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Bit by the engineering bug, would love a hand with developing this silly specialized build for WvW


Fungling.5742

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Hey guys, so after being intimidated by the reputation for complexity engineers have, I finally said "screw it" and started one, and I wish I'd done it sooner, because this thing is a blast to play.

I'd love some insight on how to complete this specific character, as it's almost there but not quite. Here's the build in its current state.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PeQAQlNgZxCZp44/8n+A-zVIUfUwDA-w

You'll notice a few things are missing, and that's where I'd like to get some help. Basically, I'm not looking to be a frontline god or to go out roaming in search of duels and whatnot. I want to run around zerg skirmishes healing people (hence the medkit and cleric's gear), and when there's a disengage switch to the mortar kit. The Elixir U and Rocketboots are mostly just to save my butt in a pinch, although the toolbelt Elixir U is nice for buffing allies as well. No idea what runes or weapon sigils to go with, although boosting healing further would be nice.

Here's the thing that I'd also like to be able to do, and that's where the problems come in. From time to time a supply camp might open up and I'd like to be able to go solo it quickly and efficiently. I'm open to running a second set of gear and specializations if it'll help me do this, but for some reason I think it would be ABSOLUTELY HILARIOUS if I could fill the gaps in the current build to accomplish that. (Like, if I'm just going to be swapping that sort of stuff, I could probably do a healing <--> condi guardian build of some sort instead, but then I wouldn't have so many fun engineering toys to play with)

So, given that, here's the challenge. I want to be a tanky healer build that can also take down a solo camp and run away if needed. Currently with Cleric's I've got above-average power, but in trying to run the Bomb Kit I'm not overly thrilled with the results. I feel like the flamethrower ought to be better in taking a camp down, but I don't know if that means I should switch to condi or hybrid or celestial or whatnot, and if I do THAT, I don't know what it does to the effectiveness of the mortar kit (although, while fun, it doesn't seem to be doing as much work with cleric's gear). I also don't know if grenades are better, or if I should be relying on the default weapon, or if I need to switch to the supply crate for the camp anyway, or what...

Any advice?

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You don't have runes specced out on that build you linked. If you want to retain healing power and have some damage I'd look into mixing in something with a bit of precision such as Marshal's stats (power+healing power, precision/condition damage minor stats). If you don't need heavy cleansing or healing, heal turret or medic gyro (scrapper) would be more useful as you can remain on offense while healing (of course don't run full heal stats with those). You can also run bomb kit (melee range with 5 targets)/ grenade kit if it's for camps.

1800 power is rather low and on par with celestial without runes, which has the highest stat totals but overall not that high damage or healing. Celestial actually has around 35% critical chance and more critical damage (192% before runes) so the damage is higher than your currently linked build.

Rifle has very low damage even on full zerk in WvW/PvP unless you're in full melee range (almost all its damage is from Jump Shot on 20 cooldown unless you have condition damage attributes to make use of Blunderbuss), so it's probably best to use grenades as a kit/"weapon swap" if you're going for a hybrid damage/support build just for PvE-type mobs (i.e. camps) rather than aiming to hit players with the grenade projectile. To obtain decent damage you'll need precision/ferocity and condition damage though.

Due to the healing scaling I would advise looking into the coefficients of skills you use (readily available on the wiki and you can double check each one with the API link). Is it a 0.5 coefficient? 1.0? If it's 0.5 then the scaling is half that of a 1.0 coefficient skill. If the base heal is a high number, it may not even be worth it to invest more than 500 or 600 heal power when not in a organized squad 10+.

Because your build isn't running Purity of Purpose with Elixir Gun or Purge Gyro I would not use any concentration stats for boon duration. I would put some more stats into condition damage if running grenades/pistol+shield or power and precision if running mortar+grenade/rifle.

As far as skills go, Elixir U is okay but it's mainly used on scrappers for added superspeed and stunbreaks on allies. Rocketboots has little to no use in WvW unless you're roaming however. Mortar kit is usually superior to supply crate after the Feb 25 patch since the initial damage on supply crate has been removed. Mortar kit has one of the highest ranges in the game.

Typically only DPS scrappers in marauder gear with a hammer run the bomb kit, since the minstrel or healing type scrappers don't have any ferocity or precision.

edit: P.S. Veteran Guards in WvW have around 2600 armor level so any tooltip ingame (based off 2597 armor) should be roughly the damage you deal before crit. If you have 5% crit chance and no damage modifiers such as sigil of force (in your case +10% from Big boomer and +7% from Glass Cannon when >75% health) then it's more or less the damage output you can expect (i.e. most things will be <2K damage).

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Thanks so much for your feedback! I really appreciate it.

Runes: Yeah, I left out the runes (and sigils and upgrades) because the way I see it that's one of the potential gaps that I need to fill. Currently I've got 6 Divinity runes going -- I felt like I needed something in there, but wasn't sure what, so I figured I couldn't go wrong with the extra health at least.

Going to celestial gear: I've been considering this. The only thing holding me back from it is that I want to run at least something with full healing power, even if it's a secondary gear set + template. At some point I'll have to do a math breakdown and figure out what I'm gaining by going full healing instead of celestial, but for right now I was mostly wondering what I could leverage from either a cleric's set or an apothecary set.

From your point of view, is bomb kit not worth it if your character never really crits? If that's the case, would switching from power to condi and then going flamethrower for supply camps make more sense? ("making more sense" being relative, of course, since what I'm trying to do is pretty silly)

EDIT: Sorry, just saw your edit. Where does one get those numbers from? I was looking around the wiki for it and couldn't find it, but maybe I was looking in the wrong spots...?

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Well just try it? Clerics should be fairly cheap to get and changing your traits+skills is free. Maybe you'll like it maybe you wont. There are lots of builds and classes to try, that's the joy of GW2.

Its not something I would personally recommend though. I've tried the "healer bunker" before and simple fact is you loose too much damage to be effective - especially if you go power and core. The rifle is just weak. I would say that once in the past it did sort of work on the scrapper, but after all the nerfs... not anymore. Purity of purpose and all that shit. Ultimately, you cant really heal your way through fights when there are enemy builds that will curbstomp you.

I would also say that condi is a better option if it's core and healing you want, since you got space for it (just swap explosives). It also mesh much better with using medkit as you want to be doing damage while in the kit. But there is no expertise and healing gear really, you loose a huge chunk of condi duration. And you wont be able to fit much vitality in there either, apothecary compared to a trailblazer/dire build is something like 8k less hp and trust me - those 8k extra hp will probably help you better than any healing power.

You may also want to consider that core engie is a pretty terrible skirmish healer. Why? Because all healing is very short range. In a pug skirmish people wont just stack and facetank the enemy, in fact most will probably be trying to range each other or teleport around. You will spend most of your time being utterly useless chasing your allies around trying to get in range. It works for a meta guild group of ~5, but not just randomly running around and "helping allies". When doing that, you're gonna help them much more by actually killing the enemies.

Protip if you dont like it - save the trinkets for warrior, clerics with shout healing is actually a decent pug spec to run around with... and the rifle is 10x better because it's an actual rifle using the ammo system and not a shitty shotgun, lol.

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  • 2 months later...

I'd say swap out explosives for tools, 313, Change inventions up 131, and swap rifle for pistol and shield. For the empty slot, I'd say toolkit, as crowbar can really ruin your day, and you have an extra block, should you need it. You can also swap out elixir u for elixir gun, gaining a stunbreak on a shorter cooldown, and basically be the king of protection with skill 2 and skill 5.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PegAo6lNw+YWsQWKe6SfrbA-zVIUf4BA-whttp://gw2skills.net/editor/?PegAo6lNw+YesQWKe6SfrbA-zVIUf4BA-w

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The problem is going hyrbid. It will not be very good at either role. This also means you won't be a first choice for teams because you can't support as well as a dedicated support, and you can't DPS as well as a dedicated DPS.

Heals on scrapper are pretty good, but they are not bursty. You'll have a hard time saving someone that's at 25% health and taking sustained damage. So your impact running to people in need and then running to engage runners, etc. will not be that great imo.

I do think it's effective to tank up a bit in a DPS scrapper role, especially when pugging. I think you'll be in for disappointment trying to do both DPS and Healing.

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