Question is pistol condi?

[Axl.8924]

I tried engi out from level 1 and you start with pistol.

 

First 2 things i get are: bleed and then poison multi shot then after that blind on pistol.

 

 

 

[Joxer.6024]

yup...all the way

[Kodama.6453]

They are condi, yeah. Is pistol mainhand actually good at condi? No. Mainhand pistol sucks.

Offhand is cool, tho. Blowtorch is a really strong condi skill.

[Silinsar.6298]

Main hand Pistol is mostly utility / filler to use between kits or forge. Its (auto attack) damage really isn't great.

[Axl.8924]

For strictly leveling from 0-80 is it better to go power or condi, and i'm talking before unlocking all stuff.

 

Game put me with pistol as starter so should i go get torch or whatever? 

[Dawdler.8521]

47 minutes ago, Axl.8924 said:

For strictly leveling from 0-80 is it better to go power or condi, and i'm talking before unlocking all stuff.

 

Game put me with pistol as starter so should i go get torch or whatever? 

Unless you really really power level with TP bought yellows at every 10 level or something, power is better for every class because the condi stats on sub 80 gear is garbage. Pistol power scaling is even worse garbage though.

[Eekasqueak.7850]

Just use a rifle instead. 

[Koensol.5860]

8 hours ago, Kodama.6453 said:

They are condi, yeah. Is pistol mainhand actually good at condi? No. Mainhand pistol sucks.

Offhand is cool, tho. Blowtorch is a really strong condi skill.

Imagine promoting pistol offhand. Literally one of the most dogtier weapons in the game.

[Axl.8924]

I went with rifle is there a decent way to build up might for engi for power?

[Infusion.7149]

Pistol is condi but you want to run grenades for a condi build (or basically any engineer build that orients towards DPS) however.

[Axl.8924]

Is rifle viable now for power after the UH changes?

[Kodama.6453]

3 hours ago, Axl.8924 said:

Is rifle viable now for power after the UH changes?

Not sure what you mean with UH, but rifle is still viable, yeah.

Rifle power mechanist lost alot of it's damage over all these nerfs, but you can still finish pretty much any content with it.
The other 2 elite specs are better with their elite spec weapon for power builds, tho (hammer scrapper and sword holosmith respectively).

[Hindenburg.3415]

8 hours ago, Kodama.6453 said:

Not sure what you mean with UH, but rifle is still viable, yeah.

Rifle power mechanist lost alot of it's damage over all these nerfs, but you can still finish pretty much any content with it.
The other 2 elite specs are better with their elite spec weapon for power builds, tho (hammer scrapper and sword holosmith respectively).

 

Yes,  you can. But as it is not listed on SC now because it has like 30k dps or something ( on a q herald level ) some people can refuse to accept p mech as dps in their groups.

 

[Axl.8924]

You guys did say go for mechanist first right?
 

 

[Coolster.2536]

On 1/15/2023 at 5:42 AM, Axl.8924 said:

I went with rifle is there a decent way to build up might for engi for power?

You can take Pinpoint Distribution in Firearms for permanent 5 Might. Using Blunderbuss off cooldown means you can easily maintain 10 Might stacks on yourself. You can also use Sigil of Strength and Runes of the Pack or Runes of the Privateer to reach 25 stacks of Might.

On 1/16/2023 at 6:27 PM, Axl.8924 said:

You guys did say go for mechanist first right?
 

 

Power Mech is easy to play and you won't have to gear out a new weapon if you're transitioning from Core, so you won' go wrong with unlocking Mechanist first.

[Koensol.5860]

On 1/18/2023 at 11:44 PM, Coolster.2536 said:

You can take Pinpoint Distribution in Firearms for permanent 5 Might. Using Blunderbuss off cooldown means you can easily maintain 10 Might stacks on yourself. You can also use Sigil of Strength and Runes of the Pack or Runes of the Privateer to reach 25 stacks of Might.

@Axl.8924 In addition to the above, there's loads of other ways to generate might stacks on engineer. I'll sum them up below.

Combo's finishers:
Engineer is a combo heavy class. You have a lot of combo fields and finishers to utilize. For might, you want to use your blast finishers in your fire fields. Every blast finisher that you use inside your fire field, will generate 3 might for 9 seconds duration. Using a leap finisher into your fire field is also a good idea, as it will grant you a fire aura, which will generate might when you are hit by enemies. The nice thing about blasting fire fields, is that it allows you to stack might pre combat.

Kits/utilities that have fire fields are: flamethrower, bombkit and flame turret's toolbelt. If you use both flamethrower and bombkit (both are good condi kits for pve) then you will have 2 fire fields: flamethrower 4 and bombkit 2. Bombkit 2 has a very low cd and is your bread and butter fire field. These kits will also give you 2 blast finishers: flamethrower 2 and bomb kit's toolbelt. Especially flamethrower 2 is nice as it has good burns and a low cd. Other blast finishers can come from: offhand shield 4, medkit 5, mortar kit's toolbelt f5, throw mine, thumper turret, thumper turret's toolbelt, elixirgun 4, rocket boots. Destroying any turret is also a blast finisher. So as you can see, you have loads of options here, depending on what you want to use. 

Traits and Gear:

1. In firearms you have access to Sanguine Array, which gives you might for each bleed stack imflincted. This is a GREAT passive for might generation. Your sources of bleeds are: 33% on crits, pistol 1, elixirgun 1, grenade 2, toolkit 2. In explosives there's also a grandmaster trait called 'shrapnel', which inflicts a bleed on 33% of explosions. This synergizes very well with grenade kit and the sanguine array trait. As with grenades you throw multiple at once, so you have a big chance of proccing shrapnel bleeds which then give you might from sanguine array.
   Another really good synergy with sanguine array is the sigil of geomancy. This sigil inflicts 3 stacks of bleeding on nearby foes for 8 seconds when you weapon or kit swap in combat. And because sanguine array has no ICD, if you swap to another kit in combat while fighting 5 mobs, you will get 15 stacks of might instantly. I'd highly recommend this sigil for open world condi builds if you want to generate a lot of might stacks. 
   Rune of the krait works in a similar way, and synergizes well with mortar kit as it allows you to proc it on cd. It will proc 1 bleed on all enemies around you when swapping to mortar for additional might stacks, will also inflict tormet and poison, while increasing your bleed duration by 50% for higher uptime on firearms bleed on crit passive. Overall a good choice for open world pve.
   In firearms we also have the grandmaster trait 'juggernaut', which grants 1 might stack on a 3 sec interval permanently when having flamethrower equiped. It also gives you permanent stability. I wouldn't recommend this trait if you play multiple kits though, as the uptime will fall off rapidly. The burn duration + burn proc from incendiary power is better for condi. 
2. In alchemy you have hidden flask and HGH as traits that grant might. Especially HGH is a good trait, as it gives you 2 might on every use of an elixir, and increases the duration of the elixir's effects. This counts for elixirgun skills 4 and 5, and for mortar 5 as well. So when using elixirgun 4 blast finisher inside a firefield, you will not only get the 3 might from the blast finisher, but also an additional 2 might from HGH. This trait also synergizes really well with elixir B, as it grants might of itself, which gets its duration increased from HGH.
3. In Inventions you have the trait called experimental turrets. This trait grants boons depending on which turret you have up. For the flame turret you are granted 3 might every 10 seconds. You'll have to keep the turret active though, for it to work. The elite skill supply crate also contains a flame turret, which works with this trait as well.

So all in all, if you combine some of the above options into a functional build, you will have no problem at all generating 25 might stacks in combat. For open world, I'd advise something along the lines of this for a condi core engi build that can maintain high might stacks: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PegAo6lNw6YcMPWKO8L2pOA-zxIY1ohvMqsAKNB8ZWe0ZDA-e
This is more of a hybrid build tbh, but most of the damage will come from condi. Hybrids work very well for engineer as many of your kits skills do both power and condi damage. This variant has good damage, tankyness and resustain. If you want to play grenades in stead of bomb kit and enjoy the shrapnel + sanguine array synergy, do make sure to pick shrapnel over big boomer in explosive's grandmaster traits. Personally I prefer bomb kit for open world, as it has more utility with a low cd fire field, a pulsing smoke field which blinds and can be used for stealth stacking, an AoE root and a big CC from it's toolbelt for break bar boss fights.
You can also go for a more risky variant and swap out elixirun for grenade kit, and take tools instead of alchemy. In that case I'd go like this: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PegAo6lNw6YcMNWKOcL2rKA-zxIY1ohvMqsAKNB8ZWe0ZDA-e 
Tools grants access to quickness with kinetic battery, and with the streamlined kits trait when swapping to flamethrower, it will grant you a fire aura which is good damage + might generation when fighting multiple enemies, and it will grant you permanent swiftness. Keep in mind this setup has a lot less passive healing, less boon duration and has no stunbreak. You'll be faster though, and do more damage from range.

This post became a lot longer than I initially planned, but I hope it will help you and give you some inspiration 🙂

Edited January 20, 2023 by Koensol.5860