After spending some time last week putting together a list of things I’d like to see changed about my favorite grenade-toting profession, I figured it was time to start making suggestions that could be used by the people who read the AETA Field Survival Guide, instead of making suggestions to the almighty Overlords of the AETA. So I pondered life, love, and why breakfast cereal gets better with age, despite being perishable. In this, I discovered something about the Mad Scientist Tentral. Being a Charr, lots of people fear me. Being an Engineer, even more think I’m crazy. Putting them together, and aside from my wonderful AETA supporters, I don’t make a lot of friends. Most of my friends are giant yellow fireballs or oil slick-deploying boots. These friends come and go (explosions more often than others) but one friend who’s always stuck by me is Jerry.

Jerry is my rifle. You don’t want Jerry to say hello.

The problem with Jerry is as much as I enjoy chaos, front line fighting just isn’t for me. Jerry is a standard-issue AETA rifle, and like all of your rifles you’ve gotta get pretty close to the barn to actually hit it. On our last two weekend outings, I’ve avoided bringing Jerry out to play because, frankly, he just hasn’t been all that effective. Browsing through what other Engineers were coming up with for different approaches to battle, I found one person who gives me hope for Jerry’s future.

On GW2 Codex, an enterprising Engineer named Luusydh (the first person able to pronounce that correctly get’s their next month’s AETA gunpowder for free!) came up with a fantastic strategy to make Jerry viable again. With a focus on getting the most bang for our critical-hit buck, Luusydh’s battle plan focuses on building an Engineer that is highly survivable, mobile, and does decent damage. Because the Powahs that Be seem to be taking a hard look at the overall shape of our dear profession, I won’t put too much effort into discussing things that are likely to change, like Weapon Kits. That said, today I’d like to outline Luusydh’s plan, with my own tweaks and analysis so that on our next weekend outing we’ll see some more rifles running around!

The Skills

  • Elixir H – It’s every man for himself with this build! I’m not setting up a healing turret or throwing out bandages for those other sissies. This skill nabs us the most healing up front while applying a random survivability boon.

  • Rocket Boots or Slick Shoes – The goal here is to provide yourself with another way out in case we can’t quite stay one swing ahead of the sword. Pick whichever you prefer, though as a general rule I would advise picking up Slick Shoes for some red vs. blue action, and Rocket Boots for those romps in the Big n’Nasty-filled wilderness. The Slick Shoes give better maneuverability, while the Rocket Boots give another relatively high damage cooldown.

  • Personal Battering Ram – A personal favorite of mine, though we still haven’t worked out all of the kinks in this design. AETA’s best and brightest are on it, though, so issues should hopefully be resolved by our next weekend outing. I love carrying this one around for it’s main effect, but the secondary effect is where this baby really shines…when it works. Every 18 seconds, we can Cripple any enemies directly in front of us, slowing their speed by 50% and allowing us to be more fluid in the use of our other abilities. Big Norn with big swords just aren’t that scary when they run at you in slow motion, Baywatch style.

  • Elixir R or Elixir B – This depends on what you’re trying to accomplish. Setting Thieves aflame is well and fine, but carry an Elixir R with you because stuns are nasty business, and this guy gives us a route out. Elixir R is also unique in that if you throw the vial at your feet just as you get pummeled to the ground, you can revive yourself. Useful! For those Engineers who are out in the big wide world, facing the environment, I would say that chugging an Elixir B every time it refills itself is a great idea, because we could use the extra damage and don’t need the survivability as much. As with all Elixirs, hopefully the Powahs have heard our pleas and decide to alter the chemicals, making Elixirs take effect immediately instead of having a cast time.

  • Supply Crate – Now this is tactical support. We’re not traiting to make the most of this skill, but it can be incredibly useful to be able to call down an area of effect stun followed by turret barrage and bandages! I need to meet the crew that fires these things out of cannons all day. They’re my kind of people!

The Traits

Traits are where Luusydh makes this build what it is, giving a change to apply Bleeds and Blindness to enemies on critical-hit, while also giving a 50% chance to apply Swiftness and Vigor to us! I made some suggestions to what Utility skills one might bring that weren’t all Luusydh’s ideas in the last section. For traits, however, Luusydh has got things down to a damn-near science. I’ll talk about why these selections were good picks, but wont make any new suggestions this round.

  • Firearms: 30 points

    • Minor Traits: Chance for Bleed on critical-hit, 10% extra critical-hit chance against targets with low health, and 5% extra damage against targets that are bleeding.

    • Infused Precision: 50% chance to gain Swiftness on critical-hits.

    • Rifled Barrels: Extra range for Jerry and company!

    • Go for the Eyes: 33% chance to blind enemy on critical-hit.

  • Alchemy: 20 points

    • Minor Traits: Drink an Elixir B at 75% health, and a 3% chance to convert incoming conditions into boons.

    • Invigorating Speed: Gain Vigor for 5 seconds every time you gain Swiftness.

    • Fast-Acting Elixirs: Despite the implications of the name, it actually reduces the recharge of Elixirs by 20%. With a name like that, I would expect some really fiber-heavy Elixirs that got my my Swiftness the second the flask touches my lips! A very important point to be made on this trait is that it reduces the cooldown of Elixir H, our main healing ability.

  • Tools: 20 points

    • Minor Traits: Restore 10% of Endurance when a Tool-Belt skill is used and recharge all Tool-Belt skills when health reaches 25%.

    • Speedy Gadgets: Gadget recharges are reduced by 30%.

    • Adrenal Implant: 25% faster Endurance regeneration.

The Strategy

This build has four basic rules: Stack critical-hit chance! Keep moving! Keep dodging! Keep firing! This is a fast build for fast Engineers! Your goal with this build is to keep enemies our of reach of our cool shinies. We can do this by actively keeping them away from us, or actively running away from them.

This build is great for moving around the battlefield with the almost constant up-time of Swiftness and Slick Shoes Tool-Belt skill, which doubles our speed for 3 seconds. Keeping others away from us can be achieved through use of our Personal Battering Ram’s main and secondary effects, a knock-back and a Cripple, as well as Slick Shoe’s main effect, a Knockdown to all foes behind you.

Ol’ Jerry has some tricks for keeping enemies at bay as well, so don’t forget to use them but also remember not to use them exclusively! Once the Big Ugly does get near us, however, this build has great damage mitigation. Dodging can happen way more, thanks to traits and the use of the Tool-Belt, so remember:

Dodge! Duck! Dip! Dive! Dodge!

If you can dodge a Hail Mary of arrows, you can dodge a fireball! Shameless movie propaganda aside, you can fire Hip Shot as well as dodge. Hip shot is also going to be applying not only Bleed for damage, but Blindness for a lot of damage mitigation! Keep on firing from the hip, y’all!

Retiring Jerry? I think not!

This is very much a solo build. This build is most effective when the Engineer is all on his own, staring down creatures one at a time until we decide to either Lonestar it or start blowing things up again. It isn’t a high-damage build, but instead focuses more on surviving enough to be in every battle, not every other battle while you fight for life, breathing through a tube and waiting for that pompous Guardian to resuscitate us. That being said, the Powahs will hopefully make some changes for the better and we can have our cake and eat it too!

So what do you think of the build? What would you change? Did you put together something similar last weekend? Tell me about is in the comments, on the forums, or drop me a line on Twitter, and special thanks to Luusydh! Until next week, may your explosions be grand and your potables be potent!