned, or at least some derivative of it.

Other than that, some mobs requires different setups. Bomb kit offers the best survivability. For example, I can solo the Colocal Queen (Dry Top) with bombs, but I would run the risk of downing using any other means, especially when it starts to get crowded. So you just need to use best judgement and use the right tool for the job.

“and Condition Duration isn’t essential for Control to begin with”
- Correction, duration does increase the length of immobilization, so it does have merit if you want to keep someone stationary. Although there are cases where mobs are immune to that condition and therefore negate its benefits.

As for the rest, I agree. Though, I personally run with Celestial because there have been cases in the past where Anet introduced mobs that are impervious to physical damage, or reflect conditions. In those cases, it was really nice to have one set of gear to fulfil my needs and not have to micro manage gear.

On the flipside, this is Anet’s game and their vision. I don’t have any problem with it and I enjoy it for what it is. Though there does exist questionable stat choices, it’s up to the player to decide what best suits their needs.

Pretty much what ellesee said. Kits are your bread and butter. The only elixir I find useful is Elixir-S. I stay away from gadgets as they are useless to my play style. Turrets are sometimes useful, but it highly depends on the situation. However, Healing Turret is a must. It’s the gravy train of all healing abilities. You should still try everything for fun, but you’ll find kits extremely useful. I’ll add the following.

1. If you haven’t already, optimize your key bindings. The engineer requires a lot of finger work to maximize his potential. You cannot do that using the standard bindings. To give you an example, this is my setup.
i) W, S, A, D for movement.
ii) Shift + Q, E, A, or D to activate one of my 4 toolbelt skills
iii) Q, E, Z, X, C to activate my 6→0 skills

Everything is nice and tight and I can quickly pull off combos.

2. Elixir Gun Acid Bomb can be interrupted by switching to your primary weapon while leaping. Practice this because it allows you to use the ability in tight places where you would leap off a cliff if you did nothing. IMO EG is the most important kit. It gives you a stun breaker, extra AOE heal, condition removal, and a nice powerful Acid Bomb. It’s always on my skill-bar.

3. If you want to steam-roll, I find the best setup is Bomb Kit + Elixir Gun + Elixir-S. The last 2 are mainly for survivability. EG Acid Bomb does pretty good damage while at the same time your bombs are going off.

Hint: Use Fire Bomb first, then EG Acid Bomb for might stack on blast finisher. Use tip #2 to stop the Acid Bomb leap immediately and start planting bombs again.

4. If you want to farm mobs, if there’s a zerg hogging all the kills, switch Bomb Kit to Flamethrower. You now just converted into a money making machine. Use Napalm and Acid Bomb for might stack and AOEs. Also, Flame Blast is now a blast finisher, so you can use that in addition to Napalm to get your might stacks up. Traits Juggernaut and Deadly Mixture go well with the FT. I usually go 0/4/4/6/0 setup with FT builds. More boon duration = more might stacks. I also have runes of the traveller so I get +15% boon duration and 25% running speed. Runes of strength would also work, but either way this is all level 80 talk.

5. I’m not crazy about grenades. I don’t kill things as quickly as I do with the bomb kit and it’s more of a chore kitting mobs, or people. So for leveling purposes I would put a stronger focus on getting Bomb Kit and Elixir Gun first, then Flamethrower next if the zerg is hogging your kills.

6. For weapon loadout, I play pistol + pistol almost all the time. Static shot is great for blinding (confusion proc is to short of a duration to care), poison volley great for interrupting heals, blowtorch great for AOE damage, and glue shot is a decent AOE immobolizer. I’m not crazy about shields. They slow me down and the Reinforced Shield trait does not apply with kits, so it’s ‘meh’.

7. With the new levelling system, you’ll probably find the engineer pretty hard/boring to work with as you’re locked to a single weapon and you need levels + skills to unlock. Once you unlock two skills and have some kits, it should start to get more interesting. At first, I would probably unlock Rifle Turret to help provide extra damage to get you levelled up quicker.

I haven’t played MM since the patch so I don’t know if any new issue was introduced, but I do know your minions will be destroyed if you enter water and your skill sets are different. If you want to make sure your minions persist on land and in water, make sure those minion skills occupy the same slots in both environments. If you have a different set of skills underwater, that will cause your minions to unsummon.

Since Flesh Golem is a land-only skill, when you enter water I believe the only elite skill that can be used in plague form. When that skill switches over, this will cause your Flesh Golem to unsummon.

Also, sometimes your minions might stand around doing nothing. That issue has been there since day 0 and it’s likely something within the AI code is not right; however as a workaround use your minions skill. I find once you trigger that on your targeted enemy, that will get them to start attacking.

ArrDee.2573:

and then also be able to run away from anything that Anet balance prevents you from winning against!

Haha… sooo this. I have 4 alts and I swear by the engineer. It’s awesome being the last man standing, or just trolling around because we can. Watching a dozen guys sit back waiting for reinforcements to take on a tough mob while I run into the fight solo like a boss.

I often take 3-4 month breaks and it usually only takes me about 1 or 2 hours to get back into the groove. If there’s anything that annoys me, it’s that I can’t swap kits fast enough, lol. MOAR SPEED.

@TheLastNobody
I generally don’t have a problem tracking with the FT. However, I never target with it. I free-track with the mouse and that gives me better lead control. The FT also has a wide cone of attack. I could spray in-between two opponents and without either of them physically touching the flame jet, I’m still hitting them.

@JabLock
I never really considered the FT burn a primary benefit of the weapon. Indeed that 1 second goes by pretty fast and will not even tick if your opponent has runes of melandru equipped. However, where the engineer’s burn does shine is with the offhand pistol blowtorch skill. If you’re within 200 range, it’s 6s, plus 3-targets. Swapping between kit and pistols is pretty quick, so it shouldn’t be that much of a burden. Plus you can unload static shot and poison volley to add more pressure. When you’re done, you can go back to the FT. And that’s pretty much how I find is the best way to play the engineer too. We’re meant to swap between kits to maximize damage output.

I think though that if people want kits to be more powerful, Anet will have to compensate that by increasing the CD between kit swaps. Essentially making kits replace primary weapons instead of using them more like a utility.

Legendaries are account bound, right? So just make sure the one you pick can be used on any of your classes It sounds like you played guardian and elementist the most. Despite your current boredom, I would suggest bifrost might be the more interesting one to get. That skin suits both their styles, as well as mesmer,. Probably wouldn’t use one for a necro though.

I personally main an engineer for two reasons. I survive really well with one and he’s the only toon with 80% map completion. All other toons are at ~40% map completion and I really don’t want to have to do that again. If I were to try another toon though, I would probably pick elementist. It’s the only one, like engie, where they have a diverse set of skills to pick from. Playing as warrior, guardian, ranger, necro and theif I thought was really linear. Just 2 weapons and 2 or 3 skills to play with. Bleh.. Give me kits or attunements. I need that diversity. However, I would never get a legendary for an engineer. Pistols and rifles are meh. The predator is better looking than the hunter, and the quip is a party gun. Maybe fun at first, but to hear party popper over and over again… ehhh, no.

IMO, the key to fighting powerful mobs in this game is taking advantage of the dumb AI and kiting. The best class is engineer with elixir infused bombs and backpack regen. No need to slow down movement by walking backwards or strafing. Just do a full run and let the bombs behind you hit the mobs. I do not fear any champion or even a swarm of vets (took on groups of them in the pavilion) and will be the first one to charge into a champ fight while 3 or 4 observers wait for more people to help. It’s rare for me to down with that setup. If I were to face them head on however, I would be guaranteed dead or forced to retreat often to heal back up. This will slow the fight down considerably.

Few other classes can fight similar, but it’s a bit slower. Bombs are continuous, but necro marks and wells work on a CD, plus death shroud AOE skills. Not sure about ele’s, but they do have some AOE abilities. Warriors would have to kite with bows and rifles and it’s a very slow mechanic. Not sure about thieves, but you might have to resort to cheap tactics. Pistol barrage then stealth, rinse and repeat, or some other similar combo. I see quite a few thieves do this in WvW. No serious threat to players, but against a mob you would slowly take down their health in a safe way.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fdAQJAqalUUpWrtbx+KseNSdBFydWQQGgCI6gMkYA-T1RBABVq+DN7PolyvFeAAAcCAyTPRkKBJFwFLjA-w

FT is all about power, forgot conditions. Soldier armor + knights jewellery. Not uncommon to maintain 3K power ~50% crit + excellent survivability. Run in and throw napalm at target, swap to EG and acid bomb out for might stack + dmg, swap back to FT and fire a flame blast while running in with flame jet. Let flame blast past the target and manually detonate for maximum damage.

Nothing beats FT for tagging mobs and getting tons of loot. EG acid bomb is also good for clustered mobs, like in Melandru runs.

FT however requires head on fighting, which will slow you down when you want to kite or some such. Bombs are more convenient for dueling and WvW in general. Less fuss, just drop and go + elixir bombs keep you and your mates going. FT is still viable though. I wouldn’t want to 1v1 with it, but for zerg fights the napalm blast does quite a bit of AOE damage while maintaining some distance.

Most importantly, just have fun. I often switch builds to keep the game interesting. FT one day, bombs another, turrets, gadgets, etc.

Bombaneer: 2/2/0/4/6 with full celestial. Primary focus was on perma evade. I never had to worry about dodging the next aoe. Just went in there and cleaned her clock. The engineer has got to be one of the best professions for that event. All other trash mobs were fought with elixir infused bombs + backpack regen + spam bombs and GG all the way up the ladder.

No tchoo tchoo? :_(

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with his power. I run with full Celestial and it has good survivability and damage contribution. The only thing I would point out is he doesn’t have forceful explosives. When running with bombs, it’s pretty much necessary. The extra range is not only for the reaching more enemies, but also for reaching allies to heal them.

I’m not big on automated response. I would take out the 10 pnts there and put it into power for the forceful explosives.

You’ll get the most from this:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fdAQJAqalUUpWrtbx+KseNSdBFydWQQGgCI6gMkYA-TFSBABVq+jT7PgoegsU+twDAoONEnpEEgTAApAuYZE-w

1. Juggernaut for +2oo toughness and ~7 stacks of might which add >200 power/condi. 30% boon duration from the vit tree helps to keep those might stacks longer. Don’t worry about more than this. Flame blasts + guardians will power you up even more. By them helping you achieve close to 25 stacks, you add on your additional % dmg for the most possible damage.

2. 15% dmg bonus trait + 5% from sigil of force + 7% from runes of engineer = +27%

3. Sigil of Bloodlust for more power.

4. Soldier set + the toughness & vit traits adds a lot of survivability + you convert 11% of your toughness into power and 4% of your vit into power. You’re a walking medium tank.

5. Elixir gun for stun breaker + super elixir + acid bomb (blast finisher + fire field = 3 stacks of might). Elixir S for additional survivability.

6. Optional: Swap to medkit before battle, drop stimulant for fury to bring your crit chance up to ~40%.

Victorian fashion would be really cool. They already have the top-hat for males. They would just need to design the coat , pants, and shoes. Ladies would need to have the extravagant dresses and hats. Rather than just throw these out into the store, Anet could probably design this around a special 1-month event, like some sort of Sherlock mystery.

I have full ascended celestial and when I roll with bombs in WvW, it works really well. My build here: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vcAQJAqalUUpPrtbx+KseRSE6B+FsaBVIviUofL/pgcB-zkBBoeIYjBMRtIaslhFRjVVjIqWlELAwBAXHEEwiA-w

When taking forts and the zerg is chasing after us, I keep myself and my zerg alive with the amount of heals, smoke, and big ol’bomb. Bombs + regen boon + backpack regen provides about 500 health per second with this setup.

PvE should be about the journey and not the destination, but it sounds like your engineer is an alt and therefore you’ve been there and done that. In that sense, if you don’t feel engaged to play the single player story or do dynamic events, I don’t think any manner of skills and traits will change your boredom. I was excited with my engineer from start to finish. I had to make hard choices each new level where to spend my skill points. Do I go all-in with turrets, maybe get the flame thrower, save up for the mortar? It was a fun experience and the dynamic events along the way made it all the more engaging, especially when doing them with team-mates my level. If by level 20 you feel bored, my only recommendation is to stop and go back to a class you do like. I did that when levelling a thief. I knew right away I didn’t like the class and dropped him by level 10.

This is what I run:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vcAQJAqalUUpPrtbx+KseRSE6B+FsaBVIviUofL/pgcB-zkBBoeIYjBMRtIaslhFRjVVjIqWlELAwBAXHEEwiA-w

IMO, you don’t have time for horsing around with any skills other than dropping bombs and those that help you escape if it gets really bad (elixir S or elixir gun acid bomb). The 270 health I get + up to 4 others is really helpful in keeping us alive. Especially warriors since their passive healing is already very good. The backpack regen + extra toughness + any regen boon on you helps keep you alive. It adds up to about 500 health per second.

Healing turret is just amazing. The water field from the healing turret and toolbelt healing mist adds up so much more health than the elixir H does, plus you get 2 free condition removals in just one skill (if I need more, super elixir). On average I get 10K health from the blast finishers, notwithstanding you’re sharing healing with others, which means they last longer too. When you get a bit more skilled, you can plant your big ol’bomb, then your healing turret, the bomb blast finisher goes off, you then acid bomb using elixir gun, interrupt, then explode the healing turret. 3 blast finishers is about 4500 health right there, plus you setup some offence in the area.

Also, don’t discount your primary weapon. IMO riffle is not that good for zerg fighting. Pistol static shot and poison volley offer much more utility when you need to distance yourself, but still keep the pressure on. Riffle requires you run in there and leap jump, but that can be very dangerous, unless you quickly acid bomb out of there. Beyond that, let the guardians do their job by keeping you booned-up while you help do your job. Save your skills and precious attack time for more important matters.