16 replies to this topic

[Aduah]

Hello friends, I've been meaning to write up my build for a while. I'm not really looking for critiques on the build or any negativity of someone thinks it isn't optimal. While you're welcome to discussion of the build, I'm not looking for anyone to tell me the build is junk and suggest a completely different build. Since the major build overhaul, I have found this is what works well for me.

I call this build 'Fire in the Disco'. This is a WvW build with the focus Solo Roaming and Small Group Havoc.

http://gw2skills.net...59HySJCZAM3CA-w

This is a Condition Damage build. Running Pistol/Shield, Healing Turret, Rocket Boots, Grenades, Bombs & Mortar Kit (Good Small group Roaming support) or Supply Crate (Good for Solo roaming).

Traits:

Explosives: Grenadier, Short Fuse, Shrapnel
Firearms: Chemical Rounds, Pinpoint Distribution, Incendiary Powder
Tools: Reactive Lenses, Streamlined Kits, Adrenal Implants

The focus of this build is Blind, Confusion & Burning (+ More conditions).

How to solo a camp with this build.

Start by pulling a camp, breaking the line of sight, pulling the entire camp on top of you.

Scouts will try to blind you, if can't mange to dodge it, Reactive lenses will help by clearing your blind.

While the camp is running to gather on you Drop your Concussive bomb (Bomb Kit 3), and Smoke Bomb (Bomb Kit 4), And fire Bomb (Bomb Kit 2),

Switch to Grenades, Unloading all sets of grenades on the gathered guards. Flash Grenade (Grenades 3) will refresh your blind & Freeze Grenades (Grenades 4) will slow the guards. Don't forget to throw your grenade barrage. Your regular grenades throw 3 Grenades. So with High precision from the rabid set you should have a very high critical rate. With the trait Incendiary powder you will be applying a lot of burning and it lasts longer. (Balthazar Runes pair well with this).

Switch to Bombs, throw down a fire bomb (Bombs 2), Switch to Pistol/Shield and blast for some might using Shield 4 (this also can interrupt, and apply confusion if using runes of perplexity). Then shoot your Static Shot (Pistol 3) for more blind and confusion.

If you find your blind wears off (and subsequently you start taking a lot of dmg) and you don't have the ability to reapply quickly, you should be able to run and find another corner to break line of sight. Use your healing turret twice for a heal, cleansing burst, and overload (f1) for a blast on your water field. Remember to use your dodge liberally (it drops a bomb). You'll have a fair amount of endurance regeneration.

If the camp isn't dead, rinse, repeat.

With this you should be able to drop a camp relatively quickly. Even have the camp dead or close to dead by the time swords pop.

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If there are any questions, feel free to ask. There is a lot in the build I didn't mention, like the advantages of some of the traits. The advantages of my runes choice, etc. There is also a lost of skills that are not even used due to being unnecessary for camp flipping but are more useful when facing players.

Also, the trinkets listed aren't really optimized to the build. They are just trinkets I've pretty much found while playing.

[Silvernis]

I am curious about the pistol/shield. Why zerk instead of, say, rabid or carrion?

[Aduah]

Silvernis, on 25 July 2015 - 12:39 AM, said:

I am curious about the pistol/shield. Why zerk instead of, say, rabid or carrion?

Because I liked the ascended red skin. >.> It went with my outfit. Don't judge me. I'm not entirely sure it made much of a difference. It might have. Subconsciously I've been wanting more power in my build for a longtime. I'd really like to get some more inital power / burst without sacrificing too much condition dmg. For when playing against real players.  Sure I can keep applying the conditions, but I'd really like to add more pressure. So they can't easily cleanse and heal all my dmg away. I certainly feel like I'm doing a lot less dmg to real players since the patch.

[Blackthorn]

Aduah, on 25 July 2015 - 01:24 AM, said:

Because I liked the ascended red skin. >.> It went with my outfit.

Zesh and I spent time preparing builds this morning for later today. He's going with something similar to this, cept' he's full rabid and replacing the plex with Balthazar runes. Ought to be interesting ...

[Aduah]

If I wasnt running plex, I'd be running Balth. Balth is a good choice for Engineer, especially with this build. Its what I ran before I changed my runes to plex. TBH, I would have stuck with the Balth had I known the Plex isn't as OP as I thought it was(Because I'm bad at interrupting people) But, I use Burning and Confusion about equally. So either is a good choice.

[matthen]

Not a specific comment on your build...

Perplexity is OP against bads. However, it's still good on condition builds against decent players if: (1) you need cover conditions and don't have a high uptime on confusion; or (2) you are fighting someone who dishes out a lot of quick attacks... and therefore letting you dump out a lot of confusion procs if you catch them by surprise.

My favorite part about perplexity runes is that it trains you (as a player) to interrupt your opponents..  so, you may feel like you are bad at interrupting now, but after playing a perplexity build for a while, you should find that your proficiency with interrupting your opponents will improve. This will make you a better player (overall).

So, even if Bathazar runes are more cost effective, I think it makes a lot of sense to play with Perplexity for a while... at least as long as your wallet can afford it.

[KaiX]

Aduah, on 25 July 2015 - 01:24 AM, said:

Because I liked the ascended red skin. >.> It went with my outfit. Don't judge me.

One of us, One of us, One of us.  Yesss Fraani, embrace the fashion wars

Anyways, the build seems like it would do really well, though if you wat more power in your build and want to be less glassy(I'm assuming rabid is the glass of the condi world?) you could throw in a few pieces of carrion gear in your armor.  As for perplexity versus balthazar, personally I've used balthazar for a very long time on my engi and have always been a big supporter of it.  BURN ALL THE THINGS  Ahem, you might also want to try pistol/pistol just to mess around with it, blowtorch is really fun to use.

[Silvernis]

Rabid has toughness as a secondary stat, so it's not complete glass—though with the recent power creep, I'm not sure it makes as much difference as it used to.

Is blowtorch really any good? I tried it early on and found it missed more often than not, and then I went shield and never looked back.

[Aduah]

KaiX, on 27 July 2015 - 10:12 PM, said:

One of us, One of us, One of us.  Yesss Fraani, embrace the fashion wars

Anyways, the build seems like it would do really well, though if you wat more power in your build and want to be less glassy(I'm assuming rabid is the glass of the condi world?) you could throw in a few pieces of carrion gear in your armor.  As for perplexity versus balthazar, personally I've used balthazar for a very long time on my engi and have always been a big supporter of it.  BURN ALL THE THINGS  Ahem, you might also want to try pistol/pistol just to mess around with it, blowtorch is really fun to use.

I do. I dress all my toons in a very precise fashion. The thing is, I just dont change it once I find a look that I like.

As far as rabid goes it is not the glass you are looking for. Rabid is more bunker, than glass because toughness. Condi, Toughness, Precision.

I used to run Pistol/Pistol. I ran it for a short time after I went all condi, from whatever random armour I had on and a rifle. I realized I never used 4/5 on the pistol slot and the ability to blast my own fields plus knock back, daze, and reflect on shield is much more useful, than a couple more skills that put condi on, imo.

[Slein Jinn]

So Engineer is in an interesting spot post-23rd June.  This is by far the most radically changed profession, so much so that it's almost an entirely new class all together, and basically everything that we've always known about Engineer builds no longer applies.  Overall, the class is a bit more well-rounded; no longer as strong in sPvP/havocs nor as weak in larger-scale contexts.  Because of just how drastic the changes have been, Engineer remains the profession where exactly what is the best build is still the least clear.  

Setting aside large-scale WvW, there are several different strands of thought on Engineer builds floating around right now, and they all have merit.  There are some basics that are pretty well-established at this point, though.  The one thing that hasn't changed is that every good Engineer build is still based around a core of Tool Kit + Stunbreak: [Elixir S, Elixir Gun, or Slick Shoes] + Offensive Kit: [Grenades or Flamethrower].  Alchemy is the one trait line that's in basically every build, providing a lot of your sustain and utility.  After Alchemy, you need one defensive/mobility line, meaning one or the other from Tools and Inventions.  Tools is used if you have something that makes excellent use of Kinetic Battery--usually this means you're running Elixir S for your Stunbreak--and Inventions is generally favoured if you don't.  Finally, you round out the build with an offensive line: Explosives for Power builds or Firearms for Condition builds.  

Engineers have much less hybridised damage than they did pre-patch because of the rework to the Explosives and Firearms traits, so Celestial gear is much less a clear choice than it had been; Celestial is still viable--especially if you're running Bunker Down and Backpack Regenerator--but it's not clearly optimal.  Because Explosives lost Incendiary Powder, in order to have really hybridised damage now, you'd have to run both Explosives and Firearms together, but that's just not really viable defensively, especially without taking such tanky gear as would defeat the purpose in the first place.  This means that you're really building more around just one type of damage--Power or Conditions--than ever before.  This not only affects gear decisions, but also your Utility Skill choices.  Grenades no longer really work in Condition builds, but that's not as bad as it sounds, because Flamethrower is quite usable in condition builds now as long as you don't try to auto attack with it.  Bomb Kit still belongs firmly in PvE-land.  

Some other random notes:
- Elixir Gun was always the strongest choice of Stunbreak for 1v1's; this is even more true now, with three of its skills classed as Elixirs and thus benefiting from Alchemical Tinctures and HGH.  
- The synergy between Kinetic Battery, Toss Elixir S, Alchemical Tinctures, and HGH makes glassy Power builds substantially more viable than they had been in the past.  Engineer is a bona fide Stealth class rather than merely a class with some token access to Stealth now.  
- With trait support from Inventions, Med Kit is a perfectly viable heal skill for larger-scale play now.  
- Toss Elixir X is basically the single best counter to strong transforms like Rampage, Lich, and Plague now, with a much shorter cooldown than any of the skills you'd need to counter.  It's also really good for securing rezzes.

Maybe the most useful thing to do at this point is to look at the three builds that seem to make the most sense taking all the relevant synergies and interactions into account:
Glassy Power
Static Discharge is no longer really a staple of glassy Power-based Engineer builds.  Grenadier is now accessible to Berserker Engineers, making it harder to justify taking Rifle Turret over Grenade Kit in the first place.  Plus the aforementioned synergy between Toss Elixir S, Alchemical Tinctures, HGH, and Kinetic Battery means you're relying much more on Stealth than ever before, and Static Discharge will get you instantly revealed if you try to Toss Elixir S in a crowd.  

Variations:
- I've taken Backpack Regenerator with Runes of Vampirism; if you use a different rune set, you'd go for Self-Regulating Defenses instead, but unfortunately, it simply doesn't work to take them both--they just activate simultaneously.  Because Engineer makes excellent use of the Leeching proc from Vampirism as well, I think the sustain you get from the Leeching and Backpack Regenerator outweighs the benefits of switching to Hoelbrak or Pack, but you could consider this a matter of personal preference.  
- The relative merits of Reactive Lenses vs. Power Wrench are situational.  Power Wrench is the more well rounded trait, but when Reactive Lenses is good, it's really good.  With Reactive Lenses, Necromancers can't counter out your Elixir X Rampage with Plague, and it's great for hassle-free camp flipping, but Power Wrench is the more consistently strong option in general team fights.  
- Shrapnal and Thermobaric Detonation are about equally mediocre; you're not taking Explosives for the Grandmaster.  Thermobaric Detonation has the higher impact potential, and on paper it looks really strong, but it is far harder to control than Elementalists' Elemental Attunement, to the point that you can't really rely on it, so it's perfectly reasonable to opt for the Cripple and condition poke from Shrapnal if you prefer.  

Tanky Power
A rough and tumble bruiser in team fights, this build isn't the best at winning 1v1's, but it is absolutely excellent at not losing 1v1's.  

Variations:
- As ever, it's really difficult to get away from Runes of Vampirism, but getting some extra crit chance from Runes of the Pack to proc Bunker Down more frequently is also a strong choice, and it's hard to ever call Runes of Hoelbrak a bad option.  
- Elixir Gun has a ton to offer you in 1v1 situations, but it does make an already busy build even busier, bringing you up to four kits, plus it isn't as strong in team fights.  Slick Shoes remains an excellent combination of short-cooldown Stunbreak and strong setup CC.  I wouldn't recommend Elixir S, as it's the longest cooldown Stunbreak, you're less dependent upon the Invulnerability than you would be in a glassier build, and Bunker Down will get you revealed constantly when you try to use Toss Elixir S.  
- With tanky gear, Rampage doesn't make nearly the same impact, and Mortar Kit gives you a lot of utility and extra sustain, but Elixir X is still a viable option for the Elite, especially when you're in situations where you need the Toss Elixir X to counter out other strong Transforms.  
- If you do take Slick Shoes for your Stunbreak and Mortar Kit for your Elite, you'll likely want to drop HGH for Stimulant Supplier.  
- The choice of Soldier's vs. Celestial here is actually pretty interesting.  You'll get broadly similar overall damage out of either set, but Soldier's will give you more raw tankiness whereas Celestial will give you higher sustain.  Not only do the Med Kits from Bunker Down have strong Healing Power coefficients (as does Stimulant Supplier if you're running that), but the precision from Celestial also means you'll be triggering Bunker Down more frequently.  Backpack Regenerator also gains a lot from that Healing Power.  It may turn out that Celestial is stronger in 1v1's, but Soldier's is stronger in team fights.  

Flamethrower Conditions: Tools
Flamethrower Conditions: Inventions
The choice between Tools and Inventions is much the same as in the Power builds.  You can go Tools and build the synergy around Stealth with Toss Elixir S, or you can go Inventions and build more sustain with Elixir Gun.  I'd favour the Inventions variant, personally, because it'll do better in 1v1's, and Condition Engineer works better as a 1v1'er than it does in team fights overall.  Either way, the rest of the build plays pretty much the same.  You're getting the bulk of your burst from Incendiary Powder+Incendiary Ammo.  

Beyond the Tools vs. Inventions choice, there's not a whole lot of room for variation--most of the variations are built into that one choice.  
- One interesting choice you do have is whether to take Backpack Regenerator or Self-Regulating Defenses.  In general, sustain (Backpack Regenerator) is gains value in 1v1's, and burst negation (Self-Regulating Defenses) gains value in team fights.  Backpack Regenerator is weaker in Condition builds than in Power builds, though, because you can't camp kits as much as a Power build can--you need to spend more time on your Pistol--and they finally 'fixed' the nearly three-year-old bug-cum-feature that had Backpack Regenerator working as long as you had a Kit skill slotted, regardless of whether you currently had the Kit active.  We'll call this one a judgement call.  

*Note: I put these together in "PvP Mode" for simplicity's sake, but you can translate them to WvW just fine.

[Silvernis]

Some interesting food for thought. I haven't really done much with Alchemy since the patch, but I might tinker a bit. I'm running both Inventions and Tools at the moment (like so), and while I've been fairly satisfied with it, I can't help feeling that there might be a certain amount of needless overlap between the two.

[Slein Jinn]

Silvernis, on 04 August 2015 - 03:41 PM, said:

Some interesting food for thought. I haven't really done much with Alchemy since the patch, but I might tinker a bit. I'm running both Inventions and Tools at the moment (like so), and while I've been fairly satisfied with it, I can't help feeling that there might be a certain amount of needless overlap between the two.

Alchemy will give you much more than Tools with what you're running.  You've got Elixir Gun, which gains more from Alchemy than any other Utility you could run, and then you haven't got the traits that support it.  And you're not even cashing in on the main reason for running Tools--you haven't got Kinetic Battery, and you haven't got the main things it synergies with anyway.  Rocket Boots is also just a really weak skill; if they want it to be usable, they should make it a Stunbreak, make you CC immune while flying (it's really easy to Immobilise you in the air when you use Rocket Boots, and you're just fucked if that happens), and increase the cooldown by about 5-10s.  Even if they did that, though, you'd be looking at Rocket Boots as an alternative to Elixir Gun; Tool Kit is just infinitely stronger both offensively and defensively.  Fix those two things and you're golden.

EDIT: Hadn't noticed the runes.  Seriously, Balthazar is really cheap.  It'd be a huge upgrade for under one gold.

[Silvernis]

Slein Jinn, on 04 August 2015 - 04:03 PM, said:

Alchemy will give you much more than Tools with what you're running.  You've got Elixir Gun, which gains more from Alchemy than any other Utility you could run, and then you haven't got the traits that support it.  And you're not even cashing in on the main reason for running Tools--you haven't got Kinetic Battery, and you haven't got the main things it synergies with anyway.  Rocket Boots is also just a really weak skill; if they want it to be usable, they should make it a Stunbreak, make you CC immune while flying (it's really easy to Immobilise you in the air when you use Rocket Boots, and you're just fucked if that happens), and increase the cooldown by about 5-10s.  Even if they did that, though, you'd be looking at Rocket Boots as an alternative to Elixir Gun; Tool Kit is just infinitely stronger both offensively and defensively.  Fix those two things and you're golden.

EDIT: Hadn't noticed the runes.  Seriously, Balthazar is really cheap.  It'd be a huge upgrade for under one gold.

Does Super Elixir clear two condis on impact if I run Tinctures?

Anyhow, tool kit is indeed strong...and now that I think about it, I'm not entirely sure why I don't run it more often. I suppose EG and flamer are part of my core rotations—to the extent that I have rotations—so they're always on my bar, which only leaves me the third slot to experiment with. I like elixir S, and I find rocket boots to be very helpful (though you're right about it being easy to interrupt). Still, I should get more familiar with tool kit.

Are Balthazar runes really that good? I know burning is strong post-patch, but I can (re)apply it pretty regularly, so I'm not sure the duration boost is worth it—unless the idea is to get it stacking to increase the damage per tick? Even so, Undead gives me more toughness and overall condi damage.

[Slein Jinn]

Silvernis, on 04 August 2015 - 05:50 PM, said:

Does Super Elixir clear two condis on impact if I run Tinctures?

Should do.

Quote

Anyhow, tool kit is indeed strong...and now that I think about it, I'm not entirely sure why I don't run it more often. I suppose EG and flamer are part of my core rotations—to the extent that I have rotations—so they're always on my bar, which only leaves me the third slot to experiment with. I like elixir S, and I find rocket boots to be very helpful (though you're right about it being easy to interrupt). Still, I should get more familiar with tool kit.

Elixir S should interchange with Elixir Gun, not run alongside it.  They both fill the Stunbreak category in the "Tool Kit + Offensive Kit + Stunbreak" formula.  If you run two Stunbreaks, you miss out on something else you can't afford to do without.  

Quote

Are Balthazar runes really that good? I know burning is strong post-patch, but I can (re)apply it pretty regularly, so I'm not sure the duration boost is worth it—unless the idea is to get it stacking to increase the damage per tick? Even so, Undead gives me more toughness and overall condi damage.

They are.  It's not just considerably more damage from the burns you have, but also more sources of burning.  Your heal becomes a weapon, too.  And even the quickness proc can be handy for getting off clutch eleventh hour heals.

[matthen]

Slein Jinn, on 04 August 2015 - 02:43 PM, said:

- Elixir Gun was always the strongest choice of Stunbreak for 1v1's; this is even more true now, with three of its skills classed as Elixirs and thus benefiting from Alchemical Tinctures and HGH.  

EG 4,5, and F trigger HGH might, but not Alchemical Tinctures. Apparently, shooting elixirs does not count as "drink or throw". Checked.

[Slein Jinn]

matthen, on 05 August 2015 - 09:50 AM, said:

EG 4,5, and F trigger HGH might, but not Alchemical Tinctures. Apparently, shooting elixirs does not count as "drink or throw". Checked.

Well, apparently that was a bug.  

Quote

• Healing Mist: Fixed a bug that prevented this skill from correctly functioning with the Alchemical Tinctures trait.

Not sure about Acid Bomb and Super Elixir--they're not mentioned in the patch notes.  If I remember, I'll check in-game later.

[KaiX]

Slein Jinn, on 17 October 2015 - 05:51 PM, said:

Not sure about Acid Bomb and Super Elixir--they're not mentioned in the patch notes.  If I remember, I'll check in-game later.

just checked acid bomb and super elixir do function correctly with HGH and AT.