Guild Wars 2

Hello community,

I have 1 slot to fill in my char setup. I’m thinking about creating a Charr (the only one that’s left) but I am not sure if I pick Engi or Ranger.

I’m a big fan of ranged combat and lots of damage so I would like you people to give me some advice.

Thank you.

Def go Ranger. Ranger was my first char, and still possibly my favorite. Engineer class could have been so much better, but alas it isnt !

Well here is my 2 cents. I first started out Guild Wars 2 with an engineer. I liked the way they looked in the videos of the class and who hates some steam punk style armor. My biggest issue with engineer once I started leveling was the fact that there is a major dependence in your automated guns you set up which isn’t that big of a deal except they seem to pull a large amount of agro and don’t have the greatest defenses so they don’t last long against an enemy attack. Plus you have to learn to kite well because you have nothing as far as a melee weapon is concerned at your disposal. I do have a lvl 49 ranger that I love, they mix a strong ranged weapon damage with the ability to wield a melee weapon or two. I’m sure others will have other opinions on the topic but that is my input. Ranger is the better way to go in my opinion. It’s a lot funner when you are alive to celebrate the victory.

Just some rambling notes here…

Right now, I play guardian in WvW and leave my ranger and engineer for PvE. If you like dungeons, people say rangers are not appreciated in groups; go figure. (I do not do dungeons so …. idk).

IMO Engineer turret build is ok, but not as effective as a dual pistol condition build(note: Sometimes a rocket/rifle/flame turret can be a panic button when trying to drop aggro and get out of the way.)

Ranger – I went shortbow with GS or axe+warhorn for running around. It is just a non-stop farming/killing machine. A longbow is fine for mob-tagging during events. Bear or devourer for tanking; 7-10 bleeds; poison… rarely have time or need to switch weapons before the mob is dead.

Regarding Charr… have you played one? That loping gait and the voice just wore me out. So-o-o slow(gait) and irritating (voice). That is just me. Asurans, even humans, are quicker and easier to live with long term.
I do hope you are happy with your selections.

Well I haven’t created a Charr yet. I love the Asura. It is my main and I cannot get tired of the movement, the voice, the evading jump. It’s so awesome.

But I see from your comments that Ranger does lots of dmg, maybe that’s what I’m going to create… but then again, flamethrower is indeed, fantastic.

I’ll probably end up deleting my human thief, which I find hard to lvl (and keeps getting killed), and create both engi and ranger.

Ranger for you then. The Engineer is more fun…but frustrating at times.

in terms of pure enjoyment, engineer.
in terms of actual overall usefulness, ranger.

RapidSausage.4620:

in terms of pure enjoyment, engineer.
in terms of actual overall usefulness, ranger.

I couldn’t agree more RapidSausage.
I have 8 different characters, all different professions.

Ranger is much easier to play than engineer, which is perhaps the least powerful and most difficult profession to play. Yes, engineer is versatile and more fun, but it does little damage, unless you make it full glass cannon and even then the dps is supbar to other classes. I really love playing engineer, pity Anet skill balancers don’t share my love.

Both ranger and engineer have their fair share of bugs (pet AI, ranger targeting, broken engineer kits and traits), but I ranger would probably suit you better. I find rangers boring to play, so my ranger is only level 65 at the moment. If you select a sturdy pet e.g. bear, you an easily solo most bosses of the game. Basically your pet tanks next to the boss, soaking up all the damage, giving you 100% damage reduction. Ranger’s weak point is lack of AoE (barrage and some axe skills are only decent ranger aoe), but Anet said they are going to nerf AoE, so it won’t be the problem.

If you had trouble playing thief and staying alive, I think there is something fundamentally wrong in your build and playing that profession. Thief is one of the easiest professions with the best escape skills in the game. You can easily have 2-3 stealth skills at your disposal. So basically you can always decide when you want to end / disengage the fight. For pve you should try shortbow, sword and pistol, instead of dual daggers. Daggers do amazing one target damage. In level 1-30 areas, most enemies drop with 1-2 key presses and even bosses go down very fast, but if you want to solo big mobs alone, the before mentioned weapon choices would be better. Many people in these forums (basically those play thief as their main) tell that the dps of thief is bad. It is true that warrior can more easily dish out more damage in the long run, but the thief dps is not that far if you use the right build (see thief forum for such builds, yes there are better builds for pve than the dual dagger thief). My thief definitely does more dps than my engineer, despite she is lower level.

Deniara

I’ve got an 80 ranger(love the class) and currently playing an engineer(love the class even more). They both have their pros and cons and the bugs that come with them. Engi Turrets are just as frustrating as Ranger spirits. Ranger pets are great for soloing and questing, but require a good deal of management in dungeons if you want them to live for long. And since their a significant portion of your damage you don’t want them dead much. So some fights tend to feel like an exercise in babysitting a pet than actually shooting things with your bow.

I love playing my Engineer more than my Ranger but there are some things my Ranger does/has that I miss.

1> Perma run speed buff. (Engineers have a way to achieve this too, but with a Ranger its an equip it and forget it signet).
2> Pets make questing easy and tough fights for any other class considerably easier as a Ranger.
3> Rangers have IMO the strongest underwater attack sets in the game. Unleashing a school of Pirahanas — how cool is that? And bonus cool factor for having a pet shark. Also bonus for the humor of your best tanking pet being a jellyfish haha. Seriously that thing is a BEAST of a tank pet.

If you decide to go with a Ranger, I’d suggest giving an eagle a try for your main pet. You see a lot of rangers questing with a bear and they are great tanks, but between your damage and an eagles damage you drop things so fast it makes up for its lack of defense. I leveled from 20 to 80 with an eagle as my main pet. I broke out the brown grizzly from time to time when I fought Vets or anything with a nasty poison(bear can cleanse conditions).

I have to speak up about Engineer damage. It isn’t as bad as I read on the forums. It’s just a matter of setting them up right. They require more finesse to play. Now perhaps other classes outdamage them. I can’t speak of other classes as I don’t play other classes(other than my 80 ranger) much. But I know I never feel “weak” on my engineer. I’ve never felt weak in questing, dungeons or PvP on my engineer.

The engineers damage is really based on multiplicative effects rather than just raw damage output. One thing feeds off another for an engineer and you have to take advantage of that in order to maximize their damage. You can put a good hurt on things as an engineer. I think it’s just a matter of whether one enjoys that sort of play style as opposed to a more straight forward approach that a Ranger will have.

Engineer is a fun class but every time I play mine I set up all these awesome CC moves on enemies in WvW usually to find that no one on my team is taking advantage of it… and the dude runs away. Or I’ll see an ally low life and run to heal them… then they will run away from my heals because they don’t know what it is. Or i’ll give the order for everyone to push with me and i’ll keep you all alive and find myself alone on the front lines wondering where everyone else is.. then I see them all at maximum range flinging nothingness attacks at nobodies.

BrimstoneAshe.5043:

I can’t speak of other classes as I don’t play other classes(other than my 80 ranger) much. But I know I never feel “weak” on my engineer. I’ve never felt weak in questing, dungeons or PvP on my engineer.

Engi was my first 80 and I didn’t feel really weak either. Then I leveled a warrior to 80.

My first recommendation would be neither.

My second is to say that I’m a huge fan of archers/rangers in all MMOs and that’s usually what I default to, then make a healing alt. With that being said, stay away from GW2 rangers.

Awesome.6120:

Engi was my first 80 and I didn’t feel really weak either. Then I leveled a warrior to 80.

Fair point! LOL. I have a baby Warrior(level 25ish) and I must admit 100 blades does crazy damage. At level 15 my 100B seemed to be doing more damage than my 80 Rangers Rapid Fire.

But again that’s an upfront damage and a melee play style. I didn’t find any other attack outside of 100b that stood out to me. But again, I profess ignorance to that class. I may just haven’t been playing it to it’s fullest or got the signature skills for it yet. I did enjoy the warrior.

Neither, both are boring.

The one thing I would not say about engi is that it’s boring. Ineffective and gimmicky, sure but they are a lot of fun even if relatively useless.

Ranger is very target and go. It also has the reputation of “it’s probably a bot”. (I don’t run with a brown bear because of this.)

Engineer is more… see the mob ahead, choose kits, set up the traps and turrets where you won’t pick up extra non-aggressive mobs, plan how to lure your target mobs to your chosen site and how to run/kite them through your traps… and go! If you’re surprised it can be ugly.

So, the choice kind of depends upon your play style.