Want to play an Engi (PvE) - Lot's of questions.

Greetings,

after getting a little bit bored by playing necro all the time and trying out some classes with the boost in sw and the pvp lobby i decide to give the engi a shot and start with him for a second main.

So now on the leveling process i want to learn this whole kit swapping thing from the beginning.My goal is to complete 100% map, story and playing event's and non premade group stuff also doing some T1/2 fractals from time to time. I'm mostly playing solo. The build i want to use should be a powerbuild. I played condi most of the time on my necro can't see it anymore.

So first of all what kits are a must have on a powerbuild?And what traits should i unlock first? (I'm having a hard time leveling a mesmer in case of choosing the wrong traits first, that's the reason why i'm asking about this)When i'm trying around i really like the flamethrower, so can i use it later on for a powerbuild?Haven't see any turretbuild, are they that weak? They seems fun to me.

Also looking for some builds and it seems Holosmith is the way to go these days. But honestly i'm not really liking this so much. Reminds me somehow on my reaper main ^^How is scrapper with Hammer or rifle atm for solo open world, story, mapmeta? And are these gyros usefull? I like them classfantsy wise pretty much.Can i build a proper solo build on scrapper to increase my solo surviveabilty to get things done?

Also i'm curious about why there seems only a few engis out there. On par with rev i can count them on one hand. Really don't see them often. Holo more often than core/scrapper. Are they so hard to play? Just interested in the case why this class sems so unpopular in pve. I will level one up and play it even if u told me it's the worst class in the game :-)

oh boy, welcome to the engineering world!

So:

• If you want a power build Rifle is the way to go, but most of the time you are only gonna use the skills 3 and 5, you can use 4 in a reliable way if you have stability or a cc break to combo with it.

• The most important kit to get first is the grenade kit, hands down, ranged, and great damage regardless of, if you build is power or condi, casting their aoe's gets tedious though, as you are gonna be using them a lot, go to to the settings and put those aoe casts in instant mode (they will land where your cursor is pointing at).

• Priority trait to get is tools firstly, it offers an auto cc break, perma swiftness, endurance improvement or an upgrade to your gadgets if you plan to run one or two.

• Unfortunately there's isn't any kind of turret builds due to several aspects:

  1. They die easily if planned to be stayed for a while.
  2. Their effects aren't worth it due to the long time recasts they have, for the utility they give, 4 or 3 secs of reloading is unacceptable.
  3. If you plan them for damage, anet has set the turrets critical hit chance at 0%, that along with the long reload time just makes them underwhelming at the dps task aswell, the only exception is the Rifle turret, but it's taken for the toolbelt skill not for the turret itself.
  4. With all this said, the healing turret is an engineering bless, the only turret worth it to take, you can never go wrong with this healing option.

• You can use scrapper as a survival spec, the hammer trades a slight piece of damage for a better survival improvement, the gyros are useless in their current state though, keep the kits.

The problem with Engi's low population, it's less about complexity nowadays and it's more about people finding Engi thematically speaking a boring or meh class compared to the rest of the professions.

But believe me, if you start liking Engi, you will eventually fall in love with this class, one of us, one of us!

@Ivantreil.3092 said:The problem with Engi's low population, it's less about complexity nowadays and it's more about people finding Engi thematically speaking a boring or meh class compared to the rest of the professions.

But believe me, if you start liking Engi, you will eventually fall in love with this class, one of us, one of us!

Most engis I meet in game don't really squeeze out everything the class has to offer. Most either do jugger FT camping scrapper or one of the no kit variants (like full turrets), fairly braindead but shallow builds considering the depth kits give to everything.

I agree with what you say though, once you fall in love with engi it's an amazing and unique experience.

One of us! One of us!

@SunTzu.4513 said:Greetings,

after getting a little bit bored by playing necro all the time and trying out some classes with the boost in sw and the pvp lobby i decide to give the engi a shot and start with him for a second main.

Big commitment, make sure you're ready for it.

So now on the leveling process i want to learn this whole kit swapping thing from the beginning.My goal is to complete 100% map, story and playing event's and non premade group stuff also doing some T1/2 fractals from time to time. I'm mostly playing solo. The build i want to use should be a powerbuild. I played condi most of the time on my necro can't see it anymore.

So first of all what kits are a must have on a powerbuild?

Power build, you're talking a rifle holosmith, with bomb kit + grenade kit. Both bomb kit and grenade kit will serve you well. Bomb kit is a little easier to learn and get used to.

And what traits should i unlock first? (I'm having a hard time leveling a mesmer in case of choosing the wrong traits first, that's the reason why i'm asking about this)

Traits... explosives or firearms for damage, tools or alchemy for more defensive/utility.

When i'm trying around i really like the flamethrower, so can i use it later on for a powerbuild?

Juggernaut builds do exist, but their damage is subpar. It is pretty easy though. FT is supposed to be a condition kit, but it has some use as a power weapon.

Haven't see any turretbuild, are they that weak? They seems fun to me.

Except for Healing Turret, the turrets are godawful. Their cooldowns are excessively long, their damage is subpar, and they're not movable.

How is scrapper with Hammer or rifle atm for solo open world, story, mapmeta? And are these gyros usefull? I like them classfantsy wise pretty much.Can i build a proper solo build on scrapper to increase my solo surviveabilty to get things done?

Scrapper has more survivability, but less damage. Gyros are not particularly useful in PvE. However, scrapper is pretty good for soloing.

Also i'm curious about why there seems only a few engis out there. On par with rev i can count them on one hand. Really don't see them often. Holo more often than core/scrapper. Are they so hard to play? Just interested in the case why this class sems so unpopular in pve. I will level one up and play it even if u told me it's the worst class in the game :-)

Several reasons:

• Many skills and traits work counterintuitively.
• All of the interesting skills are generally not that good.
• Many of the traits are outdated/useless.
• Kit swapping is complicated, and other classes can do as much DPS for much less effort.
• Devs generally ignore engineer until the problem is too visible to ignore. Either we're so OP that they can't ignore us, or something is so awful that they can't ignore it. But we very rarely get the attention that other classes get.

Ty all for your answers and advices. Atm i'm around lvl 20 and i enjoy to play my asura engi. Running around dropping bombs and throwing granades is quite fun.

After my first thought to play only a powerbuild im rethinking this atm. All of the kits seems to come with a lot of condis over all. Even the Rifle wich i see as a power weapon applies bleeding with an skill. But the condi rotations seems pretty hard to learn for me. On the other hand i will never raid or doing speedclear fractal or other highend pve stuff. So maybe i can try a little bit easier rotation for me. Seems a hard descition to make for me between condi or power in the end.

Edit:

How can i use the second turretskill to overcharge? If i'm placeing them i only get an detonateskill on my utillityslot. The Beltslot also is not changeing into the overloadskill. So what am i doing wrong?

@"SunTzu.4513" said:Ty all for your answers and advices. Atm i'm around lvl 20 and i enjoy to play my asura engi. Running around dropping bombs and throwing granades is quite fun.

After my first thought to play only a powerbuild im rethinking this atm. All of the kits seems to come with a lot of condis over all. Even the Rifle wich i see as a power weapon applies bleeding with an skill. But the condi rotations seems pretty hard to learn for me. On the other hand i will never raid or doing speedclear fractal or other highend pve stuff. So maybe i can try a little bit easier rotation for me. Seems a hard descition to make for me between condi or power in the end.

Edit:

How can i use the second turretskill to overcharge? If i'm placeing them i only get an detonateskill on my utillityslot. The Beltslot also is not changeing into the overloadskill. So what am i doing wrong?

We used to have a dedicated button for the overcharge skill of the turrets, but they removed them so we can keep the toolbelt skills all the time, the overcharges now happen automatically as soon as you deploy them, and they activate only once, no more overcharge until it's destroyed and placed again.

True, we have many skills with condi related damage, but don't let them fool you, some are still great when used in power, for example, Fire Bomb it's a dps win even if you are power based; or they are actually bad, for example, [blunderbuss](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Blunderbuss ''https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Blunderbuss'') and Fumigate deliver a very low condi damage, even if you gear up for condi, due to the low scaling setting anet has put on them.

Don't worry about finding Condi Engi scary to play, we have simplified version of the rotation, wich will still deliver a great amount of dps for an easier rotation to memorize, give it a look ;P

As you can see from the video you only have to go trough your kits from right to left, use pistols, and repeat.

As you can see from the video you only have to go trough your kits from right to left, use pistols, and repeat.

Ty for that vid. This seems pretty manageable to me :-) Till 80 i will stick to power it serves me well at the moment. I think i also will gear first with an powersetup. It's way easier to get than viper/sinister imo. After this i will give the condi engi a try. But this lays in the futur. I'm lvl 35 at the moment but till now i just have blast playing engi. Never thought blowing everything up could be soooo much fun at all.

One of us! One of us!

Condi engi (IMO) is more survivable, but it takes more skill to operate effectively. The other night I was soloing pretty much every dungeon's story mode on my condi engi (not that I had much choice, LOL). Holosmith has more raw power damage, but can't handle the trash mobs quite as well.

I'm now at lvl 68 and i think tomorrow leveling will be done. Have seen a interresting vid on YT. Some guy as scrapper using some kind of commanders gear mixed with zerker and runes for boonduration. Could not see the skilltraits on the vid, but he get a lot of boons up for quite a while and an insane amount of quickness. I think i'll try something like this. Have already farmed enough map currency to buy a new set of trinkets. Zerker and viper are already waiting in my chest. So i can buy a few commander trinkets. Can't wait to go into the jungel and meet my fisrt pack of pocket raptors!

@"SunTzu.4513" said:I'm now at lvl 68 and i think tomorrow leveling will be done. Have seen a interresting vid on YT. Some guy as scrapper using some kind of commanders gear mixed with zerker and runes for boonduration. Could not see the skilltraits on the vid, but he get a lot of boons up for quite a while and an insane amount of quickness. I think i'll try something like this. Have already farmed enough map currency to buy a new set of trinkets. Zerker and viper are already waiting in my chest. So i can buy a few commander trinkets. Can't wait to go into the jungel and meet my fisrt pack of pocket raptors!

It's highly likely that's the drunk engineer build. It's kind of a one-off build for PvP/WvW, not so great for PvE. I only recommend it if you want to screw with people. :P

https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Scrapper_-_Drunk_Engineer

@"SunTzu.4513" said:I'm now at lvl 68 and i think tomorrow leveling will be done. Have seen a interresting vid on YT. Some guy as scrapper using some kind of commanders gear mixed with zerker and runes for boonduration. Could not see the skilltraits on the vid, but he get a lot of boons up for quite a while and an insane amount of quickness. I think i'll try something like this. Have already farmed enough map currency to buy a new set of trinkets. Zerker and viper are already waiting in my chest. So i can buy a few commander trinkets. Can't wait to go into the jungel and meet my fisrt pack of pocket raptors!

Yep, must be Drunk Engi, the build offers great survivability and it has a very straightfoward playstyle, you use elixirs on cd and you get massive amounts of boons, and you use your rifle skills on cd, and aa all your way trought your enemies, it got me to the spot 62 of the season with this build, but while the survivability is great, the damage is mediocre in terms for pve, it deals around 4K - 6K of dps, a condi engi with 0 boons or food will still deal more damage than this build.

Unless you love the AA gameplay, i recommend sticking with condi engi for pve, i do however recommend it if you wanna try pvp and you are looking for an easy build to play with.

I'm thinking about something like this for open world, meta events and fractals:

gw2skills.net/editor/?vdAQFASlUUhSsY5VwWLQ7FL3FFYDGhBA9q365u4B9D5AA-jBSGQBDUpnCuAAfc/hhoMgM6AAwDAAQq/IFlgkCIwxAA-e

Earring/rings with commander stats rest of the gear with zerker.

@"SunTzu.4513" said:I'm thinking about something like this for open world, meta events and fractals:

gw2skills.net/editor/?vdAQFASlUUhSsY5VwWLQ7FL3FFYDGhBA9q365u4B9D5AA-jBSGQBDUpnCuAAfc/hhoMgM6AAwDAAQq/IFlgkCIwxAA-e

Earring/rings with commander stats rest of the gear with zerker.

Mmm, i would recommend to swap the flamethrower for the bomb kit, the only power based ability left in the ft is the aa, and unless you play a build around it, you are gonna find his use in the other skills underwhelming, for the rest, it seems very ok imo.

The thing that really helped things click for me with Power Engineer in PvE was turning off the Rifle AA so that it didn't fire off when I didn't want it to and really learning that the Jump shot/blunderbuss/swap to bombs combo was my melee attack/gap closer. After that, then it was a matter of working in whatever additional kit(s) (Holosmith for me, sometimes grenades as well if I don't need any other utilities) wanted to use. I basically run the meta power rifle Holosmith build, full berserker stats, but ECM instead of PBM, with grenade kit swapped out for another utility (typically Elixir Gun for the stun break/regen tool belt skill, sometimes Rocket boots when I want more mobility, sometimes Elixir S for stealth).

As much as I wanted the hammer (Scrapper) to work, I just couldn't play it as effectively as Holosmith/core Engineer. I also found the Gyros to be ineffective in most situations. Good luck and welcome to the Engineer!

@stone cold.8609 said:The thing that really helped things click for me with Power Engineer in PvE was turning off the Rifle AA so that it didn't fire off when I didn't want it to and really learning that the Jump shot/blunderbuss/swap to bombs combo was my melee attack/gap closer. After that, then it was a matter of working in whatever additional kit(s) (Holosmith for me, sometimes grenades as well if I don't need any other utilities) wanted to use. I basically run the meta power rifle Holosmith build, full berserker stats, but ECM instead of PBM, with grenade kit swapped out for another utility (typically Elixir Gun for the stun break/regen tool belt skill, sometimes Rocket boots when I want more mobility, sometimes Elixir S for stealth).

As much as I wanted the hammer (Scrapper) to work, I just couldn't play it as effectively as Holosmith/core Engineer. I also found the Gyros to be ineffective in most situations. Good luck and welcome to the Engineer!

Yes!, turning off rifle auto is a great thing to do so you are not stuck mid auto animation by accident ever. You can also turn kit autos separately if you wish to do so or set other skills as autos (FT2 for example so you just detonate the ball while doing Condi engi)

Greetings guys,

hitting lvl 80 yesterday. Also unlocked scrapper. The HoT maps were easier than i mention it. Most of the HP were easy to solo. I will defenetly stick with the engi. The playstyle is so much fun also pretty versatile imo. Even my mesmer wich is my daily quests char seems boring in comparison to the engi. I also tried a core condispec with some cheap charrion equip. It was pretty fun too. So i will now gear up full ascendet zerker and viper.

Thx for all of your advices and help!

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vdQQJAqelcThyrY1VwWLw6FL3FlYB9D5QYNFQZGYDGhBAA-jByEABCqEUR1fY+EAg/+DAcgAcTPhBPQAnU+tO4AYqGFMaqM1UTN1UT1AGN1SHN1SHd0RTVKgLWsB-e

I still use core engineer. Roaming PvE and WvW using the flamethrower juggernaut build. I devastates the enemies. Also, the build is darn near unkillable.