Guild Wars 2

Before I go, let me apologize for my tone at the end of my last post. I really don’t want to argue or be curt with the people on this board, as we should be sticking together and giving others the benefit of our experience.

I have over 1200 hours on the Engie and have played just about every build and trait set up imaginable (except bombs >.<). I don’t write these things up to make people feel bad about their builds or try to prove myself as superior, or right, I just want people who come after to read them and see that there are things that are absolute with out weapons and kits, and glossing over the disparity will only lead to unfocused builds and resentment by the community over the incredi-low damage of our skills.

I say this because I have played a build very similar to yours, FT and all, and was very unhappy with the low power output in comparison to my grenade/SD build. That doesn’t mean your build is wrong or mine is right, I just wanted to be sure and clarify that the rifle scales better with power, and that the Elixir gun is a better hybrid weapon, but you need a significant investment in condition damage to put them on the same footing.

There aren’t sides, this isn’t combat, there are facts and with some math, you can be better informed what your options are and what you may need to prioritize in order to achieve what you are looking for.

Also, would you mind sharing your build? I hate to be a bother about it, but I am quite curious how someone who has never played this profession could get up to speed and do something like that out of the blue. Not gear specifically, just traits, food, etc.

Thanks in advance if you have the chance.

Dub.1273:

Mixed Berry Pie has cooldown

Not according to the Wiki: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mixed_Berry_Pie

Undisclosed patch notes:

“New cap on all siege per map: 1”

Vyxion.6358:

…though marginal, the difference isn’t as big as u make it sound, specially thanks to deadly mixture and the vast availability of might stacks in this build and the double sigil advantage…

Let’s run the numbers, shall we? [cue 60s lounge music]

Rifle – Hip Shot: co-efficient .65 | Weapon damage: 1095

Elixir Gun – Tranquilizer Dart: co-efficient .40 | Weapon damage: 969

We are going Berserker stats, as stated in the original post, with a bit of tempering:

Power: base (916) + 1003 (full exotic power bonus) + 0 for traits = 1919

Precision: base (916) + 698 (full exotic minor stat bonus) +300 for traits = 1914 (~52% crit chance)

Crit damage: Lets say from gear ~50% + 20% Traits = 70% (220% damage on crits)

Or we can write it as +120% for 52 of 100 hits. | ~62.4% additional damage

Condition Damage: Base 0 + 300 in traits yields bleeds at 57 pts/second.

Hip Shot = Base damage of (1095*1919*.65)/2600(heavy golem baseline) = 525.32

With crits at 52/100, average direct damage is 853.11 points of damage every .75 seconds or in whole seconds: 1137.48 rounded down to 1137 points per second

Tranquilizer Dart = Base damage of (969*1919*.40)/2600 = 286.07

With crits at 52/100, average direct damage is 465.6 per every .75 seconds or in whole seconds 620.8 rounded down to 620 points per second

With condition damage, we can let it sit at 4 ticks of bleed because I don’t want to calculate ramp up for each shot: 57*4 = 228 points of bleed per second for a total with bleeds of 848 points per second

Nearly a 300 point per second difference, or 25% reduction in damage when using the elixir gun on a 2600 armor target instead of the rifle.

What about deadly mixture?

620 + 93 (15%) = 713 add in the 228 pts of bleed for a total of 941 or an almost 20% percent drop in damage compared to Hip Shot.

“That doesn’t seem to be a huge difference.” Not against a bunker golem, to be sure, but lets look at a light armor target as glassy as we are: 920 (light armor total) + 916 (base toughness) = 1836

Hip Shot = Base damage of (1095*1919*.65)/1836 (Light Armor GC) = 743.92

With crits at 52/100, average direct damage is 1208.12 points of damage every .75 seconds or in whole seconds: 1610.83 rounded down to 1610 points per second

Tranquilizer Dart = Base damage of (969*1919*.40)/1836 = 405.12

With crits at 52/100, average direct damage is 657.91 per every .75 seconds or in whole seconds 877.21 rounded down to 877 points per second

With condition damage, we can let it sit at 4 ticks of bleed because I don’t want to calculate ramp up for each shot: 57*4 = 228 points of bleed per second for a total with bleeds of 1105 points per second

With Deadly Mixture: 1008 + 228 = 1236 points per second

And with that, we are back up to ~25% reduction in damage WITH the bleed calculated into the equation.

Please tell me what 2 sigils you can stack that would make up this shortfall in damage if the rifle still gets one of them?

Note: Please be aware that might will just make this disparity higher, as will any added power.

Snowreap.5174:

You’ll have some idea who you’re likely to get, and who you’re unlikely to get. Pick the half-dozen most likely opponents and make contingency plans for each of them….

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

-Tier 8.

vinceftw.5086:

I don’t understand how these guykitten so hard. I’m a valkyrie/berserker thief with 3k power, 110% critical damage and my backstabkitten only for 8k max on level 80 glas cannons. On your armor I’d do around 4k. My heartseekers barely reach over 3k on bunkers. If anything, I feel bunkers are too strong sometimes.

Extended Potion of Invader Slaying.

Daethonfoot.3516:

banning ascended gear from wvw would fix the imbalance too. but that would be a shame. you should just hook wvw players up instead of making them second rate.

Lolz. There is already a PvP system in place like that… called… um.. sPvP? Where everyone is limited to the same possible sets of gear, and you get to go in and stomp other players to your hearts content.

WvW isn’t PvP, it is just PvE with a easier to troll AI.

haviz.1340:

lunyboy.8672:

-snip-

Quite elaborate plan but most soloers opt for full glass cannon and uses defensive traits if they are needed.

Yeah, no real point in theory crafting when people can do that.

Well done Dub.

Kincaidia.3192:

I hate (good) engineers on my thief. Without kiting forever, some can be dang near unkillable.

Side tangent: How many of these arguments would be null and void if anet provided a full combat log instead of the atrocity we have? I’ve had complete battles that show no damage to me, and yet here I am, quite dead indeed.

That would be too powerful, then people would have the information they needed for a DPS meter. Or Lyssa forbid, you would have to provide screen shots of your 100 Blades damage against bosses to get CoF runs…

/sarcasm

You are 100% correct. With the information regarding ALL combat, we could replay fights and be able to deconstruct not only other professions, but our responses to them, and judge them for effectiveness.

And yes, a good engie doesn’t even need to be all that bunker to be hard to kill, fighting thieves in WvW made me start looking at the combat system in general, decide what the weaknesses were (examining the sPvP splits is a HUGE hint) and reconfigure accordingly. If it hadn’t been for you guys in WvW, I wouldn’t be nearly a proficient in PvE content as well as sPvP.

So thanks

That’s all well and good, but if you would actually read my posts instead of just glancing over them looking for keywords you would see that I was very clear both times.

In a crit damage build (assertion from the OP), the rifle does quite a bit more damage at range than the elixir gun. And it was directed at Phineas Poe who asserted:

If you need to fight from range, use the Elixir Gun and spam Tranquilizer Dart. It does more damage than both Hip Shot and Explosive Shot, and additionally applies Weakness to every target you hit with it.

Which is patently untrue, and I wanted to be sure that readers would understand that point. I posted all the information needed to do the damage calculation yourselves as to not inundate you with a wall of numbers.

Use the elixir gun, use Pistol/Shield… I use both daily. Yes they have more utility and options, yes they are fantastic for conditions, yes more survival… I didn’t disagree with ANY OF THAT. I was merely stating that from a raw DPS standpoint, rifle #1 is better and is intended to be so.

Don’t make me break out my slide rule.

therealjaypo.1690:

HeliaXDemoN.1208:

Man, its pure fun. Lost 2/3 of your life stantly is why I play WvW, only for feel the danger in my blood.

NOPE

Only 19.9k on an Engineer?
You’re doing it wrong.

18.5k here, I stomp thieves on the regular. Speak for yourself.

NevirSayDie.6235:

Even though I never played a confusion-focused build, I can’t resist pointing out that confusion used to be a good counter to pure zerker builds, especially thieves.

I have never found confusion to be that effective, even with pry bar/ static shot, simply because any reasonable build has condition removal on stealth, allowing for a doubly dangerous counter to any serious condition application.

Celeras.4980:

Maybe next time instead of shooting the PET twice, you should try dodging.

Maybe you should realize that the 2-3 dodges OP did weren’t shown in the combat log… neither are misses, conditions, blocks, etc… and since you already know what the beast was that OP was most likely fighting, you know that they can be just as dangerous in a tank/troll thief build as the actual player themselves.

JubeiTM.5763:

lunyboy.8672:

Kamahl.3621:

Vyxion.6358:

This guy knows his stuf! Glad to have you on my side on this one, couldn’t have said it better myself

He’s also writing it in a situation that would exemplify an auto attack designed to cripple (figuratively) a single target over a raw damage attack.

Since they have the same speed, let’s just look at it like this:
5 seconds of bleeding (we’ll say 5 since reasonable condition duration extension, etc) – 60 damage per second, that’s 300 damage. So they’re about on par.

Except that’s discounting critical hits, which can more than double the damage of any given crit. So, ~2.6x the power scaling with typical berserker gear, begins to put a considerable difference on such damage output. Not saying his numbers are wrong, but I am saying there’s a bit of intentional misrepresentation going on.

Exactly this. OP was talking about a crit build, which is what the rifle is made for. In my post I clearly differentiate and discuss how crits vs condition build would compare with each weapon.

If you are running Rabid armor or something even less likely to crit, like Apothecary, then EG will have it ALL OVER the rifle. But with decent crit potential, hip shot will do more DPS in any reasonable power/crit damage build easily.

What’s more, it’s an auto attack. However, if you would like to show me numbers where condition damage would overtake critical damage in this build in calculated DPS, including things like Rabid gear vs. Rampager vs. Berserker, I would be happy to have that discussion and we can show our work.

And once again, I reiterate that I use both depending on the situation, and am quite sure about my math on this, whether you think those coefficients are wrong or not. I would be more than happy to test and report anything we have discussed here, if only for future users of both weapons to be sure which would be more useful by situation.

I also had this contradiction in earlier posts. So.. Nobody denies the direct damage of the rifle and it’s other skills in a Full Berserker build. I run a static discharge and It is obvious the rifle does more direct damage and the gun is a condition weapon. BUT! In this particular Hybrid build the OP is using the flamethrower permanently. The only time he will switch to the gun is to apply the poison darts on the boss. He will use the pistol for 2 seconds just to apply poison that will prevent the boss from healing. Maybe he will use the shield sills to push, electrocute and create a combo field. After this he will instantly switch back to the flamethrower and continue his rotations. So there is no more room for rifle.

That’s fine. With an Engineer, you can play it however you like. I was simply responding to the assertion that the Elixir gun skill #1 would do more damage than the rifle in any build that included a high chance to crit (let alone crit damage stacking), which I believe to be false after looking at some basic facts about the 2 weapons.

Even with a hybrid build, any crit chance will push the Rifle 1 past the Elixir Gun 1 easily, and in fact, the first paragraph of the OPs post was that the FT was a power weapon, not a condition weapon. I am not here to argue about the utility of either, or which OP should run, just that one cannot assert a higher damage output from the EG without showing actual math to back it up.

I personally run p/s in a crit/zerk build because I like the utility and useful conditions like confusion and poison, even with 0 condition damage; in certain situations, I switch to rifle for the net shot and knock back, because it has good utility as well as good damage.

Kamahl.3621:

Vyxion.6358:

This guy knows his stuf! Glad to have you on my side on this one, couldn’t have said it better myself

He’s also writing it in a situation that would exemplify an auto attack designed to cripple (figuratively) a single target over a raw damage attack.

Since they have the same speed, let’s just look at it like this:
5 seconds of bleeding (we’ll say 5 since reasonable condition duration extension, etc) – 60 damage per second, that’s 300 damage. So they’re about on par.

Except that’s discounting critical hits, which can more than double the damage of any given crit. So, ~2.6x the power scaling with typical berserker gear, begins to put a considerable difference on such damage output. Not saying his numbers are wrong, but I am saying there’s a bit of intentional misrepresentation going on.

Exactly this. OP was talking about a crit build, which is what the rifle is made for. In my post I clearly differentiate and discuss how crits vs condition build would compare with each weapon.

If you are running Rabid armor or something even less likely to crit, like Apothecary, then EG will have it ALL OVER the rifle. But with decent crit potential, hip shot will do more DPS in any reasonable power/crit damage build easily.

What’s more, it’s an auto attack. However, if you would like to show me numbers where condition damage would overtake critical damage in this build in calculated DPS, including things like Rabid gear vs. Rampager vs. Berserker, I would be happy to have that discussion and we can show our work.

And once again, I reiterate that I use both depending on the situation, and am quite sure about my math on this, whether you think those coefficients are wrong or not. I would be more than happy to test and report anything we have discussed here, if only for future users of both weapons to be sure which would be more useful by situation.

^^^ That troll build… LOL.

Lol, good for you man, and welcome. Consider the elixir gun (yes I am serious) for good condition application as well as an extra heal, an AoE pulse that scales well with crits, and a cripple/swiftness skill that also crits nicely. The highest DPS across multiple mobs that will not completely destroy your survival quotient is going to be a condition build and they work OK in Arah (as you know if you have a Necro).

The highest DPS for single targets in the Engie build is going to be crit bombs, but that is a very, VERY close range situation. The Condition/Crit hybrid is a very usable build that doesn’t heavily rely on either, but allows for good damage from both, crit transient DPS spikes, with condition sustain, and things like Might become doubly effective. If I were going to try this, I would consider a c/c hybrid grenade build, using Rampager’s, a few knights trinkets and rampager’s trinkets with ruby jewels. This lets you stack power and precision, allowing for crits (which proc conditions) and because the crit damage doesn’t scale normally like other stats, you can eek out a reasonable amount with just the jewels and traits.

If you are relying on dodge rolls, then your choice of sigil is excellent (I would put it on the shield) because it stacks with vigor and then perhaps the Sigil of undead slaying for your pistol? Consider using the Giver’s weapons, as they add 20% condition duration for the pair, as well as some vitality. With a Grenade build, this will get you to +50% condition duration easily before you even food up.

What runes are you using? I am a die hard proponent of Runes of earth, at least 4 of them for the protection trigger and duration, this syncs well with 2 of your traits and investment in the vitality trait line. If you are going more offensive, Ruby orbs may be the way to go for the extra 12% crit damage, or emerald for the extra toughness/power/precision. There are also a few sets the reduce condition duration on you, which may be very helpful in this particular instance.

Found it – http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Rune_of_Melandru it is CRAZY expensive to get, since you need to salvage 42k Karma apiece armor pieces, but for a total of -25% condition duration and -25% stun duration with toughness… it might be serviceable.

FYI – Mixed Berry Pie has no cool down, doesn’t heal for quite a much, but is great for life steal builds/extra heals on crits. It is truly insane on a grenade or flamethrower build.

Sorry to horn in with my “free advice,” but I have been considering this since I saw a necro do it, and have been stockpiling potions, foods, sigils and gear to make a run at it. Or at least GET to Lubby, that may be my greatest triumph in the game. Lol.

Edit: Clarified price of Melandru Rune as being in Karma.

Wryscher.1432:

I think the obvious answer here is to nerf engineers.

Always, ALWAYS the answer. >.<

Also, tomorrow (today) is nerf day, known to other professions besides Engies as patch day. GG.

Thrashbarg.9820:

….Warrior may be classy, but I don’t know what that has to do with anything. If, however, you meant highest ranged damage, I’ve a static-discharge grenade engineer build you may like to try…

Edit: added pics

Which is a gimmick build that does damage approaching a glass thief, but still can’t touch a 100 blades on a reasonably geared warrior.

And oh yeah, that glass thief still has the stealth, combat movement, and escape skills that the engineer (me) could only dream of. SD is a gimmick that will die as soon as the ANet devs decide they are done trolling us with a burst build and put in yet another cool down.

dzeRnumbrd.6129:

Glass cannon on any profession will do huge damage – it is nothing to do with the thief profession.

No. There are plenty of professions in this game that can TRY to be “huge” damage, but can’t get anywhere close to thieves. If you mean Warriors, then sure, they can roll glass and put up huge numbers, but the zeitgeist is heavily direct (critical) damage due to the lagging combat system which rewards the crit multiplier in PvE/WvW with the only true min-maxing calculation in the game. Ask an Guard or a Necro when the last time they put up a 10K+ crit.

An an engineer, when I roll completely glass, I can’t get anywhere near the DPS a thief can do with a “tanky” version of their build, but have none of the stealth, combat movement, or massive access to blinds to prevent me from cracking like a eggshell.

You are incorrectly making an apples to oranges comparison, and this discussion has EVERYTHING to do with the thief profession.

If you aren’t that worried about survival, the Static Discharge build is probably the best “burst” DPS, with the HGH Condition build the best “sustained” DPS, but neither has the utility, control, or the versatility that the profession is known for.

In other words, to reach the peak DPS you are looking for, you will sacrifice the advantages of the profession, without reaching the DPS achievable with several other professions while still having access to their key abilities.

Are you traited for Formula 409 in Alchemy? Because without that, it won’t remove any conditions, and only 1 per consumption and one per toss when traited.

Phineas Poe.3018:

You should almost never be auto attacking with either the Rifle or the Pistol. If you need to fight from range, use the Elixir Gun and spam Tranquilizer Dart. It does more damage than both Hip Shot and Explosive Shot, and additionally applies Weakness to every target you hit with it.

I would very much like to see your math on this.

According to information about the skill coefficients, the rifle’s Hip Shot is .65 vs. the Tranquilizer Dart’s .4 coefficient in addition to the weapon damage on rifle having a higher average of 1095 vs. 969 for pistol.

Source: http://pvx.gw2buildcraft.com/Damage_Calculations
This is not an official source, but a place where testing has been done to calculate these coefficients.

Now the above source calculates the activation times at .33 for TD and .8 for hip shot, while the “official wiki” puts them both at .75. I am not sure which is correct without testing in the mists, but that would mean that on a berserker build, the Direct Damage of the power * crit damage (averaged for 100 shots) would scale the Hip Shot WELL out of range of the Tranquilizer darts overall damage, even if you include the bleeds at a base of 42 (0 CD rounded down).

If the buildcraft activation times are correct, then TD would definitely be on par with Hip Shot, but remember weapon damage is a multiplier, and that is over 100 more points, or ~10% increase. This would be really fascinating for sheer DPS, and make me wish, yet again, that the Juggernaut trait applied to Elixir Gun as well.

Any stacked might will inch the EG closer as a ratio to the Rifle’s #1, because the condition damage + power increase will disproportionately affect the combo weapon over the single source.

If we are discussing the wider implications of the EG over rifle, I am a HUGE fan of the weakness+utilities of it and roll with it in dungeons (with power/zerk stats) very regularly, and even with some bugs, it is one of the best utilities in the game. (Yes. I run a zerker/support build)

I would love to be proven wrong about this, and we would need to calculate damage based on equal gear/stats as described in this thread, and have one with an average 6-9 stacks of might and one without. Calculate 100 shots of each, with critical hits and then test them officially for Rate of Fire in the mists, just to be sure. All bleeds would have to be subject to the strange ticking that means a .5 second addendum to duration creates a 50% of a tick. (It might even be pertinent to test them naked in LA vs target dummy so to not be affected by the pve/pvp splits)

Ungood.3054:

I just want to take a moment to give a shout out to the real power players on HoD, like LK, your tenacious efforts to cap objectives and take points have provided your dead weight something to brag about.

I felt like dead weight last night… everywhere my small team and I went, we ran into ET or Ferg’s zergs. So I did my dailies and logged off.

Oozo.7856:

wish.1027:

Oozo.7856:

wish.1027:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMdcB6Ssd38

Like this. Or just spam grenades, that tends to kill the isht out of thieves too.

I could post a movie killing bad thieves on my condition necromancer and try to draw conclusions from it, but that would be stupid.

You say that like 90% of thieves arent predictable bads.

Games should be balanced around good players with good builds using good gear. Period.

Unfortunately, those good players ANet listens to all seem to be the sPvP elite players, which is NOT a balanced opinion of ANY profession in a game with so many modes. Besides, with only point capture as the sole type of sPvP, that skews to certain skill sets and leaves other professions behind considerably.

This is one of the big reasons that professions that don’t do well in sPvP fare much better in WvW (mesmers and warriors, for example).

I had that happen against a ranger underwater near the water gate of Blue Keep in EB last week.

I used ALL of my skills, grenades, tool kit magnet and prybar… NOTHING connected despite explosion animations etc. I have no idea how it happened, but I used the report button anyway. Always a good plan.

TheGuy.3568:

Your an engineer right running HGH so I can’t pity you since that’s kitten near OP in its own right…

We give up an amazing amount of utility and survivability for a reasonable amount of damage with HGH. In addition, if we run grenades (most do), they are ALL skill shots (except for water combat… where our toss elixirs don’t work properly) and we must be avoiding melee while deciding where to throw our grenades AND spamming our elixirs (whether we need them or not at that moment) to keep our might up.

It isn’t OP at all, despite what some of the upper-tier PvPers say, it is KITTEN HARD TO PLAY, but pays off well when you don’t mess up. I am not a huge fan of it myself, but with the recent nerfs, our options have become more limited.

And before someone jumps in and starts about what a “reasonable” amount of damage is, I give you the same advice that has been echoed on this board several times:

Roll one. Find a good Direct Damage/Condition HGH build. Go to the mists and see if you can maintain a reasonable DPS against the Heavy Golem while maintaining your stacks, and once you think you’ve got it, try it in sPvP… or hot join for a min or two.

Tell me how OP it is when you play it, not when you see it on Youtube.

Deniara Devious.3948:

It sounds like a solid build for small scale and solo roaming. And should be able to counter most thieves. I would however swap Elixir S for Elixir R. 4 dodges in a row + stun break is great. Toss Elixir R is a true-life saver if you get gibbed by a duo or trio thief team. At least in EU tier #1 many enemy thieves run in teams of 2 or 3.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Elixir_R
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Toss_Elixir_R

I would also get rid of self-regulating defenses, as that auto-elixir S tends to be a pro-longed death wish in big fights (you cannot use any skills during that 3 seconds). Take fast-acting elixirs since you will be using multiple elixirs. More healing, stun break and two extra dodges every 36 s.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Fast-Acting_Elixirs

With those small changes it sounds like a really good build. I personally prefer something different..My current build is actually less effective against thieves, but it has more group utility.

Indeed, the Elixir S Nerf has had a profound effect on my build, and I have gone from a primarily defensive build, to an Elixir/HGH build for more direct and conditional damage. I will re-trait for dungeons into a more support/defense spec, using the new heal turret (although I am still not a fan), Grenades, and Elixir Gun or FT, with Elixir R as my final utility.

You are completely right about the trait changes, Fast-acting elixirs is clutch for HGH, and easily gets me to 25 stacks of might in combat without sacrificing 4 of my runes of earth. The sync with Elixir H is also quite good for the protection triggers. For my 9 utility, I mostly run R for the extra dodges, but I also slot in U in groups for the reflect field and solo-timewarp.

I am using B as my second util, with auto-trigger in grenade kit since I don’t use auto attack in that kit anyway. I know B isn’t as useful as other things I could slot there, but having the auto boons on the shorter cool downs is nice, since I have so much extra boon duration anyway (65% with food).

I am not convinced this is the “One” build for me yet, and I don’t like HGH in general, since it locks me into a much more limited set of utilities and kits, but watching my grenade barrage hit for 1900-2k on crits (usually 3 of 7) is just effing amazing.

More ======

Notes:

The Gear Shield blocks for its duration, even if you use other skills.

If you see shadow refuge (the AoE stealth with the stone house over it), your freeze grenades almost completely fill the field, as does your barrage… use them liberally. And if you have Supply Crate available, it ALSO fits neatly into the radius.

Set your skill key binds in places that make them fast for swapping, I use Shift +1-5 for heals and utilities. Make sure your dodge-roll is on a key that is EASY to get to, I use one of my side mouse buttons, because I can have my thumb on it loosely, and then trigger it when moving the mouse easily without having to find it on the keyboard.

Don’t chase thieves, but focus on an area of combat that you can control with your supply crate, box of nails, and AoE damage/conditions. Make them come to your in an area you have control of. On stuns and roots, apply conditions first, and then whatever burst you have available to you.

Please feel free to add anything you like for thief neutralization, as Engineers we have options other professions don’t, so let’s share our tactics.

After reading the feed back in dueling Nerf/Buff Thieves threads in the WvW board, and MUCH trolling, I think we should have an outline of how best to deal with roaming thieves in WvW as Engineers.

A good deal of my build was influenced by repeated ganking by glass thieves that thought it would be funny to take out an unsuspecting Engie running supply. Luckily, this has made my build MUCH more useful and survivable in PvE, dungeons and I even run a variation in sPvP because I like it so much.

I am currently shifting it around a bit for HGH (I know… I know >.<) but I will share the original build.

I used to run P/S, mostly for the shield traits, grenade kit, tool kit, and elixir S with Supply Crate for my elite. Grenades for ranged damage/Vuln, Tool kit for pulls/escapes, and Elixir S for the “oh crap” button.

For traits, I would go:
Incendiary powder, Cool down reduction for bomb/nades, and Grenadier
No Firearms
Protection in Toughness trait line
Auto Elixir S, 409 in Alchemy/Vitality
and Speedy kits for perma-swiftness.

For gear, I went half soldiers stats, half berserker, and trinkets, I did Knights with Berserker Jewels. With Sup Runes of the Earth for the protection sync.

With Elixir H as heal for the extra protection possibility, this would give decent protection up time, 2 full blocks, 2 shield bubbles, invul, freeze, 2 good sources of poison, 2 good sources of confusion, a pull, an AoE push back, a blind, 2 stuns and either stability or stealth (usually the opposite of what you needed… but that’s RNG for ya).

My hypothetical play style:

When you see a thief come out of stealth, chances are good that either your Runes of Earth or your “Protective Shield” trait will trigger, giving you a few seconds of protection preventing insta-down. If you are in a kit, you need to get to a shield quickly, and the stun shield of p/s #5 is very useful in this situation.

If you want to down him/her, not just run them off, then here you need to unload the poison dart volley or drop supply crate to prolong/re-apply stun (stun is a condition that is affected by duration stacking, such as your explosives trait line, givers weapons and sigils like Paralyzation). Assume they have at least one stun break, and will attempt to break combat, stealth and heal. The poison will reduce their heal efficacy by 33%, unless they use up a cleanse… and that is excellent.

Prepare yourself by swapping to tool kit, stay near your net turret (it will see the thief before you do when they de-stealth), use your elixir H, or toss the tool belt version, and/or run around a bit dropping box of nails and picking up bandages.

The Elixir H/toss EH will give you a 66% chance of a protection proc, which is very useful, the nails will reduces the thieves movement, and the net turret will immobilize. When they appear, immediately use the #5 magnet pull, EVEN IF THEY ARE IN MELEE RANGE. It is an interrupt, and will stop their burst and allow you to PRY BAR them in the face. They will have to use another cleanse for the confusion, or just fight through it, so now you either shield, or consider that they might swap to pistols and go to range so dodge around a little, and Freeze grenade the ground at your feet, and then poison grenade around the net turret as well.

When they show up again, frustrated with the lack of a kill, start planning your kill combo. For this, you will start in p/s, and prepare yourself for the shadowstep/backstab by putting your finger on #4 and when you see the first sign of damage, double pop for interrupt, static shot and then poison dart volley again. PDV is a channeled skill, and you MUST NOT INTERRUPT YOURSELF while firing, as it will SHOW YOU WHERE THE THIEF IS GOING. That’s right, it may not hit, but it tracks stealth targets. Then you start with the grenades, Freeze, Poison, Shrapnel, and when you see them again, Barrage, or pull and pry bar.

Vampirism is good for a lifesteal build, works well with lifesteal food and sigils, and I prefer the FT and med kit for use with it, simply because I can swap in and out of the med kit every 15 seconds without needing to use any heals. The FT also procs the food and sigils a LOT, when you use Superior Sigil of blood (2 second cool down) and Mixed Berry Pie (no internal cool down).

To add to what Goloith said, Earth would be the best in a ranged/condition/grenade build, and it will sync nicely with the Shrapnel trait, or the Incendiary Powder trait, and the Shrapnel Grenade.

Sigil of Geomancy is more for a tanky condition damage build, like Rabid gear or Undead Knights build.

I personally like the Sigil of Hydromancy for an offensive swap because it scales a tiny bit with power and can crit, so in addition to slowing them for 3 seconds (seriously OP), it can also proc conditions.

Yeah, they seem to listen to the sPvP Engies, and classes that play AGAINST Engies more than the actual player base by quite a wide margin.

Raestloz.7134:

The Alien facer#p# is not a condition, the same way Soothing Mist is not a boon

They are…. IDK… but definitely not condition.

Exactly, but they are the same color and shape as a “normal” condition indicator, placed on the bar the same way, and when you roll over them, give the same type of information about their effects. Soothing Mist at least has a different look on the UI so it is not obviously mistaken for a boon.

It is a basic failure of User Interface to co-mingle status indicators without differentiation when they need different tactics or skills triggered to remove them. Agony is the same way, it shows as a condition on your bar, but can’t be cleansed or removed, but must be resisted, or depending on the mechanic, you must dodge, or otherwise block the initial application. The magenta spikes poking out of your toon obviously indicate that you are being Agonized, but it is still a bit sloppy.

Some consistency here would be useful is all I am saying.

I think the Broodmother uses the same mechanic as the poison/flamethrowers available in the weapons crate, where when you get poisoned, the second attack reacts for extra burning damage.

There has long been the hatched Karka thing, and THOSE conditions don’t get cleansed by anything either, they will blind you, slow your mobility and one other condition and I have tried the new heal turret (>.<), Elixir C, Formula 409, and non of these removes any of the new conditions…

What is the point of having condition removal in your build if they keep adding conditions that are immune?

PinCushion.7390:

lunyboy.8672:

Deniara Devious.3948:

…Stealth stomp should not work. This should of course affect all professions e.g. mesmers and engineers also denied of doing stealth stomps…

Oh yes, we definitely NEED another nerf, so incredibly OP.

Lol.

-An Engineer.

I actually agree with this one, but with a minor tweak.

I don’t think stomping should work in ANY non-normal state. That includes Stealth, Death Shroud, Mist Form, Invulnerable, Distorted, or anything else (other than Stability).

I’ve abused most of these to get stomps, and I think they just encourage bad group play. My group should be CCing so someone else can get stomps.

But that’s not likely to happen, so I don’t really care if Stealth Stomps are still in. As long as I keep my Mist Form, Death Shroud, or Shrink Potion stomps then it’s all fair.

Mostly in WvW, I have learned to DPS down, because stomps on several classes are impractical, and I don’t slot Elixir S as much any more because of the last nerf.

It doesn’t matter to me what people use or don’t use when stomping my Engie, because our downed state is pretty horrible, something like a thief blind or a stealth doesn’t matter and just adds insult to injury.

Deniara Devious.3948:

…Stealth stomp should not work. This should of course affect all professions e.g. mesmers and engineers also denied of doing stealth stomps…

Oh yes, we definitely NEED another nerf, so incredibly OP.

Lol.

-An Engineer.

Rozbuska.5263:

Best gear in terms of damage output for grenades is Rampager (Power, Precision, Condition damage combo)

The main caveat being the condition mechanics in this game. Rampager’s is the highest DPS if you are the only one hitting multiple targets, but as soon as your conditions get overwritten, your DPS drops quite a bit. Any low-add-count boss fight would be a great example of considerably lower output, with multiple people on one target.

Quetz.4389:

While I agree on a lot of your points…. Shrapnel is already very powerful for grenades and beats out incendiary powder by a large margin.

At 3 grenades per second, with 15% and 12 second duration it’s a bit more than 5 bleed stacks constantly. Which is about twice the damage 40% burning up time with incendiary powder will give you.

6 bleeds at 42.5 pts are 255 pts per second (ish) with 0 condition damage at level 80, whereas burning is 328 pts.

In fact, until you hit ~1387 Condition Damage, 6 stacks of bleed will still be less than the equivalent burning condition. And you will already be generating bleeds from shrapnel grenade anyway, giving you good concurrent condition application.

I understand what you are saying about total up time, but bear in mind that this is wholly dependent on your build, your target, and your focus for the fight as to which of these will be better. I will switch out for dungeons to IP, just because I don’t want to overwrite the CD Thieves or Necro’s superior bleeds, but in WvW, shrapnel all the way, with sigil of battle and Enhanced Performance for adding to the condition damage.

Zenguy.6421:

Part of the problem is that we have to take all the traits of a related type to be effective in one area – e.g. 50pts to make 1 kit effective. This commits us to the associated minor traits, whether want them or not.

This is the most accurate, succinct description of what it is like to play an Engineer I have ever heard.

That being said, those stupid Southsun lizards have killed my on my automatic skills several times now, and I whole-heartedly agree with dispensing with junk traits asap.

Neare.9703:

No one’s looking at your weapon skin while you’re fighting them anyway.

Unless you are in WvW, then you will get hunted…

Anymras.5729:

I read on another thread that Colin Johanson had decided to do something about the appearance of the hobosacks – after he equipped a kit with his 8-bit backpack on.

Way to be so late on the uptake. Glad he is able to make the SAB backpack worth it, too bad it is too late to farm it for the rest of us. This does point to the status of the Engineer with regard to how often developers play, though.

NevirSayDie.6235:

… I hadn’t thought of giving turrets an agro table before—I suppose that would be another way to help them…

They sort of already have an aggro table, but it is incredibly basic, in that they shoot at the first “enemy” that gets their attention, whether they are obstructed or not. Bosses have a more complex table, with information about the target, dps for all potential targets, and then gradients for higher aggro “events” like rezzing, create aggro spikes.

The turret algorithm should look at all potential targets and prioritize by what kind of target they are, what type of turret it is and then whether or not it is obstructed. At least in the default defense mode.

This idea is stuck in my head now, we should do a separate post about it.

Kalan.9705:

Genesis.8572:

Q: How do you reconcile your design philosophy of making the engineer a versatile and flexible combatant with the engineer talent trees that force deep specialization to even achieve a modicum of effectiveness in an exceptionally limited and inflexible playstyle?

Indeed. Also, can we get a comprehensive design vision statement for engineer, that is actually relevant to the profession, and is consistently worked towards.

Right, what is the core directive that drives the engineer design?

With the supposed flexibility, why is it that most high-level PvPers are in about 2-3 builds?

How many Engies are STILL playing as a percentage of the total population, can we get this as total aggregate hours played by each class, per month since August?

What abilities, conditions, and unique functionality are you trying to highlight for our profession? Is fire part of it? If so, why do you keep nerfing our access to it?

Why are your condition mechanics the same as other games were years ago even after theirs were shown not to work well?

Why do you keep adding HP to mobs and bosses in dungeons without balancing it with armor increases, creating a prejudice against condition builds and pressuring the general population to roll berserker stats?

What percentage of the total GW2 population uses at least one piece of berserker gear?

In hours played again, how many pieces of zerker gear are equipped as a percentage of all gear nomenclature?

If turrets are not mobile, why do they have such low survival attributes? For weapon emplacements, should they not have more defense and be more on par with siege weapons instead of minions or elementals?

How many hours monthly are played in each profession by ANet employees? I would prefer actual data to anecdotal accounts of “Mark, that guy in accounting who has an Engie, I think…”

Are there any plans in the future for profession specific mechanics in WvW, since Warrior banners can buff inanimate objects, mesmers can portal into towers and what not, and now there is an anti-stealth trap? Any chance it would be siege related?

Right now according to the wiki, the only thing able to heal the turrets directly is whacking them with the wrench. It is definitely worth looking into, as there was a bug regarding the auto-tool trait since the april 30th patch, but may now be fixed.

If turrets got heals… well, that would be a small first step toward broader-game usability, IMHO.

Amadeus.5687:

I think it was Bas talking about how he liked to stack them in an area in PvE with his healing Turret, and then he could whack heal them all with the tool Kit auto attack when they lost health! In that way making them last for longer in theory that is ^^

Interesting, playing the turret xylophone, as it were.

Autumn.8043:

I was looking for some kind of support build as nearly everyone runs full DPS.
Though I don’t want to be throwing spit balls at the enemies.

I haven’t had much luck with focused support, but have found that incidental support works pretty well in most situations. I have tried the Shaman, Apothecary and Giver’s gear to boost heals and condition damage, but with an engineer, the heal boost just doesn’t seem to do a lot.

When I want to be more support oriented, I run p/s, zerker/soldier gear, runes of altruism (x4) and water (x2) for the might and boon bonuses, heal turret, my grenades, elixir gun and elixir R for the rez/light field (swapping out for elixir S or elixir U situation-dependent).

With the grenades, I can keep poison, chill and blind on mobs in regular rotation, and stack vulnerability at range, switch to EG and keep weakness up while popping super elixir and heal turret maybe even Toss Elixir U for a “safe zone” in harder fights.

If the situation calls for more Van Dammage, I respec into HGH, run grenades, elixir B and elixir R on my bar, and make sure and baptize my party with RNG juice + Might on the regular.

What was that “nesting” turrets thing you guys were talking about on there? Something about placing other turrets around the healing turret?

Phineas Poe.3018:

Another thing: do Grenade Kit Engineers actually use the Healing Turret? It only has a radius of 480. If you’re standing all the way in the back, nobody is benefiting from your Water field or condition removal. Much the same could be said of Runes of Altruism, or most group buffs in general. Of course: you’re probably going to be using HGH anyway with Elixir H.

When I am not in HGH, yes I do, but I set it where people aren’t standing to minimize the chance of it getting hit with AoE splash damage, and even instruct them to stay at about maximum distance if possible, if I don’t just drop>spam overcharge>detonate when I see the cleanse cool down timer.

I am 100% in favor of this thread being about the best practices with a FT kit and a comparison and contrast of play styles, but as someone who spends about 80% in grenades, I would not appreciate this degenerating into a wrench-measuring contest.

I go out of my way to make my runs as fun and wipe-free as possible, to that effect, I will gear specifically by path in dungeons, share MoB slaying potions, retrait if necessary, roll with as many specialized skills as requested or required, and even wear funny hats… but in the end, I am still primarily a grenade engineer.