Guild Wars 2

Good for kiting and defense. Not a primary offensive kit in wvw (imo). Grenade kit/bomb kit/stunbreaker is a decent build for wvw.

GankSinatra.2653:

Weakness reduces damage inflicted by target 50% of the time by 50% aka “Glancing blows.” What this means is against most Warriors,Rangers, Thieves, Guardians, Engineers, you reduce their overall damage done by 25% (roughly). This is huge, especially in 1v1’s since you can keep weakness up 100% of the time.

50% of NON crits. So if you’re against a ranger with a high crit, your weakness really wont do much. Well i guess he’ll do like 12.5% less damage while you do much less than that due to using elixir gun. Its a condition you can counter by both using crit or condition damage..

That analysis goes both ways. A ranger with 50% crit (the example you used) will have glass cannon gear/survivability e.g. low vit/toughness. In that case standard rifle+grenade will work quite well (which my build can do). Also, pop elixir s and grenade, than pop elixir s at 25% again and grenade again. Moreover, due to his inherent low survivability gear, the conditions (poison, bleed) become more valuable, not less. Glass cannons are just that, glass cannons.

Speaking from personal experience in spvp,tpvp,and wvw, I find non-burst sustained damage rangers to be MUCH more of a threat than burst 50% crit rangers, at least to my build. You have to remember, elixir gun is an option, it is not your only option. However, the point you raised is a fair one, and something I should have included in my analysis.

And I have a pretty low opinion of most glass cannon builds, you survive their burst and they’re done, plain and simple. Except for double dagger elementalists.

This thread is useful and relevant to my interests. Keep up the good work!

No subscription fee = you can do whatever you want. The companies got most of the money they’re going to get from you anyway (within first year-year and a half anyway).

You play if you find the game fun, nothing more nothing less. Those numbers will probly spike up and down with content patches and the like. Nothing really new here. Swtor ran on a different business model at launch, plain and simple.

Doing the same things I’ve been doing for a while.
WvW
World map Exploration
sPvP
Jumping Puzzles (sector Zul ftw)
Dungeons
tPvP
and a bit of crafting every now and then.

Kinda funny. Most peoples opinions/pvp videos/guides say the exact opposite of almost every one of your points.

-Rifle does in fact scale amazingly well with power/crit, if built properly.
-Med kit is the preferred heal of mist engineers, in no small part due to its synergy with inertial converter and static discharge, and usefulness on point. Mind you the other heals are no less good if properly specced, but med kit is by no means bad lol.
-Most consider turrets to be absolute garbage. Not necessarily my opinion, but it is the general consensus.
-You’re analysis of elixir gun is slightly skewed as well. For example you value Super Elixir’s regen more than the light field. You also seem to miss the point of Elixir gun 1 which is permanent weakness. For more details on elixir gun, I suggest you read my post at the bottom of the following page:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/Post-Your-Build-Thread/first#post280128

There are a few other points, but i just found it funny how most of your points contradict with “conventional wisdom”. Which doesnt mean you’re wrong, per se.
On many of your points, what you think is strong, most consider weak and vica versa.
I.e. turrets don’t scale with power at all, rifle scales extremely well with power, and you seem to think turrets pack more punch than rifle, etc. etc.

Also, no class can do ranged AoE better than the engineer, same goes for CC. So we aren’t jack of all trades, master of none. We’re masters of a few things to.

Play whichever class you find mokittenn. That’s what GW2 is about.

Posted the above in engineer forums.
The censored words above are “most” “fun”.

Your overzealous censoring censors “most” followed by “fun”.

Really, I mean really?

Play whichever class you find mokittenn. That’s what gw2 is about.

Edit: Seriously, it censors “most” “fun”? WTF?

Deified.7520:

PotatoOverdose.6583:

Deified.7520:

I’ve researched tons of builds and looked at tons of videos. Here is my review of engineers

PvE- 12/10

sPvP- 8/10 – Amazing at holding points. Pure DPS is lacking though, engineers are preferred to be condition based (pistol) or some kind of support.

WvWvW- 4/10 – Grenades are pretty much all you will use in WvW. It gets very repetitive. Other builds may work, but they aren’t as good is grenades.

What’s stopping you from say using 2 kits in wvw? Elixir gun is hugely effective, both for 1v1’s (due to perma-weakness ona single target with elixir gun 1) and for the light field which provides persistent aoe condition removal with projectile finishers (pistol 1, rifle 1, elixir gun 1) to us and all our allies. It also has one of our best mobility skills, acid bomb.

Oh’ i’ve used this. But its out done in terms of DPS by other classes. I found it is better to build you guy as support when doing an exlier build. Your one is really only great because of the weakness/bleed. So going for straight damage isn’t a good idea, theres more viable builds to do that with. The heal is alright, although 2v1 it you will still go down fast. Hell, even if they taget you in a zerg. Just get a few rangers and you’ll go down fast. I know, ive done that to engineers as a ranger. I did do the double super exlier and then regen and that heals greatly. There really isn’t another good kit to use with it. Flamethrower is alright, although they need to be close to do damage and WvW is very open. So only against melee would it be good. Grenades are a bit tough in small skirimishes with aiming. When going up against a zerg they’re great, but i dont like rolling with the zerg all the time. Bomb kit is kinda like flamethrower, they need to be close. Tool kit is eh.

You don’t use Elixir gun for dps, you use it for support. Judging from your post, you really didn’t utilize the light field fully, among other things. I posted a thorough guide to the elixir gun (along with my build) in the builds sticky thread. You may want to look it over.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/en/?fcAQFAUlspiYX3SfF17IyoCdmoHV2jRZfeQfpFEC

Grenadier/Elixir Gun Build.

30 Explosives, for Grenadier and Short Fuse. Explosives 10 trait is your choice.
30 Alchemy for Self-Regulating defense, Fast Acting Elixirs*, Cleaning Formula 409*
*these two skills became partially bugged in the most recent patch.
10 in Tools for speedy kits.

Due to current bugs (see* above), it may be better to go 20/20 alchemy/tools and pick up static discharge and inertial converter. Likewise, the healing skill is dealers choice. Decent arguments can be made for elixir H and med kit.

Gear is also dealers choice. Power/Crit gear will synergize well with rifle and grenades; with elixir gun, alchemy traits, and elixir s providing reasonable survivability (more on that later). Vit,Toughness, or Condition Damage gear will enhance survivability while still providing decent damage by way of conditions from both Elixir Gun and Grenade Kit.

Tactics

Standard grenadier tactics apply for usual WvW, Spvp point scenarios. Grenades are one of the few engineer kits that are undisputedly good, as they are one of the best ranged AoE’s in the game. Likewise, I won’t go into Rifle+Grenade tactics.

I’m going to describe how to use elixir gun in depth because, honestly, there isn’t too much on these forums about how to use it. There’s about 1 or 2 good videos and that’s it.

Tranquilizer Dart
Elixir gun use is what gives you an edge. Elixir gun 1 applies a decent bleed, and weakness. Weakness reduces damage inflicted by target 50% of the time by 50% aka “Glancing blows.” What this means is against most Warriors,Rangers, Thieves, Guardians, Engineers, you reduce their overall damage done by 25% (roughly). This is huge, especially in 1v1’s since you can keep weakness up 100% of the time.

Super Elixir
The next most useful ability is Super Elixer, which gives AoE regen and creates a Light field. http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Light_Field

It removes a single condition to you and all nearby allies when initially applied. If no conditions are removed, it applies retribution. More importantly, for each projectile attack that goes through it (the attack itself does not have to hit), it has a 20% chance to remove a condition. This is very nice seeing as Pistol 1, Rifle1, and Elixir gun 1 are projectile finishers. This is very useful (for you and your team) against condition heavy teams or builds, particularly those that rely on mesmers (confusion), necros, rangers, and engineers.

Acid Bomb
The third most useful ability is Acid bomb, which is an excellent mobility skill. It’s Rocket Boots without the self knockdown, without the stunbreak or immobilize break, and with fewer bugs. It’s an excellent mobility skill, plain and simple.
Elixir F
Next most useful is Elixir F. Elixir F is a cripple. Unlike net shot (similar rifle skill, immobilizes instead of cripples) it actually hits much more often, for whatever reason. Moreover, it gives nearby allies and yourself swiftness. Very useful for preventing escapes in both sPvP and WvW as it slows down enemies AND speeds up allies.

Fumigate
Finally, we have fumigate. AoE condition removal for our allies (sweet), and decent damage to boot. Very similar to flamethrower 1, except it actually hits more often than it misses.

Deified.7520:

I’ve researched tons of builds and looked at tons of videos. Here is my review of engineers

PvE- 12/10

sPvP- 8/10 – Amazing at holding points. Pure DPS is lacking though, engineers are preferred to be condition based (pistol) or some kind of support.

WvWvW- 4/10 – Grenades are pretty much all you will use in WvW. It gets very repetitive. Other builds may work, but they aren’t as good is grenades.

What’s stopping you from say using 2 kits in wvw? Elixir gun is hugely effective, both for 1v1’s (due to perma-weakness ona single target with elixir gun 1) and for the light field which provides persistent aoe condition removal with projectile finishers (pistol 1, rifle 1, elixir gun 1) to us and all our allies. It also has one of our best mobility skills, acid bomb.

For PvE, flamethrower can work reasonably well. Also, due to fundamental design flaws, turrets are actually quite good in Orr, though this really isn’t a good thing if you look at the problems with that zone in context.

For Pvp, not using grenade kit will limit you a bit. We have, really, the best ranged AoE options available to any class. Also, not using bomb kit will limit your control, and remove a very decent source of pbAoE.

However, you do have options. Elixer gun works wonders for 1v1 due to being able to keep weakness up permanently on a target. This reduces overall damage from warrior, ranger, thief, guardian, and engineer (most builds) by around 25%, which is huge.

You also have persistent condition removal for yourself and allies due to the light field from Super Elixir. Any projectile finisher from you or your allies that goes through the light field (doesn’t have to hit a target) will remove 1 condition. Skills from engineer that trigger projectile finisher include Elixir Gun 1, Rifle 1, and Pistol 1.

Elixir gun also has an excellent mobility skill (acid bomb), a superb cripple which gives AoE swiftness to nearby allies (Elixir F), and a cone poison attack that removes conditions from allies.

For more info on Elixir gun builds, you can look through the build sticky at the top of these forums. That thread has some decent info + instructional videos.

There are also non-kit builds that are easier but (arguably) less effective than multi-kit builds. They do have good damage though. For those, look into Rifle+Toolbelt, or the P/P burning build.

All of the above being said, if you actively dislike 2 of our best kits, maybe this class isn’t for you. I personally run Grenade kit-Elixir gun-Elixir S with rifle at the moment, and I couldn’t be happier about the class.

Henge of Denravi is currently the top ranked server. Many on HoD claim that they are on top because their player base is teh best. Clearly, joining the HoD server will therefore make you one of the best wvw pvpers.

Look to the left of this text.

Well, at level 68+ yellows can be salvaged for 0-4 ectos which is quite valuable. More mf = more yellows = more cash, in theory. You can also get 6% from magic find jewelery (3% from item+3% from jewel in upgrade slot) or 7% from exotic jewelry (3% + 4%).

Personally, I didn’t level with magic find gear, so I can’t speak to how useful it will be.

The observations in this thread are correct, up to a point. GW2 gives out loot based on contribution. So if you do the most damage to an enemy, you will generally receive the best loot for that enemy, something that is reflected in all of the above posts.

I run a grenade engineer in dungeons. What that means is I have amazing AoE conditions/damage on a low cooldown. Typically, when a target is called, I won’t always get the loot drops from that mob because I have to compete with everyone (thieves, warriors et. al.) who are damaging said target as well, but I will typically get drops from all of the mob’s buddies due to all of my attacks being AoE.

With magic find gear, I tend to get more/better drops than without it because, as I described above, I already get top contribution on many of the mobs.

So I would say, if you are already getting lots of greens in dungeons, then magic find may be worthwhile. However, if you are struggling to perform as well as your teammates, than you should avoid it.

CptCosmic.3156:

cool, 2 dodges, some hp/thoughness and your damage went down the toilet. not to mention that you die as soon as someone looks at you.

That’s a cool fricken story kid. Except two things:
1) That’s true of almost every busrt build in the game.
2) It’s actually not true of this burst. You know why? Static discharge arrives after you use your toolbelts. You can either dodge some of the toolbelt burst, dodge some of the static discharge,or dodge some of the rifle skills, but you wont doge it all. Typical toolbelt burst skills e.g. rocket kick, surprise shots have very low cooldowns (20 and 10 seconds respectively in the case of these 2 skills), so if you dodge them, they’re up again in a few seconds.

CptCosmic.3156:

that is not even true at all. mesmer and thief glass cannons no survivability? endless stealth jumping and distortion is the best survivabilty you can get.

I see, so you don’t have a grasp of the fundamentals. Go to the spvp forums and ask them how to kill a thief or mesmer. Do it now. you’ll thank me later.

You know what, I’ll give you a hint. Ctrl+ click the mesmer. AoE (grenades work wonders) the thief. Grenades don’t care about stealth. AoE right down on your own position, starting with freeze grenade.

Because there are enough classes that blink already? If you prefer mesmer/ele/thief skills than you should probably play a mesmer/ele/thief.

More importantly, it is not a valid comparison. Each skill has to be evaluated in the context of the entire class. Take Elixer S for example. A really nice evasion skill. But completely worthless compare to certain ranger stances which do the same thing, last longer, and have a better cooldown. Rangers have barrage, giving them a ranged aoe + condition damage. But this is completely worthless compared to grenade kit which gives a far superior ranged AoE capability (in terms of range, damage, and conditions) to engineers.

Not all classes should have the same ranged aoe capabillities.
Not all classes should have a blink.
Not all classes should have stability.
Not all classes should have stealth/invis.
Not all classes should have invulnerability.
Not all classes should have excellent cc.

I could go on like this for a long time. Your main complaint with rocket boots is that it isn’t blink. You’re right, it isn’t.

FROGJON.3094:

the skill is garbage, dont waste a slot on it.

Yes, a key part of our p/p burning build (one of the best condition builds in the game atm) is garbage. Listen to this man.

So what your saying is both have a bad thing. Blink does not remove immobilize, rocket boots knock you down. In my view, this makes your first point, “Blink is by far, a better escape tool,” false.

Furthermore, with engineers the toolbelt skill cannot be ignored, and rocket boots have a very good toolbelt skill. Which actually flows quite niceley into my previous point:
Relevance of discussing a completely different classes in engineer forums: No check
Relevance of quoted post in this topic: Zero

Aristio.2784:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Blink

Breaks stun. Check.
900 distance. Check.
30 second cooldown with an option to lower to 24. Check.
Better control than of where you land. Check.
Can increase range to 1,100. Check.

Blink is by far, a better escape tool. Sure, Rocket Boots has the extra damage tacked onto it, but I would gladly trade it for better control over Rocket Boots. That Teleporter idea a page back I fully support.

Does not break immobilize.

For more details, look under “skills that break immobilize”:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Immobilized

You get immobilized for say 5 seconds. You blink out. 900 (or 1100) is not that far. You’re still immobilized. The thief, ranger, warrior, mesmer, engineer, or guardian that immobilized you proceeds to continue to wail on you. Maybe they have buddies too. You die.
More than half the classes currently have decently long immobilizes.

So blink:
Breaks immobilize: No check
Importance of Immobilize: Check
Relevance of discussing a completely different classes in engineer forums: No check
Relevance of quoted post in this topic: Zero

Speedy kits works exactly as before. It’s speedy kits + invigorating speed that was nerfed.

I only mentioned swiftness + vigor in my posts. I may have been unclear on that, if so I apologize.

The answer is simple.

Someone, say a thief, stuns you. Then they start bursting you. Using rocket boots, you get out of that stun, move a distance a way, and interrupt their burst and they have to start their burst all over again (and usually they have to wait a bit due to cooldowns).

Rocket boots is also one of the few skills that breaks all stuns, knockdowns, and immobilizes. So if, for example, the thief immobilizes you instead of stunning, you get out of that too.

Combined with the low base cooldown (30s) and very low traited cooldown (24s), it is quite useful.

Furthermore, the toolbelt skill associated with rocket boots is one of our highest damage skills, doing around 700 direct damage and 3.3k (or more) burning damage if traited and geared properly, and this too has a very low cooldown of 20 seconds.

The major downside is that it knocks you on yourkitten again. As such it is not the best mobility skill. A better skill, from a mobility point of view, is Acid Bomb from elixir gun which is also a long range backwards leap. It does not break stun or immobilize, but it also does not knock you on yourkitten This makes it quite useful for controlling the range of engagement and escape.

Wow……ok.
Before:
Swap kits and drink elixirs for a bit.
Have 5 minutes of uninterrupted swiftness and vigor.
You do not have to swap kits in battle anymore! (for swiftness+vigor)
No global cooldowns.

After:
You have to swap kits every five seconds to maintain swiftness and vigor
This means you get a global cooldown every five seconds.

For details on HOW this was done see my first post.

I seriously cannot make this any simpler.

I guess I’ll go simple english wikipedia on this.

Before the nerf a player could change kits every five seconds and drink elixirs and have swiftness and vigor last longer.

So a player would change a kit, drink an elixir, change a kit over and over. After a short while they could have five minutes or more of swiftness and vigor without needing to change kits.

This is good because every time you change kits, many of your skills become shaded and wont work for a second. This is called a global cooldown. Many players think global cooldowns are a bad thing.

Before this nerf, players that wanted to be fast and dodge a lot could avoid having one of these bad global cooldowns every five seconds.

Arena net thought this was bad and decided to remove this ability.

For more details, please see my first post.

No, with certain traits in the alchemy line which makes boons last longer, combined with +boon duration gear, and possibly combined with certain elixirs, you could (relatively) easily get and maintain 25 stacks of swiftness/vigor.

This gives you a decided advantage in combat because you don’t need to use a one second global cooldown every 5 seconds from switching kits to maintain perma swiftness+vigor.

Little known fact is when they nerfed flamethrower, it had a similar problem. By switching in and out of flamethrower kit you could get 25 stacks of might. This too has since been fixed.

The problem here isn’t mesmers. The problem here is server rendering. Enemy zerg portals into your zerg and your zerg cant see enemy zerg for a good 7 seconds which is huge.

Tbh, keep/sm defenders also have a delayed render half the time, which is kitten annoying.

Pistol 2 has a spread. I think this spread increases if you take rifled barrels to increase range. It’s better to think of it as a cone attack than anything else.

Is it just me or did they fix grenade damage to players/siege on destructible walls in wvw and clocktower in spvp?

If so, props to anet.

Autoattack with grenade 1 will reduce your pvp damage significantly because grenades need to be aimed at where your target will be 1-2 seconds from now, not at your targets current location.

If we add tracking to grenade 1 (like underwater grenades currently have), and combine with autoattack, grenades will be nerfed to hell. Seriously, we can spec vit>toughness>power and still rapidly beast other classes underwater (if we have grenadier).

So it is very much a double edged sword.

Well yes, that is the choice most classes have. Glass Cannon or Survivability. No class has both at the same time to a significant degree.

If you cc a mesmer or thief, and being an engineer we have multiple examples of every cc under the sun, they will not survive your 20-25k burst either. If they use their stunbreaker, you can cc them again and apply the burst an kill them. Rifle alone has 2 cc’s: net and overcharged shot. Put another cc, say personal battering ram on your utility slot, and you should be able to burst down a target in a 1v1 fairly easily.

So, it seems to me that the posters in this thread are satisfied with our defensive builds, but haven’t heard of our glass cannon builds.

Have any of you tried any of the rifle-toolbelt builds? You know, the ones that can burst for 20-25k?

Actually hold on, achmed has a point there. if its from the start, then its not that bad per se. Still a nerf to certain alchemy builds but….hmmm maybe Anet didn’t screw us too much….this time.

If anyone’s been keeping track, there has been an engineer nerf with almost every signifcant balance update. Flamethrower was nerfed, minefield was nerfed, and now perma swiftness was nerfed. I mean ok, perma invigorating speed may have needed a nerf but why add a 5 second recharge to BOTH? Adding a 5 second rechage to invigorating speed ALREADY kills it. Anything else is salt in the wound.

Bah. We’ll still be able to achieve perma swiftness with kit swapping + med kit 5, but essentially this forces an engi that wants to stay mobile into medkit in wvw.

And we’ll have to mash more keys to do so. WTF.
I swear the engineer class is already like playing bach on the keyboard.

There are some very good, very kit-intensive (and therefore swap-heavy) builds for the engineer atm. But those are not the only builds available.

You could go for the simpler Rifle-toolbelt builds (e.g. Rifle grenade and it’s variants). Here’s an example:
Medkit
Toolkit
grenade kit
Some utility skill, typically Utility Goggles

Traits are, with some variation: at least 10 in tools for static discharge (usually 15 for inertial converter), typically 20 or more in rifle, the rest is dealers choice. Power/Precision/crit gear.

Your spike is: Utility goggles, analyze and then throw wrench, grenade barrage, blunderbuss, jump shot, overcharged shot in some order (depends on situation). If everything hits, and with glass cannon gear (precision/power amulet in spvp), you can burst for around 20k. 5-7k from grenade barrage, 4-5k from throw wrench, 4k+ from static discharges, 6k+ from the 3 rifle skills. You also have a base crit chance of 53% so your auto attack packs a punch.

Disadvantage to all of the above: You’re a glass cannon, you use your stun breaker as part of the burst for +20% crit, your only survival skills are gearshield (toolkit) and flash grenade (grenade kit), neither of which work particularly well with this build.

A popular choice is to replace one of the kits with personal battering ram, rocket turret, or rifle turret.
—————————————————————————
Another simple build is the pistol-pistol burning build which relies on pistol 4 and rocket boots toolbelt (typically combined with another toolbelt skill such as grenade barrage, or incendiary ammo). With proper gear, this 2-3 skill combo can do around 10-15k burning damage+raw damage, while leaving you with1-2 utility skills+ relative freedom with traits.
———————————————————
On another note, swapping between multiple weapons/kits may seem daunting at first. It certainly was something I avoided early on, but you get used to it surprisingly quickly. If you are interested in those builds, I’d start off with something easy like a grenade kit build. Learn that well. Than learn a bomb kit build. After a while put the two together, you may surprise yourself at how well you do.

I have to disagree with misanq. Engineers have much more versatility than other classes. I’ll use a simple build as an example.

With Accelerant packed turrets (20 pts in explosives), bomb kit, healing turret, elixir gun, supply crate, and pistol + shield here’s what I get:

3 large AoE Knockbacks (big ol bomb, shield, healing turret detonation)
1 Persistent AoE blind (i.e. the blind reapplies in the given area, smoke field from smoke bomb)
1 Reflect (shield)
1 Chain blind (pistol 3)
1 Stun that gets applied twice and/or 1 block+daze against melee
1 AoE snare + persistent cripple 9glue bomb)
Supply Crate which gives me an additional AoE stun, 3 potential AoE knockbacks (1 for each turret), and a bunch of med kits + some condition removal + immobilize.
1 AoE heal (Detonate healing turret, if properly used).
Unlimited single target vulnerability. (Elixir 1)
1 Cripple + AoE swiftness (Elixir 2)
1 Light field which can act as persistent condition removal or a retribution field depending on projectile attacks, blast finisher, or melee finisher (Elixir 5).
1 AoE condition removal (Elixer gun 3)

And that’s with 50 trait points left over and one utillity skill left over for whatever you want. This is just a sample build to showcase what engineers can do.

Compare my list with what your warrior can do. There’s no magical konami code. It’s just knowing what your skills can do, how to use them, and how they interact with traits.

The skill in using an engineer is being able to bring all of your myriad of abillities to bear quickly and effectively.

-One of the highest skill caps in the game.
-One of the most difficult classes with which to play/succeed.
-Odds are, you’ll spend the first 40-70 levels trying to find a build that you actually like/works for you.
-This is the music that plays in your head when you find ‘that’ build:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OWfTNwpWZY

The problem with engineer isn’t that we have a lot of useless skills. The problem is that most individuals do not know how to combine our skills. Lets use your post as an example.

You mentioned that mines aren’t used often. Did you know that mine field, the toolbelt skills that comes with mine has five blast finishers. You can combine it with smoke field (from smoke bomb or smoke screen from flame turret) to gain 15 seconds of invisibility on a 45 second cooldown. Or you can combine it from one of our water fields (or someone elses water field for that matter) for 5 simultaneous AOE heals.

And this is just the tip of the iceberg. We literally have tons of interesting combos. As another example can use accelerant packed turrets + deployable turrets to knock defenders off of some of the walls in WvW.

I’ll explain this to you in GW1 terms.
sPvP = Random Arenas
tPvP = Team Arena with a bit of GvG influence.

I use rocket boots all the time and I’ve only experienced what you describe a handful of times. Tbh, usually I use smoke bomb + rocket boots to give me invisibility, so the other guy has no idea in which direction I flew off.

Rocket Boots are on a 30s cooldown. It is one of the few skills that breaks immobilize AND stun (and just about any other form of cc). Most other stun breakers don’t break immobilize and most immobilize breakers don’t break stun. In addition to that, they have a blast combo finisher.

So if you use Rocket boots + one of the following (smoke screen, smoke bomb) the rocket boots escape will also turn you invisible which is really quite excellent. Or you can use Regenerating mist (from heal turret) + rocket boots for a nice combo Aoe heal.

All of this is great, but rocket boots also come with rocket kick which I believe is our second highest damage abillity. At level 80 and with decent gear it does something like 700 damage + 1700 burn damage, more if you have +conditiond damage gear.

If traited, rocket boots CD goes down to 24s, so a 24s cooldown immobilize and stun breaker with all of the above? Pretty nice.

Tbh if you built an engi for burst and you only got 7k damage…you did something wrong. Grenade Barrage alone, for me, typically does 3-4k with modest power+crit gear with some toughness/vit thrown in (since you toss 6 nades, a few are bound to crit). Combine this with even an untraited rifle with decent power + crit, and you should easily be able to burst over 10k. And that’s just using one toolbelt skill + weapon skills + decent gear.

Still Bugged. Quite disappointing really.

TL; DR at bottom.
Engineer is solid in WvW because:
-We have more CC than any other class
-Grenade kits give us an excellent source of long range AoE
-We have a number of decent ‘support’ options: Smoke field, Water Field, Elixer Gun, Toss Elixer ’ ’
-mine field <— best blast finisher in the game due to it being 5 simultaneous blast finishers, this is extremely useful in a coordinated team, or to detonate our own water and smoke field.

In SPvP and TPvP we have:
-Solid Power Crit Rifle+Nade Burst builds
-Solid Condition Pistol/shield burst builds
-Arguably the best point defense in the game due to extremely high survivability and massive amount of CC, especially AoE knockback. I think we’re next in survivability after guardians if we trait for it and build toughness/vit.

In PvE, we do quite well in any of the above roles as well.

Now for the drawbacks:
-We are NOT a ranged dps class. Engineers are most effective at close-mid range. Rifle builds favor close quarter combat, as do most of our skills. If you want a ranged dps class, go ranger or rifle warrior. The only exception to this is grenades which can range up to 1500, but are extremely difficult to use at range.

-We are a very bugged class at the moment.

The following things are currently in useable condition for engineers:
=Grenade Kit
=Bomb Kit (sPvP, tPvP)
=Our CC skills and Field Combos
=Rifle and Pistol builds.
=Elixers, Gadgets

-Here is a partial list of our bugs and sub-par or simply broken skills:
=Grenades don’t do damage to things or players standing on destructible walls in WvW.
=No autoattack on kits
=Tool Kit (damage far too low, survivability far too low, slow attacks, no cc)
=Tool kit does not apply 20% toolbelt skill recharge, even though it is supposed to.
=Flamethrower (damage is low, very easy to avoid if moving. Only useful for knockback and aoe blind). Flamethrower also experienced a significant nerf quite recently.
=Most offensive turrets for PvP due to very long recharge, no mobility and comparability little damage output for said drawbacks. Healing Turret and Net turret have their uses.
=Rifle Mod trait is broken.
=Juggernaut trait has been nerfed to hell and is in a rather poor state atm.
=Elite Supplies trait is broken.

TL;DR: If you roll engineer, expect to use grenade, rifle (close quarters), pistol, or bomb builds to be most effective for offense. For support and survivability, the name of the game is CC, condition removal, and field+blast combos.

Eviator.9746:

PotatoOverdose.6583:

I might be derping here, but do you mean to say that you expected setting up mines (i.e. not exploding the mines) to be a blast finisher? Do you expect setting up the mines to do damage too?

As for Big Ol’ Bomb not being a blast finisher, it has to be a bug. And yeah, a lot of our tooltips and traits don’t work properly (Elite Supplies, Rifle Mod, Tool kit not helping tool belt recharge, etc., etc.)

For mines the tool-tips say the finisher will work for both deployment and detonation. It does not work for deployment, so either the skill or the tool-tip is wrong. I expect blast finishers to work only on detonation, and that the tool-tip is wrong. I’m just bringing it to ANet’s attention now that they have official forums.

From my perspective it seems more like a common sense thing, but w/e.

Wolfheart.1938:

PotatoOverdose.6583:

We have one interrupt. The second interrupt (explosion) is usually useless because it takes 20 seconds to be ready.

Someone presses F on you. You wait a bit, and use pull to interrupt. Then they press F on you again. You’ve still got at least 10 seconds before the explosion is ready. GG.

I’m sorry, but that’s how every downed state works beside elementalists’ one. You can use your 2° skill to do something useful, but if someone tries to stomp you twice under 6 seconds your 3rd skill won’t be ready. Do you think interrupting twice someone stomping you in a short frame of time would be balanced? At least you get to interrupt someone, unlike elementalists that can’t even interrupt twice or necros that have an horrible 3rd skill.

Mesmers, thieves, and guardians have better downed skills than engineers. Truth be told, I was replying to the statement that having 2 interrupts makes us OP moreso than complaining about our downed state.

Finally, people start using builds that use our combo fields. One of the few redeeming features of the engineer in it’s current buggy state.

+1 to the OP.

We have one interrupt. The second interrupt (explosion) is usually useless because it takes 20 seconds to be ready.

Someone presses F on you. You wait a bit, and use pull to interrupt. Then they press F on you again. You’ve still got at least 10 seconds before the explosion is ready. GG.

Tool Kit would be okay if 1 was the speed of a sword, not the speed of a hammer (to say nothing of how slow Thwack is, slower than a hammer). I wanted to like toolkit, with its traited cripple on 1, its confusion, its magnet, and its shield.

But the slow speed of 1-attacks is worthless, and magnet has far too little range to be useful. Combined with a general lack of survivability skills (no aoe blinds or snares like bomb kit or grenade kit, no knockbacks) toolkit engineers just die in melee.

Even if they don’t die, they do miniscule damage, and have limited cc.

Yet another lame bug for engineers. Yay.

I might be derping here, but do you mean to say that you expected setting up mines (i.e. not exploding the mines) to be a blast finisher? Do you expect setting up the mines to do damage too?

As for Big Ol’ Bomb not being a blast finisher, it has to be a bug. And yeah, a lot of our tooltips and traits don’t work properly (Elite Supplies, Rifle Mod, Tool kit not helping tool belt recharge, etc., etc.)