Guild Wars 2

So I feel that guardians are weak in both solo and group play at level 80 (up to that point guardian is “lol 10 enemies died. I thought I pulled 1”. At level 80 it’s like “Wtf, that was only 2 normal mobs? 1s 57c later at the spawn point lets. . . try this again? sigh”

So I am looking for a ranged support class. The aspect of using dual pistols and a rifle intrigue me greatly. But I have a few concerns before dumping another 114 hours into another toon.

1) Solo ability. Can I run around a comfortably solo zones (not events). This is primarily targeted at level 80 zones when I hit a wake-up call on my guardian (btw, I have tried multiple set ups and builds on my guardian, and while its gotten better, it still feels super weak for what a guardian should be).

2) How do engineers contribute to dungeons? I feel my contributions on my guardian were negligible at best. The amount of support I actually provide is far from what I expected “The strongest support class” to do. And again I have tried multiple builds.

3) How much fun do you have on your pistol-toten, grenade thrown, turret settin, rifle snipin engineer? In all aspects of PvP (Mainly WvWvW. Havent done any other PvP), dungeons, events, and most importantly lone wolfin it around the world alone.

4) Come on, which race do you think looks most bad* as a engineer?

I’m just going off what others say, but they seem to be the laughing stock of all classes at the moment. But I mean the game’s still fresh; whatever abilities and mechanics appeal to you are certainly valid, and may very well be overpowered in the near-future.

so engineers are like . . . crap overall?

Im mid 30s. Right now I feel like a Master of all situations. My support build right now is stronger than a Guardians when it comes to curing conditions and healing. In structured PvP I can take out 2 melee fighters solo and hold a point just form stacking toughness and kiting with bomb kits. WvW I am an excellent support suing elixir gun. Soloing I feel confident going anywhere 3 or 4 levels above me to explore.

Basically the Bomb Kit, Grenades, and Elixir gun make this class amazing. At least right now at lvl 30.

Turrets are horrible. Pistol is the only good gun for dealing damage. Flame kit is fun but it is outshined by bombs and grenades. Kits are never set to auto attack so you have to set it manually each time you switch.

Jack of all trades, master of none. Pretty much half of our abilities are useless and there’s almost no synergy with weapon skills or kit skills and right now only viable with Grenade kit. Might be buffed in the future but right now pretty weak imo.

1) Solo ability

I’ve solo’d my engineer up to 80 as a 100% full-time grenadier and am sitting on Zhaitan’s doorstep waiting for my friends to level so we can do all the dungeons before I take the final step into Arah. If you can deal with the ground-targeting (I use the one-click option and have “1” bound to a button I can use with my index finger on my mouse) then grenades will never disappoint—especially after 60 when you can get the grenadier trait. Since kiting is the name of the game, my main bane has been ranged enemies, mostly dredge and all the mages in Orr, though I didn’t have any real problem with Orr until I swapped to magic-find gear, which made me a bit squishier.

As for other builds, I can’t comment on them much.

- Rifle is a good toolbox (especially for cheating at jumping puzzles) but it’s not competitive for damage.

- Pistols, I’ve never used seriously. Basic grenades do 3x the basic pistol damage and can apply all the same conditions (even burning if you trait right and go for crits or use flamethrower’s toolbelt skill), but that’s assuming PvE where you can reliably hit things with grenades. In PvP, pistols are probably the way to go.

- Flamethrower kit can be traited fairly heavily, and can deliver the damage if you get good with it. Traiting for it lends to being fairly tanky/healy, which is nice. Unfortunately while I consider myself quite good with grenades, Flamethrower seems even harder for me to use to its fullest potential (you’ll miss a lot with anything but the most basic dodging/kiting).

- Bomb kit/Tool kit are just not competitive. I’ve heard of people using bomb kit with the trait that heals with each explosion, but I’m not sure what level that was. Tool kit is a melee kit with decent numbers—though the basic chain is rather slow and the turret-heal is a joke (like most turrets).

2) How do engineers contribute to dungeons

I’ve only done the first two dungeons, so take this with a grain of salt: As a grenadier, I can lay down heavy damage and maintain a good 15-20 stacks of vulnerability on any mob from a further distance than most any other class. I feel useful.

That said, 10 points in toughness traits doesn’t keep me from folding in a stiff breeze. Constantly and repeatedly.

3) How much fun do you have

In PvE, I would honestly like to have some more variety. Grenade Kit is basically the same skill five times with different conditions on it. In WvWvW though, it’s basically a mobile siege kit—just don’t expect to duel anyone 1v1 with the grenade kit; you won’t hit anyone who’s paying attention, that’s what pistols are for.

4) Come on, which race do you think looks most bad as a engineer?

I like my Asura Engineer, though the default human and norn look good in their teaser armor. Sometimes I wish I’d rolled Charr for the charrzooka though.

1. I’m lvl 65 charr engineer currently and i think he ‘s a great soloer. His turrets would tank for him for a while, while you spam the enemy with grenades. I can take down about 4 enemies by just using my grenade kit when the enemy is up close, don’t have to dodge aswell, cause the flashbang grenade makes them miss every hit for a while.
2. Only done one dungeon so far, but i think they’re pretty great supports and crowd controllers. The rifle skill, which pushes you and the enemy back helped my group immensively when fighting two bosses who got stronger the closer they were (ascalonian catacombs).
3. A lot of fun. Been using the rifle lvl 3-65, still not bored. Engi has a lot of playstyles so you should be fine.
4. Norn human and sylvari. Because charr and asura are the only races in which engineers take a very important role in their life.

The professions I wanted to play were guardian and mesmer, but I instead chose engineer because of: no real ranged weapon on guardian, weak against champions, veterans, and world bosses,… didn’t like randomness of mesmer, clones (not phantasms) weak until later on when you can trait ‘on death’… (this is all just my opinion, I don’t want to discuss it as not to derail the thread)

1) Solo ability. Can I run around a comfortably solo zones

In my experience, no. Not easily, at least. You’ll be praying for a stronger player to come by. Because let me tell you, if a guardian or another engineer shows up, the fight will still be though.
(Note, I’m not talking against 1 or 2 trash enemies, but bigger groups like the risen)

I did fine solo or with one other player (mostly mesmer), until lv 55 or so, when I went to Bloodtide Coast and suddenly starting playing against the Risen… alone… couldn’t do it! Spend days and days messing with traits, skills, weapons, upgrades… now I’m Lv 66 and still feel very weak soloing Bloodtide coast.

This helps http://gw2skills.net/editor/en/?fcMQFAUlIqKen1y2FTOJSIFSohB6BghX3loC63nCsFA;TsA5USpURpgiiGDNCasV5qSW1IAA but only so much.

(You need to copy-paste the link, gw2 forum messes up the link if you click it)

2) How do engineers contribute to dungeons?

Engineer is awesome support in dungeons! Today I played this elixir build in sorrow’s furnace http://gw2skills.net/editor/en/?fcMQJAqelspCYnwy2F1LA;TgAKYMKJUyCjDGJMjAmIA and pretty much kept everyone alive, and they could always recover from Downed state even if I couldn’t come close to them to revive. Nearly any group-oriented skills I bring to dungeons as engineer do very well, even considering some people (>_>) will go glass cannon.

See my comments on WvW below to see more ways I support.

3) How much fun

Even if I feel weak as engineer, I always have a lot of fun in PvE.
In WvW, I love all the mobility I have. Slick shoes! People never expect the knockdown. When defending forts I mostly support. A warrior can be brave because I’ll support him. I can throw him elixirs, or make him a light combo field to remove conditions, I can pick apart enemies and set them up so it’s safe for him to attack.

If you really enjoy support you’ll probably like the Engineer. If you want more damage, try something else (assuming you mostly play solo-ish PvE/WvW)

4) race

Human have elite skills that complement the engineer very well. Asura too. And Charr! You should go Charr if you want to look cool. Don’t go Norn like me!

…

Currently I’m looking for a more damage profession, but will keep engineer for the fun and the support (feel free to send me a personal message if you can help)
The engineer really fits me like a glove, I really feel like it’s me fighting and not just a character on my screen. I just wish it were a bit stronger in solo PvE.

Jack of all trades, master of none

I disagree with that. I’d say we’re pretty strong with support and control! We have great mobility as well.

I’m in a similar boat here.
I’ve played Necro to 50+ and started really hating it as the content got harder and I needed to start relying on minions which turned out to have horrible AI and survivability which was very, very boring. The traits sucked for the most part and condition damage just was not worth it for such a huge investment of traits needed in the supposed condition master profession.

Then I tried Ranger to 50+ and liked the PvE (and possible PvP) powerhouse but found it excedingly boring. Shortbow was by far the best weapon, and the most boring. Auto attacking everything to death isnt fun. Having my pet be 80% of my DPS and it being stuck on a keep wall or on the ground in WvW is not fun either.

Then I tried thief to 70+ which I liked, a lot. I’m a DPS powerhouse. The downside is that if I want to melee I have to play what is easily the most boring PvE setups ever. Blind spam is OP, pistol whip spam is OP too, but jesus christ they’re boring. It’s mostly just spamming your highest damage per inititive ability 100% of the time. I also found that as content got harder in the 70-80 zones that condition removal and avoiding damage became paramount. Too bad that in order to drop conditions I have to spend half of my inititive on removing them, which then means my DPS drops and that the mob is alive longer and deals more damage to me. It defeats the point of removing conditions.

Now I’m starting my engineer. I’ve got the gold and materials to probably level her to 60+ from crafting alone if I want to and I’m willing to blow at least 2×400 crafting skillups on her just to have the crafting skills on my account. This should help seeing as though I keep hearing that engineers really shine 60+ and feel a little lackluster before those grandmaster traits.

I like many of the engineer traits, which is something I can’t say about Rangers and Necros.
I like the flame thrower, even before the juggernaught change.
I like the granade 1500 range, aoe spamability and mortar ulti on keep walls in WvW will be AWESOME.
I love the underwater combat with the grenade kit and that’s a refreshing change compared to my theif, on which actively avoided underwater content. That’s how terrible it was.
I can’t wait to see what kind of support options I will be able to bring to DE’s and dungeons with elixirs and elixir gun.

A big selling point to me for engineers is the toolbelt and kit swapping for DE’s or group vs single PvE encounters. I’ve found weapon swapping to be pretty boring on most classes as most of them just offer different animations or ways of dealing damage, but still do the same damage. Like shortbow or longbow ranger. Both are mostly autoattack or pressing 3-2-swap-2-4-auto until dead. But being able to use a kits toolbelt ability without even swapping to the kit means I have much more versatility. I also mostly level with a friend and being able to tailor my abilities to our needs will be nice, like condition removal, buff application, might stacking or combo fields. Can’t wait to get her leveled TBH.

So I am really torn as to whether or not this class is worth the time to put into it. Someone said that once they got to the risen in later levels it was a hell fest basically. That scares me because thats what I am trying to avoid. I am looking for something easier than my guardian who struggles. Its not that I can’t kill crap, its that it takes forever and a day to do so, and the mobs are like 5 feet apart, in a huge abundance.

So is this true across the engineer board? The zone I am currently beating my head against the wall on is the same zone the Arah instance is in (cant think of zone name). Any max level engineers feel they have problems here?

And if this all seems like engi is not what I am looking for, and suggestions?

Like I mentioned in my first post, I didn’t have any trouble with Orr until I switched to Magic Find gear (travelers items with pirate runes right now). Mostly it’s a question of squishiness though, not damage output. Even with the gear, I’ve managed to 100% it (except for two broken skillpoints) just fine as long as I’m not careless (I am careless).

I don’t know the other classes that well—and that goes double as far as Orr is concerned—but if you want ranged damage, you might ask around about ranger.

Guardian is the best “Jack of All Trades”. How are you having problems? What is your spec?

Engineer, like Mesmer, has some class-specific problems that contribute to their poor performance in certain situations.

I find Orr (the zone Arah is in) horrifying, i currently have tried a pistol condition spec, turret spec, Rifle spec, bomb spec, ’nade spec, Flamethrower/alchy, and now finally just going for a ’nade spec with turrets.

It’s been so bad that I too have been looking at just leveling up a different character so i can join in with my friends in the lootfest that is Orr.

I like ranged combat, and i figured perhaps the Engineer in GW2 who seemed ALOT like the Engineer from WAR (due to the class video) would be the character for me, but rightnow i wish i had gone for a ranger.

I think in overal our damage is subpar compared to others, our survivability needs upping aswell as alot of our skills need “fixing” since apperantly our kits are not scaling properly, not to mention kits do not use stats from your weapons. (meaning if you have 2 magic find pistols you wont have the % magic find when your using a kit, nice bug eh?)

Dont get me wrong, it’s a FUN class, i had fun all the way up to 80 with a few bad moments due to outdated gear, but @ 80 in all yellow and still sucking while other classes are ramping up exponentially in dmg and survivability makes me feel “meh” about having leveled my engineer instead of other classes.

I guess you’d be fine if you don’t mind grenade spam for the rest of your life, with the other 2 utility slots for snares (if you’re mostly concerned with the end zone, and you want range)

I want to roll a engineer as well. I just deleted my 30 thief. Its a good class but I played the assassin type class in to many mmos I think and just got boring really quick. All the weapon abilitys feel the same.

I was thinking guardian or engineer but I like support and range. And the op turned me off of guardian and theres mixed reviews on engineers. Don’t know what to roll now.

If i have the choice i would choose guardian Engi isn´t ready i think and i am Engi

Think I’m just going to go with the class I think I will enjoy the most which is engineer. One thing I learned from MMOs is just to play what you like best. Your class might be at the bottom of the totem pole one day and the next the top and down the road back to middle of the pack.

cant comment on end game, but at lvl 30 i can melt any mob up to 2 lvls higher in one ability cycle with rifle/grenades. specced for power. does significantly more dmg than my sword/torch/consecration guard did at that lvl.

these threads should be read with caution. i dont think many people know how to maximize their prof yet.

There are people playing about over 100 hours in this class i think with level 30 and talking about PvE makes more the feeling of not knowing what an Engi awaits in large Scale PvP or sPvP.

I always would prefer an guardian over an engi in PvP situations in a goup

TheMove.5860:

Think I’m just going to go with the class I think I will enjoy the most which is engineer. One thing I learned from MMOs is just to play what you like best. Your class might be at the bottom of the totem pole one day and the next the top and down the road back to middle of the pack.

This this this oh my glob this

Simply put PvE questing can be done by any profession in just about any build, its that easy. Players who have ‘issues’ questing are doing something wrong and/or have not updated gear. Simply buying new gear every 10 levels from 40 onwards makes a huge difference and costs nothing, rare gear is a couple of silver.

Engineer you need to enjoy the idea that your Rifle or Pistol is not your ‘main’ weapon and then decide if you want to use the huge array of team utility you have or not.

It seems to me like you should look into how to do better with your guardian at level cap. It’s probably something in your playstyle if you’re having that much trouble with it.

Engineer is a bit of a mixed bag. The most common complaints I’ve heard is it feels like it lacks punch, is a bit lacking in polish and a bit… scattered thematically, maybe? There are a lot of complaints all around, but it’s still a fun class to play and lets you be creative in some pretty cool ways with the kits, especially in PvE.

I found that PvE solo noticeably ramped up in difficulty at around Bloodtide Coast on my Engineer. Packs of Risen can be a pain but with proper kiting they aren’t anything too scary.

Saying that I’m not really buying any gear apart from the occasional Karma piece and am relying on drops/ rewards so my gear could be more cutting edge.

Honestly, if you like throwing grenades you can just do that and win everything. In orr you can pop elixir B/U and kill vets in the span of seconds. Large packs are no problem because the ability is AOE, and if you ever think you are going to die just use Supply Drop, it is the definition of an “I Win” button. I never kite, just make sure to throw out a chill grenade so mobs do 1/3 dmg at all times. (or move so slow you can just back peddle)

Honestly I died more times from falling.

So, with grenades we do very well in PVE and solo, but the fun factor is up to you to decide. I enjoy grenades, many don’t.

PokeyPenguin.6178:

Honestly, if you like throwing grenades you can just do that and win everything. In orr you can pop elixir B/U and kill vets in the span of seconds. Large packs are no problem because the ability is AOE, and if you ever think you are going to die just use Supply Drop, it is the definition of an “I Win” button. I never kite, just make sure to throw out a chill grenade so mobs do 1/3 dmg at all times. (or move so slow you can just back peddle)

Honestly I died more times from falling.

So, with grenades we do very well in PVE and solo, but the fun factor is up to you to decide. I enjoy grenades, many don’t.

I’m astounded!
You are the definition of mean machine, one man army that wrecks the battlefield and conquers all!
I sent your post to ANet so they can rest assured there’s absolutely nothing to worry about and Engi is just fine as he is. Thanks for showing us the path!

Bomb kit has a smoke screen and a confusion.

Tell me how I face tank mobs harder than guardians

I changed from a support spec to an offensive spec cause I wanted dungeons to go by quicker

I run Triple kit

Med, Grenade, and Bomb with elixir U

My hands may hurt but I crap on everything without even having exotics.

DaveK.1023:

PokeyPenguin.6178:

Honestly, if you like throwing grenades you can just do that and win everything. In orr you can pop elixir B/U and kill vets in the span of seconds. Large packs are no problem because the ability is AOE, and if you ever think you are going to die just use Supply Drop, it is the definition of an “I Win” button. I never kite, just make sure to throw out a chill grenade so mobs do 1/3 dmg at all times. (or move so slow you can just back peddle)

Honestly I died more times from falling.

So, with grenades we do very well in PVE and solo, but the fun factor is up to you to decide. I enjoy grenades, many don’t.

I’m astounded!
You are the definition of mean machine, one man army that wrecks the battlefield and conquers all!
I sent your post to ANet so they can rest assured there’s absolutely nothing to worry about and Engi is just fine as he is. Thanks for showing us the path!

Good sir, I choose to take your complement at face value!

Polishes Monocle

I’m a decently geared 80 engineer. Have a few of the CoF pieces and such.

Here are the reasons I will never play another profession:

1. Highest Dps in game – if you spec grenades and actually know how to use them.
I consistantly crit with my first grenade for 900-1000 and have a %50 crit chance. Use your elixirs and you are doingkitten amounts of damage that no class can compete with. My highest crit has been 9000 on a lvl 80 mob in CoF with my “f2” grenade barrage skill

2. High Skill cap – No mashing 1 button to face roll everything. Lots of macro involved for playing an engineer. So if you are a lazy player, not the class for you.

3. Unique – There are so many ways to play an engineer at the moment… all of them are fun too.

4. Insane solo ability – I can effectively AOE mobs in ruins of Orr with little to no difficulty. Supply crate is your trump card if you ever get into a pinch.

5. Wicked fun in PvP if you know how to play – nuff said!