Guild Wars 2

Hey all , I’m in need of some advice from you guys. I’m looking for a profession that is extremely versatile and flexible that is able to adapt to the situation at hand, be it throwing out heals, doing crowd control to dishing out damage. I’m currently considering the engineer as well as the elementalist. High skill cap is not a problem and I would prefer attacking from range.

If it helps, my mains in WOW were the druid and shaman classes as well as a ritualist in GW1.

Thanks a lot in advance!

Engineer or Elementalist.

While I think elementalist does better towards the traited direction, the Engineer can switch roles without retraiting a bit better.

Nretep.2564:

Engineer or Elementalist.

While I think elementalist does better towards the traited direction, the Engineer can switch roles without retraiting a bit better.

I disagree, Engineers are tied to their traits a lot more. Switching from say Bomb Kit to Flamethrower to Med Kit would require a lot more trait points to get the most out of your skills. An Elementalist just has to swap from fire to water to get similar results and can use their traits to compliment their style of play.

Elementalist. You can choose to support more with staff, or see more action with d/d or s/d. You have some nice water heals and cc, plus those combo fields.

I had a druid main back in the beginnings of WoW myself, and I found I preferred the Engineer over Elementalist. It has a bit more build diversity and an all kit build is extremely fun and fluid to switch on the fly and exactly what you are describing. On the Elemental, it feels like I’m waiting for cooldowns too much by comparison. But hey, to each their own.

I’d try both of the suggested classes above and see which one you like more (or start one of each with the idea that one may get deleted). Both require quite a bit of button pressing and active swapping of weapon kit / attunement to get the most out of (there is a price for the versatility you seek).

Elementalist seems to fit your description a bit more but I like the playstyle of engineer more.

I don’t think either is a wrong option.

Thanks to everyone for all of your answers so far! I’m currently leaning towards an elementalist. I just have one more question. What are the difference in playstyles for the elementalist and engineer?

From what I’ve gathered, the elementalist feels more like a squishy jack of all trades. What about the engineer?

Thanks again!

I myself say elementalist but the best advise I can give is play between engineer and elementalist and get a good feel for their pros and cons before deciding.

Elementalist has vastly different playstyles depending on what weapon set you use.

Staff: Laid back and safe at range. Attacks are somewhat slow, but hard hitting. You can place your combo fields at the right time to set up your teammates with boons/auras.

Dagger/Dagger: Very fast pace. You’re in the mix of the action and you have to be on your toes. There’s a pretty scripted combo, but that can quickly get thrown at the window when something doesn’t go correctly. It’s a great for using line of sight around corners since your attacks are aoe and don’t require a target

Scepter/Dagger: My least experience with this weapon set. I believe it’s a mix between staff and D/D as it’s chaotic, but you’re at range so you have more time and a little more safety

Engineer. I love the engineer playstyle. It’s also pretty hectic and requires a lot of kit switching (just like the attuement switching on ele). However I notice less of an emphasis on combos and more of an emphasis on timing (against what your opponent will do). My only dislike comes into play that the grenades don’t have an autochain. It’s very easy to miss when you’re at range due to the slow travel speed.

With the right traits and some toughness on your gear, eles don’t have to be squishy. They have access to a LOT of active defense and protection/regeneration/self-healing. You’ll need to learn your combos though to be remotely effective.

I’ll just throw guardian into the mix of suggestions too. You can go full on heal support or gear offensively (crit hammer) while still sharing a ton of boons with your team and healing yourself for giving out those boons. Imo they have some of the best utilities in the game, too, that are useful right out of the box without supporting traits.

I won’t speak to guardians’ condi/etc builds because I haven’t tried them myself.

Id say it depends on your play style, I main Elementalist due to my penchant for caster classes. But I have played Engineer a lot too. I would say Engi is not as diverse as Elementalist from my experience. Once I found that one build one Engi, I have never changed. Whereas for Ele I’m constantly trying new gear, new traits, new tactics.

If you’re planning WvW mostly, and are not in a WvW guild (IE: not raiding) I’d go Engineer, it’s fantastic for roaming, has great escape options, I easily tanked 6 people + a supply camp. However, if you’re looking more at team play, Ele wins every time due to the flexibility of the combo fields.

PvE however, I would always choose Elementalist. That’s because I run a condition build on my Engi, and I would never take a condition build class to a PvE environment. But that’s just me. Ele has some great max-power options, as well as some fabulous critical damage builds. Having a set of clerics gear with you is always useful if a support role is needed, but I can’t say I use it that often in PvE.

If you were me? Make both. You’ll love both of them.

linusljw.5367:

Thanks to everyone for all of your answers so far! I’m currently leaning towards an elementalist. I just have one more question. What are the difference in playstyles for the elementalist and engineer?

From what I’ve gathered, the elementalist feels more like a squishy jack of all trades. What about the engineer?

Thanks again!

pretty much the only similarity is that neither has weapon swap so pick your weapons with care .

Eles can be squishy because they have the lowest health for their weight class but that can be mitigated by traits and timing your dodging properly . The Ele gets its diverity through its attunements giving you access to 20 weapon skills

The engie although they only have access to 3 weapons gets their diversity from thier kits, elixers and other gadgets which more than makes up for it .

i say try both and see what you like best