Guild Wars 2

This decision has plagued me for some time now. I’ve been on both of the profession forum but obviously each sided with their respective classes.

I personally like to play as just one character and stick with it over all others. That being said I prefer offense with support utilities, range over melee, and PvE content only.

I understand that Guardian is not a tanky but can do decent damage while providing removal and a few buffs. While Engineer seems to be debuffing and heals only. I currently have a Guardian at level 58 and keep making and deleting any Engineers I make for some reason or another. The farthest I got was level 33 on Engi.

Is there any advice or comments from the community that could help me focus and choose one of these classes as my character? Any comments, suggestions, or other will be much appreciated.

First of all, there is no ‘tank’ (or healer) here in GW2. You will be never standing in front of the boss and just facetank it→heal→facetank→heal.. It’s just not possible to do it. Also, healing is just an add, you will never build your class around ‘healing’.

Guardian has no range options (there is staff, but useless in pve and scepter, which is mostly used on large bosses; hope we get something like bow in hot). Engineer is medium range class with very high dmg (you will have to learn rotations of course). Engi is usefull everywhere, can stack vuln as you said, is mobile, very good all round class.

Guardian is my main, but not because it’s super op, but because it simply fits my playstyle. I leveled only one engineer to 80, played her for like a month or two and I have to tell you that it’s an amazing class. In my opinion it’s stronger than guardian.

Also, engi is about learning rotations/spamming keys (by saying ‘spamming’ I mean pressing many of them in a correct order). Guardian has little to no rotations (they’re easy to remember), but timing is a key here. You have to know when to put stability, aegis, you will learn how to keep your aegis as long as possible. You know, it’s not about learning certain rotations, but about adapting and learning bosses’ moves.

It’s hard to say what you will enjoy more, but I’d suggest you to pick engi, bacause of versitality it provides.

Sorry for my bad english.

If you ever want to pvp or wvw in the future pick engineer, guardians lacks dmg, hp, escape mechanisms…

voxrar.2859:

I understand that Guardian is not a tanky but can do decent damage while providing removal and a few buffs. While Engineer seems to be debuffing and heals only.

Well not really.

The guardian have decent/ordinary damage. Whatever your adjective its in the lower tier. But it provide defensive support. Blind, Reflect, Aegis, Condi Removal, Protection, etc.

The Engineer is a Jack-of-all trade, master of none. It have a really good dps but not as good as Elementalist, it can provide stealth but not as good as the thief, it can provide might but not as good the Ele or Warrior, it can provide defensive support but as not good as the guardian. But he can provide all that by himself and he’s the best at Vulnerability.

Hattoni.8597:

First of all, there is no ‘tank’ (or healer) here in GW2. You will be never standing in front of the boss and just facetank it->heal->facetank->heal.. It’s just not possible to do it. Also, healing is just an add, you will never build your class around ‘healing’.

Guardian has no range options (there is staff, but useless in pve and scepter, which is mostly used on large bosses; hope we get something like bow in hot). Engineer is medium range class with very high dmg (you will have to learn rotations of course). Engi is usefull everywhere, can stack vuln as you said, is mobile, very good all round class.

Guardian is my main, but not because it’s super op, but because it simply fits my playstyle. I leveled only one engineer to 80, played her for like a month or two and I have to tell you that it’s an amazing class. In my opinion it’s stronger than guardian.

Also, engi is about learning rotations/spamming keys (by saying ‘spamming’ I mean pressing many of them in a correct order). Guardian has little to no rotations (they’re easy to remember), but timing is a key here. You have to know when to put stability, aegis, you will learn how to keep your aegis as long as possible. You know, it’s not about learning certain rotations, but about adapting and learning bosses’ moves.

It’s hard to say what you will enjoy more, but I’d suggest you to pick engi, bacause of versitality it provides.

Sorry for my bad english.

Well so far, Guardian feels like each ability counts. They have a few moves ,but they are powerful when used. I have enjoyed Guardian enough to make it all the way to level 58 and still don’t hate the class, unlike Engineer where I feel the mechanical theme wore thin and the abilities only got better after level 80 traits in Heart of the mist training.

Thaddeus.4891:

voxrar.2859:

I understand that Guardian is not a tanky but can do decent damage while providing removal and a few buffs. While Engineer seems to be debuffing and heals only.

Well not really.

The guardian have decent/ordinary damage. Whatever your adjective its in the lower tier. But it provide defensive support. Blind, Reflect, Aegis, Condi Removal, Protection, etc.

The Engineer is a Jack-of-all trade, master of none. It have a really good dps but not as good as Elementalist, it can provide stealth but not as good as the thief, it can provide might but not as good the Ele or Warrior, it can provide defensive support but as not good as the guardian. But he can provide all that by himself and he’s the best at Vulnerability.

Normally I would like a jack of all trades type class. But something about it that seems underpowered. On my original Engineer I tried grenade kit for solo pve and it was terrible. I understand that the Grandmaster trait ups that by %50 but it seems like a terrible huge wait for a pay off so small. I barely see Engis in dungeon runs. Are they rare? Are they needed by may in Fractal runs?

voxrar.2859:

I barely see Engis in dungeon runs. Are they rare? Are they needed by may in Fractal runs?

No profession are ’’needed’’ for anything. But engineers are pretty good. They kind of fall between two stools so they are not part of most records run. But the vast majority of group don’t do record run. They are still 3rd best dps in the game.

The reason why no that many ppl play Engineer compare to other profession is for two reason in my opinion.

The ideal rotation can be hard to get. You gonna switch between your weapons and 2 or 3 kits and it can be difficult for some ppl to pull that off.

The second reason is the aesthetics of the profession. Not only engineer seem out of context in a fantasy game the kits and weapons settings of the profession limit the customization. Its hard to make a legendary on your engineer since half the time you will be on a kit and when you are on a kit it can screw up your skin and your back item will disappear. Engineer was my first character and that’s the reason why I changed my main to guardian. Not because Engineer wasn’t good, but because I had more liberty in customizing my guardian over my engineer.

Thaddeus.4891:

They kind of fall between two stools so they are not part of most records run. But the vast majority of group don’t do record run. They are still 3rd best dps in the game.

The ideal rotation can be hard to get. You gonna switch between your weapons and 2 or 3 kits and it can be difficult for some ppl to pull that off.

The second reason is the aesthetics of the profession. Not only engineer seem out of context in a fantasy game the kits and weapons settings of the profession limit the customization. Not because Engineer wasn’t good, but because I had more liberty in customizing my guardian over my engineer.

This helped actually. I was worried I would be missing out on something due to Engineer being able to to everything and the Guardian only being into removal and boons. Also I am totally a cosmetics person and the trench coat look isn’t very flattering on a Charr. XD

So for the time being I will stick to my guns or not per say and be the supportive Guardian.

voxrar.2859:

Guardian only being into removal and boons.

Removal and boons are like the less important things the guardian can bring as defensive support. I don’t say that they are not good, but Aegis, Blind and Reflect are far more important.

Thaddeus.4891:

Removal and boons are like the less important things the guardian can bring as defensive support. I don’t say that they are not good, but Aegis, Blind and Reflect are far more important.

Aegis is a boon. I knew this. -_-

This has helped abit but I am still not swayed one way or the other. Engineer is fun at 80 in my teasting but the play time says otherwise towards guardian. Anyone got any experience as a dungeon runner as engineer? I haven’t seen anything on that yet.

voxrar.2859:

Anyone got any experience as a dungeon runner as engineer? I haven’t seen anything on that yet.

What kind of information are you looking for exactly?

I run dungeons/fractals on Engi almost every night. I would say they shine a bit brighter in Fractals as aside from what Thad already covered their one other major strength is their immobilize up time. Between net shot, net turret and supply drop I can keep the Archdiver on cliffside pretty much perma immobilized. It’s a nice tool. Dungeons you don’t generally need immobilize as often though so you’re just a might contributor and main vuln stacker… as well as damage of course, or other utilities if your group lacks them.

Both are good and capable classes and as a dedicated Alt-aholic, I say play them both. If you really must choose, from the description of what you like, go with Engineer.

Brother Grimm.5176:

Both are good and capable classes and as a dedicated Alt-aholic, I say play them both. If you really must choose, from the description of what you like, go with Engineer.

In what way?

Ok so I am really ok with guardian. Try an convince me to get a Engi.

Bit late to the party but since you asked for someone to come and convince you :P

I main engineer but have all classes to 80 and do run guardian in dungeons when it’s needed, and for what it’s worth engineer remains the most fun to play in every mode. I use it for speedrunning/fractals and it works great.

Basically, they’re top tier DPS (third after elementalist and thief), are challenging to play (and therefore not boring), have incredible versatility.

A good engineer can keep 15+ stacks of vulnerability on a boss – that’s a 15+% overall party damage increase. They can also cover up any gap in party composition – annoying skip coming up and no thief? No problemo, drop a smoke bomb and blast it up. Long fight requiring a lot of reflects and you know the guardian/ele/mesmer is gonna run out of blocks? Pop elixir U toolbelt skill when the first wall has expired. Elementalist slacking off on the might stacking? Fire bomb and then blast that up too. On top of that they have easily accessible party-wide condition clears and the best burst heal skill ingame, which can be really useful if one of your squishies misses a dodge and is running dangerously low on health. And bonus!! Engineer is one of the few classes that can pull off running sinister/hybrid sets in low-condition parties or solo runs and still pull their weight.

IMO the main reasons you don’t see a lot of engies in dungeons is that it’s pretty demanding in terms of skill & dexterity to get near optimal damage/utility output, and that they have a bad rep due to a combination of 1. bad engie players who camp flamethrower and generally do crap damage and 2. PUGs being slow to pick up on meta changes (a lot of people still think engie is medium-to-low DPS output for example, and don’t have a proper idea of just how much an engie can do).

I can understand finding leveling boring, though for what it’s worth I’ve leveled two new engies recently to 80 running rifle+rocket boots/elixir gun/bomb kit with bombs as the main weapon and it was great.

voxrar.2859:

Brother Grimm.5176:

Both are good and capable classes and as a dedicated Alt-aholic, I say play them both. If you really must choose, from the description of what you like, go with Engineer.

In what way?

voxrar.2859:

…..I prefer offense with support utilities, range over melee…..

From the above quote in your OP.

Engineer and Guardian can both be “offensive” and provide support, but the Guardian has rather limited ranged options that provide significant offensive capabilities. For this reason, a Guardian playing fully ranged is going to get a lot of “comments” you might not appreciate. You can certainly choose to ignore them and continue playing how you want (in open world PvE at least).