Guild Wars 2

I would probably drop the Alchemy trait line, and put the ten points in Explosives. That would benefit your rifle and bomb kit (as I’m sure you know). And why not go ahead and select Juggernaut?

My only critique is that you have 45% Critical Chance…. but your added Critical Damage is 0%. Critical’s don’t benefit Condition based damage in any way. And your raw Attack, and the fact that you are using Pistols, doesn’t get you much in the way of Power Based damage (which do benefit from Criticals). Maybe use another Armor than Rabid?

Also, eat some Pizza! It can buff your Condition Duration up to 40%.

Kurdah.3785:

huh, everything i looked up said i should stack condition damage. o.o is my build okay? what stat should i focus on maxing?

You should decide on the type of game play that you prefer. Do you want to fight from a distance and bring them down over time, or close in and finish them quickly? Either is fine.

Think of it this way. Your primary damage either comes from Attack (Power based) or Condition Damage. Your “secondary” damage (which is largely determined by your armor, weapons and trinkets) is EITHER Condition Duration OR Critical Damage. Critical Damage benefits from a high Critical Chance but receives no bonuses from either Condi Damage or Condi Duration.

Rampager gear is kind of odd because it has Precision and Condition Damage — these are two mutually exclusive forms of damage (as opposed to Berserker Gear which has Power, Precision and Critical Damage, which can all complement each other).

If you want to focus on Might (which is what HGH is all about) I would drop the pistols and use a rifle and Trait 30 in Explosives and not Firearms. Also, I would adopt either Grenades or Tool Kit (or even both) instead of Exlier U (which I don’t much personally care for).

I think your build is kind of all over the place.

Your Critical Chance is not bad, but your Critical Damage is too low to get much benefit from your critical hits.

Your Conditional Damage is pretty low and so is your Condition Duration.

Power is also meh.

You should increase Power based Damage and then try to improve at least one of the following: Condi Damage, Condi Duration or Critical Damage.

Your spread a little too thin over too much.

And you don’t benefit that much from having two Superior Sigils of Accuracy — You aren’t getting 10% (take away one pistol, and you’ll see what I mean).

Focusing on WvW: I’m running a hybrid, with Carrion armor, berserker pistol/pistol and traited 20, 20, 0, 0, 30 — all while using pizza for Condition Duration.. I trait for Static Discharge on my Suprise Shot and Throw Wrench. EG is my third.

In WvW, many enemies panic when they look down and see 5 conditions stacked on them. They feel they must break off the engagement and address the fact that they are poisoned, on fire, crippled, blind, bleeding and fumbling. Contributing this in a group WvW setting is very valuable to the over all out come of the engagement.

I ran with FC for the first 6 months that i played the game. Loved the WZ Guild. Then I wanted map completion and, frankly, just got tired of getting curb-stomped every week for months on end. I paid the price and moved up a tier to HoD for several weeks, and then ran with GoM for awhile. For about the last month or so, I’ve been on SF.

I have to say that in all my time on WvW, I’ve not really noticed that much difference in tactics between different worlds….

WvW is really and truly a numbers game. Sad but true. Tactics plays very little role — and those that believe that they are winning because they are better organized are just fooling themselves. Those with the greatest numbers win in WvW. Every time. Period.

It really is that simple. This is due to the structure of the Maps. Anet, when designing the Maps had to assume that participation would be equal among the Worlds week to week, day to day, hour to hour. How could they have done otherwise?

We who play the game however, know this to not be the case.

If 24 or 36 hours after a re-set you see that your world is going to loose that week, what do you do? Other things is what. You may still WvW — but you will spend just a little more time on Sunday doing other things, and a lot more time doing other things by Thursday. The introduction of Laurels hasn’t helped WvW any.

These “other things” add up to lower population involvement, which statistically leads to lopsided victories between the 1st and 3rd place worlds. This is almost always the case each and every week. About the only time I’ve ever seen a World dramatically improve could be attributed to transfers. in fact, I’d go so far as to say that I’ve never seen it to be otherwise.

Do I have an answer? No. But I also don’t fool myself into believing that things will ever change IF THE MAPS STAY THE SAME. I still enjoy WvW, and do it daily. But WvW is not anywhere close to what Anet, or we the players, had envisioned that it would be.

The fact is that Engineers are just fun. I’ve rolled over 1,250 hours as one, and only around 30 combined as the other classes. Not one day goes by when I don’t laugh out loud at how ridiculous the combination of kits and weapons are. Dropping nails, pulling someone with a magnet, wacking them with a prybar — then fumigating them and dropping an acid bomb, then bopping out to the shooting them with a bolt of lightening from your belt buckle… I mean, come on, what other class can come close to this much fun.

Nothing can beat that.

I would stick with the current gear. Until you improve as a player, your going to probably get your heinie waxed – no matter what you do. Your current gear is certainly viable. And nothing motivates more than getting curb stomped. It’s happened to us all at one time or anther.

Flame thrower is pretty much a power/damage weapon — not a condition weapon.

I would invest in Power and not Precision. (30 0 and not 0 30). The rifle and tool kit are power-based damage weapons.

Land mine has never really impressed me. Since you’ve invested heavily in HGH, I would add another elixir in it’s place.

And I would also switch out the Goggles for an elixir for the same reason. Too much Cool Down for too little increase in the chance that you might Crit. Your Critical Damage is only 11%, so your not doing much damage on Crits on what little Crits you land.

Acid Bomb benefits from high power/high crit damage and does some wicked things, especially in WvW when dropped in a group. I’ve seen it record 19 separate hits for over 20k damage on one drop.

The comparison of turrets to companions (bears, etc.) is good. I see no reason why, with out an increase in damage output, turret’s health can’t be buffed considerably.

The purpose of turrets (in WvW) is not necessarily to do damage,, but rather “control” segments of the battlefield, such as bridges, door ways, etc. Enemy players should need to account for them. Now they just giggle and shake their heads at those funny but strange engineers and their funny but strange toys….

lol, Tolmos. Too true.

“Thank you sir, can I have another?”

I’ve been using my 10 in fire arms for Rifled Barrels, to increase the range. But I think you are right about the pistols vs rifle.

Your right, Adamantium. It’s always a back-and-forth between pistols/condition and raw damage thru power. It’s hard to give up a 4,500 damage jump shot or a 3,800 blunderbuss spread over several enemy’s for merely “contributing” to a kill in WvW. But the badges do drop….

So recently I’ve been running Berserker armor, traited 30 10 0 0 30. Fairly generic Ascended accessories.

My base Damage is around 3,100, Critical Chance is 33%, Critical Damage at 80% and with pizza, my Condition Duration is at 70%. I don’t do a lot of Condition Damage, but what damage I do lingers for awhile.

I use P/P, Rifle Turret (for Suprise Shot with Static Discharge), Tool Kit, EG.

I find traiting power and condition duration to be better than precision and condition damage traiting. (30 0 and not 0 30 which is typical of a SD build). I trade-off some critical chance but gain more power based damage. Sometimes I use a rifle and even the flame thrower. Critting with the Acid Bomb does some pretty hefty damage. The flame thrower also is a power based weapon which benefits from a high critical damage.

Comments?

What does it say about our class that our DEFINING WEAPON – turrets – are NEVER used in WvW ? And that the one viable turret (the HT) was just nerfed….

Turrets = failed concept

When was the last time you saw a turret used in WvW (other than the Supply Crate) ?

Penguin.5197:

Soon.5240:

I’m running a pretty cool build, but I’m too nervous to discuss it…. Big Brother is listening. Maybe I shouldn’t even have posted this!!

ps, I’m only half joking.

See too late they heard, now the’re gonna nerf the healing bomb/elixir kit/healing turret build cause of you >:(

Uh… Uh… no, NO! It’s the Technobabble, Slick Shoes, Battering Ram while eating Eda’s Apple Pie Build… yeah, that’s it…

leave me alone Big Brother, please…. I’m begging you….

I’m running a pretty cool build, but I’m too nervous to discuss it…. Big Brother is listening. Maybe I shouldn’t even have posted this!!

ps, I’m only half joking.

Is this a case where it adds 10% to your base chance? So a 30% base critical chance is increased to 33% and not 40%? I think this is how the superior sigil of accuracy works. I’ve noticed that if I’m using it with two pistols I don’t stack 10% critical chance onto my base critical chance.

The FT and EG are largely Power based weapons — not condition based. And so too is the Took Kit.

I run with the same three, however, I have Berserker gear with Melandru Runes and I trait:

30
10
0
0
30

My Crit Chance isn’t as high as it could be (around 30%) but my Crit Damage is around 80%. The beauty of the EG and FT is that they present many, many opportunities to Crit – so you don’t need as high of a Crit Chance. With high Power and high Crit Damage the Acid Bomb, Flame Jet and Flame Blast can put up impressive numbers. Even the Tranq and Elixer F can do good damage.

In a large group, I would say that you should center your build around ranged damage and healing/condition removal from allies. I run with the rifle/EG/Tool Kit/FT – and alternate with the Med Kit and Healing Turret as the case may be.

The strategic use of the Supply Crate has (at least in my imagination) turned the tide numerous times when there is a stalemate (at a bridge for example). I think the Engineers are, more than any profession, capable of directing the movement of large crowds.

Also, the Acid Bomb is the gift that keeps on giving — when dropped in a group. I’ve sometimes seen 20 hits registered across several enemies. And the FT Flame Blast when crit’ing against a gathered group, can deal some awesome damage.

Penguin is right about Elite Supply Crate. The others are pretty much a waste of 3 minutes of your life waiting for the CD to expire. You will eventually buy the others, but there is no hurry.

Good question… wish I had an answer. I’m pretty certain that the air blast works against the ballista. I have tried it against the treb and cata, but I’m not certain if it helps or has any effect.

When you have to buy onions from the TP in order to craft.

Too good. Thanks for posting that.

I don’t think you can say that the patch nerfed the EG’s viability — but rather it nerfed it’s effectiveness when paired with KR.

The very basic conflict between Speedy Kits and Kit Refinement shows that Anet doesn’t have a clue….

Nice, CriSPeH. And all too true. I get whiplash everything it’s triggered.

On Youtube, search for: Guild Wars 2 Static Discharge Videos. While this may or may not suit your style of play, it (and the link to the builds) will show you one build that is based around high Precision/high crit chance/high crit damage/. Most successful builds will either follow this mode, or a “Power” based mode.

You will see a lot of damage in the videos being done, but often times those high numbers are against players that are leveled up to 80, and probably don’t have the necessary gear to protect themselves appropriately.

Goloith.6349:

Phineas Poe.3018:

Goloith.6349:

I actually run GS / Staff and I get a lot more badges than I do with my FT Engineer. I think it is probably has something to do with ft missing. Then again those misses might save you haha.

They fixed the FT’s bugginess with missing. How recently have you tried the setup?

Its not fixed, but it’s better. My current build is using Wrench/Elixir Gun/Flamethrower. I’ve been using the flamethrower Rabid condition gear, but I also have a full set of exotic Berserker gear laying around as well.

This is my build, except I run full Zerker with Scholar runes. As long as I’m with a group in WvW, I can hang back with the rifle, help remove conditions or set them with EG, rush in on occasion with Flame Blast and pop back out with Acid Bomb. And nothing is quite so satisfying as pulling someone off a wall with the magnet and whopping them with the pry bar. It just kinda makes my day….

The only thing really missing is something to break stun.

Logitech G700 does it for me. It’s designed around the “claw” type grip -which I prefer. Gives me something to hold on to during those “Oh sh…” moments.

1000+ hours as an Engineer.
6000 kills in WvW
1100 Honor Badges

What exactly is the problem?

Even after 1,000+ hours running an Eng, I am still amazed at the variety of play styles open to the profession. Things that I originally thought I could never, ever, possibly use (I’m looking at you Elixer Gun and Tool Kit) are now some of my favorites. The number of interesting and effective combinations of gear, traits, weapons and kits seems infinite.

I’ve rolled each profession, and played for a little while, but after I wake up from dozing off, I hop back on my Engi.

I just transferred from FC to GoM. Been in FC since the day GW2 began. It was a hard decision, but since October, there have been exactly two weeks when FC was able to be competitive. TWO WEEKS.

In my mind, it’s fairly clear that Anet is hoping that those that want to focus on WvW will transfer up a tier, thus freeing up the lower tier servers for those who do not. They aren’t working on a solution, because it’s not broken.

Alchemist.3692:

Soon.5240:

Alchemist.3692:

If server transfers didnt cost money, I’d switch over just to see why the other two servers are whining. Last night half of our…..

Lol, you won by 300,000 because of skill.

Because of commitment, and skill. There’s more than one factor in winning. You guys seem to think numbers is the only thing that counts which is sad

lol

Alchemist.3692:

If server transfers didnt cost money, I’d switch over just to see why the other two servers are whining. Last night half of our…..

Lol, you won by 300,000 because of skill.

1000 + hours as an Engineer, and only recently have I been running WvW with the FT. I’ve been dishing out some very high numbers (4k + 4k + 1.5k) using FT 2 (Flame Blast) — sometimes as much as 16k to 18k spread over two or more opponents. My build is high crit damage/high crit chance based w/Berserker gear. It’s been a great conversation starter with opponents, before switching to the rifle or tool kit. Flame Jet still leaves much to be desired, but it’s not bad for finishing downed opponents or firing thru gates. Retaliation is a bear, however.

I’d say that the FT is finally worth the slot in WvW. I’ve been picking up badges left and right over the last 2 weeks.

I think the Elixer Gun out-plays the pistols for conditions. I would use a rifle, and slot the EG.

Buy Shoyoko makes a very good point. In dungeons (or where ever there are Bosses) keep an eye on what conditions are being stacked by the group and switch as needed.

As to PvE defensive stats, I wouldn’t overthink it. I’ve run many different builds, and there are ways to make all of them work. I would, however, recommend focusing on one, and not spread yourself too thin over several.

Turrets should at least take the same level of damage that a Ranger’s frick’n Bear does.

If we could drop them up to 3000 range – coupled with great toughness – I would sacrifice damage out-put and maybe actually use them. Make them something that have to be dealt with by the enemy when we drop them in WvW. Right now they are a joke.

As someone who is closing in on 1000 hours as an Engineer, I’ve only in the last couple of days have been using the FT. I’m running a Berserker high crit chance/high crit damage build (aka glass cannon) and the Flame Blast (#2) has been putting up some sick damage (double 4k’s not uncommon). In WvW I recently spread around 18k damage among three opponents that were clustered together. With it’s fast recharge time, I’d say it’s worth the slot now.

There should be three EB maps – and only three EB maps. Until Anet does this, WvWvW will continue to be un-balanced. They problem lies not with the math, but with maps.

NevirSayDie.6235:

These changes will be good for thieves in the long run. Thieves are currently too good at noobstomping in WvW for Anet to be able to buff them in meaningful ways. I think they would love to buff a lot of thief options to become more viable in tournaments and have way more build variety. But they can’t right now because they’re just so good at making upleveled players want to uninstall.

Wouldn’t it be better to have real options against an experienced player than be able to kill a group of four level 25s at will?

You have it exactly backwards. It’s the Noobs in WvW that are abusing the Thief build. They are way over-powered relative to their skill and true level. Everyone know this. I can’t believe you don’t see this.

Chainspell.5697:

Ironvos.9014:

wish.3102:

Ironvos.9014:

If this does indeed happen and thieves start dropping dead everywhere cause they can’t chainstealth and can’t abuse culling anymore, i sure hope they wait about 6 months aswell before buffing the thief

That sounds like a good way to lose whatever percentage of your player base plays THF.

It would give them time to L2P

You don’t understand, Thief and Mesmers are the pros of this game obviously the people who plays the other classes was the ones who needs to l2p. Now this nerf will make it so the pros would leave since the other classes are too noob and therefore lack any skills at all to play whatsoever.

LOL, Thief is a mindless build that takes no skill.

Why is it that the Thief is the ONLY profession that keeps telling others how to “kill them” on the forum? LOL, we know the answer — it’s because the Thief if OP, and those who enjoy being OP are desperately trying to keep it that way.

Their biggest fear is that maybe, just maybe, it is OP. And if so, what does that say about their ability to play the game? Maybe they really aren’t that good at the game after all. Maybe the majority is right, and it is a skill-less build.

I too just noticed the Vista OS. You really do need to upgrade. I think you can still get Windows 8 for $35?

That is your problem.

The only time that I’ve experienced instability is when I had my Audio setting to high. I would get a loud buzzing sound in large battles, and then my machine would freeze. Taking it down a notch completely solved the problem.

But I agree about the quitting. I never thought it was a big problem to begin with.

900 + hours, 64 bit build with SLI 560’s