What spec to run with Grieving?

[nopoet.2960]

I have an engineer that I play occasionally who is currently wearing full Grieving armor.  I'm trying to figure out how to spec her to take advantage of those stats without buying more gear.  Any advice?  I have Holo and Scrapper unlocked but not Mech.  I'm not opposed to playing a core spec either.

[Stx.4857]

The best option for that I assume would be Holosmith because of the burning.  I would use flame legion runes with it.  Force/accuracy sigils.  

[Alcatraznc.3869]

Yeah Holosmith is going to be your best bet here. Mechanist will work as well if you later decide to get it but I wouldnt try Scrapper. It doesnt have much synergy going on with condition

[Calen.8945]

Holosmith is really your best bet. The other specs can only really do it with p/p. You should also use Firearms for the bleed on crit.

[nopoet.2960]

Holosmith it is! Thanks guys.

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

Grieving is a basically a Celestial gearset without any defense, and without expertise. What this means is, you need to run a class where you can max a single condition without using expertise. This works well for bleeding, burning, poison or torment damage especially, and the Scrapper is immediately out sadly.

 

Core Engineer, Holosmith and Machinist will all work very well.

 

Unfortunatley just maxing burning damage isn't going to work too well since most of Engi's condi damage is bleeding (pistol, bleed on crit, explosions trait, etc.). I would just throw condi duration out the window entirely and use Berserker runes, Sigil of Force, Sigil of Bursting, power/condi food and both signets on Machinist, and primarily take strike damage traits except for the few needed to inflict bleeding and burning. I've used this before and easily hit 20k auto-attacking on golem with the old rifle or the new pistol.

 

That said if you mix in some Celestial trinkets for the expertise, you can max both burning and bleeding with the right trait, rune, sigil and food combination, and that works too.

Edited March 6, 2023 by SoftFootpaws.9134

[Sindust.7059]

If you don't have mech, go holo. Scrapper doesn't work with condi stats. But going condi mech would probably be the superior choice if you can get it. I in fact just tried grieving stats on mine with tempest runes and a sigil of malice to compensate for the lack of condi duration. 30k is easy with it, and I'm playing a simplified rotation (without bomb kit, and with pistol autos as filler instead of grenade kit 1).

[Stalima.5490]

Flamethrower scrapper? You like power precis fero and have the burning to want the condition damage, you can always use something like a flame legion rune to give 50% burning duration here to make up that expertise.

At least thats something I was experimenting with recently.

 

I have my concerns over napalm tho, it's damage is actually rather pathetic since the nerf for a 25 second cooldown

Edited March 6, 2023 by Stalima.5490

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

I would've gone with Mechanist for a full griever setup.  Something like this.  I could only get it to 45% condition duration.  Jury is out on whether it is better to go with Chemical Rounds or High Caliber, since High Caliber increases strike damage by 8% while Chemical Rounds increases the damage of Blowtorch by 33% (which is quite a lot).  Mechanist would be the best spec to go with, since the mace and the mech both do hybrid damage.  That means they benefit from having both strike damage and condition damage, so it would be a natural fit.  

[Sindust.7059]

8 hours ago, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

I could only get it to 45% condition duration

Thermal Vision (firearms) gives 10%. Serrated Steel (firearms) +33% bleeding. Incendiery Powder (firearms) +33% fire. Chemical Rounds (fierarms) +33% on pistol skills, which you should take if you play with pistols.

 

So without any build adjustments you have at least 43% on both bleeding and fire, and depending on your build another 33% for the pistol. So you'll be at 76% condi duration for pistol 1 and 4, and 43% for pistol 2 and 3. Then add Rune of the Tempest with its 25% condi duration and additional expertise from the all stat bonuses that I'm too lazy to do the math on, the Sigil of Malice with its 10%, and buff food with about another 5% and you get:

Pistol 1 and 4: at least 16% over the cap

Pistol 2 and 3: at least 83% (+expertise from the runes)

All other bleeding and burning (for example from grenade kit): at least 83% (+expertise from the runes)

All other condis (for example grenade kit 5): at least 50%

 

Engis get a ton of condi duration from passives. That's why the meta build uses Rune of  the Elementalist which only gives 10% condi duration.