GUILDWARSINSIDER

Hello everyone! Welcome once again to another meeting of Alchemists Explosions and Tinkerers Anonymous. This week, I’d like to talk about how to be a team player – specifically, being on either a red, blue, or green team with ambitions of taking over the world. That’s right, this week we’re going to talk about what it takes to be an effective team player in World vs World conquest! There are several roles one can take when going into the Mists, but we’re going to focus on supporting everyone else as they have all the bloodletting fun.

Yes, yes, I know that means that we’re going to be primarily healing and applying boons, but we can have some fun while we do it, and we don’t have to heal everyone. Those creepy Thieves don’t get any heals from us after what Wormwood said in the comments of last week’s article!

Read past the cut to see what kind of build we’ll head into the Mists with! 

This is going to be a two part column, and this week we’re going to look at some weapons, skills, traits and gear augments. Here’s the companion build on GW2Codex.com:

Weapons

Last week I talked about how Jerry, my rifle, could still be useful despite his shortcomings. Jerry’s gonna have to take a backseat in WvW though, because we’re going to be using Pistol / Pistol as our equipped weapons. Jerry is great for single-target target management, but if we’re going to be rolling around in a large ball of death we should focus more on Area of Effect (AoE) skills. Dual pistols achieve this with every one of their skills except Poison Dart Volley. That means very little in the long run, however, because we will primarily be using the Elixir Gun to dole out life and death.

Utility Skills

For Utility Skills, there’s a little bit of wiggle room as far as what you can bring, but the main focus is to keep our team healthy while keeping ourselves alive. 

• Elixir Gun – Our main utility, this skill is absolutely mandatory for this build to work. We’re pretty much going to spam every ability we have here whenever it’s off cooldown. Our traits are built around maximizing the effectiveness of the Elixir Gun to provide as much benefit to us and our allies as possible. Except for Thieves. Damned dirty Thieves!

• Net Turret – This slot is personal preference. Leave something in here that you can use as an escape utility, just in case things start going south. I prefer the Net Turret, but I’ve seen a lot of people use Slick Shoes because of not only the active effect but also the passive effect. You could also throw in Rocket Boots, Personal Battering Ram, Elixir S, or the Bomb Kit for it’s Glue Bomb.

• Elixir R – You could also manage to slip something else in here, but honestly this is the best skill you could use. It’s active effect is a good escape utility, as it can cure slowing effects. It really shines in its Toolbelt skill, which is an AoE revive, and is the real key to keeping this elixir on tap.

Healing and Elite Skills

You can get away with pretty much whatever you want with these two skills, but to be the most effective there’s really only one choice for the Elite Skill.

• Med Kit – Put whichever skill you’d like here, but I recommend the Med Kit simply because you can burn all of its cooldowns at once (including the Toolbelt skill) and achieve roughly twice the healing of the Elixir H, plus it’s on a 20-second cooldown instead of 30 seconds. It does take about 5 seconds to get the full benefit of this kit, though, so keep that in mind.

• Supply Crate – This one is pretty much the only choice that all Engineer’s share. If things start to go badly for your team, call in one of these babies. It’ll damage any enemies in the landing zone, deploy two turrets (because of how we’ve traited), and lay down lots of bandages which heal for about 500 health each (at level 80). This, combined with Elixir R’s AoE revive, is how the tide of a battle is turned.

Traits

For Traits, we’re dumping everything we can into making us more survivable while giving the Elixir Gun as much punch as possible. We can’t support our team if we’re lying on the ground, hand to the sky, throwing pieces of junk at the enemies now can we?

• Firearms – Go 20 points into Firearms and take Rifled Barrels as well as Fireforged Trigger to maximize just how effective our Elixir gun is. Rifled Barrels extends our support range out to a more manageable distance while Fireforged Trigger reduces our Elixir Gun’s cooldowns by 20%. Pretty much mandatory in any build with an Elixir Gun.

• Inventions – 20 points here too will nab us Power Shoes and Elite Supplies. Power Shoes grant 10% extra movement speed while in combat. This isn’t such a bonus anymore; it’s more about catching up with everyone else who also takes these movement bonuses. Elite Supplies makes our Elite Skill that much better by adding an extra turret and more bandages. The turning tide of the battle just got so much…turny-er. Don’t judge! It’s a word!

• Alchemy – This is our 30 point line, and there are some goodies here! Pick up Protection Injection first, then grab Backpack Regenerator, and take Cleaning Formula (409) last. Protection Injection grants us Protection every time we use any sort of movement ability, whether it be through slowing, stunning, immobilizing, or whatever. Backpack Regenerator gives us Regeneration, which constantly heals us. All the time. Smoking deal, if you ask me! The Cleaning Formula (409) makes every one of our elixirs also remove conditions.

Gear Augments

All of these gear augments only really apply to you if you’ve hit level 80. There are some lower level versions of runes, but things like jewels, amulets, and sigils are level 80 only.

• Runes – For armor, slot everything with the Rune of the Monk. This maximizes healing output, boon duration, and an application of Aegis whenever we drop a Supply Crate. That means that in addition to dealing damage to enemies, dropping turrets and healing packs to allies, everyone within range also gets shielded from one hit, alleviating even more damage!

• Sigils – Sigils don’t matter as much to us because we’ll be using our Elixir Gun more than our pistols and sigils don’t affect our Weapon Kits. With that in mind we’ll pop a Sigil of Superior Agony in our main hand to extend bleed duration from Explosive Shot, and Sigil of Superior Restoration to heal us whenever we kill an enemy. These bonuses will only be active when we’re using our pistols, however.

• Amulet – You have two basic choices here – you can take the Celestial Amulet for an overall boost in effectiveness, or Shaman’s Amulet for extra support stats.

• Jewels – For jewels you should take Shaman’s Jewels, which offer Condition Damage, Healing Power, and Toughness.

So that’s how I built my Engineer during my travels in the Mists, and it worked out splendidly. What might you change about this build to give yourself the edge in WvW? How would you go about being offensive using the Elixir Gun? Let me know in the comments below or the forums.

Next week I’ll be going into general WvW strategies, and then strategies specifically applying to Engineers in a support role. It’s going to be oh so much fun!