Guild Wars 2

When I started to play this game, I made an Engineer. I thought the class was fun to play, and I liked the whole steampunk vibe going on from it.

But as I reached max level, completed the map and finished the personal story, I found a disheartening trend in Dungeons and organized Fractal groups.

They wanted Warriors and Guardians. Sure the more friendly bunch accepted me in, but even though I found viable builds, these builds seemed like a desperate measure to make the Engineer “decent” in Dungeon settings rather than makig it “on-par” with the überclasses Warrior and Guardian, that was highly sought.

Finally I got sick of it. I was tired of feeling like deadweight and unable to participate in the meta-game because of my class. So I abandoned my favourite class, and rolled a Warrior. Just like everyone else.

This other day, I was in Fractals with 3 Warriors and 2 Guardians. The next one we were 2 Warriors and 3 Guardians.

I honestly think its a bit boring. Sure some people might not see the problem in this – but I for one feel like the way the game is balanced is forcing me to play a certain class if I want to be competitive in PvE.

If there is one thing I hope for whatever HoT is, among other things I hope it is a major overhaul of how Dungeons works, and a serious effort to put the other professions on par with Warrior and Guardian in terms of utility and damage.

Play the game you want with the profession you want, and enjoy the game. Every MMO has people who play flavor of the month professions or flavor of the month builds.

Nowadays, warrior isn’t even the best profession for a lot of things and people want eles and thieves, as well as guardians.

I run dungeons with engies relatively regularly and we do fine.

• Warriors have been nerfed multiple times already, but who among the pugs reads the patch notes?
• Having more than 1 warrior in a party is actually suboptimal – but hey, go tell it to the pugs! I remember doing paths with 4 warriors and doing the same stuff with war-guard-ele-engi-ranger or something like that – the latter being far better when organised: engi for vulnerability and blasts, ele for might, ranger for frost spirit and spotter, guard for active defence, war for banners – everyone contributes, skills synergise and traits do not get overwritten.
• It is hard to be a bad warrior. It is very easy to be a bad ragner or an engi. For pugs who follow the path of least resistance, it means war/guard/ele is the way to go.

So yes, while there is a certain imbalance in PvE (because the game is balanced around PvP, because E-SPORTS!), the problem is mostly in the ignorance and not balance.

You came too late to the party with your warrior OP. The Elementalists are new warriors now Better DPS, better team utility, better versatility.

Warriors are still popular because they are easy to stack. You can’t go wrong with 3 warriors in a group, they just ping their banner into the chat to make sure they are using diffrent one a you are ready to go. Good DPS (not best though), plenty of buffs and best looking armor sets

I play a Thief, primarily, mostly because I find actually having a resource and a non-cooldown based skill set is actually fun.

P.S. Yeah, Elementalists are freaking amazing… well, the good ones at least.

Wars and and Guards arent uber at all dont trust those “elitepugs” on lfg they usualy know very little about how great engi can be. You need only one banner slave in party more Warriors is waste of dps potential even Guard has more dps than War.

Engi have 2nd best dps in game, best party condi removal, can keep alone 25 stacks of vulnerability and 12+ stacks of might on whole party at same time, can offer same amount stealth as thief with faster stacking, can chain perma reflect witch make guards walls looks like joke and I can go on and on with pros. Egni can do anything like other classes sometime better but is very hard to play right.

Only problem is pugs just dont know. Find decent guild where ppl know how great engi can be in every situation and be sure they rather kick useless Warrior to take you instead.

You’re a bit misinformed there, Roz. Engineers are great, yeah, the vulnerability stacks are like delicious icing on delicious vulnerability cake. They’re not nearly as much DPS as an Elementalist though—and they cannot stealth anywhere within the ballpark of ‘as good as a Thief’. I can keep stealth on my party for 30~45s or so, depending, without it ever dropping off. But yeah, Engi are to be loved tho.

I gladly take a perma 25 vuln engie to fractals 49/50. problem being most spend flametowing thinking they are doing a lot of damage for not understanding how channelling skills work

Eh…I’ve tried several times to get into warrior, but I just find the class kinda dull and not really remarkable in any role.

I find that I can at least bring something unique and interesting to a group with other professions that are more fun to play. The only really unique thing a warrior brings to a group is a banner that you just toss on the ground and after that, you have no reflects, no stealth, no aegis, no portal, or any of the other utility that’s actually engaging to use.

I find that if I really want to play a tanky melee class, a guardian does just about everything a warrior does, but with more utility for different situations.

Problem with players, not profession. Just stick to your guns.

Pun intended, alas.

Sanarian.9614:

You’re a bit misinformed there, Roz. Engineers are great, yeah, the vulnerability stacks are like delicious icing on delicious vulnerability cake. They’re not nearly as much DPS as an Elementalist though—and they cannot stealth anywhere within the ballpark of ‘as good as a Thief’. I can keep stealth on my party for 30~45s or so, depending, without it ever dropping off. But yeah, Engi are to be loved tho.

Engi dps is not that far off from Ele dps provided you can keep up proper rotations on the engineer. And engineer stealth is more than enough for most stealth skips in dungeons/fractals and they have much more utility than thieves.

I’ve never used warrior, and i will never do. Every one picks up warrior for dungeons because u don’t have to organize the party, as someone said before, only brainless dps/might stacking (this is my thought).

I got a norn warrior that I still need to get around to levelling.

I never said it wasn’t far off—it’s surprisingly close, if I remember right—and their stealth is plenty, yeah, Thief stealth usually tends to be over the top. What I said was: Elementalist wins in DPS, and that Thief does a longer stealth, both of which are true.

EDIT: I also stressed that I love me a good Engi. ’nuff said.

I main a Ranger and a Guardian. I like the mobility and ranged options from my Ranger, and I love teleporting around on my guard with a medi build. You know what my level 80 Warrior does? Sits in Lions Arch and makes armor and weapons. I haven’t run a dungeon with him for at least a year. The other two on the other hand get regular runs through all the dungeons including aetherpath and arah. All classes are viable and if anyone tells you differently they are deranged or just don’t know how to play another class so they act out against them.

Well…yeah

I don’t normally do dungeons but if I was to make an optimal group…

1: Banner Warrior, regen +stats
2: Crit warrior, might sharing (never done this, but they must bring 10 stacks)
3: Crit warrior, for another 10 stacks
4: Hammer Guard, perm protection, 5 stacks of might (shared) healing symbols
5: Whatever…

*p.s. no necros… not even in slot 5….

Ezeriel.9574:

I don’t normally do dungeons but if I was to make an optimal group…

1: Banner Warrior, regen +stats
2: Crit warrior, might sharing (never done this, but they must bring 10 stacks)
3: Crit warrior, for another 10 stacks
4: Hammer Guard, perm protection, 5 stacks of might (shared) healing symbols
5: Whatever…

*p.s. no necros… not even in slot 5….

The first 3 slots can be fulfilled by one warrior. When I play my Warrior (rare), I bring 3 banners (Warbanner, Disc and Str) and stack 25 might for all nearby members in about 3s of combat.

Despite the efficacy of this build, it’s pretty boring to play.

Go to WvW, everyone and their mom there is a lootstick guardian.

I run dungeons with necromancers.
Because I’m not buttkitten about our run being 1 minute longer than usual.

Don’t worry, OP, you’re just getting bad advice. I think Warrior is a staple of dungeon parties for Banners of Strength and Discipline, but you only need one Warrior for that. My parties look like this, if I can control it.

1. Warrior (banners and Phalanx Strength if I don’t trust my team to stack enough might)
2. Engineer for vuln stacking
3. Elementalist for fire fields, DPS, and Ice Bow
4. Usually a Guardian for reflects and blinds (and sometimes other boons like stabo), but this is sometimes a Thief for trash runs and because a lot of my guild runs Thief
5. I don’t worry too much about this spot

My guild has tons of players who play Thief, Mesmer, and Ranger, so a lot of times that’s what we have in slot #5. If I take duplicate professions, I prefer for it to be Ele.

Only time I want a certain class to fill certain things is so minimal its pointless. I’m more than likely to kick you from my group for running a build that does no damage, being dead 99% of the time, or if I don’t like you.

I’ve done alot of fractals and dungeons with all different sorts of team comp. I can honestly say if you have competant players team comp really doesn’t matter. Ive had problems taking certain guildies into coe and not had a problem in arah or aetherpath with different ones.

There really is no reason to stack more than 1 warrior in dungeons anymore but most people just haven’t caught up with that. Engineer is totally viable and decent in dungeons provided the person playing it knows what to do.

Ezeriel.9574:

I don’t normally do dungeons but if I was to make an optimal group…

1: Banner Warrior, regen +stats
2: Crit warrior, might sharing (never done this, but they must bring 10 stacks)
3: Crit warrior, for another 10 stacks
4: Hammer Guard, perm protection, 5 stacks of might (shared) healing symbols
5: Whatever…

*p.s. no necros… not even in slot 5….

I play phalanx and the build fulfills the first three of your ‘slots’. I can easily stack perma 25 might after 2-3 seconds into a fight and bring 2 banners, all of that while maintaining 100% critchance.
Good groups only need 1 warrior. Eles, mesmers, guards, engis are all good and the more diverese your group, the better.

I only have my Engineer. Guess it is not everyone.

Phaerim.9362:

When I started to play this game, I made an Engineer. I thought the class was fun to play, and I liked the whole steampunk vibe going on from it.

But as I reached max level, completed the map and finished the personal story, I found a disheartening trend in Dungeons and organized Fractal groups.

They wanted Warriors and Guardians. Sure the more friendly bunch accepted me in, but even though I found viable builds, these builds seemed like a desperate measure to make the Engineer “decent” in Dungeon settings rather than makig it “on-par” with the überclasses Warrior and Guardian, that was highly sought.

Finally I got sick of it. I was tired of feeling like deadweight and unable to participate in the meta-game because of my class. So I abandoned my favourite class, and rolled a Warrior. Just like everyone else.

This other day, I was in Fractals with 3 Warriors and 2 Guardians. The next one we were 2 Warriors and 3 Guardians.

I honestly think its a bit boring. Sure some people might not see the problem in this – but I for one feel like the way the game is balanced is forcing me to play a certain class if I want to be competitive in PvE.

If there is one thing I hope for whatever HoT is, among other things I hope it is a major overhaul of how Dungeons works, and a serious effort to put the other professions on par with Warrior and Guardian in terms of utility and damage.

Oh my.

First of all Warrior and Guardian are not top tier when it comes to damage. I’ll agree Guardian has a lot of utility – Warrior however does not.

Warriors have been nerfed a lot in PVE and are not really that great but the class has a lot of appeal because of other reasons.

1)It’s very pick up and play without the player being forced to use dubious mechanics. Your class mechanic is basically a stronger hit.

2)It looks very good and the looks on heavy armor are highly customizeable unlike for example medium armor.

3)It’s a very well know and well established archetype – the “knight” or “barbarian” that hits things with a lot of force until they die.

If you want to complain about a class being top dog in PVE I think you should look at eles.

That’s not actually true OP. I love my necro..I’ve levelled an ele for dungeons..but you know..I still like my necro best and feck what everyone else wants.. I’m going to play with my necro…infact I want to level up an extra necro for wvw..due to the lack of templates T_T

So point is, play what you want and have fun. start your own lfg if you’re having difficulty finding a group to accept you.

I rolled with warrior because my main in GW1 was warrior too and that was the only reason. Even I avoid these “elitepugs” you know “ONLYZERKERMASTERRACE!” types. I say stick to it and play engi if you like the prof. , with all the kits it’s very versatile and can be a pain in the back. I usually lvl one up once in a while because it’s fun running around with a flamethrower or grenades(especially useful in WvW defending ) On the dungeon side, just go with guildies or look for another party. I’ve been in dungeons countless times with engies. Just know your profession well.

Unsually in dungeon runs me and my team run with:

1 war (double banner or only disc)
1 ele (s/d for might/fury stacking)
1 thief (high single target dmg, stealth, perma blind trash mobs)
1 guard (high dps, aegis, wall of reflection)
1 ele staff/ 1 mesmer (mesmer for time warp or for changing monotony)

but we unsally find some good engi/ranger with high dps and good team support..
It all depends by the gear/traits, the classes knowledge and the personal playing skills..
Unfortunately necro is a bad choise cause of low support team and low dps even with a zerk meta..

P.S: all classes must be played zerk for all dungeons/low fractals for be efficient in a zerk meta team ( for fract 39+ a little more tanky is better, but just for guard/ele)

Lol

My dungeon party build would be:
-Pug carrier warrior (4/4/6/0/0), carrying 2 banners, FGJ and signet of rage, empower allies and banner recharge, can give 25 stacks of might during fights providing he has 2 foes at start, or when battle lasts a bit longer then 5 seconds. Total buff 1195 power after nerf 1070. Fixed on GS though.
- 2 DPS guards, (2(4)/5/0/1+?/1+?)for walls, stability, aegis, protection and DPS
- 1 DPS Elementalist(6/2/2/2/2) for prestacking might, speed stacking, healing and so on, oh and DPS
- 1 Other for “utility”, be it thief, mesmer or engineer, ranger or necro.
ranger could help adding 20 stacks of vulnerability in the first 3 seconds of play and spotter or necro, providing protection through wells and blindness., thief for single target DPS, and invisibiity, mesmer for utility (and maybe some DPS) or engineer, for being everything at once.

All prefferably with dungeon gear, dungeon utility , and food.
Dreams…..

I have 3 warriors, 2 guards, 2 eles, 3 necro;s, 3 rangers and a mesmer and a thief….
Of these 8 run dungeons regularly,including 2 hybrids, the rest: some if not most are pure condi and thus they serve no purpose in dungeons (yet).

My builds

1 war & 1 ele runs dungeon speedrun setup, 1 guard runs dps, 1 ranger is dps, 1 necro dps, 1 thief non-meta dps. All others use bulds I like. My mesmer doesn’t have DPS gear, I have it on a torment/confusion build, has been so for last 2 years, never letting down: also got world completion with this full condi mesmer. But it doesn’t run dungeons. Never.

Personally I detest people kicking people and saying well I play how I want, It’s the most selfish reason to do something ina social game I ever saw.

If you run what you want, you could or should accept it if others run what they want within the context of your LFG and if it’s not your LFG deal with it or go find another group. GWET& GWEN is good , but warriors, if 2, are a loss of dps. Guards are better, giving protection, aegis and blinds, and combined with well of blindness (N) and sandstorm(E), you can kill most bosses without ever getting hit by a boss. It will take you 1-2 secs longer but it will be safe, with stability if needed….. And I’ll run a party with 5 DPS rangers as well.. or 4 rangers and 1 engineer for that matter.

L80 EXP DPS will outperform l80 Zerk Meta. Maybe not in absolute speed , but it will in the relaxedness of playing and the enormous support offered by people who know their proffessions, I run both but the first is actually nicer… If people run experienced and get 1070 power buff most parties get sped up instantly. losing little time over pure zerk. Most zerks don’t seem to stack might, don’t consider buffs and thus fail if something happens not according to plan. not to mention dungeon gear and food -.-

My mom plays a tauren druid over in wow. I can’t get her to try GW2. She’s watched some videos and thinks the combat looks too fast paced for her, and the lack of Trinity roles makes her say ‘I like to know what I’m supposed to do in my game. You just leave me and my moocow healer to our thing. Have fun with your giant cat creature.’

So there’s that.

Also remember that a lot of people don’t want to level up a new character now that warriors have been nerfed. They’re still “adequate” so why bother changing?

Luckily I mostly play with friends who don’t care what we play. I admit to playing warrior when I feel lazy (ele has to press so many buttons and melts to things my warrior could stand in for days). Only 1 out of my 3 pug groups yesterday had a second warrior, so I wouldn’t call that everyone and their mother :P

Phaerim.9362:

(…)
If there is one thing I hope for whatever HoT is, among other things I hope it is a major overhaul of how Dungeons works, and a serious effort to put the other professions on par with Warrior and Guardian in terms of utility and damage.

It’s not that Warriors and Guardians are uberclasses, it’s that a lot of people are utterly unaware to what each profession can bring to the party.

In general, one Warrior is enough in a dungeon run. If people have given you crap for playing an Engineer, it’s their own fault for being ignorant, it is not a problem related to the Warrior class.

This sort of problem is caused by people, not by broken or unbalanced mechanics. You ask to bring other classes on par with Warriors, but banners are literally the only thing we got that makes us useful in a dungeon.
The real solution would be to make people more aware of how things work, for instance with stuff like in game tips and tutorials.

In game tips and guides would also improve a lot pvp (eg. teach rotations) or wvw (eg. do not claim stuff for your guild if you don’t know what you are doing).

My suggestion to you, OP, is to find a guild or a group of friends that are less oblivious than the average pug.

I believe these videos by Nike from DnT could be useful to you:
What To Do In Speed Runs : Engineer!
Basic PvE DPS Rotation Guide : Engineer

dace.8019:

Ezeriel.9574:

I don’t normally do dungeons but if I was to make an optimal group…

1: Banner Warrior, regen +stats
2: Crit warrior, might sharing (never done this, but they must bring 10 stacks)
3: Crit warrior, for another 10 stacks
4: Hammer Guard, perm protection, 5 stacks of might (shared) healing symbols
5: Whatever…

*p.s. no necros… not even in slot 5….

The first 3 slots can be fulfilled by one warrior. When I play my Warrior (rare), I bring 3 banners (Warbanner, Disc and Str) and stack 25 might for all nearby members in about 3s of combat.

But where’s the regen? (/s)

I’m a condinwarrior, don’t see many of my kind in dungeons for obvious reasons.

Engi facerolls warrior at basically everything. However I do think guardian is important for frac

The main reason I think that people play Warrior is that it boasts qualities that make it reliable and easy to play.
They are also pretty cheap to start off with not needing anything above exotic zerker armor with ruby orbs to start doing decent damage.

I think a lot of the more “hard-core” and “serious” dungeon runners / players forget that the majority of the pug player base doesn’t really care how effective something is, in terms of;

-Having this composition can get it done in 5 minutes
-Using these skills in this order over and over = max dps
-Using these traits = more risk but higher reward

Frankly what they really care about is how can we do this quickly with the minimum amount of effort. Hence 65003 warriors with Dis/Str are common place amongst pug dungeon runs.
As for DPS – they boast the 30k crits (which people often mistake for “hey guys i just hit 30k!!!” when in reality it’s 5k 6x) people like seeing super high numbers. It makes them feel like they are doing a lot for the team and they feel good about it.

As for survive-ability, they have possibly the easiest time in dungeons. Using Greatsword 3 they can avoid pretty much any attack if dodge is on cool down and even regain some energy using F1. Thinking specifically of CoE on Alpha’s circles of death this becomes a walk in the park for warriors. Even on Mai Trin on the canons. If you get stuck in a tight spot, GS3 and you’re safe.

As for ease of play, think about a warriors rotation. The majority of people that play Warrior will either run a ranged 2nd weapon so the chances they will swap off GS is slim..

Spam 2 and auto attack. Compare that to the rotations of an elementalist or an engineer.
Then get back to me :p

dlonie.6547:

But where’s the regen? (/s)

Fair point, however, the regen banner trait (or any regen for that matter) is unnecessary in this optimal build. If regen must be accomodated, it would be better sourced from the Ele, Engi, Ranger or Guard, and absolutely not at the expense of Phalanx Strength nor the inclusion of another Warrior just for the trait.

Arietta The Broken.1875:

As for survive-ability, they have possibly the easiest time in dungeons. Using Greatsword 3 they can avoid pretty much any attack if dodge is on cool down and even regain some energy using F1. Thinking specifically of CoE on Alpha’s circles of death this becomes a walk in the park for warriors. Even on Mai Trin on the canons. If you get stuck in a tight spot, GS3 and you’re safe.

Well, Warrior is not the only class with an “extra dodge”, what about Sword 2 on Mesmer…?

Arietta The Broken.1875:

As for ease of play, think about a warriors rotation. The majority of people that play Warrior will either run a ranged 2nd weapon so the chances they will swap off GS is slim..

Spam 2 and auto attack. Compare that to the rotations of an elementalist or an engineer.
Then get back to me :p

Other classes have more complicated rotations, of course, but what you describe is not even close to the optimal rotation for a Warrior, and no semi-competent Warrior player is going to use that.

Warrior is a great class if you are new to the game not because it’s “easy mode”, but because it’s the most straightforward. Any player unfamiliar with GW2 can understand the main class mechanic (Adrenaline), because a lot of other games have a similar concept: you fill up a bar and are able to use a “special” attack.
After all if you start the game for the first time, chances are you are going to feel drawn towards something you are familiar with.

In my opinion, it comes back to the fact that a lot of things are not explained (or could be explained better) in game.
For instance, think about the Necros that use deathshoud only as a second health pool…

as engi, the only fractal runs i dont join are the ones that have 4 people already… and no guardian. cuz thatd be a bit rude to do, unfortunately… a single guardian just brings so much to a fractal run, it makes any other combo of 4 workable.

i can join literally any other lfg no matter how haughty and presumptuous and not get kicked (prolly has something to do with 16k ap). i have joined ONLY HEAVY lfgs on occasion and not been kicked, but i try to avoid those cuz whoever made that is proclaiming himself as a moronic mouthbreather, and i recommend you avoid those too.

Actually, I have several classes. I main a thief and don’t even have a warrior. Also, my mom doesn’t play the game.

I dispute the title.

While I have a Warrior, I am definitely an Engineer, as was my father.

My mother however… well, her name WAS Zelda (which means Maiden of Battle or similar in Hebrew ).

My mom is a dental hygienist.

Kal Spiro.9745:

My mom is a dental hygienist.

The sound of that drill puts the fear in people more than any “fear me” warrior shout could.

Jerus.4350:

Kal Spiro.9745:

My mom is a dental hygienist.

The sound of that drill puts the fear in people more than any “fear me” warrior shout could.

Well, hygienists aren’t allowed to use the drill, just the scraper.

Kal Spiro.9745:

Jerus.4350:

Kal Spiro.9745:

My mom is a dental hygienist.

The sound of that drill puts the fear in people more than any “fear me” warrior shout could.

Well, hygienists aren’t allowed to use the drill, just the scraper.

Good point, though the fact that she sits within arms reach of that thing is scary enough for me

Maxwell.7843:

Other classes have more complicated rotations, of course, but what you describe is not even close to the optimal rotation for a Warrior, and no semi-competent Warrior player is going to use that.

You totally missed the point.

I never said it was optimal I just merely stated what I’ve observed “pug” warriors doing in runs.
You think most players care about what is optimal? You honestly think most players care if they kill something twice as fast if it means they have to think about playing?

I doubt it. You’re talking about semi-competent players.. I really think you over estimate their ability or under estimate how lazy they are.

The people that sit and browse the forums, the people that number crunch for the best stats, best rotations. Watch others via Youtube or Twitch, these are not the people I’m talking about.
The majority of pug dungeon runners are pugging because they need gold. They don’t care if they are playing at an optimal level, they don’t care if they stack 5 warriors because the chances are they will win the instance and fairly easily just by auto attacking, pressing 2 and putting down a banner.

Ah the misguided people, they are so out of touch with the game and its meta. They don’t even know taking more than 1 warrior is horribly inefficient as their dps are sub par, they are only good for banners or might if party lacks might.

Also if you play engineer and think you are dead weight then you are just doing wrong, not trying to be insulting but its true. Coming from a person that mains engineer, i can safely say that they are up there in level with guardians as pug carrier while still being decent in casual speedruns.

Arietta The Broken.1875:

Maxwell.7843:

Other classes have more complicated rotations, of course, but what you describe is not even close to the optimal rotation for a Warrior, and no semi-competent Warrior player is going to use that.

You totally missed the point.

I never said it was optimal I just merely stated what I’ve observed “pug” warriors doing in runs.
You think most players care about what is optimal? You honestly think most players care if they kill something twice as fast if it means they have to think about playing?

I doubt it. You’re talking about semi-competent players.. I really think you over estimate their ability or under estimate how lazy they are.

Of course a lot of people just autoattack and spam 2 when off cooldown.
And a lot of people believe that a 5 warrior party will clear a dungeon faster than anything.

But in your previous post your meaning was a bit unclear, since you compared the ease of a bad Warrior “rotation” to the difficulty of proper Ele or Engie rotations.
My point was that this sort of comparison doesn’t make much sense.

Then if you want to argue that Warrior is more forgiving than some other classes, I think everyone can agree.