[GW2] Engineer discussion

[parcus]

I love it. You bring so much to the group in terms of support running how I do. Rifle, heal (some use kit but I don't like it much), grenade kit, flamethrower kit, elixer gun and supply drop. With that setup you have 2 blinds, 2 knockbacks, 1 slow and 1 immobilize plus a personal heal, 2 different AoE condition removals and a bunch of buffs. Being able to do all that on the fly really makes a difference from what I've seen. And you can also dish out some mean DPS with the flamethrower. And if you really like grenades (which I don't) you can spec to have them heal on explosion for even more heals though it's only like 80-100 heal per grenade.

I tried dual pistol and was not a fan. It does good for single target damage whereas the rifle seems better close range single target but I mostly use kits. Range = Grenades (why bother with single target if you can AoE? You throw two grenades and both will hit 1 target for around 300 each so about the same as pistol plus you have bleed, slow and blind on grenades). Flamethrower appears to be the best single target damage out of anything at least from what I've seen so if they're close I'm using it. Please see my comment above about what I run and to me it seems the best setup. I'm specced 30/30/0/0/10. I tried 10/0/30/30/0 for healing grenades but didn't really like it and went back to the damage. Killing things faster is much nicer for me than being able to live a bit more/take less damage. And my gear is a mix between condition damage/power/healing with some minor amounts of toughness on random pieces but I am still wearing crap gear. Hope this helps.

The pistol 4 and 1 can do very good AE damage, you can also combine it with the exilir gun poison thingy. You can spec into granades, but that would require a stat allocation. http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Condition_Damage shows that condition damage affects burn the most and bleeding the least, and granages are about bleeding, poison and number of granates. You'd have to make calculations, but I believe that the granades will benefit the most from a + power gear and traits. Of course you can always 30/30/0/0, and + power gear, but in my experience that sacrifices a way too much survivability compared to the damage gains to be worth it.

And BTW, the flamethrower doesn't do much burning damage (pistol 4 and rocket boots do so much more) for some weird reason.

[Kelimbror]

I'm only level 60, but the higher I get the less I like the class. I've been avoiding WvW because it's not really my cup of tea, but I decided to venture out to PvE there and get map stuff. I did engage in some skirmishes and I noticed one common denominator in every encounter: Engineers get singled out and curb stomped. I haven't played other classes high enough, but it seems like all of them have ways to catch up to you, stun the shit out of you, and kill you in a matter of seconds. Net shot seems to never work, all other 'cc' seems to not matter.

My original fun with the class was the versatility in all the kits and the 'steampunkiness', but the terrible survivability of the class is really starting to get old. I'm not sure I have it in me to keep going, especially reading this thread and several other comments speaking to the kersplat nature of the class.

I understand melee has to have some concessions due to the nature of the game, but I don't even have to think on my warrior alt. I could fall asleep and not die. It's still fun, but not as penalizing for mistakes.

[smartguy16]

I am personally doing a very tough tanky sort of engi, inventions and I'm going tools to improve the wrench kit right now and then 2 turrets, along with the healing turret and a supply drop.
I am finding it effective and fun.
I have a little bit of trouble only when going up against things higher level than me but that is to be expected I think.

Smackin', whackin', and thwackin' my way to victory.

[NightZero88]

And BTW, the flamethrower doesn't do much burning damage (pistol 4 and rocket boots do so much more) for some weird reason.

You sure about this? Flamethrower is channeled so the numbers stack up but in a level 80 area it'll go like..600-->800-->1000...up to around 1600. I've never seen any other attack from my engineer hit for that much except grenade barrage (F ability from grenade kit). If you're simply comparing 1 tick of the flamethrower to another ability I'm sure you're right but considering that ability has no CD I think makes it far superior. Plus the burning affect is always up. And it's AoE.

I'm only level 60, but the higher I get the less I like the class. I've been avoiding WvW because it's not really my cup of tea, but I decided to venture out to PvE there and get map stuff. I did engage in some skirmishes and I noticed one common denominator in every encounter: Engineers get singled out and curb stomped. I haven't played other classes high enough, but it seems like all of them have ways to catch up to you, stun the shit out of you, and kill you in a matter of seconds. Net shot seems to never work, all other 'cc' seems to not matter.

My original fun with the class was the versatility in all the kits and the 'steampunkiness', but the terrible survivability of the class is really starting to get old. I'm not sure I have it in me to keep going, especially reading this thread and several other comments speaking to the kersplat nature of the class.

I understand melee has to have some concessions due to the nature of the game, but I don't even have to think on my warrior alt. I could fall asleep and not die. It's still fun, but not as penalizing for mistakes.

Are we talking SPvP or WvWvW? I just did WvWvW last night with my spec 30/30/0/0/10 which gives me the 33% movement speed for 5 seconds everytime you equip a kit (this allows you to have it ALWAYS) and I run with rifle, grenade kit, elixer kit, flame thrower and heal. I was able to generally get away from everyone even groups by keeping up my haste and throwing the slow grenade behind me. Rangers however always caught me and just tore me up. I did a lot of running and seemed to survive fairly well. In SPvP this spec would probably suck though.

EDIT: Grenade kit is godly in WvWvW against keeps or defending them. I got my 50 kills in about 2 hours (for monthly) by grenading the piss out of people. It was great because I'd down someone and 4 people would run in to rez then frost grenade (slow)+poison grenade+grenade barrage and bam..just downed 3 other people. It really is a blast. And you can butcher people on walls too with the extended range (1500 yards I think) since everyone clusters.

[Kelimbror]

Are we talking SPvP or WvWvW? I just did WvWvW last night with my spec 30/30/0/0/10 which gives me the 33% movement speed for 5 seconds everytime you equip a kit *snipIn SPvP this spec would probably suck though.

EDIT: Grenade kit is godly in WvWvW against keeps or defending them. It really is a blast. And you can butcher people on walls too with the extended range (1500 yards I think) since everyone clusters.

I did have lots of movement speed, but it never seemed to matter. I get speed after healing, usnig the elixir, and on kits. Not to mention I can use elixir gun getaway, and the rifle's two getaways. Every fight, no matter what the class comps were, even using all of those amounted to my quick death. I know I'm not 80, and maybe my build isn't the best it could be, but I should be able to run away from people when I see them first. Definitely was not the case. I was chased down and caught in a matter of seconds.

Grenades were great for me when I had a meat wall of people in front of me, my server is so terrible we didn't really have any keeps to defend in my area, but I can see where it would destroy people from on high. It's more the fact that you have no amount of face to face abilities that will keep you alive and kill people. Your only options are running away or having 'distractions'. Meanwhile other classes run around willy nilly 2 shotting people and taking no damage.

The concept of using turrets and kiting around is really not engaging at all, so I think I'm realizing I don't like the class design. I wanted to, because aesthetically it's what I wanted to play. Reality is not as fun. Just hate that I figured this out 60 levels in with Mists coming out in two weeks.

[Deleted]

WvW is tricky you're probably not being singled out, you're probably just the closest person to the enemy lol! SPvP I found fine, you could tank 2-3 people depending on your spec and how you played. I have no trouble keeping 1-3 occupied until group members arrive to help me out. But levelling the class i'm finding kinda boring... Got a 50 asura, hate asura, going human, not sure i cba re-lvling an engineer. Guardian is the only other class i'd say is "as nice" but that's fairly boring indeed.

Engineer is great fun though. flamethrower kit + nade kit is pretty sick.

[parcus]

You sure about this? Flamethrower is channeled so the numbers stack up but in a level 80 area it'll go like..600-->800-->1000...up to around 1600. I've never seen any other attack from my engineer hit for that much except grenade barrage (F ability from grenade kit). If you're simply comparing 1 tick of the flamethrower to another ability I'm sure you're right but considering that ability has no CD I think makes it far superior. Plus the burning affect is always up. And it's AoE.

The problem is that the "big" 1600 is direct damage, the condition damage, no matter how awsome it is, shows as little numbers that you barely notice. You have to try it alone, as the game doesn't distinguish the burning you apply to the burning other people apply. Anyway, I don't know about you, but when I apply burn with the flamethrower, it lasts for a second after the whole thing was cast, doing minimal damage with condition damage. I know the tooltips are not very informative, but that's the results I get.

You are probably doing good damage with it because as far as I've gotten, nearly all engineer gear has + power, and that affects the big 1600, but it is most certainly not because of the condition damage. I have yet to switch to gear with power because I'm lvl 64, so I could make a build full + precision +crit + condition damage + vitality and avoid + power completely, so I can assure you that when I put the flamethrower on I don't do not even close to as much damage as I do with the pistol 4 and rocket boots.

[Jackkernaut]

Stacking Percision,power,vital(or toughness/healing all behind percision IMO) Maxing Firearms+Alchemy for flamethrower build was grenadier before and now i survive MUCH better.

[Northy]

If I put a Sigil on my off-hand Shield does that Sigil's effect only apply to the two abilities that my shield has or does it apply to all my abilities so long as I have my shield equipped (like WoW's enchants)?

[Deleted]

If i'm running flamethrower build do I want to be stacking +power or +condition damage?

[Kelimbror]

Stacking Percision,power,vital(or toughness/healing all behind percision IMO) Maxing Firearms+Alchemy for flamethrower build was grenadier before and now i survive MUCH better.

Interesting. Has anyone else had a good time stacking with this build? Are you using flamethrower and elixir gun?

I really like the flamethrower gameplay, but it seemed so much weaker than grenades so I switched a while back as well. Currently I'm using rifle, grenades, elixir gun for solo play because they all have so much CC and aoe damage. I'm getting weaker each level it feels though.

[Deleted]

Trying to understand where this "crazy" damage comes from, I seem to do more damage auto attacking with my Guardians sword...

[DrakeWurrum]

Interesting. Has anyone else had a good time stacking with this build? Are you using flamethrower and elixir gun?

I really like the flamethrower gameplay, but it seemed so much weaker than grenades so I switched a while back as well. Currently I'm using rifle, grenades, elixir gun for solo play because they all have so much CC and aoe damage. I'm getting weaker each level it feels though.

Gotta remember that the flamethrower's auto attack is a 2-second channel, whereas the grenade (when traited) throws out three of itself. It's not "instant" but it deals the damage all at once, and boy can you swing them out fast if you're good with a mouse.

Also, as you level up, your gear's stats do less for you.

[Kelimbror]

Gotta remember that the flamethrower's auto attack is a 2-second channel, whereas the grenade (when traited) throws out three of itself. It's not "instant" but it deals the damage all at once, and boy can you swing them out fast if you're good with a mouse

That was the whole reason I switched to grenades in the first place. I was only capable of 2 at a time to this point, but now could have three. It helps to either have aoe templates turned off or to know that you don't have to select the ability and then left click to fire. Double tapping a number will also fire.

I find that I am actually far too fast with a mouse for the grenades. So many years of wow hotkey spam and I have to slow myself down in order to let anything but the 1 ability get cast. I turned templates back on just so I would have to pay more attention to that and hopefully slow my clicking down. Still override the 2 and 4 abiilties a lot.

[DrakeWurrum]

Posted on a thread about weapon kits not having auto attack (or at least not keeping it, I forget which):

This is something we want to fix as soon as possible. Thanks for bringing it some attention. If it was simple we would have done it already, but we are working on it.

Jon

---------- Post added 2012-09-13 at 05:45 PM ----------

I find that I am actually far too fast with a mouse for the grenades. So many years of wow hotkey spam and I have to slow myself down in order to let anything but the 1 ability get cast. I turned templates back on just so I would have to pay more attention to that and hopefully slow my clicking down. Still override the 2 and 4 abiilties a lot.

I have the same problem on most of my professions. I'm still used to instant-firing abilities.

Just goes to show that some things in GW2 do take more skill than in WoW, as I have to actually pay attention to my skills going off.

[Ticktox]

Is it a bug that when you set a weapon kit to auto fire 1 ability that it doesn't stay if you put it away and pull it back out? Drives me crazy because I'm not really a fan of spamming 1 all day with elixir gun.

Or is this intended? I find myself attempting to do it mid battle just so I don't have to spam 1 which ends up feeling very awkward.

[DrakeWurrum]

Is it a bug that when you set a weapon kit to auto fire 1 ability that it doesn't stay if you put it away and pull it back out? Drives me crazy because I'm not really a fan of spamming 1 all day with elixir gun.

Or is this intended? I find myself attempting to do it mid battle just so I don't have to spam 1 which ends up feeling very awkward.

See my post directly above yours.

[parcus]

If i'm running flamethrower build do I want to be stacking +power or +condition damage?

Condition damage is not attractive to a flamethrower gameplay by itself. How exactly you play and what skills/ weapons to pick will certainly affect what stats you want to choose. From a purely FT perspective, + power + precision + critical damage are the safest bets (imo). Consider also that from lvl 60 and foward nearly all (if not all?) gear have + power, before then, if you want to have any hope of using it (and imo the flamethrower is more efficient at AE), invest in + power.

[Ticktox]

lol didn't think I would find it in the 50 pages, guess I could've at least read the last one >_> thanks.

[Rodpad]

For levelling I'm currently running with Dual Pistols, Grenade Kit, Bomb Kit and Elixir B.

I don't actually switch to the kits, I only use the F key abilities (I believe they are called toolbelts?)

Is this a good way to level? Currently level 35 but my damage does feel a little bit low.

Is there a more optimal way to do better DPS while solo'ing single mobs in the world?